Grow a Pair: Win Free Tickets to See Hot Chip on 4/23
April 20th, 2010
Hot Chip is coming back to town for two more sold-out shows, at Terminal 5 on Thursday and Friday (although tickets are still available for their SummerStage show on 8/4). These guys are a big draw, which is why tickets went so quickly. But if you’d still like to attend, you’re in luck because The House List is giving away two tickets to Friday’s show. Want to Grow a Pair? It’s easy. Just fill out the form below, listing your name, e-mail address, which show you’re trying to win tickets to (Hot Chip, 4/23) and a brief message explaining your favorite way to celebrate 4/20. Eddie Bruiser, who’s always looking for new ways to celebrate, will notify the winner on Friday. Good luck.
Snoop Dogg – Brooklyn Bowl – April 19, 2010
April 20th, 2010
See Owen Pallett This Thursday at Webster Hall
April 19th, 2010
He was given the name Michael James Owen Pallett-Plowright at birth. The singer-violinist was classically trained at a young age, and he composed his first piece at just 13 and began playing solo shows at 15. But as his musical interests shifted, the Toronto native began working with several indie musicians, including doing some composing and arranging on Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Neon Bible albums. This earned him acclaim as a violinist and remixer for other artists, but Pallett-Plowright was more interested in doing his own thing, which first came to light on Has a Good Home—under the name Final Fantasy. Another disc, He Poos Clouds, followed, but last year he announced he was scrapping the name Final Fantasy and going with Owen Pallett (and he put out his third studio effort, Heartland, earlier this year). You, too, should go with Owen Pallett when he plays Webster Hall on Thursday.
(Above, Owen Pallett peforms “Lewis Take Off His Shirt.”)
The Hold Steady Does It All Night Long
April 19th, 2010The Hold Steady – The Bowery Ballroom/Music Hall of Williamsburg – April 17, 2010
Taking a cursory glance at audience members’ wrists at Music Hall of Williamsburg sometime after 1 a.m. on Sunday morning, it was obvious that the Hold Steady weren’t the only ones pulling double duty. The indelible, florescent twin wristbands marked for some fans an evening spanning two boroughs and nearly seven hours. It was two sold-out shows, starting at The Bowery Ballroom, where the doors opened at 6:30, and followed by a late-night 12:15 a.m. set at Music Hall of Williamsburg. The Hold Steady was perhaps the perfect band to do it.
Though the set lists were slightly altered and lead singer Craig Finn changed his blue oxford shirt for plaid, the two sets were twins in their theatrics. At The Bowery, people in the audience shouted lyrics at Finn and high-fived one another after each song. At Music Hall, the crowd barked some of the same lyrics at the band, turning the middle of the floor into a carbonated, bouncing mess. Bowery was the scene of the hugs and arms around, as people celebrated being in the room with the band. And the Hold Steady’s everyman anthems easily broke the wall between band and audience, like all these people were complicit in the making of these songs. They certainly knew the words and as Finn spun away from his microphone, like a nerdy top, sweating and ebullient, he seemed fine letting all these strangers into his process. In fact, it was the point.
The band walked off the stage after their main set at Bowery to the dulcet outro of “How a Resurrection Really Feels.” For a band with two new members and a brand new record, Heaven Is Whenever, Finn’s final insistence—“and that’s how a resurrection really feels”—felt new and righteous. At Music Hall, four hours later, Finn left the stage with a thank you and the crowd continued to sing backing vocals, like a sea shanty or a European football chant in the dark. The band returned with the crushing “Citrus” before closing with “Stay Positive.” Finn, ever direct and charming, screamed, “Stay positive, Brooklyn!” before ending the double sell out with a wave and a disappearance backstage. —Geoff Nelson
Surprise Me Mr. Davis Knows What You’re Looking For
April 19th, 2010Surprise Me Mr. Davis – Mercury Lounge – April 17, 2010
It takes a certain kind of band to fill the late slot, to be the show after the other show, to pick up wherever the first part of your night left off. Surprise Me Mr. Davis, starting on the healthy side of midnight on Saturday at Mercury Lounge, epitomized the late-night band. If you were looking for soulful, drunken sing-alongs, they were your band. If you were looking for heady, jazz-inflected jams, they were your band. If you were looking for raucous, “there are four drummers onstage right now” percussion parties (including Joe Russo of Furthur and Jeremy Black from Apollo Sunshine), they were your band. If you were looking for a full-on variety show—music, magic and more—then they were your band. If you were looking for heartfelt, full-band a cappella moments, lo, Surprise Me Mr. Davis was your band.
