This past Sunday would have been the 100th birthday of one of the most notorious figures in American music, Mr. Robert Johnson. Though he never made it big before his untimely death in 1938, at the age of 27, allegedly after drinking whiskey that had been poisoned by the jealous husband of a woman Robert had been flirting with, Johnson penned tunes that would become blues standards, and influence musicians for decades to come.
Countless musicians cite him as an influence, and his songs have been covered by everyone from Cream to The Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin.
Legend has it that Johnson’s talent stemmed from a deal with the devil himself, made at a crossroads outside Cleveland, Mississippi. Whether you believe this or not, there is no doubt the man could play some serious blues.
Typically in this space we’re prone to some arm-twisty, “you really should come out for this!” kind of copy when we’re talking up a show and the tickets we have to put in your hands. But I don’t think we even need to go there for this one…
Suffice it to say we have a pair of tickets for both nights of the first annual Power Pop-A-Licious Music Festival taking place this coming weekend 4/30 and 5/1 in Asbury Park, NJ at the venerable Asbury Lanes—one pair per night for two winners!
Now, if in fact you’re not in the know on this one, festival founder and curator Paul Collins was kind enough to fill us in recently:
TVD: What can fans expect when they come to the Power Pop-A-Licious Festival?
Paul Collins: Fans will be treated to some of the best up and coming power pop/punk pop/garage pop bands from all over the mid west, the south, the east coast, and from as far away as Montreal and Ottawa!
What vision did you want to create when you thought of this weekend-long Pop Spectacular?
I was touring all over the country playing with all these great new bands who I really enjoyed and I thought to myself, “Why dont we have a big festival and bring them all together?!” The whole process has been really great and the bands have been so supportive and co operative it has been amazing. For me this is a whole new slant on the DIY ethic which I have been doing most of my professional career as far back as my first band The Nerves.
My motto now is “By the People for the People!” We are all stars at this festival all the bands are really great musicians who take their music very seriously but they also have fun which is what rock n roll is all about. Power Pop is a great and vastly unappreciated genre and I for one am doing everything in my power to make it much more visible.
I hope that if you are reading this you will get on up and come on down to Asbury Lanes because you will be in for a real treat! Eighteen amazing bands who play feel-good, bouncy, buoyant music, infectious melodies, and perfect harmonies will make this an incredible weekend to remember, I assure you! As with all first time events there will be magic in the air, and our devil-may-care DIY ethos means that no one will quite be sure of what will happen next…and girls there will be a lot of cute guys there! Keep on Rocking!
Join TVD in NJ by leaving your comment below. Let us know why you deserve to win the tickets and the most arm-twisty of the lot will win a pair for either Saturday or Sunday night’s musical confectionary. Let us know which you prefer!
We’re choosing our winners at noon on Friday, 4/29!
Very few bands are around for more than a few years at best. The combination of long hours together, battling egos, travel sickness from incessant touring and other “creative differences” sink a lot of great acts after just a few albums. That’s why it’s insanely remarkable that The Pietasters have been together since 1990 and are still recording and touring, captivating diehard fans and newcomers alike.
Hailing out of independent rock mainstay Washington D.C., this ska-punk band gathered much of their inspiration from established acts in the same vein like The Mighty Might Bosstones, The Skatalites, Madness, and The Specials.
The Pietasters
After conquering the D.C. scene with regular performances in the city’s essential venues like the beloved 9:30 Club (where Henry Rollins recently emceed the guys anniversary show), the band took the next natural step and began touring nationally in support of acts like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who they were only listening to a few short years before.
And woah boy, good thing they did because a pop/ska/punk paragon known as Tim Armstrong took a liking to the band’s instantly catchy sound and DIY commitment and signed them to Hellcat records, a subsidiary of the iconic Epitaph label during that fateful tour.
Bands like The Pietasters pull of a trick that many have executed poorly in the past, and that is the artful incorporation of reggae elements into a guitar/bass/drums rock format. Add a bright horn section, some catchy, accessible lyrics and a unwavering commitment to making the audience dance and you’ve got a great act with a sound that has lasted well over two decades now.
The Pietasters are veterans of AP, perhaps most notably in recent years with a performance at The Bouncing Souls Home For The Holiday’s Annual Extravaganza in ’09. They’re back again and are hitting The Stone Pony this Thursday, April 28th with great support acts Lost In Society, Bad Case Of Big Mouth, Political Party Crashers, and East Coast Black Out. And as a VERY SPECIAL TREAT, H.R. front man to the seminal punk group Bad Brains, will be giving a very special performance, too. I am predicting in my infinite rock wisdom that he will show up in The Pietasters set, more than likely. Sounds pretty historic to me!
The One, The Only, The Legendary H.R. Of Bad Brains
YOU can win a pair of tickets to the show by entering your name below! I’ve got 5 whole pairs to giveaway, so don’t say I never gave you anything! Winners will be chosen at random at noon on Wednesday. Good luck, and see you there!
The Pietasters @ The Stone Pony, Asbury Park, NJ Thursday 4/28 Doors 6:30 PM/ All Ages
If you’re like us, you’re loading up the car this weekend and heading up I-95N to Asbury Park, NJ to bask in the hook-laden scrum that will be the first annual Power Pop-A-Licious Festival at Asbury Lanes.
As we told you during this morning’s chat with the Festival’s founder and curator Paul Collins, all week here at TVD we’ll be cheking in with a number of the bands you’ll hear this weekend, and first up are three guys/four eyes—Silver Spring, MD’s The Spectacles!
Vinyl Memories, from The Spectacles In the early 1980s I was an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, playing drums in a power pop band called the Item and sharing an apartment with the band’s singer/guitarist, J.P. McDermott. Taking up nearly an entire wall of our apartment’s living room was a massive spring-loaded shelving unit. Along the bottom were our commingled LPs, an alphabetical vinyl monument to our musical tastes.
Nestled somewhere near the middle of the records was an interesting 10-inch disc. Its surface was totally smooth, not a single groove. It was a vinyl blank, of the sort a recording machine would cut into. These machines were once common in U.S. cities. (It’s what Elvis Presley made his first recording on, for his mama.) This particular empty disk was a placeholder, a reminder of where we’d put the Item record when it came out: after an Insect Surfers LP (on the local Wasp label) and before the heady triumvirate of Joe Jackson/the Jags/the Jam.
The Spectacles | All Torn Up Over Tina
One of us had picked up the strange artifact at a thrift shop, from whence many of our classic records came: scratchy Tamla 45s; Beatles singles, with the former owners’ names inked neatly on the swirly orange/yellow Capitol label; a “Frampton Comes Alive” double album, pot seeds still stuck in the gatefold between the two halves.
More modern music came from a tiny, poorly-stocked record store near our apartment. A guy named Greg used to come in every few weeks and try to sell the owner promotional copies of LPs he’d bought heap from hard-up DJs. You could always tell which ones had passed through Greg’s hands because there’d be a rectangular slice out of the cover, the place where he had razored out the embossed words “For radio station use only.” Sometimes he would try to hide the evidence behind a sticker that read “Factory sealed for your protection.” (I’m looking at one of those records now: The Greg Kihn Band’s “Glass House Rock,” on Beserkley.)
There was a whole constellation of vinyl emporia back then: Peaches, Waxie Maxies, The Wiz, Kemp Mill Records. You could get your Air Supply and your Queen, but you could also get your Elvis Costello and your Nick Lowe. Our tastes tended toward the latter.
In the mere four years since twenty-two year old Luke Rathborne relocated to New York City from Brunswick, Maine, he’s earned the praises of Interview Magazine, NME, and BBC Radio 6 and been compared to a long list of legends including Elliott Smith, John Lennon, Tom Waits, Alex Chilton, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed.
Rathborne has played with Devendra Banhart and opened for The Strokes at SXSW just last month right before the release of his new double EP Dog Years / I Can Be One. On the EP, he worked with members of Antony and the Johnsons, and since it is a beautiful, sunny, spring day here at TVD HQ in Washington, DC, we feel like giving one of you a copy.
The 12″ double EP is on 180 gram vinyl and includes digital downloads and L.A., a book of poems penned by Mr. Rathborne himself.
To win the double EP, simply tell us your favorite song from your favorite legendary singer. We know that in another four years, Rathborne could very well top that list.
The winner will be selected one week from now, on Monday, May 2nd, and must have a mailing address in the continental US or Canada.
Oh, and hey, New Yorkers: If you like what you hear, Luke Rathborne plays NYC’s Pianostonight!
TVD is stoked as you brats say, to be a media partner for the very first Power Pop-A-Licious Festival in Asbury Park, NJ, curated by our friend Paul Collins. Paul’s assembled a roster of 18 bone shaking power pop acts from points east and west who’ll converge on my old stomping ground for a weekend of songs destined to be lodged in your cranium for years to come.
All week TVD will be talking to a cross-sample of bands converging at the Jersey Shore for this event—but up first, a few words with Paul himself, courtesy of TVD Asbury Park’s Angie Sugrim:
The weather is finally warming up out here in AP, the City By The Sea, and that means that more fun than you’ll know what to do with is about to be unleashed upon the masses in our little Rock-N-Roll resort town.
The big kick off event signifying the beginning of the season this year is without a doubt the highly anticipatedPower Pop-A-Licious Festival created and executed by Paul Collins of indie heroesThe Beatand The Nerves, in conjunction with the area’s illustrious DIY institution The Asbury Lanes. I had a chance to find out a more about all the excitement to come from Paul and from what he’s shared with me, this is going to be a multi-dimensional festival that is a must-see-do-hear-be-there for anyone who gets a thrill when pick is put to string, stick is put to drum, and mouth is put to mic. Check it out, from the man himself!
TVD: What can fans expect when they come to the Power Pop-A-Licious Festival?
Paul Collins: Fans will be treated to some of the best up and coming power pop/punk pop/garage pop bands from all over the mid west, the south, the east coast, and from as far away as Montreal and Ottawa!
What vision did you want to create when you thought of this weekend- long Pop Spectacular?
I was touring all over the country playing with all these great new bands who I really enjoyed and I thought to myself, “Why dont we have a big festival and bring them all together?!” The whole process has been really great and the bands have been so supportive and co operative it has been amazing. For me this is a whole new slant on the DIY ethic which I have been doing most of my professional career as far back as my first band The Nerves.
My motto now is “By the People for the People!” We are all stars at this festival all the bands are really great musicians who take their music very seriously but they also have fun which is what rock n roll is all about. Power Pop is a great and vastly unappreciated genre and I for one am doing everything in my power to make it much more visible.
I was just hanging with my bandmates and we were contemplating how perfect songs like The Cars’ “Just What I Needed” are actually really some of rock’s masterpieces, but often those sort of gems don’t seem to get the credit that they’re due for being so perfect. So, how did you go about creating the Festival? How did you end up choosing The Asbury Lanes as the venue? It’s one of my all time favorite institutions ever, by the way.
I had done a show last year at The Lanes and I was so impressed with the club and especially (club management, the brilliant and beautiful) Jenn (Hampton) and Laney (Lanes) and the way they treat bands that it was the first and only place I thought of to do this event. They in turn were so enthusiastic right from the beginning, it was the perfect match.
I agree, I don’t think you could have chosen a better venue to host this weekend! Like Jenn and Layney, you are incredibly passionate about music—what is your own background? Could you tell us a little about yourself as a promoter and musician?
It’s OK if you’re mistaking The Dig for the hardest working band on the road at the moment. I often do.
I’ve also lost count of how many times TVD and the band have hung out together. Let’s see…there was The Dig Takeover Week last year, the dual Dig and The Joy Formidable shows…at least 3 or 4 ticket and vinyl giveaways too. So, while it’s easy to draw a pun from the band’s moniker, suffice it to say we’re fans.
But here’s a little Marketing 101 lesson—despite the band grinding it out on the road for well over a year now, it’s often not the first or the second or the third or 15th post that will make someone sit up and take notice—but say, the 16th post.
So – sweet 16 style – we’ve got a chance for a bunch of you to catch The Dig live and we’re putting a handful of the TVD cities to work.
Enter to win tickets to see The Dig: April 20th – NYC, The Knitting Factory w/Local H April 23th – NJ, The Brighton Bar w/Local H April 24th – DC, The Rock and Roll Hotel w/Local H May 3rd – Chicago, The Empty Bottle w/Oh No Oh My
The Dig | You’re Already Gone
Enter to win by leaving us a note in the comments to this post. Let us know why you want to see the band for the first time (and if you’ve seen them already, let us know why you’re up for more!) The most convincing of the bunch, per show, per city, will be the lucky recipient of the free tickets.
