For L Magazine’s latest attempt at lo-brow meets hi-brow arts curation (see an old Deli article about this here), they have joined forces with NYC Opera to bring us Act 4. Closing out several nights of independent opera productions, theater goers will get to hear independent-minded musicians… rocking out for the tux crowd.
Opera lovers can hear what the kids are doing, and hipsters can enjoy snooty drinks while retaining their hard-earned cred. Everybody wins! It looks like this will be ongoing for at least the next couple months, so keep checking the site for details.
My personal fave, Brooklyn’s summer soul duo Beach Fossils will be playing at Avery Fisher Hall’s fourth ring cocktail bar this Thursday following a performance of The Elixir of Love. Their show is free with your opera ticket, so check it out. If Elixir of Love’s composer Gaetano Donizetti’s awesome facial hair is any indication, this opera may be more relevant to Brooklyn’s scene than I thought. – Mike Levine (@goldnuggets)

The 8th issue of The Deli LA (Best of LA 2011 issue) is available online HERE! The printed version will hit the streets of Los Angeles next week.

Josh Flagg’s debut album, Devastate Me, has the perfect balance of sweet and sour in an alt-rock format. The songs are, as it says on Flagg’s website, "brawlers with busted noses, but hearts of gold". Flagg, tired of the You-Me-Girl aspect that comprises much of songwriting, set out to undermine the classic pop format by disrupting those sentiments. For example, the song "Bring Me Back to Life" is about a zombie looking for his girlfriend and "Come Back To Me" is written from the perspective of a comic book villain. The music will make your heart soar, the lyrics will make you think and the record overall will make you smile. Josh Flagg will be playing Bowery Electric on March 31. – Leah Tribbett

The other day in Austin I was talking with some friends about the fact that right now in Brooklyn there are a ton of new and gorgeously talented solo female acts (we were thinking about Lia Ices, Sharon Van Etten, Alex Winston, MNDR and Oh Land amongst many many many others). Well it turns out that there is one more I wasn’t aware of: Australia born popstress/actress Lenka, who recently moved to every rocker’s favorite neighborhood – Brooklyn. Lenka will release her sophomore album on April 19 and has just released a new video of the single "Heart Skips a Beat" (check it out down here). She will also be on a little mini West Coast tour starting April 1 to preview songs from "Two"

Bucking the trends and uniting disparate genres in an unlikely marriage, native Brooklyn band Indian Rebound have proven you don’t have to trade in your balls to get down with surf rock, and have done all our ears a favor in doing so.
Singer/Guitarist Ethan Levenson & drummer John Kallen have discovered a sweet groove lying somewhere between nuggets-style garage rock and last year’s beach pop craze, proving you can sound sweet and pretty and still pack some heat. It’s like At The Drive In started listening to Real Estate, dialing down the ‘epic’ a bit while keeping all the charm intact.
Check out their self-released debut EP at their bandcamp and head on over to Party Xpo this Saturday at 7pm to check them out. – Mike Levine (@goldnuggets)

Like many current bands, Afghan-American singer Zohra Atash’s project Religious to Damn is inspired by the sound of the 70’s and 80’s. However, the influences on this record are far from typical. Religious to Damn’s music doesn’t have anything to do with those dancey Motown tunes, glam rock, or electro-pop. Instead, their album "Glass Prayer" references dark and sophisticated artists like Japan, David Sylvian, Siouxsie & The Banshees and (in the poppier choruses) queens of cool Blondie and Kate Bush. The best songs on the album are "Drifter", a track built on a super simple bass line that develops quite surprisingly towards celestial openings and the title track "Glass Prayer" (in the video), which alternates a verse that’s almost a tribute to late Japan with a chorus as beautiful and voluptuous as Kate Bush’s best songs. Infused with exotic sounds and atmospheres, the record features a good number of ballads and mid tempo numbers, but things seems to get more interesting whenever the BPM go up, as evidenced by the Morriconian "The Wait", and the tense and apocalyptic "Let The Fires Burn". (This CD was submitted through our digital CD submission system).

