Album Title:Manners
Featured Track:”To Kingdom Come (Bodega Girls Remix)”
Record Label:Frenchkiss/Columbia
Website:www.myspace.com/passionpitjams
Bio: Michael Angelakos hears music in his head and knows exactly how he wants it to sound. The young composer/performer has already created two studio masterpieces — Manners and Chunk of Change — and — with his fellow musicians in Passion Pit — is taking his perfectionist pop vision to a whole new level in concert. Soulful, memorable, danceable, earnest and unabashedly pop, the music Michael Angelakos delivers on Passion Pit’s debut album, Manners, reveals a complex and challenging 21st century sound and sensibility, baroque and intricate in its construction with exquisitely soaring hooks and melodies coupled with enigmatic lyrics flowing straight from the id.Launched a mere three years ago as a humble one man multi-track laptop project in Angelakos’ college dorm room, Passion Pit has rapidly evolved under fire into an in-demand concert attraction, with sold out tours and a growing international reputation based on the power and immediacy of the music. Passion Pit is a two-fold entity sharing a single essence: there’s in-the-studio Passion Pit, essentially comprised of Michael writing, designing, and constructing intricate cathedrals of sound, and Nathan Donmoyer handling live percussion and programming. Ian Hultquist is also featured on Manners performing guitar on songs such as “Make Light” and “Moth’s Wings.” And then there is the in-concert Passion Pit, a loose yet tightly calibrated ensemble who turn Angelakos’ musical studio blueprints into a cathartic live experience. Angelakos was 20 years old when Passion Pit took its first hold on his psyche in the form of a multi-song “Valentine” to his then-girlfriend, recorded in his bedroom on readily available ad hoc technology including the built-in microphone on his laptop. After signing with indie label Frenchkiss, he opted to add more recordings that had been made shortly after the he self-released the collection of songs — including the signature track “Sleepyhead” — to his dorm room set, releasing it officially as the lo-fi EP Chunk of Change.Shortly thereafter, Angelakos gave the first Passion Pit performance, which consisted of himself and a laptop singing the EP’s songs in front of some rear-screen projections in the basement of his school to approximately 15 of his friends. The “half-show/half-installation” caught the attention of Angelakos’ friend and musical acquaintance Ian Hultquist, who approached Michael about the possibility of starting a band to play the music live. A few months later, with the help of Hultquist, Angelakos was building a full ensemble capable of realizing and producing the sounds in his head and taking them to the stage.

Album Title: N/A
Featured Track: “She’s Into Black Guys”
Record Label: Unsigned
Website: www.myspace.com/bodegagirls
Bio: BODEGA GIRLS are a party band.
BODEGA GIRLS: a band of tricksters, hedonists and good-for nothings
whose morals defy even the most perverted of human
beings.
BODEGA GIRLS: Only an audience so bloodthirsty and sex starved as
they could take pleasure in the world of bra-busting, pants-dropping
debauchery they have to offer.
BODEGA GIRLS: A musical troupe performing acts of sexuality and
persuasion with their own God-given instruments, turning on the
already depraved, as well as the naive.
BODEGA GIRLS: A sick cinematic slew of sweaty skimp and callous
kink. An unadulterated penetration into the gaping hole of the
sicko’s soul.
BODEGA GIRLS: The human id – illustrated in flesh and guitar
strings. Hourglass figures and experienced fingers prance and
wriggle their way across the stage, screen and into your psyche. An
orgy of sleaze, desire, and rock and roll music – brought to life in
bouncy, jiggly technicolor.
BODEGA GIRLS: Hedonistic purveyors of Soul, too well endowed and
too world- renowned to be confined to lo rent clubs and white bred
soundstages – look for their sonic ebony to explode at a party near
you. BODEGA GIRLS

I woke up this morning scouring my closet for a long skirt…I think I have the beginnings of a full-fledged obsession. Usually I’m a “the shorter the better” type girl, but there is something so sophisticated and summery about pairing a long skirt with a cute tank and some bangles or hoop earrings. I’m desperately in need of one!

Currently I’m crushing on Star Fish, which is convertible into a tube dress also. I can imagine it looking perfect thrown on over a bikini at the beach. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some shopping to do…

Image of Kate Moss via People Style Watch

Available: 6/16-6/23 The Like’s “Fair Game”

Here at Roxy we like our music to have a little sass. And they don’t come more sassy than all-girl quartet The Like. Just listen to the first few notes of the band’s new album, Release Me – you’ll think you’ve been transported back to 1965. With girl-group vocals, swirling organs, and dry backbeat drums doubled up with fuzz bass, the girls of the Like nail the look, feel and sound of a simpler time. Produced by Mark Ronson (Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Robbie Williams) with help from Thomas Brenneck and Homer Steinweiss (of The Dap Kings), and Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet), Release Me is alive with charm, authenticity and – most of all – fun. It’s the perfect soundtrack to your summer shenanigans.

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Here are the items I keep close by throughout the summer to beat the heat in style!

1. Korres Watermelon Face Sunscreen Stick

2. David Babaii Bohemian Beach Spray

3. Rosebud Salve

Album Title: Perdition Hymns

Featured Track: Black Clouds

Record Label: Tee Pee Records

Website: www.myspace.com/nighthorsemusic

Bio: Night Horse exploded on to the Los Angeles rock scene in 2008, playing their first live show ever, while mixing their debut EP The Dark Wont Hide You for Tee Pee Records.  Since then, Night Horse has caught the ears and eyes of critics and fans alike with their unique ability to blend the classic sounds of hard rock and blues music with a much needed breath of contemporary fresh air.  “If Sonic Youth had been immersed in an ocean of Allman Brothers inspiration, or Soundgarden had been steeped in late 60s Fleetwood Mac, then they might have turned out something like this. Night Horse take traditional blues-rock, spark it up with riotously noisy flashes and drag the rhythms through an early-90s grunge experience. Moreover, they’re cohesive, charismatic and compelling.”

