Supersilent Set to Unleash LP 8 in the States

Photo by Eirik Lande

Sound the alarm! Norwegian avant-everything collective Supersilent are set for the Stateside release of 8, their first studio album in nearly half a decade and the proper follow-up to 2006's live 7 DVD.

Things like track titles and singles aren't really a concern of Supersilent's, but wild technical details are, so here's a bunch: 8 was recorded over a five day period at Athletic Sound in Halden, Norway, a studio trading in entirely analog equipment. 8 was pared down to 68 minutes from five hours of "finished" music, though the band did consider easing up on the editing to make 8 a double or triple LP monster (just imagine!). 8 was mastered by "mastering guru" Bob Katz (one would think the appropriate title would be "master of mastering," but he's the master) and produced by Deathprod. It's already been nominated for an Alarmprisen, the alternative Norwegian Grammy awards (8 came out in Norway back in September).

And, as a final technicality, 8 can be yours in the U.S. October 23 from Rune Grammofon. Hooray! [MORE...]

U.S. Customs Clears Chris Walla's Hard Drive
Customs rep: "We followed standard operating procedure...and when you start talking about...Guantánamo Bay, you get my ire up."

The saga of Death Cabbie Chris Walla's confiscated hard drive has taken another turn or sorts, one which leads toward something of a denouement.

As reported last week, U.S. Customs officials seized a hard drive containing music files belonging to Walla when a studio employee attempted to take them across the border last month, from Canada into the U.S., near Blaine, Washington. Walla, understandably upset, vented both to MTV.com and on his website just last week. The news spread and was embellished upon-- Did Homeland Security Take Walla's Hard Drive Because of the Political Songs Contained Therein??-- and now, Customs has stepped forward with their side of the story.

Speaking with MTV.com, U.S. Customs and Border Protection rep Mike Milne expressed bewilderment and "ire" at the chain of events that followed from what Milne calls a "standard operating procedure." Said Milne:

"I want to point out very emphatically that the U.S. government, this administration, the Department of Homeland Security and specifically [USCBP] does not censor musical content coming into the United States. Period. That's not the reason this hard drive was kept.

"We followed standard operating procedure...and when you start talking about...Guantánamo Bay [as Walla did in his blog post], you get my ire up. I go on Google News, and I see 125 different news stories out there with the headline 'Homeland Security Seizes Musician's Music', and it strikes me as unfair. And I will be spending the rest of the day trying to contact those people-- The Associated Press, the record company [Barsuk], and Mr. Walla-- to ask them if they can set the record straight."

Milne went on to claim that Walla's drive was taken simply because it was "commercial merchandise" brought to the wrong crossing station without proper documentation.

It also seems Customs has already attempted to contact the person from whom the drive was taken-- Hippowest studio engineer Brandon Brown-- on three occasions to say that the drive was cleared and is available to pick up. Speaking to MTV.com, Brown denied this. "Obviously, I would've gotten the drive if I would've heard from them," he said.

None of this has hampered Walla much. Since tapes sent across the border along with the hard drive made it through, Walla received his music and is still scheduled to release his solo album, Field Manual, through Barsuk on January 29.

Barsuk's Josh Rosenfeld, meanwhile, admits to being "naive" about border crossing procedures (he had originally furnished Brown with a note explaining the transport situation to Customs), but he doesn't completely buy the "commercial merchandise" bit. At the same time, he doesn't feel the confiscation was politically motivated, for obvious reasons. "They had no means of listening to the music on the drive at the time they confiscated it," he told MTV.com.

"[But] it seems like a funny coincidence. I mean, a hard drive containing data, and if it was confiscated for commercial reasons, why would they let him leave with the tapes? There's something that doesn't make sense about the whole concept of it being confiscated for commercial reasons."

Still, Rosenfeld isn't too concerned about the hard drive at this point, and he's grateful for all the press (ha, whoops) that's come out of this. "It'd be nice if we could get the drive back, but the data is already back in the United States. So in some way, it doesn't really matter. The whole thing ranks somewhere on the continuum between questionable and clueless to me."

