The xx @ Coachella 2013 (more by Wei Shi)

As you may be aware, Baz Lurhmann's glitzy, big-budget adaptatation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, The Great Gatzby, is out May 10 and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby Maguire, and Carey Mulligan. That same week will see the release of its soundtrack which was curated by Jay-Z and features Jack White, The Bryan Ferry Orchestra, Gotye, Lana Del Rey, Beyonce with Andre 3000, and Jay-Z himself.

It's also got a new track by The xx, titled "Together," which was specifically written for the film. You can stream it, and check out the soundtrack art, full tracklist and a trailer for the film, below....

Continue reading "stream The xx's contribution to 'The Great Gatsby' soundtrack"

Lollapalooza 2012 (more by James Richards IV)

After it was already confirmed that Phoenix, Vampire Weekend, The Postal Service, The National, The Killers, and Mumford and Sons were playing Lollapalooza 2013, a pretty promising leak came which appeared to potentially reveal the rest of the lineup, and it turns out that leak was real.

In addition to the previously mentioned artists, Lollapalooza will include Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Kendrick Lamar, Grizzly Bear, The Cure, New Order, Baroness, Beach House, Cat Power, Death Grips, Jessie Ware, Father John Misty, DIIV, Wavves, Alt-J, Hot Chip, Disclosure, Baauer, Palma Violets, Angel Haze, Band of Horses, Crystal Castles and many others.

Lollapalooza goes down in Chicago from August 2 - 4 in Grant Park. Single day passes go on sale Wednesday (4/3) at 10 AM.

Full day-by-day lineup below...

Continue reading "Lollapalooza 2013 lineup announced (Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Phoenix, Vampire Weekend, Postal Service, Cure, New Order, Kendrick Lamar & more)"

"Here's a riddle: Grimes + LDR = the #1 and #2 most-blogged artists of 2012. Grimes LP on tons of year-end blogger lists. Why not LDR?" - Dev Sherlock

Hype Machine, which compiles data from countless music blogs, posted the Top 50 Most Blogged About Artists, complete with pretty pictures (like the one of the #1 artist above), and ways to listen to those artists. Head to their site for the full list, but you can check out the top 10 below...

Continue reading "The Most Blogged About Artists of 2012"

by Andrew Sacher

FACT is still one of the best sources for cutting edge electronic music, and I always look forward to their top 50 albums of the year list, which they've just published for 2012. As usual, it doesn't only contain electronic albums.

This year's list has a good deal of indie rap (Haleek Maul, Schoolboy Q, Le1f, Main Attrakionz, Spaceghostpurrp) and it's the only non-metal list I've seen so far with Black Breath's Sentenced to Life (!). And of course, to compliment the dancefloor records, it's got its fair share of electronic-tinged indie pop, forward thinking R&B, and outsider experimental music.

Check out the full list below.

Continue reading "FACT's Top 50 Albums of 2012"

UK music magazine Uncut put out their list of the top 75 albums of 2012. The top ten leans pretty heavy on long-running '60s/'70s survivors who put out new albums this year, but plenty of the list-topping regulars from newer acts are on there too, along with a few interesting surprises (Sun Araw, M Geddes Gengras & the Congos!). You can check out the full list below.

Continue reading "Uncut's Top 75 Albums of 2012"

"Every time I mention I like her or Justin
on Twitter though I lose like 20 followers," - Grimes

DOWNLOAD: Doldrums - She is the Wave (MP4)

Grimes at MHOW, 10/25/2012 (more by Amanda Hatfield)

There is no doubt Grimes has had an amazing, perhaps overwhelming, year, selling out four 600-capacity nights in NYC recently to her album Visions ending up on many Best Albums of 2012 lists (like Rough Trade Shops, NME and Fred Armisen's). But what did Claire Boucher pick as her favorite albums of the year? We asked her and you can check out what she told us below.

She cheated a bit though, listing her tour-mates and Arbutus Records label-mate Doldrums' Lesser Evil as her #1, which doesn't actually come out till February 23, 2013, but if it's a list of what she heard in 2012 then we'll let it slide. You can download a track from that Doldrums album above or stream it below along with its music video.

Check out Grimes Top 10 (plus one more, actually) of 2012, which includes both Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift and possibly some inside jokes (we're just printing what she gave us), and that Doldrums song, below.

