Good news for fans of the now defunct venue, The Knitting Factory: they have just announced that they will be set to reopen in a smaller space in Williamsburg in early September. The new venue will be located at 361 Metropolitan Avenue, in the former space of the Luna Lounge. The Knitting Factory originally opened in 1987 on the Lower East side on East Houston Street, and developed a following for its eclectic mix of jazz, avant-garde, and rock music performances. This allowed the owners to move to a larger space in Tribeca in 1994. Its lease on the space expired in July, so the move to Williamsburg has been in the works for a while.
On their opening night of September 9th, the new club will present Brooklyn band Les Savy Fav. The group formed back in 1995 while attending the Rhode Island School of Design. The current lineup features Tim Harrington on lead vocals, Seth Jabour on guitar, Syd Butler on bass, and Harrison Haynes on drums. Bass player Syd Butler is also the owner of Frenchkiss Records (Passion Pit , Cut Off Your Hands, etc.), who released their latest full-length album Let’s Stay Friends back in 2007. Their live shows are punctuated by the antics of Harrington, who has been know to have multiple on-stage wardrobe changes and frequently kiss audience members, so watch out if you find yourself near the front at the show!
If you happen to be a nerdus maximus and read the WiredScience blog on the regular, you might have seen the piece a month ago about the results published in Science magazine of a 20-year-long study of rhesus monkeys. The study seems to show that “caloric restriction” (i.e. eating less than you “should”) actually produces changes in the body’s metabloic functioning that in turn may serve to lengthen life and increase the quality of life in primates (and maybe humans, too!). This is not entirely new thinking, but “[t]his is the first study to show that caloric restriction slows aging in a primate species. And of course, we’re primates, too. It’s a lot more relevant to humans than the mouse.” Sometimes science just pummels you with common sense. EAT LESS, BE LESS FAT. Maybe not exactly the fountain of youth that the story’s title suggests.
Not like I coughed up any dough for this research, but for my dollar I’d much rather take a sip off of the new “Fountain of Youth” track from Brooklyn’s favorite panty-dropping, party-starting fivesome, Boy Crisis. Part of what the Village Voicejust dubbed the “Wesleyan mafia” along with MGMT, Amazing Baby, Bear Hands (not in the article, surprisingly), Das Racist, and a bunch of others, the group is comprised of Tal Rozen and Victor Vazquez on vocals (Victor is also known as Kool A.D., one half of the DR crew), Alex Kestner on bass and laptop (among other things), Lee Pender on guitar, and Owen Roberts on drums.
The first time I ever heard these guys play, I knew it would only be a matter of time before some major swooped in and picked them up by the spandex, which is exactly what happened last fall when Ben James signed them to B-Unique/Atlantic Records. Since then, the group has spent a lot of time selling their vision of danceable, freaky-deaky, Bowie/George Clinton funkiness to audiences across the pond, including gigs at the Glastonbury and Isle of Wright music festivals. They also had an opening spot for Katy Perry up in Boston recently – here are some great behind-the-scenes photos from our friend Ben Rowland of the show.
Apart from the touring, the boys have also been putting the finishing touches on their first full-length, tentatively titled Tulipomania. I had a chance to listen to a near-finished version of the record a couple of weeks ago, and let me tell you, its “japanties are makin me hot,” to borrow a line from the album’s first single, “Dressed to Digress.” To be honest, I’m not that into the studio-version of “Dressed to Digress” (it sounds a little thinner, bass-wise, than the pre-deal versions), but “L’Homme,” “Ganglion of Lightnings,” and “1981” all sound amazing. But why didn’t “Strawberries” make the album? I guess we can’t have everything we want in life. As to the new fare, I think Victor’s vocal patterns strongly shaped “Murder Murder Murder” and “Sex and Violence,” both of which have similarly sparse openings followed by catchy choruses of tightly rhyming lines. “Bang Bang Bang” sort of follows the same pattern, but with Tal recycling the lyrics from an older song over some horns and super-sleek production. God-damn Boy Crisis is catchy as hell! Essentially, all of the tracks are bangers; I can’t wait for the release.