The set began with Brad Barr on ukulele and the rest on vocals with frontman Nathan Moore both leading the song and doing magic tricks. Have you ever seen a guy sing and pull one of those quintessential long handkerchief chains from his mouth at the same time? Well, you haven’t let Surprise Me Mr. Davis surprise you yet! But it wasn’t all fun and high jinks Saturday night. Drunken partiers were on the receiving end of some shushing with dirty looks to match as the packed house hung on every lyric and instrumental excursion. With Marco Benevento rounding out the band, adding a loose upright piano to Barr’s guitar, Marc Friedman’s fluid bass playing and Andrew Barr’s superlative drumming, there were plenty of these moments to go around, but never too far and always to the point. For the most part, the band found a nice Bill Withers-esque compromise between acoustic-fronted folk and swinging grooves. The single tambourine that seemed to get passed around to every suit-wearing musician onstage at one point or another best summed up the sound. One thing was certain: This isn’t just a side-project any more. —A. Stein
Bad Lieutenant Comes to Webster Hall
April 16th, 2010
First there was Joy Division, the English post-punk pioneers of the late ’70s fronted by the troubled Ian Curtis. He unsuccessfully tried to deal with depression and epilepsy and, ultimately, committed suicide the day before the band’s first American tour was scheduled to begin. So the three remaining members, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner, decided to carry on—combining their post-punk roots with electronica to much acclaim—under the name New Order. That highly influential group put out eight albums and weathered a hiatus before ultimately breaking up. So Sumner got together with Phil Cunningham and Jake Evans and the trio became Bad Lieutenant, and they put out their first album, Never Cry Another Tear, last year. “I’m very proud of it,” said Sumner. “It’s a very good album. It’s pretty guitar-y because we’ve got three guitars in the band.” They’ve since put out a few singles and are playing Coachella tomorrow. But since that’s far from here, you’re in luck because Bad Lieutenant (above, performing “Sink or Swim” and “Bizarre Love Triangle”) plays Webster Hall Next Wednesday.
Liars – The Bowery Ballroom – April 15, 2010
April 16th, 2010
The Low Anthem Brings Old-Sounding, New Songs to The Bowery
April 15th, 2010The Low Anthem – The Bowery ballroom – April 14, 2010
Last night the tremendously talented Providence, R.I., band the Low Anthem played a terrific show at The Bowery Ballroom. The hairy, hat-wearing foursome (well, the three guys)—frontman Ben Knox Miller, Jocie Adams, Jeff Prystowsky and Mat Davidson—switched and traded instruments, with skins, reeds, strings (acoustic, electric and upright), plus a pump organ, crotales and even a God damn saw, all night long. Playing music that seems straight out of The Basement Tapes—Davidson plays the guitar like Robbie Robertson, jangly elbows and bending at the waist included—the band made its way through quiet, beautiful songs, like the set’s opener, “Ticket Taker,” and “To Ohio” (from their most recent release, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin), and rambling, rousing tunes, like the full-on electric, rollicking cover of “Cigarettes, Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women” and the show-closing “The Horizon Is a Beltway.”
Miller, whose voice effortlessly shifts from light and ethereal, like on “Ticket Taker” and “Charlie Darwin,” to something reminiscent of Tom Waits’ growl, as on “Home I’ll Never Be” (written by Waits) and “The Horizon Is a Beltway,” said the group has several new songs that will come out on a new album in September. They played a few of the new tracks, including one about love in an apothecary with the line “She shot me with whiskey and chased me with gin.”