CMJ: Saturday [Marc Hogan]

Spoon photos by Jason Bergman; AAM Promo day party photos by Ryan Muir; Above: Spoon

The Ponys [Roseland Ballroom; 7:30 p.m.]

Chicago-based four-piece the Ponys might sound like the kind of band that could succeed in a 3,000-plus-capacity room like Roseland, especially on this year's streamlined, consistent Turn the Lights Out. Three albums in, these guys have their live moves down, and their hazy, no-frills indie rock-- Pitchfork's Jason Crock approvingly dubbed it "Sonic Youth Lite"-- seems melodic enough to serve as a gateway to noisier stuff for Spoon's growing fanbase of skirt-chasers and frat boys. It wasn't, however, and it wasn't only the frat boys' fault. Singer/guitarist Jered Gummere's narcoticized murmurs were muddy and indecipherable, and there was a rote detachment to even the too-brief squalls of guitar noise. Maybe, a couple of weeks into their tour with Spoon, the Ponys are beginning to expect a listless audience-- and playing accordingly. "A few more and then Spoon's on," Gummere announced to the biggest cheers of the set. "They're OK, I guess."

Spoon [Roseland Ballroom; 8:30 p.m.]

It's a good time to be a scalper at a sold-out Spoon show. The dudes prowling 52nd Street before the Austin band's Roseland gig were turning would-be buyers away by the taxi-full if they weren't willing to cough up obscene prices. And many were. A half-an-hour before Spoon were officially set to start, one scalper told me he'd sold a ticket for as much as $60, and based on what I overheard, he might not even have been bullshitting. A couple of college-age guys who'd already bought tickets and been thrown out for fake IDs didn't even bother haggling-- they were literally pleading with the man to sell for what they had left in their wallets.



Spoon themselves have achieved a masterful balance between what those guys probably like-- beer, classic rock-- and what I like. It's going to become a precarious position to maintain as their fanbase grows and the media attention increases whenever they put out their next album, but on latest effort Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, the veteran four-piece achieve an expertly calibrated combination of gorgeous experimentation and upbeat, accessible romanticism, sounding as Billy Joel these days as Pixies. Judging by applause levels, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was what many in the thousands-strong crowd were at Roseland to hear.

They got it, and a bit of back catalogue as well, in a concise, electrifying set. I haven't been to a venue this big in a while, so the instant weed smoke during opening song "My Little Japanese Cigarette Case" was good for an inward chuckle. The three-piece horn section on new songs like "Cherry Bomb" or Kill the Moonlight's "Jonathan Fisk" gave the songs a trebly punch, but both songs were uptempo rockers-- music more for fist-pumping and beer-drinking than stoned navel-gazing.





Spoon never let the audience get too comfortable, though. Britt Daniel's hoarse bark went through even the breeziest arrangements, such as in Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga standout "The Underdog". The Radiohead-like "The Ghost of You Lingers" received perhaps the most muted reaction of the night, but the big-venue sound system helped its percussive glitches hit us in the guts after the pulsing synths put us at ease. On "I Turn My Camera On", one of several songs included from 2005's underrated Gimme Fiction, Daniel swapped shouts for falsetto coos, with bassist Rob Pope underpinning some Prince-ly funk. And many of the songs had discordant but economical guitar solos, which Daniel sometimes played with the instrument outstretched and held vertically, like a trophy.

Not that the show was ever flashy or indulgent. Daniel even kept the stage patter to a minimum, finally breaking his silence nearly halfway into the set in order to praise Spoon's label, Merge. I think he later called the show Spoon's biggest ever, though my ears may have missed a qualifying word. When the encore began, Daniel seemed truly impressed by the size of the crowd reaction. "That was a roar," he said tersely. A song later, he reached back to Girls Can Tell for "Everything Hits at Once", finishing the night with Gimme Fiction's "My Mathematical Mind".

"And when you believe, they call it rock and roll," Daniel sang earlier in the night, on "The Beast and the Dragon Adored" (also from Gimme Fiction). As he repeated the phrase, the words "rock and roll" became distorted by tinny echoes, moving from a traditional rock outlook recalling the Lovin' Spoonful to the weirder, wider musical universe also covered by this site. A guy I talked to before the set told me his favorite artists included Led Zeppelin and Tom Petty-- "The stuff our parents used to listen to was actually pretty good," he said. Spoon's challenge going forward will be satisfying both this guy and the guys who also appreciate some weirdness. Tonight, they did both.

