Mind The Journey EP

Mind The Journey is Spencer Sabo of Madison CT. He makes super weird synthy psychedelic pop music. On his eponymous EP he explores some pretty thick territory and the results are both confounding and joyous.

Flaming Lips & Spiritualized @ Oakdale Theatre on 7/15

So The Flaming Lips and Spiritualized will be playing at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford. This is a weird one and will be their only east coast performance for this tour they are on.

JEN URBAN & the BOX, MISSION ZERO, Hanging Hills @ TWO BOOTS on 2/15

Jen Urban and The Box are playing at Two Boots in Bridgeport this Friday with Mission 0 and Hanging Hills!

New Stone Titan Preview Track

Stone Titan are putting the finishing touches on their new LP "Scratch N Sniff" for Safety Meeting Records. Here is a taste of the new LP, an unmastered track called "I Wish I Was Fucking Dead".

Enjoy!

The Guru - Go Easy

The Guru return triumphantly with their new album "Go Easy" and it expands on the promise of last years "Native Sun" in a whole bunch of ways!

Ladyhips @ The Stomping Ground 11/16!

Ladyhips are taking their ear charming melodies up the the quiet corner this friday! Get down to The Stomping Ground for some good food, good drinks and great music from some VERY talented CT musicians!

Ladyhips


Stream their album "Best Friends" on their BANDCAMP

Friday November 16th @ 8pm
Ladyhips
@ The Stomping Ground
132 Main St. Putnam, CT

Ghost of Chance have a new EP and TOUR!!!

New Haven's Ghost of Chance have a new EP coming out soon, and they are celebrating with an east coast tour with New Milford's Fins!

Farewood: Wings of Gold

In the youtube generation, so many “artists” put little thought into their output. It's comforting that there are bands like Farewood, who not only lay down beautiful musical tracks, but do so in order to bring readers to a richly developed fictional world of struggles and progress through human, or human-like interactions. In these songs of love and pain, a listener meets speakers they can identify with on a human level, as well as a witch, a ghost, and an angel. 

Saara Markkanen @ The Outer Space on JUNE 21

Helsinki, Finland's Saara Markkanen is going on her first North American tour, and The Outer Space in Hamden is her 2nd stop!

Connecticut's own Gary Higgins: "Red Hash" and beyond

When Gary Higgins went in to record his debut album "Red Hash" back in 1972, circumstances were much different for the young folk singer. There was an impending jail sentence looming, so he went in and recorded and album of urgent songs, that would some 40 years later become heralded as the birth of psych-folk. Though, the album originally disappeared quickly on first release, its legend grew, garnering a bunch of fans such as Ethan Miller (Howlin Rain) and Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance), with original copies of the album going for very high prices on the collectors market. Drag City re-issued "Red Hash" back in 2005 to great acclaim. It even lead to a very well received new album from Higgins in 2009 called "Seconds", as well as a re-issue of some pre-"Red Hash" recordings in "A Dream A While Back" in 2011.

Howlin' Rain get ready to burn down Cafe Nine

While some might say that musical revivals come every 20 years or so, as is happening now with grunge, others say that certain musical influences are always there in the background waiting for the right band to put them in a more modern context. Right now there seems to be psychedelic revival happening, where modern bands are taking the best parts of late 60’s and 70’s rock and giving them a fresh new outlook. In a way, this new outcropping of bands is neo-traditionalist in their intentions. Whatever you want to call it, there are some exciting sounds happening right now.

This revival has been going on for a while now, and a lot of this new psyche has been centered on California.

“There are a lot of cool things going on right now in that a lot of the bands playing this music are all linked by the West Coast,” said Howlin’ Rain guitarist/vocalist Ethan Miller.

Miller should know what he is talking about because he has been involved with this sort of music for a while, whether it was the incendiary power of his previous band, Comets On Fire, or his current project he has been at ground zero for this psychedelic rebirth. Over the course of four albums, COF blazed a red hot trail over the underground rock landscape. In fact, Howlin’ Rain was started as a side project (in a band where many members had side projects) in 2004 in order to feed Miller’s need to make more melodic music. COF broke up in 2006 after the release of their excellent, “Avatar” record for Sub Pop and now Miller was ready to pursue Howlin’ Rain to its full potential.

“It was like we were all standing in the center of a room with Comets On Fire and decided to walk away from the center of the room, but not close any of the doors on the way out,” said Miller.

Howlin’ Rain released their debut record in 2006 on independent label, Birdman, went on tour with the Queens Of The Stone Age and eventually caught the eye of uber-producer Rick Rubin, who eventually signed the band to his American Label and acted as a quality control consultant for the band. The highly lauded “Magnificient Fiend” followed in 2008, with Birdman handling the vinyl. The band experienced some line up changes and issued the “The Good Life” EP in 2011. It has been a while since there last full length and that’s all about to change when they drop their new record “The Russian Wilds” on Valentine’s Day.

Once again Rubin served as the quality control officer, while the hands-on production work was handled by Tim Green. This is the first record that is going to showcase the band’s new stable and quite kick ass line-up of Isaiah Mitchell (guitar, vocals), Raj Ojha (drums), Cyrus Comiskey (bass), Joel Robinow (keys, vocals), who join Miller (guitar, vocals) in this journey to the center of the mind.

In fact, one could say, Miller is “psyched” about this new line-up.

“There is something to be said about rehearsing three times a week, and in the process you become finely honed weaponry, where you can just fire it up and burn down a stage,” said Miller.

They were also aiming for a very classic feel to this album. In the press materials, there are mentions of such albums as Jimi Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland”, Steely Dan’s “Gaucho” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” as influences. But before you think this record is some psychedelic/jazz/bar band hybrid, you have to understand that the influences aren’t necessarily musical in a literal sense.

“We were going for the spirit of those records and not getting too hung up on specifics. After a day in the studio, I might go home and put on “Electric Ladyland” to get into a certain frame of mind. We’re doing this in a creative way. We’re connecting with those records spiritually,” said Miller.

They have succeeded spectacularly because not only does “The Russian Wilds” sound wonderful and contain some the band’s best songs, as well as ripping guitar work from both Mitchell and Miller, it also captures a certain vibe, one that hasn’t reared its head in a long time. It’s a big rock record and is not afraid of that tag.

So here is a chance to see a band in its prime, with a killer line up and a great new album, up close and personal. Come on down, and you can say you saw the band back when they played smaller bars and clubs. You don’t want to kick yourself for missing this one.


Manic Productions Presents:
Howlin’ Rain
D. Charles Speer & The Helix
The Voodoo Fix

Saturday, February 11
Café Nine
250 State Street
New Haven, CT

9:00 pm – 21+ - $8

Tickets can also be purchased at Redscroll Records in Wallingford

Elder brings the heaviness to Cherry Street in Wallingford

Since releasing their debut self-titled album a few years ago on Meteorcity, Boston heavyweights Elder took a little break before releasing their sophomore effort, “Dead Roots Stirring”, which comes out on October 25. CT Indie sent a bunch of questions to guitarist/vocalist Nick DiSalvo (the band also includes bassist Jack Donovan and drummer Matt Couto) and here are his answers on all things concerning the band. If you like what you read here, remember they are playing this Saturday at the Cherry Street Station in Wallingford with our favorite local sleazy riff slingers NightBitch and Rhode Island’s Thrillhouse. Keep it heavy!


How does the new album differ from the previous one? How are they similar?
In one word, the new album is a lot more personal. It definitely shows a maturation and a move toward a more unique sound within the stoner rock framework, whereas our first album was more a culmination of different sounds that inspired us. Of course we've retained a lot of elements from the last album; lots of fuzz, a driving rhythm section, emphasis on “heaviness”, whatever that means... but we've also become more complex and melodic, and I think overall Dead Roots Stirring is more akin to a classic psychedelic rock record than the modern stoner/doom one.

