Speaking of musicians with books, Bob Mould (Husker Du, Sugar) is releasing his autobiography See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody on June 15. The autobiography was written with Michael Azerrad (Our Band Could Be Your Life) and will be published via Little, Brown and company. Mould is currently on the road presenting readings from his book and solo acoustic performances of songs recorded with Husker Du, Sugar, and as a solo artist. He'll bring one of these presentations to NYC on June 23 at 92YTribeca. Tickets are available. Mould will also be at Highline Ballroom the next night (6/24) as one half of the DJ duo BLOWOFF with Rich Morel. Tickets are on sale for the Pride Week event.

Foo Fighters, whose recently released Wasting Light features Mould on guest vocals and guitar for the track "Dear Rosemary," have added a second leg to their previously announced tour. The first leg brings them to NJ's Izod Center in September. The tour now also includes a new NYC-area date on November 14 at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. Opener TBA. Tickets go on sale June 17 at 10 AM with a pre-sale starting June 15.

All dates below...

Continue reading "Bob Mould releasing autobiography & making appearances, Foo Fighters announce more tour dates"

DOWNLOAD: Alina Simone - "Beautiful Machine" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Alina Simone - "Glitterati" (MP3)

Alina Simone

"It's probably one of the weirdest thing if not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me," said Simone. "I was not even on the cusp of writing a book, or an article or a short story or anything."

The resulting book is a collection of funny, cynical essays on meeting sketchy producers off of Craigslist, her obsession with Skopsy, a Russian castrati set, and battling fleas in her Williamsburg apartment. [The Brooklyn Paper]

Alina Simone is also performing at Largehearted Lit: Singers Who Write, Writers Who Sing tonight (6/8) at WORD in Brooklyn with Wesley Stace (aka John Wesley Harding). In July she'll appear at the second Girls Write Now benefit at Brooklyn Winery (7/14) with Deb Olin Unferth, Jami Attenberg, Maud Newton, and Kio Stark.

Amanda Palmer has some of her own upcoming shows as well. She plays a show at a secret location in Boston on 6/25 (details at her site), and NYC-area shows at Maxwell's on June 22 and The Bell House on June 23. Both of those NYC-area shows, both with Sarah Borrello and Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, unfortunately sold out before we even realized they were announced to famous Amanda's 500,000+ Twitter followers.

Speaking of which, Alina started videotaping her friend Amanda 12 years ago. "She wanted to be famous" and "succeeded", says Alina in the video of lost 1999 footage she recently posted to Youtube. Check that out below.

You can pick up a copy of Alina's book You Must Go and Win and her album Make Your Own Danger as MP3, CD, and LP. Grab two songs off the album for free above too.

All dates, some videos where Alina's friend Eugene Mirman gives her book marketing advice, and Alina's video of Amanda Palmer, below...

Continue reading "Alina Simone & Amanda Palmer have appearances coming up, Alina wrote a book & made a new CD too"

by BBG

Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries cover

"For twenty-five years, Norway's Slayer Mag published the gospel of black metal and death metal, combining eye-ripping graphics, brutally honest writing, and relentless offbeat humor. With this anthology/memoir, editor Jon "Metalion" Kristiansen unfolds the extreme highs and lows of a life lived for heavy metal. Founded in 1985 in Sarpsborg, Norway, Slayer Mag quickly rose to prominence by championing countless unsigned death metal pioneers. The pages of Slayer Mag exploded along with the extreme metal underground, and as black metal rose to prominence in Norway in the 1990s, Slayer Mag remained the final word on the moods and motivations of those dark times.

The astonishing combination of archival material includes scores of key historic interviews with the most revered figures in extreme metal, including Mayhem, Emperor, Slayer, Kreator, Nihilist, Celtic Frost, Bathory, Cathedral, Entombed, Morbid, Napalm Death, Metallica, Opeth, Cradle of Filth, Sadistik Execution, Usurper, Nifelheim, Darkthrone, Sodom, Destruction, Morbid Angel, Deicide, Exodus, Dissection, Candlemass, Carcass, Sepultura, Gorgoroth, Death, Watain, Sadus, Satyricon, Enslaved, Pentagram, Jarboe, Immortal, Possessed, Overkill, Ulver, Dark Angel, and countless others."

