Something about that cricket album and The Duckworth Lewis Method.

By Blurt Staff

At BLURT, we are big fans of UK combo Pugwash, whose Thomas Walsh was the subject of an extensive profile we did last October. Word arrives that Walsh has been nominated for a prestigious Ivor Novello Award in the UK for his collaboration with The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon The Duckworth Lewis Method. Their debut release (reviewed here) is a concept album about cricket and was released in July, just in time for The Ashes cricket series between England and Australia.

(above: The Duckworth Lewis Method, Walsh on right; below, not The Duckworth Lewis Method)

"It was just a drunken gag," admitted Hannon to BBC News. "But then strange things started to happen and it actually materialised. Last year was amazing - we went to a lot of cool places, got to see a lot of cricket. And we sold quite a few records - which doesn't usually happen to me! Thomas and I will definitely write together again but in what way and with what big idea, I really don't know."

Meanwhile, Pugwash will be releasing their new album 11 Modern Antiquities later this year on Andy Partridge's Ape House label - and get this, XTC fans: strings for the album were scored and arranged by Dave Gregory, who along with Partridge recorded several of the songs at various Swindon (England) studios. Additional recordings were done by Jason Falkner in L.A., Michael Penn in L.A. and Eric Matthews in Portland.

This will be Pugwash's second U.S. release, preceded by last year's Giddy, a retrospective of their previous Irish releases; read the BLURT review here.

In-demand Nashville player worked with Ben Folds, Amy Grant, Shania Twain, Rodney Crowell and others; issued cult-fave records under his own name and with the Semantics.

By Rev. Keith A. Gordon

Singer, songwriter, and underrated guitarist Will Owsley, whose few recordings were released under his last name, reportedly took his own life on Friday, April 30, 2010. He was 44. Owsley was a long-time member of Contemporary Christian artist Amy Grant's band, lending his guitar talents to the singer's recordings and stage show for over sixteen years.

A truly skilled multi-instrumentalist, Owsley came to Nashville from Anniston, Alabama sometime during the 1980s to pursue a career in music. One of Owsley's first gigs was backing singer Judson Spence, touring as his guitarist and appearing in his MTV videos. Owsley was introduced to singer Millard Powers by mutual friend Ben Folds, and the pair formed the power-pop band the Semantics, with Folds playing drums on the band's early demos. Zak Starkey, son of Ringo Starr, would take over the drum stool and the trio recorded a single album, Powerbill, in 1993 for Geffen Records.

For reasons known only to the powers-that-be at Geffen, Powerbill was never released in the U.S. and the Semantics broke up in disappointment. CCM superstar Grant had gotten a hold of a promotional copy of the LP, however, and subsequently asked Owsley to join her band. Stranger still, the Semantics album would be released in Japan a few years later, where it would become a smash hit, moving over 20,000 copies and, once out-of-print, becoming a coveted collector's item in both Japan and the United States. 

In between tours with Grant, Owsley pursued his own purebred pop vision, building a home studio and recording his self-titled debut album Owsley with a few friends over the course of four years. Giant Records released the album in 1999, but instability at the label, as well as Giant's overall inability to break a new artist outside of the R&B/hip-hop world, bode ill for the talented young Mr. Owsley. He would later receive a Grammy^TM Award nomination for his engineering work on his debut. The album would also bring him to the attention of super-producer Mutt Lange, who would subsequently hire the guitarist to appear with his wife, country superstar Shania Twain, on a number of television appearances and high-profile live performances.

Undeterred by his ill experience with Giant Records, Owsley began recording his sophomore album, The Hard Way, shortly after the release of his debut. Released in 2004 by the independent Lakeview Entertainment label, The Hard Way won almost universal critical acclaim. Robert Doerschuck, writing in The Nashville Scene, said "the most obvious contemporary comparison is to another local hero, Ben Folds; but where Fold builds his songs on piano and irony, Owsley maintains innocence in his lyrics and sprinkles more varied sonic spices into the mix."

In the former Alt.Culture.Guide webzine, this writer said "The Hard Way is unabashedly polished; carefully constructed songs complimented by lush instrumentation with just the slightest bit of chaos seeping in around the edges. Owsley's pop craftsmanship is akin to fellow travelers like Ben Folds or Ben Kweller, Beatlesque flourishes accompanied by influences from folks like Crowded House, Todd Rundgren and Paul McCartney's solo work."

It is a measure of Owsley's instrumental talent that he was enlisted to play in the studio behind a diverse range of artists through the years, from Christian performers like Grant and Michael W. Smith, to country stars like Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell, to pop performers like the Jonas Brothers. Although he wasn't very well known by a mainstream audience, Owsley was a talented songwriter and musician, and his presence in popular music was certainly felt. William Owsley III leaves behind a wife and two children.

Looming Large: the California pop-rockers make waves on a normal night (April 21) in Music City. And check those video clips, below.

By Steve Morley

It could have been any night in downtown Nashville. In a city where skilled, experienced musicians are stockpiled like so many cans of sardines in the Second Harvest Food Bank, one can find any number of perfectly competent and occasionally superb bands scattered throughout the metropolitan area and beyond. Mind you, this doesn't even account for traveling players who are passing through, eager to register a buzz in one of America's most revered musical centers. (In Music City, you just never know who might be in the crowd.) On Wednesday, April 21 at 12^th & Porter, virtually incognito amongst local bands teaming up on a multiple showcase bill, a guitar-based quartet out of Santa Barbara hovered for half an hour above the city's routine musical proficiency - not because its members could necessarily dethrone Nashville's A-team studio players (you have to drive the right brand of SUV and know a few producers to manage that), but because, collectively, they displayed that indefinable whatever-you-call-it that serves to remind that a great musical experience is about more than musicianship.

Loomis & the Lust, as the quartet in question is known, is a smart, lean and energetic band of twenty-somethings who look backwards through the lens of classic pop and rock while retaining a contemporary sound that steers blessedly clear of the dull guitar murk that passes for rock in the post-grunge era and vaults well past the soundalike mediocrity of indie-rock's ever-expanding purgatory. Leader and namesake Will Loomis is a canny and passionate student of music, citing Elvis (the first one), Prince, Iggy Pop, Led Zeppelin, Talking Heads, and Stax Records among his musical touchstones while casually conversing with a newfound fan after the band's invigorating set. Those aren't the names that would have instantly leapt to mind, though, as the band performed its punchy, succinctly constructed tunes, evoking the cream of early new-wave and punk and connecting the dots between the '60s and '80s while deftly sidestepping simplistic revivalist-pop territory. In the process, Loomis and his cohorts have cut away the nervous, adrenaline-laced elements often associated with punk-poppers, cranking out solid, groove-based rhythms that, in a subtle nod to Loomis' R&B/soul jones, leave some welcome space between the beats.

The band is made up of four distinct, complimentary personalities that, like rock's more memorable units, coalesce into a well-balanced whole that's a blast to watch. Bassist Noah Babcock's earnest, Cowsills-clean smile and Dee Dee Ramone kineticism are a yin-yang of affability and abandon, though abandon never undercuts his pounding low-end pulse or the practiced articulation visible in his thin, spidery fingers as they arch across the neck of his Fender Precision bass. Casey Hooper's calf-hugging jeans, archetypal rocker garb and dark, tousled hair merely top off a total package highlighted by limber, pigeon-toed guitar-god moves that would be total eye-rollers if they didn't come off so unforced and in the moment, or - more important - if they weren't knocked off in tandem with searing and pungent fretwork, all delivered with confidence that stops just this side of cocky.

Drummer Anthony Sonetti supplies sturdy, unobtrusive timekeeping with equal parts technical prowess and musical flair, while his distant, eye-shifting stare tells you he's intently absorbing everything that's happening onstage and certainly not scoping out babes in the crowd. (For that matter, all four musicians exude a sort of nice-guy trustworthiness in spite of the "lust" portion of the band's oddball moniker.) Charismatic frontman Loomis' blond beach-boy good looks, intelligent eyes and assured demeanor are offset by unselfconscious head bobs and an endearingly goofy grin, suggesting a lucid and grounded alternate version of Fast Times at Ridgemont High's pupil-dilated Jeff Spicoli. Wielding slightly modified white-boy rapper gestures mixed with fist pumps scaled down to nightclub size, Loomis cuts a clean and likable figure whose easy, unassuming manner belies his potential to graduate to rock-star status.

The overall effect of witnessing Loomis & the Lust in performance is more compelling than any of the individual songs the foursome currently offers. That isn't a bad thing - it signifies an honest-to-goodness band that isn't interested in simply being www.somebody's download of the week. The band's newer material is ample evidence that primary songwriter Will Loomis is just beginning to find the sweet spot among his myriad musical tastes. All that being said, though, the two-year-old band (whose present lineup is, stunningly, only months old) can already boast one bona fide pop A-lister, "Bright Red Chords." The two-and-a-half-minute song is an unabashed ode to the love of music - specifically, the analog variety. "Bright red chords, jet-black vinyl," Loomis sings, simultaneously addressing the tactile romance of a 33- or 45-rpm record and the intangible sonic delights contained within.

Talking about it is one thing, but emulating it is another thing entirely. Notably, "Bright Red Chords" succeeds in creating the experience of which it speaks, employing blasts of chunky guitar before shifting to an exuberant chorus propelled by sunny harmonies and a syncopated lift redolent of first-generation ska. "Dancing to the beat, the music is primal," he continues. If this particular number is a bit too breezy to qualify as primal - a word you tend to associate with early Kinks, '60s frat-rock or surely The Troggs - "primal" is nonetheless in the band's vocabulary. They proved this on a rousing and entirely irony-free cover of The Go-Gos' "We Got the Beat" as well as on a band original titled "A.D.D."

A salute to overdriven, adolescent-aimed hard rock that initially scans as an AC/DC send-up, "A.D.D." could ultimately become a youth anthem in its own right: it's a head-banging, only slightly tongue-in-cheek banner carrier for the short-attention-span generation to which anyone under 35, diagnosed or not, can likely relate. The band's Nashville show doubled as the scene for a live video shoot, footage from which is intended for the song's still-unfinished video. Currently circulating on YouTube is a distorted, hand-held-camera version of the guys playing "A.D.D." in Austin, where they also played SXSW, if you want to get the gist now, before something distracts the thought from your mind.

A few clicks away, you can find a clip of a doe-eyed five-year-old girl singing "Bright Red Chords" (that is, "bwight wed cawds") - even including the main guitar hook.   (See this and the A.D.D. videos, below. Meanwhile, click on the following links to see footage from the actual Nashville show: "Move On"... "A.D.D."... "Sweetness". The Nashville clips also appear below.) What that says to this writer, whose age is easily double that of the average person in the smallish but warmly responsive crowd at Loomis & the Lust's Nashville gig, is that this band has hit on something that potentially has massively broad appeal. (That is to say, songs that can be savored at face value even by listeners who are blissfully unaware of, or who couldn't care less about, this week's - oops, next week's - pop culture zeitgeist.) At least one other oldster spotted at the show would concur, and one with far more credibility: '60s pop star and former VH-1 host Peter "Herman" Noone, who could be seen grooving out in the back of the club along with his daughter, an aspiring singer who (as L & L's manager confirmed) happens to be a friend of Loomis and a fan of the band.

This is Nashville, after all, where something extraordinary can always happen... even on a run-of-the-mill Wednesday night. 

Estimated thousand cops descend upon Zurich protest site, round up hundreds of citizens while classic punk band performs.

By Blurt Staff

This past Saturday, May 1, thousands of people marched and protested in cities from Hong Kong to Istanbul to mark international worker's day, demanding more jobs, better work conditions and higher wages. D.O.A. happened to be performing at one of those rallies in Zurich at Kanzleistrasse 56, a public outdoor space that's about three blocks by three blocks wide.

"The idea of why the promoters hold this protest there (without a permit) is because they say that it's still a public place," said D.O.A. frontman Joe Keithley. "It used to be a squat back in the 70s, but the police forced everyone out. The activists claim that the only thing that matters in Zurich is money, so it was a statement against the city and the way they run things"

According to AP reports, "police used water cannons in an attempt to disperse dozens of stone-throwing protesters as unions and politicians protested against "excessive" Swiss banking bonuses."

Keithley claimed that no one in attendance was doing anything out-of-line.

"There were a couple thousand people in the crowd," said Keithley. "Towards the end of our set we saw the helicopters above us... Police moved in with water cannons mounted on large police trucks that were about half the size of fire truck. They were armed with riot shields, batons, and guns that fired rubber bullets."

Keithley claimed that there were over 1,000 riot police in total.

"When we finished playing, the police surrounded the crowd and wouldn't let anyone leave," said Keithley. "Anyone that tried to get out were tackled and dragged off. If they resisted, the cops would surround them, so I assume a lot of force was used."

According to Keithley, the police began to move in ten yards at a time with locked arms forming a barrier around the entire site.

"As they starting marching in towards us, our roadie grabbed us and we ran in the building behind us," said Keithley. "The doors were made to withstand force."

According to Keithley, over 400 people were arrested. "The police were practicing on people, and in this case it was the punks and protesters," he said. "They're practicing to make the public accept this tactic."

Keithley also claims that police used tear gas outside immediate area.

"I have been in a lot of riots that back in the day in LA, and that was really violent, but this was easily 4 times bigger than any riot than I even been in... And the police were way more organized," concluded Keithley.

The band is touring in promotion of its 13^th studio album "Talk - Action = 0" to be released on June 8 via Sudden Death Records.

First tour in four years to be followed by first studio album in twelve.

