These Are Powers

Download: Miracles' Revved-Up, Caustic "Tripwire"

​Nervy post-punkers Miracles mix the rollicking math rock grooves of their Chicago birthplace with the charred Casio crunch of their new Brooklyn digs. Somewhere in between the endless rhythms of Public Image Limited and Bastro lies Miracles' mix of the abrasive and the hypnotic, a steady stre ... More >>

Download: Antimagic, "Shake Shake Shake"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent. ​Brooklyn duo Antimagic make cushiony, muted dance music for part-time avant-punks, a colorful scribble of viscous melody, darkly hued hooks, and beat-on-beat skitter. A tag-team of best friends and ... More >>

Ariel Panero Memorial Show, Featuring Tough Knuckles, Class Actress, and Tony Castles, Set For February 4-5 at Death By Audio

​It was just a month ago that NYC lost Ariel Panero, the audacious 25-year-old promoter and musician known for throwing shows Damon Dash's basement in Tribeca, performing in the band Tough Knuckles, managing Grooms, and generally being a warm and ubiquitous presence in the local DIY scene. Fri ... More >>

Remembering Ariel Panero: Damon Dash, These Are Powers, Grooms, and More on the Man Behind Less Artists More Condos

Ariel Panero, doing what he did. Photo via Facebook.​The news began to circulate on Tuesday--Ariel Panero, the audacious NYC promoter behind Less Artists More Condos, had passed away suddenly, at the age of 25. Two days later, the details of what exactly happened are still in part unknown. But ... More >>

Rumble, Oktoberfest, Flashing Lights, And Ratatat Headline Your Weekend In Nightlife

​On Friday, there's only three places we'd want to be. In Manhattan, The Fader is throwing an afterparty for those of us who won't be attending the Gorillaz takeover at Madison Square Garden. Spin, the Flatiron ping-pong hall/bar/dancerie, will host tonight's revelry, which is less corny than ... More >>

Week In Review: We're Looking At You, Wakey Wakey

​Even though we eat and sleep local music over here at SOTC, after countless hours of perusing the blogosphere and sifting through mail, we just had to say it: What the fuck, New York? We're talking to you, Wakey! Wakey! That's why we decided to create the First Annual Worst Band Name in New Y ... More >>

Download These Are Powers' Game-Changing New Club Banger (!), "Anything Above Nothing"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing new and emerging MP3s from local talent. ​It's been generally impossible to keep up with the ever-changing moods of tireless, futurist dance trio These Are Powers. In roughly six releases over four years, they've dabbled in don't-call-us-No ... More >>

Live: Showpaper Hosts a Benefit at Silent Barn with Dan Friel and Starring

Starring. All photos by Georgia Kral​While Baltimore-based one-man guitar chorus Ecstatic Sunshine never made it to Ridgewood, Queens for Friday's Silent Barn-hosted benefit for the local DIY broadsheet Showpaper, Dan Friel of experimental Brooklyn act Parts and Labor did. Those in attendance ... More >>

Week in Review: We Are A Viking Raiding Party of Good Will and Intention

These Are Powers, Secret Project Robot, Confetti. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne​In the week that everybody finally went outside for the summer, we hung out on a few rooftops ourselves. Twin Sister? Rooftop. The SFNY party? Rooftop. Good Co.? BBQ, outdoors, ground floor. So yeah. The rain drove us in ... More >>

Photos: Deuce 7 Opening With These Are Powers and Aa at Secret Project Robot

photo by Rebecca Smeyne Our old Minneapolis-bred friend Deuce Seven--he of the spindly alien/insect street art--currently has a show running at Secret Project Robot, which will stay up as the house backdrop until June 12, 2010. This past weekend was the opening party: These Are Powers screamed, Aa ... More >>

This Weekend! The Hold Steady, Neon indian w/ Moby, Joshua Light Show w/ Silver Apples, Golden Triangles, The National, Crystal Stilts, Dr. Dog, Deer Tick, Postelles, Wild Yaks, And Much Much More

The Hold Steady, our favorite group of "wizened and wistful" meta-rock daddies (or "lowbrow bar rockers," your pick), perform tonight as part of WNYC's "Soundcheck" program" at the Greene Space. Then, abruptly setting aside all wisdom/wistfulness, the night plunges into a DJ-set orgy: Neon Indian ... More >>

Tonight! Beach Fossils, Woods w/ the Joshua Light Show, Phosphorescent, Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now!, These are Powers, Buzzcocks, Das Racist, And Lady Gaga w/ Elton John

Tonight, The Deli's "Best of NYC" festival kicks off with Beach Fossils, the sensitive, disaffectedly distorted surf bums with a mobile drummer. At the Abrons Art Center, the Joshua Light Show splashes lava-lamp gurgling, polka-dotted hallucinogen projections atop Woods, a lo-fi folk act whose psy ... More >>

