Just Blaze

MoMA PSOne may take home the bloggable gold once again this week with Just Blaze, Nick Catchdubs, Danny Brown, The Stallions and BAIO (of Vampire Weekend) at Warm Up on Saturday, but there’s no fewer than four more hip-hop shows this week we’d say are up to snuff with that one.  The best part about them is that they’re all FREE (except for warm up, which is just $15), and they’re all on different days.

The legendary Pete Rock appropriately gets things started on Wednesday at East River Park with a free show with DJ Premiere.  THEN Action Bronson plays Thursday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg (with Flatbush Zombies, Meyhem Lauren and Tanya Morgan.)  Nas released his first decent album in about a decade last week (or more, depending on who you ask), and he plays tribute to the city that made him a star with free one at the iHeartRadio Theater on Friday night.  Cap it all off this weekend with the FREE Afropunk festival; which is hip hop heavy with Erykah Badu, Janelle Monae, Das Racist, Ninjasonik, and Spank Rock, PLUS TV On The Radio, Toro Y Moi, Body Language, Cerebral Ballzy and much, much more.

If it’s not a hip-hop week, then it’s Teengirl Fantasy’s week.  Their highly anticipated LP, Tracer, is out tomorrow, which features guest spots from Panda Bear and Laurel Halo (to name just a couple) and they’re appropriately all over our buzz list for this week.  And why not start with tonight?  Teengirl Fantasy are part of a FREE show at Summerstage which gets going at 6 PM with none other than Araabmuzik.  Flosstradamus and Nick Hook are also on the bill, and you don’t even have to go uptown for it either – this one’s down at East River Park.  Too last minute for you?  For just fifteen bucks, you can catch them on Thursday ON A BOAT, with Lemonade and Gatekeeper on the latest Rocks off Cruise.

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Warm Up

You know… I was going to lead this with the whole “free” angle this week, but then I realized I did that last week.  I’m going to do it anyway… it’s appropriate, because once again, there’s a bunch of free shows dominating the blogosphere.  That’s summer in NYC for ya.

The most blogged about show this week isn’t free, but it’s pretty cheap at fifteen bucks, and worth it for admission to the museum and a look at the winning installation, and that’s Floating Points, Jacques Greene, Secret Circuit and Hieroglyphic Being at MoMA PSOne Warm Up on Saturday.

This week’s editor’s pick, however, IS FREE, and that’s over at the House of Vans.  The Jersey kid in me is pretty much foaming at the mouth at this week’s show which is co-headlined by the pride of Glen Rock, Titus Andronicus, and Cursive (not from NJ, but justtttttttt emo enough to be pigeonholed here.)  Titus just announced their new LP will be released on October 23 (my birthday, btw, thanks guys), so there will likely be some new tracks to hear for the first time, and who can resist the tone-deaf screech of Tim Kasher’s vocal assault?  Love as Laugther and Joyce Manor are also on the bill.

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The xx

I’m going to try and get all the shameless self-promotion out of the way in the first two paragraphs here, but we released the new version of My Social List quietly over the weekend.  It features an all-new blog, where you can read even more of my incoherent ramblings.  Our “Official Grand Opening” in which we take over the blogosphere is TBD, but the door’s open for you to come on in and poke around now.

SHAMELESS PLUG TWO: We have another show scheduled for TONIGHT with our good friend Kristina Tequila featuring Anasazi (record release party), Dream Affair, Religious to Damn (last show) and Nao Katafuchi.  I’m looking out my window now and it’s a total Factory Records day out there; perfect because these bands would have fit right in on the label in the late 70s.  Read our preview here.

THE MOST BLOGGED ABOUT SHOW this week is The XX at Terminal 5 tomorrow night.  No surprise, the UK buzz darlings have sold out the cavernous venue in spite of the negative press their first single has received; but if you missed out, Jamie XX is performing at MoMA PS1’s Warmup on Saturday with Lemonade (who DJ late night at Glasslands for free afterwards with Rewards), Pearson Sound, Sinjin Hawk and Jora Jones.  If you haven’t been to Warm Up yet this year, this is the perfect one to start with.

