In an effort to spark new bands and encourage new talent to emerge and mingle, Ithaca Underground is hosting their first ever Open Mic night on Friday, September 6th at Just Be Cause (1013 W. State St., Ithaca, NY 14850).

10 slots are available and sign up starts at 7:30PM at Just Be Cause. First band kicks off at 8PM sharp.

A few notes for attendees and would-be performers:
- No cover, but $2-$5 donations are encouraged.
- Performances will last a maximum of 10 minutes each.
- Local performers only: the majority of band members must reside in the Ithaca metropolitan area (not Syracuse, Binghamton, Cortland, etc).
- Any band signing up must not have already performed or be scheduled to perform at an Ithaca Underground event.
- The band/performer is looking to actively play out in Ithaca (no one-offs).

As Ithaca Underground exists to foster creative, unique, and boundary-pushing music, they are looking for acts to fall somewhere the spectrum of noise, hardcore, punk, grind, sludge, folk-punk, avant garde, solo experimental, math-rock, prog, drone, post-rock, live electronics, hip-hop, and other genre bending mutant forms of music.

At this time, applications from acts falling in the range of traditional singer-songwriter, traditional folk, jam band, blues, "rock", indie pop, funk, and other such genres will not be accepted.

For more information visit the Facebook event or IthacaUnderground.com.

Thanks for another great BIG DAY IN!  Live video of the first six bands. More to come!


Blood Money

On Monday, March 4th at The Haunt, KEN Mode return to Ithaca for the first time in 10 years on the eve of their tour with Today Is The Day and Black Tusk (both of whom have also past through in recent years). Their latest "Entrench" hits March 19th via Season Of Mist:


We've got a killer line-up of metallic hardcore, sludge punk, noise-rock, and blistering grindcore/powerviolence. Get familiar with the bands and be there at 7PM for the first act!


FIGHT AMP:
Sludgy, genre-bending punk/noise-rock from Jersey.


LOFTS:
Local blown-out noise rock duo.

Hiroshima Vacation (with Bubba Crumrine)

Local grindcore/powerviolence duo expands to a trio with Ithaca Underground president, Bubba Crumrine on electronics.


Monday, March 4th @ The Haunt, 702 Willow Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850
7PM Start | $10 | All Ages

Hopefully the next BIG DAY IN coming on May 4th, 2013 is kicking up dreams of merriment in your little noggin at the moment, but right now we're going back in time with some solid HD video from Cerce, Old Wounds, Vaura, and Porches up now via the IU YouTube channel.



Cerce - "Weary" and more


Old Wounds


Vaura


Porches

Ithaca Underground Fall Shows Preview:

Hey kids, it's fall preview time! That time where we let you in on all the secrets we've been working for the last several months - bands from across the country (Brooklyn to L.A. and Oakland), across the world (German, UK, Australia), and covering a broad spectrum of genres from punk to jazz, sludge metal to indie hip-hop, and everything in between. We have a hell of a season of diverse shows queued up, so let's start right in. (Lots more after the jump)

Tuesday, September 19th: 
Why?, doesone, Serengeti, DJ Thanksgiving Brown 
@ The Haunt, 702 Willow Ave, Ithaca - 6PM Doors $12 ADV (Tickets)

We couldn't really be more stoked to kick the fall season off in such glorious fashion. We're incredibly please to have partnered up with Dan Smalls Presents to bring you an indie hip-hop / Anticon. Records takeover featuring Why?, doseone, and Serengeti plus DJ Thanksgiving Brown spinning to kick things off.

This stacked bill features two of arguably the best lyracists/MC's in indie hip-hop - Jonathan "Yoni" Wolf of WHY? and Adam Drucker a.k.a. doseone. The two have been clollaborating for decades and co-founded the lauded Anticon. imprint.

Where "Yoni" paints pictures with words of the lush backdrops of indie-pop and folk licks and hip-hop beats, doseone has been delivering a high-pitched lyrical assault of rapid-fire and polyrhythmic tongues twisting tales of the future and tearing down the rules of hip-hop across a multitude of projects. His solo material continues to show his prowess as a musician, expanding his pallet ever more in the psych-pop direction.

Why? have built themselves a massive cult and indie following since their breakout "Alopecia" and doseone, in addition to his solo work, has been ever prolific with such projects as Subtle, cLOUDDEAD, Themselves, 13&God and many others.

Enough talk. Heads better be at this one. Check these:







Let's have a listen to one of my personal favorites from doseone's Themselves too..


Ah... still fresh. Moving on!
______________________________

Sunday, September 16th: 
Vacation, Hunted Down, Batista, We Are Whaleshark 
@ The Space at GreenStar, 700 W Buffalo St., Ithaca - 8PM $5
Nothing like a good ol' hardcore/punk show... with an IU twist of course. 


Headliners VACATION hail from Cincinnati and churn out a blasting wall of noisy, poppy punk. They have two new 7"s and a cassette on this tour in addition to the full length streaming above which hit just a year ago.

HUNTED DOWN rep the Syracuse hardcore scene, with a whirlwind of blown & fuzzed out jams. Completely furious and always on the brink of collapsing in on itself. They have a split with Herpes coming later this fall. In the meantime check out these tracks from their "Life's Womb" EP:


Rounding out the show are two new Ithaca bands with familiar faces. Phil Price (known for his killer DIY show booking a few years back in Binghamton & Ithaca), Derek Manoco (ex-A Satellite Crash), and John Barrington are kicking it in a new punk band called BATISTA and Mike Amadeo (Mike A!, Dweeb, etc) rounded up some local musicians, including his pal Tyler Rodkey, to push out some short & sweet, dissonant & trippy punk under the moniker of WE ARE WHALESHARK. Lucky for us, they just dropped a "shitty demo" for our waiting ears.



(more...)

The Great Sabatini (Montreal) and Twin Lords (Brooklyn, featuring Andrew Hernandez of Tombs) shook the rafters of The Space Friday night for the first VII/IU collab show. Looking forward to more of these! Footage from both are below. Thanks to Hiroshima Vacation and Blunt Guts for starting things off with their blistering grind and powerviolence.


The Great Sabatini


Twin Lords

Good morning all! More show footage, this time from our June 8th show with Andy the Doorbum, Vilipend, Makeshift, and Kaboosh! - great mix of folk, noisecore, and metal on that bill; plus pop-punk from The Hotel Year and State Lines which too place just this past Monday, July 2nd with Cortland's Object. For some unknown reason, the Flip did not keep the King Sized Pegasus footage...



Andy the Doorbum

Get ready for probably the best heavy tour we've brought through Ithaca thus far! We really could not be more stoked on this show and highly recommend you all join us for a Monday night hang. Vids from the bands below.

The Haunt, 702 Willow Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850. All ages. Doors at 7PM. $10 through Sunday night here or $14 at the door day of.

Band Name: So is the Tongue

Location: Central New Jersey

Formed: Fall 2005

Current Members: Ron Varod - Guitar, Vocals (Kayo Dot), Greg Meisenberg - Bass, Vocals (A.F. Elephant), Dan Romans - Drums (the DRX)

Releases: "Torpid & Blight" (2009, Sound Devastation Records UK) "a Child of Divorce" (2012, Nefarious Industries)

Band History: We formed in the fall of 2005, played our first show with Kayo Dot, Behold...the Arctopus and Bloody Panda in January 2006 at the old Knitting Factory. Up until now we haven't done much touring yet alone playing outside the tri-state area.

Band Future: We just released our new record "a Child of Divorce" and are planing on more extensive touring in the US and hopefully Europe at some point. There's some song ideas brewing for the next release as well. We're stoked to finally play Ithaca!

Check out the video above from our album release show at the Lit Lounge in NYC in January, attended by Björk and Matthew Barney.  No really I'm not kidding...


Don't miss So is the Tongue live with BANGLADEAFY!, BRIAN!, and Graupel 


The Space @ GreenStar, 700 W Buffalo St., Ithaca, NY 14850 | 8PM | $5 | ALL AGES

Thanks to everyone who came out to the space on a Monday night!!  Re-solidified my love for Rosetta as one of the most powerful live bands we bring through.  Great sets from Restorations and locals Phorke and Crown of Oak too.  Stoked we finally got a chance to witness Restorations. Footage below! Apologies for only one Restorations video... FLIP spazzed out and lost it.


Rosetta

That’s right! Ithaca, Syracuse, and Binghamton are combining forces for this righteous (wrongteous?) mini-tour.   Bubba from BRIAN!, Kevin from Dance-A-Tron, and Greg from Blunt Guts have been working to strengthen the ties between the CNY cities for some time now and what better way to take the next step than to do a big ol’ weekend together?



For the uninitiated, BRIAN! takes an their unconventional instrumentation of bassoon, guitar/bass, electronics, voice, drum kit, and metallic percussion, fuses with influences of prog, Rock-in-Opposition, math-rock, classical, and noise to spin dark, complex compositions.



Blut Guts from Syracuse take the fast and furious approach fusing white-hot grind, hardcore, and powerviolence into 50-60 second seconds of pure scathing intensity.



Dance-A-Tron are no stranger to Ithaca, having performed in our fair city with the likes of Fuck The Facts, Kylesa, Intronaut, the inaugural May BIG DAY IN, and more. Thunderous power-trio of hardcore from Binghamton.

Check below for dates, times, locations, and additional acts.

Footage from our Friday the 13th show with Burn Everything, These Machines, and Among Dead Men!



Burn Everything - They Don't Advertise Killers"

I hope you didn't miss this one!


THOU

In case you haven't heard yet, Ithaca Underground is bringing Baton Rouge's sludge riders THOU on Monday, October 3rd with locals Sun Spells and Lux Carentes at The Space @ GreenStar. Way cool, right?  What can you do in the meantime?  Well, NPR was awesome enough to snag some live audio from their set at the epic event w/ pg. 99 and Circle Takes The Square.  If we hadn't been many, many states away we would have absolutely been there. Need more?  Ok, fine.  Go download their ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY.  They put it up for free so you don't have to get frustrated with the thousands of results for THOU via your P2P or torrent searches. It's that a nice bunch of ear-annihilating metal heads? 

So, go shirk responsibilities and be there at 700 W Buffalo St, Ithaca, NY 14850 (near Corks n' More, down the alley between Joe's Delivery and Enterprise - or just take the entrance off N. Fulton/RT 13... you can easily see it and all the glorious parking from the street that way).  8PM.  Just $5

Greetings from the underground! So, as many of you have seen, FREE! evolved out of the interviews/articles we used to issue through the print version of the zine from late '08 to early '10.  Since then, we covered relatively the same format, just online instead of print. Within the last few months, we've been posting videos from the IU YouTube Channel here. We're thinking about posting brief passages with news relevant to Ithaca & regional music we support. Sound cool? Feel free to give us your feedback.

Drumroll please...

Go check out the latest edition of IU.com - v3.0 right here! Sing up for our eNews, updated forums, calendar, booking request form, and more. Lots more to come too! We wanted to get the basics out of the gate as soon as possible but we're looking to take this above and beyond the last one.

Band name/location: We are Praetura, from Brooklyn NY.

Members: J stallings on drums and M.Paradis on guitar.

Formed: We've been playing together since I (Morgan) moved to Brooklyn in 2008, but we've been gathering a bit of steam since early 2011.

Releases: In January 2011 we recorded 7 songs with Colin Marston at the Caves of Menegroth that we recently self-released as a CD. Expect more to come!

Tell us about yourselves!
I like to think that Praetura is a mix of all the musical things that both of us hold dear: careful songwriting, attention to detail, maybe a nod to subtlety; but still maintains that chaotic feeling, where you think maybe the song is just going to fall apart when you listen to it. What the fuck are these people doing? But you find it strangely compelling...

As far as influences, I can tell you what we have on pretty much constant rotation. We are both old punkers, so, we still like to listen to Subhumans and MDC and relive our glory days. Old school American and Swedish death metal, grind, hardcore, jazz, all kinds of instrumental music.

Looking forward to playing in Ithaca for the first time on the 16th, and we're playing in Brooklyn on October 9th at Acheron with Canadian grinders Wake!

Don't miss Praetura live with Hiroshima Vacation, These Machines, and Among Dead Men at the Community School of Music & Art, 3rd Floor Auditorium, 330 E State / MLK Jr St, Ithaca, NY 14850 - 8PM | $5 | ALL AGES

Footage from Saturday's show with the mighty ZRUDA! Featuring the drummer & guitarist formerly of Gaylord. We aim to have them back soon. Killer sci-fi, technical psych-synth-metal that is just THE most fun live. Check out some photos of the whole show here.

Another great IU show at The Space! Thanks to everyone who came out to this one. Solid footage from NYC's Meek is Murder and Tiger Flowers, more clips of Crime Pays including a new song, and one of CNY's newest metal acts, the uniquely ambient instrumental metal Paralysis at Dawn. Get on... Q&A with three of the four posted elsewhere on FREE!.


Meek Is Murder - (null)


Meek is Murder


Meek is Murder - foo/Garbage Collector


Tiger Flowers


Tiger Flowers


Crime Pays (incl new song)


Crime Pays


Paralysis at Dawn


Paralysis at Dawn