Night Horse return with their highly anticipated sophomore effort Perdition Hymns, produced and mixed by Matt Bayles (Pearl Jam, Mastodon, The Sword).  Perdition Hymns is a patent demonstration of a group that has quickly become a well-refined song-writing machine.  The band has chiseled the six-minute jam style songwriting of The Dark Wont Hide You into the hook-laden gems that comprise Perdition Hymns; with riff driven catchiness and soaring melodies that stick.

Album Title: The Drums
Featured Tracks: “Let’s Go Surfing,” “Best Friends.”
Record Label: Downtown Records
Website: thedrums.com

Happy Monday, everybody. Distraught? Sleepy? Mired in post-weekend ennui? The Drums are here to help. Riding a tsunami of hype with ease and grace, this New York City ensemble has just released its highly anticipated self-titled debut album on Downtown Records. Like The Pixies and The Strokes before them, The Drums first gained attention in England after being largely ignored in their native America. Now they’re back to show us what we’ve been missing. The Drums offers a mix of ’80s synth pop and classic NYC indie, a perfect mix of styles that’s sure to go over huge this summer. Unfortunately, if you want to catch their already-legendary live show you’ll have to wait until they get back from their epic European tour. Until then, their music is sure to cure your bad case of The Mondays.

Available: 6/9-6/16 The Young Veins “Change”

Take a Vacation!, the debut album from The Young Veins, was released this week, and as we steam full speed ahead into summer, its title doubles as an excellent piece of advice. You might recognize Young Veins frontman Ryan Ross as the former songwriter, guitarist and singer in Panic! at the Disco. After two successful albums with that band, Ross wanted to try something new, so he and Panic! bassist Jon Walker moved to LA and formed what is now The Young Veins. Take a Vacation! was released by One Haven Music, and it’s full of high energy, beach-worthy, sing-a-long songs. Download the single “Change” and tell us what you think!

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Album Title: Hardships!
Featured Tracks: “Like A Fading Rainbow”
Record Label: Gold Medal Recordings
Website: www.jennywilson.net
Bio: Jenny Wilson is a Swedish singer-songwriter, born on October 23, 1975 in Blekinge, Sweden. She founded the band First Floor Power in 1997 and released two albums, There Is Hope and Nerves, before leaving the band to go solo around 2004. She studied graphic design at Konstfack for one year. Her music has a distinct style influenced by electro. Jenny Wilson was signed to The Knife’s Rabid Records, and was a guest vocalist on The Knife’s album Deep Cuts. Her solo album Love and Youth was released in 2005 in Sweden. In August 2006, Love and Youth was released in Australia on Hussle Recordings’ album imprint (later to launch independently as etcetc). The first single from the album, “Summertime – The Roughest Time”, received extensive airplay on Triple J. In November 2006, Wilson appeared on Robyn’s promotional The Rakamonie EP, featuring in a live recording of the song “List of Demands”. On February 25, 2009, Wilson self-released her second solo album Hardships! on CD and vinyl

Album Title: Time For The Devil
Featured Tracks: “Time For The Devil” and “And We Run”
Record Label: Naive
Website: www.myspace.com/johnjehn
Bio: John & Jehn started their musical career when they moved from their hometowns to London at the back end of 2006. Since then they have impressed music fans and journalists with their Lo-fi, rock’n'roll sound. The two are a couple. Influenced by Serge Gainsbourg, The Velvet Underground, Jean Luc Godard, Gang of Four, John Fante, Joy Division, Jacques Brel and Johnny Cash, John and Jehn’s music is a collection of sonic experiments, carried by dark humour on razor-sharp pop melodies. They released their debut album through indie label FMM (Faculty Music Media) in April 2008 to critical acclaim. In the summer of 2008, without any label on to them (their UK label Faculty Records left them in peace) and before their first album was released outside England, John & Jehn settled with a friend’s gear in a barn in France and started to record the first 5 songs of the second album. Those 5 began with ‘Oh My Love’, a key-stabbed, bass-driven, night-crawling, Roxy-Music-stalking number, dripping with thinly-veiled insouciance, and ‘Down Our Streets’, laced with hand-claps and cheery synth lines and ‘la la las’, but pulled together with a lyric concerning itself with the relentless, suffocating presence of London’s CCTV cameras, and the resulting longing for the enveloping cloak of night to fall. One year later, in the Summer of 2009, after touring Europe, the pair returned to Angoulême to build their own studio, to record the bulk of the new album “Time for the Devil” and to rehearse for their first live shows as a quartet (supporting Franz Ferdinand in front of 8,000 people in Paris was to be their baptism of fire). To support their second album on stage, John & Jehn are joined by Raphael Mura (from Underground Railroad) on drums and Maud-Elisa Mandeau (from Le Prince Miiaou) on guitar. For their UK tour, Gemma Thomson (from Hindley) is on guitar. A casual listen to ‘Time For The Devil’ reveals the lineage between John & Jehn and PiL, XTC, The Psychedelic Furs, The Stranglers and their ilk, but also classic pop as they move from brooding atmospherics of ‘The Ghosts’ to ‘Vampires’ with it’s opening gambit echoing The Beach Boys ‘Good Vibrations’