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Catalpa Festival

Another week, another festival in New York.  Randall’s Island is getting quite the workout this summer, and this weekend the tri-boro island hosts the inaugural Catalpa Music Festival.  The two-day festival (Saturday and Sunday) has an admirable concept, to create “a truly authentic, fresh and unique musical experience featuring over 50 artists that traverse many styles and genres from rock and indie to hip-hop, reggae and the world of electronic music.”

And they do accomplish that to some degree.  The lineup is eclectic and bloggable enough to be our MOST BLOGGED show for the week; thanks in no small part to the two mammothly huge headliners: The Black Keys and Snoop Dogg.  Also worth mentioning: TV on the Radio, a newly non-Hasidic Matisyahu, Girl Talk, Araabmuzik and Zola Jesus.

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Lower Dens

Baltimore’s Lower Dens have packed up their guitars, and this time around, their synthesizers, for their first headlining tour this summer, to support their excellent sophomore LP, Nootropics.  Nootropics injects the atmospheric shoegaze of 2010’s superb Twin Hand Movement with a dose of late 70s post-punk and krautrock from the likes of Idiot-­era Iggy Pop and Kraftwerk (namely, Radioactivity), resulting in one of the strongest releases of 2012.  The LP is the second album in a conceptual four-album cycle, and the tour includes a stop across the bridge at Bowery Ballroom on Thursday night (tickets still available here.)  My Social List caught up with front-woman Jana Hunter beforehand for quick chat regarding the thematic content of her albums, yoga and the challenges of playing multiple instruments in a live setting.

Peter Rittweger: I’ve read that you’ve become quite a yoga enthusiast, at times, pulling over at highway rest stops to do your routine when there isn’t a studio in the area. “Nootropics” are, by definition, drugs that enhance some cognitive function, similar to the impact yoga or other meditative rituals can have on the psyche.  Do you feel that this interest influenced the content of the album or at least the album title?

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Preview

Dirty Projectors

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: In 2002, an Ivy League student recorded a quirky, yet promising album on a four-track in his bedroom.  He dropped out of school and moved to Brooklyn to pursue a music career, fueled by the modest buzz surrounding the release.

It’s an archetypal story, but it’s important to remember that all archetypes begin as something original and exciting; a testament to just how influential Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth has been over the past decade.

Swing Lo Magellan, Dirty Projectors’ seventh album, finds the band at a crossroads.  Key contributor Angel Deradoorian split, leaving Longstreth with the pressure of releasing the pivotal follow up to an album that has cruise ship-sized shoes to fill, his 2009 breakthrough, Bitte Orca, without his most senior collaborator.  The “on the cusp” success of Bitte Orca has primed the tenured Dirty Projectors to “make the leap” to Grammy Award-nominee mainstream acceptance (or recognition, to be more accurate), another increasingly archetypal plot line for indie bands in this day in age. Longstreth’s been at this project for a decade, now.  It’s make or break time.

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DIIV

*Insert obligatory comment about the long lines and overall poor-planning of The Great Googa Mooga HERE*

Alright, I’m glad we got that out of the way.  Let’s move onto something a bit more current.  Complaining about Googa Mooga is sooooooo four days ago.  Next thing you know, I’ll be writing an op-ed about the Facebook IPO!  Onto the Most Blogged Shows of the Week.

We all cracked on the name when we heard it (or read it, I guess), but it looks like DIIV has the last laugh as they’re this week’s MOST BLOGGED show AND my EDITORS PICK, and that’s for their free Hype-Machine-produced and Toyota Prius-sponsored show at Brooklyn Bowl tonight.  It’s my pick for a few reasons.

1)     It’s free.

2)     DIIV are actually pretty awesome, if you haven’t heard them (or seen them) by now.

3)     KILLER MIKE is also on the bill (holy shit!)

