Sparkling new music* for making your Monday morning shimmer with stardust. Download the shine.

1. “Swept Inside” by Future Islands (In Evening Air)
2. “Day Glo” by Brazos (Phosphorescent Blues)
3. “Cats and Rats” by YellowFever (Yellow Fever)
4. “My Girl” by Quiet Hooves (Saddle Up!)
5. “Lower Leg” by Wet Dog (Frauhaus!)
6. “Acid Hands” by Illuminauts (Swine Flu 7″)
7. “Eviction Notice” by Darlings (Yeah I Know)
8. “Bone Jam” by Jeff the Brotherhood (Heavy Days)
9. “World News” by Local Natives (Gorilla Manor)
10. “Below” by Luke Winslow-King (Old/New Baby)

*and the occasional old

Thanks so much to everyone who came out, especially the fabulous bands who played, and to Trophy Bar for hosting the whole madness. I know everyone I invited to play were some of my favorites, so of course I was thrilled more than anybody else to see them all at one place, but I was extra excited because they all played incredibly strong sets. A ton of pictures are posted here with helpful captions, and we filmed pretty much the whole thing, so video will come soon too! All pics were taken by me (Sarahana), except where noted.

Afuche

The Afuchitas – a feisty gang of interpretive dancers put together by our explosive opening act, Afuche.

Not only was there a lot of dancing, but quite a bit of synchronized screaming.

Afuche decided to go pick up their badges and free Kangaroos shoes after setting up. They played in their new shoes.

And they even sported the free Kangaroos shirts they got in their gift bag.

The amazing drummer of Afuche is clearly adored by his group of dancers.

tUnE-yArDs

Zach Condon’s crew was drinking outside and they all got up and rushed in as soon as we heard Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs testing her voice inside.

I’d asked her if she wanted to do an acoustic set, and she performed on a sole (tenor) ukulele. I had goose bumps throughout her set.

Pic below by Sahara

Zach Condon of Beirut, Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, Ruben Sindo Acosta of Afuche hanging out in the backyard.

Luke Winslow-King trio

This was my dad’s favorite set at the show. When Luke Winslow-King’s most handsome trio in the world played their 20s inspired rag tunes, and given the Trophy Bar decor, I felt like we were sailing on a boat.

The washboard kills.

And look at this fabulous tuba.

Gracious Calamity

Ideally these girls from Gracious Calamity would play at your bonfire party or your porch. They played a quiet folk-y set that sounded like sweet lullabies.

Doesn’t this look very warm and fuzzy? It’s only missing a bonfire.

Glass Ghost

Glass Ghost provided just the bit of diversity we need in our line-up. Eliot Krimsky’s haunting voice, idiosyncratic rhythms, and awesome bass setup on the keyboard. I was so glad to have them on. I misplaced my camera during their set, so didn’t get to take pictures, sigh.

Pic below by New York Rock Market

Pic below by Sahara

Pic below by Sahara

I found my camera as the set ended. Here’s drummer Mike Johnson.

Drink Up Buttercup

I’ve seen Drink Up Buttercup a bunch of times, but this was the best set I’ve seen from them, period. Drunken sailors all around. Can’t thank them enough.

They played a song about penises and another one about “female anatomy”.

Consulting a last-minute set list they’d made on their iPhone.

Jim had to kneel cause he was using the one little mic we had for his guitar. It was his birthday eve.

Sharon Van Etten

Sharon Van Etten started off by saying she didn’t have any songs about penises.

And that she was wearing her mom’s shoes (with holes).

She was stellar, of course. I don’t even need to mention that.

Pic below by Sahara

Pic below by Jessi Bautista

Pic below by Jessi Bautista

Pic below by Sahara

Pic below by Sahara

Mark Charles of Vandaveer laughs at Sharon’s jokes.

Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs watching Sharon perform.

Adam Arcuragi

Adam Arcuragi arrived with a crew he put together in the last minute. It included a saw player, and plenty of clapping and stomping.

This man changed his plans to be in Chicago to come play here instead. He’s crazy like that. He’s moving to New York soon and you should be on the look out for backyard performances.

When they discovered there was only one mic, they improvised plenty of things.

Vandaveer

Vandaveer started indoors, but after an issue with the mic levels, they yelled, “Who wants to go outside?” and we all poured into the backyard.

It was a fine call! The light rain had cleared just in time.

It was very French, really.

Rose Guerin of Vandaveer strikes a pose.

Mark Charles climbs a table. La Strada looks on.

Motel Motel

People kept asking me who our secret guests were. I had to clarify that it wasn’t a secret at all, but just that Motel Motel is very special. I’d asked them to play a set that would be a “Secret Garden” set and I’m amazed by how much these guys grasp the idea of the Secret Garden without me having to explain anything at all.

Bassist Timo Sullivan and drummer Jeremy Duvall played a guitar case and a banjo case instead.

Look at Mickey Theis. Doesn’t he look like a very handsome man from the 50s?

Eric Engel doesn’t really need the mic at all.

They played “Harlem” the same way they played it for our Secret Garden video (coming soon): a capella, backed up by a recording on a tape. Erik Gundel and Mickey Theis provided gorgeous harmonies.

Timo Sullivan taking a break from his exhausting guitar-case-playing session.

Delicious kebab rolls my mom sold in the backyard.

Thanks everyone! Seriously, it was the best party I’ve been to!

Apart from the awesome bands and their awesome managers, and supportive friends in general, notable thanks to Sahara (my sister and trusty helping hand), Kevin Eder and China Kirk (both devoted friends and moral supporters), Ray of Ray Concepcion (he filmed the whole thing!), and my mom for staying up all night to make the delicious food.

Download the Hooves on the Turf Northside Sampler (49.8mb).

It includes a song each from all bands playing our showcase, in the order of appearance.

1. “Karate” by Afuche
2. “Hatari” by tUnE-yArDs
3. “As April Is to May” by Luke Winslow-King
4. “Song that Grows Like a Vine (Live)” by Gracious Calamity
5. “Sosey & Dosey” by Drink Up Buttercup
6. “Mechanical Life” by Glass Ghost
7. “For You” by Sharon Van Etten
8. “Ain’t No Grave” by Adam Arcuragi
9. “Woolgathering” by Vandaveer
10. a song by our special guests

Hooves on the Turf’s Northside Festival showcase
at Trophy Bar, 351 Broadway Brooklyn, NY 11211

FREE / 21+ / June 13, 2009 / 1PM Onwards

2:00 Afuche
2:30 tUnE-yArDs
3:00 Luke Winslow-King
3:30 Gracious Calamity
4:00 Drink Up Buttercup
4:30 Glass Ghost
5:00 Sharon Van Etten
5:30 Adam Arcuragi
6:00 Vandaveer
6:30 Special Guests (oh my!)

Download the Hooves on the Turf Northside Sampler (49.8mb).

It includes a song each from all 10 bands.

Remember Luke Winslow-King and his friends, who played a song for us on a rooftop back in January when it was freaking cold and the tuba froze?! His full-length Old/New Baby, inspired by the streets of New Orleans,  is coming out this month on Fox on a Hill Records. Above everything, it feels like a work of romance: when he sings “Where there’s two mocking birds”, and takes his voice up to say “mocking high”, and back down to “mocking low”, you want to leave the dishes half done, drop all your kitchen things, and go find yourself a new love story. It’s only disappointing that you can’t actually smell the flowers you know are blossoming somewhere between those notes and that your face isn’t physically warmed by the dash of sun tumbling down the fabric of horns.

Download “Shoeshine“

Speaking of which, the instrumentation is quite sparse throughout–at any given time, it’s probably a combination of a guitar, a few layers of horns, and a pairing of some form of drums with a washboard–but the effect is rich and wholesome, owing to a fantastic arrangement that never feels overworked or lacking; a lot of amazing bands I love seeing live struggle in the studio when it comes capturing a full sound on record, but Luke has no such problem, and perhaps this is thanks to studious ears that have endured thorough classical training.

Download “As April Is to May“

The songs are all short, with most of them under three minutes, but the record more than makes up for it by featuring a total of fifteen. The overall impression is very cinematic; you could easily dream up a number of stories and weave them within. Owing to Luke’s heartthrob of a voice and the numerous twists and turns that leap in and out of the horns and the rhythm (the washboard is gorgeous!), I can’t help imagining that a bulk of the record is a soundtrack to boyish wonders of new beginnings; of falling in love and giving yourself to the world, putting yourself at risk. In the cheerful “Airplane”, for example, the narrator sings, “I love you airplane ’cause you take me so high”, but worries, “I don’t think I should go flyin’ up in the air / ‘Cause I might not come back down”; in “St Andrew’s Fairy”, “I’m gonna take you on a ferry / Sailin’ across the deep and rollin’ sea”; and in the somewhat humorous “Below”, “You are splashing water over tub when you are showering / The water is coming through my ceiling and light fixture / This is screaming ‘dangerous’ / It could short out and cause a fire / Or electrocute one of us”.

Though not in chronological order, it’s almost as if you can hear the same boy in different ages. In “Never Tired”, he’s probably slightly older but nevertheless an emblem of youth. He lists all of the things he is as tired as (a retiree, a worn down traveling shoe, a cowboy as of stew, a poet to his rhyme, etc), but the song is eventually about how he’s never tired of his lover. Not only does the positive negate the string of negatives, but you’re persuaded to think that what’s been identified as tiredness is only an indication of a life that’s bustling. In “Bird Dog Blues”, which is distinctly electric, he’s probably middle-aged, drunk, alone and past heartbreaks. As a closure to all of the rhythmic strides of the album, the last track “Your Eyes, Your Eyes” is particularly stark. We’re left with none of the bubbling percussion, none of the New Orleans rag, only some unhurried singing that meets a slow and rising crescendo from the string section and a lonesome trumpet. It’s really quite devastating and promising at the same time: “Baby it’s alright / You can stay with me tonight / The river flows to my side / Your eyes, your eyes / Don’t worry, don’t you cry / The night stays soft inside”. In the story I’ve imagined, this would be the ultimate love song our hero would sing in his deathbed at old age, though it’s equally fit for a birth.

The guitar Luke is holding in the top picture is a National Reso-Phonic. Isn’t it a beauty? You can see it in action, and hear several more songs from this album, in the Secret Garden show I shot with him earlier this year: WATCH IT.

Find out more about this album.

It’s a whole new Winter season here at the Secret Garden of 2009! Luke Winslow-King was in town to play slew of shows and was staying in downtown Brooklyn, where there was a gigantic Jay Z billboard looking over us; we were in a warm kitchen way high up, looking out onto the rapidly developing world of Brooklyn. Luke was playing for us as the Luke Winslow-King Trio, with friends Rich Levinson playing his amazing washboard and Jason Jurzak playing the tuba. We attempted a song out on the rooftop even though it was about 15 degrees outside. You know what happens when a tuba player attempts to play the rooftop under such weather conditions?? We wrapped it up with four great performances indoors. Onward for this and rooftop adventures!

Three of the four songs in these videos are from Luke’s newest, Old/New Baby. Also present was Mike ‘Freedom’ Hart, who plays with Rich Levinson in The Young Equestrians.

Secret Garden is a video series produced by Hooves on the Turf, in which we meet with a band to film them performing a few songs outside the context of a regular show. You can view the full video archive here.

Click “HD” to watch in better quality.

Part 1

Part 2

Websites: Luke Winslow-King

Where I take a 10-minute break from everything else and bring you three fine bands. Pictured above is view from my window seat on the way to DC.

“As April Is to May” by Luke Winslow-King

Last Friday I met with Luke Winslow-King and his friends for another installment of Brutal Winter in the Secret Garden. It was a challenging morning but eventually a lot of fun. The performances will come soon. For now here’s a song off Luke’s latest, Old / New Baby. Pictured is that morning’s line-up in a warm kitchen in Brooklyn after the shoot.

“Brother John” by Middle Distance Runner

Apparently this song’s used in a Harley-Davidson commercial I’ve yet to see. Pretty different from the last song I posted of them. Pictured are two members of the band lounging at a lobby after playing Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington DC.

“Blood Red Sentimental Blues” by Cotton Jones

I’ve been listening to their upcoming album, Paranoid Cocoon, from which this song is taken, and it sounds so fabulous. I love it! Pictured is the band playing CMJ last year, and this one was taken by Kashish.

Speaking of sharing:

Joe and I also bought the two albums available from “These United States” since we were both so impressed by their performance. The lead singer was awesome when we talked to him, too. When Joe decided to get a CD, I figured I’d get one too. Joe got the newest album and I was going to follow suit, but the dude said “Why don’t you get the other one then you can burn each other a copy? Go for it, man.”

Download “Documents” by The Lisps | Friday night was the premiere of The Lisps‘ musical, Futurity. By 10pm the bar at the Zipper Factory was filled with people waiting for the doors to the theater to open. Observing the impressive turnout, I overheard a friend of the band say, “I feel happy for them”, which I’m pretty sure was a prevalent thought in the room. It’s not very often that an indie band from Brooklyn puts a musical on.

Jeremy Barnes was there; he was in town for two shows his band, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, was playing the next two nights. The doors finally opened about half an hour late, and an eager stream of audience rushed past the stage, where Luke Winslow-King’s three-piece band was already performing. Given that timing and their vintage-inspired sound, especially with the sousaphone, I kind of felt like we had all just gotten off a stream locomotive and Luke’s band was busking on the platform.

After that opening set, out came the dark shapes of Cesar Alvarez–writer of the musical and singer of The Lisps–and Sammy Tunis, also singer of The Lisps; these two would be playing the two main characters. The spotlights went on, and it began: “Dear Julian…”. The musical was structured around letters exchanged between Julian Munro–a Civil War soldier who aspires to become a writer and dreams up an invention of the “Stream Brain”–and Ada Lovelace, the famous mathematician Julian calls upon in his imagination for guidance. The chorus, which switched between playing Julian’s regiment and the scientific community that funds the inventor’s project of mechanical intelligence, was the main source of animated performances (the picture above captures a gesture at the mention of a whore); Andrew Hoepfner of Creaky Boards was in it, as were several artist and musician types from Brooklyn, it seems; Sheila Donovan, who plays with a band called Amolvacy, had one of my favorite singing parts.

Remaining members of The Lisps played from the pit above the stage–the drumming was notably filled with agile movements. Most songs were flavored with good ole’ Civil War era Americana; some were supplemented with stomps of the marching boots and fitting blows on the trombone, courtesy Sam Kulik. The lyrics covered an expanse of meandering thoughts, including the simultaneous destruction (of railroads) and construction (of a thinking device that would perhaps bring peace or turn against its own maker); and, amongst other things, the language of math as an expression of nature. Cesar had one song with an impressive rapid outburst of words, which came close to becoming a Civil War era rap. One or two times he would pause and Sammy, who slightly tilted her head up and intently looked on to Cesar for almost the entirety of the show, would refer to her notes and mouth a reminder. All of this was pretty fun to me, and the venue’s a cool space, too. I wouldn’t mind if other bands felt the urge to put up a musical at their next album release party. Perhaps their friends Salt & Samovar should go next.

Luke Winslow-King

Luke is playing a whole bunch of New York shows. I’ll add an mp3 from him shortly.

Websites: Futurity, The Lisps, Luke Winslow-King

The Zipper Factory
New York, NY
Jan 9, 2009