Highlights included a stellar cover of “Evangeline,” with the band circled around a microphone, doing a four-part harmony to the accompaniment of Miller on acoustic guitar and Davidson on the fiddle, and the haunting dirge “This God Damn House.” Miller asked those in the crowd to take out their cell phones “and call whoever you go to concerts with and put both phones on speaker,” which resulted in a pretty cool effect of the song being amplified throughout the venue. This music is different than the majority of what you hear today, and you shouldn’t miss the Low Anthem the next time they come to town. —R. Zizmor
Surprise Me Mr. Davis Comes to Mercury Lounge
April 15th, 2010
In 2003, singer-songwriter Nathan Moore visited the avant-rock trio the Slip in their Boston apartment when a blizzard hit. Snowed in, the musicians did what they do best, play music. When one person would ask another what to play, the answer was invariably “Surprise me.” Add some recording equipment to the mix—and a wrong-number message to Moore, addressing him as “Mr. Davis”—and Surprise Me Mr. Davis was born. A self-titled electronic-folk debut followed in 2004 and the band toured the Northeast. Now they’re back with a new seven-track EP, That Man Eats Morning for Breakfast, which brings them to Mercury Lounge on Saturday. So check them out above, playing “One Sick Knave,” and then see them in person in just two days.
Third Eye Blind – The Wellmont Theatre – April 13, 2010
April 14th, 2010
Red Sparowes Flood Mercury Lounge with Instrumentals
April 14th, 2010Red Sparowes – Mercury Lounge – April 13, 2010
If you’re going to tackle weighty conceptual arguments like mankind’s inevitable sixth extinction, then you’re going to need some time to do it. Red Sparowes are no strangers to tackling sprawling instrumental soundtracks, and they continue to compose epic-length tracks on their most recent full-length, The Fear Is Excruciating and Therein Lies the Answer, which made up most of their set at Mercury Lounge last night. The lineup has slightly changed since their last tour four years ago, but the projected disconnected doomsday-science imagery was still a part of their live set.
Without any discernible vocals, the audience was left with only a grainy black-and-white film and massive song titles to guide them, like “Finally, as That Blazing Sun Shone Down Upon Us Did We Know That True Enemy Was the Voice of Blind Idolatry; and Only Then Did We Begin to Think for Ourselves.” The songs are as immense as the full-volume assault a trio of guitars can produce. The band isn’t out to impress anyone with technical competence. They have nothing to prove, and they let the mammoth instrumentals stretch out and run. If you find yourself drifting off a little bit in the middle of “Annihilate the Sparrow, That Stealer of Seed, and Our Harvests Will Abound; We Will Watch Our Wealth Flood In,” it’s nothing against Red Sparowes. I imagine you might have had the same experience 100 years ago in a classical concert hall.
When music is presented in this pure form, the most challenging thing is to evoke a feeling with nothing but amplified vibrating strings and thundering drums. As great as it is to have this intimacy with the band only a few feet away, in some ways it felt counter-intuitive to see them there, because their sound is meant to be blasted over open savannas—or at the very least outdoor shows. But, still, you go into Mercury Lounge expecting a journey, from overwhelming hair-raising metal to delicate, plodding slide-steel guitar. And that’s what sets Red Sparowes apart from other post-rock instrumentalists: They are attempting a grand gesture in the inherently universal emotional nature of music. —Jason Dean
Win Tickets to See Kaki King Tomorrow Night
April 14th, 2010
Katherine Elizabeth King, who performs under the name Kaki King, learned to play the guitar at a young age, but she basically abandoned it after discovering the drums, which she played in high school bands. But while at NYU, King rediscovered the guitar, occasionally playing shows and sometimes even busking on subway platforms. She cut a demo in 2002, which gained her some attention, and released her debut, Everybody Loves You, the following year. But things really took off in 2007: King appeared on albums by Foo Fighters and Tegan and Sara, plus she contributed music to Sean Penn’s Into the Wild and appeared in the flick August Rush. Her most recent album, Junior, came out yesterday, and to celebrate Kaki King (above, performing “Playing with Pink Noise” on Late Show with David Letterman) is playing Music Hall of Williamsburg tomorrow and The Bowery Ballroom on Friday. And The House List is giving away tickets to tomorrow’s Music Hall show. Want to go? Just fill out the form below, including your name, e-mail address, which show you’re trying to win tickets to (Kaki King, 4/15) and a brief message explaining why you deserve to go. The winner will be notified tomorrow. Good luck.