I think that “Fountain of Youth,” the opener, is probably my favorite (at least of the newer tracks). And though they still haven’t released the actual music video for “Dressed to Digress,” this past weekend the band got together with their friend Jordan Fish to shoot a new music video for “Fountain of Youth” featuring a lot of women “relatively scantily clad” and “covered in paint at some point,” according to the casting call. I can’t give away too many details, but according to one female acquaintance on the set for the shoot, the women are carrying around Tal and Victor on some sort of “chariot.” Check back for updates.
As a video appetizer, last week Boy Crisis posted a link to an “ULTRAVIDEO MEGAMIX” for “Fountain of Youth”, so check it out while you wait for the real video full of scantily clad painted women. Boy Crisis is forever, like Wu-tang!
Boy Crisis – Fountain of Youth:
-Drew
P.S. Boy Crisis wins! It’s EV2BK.com’s 100th post!
Whether or not you will like Providence rock band Deer Tick hinges on how you feel about lead singer John McCauley’s voice. His raspy, booze-soaked sound makes it seem like he’s been around since the 60’s and probably kickin’ it with the likes of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits (judging by his vocals), but he’s actually really young. Deer Tick’s new album Born on Flag Day, was just released in late June on Partisan Records and is being supported by a new tour that kicked off this past Saturday at the Bella Terra Festival in Barrington, MA.
McCauley started the band as a solo project in 2004. Dennis Ryan soon joined the band on drums along with Christopher Dale Ryan on bass and Andrew Tobiassen on lead guitar. Deer Tick’s music is a combination of blues, folk, and grungy country. They released their first studio album, War Elephant, in 2007.
In May 2009 they were the very first band profiled on BriTunes, a new online-only music interview series hosted by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. You can watch his short but pretty cool interview with the band here.
As a fan of both My Morning Jacket and George Harrison, when I heard about the first Jim James solo EP where he covers some of George Harrison’s best songs, I was intrigued. James (the singer, songwriter and guitarist of My Morning Jacket) initially recorded the songs after George Harrison’s death in 2001 as a way of coping with his passing and paying tribute to his music. The resulting EP, Tribute To, is an intimate, beautiful homage that features simply James’ voice over acoustic guitar, and it does not disappoint.
James says that he wasn’t sure that the songs would ever be released until he was approached at a restaurant by animal rights activist, Jenny Brown, who asked him if he could perform a concert to benefit her animal sanctuary in Woodstock, NY. A few months later he decided to release the EP and donate a part of the proceeds to Ms. Brown’s Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. James saw a clear connection to the work of the sanctuary and the life that Harrison, an animal-lover and vegetarian, lived. As he told the Times, “George was one of those people that always seemed to be a good inspiration for other humans, seemed like he was a very socially conscious person, a very responsible person.”
The 6 song EP, released on Tuesday, includes covers of two songs that Harrison wrote for The Beatles, “Long Long Long” and “Love You To,” as well of four songs from Harrison’s critically acclaimed album All Things Must Pass, which was released after The Beatles broke up. You can preview and buy the whole EP here and listen to the original version of “Long Long Long” off of The Beatles White Albumhere. “Long Long Long” is, in my opinion, one of the great Beatles love songs and it’s often overlooked in their extensive catalog of hits. This cover is sure to remind people how beautiful Harrison’s lyrics really were.
Yim Yames – Long Long Long:
The above spelling is not a typo, by the way. Jim James decided to go by the moniker “Yim Yames” for his solo projects, I guess as a joke or something? Whatever makes you laugh dude…
Yesterday a friend of mine out in San Francisco sent me a link to this song called “Hit Me On Twitter” by Mistah F.A.B., and it sent me off on a train of thought about the use of various social networking sites in recent rap jams. Even more broadly, it made me start to think about all of the songs that heavily feature some new, cool, technology in the chorus. Does this sort of usage cause a rise or decline in popularity of the social network/technology? Or does it only occur once the social network/technology has reached a certain societal saturation level? I honestly think that it might be possible to reconstruct the evolution of technology, and the popularity of that technoolgy within the culture, by “reading” rap songs.
