Earlier this year Swedish chanteuse Victoria Bergsman swung through New York on her first American tour as Taken by Trees, a project she started soon after leaving the Concretes in 2006. During that jaunt, Victoria and her band made a special stop at the shop to play an in-store (which was filmed for the Live at Other Music series) and tonight she’ll be hanging with the some of the OM crew again. Victoria will be guest DJing in the Lower East Side at the weekly Know Your Product party that Gerald Hammill (that’s me) throws every Thursday at Stanton Public, also joined by OM’s Amanda “Chouette” Colbenson, who’s co-presenting the event. Our guess is as good as yours as to what Victoria will be pulling out of her record bag; but it wouldn’t surprise us if we heard GNR’s “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” which she turned into a beautiful folk lullaby and released as a single earlier this year. Bjorn Yttling, of Peter Bjorn & John fame, who played on Taken by Trees’ Open Field full-length, (not to mention Victoria’s guest spot on PB&J’s smash “Young Folks”) did a guest DJ spot of his own at Stanton Public last Saturday, and is reportedly still in town producing a music project. So we’ll see if he takes a break from the studio and comes down himself. And if OM’s Andreas Knutsen shows up, it’ll be nothing less than a Swedish invasion.
Stanton Public: 17 Stanton Street (Between Chrystie and Bowery) L.E.S. NYC
Taken by Trees live next Tuesday, August 12 at Brooklyn’s Union Hall: 702 Union Street Park Slope, Brooklyn
Dam Funk has just released a killer old skool-styled promo video for his upcoming full-length, TOEACHIZOWN, for Stones Throw. It’s pretty dope and reminds me of the old MTV album commercials for the new Journey, Styx, and Prince albums, with the flying CG graphics and bluescreen effects. Awesome!
All of us at Other Music have been floored by the comprehensive reissues of the mighty Super Rail Band’s catalog. They are perhaps one of the most famous African groups in the world. Forming in 1970, this band introduced the world to Salif Keita, and although there have been many lineup changes over the last 37 years, one constant has been the extraordinary guitarist Djelimady Tounkara. Here’s an amazing live clip of the Super Rail Band playing “Mansa” live at the Grassroots Festival in upstate New York in 2001, complete with a hippie girl awkwardly dancing on stage, because…well, it’s a outdoor festival in upstate New York.
VALHALLA NIGHTS PART II! W/ DJ CHOUETTE + GUEST DJS DRUMBLEBEE AND SOPHIA LIGHTS @ K&M Bar: North 8th Street (at Roebling) Williamsburg
10PM / FREE /21+
This will be the second round of Valhalla Nights DJ fun from Chouette (Amanda from Other Music)- this time with guest sets from Ben MCconnell (Phosphorescent, Minetta, and most recent project Drumblebees) and Sophia Knapp (Lights). Lots of 60s and 70s easy summer jams to go around.
YELLOW FEVER + SHE KEEPS BEES + KING DARVES + U.S. GIRLS @ Death by Audio: 49 South Second Street Brooklyn btwn Wythe & Kent Williamsburg, Brooklyn
8PM / AA / $TBA
Debut show by brand-new booking collective Strength In Numbers, founded by an Other Music employee! These D.I.Y, all-ages shows are exclusively women-organized and women-run, and specifically designed to showcase touring bands with women in them. The headliner for this week is Yellow Fever, an experimental pop group from Austin, TX with a post-Aislers Set / Young People sensibility. Yellow Fever’s vocalist Jennifer is also in Austin bands The Carrots and Finally Punk! Also on the bill, Brooklyn’s fastest folk rising star, She Keeps Bees — and one of folk-pop’s most promising newcomers, New Jersey’s King Darves. Come early for Chicago solo treat U.S. Girls, on tour with Yellow Fever!
MAX RICHTER + BRUCE BRUBAKER @ Le Poisson Rouge: 158 Bleeker Street NYC
7PM / $20 / 18+
The final night of Richter’s residency at new venue Le Poisson Rogue. He will be performing with a string quintet music from 24 Postcards in Full Colour, his new album on Fatcat Records, which is now available on Other Music Digital.
In mid-May we had an event at the shop to celebrate the publication of a great new book by Branden Joseph, a longtime customer of the store, as well as a Columbia professor and noted historian. Joseph is, among many other things, a foremost authority on and biographer of Robert Rauschenberg, and now he turns his pen on one of our favorite experimental musicians (and filmmakers), Tony Conrad. Conrad’s early-’60s minimalist work with LaMonte Young and John Cale, for which he is best known, is just one small facet of this amazing artist’s groundbreaking career, but the excellent history, Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts After Cage, uses Conrad’s life as a lens through which to view the modern history of experimental art, music and film, and it is a complex and fascinating read that covers much beyond this one man’s past. The event was a blast, with Conrad playing a series of unreleased tapes for the rapt crowd from his long history, including the first known, and still unreleased, recording of Lou Reed and John Cale performing together. A few days later I sat down with Conrad and Joseph to discuss the book.
