Live: Kind Of Like Spitting @ Knitting Factory 7.25.12

Depending on my level of crazy at any given time, Ben Barnett and/or Kind Of Like Spitting can be sublime or facilitate a hole lot of personal spiraling. Life has been as decent as could be expected of late, so it was more of a a pleasure than usual to ride over the bridge and see Barnett play a solo KOLS show at The Knit.

Ben is a lot like Mark Eitzel in that he can spend a lot of time meandering through nervous banter and indulging his neuroses when the average punter would prefer him to be singing, especially when he's playing solo. Springsteen and Phil Ochs were covered, as were many of the high points of the now almost-twenty year deep Kind Of Like Spitting canon. A fair amount of asides came into play, facilitated by a broken b string and a friend on her phone, as well as a far-too-extended exchange with some drunk guy, but the hour plus that we did get was pretty aces.  I've got a pretty decent recording, should any one of you be interested. Hit me up on the JS-NYC corporate e-mail and I'll send you a link.

R

Live: Frank Turner and Sleeping Souls @ Knitting Factory 3.13.12

I really liked the song Turner did with the estimable Jon Snodgrass, but hadn't investigated too much past that until I saw him on Kimmel a couple months back. I picked up England Keep My Bones soon after and fell for it like a short haired brunette, just in time to miss out on the sold out Bowery show with Andrew Jackson Jihad. I was quicker on the draw for the Knitting Factory show, which seems prudent as he's evidently playing Wembley in the next couple weeks. While I like me some Turner, I was pretty flabbergasted to hear that he was that big overseas. Further investigation revealed that there is a Wembley Arena across the street from ginormous stadium. 12,500 seems reasonable, given last year's ridiculously strong England Keep My Bones, but it doesn't make me look any more forward to having to see him in the big rooms over here.

Turner and Co put in work for a little over an hour, hitting most of the high points of England Keep My Bones and dipping back for favorites like I Knew Prufrock Before He Was Famous. He's charismatic as hell and the band is pretty damn tight as well. They are pretty much the perfect band for a room the size of The Knit (although I still wish it was on Leonard, or Houston even) and the wall to wall people seemed to feel the same. See Frank Turner in the small(er) rooms while you can. I see a lot of Terminal 5 in his future and me very cranky and in attendance.

R

Live: Cheap Girls @ Knitting Factory 3.6.12

God bless the Midwest. America's Heartland has been ponying up the quality rock of late and Cheap Girls are close to the top of the heap. Hailing from the wilds of Lansing, Michigan, said Girls (who are in fact, three dudes) make the rock in the power trio format, paying homage to a host of pop and punk predecessors like the Lemonheads (Deily more than Dando) and Dinosaur Jr. They have a new record called Giant Orange out on Rise that is pretty solid, albeit a little over-produced. You would do well to own it in virtual or actual form.

I rolled into a maybe half-full room as Cheap Girls were setting up, having missed the much buzzed about (and to these old ears, not especially remarkable, on record at least) Sidekicks. The set (pictured above) featured a little over half of the new record, with some choice dips into their previous releases. Ft. Lauderdale popped up at the end of the set, but sadly the new On/Off Switches did not. Cheap Girls may not have a ton of stage presence, but they have songs for days and play their asses off. They'll be on the road a good bit in the coming months, hopefully not mid-carding for some horrible Warped Tour band, so keep an eye peeled here for tour dates within range of your ear and/or eyeholes.

R

Live: The Jealous Sound @ Knitting Factory 2.15.12

photo used with the kind permission of courtney sultan

The news that there would be a new Jealous Sound record was met with cautious enthusiasm at JS-NYC and I'm pleased to report the resulting new A Gentle Reminder is pretty aces. The are on the road behind it currently. The last two times they came through town were pretty ok shows. I passed on the Sunny Day cash-in tour four or five years ago, opting for their off-night show at Southpaw, and was pretty impressed with the set. The room was full-ish, but far from sold out and the general take from the band was that they were surprised that people still cared about them.

I rolled up to the Knit bummed that I missed Daytrader, but hoping against hope that I was going to miss as much of the Motion City Soundtrack side-project dungheap in the feature slot as auricularly possible. I succeeded in my surgical strike, but the small victory of my timely arrival was compromised slightly by entering the room to find it packed cheek to fucking jowl with vastly more kids than I would have expected. The Jealous Sound came on a little past 10 and romped through an interesting set you can peruse via the stolen photo at top left. There have been rumblings that Pedro was not on the tour and the lack of talk as to why is a bit of an eyebrow raiser. Josh from The New Trust reprised his touring bass role. Drummer guy is both good and new, and I assume played on the record, but the set came off as a little bit more 'a bunch of guys playing Jealous Sound tunes' rather than a band called The Jealous Sound. Shehan is an oddly charismatic frontman, and in pretty good voice. The crowd seemed well into it, cheering loudly despite some interesting omissions from the set list. Many seemed young enough that this very well could have been the first time they had seen LA's finest, but the evening didn't go without enough (unheeded) requests for Knapsack tunes to assert that some of the massive had been into Shehen for a bit. I'd give it a 6.5 on a 10 scale. Not bad, but not band-y either. No stupid pits, at least.

