Violens Announce UK Fall Tour

On the heels of a sold-out tour of the Northeast US together, Violens are thrilled to announce more dates with MGMT this November. Following the release of singer/producer Jorge Elbrecht's remix of their single "Time to Pretend", MGMT asked Violens to join them on dates between a busy schedule of summer festivals, and the package will now cross the pond for a string of dates that are quickly selling out major clubs across the UK! Stay tuned for additional shows in London, and release plans for Violens international debut.

Violens also kicked off a leg of shows this past weekend as sole support for indie rock faves Grizzly Bear, on their shows between dates with Radiohead. A Benefit for The Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation is sold out at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg this Saturday August 9th, while Washington DC and Boston audiences have the chance to catch the bands perform next week.

Violens recently released their critically acclaimed new single "Trance-Like Turn" on The Green Owl Records Comp: A Benefit for the Energy Action Coalition. Their contribution is featured among tracks by other notable artists such as Feist, Muse, Deerhoof, Bloc Party, A Place To Bury Strangers, and many more. 100% of profits from the album sales will be donated to the EAC, to support their efforts to raise environmental awareness in our community. http://greenowlrecords.com/comp.php

The band was recently named one of 8 bands to watch in 2008 by The L Magazine. Follow the link below to their feature, alongside Brooklyn's High Places: http://thelmagazine.com/6/11/feature/feature4.cfm?ctype=1

Violens (pronounced "vy-lenz") are a New York-via-Miami four-piece formed in the fall of 2007, featuring members Iddo Arad (synths/vocals), Ben Brantley (bass), Jorge Elbrecht (lead vocals/guitar) and Kris King (drums). Their music imagines a place where The Zombies & The Byrds meet Wire & The Violent Femmes, and Crass meets Angelo Badalamenti & Prefab Sprout.

Violens songs conjure descriptions of nightmares, the passing of time, speculations on spiritual messages, and accounts of psychedelic hallucinations. Even their most frenetic guitar work and aggressive rhythms are draped in a gauze of reverberant, harmonized vocals and synths which create a sense of creepy, artificial comfort. A fitting characterization, lyrically and musically, for a group whose name sounds like a melding of the words "violence" and "violins".

Pitchfork Media : "Violens, a new project featuring Lansing-Dreiden members, may be less than a year old, but they are already the best discovery of this collection. Their stoned, sweet "Trance Like Turn" features sunny, vintage harmonies that peek through the gray clouds of their steely, post-punk beats and synthesized aggression."

Spin Magazine (July 08 )"Songs You Need To Download Now! ": "Since these New Yorkers former band, Lansing-Drieden, was too inscrutable by half, this immaculate organ-weezing 60's-pop nugget is a Zombies level revelation."

Click Here To Watch New Video For "Trance–Like Turn"

Click Here To Listen To "Trance-Like Turn" & Two Songs from their Single

Click Here To Download Debut Single "Violent Sensation Descends"

US Summer Dates
Aug 9, 2008 Music Hall of Williamsburg (w/ Grizzly Bear)
Aug 11 Sixth & I Historic Synagogue (w/Grizzly Bear) Washington, DC
Aug 14 Museum of Fine Arts (w/Grizzly Bear) Boston, MA
Aug 22, 2008 Seaport Music Festival (w/ Grand Archives) New York, NY
Aug 30, 2008 Johnny Brenda’s Philly, PA

November UK Tour w/MGMT
Nov 3 Ambassador Dublin
Nov 4 Ambassador Dublin
Nov 5 Academy Leeds
Nov 6 Rock City Nottingham
Nov 7 Academy Bristol
Nov 9 Barrowlands Glasgow
Nov 10 Academy Birmingham
Nov 11 Academy Manchester

Sam Champion Prepare For Heavenly Bender With Hilarious Video Series

Watch and Share The First Installment

he Brooklyn boys in Sam Champion are gearing up for the September 2nd release of their sophomore full-length, Heavenly Bender, with a series of absurdly hilarious promotional videos.

The first of four was premiered today on Music For Robots http://music.for-robots.com/archives/002467.html , with three additional clips to follow elsewhere throughout August and September.

Teaser grabs from the full series are here:
http://dailyrindblog.com/images/samchamp1.JPG http://dailyrindblog.com/images/samchamp2.JPG http://dailyrindblog.com/images/samchamp3.JPG http://dailyrindblog.com/images/samchamp4.JPG http://dailyrindblog.com/images/samchamp5.JPG http://www.dailyrindblog.com/images/samchamp7.JPG , and cobbled together in a collage above.

The first vignette comes on the heels of the Champ's recently-released video for Bender-standout "You Can't Stop" which was premiered on Stereogum last month - Click Here To Watch

Keep a look out for the next Champ clip in the coming weeks.

Everest return to the states after festival and club dates across Europe

Everest has been added to the Outside Lands Festival on August 23rd in San Francisco
More US Tour Dates Coming Soon!

Click Here to check out a live performance of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” featuring My Morning Jackets Jim James in Paris

If You Didn’t Tune In To Conan On, You Can Check Out Everest’s Performance Of “Rebels in the Roses” Click Here

Filter Mag - "It's the sound of friends punctuating each other's contributions, lighting each other's fires and placing flowers in the vase of the proverbial windowsill."

Billboard.com - Comprised of five singer/songwriters, the members of Los Angeles indie alt-country band Everest boast some impressive pedigrees, having played with Earlimart, Sebadoh, the Folk Implosion, Slydell, Mike Stinson, Alaska!, John Vanderslice, and the Watson Twins.

LA Times - “Local act Everest has drawn notice with its members' long resumes (Sebadoh, John Vanderslice) and sun-kissed acoustic sound.”

New Tour Dates:
8.23- Outside Lands Festival- San Francisco, CA
8.24-Old Ironsides (w/ Parson Red Heads, An Angle)- Sacramento, CA
8.26-Tractor Tavern (w/ Parson Red Heads, Elder Mason)- Seattle, WA
8.27-The Space (w/ Parson Red Heads, Easterly)- Salem, OR
8.28- The Artistry (w/ The Parson Red Heads & Oh Darling)- Portland, OR

1st ANNUAL BROOKLYN ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVAL THIS SAT!

Short and sweet – if you would rather spend $10 for a festival in Brooklyn than spend whatever it costs to go to those big corporate events in Jersey and Baltimore on the same day, then please come to the first annual Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival this Saturday.

Culled by a team of obsessive curators, the first Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival features over 14 DJs and live acts on two stages at Brooklyn's Yard this Saturday August 9th, from noon to 9pm. Mainly though, BEMF was designed by and for electro-philes. Impose, Famous Friends and Street Attack have gone farther than any promoter in New York to bring out the most impressive genre-crossing amalgamation of up and coming fixtures of electronic music. This is the class of 2008's best and the brightest electronic performers in the northeast, gathering for our full-day festival. We're proud to make this a regional event for its inception, but come and witness the first installment of what will soon be an institution with a national scope.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 9TH AT THE BROOKLYN YARD, NOON – 9PM
$10 pre-sale, $15 at the door

ALL AGES!!!
ALL DAY DANCE PARTY!!!
FREE PHOTOBOOTH!!!

Click Here To See A Map

Do you live in Las Vegas?

Keep watch as I will be announcing details about an awesome show that I am in the mist of putting together right now.

August 29th, keep it open!

Gentleman Auction House To Release Long Awaited Alphabet Graveyard On Emergency Umbrella Records on September 9th

It seems only appropriate that youth and maturation are two of the lyrical themes that thread their way through Eric Enger’s songs: His band, Gentleman Auction House, has spent the last year navigating the space where the two words intersect. Formed in the summer of 2005 (with its current lineup solidified in January of 2006), the band itself is still young, with the average age of its seven members hitting just below the quarter-century mark.

