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Future Bible Heroes announce summer tour in support of “Partygoing”

Future Bible Heroes are hitting the road this summer in support of their forthcoming new album, Partygoing. The live ensemble will consist of Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, Christopher Ewen and Anthony Kaczynski. These will be their first live dates since 2002.

Future Bible Heroes is one of the musical projects from the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, who writes all the melodies and lyrics for the band. His longtime friend and collaborator Christopher Ewen composes the instrumental backing tracks. Joining Merritt on lead vocals for these songs is the Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson.

To support their forthcoming album Partygoing and the re-issue of their back-catalogue on Merge Records (all in stores June 8), Future Bible Heroes will join the Chickfactor Summer Festival in Brooklyn, New York on June 12, followed by eleven US dates in July.

Also, watch “Catching Up with Future Bible Heroes” now at YouTube. Directed by JL Aronson (Danielson: a Family MovieLast Summer at Coney Island) and featuring photographs old and new by Kimberly Butler and Gail O’Hara, the video shows the band hanging out and talking about the old days as well as the new.

Listen & share “Living, Loving, Partygoing” and pre-order Future Bible Heroes’ new album Partygoing on CD as well as their 4-CD or 3-LP collection Memories of Love, Eternal Youth, and Partygoing. now in the Merge store. LP pre-orders will include a free Merge Records slipmat.

Future Bible Heroes on tour:
June 12 Brooklyn, NY The Bell House Chickfactor Summer Festival
July 8 Los Angeles, CA The Echoplex
July 9 San Francisco, CA The Independent
July 11 Portland, OR Doug Fir
July 12 Seattle, WA The Tractor Tavern
July 16 Minneapolis, MN Cedar Cultural Center
July 17 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall
July 21 Cambridge, MA The Sinclair
July 22 Toronto, ON Lee’s Palace
July 23 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
July 25 Philadelphia, PA World Cafe Live
July 26 Washington, DC The Black Cat

Stream our May releases from She & Him and Mikal Cronin now at NPR Music

Visit NPR Music to stream Mikal Cronin’s MCII and She & Him’s Volume 3 in their entirety! Both albums will be available in stores beginning May 7. Both bands also have tour dates galore in our tour section!

Pre-order Mikal Cronin’s MCII now on CD or LP + limited “Mikal Cronin edition” tie-dyed Merge logo t-shirts in the Merge store. Also, She & Him’s Volume 3 is available for pre-order on CD, LP and now cassette in the Merge store. The first 500 LP preorders will receive Volume 3 on limited edition robin’s egg blue colored vinyl! Preorders for both will include a poster and will ship to arrive on our around the release date of May 7.

Radar Brothers announce summer tour dates

Radar Brothers are hitting the road once again in support of their recent release Eight. Beginning in Los Angeles on June 12 at the Satellite, the Bros will head north and then east with Ola Podrida supporting on most of the dates.

Radar Brothers released Eight in January to much acclaim including the L.A. Times who declared that the band “have never sounded this inspired” and Magnet Magazine named the album their “most intriguing, compelling work yet.”

Eight combines surreal imagery and psychedelia. It’s both a personal statement and an escape into textured, multi-faceted songs. Now a six-piece, Radar Brothers spent the past few years collaborating, meshing their writing styles and recording an album that seamlessly welds together various worlds—not altogether unlikely influences, just … unexpected. This release marks the first time we are releasing an album on LP and digital only.

Watch the video for “House of Mirrors” now at YouTube. Strictly limited to 1000 LPs worldwide, the vinyl albums include a CD. Eight is available now on LP and digital download in the Merge store.

Radar Brothers on tour:
* = w/ Ola Podrida
June 1 Pasadena, CA Make Music Pasadena
June 12 Los Angeles, CA The Satellite*
June 13 San Francisco, CA Cafe du Nord*
June 14 Davis, CA Sophia’s Thai Kitchen*
June 16 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge*
June 17 Seattle, WA Tractor Tavern*
June 18 Boise, ID Neurolux*
June 20 Englewood, CO Moe’s Denver*
June 23 Austin, TX The Mohawk*
June 25 Phoenix, AZ The Crescent Ballroom
June 26 Tucson, AZ Club Congress

Future Bible Heroes talk “Partygoing” and more in this fun new video!

