Mad about the girl: Swedish pop sensation as featured in the June BLURT.

By Fred Mills

Swedish non-diva Lykke Li has announced a pair of August shows for NYC and L.A. in August to be followed by a full US tour this October/November.  The acclaimed songbird’s debut album, Youth Novels arrives August 19 on LL Recordings (yes, the LL stands for Lykke Li). Meanwhile, she toured the U.S. earlier this year with El Perro Del Mar and “captivated” audiences, employing drums, acoustic guitar and bass, a sole keyboard and a necklace full of percussion — fans were reportedly dancing in the aisles.

Here’s the scoop on Li and the album from her handlers:

“Joining a few of the dots between Feist, Peter, Bjorn and John, and Robyn, 22 year-old Lykke Li has been winning over audiences across the globe with her very own strain of otherworldly minimalist pop music.  A master of subtle delivery, leftfield arrangements, lovelorn beauty and undeniable brilliance, Lykke Li's songs transcend genre, anchored by her diverse influences which range from everything from Dr. John to A Tribe Called Quest to Madonna.  Youth Novels, produced by Peter, Bjorn and John's Bjorn Yttling, casts a spell immediately upon first listen, resulting in wildfire acclaim in Lykke Li's native Sweden and the UK (where the record was just released), with America quickly following suit.”

Meanwhile, cast your eyes to page 26 of the June issue of our digital magazine where we sing the praises of Likke Li. “Just when we’d gotten Peter Björn and John’s “Young Folks” out of your head,” writes Erich Schumacher-Rasmussen, “along comes Lykke Li’s “Little Bit,” another insidiously catchy, deceptively simple Swedish earworm to drive us mad.”

Lykke Li Tour Dates:

8/25/08           Los Angeles, CA @ Hotel Café
8/28/08           New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
10/19/08         Washington, DC @ Black Cat
10/23/08         Boston, MA @ Paradise
10/24/08         Toronto, ON @ Mod Club
10/25/08         Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
10/28/08         Vancouver, BC @ Richards on Richards
10/29/08         Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s
10/30/08         Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
11/1/08           San Francisco, CA @ Independent

This is your broom on drugs. Any questions?

By Andy Tennille

On August 17^th, androgynous ‘80s icon Boy George will help celebrate New York City’s Department of Sanitation 4th Annual Family Day by playing a free concert for sanitation workers and their families as a thank you for the kindness shown to him by the DSNY.

On October 7, 2005, New York City police officers responded to a 911 call from George at approximately 3 a.m. Eastern in which the singer claimed his Manhattan apartment had been burglarized. Upon arrival at George’s apartment, police discovered more than an eighth of an ounce of cocaine and charged him with false reporting of a burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Under a plea deal reached in March 2006 with Gotham prosecutors, George pleaded guilty to false reporting of a burglary, received a $1,000 fine, agreed to enter a drug-treatment program in England and promised to complete five days of community service in Manhattan. Although his initial community service proposals included hosting a fashion-and-makeup workshop, George ultimately reported for duty in August 2006 to New York City’s Department of Sanitation and apparently made some life-long friends.

“New York’s Strongest are delighted that Boy George will join us at our Family Day outing in August and perform some of his fabulous hits for our hard-working men and women and their families,” said First Deputy Commissioner Michael A. Bimonte, who coordinates the DSNY Family Day event. “Keeping New York City safe and clean is a daunting challenge – as Boy George well knows – and we welcome his generous offer to entertain those who have made our City the cleanest it has been in more than 30 years.”

The Family Day concert is only a single stop on George’s 29-show North American tour, which begins July 10 in Aspen, CO. While no additional appearances at Department of Sanitation events are currently on George’s schedule, BLURT believes North Myrtle Beach officials might explore the possibility of utilizing George’s services to eradicate the growing “white trash” problem prevalent at local gas stations, Wings and public beach access parking lots.

Boy George Tour Dates:

07/10: Aspen, CO @ Belly Up

07/11: Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues

07/12: San Diego, CA @ Concerts In The Park

07/13: Anaheim, CA @ The Grove Of Anaheim

07/15: Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey Theatre

07/16: Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey Theatre

07/17:  Reno, NV @ Grand Sierra

07/18: San Francisco, CA @ Regency Center - Grand Ballroom

07/20: Seattle, WA @ Showbox

07/21: Vancouver, BC @ The Commodore Ballroom

07/22: Calgary, AB @ Flames Central

07/23: Edmonton, AB @ Edmonton Events Centre

07/25: Miami, FL @ Club Cinema

07/26: Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Hotel Orlando

07/27: Tampa Bay, FL @ Jannus Landing

07/29: N. Myrtle Beach, SC @ House of Blues SC

07/30: Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club

08/01: Philadelphia, PA @ Keswick Theatre

08/03: Atlantic City, NJ @ House of Blues

08/05: Long Island, NY@ Theatre at Westbury

08/07: Chicago, IL @ House of Blues – Chicago

08/10: Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus

08/12: Montreal, QC @ Metropolis

08/13: Boston, MA @ Wilbur Theatre

08/14: New York, NY @ Terminal 5

08/19: Atlanta, GA @ Center Stage

08/21: Austin, TX @ Stubb’s BBQ

08/22: Houston, TX @ Verizon Wireless Theater

08/23: Dallas, TX @ House of Blues – Dallas

Hosler and Dimuzio get their groove on.

By Fred Mills

On July 15 the great, still-not-late, Negativland drops Thigmotactic via its own Seeland label. It’s described by the band’s handlers (term used loosely – nobody, not even U2 or SST Records, will ever be able to genuinely “handle” Negativland, eh?) as “going deep into song making territory.

The record, we are advised, moves “in a very different direction than other recent Negativland releases, and with a decidedly surreal bent. These eccentric toe-tapping electronic folk-pop noise songs are strung together to forma continuous and cohesive listening experience, with themes emerging around meat, pants, milk, cows, trucks, Herb Alpert, Richard Nixon, and even love. Thigmotactic continues in Negativland's decades long collage and cut-up tradition, but while the trademark sound of found audio elements is sparingly collaged through-out, the cutting up here is also in the lyrics, created by combining dream journals, bits of advertisements, found poems, automatic writings, stream of consciousness, old National Geographic articles, and more.”

“The fifteen songs and two instrumentals were written, composed and performed by Negativland's Mark Hosler, with contributions from the rest of the group, and with well-known San Francisco noisemaker Thomas Dimuzio contributing lots of rather unexpectedly normal sounding instruments, arrangements and production. The found ethic continues with the artwork that accompanies each track, created from found materials to illustrate each song. Many of these have been shown as part of Negativland's traveling art show "Negativlandland", and, in a creative experiment in financing this release, each one-of-a-kind work is for sale via Negativland's web site, www.negativland.com. Negativland has always existed as an umbrella under which the group releases collaborative work in many mediums - music, noise, collage, film, design, animation, fine art, books, lectures, essays, sculpture, performance, radio, web sites, etc. - with the term "Negativland Presents" sometimes being used as a way to release work that might be mostly the product of one member's brain, or uses members outside of the immediate collective.”

***

NEGATIVLAND BIO (courtesy Seeland)

Since 1980, the 4 or 5 or 6 Floptops known as Negativland have been creating records, CDs, video, fine art, books, radio and live performance using appropriated sound, image and text. Mixing original materials and original music with things taken from corporately owned mass culture and the world around them, Negativland re-arranges these found bits and pieces to make them say and suggest things that they never intended to. In doing this kind of cultural archaeology and "culture jamming" (a term they coined way back in 1984), Negativland have been sued twice for copyright infringement. 

Okay, but what, you still ask, is Negativland exactly? That's hard to answer. Negativland definitely isn't a “band,” though they may look like one if you see their CDs for sale in your local shopping mall. They're more like some sort of goofy yet serious European-style artist/activist collective - an unhealthy mix of John Cage, Lenny Bruce, Pink Floyd, Bruce Connor, Firesign Theatre, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Rauschenberg, 1970's German electronic music, old school punk rock attitude, surrealist performance art, your high school science teacher…and lot's more.

Over the years Negativland's "illegal" collage and appropriation based audio and visual works have touched on many things - pranks, media hoaxes, advertising, media literacy, the evolving art of collage, the bizarre banality of suburban existence, creative anti-corporate activism in a media-saturated multinational world, file sharing, intellectual property issues, wacky surrealism, evolving notions of art and ownership and law in a digital age, and artistic and humorous observations of mass media and mass culture. 

While it is true that, after being sued, Negativland became more publicly involved in advocating significant reforms of our nation's copyright laws, Negativland are artists first and activists second.  All of their art and media interventions have intended to pose both serious and silly questions about the nature of sound, media, control, ownership, propaganda and perception. Their work is now referenced and taught in many college courses in the US, has been written about or cited in over 150 books (including NO LOGO by Naomi Klein, MEDIA VIRUS by Douglas Rushkoff, many legal journals, and various biographies of the band U2), and they often lecture about their work here and in Europe. Negativland is now on the advisory board of a Washington DC based intellectual property lobbying group called www.digitalfreedom.org.

Since 1981, Negativland and an evolving cast of characters have operated “Over The Edge,” a weekly radio show on KPFA FM in Berkeley, California. “Over The Edge” continues to broadcast three hours of live, found-sound mixing every Thursday at midnight, West Coast time, with online access. In 1995 they released a 270 page book with 72 minute CD entitled FAIR USE: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2. This book documented their infamous four-year long legal battle over their 1991 release of an audio piece entitled "U2". They were the subjects of Craig Baldwin's 1995 feature documentary SONIC OUTLAWS and created the soundtrack and sound design for Harold Boihem's 1997 documentary film THE AD AND THE EGO, an excellent in-depth look into the hidden agendas of the corporate ad world and the ways that we are affected by advertising. Their 1997 all-cola focused epic, DISPEPSI, also tackled some of these same topics. In 2002, and to very mixed reaction, they unleashed the dark and noisy book/CD project DEATHSENTENCES OF THE POLISHED AND STRUCTUARALLY WEAK, which combined destroyed sounds with images of things found inside of wrecked cars in automotive wrecking yards. 

2004 found Negativland working with Creative Commons to write the Creative Commons Sampling License, an alternative to existing copyrights that is now in widespread use by many artists, writers, musicians, film makers, and websites. In 2005, they released the elaborately packaged NO BUSINESS (with CD, 15,000 word essay, and custom made whoopie cushion), and debuted "Negativlandland" - a large visual art show of over 80 piece's of their "fine art" works, video, and home-made electronic devices, at New York City's Gigantic Art Space.

More recently Negativland have been touring a new performance piece called “Its’ All In Your Head FM”, a two-hour-long audio cut-up mix about monotheism, the supernatural God concept, and the all-important role played by the human brain in our beliefs. Christianity and Islam are the featured religions, as Negativland asks its audience to contemplate some complex, serious, ridiculous, and challenging ideas about human belief in a show best described as “documentary collage.” In late 2007, Negativland released Our Favorite Things, a feature length DVD collection of their many years of collaborative film work, and in 2008 they surprised themselves and everybody else by putting out a toe-tapping all-songs project called Negativland Presents Thigmotactic.

Negativland is interested in unusual noises and images (especially ones that are found close at hand), unusual ways to restructure such things and combine them with their own music and art, and mass media transmissions which have become sources and subjects for much of their work.  Negativland covets insightful humor and wackiness from anywhere, low-tech approaches whenever possible, and vital social targets of any kind.  Foregoing ideological preaching, but interested in side effects, Negativland is like a subliminal cultural sampling service concerned with making art about everything we aren't supposed to notice.

BLURT IT OUT LOUD!

HARP EDITORS LAUNCH BLURT, AN INNOVATIVE NEW MUSIC DIGITAL-MAGAZINE AND WEBSITE

SILVER SPRING, MD. Founder and former Editor-in-Chief of HARP Magazine Scott Crawford today announced the launch of BLURT, a new music digital-magazine and accompanying website www.BLURT-online.com.  Joined by Managing Editor Fred Mills, Senior Editor Randy Harward, Associate Editor Andy Tennille and Contributing Editor A.D. Amorosi, BLURT will raise the bar for modern music and entertainment magazines by combining insightful features, irreverent interviews, relentless reviews, and first-class design standards.

"Urged on by the industry and its artists, we've managed, in the few short months since HARP's demise this past spring, to create an online destination in BLURT that expands on our coverage of music and culture in ways that were never possible in the print world," Crawford says. "Launching a digital-magazine enables us to combine the technological advantages inherent online with the compelling design aesthetics that HARP readers have come to expect. It's a new world out there, but creatively, I've never been more excited about the possibilities."

Joan As Policewoman graces the cover the BLURT Digital-Magazine debut issue, which also includes feature stories on My Morning Jacket, Ray Davies, My Brightest Diamond, and Alejandro Escovedo, as well as profiles of artists such as Whiskeytown, Tapes ‘n Tapes, American Princes, The Ettes, Centro-matic, Martha Wainwright, Juliana Hatfield, Mia Doi Todd, Sally Shapiro, and A Big Yes and a small no. More than 50 albums are reviewed in the BLURT Digital-Magazine inaugural issue, including Spiritualized's Songs in A&E, Fleet Foxes’ self-titled debut, Death Cab for Cutie's Narrow Stairs, Solomon Burke's Like a Fire, Howlin Rain's Magnificent Fiend, Elvis Costello and the Imposters' Momofuku, and the deluxe edition reissue of Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville. There are also sections for reviews of books and DVDs plus essential music-lovers' lifestyle merchandise.

"BLURT Digital-Magazine will be free to subscribers and available nine times a year at www.BLURT-online.com," Crawford adds. "We believe BLURT Digital-Magazine's green-minded, digital-only format will set the standard for how digital-magazines can heighten the consumer experience by offering fully interactive and searchable content including exclusive performance and interview videos, MP3s, podcasts and more."

In addition to the debut of the digital-magazine, BLURT-Online will launch this week, offering visitors up-to-the-minute daily news, abundant additional features and reviews (including over 100 additional CD, book, DVD, and concert reviews), plus various video channels broadcasting exclusive video interviews and performances by The Black Keys, Alejandro Escovedo, and Devotchka, as well as an entertaining, behind-the-scenes look at cover artist Joan as Policewoman's photo shoot. Furthermore, BLURT is proud to announce blog contributions from esteemed critic and former Village Voice Music Editor Chuck Eddy (Singles Again, celebrating vinyl), singer-songwriter Chris Lee (Say It Ain't Soul, for songwriters), Triple-A veteran and former XM Music Director Kate Bradley (Cut Through the Noise, industry rants and raves) as well as ongoing political opinions from artists as diverse as songwriter James McMurtry, Anti-Flag's Justin Sane, antifolker Ed Hamell (a/k/a Hamell on Trial) and Grace Potter (of Grace Potter & the Nocturnals), with more to be announced.

ABOUT BLURT: Brought to you by the creative team behind the lauded HARP Magazine (called "America's best music magazine" by NPR's Bob Boilen and "the best music magazine in the country and the one that musicians always read" by Foo Fighter Dave Grohl), BLURT will raise the bar for modern music and entertainment magazines and websites by combining insightful features, irreverent interviews, relentless reviews, and first-class design standards. Visit us at www.BLURT-online.com.

For more information, contact:

Scott Crawford, Editor-in-Chief

scrawford@blurt-online.com

P: 301-592-0006

For sales and marketing opportunities:

Kate Bradley

kbradley@blurt-online.com

P: 202-316-1193

By Fred Mills

BLURT heroine Maria Taylor has resumed roadwork behind her critically acclaimed 2007 album Lynn Teeter Flower. The current tour boasts sponsorship by Daytrotter and it kicked off last weekend; it wraps July 12 in California.

Of that album, a certain now-defunct magazine that you may remember fondly (take a wild guess) had these words of praise:

“Maria Taylor has already shown that she’s capable of crafting both precious dreampop, as one half of Azure Ray, and Postal Service-inspired electronica, on her 2005 solo debut 11:11. But who knew she could actually rock? The ten tracks on Lynn Teeter Flower show a new, remarkably varied, side of Taylor, juxtaposing her gorgeous falsetto with driving guitars, electronic flourishes and deftly woven arrangements. Opener ‘A Good Start’ is a downbeat pop track with hooks so deep they’ll slit your skin; ‘Replay’ features swinging synths and vocals reminiscent of erstwhile Saddle Creek labelmate Jenny Lewis; and ‘My Own Fault’ is a hypnotizing drum machine-driven march to heaven. However, the breakout track on Lynn Teeter Flower is ironically also the most stripped-down: ‘Clean Getaway,’ a heartbreaking paean to moving on that’s so bittersweet it’ll make you wince.”

Hey, who are we to argue? Here’s the complete list of tour dates:

Maria Taylor Tour Dates:

Mon-Jun-09, Dallas, TX, Granada

Tue-Jun-10, Austin, TX, Emo's

Wed-Jun-11, Baton Rouge, LA, Spanish Moon

Thu-Jun-12, Birmingham, AL, Workplay

Fri-Jun-13, Atlanta, GA, Smith's Olde Bar

Sat-Jun-14, Athens, GA, Caledonia Lounge

Sun-Jun-15, Charleston, SC,  Village Tavern

Mon-Jun-16, Carrboro, NC, Cat's Cradle

Wed-Jun-18, New York, NY, Knitting Factory

Thu-Jun-19, Washington, DC, Rock and Roll Hotel

Fri-Jun-20, Philadelphia, PA, The Barbary

Sat-Jun-21, Kingston, NY, Free Wall Street Party

Mon-Jun-23, Boston, MA, The Paradise

Tue-Jun-24, Hamden, CT, The Space

Thu-Jun-26, Toronto, ONT, El Mocambo

Fri-Jun-27, Detroit, MI, Magic Stick

Sat-Jun-28, Chicago, IL, Beat Kitchen

Sun-Jun-29, Chicago, IL, Belmont Arts & Music Festival

Mon-Jun-30, Minneapolis, MN, 7th Street Entry

Tue-Jul-01, Omaha, NE, Waiting Room

Wed-Jul-02, Denver, CO, The Hi-Dive

Thu-Jul-03, Salt Lake City, UT, Kilby Court

Fri-Jul-04, Boise, ID, Neurolux

Sat-Jul-05, Portland, OR, Doug Fir

Sun-Jul-06, Seattle, WA, Tractor Tavern

Wed-Jul-09, San Francisco, CA, Bottom of the Hill

Thu-Jul-10, Visalia, CA, Cellar Door

Fri-Jul-11, Los Angeles, CA, Echoplex

Sat-Jul-12, Sonoma, CA, Gundlach Bundschu Winery

 ***

6/5-7/12 with Johnathan Rice

6/5-7 with Taylor Hollingsworth

6/9-7/12 with Nik Freitas

By Fred Mills

In order to benefit several worthy causes, Tom Waits announced today that he is auctioning off 5 pair of premium tickets to his “Glitter and Doom” tour shows in Phoenix, Houston, Columbus, and Atlanta. All four are sold out.

The auctions start tomorrow, Wednesday, June 11, at 10am (Pacific time) at Ticketmaster.com. The auction for the Phoenix show is a quick one: it will end Friday, June 13 at noon Pacific. The other three auctions will end Thursday, June 19 at noon Pacific.

“Some folks prefer to pay more, you get a good seat, a good tax write off 
and a good feeling for helping for your needy neighbors,” said Waits, in a statement. “It's 
scalping for charity.”

(Waits fans will recall that the Bard of Bawl has a history of going up against the scalpers; on the 2006 “Orphans” tour he went to great lengths to ensure that tickets got into the hands of fans and not brokers. As tour manager Stuart Ross told yours truly while the tour was underway, “It [thwarting scalpers] can be done. The problem is that most acts don’t care. But if you really want to crimp the style of the scalpers, all we’re really doing is modifying the delivery option. We’re not reinventing the wheel. By not actually putting tickets in the hands of anybody until the day of the show, and advertising and letting everyone know that the tickets are not transferable and only the original buyer can pick the tickets up, then we’ve eliminated 99.9% of the game.”)

***

The charities (and related contact info) that the auctions will benefit are as follow.  Read up - this is stuff you  oughta know about, right?

The Young Adult & Family Center - UCSF - In Honor of Dr. Kim Norman

The Young Adult & Family Center (YAF) at UCSF is dedicated to innovation the creation of clinical services, clinical training, clinical research, health education, outreach and public policy advocacy for the benefit of adolescents and young adults aged 12-24 and their families. Our mission is to advance adolescent and transitional age youth's mental health in all communities, with a special emphasis on the most vulnerable, through leadership in clinical care, clinical research, education, outreach and public policy.

The Young Adult & Family Center - UCSF

Department of Psychiatry
University of California, San Francisco
401 Parnassus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94143-0984
415-476-7000

email: Kim.Norman@ucsf.edu

http://psych.ucsf.edu/lpphc.aspx?id=2374

Summerfield Waldorf School

Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm provides an inspiring curriculum based on the developmental needs of the whole child.  The school and farm is situated on 38 acres in Sonoma County, California.  Summerfield’s educational mission is to create a supportive environment that nurtures the development and education of our students. And, in turn, our students receive the foundation they need to contribute to their own communities and the wider world.   It is a well balanced classical curriculum where music, arts, and practical work enliven our students’ academic achievement.  Waldorf education is now the largest private school system in the world.

Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm

655 Willowside Road

Santa Rosa, Ca. 95401

(707) 575-7194

http://www.summerfieldws.org

Children's Village of Sonoma County - In Honor of Georgia Lee Moses

Children’s Village of Sonoma County is an innovative foster care home for children and youth in foster care.  We opened its first four homes in August 2006 serving children and their siblings in foster care.  We are a community care facility serving children and youth in foster care who are unlikely to be adopted or re-unified with biological parents.  Our program is the first of its kind to place on-site volunteer grandparents assisted by Village “parents,” professional therapeutic staff and 100+ volunteers – all of whom are guided by the notion to create a loving, nurturing and supportive family atmosphere for the kids.  The Village concept was a dream of Founder and Executive Director, Lia Rowley.  She was spurred to action to create an alternative to the foster care setting after working with vulnerable populations for three decades and after learning of the murder of a 12 year old girl she knew, Georgia Moses.

Margherita Gudenzi

Fund Development Manager

THE CHILDREN'S VILLAGE OF SONOMA COUNTY

Tel.  707.566-7044 

www.thechildrensvillage.com

NAMI - Sonoma County - In Honor of Jermiah Chass*

NAMI Sonoma County is a grassroots family and client organization, dedicated to improving the lives of all people affected by mental health challenges. Our mission is education, support and advocacy. We provide classes, support groups, art therapy, resources and referrals, and a library. Some of our services are in Spanish, and all are provided at no charge.

*Jermiah Chass, 16, was a much loved family and community member and an excellent student at Analy High School, Sebastopl, California.He was shot to death by police responding to a 911 emergency call from his parents, who were trying to get the mentally distressed boy to the hospital. Jeremiah was the first of four mentally distressed individuals shot dead by police in response to 911 calls in little more than a year. Obviously, there is a profound lack of understanding and training of officers who are sent out on these calls. One of NAMI's goals is to prevent further casualties and to work with local authorities providing police the necessary training and education to respond.

NAMI Sonoma County

1717 Yulupa Ave

Santa Rosa CA 95405

707.527.6655

www.namisonomacounty.org

Catholic Charities

The largest provider of homeless services in California’s Redwood Empire, between the Golden Gate Bridge and Oregon, is Catholic Charities. The Family Support Center serves children and their parents, 130 people daily, providing food, shelter, on-site childcare, medical care, a school liaison and tutoring, and a teen center, while helping homeless parents find jobs, housing, and the help they need to address tough issues such as domestic violence, parenting skills, mental illness or chemical dependency.

The Homeless Service Center is a daytime drop-in center for single adults and couples, providing 100 clients per day with showers, laundry, storage, telephone/message service, mail, community referrals and intake for four other shelters and emergency sick beds.  All told, Catholic Charities assists over 300 people each night at six shelters, focusing on immediate needs and crises, especially for children, while moving adult clients and parents towards independence.

Catholic Charities

PO Box 4900 Santa Rosa CA 95402

(707) 528-8712

www.srcharities.org

By Randy Harward

Idiot savant garage rocker Jay Reatard’s gonna drop Singles 06-07, compiling 17 already out-of-print limited-edition singles he recorded for In The Red, Goner, Squoodge, P. Trash and Stained Circles. Reatard played every note (save some geetar on “All Wasted” by Alix Brown of Angry Angels), and did all the knob-twiddlin’, too. The deluxe package also includes a DVD with four live shows: Philadelphia, Las Vegas, New York City and The Netherlands.

According to the press release from In the Red Records, “2006 and 2007 was an insanely prolific time for Jay, as he left behind his many bands and projects (among them The Reatards, The Lost Sounds, Angry Angles, Final Solutions, Bad Times, Terror Visions, etc.) and started recording under his own name, taking musical cues from Wipers, Wire, The Clean, The Adverts and 999. Five singles were released around the time of his breakthrough album Blood Visions, as some of those album's songs first appeared in versions on 7" singles first.”

The package comes one week before Reatard releases the third 7” in his limited-edition Matador singles series (to be compiled on CD this September, preceding a full-length debut on Matador in 2009), and roughly three weeks before a tour that’ll take him from Denmark (Roskilde Festival) to Dallas.

Jay Reatard Tour Dates:

Sunday, July 6: Roskilde, Denmark (Roskilde Festival *with Slayer, Judas Priest, Neil Young*)

Monday, July 14: Philadelphia, PA (Johnny Brendas)

Tuesday, July 15: Brooklyn, NY (Prospect Park Bandshell *with Spoon*)

Thursday, July 17: Providence, RI (Lupo's *with Spoon*)

Saturday, July 19: Chicago, IL (Pitchfork Music Festival *with King Khan & The Shrines, Times New Viking, Dinosaur Jr.*)

Sunday, July 20: Minneapolis, MN (Triple Rock *with Cheap Time*)

Monday, July 21: Fargo, ND (The Aquarium *with Cheap Time*)

Thursday, July 24: Seattle, WA (Capitol Hill Block Party *with Le Savy Fav*)

Friday, July 25: Vancouver, WA (Commodore Ballroom *with Le Savy Fav*)

Saturday, July 26: Portland, OR (Doug Fir *with Cheap Time*)

Monday, July 28: San Francisco, CA (The Independent *with Cheap Time*)

Wednesday, July 30: Los Angeles, CA (The Echo *with Cheap Time*)

Thursday, July 31: San Diego, CA (The Casbah *with Cheap Time*)

Friday, August 1: Mesa, AZ (Hollywood Alley *with Cheap Time*)

Sunday, August 3: Austin, TX (Red 7 *with Cheap Time*)

Monday, August 4: Dallas, TX (Club Dada *with Cheap Time*)

You know you were waiting to hear about this….

By Fred Mills

With their Viva La Vida album due next week (June 17) from Capitol, Coldplay is gearing up for a North American tour that kicks off July 14 in L.A. Sorry kids: that and the following night are sold out. 30,000 tickets vanished in less than an hour last weekend. But never fear: Tickets for the tour are scheduled to go on sale this weekend in San Jose, Chicago, Montreal, Toronto and Boston.

According to the band’s handlers, the first few dates of the North American tour  “have been rescheduled due to production delays. ‘We're very sorry, but we promise you a show worthy of your patience and understanding when we start in mid-July," said the band, in a statement.’ Tickets already purchased for these shows will be honored on the new dates.”

More info: To celebrate the Viva La Vida tour and album, the band will play free concerts in London (June 16th at the Brixton Academy), Barcelona (June 17th at Espacio Movistar) and New York City (June 23rd at Madison Square Garden). Tickets for these shows have already been given away via a contest, but fans are invited to turn out for the group’s performance on the Today show on NBC on Friday, June 27th. Viewing is on a first-come, first-served basis outside the show's Window on the World Studio, located at 49th Street and Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. The band will also perform on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"on June 26th.

