Fader

This Sunday at the Delancey on the Lower East Side, East Village Radio, who bring you The Let Out, our very own weekly radio show, present the 10 year anniversary party for Frank Restaurant. For 20 bucks, get all-you-can-drink drunk, eat all the food you can stomach and spazz to bands like Changing Holes, Gay For Johnny Depp and the Original NYC Punk/Metal Karaoke Band. It starts at 9pm at 168 Delancey St. Full flyer after the jump. more...

The Cure's 13th album is out this September, and the eyeliner kings have devised a marketing campaign to release a new single on the 13th of each month until the record drops; a video just came out this week for the latest addition. However, the best (or at least the most interesting) new Cure-related music of the moment comes in the form of two gleefully bizarre tributes. First up is Scarlett Johansson's slooow version of "Boys Don't Cry" from her new iTunes live session, which swaps the original's jerky BPMs for Radiohead guitars and marble mouth. Second is "Lowridin" by Far East Movement, where a trio of AZN Akons turn the Cure's "Lovesong" into auto-tuned pop rap. The song has become an unlikely west coast radio hit, and gets the win (by wide margin!) over ScarJo because these guys understand Robert Smith's whole formula from jump: sad songs are supposed to sound happy.


Download: Scarlett Johansson, "Boys Don't Cry"


Download: Far East Movement "Lowridin"

Even though we now listen to most of our music through tiny earbuds and laptops and look at album art in 200 square-pixel corners of our iTunes screens, the grand traditions of the band t-shirt (which we explore more in F56) and the limited edition rock poster are being kept alive by dudes like Jason Munn. The designer, also known as The Small Stakes, created unique images for 20 of InSound's favorite bands like Magnolia Electric Company, Constantines and Grizzly Bear for the new InSound 20 collaboration and silk-screened them onto a limited run of posters, t-shirts and hoodies. Will the indie rock zip-hoodie replace the mega-tour shirt one day? Who knows. We might miss the tour dates on the back that proved that we were there, dude, we totally were, but we're willing to forgive them since the twenty first shirt/poster featuring all the bands will donate all profits to 826nyc, which is a worthy cause if there ever was one.

Wiley: "Yeah, you know Kanye, yeah?"
Stoned friend: "Yeah ..."
Wiley: "You know my man sampled Daft Punks, yeah?"
Stoned friend: "Yeah ..."
Wiley: "What if I sampled Daft Punks?"
Stoned friend: "Er ..."
Wiley: "What if Wiley sampled Daft Punks?"
Stoned friend: "Er ..."
Wiley: "That would be a lot you know"
Stoned friend: "Yeah, that would be a lot. Pass the lighter."

This is the conversation I imagined when I first heard Wiley's new Daft Punk-sampling single, below.


Wiley, "Summertime" (radio rip) more...

Diplo and Santogold's long-rumored Top Ranking mixtape recently and suddenly appeared on the shelves at Turntable Lab, so we walked down there and bought a copy. That copy, after one hour in the office, is already tattered, missing a CD and might possiby have some saliva on it. In other words, folks are excited, and rightly so because the shit is a banana boat on the Jawnongahela River and we are onboard. So we asked Diplo for a freebie and he sent us "Guns of Brooklyn" along with a little background of its recording. You can get a couple more free bonus cuts over at the Mad Decent blog, and if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to Mad Decent Worldwide Radio on iTunes.

I DJ'd Chung King's Xmas party for free for some studio days in there. I never record bands so I need a full on place and help. I got Moose at Chung to open this day like a coupla hours in advance for us. We recorded this and a Bad Brains cover.

These are two songs that Santi used to do when she was in Stiffed, but we had to dooo mad takes on the screams at the end of the Bad Brains joint. And she accidently said "Brooklyn" instead of "Brixton" and we decided to use that version. Big thanks for Chuck Treece who came in from Philly and gave me a ride home that night.

ps. We also squeezed in two sessions with DJ Sega and Mizz Streamz where we did her vocals for a new 12" on Ol Head/Mad Decent that's gonna be big. All her family was there when Santi was recordin "Right Brigade" and they were like.. damn this black girls crazeeee.


