6/14 UPDATE: The ribbon cutting has been postponed. A new date will be announced soon.

Ithaca Underground is very pleased to share this press release on the new Just Be Cause Center for not-for-profit organizations as starting late summer 2013, we will be holding many of our shows at this new location. Details below!

Just Be Cause Center Ribbon-Cutting and Open House

 ITHACA, NY – The Just Be Cause Not for Profit Development Center (JBCC) will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house on June 20 from 3 to 5 pm. The public is invited to the ceremony and to tour the new center.

The JBCC, located at 1013 W. State Street in the old Ithaca Paint Company building, will fulfill some of the functions lost when the Women’s Community Building closed. It has five office spaces, a conference room, and two multi-purpose activity rooms for use by local non-profits.

“The building is dedicated to Judy Dietz, to honor the spirit of how she lived her life: caring for other people and always working to make sure the community is a better place to be,” said Jerry Dietz of his late wife. JBCC will be owned by the newly formed Just Be Cause Foundation and will be managed by Dietz’s company, C.S.P. Management, LLC.

The extensive renovation of the approximately 5,100 square foot building included new bathrooms, air conditioning, heating, carpeting, kitchen, WIFI and  shared office equipment. “We wanted it to be a really nice space to work in” said Dietz.

The rental for the offices will be well below market rate, in order to allow non-profits previously unable to afford dedicated office space to do so. Other community organizations will also be able to book time in the conference and activity rooms.

The goal, says Dietz, “is for the Just Be Cause Center to allow organizations to come together and draw energy from each other and operate more effectively because of that synergy.”

Thanks for joining us for a Wednesday evening of one of our more unique line-ups. Solid show all around for sure, but NO BABIES ran away with all of our hearts. One of the most high energy bands we've ever hand through - they even had us doing push-ups! Videos below, pics to come.

BONUS FOOTAGE: Live cut from HUME's set this past summer at the Mouth To Mouth To Mouth EP release show back in June. Expect more in Ithaca from these Baltimore/D.C. experimental popsters.



HUME


No Babies


No Babies


Temuchin


Temuchin

Problematic
Dr. Burtrum


Dr. Burtrum

Thanks to everyone who came out on Friday and helped us welcome back our German pals Jealousy Mountain Duo and kick off the first tour for Toxic Parents.

The Dan Drake Ensemble


Jealousy Mountain Duo


Toxic Parents


Graupel

Fantastic show! Vacation are exactly what pop punk should be in this day and age. Catchy, quick, and creative. They nailed out a great set and even hit us with a Shellshag cover.  Hunted down were a relentless onslaught of sludgy hardcore. Tasty indeed.

Additionally, we're happy to report we've got two solid new punk bands here in Ithaca, each with their own flair. BATISTA absolutely own with a melodic, feedback soaked, noisy punk with washed out vocals. We Are Whaleshark take apply driving, psych influence to their tunes. Check out footage from all of 'em below. More vids after the jump.

Catch BATISTA and the aforementioned Shellshag at BIG DAY IN this December 8th down at The Haunt...



Vacation - Crashing Rockets (Shellshag Cover)

If you'd like to see this clip from a different angle, click here. 


Hunted Down


BATISTA


We Are Whaleshark - Pig Pen

WOW! Stunning performances down at The Space last week. Normal Love's clang of avant precision held everyone's attention in their grasp like few we've had before. Two new, and very different, tunes from Ithaca's trio BRIAN! and the now-on-hiatus DAADs plus more fresh instrumental heaviness from Temuchin. Lots more after the break too...


Normal Love


BRIAN! "Ixnay on the Islay"


Temuchin


DAADs (new one)

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

Paper Mice : Live at Ball Hall from GONZO CHICAGO on Vimeo.

Thanks to everyone who came out to The Space last Wednesday. We've got footage of the brand new BRIAN! piece and a clip from the new improv electronics duo known as Problematic. Check 'em out!



BRIAN!


