FUG IT EMPIRE

American indie crowds are a mixed bag. It takes a special kind of performer to get a live gig crowd riled up outside of their chin-stroking, head-nodding, Pitchfork-reading mode. Leave it to Tilly & The Wall to get the crowd nice and sweaty when they bring their indie rock sideshow carnival to the fore. Balloons! Tambourines! Tap dancing! Striped tights! Confetti! Glitter! Dance routines! Tilly create an atmospheric concoction all their own, instilling a sense of rapture and joy in their audience which would linger long beyond their exit stage left.

Before the show commenced, a packet of balloons was released upon the audience, resulting in a rainbow of inflated balloons bouncing under the great and gilded ceiling of the Great American Music Hall. Balloons floated towards the stage, and the engineers dutifully bopped them back into the audience, one after the other. At first they seemed mildly annoyed, a tedious distraction from setting up mics and testing sound, but even they started to crack smiles after the 100th volley of that damn green balloon. This is a key part of the Tilly & The Wall experience.  No matter who you are and what your tastes, you will be converted.  The carnival sideshow creates a type of congregation, unified by a communal rapture, leaving even those with the most sour disposition defenseless.

As most of you are probably aware Tilly are known not only for their infectious and danceable tunes, ranging from the soulful booty shaking ‘Beat Control,’ to the garage band stomp of ‘Pot Kettle,’ and nearly jug-band grooves of ‘Alligator Skin,’ they are equally if not more famous for their ‘indie talent show’ act. Three sets of tapping feet, swags of shimmering sequin fabric, and outstanding fashion stylings all prove to show the pride they take in the fact that they are putting on a show. It is an experience, an all-consuming love affair between the performers and their audience, which is all part and parcel of why Tilly have created such a devout fanbase. When returning for the encore, they took personal requests from the audience, asking not merely the front row devotees but trying to reach out beyond and hear their more distant fans. They performed several requests to a now stomping, and shrieking crowd while Kianna Alarid motioned the crowd to cluster together before diving headfirst into her fans, her striped legs barely held aloft by her fans’ sweaty palms.

Not much changed after the lights went up.  The sideshow continued with fans assembling in a dance-a-thon in circles on the floor of the Great American, twisting, jumping, and twirling amongst the balloons and foil confetti streamers.  Tilly’s congregation mixed among themselves, spreading joy, smiles, happiness, and sharing dance moves throughout the land.

(photo by Alex Wagner)

The last several years has seen a high-volume of genre-dodging output from our very neighborly neighbors up in Canada. The seminal, noteworthy, and just-plain outstanding Arts & Crafts label has provided homes to some of the most critically acclaimed artists of recent years (Broken Social Scene, Stars, Feist, The Most Serene Republic, etc.), and we need not even mention the innovative explosion of 2004 which surfaced in the form of Arcade Fire.

Islands, of all bands currently on the ‘buzz’ market, are no exception, and fit comfortably alongside many of our aforementioned experimental neighbors. The Montreal-based sextet are revved up for their sophomore release ‘Arm’s Way,’ their first album with ANTI, making them label-mates with Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and Neko Case among others. From the preview-sounds available on MySpace (Creeper, and The Arm) they appear to be moving into an area of more lush orchestration, and you can hear vocalist Nick Thorburn pushing his boundaries of personal expression. Considering how well their 2006 debut ‘Return To The Sea’ was received, no doubt their upcoming tour will be well-attended, and hopefully, well-received.

The album will be available for purchase (you can pre-order now) via the usual outlets (iTunes, InSound, Amazon) on 20 May 08 in North America, and 19 May in Europe.

Their extensive upcoming North American tour commences 22 May in support of ‘Arm’s Way.’ Watch the video for ‘The Arm’ below.

Islands homepage

Islands MySpace

‘i have no sister‘ from Austinite’s Oh No! Oh My!’s 2006 self-titled release is a fantastically lovely oddity. it manages to create a delicate and rare balance between the eerie and the whimsical. the introduction starts off with ominous organ and echoing vocals. the combination wouldn’t seem misplaced floating across a cemetery, then the jingling comes in, tambourine shakes, and talks of riding ‘bikes into the sea.’ maybe the skeletons are rising from their graves, laughing hysterically and taking your bike for a joyride towards the ocean. it has an element of glorious madness to it, a macabre charm.