GAH spent their first year hitting the stages in St. Louis, MO, as frequently as their schedules would allow, playing shows in front of audiences across the town. As excited performances converted excited fans, the band took its cue and recorded their debut EP The Rules Were Handed Down just in time for their performance at 2006’s Pygmalion Festival in Champaign-Urbana, IL. The self-recorded EP was self-released in October 2006, and had sold out of it’s first pressing by the time the band played their now-annual Christmas show, which happened to score a mention in SPIN magazine’s list of must-attend events in St. Louis that December. TRWHD sold enough copies before the year’s end to make it into the Top 15 best-selling records of 2006 at Vintage Vinyl, St. Louis’ premier independent record store. The EP made the list again a year later, and now has sold over 3,000 total copies to date.

The next year was spent playing local and regional shows in support of TRWHD, and though the feedback was consistently filled with praise, the band’s recipe of boy-girl vocals, dueling drummers, and multi-instrumentation had become standard indie-pop fare. Around every corner loomed a band that bore a resemblance to GAH’s own musical reflection, and every review cited the same touchstone Canadian collectives. Feeling the need to delineate the band’s sound, Enger penned a handful of new pop songs to round out material for what would become Alphabet Graveyard, the band’s full-length debut.

October 2007 found GAH in Washington, D.C., recording at Silver Sonya studios with Chad Clark (Beauty Pill, Smart Went Crazy), Devin Ocampo (Medications, Faraquet), and TJ Lipple (Aloha), who the band hoped would help them audibly infuse the enthusiasm and youthful energy of their live show and contextualize all of the different components of their new record. After two weeks of feverish recording, a robbery at gunpoint, and the unexpected illness of Chad Clark, two records emerged.

May 2008 welcomed The Book of Matches EP, which serves as the thematic and sonic precursor to the band’s new full-length. Due out in August of 2008, Alphabet Graveyard is a record that documents the maturation of a band who has shed the weight of its comparisons and forged a direction all their own to a very new place where solemn folk ballads, epic mood pieces and infectiously danceable pop very naturally find themselves on common ground.

Fresh off of a string of spring tours including a showcase at SXSW and a Daytrotter studio session, the band will spend the remainder of the year touring consistently, including a stop at Diversafest (DFest) in Tulsa, OK, and their third trip to Champaign’s burgeoning Pygmalion Festival.

Click Here To Check Out The Video

Check Out GAH’s Daytrotter session

Click here for Daytrotter Feature

Three Song Exclusive Download on RCRD LBL

Daytrotter.com : "When the mirror ball lights are spinning across the neighborhood and people are dancing in the broken light as if they were in a club, though with less ecstatic faces, just surveying what they’ve gotten themselves into and what they want out of the charade, that’s when we’re there, right where the Gentleman Auction House wants us."

Tour Dates:
08.16 St Louis, MO - Full Moon Festival
09.19 Champaign, IL - Pygmalion Music Festival w/ Yo La Tengo, Black Mountain, etc.
09.20 Madison, WI - Forward Music Fest w/ Neko Case, Bob Mould, etc.
09.21 Chicago, IL - Abbey Pub w/ Yea Big + Kid Static
09.22 Ft Wayne, IN - Mid City Grill w/ Yea Big + Kid Static
09.23 Pontiac, MI - Pike Room w/ Yea Big + Kid Static
09.24 Ypsilanti, MI - Elbow Room w/ Yea Big + Kid Static
09.25 Columbus, OH - High Five w/ Yea Big + Kid Static
09.27 Dekalb, IL - The House w/ Yea Big + Kid Static
11.08 Richmond, IN - Earlham College w/ Ponytail
11.14 Columbia, MO - Mojo's Bluebird Music & Arts Festival
11.29 St Louis, MO - 3rd Degree Glass Factory Rock n Roll Craft Show

The Rumble Strips "Girls & Weather" LP Out This Week To Rave Reviews

In ‘Girls and Weather’, The Rumble Strips have recorded a truly classic debut album. With their somewhat eccentric origins in Devon, the four young men from Tavistock have fashioned a set of songs steeped with huge, life-affirming choruses all awash with the optimism of youth. This is a band whose sound and look is entirely their own: thundering drums and piano, brass to stir the soul and singer Charlie Waller’s voice – a thing of rare beauty and power suggesting the arrival of a genuine new star.

