Hailing from Bayonne, France, Gojira have been busy laying waste to Japanese cities and casual listeners the world over for the past 16 years and will do the same to the E-Factory Sept 22nd.
— By Jon Galuchie
Hailing from Bayonne, France, Gojira have been busy laying waste to Japanese cities and casual listeners of the world over for the past 16 years (check out crowd-favorite “The Heaviest Matter Of The Universe”). Their trademark blend of metal is captivating, fierce, and ultimately comes out head and shoulders above the other bands in the pit with a sound all their own. When it comes to the live show, the energy is felt through the crowd and each song has undeniable heft. I had the pleasure of catching them when they toured in support of the mighty Mastodon and (if I’m being honest) they stole the show. The audience and the band were on the same page and there was all the headbanging and moshpits that a metalhead could ask for.
They recently released their new album Magma on back in June on Roadrunner Records. Check out the newest single “Silvera” and get back to me. It showcases the band honing in on their unique songwriting and masterful song structure and development–all in less than four minutes.
Gojira will be stopping by to slay the Electric Factory with support from Tesseract on September 22. Highly recommended show.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard shows are sacred experiences. And if you’ve yet to attend one, now’s your chance. The seven of them will play Underground Arts on Sunday night (5/15/16) in support of their new album Nonagon Infinity– an album intended to be played in a continuous loop. Probably one of the most unpredictable bands out there right now, King Gizzard treats each album as its own conceptual piece. On Nonagon Infinity, each song flows into the next, including the last track back into the first, creating a never-ending circle of psych.
Accompanying them will be Philly’s own Mercury Girls and Melbourne’s The Murlocs.
While consisting of members of King Gizz, The Murlocs have a bit more of a melodic, folk-rock grounding. Stu Mackenzie (lead guitar/vocals of King Gizz) produced their latest album and second full length LP, released this March on Flightless Records and titled Young Blindness.
Mercury Girls (members of Literature and Little Big League) perfect a jangly pop-meets-shoe gaze sound, and are touring in support of their new 7″ and a split EP with Spook School, Tigercats and Wildhoney.
WKDU will present the show on Sunday (after the Punk Rock Flea Market), so come say hello, check out our merch and pick up one of our free zines!**
Watch videos for King Gizzard’s “Gamma Knife” and The Murlocs’ “Unknown Disease,” and stream Mercury Girls’ new single, “Ariana,” below.
Fat White Family live in NY 12/2014 by Gretchen Robinette for BrooklynVegan
Fat White Family is touring in support of their Fat Possum/Without Consent-released album Songs for Our Mothers (out this past January) and bringing the party to Underground Arts tomorrow, April 29. Known for putting on a great live show, FWF are as entertaining as they are bizarre – and a band that Vice once called “British rock’n’roll’s final hurrah.” Watch the video for the album’s first track, “Whitest Boy on the Beach,” below.
Joining them is Canadian band Dilly Dally (Partisan Records)– if Courtney Love and Joey Santiago had formed a side project in the 90s, this is who you’d get. Katie Monks’ gritty voice paired with lush pop guitar distortion make for some delectable rock tunes. Watch “Purple Rage” below and don’t miss them.
Get there early for Philly (seltzer-loving) band Littler, who just independently released Of Wandering in March will open the show. Watch their video for “Slippery,” below (from AV Club).
Thao and the Get Down Stay Down bring their sunny, folk-tinged pop to Underground Arts on Saturday, April 16th, headlining a great bill that includes Saintseneca and Little Scream. They recently released what may be their best album yet, A Man Alive. The album was produced by Merril Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, and it bubbles over with positive energy. While it’s hard not to snap along to the rhythm of songs like “The Evening” and lead single “Nobody Dies”, Thao and the gang maintains their unique idiosyncrasies. Even the slower songs keep you looking up, as Thao Nguyen’s voice and songwriting shine. A Man Alive is a perfect album to welcome in spring. Continue reading “Concert Preview: Thao and the Get Down Stay Down at Underground Arts on Saturday, April 16th”
Your favorite experimental Baltimoreans since Zappa are back in action with some unlikely guests. Excluding Deakin (Josh Dibb aka the Deakmeister), who has been busy polishing his Kickstarter-funded solo debut scheduled to come out later this year, Animal Collective’s Avey Tare (Daniel Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), and Geologist (Brian Weitz) have teamed up with Wiki, Hak, and producer Sporting Life of New York’s hip-hop outfit RATKING to embark on a world tour in support of their forthcoming album Painting With. Fortunately for us, Union Transfer is the first stop of the tour; unfortunately, the groups’ odd allegiance has generated much attention, causing most U.S. dates to sell out immediately, and with good reason.
AnCo has come a long way since its formative years in Baltimore County, honing its fusion of ambient, psychedelic, and folk, equally influenced by krautrock and horror movies. With all members of the collective having solidified their respective stylings of electronic, from Panda Bear’s critically-acclaimed Person Pitch and Avey Tare’s inventive Slasher Flicks, the good ol’ gang is back, in more ways than one. With its newest single “FloriDada,” Animal Collective has returned to its more organic, percussive, freak-folk roots that it nearly perfected in its albums Feels. Channeling the left-field pop of Merriweather Post Pavilion, vivid colors of Strawberry Jam, and the cacophonous textures of Sung Tongs, the neo-psychedelic outfit has hybridized its past influences into a newly improved brand of accessible, highly melodic, and quasi-danceable pop that we have grown to love. And it’s damn well better than Centipede Hz. Painting With will be released by Domino Records on the day of the show, February 19th.
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RATKING isn’t as much of a wild card for the tour roster as some might think; in fact, it makes a good deal of sense with AnCo’s great influence of the hip-hop group’s atmospheric, wall-of sound sampling, and cerebral lyricism, as well as their collaboration with Avey Tare’s former noise project Black Dice. As grimy and abrasive as RATKING’s name suggests, referring to a cluster of diseased rats being tied together by the tails, their music weaves stories and images of the decrepit lows of passion. Making their XL label debut with 2014’s So It Goes, the trio has blown up among the underground rap community, including features with King Krule (Archy Marshall) and tour dates with Death Grips. Their live sets often include motion pictures of gory violence and social alienation, similar to that of Godspeed You! Black Emperor; although, Wiki “One Brow” will typically bludgeon himself in the head with his microphone simultaneously. To put these guys’ talent and ridiculousness into perspective, I have a friend driving up from Northwest Indiana to Philadelphia, an eleven-and-a-half hour drive, just to see RATKING with me. Don’t you dare miss it.