‘i love you all the time‘ has a similarly haunting aesthetic, but the tranced-up version. it would have been an incredibly popular track at the late-TRASH Club in London, or indeed any place who loves a bit of indie pop with a chugging electro beat encouraging those jane fonda moves. the lyrics have a magnetic fields element to them: ‘i love you all the time, except when you are mine,’ wavering endearingly while committing the fragile admission.

their 2007 EP ‘between the devil and the sea‘ is also available for purchase, and you can follow up the band’s updates on music, literary life, and touring at their blog oh no oh my sucks.

Perhaps the world’s best party throwers, ATP (All Tomorrow’s Parties), have added more bands to their NY festival, as well as let loose the next batch of ticket sales. You can purchase tickets with  or without accommodation. No day tickets are available, single non-accommodation tickets will run you $225 for the weekend.  While they do not have the chalets of Camber Sands, ATP has arranged for DJ’S and post-gig partying at the Raleigh Hotel to continue the entertainment for those who have booked accommodation.  The festival runs from Friday 19 September through Sunday 21st September at Kutshers Country Club in Monticello NY.  Tickets are available at Seetickets.com or by clicking here.

My Bloody Valentine have curated this festival along with ATP, and will be playing their first North American gig in 16 years.

The line up as of today is as follows:

MY BLOODY VALENTINE
DINOSAUR JR
MERCURY REV
YO LA TENGO
BUILT TO SPILL performing PERFECT FROM NOW ON
MEAT PUPPETS performing MEAT PUPPETS II
THURSTON MOORE performing PSYCHIC HEARTS
TORTOISE performing MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE
SHELLAC
MOGWAI
POLVO
FUCK BUTTONS
AUTOLUX
THE DRONES
LOW
WOODEN SHJIPS
EDAN with guest DAGHA
THEE SILVER MOUNT ZION ORCHESTRA
HARMONIA
LILYS
GROWING

The lineup is pretty mind-blowing.  If you can afford it, and even if you can’t, do whatever you have to in order to get your arse there.

If you can’t make it, and you’re an MBV fan, good news, they have announced North American tour dates.

22 September NY @ Roseland (on sale 9 May 10 a.m.)

25 September Toronto @ Ricoh (on sale 9 May 10 a.m.)

27 September Chicago @ Aragon Ballroom (on sale 10 May 10 a.m.)

30 September San Francisco @ The Concourse (on sale 11 May 10 a.m.

1 & 2 October Los Angeles @ Santa Monica Civic Center (on sale 10 May 10 a.m.)

Tickets are available via Ticketmaster outlets.

Surely you are all aware that Death Cab For Cutie’s forthcoming album ‘Narrow Stairs’ is due to hit the shops and cause download meltdown on 13 May 2008.

But perhaps you have not all had access to some of the yummy exclusives and previews scattered around the media.

Paste Magazine has sent Ben Gibbard back to a cabin in Big Sur to write about his inspirations for ‘Narrow Stairs.’ Apparently Gibbard is a big fan of the Beat writer Jack Kerouac, who recoiled from the sudden surge of fame from ‘On The Road’ to a small cabin in Big Sur,the experience immortalized in his book of the same name. Gibbard reflects on a variety of topics, candidly and forthrightly, including all the awkward life-transitions he so gracefully encapsulates in many of his lyrics. You can read the article here.

Gibbard also features in Curt Worden’s film ‘One.Fast Move.Or I’m Gone,’ which is a documentary reflection on Kerouac’s experience at Big Sur, including interviews with Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Caroyln Cassady, Joyce Johnson, and many other of Kerouac’s contemporaries, as well as artists influenced by the great JK, including Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Ben Gibbard, Sam Shepard, and many others. Find out more about the movie here. Thank you to Mr. Worden for the information and link. We will look forward to the film’s release with happy, anxious anticipation, for we are big Kerouac fans at FUG IT.

