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December 26, 2015

2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 2

Throughout the course of 2015 I’ve been fortunate enough to attend upwards of 100 shows, festivals big and small, and spend approximately half a year living in a city that hosted a mind-boggling amount of quality shows on a nightly basis. To that end, it’s probably unsurprising that I wound up taking over 10,000 photos this year alone. Over the course of the next few days, this site will be running seven volumes of the shots that stood out as personal favorites, whether that was due to their composition, sentimental attachment, or an intangible emotional or intellectual response. It’s been an honor to be able to take even the smallest part in the ongoing sagas of the artists in the photographs below and an additional thanks is due to the venues that allowed me to shoot (as well as the people who encouraged me to keep shooting).

Enjoy the gallery.

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December 26, 2015

2015: A Visual Retrospective, Vol. 1

Enjoy the gallery.

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October 24, 2015

CMJ: Day 6 (Pictorial Review)

With this post, the site’s focus on CMJ will recede into the background and give way to music’s present release cycle (and some sporadic film coverage). Having covered every angle of the festival up to this point, the only thing left is the unveiling of the photos from the collaborative Father/Daughter and Miscreant showcase that served as the festival’s Homecoming-themed epilogue. The videos from that day can be seen here, the review can be read here, and the photo gallery can be viewed here.

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October 24, 2015

CMJ: Day 4 (Pictorial Review)

With the first two galleries now up and running, the night continues on with the third. On the fourth official day of CMJ, once again, videos of the bands were posted shortly after the official review went live. Rounding everything out is this photo gallery. Enjoy.

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October 23, 2015

CMJ: Day 3 (Pictorial Review)

With all of the videos and the main review of the day’s events accounted for, all that was left of the Day 3 CMJ coverage was the photo gallery. That gallery can be found here.

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October 23, 2015

CMJ: Day 2 (Pictorial Review)

With all of the reviews and the videos out of the way, all that’s left is the unveiling of the photographs that were taken during CMJ last week. Starting with this post and continuing on throughout the night, there’ll be galleries of each respective day that include hyperlinks to both the official review of the specified day and the collection of videos. Kicking things off is the day 2 gallery, which– as stated– can be augmented with the official review and the video collection. View the gallery here.

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October 7, 2015

Bad Cello – Live at Palisades – 10/4/15 (Pictorial Review, Live Video)

It’s strange for most of the buzz surrounding a show to be granted to the opening act but that seemed to be the case with last Sunday’s Bad Cello show at Palisades. The reason for that intrigue was due in part to the fact that this was to be the first time anyone would hear Patio, a band that’s been steadily practicing for months. As the trio took the stage there was a palpable level of both excitement and curiosity, with many people on hand to witness Patio’s public unveiling (they’d draw the biggest crowd of the day).

Only a few songs in, the band had staked out an identity; minimalist post-punks with a flair for wry humor, dissonance, and a strong pop sensibility (Sonic Youth’s more contained side and the early ’90s slacker punk movement stand out as very clear influences). As is always the case with new bands performing for the first time, there were a few hiccups here and there but that only seemed to lend to the project’s considerable charm. Vocal leads were traded off with a relative ease and the band committed to a gambit that came in the form of “Micro-balls”, a song rife with absurd sexual humor that paid massive dividends. The band was in complete control by the time their set closer rolled around, all but guaranteeing a promising future as a DIY staple.

Jeanette Wall, who set the show up (and who, like Patio’s Loren DiBlasi, has contributed to this site’s A Year’s Worth of Memories series), took the stage next to perform a handful of songs from her Band Practice project. Never taking herself too seriously, Wall infused her set with some genuinely entertaining (and mostly self-deprecating) banter that never came at the expense of the actual worth of her songs. All of the songs remained engaging even when stripped of their full-band trappings, allowing Wall an excess of space that was ably filled with charisma. The set was effectively split between comedy and music, with each half of the equation complementing the other to a surprising degree.

Following Wall’s entertaining theatrics were Glueboy, a young band that’s carved out a nice spot for themselves in Brooklyn’s DIY circle. Two releases into a young career, the band’s got heavy connections to DBTS and Double Double Whammy and those influences are very evident. Glueboy slipped into my listening rotation when I was looking for apartments in Brooklyn and wound up securing a spot where their bassist, Coby Chafets, was already residing (incidentally, I would move to that spot after a brief stint at DBTS).

Their brand of shambolic, punk-tinged basement pop appealed to me and allowed for some early ease of mind in the transition. However, despite that (and listening in on numerous acoustic jam sessions), I’d never seen the band play their songs live. On stage, their presence is relatively fearless, with each member making the most out of their granted space. Chafets and guitarist/vocalist Jonathan Marty trade off vocals at a rapid succession and occasionally sing in harmony, proving themselves to be a livewire act who manage to come across as both endearing and endlessly entertaining without ever sacrificing any substance.

