Tag Archives: CMJ

08.22.09
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The Drums ‘Let’s Go Surfing’

How have I gone the whole summer without hearing The Drums ‘Let’s Go Surfing’? The infectious band from Brooklyn who started to earn a buzz after CMJ 2008 are breaking out even more outside of the New York area. The band will be playing Insound’s 10th Year Anniversary party with Cymbals Eats Guitar on Thursday night in Brooklyn, and the band is also slated to played CMJ on October 21st at Santo’s House Party. ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ is by far the catchiest song I’ve heard in a while and it will surely have you hooked.  Jonathan Pierce and Adam Kessler also played in the short lived band, Elkland, who released one album on Columbia before splitting up. The Drums seem to be going further than Elkland ever has….and we like it.

The Drums  release their first EP on September 15th.

Check out The Drums on MYSPACE

Watch The Drums ‘Let’s Go Surfing’

08.14.09
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CMJ Marathon Leaks the News on (Some) Bands

Margot

CMJ 2009 is just around the corner. It’s so close we can smell it in the air. Even though the artists aren’t supposed to be revealed until late next week the earliest, CMJ managed to spill the beans on a few. And by few we mean 70 out of about 1,200 bands. No huge names have been released yet but CMJ always holds out on us. The festival will take place from October 20th to the 24th this year in New York City as always. Is there any other place to hold such an event? Going strong for 28 years it’s always one of the most anticipated music festivals of the year. Some of the bands that have been confirmed so far are The Antlers, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Action Painters, These United States, Otter Petter, and Woodpigeon.

Discounted passes are available at CMJ.com until Tuesday August 18th. Act fast to avoid paying the regular price.

07.28.09
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Julian Casablancas to Release Solo Album

Just when we thought, or were promised really, that a new album by The Strokes was on the way, it was recently released that frontman Julian Casablancas is releasing a solo album of his own. I guess the big question here is, ‘What took so long?’ since nearly all of the other members have been working on other projects. With all of that aside, I have a feeling that this  will possibly be the most popular of The Strokes’ side projects. The album will be titled ‘Phrazes For the Young’  and include songs such as ‘Brake Lights’  and ‘Ludlow’.  It was produced by Jason Lader with additional work by Bright Eyes’ Mike Mogis (who oddly just produced the new Pete Yorn album. Guess he is settling in since Bright Eyes is only making one more record together before Conor goes solo for good). Casablancas will hit the road this year with a series of special show dates and then a mini solo tour to follow at the end of 2009. I’m going to take a longshot and say he will probably appear at CMJ. Will we finally get that new Strokes record this year? Guess we’ll have to wait and see. They said they were working on it. Sigh. Quite frankily, I just miss The Strokes.

Get a taste of Julian solo at www.juliancasablancas.com

04.23.09
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NYC Popfest Update: Suburban Kids with Biblical Names Added to Lineup!

UPDATE: This afternoon, NYC Popfest announced that Suburban Kids with Biblical Names will be the closing performers on Sunday night. Just to give you a heads up, they’ll be performing Sunday, May 17th at 11pm. Where? The Cake Shop of course. This thing just keeps getting better and better.

Check out SKWBN on their Myspace

Read the full details of the show down below from our earlier post today.

04.22.09
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The Morning Benders, ‘Heavy Hearts’ Live

The Morning Benders was one of our favorite new bands of 2008, and still Talking Through Tin Cans is in heavy rotation almost a year after it’s release. Is there a catchier record out there? Not that we know of.

The word on the street is the band is already in the process of recording their second album titled Big Echo that may be out by this year’s end. Nice. The Morning Benders are one of those timeless bands. They have a bit of 60’s vibe to them and the most brilliant harmonies we’ve heard in a long time.

I believe we have shared this months ago, but rewatching it today made it seem so new. Its our video of The Morning Benders doing their rarely performed song ‘Heavy Hearts,’ at their Puma Instore at CMJ 2008. The Morning Benders were also the first band we made cookies for….

Check out the video on our VIMEO  page

Check out our Band Interview page for our talk with The Morning Benders.

The band is also doing a few dates with John Vanderslice in May

5.17.09 The Partisan (w/ John Vanderslice)
5.27.09 Velour (w/ John Vanderslice)
5.28.09 Kilby Court (w/ John Vanderslice)
5.29.09 Hi-Dive (w/ John Vanderslice)

01.04.09
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Morning Benders Announce Tour!

Its really no secret here at Modern Mystery that we are totally in love with ‘Talking Through Tin Cans’ by The Morning Benders. The guys recently announced a co-headlining tour with The Submarines that will be starting in a matter of weeks.

If you haven’t checked out The Morning Benders live (or at all for that matter), we urge you to do so. The tour is pretty extensive and if you’ve only seen the band do their Puma instore set, then you are in for another side of The Morning Benders. Either way electric or acoustic, the band delievers the goods. They are astonishing live.

Here is a video we took from CMJ week when The Morning Benders performed at the Puma Instore in New York City. They played beautifully and made us love the record even more. Plus they took requests and played a cover of ‘Love Fool’.

This is a video of the band playing ‘Heavy Hearts’ which singer/guitarist Chris Chu said they hadn’t played since they recorded the song almost a year to the day.

Watch ‘Heavy Hearts’ on our VIMEO

Check out more of our pictures of The Morning Benders at the Puma NYC Instore after the Jump

Tour Dates!
1/31 Costa Mesa, CA Detroit Bar
2/1 Tucson, AZ Club Congress
2/3 Austin, TX Stubbs
2/4 Dallas, TX House of Blues-Pontiac Garage
2/6 Atlanta, GA Drunken Unicorn
2/7 Chapel Hill, NC Local 506
2/8 Washington, DC Black Cat Backstage
2/9 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brendas
2/10 New York, NY Mercury Lounge
2/11 Brooklyn, NY Bell House
2/13 Boston, MA Middle East
2/14 Montreal, QC El Motore
2/15 Toronto, ON Drake Hotel
2/17 Chicago, IL Schubas
2/18 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock Social Club
2/20 Denver, CO Hi Dive
2/21 Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court
2/23 Vancouver, BC Biltmore Cabaret
2/24 Seattle, WA Chop Suey
2/25 Portland, OR Doug Fir

Check out The Morning Benders on Myspace