Contest

Grow a Pair: Win Free Tickets to Animal Collective on May 13, 2009

May 8th, 2009

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Animal Collective, the loose group of avant-garde musicians, is touring on the heals of their eighth LP, Merriweather Post Pavilion. The terrific album has earned the band increased attention and bigger crowds. So tickets to next Wednesday’s show at Terminal 5 went fast (but they’re still available for their second Celebrate Brooklyn show on August 15th). And since you’re probably only reading this because you don’t have one, all you really need to know is that The House List is giving away two of them. Just fill out the form below, listing your name, e-mail address, which show you’re trying to win tickets to (Animal Collective, 5/13) and a brief message telling us the funniest thing that happened to you this week. (Beware: Eddie Bruiser can spot a lie a mile away. If it’s too funny to believe, he won’t.) If you’re the lucky one to Grow a Pair of free tickets, E. Bruise will e-mail you by noon on Wednesday, May 13th. Good luck.

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See Lydia Tonight at The Bowery Ballroom

May 7th, 2009

The Gilbert, Ariz., sextet Lydia formed in 2003. The next year, they caught a big break when one of their songs was chosen for a Blink 182 compilation album. But because Lydia was unable to tour full time until everyone in the band finally graduated high school in 2005, they couldn’t really capitalize on their raised profile. Now, two albums later, including last year’s Illuminate, they can with their own headlining tour—which brings their poignant tunes, ambient sounds and layered male and female vocals to The Bowery Ballroom tonight. Check out this video of tour highlights and then make sure to see Lydia live. Do yourself a favor and get there early enough to see Adam Young’s electronica project, Owl City.

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MC Lars – Mercury Lounge – May 6, 2009

May 7th, 2009

MC Lars - Mercury Lounge - May 6, 2009Curious to learn what he was supposed to play in a matter of moments, Rob Piccininni, the bassist for MC Lars, searched for a set list. What he found was Lars’ Sharpie shorthand on a crumpled piece of paper. A confused look preceded a laugh, and then he shouted to bandmate Damondrick Jack (yes, DJ for short), “Such is MC Lars.”

Seconds later, while a stop-motion video of a toy-robot rampage played on a screen in the background, MC Lars took the stage. He describes his music as “laptop rap,” derived from his college days spent sampling music. However, his performances are far from the one-laptop/two-rapper setup he used to peddle. Joined by a full band, he and DJ rhymed their way through very funny and geeky lyrics, like the song about Tetris—complete with a sampling of the game’s theme song, courtesy of guitarist Mike Russo—and the plastic-guitar-accompanied “Guitar Hero Hero (Beating Guitar Hero Doesn’t Make You Slash).”

MC Lars’ act could easily end there, as a novelty. But instead, it’s where he begins to shine. The more he lets himself out of his humble onstage shell, the easier it is to realize he is the Encyclopedia Brown of hip-hop and punk music. He may be nerdy, but his intense knowledge of the history of hip-hop and music in general makes him great. His set not only included a dedication to Wesley Willis, but it also featured the band Wheatus (of “Teenage Dirtbag” fame) joining him onstage for a song. This odd combination of Weird Al-esque shtick and absolute love for music is hard to appreciate until you see MC Lars put it all together in his live show. Somehow, he makes it work really well. Such is MC Lars. —Sean O’Kane

Photos courtesy of Sean O’Kane

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Ben Harper and the Relentless7 – Webster Hall – May 5, 2009

May 6th, 2009

Photos courtesy of Michael Jurick | music.jurick.net

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Bowery Presents and 826NYC Present: The Prom You Were Promised

May 5th, 2009

We know what you’re thinking: How can I relive my own prom and help a good cause at the same time? That’s easy. Just break out your black-tie duds on May 21st and head directly to Music Hall of Williamsburg to celebrate 826NYC’s The Prom You Were Promised, featuring DJ sets by Vampire Weekend, Pat Mahoney—of LCD Sound System—and Hercules and Love Affair. All proceeds benefit 826 NYC. And to get you in the spirit, we asked some famous friends about their prom experiences. (Check back each Tuesday before May 21st to see what they say.)

(Photo: Mary Rozzi)

Feist (Photo: Mary Rozzi)

“I went to a small alternative high school in Canada that had maybe 120 students total. So grad, as we call prom in Canada, was a very small affair: The school reserved a few tables at a restaurant in the suburbs, the teachers gave speeches and gave out hand-painted diplomas to the, maybe, 15 of us who were graduating that year. I rented a red-velvet-with-satin-trim evening gown from a vintage place in town, and I dyed my hair fire engine red. My date, Geoff Gervitz, and a few friends and I bailed after dinner and drove to the laser-tag place in the strip mall, played laser tag for an hour and then went home. —Feist

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The Kills – Music Hall of Williamsburg – May 5, 2009

May 5th, 2009

The Kills - Music Hall of Williamsburg - May 4, 2009


Photos courtesy of Gregg Greenwood | www.gregggreenwood.com

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Contest

Grow a Pair: Free Tickets to Ben Harper and Relentless7 on May 8, 2009

May 5th, 2009

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After years spent recording and touring with the Innocent Criminals, Ben Harper has taken on a heavier, grittier sound with his new backing band, the Relentless7. They’ve even recorded an album, White Lies for Dark Times, out today. There are no available tickets for their show at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Friday, May 8th, but you may be in luck because The House List is giving away two tickets. Just fill out the form below, listing your name, e-mail address, which show you’re trying to win tickets to (Relentless7, 5/8) and a brief message telling us why you deserve to Grow a Pair of free tickets. Eddie Bruiser, back from Jazz Fest, will e-mail the lucky winner by noon on Friday, May 8th. Good luck.

