The Bowery Ballroom upcoming shows
Longwave
The Grates / A Million Years
- Venue:
-
The Bowery Ballroom
- Date:
- Sat 11/14
- Notes:
- 18+
- Doors: 8:00 PM / Show: 8:00 PM
- $13 Advance / $15 Day Of Show
- Longwave
- official website
- myspace
- “F**king amazing” - NME
Since 1999, Longwave has been one of New York City's leading musical exports. Atmospheric guitars, angular rhythms and tidal waves of beautiful sound are all integral parts of Longwave’s aesthetic. Formed by guitar-toting vocalist Steve Schiltz and guitarist Shannon Ferguson in Brooklyn, they released their independent debut Endsongs on Luna Sea Records in 2000. Music lovers everywhere took note of their impeccable songwriting skills and explosive live show. Major music industry players began to pay attention as Longwave toured with their friends The Strokes and the band signed a deal with RCA Records. They worked with producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) on 2003's album The Strangest Things. This led to raving reviews and tours across all parts of the world with the likes of The Strokes, The Vines, and The Raveonettes.
Longwave entered the studio again in 2004 to record There's a Fire with famed producer John Leckie (Radiohead, Pink Floyd). The band used an expanded musical palette for this album, experimenting with new sounds and techniques. Jason Molina joined them as drummer in time for another crucial touring stint. After a few months on the road, however, the band suddenly found themselves label-less and at a crossroads. "It was a pretty low period", Schiltz says. "We had to take a step back and think about what meaning the band had in our lives." Ferguson adds, "Something clicked at one rehearsal. Jason counted to 4 and we all just started playing. After a couple of minutes we knew we had something. We recorded it and tried another one by counting to four and then we got something really special." Those Fridmann-produced songs, “No Direction” and “Life Is Wrong”, form the creative nucleus of Longwave’s forthcoming album. You can hear these at www.myspace.com/longwaveofficial
The band struck a deal with their publisher, Chrysalis, and decamped to their Brooklyn basement studio for 8 weeks recording the rest of the album by themselves. With producer Peter Katis on board, (The National, Interpol), the band finished recording in February 2008, mixing with him at his studio in Bridgeport, CT. The new record is guitar-heavy and dynamic. The sonic architecture is challenging and the arrangements bold proving Longwave continue to make music that is truly indispensable listening.
- The Grates
- official website
- myspace
- For The Grates’ debut album Gravity Won’t Get You High (2006, Interscope Records), their signature animal was a giraffe. It was a fitting match: that year, the album towered over all beasts in their native Australia, made mammoth strides, and won the affection of the people, both at home and abroad. Three years later, The Grates present second album, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won: an entirely different animal altogether.
“If Teeth Lost, Hearts Won was a beast, I imagine it’d be like something from Where The Wild Things Are,” lead singer and front woman Patience says. “They’re big and scary. But they’ve also got this sensitivity, and pick up the little kid and protect him.” Drummer Alana thinks, “Or maybe the griffin in Alice In Wonderland,” she says. “He’s like a lion and eagle together, but a really gentle creature.
NEW DIRECTIONS
Upon its release in Australia, Gravity Won’t Get You High immediately shot to the ARIA top-ten, was nominated for awards, and quickly went Gold. The trio slogged it out for two years straight, with sold-out Australian tours, shows in the UK, US and Canada, and garnered gushing press coverage in NME, Rolling Stone, Spin and Filter, amongst others.
Then suddenly: after all the noise, Patience, John (guitars) and Alana found themselves back in their hometown of Brisbane. In contrast to the concert halls and festival stages they’d grown used to, their bedrooms were dead quiet. At first, John found it disconcerting. “It was a huge shift,” John says. “Coming home and having nothing to do except write.”
Instead of deciding their new direction on the spot, the trio opted to churn out song after song, until they struck gold. Luckily, they didn’t have to wait long. Tracks like “Two Kinds of Right” and “Milk Eyes” soon announced themselves as the new yardsticks, and suggested a major evolution. “We wrote a bunch of songs that week,” John says. “And right there was the direction of the new album.” Patience interjects sweetly: “We blew our creative load during that period.”
NEW SKILLS
With Teeth Lost, Hearts Won, The Grates faced a new challenge in the studio: being their own co-producers for the very first time. While producer/engineer Peter Katis (Interpol, The National) joined the ride this time, The Grates were alongside him closely at the producer’s desk at Tarquin Studios, a gutted-out attic in Connecticut.
Initially, taking the production helm - occasionally by themselves - scared them. For six weeks, John had stomach pains, expecting something bad was going to happen. “On the first night, we were up having secret band meetings,” he says. “We were saying, ‘How are we going to deal with this?’ But then we decided, we’ve got to suck it up! In the end, taking the role of co-producers proved to be essential for the band’s development.
NEW SONGS
Needless to say, the band’s newfound musical smarts have paid-off. This batch of songs is more sophisticated and punch-in-the-guts catchy than anything they’ve done before. Hand-clapping, foot-stomping first single “Burn Bridges” is a good indicator of The Grates’ new musical direction, but also provides a handy manifesto. “Burn all them bridges down to the ground,” Patience squeals, “cause I won’t be coming this way again.”
“The first album was a bit of a party album,” John says. “With this one, we wanted more guts, something people could hold closer to their hearts and treasure.” Don’t worry, though, The Grates are still as infectiously raucous as ever.
All three nominate slick pop shoe-shuffler “Two Kinds of Right” as a firm favorite. Elsewhere, “Aw Yeah” is a fist-raising rally anthem. “Storms and Fevers” is a rousing, emotional number that swells the throat, moistens the eyes, and makes your collar seem suddenly tight. It’s a no-holds-barred, introspective side of The Grates, rarely seen until now.
NEW FRIENDS
New songs warrant new friends. On the infectious, bubble-gum pop of “Milk Eyes,” you’ll hear Kori Gardner of Mates of State on backing vocals. A mother of two, Gardner has become a poster-child of indie-pop moms. So it’s fitting that “Milk Eyes” was written during Patience’s baby-obsession phase. “Everyone - including some of our managers - were having babies,” she says. “I got super clucky.”
Elsewhere, the rich, hillbilly twang of Brooklyn-based folkie Tim Fite appears on “Not Today,” a demented, whiskey-soured waltz. The Grates had been obsessed with Fite’s cult albums when, by sheer coincidence, they found out that Peter Katis had earlier produced on of his band’s albums. All it took was a phone call, and Tim came on board.
AMERICA
The American release of Teeth Lost, Hearts Won (Thirty Tigers/Dew Process) follows a highly successful trip to the U.S. for the SXSW Music Festival in March 2009. While in Austin, the band played five buzzed about shows in four days and gained a massive amount of recognition for their highly energetic performances. USA Today named the band one of ten favorite performances during the entire festival while also receiving accolades from everyone from the Los Angeles Times to popular websites such as My Old Kentucky Blog. In preparation of the release of the album, the band has relocated for the time being to Brooklyn, NY in order to make American touring easier and much more frequent than in the past.
OOMPH
The Teeth Lost, Hearts Won album retains The Grates’ trademark shambolic fun, but injects new layers and grunt into the proceedings. This time, Patience, Alana and John come armed with sharpened technical chops, killer arrangements and newfound songwriting oomph. Boasting the combined force of John’s rough-and-tumble guitars, Patience’s signature banshee yelps, and Alana’s churning drums, Teeth Lost, Hearts Won might be a griffin, it might be a Where The Wild Things Are monster. But either way, it’s the sound of a band unafraid to bite.
- A Million Years
- myspace
- A Million Years is a collective of passionate, music-obsessed workaholics -- equally inspired by the intellectualism of bands like Radiohead; the quirk of bands like Wilco and Spoon; and the spunk and punk of bands like Arctic Monkeys. The Brooklyn-based foursome includes Keith Madden (vocals, guitar), Andrew Samaha (bass/vocals), Andrew Vanette (drums/vocals) and Nick Werber (guitar/vocals),
Their recently released 3-song EP Incandescent, produced by Longwave’s Shannon Ferguson, is now available on iTunes and Amazon.com. A Million Years heads back in to the studio with Shannon later this year to record their debut full-length album, (to be released in early 2010) and are set to follow up with some major touring of their own.
OTHER UPCOMING SHOWS FROM THE BOWERY PRESENTS
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