The Men
Nude Beach, Parquet Courts
Thu, March 7, 2013
Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
The Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY
$10 advance / $12 day of show
Sold Out
This event is 18 and over
http://www.boweryballroom.com/event/207275/
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The Men
With their fourth full-length album to be released in as many years, The Men proudly present the sweeping New Moon, their most intensely personal and immersive installment yet. Never content to draw on the same methods twice, nor to recline under the heel of expectation, The Men quit the city in early 2012 to head for Big Indian, NY - transforming a remote Catskills locale into a full-fledged stray dog studio home. Taking complete advantage of dry eyes and clear mountain mornings, the band has never before so thoroughly surrendered their writing process, or themselves for that matter, to the recording environment.
Entering with only the most skeletal sketches, the house was selected as an incubator for its technical limitations, 32-hour orbit and predisposal to celestial intervention. Familiar faces remain, the core of guitarists Nick Chiericozzi and Mark Perro, with drummer Rich Samis all returning from 2012’s much-acclaimed Open Your Heart. In addition, friend and producer Ben Greenberg (Pygmy Shrews, Hubble, Zs) officially joins the ranks as bassist on paper, and full-bore compositional partner in practice. Wayward brother Kevin Faulkner occupies his most substantial sphere to date, dreaming aloud on lap steel as before along with whatever else was demanded of him.
The Men’s oft-cited commitment to their “no-one-is-frontman” maxim surely insists itself all the more emphatically here... so much so that it practically creates a new band in the process. This unique situation induces a fresh fluidity amongst their roles and instrumentation, allowing for an expansion of palette and a contraction of focus. Piano, mandolin, harmonica, four-part vocal harmonies and even no-input harsh noise all weave their way through New Moon. Spiritually, it is hedged with as much leaden dirge and ecstatic abandon, as it is genuine saccharine steel-string levity, and an ever-tightening, no apologies pop concision. Summarily: New Moon is the remembrance of why green grass has to lean on the dirt beneath; it is a love letter devoted in bowed humility to the grand continuum, exposing the hoax of the great divide. Allegiances to the glowing patinas of Detroit and San Francisco, New York and Nashville all abound, but ‘nostalgia’ is not her name. The essence of New Moon is to revisit -- never retread. Vibrational bonds are the silver that comes to line the long road home.
Entering with only the most skeletal sketches, the house was selected as an incubator for its technical limitations, 32-hour orbit and predisposal to celestial intervention. Familiar faces remain, the core of guitarists Nick Chiericozzi and Mark Perro, with drummer Rich Samis all returning from 2012’s much-acclaimed Open Your Heart. In addition, friend and producer Ben Greenberg (Pygmy Shrews, Hubble, Zs) officially joins the ranks as bassist on paper, and full-bore compositional partner in practice. Wayward brother Kevin Faulkner occupies his most substantial sphere to date, dreaming aloud on lap steel as before along with whatever else was demanded of him.
The Men’s oft-cited commitment to their “no-one-is-frontman” maxim surely insists itself all the more emphatically here... so much so that it practically creates a new band in the process. This unique situation induces a fresh fluidity amongst their roles and instrumentation, allowing for an expansion of palette and a contraction of focus. Piano, mandolin, harmonica, four-part vocal harmonies and even no-input harsh noise all weave their way through New Moon. Spiritually, it is hedged with as much leaden dirge and ecstatic abandon, as it is genuine saccharine steel-string levity, and an ever-tightening, no apologies pop concision. Summarily: New Moon is the remembrance of why green grass has to lean on the dirt beneath; it is a love letter devoted in bowed humility to the grand continuum, exposing the hoax of the great divide. Allegiances to the glowing patinas of Detroit and San Francisco, New York and Nashville all abound, but ‘nostalgia’ is not her name. The essence of New Moon is to revisit -- never retread. Vibrational bonds are the silver that comes to line the long road home.
Nude Beach
Nude Beach is Chuck, Jimmy and Ryan playing music together. They started in the fall 2008 in the city and then made some records and stuff. But never mind that, this band holds several important titles here in our hostile city of Philadelphia. First, they are the only band Jeff Ziga (ice cream mogul and recent podcast interviewee) promotes shows for; and second, the last time they played here, they broke Grace Ambrose's arm. Which means they're DANGEROUS and DANGER is COOL. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Ryan was also in DUSTHEADS who were the best band to ever play Disgraceland. Yes, even better than Partysaurus Wrecks. "See you in the pit! -- Rancid"
Parquet Courts
Little was said about Parquet Courts debut effort, American Specialties. Released exclusively on cassette tape, the quasi-album was an odd collection of 4 track recordings that left those who were paying attention wanting more. A year of woodshedding live sets passed before the Courts committed another song to tape. The band's first proper LP, Light Up Gold, is a dynamic and diverse foray into the back alleys of the American DIY underground. Bright guitars swirl serpentine over looping, groovy post-punk bass lines and drums that border on robotic precision. While the initial rawness of the band's early output remains, the songwriting has gracefully evolved. Primary wordsmiths A. Savage and Austin Brown combine for a dynamic lyrical experience, one part an erudite overflow of ideas, the other an exercise in laid-back observation. Lyrically dense, the poetry is in how it flows along with the melody, often times as locked-in as the rhythm section.
"This record is for the over-socialized victims of the 1990's 'you can be anything you want', Nickelodeon-induced lethargy that ran away from home not out of any wide-eyed big city daydream, but just out of a subconscious return to America's scandalous origin," writes Savage in the album's scratched-out liner notes. Recorded over a few days in an ice-box practice space, Light Up Gold is equally indebted to Krautrock, The Fall, and a slew of contemporaries like Tyvek and Eddy Current Suppression Ring.
Though made up of Texan transplants, Parquet Courts are a New York band. Throw out the countless shallow Brooklyn bands of the blase 2000's: Light Up Gold is a conscious effort to draw from the rich culture of the city - the bands like Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground that are not from New York, but of it. A panoramic landscape of dilapidated corner-stores and crowded apartments is superimposed over bare-bones Americana, leaving little room for romance or sentiment. It's punk, it's American, it's New York ... it's the color of something you were looking for.
"This record is for the over-socialized victims of the 1990's 'you can be anything you want', Nickelodeon-induced lethargy that ran away from home not out of any wide-eyed big city daydream, but just out of a subconscious return to America's scandalous origin," writes Savage in the album's scratched-out liner notes. Recorded over a few days in an ice-box practice space, Light Up Gold is equally indebted to Krautrock, The Fall, and a slew of contemporaries like Tyvek and Eddy Current Suppression Ring.
Though made up of Texan transplants, Parquet Courts are a New York band. Throw out the countless shallow Brooklyn bands of the blase 2000's: Light Up Gold is a conscious effort to draw from the rich culture of the city - the bands like Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground that are not from New York, but of it. A panoramic landscape of dilapidated corner-stores and crowded apartments is superimposed over bare-bones Americana, leaving little room for romance or sentiment. It's punk, it's American, it's New York ... it's the color of something you were looking for.
