I had so much fun last night at The Veils and Foreign Born show at Bottom of the Hill that I’m deeming it Veils/Foreign Born Day at The OCMD. Luckily, both bands have cooperated with me and released new videos today. Check it out. I think Finn Andrews was wearing the exact same outfit on stage as in the video. Be forewarned, “Begin Again” is pretty intense and graphic.
Live footage from the show last night coming soon!
Happy day! The Treasure Island Music Festival has announced the line up for this fall’s event scheduled October 17-18, 2009 on Treasure Island in San Francisco. As usual, the line up is divided into the more electro pop/hip hop day on Saturday and the indie rock day on Sunday. Single day tickets are $65 and early bird two-day passes go on sale tomorrow at noon for $99 (limited availability). Get your tickets and get ready!
Saturday, October 17 features: MGMT, MSTRKRFT, Girl Talk, Passion Pit, Brazilian Girls, The Streets, Dan Deacon, LTJ Bukem, DJ Krush and more.
Sunday, October 18 features: The Flaming Lips, The Decemberists, Beruit, Grizzly Bear, Yo La Tengo, Bob Mould, The Walkmen, Sleepy Sun, Vetiver and more.
TechCrunch (by way of @epicurianzealot) turned me onto this great new Wiki-like site that serves as a repository for tracking live performance set lists of musical artists, called Setlist.fm. With festival season upon us, this is a site I will definitely be referencing to track the frequency of songs played by more well known artists. Setlist.fm also includes an audio and video playback feature as well as lyrics.
Plus they make it easy to integrate the set lists into your social media accounts, as seen below. Seen here are the set lists for the two Grizzly Bear shows at The Fillmore last month. I was always curious to know how similar or different those two performances were. And if they pulled out my favorite cover of Yes‘ “Owner of a Lonely Heart“ on the second night. Thankfully, they did not.
Grizzly Bear, “Owner of A Lonely Heart” (Yes cover)
Wow. There is an absolute stellar line of music happening tonight at Bottom of the Hill featuring London-based The Veils, So Cal up and comers Foreign Born and Cleveland buzz makers Other Girls. Two of whom also happen to be the creators of my more beloved albums this year. Why the hell this show isn’t sold out is beyond me. It’s quite possibly one of the finest line ups I’ve seen all year. So if you’re SF-based, I highly recommend you get out to see it. Regardless of where you live, you should definitely add these albums to your collection.
The Veils frontman and songwriter, Finn Andrews, makes me swoon. His voice is stunning, his lyrics are soul baring. Couple that with a heady rush of guitars and you’ve got yourself ballad rock epitomised (nod to the Brits here with that spelling). For a band that constantly earns comparisons to Nick Drake, Morrissey and Jeff Buckley, it’s almost incomprehensible why they are not a bigger deal.
Sun Gangs is their third release and I would go so far to say it might be one of the sleeper albums of 2009. And now for a little music trivia. Did you know that Finn’s father Barry Andrews is a renowned musician himself? Playing with the likes of XTC, Brian Eno, David Bowie and Iggy Pop.
Foreign Born:“Vacationing People”
Foreign Born started in San Francisco in 2003 after singer Matt Popieluch and guitarist Lewis Pesacov graduated San Francisco State University. After playing a few shows, the pair went down to LA to clean up their rough demos. The results were promising enough for Lewis and Matt to quit their menial jobs and move down to LA where the current line-up of Foreign Born was, yes, born.
Their first LP, On The Wing Now, was released in 2007 and their latest effort, Person to Person, just released last month. I adore their first single from the album, “Vacationing People” and had the chance to see them perform at SXSW earlier this year. Judging by the number of recognizable faces in the audience at that show, it was evident that I’m not the only one who loves them either. After all, if Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste deems you as his “favorite new band”, you must be doing something right.
Charlie and The Moonhearts, “Cagemouth”
Ladies and gentleman, Ty Segall has band! He’s evolved from a one-man act into a full fledged surf punk trio with a girl drummer to boot. Friday night The Hemlock played host to his CD Release party for Lemons, his new album due out July 14.
