The Morning Benders, Real Estate and others release Strokes tribute album.

It's hard to forget The Stroke's debut album, Is This It.  If you were anything like me, it completely changed the way I looked at music as a youngin.  In a time where Nu Metal was waaay too relavent for any point in history, we had a bunch of Eddie Vedder copycats that were doing a bad job (Creed and the like), and you couldn't walk two feet without experiencing the total sensory overload of pop music, The Strokes dawned their capes and saved music as we know it, shifting our view of what popular music could and should be.

We went from this:

FUTURE HALLWAY

To this:

The sea change prompted fans and record companies alike to pay attention to unsigned bands, injecting interest and momentum into independant music around the world.  Gary Mullholland of The Observer also notes that the success of The Strokes 1960's influenced garage rock music "made every forgotten art-pop experiment of the late 70s and early 80s instantly hip and ripe for reinvention".  If there's a more integral part of our current music landscape today, for better or for worse, it's reinvention.  So all those garage rock bands, electro synth artists, avant pop, chill wave, folky chamber pop groups, you can thank the Strokes.

Stereogum and a few bands including The Morning Benders, Real Estate, and Peter Bjorn and John agree and have made their appreciation of the seminal album known by covering each song off of Is This It and releasing it for free through Stereogum.  Whether it's Real Estate's half-speed version of "Barely Legal" or The Morning Benders disco-lounge version of "Last Night", each band shows their appreciation through covering and follows it up with a brief paragraph on what the album meant to them.  It's a cool feature for an album that deserves nothing but mythical status.

Here's a tracklist and download links:

Stroked: A Tribute to Is This It:



01 Peter Bjorn and John: "Is This It"

02 Chelsea Wolfe: "The Modern Age"

03 Frankie Rose: "Soma"

04 Real Estate: "Barely Legal"

05 Wise Blood: "Someday"

06 Austra: "Alone, Together"

07 The Morning Benders: "Last Night"

08 Owen Pallett: "Hard to Explain"

09 Heems: "New York City Cops"

10 Deradoorian: "Trying Your Luck"

11 Computer Magic: "Take It or Leave It"




Click here for a free download of the zip files or click here to go to Stereogum and stream the songs.

New Girls, "Vomit".

Howdy.  Sorry there haven't been as many updates lately.  Sleepiness is to blame.  I can't really listen to this right now (at work) but I'm sure it'll COOL you off during this little peek at hell folks are calling a heatwave.  Temp is 102 in Philly.  Yuck.  Well here's a new Girls track called "Vomit".  Not sure what to tell you about it since I haven't had a listen to it myself.  Hopefully it's good and I didn't waste your time.

As you were.

MP3:
http://cdn01.cdn.gorillavsbear.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Vomit.mp3

New Dum Dum Girls track, "Coming Down".

Below is the first track, "Coming Down", released from the 2nd Dum Dum Girls album called Only In Dreams due out September 27th via Subpop.  It's a great, slow, swoon that highlights the longing side of the Dum Dum Girls' music that plays such a nice contrast to their more driving garage-psych tunes.  Think "Take Care" off of He Gets Me High with a little more going on.  The song seems to be very intimate to Dee Dee.  In the Dum Dum Girls' newsletter sent out early this morning she writes:

Liebe,





Dum Dum Girls have a new record coming out late September, Only In Dreams.


Pitchfork is going to premier a slowburner of a song called "Coming Down" tomorrow morning, on July 19th. (After the premier, you will also be able to find it on our website)




I won't lie; it's heart on sleeve.




Have you ever numbed yourself to avoid pain only to oscillate between the subconscious and conscious? Ever felt compelled to address Life itself?




Things can be so awful but at least they can also be bliss.




Hope you listen to the song and feel something.




XOXO


Dee Dee
 

Give them your email and get it for free.

New venue: Union Transfer details, upcoming show list.

The newest venue gracing Philly is Union Transfer, the brainchild of Sean Agnew of R5 Productions, Jim Glancy of Bowery Presents, and Avram Hornik of Four Corners Management.  While there was no mystery of the new venue's existence, we now have some official news the aforementioned dudes themselves.

Here's what Sean Agnew of R5 had to say:

Sorry to bombard your inbox this week but we think this is a pretty special occasion and worthy of an additional e-mail! After months of speculation, rumors, blog posts and a posted tour date or two - it comes with great pleasure that we can officially announce UNION TRANSFER, a brand new venue opening up in Center City this September! Union Transfer will hold 600 people (with a flexible capacity to accommodate more people if/when we need to) in what most people know as "the old Spaghetti Warehouse" building at 10th and Spring Garden. What most people do not know is that the building was originally an old luggage depot station in the early 1900s originally named "Union Transfer" (that made picking a name so easy!) It's a pretty dramatic space w/ sweeping arches, stained glass, old chandeliers and a whole lot of character. Along with the old furnishings we are adding what we think will be the best and biggest PA/Sound System in Philadelphia. We are thrilled to show it all off later this fall with a bunch of shows that we are really excited about.





The venue is a new joint partnership between myself, Bowery Presents (who book a ton of great shows in nyc and own a few venues of their own) and Four Corners Management (the folks who own Drinkers, Noche, Lucys and a few other bars around town). Over the next few weeks we'll be revealing lots of new shows, pictures and all sorts of other information about the venue. Two things we are really excited to tell you about off the bat : the venue will feature AIR CONDITIONING (and lots of it !) and the venue will be ALL AGES with a separate bar area for those who are 21+ and would like to drink.

Air conditioning??  If anybody's been to a show at the First Unitarian Church in the dead of summer, you'll appreciate that bit more than anyone.  All exciting stuff here.

And here's a list of the first group of shows that are scheduled to go on there:

Union Transfer Scheduled Show Dates:


09/21 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

09/28 Mogwai

09/29 Shellac

10/07 The Aggrolites

10/14 RJD2

10/19 Wild Flag

10/20 Gillian Welch

10/21 CSS

10/23 Dum Dum Girls

10/25 Friendly Fires

10/28 Boris

10/29 We Were Promised Jetpacks

10/31 World Inferno Friendship Society

11/17 The Sea and Cake

11/21 Radio Dept

New Girls album, tour.

Girls announced last week that they'd be releasing their second full length titled Father, Son, Holy Ghost on September 7th and only recently announced that they'd be hitting the road for it.  They play the TLA on September 20th.

Girls tour:



09-03 Los Angeles, CA - FYF Fest

09-14 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse

09-15 Asheville, NC - Orange Peel

09-16 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge

09-17 Chapel Hill, NC - Cat's Cradle

09-19 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club

09-20 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts

09-22-23 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom

09-24 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club

09-26 Montreal, Quebec - POP Montreal Festival

09-27 Toronto, Ontario - Mod Club Theatre

09-29 Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall

09-30 Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre

10-01 Minneapolis, MN - First Ave Nightclub

10-04 Vancouver, British Columbia - Biltmore Cabaret

10-05 Seattle, WA - Neptune Theatre

10-06 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom

10-08-09 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall

New Kite Party album, "Baseball Season".

Hello everyone. Philly dudes via Tamaqua/New York and personal bros of mine have recently released a new album titled Baseball Season.  Tom Waits said songwriting, "is like capturing birds without killing them.  Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers."  They've been working on the album a few years now, and it seems to me like they've got a lot of songs and not a lot of fluff here.  Listening to the old and then the new has been a crazy journey for me, and for any old fans you're sure to hear a ton of growth and exploration.  If Baseball Season were anything else, it'd be a little black brick of lead, heavy and dense.  There's plenty here to listen to.  You can stream it and buy it for $5 off their bandcamp site.

Once properly reviewed, there may be an interview posted here with Justin Fox (guitars, keyboard).  Note: interviewing skills generally diminish after several PBR pounders while critical analysis of Pokemon squads tends to increase under these conditions.

Link: [Kite Party - Wish Mountain]

Stream new Washed Out, "Within And Without", and Eleanor Friedberger, "Last Summer".

I'm a little late on this one, but NPR has Georgia chillwaver Washed Out's upcoming album Within and Without (out July 12th) up for a free stream.  The tracks released thusfar are pretty sick, so I'm anxious myself to take a listen.  But like many of you, I'll have to wait 'til I'm out of the office.

[Here's where you can click to reveal nice songs.]

This one's a little more current, as NPR also has a stream of Firey Furnaces' Elanor Friedberger's Last Summer.  Check it out...

[Here.]

If NPR had a back, I'd pat it.