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Jennifer O'Connor at Maxwell's in 2009 (more by Toby Tenenbaum)

As mentioned, indie rock vets Come reissued their debut LP, Eleven: Eleven, earlier this month (5/7) and they're supporting that reissue with a tour. And since we last spoke, openers have been announced for that tour. The NYC show, which happens on June 28 at Bowery Ballroom, will be opened by Come's Matador labelmate Jennifer O'Connor. Tickets for that show are still available. It's Jennifer's only announced date at the moment.

Updated Come dates are listed, along with some videos, below...

Continue reading "Jennifer O'Connor opening for Come (updated dates)" at brooklynvegan

Bleary San Diego rockers Crocodiles released Endless Flowers, their last album, just one year ago, and they’ve already announced plans to release Crimes Of Passion, its follow-up, due later this summer. Crocodiles frontman Brandon Welchez is married to Dum Dum Girls leader Dee Dee, and for this album, Crocodiles recruited a frequent Dum Dums collaborator, the Raveonettes, Sune Rose Wagner, to serve as producer. “Cockroach” is the first song we’ve heard from Crimes Of Passion, and it adds just a touch of polish to the band’s druggy roar. Download the song below.

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Tom Petty at MSG in 2008 (more by Eric M. Townsend)

today in NYC
* Onra @ Le Bain
* Whiplash @ UCB
* Brain Cloud @ Barbes
* Chicha Libre @ Barbes
* Doron Sadja @ Roulette
* John Hodgman @ Union Hall
* Majical Cloudz @ Other Music
* French Montana @ Fuse Studios
* Doug Benson @ Gramercy Theatre
* Andy D, Sofa Club, Ferns @ Glasslands
* Snowmine, Ski Lodge @ Mercury Lounge
* Laura Mvula, Foy Vance @ Bowery Ballroom
* Portugal. The Man, Royal Bangs @ Irving Plaza
* Colour Buk, Patrick Cole, Ultrabunny @ Big Snow
* Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers @ Beacon Theater
* Other Comfort, The People's Temple @ Cake Shop
* The Kin, Tall Tall Trees, Hayley Coupon @ Cameo Gallery
* Reverend Vince Anderson and His Love Choir @ Union Pool
* Jonathan Batiste and The Stay Human Band @ McKittrick Hotel
* Giorgio Moroder, T. Williams, Benjamin Damage, Francois K @ Output
* Elizabeth & The Catapult, Sullivan, Daniel Wayne @ Rockwood Music Hall
* Haunted Leather, Electric Citizen, The Electric Set, Ocean View @ Death By Audio
* Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Fitz and the Tantrums, DJ Cassidy @ Roseland Ballroom
* Wyatt Cenac, Chris Gethard, D.C. Benny, Seth Herzog, Ryam Hamilton, Jules Posner @ Littlefield
* Jonas Reinhardt, OdO (of Forma), Angus Tarnawsky & Shelley Burgon, 51717, Jacob Gorchov @ Rich Lane

Tonight's the first of Tom Petty & the He...

The label shares 40-seconds of music with a vague promise of something more tomorrow.

The brief clip features some hypnagogic sounds with shades of both Jacques Greene and How To Dress Well. While both names are flashed on-screen, it’s unclear whether this is a collaboration or a joint release. More as we have it.

Jacques Greene recently

Portland, OR's Eat Skull were once known for the sort of blown-out punk some called shitgaze but the band have begun turning the levels down to 9.3 and the band's move from Siltbreeze to Woodsist is telling. Eat Skull III, which came out back in February on Woodsist, is on the jangly side with forays into weird synth postpunk, plus melodies and everything. You can stream vaguely tropical "How Do I Know When To Say Goodnight?" as well as the whole album via Spotify, below.

Eat Skull are currently on a tour that will hit NYC this week for two shows: Wednesday (5/22) at 285 Kent with Total Slacker, Vaz, and Call of the Wild (who also play with Weed soon); and Thursday (5/23) at The Flat with Modra and The Abandos. All tour dates are listed below.

Continue reading "Portland band Eat Skull released new LP on Woodsist, on tour, playing two NYC shows this week (dates, streams)" at brooklynvegan

by Andrew Sacher

Vancouver's Weed make the kind of sludgy, melodic rock that bands like California X have also been helping to revive lately, and if you liked Cali X's album, or you know, Dinosaur Jr., this band is for you. They've got a few EPs/singles under their belt, including 2012's Gun Control, and their debut album, Deserve, will be out this July via Couple Skate Records. The album's first single, "Set Me Back," is less lo-fi than the band's past releases and even more hooky. Check it out below.

Weed are currently on a tour with Cascadia which comes to NYC this month for a show at Death by Audio on May 29 with Call of the Wild (who also play with Eat Skull soon) and Giant Peach. Admission for that show is $7 at the door.

All dates are listed, along with the song stream, below...

Continue reading "Weed releasing an LP (stream a track), on tour now (dates)" at brooklynvegan

“It’s easier to think you’re no fun,” Cullen Omori pines in “3am Spiritual”, the latest offering from Smith Westerns’ forthcoming third studio album, Soft Will. It’s melancholy in areas, but mostly a feel good jam that evolves as it ages, sounding like a latter-era Beatles track: think “A Day in the Life” or “Something”. Stream below.