I’m sure that this has already been contemplated by various stoned white dudes over the years, and I’m not about to try to get into it on a Thesis Paper level of research or detail, but here’s a couple of examples (in text or video) of what I’m getting at, starting with pagers, just to get the conversation started:
Big L – Lyric from “Ebonics”:
“Hit me on the hip means page me”
Lil Scrappy & G’$ Up – Cell Phone Watch:
J-Shin ft. T-Pain – Send Me an Email:
(Anyone who watches A Shot At Love on MTV will notice the Tila Tequila cameo in there)
Brandon T. Jackson ft. T-Pain (?) – What’s Yo Myspace:
(haha I love the part where he starts naming hot celebrity females that he wants to become friends with on Myspace: “Lindsay Lohan, put me in your Top 8!”…also this always comes up as T-Pain, but that just doesn’t sound right to me. Dude ALREADY has a song about emails… one is enough)
Mistah F.A.B. – Hit Me On Twitter:
And honestly, I compiled that list just off the top of the dome. I think this needs to be explored further. Someone want to call up Marcyliena Morgan at Harvard and get her on the case? I smell a best-seller here.
Know any other songs that would fit the bill? Then post it in the comments, already!
According to reports this afternoon, former President Bill Clinton’s trip to North Korea to try to secure the release of two journalists imprisoned there has been successful. The reclusive, ailing, and by most accounts criminally deranged North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is said to have granted “a special pardon” for the two American journalists – Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36 – after they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for entering North Korea illegally. The journalists were on assignment for Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, researching a report about the human trafficking of North Korean women and the refugees who had fled to China. The two journalists were detained by soldiers on March 17th near the North Korea/China border, were sentenced in June, and have been in prison since.
As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs explained in a statement cited in the Times, “While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment. We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton’s mission.” The Obama administration has tried to keep its diplomatic campaign regarding nuclear weapons separate from this case, emphasizing that this is a humanitarian issue. As Hillary Clinton explained “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.” We’re with you, Hillary.
Today’s Jam is all about the urgent desire to get home as quickly as possible that these women must be feeling at this point. Imogen Heap just released the first single “First Train Home” off of her latest album Ellipse that is scheduled to drop at the end of August. Heap is a muti-instrumentalist and innovative singer-songwriter whose music is ethereal and hard to shake. I’m not saying it’s gonna get the party started but it could set the mood for a more intimate rendezvous.
As a buzz generator around the new album, Heap set up a series of “#heaptweetups” in New York and L.A. during July, where her Twitter followers and fans could come to special listening parties and preview the album. Heap’s latest “#heaptweetup” listening party is taking place tonight in her hometown of London. For our London followers, entry is free and it will probably be crowded because Heap is also planning on talking about the songs as she previews them and she’ll even be buying the drinks!
East Village to Brooklyn 
Jam(s) of the Day – Mapping Social Networks and Technology in the Rap Game
Yesterday a friend of mine out in San Francisco sent me a link to this song called “Hit Me On Twitter” by Mistah F.A.B., and it sent me off on a train of thought about the use of various social networking sites in recent rap jams. Even more broadly, it made me start to think about all of the songs that heavily feature some new, cool, technology in the chorus. Does this sort of usage cause a rise or decline in popularity of the social network/technology? Or does it only occur once the social network/technology has reached a certain societal saturation level? I honestly think that it might be possible to reconstruct the evolution of technology, and the popularity of that technoolgy within the culture, by “reading” rap songs.
I’m sure that this has already been contemplated by various stoned white dudes over the years, and I’m not about to try to get into it on a Thesis Paper level of research or detail, but here’s a couple of examples (in text or video) of what I’m getting at, starting with pagers, just to get the conversation started:
Big L – Lyric from “Ebonics”:
“Hit me on the hip means page me”
Lil Scrappy & G’$ Up – Cell Phone Watch:
J-Shin ft. T-Pain – Send Me an Email:
(Anyone who watches A Shot At Love on MTV will notice the Tila Tequila cameo in there)
Brandon T. Jackson ft. T-Pain (?) – What’s Yo Myspace:
(haha I love the part where he starts naming hot celebrity females that he wants to become friends with on Myspace: “Lindsay Lohan, put me in your Top 8!”…also this always comes up as T-Pain, but that just doesn’t sound right to me. Dude ALREADY has a song about emails… one is enough)
Mistah F.A.B. – Hit Me On Twitter:
And honestly, I compiled that list just off the top of the dome. I think this needs to be explored further. Someone want to call up Marcyliena Morgan at Harvard and get her on the case? I smell a best-seller here.
Know any other songs that would fit the bill? Then post it in the comments, already!
-Drew
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