We keep going through the 107 local artists that made our latest Best of NYC Emerging Artist Poll, here’s on of the 3 that tied on 102nd position:

Many bands are about being brash, about sending a message with a single power chord – Mary Halvorson and her Trio (and occasionally Quintet) have chosen a much more subtle approach. There are no lyrics, long works and dramatic pauses. There are titles with numbers after them that seem to signify deep thoughts. Halvorson and her team leap across generic definitions, a baroque piece here, more experimental jazz there, and something that sounds like it came from 1930s radio off in the distance. What ties it together is superb control of the instruments and a deep trust in your fellow musician. And it works. – The band will be touring Europe for most of April. – allison levin

The two boys of Jay Kill & The Hustle Standard (Jake Hill and Charley Hustle) are at it again. This time collaborating with filmmaker and creative force Robert Bailey (Rogue Wild Productions) in their latest music video, featuring the song "I Don’t Share"; the third track on JK&HS’s first EP New Men Old Boys. The EP is available for free on the group’s website.- (as posted in The Deli’s Open Blog – post your band’s entries, videos, and Mp3s here).

C. Gibbs has become almost an iconic figure in the Brooklyn scene, playing guitar among others for Modern English and Foetus back in the days, and more recently putting out records solo and with his rootsy band Lucinda Black Bear, which is still active. Here at The Deli we can’t forget that he played our very first mag benefit party in 2004! C. announced today his new project called The Droves and the debut album "Out Of Herself" which will be released officially with a live show in the back room of The Gutter in Brooklyn. Compared to Gibbs’ more recent output this sounds more electric and poppy, in an indie way of course. We detect occasional references to Pavement and Tom Petty.

My final official day at the annual SXSW closed with what felt like a 5K. Arriving at the Filter Magazine Cultural Clash party in the Cedar Street Courtyard, I once again caught Norway’s jumpsuit-wearing dance crew, Datarock, who played until they were “thrown off” the stage, followed by New Zealand’s soft alternative quartet, The Naked and Famous (top picture). An attempt to see Surfer Blood ended quickly at the first glance of the mile long line, but LA’s new wave- meets- psychedelic rock act, Superhumanoids, and Toronto’s solo electro-pop act, Diamond Rings provided a soundtrack for the ideal spring day. A trip across the Congress Bridge led to folksy sensation, Bright Eyes (picture below), at the Auditorium Shores, where thousands flocked to enjoy the mini-festival atmosphere fraught with food stands and light sabers.

The trek back to downtown landed me at the Texas Rockfest’s “Roial” stage, a chic rooftop space where Black Taxi played amongst a roster of metal bands. Around the corner at the Speakeasy, Austin’s The Frontier Brothers’ energy radiated to the crowd and dragged people out of their exhausted state and had them jumping for joy. One last hike to the “Roial” roof ended my evening with Austin’s very own hard rock trio, Chronolung (picture below). SXSW 2011 had officially come to a close.

Injecting their Lo-Fi approach to indie rock with various influences including Modest Mouse, Pavement, Sonic Youth and (in particular in the song associated with this video) Jane’s Addiction, Radical Dads is one of the most interesting new names coming out of Brooklyn’s DIY scene. Their next show is on March 23 at Coco66.

On my third day of SXSW, I was showing clear signs of slowing down (temperature in the 80s hasn’t helped). Despite my zombie state, I sauntered over to Beso Cantina for the Moheak Radio party, a station for whom I DJ, to show support; there, Austin’s Tony Scalzo and the Familiar Strangers were crooning convincingly. Next, was the Baeblemusic Party at The Phoenix.

The Rural Alberta Advantage, Toronto’s indie trio, soothed the audience with dreamy harmonies. The Boxer Rebellion, whose members are from Tennessee, England, and Australia, engaged with their rock with a twang, and warmed the crowd up for Norwegian headliners electro-rock band, Datarock (top picture), who pranced about in matching red sweat suits and sunglasses, promoting their new single, “Catcher in the Rye.” After a taco break at Chupacabra, I hailed a cab to the 21st Street Co-Op, a group of dorm-style quarters with rooms dedicated to live performances. I paid a visit to virtuosic Brooklynites, Apollo Run and hopped downtown again to Club De Ville for LA’s Gram Rabbit (picture below), whose twists on cowboy get-ups and interpretive dancer wearing a bunny suit, combined with their danceable and echoing electro-rock, consistently make them a band to note.

Another trip to the Co-Op landed me mid-set for NY’s duo, Hank and Cupcakes (pictured below) and my night’s closers, Black Taxi. An “early” 1am evening seemed like a good idea in anticipation for the following day, the last of SXSW. – Meijin Bruttomesso