World's Fair

D-Sharp, Bay Area DJ/MC/producer and friend-of-Quannum extraordinaire, recently remixed Joyo Velarde’s “Take You Home,” the first single off her self-titled EP, which came out this past May 26 (full-length to follow in the fall!).

You can download “Take You Home (DJ D-Sharp Remix)” here

(You can download the original version of the song here, too.)

Joyo, who’s been an integral part of the Quannum team for the past decade, will be touring with husband Lyrics Born on his tour this summer. You can check the dates here.

Artist: Joyo Velarde
Album: Joyo Velarde EP
Label: Quannum Projects
Street Date: May 26, 2009
mp3: “Take You Home”

CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website

Adam Goldberg, aka LANDy, released his debut album, Eros and Omissions, last Tuesday, and starting today, you can stream it for free, exclusively on Amazon.

You can also download the mp3 for “BFF!” here (and watch the video below).

WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING ABOUT LANDy

“…Assured, fractured and, at times, downright nasty, the album swells and shivers like a forlorn lover lost in a downpour.” – Blackbook

“…LANDy is that rare thing in the entertainment world: an actor-fronted band that doesn’t suck.” “…a potent dose of space-pop psychedelia …warmer and weirder than the majority of musical work released so far this year.” – Metromix

“Anyone smitten with the melancholy bits of the Lips or of Montreal or the pop swoon of vintage E.L.O. is gonna love this. And everyone else open to good music with a sustained emotional glow has plenty to discover on this obvious labor of love. A real pleasant surprise…” – Jambase

“…a stately procession through the avant-pop heavens.” – RCRD LBL

“…Goldberg is taking his musical turn quite seriously — and so should we.” – Tripwire

“…a surprisingly affective collection of moody, atmospheric dream pop…” – Evil Monito

“…sublimely trippy dreampop….a sonic collage rich and varied in texture and mood” – NewsOK

“…a very accomplished collection of heavily layered melancholy indie/pop songs…paints songs of surreal high and low. It’s pretty safe to say you’ve never heard anything that sounds quite like LANDy.” – Go211.com

Artist: LANDy
Album: Eros and Omissions
Label: Apology Music
Street Date: June 23, 2009
mp3: “BFF!”
 
 
CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace Website

Naomi Shelton, the gospel-soul singer and Daptone recording artist who recently released her debut album, What Have You Done, My Brother?, has been hitting up the NPR airwaves. She was just featured as a World Cafe: Next artist and TODAY, June 30, she is on the second hour of On Point. The show airs live on WBUR from 10am-12pm, but is syndicated nationwide throughout the day (for a list of stations and times, go here). The audio transcript can also be found on the site.

Besides her regular Friday-night gigs at New York City’s Fat Cat, Naomi will also be playing at the Ottawa Blues Fest on July 12, at Prospect Park’s Celebrate Brooklyn Festival on July 30, and at Boston’s MFA on August 5.

Download the mp3 for “What Have You Done” here, and check out the brand-new video below!

 
 
 
NAOMI SHELTON AND THE GOSPEL QUEEN LIVE DATES
Jul 3, 10, 17 New York, NY @ Fat Cat
Jul 12 Ottawa, ON @ Cisco Ottawa Blues Festival
Jul 30 Brooklyn, NY @ Prospect Park Bandshell (“Celebrate Brooklyn,” opening for Burning Spear)
Aug 05 Boston, MA @ Museum of Fine Arts

Artist: Naomi Shelton
Album: What Have You Done, My Brother?
Label: Daptone Records
Street Date: May 26, 2009
Order: on Amazon
mp3: “What Have You Done”
 
 
CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website | Facebook

Brazilian sambero Curumin will be back in North America next week to kick off his summer tour, which begins and ends in New York City. Next Wednesday, July 8, he’ll be playing at Central Park’s SummerStage alongside Juana Molina as part of the Latin Alternative Music Conference, which runs from July 7-11. Both Curumin and Juana Molina put on pretty incredible shows, so if you’re anywhere near the city next week, for your own sake stop by and check it out (hey, it’s FREE, too!). If you can’t make it though, Curumin will be playing at S.O.B’s one week later, and Southpaw on July 26, not to mention all the stops he’s making in the US and Canada throughout.

CURUMIN SUMMER 2009 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
Jul 08 New York, NY @ LAMC Music Night, Central Park SummerStage (w/Juana Molina and El G)
Jul 09 Montreal, QC @ Montreal Jazz Festival
Jul 10 Toronto, ON @ El Mocambo
Jul 11 Ottawa, ON @ Ottawa Bluesfest
Jul 12 Quebec City, QC @ Quebec City’s Summer Festival
Jul 13 Quebec City, QC @ Quebec City’s Summer Festival
Jul 14 Cambridge, MA @ The Middle East
Jul 15 New York, NY @ S.O.B.’s
Jul 18 Milwaukee, WI @ Stonefly Brewery
Jul 19 San Francisco, CA @ Stern Grove Festival
Jul 20 Santa Cruz, CA @ Moe’s Alley
Jul 21 Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s
Jul 23 Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Jul 24 Santa Barbara, CA @ Mercy Lounge
Jul 25 Los Angeles, CA @ Grand Performances
Jul 26 Brooklyn, NY @ Southpaw

Finally, you can download the mp3 for “Sambito (Totaru Shock)” here.

