Video: Vivian Girls, “When I’m Gone”

In a lot of ways, this is the perfect video for “When I’m Gone,” the mission statement/first single from Vivian Girls‘ sophomore LP Everything Goes Wrong. It’s a simple, stripped down video that mirrors the simple, stripped down song, relying mainly on blinding sunlight, an empty house and the band’s ability to turn what basically amounts to a high in the mix bassline and deadpan vocals into a crushing sense of regret and longing. Good job guys! (via P4K)

The Babies, “Meet Me in the City” MP3

Besides having one of the greatest band names ever (why has anyone never thought of this before?) the side project of Cassie from Vivian Girls and Kevin from Woods (not the Traveling Wilburys or anything, but respectable) is a perfect dollop of garage pop: simple, sweet, raucous, overdriven, karaoke-able, vaguely screamy, encapsulating some archetypal “cool kids hanging out” image (meet me downtowwnnn!) and over before you get a chance to miss it. Or, as their MySpace puts it, “sounds like: road sodas.” Yeah let’s rent a car and drive to Sonic for some cherry lime rickeys before summer dies.



Download: The Babies, “Meet Me in the City” (via White Guys with Beards)

At The Bar With Southern Comfort: Vivian Girls, “Telepathic Love”

The FADER is proud to present the second episode in our series, At The Bar With Southern Comfort, in which we travel to some of our favorite new bands’ hometowns (or as near as we can get) and film them covering some of their favorite bands’ best songs. We asked New Jersey’s Vivian Girls to meet us at a beach bar on the Jersey Shore, where they amplified The Wiper’s “Telepathic Love,” while sitting on beach chairs in a bed of fake sand.  Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we travel across America racking up frequent flyer miles and good times.

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Vivian Girls, “When I’m Gone” MP3

As a live band, Vivian Girls has some work ahead of it. All of the things that make their records so fun to listen to—the ramshackle melodies; the guitars that repeat until they become a swirl of late-night garage angst; Cassie Ramone’s endless, direct lyrics about breaking up or getting over it—are pressed into a mushy block. You’d think it would be the other way around—uncomplicated music equaling simple sound live—but at this point, that’s neither here nor there. They’ll figure it out or they won’t. In the meantime, we have their upcoming LP, Everything Goes Wrong (In the Red, September), an album of—surprise!—breakup songs with a killer second half and a pretty decent first half. “When I’m Gone” is the first single. You’ll listen to it 100 times without realizing it.

FADER TV: A Gang of Videos from the Woodsist/Captured Tracks Festival

New York labels Woodsist and Captured Tracks release so many songs you could listen exclusively to them for a week and A) not repeat any song once and  B) be pretty happy about the whole situation. Variety is the spice of life and all that, but sometimes it’s cool to follow a Woods track with a Ganglians track with a Dum Dum Girls 12-inch with a Mayfair Set 7-inch. Last holiday weekend, this unofficial bond became real as both labels banded together to blow minds in an empty lot underneath the J train—and a whole lot of people showed up.

In between drinking beers, getting dripped on by the subway up above (grossest thing ever) and eating Polish sausage, those people watched almost every band on both labels. A couple highlights: Kurt Vile’s miniature stadium rock punctuated by the tentative pop of the 4th’s first fireworks, and Dee Dee bka Dum Dum Girls appearing live for the first time ever as some sort of gothy dream-like Stevie Nicks, singing beautifully while waving long black fringe. We managed to Flipcam songs from a bunch of the acts, including Vile, Dum Dum Girls, Ganglians, Woods, Fresh and Onlys and Vivian Girls, all of which are below.


Ganglians


Fresh & Onlys


Dum Dum Girls


Woods


Kurt Vile


Vivian Girls

Freeload: Stag & Dagger Festival MP3 Bonanza

In our newest issue—available on paper or magic PDF paper—we chose Micachu & The Shapes to represent cover icon David Byrne’s tendency to be in the thick of things yet totally out of it. Cool, yet not cool. Micachu is right in the middle of the UK pop scene but is nowhere near anyone else, as you can hear on this cover of Toddla T’s “Backchatter” with Miss Bienek. Micachu will be playing Vice’s gigantic UK festival Stag & Dagger this Thursday at the London venue, and subsequent days will host every other band we’ve liked over the last year or so. So, go buckwild on free songs from a few of our favorites from the lineup and pick up Stag & Dagger tickets here.

LONDON 5/21:
Download: Micachu & The Shapes, “Backchatter”

Download: Abe Vigoda, “Don’t Lie”

Download: White Denim, “Mirrored and Reversed”

Download: Wild Beasts, “The Devil’s Crayon (Acoustic Version)”

LEEDS, 5/22:
Download: Vivian Girls, “Lake House”

Download: Telepathe, “Heater”

Download: Wavves, “Friends Were Gone”

GLASGOW 5/23:
Download: Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, “Buriedfed”

Download: Black Lips, “I’ll Be With You”

Download: Mika Miko, “I Got A Lot”

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Video: Vivian Girls, “Moped Girls”

Vivian Girls played a home game at Bowery Ballroom last night, but we missed it. We’re sure they did a fine job though and wanted to welcome them home by posting the video for their new single, directed by some guy who is trying to make us puke. Didn’t work, holmes. Get the Moped Girls/Death 7-inch from Rough Trade now. (via GvsB)

Live: Vivian Girls and Ariel Pink in Austin, TX

Friday night a handsome crowd at the Mohawk turned out to see Yellow Fever, Vivian Girls and Ariel Pink & the Haunted Graffiti, who performed in tropicalia-cool outdoor conditions.

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Freeload: Vivian Girls, “Lake House”

How we’ve managed to get up half a dozen posts mentioning Vivian Girls without actually directly posting about the band itself is a mystery we will leave to someone with more time on his hands because we are busy rectifying our oversight right now. Sorry, Girls. “Lake House,” aside from being named after the best movie of 2006, comes from the latest installment of The World’s Lousy With Ideas on Almost Ready and it is as good an introduction to the band as any. Not to mention it actually sounds like thrashing around in a cold ass lake. And in case you haven’t heard it yet, Part Time Punks podcasted a bunch of Vivian Girls songs recorded during a recent LA show and are threatening to press the live tracks as their inaugural PTP label release. And of course you can still get their self-titled debut from In The Red. So now we’re all caught up with Vivian Girls. Wait they played the Apollo last night?? What the fuck???



Download: Vivian Girls, “Lake House” (via P4k)
Download: Part Time Punks on KXLU, January 8, 2009 (“A Cup of Twee & a Dash of PTP Sessions, Peelie-Style”)

FADER TV: Avoiding Disease At The Yard

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.

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