The Last Day of July

July went by so fast...

Let's say goodbye.

The New Pornographers - July Jones

Sufjan Stevens - Christmas in July

Everyone - Get into the DATAROCK fad.

I've been listening to Datarock a lot lately, and I have got to say, they are candy, that is if music could be in the form of candy. I'd chew on this band's music all day if I could.
Above, is Datarock's video for "Fa-Fa-Fa," but "Computer Camp Love" is just as good, these being the pair's two main hits. I'll take the background information about Datarock from Wikipedia, the world's darling and reliable source*.

Datarock is a Norwegian band. The band describes their sound as "a mixture of musical styles [they] like." A trio of friends, Fredrik Saroea, Ketil Mosnes and Kevin O'Brien, conceived the group while at a festival in Bergen, and soon hired Tom Mæland. O'Brien and Mæland later left the band, but the duo of Saroea and Mosnes continued the project. The Datarockers list their major artistic influences as Devo, Talking Heads and the Happy Mondays. The band has released three EPs and their debut album, Datarock Datarock, was released in 2005 in 10 countries on the band's own label, YAP (Young Aspiring Professionals), receiving favourable reviews, especially in the UK. They made an appearance in Australia's Triple J Hottest 100 with the single "Computer Camp Love" in 2005, placing at #12.

Their song "Fa, fa, fa" will be featured in a new Coca Cola advert.
Fredrik Saroea also has solo aspirations and has recorded several individual tracks, including a duet with fellow Norwegian pop-star Annie.

WELL, ANNIE is just as sugar-coated as Datarock is, but she isn't quite as funny. The teasing of Grease in "Computer Camp Love" is some of the best incorporating of another source in a song ever. The EP and Datarock Datarock are not only exceedingly touted, but are, in my opinion, so awesome.

mp3:
Datarock - Computer Camp Love
Datarock - I Used to Dance with My Daddy
Datarock - Maybelline
Datarock - Nightflight

Advertizzzing

SOLD OUT!



Good Show. Good Party.

Really Great Mashup

IT'S ON!

Gwen Stefani vs. Blur - 2 Songs Crashed

check it out.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs / ISIS EP

It came out on July 24th, but hell, I'm a delayed kinda guy.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs came out with their new EP, IS IS, and I've got to say that I am very fond of it. It's raw, freaky rock n' roll. I'm lovin' this.

I wish I could express myself more fluently.

mp3:

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Down Boy

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Kiss, Kiss

This Happened Last Night

You all missed a great show.

Art Video of Frankpollis:


Death By Audio is a very interesting venue to have a CD release party at with live music, meaning it's extraordinarily uncomfortable in the summer heat, yet it maintains its cool with two rooms to hang out it. Normally I would say "chill" in, but that certainly wasn't the case. Inside, it felt like the ninth circle of hell-heat level. Get some central air, Death By Audio!

mp3: Le Rug - Buffalo From Le Rug's new album C.R.E.E.P.

I Should Be

I should be writing my college essay, and looking at more schools, and preparing for senior year, and doing SAT Prep for an October re-take to redeem myself from an embarrassing score, and reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith, and getting my lines memorized for City of Angels, and looking for monologues (Equus?Much Ado?,) and not slacking off at my office job writing in this blog...

But instead, I'm just listening to music.

You don't have to go to college...

Animal Collective - College

ME GUSTA

Sonic Youth @ McCarren Park Pool:

hooray!

mp3: Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot (live)

Billie Holiday: Remixed/Revisited

When all else fails, play some Billie Holiday. And why not be innovative while you're at it? This miraculous night will be at the South Street Seaport. Good setting, good music. !!!.

mp3: Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit

Listingz

Because my poor scanner is not functional at the moment, I'm going to write out these Time Out NY clippings myself. I'm so wonderful for doing this:

These are the things that interested me:

TONIGHT!(Thursday!):

FREE A Northern Chorus Sound Fix. 4pm.