As the release date for the new Future Bible Heroes album Partygoing as well as the compilation of their original catalog Memories of Love, Eternal Youth, and Partygoing. draws near, we commissioned a video chat with Claudia, Stephin and Chris.

Future Bible Heroes is one of the musical projects from the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, who writes all the melodies and lyrics for the band. His longtime friend and collaborator Christopher Ewen composes the instrumental backing tracks. Joining Merritt on lead vocals is the Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson. Directed by JL Aronson (Danielson: a Family MovieLast Summer at Coney Island) and featuring photographs old and new by Kimberly Butler and Gail O’Hara, the video shows the band just hanging out and talking about the old days as well as the new.

Watch “Catching up with Future Bible Heroes” now at YouTube

Partygoing features a number of songs that meditate upon both the good and bad sides of parties: there’s the fun, and then there’s the morning after. Running themes for this album are drinking, dancing, and death. Memories of Love, Eternal Youth and Partygoing. marks the first time the entire original Future Bible Heroes catalog has been available in one place. In addition to the three full-length albums, the CD collection includes a fourth disc that compiles the band’s three EPs—The Lonely Robot, I’m Lonely (And I Love It), and Lonely Days—plus several tracks from outside compilations, including a song from the soundtrack to the film Welcome to the Dollhouse and the band’s hilarious gender-bending rendition of “Don’t You Want Me?” from a tribute album to the Human League. The LP collection includes each of the three albums (Memories of Love, Eternal Youth, and Partygoing) on vinyl plus a download card containing all of the EP and compilation tracks as well as digital versions of the full-lengths.

Future Bible Heroes (sans Stephin) will perform June 12 at the Bell House in Brooklyn as part of the Chickfactor summer festival. More tour dates coming soon! Listen & share “Living, Loving, Partygoing” and pre-order Future Bible Heroes’ new album Partygoing on CD as well as their 4-CD or 3-LP collection Memories of Love, Eternal Youth, and Partygoing. now in the Merge store. LP pre-orders will include a free Merge Records slipmat.

 

 

William Tyler announces summer tour including Bonnaroo

William Tyler has announced new tour dates this summer including Bonnaroo, the Capitol City Block Party, and NXNE in support of his Merge debut Impossible Truth.

NPR’s Bob Boilen included “Cadillac Desert” on the most recent episode of All Songs Considered in which he deems William the “most intriguing guitar player I know.” The L.A. Times describes the album as “impossibly beautiful,” while the Chicago Reader writes, “[Tyler's] beautifully ringing, carefully orchestrated playing transcends mere virtuosity to evoke a vivid self-contained narrative.”

Watch this lovely album teaser video for a glimpse of the story behind the songs of Impossible Truth. Also, watch video from William’s recent visit to WNYC’s Soundcheck.

Impossible Truth is available now in the Merge store on CD, double-LP and digital.

William Tyler on tour:
Apr 26 Chicago, IL — The Hideout
Apr 27 Bloomington, IN — Landlocked Music Free in-store performance at 3PM
May 31 Nelsonville, OH — Nelsonville Music Festival
Jun 13 Toronto, ON — The Garrison- Panache NXNE Festival Showcase
Jun 15 Manchester, TN — Bonnaroo Festival
Jul 19 Columbus, OH — Ace of Cups
Jul 23 Boulder, CO — Fox Theater
Jul 24 Salt Lake City, UT — Kilby Court
Jul 25 Boise, ID — Visual Arts Collective
Jul 26 Seattle, WA — Capitol Hill Block Party Vera Stage
Jul 27 Portland, OR — Mississippi Studios
Jul 30 San Francisco, CA — Rickshaw Stop *
Jul 31 Monterey, CA — Golden State Theatre Lobby
Aug 2 Los Angeles, CA — The Echo *
Aug 3 San Diego, CA — Casbah *
Aug 4 Phoenix, AZ — Rhythm Room *
Aug 5 El Paso, TX — Lowbrow Palace
Aug 7 Austin, TX — Mohawk Inside
Aug 9 Oxford, MS — Lamar Lounge
* w/ Daughn Gibson

The Love Language return with Ruby Red in July!

On July 23, The Love Language will release Ruby Red on Merge Records in the US and August 6 in Europe.

Friends and fans of The Love Language songwriter and frontman Stuart McLamb have learned to expect a lot, but rarely in a timely manner. Completing a triumvirate of spiritual transmissions spent lost (2009’s The Love Language) and found (2010’s Libraries), 2013’s Ruby Red exorcises the transient brilliance fostered by McLamb within the sheetrock walls of the album’s namesake artist space.

Featuring over twenty musicians and straddling several time zones, The Love Language’s lone puppeteer borrowed heavier equipment, and held on to it longer. Initiated in a windowless unit at the fabled Ruby Red, several failed attempts and false starts at a songwriting spree landed McLamb and his engineer/case worker/boxing coach BJ Burton in Black Mountain, North Carolina, consuming every square inch of a carpeted bungalow located a few acres too close to their skittish neighbors. Soon after, Burton’s relocation to Minneapolis effectively thrust McLamb from their shared nest, helping Ruby Red discover its inherent propensity for flight.

Ruby Red produces new standards for the Carolina pop songbook, finding The Love Language as an extroverted community art project made by responsible citizens of a loosely packed scene who know that McLamb will match whatever they contribute. The heartbreak is over. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Pre-order Ruby Red now on CD or LP in the Merge store. The first 250 preorders will receive a free, limited edition 11-track cassette titled Black Mountain Demos. All preorders will include a poster and will ship to arrive on or around the release date of July 23. In the meantime, keep up with the Love Language on Twitter and Facebook.

Ruby Red track listing:
1. Calm Down
2. Kids
3. Hi Life
4. First Shot
5. Golden Age
6. For Izzy
7. Faithbreaker
8. On Our Heels
9. Knots
10. Pilot Light

 

Shout Out Louds release video for “Illusions” & prep for US tour

Today, Shout Out Louds premiered the new video for “Illusions” via RollingStone.com. The band will kick off their US tour in support of their new album Optica on May 7 at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC.

The video follows a woman on a speed dating adventure ending in a dance party. Frontman Adam Olenius told RollingStone.com, “In Sweden, to get 25 people to dance and act or even show up for a video shoot or anything in that area you have to buy them copious amounts of booze and lure them with money. In L.A., the city of dreams, they show up for nothing and shimmer!”

Shout Out Louds took their time with these songs, recording for about one-and-a-half years in a small Stockholm studio and producing themselves for the first time with help from Johannes Berglund. A theme emerged and Optica was born, an album celebrating color and light from a band confident in its sound, filled with real strings, trombones, trumpets and flutes.

NPR’s Stephen Thompson writes, “Listening to ["Illusions] in 2013, it’s as if a young band is tapping into our shared nostalgia by rehashing a hit that’s somehow been lodged in our memory banks all along. ‘Illusions’ may be brand-new, but it already feels eternal.”

Optica is available on CD, LP and digital now in the Merge store.

Shout Out Louds on tour:
May 7 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
May 8 Philadelphia, PA Union Transfer
May 10 New York, NY Webster Hall
May 11 Boston, MA Paradise
May 13 Montreal, QC La Sala Rosa
May 14 Toronto, ONT The Opera House
May 15 Detroit, MI The Magic Bag
May 16 Chicago, IL Metro
May 17 Minneapolis, MN Varsity Theater
May 20 Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom
May 21 Portland, OR Aladdin Theater
May 22 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall
May 23 Los Angeles, CA El Rey
May 24 Los Angeles, CA El Rey
May 25 George, WA Sasquatch Festival

Merge Records celebrates Record Store Day with a new Superchunk 7-inch & Destroyer on vinyl

Record Store Day is this Saturday, April 20, and we have two very special vinyl releases to mark the occasion of one of our favorite days of the year! The only way to get your hands on them is to visit your local independent record store on April 20.

Superchunk – “Void” b/w “Faith” 7-inch
Two brand-new Superchunk songs on coke-bottle clear vinyl, with art designed by Mac. This 7-inch features hand-numbered sleeves printed at Barefoot Press (the original printer of all the 7-inches Merge put out “back in the day”) and is limited to 1,000 copies worldwide. It’s only available at your local record store beginning April 20!

Mac shared the inspiration behind the single:

I was in high school when I first heard one of my favorite hardcore records, the split album on Dischord with the bands Faith and Void, two very different DC punk bands. It’s a favorite of a lot of people, I think. I love both sides but everyone always refers to it as “Faith/Void,” so I wanted to have a single called “Void/Faith” and set about to write those songs. Thematically the titles were already in the neighborhood of where Superchunk’s next album was going anyway. The cover is even an abstracted homage to art on the Void side of the original. Musically we aren’t like either of those bands, but that era influences a lot of what we do. We recorded the single at Overdub Lane with Beau Sorenson and John Plymale, and it was mixed by Beau Sorenson.

DestroyerThis Night double-LP
The 2002 Merge debut of Destroyer, remastered and available on vinyl for the first time in the US. This special pressing of This Night is limited to 2,000 copies worldwide and is a Record Store Day exclusive. Visit our SoundCloud page to stream two tracks from This Night.

When asked for his thoughts about the album, Dan Bejar responded:

Dear Customers,

For 10 years I’ve been telling people that This Night is my favorite of Destroyer’s nine LPs. I have not been lying. It’s got mystery and sass, lots of guitar playing in the style that I like, drumming that is so hard to capture you maybe had to be there. It is the first Destroyer album with full-on rock poetry of the kind I would chase deep into the 2000s, then abandon in this new corrupt decade. It is the first instance of me learning how to sing with my actual voice. We learned the songs fast and recorded them fast, but took our sweet time while playing them, which I think is a good mix. I turned 30 four days before the record hit the streets. But even before that, I knew This Night was doomed.

Yours,
db

Remember, both of these releases will be available exclusively at your local independent record stores beginning Saturday, April 20! Find more information and a full list of releases & participating stores at RecordStoreDay.com.

The Music Tapes announce new Traveling Imaginary dates & European release of Mary’s Voice

The Music Tapes have announced the first nationwide dates for The Traveling Imaginary. Also, the Music Tapes trio will tour Europe this summer in support of the European release of Mary’s Voice on June 24.

The band will be visiting towns and cities across the country as The Traveling Imaginary. They will pitch the circus tent home built especially for this tour and host an evening of songs, stories, games, movies, magic, amusements, and more. Deemed “magical and enchanting” by NPR Music’s Bob Boilen, the Traveling Imaginary will surprise and delight all who are lucky enough to enter the tent.

As soon as audiences walk through the door, they will be greeted with The Music Tapes’ surreal, carnival-esque games before entering the tent for a dreamlike show that includes songs from the band’s newest album Mary’s Voice which Pitchfork described as “a grand, genre-straddling vision in sound.” The evening’s entertainment also antique 16mm cartoons, virtuoso Klezmer music performed on the singing saw, Julian Koster’s unique narratives about dehydrated European cities and half-imagined children’s games, a 12-foot snowman, and the usual array of mechanical musical friends like the 7-Foot Tall Metronome and Static the Singing Television.

The Music Tapes have a long history of hosting surreal tours since first emerging as part of the influential Elephant 6 Collective – including the annual Caroling and Lullaby tours that have brought them into over 500 homes across the country. The Traveling Imaginary is an extension of those shows on a more ambitious scale than anything The Music Tapes has ever done.

This tour was inspired by the Music Tapes’ frontman Julian Koster’s wildest dreams and he invites you to experience something totally new yet strangely familiar. “It’s our sincere desire to offer audiences an unusual sort of fun, a new kind of experience,” says Julian. “Something that feels like exploring a wonderful dream or a pleasant memory. Something that gives a feeling of holiday and amusement that begins the very moment you walk in the door.”

Watch the official trailer for The Traveling Imaginary

Mary’s Voice is available on CD, limited-edition pop-up LP and digital now in the Merge store.

