Last week the Animal Collective bros released an official mixtape for their new … sneakers. That is a thing now. Gotta keep fans on their toes (ouch, sorry). The shoes which you can see here benefit the Socorro island Conservation Fund, and they are cruelty free, except to your eyes.

I did some research, and it turns out that dozens of indie and punk bands have licensed sneakers. Most are quite ugly, and many — Biz Markie Keds, Bad Brains flip-flops — are hilarious.

A few fun facts to keep in mind while you browse our Complete Guide to rock footwear:

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The playful “People’s Partay” is the wordy second dispatch from Danielson’s forthcoming Best Of Gloucester County. It feels like an establishing shot, which seems to be Brother D’s intent.

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Danielson’s first album in five years Best Of Gloucester County comes out at the end of February. It includes a new core lineup (including a banjo-toting Sufjan Stevens) plus a horn section and guest spots from Jens Lekman, Serena-Maneesh’s Emil Nikolaisen, and members of Soul-Junk, US Maple, and Cryptacize. It also includes this first single “Grow Up.”

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Norwegian BTW I Was A King earn comparisons to Olivia Tremor Control, Teenage Fanclub (they have a song called “Norman Bleik” after all), Dinosaur Jr., all for the way their shambling ’60s sound gets tossed and lost inside their deep ’90s college radio record collections. Their last self-titled record was produced by Serena-Maneesh’s Emil Nikolaisen with a guest spot from Daniel Smith; for their forthcoming, third record Old Friends the band set up camp in Smith’s Familyre Recording Studio in Jersey and turned production duties over to the Famile patriarch. “Daybreak” is its first take, and it sounds like I Was A King leader Frode Strømstads’ power-pop being adopted by the Danielson Famile, clattering and loose with horns, strings, other things in the offing. Check it:

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This past weekend was the Matt Groening-curated ATP, which went down in Butlins, Minehead, UK. Iggy Pop and Toumani Diabate were the highlights of the first night (along with ATP staples Built To Spill, Broadcast, Liars, and Shonen Knife). Day 2 featured performances from the xx and Boredoms (both bands would place twice, the latter did Boadrum with Zach Hill, Kid Millions, and drummers from Ponytail, DMBQ, and Pit Er Pat), Deerhunter, Danielson, She & Him, Thee Oh Sees, a late night Panda Bear set, among others. The last day seemed to focus on female performers: Juana Molina, the Raincoats, Joanna Newsom, Hope Sandoval, CocoRosie, etc. joined headliners Daniel Johnston and Spiritualized doing all of Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. Groening last curated ATP in 2003.

We sent photographer Elena Morelli to capture the sights.

Ben + Vesper are a married couple in Northern NJ. They have kids. They also write that they “have almost exactly the same hair color in the right light and definitely both have curlz in any light.” They also “paint pictures and have cell phones to call their friends and work at home and eat meals and drink drinks and have a sign above their kitchen door that says “Love One Another,” etc. These are simple facts that could apply to just about anyone in a relationship, anywhere, which is part of the appeal of their simple, honest-seeming songs. But there’s also an ambitiousness to the constructions. We checked in with their 13-track LP All This Could Kill You back in ’07. That one was produced by their label’s head Daniel Smith. B + V’s new five-song, 16-minute EP LuvInIdleness was produced (and arranged sweepingly) by Sufjan Stevens: Its origins are as homey as the above quotes, the results grander (and weirder) than might be expected.

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Thank you, Jim Noir. Over the past few weeks, more and more bands have come to the holiday table with new, seasonally appropriate songs to help get festive. As would be expected, it’s definitely a mixed bag (stocking?), but there are a surprising amount of goodies as opposed to lumps of coal. We decided to gather some of these in one place so you could have a one-stop soundtrack for Holidays ’07, for your tree trimming and eggnog slurping. We’ll start off with our favorite of the bunch, Stereofave Evangelicals’ “The Last Christmas On Earth.” Actually, it could be our favorite song we’ve heard from these guys, bar none.

Evangelicals – “The Last Christmas On Earth” (MP3)

Spending the apocalypse beneath the mistletoe is beautiful. (Note the creepy ID3 tags — theirs, not ours.) A whole sack of joy after the jump. But it’s not as dirty as that sounded.

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For most who made the trip way downtown for the River To River / Seaport Music Festival kick-off show, it was the official start to NYC’s summer concert season. And you couldn’t do better, opening with the uniformed Danielson and his familyre sounds ’til dusk, and the extraordinary avant-everything strawberry jamming of Animal Collective. For free. Love NYC.

Friday night AC were a trio; Panda Bear, Avey Tare, and the Geologist graced the Seaport stage, while Deakin did not. Well not technically; after moving around to a rear-view of the performance platform, friends pointed out Deakin sitting behind the PA system, on stage but out of sight to the crowd, just watching. We’re told that he’s not on this tour, but this has us pretty confused. Which is to say, we were at an Animal Collective show.

The set was dedicated to Sung Tongs and the forthcoming Domino-released LP; after a fantastic jaunt through “Who Could Win A Rabbit,” Avey announced they’d be playing “some new songs.” With a crowd pleaser and the slowly setting sun out of the way, the Seaport got its first taste of Strawberry Jam, sitting somewhere between Tongs‘ madcap bluster and Feels‘ inviting structure. Unlike their Webster show last year, which saw an already divisive band split its own fans into the frustrated and the fawning (the Geologist was “feeling it” that night, morphing every tune into a looping, abstrat sound collage), Friday’s set rang true to most of the massive crowd gathered by the water.

To complete the set’s Sungian symmetry, the Collective capped off the night with a perfectly spastic “We Tigers” (Geologist’s whiplashing staredowns in full effect) and the classic, psychedelic vocal exercises of “Leaf House” — but the trance-y calypso of new jam “Chores” ended up the night’s post-show conversation piece. One of the year’s best shows, easily, but being a free show, with one of the world’s most creative bands, showing off excellent new material … how could it not be? Lots of pics from both sets after the jump, plus a game of “Where’s Deakin?” for your enjoyment.

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That Pitchforkmedia must be doing something right; 19,000 people a day hit up their Festival for 18 hours of music over two days, despite some serious heat and humidity. Whether that’s a testament to the awesome lineup or the show-going tenacity of hipster nation, we heard the weekend was well run and chock-full of indie goodness.

Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim Derogatis went so far as to call the Festival an “unequivocal success” before trashing Man Man, Chin Up Chin Up, repetitive band names and The Mountain Goats. He also minced the scene in one scathing sentence:

Too many of these bands lacked the charisma to captivate such a large crowd. They celebrated pointless quirkiness and uninspired amateurism, or they were dreadfully boring.

Ouch.

And though Jimmy D did throw some love at Yo La Tengo, Mission of Burma, the Os Mutantes reunion, and the well-tread antics of one Eddie Argos, his highest praise seemed reserved for Pfork’s organization and execution of festival basics, making for a pleasant, well-hydrated experience. (We heard something about $1 waters. Perry Farrell best be taking notes.)

We couldn’t be there (NYC weather was just too nice to leave!), but we did send Adam and his digicam over to Union Park in our place. Check out his pics and — if you were sweatin’ at the Chi town hoedown too — let us know where Derogatis got it right.

ART BRUT

BAND OF HORSES

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