mp3: A Northern Chorus - The Shepherd and the Chauffeur

* Ben Kweller performs Sha Sha +Tim Fite Southpaw. 9pm; advance $18, day of show $20. Once remembered only for his time in teeny flop Rafish, Brooklyn's Ben Kweller made an impressive comeback as a solo artist, heavily informed by Weezer and Ben Folds. Tonight he begins a run of Southpaw shows in which he plays one of his albums in its entirety; he begins with Sha Sha. Brooklyn singer Tim Fite reminds us a bit of early Beck the way he recycles junk-bin samples into clever songs. He recently released Over the Counterculture, a hilarious send-up of commercial rap wackness that can be had for free at timfite.com/otcc_download.html.

mp3: Ben Kweller - Wasted and Ready

(SUNDAY):

*FREE JellyNYC Pool Parties with TV On the Radio + Celebration + Miles Bejamin Anthony Robinson McCarren Park Pool. 2pm. TV On the Radio's latest, Return to Cookie Mountain, wanders freely, from neoshoegaze guitar pop to darkly futuristic soul-rock and postindustrial electronica. Yet as chaotic as the record gets, a sense of craftsmanship to the material reveals how far TVOTR has come since its 2004 debut. The illustrious crew hits the pool in the company of Celebration, fronted by the muscular-voiced Katrina Ford; and Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, who plays garagey pop and winning psych-era melodies. Admission to the Pool Parties is free, but JellyNYC requests that you R.S.V.P. all the same at going.com/poolparties.

mp3: TV On the Radio - Staring at the Sun

(TUESDAY!:)

* The Virgins + Lissy Trullie and the Fibs + Frankpollis + Eric Gaffney Mercury Lounge. 7pm, $10.

<--Frankpollis

Sound good everyone?

How to get there:

Soundfix: 110 Bedford Ave at North 11th St, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718-388-8090) Subway: L to Bedford Ave.

Southpaw: 125 Fifth Avenue between St. Johns and Sterling Pls, Park Slope, Brooklyn (718-230-0236) Subway: B, Q, 2, 3, 4, 5 to Atlantic Avenue, D, M, N, R to Pacific Street.

McCarren Park Pool: Lorimer St. between Bayard St. and Driggs Ave, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Subway: L to Lorimer St, G to Metropolitan Avenue.

Mercury Lounge: 217 E Houston St between Essex and Ludlow Sts (212-260-4700) Subway: F, V to 2nd Avenue.

Beyonce Falls @ Concert

For those of you that don't read Perez Hilton on your off-hours at work, I found this gem. I feel really bad for her.
But she is a rich talented and beautiful woman, so I guess she had it coming.

The White Stripes @ MSG

I found out at 8pm tonight that I suddenly had in my possession 2 free tickets to the sold-out White Stripes show at Madison Square Garden. I've never been a huge Stripes fan, but I was nevertheless excited. I went, I saw, and I said "hmm..yay!...eh." I got there after Grinderman's set, Nick Cave's new band, but arrived the minute Jack and Meg came rushing on stage with their glamourously timid/wild personas. I wasn't that amazed by their set as a whole, but it was a rush to just see the stupefyingly large crowd giving the band ovations after mere 2-second tune-ups of Jack's guitar. The band mostly played tracks from Icky Thump, but it was nice to hear the hits: "Fell in love with a girl" and "blue orchid." The part of the show that I loved was the light presentation alone. MSG may not have the best sound in its great big garden, but damn does it do good lights. With a big disco ball, the techies successfully simulated a full-fledged acid trip; complete with strobes, red, white, and purple scrap lights traveling across the ceiling and adoring fans' faces.

I did, however, completely fall in love with Meg White despite her level 1 drum skills. Although the songs sped up and slowed down often due to her misplaced concentration, she's so damn cute. Jack even gave her the spotlight for a few moments to sing her own little rock ballad. Jack introduced it as Meg's vocal debut in New York. It was sweet. I taped it!

