Asbury Park

Why Artists Should Stop Playing Their Seminal Albums Live

On a wispy evening last October, my housemate and I went to see GZA perform his magnum opus Liquid Swords in full at D.C.'s swanky Howard Theater. I wasn't the only one with high expectations. The crowd's hunger escalated with Killer Mike slaying his opening set, pulling out perfectly punctuated sho ... More >>

Los Angeles Is To X As NYC Is To the Ramones. Discuss.

Los Angeles is to X as New York is to the Ramones. Discuss. Actually, not exactly. As X frontwoman Exene Cervenka relates, if it wasn't for a review slagging the Ramones, X might not exist. Seems the negative notice assured future X guitarist Billy Zoom that another band was as aberrant as he wan ... More >>

Hot Snakes On Their All Tomorrow's Parties Reunion

The All Tomorrow's Parties festival, which will be held this weekend at Pier 36, continues to honor the ever-nostalgizing indie world with reunions among the kind of small-scale and beloved acts that seemingly passed into the mist long ago. This year's slate includes the Afghan Whigs, Captain Beefhe ... More >>

Venerated Festival All Tomorrow's Parties Comes to New York City

Good taste wins

All Tomorrow's Parties Preview: Founder Barry Hogan on the Festival's Move to New York City

To get to Pier 36 from Brooklyn, one must cross the Williamsburg Bridge and make a left. It has been used to store bananas, in the '80s served as a dock for a prison barge that inmates referred to as "The Love Boat," was home to the NYPD's drug-busting TNT squad, and--in the '90s--played host to art ... More >>

WHEN FRIDAY COMES AROUND

All Tomorrow’s Parties curate your weekend of shows

Q&A: The Promise Ring's Dan Didier On Getting The Band Back Together And Wood/Water

Mid-'90s emo institution The Promise Ring announced last year that they'd reunite to play a few scattered shows throughout 2012. The band, in its early days, combined the noisy and particulate ideas of guitarist/singer Davey von Bohlen's previous band Cap'n Jazz with more traditional punk constructi ... More >>

A Brief Overview Of The Seven (!) Music Festivals Happening In The New York Area This Weekend

Summer might not semi-officially start until next weekend, but our fair city is getting a head start on jamming the schedule with as much music as possible. This weekend there are at least seven multi-musician extravaganzas happening in New York and New Jersey. Which one is most right for you? Our h ... More >>

Afghan Whigs Are Uptown Again

The emotional anthropology behind the band's return

Jonathan Toubin Returns! The Return Of New York Night Train Is Imminent

After a lengthy recovery from a freak accident where a car crashed through a hotel room and landed on him while he was asleep, Jonathan Toubin is ready to thrill crowds with his deeply dug musical selections again. His New York Night Train party will make its triumphant return to Brooklyn Bowl on Ma ... More >>

Download: Wet Witch's Pummeling "New Ways"

Radioactive industrial-punk mutants Wet Witch slither from the Burn Books label, the same sludgehurlers who got us Pregnant this time last year. Part Jersey Shore wash-up, part Brooklyn crust-over, Wet Witch's four-song, one-sided 12" (out now, limited to 500) comes complete with the band's name mel ... More >>

Tickets To The Afghan Whigs ATP Go On Sale Monday; Louis CK (!), The Make-Up (!!), Scrawl, The Roots, Mark Lanegan On The Bill

Tickets for the 2012 iteration of All Tomorrow's Parties' I'll Be Your Mirror Festival—happening September 21-23 in Asbury Park, and headlined by the reformed Afghan Whigs—go on sale on Monday morning, and the festival has released a partial list of who's scheduled to play the three-day ... More >>

The Bamboozle: Moving Back To Asbury Park (!), Headlined By Bon Jovi (?)

The 2012 edition of The Bamboozle—the weekend-long festival of complete and utter overstimulation in the name of music and carnival rides—will take place May 18 through 20, and instead of being held in the parking lot of the Meadowlands' football stadium, as it has been for the past cou ... More >>

The Afghan Whigs Are Getting Back Together And Playing Next Year's I'll Be Your Mirror Festival In Asbury Park

​A year and change ago SOTC emerituses (emereti?) Rob Harvilla and Zach Baron said it seemed at least a bit likely, and now it's really happening: The Afghan Whigs, the Cincinnati chroniclers of suffering for love while swaddling one's self in soul to help ease the pain a bit, will be getting ... More >>

Live: Secret Project Robot Gets Re-Animated In Bushwick

​Knyfe Hyts (The New) Secret Project Robot Thursday, October 20 Better than: Buzz. Coming through the nearly unmarked door on Melrose Street in Bushwick, one could be forgiven for thinking that the dozen bedraggled people sitting around in the dark on thrift store couches, surrounded by e ... More >>

BEST OF NYC®
The Music Buzz

Too much and not too soon—the ever-expanding universe of sound in the city

Portishead and Deadmau5 Shift the Focus

Missed Oneida's ATP Jam Session? Listen To It Online Now

... and even if you were present for all of the Ocropolis III, Oneida's extended improvisation at last weekend's All Tomorrow's Parties Presents I'll Be Your Mirror festival down in Asbury Park, it's worth revisiting the day via NPR's archive of the whole shebang, which is split into three parts sho ... More >>

