I’m just guessing that the warmest summers in Scotland are still no match for Texas heat, even on an mid-March day. By the time Glasgow’s Sons & Daughters arrived on Friday morning, the mercury was well on its way north of 90 and the band was feeling it: singer Adele Bethel donning a large floppy hat that matched her black and white dress. Fortunately, the quartet proved they could generate a little heat of their own inside EAR Studios with a set of music from their third CD, This Gift.
The pixielike Bethel and drummer David Gow formed Sons & Daughters after both served in the now-defunct Arab Strap, her strong vocals alongside guitarist Scott Paterson creating a formidable frontline while Gow teams with the cooly detached (aren’t all the best bass players?) Ailidh Lennon for a beast of a rhythm section. Since then, they’ve toured Europe, Australia and the US a few times, once as openers for fellow Scots Franz Ferdinand. Their latest headlining tour brought them to SXSW for a number of appearances and we were thrilled to have them in. In the interview, Adele talks about the inspiration behind This Gift, while Scott tries out his best Morrissey imitation. It’s one of our best from the week.
Tonight is another new episode of “Friends Of The Futurist,” I hope you are enjoying these as much as I am. This evening we get to hear from a female voice for the first time as Tiffany Childs of the music blog Wayward Panties joins me for the show. Tiffany hails from the Denver, Colorado area and in addition to picking some of her favorite national acts, she takes some time to highlight some great bands local to the Denver area as well.
Join us tonight for a great episode at 8pm eastern time, and have a peek at a few of the artists you will be hearing from this evening as well….
We have been pleasantly surprised by the new album from The Kooks, Konk. And it appears quite a few others are enjoying it as well, as it hit #1 in on the UK charts last week. One of the better tunes from the album is “Always Where I Need To Be”, and we have a cool live version of the song to share with you today here on The Futurist.
This version was recorded live at the Astoria in London. Enjoy the tune and check out where you can catch The Kooks on the road here in the states starting next month.
May 18 – San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
May 19 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern
May 24 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
May 25 – George, WA @ Sasquatch! Festival – all ages
May 26 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
May 29 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
May 30 – Kansas City, MO @ ‘Buzz Under The Stars’ Series at The City Market
May 31 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Café
June 1 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom
June 2 – Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
June 4 – Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus
June 5 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore at TLA
June 6 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
June 10 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
June 11 – New York, NY @ Terminal 5
This trio formed back in 2006 after meeting up while attending college in Boulder, CO. It wasn’t long before they were living in Brooklyn, NY and booking shows around town and the Lower East Side.
While their only official release as of this moment is a 7″ single on Kanine Records, the band has become firmly entrenched in a tight-knit scene that also includes their pals MGMT and Yeasayer.
In this session, Caroline, Aaron, and Patrick give us a four song preview of their full-length debut which should be released later this year on Kanine.
We first met Pash last fall when they were touring their 2nd album The Best Gun and stopped in to the Lounge.
This month, they were out on the road supporting Washington D.C.-area musician Martin Royle on tour with Stars. You see, Martin’s former band (Washington Social Club) parted ways, but he was invited to open up this tour and didn’t want to miss the opportunity, so he had to come up with a quick solution.
The result was a few quick rehearsals and then Pash hit the van with him to open a few weeks worth of shows. As Meredith mentions in the interview, they went from playing basements and house parties to beautiful theaters around the country for this tour.
Aside from some blurry You Tube footage, this is the only real recording of their collaboration so far.
I’ve got a new episode of Xtrabeats ready to go this weekend. We’re gonna check out a portion of Steve Aoki’s recent mix cd “Pillowface and His Airplane Chronicles” which is out from the Thrive label.
I’ve also got remixes and new tracks on the show from Spoon, Shout Out Louds, Robyn, M83, Portishead, and lots more. Tune in Friday night from 8-10pm eastern or catch Saturday night’s encore from 10pm-Midnight.
We’ve been wanting to have John in for a session for years now. For whatever reason, there has always been a scheduling conflict when he’s been in the area…but we finally remedied the situation. On the morning after a packed and smoky Southgate House show with Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, John and his band stopped in to the Lounge and played a stripped down set for us.
3 of the 4 songs performed here can be found on his recent album Emerald City. He also takes us back to the Time Travel Is Lonely album for his final tune. Backed with bells, violin, and even a concertina, this Lounge Act session presents these tunes in a way you probably haven’t heard them before!
We’re big fans of the Canadian rockers TOKYO POLICE CLUB. We really liked their all too brief 2006 EP A Lesson In Crime, but I think it’s safe to say we fell in love last year when they released the single for “Your English Is Good.” That song was embedded in our brains for months and luckily the guys have seen fit to include it on their full-length debut. Elephant Shell which is hitting stores next week and is the band’s first release for the Saddle Creek label.
We’ve gotten our hands on a couple copies of the first pressing of the cd to giveaway here on The Futurist. This is a special 2-disc package that features a bonus EP featuring remixes from DNTEL, Los Campesinos!, Flowers Forever, The Good Life, and Field Music!
If you’d like to win, just send an e-mail with TOKYO POLICE CLUB in the subject line to: woxycontests @ gmail.com
Please include your name and an address you’d like us to mail the cd to if you win. We’ll draw our winners randomly on Friday, April 25th and get them out in the mail to 3 lucky Futurist readers. Good luck!
Our Chicago-area listeners should head out to Schuba’s tomorrow night for the monthly WOXY-sponsored AMPLIFY: NEW MUSIC SERIES night. We team up with Beer Nuts, UR Chicago and Schuba’s Tavern to help turn the spotlight on some great up and coming bands every month.
Thursday night, you can check out Louisville’s Wax Fang,Modern Skirts from Athens, GA, and Chicago’s own Unicycle Loves You. We just featured some tracks off of their upcoming album on New Tunes Tuesday this week!
This 21 and up event will only cost you $5 to get in, doors are at 9pm.
After a broken wrist sidelined their regular drummer Gabe, Sonya & Danny took their friend David out on the road for a stretch of touring that included SXSW and this performance.
It was the second visit from this Brooklyn trio to our Lounge when they stopped by to play a few cuts off their “Sleep Forever” album.
Check the band back on tour for the entire month of April with Minus The Bear.
