beirut-37

Pitchfork Fest's updated lineup w/ DOOM, Beirut, Frightened Rabbit & updated 2009 JAPANDROIDS tour dates

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Japandroids – Young Hearts Spark Fire (MP3)

Beirut @ Coco 66 (more by Ryan Muir)
Beirut

More bands were recently added to the previously announced lineup of the 2009 Pitchfork Festival. The annual fest is taking place Friday, July 17th to Sunday, July 19th in Chicago’s Union Park. Tickets are still on sale.

New acts include Beirut, DOOM, Frightened Rabbit, Lindstrøm, DJ/Rupture, Ponytail, the Mae Shi, and Dianogah.

From those new bands, Frightened Rabbit is also on the bill for NYC’s Siren Fest. The annual, free Coney Island concert is scheduled for Saturday, July 18th.

DJ/Rupture is also appearing at the NYC event for Barcelona’s Sonar Festival on May 12th.

DOOMAnother act on the Pitchfork bill, DOOM, will be performing his first show since the news broke in 2007 that he’d been allegedly lip-syncing and/or sending stand-ins to take his place at live shows. A few months after that, canceled DOOM shows spurred rumors that the rapper was in the hospital, addicted to crack, too lazy to show up…basically anything you can imagine or post on a message board.

DOOM somewhat addressed those questions in an interview with HipHopDX in April. His response started like this:

I’m a director as well as a writer. I choose different characters, I choose their direction and where I want to put them. So who I choose to put as the character is up to me. The character that I hired, he got paid for it. There’s no impostor.

He went on to say that maybe it was really him, he just lost a lot of weight (one fake rapper in question was noticeably skinnier than the hefty DOOM). He closed his answer like this:

But I’ll tell you one thing, if you’re coming to a DOOM show, don’t expect to see me, expect to hear me or hear the music that I present. And it’s gonna be a unique experience every time. So that’s all I have to say about that.

In short, expect the “DOOM Experience.” P4k Fest is his only current date, but we think there will be more announced at some point this year.

DOOM’s latest, Born Like This, came out in late March on Lex Records. Radiohead’s Thom Yorke recently remixed that album’s “Gazillion Ear.” That remix is out now as a bonus track on iTunes. A YouTube rip of the song is below.

Japandroids
Japandroids

Japandroids are on the schedule for Pitchfork as well. The pair were scheduled to play two New York City shows this week at Pianos on May 6th and Public Assembly on May 7th, but the band had to cancel those and other dates because of singer-guitarist Brian King’s “emergency surgery for a perforated ulcer,” as reported by Pitchfork. Luckily, he’ll be well enough to head out a tour that starts at the end of May. Japandroids’ two rescheduled NYC dates will be Friday, July 10th at Brooklyn’s Cameo Gallery and Saturday, July 11th at Pianos. Tickets for the latter are on sale.

Other summer fests for Japandroids include Sasquatch Music Festival on May 24th, Calgary’s Sled Island Festival on June 25th, and Seattle’s Capitol Hill Block Party on July 24th. They also have tour dates across North America, posted below.

Japandroid’s Post-Nothing is out now on Unfamiliar Records. An MP3 of “Young Hearts Spark Fire” from that record is posted above; a video of the guys playing “Heart Sweats” live, below.

All videos, updated Pitchfork Festival line-up, and Japandroids tour dates below…

Japandroids – Heart Sweats

Doom-Gazzillion Ear (Thom Yorke Remix)

Pitchfork Festival 2009 (July 17th-19th)

Friday – “Write the Night: Set Lists by Request”
Built to Spill
The Jesus Lizard
Yo La Tengo
Tortoise

Saturday
The National
Beirut
DOOM
Yeasayer
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Fucked Up
Plants and Animals
Matt and Kim
Lindstrøm
Wavves
Ponytail
Charles Hamilton
The Duchess and The Duke
Disappears

Sunday
The Flaming Lips
Grizzly Bear
M83
The Walkmen
Pharoahe Monch
Blitzen Trapper
Frightened Rabbit
The Mae Shi
Black Lips
The Very Best
Mew
Vivian Girls
Japandroids
DJ/Rupture
Women
Dianogah

Japandroids – 2009 Tour Dates
05/20/2009 Victoria, BC Lucky Bar *
05/22/2009 Vancouver, BC The Biltmore Cabaret *
05/24/2009 George, WA Sasquatch! Music Festival
05/27/2009 Portland, OR Holocene
05/28/2009 San Francisco, CA Hemlock Tavern ^
05/29/2009 Los Angeles, CA Silver Lake Lounge ^
05/31/2009 San Diego, CA Soda Bar ^
06/02/2009 Dallas, TX The Cavern
06/03/2009 Austin, TX Emo’s
06/04/2009 Lawrence, KS Replay Lounge
06/05/2009 Minneapolis, MN TBA
06/06/2009 Fargo, ND The Aquarium
06/07/2009 Winnipeg, MB The Lo Pub
06/09/2009 Edmonton, AB Brixx Bar
06/25/2009 Calgary, AB Sled Island Festival
06/30/2009 Omaha, NE The Slowdown
07/01/2009 Kansas City, MO Record Bar
07/02/2009 Nashville, TN The End
07/04/2009 Atlanta, GA Drunken Unicorn
07/06/2009 Chapel Hill, BC TBA
07/07/2009 Philadelphia, PA TBA
07/08/2009 Washington, DC TBA
07/10/2009 Brooklyn, NY Cameo Gallery
07/11/2009 New York, NY Pianos
07/12/2009 Boston, MA Great Scott
07/14/2009 Montreal, QC Club Lambi
07/15/2009 Ottawa, ON Ottawa Bluesfest
07/16/2009 Toronto, ON El Mocambo
07/17/2009 Chicago, IL Pitchfork Festival
07/20/2009 Des Moines, IA Vaudeville Mews
07/21/2009 Denver, CO Hi Dive
07/23/2009 Boise, ID Neurolux
07/24/2009 Seattle, WA Capitol Hill Block Party
* with No Gold
^ with Happy Hollows