Josh Madell: I’m glad you guys could make it back to sit down for a formal interview. Tony Conrad: …kind of a rush last time. JM: Yeah, no big deal. TC: I was glad…I rushed because of the performance on Friday, after, and it turned out very well I felt. JM: Who were you performing with for that? TC: MV Carbon, at No Fun, yeah… ‘Queen of noise’…yeah, she’s really, like, way out, so it was…
Last week I reviewed a pair of Linda Lewis reissues, Lark and Fathoms Deep (only CD format available on Other Music’s mailorder site), in our weekly email Update. In short, Lewis was an immensely talented black British singer/songwriter who released two bona fide lost classics in the leftfield soul genre. Like Shuggie Otis and Minnie Riperton, Lewis took inspiration from rock, jazz and blues, creating a distinctive style that wouldn’t resonate with an audience until many years later. Here’s an amazing clip of Linda Lewis and Terry Reid rippin’ through a version of Reid’s “Dean” back in 1970 at the first Glastonbury festival…not to mention shots of hairy nude dancing and spliff smokin’. N-Joi!
We had hoped to host the Magnetic Fields in the shop when they were in town supporting their recent pop masterpiece Distortion, but considering how rare their performances are these days, we were not surprised when the band politely declined. But we were THRILLED when Stephin Merritt invited Other Music and our friends, Dig for Fire, to drop by the green room at their Town Hall stand for some relaxed small talk and solo performances of “The Nun’s Litany” off of Distortion, and “This Little Ukulele,” from Merritt’s soundtrack for Eban & Charley. Even a record clerk has to step out now and then, and we hope you enjoy the two-part premiere of Backstage with Other Music.
HOME BLITZ + CAUSE CO-MOTION! + THE FACE ACCIDENTS + LAME DRIVERS @ Cakeshop: 152 Ludlow NYC
8PM / 21+ / $6
DR. DOG + SENATOR R STEVIE MOORE @ Music Hall of Williamsburg: 66 North Sixth Street Williamsburg, Brooklyn
8:30PM /16+ /$16
Dr. Dog have been pleasing indie and folk audiences a like with their McCarthy esque pop tunes for years now. This show will mark the release of their newest album Fate and be a homecoming of sorts. New Jersey recluse R Stevie Moore will be making a special appearance for the show. Apparently he has been given a new ranking since the Cakeshop shows. [Amanda Colbenson]
TITAN + LA OCTRACINA + LAPDOG OF SATAN + NAAM @ Union Pool: 484 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
8PM /21+ / $8
This will be a great array of heavy psych and light-dark metal New York metal madness. Naam’s first shows as well I believe. Their last band, Owl, was the best of ‘06 for certain. [AC]
THE BUNKER FEAT: JAMES T. COTTON (a/k/a DABRYE) @ Public Assembly: North 6th Street (between Wythe and Kent) Williamsburg, Brooklyn
11PM-4AM / $10 / 21+
No, the Bunker party hasn’t moved again, it’s at the same location, just a new name for Galapagos, Public Assembly. While it’s been a long time since residents Spinoza and Derek Plaslaiko were steering the steel wheels in Tonic’s Sub-Tonic basement, one of the city’s best techno parties is still going strong as ever. (All that’s missing is a couple of giant wine casks to chill out in.) This week the crew welcomes one of Michigan’s finest, James T. Cotton a/k/a Dabrye (Spectral, Ghostly).
SATURDAY, JULY 19
SIC ALPS + METH TEETH + RELIGIOUS KNIVES + caUSE co-MOTION! @ Death by Audio: 49 South Second Street Brooklyn btwn Wythe & Kent Williamsburg, Brooklyn
8PM / $TBA /AA
First of a couple NY dates by Oakland psych-noise-pop duo Sic Alps, who are on tour promoting their new Siltbreeze release effort, US E.Z.. Great openers too, including OM favorites cause co-MOTION! Guaranteed to be a hot show, by all definitions, so if you prefer a little air conditioning with your rock, you can catch Sic Alps the following night in the “cooler” confines of Union Pool.
Underground hip-hop legends Antipop Consortium will always be close to our hearts at Other Music, as they are one of the many amazing bands that have sprung from the minds of OM employees. Beans worked at the shop for several years as Antipop came together and found its sound. We’ve probably sold more of their records than any store in the world, and some of their best shows were at Other Music events, like the Frying Pan party in 2001 with Handsome Boy Modeling School, Squarepusher, Alec Empire and the rest, where APC debuted their amazing live/improv set. Fans always hate to see their favorite groups break up, but when APC imploded, I think a lot of people felt they had been robbed of the surely groundbreaking music that the band’s evolution had promised. Now back together after several years, this film shows Antipop Consortium living up to all the expectations and more, with some of the best new songs of their career and a dynamic, explosive stage show. Call me biased, but APC are one of the best hip-hop groups around and they are on the move!
-Josh Madell
UPCOMING FILM PREMIERES:
July 25: Other Music backstage with Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields
