Crystal Stilts & Mantles Mini Tour.

Crystal Stilts & Mantles West Coast mini tour starts this Wednesday!

7/25    San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall   
7/28    San Diego,CA @ The Casbah   
7/29    Los Angeles, CA @ Part Time Punks @ The Echo

R.I.P. Pete Hayes of Echo Lake.

  Pete Hayes:

01/27/1987 - 06/21/2012

English Singles Single.

(Cover artist Matt Robers posing with the finished product.)

The English Singles debut 7" single release Backstreet Pages on Slumberland is available now!

Track List:

1. Grey Skies USA
2. Daydream
3. Winter
4. Finer Points

Purchasing options can be found HERE.

Keep Midtown Funky.

Violens Record Release Show Tomorrow.

The Violens will be celebrating the release of their new album True tomorrow (5/16/12) at the regal Le Poisson Rouge in New York, NY. If you're in the area come out and join the party. Audio samples and purchasing options for True can be found HERE.

Violens - All Night Low from Slumberland Records on Vimeo.

Black Tambourine Live 2012.

A reunited Black Tambourine performing "Pack You Up" at The Bell House on April 10th as part of Chickfactor 20-year anniversary celebration.

Veronica Falls "Bad Feeling" Acoustic Video & 2012 Tour.

Veronica Falls from MCR Scenewipe on Vimeo.

2012 North American Tour Dates:

2/8    Washington, DC @ Black Cat
2/9    Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
2/10    Philadelphia, PA @ Voyeur Nightclub
2/11    Somerville, MA @ Radio
2/13    Montreal, QC @ Belmont
2/14    Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
2/16    Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
2/17    Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
2/20    Vancouver, CA @ The Media Club
2/21    Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
2/22    Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
2/25    Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater
2/27    San Diego, CA @ Casbah

Neverever Dec. Residency @ The Echo.

Monday nights are alright for fighting! Slumberland recording artists, Neverever, will be doing a Monday night residency at The Echo in Los Angeles during the month of December.

12/05 Los Angeles, CA The Echo

12/12 Los Angeles, CA The Echo

12/19 Los Angeles, CA The Echo

12/26 Los Angeles, CA The Echo w/ Sea Lions

Veronica Falls Free In-store At Origami.

Veronica Falls will be playing a free in-store performance at Origami Vinyl (1816 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA) on Saturday Sept. 24th @ 5:00 PM. Check it out!

Veronica's Brilliant Mantle Flyer.

 

Mega show with Veronica Falls, Mantles and Brilliant Colors happening in San Francisco at Brick and Mortar (1710 Mission St.) on Wednesday September 21st.

Doors: 8:00 PM / Show: 9:00PM

Girls Names "Bury Me" Video.

"Bury Me" off the new album Dead To Me available April 26th via the Slumberland label.

Pains "Say No to Love" Singles Are Here.

Dave Destroyer - Mail Order, Sales Rep & shred dawg

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart Say No to Love 7" singles are in the warehouse and will be for sale starting Monday June 14th - street date June 22nd. These puppies are somewhat limited, to what extent is still unclear. Possibly 1,500 - so get'em while their still smokin'.
A Side: Say No to Love
B Side: Lost Saint

Black Tambourine Fader Feature.

A nice Black Tabourine (Mike Schulman shirtless) Fader feature.

New Slumberland Singles & Shorty The Dog.

New Slumberland singles are here: Frankie Rose Thee Only One, Greg Webster Promised Land, The Pains OF Being Pure At Heart Higher Than The Stars & Bats Don’t You Rise. Some records are on lucky colored vinyl others on straight up black.

POBPAH On The Carson Daly Show.

It's been confirmed that the The Pains of Being Pure At Heart will be performing on Last Call With Carson Daly on April 1st. After the taping the band will head over to Spaceland for a one-off gig. This April Fools' Day should be one to remember.

Cause Co-Motion Receive 3 1/2 Stars From Spin.

Upcoming Cause-Co Shows:
02/07 New York, NY @ The Mercury Lounge (w/ The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart)
02/12 New York, NY @ Cake Shop
03/12 Brooklyn, NY @ Monster Island (ALL AGES)
04/25 Brooklyn, NY @ Silent Barn

A Whopper 8.5 Vivian Girls Review On Pitchfork Today.

