by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Orange Juice - Felicity (MP3)

In what I hope (but don't promise) to be a regular feature, I'm gonna recommend a couple notable new reissues. What with the holiday season it full swing, either of these would make good holiday presents for the serious indie music lover.

Firstly is Domino Records' new Orange Juice box set, Coals to Newcastle, that compiles nearly everything the Glasgow legends ever recorded. (The single mix of "Rip it Up" is mysteriously absent.) This marks the first time 85% of this material has ever been released in America. Polydor reissued their albums on CD in 1997 but they fell out of print almost immediately. You can now chart the band's progression from their shambolic, jangly beginnings on Postcard Records through myriad line-up changes and transformation into what could be called an indie equivalent of Chic. Even the weird stuff -- like the high life-inspired "Million Pleading Faces" on Rip It Up -- is pretty good. And even if, like me, you shelled out the dough in the mid-'90s for the Polydor reissues (which went out of print almost instantly) there's previously unreleased 12" mixes, dub versions, rough mixes, non-LP singles, radio sessions, live tracks, and interviews. There's also a DVD containing rare Orange Juice television special Dada with Juice, and a Derek Jarman-directed video for "What Presence?" that I'd never seen before. (Why is this not on Youtube?) At $70 it ain't cheap, but if you think of it as less than ten bucks a disc it's not so bad. And well worth the money. You can stream 18 tracks from the box set over at Domino's website and download classic OJ single "Felicity" above.

While on the subject, OJ's Edwyn Collins' new album, Losing Sleep, is one of the year's best. His first made since two brain haemorrhages nearly took his life in 2005 and left him at first without the ability to walk or talk, let alone write songs. That it exists at all is a miracle, that it's as great as it is a testament to his spirit. Helping him out on the album are a cavalcade of talent -- Johnny Marr, Roddy Frame, The Drums, The Cribs, Franz Ferdinand, The Magic Numbers -- but always in the service of getting Collins' songs on record. Like his last two albums, Losing Sleep hasn't been released in America but is well worth picking up on import. Hey Domino... how about putting this one out too.

Speaking of Domino, the label just reissued Robert Wyatt's entire back catalog on CD and vinyl. If you don't own Rock Bottom, Nothing Can Stop Us and Shleep... now is the perfect time. Then move on to the rest of his records.

The other notable reissue is the four-disc "Omnibus Edition" of The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall, my personal favorite Fall album. The 1984 record was the first fully made with Mark E. Smith's then-wife Brix, who brought pop smarts to the Mancunian band's somewhat difficult sound, and their first produced by the great John Leckie.  Along with guitarist Craig Scanlon, bassist Steven Hanley and drummer Karl Burns this is the classic Fall lineup in my opinion. The Omnibus Edition restore's the album's original running order, putting singles from the same time "Oh Brother!," "C.R.E.E.P." and "No Bulbs" on the second disc with their b-sides and rough mixes of album tracks. The third collects radio sessions, and the fourth is a live recording from their performance at the 1984 Pandora's Music Box Festival in Norway (set time 3:15AM) that shows what a powerhouse live band the Fall were at the time. The box set sold out in the UK, but seems to be easily gettable here in the U.S.

Beggars Banquet also reissued The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall on vinyl (just the album) which lets you hear classics like "2X4," "Slang King" and "Disney's Dream Debased" in their analogue glory. Also out on vinyl: its follow-up, This Nation's Saving Grace which is widely considered by people not me to be their best-ever album. (It is a very close second.) It gets the Omnibus treatment in January. Save up, kids.

An Orange Juice video below...

Continue reading "an Orange Juice box set, new Edwyn Collins, the Fall reissues"

As you can see in the above picture, The Cribs are bummed out that they're not going to make it to Coachella this year. Read their full statement about it, below...

Continue reading "The Cribs (Johnny Marr included) definitely not coming to US"

British rockers THE CRIBS have been forced to pull out of California's Coachella music festival this weekend - because all flights out of the U.K. have been grounded due to the ash clouds from a volcanic eruption in Iceland.

The Cribs were due to fly to Los Angeles on Thursday (15Apr10) from Britain, but their plane was cancelled at the last minute and they have no way of flying to California before their scheduled slot on Friday.

They are now hoping festival organisers will allow them to reschedule their gig and are so desperate to appear at Coachella, they're considering taking a ferry across the English Channel and driving hundreds of miles to Amsterdam, Holland to try and catch a flight from there.[Contact Music]

BBC reports that: "Representatives for UK artists such as Muse, Gorillaz [performing with Clash members Mick Jones and Paul Simonon], Florence & The Machine, Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Little Boots, all due to play this weekend, have confirmed they're already in the US and unaffected."

