I’m currently working on our NYC B.E.A.F. (Best of Emerging Artist Fest, here’s last year’s poster) and going through all the artists that made our Best of NYC Poll. I’m now in psychedelic territory (a land I dig, in case you didn’t realize) and wanted to highlight a group I never blogged about before: Young Boys. This (judging from the pictures) is a fairly young quartet that plays top notch drone-rock in the tradition of The Jesus and Mary Chain, but with an interesting attention to sonic details. Besides the obvious guitars and vocals drenched in reverb, their sound also involves a fair amount of synths – mostly droney and distorted, of course! The song "Fell from Grace" (streaming below) is a glorious psych rock ride – don’t miss their show at Glasslands on April 11. – PDG

Hunters is our favorite NYC emerging noise rock band, and they are playing The Mercury Lounge on Thursday March 22. If you like your indie rock tense and noisy like we do, you don’t want to miss this one.

I’m catching up with a million things I couldn’t deal with while in Austin at SXSW, and working at the speed of light (or so it feels). I stumbled upon an email from this band called Landlady. They are pretty friggin’ rad, and their email presentation is fun,  so I adapted it for mass consumption: Landlady is an adventure-pop group based in Brooklyn and led by Adam Schatz behind the farfisa and the lead mic. As a saxophonist and keyboardist  he’s been lucky enough to collaborate with Little Joy, Twin Shadow, Hospitality, Sleigh Bells, and Those Darlins to name a few. Don’t miss these guys at Big Snow Buffalo Lodge with Strange Shapes (also an interesting Brooklyn band) on March 23. – PDG

The penultimate day of my fourth SXSW was definitely the longest in my history of SX’s. Arriving at 10:30am at the Elvis Presley-themed Beale Street Tavern to host a show, I was out on the town for 16 hours to follow. Opening the morning, Austin’s Indie-meets-retro rock quartet, Ghost Bunny, and solo, blues-rock multi-instrumentalist and loop-master, Walker Lukens, got the ball rolling. Most attendants woke up and arrived for a bevy of Brooklyn bands: Black Taxi, The Courtesy Tier, and The Click Clack Boom. The string of East Coasters was broken by LA- born Vas Defrans (pictured), who put the sound system to the test with pounding drums and intricate instrumental layering. A laid back local favorite, The Naturals, contrasted with the strobe- light and projection illuminated, electro/dance-rock quartet, Kid Savant who followed suit. NYC’s Hollis Brown closed the afternoon with straight up great blues rock and Southern rock sentiments. Yet another Tex-Mex decompression resuscitated me for an extensive evening of street performances. Renegade rocker, Tom Morello, brought the aggressive music of Black Top Demon, Outernational, Anti-Flag, and Wayne Kramer outside the Swan Dive as part of Occupy SXSW. Morello himself marched into the crowd of hundreds for a finale while police swarmed the area. All ended without any blood shed, but it was an night/early morning to remember! –Meijin Bruttomesso

Ski Lodge – who placed on #6 in our recent best of NYC poll for emerging bands – is the very new indie pop project of Andrew Marr – previously known as The Clementines. After releasing his first EP under the new moniker via Dovecote Records in September, Marr put together a band and started performing as a quartet. Their self titled debut EP is chock full of jangly indie pop gems with a nostalgic retro vibe. Songs like “A Game” and “I Would Die To Be” are instant pop classics, lighthearted and full of "mid-fi" character. Andrew’s songwriting and vocals might recall the simple magic of early The Smiths, while the band’s sonics are grounded in the Brooklyn glo-fi sound of the new decade (think Beach Fossils), with occasional tropical references. Though Ski Lodge has only been performing together since September, they’ve instantly become one of the NYC music scene’s favorite live bands, and are planning on releasing a full length of their bouncy pop later in 2012. See them live at The mercury Lounge on April 24. – Read Amanda Dissinger’s interview with the band here.