Judging by the draw, I'd say we'll see the gents in town again soon. Sadly, I bet it will be opening for some horror show of a douche-punk extravaganza, so act now and see The Jealous Sound in the small rooms while you can. Keep track of their whereabouts and buy a copy of the pretty damn aces new A Gentle Reminder here.


R

Live: Dear Landlord with House Boat and Mikey Erg @ The Knitting Factory 5.12.11

Looking at the fake poster to the left for this show, one might surmise that we had a contender for the show of the year for JS-NYC. I enjoy all off the parties, but it was really the mid-card that had me excited. It had been well over a year since the Unlovables had played out and The Sainte Catherines have a hell of a new record. Putting them on a bill where I could start thing off with the tail end of a House Boat set seemed like a fine recipe for an evening in Brooklyn. In what is becoming my new favorite irritation, the aforementioned two bands that I hadn't seen a million times before dropped off the bill just as soon as I bought the ticket. Don't get me wrong, it was only $8, but come on.

I considered bailing, but Mikey Erg jumped on the front of the bill, so I figure I'd make it an early evening and count my blessings. Mikey put in a good solo set, albeit one without the Cee-Lo cover that highlighted his solo show last week at Cake Shop. House Boat were up next. I always enjoy them a lot more than I expect to, but could deal with about 50% less drunk Grath per show. Suffice to say, he is no Paddy Costello. This show featured the recording, rather than ad hoc local, HB lineup with Zack and Mikey. It was good and hopefully now that Grath has a job, we'll get less talk and more rock in the future. As such, I hear there is a new House Boat record on the way, so we'll see how things transpire.

Dear Landlord came on at the wonderfully reasonable hour of 10 to a rambunctious crowd. I like me some DL, but was surprised to see the number of DL painted jackets and his and her t-shirt combos out at the show. Dream Homes has been out for a bit now and there is the new split with The Dopamines, but it still doesn't leave an epic amount of variety set-wise. I was more than pretty stoked to find that Zack and Brad have got the Copyrights half of the franchise knocking out Rivethead covers. That will get me to make the long walk down the block to ABC next month. All in all a good set, and I made it home by 11:15, so I will call this a win, despite the fact that I sure would have preferred to have seen The Unlovables and The Sainte Catherines on the damn bill.

R

Austin Lucas with Josh Small and Tim Barry TONIGHT @ The Old Knit

The great Austin Lucas is playing the old Knit (you know, the one in Manhattan) tonight with Josh Small and Tim Barry. I am beside myself with excitement.



If you have ears, you should probably come down and listen.

R

Live: This Will Destroy You with Lymbyc System @ Knit 9.17.8

So I had to work and missed going out to see this show at Union Pool on Monday night. In retrospect, really no great loss. I already had a ticket for the show at the Knit and I'm trying to get there as much as possible before it moves out to fucking Brooklyn like everything else in this town.

So that I might be as cranky as possible, the good folk of the Knit were nice enough to change the order around and make TWDY the headliner, so my arrival turned into a drive-by and prompted a spate of texts and calls to inform the troops, most of whom showed right as I left. At least they have their youth, I guess.

I arrived at the Knitting Factory multiplex and headed to the Tap Room to catch the end of Lymbyc System's set. They represent for the two-piece band end of things (bad idea) and evidently the Lollipop Guild as well. The boys are short and the sitting doesn't help when it comes to visual excitement. Vertical challenges aside, the music's good: the drummer can drum, keyboard leads not too irritating, pleasant absence of drama school reject on 'vocalizations' as per the norm on the Eastern Seaboard. All in all, a good time, plus Heath likes them, so they are probably better than the two decent songs I saw.

This Will Destroy You hit the stage pretty quickly, and hit most of the audience loading in. I personally was hit with every piece of the drum kit as it made it's way to the stage. Not to brag, or anything. After way too long of a soundcheck, the boys set to deafening the room. I enjoy a lot of the post-rock that kids like Explosions In The Sky purvey, but it's hardly the most fun in the world to watch. The quiet/loud with a six minute build-up can be spectacular if you're making the monster with two backs or cycling, but when it happens over and over, the redundencies do become that more obvious. I assume they will be moving to bigger rooms with more visual elements soon, but it was a little lacking on a Tap Room level.

This Will Destroy You and Lymbyc System are on tour for another week or so, then TWDY jump across the pond to party in Europe for most of October. Check out the dates and buy some stuff here.

R