Coldplay Tour Dates:

Date    City                                 Venue                           Public On Sale Date

7/14    Los Angeles, CA            The Forum                               SOLD OUT
7/15    Los Angeles, CA            The Forum                               SOLD OUT
7/18    San Jose, CA                 HP Pavilion                              6/14   
7/19    Las Vegas, NV               MGM Grand Garden Arena        on sale now
7/23    Chicago, IL                    United Center                            6/14
7/25    Philadelphia, PA            Wachovia Center                        on sale now
7/27    Pemberton, BC              Pemberton Festival                    on sale now
7/29    Montreal, QC                 Bell Centre                                6/14
7/30    Toronto, ON                  Air Canada Centre                      6/14
8/2      Hartford, CT                  XL Center                                  on sale now
8/3      Washington, DC            Verizon Center                           on sale now
8/4       Boston, MA                 TD Banknorth Garden                 6/14
10/20    Ottawa, ON                 Scotiabank Place                       TBA
10/21    Cleveland, OH             Quicken Loans Arena                  on sale now
10/26    East Rutherford, NJ      Izod Center                               TBA
11/3      Detroit, MI                   The Palace of Auburn Hills          on sale now
11/7      Orlando, FL                  Amway Arena                           TBA
11/9      Sunrise, FL                  BankAtlantic Center                   TBA
11/11    Atlanta, GA                  Philips Arena                             TBA
11/13    Kansas City, MO          Sprint Center                             on sale now
11/14    St. Paul, MN                 Xcel Energy Center                   on sale now
11/16    Oklahoma City, OK        Ford Center                              on sale now
11/18    Houston, TX                  Toyota Center                          TBA
11/19    Dallas, TX                     American Airlines Center           TBA
11/21    Denver, CO                    Pepsi Center Arena                  TBA
11/22    Salt Lake City, UT           Energy Solutions Arena            TBA
11/26    Phoenix, AZ                    Jobing.com Arena                     on sale now

By Randy Harward

We all know that “Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck wit!,” but although de facto Wu leader the RZA espouses peace and intellectual edification, one would assume they mean to not fuck wit them in the hip-hop game. Not chess. And yet, this:

WuChess.com is the world’s first online chess and hip-hop community letting users play live chess with people from all over the world. WuChess.com lets players get knowledge from real chess masters online, or train in chambers against the computer to refine their skills. At Wuchess.com, subscribers can log on to watch chess clans do battle on and check out exhibition matches with RZA, other Wu-Tang members and stars from across the planet.

Aaaahhhhh! That’s GZA to Ghostface 6, bitch! Check-fuckin’-mate. That’s the Zig-Zag-Zig, right there! Now you gotta smoke this blunt and recite the Supreme Alphabet. That is, if you down. Is you?

Naw, I’m just playin’.

RZA says of WuChess.com, “[it’s] a great platform for the digital world... a whole new world of myth and reality where people can come talk about chess and challenge the Wu members in our chambers." A video game, a comic book and a film are all in development and all mostly focusing on the story of RZA’s alter-ego Bobby Digital, a digital superhero who "transforms into a powerful being that struggles with the good and evil inside himself by saving the lives of others."

Today RZA commences a tour supporting the third Bobby Digital album, Digi Snacks, due June 24 on Koch Records. The jaunt will be his first ever live band tour with backing band Stone Mecca.

Digi Snacks finds RZA fleshing out the Bobby Digital character’s identity and story (in the songs and the apt added-value: a comic book), which parallel RZA’s own. “This is the snack pack, showin’ you some sides of him,” he tells BLURT. “It includes songs that’s life-related; it includes songs that are totally like science fiction.” The line between the two is hard to differentiate, and RZA alludes to his own promiscuity and bad deeds—ostensibly, when he shot that dude in 1993. It’s nothing if not perfect superhero lore.

“[Bobby Digital]’s still strugglin’ with his sex—tryin’ not to be so promiscuous,” he chuckles. “His growth is basically at that point right before I started Wu-Tang Clan. Right before I started Wu-Tang Clan, I was at that point where… I had demons inside myself. And it took a tragedy for me to snap out of it.”

Read more from this interview in the July BLURT.

Includes encore appearance on Colbert Report.

By Fred Mills

The Apples In Stereo’s rarities/B-sides collection Electronic Projects For Musicians (Yep Roc/Simian/Elephant 6) gets some o’ the proverbial tour support next month. July 18 marks the start of a three-week tour for the Apples, and it will include a special musical performance on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report."

“This marks the first time Colbert has invited a musical guest to return for an encore performance,” crowed the band — not unjustifiably — in  a press release. Electronic Projects for Musicians contains the viral phenomenon "Stephen, Stephen," a track written by Robert Schneider in honor of Stephen Colbert and performed on The Colbert Report's 2006 series finale.

The Apples in Stereo Tour Dates:

7/18 LOUISVILLE, KY Headliner's ^

7/19 ST. LOUIS, MO Blueberry Hill Duck Room^

7/20 CHICAGO, IL Pitchfork Music Fest

7/22 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Turf Club^

7/23 OMAHA, NE The Waiting Room^

7/25 TULSA, OK Diversafest

7/26 DALLAS, TX Sons of Hermann Hall^

7/27 LITTLE ROCK, AR Revolution Music Room^

7/28 MEMPHIS, TN Hi-Tone^

7/29 NASHVILLE, TN Mercy Lounge^

7/31 BROOKLYN, NY Masonic Temple#

8/01 RIDGEWOOD, NJ Blend

8/02 PHILADELPHIA, PA World Cafe Live!

8/04 NEW YORK, NY The Colbert Report

^ Poison Control Center & Big Fresh support

# Earlimart & Poison Control Center support

! Poison Control Center supports

A bloody good time… and you thought BLURT was an indierock magazine…

By Fred Mills

It won’t happen until October, which means you have plenty of time to commit your next round of ritual sacrifices. But mark your calendars (and American readers, book your flight reservations): the European leg of the "Unholy Alliance Tour, Chapter III" commences in Manchester, England on October 27 and will run for about a month. We are advised that “this third installment of what has been hailed as ‘the heaviest, darkest tour of the year’ features Slayer, the undisputed kings of extreme speed/thrash metal, and two true princes of the genre, Trivium and Mastodon. An opening act will be announced shortly.” (What, they NEED an opening act?!?)

In a statement, Matthew Heafy, Trivium's frontman, noted, "Trivium is honored that Slayer has invited us to tour with them on the 'Unholy Alliance Tour.' All of us in Trivium are diehard Slayer fans and we look up to them for their music and longevity. They are one of the true pillars of heavy metal and for us to share stages with them is both an honor and a privilege. We've also known the Mastodon guys for a few years and we're definitely looking forward to hanging with them as well." Guitarist Corey Beaulieu added. "I can't wait to get out on tour with Slayer so we can watch them crush every night and then have the opportunity to share many drinks with them and Mastodon after the shows! I better get my liver in shape. it's going to be awesome!"

Yep. Awesome.

The Unholy Alliance tour first launched in Fall, 2004 with a European edition that featured Slipknot, Slayer, Mastodon and Hatebreed. The venture was so successful, the first North American trek, dubbed "The Unholy Alliance Tour, Chapter II: Preaching to The Perverted," kicked off in Summer, 2006 with Slayer, Lamb of God, Children of Bodom, Mastodon, and Thine Eyes Bleed stomping and screaming its way to 30 U.S. and Canadian cities. The European run of "Unholy Alliance Tour, Chapter II" took place in Fall, 2006, featuring Slayer, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Lamb of God, and Thing Eyes Bleed.

"Unholy Alliance Tour, Chapter III" Tour Dates:

OCTOBER
27 Manchester Arena, Manchester, England
28 NEC, Birmingham, England
30 Hammersmith Apollo, London, England
31 Hammersmith Apollo, London, England

NOVEMBER
2 CIA 7000, Cardiff, Wales
3 SECC Hall 3, Glasgow, Scotland
5 Stadthalle, Offenbach, Germany
6 Palladium, Cologne, Germany
9 Schleyerhalle, Stuttgart, Germany
10 Eishallel Deutweg, Winterthur, Switzerland
11 Zenith, Paris, France
16 Gasometer, Vienna, Austria
18 Zenith, Munich, Germany
19 Columbia Hale, Berlin, Germany

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, eh?

By Fred Mills

Hit Showtime program Weeds gets a digital-only tribute release next week. June 17 brings Little Boxes Dimebag #1 and it’s to feature the diverse likes of Rise Against, Engelbert Humperdinck, Randy Newman and others performing the hit show's now-retired theme song "Little Boxes.” There will be more “Dimebag” collections set for monthly releases beginning in July.

"Jenji Kohan [Creator and Executive Producer of the show] and I both grew up with the song and she played it over and over while writing the pilot," said music supervisor Christopher Noxon, in a  press release. "We were absolutely thrilled when such an amazing array of artists came forward with their own distinct, individual interpretations of a song about conformity. There was never any question that it would be the perfect theme."

About the song's retirement, Noxon added, "With Nancy moving out of Agrestic and out of her 'little box,' it just didn't make sense to stick with 'Little Boxes.' We tried to make it work, but in in the end I think it's a credit to the producers that they recognized that the show, like Nancy, has moved up and on."

With season four of Weeds arriving June 16, expect the official soundtrack to season three to hit stores on July 8. Among the artists: Kevin Nealon, Beirut, Oh No! Oh My!, Illinois, The Dresden Dolls, Ween, Page France, That 1 Guy and others.

Little Boxes Tracklisting:

01.  Randy Newman
02.  Angelique Kidjo
03.  Maestro Charlie Barnett
04.  Aidan Hawken
05.  Kinky
06.  Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters
07.  Englebert Humperdinck
08.  Peggy Honeywell
09.  Goat
10.  Rise Against

Still raining, still dreaming, for the princess of punk.

By Blurt Staff

This just in from Palm Pictures:

Announcing Palm Pictures’ theatrical release of acclaimed photographer Steven Sebring's directorial debut, Patti Smith: Dream Of Life. The film is set for release this September. The richly layered portrait of the legendary poet, artist, musician and activist won the Cinematography Award when it received its world premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. New Yorkers will get an early glimpse of the film, which was produced by Margaret Smilow of Thirteen/WNET and Scott Vogel, when it screens at the Film Forum August 6th - 19th.

Patti Smith: Dream Of Life has generated critical acclaim, being hailed as a "spellbinder" (Premiere) and a "joy for anyone interested in pop culture of the past 40 years" (The Hollywood Reporter). "Patti Smith: Dream of Life" gets unusually close to its subject," said Reuters. "Experimental camera work and editing makes for a fittingly unconventional portrait of one of the pioneers of punk music."

Sebring, renowned for merging raw realism with high fashion in his portraiture, first met Smith, in 1996, when he photographed her for Spin magazine. Upon seeing her perform, he was so moved that he asked if he might begin filming her - thus beginning an 11-year odyssey. Patti Smith: Dream Of Life is a plunge into the philosophy and artistry of this complicated, charismatic personality. Sebring captures Smith, who narrates the film, through her spoken words, performances, lyrics, paintings and photographs. The film also features performances with composer Philip Glass and playwright/author/actor/musician Sam Shepard.

Rizzoli will publish Sebring's companion book, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, in August. Integrating quotes and private transcripts with his photographs of Smith, Sebring traces the artist's extraordinary personal journey. The volume also includes never-before-published Polaroid's taken by Smith as well as other photos from her archives.

Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 and continues to be a vibrant, prolific artist, working in a wide variety of media. Fondation Cartier in Paris is currently hosting a major solo exhibition of her visual work. The Coral Sea, a live CD she recorded with My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields, will be released July 11th on PASK, a new imprint founded by Smith and Shields. The double-CD captures their June 22, 2005 and September 12, 2006 performances at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, a collaboration inspired by Smith's 1996 book of the same name, which paid tribute to her great friend, the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

Maybe we can make it here after all…

By Fred Mills

The 2008 Americana Honors & Awards, to be held Sept. 17-20 in Nashville, announced yesterday that BLURT hero — and BLURT blogger —James McMurtry has been nominated in three categories: “Best Artist,” “Best Album” (for this year’s Just Us Kids) and “Best Song” (for the scathing track “Cheney’s Toy”). In 2006 McMurtry took Best Album honors in 2006 for his Childish Things album as well as Best Song for the, er, scathing track “We Can’t Make It Here.” (We sense a pattern developing here…)
 
Just Us Kids has been kicking ass all over the place, spending six straight weeks at #1 on Radio & Records’ Americana Airplay chart, and making showings on four Billboard sales charts (Hot 200 albums, Heatseekers, New Artist and Indie), outpacing his last release, Childish Things, in sales. Critics have lined up to sing McMurtry’s kudos as well, notably the Washington Post, which wrote, “There's a good chance that McMurtry's Just Us Kids will be the best album of 2008.  Angry and scathing in this year of war, recession and presidential campaigns, the disc transcends mere sloganeering by offering the kind of complicated characters and visual description you might expect from the son of novelist Larry McMurtry. But this is much more than literature set to folkie guitar; these tangled tales of dead-end teenagers, burned-out boomers, cynical politicians, divorced loners, drunken roadies and homeless survivors are pushed along by a twitchy John Lee Hooker-like boogie that keeps you hungry for the next line.”

Meanwhile, in the debut issue of the digital magazine of BLURT, we awarded Just Us Kids a rousing 10 out of 10 stars and reviewed it thusly:

If you’ve heard “God Bless America,” the bitter, biting indictment of our political and corporate leaders first released in 2007, then all you really need to know about Just Us Kids is that it’s not even the best song on the album, which is the best of McMurtry’s career. Hell, it’s not even the best political song on the album, an honor that goes to the swampy “The Governor,” whose metaphor stands in sharp contrast to the explicit (but still moving) anti-war proclamations of “Cheney’s Toy.” But there’s not much here that’s not colored by politics in one way or another, whether the tender portrait of a vet’s love affair in “Ruby and Carlos” or in “Ruins of the Realm,” a tender rumination on living in a fallen empire, whether that empire’s the United States or just your own broken life. But the real stunner here is “Fire Line Road,” a tale of sexual abuse that will stop you in your tracks.

McMurtry is among BLURT’s roster of bloggers and will be penning a frequent politically-themed column titled “Wasteland Bait & Tackle.” His debut offering, “See the Elephant in the Room,” talks about Obama’s clinching of the Democratic nomination and the long road of Republican dirty tricks that may lay ahead for the Senator. Got to the Blurt blogs section to read McMurtry.

James McMurtry Tour Dates:

Thur June 12  MEMPHIS, TN  Automatic Slim’s
Fri  June 13  FAYETTEVILLE, AR  George's Majestic Lounge
Sat  June 14  FT. WORTH, TX  The Aardvark
Fri  June 27  AUSTIN, TX  Threadgill’s
Thur  July 3   AUSTIN, TX  KGSR’s Unplugged at the Grove
Fri July 18   SANTA FE, NM   Santa Fe Brewing Co.
Sat July 19   TEMPE, AZ   Last Exit
Tue July 22   LOS ANGELES, CA   The Troubadour
Thur July 24   SANTA CRUZ, CA   Catalyst
Fri July 25   SAN FRANCISCO, CA   Slims
Wed July 30  JACKSON HOLE, WY   Tocky Mtn. Music Series
Thur July 31   TEN SLEEP, WY   Big Horn Mtn. Stage
Sat Aug. 2   SNOWBIRD, UT   Snowbird Music Festival
Fri  Aug 22  PORTSMOUTH, VA Bayside Harley-Davidson

They still move… boy, do they ever.

By Andy Tennille

Arena rock torchbearers and current BLURT feature faves My Morning Jacket today announced plans to ring in the New Year on December 31, 2008 at New York City’s venerable Madison Square Garden.

“An Evening with My Morning Jacket” will culminate what has been an extraordinary year for MMJ, who released their newest studio album – Evil Urges – on Tuesday and made their debut appearance on Saturday Night Live last month. This weekend, the band kicks off its summer touring schedule with an appearance at the Bonnaroo Arts and Music Festival in Manchester, TN and hits Toronto and Montreal before returning south of the border for a sold-out show at Radio City Music Hall on Friday, June 20. Check out the rest of the tour here.

Tickets ($49.50) for the New Year’s Eve concert at Madison Square Garden go on sale Friday, June 27, at 10 a.m. and can be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.com, www.thegarden.com or by calling 212-307-4111. Doors open at 8pm and the show begins at 9pm.

Off the cuff wordplay and lighthearted humor, in spades.

By Fred Mills

When we broke the news earlier this year that Danger Mouse would be producing the new Beck album —that is, when BLURT predecessor Harp dropped that bomb in a feature on Danger Mouse — we didn’t know we’d have to wait this long for more info. But info we (and every other friggin’ media outlet on the planet) now have: Modern Guilt will be released July 8th on DGC Records in North America and July 7 on XL Recordings in the UK and Europe.

The ten-song platter follows 2005’s Guero and 2006’s The Information but is not slated to include last year's Grammy-nominated, digital-only single "Timebomb.” The album’s descrbibed as “a tightly assembled group of songs that range in lyrical tone from introspection and social commentary to off the cuff wordplay and lighthearted humor. Musically, the album's ten tracks vacillate between economy and experimentation, hybrid and pop classicism, while consistently manifesting Beck and Danger Mouse's shared interest in psych-rock, folk, electronic minimalism and orchestration.”

Well shit, everybody loves some off the cuff wordplay and lighthearted humor now and then, right?

Tracklisting:

Orphans
Gamma Ray
Chemtrails
Modern Guilt
Youthless
Walls
Replica
Soul of A Man
Profanity Prayers
Volcano

Beck has also announced a handful of U.S. tour dates for later this year. They are:

8/22/08 - San Francisco, CA - Outside Lands Festival
8/24/08 - Bend, OR - Les Schwab Amphiteater
8/30/08 - Seattle, WA - Bumbershoot Festival
9/20/08 - Hollywood, CA - Hollywood Bowl
9/27/08 - Austin, TX - Austin City Limits Festival

Because giving away content for free wound up being a pretty damn good idea…

By Andy Tennille

A little ol’ something called Bonnaroo kicks off today… but you knew that. For those of you stuck at home, you can get in on selected choice parts of the action tomorrow, however.

From the suits at AT&T:

Tune in to the AT&T Blue Room from June 13-15 to see the LIVE Bonnaroo 2008 webcast, straight from Manchester, TN. Check it out here.

Here’s the AT&T Blue Room webcast lineup for Friday and Saturday. All times are Eastern Daylight Time. (Sunday’s schedule is TBD.)

June 13

1:30 PM          Drive By Truckers

2:15 PM          Fiery Furnaces

3:15 PM          Umphrey's McGee

4:45 PM          Bluegrass Sessions

6:00 PM          The Raconteurs

7:30 PM          TBD

8:30 PM          Les Claypool

10:00 PM        Metallica

June 14

1:45 PM          Two Gallants

2:45 PM          The Wood Brothers

3:00 PM          Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

4:15 PM          Ozomatli

5:00 PM          Gogol Bordello

6:30 PM          Against Me!

7:30 PM          Iron & Wine

9:00 PM          Cat Power

10:00 PM        Mastodon

10:30 PM        Ben Folds

Proceeds generated by scribbled-on instrument to benefit AthFest.

By Randy Harward

R.E.M. is showing some hometown love by auctioning off a signed guitar to benefit AthFest, a non-profit organization that preserves the jangly history of the Athens music and art scene. The Brian Setzer Model Gretsch Nashville hollow-body was donated by Gretsch, which celebrates 125 of years of guitar-making this year. From the press release:

In keeping with AthFest’s mission to educate people about music and arts, our staff is organizing a program that will bring musicians and music business leaders into local schools to make presentations to classes, as well as mentor kids interested in careers in music. Savannah, Ga.-based Gretsch Guitars has a foundation that donates guitars that are decorated by artists or signed by musicians and then sold to raise funds for music and arts education programs.

The guitar has been signed by all four original members of R.E.M., including retired drummer Bill Berry, and comes complete with a new deluxe case. The eBay auction will begin on June 18, coinciding with the start of AthFest, and conclude June 27.

From Nebraska to the big ol’ world…

By Andy Tennille

On the heels of the June 3^rd release of his new LP, The Sun is Always Brighter, singer-songwriter Joshua James is hitting the road for a three-month tour that finds the Nebraska native hitting cities on both the West and East coasts and nearly all points in between. What’s BLURT’s favorite stop on the Joshua James tour, you ask? It’d have to be the Tootles Pumpkin Inn gig in Circleville, Ohio. At least it’s not Squareville…

James will be sharing the stage during the tour with the likes of Justin Townes Earle, Corey Chisel and Will Dailey. Check out his music here and read his blog at http://buffalojames.blogspot.com/.

Joshua James Tour Dates:

6/14 The Loft w. Justin Townes Earle, Dallas, Texas

6/15 Stubb’s Bar-B-Q w. Justin Townes Earle, Austin, Texas

6/16 Warehouse Live w. Justin Townes Earle, Houston, Texas

6/18 Hi Tone Cafe w. Justin Townes Earle, Memphis, TN

6/19 WorkPlay Theatre w. Justin Townes Earle 18+ Birmingham, Alabama

6/20 World Grotto w. Justin Townes Earle, Knoxville, Tennessee

6/21 Smith’s Olde Bar w. Justin Townes Earle, Atlanta, Georgia

6/22 3rd and Lindsley w. Justin Townes Earle, Nashville, Tennessee

6/24 The Social w. Will Dailey Orlando, Florida

6/25 Studio A w. Will Dailey Miami, Florida

6/26 Orpheum w. Will Dailey Tampa, Florida

6/27 Jack Rabbits w. Will Dailey Jacksonville, Florida

6/28 Melting Pot w. Will Dailey Athens, Georgia

6/30 Village Tavern w. Will Dailey Charleston, South Carolina

7/1 Local 506 w. Will Dailey Chapel Hill, North Carolina

7/2 Grey Eagle w. Will Dailey Asheville, North Carolina

7/3 Evening Muse w. Will Dailey Charlotte, North Carolina

7/6 IOTA, Arlington, Virginia

7/7 8X10, Baltimore, Maryland

7/8 World Cafe Live, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

7/9 The Loft, Poughkeepsie, New York

7/10 Webster Underground, Hartford, Connecticut

7/11 Canal Concert Series, Buffalo, New York

7/12 Valentines, Albany, New York

7/13 Great Scott, Allston, Massachusetts

7/14 Cutting Room, New York, New York

7/15 Tootles Pumpkin Inn, Circleville, Ohio

7/16 The Intersection, (All Ages) Grand Rapids, Michigan

7/17 Club Cafe w. Corey Chisel (21+) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

7/18 Radio Radio, Indianapolis, Indiana

7/19 Beat Kitchen, Chicago, Illinois

7/20 The Ark w. Corey Chisel Ann Arbor, Michigan

7/22 Shank Hall w. Corey Chisel Milwaukee, Wisconsin

7/23 Varsity w. Corey Chisel Minneapolis, Minnesota

7/24 Waiting Room w. Corey Chisel Omaha, Nebraska

7/25 The Record Bar w. Corey Chisel (18+) Kansas City, Missouri

8/1   Club Sound, Salt Lake City

8/3 Seattle, WA

8/4 Portland, OR

8/6 San Francisco, CA

8/7 Sacramento, CA

8/8 San Diego, CA

8/9 Los Angeles, CA

8/10 Tucson, AZ

Trawling for sights ‘n’ sounds with WNCW-FM and BLURT.

By Fred Mills

BLURT’s buddy Joe Kendrick is the morning drive deejay for WNCW-FM (www.wncw.org), a public/community radio station based in Spindale, NC, near Asheville. (Joe also co-hosts a music talk segment with yours truly and Jeff Eason of the Mountain Times, of Boone, NC. Called “What It Is,” it airs weekdays at about 8:15 am; selected “What It Is” podcasts can be accessed via the WNCW website so check it out if you want to hear Joe and Jeff’s suave erudition alongside my hick accent.)

Joe’s presently at Bonnaroo conducting interviews for the radio station and he graciously offered to share some of the photos he’s been taking. We’re not exactly sure who the dude pictured above is, but he certainly looks like he’s well into the spirit of Bonnaroo – dig that belly button!

Three pics from the Bonnaroo grounds. According to Joe, “Bonnaroo is more like Walkaroo. I've made a good five miles yesterday, easily.”

The radio production tent where media can do live broadcasts.

And this is what it’ll look like at night, pressing into the crowds, natch…

MGMT onstage. “A yawner,” says Joe. “I should have seen Battles instead. My friend Brad says they tore the roof off.”

Two shots of the Felice Brothers performing. “They had tons of sound problems in front of their show but rocked,” says Joe. They showed off lots of new material and look to be heading into more of the stomp-rocker territory. They are so much of a throwback at times. The whiskey bottle was passed around stage as the techs futzed with popping amps. Their second or third tune was a completely amped version of 'Whiskey In My Whiskey,' which was at full shout-along clip. Also they show a strong Vaudevillian streak, with subject matter wandering through a kind of maudlin, whiskey-soaked alleyway on its way to the tent revival. A new tune, ‘Saved,’ I guess, gave the audience a lift with its anthemic chorus of ‘I used to lie, I used to cheat, I used to stomp on people's feet...but now I'm saved!!’, slamming together acoustic and electric elements into one hooky shot of rock.”

More to come! Drive By Truckers today!

[All photo credits: Joe Kendrick]

Gabe Roth feels the spirit move.

By Andy Tennille

From the Daptone desk:

Deep in the heart of Panola County, Mississippi lies Como, a small rural town where children and grown folks alike have been living and breathing gospel for as long as they can remember. In the summer of 2006, Daptone Records placed a small ad in local papers and on the radio inviting singers to come down to Mt. Mariah Church to record their songs. The result is COMO NOW, a stirring, 16-track collection of traditional and original a cappella gospel from the voices of Panola County’s own families.

“When Michael Reilly came to me with his first recordings of the Como Mamas, I remember hearing it and being blown away,” said Gabriel Roth, head honcho at Daptone. “Though I’ve been into soul music for a very long time, it has only been in the past few years that I really got deeper into gospel music. I owe this in no small part to Cliff Driver, who invited me to play bass behind Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens. Through Naomi, Sharon Jones, Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Wilson Picket, Aretha Franklin, and several other heroes of mine, the line distinguishing soul music from gospel became much less significant. For me, it was less of an academic lineage than a visceral feeling that I started to get from listening to old records by the Soul Stirrers, The Highway QC’s, Dorothy Love Coates, The Mighty Pilgrim Travelers, The Blind Boys, and The Violinaires. They were the same sounds, the same feeling, as listening to James Brown, Tina Turner and Lee Fields when they were really wailing, Otis Redding when he was really pleading and Al Green when he was really moaning. Sounds that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The recordings Michael played me gave me the same feeling.”

COMO NOW is slated for release on August 19, 2008. To learn more about the music recorded in Como and to watch exclusive videos on the recording of the album, go here.

Track List

1.      When The Gates Swing Open – Mary Moore

2.      It’s Alright – The John Edwards Singers

3.      Can See So Much – Brother and Sister Walker

4.      Jesus Builds A Fence Around Me – Della Daniels and Ester Mae Smith

5.      Trouble In My Way – Como Mamas featuring Mary Moore

6.      If It Had Not Been For Jesus – Irene Stevenson

7.      What Would I Do – Brother and Sister Walker

8.      New Burying Ground - The John Edwards Singers

9.      God’s Unchanging Hand - Como Mamas featuring Mary Moore

10.   I Can’t Afford To Let My Savior Down – Rev. Robert Walker

11.   Talk With Jesus – The Jones Sisters

12.  Lil’ Old Church House – Irene Stevenson

13.  Send Me I’ll Go - Como Mamas featuring Mary Moore

14.  Help Me To Carry On – Brother and Sister Walker

15.  Move Upstairs - Della Daniels and Ester Mae Smith

16.  Somebody Here Needs You Lord – Mary Moore

“… beautiful, tempered melancholy and delicate irony…”

By Blurt Staff

Tindersticks’ first album in five years, The Hungry Saw, drops September 16 courtesy Canadian tastemaker label Constellation. (Import-bin trawlers may have already spotted it earlier this year; it came out in April in Europe on Beggars Banquet.)

We are advised that the album  finds original members Stuart Staples, David Boulter and Neil Fraser augmented by the rhythm section of Thomas Belhom (drums) and Dan McKinna (bass). A long list of guest players was also included in the sessions, including Terry Edwards on horns and brass arrangements, and Lucy Wilkins on lead violin and string arrangements. Recorded at Le Chien Chanceux studio, The Hungry Saw sessions were unlike any the band had previously known. The bulk of the recording came in a breakneck blast of just eight inspired days, with the quality and quantity of songs making for some hard choices when it came to whittle things down to a cohesive album.

“While cloaked in the inimitably beautiful, tempered melancholy and delicate irony that has marked Tindersticks' past oeuvre, The Hungry Saw bristles with renewed energy, focus, experimentation and, yes, even playfulness. It is a welcome return by one of the most interesting and literate English bands of the last two decades. Constellation's North American edition of The Hungry Saw features revised artwork printed on a cardstock CD gatefold jacket, accompanied by a lyric booklet printed on fine artstock recycled paper. The LP release is on 180 gram virgin vinyl with multiple inserts. The album will also be available as a digital download this summer.”

Interestingly, the band’s been on hiatus since 2003’s Waiting for the Moon. During that time Staples released two solo platters and did a film soundtrack. Then in 2006 the band came back together to perform their eponymous 1995 album in its entirety as part of ATP’s acclaimed “Don’t Look Back” series. The ad hoc reunion clicked, and the Tindersticks were back on track, ultimately leading to this new record.

