Aqueduct w/Apples In Stereo @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, Sept. 16, 2007

I guess technically Apples in Stereo headlined, but I mainly came to see Aqueduct perform their latest album "Or Give Me Death" (which, if you don't have, I highly recommend!). Lead singer David Terry has a lot of great energy, and really makes the show fun. They played all the songs I wanted to hear, especially "As You Wish," with those three-part vocal harmonies, and "Keep It Together." I read somewhere that he recorded the whole album by himself, which would be quite an impressive feat, given the sound quality and fluidity of it, but I kinda doubt it, since it seems like his bandmates have been playing together for years (also, the Aqueduct bass player is hot. So, check 'em out if you're into hot dude bass players, which I am not.) Apples In Stereo was pretty good too. But they sort of only play in one dynamic style, straight-forward mid-tempo pop/rock, which can get tiring after a while (throw a ballad in there man!). But they did have one band member dressed like an astronaut, for those outer-space sounds....wooooord.

A Brief Smile @ Pianos, Sept 14th, 2007

I've been keeping an eye on A Brief Smile for a while now, ever since I heard "Count Me Out" on radio-indie-pop a couple years ago and loved it. I've always been sort of so-so about their albums, but this latest release "Now We All Have Horns" is great, with a consistent vibe and good songs all the way through, and you can stream the entire album on their website for free! They remind me of like a young, more-shoegazey Radiohead, with tons of effect pedals, a big fuzzy sound, and melodic vocals on top. It's not really music to dance around to, rather to sing along with. What else can i say?... I like bands from NYU. ;)

Battles w/ Deerhunter @ South Street Seaport, Friday August. 31, 2007

Hooooooooooly shit Battles was good! I saw them a few months ago at the Bowery Ballroom, and they were good then, but this time they were unbelievable, 10x better. Their drummer is awesome. He doesn't play the drums, he attacks them, with deadly precision. His toms sound like gunshots. And their single "ATLAS" sounds like chipmunks marching to war. Ridiculous! At first I didn't really understand their band name but now I get it... They use layers upon layers of synchronized samples and effects to build a very rich, textured sound. They're one of those bands where you're like, "How the shit did they do that!?" Sometimes they play two instruments at once (keyboards and guitars), quite impressive. Definitely one of the best shows I've seen this summer (I'll probably do a top ten list sometime soon...) Opener Deerhunter was also good, playing sort of a heavy fuzzed-out pysch garage. But they couldn't touch Battles, not by a long shot.