-Problematic-

Ithaca Underground is proud to present Diamond Terrifier and Patrick Higgins on July 18th at The Space (700 W Buffalo St, Ithaca, NY).

Diamond Terrifier is Sam Hillmer of ZS - his saxophone and electronics solo project, to be precise. Named after the English translation of the Indo-Tibetan god-name Vajrabairahva, Diamond Terrifier is concerned with the potential positive qualities of destruction as mediated by noise/drone sheets of sound music.  Check out some footage of this performance in Philly earlier this spring and last year in NYC:

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

Long Island's State Lines (Tiny Engine) and Massachusetts' The Hotel Year (Mightier Than Sword) make their Ithaca tour stop down at The Space @ GreenStar tonight at 8PM. The former walk the pop-punk line between melancholy and optimism while the latter craft raw, fast and scrappy melodic punk coupled with tasteful alt-country twang and patient storytelling. State Lines new EP is streaming exclusively through Punknews right now. Both bands also have material streaming via bandcamp below.






Two young, promising punk bands to say the least!  Local youth punks King Size Pegasus and Cortland via Brooklyn M/F duo Object get things started down at The Space tonight - 700 W Buffalo St, Ithaca, NY 14850 - near Corks & More. Just $5 at the door and as always, this show is all ages. Get down on a Monday!

Ithaca's "PunkRockWaltzStompShout" quartet why+the+wires have signed with Richmond, VA's Rorschach Records!!! The RR has been home to the likes of Capsule, Ultra Dolphins, The Catalyst, among other quality underground acts.

The band is shooting for an August release, so stay tuned! In the meantime, check out their sophmore LP via Angry Mom Records, streaming now.





Catch why+the+wires live at The Space on Sunday, July 29th at The Space @ GreenStar with The Catalyst, Dionaea, and Temuchin. 8PM $5

YES! Hello there, we are still alive here at "FREE!".  As some of you may have heard, I (Bubba) was in the UK visiting my first nephew for most of May, then returned home in time for Ithaca Festival and Mouth To Mouth To Mouth's EP release show and subsequent weekend on the road. It's been a busy last two months, but we'll get you all caught up right now.

We'll start off with some high quality footage from Weedeater at The Haunt from Chris Knight and Time/Being at Cornell University from the first IU/Risley collaboration via Lanny Haung.

Then it's on to the brand new Ithaca-based band Temuchin featuring ex-Iwo Jima Medkit members and touring members of Tombs.

Lots more from Young Widows, Pygmy Lush, Femme Tops, Underground River and more after the page break...


Weedeater


Time/Being


Temuchin


Young Widows

We're a bit backed up with all the amazing live footage our pal Lanny has been taking, but here's the first three hot out of the oven!  Mylets doing a sick Battles cover, Bangladeafy! ripping it, and Math The Band going wild as always. Check it.



Mylets


Bangladeafy!


Math The Band

Lots more to come...

Band Name: StageFright

Location: Long Island, NY.

Formed: Summer 2010.

Members: J, Keri, Pete, TonyA.

Releases: Act I:


Tell us about yourselves!
J: Pete and I talked about starting a fast punk band at an Energy show in Autumn 2009, but it would be nearly a year until it finally happened, and almost two years until we played a show. My biggest influences are AFI, The Nerve Agents, Ceremony, and Some Girls. I am planning on getting our demo pressed on cassette, but no one else knows about that. My dream is for us to open at an Insanity Defense reunion show. It’s all about the wordplay.

