FRIDAY May 1st,
CALLING ALL KIDS!
Guest DJs:
Yoni Wolf from WHY?
DJ Falcor

The feel-good Friday spot for all the kid in you

*FREE CALLING ALL KIDS MIX CD WITH PURCHASE OF DRINK (different every week, limited!)
*Collaborative drawing, markers provided.
*Curious artifacts

SPECIAL GUEST DJs:
Yoni Wolf from WHY?
DJ Falcor
Honest selections of superb indie rock + strange surprises.

Resident DJs:
matthewdavid (dublab)
sodapop (anticon)

FREE / 21+ / 9:30pm - 2:00am

THE HYPERION TAVERN
1941 Hyperion Ave
Los Angeles CA 90027

MP3: Blank Dogs - “Tin Birds”

Think of The Shining. A deranged man wields an axe and chases a small boy through a labyrinth of snow-covered evergreen trees. The boy is saved by his own precocity: he hides his tracks, avoids destruction by retracing his own steps. His frenzied and desperate escape soon merges with its opposite: a meticulous retreat into order and safety. Blank Dogs apply an analogous strategy to their recordings and, like the boy who leaves the lunatic to die in the snow, the band never falls victim to its own chaotic tendencies.

Not to say the music isn’t complex. The heavily distorted vocals sometimes work as another instrument–one of many layers of sound–but just when you think the lyrics are incidental, they take control and you hear the melody in the mumble. And while the guitar parts are often straightforward, they’re never predictable. Same goes for the bass lines, many of which are instant classics. You swear you’ve heard them before. But Blank Dogs take their innate pop sensibility in a darker direction: the hooks are there, but they’ve been buried alive. And so on. The drums beat, the keyboards swirl. Elaborate descriptions are useless. The same song could be an adventurous dancehall hit, the first song you play when you feel the blues coming on, or the kind of thing that inspires your parents to send you to a shrink. Some of the songs are really pretty. No two people will feel the same way about any given Blank Dogs track because the songs are moody in the most literal sense of the word. They remind us of why our favorite bands are so good: Because we like them.

In 2007, when a handful of Blank Dogs’ songs first appeared on MySpace, the initial whispers were that it was “some guy who records in his bedroom, on a four-track, nobody knows who he is”. Much was made of this anonymity. “Much” in this case, meaning that a handful of people cared about this mystery way more than the man doing the recordings. Adding to the perceived mystique was the fact that the music was released at an alarming rate, without photographs, credits or liner notes. The band’s website said they hailed from Madagascar. (Though a discerning eye could see that despite its relatively unknown status, the band’s new releases were always conspicuously displayed at a record shop in Brooklyn.) Visually, the records themselves are timeless. Neither retro nor cutting edge, it’s impossible to attach them to any era or genre, other than one of Blank Dogs own making. The attention to detail is absolute without being precious or contrived. The package is a perfect companion to the product: Entirely strange but somehow familiar at the same time.

Lo-fi, new wave, death pop, synth, minimal punk. To say that Blank Dogs transcend such labels is not so much false as it is pointless. The band’s DIY aesthetic and recording style might easily be misunderstood as an ethos or an aesthetic choice–at worst, a conceit. Hardly. Listening to Blank Dogs, one gets the sense that the man behind the music is sitting in a windowless room somewhere puzzling over his back catalogue. Not because he’s disappointed and not because it’s bad-it isn’t-but because he failed as only an accidental genius can fail: with surprising beauty. It’s as if Mr. Blank Dog himself (Ok, we can call him Mike now..) thought he wrote the perfect power-pop song but when he played back his ELO rip-off, the orchestra pit was filled with broken robots and illuminated with matches that burned into darkness as fast as he could light them.

Each Blank Dogs song is like its own planet with a distinct internal logic, landscape, and atmosphere. With their prolific output–17 records in 2 1/2 years, Blank Dogs are creating a universe, not a discography-and that universe is expanding.

Complementing the fevered trail of records Blank Dogs have left on a variety of obscure labels-some small, some smaller, most destined for seminal status-the band has garnered attention from bigger indies as well. Troubleman Unlimited, known for working with bands that resist easy classification (Black Dice, Glass Candy) released a Blank Dogs LP in early ‘08 and last fall, Woodsist Records-home to Blank Dogs’ cohorts Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, Woods, and Wavves-put out a mini-LP/CD called The Fields. A double LP, Under and Under, is forthcoming from indie giant In The Red. The most recent Blank Dogs record came out last month on Captured Tracks, a brand new label that rivals Mike’s creative output. (Captured Tracks was started in 2008 by some guy in Brooklyn. Few people know who he is, but his friends call him Blank Dogs.)

BLANK DOGS

04/24 Brooklyn, NY Monster Island
04/25 Queens, NY Silent Barn
05/08 Brooklyn, NY Bell House
05/10 Brooklyn, NY Market Hotel
05/16 Brooklyn, NY No Fun Fest / Music Hall

Blank Dogs
Under and Under
(In The Red)
Street date: June 2, 2009

1. No Compass
2. L Machine
3. Night Night
4. Open Shut
5. Setting Fire To Your House
6. Around The Room
7. Blue Lights
8. The New Things
9. Falling Back
10. Tin Birds
11. Slowing Down
12. Face Watching
13. Books
14. Nothing UGC
15. From Here

BLANK DOGS LINKS:
MySpace - www.myspace.com/blankdogtime

Label - www.intheredrecords.com

Ear Pwr E-Card

MP3: Ear Pwr - “Future Eyes”

Blistering thumpers with infectious melodies, Disco chants with wild-eyed electro anthems: all part of the unique electronic vision of Baltimore’s Ear Pwr. Devin and Sarah, the fiery young duo known as Ear Pwr, have blended together bits of Italo Disco, Baltimore Club, and twee indie pop to create a nuclear party grenade that will blow your mind. Their booty-shaking aesthetic has never sounded more enticing than on their new record Super Animal Brothers III. This scorcher of an album is hitting the pavement at full throttle. No party is complete without it!

Bio:

Devin Booze and Sarah Reynolds found each other in the spring of 2005 after Sarah became of loyal fan of Devin’s party-punk band, Hide and Seek. That summer, the two began meeting up nearly every afternoon for 2-person dance parties. Not long into their courtship, they started improvising new words to their favorite songs, feeding off of each other and mesmerizing their buddies. It soon became evident that they “had the same brain.”

One evening, while admiring their ancient tape player and wondering just how old it was, they noticed the word “EAR” above the headphone jack and “PWR” above the power input. They decided that they were EAR PWR, even though they weren’t quite sure what that meant. At the close of the summer, Sarah departed Winston-Salem for a one-year stay in Italy and Devin began college in Asheville, NC, but their commitment to the idea of “EAR PWR” never wavered.

In Sarah’s absence, Devin (also a concert tubaist and drummer) wrote a multitude of danceable electronic jams using analog devices. When Sarah returned, she wrote the lyrics. Their immediate goals were simple: Make people dance. Make people happy. Soon after, they took their project live, playing shows all over North Carolina and steadily brought the dance party to the entire east coast. During this time, they also recorded a full-length album and an EP. In the summer of 2008, the pair kicked off their first U.S. tour with good friends, Future Islands, at Whartscape and were introduced to the wonderful world of Baltimore where they will soon reside full time.

As much fun as their recordings are, it’s during their live shows that EAR PWR truly shines. Armed with only a suitcase of synths and a megaphone, their enthusiasm and mutual admiration sparks into a fun-loving barrage of body-moving electro and infectious silliness that’s hard to ignore. Sarah lays down rap-style vocals and simple melodies that glide easily over the beats to become unshakably ingrained in your psyche for days on end. Devin, the seemingly innocent hype man, bobs and weaves in-and-out of the crowd like a man possessed, while frantically spewing his dance floor sales pitch, punctuating Sarah’s vocals and generally rousing the rabble like a an Afro-ed pied piper.

EAR PWR’s sonic aesthetic has never sounded more enticing than on their new record Super Animal Brothers III. They have blended together bits of Italo Disco, Baltimore Club, and twee indie pop to create a nuclear party grenade that is sure to blow your mind.

Ear Pwr Tinnitus

- These North Carolina natives have recently moved to Baltimore where they’ll be keeping it real with fellow dance party specialists Dan Deacon, Adventure and Future Islands.
- Armed with only a suitcase of synths and a megaphone, Ear Pwr have been bringing to their kinetic live party to underground spaces all over America.
- Devin has recently completed his studies in the Bob Moog founded music technology program at UNC-Asheville where he learned to create the synths that give Ear Pwr its distinctive sound.

EAR PWR

May 2nd - Brooklyn, NY @ Union Docs
May 13th - Chapel Hill, NC @ The Nightlight
May 17th - Baltimore, MD @ The Zodiac*
May 19th - Brooklyn, NY @ Death By Audio*
May 22nd - Washington, D.C. @ Comet Ping Pong*
May 23rd - Philadelphia, PA @ Pilam*
May 24th - New York, NY @ Cake Shop*
May 25th - Providence, RI @ Min Pin 4 Ever
May 26th - Boston, MA @ Church of Boston
May 27th - Kittery, ME @ Buoy Gallery
May 28th - Montreal, QC @ Zoo Bizarre
May 29th - Toronto, ONT @ Primary Color Presents
May 30th - Detroit, MI @ Division Street Boutique
May 31st - Chicago, IL @ Ronny’s
June 1st - Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club
June 3rd - Kansas City, MO @ The Pistol Social Club
June 4th - Denver, CO @ Rhinoceropolis
June 6th - Seattle, WA @ Healthy Times Fun Club
June 7th - Olympia, WA @ Northern
June 10th - Portland, OR @ Holocene*
June 12th - San Francisco, CA @ Hemlock Tavern*
June 13th - San Jose, CA @ Nickel City Arcade*
June 14th - Los Angeles, CA @ Space 15 Twenty (Daytime show 1pm)*
June 14th - Los Angeles, CA @ BBQ at Art and Mayhem (Afternoon show 4 - 10 p.m.)*
June 15th - Los Angeles, CA @ Pehrspace*
June 16th - Irvine, CA @ Acrobatics Every Day*
June 19th - Austin, TX @ Beauty Bar*
June 20th - Dallas, TX @ The Handsome Kitten*
June 21st - Houston, TX @ Mango’s Cafe*
June 22nd - New Orleans, LA @ Saturn Bar*
June 23rd - Little Rock, AK @ Rad Hizzy*
June 24th - Knoxville, TN @ Pilot Light*
June 25th - Asheville, NC @ Mo Daddy’s*
June 26th - Atlanta, GA @ 529*
June 27th - Durham, NC @ The Pin Hook*
June 28th - Greenville, NC @ Spazz Haus*
June 29th - Charlottesville, VA @ Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar*
June 30th - Baltimore, MD @ The Zodiac*

* with Adventure

Ear Pwr
Super Animal Brothers III
(Carpark)
Street date: May 19, 2009

1. Tripodium
2. Beam Of Light
3. Super Animal Bros. III
4. Future Eyes
5. Sparkley Sweater
6. Cats Is People Too
7. You Are The Bom
8. Boys II Volcanoes
9. Jams O Jamz
10. Diamonds Liquor Leather
11. Goofy Award
12. Discover Your Colors
13. Ghostride The Buffalo
14. Mexican Newspaper
15. Epic Suitcase
16. Secret Stars

EAR PWR LINKS:
MySpace - www.myspace.com/earpwr

Press Materials - www.carparkrecords.com/earpwrpresspage.html

MP3: Black Dice - “Glazin’”

REPO is the fifth official full-length album by Black Dice. The Brooklyn, NY-based trio has never worked harder at crafting a set of concise, sonically battering, or flat-out bizarre tunes than on this collection of fringe-surfing tone bombs. Yet a new roadhouse blues-band philosophy has simultaneously emerged, allowing the group to loosen up and toss off a record packed with blurry hooks and zoomed-in riffs as casually as a grizzled denizen of roadside dives might spew out aural alchemy in-between a few brews.

Brothers Eric and Bjorn Copeland and Aaron Warren have spent the better part of 10 years in daily contact, touring the world over, and sculpting their saw-toothed sound balloons under circumstances most reasonable people would wretch at. The resultant hive mind occupied by the three is an inevitable consequence of so much shared experience, both musical and simply day-to-day. Their communal consciousness is as packed with garbage as much as it is concerned with making catchy tunes, and often the songs pouring out of it contain equal parts bombastic infectious rhythm and chaotic detritus.

REPO is the sound of a disciplined group of cosmic jokers setting out to reclaim the landscape popular culture would have us believe we cannot afford. The record irreverently mulches the sounds and images of radio, TV and internet into a fertile compost pile squirming with new, raw life.

BLACK DICE

Wed 05/20/09 Empty Bottle Chicago, IL #
Thu 05/21/09 Triple Rock Minneapolis, MN #
Sat 05/23/09 Palace Missoula, MT #
Sun 05/24/09 Holy Mountain Seattle, WA #
Mon 05/25/09 Biltmore Vancouver, BC #
Tue 05/26/09 Backspace Portland, OR #
Fri 05/29/09 OCD Warehouse San Francisco, CA #%
Sat 05/30/09 F Yeah Fest presents at Gilbert’s Los Angeles, CA #~
Sun 05/31/09 Rialto Theater Tucson AZ *
Mon 06/01/09 Sunshine Theater Albuquerque NM *
Tue 06/02/09 Boulder Theatre Boulder CO *
Wed 06/03/09 Opolis Norman, OK
Thu 06/04/09 House Of Blues Dallas TX *
Fri 06/05/09 Stubbs Waller Creek Amphitheater Austin TX *
Sat 06/06/09 The Library Oxford MS *
Sun 06/07/09 Bottletree Birmingham, AL
Mon 06/08/09 State Theatre St. Petersburg FL *
Tue 06/09/09 Culture Room Fort Lauderdale FL *
Wed 06/10/09 Club Firestone Orlando FL *
Thu 06/11/09 The Earl Atlanta, GA $
Fri 06/12/09 Local 506 Chapel Hill, NC $
Sat 06/13/09 Sonar Baltimore, MD $@+
Sun 06/14/09 Bowery Ballroom New York, NY $!
Mon 06/15/09 Outside The Lines Boston, MA $
Tue 06/16/09 Il Motore Montreal, QC $
Thu 06/18/09 MOFA Detroit, MI $#
Fri 06/19/09 Garfield Art Works Pittsburgh, PA $
Sat 06/20/09 Kung Fu Necktie Philadelphia, PA $

# = w/ Wolf Eyes
* = w/ Animal Collective
$ = w/ Awesome Color
! = w/ Soft Circle
@ = w/ Dan Deacon
% = w/ Sic Alps
~ = w/ Richard Bishop
+ = w/ Dat Politics

Black Dice
REPO
(Paw Tracks)
Street date: April 07, 2009

1. Nite Creme
2. Glazin
3. Earnings Plus Interest
4. Whirligig
5. La Cucaracha
6. Idiots Pasture
7. Lazy TV
8. Buddy
9. Ten Inches
10. Chicken Shit
11. Vegetable
12. Urban Super Mist
13. Ultra Vomit Craze
14. Gag Shack

BLACK DICE LINKS:

MySpace - www.myspace.com/blackdicemyspace

Press Materials - www.paw-tracks.com/repopresspage.html

Artist Page - www.blackdice.net