The Bowery Presents

The Mercury Lounge upcoming shows

Less The Band
10:30
The Little Death (NYC)
9:30

TV Torso (members of Sound Team)
8:30
Linfinity
7:30

Venue:
The Mercury Lounge
Date:
Wed 8/12
Notes:
21+
Doors: 7:30 PM / Show: 7:30 PM
$10
Tickets
Less The Band
official website
myspace
With no front man, Less is a collaboration of five New York City artists where the music stands in the center.

Born out of necessity in Fall of ’04 (for the portrayal of a rock band in an Off-Broadway play) and thriving to maturity on their creative work ethic, Less has surpassed their origin playing venues throughout the country and the world with bands such as My Morning Jacket, Red Romance, Richard Swift, Arizona, Nervous Cabaret, Dawn Landes, Amps II Eleven, etc. In spring of ’06 they released their first full length "Bear" recorded at Soma Studios in Chicago with Tim Iseler, (engineer for Tortoise, Wilco, Rachels), and then in New York with engineer Kevin Meeker (Dr. John, Liz Phair), which has since been receiving radio play across the country. They collaborated with artist Danica Novgorodoff on the graphic novel "A Late Freeze" based on the characters and story appearing in their music which became winner of the 2006 Isotope Award. Then in the summer of ’06 the play which birthed Less, "Finer Noble Gases", was resurrected thru the life of the band and became the dark horse hit of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival winning numerous awards and accolades.

Less is currently constructing "Astroland", an epic rock story multi-media experience that will be presented by The Kitchen in NYC in early December of ’08
The Little Death (NYC)
myspace
"One of New York's best-kept sultry secrets….top notch players and volcanic generosity…singer Laura Dawn's staging and rocket-fuel is punk…and her powerhouse voice channels blues and gospel…she's a riveting performer, her own blend of Tina Turner and Janis Joplin…Daron Murphy bends low with his guitar and to her right, Moby paces forwards and back with his bass. The sound is their own special cocktail of soul, punk, blues, rock, and just the right amount of drunk." –Annie Nocenti, The Brooklyn Rail

The Little Death (nyc) is Aaron Brooks (drums), Laura Dawn (lead vocals), Daron Murphy (guitar, bass, & harmonica) and Moby (bass, guitar). Formed in 2007, their sound is like a drunken bar fight between John Lee Hooker and Kurt Weill or the desperate love-child of Big Mama Thornton and Robert Mitchum. Old blues, soul, and vintage psychedelia slamming behind songs about fucking and despair, blind joy and glorious dissolution, fronted by a white girl with a voice equal parts Bessie Smith and Dusty Springfield. Their packed live shows (featuring tight harmonies from backup singers Jamie Rae and Cherie Martorana, aka The Death Threats) are raucous and passionate--a punk-rock fueled blues revival for hungry souls. Their first album, The Little Death, recorded direct to tape, featuring old school, one-take performances, debuts on November 1st, 2009.
TV Torso
official website
TV Torso is a musical band from Texas with an affinity for skewed pop, repetition, skeletal guitar music, minimalism, tuning drum sets, and recording guitar direct. Matt Oliver and Jordan Johns formed the group in 2008. The two have been playing music together since 2002, when Johns was still in high school and Oliver was blowing his UT tuition on a degree in creative expository writing and Japanese. James Rhea, born in Saudi Arabia, current resident of central Texas, plays the bass guitar.

While early press on the group has been positive, it has tended to fixate on both Oliver and Johns’ previous stint in Sound Team, the avant-pop outfit which after 5 years of self-releasing cassettes, 7-inches, EPs and LPs, and relentless DIY touring, found itself in the role of Austin’s next-big-imploding-major-label-thing. That group fell victim to all of the inevitables associated with such a role and disbanded in 2007.

In 2009 and 2010 the band released two seven inches and completed several short U.S. tours that have brought them as far East as New York and as far West as Portland, Oregon. During this time, helpful references have included the Soft Machine, the Attractions, Brinsley Schwarz, Faust, and, weirdly enough, Paul McCartney.

With the release of Status Quo Vadis, a 6-song, vinyl-only, 12” mini-LP, the band may be judged on its own merits and shortcomings. The songs were lovingly produced and recorded by Matt Oliver and Stuart Sikes (White Stripes, Cat Power, Loretta Lynn) at the band’s studio in Austin and mixed at Jim Eno’s Public Hi-Fi studios. As on the group’s earlier output, the only recording formats used were 2-inch tape, ½-inch tape, and, in some cases, cassette tape.

In the band’s live performances a warbly, scavenged tape echo sees use as a guitar and vocal treatment and the arrangements are generally spare, though occasionally an electric piano or an old synthesizer might be carried onto the stage.
Linfinity
official website
myspace
It always begins with that lightbulb.

A concept, an idea....born. When Dylan Von Wagner started Linfinity in 2007, the moniker he used to name his project went from mere concept to actual fruition when he recorded an EP with a few friends at The Walkmen's studio, Marcata, in Harlem.

From there, he used this model vision to quarantine a band later that year. St Ives (a vinyl only label) by the Swanson brothers [Secretly Canadian] found interest in this concept and released a full album of demos "Live at Marcata," - a solo acoustic endeavor by Von Wagner full of pure, new, melodic vignettes.

Into the fold came Bassist Nick Hundley, Drummer Russ Lemkin, Guitarist Josh Collins, Megan Berson Violin/Viola, and Omer Shemesh on keys. After assessing the sound of Von Wagner's original ideas, they began to push and tread to find the right direction as a collective.

With some slight experimentation in the line up, Linfinity began to carve out a sound and in the summer of 2008 cut their First EP, "Songs of The Weeping Willow".

Recorded at a barn in New Paltz, NY with Kevin McMahon [The Felice brothers, Titus Andronicus}, the five song EP is snapshots of a troubled time over the recent passing of a family member giving gravity to the formation.

Masterpiece completed, the band decided to put it up for free online and continued to paint the downtown NYC scene with their bombastic, thrilling live shows.

In 2009, with a strong fan base established and shows packed, the band decided once again to capitalize on the sincere interest from the music community at large to record their debut record.

The most recent Linfinity opus was completed at Excello Recordings in Brooklyn, New York. It was recorded with producer Josh Hager, and later mixed in submarine-turned-studio in the Atlantic ocean.
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