Why the long wait between albums?
There's quite a few reasons why the new album took so long. One big thing simply had to do with our schedules. We were all going to school and working, and while Matt and Jack live in Boston, I've moved around a bit. Under those circumstances, we just weren't able to practice that often. Another reason has to do with the creative process, I think we're just slow writers and we like to let our songs evolve for a long time before we put them down in stone (or vinyl, for that matter). Lastly, we had some delays between recording, mixing and mastering, and since we're all busy we had to put it on the back burner for a while even though we were all anxious to have it released as soon as possible.

There aren’t a lot of lyrics on the album. Was this intentional? Were you trying to let your instruments communicate ideas that you couldn’t put into words?
Lyrics are always the last thing to be added to a song, and although they could be written at any point during songwriting – or even before, serving as a sort of thematic guideline – they are not the focal point of our songs. I think that's much more apparent on our first album than on Dead Roots Stirring, where the lyrics are certainly more meaningful (no Conan references!). The sparseness of lyrics is intentional in the sense that I write as many or as few as I think the song needs. I think that the music itself is much more evocative of emotions or ideas than any words. We're at the point where I might call ourselves musicians, but I'm definitely no poet, so we let our music do most of the talking.

What is the meaning of the album’s title?
Dead Roots Stirring is a reference to a feeling of rebirth and renewal that comes after a period of stagnancy, depression, hopelessness, etc. In its most literal incarnation, this is springtime, where the “dead” roots of trees are imbued with life, heralding the arrival of another stage of the eternal cycle of life and death. I think its a feeling that everyone can identify with, and it's that feeling which is the undercurrent to the album, giving it a much more uplifting tone than our previous works. If that all sounds too esoteric, the phrase actually was taken and reworded from a scene in War and Peace, which was inspiring and changing me quite a bit at the time. A lot of the lyrics on Dead Roots Stirring, including the title track itself, deal directly with timeless themes from the book.

Was it your intention to take the album in a more psychedelic direction? It’s also more melodic. Was this done intentionally?
That was 100% our intentions. In general we wanted to, and still want to continue moving in a more progressive and psychedelic direction. Elements such as melody and dynamics are so much more expressive than simple, chugging riffs – even though that will always remain a component of our sound! But as we grow individually, as musicians and collectively as a band, we need to reshape things to reflect those changes. I don't expect the Elder of 2015, if we're around that long, to sound much like the Elder of 2011.

How did the recording process go this time? What was it like working with Clay Neely?
The recording process itself went very smoothly, partly because of our preparations (as I said, the songs were fully fleshed out and ready to be recorded) and also because we connect very well with Clay on a musical basis. It was extremely helpful working with an engineer who was familiar with us live to help us tap into the sound aesthetic we were aiming for. Recording for the first time in a “real” studio was also a bit different from our other endeavors (the split with Queen Elephantine and Elder were both recorded in my basement); we had access to awesome gear and the chance to experiment with Clay's know-how.

What are the future plans for the band? More touring? Trying to make the band a full time thing?
I think our biggest ambitions right now are touring and working on new material. I'd like to keep momentum so as to avoid another huge gap between albums, but the future is too uncertain for all of us right now to say that we'll be able to make Elder into a full-time gig. In any case, we plan on touring the US and Europe at the first feasible moment!

Goatcult Presents:

Elder
NightBitch
Thrillhouse

Saturday, September 24
Cherry Street Station
491 North Cherry Street Extension
Wallingford, CT

8pm - $6 – 21+

Paul Flaherty & Bill Nace, The Mountain Movers, Oxbow Lake

Friday, July 15, 2011, Indie Night @ the Oak presented by CT Indie

Location:
Charter Oak Cultural Center
21 Charter Oak Ave
Hartford, CT

All Ages - 8 PM - $6 or only $5 w/ a canned good donation for Hartford Food Not Bombs

FB Event page

A night that will melt your mind.

Free-reed wise man Paul Flaherty has been in the improv trenches for some four decades now. Equally powerful solo as he is in collaboration with likeminded free-scene jazz/noise instrumentalists, here he joins Bill Nace, extreme-guitar wizard. The duo was most recently documented by Jim Matus at Paranoise Studios in Hadley Mass. The LP, No, the sun is out on Open Mouth in a limited edition of 250. The duo also released the LP An Airless Field last year on Ecstatic Peace!. Both Flaherty and Nace have collaborated with legendary drummer Chris Corsano, with Flaherty in The Hated Music and Nace in Vampire Belt. Thurston Moore and Bill Nace, who play together in The Northampton Wools, joined Flaherty for an untitled CD in 2008, another Paranoise Studio recording, which has been called "Ferocious, killer, and loud as fuck."



Begun by Dan Greene (Butterflies of Love) and Rick Omonte (Crooked Hook/Shaki Presents), the psych-pop-jam-noise-folk of The Mountain Movers most recently grew into a three sided double-LP called Apple Mountain, their fourth full length, and second (first two LPs were on Safety Meeting Records) on their very own Car Crash Avoiders label. John Miller helped in the creation of Apple Mountain, but The Movers are now backed by Kryssi Battalene on lead, Ross Menze on drums. Kryssi fondly calls this current rhythm section the Rick Ross. The cassette EPs Get Out and Come In came out a few months ago, collections of lo-fi freak outs and "drinking songs" put together on the 8 track in Dan's garage.



Oxbow Lake, an avant-garde trio consisting of Stephen Haynes (horns), Charlie Dye (drums), and Matt Sargent (guitars). Haynes is an improv composer, a product of the Black Music Division at Bennington College. He has worked with Rhys Chatham, Cecil Taylor and the Dells to name only a few. Charlie Dye plays drums in several projects, including Sunspots, Mary of Egypt (Indie Rock/Avant-Garde), Andy Akiho (Contemporary Classical meets Soca with Steel Pan, Harp and Strings), Trio Schema (Free Improvisation) and Basecadet (Southern Metal Ska Rock). Matt Sargent is a musician from Hartford, CT, by way of Chesapeake Bay. Since 2007, he has directed the Hartford Sound Alliance, a CT-based performer/composer ensemble. Matt currently holds a Presidential Fellowship at SUNY Buffalo, where he will begin a PhD in Music Composition in Fall 2011.

Oxbow Lake at La Paloma (4.29.11) by mattsargent

De Omega sets their controls for the heart of the sun

photo: Vomit Pickles

Instrumental rock is making a mini-comeback these days. There are a whole ton of bands ditching vocalists and expressing themselves with just their instruments. Some do it better, than others. In the case of Connecticut’s De Omega, they are one of the bands that do it well. We e-mailed bassist Mark Eles a few questions to coincide with the band’s opening slot for Bongripper this Wednesday at BAR in New Haven. Here are his answers.

When did the band start? How did it get started?

I believe it was April of 2006 when Carlos (Ferriera, drums) completed the circle. Sam (Zombar, guitar) and I have been in bands together throughout the 18 yrs. Or so that we've known each other. And when our last band (The Father Panic Riot Orchestra) came to an end, we weren't about to stop playing music. So over the next few months, we pushed on developing new techniques, exploring new directions, while revisiting some of our dormant styles, until we had a couple solid ideas to build off of that we felt were unique enough to call our own and carry their own weight. Thats when we knew it was time to search for a drummer. We had a couple of people in mind but they were already preoccupied with projects of their own. Eventually a mutual friend of both Carlos' and mine caught wind of what Sam and I were trying to do, so he threw out his name to us. We got in touch, tried him out and we were pretty much sold instantly. Carlos is extremely fluid and tight behind the kit and he compliments our sound rather naturally.


Was it your intention to start an instrumental band or did it just happen that way?