The excellent blog Daytrotter also had Death Cab record several songs in their Futureappletree Studio One in Rock Island, ILL. The set features two sneak-peek downloads of songs from the upcoming album, as well as one of FUG IT’s personal favorites, ‘Movie Script Ending‘ (from Photo Album). There are a total of 6 downloads, and some words from Mr. Gibbard himself about the songs, their content and the context in which they were written. If you are not already familiar with the wonderful people of Daytrotter, who do at least 5 recording sessions with talented artists each week, check out their ‘about’ page here.

The video for Death Cab’s first single off ‘Narrow Stairs,’ ‘I Will Possess Your Heart,’ is out on YouTube now.

(photo by Brian O’Shea)

‘Curse’ is an ominous name for the mostly uplifting, lovingly crafted, pine-worthy album from Seattle’s The Turn-Ons. While they have the reverb, gazing echoes of psychedelic sounds, ‘Curse‘ steers more towards the soaring side of dreamy pop. “1/11” will have you daydreaming of a skipping frolic through wildflowers with your lover, just as ‘Here She Is’ may as well be a cheerleading chant for jangle pop. The ‘Curse’ seems to surface with the stark and questioning penultimate tunes, ‘Suicide’ and ‘I Want You,’ culminating in the tear-inducing, aching surrender of ‘It’s all over.’  If dreamy gaze pop is a favorite of yours, this will be one of your biggest turn ons all year, guaranteed.

Best of all-the album is pay-what-you-can (even if you can’t) download from their website. FUG IT cannot urge you enough to get it now, and be kind if you can, they didn’t have to be so generous.

Will remind you of: Ride, Galaxie 500, Lush, The Notwist, Dirty on Purpose, Spiritualized
Previous touring pals: Brian Jonestown Massacre, British Sea Power, Ulrich Schnauss

The Turn-Ons website and myspace.

(photo by Ofer Wolberger)

Only in the most special of places would a band choose to lounge around in the very van in which they’ve been driving, eating, drinking, living, sleeping, burping, and smoking across America instead of their own backstage. But Fresno, not a town known for its sophistication, is just that special a place.

Parked next to an abandoned steakhouse, Brooklyn’s The Big Sleep have opted for the van. Nestling themselves in-between wrinkled clothes, the booze stash, water bottles galore and band miscellany, they open all the doors, take in the rare San Joaquin Valley breezes and sing their praises that their set is done, complete with appreciative reception, and they’re no longer inside.

The venue, ‘The Exit,’ is named for exactly what you’d like to do the minute you reach the threshold. It is a concrete cave with no ventilation, clogged toilets, a ‘bar’ where two ‘security’ guards sell overpriced bottles of water (and only water) and a ‘backstage’ (a smaller concrete sweatbox) with a zebra-striped couch, and a SINGLE floor fan supplied by the security guard who has to stand next to it all night. It is located next to an old (and very closed) 50’s steakhouse, a used car dealership, across the street from a gas station which serves runny slushies, and an ancient International House of Pancakes which has been converted to a Mexican restaurant. The neighborhood (Blackstone & Belmont) is framed by freeway overpasses and train tracks, and is notorious for regular drive-by gang shootings.

Much of Fresno’s more adventurous gig-going crowds are well under 21, and most under 18. ‘The Exit’ is one of a few ‘all ages’ venues in town, hence the dry/non-existent bar, and lack of civilized amenities. They aren’t stupid. They know ‘kids’ will put up with anything to hear their favorite bands, and the shittier the place is the more ‘punk’ and the more street cred they can all stuff into their Jansports and take to school the next day.

So it came to be that one of Brooklyn’s best exports were surprised twice over. Firstly by the venue’s shocking lack of civilized features, and by the crowd’s pleasantly positive response to their heavily noize-based sound. Playing to a fan-base largely present for Portugal The Man and Minus The Bear, The Big Sleep wooed everyone except the ponytailed blonde girl with the slack jaw who was only came because her boyfriend dragged her. Heads nodded, toes tapped, eyes widened, and a few mouths said ‘yes, yes.’