Pete: Ever since high school, I wanted to start a “fast, but weird” punk band. I didn’t find the right people to do it with until after I graduated college.I got a group of my friends together, and everything clicked.  J, Keri, and Tony are all insanely talented and the nicest people. I’m so lucky that I get to be in a band with them! The music I contribute in this band is probably most influenced by Fugazi, AFI, Public Enemy, At The Drive-In, Minor Threat, Refused, and Rites of Spring. I personally have no ambition for this band being successful, I just love creating music and playing shows with my friends. But I guess the “purpose” of the band (as me and J see it, at least) is to make punk that’s different from what’s going on in the Long Island scene, particularly the hardcore scene. There’s a lot of generic tough-guy hardcore out there that is made primarily for the “shirtless muscular dudes in gym shorts” demographic. I don’t think a lot of bands are trying hard enough to create something new. I don’t know if we’re really successful at doing that or not, but that’s kind of our goal. Plans are: put out another EP by the end of the year, play plenty of shows, have fun, try hard, but don’t take it too seriously. (Sorry for rambling on so much.)

TonyA: I have been playing drums since the 3rd grade, and I never turned back. Being an avid member of the local Cornell University Drumline, it is no wonder that I stress keeping time so strictly when I play with StageFright too. Punk, in particular StageFright, has really pushed my limits. The Long Island punk scene is a unique, ever-evolving scene that I have been a part of since 2005 in some shape or form (when not busy with Ithacation, of course). Each band has been a rewarding experience, but StageFright has brought me to new heights I never thought possible. Thanks to Pete, J, and Keri for having so much confidence in my playing. You guys make the rush of playing feel that much more sweet. (Ramble on!)

Keri: I started playing bass shortly before joining StageFright. I played guitar in a previous band with Pete and am very happy to be playing with him again, as well as J and Anthony. I have a lot of fun playing in this band. I hope we can play out more in the future and am looking forward to recording our next EP.

SPECIAL NOTE: Thanks to Bubba for doing giving us our first show outside Long Island, and for letting us do this little bio thing!

Band Name: The Yeomen

Location: Ithaca, NY

Formed: Febuary 2011

Members:
Devin Castaldi-Micca (guitar, vocals, organ, other stuff)
Dylan Henderson (lead guitar)
James Jordan (guitar, noise, percussion)
Julian Ciany (drums, vocals)
Pat Gaughan (bass)

Releases: Nothin' formal yet, but we have some rough demos and live cuts on our Bandcamp:


Tell us about yourselves!
Hey, this is Devin from the Yeomen. We formed last winter as a Tom Waits cover band. We learned a song or two of his but moved pretty quickly over to my originals. Many of our songs started as my bedroom recordings, but the full band has helped bring these songs from whispered and restrained bedroom folk to sweaty loud rock songs. We pride ourselves on our genre jumping, playing everything from folk-punk to garage, shoegaze, noise, punk, stoner metal and whatever the hell else we have a good time playing. We got off the ground playing in a friend’s garage, often in the freezing cold, the brutal heat, and generally at the ire of the neighbors (and once while a skinned raccoon was being bled onto a piece of cardboard). The other guys in the band are involved with other groups or solo projects, Julian and Pat both play in local mainstays Zgress (http://www.zgress.com/) and Kin Ship (http://kinship.bandcamp.com/).  Julian also plays in a band back home in Providence RI (http://www.myspace.com/vejaduri). Dylan and James are involved in a local trip-hop project and James also creates noise compositions. Dylan is also involved with a noise rock group out of Brooklyn.

Don't miss The Yeomen live, kicking things off at The Space @ GreenStar, 700 W Buffalo St  with Arvid Noe (Boston) and StageFright (Ithaca /  Long Island) - 8PM $5 All Ages

Band Name: Cloud Rat. Madison's father once told her that seagulls were rats in the clouds. So that's where that came from, not the actual cloud rat native to the Philippines.

Location: We are all natives from the Mount Pleasant area of Michigan, but Madison now lives in Detroit.

Formed: December 2009

Members: Adrian - Drums. Madison - Vocals. Rorik - Guitar

Releases: So far - Self Titled LP (June 2010), Split Cassette w/ Xtra Vomit (October 2010, soon to be on LP in April '12), 3-Way Split LP w/ The Oily Menace and Wolbachia (September 2011), Split 7" w/ Autarkeia (December 2011), as well as two digital/mp3 releases on Grindcore Karaoke (Self Titled LP and Fever Dreams, which collects all of the other currently released material).


