A pair of late bloomers, guitarist/vocalist Brian King and drummer/vocalist David Prowse had never been in a band before they graduated from the University of Victoria and started chaffing against responsible adulthood and career jobs. Which meant that when the Canadian duo formed Japandroids--pride of Vancouver, heroes to those in need of fuzz and euphoria--that they laced their anthems of a life where nothing could ever be more important than friends and feedback with sense that the authors were old enough to know both how childish such ideals really are. And how much they needed to sing about them anyway. Their wry take on heartfelt punk, guitar/drums/back-and-forth vocals approach and waves of blissful last-nights-of-summer guitar gauze turned last year's Post-Nothing and its single "Young Hearts Spark Fire" into Best Of The Year staples.

They've hardly slowed down since. In addition to a year-and-a-half spent mostly touring, the pair started a seven-inch/mp3 singles series with their label Polyvinyl. So far we've seen "Art Czars" (their most bitter song yet) and "Younger Us" (their most earnest song yet) and "Heavenward Grand Prix" (their dreamiest song yet), backed with righteous covers of punk heroes (X's "Sex And Dying In High Society" and Big Black's "Racer X"). A cover of PJ Harvey's acoustic Uh Huh Her deep cut "Shame" is on the way, as well as two more single entrees and, before long, an ambitious second album. The group is wrapping up their endless tour with stops tonight at Death By Audio with friends/co-headliners A Place To Bury Strangers and tomorrow, October 27 at Maxwell's. We recently caught up with guitarist/singer Brian King to talk about cohesive albums and, more importantly, whether or not they did actually vomit before playing Siren Festival in July 2009.

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If we're being honest, we've been refreshing YouTube all week in the hopes that someone might have uploaded footage of Marissa Paternoster's obliteratingly awesome guest turn on Ted Leo's "Woke Up Near Chelsea" at Siren this past Saturday, but it seems it's time to give up hope. (How is it possible that none of the thousands of people who were at Coney Island over the weekend had their cameras/cell-phones on for this? God knows if we wanted to see every second of every set that every band played last night at the Mercury Lounge we probably could right now.) Nevertheless, your consolation prize: video of the other two highlights of Leo's blistering set, "Little Dawn" and "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone." The latter's above, the former, below:

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​It is pretty much our job to try to help here if at all possible. Anybody? (Related: this was the only one of only nine Siren-themed Missed Connections over the weekend. Let us hereby congratulate all the bright young things we saw walking around Coney Island on Saturday for being so impossibly well-adjusted, romantically speaking. Even Caribou caused more heartache than us.) Plus, a bonus transgender-y one!:

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He then dedicates a song to "the shorties," mercifully clarifying that he means actual short people, which makes me feel a whole lot better about the whole thing. Cuteness, thankfully, overpowers all.

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So much for dressing for the weather. Photos by Rebecca Smeyne

​As you may have derived from weather reports, or common sense, or Twitter, or me, it was tremendously fuckin' hot Saturday afternoon in Coney Island, home of the nonetheless raucous and lively tenth-annual Siren Festival, which you can relive in great photographic detail here. Anyone who got onstage -- be they shirtless (Earl Greyhound) or sort-of pantsless (Ponytail) -- deserves your admiration, but the day's true heroine, clad in a stifling-looking red dress and black hose, for crying out loud, burned the place up by refusing to acknowledge the heat at all.

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Sam Horine

Open wide

Of all the things we here at Sound of the City emphatically endorse--Janelle Monae, the Mountain Goats, Matt & Kim, Ohio sports teams, responsible reporting of M.I.A.'s Tamil Tigers Tweets--the frantic live antics of Israeli stunt-garage trio Monotonix are high up there. Ami Shalev, a curly-maned lion of a frontman, almost always ends up shirtless, in shorts and sneakers, his squiggly rug of chest hair as much an identifying characteristic as the sharply accented consonants of his faux-metal roar. Last night, lager-bathed well-wishers were once again treated to an up-close-and-personal proximity to frontman Ami Shalev's pubic-hairy chest, courtesy of our pre-Siren-partying marketing department. Sam Horine took photos. You're lucky that dude is wearing pants at all.

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Dustin Pittman

Spoon's Britt Daniel, back in '05

​Ten years ago, the Village Voice staged its first-ever Siren Music Festival. On Saturday, we're celebrating the anniversary by welcoming back some SOTC favorites like Matt & Kim and Ted Leo to the shadow of the Cyclone at Coney Island. As we gear up for the big day, we thought we'd take a look back at photographic evidence of the fest's past triumphs, from 2009 all the way back to 2001. See if you can pick yourself out in the crowd:

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Yup, that's an Amebix t-shirt. Photo by Mark Hewko

​This weekend, Ted Leo returns to the Voice's annual Siren Music Festival for the record-setting third time, after performing in 2003 and DJing back in 2008. In anticipation, we called him up to talk about the rumors of his impending retirement, the challenges of getting older in a dying record industry, and what exactly his plans for the future might be. That story is here. But it's not every day that you get a punk icon of Leo's longevity and stature on the phone, so we figured: why not run the entire conversation? Our sprawling dialogue--about Twitter etiquette, pirating old Black Flag records, and the depredations of evil Italian promoters--is below. Read on if you like the guy.

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Not that there's not other things to talk about (The-Dream!), but we figure this is essential to your Saturday plan of attack. I might suggest that if SOTC were in charge Ted Leo would be both headlining and playing his own special commemorative stage, but this'll all work out just fine, I think. (Sleeper pick: the Night Marchers.) See you there, and don't forget Thursday's pre-party. (Monotonix!)

Rebecca Smeyne

Monotonix at Europa

Big week around these parts. Not only does this Saturday, July 17 mark the tenth anniversary edition of Siren Festival, but in the lead-up to the big day, we're just announcing a fairly amazing free pre-party that will take place this Thursday, July 15. Details are in the flyer after the jump, but do we really need to say anything else besides Monotonix?

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