A Place to Bury Strangers [The Delancey; 11 p.m.]

A Place to Bury Strangers weren't "the loudest band in New York" this night, as other press outlets and the band's MySpace page proclaim. They might've been the most punctual, though. The industrial-tinged Brooklyn dream-pop three-piece didn't deafen me the way even the piped-in music at the Annex before Black Kids did a couple of evenings ago, but they started (and ended) so promptly that I only caught one-sixth of their six-song set. Not sure how well you know New York geography, but suffice it to say it's a long way from 52nd and Broadway to Delancey St. and the Williamsburg goddamn Bridge. Not their fault.

At least the song I caught was "Ocean", the last track from A Place to Bury Strangers' self-titled debut, and a song that lives up to its title in its immersive vastness. "It's love that controls you," the frontman, Death By Audio chief, and ex-Skywave singer Oliver Ackermann intoned, not exactly with perfect pitch and perhaps a bit too high in the mix. Jay Space's drumming seemed as important as the swirling-but-not-deafening maelstrom of guitar effects, toms bashing all over the beat while the bass drum kept a steady, physical undercurrent.

Eventually, it was an extra burst of percussion that announced the guitars were about to get quite a bit louder. And they did, a piercing ring shining out above Ackermann's squealing, gnashing, vomiting mid-level tones. OK, pretty loud, I guess. Oh yeah, the performance was backed by a black-and-white film projection showing men and women running around in circles in what looked like a game of "Ring Around the Rosie" played in the fiery depths of hell.

AAM Promo Day Party [Music Hall of Williamsburg]

Oh No! Oh My!




Mika Miko




Islands




Will Sheff




...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

CMJ: Saturday [Zach Baron]

Photos by Kathryn Yu; Above: Jesu

New Violators [Mercury Lounge; 7 p.m.]

The New Violators' straightforwardness and honesty of intention-- they are an arena-sized band, in love with Bowie and the Cure and Echo & the Bunnymen and Springsteen and maybe even U2-- has had the paradoxical effect of alienating many who have seen them at South by Southwest, CMJ, and in their own hometown of Trondheim, Norway. Chalk this up, in part, to the band's frontman, Per Borten-- tall, handsome, well dressed, distant, and over the top.

Recently, the New Violators parted ways with their longtime guitarist, and Borten has since assumed double duty, a brilliant idea-- what little they lose in towering stage presence and theatrical appeal, they gain by being tighter, more locked in, less polarizing. Their new songs rely less on Borten's croon and more on his considerable songwriting ability. The material is more ballady; keyboards play more of a role, and the songs are longer and more complex, the influences still there but less obvious. If Springsteen's Americana leanings have come into vogue as an influence and a touchstone for so many new bands, New Violators cop the thing from Springsteen that attracted everyone to him in the first place: huge ambition and blatantly outsized songs.

I will resort to begging: somebody, please, put out this band's record.

Torche [Blender Theatre at Gramercy; 9 p.m.]

The Miami, Fla., quartet Torche-- say "Torch," that's what they do-- emerged from the rubble of Floor, an on-and-off Florida band renowned in some circles for their long-unreleased LP, Dove, recorded in 1994. Floor's legend circulated for some time before the band had a record out-- an oversight they remedied in 2001, when they released a self-titled album and then, eventually, Dove. After their 2004 breakup, those two records came to bookend the existence of a band few outside of Florida were aware of until they were almost finished. Torche formed shortly afterward, filling the void.







At the Gramercy, the band took the stage under the theater's busy light show, pounding away at a deafening single chord. The venue was packed-- a reminder that though certain bands may dominate all discussions of the festival, a journeyman metal group has a much easier time piecing a crowd together than does your average internet phenom. Like Floor, the band vibes Jane's Addiction as much as any other heavy predecessor-- angelic, soaring vocals, mountains of dialed-up guitars, a deliberate pace, and long, ocean-sized songs. Though Jesu was likely the band people had come to see, it was Torche that had most of the crowd bending rhythmically at the waist and neck, swaying as if in prayer.

Jesu [Blender Theatre at Gramercy; 10 p.m.]

Justin Broadrick's obsession with the non-metal aspects of his band's sound-- the suicidal wistfulness, silky drones and muted vocals-- has spilled over into his band's live set: "Turn everything up! It's too fucking quiet," yelled a surprisingly audible audience dude.





Lifeline, Broadrick's latest, suffered a bit from being so straightforward: without multiple layers to sift through, Jesu can sound thin, or underwritten. Live, it's clear that Broadrick is experimenting, seeing how light a touch he can employ and still make crowds feel the weight; still, after Torche's pummeling stand, it was odd to hear people's random chatter crest over the music. Like many other moments at CMJ, the whole thing was a little too transparent-- after seeing so much industry in motion, you begin wish someone would just drop the curtain again.

CMJ: Saturday [Amy Phillips]

Photos by William Kirk; Above: Band of Horses

Justice [Terminal 5; 9 p.m.]


As Justice's current tour made its way across North America over the past few weeks, reader emails bearing tales of mayhem hit Pitchfork's inbox. Rowdy mosh pits, fights, and collapsing stage-front barricades seem to follow Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay wherever they go, as our continent goes crazy for the MTV-approved Frenchmen bearing Brontosaurus riffs and caveman beats.

So when the tour hit Terminal 5 last night, I expected mass fainting, orgies, speaking in tongues. At least a little bloodshed. Well, the sold-out crowd was pumped, but not that pumped. There was a bit of pushing and lots of jumping up and down and headbanging, but no stage-diving or crowd-surfing or circle pits or anything like that. Honestly, people went crazier for M.I.A. the night before.



Regardless, Justice themselves seemed pretty stoked, or as stoked as two dudes dressed in black leather with cigarettes perpetually dangling from their lips will allow themselves to appear. But they're still just a couple guys fiddling with electronics from behind a big glowing cross. Not much to look at. No space pyramid or robot costumes or lasers or insane light show-- though the lighting guy did seem overly fond of strobes.



Augé and de Rosnay let the music provide the pyrotechnics. Tracks like "Waters of Nazareth", "Let There Be Light", and "Stress" sound great on headphones, but they're beyond massive when blasting from a killer soundsystem. Justice retained their playful side, teasing "D.A.N.C.E." throughout the night and throwing Soulwax's "NY Excuse", Klaxons' "Atlantis to Interzone", and even Metallica's "Master of Puppets" in the mix.



Terminal 5, basically a big steel cage, is perfect for an act like Justice. Where better to experience their music than a sexy jail? (Yes, I know the answer: a church. Har har.) And when the concert experience is more about watching the crowd than the performers, the venue's two-tiered balcony is perfect for viewing the main floor.

Although Terminal 5 has a capacity of 3,000, due to its narrowness it feels quite intimate. That intimacy was magnified a thousandfold during "We Are Your Friends", as the crowd chanted the chorus together in a big moment of bonding. Justice cut the music away, so that it was just one big happy chant. It was so much fun, people couldn't resist starting up again when the show was over.

Band of Horses [Bowery Ballroom; 12 a.m.]


Pretty much any venue that isn't out on a big, open prairie or carved into the side of a mountain probably isn't the perfect setting to see Band of Horses. Their wide, sky-scraping songs are made for the great outdoors. But festival season is over, and I'm not heading to the Gorge or Red Rocks any time soon, so a dark, packed club on the Lower East Side will have to do.





Luckily, lead Horseman Ben Bridwell's songs are strong enough to transcend setting, especially when he and his band are in a good mood like they were last night. Bridwell adores the Bowery Ballroom, as he repeatedly reminded us, and adores his label, Sub Pop, who the band honored with a mid-set toast.

The positive vibes seeped into Band of Horses' mellower, sadder songs, giving them a warm fuzzy feel, and amped up the rocking ones. Although Bridwell's lap steel remained on stage throughout the set, he only played a few songs sitting down. Mostly he stood, rocking out with fist in the air or hands demurely behind his back, that ever-flowing beard getting more impressive every day. He was especially excited to play a classic rawk double-neck guitar, which sounded as beautiful as it looked silly.



I like the new Band of Horses album Cease to Begin a whole lot. I think they make a helluva good country-rock band. And tunes like "Is There a Ghost", "Islands on the Coast", and "Ode to LRC" held their own against Everything All the Time's gems. The band was clearly stoked to play the new songs, and that excitement was palpable.

CMJ: Friday [Marc Hogan]

Photos by Jason Bergman; Above: Company Flow

El-P and Company Flow [Music Hall of Williamsburg; 11 p.m.]
















It's been nearly 15 years since El-P, born Jaime Meline, dropped his first vinyl as part of influential alternative hip-hop group Company Flow. Between his label efforts and his rapping, El-P has had plenty of time to assemble one of the most fanatical and diverse cult followings at CMJ-- everyone from the typical Williamsburg denizens to thick-necked ex-jocks. "I live where you live, Brooklyn," El-Producto declared in his set closing the showcase for Def Jux, the label he runs and co-founded.

El-P's main set played up the craziness he repeatedly claimed in interviews for new album I'll Sleep When You're Dead. "I'm losing my goddamn mind, period," he said at another point. He came onstage to Gary Jules' abysmal Tears for Fears cover, "Mad World", so apparently, yeah. The performance itself was as animated as it was vaguely anachronistic. El-P screamed himself fucking hoarse, peppering injunctions to say "yeah" or "put your hands in the air" between lyrics darkened by political fury, arrangements combining old-school sampling and a bit of rock aggression. "Is that all you got for me?" he said at one point, when the applause from the back fell clearly short of the equally batshit devotion up front.

At one point El-P welcomed "the newest member of Def Jux": No, not Danny!, who ably emceed the event, but underground rap icon Del tha Funkee Homosapien. Del's agile flow was a highlight capping an evening of likeably enthusiastic rappers such as Junk Science and Hanger 18. "Please listen to my album, even if you're white as talcum," Del spit on classic "Catch a Bad One", from 1993's No Need for Alarm.

The biggest guest appearance, however, came in the encore. As hinted at in a previous report, El-P took the stage with Bigg Jus, reuniting two-thirds of Company Flow for the first time since early this century. The reason for the reunion? "We love hip-hop music," El-P said from the stage. The reformed duo played old joints like "Population Control", "Vital Nerve", and "Steps to Perfection". Years after the words were written, here was El-P, again: "I don't try to be different/ I am." During one interlude, he observed, "It probably will be about a decade before we do that song again."

BONUS PHOTOS, WOOT!

Yak Ballz [Music Hall of Williamsburg; 10:10 p.m.]





 
Hangar 18 [Music Hall of Williamsburg; 10:30 p.m.]





 
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien [Music Hall of Williamsburg]


 

CMJ: Friday [Amy Phillips]

Photos by William Kirk; Above: M.I.A.

M.I.A. [Terminal 5; 8 p.m.]

M.I.A. just keeps getting better and better. She owned Terminal 5, her megawatt personality ricocheting off of the brand new West Side venue's cavernous steel interior with as much force as her beats.

Accompanied by DJ Low Budget and sidekick Cherry-- and a hyperactive set of videos on a screen behind the stage-- M.I.A. played an hour-and-a-half set containing pretty much every good song she's ever recorded. And she somehow found time to mash-up New Order's "Blue Monday" with "Jimmy", "10 Dollar" with the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", and most thrillingly, "Galang" with Lil Mama's "Lip Gloss". The latter served as a reminder of how much the mainstream pop/dance/rap landscape has shifted since M.I.A. first appeared in 2004, and how much certain megahits have come to resemble her sound. (Fortunately, Fergie's "London Bridge" didn't make an appearance.)

The giddy highlight of the set occurred with "Bird Flu", when M.I.A. encouraged fans to join her on stage. Soon, she was surrounded by a large crowd of cool kids of all races and ethnic backgrounds boogieing to the stuttering beat. As the singer herself melted into the crowd, her voice just one among many shouting the lyrics, the spectacle became a kind of word-into-flesh enactment of the multi-culti vision M.I.A. preaches.

Bonus rock star sightings: Nick Zinner and Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the V.I.P. section-- Chase taking notes throughout M.I.A.'s performance! (What could he be studying?) Pavement's Mark Ibold on the street after the show checking out a bureau that someone had thrown in the trash!

MGMT [Crash Mansion; 12 a.m.]






Some might say MGMT are in the right place at the right time. Their debut album Oracular Spectacular (produced by Dave Fridmann) is out now on Columbia Records, they're on tour with Of Montreal, and their CMJ showcase was packed. They're officially a "buzz band."

But as I watched these guys play, I realized something: MGMT represent a whole lot about what is wrong with the music industry right now.

Let me back up a bit. In July, Pitchfork ran a news story about Of Montreal's fall tour. MGMT's publicist gave us an mp3 of the song "Time to Pretend" to include with the story. I fell for "Time to Pretend"-- it's got a nice loping beat, a sugary melody, and tongue-in-cheek lyrics that somehow don't come across as asinine. So far so good.

In September, I received a strange package via FedEx. It was the MGMT promo…on cassette. And a cassette player/recorder. Well, that's one way to avoid a leak. But is it really worth the amount of money it costs to FedEx a bulky tape recorder to who knows how many journalists?

A week later, the Pitchfork office received several copies of Oracular Spectacular, with no watermarks or security protection or anything. Guess they don't care about MGMT leaks so much after all.

"Time to Pretend" is by far the best song on Oracular Spectacular, though "Kids" isn't bad. And, um, that's about it. I'd tell you more about the other songs on it if I could remember any of them. There's a bit of typically hazy Fridmann psychedelics, some kinda trippy outer space stuff. Yet every time I put the damn thing on, the next thing I know the album's over and I didn't even realize I was listening to it.

But because "Time to Pretend" is so good, I decided to give MGMT a chance at CMJ. Maybe the live setting is where the magic really is, where I'd experience whatever it is that first captivated that key Columbia Records A&R person.

Well, you know what MGMT sound like live? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Their music and stage presence are so bland, we all might as well have been staring at a brick wall. This show happened a few hours ago, and I couldn't tell you what any of the band members look like, or hum anything they played. The crowd seemed just as bored as I was, bobbing up and down mildly, mostly text-messaging and checking their CMJ guides to see who else was playing nearby.

Admittedly, I left after four songs. I didn't even stick around for "Time to Pretend". Maybe the fifth song brought dancing girls, confetti, and a cover of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" with a guest appearance by Meat Loaf himself.

I wish MGMT were actually bad. Like, super cheesy or technically inept or offensive or emotional trainwrecks. Or something. ANYTHING. Instead, they were just nothing.

I'm sorry to pick on MGMT; obviously I'm setting them up as a straw man. As my friends and co-workers know, I'm a pretty harsh music fan. (I mean, I don't even like In Rainbows that much.) And hey, at least MGMT have one good song, which is much more than I can say for most artists!

I'm also pretty bad at predicting the future. The last person I begged people to ignore was Amy Winehouse. Maybe MGMT will one day become the greatest band ever in the history of the universe, and they will magically convince the entire world that paying for music is awesome.

But for now, when the major label system is in its death throes, and yet labels are still throwing money away on inane promotional schemes for bands with no character, no following, and little potential, it's hard to have much sympathy.

CMJ: Friday [Zach Baron]

Photos by Kathryn Yu; Above: HEALTH

Sightings [Knitting Factory Main Space; 9 p.m.]






Brooklyn three-piece Sightings, with their sheet-metal guitar and scooped-out bass, their awkward, square- shaped riffs and dissonant drones, helped with the industrial impression-- there’s always a lot of "new no wave" talk in New York City, but less about the old no wave to which Sightings are heirs, a lineage that goes back to DNA and Pussy Galore, the Birthday Party, and even Big Black. In an unabashed three-level noise-rock showcase, Sightings were by far the night’s toughest listening-- all right angles, slithering unbalanced bass, and singer Mark Morgan's ear-slitting screech-- and they'd be proud of that distinction.

Japanther [Knitting Factory Main Space; 10 p.m.]