Check out footage from the last time Curumin and his crew were in New York, playing the Mercury Lounge one cold Friday night in January:

Artist: Curumin
Album: JapanPopShow
Label: Quannum Projects
Street Date: OUT NOW
mp3: “Sambito (Totaru Shock)”

CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | YouTube

Alternative rock icons the Dandy Warhols will be hitting the road this September, stopping first in Indianapolis before heading off to Kansas City, Houston, Dallas, Austin, and Albuquerque. The last stop of their tour will be at the Red Rocks Amphitheater, where the band will be closing out the final day of Monolith alongside Phoenix, among many others.

The dates follow a successful Fall 2008 North American tour supporting …Earth To The Dandy Warhols…, the band’s sixth full-length and first on their own label, Beat The World Records. The dates also follow the release of The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound, the “Director’s Cut” of 2003’s Welcome To The Monkey House. The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound comes out July 14, 2009.

While the studio albums showcase their instrumental ability and frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s lyrical witticisms, it’s live where they seem most vibrant, and where they’re truly given the space to explore their psychedelic and alternative pop roots. Sweeping guitars and keyboards combine with melodic hooks to create an experience that is both impressively expansive and wholly entertaining.

Tickets go on-sale to the public this Saturday, June 27 (Indianapolis on-sale 6/26, Monolith already on-sale), but the presale is already running on www.dandywarhols.com and myspace.com/thedandywarhols. All shows are all ages, and opening on each date will be neo-psychedelic Spaghetti-Western band Spindrift, who released their record The West on Beat The World in November 2008.

THE DANDY WARHOLS SEPTEMBER 2009 US TOUR DATES
Sep 01 Indianapolis, IN @ The Vogue Theater
Sep 03 Kansas City, MO @ Beaumont Club
Sep 04 Sauget, IL (St. Louis, MO) @ Pop’s
Sep 05 Oklahoma City, OK @ Diamond Ballroom
Sep 07 Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
Sep 08 Dallas, TX @ Granada Theatre
Sep 09 Austin, TX @ Emo’s
Sep 11 Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theatre
Sep 12 Aspen, CO @ Belly Up Aspen
Sep 13 Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheater (Monolith Festival)

 
 
What the press had to say about the Warhols last time around:

“…blissfully transcendent bubblegum drone…Never ones to play by the rules.” – MTV.com, Live Review

“…reveling in sound over sense…the Dandy Warhols have been dipping into 1960s rock, particularly four-chord garage-band structures, folk-rock jangle, psychedelic haze, Rolling Stones stomps and occasionally a touch of spaghetti-western reverb… Mr. Taylor-Taylor’s lyrics often sketch romance in a decadent world, with the attitude of a skeptical insider.” – The New York Times, Live Review

“…throughout […Earth…] the band creates a deep, dense sonic haze that could have blown in from a debauched, funnier, lazier future — or, indeed, another planet entirely…It’s a solid collection that offers the band’s customary twisted strolls through blue-eyed funk, country and alt-rock as well as many trips through psychedelia — past, present and future.” – Washington Post

“…totally sonically massive… This record is as big as a rocket.” – Filter

Artist: The Dandy Warhols
Album: The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound
Label: Beat The World Records
Street Date: July 14, 2009
 
 
CONNECT: World’s Fair | Myspace | Website | YouTube | Facebook

Brazilian chanteuse Céu is releasing her second full-length record, Vagarosa, on July 7, and the excitement for it has already started. PopMatters, Latina.com, and Under The Radar are just some of the first to pick up on what Allmusic.com calls “…an extremely impressive, assured album well worth a listener’s time, whether one speaks Portuguese or not.”

DOWNLOAD the mp3 for “Bubuia” HERE

“While taking on Jorge Ben in a tribute to her recently born daughter with ‘Rosa Menina Rosa’, and turning down the bass and up the cavaquinho on ‘Vira Lata’, the best songs occur last on Vagarosa. ‘Sonambulo’, which was recently released on the Cangote EP, features a quick-witted guitar line surrounded by a solid hip-hop beat and winsome melodica. Even more surprising is the Os Mutantes-era ‘Espaconave’, CéU taking on the psychedelic ‘60s, complete with bird sounds and Nyabhingi-esque congas. The rollicking beat opens into a multi-tiered vocal chant, hypnotic keyboard line, and fuzzy electric guitars. A brilliant closing for an album that deserves the same adjective.”

