Jen’s New Obsession – The Pack A.D.

So my friends at Pirate sent me this awesome album that I can’t get enough of currently. It’s called We Kill Computers and it’s by The Pack A.D. It’s a girl duo consisting of Becky Black and Maya Miller from Vancouver. It sounds alot like if The White Stripes and The Black Keys got together and had a baby, but that baby looks more like the White Stripes than the Black Keys. That baby’s siblings are also The Kills and The Gossip. Wouldn’t you like to meet this baby?

Pack A.D. is loud, edgy without being noisy and obnoxious. It’s got a grungy, unpolished Jack White-ish guitar riffs along with Meg White-esque simple and clean drums. The opening of Pack’s Crazy is reminescent of the Stripes’ The Hardest Button to Button and Pack’s Everyone Looks Like Everyone has hints of Stripes’ My Doorbell. The vocals on Cobra Matte sound like Amanda Palmer from The Dresden Dolls and she’s super awesome. Even without all the similarities, it’s an awesome album that you should seriously check out. Tune in to wdcvfm.com and 88.3 to hear it played all the time.

Rock-Hop Weekend!!!

***********WARNING: WDCV will not be accepting any more ticket reservations starting Friday at 4pm. OR if we get more than 250.**********

WDCV 88.3 FM is proud to announce its spring concerts to be held on Friday April 16th and Saturday April 17th, during what is to be known as Rock-Hop weekend! And we’re particularly excited to announce Wiz Khalifa as the headliner of Saturday night’s concert.

Both concerts will start at 8pm in the ATS auditorium on the Dickinson College Campus. Featuring 6 artists over the course of two nights, this promises to be one of the biggest events in WDCV’s history!

April 16th will be WDCV’s “rock” night, and features a mixture of up and coming local or indie bands.

The You Know Whos:  A band based in nearby Hummelstown will be the opening act, playing a blend of their own brand of folksy-blues music.

Fugitive Souls: An indie alternative group from Brooklyn, their first EP “Strangers” was released in August.  You can read up on them at http://fugitivesouls.com/

Drink Up Buttercup: Friday’s headliner. They hail from Philly and their first CD “Born and Thrown on a Hook” comes out March 23rd.  Listen to their music at http://drinkupbuttercup.com/

April 17th will be WDCV’S “Hip-Hop” night and includes some of our favorite underrepresented hip-hop artists. (PLEASE NOTE: Saturday will be free to Dickinson students and $10 for people without Dickinson IDs)

DelErium Tremens: Hailing from NYC, DelErium is an underground rapper whose energetic performance will start off the night.

L One Crackeriffic: L One Crackeriffic is an underground rapper from Long Island. Making a name for himself in the tri-state area, he recently released his first album, “Somebody Stole My Rhymebook” in July and is working on his second for 2011.

Wiz Khalifa: Saturday’s headliner is an aspiring young rapper from Pittsburgh. He has released several mixtapes since 2005 and has two more on the way for 2010.  His most recent album, “Deal or No Deal” was released in November of 2009. He has a raw rap style and a unique flow, making him different from most mainstream rappers today. He is a breath of fresh air for any hip hop fan.

The doors of ATS will open at 7pm and the concerts will start at 8pm. Friday’s concert is free to all. Saturday’s concert will be free to Dickinson students and $10 to the public. No food or drink will be allowed into ATS, and we ask you not to bring any bottles to the concert. If we make any plans for advance ticket sales, we’ll let you know.

We’ll see you there!

**********Wiz Khalifa Ticket Information (added 4.14.10)*************

To those of you who are unaware, WDCV 88.3 FM, Dickinson’s radio station, is hosting two concerts this weekend, April 16th and 17th. However, people have come to us with questions and misconceptions, and we wish to clarify some things, particularly regarding tickets for the Saturday night Wiz Khalifa concert.

Admission for both nights is FREE with your Dickinson College ID.

Tickets are also available for those without a Dickinson College ID. The price is $10 (CASH ONLY) and they are first come, first serve basis. Tickets can be reserved in advance  by emailing  wdcvfm@gmail.com. You may reserve multiple tickets. Reserve tickets can be picked up when the doors open at 7PM and must be retrieved before 7:30PM.

Because the Wiz Khalifa concert is free to Dickinson students, and because we have great interest from people outside the Dickinson community, we recommend coming to the concert as close to 7pm as possible. ATS has a limited capacity of 1000 people, and we will not be able to let more people in once that number is reached.

Doors open at 7PM and the concert begins at 8PM. If you plan on buying tickets please arrive early as we are expecting a large crowd for the event.

Thank you very much, and we hope to see as many of you as possible at the concert.

capsule – PLAYER

With WDCV’s new music blog finally up and running, I figured I’d also throw in my two cents with a review of “PLAYER,” the new album by capsule, one of my favorite groups in any genre.

For those of you who don’t know (and shame on you!) capsule is a Shibuya-kei duo from Tokyo who create some of the slickest electropop out there. They write predominantly in Japanese (although a lot of English samples make their way into their work), but that shouldn’t stop you. I absolutely love this group and I don’t even know any Japanese.

As for PLAYER, it marks the group’s tenth release via Yamaha subsidiary (and capsule-owned) label Contemode, and while perhaps not their best effort, it is indeed solid from start to finish. The album alternates between catchy vocal-laden tracks to hard-hitting instrumental jams with a few hip-hop samples thrown in for good measure. I personally tend to enjoy the vocal tracks a bit more – I recommend “I Wish You,” “Can I have a Word,” and “Love or Lies” – but the instrumental tracks like “The Music” also satisfy, even if some might find them a tad redundant. Even if electro isn’t your thing, I would still advise giving them a try…you won’t be disappointed.

Look out for it in Heavy Rotation this week, but for a quick preview, check out the following music blog: http://toomanysebastians.blogspot.com/2010/03/capsule-player.html. Enjoy!

Tracklist:
1.) Stay With You
2.) Player
3.) I Wish You
4.) The Music
5.) Factory
6.) I Was Wrong
7.) Can I Have a Word
8.) What do you want to do
9.) Hello
10.) Love or Lies

-James W-K

Ted Leo’s “The Brutalist Bricks”

Brutalist Bricks Cover

Ted Leo says, "The cover might not make any sense at first, but if you stare at it long enough, you will go blind and then it won’t matter."

Ted Leo’s new album, “The Brutalist Bricks,” comes out tomorrow on Matador records. The album has been described by some as “peculiarly fresh,” and by me as “pretty much the greatest thing I have ever heard, ever.” Stylistically, the album follows 2007’s “Living with the Living,” but with a condensed, grittier sensibility and new energy. While the overall sound is delightfully consistent, there’s enough variety to keep things interesting, and Theodore’s songwriting really shines through. It’s a solid release that, if you are anything like me, you will play repeatedly for about a week straight.

There’s no way I can do the album justice in a few words, but luckily the album is available for free streaming on Myspace. Get into it! We’ll also be adding it to our rotation at WDCV, so you’ll get to hear it when you tune in.

Mr. Leo is currently on tour supporting the album release, and will be coming to our area around early April.