BROOKLYN – In but a few short years, Australia’s Courtney Barnett has become iconic within the indie under-culture for achieving the nearly unattainable: worldwide visibility and lore in an impossible-to-crack field. This paramount alt-rocker just released her first full-length record, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, out this week via Milk!/Mom
Austin – SXSW officially ended Sunday, but that’s a mostly ceremonial date: Saturday night hosts the last of the big showcases. Whether SXSW was structured this way or we accidentally put together a theme, Best New Bands’ Saturday schedule was made up of loud, energetic, party-all-night sets from Joey Bada$$, Sweater Beats, and Earl
London – Best New Bands’ Tony Hardy was one of 40 U.K. based music writers invited by Glastonbury Festival to select a long list of 120 artists from thousands of entries to the 2015 Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition. A panel including festival hosts Michael & Emily Eavis then had the similarly daunting task of choosing
New York – As the longest, coldest winter since the Ice Age comes to an end, we (in the Eastern and Northern parts of the U.S.) look forward to switching from layers of sweatshirts, scarves and coats to eventually just a long-sleeved T-shirt. Despite nature’s cruel sense of humor, Best New Bands decided to ignore
New York – The Boom Boom Room at the Standard Hotel is barely a music venue. It’s mostly a swanky bar on the top floor of a trendy Meatpacking District hotel where tourists and new-money Manhattan-ites gather to preen and feel exclusive and eat frites, which is what you eat if you want to seem
Austin – Day three marks roughly the halfway point for SXSW, and it featured some of the best day shows yet. Which was fortunate, because the weather really took a dive. Making it to both Viet Cong and Ibeyi, whose sets were just ten minutes apart, was a bit of a personal victory. Viet Cong
Los Angeles – Right off the bat of the opening track from Chaos And The Calm, the 2015 Brits Critics’ Choice winner James Bay sings with experienced aplomb. However, the British singer/songwriter/guitarist is only debuting his first LP. The affecting vocalist from Hitchin commands festival-ready tracks that balance the fine lines of soul, soft rock,
New York – Houndmouth is from New Albany, Indiana, a history-rich town just across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky. New Albany was a steamboat boomtown in the mid-19th century. Its most famous product is the Civil War-era steamship Robert E. Lee, memorialized in The Band song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Perhaps
Los Angeles – After several opening bands took turns pummeling audience members at Jewel’s Catch One last weekend, headliners Naomi Punk put on a dynamic and loud performance. These three gentlemen from Olympia, Washington have been churning out noisy, chaotic noise rock since 2008, producing two full-length albums, 2012’s The Feeling and 2014’s Television Man.
Next week, indie pop act, Geographer, will be back with their newest record, Ghost Modern. (Best New Bands contributor, Sean Kayden, first reported on the upcoming record here.) The five piece San Franciscan band has been working to leave no ear un-intrigued and no playlist without a spot for filling, in the time leading up the the release and the group