Pretty much. We've all played in bands with singers before and 9 times out of 10 that is where the band goes sour. Whether it being the singer's ego is toobig, or they come to practice/shows shit-faced-hammered, or their lazy and unproductive, unreliable, or they just want to control everything about the band while putting in the least effort. It just didn't seem worth it anymore and wesimply didn't have the patients for that anymore. We weren't totally opposed tothe idea of having a singer, but we wanted to set the foundation of the music first before we even thought about giving that a shot. This was gonna be ourband. That may sound close-minded and selfish or whatever, but we wanted totreat this project like a work of art, not a cock flexing contest. Gearing more towards the musicians, artists, and people with souls rather than some randomasshole scenester who wants to prove something and/or has their own preconceived notions of what they think music should be.

Despite my hateful sounding rant about (LSD) Lead Singer Disorder, that was justan element we wanted to avoid in De Omega. In complete contrast to our motivation, I have found myself stunningly fortunate to have worked with 2 singers over the past year and a half, both from Nightbitch and a shit ton of other bands each. Phil Swanson and Christopher Taylor are two of the hardest working musicians I know. Both are extremely talented and each bring a lot to the table.


What can you express in De Omega that you can't in NightBitch? What do you get from playing in these different bands?

Well, clearly these 2 bands are rather different from each other. De Omega is abit more modern, avant-guarde, progressive, experimental, doom rock/metal or something.... and Nightbitch is simply traditional heavy metal. Paying homage to the pioneers of heavy music. A throw back if you will... So where De Omegais to say, a heavy semi- psychedelic vision quest, Nightbitch is to sex, drugs, and rock n roll. But I try to use these differences to my advantage, as a learning tool. Experience is the best teacher. Every band I've ever been in has been completely different from each other and will continue to be in the future. You see to me, each of these bands draw influence from somewhere completely different. And as a bass player, they all require different approaches from me. Such as my tonality, whether or not I play with my fingers or use a pick, should I be following more of the guitar or drums etc. All of these perspectives need to be figured out and eventually just start making more and more sense.


Are your songs written in advance or do you improvise a bit? What is the songwriting process for the band?

Our songs are written in advance, but there are certain sections of our musicthat we that we intentionally leave some slack in to provide options like transitions, or dragging out the ending of a song to kill time, or for the purpose of simply mixing it up to keep ourselves entertained. As for the writing process, there are a few ways we begin to construct. My favorite is the old fashioned jam session cause that is often times where the most unique, and unpredictable riffs come from. No planned structure, just everyman for themselves. We tend to record those improvisations cause it's nearly impossible to remember everything that happened in 20 minutes or so of chaos. Then we go back and listen, pick and choose what we like, sometimes throw in something already pre-existing, then assemble.


Is there a meaning behind the band's name?

There is, and we kind of stole it from the last track on Section 8's album "nine ways to say I love you". De Omega appears to be a combination of 2 ancient languages. Latin and Greek respectively. And when interpreted together, seem to say "from the end". We really liked the meaning behind it cause, what else can you really believe in? Religion has only proven itself to be a hoax with centuries of corruption, greed, and war. And everything that ever lives dies. At some point in time, everything comes to an end. So what else is there?

You released a CD back in 2009. Is there going to be any new recorded material soon? If there how is the new stuff different or similar to your other music?

We actually have enough material for another album right now, but we're holding back for a couple reasons. Sam is getting married in September, so that's obviously going to eat up a lot of his time, and when all is said and done, it's gonna set him back a few bucks. So we haven't really set anything in stone yet. In correlation to the big day, we decided to keep it relaxed and just continue to writing for now. But the next album is going to be huge! The ultimate goal is to use up every second of available memory on our next compact disc release. 80 minutes of De Omega! Not sure if that’s really been done before, but that’s what we're aiming for. And we'll probably need a little bit more time to finalize that whole arrangement. So for now, we're keeping any release information really vague.

What does each of you bring to the band? Individually? And as a whole?
 
Stylistically we all bring something different to the table. Sam has always had this dark, bluesy, rock type thing. Carlos has this latin, progressive, fusion action going on. And I just tap on the fretboard a shit-ton. Although these styles sound really far fetched from each other, they end up blending together really nice, and I couldn't imagine working anyone else.


What are the plans for the band's future?

Obviously, step 1 would be to finish writing the remainder of this next album, record it, and get it out there. Other than that, we've just merely ran concepts of albums "to come" through our heads. Potentially on deck would be, an extended tuning type album where sam would jump down to a baritone guitar, and I'd be playing a 6 string bass verses a 4 string. There has also been mention of doing a record with multiple guest vocalists and possibly a split LP. But only time will tell, so we shall see.


Manic Productions Presents:

Bongripper
De Omega

Wednesday, July 13
BAR
254 Crown Street
New Haven, CT
9:00 pm – 21+ - FREE

Snake Oil Record Release, with Atrina and DJ Shaki

Friday, June 17, 2011

Location:
Cafe Nine
250 State Street
New Haven, CT

9:30pm - 21+ - $6

Indulge in Snakeoil's stoned soul picnic...

Snake Oil is a collaboration between roughly a dozen people in New Haven County, Western Massachusetts, and New York City. In 1892, the year of Walt Whitman’s death, the circle rose up, fully formed, over the fringes of a blank landscape. The live incarnation for this show includes members (past and present) of Weigh Down, Titles, Mountain Movers, Latitude/Longitude, Charles Burst, Meridians, etc.



Atrina makes music that is equal parts minimalist melodicism, counterpunctal cacophony, and decibel-pushing dissonance. Angular, but accessible. Complex, yet catchy. Eclectic, and electrifying - Atrina makes ears ring, hearts pound, and toes tap.




In the transitions, Shaki will spin jams you've never heard but wish you had. You may think, how have I lived so long without this?

Glenn Jones (Cul de Sac), Sharron Kraus, DJ Jahoctopus

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Location:
Popeye’s Garage
50 Goffe Street
New Haven, CT

All Ages - $7.00 - 8:00 PM


(bio from Glenn Jones' page) .. also, check out this post from '08, mentioning Glenn Jones regarding the Faust show from May of '94)

Since 1989, Glenn Jones has led Boston’s "avant -garage" instrumental rock band, Cul de Sac, whose musical adventures are documented on nine albums to date, including a soundtrack for cult-director Roger Corman, and collaborations with guitarist John Fahey and former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki.

A 30-plus-year devotee of the so-called "Takoma school," Jones has written extensively on the steel-string guitar’s leading lights: John Fahey, with whom he was friends for nearly 25 years, and Robbie Basho, who befriended Jones during the five years before his untimely death in 1986.

With former Takoma label guitarists Peter Lang and Michael Gulezian — along with Loren Mazzacane Connors, Henry Kaiser, Gary Lucas, Tony Conrad and others — Jones performed at sold-out concerts honoring John Fahey, in NYC and San Francisco, shortly after Fahey’s death in 2001.

In 2004, Jones stepped out of the long shadow cast by Takoma’s guitar visionaries and offered his own "new possibility" — This Is the Wind That Blows It Out — for Strange Attractors Audio House. Its release was followed by a month-long tour of Europe with guitarist Jack Rose. Jones has since shared bills with Steffen Basho-Junghans, Max Ochs, Matt Valentine / Erika Elder; along with Rose, he’s toured with Peter Lang, and with some of the best of the new breed of solo guitar upstarts: Harris Newman, Sean Smith, and James Blackshaw, among others.

Jones' second album — titled Against Which the Sea Continually Beats — was issued by Strange Attractors in March 2007.



last.fm bio
Sharron Kraus is a singer/musician/songwriter who creates music rooted in the folk traditions of England and Appalachia. Her work is characterized by soil-rich vocals, haunting banjo, fine acoustic guitar and visionary word craft. Her songs are populated by a carnival array of fatally charismatic characters, telling tales of enslavement, perversion, incest, obsession, love and death. Sharron’s live performances are stark, compelling, and delicate. As with her music, her performance continues the tradition of the balladeer. She is like the roving storyteller, bringing tales of terror, sadness and joy to a stranger’s hearth on a dark and stormy night.

Sharron’s debut album Beautiful Twisted was released by Australian psych label Camera Obscura in 2002 and received rave reviews around the world. It was listed in Rolling Stone Magazine’s Critics’ Top Albums of 2002. After touring with US psychedelic folk band The Iditarod, she collaborated with them on an album of wintry songs and soundscapes entitled Yuletide and released by avant/experimental label Elsie and Jack in 2003.

Sharron’s second solo album, Songs of Love and Loss, was recorded at home in Oxford and at Dungeon Studios in the Cotswolds. The album features Jane Griffiths on fiddle and viola, Jon Fletcher on harmonica and occasional guitar, banjo and vocals, Colin Fletcher on bass, as well as BBC Folk Award-winning fiddler Jon Boden and Grammy-nominated early music violinist Giles Lewin.





DJ set by Jahoctopus (Christian DiMenna of Lovecraft Tattoo) will spin your heads.

Snake Oil s/t OUT TODAY

Channeling deep cut grooves and old school breaks à la Eugene Blacknell, a bit of War's psych-soul, with a twist of funk and pop, and add to that Broken Social Scene Feel Good Lost-era mood jams, you get Snake Oil, a heady instrumental rock record that might as well be taking the name of Laura Nyro's song Stoned Soul Picnic literally. The self-released LP is a mind at ease. A trip without being trippy, like watching flowers sprout, grow, and blossom through the eye of stop-motion photography. A blissed out, hypnotic, new underground groove record from the ever creative Jason Labbe and friends from New Haven bands Weigh Down and Titles. Buy it!

Record release party will be on Friday, June 17, 2011, at Cafe Nine with Atrina killing it and DJ Shaki spinning brain bursting freak jams like Erkin Koray and god knows what else. Check out the Facebook event page for more info, or Cafe Nine's site.

M.T. Bearington's Live Register Session TONIGHT

Gather the family around the computer tonight at 6 p.m. when The New Haven Register hosts a live set by M.T. Bearington. Watch it live and for free online! A few folks will be attending the live performance in the studio - get an invite here, there are still a handful of spots available. Stream this performance below, or on the Register's site.

And don't worry, if you miss it, the performance will be recorded and available for viewing after the show!

Can of Love and the Captain - new Snake Oil video

Snake Oil have released yet another video. John Panos gave this video a shout on his Kings page, saying, "This track is a kind of groovy/heavy almost jazzzy guitar/electro psych rock flying/floating/swimming thru time/space dodging/accepting flanging lazers kinda ride."

Grass Widow, Broken Water, Atrina

Wednesday, April 27 2011 - Manic Productions brings

BAR
254 Crown Street
New Haven, CT

9:00pm - 21+ - Free



Grass Widow:
Although it makes some sense to lump Grass Widow in with the Vivians, Dum Dums, and various other "girl groups" that rushed onto the indie underground stages of the late 2000s, the San Francisco-based trio is actually a slightly different animal. Formed, predictably enough, in the late 2000s, the group is comprised of Hannah Lew, Raven Mahon, and Lillian Maring; the three utilize the same sort of egalitarian, D.I.Y. embrace of collective creative possibility embodied by Rough Trade heroes such as the Raincoats, Essential Logic, and Kleenex/LiLiPUT. There's simply no denying the influence of the first wave of British D.I.Y. bands here -- whether it's deliberate or not -- yet while Grass Widow certainly work with the raw ore of a bygone era, the final product remains of their own time.