– PopMatters

“Two years ago Brazilian songstress CéU became an overnight sensation when she burst (actually, sauntered) onto the scene with a self-titled album that earned both Grammy and Latin Grammy nominations. And come July 7, the irresistible 29-year-old will prove that she’s no one-hit wonder when she releases her sophomore album, Vagarosa, which means ’slow, easygoing and leisurely’—a mood that permeates all 13 tracks on the CD. Her voice is still as warm and sultry as the sun that shines on her native city of São Paulo…Close your eyes and let CéU’s mellow vocals move you.”

– Latina.com

“Brazilian music is having a healthy resurgence in popularity here in the U.S. Brazilian chanteuse Céu is at the forefront of that burgeoning movement. She stole our hearts with her self-titled debut album in 2007, her follow-up release has been widely anticipated and finally has a release date. Vagarosa, which translates to ’slow, easygoing, and leisurely,’ comes out on July 7th, via Six Degrees. Vagarosa lives up to its name on ‘Bubuia.’ The skittering percussion plays lightly in the background, like a jungle beat heard from far off. Céu’s silken croon keeps it at midtempo.”

– Under The Radar Mag

DOWNLOAD “Bubuia” HERE

Céu will be kicking off her U.S. tour on July 14 in Seattle and continuing onto Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York.

Céu July 2009 US Tour
Jul 14 Seattle, WA @ The Triple Door
Jul 15 Seattle, WA @ The Triple Door
Jul 17 Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy
Jul 18 San Francisco, CA @ Herbst Theatre
Jul 21 New York, NY @ Highline Ballroom

Artist: Céu
Album: Vagarosa
Label: Six Degrees
Street Date: July 7, 2009
mp3: “Bubuia”

CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website |
 

Youth Group, the Australian four-piece who released their third full-length, The Night Is Ours, this past April, will have barely had time to rest from their three-month North American stint before they’ll head back across the ocean to support emo heroes the Get Up Kids on their 2009 Fall Reunion tour. The fun kicks off in Denver on September 15, after which the two groups (plus Boston trio Pretty & Nice as the first opener) travel through Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, and Omaha before finishing up together in Iowa City, IA. Youth Group will then continue eastward, headlining shows in Chicago, Columbus, Pittsburgh and Hoboken (with more dates TBA).

Though The Night Is Ours is an album fully comprised of impressively memorable, melodic rock songs, it’s live that the band’s musicianship and tight playing truly becomes more pronounced. Toby Martin’s voice, even clearer and more emotional in person, is complemented by the controlled layers of sound his bandmates put down behind him. There’s a lushness that, even in the sparser, simpler songs, remains, and helps to give Youth Group’s music an even greater resonance.

To celebrate the new tour dates, Youth Group have decided to release “Two Sides,” off The Night Is Ours. Download it here.

YOUTH GROUP FALL 2009 US TOUR DATES

w/the Get Up Kids
Sep 15 Denver, CO @ Marquis Theatre
Sep 16 Salt Lake City, UT @ In The Venue
Sep 18 Seattle, WA @ Neumos
Sep 21 San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
Sep 23 Pomona, CA @ Glass House
Sep 24 Hollywood, CA @ Avalon
Sep 25 San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
Sep 26 Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
Sep 27 Tempe, AZ @ Clubhouse
Sep 29 San Antonio, TX @ White Rabbit
Sep 30 Dallas, TX @ Granada Theatre
Oct 01 Oklahoma City, OK @ Diamond Ballroom
Oct 02 Omaha, NB @ Slowdown
Oct 03 Iowa City, IA @ The Picador

Headlining
Oct 04 Urbana, IL @ The Canopy
Oct 06 Chicago, IL @ Schubas
Oct 07 Columbus, OH @ The Basement
Oct 08 Akron, OH @ Musica
Oct 09 Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe
Oct 13 Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s
Oct 15 Hamden, CT @ The Space
Oct 16 Cambridge, MA @ T.T. The Bears

More dates TBA

Watch the video for “Two Sides” below.

What the press is saying about The Night Is Ours:

“If melodic indie rock is your go-to player, then Aussie foursome, Youth Group, are definitely your winning team.” – Filter Magazine’s Good Music Guide

“The Night Is Ours‘ sonic splendor shines like a beacon” – Alternative Press

“Prepare to be enthralled.” – Hear/Say

“Youth Group is a terrific indie-pop quartet from Australia that may remind you of a good many good things: The melodic power-pop of mid-to-late-period Teenage Fanclub; the refined art-rock of the Church; and the jangly dream-pop of a slew of Flying Nun bands from the ’80s and early ’90s (the Chills, the Clean, Volcano Suns, et al.).” – Seattle Weekly

“The band really puts it all together on the album’s centerpiece, ‘All This Will Pass,’ the perfect single, featuring catchy reverb-y guitars and a straight-forward memorable hook, with Martin using his whole range, to excellent effect.” – Absolute Punk

Frontman Toby Martin will also be playing a series of solo shows at New York’s Living Room beginning Wednesday, July 8.