Jack and Meg did, unfortunately, take an excessively long set-to-encore break, leaving the crowd to cheer aimlessly for a good 10 minutes. Why do this to your screaming screaming screaming ahhhhhhhh fans? The encore was better than the set though! There's a reason their hits are hits, and this was completely evident, in that they played practically all of their hits in their encore: "I just don't know what to do with myself," which rocked, "seven nation army," "we are gonna be friends," "my doorbell," etc.

The great thing about this show was their onstage chemistry. Because it is only Jack and Meg White up there, you can tell they've really got each other's backs. When their last song finished, and the two of them rubbed elbows before jumping up onto the amplifier and bowing, you felt a moment of tenderness that isn't necessarily easily found in a place like MSG. From the beginning introduction of Jack White stating that Meg was his "big sister," to the end kodak moment I just mentioned, it was a fun time.

Their fun; their music may not be the greatest, but fun is a really good word to describe them.

Lights:

mp3: THE WHITE STRIPES - CONQUEST (they didn't play this though)

In Today's Paper...

this was in the ad section of the New York Post:

Men = women = men = women?

The Cribs - Men's Needs (CSS Mix)

Blur - Girls and Boys

Gravy Train - Titties Bounce

My favorite song ever

please watch this triumph in music history. Lil' Kim is the y generation's eleanor roosevelt. She will end conflict in the middle east. She will cure cancer...but only if we can guess how many licks it really takes to get to the center of the...vagina. i said it. I'm more foolhardy and obtrusive than the great Lil' Kim with her pal Sisqo.

Who Read This?

The Interpol article in SPIN magazine was interesting, and shit-damn, that opening about Daniel Kessler wanting to go to the largest Hooters in the country really got me loving it. Maybe that's why the scanner at my office left him out of this picture excerpt...hmmm.




Read it if you can, it's absorbing, diverting, and enthralling...

mp3:

Interpol - All Fired Up

miserable mixtape

It's raining non-stop

I squirted myself with glue in the face

I'm at work

I left my lunch at home

...and my umbrella at home.

Thus,

I am miserable.

I'm going to try to go to sleep at my desk.

miserable mixtape: mp3s

1. Broadcast - Colour Me In
2. Nico - Frozen Warnings
3. Kings of Convenience - Surprise Ice
4. A Northern Chorus - Subjects & Matter (live)
5. Stars - Calendar Girl
6. Radiohead - Nice Dream (acoustic)
7. Interpol - NYC (live - black sessions)
8. The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps (love version)

This is so awful/ridiculous that its good - Cher "Believe" VS Portishead

as i said above ^^^^

I promise I'll shut up soon...M.I.A. - Bird Flu (live @ siren)

So fun.

siren Siren SIREN !!!

I didn't blog yesterday because I was caught in the wrath of the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island. Not that the lineup was particularly impressive, but the acts that were good were truly good. I arrived at 3:10 or something, just missing the Noisettes, a band I wanted to see (I had seen them at Roseland in 2005 opening for Bloc Party and The Kills,) but I did see The Detroit Cobras' great set. Prior to Siren I had only one track of theirs on my iPod, "Hey Sailor" which I always liked, but it never drew me to purchase any more of their music and whatnot. When I was confronted with an entire set of the Cobras' music, however, I was lovestruck. They displayed cold, hard enthusiasm, and a great sense of comfort amid the Coney Island scene. They mentioned the hot-dog eating contests and how in Detroit a "coney island" was the name of a chili dog. The lead singer [as well] completely contradicted the truth campaigns, making cigarettes look like glorious props to have while belting out a great rock song. I really enjoyed their set.

