by Bill Pearis

Brooklyn band El Sportivo & The Blooz will release their debut album, Nights & Weekends, next week (2/26) via White Iris, the label that gave us early tastes of Best Coast, Guards and FIDLAR. As the band's name implies, they've got a dusty, bluesy rock sound and we've got the premiere of the album's lead track, "Breaks My Heart," which you can stream below.

The band will play a record release show in NYC on February 27 at Pianos which is also part of the last week of Cascading Slopes and Ludwig Persik's residency there. Rumors and Twin Wave also play and advance tickets are available.

El Sportivo & The Blooz will also play another NYC show at The Gutter on March 9. They've got a couple LA shows this week as well and all tour dates are listed below...

Continue reading "El Sportivo & The Blooz releasing debut LP, playing shows (dates and track stream)"

UK indie rockers Johnny Foreigner are currently touring North American and will play NYC tonight (11/6) at Glasslands with Motive and Rumors. Tickets are still available. All upcoming tour dates are below.

The group haven't toured this side of the Atlantic in a couple years. Maybe some of you, like me, caught them at CMJ 2008. I saw JF at a day party at Public Assembly and my main recollection from that show -- besides them being pretty good -- was that singer Alexei Berrow was absolutely drenched in sweat by the second song. They put their all into it. You can stream Johnny Foreigner's 2011 album, Johnny Foreigner vs Everything, below and is recommended for fans of Los Campesinos! (with whom they've toured) and other spazzy/anthemic guitar pop.

Album stream and tour dates are listed below.

Continue reading "UK group Johnny Foreigner touring North America, playing NYC tonight (dates, stream)"

The full list of artists confirmed for the 2012 CMJ Music Marathon so far is below...

Continue reading "CMJ 2012 initial lineup announced"

Gotye at Webster Hall in March (more by Ryan Muir

Last Friday (6/29), it was revealed that CNN was among the group of news outlets (including Fox News and The Huffington Post) who wrongly reported that the individual mandate central to President Obama's health care legislation was struck down. As you know, and as they quickly corrected, the court actually ruled that the provision could be upheld as a tax. In a statement regarding the incident, CNN senior vice president Sam Feist said, "Today we failed to adhere to our own standard, namely it's better to be right than to be first. We take mistakes seriously, especially mistakes on such important stories." (via Huffington Post).

Obamacare isn't the only thing that CNN has gotten wrong in the past week though. NME reports that last night (7/1), CNN's iReport program broadcasted that Gotye had committed suicide. Here's the statement: "'At 4:32 AM EST, it was reported that Gotye had shot himself in the head with a 9mm handgun. He was pronounced dead at 4.45AM, and the investigation concluded that the cause of death was suicide.'' Meanwhile, Gotye took to twitter soon after, tweeting, "I'm not dead. #Pinkalbumtitles." CNN has since removed the post. Tim Shiel of Gotye's touring band had fun with the mishap, and took to twitter himself, saying, "it saddens me to confirm the news of @gotye's passing- he suffered cardiac arrest while flying a unicorn over a double rainbow" and "don't panic the @gotye world tour is still going ahead, with special guest Terence Trent D'arby. its what wally would have wanted" (referencing Gotye's birth name, Wouter "Wally" De Backer and Terence Trent D'arby, one of the singers who briefly took over when fellow Australian band INXS replaced their lead singer). So for anyone who may have been worried by CNN's false report, Gotye will be live and well for his North American tour which hits NYC twice in September.

In other more exciting CNN news, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who has avoided talking about his personal life for years, finally came out as gay. In an email to Andrew Sullivan (who is also an openly gay news reporter), Cooper said, "The fact is, I'm gay, always have been, always will be, and I couldn't be any more happy, comfortable with myself, and proud."

I kept seeing "Pavement Reunion" rumor headlines last week, but I ignored them because the boy has cried "Pavement Reunion" one too many times to be taken seriously anymore, but then someone pointed me to this article this morning that actually makes it seem like there might be something behind it this time.....

The band have pencilled in the forthcoming Matador Records party, due to be held in 2009 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the record label's conception, as a possible date for their live return.

Continue reading "Pavement to reunite for Matador's 20th Anniversary?"