Nod, Lovesick Nomads, and Attic Abasement Play @ Bug Jar Tonight! Flyer By AZLTRON
Some upstate New York bands are playing at the Bug Jar in Rochester tonight. Check out their myspace’s below!
July 19, 2010
March 30, 2010
Passion Pit show Niagara Falls Some Love!
Passion Pit, a band known for their sunny helium filled synth-pop came on to the scene with a vengeance last year with their debut album “Manners” which garnered a four star review from Rolling Stone Magazine and a deal to use their breakout single “Sleepyhead” to promote the Palm Pixi smartphone. The quintet consisting of singer/songwriter Michael Angelakos (A Buffalo, New York native), keyboardists Ian Hultquist and Ayad Al Adhamy, bassist Jeff Apruzzese and drummer Nate Donmoyer play bittersweet songs about rotting orange peels and scars as well as true love that lasts forever.
Their concert, originally planned for the Town Ballroom in Buffalo was moved to the Rapids Theatre on Main Street Niagara Falls. Whoever came up with this idea to move the concert deserves a high five. Not only was I able to avoid anything even remotely resembling city traffic, but I was also able to enjoy many touristy attractions like aquariums, wax museums, and the Hard Rock Cafe while waiting for the hour of the concert to emerge. When that hour did emerge, I found that the Rapids Theatre was considerably more than a hole in the wall and had a very nice decorative domed ceiling. The first band to play in the theatre was Brooklyn’s Bear Hands who combined influences from both punk and dance music and sounded akin to bands like Les Savy Fav and Gang of Four. The best thing about their performance was definitely the heavily processed guitar licks, while the not-so-best thing about their music was that the aggressiveness of the singing seemed directly opposed to the danceable grooves presented in their music.
Passion Pit Performs at the Rapids Theatre in Niagara Falls, NY March 28, 2010
The next band to take the stage was Detroit, Michigan’s Mayer Hawthorne. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the band, having previewed the group’s Motown revivalist music on their Myspace page, but upon seeing their explosive energy in person I was won over. They opened with a song sung in perfectly pitched three part harmony before it exploded into old school soul energy. Everyone in the group had dress shirts and ties as well as an infectious smile on their face through the whole set, save for the solemn lead guitarist who looked like a combination of David Bowie and Dracula with his collar popped. Whipping through fast numbers, like a rambunctious cover of ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky”, and slow numbers from the band’s debut album “A Strange Arrangement” that singer Mayer Hawthorne referred to as “Baby Making Music”. The band excelled in crowd interaction, inciting the audience to sing along to scat words in their own songs as well as to Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend”.
After a forty minute long break, the sound technicians finally cleared the stage and the square LED screens positioned around the stage flickered to life, first by making a single box, then radiating outward until all the panels were lit up. Then the band roared into action playing “Make Light” and “I’ve got your number” to enough flashing lights to erase your memory “Men In Black” style. This is probably why their light system crashed right after. Angelakos apologized profusely and explained that all of their equipment was rented because their gear was somewhere over the Atlantic while the crew came out and fixed the lights. When all was good again, the band roared through tracks from their “Chunk of Change” EP like “Smile Upon Me”. During the show Angelakos expressed that he had wanted to come to his hometown during the tour and added the date in Niagara Falls especially so that his parents could come out to see him perform. He then waved to them in the balcony. Angelakos and company then played some exuberant renditions of hits from their debut album “Manners” like “The Reeling”, “Folds in Your Hands” and “Moth’s Wings”. All throughout the concert the crowd sang all the parts on the album that had been sung by a children’s choir. The band ended the show with the infectiously groovetacular track “Little Secrets” and left the stage.
Before too long, the band returned and played several encore songs, which included a special cover that Angelakos’ parents requested that is going to be released on the deluxe edition of “Manners” in April, The Cranberries’ “Dreams”. Having held back their signature track all night, Passion Pit finally unleashed “Sleepyhead” to an ecstatic crowd and brought the night to a close. Despite some technical difficulties, Passion Pit proved that their performances are worth every penny.
October 11, 2009
Exclusive Interview with Jerm Reynolds from Hockey!
Hockey is a band from Portland, Oregon who have been gaining attention due to their danceable tunes and enthusiastic live performaces. Their sound is an amalgam of LCD Soundsystem’s relentless beats and self awareness with The Strokes’ effortless cool. Hockey played Thursday Oct. 15 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
You guys have admitted that the name “Hockey” comes from your sense of humor moreso than any interest in the sport. Since your album is called “Mind Chaos”, do you hope to inspire chaos in people’s minds when they listen to your music?
Mind chaos is more about the way that we see the world in 2009, which is this beautifully, fractured hyper-individualized insanity we think that might be a result of the internet or technology in general. We live in a world where it’s more and more about the individual and the individual’s opinion. When you have a world like that it makes interaction between people a lot sillier and a lot crazier. So making a record for a world of people who are all standing mightily on their own unique opinion is kind of an interesting process so why not make it totally insane and then say ”Ha! Chew on that!”
