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In Waste Of Paint, our writer/artist team of Jamie Peck and Debbie Allen will review goings-on about town in words and images.

This weekend we learned Manhattan has no monopoly on holiday cheer. Sure, the decorations on Fifth Avenue might cost a little more, but not even the gaudiest department store display shines as brightly as the talent, creativity and camaraderie we found at Shea Stadium and Secret Project Robot.

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Nate "Igor" Smith

Oliver Ackermann versus his guitar

When A Place To Bury Strangers breezed into Siren Festival over a week ago, it was admittedly something of a disconnect to see them without seizure-inducing strobe lights or industrial-erotic projections. Frontman Oliver Ackermann sort of agreed that broad daylight might not be the best circumstances for their Saucony-gazing atmospherics. (Q: "Do A Place to Bury Stranger tunes translate well into daytime gigs?" A: "I don't necessarily think so, but that's okay.") But then about two-thirds through their set, Ackermann got into a brawl with his war-torn guitar, spun it around in a fit of animal bloodlust, fought it off like an attack dog, and tore off its strings. Text-book rock move, perhaps, but still pretty awesome.

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Nate "Igor" Smith

Japandroids

Now that Siren Festival is over, the sundry bands who played the Voice's Coney Island hotdogging extravaganza can announce their next New York shows without worrying about your proscratinated attendance. So if you did, perchance, miss an act you meant to see--either because you loitered too long somewhere or drunk mooks kept cutting you in the bathroom line (we actually opened the unlocked Port-a-Potty door on one of these assholes and it was sweet revenge) or, pray tell, you didn't actually go to Siren because you were busy taking care of homeless AIDS patients (the only acceptable excuse)--most of these guys will be back in the fall. Built To Spill, as we already told you, are headlining Webster Hall for two days in October. But The Raveonettes, Japandroids, The Ohsees, Micachu and the Shapes, Monotonix, and A Place To Bury Strangers have also declared their intentions to return to our fair stages. Dates and info below.

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Oliver loves math

Over the last few years, A Place To Bury Strangers have become a heavy presence in Brooklyn, dominating the fuzz-drone scene that draws from shoegaze stars Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. Lead vocalist Oliver Ackermann also founded the successful pedal effects company/music space Death By Audio, which has provided equipment to bands like U2, Wilco and MBV. As a band, APTBS have recently put the finishing touches on their sophomore album, Exploding Head, set for release this October. This Saturday, they play the Siren Festival Stillwell Stage at 5:30pm.

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From last year's Siren Fest

Hey! Siren Festival! Coney Island! Free concert! Thrown by this paper! All-ages! Nine hours long! Hot dogs! (Not free!) Bands! (Which are!) Beach! Sand! Skeeball! (Rain or) Shine! Naked people! Oysters! Rollercoaster! Motion sickness! Enthusiasm! Exclamation points! New additions: A Place to Bury Strangers, Thee Oh Sees, Tiny Masters of Today, Justine D. and and DeadHeat DJs! Also an after-party! With Francis and the Lights and Gordon Voidwell!

Yeah, that made us tired too. Peruse the official press release below, which uses all-caps instead of exclamatory statements and reminds you of all the previously announced performers like Built To Spill, Spank Rock, Grand Duchy (i.e. Frank Black), Micachu & the Shapes, Japandroids, Monotonix, Frightened Rabbit who will be serenading you that day. Go or be lame.

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Scott Spychalski for the Kansas City Pitch

There's been a tide of pre-emptive nostalgia for The Onion lately, given that America's Finest News Source ceased publishing two West Coast print editions last month and still manages to invent magnificent puns like Bonotheism. So it's in that spirit that I point you to this brief Death by Audio feature from Onion affiliate the Decider in which local guitar-pedal savant Oliver Ackermann does not reveal how to construct your own a Total Sonic Annihilation Superdeluxe effects box, but rather how to extricate yourself from that annoyingly constrictive Bushwick lease.

"I lived in this house in Bushwick," Ackermann says, "and all sorts of crazy fucked-up shit would happen. At some point, some dudes broke into my neighbor's house while he was there and tied him up to a chair and pistol-whipped him. One of my friends found him in a pool of blood. So after that our landlord let us have an open-ended lease."

This could really come in very handy. [The Decider]

A Place To Bury Strangers at the South Street Seaport last Friday; photo by Rebecca Smeyne

In two weekends, the Voice will throw this big, all-day, free-show bonanza on Coney Island starring Stephen Malkmus, Broken Social Scene, the Dodos, Beach House, Times New Viking, Islands, Ra Ra Riot, Parts and Labor, These Are Powers, and more. But now, there's even more to do with your beer-bloated, sunburnt, cherrystone-juiced ass on that particular day: an offical post-Siren after-party featuring A Place To Bury Strangers and Apes and Androids. The show's at the Music Hall of Williamsburg and it costs actual money, like $15, which is half the cost of that round you will buy tonight. Pretty fair considering, no?

Tickets on sale on Friday at noon over here.

A Place to Bury Strangers plays the Music Hall of Williamsburg this Saturday, March 22 with Holy Fuck. Ticket info here.

**OnlineHost** Welcome to Apartment Building Chat! larry: Come on, I'm going to show you around the city! balki: but cousin i am not from this country! my naivete and poor mastery of english will result in hilralrious misunderstandings! oliver_ackermann: /gets off elevator Oh, hey! I don't think I've met you guys yet. I'm Oliver, I just moved in. I'm in this band called-- larry: AAAAAAHH balki: aaaaaaa **OnlineHost** larry and balki have left the chatroom. oliver_ackermann: sigh **OnlineHost** Welcome to Bedford Ave Bodega Chat! cashier: ... where are your brothers and sisters? kevin_mccallister: I'm an only child. cashier: Well where do you live? kevin_mccallister: I can't tell you that. cashier: Why not? kevin_mccallister: cush you're a shtranger oliver_ackermann: /walks up to counter A box of Camel Lights, please. cashier: AAAAAAAHHH /runs away oliver_ackermann: sigh **OnlineHost** Welcome to Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers Chat! oliver_ackermann: /finds "absurdist fiction" shelf Oh, neat! I haven't read this one yet! oliver_ackermann: /picks up book albert_camus_novel: AAAAAAHH /grows legs, runs away oliver_ackermann: sighhhhhhhhh oliver_ackermann: /checks watch welp **OnlineHost** Welcome to Music Hall of Williamsburg Chat! oliver_ackermann: /takes stage WHAT'S UP BROOKLYN fog_machine: /whoooooooooosh crowd: WOOOOOO IT'S THE LOUDEST FUCKIN BAND IN NEW YORK WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oliver_ackermann: Thank you! Thank you so much! This means a lot. . . it's been a hard day. crowd: IT'S OKAY, APTBS!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!! oliver_ackermann: and ... and you don't mind if I find a place to bury you? crowd: ... WHAT oliver_ackermann: /produces shovel, truncheon well, i mean, that's sort of our thing crowd: HOLY FUCK oliver_ackermann: Yeah, we were really honored to have them tour with us. So who's first? Clear a pit, everybody! crowd: /weeps oliver_ackermann: god damn the noise-rock scene is fuckin dead. oliver_ackermann: this really isn't what I meant by "death by audio." guess i won't need this /drops truncheon

ProgressiveBoink.com jonbois@gmail.com

 

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