[Photos by Alexander Wagner]

If there’s any doubt of Dan Deacon’s status as a demigod among art school dropouts, last Thursday’s premiere of a grossly ambitious performance with a 14-piece band put that to rest immediately. We’d wax ecstatic about what self-titled witnessed but the photos speak for themselves, especially the last shot …

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Sal P slips in and out of madness

Photos/Text by Andrew Parks

James Murphy is usually a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, but self-titled’s never seen the LCD Soundsystem frontman/DFA don smile quite like he did throughout Liquid Liquid’s special Santos Party House set last night. Perched over Santos’ mixing desk with a hint of delirium in his eyes, Murphy looked like an overgrown kid who just got the keys to his parents’ car. Or in this case, the knobs and sliders that control the subtleties in such Lower East Side classics as “Optimo,” “Bell Head,” and the song that made “White Lines” an instant anti-coke anthem, “Cavern.”

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Text/Photos by Andrew Parks

We’ll get more into Crystal Castles‘ Airwaves meltdown later this week, in an exposé that just might make you rethink their whole ‘punk as fuck’ ethos—a meticulously-controlled image that’s been spread through major SPIN and NME features as of late.

For now, though, self-titled would like to share photographic evidence of Alice Glass in heat, a few songs before she tossed Tunglid’s house drum kit into an over-capacity crowd that ate up her every move. Alice Rotten antics aside, the venue’s staff wasn’t too amused. Considering the 8-bit-chomping, oh-so-dangerous duo was flown here all the way from Canada, it was unfortunate to see them disrespect the fest with a series of (staged?) temper tantrums. Yeah, we dig their music; the band’s post-apocalyptic debut is a wonderful catchy and caustic concoction, a promising taste of things to come … if they don’t self-destruct first. Or is that simply what they want us to think? Hmmm …

Oh, by the way: sorry for the ghost-in-a-machine look of these photos, but that’s what happens when a band insists on shutting all stage lights off and telling photographers—festival-issued pass or not—to essentially go fuck themselves.

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[Photo by SoundBitesNYC]

By Arye Dworken

If NME’s current cover is to be believed—and hey, when isn’t it?—Glasvegas are “Britain’s best-loved band,” Scottish saviors of rock ‘n’ roll that crashed the UK charts at No. 2 with their self-titled debut. (Nipping right at the heels of Metallica’s Death Magnetic, mind you.) This time the hyperbole comes with Alan McGee’s blessing, too. According to his Guardian column, the Creation Records founder considers Glasvegas “the sound of young Scotland … I first spotted Glasvegas in 2006, playing third on the bill at the King’s Tut Wah Wah à la Oasis. They immediately caught my attention. They were rockabilly neds playing a frenetic homage to Elvis, art punk and noise. I got their MySpace that evening and loved it. In fact I hadn’t loved anything that much since the Jesus and Mary Chain demo tape in the ’80s.”

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Photos/Text by Andrew Parks

Take a look at Tricky’s prominently-displayed six pack in the photo above. Dude looks intense after all these years, right? You don’t know the half of it. While we expected the worst at New York’s Irving Plaza last night (at this point, it’s clear he’ll never top the trip-hop heights of Maxinquaye and Pre-Millenium Tension), self-titled was delighted to see a ’90s icon revived and at the height of his powers.

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[Photos by Shawn Brackbill]

By Andrew Parks

Before we get to any sort of review here, please take a look at the set list after the jump …

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Todd Fink of THE FAINT

Text/Photos by Andrew Parks

Not to sound prude or anything, but we blame the semen song. As in the final track on the Faint’s last full-length, the placenta-or-bust opus Wet From Birth. That’s where we started to think “really, guys?” While the melancholic melodies for “Birth” the song was dead-on—a downward spiral that mirrored a trip down, well, a birth canal—Todd Fink’s lyrics were rough, blood-spattered sketches at best. And we quote, “In the beginning there was semen/In a deep mound of flesh/And a crest that traveled/On a wave of their own mess/Through a tunnel of mucus/And onto a vault/With tourists and traffic/I just paced myself.”

Are you cringing yet? If not, you’re a better person than the entire self-titled office. Especially associate editor Aaron Richter, a guy who really doesn’t like the recently-released Faint disc, Fasciinatiion. Ask him why and he’ll act as if he is genuinely offended by the band’s first self-released effort.

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Text/Photos by Andrew Parks

Some requests once Karen O opened her premiere solo performance up to suggestions:

“‘Art Star!’”

“‘Rich!’”

“‘Maps!’”

To which the playful Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman responded, “This isn’t a fucking Yeah Yeah Yeahs show! This is something different!”

Indeed it was—’it’ being the 11:30 p.m. engagement of Karen O’s one-night-only “Native Korean Rock” revue, a collection of love songs coated in strings and a stirring combination of easy chair chords and breezy percussion patterns. While we’re unsure whether or not Monday’s set was pulled from O’s long-awaited solo album, we do know one thing: she’s gone a bit emo (in a good way). And yet, she still has a mesmerizing stage presence, a reminder of why she’s the most important female singer since PJ Harvey and, quite frankly, one of the most important vocalists of our time.

Here’s hoping she has an album ready to be released next week, Reznor and Radiohead style. Oh by the way: Karen’s bandmates, drummer Brian Chase and guitarist Nick Zinner were both in attendance tonight along with a freshly-groomed Kyp Malone. None of the above guested, however. In fact, we’re not sure who any of the Native Korean Rock members are. Got an idea? Let us know after the jump and a series of stage front photos. Speaking of solid shots, check out more reports from the show at The Modern Age and The Music Slut.

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