Great Bands/Good Cause...Langhorne Slim, Neckbeard Telecaster, The GoStation and more @ Luna Lounge Tonight

On June 30, Brooklyn folkie Langhorne Slim and local New York City heroes Neckbeard Telecaster will take the stage at the Luna Lounge to remember beloved photographer, friend and father Drew Goren. The former CMJ art director, who snapped bands like Sonic Youth, Spoon and Bloc Party, lost his life to cancer late last year at 33 and is survived by his 5-year-old daughter, Nina. All proceeds raised from the evening will be donated directly to the Drew Goren Memorial Fund to ensure a future for Nina.

Spread the word and enjoy the great music and company at 361 Metropolitan Avenue, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Doors are at 6:00 PM. Tickets are $15 and available in advance on ticketweb.com.

Lineup For Drew Goren Memorial Benefit Concert:

07:00 PM - The Shrubs
07:45 PM - The Wooden Hills
08:30 PM - Sikamor Rooney
09:15 PM - The GoStation
10:15 PM - Neckbeard Telecaster
11:15 PM - Langhorne Slim

www.inmemoryofdrewgoren.com

The GoStation - "Wandering Away" mp3

(tnx cmj.com and Jinners)

album review - Bad Brains - "Build A Nation"

One of the highlights of my career in media so far has been writing a weekly soccer column about the MetroStars (now New York Red Bulls) for a couple years for the widely-acclaimed but now-defunct New York Sports Express. I was recruited to write for NYSX by its editor, New York City underground sportswriting legend Spike Vrusho. I'd known Spike for a few years through shared grills and tailgate parties at Metros matches, but had known of him for many years prior, because of my love of his baseball & punk rock 'zine Murtaugh, a ground breaking sports and music print mash-up that spoke equally to my love of the National League and downtown culture.

Anyway, I had an absolute ball writing weekly missives about the hapless Metros, who played such an unexciting (and un-winning) style of futbol that I had no choice but to pepper my reports with all manners of asides just to keep the column interesting. Thankfully, Editor Vrusho not only was cool with, but fully encouraged, my comparing manager Bob Bradley with Ric Ocasek of The Cars, my wishing for the league to hire Lemmy & Motörhead to play the Major League Soccer All-Star Game halftime show, and somehow working NAMBLA into a story about arch-rival DC United.

When the new Bad Brains album arrived in our mailbox, I knew I had to get him to give it a review. Thankfully, he agreed.


PREACHING TO THE CHOIR
Bad Brains - Build A Nation (Megaforce)

By Spike Vrusho

One wintery twilight in the mid-80s, I was driving through D.C. and trying to get back to Wheeling, West Virginia, for whatever reason. Both headlights quit on my Subaru DL sedan. I was forced to stop and get a cheap room not far from a club called the Kilimanjaro. Overlooked previously was the fact that on the bill that night at said club was the Bad Brains. Had I known this tidbit of info, I would have certainly postponed my return to Wheeling where I was working as a reporter for an afternoon daily. The Bad Brains performance at the Kilimanjaro was, to this day, the greatest show I have ever seen in 43 years of humanoid existence. So much for being "Banned in D.C." Wheeling had lost its feeling when I returned, so I moved to Red Hook, Brooklyn within six months of the monumental show.

Caught them again a few times in New York, ripping up the Wetlands on the same day my stupid car was towed by the city DOT stormtroopers. Car trouble and Bad Brains shows go hand in hand -- I’ll trade a broken cam shaft any day to see H.R. airborne above the stage with Earl Hudson ripping across the skins and people "slam dancing"(not moshing) in front of the stage. Flanking the H.R. spaceship would be the towering Darryl Jennifer handling the important basslines, and Dr. Know with his PhD. in shredding guitar hanging on the PA stack to his left.

I thank Jah they are back together. Build A Nation would be a perfect advertising tie-in for the big box Lowe’s or Home Depot (or Habitat for Humanity?), but we’ll leave those deals to the marketing suits over at Megaforce Records. It is hard for me not to treat the release of this album like the rediscovery of a lost Dead Sea Scroll as I have always placed the Bad Brains alongside the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in terms of sheer wonderment and respect for music-making that produces kinetic energy and potential energy at the same time. Hearing Dr. Know and Earl sound the two-chord clarion calls again makes me want to swig heavy water and ply the tough avenue known as the Bowery, hoping to get into the Sunday matinee at CBGB to risk life and limb and lose 30 pounds in perspiration.

