Now Streaming: New CDs from Everest, Echo Lake, A Place to Bury Strangers, & More

There aren't a whole lot of new albums streaming online this week, but there are releases by some veteran artists and much-anticipated CDs by newer acts. Among the latter are albums by L.A.'s Everest (chosen by Neil Young to be one of his openers), British band Echo Lake, and New York's own A Place to Bury Strangers, as well as the quirky and captivating California singer-songwriter Jesca Hoop.

(Sadly, the drummer for Echo Lake, Pete Hayes, died last week, which is not only a devastating personal loss for the band but a huge professional setback for a band that was ramping up to tour in support of its debut album.)


A Place to Bury Strangers performing at a recent show in Newcastle.

A few veteran artists are back in the game with new releases, too: Everclear, They Might Be Giants, The Offspring, Blues Traveler, and Joe Jackson, whose new album contain his interpretations of classic Duke Ellington songs.

Also streaming is a star-studded tribute album to guitarist/singer/songwriter Rainer Ptacek, who died in 1997. I'm not familiar with his work, but this collection (which was originally released before he died) has contributions by a great collection of singer-songwriters including Evan Dando, Emmylou Harris, John Wesley Harding, Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, and Chuck Prophet, as well as artists teaming up with Ptacek himself.

Dive in and enjoy!

Spinner.com's Listening Party:
"Wild Peace" by Echo Lake
"Ownerless" by Everest
"The House That Jack Built" by Jesca Hoop
"Invisible Stars" by Everclear
"Worship" by A Place to Bury Strangers
"Days Go By" by The Offspring
"No!" by They Might Be Giants
"The Tarnished Gold" by Beachwood Sparks
"The Duke" by Joe Jackson
"The Inner Flame: A Tribute to Rainer Ptacek" by various artists

AOL Music Listening Party: 
"Suzie Cracks the Whip" by Blues Traveler
"Mindy Smith" by Mindy Smith
"The Science of Making Choices" by Mieka Pauley
"Old Believers" by Cory Chisel and the Wandering Sons

Free Concerts this Weekend: Punk Island, Alabama Shakes, Real Estate, & More

Now that the crazy midsummer heat and humidity (and the thunderstorms) have cleared out, it's time to see some great concerts—and there are plenty to free ones to choose from. Sunday alone has a veritable embarrassment of riches, in terms of free music.

(Of course there are also any number of paid concerts going on, one the most tempting being the Metallica-curated Orion Music & More Festival in Atlantic City. And tickets still seem to be available, according to the website. (If you can't make it to AC, watch the Orion Festival webcast, which will be streaming certain sets. See the link for details.)

And whoops, I forgot: this is also the weekend for the Governor's Ball on Randall's Island, featuring Fiona Apple, Beck, Passion Pit, Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Explosions in the Sky, and Santigold, among others.

After the video below, a look at some of the top free shows this weekend.


Ridgewood, NJ's Real Estate plays a free show in its hometown Sunday night.

* The Wood Brothers and Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis play the "Summer On the Oval" series at the Stuyvesant Town Oval (252 1st Avenue) at 3 p.m. Saturday. This is a high-powered lineup of roots music, with brothers Chris and Oliver Wood (the former is a founding member of Medeski Martin & Wood) and the husband-and-wife country duo of Robison and Willis. The series is open to residents of Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town and their guests, though I'm guessing you can hear the music from adjacent streets? (If anybody knows for sure, please leave a comment below.)

* Governor's Island once again becomes a self-contained world of all things punk rock with the return of Punk Island. More than 60 bands will perform starting at 12 Noon and running till midnight. It's all outdoors, all ages, and all free. Here's a partial list of the confirmed acts (see stage schedule here):

Sworn Enemy * Two-Man Advantage * Wombat in Combat * Panzie * Bucket Flush * The Scutches * InCircles * Hostile Times * Fried Chicken & Gasoline * The Nihilistics * Barons of Tang * World War IX * Cultivator * The Will * (A) Truth * Skum City * All New Episode * Praxis

* Alabama Shakes, Diamond Rugs, and Robert Ellis play SummerStage in Central Park at 3 p.m. Alabama Shakes has gained a lot of new fans through its sizzling live performances, and earlier this year finally came out with an album. This show is sure to attract a big crowd, so get to the Park early. And follow SummerStage on Twitter the day of the show to get updates on how the line's moving, etc.

* Real Estate, Toasted Plastic, and Spook Houses play an outdoor show in Real Estate's hometown of Ridgewood, NJ on Sunday night at 7 p.m. The concert takes place at the Kasschau Memorial Shell in Graydon Park (see map), which is near the intersection of North Maple Ave. and Linwood Ave. W. There are NJ Transit buses to Ridgewood from NYC, and Graydon Park isn't too far from the Ridgewood train station (you can get a cab there if you don't feel like walking.) Thanks to MySociaList.com for the heads-up on this gig.

Free Concerts: Madison Square Park and RiverRocks (Pier 84)

Here's information on two very different free-music series going on in NYC this summer, the Mad. Sq. Music series and the RiverRocks concerts at Pier 84.


Bettye LaVette plays Madison Square Park on Aug. 8th.

* Mad. Sq. Music features roots music on the lawn on Wednesday nights (usually), from June 20th to August 8th (oops, I'm writing this too late for the first show).

• June 27th, 6:30 p.m.: Gretchen Parlato and Gregory Porter (jazz vocalists)
• July 4th, 3 p.m.: Noam Pikelny and Friends, The Sweetback Sisters, and Spuyten Duyvil (folk/roots music)
• July 11th, 7 p.m.: Nellie McKay (pop)
• July 18th, 7 p.m.: Jeff "Tain" Watts Quartet (jazz)
• July 25th, 7 p.m.: Regina Carter’s “Reverse Thread” (jazz)
• Aug. 1st, 6:30 p.m.: An evening with Suzzy and Maggie Roche, Sloan Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche (folk)
• Aug. 8th, 7 p.m.: Bettye LaVette (blues)

* RiverRocks, whose concerts skew towards indie artists, is once again limited to a small number of shows (three), but it has a good lineup of popular, in-demand acts. Shows take place Thursday nights at Pier 84 (Hudson River at 44th Street).

• July 12th, 6 p.m.: Dan Deacon and John Maus
• July 26th, 6 p.m.: Oberhofer and The Soft Pack
• Aug. 9th, 6 p.m.: Wild Nothing, Grimes, and DIIV (formerly Dive)

Now Streaming: New CDs from Smashing Pumpkins, Hacienda, Kate Miller-Heidke, & More

The '90s may be long gone, but Smashing Pumpkins are back with a new album, "Oceania," and it's one of the new releases available for online streaming this week. While the band has been gone, it's been influencing a number of younger musicians (which can be heard most clearly in Silversun Pickups). And frontman Billy Corgan has worked on a number of projects, including a previous Pumpkins reunion.

Listen to Smashing Pumpkins' new "Oceania" at Spinner this week.

So how does "Oceania" measure up against classic Pumpkins works of the past? Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune says in his review that it "adds up to Corgan's best work since the '90s."

What else is streaming this week? Kate Miller-Heidke (famous for "Are You Ready?," a hit that was also used in commercials for the New York Lottery) is back with her new album, "Nightflight." The San Antonio band Hacienda (which opened for The Duke Spirit last Saturday at Highline Ballroom), is streaming its new album, "Shakedown," which they created with help from Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys.

There's "The Tarnished Gold," the first album in more than a decade by the band Beachwood Sparks. And for jazz fans, the prolific Henry Threadgill and his current band Zooid are back with a new release that's streaming this week. (You'll find some background on the album and on Threadgill here from NPR, and from a story they did on him in 2010.)

As always, the Spinner and AOL Music websites offer many more selections than those listed here; visit the links below to browse all the choices.

NPR First Listen:
"The Tarnished Gold" by Beachwood Sparks
"Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp" by Henry Threadgill Zooid

Spinner.com's Listening Party:
"Oceania" by Smashing Pumpkins
"Rhythm and Repose" by Glen Hansard
"Carry the Fire" by Delta Rae
"Tightrope Walker" by Maren Parusel
"New Look" by New Look
"Shakedown" by Hacienda

AOL Music Listening Party: 
"Nightflight" by Kate Miller-Heidke
"California" EP by Tamar Kaprelian

Free Concert Notes: River to River Festival Returns Sunday (Music Schedule)

The downtown River to River Festival is back starting on Sunday, and running until July 15th. Yes, once again River to River, which used to run all summer, will be a one-month series jam packed with multiple events almost every day. And, as always, all the events are free.

Eleanor Friedberger is one of the performers at River to River 2012.

River to River includes dance, art, and more, but naturally Podcast Party is squarely focused on the music. The venues include a range of sites, indoors and out, all over lower Manhattan (see links below for descriptions of artists and location of venues). You'll find the full River to River music schedule here, but below are most of the rock/pop highlights of the month-long free festival:

June
* Thurs., June 21st: Eddie Palmieri, Rockefeller Park, 7 p.m.
* Tues., June 26th: Suzanne Vega and Gabriel Kahane, Rockefeller Park, 7 p.m.
* Wed., June 27th: Emily Elbert, One Liberty Plaza, 12:30 p.m.
* Wed., June 27th: Third World, Rockefeller Park, 7 p.m.
* Fri., June 29th: Veronica Falls with The People's Temple, Pier 17, The Seaport, 7 p.m.
* Sat., June 30th: Ecstatic™ Summer: Roomful of Teeth with Merrill Garbus & William Brittelle and Judd Greenstein's The Yehudim, World Financial Center Plaza, 7 p.m.

July
* Mon., July 2nd: The Bridge to Broadway starring Rebecca Luker, Marin Mazzie, Matt Munisteri, Gretchen Parlato, Sachal Vasandani, and Tia Fuller, Rockefeller Park, Battery Park City, 7 p.m.
* Tues., July 3rd: Pakistani singer-songwriter Arieb Azhar, Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, 7:30 p.m.
* Thurs., July 5th: Megan Burtt & The Cure for Love, One New York Plaza, 12:30 p.m.
* Fri., July 6th: Patrick Watson with Loney Dear, Pier 17, The Seaport, 7 p.m.
* Tues., July 10th: Afro-Caribbean band Locos Por Juana, World Financial Center Plaza, 5:30 p.m.
* Tues., July 10th: Salsa legend La India with Aurora & Zon del Barrio, Rockefeller Park, 7 p.m.
* Wed., July 11th: Singer Ian Link, One Liberty Plaza, 12:30 p.m.
* Thurs., July 12th: George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, Rockefeller Park, 7 p.m.
* Fri., July 13th: Eleanor Friedberger with Ex Cops, Pier 17, The Seaport, 8 p.m.

For more details, see the River to River website. And for breaking word on cancellations or venue changes related to weather, follow River to River on Twitter at @R2RFestival.

Concert Notes: Brooklyn Northside Festival, Clearwater, & More This Week

It's going to be an absurdly full weekend of music in the New York area, and it starts early tomorrow with Laura Marling at Celebrate Brooklyn and the beginning of the Brooklyn Northside Festival. The dB's, who are reunited and back with a new album, play at Le Poisson Rouge on Friday. And there's another great free show on Saturday, when Dawes and Kurt Vile and the Violators play SummerStage in Central Park in the evening.

And there's a solid musical lineup at the Clearwater festival on the Hudson River in Westchester.


Holiday Surprise 1, 2, 3 by Olivia Tremor Control, which is playing the Northside Festival. 

* The music portion of the Northside festival runs from June 14th to 17th (there are also film, entrepreneurship, and art programs). On the slate are Brooklyn bands such as Dinosaur Feathers and A Million Years (who I was impressed by a couple years ago at the Union County [NJ] Festival), as well as national and international acts such as:

Asobi Seksu, Buke and Gass, Caveman, Exitmusic, the Felice Brothers, Grass Widow, GZA, Jens Lekman, Kitty Pryde, Leda, Of Montreal, The Olivia Tremor Control, ?uestlove, The Thermals, These United States, Tinariwen, and Widowspeak, among many others.

Having trouble picking what to see? Check out Free Williamsburg's choices for the best things to see at the Northside Festival. [Update: The Village Voice's "Sound of the City" column put up its guide to the top seven Northside concerts, with videos, on Thursday.]

It all kicks off Thursday at 7 p.m. On the following days, the music starts in the afternoon (4 p.m. on Friday; earlier on Saturday and Sunday). Find the complete Northside music schedule here, and get Northside badge and ticket information here.

* Clearwater's annual Hudson River Revival (Saturday and Sunday) has quite a strong musical lineup this year, with top-notch artists from the festival's traditional roots-oriented genres of folk/Americana, rock, blues, and more. Below are some of the highlights from each day. See the full Clearwater stage schedule here.

Saturday: 

Arlo and the Guthrie Family, Aoife O'Donovan, Donna the Buffalo, Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Joan Osborne and the Holmes Brothers, Forro in the Dark, Bela Fleck, Tom Chapin, Guy Davis, and Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Sunday:
Deer Tick, Ani DiFranco, David Wax Museum, Jose Conde, Martin Sexton, Alejandro Escovedo, Dawes, Loudon Wainwright III, Jill Sobule, The Klezmatics, Holly Near, Sara Watkins, Ollabelle, and Balkan Beat Box

I'm sure there's a festival or two that I've forgotten about; if I remember what they were I'll post info on them.