golden triangle

Free-spirited garage/art-rock band Golden Triangle have been local fixtures in New York for a while now, banging their tambourines and chanting to minimalist punk beats at gallery parties and bars around Brooklyn and Manhattan. Originally from Memphis, Austin, and Atlanta, Golden Triangle contains former members of Angry Angles with Jay Reatard and Viva L’American Death Ray Music. Swaying wildly and chanting together like a hippie commune while somehow still playing instruments, their performances look straight out of an orgy at Warhol’s Factory—or out of Euripides’ Bacchae, since the loud, female group vocals could easily be mistaken as the cries of maenad priestesses in a frenzied, Dionysian ceremony.

Their new album Double Jointer is out March 2, 2010 on Hardly Art, and according to their blog, a split 7-Inch with the Fresh & Only’s has been in the works, too.


Golden Triangle: Neon Noose



Golden Triangle: Prize Fighter

girl gaze

vintage photo via the Best Coast myspace page

In the past we've featured a number of emerging bands whose myspaces would list any combination of "garage, lo-fi, surf, tropical, punk," or "shoegaze" as their genre trifecta, from Vivian Girls and Real Estate (east coast!) to the Intelligence and Abe Vigoda (west coast!). Within this scene and its amalgamation of genres, however, there is undoubtedly a difference to the sound when accompanied by the female voice--enter a slew of female-fronted or all-girl bands from California (Best Coast, Grass Widow, Brilliant Colors, the Light Rays, Pearl Harbor, Dum Dum Girls), New York (the V-Girls, Weed Hounds, Talk Normal), the UK (Pens, Wetdog) and even Sweden (Liechtenstein). On November 5th, Vivian Girls asked on Twitter, "Should we call our scene girl gaze or shit girls?" Though we don't recommend googling the term (nsfw), the first one seems likelier to catch on.

Of these 'girl groups' Best Coast has made a pretty big, melodic splash. Comprising one Bethany Cosentino (ex-Pocahaunted singer-strummer) and her former babysitter and guitarist Bobb Bruno, Best Coast has released some catchy 7-inches in 2009 for jams like "Sun Was High (So Was I)," "Something in the Way" and recently "When I'm with You" (on Black Iris) that ring truer to the sass and adventure in 60s Girl Group pop songs than the band's more shoe-gazy counterparts. That Bethany's drawn-out croons of longing can muster such melodic prowess is no accident--coming from a musical family, as a teen she sang back-up on the Ellen DeGeneres show and turned down a career in major-label pop.

Check out "When I'm With You" mashed up with a scene from Les Demoiselles de Rochefort below:





With a little less Beach Boys harmonics, and a little more Sleater-Kinney call-and-answer layers comes San Francisco's Grass Widow. The trio's syncopated vocals and music fit together with so much punch and precision. With awesome 12-Inches out on indie labels Make A Mess and Captured Tracks, look forward to more from these girls in the future or catch them on tour on the west coast this winter.

http://www.myspace.com/grasswidowmusic

little dragon

Little Dragon’s songs are not what comes to mind when you think of Swedish electronic music—the Gothenburg quartet’s bass and percussion sound more like smooth jazz at times than say, The Knife, but record scratches and samples remind us we are dealing with some modern electronic masters, soaked in low-key cool. (They have collaborated with fellow Swedes and electro-jazz duo Koop, after all).

These high school friends turned electro-band are touring North America this month before heading back to Europe in early December. Catch them in NYC at Le Poisson Rouge tomorrow night, Saturday November 21, 2009.

http://www.myspace.com/yourlittledragon

part time punks

2nd Annual Part Time Punks Festival

LA-based Rough Trade and Factory Records fans are in for a treat. This weekend, the Part Time Punks Festival is taking over, and it's bringing along post-punk legends and newbies inspired by it alike! PTP pulled out all the stops and put together an AMAZING line-up, including:

The Raincoats

This will mark the first-ever L.A. appearance of THE RAINCOATS. Formed in 1977, The Raincoats were the world's second all-girl punk band. Only, by the time Rough Trade released their debut album in 1979, they weren't making punk music any more, but post-punk, and more akin to The Velvet Underground's first LP or the records it shared the racks with: The Slits' "Cut," Young Marble Giants "Colossal Youth" and The Cure's first LP. The only reason the band remains lesser known is that their three albums remained out of print for more than a decade before Kurt Cobain tracked them down during a pilgrimage to London in the early 90s. Cobain was also responsible for "convincing" his label, Geffen, to reissue The Raincoats three albums in 1993 (co-writing the liner notes with Kim Gordon), which paved the way for the Riot Grrrl movement. It seems only fitting, then, that Kill Rock Stars will be reissuing the first Raincoats LP the week before the Fest.

"If it weren't for the luxury of putting on that scratchy copy of The Raincoats' first record, I would have had very few moments of peace."
-- Kurt Cobain

Don't be Mean




Section 25

The Part Time Punks Festival will also mark the first L.A.. appearance of Factory Records' own SECTION 25 since 1982. Dismissed by many journalists in the post-punk era as clones of their labelmates, Joy Division, the band has since been recognized in the highest echelon of Post-Punk innovation, alongside Public Image Limited, Wire and...well...Joy Division, for fusing punk with psychedelia and the surging motorik rhythms of Krautrock bands like Can, Faust and Neu. This credit is certainly largely due to James Nice, whose LTM label has re-issued the band's entire back catalogue (along with most of the rest of the Factory Records back catalogue) as well as their last two albums, "Nature and Degree" (2009) and "Part Primitiv" (2007) - both of which were released to universal critical acclaim.

Looking from a Hilltop




Gang of Four

Gang of Four need no introduction. Though perhaps their involvement in the Fest does... Last year, just before the Part Time Punks Festival, the band's drummer Hugo Burnham sent Part Time Punks' founder/booker/DJ/artmaker Michael Stock an email, raving about the Festival line-up and how he wished he could be there. Michael suggested that perhaps next time, he could be. And now, eleven months later, he will be-along with bassist, Dave Allen - as well as behind the decks, marking Gang of Four's West Coast DJ-debut.

Cadillac



Part Time Punks Festival
Sunday October 11, 2009
2:00 PM – 2:00 AM
$25

The Echo & The Echoplex (2 conjoined venues)
Echo Park
1154 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
(213) 413-8200

Get your advance tickets here!

The weekend's festivities kick off Saturday October 10th, on the rooftop of The Standard Hotel in downtown Los Angeles with the Part Time Punks Poolside Pre-Party from 2 - 8pm.

Vinyl will be spun all afternoon from...

GANG OF FOUR (Hugo Burnham & Dave Allen)
THE GERMS (Don Bolles)
LTM RECORDINGS (James Nice)
ACUTE RECORDS (Dan Selzer)
PUNKY REGGAE PARTY (Boss Harmony aka David Orlando)
and of course
PART TIME PUNKS (Michael Stock)

Also, a number of the bands performing at the Festival will be doing record signings on Saturday, including members of...

THE RAINCOATS
SECTION 25
GANG OF FOUR
THE SLITS
THE JAZZ BUTCHER
SAVAGE REPUBLIC

The Saturday Pool Party event is FREE and open to all.

Part Time Punk Festival Kick-Off Party
Saturday October 10, 2009
2:00 to 8:00 PM
FREE

The Standard Hotel
550 S Flower St
Los Angeles, CA 90071-2501
(213) 892-8080






and in NYC...
The Raincoats, Viv Albertine, Soft Power, & Marnie Stern will be performing this Friday at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn as a part of the Royal Flush Festival.

Friday, October 16, 2009
Doors 8 p.m. / Show 9 p.m.
$22 advance / $25 day of show
18 + w/ ID. Minors under 18 must be accompanied by an adult

Knitting Factory
361 Metropolitan Avenue

Brooklyn
347-529-6696

Get your advance tickets here

vitalic

Vitalic, aka Dijonaise electronica artist Pascal Arbez responsible for underground club anthems like “La Rock 01,” is touring through the UK and Western Europe this fall, spreading the blips and beats of his just-dropped sophomore album Flashmob, available today in the US via 101 Distribution.

Upbeat and dark, Vitalic’s music is everything that is a good night out. He dabbles in afrobeat without relying on the trend too much, guaranteeing sultry, sweeping club music that stays true to classic techno and electronica, as in “Poison Lips.” Some songs on the new album are lifted with vocal melodies that sound like digitized Donna Summer tracks, adding disco to the mix, always supported by dark synths and a fluctuating catalogue of percussive beeps. It’s refreshing, vitalizing if you will, and seems to re-animate the electronic genre.

Vitalic's MySpace