This summer, Vans is celebrating their iconic Classics line throughout the world, and in the US, they have teamed up with Los Angeles-based indie label IAMSOUND Records to present the free Classic Summer Parties series in Los Angeles, Portland and Brooklyn in July. Each event will feature live performances from critically acclaimed local bands, interactive video installations and merch giveaways with customized Vans Classic shoes, totes and tees.

The Classic & Los Angeles party will kick off the tour, taking place on Saturday, July 7th at Bootleg Theater in Silver Lake. Portland-via-Los-Angeles electro-poppers YACHT will headline, supported by local indie rockers Papa. Hometown designers Crybaby Presents, a migrating gallery which mixes fine art, fashion, product design, pop culture and more, will be customizing the Vans merch.

The next stop is Portland on Saturday, July 14th at Holocene. The headliners will be the Thermals, longtime staple of the Portland indie rock scene, with five albums to their credit and a few world tours under their belt. Up from Los Angeles, punk rockers Fidlar are going to warm up the crowd with a sweltering opening set. Merch will be designed by a supergroup of Portland designers including Pizza Friday, Draught Dry Goods, and Nice Work.

The last stop is in Brooklyn on Saturday, July 21st at the House of Vans in Greenpoint. Partiers will move to the sounds of noise pop maestros Dum Dum Girls, with an opening set by NYC indie rockers Widowspeak. Fashion designer Christian Joy, best known for designing the stage costumes for Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and costumes for the film Where The Wild Things Are, will be putting her touch on all of the Vans Classic merch to be given away.

Interactive video installations for all three events will be provided by the multimedia collaboration between Radical Friend and Discipline. Radical Friend is a critically acclaimed video directing duo who have created cutting edge videos for Yeasayer, Black Moth Super Rainbow and Skrillex among others, and Discipline are known for their technologically envelope-pushing videos including a Yung Jake video for Creators Project earlier this year.

There will also be a Minx Nail Bar at each of the three parties where guests can apply complimentary Minx Nails featuring custom Vans prints.

Learn more about Vans and the Summer Classic Parties on facebook (facebook.com/Vans) and RSVP to each party on the Vans Classic Summer Parties page or at vans.com/rsvp.

YACHT is a Band, Belief System, and Business conducted by Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans of Marfa, Texas and Portland, Oregon, USA. All people are welcome to become members of YACHT. Accordingly, YACHT is what YACHT is when YACHT is standing before you.

YACHT was born in 2002 in Portland, Oregon, as a solo cross-disciplinary experiment for Jona Bechtolt, using technology to extend physical bo2undaries of communication, performance, and music. In 2008, after a shared mystical experience in the Far West Texas desert, Bechtolt was joined in the YACHT endeavor by longtime collaborator Claire L. Evans. Spurred by this paranormal bond, this new incarnation of YACHT wrote and recorded "See Mystery Lights" in Marfa, Texas.

Currently, the Straight Gaze - Robert "Bobby Birdman" Kieswetter, Jeffrey "Jerusalem" Brodsky, and Katy Davidson of the Key Losers - round out the live presentation of YACHT. YACHT's heart is in these live presentations: uncluttered, inspiring sessions of damaged dance moves and coded ritualism, backed by constantly changing elements—Power Point presentations, audience Q&A sessions, and shamanistic video environments.

YACHT has toured with LCD Soundsystem (R.I.P.), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Architecture in Helsinki, and Vampire Weekend; YACHT is multidisciplinary enough to have been paired with the Chemical Brothers, the Breeders, and Phoenix; YACHT has played on boats, in caves, in bathrooms, in art galleries and museums, in rural China, and at the Hollywood Bowl.

Bechtolt has been a promiscuous genre-smasher since his adolescence, when he decided that playing drums in the touring punk band he formed with his older brother was more worthwhile than attending a single day of high school. He's plied his unique breed of beat-heavy laptop wizardry and grunge ethos to endless collaborations, both as producer and drummer, with west coast mainstays like Devendra Banhart, The Blow, Little Wings, and Bobby Birdman. He's also been recognized by such bigwigs as David Byrne, who name-dropped Bechtolt's production on The Blow's Paper Television in his Artforum Top 10 list, Paris' Centre Georges Pompidou, where he was commissioned for a large-scale performance, and Vibe Magazine, who touted Bechtolt as 'indie rock's Timbaland' in their review of YACHT's I Believe In You. Your Magic Is Real. (2007, Marriage Records)

Evans, whose vocals have been featured on previous YACHT recordings, joined the band full-time in 2008. She's a science writer and artist and who came to music through the underground Los Angeles noise scene. She writes a popular blog called Universe, about the intersection of art and science, for the ScienceBlogs network. She has presented her earnestly cosmic PowerPoint performances at MoMA PS1, The Kitchen, and the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, spoken at the Rubin Museum of Art about extraterrestrial life, written a collaborative book on art and science at Carnegie Mellon University, made commissioned films for the World Science Festival and SEED Magazine, and has collaborated with Bechtolt on literally hundreds of projects since they met in 2004.

There’s a poetic purity that runs through PAPA’s music. Each song’s groove exudes a dark sexiness, suggesting insidious truths and adept lies among the lines conveyed by singer/drummer Darren Weiss’ earnest vibrato, which assumes a Springsteen-like growl in his best moments. PAPA encapsulates the furious grip of the dance floor, the cold weather bearing down, and the shelter that it demands you find. With the help of Weiss’ musical partner and childhood friend, bassist Danny Presant, their soulful rock bellies a hip-hop sensibility that separates PAPA from simple revivalists and propels them into timeless territory.

Last year’s debut EP, A Good Woman is Hard to Find was an imploding bubble that captured the attention of the lost, hurt, and amorous across the country. Over the course of a year’s extensive touring PAPA converted listeners into believers with passionate, high-energy performances at shows with Temper Trap, Girls, Of Monsters and Men, as well as a series of summer festival dates.

Their new single, “Put Me To Work” is the sonic explosion of their former bubble. No longer consumed by the static energy of failed romance, PAPA’s new sound takes on the feel of propulsion and hunger, providing a sense of urgency missing from many young bands. Lyrically Weiss’s references stretch from shadow boxing, to the innocence of chilldhood, to the bible. It is the force behind lyrics like “I want to see the lights, put me to work tonight,” that help to visualize the act of reaching toward and through the limitations of ones grasp that moves the sound, this band, and their potential to reach the light.

A Good Woman is Hard to Find was an album as ripe for sorrowful romance as it was for ecstatic midnight perversion. Their forthcoming full-length, however, breaks new ground pedestaling rhythm as king and keeps the shadows dancing through the frigid night ignoring the requests for shelter; unconstrained.
“I always like the idea of the Clash being referred to as the ‘only band that mattered,’” says Weiss, “So we have no interest in doing anything, unless we feel deep in our guts that it’s going to matter.”
Catch them on tour with Grouplove this November.