We’ve got two tickets for Wednesday’s show at The Knitting Factory and one pair of tickets for all the others. Make sure you specify which show in which city you’d like to attend with your comment. We’ll be choosing our winners at noon on the day of the shows so pay close attention your your email!
Catch The Dig streaming live Wednesday night (4/20) from the Knitting Factory right here!
The day after their ear splitting first ever live show together at Club Deville during SXSW, I had the pleasure of sitting down for lunch with new Chicago all star band, Candy Golde. Featuring Nick Tremulis (Nick Tremulis Orchestra), Rick Rizzo (Eleventh Dream Day), John Stirratt (Wilco, The Autumn Defense) and none other than Bun E Carlos (Cheap Trick) behind the drum kit, these heavy hitters delivered what you’d expect: great rock n’ roll music.
TVD Austin: So tell me, how did Candy Golde come about?
Rick Rizzo: Nick gave me a call and asked me if I’d write some songs with him. He had this idea of just writing songs with friends and I was the first one he called. They came together very quickly and we built it from there.
TVD Austin: How long ago was this?
Nick Tremulis: (sings mimicking the Mariachi singer at the table next to us) I think that was a year or so a-goooo!
RR: I’ve played with Bun E and John before and we all knew each other and it just seemed like a great band to have together and as long as we weren’t writing a bunch of bullshit, we said “yeah, let’s do it”.
Bun E Carlos: It’s all about the songs. If the songs weren’t any good, what’s the point of dragging our ass into doing it.
TVD Austin: You are releasing a five song EP in May. Any plans for a full length?
RR: EP’s are easy, full length’s are a pain in the ass.
TVD Austin: Then another EP perhaps?
NT: I wouldn’t mind it. It’s all about having the time.
We asked. You commented, emailed, and tweeted, and we’ve tallied up the votes; now it’s time to congratulate the winners! We’re featuring your TOP FIVE record stores this week, one per day, as we impatiently await Record Store Day, Saturday, April 16th, 2011.
We celebrate the stores that make Record Store Day possible and the vinyl enthusiasts—namely you, dear readers—who love them. It’s been great reading your opinions! Count down to Record Store Day with us as we pay tribute to the record stores that make our lives richer every day.
We’re starting off the week with my own personal favorite, New Jersey’s Princeton Record Exchange, or Prex, to those in the know. This nationally-recognized gem is tucked away on a side street in historic Princeton’s beautiful downtown, just blocks away from the illustrious university. It is conveniently located about an hour from both New York City and Philadelphia.
Cue weekly mantra: As we’ve pointed out over the past few weeks (rather broken record-like) one of the happy coincidences of being The Record Store Day Blog For 2011 is that we’re afforded the opportunity to underscore one of our main themes—namely that vinyl is a contemporary medium which is thriving and more vital than it has been in some time—DJ’s, purists, and collectors notwithstanding.
So, to that end, we’ve spent the past ten weeks straight putting records into the hands of TVD readers as we’ve counted down to April 16, 2011—Record Store Day. It’s Week Eleven already, and to celebrate the fact that Record Store Dayis almost upon us, we have giveaways for you every single day this week—sometimes more than one!
We start off the weekwith a bang: The Shit Robot Ultimate Vinyl Giveaway, a collection of three rare singles featuring DFAelectro artist Shit Robot, who just finished up opening the farewell LCD Soundsystem shows at the end of March. [I am still teary thinking about this.]
This giveaway is in anticipation of Shit Robot’s release next week (4/18) of the “Losing My Patience”12″ single, featuring vocals by Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor and remixes by Hot Chip and the Unabombers, and it includes…
1. Shit Robot’s “Simple Things”12″ single, including a remix by Todd Terje. “Originally hailing from Oslo, nu-disco edit-master Terje showcases his remix skills. His subtle yet deft touch here makes his “Simple Things” remix the lynchpin of any disco fanatic’s play list.”