But all that has gone the way of Bill "The Butcher" Cutting and Scorcese’s "Gangs of New York." The island of Manhattan has since become a Bloombergian consumerist plantation for a condo class and its servants, with the middle wiped out and sent packing along with the weapons of mass destruction known as "squeegee men."

It's no wonder most of the Bad Brains fled to upstate New York to become one of the most interesting acts the Catskills have ever seen.

If you are 43 and long for clove cigarettes and goth betties slinking in the corner of a rented VFW hall while six bands open up for the Bad Brains, buy this record and feel young again. The reggae/hardcore alchemy is an important musical evolution worthy of its own diorama at the American Museum of Natural History.

They pack five or so reggae slowdowns on Build A Nation and H.R.'s vocals are all over the place. One minute he's Snoop Dogg on the opening track, then he's back to his emo-core self on "Universal Peace." As usual, the disc is dripping with spirituality and church bulletin-type song lists. The congregation is dismissed with reggae pleasantries in "Peace Be Unto Thee." Yauch's hand is all over these cuts with the analog ease of sound byte interludes often the staple of 80s punk records. (To this day, whenever I hear Margaret Thatcher's voice I expect Discharge to kick in with their balls out version "Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing.")

Maybe that’ll be next-- a full Discharge reunion so we can once again enjoy the sound of an enormous door slamming in the depths of hell.

Until then, enjoy the fountain of youth that H.R. and company have thankfully reignited.


Bad Brains - "Give Thanks And Praises" mp3 buy

Spike Vrusho is currently finishing up his book, Benchclearing: Baseball's Best Fights and Riots for Lyons Press, scheduled for release in Spring 2008.

El-P In-Store Concert at NYC Urban Outfitters

Since free is our favorite price, here's info we just got on a free El-P performance at the Ave. of the Americas Urban Outfitters in Manhattan:

Fresh off a nationwide tour, El-P has added a free performance to his schedule at a New York Urban Outfitters. El’s joined with Free Yr. Radio, an independent music campaign developed by Toyota Motor Sales and Urban Outfitters for a free in-store concert on July 14th at Avenue of the Amercias’ Urban Outfitters in Manhattan.

WNHU 88.7 FM will be co-presenting the free concert and will also give away a new Toyota Yaris to one lucky radio listener.

Visit www.freeyrradio.com now to print off an official invite to El-P’s free performance.

That link wasn't allowing us to print invites at press time, but keep checking...

Not sure why that show is presented by the University of New Haven radio station, but it beats pretty much any show K-Rock puts it's logo on...

I've seen El-P a few times...he's always hot. I can't imaging any show he'd do in NYC would be anything less than smokin'.


El-P - "Smithereens" mp3 iTunes

"Smithereens" video:

The Cure @ MSG...Presale Password Here.

Just got this email from Madison Square Garden:

WEDNESDAY'S PRESALE:
The Cure
at Madison Square Garden
on Sunday, September 23!

The Cure, one of the most revered British bands of the past quarter-century, is coming to Madison Square Garden on September 23! The band is wrapping up their 13th studio record and first album of new music since 2004's self-titled release, The Cure. The new album, as yet untitled, will be released this fall.

Led as always by lead singer/guitarist Robert Smith, the Cure line-up comprises longtime members bass player Simon Gallup, drummer Jason Cooper and, back in the band for a third time, guitarist Porl Thompson.

Don't miss The Cure at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, September 23!

As a member of Backstage Access, you can purchase tickets Wednesday, June 27 at 10:00AM through 10:00PM before the tickets go on sale to the general public on June 28 at 9:00AM. Buy your tickets right away since there is limited availability!

Click here to purchase your tickets and be sure to use promotion code BABIGSHOW.

Death Cab For Cutie - "Friday I'm In Love (Cure Cover)" mp3

The Cure - "Inbetween Days (Robert Smith Home Demo)" mp3

Jerry Garcia, Black Lips, & Yacht Contest! What?!

***contest has ended...thanks for all the entries!***



extrawack! and The Fader Magazine want to give one lucky reader a prize pack celebrating their recent Icon Issue, which can be downloaded for free as a .pdf here.

