Like art?  Want to see more cool stuff in the city?  Well The Drop NYC will hold a day long festival on October 3rd featuring interactive art, fashion and music.  Part of the programming will include contributions from Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yoko Ono.   There’s is a fashion installation titled ‘Trash and Treasure’; live painting performances and DJ music via a solar powered booth.   Check out The Drop website for more details.

If you want to show support for this progressive project, then click here to help The Drop meet it’s goal.

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The New York Anime Festival is just a couple weeks away and the Far East to East Showcase is back.  F.E.T.E.S. 2009 will feature 2 bands from Japan and 2 local bands.  Included in the lineup is the pop-rock band Swinging Popsiscle, who played at Knitting Factory in 2007:

Kokusyoko Sumire: http://www.myspace.com/kokusyokusumire

Swinging Popsicle: http://www.myspace.com/swingingpopsicle

Echostream: http://www.myspace.com/ECHOSTREAM

Gelatine: http://www.myspace.com/gelatinenyc

The showcase will be help at The Studio @ Webster Hall on Sunday September 27th.  The first band goes on at 6:30PM so NYAF attendees will have plenty of time to leave Javits and head down to Webster Hall.  Click the jump for more details and advance ticket info.

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The Sing For China Tour will bring three of China’s biggest and best indie-rock bands to the U.S. this month as part of an unprecedented effort by the Chinese music community to help children orphaned by AIDS in China.

The tour is being produced by Modern Sky Records of Beijing, China’s largest independent record label..

The featured bands include:

• Hedgehog
• Queen Sea Big Shark
• Casino Demon

Band info. and tour dates after the jump.

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Shonen Knife - Super Group

Shonen Knife, the legendary all-female Japanese pop-punk band formed in Osaka, Japan, is back again with a new album (Super Group) and tour.  Since the original member and bassist Atsuko moved to Los Angeles and left the band, Naoko and Etsuko played with support bassists. On the new album “Super Group”, support bassist Ritsuko has joined the band as an official member. Now Shonen Knife has become a 3 piece band again and a super group was born.

In 2007, they released an album “fun! fun! fun!” in Japan. Since then, they’ve spent very busy days  playing lots of shows, they enjoyed a North American tour, recorded a cover song for an AC/DC tribute album and played at many international rock festivals. In 2009 Shonen Knife signed a deal with Good Charamel Records (www.goodcharamel.com) to release their 14th studio album,“Super Group” to the fans in North America! Tours of Europe, Australia and North America will follow the release of  the new “Super Group” CD !

The concept of this album is to “go back to the starting point of ROCK”. All the lyrics on “Super Group” are written in English. The 1st song “Super Group” is very punk pop like the Buzzcocks. “Muddy Bubbles Hell” and “Pyramid Power” taste like Heavy Metal. “BBQ Party” starts with a Jonathan Richman like intro and transforms into punk rock. The harmony at the last part of “Na Na Na” is very cute. The last song is a cover of Paul McCartney and the Wings song “Jet”, the Shonen Knife version is very fun and very ROCK. This album makes everybody happy.

Tour Dates after the jump.

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ALL PROCEEDS OF THE SHOW (from The Hsu-nami) GOES TO TYPHOON MORAKOT AID.

Recent Typhoon Morakot which unleashed the worst floods in 50 years in Taiwan. and millions of dollars lost and death toll not known as of yet.  After hearing this terrible news, Hsu-Nami decided that they are going to donate all the proceeds from this show to the survivors and the needs.

Show Details:

Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2009  (9PM ~)
Arlene’s Grocery 
95 Stanton Street, NYC

Admission: $8 (Please mention “The Hsu-nami” to the door person)

This is 21+ show

Tsugumi of the Japanese electro duo Pine*am will be as a member of new band Butterfly Monkey.  Check them out at Don Pedro’s in Brooklyn on Thursday July 2nd.  They are set to perform around 9pm.

Venue Info:

Don Pedro  (90 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn, NY)
http://www.myspace.com/donpedrobarlounge

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After her awesome collab. with Towa Tei on his Big Fun album, Miho Hatori is set to debut her ‘New Optimism’ at the Northside Festival.  Stop by The Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg on Thursday July 11th to check out Miho’s new music plus other great stuff from Exit Clov, Autodrone and Class Actress.

Local pop band Love Etc. is celebrating their 3 year anniversary at Drom this Friday.  It will also be lead singer, Yasuyo’s, last performance in NYC till summer.  On the bill: Love Etc., Exit Clov, Honeychild and LPF, with music by DJ’s Hayden Honey and Tony Grund.

Details:

Date – Friday April 24th

Venue – Drom : Avenue A, b/w 5th & 6th St.

Doors: 6pm  Show: 7pm

$10.00  All Ages

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When I was 9, I think my life consisted of toys, cartoons, liquids high in fructose and devising ways to avoid schoolwork.  Playing an axe and performing Crazy Train live wasn’t exactly a priority.   However, things are a bit different for 9 year old Yuto Miyazawa.  At a very young age, he managed to master an instrument that still exceeds him in size.  While he still lives a pretty normal life, he finds time to pencil in performances on variety shows on Japanese TV, and one-off concerts in the US with artists such as Les Paul.  Yuko is heading overseas again for a small number of concerts across the US.   New Yorkers can catch this youngen with his custom Randy Rhodes-style, checkered flying V guitar at Le Poisson Rouge in May 4th.  Click here for advance tickets and details.  Click the jump for a video of Yuto in action.

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We’ve previously mentioned the dire situation local artist Yuko Sueta is facing.  Tomorrow (Thursday April 9th) Apollo Heights, Kayo Dot and Nymph will perform at a benefit concert for Yuko.  The concert takes place at Coco66 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (66 Greenpoint Avenue [below Franklin] ) from 9PM.

For those who can’t attend, you can still make a donation via this site: http://www.yuko.2020project.com

Those who attend there will be a small raffle of items that include:
Apollo Heights WHITE MUSIC FOR BLACK PEOPLE CD
Apollo Heights Winter 2008 Tour T-shirt
Honeychild Coleman HALO INSIDE (Come La Luna)
CD
Vinyl from the DJ Sugarfree Milkcrate

For at taste of Yuko’s work, check out this Apollo Heights video, where she supplied the visuals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyvbDuOBboo