FRICTION NYC » cake shop

FREE CMJ Afterparty w/ Crystal Antlers, Best Fwends, & Ninjasonik | Tonight! @ Cake Shop

Nghia — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:55:50 +0000

FRICTION NYC and FUCK YEAH FEST bring a little bit of the right coast, left coast, and in between to the Cake Shop for this CMJ Afterparty TONIGHT! Austin, Texas’ BEST FWENDS, along with Long Beach, California’s CRYSTAL ANTLERS, and Brooklyn’s very own NINJASONIK get hype for CMJ. Best Fwends gets shit moving at 1AM. No RSVP bullshit — just show up and GET HYPE! Free PBR while it lasts!

I didn’t even write any of this people, I put in something else earlier. Justin changed my shit up, another case of not being able to delegate and being controllingly anal. -Nghia

“BEST FWENDS’ music is a big attention-deficit-disordered smash-up of punk, early Beastie Boys and unrefined 8-bit sounds. It’s a kindred sound to those of British bands like Gay Against You and Applicants: frantic, but rooted in pop and/or rock. It’s trashy, cheap, headachy noise, but noise that a lot of love has clearly been put into.”
[MP3]: “Orange Marker”

“Existing at the cross-section of so many styles, CRYSTAL ANTLERS debut EP (Touch & Go) finds the band at a more important nexus of potential and realization. In person, Crystal Antlers look like outcasts from six different bands, and at various points on this record, they sound like it, too: Merging psych, garage, lo-fi, prog, and countless other influences, the group easily maintains consistency despite a complete inability to be pinned to any specific movement or trend.” [Pitchfork, Best New Music]
[MP3]: “A Thousand Eyes”

“Looking for a good time? You might want to call NINJASONIK. These Brooklyn art-hop pranksters combine spiky beats with rhymes about grabbing asses and the skinny jeans they wear…Mostly, though, people have been talking about these foul mouthed Ninjas for their debauchery fueled live shows, which has seen plenty of crowd diving and drunken punk rock antics…Whoa! Don’t say we didn’t warn you.” [Brooklyn Radio]
[MP3]: “Tight Pants”

FRICTION @ Cake Shop w/ The Pains of Being Pure at Heart + Women + The Beets + Katie Stelmanis | 10.19.08

justin — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:04:27 +0000

GET HYPE! With our second show of the weekend, on the eve(-ish) of CMJ, FRICTION invades Cake Shop with a lineup designed to make you stay put. Save those feet from all of the pavement pounding they’re about to do a few days later and get a jump on some of the most anticipated bands featured during this year’s CMJ ~~clusterfuck~~ festival. New York City’s blissful noise-pop darlings, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, along with recent Jagjaguwar signees Women (Alberta, CA), and fine purveyors of 60s garage straight-outta Queens, The Beets are featured on this bill. Toronto’s Katie Stelmanis and her aresenal of piano and MIDI noise percolations and classically trained vocals to boot, opens the show.

Tickets are just $8 and available the night of the show at Cake Shop. Doors @ 7:30pm

THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART “mix sugary boy/girl vocals, Jesus & Mary Chain’s rain clouds and Darklands drum machine minus the face-melting noise, sneaker-gazing a la Black Tambourine (or, hey hey, rifle through the rest of the Slumberland back catalog to namedrop something with a bit more jangle) and punky Comet Gain(s) into addictive pop gold that locates a place beyond the band’s well-chosen influences.” [Stereogum]
[MP3]: “Come Saturday”

WOMEN “straddle the 1960s divide between the Warhol crowd’s speed-addled New York cynicism and the echoes of psychedelic San Francisco that bubbled up across the pond in the fey, catchy pop of UK groups like the Zombies.” [Pitchfork]
[MP3]: “Black Rice”

“I’d stay for just one song, but once they began playing their classic 60s garage rock I was gripped. Twin guitars beamed rhythmically forward, punctuated by strokes of brush snare and flicking around vocals that seemed perfectly, timelessly at ease in the music. This is a band that seemed to have appeared out of the ground (of Queens, apparently) fully formed without a formative period. Predictions are dangerous so I’ll try to sidestep making one now, but wherever THE BEETS may go from here, I have a feeling it’ll be worth watching.” [Impose]
[MP3]: “Happy But On My Way”

“The drama of Kate Bush and Toyah Wilcox mixed with the
sturm and drang of Diamanda Galas and the pop bubbles of Lena Lovich or Ann Steel shouldn’t make any sense whatsoever but in the world of 23-year-old Torontonian KATIE STELMANIS it comes together. Possessed of a classically trained voice that stuns at 10 paces, Stelmanis’ arsenal is simple—piano and midi noise percolations shape simple songs that subtly grow into powerful, cathartic moments.”
[MP3]: “In My Favour”

In part with:

9.22.08 FRICTION: IN PICTURES

justin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:28:27 +0000

FRICTION @ Cake Shop w/ Lissy Trullie, Apse, and Jean on Jean | 9.22.08

justin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:24:37 +0000

Thanks to everyone who made last week’s FRICTION show at Mercury Lounge a jam-packed, sold-out and festive affair. We’re back again this month with another show at Cake Shop on September 22nd with downtown darling, Lissy Trullie, atmospheric rockers Apse, who are making a special trip down to NYC following ATP New York and Jean on Jean. This will be Jean on Jean’s (Molly Schnick from Out Hud new project) debut live show in support of her new self-titled album (Kanine Records), so be sure to get there early!

>>>Tickets are $7 the night of the show, doors @ 7:30pm

LISSY TRULLIE sings with the boyish swagger of a ’60s frontman with a touch of Liz Phair and plays guitar a bit like one too. Her band harbors key pieces of 1960s folkishness making their music a vintage yet modern affair. [Pretty In Black]
[MP3]: “Self Taught Learner”

The first rumble of percussion and muscular, sharply panned bass guitar, demonstrates why “post-rock” isn’t quite the best word for APSE‘s forceful atmospheric rock. Yes, the guitars settle into densely knotted krautrock repetitions, changing textures more readily than chords. Yes, the synths are glacial, majestic. Yes, Robert Toher’s reverb-cloaked ethereal wail could nestle easily into a latter-day Radiohead or Sigur Ros track, but that grimly apocalyptic rhythm section suggests Drum’s Not Dead just as much as In Rainbows. [Pitchfork]
[MP3]: “Shade Of The Moor”