We also know that Iceland's Jonsi is already here (and somewhat ironically, major airports in Iceland are still open). The Specials got here early too.

Frightened Rabbit is stuck in the UK but hasn't canceled yet.

Los Campesinos! cancelled their Culture Shock appearance for the same reason.

The hazardous conditions and airport closures are expected to continue at least into tomorrow.

The Cribs were scheduled to play the fest Friday before She & Him.

"The 2010 Lollapalooza line-up is official: Soundgarden, Green Day, Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, and Phoenix will headline, joined by Social Distortion, MGMT, Jimmy Cliff, Hot Chip, and The Black Keys. With 130 bands on this year's bill, its sure to be a weekend long feast for the ears.

It's a monumental year for Lollapalooza, filled with homecomings, reunions, and first-times. Soundgarden, 1992 and 1996 Lollapalooza alumni, return to the Lollapalooza stage for their first performance since 1997. Green Day will rock Grant Park sixteen years after their first Lollapalooza appearance. While Lady Gaga will headline the festival only three short years after playing the BMI stage at Lollapalooza 2007.

Arcade Fire returns to Grant Park, having played the reincarnated Lollapalooza in 2005. This is the first Lollapalooza for The Strokes - and also their first show in four years. And making their Lollapalooza debut: Phoenix." - Lollapalooza

Continue reading "Lollapalooza actually announces 2010 lineup "

Wow...Public Image Ltd, The Specials, Grizzly Bear, Passion Pit, Echo and the Bunnymen, Grace Jones, Fever Ray, Devo, Hot Chip, Phoenix, Orbital, Spoon, Sly and the Family Stone, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sunny Day Real Estate, Yo La Tengo, Mew, Camera Obscura, Gil Scott-Heron, The xx, John Waters, Dillinger Escape Plan, Deer Tick, Gary Numan... Full Coachella 2010 lineup below....

Continue reading "2010 Coachella line up announced (Faith No More, Pavement, Muse, Gorillaz, Thom Yorke, Jay-Z, LCD Soundystem, ???)"

photos by Tim Griffin

Marr, best-known for his work with The Smiths, has been collaborating with the group since the end of The Cribs' tour for their 2007 album, Men's Needs Women's Needs. But this will be the first time the guitarist joins the band on a North American run. As the short version of the story goes, Marr met Gary Jarman at a Portland barbecue, and the two - who were mutual fans -struck up a friendship. The rest of the band met him at the 2007 Glastonbury festival some time later. "We ended up just being friends, and then we ended up laying music together - which is naturally what you do when you're musicians, and it just happened from there," Jarman explains.

"It's like a new best friend having Johnny in the band," says Jarman simply. He says he and his brothers "sometimes pick his brain about things he's done in the past, he's got a lot of history, he's been in some bands," but in terms of Marr's role in the group, they're all equals. "He's just one of the guys," he says. "He doesn't come across as a mentor or anything like that." [Dose.Ca]

A never-published set of pictures from the second of two shows they played at Bowery Ballroom in November (the set we posted already was from the first night), continues (with the setlist) below...

Continue reading "The Cribs play Irving Plaza Saturday (win tix), played Bowery Ballroom in 2008 (here's a new set of pics) "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: The Yummy Fur - Policeman (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Big Troubles - Freudian Slips (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Adam Green - What Makes Him Act So Bad (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Total Slacker - Demos (mediafire zip)

The Yummy Fur

There's a lot of great shows this weekend, but top of the list for me is Scottish cult indie rockers The Yummy Fur who have reformed to play a few shows surrounding a new best-of compilation, titled Piggy Wings, due out sometime soon on What's Your Rupture. They play 171 Lombardy Market Hotel Friday night. More influential than popular, The Yummy Fur started their life making scratchy, scrappy indiepop a la early Fall but got more glammy and synthy as they went on. Frontman John McKeown took the glam part further with his current band, 1990s. And former members Paul Thompson (who'll be part of tomorrow's show) and Alex Kapranos (who probably won't) have done okay for themselves since in Franz Ferdinand.

You can download one of my favorite Yummy Fur songs -- the 1999 single "Police Man" -- at the top of this post. This is the first, and likely last, time they've ever played the States, so miss this gig at your peril. What to expect? McKeown tells the NY Press:

Nothing. I'm never even really sure there will be people there, but I'm happy to play for whoever shows up. It's not like the band is our life anymore, so it doesn't mean anything to us except that we have affection for it. We do take it seriously, we play the gig straight, but we want to have fun. When 1990s plays the States and same with Franz Ferdinand, there are always people who come out and say they loved The Yummy Fur but we never made it over. This is their one chance.