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El Ten Eleven – Mercury Lounge – April 29, 2009

May 4th, 2009

el-ten-elevenAbout two-thirds of the way into El Ten Eleven’s late-night set at Mercury Lounge, a guy in the crowd muttered “holy shit.” It summed up my feelings exactly. There are few bands out there that make people involuntarily curse like that, and these guys—just a bass-and-drums duo—are in that category.

There are three ways to enjoy El Ten Eleven: 1. You can sit there and wonder where all that music comes from. (Yeah, it’s just two musicians, but there’s a deep layering of loops, samples and overdubs.) 2. You can marvel at the technical talent. (These guys—Kristian Dunn, on basses, guitars and all those pedals, and Tim Fogarty, on drums—are damn good. Whether it’s Dunn simultaneously double-tapping melody and bass lines on two separate necks of the same instrument or Fogarty going part man, part machine, there’s plenty to keep the most critical of music geeks agape.) And, lastly, 3. You can just sit back and enjoy the music.

All of that gadgetry and talent don’t mean anything if the output’s no good. But with El Ten Eleven, that’s not a problem. This is an electro-dance-indie rock that feeds the body and the brain. At times, the set was the stuff that fills the HAL 9000’s dreams and at other times it was the disco grooves that Stormtroopers get down to after a long day on the Death Star. Dunn coaxed sounds from the beyond and then wrapped new sounds around the old ones—as if he were going back in time to play music with himself over and over again. If you ever wondered what would happen if you time-traveled and met yourself in the past, now we know that you could make some kick-ass music. —A. Stein

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Assembly of Dust – Mercury Lounge – April 29, 2009

May 4th, 2009
(Photo: Christan Keller)

(Photo: Christina Keller)

There is something slightly unsettling about going into a rock club for a show while the sun is still out. But with the warm weather finally pushing its way into town, and summer nigh, a little daylight with your rock and roll ain’t such a bad thing. This is especially true for sunshine music like the Assembly of Dust, who played the early show at the Mercury Lounge on Wednesday.

The band opened appropriately with “Arc of the Sun,” an upbeat, beaming number with a tinge of Pink Floyd-esque psychedelia threaded through it. With front-man Reid Genauer singing “We’ve been expecting you…” in wonderful harmony with his bandmates, the scene was set for an early rager. With the Dead warming up across the river in New Jersey, AoD did their best to capture and enliven a smidge of that Americana-meets-free-form vibe. This isn’t like the dark, out-there Dead, but rather the upbeat, sunny-afternoon version. Assembly of Dust is the equivalent of the feeling you get on a beautiful day when you just say “the hell with it,” leave work early and go romp around the park.

The music rode on Genauer’s songwriting and plenty of build-and-release moments to keep the crowd smiling. Throwing in a few brand new tunes from their forthcoming album, Some Assembly Required, the set was a bang-bang-bang affair of sing-alongs, boogie-downs and fist-pumpers. Everything built to a fiery conclusion with a long, guitar-jammed “Reverly” making way for a sharp “Spectulator.” This last tune built to a nice jam and then segued quite expertly into Neil Young’s “Comes a Time,” which bopped between tempos and genres before easing back into the “Speculator” coda to end the set. —A. Stein

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Lady Gaga – Terminal 5 – May 2, 2009

May 4th, 2009

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You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Lady Gaga in her self-designed bubble dress. Was she naked under there? It sure looked like it from where we were standing, which was pretty far back. The crush of 15-year-old girls in the front was just too intense to navigate. Many of them seemed to be having the best time of their young lives, lustily singing along to all the songs while also nervously pulling on the shortest skirts their parents would let them wear out of the house. I shared a drink at the bar in the back with one New Jersey dad who was chaperoning his daughter and a friend for the evening and he clearly had no idea what he was in for. When Gaga sang, “I want to fuck you as hard as I can,” his face crumpled like Lee Harvey Oswald’s after Jack Ruby shot him in the gut.

The Gaga formula is nothing we haven’t seen before—equal parts dominatrix and girl next door—but her attitude is stronger and more sexually powerful than we’re used to. She makes Britney seem like a prudish hag. And her confessional bits between songs were kind of winning, as calculating as they might be. The theme was: “Invent yourself. I did, and look how well it’s worked out for me!” Gaga also seemed genuinely grateful to be so lovingly received in her hometown. “Do you know how many times I played in clubs in New York and they didn’t know the words to any of my songs and they threw beer on me?” she said, and then added, “Sometimes I like getting beer thrown on me.” Pour another drink for dear old dad. —Joey Pisarcik

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Bat for Lashes – Bowery Ballroom – April 30, 2009

May 1st, 2009

Bat For Lashes - Bowery Ballroom - April 29, 2009

Photos courtesy of Gregg Greenwood | www.gregggreenwood.com

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See King Khan & the Shrines Tonight at Music Hall of Williamsburg

May 1st, 2009

King Khan & the Shrines bring their unique sound—the musical intersection of garage rock, psychedelia, R&B and soul—to Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight. Check them out here playing “Welfare Bread,” from last year’s The Supreme Genius of King Khan & the Shrines, and then make sure you don’t miss the often scantily clad front man and his onstage antics by checking out the band tonight. You’ll be happy you did.

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