Below is a new music video from Nightlands, a.k.a. Dave Hartley, for the track "Born to Love" off his latest release Oak Island. It was directed by She Policeman (who was inspired by Andy Warhol and the song, itself), using footage from another video filmed with an old VHS camcorder. Nightlands also just announced a string of headlining dates that will make a local stop on Friday, May 31 at Johnny Brenda's. BTW: Send out some good vibes to Hartley this weekend because he'll be competing at the Professional & Amateur Pinball Association's 2013 Match-Play Championship in Pittburgh, alongside four-time world champion Bowen Kirens and pinball champion/former '76 Todd MacCulloch, who both personally invited him.
Congrats to Dave Hartley, a.k.a. Nightlands, and Luke Bonner on their successful #LetBonnerShoot campaign! The San Antonio Spurs announced yesterday that Matt Bonner will be competing in the Foot Locker Three-point Contest (which will be taking place on Saturday, February 16) at the 62nd NBA All-Star Game weekend. The guys ran a brilliant grassroots social media campaign that garnered support from high-profile folks like Arcade Fire and Eva Longoria. The people have spoken, and we were heard - cheers fellas!
Nightlands, a.k.a. Dave Hartley, recently premiered the track "Nico" from his latest record Oak Island. You can listen to the album version below, and check out Hartley's interview with ARTINFO as well as the vocals only and instrumental version of the song HERE. He'll be heading on tour next month opening for Efterklang.
Yeah, it’s effin’ cold out! That’s why this Saturday you can find a whole evening’s worth of entertainment all under one roof at Kung Fu Necktie. The night will kickoff with a solo set of panty-dropping vocals from Sun Airway’s Jon Barthmus. Then prepare to be engulfed in sonic waves when Nightlands, a.k.a. The War on Drugs’ Dave Hartley, hits the stage to share some new tunes from his latest album Oak Island. (You can check out our recent interview with Hartley HERE.) And you don’t have to leave after his performance because you can either stay downstairs for Sugar Town’s 12th Anniversary and benefit show for Ladyfest Philly with Radiator Hospital, Bike Crash and Batty, or head upstairs and pretend like you are at a house show with Catnaps, Roof Doctor, Tutlie and Incorporated Village of the Ghost. See - there is no need to go anywhere else. Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 7:30pm, $10, 21+ - H.M. Kauffman
Other places to hideout from the cold this weekend…
Johnny Brenda’s (1201 N. Frankford Ave.) FRI It's a King Thing, Windsor Park Walkers, Clamfight, SAT It’s the Year 2007 w/Reef The Lost Cauze
Kung Fu Necktie (1250 N. Front St.) FRI Leather, Heathen Reign, SAT (Downstairs - Early) Nightlands Record Release Show w/Jon Barthmus (Sun Airway), (Upstairs) Roof Doctor, Catnaps, Traffic Nightmare, Tutlie, (Downstairs - Late) Sugar Town Ladyfest Benefit w/Radiator Hospital, Bike Crash, Batty
North Star Bar (2639 Poplar St.) FRI Mater Mathu, Study Electricity, Problem Solving, SAT Hopscotch Injury, Makeshift Uprising, Easy Three & The Funky T, Ridden Fifths
The Fire (412 W. Girard Ave.) FRI Uptown Tone, Mazon, ANDtheNAMELESS, Feevaleo, SAT Electric Grioland, Socin Lberation Front, Leana Song, Prophecy Music Project, DJ Femstar, SUN Mean Streets, Horse Theives and Other Villians
MilkBoy Philly (1100 Chestnut St.) FRI Among Criminals, Kid Felix, Post Sun Times, SAT Steppin Razor
The Trocadero (1003 Arch St.) FRI Modern Colour, Jacob Kulick, Delco Pacers, SAT Stone, Alexander Lawrence and Sets, Outlander, In Nomine Patris, Aponic Blue, Dizzy Doctrine, Mirror Men
TLA (334 South St.) SAT Deep C, Speaker for the Dead
The Blockley (3801 Chestnut St.) FRI Tommy Conwell, Jeffrey Gaines
Fergie’s (1214 Sansom St.) FRI (Early) John Train, (Late) Sunshine Superman, SAT Keystone Mountain Boys, SUN Rusty Cadillac
World Café Live (3025 Walnut St.) FRI Tripod Trio, SAT KillerWhale
Tin Angel (20 S. 2nd St.) FRI Dom, Zach and Friends, SAT Aiden James
The Legendary Dobbs (304 South St.) FRI The Good Excuses, Stolen Rhodes, SAT Rowboat Casino
Triumph Brewery (117 Chestnut St.) FRI The Top Catz, SAT Natural Selection
Nightlands’ Dave Hartley seems to be one seriously busy dude. He just released his new record Oak Island earlier this week via Secretly Canadian. And while for some artists accomplishing that feat may be just enough and sometimes too much to handle, you’ll also find him lending his musical talents to other rad projects and artists like recently backing the legendary founding member of The Velvet Underground, John Cale, on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, touring with Sondre Lerche, recording with Sharon Van Etten, and (of course) traveling the world and being best known as the bassist for much-beloved rock outfit The War on Drugs just to name a few. Oh yeah - we don’t want to forget that the basketball fanatic also occasionally writes his own sports columns for Impose Magazine (“Death Dunk”) and WXPN’s The Key (“Top of the Key”), and for the past month, he’s been furiously championing a petition to get San Antonio Spurs three-point specialist Matt Bonner invited to NBA All-Star Weekend’s Foot Locker Three Point Shootout, which has garnered support from celebrities like Eva Longoria and Arcade Fire. (BTW: He is growing a protest beard for the cause as well - #LetBonnerShoot!) Hartley will be celebrating the release of Oak Island this Saturday at Kung Fu Necktie before heading out on tour in February opening for Efterklang. However, before all that goes down, we had a chance to pass a few questions his way, which you can check out HERE.
Nightlands’ Dave Hartley seems to be one seriously busy dude. He just released his new record Oak Island earlier this week via Secretly Canadian. And while for some artists accomplishing that feat may be just enough and sometimes too much to handle, you’ll also find him lending his musical talents to other rad projects and artists like recently backing the legendary founding member of The Velvet Underground, John Cale, on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, touring with Sondre Lerche, recording with Sharon Van Etten, and (of course) traveling the world and being best known as the bassist for much-beloved rock outfit The War on Drugs just to name a few. Oh yeah - we don’t want to forget that the basketball fanatic also occasionally writes his own sports columns for Impose Magazine (“Death Dunk”) and WXPN’s The Key (“Top of the Key”), and for the past month, he’s been furiously championing a petition to get San Antonio Spurs three-point specialist Matt Bonner invited to NBA All-Star Weekend’s Foot Locker Three Point Shootout, which has garnered support from celebrities like Eva Longoria and Arcade Fire. (BTW: He is growing a protest beard for the cause as well - #LetBonnerShoot!) Hartley will be celebrating the release of Oak Island this Saturday at Kung Fu Necktie before heading out on tour in February opening for Efterklang. However, before all that goes down, we had a chance to pass a few questions his way, which you can check out below.
The Deli: What is the meaning behind naming your new album Oak Island?
Dave Hartley: Oak Island is a small, uninhabited island off the coast of Nova Scotia - I recommend reading the Wikipedia page. It’s fascinating. Basically, at some point in the 1700’s, some sailors noticed a curious indentation in the ground and a pulley hanging above it; they dug and found curious boards and stones that suggested something had been buried. Since then, there have been dozens of attempts to excavate treasure or artifacts from Oak Island, with all sorts of conflicting reports and even some deaths. Millions have been spent. Signs and mysterious evidence have been found, but no treasure. It represents something that I’m fascinated with: bottomless mystery. Like staring into a well and never seeing the bottom or even knowing if there is a bottom at all. I went to great lengths experimenting with vocal layering, tape speed manipulation, and various signal paths to make my voice sound like it is both right up close and a million miles away. Oak Island just felt right.
TD: There is a noticeable difference in the songwriting between the tracks from your earlier material and the latest record. What inspired the songs from your previous works and now your current one?
DH: I guess I was listening to lots of really classic pop like The Beach Boys, Dion, Lee Hazelwood and The Ink Spots and marveling at the simplicity and almost naïveté of the lyrics. I just love it - just like in some ways I like the idea of love more than the practice. It’s so perfect in a song, but so complicated in real life. So I tried to make a counterpoint to the spaciness of the sounds with very straightforward, universal lyrics. I think if I had gone too abstract the whole thing wouldn’t have been anchored, and could have just floated away into the ether. So, yeah, basically I tried to write songs about love and loss and friendship and betrayal and hope and despair. Human stuff. But in space. And sung by millions of robots.
TD: Being the frontman of a project or a backing band member, which do you enjoy more, and why?
DH: Stone cold tie. Love both, and I love the way each makes me appreciate the other. I love The War on Drugs, and deferring to Adam’s vision. I like playing a role and bolstering others up. I like being a part of what I think is a goddamn great rock and roll band. But I also like to isolate, and get really analytical. I like to scheme and create. I love calling the shots with my own vision. Hopefully, through touring, Nightlands will coalesce into a viable live band, and I can start to collaborate more with my friends and bandmates (like Eliza Hardy Jones and Jesse Moore). I hope it happens, but I don’t think you can force it. It has to happen organically.
TD: You’ve already had a chance to play with a lot of talented musicians. What has been your favorite performance moment so far, and why?
DH: That’s tough, because every opportunity to play with someone more talented than you is a chance to learn something. Certainly sharing the stage with someone like John Cale or Daniel Johnston or ?uestlove is an honor, but truly the most special moments have been watching The War on Drugs grow from something so small and personal into something capable of communicating over vast swaths of people. We played all over the world in the past three years, and it was a thrill watching it grow and evolve. It’s scary and exciting. Honor thy terror as hidden intention. Fortune favors the bold.
TD: You are quite a pro basketball fanatic. What’s the strangest or stupidest thing that you’ve ever heard a NBA commenter say? Feel free to quote a few if you’d like.
DH: Well, I’d have to steal from a David Cross bit and say that anytime a sportscaster misuses the word “literally,” it’s pretty embarrassing. “He literally ripped that defender in half on that play, oh my!” No he didn’t. He didn’t do that. It doesn’t happen quite as much, but used to be endemic.
Also when Dennis Miller was doing color for Monday Night Football, pretty much everything that came out of his mouth was just flat out dumb.
But the absolute worst is when a small town color guy is trying to manufacture more excitement than there actually is: “It’s pandemonium here at the Time Warner Cable Arena! I can’t believe my eyes!” Yes, yes you can. You can believe your eyes because there are only 6,000 people here, and it’s a regular season game with almost no playoff repercussions whatsoever. I get it. Gerald Henderson hit a big shot, and you don’t get many opportunities to get excited, but try and show some poise here, guy.
TD: What’s your favorite thing to get at the deli?
DH: Turkey and Swiss on wheat bread with lettuce, tomato, extra pickles, yellow mustard and hots. And a bag of chips, of course. Let Bonner Shoot.
Below is a new music video from Nightlands, a.k.a. Dave Hartley, for the track "I Fell In Love With A Feeling," which is off his new album Oak Island (Secretly Canadian) that just dropped today. The video premiered earlier via Pitchfork, and was directed by David Kessler. Hartley will be celebrating the record's release this Saturday, January 26 at Kung Fu Necktie, and opening the show will be a solo set by Sun Airway's Jon Barthmus.
Check out Oak Island, the new album from multi-instrumentalist Dave Hartley, a.k.a. Nightlands, below! It officially comes out next week January 22 via Secretly Canadian. Special thanks to WNYC's Soundcheck for sharing.
Here’s the second sample of the new direction that Nightlands (a.k.a. Dave Hartley from The War on Drugs) appears to have taken with his upcoming album Oak Island called “I Fell in Love with a Feeling.” The record is scheduled for release on January 22, 2013 via Secretly Canadian, and he’ll be celebrating it with a performance on January 26 at Kung Fu Necktie.
I just have to gush about what a wonderful experience it was to see/hear Nightlands (a.k.a. Dave Hartley) and Arc in Round’s Jeff Zeigler performing a live original score to 2001: A Space Oddyssey at PhilaMOCA, which was curated by BITBY. I hadn’t viewed the film since I was a little child so I really didn’t remember much about it, and it felt like I was seeing the epic masterpiece for the first time. The cinematography was breath-taking, and the fact that the movie came out over a year before we landed on the moon is absolutely mind-blowing and a magnificent example of the true genius of Stanley Kubrick. Hartely and Zeigler also did a beautifully seamlessly job at composing their material with the film. And since I sat on a couch and really didn’t have a view of them playing their instruments, it was often difficult for me to tell when the music was coming from the duo or the movie, which is also a credit to their masterful hard work. After the performance, I chatted with Dave for a moment. I learned that he only had five full days to orchestrate everything with Jeff since he was on tour with The War on Drugs so the two locked themselves away repeatedly watching 2001. However, Hartley is so familiar with the movie that he did piece together ideas while he was on tour. The final result was one trippy-ass, Pink Floyd-esque evening where I really wished that I had dropped some acid, but there are plans to do the performance again in NYC so I might still have my chance. (Anyone out there have a connect? :o) There was also a fine opening performance by Jeff’s Arc in Round bandmate Mikele Edwards, who was joined by Pink Skull’s Julian Grefe (a.k.a. S PRCSS). You can take a look at our pretty photos from the evening that play with the shadows and lights HERE.