Grant Hart is back in town for two shows -- tonight (1/14) at Cake Shop and Friday at Knitting Factory. For a man whose previous band put out eight albums in six years (two of which were double LPs), Hart has slowed down a lot since -- Hot Wax is Grant's first album in ten years, and only his fourth since Husker Du split. He talked about his current Quality Over Quantity policy with the The AV Club.

AVC: Why the 10-year hiatus between Good News For Modern Man and Hot Wax?

GH: I've delved into a lot of non-musical projects. Learning new things and accomplishing things with my hands that I put aside as an adult to devote all my time to music. As I've gotten older, I've been concentrating on quality and no filler, and spending more time constructing all of the parts of music, rather than going into the studio with one or two parts and then letting the rest work itself out. The first song, "You're The Reflection Of The Moon On The Water," I took a year to come up with what I thought was an appropriate third verse. That's a long time to hold back on a song that you're excited about in order to make it more of a fulfilling experience. Would I have taken that opportunity in 1985? Hell no.

More things to do this weekend:

Zee Avi

Tonight (Thursday, 1/14)

Les Savvy Fav's Tim Harrington hosts a night of comedy and music at The Bell House, featuring charming Malaysian singer-songwriter Zee Avi, and one of my favorite comedians of the moment, Kumail Nanjiani. Plus Stardweller, Rory Scovel, Kevin Barker and screenings of Harrington's Beardo shorts. Plus other shenanigans.

Another chance to see Hot Rats, Danny and Gaz of Supergrass in cover band mode at Bowery Ballroom. Their take on The Beastie Boys' "Fight for Your Right" is pretty great. I'm told Tuesday's show at MHoW was a blast. The Heavy open (and then play 92YTribeca on Saturday).

At Silent Barn is a night of hazy indiepop, headlined by fine new local band Big Troubles whose debut 7" just came out and is well worth picking up. You can download "Freudian Slips" from it at the top of this post. I doubt they've ever heard '90s shoegazers The Boo Radleys, but "Freudian Slips" bears more than a little resemblance to the Boos' single "Lazy Day," dontcha think? Also playing: next generation twee poppers Dream Diary, the experimental noise of Blissed Out and dreamy New Haven band Procedure Club.

Real Estate @ Brooklyn Bowl - 1/5 (more by Andrew Frisicano)

Friday (1/15)

Not tired from playing every day last week, Real Estate headline a killer Less Artists More Condos show at new venue St James Church. There's open bar from 8 - 9, which is my kind of religion. Real Estate just put out a new EP on Mexican Summer which is, I think, the band's 78th release in just under a year. Also playing are The Tony Castles, The Beets, and two of my favorite new(ish) local bands: Beach Fossils and Total Slacker. You can download Total Slacker's five-song demo (via a Mediafire link) at the top of this post.

The Bell House has a fun show of new sound for now: Brooklyn chamber pop band Miracles of Modern Science (download their EP for free here), the raucous pop of Philadelphia's Drink Up Buttercup, Ravens & Chimes' folk pop and Milagres (maybe you remember them when they were called The Secret Life of Sophia).

Joe Pernice plays a solo show at Mercury Lounge where he'll likely talk as much as he will sing, which is fine -- he's a great banterer. A pretty good writer too, as read in his first novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop which he'll read from I'm told. Joe just finished his next album, which is apparently not a Pernice Brothers or Chappaquiddick Skyline or solo record. I hope he hasn't gone synthpop. Something entirely new for 2010 sounds good.

The Cribs @ Bowery Ballroom in 2008 (more by Vincent Cornelli)

Saturday (1/16)

If you can't make the St. James Church show on Friday, you can catch Beach Fossils again on Saturday night where they're playing a show at Monster Island put on by blog Chocolate Bobka. This looks to be a good show, as it also boasts Alex Bleeker & The Freaks, Cleveland's Cloud Nothings and the druggy sounds of New Hope, Pennsylvania's Nude Beach. It's where I'll be Saturday night.

The Cribs (still with Johnny Marr) are at Irving Plaza where they'll play with our (well someone's) generation's Jim Morrison, the always entertaining Adam Green. "What Makes Him Act So Bad," the first MP3 off of Adam's upcoming album, Minor Love (out 2/16 on Fat Possum), is at the top of this post. The Cribs were just great when they played Bowery Ballroom in November.

Videos, flyers and tour dates follow...

Continue reading "Yummy Fur, Cribs, Grant Hart, Adam Green, Zee Avi, Big Troubles, Joe Pernice, Beardo & more in This Week in Indie"

photos by Vincent Cornelli, words by Bill Pearis

The Cribs @ Bowery Ballroom

The Cribs played two sold out nights at Bowery Ballroom last Thursday (11/12) and Friday (11/13) -- their first NYC shows with new band-member Johnny Marr. The Von Bondies opened both nights. Thursday the Cribs also played The Late Show with David Letterman, performing "We are the Same Skies" from their new album, Ignore the Ignorant. Video of that, along with the brand new official video for the same song with more pictures from the first night at Bowery Ballroom, below.

I was at the first of the two shows, and the Jarman brothers were in fine form. Maybe not as rowdy but there's been no signs of change with their increased popularity. I think Ryan Jarman was wearing the same clothes as the last time I saw them a year and a half ago. They are a down-to-Earth, no bullshit kind of group.

As for for their new addition, the Jarmans and Marr acted like it was no big deal that one of the greatest guitarists of the last 25 years was now in the group, but there was extra oomph on older tracks like "Hey Scenesters" and "Mirror Kissers," and you could definitely feel Marr's influence on the Smith-y current single "We Share the Same Skies" and Ignore the Ignorant's title track. Likewise, the crowd didn't seem to pay Marr's presence any mind -- maybe some of them didn't know who he was? -- as they were too busy going mental, at least near the stage. I'm a Cribs fan, but I do think this was the best I've seen them since they made the leap from smaller-sized clubs.

Meanwhile, The Cribs just announced dates for a North American tour in early 2010, including a January 16 stop at Irving Plaza. Adam Green & The Dead Trees open that show and most of the dates on the tour. Jemima Pearl then replaces him as opener for the last six dates. Tickets for the NYC show go on sale Wednesdday at noon. All announced tour dates, plus those videos and pictures, below...

Continue reading "The Cribs played Bowery Ballroom (pics) & Letterman (video) - announced tour w/ Adam Green (dates) ++ new video "

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: The Cribs - We Were Aborted (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - Prince of Tacoma (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - We've Been Friends Since 1989 (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - Lately (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - I'm a Donkey for Your Love (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: BOAT - Last Cans of Paint (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Pants Yell! - Cold Hands (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Frankie Rose - Thee Only One (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Brown Recluse - Night Train (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Brown Recluse - Contour and Context (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Ropers - Revolver (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Nord Express - The Natural (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Lorelei - Stale Houses (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Max Tundra - Which Song (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Deastro - Reaction To Substance M (MP3)

Tonight (11/11) and tomorrow are the last two shows of The Answering Machine's extended NYC visit, playing Bruar Falls tonight (with Dinnosaur Feathers and Zambri) and Cake Shop tomorrow (11/12, with Sholi). As I've said before, this Manchester band make superior Brit Indie and like their debut album, Another City, Another Sorry, quite a bit. You can get the whole thing at their bandcamp.com page.

The Cribs

Speaking of superior Brit Indie, The Cribs fourth album, Ignore the Ignorant, was released this week, just in time for their shows at Bowery Ballroom on Thursday (11/12, still tickets available) and Friday (11/13, sold out). As you may know, The Cribs are now a four-piece, having added Johnny Marr to their otherwise all-Jarman lineup for the writing and recording of the new album which actually does sound like what you might expect it to. You've still got the big choruses and raw energy The Cribs are known for, but now with the flourishes and panache the onetime Smith is known for. I'd even say Ignore the Ignorant finds Johnny Marr sounding like Johhny Marr for the first time since his days in The The. It's a really strong record. But The Cribs are almost always better live than on record. I will be curious to see how Marr will affect the usual antics of Gary, Ryan, Ross. Will brothers still act like brothers when there's a legend nearly twice their age on stage?

The shows I'm most looking forward to this weekend are from Seattle's BOAT, a truly fun live band whose new album, Setting the Paces, is just terrific, loaded with irresistible indie pop, as much as you can fit on tangerine-colored vinyl. We're talking giant hooks, lyrics that are funny without being novelty (and have just enough of the crying-on-the-inside clown thing going on too), and production that is neither slick nor low fi. This is how it's done, and I've no doubt this will find its way into my Best of 2009 list.

BOAT play Union Hall on Friday (11/13) and Bruar Falls on Saturday (11/14) and you really should do yourself a favor and go see one of these shows. They don't make it East very often. Their live shows are fairly interactive -- they pass out bags of confetti and homemade shakers, and often work with signs and props -- but it never feels forced. They just want you to have a good time. The Union Hall show on Friday is with How I Became the Bomb; Saturday's Bruar Falls show is with Miniboone and Shark?

Pants Yell!

I feel a little bad that BOAT's show on Saturday is competing with the Slumberland 20th Anniversary show at The Bell House for the indie pop consumer's dollar. As someone who spent his college years going on road trips to Washington DC to see shows and go record shopping, Slumberland is intertwined with my musical upbringing, be it thumbing through Velocity Girl, Henry's Dress and Aislers Set 7"s at Arlington's Go Records, or hearing Stereolab's Switched On for the first time at Smash on M Street.

It's kind of amazing that, after a few years of dormancy, Slumberland has come back stronger than ever in the last year with records that have achieved a national level of attention that seemed impossible in the '90s. I'm still stunned at how popular Pains of Being Pure at Heart have gotten. It's a label that continues to be a labor of love for owner Mike Schulman. Maybe the listening public (now with the wide-reaching abilities of the internet) has come around to his way of thinking.

Anyway, Saturday's eight-band spectacular is a hard-t0-pass-up bill for any indie fan, featuring label heavy hitters The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (previously unannounced) and Crystal Stilts. There's also Boston's Pants Yell!, whose new album Received Pronunciation was just released and is what I'd call a textbook "grower," one whose many pleasures don't reveal themselves till maybe the third listen. The band are also swearing it's their last, and plan to break up next year (Check out an MP3 of "Cold Hands" above). Additionally, the show has Philadelphia's baroque-ish Brown Recluse from the label's current roster, and what is likely to be most people's first time seeing Frankie & the Outs, who were really good opening for Grass Widow at the Woodser a week ago.

There's also sets from three bands from Slumberland's dreamy '90s era: Lorelei, who have been back together since 2003, and The Ropers, and Nord Express who I'm pretty sure are playing their first shows since disbanding. While I know some Slumberland fanatics were hoping, wishing, crossing their fingers Schulman and Bell House booker Skippy might pull a rabbit out of their hat with more classic Slumberland bands (The Aislers Set, Black Tambourine, Velocity Girl or Rocketship), it's hard to argue with this lineup. It's gonna be a great night.

Versus

While on the subject of '90s indie rock, Versus are playing at Knitting Factory on Friday (11/13). Now augmented with a violinist (at least at their fantastic Seaport set this summer), they're sounding as good as they did in the '90s. Maybe even better. I'm told there's a new Versus album in the can and they're just trying to work out the whens and wheres of its release. The whole line-up at the Knit is TeenBeat related actually, with label head (and former Unrest frontman) Mark Robinson's new band Cotton Candy; Plus Minus which features Versus' James Balyut and ex-member Patrick Ramos and who are equally popular in their own right; The Solitary Cyclist which includes John Lindaman of True Love Always, Plus Minus drummer Chris Deaner, and food blogger (and friend of mine) Ganda Suthivarakom who has also performed with Miho Hatori, as well as in David Byrne's Imelda Marcos opera, Here Lies Love. Which leads us to the other band on the bill: Filipino indiepop band Ciudad. They've been playing shows here for the last month or so but this looks to be the final one before they head back to the Philippines.

GhostDigital

A couple other quick shows of interest. If you ever wondered what became of Einar, the other vocalist in the Sugarcubes (the one who shouted things like "I really don't like lobster!"), his current gig is GhostDigital which matches weird electronics to his particular style of vocals. They play tonight (11/11) at Monkeytown with fellow homemade diode musician Caspar Electronics.

GhostDigital also play on Thursday (11/12) at Town Hall as part of Music For 16 Futurists, which is further described as:

An evening-length concert of original scores and newly commissioned compositions for the intonarumori, or "noise-intoners" As part of its celebration of the 100th anniversary of Italian Futurism, the Performa 09 biennial, in collaboration with the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) and SFMOMA, has invited Luciano Chessa to direct a reconstruction project to produce accurate replicas the legendary instruments (8 noise families of 1-3 instruments each, in various registers) that Russolo built in Milan in the summer of 1913. As the first instruments capable of creating and manipulating noises through entirely mechanical processes, the intonarumori can be considered to be the original analog synthesizer, and the ancestors to the latest electronic synthesizers used today.

Sounds pretty cool. Aside: I used to fantasize that Einar formed a band with Fred Schneider. The most annoying band ever created.

OK that's it for this week. Videos and tour dates follow....

Continue reading "The Cribs, BOAT, Slumberland, Pants Yell!, GhostDigital, Versus, Music For 16 Futurists & more in This Week in Indie"

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: The Cribs - We Were Aborted (MP3)

Wakefield, England's finest all-brother trio, The Cribs, expanded last year to a four-piece with restless Smiths (and Modest Mouse) axeman Johnny Marr joining the Jarman brothers. The fruits of this colaboration, the band's fourth album, Ignore the Ignorant, is out physically in the U.S. on November 10, the same week they'll be playing their first American shows with Marr, including two consecutive nights at Bowery Ballroom: November 12-13, to which tickets go on sale Friday(8/21) at noon.

You can get Ignore the Ignorant digitally September 8, which is the same week as the CD comes out in the UK. Ignore the Ignorant, which was made with veteran producer Nick Launay (The Veils, Maximo Park, XTC, a slew of Midnight Oil albums) is the lead review in the September issue of MOJO and garnered four stars:

There's an ambition at play here that has nothing to do with the more mercenary aspirations of their lesser peers, and while the album presents The Cribs in widescreen and Technicolor where previously they had a more rustic, lo-fi approach, they're no sell-outs, preserving their grit despirte the relative grandeur of the production. Lead single "Cheat on Me" is a spophisticated tangle of hooks that drives its melancholic point home via the sad-eyed melodies of its chorus, Marr's slide-guitar swoon and Ryan's delivery of the song's anguished refrain -- a torn Cobain-esque howl that could provoke goose-pimples from a corpse. A key point of reference here is The Replacements' "Bastards of Young," which The Cribs covered as a b-side last year, and which "Cheat on Me" echoes, another anthem of post-adolescent alienation.

There's also a "deluxe edition" of Ignore the Ignorant that is available exclusively through iTunes that comes with live tracks recorded at The Ritz in Manchester in February of this year. In a move that seems clearly designed to keep fans from downloading the album illegally, if you pre-order this digital version (which you can do starting August 25) you get the full 20-song set. If you don't pre-order, you only get 14 bonus tracks.

All Cribs 2009 tour dates, the video for "Cheat on Me", and the new album cover art, below...

Continue reading "The Cribs - new album, MP3, video & shows w/ Johnny Marr"

Nels Cline @ Central Park Summerstage on Saturday (more by Paul Bachmann)

tonight in NYC
* DANCE
* Steely Dan @ Beacon Theatre
* The Roots @ Highline Ballroom
* Frankie Negron @ Red Hook Park
* Craig Wedren w/ ACME @ Joe's Pub
* Kath Bloom, Little Wings @ Zebulon
* Los Campesinos!, Girls @ Webster Hall
* Depeche Mode, Peter Bjorn & John @ MSG
* Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit @ City Winery
* Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit @ Hudson Square
* Incubus, The Duke Spirit @ Radio City Music Hall
* Erykah Badu, Janelle Monáe @ Beach at Governors Island
* Dark Habits DJs with Mia Clark, Sara Jaffe @ Bruar Falls
* White Hills, Modey Lemon, Fiasco, Prisms @ Death By Audio
* Portugal the Man, Pistola, The Sway Machinery @ Union Pool
* Sister Mantos, Mirror Mirror, Light Asylum, Rachel Mason Band @ Glasslands
* Gary Panter & Devin Flynn, R. Stevie Moore, Ear Pwr, Toro y Moi @ Cake Shop
* The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Dig, Hollerado @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
* Stories in High Fidelty w/ Dean Wareham, Dan Kennedy, Rob Harvilla @ Union Hall
* Bushwick Book Club w/ Corn Mo, Susan Hwang, M. Lamar @ Goodbye Blue Monday
* Duke & the King, Tyburn Saints, Morning Pages, Maya Solovey @ Mercury Lounge
* Jenny Scheinman w/ Nels Cline, Jim Black, Matt Penman @ Le Poisson Rouge

Free outdoor music tonight includes Frankie Negron at Red Hook Park and Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit at Hudson Square. Jason and band also play inside City Winery for another show tonight.

The Rural Alberta Advantage play a free show with The Dig and Hollerado at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

The Duke & The King play Mercury Lounge tonight...

"The Duke and the King is an alliance of Simone Felice of the Felice Brothers and his longtime friend (and sometime George Clinton collaborator) Robert "Chicken" Burke, along with a highly talented cast of others. They have pulled off a quite remarkable feat on Nothing Gold Can Stay - each song somehow sounding like a classic, each live performance suggesting we are in the presence of a rare, fiery brilliance." [The Guardian]

Los Campesinos! and Girls kick off their tour with a show at Webster Hall. Last night they played Union Pool.

The Roots continue their residency at Highline Ballroom, and they just announced a show with Common at Terminal 5.

Erykah Badu and Janelle Monáe play the first AEG show at the Beach at Governors Island.

