looking for something specific? search our archives:

kibbe 8/4/20 kibbe 8/4/20

It's Time To Finish What We Started And #SaveOurStages

To date, over 1.5 million live music lovers nationally have written letters to their elected officials via SaveOurStages.com, but it’s not enough. Without an influx of federal funding 90% of independent music venues across the nation will collapse before congress reconvenes in the fall.

Within the next week, both the Save Our Stages Act and Restart Act, two bills that have been introduced and can ensure the survival of independent venues across the nation, will be up for vote in Congress. It’s time to make sure that these pieces of legislation get passed. Keep in mind that the Save Our Stages Act also impacts Broadway, so this isn’t just us fighting for our sacred music spaces. It’s up to the people to fight for the communal art spaces where we gather to connect over art.

We need to step up and finish what we started, y’all.

Today the New York Independent Venue Association (NYIVA) alongside with the newly formed National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) are calling for a day of action. If you were one of the 1.5 million angels who already submitted a letter with ease via the SaveOurStages site, there’s a new letter for you to fire off to your representatives urging them to pass these bills.

The list of NIVA members/venues speaks volumes in terms of both how hard our industry was hit and how many locally owned businesses have been impacted due to COVID. I think of how many times I have felt my heart sink walking past Knitting Factory, Baby’s All Right, or Music Hall of Williamsburg since the pandemic shut down NYC, unsure of how long it’s going to be until it’s safe to be sweating profusely in sold out show, grinning from ear to ear as the bass from the band I’m seeing shakes my entire body. These spaces are sacred and precious. We need to do everything we can to protect them right now against all of this uncertainty.

I know in NYC alone there are more than 1.5 million people appreciating music or Broadway at any given moment. If show going is your moment of sanctuary against the insanity of this thing we called life, I encourage you to take time out of your day today to first (obviously) send the latest letter to your representatives and then identify at least 5 friends you love being at shows with and directly put this in front of them. You can put this in your Instagram stories or post it on Facebook all you want, too, but take a moment to check in and make sure that the people you’re eager to share space with again are doing their part, too.

Please take the time to reach out to your representatives RIGHT NOW.

kibbe 1/23/16 kibbe 1/23/16

[Night Out] Miami Horror @ Bowery Ballroom (1/22/2016)

FIRST BOWERY BALLROOM SHOW OF 2016!!!!

Thanks to weather dot com Sprout and I knew that the stupid blizzard was going to start taking a dump on the city during the show, so sadly first Bowery show was bffl-less. :(

BUT! THE! PARTY! DID! NOT! STOP! Australia's Miami Horror could not have been a better band to catch last night before hibernating and riding out this shitstorm of a blizzard.

If it were possible to harness all of the energy inside of Bowery Ballroom last night I am fairly certain that we'd be dealing with flash flooding because all of the snow in New York would melt instantly. That's not even bringing the audience into the equation, who were equal parts dancing their asses off and trying to keep an eye on singer/guitarist Josh Moriarty, who couldn't hold still to save his life. He and fellow vocalist/keyboardist Aaron Shanahan made sure that all who were going to be enduring slushy snow covered streets left the show in such a happy hypnotic state that they'd barely be able to notice the unfortunate inclement weather. If Moriarty was climbing up on the upper balcony, then Shanahan was squatted down in the middle of the crowd literally commanding everyone to get down.

As I sit here typing away I think of the girls in front of me that asked before the band came on if it'd started snowing yet because they wanted to go out after the show. I should've had my camera ready to record their reaction when I recommended going home to records, wine, and fuzzy socks. It was the most beautifully disgusted pair of faces I've ever seen. I don't blame them though. It was hard not want to keep the dance party going.

Also, completely off topic: of COURSE Miami Horror are Australian. This explains my obsession with their latest album, All Possible Futures. Have you heard this 1 hour and 2 minute collection of non-stop party vibes? BEST GET ON IT!

CATCH THESE GUYS ON TOUR ASAP. SERIOUSLY. DON'T BE STUPID. GO. GO. GO. Coachella is your last chance if you live in the US.

You're welcome in advance.

kibbe 4/1/15 kibbe 4/1/15

[Night Out] Big Data @ Bowery Ballroom (3/24/2015)

The irony was not lost on me last Tuesday night as I stood inside the Bowery Ballroom grinning ear to ear as the sweet sounds of Big Data washed over me and cheered amongst enthusiastic newcomers to the brilliance that is the work of my "broadband bud" Alan Wilkis.

(As longtime readers know, when the SKOA family chooses to champion an artist, we are in it for the long haul with them. We shout your name from the rooftops to anyone who will hear us, we celebrate every success no matter the size, and we patiently wait for the day when everyone else finally sees what we see in them: that they are some kind of awesome. A reminder: as nice as it may seem to have the bragging rights of knowing them before anyone else did, at the end of the day their success is our greatest pleasure and the most important thing to us.)

A little back story here: In early 2010, Rocko discovered this really great remix of RJD2 - "The Shining Path" which was done by none other than Mr. Alan Wilkis. After some digging we learned that he had also been working with The Kickdrums, which essentially sealed the deal for us in terms of giving him our full support. Alan proved to be a really chill dude who was even up for grabbing drinks with strangers from the internet the first time Rocko ever came to hang in NYC with the family.

I call him my "broadband bud" because other than bumping into Alan a few times at shows or the occasional bar, the extent to our friendship has been strictly digital. This is not a complaint, it's just how life is now. These days you make a brief physical connection to someone once and thanks to the power of the internet it's possible to never really shake certain people. Mind you, this isn't all THAT uncommon in the music business, but it still doesn't make the concept any less silly. In addition to the ongoing support for his many remixes and projects on the site, myself and the rest of the SKOA family have mostly exchanged a few tweets, likes, and emails over the course of our 5 year friendship. That all said, as I stood in front of him last night snapping photos feeling prouder of him than I have of my own accomplishments in the past 5 years, I couldn't help but laugh at myself and what our society has become with help from our good ol' friend technology.

As you will soon learn from hearing his debut album, 2.0, or experiencing his thought provoking live show, my broadband bud Alan shares the same conflicted feelings that I do about where we are in this new age of technology. We all want to feel connected, but there are so many complicated icky things that come with being a citizen of the internet, especially now more than ever. The Siri-esque AI that MCs Big Data's show last night was certainly not one to shy away from bringing up topics such as the data mining that is used by websites to sell products to us, claiming that they "know us" as if they were our "friends". You're probably being delivered one of those fun ads on this very page that you're reading, in fact. (Sorry.)

After the band closed out the evening with their breakout hit, "Dangerous", I queued the coat check line, enduring the incessant gushing of a new fan with unfortunately bad breath. I pondered whether to seek out Alan and congratulate him based on the newfound invalidity my relationship suddenly felt that was brought on in part by the very experience that he had been responsible for delivering that evening. I was very uneasy because I have always taken the approach to celebrate and embrace the majority of what the internet has to offer, but I worried that maybe my approach was, if I may attempt to make a pun here, dangerous, because it has slowly made so many aspects of my life such enormous gray areas, relationships included. Then I considered that whatever way I have been internetting brought me to this moment of self-reflection by means of someone who I considered an albeit casual friend, so maybe the internet couldn't be all that bad.

I ushered some girls who had been attempting to talk to me throughout the opening bands back upstairs so they could meet Alan. One actually gushed to him that she thought he was going to be the next LCD Soundsystem. It was a pretty adorable moment. After I had a brief rock mama moment with Alan, my new friends wanted wanted to make sure they could tag me in their Instagram photos so presumably we would be tied together to this one moment indefinitely on the internet (btw - I'm the one snapping photos in that photo, obvi).

It's weird how I never even thought twice about this kind of interaction until this show, but I guess that just means that 2.0 really does sink in when you're not caught up in all of the uncontrollable hip shaking that occurs when listening to it.

If it's not clear by now, you really need to give 2.0 a spin if you haven't already over on Spotify or via the Rdio player below. You can also be amazing and pick it up on iTunes.

kibbe 6/3/10 kibbe 6/3/10

[Review] Athlete @ Bowery Ballroom 6/1/2010

If you have the chance to arrive early to catch the band opening for Athlete on this tour (Carney), please do. I unfortunately only caught the last few songs of Carney's set last night at Bowery Ballroom, but the songs I did manage to be exposed to were absolutely sick. The lead singer's voice was dripping in gritty/sweaty/sexy goodness and their songs were so addictive you could have sworn that you've been listening to the band for years. I will be keeping a close eye on them.

Athlete took the stage to a packed out crowd that was geeking out over the gear the keyboardist was going to be rocking during set changes. Opening with a personal favorite of mine, "El Salvador" from their debut album, Vehicles and Animals, the band continued to take their loyal fans on a joyride through their catalog. I say this because I am a bad fan of Athlete's and had completely forgotten about their newest record Black Swan and feared that I would go the night without a single sing-a-long. However the band handled the setlist like the true artists they are with songs carefully chosen to best represent themselves to fans of new and old (and old but forgetful).

It's not too often that a band can get much crowd participation, but lead singer Joel Pott managed to charm the crowd into doing pretty much anything he asked. Never before have I felt the ground at Bowery Ballroom shake like it did last night. This was all thanks to Pott since he decided to recruit the audience to be his temporary rhythm section and the fans happily clapped and stomped away. We even sang their roadie, affectionately called Mittens, a happy birthday.

As someone who had not been exposed to their new material until last night, I can only hope that Black Swan sounds as good recorded as it did live. The selections from the album "Superhuman Touch", "Black Swan Song", "The Getaway" and their first encore song "Rubik's Cube" are an excellent indication that I won't be disappointed. The band ended the night with the ever popular "Wires", which I heard fans muttering the time signatures so that everyone around them knew when to come back in during the bridge. It was two great bands, a great venue, a great crowd and all around a great night of music.

You can check out all my photos on Flickr.

Set list and bottle rating after the jump!