The Bowery Presents

The Mercury Lounge upcoming shows

Late Night NYE Party!

Titus Andronicus
2:30

The So So Glos
1:30

Mercury Lounge will stay open all night so don't let your evening end early! Doors open at 1:30am on 1/1.
Venue:
The Mercury Lounge
Date:
Thu 12/31
Notes:
21+
Doors: 1:30 AM / Show: 1:30 AM
$15
Tickets
Titus Andronicus
official website
myspace
Glen Rock, New Jersey is a small, safe suburban enclave to the west of New York City, supporting almost three square miles and a population of just under 12,000 people. “It’s the kind of town that lots of people claim doesn’t exist anymore – like that movie Pleasantville, postcard-like streets, an actual “Main Street”, lots of support for high school football,” recounts 23-year-old Patrick Stickles, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of the band Titus Andronicus. “It’s a very nice place to grow up.” He was joined by his old Glen Rock friends Ian Graetzer on bass and Andrew Cedermark on guitar, and they became part of a local scene that comprised about 16 bands. This scene provided the backdrop for the formation of Titus Andronicus. The band is now a five-piece, and includes Ian O’Neil on guitar and Eric Harm on drums.

Whatever lessons there are to be learned in the suburbs, Stickles has gleaned. He brings to Titus Andronicus one of the most distinctive voices that we have heard in some time. With breathless fury, he tells stories of life lessons learned that most folks spend their entire lives trying to verbalize – of simple twists of fate with grave consequences, of losing the ability to trust someone close to you, of the futility of life versus the finality of death. These are the stories of his life, stories with which we find common ground, but while most just think it, he’s up front, screaming it out for all it’s worth, behind a band raised in the ‘90s on punk riffs and FM radio.

Stickles wrote The Airing Of Grievances between his senior year of high school and junior year of college – a particularly crucial time in any young person’s life. He launches his insights across a wall of defiant, triumphant rock anthems, which have earned Titus Andronicus comparisons to such iconoclasts as Bruce Springsteen, the Pogues, and The Replacements. Moreover, the band paints a picture of desperation offset by the sheer wonder of life; its music basks in the struggle. And the kicker – it’s all autobiographical. “I don’t know why you would say something that you don’t mean,” Stickles remarks on his method of writing lyrics. “People these days are too into being ironic, not actually caring about stuff, joking around about it. People will make a mixtape and it’ll be all like songs like ‘The Final Countdown’ by Europe. I really want people to know that we weren’t kidding when we made this record.”

Recorded at Marcata Recording in New Paltz, NY in the second half of 2007, The Airing of Grievances is Titus Andronicus’s debut album, following a pair of seven-inch singles and an early EP. The album received plenty of praise from places like Spin Magazine, Pitchfork and a plethora of blogs upon it’s initial release in May of 2008. This new XL Recordings version has been newly mastered, and will be released digitally in November, and physically in January.

What does Titus Andronicus want people to walk away with after experiencing The Airing of Grievances? “Just that we’re humans, like them,” Stickles says. “That we’re every bit as imperfect and flawed and weak as they are. People always used to talk about Led Zeppelin, and how they were, like, gods onstage. I want people to look at us and see humans onstage, reveling in their humanity. We’re just regular guys from New Jersey, with the same wants and needs and desires and anxieties and disappointments that everybody else has.”
The So So Glos
myspace
These punk rockers are wise beyond their years with a modest air of streetwise attitude. Fine musicians and hungry for action, they harken back to the days of The Clash with rambunctious protest music and pop rhythm flair. The So So Glos rocked critics and cynics alike at this year's SXSW and returned to Brooklyn with seemingly more energy than they left wtih. Rest assured, The So So Glos won't stop until the last barfly is singing along.
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