Cleveland is finally getting a major music festival!!! …well, sorta. Check it.
Downtown Festival was launched in 2011, commemorating Downtown Record's 5th Anniversary, and featured sold out performances from some of today’s hottest acts across multiple genres, including Santigold, Major Lazer, Miike Snow, A-Trak, White Denim and others, over 2 nights at New York’s Webster Hall and Terminal 5. In 2013 Downtown Festival returned to NYC, taking over 8 venues in downtown Manhattan with performances from Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Purity Ring, Earl Sweatshirt, Ab-Soul, Sky Ferreira, DIIV, Trash Talk among others. Billboard summed up the ethos of the 2013 festival, saying "A young, Downtown Records-owned event that dispatches emerging artists across Manhattan’s Lower East Side – playing back-to-back sets for room[s] full of incidentally intimate strangers.”
Downtown Festival featuring…
Friday, September 19:
The War On Drugs
Islands
Com Truise
Pomplamoose
Califone
Extra Spooky
Teen
Saturday, September 20:
Justin Townes Earle
Crash of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
RJD2
Freeman
Full Details
HOUSE OF BLUES TEAMS UP WITH DOWNTOWN RECORDS FOR THE FIRST DOWNTOWN FESTIVAL AT VARIOUS VENUES IN CLEVELAND, OH!
LINE-UP FOR FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19:
The War On Drugs
Support: Califone
Friday, September 19
Doors 7pm / Show 8pm
Venue: Scene Stage at House of Blues
The War on Drugs is an American indie rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, formed in 2005. The band consists of Adam Granduciel (vocals, guitar), David Hartley (bass, guitar), Robbie Bennett (keyboards, guitar) and Patrick Berkery (drums).
Founded by close collaborators Granduciel and Kurt Vile, The War on Drugs released their debut studio album, Wagonwheel Blues, in 2008. Vile departed shortly after its release to focus on his solo career.
The band's second studio album Slave Ambient was released in 2011 to critical acclaim and extensive touring. A third album, Lost in the Dream, was released in March 2014.
Artist Website: http://www.thewarondrugs.net
Islands
Support: Extra Spooky, Teen Friday, September 19
Doors 7:00pm / Show 8:00pm Venue: Grog Shop
In July 2013, Nick Thorburn began hinting at a new Islands album. He soon posted a link to the band's website on Facebook revealing the upcoming release of a new album called Ski Mask. The first single, Wave Forms, was released in 2013 via SoundCloud. Released last September, Islands’ latest album, Ski Mask, showcases Thorburn at his “predictably unpredictable” best. A record that is equal parts beauty and venom, Ski Mask percolates with the kind of polymorphous pop and hooky, left-of-center rock songs that have long been the band’s stock and trade.
Artist Website: www.islandsareforever.com
COM TRUISE
Friday, September 19
Doors 11:30pm / Show 11:45pm Venue: Grog Shop
Com Truise is one of the many personas of producer and designer Seth Haley, born and raised in upstate New York and operating out of a 12’-overrun apartment in Princeton, New Jersey. An admitted synth obsessive, Com Truise is the maker of an experimental and bottom heavy style he calls “mid-fi synth-wave, slow-motion funk”.
Haley’s been making music on the side for roughly a decade—going through pseudonyms like toothbrushes (Sarin Sunday, SYSTM, Airliner)—first as a DJ, and currently, as an excavator of softer, window-fogging synth-wave.
While subliminally informed by both parental record collections and hints of faded electronics product design, Haley’s Com Truise project isn’t just nostalgia capitalization. There are fragments (read: DNA strands) of Joy Division, New Order, and the Cocteau Twins, but it’s like you’re hearing them through the motherboard of a waterlogged Xbox—demented and modern. He’s got a way of making familiar things sound beautifully hand-smeared.