By the time Glueboy’s explosive set had wound to an end, only a scattered handful of people remained for the electro-pop of Miscreant act Bad Cello, who still committed to the performance despite the glaring lack of numbers (I can’t think of a greater attendance disparity from opening band to headlining act that’s happened in recent memory). Showcasing material new and old, Bad Cello provided a dance-minded epilogue to the decidedly hodgepodge bill that somehow found a way to bridge a few contextual gaps. It’s difficult to imagine that each of the bills four acts won’t find their way to bigger things in their respective circuits as they move ahead. Genuine talent and a depth of promise wound up being the recurring themes of the matinee shows and it’ll be worth keeping eyes on each act as they move towards capitalization.

Watch a collection of videos from the show below and scan through a gallery of photos here.

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October 7, 2015

Ought – Live at Secret Project Robot Art Experiment – 10/2/15 (Pictorial Review)

Pile, LVL UP, and Ought have been shown no shortage of love on this site in the past so when it was announced that all three would be sharing a bill, plans were made accordingly. All three showed up in some way or another over the spread of the various best-of lists that this site ran at the end of 2014 and all three have released strong new material since the start of this year. More importantly than any of that, though, is the fact that all three are renowned live acts.

Before his October 2 performance, I’d never seen Rick Maguire (Pile’s guitarist/vocalist) perform without his main vehicle and had only heard whispering of what that experience entailed. While the set I got was just Rick performing solo, it was in a different, more expansive, capacity. Maguire’s recently introduced a looping pedal to his solo shows and wields that freedom to maximum effect, without ever losing the innate ability to completely command the attention of a room. Pulling from several patches of Pile’s discography and showcasing a tight-knit control over all aspects of his musicality, Maguire tapped into something transfixing, rendering most of the audience speechless.

LVL UP took the stage shortly after Maguire ambled off, intent on testing out some new material. Capitalizing on the overall moodiness of their Three Songs 7″, they pushed even further into territory that seemed increasingly concerned with dynamics (and atmospherics). While old standbys still rang effectively (something that’s especially true for “Soft Power”), it was the new material that prompted the most intrigue. Darker, heavier, and more freewheeling than anything in the band’s discography, their set operated at a tantalizing glimpse of their next release, which promises to be nothing less than fascinating.

After LVL UP’s final static-laced, feedback-heavy noise freakout, there was an almost maddening break of 40 minutes before Ought took the stage, generating more than a little restlessness among the crowd. Any pent-up negative feelings had all but dissipated by the time Ought’s wheels had started running. While it did take the band about a song or two to really click, they were locked into something fierce before too long.

Building energy and momentum as their hour-long set progressed, the members of the band each got increasingly more aggressive with their presence, slowly building the audience to a heightened pitch that was egged on by “Beautiful Blue Sky” before being cracked wide open into complete madness with “Today More Than Any Other Day”. At that point, the audience had morphed their dancing into a chaotic swirl of bodies that saw a large portion of the people positioned towards the front pushed over the lip of the stage at one point (to his credit, Ought’s guitarist/vocalist– Tim Darcy– did issue a concerned, seamless, mid-vocal “calm down now”, without ever breaking from the trappings of the song).

By that point it was a madhouse of energy that saw the sold-out Secret Project Robot Art Experiment (Secret Project Robot, alternately) feeding into the mutual frenzy created and sustained by audience and band. Then about an hour after they started, the band closed their main set with a vicious, explosive, extended take on More Than Any Day highlight “Gemini” that saw them drag out the song’s staccato bursts to a strangely hypnotic effect.

Naturally, the crowd pleaded for an encore and likely got even more than they bargained for with an especially fiery rendition of “New Calm, Pt. 2” that loosed Darcy free from the restrictions of his guitar strap when a friend tapped in, allowing him to completely lose his mind on stage while the fresh burst of energy from the substitute guitarist elevated the song to ridiculous heights. It was a perfect closer to a night defined by nervous energy, injecting the proceedings with a shot of adrenaline that sparked an already energized crowd to liberate themselves from any remaining inhibitions while simultaneously reinforcing Ought’s position as one of today’s more exciting live prospects. Buy tickets if the tour comes to a nearby town, this is something everyone deserves to experience.

Scan through an extensive photo gallery of the show here.

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October 6, 2015

Daughter – Live at Baby’s All Right – 9/30/15 (Pictorial Review, Live Video)

Shortly after Mike Krol’s set finished, I received word that Daughter were playing a secret, unannounced-to-the-public 1 AM set and immediately made sure I found an attendance spot. The band’s been one I’ve held in high esteem and one of their quietest performances has stuck with me ever since my initial exposure to it several years ago. Very shortly into the set, it was made clear why it was kept under wraps: this was a show that the band wanted to make memorable for everyone in attendance- and it was also the show where they announced their forthcoming album, Not To Disappear.

