Open Bar With Wildbirds & Peacedrums

It wasn’t so long ago that the weather was mild and birds were chirping and we were able to prop open the door at Heathers Bar for every East Village resident to peep in and witness the goodness that is Open Bar.  During the last days of that warm window, Wildbirds & Peacedrums stopped in during their short trip over from Sweden.  They were toting a foreign instrument called a “Guzheng” (or “thumb piano” for the less-learned) that had purty colors on it.  Resident bartender/filmmaker extraordinaire Amy Von Harrington guested on the camera work.  Enjoy this video, kids, because we’re officially shutting the door today and turning on the radiator.

Open Bar With Kurt Vile (Pt. 2)

This was FADER TV’s second time filming Kurt Vile (the first being Party in the Pines), and we’ve concluded that it is impossible to make this guy look anything short of badass.  He could do his taxes and we would watch it.  But instead, we had the good fortune of seeing him play some new tracks off of Childish Prodigy at Heathers Bar the day before the album was released.  And like some strange hybrid between Eddie Vedder and Farrah Fawcett, Kurt managed to simultaneously make us swoon and wonder what kind of conditioner he uses. Watch part one, then watch part two, in which Vile performs “Slow Talkers” and “Blackberry Song”—this time with less eye contact. art one

Open Bar With Kurt Vile Pt. 1

This was FADER TV’s second time filming Kurt Vile (the first being Party in the Pines), and we’ve concluded that it is impossible to make this guy look anything short of badass.  He could do his taxes and we would watch it.  But instead, we had the good fortune of seeing him play some new tracks off of Childish Prodigy at Heathers Bar the day before the album was released.  And like some strange hybrid between Eddie Vedder and Farrah Fawcett, Kurt managed to simultaneously make us swoon and wonder what kind of conditioner he uses.  Listen to “He’s Alright” here, and stay tuned for a few more songs on Monday.

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Open Bar With The Cave Singers

Certain bands sing songs that make you want to live inside them instead of listen to them. The Cave Singers—who have a new record out on Matador—is a band that excels at making liveable songs, singer Pete Quirk’s voice full of craggy hooks you can huddle up and stay warm in. This video is under four minutes, so its not like you really have time to crack a tall can and relax like you can with the entire record, but you can drink extra fast and feel like you were right there with all of us at Heathers Bar. Plus it’s an excuse to watch this a bunch of times and drink beers at your desk in the middle of the afternoon without feeling bad about it. It’s all about the experience. Also drinking.

Open Bar With Foreign Born

When Los Angeles-based Foreign Born rolled through Heathers on a sloppy-hot NYC day last week, they’d just finished a whirlwind Northwest tour.  They had a few beers, broke out some pretty haggard looking instruments and told us tour bummers, like having their van searched for drugs by West Texas cops.  They also, with the exception of singer Matt Popieluch, did not remove their sunglasses once, which is either a cause or effect of the fuzz hassles. We may never know.

Here they are playing “Early Warnings,” just one of the many feel-good numbers from their recent album Person To Person.

Open Bar With Jack Peñate

Without being disparaging to Jack Peñate and his very polite (and fairly well-attired) band, we did not expect their new album, Everything is New, to hit quite so hard. A mix of wing-tipped, buzz fueled Brit rock of the seventies like the Buzzcocks and the more self-conscious aggression of Bloc Party or TV on the Radio, they made a very punchy rock record. So when we invited them down to Heathers Bar to play a couple songs for us, it was unsurprising that (in the rain! just before their flight home!) they blazed through with a loud vigor just as fiery as they’d been at their show the night before.

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FADER TV: Open Bar with Amazing Baby

First of all, Amazing Baby are about to tour with Phoenix, which will probably incite a bunch of unnamed FADER editors to scream like teenage girls at the front of the audience at the New York show next week. But prior to that, the band came through Heathers for an Open Bar session which includes a gentle rendition of “Headdress,” fake mustaches, some mid-afternoon beers and an acoustic bass. You really know a band has made it when they have an acoustic bass. Seriously. When was the last time you saw one of those?

FADER TV: Open Bar with Deer Tick

John McCauley of Deer Tick showed up about 45 minutes late for his Open Bar session at Heathers, sounding ragged, hungover and about 50 years older than he actually is. He covered John Cougar Mellencamp and about midway through it was like the hangover completely disappeared. When “Easy” the first single from Born on Flag Day (out June 23rd) was released, we were hesitant to say that the band had any kind of stadium rock future, but watching this video, seeing McCauley go from barely there haze to focused has us fully believing.

FADER TV: Open Bar with Julie Doiron + Fred Squire

It’s not really a coincidence that we’ve been jamming Eric’s Trip records lately, considering Trip member Julie Doiron has been enjoying a sort of musical renaissance, recording Lost Wisdom with Mount Eerie and Fred Squire and releasing I Can Wonder What You Did with Your Day on Jagjaguwar in March. We had Doiron and Squire come to Heathers Bar one late afternoon to perform “Blue.” She played guitar with a tiny amp while Squire occasionally brushed a muted drum and cymbal. It was something between her old lo-fi power pop and her new heartbreakingly stoic electric folk, and a perfect accompaniment for that glass of red wine just chilling on the bar.

FADER TV: Open Bar with Akron/Family

On Akron/Family’s website there is a list all of the band’s upcoming tour dates. Above that list in all capital letters it says TAPERS WELCOME. It’s the kind of communal experience that we have no problem getting behind, especially after hanging with the band at Heathers bar for the newest installment of our Open Bar series. Just off their previous tour with only a short respite before the next one, their voices ragged and exhausted, they performed “Woodie Guthrie’s America.” If we weren’t already taping it, we totally would have bootlegged it. Akron/Family’s Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free is out May 5th on Dead Oceans.

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