You make all the artwork for Hockey’s releases, can you describe that process?
I work mostly with singer Ben Grubin. He executive produced the art work. I’m the one physically doing the artwork He works with me on the concepts. It was his idea to do the four covers. We kept doing the proofs and not being satisfied with them. He came into my room one day and just said put them all down. Then he said “Yeah that’s it! That’s “Mind Chaos”, four separate covers for insanity. The other guys put their opinions in as well, but I’m the guy who’s physically doing the cutting and the gluing and all the childish coloring with crayons and stuff like that but we all work together on it conceptually
Hockey has been doing a lot of touring at festivals in Europe and The United States and people have noticed. This has garnered you spots playing on Jools Holland, and press from Filter, Spin, NME, Q and even Marie Claire. How does it feel to see your hard work paying off?
It’s pretty fantastic, Ben and I have been playing in Hockey for almost 7 years. We’ve spent a lot of time toiling in obscurity which was fine, but to finally see it come around at this point is really great. I tell people that most of the time that we’re just so concerned with keeping everything going; getting the record out, getting the right mixing done, being a really great live band and all the other things that we do on a day to day basis, that we don’t even get a chance to sit down and be like “Whoa, things are happening for us. We’ve been touring the world for six months it’s just unreal and at the same time it’s really great, if I stop to think about it.
What is your favorite thing to do in downtime when touring?
I like to go out with my sketchbook and just draw things that I see and write captions for them. It’s my way of internalizing where I am. Whether it be someplace weird in France, Germany, or Belgium. It can be restful when you’re so far away from your culture and what’s normal to you. So I like to go out and sit someplace by myself and just color. Just like a little kid with a box of crayons!
With your videos, do you guys come up with all the ideas or do you collaborate with a director?
We come up with some kind of an idea. It’s an interesting process for the videos because none of us are movie makers so we’re kind of delving into other people’s artwork which is interesting. You’re kind of giving up your creative control a little bit because we’re not in the editing room. So we’re not putting proofs together or scripts. We have basic ideas but it’s a totally different way of thinking artistically than performing or songwriting. We see what different directors have done, and say, “I really like this person’s style the most” then we email them and have a conversation. We say “Here’s what we’re thinking” and then bounce ideas back and forth and eventually you get an interesting hybrid of your vision and their vision.
You have done a lot of touring with bands like Friendly Fires and Passion Pit. Do you have any outrageous stories of hanging out with bands that you’re touring with?
We got trapped in Seattle, Washington in a big blizzard last winter with the band The Virgins. It was the last night of our tour and we had all just managed to reach Seattle just as 2 feet of snow fell on the ground. We were all hanging out together after the show because not that many people made it out to the show due to the snow. So after the show we all trudged out into the roads where cars were skidding everywhere. We had this hilarious adventure yelling at cars and laying in the street and just appreciating the anarchy of Seattle being totally shut down by a huge blizzard.
You’re doing a tour with Portugal the Man, who are also a band from Portland, Oregon. Had you met them before the tour?
Our guitar player and drummers’ old band played a show with them four or five years ago in Spokane, Washington. I’ve never met them I’ve heard their music. I really like it; I’m really looking forward to meeting them on Thursday when our tour starts in Wisconsin of all places. I dig their Bob Dylan band style, that 60’s organ psychedelic rock sound.
You guys are playing your US network debut on The Jimmy Fallon Show Oct. 15th; do you have any superstitious rituals that you perform before important gigs?
I’m going to wear my lucky tour shoes. My dancing shoes if you will. I’ve had these shoes since our first real tour last December and the bottoms are all out and I had to duct tape them together. Also I’m going to try to keep a lid on it for TV, try to not do anything crazy, I tend to get a little excitable and if I feel like a lot of people are looking at me I might go crazy. I’ll have to be cool. Wear the tour shoes and play the song.
The songs “Too Fake” and “3AM Spanish” have a very drum machine and bass sound. I know that when Hockey started out you had that kind of set up. Did those songs begin in that era of your band or did they develop later?
Those songs developed later, but that original core sound is still with us. It’s about drum beats and bass lines and everything else musically and melodically is built around those very basic components because we did play like that for over four years, longer than we’ve had a four piece band. Most of the songs on the record were written after putting the band together, with a couple of exceptions. “Four Holy Photos” is a folk song. It’s the oldest song on record. Ben and I wrote that when we were still at school together in 2004. It’s an oldie but goodie that hung on and made it onto the record.
As much as you guys do that bass and beat centered music, there’s a classic rock-like component to your sound. What classic bands do you draw influences from?
We have a pretty heavy Beatles influence, as well as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash. All that really classic rock and roll found its way into our sound somehow even though a lot of our influences are more modern.
Who are your more modern influences?
I really like MIA quite a bit. I like The Virgins, Passion Pit, Ladyhawke, Yacht, and Little Comets. There’s so much great music right now. Sometimes I think about if it was 1999. Everyone would be all bummed out listening to Limp Bizkit and Marilyn Manson. What a drag that was! 2009 is so much better. It’s so much cooler, so much more expressive, so much more interesting and so much more positive.
Hockey will be performing Saturday October 17th at the Westcott Theatre in Syracuse.
September 25, 2009
An Evening with The Sounds! Au Montreal!
I recently traveled to Montreal, Quebec in Canada to see The Sounds. If you still don’t know who they are, they are a rock and roll band from Sweden led by the fierce frontwoman Maja Ivarsson. Their music is a sonic blend of Blondie and the Cars with a bit of a punk bite for good measure. They had just released their third album “Crossing the Rubicon” to much critical and commerical success and had recently finished a run of shows with No Doubt in Europe. The drive was relatively painless, a lot of straight shots that just go on and on forever. I was suprised along the way on a stop to get some gas, where I couldn’t figure out how to initiate the gas pump, but a polite Quebecian woman on a motorcycle helped me out. Take that anyone who thinks that Quebecians aren’t polite!
Once we were in the heart of Montreal, it was relatively easy to navigate, there was parking right in front of the Metropolis (where The Sounds would be playing) as well as giant murals of musicians and stylized comic book faces on buildings adjacent to the venue.
Inside, it was spacious and foggy, already prepped for extravagant lights shows. Waiters with little platters scurried about getting alchoholic beverages for the French Canadian fans. It wasn’t too long before the lights dimmed and a band called Foxy Shazam took the stage. They looked like some kind of mismatch of styles from the 70′s and 90′s crossed with muppets. The lead singer, Eric Nally, wore a moustache and a hairdo that wouldn’t look out of place in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He also never stopped moving around the stage, beginning with a prat fall on his face, and continued on throuought the show with movements that could have been mistaken for the most bizzare yoga moves ever. At one point he even dry humped his guitarists head while riding on his shoulders. All Foxy Shazam’s blatant disregard for the taboo and energetic stage pressence certainly embeddeded them into my memory.
Up next was the band “Creature”, who are all Montreal Natives and dance funk fashionistas. They wasted no time launching their post punk disco spell over the crowd. While they didn’t irreverently hump everything on the stage they did bring their own unique energy to the Metropolis. Singer, keyboardist and auxillary percussionist, stage-named Cowbella, ran frenzied around the stage with drumsticks in her hands and hit on toms, wood blocks, and yes, even her namesake instrument. She and guitarist and singer Kim Ho stunned the crowd with their on point and lightening quick raps and vocal talent. Kim Ho further showed his stage bravado by playing his guitar like a violin as the group smashed through their hits “Who’s Hot, Who’s Not” and “Pop Culture”. The highlight of their set was when the glamourous girls in the group donned aviator sungless and military hats as the band sucked the crowd into their hypnotic rhythms on the track “Kandahar”. As Creature’s funky sounds faded and they exited the stage, anticipation was as high as ever for the sounds to take the stage.
As the clock inched toward ten o’ clock cheering and stomping shook the Metropolis until, under the red smokey lights, The Sounds emerged from backstage without lead Singer Maja Ivarrson as they began the title track off of their new album “Crossing the Rubicon”. As the boys finished up the somber intro and launched into the next track, Maja Ivarsson emerged to thundrous applause, clad in an adidas striped hoodie, some serious bling, three inch heels and the shortest shorts in the world. Armed with an arsenal of kicks and suggestive poses the singer wailed through “Queen of Apology” before pausing and reflecting about the creation of their new album, and how it was made for the fans and that she was so thankful for them. She then stated “This song is for you!” as the group began the epic riff from their latest single “No One Sleeps When I’m Awake”.
The Sounds jammed through a collection of hits from their new album and their equally amazing sophomore album “Dying to say this to you”. After rifling through “Tony the Beat” and “Beat Box” the band slowed down for the piano ballad “Night After Night”. Maja Ivarsson took a swig of her Heinekin lit a cigarette and implored the crowd to sing along. Which they did obediently. Another highlight of the show was when The Sounds played “Don’t Want to Hurt You”, a song that has been getting attention from being featured in a Geico ad that featured motorcycle riding cave men. During the song the crowd got noticably wilder, pushing up against the stage and jumping erratically. Afterwhich, Maja stated “You liked that one, huh?” with a wry smirk. The Sounds finished out their set with “Painted By Numbers”, the lead single from their sophomore album “Dying to say this to you” complete with a rythmic hexagon synth pad duet between guitarist Felix Rodriguez and keyboardist Jesper Anderberg.
After a roaring request for an encore, The Sounds once again took the stage to play “Song with a Mission”, “Hit Me” and “Living in America”. Maja thanked the crowd, handed out some beers and left the stage to a recording of their lullaby-like track “Goodnight Freedy”. A more appropriate ending to such a great night, I couldn’t think of.
