NYC

Your daily dose of lo-fi awesomeness: Lost Boy ? plays W’burg twice

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Lost Boy ? – that question mark is part of the name – might be a bunch of lost souls but as long as they don’t lose those Pixies references they are a found asset to the NYC scene. Those Bostonian bad asses were so unique that to this day no band really managed to reference them without falling into plagiarism. Lost Boy ? manages to avoid this thanks to the added character brought by their lo-fi approach and some psych influences Kim Deal and co. didn’t venture into. These guys have some really good songs, and should be fun live: check them out on 12.09 at Death By Audio and/or the day after at Spike Hill.

L.A.

Color Me Indie new concert series, starts Dec. 11th at Space 2710

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Live music, local art, and barrels of free hot cocoa make up the pieces of Color Me Indie’s first concert event at Space 2710. Live music will be colored rock n roll by the likes of Blonde Summer (or catch them tomorrow with Kitty), Twin Suns, and The Pocket Rockets. Live art will be provided by the Artcade Collective. It’s an all ages show for $5 with, I have to say it again, free hot cocoa. Don’t be a scrooge!

-Angelo Lorenzo

NYC

A new super-folk-band is born: Middle Brother

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Partisan Records announced the spring 2011 release of Middle Brother‘s debut album – a new supergroup comprised of the lead singers of NYC’s own Deer Tick, and LA based Dawes and Delta Spirit. Middle Brother came together in mid-2009 when the three songsmiths realized, after several on-stage collaborations, that they shared a unique vision and wanted to take it one step further, into the studio. They first played their anthemic, soulful, passionate and confessional at 2010’s SXSW – a tiny, late-night, unannounced event under the moniker “MG&V”. Since then they have been busy in the studio preparing next year’s debut release. The band will be playing a one-off show December 20 at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. Here’s a preview of one of the songs featured in the upcoming record, performed live.

Chicago

Sad Brad Smith

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Today marks the release of the debut album from Sad Brad Smith, Love Is Not What You Need. This lonely and heartbroken troubadour may have a his tongue slightly planted in his cheek, but his music pure and genuine. Whether sincere or in jest these tracks are well-constructed capture a mood of the helpless romantic and takes it to the extreme.

Take the track "Everyone Knows That I’m Still In Love With You". It is a simple premise, but in the hands of Sad Brad Smith it becomes a near comical adventure. "I told a dirty joke, the room stay quiet." It’s nearly nonsense, but still beautiful. Although this is an independent release SBS has managed to get his track "Help Yourself" on the "Up In The Air" soundtrack. He has that near universal appeal while keeping the audience at bay with his mixture of humor, heartache, and romance.  

San Francisco

New Release: Skeletal System – Small Talk/Static Eyes

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With jagged guitar strikes piercing a harrowing and portentous synth-drone, Skeletal System’s “Small Talk” opens their just recently released two-track EP. A vast and reverberating chamber of sound engulfing eerie and despondent lyrics, “Small Talk’s” pensive mood begs to be played at high volume so that the listener can be consumed by its resonance, sending chills in a fascinating way.

Like a thick cloud punctured by the blips of a falling satellite, “Static Eyes” fills the second side of the single with additional ominous intensity. Marked by its sharp arpeggio-ed synthesizer tones, “Static Eyes” (all though certainly dark in its own right), functions as a lovely bridge out of the utter despair that characterized the previous track.

All in all this EP (or single, however you choose to define it) is a brief but enthralling release by one of San Francisco’s great synth-rock bands. Hopefully, it is a herald of more in-depth things to come. It is available for free at Bandcamp and comes highly recommended.

 

Ada Lann

NYC

Hard Nips celebrate CD release at Cake Shop on 12.07.

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Don’t ask us why, but we feel like no month could be more appropriate than a freezing December for Brooklyn-via-Japan all female quartet Hard Nips‘ CD release party. The band plays rather spartan punk pop, with what I would call "classic female Japanese rock vocals" – a style of singing that I would describe as high in pitch, super-simple in the choice of melodies, and non-dramatic in the delivery. I’m sure there is a deep cultural reason behind what I’m hearing and associating with Japanese singing (and if not, then perhaps it’s just a coincidence), but for now I’ll just be happy to coin a new genre, by the name of "Nip-Pop". Hard Nips will bring their punky Nip-Pop to Cake Shop on 12.07 to celebreate the release of their debut CD.