Fresno has probably never heard a band quite like The Big Sleep, which is not at all unusual. Most places haven’t. Listing inspiration sources that run the gamut from Led Zeppelin to The Cure, their songs are heavily laden and textured, giving them a meaty, muscled quality. While the scales tip more towards noize-oriented than say vocal-oriented (such as Death Cab or other more dialogue-y bands), the vocals are imperative, and the alternating vocal stylings of guitarist Danny Barria and bassist/keyboardist Sonya Balchandani add a haunting effect to their ever-building wall of sound.

They are not prog. They are not ‘post-rock.’ They are not psych. They are not shoegaze. They are not indie pop. They are not a rehash band. They are a band who make much more noise than you believe is possible for three people, and they do it well. They do know how to rawk and how to build up a set, tier upon tier, until you’re absolutely sure they can’t play any harder, or any louder, they pummel you with more. And you are grateful, oh so grateful.

Without indulging in paranoia or sullen gloom, The Big Sleep emit a passionate tension, an anxious awareness of today’s complex life and times, and their generation’s dazed sense of displacement. They may not have our answers, but they know our questions, how ardently we ask them, and how desperately we want answers.

the big sleep on myspace

the big sleep have tunes avail on itunes, amazon, and at all good record stores. their latest release, ’sleep forever’ is out on french kiss records.

M83 has turned in a slightly new, yet old, direction with his latest release ‘Saturdays = Youth.’ Anthony Gonzales, much like his sometime contemporary Ulrich Schnauss, is known for his masterful alchemy of blending shoegaze and ambient electronica. With ‘Saturdays’ he has taken M83 into the era preceding 90’s shoegaze. The influence of 80’s synth pop is heavily prevalent on the new album, yet M83’s penchant for lush layers remain, and are sprinkled with his trademark spacey, almost psychedelic ambient tracks. This is a tricky one. Old school fans may not find the album appealing if they close themselves to the overlapping inspirations of The Cure, New Order, and Ride all in one song, such as in ‘Graveyard Girl.’ Even the video is a miniature 80’s high school flick. But they’d be missing out on a varied album that includes pensive, and ‘slowcore’ moments of the haunted ‘Midnight Souls Still Remain,’ and ‘Too Late,’ and the dense layers of ‘Highway of Endless Dreams.’

If the titles aren’t enough to give you a clue, there is a heady sense of the triumphant nature of youth, drugged by thoughts of its own potential, creating a heightened sense of hope. Yet with youth comes the tragedy of its elusiveness, its fleeting nature, and its eventual surrender to its ultimate master, time. This ironic dichotomy is not lost on Anthony Gonzales, who with ‘Saturdays = Youth,’ creates an ode to the euphoric melancholy of youth.

M83 is currently on tour (Europe, UK, North America), taking with him the chameleon vocalist Morgan Kibby who features on many of Saturday’s tracks. The album is available through the usual avenues, iTunes, Amazon, etc.

give these chi-town kids a listen: walter meego-that is, if you are a fan of cut copy and other similar electro acts.  they’ve got the big label behind them, a solid tour coming up, and all that jazz.  so far our favorite track is ‘lost.’  basically this is a heads up that they may be one of 2008’s most ubiquitous bands.

FUG IT is aimed at music fans, and talking about music we like, and we hope you like.  while we tap into industry news and goings-on for ourselves, we are not a music newswire as such, however some things are just too big to ignore.

1st april saw the announcement of a Google executive to head up EMI’s digital branch.  as most of you are probably well-aware, the big labels have been choking, their vast corporate structures too rigid to cope with the flexibility and variety of digital music formats.  first it was Napster, and now we have any number of digital music streaming options available to us, not to mention the fact that in the last 10 years we’ve switched from an ‘album’ culture to one of ‘tracks’ and ‘downloads.’

who knows what Mr. Google has in mind, but it would be fascinating to see him revolutionize the ’suit culture’ of the leviathan EMI into an innovative, forward-thinking competitor in digital music.