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The Great Big CMJ Post

Hi all! A week later and the dust has finally settled on a crazy/productive CMJ experience. Some band discoveries for me worth mentioning this year were Multimagic, Wild Sun, and Brother Valiant. Def go check them out. Here’s one of my favorite shots from seeing Multimagic at Arlene’s Grocery.

I also went to a couple networking events, including one on the roof of The Delancey that gave us free beer (and one of my favorite shots I think I’ve ever taken).

There were a lot of great new acts I was introduced to over the week, but my favorite show (that I wasn’t working) was getting to see The So So Glos at Baby’s All Right for the BrooklynVegan party on Saturday.

With all the running around I did last week, the highlight was documenting a showcase by my friend from TJO Presents at Our Wicked Lady in Brooklyn.

Besides having a sick lineup of bands (which I’ll get to in a moment) there were also drink specials for Coney Island beer!

*check out those great options ^

Everyone seemed to enjoy the delicious brews, both audience and bands alike flocked to get a taste.

*thanks to Jon Good of Out of System Transfer for the photo opportunity

Beverages in hand, it’s time to start the show. Like I said, I really enjoyed this lineup and had a lot of fun photographing everyone. First up was Dreams of June.

Next up, my buddies from Out of System Transfer, one of which has already been featured with tasty beer in hand.

Moving right along to Bree and the Whatevers, which I also took video that can be viewed on my YouTube page.

Brook Pridemore:

Slim Wray (who you can see again on Wednesday as part of Grundle Thunder‘s EP release)

Jamie Register & the Damn Thang:

And finally, we closed out the night with Bushwick Hotel:

Overall the night was a lot of fun with a solid lineup and equally awesome crowd. Congrats to TJO Presents for putting on such a great show. Thanks to Coney Island for the beer specials and everyone who showed up and rocked out with us. Thus ends my CMJ coverage for this year. Until next time, folks!

Shayfer James EP Release @ Rockwood

Here’s photo post #2 of the day for you. It’s Shayfer James’ EP release on Stage 2 of Rockwood Music Hall, September 19th. He had a great turnout where everyone sang along to songs that had literally just been released. It was pretty amazing to witness. He’ll be playing Rockwood again Oct 13th if you want to witness the magic for yourself.

Nerd Night Out @ Bell House

First of all, I’m sorry this took so long to post. The show actually happened Sept 12th, but it’s been a crazy month and I haven’t had a chance to really think straight let alone make updates on this thing here. Fear not, however, for you are getting two photo posts today from shows I had the pleasure of attending over the course of the month. The first is Nerd Night Out, a music/comedy tour with Molly Lewis, Joseph Scrimshaw, and The Doubleclicks! It was a great night full of laughs and shenanigans. I hung out after the show to chat with Molly Lewis (which I posted a picture on Twitter with her), bought some merch, and even got a CD signed by The Doubleclicks. It was a great night and if you ever get a chance to see even one of these performers, I say do it!

Backyard Superheroes – Let’s Get Dangerous

Before I begin I want to give some back story on this one. The ska scene (like many other scenes in the world) is a small place. Pretty much everybody knows everybody else. Since I’m dating a ska musician, it means that at least half the ska reviews I do are people I’m friends with or are on friendly terms with. So yeah, I’m a little biased. I was specifically told to give constructive criticism on this one though, and that’s what I’m gonna try my best to do here.

First thought with the intro (other than how much I love when bands do intros) is how it gives the album a big feel, like the band is getting a big introduction before they go play the hugest stage ever. When you think about it, that’s what happens when you put your music out into the universe these days. You are essentially jumping on a stage that the whole world can see, especially with the Internet as your major distribution platform. It makes me happy that these guys might not be headlining a stadium, but it definitely sounds like they put everything into the music they’re delivering to your eardrums.

Second thought, as I continue listening, is how tight everything sounds. The horns are ON POINT and all the songs seem to flow into each other really well. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, folks: I love it when people make full albums and not just a bunch of songs that can be listened to on shuffle. I know that’s how a lot of people listen to music now, but I still like putting on an album and listening from start to finish. It makes me happy to see a band take the time to really think about song placement and how the album as a whole is going to flow.

