Category: Features
City Guide: A Weekend in New York with Pueblo
Brooklyn based indie pop duo Pueblo is made up of Jonah P. Smith and Julian P. Smith, childhood friends since grade school days in their hometown of Dallas, Texas. The Smiths, who dropped their debut EP, Boring the Camera, earlier this year, are currently on tour in the US.
The two friends may be somewhat new to the five boroughs, having just relocated here in August of last year, but they’ve quickly established their local haunts.
We asked Jonah to put together a guide of his typical weekend spots, partly to get some insight into the artist himself, but also partly because we selfishly want the scoop on where to find a good jukebox bar.
Friday:
Brooklyn Ball Factory
Great little coffee shop/Japanese restaurant that is only steps away from my apartment. It’s a good place to write in a journal.
Russ and Daughters
The “Super Heebster” might be the best food I’ve had in the city. Never tasted anything like it—Whitefish and baked salmon salad with cream cheese and Wasabi roe on a Bagel. It’s an expensive sandwich, so you can’t get it very often, but when you do, it’s worth every penny. There’s nowhere to sit at Russ and Daughters, so order your sandwich and then walk to the park cafe with picnic tables across the street where they play sweet tunes.
WXOU Bar
Jukebox.
Saturday:
Bonchon Chicken
For the nasty meat eaters in the band, Bonchon has become a pre-gig ritual. I hear it’s the world’s best Korean Fried chicken, outside of the real deal.
Rockwood Music Hall: Stage 2
We’re actually most likely to be at Rockwood on a Monday night for Jim Campilongo’s ongoing residency, but it’s one of our favorite spots to see shows any night of the week.
Punjabi Grocery and Deli
After the show at Rockwood, walk a couple blocks to Punjabi for a six dollar, full plate of amazing Indian food.
Pete’s Candy Store
This place is probably the closest to our hearts of any other place on this list. It’s been one of the only constants throughout a full year of trying to navigate this massive, complicated, scary city for the first time. Lots of memories. We love you, Greg.
Sunday:
Trans Am Cafe
This is a great spot for getting in the headspace to do homework for hours on end. It’s also one of the only places I’ve found that has good coffee AND food. There’s a bunch of vegan and vegetarian sandwich options.
Prospect Park
For anyone who misses nature in the city, this is the place to be on a Sunday morning. In addition to all of the greenery, it’s just nice to see some open, unobstructed space.
456 Shanghai
Sunday nights in Chinatown are a much different experience than going on a Saturday afternoon. The streets look abandoned in comparison. Stop at 456 Shanghai for a nice and quiet, romantic dinner.
Arkells Tour Diary: Shaky Knees 2017
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We handed a disposable camera (remember those?) to the members of Canadian rock band Arkells and asked them to document their day at Atlanta’s Shaky Knees Music Festival. Take a look at their shenanigans below, and be sure to catch them on tour like, right now. This is not a live performance you want to miss.
[/tps_header]On hot days, we are very good at finding the AC.
Shaky Knees 2017: Rising Above the Rest
Day One
Day One of Shaky Knees kicked off bright and early with a set from Cymbals Eat Guitars over at the Ponce de Leon stage. Not a bad way to jump start your day, with front row head-banging right at the crack of noon. The lineup for Friday was overwhelming in the best way, with no down time from one kickass band to the next. We’re genuinely surprised we even found time to eat anything. We ran straight from Cymbals to Zipper Club, then on to Temples followed quickly by Margaret Glaspy (hero), and from Glaspy we hauled over to Car Seat Headrest. Post Car Seat at the Peachtree Stage, we made it to The Growlers on the Piedmont Stage for half a set, and then booked it back to Ponce to catch everyone’s new favorite band, Pinegrove.
Pinegrove’s set was one of the most anticipated of the day for us (although, with this bottomless smorgasbord of fantastic artists, it was hard to choose which set to get the most pumped for), and we weren’t alone. Though the Ponce stage was the smallest of the three, the New Jersey band commanded a crowd, and personal space was impossible to find. The six-piece folk rock band took us through most of 2016’s Cardinal, only leaving off third to last track “Waveform,” which…yeah, we get. Even though we’re probably never going to see them play our favorite track “Peeling Off the Bark” from 2015’s Everything So Far, they did pull out “Angelina,” “Problems,” “The Metronome,” and “Recycling” from their debut release, so we were more than satisfied. They also played big guns “Old Friends” and “Aphasia,” and ended with our latest on-constant-repeat obsession “New Friends” for the finale.