Tracklisting:

 1.  Introduction

 2.  Yesterdays Tomorrows

 3.  The Flicker Of A Little Girl

 4.  Come Feel The Sun

 5.  E-Type

 6.  The Other Side Of The World

 7.  The Organist Entertains

 8.  The Hungry Saw

 9.  Mother Dear

10. Boobar Come Back To Me

11. All The Love

12. The Turns We Took

Tindersticks Tour Dates:

Jul 20 2008      9:45P

            Latitude Festival         Southwold, Suffolk

Aug 8 2008     9:30P

            Sudoeste Festival        Zambujeira do Mar

Aug 14 2008   8:00P

            Route Du Rock Festival         St Malo

Aug 15 2008   8:00P

            Pukkelpop Festival      Hasselt-Kiewit

Aug 16 2008   8:00P

            Down On The Farm    Gribsrod Gard, 1796 Kornsjo

Aug 29 2008   8:00P

            Electric Picnic Festival (29/30/31 August) - tindersticks day tbc       Stradbally, Laois

Sep 11 2008    9:00P

            Nasa    Reykjavik

Sep 14 2008    8:00P

            End Of The Road Festival      Dorset

Trawling for sights ‘n’ sounds with WNCW-FM and BLURT.

By Fred Mills

BLURT’s buddy Joe Kendrick is the morning drive deejay for WNCW-FM (www.wncw.org). He’s at Bonnaroo snapping pics and conducting interviews for the station and offered to share some of his photos with us — you can view his pics from yesterday HERE . And starting Monday you’ll be able to hear some of the interview material on his morning music talk segment, “What It Is,” so tune in around 8:15 each morning all next week.

Three shots of BLURT/WNCW heroes the Drive-By Truckers. Note Patterson Hood’s vintage Stiff tee!

Jose Gonzales does the sit-down thing, while Les Claypool gets, uh, kinda nosey.

If you spot your friends in the photos, contact BLURT for a free subscription to our digital magazine… Why is that guy sleeping?!?

Two pics of State Radio….

And two of the Fiery Furnaces…

Sights from the site… Bonnaroo never seems to lack for structural oddities.

Stephen Marley on the big stage, on the jumbotron, and up close and personal. (“I shook Stephen’s hand right before this shot,” sez Joe.)

Joe and the Bonnaroo broadcast/media tent, a/k/a “Radio Bonnaroo.” Kids, leave this work to the professionals.

My Morning Jacket onstage. “My Morning Jacket KILLED,” says Joe. “They wasted no time in ripping through some standards like ‘Wordless Chorus’ before getting into some cover territory like ‘Hot Fun In The Summertime’ as a gentle rain slowly built into a steady rain at the Which stage. ‘Highly Suspicious’ converted anyone and everyone who had any smidge of a doubt as to why this band is so loved. Funk and rock in a midperiod Peter Gabriel kind of way with that track.”

Fade to black with MMJ…

[All photos: Joe Kendrick]

Original Mac slide guit virtuoso plays States for first time in over three decades.

By Fred Mills

Guitar fans and blues aficionados know the name Jeremy Spencer: along with Peter Green, he was one of the original Fleetwood Mac guitarists. The band formed in 1967 and was a significant force on the British blues scene during the late ‘60s — at least as important an outfit as the later, Buckingham-Nicks SoCal soft rock version. Slide virtuoso Spencer split in 1971 in the middle of an American tour after being recruited by religious cult the Children Of God, and Spencer subsequently recorded a handful of solo albums prior to essentially retiring from public view to focus on family and church matters.

All along, though, he continued to play, and in 2006 he recorded an album in Norway, Precious Little (it can be ordered from his official website or from Blind Pig Records. Now word arrives that for the first time since the early 1970s Spencer will perform in the United States.  Spencer, accompanied by his Norwegian band, will make appearances in St. Louis, a suburb of Chicago, and a festival near Madison, Wisconsin.

According to Spencer’s camp, the genesis of Spencer’s re-emergence came at the behest of the promoter of the Notodden Blues Festival in Norway, Jostein Forsberg:

“He convinced Spencer to perform publicly again.  He paired the rock legend with some of the best musicians in Norway, most of whom had been playing together for twenty-five years.  Their performance at the Festival was a huge success. Completely taken by the sympathetic backing provided by the Norwegian musicians, Spencer used the group to record his first album in 27 years, Precious Little, which Vintage Guitar magazine said ‘may well be the pop music comeback of the past several decades.’” Blues Revue senior editor Art Tipaldi added, "In the past two years, I've seen Jeremy Spencer perform four shows at the Notodden Blues Festival and I can tell you that each show was better than the previous. Jeremy has lost none of the fire from those Fleetwood Mac days. His slide guitar still sends chills. Every note I've heard Jeremy play showcases his great commitment to the blues. I've seen him ignite the stage with a mixture of classic Chicago blues and smart contemporary songs. This tour is the music rediscovery of 2008."

Spencer himself issued a statement, saying, "Having not played 'live' in America since 1972 is already rather daunting, along with 'shipping coals to Newcastle' by playing blues there with a group of Norwegian musicians!  But it's exciting for us to be charting unfamiliar territory, and we want to give our best to the audiences."

It’s definitely a modest string of dates. But it’s also a rare opportunity to see a genuine musical legend in action.

Jeremy Spencer Tour Dates:

July 10     St. Louis, MO     Beale on Broadway

July 11     Berwyn, IL          Fitzgerald's

July 12     Belleville, WI       Belleville American Music Festival

Future Onion headline: Rock critics trampled during mad rush to used CD retailer's trade/sell counter.

By Fred Mills

Journalists, start your engines and start boxing up those CDs: On Tuesday a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Universal Music Group (UMG) against CD vendor Troy Augusto for reselling promotional discs. UMG had maintained — somewhat hilariously — that when it handed out promo freebies to magazines, critics, radio stations, record stores, etc. it actually retained ownership through some mysterious force only known to and understood by UMG, and that by simply stamping on the discs that resale was illegal made it so.

US District Judge James Otero, however, felt otherwise, wisely determining that only official lawmakers, and not entertainment corporations, can pass actual laws governing private individuals’ behavior. Pertinent to the case: the First Sale Doctrine, which has traditionally protected video rental stores, used bookstores and newsstands and libraries. Otero noted that Augusto’s actions (e.g., selling promos online as part of his business, Roast Beast Music Collectibles) were similarly protected by the right of first sale.

Weighing in on the matter was the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who had naturally sided with Augusto, which in a comment stated, “This ruling affirms and protects the traditional balance between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the public.”

As major record labels are not generally known for their ability to adapt quickly to forces beyond their control (see: Napster, iTunes, etc.), however, UMG indicated Thursday that the decision doesn’t sit all that well with the label’s suits. According to Digital Music News a UMG rep informed them, "We intend to file an appeal and we are confident that we will prevail.”

Observed Digital Music News, “Universal is aiming to prevent the dilution of its physical product pool, though digital distribution offers the ultimate dilution of scarcity. Still, like most manufacturers, major labels would prefer a world without physical resale.  In a decidedly non-digital 1993, cowboy superstar Garth Brooks withheld shipments to retailers that were offering his albums used, though antitrust concerns and negative press eventually forced Capitol Records to supply the targeted outlets.”

Yeah, no shit. Yours truly was working at a new/used CD store when the Brooks flap hit. Upon being informed by EMI that we wouldn’t be able to order any Brooks product unless we yanked the used crap, my boss did just the opposite: he yanked all the NEW Brooks crap, shipped it back to the label, trashed all Brooks promotional posters, flats, etc., and then stuck a sign n the "B" section of the CD bins that read, “Ask us why we don’t sell Garth Brooks CDs."

For good measure, we also removed all promotional displays by artists on EMI-affiliated labels, and did likewise with other distributors' product when they threatened to cancel co-op advertising programs with our store because we were in the business of selling used CDs. It wasn't too long before the labels blinked, however, and they decided not to follow through with their sanctions. As my boss quipped at the time, "Fuck 'em. We make a higher margin on the used stuff anyway. We don't need their new product."

[Pictured: Watermarked/numbered Universal promo CD… someone, somewhere, is making an offer on this right now!]

Images from the lens of Music Allies.

By Fred Mills

Today’s visual recap of yesterday’s Bonnaroo happenings arrives courtesy of BLURT’s friends at Music Allies, an Asheville, NC, based music marketing/promotions firm. Check ‘em out at the official Music Allies website  (email: contact@musicallies.com; phone 828-252-6300), and in the meantime, you can view a slew of their other Bonnaroo images from the entire weekend at the Music Allies Flickr site. Enjoy!

Jack Johnson during his set on the What Stage was subsequently joined by Eddie Vedder. (Photos by Josh Rhinehart/Music Allies)

Mason Jennings playing at the This Tent, as well as in the Music Allies backstage Bonnaroo studio with Jack Johnson. (Photos by Josh Rhinehart/Music Allies)

Rilo Kiley in the Music Allies backstage Bonnaroo studio. (Photo by Josh Rhinehart/Music Allies)

The Dap Kings live and funky on the Which Stage. (Photos by Josh Rhinehart/Music Allies)

Vaunted psych-out fest boils up its seventh incarnation of beauty and mind-blowingness.

6-15-08

By Fred Mills

Okay kids, all wound up and no place to go after Bonnaroo this weekend? Point that GPS at Kentucky and head to Louisville next weekend. That’s when the latest, greatest installment of the mighty Terrastock Festival — that live action outgrowth of the equally formidable Ptolemaic Terrascope magazine championing all things underground, experimental psychedelic, freak-folky and more — takes place. Previously held in such far-flung locations as Seattle, Providence, San Francisco and London, Terrastock’s seventh installment descends on Louisville on June 19 – 22.

Among the featured performers: Makoto Kawabata (of Acid Mothers Temple), Kinski, Antietam,  Windy & Carl, Wooden Shjips, Damon & Naomi, Bardo Pond, Sharon Krauss, Linus Pauling Quartet, Oneida, MV + EE with the Golden Road, Simply Saucer,  Go to the Terrastock 7 website for a full listing of artists.

This year’s event will be held in Lousville at the Mellwood Arts and Entertainment Center (1860 Mellwood Avenue). The building is  a refurbished industrial plant turned creative environment,  housing over 180 artist studios, retail shops and more. There are three stages (2 indoors, 1 outdoors), and over 40 booths featuring record shops, visual artists and unique retail vendors. More details, including a map of the grounds, travel and hotel info, etc.,  can also be found at the above website.

Full festival passes for T7 are available as an incredible bargain for only $85, while one-day passes are $15 (for Thursday, which won’t be a complete day) and $25 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). For all ticket questions and queries contact:

Thefuzzboutique@yahoo.com

The Fuzz Boutique, LLC
attn: Erica Rucker
Box 354
2337 Frankfort Avenue.
Louisville, Kentucky 4020 USA

So doesn’t this make them the Gutter trio?

By Fred Mills

Britain’s Ed Harcourt will be appearing tomorrow, June 17, on a previously taped segment ManiaTV.com’s “All Access” program as part of his promotional campaign for Beautiful Lie, finally available on these shores (after a nearly two-year delay) via Dovecote. This comes on the heels of a June 6 appearance on Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show” — Harcourt’s pictured above, with his band and the silver haired man himself.

Then in July he’ll be doing a full U.S. tour, additionally doing selected dates with the Gutter Twins. According to the Harcourt camp, things will be “starting at the Roxy in Los Angeles on July 10. Harcourt’s band will then veer off on their own before rejoining G. Twins Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan on the East Coast, where Harcourt will appear sans band. As he did in the UK, Harcourt will open the night as well as play guitar for the dark duo, including at Lollapalooza.”

Ed Harcourt Tour Dates:

Jun 17 2008              8:00P

            "All Access" on ManiaTV.com       Los Angeles

Jul 10 2008   8:00P

            Roxy w/Gutter Twins           Los Angeles

Jul 11 2008   8:00P

            Beauty Bar    Las Vegas

Jul 14 2008   8:00P

            Doug Fir        Portland

Jul 15 2008   8:00P

            Chop Suey    Seattle

Jul 17 2008   7:00P

            3rd and Lindsley      Nashville

Jul 18 2008   8:00P

            Schubas        Chicago

Jul 21 2008   8:00P

            Maxwells       Hoboken

Jul 23 2008   8:00P

            TT The Bears            Cambridge

Jul 24 2008   8:00P

            Ottobar w/Gutter Twins       Baltimore

Jul 25 2008   8:00P

            The Stone Pony w/Gutter Twins   Asbury Park

Jul 26 2008   8:00P

            The Fillmore @ TLA w/Gutter Twins        Philadelphia

Jul 29 2008   8:00P

            Warsaw w/Gutter Twins      Brooklyn

Jul 30 2008   8:00P

            Mr. Smalls Theatre w/Gutter Twins           Pittsburgh

Jul 31 2008   8:00P

            Newport Music Hall w/Gutter Twins         Columbus

Aug 1 2008   8:00P

            St. Andrews Hall w/Gutter Twins Detroit

Aug 2 2008   8:00P

            Lollapalooza @ Grant Park **note playing Gutter Twins set only**    Chicago

Trawling for sights ‘n’ sounds with WNCW-FM and BLURT.

By Fred Mills

BLURT’s buddy Joe Kendrick, of WNCW-FM, sent us a few more pics of Bonnaroo from Saturday — check out Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings plus the Wood Brothers in action. He’ll also be airing selected interviews he conducted at the ‘roo all week on WNCW’s morning music talk segment, “What It Is,” around 8:15 each morning.

First some SY&D-K action….

Now some evening Wood….

Reefer madness, bong guitars, porn-writing clowns, GG Allin and lots more from BLURT contributor.

By Fred Mills

Far be it from us to shamelessly shill for a blatantly commercial enterprise, but… fuggit, we gotta take care of our own here. BLURT contributor Mike Edison’s unhinged new book I Have Fun Everywhere I Go (Faber And Faber, Inc.) is tearin’ up the indie world, making readers chortle and critics weep — and we have a smokin’ excerpt in the premiere issue of BLURT. Just click on the BLURT digital magazine image in the upper right hand corner of our homepage and follow the navigation instructions. Don’t miss our exclusive interview with Mr. Blues Explosion himself, Jon Spencer, in which he explains the yin, the yang, the zen and the zip about all things Mike Edison.

Meanwhile, we have Edison on the horn here, to ‘splain things to y’all. We like the Bong Guitar video, by the way…

Take it away, Mike:

***

FRIENDS, HAVE YOU HEARD THE WORD?

If you read one Punk Rock, Pot, Porn, and Pro-Wrestling book this summer, make it

I HAVE FUN EVERYWHERE I GO: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines In the World !!!

I pulled no punches!!! I named names!!!

The publishing industry has been torn to shreds!!! High Times is in tears!!!!

NOW SEE IT LIVE !! :Come on down to the Half King tonight after work and get an adult sized dose! And it’s free!!!!! Tonight, Monday, June 16, the Half King (23rd Street and 10th Ave, NYC) 7:30 pm.

I’ll be backed by THE ROCKET TRAIN DELTA SCIENCE ARKESTRA: HOLLIS QUEENS, DEAN RISPLER, and MR JON SPENCER

And for all you super-hep Brooklyn kats and kittens (and for those of you who just can’t get enuff fun), this Thursday, June 19th we’ll be taking over Pete’s Candy Store (709 Lorimer Street) in Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn!!

Once again we’ll be laying waste to all previous art forms!!! Come early, 7:30 for more Savage Tales, soundtrack provided by the Delta Science Arkestra, and then Rock’n’Roll with the Edison Rocket Train featuring Mr Michael Chandler! … It’s a revolution in words and sound!!!

THERE ARE ONLY TWO NIGHTS LEFT TO THE WORLD’S LOUDEST BOOK TOUR!!!

Can’t wait to dig some Wild Sounds? Check out our new single, “Pornography, Part 1,” and hear the filthy truth about the “Jews for Jesus” at MikeEdison.com (and don’t forget to check out the far-out comics and all of the amazing reviews).

Have you seen the Bong Guitar video??? It’s a YouTube smasheroo!!!

I HAVE FUN EVERYWHERE I GO!!!!

Return of the twenty-minute guitar solo? Someone call Alvin Lee!

Fred Mills

Friday night the original kings/queens of shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine, played a 15-song set at London’s ICA venue as a warm-up to their residency that starts this week (Friday, June 20) and the much larger Roundhouse. The sold-out show marked the British group’s first public performance in 16 years; a second warmup was scheduled for Saturday night.

According to a report by the NME, guitarist/founder Kevin Shields announced to the crowd, “Welcome to our rehearsal” and then launched into “Only Shallow” (from 1991’s Loveless). Material for the evening was culled from the 1987-91 Creation era and finished off with a 20-minute version of “You Made Me Realise.” None of Shields’ post-MBV compositions were tackled, however, nor were any new MBV songs, although anticipation has been running high for a new album from the group ever since the reunion gigs were announced.

The web is already a-buzz with audio and video of the concert, including a decent-looking but horrid sounding clip at this YouTube spot — see our screen shots above and below, now that’s some kinda fuzz and distortion to go with the music ! — although it’s a fair bet that the reunion shows proper will be officially recorded for some form of future CD/DVD release.

Coming up will be five more shows in London then two apiece in Manchester and Glasgow:

• London Roundhouse (June 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
• Manchester Apollo (28 and 29)
• Glasgow Barrowlands (July 2 and 3)

Aiming to get the “Partie” started with debut album in July.

By Fred Mills

Black Kids, currently in the middle of a UK/Euro tour, will mount a full North American tour starting in September (there will be a handful of US dates in late July/early August). By then their Bernard Butler-produced debut album Partie Traumatic (Columbia) will have been in stores for a couple of months — the Florida band’s eagerly awaited platter drops July 22.

According to the group’s handlers, “Kicking off with a much lauded performance at Coachella, the buzzed about 5-piece brought their infectious tunes and boundless energy to a run of blistering live performances.  With only a self-released EP under their belt – 2007's Wizard Of Ahhs  - the band met with a rapturous reception everywhere they went, garnering particularly delighted audience participation with their debut single "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You". Produced by Bernard Butler, Partie Traumatic is a perfect pop album, filled with smart lyrics, driving rhythms, and the kinds of songs destined for summer anthem status.

Well, nothing’s exactly perfect, but it is a pretty dang fun tune. You can see the group’s video for “Boyfriend” HERE and make up your own mind.

 Black Kids Tour Dates:

Jun 18 2008     8:00P

            ULU [SOLD OUT]    London, England

Jun 23 2008     8:00P

            Hove Festival Tromøya, Norway

Jun 25 2008     8:00P

            Accelerator Festival    Stockholm, Sweden

Jun 28 2008     2:30P

            Glastonbury, Other Stage       Glastonbury, England

Jun 29 2008     8:00P

            Wakestock Festival     Oxford, England

Jul 1 2008        8:00P

            Nouveau Casino          Paris, France

Jul 2 2008        8:00P

            The Rescue Rooms [SOLD OUT]      Nottingham, England

Jul 3 2008        8:00P

            The Cockpit [SOLD OUT]     Leeds, England

Jul 4 2008        8:00P

            O2 Wireless Festival   London, England

Jul 5 2008        8:00P

            Barfly Liverpool, England

Jul 10 2008      8:00P

            Concorde 2 [SOLD OUT]      Brighton, England

Jul 11 2008      8:00P

            Lounge On The Farm Festival            Canterbury, England

Jul 12 2008      8:00P

            Oxygen Festival          Naas, Ireland

Jul 13 2008      8:00P

            T in the Park Festival Kinross-shire, Scotland

Jul 18 2008      2:00P

            Latitude Festival         Southwold, England

Jul 19 2008      6:00P

            Camp Bestival             Dorset, England

Jul 25 2008      8:00P

            Santo’s Party House   New York, New York

Jul 29 2008      8:00P

            El Rey             Los Angeles, California

Aug 1 2008     8:00P

            Lollapalooza Festival Chicago, Illinois

Aug 14 2008   8:00P

            Frequency Festival      Salzburg, Austria

Aug 15 2008   8:00P

            Highfield Festival       Erfurt-Hohenfelden, Germany

Aug 16 2008   2:00P

            Pukkelpop Festival      Hasselt, Belgium

Aug 17 2008   2:00P

            Lowlands Festival       Biddinghuizen, Netherlands

Aug 20 2008   8:00P

            Carling Academy [SOLD OUT]        Newcastle, England

Aug 21 2008   8:00P

            Thekla             Bristol, England

Aug 23 2008   12:00P

            Reading Festival         Reading, England

Aug 24 2008   12:00P

            Leeds Festival             Leeds, England

Aug 25 2008   12:00P

            Last Days Of Summer Festival           Buckingham, England

Aug 29 2008   2:00P

            Rock en Seine Festival            Paris, France

Aug 31 2008   2:00P

            Jersey Live Festival     Jersey, England

Sep 5 2008      2:00P

            Bestival           Isle of Wight, England

Sep 19 2008    8:00P

            Freebird           Jacksonville, Florida

Sep 20 2008    8:00P

            The Social       Orlando, Florida

Sep 23 2008    8:00P

            The Earl           Atlanta, Georgia

Sep 24 2008    8:00P

            40 Watt Club Athens, Georgia

Sep 25 2008    8:00P

            Cat’s Cradle    Carrboro, North Carolina

Sep 26 2008    8:00P

            Ottobar            Baltimore, Maryland

Sep 27 2008    8:00P

            Black Cat        Washington, Washington DC

Sep 29 2008    8:00P

            First Unitarian Church            Philadelphia,, Pennsylvania

Oct 2 2008      8:00P

            Paradise           Boston, Massachusetts

Oct 4 2008      8:00P

            Cabaret Music Hall     Montreal

Oct 5 2008      8:00P

            Mod Club        Toronto, Ontario

Oct 6 2008      8:00P

            Metro Chicago, Illinois

Oct 7 2008      8:00P

            7th Street Entry          Minneapolis, Minnesota

Oct 10 2008    8:00P

            Neumo’s          Seattle,, Washington

Oct 11 2008    8:00P

            Richards on Richards Vancouver, British Columbia

Oct 12 2008    8:00P

            Hawthorne      Portland, Oregon

Oct 13 2008    8:00P

            Fillmore           San Francisco, California

[Photo Credit: Dean Chalkey]

Philly rock/funk/hip-hop/jam icon channels his inner “superhero.”

By Fred Mills

Fifteen years, ten albums, three chords, one guitar, and the truth: you know the drill. To that end, the mighty G. Love his combo Special Sauce are set to drop their new album Superhero Brother, which arrives June 24 courtesy Jack Johnson’s Brushfire label (home to everyone from Rogue Wave to Matt Costa to Johnson himself). G will be hitting all the outdoor venues starting August 1 (included will be stops at Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits festival, plus a pair of Cali gigs with the Black Crowes). Opening acts are John Butler Trio and Tristan Prettyman and a fine time is guaranteed for all.

Special word to all you local street musicians: don’t be shy when G. Love comes to town. Last December when yours truly caught him at the annual Warren Haynes Christmas Jam in Asheville, he’d apparently spotted a local fiddle player busking on the streets the afternoon of the show and wound up bringing him onstage during his set at the Jam. So anything can happen.

Here’s what G himself has to say about the upcoming tour on his official website:

“Yo yo yo! It is with great pleasure that I’m able to announce that Tristan Prettyman has been confirmed on our summer tour. The lineup is sick! G. Love and Special Sauce, John Butler Trio and Tristan Prettyman. This is The Block Party. Tickets are going quick so make sure you get ‘em before they’re gone.

”I’m very excited about the music on this tour. John Butler is an excellent guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is already one of the biggest rockstars in Australia and he is blowing up quick over here as well. JBT are a top notch band that plays inspired roots rock and roll every night. To put it short…they go off. Tristan rounds out the bill nicely. With her beautiful voice and excellent backing band, TP is sure to lull the audience into a sweet trance. We will also get the chance to play our song “Beautiful” as a duet everynight which is sure to be a highlight. 

”The Special Sauce is bound and proud to deliver this amazing summer tour to a theater near you. Let us know now what songs you want to hear and we will try to work them in the set. We are getting ready to drop our 10th record on you, “Superhero Brother” on June, 26th so make sure you get on it! Can’t wait to play for you all this summer! Peace, Love and Happiness- G”

G. Love & Special Sauce Tour Dates:

Aug 1               Council Bluffs, IA              Harrah’s Stir Cove
Aug 2               Madison, WI                     Madison Roots Festival
Aug 3               Chicago, IL                         Lollapalooza Music Festival
Aug 6               Indianapolis, IN                 Egyptian Room
Aug 7               Columbus, OH                   Lifestyle Communities Pavilion
Aug 8               Detroit, MI                          Freedom Hill Amphitheatre
Aug 13             New York, NY                    Roseland Ballroom
Aug 14             Boston, MA                        Bank of America Pavilion
Aug 15             Vienna, VA                          Wolftrap Filene Center
Aug 16             Philadelphia, PA                  Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing
Aug 17             Baltimore, MD                    Pier Six Concert Pavilion
Aug 20             Myrtle Beach, SC               House of Blues
Aug 21             Cary, NC                         Koka Booth Amphitheatre
Aug 22             Atlanta, GA                         Chastain Park Amphitheatre
Aug 23             Pompano Beach, FL             Pompano Beach Amphitheatre
Aug 24             Saint Augustine, FL              Saint Augustine Amphitheatre
Aug 26             Fayetteville, AR                    Arkansas Music Pavilion
Aug 28             Flagstaff, AZ                         Pine Mountain Amphitheatre
Aug 29             Las Vegas, NV                      The Joint
Aug 30             Reno, NV                             Hawkins Amphitheatre
Aug 31             San Francisco, CA                Fort Mason Park
Sept 3               Vancouver, BC                     Malkin Bowl
Sept 5               Jacksonville, OR                   Britt Pavilion
Sept 6               Portland, OR                        Edgefield
Sept 7               Seattle, WA                           Marymoor Amphitheatre
Sept 11             Salt Lake City, UT                 Red Butte Garden
Sept 12             Morrison, CO                        Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Sept 14             Telluride, CO                        Blues and Brews Festival
Sept 17             Los Angeles, CA                    Greek Theatre (with Black Crowes)
Sept 19             Santa Barbara, CA                   SB Bowl (with Black Crowes)
Sept 26             Austin, TX                               Austin City Limits Music Festival

To conclude with intimate four-night residency at NYC’s Judson Memorial Church.

By Fred Mills

Steve Earle kicks off the latest leg of his Washington Square Serenade tour later this month in Tucson. It runs through the end of September when Earle will perform four intimate shows in NYC at Washington Square Park’s Judson Memorial Church on September 22^nd, 23^rd, 25^th and 26^th.  Opening act on the tour will be Earle’s missus, Allison Moorer.

In February Earle won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana album, and meanwhile, the Americana Music Association has nominated Earle for Artist of the Year for their 7^th Annual Americana Honors and Awards Show, to be held Sept. 18 in Nashville.

We’re also informed by Earle’s folks that “Martin Guitar recently introduced the M-21 Steve Earle Custom Edition Signature Model acoustic guitar.  Earle partnered up with Matt Umanov, owner of the distinguished Matt Umanov Guitars in New York’s Greenwich Village, to create this elegant M body design.  The acoustic guitar is delivered in a blue molded hardshell case and features and interior label, numbered in sequence, that has been personally signed by both Steve Earle and Matt Umanov. Matt Umanov Guitars and authorized C.F. Martin dealers are now accepting orders for the model.”

Steve Earle / Allison Moorer Tour Dates: 

June 27^th - Tucson, AZ The Rialto Theatre

June 28^th - Flagstaff, AZ The Orpheum

June 29^th - Taos, NM Taos Solar Music Festival

July 2^nd - Telluride, CO Sheridan Opera House

July 3^rd - Telluride, CO Sheridan Opera House

July 6^th - Aspen, CO Belly Up

July 8^th - Boulder, CO Boulder Theatre

July 9^th - Durango, CO Fort Lewis Community Concert Hall

July 11^th - Eagle, ID Winery at Eagle Knoll

July 12^th - Missoula, MT University Theatre

July 13^th - Bozeman, MT Emerson Cultural Center

July 15^th - Calgary, AB Jack Singer Hall

July 16^th - Saskatoon, SK Lakeview Auditorium

July 18^th - Fargo, ND Fargo Theater

July 19^th - Duluth, MN Duluth Mitchell Auditorium

July 20^th - Milwaukee, WI Pabst Theater

July 22^nd - Lexington, KY Kentucky Theater

July 23^rd - Nelsonville, OH Stuart’s Opera House

July 24^th - Pittsburgh, PA Byham Theatre

August 2^nd - Newport, RI Newport Folk Festival

August 3^rd - Blue Hill, ME Shangri-La Festival

August 8^th - Hamilton, ON Festival of Friends

August 9^th - Gananoque, ON Festival of the Islands

August 12^th - Buffalo, NY State Theater

August 14^th - Great Barrington, MA Mahaiwe Theater

August 15^th - Newburyport, MA Newburyport PAC

August 16^th - Schwenksville, PA - Philadelphia Folk Fest    

August 17^th - Saratoga Springs, NY - Saratoga Music Festival

September 13^th - New Haven, CT CT Folk Festival and Green Expo

September 22^nd - New York, NY Judson Memorial Church

September 23^rd - New York, NY Judson Memorial Church

September 25^th - New York, NY Judson Memorial Church

September 26^th - New York, NY Judson Memorial Church

[Photo Credit: Ted Barron]

Hey, we’re on top of this stuff, how about you?