Continue reading "Grimes' Top 10 LPs of 2012 --- includes Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber & Doldrums' 2013 LP (stream a track)"

Q Magazine put out their Top 50 albums of 2012 list, choosing to do so in no particular order this year, making it more a pile than a list. Check out Q's picks in alphabetical order below.

Continue reading "Q Magazine's Top 50 Albums of 2012"

Long-running UK music weekly NME has just published their Year-End issue and have named Tame Impala's Lonerism as album of the year, with Grimes, Frank Ocean, Crystal Castles and Alt-J rounding out the Top 5. Tame Impala offshoot Pond comes in at #7. Check out the entire Top 50 list below.

As mentioned before, Tame Impala just announced a 2013 tour, and will play Terminal 5 in NYC on February 19. Tickets for that show go on sale Friday (11/30) at noon.

NME's Top 50 LPs of 2012 are listed below.

Continue reading "NME Top 50 Albums of 2012; Tame Impala 'Lonerism' gets #1"

The Fly is the "UK's most popular new music magazine," but if you haven't heard of it, its because it's a free monthly that doesn't really get international distribution. You can however read it online. The mag just released it's year-end issue and topping their Best Albums of 2012 is Sharon Van Etten's Tramp (which was just released in a Deluxe edition, a fine Xmas gift don't you know). Sharon narrowly beat out Grimes, whose Visions came in at #2. The whole list, in ascending order, is below and you can read what The Fly said about each album here.

By the way you can still get tickets for the December 15 show at Cameo that Sharon curated with She Keeps Bees and Speck Mountain and "Special Guest."

A list of the Fly's Top 50 Albums of 2012 is below.

Continue reading "'The Fly' magazine's Top 50 LPs of 2012 (Sharon Van Etten #1)"

Ivana XL/Eddi Front

Brooklyn singer/songwriter Eddi Front has been getting some Internet love lately, most notably in the form of Pitchfork coverage, and, being a Brooklyn-based music blog, we naturally took some interest in the artist who we don't remember seeing around. As it turns out, much like Lizzy Grant before her, she's actually been playing around in the Brooklyn scene for some time now under a moniker that we're more familiar with, Ivana XL (who as far as we can tell never made Pitchfork). Back in 2009, Ivana XL shared a bill at Union Pool with Olof Arnalds, Sharon Van Etten and others. In mid-2011, she played Glasslands with Princeton, NewVillager, and High Highs, and towards the end of that year she played a Death by Audio show with She Keeps Bees.

Back in April of this year, she tried out the moniker Eddi Lines and eventually decided on Eddi Front in May and joined facebook under that moniker early that month. No dates under her new moniker have been announced yet but you can stream two of her tracks, "Gigantic" and "Texas," below.

Continue reading "Ivana XL is now getting attention as Eddi Front (listen)"

by Tim Griffin

Eddie Vedder & Beth Ditto @ Rock Werchter 2012 - 6/29/2012

"Rock Werchter is a Belgian annual music festival held in the village of Werchter, near Leuven, since 1973. It is one of the five biggest annual rock music festivals in Europe (the other four being Exit, Sziget Festival, the Glastonbury Festival and Roskilde Festival). The 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007 festivals received the Arthur award for best festival in the world at the International Live Music Conference (ILMC). It can host 85,000 guests daily, of which 67,000 combine all four days, to add up to a total maximum of 139,000 different attendees." [Wikipedia]

Day two of Belgium festival Rock Werchter kicked off for me with the still-reunited, classic California punk band X playing on the main stage. I stayed for their entire, great set which means I missed Belgium band School is Cool who were playing on the other side of the park. Judging by the bubbles seen on several attendees leaving that stage though, it looked like missed a fun time. Other bands on the second day, of this festival that featured so many big names, included Pearl Jam, Lana Del Rey, Jack White, Deadmau5, The Gossip, Beirut and many others

I couldn't make it to every band on all three stages each day, obviously, but I at least have a good excuse for missing Mastodon: I was getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the fest (many thanks to FIAF and Rock Werchter for the hospitality - and WAFFLES!). They took me behind the fences and gateways, to get a glimpse all that goes on to keep things moving. The scale and logistics were pretty mind-expanding. Some bullets:

• Rock Werchter goes for 4 days at the end on June, but initial setup begins in early May.
• More than 8000 are directly employed by the festival, with thousands more as subcontractors.
• More than 25% of the staff are directly engaged in security and safety of the venue and audience.
• Most staff are sourced locally to ensure direct local benefits from the festival.
• Rock Werchter is practically a small town, with everything but a school system on site (medical services, residences, offices, supply depots, repair stations, food services (including storage and preparation), and even on site garbage sorting and recycling.
• Thousands of large steel road plates are used throughout the facilities to protect the ground from vehicle traffic, and thousands of square meters of field and audience areas are also similarly protected using plastic and wood flooring.

No pictures from backstage, but more from who was playing on the stages, along with Pearl Jam's setlist, below...

Continue reading "Rock Werchter 2012 - day 2 pics (Pearl Jam, Jack White, Gossip, X, Lana Del Rey, Katy B, Kreayshawn, Bat for Lashes, Wiz Khalifa, more)"

We try to keep tabs on various festivals around the world here on BrooklynVegan, many of which you'll eventually see pictures from. Today we focus on Belgium.

Pukkelpop goes down from August 16 - 18. That festival includes The Stone Roses, Bjork, Bloc Party, The Black Keys, Refused, Wilco, The Hives, The Shins, The Afghan Whigs, Lykke Li, Hot Chip, Feist, Flying Lotus, tUnE-yArDs, Chromatics, Cloud Nothings, The Tallest Man on Earth, Baroness, Ceremony, A-Trak, Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, and more. The full lineup is listed below. Tickets for the festival are on sale now.

Rock Werchter, which falls a bit more on the mainstream side, happens in Belgium even sooner, running from June 28 - July 1. That lineup includes The Cure, Jack White, X, Mastodon, Garbage, The xx, M83, Metric, Amon Tobin, Skrillex, Perfume Genius, Bat For Lashes, Michael Kiwanuka, Alabama Shakes, My Morning Jacket, Regina Spektor, Florence + the Machine, The Vaccines and more. Tickets for the festival are on sale now sold out.

The full lineups for both Pukkelpop and Rock Wercher are listed below.

Continue reading "full 2012 Pukkelpop & Rock Werchter lineups"

No openers mentioned yet. Dates below...

Continue reading "Lana Del Rey announces 3 NYC shows, 3 in LA (dates)"

Blurballs.com writes:

Blur are set to appear in an exclusive NME feature piece to talk about their future. Speculations are that they're going to make a new album with producer William Orbit.

The news about Blur headlining the London Olympics 2012 Closing ceremony concert came on midnight yesterday, just a day before the Brit Awards at 8:00pm tonight at the O2 Arena....

...Speculations for the NME announcement tomorrow is best summed up by dannn, a forum member, who said:

My take on recent developments:
• Blur are active again and that's what we have been craving for years.
• The new song sounds really good and a studio version may not be a piano based ballad and could well be in the same vein as For Tomorrow.
• The gig is a unique opportunity for the band to be part of history. I am sure if it wasn't for the Olympics they wouldn't be going anywhere near Hyde Park.
• Expect some intimate warm up gigs.
• The intention at the Brits (and the Olympics gig) could be to put a line in the sand and celebrate the band's past, whilst looking towards the future as Blur Mark II. I think the band have the desire to continue and produce new music, but I guess we'll find out tonight / tomorrow.

We couldn't agree more - with William Orbit on board, what else can happen? Here's our best guess -

- Under the Westway is the Record Day promo
- They're back "in full" as the article says
- Playing Olympics with some intimate warm up gigs
- Then possibly an album towards December with Orbit

Last night was the Brits (the UK version of the Grammys), and though the winners weren't that exciting (Adele, Lana Del Rey, Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars), Blur did perform. Videos of their performance, video of Graham & Damon Albart playing a new song two nights earlier, with the full list of Brits winners and some Graham Coxon dates, below...