The prize pack includes a limited edition Fader t-shirt featuring current issue cover star Jerry Garcia (Fader Store here), and a short-run 7" vinyl copy of the Fader Magazine and Southern Comfort produced record featuring Black Lips' cover of the Tamrons' "Wild Man" and YACHT's "No Favors Policy."

To win this sweet, sweet swag, be the 25th emailer to extrawack@gmail.com with "FADER" as the subject line. Contest only open to US residents. Sorry Sri Lanka! Good luck.

Black Lips - "Not A Problem (Live from Tijuana)" mp3

YACHT - "Remember What This Feels Like" mp3

single review: Editors - "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors" and Tour Presale Info

Summer has finally arrived and it comes carrying with it a new Editors single. "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors", is pulled from An End Has A Start, the follow-up to 2005’s The Back Room, and will be released in the UK on 6/25. As with any band whose debut garners a bunch of critical praise and my discretionary dough, I was excited and anxious for the next offering. My music purchasing history is littered with second albums that didn’t deliver on the promise and/or greatness of the first (The Stone Roses' Second Coming, anyone? Damn, I waited YEARS for that?). Editors first album was one of the best of 2005 and after seeing them at Webster Hall, they’d quickly ascended the ladder to become a favorite. Despite all that, a lackluster single would definitely give me pause and might even induce flashbacks of listening to nearly five minutes of jungle noises at the start of Second Coming more than a decade ago.


No worries though, for Editors deliver an awesome first single. Nearly five minutes long, "Smokers" offers a pounding drum opening, followed by their familiar avalanche of guitars, which yields to the chorus. Nearly three minutes in there’s a slight pause, almost a false end, but it’s the start of a quiet middle part, just piano and Tom Smith’s voice, which builds to the thumping, soaring finish. I don’t get the U2 comparisons I’ve read – their music doesn’t have the "anthem" qualities U2 had from War through The Joshua Tree. Editors choruses tend to be loud and I guess they’re easy to sing along to, but that’s where the similarity ends.


Editors have delivered great b-sides, which makes buying their singles such a winning idea. Past cd singles (vinyl b-sides have contained different offerings at times) have seen them serve up some amazing originals ("Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home") as well as covers of REM ("Orange Crush") and Stereolab ("French Disko"). "Eye For An Eye" builds slowly and insistently and it took a couple listens to register, but now it holds its own against earlier flip sides.


An End Has A Start will be released stateside on 7/17 on Epic/FADER Label/Kitchenware. If you don’t want to get the import, it can be heard in-full on their MySpace page. I haven’t listened yet, as I wanted to hear the single before venturing over, but I’m feeling confident based on "Smokers..." Looks like there will be a second date for me and Editors and a second date is always a good thing.(JOHN BYRNE)

EDITORS NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES
9/4 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
9/6 - Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
9/7 - NY, NY - Webster Hall
9/8 - Montreal, QC - Osheaga Festival
9/9 - Toronto, ON - Virgin Festival
9/11 - Chicago, IL - Park West
9/12 - Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Music Cafe
9/14 - Denver, CO - Monolith Festival
9/15 - Salt Lake City, UT - Club Sound
9/17 - Vancouver, BC - Richard's On Richards
9/18 - Seattle, WA - Chop Suey
9/19 - Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan
9/20 - San Francisco, CA - Fillmore
9/23 - San Diego, CA - Streetscene
9/24 - Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern

Ticket pre-sales begin Tuesday, June 26th at 10:00 AM here.

VIDEO: "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors" wma mov

CAKE B-Sides/Rarities Album Giveaway!

You already know we love CAKE, the band.

You may not know that we also love cake, the food.

We like them both so much that we're giving you the opportunity to win a copy of the new CAKE album, B-Sides And Rarities, by sending us your favorite cake recipe.

You may either send us the actual cake recipe, or a link to a great cake recipe on the web...and make it a good one. None of those plain old "Granny's Vanilla Cake". Think more along the lines of that cake the Little Rascals made with the mouse trap and hot water bag that made the "weep-wow" sound (wma clip).

Send your entries to us at extrawack@gmail.com by 11:59 pm Friday, June 22th. The best two entries will each get a spankin' new copy of the album. Contest only open to U.S. residents. Sorry, Latvia!

CAKE - "War Pigs" mp3 buy