2. Shit Robot’s “Take ‘Em Up (ft. Nancy Whang)” 12″ single, including remixes by Mark E Black and Marcus Marr, plus digital remixes from John Talabot and Michael Mayer. If you miss LCD as much as I already do, you’ll be heartened by “the interplay between Marcus ‘Shit Robot’ Lambkin’s loping synthesizer disco funk and Nancy Whang’s unflappable vocals.”
3. The Juan Maclean’s Scion A/V Remix Project, which includes the Shit Robot remix of “No Time.”
I’m going to make you work a little bit to win this special threesome.
Tell me why you are the biggest DFA fan boy or girl in the comments below, and the most convincing of the bunch will be selected one week from today.
Winners must have a mailing address in the continental US or Canada.
“We are very proud to be releasing our debut EP ‘Robots’ on vinyl as part of RSD2011. The four-track EP was recorded especially with the side A/ side B vinyl format in mind. The record explores themes of solitude, mind control and living in a dystopian world.
Because of the vinyl format we decided to record four songs we felt would work together as conceptual piece of work. Robots and Dark Clouds of London make up side A and describes an external view of a manipulative and totalitarian world… where Side B includes the songs House of Make Believe and Sharks and this focus’ on a more internal, human perspective on emotions in respect to this. —Mozzy Green
Anna | I remember the record player in the sitting room when I was growing up, we had our dad’s vinyl collection at our disposal so my brother and I would spend afternoons sat crossed legged in front of it leafing through the records and giggling as we negotiated putting the stylus on the record. The favourites were the Beatles ‘Abbey Road’ album and Alice Cooper’s ‘Love it to Death’. I loved learning exactly where your favourite bit of a song was and knowing which groove to go for. I love looking at the sleeve artwork as well, especially those covers that, each time you look you see something you hadn’t noticed before.
For all the technological advances since then, digital simply doesn’t compare to the sound of a well loved and well played record. When I went round to a friend’s to listen to the ‘Robots’ EP white label when it came through, it was a thoroughly different experience – it’s our first release on vinyl and there was something so physical and kind of romantic about it, not to mention the sound quality – it was a little emotional! Needless to say, I’m scouting around for a record player now.
NYC natives Holy Ghost! have been keeping busy with remixing basically any band you’ve danced to lately (Cut Copy, Friendly Fires, Mark Ronson), DJ-ing across the globe, and now have their self-titled debut album come April 12th. Sticking to the DFA label’s brand of analog and electro-tinged disco-funk, Alex Frankel and Nick Millhiser are supporting their debut with a full band tour opening for Cut Copy, which brings them to sold-out shows at Terminal 5 this Friday (4/1) and Saturday (4/2), as well as a headlining show at Music Hall of Williamsburg on April 29th. Their new track “Wait & See” premiered earlier this week.
Nick Millhiser chats with TVD ContributorBQ Nguyen about their start, influences, and why his boss’ band, LCD Soundsystem, is the best.
Holy Ghost! | Wait & See
TVD: So you guys have 20 dates opening for Cut Copy between Europe and their North American tour; I assume you’ve been friends since they recorded In Ghost Colours at DFA with Tim Goldsworthy a few years ago.
NM: Yeah, they came to New York to do their last record with Tim, and I met them, I believe, on their first day in New York because they needed to borrow a drum set to use on their record. So I loaned Tim and them one of my kits. After that, with the Juan MacLean we did a pretty long tour in Australia opening for them and so we’ve gotten to know them pretty well over the years.
TVD: But your first live gig as a 4-piece band was just last May at Under 100 in NYC?
NM: Yep. Since then we were basically on tour up until early December and had a little break until recently. Although the past month has been pretty busy gearing up for the release of the record, and we spent a fair amount of time re-tinkering the live set.
“We are very proud to be releasing our debut EP ‘Robots’ on vinyl as part of RSD2011. The four-track EP was recorded especially with the side A/ side B vinyl format in mind. The record explores themes of solitude, mind control and living in a dystopian world.
Because of the vinyl format we decided to record four songs we felt would work together as conceptual piece of work. Robots and Dark Clouds of London make up side A and describes an external view of a manipulative and totalitarian world… where Side B includes the songs House of Make Believe and Sharks and this focus’ on a more internal, human perspective on emotions in respect to this. —Mozzy Green
Anna | I remember the record player in the sitting room when I was growing up, we had our dad’s vinyl collection at our disposal so my brother and I would spend afternoons sat crossed legged in front of it leafing through the records and giggling as we negotiated putting the stylus on the record. The favourites were the Beatles ‘Abbey Road’ album and Alice Cooper’s ‘Love it to Death’. I loved learning exactly where your favourite bit of a song was and knowing which groove to go for. I love looking at the sleeve artwork as well, especially those covers that, each time you look you see something you hadn’t noticed before.
For all the technological advances since then, digital simply doesn’t compare to the sound of a well loved and well played record. When I went round to a friend’s to listen to the ‘Robots’ EP white label when it came through, it was a thoroughly different experience – it’s our first release on vinyl and there was something so physical and kind of romantic about it, not to mention the sound quality – it was a little emotional! Needless to say, I’m scouting around for a record player now.
Ryan | Vinyl to me conjures up fairy stories, epic adventures, tales and music. I was always around it but I never owned any, so when my parents sold their collection a part of my childhood went with it. I discovered music for the first time through this medium, watched the stylus jump across the record, listened to bedtime stories and played with the rpm making chipmunks of it all… to my great satisfaction! At one point I dismantled the whole thing in a bid to find out just how it worked! I find it a tangible, satisfying, beautiful. I am proud to be involved.
Ben | Vinyl to me has always been that holy grail of a music format. When I was growing up it was a choice of tape or radio for walks/drives to school but when I got home it would be the record player that went straight on. My parents were both into The Beatles/David Bowie/Pink Floyd/ Mott The Hoople etc and luckily I’ve inherited a lot of these collections.
The biggest thing is the sound. For me you just can’t compare any other platform to vinyl. The crackles and pops and the warmth – the modern day digital formats that dominate todays market bear no comparison with glorious vinyl. The art work too. It’s heartbreaking that album artwork has been reduced to a tiny square thumbnail viewed on a computer screen.
We worked with a very good friend of ours, Leaf Vigurs on our record sleeve. For me it’s as important as the music and to see it displayed on a 12″ vinyl is a good thing! In this age of digital music where people can carry around their whole record collection in their pocket and where the art of a physical recording is dying a death, it feels good to realise a dream we have grown up with.
NYC natives Holy Ghost! have been keeping busy with remixing basically any band you’ve danced to lately (Cut Copy, Friendly Fires, Mark Ronson), DJ-ing across the globe, and now have their self-titled debut album come April 12th. Sticking to theDFA label’s brand of analog and electro-tinged disco-funk, Alex Frankel and Nick Millhiser are supporting their debut with a full band tour opening for Cut Copy, which brings them to Seattle on April 12th where they’ll play at the Showbox SoDo. Their new track “Wait & See” recently premiered.
Nick Millhiser chats with TVD ContributorBQ Nguyen about their start, influences, and why his boss’ band, LCD Soundsystem, is the best.
Holy Ghost! | Wait & See
TVD: So you guys have 20 dates opening for Cut Copy between Europe and their North American tour; I assume you’ve been friends since they recorded In Ghost Colours at DFA with Tim Goldsworthy a few years ago.
NM: Yeah, they came to New York to do their last record with Tim, and I met them, I believe, on their first day in New York because they needed to borrow a drum set to use on their record. So I loaned Tim and them one of my kits. After that, with theJuan MacLean we did a pretty long tour in Australia opening for them and so we’ve gotten to know them pretty well over the years.
TVD: But your first live gig as a 4-piece band was just last May at Under 100 in NYC?
NM: Yep. Since then we were basically on tour up until early December and had a little break until recently. Although the past month has been pretty busy gearing up for the release of the record, and we spent a fair amount of time re-tinkering the live set.
Happy Birthday Robert Johnson, from TVD Seattle. 
This past Sunday would have been the 100th birthday of one of the most notorious figures in American music, Mr. Robert Johnson. Though he never made it big before his untimely death in 1938, at the age of 27, allegedly after drinking whiskey that had been poisoned by the jealous husband of a woman Robert had been flirting with, Johnson penned tunes that would become blues standards, and influence musicians for decades to come.