Facebook + Music: Most People Are DJs

The site's foray into music and the act of performative listening

Live: Portishead And Jeff Mangum Come Out Of The Shadows In Asbury Park

All Tomorrow's Parties: I'll Be Your Mirror Asbury Park, NJ September 30-October 2 Better than: Your favorite worn-out band tee. Timelessness isn't a foresight. Most experiences can't predict their own longevity, and as much as any creator strives to avoid miring his or her work in a dated exterio ... More >>

Q&A: Deerhoof's Greg Saunier On Keeping Communication Open, Releasing A 7-Inch With Jeff Tweedy, And Finding Beauty On The G Train Platform

After a recent boisterous and discordant performance at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Deerhoof's dressing room briefly felt like the center of the indie universe. Hanging out and sipping on the beer and wine that usually go to waste (Deerhoof is more of a tea-swilling bunch) were members of The Di ... More >>

Geoff Barrow's Sour Rhymes

The member of Portishead excavates his band's hip-hop roots

Q&A: Awesome Tapes From Africa's Brian Shimkovitz On Cassette DJing, His New Label, And His Overflowing Mailbox

The blog Awesome Tapes From Africa delivers on the promise of its name. Founder Brian Shimkovitz launched it as a way to share with his friends some of the cheap cassettes he found while in Ghana (on a Fulbright Scholarship for ethnomusicology), and in the years since it began its audience has since ... More >>

SWANS' WAY

Michael Gira puts the fear into his fans again

Matt Pinfield, The Believer

Down on the upside with rock evangelist

Portishead Is Playing Two Shows At The Hammerstein Ballroom This October

They'll be in the States for the I'll Be Your Mirror festival in Asbury Park this fall, so the doomy British trio Portishead has decided to play a slew of shows around the country in October—and New York City gets them first, with a pair of shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom on October 4 and 5 ... More >>

Ten Crucial Fourth Of July Jams, As Chosen By "Along The Watchtower" Author Constance Squires

​Along The Watchtower, the debut novel by Constance Squires, is a story of an Army brat whose tumultuous upbringing was kept steady in part by her discovery of rock and roll. It's published Tuesday, and in honor of its impending release and the coming holiday—don't forget, Monday's Ameri ... More >>

How Much Would You Pay To See The Concert Of Your Dreams?

​The Daily Swarm got wind of an eBay auction for a pair of tickets to Elephant 6 cult hero Jeff Mangum's September 9 show at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, which predates his appearance at the Portishead-curated ATP in Asbury Park by about three weeks. The asking price for the chance to be ... More >>

Watch Titus Andronicus' Jersey Travelogue "No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future"

​It's true, as Titus Andronicus frontman states in the prelude to his band's video for "No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future", that New Jersey has taken a bit of a beating, reputation-wise, over the past year or so, thanks in large part to the many reality-TV depictions of the Garden St ... More >>

Jeff Mangum Is Touring, Playing Town Hall

​The greatest indie-rock comeback story of all time (probably) (hopefully) continues apace: Neutral Milk Hotel deity Jeff Mangum has now announced a clutch of East Coast shows to complement his appearance at that crazy Asbury Park ATP event that I'm assuming is all sorts of sold out by now. Th ... More >>

Week In Review: Bob Dylan Is Waiting In A Van Outside Your House

Photo via Fred W. McDarrah, there from the start.​Yes, it was Dylan Week here at SOTC, a veritable orgy of Greenwich Village-scouring videos (with installments covering Cafe Wha?, Jones Street, the Gaslight, and Washington Square Hotel, or just enjoy the whole thing in one shot here), along wi ... More >>

Portishead And Jeff Mangum Are Headlining All Tomorrow's Parties In Asbury Park, NJ

​Good lord. All Tomorrow's Parties is bringing their boutique full-immersion indie-rock weekend blowout to a new spot this year: Asbury Park, NJ. ATP's three-day I'll Be Your Mirror fest will be partially curated by Portishead (!) and headlined by none other than fuckin' Jeff Mangum (!!!!), la ... More >>

The Guido Ideal Goes On The Down-Low in Jersey

The Jersey Shore May be Getting More Naked

via Gadling.com​Whether you're the type of woman who hates tan lines or the type of dude who likes to ogle at people's chests, here's something to consider when you're planning your next beach vacation: a topless beach in New Jersey.

The Gaslight Anthem's Fading Glory Days

New Jersey's finest Boss acolytes are too young to be so nostalgic, and so safe

So, Who in Jersey Do We Have to Blow to Get Gay Marriage? Vote Delayed

​It would have been pretty embarrassing if Jersey were to one-up New York on civil rights and pass their marriage equality bill just weeks after the Empire State told its own gay couples to go to hell. Given how many ex-pat New York gays have colonized Jersey from Asbury Park to Montclair, it ... More >>

Sex and The City Sequel: Some Suggestions

It was inevitable. The first Sex and the City movie made over $400 million, so there had to be a sequel, and auteur Michael Patrick King has confirmed it. Filming starts this summer, with release expected in summer 2010. That means a year of splashy features, and another summer of young women from ... More >>

Doris Day Headed to a Jersey Lounge: Que Sera Sera

Possibly 4th Street: Nicole Atkins and the Sea

Big Girls, Don't Cry

The fight for the right to be fat, queer, and proud

Wiped Out

NY Mirror

Books

Dress You Up

Prey for Gina

Silver Pants in the Backyard

NY Mirror

Reason to Believe

All Mixed Up

Clubs Go Off the Deep End

The Outsiders

Skateboarders bring their half-pipe dreams to New Jersey's city of last resort