Download: Santogold & Diplo, "Guns Of Brooklyn (Doc and Jon Hill Dub)"

Indian Jewelry, for those of us who’ve seen a live show, is the type of band we just assume would turn to pillars of ash under direct sunlight. So when they suggested that we head to Coney Island for some thrills and chills on a Wednesday afternoon, we happily obliged and were delighted to see their beautiful porcelain skin in the light of day. And there they were, traipsing all around the grounds of Astroland with a running commentary of the slightly depressing rides and patrons of the amusement park. They even threw around a few shout-outs to Astroworld (R.I.P. 2005) in their mother-city of Houston, TX. It took a few beers and a few shirtless, fat men to get them to leave the Coney concrete and board Brooklyn’s last standing lawsuit in the making, but they did it! They rode the Cyclone! Afterwards, whiplashed and nauseous, they went to the beach and tried not to get sand in their beer. Watch the video above to be a part of our psychedelic exploration of an American pastime.

Every week resident FADER selector Eddie STATS runs through dancehall riddims and other artifacts from the ghetto archipelago.

If you read FADER you may have noticed that our favorite thing is to go out on a limb for new-brand artists we really fuck with. That is partly for the just cause of shining a light on deserving creative endeavors but also partly so we can sit back and congratulate ourselves with every future success that artist has (which is way better than being mad at an artist’s success, if you think about it). The intrepid staff here at thefader.com have done a pretty good job of chronicling the mounting successes of F42 cover star Mavado, but it seemed like high time to take a step back and ponder the overall phenomenon he’s become this year and say, Wow. more...

The talent that brought you the videos for MGMT's "Time To Pretend" and "Electric Feel" has yet another tripped-out video for eager eyes and ears. With their video for Saul Williams' "Convict Colony", co-directors Chris Edley and Rob Leitzell set out to superimpose Saul into mystifying desert landscapes and nightmarish situations involving multiple other Sauls. It took them weeks and weeks to explode our minds with psychotropic images of Niggy Stardust hanging out with his animal spirit, so we figured we'd ask them what took so long. Read up about this video, and other videos produced by these Gondry-endorsed guys, after the jump in our interview with Chris. more...

FADERlabel artist Saul Williams is having quite a year, having released his Reznor-assisted Niggy Tardust album for free download to much fanfare, slayed SXSW, placed a song on a Nike ad, and generally taken his aesthetic to a level that none of us could have expected (and some of us have nightmares about). And it has all culminated in this new clip for "Convict Colony" directed by the same group of awesome weirdos who did the recent MGMT videos. We of course are biased so will avoid saying it's the best thing ever, but it is safe to say that we are happy to be the first to put it into the universe.

On Sunday F55 featured artists Abe Vigoda played at FADER editor Matthew Schnipper's apartment after the furniture and heirloom rug were moved out of the way. There were mimosas and bagels and some dudes who drove from California in a 4Runner playing songs from their new album, Skeleton. We spoke to them and other attendees of the tiny show. Special thank you to Dan McGinley for assistance with the equipment.

Finally! We've been waiting FOREVER for a video with this concept: Four folky dudes pick up a kid off the side of the road in a van, but its not sketchy at all because it turns out that the kid is annoying and likes to sing and touch people's faces, but then they all bond at the llama farm and it's really wholesome. Also, the kid drives the van for a second? We would have thrown in some apple picking, and maybe replaced the highly dubious van with something more kid friendly like—oh we don't know—the kid's own parents taking him to the llama farm in a less scary car. Whatever though, the point is that Seattle's Grand Archives made us smile.

Watching this video got us thinking, now that Miami is the capital of rap videos, they are shot on either a boat or a highway entirely surrounded by water. Where are the yards? Where are the parking lots? Where are the neighborhood streets. We didn't even know we missed them until we saw this video. We're a little bummed out that we're apparently already nostalgic for 2005. "Let's get back to working wood, let's get back to dropping tops" we're into that. But you know what? There is room for everything in the wonderful world of rap, we're cool with boats and cars.

If you're not currently reading our weekly columns, you're probably missing out on heatrocks (?) like this one from the Essex-bred Magistrates, who just signed to XL Recordings in the UK. Sam Richards wrote about these guys back in April in his Dollars to Pounds column, and we have been playing the hell out of "Make This Work" ever since. XL mixed and mastered that demo version and just put it up on the Magistrates official site along with the song's video. If you like split-screens and falsettos, this is going to make your day. If you live in the UK, Magistrates are going to make some other day because they're playing a bunch of shows there in July and August. Check the dates at their MySpace and check XL Recordings next month for details on the release of the "Make This Work" single.


Download: Magistrates, "Make This Work" (requires email sign-up)

Yeah, we'll be stealing every single move from this video and wearing eyepatches on our third eyes. Thanks 3 Stacks. "Everybody" is the surprise video from Fonzworth's long-gestating C.O.L.O.U.R.S. album, which apparently has a pretty big budget judging by this video and will hopefully have guest spots from all of these guys on several songs. Whether we ever find out is whole other enchilada, but this is pretty great in the meantime. (We got it from Kanye)

Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week he is writing about Trap Squad's "What's Happenin'?" 12-inch which apparently you cannot give them money for anywhere. Listen to the song below and read about it after the jump.

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One of our favorite pastimes is accepting free stuff, so obviously we're pretty excited about tonight's FREE AMBIENT EXTRAVAGANZA at the World Financial Center consisting of two dudes making nice sounds with laptops and probably some other stuff. Fennesz and Sakamoto will be recreating their 2007 collaboration Cendre for the first time in the U.S., and again, it is free. Take it for what it is, or take it as a depressing inside joke about our economy by a couple dudes from Japan and Austria. Oh poor Americans, have some free art. Ha ha ha. Laugh now, cry later, nerds!

Last Friday on "The Let Out" (our weekly show on East Village Radio, made possible by Dewars) we got dirty with Ladyhawk and the Meat Puppets and then went into a full on raptacular show. Listen to East Village Radio this and every following Friday from 6-8pm EST and check the tracklist after the jump.

-Stream the 7/11 edition of "The Let Out" here.
-Download the mp3 for free directly here (right-click and save-as.)
-Add the show to your favorite podcasts by pasting this URL into your preferred podcast software: http://www.eastvillageradio.com/podcasts/2008/68.xml more...

We've been known to get down to some space disco from time to time, but sometimes we're standing there thinking, What are we supposed to be doing here? Do we dance or talk about textures? We don't even really know anymore. The dudes over at Information have played a big part in this confusion, with releases from Studio and now Fontän, also known as the band that played with/produced for Stonefunkers, Silverbullit, Jens Lekman, Uran, El Perro Del Mar, Lykke Li, Studio, Levity Ball, Kenny Håkansson (Kebnekajse), Ensamble Doluri and Niefelheim. We have no idea who half of the people on that list are, but the ones we do know we like. "Early Morning" is from Fontän's upcoming 12-inch (including a Studio remix!), and besides having a sweet slap bass (what up Stanley Clarke) the dudes sing about sunrises and early mornings before ripping into guitar solos, ie music for doing jump kicks on a hill before getting paid to surf. Buy the 12-inch here.


Download: Fontän, "Early Morning"

Nas has long associated himself with a flyness beyond comprehension (he still rocks a part for goodness sakes) so it makes sense that he’d have an album release party in the courtyard of Alife. What doesn’t quite add up is how he’d treat it like it was a barbeque at his house. The space, roughly the size of a bocce court, was packed shoulder to shoulder and subsequently, sweat-dripping-down-your-leg hot by the time we were made to part the waters for Nas and a trailing Fabolous, who, in a number of ways, looked like Nas’ little brother (sorry Jungle).

Standing on top of toppled speaker in the crowd, Nas hosted the party like he’d personally invited everyone there. He introed all the songs he performed (about half from Untitled, the other half from Illmatic, etc), cracked jokes (“Buy this album, cause next year I’m going back to rapping about rims”), stopped to clink glasses between songs, delivered verses a capella, and at one point he completely surrendered the mic to a girl in a form-fitting one-piece who flawlessly delivered his verse from “The World is Yours.” It was indeed hers, and everyone else who Nas made eye contact with and let finish his verses when he forgot lyrics, stopped to take sips, hit the blunt, or just bask in the affection. When Nas wasn’t killing shit, Green Lantern was spinning Biggie, Wu-Tang and more Nas pretty exclusively, which was cool because when you’re hanging out with Nas, that’s pretty much all you want to hear.