TOBY MARTIN FROM YOUTH GROUP SOLO SHOWS
Jul 08 New York, NY (The Living Room)
Jul 15 New York, NY (The Living Room)
Jul 22 New York, NY (The Living Room)
Jul 29 New York, NY (The Living Room)

Artist: Youth Group
Album: The Night Is Ours
Label: Ivy League
Street Date: April 7, 2009
Buy: On Amazon
MP3: “Two Sides”
 
 
 
CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website | YouTube

“Take Back The Instant,” the first track off General Elektriks’ sophomore album, Good City For Dreamers, wasn’t originally supposed to be the quick-paced, Clavinet-fueled song it ended up as. When Hervé “RV” Salters, the man behind the project, was first composing it, he envisioned a ballad, and he wrote the vocal melody as such. But as he started recording the backing track, he realized that it just didn’t feel right. He decided to speed it up and change the keys to a funkier Clavinet, ending up with the hip-hop-flavored near-party track that also manages to function as a cathartic break-up song.

Salters, a master at layering the different sounds of his keys, blends together resonant triads with marching-band-esque horn sounds and a crisp, bouncy bass line over a beat that could’ve been pulled straight from a Meters track. His voice too, though it’s certainly at the forefront, functions in itself as a percussive element, mixing internal rhyme with a catchy melody, making “Take Back The Instant” one of those songs that grabs pretty much immediately, and never lets go.

DOWNLOAD “Take Back The Instant” here

“Take Back The Instant” also has a video, made, in fact, by Hervé’s brother Arno (and yes, the keyboard parts shown are in fact the actual lines). Watch it below!

 
 
Good City for Dreamers in Europe and Japan in February 2009, and the album will be released by Quannum Projects in North America on September 22, 2009.

Artist: General Elektriks
Album: Good City For Dreamers
Label: Quannum Projects
Street Date: September 22, 2009
mp3: “Take Back The Instant”
 
CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website

From the vaults of Daptone Records comes a collection of unreleased tracks from the infamous Budos Band.

DOWNLOAD/STREAM “THE PROPOSITION” here

Fans may be familiar with two songs previously released and universally recognized as “Budos classics.” “The Proposition,” a hit single released on 7-inch by Daptone Records, incorporates the style, now known worldwide as Budos swing, responsible for drawing so many a listener onto the sweaty dancefloor, and “Mas O Menos,” included on the band’s smash album, The Budos Band II, exemplifies the group’s feel for soul with its infectious bass, tightly intertwined guitar and organ, and soaring horns. The remaining tracks, however, all never-before-released cuts also recorded between The Budos Band I and II sessions, are a fascinating glimpse into the group’s evolution as musicians and recording artists.

The Budos Band EP, which has already gotten love from Soul-Sides, BrooklynVegan, Planet Mag and AOL Spinner, to name a few, is a must-have for Budos and Daptone fans alike. It stands as a vital account of the band’s movement between musical styles and records a singular moment in the group’s existence. It will indeed stand the test of time and remain a bedrock of Budos lore.

The Budos Band EP tracklisting:
1. Hidden Hand
2. Mas O Menos
3. The Proposition
4. Ephra
5. Nobody’s Bulletproof
6. Smoke Gets In
7. Bonus Track

Pick up the album (in vinyl, mp3, or CD form) here.
DOWNLOAD “The Proposition” here

No Budos Band experience is complete without a live show. If you’re any where near the surrounding areas in the next couple of months, make sure to check them out!

UPCOMING BUDOS BAND TOUR DATES
Jul 24 New York, NY @ Central Park Summer Stage (w/Bettye LaVette)
Jul 28 Buffalo, NY @ University at Buffalo South Campus
Aug 11 New York, NY @ City Winery
Aug 13 Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Aug 14 Asheville, NC @ Harvest Records 5 Year Anniversary

Artist: The Budos Band
Album: The Budos Band EP
Label: Daptone Records
Street Date: June 23, 2009
mp3: “The Proposition”
 
 
CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace | Website

Adam Goldberg, aka LANDy, is releasing his debut album, Eros and Omissions, today! For all Angelenos, LANDy will also be playing this Thursday, June 25, at the Regent Theater.

Jun 25 Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent Theater

Download the mp3 for “BFF!” here, and watch the video below.

 
“BFF!”

Artist: LANDy
Album: Eros and Omissions
Label: Apology Music
Street Date: June 23, 2009
mp3: “BFF!”
 
 
CONNECT: World’s Fair | MySpace Website