Fader

On each episode of FADER TV's LA Is A Nice Place To Live, the West Coast staff takes in some of the city's culture and fun good times. For this episode, we caught up with Abe Vigoda at their homecoming show at The Smell with Vivian Girls and Love Is All. During a break from eating pizza, they talked about their recent stint on Diplo's Mad Decent tour and their recent move to Los Angeles from the Inland Empire suburb of Chino. It's a good thing we interviewed them before their set, we think they killed our camera's mic.

Through intense internet sleuthing (looking at MySpace), we've discovered that tonight's super extra secret musical guests at Secret Robot Project's Art Makes Eye Contact week in Williamsburg are no other than FADER 37 cover stars Love Is All and FADER 55 feature subject Abe Vigoda. There have been parties all week at Secret Robot to for the exhibit, but this is an especially good reason to put your best ratty sneakers and v-neck tee on and head down there. After your done listening to music, try to buy some art, as sales benefit Transformazium, whose mission it to use the "creative process and locally identified resources to transform ideas into tangible social and economic benefits. Our collaborative arts programming and skill-building workshops connect communities stratified by class, race and age and expand upon existing community networks and resources, while rendering models of possibility for other post-industrial cities." See the exhibit poster and more pertinent info after the jump. more...

A couple weeks ago Brooklyn fairy godfather Todd P organized a massive mid-summer party at The Yard, a lovely greenspace on the shores of the gonorrheic Gowanus Canal (Oh shit! Gowanorrhea!), with performances by many FADER favorites such as Oneida, High Places, Shy Child, Crystal Antlers, Ponytail, Telepathe, Vivian Girls, Abe Vigoda, Soft Circle, Soiled Mattress and the Springs and Chairlift. We asked Todd if we could bring our video camera, and of course he said yes. We edited the nine or so hours down to several easily-digested minutes with performances by Ponytail, Crystal Antlers, Vivian Girls, Telepathe and Shy Child. Catch the virulent experience only on FADER TV.

On Sunday F55 featured artists Abe Vigoda played at FADER editor Matthew Schnipper's apartment after the furniture and heirloom rug were moved out of the way. There were mimosas and bagels and some dudes who drove from California in a 4Runner playing songs from their new album, Skeleton. We spoke to them and other attendees of the tiny show. Special thank you to Dan McGinley for assistance with the equipment.

Before you check them out live, read Matthew Schnipper's feature story from our Summer Music issue after the jump. more...

We didn’t go see FADER 55ers Abe Vigoda in Baltimore on Wednesday. We almost did, but couldn’t and were burned pretty bad by it. Instead we sat in our apartment and angrily housed Chinese delivery and thought about what we would be doing if we were there and it sucked. But thanks to some guy named Jeff Mewbourn and Aural States, their whole set is available online, so we can go home and put it on real loud and maybe invite some people over and pretend it’s three days ago and we’re in Baltimore. Or not, because that would be really pathetic and we can just go see them for real tonight at South Street Seaport (with No Age and Telepathe) or tomorrow at The Yard (with High Places and basically every other band ever) or Sunday at Mercury Lounge and it’ll be way more awesome.

Stream or Download: Abe Vigoda Live in Baltimore

Now that summer's here and you've read our totally conveniently released (and titled) summer music issue, you're probably looking for some music to listen to while you eat ice cream in the park or ride the train in the evening. Well, crack the windows wherever you are, because we've got heaters upon heaters upon heaters contained within this podcast. Including the music of polar opposite, yet both awesome cover stars Estelle and Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Crookers' over the top club music, the new NYC hitmakers Sean C & LV and Ryan Leslie, the dark pop of Abe Vigoda, cumbia's new low-fi dance scene and a solid selection of Gen Fs, including Whalebones, Windsurf, 77Klash and a lot more.

Download the FADER 55 mix as an mp3 (right click, save as)
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Check the tracklist after jump. more...

You know what's awesome? Seeing Abe Vigoda play on a half pipe in the middle of a warehouse in the conveniently named Warehouse District in LA. Equally awesome is that we were drinking complimentary Bass Ale the whole time and wandering around from the floor to the back yard (shout to the bonfire at the warehouse next door). Also, they were grilled cheese sandwiches and the now infamous-in-some-circles Cali Dewitt and Jenna Thornhill of Mika Miko manning the turntables and playing us some epic jams. Check out a few photos of the event after the jump. more...

Look at that photo for a minute. Let its stillness sink into your brain and calm you. Take that calm to the 6th Street Warehouse tomorrow night and place it somewhere where the sun doesn't shine because Abe Vigoda is going to blast heatwaves of radness all over you. Actually they're just going to jam like crazy for our Issue 53 party, but their shows can get pretty crazy so that photo is sort of misleading. White Dog bka Cali Dewitt and Mika Miko's Jenna Thornhill will also be DJing, and they are really cool. And, if it's where you bread is buttered, Bass Ale will be freely flowing. All you have to do RSVP here and find a car to share or bike to ride because it's Earth Day, the one day when we have to think about stuff like that.

There are few things consistently good in our lives. Here they are:
1. Ten dollar haircut every three weeks to a month.
2. That scene from Dude Where's My Car? when he says "I know your body."
3. Cape Cod
4. Scrabble (we're pretty good, we made "bossing" this weekend. Bingo!)
5. Abe Vigoda
We can't post about #1-4 very often, so we have to pour our collective joy into posts about Abe Vigoda. One year ago today we posted their video for "All Night and Day" and to celebrate the 365 nights and days since then, today we are posting it again. Happy birthday post. It's been a weird year.

Remember when we posted Abe Vigoda's "Animal Ghosts" nine and a half months ago? (Long enough for a baby to gestate and then be born half a month). Because we kind of remembered but not that much but then—lo, hark, whatever—20jazzfunkgreats put up the mp3 and we remembered on some repressed memory type shit (deep Law and Order style [we see you Dick Wolf {we see you in line at the bank cashing syndication checks}]). Okay, go open that dealie in a new window and come back here. Okay because listen to the first five seconds: first time the riff goes through it's dude guitar on the beach alone, then it's riffing with your buddy in the Bahamas on Spring Break with two guitars. And then the drums come in. They could have started with the drums flat blasting but they warm you to the loop, seed the jam tangle so it don't get lost and it doesn't and the whole time the song is going you are going nerr nerr nerr nerr nerr nah and it is because of those five seconds, we promise. And numberoonie dos, (if these are the lyrics), at one minute 47 secs dude says "I love my life" once and then after says "I like my life" eight times. What happened between for one love to turn immediately into eight likes? Actually if that isn't the lyrics don't tell us because that kind of western punk mystery is conundrum brain fuel keep goingness.

Back in July when we talked to them after a show in Brooklyn, the dudes in Abe Vigoda were still just talking about all the new poppier and cleaner tropicali punk they were working on, but now, thanks to RCRD LBL, we are hearing it. "Dead City/Waste Wilderness," aside from being a perfect description of downtown LA and its environs, is even better than we hoped it would be, a rollicking and uplifting revision of punk and experimentation that could've only, seemingly come from The Smell.

Download: Abe Vigoda, "Dead City Waste Wilderness"