Gracefully moving through a set that relied heavy on material from Youth but still made room for the new material, the band found themselves in fine form and silenced a sold-out room, who all grappled with various stages of awe. No matter what mode the band is in, whether they’re idling at a slow tempo or switching over to hard-hitting, they exude an impossible amount of grace. As the members trade off instruments (or trade endearing witticisms), they never seem anything less than serene.

Occasionally that calmness translates over to their music and creates an arresting, engrossing atmosphere. That intersection was never more evident than it was when the quartet unveiled the live premiere of their new single, “Doing The Right Thing” (which they’ve affectionately shorthanded to “Detroit” for the way the acronym appears on their set lists). Now that the song has a powerful video (one of the year’s finest) as an accompaniment, this memory rings even more fiercely but as the song’s closing lines were drawn out in a whisper, there was a silence so complete that thinking about it now, weeks after the fact, is enough to induce chills.

Everything in their set that had come before that moment and everything that will always have that singular performance as a reference point; it was that strong of a moment. As their set wound to a close, the band proceeded with a characteristic amount of elegance, never striking a false note. As the skies opened up outside and loosed a torrential downpour, their crowd filed out into the late-night storm in states of quiet reverie. In passing, I overheard a hushed “wow” that was immediately met with a silent nod, an exchange that acted as the perfect summation of a genuinely memorable evening.

Watch the band perform the title track from Youth below and explore a photo gallery of the show here.

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September 25, 2015

Ronnie Stone & The Lonely Riders – Live at Baby’s All Right – 8/29/15 (Pictorial Review, Live Video)

Release shows are generally difficult propositions to pull off due to the expectations to create something genuinely memorable. Over the course of the summer, I’ve been fortunate enough to see a handful hit their mark (the release shows for both Sharkmuffin and PWR BTTM immediately spring to mind) but, in terms of scale, neither had anything on the intentional grandeur of the release party for Ronnie Stone & The Lonely Riders’ excellent Møtorcycle Yearbook. Of course, that’s probably to be expected when the identity of the band in question is thoroughly intertwined with its own mythology.

Leading up to the celebration at Baby’s All Right, the band had played a handful of shows that created, perpetuated, and existed within an additional thematic narrative (the previous show saw the enigmatic Ronnie Stone being banished from the stage and crawling into an open coffin, which was then closed and carried away through a somewhat shellshocked audience at Aviv). While the exit of the previous show was bold and engaging, the entrance of this one immediately set the tone for the kind of bombast that was set to follow. Kicking things off by literally driving a motorcycle into a venue is always a bold gambit but when the driver’s then hounded by a swarm of paparazzi through a crowd and into the green room? It goes beyond attention-getting and starts tipping towards an ourtright spectacle.

Here’s where Ronnie Stone & The Lonely Riders separate themselves from the rest of their ilk; a spectacle usually implies an inherent hollowness and lack of substance. While the band certainly isn’t without panache, they’re also a genuinely skilled band that pays an obscene amount of attention to their own machinations, injecting vibrant life into even the smallest functions while letting the memorable live show carry its weight. Furthering the considerable list of things working in the band’s favor are the songs themselves, each of which- while frequently tongue-in-cheek- have commentary to offer. Impressively, this commentary is tied into the worldview that’s contained in the band’s mythos and underscored by the seemingly tangential aspects of their show.

There’s an emphasis on community, togetherness, and timelessness that can be found in the music of Ronnie Stone & The Lonely Riders and those points were never driven home harder than they were on stage at Baby’s, where the band brought up a small army of collaborators, all in various guises that paid both respect and tribute to the band’s tantalizing vision. Extra musicians, guest vocalists, and backup dancers littered the late-night performance, each bringing a new trait to the table that operated as a perfect complement to the band’s music. Inevitably, this led to a few surprises throughout the course of the band’s set, with one particular highlight being an extremely fiery take on Cyndi Lauper’s “I’ll Kiss You” that whipped the sold-out audience into a frenzy.

Capitalizing on their own volatile energy and continuously pushing themselves throughout the night, it almost felt fitting to see Ronnie Stone vomit during the final song of the band’s set; everyone that stepped foot on that stage seemed committed to giving all they had and nothing was going to stop them from achieving that goal. For their part, the audience (most of which adhered to the band’s dress code policy) reciprocated the band’s excessive energy with both movement and adoration. It was difficult to not steal glimpses back at the crowd, which was a non-stop swirling mass of dancing bodies from the first song to the last notes.

People sang along, people danced, the band neared flawlessness, and everyone took a ride together, shedding the loneliness for at least a little while. It was the kind of trip that’s not likely to be forgotten anytime soon.

Watch two clips of the show and view an extensive photo gallery here.

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