From Pinegrove, we settled in at the main (Peachtree) stage for Wolf Parade, followed immediately by Portugal. The Man, and then Cage The Elephant.
Matt Shultz’s presence as Cage The Elephant frontman Friday at Shaky Knees is not the first time that crowd chatter has compared him to Mick Jagger. Shultz’s stage presence is memorable, to put it lightly. While he isn’t exactly Jagger, he has surely proven himself as an epic (and we don’t throw that word around too often) performer time and time again. Cage’s Shaky Knees set was mega high energy and captivating.
Post-Cage, we fought our way to a good vantage point at the Piedmont Stage for Pixies‘ set, which was a lot easier to obtain after a third of the crowd dispersed halfway through the set once the band finished “Where Is My Mind?” (really, guys?). Side note: bless Shaky Knees for booking the Pixies for two years, first in 2015 and again this year. Anyone who missed this set made a huge mistake. We’re still reeling.
Legends in their own right, headliners LCD Soundsystem took the stage Friday night of Shaky Knees like the kings of electronic rock they are. They walked onto the stage to the Peech Boys’ anthemic “Life Is Something Special,” a fitting opener to one of the best and most highly anticipated sets of the weekend. James Murphy then commenced orchestrating a giant festy dance party as the group worked through a setlist that catered to all, especially lovers of their debut self-titled and 2007’s Sounds Of Silver, breaking down into a beautiful, swaying close with “All My Friends.”
Day Two
Day Two was definitely the slower day of the festival, on top of being the rainiest of the three. (Though to be real, it only seriously rained for about five minutes and was a welcome refresher from the heat.) While Friday and Sunday both boasted lineups that were destined to have us well over our daily “steps” goals with all of the time-overlap sets we’d be running to, Saturday’s offerings gave us a little more down time to catch some shade or, you know, actually taste the food truck fare we were scarfing down.
The day started promptly at noon again, this time over at the main stage for North Carolina duo Flagship followed by LA’s The Record Company, and then on over to the Piedmont Stage for British pop singer Bishop Briggs, who you may recognize from her mega hits “River” and more recently “Wild Horses.” Since “River” first released in January 2016, Briggs has been rapidly climbing the charts. While her soulful performance was a great introduction for new fans, we would love to see Briggs break away from sounding exactly like her recordings and bring something extra to her live performance. We’re super excited to see what is in store for the emerging artist, and we’ll be keeping an eye on her for sure.
Dr. Dog was the most anticipated set of the day for us, and we posted up at the Piedmont Stage to catch the psych rock band for their early evening set. The band took the stage and wasted no time on teasing the audience, launching right into fan favorite “How Long Must I Wait” off of 2012’s Be The Void, later on also gifting us with tracks “That Old Black Hole,” “These Days, and “Heavy Light” from the same album. The rest of the set consisted of a good mix of their catalog, surprisingly lacking heavy focus on this year’s Abandoned Mansion and also exploring 2013’s B-Room as well as 2010’s Shame, Shame, with a couple of tracks from 2008’s Fate and last year’s The Psychedelic Swamp for good measure. They closed the set with their signature cover of Architecture in Helsinki‘s “Heart It Races.”
Day Three
Day Three was a beast. Starting off with Hoops at the Piedmont stage at 12:30 p.m., it’s hard to pinpoint what the highlight of the day was between sets from Whitney, Hamilton Leithauser, Fruit Bats, Third Eye Blind (might be a real contender, because #nostalgia), The Shins, Ryan Adams (who basically just made fun of The Shins the whole time), and Phoenix.
That said, we’re a little bit nuts for Fruit Bats over here, and we were front row rail for the entire set, taking enough videos to make our phones complain that we were running out of storage. Our obsessive fandom was rewarded later on during The Shins’ set, when Fruit Bats frontman Eric D. Johnson (former member of The Shins) jumped in with them on tambourine.