It was a raucous and rawkin’evening of surf punk all around. Just when I started to question my stamina for a late evening at The Hemlock after a long week, opening band Charlie and The Moonhearts laid out a fierce set of late 80’s-inspired Orange County punk that kicked me right in the teeth. Their 30 minute assault of fast and dirty garage rock combined with the ponytail face whipping from my friend Jen next to me was just the adrenaline shot I needed. No more yawning for me, I tell ya.
Ty and company (which by the way, featured the same bass player – Mikal- from Charlie and The Moonhearts) banged out a great set of mostly new material to an eager and (sometimes overly) rambunctious crowd. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, get in to this band!
This is one crazy video Julie Doiron has concocted for the track “Consolation Prize“ off her album I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day.
San Francisco’s one-man band, garage punk rock extraordinaire, Ty Segall, is having a CD release party tonight at The Hemlock. I fell in love with him the first time I heard him play, which was opening for Girls at the very same venue a year ago. Watching him sing, play guitar, drums and tambourine by himself was truly a sight to behold.
His new album, Lemons, is out July 14. Get into it!
The acclaimed Canadian Polaris Music Prize committee has announced their short list for the 2009 awards. And shockingly, The Handsome Furs get snubbed again. Balls! What’s wrong with you Canuks? Well, needless to say, I’m disappointed. I thought this year would be their time to shine. And with all do respect to the nominees that did make the cut, sorry for the rant and congratulations. I’m going to cast my vote for Chad VanGaalen, but my guess is Metric or K’NAAN or Great Lake Swimmers will win.
Artist: Elliott BROOD
Album: Mountain Meadows
From: Toronto
Listen: “The Valley Town”
Artist: Fucked Up
Album: The Chemistry Of Common Life
From: Toronto
Listen: “No Epiphany”
Artist: Great Lake Swimmers
Album: Lost Channels
From: Toronto
Listen: “Everything is Moving So Fast”
Artist: Hey Rosetta!
Album: Into Your Lungs (and around your heart and on through your blood)
From: St. John’s
Listen: “I’ve Been Asleep for A Long, Long Time”
Artist: K’NAAN
Album: Troubadour
From: Toronto
Listen: “If Rap Gets Jealous”
Artist: Malajube
Album: Labyrinthes
From: Montréal
Listen: “Porte Disparu”
Artist: Metric
Album: Fantasies
From: Toronto
Listen: “Help, I’m Alive”
Artist: Joel Plaskett
Album: Three
From: Halifax
Listen: “It’s Catchin’ On”
Artist: Chad VanGaalen
Album: Soft Airplane
From: Calgary
Listen: “Willow Tree”
Artist: Patrick Watson
Album: Wooden Arms
From: Montréal
Listen: “Tracy’s Waters”
I received this letter in my inbox today from Pandora founder, Tim Westergren and felt it was important to share. I’m not sure how many of you are aware of Pandora’s woes. The Internet radio giant has been struggling financially under unfair legislation issued by the Copyright Royalty Board that essentially doubled the royalties web radio stations must pay. Clearly an overt attempt to thwart the propagation of Internet music. One that threatened to put Pandora out of business.
Thankfully, Pandora reached a resolution that will keep them in business. But there’s a new bill in Congress, called the Performance Rights Act (H.R. 848), that’s being presented to address this issue for the long term. If passed it will create a more equitable and fair system for compensating artists across all forms of radio.
Please take just a minute to call Representative Nancy Pelosi’s office to ask her to sponsor and support the Performance Rights Act (H.R. 848):
Representative Nancy Pelosi
202-225-4965
Not to be outdone by Dan Auerbach, the other half of The Black Keys – drummer Patrick Carney – now has his own side project aptly named Drummer. Their debut album, Feel Good Together, is set for release September 29 on Carney’s label, Audio Eagle.
Carney, who plays bass for the group, joins up with four long time friends—all Ohio-based drummers—to bring the project to life. Drummer is rounded out by: Jamie Stillman of Teeth of the Hydra, formerly of Party of Helicopters (guitar),Jon Finley of Beaten Awake, also formerly of Party of Helicopters (vocals, guitar), Stephen Clements of Houseguest and Six Parts Seven (keys, vocals) and Greg Boyd of Ghostman and Sandman (drums). The band will embark on a fall tour in support of the new album.
the OCMD 