FRICTION NYC

10.17.08 FRICTION: IN PICTURES

More pictures from Friday night’s festive FRICTION show with Japanther, Ninjasonik, Killer Dreamer, and S.S. Pyramid Snake on Flickr. All images © 2008 Patrick Parault

FRICTION @ Cake Shop w/ The Pains of Being Pure at Heart + Women + The Beets + Katie Stelmanis | 10.19.08

GET HYPE! With our second show of the weekend, on the eve(-ish) of CMJ, FRICTION invades Cake Shop with a lineup designed to make you stay put. Save those feet from all of the pavement pounding they’re about to do a few days later and get a jump on some of the most anticipated bands featured during this year’s CMJ clusterfuck festival. New York City’s blissful noise-pop darlings, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, along with recent Jagjaguwar signees Women (Alberta, CA), and fine purveyors of 60s garage straight-outta Queens, The Beets are featured on this bill. Toronto’s Katie Stelmanis and her aresenal of piano and MIDI noise percolations and classically trained vocals to boot, opens the show.

Tickets are just $8 and available the night of the show at Cake Shop. Doors @ 7:30pm

 

 

THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART “mix sugary boy/girl vocals, Jesus & Mary Chain’s rain clouds and Darklands drum machine minus the face-melting noise, sneaker-gazing a la Black Tambourine (or, hey hey, rifle through the rest of the Slumberland back catalog to namedrop something with a bit more jangle) and punky Comet Gain(s) into addictive pop gold that locates a place beyond the band’s well-chosen influences.” [Stereogum]
[MP3]: “Come Saturday”

 

WOMEN “straddle the 1960s divide between the Warhol crowd’s speed-addled New York cynicism and the echoes of psychedelic San Francisco that bubbled up across the pond in the fey, catchy pop of UK groups like the Zombies.” [Pitchfork]
[MP3]: “Black Rice”

 

“I’d stay for just one song, but once they began playing their classic 60s garage rock I was gripped. Twin guitars beamed rhythmically forward, punctuated by strokes of brush snare and flicking around vocals that seemed perfectly, timelessly at ease in the music. This is a band that seemed to have appeared out of the ground (of Queens, apparently) fully formed without a formative period. Predictions are dangerous so I’ll try to sidestep making one now, but wherever THE BEETS may go from here, I have a feeling it’ll be worth watching.” [Impose]
[MP3]: “Happy But On My Way”

 

“The drama of Kate Bush and Toyah Wilcox mixed with the
sturm and drang of Diamanda Galas and the pop bubbles of Lena Lovich or Ann Steel shouldn’t make any sense whatsoever but in the world of 23-year-old Torontonian KATIE STELMANIS it comes together. Possessed of a classically trained voice that stuns at 10 paces, Stelmanis’ arsenal is simple—piano and midi noise percolations shape simple songs that subtly grow into powerful, cathartic moments.”
[MP3]: “In My Favour”

 
In part with:

FRICTION @ Mercury Lounge w/ Japanther, Ninjasonik, Killer Dreamer, SS Pyramid Snake | 10.17.08

Japanther, Ninjasonik, Killer Dreamer, and S.S. Pyramid Snake bring the fucking party to The Mercury Lounge on Friday, October 17th for this installment of FRICTION. Brookyn’s very own lo-fi heroes, Japanther celebrate their RECORD RELEASE and North American tour kick-off with San Pedro’s Killer Dreamer! DJ Porkchop of SSPS and Excepter fame spins all night. Free rides for the first 50 guests on our BombPop-horned unicorn, Maverick!

Advance tickets available here, Doors @ 7:30pm

GET HYPE!

 

 

“JAPANTHER is one of the hardest fucking bands in Brooklyn right now. They sound like Iron Maiden, Throbbing Gristle, and Lightning Bolt gave birth to a squealing little baby with flaming guitars for arms. Their shows are chaotic and danger-charged lovefests and they are frighteningly dedicated to keeping it underground.” [Vice]
[MP3]: “Challenge”

 

“Looking for a good time? You might want to call NINJASONIK. These Brooklyn art-hop pranksters combine spiky beats with rhymes about grabbing asses and the skinny jeans they wear…Mostly, though, people have been talking about these foul mouthed Ninjas for their debauchery fueled live shows, which has seen plenty of crowd diving and drunken punk rock antics…Whoa! Don’t say we didn’t warn you.” [Brooklyn Radio]
[MP3]: “Tight Pants”

 

“Beer-in-bag, dirty zombie action rock via San Pedro, CA. One song’s about a dinosaur bird plucking a friend off the street, then blood dripping from the sky. These two songs fit nicely, somewhere between the Bananas’ knack for making songs that rock hard and sweet yet remain fuzzy and gritty and the Fleshies’ superhuman ability to trailer hitch old-fashioned rock hooks onto new, not-quite-definable wingnut weirdness. Live, KILLER DREAMER boom the hell out of a living room.” [Razorcake]
[MP3]: “Headache”

 

“Fucking hell S.S. PYRAMID SNAKE, did you create music just for us!? With woeful synth moans, burned by the heat from molten lava and death march undead b-boy beats that sound like the irregular heartbeat of an android being killed by metal hungry zombies, SSPS kill with a pleasure that only an ancient Nazi reptilian Hell spawn would know how.” [20 Jazz Funk Greats]
[MP3]: “Deceptive Eye”

 
In part with:

9.22.08 FRICTION: IN PICTURES

More pictures from Monday night’s FRICTION show on Flickr. All images © 2008 Patrick Parault

FRICTION @ Cake Shop w/ Lissy Trullie, Apse, and Jean on Jean | 9.22.08

Thanks to everyone who made last week’s FRICTION show at Mercury Lounge a jam-packed, sold-out and festive affair. We’re back again this month with another show at Cake Shop on September 22nd with downtown darling, Lissy Trullie, atmospheric rockers Apse, who are making a special trip down to NYC following ATP New York and Jean on Jean. This will be Jean on Jean’s (Molly Schnick from Out Hud new project) debut live show in support of her new self-titled album (Kanine Records), so be sure to get there early!

>>>Tickets are $7 the night of the show, doors @ 7:30pm

 

 

LISSY TRULLIE sings with the boyish swagger of a ’60s frontman with a touch of Liz Phair and plays guitar a bit like one too. Her band harbors key pieces of 1960s folkishness making their music a vintage yet modern affair. [Pretty In Black]
[MP3]: “Self Taught Learner”

 

The first rumble of percussion and muscular, sharply panned bass guitar, demonstrates why “post-rock” isn’t quite the best word for APSE’s forceful atmospheric rock. Yes, the guitars settle into densely knotted krautrock repetitions, changing textures more readily than chords. Yes, the synths are glacial, majestic. Yes, Robert Toher’s reverb-cloaked ethereal wail could nestle easily into a latter-day Radiohead or Sigur Ros track, but that grimly apocalyptic rhythm section suggests Drum’s Not Dead just as much as In Rainbows. [Pitchfork]
[MP3]: “Shade Of The Moor”

 

It has been a while since we heard from Out Hud’s Molly Schnick, whose dark cello melodies and earthy sensibilities were a great foil for singer Nic Offer’s (of !!!) spazzy freak-outs in that band. JEAN ON JEAN is Schnick’s proper solo debut, and moves in a different direction from the ‘Hud. Her cello is still central, but this is sweet, melancholy folk-pop, focussing on Schnick’s haunting and beautiful multi-tracked vocals and introspective poetry. [Other Music]
[MP3]: “Tonight”

 

 
In part with:

FRICTION @ Mercury Lounge w/ Bear Hands, Boy Crisis, Blip Blip Bleep, Bottle Up & Go | 9.5.08

GET HYPE! Bear Hands bring their fiery pitch-perfect pairing of post-punk and indie rock, while Boy Crisis unleash their highly danceable electro-pop “that’s so brutally hip it hurts” to The Mercury Lounge for this strictly local edition of FRICTION. Brooklyn’s euphoric new wavers Blip Blip Bleep ready the dancefloor with shimmering pop hooks and throbbing beats. As with most FRICTION lineups, openers Bottle Up & Go are the curveball here, who play a brand of stripped down, rowdy blues, sorta like Black Keys but with more whiskey and abrasiveness. M68 (Arsed, dirty little stayout) spins between sets.

>>> Advance tix here, doors @ 7:30pm

 

 

BEAR HANDS proudly carry the “classic” indie-rock torch, but with respectful nods (headbangs, perhaps?) to the best — and catchiest — ’90s alt-rock. Live, the young Brooklyn quartet enthusiastically trumps seasoned elders, forcing the most jaded NYC concertgoers to uncross their arms. [Flavorpill]
[MP3]: “Golden”

 

You will be hearing a lot about BOY CRISIS over the next few months because they are the subject of hysterical hype and rampant A&R buzz, because they make music based on a shared love of Prince, Talking Heads, Chic, Pet Shop Boys and Zapp – and for once it actually sounds like it – and because they are the hottest electronic pop group to emerge from America since, ooh, MGMT at least. Only, as that list of influences suggests, they’re more funktronic than psychedelic: Studio 54 disco with a hint of CBGBs grit. [The Guardian]
[MP3]: “Dressed To Digress”

 

Reminiscent of new wave bands such as New Order and Duran Duran, BLIP BLIP BLEEP creates euphoric, catching songs with a twinge of kitsch but bring youthful references that make them relevant in this day and age without the pains of nostalgia. [The Deli Mag]
[MP3]: “Okay Lover”

 

BOTTLE UP & GO vomit their music with remarkable deftness, plowing through stripped down, jacked up bluesy anthems with the aura of a wounded pride fighting for redemption. This is a band that has taken on the blues not only with a guitar and a bottle of the good stuff, but also with a never-say-die punk attitude that won’t give up, but just might drink until it doesn’t remember anymore. [Impose Magazine]
[MP3]: “All My Trials”

 
In part with:

Television Ghost Puts the ‘Punk’ Back Into Post-Punk

This isn’t music for the faint of heart, this is music for, as Nghia so eloquently puts it, “scaring the rodents away from your apartment” (if you’re so lucky enough to have any scurrying about). The City of Lafayette, Indiana, home to Purdue University and birthplace of Axl Rose (no shit!?) has a paranoia echoing through its streets – sending even the robust forms of life dwelling beneath them running for the hills fields. In the vein of The Cramps, The Fall, Suicide, and The Birthday Party, Lafayette’s Television Ghost tests the boundaries of rhythmic noise. Tense, manic vocals, aggressive drums, and the menacing attack of two guitars sends a distressing, eerie chill running down my spine. “The Nihilist” and “Babel” are corrosive numbers sparked with anxiety and saturated with Wire-like riffs that twist, turn, and swirl into the dark and ominous underworld of post-punk. Watch those critters scurry from the second you drop the needle on the band’s self-titled LP, as the lingering sine-wave of “XXXX-XXX” pulls them into a vortex only to be spit out and steamrolled by the violent shifting tempos of “No Doz.” If any brave souls are left, the fiery reverb and spooky vibrations of “Circus” should send them packing. By that point however, your neighbor might have shit his or her pants, opening up a whole other can of worms.

The Television Ghost LP is out now on Ohio imprint die Stasi.

[MP3]: Television Ghost  ”Babel”
Televison Ghost LP, die Stasi; 2008