The dealers who will be present at the DC Record Fair have been announced. As always, the Record Fair is brought to you by Som Records, DC Soul Recordings, and TVD. The DC Record Fair will be held at the Brightest Young Thing’svitaminwater® uncapped LIVE space at 2217 14th Street NW on Saturday, June 4th 11am-5pm.
1- Neal Becton/Som Records
2- Chris Knott
3- Kevin Coombe/DC Soul Recordings
4- Tim Harris (VA)
5- Red Onion
6- Tom Engle
7- John Stanton (NY)
8- Richard Harrington
9- Tony A. (PA)
10- Smash Records
11- Jimmy Blackford (VA)
12- Chaim O’Brien
13- Dori Hadar
14- Johnathan Hartley
15- Chris Armbruster
16- Oldie Al
17- Memory Lane
18- Joe’s Record Paradise
19- Mike Murphy (VA)
20- CD Cellar (VA)
21- Aaron Vandeursen
22- CD Game Exchange
23- Scott Silberman
24- Gary (Gees Records) (CT)
25- Ryan Pieper (VA)
26- Jenn Bress (TVD)/William Alberque (BYT)
27- Nate Lewis (Tee Shirts)
28- Christian Sturgis (Representing the Historic Globe Poster Company)
29- Rich Bernett (Record Fair Poster Designer)
Last week’s WIS got nice props from TBD, exploring whether or not Bill will sell the “holy grail” of records, The Beatle’s “Butcher Album” that he found in a recent acquisition. Read the TBD post to find out why he’s keeping it.
Satellite Stories hail from Oulu in Finland and have been playing together since 2008. Their jingly-jangy sound, bouncing indie tunes and dynamic stage performances have built them a strong live following in their home country.
Previously the chaps have been seen hanging around the top 10 of the prestigious Hype Machine chart as well as having a track placed onto the MTV show Jersey Shore.
We slung a few question over to them up front of their summer shows and the release of their track Family.
Tell me what’s going on in Finland right now music-wise?
There’s going to be a great summer for the fans of Finnish indie music. French Films, Big Wave Riders and of course we are releasing new music this summer. Our band will also play on three major Finnish festivals so we can also see the other bands there. I’m mostly looking forward of seeing The Vaccines at Provinssirock. We also have a HUGE release party for our new single 4th of June at Oulu.
Are there any locals bands are you currently fans of?
We like local Oulu band called Reetta. They play Finnish pop with such a craft and style that they are always good band to watch and listen.
Have you any plans to get to the UK?
We’d love to play in UK! But we still haven’t gotten a gig there. We’ll come there ASAP if we get a chance.
You have a new track out in the Spring, tell us about that.
Family is now available to listen to at our website and on the 14th of June you can buy it from your local mp3-store. I would describe Family a movie-like piece of youthful pondering. It’s about how you live in the present but you still have to think about some possibilities what the future could bring. And it is also a pop song in vein of more energetic songs of The Wombats and Vampire Weekend. We are also proud of the little Phoenix-shuffle we have going around the song.
It says in some of your press material that you are ‘currently unsigned’. Do you think a band needs to be signed or can you reach you goals without aligning yourself to a label?
A label is important because people who work on a record label have important contacts. Music industry is nowadays all about networking. I don’t say it isn’t possible to make your band popular without record label, but it helps things to happen.
I believe you also run your own blog in Finland, how does that fit into your plans?
Our music blog started on a idea that there’s so many bands we like but no-one to tell about them. Blogging is about networking and such-and-such and now I’ve even met couple of music bloggers who live in a different side of the country! The plan is quite simple, we like music and a blog is just an extension of that expression.
What bands, would you say have influenced your music most?
There’s four bands which we all like: The Wombats, Vampire Weekend, Two Door Cinema Club and Phoenix. We all have our individual influences that affect to our music. Olli-Pekka (drummer) and Esa (singer) have a huge electronic music background. Olli-Pekka has made trance over 10 years and Esa has a club in Oulu which is devoted to new electronic dance music. Jyri (bassist) knows more about rap and folk than anyone else in our band. I’m the only one in our band that likes more classic indie rock like Sonic Youth and Pavement. Olli-Pekka and me have recently also started to like chillwave!
Where do you hope to be this time next year?
We’re hoping to be at the airport, just starting our European tour.
Finally, sum up the sound of Satellite Stories in 8 words or less…
Four guys making racket, sounds like a party.
Fort Knox Recordings and The Vinyl District are proud to present Memorial Weekend Blowout at U Street Music Hall this Sunday night, May 29th. Get your summer started off right, and blow out that three day weekend with the best DC funk, soul, reggae, and dub beats.
