Photo by Josh Miller

Ra Ra Riot is back in New York City playing two sold out shows tonight and tomorrow night. That’s no surprise. They put on a fun live show and their album, The Rhumb Line, is great. They are one of my favorite bands to see. If you’ve got the chance to go, GO!

From The Rhumb Line:

“Ghost Under Rocks”

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If you can’t find a ticket, everyone’s favorite Queen tribute band, Dairy Qween, is playing tonight:

Just a final reminder that our Dairy Qween Live Tribute to Queen will be tonight at 9:30 PM at Ace of Clubs, which is located on the corner of Great Jones Street and Lafayette Street. It is downstairs from Acme restaurant.

Dairy Qween has a mesmerizing DYI-punk spirit.

It’s been long time since I updated brontosaur.us. My freelance worked picked up dramatically recently and I haven’t had as much free time to work on Brontosaur.us. Enough of that. Here goes.

Golden Bones sounds like a bunch of guys sitting on a front porch in the Appalachian mountains singing and playing for their own enjoyment. (Thank you, Golden Bones, for recording your music and sharing it with the rest of us.) Surprisingly, this music comes from Brooklyn, and not some dusty, coal mining town.

From The Cost of Comfort:

“The Cost of Comfort”

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My favorite lyric in the song occurs in the final refrains: “That boy needs me. His mother’s already gone.” I missed it the first few times I listened to the song. But that little detail adds so much context to the story.

Golden Bones is releasing their new album on Friday, October 10th. They’ll be playing a CD release party at Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg. Check ‘em out. If you’d like to buy their CD, there is information their myspace page about how get your own copy. I look forward to hearing the rest of the album.

Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone is one of my favorite albums. It’s weird, irreverent and often jarring; the album sounds like a couple of adolescent boys hyped up on Fun Dip decided to make a rock album where no idea was too big or too far out there. My favorite thing about The Unicorns were their lyrics: they were always clever, playful, and fresh.

From Who Will Cut Out Hair When We’re Gone:

“Child Star”

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But that was a long time, many band members, and a band name ago. The Islands’ new album, Arm’s Way, has much of the same energy and lyrical cleverness, but the youthfulness has aged into a less chaotic sound.

“Creeper” is a great example. Nick Thorburn, always obsessed with death in its various forms, sings about being stabbed by an intruder in his home. It’s not some cliche love song. It’s musical equivalent Drew Barrymore’s scene in Scream. And oddly enough, it’s danceable and fun.

Some might complain Arm’s Way doesn’t sound like Return to the Sea or Who Will Cut Out Hair When We’re Gone. But the imagination and creativity Thorburn puts in his music never ceases to entertain me.

From Arm’s Way:

“Creeper”

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“Kids Don’t Know Shit”

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Islands will be playing the Siren Festival at Coney Island this weekend.

Photo by josephinegbg

Last night’s Love Is All show at the Bowery Ballroom was great. LIA has a great, infectious energy. Nicholaus Sparding broke a guitar string during the first song. It created an unexpected pause between the first two songs, but I kind of love when bands are forced off of the script. Needless to say, Nicholaus broke another string about twenty minutes later which required him to borrow a guitar. If you have any doubt about the energy Love Is All plays with, count the broken guitar strings.

The band played a few songs from the impending album, A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night, which is rumored to be released in the fall. Everyone enjoyed the new songs, but the old songs coaxed people to dance.

Josephine Olausson is an impressive front woman. Last night, she looked a shorter, punkier Parker Posey on stage. She had this great, easy coolness as she worked the crowd. At one point, she even bent over to let some guy in the audience sing the chorus into her microphone. The best shows are always the ones where the band is having as much fun as the audience.

Love Is All covered “I Ran” by Flock of Seagulls which was pretty great live. You can hear a recorded version over at Electrorash.

If you haven’t heard Nine Times that Same Song, you’re missing out.

From Nine Times that Same Song:

“Ageing had Never Been His Friend”

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“Spinning and Scratching”

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Photo by thetripwire

Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight is a great album. The album is raucous and boozy. And the organs in referred to in the album’s title are clearly sex organs. Yes, a good portion of the album, if not the entire thing, dissects sex: the act, the need, the consequences, the power struggles, and all those angsty emotions generated by sex. The lyrics are frank and the emotional text is naked.

From The Midnight Organ Fight:

“The Modern Leaper”

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“The Twist”

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Frightened Rabbit is playing at Southpaw July 2nd.