I know a said I was going to try to give constructive criticism, but my only complaint is that the album is too short at 17 minutes long and flies by. I want more music! Still, this definitely got me pumped and made me want to go to one of their shows soon. If you feel the same way, you’re in luck! These guys are going on tour. You can find a complete list of tour dates on their Facebook page as well as ticket links to all the shows. And if you just want to listen to their music from the comfort of your own home (including this album) then Bandcamp is the place for you.

Baked Potatoes Review

What I’m about to review I’ve been meaning to post for awhile now but things got so busy and other things got written due to urgency of how soon they had to go up and before I knew it I was apologizing to a really cool band that I hadn’t gotten around to their tiny little 4-song EP. In general I haven’t posted anything in two months, and I’m super bummed about that fact. In addition to this post, I also am tempted to do a Flash season finale thing but I’m also still wrapping my brain around that one. Maybe next week I’ll do a “best of” for all the finales of the shows I’ve been following. In the meantime, here’s a little review of a band called “Baked Potatoes” that found me through a Facebook group I’m part of called “Touring Ska Bands”. It’s something a friend of mine started that has grown to become quite useful for help with booking tours and crowd-sourcing and such. Anyway, enough chatter, let’s review this bad boy.

Immediately upon starting my listen of this EP, titled “Waiting for the Weekend,” I was actually kind of glad I waited till now to listen to it. This is because the feel of the music makes me think of the beach and summer weekends in the sand, which is something we can look forward to now that summer is slowly starting to creep around the corner. There’s a very chill yet simultaneously upbeat vibe that is never better executed than with a solid reggae band. If only it were actually long enough to last for a longer portion of your beach trip, but I’m sure with enough support from viewers like you, we can get more tunes out of these guys to last through future summers and beyond. In the meantime you’ll just have to play these four songs on repeat, which I’m sure I will be doing over the course of the summer. And if my only complaint is that this EP left me wanting more, then I guess that’s a good problem to have.

Pandemics + Pete Porker @ Characters

The Pandemics backed Pete Porker on a bunch of tunes back in January and in the final stages of me playing catch up, I finally uploaded all the videos to YouTube. Here they all are for easy consumption:

And here are photos from the show:

Your next chance to see The Pandemics will be playing with The Fad and a bunch of other cool bands at Hollis Woods Community Church this Saturday, March 28th. Details of that can be found on Facebook (of course).

Jukebox the Ghost

A lot of great things have happened to my guys at Jukebox the Ghost in recent months, and I haven’t had time to mention any of it here. For shame! Let’s take a look:

They released a new album, went on a big tour, played on Conan (!!!), and released a new cover song with their tour mates Secret Someones. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff!

The big miss for me was not reviewing the album. It was released around CMJ crazy times, so I was super busy, then burnt out, then just lost track of time. I’m going by the motto, “better late than never” though because it was too good to ignore.

I feel like there was a lot more buzz with this self-titled album than past releases, which just goes to show that the universe is starting to notice what I realized the day I first saw them: that this band is something special. I honest to goodness cannot think of a single song that I do not like of theirs, and that continues to hold true with this new release.

The album starts with “Sound Of A Broken Heart,” an upbeat, dance-y tune right up their alley. Another great jam to get stuck in my head. Whatever will I do? My head may explode from all the songs stuck in it, but I seem to be doing ok so far, so let’s keep pushing on.

The album continues with about 35 minutes of pure happiness. It’s rare I don’t have at least a tiny criticism, one little thing I didn’t like, but I just can’t think of one here. The writing and music and general attitude of the whole album is superb. And with lots of catchy hooks to get stuck in my brain, I’m sure it will be added to the list of albums I play on repeat.

Not sure what else there is to say except tell you to go snatch this one up if you haven’t already. Also, sorry to the boys for taking so long to review this beauty. I really love it though and am now incredibly bummed I had to miss the NYC date of your tour. It’s been very satisfying watching you grow as a band, and I look forward to continuing that journey with you for many more years to come.

I’ll end this massive lovefest for Jukebox the Ghost by giving you some behind-the-scenes video footage of the Conan appearance and new cover song. Hope you enjoy all the Jukebox-y goodness, and have a great weekend!