4)     DIIV are about to blow up, so who knows what kind of venues they’re going to play from now on?  And at what cost?  Not that Brooklyn Bowl is “intimate” or anything, but you understand my meaning, no?

5)     The openers, High Highs and Beat Culture are no slouches.

6)     The first 150 people get some kind of “League Night” gift bags chock full of target-marketed goodies!

7)     Did I mention it’s free?

Make sure you show up early (Brooklyn Bowl opens their doors at 6 PM.) I’d guess this thing’s going to be packed.  I wouldn’t recommended showing up if you haven’t RSVP’d either, and that’s all closed up now.  If you get turned away, The Deli Magazine’s Emerging Artists festival continues tonight at Public Assembly and Spike Hill.  ALSO, a couple of awesome bands that have shared the bill with DIIV about 74 times (Night Manager, Heaven’s Gate) play Cameo Gallery for just $5 with some solid openers as well (Yvette, Mala Strana.)

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Foo Fighters

The MOST BLOGGED shows this week are somewhat enigmatic… and that has EVERYTHING to do with the Bamboozle music festival, which apparently our algorithm likes a whole lot.  And hey, there’s some stuff to like (and a lot to make you cringe.)

I’m a New Jersey native, who has no problem admitting that I spent a great deal of my youth at Jersey shore emo and hardcore shows.  That’s what this Asbury Park festival was originally known for, going back to its roots as the Skate and Surf Festival at the dilapidated Convention Hall.  Some of that remains on the bill (Brand New, Jimmy Eat World, Motion City Soundtrack, Hot Water Music, Promise Ring, to name a few of the friendly faces), but the rest of the lineup is something of a gigantic clusterfuck consisting of everything from wub-wub dubstep to bad comedy.

Andrew Dice Clay is probably the biggest “WTF” of the event, and he has a set scheduled on Sunday which is headlined by an equally “WTF” act (but for totally different reasons), Bon Jovi.  This isn’t AS MUCH of a surprise for me, as I’m somewhat familiar with the festival.  They usually have some incredibly off-the-wall act every year that really doesn’t fit (acts as diverse as MC Hammer and Skid Row has graced the festival’s stage in previous years), but Dice Clay might take the cake (though I’m not sure where.)

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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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Refused

I’m dreading the day where I’ll have to announce a holographic show.  By now you’re well aware of the meme that is holographic 2Pac.  If you’re not, check the blog post below.  And while I hate to contribute to the memeification of the internet… this one is pretty relevant here.

Because… it’s probably coming.

Detox?  Fuck, Dr. Dre wasn’t hauled up for the past decade working on rap’s version of Chinese Democracy.  He was potentially ushering in the next era in the live music.  Or… I hope not.  It’s a multi-pronged problem.  Is the era of holographic concerts upon us?  Will artists need to tour anymore?  Will we see a series of bastardized “revivals” or “resurrections” as musicians and record labels attempt to cash in on this hyper-futuristic, post-modern craze?

Cost is a big factor; the holographic 2Pac reportedly cost Dre and Snoop a cool four-hundred grand, so us indie-minded individuals are probably safe.  I don’t think Matador has the cash (or desire/questionable ethics) to book a Jay Reatard hologram tour, but how far away are we from Kurt Cobain fronting a Nirvana show with Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic?  Will Peter Hook try to go on tour with a holographic Ian Curtis in a big “fuck you” to the rest of New Order?  I’m unquestionably bordering on paranoia here – especially with Cobain (Hook is more likely, see the Unknown Pleasures and Closer tours), but hey, anything can happen.  I just hope Courtney Love doesn’t get any wild ideas.

I think I’ll jump off this slippery slope for now and dive into the MOST BLOGGED shows this week.  Refused’s own RESURECTION at Terminal 5 is our most blogged show, and not surprisingly, is sold out.  Ceremony open for the Swedish hardcore-punk legends on Monday, and if you’re sans-ticket, you can stay downtown and catch Ceremony over at Mercury Lounge later in the night.

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