Get your Northside Festival badges now!

You heard that Beirut was hosting this year's Northside Festival, right?

Well, here's more pertinent information: badges are on sale now for the four-day festival, from June 16-19 at various Williamsburg and Greenpoint venues, including McCarren Park, where Beirut will play in a new 5,000 capacity outdoor venue on June 17.

You can get badges for $60, and tickets to Beirut's show here. Badges grant access on a first-come, first-served basis, in addition to all Northside ideas, art and film events. You can also get discounts at bars and restaurants. So it pretty much sounds like a no-brainer if you want to take advantage.

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs playing small Williamsburg show

Better line up for this one early.

In an homage to their roots, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs will be playing a small show tomorrow night at Secret Project Robot.

In a message from the band:

Spank You Very Much 10 YYYears Anniversary Show Happy Birthday YYYS!

This week marks 10 years since YYYs played our first small club show in the big city! Our birthday wish is to play a show as small or smaller than back in the day and get NOSTALGIC with our friends Todd P and Secret Project Mighty Robot September 22. So dust off your Machine EPs or maybe give Yeah New York! a whirl because we're digging up some oldies but goodies, heavy on the early catalogue. It's back to basics, just the three of us and a couple hundred of you. Accommodations will be tight so we'd like to apologize in advance to those who want to be there but don't get in, we thank you for humoring us with this selfish wish to make it so puny!

Talk Normal will be popping off the festivities and Barry London will spin us through the breaks. Looking forward to bashing up this birthdayyy with you!!

Luv,
YYYs

Advance tickets go on sale tonight from 6-8 pm at Secret Project Robot (River Street and Metropolitan Avenue). Tickets are $20 in advance, and none will be sold at the door (as they'll all, most likely, be sold tonight). There is a two-ticket minimum, and you must show ID, though it is an all-ages show. Good luck!

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Brooklyn beats the winter blues

By Meredith Deliso

While we may be in the throes of winter, the summer will be here before you know it. And it’s not a bad time to think about it either, with acts slated for Celebrate Brooklyn! already being released.

Big among them is the June 29 benefit show from the Boston-based Passion Pit. The electronica act seems to be this year’s answer to one of last summer’s popular festival acts, MGMT. Since the release of their first full-length, “Manners,” out last spring, Passion Pit has been lauded for the album, which was on countless year-end best lists, as well as for their live performances.

The band is excited to join the acts that have passed through the festival over its 30-plus year history. “As more and more of us have come to call New York ‘home,’ it’s an honor to take part in a Brooklyn tradition,” keyboardist and guitarist Ian Hultquist told us. “We are really looking forward to these shows to be something special.”

Also on the June 29 bill is the Canadian indie rock band Tokyo Police Club. Tickets for the show go on sale January 30 at noon on http://www.ticketmaster.com/, and are $32 in advance, $35 day of show.

In unofficial line-up news, Bumpershine writes that jazz legend Allen Toussaint will be playing the park in some capacity on June 12, three days after the festival kicks off (no word yet on who will headline that show; last year’s opening night saw record-breaking numbers thanks to headliner David Byrne).

Until then, you can help celebrate Brooklyn with BRIC Arts Media, the group that runs the summer festival, with several “warm up” events. On February 3 and 4, for instance, there’s Melvin Van Peebles & Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber at BRICstudio (647 Fulton St.) in a work-in-progress preview of the “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song (the Hood Opera),” a musical stage adaptation of his 1971 film, “Sweet Sweetback.” Tickets are $10.

Then, on February 27, Eugene Mirman and friends present a night of comedy and music to kick off the 2010 Friends of Celebrate Brooklyn membership campaign. Friends include usual Brooklyn suspects like Kristen Schaal and Michael Showalter, and more, at the Bell House (149 7th St.). Tickets are $10 and are currently on sale.

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Sufjan roundup

Brooklyn boy Sufjan Stevens hasn't played a US show in over two years, but there are several upcoming events here where you can get your fix.

If you're bummed his 92YTribeca appearance, featuring a screening of his musical tribute to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway fittingly called "The BQE," is sold out, you can catch the indie darling when he plays the Music Hall of Williamsburg October 6 and 7 while on tour with Cryptacize.

Tickets will go live sometime on Saturday, so stay tuned to that as the shows are sure to go fast.

If you're planning on going to ATP NY up in Monticello this week, he'll be playing there this Wednesday as well.

Stevens - and BQE - enthusiasts can also get ahold of the musician's film when it's released on DVD October 20. The comprehensive package features the CD soundtrack, the DVD of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway film footage, a 40-page booklet with extensive liner notes & photographs and an accompanying stereoscopic 3-D Viewmaster® reel. Furthermore, Asthmatic Kitty will release a limited edition double gatefold vinyl edition of The BQE on 180-gram vinyl with a large-scale 32-page booklet including liner notes, photographs and a black and white version of a 40-page BQE-themed Hooper Heroes comic book.

View the trailer below.

THE BQE- A Film By Sufjan Stevens from Asthmatic Kitty

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