Arkells – High Noon

From the very first moments of listening to Arkells new CD High Noon I was hooked. It’s been awhile since I had something new excite me, but these guys definitely grabbed my attention. Their album is full of energy to get you pumped. Whether you need some motivation to finish that project, have a long drive ahead of you, or just want to have a dance party in your living room, Arkells have got you covered with an album chock full of jams that will get you revved up and ready to face another day. I am not kidding you when I say that three songs into this album I was checking my calendar to see when my next chance to catch them live would be (it’s May 5th at Rockwood Music Hall).

Clearly I’m not the only ones excited about this band, since this past weekend they won Juno awards for Rock Album of the Year and Group of the Year. Good for them, because it’s rare I get to see a band like this get noticed in a meaningful way. Rock music in general usually has to take a back seat to the pop artists and other Top 40 celebs. Even when a rock band does get mainstream attention, you’ll see plenty of posts on social media asking “who the hell are these guys?” (Arcade Fire’s big win in 2011 comes to mind). I don’t know if we’re going to be seeing Arkells with a Grammy nod, but the Juno is a good start and I’m happy for them.

https://youtu.be/2qf8oGI2Wlw

If you want to check the album out for yourself, you can do so at Amazon or iTunes. I’m also including a song off Soundcloud, which was my introduction to these guys and what made me want to review the album. I have a feeling it will invoke a similar reaction from you

Arrow: The Offer

Yesterday I promised a review of the return of Arrow, and I always do my damnedest to keep my promises. While last night’s episode may not have blown me away like the return of The Flash did, it still made me smile enough to be worth a brief post. There are some spoilers in this one but not nearly as bad as my review of The Flash from yesterday (although based on previews for the next episode it looks like none of that awesome stuff will have happened because timey whimey, which will be simultaneously awesome and infuriating if that becomes true). Still, if you haven’t watched yet you might want to hold back on reading this until you do.

Last night’s episode of Arrow picks up where the last one left off: with Oliver being offered the honor of becoming the heir to Ra’s al Ghul and taking over the League of Assassins one day (which Nyssa finds out about and doesn’t like one bit). I love the relationship with Ra’s and his daughter, how badly she wants his approval and her constant struggle to balance that with the love she feels for the now late Sara Lance vs how much her father disapproved of that relationship).

Here is one difference with the returning episodes of Arrow vs The Flash: Where Flash started off like a typical episode and cranked things up at the end, Arrow had a strong opening and closing but the middle was just another Wednesday for our team. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the episode and the middle part of the story made the ending possible, but I definitely was looking for a more constantly tense episode than I got. I will say that I liked the fact they had Arrow consider Ra’s al Ghul’s offer throughout the episode and made Oliver question why he still does the hero thing. I assumed after his struggles he would accept the offer and live to regret it, but instead they’re going to make him deal with the consequences of denying Ra’s something he wants. I doubt many people can get away with that without some consequences. I assume the rest of the season (or at least a good part of it) will be about Ra’s convincing Oliver to reconsider his decision until he finally relents. Oliver thinks he’s lost a lot in his journey as Arrow, but I have a bad feeling he’s going to see how much he has left to lose still. We’ll just have to wait and see…

The Flash Blasts Back

The Flash returned to our tv viewing schedules last night, and boy did it come back with a bang.

WARNING! MAJOR SPOILERS IN THIS POST. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

At first last night’s episode was just like any other. You had the usual tension caused by Iris and Barry’s dynamic, plus the meta-human villain of the week. Except this villain has a personal beef with Det Joe West. While this fact alone causes added tension within the episode, things really get cranked up to 11 by the end. Within the last few minutes we get

Joe being captured and Iris being told “come alone or daddy dies”
Cisco finding out the truth about Dr Wells and being killed by his mentor and father figure
Iris confessing her love to Barry and the kiss we’ve been waiting for since episode 1
Iris finding out Barry is the Flash in a way that does not involve an awkward conversion or added cheesiness (I assume that comes later)
A giant wtf ending that will leave you wanting more

So to conclude: The Flash cranked things up to the next level with last night’s episode. Here’s hoping 1) they can continue with this momentum through the end of the season, and 2) Arrow brings a similarly badass opener for their return tonight. If they do, you will be hearing from me again about our other costumed star tomorrow.