Cassie Ramone (Vivian Girls) and Kevin Morby (Woods) join forces with Nathanael Stark and Justin Sullivan in The Babies, a new garage-pop duo based in Brooklyn, New York. The band released a couple of 7″ singles last year and are about to drop their debut album. ‘Wild I’ is the latest single to flood the airwaves with Cassie’s voice sounding gritty and pure, like raw sugar melting on a hot iron. The guitar playing sits somewhere between Sonic Youth and the laid back vibes of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. Much like moments of Best Coast’s critically acclaimed debut Crazy For You, there’s the pain and the longing but it’s more smooth than fractured.
2009 was the year of the lo-fi girl-punk explosion, remember Vivian Girls, PENS, Wet Dog ,Liechtenstein,Grass Widow,Dum Dum Girls and Pearl Harbor. Well it’s now rolled over into 2010 and there’s another band to add to that list of scuzzy all-girl groups. Las Robertas hail from San Jose, Costa Rica, perhaps a rather strange place to find a flourishing punk scene. Nonetheless, these girls make melodic lo-fi punk as good as anyone else.
Vivian Girl Katy Goodman just premiered this new track over on
Gorilla Vs Bear. It’s from her collaboration with Cat Power’s keyboardist/guitarist Gregg Foreman. The band’s called All Saints Day and the song is titled ‘It’ll Come Around’. It sounds like they’ve both been hanging out in California, reeking of the same tropical sun drenched euphoria and washy Cali’ vibes that Best Coast has been nailing us with.
Last week we felt pretty lucky to catch one of three live sets from the new indie "supergroup" The Babies! Consisting of members of Vivian Girls and Woods, The Babies have had one tune on the internet for quite some time now, but seeing them do a full nine song set we kind of fell in love with the band and their pop-punk hooks and off key harmonies. It was a really energetic and fun little set from these guys and we were hooked by the end of the first song.
Listen to two new songs from Vivian Girls’ sophomore LP Everything Goes Wrong at the group’s myspace page ("The End" + "Can’t Get Over You"). And in case you missed the first jam to surface from the record a few weeks back:
Song of the night: some enjoyably warped/slightly demented lo-fi pop genius from Seattle’s Intelligence. The incredibly infectious "Thank You God For Fixing the Tape Machine" is taken from the group’s upcoming Fake Surfers LP, which is out May 26 on In the Red (home of Vivian Girls, Strange Boys, Black Lips, etc), and has been on heavy rotation around here over the last week or so:
The only thing more fun than the Vivian Girls record is probably a Vivian Girls Surf’s Up Fun Pack.
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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