SKIPSTER / ECHOING VOICES OF INDEPENDENT MUSIC IN UPSTATE NY

The Love Language’s self-titled debut was one of last year’s most-overlooked albums, wrought with uncanny melodies and 60’s-soul-inflected indie pop that actually, you know, felt soulful (read: vulnerable). Their July performance at Rochester’s Bug Jar was one of summer 2009’s more memorable moments, too, dutifully showcasing the band’s unflagging energy and keen ability to balance their distinctive ballads with an anthemic, supercharged side.

Unsurprisingly, they’ve graduated to indie-major Merge Records and are gathering steam behind the new record, Libraries, due 7/13. “Heart to Tell” is the first official single from the July release, delivering a taut, instantly-gratifying jangle that should ward off everyone who hates sunshine and leave the spoils to us. The competition for Summer Jam 2k10 begins here.

The Love Language – “Heart to Tell”

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Record Store Day only comes once a year? What’s in store this year besides limited edition releases by awesome bandz like Beach House, Dum Dum Girls, and Hole? Well, Angry Mom Records in conjunction with WVBR  is giving us one hell of a day here in Ithaca!  Angry Mom (located in the basement of Autumn Leaves Bookstore in the commons) will be hosting live music from 1-5 pm all day featuring local acts like AwesomeAwesomes, Blow!, and more.

& That’s not all! Later that night, head on over to the Shop for even more live music starting at 8! Saratoga Springs’ Verbs will be in town playing alongside, Elsa and the AwesomeAwesomes, and Blow!  You can download Verbs’ album on their website here. Also, don’t forget to pick up yr beach fossils tix at the shop while there!!

Schedule of Angry Mom Events, Below!
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Thao Nugyen embarks on a Northeast tour this weekend which will bring her to Ithaca’s Castaways this Sunday the 18th! Thao with the Get Down Stay are touring in support of their unbelievable sophomore album, Know Better Learn Faster. Working with Tucker Martine (Decemberists, Spoon, Laura Veirs), Thao and her boys created one of most saucy, gritty, yet catchy albums of 2009. We’ve been looking forward to this show for months, however the skipster crew has to miss out ‘cos of a last minute trip to NY- which means you have to go and tell us how it was for a change. Can you do that? Please?

&For those of you still bummed that you couldn’t snag tickets to the now sold out Flaming Lips show (which occurs Sunday night, also)- mark my words: Thao. Will. Be. Better. Her live show is like 30,000 naked people storming through your house unexpected…It’s loud, full of energy, sweaty, yet still sexy.

If you do have tickets to flaming lips- you might wanna throw those babies on craigslist…you know, time’s are tough- and hey, they’re playing at Canandaigua’s CMAC in July with the Black Keys!

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best coast > everything else

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Everyone ready to hit the floor? We’re super pumped/jazzed/various other effusive adjectives to be announcing our second official “Skipster presents” evening program, this time featuring ascendant Brooklynites Beach Fossils with support from our local heroes Hotel Reverie.

If you’ll recall, we first encountered Beach Fossils’ blissful lo-fi pop last summer when the Dustin Payseur-helmed project was in its infancy. They’re about to drop their long-anticipated debut album via Captured Tracks, and the timing couldn’t be more serendipitous as we coast into the final weeks of the school semester on an unseasonably warm breeze. As Dustin stated in our interview, “My favorite things to do are go on vacation, have lazy days and daydream… I do those as frequently as possible despite the weather.” Hey, us too.

Hotel Reverie are also set to release their great new Dirty Sheets in the coming weeks, so get excited because many of these razor-sharp blues are about to make their Ithaca premiere. What’s more, the Skipster team will be DJ’ing an indie dance party following Beach Fossils’ set, featuring faux-disco jams and remixes galore. Our sole ambition is to make you sweat, so start lacing up your Heelies and sending in requests as soon as possible.

Beach Fossils w/ Hotel Reverie @ WildFire Lounge, Ithaca 106 S. Cayuga St. Sat. May 1st Doors: 9pm Tickets: $8 adv/$10 day Advance tickets will go on sale this Friday at The Shop and/or WildFire.

Surfer Blood, Turbo Fruits, and Family Portrait
@ The Shop (Seneca St.),  Doors at 7:30
5 Bucks to get in
(tip: get there early)

[[skipsterz googlez chatz]]

me: is family portrait any good live?
Sent at 12:36 PM on Monday

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Family Portrait / “Mega Secrets”
damn. that is good. mike’s always right.

Kori and Jason of Mates of State are back in action, with a new album coming out this summer…the catch? Well it’s a covers album. (cue groans)  If cover albums are your thing- then you’re in for a treat. If not- well look on the bright side, the Mates have totally perfected the art of covers, having Nico’s “These Days” , Bowie’s “Starman”, & Phantom Planet’s “California” all under their belts. So although it’s not new material, it’ll still be sick. The chosen tracklist is quite diverse ranging from songs by Vashti Bunyan to the Mars Volta. While I”m unsure if this is the cover above, or just an appropriation of an old promo shot, the disc will be called Crushes.  (h4ha lyke g3t it? Dey hav3 crushez on deez PPl so dey;re COVRING DEM!)

“Laura” originally by Girls, and track 1 on the new album can be heard below and downloaded at Mates of State’s website. I also threw in an oldie for good measure off of MoS’s impeccable third release, Team Boo.

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tracklist //
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Following their much-blogged festival performance at last September’s ATP New York — during which Bradford Cox informally announced that his band Deerhunter were going dormant for awhile — we were anxious that he was referencing a premeditated, significant hiatus for the best guitar-rock band around.

Wrong. We’re already getting a steady trickle of Deerhunter action from their current tour supporting fellow-greats Spoon, so here they are performing new song “Revival” at Carrboro, NC’s legendary Cat’s Cradle. Other new titles include “Fountain Stairs” and “Primitive 3-D.” There’s an awesomely truncated false start on this one (“The song was so good I had to stop,” Cox says), and then it’s pure Deerhunter, building tension with a galloping, moaning guitar chorus before leveling out into an ecstatic finish. All in two minutes, which suggests that the extreme pop precision of their Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP could represent a new holding pattern.

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deerhunter // game of diamonds

400 times better than the original: here’s Lissie performing Lady Gaga’s 2010 anthem “Bad Romance”

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Lissie // Little Lovin’

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Lissie // Bad Romance (Lady Gaga Cover)

Sub Pop dropped the long-anticipated Dum Dum Girls debut I Will Be earlier in the week, and the leather-clad foursome will be celebrating with a visit Upstate this weekend. And lest we need to remind you of the attraction of their live show, take a few minutes to revisit this video of the band performing instant-classic “Rest of Our Lives” in Brooklyn last October.

Last year’s Captured Tracks releases showed serious promise, but I Will Be finds them embracing the next level, armed with a new producer and spotless professionalism. It’s a remarkably concise and inviting record, lacing Spector-ish devotional anthems with a jolting tartness on tracks like “Lines Her Eyes,” where singer Dee Dee bemoans that her enemy’s “fangs dig deeper than I realized.” Most essentially, the whole thing is played without irony or casual boredom. Its feelings are laid bare through skittering drums and breathless verse, shaped into songs so precise and direct that they’re almost threatening.

Dum Dum Girls play Sunday night at Buffalo’s Soundlab, which provides a perfect excuse to sneak away from your family’s requisite Easter buffet. Given the band’s penchant for feminine synchronicity, we can only hope they jump on the opportunity to appear in matching rabbit costumes.

Dum Dum Girls – “Jail La La”

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