Vivian Girls: Vivian Girls
[In the Red; 2008]
Rating: 8.5

In a year when Brooklyn buzz travels around the world at lightspeed, you can probably count on one hand the number of new bands that, when the hype settles, are more than inconsequential collections of postures and exhausted second-hand styles. Vivian Girls, an all-female trio who've become overnight sensations among critics and underground rock fans, are seemingly candidates for one of those emperor's new clothes-type reveals-- after all, they hail from said borough and perform lo-fi garage rock that taps a number of fashionable historical, ideological, and aesthetic wellsprings (C86! Slumberland! Olympia! Nuggets! Spector!). They deflect the knee-jerk criticism the most effective way possible, though: with an armful of kick-ass songs.

Vivian Girls' 22-minute debut for the California-based garage-rock imprint In the Red is actually a reissue of this spring's 500-copy run on the tiny Mauled by Tigers label. The original release sold out in 10 days, amping both the band's mystique and the record's exchange value: A vinyl copy ended bidding at $68 on eBay a couple weeks ago. So far, Vivian Girls seem to be taking their subcultural celebrity-- not to mention the summer departure of drummer and band founder Frankie Rose for brother band Crystal Stilts-- in stride. In the intentionally dorky video for "Tell the World", Cassie Ramone, Kickball Katy, and Ali Koehler address the camera, poised and unsmiling, even as they pantomime the usual humiliating music vid motions.

The band's lyrics are just as purposefully passive. In his intro to Rhino's superlative box set, One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found, critic Gene Sculatti locates the enduring popularity of 60s girl group music in its effect: "This music was, like a moving symphony or free-floating jazz jam, mainly about a feel, a sound. It had words, yes, but they were never intended to get in the way of the overall impact of the record." Punk credentials aside, Vivian Girls are clearly simpatico to that gentler era's agenda. According to the band, the album is somewhat conceptual, its 10 tracks evenly split between love and heartbreak. "No", an angry thrash-and-bash propelled by a single lyric (guess!) is easy to place. But the LP is rarely so transparent, and Vivian Girls mainly get their message across with a murky wall of noise. Try to pry the lyrics of cacophonous openers "All the Time" and “Such a Joke" from their shoegazery feedback, thudding bass, and tambourine rattle and you'll be missing the point.

Without risking pastiche, the band gets plenty of mileage from its sonic references. "Tell the World"s frantic beat recalls the jittery, chaotic rhythm of Black Tambourine's "Throw Aggi Off the Bridge", while the Girls' flawless, calmly executed three-part harmony counters with the satin-shoed professionalism of the Crystals. The lyrics-- this is one of Vivian Girls' few completely legible songs-- are as ambivalent: "I'll tell the world about the love that I've found," they enthuse, giving public voice to teenage infatuation (an evergreen girl-group subject), while at the same time raising the Spector of out-of-whack control issues: "He sees what I see/ He feels what I feel." (Not convinced? Switch out the gender of the pronoun and singers.) The end result is phenomenal, one of 2008's best songs. The sweet jangled "Where Do You Run To" is almost as great, making pining at home seem not so bad, all things considered.

The trio nabbed its name from the heroines of outsider artist Henry Darger's magnum opus, In the Realms of the Unreal. A sorority of vaguely fetishized hermaphrodite messiahs, Darger's Vivian girls are some of the most slippery, troublesome figures in contemporary art, making the band's appropriation a clever bit of self-mythologizing. The final track on their album, "I Believe in Nothing", purportedly endorses nihilism. But it puts the lie to its own message with heavenly madrigals and a hooky refrain that'll burrow into your brain and replay like a mantra until you do, in fact, believe in something. Even if it's just this really awesome new band.

Lots of live dates:

10/3 New York, NY @ Rocks Off Concert Cruise
10/4 Annandale-on-Hudson, NY @ Bard College
10/5 Montreal, QC @ Les Divan Orange (Pop Montreal)
10/11 Queens NY Silent Barn record release show
10/12 Boston, MA @ Great Scott (w/ Fucked Up)
10/13 Danbury, CT @ Heirloom Arts Theatre (w/ Fucked Up)
10/15 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (w/ Fucked Up)
10/16 Brooklyn, NY @ Harket Motel (w/ Fucked Up)
10/17 Baltimore, MD @ Sonar (w/ Fucked Up)
10/18 Philadelphia, PA @ The Barbary (w/ Fucked Up)
10/19 Washington, DC @ Rock And Roll Hotel (w/ Fucked Up)
10/26 New York, NY @ Santos' Party House (w/ Jay Reatard)
11/8 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (w/ Deerhunter, Times New Viking)
11/9 New Haven, CT @ Bar
11/10 Boston, MA @ Paradise (w/ Deerhunter, Times New Viking)
11/16 Los Angeles, CA @ The Echoplex (Part Time Punks Festival)
11/17 San Diego, CA @ Casbah (w/ Love is All)
11/18 Los Angeles, CA @ The Smell (w/ Love is All)
11/20 San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill (w/ Love is All)
11/22 Portland, OR @ Backspace (w/ Love is All)
11/23 Seattle, WA @ Nectar Lounge (w/ Love is All)
11/28 Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's (w/ King Khan & BBQ Show)
11/30 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom (w/ King Khan & BBQ Show)
12/02 London, UK @ Brixton Windmill
12/03 London, UK @ Old Blue Last
12/04 Nottingham, UK @ The Social
12/05 Liverpool, UK @ Club Evol
12/06 Glasgow, UK @ Captain's Rest
12/07 Leeds, UK @ Cockpit
12/08 Coventry, UK @ Colosseum
12/09 London, UK @ Madame Jojo's - White Heat
12/10 Manchester, UK @ The Deaf Institute
12/12 London, UK @ Vice Kills Proud Galleries
12/13 Bristol, UK @ Club Kute at Cooler

Lodger "Kicking Sand" NPR Song Of The Day

Currently on a mini tour of the US, British guitar-popsters The Lodger catch NPR's attention.

Pop-Rock Bliss, Familiar and Timeless 'Kicking Sand' by The Lodger
The U.K. band The Lodger makes the most of its basic ingredients. Thursday's Pick Online article

Song: "Kicking Sand"
Artist: The Lodger
CD: Grown-Ups
Genre: Rock

NPR.org, October 25, 2007 · London and Manchester may have the vaunted musical history, but Leeds has become a major hotspot for all things Britpop, thanks to the success of bands such as Kaiser Chiefs and the local Dance to the Radio label. The latter has been responsible for supporting bands through its popular compilation CD series, which is where The Lodger made its official debut in 2005. "You say we're in the same boat / I'm not in yours / I couldn't care less about your life," singer-guitarist Ben Siddall sings in the biting refrain to "Kicking Sand." A slab of unadulterated pop-rock bliss, the song takes familiar ingredients (memorable guitar hooks, a thumping bass line) and gives them an air of timelessness: Siddall's sweet voice even calls to mind Peter Noone from Herman's Hermits. "Kicking Sand" begs to be played to excess — and stands up to the repetition.

Remaining US tour & UK dates:
11/02 Durham, NC @ Duke Coffeehouse (Troika Festival)
11/03 Athens, GA @ Flicker Theater
11/01 Richmond, VA. @ The Camel
11/01 Leeds, UK @ The Cockpit
12/14 Leeds, UK @ 2007 @ The Library

The Lodger Reviewed On Drowned In Sound

Some records are a barrage of sound and fury, bulldozing the listener into submission; others inveigle their way into our affections through more subtle means. Grown Ups, the debut from Leeds-based The Lodger, belongs firmly in this latter category. Evoking the spirit of Belle and Sebastian, The Sundays and, hallowed-be-thy-name, The Smiths, The Lodger inhabit that peculiarly British world of bedsit indie. They admit as much on ‘My Advice Is On Loan’, boldly declaring: “I live in a bedsit like I have no shame”. Certainly, listening to Grown Ups, it is easy to imagine these three sallow-faced youths ensconced in that bedsit, poetic melancholy wrapped tightly around them as they create their doe-eyed, heart-strafing music.

The songs are tender, thoughtful and depicted by virtue of a painterly eye for detail and some sparkling wordplay – throughout, The Lodger are in doomed pursuit of an idealized, romantic love. Even when they do get the object of their affections it proves only a temporary reprieve. Unrequited love seems their almost constant state of being. In ‘Simply Left Behind’, they yearn for the girl who “falls in love with all the idiots”. Often such sentiments can sound like so much self-pitying, but when they’re so beautifully rendered you can’t help sympathising. Elsewhere the mood is deceptively upbeat, the sweet jangle-pop camouflaging some particularly lacerating lyrics. In ‘Kicking Sand’, vocalist Ben oh-so-sweetly announces: “Say we’re in the same boat, I’m not in yours / I couldn’t care less about your life, oh no.”

The Lodger certainly have a way with a melody, their music for the wilted generation stirring limbs as much as hearts. There are some lovely choruses, too: ‘Getting Special’ coolly glides between the male and female vocal and assumes a distinctly St Etienne feel, whilst ‘The Story’s Over’ is driven by blessed-out rhythms and bracing guitar. What’s more, tracks are kept concise and to the point, all except the penultimate and ecstatic ‘Bye Bye’ hitting the two- to three-minute mark.

Direct, intimate and almost wholly devoid of cynicism, The Lodger have created a record imbued with a cheering, if curious naivety. Let’s hope they never go growing up. - Francis Jones