If you’ve seen The Big Lebowski, you love The Big Lebowski ’cause that’s just the way it is. So why not come out to Terminal 5 tonight to see the flick again and hang out with some like-minded people? Black Diamond Heavies—and their brash brand of blues and punk—will get things started. And, of course, White Russians will be served all night. Come on. You know you want to.
Scott McCaughey is a prolific musician. He formed the Young Fresh Fellows in 1993, but he continued to record solo albums and work with others, including R.E.M. and Robyn Hitchcock (and he’s performed live for as few as eight people and as many as 125,000). And if that weren’t enough, he’s also involved with a variety of side projects, most notably the Minus 5. That band began when McCaughey realized he had loads of material that didn’t quite fit with any of this musical endeavors. So he enlisted Jon Auer (the Posies), Peter Buck (R.E.M.) and Ken Stringfellow (the Posies) to form a pop collective. Although the lineup sometimes changes, the Minus 5 has recorded loads of material and their most recent studio album—done with the help of several members of the Decemberists—the somber country-rock Killingsworth, came out in July. And tomorrow the Minus 5 comes to The Bowery Ballroom. Check them out, above, playing “The Lurking Barrister,” and then go see them play live.
White Lies are riding high. They just finished a European tour with Coldplay, including two sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium last weekend. And now they’re coming to Webster Hall on Friday, September 25th. The House List is giving away two sets of tickets. So if you don’t have any, try to Grow a Pair by filling out the form below. Just list your name, e-mail address, which show you’re trying to win tickets to (White Lies, 9/25) and tell us why you deserve to win. Eddie Bruiser will notify the winner by noon on Friday, September 25th. Good luck.
French synth-rock band Phoenix—along with special guest Passion Pit—is playing two red-hot, sold-out shows at SummerStage this weekend. Tickets were tough to get, but The House List is giving away a set to the show on Friday, September 25th. So try to Grow a Pair by filling out the form below. List your name, e-mail address, which show you’re trying to win tickets to (Phoenix, 9/25) and a brief message telling us why you think France rocks. Eddie Bruiser, a cheese eater from way back, will notify the winner by noon on Friday, September 25th. Good luck.
Fanfarlo, a group of prog-folk, Arcade Fire-lite Brits, inspired a ticket-buying run on last night’s show, which forced a venue change, from Mercury Lounge to The Bowery Ballroom, only to sell out the bigger venue. More simply, this band filled the room with five times the amount of people as were originally expected. It’s like making reservations for six but having 30 people show up. Frankly, you had no idea you had this many friends and multiplication is never a bad thing.
The band opened with “Drowning Men,” a normally thudding meditation on status. Just three band members performed this haunting, stripped-down version of the original. But three became four and then five and six as the full band spilled onstage for the second song, “I’m a Pilot.” It was a relief, but specifically it was like a surprising clown car of multi-instrumental musicians. The band then played “Finish Line,” unironically near the beginning, and the elevating “Harold T. Wilkins….” The show was built backward to the finish.
All this funneled down to the last song of the set (Fanfarlo then played two encores). As the nominal closer, “Luna,” stomped and bucked to its finish, the lead singer began by slamming an auxiliary drum at the front of the stage and ended the night with a solo on clarinet. It was a moment that showed range, and the crowd was happy to move along with the band. You could see what was happening—it was onstage and all around, times five. —Geoff Nelson
At the punk-rock age of 21, Ty Segall has already spent time in numerous bands in San Francisco—as lead singer of the Epsilons and drummer for the Traditional Fools—and he’s emerged with a wake of 7″ singles and solo full-lengths behind him. All of the previous low-fi efforts have culminated in this current distilled version of garage rock: Combine late ’60s bands like the Sonics and the Pretty Things with a reverb-soaked surf rock, and you get a blistering update of a genre like his opener, “Waiting at the Station.”
Segall gained momentum as a literal one-man band, but he played Mercury Lounge last night backed by Robbie on drums and “always his birthday” Tim on bass, which added a solid foundation to Segall’s slap-echoed vocals and gritty guitar distortion. The songs are brief and frantic waves of pop, as he shakes his head and gets his nerve up to the mike, closing his eyes and howling. It’s a West Coast-surfer vibe tangling with the hard-rock blues, awash in reverb and held together by pot haze and a foot-stomping rhythm. Segall joked before playing an original: “Here’s a classic-rock song.” It’s true he’s taking rock back to solidly written pop, proving there is value in nothing more than a raw guitar riff and a blues scream. —Jason Dean
The word epic is often carelessly thrown around when describing music. But …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead’s Friday-night set showed the Webster Hall crowd just what an epic performance can be. Following a brilliant opening set from one of NYC’s (somehow still) best-kept secrets—no pun intended—the Secret Machines, the guys in Trail of Dead came out roaring. They stuck to a similar formula for most of the show: starting with slow, melodic intros and then exploding into anthemic rock, often featuring two drummers and three vocal parts. Somewhat like a much darker, faster-paced Muse, Trail of Dead’s songs had the crowd screaming along with arms flailing toward the stage and drinks flying in the air.
Lead forces Conrad Keely and Jason Reece took turns on vocal duties, with Keely singing the bulk of the songs while thrashing around the stage and playing his guitar. Reece alternated between the front of the stage, on guitar and vocals, and the back, where he mashed on the band’s second drum set. The hour-plus set finished with Reece stumbling through those in the crowd and dousing them with bottles of water. After a quick encore to satisfy the audience’s demands, …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead finished their epic set, and the crowd left out of breath, soaking wet and totally happy. —Sean O’Kane
Photos courtesy of Sean O’Kane | seanokanephoto.com
Photos courtesy of Kirsten Housel
(Photo: Mina K)
As we waited for Aretha Franklin to grace us with her presence at the sold-out Radio City Music Hall on Friday, her orchestra warmed up onstage. With a bevy of musicians and backup singers, this was a big production—the only kind befitting the Queen of Soul. When the singer appeared, looking regal in a floor-length black gown, the band wasted no time in vamping up the instantly recognizable opening bars of the Otis Redding classic “Respect.” It may be a jukebox staple, but there’s something magical and mind-blowing about hearing such a classic song performed live. “We’re going back now,” announced Franklin, as her set continued with vintage songs from her catalog including “Call Me,” “Baby, I Love You,” “Think,” and “Don’t Play That Song for Me.”
Franklin’s personality commands just as much attention as her music, and she enjoyed telling stories and throwing out the occasional one-liner. When she requested some water to be brought from backstage, Franklin joked, “And if you see a man back there, you can bring him too!” Despite these larger-than-life antics, there were more intimate moments in the show as well, as Franklin took a moment to acknowledge an old family friend in the crowd, reminiscing about memories they had shared.
Though, at times, criticism has a way of surfacing regarding the consistency of Franklin’s performances, her stage presence and vocal range were captivating, and there were many eruptions of spontaneous applause as she gracefully went from belting out a bright high note to a low, raspy growl. There should be no dispute: Aretha Franklin will always be the Queen of Soul, and it was a privilege to be one of the queen’s subjects on Friday night. —Alena Kastin
Soulsavers, an English electronica duo whose music is steeped in other musical influences, like country, gospel and rock, put out several well-received EPs and two full-length discs before releasing their third studio album, Broken, last month. They’ve earned attention from the TV world, with their music being featured in Grey’s Anatomy and Friday Night Lights. And while the band is just two guys—the producers and remixers Ian Glover and Rich Machin—they record with musicians like Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Mike Patt, of Faith No More, and the Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes. Plus Glover and Machin use Mark Lanegan as a featured vocalist on their albums. See the Soulsavers featuring Mark Lanegan, and supported by Jonneine Zapata and Red Ghost, tomorrow night at The Bowery Ballroom.
(Check out the video of Soulsavers and Mark Lanegan covering the Rolling Stones’ “No Expectations,” above.)
At times it’s easy to recognize when a New York City show will be good just by taking the audience’s temperature. And last night at Mercury Lounge a feverish buzz ran through the crowd while the opening bands played. Add to that the appearance of tri-state-area indie rockers like New Jersey’s Clark Westfield, of the Gay Blades, and Brooklyn’s Kevin Devine, and it was clear that the headliner, fun., was going to pull off something special.
To make the obvious pun about the group’s name is to do a disservice at this point. Fun. filled the venue with anticipation and passion-filled fans, an impressive feat for a band that’s just a year old. Their hour-long set bested their prior NYC appearances, and songs that fell flat in previous performances now had polish and life to them. Nate Ruess’s poppy Mick Jagger-like stage presence was captivating, while his bandmates executed amazingly tight music to accompany him. Although the crowd received the encore they’d screamed for, they were still disappointed when even that ended. And for once, the point in the evening where Ruess reached into his bag of Format songs became a footnote, not the highlight. —Sean O’Kane
Photos courtesy of Sean O’Kane | seanokanephoto.com
When Pretty Girls Make Graves broke up in 2007, Derek Fudesco traded in his bass for an acoustic guitar and formed the Cave Singers, an earnest folk-rock band, along with Marty Lund (drums and guitar) and Pete Quirk (vocals and guitar). Their debut album, Invitation Songs, came out in the fall of 2007. The follow-up, Welcome Joy, was released last month. Check them out, above, playing “Dancing on Our Graves,” on the BBC’s The Culture Show, and then see them play live tomorrow night at The Bowery Ballroom.
The Decemberists, a five-piece folk-rock outfit from Portland, Ore., are storytellers. And their songs often employ instruments that aren’t so obvious, like accordions and organs. The band, whose members claim to have met in a Turkish bath, released its fifth full-length album, The Hazards of Love, in March and have been touring to promote it ever since. That tour brings them to Terminal 5 this Saturday, September 19th, and The Wellmont Theatre next Monday, September 21st. The Terminal 5 show is special because, according to the group’s Web site, they “will draw songs from a lottery and dutifully play them, regardless of their quality or presence in our memory. Decemberists songs, naturally, but you do never know what bizarre cover songs or strange commands may end up in the pile.” Sounds pretty cool.
(Check out the Decemberists, above, covering Heart’s “Crazy for You.”)
(Photo: Dosfotos)
It started simply enough: two chairs on a small raised platform in the middle of the Terminal 5 stage, empty except for two lone acoustic guitars. But Rodrigo y Gabriela conjured the most immense sounds from these modest instruments, bringing the packed audience to a head-bobbing frenzy. This was the opening U.S. show in support of their new album, 11:11, the follow-up to their self-titled 2006 album. Gabriela explained the gap: “We started the recording and then we didn’t like it, so we recorded again. So it was, like, another six months, and then we wanted to record at home, so we built a studio. There was all this noise and it was 40 degrees…. So it’s a very hot album. We hope you like it.”
Their unique fusion of flamenco and metal is all about the intimacy of the two guitarists and the way they complement each other. Gabriela plays completely differently from Rodrigo—extremely fast, moving from high up the fret to palm slap the bridge in the same strumming motion, or knuckle tapping the body of the guitar, all while keeping the main rhythm by barely grazing the strings. At the same time, Rodrigo works solidly on the melodies, improvising intricate parts while wandering the stage. The impressive range of sound made the two-hour performance completely engrossing. They are not just interested in the sound of a note, but every noise possible from the entire instrument, and all at breakneck speed.
Paying tribute to their metal roots, the duo frequently includes covers in their recorded material. When they asked the audience for song requests, someone shouted, “Stairway to Heaven,” an inevitable staple for any band heckler. But it made sense for once, as Rodrigo y Gabriela proceeded to play the rock standard, almost unrecognizably as their own. —Jason Dean