Depeche Mode and Peter, Bjorn & John play a second night at Madison Square Garden. PB & J are also playing a secret show somewhere.

Shudder to Think's Craig Wedren plays at Joe's Pub with classical group ACME (American Contemporary Music Ensemble). Shudder to Think comes to town September 2nd.

Jenny Scheinman performs in her last gig for a while with Mischief & Mayhem (Nels Cline, Jim Black and Matt Penman) at (Le) Poisson Rouge.

The monthly Bushwick Book Club series tackles the Bible at Goodbye Blue Monday. Songwriters include Corn Mo, Susan Hwang, M. Lamar, Sweet Soubrette and Emilyn Brodsky. Flyer below.

Dean Wareham follows up his Dean & Britta Celebrate Brooklyn show on Saturday with a reading at Union Hall. The event, Stories in High Fidelty, will also feature music writer Dan Kennedy and Village Voice music editor Rob Harvilla.

Mia Clark (Electrelane) and Sara Jaffe (ex-Erase Errata) read from the new book The Art of Touring at Bluestockings, then DJ at Bruar Falls tonight.

The Cribs, whose lineup now includes Johnny Marr, put out a new video for "Cheat On Me," posted below. Marr previously gigged with Modest Mouse, who just released their Heath Ledger-directed video for "King Rat," also below.

What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Tuesday?"

"...So much else is new and wonderful for us! We have a new record label, Kill Rock Stars. Not only has Kill Rock Stars released some of Portland's (and the Northwest's) best punk and indie records to date (Elliott Smith, Sleater-Kinney, The Gossip), but the label has recently relocated to Portland, and is quickly filling it's roster with even more great Portland bands (Shaky Hands, Panther, Horse Feathers). The Thermals are thrilled to now be a part of this family as well. We were thrilled to be part of the Sub Pop family for six years, but we felt it was time to move on. We turned down a second contract from Sub Pop, lest you think we were dropped! You don't drop us, we drop you. Not you, personally. We love you! Seriously, you're the best.

We have a new drummer as well. Westin Glass, formerly of Seattle's Say Hi, joins us (Kathy Foster and Hutch Harris) to complete the third (or so) live line-up of The Thermals. In addition to (again!) touring the UK with The Cribs this February, and playing multiple shows at SXSW in March, we will be touring the U.S. for two months, following the release of Now We Can See on April 7th. We'll be doing festivals in Europe and the U.S. all summer long, followed by a full European tour in the fall... - The Thermals

Speaking ot the Bell House, tickets are also still on sale for the Great Lake Swimmers show happening there on January 9th, plus The Mugs are playing there on January 17th and The Forms are playing there on January 18th.

All Thermals dates below...

Continue reading "The Thermals - 2009 Tour Dates (Brooklyn, Europe, SXSW)"

Johnny Marr as a Modest Mouse member (more by Ryan Muir)

The Cribs - complete with Johnny Marr as part of their line-up - have revealed that they plan to release a new single this year during an exclusive video interview with NME.COM. The band had already revealed that they will record a full album in early 2009, but made the single revelation while speaking to NME.COM at the Leeds Festival on Friday (August 22).

"We don't know when it's going to happen, but we'll try and do that [release a single before the year ends]," said Marr.

Jeffrey Lewis @ Club DeVille (BV SXSW) - March 12, 2008 (michaelhowell)

Cribs street team victim @ SXSW - March 14, 2008 (thestreetnetwork)

* Musebox Monthly @ 205
* New Model Army are at Southpaw
* DJ Never Forget is guest DJ at Upstairs
* Living Room's 10th Anniversary continues
* Palms Out Sound showcase @ Luna Lounge
* Lupe Fiasco & Wyclef are playing Hammerstein Ballroom
* The Cribs & Jeffrey Lewis are playing Music Hall of Williamsburg

A victim of the Black Keys street team below. What else?

Continue reading "What's going on Thursday?"

UK TV + NYC anti-folk....

Continue reading "Jeffrey Lewis & Adam Green on The Culture Show"

The Cribs never made it here last time. Rescheduled dates below....

Continue reading "The Cribs - 2008 Tour Dates (SXSW, Brooklyn)"

The Cribs @ Union Pool, Brooklyn, NY - Aug 12, 2007 (CRED)

* Badly Drawn Boy is playing Spiegeltent
* Fiona Apple & Nickel Creek are at Summerstage
* Mae @ is at the Gramercy Theatre, new album streaming @ MySpace

What else?

