From this post on, until I begin generating new content, I will be posting pieces I have published in other newspapers, magazines, websites, etc. The date of the publication will be attached in the title.

By Patrick Bowman

Chicago garage-glam rockers The Smith Westerns played Gooski’s back room last September, armed only with ’60s-pop harmonies, snarling distortion and youthful abandon. The set was lightning fast and practically on fire, breaking through the smoky haze of Pittsburgh’s consummate neighborhood bar like a brick thrown through a window in a fit of teen-age anomie.

The show, like most on the Gooski’s stage, was under the radar but urgent, coming quick on the heels of the group’s self-titled debut LP, released late last July. The album attracted the taste-making music elite (including Gorilla Vs. Bear and Pitchfork) and perfectly captured 2009′s love affair with lo-fi intensity in 10 tracks.

Songs like “Girl in Love” and “Diamond Boys” ooze with glam rock’s brash sexuality while betraying a gauche, youthful anxiety. This isn’t a gimmick; at the time of the album’s release all four members of The Smith Westerns were between the ages of 17 and 19. That balance of adolescent urge and knowing desire informs the album’s most indelible cut, “Be My Girl,” a track that struts with Marc Bolan’s bravura before erupting into the subtle-as-a-sledgehammer chorus.

The Smith Westerns are on the radar now, and on yet another national tour, which visits Brillobox on Wed., March 31. They’re ready to put an arrow through your sister’s heart, flaunting the reckless love of 17 like it was going out of style.

The Smith Westerns bring glam-garage to Brillobox – PGH City Paper 3/25/10

Brandishing a fully developed folk-pop sensibility and technical acumen that would put many groups to shame, Maps & Atlases have cultivated a sound that is both intricate and inviting, incorporating swirling pieces of mathy percussion, rubbery guitar work and head spinning harmonies that slowly evolves into the post-rock equivalent of Fleet Foxes.

Their 2010 release Perch Patchwork stands as the group’s most assured document of their fully formed aesthetic, surpassing 2008′s You Me and the Mountain EP in terms of accessibility and pure catchiness.  Patchwork’s best tracks teetering between the wistful joy of contemporary folk and off-kilter harmonies and time signatures. “The Charm” quakes and buzzes before ascending into a whirlwind wall of industrial percussion, allowing lead singer Dave Davison to soar with venom, reciting lines like “I don’t think there is a sound that I hate more,/than the sound of your own voice,” and “after all, you felt so small, it is hard.”

“Pigeon” bounces back and forth on the legs of an elastic guitar piece before breaking down into an island infused sway, complete with kettle drums and a horn section; ”Solid Ground” again allows Davison a quiet gateway before splashing down into the prog-folk of the track’s final two-thirds. Maps & Atlases are consumed by crafting whirling dervishes of composition, cyclically generating momentum from heady percussion and Davison’s rousing croon until every plate is spinning on a stick, carefully balanced and wavering only slightly.  The live show should be a sight to behold.

Maps & Atlases – The Charm

Maps & Atlases – “Pigeon”

Bonnie Prince Oldham gives a folk at the Warhol this Saturday

Tuesday, August 17
- Maps & Atlases w/Cults @ Brillobox
Maps & Atlases – Solid Ground

Cults – Go Outside

- Redman & Method Man @ Altar
Method Man & Redman – City Lights

Wednesday, August 18
- Cave @ Gooski’s
Cave – Gamm

Friday, August 20
- Lohio, Blah Blah Blah, Karate Coyote, Boca Chica @ Brillobox
Lohio – Waiting for the End of the Summertime

Boca Chica – Minneapolis

Saturday, August 21
- Bonnie Prince Billie @ Andy Warhol Museum
Bonnie Prince Billy – The Way

The room was thick with a haze of… something: irritation, excitement, the collective heat of the city’s black top… I’m not sure. In the middle of this indecipherable urban cloud,  We Are Scientists managed to put on a show that hit pleasure centers I either forgot about or didn’t know I have, transplanting me back to 2003 (my senior year ofof high school) when the sound of New York (Interpol, The Strokes, The Rapture) was literally everywhere.  The thrashing baselines, stomping percussion and ringing guitars of the Brooklyn three-piece coalesced into a slick, indie-disco shit storm, making the heat of August in Pittsburgh, for one moment at least, an integral piece to a seriously fun night.

The indie rock veterans plowed through highlights from their discography with a palpable energy, tightness and charisma as lead singer Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain curated the show like a hipster vaudeville team. A lick-heavy bass, guitar and drums were enough to turn the tides of room into a dance party, with Cain routinely waltzing into the crowd to slap his funky riffs amidst the sweaty t-shirts and fogged up glasses of audience members, even prompting one woman to lick the side of his mustachioed face.

