UPDATE: APPLES IN STEREO’S VAN HAS BROKEN DOWN AND THEY WILL NOT BE MAKING IT TO ITHACA TONIGHT. THE SHOW WILL STILL GO ON AS PLANNED WITH GENERATIONALS AND LAMINATED CAT. THE SHOW TONIGHT WILL BE $5- BUT FREE FOR THOSE WHO PURCHASED IN ADVANCE!  WE ARE WORKING ON A RESCHEDULED DATE WHICH WILL HOPEFULLY BE ANNOUNCED ASAP. ALL TICKETS WILL BE HONORED AT THE RESCHEDULED DATE.

DSP is proud to welcome long standing members of the Elephant 6 pop collective, The Apples in stereo, to Castaways for a night of high energy pop supported by Generationals and Laminated Cat! The Apples in stereo are going to be out on tour supporting their upcoming seventh LP entitled Travelers in Space and Time out just before this show on April 20. Tickets go on sale today for $12 adv./ $15 Dos.

BUY TICKETS

More on the bands…

THE APPLES IN STEREO

The shiny pop centerpiece of the famed Elephant 6 collective, The Apples in stereo was born of Robert Schneider’s infatuation with recording and his near-pathological compulsion to write the perfect pop song. Citing Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys as their root text a decade before it was en vogue, Schneider and former and future band members Hilarie Sidney, Jim McIntyre, Chris Parfitt, John Hill, Eric Allen, Chris McDuffie, Bill Doss, John Ferguson, John Dufilho, and others used their basement-D.I.Y. beginnings as a launching pad into a kaleidoscopic galaxy of sound. Constantly mutating from debut album Fun Trick Noisemaker through recent opus New Magnetic Wonder, that galaxy has expanded from 4-track recordings made in Schneider’s bedroom to 100-track sonic experiments complete with new musical scales.

Collecting The Apples’ most well-known songs, #1 Hits Explosion reminds us that pop music is the art of the song, the art of sounds assembled in a pattern designed to give joy. For over fifteen years The Apples in stereo have taught us that three minutes can change your life. #1 Hits Explosion will make sure we don’t forget it.

GENERATIONALS

Generationals is the collaboration of Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer. Following the breakup of their previous band the Eames Era, they returned home to New Orleans in 2008 to form Generationals and record their first record, Con Law.

They tapped the Oranges Band founder Daniel Black (the mind behind the Eames Era’s swan song Heroes and Sheroes) to engineer and produce the record at his D.C.-based home-studio. Black recorded Con Law in the style of his heroes—George Martin, Phil Spector, Jeff Lynn and Quincy Jones—with a meticulous attention to detail and a willingness to make the recordings sound old. The result is one of those classic “first record” moments that blissfully wills its listeners into repeat listens.

The sounds of Con Law were cobbled together from the far corners of the instrument room to form a cohesive group of songs written in straight-forward pop structures. Chiming 12-string electric guitars sit next to 8-bit sequencers, synth-bass and trumpet. Often the shakers, hand-claps and acoustic guitars sound like Paul Simon and Tom Petty, while another arrangement recalls Junior Walker and Booker T., all recorded to an old 24-track 2-inch tape machine that threatened to melt down several times.

Live, the Generationals can include as many as seven pieces with background singers, a trumpet, guitars, keys, bass and drums. And when the whole band is singing en masse on songs like “Faces in the Dark” and “When They Fight, They Fight,” …shit sounds real good. You would want to be there when that happens.

Park the Van Records returned to New Orleans in December of 2008, four years after the label was birthed in the same zip code. A chance meeting at the Mid-City Yacht Club (not what it sounds like) led to discussion about Park the Van’s dearly missed the Teeth, the Spinto Band, Dr. Dog and the Grant and Ted’s new band. A handoff of their “just mastered” album led to an almost immediate signing with Park the Van. Generationals are the first New Orleans band signed to Park the Van. Con Law, their debut record, is available for your ears on July 21st, 2009 on Park the Van Records.

Laminated Cat

Ornate psychedelia from this young Athens, GA, band. One experimental composer, one multi-instrumentalist, and two identical twins add up to layers of oceanic bliss, ranging from delicate to druggy.