The Traveling Imaginary on tour:
April 22 Purchase, NY The Stood Center at SUNY Purchase
April 25 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church – EARLY SHOW
April 25 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church – LATE SHOW
April 29 Annandale-on-Hudson, NY Fisher Center
May 1 Chicago, IL Bottom Lounge (2 shows)
May 3 Minneapolis, MN Cedar Cultural Center (2 shows)
May 7 Portland, OR Mission Theatre (2 shows)
May 9 Seattle, WA Vera Project (2 shows)
May 12 San Francisco, CA TBA
May 14 Los Angeles, CA Bootleg Theatre (2 shows)

Watch Eleanor Friedberger’s new video for “Stare at the Sun” from Personal Record

Eleanor Friedberger premiered her new video for “Stare at the Sun” from Personal Record today at Pitchfork. Directed by Scott Jacobson, the video features sign language, cuddly sheepdogs, and lots of air guitar!

Watch the video for “Stare at the Sun” now at YouTube

Personal Record is Eleanor Friedberger at her finest – recorded in late 2012 in New York and Los Angeles, and written with musician/novelist Wesley Stace, Personal Record is full of love songs – hellos and goodbyes, infatuation, pre-occupation, loss – but not simply about romantic love. Eleanor explains, “They’re also love songs to music: how you feel on stage when you do something spontaneous and it works, how you feel when you hear someone sing a song for the first time, what it’s like to watch a friend perform, how you can feel close to someone you barely know because you both happen to love the same record, or playing the same song forty times in a row, not being able to rest until you own every song recorded by your favorite singer, or every version of your favorite song.”

Personal Record is available now for pre-order digitally at iTunes and on CD and LP in the Merge store. Watch Eleanor’s album trailer set in beautiful Jamaica, too!

Eleanor Friedberger on tour:
April 10 New York, NY Town Hall w/ Rodriguez
April 12 Northampton, MA  Parlor Room w/ John Wesley Harding
Jun 04 Buffalo, NY @ Babeville *
Jun 05 Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern *
Jun 06 Pontiac, MI @ The Pike Room *
Jun 07 Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle *
Jun 08 Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock *
Jun 11 Vancouver, BC @ Media Club *
Jun 12 Seattle, WA @ Neumos *
Jun 13 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir *
Jun 15 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent % *
Jun 18 Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo % *
Jun 19 Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
Jun 21 Austin, TX @ The Parish *
Jun 22 Dallas, TX @ The Loft *
Jun 24 St. Louis, MO @ The Demo *
Jun 25 Indianapolis, IN @ Radio Radio *
Jun 26 Pittsburgh, PA @ Brillobox *
Jun 27 Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall *
Jun 28 Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg + *
*w/ TEEN
% w/ Icewater performing 1st of 3
+ w/ Cassandra Jenkins performing 1st of 3

She & Him share “I Could’ve Been Your Girl” from Volume 3; pre-order on CD, LP & cassette now

She & Him have shared a new song from their forthcoming album Volume 3. Written by Zooey with string arrangements by M. Ward, “I Could’ve Been Your Girl” is 60’s pop perfection, and one of the album’s most impressive tracks.

In their premiere, the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog wrote, “Deschanel lets her voice ring over a rich blend of strings and guitars before Ward takes over with a trebly guitar break during the bridge.”

Listen & share “I Could’ve Been Your Girl” now via SoundCloud

Volume 3 is another exciting chapter in singer-songwriter Zooey Deschanel and guitarist/producer M. Ward’s unique collaboration. Of course, She & Him is not just about the time that Deschanel and Ward manage to spend in a studio together; theirs is a remarkable, year-round dialogue that began serendipitously on a film project in 2007 and has flourished ever since. Deschanel and Ward are like 21st century pen pals, emailing music files back and forth from whatever recording studio, sound stage or dressing room they happen to be in. We get to periodically share in this exuberant exchange as they display their passion for, and knowledge of, a wide range of music – from classic country to vintage pop, no frills rock and roll to grandly overdubbed Wall Of Sound drama.