The first Com Truise release was the Cyanide Sisters EP—distributed for free on the AMdiscs label—where mellow stone-outs like “Sundriped” and “Slow Peels” sat next to harder IDM bangers (“BASF Ace” and “IWYWAW”) and bumpy alt-funk trips (“Norkuy” and “Komputer”). After that came a single “Pyragony/Trypyra,” and a series of eclectic podcast mixes titled “Komputer Cast.” Now comfortably situated amidst the Ghostly roster, he’s prepping his next warped pillage, and hopefully not changing that name again.
Artist Website: http://comtruise.com
Pomplamoose
Friday, September 19
Doors 7:30pm / Show 8:30pm Venue: Beachland Ballroom
Pomplamoose is an American musical duo which feature Californian multi-instrumentalists, real life couple Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn. The duo formed in the summer of 2008 and sold approximately 100,000 songs online in 2009. They are known for their diverse music style which the band themselves refuses to put a label towards.
In 2011, Pomplamoose began a weekly, interactive, half-hour webcast called “Hey, It's Pomplamoose: A Show about Pomplamoose and Other Things” that airs every Tuesday. After the March 29th show, the webcast was put on hiatus until their East Coast tour was completed. The tour included Ryan Lerman, Carlos Cabrera, and Lauren O'Connell as backing band and opening act. For the Washington, DC show, Pomplamoose opened for OK Go, also known for their YouTube videos.
On November 5, 2013, Pomplamoose launched its second season — a three-part sequel to the band’s early years, including but not limited to: videos, a tour and an album (to be released July 29th).
Artist Website: http://www.pomplamoose.com
LINE-UP FOR SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20:
Justin Townes Earle
Support: Crash of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros Saturday, September 20
Doors 7pm / Show 8pm
Venue: Scene Stage at House of Blues
After two and a half years since his last release, Justin Townes Earle is back and pleased to announce his fifth studio album (and first ever on Vagrant Records!). Entitled Single Mothers, the record will be released nationwide on September 9th, 2014 and Justin will be on the road in the US throughout September and early October to support
Single Mothers is comprised of ten tracks that showcase exactly why Justin Townes Earle is considered a forefather of Contemporary Americana. As a recently married, sober man JTE writes from a point of maturity and content we’ve not seen before on past records. “One day I just realized it’s not cool to die young, and it’s even less cool to die after 30,” Justin laughs as he reflects on a life past and his new found clarity. What he’s created is an album that’s raw, honest and personal in a way he hasn’t touched upon since his debut EP, Yuma.
Once compared to a man who wears many suits JTE has experienced more than most, both personally and professionally, in thirty-two short years. Between releasing four full-length-critically-acclaimed albums, constant touring, multiple stints in rehab, being born Steve Earle’s son, amicable and not-so-amicable break-ups with record labels, and facing the trials and tribulations of everyday life, it’s safe to say JTE has quite the story to tell. Single Mothers serves as the perfect platform for such narrations.
Artist Website: http://www.justintownesearle.com
- Continued -
RJD2
Saturday, September 20
Doors 9:00pm / Show 10:00pm Venue: Grog Shop
rjd2 originally began his career in Columbus, Ohio, DJing in 1993 with a pair of turntables bought from a friend. He claims his name originates from another friend who referenced him as "rjd2" in his raps, and the name stuck.
Originally working the role of DJ in the Columbus rap group MHz, he later signed to Bobbito Garcia's Fondle 'Em label, releasing the self-proclaimed "mix CD" Your Face Or Your Kneecaps. A year later he signed to El-P's record label Definitive Jux and released his solo debut album Deadringer to much acclaim. rjd2 later collaborated with Columbus rapper Blueprint under the name Soul Position, releasing Unlimited EP in 2002 and 8 Million Stories in 2003. He released his second solo album Since We Last Spoke on Definitive Jux in 2004, which blended hip-hop with elements of pop and was lauded as one of the year's Top 40 Albums by SPIN.
He later contributed a cover of "Airbag" by Radiohead for the 2006 album Exit Music - the same year that saw the release of the collaborative record, Magnificent City, with Aceyalone. Fully indulging his passion for pop, rjd2 released another solo album, The Third Hand, on XL Recordings and toured extensively through 2008.
The innovative producer’s 10-year career reached a marked turning point in 2009 after he scored “A Beautiful Mine,” the popular theme to the hit AMC television series, Mad Men. In early 2010, he dropped The Colossus - the first album to be released on his own label, RJ’s Electrical Connections. He has since reissued Your Face Or Your Knee Caps, The Horror, and Since We Last Spoke as well as a vinyl LP deluxe box set entitled 2002-2010 via his label.
Artist Website: http://rjd2.net
Freeman
Saturday, September 20 Doors 7:30pm/ Show 8:30pm Venue: Beachland Ballroom
Listening to Marvelous Clouds, Aaron Freeman’s 2012 debut under his own name, fans might have felt that he was ignoring an elephant in his room—a drug-and-alcohol-related onstage flame-out that made viral headlines the year before. But Clouds, a deceptively chill Rod McKuen covers record, was just a warm-up for the artist once known as Gene Ween. In the opening minutes of FREEMAN, the self-titled debut from his new band, Freeman addresses addiction and its aftermath with the combination of merciless self-inventory and artful songcraft that earned Ween one of the most devoted fan bases in contemporary pop. This song, the unmistakably autobiographical “Covert Discretion,” is a quiet shocker. “Save your judgments for someone else,” Freeman sings. “Be grateful I saved me from myself.”
As bitter as it sounds, the track clears the air. FREEMAN represents a new beginning— Aaron Freeman’s first album of original material since disbanding Ween and getting sober—but it isn’t a record mired in its maker’s private struggles. It’s simply a collection of gorgeous, subtly offbeat songs—in other words, a continuation of the thread that runs through the entire Ween catalog. The lush psychedelic pop of “The English and Western Stallion”; the melancholy plea of “More Than the World”; the unflappable, Plastic Ono Band–esque blues-rock of “Gimmie One More”—these are songs that bear the unmistakable Aaron Freeman stamp.
Artist Website: http://www.partisanrecords.com/artists/freeman
HOUSE OF BLUES: 308 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114
Two Day Festival Pass $59 (General Admission Access at House of Blues & Grog Shop Downtown Festival concerts, Front of Line Access to ALL shows at House of Blues for Downtown Festival, Downtown Festival T-Shirt & Laminate.)
VIP Two Day Festival Pass $79 (VIP access for House of Blues Downtown Festival concerts, General Admission Access for the Grog Shop Downtown Festival Concerts, Foundation Room Access (Ages 21+) for both Friday and Saturday, Downtown Festival T-Shirt & laminate, Signed Vinyl from one of the headliners at Downtown Festival, Sound-check pre-party OR a meet and greet with Califone, Crash, RJD2 and Islands.)
Tickets are available for purchase at the following locations: www.houseofblues.com, House of Blues Box Office, www.ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets and Charge by Phone: 800.745.3000.
The House of Blues Box Office (308 Euclid Ave.) is open daily at 10 AM Monday thru Saturday.
For more information call 216.523.BLUE (2583).
GROG SHOP: 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44106 Islands: $12 advance / $14 day of show – General Admission
Com Truise: $12 advance / $15 day of show – General Admission
RJD2: $22 advance / $25 day of show – General Admission
Tickets are available for purchase at the following locations: http://www.grogshop.gs , Grog Shop club, www.ticketweb.com, by phone 216.321.5588 for a $1.00 surcharge and various local retail outlets (see venue website for more information).
BEACHLAND BALLROOM: 15711 Waterloo Road, Cleveland, OH 44110 Pomplamoose: $13 advance / $15 day of show – General Admission Freeman: $15 General Admission
Tickets are available for purchase at the following locations: http://www.beachlandballroom.com , Beachland Ballroom club, www.ticketweb.com, by phone 216-383-1124 for a $1.00 surcharge and various local retail outlets (see venue website for more information).
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