Tell us about yourselves!
Cloud Rat formed in the cold winter of 2009. Adrian and I had been friends for a long time, and have played in bands together years before. Adrian and Madison have known each other for years as well, and were living together when we formed as a band. I went to a show at their house, and I could hear Madison screaming over the band! So that night we all talked about starting a band so that we could contribute a track to our friend Kevin's Michigan Grindcore compilation he was putting together (which never happened). After forming, we wrote and recorded our Self Titled LP within a month, and then it was put out 5 months later by our friends at IFB Records in Florida. We are forever grateful to them for everything they have done for us.

I would describe our sound as grindcore rooted in punk, with a lot of hardcore punk, black metal, screamo, and grunge influences creeping in. We do our best to promote veganism, radical feminism, anti racism/sexism/homophobia/classism/bullshit. The purpose of this band is a mixture of personal catharsis, promoting kindness and equality, and to have fun as well.

We have toured most of the USA and have plans to do a lot more within the next couple years. Currently we are recording for three different records and are looking to head overseas soon-ish.
We look forward to coming to Ithaca!!!!!!

-Rorik / Cloud Rat
cloudrat.blogspot.com

Don't miss Cloud Rat live, this Thursday at Silent City Distro - located on The Commons, above Autumn Leaves Books at 115 MLK Jr / State St, Ithaca, NY 14850.  8PM $5 ALL AGES with locals Hiroshima Vacation and King Sized Pegasus. 

Band Name: Bangladeafy! It's a portmanteau of the words Bangladeshi and Deaf. Atif Haq is of Bangladeshi descent and I (Jonny Germ) am hearing disabled (deaf is an exaggeration).

Location: We are located in the NYC/LI area and travel 50 miles to one another for rehearsal but, we make it work and send each other ideas through the internet to keep things fresh.

Formed: After numerous failed bands ranging from folk to klezmer to mathy nintendo influenced prog, Atif and I sticking together through them all, we started yet another band in hopes of acquiring a trumpet player and a keyboard player as we played out. Due to our ability to swallow up any remaining audio space for another musician, we decided to stay as a duo.

Members: Atif Haq - drums/handsome, Jonny Germ - bass/keys/vox

Releases: We have self-released one album titled "This Is Your Brain on Bugs" thus far, the theme of that one documents our start in Brooklyn which also spawned at the same time as the bedbug epidemic. We have been on numerous compilations on Riotous Outburst records. We are aiming our next release for the fall. The working theme at the moment is two allegorical cure-all medicine/elixir traveling salesmen obviously representing us and our current expansion and touring in North America. The fantastical idea is that we actually have a  working cure (awesome music) and the privatized pharmaceutical industry (modern music industry) is trying to stop us from being successful. It's playful but hopefully, thought provoking.


Lately we have appealed to the modern prog metal crowd (i stress the word "modern" because the 90's dream theater-esque sound is quite cheesy) and it's been working for us on account of our techniques and speed. I think it has something to do with inventive musicians such as Animals As Leaders and The Mars Volta currently dominating the demographic at the moment. Atif utilizes a variety of world rhythms (African and Latin beats) but, cranks up the tempo for them resulting in something we've agreed to be "world/thrash" music. I fill in most empty spaces with polyharmonic bass tapping so, until we get that trumpet or keyboard player we've dreamed of, I will be what most laid back hippies or cynics call an "overplayer". My vocal influences are jello Biafra, Refused, Beastie Boys, Trent Reznor and Mike Patton.

We come from different musical backgrounds but, agree on a lot of the same shit such as: Squarepusher, Zach Hill, Marnie Stern, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Meshuggah and so forth.

I am currently writing music with the drummer of A Fucking Elephant and one guitar player from East Of The Wall. The working title is Hush Money. It's yet another band that I have to travel miles by train to play with, but totally worth it. There are numerous projects and possible splits that I might appear on with reputed musicians in the near future....


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


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

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