Bazillion Points is also responsible for the awesome Only Death is Real, a look into early Celtic Frost & Hellhammer, as well as Hellbent For Cooking, a cookbook featuring recipes from Amebix, Wino, Eyehategod, Cauldron (who play NYC TONIGHT/WEDNESDAY at Union Pool) and many others. They are also responsible for the essential and near-encyclopedic Swedish Death Metal.

"Slayer Mag" is not to be confused with Slayer the band who are playing Yankee Stadium on September 14th. The Metallica Fan Club and other presales are going on now. General sale begins Friday at 10am.

Demetri Martin's book is out today, April 25th, the same day that he's making an appearance in the Union Square Barnes & Noble as part of a book tour. All dates below...

Continue reading "Demetri Martin made a book, touring bookstores"

Will Oldham has a new release coming in the form of a Slow Fade audiobook...

Bonny reads Rudy! Sung and unsung heroes sink in the sunset in this 1984 novel. Until we put the print edition out this summer, you got to listen!

Read by Will Oldham with D.V. DeVincentis.

"The story alternates between [Wesley] Hardin in Santa Fe, Mexico, and New York --shooting a last-stand Western until the producer blows the whistle and shuts off the funds, generating a cinéma vérité chronicle of his own life--and A.D. and Walker writing their script on the road, so that each movement in the present is complemented by an additional piece of the past uncovered. Apart from generating a respectable amount of plot suspense, this narrative counterpoint allows Wurlitzer to pursue a satirical bent as he charts both fantasy trips, which becomes a contrast between the spiritual excesses of two generations: Yosemite Sam and Mr. Natural, each on a suicide mission." -- Jonathan Rosenbaum

Continue reading "Will Oldham narrated an audiobook, will read it live (dates)"

Havoc & Prodigy of Mobb Deep

"Three years away from the rap game is a potentially career killing lifetime for most rappers. For Prodigy, one half of the legendary New York mainstays Mobb Deep, the time off from rap has not been entirely fruitless as he's been officialy released from Mid-State Correctional Facility after serving a three-year prison stint.

In October 2006, Albert "Prodigy" Johnson was driving his SUV in New York City with longtime producer and friend Alan "The Alchemist" Maman and after making an illegal U-turn, his vehicle was searched by police. After finding a small pistol in a compartment, the pair were arrested and subsequently released on bond with pending charges." -[MTV News]

The NYC show comes less than a month after the release of Prodigy's autobiography entitled "My Infamous Life: The Autobiography of Mobb Deep's Prodigy."...

"I've been in the music industry since I was sixteen years old, touring the world, selling millions of albums--groupies, drugs, alcohol, sex, radio, TV, magazines, videos, money, jewelry, cars, fashion, rap verses, beats, and studios at my disposal for seventeen years straight. Nonstop. I came to prison when I turned 33. The truth is, I never took the time to mature mentally until now, to step outside of my little fast-paced world and see what needed to be adjusted. It's like I was suspended in time. Like I was sixteen years old for seventeen years. I never grew up. My hardheaded ass took the long hard road to get to this point, but at least I've finally made it. I'm a man now." - Prodigy

In related news, Raekwon, who recently celebrated the release of his new LP at MHOW, will join The Lox, EPMD, Brand Nubian, and Nice & Smooth for a show at Best Buy Theater on April 13th as part of a "Salute to Hip Hop". Tickets are still available.

Mobb Deep recently dropped a new song produced by Alchemist, "Love Y'all More". Stream that, check out an interview with Alchemist, and some other videos below...

Continue reading "Prodigy out of jail & wrote a book, Mobb Deep released a new song, scheduled a show w/ Ghostface, Raekwon & more"

Nat Baldwin, David Longstreth and Brian McOmber play Black Flag
Delicate Steve plays the Minutemen
Ted Leo plays Minor Threat
Titus Andronicus plays the Replacements
Tune-Yards plays Sonic Youth
Dan Deacon plays the Butthole Surfers
St. Vincent plays Big Black
Wye Oak plays Dinosaur Jr
Buke & Gass plays Fugazi

To quote show co-presenter Tiger Mountain Presents, "some of the best bands in contemporary indie music will play songs by each of the 13 bands in the book."

"For years, all kinds of people -- musicians, people who run labels, concert promoters, journalists, whatever -- have told me that they've been very inspired by Our Band Could Be Your Life and the bands it profiles, which is incredibly gratifying and totally unexpected," says Azerrad. "The tenth anniversary of the book was a great occasion for the current generation of bands to celebrate these pioneers."

Meanwhile the book will also be the topic of a panel discussion at SXSW that Merrill Garbus aka tUnE-yArDs (who is also playing the festival) will speak on.

Ted Leo is headed to Austin too, an appearance at the BrooklynVegan official SXSW showcase included.

Delicate Steve and Wye Oak are going to SXSW too. Wye Oak can be found at the BV/KF/Partisan day party at Swan Dive on Friday, 3/18. Wye Oak will also play Bowery Ballroom as part of a tour in April.

St. Vincent plays Big Black. I just felt like saying it again!

Continue reading "'Our Band Could Be Your Life' 10th anniversary show lineup (Big Black, Black Flag & Fugazi songs will be played)"

John Wesley Harding and Eugene Mirman at LPR in 2009 (more by Tim Griffin)

"I wanted to bring together my novel writing friends (who mostly envy my musician friends) and my musician friends (who mostly envy my novel writing friends) under one flag," says John Wesley Harding. "Then add Eugene Mirman and his comedians of comedy... The fact is: I like everyone who's performing.

In between (and before) those dates, John Wesley Harding AKA Wesley Stace will do readings in and around the area, including one on 3/10 at Book Court in Brooklyn and one on 3/17 as part of a panel at LIO in Brooklyn. He'll be speaking about Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer, his new book. Maybe you read about it in the New York Times:

WESLEY STACE'S new book, "Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer," is both a murder mystery and a novel about classical music, with a character who sometimes assumes another identity. Mr. Stace, an enthusiastic, donnish Englishman with an honors degree in English literature from Jesus College, Cambridge, and a head stuffed full of historical trivia, is an expert on both double lives and music. Improbably, he is also John Wesley Harding, an Elvis Costello-like singer-songwriter and folk rocker who has released more than a dozen records and is cool enough to have enlisted most of the Decemberists as the backup band on a forthcoming album.

The Decemberists play Prospect Park on June 14th with Best Coast. Ticket info is forthcoming.

The David Wax Museum, who recently played their own show at City Winery (and who are part of John Wesley's Cabinet on 3/11), will also be at SXSW where you'll be able to catch them at a BrooklynVegan day party right at noon on Friday, 3/18 at Barbarella on Red River. Stay tuned for more details on that party coming shortly (but I can say it is the same one Middle Brother is playing later in the day). More David Wax dates at their website.

All Stace & Andrew Bird dates are below...

Continue reading "Andrew Bird playing w/ John Wesley Harding, Wesley Stace released a book, David Wax Museum heading to SXSW"

Weird Al at Fun Fun Fun Fest (more by Tim Griffin)

Weird Al Yankovic's oddball humor, video snippets, and near infinite costume changes will be on the road this year. Al is playing a string of dates in Australia in March followed by a set of East Coast dates in middle May. Those dates include a stop at Monmouth University and one at Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood, NJ on May 21st (tickets are not on sale yet).

Earlier this month Al, who is not romantically linked to Lisa Kudrow, released... a children's book called "When I Grow Up." Earlier this week he read the book to kids at a school...

"Today we will be reading a book by my favorite author -- me," he said.

"When I Grow Up," which is illustrated by Wes Hargis, is a story about 8-year-old Billy who, for show-and-tell, recites a list of career possibilities that includes gorilla masseuse, rodeo clown and professional pickle inspector. The purpose of the book is to encourage kids to do what they love, said Yankovic, who has a degree in architecture.

After reading the story, Yankovic fielded questions from students.

He revealed he's an admirer of Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein, astronaut Neil Armstrong, band leader Spike Jones, satirist Allan Sherman and "the first person to drink milk." He talked about his early job as an accordion repo-man.

Continue reading "Weird Al Yankovic wrote a kids book, touring (dates)"

AMP it up! East Coast All-ages Music Summit

Time: Saturday, February 26 · 5:00pm - 11:30pm
Location: The Rotunda, Philadelphia, PA

An evening of panels, speakers, training, networking and live music designed for staff, volunteers, allies, and fans of all-ages music venues and youth music organizations.

Hear what your peers around the region are doing, learn how we can take collective action to advance the field, and strengthen young people's access to the tools of participatory cultural production.

Help us celebrate the release of our book, "In Every Town: an all-ages music manualfesto!" Bands Slutever and SGNLS are performing and Ian MacKaye of Dischord Records/Fugazi/Minor Threat will offer a keynote."

Continue reading "Ian MacKaye speaking at 'All Ages' event in Philly, Daniel Higgs kicking off Brooklyn residency"