Inchworm has taken a bit of a hiatus from the show scene the last few months, but lucky for us, they’re back and ready to rock. More specifically, they’re ready to rock Schubas, Wednesday night, as part of Amplify’s New Music Series. The band plans to unveil the new material they’ve been working on over the past few months, in a glimpse at what will inevitably become the follow-up to their ’08 EP, Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing.
Inchworm has also recently taken to Bandcamp.com, uploading their previous EPs to music’s newest publishing platform. Following suit to recent preferred methods of music purchasing, Bandcamp promotes a name-your-own-price doctrine, allowing customers to donate as much (or as little) as they see fit. Visit Inchworms’ catalog on bandcamp.
Tonight’s show at Schubas begins at 9pm, with openers Sissy Mena and fellow locals, Save the Clocktower. Sponsored by Amplify, Beer Nuts, and UR Chicago, the show is 21+ and tickets are $5 at schubas.com. – Neph Basedow
The Deli is sponsoring the upcoming two-night stay at Schubas with Brighton MA. We are excited to be working with such a great Chicago band. The other sponsor for the show is Coach House Sounds and they recently posted their live session with the band. Through out the week we will be featuring a different band playing at Schubas on Jan. 22nd and 23rd.
Noise is back with a bang in the NYC music scene! Brooklyn turbolent Talk Normal are the winners of our Year End Best of NYC poll (the full chart, including 67 emerging artist, can be found here). The band gathered 8 jury and one Deli writers’ votes which allowed them to seal the poll’s 1st position – even if they obviously didn’t promote the readers’ poll (only 5 votes were cast in their favor in that department). Hey, we are cool with that! The fans’ vote, though, was instrumental in assigning positions from #2 to #7 – as these 6 artists all received 7 votes between the jury and the Deli writers. Freelance Whales and Bear in Heaven will therefore need to thank their fanbase for appearing on the smaller cover pictures of the Spring 2010 issue of The Deli. We’d like to bring to everybody’s attention that any of these 6 bands could have won the overall contest if they had placed 1st or 2nd in our readers’ poll – we are saying this because often readers and bands complain about the fact that in our system the readers’ votes don’t bear enough weight.
Curiously enough, Freelance Whales‘ 2nd place seems like a symbolic testament to how wide the NYC scene’s sonic spectrum is: where Talk Normal’s music literally couldn’t exist without electricity, the guys in Freelance Whales pride themselves of being able to play live shows without any amplification – not even microphones (that’s what they did during our packed CMJ party in October – although sure enough some people in the back couldn’t hear much…)
Bear in Heaven (in third place) complete our virtual podium with their texturally rich psych rock. In a rock scene as fragmented as ever (in which attitude more than genre has become the aggregating component) the psych rock and shoegazer community of artists represents an exception; they are part of probably the only genre-defined rock scene in NYC, developing a very defined sonic legacy. Bear in Heaven – an incredibly talented and hard working band – is definitely one of the best expressions of the current NYC psychedelic sound.
64 more bands are listed in our charts, from the world conquering, exotic experimentations of Dirty Projectors to the beautifully sparse and intimate songs of Callers (the two bands coincidentially share the same record label, together with our current cover band Glass Ghost). We will cover all these bands in the spring issue of The Deli and on our NYC site in the following months.
This is the final Top 20 chart of the Deli’s Year End Best of NYC Fans’ Poll for emerging artists – breakdown of the votes here.
On Wednesday we’ll publish the chart of the Best of NYC 2009 Poll, which will assign the cover of the spring printed issue of The Deli Magazine.
As we have 67 artists on this list, we are taking a few days to double check all the votes, which were assigned through a rather complicated system involving a jury of scene makers, The Deli’s writers, our readers, the bands’ fans, and also through an initial open contest – full rules can be found here.
We would like to say a big "Thank You" to all the jurors who helped us, with their vote, compile the list of The Deli’s Year End Best of NYC Emerging Artists.
The following Deli writers cast their vote as well: Andrew Spaulding, Erin O’Keefe, Nancy Chow, Paul Dunn, Ryan Henriquez, Liz Schroeter, Simon Heggie, Nicholas Palumbo, Joe Coscarelli, Lauren Piper, Charles Davis, Lindsey Goetz, Chloe Schildhouse.
Thank you to all the bands who participated to our poll either by submitting to the open contest or be simply being selected, and thanks to all the fans and Deli readers that animated our fans’ poll.
NYC Deli Editor in Chief Paolo De Gregorio also voted as part of the jury (we don’t really need to thank him, as he’s writing this!). Many other scene makers and Deli writers were asked to vote and – for a reason or another – they didn’t; we point this out because we want you all to realise that also this element (the missing votes) had a crucial influence on the results.
What started out as an outpour of heartache and emotion has moved on to become a WOXY Pick of the Year in 2009, and has received a good deal of play on Y-Rock and WEQX! What started out as Chris Blasucci making a music video has since evolved into an intense garage/glam band whose music and performances have been compelling enough to have audience members in attendance volunteer locks of their own hair. So the hair might just fly when Hair Rocket plays music from their debut EP Novelty at The Khyber tonight. Be part of history and donate a lock of your hair, or at least be part of some weird cathartic art ritual! They’ll be joined by indie psych rock quintet Shining TV Screen. The Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St., 9pm, $8, 21+myspace.com/hairrocket – Bill McThrill
Espers’ Meg Baird will be bringing her mellifluous voice to Kung Fu Necktie tonight when she opens for Sub Pop’s Vetiver. Her hauntingly beautiful vocals will surely resonate nicely through the wood finished room at one of our favorite local small venues. Bummer – no bumper pool tonight, folkies. Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 Front St., 8pm, $10, 21+myspace.com/pennsylvaniawildlife – H.M. Kauffman
The last phase of our exhausting Year End Best of LA vote has begun — each one of you can now let us know what their favorite emerging LA band of 2009 is. Don’t miss this opportunity to CHANGE THE WORLD (sorta)!
VOTE HERE! ***Poll closes January 21*** (Vote wisely — only one vote per IP/household)
The winner of the Composite Chart (the one including votes from Jury, Deli Writers and Deli Readers) will get the cover of The Deli’s Spring issue + various prizes including free studio and mastering time, audio plug ins, music store vouchers, musical instrument insurance, all courtesy of our sponsors.
2nd and 3rd artists will also be rewarded with features and cover space in the next issue + some prizes from our sponsors.
CORRECTION!
We previously posted the wrong prizes for our LA Poll – this is the pool of prizes that will be shared amongst the winners: 1. Cover of The Deli Magazine’s Spring Issue 2. 14 free mastered songs 3. Four Audio Plug Ins 4. Artist of the Month Banner on The Deli’s website for 2 weeks (winners only).
Featuring former members of Phoenix band Bodhisattva and Portland’s short-lived, exclusively house show band BOOKENDS, Lasers for Eyes is a bass-crunching, drum-rattling duo who draws influences from Northwest post-punk and noise like Blood Brothers and The Get Hustle, as well as San Diego-area psych and hardcore like Antioch Arrow.
Though often compared to bands like Death From Above 1979 because of their bass & drums lineup, the band is moving into a more psychedelic and garage sound and away from dance.
Their next show is at Backspace, Friday, February 5th. featuring newcomers Wizard Rifle, and – fresh from a European tour – veterans KidCrash.
The folks at Manimal Vinyl are putting a stellar line-up together this Friday for a Haiti relief benefit show at the Echoplex. If you haven’t given already, or are willing to give up some more, The American Red Cross will be standing by to collect the $10 entry fee for immediate relief. Scheduled to play: Nico Vega, Adanowsky, Jenny O., SoKo, Corridor, Pizza!, and the LA Ladies Choir. RSVP on the Facebook event page for more updates.