All the group’s hits made appearances: With Love and Squalor’s “The Great Escape,” Barbara’s “Nice Guys,” “I Don’t Bite” and curiously named “Pittsburgh,” Brain Thrust Mastery’s “Dinosaurs” (as the set’s searing opener), “Impatience” and a rousing, faux-encore inducing rendition of  ”After Hours.”

“After Hours,”  as hoped, hit hardest, rounding out the set as arguably WAS’s greatest track. The high-level gloss of the song’s soaring chorus and composition is so compelling even the most jaded indie rock fans sit up and take notice.  The “eternal night” lyrics don’t exactly hurt either, capping off an unexpected last push toward Monday with undiluted amounts of fun.  Basically, We Are Scientists surprised the hell of out me, giving my weekend a much welcomed third wind and reminding me that the dog days of summer are too fun to ignore.

We Are Scientists – “After Hours”

We Are Scientists – Pittsburgh

Chapel Hill natives Polvo pretty much set the standard for the indie off-shoot known as math rock for the better part of a decade.  And while many purveyors of the genre became wrapped up in increasingly intricate and progressive compositions solely because of their difficulty and inaccessibility (as Pittsburgh legends Don Caballero can attest), Polvo managed to infuse even their most complicated songs with the primal, free-wheeling energy of classic hard rock.

Their 2009 release In Prism was their first in twelve years, but clearly showed the Merge stawlwarts had yet to miss a beat. While the release had all of the genre’s signifiers intact (alternative guitar tunings, jacked up time signatures, eight minute plus tracks), present was an atmosphere of loose improvisation and spacey,  psychedelic expansion. Regardless, the show the this Thursday at the Brillobox plans to be quite the head trip with these pioneers of math rock still capable of melting faces and local rockers The Ceiling Stares and new comers Broughton’s Rules filling out the bill.

Polvo – Beggar’s Bow

Polvo comes to the Brillobox this Thursday with The Ceiling Stares

Plan Your Week Accordingly: August 9 to August 15

Monday August 9
- mewithoutYou with Murder By Death @ Mr. Small’s
mewithoutYou – Timothy Hay

Murder by Death – Foxglove

Thursday August 12
- Polvo with The Ceiling Stares, Broughton Rules @  Brillobox
Polvo – Beggar’s Bowl

- Horse Feathers @ Club Cafe
Horse Feathers – Blood on the Snow

Sunday August 15
We Are Scientists with Bad Veins, Satin Gum @ Brillobox
We Are Scientists – Pittsburgh

Bad Veins – Gold And Warm

Built to Spill

For the Week of July 26 through August 1st:

Wednesday July 28
Legowelt @ Brillobox (sponsored by Garfield Artworks)

Friday July 30
Bear Cub, Chad Stipes Stereo & Triggers @ Brillobox
The Triggers – Ready Or Not

Kaiser Cartel @ Schenley Plaza
Kaiser Cartel – Ready To Go

Sunday August 1
Built to Spill @ Mr. Small’s
Built to Spill – Goin’ Against Your Mind

Yo La Tengo @ Hartwood Acres
Yo La Tengo – Beanbag Chair

For the Week of July 19 – 25:

Tuesday, July 20
- The Flaming Lips & Fang Island @ The Amphitheater at Station Square

Flaming Lips – Worm Mountain

Fang Island – Daisy

Wednesday, July 21
- Rogue Wave @ Andy Warhol Museum

Rogue Wave – Solitary Gun

Thursday, July 22
- Hammer No More The Fingers @ Garfield Artworks

Hammer No More the Fingers – Nobody Knows

Friday, July 23
- Lightning Bolt @ Belvedere’s (sponsored by Garfield Artworks)

Lightning Bolt – Colossus

If you really think about it, the chances of any concert in a smaller club (like the Brillobox with its 150-250 capacity)  featuring three bands of consequence on the same bill are undeniably slim.  And while I understand “bands of consequence” is a subjective term, I feel safe in stating my opinion that the show Opus One Productions lined up for the Brillobox this coming Saturday is packed, literally packed, with talent.

Neon Indian (a.k.a. Alan Palomo – primary torchbearer for the whole chillwave movement whether he likes it or not) brings his national tour through Pittsburgh for the first time in his young career supported by the two extremely promising up and coming bands: Wild Nothing and Light Pollution, both of which have released their debut full-lengths in the past two weeks.

It’s an intriguging lineup considering Palomo is inching his way toward the indie mainstream (which included a stint as Jimmy Fallon’s lapdog for a hot minute), Wild Nothing’s debut album Gemini was recently anointed “Best New Music” status by Pitchfork a week ago and Light Pollution’s Apparitions dropped this past Tuesday supported by their fever dream of a video for their track “Drunk Kids” that’s been making the rounds on the interwebs since Monday.  What I’m trying to say is this: the show has a ton of well deserved hype surrounding it, and with the potential to kill from start to finish, I doubt it will disappoint. Tracks after the jump.

Palomo and his pseudonym Neon Indian have been riding waves of adoration since Psychic Chasams made scores of top ten lists for 2009.  ”Deadbeat Summer” along with Washed Out’s “Feel it All Around” basically set the template for the glo-fi genre: layers of analog synthesizers and drum machines, gauzy production and vocals, and so much 80′s nostalgia you had to brush it away from your face. “Deadbeat” in particular encapsulated the summer of 2009 with its opening synth line alone; a distorted, warped organ riff that sounds like a melted Erasure tape that’s been stuck in the dash of your mom’s Volvo since 1986.  His latest single “Sleep Paralysist” cleans up some of the murkier production methods, but still has the new wave/analog disco vibe stamped all over it.  Everything Palomo puts to tape can bump a dance floor, so let’s hope Brillo’s new black and white checkered tile on the second floor can take the punishment.

Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer

Virginia natives Wild Nothing embrace the 80′s unabashedly as well, churning out stunningly beautiful melancholy new wave richer in atmosphere than contemporaries Pains of Being Pure at Heart but less austere than the dance heavy Cold Cave. Gemini’s heart and soul lies with  ”Chinatown,” a wistful but robust getaway song that is ripe with longing without being urgent, “we’re not happy till we’re running away,” lead singer Jack Tatum croons, “clouds in your eyes.” It’s more of a daydream than an actual escape, and the fleeting nature of that illusion is palpable.  ”Summer Holiday” is the album’s  rocker, propelled by noodling guitar lines and a wordless harmonized chorus. It’s the hardest thing on Gemini, sure, but by the time the last verse arrives with only a baseline, handclaps and gorgeous ”Oooh’s” in the background, you’re once again grasping at ephemeral clouds of vapor.

Wild Nothing – Chinatown

Last but not least, Chicago’s Light Pollution take all that hazy atmosphere of 80′s nostalgia and filter it through The Arcade Fire’s sense of theatrical statement, pushing aside the cloudy puffs of synth to charge forward with anthemic choruses and rousing percussion.  Apparitions’ side one, track one ”Good Feelings” does this exactly, beginning with an ambient interlude of  distant keyboards and spiraling acoustics before splashing down with base drum hits and crescendos of electric guitars.  The grandeur is sincere and earned rather than melodramatic, which is a refreshing change of pace from the current slew of new-new wave’s stifling insouciance.  ”Oh, Ivory” picks apart the mid-tempo new wave of the Cure’s Disintegration, opting again for a larger than life finale that delivers on it grand promise.

Light Pollution – Good Feelings

If you can’t tell already, I’m excited about this show.  And while I’m convinced Wild Nothing and Light Pollution will bring the goods, a headlining Neon Indian’s walloping drum machine smashes are poised to crush the whole damn thing.  Bring your dancing shoes for Saturday night, I swear you will need them.

Just as the post-holiday, winter doldrums, snowy-cold malaise begins to truly take hold, the exhilarating prospect of a new year worth of quality shows begins to materialize.  None more promising than the solid line up the Brillobox has ready for Saturday as Pitchfork darlings Bear in Heaven make a mid winter pit stop in the steel city along with orchestral pop manufacturers Freelance Whales, and local scene mainstays Mariage Blanc.

While there really isn’t a shortage of shows across the city, there does seem to be a shortage of quality national tours making there way through the northeast, mid-Atlantic, and rust-belt regions that would make Pittsburgh a target. Regardless, the next few months seem to be heating up concert wise (can you say St.Vincent at Diesel on the 21st of February), and Saturday’s show is a great place to start.  Tracks and write ups after the jump.

Bear in Heaven – Lovesick Teenagers

Bear In Heaven takes the spartan, marching synth lines of Krautrock and runs it through a contemporary indie-prog filter, formulating a sound that can shimmer with chemically enhanced harmonies while harboring nihilistic undertones.  The group’s latest Beast Rest Forth Mouth is a bit of an opus, cashing in on highlights like “Lovesick Teenagers” and the simmering coda “Casual Goodbye.” I’m expecting a lot, this concert has a chance to be epic even within the friendly confines of the Brillobox’s second floor. Sound tech guy, don’t let me down.

Freelance Whales – Generator ^ 2nd Floor

Freelance Whales are cut from an entirely different cloth, starting with their indie folk by way of world music, not unlike the sound that Devotchka became known for, incorporating harmoniums, banjos, glockenspiels, synthesizers and waterphones while crafting waltz-like compositions.  The Queens, NY natives have released their latest album Weathervanes online, with the physical LP coming on March 16.  “Generator ^ 2nd Floor” is a great example of the band’s strengths, especially lead singer Judah Dadone’s voice that has a youthful but cunning tone, polished and ready to impress.

Mariage Blanc – Contrary to Popular Belief