By Peter Rittweger of My Social List
Whether you were an attendee, a wannabe or a detractor (I'm a little of all three,) by now, I'm sure you're sick of hearing about the cultural behemoth that is SXSW. And I know, unequivocally, that you're sick of the festival disemboweling the city's venues of most of its talent. Fortunately, our concert halls, arenas, DIY art centers and ballroom stages are just like our residents, resilient. We bounce back quick, and bounce back we have done this week with an eclectic week of buzzable shows.
Sky Ferreira is remarkably only an EP deep, though it seems like the singer-songwriter and borderline socialite has been around forever. It certainly helps when your mentor is the King of Pop (RIP) and you're commissioning tracks from Marit Bergman and teaming up with Miike Snow at the age of 15. Name-dropping aside, Ferreira's aforementioned EP was one of the more refreshing and diverse releases to hit the blog-o-sphere late last year, and you'll have a chance to see what the fuss is all about in our MOST BUZZED show for this week, Thursday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Brooklyn's own hazy mourning-fi R&B mastermind How To Dress Well backs her up in this sold out show, along with High Highs.
What do you get when you pack Danny Brown, LE1F, The Skins and Oxymorons into a 300 capacity room like Knitting Factory and set the ticket price at $4? You get an absurdly stacked rap show that sells out in about 0.279347 seconds. If you didn't score tickets to this one Thursday night, it looks like Afropunk is letting a few more folks in via RSVP.
London electro-duo Disclosure have been lighting up the blog-o-sphere the last few months, peppering RSS and Twitter feeds with a series of amazing glitched out loops and grimey bass grooves that will eventually comprise a much-anticipated debut LP. Bowery Presents welcomes the young UK duo to New York for the first time this week for two sold out shows, Wednesday at Music Hall of Williamsburg and Thursday at Bowery Ballroom.
Tenured chill-out act Low have a very special performance planned for tomorrow night at the Concert Hall. They'll be joined by the ACME String Quartet on select songs as the begin their tour in support of their tenth studio release, The Invisible Way, which is out today on Sub Pop. The record was produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, and holds true to Low's trademark melancholy layered harmonies, string piano parts and heart thumping drums. Tickets are still available.
One of the most-anticipated releases this year is Tyler, The Creator's new record, Wolf, which I'm proud to report will not feature Dave Matthews. The swag-troll's shows are always wildly unpredictable and full of guest spots (Earl? Hodgy? Domo?) and it'll be interesting to see if Music Hall of Williamsburg will be able to contain the insanity Saturday night.
Beach Fossils are certainly making their rounds in New York following the release of their latest surf-happy vibe of an LP, Clash the Truth. They'll melt the sludgy ice on the streets of Williamsburg at Brooklyn Bowl tomorrow night.
Andddddd last but certainly not least, my favorite band from SXSW makes their NYC debut tonight at Music Hall of Williamsburg; UK punks Savages. Thundering bass and sludgy buzz guitar will duel for your attention; that is, until Jenny Beth grabs the microphoen and slays you with her aggressive verbal assault. The drums are hard, heavy and ear-splitting. This is uncompromising and agonizingly dark music that will dismantle the stage on North 6. Don't miss out.
ALSO BUZZING: CHVRCHES at 285 Kent (tonight); Eula, Virals and ADVAETA at Death By Audio (tonight); Killer Mike, Morri$, DJ Getlive and Two-9 at Public Assembly (tomorrow); Ed Schrader's Music Beat, Body Parts and Yvette at Silent Barn (tomorrow); The Beets, Dune Rats, Hard Nips, Juniper Rising and Heeney at Shea Stadium (Thursday); Lazyeyes, Remate, Eros and the Eschaton at Cake Shop (Thursday); Ali Shaheed Muhammad at The Paper Box (Thursday); Alt-J and Hundred Waters at Webster Hall (Friday, Sunday at Terminal 5); Garbage and io Echo at Terminal 5 (Friday); Greg Fox, G Lucas Crane, Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk, Phone Tag and Great Mason at Silent Barn (Friday); Hundred Waters at Glasslands (Saturday); Sinkane and Higgins Waterproof Blackmagic Band at Mercury Lounge (Saturday); Owen at Maxwell's (Saturday); Black Marble, Beliefs, Lodro and Night Vision at Shea Stadium (Saturday); DJ Spooky at the Met (Saturday); The Hives at Irving Plaza (Sunday); Unstoppable Death Machines, Permanent Makeup, Big Ups and Big Neck Police at Shea Stadium (Sunday); Paranthetical Girls and This is Head at Glasslands (Monday); Sigur Ros at Madison Square Garden (Monday)