Continue reading "Blur are back - played the Brits (videos), playing the Olympics & other dates; Graham & Damon debuted new song (video)"

"Rolling Stone asked me to speak about Lana Del Rey. I wanted to know how big my participation in the piece would be-was it substantial or just a quote? Just a quote, they said, to which I replied that I wasn't super interested. Which was a lie. I have a lot to say about her, but no sound bites. You see, Lana Del Rey is exactly what I was hoping to inspire when I took on the male rock establishment almost twenty years ago with my debut record, "Exile In Guyville.""... [Liz Phair]

And speaking of LDR, who recently performed on Letterman, Bon Iver wasn't the only musical guest on Saturday Night Live last night. Lana Del Rey, who was on two weeks earlier, came back to discuss her famous performance on Weekend Update with Seth Meyers. Check out the video below...

Continue reading "Lana Del Rey returned to SNL! What does Liz Phair think?"

Paul definitely thinks so. Watch the video below...

Continue reading "Lana Del Rey redeems self on Letterman? (video)"

---

Just saw that tweet for the first time via Hot Chip while looking for info on Hot Chip's new album. As you know, Lana Del Rey played SNL this past weekend (Hipster Runoff has since renamed his website in her honor). Bon Iver will hopefully do better on February 4th. Maybe LCD Soundsystem will get to play SNL if they ever reunite. For now we can make due by watching them in the documentary about their last show ever.

As mentioned, Al Doyle's new band New Build have two shows coming up at Mercury Lounge, one of which is on AmEx presale now (the other is sold out).

Move over Golden Globes, Lana Del Rey's horrible performance on Saturday Night Live (watch below) is the hot topic of the weekend. We know what Juliette Lewis, Brian Williams, and Bob Lefsetz (most random list ever) think. What's on your mind?

Continue reading "open thread: Lana Del Rey on SNL"

photos by Andrew St. Clair

Laura Stevenson, BTMI & friends celebrating the holidays


Titus Andronicus were the special guests at Europa on Sunday, 12/18, with Bomb the Music Industry (who played their newest album Vacation from front to back), Laura Stevenson (who recently played a song in a stairwell for us), Bridge and Tunnel, and The Golden Age of Radio. Titus were revealed last minute after playing Brooklyn Bazaar one night earlier (12/17). The Europa show was a holiday benefit...

"This is our FOURTH ANNUAL HOLIDAY CHARITY SHOW or the "WE GIVE A SHIT" as it's often called. All the money left over from the door after expenses will be donated to Safe Horizon... a great non-denomiational charity that aims to move victims of violence from crisis to confidence by providing food, shelter, and all that other good stuff so many of us are lucky to have."

Continue reading "Titus Andronicus, Bomb The Music Industry, Laura Stevenson & friends played Europa (pics)"

Lana Del Rey @ Bowery Ballroom (more by Chris La Putt)

In case you had any doubt that Lana Del Ray is on her way to super-stardom, she "will make her U.S. TV debut on Saturday Night Live January 14 in advance of her new album 'Born To Die' (January 31 / Interscope)," Pitchfork says "Video Games" is the 19th best song of 2011, and her new video for "Born To Die" already has 2.5 million views on YouTube (and that's not even where it first showed up). You can up its view count below...

Continue reading "Lana Del Rey playing SNL (with host Daniel Radcliffe)"

photos by Chris La Putt & Ryan Barkan

Lana Del Rey @ Bowery Ballroom

After years of playing around NYC as Lizzy Grant followed by a secert-first-NYC-show at Glasslands, and all the chatter and controversy and love and hatred, "Lana Del Rey" made her official NYC debut at Bowery Ballroom last night (12/5).

Lana Del Rey finally took the stage in her self-appointed hometown of New York City earlier this evening in what she clearly felt was a put-up or shut-up performance. "It's good to be home," she told the Bowery Ballroom audience as she strode on stage to the bold entrance music of Bernard Herrmann's iconic score from Psycho. After a couple uncomfortable moments of "f***in technical difficulties" (her words), she quickly launched into "Without You," a song which contains lyrics that arguably define her ethos: "I think I found God in the flashbulbs of your pretty cameras."

Del Rey is an artist with undeniable vocal chops, but one that is also clearly a character through and through; this, however, is not a bad thing! Throughout the course of tonight's 40-minute(ish) set, her voice alternated between that of a baby-voiced vixen and a husky, world weary veteran, often pitching up and down between these vocal registers within the same verse of a single song. The visual imagery projected onto a series of three white balloons behind her on stage during her gig included a well-curated mix of Highbrow Brilliant and Lowbrow Despicable video clips -[VH1]

Lana Del Rey is currently preparing for the release of her new LP Born To Die due on January 30th (maybe you listened to the title track while staring at her naked). Check out a live video of new track "Summertime Sadness" (courtesy of According2g), along with the setlist from Bowery and more pics, below...

Continue reading "Lana Del Rey played Bowery Ballroom (pics, video, setlist)"

Mavis Staples @ Newport Folk Fest 2011 (more by Jim Brueckner)

today in NYC
* Whiplash @ UCB
* Brain Cloud @ Barbes
* Chicha Libre @ Barbes
* Habibi @ Brooklyn Bowl
* Hot Tub @ Littlefield
* Swingadelic @ Maxwell's
* The Black Keys @ Webster Hall
* Lana Del Rey @ Bowery Ballroom
* Wiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg @ Terminal 5
* Jamie Woon, Erika Spring @ Mercury Lounge
* 420 Funk Mob, George Clinton @ City Winery
* Jim Campilongo Electric Trio @ The Living Room
* Nonhorse, Chris Forsyth, Koen Holtkamp @ Roulette
* Karl Berger's Stone Workshop Orchestra @ The Stone
* Reverend Vince Anderson & His Love Choir @ Union Pool
* Eugene Mirman, Dave Hill, Bobby Tisdale & Todd Barry @ UCB East
* Dan Neustadt plays Michael Jackson's Thriller @ Knitting Factory
* Mavis Staples, The Head and the Heart, Dawes, Josh Ritter @ Beacon Theatre
* Mick Barr/Marc Edwards Duo, Weasel Walter Trio, Dan Peck Trio @ Death By Audio
* Dave King, Tim Berne, David Torn, Kevn Kinney, Anton Fier, Andy Hess, Tony Scherr @ Rockwood Music Hall
* Marilu Donovan, Max Scheinin, Paul Wheele, Daniel Carter, Shahzad Ismaily, Indigo Street, Justin Veloso @ Zebulon

G-Side get here from Alabama and play Glasslands tomorrow.

Jamie Woon plays Merc tonight.
Jamie Woon remixed Lana Del Rey.
Lana Del Rey plays Bowery Ballroom tonight.

Lana's new "video" aka the clip of her standing naked in the arms of a tattooed dude in front of an American Flag while the title track of her new album plays, below..

If you didn't get a ticket to tonight's Black Keys show at Webster Hall, you can stream it courtesy of MTV, in the video player below...

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Monday?"

by Andrew Sacher

Dubsteppy R&B singer Jamie Woon recently had to cancel a few dates on his European tour due to a ruptured achilles tendon. Fortunately, he appears to be doing well and will continue to tour over the next few months. Though the majority of his dates are overseas, he'll make his way over to North America for a few shows late this fall. Those dates include a show in LA and two NYC shows. He plays Glasslands on December 4 and Mercury Lounge on December 5. Tickets are on sale now for the Glasslands show (Mercury Lounge show TBA soon). All dates are listed below.

Jamie recently offered his spin on Lana Del Rey's "Video Games," with a remix that takes her song out of the parlor and onto the late-night dancefloor. His beats are pretty fitting to back a singer who grew up on hip hop. You can listen to the original HERE and stream Jamie's remix below.

Lana recently announced her rescheduled North American shows, which include Bowery Ballroom on December 5. Tickets are available now for AmEx presale and general sale starts Friday (10/7) at noon.

All dates and song stream below...

Continue reading "Jamie Woon announces dates, remixes Lana Del Ray"

"It's not that there's anything "inauthentic" about her. (How can theater be "inauthentic?") It's just that the aesthetic references surrounding her-- Hollywood vintage, 50s Americana, the concept of fame, the tough-girl crooner, beers delivered in homes and pool played at bars, the whole faded cheer of a mid-century nation, a cave just to the left of the one in which David Lynch has spent years spelunking-- they're all already so pungent, evocative, and well-worn that it's hard to reshape them. Once you know this is where an artist is aiming, watching her get there can be like watching someone accurately answer questions on a multiple-choice test. So it says something that the clip for "Video Games" is still decently bewitching. It has a little of that dolorous haze to it, and it draws nice connections between the middle of the 20th century-- this era that now seems, like paste jewelry, equal parts tacky and glamorous-- and the present moment, which manages to combine tackiness and glamour in its own new and special ways. It's the first thing I've seen clever enough to show you how much Super-8 footage and webcam video have in common, emotionally speaking." [Nitsuh Abebe, Pitchfork]

As mentioned, the controversial Lana Del Rey cancelled/rescheduled her US shows which were initially planned to take place in smaller venues last month. Lana will now make her "official US debut" (she played a "warm up show" at Glasslands on 9/14) at Bowery Ballroom on December 5. Tickets for the show go on sale Friday (10/7) at noon with an AmEx presale starting Wednesday (10/5) at noon.

Updated dates and the videos below...

Continue reading "Lana Del Rey schedules NYC show @ Bowery Ballroom (and LA), watch a 'literal video' of 'Video Games'"

by Andrew Sacher

Lana Del Rey at Glasslands last week (photo by Ryan Muir for Stereogum)

Lana Del Rey, who initially announced that her "official live debut" would take place at NYC's The Box and LA's Hotel Cafe, has rescheduled both of those dates and added a number of European shows too. The new US dates haven't been announced yet but, according to a press release, they are set to take place in larger venues than the ones they were originally scheduled for. She also played a secret, unofficial warm up show at Glasslands in Brooklyn on September 14 under the name Queen of Coney Island. That's a picture from the much talked about show above.

Lana Del Rey is also continuing to stir up controversy about whether or not there's any authenticity to her music or image. Amy Klein (of Titus Andronicus) thinks the problem with Lana Del Rey isn't about sincerity, but that she's a representation of what's wrong with the American culture that her image evokes. In her blog, Amy writes:

Lana Del Ray is exactly as real as the past, for the past is exactly what she recalls. She takes the days when women wore floral skirts and orange lipstick and waited at home for their husbands to come home from work so they (the women) could bring them (the men) martinis with olives and makes them real again (the men, the women, the martinis, and the olives.)

Lana Del Ray is sitting at home waiting for you to come home so she can fix you dinner and a drink. Lana Del Ray is waiting for you to come home so she can watch you play video games on the couch and ignore her all day until it's time for bed. Lana Del Ray is waiting for you to come home so you can go to bed and act out all of your wildest fantasies which is exactly what she wants to do--what you want to do, that is. Lana Del Ray is waiting for you because she is your mirror.

So it doesn't matter if Lana Del Ray is entirely sarcastic when she belts out, "It's YOU, it's YOU, it's all for YOU." It doesn't matter that there is an edge to her voice that sounds something like rage and despair. Lana Del Ray has conquered America with plastic surgery, video games, a regression to nostalgia, and an appeal to the sex drive of every male music critic on the planet. It doesn't matter if she has anything real to sell because Lana Del Ray has made us think about the relationship between selling fantasy and selling lies.

Lana Del Ray is the lie we like to tell ourselves--that America has always been, and will always be, this gorgeous woman who can make all our dreams come true. So it doesn't matter if she loves you or hates you because she is going to take all of your money and you are going to let her get away with it. That's the reality of who she is.

We are narcissistic and self-obsessed and so is Lana Del Ray. We are a country in decadent, navel-gazing decline--fading, intoxicated, and longing for the past, but still so beautiful, staring straight into the lens and smiling as we shoot an American tragedy.

Speaking of Amy Klein, she has shows coming up too. She and "the Blue Star Band" open for Vivian Girls at Knitting Factory on Tuesday (9/20) and play with Bird of Youth at Union Hall on 9/29. Her other project Hilly Eye play Bruar Falls on September 27 with Puta de Cava, Noon:30, and Mensch. They also play Bowery Ballroom on October 8 with Screaming Females, Underground Railroad to Candyland, and Shellshag and November 2 at Death by Audio with Nisennenmondai, Little Women, and Pet Bottle Ningen. Hilly Eye also recently joined facebook and they hint at a full length album being in the works.

All dates below...

Continue reading "controversial Lana Del Rey cancels/reschedules shows, Amy Klein/Hilly Eye announce some dates too"