By A.D. Amorosi

We don’t have every date yet. Heck. All we really have is one Philadelphia show (Aug 11) and a few Auuuustin Texas dates around KLRU Studios and Zilker Park (Sept 27) for Austin City Limits related stuff, plus some previously announced UK festival dates.

But to go with his upcoming solo Conor Oberst CD handily titled Conor Oberst (due August 5, on Merge) the Bright Eyes one and his pals in the Mystic Valley Band (Nik Freitas and Jason Boesel) will hit the road in August. You can definitely watch this space for further details.

Conor Oberst Tour Dates:

8/11 Philadelphia (venue tba)

8/22 Leeds Festival - England
8/24 Reading Festival - England
8/31 Electric Picnic - County Laois, Ireland
9/27 ACL Music Festival - Austin, TX

Tour leaks be damned – here’s that massive itinerary unveiled.

By Blurt Staff

Mere hours after we gave you a sneak preview of the handful of tour dates that had leaked from the Conor Oberst camp, the Bright Eyes frontman officially announced a world tour that will take him from South America to an extensive trek across the States, then to Europe, back to the U.S. and finally to Australia.

The itinerary appears below. It’s to promote the upcoming Conor Oberst, due Aug. 5 from Merge, which Oberst cut last winter in Tepoztlan, Mexico, with the Mystic Valley Band: Bright Eyes’ Nate Walcott, Rilo Kiley’s Jason Boesel, Nik Freitas, Macey Taylor and Taylor Hollingsworth. Support acts for the tour will include Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, the Evangelicals and Dri (ex-Anniversary).

Meanwhile, you can stream two songs appearing on the album at Oberst’s official website.

Track Listing:

1. Cape Cañaveral
2. Sausalito
3. Get-Well-Cards
4. Lenders In The Temple
5. Danny Callahan
6. I Don’t Want To Die (In The Hospital)
7. Eagle On A Pole
8. Moab
9. NYC – Gone, Gone
10. Valle Místico (Ruben's Song)
11. Souled Out!!!
12. Milk Thistle

Conor Oberst Tour Dates:

7/16 - Studio SP, Sao Paulo, Brazil
7/17 - Studo SP, Sao Paulo, Brazil
7/18 - Cine Arte Normandie, Santiago, Chile
7/19 - La Trastienda, Buenos Aires, Argentina

7-25 Billings, MT - Bones Brewing
7-27 Calgary, Alberta - Prince's Island Park (Calgary Jazz Festival)
7-29 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's on Richards
7-30 Seattle, WA - Neumos
7-31 Bend, OR - Midtown Ballroom
8-01 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
8-02 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
8-03 Santa Cruz, CA - Rio Theatre
8-05 West Hollywood, CA - Troubadour
8-08 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge
8-09 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
8-10 Norfolk, VA - The NorVa
8-11 Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero
8-12 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
8-17 Saratoga, NY - Saratoga Music Festival
8-22 Leeds, England - Leeds Festival
8-23 Birmingham, England - Academy 2
8-24 Reading, England - Reading Festival
8-26 Portsmouth, England - Wedgewood Rooms
8-27 London, England - Electric Ballroom
8-28 Manchester, England -Academy 2
8-29 Argyll, Scotland - Hydro Connect Music Festival
8-30 Belfast, Northern Ireland - Spring and Airbrake
8-31 Stradbally, Ireland - Electric Picnic Festival
9-02 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg
9-03 Brussels, Belgium - Botanique
9-04 Luxembourg, Luxembourg - Den Atelier
9-05 Zurich, Switzerland - Rote Fabrik
9-07 Munich, Germany - Backstage Werk
9-08 Zagreb, Croatia - Studenski
9-09 Vienna, Austria - Arena
9-10 Prague, Czech Republic - TBA
9-11 Berlin, Germany - Columbia Club
9-12 Cologne, Germany - Gloria
9-13 Paris, France - Nouveau Casino
9-14 Salisbury, England - End of the Road Festival
9-20 Omaha, NE - Anchor Inn
9-21 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
9-23 Fayetteville, AR - George's Majestic Lounge 
9-24 Oxford, MS - The Lyric 
9-25 Tulsa, OK - Cain's Ballroom 
9-27 Austin, TX - Zilker Park (Austin City Limits Festival)
10-02 Melbourne, Australia - The Palace
10-03 Brisbane, Australia - Tivoli
10-04 Sydney, Australia - Enmore
10-05 Sydney, Australia - Great Escape

Afrobeat DNA strain reportedly as wicked as ever.

By Andy Tennille

Following in his famous father’s footsteps, Seun Kuti – the 26-year-old son of legendary Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti – is taking to the road this summer with Egypt 80, Fela’s group through much of the ‘80s and ‘90s, for a month-long tour of North America before heading back to Africa and Europe.

The tour is in support of his debut album, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, due out June 24 on Disorient Records. Check out his MySpace here. And here’s a video of Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 performing in Lyon, France in July 2005.

Seun Kuti & Fela's Egypt 80 Tour Dates:

6/20/2008 Los Angeles, CA - Grand Performances

6/21/2008 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre

6/22/2008 San Francisco, CA - Stern Grove

6/23/2009 Redway, CA - Mateel Center

6/25/2008 Vancouver, CA - International Jazz Festival

6/27/2008 Victoria, BC - Jazz Festival

6/28/2008 Seattle, WA - The Moore

6/30/2008 Chicago, IL - House of Blues

7/2/2008 Toronto, ON - Harbourfront

7/3/2008 London, ON - Sunfest

7/4/2008 Detroit, MI - Comercia Festival

7/5/2008 Philadelphia, PA - World Café

7/6/2008 New York, NY - Central Park Summer Stage

7/7/2008 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club

7/8/2008 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club

7/10/2008 Ottawa, ON - Ottawa Bluest Fest

7/11/2008 Quebec, QC - Quebec D'ete

7/12/2008 Winnipeg, MB – Winnipeg Folk Festival

7/13/2008 Quebec City, QC - Nuits D'Afrique

7/17/08 Casablanca, Morocco - Festival de Casablanca

7/19/08 Trenčín, Slovakia - Pohoda Festival

7/20/08 London, England - Love Box Festival

7/24/08 Nyon, Switzerland - Paleo

7/26/08 Gdynia, Poland - Globaltica World Culture Festival

8/1/08 Bidon, France - Bidon Festival

8/3/08 Ledbury, England - The Big Chill

8/7/08 Reunion Island - Festival Sakifo

We know “you’ll find a way” to see this tour, right?

By A.D. Amorosi

Santogold will support Coldplay on part of their North American arena tour. No really. NO. REALLY. The snaky ska-rocking sweetheart and answer to the question “who is this summer’s M.I.A.?” will appear with the sweet and stiffly anthem Coldplay during their recently reconfigured tour for that Vida Death CD I gave six stars to yesterday.

“L.E.S. Artistes” indeed.
 

July
23        Chicago, IL                 United Center
25        Philadelphia, PA         Wachovia Center
29        Montreal,                     Bell Center
30        Toronto                       Air Canada Center

August
2          Hartford, CT               XL Center
3          Washington DC          Verizon Center
4          Boston, MA                TB Banknorth Garden
 

Saddle up and go surfing…

By Fred Mills

Scroll down the page to our video kiosk or simply click HERE and you’ll go straight to page containing the summery new Band Of Horses video for “No One’s Gonna Love You,” from their Sub Pop album Cease to Begin.

We’re not sure what we like best: the footage of them taking to the waves in their wetsuits, the way they snuggle up at bed time, or their obvious onstage chemistry. (Pretty ace song, too.) Produced and directed by Jarrod Tallman.

After a hometown gig this week the band is set to embark upon a summer tour of Europe very shortly, so if you’re in the neighborhood, drop in on ‘em, won’t you?

Band Of Horses Tour Dates:

    * Friday, June 20, 2008

      Music Farm, Charleston SC

    * Tuesday, June 24, 2008

      Accelerator Festival, Stockholm Sweden

    * Wednesday, June 25, 2008

      Hove Festival, Tromoy Norway

      Main Stage

    * Saturday, June 28, 2008

      Glastonbury Festival, Glastonbury United Kingdom

      John Peel Stage

    * Tuesday, July 1, 2008

      Oosterpoort, Groningen Netherlands

    * Wednesday, July 2, 2008

      Tivoli, Utrecht Netherlands

    * Friday, July 4, 2008

      Roskilde Festival, Roskilde Denmark

    * Saturday, July 5, 2008

      Werchter Festival, Werchter Belgium

    * Sunday, July 6, 2008

      Eurockeennes, Belfort France

    * Tuesday, July 8, 2008

      Shepherd's Bush Empire, London United Kingdom

    * Wednesday, July 9, 2008

      Shepherd's Bush Empire, London United Kingdom

    * Thursday, July 10, 2008

      Liverpool Academy, Liverpool United Kingdom

    * Friday, July 11, 2008

      Leadmill, Sheffield United Kingdom

    * Saturday, July 12, 2008

      T In the Park Festival, Balada United Kingdom

      Pet Sounds Stage

    * Sunday, July 13, 2008

      Oxygen Festival, Naas Ireland

    * Thursday, July 31, 2008

      King's Arms, Auckland New Zealand

    * Saturday, August 2, 2008

      Splendour in the Grass Festival, Byron Bay Australia

      Mclennon stage

    * Sunday, August 3, 2008

      Billboard Nightclub, Melbourne Australia

    * Tuesday, August 5, 2008

      Metro Theatre, Sydney Australia

    * Saturday, August 9, 2008

      Summer Sonic Festival (Tokyo), Tokyo Japan

      Sonic stage

    * Sunday, August 10, 2008

      Summer Sonic Festival, Osaka Japan

      Sonic Stage

    * Wednesday, August 27, 2008

      Royal Theatre, Victoria Canada

    * Thursday, August 28, 2008

      Orpheum (Vancouver), Vancouver Canada

    * Saturday, August 30, 2008

      Bumbershoot Festival, Seattle Washington

    * Sunday, September 14, 2008

      Monolith Festival, Morrison CO

Back to the future with Jim James & Co. — down vests and DeLoreans optional.

By Fred Mills

My Morning Jacket has just released a "documentary" set 30 years in the future. WTF?!? That’s right – MMJ circa 2038, being followed around by an amateur filmmaker.

As the doc storyline goes, the would-be auteur tracks down each member of the band, now living their respective lives 30 years after the band called it quits. (Wait – the band is breaking up this year? What about all those advance tickets that have been sold!)  But soon there’s a renewed interest in the band and their music, so Jim James & Co. reunite and relive the year that was 2008. That, of course, would be the year of the band’s massive tour supporting the just-issued Evil Urges (ATO, which hit stores June 10).

The film — dig the screen shots here —can be viewed at My Morning Jacket’s imeem page. That’s where you can also stream the entire Evil Urges for free.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t add this additional plug for imeem:

• All of imeem's playlists (music, video and photos) are embeddable anywhere, so feel free to grab the embed code and put it on your blog. You can also make your own playlists so you can embed the music on your posts instead of just listing the songs. All of imeem's media is available for free streaming- just be sure to log-in for full length songs (www.imeem.com/login).

Meanwhile, don’t forget to check out BLURT’s exclusive MMJ feature – just click on the digital magazine image in the right hand corner of our homepage and follow the navigation instructions.

Deaf dumb and blind boy, he’s in a quiet totalitarian Bush-fueled vibration land…

By Fred Mills

Silver Spring-based combo the Jet Age, greatly admired by Silver Spring-based music magazine BLURT, is set to hit the road next week that will take them across the country to the West Coast and the northwest then back across for a brief swing through the south. It’s all in support of the trio’s latest album What Did You Do During the War, Daddy? (Sonic Boomerang Records), a kind of “imaginary musical in three acts” that not only allows frontman Eric Tischler to subtly indulge his Pete Townshend fetish by creating a rock opera for the modern era — longtime Tischler watchers have always cheered the Who-styled brawn he brings to his material, going all the way back to his Hurricane Lamps days — but injects some much-needed musical commentary into the current state of cultural affairs in Amerika as we venture forth towards Election Day.

As the Jet Age themselves put it, What Did You Do During the War, Daddy? “asks what our responsibility is, as citizens, when our government is out of control.”

Appropriately enough, the band will be playing the album in its entirety at concerts. In a revealing interview earlier this year with Sean Kendall of Pensatos (viewable in its entirety at www.pensatos.com), Tischler held forth on the record:

Kendall: With What Did You Do… The main character throughout the album can be viewed as either a terrorist or a revolutionist. Are his views yours as a band to some degree?

Tischler: You're absolutely right about the duality of the main character. His views are mine only insofar as his frustration is certainly informed by my own. However, I really want to make it clear that I absolutely do not endorse blowing things up. At all… The story in this record affords me a venue to discuss this stuff and ask, "If not violence, then what?" And that's not a rhetorical question. If marches on Washington are ignored, and democracy is in the hands of Diebold, what DO we have to do to fix things? I genuinely don't know. It frightens the hell out of me.

We've got another election coming up and I'm afraid I don't share the optimism of a lot of my friends. I think we have been conditioned to be scared (see the song 'Dumb') and I worry that we're not out of the woods yet. In these very scary times, a lot of people are going to vote for the candidate that they consider to be safe. This is something the three of us have been talking about a lot lately, and I look forward to being proven wrong.

Your album is broken down like a play with acts. One of the underlined effects of the album is the almost jubilation sound of love in the first act to the creeping darker songs as it progresses into less cordial atmospheres on act two and three. Was this based off experience with your political views and a relationship?

Sort of, insofar as I'm crazy about my family and horrified by the state of our country. You've got the emotional trajectory dead on. The first act (the first batch of songs) is intended to establish a happy family, ideally so that, by the time the guy goes and gets himself killed, you understand why he did it (for love of his family), and how it impacts his family. The reason the album starts and ends with 'Ladies, Don't Cry Tonight' is that it's a widow's lament. In its first iteration, it's to establish that, in the background of the happy first act, there's a war going on. At the end, it's for the protagonist's wife, who's lost her husband.

The second act illustrates the father's awakening to the reality that, while his home may be a happy place, his country is not, hence the darkening tone.

***

Also of note: While preparing for the upcoming tour, Tischler was commissioned to remix the lead track for The Wedding Present’s first ever download-only single “The Thing I Like Best About Him Is His Girlfriend” from the band’s new album El Rey. (See BLURT’s digital magazine for a review.) Four different versions of the song (three recorded by Steve Albini), including Tischler’s mix are now available at all the usual download outlets.

The Jet Age Tour Dates:

6/25 Columbus, OH Carabar

6/27 Des Moines, IA Vaudeville Mews (All Ages)

6/28 Denver, CO Old Curtis St. Bar

6/30 Seattle, WA KEXP-FM Live On-Air

6/30 Seattle, WA The High Dive

7/01 Portland, OR The Towne Lounge

7/02 San Francisco, CA Hemlock Tavern

7/03 Los Angeles, CA The Troubadour (w/ The Constantines, Ladyhawk)

7/05 Austin, TX Mohawk

7/07 Atlanta, GA Lenny’s Bar

On Sundazed vinyl, that is... what, you were expecting a reunion or somethin’?

By Fred Mills

Sundazed Records has a beef. Specifically, a “Beef” – that’s Captain Beefheart to you, punters. En route is It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper, due July 22 from the venerable reissue label. It’s a 2-LP, vinyl-only edition of the good Captain’s 1968 record with the Magic Band, Strictly Personal — well, not quite. We’re talking “mind-blowing lost 1967 sessions,” previously only available on bootlegs. Here’s the scoop according to Sundazed:

• Recorded in part as the follow-up to Safe as Milk, Beefheart’s debut from earlier that year, the world-shattering material on It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper was rerecorded, truncated, and issued—without the Captain’s approval—as Strictly Personal in 1968. Mastered directly from the original analog tapes and featuring a wealth of unedited takes never before on vinyl, Sundazed’s stunning gatefold double-LP release of this infamously enigmatic opus comes to you wrapped in a sharp outer sleeve bearing specially commissioned artwork by Frank Zappa/Straight Records illustrator Cal Schenkel replicating the album’s planned ’67 design (deliberately not shown here. It’s a surprise!); inside are rare photos and fascinating, exhaustive liner notes by Magic Band drummer John “Drumbo” French.

• So here, then, is Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s second album of gloriously disjointed avant-rock/blues and free-jazz skronk, presented just as nature—and the Captain—intended. Even after more than 40 years, this music is still hopelessly ahead of its time—or, as one-time Magic Band member Ry Cooder once described it, “right on time.”

No word on what Mr. Van Vliet himself has to say about all this. Could be he’s busy at home, planning a new album and tour. Or dispelling notions about all those random Beefheart rumors and silly hoaxes circulating on the Internet. Or maybe just working on his painting and chatting with Polly Harvey on the blower from time to time. But you can put your money on the fact  that It Comes to You in a Plain Brown Wrapper is the real deal, and that you gotta have it.

Track Listing:

Gimme Dat Harp Boy 

Dirty Blue Gene 

Beatle Bones ’n’ Smokin' Stones Pt. 1 & 2 

Trust Us (take 9) 

Safe as Milk (take 12) 

Moody Liz (take 8) 

On Tomorrow 

Big Black Baby Shoes 

Flower Pot 

Korn Ring Finger  S

Safe as Milk (take 5) 

Trust Us (take 6)
Moody Liz (take 16

Just in time for the Beijing Olympics, eh?

By Fred Mills

The hills are alive with the sound of…. Gun N’ Roses chatter. Billboard.com is reporting word of nine so-called finished/mastered tracks from GNR’s long-in-the-making/awaiting  Chinese Democracy; apparently yesterday the website Antiquiet.com uploaded the material, which of course triggered an immediate takedown order from Axl Rose’s lawyers.

According to Billboard, “Six of the songs have already leaked in one unfinished form or another: ‘Better,’ ‘The Blues,’ the title track, ‘Madagascar,’ ‘IRS’ and ‘There Was a Time.’ But these versions appear to be much further along on the path toward completion, and feature new touches like organ and tambourine on ‘IRS’ and a beefed-up chorus with multi-tracked vocals on ‘Madagascar.’ The three previously unheard songs are ‘Rhiad and the Bedouins,’ ‘If the World’ and a track whose title is unknown.”

Well, gentlemen, start your search engines. Gunners MP3 booty awaits, for as we all know, once a file is released, the genie’s been uncorked. Meanwhile, here’s the text original posting at Antiquiet.com, plus subsequent updates. Viva la revolucion. See below....

***

We’ve Got Chinese Democracy, And It’s Worth The Wait

June 18th, 2008 by Skwerl in Features

Well, to say that I’m living up to my reputation today is an understatement. I’d like to share with you 9 tracks from the new Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy. These are mastered, finished versions that you probably haven’t heard. I always said that the more that Axl and Geffen jerked around trying to figure out how to release this finally finished album that we’ve all been waiting over 13 years for, the greater the chances would be that it would slip out of a pressing plant or office somewhere and wind up in the hands of some asshole with a blog. So… Hey, I told you so. I’m probably asking for a lot of trouble. But I’m fighting the good fight. It’s not against the label, or the artist- it’s against the old business model. The obsolete marketing paradigm. Release your music. Give it away, let everyone hear it. If it’s good, you’ll be OK.

THE PLAYER HAS BEEN AT LEAST TEMPORARILY REMOVED, BECAUSE IT BASICALLY BROKE THE ENTIRE INTERNET. ALSO, WE GOT A CALL FROM GUNS N’ ROSES. STAY TUNED.

I’ll let you all decide for yourselves, but if you ask me, Guns N’ Roses are fucking back, and they’ll be just fine.

Still twangin’, still dreamin’….

By Blurt Staff

Midnight in Mississippi marks the full-blown return of the late, great, and now no longer late Blue Mountain. It’s the first album of new material since the group disbanded in 2002 (with the exception of the songs “Butterfly” and “By You Side,” which appeared on the first solo release by B.M. frontman Cary Hudson, but have been re-recorded by Hudson, Laurie Stiratt and Frank Couch). They got back together last year and you can read all about the band in the current (June) issue of BLURT – just click on the cover of the digital magazine on our home page.  

Midnight in Mississippi was recorded in Elmwood Recording in Dallas , TX , with Grammy-winning producer/engineer Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, White Stripes, Loretta Lynn). Meanwhile, the band also has Omnibus, a collection of new recordings of 14 classic Blue Mountain songs, including “Blue Canoe,” “Soul Sister,” “Poppa, “Mountain Girl” and a rousing rendition of “Generic America,” that were re-recorded by Andrew Ratcliff at Tweed Recording in Oxford, MS.  Both CDs will be released by Broadmoor Records, a label owned by Stiratt and her twin brother John, bass player for Wilco.

Their recent shows have found them in front of ecstatic crowds, receiving rave reviews, including a performance to a packed house at the Americana Music Convention in October of 2007 and several shows at this year’s South-By-Southwest, proving that not only is the band tighter than ever, but they are still a vital force in a world of music they helped create.  

Blue Mountain Tour Dates:

 

Jun 27 2008      10:00P
    State Theater     Starkville, Mississippi
Jun 28 2008     8:00P
    Standard Delux     Waverly, Alabama
Jul 5 2008     8:00P
    Hill Country Picnic     Potts Camp, Mississippi
Aug 1 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at the Continental Club     Houston, Texas
Aug 2 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at Continental Club     Austin, Texas
Aug 3 2008     8:00P
    Blue Door     Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Aug 8 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at the Hi-Tone!     Memphis, Tennessee
Aug 15 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at Hal & Mal’s     Jackson, Mississippi
Aug 16 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at Government Street Grocery     Ocean Springs, Mississippi
Aug 22 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at Proud Larry’s     Oxford, Mississippi
Aug 23 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at Lucas School House     St. Louis, Missouri
Sep 4 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at The Basement     Nashville, Tennessee
Sep 5 2008     8:00P
    Nightfall Concert Series     Chattanooga, Tennessee
Sep 12 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at Chelsea’s     Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Sep 13 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at the Thirsty Hippo     Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Sep 18 2008     10:00P
    The Pour House Music Hall     Raliegh, North Carolina
Sep 19 2008     8:00P
    Downtown After 5     Asheville, North Carolina
Sep 19 2008     10:00P
    Grey Eagle     Asheville, North Carolina
Sep 27 2008     7:00P
    Otherfest     Rosedale, Mississippi
Oct 11 2008     10:00P
    CD RELEASE PARTY at the 400 Bar     Minneapolis, Minnesota
Oct 18 2008     6:00P
    Great Mississippi River Balloon Race     Natchez, Mississippi
Oct 31 2008     10:00P
    Halloween Party at Proud Larry’s     Oxford, Mississippi

[Photo Credit: Bill Ellison]

Workaholic artist also drops 4^th EP and new album while prepping new project.

By Fred Mills

Head over to our video section and glom onto a pair of just-released Joseph Arthur vids, “Second Sight and “She Paints Me Gold,” from his latest EP (one of four EPs due in 2008) Vagabond Skies, issued by Arthur’s own Lonely Astronaut label.

Regarding the two videos, the Arthur camp advises us that ”in the wee small hours, the blank 5-story billboard overlooking the stark New York City street corner of Lafayette and Grand was taken over guerrilla style by Joseph Arthur and director Gabriel Judet-Weinshel as they ominously projected a performance of ‘Second Sight’ from Joseph’s latest EP, Vagabond Skies. The ‘Second Sight’ hijack video is coupled with the transcendental, soaring ‘She Paints Me Gold,’ inspired by a collection of still photographs by Cerise Leang on New Year’s Eve 2007, documenting one of Joseph’s all night paintings.”

Vagabond Skies follows the previously released EPs Crazy Rain and Could We Survive — read a BLURT review of the latter here — and it in turn will be followed on July 8 by Foreign Girls. Of his decision to issue four EPs, Arthur noted, in a statement, “It’s almost like the 50s again when it was all about singles.” He essentially arranged a double album of solo material into four installments and added, “Now that more artists are independent, we’re going to see more creative ways of releasing music.”

To that end, Arthur will be turning his attentions to Bag Is Hot, which he intriguingly describes as “liquid and ongoing – a form onto itself. Brand new music is composed and recorded strictly for this album – really beautiful, unearthly, fully realized music – that interacts with images and artwork to form a living, breathing record. Bag Is Hot is free, open-ended, has no rules and is being modernized. [It is] like fresh popcorn for all the kids to grab. Digital hands eating the digital popcorn. This project is fun and doesn’t have to be precious, but it’s hard not to take it seriously and really work on it.  It’s not, ‘Bag is getting a little lukewarm - Bag is hot!’ It’s gonna be slang soon!” Lonely Astronaut Records could be releasing the first installment of Bag Is Hot sometime before 2009.

Meanwhile September 16 marks the release of Temporary People, the 2nd LP by Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts, recorded deep in the Catskill mountains and in the vaults for a year or so.

Oh, and there’s a tour coming up shortly too….


Joseph Arthur Tour Dates:

July 9            Boston, MA            Paradise
July 10            Philadelphia, PA      World Café Live
July 11            New York, NY            Bowery Ballroom (JA & the Lonely Astronauts)
July 12            Hoboken, NJ            Maxwell’s (solo)
July 15            Los Angeles, CA      Troubadour
July 16            San Diego, CA            Anthology
July 18            San Francisco, CA      Great American Music Hall
July 21            Portland, OR            Doug Fir
July 20            Eugene, OR            WOW Hall
July 22            Seattle, WA            Triple Door
July 24            Vancouver, BC      The Media Club
July 26            Guelph, ON            Hillside Festival

[Photo Credit: Danny Clinch]

In which our heroes smack one out of the ballpark…

By Fred Mills

Here’s a treat you don’t wanna miss: The Baseball Project, live tomorrow night (June 20) on the Late Night With David Letterman show. Who is The Baseball Project, you ask? That would be the mighty Steve Wynn (Miracle 3, Danny & Dusty, Dream Syndicate) and Scott McCaughey (Minus 5, REM, Young Fresh Fellows) along with Wynn’s M3 drummer Linda Pitmon and a chap who goes by the name of Buck — Peter Buck, to be precise. You may have heard of him…

In a nutshell, Steve and Scott decided to team up and pen an album’s worth of material about baseball, hence the ad hoc combo’s name. They had talked in the past about collaboration, and apparently they decided to move forward with the project after they ran into each other last year.

"It finally took flight at the R.E.M. pre-Hall of Fame induction party in New York," Wynn remembers. "Everyone was happy. The wine was flowing, the food was incredible and spring training had just started. Scott and I talked baseball until most of the party guests had cleared out. And we actually remembered it the next day."

You can read more about, and hear tracks by, The Baseball Project at selected web portals:

Official Steve Wynn website

The Baseball Project MySpace page

Yep Roc’s Baseball Project page

[Photo Credit: Vivian Johnson]

Double discs stuffed to the gills with rarities ‘n’ more…

By Fred Mills

Universal has released details on the upcoming U2 deluxe reissues, slated to hit stores on July 22. Following the re-mastered release of The Joshua Tree last year, Edge has overseen a similar re-mastering (from original analog multitracks) of Boy (1980), October (1981) and War (1983). Each album will be released in physical and digital formats; as a standard single disc, a deluxe double version including a disc of b-sides, live tracks and rarities, and an LP version pressed on 180gm virgin vinyl. Here’s the scoop:


BOY

Standard format:

A single CD with re-mastered audio and restored packaging.
Includes a 16 page booklet featuring previously unseen photos, full lyrics and new liner notes by Paul Morley

Tracklisting:
1. I Will Follow 2. Twilight 3. An Cat Dubh 4. Into The Heart 5. Out Of Control 6. Stories For Boys 7. The Ocean 8. A Day Without Me 9. Another Time, Another Place 10. The Electric Co. 11. Shadows And Tall Trees.

Deluxe format:

A standard CD (as above) and a bonus CD.
Bonus CD includes b-sides, live tracks and rarities.
Also includes a 32 page booklet with previously unseen photos, full lyrics, new liner notes by Paul Morley, and explanatory notes on the bonus material by The Edge.

Tracklisting:
1. I Will Follow (Previously Unreleased Mix) 2. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock 3. Touch 4. Speed Of Life (Previously Unreleased Track)  5. Saturday Night (Previously Unreleased Track) 6. Things To Make And Do 7. Out Of Control 8. Boy-Girl 9. Stories For Boys 10. Another Day 11. Twilight 12. Boy-Girl (Live at The Marquee, London) 13. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock (Live at The Marquee, London - Previously Unreleased Version) 14. Cartoon World (Live at The National Stadium, Dublin - Previously Unreleased Track)


Vinyl format:

A single album re-mastered version on 180gram vinyl with restored packaging.

Tracklisting:
Side One 1. I Will Follow 2. Twilight 3. An Cat Dubh 4. Into The Heart 5. Out Of Control   
Side Two 1. Stories For Boys 2. The Ocean 3. A Day Without Me 4. Another Time, Another Place 5. The Electric Co. 6. Shadows And Tall Trees.

 
OCTOBER

Standard format:

A single CD with re-mastered audio and restored packaging.
Includes a 16 page booklet featuring previously unseen photos, full lyrics and new liner notes by Neil McCormick.

Tracklisting:
1. Gloria 2. I Fall Down 3. I Threw A Brick Through A Window 4. Rejoice 5. Fire 6. Tomorrow 7. October 8. With A Shout 9. Stranger In A Strange Land 10. Scarlet 11. Is That All

Deluxe format:

A standard CD (as above) and a bonus CD.
Bonus CD includes b-sides, live tracks and rarities.
Also includes a 32 page booklet with previously unseen photos, full lyrics, new liner notes by Neil McCormick, and explanatory notes on the bonus material by The Edge.

Tracklisting:
1. Gloria (Live at Hammersmith Palais, London) 2. I Fall Down (Live at Hammersmith Palais, London) 3. I Threw A Brick Through A Window (Live at Hammersmith Palais, London) 4. Fire (Live at Hammersmith Palais, London) 5. October (Live at Hammersmith Palais, London) 6. With A Shout (Richard Skinner BBC Session) 7. Scarlet (Richard Skinner BBC Session) 8. I Threw A Brick Through A Window (Richard Skinner BBC Session) 9. A Celebration 10. J. Swallo 11. Trash, Trampoline And The Party Girl 12. I Will Follow (Live at Paradise Theatre, Boston)  13. The Ocean (Live at Paradise Theatre, Boston) 14.  The Cry/Electric Co. (Live at Paradise Theatre, Boston)  15.  11 O'Clock Tick Tock (Live at Paradise Theatre, Boston)  16.  I Will Follow (Live From Hattem, Netherlands) 17.  Tomorrow (Bono & Adam Clayton, Common Ground Remix)

Vinyl format:

A single album re-mastered version on 180gram vinyl with restored packaging.

Tracklisting:
Side One 1. Gloria 2. I Fall Down 3. I Threw A Brick Through A Window 4. Rejoice 5. Fire
Side Two 1. Tomorrow 2. October 3. With A Shout 4. Stranger In A Strange Land 5. Scarlet 6. Is That All?
 

WAR

Standard format:

A single CD with re-mastered audio and restored packaging.
Includes a 16 page booklet featuring previously unseen photos, full lyrics and new liner notes by Niall Stokes.

Tracklisting:
1.  Sunday Bloody Sunday 2. Seconds 3.  New Year's Day 4. Like A Song  5. Drowning Man 6. The Refugee 7. Two Hearts Beat As One 8.  Red Light 9. Surrender 10. "40"


Deluxe format:

A standard CD (as above) and a bonus CD.
Bonus CD includes b-sides, live tracks and rarities.
Also includes a 32 page booklet with previously unseen photos, full lyrics, new liner notes by Niall Stokes, and explanatory notes on the bonus material by The Edge.

Tracklisting:
1. Endless Deep  2. Angels Too Tied To The Ground (Previously Unreleased Track) 3. New Year's Day (7" single edit)  4. New Year's Day (USA Remix)  5. New Year's Day (Ferry Corsten Extended Vocal Mix)  6. New Year's Day (Ferry Corsten Vocal Radio Mix)  7. Two Hearts Beat As One (Long Mix)  8. Two Hearts Beat As One (USA Remix)  9. Two Hearts Beat As One (Club Version)  10. Treasure (Whatever Happened to Pete The Chop)


Vinyl format:

A single album re-mastered version on 180gram vinyl with restored packaging.

Tracklisting:
Side One 1.  Sunday Bloody Sunday 2. Seconds 3.  New Year's Day 4. Like A Song... 5. Drowning Man
Side Two 1. The Refugee 2. Two Hearts Beat As One 3.  Red Light 4. Surrender 5. "40"

Offering new LP + EP to concertgoers.

By Fred Mills

Simeon Coxe’s vaunted Silver Apples — the legendary synth/punk precursors that young hipsters like to namedrop but precious few can actually name a songtitle (much less cite musical specifics, details, bio, etc.) — commenced a rare U.S. tour this week, and you can see the remaining dates below as it swings from the Midwest to the east and down the seaboard and then over to Memphis and New Orleans (one of Coxe’s favorite cities, incidentally).  Opening act is Loto Ball Show.

We are advised that the Apples will be offering not one but two new records while on tour: the vinyl only Selections, Apples essentials remastered, on Chicken Coop, and Gremlins, an EP on Gifted Children. You can get more details at the official Silver Apples website.

Silver Apples Tour Dates:

6-17 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
6-18 Detroit, MI - Scrummage University
6-20 Cleveland Heights, OH - Grog Shop
6-21 Pittsburgh, PA - 31st Street Pub
6-22 Buffalo, NY - Mohawk Place
6-23 Cambridge, MA - T.T. the Bear's Place
6-24 New York, NY - Knitting Factory
6-25 New York, NY - Cake Shop
6-27 Philadelphia, PA - North Star Bar
6-28 Washington, DC - The Velvet Lounge
6-29 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
6-30 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
7-01 Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone
7-02 New Orleans, LA  

Chill out this fall with the boys from Iceland.

By Fred Mills

Say this aloud six times really fast, and it will be yours: Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (English translation: with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly). That’s the title of the new Sigur Ros album, and it can actually be yours next week, June 24^th from XL Recordings. And if you scroll down to the CD reviews section on the BLURT home page you’ll find a sneak preview review of the album — consider it one of BLURT’s little public service announcements (with guitars).

Meanwhile, the Icelandic auteurs have a tour slated to kick off September 17 in NYC. It will through the first week of October and tix are now on sale as a presale for fans via the band’s website. A general on-sale will take place on June 27.

This info just in from the band’s handlers: “Sigur Rós recently performed a handful of live shows in North America this month, taking the band from Mexico to this year's Bonnaroo Festival, to New York City, where they played two very amazing, very special shows, including one at the Museum of Modern Art.  Mixing classic, fan-favorites from their critically-acclaimed catalogue with new songs from the brilliant Með suð í eyrum…, Sigur Rós’ live show is the best it’s ever been.  The shows this Fall will see the band – comprised of Jón Thor Birgisson (vocals, guitar), Georg Holm (bass), Kjartan Sveinsson (keyboards/piano), and Orri Páll Dýrason (drums) – performing as a four-piece for the first time in almost ten years.”

Sigur Ros Tour Dates:

9/17/08           New York, NY @ United Palace Theatre
9/18/08           New York, NY @ United Palace Theatre
9/19/08           Boston, MA @ Bank of America Pavilion
9/20/08           Montreal, QC @ Quai Jacques Cartier
9/22/08           Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
9/23/08           Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore
9/24/08           Chicago, IL @ The Chicago Theatre
9/25/08           Minneapolis, MN @ The Orpheum Theatre
9/27/08           Denver, CO @ Morrison Red Rocks Amphitheatre
9/28/08           Salt Lake City, UT @ Saltair
9/30/08           Tempe, AZ @ The Marquee
10/1/08           San Diego, CA @ Copley Symphony Hall
10/2/08           Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre
10/3/08           Berkeley, CA @ The Greek Theatre
10/5/08           Seattle, WA @ Benaroya Hall
10/6/08           Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Theatre
10/7/08           Vancouver, BC @ The Chan Centre

[Photo Credit: árni torfason, via Wikipedia Commons]

Sick and taking no shit, Josh Homme lets a rowdy fan have it—in the face, if he’d had his druthers.

By Randy Harward

Did you hear? You know, that Queens of the Stone Age frontguy Josh Homme read a rowdy fan the XXX version of the riot act in Oslo last weekend? Evidently Homme wasn’t feeling too well and when a fan tossed something at him, he lost his shit—all over the guy. Here’s a sampling of some Homme-spun wisdom:

“Hey, do me one favor, though: don’t throw any shit at me… I’m not so sick that I can’t go down there and beat the fuckin’ shit out, you know what I’m sayin’? I may have a fuckin’ 102 temperature and been pukin’ for three days, but I’ll still butt-fuck you in front of all your friends.”

Homme then unleashed the fuckin’ fury on the “pussy with the black hair,” whom he also called a “chickenshit fuckin’ faggot” and a “pussy motherfucker.” The fan was ejected from the show although Homme, moving toward the stage and holding his guitar out of the way, said he wanted them to lift the fan onstage so he could “kick him in the fuckin’ face.” The Norwegian Wood Festival security simply escorted the fan out of the show.

You know what the funniest thing about Scandinavia is? Its little differences. Here, Homme might’ve gotten his wish. But was this his Michael Richards moment? Some people seem to think he could learn a lesson (in what, taking shit from shitheads?). But BLURT sides with Homme on this one. Tossing anything other than bras or panties or weed or dirty pictures or Carl’s Jr. coupons onstage just ain’t cool. Fuck that guy.

Lovers unite to hear the band’s “London Conversations” as well as Eclipse deep-vault reissues.

By Fred Mills

BLURT has learned that in September, Universal will be issuing a new career-spanning compilation from pop auteurs Saint Etienne. Entitled London Conversations, it will come in 2 editions: one the band describes as “a condensed greatest hits” — they advise fans that “you may not need this” since said fans already have all the tunes most likely — and the other a two-disc set that will include the impossible-to-find “Lover Plays The Bass” along with a pair of new singles (the first of which will be out in August).

This comes on the heels of the 4-CD rarities box set titled, sensibly, Boxette, that St. E released as a fanclub exclusive earlier this year. (You can read a full review of Boxette in the June BLURT digital magazine – just page through until you get to the reissues section.)

Meanwhile, the group has a couple of gigs lined up for the summer, but otherwise is laying low:

July 27 -- The Secret Garden Party in Cambridgeshire, England
Aug. 15 --  the Ola festival in Almeria, Spain

 

And in still other St.E related news, Eclipse Records, the reissue label recently launched by band members Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs (and not to be confused with the very cool U.S. Eclipse label), has announced its next round of releases. They are:

The Impressions - Complete A and B sides 1961-68
Paradise Island: the lost Burt Bacharach
The Girls are at it Again
Gary Walker & The Rain
Let's Slip Away: Johnny Dankworth On Stage And Screen

According to Wiggs and Stanley, following the success of their crate-digging compilation The Trip last year, convinced Universal to let them revive a dormant imprint, Eclipse, and duly “raid the far corners of the company’s archives.” If the label names Phillips, Decca, A&M, Island, Polydor, Mercury, ABC, Dunhill and MCA ring any bells — and if you’re even marginally aware of the W&S musical braintrust’s finesse in unearthing cool sounds both for St. E and their own deejay work — then you should be nodding your head very happily round about now.

Check out MP3 of song “Gillian Was A Horse.”

By Blurt Staff

Damien Jurado’s next album, Caught In the Trees, is due September 9^th from Secretly Canadian. It marks the dawn of a new era for Jurado — not be a huge departure from some of his past albums musically, but lyrically Jurado has taken a giant leap forward and there is no turning back. Best known for his dark yet fragile first person fictional tales, Jurado now unlocks the door and invites us into his own enigmatic world.

Jurado took a full year to make this record, longer than ever before, as he ran away from and eventually found himself in his own songs. He subsequently found refuge in sharing the songs with his closest friends and bandmates, Eric Fisher and Jenna Conrad. Having walked alongside him through this most challenging journey, the songs that came out of it are as much theirs as his. Jurado, Fisher, and Conrad collaborated on the compositions - some much more rocking than Jurado fans are used to, but ever as intense - and pulled in producers Kory Kruckenberg and Casey Foubert to contribute their own unique stylings.

Recording started in the summer months and the sweltering heat, and wrapped in the freezing temps of winter. (It is clear on first listen that two distinct seasons are represented through Caught In the Trees - an accidental metaphor perhaps?) There was laughter and there was introspection, and the result is a record that Jurado loyalists will find was worth the wait. And perhaps a reason to listen for those who have yet to give this bedraggled storyteller a chance.

You can snag a preview of the album by checking out an MP3 of the leadoff track “Gillian Was A Horse.”

Jurado will be previewing two other songs, "Sheets" and "Everything Trying,” in an intimate solo performance on The Daily Habit this Monday, June 23rd at 9:00pm EST and again at 12:00am EST.  For more program times, visit the Fuel TV site.

He'll then return to the UK in August for two headline dates and a set at the Green Man festival. He will be accompanied by Eric Fisher and Jenna Conrad. A U.S. tour will be announced shortly.

August 17    Crickhowell, Green Man Festival 

August 18    Manchester, Trinity Chapel  7.30pm

August 19    London, Bush Hall w/Bowerbirds  7.30pm

Budos Band and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings for your viewing pleasure.

By Fred Mills

A whole lotta fonkin’ goin’ on in the BLURT video library today. We’ve just added a pair of soul-struttin’ clips from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and a pair of steamy tracks by their Daptone Recs labelmates The Budos Band. Scroll down to our video kiosk or click HERE for a scroll-free entry…

Here’s the deal:

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – “Tell Me”

WDAP-TV Saturday afternoon dance party time! Filmed in Bushwick, Brooklyn, this was directed by Adam Elias Buncher. From the Daptone album 100 Days, 100 Nights.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – “100 Days, 100 Nights”

Also from the Daptone album 100 Days, 100 Nights (duh), and directed by Adam Elias Buncher. The band advises us he was “using two vintage TV cameras bought on E-Bay for $50 dollars each. Shows how much you can do with just a little soul!”

The Budos Band – “The Volcano Song”

Afrobeat and red hot lava -- what more do ya want? Originally appearing on The Budos Band (2005, Daptone). The video was edited by Steve Pitalo, Packrat NYC.

The Budos Band – “Origin Of Man”

From the second Budos album, Budos II (Daptone Records), directed by Luke Stiles and Matt Rogers and edited by Matt Rogers. Watch out for that scorpion while you’re rockin’ the Casbah, folks.

Mind those sensationalist headlines, kids, you just might get duped!

By Blurt Staff

Amanda Palmer, vocalist, keyboardist and songwriter for her band The Dresden Dolls is set to drop her first solo album on Sept. 16 via Roadrunner. Here’s the scoop from the label. Hey, they write this stuff better than we do, so why rewrite perfectly good promotional hype!

***

Whether participating in theater projects both in America and abroad, or simply helping to run the fan-generated merch company the Dolls started called Post-War Trade, Amanda Palmer is a woman whose artistic endeavors have no boundaries.  This September, these undertakings come together with the release of Amanda's incredible solo debut, entitled Who Killed Amanda Palmer, on Roadrunner Records.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer began as a minimal affair:  with songs amassing that did not seem to require drums, Amanda decided to record a solo album for piano and voice, made in her bedroom, finished in a week.   And then, as if the universe turned to her and said, "not so fast…," Amanda happened to meet Ben Folds in Australia, bonded over mutual loves and suddenly, the record was moved out of the bedroom and into Folds' Nashville-based, piano-filled recording studio.  With Ben Folds acting as producer, the songs on Who Killed Amanda Palmer (a name initially meant as a Twin Peaks reference that has since come to take on new meanings for Amanda), began to come alive, resulting in what is some of the best recorded work of her multi-faceted career.

Mixing the magical and the macabre, the mundane and the sentimental, Who Killed Amanda Palmer is a musical tour de force, the culmination of nearly ten years' worth of songwriting.  Some songs on the album pop and twist with the intensity of their own subject matter – Amanda has never been one to shy away from the taboo – while others are soft and intimate, revealing sides of Amanda not usually seen within her work in The Dresden Dolls.  Featuring guest turns from the likes of The Dead Kennedys' East Bay Ray (on "Guitar Hero"), St. Vincent's Annie Clark (on a warped take on Carousel's "What's the Use of Wondrin"), cellist Zoe Keating, and string arrangements by master composer Paul Buckmaster, Who Killed Amanda Palmer gives Amanda's incredible compositions new color via expansive instrumentation and glorious arrangements. 

Opener "Astronaut" starts the album with a divine blast of driving strings, cymbal crashes and the piano pounding for which Amanda is known, while "Runs in the Family," one of the oldest of the songs on the album, runs wild out of the speakers, Amanda's vocals so passionate she seems barely unable to catch her breath.  First single "Leeds United," recorded in Scotland on a whim, is a pop masterpiece, Amanda's voice raspy and raw against the marching band horn stabs of the chorus.  "Strength Through Music," written in response to the Columbine shootings and recorded around the time of the Virginia Tech shootings, is anchored by two moving piano chords and a palpable sense of loneliness, while the sinister organ of "Guitar Hero" takes on video game fanaticism, machismo and alienation with a sarcastic  sneer.  Closing track "Another Year" finishes the album with a string-filled melody and Amanda's voice sounding more worn and lost than ever before as she details the passing of time and her own place in the world.

Who Killed Amanda Palmer features liner notes written by celebrated graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, with whom Amanda will be collaborating on a photography book in tandem with the album's release.    Amanda will be embarking on a tour in support of the album this fall; in the meantime, she is playing a once-in-a-lifetime show with The Boston Pops Orchestra in her hometown of Boston tonight, June 20^th, at Symphony Hall.

Track Listing:

1.       Astronaut

2.      Runs in the Family

3.      Ampersand

4.      Leeds United

5.      Blake Says

6.      Strength Through Music

7.      Guitar Hero

8.      Have to Drive

9.      What's the Use of Wondrin

10.  Melissa Mahoney

11.   The Point of It All

12.   Another Year

[Photo Credit: Chris Crisman]

Death Cab for Cutie, Wyclef Jean, Panic at the Disco, Joss Stone, Dashboard Confessional, Erykah Badu, R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots and more…

By Blurt Staff

This just in: Set for October 24, 25 and 26 in New Orleans' City Park, the Voodoo Music Festival will feature more than 90 acts (see full line-up below), It also highlights a milestone for the event — its Tenth Ritual — marking a celebration of 10 years of music as well as New Orleans' bohemian culture, arts and cuisine. 

Beyond the traditional sets, this year's VOODOO EXPERIENCE will include a series of celebratory performances including: a special gospel brunch featuring the historic collaboration of vocal legends The Blind Boys of Alabama and the ageless music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.  Sharing the stage for the first time ever as they carry their proud musical traditions on into the future, two of America's great cultural ambassadors bring together the joy of Gospel with the soul of New Orleans; internationally acclaimed DJ and producer King Britt's tribute to painter, singer, and self-proclaimed "bride of Christ" Sister Gertrude Morgan--whose visually explosive folk art is celebrated on the museum circuit world-wide.

The acts will appear in the VOODOO EXPERIENCE's three distinct performance areas--Le Ritual, Le Flambeau and Le Carnival--on six stages each of which highlights a unique side of the personality of New Orleans. 

The line-up (as of June 20) is as follows:  R.E.M.; Stone Temple Pilots; Nine Inch Nails; Erykah Badu; Dashboard Confessional; Death Cab for Cutie; DeVotchKa; Panic! at the Disco; Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings; Cold War Kids; Joss Stone; Ghostland Observatory; Lupe Fiasco; Joseph Arthur; Wyclef Jean; Man Man; The Gutter Twins; Morning 40 Federation; Tokyo Police Club; Innerpartysystem; Colour Revolt; Thievery Corporation; Extra Action Marching Band; Manchester Orchestra; King Britt tribute to Sister Gertude; Ozomatli Reunited with Chali 2na; Irvin Mayfield featuring the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra; Blind Boys of Alabama; Cowboy Mouth; The Lee Boys; Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers; Reverend Horton Heat; Old 97's; Marc Broussard; Eli "Paperboy" Reed & The True Loves; Grace Potter and the Nocturnals; Rebirth Brass Band; Ivan Neville and Dumpstaphunk; Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue; Preservation Hall Jazz band with Marva Wright; Dirty Dozen Brass Band; Fatter Than Albert; Treme Brass Band; John Boutte; The Dan Dyer Band; Washboard Chaz Blues Trio; The Iguanas; Soul Rebels; Bonerama; DJ Soul Sister; Big Sam's Funky Nation; Shamarr Allen; Rockie Charles; Paul Sanchez and His Rolling Road Show; DJ Butterfoot; Deacon John's Tribute to New Orleans R&B featuring Wardell Quezerque; Preservation Hall Hot 4 with Special Guests; Melody Clouds; Walter Wolfman Washington; The New Orleans Bingo! Show Plus Special Guests; Shudder to Think; Clint Maedgen +9; Fleur De Tease; Paul Varisco & The Milestones; New Orleans Jazz Vipers; One Man Machine; Big Al Carson; The Happy Talk Band; Bones; Noisician Coalition; The Tin Men with The Valparaiso Men's Chorus; New Orleans Sunken City Circus featuring: Pain Tribe, C-Ba$, Tap Water Mind Control, and Activity 3; Worms Union; Oscillation Communications; Ratty Scurvics Singularity; Crimes Against Nature; Sirena Serpentina; Illusion Fields; Good Guys; Nag Hammadi; Andre Williams; My Graveyard Jaw; NOOMOON Tribe; Widetrack; C-Ba$; Sideshow; DJ Proppa Bear; sHeLLShoCk; Ray Bong; White Bitch's Prey Drive; Hands of Nero; Big Blue Marble; The Vettes; Sons of William; Sista Otis, Rotary Downs; Quintron & Miss Pussycat.

New Orleans' signature fall music event will again take place in the City Park locale set amidst lush lagoons, bayous, one of the largest collections of mature oak trees in the world--all in the shadow of the New Orleans Museum of Art and just minutes from the historic French Quarter and Central Business District. 

In 1999, the VOODOO MUSIC EXPERIENCE launched as an alternative to the music festivals that had come before it.  Its purpose:  a celebration of music to attract fans of all ages from places near and far.  Throughout the years, the VOODOO EXPERIENCE has brought together a collection of talent that has bridged the social, economic and generation gaps by creating a unique music event with a commitment to every genre of music while at the same time celebrating the music of the region.  

Tickets are available via www.thetenthritual.com and Ticketmaster and www.ticketmaster.com.  All tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis.  General admission tickets at $115 for weekend passes will be available beginning Monday, June 23.  In addition, LOA VIP Experience passes are offered for $450 which includes 3 day admission with in/out privileges, grandstand viewing of the main stage, reserved parking, full bar services, exclusive New Orleans cuisine, private bathrooms, a Tenth Ritual poster autographed by the artist, exclusive experiences and more.

This year's VOODOO EXPERIENCE sponsors are Miller Lite, Southern Comfort, PlayStation, Natural American Spirits, Billboard.com Southwest Airlines, Marriott and Pickup Pals.  Media Partners include Alarm, Filter, Spin, URB, Big Easy, New Orleans Magazine, OffBeat, Where y'at Magazine, WWOZ and Nola.com.

12 artists contribute tracks to benefit financial/medical needs of fellow musicians.

By BLURT Staff

The Washington, DC-based intellectual property law firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP has announced the release of Interlude, a charity compilation benefiting MusiCares® (www.musicares.org), an organization that provides financial, medical and personal needs of musicians. The CD will feature songs by 12 different artists, including Eleni Mandell (“My Twin”), Kelly Willis (“You and Your Sister”), Chuck Prophet (the heretofore unreleased “Bring On The Love”) and Ana Egge (“Apple Tree”). From the press release:

For the last 10 years Finnegan has hosted an impressive selection of critically acclaimed musical artists to perform at its annual International Trademark Association (INTA) reception. This year, Finnegan chose to celebrate ten years of amazing performances with a commemorative CD that would help support musicians in need through a donation to the MusiCares Foundation. All of the musicians on the CD have donated their music.

Through a donation to MusiCares, Finnegan and its artist “alumni” are supporting musicians and helping to ensure that those in the music industry have access to a support system. MusiCares is a charitable foundation of The Recording Academy®, which supports the music community and honors artists' achievements through the annual GRAMMY Awards.

Downloads will be available on June 23rd at www.Finnegan.com.

Track Listing:

1. Catie Curtis – “Find You Now”

2. Chuck Prophet – “Bring On The Love”

3. Eleni Mandell – “My Twin”

4. Ana Egge – “Apple Tree”

5. Utah Carol – “Come Back Baby”

6. Last Train Home – “Quarter to 3”

7. Michelle Malone – “Beyond the Mountain”

8. Amy Farris – “Anyway”

9. Jonatha Brooke – “Walking”

10. Sara Hickman – “A Song of You”

11. Kelly Willis – “You and Your Sister”

12. Terri Hendrix – “Soul of My Soul”

[Chuck Prophet photo by Jeremy Harris]

Compiled by Blurt Staff

57 channels and nothin’ on? Not likely. Here’s BLURT’s top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST.

For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day or on subsequent days.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM/ ARTIST(S)

SATURDAY, JUNE 21

10:00 AM RAVE HD: Beautiful Noise: Ron Sexsmith

1:30 PM FUSE: Fuse Live from Bonnaroo: Raconteurs , Metallica, My Morning Jacket, Jack Johnson, Mastodon, Against Me,

2:00 PM RAVE HD: Later With Jools Holland: Paul Weller ,

Carlos Santana , Anthony Hamilton , Bettye Lavette , John Cale, Sheryl Crow

3:00 PM RAVE HD: From The Basement: The White Stripes , The Shins , The Divine Comedy

6:00 PM MHD: Unplugged (VH1): Black Crowes

6:30 PM FUSE: Live Through This: Amy Winehouse

9:00 PM PBS: Austin City Limits: Gretchen Wilson / Miranda Lambert

10:00 PM ETV: Saturday Night Live (E!): Steve Carell / Kanye West

10:00 PM MTV2: Saturday Rock The Deuce: Coldplay

12:00 AM MHD: SoulStage: The Roots

3:05 AM Showtime Next: End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones

***

SUNDAY, JUNE 22

10:00 AM RAVE HD: Montreux Jazz Festival 2005: Garbage , Kasabian , The Bravery , Jon Spencer Blues Explosion , Big Pants

11:30 AM BET: Alicia Keys: Requested

1:30 PM HDNet: LIVE! from Central Park SummerStage: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

4:30 PM HDNet: Son Volt Live - Okemah & the Melody of Riot

6:00 PM Showtime Next: End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones

7:00 PM TVONE: Little Richard (2000)

8:00 PM MHD: Isle of Wight '07: The Rolling Stones , Amy Winehouse , Keane , Snow Patrol , Muse , Wolfmother

9:00 PM TVONE: Prince - Purple Rain (1984)

11:00 PM HDNet: Coldplay: How We Saw The World (Part 1)

11:00 PM TVONE: James Brown: The Man, The Music & The Message

11:00 PM VH1C: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony:

Class of 2008

Willie Nelson distributes initial relief funds Saturday to Iowa grassroots coalition.

By Blurt Staff

While George Bush uttered yet more Katrina-like rhetoric and hollow promises, flooding continued to ravage agricultural and rural towns on the banks of the Mississippi River and other rivers. As a result, Farm Aid activated its Family Farm Disaster Fund to get immediate relief to family farmers in Iowa, Wisconsin and across the Midwest. Farm Aid President and Founder Willie Nelson distributed the first grant from the Family Farm Disaster Fund on Saturday, June 21, to the Iowa Grassroots Coalition, a group of farm and faith-based organizations in Iowa working on the recovery effort.

"Our hearts go out to the folks all along the Mississippi who are being affected by the severe floods that have taken out towns and farms in Iowa and Wisconsin," said Farm Aid President Willie Nelson. "At Farm Aid, we have had friends in these communities for 23 years who can deliver immediate support to family farmers, getting them back on the land, growing good food for all of us."

Reports indicate that at least four million acres of farmland are underwater and that a high percentage will not be replanted this growing season. Many family farms in the region growing specialty crops and produce are not adequately covered by federal crop insurance and may not have the financial support necessary to rebuild.

Farm Aid emergency assistance is supporting local recovery efforts in Iowa and Wisconsin, delivering an initial $10,000 in disaster-relief funds to grassroots organizations. Since the Family Farm Disaster Fund was activated on Wednesday of this week, more than $40,000 has already been donated by individuals and organizations, including Best Buy and WhiteWave, makers of Horizon Organic and Silk Soymilk. As money is raised, Farm Aid’s focus is to quickly distribute money to affected areas, where it can best benefit farm families.