Phantogram+Light Pollution

Damon Dash's Basement, Where Facts Go to Die

These Are Powers play in the basement. Maybe. Who knows, really. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​Truth is an ever-shifting creature in the confines of Damon Dash's infamous 172 Duane Street Tribeca loft. The venue began as Under 100, before we got the place (allegedly) shut down; shortly after that, ... More >>

Photos: These Are Powers EP Release Party with Blondes, MNDR at Coco 66

All photos by Rebecca SmeyneBlondes Tomorrow marks the release of These Are Powers' highly recommended five-song EP World Class Peoples/Candyman, so the trio had a release party this past Saturday with Blondes and MNDR. TAP were reportedly very very good. "Oh my god. @thesearepowers is raping the ... More >>

Photos: Yummy Fur at the Market Hotel, The Beets at St. James Church, Underscore Quarterly Release Party at the Silent Barn

all photos by Rebecca SmeyneLess Artists More Condos show at St. James Church in Chinatown Those of us blessed with a long weekend had plenty to do with it. Like see Julian Casablancas at Terminal 5, take in Vampire Weekend's "emotionally grueling" marathon at the United Palace Theater, watch Gasli ... More >>

Welcome to Damon Dash's DD172, New York's Last Line of Defense Against "Wack World"

The Under 100 office, not to be confused with this new DD172 thing. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.​Under 100, the DIY showspace run out of rap mogul Dame Dash's basement, may have disappeared into a December maelstrom of unwanted publicity, never to be spoken of again. But DD172--the suspiciously si ... More >>

Say Goodbye to 2009: Looking Back at the Year in Concerts

Last year's Stupid Party in Crown Heights. All photos by Rebecca Smeyne.​We're closing up shop early today, and getting a head start on the New Year by doing snow angels outside for a while. Last minute guidance on your own New Year's Eve plans can be found here and here. In the meantime, plea ... More >>

Footage of Under 100's Final Show Surfaces

Well, probably the final show, anyway. [Update: Guess not. Word we just got says there was a Grooms, Ducktails, Talk Normal, and Marnie Stern show there last Saturday night. Has Dame changed his mind about shutting things down?] This These Are Powers/Cool Kids/Jay Electronica footage (not all from ... More >>

Week in Review: Pull a Monster Out of Your Soul

Goodbye to all that, I guess. Photo of These Are Powers by Rebecca Smeyne.​In the week our F2K crew got within three wretched singles of revealing all 50 worst songs of the decade, we learned what giant, raging purple erections in cargo shorts would say if they could speak. (Probably something ... More >>

Photos of the Dame Dash DIY Hideout Under 100

Somewhere downstairs Erykah Badu is covering Pavement. All photos of Under 100 by Rebecca Smeyne.​Brief recap, from yesterday: Under 100, the city's newest and potentially only Manhattan-based DIY showspace, just happens to be located in the basement of one Damon Dash, former Jay-Z partner and ... More >>

The Wild and Wonderful Story of Under 100, the DIY Show Space in Dame Dash's Basement

Sleigh Bells perform at Under 100 in front of an extremely focused Ryan Schreiber. Photo by Rez Avissar/Pitchfork. Used by permission.​Greg Finch is the 20-year-old Pitchfork.tv intern who, along with Less Artists More Condos' Ariel Panero, runs Under 100, the DIY show space located in former ... More >>

One Time Only These Are Powers Performance Tomorrow at Galapagos

​The NYC-based Cinema 16 series--which screens silent, "art-house films" along with live accompaniment by various musicians, a la Lee Ranaldo's Text of Light--lands at Galapagos tomorrow night with the promise of a These Are Powers soundtrack written expressly for the occasion. Plus free cockt ... More >>

Live: PK-14, Xiao He, and Carsick Cars Bring Chinese Experimental Rock to Brooklyn

Photo of Carsick Cars at Glasslands by Rebecca Smeyne​ PK-14, Xiao He, Carsick Cars Glasslands Friday, November 6 Nearly two years ago, while following Brooklyn's spasmodic noisemakers Ex-Models on a tour through the imperial city of Beijing and Shanghai for a magazine article, I got a taste ... More >>

Yes In My Backyard: The Video Premiere of Talk Normal's "In A Strangeland"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing MP3s from new and emerging local talent. Now that Brooklyn loft-rock is leaning towards toward beach-y, garage-y, tape-damaged nostalgiasmush, we should thank the stars that Talk Normal have arrived to keep it ugly. The best thing to lurch out ... More >>

Week in Review: Pajamas Are Pussified

Kylie! Photo by Santiago Felipe.​In the week a tiny little boy named Falcon first captured America's heart and then threw up on that heart on live television and even rhymed about doing so in song, we swam feebly in the ocean of headlines involving both Michael Jackson and Paul Anka, DJ AM and ... More >>

Photos: These Are Powers at the Issue Project Room

​ These Are Powers played Issue Project Room on Friday, October 9, to help raise money for the non-profit's future space at 110 Livingston Street, which is also the same space where the Brooklyn threesome filmed their newest video. The show was also a way to honor the sadly departed Suzanne F ... More >>

Honor Suzanne Fiol at Issue Project Room Tomorrow Night

​It's not a memorial--that will come later, and in high style--but the Issue Project Room is holding a benefit tomorrow night for its future space at 110 Livingston Street. Honor Suzanne Fiol by attending. She helped put "Poetry to the Infinitive Power(s)" together and that's reason enough alo ... More >>

Live: Insound's 10th Anniversary at Brooklyn Bowl, Featuring Real Estate, the Drums, and More

Real Estate photo by Kyle Dean Reinford​Insound 10th Anniversary Party with Real Estate, the Drums, Cymbals Eat Guitars, and More Brooklyn Bowl Thursday, August 27 "It's a birthday party, y'all!" announced These Are Powers vocalist Anna Barie last night, her voice sounding slightly tinged wit ... More >>

To Do: End of Summer Blow Out with The Girls' Guide to Rocking

​The Girls' Guide to Rocking, the new super-primer/covert punk-rock educator/best friend of a book by SOTC buddy Jessica Hopper, is actually a lot of books at once. It's a polemic (girls should rock), a how-to with a sneaky DIY slant (girls should do it themselves), and a covert good-taste rec ... More >>

Interview: These Are Powers on Their Trip to China, Dan Graham, and Playing the Whitney

"We actually had to record in our practice space, and pretend like it was a show. We're like, 'Hey, Chinese government! Here we are performing for you on video!'" Rebecca SmeyneLate night snacks in Wuhan: These Are Powers' Pat Noecker and Bill Salas​ Just back from a four-week tour of China, ... More >>

Free All Points West Alternatives Galore

​ Big gigantic music festivals featuring people with names that even those living deep in the Amazon forests or on the wild, wild plains of New Zealand have heard of tend to suck up most of the cultural airspace when they come to town--All Points West being no exception here. But this is an ex ... More >>

Week in Review: I Have a Blog, This is What Happens.

Rebecca SmeyneThese Are Powers' Pat getting his temperature taken in China​ In the week leading up to All Points Wet (har har), vandals insulted the word "gay" in describing Coldplay, we came up with suggestions for a Beastie Boys tribute on Friday at All Points West, and there were plenty of ... More >>

Photos: Mazor Lazer, The Virgins, Amazing Baby, Conor Oberst, Public Enemy at Japan's Fuji Rock Festival

all photos by Rebecca Smeyne While you were busy shrieking at the East River stormclouds this past weekend, some of our locals were overseas for Fuji Rock, a gorgeously run three-day Japanese music festival. There were approximately 130,000 attendees, Oasis, Weezer, and Franz Ferdinand as headliner ... More >>

Enon

Todd P Announces Free Day Show SXSW Line-Ups, Broke-Ass Austin-Bound Kids Rejoice

The back patio in 2007 Let it be known that Todd P's deftly orchestrated unofficial all-day parties are one of the SXSW's undisputed highlights, tucked a few blocks away from the main Sixth Street drag on the back patio of Ms. Bea's, the best dive bar South of Rosemary's Greenpoint Tavern. So we a ... More >>

Photos: Dan Deacon and These Are Powers at Brooklyn Vs Baltimore Blowout

photos by Rebecca Smeyne Dan Deacon, These Are Powers The 1896 Friday, January 30 Dan Deacon and These Are Powers headlined an eight-band lineup that pitted Baltimore bands against their brethren in Brooklyn. Hundreds jammed into an empty warehouse in an industrial sector of Bushwick (just blocks ... More >>

New Asobi Seksu Video, O'Death Mixtape, and Tonight's Brooklyn Vs. Baltimore Show Was Moved

Sound of the City roots for the home team and so does Impose Magazine's Jeremy Krinsley. Impose is having a birthday party show on Saturday at Cake Shop. It's free if you were born in January. O'Death mixtape. Unfortunately this doesn't include yodeling diss tracks aimed at Akron/Family. On that ... More >>

Home Team Round-Up: These Are Powers, 50 Cent, Animal Collective (Of Course)

Sound of the City roots for the home team and so does Impose Magazine's Jeremy Krinsley. Alia Raza did the above video for Violens, a band that plays soft-heeled indie pop that is not in any way Lansing-Dreiden light, despite the band's frontman being first and foremost a member of that collecti ... More >>

Vampire Weekend in the National League Playoffs?

Photos: Marnie Stern, These Are Powers at Silent Barn

CONEY ISLAND, BABY

We only do this once a year

Siren Official After-Party: A Place to Bury Strangers and Apes and Androids

Islands and Ra Ra Riot Added to Siren Hoedown

Photos: Indian Jewelry at Death by Audio

Al Green Samples Some New Producers

Valentine's Day Music Listings: Ways To Avoid Yr Loneliness

New York Bands Playing SXSW

Flier of the Week: We Ragazzi Reunites