NYC

Yuck album in early 2011, NYC show with Teenage Fanclub on 12.08

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Yuck, a band comprised by musicians spread in 3 different continents (NJ, London and Japan), have been getting a decent amount of buzz lately with their alternatively clean and fuzzy dream pop. After signing to Fat Possum Records (The Walkmen, Wavves, Andrew Bird), the band announced their full lenght debut for February 2011, and released a first free mp3 you can check out down here. Definitely a band to watch for 2011 – don’t miss the show at Electric Ballroom on 12.08 with… Teenage Funclub!!!

Yuck – Rubber

Philadelphia

Join Us at The Deli Magazine’s Final Showcases of the Year!

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We really can’t believe that it’s December already! It’s kind of freakin’ us out. But we can’t help but feel a little warm and fuzzy inside when we think about all the great new music that we’ve seen. We’d like to thank the bands who have participated in the crazy mixed-up lineups that we’ve put together for our showcases this year! Much love to Reading Rainbow, Grandchildren, Levee Drivers, Attia Taylor, Hair Rocket, Chang Chang, Univox, The Homophones, TJ Kong & the Atomic Bomb, The Extraordinaires, An American Chinese and Power Animal. (Please let us know if we missed anybody. Our memory isn’t what it used to be.) Also special thanks for all those who let us share in the celebration of their releases. It was certainly an honor, and we look forward to more releases to come.
 
Well, we are into the home stretch of 2010, and we have our two last shows that we will be presenting this year. We’ve mentioned our new Pipeline Series, and we wanted to share more with you about it. We love putting on showcases! (Though we do admit that there are moments where we are like: “What did we get ourselves into?”) We have always believed that The Deli is a great resource for music fans and bands to find each other. The Pipeline Series is a way for us to introduce our favorite artists from other Deli cities to Philly as well as exporting our local talent to welcoming showcases in other cities. We also hope a bit of musical kinship will build among our participants. We have a fine lineup to kick things off. The Notekillers unknowingly changed the course of music history when they made a last ditch effort for anyone to hear their 1980 7” The Zipper and dropped free copies off at NYC’s legendary 99 Records where it ended up in the hands of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and his No Wave crew, which Moore admitted to having an influence on their sound in an interview with Mojo Magazine. After a kind of rock ‘n’ roll fairytale, Moore went on to release critically acclaimed Notekillers 1977 – 1981 on his label Ecstatic Peace. But the Notekillers have also returned with an album full of new material called We’re Here to Help, and it still has that nasty experimental rock sound ready to influence a whole new generation. We are – shall we say – ecstatic to be able to bring them to Kung Fu Necktie on Thursday, December 16 for The Deli’s Pipeline Series. Along for the wild ride will KEXP faves, NYC’s Electric Tickle Machine. Their name may sound “cute”, but we think “cute” will be the last adjective that comes to your mind when you hear their psychedelic indie rock anthems tear up the stage. Hometown grungey, dream-pop outfit Creepoid will be getting the festivities started. We had a chance to hear some of the new material from their upcoming album Horse Heaven this Friday at Making Time. The new tunes still contain that dichotomy of hazy tranquil stillness coupled with spontaneous explosions that you’d expect from former hardcore kids. Thus, causing us to gravitate towards their Creepoid sound and catapulting them up our must-see band list this past year. Check out all these acts, and hear why we want to share them with you at the debut of The Deli Magazine’s Pipeline Series. But we also have a show to get you warmed-up with the lovely folks at Punk Rock Payroll this Saturday, December 11 at The Blockley featuring the madcap psych-rock of The Armchairs, fuzzed out folk-hop/indie rock of Illinois, the experiment that is Da Comrade!, and loveably sweet Arrah & the Ferns. We hope that you can join us for our last showcases of the year. Thanks to all! Cheers! – The Deli Staff