Perennial opening band and New York art world fixture Japanther nevertheless remain one of the city’s most underrated acts, probably because nobody realizes that live-- Whitney Biennial plaudits and telephone microphones aside-- they're not at all threatening; more like indie-dorks Matt & Kim than their bros in Sightings. After paying lip-service to a bill that contained many of their friends and peers ("I feel proud just to be a part of it," said their drummer Ian Vanek) they also snuck in a jab at the city-disfiguring, heavily-sponsored marathon of which they were a part: "AT&T, I want my money back, that's what I have to say to CMJ."

HEALTH [Knitting Factory Tap Bar; 10:15 p.m.]






Is it possible for a band to outgrow a stage before they've even set foot on it? Somewhere deep in the Knitting Factory HEALTH were playing their third or fourth or 15th show in three days, but who could tell exactly where? An enormous crowd spilled into the Knitting Factory's low-ceilinged, unventilated Tap Bar to see one of the Marathon's ongoing success stories, HEALTH, who come from the same Los Angeles, California Smell-based scene as No Age, and seem poised to come away from CMJ a lot taller than they were when they arrived.

Like their L.A. peers-- No Age, Mika Miko, Abe Vigoda-- HEALTH cop elements from punk and hardcore and then tweak them, decontextualize them; but where most of their scene goes in for a kind of charming amateurism, HEALTH strain further, incorporating complex percussion and deadpan Liars chanting into their blast beats and feedback freak-outs. Best was when they seemed unhinged; worst was waiting through all the portentous parts in between.

Old Time Relijun [Knitting Factory Main Space; 11 p.m.]






Olympia, Washington and K Records stalwarts Old Time Relijun presumably landed on the bill for their Beefheart antics and short-shorts weirdness, rather than any real sonic affiliation. Having just finished their three-album suite, the Lost Light Trilogy, frontman Arrington de Dionyso led his newest outfit-- an indie-rock Cherry Poppin' Daddies, with a hep upright bassist, a sax player, and a seriously up-tempo drummer-- through material off their newest, Catharsis in Crisis. This set up one of many conflicts: stay for Dionyso's shaman-like stage presence and unending yowling momentum, or see new-jack new-wavers Pre, in from England to follow HEALTH down at the Tap Bar?

Pre [Knitting Factory Tap Bar; 11:30 p.m.]

Well, it was CMJ-- novelty is everything, right? In an emerald green bikini top and gold lamé bottom, their aliased singer Exceedingly Good Keex scaled the bar's low and perspiring rafters, channeling fellow countrywoman and name-fabricator Poly Styrene. If Pre's new and debut record, Epic Fits, has bits of Skull Kontrol guitar skittishness, all paranoid tremors and caffeinated fear, Pre's live set is more ecstatic-- Melt- Banana without the musicianship, quick shrieking blasts of guitars and cymbals. Not bad for what was-- I think, anyway-- the band's first New York show.

Ruins [Knitting Factory Main Space; 12 a.m.]

If anything united the bands spread out over the Knitting Factory's three floors of chaos, it was their shared debt to Japan's Tatsuya Yoshida, who has performed with various bassists and vocalists as Ruins since 1985. The band, usually at least a duo, consisted only of Yoshida at the Knitting Factory, though you wouldn't have known this if you were in the next room over: in a near-satire of advanced musicianship, Yoshida sang, played drums, triggered bass and synth and drum-machine licks, and collaged noise all at the same time, all by himself. Like early Boredoms, Ruins' songs are short, extreme, and convulsive, proggy but muscular; Yoshida sings in a made-up falsetto language, looping flawlessly executed vocal lines while flailing away at his kit. Fittingly, I guess, the Main Space was emptier than it had been all night-- maybe Black Kids were playing somewhere?

Les Savy Fav, Hot Chip, No Age Join ATP vs. Pitchfork
Explosions in the Sky pick BSS, Iron & Wine, Dinosaur Jr., Trail of Dead for 2nd ATP Weekend

Hey folks! LOTS to share today, so pull up a chair!

From 24, down to 18: that's how many names you'd have to pry out of us to learn the full lineup for the previously reported ATP vs. Pitchfork festival, going down the weekend of May 9-11, 2008 at the original All Tomorrow's Parties venue, Camber Sands Holiday Park, near Rye in Sussex, England. Behold, six all new reasons (in bold) to contact a travel agent, pronto:

Chosen by Pitchfork:

Hot Chip
Les Savy Fav
No Age
Of Montreal
Man Man
Los Campesinos!
Caribou
Glass Candy
Dirty Projectors

Chosen by ATP:

Meat Puppets
The Black Angels
Shit and Shine
Sebadoh
Ween
Pissed Jeans
Fuck Buttons
Apse

My oh my! And, with a dozen and a half bands left to be revealed, the likelihood of you seeing a better show anywhere else in the world on this particular weekend is fast approaching nil.

As mentioned previously, the ticket price of £140 includes accommodations at Camber Sands' chalets, which feature private bathroom suites, bars, a swimming pool, restaurants, a supermarket, go-karting, and mini-golf! Tickets for the weekend can be purchased through ATP's website in blocks of four, five, six, seven, or eight.

If you're tied up during our little throwdown-- or if you come by and plan on sticking around a while-- you could always try to make it the following weekend, when the second All Tomorrow's Parties-hosted Weekend of 2008 sets off May 16-18 at Butlins Holiday Resort in Minehead, England.

This one's curated by Explosions in the Sky, and along with a set from the epic Texas instrumental troupe, Dinosaur Jr., ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Iron and Wine, Broken Social Scene, and Adem will take the stage at Explosions' behest.

Around 50 acts will perform at the second weekend, so expect updates to follow. Tickets for the event-- £140 for "Room Only" accommodation and £150 for "Self Catering", and available in groups of 2-7 depending on your lodging selection-- are on sale presently.

Swervedriver to Reunite for World Tour Next Year
They're been gone so long, color photography was invented in the interim

It's been nigh on ten years since Swervedriver's 99th Dream, which even the least casual observer might've pegged their swan song. And perhaps it was: on record, anyway. We'll just have to wait and see.

But for now, these boys-- Adam Franklin, Jimmy Hartridge, Steve George, and Jez Hindmarsh-- have announced an end to their extended hiatus, as the fondly remembered Swervedriver plans to tour the world early next year, breaking almost a decade of silence. The dates have yet to be confirmed; we'll have 'em for you when they are.

Swervedriver's not-so-former-anymore frontman Adam Franklin is currently out shooting Bolts of Melody all over North America. Those dates available after the jump. [MORE...]

Times New Viking Issue Matador Debut in January

With an utter disregard for fidelity and a more than compensatory deftness with all things melodic, Times New Viking have one of 2007's better efforts-- the unduly snoozed-on Present the Paisley Reich LP on Siltbreeze-- under their belts.

To follow, the cacophonic Columbus-based crew have blasted out Rip It Off, their debut for the Matador label, due January 22 (the same day Cat Power's Jukebox arrives via the same label). Stretching sixteen songs tightly over a half hour or so, the disc will-- according to the band's MySpace blog-- birth a single sometime next month.

Looks like they took their labelmates' Ass-beating challenge seriously, too: Rip It Off contains a track titled "Times New Viking vs. Yo La Tengo". Ooh, it's on!

An East Coast tour, too, is in the works, though those details are pending. The band will play Cafe Bourbon Street in their native Columbus tomorrow evening (October 20). [MORE...]

RZA Wins Chess Competition!
Checkmate, Bill Murray

Photo by Daaim Shabazz

Wu-Tang Clan's love affair with chess is well documented, but for as much as they talk about the game of strategy, I personally always assumed it was more of a hobby than anything particularly serious. Silly me, because now Wu leader RZA is a certified Chess King, and he's got the 20-pound, gold-plated leather belt to prove it, according to a HHNLive.com report.

The report names RZA as the winner of the previously reported 1st Annual Chess Kings Invitational, which went down this past weekend in San Francisco. The Abbott's victim in the final round? One of his own: Wu affiliate Monk.

We obviously can't beat him, but we can still join RZA and the rest of the Clan for the release of their new album, 8 Diagrams, on December 4.

Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover? Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.)