Posted Feb. 25, 2008,

You + Shandi Sullivan = Tonight at Pianos

By Alexis Swerdloff

You may have already seen this in our Tips for Today section, but just to hammer the point home: You can potentially sing karaoke with Shandi Sullivan (America's Next Top Model cycle 2 finalist) tonight at Pianos. She's co-hosting their weekly "Karaoke Dokey" night with Timmy from The Whitest Kids U'Know. What next? Will we find out that Whitney Port from The Hills is bartending at Max Fish?

Posted Aug. 29, 2007,

The Blacks: Band to Watch

By Shanon Kelley

I just saw this San Francisco-based band the other night at Piano's. They are quite the mesmerizing trio -- think Mazzy Star meets the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Lead singer Luisa Black hardly moves while playing the guitar, but lays a deadpan, sexy stare on the audience that could brings armies to its knees. Then there's her beau, JDK Blacker, who doesn't play anything except the tambourine every once in a while but who moves around like a rocket and sings along as though his life depended on it. And finally, there's Gavin Black, and boy does he know how to play the drums. All together it's a great trio that you can expect big things from. Catch them September 20th at the Mercury Lounge, and check out their MySpace page!

Posted Aug. 28, 2007,

Feist and Co. on Letterman, Plus After-Party Fun!

By Emily Nerad

In case there's anyone out there in the interweb universe who has yet to view this video of Feist's performance on last night's Letterman, we IMPLORE you to click here. Backed by an all-star indie rock choir, including The New Pornographers' Carl Newman, Nicole Atkins, Grizzly Bear, and members of Broken Social Scene and The National, Feist belts out an amazingly sweet rendition of "1234."

While I wasn't lucky enough to see this spectacle live, I happened to stumble upon the very unofficial post-performance soiree at Piano's. Sadly, the lady of the hour was not in attendance, but the majority of the choir was, including Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste still in full on white-on-white (which by the way, I thought was a great look). Rock n' Roll Trivia for the evening was emceed by Takka Takka's Conrad Doucette, Nicole Atkins and The National's Bryan and Scott Devendorf. AC Newman dominated the trivia portion of the evening, and I was eventually forced to throw in the towel, scoring a measly 30 points on their ridiculously obscure questions.

Party favors were passed, and trivia evolved into a dance party while the venue set up for karaoke. As I passed out party favors -- matching headbands for all -- I secretly hoped we'd all stick around for an all-star karaoke jam, but no such luck. We disbanded with high fives and hugs.