Among the band’s most passionate fans is producer du jour, Mark Ronson. Having heard Rumble Strips’ spine tingling reworking of Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’, Ronson fell in love with the band. He promptly invited Charlie to sing lead vocals at his acclaimed BBC Electric Proms performance at the London Roundhouse last year, with Charlie’s performance widely declared the highlight of the evening. Further guest appearances have followed as Ronson and Charlie’s relationship has blossomed, with the most recent show seeing Charlie being flown out to Coachella to sing with Mark.

”Girls and Weather” opens with Charlie hollering as if his life depended on it, “I ain’t got no soul”. What follows is 12 songs bristling with energy, frantic rhythms, wide-eyed yearning and certainly no little soul.

Indeed, the Young Soul Rebel spirit of the singles ‘Alarm Clock’ and ‘Motorcycle’ is evident on the album, but the record also takes in a range of less expected (but no less profound) influences: the gorgeous harmonies are born out of the band’s love of 1950s doo-wop, whilst the epic nature of Charlie’s song writing recalls the oddball genius of both Adam Ant and Queen (as imagined by the Stax house band).

Elsewhere, the brass on ‘Oh Creole’ is like a rousing, doom laden Van Morrison classic, whilst the E Street holler of ‘Hate Me (You Do)’ owes it’s anthemic quality to Tom Gorbutt’s inspired saxophone opening. Clocking in under two minutes, August single ‘Girls and Boy in Love’ is all hand clap rhythms, Motown piano and gorgeous, bitter sweet melodies - a festival anthem for certain.

Recalling the achingly close, three part harmonies of Rubber Soul era Beatles, ‘Don’t Dumb Down’ is a scathing tale of faking to impress. Key lyrics: “You don’t come from London do you? / But, sometimes you sound like you do / What the hell is that all about?”

The album closes with arguably it’s strongest moment. Built around a huge, Talking Heads-esque piano rhythm, ‘Hands’ is an extraordinary piece of song writing. Charlie’s almost spoken word delivery is like an anglicised Springsteen, as he talks of finding himself, “on the hard shoulder of the motorway / to my feet I tried to complain / but I don’t think they were listening”, as the song build to almighty crescendo.

The Rumble Strips are a truly special group: Pure, sad and romantic. Theirs are songs that strike a chord with the masses, whilst remaining enigmatic and standing alone from the crowd.

Click Here To View Video “Time”

Spin Magazine (Aug 08) 4 Stars : “Crushing angst gets a bright, shiny makeover at the hands of this British foursome. Powered by blaring horns reminiscent of vintage ska and soul, Charlie Waller could be Billy Bragg's twitchy offspring. “

Alternative Press (Aug 08) 4 Stars : “The sound is Wreckless Eric doing Memphis soul”

The Rumble Strips US Fall Tour
Fri Oct 2nd - Princeton , NJ
Sat Oct 4 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
Sun Oct 5 - Washington, DC - Black Cat Backstage
Mon Oct 6 - Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
Tue Oct 7 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl
Wed Oct 8 - Orlando, FL - The Social
Fri Oct 10 - New Orleans, LA - House of Blues
Sat Oct 11 - Austin, TX - The Parish Room
Tue Oct 14 - San Diego, CA - Casbah
Wed Oct 15 - Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland
Thu Oct 16 - San Francisco, CA - Pop Scene
Sat Oct 18 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
Sun Oct 19th – Chop Suey – Seattle, WA
Mon Oct 20th – Media Club – Vancouver, BC
Thu Oct 23 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry
Fri Oct 24 - Chicago, IL - The Abbey Pub
Oct 25 Sat- Madison, WI - Club 770
Mon Oct 27 – Newport, KY – The Southgate House
Fri Oct 31 – Cambridge, MA – TT the Bears
Sat Nov 1 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom