FRICTION gets festive for the holidays with a lineup featuring Chicago’s Bound Stems, Syracuse’s Ra Ra Riot, and New York City’s The Muggabears and Tall Hands. As always, we’ll be hosting an open bar from 9pm-10pm, most likely Sparks, which we say we’re going to stop drinking, but never do (and really should). In addition, the guys from Tall Hands will be handling DJ duties before and after their set.
Doors open at 7:30pm and advance tickets are available on Ticketweb. Set times are as follows: 11:00pm Bound Stems / 10:00pm Ra Ra Riot / 9:00pm The Muggabears / 8:00pm Tall Hands
Bound Stems “music is smart and ambitious incorporating a tongue-tying jumble of lyrics, but it’s also emotionally super-saturated, achieving post-rock’s complexity without its aridity or pretension – this is clearly a band bound for greatness, or at least bigness.” [Chicago Reader]
“Ra Ra Riot knows how to orchestra a pop song. Combining violin, cello, keyboard, and guitars with glowing happy lyrics, the band polishes their sound to an absurd sheen. Try not to grin when Wesley Miles is singing.” [Productshop NYC]
“The Muggabears make the kind of music those people over at Pitchforkmedia usually drool over. It’s the kind of dissonant, non-conventional, elliptic guitar rock…that sounds as if it’s constructed by bi-polars who spent a decade analysing the collected works of Sonic Youth, The Silver Apples and Pavement…wallowing in fractured, disjointed sound pieces instead of straightforward verse/chorus/verse-structures that don’t defy the rules of cosiness and common values.” [Guy's Music Reviews]
“Taking well-worn pages from the books of Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones and Bowie, Tall Hands sound is a swaggering mix of classics that coarses with new blood.” [SXSW 2006]
I remember the first time I saw Brooklyn’s White Magic when they opened for The Fiery Furnaces nearly two years ago at The Bowery Ballroom. Leaving the show, I was more impressed with White Magic than the headliners, partly due to the beautiful voice of lead singer Mira Billotte. The Through The Sun Door EP ended up being one of my favorites that year, and the band’s aptly titled follow-up, Dat Rosa Mel Apibus (Latin for “The Rose Gives The Bees Honeyâ€), is poised to be the same.
The band’s first full-length evokes the beauty and imagery of autumn’s end, dark cloudy skies shadowing bare trees with the very last of autumn’s leaves clinging desperately to a few of the branches. If one could actually live inside a work of art, Van Gogh’s “Country Road” would be the perfect setting for “The Light†as Billote’s haunting vocals swim and swirl throughout the barren landscape and abrubt piano arrangements like an otherworldly spirit conjuring up feelings of loneliness and self-observation.
Check out “The Light†below and head over to the band’s MySpace page for some more tracks. Unfortunately, I was out of town over the weekend and missed White Magic‘s record release party on Friday at Syrup Room.
Dat Rosa Mel Apibus is out tomorrow (11/14) via Drag City.
A big shout-out to Big Stereo for turning me onto such fine music growing right in my backyard. Passions is the moniker for an anonymous Brooklynite who churns out some killer dirty electro tracks with thick basslines and new wave synths. Check out my favorite track “Emergency” on Passions MySpace page and download his DJ mix below. About halfway through, I predict Christian will loose his shit.
Passions DJ’s at Fontana’s on Wednesday, November 15th with Star Eyes and Eamon Harkin.
Fnckkkkk! I missed all of CMJ except for our fantastic Friction last Friday. Then I get sick Saturday nite and miss the whole Digitalism and Justice party at Studio B that Justin and Theo had a chance to check out. Fnckkkkk! Now I see this awesomely festive video of Crystal Castles at Fader last Saturday and my blood is boiling. Fnckkkkk! The song is pretty smooth and the little dance the chick does is even hotter. It gets me hype! They’re hot! Their stripped down blipping electronic sound is explosive! That remix they did for Klaxons’ ‘Atlantis to Interzone’ is in the running for my favorite song of the year.
The two main bands in town that I was hoping to check out during CMJ were CC and Scanners, I missed them both. What a super bust, it makes me sad. We’ll have to find a way to get them to play one of our Friction shows.
I nearly choked on my sandwich earlier today when reading the news that Rumsfeld resigned and the Dems won Montana. Elated (see picture above), I half-yelled in excitement until a piece of tofurkey became lodged in my throat. Fortunately, a couple of quick coughs cleared the obstruction. I had Klanguage blasting on my headphones and I realized I yelled louder than I thought, causing a bit of a scene. I regained some composure and continued reading the rest of the story in joyous disbelief.
Now that Rumsfeld quit, maybe he can get a “fresh perspective” on one of France’s best exports, Klanguage. Denying all things French for the last four years couldn’t have been too good for his music collection and our “pal” may not know that the country has become a hotbed of emerging electronic acts.
Finally after 25 years they’re coming out with The Best Of Volume 1, their first-ever best of collection. Released on November 14, it will also be available as a deluxe CD/DVD package containing the band’s videos. It also features their new song ‘Martyr’. If you’re not familiar with DM, get it. Then get the rest of their catalog. Unfortunately it doesn’t have my favorite song, ‘But Not Tonight‘ from Black Celebration (and from the film Modern Girls). Which one is your favorite? Put it in the comments.
Lucky for you, we’re giving away one copy of the deluxe CD/DVD. Just send an email telling us your favorite DM song to CrackersUnitedcontest@gmail.com with “Depeche Mode Best of CD/DVD Contest” in the subject. Winner will be randomly chosen on November 14th, the day of its release.
Dripping with sweat, beer, and god knows what else, I walked out of Studio B in the wee hours of Sunday morning convinced I had just been to one of the best parties of my life. I had a huge grin on my face during the cab-ride back into Manhattan as the sun began to peak over the shadows of the city. I felt a slight jealousy for people who get to see Justice and Digitalism regularly, but then again, maybe that’s what made the night so special. Digitalism absolutely destroyed, while Justice‘s DJ set was to die for.
Check out the video above that robot Blair captured during Justice’s DJ set and read what he had to say about the party. Check out the original “We Are Your Friends” video here. Nghia does crap like that to me all the time.
