Please see the below post regarding all things ’sexy’ in the music biz and why I usually avoid it. Whatever, we’ve got the archives and might as well put ‘em to use- although I have yet to grace the photopits for Girl Aloud and Sugarbabes. Vote for the NME Shockwave ‘Sexiest’ Musician Awards *HERE* and enjoy a song to kick it off, thanks to Earfarm.

The Waitresses : I Know What Boys Like Mp3 (YSI) ….. OK ON WITH THE SHOW!

We had to kick it off with Sheffield Vamp of Vamps Kate Jackson - The Long Blondes

Meg White - The White Stripes

Tahita Bulmer of New Young Pony Club NEEDS TO WIN IT ALL! SHE IS AMAZINNNNNNNG.

New Young Pony Club plays Ice Cream LIVE at Studio B Brooklyn - Abbey Braden

Charlotte Cooper - The Subways

Florence and the Machine - Take that Kate Nash!

Florence and the Machine Live at the Reykjavik Art Museum / Iceland Airwaves Oct 16 2008 - Abbey Braden

Katie White - The Ting Tings : When will someone sit this lovely girl down and tell her she doesn’t need makeup? She could get like, an hours more sleep a night, and then she wouldn’t look like a footballer’s wife in training. Stop the insanity!

The Ting Tings Great DJ LIVE March 18th 2008 - Abbey Braden

Alison Mosshart aka ‘VV’ from the Kills = The Hotness

The Kills LIVE at SXSW Fry My Little Brains March 12 2008 - Abbey Braden

Alice Glass of Crystal Castles has already walked off with the NME Cool List title. Sexy? Maybe if you’re into DANGER. She does have that certain Je ne sais quoi- Ms. Glass could claw or spit in audience members faces and they’d still lap it up.

CC “Courtship Dating” LIVE at Studio B - Abbey Braden

Speaking of scratching, I bet in a back alley smackdown Ms. Jemina Pearl (formerly of Be Your Own Pet) would totes be the victor. Look up the lyrics of Becky if you need, or simply watch the raw thrashing of ‘Bicycle’ after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Ugh. Voting for anything ‘most sexy’ usually makes me do a 180, probably because keeping a professional facade in this industry is something I really try and maintain. Hence no booze during festivals etc etc and no starf*ckery behavior backstage allowed. However, in flipping through the nominations (go *HERE* to cast your ballot) for the NME Shockwave Awards for ‘Sexiest Male’ this year I realized that splitting open the concert archives might offer some help to decide the verdict. Please note there are no photos relating to the Strokes or Interpol- there are facking enough floating around. Will I vote? Probs not, but knock yourselves out. Ergo I give you the skinniest (mostly) white boys alive - aka some of the top nominees:

WAIT someone made me promise to post these songs to accompany the slideshow. We have NO SHAME anymore obvs.

Haddaway : What Is Love Mp3 (YSI)
Right Said Fred : I’m Too Sexy Mp3 (YSI) ….. OK ON WITH THE SHOW!

At #1 we have Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood aka the band’s effing backbone. J’adore. PS His hair is full of secrets shhh!

Currently #2 :
Dirty Pretty Things’s Carl Barat smoulders in general. Former bandmate Pete Doherty is on hot on his tail in the ranking…

At #3 is Pete Doherty, aka Dreamboat around these parts. I don’t have any live shots of him, I do however have a photo of a collage found in the garbage waiting to be picked up on St. Marks Place & Ave A. Dreamy! On with the rest of the noms:

Both mop-topped doppelgangers Miles Kane and Alex Turner of the Last Shadow Puppets (and the Rascals + the Arctic Monkeys respectively) made the top 20. Of course. There would have been a kray-kray high pitched statutory riot if not.

The Last Shadow Puppets MEETING PLACE LIVE at Cakeshop NYC - Abbey Braden

It’s time to pretend that I didn’t call ‘Electric Feel’ ‘Electric Eel’ in front of MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden this summer backstage at Lolla. Whatever, he was wearing like, mom sunglasses + a chick shirt ergo = incredibly laidback about it all.

The Late of the Pier kiddettes are here and they’re *TINY* (they make MGMT look like pedos) but their sound is HUUUGE:

Late of the Pier Space and the Woods LIVE - Abbey Braden

Jack White is close behind… no new White Stripes album this year, but fresh in readers’ minds = the James Bond song…

PS After the jump see his current hair do and the rest of the noms. Know before you vote! Read the rest of this entry »

In No Particular Order : SUPs Best of 2008

With a word from our E-i-C Marisa:

True to our roots, we like to support emerging talent, but as you can see we are also suckers for the hits. No one’s dissing any hits because good music is good music. Our top albums and singles are as diverse as our staff – black, white, Chinese, Australian, mixed, gay, straight, bi, androgynous – and our tastes – chocolate, strawberry, butterscotch, vanilla, neopolitan … We’re never big on genres and journalistic jargon, but give you can give us a Chinese mixed race (two scoop neopolitan) bisexual hot fudge sundae any day. With a cherry on top please. And some whipped cream. Mmmm delicious!

Fresh off a tour opening for CSS, SSION (pronounced SHUN)’s gig at Ruff Club Friday night was one I’ve been anticipating for some time now. It’s quite obvious this talented multimedia collective- led by multifaceted fine artist, musician, and performer Cody Critcheloe and his man-sister J.A.M. - take great care in putting together each show. Let’s just say that they came packin’ backdrops, dancers, and an industrial strength flashlight that would make any P-Funk AllStar beam with pride. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys any of the above mentioned genre of art- if the aforementioned genre touches on smutty electro funk best heard while bumping naughty bits in the dark! Let’s hope SSION accomplishes what they set out from good ole Kansas City to do, because they’ll always have a platform here in NYC. It’s not just us and Lovefoxxx- Nick Zinner offers up a rendition for their Street Jizz Remix 12″ (Props to FYOF!) which just dropped December 19th. So we leave you on this high holy holiday to to hit the walls, work the middle, and show this Sleazetone artist the support they deserve.

Ssion : Fear Us (Nick Zinner Remix) Mp3 (zShare)

Pick up Ssion’s full length release Fool’s Gold *HERE*

FOR SERIOUS in knicker - to - knicker ratios, Eagles of Death Metal have NOTHING on Sebastien Tellier. I haven’t seen that much underwear catapulted onstage since Tom Jones (aka THE MAN). Not suprising, considering the critical acclaim he’s been drawing includes comparisons to that of Serge Gainsbourg, Barry White and yes, Tom Jones. Whatever the case it was a great show (except for that whole keep-the-guestlist-VIPS-waiting-in-the-freezing-rain-for-40-minutes thing). If you’d like to read a mind blowingly awesome and legit critique of Mr. Tellier’s live show w/ photos at Le Poisson Rouge last week, hop on over to ‘Sup for some words of wisdom courtesy of Cameron Cook. If you just want to ogle Sebastien, check the videos below. Oh and the setlist for the December 11 2008 NYC gig was as follows:

Divine

Sexual Sportswear

More videos after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

If you go to a show this week, please consider the LIVING THINGS. Yup they’re back and TIGHT AS EVER. We saw ‘em at the Holidaze party at Public Assembly last nite and my jaw is still on the floor. These guys are the real thing. They play the Club NME party tonight at the Annex at 11 PM. Which in Annex time could mean 12:30 AM. SO AWESOME and worth it! Interview to come on ‘Sup!

Ugh, are we really going to re-tread this subject matter? Adolescent blond girl strolling barefoot through the woods? Look how she lonely she looks walking on abandoned train tracks! Watch how she hops on a swing in a red sundress and the straps slip suggestively off her shoulders! Look how she huddles scared in a washed out bedroom with blinding white linens afraid of a monster! Are those roses in the background? You don’t say. SORRY RANT but this just seems to recall the borderline-pedo infrared daydreams of a mid-90s trend perpetuated by particular peeps that wore equipment vests 24-7 and fancied themselves high fashion ballers in the year end issues of Popular Photography. Textbook! Sorry to vent.

Anyhoo just because the subject matter is not my cup of tea doesn’t mean these peeps don’t deserve accolades for the process. Besides the monster totally looks like one of the Uglydolls. Who doesn’t love those?! This is Philly based band Fat City Reprise’s new music video. It was directed by Cesar Kuriyama but according to WIRED it was *his* director of photography that took the aforementioned 45,000 photographs. The subjects moved in slow motion while the jpeg images were captured on a Nikon D200 (HOLLA!) at a rate of around 4 frames per second in bursts of 60. They were then stitched together into the standard 24 fps for streaming video. Even though it initially cost around $3000 to make it was 14 months of hard labor (aka a LOT of $$$, blood sweat and tears) pulled together on a Macbook in Final Cut Pro. Bravo!

That being said I started digging around for some background history on the usage of Stop-motion in music videos. Turns out Tool’s ‘Sober’ directed by Fred Stuhr in 1993, was the first of their vids to feature the Stop-motion talents of Tool guitarist Adam Jones. (Jones was rated the 75th Greatest Guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine and placed 9th in Guitar World’s Top 100 Greatest Heavy metal Guitarists). Looks like we’re back to the mid-90s. What’s a girl to do but pull on some Doc Marten’s? I’m out for the night. Holla! xo A

Especially when it entails the awesome MARNIE STERN. It’s all in the name of a little program called HOT NEWZ. See I don’t really know how this whole no-one-knows-who’s-who thing got started in the indie blogosphere. It’s like an unwritten code, only broken for the purpose of panel discussions at music conferences (shout out to Stereogum!). Industry people still don’t know what Brooklyn Vegan looks like? How? NYC bloggers all pretty much stand shoulder to shoulder any night of the week at gigs. We don’t bite. I promise.

ANYWAY that’s the reason why I was hesitant to like shout from the rooftops this whole talking-head segment I started doing. I’m much more comfortable BEHIND the camera, not in front of a green screen with the scripted help of a teleprompter. Regardless, the people that have been kind enough to put with my sh*t are AMAZING so shout-out to everyone on the HOT NEWZ TV team (yeah there’s a ‘z’ bitches)! It’s a program for TUN (the University Network) that streams on college campuses across North America. It’s like NY 1’s ‘In the Papers’ segment for the ADD set… which is probably why I get along so well with everyone there. Zing. Anyway my fave series by far has been on Marnie Stern.

We dropped by her house, hung out with her dogs, got a lesson on ‘tapping’ and helped her unwrap her first new guitar in 7 years. In case you’re wondering it was custom made by mega-designer SCOTT FRENCH. We’ll be working on transcribing the other hour and 57 minutes of footage over the break- we covered everything from HELLA to just exactly what she did to get the attention of her label KILL ROCK STARS (Hint: spell check was not used but it all worked out in the end)!

FIND OUT IF MARNIE CAN SAY THE NAME OF HER NEW ALBUM OFF THE TOP OF HER HEAD *HERE*

STREAM Marnie Stern : Transformer Mp3 *HERE*

Dude I feel like I’m four years old again and running around in circle until I pass out from dizziness. After the Presets bid adieu to everyone at the end of the this tour we all thought that was the last we’d see of the lads until the next album came out. NOT SO (I hit the roof when I got the news), and it’s been killing me because I had to keep my mouth shut about it until they sent out an official announcement. Did you know this last album APOCALYPSO was self-produced? They just swept the ARIA awards (the Australian version of the Grammys) for Best Cover Art, Best Video, Producer of the Year, Best Dance Release, Best Group, and ALBUM OF THE YEAR!!! Talking ‘em up makes me seriously reconsider the order of my top 10 list of 2008. Tickets for the NYC Webster Hall show go on sale this Friday via Bowery Presents *HERE* & we are SERIOUSLY considering attending WMC so we can catch the Miami set….

North American 2009 tour dates are as follows:

Fri-Mar 27, 09 Tallahassee FL Club Downunder 18+
Sat-Mar 28, 09 Miami FL Ultra Music Festival
Sun-Mar 29, 09 Gainesville FL Common Grounds 18+
Mon-Mar 30, 09 Atlanta GA Masquerade (Hell Stage) All Ages
Tue-Mar 31, 09 Carrboro NC Cats Cradle 18+
Wed-Apr 01, 09 Washington DC 9:30 Club All Ages
Fri-Apr 03, 09 New York NY Webster Hall 18+
Sat-Apr 04, 09 Boston MA Paradise 18+
Sun-Apr 05, 09 Montreal QC Studio Juste Pour Rire 18+
Mon-Apr 06, 09 Toronto ON The Mod Club 19+
Tue-Apr 07, 09 Cleveland Heights OH Grog Shop All Ages
Wed-Apr 08, 09 Chicago IL Metro 18+
Thu-Apr 09, 09 Kansas City MO The Record Bar 18+
Fri-Apr 10, 09 Denver CO Bluebird Theater 16+
Sat-Apr 11, 09 Murray UT Murray Theater All Ages
Mon-Apr 13, 09 Vancouver BC Commodore Ballroom 19+
Tue-Apr 14, 09 Seattle WA Neumos 21+
Wed-Apr 15, 09 Portland OR Hawthorne Theater All Ages
Thu-Apr 16, 09 San Francisco CA Mezzanine 21+
Mon-Apr 20, 09 Pomona CA The Glass House All Ages

YOU KNOW while we’re at it this has been gnawing at me: One of my fave down tempo jams off of APOCALYPSO is:

If I Know You - The Presets

Which for some reason makes me think of me and my mom’s fave ‘driving to school’ jam circa like, the last week of 1986: Oh SHUT UP you know you grooved to this with the windows down. Soprano sax and heart shaped sunglasses- f*ck yeah.