First Listen: Sharon Van Etten, ‘Tramp’
Sharon Van Etten’s Jagjaguwar debut Tramp hits stores February 7th but you can stream the album in its entirety now over at NPR.
Big Freedia brought NO Bounce music to the masses last night when she and her divas stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live to perform “Excuse” and “Nah Who Mad.” She came dressed from head to toe in zebra print backed by a stage of dancers shaking as much ass as late night network TV will allow and gave middle America a taste of what the Crescent City has been enjoying for years.
$5 ASOBI SEKSU STUDENT DISCOUNT TICKETS!
We know that college can be rough - distance from home, classes, navigating your way through 4 years of alcohol and hormone driven indiscretion. On top of that there is finding enough money for books, food and the occasional rock n roll show.
We feel your pain so we are partnering with WIUX to cut you, poor college student, a break. Beginning with Asobi Seksu, we will be offering a special $5 student discount ticket available for purchase at the WIUX station house.
Stay tuned to your inbox and interwebs as we announce further shows and discounts coming your way this spring!
Cults helped the kids of America celebrate the holidays when they stopped by Yo Gabba Gabba!’s Holiday Special this past weekend. Because like Trick Daddy, Cults love da kids.
Click the photo to see pictures from Screaming Females at The Bishop last week courtesy of Julia Rickles.
Getting to know you: A HAWK AND A HACKSAW
A HAWK AND A HACKSAW began as a solo project for Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Jeremy Barnes who played all instruments on the projects debut LP before enlisting a cadre of musicians for subsequent releases, among them musical life partner violinist Heather Trost. The pair have scoured the globe to be influenced by and inspired in, creating wondrous Balkan inflected Eastern European folk.
Barnes traveled to Romania to record with Gypsy brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia, lived in Budapest, Hungry for 2 years with Trost, playing with the Hun Hangár Ensemble, resulting in the acclaimed A Hawk and a Hacksaw & the Hun Hangar Ensemble EP and its follow-up, Deliverance. After years of releasing albums on the UK’s The Leaf Label, the duo’s latest album, Cervantine, was released on the group’s own L.M. Dupli-cation label.
Outside of A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Albuquerque residents, Barnes and Trost met fellow New Mexican Zach Condon, working together on Beirut’s debut album, Gulag Orkestar.
Balmorhea and Brother John brought a double dose of beautiful music to The Bishop on Tuesday. Click the link to see Julia Rickles (@jrickk) photo gallery.
Getting to know you: CHEAP TIME
CHEAP TIME is a garage rock trio from Tennessee that brings a healthy dose of glam, punk and power pop to the garage rock wheelhouse. At the heart of the band is Jeffery Novak, who started as a Tennessee teen playing in punk bands the aptly named Jeffrey Novak’s One Man Band and the now defunct Rat Traps. He fell under the wing of the late Jay Reatard who encouraged Novak in music and in life.
“It was like immediately meeting a brother,” Novak told the LA Times. “He was four or five years older than me. He’d figured some things out, and he gave me so many tips. A lot of things. That’s something I’ll have to carry around with me for the rest of my life. He was a big influence, whether he died young or not.”
Another influence on Novak and the infancy of Cheap Time was the music of early Redd Kross and The Runaways which weighed heavy on the raw music of the burgeoning band formed with moonlighting Be Your Own Pet’ members Jemina Pearl on bass and Nathan Vasquez on drums.
Lineup changes brought with them new influences, looking to power pop acts like The Quick and Sparks for inspiration and releasing an eponymous LP on In The Red Records. The solidified trio of Novak on guitar, Stephen Braren on bass and Ryan Sweeney on drums hit the road with Yo La Tengo, Jay Reatard and Guitar Wolf, releasing a string of 7” singles along the way culminating in last years In The Red Records follow-up, Fantastic Explanations (And Similar Situations) which finds the band embracing their power pop ya-yas.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen to the record for a couple of months,” Novak told the LA Times. “It was like, ‘Wow, we spent a lot of money and this record’s never going to get done.’ But then we got the tapes back and mixed it with [Sparks guitarist and Runaways and Concrete Blonde producer] Earle Mankey and that was a cool experience unto itself. It was an upbeat way to end a record that was kind of tragic.”
Cheap Time plays The Bishop Thursday August 25 with Heinous Orca and Vacation Club.
Merrill Garbus is very good at making the musics as tUnE-yArDs. Merrill Garbus with Questlove and Black Thought of The Roots is very, very good at making the musics as tUnE-yArDs, which she did last night when she stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to perform “Gangsta”. It’s not just that the song is a banger, which it is, the magic of tUne-yArDs has always been in the show. Watching Merrill creating and manipulating live vocal loops is as mesmerizing as the music itself. Add the distinctive drumming of Questo as a dual/harmonizing drummer and a fire freestyle from Black Thought and you have late night gold.
GARDENS & VILLA are one of the new kids on the Secretly Canadian block, building syrupy, laid back synth jams with a distinct sense of California cool. One of said jams is “Orange Blossom” which is a chill ode to young love. The boys stopped by The Noise Coalition in Costa Mesa, CA to record a live performance giving us all a taste of what’s to come this Thursday when they swing by The Bishop with DOM and Qur’an Qur’an.