Hooves on the Turf

Hospitality, The Black Keys and more tonight

Hospitality: Betty Wang
Overlord: Oh My Mechanical Heart
Pure Horsehair: The Sun Is the Source
Tapes ‘n Tapes: Insistor 
Luke Temple: Saturday People
The Depreciation Guild: Butterfly Kisses
Mates of State: My Only Offer
Diamond Jackie: Nocturne In A Minor
Longwave: It’s True
Backwords: I Need an Ocean
Elika: Nowhere
The Homophones: Everyone’s Dead
The Darts: Inside Out
Shock Cinema: Oddfellow
Helicopters: White Lily No Soul
Magic Bullets: Yesterday’s Seen Better Days (this mp3 here only for a week)
Gang: Rat Poison
Takka Takka: Silence
Tift Merrit: Keep You Happy

My favorite line-up today is at Cake Shop: Hospitality songs are a fresh source of quirky and dorky merrymaking (the best kind?), and Overlord just makes my head bob incessantly. Also, they’re both from Brooklyn–of course I’m biased. They’ll be playing with Claymation Velociraptor and Elika. Ooo, an update:

Brooklyn-based indie pop group overlord will release its first track from the forthcoming album “In Soviet Russia, My Heart Breaks You” at Cake Shop on Thursday August 7th. All attendees will be given a copy of the single in limited edition Too-Clever-by-Half ™ packaging.

This is the first show of the overlord Singles Series, in which a new track will be released at a show each month until the album is finished.

Fantastic idea. I like it!

When a band records in someone’s apartment, it should always warrant a listen, especially if one of the songs is titled “Nocturne in A Minor”, as is the case with Diamond Jackie, whose homemade songs, incidentally, sound to me like they’d be perfect for action movies. While listening to the boozy track, you have to imagine, in slow motion, vehicles sequentially blowing up in large balls of flame; somewhere else, someone’s teeth flying out of his mouth amongst splattering blood, and a hot, powerhouse woman (like Uma Thurman, but I’m sure we all prefer someone else) walking away from it all cooly, knowing very well the kind of trouble she can brew. Seriously, if you go to Lit to see the band, try it out. They’re playing with The Darts and Shock Cinema.

More cool bands are playing, continue after the jump.

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Photos: Mates of State played Mercury Lounge

There’s little in Mates of State that can be pin-pointed as lacking. The marriage of lively drums and rich organs is a natural click, and Jason Hammel’s folksy voice provides an earthy texture to Kori Gardner’s smooth. Yet, the band is a hit or miss. Most conversations I overheard seemed to indicate that those holding privileged press passes and special tickets at Mercury Lounge’s “secret show” loved the it, but I found most of the songs kept slipping off, there was little to grab on to. Despite a “fucked up cable” that led to Jason’s microphone problems, I enjoyed the cover of “These Days” the most, clearly because it easily stuck out as a great song among the other fleeting ones. The dusty timbre of his voice gave the cover a nice tone, though the addition of violin and cello overdramatized it. No matter which way you sing it, “These Days” is inherently a sullen song; I’m not a big fan of emphasizing the sadness when it’s already present in the very molecules of the tune. The presence of the two brothers on violin and cello was an enjoyable presence nonetheless, and you probably need to be in a certain state of mind to adore the music of Mates of State.

All pictures inside

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