Intrigued by the Say Anything feature in this week’s TONY? Here’s an exclusive acoustic performance of the band’s new song “Eloise,” courtesy of frontman Max Bemis. Catch Say Anything live next Tuesday (November 3) at Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza, and Wednesday (November 4) at Highline Ballroom.

At the beginning of this year, there weren’t many people, bar Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor and TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone, who had heard of Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. But since releasing his self-titled debut album, MBAR has been featured in our New Year’s revolutions, toured all over the world (we filmed him playing the Great Escape in the U.K.), blogged about his mushroom-woozed SXSW experience and starred in TONY’s Dating issue. He releases his excellent new album, Summer of Fear, this week and plays the Knitting Factory’s Saddle Creek showcase tomorrow night (October 22), and (Le) Poisson Rouge on Friday (October 23).

Back in March, a couple of days before Andrew Bird set off on his recent tour, I had a chance to speak with him briefly over the phone. We talked mainly about his new albums (Noble Beast, the special edition of which included Useless Creatures, a disc of instrumental tracks), but also about his scheduled performance at Radio City Music Hall. That show is tonight at 8pm and tickets are still available.

Time Out New York: Do you have a favorite song on the record?
Andrew Bird: Yes. It shifts, but I think “Anonanimal” might be my favorite. It’s my favorite song, I don’t know if it’s my favorite recording on the record. I really like the way “Effigy” came out too.

I know that when you play it seems like you change things up quite a bit. Do you ever feel like a song is finished? Is there an end point with any of your songs?
Not really. I think that I like to keep everything flowing, everything alive. And I like to go back and play stuff, really old songs of mine, and it’s like you’re covering someone else’s songs. Just completely reimagine it. And I basically just.… With “Fitz and Dizzy Spells,” for instance, that one gets really raucous live. And it’s more electric and we use totally different techniques playing that. Once you finish a record and you go on tour, you’re like, Okay, it’s time to do something different. And whatever you really just feel like doing, you know?
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Fans of eccentric pop will want to clear their schedules for Friday, May 8: That night, Björk and Dirty Projectors will play a benefit show together at the tiny, elegant Housing Works Bookstore Café. The concert, sponsored and announced by Stereogum, will feature a collaboration between the two headliners, with Björk—never a stranger to interesting musical partnerships—playing songs written for her by Dirty Projector David Longstreth. Tickets go on sale April 1st are on sale now at Housing Works (and online here); best of luck getting in.

Some members of the Time Out music staff frown upon the Hold Steady; others disagree. Tonight, the PBS show Live from the Artists Den broadcasts a special concert that the band performed at the Emigrant Savings Bank. To make things sweeter, the episode was directed by former TONY editor Joe Angio, the filmmaker behind the awesome Melvin Van Peebles documentary How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It). The show airs at 10pm on Channel 13/WNET. Set your VCRs!

Yesterday, Pitchfork breathlessly reported that the Shins were parting ways with Sub Pop, their label of three albums. I am not sure if this qualifies as the breaking news the website labeled it—shouldn’t that marker be reserved for, say, “Plane lands on Hudson” or “Dick Cheney indicted for war crimes”? Regardless, the scoop proved false: The group’s contract has expired, but it remains uncommitted, like a wavering girlfriend wishing to take a relationship time-out. As Billboard reported last summer, the Shins are likely to release any new work on Aural Apothecary, a small label run by frontman James Mercer. Read more »

On May 12, Downtown Records will release Art Brut vs. Satan, the third album by the smart London band Art Brut. Produced by Pixies boss man Black Francis, the album is a typically funny and inviting set from singer Eddie Argos and his Fall-like band. To promote the album, Art Brut is ducking into smaller clubs, including multiple-night stands in Los Angeles, Chicago and, naturally, New York. The band plays five nights at Mercury Lounge, from June 1 to June 5.

Trying to forecast a performer’s future stardom is a fool’s errand—and attempting to predict a future indie star is basically impossible. But Ezra Furman and the Harpoons’ hitherto inability to set the world ablaze is vexing nonetheless. The Boston band’s second album, Inside the Human Body (Minty Fresh), is smart, wordy and bursting with the energy of youth. The group plays Mercury Lounge tonight, just before another cool young act, Verve signees Elizabeth and the Catapult. Listen to Furman and the Harpoons below—and check out more Thursday shows after the jump.

“The Worm in the Apple” – Ezra Furman and the Harpoons

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Yesterday, Sub Pop reissued a deluxe edition of Bunny Gets Paid, a singular 1995 album by the unheralded Chicago band Red Red Meat. News of the reissue came as a pleasant surprise: When first unveiled, the album was greeted with little fanfare, a strange and fantastically gloomy work by a group that, just a year prior, had been hyped as “grunge” hopefuls. When, later in the ’90s, Red Red Meat broke up—or, more accurately, morphed into Califone—the album seemed to have slipped permanently into the shadows. The warm reception of this two-disc set is one of several examples that, after some initial misdirection, the reigning rock cognoscenti are getting a handle on the beast that was the 1990s. (The band recently played shows in Chicago and at SXSW.) Read more »

