I'm From Barcelona's Spring/Summer Tour

Yes, you did hear me correctly. If you have not yet heard of the TWENTY-NINE member filled group hailing from Sweden (not Spain), you've been missing out. I'm From Barcelona is one of the silliest, funnest bands to make music in years. They sing very simple lyrics to very busy, wild songs filled with more instruments then you can probably name off the top of your head. It makes you want to dance, and sing along, and if you aren't clapping or at least tapping your foot after 30 seconds of playtime, music in general might not be your thing.

It may be hard to gather all those folks up, but it's time that the troupe of traveling troubadours hits the road. I'm From Barcelona will be wandering about this side of the Atlantic, including their stop at Coachella, with likes of Jack Johnson and countless other bands that I have no time to list. They also have a few dates lined up in Belgium, France, and Norway, for you international-ites. If you have any means to see I'm From Barcelona, do not hesitate!

Oh, and the dates are in the European (or rest of the world) format, with the day first, then the month. I could convert it, but I like that format better anyway. You all are big kids - you can figure it out.


24/4 - First Unitarian Church - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
25/4 - Maxwell's - Hoboken, New Jersey
27/4 - Coachella
28/4 - El Rey - Los Angeles, California
29/4 - The Independent - San Fransisco, California
1/5 - Masonic Temple - Brooklyn, New York
9/5 - Nuits Botanique - Brussels, Belgium
10/5 - Ten Vrede - Diksmuide, Belgium
3/7 - Quartfestivalen - Kristiansand, Norway
4/7 - Bygdalarm - Oystese , Norway
18/7 - Les Arts á La Champagne - Poupet, France
19/7 - Festival de Thau - Thau, France

Pela Launches US Tour

In reference to my previous post/band of the week, there were two bands I really picked up on a couple of SXSW's ago: Monsters Are Waiting and Pela. One got more credit than the other (coughAnytownGraffiticough), but both got quite famous because of it. Woops, this isn't a post about SXSW - that's in a few weeks.


Pela is launching on a tour about the delightful states. They are stopping in fourteen cities, basically all throughout the country, with the biggest event saved for last: the Sasquatch! Music Festival. If you haven't heard, not only does the event feature Pela, but the likes of Death Cab, Modest Mouse, M.I.A., Tegan & Sara, Flight of the Conchords, Cold War Kids, The New Pornographers, Say Hi (formerly Say Hit To Your Mom), and Mates of State! just to name a few. Oh, and the Flaming Lips' U.F.O. Show, which I hear is completely insane.



And here's Pela's tour dates. Find more info on their Myspace. Hopefully they are going to your town... the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is so lonely this year!


2/26 - TT The Bear's - Cambridge, Massachusettes
2/27 - Music Hall of Williamsburg - Brooklyn, New York
2/29 - Schuba's (sold out) - Chicago, Illinois
3/1 - 400 Bar - Minneapolis, Minnesota
3/4 - High Dive (sold out) - Seattle, Washington
3/5 - Doug Fir - Portland, Oregon
3/7 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, California
3/8 - Spaceland - Los Angeles, California
3/10 - Hi Dive - Denver Colorado
3/11 - Jackpot Saloon - Lawrence, Kansas
3/14 - Rock and Roll Hotel - Washington DC, Washington DC
3/15 - Johnny Brenda's - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
5/26 - Sasquatch! Music Festival - Quincy, Washington

Band of the Week: Monsters Are Waiting

[February 25 - March 2]
Monsters Are Waiting
Sounds Like: Indie
Drinking Buddies: Pretty Girls Make Graves, Metric, She Wants Revenge
Synopsis: New wave New Wave.
Makes You Want To...: Listen to vinyl; Brood
[Myspace]




One week, one band. You know the drill.
This week, the featured artist is Monsters Are Waiting.


Time to buckle down. Reality is hitting most of us now: there is no sanctuary from school anymore. No hovels to hide in from the heinously horrendous homework hurled at us. Tensions are tightening, stress levels are rising, mid-terms are coming, projects are due, papers are being written (or assigned). But safety remains with sweet tunes for your delicate audio receivers (ears) to relish in while running out of ink or getting cramps from typing.

Monsters Are Waiting hail straight out of the city of angels - Echo Park for you particulars. Their specialty is turning Hollywood upside down for a nice, mean laugh. Monsters Are Waiting has hence been touted a new wave of New Wave in our modern music. The evidence is clear too, as Monsters Are Waiting's somewhat eerie, somewhat quiet, somewhat bouncy, but always poignant, which emulates plenty of age-old new-wave influence (think 80s Cure, New Order, etc.) With other influences such as The Stone Roses (who Monsters Are Waiting has covered!), The Kinks, and Wire, as well as fellow contemporary bands, Monsters Are Waiting definitely know how to project themselves.

Monsters Are Waiting released their debut album, Fascination, back in 2006 after riling the hornets nest of music advocates down in SXSW. Since then, they have built up quite the repetoire of music videos for their current songs. Lately though, not much word from their home base. But we can hope that they're making sexy new songs for our listening pleasure.

You may find it hard to believe, but they have a Myspace. I sincerely suggest wandering over to Insound to snag a copy of Fascination for yourself, or iTunes of physicality is not a concern. And for you vinyl buffs out there, click the link on Monsters Are Waiting's Myspace to buy up the last of their "Ha Ha - Single" vinyl records that they didn't sell while in England. In the meantime, duck, cover, dodge as much homework as you can, and don't get too many paper cuts; it's bad for the skin.

The Pillows Announce US Tour

Crazy J-Rock band The Pillows are finally going to spread their catchy, body-movin', Japanese tunes to the American side of the Pacific. This comes after their busy year spent wildly recording and releasing material... let's see: Wake Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!, The Pillow's latest album, Lostman Go To Yesterday, a single/b-side compilation, as well as the Ladybird Girl EP, the Scarecrow EP, AND the Tokyo Bird EP. Whew, that's a mouthful.

So they're a bit prolific in their career - that just means more music for our ears! The Pillow's American tour is going to be a bit short lived, but I guarantee fun times for anyone who is able to attend any of the performances that they'll be having with The Noodles.




3/13 - Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre
3/17 - San Francisco, CA - Slim's
3/21 - New York, NY - Blender Theater at Gramercy

Band of the Week: Au Revoir Simone

[February 18-24]
Au Revoir Simone
Sounds Like: Indie-Pop
Drinking Buddies: The Blow, Mates of State, The Brunettes.
Synopsis: Girls and keyboards... what more can you ask for?
Makes You Want To...: Muse about relationships; Read a book; Dance
[Myspace]




One week, one band. You know the drill.
This week, the featured artist is Au Revoir Simone.


Oh, busy, busy, busy me. Essays here and there; school is no fun. In fact, it's quite the downer sometimes. I need a pep - a pick-me-up - something that beats away the monotony. It must be obnoxious that I feature so many perky indie-pop outfits, but these are the things that keep me moving every week! They make my days a little more interesting.

That being said, now that all my essays are done, I may say au revoir to them, and thank Au Revoir Simone graciously in helping me pass the time. Au Revoir Simone is a New York trio of gals with a French-ish name. This troupe of delightful ladies goes for simplicity, and creates wonderful depth. How, you ask?

1) Turn drum machine on.
2) Play light, bouncing, pretty notes on three keyboards, simultaneously.
3) Sing in three very beautiful voices, simultaneously.
4) Repeat!

It sound simple, but Au Revoir Simone adds plenty of complexity to their musical arrangements with charming lyrics on love, life, and a handful of other topics. Au Revoir Simone presently have two albums out right now, Verses of Comfort, Assurance and Salvation, and The Bird of Music, which are both astounding! You may not have guessed it, but they just happen to have a Myspace. And hard to believe at the rate that I've accidentally been following in the footsteps of the lovely folks at Daytrotter, but they have an article and live performances over there! Listen to "Through the Backyards." It's addicting! And have a good week.

Untitled 2 - Kevin Drew

Broken Social Scene (as well as most of the other Arts & Craft loyalist bands) posted this handy dandy little video of Kevin Drew's performance not too long ago on MTV Live, via MTV Canada. Where the performance aired aside, this is a very neat performance of just one of the very new song written by Kevin. They use great blending with the piano and guitar, the bass line is super-neat, and that beat is hypnotic. The vocal compositions and lyrics are cool too!

Basically, I'm saying go listen/watch. Now.

In other Broken Social Scene news, I just learned that there is a slow and fast version of "Major Label Debut" on Broken Social Scene. I would never have known otherwise, because I had the slow version. Woah! If anyone could give me the hook up (irony!) on the fast version via MP3, I would be very grateful.

Oh, and no band of the week for now... Essays are due, and those are slightly more difficult/time-consuming to write!

Oh, yay! National public radio gets my thumbs up!

This is another short post from Arabella!

So we all know that NPR can tell you the news at pretty much any point in the day, you can get car advice on saturday mornings, and you can hear some pretty interesting and/or funny stories at many points throughout the weekend and on some weekday mornings. But who knew that NPR had such a fantastic music selection? I definitely did not!

For those of you who have never been strongly urged to try and download as many NPR podcasts as you possibly can, now is your chance to do it. Go to the npr website and find the podcasts button, choose the "all songs considered" podcast and get downloading! They have featured music ranging from Billie Holiday to the Juno soundtrack to Neutral Milk Hotel, and on and on.

And if you are like me and into every single kind of music, go ahead and check out all of the other music programs they feature. One of my favorites is World Cafe, a show that plays music by bands based outside of the US.

By the way- don't knock it 'till you've tried it! If you are not imediately impressed with the first podcast you download, try another one! It's definitely worth your time, computer space and ipod/zune/creative/mp3 player space.

Thanks for reading!

Band of the Week: Vampire Weekend

[February 4-10]
Vampire Weekend
Sounds Like: Indie-Pop
Drinking Buddies: The New Amsterdams, Bishop Allen, Ra Ra Riot
Synopsis: Indie-pop + Afro-beat + Reggae
Makes You Want To...: Read a book; Watch a play; Dance; Go to college.
[Myspace]




One week, one band. You know the drill.
This week, the featured artist is Vampire Weekend


I fully admit, I'm still on my kick of Vampire Weekend music. We'll just launch right into this, shall we? Vampire Weekend is a collective of well-read and bubbly musicians from New York City who make some catchy, bouncy indie-pop. Taking tons of inspiration from Afro-pop, as well as Westernized pop, Vampire Weekend exudes foot tapping, head nodding actions, not to mention tons of smiles! The lyrics are quite clever (any band who can quote Lil Jon gets props from me), and they can capture all moods - from slow to fast songs - from happy to laid back.

Vampire Weekend literally put out their debut, self-titled album at the end of Januarary, so it's fresh off the presses and ready for your listening pleasure. If you couldn't guess, they have a Myspace, which you should check out now-ish. They also performed some live stuff on Daytrotter, which you can download for free, of course. The faster version of "I Stand Corrected" is well worth the visit. They also have a video for their single, "A-Punk," which I talked about in my last post. One thing I didn't mention is that they also have a neat video for "Mansard Roof," which was filmed very retro, in the style of 70s/80s movies.

In any case, that's it for this week! Until next time, have a blast and stuff.

Video: "A-Punk" - Vampire Weekend

For those who haven't heard of Vampire Weekend yet, they're basically the most awesome group to get picked up by delighted ears that are listening outside of the mainstream. They have released several songs, as well as several live performances on Daytrotter a while ago. But their new self-titled album just came out yesterday, and from what I've heard, it's splendid!

(I also finally picked up In Our Bedrooms After The War by Stars, but that's neither here nor there.)

This is Vampire Weekend's second video from their new album, their first single, and is the best music video I've seen... well, in a really long time. I normally don't approve of Myspace TV, by the way, but the quality of the video is way better than silly YouTube. Watch it! You'll love it, I promise.



A-Punk

Add to My Profile | More Videos