nyctaper

[photo courtesy of Steve/hightea]
I’ll admit to some trepidation about The National’s three-year break between albums. After 2005’s excellent Alligator, the band’s brilliant Boxer (2007) is perhaps the best album of the entire last decade. The National toured steadily throughout 2008, and played two of the best shows we saw that year, at BAM [...]

[screencap by Ian Perlman]
A day that would end with an excellent set at Maxwell’s did not start out so well for Cap’n Jazz and their fans. We arrived for the JellyNYC Pool Party at Williamsburg Waterfront while the dark clouds were closing in, and a few short minutes later the skies opened up. The move [...]

[photo by acidjack]
Its hard to believe that its been almost four years since The Flaming Lips have performed within the borders of NYC. That September 2006 concert at Hammerstein Ballroom had Deerhoof as the opening band, and featured much of the then-new At War with the Mystics album. While Monday night’s show at [...]

[Photos courtesy of Jonny Leather]
Our friend Jonny Leather has been putting on well-rounded and uniformly excellent showcase shows for awhile now, and we were pleased to have the chance to cover another of them last Friday night at Littlefield.  As Jonny’s shows often do, this show spotlighted some bands from outside New York; in this [...]

[screencap by Ian Perlman]
The Cap’n Jazz reunion tour came to NYC on Sunday and the band rewarded their patient fans by playing two shows in a matter of about six hours. The late show at Maxwell’s began at about 11 p.m., at the end of a day where their early show planned for the [...]

[Moon Duo performing at the Woodsist Fest in Big Sur.  Photos courtesy of Chris Juarez]
Moon Duo may be from San Francisco, but their sound most clearly references a famed New York City band, the 1970s art-punk duo Suicide.  Featuring Sanae Yamada and Erik “Ripley” Johnson, best known for his work as guitarist for the Wooden [...]

[screencap by Eric Horn]
The third session of the Backyard Brunch series moved indoors and began with an opening set by Courtesy Tier (here). The featured band was Person L, which is the newest musical project from Kenny Vasoli, who spent ten years as the lead singer of the popular major label pop-punk band The [...]

[photo by Abby Resko - more here]
In 2008, Deer Tick appeared three times on nyctaper. As the leader of the trio, John McCauley was always an engaging presence and it was hard not to both root for Deer Tick’s success and predict its inevitable realization. Now two years down the road, Deer Tick [...]

[photo by Johnny]
I first saw Heartless Bastards about a year and a half ago when they opened for The Black Keys and was pretty blown away.  Since then, I’ve been waiting (somewhat impatiently, I’ll admit) for them to return to NYC with their indie-garage rock-blues amalgam and headline their own show.  My wish was granted [...]

[Photo by CharlieTakesPhotos.  See his Flickr stream here]
Los Angeles-based Fol Chen made a perfect opening act for Liars at this packed Sunday night show back in April at Music Hall of Williamsburg.  Though Liars’ style may be a bit heavier, both bands play music that treads outside the boundaries of normal song structure and typical [...]