Hey everyone! Laura Leebove here… I’m the new production editor at eMusic, so I’ll be posting on 17 Dots from time to time, as well as contributing some reviews and whatnot to the regular site. Before joining the eMusic team about a week ago (And what a week it has been! My head doesn’t know [...]

(photo by jewelley)
“Does it sound alright?” That was the question asked, over and over, by Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, one of the two guitarists for the Saharan rock band Tinariwen from the stage of Brooklyn’s Bell House Friday night. He was concerned, perhaps, that his band’s music — hardly anyone’s idea of flashy or ostentatious — [...]

(photo by l_c_m_tt_)
What is the proper speed for heavy metal? Is it always fast and treacherous? Must is always raze and pillage? Can’t a group just chill out for a few minutes?
These were the questions posed by Nadja, the Canadian metal duo of Aidan Baker and Leah Buckareff, over the course of a restrained, frequently [...]

(crummy picture courtesy of iPhone + CameraGenius app)
Anyone who is Facebook friends with me already got this impassioned alert, but I’m telling you, if Strand of Oaks is not the Bon Iver of 2010, I will be wreaking some indie rock havoc.
On record, Tim Showalter’s songs are plaintive and folky, constructed from sturdy acoustic strumming, [...]

So this weekend is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, a fact that resulted in a spirited discussion in eMusic’s editorial department about the festival and its overall worth.
I’ll spare you my own personal Rock, Rot & Ruling of the festival and will say only that, aside from maybe 3.5 – 4 acts, I [...]

(flamgirlant and p-clark weigh in)
So this year, Jayson & I snapped some quick videos of the Pitchfork Festival — we talked to a few bands and shot some performance footage (we also interviewed Flamgirlant and Ptolemyclark, which you can watch above). We thought we’d close out our Pitchfork Fest coverage by sharing some of [...]

Sadly, Pharaohe Monch did not come onstage looking like this
…or all the stuff that Joe didn’t mention, or that he already covered and I am chiming in with my two cents’ worth regardless.
Like I said, this was my first Pfork festival, and I (rather predictably) had a blast. I agree with Joe, however, that there [...]

(what $5000 worth of confetti looks like)
If I was forced to sum up this year’s Pitchfork Festival in a simple, two-word phrase, that phrase would be: modest pleasures. None of the bands pulled off mind-blowing sets, no one upped the creative ante or brought out special guests or strange inventions. Instead, all the performances hit [...]

no picture, because my hotel’s wireless is garbage
“It’s so 90s indie rock,” remarked Alex a few songs into Cymbals Eat Guitars’ rousing, rollicking set. He was right, and it wasn’t a dis: Cymebals Eat Guitars offered lean, energetic rock songs, topped with their singer’s hoarse, searching yelp. They were first up on Saturday’s Pitchfork lineup, [...]

Doug basking in the glorious rays of his indie guitar jammery
I have seen Built To Spill live somewhere between five and seven thousand times. When I was 17, I listened to Perfect From Now On the way I used to listen to, like, Led Zeppelin IV or Paul’s Boutique. That is, endlessly, with Talmudic [...]

photo by robert loerzel. check out his whole, awesome pitchfork photo gallery here.
There was a point during Night 1 of the Pitchfork Festival where I realized that I had just watched Yo La Tengo, was currently watching Jesus Lizard, and was about to go watch Built to Spill. This made me wonder if my plane [...]

So tomorrow AM, Joe and I are leaving for Chicago for the three-day incredible-live-music binge that is the Pitchfork Festival. It’s my first time there, and I am pretty amped. We put together a nice little primer hub on this year’s festival, which you should check out here, to get a flavor of these year’s [...]

So let me get this out of the way first: I love SXSW. Love. I look forward to this week every year, and spend the bulk of my time trying to cram in as many shows as humanly possible. It’s my Super Bowl, if the Super Bowl was a week long and ran for a [...]

01 The supposed primitives who believe that a camera snatches their soul? Onto something. Photographers suck at SXSW. Suck suck suck, whether it’s some dude snapping with his iPhone, someone using a camcorder to bootleg a show or a credentialed shutterbug with a massive DSLR, they are not your show-going friend. I watched too many [...]

I don’t even know where to begin. Just yesterday I promised we wouldn’t do the minute-by-minute diary, but some stretches from yesterday are just too incredible not to. Straight off the top, here’s who I saw (hyperlinks to be added later when there’s time): French Miami (SF math rock that I have played on the [...]

Hey everybody! This is my third day here in Austin, and I wanted to give you some idea of what’s been going on. First off, I have been careful about how to write about being here: I’m wary of writing things that consist of little more than bragging (”I’m here and yr not!”), while also [...]

Alex, Joe and I are all heading down to Texas tomorrow for SXSW (Joe and I covering, Alex playing a kabillion shows), and we’ll be bringing you daily updates on what we’re seeing that’s good, hopefully uncovering a few gems for you. This also means that 17 Dots might be a bit quieter than usual. [...]

So I couldn’t be more happy and proud about Victoire, our first classical eMusic Selects artist. Sure, as a classical nerd with aspirations to inflict my tastes on millions, I am psyched in the abstract about “hey, we got a classical artist!” But Victoire are so much more than that. They are a prime example [...]

South By Southwest is the biggest music-industry festival every year. It happens every March in Austin, Texas, and days are filled with a neverending blur of live shows — some bands you’ve heard of, some you haven’t. Anyway, this year we’re hosting a showcase that we’re insanely proud of:
Grizzly Bear
Rural Alberta Advantage
Girls
Two eMusic Selects bands [...]

I dunno how I have forgotten to post this all week long, but the Rural Alberta Advantage are playing two shows in NYC this weekend! Tonight they’ll be at Union Hall in Park Slope (they go on at 9:30), and tomorrow they’ll be at 92Y in Tribeca. Both shows are gonna be hot!
How do I [...]