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/92659903" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

Soft Will is due out June 25th via Mom + Pop. The Chicago outfit will support the album with a North American tour this summer, the complete itinerary you can peep right after the tracklist.

Soft Will Tracklist:
01. 3am Spiritual
02. Idol
03. Glossed
04. XXIII
05. Fool Proof
06. White Oath
07. Only Natural
08. Best Friend
09. Cheer Up
10. Varsity

Smith Westerns 2013 Tour Dates:
07/19  - Madison, WI @ Live on King St
07/21

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Mr. Hansen plays ‘Sorry’ and ‘Heaven’s Ladder’ at Santa Cruz, California’s Rio Theatre.

On July 4, Beck will bring together Pulp

If Sun was Koreless’ foray into Phillip Glass territory, then new one Last Remnants, from the Yugen EP out today, is a touch more John Carpenter. Emotive synths and delicately pretty xylophones are like a stroll through a cherry blossom garden in Japanese summertime:

Don’t be hoodwinked by the name – if you’re looking for a band that’s impossible to doze to, Zs are the fellas.

Formed by disillusioned jazz students Sam Hillmer and Alex Mincek at the Manhattan School Of Music, the Brooklyn outfit have spent the last decade-odd building a channel of communication between the city’s high music circles and art-rock scene. Over the years, they’ve proved themselves to be eternal halfway men, determined to outrun expectations and evade purchase. They’ve undergone regular line-up transfusions, swelling from a duo to a six-piece then downsizing to a trio (Hillmer remains the only constant). They’re a valued (if marginal) part of the NYC jazz conversation, and yet they’ve shared bills and studios with Battles, Gang Gang Dance and Genesis P-Orridge. Their signature sound, honed from 2002-7 and collected on last year’s rapidfire Score box set, is similarly difficult to pin down – a bumper-to-bumper collision of free-jazz, prog and US hardcore, simultaneously venomous and prim. Subsequent releases have seen them sprint into even more unusual territory: witness 2010′s thundering New Slaves, a scandalously underrated noise-rock record.

New EP Grain marks another change in personnel, with saxophonist Hillmer joining forces with guitarist Patrick Higgins and drummer Greg Fox. As with so much of the Zs&#821...

Bloomington, Indiana’s Dylan Ettinger returns in a cloud of smoke with the gloomy dark-wave of brand new single ‘The Pale Mare’.

The producer has jumped seamlessly from the new-agey lo-fi of FACT favourite New Age Outlaws to his more recent dalliances with electro pop, and ‘The Pale Mare’ continues this in earnest. Made up of nearly unrecognizable echoing vocals and the kind of thick analogue bass sounds that only emanate from gear that sometimes doesn’t like to turn on in the morning, the single might be a throwback to the dark wave days of yore, but it’s a damn good one.

‘The Pale Mare’ is taken from a split 7″ single with Goldendust, and is out now via DKA Records.

It’s genuinely not easy to keep track of the Stone Temple Pilots family tree: The band’s instrumental core (brothers Dean and Robert DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz) have now parted ways with vocalist Scott Weiland three times. In 1997, they went on hiatus, which led to Weiland releasing a solo album, while the DeLeos and Kretz formed Talk Show, with vocalist Dave Coutts. STP re-formed in 1998, only to split again in 2002, after which Weiland joined up with a handful of Guns N’ Roses castoffs to form Velvet Revolver, while the DeLeos teamed up with Filter vocalist Richard Patrick to form Army Of Anyone. STP got back together again in 2008, only to split once more, earlier this year, when the DeLeos and Kretz unceremoniously fired Weiland. Now STP has joined with another veteran vocalist — Chester Bennington of Linkin Park.

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Over the weekend, Tame Impala announced that following a performance at Belvoir Amphitheatre on Saturday night (5/18), bassist Nick Allbrook would no longer be a member of the band, citing a need for time to “try and screw his head back on, and make an attempt to assimilate back into society.” Allbrook is also the frontman of psych band Pond and will continue to play with them, while Pond member Cam Avery replaces Allbrook in Tame Impala. The band kindly wrote of the lineup change, “Anyone who saw us during the Allbrook-era will know how awesome Nick is, so Cam has big shoes to fill…We’re super happy for our bro Nick and wish him well in all his various fucking awesome artistic spewings and endeavours that he’ll actually have time for now. Good on ya brah.” Allbrook spoke to NME to explain that his departure is truly one of work-overload: “All bands and projects and stuff will keep going, it’s just hard to keep them all going if you’re touring all the time…The only bad part will be not seeing my mates every day. I love them more than anything.”

Pond will release LP Hobo Rocket on 8/16 via Modular.

With a pair of aggressively mindbending new songs, a fascinating video-projected-on-buildings PR stunt, and a powerful SNL performance, Kanye West pretty much owned the weekend. And now, we learn that the cover of his new album, hilariously titled Yeezus, is basically a jewel-case scribble, half-rendered in melted gold. The album’s cover art debuted, as all good things do, on Kim Kardashian’s Instagram, and it’s since been confirmed. And the 14-track LP is now up for pre-order on iTunes, though we still haven’t seen the tracklist or anything like that.

Yeezus is out 6/18, and I cannot wait.