The Cribs @ Capitol Hill Block Party 2007, Seattle (CRED)

The Cribs have added a 2nd NYC show at Union Pool in Brooklyn on August 12th, and their Manhattan show at Bowery Ballroom on August 9th is still not sold out. Tickets for both shows available @ Ticketmaster, but keep in mind that the much-buzzed about White Rabbits (not to mention Foreign Islands) are opening the Bowery Show, and Right on Dynamite is the opener for Union Pool.

More photos from the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle, and Cribs tour dates, below....

Continue reading "The Cribs add Brooklyn show ++ pics from the 2007 Capitol Hill Block Party"

I think a new law has been enacted in the city of NY, and I guess everywhere now. It states that White Rabbits (who by the way recently recorded a Daytrotter session, and are playing Letterman Thursday night) must be regularly placed on the same bill as popular UK artists - whether it be Mystery Jets, The Cribs, Art Brut, M.I.A. (I know, that's a stretch), or even Kaiser Chiefs. White Rabbits, Datarock, and Kaiser Chiefs play the Beacon Theatre in NYC on September 29th. Tickets go on sale Friday. All tour dates below...

Continue reading "Kaiser Chiefs, White Rabbits, Datarock - 2007 Tour Dates"

DOWNLOAD: The Cribs - Men's Needs (CSS remix) (MP3) (NSFW VIDEO)
DOWNLOAD: Rodrigo y Gabriela - Diablo Rojo (live On The Tonight Show) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Gang Gang Dance - Nomad For Love (cannibal) (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Band - Look Out Cleveland (MP3)

Levon Helm @ Summerstage, NYC - June 28, 2007 (by Sandwich!)

Is anyone going to see Bob Dylan at Jones Beach tonight? What about Rush on Monday?

Rodrigo y Gabriela and Vietnam for free in Central Park on Sunday might just qualify as the show of the weekend. JDH and Dave P are DJing too. It's really too bad that it's going up against Man Man, Illinois, Dengue Fever, and What Cheer Brigade at McCarren Pool which is also free. I hope for both of them that this rain lets up by then. Dengue Fever is also doing an in-store at Sound Fix on Sunday. (though is a show there even technically an "in-store" anymore?)

PS1 kicks things off in Long Island City this weekend with DFA.

Seymore Saves the World is the new band of ex-Tapes n Tapes bassist Shawn Neary. Take a look at their tour dates at MySpace and you'll notice they're visiting NYC this weekend.

The Stills and Malajube are playing shows at Maxwell's, and also in the park that Manu Chao just played.

Groove Collective, Ravi Coltrane, Craig Harris help Celebrate Brooklyn this weekend too. Ozomatli, Babylon Circus & DJ Joro Boro are at Summerstage earlier the same day.

Gang Gang Dance headline Bowery Ballroom Saturday night. They're also involved in the 77 drum Boredums thing that's coming up soon.

Morrissey isn't doing so well. Hopefully he makes it to MSG on Saturday.

The Fiery Furnaces tour is about to arrive. They'll be playing some new songs off their new album Widow City - out on Thrill Jockey Records in October. (man, they change labels a lot don't they?)

Although Cake Shop's website lists Saturday night's show as "JASON TRACHTENBURG and pals", I'm being told the show will be a full-on Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players "open rehersal", and "a chance to see something new and be witness to the development of some new concepts that are being developed for the Edinburgh Fringe in Aug. A lengthy Q and A session will also occur."

Langnorne Slim and others are playing a benefit for the Drew Goren memorial fund at Luna Lounge.

The Polyphonic Spree tour gets to Warsaw this weekend. Pharoahe Monch plays a late show at Highline Ballroom. There's comedy going on.

Although they were some of the displaced tenants, Sam Champion is not playing the Pizza Plus benefit at Southpaw on July 13th with Teenage Prayers and The Legendary Captain Greech + the Shrimp Shooters. Wait a minute - who are The Legendar Captain Greech + the Shrimp Shooters???

Sam Champion are for sure playing at South Street Seaport tonight though - with Ra Ra Rabbit........I mean...

Don't forget about Citysol, and Britta Persson too.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? Wanna win a limited edition Black Lips/Yacht split 7-inch? Details below....

Continue reading "What's goin' on?"

Remember that Cribs video that has the girl walking around naked, but parts of her are blacked out. Or maybe you saw the other version where she is just wearing a body suit? Well, now you can watch the one where she really is wearing nothing. The Cribs are playing Bowery Ballroom on August 9th. All tour dates below....

Continue reading "uncensored (NSFW) CRIBS video & 2007 Tour Dates"

ha. Speaking of MTV, is anyone watching 24 Hours of Human Giant right now....

Continue reading "VIDEO: The Cribs - "Men's Needs" (banned by MTV)"