The first week of college can be a jolting experience. Students move away from home to find themselves surrounded by unfamiliar faces, get acclimated to dormitory life and, perhaps most bizarrely, learn that some of the most adored figures on campus are members of a cappella singing clubs. The reign of these corny groups, for years the dirty secret of an American liberal arts education, has been gaining exposure in recent years. Last year welcomed Mickey Rapkin’s book Pitch Perfect. Now piano-pop singer Ben Folds is unveiling Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella, an album compiling instrument-free covers of the songwriter’s oeuvre. Performers include Ohio University’s Leading Tones (“Brick”), the Spartones of the University of North Carolina Greensboro (“Not the Same”) and Folds himself, performing a cappella versions of “Boxing” and “Effington.” The album will be released on Epic April 28; it is not for the faint of heart. Folds also performs at Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, New Jersey, on Thursday, with a Columbia University a cappella group opening. Whatever happened to the days of football players lovingly dangling nerds from windows?

Modern charity albums subsist on fuzzy math: If nobody buys CDs anymore, isn’t a benefit album a lousy way to raise money? At this point, shouldn’t homeless shelters and AIDS nonprofits be donating funds to the record industry, rather than the other way around? Nonetheless, these albums continue to pour into stores where people no longer shop. The recent two-disc Dark Was the Night is a gathering of indie-rock’s reigning favorites, including Grizzly Bear, Beirut, the Books and, in the below track, Spoon. The song, apparently recorded a few years ago, is minimal and uptight, hinged on the wired vocals of Britt Daniel. I enjoyed the song when I first heard the record; then, I searched for information about it on the Internet, and found gobs of blog commentators saying how awful it is, which made me really like it. On May 3, Radio City Music Hall hosts a Dark Was the Night concert, featuring, among others, Dave Sitek, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and the benefit’s organizers, the National. Will the concert raise the money that, in years past, the album would have brought in?

Well-Alright - Spoon

Soon after getting hired by NBC as Jimmy Fallon’s house band, the Roots scheduled a more intimate late-night gig: a seemingly endless residency at Chelsea’s Highline Ballroom. In a further threat to hip-hop fans’ bedtimes, the group’s big-haired drummer ?uestlove also begins a wee-hours DJ residency at (Le) Poisson Rouge next Thursday. London may be getting an everlasting Michael Jackson stadium concert; New York is granted a cooler treat, the Roots jamming in a nightclub. Read more »

Even with the migration of musicians and their fans to Austin for SXSW, concerts in New York keep on ticking through the weekend. Tonight, the wild local collective Heloise and the Savoir Faire brings its reliable fun electrosexual routine to the Highline Ballroom, in the far west reaches of Manhattan. Check your sense of shame at the door. And there’s more!

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The local electronic duo Ratatat surprised us with last year’s LP3, a nuanced album that seemed mature, but not dull. Apparently, their fans were equally impressed: Tickets have sold out to the band’s show at the vast Terminal 5 on April 21, and Ratatat has now added a show there the following day.

Lil Wayne has had a fantastic run of late and seems to exude more confidence with every appearance. (Not that he ever lacked confidence, but still.) Tonight, he headlines Prudential Center in Newark, along with T-Pain and the oddly placed Gym Class Heroes. Mr. Carter’s worth the bus trip! But for those planning to stay within city limits, there are more shows… Read more »

Recording an album is a mysterious process. What is the exact function of a producer? Why does an artist choose to sing this way instead of that way? What role does an album play in relation to a performer’s live show? Fortunately,  singer-songwriter Bill Callahan—whose album Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle comes out April 14—clears everything up in the cartoon after the jump, sent by his longtime label, Drag City.

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As New York continues its awkward transition from boom to bust, it is worth sorting through the detritus of the alleged good times supplied by the empty ’00s. Specifically, how did the city’s musical landscape change? Read more »

Last night, the popular Swedish trio Peter Bjorn and John performed at the W Hotel’s tacky midtown location. It was a “private” event with a rambling guest list and free wine, sponsored by a credit card company as part of something called the Wonderlust Live Concert Series. The band is in the States to drum up attention for a forthcoming album, Living Thing, which will be released at the end of the month. Read more »

On April 28, Columbia will release Together Through Life, the first new Bob Dylan album since 2006’s Modern Times and the fourth since his renaissance began in earnest, in 1997. It has been reported that the album features accordion player David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos) and takes its production cues from the murky, wired records cut by Chess, the great Chicago blues and rock & roll label. As is the current vogue among artists with loyal audiences and press heat, the disc is coming with little warning—in interviews promoting Modern Times, Dylan had even suggested that he had no plans to ever again return to the studio. Read more »

Judging by reports from the recently wrapped Paris Fashion Week, the sartorial icon of the moment is an overweight loud woman from Arkansas. This unlikely fashion maven is, of course, Gossip singer Beth Ditto, who (at least from a layman’s perspective) seemed to cut a ubiquitous presence in Paris. In an environment that coldly ranks a person’s worth on a runway show’s seating chart, Ditto was placed two seats away from Paul McCartney at the ready-to-wear collection show of his daughter Stella. The Times followed Ditto there, as well as to the Fendi party, where the Gossip entertained. Read more »