"In the face of the devastation caused by the flooding across the Midwest, Farm Aid is proud to work with the individuals and organizations that have already stepped up and shown their support for family farmers. Together, we will help these farmers rebuild and protect our source of good food," said Farm Aid Executive Director Carolyn Mugar.

Farm Aid is supporting the disaster-relief efforts of the Iowa Grassroots Coalition, which includes Buy Fresh Buy Local Iowa, Center for Rural Affairs, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Iowa Farmers Union, Iowa Network for Community Agriculture, Iowa Organic Association, National Catholic Rural Life Conference, Practical Farmers of Iowa, Women Food and Agriculture Network, farmer and advocate Denise O¹Brien, and Wendy Wasserman, editor of Edible Iowa River Valley. As more information is available about the impact of the flooding in states across the Midwest, Farm Aid will work with additional organizations to quickly get resources to family farmers in those states.

"Family farmers across Iowa have been sharing their personal stories about the impact this monumental flooding has had on their farm operations," said Coalition spokesperson Denise O'Brien, an Atlantic, IA farmer. "We want to get assistance to these farmers as quickly as possible, and we thank our long-time friends at Farm Aid for giving us their support."

Contributions can be made to Farm Aid¹s Family Farm Disaster Fund online at www.farmaid.org.

Läuft...Heist das Es Läuft Oder Es Kommt Bald...Läuft… and all that jazz.

By Fred Mills

Krautrock godfather Faust are in the middle of a rare European and UK tour that will dip over to Japan — and then land on these shores for a Sept. 10 performance in Chicago (as part of The Wire's Adventures in Modern Music Festival).  Band lineups and support will be in “morph” mode, according to the Faust Pages website:

Faust (Zappi Diermaier, Jean-Hervé Peron, James Johnston, James Hodson and special guests) will play three concerts in Japan on September 6-9th. They will play in Istanbul on October 14th in a unique concert featuring Geraldine Swayne, and will also visit the UK in June (London on the 18th, Manchester on the 19th and Cork on the 21st) with the same line-up plus more very special guests. Faust (Zappi Diermaier, Jean-Hervé Peron, Wwe Bastiansen and guests) will play the Swomp Festival, Hanover, Germany on May 7th and in Dublin at the Electric Picnic Festival on August 30th (Zappi Diermaier, Jean-Hervé Peron, James Johnston, Geraldine Swayne and very special guests.)

They further single out the Avantgarde Festival, which takes place in Germany on July 4-6, for the breathtaking array of cutting edge artists slated to appear:

The Avantgarde Festival in Schiphorst near Hamburg is the biggest live event for experimental music in west Europe. Apart from bands playing live gigs - some of them are seldom seen on stage - the festival is also a platform for installations, film screenings and performances. Artists include: , DACH (Iancu Dumitrescu, Ana-Maria Avram, Tim Hodgkinson & Chris Cutler (RO, UK)), Nurse With Wound (UK/USA), Faust ( A/F/UK), Stahl Quartett (GER), Barbed & Hester Schofield (UK), The Grand Erector (UK), Xabec (Ger), Julien Perrin (F), Black Carrot (UK), Adriano Lanzi (I), Ivan Bellocq (F), Aerosol Light Textures (Ger), ElectrixGarden (GER), Geoff Leigh (UK), Nad Spiro (SP), Geraldine Swayne (IRL), Traummaschine ( SP), Elena Golovnina (RUS), Rachael Tyrell (UK), Laborkester (NL), Mona Mur feat. En Esch (exKMFDM) (GER), Boy Division (GER), Incite (Ger), 13th Monkey (GER), Sternschuss Trio ( ISR/GER), Daniel Sarid & Assif Tsahar (ISR), Pierre Chevalier (B), Kosmische Dj (UK), Kakawaka (GER), Ronny Waernes (NOR), Polkadotsonraindrops (AUS), Brian Mitchell (USA), Kommissar Hjuler & Mama Baer (GER), Manami N (JAP), Platform 5 (UK), Moksha-Medicine Sound System (FIN/USA), Samessina (GER)

Faust Tour Dates:

6-21 Cork, Ireland - Midsummer Festival
6-27 Rechlin, Germany - Fusion Festival
7-04 Schiphorst, Germany - Avantgarde Festival
8-27 Aberdeen, Scotland - The Tunnels
8-28 Glasgow, Scotland - Ivory Blacks
8-30 Stradbally, Ireland - Electric Picnic Festival
9-01 Manchester, England - TBA
9-02 London, England - Cargo
9-06 Tokyo, Japan - Liquid Room
9-08 Tokyo, Japan - TBA
9-09 Tokyo, Japan - TBA
9-10 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
10-14 Istanbul, Turkey - TBA

Return to “Neverland” via The dB’s Online…
By Fred Mills

 

In 1982 pop legends the dB’s filmed a video for the song “Neverland” (originally on their second album, Repercussion), but final production on the Phil Marino-shot vid was never completed. Stills from the video nevertheless wound up being used for the sleeve art of their third album, 1984’s Like This — about which you can read the entire story behind the making HERE.

According to a recent email missive from the band’s own Will Rigby, however, the footage languished, the dB's lost touch with Phil, and before you could say ‘Super 8’ a quarter
century had gone by.”

In the meantime, however, filmmaker Jake Gorst created (in 2001) the official dB’s website, The dB’s Online, in part as an archival resource for fans of the band and also to flag contemporary activity as the group resumed operations a few years ago. “In no small coincidence,” Rigby advises us, “Gorst knew Phil Marino, although neither knew of the other's connection to the dB's until Jake suddenly realized and asked Phil. Through this happenstance not only were the dB's reunited with Phil, but he donated quite a bit of material to the band's archives, including the footage before you now. Jake has edited it together with Phil's blessing and as originally intended.”

This means, of course, that you can now view the video at the dB’s website!

 This has been a Blurt public service — with guitars.

Compiled by Blurt Staff

57 channels and nothin’ on? Not likely. Here’s BLURT’s top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST.

For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day or on subsequent days. 

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM/ ARTIST(S)

10:05 AM FLIX: Village People - Can't Stop the Music (1980)

12:00 PM MHD: O.A.R. - Live From Madison Square Garden

12:00 PM MTV2: FNMTV Premieres: Lil Wayne , Duffy , Vampire Weekend , Boys Like Girls , Lil Mama , Shawty Lo

2:40 PM Encore Westerns: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)

6:55 PM IFC: A Hard Day's Night (1964)

7:00 PM RAVE HD: From The Basement: The White Stripes , The Shins , The Divine Comedy

7:00 PM VH1C: Genesis - When in Rome

9:00 PM FUEL: The Daily Habit: Dylan Graves, The Black Angels

9:00 PM RAVE HD: Montreux Jazz Festival 2003: Radiohead , The Pretenders , Bonnie Raitt , Van Morrison

11:00 PM VH1C: Janis (1974) w/Janis Joplin , Big Brother & the Holding Company

11:35 PM NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Sleepercar

12:05 AM ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: N.E.R.D.

12:35 AM NBC: Late Night with Conan O'Brien:Drive-By Truckers

12:37 AM CBS: The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Amos Lee

1:35 AM NBC: Last Call with Carson Daly: Grizzly Bear

2:30 AM Comedy Central: Chappelle's Show: Cee-Lo

Carlin’s Corner: Man who gave us 7 words you can’t say on TV goes to the great stand-up improv in the sky.

By Fred Mills

George Carlin is dead at 71, from heart failure. He passed away yesterday in Los Angeles after being admitted to St. John’s Health Center complaining of chest pains; the comedian had a history of heart trouble.

What can we say? He was a legend and a pioneer. In 1972 he was arrested for “disturbing the peace” following a comedy sketch in Milwaukee in which he uttered his famous list of “seven words you can never say on television,” and after a radio station aired the routine it triggered an obscenity case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the sketch was “indecent but not obscene,” thereby making Carlin part of legal history.

 More recently, Carlin contributed to BLURT predecessor Harp magazine’s comedy issue. In our September 2007 issue, in a Carlin-penned article titled “How Radio Changed My Life” he reminisced about growing up in the ‘50s and creating mock-radio programs with a tape recorder, later graduating to being a Top 40 deejay himself. Wrote Carlin:

“Top 40 was only a couple of years old; not many markets had Top 40 stations. We’re talking about stations that just played a single playlist, over and over. This was proving to be a big thing in the ’50s, and we were in on the ground floor. Rock ’n’ roll was just getting started. The year that I went there, Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ was the hit. It was just the beginning of the white people taking over the black people’s music.

“See, I grew up in Harlem. I grew up with real rhythm-and-blues, not that stuff by the McGuire Sisters and the Crew-Cuts and all of these fake, white groups that covered the black hits. I hated when the whites took over the music. I didn’t really enjoy this rock ’n’ roll as much as some of the kids I was playing it for. I just had that little cultural divide, where I was more of a black-music person and I was playing this hybrid of black music and country that came to be called rock ’n’ roll.

“Now, again, not passing judgment on rock ’n’ roll, ‘cause [it] came to be a philosophy beyond just a certain way of having the beats in a measure of music arranged. So I am definitely a rock ’n’ roll person when it comes to that. I understood why the kids liked it, I loved playing it ’cause it was energetic and exciting, but I wasn’t a fan. I would go back and pick out other things.

“We had a playlist, but it was not rigid. You didn’t get punished if you played something you liked; you could do what you wanted. We were allowed to develop a little bit of patter and an on-the-air personality. I called it ‘Carlin’s Corner’ for a while.”

Thank ya, sir. Your contribution to Harp was greatly appreciated.

And all you parents out there: like it or not, Carlin wielded an influence of sorts upon your little carpet sharks circa 1991-97: that's when he served as the voice of the narrator on the Thomas The Tank Engine kid's show Thomas & Friends. Bet ya didn't hear any of those seven words then!

Okay, in tribute to GC, let’s revisit those words. (The usage examples that follow each word come from Wikipedia.) You might not be able to say ‘em on TV, but we can sure as fuck post ‘em to this website.

1. Shit - The bird shit on the statue.
2. Piss - I have to piss like a race horse.
3. Fuck - Fuck you.
4. Cunt - She has a gorgeous cunt.
5. Cocksucker - Go to hell, you cocksucker.
6. Motherfucker - You are a motherfucker.
7. Tits - Hey, nice tits.

Later, Carlin referred to three additional "auxiliary" words:

1. Fart - I farted.
2. Turd - Who dropped a turd in the urinal?
3. Twat - Shave that hairy twat.

And we’re hoping to read about smoking all that dope with Evan Dando!

By Blurt Staff     

Juliana Hatfield has unveiled details of her upcoming memoir, entitled When I Grow Up, slated to be published by John Wiley & Sons on September 29th.  The book follows the renowned singer/songwriter's much-anticipated new album, How to Walk Away, due from Hatfield's own Ye Olde Records on August 19th.

At turns wryly funny and heartbreakingly sincere, When I Grow Up offers Hatfield's inimitable perspective on her remarkable 20-year career.  Penned during her recent year-long sabbatical from music, the book chronicles her extraordinary journey, from her teenage beginnings in the pioneering indie-rock combo, Blake Babies, and iconic rise to alternative solo stardom, to the past decade's stunning streak of increasingly mature, critically acclaimed albums.

When I Grow Up takes readers backstage and behind the scenes of a life lived in rock 'n' roll, detailing the origin of her songs, her battles with clinical depression, and her quest to find purpose after all of her dreams had seemingly come true. Throughout the book, Hatfield recounts her skyscraping highs and deep, dark lows in the same engaging voice her fans have loved for years - spirited, witty, and always candid.

Penning When I Grow Up led to a burst of creative energy that also spawned Hatfield's 10th solo album, How To Walk Away.  Produced by Andy Chase (of revered alt-rock/pop band Ivy), the album is among her best to date, featuring songs that are both layered and unhurried, bittersweet yet life-affirming.  Hatfield is joined on the album by a number of friends made along the way, including Richard Butler (Psychedelic Furs), Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), Jody Porter (Fountains of Wayne), and Tracy Bonham.

"Shining On," a key track on How To Walk Away, is currently streaming at Hatfield's MySpace page, located at www.myspace.com/julianahatfield.   In addition, her blog sees her writing about songs selected by fans from her sizable repertoire.  "Read it at your own risk," Hatfield warns.  "Illusions may be shattered.”

Hatfield recently contributed "Back To Freedom," an exclusive track recorded during the How To Walk Away sessions, to the Green Owl Compilation: A Benefit For the Energy Action Coalition. You can read about that CD on the BLURT site HERE.

And check out our exclusive Hatfield interview in the current June digital magazine issue of BLURT!

[Photo Credit: Jonathan Stark]

Warhol, Klein, Truffaut and…. Beck?!?

By Fred Mills

With Beck’s new album Modern Guilt due July 8 from DGC, the promotion gears are starting to turn. First up: a video trailer for the album, which his label advises BLURT is “equal parts video mixtape and black and white montage that recalls classic film works from Warhol to Klein to Truffaut, all imbued with Beck's own unique visual identity--not to mention exclusive advance snippets of the record.”

Yow. Rarified film director company to be keepin’, eh?

Anyhow, go to this Amazon Music page for Beck and you can take a gander at the video, then decide for yourself.

[Photo Credit: Autumn DeWilde]

Guess they really do wanna hurt him….

By Blurt Staff

This news flash was just slipped over the BLURT transom: Boy George has been denied a visa for his upcoming tour — which would have marked the first time in a decade he’d performed in the U.S., and would have additionally included a free show for NYC sanitation workers (with whom he performed community service following a drug conviction) on August 17.

Here’s hoping it wasn’t the horrible photo that BLURT ran of Boy George last week that tipped the scales for U.S. officials in charge of denying visas. That’s why we’re running a different, kindler/gentler, more nostalgic image with this news item. C’mon, U.S., the dude ain’t gonna hurt nobody.

What follows is the official statement released by Boy George.

 “At the moment, Boy George cannot come to the United States of America because he has been refused permission to enter by the USA  Administration.  This is not in respect of anything he has done in the past but because he is facing a trial in November in London for something that happened in April last year.  George’s lawyers in London have absolutely forbidden us to speak about the facts of that case and all I can say is that George is astounded at the decision and is having lawyers here in the States look at it in the hope that someone will change their mind.  George has not been convicted of anything in London and there is a presumption in the Western World of innocence until proven guilty.  The proceedings that George faces in London are of course important and serious but George has been given unconditional bail by the Police and Courts in London thereby permitting him to travel anywhere in the World.  He is clearly not considered any form of risk in London in that regard and in that respect we are asking the US Authorities to reconsider their position.  George has cooperated fully with all investigations and enquiries into the case and has put forward a full and detailed defence.  We would love to be able to tell you what that defence is but we say again that we are absolutely forbidden by George’s London lawyers to do so because if it gets its way back to England it could amount to a contempt of Court.  George really would love to come to America and repay his American fans loyalty and that is why we are asking the US Authorities to reconsider their decision”.  
.

Boy George will not be the opening act on the tour, however….

By Fred Mills

Kings of Leon drop their fourth album, Only By The Night, on September 23, 2008. Only By The Night was recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, TN, and was produced by Angelo Petraglia, Jacquire King and Kings of Leon.

According to the band’s handlers Only By The Night is a “bold and expansive sonic statement that looks set to solidify Kings of Leon's position as one of the most important international acts of 2008 and beyond. It follows rapidly in the footsteps of the band's previous albums, Youth And Young Manhood, Aha Shake Heartbreak and Because Of The Times, all of which have quickly established them as one of the most prolific and acclaimed acts around.”

Well, ya got that right. Full details on the album t.b.a. The band has also lined up some pretty big-ass shows this summer, most of them high profile Euro festival dates. The tour begins on 27 June at the world famous Glastonbury festival, where they headline the main Pyramid stage, before continuing with further headline appearances at Oxegen, T In The Park and V Festival and throughout Europe. On August 9, the band will play the All Points West Festival in Liberty State Park, in Jersey City, NJ.

Kings Of Leon Tour Dates:

27 June: Glastonbury Festival, Somerset UK
29 June: Open Air St Gallen Festival, Switzerland
4 July: Roskilde Festival, Denmark
5 July: Werchter Festival, Belgium
8 July: Le Zenith, Paris France
11 July: Oxegen Festival, Ireland
13 July: T In The Park Festival, Scotland
18 July: Summercase Festival, Madrid Spain
19 July: Summercase Festival, Barcelona Spain
9 August: All Points West Festival, Liberty State Park, Jersey City
16 August: V Festival, Weston Park, Staffordshire UK
17 August: V Festival, Hylands Park, Chelmsford UK

Alan Vega: the man who put the “thug” in the term “thug-punk”…

By Fred Mills

Whattaya get when you line up Bruce Springsteen, Primal Scream, Peaches, Nick Cave’s Grinderman, Spiritualized, the Horrors, Sunn 0))+Pansonic, Julian Cope, Lydia Lunch, Vincent Gallo, Klaxons and the Liars? Why, a year-long, monthly series of limited edition 10-inch EPs all paying tribute to legendary electro-punk godfathers Suicide and helping mark vocalist Alan Vega’s upcoming birthday. The first EP will be released on July 28 (track listing below).

UK label Blast First (Petite) is behind the series and will additionally be releasing this month Suicide 1977-1978 a 6-CD box (limited to 300 copies) that features thirteen complete live Suicide sets from the early New York performances and their legendary first European tour supporting both The Clash & Elvis Costello. Some of the shows have been bootlegged in the past but have never before seen official release with top-notch sound quality. They are culled from the archives of Howard Thompson, the man who originally signed Suicide to Bronze/EMI outside of the USA.

Meanwhile, each EP will feature an established recording artist paying tribute to Alan by covering one of his songs, plus a previously unreleased Suicide/Vega rarity from the archives and a cover version by a young and upcoming band. Those whippersnappers include Beat The Devil/Shilpa Ray, No Bra, HTRK, X-Vectors, Nik Void (ex Kaito) , Effi Briest, S.C.U.M, Stephen Burroughs (ex Head Of David).

First Three EPs’ Track Listings:

July28:
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - DREAM BABY DREAM 6:55
SUICIDE - MIDNIGHT SPECIAL LIVE 3:51
BEAT THE DEVIL / SHILPA RAY - MR RAY 5:30

COVER IMAGE : EDWARD MAPPLETHORPE
TWO EDITIONS OF 4000 EACH BLACK & CLEAR VINYL

August 25:
THE HORRORS - SHADAZZ 4:18
SUICIDE - RADIATION 5:06
NIK VOID - ROCKET USA 3:58

COVER IMAGE : ALEX ROSE
EDITION OF 3000

Sept. 29:
PEACHES -JONNY 2:01
SUICIDE - JONNY LIVE 1978 3:07
S.C.U.M. - WILD IN BLUE 5:23

COVER IMAGE : CARY KWOK
EDITION OF 2000

***

Suicide 1977-1978 Track Listing:

DISC 1 1977 NYC  [46:52]
1 SUICIDE CBGB Sept 29 1977               24:43   
2 SUICIDE CBGB Dec 3 1977 set2           22:09    

DISC 2 1978 NYC  [71:21]
1 SUICIDE The Palladium NYC Jan 7 1978      21:45  
2 SUICIDE Maxs Jan 13 1978                     22:55  
3 SUICIDE CBGB Feb 3 1978                     26:41  

DISC 3 1978 BELGIUM/FRANCE  [70:42]
1 SUICIDE Brussels June 16 1978                               23:44  
2 SUICIDE Paris Olympia+Backstage June 18 1978            46:58  

DISC 4 1978 GERMANY  [68:29]
1 SUICIDE Hamburg Audiomax June 28 1978                   21:26 
2 SUICIDE Berlin Kant Kino/Neue Welt June 30 1978           22:42 
3 SUICIDE Berlin Kant Kino/Neue Welt June 30 1978 set2 24:21 

DISC 5 1978 UK  [64:17]
1 SUICIDE London MusicMachine July 24 1978           25:37 
2 SUICIDE Our Price Radio Ad                                 1:09 
3 SUICIDE Erics Liverpool July 29 1978                     31:12 
4 SUICIDE Erics pt 2 Frankie Teardrop July 29 1978      6:19 

DISC 6 1978 NYC [AFTER EUROPE]  [43:35]
1 SUICIDE Maxs August 25 1978 recorded by Eric Mache 43:35

Compiled by Blurt Staff

57 channels and nothin’ on? Not likely. Here’s BLURT’s top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST. For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day on or subsequent days.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM / ARTIST(S)

7:00 AM NBC: Today: Alejandro Escovedo

9:00 AM Syndicated: Live with Regis and Kelly: Taylor Swift

1:30 PM FUSE: Loaded: Weezer

1:35 PM Starz Cinema: Dixie Chicks - Shut Up and Sing

2:30 PM Sundance: Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man

3:00 PM MHD: Radiohead: From The Basement

4:00 PM VH1C: Soundstage: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

5:30 PM FUEL: The Daily Habit: The Black Angels

8:00 PM FLIX: Backbeat (1993)

8:00 PM MHD: CMT Crossroads: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

9:00 PM VH1C: Imagine: John Lennon (1988)

11:00 PM RAVE HD: Beautiful Noise: Sloan

11:30 PM FLIX: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

11:35 PM CBS: The Late Show With David Letterman: Mötley Crüe

11:35 PM NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Serj Tankian

12:05 AM ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Billy Idol

12:35 AM NBC: Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Billy Bragg

12:37 AM CBS: The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Phantom Planet

1:35 AM NBC: Last Call with Carson Daly: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

2:00 AM RAVE HD: Later With Jools Holland: Paul McCartney , Björk , Editors , Adele , The Nightwatchman , Shy Child

[Pictured: Alejandro Escovedo by Mick Rock]

Headliners include Radiohead, Beck Tom Petty, Ben Harper, Wilco & Jack Johnson

By Blurt Staff

Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival has announced new additions to the line-up for the first inaugural event. Howlin' Rain, The Dynamites and Carney are rounding out Friday August 22nd.  The Walkmen, Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck and Everest have been added to Saturday August 23rd. Toots & the Maytals, Rogue Wave, Mike Gordon and Vienna Teng have been added to Sunday, August 24th.

The multi-faceted, three-day festival will take place in San Francisco's historic Golden Gate Park on August 22 - 24, 2008. Radiohead,Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Jack Johnson will headline the event.  Tickets for the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival are available for purchase at www.SFOutsidelands.com. A portion of every ticket sold will directly benefit Golden Gate Park.

The updated schedule for each day is as follows:

FRIDAY AUGUST 22ND (FIRST BAND IS ON AT 5PM)

Radiohead
Beck
Manu Chao
The Black Keys
Cold War Kids
Steel Pulse
Black Mountain
The Felice Brothers
Howlin Rain
The Dynamites
Carney

SATURDAY AUGUST 23RD (FIRST BAND IS ON AT 1PM)

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
Primus
Steve Winwood
Lupe Fiasco
Café Tacvba
Regina Spektor
Galactic's Crescent City Soul Krewe feat. Dirty Dozen Horns
M. Ward
Devendra Banhart
Matt Nathanson
Two Gallants
Dredg
Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet feat. Bela Fleck
The Walkmen
Sidestepper
Kaki King
The Coup
Donavon Frankenreiter
Nellie McKay
Goapele
Sean Hayes
Rupa & The April Fishes
Everest

SUNDAY AUGUST 24TH (FIRST BAND IS ON AT 1PM)

Jack Johnson
Wilco
Widespread Panic
Rodrigo Y Gabriela
Broken Social Scene
Andrew Bird
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Drive-By Truckers
Toots & the Maytals
Stars
Rogue Wave
ALO
Jackie Greene
Mike Gordan
The Cool Kids
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals
Little Brother
Bon Iver
The Mother Hips
Nicole Atkins & The Sea
K'naan
Back Door Slam

Not just your mama’s block rockin’ beats…

By Blurt Staff

The Chemical Brothers decide to take a break, rest on their laurels, and follow up their Grammy-winning We Are The Night with Brotherhood a 2-CD greatest hits set, due Sept. 2 on Astralwerks. Disc One compiles key singles and adds new track "Keep My Composure" featuring Spank Rock.

Disc Two will be Electronic Battle Weapons 1-10. We are advised that since 1996 Electronic Battle Weapons “have acted as the laboratories for The Chems devious musical experiments and laid the rhythmic and melodic foundations for numerous tracks as well as providing some of the duos most formidable mixes. Until now Electronic Battle Weapons 1-9 have only been available on various limited formats and this is the first time they have been widely available.” Digital single "Midnight Madness" (also on Disc Two) will be part of the project as well:derived and developed from Electronic Battle Weapon 10 , "Midnight Madness" is “infectious, euphoric, report to the dancefloor.”

Track Listing:

DISC 1
01. Galvanize
02. Hey Boy Hey Girl
03.  Block Rockin' Beats
04.  Do It Again
05. Believe
06. Star Guitar
07. Let Forever Be (Featuring Noel Gallagher)
08. Leave Home
09. Keep My Composure (Featuring Spank Rock)
10. Saturate
11. Out Of Control
12. The Golden Path � (Featuring The Flaming Lips)��
13. Setting Sun � (Featuring Noel Gallagher)
14. Chemical Beats

DISC 2
1-10 Electronic Battle Weapons

Sexy sexy sexy sexy sexy sexy sexy…..

By Fred Mills

So, we don’t have anything better to do sometimes than trawl the internet looking for photos of Lykke Li. We noticed that if you enter the term “Sexy Swede” into a search engine, you’ll get a hit for an interview with the Swedish singer-songwriter on the Daily Fix posted at Current.com.

Check it out — “Sexy Swedish chanteuse, Lykke Li, steals the seat on the Daily Fix to tell us about her first full length album and her evolving dance styles.”

And she’s speaking in her native tongue, too. Subtitled… and Sexy!

Wanna bet she can’t get through a set without cursing?

By A.D. Amorosi

Last year, when I interviewed Nellie McKay for a lil ole magazine called Harp she was popping the cork on her soon-to-be-new Obligatory Villagers and chatting softly about all things Nellie and beyond.

“As a species in the world we’re all pretty funny,” she told me. “We’re also pretty tragic.”

Right said.

Now here comes Nellie and her even newer project: Nellie McKay & the Aristocrats Swing Band, who’ll be making their debut Tuesday July 8 @ 7:30pm at Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing at Damrosch Park (Lincoln Center Plaza, 62nd / Columbus, NYC).

There’ll be newer music than 2007’s sweet weird sounds, abstract arrangements from Obligatory Villagers, old favorites and, in the words of Nellie’s pal and PR gal Carla Parisi “If yer lucky, her score for ‘Election’ set to open on Broadway sometime before 2050.”

Whoa Nellie.

Meanwhile, check out some Nellie video action:

Nellie on "Fresh Air with Terry Gross"

and

“Mother of Pearl”

Ray Raposa gonna run run run run run….

By Blurt Staff

Long in the making, Castanets’ City of Refuge has finally gotten an official release date. It’s due Oct. 7 on Asthmatic Kitty, and the group will also be releasing Dub Refuge, a dub version of City remixed by Ero Gray.

If that wasn’t enough, Castanets has just finished an album of Hank Williams cover songs to be released in the near future. And there’s also that recently issued Castanets DVD, Tendrils: A Video Document, which is currently reviewed elsewhere on the BLURT website.   

Here are the details about the album, courtesy the record label:

The result of three weeks alone in a Nevada desert motel room, City of Refuge, Castanets' fourth full-length for Asthmatic Kitty, blazed into the mind of Ray Raposa with the rising sun. The idea came the morning after an overnight drive with tour companions from Oakland, CA, to Las Vegas, NV; waking in the back seat to a Nevada gas station dawn, Raposa said "here," and as the drive progressed, so did his conviction that this was where he would record the next Castanets album.

He sought and found solitude in a mom and pop motel in Overton, NV - unincorporated, two bars, no stoplight, home of The Lost City Museum - on the edge of Valley of Fire State Park (Moapa Valley to the indigenous peoples), an hour northeast of the surreal derangement of Vegas. Far from distractions and infused with the sense of isolation explored by the songs he'd written for the album, it proved the optimal backdrop. Minimal overdubs by friends Jana Hunter, Sufjan Stevens, Dawn Smithson (Jessamine, Sunn O)))), solo), Scott Tuma (Souled American, Boxhead Ensemble, solo), and co-producer Ero Gray were added later, but the silence of the sparsely populated region underscores the sounds of Raposa's voice and instruments.

Over the course of three albums and myriad EPs, Ray Raposa and cohorts have made a career of crawling out on tenuous limbs, but to the amazement of the crowd below, never falling off. With an uneasy, asymmetric weave of sung songs, chants, electronic noise solos and spaghetti-western guitar interludes, City suggests a film soundtrack, with overture, mood-setting and plot-development songs, intermission, character studies, and themes of resolution and reconciliation.

Tracklisting:

01. Celestial Shore
02. High Plain 1
03. The Destroyer
04. Prettiest Chain
05. Refuge 1
06. The Quiet
07. Glory B
08. High Plain 3
09. I'll Fly Away
10. The Hum
11. Savage
12. Shadow Valley
13. High Plain 2
14. Refuge 2
15. After the Fall

By Fred Mills

We can't help ourselves... we just like watching BLURT contributor Mike Edison jammin' on the six string while huffin' a lungful of skunk weed. Best bit of product placement (for his I Have Fun Everywhere I Go book, currently excerpted in the June digital mag of BLURT) we've seen all year.

And we're also digging a vintage MP3 of his band the Edison Rocket Train, featuring special guest Jon Spencer. Enjoy!

Check out “Freezerburn”

He’s a 21^st century man and still not sure if he wanna be here, but he’ll at least do a tour.

By Fred Mills

Ray Davies — currently featured in an exclusive Q&A in the June digital magazine of BLURT — will perform a handful of special acoustic shows in support of his critically-hailed Working Man’s Café (New West Records/Ammal Records).  As our very on Jud Cost puts it, about the Kinks mainman, “With a robust back catalog of Kinks songs whose shimmering melodies and Dickensian attention to detail would give even Lennon & McCartney a run for their dough, Davies’ Working Man's Café shows the old boy still fully in control of his art. His new tunes treat world peace, job out-sourcing and the demolition of old churches with equal zest.”

The dates will bring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Member and music legend to select markets where he will perform acoustically as a duo.

Ray Davies Tour Dates:

July 11^th - Ottawa, ON Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest

July 13^th - Winnipeg, MB Winnipeg Folk Festival

July 14^th - Calgary, AB Jack Singer Hall

July 15^th - Edmonton, AB Francis Winspear Centre for Music

July 18^th - Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom

July 19^th - Seattle, WA Showbox SoDo

July 22^nd - Anaheim, CA The Grove of Anaheim

Meanwhile, long as we’re singing Ray’s praises, here’s a little YouTube goodie: The Kinks performing “Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues” (from Muswell Hillbillies):

Cory McAbee pulls the plug on The Billy Nayer Show.

By A.D. Amorosi

Director, singer guitarist and composer Cory McAbee – the main man behind the crustily theatrical T Rex-meets-Kurt Weill The Billy Nayer Show – wrote a note today; a sad one.

“The Billy Nayer Show is dead.”

Weirdly romantic. Silly. Glam-ish. With each album, the San Franciscan born ensemble unearthed new ground - the skronk of The Villain That Love Built, psychedelic Goodbye Straplight Sarentino, I Will Miss You; the stark Rabbit. But now, he ended Nayer and named his new band after his Eraserhead-esque feature film, American Astronaut. And they/it have/has a new EP to prove as much – Goodbye California.

Go to the American Astronaut site and purchase the new EP. It’s also on iTunes.

Not a reinvention, but a “reboot”…

By Fred Mills

It’s been a good while since we had a new Mercury Rev album, but come Sept. 30 we’ll not only have one — titled Snowflake Midnight (Yep Roc) — but two Rev platters: a free download of an all-instrumental bonus album, Strange Attractor, which fans will be able to snag that same day either at the official M.R. site (www.mercuryrev.com) or at the Yep Roc page (www.yeproc.com). The records have been in the works since late last year and are produced, as usual, by the band (Jonathan Donahue, Grasshopper, and Jeff Mercel) with Dave Fridmann.

Yep Roc is referring to this as “a significant conceptual shift for the band… In a sense, ercury Rev had to "unlearn" twenty years of experience to make 'Snowflake.' ‘We wanted to let go of familiar and comfortable ideas of sound and ways of working,’ says Mercel. Traditional instruments gave way to vintage and cutting edge electronics. Songs weren't written so much as they evolved. Order was abandoned, and happenstance was embraced, resulting in one of the most fertile creative outpourings in the band's history. Every song included on 'Snowflake' was edited, manipulated and distilled from hours of recorded material.”

Tour dates for the fall are t.b.a.; Mercury Rev plays the All Tomorrow’s Parties fest Sept. 21 in Catskills, NY.

Hey, here’s a cool early Rev video. It’s “Chasing A Bee,” from Yerself Is Steam:

Compiled by Blurt Staff

57 channels and nothin’ on? Not likely. Here’s BLURT’s top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST. For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day on or subsequent days.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM / ARTIST(S)

10:00 AM Great American Country: Master Series: Dan Tyminski

10:00 AM Sundance: Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

12:00 PM MHD: FNMTV Premieres: Panic at the Disco , Flo Rida , Pussycat Dolls, The Ting Tings , Snoop Dogg , Will.I.Am

2:30 PM FUSE: Loaded: Paramore

7:00 PM MOJO: London Live!: The Zutons , Yeah Yeah Yeahs , Morrissey

8:00 PM BET: Hip Hop vs. America II: Where Did The Love Go?: MC Lyte , David Banner , Talib Kweli , Lyfe Jennings , Dead Prez

9:00 PM VH1C: Beat Street (1984)

10:00 PM FUSE: D'Fused: Weezer "Pork and Beans"

10:30 PM FUSE: Loaded: Weezer

11:00 PM Comedy Central: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Coldplay

11:35 PM CBS: The Late Show With David Letterman: Tift Merritt

11:35 PM ET NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Priscilla Ahn

12:00 AM RAVE HD: Montreux Jazz Festival 2006 w/Sting , The Strokes , Iggy Pop

12:30 AM MHD: SoulStage: Wyclef Jean

12:37 AM CBS: The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Three 6 Mafia

1:35 AM NBC: Last Call with Carson Daly: The Flobots

Brett, Mark and Bill, not to mention Chucky Margolis and the Unknown Comic, shovel the shtick.

By Fred Mills

This just in, shag hairdo fans, from our friends at MVD Entertainment. You KNOW you gotta have this one…

Do you love those great 70's sketch shows? Remember the hilarious Chucky Margolis? Yeah, those were the days...but wait, just when you thought every possible TV show was out on DVD, VSC reaches back in time to bring you the landmark release of The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show. That's right, for the first time on any format comes sixteen seriously zany half hours of Saturday morning family programming from an era when zany used to count for something. It's the Hudson Brothers - Brett, Mark and Bill, along with (Brett's signature character) Chucky Margolis, shticking and singing their way through sixteen half hours that entertained kids of all ages. Once called "The Kings of Saturday Morning" by John Lennon himself, The Hudsons are joined by series "irregulars" Ted Ziegler, Billy Van and Murray Langston, the latter destined to become The Unknown Comic. With Rod Hull and his Emu rounding out the zoo, the Hudson Brothers will take you back to the golden age of TV variety shows! Includes the Hudsons singing ...So You Are a Star (Top Ten Hit) and much more!

The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show DVD’s bonus materials include “The Best Sketches from the Hudson Brothers Show” plus “Best of Chucky Margolis.” It’s issued August 5 from MVD. Did we mention you gotta have this one? And yes, ladies, they actually CAN sing!

Liz Phair in San Francisco 6/23, Modest Mouse in Rochester 6/18

By Blurt Staff

Scroll down the BLURT homepage and cast your peepers on our exclusive Liz Phair concert review — if you can tear your eyes away from the pic of Liz, above, that is. And check out our ever-growing trove of live reviews too: we also added a Modest Mouse show yesterday, with other recent entries including Plant & Krauss, Grand Archives, Bruce Springsteen and Death Cab for Cutie.

You can just click on in if you wish…

Liz Phair (by Evan Chase)

Modest Mouse (by April S. Engram)

Not exactly your mother’s Dylan-esque “Basement Tapes,” eh?

By A.D. Amorosi

For anyone Rainbow bright Radiohead fanatics who can’t wait for Thom, Johnny & Co to roar through their village, the band, their usual producer Nigel Godrich and his TV show From the Basement (www.fromthebasement.tv/) nabbed ten performance videos recorded live at The Hospital studio in Covent Garden. It was all Captured in a day, with direction by David Barnard and sound by Godrich

They are dropping their hotness exclusively through iTunes; covered are tracks from In Rainbows and the album’s bonus CD (included in its deluxe box set edition).

Track Listing:

Bodysnatchers

House of Cards

Nude

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

15 Step

Reckoner

Go Slowly

Videotape

Bangers & Mash

All I Need

For the mini-me axe shredder in the house…

By Fred Mills

Fender Strat guitar maestro Stevie Ray Vaughan influence upon the modern-day era is unquestioned, and his tragic death in 1990 in a helicopter crash left a musical void that has yet to be filled by the countless Vaughan imitators and acolytes. But you knew that already, right?

Just to prove there’s always one more way to pay tribute to the late guitarist’s legacy, GMP Diecast is set to release a 1:3-scale Fender guitar replica of the man’s signature axe. It features real wood neck contoured to match the real guitar, an accurately contoured die-cast body with colors matched to the original, moveable pickup selector switch, volume and tone controls, real steel strings, and a moveable tremolo arm. It also comes with a display stand and wall mount and is housed in a full-color collector's box.

With each mini-guitar individually numbered as part of a limited-edition series, it’s got built-in collectors’ appeal as well and most likely will sell out. GMP, based in Winder, Georgia, is currently accepting pre-orders (price tag: $99.95) and you can view order details at the GMP website.

Gettin' kinda kooky....

By Blurt Staff

 They’ve barely completed their May/June US tour yet Britain’s Kooks are clearly bent on American domination with the announcement of a fall tour. If you want to get in on the internet presale you’ll have to head over to Ticketbastard, er, Ticketmaster today – your password will be kooksfalltour. (Amazon customers who were past Kooks buyers will get a special email letting them know that they have their own presale code for tickets.) Tickets are available to the general public this Friday, June 27.

Last December, BLURT’s own Zachary Bloom had this to say about the band in concert:

“Unlike many of their tuneful countrymen, The Kooks aren’t interested in echoing early-‘80s post-punk; much like Supergrass stood out amid the boozy swirl of Britpop, these boys draw from British Invasion’s embrace of tweeness, against a scene where that’s become anathema to so much of what’s topping the Top of the Pops…. The Kooks may leave even a passionate listener with the sense that what they do best is slightly ape really wonderful songs you already know to create a batch of wonderful songs you should know. (Some might argue that as long as the melodies are fresh, it doesn’t really matter—and this would get a lot of young bands off the hook.) But it seems that now they’ve got their footing, these boys are ready to launch off in their own direction. The lone and unnamed new song debuted during the evening didn’t bring to mind other acts the way some did; with its catchy vocal hooks and chiming guitar, it simply sounded like The Kooks.”

So there ya have it!

Kooks Tour Dates:

September 4th – Clinton, NY – The Annex at Hamilton College – private show
September 5th – Montreal, QC – Club Soda – all ages -
September 6th – Toronto, ON – Virgin Festival – all ages -
September 8th – Washington, DC – 9.30 Club – all ages -
*September 10th – New York, NY – Rumsey Playfield Central Park Summerstage -

*September 12th – Asbury Park, NJ – Stone Pony – all ages -
*September 15th – Philadelphia, PA – Electric Factory – all ages -
September 30th – Baton Rouge, LA – Varsity Theatre – 18+ -
*October 2nd – Dallas, TX – House of Blues – all ages -
*October 3rd – Houston, TX – Meridian – all ages -
October 4th – Austin, TX – Antone’s – all ages -
October 5th – Tulsa, OK – Cains Ballroom – all ages -
*October 7th – St Louis, MO – The Pageant – all ages -
October 8th – Des Moines, IA – People’s Court – all ages -
*October 9th – Madison, WI – Barrymore Theatre – all ages -
*October 11th – Chicago, IL – Riviera Theatre – all ages -
*October 12th – Cincinatti, OH – Bogarts – all ages -
*October 14th – Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall – all ages -
*October 21st – Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo – all ages -
*October 22nd – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom – all ages -
October 24th – Sacramento, CA – Empire – all ages -
*October 25th – San Francisco, CA – Warfield Theatre – all ages -
*October 27th – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues – all ages -
*October 28th – Hollywood, CA – Hollywood Palladium – all ages -

(*indicates Ticketbastard venues)

Photos taken by BLURT Associate Editor Andy Tennille.

By Blurt Staff

BLURT feature-story stars My Morning Jacket — you can read our Associate Editor Andy Tennille’s article on them HERE — kicked off their world tour in support of their new album, Evil Urges, at a sold-out Radio City Music Hall in New York City last Friday, June 20.

"From the moment the band hit the historic stage on 6th Avenue, My Morning Jacket owned it," say Tennille, who photographed the show. "Jim James and company delivered a thrilling three-hour performance that included the entire track list from Evil Urges mixed in with songs from their entire catalog. Gotham got the full-bore Jacket experience, which will no doubt prepare them for the band's return to the Big Apple for their New Year's Eve show at Madison Square Garden."

Setlist:

Evil Urges

Off The Record

I'm Amazed

Highly Suspicious

What a Wonderful Man

Touch Me Part 1

Sec Walkin

Golden

Thank You Too

The Way That He Sings

Two Halves

Phone Went West

Aluminum Park

Steam Engine->

Smokin From Shootin->

Touch Me Part 2

(encores)

Bermuda Highway

Librarian

Wordless Chorus

It Beats 4 U

Dondante

The Bear

Lay Low

Run Thru

Anytime

One Big Holiday

To check out Tennille's entire photo gallery from the show, check out his Liner Note Junkie site.

Dennis Wilson lives!

By A.D. Amorosi

While we’re not one to celebrate sales charts, I have to admit these marks are impressive. According to Sony/BMG Legacy:

# 4 ROCK RELEASE ON AMAZON.COM DAY OF RELEASE!

# 2 BEST SELLER AT AMEOBA RECORDS IN LOS ANGELES!

# 16 DEBUT ON THE UK ALBUM CHART!

We’re no talking about a Beck or a Coldplay. This is the Epic/Legacy release of Pacific Ocean Blue: Legacy Edition – troubled Beach Boy drummer Dennis Wilson’s solo album from 1978 and its accompanying tracks from his unfinished Bambu sessions. To say that the moody record was a lost emotive masterpiece might be a bit much. But it was a gruff blue-eyed soul/folk/rock effort that showed off skills only hinted at within latter-day B-Boys hits such as “Sail On Sailor” and other Brother label releases.

Wilson died in 1983, at age 39.

You can read BLURT’s review of the album HERE or in our June digital magazine.

[Photo Credit: Dean O. Torrence]

This is actually NOT a paid advertisement… we just think it’s kinda cool…

By Blurt Staff

“What do you get the rocker that has everything?”

That’s the question being posed by Londonedge New York (LENY), an alternative trade show slated for NYC July 21-22 featuring designers from all over the world. On display again will be the coolest emerging trends in streetwear gear — cult brands from the UK, Europe and the US coming together under one roof at the River Pavillion (Javits Center). We are advised to “expect the hottest, alternative fashion trends in clothing, footwear, accessories and giftware for the stylist looking for something fresh and new.”

Well, snap! Here’s the deal:

The search for the ultimate t-shirt is constant and unrelenting but exhibitors such as Dead Cities (www.DeadCitiesClothing.com), Impact Merchandising (www.ImpactMerch.com) and Steady Clothing (www.SteadyClothing.com) have just what you’re looking for. Is it time for a new belt and buckle? Inochi has a new line that is all hand carved (www.InochiJewelry.com).  A killer watch is the crown jewel in any attire. Look to Nemesis Watch/ Exact Time Corp. (www.NemesisWatch.com) for style matched with rugged endurance. This tradeshow offers head to toe inspiration and there will be no shortage of jewelry and accessories either such as the whimsical options offered up from Alter Ego Jewelry (www.AlterEgoJewelry.net). Bring on the boots too; trend-setting footwear that will kick in any doors will be on display such as new lines from New Rock Shoes (www.newrock.es).  

And at the center of it all there is the astonishing jewelry and comprehensive product lines from Alchemy of England (www.alchemygroup.com) Alchemy of England is the brand name of Alchemy’s diverse selection of high-quality traditional and modern pewter giftware including flasks, figurines and tableware. New and always expanding product lines are available from the Alchemy 1977 division where 100 new products are produced a year. Another resource from this company lies in the imagery they create and license. The famous collection of Alchemy Gothic artworks, paintings and graphics is a vast resource of superior and popular images covering several cult genres.

Influential fashion stylists / cutting edge photographers / make-up artists should not miss out on this opportunity of a lifetime.  This is a trade show like no other! Be a part of the LENY’s triumphant return to New York City and experience rock and cult fashion first hand. Our host, LENY, promises a relaxed, fun and chill tradeshow for the fashion industry full of charming punk-induced Brit hospitality.

Contact the LENY folks, or find out more information at:

 www.Myspace.com/LondonedgeNY

www.Leny.Londonedge.com

Compiled by Blurt Staff

57 channels and nothin’ on? Not likely. Here’s BLURT’s top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST. For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day on or subsequent days.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM / ARTIST(S)

7:35 AM Starz Edge: Drive Well, Sleep Carefully: On The Road With Death Cab For Cutie

10:00 AM Comedy Central: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Coldplay

10:10 AM Showtime Next: Le Tigre: Eurockeennes of Belfort Festival

2:00 PM MOJO: London Live!: a-ha , Duels , Belle & Sebastian

4:00 PM FUSE: Steven's Untitled Rock Show: Gogol Bordello, Madonna

4:30 PM Starz In Black: Poetic Justice (1993)

8:00 PM BET: Hip Hop vs. America II: Where Did The Love Go?: Pt. II

9:00 PM FUEL: The Daily Habit: Damien Jurado

9:00 PM RAVE HD: Glastonbury Festival 2007: The Killers , Paul Weller , Rufus Wainwright , Gogol Bordello , Arcade Fire , Paolo Nutini

11:00 PM MOJO: London Live!: Beck

11:35 PM NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Sheryl Crow , Justin Timberlake

12:05 AM ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Cyndi Lauper

12:30 AM Encore Love: Less Than Zero (1987)

1:35 AM NBC: Last Call with Carson Daly: Brett Dennen

2:00 AM FUEL: Check 1, 2: The Cool Kids

(Pictured: Damien Jurado)

Bush’s karma chameleons pull a boner.

By Blurt Staff

When US State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey was asked why Boy George was denied a visa for his upcoming tour, he choked on his water. Evidently, that the pre-emption of the erstwhile Culture Club singer's North American tour came up in the press conference at all shocked Casey. When prodded to say why BG was blocked from entering the country, Casey appropriated a lyric in a limpwristed attempt at humor saying, "Do you really want to hurt him?"

Following it up, Casey stated, "Obviously, visa records are confidential. But I’d simply note that there often are difficulties for individuals who either are currently subject to criminal charges or otherwise may have criminal records. So I think you might want to look toward some of those reasons as why he might be having some difficulties here."

Casey alludes to George's pending trial for the assault and false imprisonment of a Norwegian man, Auden Carlsen, in April 2007. According to the UK's Daily Mail, Carlsen, allegedly a male escort, was invited to George's home to pose for photographs. Carlsen denies being an escort, saying he agreed only to the photo session and accuses George and a companion chained him to a wall, then trotted out the whips and chains and dildos (to be fair, the Mail says sex toys, not dildos, so maybe they were french ticklers and pocket, uh, pockets).

Casey said no more on the matter; you can view the video of the press briefing HERE.

The Carlsen case goes to trial in November 22 in London. George is appealing the visa denial, and hopes to complete part of the 29-date tour, which was to begin July 10 in Aspen, CO with stops in five Canadian cities before culminating in a House of Blues performance in Dallas, TX. As well, it includes a planned free show for the New York Department of Sanitation's on August 17 for the DSNY's Family Day--meant to express his gratitude for their kindness when he worked with the DSNY in 2006 (as part of court-ordered community service for filing a false police report in August of that year). 

On www.boygeorgelive.com, George states, "I am getting my life together and was really looking forward to performing in concert for all my loyal fans. I love America and I am really sad that it appears that I am not allowed to visit a place that I have called home at various times in my life. But what has happened to me has nothing to do with the American people--they are kind people with big hearts."

Complete dates for the now-uncertain North American tour--George's first in a decade—can be found at our June 12 news item on Boy George (check that photo, kids!).

Red hot Midwest band hits road, drops load.

By Fred Mills

Backyard Tire Fire’s new album The Places We Lived drops Aug. 26 via our good friends at Hyena, and prior to that the Bloomington, Illinois-based combo will hit the road for a Midwest tour. Bloodshot’s Ha Ha Tonka will handle opening duties, and then later this year the band will go out on tour as an opener itself, for Reverend Horton Heat.

Here’s the scoop from Hyena:

Distinguished by a rare combination of workingman authenticity and indie-rock eccentricity, The Places We Lived is defiantly contemporary, while remaining true to its Midwestern roots. It's a collection spiked with the truth-telling salt of Hank Williams, the beautiful melancholy of vintage Tom Waits and the pop smarts of a Midwest Big Star. On songs like "How In The Hell Did You Get Back Here," "Shoulda Shut It" and "Rainy Day," Backyard Tire Fire balance pointed songwriting with visceral performances and intriguing studio production. The Places We Lived follows the band's 2007 studio effort, Vagabonds and Hooligans, a pivotal release that found the group popping up on numerous tastemaker blogs and year-end "best of" lists. They'd go on to play over 200 dates last year, including opening slots and co-bills with Jason Isbell, Clutch, Lynyrd Skynyrd and William Elliott Whitmore among others. 

Backyard Tire Fire Tour Dates:

June 30 / Summerfest / Milwaukee, WI
July 3 / Naperville Ribfest / Naperville, IL
July 18 / Ravenswood  Festival / Chicago, IL
July 19 / Donoroo Festival / St. Louis, MO
July 27 / Forecastle Festival / Louisville, KY
August 1 / Dunegrass Festival / Empire, MI
August 3 / Brown Baer / Elkhart Lake, WI

August 22 & 23 / Paulie's / Bloomington, IL
September 5 / Metro / Chicago, IL
September 10 / Picador / Iowa City, IA
September 11 / The Rave Bar / Milwaukee, WI
September 12 / The Annex / Madison, WI
September 13 / 7th St. Entry / Minneapolis, MN
September 17 / TBD / Columbia, MO
September 18 / Record Bar / Kansas City, MO
September 19 / Josie's / Emporia, KS

September 20 / Lucas School House / St. Louis, MO
September 24 /  Grog Shop / Cleveland, OH
September 25 / The Basement / Columbus, OH
September 26 / Spin Nightclub / Indianapolis, IN (Sponsored by My Old Kentucky Blog)
September 27 / Southgate House / Newport, KY
December 3 / Mercy Lounge / Nashville, TN (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 6 / Majestic Theater / Detroit, MI (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 7 / Intersection / Grand Rapids, MI (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 8 / Oneida Casino / Green Bay, WI (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 10 / Ottos / Dekalb, IL (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 11 / Peoples Court / Des Moines, IA (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 12 / Cotillion Ballroom / Wichita, KS (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)
December 13 / Cains Ballroom / Tulsa, OK (w/ Reverend Horton Heat)

[Photo Credit: Eric Schwab]

Legendary photographers woke up this morning, got themselves some beers.

By A.D. Amorosi

The Morrison Hotel. It’s not just an irksome yet elegant Doors album anymore. It’s a new gallery culled from the ashes (not actual cinder, we’re metaphor-ing here) of 313 Bowery Street in Manhattan, the late home to the legendary CBGB Gallery.

It’s also several other galleries all owned by producer Peter Blachley, record store owner Rich Horowitz and music photographer Henry Diltz. There’s Morrison Hotel Galleries in Soho in NYC, La Jolla California, and LA. But now they’ll show off photos taken by Columbia Records' in-house photographer Don Hunstein and others snapped at Columbia Records’ long-memorable 30th Street Studio in Manhattan. Lenny Bernstein did West Side Story there, Dylan did Highway 61 there. Glenn Gould, Miles Davis, Johnny Cash. Lots. The studio was amongst the legends, if you’re one of those guys who knows about studio stuff and remembers life before bedroom technology.

On July 18, Sony/BMG’s new photo archive Icon Collectibles opens the vaults, the bats’ll fly out and they’ll put ‘em on the gallery walls of 116 Prince Street in New York City and show pictures of Mingus, Ali, Ella and more.

Smile. Then click HERE.

Much ado about nuthin’ actually… why would you want to listen to 5 CDs’ worth of crappy Prince covers anyway?

By Fred Mills

Oh, snap. What do you get when you get 50 Norwegian artists to record covers of Prince tunes and them issue the results as a 5-CD box set? Why, a buncha lawyers descending upon the record label waving lawsuits!

That’s right. In a music news gossip item posted at The Daily Swarm, his Purpleness received word from C + C Records about the project and his response was to have his legal team sue C+C and demand that all extant copies of the box be destroyed.

Sounds like overkill to us.

Of course, there are some ironic elements here, aside from the obvious fact that TRIBUTE ALBUMS SUCK.

One is that the box set is being billed as “a limited edition” of 5000 copies; funny, but last time we looked, a 5000 print run for an indie label is hardly “limited.” And who can even NAME a single Norwegian artist, much less 50?

Really, who gives a shit about a box set of Prince covers by obscure bands on an obscure label?

Filmed in April at Asheville’s Orange Peel club.

By Fred Mills

On April 16, 2008, Anti- recording artist DeVotchKa descended upon the Orange Peel — recently named by Rolling Stone as one of the top five clubs in America — in Asheville, NC, and BLURT was on hand. We filmed a portion of the show and did an interview with frontman Nick Urata and you can view this exclusive BLURT video in our video section.

BLURT Multi-Media Director Allie Goolrick produced, and cub reporter/Shuffle mag editor John Schacht handled the interview chores. The video footage was shot by Lindsey Liden, Manny Sadek and Kelly Doty. Big thanks to our friends at the Orange Peel!

We’re just glad it ain’t a Verve Pipe reunion!

By Fred Mills

A long, long time in coming — a decade, in fact, since 1997’s Urban Hymns — the Verve’s fourth album Forth is set for an Aug. 19 release in the U.S. It’ll be on the group’s homegrown label On Your Own (run, we are told, by the Verve's management company Big Life in association with Rob Stevenson's company Stolen Transmission and distributed by MRI/Megaforce/Red). Band members Richard Ashcroft (he of the erstwhile solo career), Simon Jones, Nick McCabe will also be making the European festival rounds this summer, although no word yet on plans to come Stateside.

The band split in 1998, not too pleasantly, but last year the members drifted back together. Speaking to Billboard earlier this year, band manger Jaz Summers remarked, "This is a very special band, with four incredibly talented people. They made three great albums before. And they're going to make another great album now. There's a bit of magic when the four of them come together."

Well, that’s what a band manager is paid to say. But this time he just might be right…

Track Listing:

1. Sit And Wonder
2. Love Is Noise
3. Rather Be
4. Judas
5. Numbness
6. I See Houses
7. Noise Epic
8. Valium Skies
9. Columbo
10. Appalachian Springs

Verve Tour Dates:

Jun 27 2008     8:00P

            The Eden Project        Cornwall

Jun 29 2008     8:00P

            Glastonbury Festival   Glastonbury

Jul 4 2008        8:00P

            Werchter Festival        Werchter

Jul 5 2008        8:00P

            Bobital Festival           Bobital

Jul 11 2008      8:00P

            T In The Park Kinross

Jul 12 2008      8:00P

            Oxegen Festival          Dublin

Jul 16 2008      8:00P

            Italia Wave Festival    Livorno

Jul 18 2008      8:00P

            Summercase Festival   Madrid

Jul 19 2008      8:00P

            Summercase Festival   Barcelona

Aug 9 2008     8:00P

            Summersonic Festival             Tokyo

Aug 10 2008   8:00P

            Summersonic Festival             Osaka

Aug 16 2008   8:00P

            V Festival        Stafford

Aug 17 2008   8:00P

            V Festival        Chelmsford

They like him, they really like him!

By Blurt Staff

Tom Waits, currently on the road for his Gloom And Doom tour, was about a quarter of the way into his set at the El Paso’s Plaza Theatre when Frank Perez—a uniformed officer--walked onstage, which prompted Waits to explain, “I paid all those tickets” and “she was dead when I got there.” Perez was soon followed by Councilwoman Susie Boyd who handed the Bard of Bawl a plaque which held a key to the city. Waits, visibly moved said, “This is a first for me, a real first.”

