Pete Seeger Celebrates 90 at MSG
On May 3rd, Pete Seeger will celebrate 90 years on the planet with a star-studded birthday extravaganza at Madison Square Garden. The concert will double as a benefit for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. As expected, the concert will feature a ton of stars who have been influenced by Seeger's legendary career, including Joan Baez, Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder and Bruce Springsteen, who recorded an album of Seeger covers a few years back. Tickets start going on sale next Monday morning, with the cheapest seats going for $19.19 (The year of his birth) and most of them priced at $90. For the full list of bands scheduled to play, check out Brooklyn Vegan.
South By Southwest Begins
It's that time of the year again. Hundreds of bands head south to Austin looking to catch the ear of the thousands of others in attendance, only to get burned by retread bands like Jane's Addiction and Metallica swooping in to take all the headlines. But regardless, despite the recession and the state of the music industry, everything appears to be going as planned down south, with a healthy sampling of parties and showcases to keep the attendees occupied. For the fourth year in a row, the week was kicked off by Austinist's Gonna Gonna Get Down extravaganza, featuring a fine sampling of talent, including New York acts Elvis Perkins and Kevin Devine, along with Akron/Family and a bunch others. While Gothamist very regrettably, for the first time in several years, is not attending the fest this year, feel free to live vicariously along with us through Austinist, who is doing a stellar job keep tabs on all the goings on.
Vampire Weekend Debuts New Song on Fallon
There is no denying that the new Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has hit the ground running. Regardless if you like it or not, the show seems to have a polish and direction that most late night shows take years to solidify. The most glaring appeal the show has made is to what they perceive as a youth crowd, focusing on topics like video games, blogs and indie rock far more in depth than previous Late Night shows. Last week, much like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah did during the show's debut week, another popular local indie band took the stage to debut a new song still in the works. Vampire Weekend, with an entire backing string section, played White Sky, a song they claim will appear on their yet-undated next album. The song sounded pretty true to the VW formula, maybe a bit rough around the edges, but a tasty preview nonetheless. Check out the video of the performance here, and download the MP3, if you so desire, at Culture Bully.
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