Despite personal favorites, it has to be acknowledged that Phoenix was genuinely, indisputably incredible. Their hour-and-a-half set was masterful, complete with the coolest backdrop we’ve ever seen—a slanted mirror aerially reflecting the stage below, with the floor projecting trippy visual effects. The entire surrounding crowd was near hysteria throughout the entire show up until their encore which included—obviously—2009’s smash hit “1901.”
Final Thoughts
We’ve talked about this before, but we are all about the sustainability factor of refillable water stations in lieu of plastic bottles, and Shaky Knees was one of the first festivals we ever saw implement this system. We’ve been seeing this more and more on the festival circuit, and we’re so glad that it’s becoming a best practice. Shoutout to Shaky for being proactive here.
Also want to note that Centennial Olympic Park is a great location. When they hosted the festival at Central Park in 2015, we thought it was perfect and wondered if it could get any better. Plenty of shade, stages far enough apart that their sound didn’t step on each other…it seemed like the ideal spot to plant this festival, and when we heard about the move in 2016, we were skeptical. It turns out our doubts were unfounded. Yes, Centennial is a smaller park, but this didn’t, as we worried, result in overcrowding. There were less stages than before, but this mainly resulted in easier transition from stage to stage without feeling like you had to leave a set 10 minutes after arriving in order to be on time for the next. In short, this festival is excellently planned, and runs like clockwork. We’re believers.
Since its inception, Shaky Knees’ consistently stellar lineup has made it stand out, and it remains one of our all-time favorite festivals, from soup to nuts. The bottom line is, the lineup is always unbeatable and, more importantly, uncompromising. Keep it up, guys, and we’ll keep insisting that this is the festival that should not be missed.
Countdown to Shaky Knees 2017
Last weekend we were shakin’ our beats. This weekend we’ll be shakin’ our knees.
In its fifth year, Shaky Knees returns to Centennial Park in Atlanta, GA, for three days and nights of the finest indie rock acts around. Topping the lineup are the likes of LCD Soundsystem, The xx, and Phoenix.
This year’s stellar lineup also includes: Cage the Elephant, Pixies, The Shins, Nick Murphy (fka Chet Faker), Ryan Adams, Third Eye Blind, Portugal. The Man, Sylvan Esso, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Shovels and Rope, Bleachers, Warpaint, Car Seat Headrest, and many, many more.
We only have three more days until the weekend. To help get you through the rest of the week, check out a few of VM’s favorite tracks from some of this year’s Shaky Knees’ artists.
GA 3-day passes are still available, as well as some late-night shows. Don’t miss out!
VM’s Top 5 Favorite Things About Shaky Beats 2017
1. Home State Festival
Our roots are deeply grounded in the great state of Georgia. So when there is a festival of this size and quality in the heart of one of our favorite cities, we just have to show our love. Atlanta is known for many things – as of late it may be the collapsing of highways and MARTA catching on fire – but there is no denying this city knows how to host a music festival or two.
2. Centennial Park
Shaky Beats returned to Centennial Olympic Park in the heart of Atlanta, GA, for its second year. With a line-up boasting the likes of The Chainsmokers, Kaskade, GRiZ, Bonobo, Flosstradamus, Zeds Dead, Galantis, RL Grime, Gramatik, the return of Girl Talk, and many more, this year’s fest certainly did not disappoint.
If you are familiar with Centennial Park when there’s not a festival occupying the park, the idea of a loud, electronic focused festival with three stages may raise some skepticism. We were anticipating unbearable hoards of attendees packed into the park and awful noise bleed from the stages. We were met with neither. Sure it was crowded, of course, but nothing insufferable, and no noise bleeding. That’s a win for us.
3. Gramatik
Gramatik is just one of those artists we are always happy to see on a lineup. With a Gramatik set, you know you’re always going to have a funky energetic time. We couldn’t stop shakin’ our beats throughout the late afternoon performance. Gramatik was absolutely one of our favorite sets from Day 2 at Shaky Beats.
4. Slushii
That hair. That jersey. Those bright colors. That Slushii cartoon. We loved it. This was our first time seeing Slushii (Julian Scanlan) live. Not only is he known for his work with artists such as Marshmello and Skrillex, Scanlan also puts on one hell of a show.
5. The Chainsmokers
There is no denying it, we’re fans. The Chainsmokers‘ set was everything we wanted it to be and definetely how we wanted to end our Shaky Beats weekend. All of our favorite anthemic songs were played and Centennial was absolutely alive with sing-a-longs Sunday night. Each time we’ve seen The Chainsmokers, their performance just gets bigger and better.
Shaky Beats Artist: Little Dragon
Cryptic, hypnotic,
Layered hooks and melodies,
Dreamy, strong vocals
Our “Haiku Review” of Little Dragon’s long-awaited album, Season High, pretty much sums it up.
From classic video game sounds to mystical dreamscapes, from upbeat tribal dance grooves to spaced out zones, there is unexpected and unimagined magic within each track.
“We want to exist in our own bubble where we can stay curious about sounds. The magic feeling that sounds can sprinkle over any boring day is what got us all hooked. That feeling of escapism …” shared singer and songwriter Yukimi Nagano while discussing the process behind the recording of Season High.
This is the first new music from the Grammy-nominated electro-pop band since they released their acclaimed 2014 album, Nabuma Rubberband. While the album has been out for a few weeks now, it comes just before their scheduled performance at this year’s Shaky Beats Music Festival in Atlanta, GA, this weekend.
The second annual Shaky Beats Music Festival will be taking place in Centennial Olympic Park and boasts a line-up that includes The Chainsmokers, Kaskade, GRiZ, Bonobo, Flosstradamus, Zeds Dead, Galantis, RL Grime, Gramatik, and of course, Little Dragon.
Over the course of three days, three stages will light up the heart of downtown Atlanta with an array of today’s best and most popular EDM acts. The party will continue both Friday and Saturday nights with Shaky Beats Late Night Shows.
Don’t miss Little Dragon’s Shaky Beats set at 5:40PM EST this Sunday (5/7) on the Peachtree Stage and their late night show on Saturday w/ Abjo at The Masquerade – Heaven, 11:00pm Doors/ 11:30pm Show. Tickets are still available!
Track-By-Track: Welles Talk Debut EP ‘Codeine’
“My hope and my long term plan is to tour extensively and never let my feet touch the ground,” Jehsea Wells tells me of his grit-rock three-piece, Welles, who dropped their debut EP today under C3 Records. I think he’s got pretty good odds.
Wells, who recently made the move from Ozark, AR to Nashville, TN, is the mastermind behind Welles, writing songs that tear up your throat almost as much as they tear up your heart. He records all the vocals and instrumentals on demos in his room before taking them to the studio to lay down with session musicians.
The 23-year-old got hooked on great music at a young age (around the age when I was still only interested in boy bands whose posters I could kiss before bedtime). He received a cassette tape of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from his grandfather when he was in the second grade, and he listened to it nonstop.
“From there, I wanted to play guitar, but I didn’t know that you had to put your fingers on the frets to make the different noises—I thought The Beatles were just moving their tuning pegs really quickly,” Wells laughs. “So I broke a lot of strings. I was a real dumbass. But when I was about 12, there’s an old neighbor of mine who lived down the street, and he had me over to his trailer, and he tuned my guitar for the first time, and I got to see him put his fingers down on the frets to change the notes and stuff, and he taught me ‘Camptown Races,’ and I was like, ‘oh shit this is great.'”
Now constantly writing, Wells keeps a notebook with him at all times and fills it with poems. He experiments with different rhythms, sometimes writing in quatrain, sometimes iambic pentameter, other times freeverse. Separately, he’ll craft a full song and then look to his notebook to fill in the lyrics. As another method, Wells also enjoys reworking and disassembling some of his favorite tracks.
“My favorite thing really for writing is to find a song that I really like, say like ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ by Velvet Underground,” he says. “And so you just take that rhythm of it, and you just fill in your own lyrics. I write my own ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ and let it sit for a long time until I forget how that song even goes. And then I pick up the guitar and take my own stab at it.”
The key to his process? Never overthinking a song he’s working on.
“I just never stop. It’s just a constant stream of consciousness, and then whatever’s good shines through, and we record and release,” Wells explains. “I don’t much have the patience to sit with a song for more than two hours. Because at that point, you’re just forcing it. Once it’s forced, too many other thoughts come at you. You’re just running with an egg in a spoon. And it’s a very short race, but you just wanna get that egg there without breaking it open. Because once it cracks, there’s absolutely no putting your song back together; there’s too many thoughts in it. You thought about it too much. You’re worried, ‘aw shit, this is a Lou Reed tune. Oh no.’ Don’t think stuff like that.”
Check out the EP below, and then see what Wells has to say in his track-by-track breakdown below.
“Life Like Mine”
When I got to Tennessee, I felt memories from home fading and getting bland as the days rolled past in the new place. Each line is a brief description of situations I was in at any given time over the course my few years out of high school playing in bands and living in northwest Arkansas. I wrote them down in hopes that I wouldn’t forget them, that they would jog my memory if I were to read the poem again. As the stanzas progressed I thought ‘how fucked.’ That’s the chorus. I’m already seeing those were formative times for me. Smoking cigarettes in Wilson Park, playing cards drunk with all my friends, hearing constantly how everyone was sick of that town when at the same time no one was making any real effort to get out. Gettin’ dosed down real heavy for the first time and getting scared. They’re nightmares and they’re sweet dreams. It’s my ode to home.
“Codeine”
It’s about drugs. The drugs doctors give you that are so good, they’ll literally ruin your life. You’ll lose yourself, find yourself, kill yourself, and if you have any luck you’ll bring yourself back out of them. You clear up and your brain readjusts and you see things for what they are after everything being grey and static and it’s beautiful. Lovely, painted in color.
“Hold Me Like I’m Leaving”
It’s me bitchin about a hard life. Nothing’s been easy. No money,always grinding, two steps forward and one step back. Easy to get real down if you don’t have real friends. It’s not a unique situation. As far as not being ‘cut out for love’ that’s a throw away. I love very much. But when that anxiety kicks in everybody jus hold on, I’ll be back but I feel like I’m leaving. Completely unwarranted apocalyptic and devastating feelings.
“Into Ashes”
It was a quick write, a few personal lines mixed in with some kind of bare industrial infrastructure word painting. Wouldn’t it be nice to smile brightly, or to have long lovely hands? I don’t even know what I’ve done.
“Are You Feeling Like Me”
It’s a big apology for being a rotten hang sometimes. I get heavy, my close friends are usually along for the ride. I just wanted to them to know it’s not me. I dig dumb video games and making blanket forts and gettin’ high and eating junk too. There’s a kid in there. There jus also happens to be a ten ton war medal that i didn’t ask for. I jus wanna write songs and show them to the folks I love, and I want them to make their art and show it to me. That’s what we did over on Space Mountain, trading demos, jammin’ in the dark, James and me making art and playing in bands and going to house parties and double wide backspace trailer shows. Reality is heavy, and we’re all aging and dying and time keeps blowing past us, and it’s a tragedy to me. I write the songs ’cause talking about it doesn’t do it justice for me.
Countdown to Shaky Beats 2017
It’s Friday (Yayy!). Which means one week from now we will be returning to Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, GA, for the second annual Shaky Beats Music Festival. With a line-up boasting the likes of The Chainsmokers, Kaskade, GRiZ, Bonobo, Flosstradamus, Zeds Dead, Galantis, RL Grime, Gramatik, the return of Girl Talk, and many more, this year’s fest will not disappoint.
Over the course of three days, three stages will light up the heart of downtown Atlanta with an array of today’s best and most popular EDM acts. The party will continue both Friday and Saturday nights with Shaky Beats Late Night Shows. If you were among the many who weren’t able to snag a ticket to the coveted late night Kaskade show at Terminal West on Saturday, don’t fret – there are still tickets available for a few other late shows.
The countdown to this year’s Shaky Beats is almost over. We’re finally in the home stretch and to get you in the mood, pump up your weekend, and help get you through this next week, check out a few of VM’s favorite tracks from some of this year’s Shaky Beats’ artists.
See you at Shaky Beats!
Playlist Project: 15 Songs Frontman Joseph King is Listening To Right Now
Joseph King, former frontman of Canvas and Deadbeat Darling, is back and better than ever with his new project. Joseph King and the Mad Crush is a Brooklyn-based pop rock quartet with a penchant for catchily heartbreaking lyrics and delicious, surfy reverb. The band dropped their I Miss Everything EP earlier this year.
We asked the Austin, TX native to create a playlist for us of some of his favorite tunes, and we’ve got the mix below, along with the King’s track-by-track commentary. Enjoy, and—for those of you in the NYC area—be sure to come out tomorrow to see the band play at Brooklyn Bazaar at 10 p.m.
1. “Forget That You’re Young’ – The Raveonettes
“I originally heard this song in the background at a restaurant, and the melody reminded me so much of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark.’ I went searching for it, and once I found it, fell in love.”
2. “Pass This On” – The Knife
“The lyrical content of this song is so hot and so dark. One of The Knife’s best for sure.”
3. “Ambulance” – TV On The Radio
“TVOTR is one of my all-time favorite bands and biggest influences. This song reminds me of a very specific summer I spent in Austin; it was my driving song. ‘I will be your one more time if you will be my one last chance…'”
4. “Multi-Family Garage Sail (Bargin Bin Mix)” – Land of the Loops
“I discovered this song recently. The vibe is so thick and puts me in a very specific headspace. It’s a daydream.”
5. “Ride On / Right On” – Phosphorescent
“The title of this song fits so perfectly—another driving song that hits me perfectly, and reminds a bit of early Arcade Fire.”
6. “Giants” – Bear Hands
“I played with Bear Hands and AWOLNATION awhile back at Webster Hall and have been a fan ever since. ‘Giants’ is a great song with a killer chorus.”
7. “Black Water” – Timbre Timbre
“Timbre Timbre is a band who creates a very specific mood and does it in such a beautiful unique way. This song breaks my heart every time; it’s my sunrise song.”
8. “Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf)” – Pixies
“Pixies are one of my all-time favorites. I was at Rosemary’s Tavern in Brooklyn years ago with an ex of mine, and this song came on and became our sort of anthem. That relationship ended in flames but I still love the song, especially this version.”
9. “Angst In My Pants” – Sparks
“You can never mistake a Sparks song—such a trademark sound. I love the quirkiness of this song. Very much in the Roxy Music tradition.”
10. “Don’t Kiss Me Goodbye” – Ultra Orange, Emmanuelle
“Another song that breaks my heart every time. I’m always a sucker for sweet, melancholy ‘goodbye’ songs. This one is perfect.”
11. “California Sunrise” – Dirty Gold
“This song washes straight over me like a coastal breeze—puts me in an early morning island trance. Dirty Gold is a new discovery for me; their vibe is so thick.”
12. “Out Of Time Man” – Mano Negra
“Before Manu Chao went solo, he had a band called Mano Negra that was part of the Parisian rock scene. This is my favorite song from that band, and what I feel is the seed for all his solo material. Manu Chao is one of my top five all-time favorite artists.”
13. “Tobacco Road” – The Nashville Teens
“My mom used to have this on an old 45. I love this era of rock and roll—dirty, loose right to the point.”
14. “Can’t Seem To Make you Mine” – The Seeds
“Another song from the era of rock I love the most. So sloppy, and so dirty and sexy.”
15. “Sleepwalk” – Santo & Johnny
“I’ve always said if I could be one song, this would be it. It’s my all-time favorite.”
50 Bands to See at SXSW 2017
We’ll admit it—scrolling through the list of the year’s SXSW artists is intimidating. But, as we all know, preparation always pays off. You have seven days (March 13-19) to soak in as much music as humanly possible, with a smorgasbord of artists featured at showcases and parties all over downtown Austin.
Enter us. We’ve compiled a Spotify playlist of 50 can’t-miss bands at SX this year. From Atlanta and Nashville to Los Angeles and Canada, the artists on our playlist hail from all over. Leo James Conroy (interview coming soon) is a musician originally from Manchester, England who currently resides in Los Angeles, while Mise en Scene and Jessie Reyez are repping the Canadian music scene.
In case you didn’t hear, we’re sponsoring the 11th annual Athens in Austin Party, To Eleven on Saturday, March 18. The artists scheduled to play at our party (located at The Side Bar) are a) kickass and b) included on the playlist below. Enjoy, at see you out there.