Concert reviews from the tour have been uniformly ecstatic. Here are some clips, courtesy Waits’ p.r. agent:

“Friday’s…show at the Plaza Theatre…probably was unlike anything ever seen in the historic, atmospheric movie palace, before and after its 2006 restoration….playing out like some twisted journey through a house of broken mirrors…Friday’s concert was part performance art, part roadhouse blues revival, all good.” (—Doug Pullen, El Paso Times)

“No artist brings together a larger collection of scar-covered and demon-riddled humans in his work than Tom Waits, whose keen observations of the human condition are funneled through characters holding on dearly to thin swatches of hope…Waits opened his oddly routed world tour Tuesday in Phoenix with a riveting and cohesive two-hour set that felt like a reunion of oddballs, crackpots and believers telling their stories through a series of wheezes, harrumphs and shouts.” (—Phil Gallo, Daily Variety)

“Credit Waits for stomping…with some combination of passion and urgency that never feels like a put on. His is a theatrical show, make no mistake about it. He flails about like a man in the throes of a seizure, and when he stomps on the stage a little cloud of smoke flies up. But the theatrics never clutter the songs.” (—Andrew Dansby, Houston Press)

“In the 20-odd years since Tom Waits last played Dallas, his music has grown more demented and, at the same time, more poignant.” (—Thor Christensen, Dallas Morning News)

“Waits is underrated as a vocalist. His baritone is easy to caricature, but a lengthy concert like this one offers a chance to hear what else he can do. He often capped a song with an eerie falsetto; on a couple of songs…he adopted the hiccupping style of early Elvis Presley…And he was frankly emotional on the ballads that demand that approach…Over the years, Waits has developed a stage presence that complements his penchant for vocal disguise. Following the lineage that connects Japanese Kabuki theater to Bertolt Brecht’s Theater of Alienation, Waits mimics the actions of the soul man or the preacher until they become surreal. (—Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times)

Waits continues his tour through St. Louis (6/26), Columbus (6/28), Knoxville (6/29), Jacksonville (7/1), Mobile (7/2), Birmingham (7/3) and Atlanta (7/5), before heading off to Europe for a string of dates.

Sweeping in as the leaves change…

By Fred Mills

Though there’s no new album to promote — the most recent one was last year’s excellent In Our Bedroom After The War (Arts & Crafts) — Montreal collective Stars will be doing a three week tour starting about NOW over in Europe then landing on the North American shores next week. It will take them across the U.S. and back, and then back across.

Or, as we are smartly advised by the band’s handlers, “These fine purveyors of heart-ache and romance will sweep in as the leaves change.”

Go to their MySpace page (www.myspace.com/stars ) and you can check out a bunch of their videos, including the new one for “Bitches in Tokyo,” directed by Kevin Drew and George Vale, aka Experimental Parachute Movement.

Stars Tour Dates:

Jun 27 2008     8:00P

            Tivoli de Helling         Utrecht

Jun 28 2008     8:00P

            Furia Sound Festival   Cergy Pontoise

Jun 29 2008     8:00P

            Glastonbury Festival   Pilton

Jul 5 2008        8:00P

            Festival d’été de Quebéc        Vieux-Quebec, Quebec

Jul 8 2008        9:30P

            Ottawa Bluesfest        Ottawa, Ontario

Aug 24 2008   8:00P

            San Francisco Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival          San Francisco, California

Sep 17 2008    8:00P

            Pearl Street      Northampton, Massachusetts

Sep 19 2008    8:00P

            Trocadero Theatre       Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Sep 20 2008    8:00P

            Terminal 5       New York, New York

Sep 24 2008    8:00P

            The Riviera Theatre     Chicago, Illinois

Sep 25 2008    8:00P

            The Pageant    St. Louis, Missouri

Sep 26 2008    8:00P

            The Granada   Lawrence, Kansas

Sep 28 2008    8:00P

            Austin City Limits Music Festival      Austin, Texas

Oct 1 2008      8:00P

            Avalon            Hollywood, California

Oct 2 2008      8:00P

            House of Blues - Anaheim      Anaheim, California

Oct 4 2008      8:00P

            Rio Theatre     Santa Cruz, California

Oct 8 2008      8:00P

            Wonder Ballroom       Portland, Oregon

Oct 9 2008      8:00P

            The Showbox Theatre             Seattle, Washington

Blurt submits, for your approval, this super-sneak preview of the upcoming Patti Smith documentary.

By Fred Mills

Dream Of Life was written and directed by Steven Sebring. It was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this year, and Sebring and Phillip won the Sundance Cinematography Award. You heard rumors about it ages ago, perhaps more concrete information earlier this year, and finally, if you were lucky, you might have even attended a screening at various film festivals.

Check out the preview trailer in our Video section, or just click HERE.

Poet. Artist. Singer. Friend. Mother. Activist. Performer. Legend.

Exactly.

Now coming to a theater near you. What, you’d rather see that Hulk flick? Shame on you…

Compiled by Blurt Staff

57 channels and nothin’ on? Not likely. Here’s BLURT’s top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST. For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day on or subsequent days.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM / ARTIST(S)

7:35 AM TMC: The Jazz Singer (1980) w/Neil Diamond

11:00 AM RAVE HD: Other Voices: Ray Davies , Candie Payne , Mick Flannery , Glen Hansard , Markéta Irglová , Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

1:00 PM MHD: Storytellers: Pearl Jam

2:00 PM MHD: Storytellers: Coldplay

2:30 PM FUEL: The Daily Habit: Damien Jurado

4:00 PM RAVE HD: Rave HD Concerts: Oasis Live at Manchester Stadium

5:00 PM MHD: FNMTV Premieres: Lil Wayne , Duffy , Vampire Weekend, Boys Like Girls , Lil Mama , Shawty Lo

5:00 PM Showtime: End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones

7:00 PM MOJO: London Live!: The Charlatans UK , Richard Ashcroft, The Streets

7:00 PM VH1C: The Doors (1991)

9:00 PM Rave HD Concerts: Kaiser Chiefs: Live at the Trabendo

10:00 PM Sundance: Wilco - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

12:35 AM NBC: Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Raconteurs

1:00 AM: The Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav

1:30 AM VH1 Classic in Concert: Twisted Sister

1:35 AM NBC: Last Call with Carson Daly: P.O.D.

2:00 AM VH1 Classic in Concert: Heaven & Hell - Live From Radio City

Nine Inch Nails  to offer limited CD/DVD and unlimited vinyl editions of album.

By Blurt Staff

Let's hear it for added value: After offering its latest album, The Slip, as a free download, Nine Inch Nails has prepared two physical releases of the album, both with a price tag.

On July 22 comes a six-panel digipak CD/DVD iteration of The Slip, limited to a scant 250,000 copies (get 'em while they're hot, people) and containing tour rehearsal footage, 24-page booklet--and stickers! Then on August 5, and here's marketing brilliance for ya, they'll unleash an unlimited gatefold 180-gram vinyl version of the album. (Each retails for $24.98.)

Maybe somebody should tell Trent Reznor he has this backwards--or maybe this is just another upside-down, bizarro NIN twist? The mind reels.

Supreme Court strikes down D.C. gun ban; Nuge goes ballistic.

By Randy Harward

Following a 5-4 Supreme Court decision calling Washington, D.C.'s 32-year-old ban on owning handguns unconstitutional, classic rocker, carnivore and rifle-toter Ted Nugent still couldn't resist shooting off his mouth. In a statement titled "A "Supreme" Court? I Can Do Better," the Nuge carped that anything less than complete, unfettered access to firearms an outrage and only "asinine," "soul-dead," "low-life scoundrels" would think otherwise.

It gets better--or worse. From the bellicose statement:

"Keep-this means the gun is mine and you can’t have it. This does not mean I will register it with a government agency. The government works for “we the people,” not the other way around, regardless of what Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein or Barack Hussein Obama or 4 supreme justices may try to tell you."

No matter your stance on the issue, you have to wonder if Nuge is too stupid to know when he's won. Anyone with rudimentary counting skills and retaining at least five out of their twenty digits can tell you that five beats four, game goes to Nuge, the NRA and D.C. residents who wish to keep handguns in their homes. True, the Antonin Scalia-written decision doesn't affect the illegality of carrying weapons outside the home, and the guns must still be registered with law enforcement, but is he serious?

Going off half-cocked like this is why it's easy to see some gun enthusiasts--and even easier to view weekend militia-men--as hopelessly bonkers. Here Nuge's side has managed to squash a big part of a gun control bill that stood for more than three decades, but because the decision is a partial victory--not to mention a 5-4 squeaker, it's cause to crank up the dyspeptic rhetoric and air raid sirens? Even NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre realizes the significance--he's using the decision to mobilize efforts to strike down handgun bans in Chicago and San Francisco. And even notoriously dim President Bush sees it's a good thing:

"As a longstanding advocate of the rights of gun owners in America, I applaud the Supreme Court's historic decision today confirming what has always been clear in the Constitution: the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear firearms," Bush said [in a statement].

Uncle Teddy seems to say, to borrow from one of his album titles, that when he licks you, well, why don't you just suck it? (We're pretty sure that infringes on our personal freedom, Unkie.) Ain't it all about compromise? Can we get a little tit for rat-a-tat? That is, in light of your victory, can you shut yer yap for a minute and, I dunno, pause to consider the significance of what has transpired? (Yes, we are setting you up for the delicious irony of hearing you cry about your 1st Amendment rights, you braying jackass. Hee-haw.)

For your entertainment, the unabriged screed:

A “SUPREME” COURT?  I CAN DO BETTER                            

by Ted Nugent

It is glaringly obvious that a critical lesson in history 101 is due in America, for it appears that not only does a lunatic fringe of anti-freedom Americans dismiss our founding fathers’ clear declaration of independence and succinct enumeration of our God-given individual rights, but some Americans have the arrogance and audacity to question whether the right to self-defense is indeed one of these individual rights. Dear God in heaven, who could be this soulless? How about 4 out of the 9 so called “Supreme” justices of the land. God help us all.

Who could be so asinine as to believe that a free man has no such right to keep and bear arms for self-defense? What kind of low-life scoundrel would know that courageous heroes of the U.S. Military would volunteer over and over again to sacrifice and die for such self-evident truths, then turn around and spit on their graves by discounting the very freedoms that these brave men and women have died to protect?

Will these supreme legal scholars also affirm an individual right to choose the religion of our individual choice? Do they authorize our individual freedom of speech? Can you imagine? Them is fighting words my friends, and the line drawn in the sand has never been more outrageous.

Recent USA Today and Gallup polls showed a whopping 73% of good Americans know damn well that we are all created equal, and that we each have an individual right to protect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. What kind of jackass doesn’t know this? Allow the guitar player to translate for the soul-dead among us.

Keep-this means the gun is mine and you can’t have it. This does not mean I will register it with a government agency. The government works for “we the people,” not the other way around, regardless of what Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein or Barack Hussein Obama or 4 supreme justices may try to tell you.

Bear-this means I’ve got it right here, on me, either in my grasp or damn near. This does not mean locked away in a safe, trigger-locked or stored at the local sporting club.

Shall not be infringed-this of course is another way of saying Don’t tread on me, for we will not be your willing crime victims, subjects, servants or slaves, so don’t even think about it.

When the evil King’s gangsters came to collect unfair taxes from Americans, we tossed their tea into the drink. When they came to disarm us into helplessness against their old world tyrannical ways, we met them at Concord Bridge and shot them dead till they quit treading on us. Any questions children? I didn’t think so.

Corrupt men cannot be trusted, hence the right of “the people” to choose the individual church of our choice, to speak our individual ideas and beliefs, to have individual freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures, and ultimately, to exercise our individual right to keep and bear arms so that evildoers cannot do unto us that which we would not do unto them. Get it? I would love to meet the human being who would argue these points with us. We would be looking at a fascist, and of course fascists, by all historical and empirical evidence, must be eliminated.

If you value the American Way, if you believe in the words and spirit of the US Constitution and our sacred Bill of Rights, if you know in your heart that you have the right, the duty, the spiritual obligation to protect yourself and your loved ones from evil in all of its forms, then you had best contact each and every one of your elected officials right away and let them know that you know exactly what the Second Amendment says and stands for. Remind them about the “shall not be infringed” clause.

It will not be the fault of the rotten anti-Americans out there who don’t believe in individual rights that rape and pillage our Constitution, it will be the fault of those who know better but failed to speak up. Now is the time to fortify America, and we better inform the Supreme Court just who truly is the “Supreme” Court of America-We the people. Individual people with individual, God given rights. The real America. Live free or die.

Nine shows, seven cities, two coasts… any questions?

By Fred Mills

Paul Weller. You know the name: Jam, Style Council,  solo icon. His new album 22 Dreams, which went to #1 in England upon its recent release, is due Stateside on July 22 from Yep Roc. Naturally he’ll be touring in support of it, and his label’s calling it his “most extensive U.S. tour in years.” Funny thing, it’s a mere nine dates — maybe 9 shows would amount to an “extensive” U.K. tour? —and just in the usual major markets.

That’s okay. The rest of us have YouTube. He is, after all, the modfather.

Paul Weller Tour Dates:

September 02 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
September 03 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
September 04 San Francisco, CA The Filmore
September 09 Boston, MA Berklee Performance Center
September 10 New York, NY Nokia Theatre
September 11 New York, NY Highline Ballroom
September 13 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
September 14 Philadelphia, PA Trocadero
September 16 Chicago, IL House of Blues

[Photo Credit: Lawrence Watson]

Live in Iceland TOMORROW -- fans can see concert only at worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com.

By Blurt Staff

This just in: Nat Geo Music, the music division of National Geographic Entertainment, will Webcast an open-air Náttúra concert live from Iceland on Saturday, June 28, 2008. Two of the world's most important and visionary musical entities, Björk and Sigur Rós, will headline the free concert.

The event will be available exclusively at the National Geographic Nat Geo Music site from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET (begins at 8 p.m. BST/London or 7 p.m. GMT/Reykjavik).

To be held in a large park near the centre of Reykjavik, all of the performances will be during daylight, with Iceland’s capital city and dramatic rolling scenery providing a perfect backdrop to what is expected to be one of the biggest concerts the country has seen. The Náttúra concert looks to raise awareness of the impact of the growing aluminum smelting activity on Iceland’s natural landscape.

“One of Nat Geo Music’s main goals is to offer artists and experts who care about global culture and the environment an outlet to create awareness for important issues. Spotlighting these amazing artists performing live in a spectacular backdrop allows our worldwide audience to enjoy great music and become aware of Iceland’s environmental concerns and join the conversation,” said David Beal, president of National Geographic Entertainment.

Commenting on the gig, Björk said: “Too often battles being fought for nature turn into something negative and into mudslinging. We will not go that way, we are not saying that this and that is forbidden, we are rather asking ‘what about all these other possibilities?’ The 21st century is not going to be another oil century but rather a century where we need to recycle, think green and design both power plants and our surroundings in harmony with nature.”

Sigur Rós, who released their fifth album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, this week, believes the issue of aluminum smelting in Iceland is one that can no longer be ignored. “We are not a political band and don’t think musicians should set themselves as spokespeople on anything at all, but sometimes you see things going on in your own back yard and find that just as a human being you cannot stand by and do nothing. The changes that are going on in Iceland need to be the subject of debate and not snuck through the back door because no one lives in the wilderness and there is urban apathy or a general lack of awareness,” said Sigur Rós vocalist Jón Thor Birgisson.

Notes, lyrics book due in July; Sept. tour with Cat Power and Spiritualized.

By Blurt Staff

Additionally, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are set to release their Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!  book on July 8th. The 46-page hard back four inch square book contains exclusive handwritten lyrics and notes by Nick Cave, photos and illustrations, a three inch CD of the single ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!’, plus an interview with Nick Cave and British artists Tim Noble And Sue Webster who created the cover art for the album.

Nick Cave writes:

“The little book is about the making of the song ‘Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!’ It is a curiosity that deals with the preparation and final glorious outcome of a project that began on the back of an envelope, a literal 'scrap' of an idea and ended up evolving into a genuine cultural icon and classic rock 'n' roll song, due to the collaborative efforts of myself, The Bad Seeds and Brit artists Sue Webster and Tim Noble. The song, which is a comic re-imagining of the Lazarus myth (placing the recently 'risen' Lazarus in 70's New York City) is accompanied by an eight foot square light sculpture, employing over 750 light bulbs, built by Webster and Noble. This little book documents the journey of this mammoth collaboration. Dig it!!!”

The book will be available from Amazon.com, Borders and independent music retailers and bookstores nationwide.

In other Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds news, the band will follow their summer European festival dates with their first North American tour in five years.  A stop at the historic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, with opening acts Cat Power and Spiritualized, will kick off the long-awaited tour in grand style.

Tour Dates:

09-16 San Diego, CA - 4th & B
09-17 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl

09-20 San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theatre
09-22 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
09-23 Seattle, WA - Showbox SoDo
09-26 Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre
09-29 Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre
10-01 Toronto, Ontario - Kool Haus
10-02 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis
10-04 New York, NY - WaMu Theater at MSG
10-05 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club

Compiled by Blurt Staff

57 channels and nothin’ on? Not likely. Here’s BLURT’s top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST. For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day on or subsequent days.

PRESS RELEASE FROM NBC:

NBC'S "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE" REMEMBERS GEORGE CARLIN THIS WEEKEND

"SNL" Honors Legendary Comedian George Carlin, Re-Airing Its 1975 Premiere Episode with Carlin as Host.

As hilarious and heartfelt tributes pour in marking the passing of groundbreaking comedian George Carlin, "Saturday Night Live" pays tribute on Saturday, June 28 (11:30 p.m.-1:00 a.m. ET), re-airing its premiere episode that featured Carlin as host.

Remembering Carlin, "Saturday Night Live" creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels noted: "You never forget the people who were there at the beginning. George Carlin helped give 'Saturday Night Live' its start as our first host. He was gracious, fearless, and most important of all, funny."

Typifying the show's "of-the-moment" sensibility that would continue throughout its over thirty-year history, Carlin was brought in as the first host of the groundbreaking comedy show. Carlin performed three individual monologues on the program that also introduced audiences to the now legendary "Not Ready For Prime-Time Players" Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Larraine Newman and Gilda Radner.

The 1975 episode also features musical guests Janis Ian and Billy Preston as well as a landmark performance from comedian Andy Kaufman.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM / ARTIST(S)

SATURDAY 6-28-08

9:00 AM Biography: Dean Martin

12:00 PM MHD: This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

1:00 PM VH1C: Heavy: The Story of Metal

3:30 PM RAVE HD: Beautiful Noise: Neko Case

6:00 PM VH1 Classic in Concert: Poison - Live, Raw & Uncut

8:00 PM Great American Country: Opry Live: Dwight Yoakam , Joe Nichols , Charley Pride , Jennifer Hanson

9:00 PM MHD: Pet Shop Boys: A Life in Pop

9:00 PM PBS: Austin City Limits: Blues Traveler / Café Tacuba

9:30 PM VH1C: Tommy (1975)

11:00 PM MTV2: Headbangers Ball: Lamb of God

11:30 PM NBC: Saturday Night Live - October 11, 1975: George Carlin / Billy Preston / Janis Ian

***

SUNDAY 6-29-08

11:00 AM Great American Country: Master Series: John Hiatt

11:00 AM MHD: Radiohead: From The Basement

12:00 PM HDNet Concert Series: Hootie and the Blowfish Live in Charleston

12:00 PM RAVE HD: Montreux Jazz Festival 1991: Ray Charles , Robert Cray , The Moody Blues

2:00 - 12:00 PM VH1C: The History of Rock 'N' Roll:

3:00 PM HDNet Concert Series: Gorillaz - Demon Days Live

4:00 PM RAVE HD: From The Basement: Beck , Jamie Lidell , Jarvis Cocker

7:00 PM MHD: O.A.R. - Live From Madison Square Garden

7:00 PM Sundance: Forty Shades of Blue (2005) w/J. Blackfoot , Jim Dickinson , Sid Selvidge , Tommy Burroughs

8:00 PM ET HDNet Concert Series: John Mellencamp Live at Walter Reed

10:30 PM MOJO: London Live!: Newton Faulkner , Alphabeat , David Jordan , The Futureheads

11:15 PM HDNet Concert Series: Willie Nelson Live at Billy Bob's

12:00 AM VH1C: Storytellers:  Billy Idol

1:00 AM VH1C: Unplugged: Nirvana

Respected underground magazine in debt and asking readers to help out.

By Fred Mills

With issue #29 of West Coast magazine Arthur en route to the printer — the mighty underground music, arts, politics and culture mag will feature Sparks on the cover — the publication has officially run of of money and has accumulated significant debt. So in an ingenious stroke, owner Jay Babcock (who, as you may remember, acquired Arthur about a year ago in the aftermath of a falling out with his original business partner that had left the mag up on blocks for an extended spell) is soliciting donations to keep it afloat.

He’s also got a deadline: July 1. Read on, and get those PayPal accounts fired up.

From Jay Babcock: 

One year ago I ran up my credit cards and borrowed money from friends  

and family in order to buy out my ex-partner in Arthur. Since then I  

have maxed out my personal and business credit cards to service that  

debt and to start up publication of Arthur again. We have worked very  

hard with very little resources: some of us could afford to work pro  

bono, others could afford to work at well below market, still others  

couldn�t afford to work for Arthur but did it anyway.

 

Still, we have bills to pay, and debt to service. Starting up again  

costs money. And my credit cards are now maxed out.

 

On the heels of lower than expected ad sales (although they are  

trending up), increased production and distribution costs (higher  

quality printing and paper, higher fuel costs, increased printrun),  

and an �under-performing non-magazine product� (the Living Theatre  

dvd, for which we�ve sold less than 25% of the printrun since launch,  

received zero reviews or notices, etc), spiraling debt service  

payments (now $2k a month) on startup costs, and most importantly ZERO  

NEW BACKERS� we�ve finally reached the point where

 

WE HAVE NO MORE MONEY.

 

If we don�t obtain at least $20k in the next six days, ARTHUR is done.  

Our long-term prospects are good, if we are fortunate enough to make  

it through this rough patch.

 

Please help. No donation is too small.

 

Our preferred method of payment is Paypal. It is a free service to  

buyers, and enables you to pay directly By VISA, MASTERCARD, AMEX,  

DISCOVER or from your checking account or debit card. You can also  

convert foreign currency to U.S. dollars. Signing up only takes a few  

minutes.
 

Please use PayPal to make a donation to editor at Arthurmag.com

 

Thank you.

 

Jay Babcock

Arthur Magazine

Hey, if you weren't in L.A. Thursday night -- or this weekend, for that matter -- you missed it. Scroll down to our Concert reviews section for a wrap-up of that evening's Sunset Strip Music Festival happenings and the Air Guitar Championships that were going on simultaneously.

Our man on the prowl, Jose Martinez, definitely knows his shit. Of those aspiring air shredders, he muses,"But honestly, does anybody really care? No, this was just a good time laughing at a bunch of people braver than us who don’t mind making a spectacle of themselves. Although to tell the truth, the good air guitarists are really good, while the mediocre one simply get booed and laughed at."

Boy howdy to that.

Goin’ fishing for tunes with one of America’s preeminent songwriters.

By Fred Mills

What do you get when you pair up a brainy, literate, but passionate, songwriter with an open forum for songwriters? Why, Peter Holsapple blogging for the New York Times, of course! Holsapple — aka one-fourth of pop mavens The dB’s, Chris Stamey’s partner-in-penmanship, solo performer, and a noted sideman (R.E.M., Hootie & the Blowfish, etc.) — was the latest in a stellar assemblage of songwriters to be asked to author the paper’s “Measure For Measure: How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries,” an ongoing blog series that has thus far included the wisdom (and frequently the wit, too) of Rosanne Cash, Andrew Bird, Suzanne Vega and Darrell Brown.

The Times describes the blog thusly: “With music now available with a single, offhand click, it's easy to forget that songs are not born whole, polished and ready to play. They are created by artists who draw on some combination of craft, skill and inspiration. In the coming weeks, the contributors to this blog -- all accomplished songwriters -- will pull back the curtain on the creative process as they write about their work on a song in the making.”

And, indeed, Holsapple’s lengthy installment posted last week fit the bill perfectly. “I found a new song swimming around in my head yesterday afternoon,” he writes. “I’ve landed it and will prepare it before you. I’ve fished these parts for years, and I know that once I identify what’s on the end of my line, we can proceed.” Proceed he does, taking the reader down the path of a tune’s creation, along the way unspooling interesting tidbits and factoids about his life as well as his friends Stamey and Mitch Easter.

There’s also a fascinating trifecta of MP3s: “Like Wow,” a Holsapple composition from his early Winston-Salem, NC, band Rittenhouse Square; “Big Black Truck,” from a rare solo EP he issued prior to joining Stamey’s dB’s; and “Black and White,” one of his classic dB’s tracks. (Caveat: the Times’ MP3 players appear to be somewhat buggy.)

By the end of his blog entry, Holsapple has crafted a good chunk of his new song for the readers but it’s getting late and he realizes it’s time to let it rest until morning (a strategy most any writer of any stripe will tell you is a good one). “Play the chorus again. Still that landing feels so unsure and insecure. There’s got to be a better chord than F there, but I’ll be damned if I can find it at this hour. So I’ll go to bed, humming the chorus, thinking of alternate lines, waiting for that lightning bolt of inspiration that may or may not arrive in the night. I’ll keep the notebook by the bed, even though most of my mid-sleep epiphanies have been unintelligible instructions and drawings thus far.”

Good luck finishing the song Peter. Can we hear the demo when you’re done? Signed, your friends at BLURT.

Peter Holsapple on MySpace

The dB’s Official Website

[Editor’s Note: Both the dB’s and Stamey & Holsapple have new albums in the works. Watch this space for details.]

Compiled by Blurt Staff

57 channels and nothin’ on? Not likely. Here’s BLURT’s top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST. For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day on or subsequent days.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM / ARTIST(S)

8:30 AM MOJO: London Live!: Beck , Amy Winehouse , Razorlight , Jamiroquai , Jarvis Cocker , The Flaming Lips

10:00 AM BET Jazz: Masters of American Music: The World According to Coltrane

11:30 AM NICK: Yo Gabba Gabba!: Aggrolites

12:30 PM FUEL: Check 1, 2: The Cool Kids

3:00 PM BET: Featuring Lil' Wayne

4:00 PM FUSE: Steven's Untitled Rock Show: Perry Farrell

5:00 PM Sundance: Runnin' Down a Dream: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

6:30 PM Rave HD Concerts: David Gilmour - Live at the Royal Albert Hall

8:00 PM Comedy Central: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Coldplay

8:00 PM RAVE HD: Beautiful Noise: Jeff Healey

9:00 PM MHD: 46664- A Concert for Nelson Mandela w/Amy Winehouse , Leona Lewis , Annie Lennox , Queen , Paul Rodgers , Sugababes, etc.

11:30 PM Showtime Next: I Shot Andy Warhol (1996)

11:35 PM CBS: The Late Show With David Letterman: Al Green

12:05 AM ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Chromeo

12:35 AM NBC: Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Tapes 'N Tapes

2:00 AM VH1C: BBC Crown Jewels: Sight & Sound In Concert: Joe Jackson

[Pictured: Chromeo]

Not scheduled to pull a KISS, unfortunately.

By Fred Mills

Tomorrow, July 1, everyone’s favorite evil clowns Slipknot will dump their played-out costumes and don new ones. The Iowa mook merchants plan to unveil their new imagery in an exclusive partnership with AOL MusicThe event is being billed somewhat dubiously as a “highly anticipated debut” but hey, it’s just promotion for Slipknot’s new album, All Hope Is Gone, due from Roadrunner on August 26, so we’re  not frettin’ the hype. Hey, we were really thinking they’d pull a KISS and ditch the masks altogether for a much-needed cred grab, but no such luck.

“Masks,” writes the band’s handlers, “are an integral part of the band’s identity and to reflect this point, AOL Music’s Spinner.com will host a retrospective photo gallery of Slipknot masks throughout their career, spanning all three previous albums and including the most recent controversial ‘Purgatory Masks.’ The Slipknot mask unveiling will be featured on the main page of Spinner.com worldwide for 24 hours.”

You might have thought (hoped? prayed?) Slipknot had gone away; after all, it’s been four years since their last studio album, 2004’s Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), although in that interim they also released a live album and documentary CD. Never fear: it’s clown time again. Literally.

This is not Slipknot, but if they took off their masks it might as well be:

This is actually Slipknot:

KT Tunstall’s buddy is on the move…

By Blurt Staff

Britain’s David Ford continues to ride high on his latest album Songs for the Road. He’s scheduled for a couple of high profile shows during the next week — Thursday he’ll be at the WTMD Presents concert at Baltimore’s West Mount Vernon Park, and then on July 10 he’ll be headlining at the Hotel Café in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the singer-songwriter has just posted a new video for his song “I’m Alright Now,” which was shot live and in one take four times, then edited together. Check it out on YouTube: