Calvin Johnson and his Hive Dwellers played the 92nd Street Y Tribeca this past Friday.  He was as wonderful and charismatic as ever.  Here are some pictures of the set:

I actually took a lot more pictures than this.  Check them all out here.

City Center opened this show, and have already posted a live recording of their amazing set to the City Center Blog!  Download it here.

For more on Calvin and the Hive Dwellers click here.

One of my indie rock crushes is the K Records head himself, Calvin Johnson, and he will be in our lovely city tonight (and again in a couple weeks).

This time Calvin isn’t doing it by himself …he has a new band, The Hive Dwellers.

I haven’t heard much by the Dwellers yet, except for the track they did for the Merge SCORE! Covers Comp (stream the whole album including the Hive Dwellers track for free for a limited time!), but I’m damn excited.  Gothamist confirmed that this is The Hive Dwellers first official release.

There really is nothing like watching Calvin mesmerize you with his dances on stage while you listen to his baritone voice.  Except the fact that his opening act is Fred Thomas and Ryan Howard’s CITY CENTER, and the headliner is Ian Svenonius’s new band Chain and the Gang.  Which makes these shows even better.

Besides Calvin fronting the Hive Dwellers and Ian fronting Chain and the Gang these two bands share all other members (they just switch it up on the instruments):

Bret Lyman (Bad Thoughts), Brian Weber (Dub Narcotic Sound System), Sarah Pedal, and Fred Thomas (Saturday Looks Good to Me, City Center).  [via TMT]

Yes, that’s right.  Fred Thomas will be playing in all of the bands tonight!

Tonight should prove to be a wonderful evening, and I will leave inspired by Calvin’s dance moves (and hopefully bust some of my own).

If you want to catch the Calvin Johnson and his Hive Dwellers there are two chances in the NYC area:

Apr 17, 2009 – New York City, New York
92Y Tribeca – (as The Hive Dwellers) w/ Chain and The Gang, City Center

Apr 26, 2009 – Brooklyn, New York
Market Hotel – (as The Hive Dwellers) Chain & the Gang , Mahjongg

And if you didn’t notice: Mahjongg (also of K Records) will be opening the Market Hotel show on the 26 of April!

Both of these shows should be super fun, and the line ups can’t get much better.  For the rest of the Hive Dwellers and Chain and the Gang’s tour dates check out the K Records tour page.

Gothamist just did a very entertaining interview with Calvin too…check it out here.

The Hive Dwellers will prove to be more rocking than some of Calvin’s more mellow solo stuff, but I found this recording of Calvin Johnson and Julie Doiron preforming the Halo Benders’ “Lonesome Sundown” and it’s just too good not to post!

[mp3] Calvin Johnson & Julie Doiron- “Lonesome Sundown” (Halo Benders cover) (via Gorilla Vs Bear) (well it’s not really a cover since Calvin sang on the original, but buy the original version here)

[mp3] Calvin Johnson- “I’m Down” (off of Before the Dream Faded) (Buy it!)

On a side note Julie Doiron will be in town next weekend…I should have a post up about her shows on Monday or Tuesday.

Photo of Calvin Johnson by Hillary Harris (via krecs.com).

Fred Thomas and Ryan Howard’s City Center is super prolific, and they don’t even have a full length release, yet.

Some of you might recognize Fred Thomas from Saturday Looks Good To Me, or if you catch Chain and the Gang and the Hive Dwellers on tour he will be playing in both of their bands…but to me you can set these acts aside and take City Center on it’s own.

The City Center blog has been booming with mp3s over the past year or so, and if you just scroll through you can end up with over a 100 mp3s on your computer for free download (reason enough to want to support these guys on the physical releases).  On top of the mp3s posted they have released three 7″s (one of which was a split with Grouper), and numerous tour CD-Rs (and maybe an actual CD EP at some point).

City Center is mostly electronic and range from atmospheric sound scapes to noisy  pop….all based in the realm of guitar, synthesizers, and other electronic devices.  I have posted several mp3s from their blog on the great pumpkin since I started (check out my other posts here) , and I am really excited to finally get my hands on a full length (I was lucky enough to snag copies of all of the 7″ and the Gold Girls 7″ was my favorite single of last year!).

City Center album appropriately titled City Center is coming out on Type Records in the US on June 8th.  Type is the label that released Grouper‘s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill…and you will recall if you tried to get a copy of the LP that it went out of print immediately.

The City Center LP will be limited to 500 copies, and of these 500 the band will be getting about 100.  They want people who love their music to get these records, and have made them available for pre-order it here (more info is also available through this link).

I grabbed mine last night…I recommend that you get yours soon too.

If You need more convincing (all mp3s via the City Center blog):

[mp3] City Center- “Open/House” (off of the upcoming self titled full length…Buy it Here)

[mp3] City Center- “Obvious”

[mp3] City Center- “Girlfriend in a Coma” (Smiths cover)

[mp3] City Center- “Practical Thaw”

City Center has several other releases coming up as well:

4-song 12″ Title TBA (Troubleman)
“Life Meeting” Cassette (Pleasuredome Tapez)
“Cops Don’t Care” 7″ (M’Lady’s Records)

This morning I was catching up on the mp3s that Fred Thomas posted to City Center’s blog.  I do this every couple weeks, and while all of the tracks were good this one really stood out:

City Center- “Obvious”

Fred describes the song as “”Tonight Tonight” by the Smashing Pumpkins, maybe with some Alice In Chains undercurrents,” but I’m also getting a bit of The Microphones song “the Glow pt. 2″ in the guitars.

Listen and enjoy…I know I did…This song was on repeat in my headphones my entire commute to work.

Photo by Amber Fellows via City Center.

City Center tour Dates:

Fred Thomas is also backing Calvin Johnson’s new band The Hive Dwellers as well as Ian Svenious’ new band Chain and the Gang.  The Hive Dwellers and Chain and the Gang will be touring together this April and May. Tiny Mixtapes has the tour dates here (I’ll have more on this tour as it gets closer).