On the thirtieth anniversary of Bob Marley’s death, I got a little history lesson from the “book of See-I.” See-I is the name of a DC-bred “party band,” including five members of Thievery Corporation, that got its inspiration from the likes of reggae, delta blues, Southern California funk, dub, and so on and so forth. Before his regular show at the 18th Street Lounge, lead vocalist Archie “Zeebo” Steele shed a little light on himself, his brother Arthur (“Rootz”) and their origins. See-I release their self-titled debut album via Fort Knox Recordingson June 28th, and they headline the UHall Memorial Weekend Blowout this Sunday night.
As a musician influenced by reggae, how has Bob Marley’s influence affected you as a singer?
I would definitely say he is one of our teachers. And a big influence on the way See-I look at music. “Rootz,” my brother, was the one that actually got into Bob Marley, first. In school is [when I discovered him]. I remember when I first recognized Bob Marley. I heard the song “I Shot The Sheriff.” I thought it was [originally] an Eric Clapton song. I was like, whoa!
You know, Bob Marley, to me, made learning interesting. I became inquisitive, asking questions I’d never asked before. He made me think about [circumstances] that I looked at in one way, stuff from different angles. Once I got his music, it was like living in an illusion until you start to actually see through the layers and get to [society’s] nucleus.
Memphis has some pretty great music festivals, if you think about it. We get Gonerfest in the fall, Memphis in Mud in the spring (if that’s your thing), and this year marked the inaugural multi-venue and ambiguous-to-pronounce Fareveller Festival. Something for everyone, right?
Well, no. For there rest of us, there’s this weekend.
Barreling in like a steamroller of angst through a preschool is the third annual Memphis Hates You Fest, and it will definitely knock whatever is left of your pathetic, holey and tattered socks off, before it punches you in the stomach and takes your milk money. And calls your sister fat.
This is not your father’s music.
What you have here is a collective of bands that are “Memphis-based, generally misanthropic, generally opinionated, and generally misunderstood and ignored.” That’s how festival organizer Nathan Raab puts it. I’d call it brutal.
Friday, May 28, 2011: MHY Fest Featuring Sons of Tonatuih, Epoch of Unlight, Incineration, Cremains, Ragpicker, Process of Suffocation and Galaxicon at Hi Tone Cafe, 7 PM
Definitely the more metal of the two nights at Hi Tone, this one will have something for every metalhead out there – Doom metal, post metal, black metal, death metal, grindcore, sludge metal. If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, look up any one of these bands… or all of them. You want to see all of this.
Saturday, May 29, 2011: MHY Fest Featuring Music Hates You, Gypsy Hawk, The Dirty Streets, Hosoi Bros, These Wolves are Robots, The Heavy Eyes and Saurus at Hi Tone Cafe, 7 PM
Gypsy Hawk is coming in all the way from Pasadena for this show, and Music Hates You is from Atlanta, where the Memphis bands involved with this collective receive a warm reception on the regular. Expect plenty of metal mayhem from these two bands, but come early to see the punk/protopunk/stoner rock/stoner metal/psych rock from the lineup preceding them.
Sunday, May 30, 2011: MHY Fest Featuring The Unbeheld, Randolph Robinson + Band, Youniverse, Tanks, Dead-I-On, Chinamen and Blackset at The Buccaneer Lounge, 7 PM
Sunday night’s show is the most potpourri of the three, with all Memphis acts ranging from stoner and experimental metal to punk, alt rock and even alt country. Stick around for Randolph and The Unbeheld – two of this author’s favorites to see in Memphis.
You all have Monday off. So why not go out all three nights and see some of the best of what Memphis (And Pasadena, and Atlanta) has to offer? Don’t expect your face to be intact once it’s over with, but don’t let that stop you either.
It’s Memorial Day weekend. For most that means 3 days of rest, BBQ’ing and live music. Let me help you out with live music suggestions because y’all know how to rest and I hope you know how to BBQ. If you don’t, shame on you! This is Texas!
Start the weekend off right with Night Fever!. Night Fever, brought to you by Strange Tribe Productions and Soul of the Boot Entertainment, is a Hip-Hop themed party with 4 of Austin’s finest purveyors of classic hip-hop doing a 2 x 4 Tag Team set. Nick Nack’s been on the scene for years in ATX. Also on the bill is DJ Chorizo Funk, Kid Slyce, and DJ Crown. There will also be live art by B.E. Strange. The fun kicks off at 9pm down at the Copa Bar & Grill (217 Congress Ave).
Here’s some more music assistance for the rest of your weekend and beyond.
Last April we were delighted to premiereValentiger’s video for the track “Frozen Dozing” and they’re back today with a brand new video—and a brand new premiere.
“The video for Valentiger’s “Oh My God! This Weekend” is a compilation of footage from Valentiger’s March 2011 tour to SXSW. Most the video was filmed by HalfwayHouseMusic.com’s Chris Ziebarth or by the boys themselves.
After returning home from tour Scott Rider (drums) spent hours going through footage looking for clips to use for the video. The concept is simple, a look into the life of a touring band trying to create a name for themselves. For Valentiger, this is a three minute compilation of footage looking back at three weeks of long nights, inside jokes, and good friends. Hopefully the viewers of “Oh My God! This Weekend” can appreciate a glimpse of this rare and fairly private footage.
Valentiger could not tour or put out material with out the help of their great friends, family, and fans. Thank you so much for all your support over the years.”
Lots of folks may be heading out of town for Memorial Day weekend, but there is still plenty of music happening in New Orleans.
Tonight, the Radiators play for the last time at the Maple Leaf Bar. It’s a full circle kind of feeling for lots of old “school” fishheads including your scribe. The Maple Leaf Bar was the first place that I saw the Radiators perform back in 1979. During the band’s major label heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were too popular to play at the tiny bar. But over the last few years the watering hole on Oak Street has again become a popular place on the band’s itinerary. There is just something about the place that inspires musicians to bring it on.
If you’re not inclined to head to the Leaf or are more in the mindset of giving something back, then you must head to the Howlin’ Wolf for the Save PBS Benefit. No, it’s not another threat on public television, PBS stands for Porter, Batiste and Stoltz—as in George Porter Jr., Russell Batiste and Brian Stoltz—three of the most amazing funk players on the planet and members of the Funky Meters.
The band’s former management company is suing them, they are suing back and the whole thing is a gigantic legal cluster bomb. The worst-case scenario is that Porter Jr. could loose control of his financial stake in the Meters catalog. Those seminal songs, which have been sampled countless times, represent a significant part of his future income and in my opinion the loss would be similar in a sense to when Michael Jackson bought the Beatles catalog except that the members of the Beatles had other sources of income. Porter Jr. essentially supports himself by playing music. The catalog is his retirement fund. Support the cause!
Saturday night, my choice for musical entertainment is going down at Tipitina’s. Johnny Vidacovich (pictured) and Stanton Moore used to have a different relationship—that of teacher and student. But now the two drummers are sympathetic peers and have forged a bond of mutual appreciation and respect. Their New Thing doesn’t perform that often and a chance to see these two stalwarts mirroring each other on separate drum kits is a vision worth experiencing again.
They are expecting numerous special guests, as the show is also an early celebration of Vidacovich’s 62nd birthday. Anders Osborne, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Jumpin Johnny Sansone,and Cyril Neville are billed but many other notable musicians are likely to jump into the fray.
Multi-instrumental, experimental Philly rock band Man Manhits up Black Cat next weekend, Friday, June 3rd, and we have a chance for you to win not only a pair of tickets but also their latest LP Life Fantastic that was just released two weeks ago via ANTI- Records, produced by Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Monsters of Folk).
Frontman Honus Honus has said about the album, “The songs were fully-formed entities by the time we got to Mike’s studio, but he was there to say things like, ‘OK, that’s a bit too much.’ He was able to help us carve the beauty out of the chaos we brought. It wasn’t whittling down the points; it was sharpening them so they’d puncture even deeper.”
ANTI- is currently streaming the title track “Life Fantastic” on Soundcloud:
Man Man | Life Fantastic
All of the members of Man Man go by pseudonyms: Honus Honus, Pow Pow, Chang Wang, Turkey Moth, and Jefferson.
To win the tickets, tell us in the comments below, your fake musician name. Mine has been Lady O long before there was a Gaga.
The winner will be chosen Tuesday (5/31) at noon and must confirm his or her mailing address by Wednesday (6/1) at 9am because hard tickets will be sent to you with the LP. Take the album with you and try to snag an autograph!
The Dig get around. They have toured with many respectable bands including The Editors, The Joy Formidable, The Walkmen and now, Scottish indie band, Glasvegas. A lot of positive buzz brought this band to my attention, plus a comment from a good friend who compared their likeness with The Walkmen, so I arrived early and snagged a bar stool to check them out. The place was not packed, but at 9pm on a Tuesday evening, this was not a shocker.
Seeing the The Dig live, one might close their eyes to imagine a suited up gaggle of Paul Banks oogling back at them, but The Dig are more than just an Interpol impression. Their songs are textured with layered distortion at times and climax with rhythmic satisfaction. Singer David Balwin lends a bit of Jonathan Fire Eater charm to some of their catchier songs, but they never reach the arty angst that The Walkmen dutifully master. These boys are young, and at times there is an awkwardness to the performance that suggests this might be their second performance ever. Until the last song they played, it was in such direct contrast to their entire set. It stuck out like a sore thumb, a blues-rock college bar tune with lots of fun clapping that seemed odd in contrast to their previous songs.
Pocketed behind the arresting emotional climax of each song is a sincerity that every girl wants in first date. That’s the thing, The Dig play out like a pretty good first date; they charm you, they flirt with you, they tease you emotionally and then beg to see you again, on June 11th at the Red Palace, where you can meet their friends, The Postelles.
James Allan is not Bono, so why is he suddenly just as pompous? Taking to the stage minus the dramatic lights and fog that complimented the self-titled Glasvegas album so well, the band now seem like they are a caricature of themselves. When I saw them in 2007 (I think it was), the dense fog and dramatic stage presence complimented the dramatic allure of Allan’s vocals. Oh sweet salvation, his voice is like a bathtub full of Nutella, sultry velvet cream that I want to lather my entire body in. Sadly, it’s evident that the UK success of their first album (deservingly so) has gone to his head. He struts around stage like A Clockwork Orange’s Alex parading songs off of Euphoric///Heartbreak\\\ around like a beating stick.
I am listening to “Barnacles” daily since I received Laura Stevenson and the Cans’Sit Resist (heavy with horns and a catchy rolling rhythm), “Scrape these barnacles I am utterly yours / take my lack of control and swallow it whole / break my excuses to leave over your boney knees and / free me free me free me free me / I am utterly yours.” The album is great from start to finish, reflective, powerful, and engaging.
I am eager to see Laura Stevenson and the Cans tonight at Black Cat. Briefly worried I might lose my excitement in relentlessly reviewing albums and shows, listening to Laura singing atypical alternative rock-country with a resistant attitude rekindled that excitement. Don’t miss one of the best female “indie” vocalists—big mistake.
Check out this new documentary short featuring The Bo-Keys. The band’s new record Got To Get Back! is set for a June 21st release on Electraphonic Recordings.
Who are The Sparkleberries? Well, they hail from that musical hotbed of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, an area that, when combined with neighbouring Raleigh and Durham, became known as ‘the triangle’. Old timey, traditional, ragtime, blues and bluegrass were the region’s predominant exports for years, but in the past few decades the area has given us artists as diverse as James Taylor, Southern Culture On The Skids, Flat Duo Jets, Superchunk, Corrosion Of Conformity, Polvo, Ben Folds Five and others.
The late ’70s / early ‘80s scene saw Vinyl District faves Peter Holsapple & The H-Bombs, Chris Stamey & the dB’s (a band Holsapple would later join), The Connells and Dillon Fence take the energy of the punk scene and infuse melodic rock and roll with a sense of purpose to spearhead the power pop / new wave movement. This would be a good reference point for The Sparkleberries, particularly as Stamey is part of a rotating crew of musicians who play under that banner heading. It’s Stamey’s fluid lead and driving rhythm guitar playing that illuminate ‘Skylight Exchange’, the debut release by this loosely termed band, an outfit led by vocalist / rhythm guitarist Ken Kleinfeld.
The record itself is a delight, and despite the aforementioned reference points, it’s not easily categorisable. Perhaps that should be left to Kleinfeld himself, who describes his own songs as ‘…what might have resulted had Lou Reed read more P.G. Wodehouse and less Delmore Schwarz, and then took charge of the Lovin’ Spoonful’. Now how can you resist that?!
It’s here! After a five year absence, the HoZac Blackout Fest is returning to Chicago this Friday! The fest will be moving from its previous home at the Empty Bottle to the slightly larger Velvet Perineum (2515 N. Milwaukee Ave) in Logan Square, and condensing down to two action packed nights instead of the 4-6 day epic bacchanalia of years past. Taking place this Friday the 27th and Saturday 28th, with pre-fest art show tonight, the Blackout is not to be missed!
A slew great bands have been lined up for the fest including the Nervous Eaters, who will be reuniting to make their first Chicago appearance in over 30 years. Formed in early 1977, they were one of the first punk bands on the Boston scene. Original copies of their 1979 single Just Head have become a coveted collector’s item, and the track has been covered by garage greats like Teengenerate and The New Bomb Turks. Their song Loretta was covered by Neko Case on her 2004 album The Tigers Have Spoken.
Being that HoZac is a record label, a good portion of the lineup is a showcase of their spectacular roster. Notable inclusions are Reading Rainbow, Radar Eyes, K-Holes, Nobunny, Heavy Times, Outer Minds, and Mickey, who’ll be releasing their debut LP on the fest’s first night. Tickets are available at TicketWeb, Friday night will run you $20, and Saturday $30. A limited number of two-day Golden Tickets will be available for $45, saving you a couple bucks. Full fest lineup after the jump… Read More »