Like the aforementioned bands did with the more derivative, brutish aspects of England's Dreaming-era punk, Grass Widow subvert the laconic fuzzed-out punk wallop of their contemporaries by embracing a skittering, disarming approach to rhythm, one born equally out of innovation and necessity. The group's distinctive three-part vocal approach likewise creates an off-kilter moodiness that further complicates what are ultimately rudimentary post-punk tunes. The effect, when it works, can be quite impressive; when it doesn't, it still feels inspired. The band's debut, a self-titled full-length, appeared on the tiny Make a Mess label in 2009; it was followed shortly thereafter by an EP on the prodigious Brooklyn label Captured Tracks. After a move to the Kill Rock Stars label, the trio released their debut record, Past Lives, in August of 2010. (bio via allmusic.com)



Broken Water: Formed in August of 2008, and hailing from beautiful Olympia - WA, Broken Water are the latest noise vehicle for Kanako Wynkoop and Jon Hanna of Sisters. Abigail Ingram of Olympia's Congratulations joins the pair playing bass. All three members contribute vocals which adds to the depth of the sound. Arguably a forward progression from what had been created by Sisters, Broken Water now stand as one of only a few Olympia bands that carry the torch that'd been lit by Unwound in the 90's. (bio via Radio is Down)




Atrina makes music that is equal parts minimalist melodicism, counterpunctal cacophony, and decibel-pushing dissonance. Angular, but accessible. Complex, yet catchy. Eclectic, and electrifying, Atrina sounds like they mean it—with an " earnestness matched by technical expertise and solid songwriting, deep, heavy riffing, a brooding and moody sensibility. Singer Kelly L’Heureux sounds impassioned and entirely straightforward, her voice creating a compelling push-and-pull between vocals and band." Effortlessly blending sharp melodies, dynamic guitar rhythms and honest intensity, Atrina's sound harkens back to some of indie rock's greatest—Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, The Breeders, Blonde Redhead, Slint, Radiohead, Helium—while looking forward to create a sound that’s all their own, as evidenced on their 2 self-released EPs, including 2008's {beautiful evidence}. (bio off Manic's site)




Grass Widow tour:

April 2011
27 -- New Haven, CT @ BAR -- w/ Broken Water, Atrina
28 -- Providence, RI @ Building 16 -- w/ Broken Water, Songs for Moms
29 -- Portland, ME @ Aphoadion -- w/ Broken Water
30 -- Belfast, ME @ Free Range Music Festival

May 2011
24 -- London @ Tufnell Park Dome -- w/ Chain and the Gang
25 -- Paris @ TBA
26 -- Zurich @ Binz
27 -- Munich @ TBA
28 -- Graz @ Ladyfest
29 -- Budapest @ Szabad Az A
31 -- Vienna @ The Arena

June 2011
01 -- Clandestino @ TBA
02 -- Chiasso @ TBA
03 -- Geneva @ TBA
04 -- Lyon @ Grrrnd Zero
05 -- @ TBA
06 -- Marburg @ Cafe Trauma
07 -- Berlin @ Marie Antoinette
09 -- Amsterdam @ OCCII
10 -- Utrecht @ dB's CAB
15 -- London @ Dalston Victoria


Broken Water dates:

April 26th 2011
The Loft
New Brunswick, NJ

April 27th 2011
BAR
254 Crown St. - New Haven, CT

April 28th 2011
Building 16
Providence, RI

April 29th 2011
The Apohadion
107 Hanover St. - Portland, ME

April 30th 2011
Free Range Music Festival
Belfast, ME

May 4th 2011
The Magic Stick Lounge
4120-4140 Woodward Ave. - Detroit, MI

May 5th 2011
The Dojo
4640 E. 10th St. - Indianapolis, IN

May 6th 2011
Cooper Permanent Records (Day)
1914 W. Chicago Ave. - Chicago, IL

May 6th 2011
Mortville Permanent Records (Evening)
2106 S. Kedzie Ave. - Chicago, IL

May 8th 2011
19th and Charlotte
Kansas City, MO

May 9th 2011
Jackpot Saloon and Music Hall
943 Massachusetts St. - Lawrence, MO

May 13th 2011
The Comet
922 E. Pike St. - Seattle, WA

May 15th 2011
Waldorf
1489 E. Hastings St. - Vancouver, BC