Anna from London popsters My Tiger My Timing has taken time off from exercising her vocal chords to give the Devil’s blog an insight into her influences, the strangest place the band have played and her tips for saving money.
Grooms (née Muggabears) from Brooklyn create the kind of hedonistic fantasy grunge that Sonic Youth and Pavement did in their heyday, combining powerful, churning guitar lines and intelligent basslines merging blissfully in a mélange of shimmering, powdery drums and whiny adolescent vocals. ‘Dreamsucker’ is an immediate favourite, with its glistening guitar and bass interplay and intense, cacophonic spurts combed through with odd, whirring synth sirens in the background adding a tangible eerieness. Grooms is truly a hidden gem, a powerful force to be reckoned with.
I’m feeling rather inspired tonight so I thought I’d write a post on one of my favourite bands of all time you’ve probably never heard of. I’m not trying to come off as a “massive hipster” when I say that, and you probably know frontman Aaron Scott’s latter bands and projects if you’re in to decent punk rock anyway, but what you may not know is the existence of De La Hoya: a straight-up punk band from Brooklyn, NY who burst on to the scene in 1997 all the way through to 2002. To quote the bio on their MySpace; “Oscar Rodriguez asked singer Aaron Scott to start a band just 10 minutes after meeting, neither of them had any idea they were initiating what would become of the most respected bands in the Northeastern DIY hardcore/punk scene. They joined up with bassist Carly Guarino (owner of Crap Records) and drummer Jaime Villamarin (ex-I Farm) to form De La Hoya in the heart of New York City.”
And they’re incredibly rad. Seriously.
We’ve recently run a few exclusives from Viva Radio’s Me + You program, all of them as intimate as lingerie, and on Tuesday, the show released The Best Of Me + You, a pseudo-Greatest Hits comp with interviews and performances from Amazing Baby, Growing, Sebastien Tellier, and many others. This is Andrew W.K.’s contribution–a brief, mildly funny, obviously off-the-dome and exquisitely played piano bar tune about New York and its Jersey neighbor. We’re trying really hard not to make any Billy Joel comparisons (oops). Grab the MP3 below and buy the full comp here.
Randy Randall and Dean Spunt took a totally different approach to this song when they recorded it back in 2008. Bjork’s original version of ‘It’s Oh So Quite’ was backed by a full orchestra, but the LA duo took an axe to that idea, instead smashing it to pieces with their minimal guitar and drums set-up. No Age’s version appeared on a Stereogum compilation paying tribute to the Icelandic queen. The original version was responsible for breaking Bjork into the American pop market, largely thanks to the Spike Jonze-directed video that accompanied it. Strangely the song itself is actually a cover, Bjork renamed Betty Hutton’s ‘Blow A Fuse’ from 1946(?).
Last week The L Magazine named these guys one of NYC’s 8 Bands You Need to Hear, and they were probably the only band that I didn’t know too much about. I had heard a song or two here or there but nothing really latched onto my brain. Well that all changed when I went digging around and started listening to the tunes on their MySpace. The songs there are simply amazing, perfect little bits of pop shrouded in the idea of being pop-punk stompers.
Thanks to BIG STEREO and GvB for breaking this one. We reported on VEGA’s drama with the Crystal Castles show in Dallas not too long ago, but Alan Palomo, the man behind the project, is moving on. He’s releasing his new EP Well Known Pleasures on May 19th through Vogue College Records. This is some hook-heavy, Italo-disco-influenced synth pop that just feels so good.
It was a total High Fidelity moment. I was hanging out at Academy Records Annex, getting my fingers dirty flipping through used records something came over the speakers that instantly made me prick up my ears. Low-fi pop, a bit shambly, but in the best way and every song was super-catchy and there was a clever wit going on too. They had by by the third song and I went up and asked what was playing. "So Cow. He’s this Irish guy, played an in-store here last year. Some of the record was made Korea, so…a real international affair." Indeed.
Rarely does the US release of an already-available foreign record seem like a true second chance, but kudos to Razor & Tie for picking up The Whip’s X Marks Destination for release on March 3rd because it’s a solid album that got overlooked in oh-eight’s deluge of post-Klaxons dance bands. The Mancunian foursome do the full-band electro-house thing and do it well, drawing just comparisons to Simian Mobile Disco and their more punkish offspring Late Of The Pier. "Divebomb" is X’s side-b epic, a five-minute-plus rager that builds from drippy disco pulses into a monster peaktime tune; sirens and general synth backwash smeared on for good measure. The band will be supporting the release next month with dates alongside Deadmau5 and LOTP, including stops at WMC and SXSW. Being 2009 and all, they also will be Twittering their way through the tour. Full itinerary after the jump.
The word "twee" gets thrown around a lot when talking about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They are cute, with tendencies towards la-la choruses and cardigans ("we have three extras just in case"). But what you don’t hear a lot, at least not yet, is how much they rock. Not the way, say, Cheeseburger rocks, but singer Kip keeps his guitar in buzzsaw mode and the amps set to Tinitus. (Another thing you don’t hear people talk about too much is how dirty the lyrics are. All innuendo, but…filthy!) I’ve seen TPOBPAH a bunch of times over the last year and while they’ve always been good, they are genuinely really good now — tight, rocking, and both Kip and Peggy have become more confident singers. This was their album release show, tour kickoff, and first performance since being bestowed (deservedly) with Pitchfork’s coveted Best New Music status. The room was packed — packed! — with friends and fans, all of whom were very vocal and enthused and bobbing and swaying. The only thing that could have made it a more perfect evening would have been if it had fallen a week later on Valentine’s Day.
Review - The Comic's New Format (that's The NME to you guv).
I've just read (!) the new format Comic, purely for the purposes of research you understand, in fact it's the first issue of The Comic I'...
Photos from a recent FOE gig - a friend of our friends Hold Your Horse Is - she’s gonna be big!!! Read the gig review after the jump.
Shots of North Carolina’s folk-rocking Avett Brothers’ stop in Glasgow - 22.08.11
Read the review of the gig here.
Take a look at the acts and art on offer at this year’s Latitude Festival in Suffolk. Included are the likes of Fight Like Apes, Lykke Li, Sea of Bees and Seasick Steve. Photos from our own...
Good time with Bad Guys. Photos from the May 29th gig at the Old Blue Last. Read the review by the Bad Guy himself, Stuart London after the jump.
Artrocker.com exclusive: for fans of White Lies and Crocodiles we’ve got some fresh pictures from their UK show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier this month, courtesy of Alessandro...
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