"Strangers don't last long here..."

Smiling Underwater

Cool Show @ Zebulon Tonight

Our recent interviewee, Mark Trecka, from Pillars and Tongues, is playing a solo set at one of our favorite Brooklyn spots (Zebulon!) along with two other sets featuring members of Tiny Vipers, Lichens, and White Magic!

MONDAY 6/28 @ ZEBULON, 9PM

TINY LICHENS

A first-time collaboration of Seattle's Jesy Fortino, who is Tiny Vipers (SubPop) and Robt. A. A. Lowe, who is Lichens (Kranky, Holy Mountain).

MARK TRECKA

Accompanied solo set by sometime local, principal singer of Pillars and Tongues.

SLEEPY DOUG SHAW

Solo performance by White Magic member and Highlife mastermind.

Lightning In Chicago

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

Keep your eyes on the drummer

Boy

(by NLB)

"The Language Itself Is The Story": Robert Walser's Microscripts

Continuing their impeccable run—including Sebald, Bolaño, and many other treasures—New Directions just released their latest argument for the book as art and tangible artifact. This beautiful and bristling book stretches its intrigue well beyond the binding. The pieces collected are culled from 526 pages of what was initially assumed to be indecipherable, cryptically minute scribblings, many set to random scraps of paper while Walser was institutionalized in an insane asylum in Switzerland. They turned out to be some of his most insightful and stunning work.

HERE is my review of Microscripts from the latest issue of the L Magazine.

"The Green Grass Grows All Around"

by Louis Jordan and His Tympani 5...



(thanks to Jez Burrows!)

"I'm New Here": Gil Scott-Heron Covers Smog!

British directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard captured this performance of Gil Scott-Heron (accompanied by Oakley Hall's Pat Sullivan) covering Smog's stark and lovely "I'm New Here." The song was originally on the exquisitely great A River Ain't Too Much to Love, the final album under the Smog moniker, before Bill Callahan shed the nom de plume. It's now also the title track on Scott-Heron's marvelous new album!



Here's the original version:

The Best Band In The World

Or, An American Band In Paris...

"With A Girl Like You" (Troggs cover) & "Our Way to Fall":

Yo La tengo - A Take Away Show - Part 1 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.


"Sugarcube" & "Periodically Double or Triple":

Yo La Tengo - A Take Away Show - Part 2 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Camping in MA

(All photos by BJK)