But, who I really came to Siren for was M.I.A., whom I have loved since "Galang" was a single in 2005. While she did have her diva moments on stage (i.e. needing water all the time, stopping the music occassionally,) I don't fault her. It was a hot day, and for the amount of time she was shaking her hips and rapping, she was looking out for her hot Sri Lankan self. I had a blast watching her. She played some great stuff from her upcoming Kala. Where I was standing in the crowd, not one person was standing still. Whether you were grinding with the stranger in front of you, doing the worm on the beer-stained cement, or shaking your head around breathing in the skunk-weed air, you were loving M.I.A. She shocked me with a great rendition of The Pixies' "Where Is My Mind," a totally new, hip, version of the classic. It got me moving. And following this cover, her DJ friend who layed down the beats she needed for her set, played the beginning riff of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams," mashing it with a new song on Kala. It was simply "wayyyyy-cool!!!" Of course I enjoyed her classics "Bucky Done Gun," "10 Dolla," "Pull Up The People," and an awesome finish with "Galang," (everyone had their hands up on the 'ya-ya-hey' part,) but I really admired her new stuff: "Boyz," her new single which I'm not that crazy about was still fun live, and "Birdflu" was fantastic. Really fun stuff, guys.

I hope Siren revives itself for next year, despite the outrageous conclusion of Coney Island.

VIDEOS:

Asobi Seksu's new video "Goodbye"

I love the oragami...and her.
So great.
I hope her upcoming album is as promising as Citrus was. "Lions and Tigers" will never get old for me.

Wouldda / Wanna / Willa

Events! Events! Events!

I didn't know this happened yesterday!!!

I definitely [wouldda] gone. The caption is too good to be true. Thank you Village Voice.

I also want to go to thisThe Pierces are a lot of fun.

Hopefully I will go to this:
Union Hall is even in MY hood. Why shouldn't I?

Have a wonderful day.

Siouxsie and the Banshees live on BBC: Vh1 Classic

Last night I sat down to dinner on the couch in front of the television, and I scrolled along my DVR recordings and found a live concert at the BBC of Siouxsie Sioux herself. I was ecstatic - my dad recorded it for me knowing how happy my ears would get listening to her music. SO-I watched the first 5 songs (Israel, Arabian Nights, Spellbound, Christine, Holloween,) and they were fantastic. I was told by (those who shall remain nameless) sitting next to me that she was having an off-night/her voice didn't sound good etc. I tell them FYE! FYE! FYE!

If it's ever on again (vh1 Classics [channel 23--something]) watch it. I'm watching the rest tonight.

M.I.A. on the cover of the Village Voice

She looks awesome. She's the main reason to go to Siren Fest this weekend at Coney Island.

I saw the NY Dolls last summer as a part of the River to River Festival at the Southstreet Seaport, and they were campy and fun, but decomposing onstage nevertheless. For the last year of Siren, it's somewhat unimpressive. But M.I.A. looks krazy kool:

mp3s:

M.I.A. - Boyz (Kimono Kops Mix)

M.I.A. - Bird Flu

M.I.A. - Sunshowers (Surkin Remix)

yeah!!!

FREE for the virgins

This has nothing to do with music; rather, it has to do with nyc theatre (my job deals with this stuff) and a show we're doing the PR for, called My First Time is having this rediculous yet entertainingly bizarre opening-night prize for the virgins of New York.

excerpt from the article:

Virgins Can Experience Their First Time for Free July 12
by Adam Hetrick 10 Jul 2007

My First Time, the new Off-Broadway play featuring interviews, confessions and first sexual experience anecdotes, invites virgins to attend the production's first performance on July 12 for free.

Those in doubt that there are any virgins left in New York City can watch hypnotherapist Sebastian Black interview the virginal candidates in order to determine their eligibility for free admission. Those individuals deemed virginal enough to wear white on their wedding day will see a cast of four, including Bill Dawes, Josh Heine, Kathy Searle and Cydnee Welburn.

crazy shit, huh

Madonna - Like a Virgin

...and speaking of The Virgins, they're playing with Frankpollis and Lissy Trullie & The Fibs on July 31st at Mercury Lounge:

mp3:

The Virgins - Rich Girls

Rainy Daze

I woke up this morning, and what did I see?

A great turgid cloud staring back at me.

Please, I said, don't let the rain fall.

I have errands to run; I can't drop the ball.

The cloud just sighed and said alright,

Just a few minutes more of my rainy plight,

and I'll leave you to do what your job asks of you

The sky will be blue by the afternoon.

That was a poem I wrote, but with regards to music, all I did was listen to AIR's Talkie Walkie on the train this morning:

mp3s:

Air - Venus

Air - Run

Air - Cherry Blossom Girl

Air - Surfing on a Rocket

Joy Division Movie: "CONTROL"

Joy Division - Disorder

go watch the trailer on YouTube:

CONTROL

I'm Having a Doo-Wop Moment

Remember this?

Kathy Najimy in Sister Act dancing to that song...

it was in my head.

mp3: Dee Dee Sharp - Gravy

CitySol Rewind

So.....I gathered myself Saturday morning and arrived at CitySol by around 1 o'clock, so i wouldn't miss Frankpollis. They put on a good show with solid vocals, beats, and guitar licks. I was disappointed, however, with the lack of a turn-out for the opening bands. What can one really expect from New York hipster-environmentalists though? Frankpollis was at its best playing "Malk" which ended with a fantastic and almost 8 minute long jam, and "No Name," a pop song. They're great. I wanted the FP set to be longer, but it was stellar nonetheless. :)

Following FP was The Budos Band, who ended their set with an odd rendition of Sugarpie Honeybunch, where the chords were a step higher or lower or something and the beat remained the same. The excessive horns and up and down bobbing of the band members was kind of charming at first, (they're from Staten Island,) but after a while the songs molded into each other and became a blob of [dare I say substance-less] "afro-soul" in the words of the one of the brass players describing the group's genre.

These Are Powers came next, and they seemed to be, in the words of my mother, "a lot of show with no play." Comprised of ex-Liars members, we all expected a possibly innovative and exciting set, but the lead singer, a very pretty Anna Barie mimicked that type of Yoko Ono rock art in the 1970s, but...no dice. I left the CitySol stage at this point to go walk along the East River with some friends.

When I returned, I missed OCDJ, but I made sure to be back for O'Death who were fantastic. Their music style is primitive in that it is old-fashioned in a folky sense, but also in that it maintains a haphazard and chaotic flow in all of the songs.
best part: When the audience and the band sang along to Down to Rest:"Baby...Lay Me...Down to Rest..." Everyone was just having a good time.

Sadly, I missed most of the rest of the show. I didn't see Les Savy Fav or Land of Talk. And I saw the beginning of the Besnard Lakes' set which sounded awesome. CitySol was pretty good except for the crazy environmental aspect I think. Charging a dollar for a plastic cup for conservation purposes I found irritating. BUT the music was fun fun fun. Siren's up next!

mp3s:

OCDJ - Pls Stp Th Hstl

O'Death - Down To Rest

The Besnard Lakes - And You Lied To Me

...and if you were lucky enough to receive the Frankpollis 2-track CD, then you'd have those tracks. For now though: www.myspace.com/frankpollis

One More Thing...CitySol

Anyone who's anyone is going to attend CitySol 2007 at Solar 1 this Saturday on East 23rd St. and the East River.

Some great bands are playing:

Les Savy Fav

Land of Talk

The Besnard Lakes

O'Death

OCDJ

These Are Powers

The Budos Band

Frankpollis

and WNYU DJs

sponsored by Brooklynvegan

I'm particularly excited about Frankpollis.

their myspace

and here they are:

Tegan and Sara's "The Con"

Is this single good? I can't really tell if I like it or not. Tegan and Sara in the past have been indeed bubblegummy and have qualified to be on our list of guilty pleasures, but the guitar progression and the chords chosen on this song are just boring to me...I still listen to it whenever it comes on my iPod because it's so sugary you can't deny it; nevertheless, blah. They lower the pitches of their voices too. Getting darker Tegan...Getting darker Sara...what can we hope for with their new album due to surface?

It was released on iTunes' new music tuesdays this past week:

Here you go:

Tegan and Sara - The Con

My Glorious Dinner 7/10/07: The Odyssey / RANDOM MP3s!

For my friend Katie's birthday, I, along with my companions set off on an adventure of self-boiling Chinese cuisine. Yes, the staff supply you with raw meat, cold noodles, veggies, and a bucket of oil that you boil by your side--only so you may cook your own meal cautiously. No one wants salmonella poisoning, and there was even a caution: Eating Raw Foods may cause Food-Born illness. Awesome. It was a cool idea, and I had a lot of fun nevertheless. I'm just bitter for the sake of this blog and the potential comedy I maintain for this lack of an audience.

Here are some crazy nickelodeon-esque photos of my meal:

<--- SHRIMP! STRAIGHT FROM THE TANK!

We are spoiled by American Chinese food.

<--I don't even know what this is...it was on my plate.

MP3s!!!:

Tina Turner - Private Dancer

Prototypes - Je Ne Te Connais Pas

Shocking Blue - Venus

The Strokes - The End Has No End (Live in London)

Spoon - I Can Feel it Fade like an AM Single

Britney Spears: Another whattheffff moment

This is undoubtedly random, but I felt I had to post this a second time. On Perez Hilton's blog, there exists the lyrics to a rumored new Britney Spears single due to surface. It's calleed "Get Back" and here are the lyrics: It's rediculowesome.


Get Back
So baby now you’re the one who’s looking for me
i wonder why?
cuz u used to be the one
who asked me to let her be
so you’re the one
who want us to get back
(you say lets get back together)(lets get back forever)
now its u the one whos’s followin me around
like a homeless dog
and you pray
(let’s get back together,let’s get back for better)
get back
lets lets lets
get back(back,back,back…)

now your the one
whos chasing me everywhere i go
ur all i see it’s like ur following me
everywhere i used to pray for that to happen
but now i just don’t care
it’s more
its startin to annoy me
i’m gettin crazy
its gettin chaotic
so baby now ur the one whos’ looking for me
i wonder why?
cuz if i remember rightly u were the one
who asked me to be free...

the rest is on this link: http://perezhilton.com/?p=1159#more-1159

ha-hitty-ha-ha-ha.

Dengue Fever at the Pool Party 7/1/07

After SiCKO was sold out, I went to McCarren Park Pool to see Man Man and other bands, but I couldn't actually stay for Man Man because I needed to attend the closing performance of Passing Strange (an incredible show) at the Public Theatre.

I'd been to the pool only once last summer to see Bloc Party, Secret Machines, and Mew--a concert that I needed to pay for. I had no idea that there were free concerts every Sunday (I'm very much behind the times,) but now, I want to go to everything they present to the public. What else does one do on a Sunday?

Anyhow, what I did see was the fantastic show put on by Dengue Fever, a band I had not heard of until the minute they began their set. Dengue Fever is comprised of Chhom Nimol on vocals, Zac Holtzman on guitar and vocals, Ethan Holtzman on the farfisa organ, Senon Williams on bass guitar (he's on fire), David Ralicke on the brass, and Paul Smith on the drums. Just by the names and the wide range of instruments, one could tell that this Cambodian-based surf band is certainly diverse among other things. They really rocked the cigarette smoking, tight tee wearing, sun soaking crowd with their homages to a campy corner of the 1960s rock scene, but in a language other than english. Apart from their awesomely catchy, and occasionally hypnotic and poignant songs, they conveyed great chemistry with each other to the audience. The pool is a big place with an almighty obstacle of noise, but their set was nevertheless intimate.

Songs like "Escape from Dragon House," "Thanks A Lot," and "Sni Bong" left the crowd dancing, and feeling ultra-hip as they listened to what seemed to be familiar and yet fresh music. It was from another country, and unless the audience member was Cambodian, the tongue they spoke in was indecipherable, and still, their performance and sound completely commanded the stage and the pool. Even those who lost themselves on the provided Slip-N-Slide (thanks to Helio and Jelly NYC) were grooving.

Dengue Fever really wowed me, and they will wow you too. Their album, Escape from the Dragon House is out now-- I'm definitely going to whip out my ca$h.

myspace: www.myspace.com/denguefevermusic

Videos I took: