Beach House

The floodgates opened this week.  Northside.  Celebrate Brooklyn.  South Street Seaport.  CBGBs.  All of these festivals announced varying portions of their lineups this week; and they’re pretty awesome thus far.  There’s sets from everyone from indie vets like Guided By Voices and OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL (!!!) to hip hop legends like Ghostface Killah, GZA and Kool Keith (Dr. Octagon tracks please), to some of the hottest “buzzbands” like Cloud Nothings, Frankie Rose and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart.  I’m sure DIIV will play at least 74 times, as well.

“Festival season” is still about a month or so away, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait ‘til June to catch some “buzzworthy” shows.  We’ve got you covered, and our MOST BLOGGED ABOUT SHOW this week should get you plenty excited.  Beach House is back in town to support their rapidly forthcoming (and currently streaming) 4^th record, Bloom.  They play the sold out Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday with Zomes.

If you missed out on your chance to see Vicki Legrande’s hair up close and personal, and still want to catch a “big one,” you could do worse than snatching up a ticket to Neon Indian’s second post-Era Extrana go-around at Terminal 5 on Saturday.  There are still some tickets left, despite what represents an absurdly stocked undercard, featuring Ducktails and Lemonade.  Huh.  Kinda surprised Neon Indian can’t sell out a Saturday night at T5, while M83 effortlessly sold out his T5 show tonight, a weeknight.  IS CHILLWAVE DEAD?

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The Walkmen

Today marks the beginning of a new era for My Social List.  From this day onward, we will be known as MI SCILL LIIST.  We really don’t give a fuck about the name.  We originated this project in a bedroom with no internet and didn’t know it would ever leave.

We’re taking a cue from DIIV, formerly known as Dive; aka Zachary Cole Smith of Beach Fossils’ side project.  Apparently, he’s changing the name out of “respect” for some early 90s industrial act from Belgium.

Come on dude, how have you never heard of Dive?  Their experimental sound, consisting of abused drum machines pulsating through crackling distortion influenced everyone from Frontline Assembly to Klinik.

If that all sounds ridiculous… it’s because it is.  My guess?  The guy never heard the “original” Dive in his life, and Wikipedia’d his band name before his LP came out.  Dude.  It’s totally ok.  I have idea who the hell Dive is either.  The last sentence of the previous paragraph is a combination of Wikipedia’s “Dive (Belguim Band)” page and industrial acts from Allmusic.com.

Maybe this perceived insecurity over not knowing obscure foreign bands from dead genres is some sort of sad commentary on the resentful post-internet era we live in.  Who knows?  Maybe he just wanted a more stylized name?  If that’s the case… they should have totally went with ▲DDIIVVEE▲ instead.  Or maybe he realized “Dive” was un-google-able?

Somewhat ironically, I’d like to use this opportunity to announce the launch of the MII SCIIL LIIST iPhone app (get it here)  It launches TODAY, and it’s 100% free.  Now you’ll be able to access our buzz list right on your phone, buy tickets to shows, find shows near you (via current location), and text them to your friends.  Really, there’s no better app for tracking buzzworthy shows in the city despite my INTENSE bias.

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Aputumpu Festival

It feels more like July in Brooklyn this week, as record highs offer a preview of the summer months to come.  Our very own Aputumpu festival similarly alludes to the warmer months ahead as we kick off the summer concert season with four nights of music from some of the hottest up-and-coming acts in Brooklyn.

We profiled a couple of ‘em last week, Brooklyn-based (via Minneapolis) electro-producer Mux Mool and Brooklyn institutions, Japanther, but they’re not the only acts we managed to book for our weekend of debauchery.  Although, maybe it would not be beyond the conceptual realm of Japanther to attempt to play an entire festival BY THEMSELVES.  But yeah, we’ve booked over twenty bands that should get you psyched for another summer here in Brooklyn.  Oh, and the fun starts TONIGHT.

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Lee Fields

Next Saturday is New Years Eve and My Social List is happy to partner with Freewilliamsburg to bring you a full list of shows around the city. From Manhattan to Buswhick and house to punk if you can’t find something fun to do on this list, you are probably dead.

10PM:  Lee Fields & The Expressions and Sugar Pie DeSanto @ The Bell House -> $45, tickets

8PM:  Araabmuzik, Balam Acab, Light Asylum, Laurel Halo, Run DMT @ 285 Kent -> $20, tickets

9PM:  Nosaj Thing, EL TOPO, Archie Pelago, DJ Ilirjana @ Glasslangs Gallery -> $35, tickets

• One hour vodka open bar
• Champagne Toast at Midnight

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Tonight, PopGun brings awesome Brooklyn-based bands a&r, Little Star Dweller, Bermuda Bonnie, and Infernal Devices home to Glasslands. The electro-pop cool starts at 8pm.

Manhattan Inn, the Greenpoint bar serving delicious drinks and sweet piano soundtracked romance, is hosting a free concert series throughout the summer.  According to the venue, the showcase features:

[C]reative music across genres and fostering a community of musicians who find themselves at home both in the concert halls of Manhattan and the DIY venues of Brooklyn. The series invites emerging and established artists to challenge their notions of live performance and interpretation within the cultural climate of NYC today.

Check out the lineup:

Image c/o Manhattan Inn

Coming up for the Vans House Parties series:

Image c/o House of Vans

Thursday, July 14

• Superchunk
• Off!
• Lemuria

Friday, July 29

• Fucked Up / Cro-Mags
• Screaming Females
• Pissed Jeans

Thursday, August 4th

• Man Man
• Glass Candy
• Crystal Antlers

Shows on August 18 and August 25 still to be announced.

House of Vans is located at 25 Franklin Street in Greenpoint. All shows are free with RSVP. However, get there early as the venue has limited capacity and entry is on a first-come, first-served basis. Lineups begin at 5:00PM.

Another week, another exciting excuse to spend your money on a fleeting, aural experience! But hey, at least tickets are cheaper than drugs. Unless you also buy drugs to take before the show…

This week’s post introduces a new feature: WORTH SCALPING, which is a run-down of this week’s sold out shows that are worth arranging to meet a stranger at a specific time, which is convenient to neither party, at a vaguely described landmark in a part of the city you  never go to just to get some pretty crappy seats.

ON SALE
5/6 @ 12 noon: Cold Cave play the Bowery Ballroom on August 6th. Tickets are $18.

5/6 @ 12 noon: Everyone’s favorite innocuous Brooklyn duo, Matt & Kim are at Music Hall of WillyB on May 25th. Tickets are $26.50.

5/6 @ 12 noon: Party like its 2003 with The Kills at Terminal 5 on August 8th. Tickets are $30.

5/6 @ 12 noon: The Northside Fest just added another venue and four shows to this year’s lineup, and the hits just keep on coming. Atlas Sound, Woods, Fiery Furnaces, Mount Eerie and more bring it to Greenpoint’s St. Cecilia’s Church that fateful weekend. Tickets will be available here for the below shows:

June 16: Kranky Records presents Atlas Sound with special guests
June 17: Woods (album release show) with special guests
June 18: Eleanor Friedberger (of The Fiery Furnaces), Ida, Rebecca Gates (of The Spinanes), Spectre Folk (Pete Nolan of Magik Markers)
June 19: Mount Eerie, Nicholas Krgovich (of No Kids), Wyrd Visions

WORTH SCALPING
5/6: The Pains of Being Pure At Heart’s new album is pretty dang enjoyable. Squeeze in with the rest at Webster Hall.

5/7: Yuck are so not. Get it?! They play Bowery Ballroom.

5/10: The IAMDONALD Tour, with Donald Glover (great one-liners on Community or the greatest one-liners on Community?) and something/someone called Childish Gambino, stops at Bowery Ballroom.

5/11-5/15: CSS and Sleighbells are playing a handful of shows around the boroughs, and all of ‘em are sold out.

5/11 & 5/12: James Blake is at Bowery Ballroom and Le Poisson Rouge next week. So much blog fodder shall be generated from these shows. So much!

SHOWS THIS WEEK
5/6: In celebration of their new album, Burst Apart (which is hopefully more of an upper than their last album — which was based on cancer), The Antlers play a FREE show at Knitting Factory Brooklyn at midnight. If you don’t get in, tickets are still avail for their May 19th show at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

5/6: “The annual Strawberry Festival gathers students, staff and faculty in celebration of … strawberries” and Brooklyn indie pop! Lightning Bolt, Ducktails, Pterodactyl and The So So Glos (another show? Are they the new Drums?) play the free, Washington Square Park fest. Come for indie cred, stay for NYC’s longest strawberry shortcake!

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I have a perfectly acceptable explanation for why this post is late (and only half-finished for the moment): yesterday I got an excellent deal on a butcher block-top table through CraigsList that I just couldn’t pass up. To celebrate my new furniture addition I drank too much wine, and forgot to finish this post. You understand, right? Now get out your wallets and buy some concert tickets.

ON SALE

On Sale Now: Everyone’s favorite Dubstep singer/songwriter (which is a thing now) James Blake is playing Webster Hall on July 13. To cut down on scalpers or to make your life more difficult, you can only buy 2 tickets at a time which can only be picked up at the Will Call window before the show. Tickets are $30 and, surprisingly, still available.

On Sale Now: Gloomy synth pop composer and friend of Ariel Pink, John Maus, plays Glasslands on May 9 with Holy Shit!, Gary War and a couple DJs.  Tickets are $12.

4/29 @ 12 noon: Indie rapper and NYC resident Theophilus London has just been added to the expanding  Northside Fest as headliner for the opening night (June 16) party at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Tickets are $18.

4/29 @ 12 noon: Bon Iver, the coolest dude for a guest spot on your album, celebrates a bon été at Prospect Park on August 10 with a full band and a “Special Guest”. Tickets are $43.

4/29 @ 12 noon: I got a feeling NJ-native, singer-songwriter Nicole Atkins is finally gonna break soon, so catch her on the cheap while you can. She plays with the Black Sea at Music Hall on July 8^th. Tickets are $19.

4/29 @ 12 noon: Mysterious UK pop-ers Wu Lyf must have impressed at their US debut a few weeks ago, because they’ll be back in the city in July for two shows: July 22 at Mercury Lounge with Bass Drum of Death and July 23 at Knitting Factory Brooklyn.  Tickets are around $15.

THIS WEEK
4/29: Surfer Blood is now selling out every show they play. I know I should have caught that little show at Market Hotel a year and a half ago. Ah well. That’s why there’s CraigsList. They play with …Trail of Dead (still going for it, huh, guys?) at Bowery Ballroom tonight. They also play Music Hall on May 13 with tickets still available, in case CL flakes on you.

4/29: Folks seem to like Free Energy’s garage dance pop (I’m not even sure what that means and I made it up), but I think they’re annoying. To each his own. If you dig on the James Murphy-approved (and produced) band check them at Glasslands with Bronze and Motive. Tickets are $14.

4/29: “The Kills make music that sounds like the stripped-to-the-bone nub of the crux of the sex and death and madness at the heart of the very best rock ‘n’ roll.” Oh good! I’m not the only one completely fabricating musical descriptions. If you’re into death by sexy rockin’, talk to a scalper to get tickets to their show at Terminal 5 with Cold Cave (stripped the wire of the transistor bleep-bloop gloom pop, or whatever).

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Saturday is the 4^th Annual Record Store Day! Give thanks to that fragile black disc and the (dwindling amount of) shops that champion it by getting up extra early and waiting in line to look through stacks of music before leaving without buying anything. I kid, I kid! Seriously, you should buy at least one 7”, you lousy bum.

Stores throughout the city will be hosting bands to complement all the give-aways, promos and special releases from bands like Deerhoof, Kate Bush, Big Star, Caribou, Nirvana, The Decemberists, Bad Brains, Panda Bear, Wavves, OFF!, Built to Spill, Ryan Adams, The Boss, Sonic Youth and Grinderman.

Below are the bold-line performances at your fave area shops. Visit the official Record Store Day site for more participating stores.

Kim’s Video opens @ 9:00a: Folky folks Angel Olsen and Bow Ribbons play the East Vill institution at 5:00p.  

Sound Fix opens @ 10:30a: Sound Fix opens early with undisclosed deals. Dream-pop duo Damon & Naomi play at 7:00p

Other Music opens @ 11:00a: Be one of the first 100 folks to buy Regina Spektor‘s new Four From Far record and get a pass for her intimate show (where she’ll be recording next year’s RSD release) later that day.

Generation Records opens @ 11:00a: Obits, The Jay Vons, I Hate Our Freedom and Spa Castles play and Yo La Tengo (all three!) and WFMU’s Tom Scharpling DJ.

Fat Beats opens @ noon: What I don’t know about hip hop would surprise and disgust you. That being said, even I can sense this is a pretty rad RSD setup: pop-up shop in a warehouse with 9 hours of performances, contests, discounts and food.

Cake Shop @ 5:00p: Not officially an RSD entrant, Cake Shop is still offering goods and a show. Eternal Summers, McDonalds, Natural Child, Widowspeak, Hands & Knees, Overlord, Night Collectors and Twitchers play. Entry is $8