Volume 3 is available for pre-order on CD, LP and now cassette in the Merge store. The first 500 LP preorders will receive Volume 3 on limited edition robin’s egg blue colored vinyl! Preorders will include a poster and will ship to arrive on our around the release date of May 7.

She & Him on tour:
June 13 Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium +
June 15 Grand Prairie, TX Verizon Theater at Grand Prairie +
June 16 Austin, TX ACL Live at the Moody Theatre +
June 18 Phoenix, AZ Comerica Theater +
June 19 Las Vegas, NV The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas &
June 21 San Diego, CA SDSU Open Air Theatre &
June 22 Berkeley, CA Greek Theatre * &
June 23 Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Bowl *
June 25 Salt Lake City, UT Red Butte Gardens &
June 27 Council Bluffs, IA Harrah’s Stir Cove &
June 28 Kansas City, MO Kanrocksas Music Festival
June 29 Chicago, IL Aragon Ballroom #
July 1 Ann Arbor, MI Hill Auditorium #
July 3 Montreal, QUE Montreal Jazz Festival #
July 4 Toronto, ON Toronto Urban Roots Festival #
July 5 Ottawa, ON Ottawa Blues Fest
July 6 New York, NY SummerStage, Central Park #
July 9 Philadelphia, PA Mann Center for Performing Arts #
July 10 Boston, MA Bank of America Pavilion #
July 11 Vienna, VA Filene Center at Wolf Trap #
+ with Secret Sisters
* with Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell
# with Camera Obscura
& with Tilly and the Wall

The Mountain Goats announce June all-ages tour

The Mountain Goats have announced a run of summer tour dates beginning June 3 at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. John Darnielle and Peter Hughes will tour as a duo for the first time since 2007, and all of the shows will be all-ages. The Baptist Generals will open, and a full list of dates is below.

Darnielle offered more details on his website:

Peter and I toured our asses off back in the pre-trio days, but that was before our ascent to the absolute upper echelon of global media saturation. We are pleased to report that a year-plus worth of talking about touring the Mountain Goats in alternate configurations to all-ages rooms is yielding its first fruits this June, in the form of the TUTTLINGEN WARRIORS TOUR 2013, whose name is an inside joke, I’ll tell you about it between songs at some point during the tour, I have too much else still to cover here to get into it right now. We’re bringing out the Baptist Generals, one of our favorite bands, who have a new album coming out — their first in years — and for Peter and I this is a huge event, like on an “unheard post-Marquee Moon pre-Adventure Television album discovered” level: some bands you know will someday get the acclaim that’s due them and this is one of them. Their new album is so deeply moving I’m not even going to get into it right now, here, try this, see what I mean, are you enjoying the continuing effects of José Saramago on my use of the comma, I hope so because I can no longer help it.

Watch the video for “Cry for Judas” now, and find Transcendental Youth on CD, LP and digital download now in the Merge store.

The Mountain Goats on tour:
* = w/ The Baptist Generals
May 1 Boone, NC Appalachian State University
June 3 Washington, DC 9:30 Club*
June 4 York, PA Strand- Capitol Performing Arts*
June 5 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s*
June 7 New Haven, CT Center Church on the Green*
June 8 Portland, ME Port City Music Hall*
June 9 South Burlington, VT Higher Ground Ballroom*
June 11 Munhall, PA Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead*
June 12 Detroit, MI Majestic Theatre*
June 14 Cincinnati, OH Taft Ballroom*
June 15 Bloomington, IN Buskirk-Chumley Theatre*
June 16 Evanston, IL Space*
June 17 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall*
June 19 Kansas City, MO The Record Bar*
June 20 St. Louis, MO Old Rock House*
June 22 Birmingham, AL The Bottletree*
June 23 Gainesville, FL High Dive*
June 24 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room*
June 26 Charleston, SC The Charleston Pourhouse *
June 27 West Columbia, SC New Brookland Tavern*
June 28 Wilmington, NC The Soapbox *
July 26-28 Newport, RI Newport Folk Festival
September 13-16 Miami, FL Atlantic Ocean Comedy and Music Festival