By Blurt Staff

Okay, cheeseheads, this one's for you: alterna-rock icons Primus are back and have confirmed their first headlining tour in four years.  Gogol Bordello will be joining them on the road playing such venues as the Willamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn and Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Aug 12th.

Tickets go on sale this week, May 8, so consult local listings, etc. etc.

More dates to come as the band refines their chops before heading into the studio to record their first album of brand new music since 1999's Antipop. The new album will be released in 2011.

 
Tour Dates:
 
July
27                        Toronto, ONT                        Sound Academy
29                        Essex Junction, VT               Midway Lawn at Champlain Valley                                                                    w/ Gogol Bordello
30                        Brooklyn, NY                        Williamsburgh Waterfront
                                                                             w/Gogol Bordello
31                        Bridgeport, CT                       Gathering of the Vibes
 
Aug
1                        Charlottesville, VA                   Charlottesville Pavillion
                                                                               w/Gogol Bordello
3                        Cleveland, OH                         Time Warner Cable Amphitheater
                                                                              w/Gogol Bordello
5                        Columbus, OH                        LC Pavillion w/Gogol Bordello
6                        Nashville, TN                           Ryman Auditorium
7                        Milwaukee, WI                        The Rave
9                        Council Bluff, IA                     Stir Cove at Harrah's w/Gogol Bordello
10                        Kansas City, MO                   Uptown Theater w/Gogol Bordello
12                        Denver, CO                             Red Rocks w/Gogol Bordello
13                        Salt Lake City, UT                  The Rail w/Gogol Bordello
14                        Las Vegas, NV                        The Joint
15                        Santa Barbara, CA                  County Bowl w/Wolfmother

As always, a good time is guaranteed for all. Proceeds go to support the Joey Ramone Foundation for Lymphoma Research.

By Blurt Staff

Celebrating what would have been the 59^th birthday of Joey Ramone, the annual JOEY RAMONE BIRTHDAY BASH will take place Wednesday, May 19^th at The Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza.  Mickey Leigh, event organizer and brother of Joey Ramone, has announced this year's lineup and a sell out Bash is expected again.  Net proceeds will go to benefit Lymphoma research.

This year's headliners are Hank III and Morningwood.  Once again, the  party will conclude with The Joey Ramone Birthday Bashers featuring Richie Ramone, Hank III, Walter Lure, Cheetah Chrome, JP Thunderbolt, Ed Stasium, Jean Beauvoir, George Tabb, Ivan Julian, Al Maddy, Walt Stack, Dave Merrill, Mickey Leigh & others.  Also appearing are The Sic F*cks, The Independents, Spanking Charlene (winners of Little Steven's Wicked Cool Records contest) and Heap.  As the audience enters the venue they will once again be greeted by musician Tracy Thornton, playing Ramones songs on the steel drum.  And, in what has become a Birthday Bash tradition, Sean O'Sullivan's Punk Pipers will round out the night with their rendition of "I Wanna Be Sedated" on bagpipes.

The Masters of Ceremony for this year's fete will be Steven Van Zandt, Steve Craig, Matt Pinfield and Pete Ashner.  Additional surprises are expected at the evening's events. 

Ramone who passed away in April 2001 after a seven-year battle with Lymphoma, had a history of encouraging up-and-coming bands in New York's downtown music scene by showcasing them at his special "Joey Ramone Presents..." events.  Since his passing, his brother and their mother Charlotte Lesher carried on the tradition "by featuring bands that make great music and getting together some of Joey's friends to celebrate him on what would otherwise be a sad, somber day," Leigh explained.

The Fillmore is located at 17 Irving Place, corner 15^th Street, NYC.  Doors open at 7PM. Tickets at http://www.livenation.com/edp/eventId/404523.

For ongoing updates, visit www.joeyramone.com.  Net proceeds from the Bash go to support the Joey Ramone Foundation for Lymphoma Research.

Four brief video clips is all you're getting for the moment, fanboys!

By Blurt Staff

Per tradition, erstwhile Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor is keeping things fairly close to his chest as regards his new trio How To Destroy Angels - which he formed with his wife (and West Indian Girl frontperson) Mariqueen Maandig and NiN/Bomb The Bass/Barry Adamson collaborator (and Book Of Eli film scorer) Atticus Ross, and named after a legendary early EP by Psychic TV offshoot Coil). Judging by a posting at the group's official website, HTDA will issue an eponymous six-song, Alan Moulder-mixed EP sometime this summer.

But that's about all the info to emerge thus far. However, there are now four musical fragments of a song titled "A Drowning" posted to the site in the form of brief Vimeo clips. Accompanied by images that include a female hand playing keyboards and turning knobs on a synth, a male hand playing some droning, distorted slide guitar, and another set of male hands on keyboards, the electronic/industrial music is tantalizing, to say the least.

Go to the How To Destroy Angels site or to the group's Facebook page (the fan comments are the best part) to view the clips, which clock in at 1:13, 0:54, 0:46 and 0:40. (see one of them, below). What's really interesting is when you trigger all four as close to simultaneously as possible - it's a disjointed but hypnotic mini-symphony of sorts.

03 from How To Destroy Angels on Vimeo.

Their best yet? Early next month the Detroit rock mainstays issue their first album in half a decade, and we have a hunch it was worth the wait.

By Tim Hinely

While still in high school in the suburbs of Detroit, leader Eddie Baranek formed this exciting band and began turning heads with their 1999 debut, Are You Green?  Two other records (and several tours of America and Europe) followed but it has been 5 years since the last Sights record (2005's self-titled record on the Sweet Nothing label) so fans of the band have been hungry for half a decade. With a new lineup (now expanded to a quartet) Baranek and company set out to make a statement, and on the new Most of What Follows is True (Sights Army; www.sightsarmy.com) they do indeed.

The band comes out of the gate with the guitar-heavy "How Do You Sleep?" sounding like a mix between The Creation and Blue Cheer while "Hello to Everybody" is a charging power pop nugget which doesn't forget the humor ("Well I tried suicide but it wasn't for me, it got to be a little too trendy"). A few tunes add some nifty pedal steel ("I Left My Muse" and "Back to You") while the jangly "Maria" adds a nice Beatles touch to the proceedings (and "Happy" is pure 1967 Who with those opening Keith Moon-esque thundering drum fills).

Baranek proudly wears his influences on his sleeve but when the attention to songcraft is this detailed you won't hear too much complaining. Their best yet.

[Photo Credit: Doug Coombe]

Strange bedfellows? Somehow, the two quintessentially American outfits sharing a bill under the stars (at the Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, NC, on April 30) made more than perfect sense - they were perfect, period.

Text & Photos by Andy Tennille

At first blush, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and My Morning Jacket might seem like strange bedfellows.

One is a genre-defying rock quintet who claim Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem and Prince as influences; the other is a New Orleans Dixieland institution whose history dates back to the early 1960s.

Yet as different as they appear on the surface, both groups possess unique musical personalities that more often than not lead to universally lauded live performances, which is how the pair first met last spring when MMJ frontman Jim James sat in with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band at its legendary French Quarter venue. James ultimately recorded two songs - "St. James Infirmary" and "Louisiana Fairytale" - that would appear on Preservation, a star-studded tribute record released earlier this year that benefits Preservation Hall and its associated educational programs.

"I couldn't have imagined Jim fitting in any better with the guys at Preservation Hall," Preservation Hall creative director Ben Jaffe said about the 2009 concert. "Jim's like our long lost cousin coming home for the first time."

The familial vibe was evident right from the outset last Friday night at the Koka Booth Amphitheater in Cary, NC, the seventh show of a nine-date spring tour of the Southeastern U.S. James emerged halfway into PHJB's opening set to sing on both "St. James Infirmary" and "Louisiana Fairytale" before the Jazz Band ended their show with a Mardi Gras-style parade through the amphitheatre audience.

Just as the sun dipped below the trees surrounding the venue, the lights dimmed and My Morning Jacket took the stage to rapturous applause. Beginning with "Tonight I Want to Celebrate With You," the band logged nearly three hours onstage playing selections from throughout their catalog, including an epic take on "At Dawn," a rock-solid "Steam Engine" and "Carried Away," a tune sung by guitarist Carl Broemel that dates back to at least 2007. For the encore, MMJ brought out the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to sit in on a horn-laden "Dancefloors" before paying homage to PHJB's home with a cover of Al Johnson's NOLA classic "Carnival Time". A funky version of Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" replete with the Preservation horns was the ideal cap to an amazing night of music featuring two groups that perfectly complemented each other.

 Setlist:

Tonight I Want to Celebrate With You

At Dawn

Gideon

Off the Record

What A Wonderful Man

I'm Amazed

Mahgeeetah

Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt.1

Golden

Steam Engine

Lay Low

The Way That He Sings

Wonderful (The Way I Feel)

Carried Away

Dondante

Smokin From Shootin

Run Thru

Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt.2

One Big Holiday

(encore) Wordless Chorus

Dancefloors*

Highly Suspicious*

Carnival Time*

Move On Up*

* w/ Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Group performs and talks about music from forthcoming album Infinite Arms, which drops May 18 from Brown/Fat Possom/Columbia.

By Blurt Staff

Below is footage from over the past year and a half. Watch as the band spends time in the studio, hear Ben Bridwell explain the collective recording approach that was used on this record and see the band transcend through the final stages of recording process as they bring their latest material to light.

Long-unavailable second album - to many, the group's best - finally will be coming out on CD. Check out the video from '84, below.

By Blurt Staff

Hey there, faithful Dream Syndicate fans! Been down to the record store lately? Tried to find a copy of the band's classic second album, 1984's Sandy Pearlman-produced Medicine Show, on CD? Couldn't find it, could ya? Maybe you checked on Amazon.com and saw it going for (gulp) 50 bucks... then maybe you surfed over to eBay, only to find zilch in the form of compact discs, only LPs and cassettes... Yeah, we feel your pain.

Virtually impossible to find, that's the CD version of the record; A&M released it on disc in '89 with a trio of live bonus tracks, but it wasn't available for long. If memory serves, it may have come out in Japan at one point too, but that one became scarce fairly quickly too. It's available digitally from both Amazon and iTunes, but as we all know, you can't hug an MP3, and if you are a god-fearing, self-respecting Dream Syndicate fan, you know you need the real deal.

Coming to our rescue finally is the Water Records label. They're planning a proper reissue of Medicine Show, and it's due in stores June 15. Here's what chief songwriter, guitarist and band founder Steve Wynn had to say about the album in a press release:

From Steve Wynn:

"I've made over 20 studio albums in the last quarter century and Medicine Show sounds unlike any of the others.  Even though each of them occupies its own sonic space, they all follow some kind of logical trajectory. Medicine Show is the odd man out.  Not only does it not remind me of any of MY other records, I can't even think of anything else that sounds quite like it.  I still play most of the songs live on a regular basis but the record itself is beautiful, unattainable, right and wrong in all the best ways.

"Karl wanted to make a big, panoramic rock record to justify our move to a major label and the plethora of attention we had received in the mere nine months that had passed since the release of The Days of Wine and Roses. I wanted to make a ‘beautiful loser,' button-pushing, over-the-top emotional catharsis in the tradition of most of my all-time favorite records (i.e.. Big Star 3rd, Tonight's The Night, Plastic Ono Band,

etc.).  We both got our way - and in ways that neither of us could have predicted.  I think it was this improbable collision of desires and personality that gives Medicine Show its character.

"But the other part of the record's sound and mood is the time it took to make it.  Try these numbers on for size:

*The Days of Wine and Roses (recording, overdubs and mixing): 3 days, 8 hours a day

*Medicine Show (recording, overdubs and mixing): 5-plus months, 7 days a week, 14 hours a day

"Sandy Pearlman drove us to the limit and beyond, and you can hear the discipline, defiance, cracks-in-the-armor, mania, psychoses and the final graduation from all of the above in these tracks.  I hear the laughs, the fights, the late nights, the booze, the Tenderloin, the Mission District, Sandy's ever-present baseball cap, the Clown Alley burger runs, late nights watching Dr. Gene Scott, the perilously high 24th- floor efficiency apartments at the Fox Plaza and every one of the  days and days and nights and nights when I listen to this record.  And I wouldn't change a thing.

"It would all make a good book.  And, in fact, it probably will someday."

Steve Wynn and his band the Miracle 3 will be appearing in Atlanta on May 14 and 15, performing, respectively, Medicine Show and Days of Wine and Roses in their entirety. For a full list of tour dates, visit Wynn's official website.

See our photo gallery from the original January '07 Harp magazine profile of rock ‘n' roll bus driver Hooter Borden, who passed away Sunday. During his time he worked with everyone from Ernest Tubb, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan to Michael Jackson, ZZ Top, the Raconteurs and Megadeth, and he was one of music's true unsung heroes. Go here on the BLURT site to read the full article, written by Rodger Cambria. Then get out there and spread the legend of Hoot.

(above) Hoot in front of his bus

(below) Hoot's belt buckle, business card and wristwatch

Deputy Sheriff Hoot

Outlaw Hoot

Suited up and ready to roll

(Some of these photos originally courtesy Hoot and his wife, and some were recently given to us by Hoot's daughter, Sammie Baker. A most gracious thank-you to everyone.)

Yes, you can have a tune written especially about you and your so-called life by the beloved indie chanteuse.

By Fred Mills

Times sure have changed. Where once an artist would get blistered by the critics for offering his or her music to the highest bidder (see: Momus' Stars Forever album from 1999, where for $1000 the Scottish indie musician would write a song about you, his generous patron), we've now got a situation where patronage is not only accepted (see: Jill Sobule's fan-funded 2009 album California Years), it's become a viable means of getting albums recorded and tours underwritten - as evidenced by the success of such websites as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo.

The latest to throw the proverbial patronage hat into the ring is Juliana Hatfield, who this week posted a "For Sale" message on her website that read, in part:

"For the price of $1,000 I will write an original song tailormade just for you, to you, and about you, and I will record it in the mostly acoustic style of my newest album, Peace And Love. After you have ordered the song, send an email with my name in the subject line to yeolderecords@earthlink.net and in the message, tell me what you would like me to put in the song -- your name, your hobbies, your thoughts, your problems, your loves, your favorite things, your job -- tell me something about yourself so I can create a song around a version of you that I can absorb from what you tell me. Nothing dirty or gross, please. I don't want you to send me a long book but rather some impressions -- and your name -- to give me something to work with. I will work on a first-come, first-served basis. Please give me three months (starting when payment is made and personal details have been sent) to complete the writing and recording and delivery (by mail) of the song."

Hatfield goes on to say that she's limiting the number of songs for the project to 20, and that patrons will get a disc packaged in a hand-painted, signed/numbered sleeve with their name inscribed on it. Also, she's offering a free lottery (no money involved; fans just enter their name in the lottery pool) whereby one lucky winner will also get a song written about them.

Adds Hatfield, by way of explanation for her mounting the promotion, "The money will help go toward future projects (one of which is in its conceptual stages)(and another of which I've started work on)(and another of which involves gathering together some of my vast unreleased archives). I have to insist that there will be no returns accepted and no money refunded if you aren't satisfied with what I create and deliver. It will be too complicated otherwise -- too much grey area."

Somehow we suspect that at this level of fan-artist interaction, she's not going to have any disgruntled customers. Check her website for full details.

[Photo Credit: Jonathan Stark]

Songwriter signs with a new label and assembles a new band.

By Blurt Staff

Mark Olson, of The Jayhawks of course, will be releasing his new full-length, Many Colored Kite, on Ryko July 27. It's the solo follow-up to his 2007 "personal milestone" Salvation Blues, a soul-searching album of loss and change that further cemented Olson's reputation as one of the true heroes of the folk/roots scene; also, in 2009 Olson teamed up with his old Jayhawks partner Gary Louris for the acclaimed Ready For the Flood, and the duo also put the Jayhawks back together for a string of reunion concerts to promote Music From The North Country: The Jayhawks Anthology.

It's a hopeful Olson that greets the listener on Many Colored Kite, with its earthy, neo-folk feel that encompasses classic and ‘60s British folk as well as the "desert country" he's been associated with in the past.  Produced and engineered by Beau Raymond (Devendra Banhart, Little Joy, Mark Olson and Gary Louris) and featuring the core group of Olson, Neal Casal and Danny Frankel, this is a wide-eyed, uplifting album with soaring, ethereal harmonies contributed by his girlfriend and musical partner, Ingunn Ringvold. 

The opening track, "Little Bird of Freedom" (with backing vocals by Jolie Holland), sets the tone of the album:  these are songs by a man who's made it through the eye of the tempest and is looking at the world as if he's seeing it for the first time.  Elsewhere Many Colored Kite's airy, uncluttered songs celebrate life and nature ("Wind and Rain, "Morning Dove") and love ("Blue Bell" and "No Time to Live Without Her," featuring Vashti Bunyan).

In a statement, Olson said, "When I hung up the phone after I heard that Ryko wanted to put out my album I went out onto the porch and started a small dance that was interrupted by a large gem and mineral collection. I realized I didn`t really want to be building a geology museum anymore I wanted to start a band again. I threw the petrified wood and geodes off the porch and into the sand. I called Ingunn and said ‘You're the band and now let's leave our jobs and be able to take the trains again and tour with this music.'" 

Read a Blurt 2009 interview with Mark Olson here.

[Photo Credit: Lee Cantelon]

New album out next week, and trust us, it's a good ‘un. Free MP3 and video, below.

By Fred Mills

Back in 2006 I profiled Australia's beloved Hoodoo Gurus for Harp magazine, interviewing founding member and chief songwriter Dave Faulkner about his group's long tenure - which, admittedly, did include some fallow periods and long stretches of inactivity. However, since resuming operations in 2005 with the Mach Schau album, the Gurus had enjoyed a relatively high profile, and at the conclusion of our conversation Faulkner indicated that he'd been writing material for a new album and predicted that they'd have it out sometime in 2007.

Then - nothing, other than performing (including a wild show at the 2007 SXSW) and overseeing the reissue of their back catalog along with a DVD career retrospective, Tunnel Vision. A deal with Sony Music was supposed to result in a new record to be released in 2009, but the band was reportedly unhappy with both the studio and the final mix, so the plans were put on hold until they could arrange for their old friend and noted producer Ed Stasium to do his magic with the tapes.

The result is Purity of Essence, a sparkling set of tunes bearing all the hallmarks of classic Gurus - sleek, hook-filled melodies; propulsive rhythms; heart on sleeve lyrics; terrific singing. It came out in Australia in March and is due out next week in the States on their own Virtual label. While you await our (naturally effervescent) review of the album, check out some of the audiovisual goodies, below.

"We were hungry": some days the news writes itself... but what would Count Grishnackh say?

By Blurt Staff

The A.P. is reporting that two Russian men have been convicted of killing and cannibalizing a 16-year old girl this past January. The St. Petersburg City Court sentenced a 21-year old musician, described as "Goth-rock," to 19 years in prison while another 20-year old got 18 years.

According to A.P.: "The court says in a statement released Wednesday that the musician lured his victim to his apartment building, where he and his friend drowned her in a bathtub and cooked parts of her body in an oven.The men pleaded not guilty, and in earlier testimony they said they had killed the woman because they ‘were hungry.'"

Due out August 3 on Gold Dust with the gentle title Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3. Indeed.

By Blurt Staff

It's hard to scare the sh!t out of you while simultaneously keeping your foot moving. Rapper, producer and Def Jux founder El-P knows how to get to parts of the brain others can't. As a solo artist and frontman for seminal hip-hop group Company Flow or producer of Cannibal Ox, Cage, Mr. Lif, Aesop Rock, NIN, Beck, The Mars Volta (and many, many more), an El-P production can drive you to hide underneath the bed, punch a wall and nod your head all at the same time. Which brings us to Weareallgoingtoburninhellmegamixxx3 (August 3rd, Gold Dust), the sort of, kind of but not really follow-up to his past two mixes of the same name previously released at live shows.

It's another unique release in the artist's catalog. In the tradition of Company Flow's Little Johnny From The Hospitul (1998), El's own Collecting The Kid (2005), and more recently Weareallgoingtoburninhellmeggamixxx2 (2007), Hell3 is a fully realized suite of instrumentals that continues to exemplify the producer's versatile, otherworldly, futuristic and wholly original sonic worldview.

"I wanted to do little mini-movements that had a real beginning, middle and end and then moved on," says El-P. "The challenge for me was taking all these seemingly unrelated little pieces of music I had laying around and fitting them together as a cohesive piece. I wanted to craft a record that had an arc."

Given this format, Hell3 both sounds similar to and nothing like anything you've heard before. "Drunk With a Loaded Pistol" starts off woozy and deranged before evolving into a warning alarm/drum attack. "Time Won't Tell" opens as a soundtrack for the apocalypse followed by the layering of guitar-driven pop over boom-bap drums. As the album title implies, El-P creates a dark, dystopian sonic universe filled with ominous basslines and thumping, punishing drums.

Comprised of original instrumentals as well as remix instrumentals to Kidz in the Hall's "Driving Down the Block" and Young Jeezy's "I Got This," Hell3 represents songs that were meticulously crafted yet never found a home on a proper release. While sonically different from J Dilla's instrumental masterpiece Donuts, that album would prove inspirational to El-P. "Like Donuts, I wanted to keep things short and to the point. I think that's an aspect of instrumental music that so many more people can relate to. I didn't want anyone to listen to this record and at any point get bored."

While the producer is currently working on the follow-up to 2007's I'll Sleep When You're Dead, Hell3 functions as both a stopgap and standalone album. "This was a chance for me to give something to my fans as a reward for their patience as I worked on my new record.  With the past Megamixxes, I never sat down and really tried to make a record. It was more like, 'Here's a bunch of cool stuff you haven't heard.' I look at this new one as a proper album. Me calling it a Megamixxx is just an excuse to get to Volume Three of anything."

Tracklist:

01. Take You Out At The Ball Game
02. Whores:The Movie
03. Meanstreak (In 3 Parts)
04. DMSC
05. Drunk With A Loaded Pistol
06. Time Won't Tell
07. Secret Police Man's Ball
08. I Got This (El-P Remix) Redux
09. Jump Fence, Run, Live
10. He Hit Her So She Left
11. Driving Down The Block (El-P Remix) Redux
12. Honda Redux
13. How To Serve Man  (Stripped)
14. Contagious Snippet (Wilder Zoby Feat. El-P)
15. Eat My Garbage 2

Jazz improvisation, psychedelic rock, eastern and African sounds: right up our alley.

By Blurt Staff

The Adluna label, which specializes in folk-rock to jazz experimental through funk post-rock ambient (having released music by Rob Mazurek, Doug Scharin, Jeff Parker, Bill Laswell, Bernie Worrell, Garrett Devoe and Shahzad Ismaily), just sent word of an intriguing upcoming project: The Chicago Odense Ensemble, featuring Mazurek (Tortoise, Chicago Underground, Isotope 217...), Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217), Dan Bitney (Tortoise, Isotope 217), Matt Lux (Isotope 217), Brian Keigher, Jonas Munk (Causa Sui, Manual) and Jakob Skott (Causa Sui).

According to Munk, "The closest reference for this kind of music is prbpably early 1970s proto-fusion jazz that strived for a similar synthesis of jazz improvisation, psychedelic rock, eastern and African sounds and the use of the studio as a musical tool instead of merely a recording facility."

The label adds that while "no official release date" has been set, they're hoping to get it out within the next few months, full details tba.

Meanwhile, go here to check out a trailer on their Facebook page that will give you an idea of where things are headed.

Announcing the latest installment in our "Play For Today" series of video game reviews. This time out we take on Monster Hunter Tri, Dead to Rights: Retribution, Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake and Nier

Head over to BLURT blogger Aaron Burgess' "Play For Today" blog - he's just posted some action-packed (term used relatively and literally) reviews of four more top-rated games. Included are his own ratings plus screenshots - like the ones below - and trailers. Game on!

Monster Hunter Tri

Dead to Rights: Retribution

Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake,

Nier

Warm Slime, quite possibly one of the best new garage platters of 2010, serves up a gonzo Mindwarp and more. It's due out next week on In The Red.

By Tim Hinely

These San Francisco via Providence, RI miscreants, led by New Englander John Dwyer, have amassed quite a catalog in what seems like only a few scant years. Whenever anyone says their name I always think it's The O.C.'s and then I remember it's spelled differently. (What difference does that make? Absolutely nothing.) Onto the music.

If you think you're getting gypped on account of this being only 7 songs keep in mind that the opening song title track is a nearly 14 minute gonzo mindwarp - and if you think a garage band shouldn't do that, remember the Cheater Slicks nailed you with one nearly twice as long, "Thinkin' Some More",  a decade and a half ago on Whiskey . That being said, "Warm Slime" is a bent ride through 13 Floor Elevators territory, as are most of these tunes.  The ride is hilly so keep your seatbelt on. On "I Was Denied" they hammer home a riff over and over again until you fall in love with it or want to shoot the cd player (I picked the former). A few songs can get a bit mucky ("Everything Went Black", "Mega-feast") but then they go an churn out a near-classic like "Castiatic Tackle", so they like to even things out, these Thee Oh Sees.

First time ever teaching a university course for the legendary producer of records by Neil Young, The Band, Bob Dylan and scores more.

By Fred Mills

The news was actually announced late February, but in such under-the-radar fashion, via the University Of North Carolina at Asheville's online and alumni newletters, that pretty much everyone in the media missed it. As of the spring 2010 semester, egendary studio rat Elliot Mazer is a member of the UNCA faculty and is teaching an upper level course on record production.

Mazer, of course, is a multiplatinum record producer and engineer who's worked on everything from Neil Young's Harvest and The Band's The Last Waltz to records by Janis Joplin, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Dylan, The Tubes, Michael Hedges, and Leonard Bernstein. He's also reportedly been working on current projects with both Young and Dylan. Check his Wikipedia page for a refresher course - the gentleman's a legend.

Formally listed in the university handbook as MUSC 373.003 Record Production (3 credit hours)  the course was tough to get into - only 21 students were accepted, with music majors given preference, particularly if they were already songwriters, singers and studio musicians or engineers.

According to the course description, the course is "about musical creativity, musicianship, musical expression (and recording engineering and producing)... a tour through the recording process from a raw song to a finished recorded product.  It is open. Lectures will take students through a brief audio and video history of recording. Songs are the essential starting block for a good recording. Each ‘song' will be rehearsed and discussed during the class. In week 5, each production group will be given 5 hours in the studio to record their songs. Additional time will be allocated for re-records and sweetening. The end result will be finished recordings of song composed, performed, engineer, produced and played by members of the class."

Wow. What an opportunity for some lucky 21 students.

"Students have been awe-struck to be studying with someone of such fame and artistic accomplishment," said Wayne Kirby, UNC Asheville Music Department chair and co-instructor for the course, as part of the UNCA online statement. "Everyone without exception that is enrolled in the class has told me how much they are learning."

UNCA adds that this is the first time Mazer has ever taught a university course. Mazer is rumored to have visited the mountain city of Asheville, fell in love with the region, and decided to relocate there (or at least establish a second or temporary home there - frequently in demand, he's no doubt on the move quite a bit.)

Check out a very cool interview with Mazer from 2001 here.

Fourth full-length gets an additional literary treatment.

By Blurt Staff

Antony & The Johnsons will release their new album, Swanlights, on October 4th in Europe and the UK via Rough Trade, and October 5th in the US via Secretly Canadian. Abrams Image will simultaneously release a special edition of Swanlights which will include the CD inside a 144 page art book containing Antony's paintings, collages, photography and writing. 

This is, of course, is the fourth A&TJ album and the follow up to the critically acclaimed smash The Crying Light which topped year-end best of lists across the globe in 2009. Antony burst into the international spotlight with his second album, I am a Bird Now, which won the UK's prestigious Mercury Music Prize.

Actually, make that "dark dark dark" - the clip was shot at night using an infrared night vision camera.

By Blurt Staff

LA songwriter Juliette Commagere is debuting a brand new video for her song "Berceuse," the second to be released off of her full-length debut, Queens Die Proudly (Aeronaut Records), after "The Nature of Things."  The "Berceuse" video offers a gorgeously unnerving and dreamlike  accompaniment to Juliette's contemplative song, and is directed by Aran Reo Mann (Bonnie Prince Billy, The Chapin Sisters). Shot completely at night with an infrared camera, it features Juliette and professional free surfer Hans Hagen taking on an extremely otherworldy ocean.

According to Hagen, "I have not seen surfing shot in infrared...it was shot in front of our house in Laguna Beach on a cold winter night. I'm so used to surfing into a day; a sunrise is uplifting, but surfing into the dark is haunting.  Car batteries powered the camera rigs perched on bar stools in the shore break with minimal visibility.  On the last shot I almost took out the crew..."

Commagere is preparing for an August 2010 release of her second full-length, accompanied by the same recording partners - Joachim Cooder and Martin Pradler. The new album will also feature a guest appearance by legendary ambient trumpet player Jon Hassel.  More details tba soon.

Two-day bash set for August 14 and 15 - on June 1 the lineup will be announced.

By Blurt Staff

The third annual Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival, confirmed to take place August 14 - 15 in San Francisco's historic Golden Gate Park. Benefiting the San Francisco Recreation & Park Department and celebrating the four pillars of Bay Area culture - music, food, wine and technology -- there is no other festival that honors its home city to such an extent, making Outside Lands "one of the most unique and enjoyable events in the country."

 The artist lineup for the festival will be announced on June 1. A limited quantity of lower-priced Eager Beaver tickets will go on sale on May 7 at 10am PST.

More details at the official website: http://www.sfoutsidelands.com/

Fucking sick, we tell ya - fucking sick. Movie hits theaters today, kids. Meanwhile, cruise smooth with the AC/DC hits collection, colloquially titled Iron Man 2 Soundtrack.

By Ron Hart

From the looks of its trailer, the upcoming sequel to Jon Favreau's screen adaptation of the mighty Iron Man kicking off the summer movie blockbuster season this year looks FUCKING SICK. And there is nothing more appropriate to set the mood for the excitement of the film's May 7^th opening than its soundtrack, which features 15 killer AC/DC tracks culled equally from both the Bon Scott and Brian Johnson eras.  

Though several of the picks are obvious ones ("Back in Black", "TNT", "Highway to Hell"), what makes this collection a real treat are the deep cuts Favreau chose to include here as well - most strikingly "Cold Hearted Man" from the European version of 1978's Powerage, "Guns for Hire" from the Aussie rockers' underrated 1983 effort Flick of the Switch and the title track to their last truly great album, 1990's The Razor's Edge (whose 20^th anniversary is this year in concert with the 30^th anniversary of Back in Black).

For a band who has yet to enjoy a proper greatest hits package, the soundtrack for Iron Man 2 makes for a long overdue single-disc career review that should appeal to both casual and hardcore AC/DC fans.

To be prefaced by three digital EPs. Tour coming next year.

By Blurt Staff

Members of Thomas Dolby's online fan community The Flat Earth Society (located at his official website) already got the good news: beginning on June 12, the studio auteur intends to drop the first of three proposed digital EPs, with the other two, Urbanoia  and Oceana, to follow later this year. Titled Amerikana, it will be available to Society members in good standing and features the exclusive tracks "Road to Reno," "The Toad Lickers" and "17 Hills" (guests include Mark Knopfler and Natalie MacMaster). Those tunes and the ones on the two subsequent EPs will eventually be combined on a physical CD with extra tracks.

The forthcoming full-length studio album, his first in 20 years (he's also done soundtrack work and additionally issued a live album in 2003), will be titled A Map of the Floating City. Guests on that will include Knopfler and MacMaster along with Eddi Reader, Regina Spektor, Imogen Heap and Dolby's old Camera Club buddy Bruce Wooley (on Theremin, no less).

Said Dolby, in a statement, "The new songs are organic and very personal. This album is a travelogue across three imaginary continents. In Amerikana I'm reflecting with affection on the years I spent living in the USA, and my fascination with its roots music. Urbanoia is a dark place, a little unsettling . . . I'm not a city person. And in Oceanea I return to my natural home on the windswept coastline.
 
"I marvel at the new landscape of the music business - distribution via the Internet and recording technologies I barely dreamed of when I started out. But this album does not sound electronic at all. I have zero desire to add to the myriad of machine-based, synth-driven grooves out there. The Net has made a music career approachable for thousands of bands - but I hear too few single-minded voices among them. What I do best is write songs, tell stories."

Dolby of course was a huge hitmaker during the ‘80s - his "She Blinded Me With Science" video remains a staple of cable TV and has become a YouTube mainstay. But according to his bio, he "quit the music business in the early '90s and spent many years in Silicon Valley, where his tech company Beatnik Inc. created the ringtone synthesizer embedded in more than 3 billion mobile phones shipped by Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and others." Now back in England, he's been busy writing and recording songs in his renewable energy-powered home studio.

A tour is being set up for 2011. Welcome back, Tom.

Duh!

By Blurt Staff

Stand-up's resident metalhead (and BLURT hero) Brian Posehn recently issued his new album Fart and Weiner Jokes (Relapse), and now he's got a video to go with it. Titled "More Metal Than You," it's an animated clip featuring a slew of guests who, dare we say it, are more metal than us: musical guests including Scott Ian (ANTHRAX), Joey Vera (ARMORED SAINT, FATES WARNING), John Tempesta (EXODUS, ROB ZOMBIE), Mark Osegueda (DEATH ANGEL), Brett Anderson (THE DONNAS), Brendon Small (DETHKLOK), and Mark Morton (LAMB OF GOD).

View the clip below; it's pretty awesome (watch for the part where BP tokes up on the toilet). The music'll take care of ya too (listen for the Metallica homage, for example). After that check out the live version of it featuring BP and Scott Ian performing at the 2010 Revolver Golden Gods Awards.

Tour Dates:

May 7         Tempe, AZ                    Improv (8:00 pm)

May 7         Tempe, AZ                    Improv (10:00 pm)

May 8         Tempe, AZ                    Improv (8:00 pm)

May 8         Tempe, AZ                    Improv (10:00 pm)

May 14       Portland, OR                 Mission Theater (7:30 pm)

May 15       Seattle, WA                  The Crocodile (8:00 pm)

May 20       Grand Rapids, MI           Dr. Grins (9:00 pm)

May 21       Grand Rapids, MI           Dr. Grins (8:00 pm)

May 21       Grand Rapids, MI           Dr. Grins (10:30 pm)

May 22       Grand Rapids, MI           Dr. Grins (8:00 pm)

May 22       Grand Rapids, MI           Dr. Grins (10:30 pm)

June 24       Cleveland, OH                Hilarities Comedy Club (8:00 pm)

June 25       Cleveland, OH                Hilarities Comedy Club (7:30 pm)

June 25       Cleveland, OH                Hilarities Comedy Club (10:15 pm)

June 26       Cleveland, OH                Hilarities Comedy Club (7:30 pm)

June 26       Cleveland, OH                Hilarities Comedy Club (7:30 pm)

Tommy Castro and Butch Trucks take home multiple awards and a good time is had by all at marathon ceremony.

By Fred Mills

Last night in Memphis at the Cook Convention Center the annual Blues Music Awards were held - it's the 31^st annual such bash, hosted by The Blues Foundation - and with nearly 7 hours' worth of performing and glad-handing, attendees no doubt came away in the wee hours of the morning, exhausted and looking forward to a big eggs-and-bacon breakfast.

Meanwhile, though, the evening's big winner was guitarist Tommy Castro, whose recent album Hard Believer (Alligator) was reviewed right here at BLURT (and got a 9-star review at that). Castro took the honors for Blues Band of the Year, Contemporary Blues Album of the Year and Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year, plus the "B.B. King Entertainer of the Year" award. Also, our fave Derek Trucks nabbed the Best Instrumentalist - Guitar and the Rock Blues Album of the Year (for Already Free) awards.

Among the other BLURT-approved winners were Monkey Junk (Best New Artist Debut, for Tiger in Your Tank), Ruthie Foster (Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year), Cyril Neville & Mike Zito (Song of the Year, for "Pearl River"), Duke Robillard (Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year) and Super Chikan (Traditional Blues Album of the Year, for Chikadelic).

Get more details along with a full list of the winners at the Foundation's website or at the About.com Blues site, featuring BLURT's own blueshound Rev. Keith A. Gordon holding court.

[Photo of Tommy Castro via his MySpace page]

Some Frontier Ruckus content below as well! Album coming in early June. Watch the video, below.

By Blurt Staff

Songstress Samantha Crain's new album is due out June 8 on Ramseur Records.  You (Understood), is  a more mature, experimental album for Crain, who's 23 now, and is her "attempt to preserve my contact with some human beings, 16 to be exact."  These 16 people affected her through the writing and recording of these songs, and the album is her monument to those sporadic and revered chapters, captured forever through these songs. With You (Understood), Crain once again looks closely at life and people and is able to conjure a mood to bring the listener into her own magical world where the ordinary is weird and small things take on significance. Crain's voice is a marvel and once heard, impossible to forget, earning comparisons to both to Joanna Newsom and Cat Power but with phrasing and inflections uniquely her own.

Check out the video for her track "Santa Fe" below.  The video was directed and shot in New Mexico by Native American filmmaker Sterlin Harjo (Barking Water) and features Sam's labelmates Frontier Ruckus backing her on the chorus. Hey, what about all those boots!

Crain will be playing Bonnaroo this year and will be touring with Swedish duo First Aid Kit in June. Check out music and more: www.myspace.com/samanthacrain

Tour Dates:

5.14- 5.17.10 - Nelsonville Music Festival - Nelsonville, OH

5.20.10 - Bloomington, IN - The Bishop

5.21.10 - Lemmons - St. Louis, MO

5.22.10 - The Blue Fugue - Columbia, MO

5.23.10 - Eight Street Taproom - Lawrence, KS

5.24.10 - Kirby's Beer Store - Wichita, KS

5.25.10 - White Water Tavern - Little Rock, AR

5.26.10 - The Outland - Springfield, MO

5.27.10 - Maxine's @ Hot Springs, AR

5.28.10 - Cain's Ballroom - Album Release Show! - Tulsa, OK

5.29.10 - 51st Street Speakeasy - Album Release Show! - Oklahoma City, OK 

6.1.10 - Bootleg - Los Angeles, CA *

6.1.10 - Bootleg - Los Angeles, CA *

6.2.10 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, CA *

6.4.10 - Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR *

6.5.10 - the Vera Project - Seattle, WA *

6.6.10 - Media Club - Vancouver, BC *

6.9.10 - Cedar Cultural Center - Minneapolis, MN *

6.10.10 - Schubas Tavern - Chicago, IL *

6.11.10 - Bonnaroo

6.13.10 - Green Room - Montreal, PQ *

6.14.10 - Middle East Upstairs - Cambridge, MA *

6.15.10 - The Bell House - Brooklyn, NY *

6.16.10 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY *

Some videos just demand that you try your own hand at recreating them... Can you spot part of an old-school classic rocker in the photo above?

By Fred Mills

Minneapolis indie upstarts Gayngs have a new album out next week on Jagjaguwar titled Related. Keep your eyes peeled for our review, but in the meanwhile, you gotta check out their video for their cover of the Godley & Crème chestnut "Cry." Needless to say, it's more than just a tad inspired by the original G&C "Cry" video, and if you don't believe us, you can also watch that original clip.

Even cooler: in animating the faces of the various contributors to morph into one other, the band arranged an appearance by Kevin Godley himself. Somewhere out there right now there's a fan of 10cc (G&C's old band) crying foul!, but on our end, we think this is cool as hell. Not as cool as the original - in 1985, the video morphing technology was still so new it was considered state of the art, whereas now, pretty much anything is possible with digital -  but still pretty cool.

Despite having to navigate a sonic impasses thrown up by the venue's acoustics, the Welsh gang pulled out all the dance-pop stops at San Francisco's Regency Ballroom on May 7.

By Jud Cost

Los Campesinos!, an army of eight with enough raw energy for an entire company of royal marines, breezed into San Francisco as soon as the Icelandic behemoth subsided sufficiently to allow air travel to the States from their native Great Britain. There was a small mob of devotees at the half-full Regency Ballroom eager to salute the infectious octet's every move. And there were plenty of gyrations to go around, as the oddly named combo, based in Cardiff, Wales, at times resembled a performance art video about attention deficit hyperactive disorder. No steaming coffee urns from Starbucks or Peet's necessary in the dressing room, thanks all the same.

Unfortunately, the task of getting a proper balance for the jittery whirlwind of Los Campesinos! proved too much for the Regency's sound man. Admittedly, with two sets of drums, a pair of guitars, violin, bass, keyboards and up to four vocalists working hard on every song it must be tough to keep all the snakes in the same basket. Even the stage announcements of garrulous frontman Gareth Campesinos (everyone in the band follows the Ramones' tradition of using the band moniker as a surname) were barely decipherable. But this house is notorious for bad sound. At one show by the National a few years back all you could hear was the bass and kick-drum, no matter where you stood. Everything else was swallowed up by the magnificent rafters of this grand old hall.

Even with tonight's sonic handicap, however, it was fairly easy to mentally fill in the missing parts if you'd experienced Los Campesinos' three superb albums-Hold On Now, Youngster, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed and, most recently, Romance Is Boring (all on Arts & Crafts). Even though none of the band members appears to be Welsh, they are the most recent in a short list of excellent rock bands from Wales that includes Badfinger, Man, the Alarm, Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.

As expected from the country known as "the land of song" (and home of pop warblers Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey), Los Campesinos! puts a premium on intricate vocal arrangements. Their frantic instrumental sound has the nervous facial tic and crazy rhythms of New Jersey new wavers the Feelies as well as the bounding exuberance of Kiwi pop-punk legends the Clean and Split Enz. With such a pedigree (and more cooperation from the sound booth) you got the feeling as they began to wind things up with signature song "You! Me! Dancing!" that Los Campesinos! can't miss.

[Photo Credit: Jon Bergman]

Biggest news of the day, apparently.

By Blurt Staff

Pitchfork and other music blogs are reporting that Carlos D has left Interpol following completion of the New York band's new album. A note on the band's website reads, in part, "The four of us poured our collective heart into this music and we are very proud and excited to share it... After the completion of the album, Carlos informed the rest of us that he would be leaving the band. He has decided to follow another path, and to pursue new goals. This separation is amicable, and we whole-heartedly wish him great happiness and success. We will remain, as always, deeply respectful fans of this blazingly talented individual."

What this means for the future of the band - who add that they have some "new recruits" to take his place on the upcoming tour - is all conjecture at this point, although the very future of indie rock is... wait a minute. Someone leaving a midlevel band isn't news. Bono leaving U2 would be news. Bob Dylan having gastric bypass surgery would be news. This isn't news.

Sorry.

Online bass guitar school called, naturally enough, Funk University - aka F.U. - is opening for bidness. Funk don't funk around for nobody. Watch the video below, for proof.

By Blurt Staff

On July 1 classes will commence at the Funk University, the online bass guitar school created and curated by Bootsy Collins - you may have heard of him. If not, pull out a random James Brown, Parliament or Funkadelic record and take a refresher course. Then sign up for the bass courses at TheFunkUniversity.com. "The best day of my life was when I graduated from P.U.," said Collins, in  a statement. "The next best day of my life will be to see students graduate from F.U." As for the motivation of launching The Funk University at this point in his career, Collins remarks, "Funk don't funk around for nobody, so get funked up while you can."

According to F.U. materials, the star child is lead professor and has designed "an intense curriculum tailored for intermediate to advanced bass players as well as anyone interested in a deeper understanding of funk, and has enlisted a dream team of bass legends to serve as guest professors [who will be] teaching the techniques that made them immortal."

It's a virtual university offering fresh lectures, lessons and exercises on a daily basis. The first semester starts on July 1 with enrollment based on a first-come, first-served basis. Some details:

*In Bootsy's Lecture Hall, Bootsy will provide extensive lectures on funk, the bass, and his body of work, while the other professors articulate Bootsy's lectures with lessons and exercises on bass and rhythm inside the classroom areas.

*The library will house a wealth of multimedia learning content, from video and audio to gear tutorials.

*Staff reviews of students' performance will be conducted periodically, and professors will also hold office hours to answer students' questions.

*Bootsy will also be judging student track submissions as part of a series of regular school competitions.

Incidentally, There's a not-all-that-unexpected promotional tie-in here as well. Collins is also planning to release a new album in the fall titled Boot-Z Class University that features an all-star cast, along with the release of Bootsy's Signature Bass by Warwick.

Latest album from the Mod Father heads in an old school direction. Wake Up The Nation is due out June 1 from Yep Roc.

By Lee Zimmerman

As the self-ordained Mod Father, Paul Weller has frequently reinvented himself over the course of his career, from a young manic Pete Townshend wannabe at the helm of the Jam to the cocktail jazz stylist of the Style Council and, in a spiraling and ever-prolific solo trajectory, a refined elder statesman whose muse parallels the whole of British Rock. With Wake Up The Nation, Weller looks back to his beginnings, revving up his rock ‘n' roll instincts with undiluted enthusiasm. Initial listens suggest Weller's ready to shed added embellishment, and old school entries such as "Moonshine," "Wake Up Nation: and "Up the Dosage" offer all indication that he's embarking on yet another new direction. Likewise "No Tears To Cry" and "Andromeda" find him crooning soulful ballads spun from a classic template, yet another hint that he's intent on retooling his retro technique.

Still, psychedelic influences weigh heavily here, especially as the album approaches its peak.  The added haze confuses matters to a certain extent, causing Wake Up The Nation to come across as more of a bewildering brew than a straight set of songs. Still, with 16 tracks in just over 40 minutes, Weller's as restless as ever, making this one of Weller's most kinetic sets yet.

Who says this ain't news? It's ALWAYS news when Courtney's in town!

By Blurt staff

Remember how we mentioned in our roundup of reviews for the new Hole album the other day that Courtney Love was back on Twitter, having taken a vacation from @courtneylover79 (see a Twitpic archive here) but now coming back to the fold as @courtneylove UK? Yeah, we know... be very, very afraid.

Turns out those recent slowdowns at Twitter have been traced directly back to Love's new tweet regimen... kidding! But as Radar Online helpfully pointed out this morning, Love did go on a Twitter binge starting early this morning, sending out 62 tweets apparently trying to strike up a dialogue - thus far, one-sided - with her estranged daughter Frances Bean Cobain.

[Aside: must insert obligatory Nirvana and Kurt Cobain meta-tags here to maximize web traffic. Hey, at least we didn't bring up those Kurt Cobain early demos again!]

As Radar notes, "The theme of Love's posts seemed to be an open mother-to-daughter letter with Courtney simultaneously expressing her frustration at Frances, while giving her relationship advice."

Wow, no comment, other than to say that this is certainly a novel approach for a mother to take to regain custody of her daughter. We'll let a few of the tweets, copied below (in reverse order of posting, w/errors left intact; this is a good example of why people should not use their smartphones for email or Twitter as they wind up coming across as illiterate imbeciles) speak for themselves - go over to Love's Twitter page if you are so compelled, as she is threatening to delete them after she finishing chanting.

***

# im going to chant now ill pribably delete half of these but the boy stuff you need to hear only from me, wendy is too boycrazy. about 5 hours ago

#     and if as a MAN he doesnt treat you like the GOddess you ARE.  cut it, lastly i miss you more than anyone has ever missed anyone.so much. about 5 hours ago 

#     dont take any shit from that boy, and dont have an assnt as a bf, have a peer, if hes not a prince and a MAN he doesnt deserve you, period. about 6 hours ago 

#     again my deepest apologies for using twitter for fucks sake, i dont even use it anymore but i cannot trust 18 year olds to be accurate w you about 6 hours ago 

#     so at the very least please clear my name i dont think you . i know you dont want other people to think things that arent true. about 6 hours ago 

#     i pray everyday you will chant again, & find your way back to the law of cause & affect and be wise enough to see our karma  &transform it about 6 hours ago

# and again im extremely sorry to use TWITTER but i saw you holding hands in Coachella wich was coach HELLA for me, and my stomach turned. about 6 hours ago 

#     you shouldnt have to vye for him, dont dont dont stay with him if hes a beta, you need to be challenged, kept in line just a little. about 6 hours ago 

#     dont get him presents and dont vye for him, dont overtext( im very guilty of that one i think its a letter and its NOT they hate it) allofem about 6 hours ago

#     how shallow is he? how much is about you making him cool? NOTHING? awesome! dont buy yourself jewelry EVER. ive told you that. about 6 hours ago 

#     i know what kind of boy youve always liked, and im afraid of you falling into the trap of simply being worshipped and not having an equal. about 6 hours ago

# i love you soprry to take to the world wide ethernet but i love you and i dont know how to tell you without telling one of the pack , madly. about 6 hours ago

#     lets try and use judy so i dont have to fucking go on TWITTER. i dont even use this thing and im sure this will be in some bs news feed about 6 hours ago 

#     the last thing i lpok forewArd to in this life is any trial but im a good mother and i wont allow you to believe such nonsense so suit up. about 6 hours ago

#     i love you and i will fight for you i though if i bore up and was sxtrong for six mos youd get over it but obviously its just inflamed you, about 6 hours ago

#     sorry to state this publically but i wont stand accused of such implications or tolerate making 3 on worst mothers list. thanks to this, no. about 6 hours ago 

#     i hope he takes care of you and you look beuatiful even thoiugh you have an angry furrow i think thats called your "lawyer lie" furrow! about 7 hours ago

#     last of my twitter relapse, bean i saw you at coachella with isaihia in a pic he looks sweet and like your dad actually.hope alls well about 7 hours ago

Swans, Van Dyke Parks, Mary Margaret O'Hara and Deerhoof: now THAT is diverse.

By Blurt Staff

POP Montreal's 9th annual edition will take place September 29th to October 3rd (in, naturally, Montreal). They've just announced the early list of performers (gotta love the hyperbole):

Some of the highlights include the return to the stage after 14 years of the legendary post-punk band SWANS; the mysterious Canadian cult singer MARY MARGARET O'HARA; the producer/composer/musician VAN DYKE PARKS who has worked wih everyone from the Beach Boys to Grace Kelly and Joanna Newsom; perhaps the greatest gypsy marching band on earth, Romania's MAHALA RAI BANDA and the unpredictable and awesome DEERHOOF.

 
Other artists include: Liars, Danielson, Marnie Stern, Fol Chen, Bear In Heaven, Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens, Shonen Knife, Karkwa, The Luyas, Baby Dee, Twin Sister And Clare & The Reasons. More will be announced this summer. The bash will also include, as usual, film, late-night after-parties, panels and workshops, art shows and indie craft fair.


More info and details on ticketing at: http://popmontreal.com

The best parts are the frogs and chirping birds...

By Blurt Staff

Rockabye Baby's Lullaby Renditions of Kanye West isn't necessarily a departure for the label, which has done toddlers' versions of songs by Guns N' Roses, The Beatles, Queen, Bob Marley, U2, Led Zeppelin, Coldplay, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Green Day, The Ramones, Metallica, Radiohead, AC/DC, The Cure, and others. But as you might imagine, rap and hip-hop have been noticeably absent from the catalog, so the forthcoming appearance (May 18) of the West volume is apparently raising eyebrows. As Rockabye Baby puts it, the collection "already has the media and fans of the series abuzz."

Perplexed is possibly the case too. The Boom Box quipped, "We all know that Kanye West opened his debut album, The College Dropout, joking that he had the perfect song for the kids to sing, but what about toddlers?" The Oklahoman notes: "Maybe the best part about a Kanye West Rockabye Baby CD: The series' albums are all instrumental. So, listeners won't have to endure West's obnoxious declarations of grandeur, awards show rants or attacks on country cutie Taylor Swift." Meanwhile, Consequence of Sound queried, "In news you really couldn't make up if you tried, the sounds of Kanye West will soon be singing your child to sleep. Creepy?"

Well, it depends on if your name is Taylor Swift or not!

At any rate, in a fascinating press release sent out today, Rockabye Baby took pains to outline how their intention was one of "transforming the songs of a genre-transcending artist into sweet and soothing lullabies to be enjoyed by babies whose parents love Kanye and hip-hop music." The label Vice President, Lisa Roth, acknowledged, however, that it's a ballsy move. (Is it cool to call a children's label "ballsy"?)

Said Roth, "Sure, we¹ve taken some flak for doing Kanye. Our Kanye lullaby happened to have been in production long before any controversy and we had the choice to postpone it but decided not to. We 'lullaby' great artists. If we love them, we know other people will too. Maybe not everyone, but that's rock & roll!"

You can get a sense of what's going on via the clip of the lullaby version of West's "Gold Digger" at the Rockabye Baby site. Almost as much fun as the music are the comments that follow from the "fans" so check those out.

As one person put it, "I cannot believe that the first rapper that you guys are gonna put out is KANYE WEST!!! And I say that with the utmost disgust!!!" While not to be outdone, a supporter enthused, "That is awesome, love the chirping birds and the frogs in it!"

Track Listing:

1.  Good Morning

2.  Gold Digger

3.  Stronger

4.  Good Life

5.  Heartless

6.  Touch the Sky

7.  Jesus Walks

8.  All Falls Down

9.  Love Lockdown

10.  Through the Wire

11.  Hey Mama

12.  Homecoming

Ninth studio album due out on June 22; meanwhile, nab a limited edition 7" single.

By Blurt Staff

Danzig is back with a new studio album - their first studio effort in over six years - and to promote Deth Red Sabaoth, Glenn and the boys will also be embarking on a brief U.S. tour. It kicks off June 15 in Norfolk and runs through the end of the month to San Francisco. Dates below - and collectors and fanboys, note that during the internet pre-sale, fans who purchase a ticket can also purchase a special, limited edition Danzig 7" vinyl single with two brand new songs - "On a Wicked Night," the first single from the new album, and "The Revengeful." 

The album is Danzig's ninth studio venture that began back in 1988 with the Rick Rubin-produced, Platinum-certified Danzig, is an 11-track collection penned by Danzig, and is laced with Glenn's lycanthropic growls and blues-infected wailing.  Tracks include "Black Candy, "The Revengeful," and "On A Wicked Night"; part I of the two-part "Pyre of Souls" opens with acoustic guitar, haunting piano, Glenn's plainsong vocal, and an almost dirge-like feel, while part II explodes with electric guitars and a driving, mesmerizing cadence.

In addition to the upcoming Deth Red Sabaoth, Danzig has just published a book of select, previously unreleased Misfits, Danzig, and Samhaim lyrics, titled "Hidden Lyrics of the Left Hand" (Verotik).  The book features illustrations by Simon Bisley, who has painted numerous album covers for Danzig and collaborated on many Verotik comic titles.

For the tour, the band will feature long-time Danzig cohort, guitarist Tommy Victor (Prong, Ministry), drummer Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative) and former Samhain bandmate, bassist Steve Zing.  Support for the east coast dates will be Gorgeous Frankenstein, the band of original Misfits member Doyle, and Seventh Void, the band that includes of Danzig/Type O Negative drummer Johnny Kelly and Type O guitarist Kenny Hickey.

JUNE
15    Norva - Norfolk, VA  (public on-sale May 14 @ 10AM through Ticketmaster)
16    The Fillmore, Charlotte, NC   (public on-sale May 14 @ 10AM through Ticketmaster)
18    Nokia Theatre, New York, NY   (public on-sale May 14 @ 10AM through Ticketmaster)
19    Trocadero Theatre, Philadelphia, PA   (public on-sale May 14 @ 10AM through Ticketmaster)
21    House of Blues, Boston, MA   (public on-sale May 14 @ 10AM through Ticketmaster)
24    Knitting Factory, Boise, ID   (public on-sale May 14 @ 10AM through Ticketfly)
25    Knitting Factory, Reno, NV   (public on-sale May 14 @ 10AM through Ticketfly)
26    Nokia, Los Angeles, CA   (public on-sale May 14 @ 10AM through Ticketmaster)
27    Regency Ballroom, San Francisco, CA   (public on-sale May 16 @ 10AM through Ticketmaster)

This is important: Haunting and mesmerizing tune pays tribute to the young girl who was victimized by bullies. Hear the track below.

By Fred Mills

BLURT faves the Green Pajamas have just released a new song based on the sad story of Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide following intense bullying from schoolmates in Massachusetts in January of this year. "The Red, Red Rose" is performed by Jeff Kelly and Laura Weller and was was written by Kelly to express his anger and sadness over the incident, one which shocked and outraged parents across the U.S. and has prompted numerous school systems to examine their policies towards bullying.

The stark yet propulsive tune is, in a word, haunting, recalling vintage Sandy Denny-era Fairport Convention as envisioned through a dark psychedelic lens - and we defy anyone not to feel a lump in the throat when Kelly gets to the lines, "One January afternoon/ They killed you in your school clothes." Please listen to this song; it's an important one. Much like Neil Young's "Ohio" brought the Kent State deaths of 1970 into focus, "The Red, Red Rose" helps crystallize both the emotions and nuances of a tragedy that sometimes get obscured in the black-and-white world of news reports.

It will be released worldwide as a digital single this month. Meanwhile, it's currently streaming at the group's MySpace page and the home page of their label, Green Monkey Records. We've also got the YouTube stream of it below.

The Red, Red Rose

(Song for Phoebe Prince)

So, nevermore to see the sunrise

And nevermore the ocean wide

And not to taste the snow of morning

On the tongue of one so mild

And nevermore your eyes in laughter

That lately held but only tears

That lately gazed with only sorrow

Across a life of so few years

One January afternoon

They killed you in your school clothes

As sure as winter's cruel hands

Clutch and kill the red, red rose

So, lost we are to ever hold you

Lost forever, thanks to those

Who built you gallows just as sure

As the first freeze kills the red, red rose.

May 14-16 festival expanded to include New Orleans concert; call goes out for volunteers and additional fundraising.

By Blurt Staff

To date, the response of the music community to the growing crisis on the gulf coast related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has been marginal, to say the least. Actually, let's just call a spade a spade: the response of the music community has been NONEXISTENT, which makes if more than marginal - that's shameful. Admittedly, for celebrities and musicians, talking about and possibly reacting to an environmental disaster isn't as "sexy" as a human tragedy, and to be fair to everyone, the scale of a tragedy and the ensuing human suffering such as in Haiti, and even in Chile after that, does dwarf that of the oil spill. But still...

So hats off to the Hangout Beach Music and Arts Festival (held this weekend May 14th - 16^th; more details here), which just announced they'll be donating all profits to regional coastal cleanup and preservation.  In an effort to expand awareness and increase donations, The Hangout, along with New Orleans producer Stephen Rehage, will expand the Concert for the Coast to New Orleans.  This two-city concert experience features The Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama and a one-day concert event on Sunday, May 16th in downtown New Orleans.  New Orleans' Jazz pioneers Preservation Hall Jazz Band will be on hand at both events. New Orleans' venerable WWOZ-FM will be broadcasting the concerts live.

Presently, the stages are being constructed upon pristine beach, but the oil slick in the gulf threatens to endanger the wildlife habitats and livelihoods of those that live in the region. "The Gulf Coast is what makes the Hangout Music Festival so unique," says Shal Zislin, investor and co-creator of the Hangout Music Festival.  "It is one of the most pristine coastlines in all of America, and we will donate every penny above our costs to keep it clean."

The Hangout Festival is expanding its three-pronged effort aimed at Gulf Coast recovery by organizing clean-up volunteers, raising public awareness, and fundraising for the families, businesses and habitats that have been devastated by this catastrophe.

Leading the The Hangout's mission for Gulf Coast awareness is national nonpartisan organization HeadCount. Festival attendees are encouraged to visit the HeadCount booth at The Hangout Gulf Shores to write their local senators and congressmen and to bring donations and supplies for Gulf Coast relief.  HeadCount will host a panel with leading environmental activists and musicians on Sunday, May 16th.  More information can be found in the About section at www.hangoutmusicfest.com

Upcoming concerts to promote recent album cancelled; a speedy recovery is wished for and expected.

By Blurt Staff

Legendary Cape Verde-based vocalist Cesaria Evora had open heart surgery last night (Monday, May 10) in a Paris hospital. The surgery was in response to a coronary problem that occurred this past weekend. She was admitted to the hospital Monday morning and the surgery, which started at 8:00 p.m., concluded early this morning at 2:00 a.m. The operating surgeon reported that things went as well as possible. The singer was then admitted into intensive care where she awoke around 11.00 this morning and is reportedly doing well.

Evora suffered a stroke two years ago, in April of 2008. However, following a lengthy recovery, she recorded and released a new album, Nha Sentimento, and was planning to promote it throughout 2010. The record explores the Middle Eastern and Arab influences of Cape Verdean music and culture and features collaborator and admirer Fathy Salama, a former conductor of the Cairo Orchestra known for his work with Youssou N'Dour, and who arranged three mornas on the album. Nha Sentimento will be re-released shortly featuring a bonus track of "Moda Bo," Cesaria's duet with Cape Verde's up-and-coming singer and starlet, Lura (considered by some to be Cesaria's heir apparent). The duet's live debut was to take place during the June North American tour, for which Lura was set to be the opening act.

Evora is suspending all activities until the end of the year. As a result, June 2010 concerts in Washington, DC, New York City, Boston, Toronto, and Montreal have been cancelled.

Hotly-tipped debut from noisy indierock duo drops digitally today, physically on June 1. Now streaming at NPR.

By Fred Mills

It's quite a day for Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells - Derek Miller (guitars/production) and Alexis Krauss (vocals) - as they have their debut album, Treats, offered up digitally today exclusively through the iTunes Store. Meanwhile, across the land, journalists with the requisite hipster cred opened their email boxes this morning to discover a link to a free download of the record!

That rattling sound you hear? It's 5,000 music bloggers, all furiously tapping away at their keyboards, composing drafts of their Sleigh Bells reviews so they can be among the first to post the details to the web!

The rest of you out here in the real world, however, can simply relax and surf over to the NPR Music site where the album is being streamed for a week. You won't need any of us members of the fourth estate to tell you about Sleigh Bells.

Treats will be released physically by Mom + Pop Music in special partnership with M.I.A.'s NEET Recordings on June 1, incidentally.  

According to the band's label: "Sleigh Bells have become one of 2010's most exciting new discoveries, releasing what is already one of the year's most highly-anticipated debuts.  After incredible shows at SXSW, packing a tent to the gills at Coachella, and knocking people out night after night on tours with Major Lazer and Yeasayer, the band's live show is also making an indelible mark on music lovers.  With buzzing guitars, massive, head-nodding beats and sweet-as-sugar vocals on top, a Sleigh Bells song simply explodes from the speakers, sounding like nothing you've heard before."

Well, all right then! We are all about bands who sound like nothing we've heard before. And in truth, listening to that free download right now, we'd reckon that ain't just hype.

[Photo Credit: Will Deitz; via MySpace]

"Bloodbuzz Ohio"

By Fred Mills

With High Violet hitting the stores today, The National has also unveiled a new video. It's for "Bloodbuzz Ohio" and was directed by Hope Hall, Andreas Burgess, and Carin Besser.

We're thinking Modern English. "I Melt With You." Minimalism. Tuneful.

Check it out below (be patient; you might have to restart it a couple of times if it's glitchy).

The National - "Bloodbuzz Ohio" (official video) from The National on Vimeo.

Massive, and we do mean massive, tour about to kick off...

By Fred Mills

"Maybe we wave our flag a little too much about our collaborativeness, because really we're just a band. We just happen to have a little more ventilation than other bands in that we let people come and go. But I've said the same thing before, there really isn't any such thing as a band - you give yourself a name basically because you have to. We're just people making music together. The band is just so that you can talk about it, so you can sell it, so you can project it out there, and you can market it. But the name is pretty much bullshit. It's just people playing music because they love to play music together."

That's Charles Spearin, of Broken Social Scene, in a recent interview with BLURT talking about the free-sprawling musical collective and their modus operandi. The occasion of the interview, of course, is the new BSS album, Forgiveness Rock Record, which was released last week. You can read the whole story right here.

Meanwhile, announced this week is a massive international tour that kicks off this week in England, takes in a number of festivals, then pretty much winds all over North America until the third week of October, with the only time off being a spell in August. Check out those dates below:

05-13 London, England - Brixton Academy
05-14 Minehead, England - All Tomorrow's Parties
05-15 Brighton, England - The Great Escape
05-17 London, England - Heaven 
05-18 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg
05-19 Cologne, Germany - Burgerhaus Stollwerck
05-21 Paris, France - La Maroquinerie
05-23 Linz, Austria - LinzFest
05-24 Berlin, Germany - Kesselhaus
05-27 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Festival
05-29 George, WA - Sasquatch
06-19 Toronto, Ontario - Toronto Island
06-22 Vienna, Austria - Flex Club
06-23 Zagreb, Croatia - T-Mobile INMusic Festival
06-24 Munich, Germany - Backstage Werk
06-26 Birmingham, England - O2 Academy
06-27 Pilton, England - Glastonbury Festival
06-28 Manchester, England - Academy
06-29 Nottingham, England - Rescue Rooms
06-30 London, England - HMV Forum
07-05 Frankfurt, Germany - Mousonturm
07-06 Hamburg, Germany - Uebel & Gefahrlich
07-08 Liege, Belgium - Les Ardentes Festival
07-09 Sheffield, England - Corporation
07-10 Kinross, Scotland - T in the Park
07-11 Punchestown, Ireland - Oxegen Festival
07-16 Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Music Festival
07-25 Taipei, Taiwan - The Wall
07-27 Singapore - Esplande Concert Hall
08-01 Woodford, Australia - Splendour in the Grass
08-28 St. Louis, MO - Lou Fest
09-08 Pittsburgh, PA - Byham Theater
09-09 Asheville, NC - Orange Peel
09-10 Raleigh, NC - Hopscotch Festival 
09-11 Richmond, VA - The National
09-13 Washington, DC - The Warner Theatre
09-14 Philadelphia, PA - TLA
09-17 Boston, MA - House of Blues
09-18 New York, NY - Central Park, Rumsey Playfield
09-20 New Haven, CT - Toad's Place
09-21 Northampton, MA - Calvin Theater
09-22 Burlington, VT - Higher Ground
09-24 Ithaca, NY - State Theater
09-25 Buffalo, NY - Town Hall
10-01 Ann Arbor, MI - Michigan Theater 
10-03 Milwaukee, WI - Pabst  Theater
10-04 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
10-06 Winnipeg, Manitoba - Burton Cummings Theatre
10-07 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - Odeon 
10-08 Calgary, Alberta - MacEwan Hall
10-09 Edmonton, Alberta - Winspear Centre
10-10 Kelowna, British Columbia - Community Theatre
10-12 Victoria, British Columbia - Element
10-13 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore
10-15 Seattle, WA - Paramount 
10-16 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
10-19 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern

With the Complete Season Two just issued on DVD, let's review what we've learned so far. Check the video clips below.

By Rick Allen

Tracey Ullman is brilliant. Any of her talk show appearances show her to be quick and incisive, unfiltered and often drop dead funny. Like the comedian she most resembles, Robin Williams, she needs very little winding up and once wound she is a veritable energizer bunny. When that energy is applied to the sketch comedy of her show, Tracey Ullman's State Of The Union, in which she takes on life in these United States ("50 states, 51 capitol cities") it works mostly in her favor. For one thing the frenetic Koyaanisqatsi cum surgical strike approach keeps things from suffering SNL syndrome; none of the skits goes on so long as to get boring. If you don't like one you'll probably like the next, though sometimes the frenetic pacing and quick cuts bring to mind those anime cartoons that were supposed to have caused seizures in some people a while back.

All of Ullman is not for everyone either. She doesn't have the fascination with body fluids that hamper the American Pie school, but old age, loneliness and terminal disease are frequent themes for her and the appeal is limited. And Ullman often uses musical parody, like her impersonations - celebrity and otherwise - they are mostly spot on. Her Bollywood send ups featuring her Indian born pharmacist show off the singing and dancing skills but sometimes it's hard to make out the lyrics, her accent, good as it is, doesn't make them any easier to make out. Luckily the DVD extras include subtitled sing-a-long versions of some of the songs. 

For sure, there's a lot to like; the flight attendant and the Mormon compound wives sketches are great. Laura Bush post-White House at the Crawford Ranch, Tony "Paulie Walnuts" Sirico, Celine Dion and Heather Mills make perfect targets, some handled more or less sympathetically and some, like Mills, mercilessly and deservedly skewered.

The set is best viewed in sessions rather than all at once. It's more of a rental than a buy unless you are a rabid fan; most people aren't likely to watch the whole thing more than once or twice. But it's sure worth a look even if afterwards you find yourself a little worn out, thanking your lucky stars Ullman's parents never asked you to babysit her; you'd still be exhausted.

We caught them SMiLE-ing again (and loved ‘em): the duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally puts the charm on an adoring Webster Hall crowd on May 6.

By Zachary Herrmann

Whether by coincidence or not, Beach House's latest LP, Teen Dream links itself to Brian Wilson's old quest (circa SMiLE, Take 1) to create "teenage symphonies to God". Suggesting such a link might be overstating the religious elements of both Beach House and The Beach Boys a bit, although it is interesting to note how many of the songs on the former's 2^nd album, Devotion, do contain the word "holy".

Save that conversation for another day.  

The connection between the two, besides the profound musical influence Wilson has had on Beach House's Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally lies in the shared belief that pop music (especially that which is aimed at the pre-drinking age crowd) can be something greater than easy-digestible, disposable entertainment.    

In the age of the $0.99 iTunes download, Beach House still believes in the power of the album. Each of the duo's LPs has built upon the predecessor, always with respect to that which came before it.

(Other bands please take note: This is how you build a career, rather than planning for a Greatest Hits set.)

It'd be dismissive to call their songs "atmospheric", but Legrand and Scally know how to dress a set, so to speak, fill the frame with characters, and then deliver the whole production into whatever the stereo equivalent of Cinerama would be. They have built a universe of Beach House songs, linked by themes and shared melodies. The songs and the albums vary, but it is very much the same world.

All that from a couple of keyboards, a guitar a drum machine, and now, organic percussion as well - in short, a very tall order to reproduce in any live venue with only three members (including touring drummer Daniel Franz).   

Damn do they ever make it work though, thanks in large part, to Legrand, a woman of few words but many Metal-head thrashes. Looking a bit like a grown up version of Wednesday Adams, dressed in fishnet stockings and a white blazer, Legrand's ethereal presence (and physical appearance) only added to the mystery contained in that deep-bodied voice.

Belting out "Heart of Chambers", the best of the band's slow-burners, that voice certainly secured itself a place in more than a few of the future teen dreams belonging to the 18-and-up crowd. From the opening notes of "Walk in the Park", she had the crowd eating out of the palm of her hand. Even the funkier (that's a completely relative term here) numbers, "Master of None" and "Silver Soul" prompted little more than head nodding with a few reported cases of swaying.

Legrand (quiet, but absolutely commanding) completely overshadows her partner in crime, Scally, which is both unfair and only natural. The organs and keyboards were the founding principles on which the House of Beach was built, but it's Scally's deceptively simple guitar work, often in the background, holding everything together.

Since the band's self-titled studio debut (the sentimental favorite for this writer), Scally's guitar has played a much more significant part in shaping the songs, and the dynamic is probably for the best in a cavernous place like Webster Hall. On "Zebra", "Gila" or even "Used to Be", some of Scally's finest moments of the night, the guitarist seemed perfectly capable of filling a space twice as large.

When the guitars were sparser on "Astronaut" or the unveiled new track "White Moon", Scally acted the reciprocal to Legrand's jewel box lullabies. Introducing the latter as a song that "basically doesn't even exist", Legrand delved into what could have easily come from The Mamas and the Papas, or one of the other 1960s masters of all-things-precious-and-hummable. Thank the guitars for always keeping things from getting too precious, always a threat when your weapons of choice are keyboards and organs.

If any criticism could be levied at the band, the encore came after the band's peak, "Take Care", the heartiest of Beach House's bittersweet anthems.

Disco ball swirling, lights reflecting off the turquoise and magenta piñatas (told you they know how to dress a set), there was a high-school prom sort of feel to the whole number. Not in the realistic sense of what proms are really like (the lame breather in a night of debauchery), but the adolescent myth of these sorts of things, and the emotions connected to these memories that, for much of the audience, could have been yesterday.

It's hard to say how and why exactly Beach House taps into this realm of shared American experiences (Legrand was born in France), other than Beach House understands what it is to be young, what it's like to hold the frightening and selfish notion that you (and sometimes, one other person) are the only person(s) in the world.

Teen Dreams sounds, thankfully, far less pretentious than "teenage symphonies to God" or any lengthier description I may have just slapped on it. Call Beach House's music whatever the hell you want - it's immensely inspiring stuff.

Set list:

1)   Walk in the Park

2)   Lover of Mine

3)   Gila

4)   Better Times

5)   Norway

6)   Silver Soul

7)   Master of None

8)   Astronaut

9)   White Moon (new song, debut)

10)                  Used to Be

11)                   Zebra

12)                  Heart of Chambers

13)                  Take Care

Encore:

14)                   Real Love

15)                  10 Mile Stereo

How about a little bit of celebrity tabloid news to start off the morning, Blurt readers?

By Perez Mills

It's been awhile since we checked in on our hero Adam Ant, so let's see what he's been up to, and... uh-oh. While his much-publicized mental problems and battle with booze are reportedly a thing of the past, it sounds like he's having some anger management "issues."

Britain's The Sun is reporting (yeah, we know; most reliable media outlet in the UK; work with us here), under the blazing headline of "He's Prince (not very) Charming," that the erstwhile ‘80s pop star was performing Monday night at a children's charity show held in a Portsmouth church when he dropped the F-bomb and subsequently "stormed off stage after shocked organizers pulled the plug on him." Apparently Ant (Stuart Goddard, 55) not only performed the Stones' "Sympathy For the Devil" (gasp!), but at one point, after being heckled by members of the crowd, he barked, "I'm a punk rocker. I don't do Christian. You can fuck off to the church."

The report adds that people were walking out as Ant sang a duet with a 4 year old boy.

After the lights came up and his amp was unplugged, the singer left the stage and later told a Sun reporter, "The show was shit. I wasn't told it was in a church hall."

Er, Stu, that cross on the building that you were performing in? You might have spotted it walking in...

iTunes sales of Adam & the Ants tracks are rumored to have skyrocketed among the under-8 demographic in England over the past few days.

"Hands up or fuck off, mate!"

Band does 50-minute set May 11 in front of about 300 fans. See the video below.

By Blurt Staff

Last night on CBS' new "Live On Letterman" series broadcast from the Ed Sullivan Theatre in NYC, MGMT performed the following songs:

Flash Delirium Destrokk The Youth Electric Feel It's Working The Handshake Song for Dan Treacy Time to Pretend Congratulations (encore) Brian Eno

And they've already got the whole set online. Enjoy.

Focus group-approved album will be released in June. Meanwhile, fans are foaming at the mouth to get their hands on the 16-song version of the record.

By Blurt Staff

If most pictures are worth a thousand words, the one above's worth at least 100,000 - and, not so coincidentally, 100,000 DEVO fans can't be wrong! That's the sleeve for the forthcoming DEVO album, Something For Everybody, and we just can't stop staring at it.

The record, which is their first studio album in 20 years, is out June 15 and was produced by Greg Kurstin (The Bird & The Bee). It also includes contributions from John Hill, Santigold, John King of the Dust Brothers, and the Teddybears.

Advance copies were recently sent out to the press, and those advance CDRs contained 16 songs. Apparently the final version will only contain 12 songs, so recipients of the discs were roped in to vote for their personal faves. (No, we won't tell you ours.)

"We decided to actively seek comment and criticism from outside people and use that as a tool, rather than shunning or ignoring it," said the band's Gerald Casale. "Our experiences participating in secondary creativity-things like corporate consensus building, focus groups-make you appreciate the connection that an artist has to society."

"In the past, Devo was very insular," added Mark Mothersbaugh. "This time, I became intrigued with the idea of having people who understood Devo actually work on the songs, and to do to our songs what we did to 'Satisfaction' on our first record. Don't put any boundaries on their production style, let them bring what they needed to make Devo be what it should be after waking up from suspended animation for 20 years."

Meanwhile, those 16-song advances stand to become instant eBay fodder. There's nothing currently listed there or at other auction sites like GEMM, but watch out...

Well, since Courtney is reportedly all sober and an adult now, with her only apparent vice being Twitter, somebody's gotta say dumb-ass things in the press and act like a spoiled brat...

By Blurt Staff

It's shaping up to be quite a week for M.I.A., who is either (a) a savvy marketing person, who knows how to drum up interest in her forthcoming album (/ / / Y / , due July 13 on her own N.E.E.T. label), or (b) just a bitch. Not content to just talk up the new record and then let the music finish the job for her, M.I.A. has been getting her ducks lined up in a row then aiming her Sri Lankan army rifle at them, at least if you can believe Britain's NME, who currently have her on their front cover (via Pitchfork).

To wit:

On Lady Gaga: "People say we're similar, that we both mix all these things in the pot and spit them out differently, but she spits it out exactly the same. None of her music's reflective of how weird she wants to be or thinks she is. She models herself on Grace Jones and Madonna, but the music sounds like 20-year-old Ibiza disco, you know? She's not progressive, but she's a good mimic. She sounds more like me than I fucking do!"

On Justin Bieber (gee, now that's quite a target): "I find the new Justin Bieber video more violent and more of an assault to my eyes and senses than what I've made." (She's referring to her semi-controversial, if slightly obtuse, video for "Born Free" that includes nudity and violence.)

On The Twilight soundtrack: "They asked me [for a song] - luckily Jimmy [Iovine,  of Interscope Records] had a beef with the Twilight people, so he stepped in and told them to fuck off."

What's next, M.I.A. - ripping all three Jonas Brothers a fresh one? Soon you'll qualify to bash Billy Corgan too, if you're lucky... Hey, you're already just as illiterate as Courtney Love is on your semi-coherent Twitter postings, so you're halfway there!

To be released May 25 by Secretly Canadian, Saint Bartlett shines in places (due in part to Richard Swift's assistance), but in others the veteran NW singer-songwriter seems unsure of himself.

By John Schacht

Ten records into an impressive but often-overlooked solo career, Seattle's Damien Jurado continues to turn out compelling narrative fare with emotional resonance far exceeding that of his more successful singer-songwriter peers. Jurado eschews the woe-is-me confessionals that most sad bastards with acoustic guitars rely on, instead convincingly adopting the various voices of desperate outsiders, spurned or cheating lovers, the mentally ill, or the painfully self-conscious. While he's experimented sonically some with the formula - with smashing results on the full-band rock of I Break Chairs, and disastrously with the answering machine snippets of Postcards and Audio Letters - variations in Jurado's musical are nuanced, not redefining.

And why should they be anything more? Teamed here with Richard Swift, Jurado adds his label-mate's penchant for Spector layers (think Swift's The Novelist) to about half the dozen songs here, and to great effect. "Cloudy Shoes" opens on a hopeful note well-suited to the mellotron strings and call-and-response vocals that give the song its cavernous, open-armed sound, while double-tracked drums, Beach Boys harmonies and plinking piano do much the same for tracks like "Arkansas," "Throwing Your Voice" and "Kalama." Still, Jurado's stories are more Raymond Carver than O. Henry, as illustrated by the back-and-forth between the characters in "Rachel & Cali" (whose syncopated strum recalls Wilco's "How To Fight Loneliness") - "Rachel, would it be alright if stayed here in the car? There's too many people out there I don't know/It's not that I'm too shy or cannot be polite, I just don't feel comfortable in crowds."

Elsewhere, Jurado drops the Spector textures entirely, reverting to familiarly sparse territory accented with the occasional Neil Young touch (the Crazy Horse guitars and feedback outro of "Wallingford") or a Mark Linkous-like use of radio static ("Kansas City" and "Harborview"). And that turns out to be the record's sole flaw - the first four songs sound like Jurado is at ease with Swift's production; the rest sounds like he's unsure if that's the direction he should go. It's no deal-breaker because Jurado's songs stand on their own, but the change of sonic scenery that Swift suggests might bring that fact to more people's attention.

More than a few surprises this time around...

By Blurt Staff

The Americana Music Association announced the nominees for the organization's 2010 Honors and Awards ceremony yesterday during a reception hosted by BMI at the W.O. Smith School of Music. The show, in its 9th year, will be held September 9th at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.  

Longstanding Americana supporters Emmylou Harris and Todd Snider read the list of award candidates to a crowd of industry executives, artists and tastemakers. Dave Rawlings received four nominations, Texas songwriters Ray Wylie Hubbard and Ryan Bingham received three and Patty Griffin, The Avett Brothers and Hayes Carll garnered two nominations.

Selected by members of the Americana Music Association, the 2010 nominees reflect the genre's affection for innovative and inspiring artistry. The nominees' eligibility is based on work released between May 1, 2009 and March 31, 2010.

The 2010 Americana Music Association Honors and Awards nominees are:

ALBUM OF THE YEAR
The List, by Rosanne Cash
A Friend of a Friend, by Dave Rawlings Machine
Downtown Church, by Patty Griffin
A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is no c), by Ray Wylie Hubbard

ARTIST OF THE YEAR

Ryan Bingham
Patty Griffin
Levon Helm 
Steve Earle 
Ray Wylie Hubbard

DUO GROUP OF THE YEAR

The Avett Brothers
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Band of Heathens
Dave Rawlings Machine

INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR
Buddy Miller
Dave Rawlings
Will Kimbrough
Sam Bush

NEW & EMERGING ARTIST
Sarah Jarosz
Ryan Bingham
Hayes Carll 
Corb Lund
Joe Pug 

 
SONG OF THE YEAR
"The Weary Kind"

Written by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett-performed by Ryan Bingham
"Drunken Poets Dream"

Written by Hayes Carll and Ray Wylie Hubbard performed by Ray Wylie Hubbard

"Ruby"

Written by Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch-performed by Dave Rawlings Machine

"I and Love and You"

Written and performed The Avett Brothers

The winners will be announced September 9 at the historic Ryman Auditorium during the 9th Annual Americana Music Association's Honors and Awards Show. Hosted by Jim Lauderdale and featuring a band led by Buddy Miller, the Honors & Awards ceremony will also recognize Lifetime Achievements and bestow awards in Performance, Songwriting and Instrumentalist and other important categories. Additional honorees and performers will be announced in the coming months.

"Very quietly, Americana has become the fastest rising music community today," said AMA executive director Jed Hilly. "The nominees represent the elite of the elite, and we could not be more proud to work with and for such provocative creators."

Slated for Wednesday, September 8 through Saturday, September 11, the 11th Annual Americana Festival and Conference will offer daily seminars, panels and networking opportunities at the Sheraton Nashville Downtown Hotel.  Details at www.americanamusic.org .

Due this fall and accompanied by a tour.

By Blurt Staff

Michael Gira's re-activated Swans will be undertaking their first U.S. performances in 13 years, celebrating the fall release of the first new Swans album since Soundtracks For The Blind (1997). The album was recorded by Jason LeFarge at Seizure's Palace in Brooklyn and is currently being remixed by Gira with Bryce Goggin (Antony & The Johnsons, Akron/Family) at Trout Recordings. The album, title tba, will be released on Gira's Young God label.

The band's tour dates are listed below.

Here's what Gira wrote on the label website about his decision to bring the group back:

"About reconstituting Swans: ...there was a point a few years ago during a particular show when I was on tour with Angels  Of Light, with Akron/Family serving as the backing band. It was during the song ‘The Provider.' Seth's guitar was sustaining one open chord (very loudly), rising to a peak, then crashing down again in a rhythm that could have been the equivalent of a deep and soulful act of copulation. The whole band swayed with this arc. Really was like riding waves of sound.  I thought right then, ‘You know, Michael, Swans wasn't so bad after all...'

"Ha ha!  It brought back - in a flood - memories, or maybe not memories, more a tangible re-emersion in the sensation of Swans music rushing through my body in waves, lifting me up towards what, I can only assume, will be my only experience of heaven. It's difficult - and probably pointless - to try to describe this experience. It's ecstatic, I suppose - a force of simultaneous self negation and rebirth. Really, I probably only experienced this a handful of times to such an extreme extent during the entire 15 year history of Swans. All the elements have to align perfectly, and you can't force it, though you might constantly strive for it. I don't mean to be too lofty here, but it's a fact. I'm talking about my own experience of the music (though I'd hope people in the audiences along the way might have experienced a similar episode). When I ask myself if I believe in God, I start to say NO, but then I remember that sensation, and I'm not so sure. So I want more of that, before my body breaks down to such an extent that it won't be possible any more. So I'm doing it.

"Naturally, some of the material for this new record will be songs, centered around the voice and words. Other parts (I'm hoping) will be reaching for what I've described above. One thing I want to point out right now: THIS IS NOT A REUNION. It's not some dumb-ass nostalgia act. It is not repeating the past. After 5 Angels Of Light albums, I needed a way to move FORWARD, in a new direction, and it just so happens that revivifying the idea of Swans is allowing me to do that. I'll be using what I learned in the last several years to inform the way this new material develops, while carrying forward from where Swans left off with its final album Soundtracks For The Blind, and in particular, Swans Are Dead. If you have expectations about how Swans should be, that's your business, but it would be a disservice to both of us if I were to make music with your needs in mind, and the music would certainly suffer as a result. In any event, I certainly never thought this day would arrive, but it's inevitable, it's here, it's fate, so I'm succumbing to it."

Swans U.S. tour dates:

Sept 28 Philadelphia,  PA @  Trocodero Theater

Sept 29 Washington, DC @ Black Cat

Sept 30 Boston, MA @ Middle East downstairs

Oct  01 Montreal, QC @  Le National  - Pop Montreal fest

Oct 02 Toronto, ON @ Lee's  Palace

Oct 04 Detroit, MI @ Crofoot Ballroom

Oct 05 Chicago, IL at Bottom Lounge

Oct 08 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple.

Oct 09 New York, NY @  Bowery  Ballroom

We have danced in silent videos to many Nirvana songs ourselves.

By Fred Mills

The Fader is reporting (and by the time you read this, pretty much every blog on the planet angling for some Nirvana related web traffic) that starting today at the Seattle Art Museum will be hosting a new exhibit devoted to Kurt Cobain and his spawn.

No, not talking Frances Bean Cobain, but Cobain-related styles and sounds. Well, actually, based on the description below, we're not sure what the hell any of it has to do with Nirvana or the guitarist, but whateer. Here's how they are describing it:

"Entitled simply Kurt, [it] will explore the ways in which the grunge movement's most iconic figure continues to influence modern artists from a multitude of disciplines. The works on display run the gamut from the literal-a sculpture by Joe Mama-Nitzberg and Marc Swanson made from spun glass tinsel called "angel hair" and dried sprigs of baby's breath (a sort of tactile "Heart Shaped Box" shoutout)-to the more abstract, like Gillian Wearing's silent video featuring the artist dancing to Nirvana's "Come as You Are" and Gloria Gaynor's ‘I Will Survive.'"

Well, all right then! Let's all head off to Seattle. Don't forget to take your copy of those recently unearthed Kurt Cobain demos and all the accompanying rhetoric.

Meanwhile, this Friday night, Cobain biographer will be giving a talk about the musican and his legacy at the Seattle Art Museum. Details at the official website.

How many of you have done similarly?

By Bob May

Ed. note: BLURT contributor Bob May recently sold his album collection, which in these hard economic times might not be all that unusual an activity. (Hello, eBay.) The experience affected him deeply - we've been there, Bob, trust us.

As May puts it, "I've been a poet for at least as long as I've been a philosopher (and for a much longer time than I was a songwriter).  Anyway, I decided to sell my LP collection a few months back, and I was recently inspired to recount the experience in verse."

I Sold My Memories The Other Day

                 © April, 2010 - RAMay

I sold my memories the other day . . .

well, the vast majority anyway.

They won't be missed - they were packed away

under dust and rodent scat,

and the wings and legs of insects that

died in the attic, making their way

over the tops of 12-inch spines,

boxed in alphabetical lines,

and tucked into a dormer bay.

One might conclude that I'd just resigned

all voluminous port of emoted mind

to the danker dark of the un-enshrined . . .

            yellowed tape and cardboard, dressed . . .

            no protective wrap, or waterproof chest -

beyond whatever can be divined

            through life's theatrical to and fro,

            rehearsed and staged on floors below . . .

a proven salve for memory's lines.

O yes, of course, there's boxes of pics . . .

old T's, love letters - torn movie tix . . .

each retained that it might transfix

a moment's meaningfulness.

If only souvenirs possessed

            that aura of magic relicts.

Yet, a normal world would ever demand

we forfeit all other talisman . . .

that it's music by which emotion wicks.

My friends will swear they understand.

            Convinced I've hatched a master plan . . .

they await some digital sleight of hand

to preserve this vinyl vault.

Fair enough, it's the labels' fault . . .

always profit over the fan,

            the planned passé - DAT to CD,

            and ethereal detritus of MP3 -

with lovers left in no man's land.

They stare around my living room,

            searching through the sunlit gloom

for metallic twinkle which they presume

            will signal a reservoir . . .

            a thousand albums - maybe more . . .

                        nostalgia's blanket-weaving loom . . .

            alphabetized across the shelves,

            or compressed too thin as bits and cells . . .

each seed once promised a booming bloom.

But, obliged am I to now confess

            this forfeiture is not randomness . . .

no accident, no error, nor by duress.

            No techno-evolution change

            can anyone fairly call to blame.

                        I elected to self-dispossess.

            I embrace the responsibility

            for letting loose my memory,

to choose, instead, this emptiness.

You ask me why one might divest

one's life that resource, refuge . . . rest?

What leave of sense made the easiest

            option to purge the mind?

            Warmth of heart - chill of spine . . .

                        no memory stays to yet molest

            my heart with hope of dodging death . . .

            nor prodding me to find new breath . . .

but polished hopes to pierce the chest.

Per past accounts of feeling's tinkers,

            Eliot, Thomas, and other thinkers,

whose words still serve as feeling linkers,

            to some deeper sense inside . . .

            love or hate, humility . . . pride -

                        words as bright as hazard blinkers,

            once lit a more emotive age . . .

            when memory's most fermented stage

could be imbibed by casual drinkers . . .

these recollections of pleasure and pain,

            these makings of meaning the mind will deign,

to scratch and scar - to score the brain -

            I forfeit all these willingly.

            Would they could erode from me,

but as limbs of newts, again and again,

these feelings will ever regenerate . . .

no promise of end, nor means to abate . . .

the soul gets chiseled and they remain.

And with no thought of fortune found,

            no value checked, nor share of sound . . .

no anecdotes I cared propound,

            I surrendered the vinyl cache . . .

as better here than rendered ash.

Small bills had formed a tiny mound

            beside the counter register.

            The counter clerk becomes investor,

in pursuits of pasts unwound.

No quest for pity, nor slight regret,

            no torment will ever, this choice, beset . . .

the toll of that day is simpler, yet . . .

            while I feigned some modest sacrifice;

each of those memories had its price . . .

            who can survive the pain beget?

I now rejoice that I desist,

preserving mementos of the lost and missed . . .

and all that is left is just to forget.

Teen popster and post-hardcore ironist make their mark with synth-girl vox and sludgy guitar. What's not to like on the Brooklyn duo's debut? Treats is out digitally already via iTunes and arrives on CD June 1 (and on picture disc vinyl June 22; preorders also net you a free 7" single) via Mom + Pop Music/NEET.

By Zach Bloom

Near the end of last year Sleigh Bells dropped "Crown On The Ground," a single marked not only by its winning combination of sludgy guitar and synth-girl vocals, but by how incredibly LOUD it was - a jarring assault on the unsuspecting headphone listener. The cover audaciously scrawled the name in red cursive over a banana yellow background, a la Jimmy Buffet. And with all senses completely overwhelmed, you're left wondering, who the hell are these folks, who make their long-playing debut on the aptly-titled Treats?

Alexis Krauss and Derek Miller are, believe it or not, a Brooklyn duo. She's got a background in teen pop, and he hails from post-hardcore roots. Everything is exactly at it seems. Embracing the surface,  "Tell 'Em" follows suit to kick it off with a thumping industrial beat that's fun in the way Orgy's cover of "Blue Monday" was hilarious. The rapid fire onslaught of Miller's dense riffage and Krauss's sickly-sweet word-curling rise up and separate from an electro-din, unlike the similar sounding Crystal Castles, whose Alice Glass buries her voice in the mayhem.

As the title track fades, Krauss seductively pants with the beat, laughs, and then a few extra chords get pounded out. A jaw dropper from start to finish.

[Photo Credit: Will Deitz]

At the (unfortunately named) Jiffy Lube Live amphitheatre on May 13, following a set by openers Band of Horses, Eddie Vedder & Co. serve up a warmly-received career overview that, thankfully, avoids playing the nostalgia card.

By Robert Fulton

The contrast could not have been more evident at Pearl Jam's May 13 show at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, VA, 40 miles outside of Washington, D.C. For more than the first hour-and-a-half of the band's two-hour, 20 minute set, the stage's backdrop showed the letters of "Pearl Jam" spelled out on the keys of a typewriter. At the same time, the two giant screens that flank the immense amphitheater's performance area showed what was happening on the stage in black and white.

Then, with the second encore, the two screens switched to color; and the backdrop changed into a simple encircled "PJ," not unlike that of a power button to a laptop of smart phone.

So, the question is: Is Pearl Jam, which released its first album nearly 20 years ago, a nostalgia act? Or is the band with nine full-length releases now under its belt still making music that is modern and relevant?

The answer is, a little of both.

In an era that has seen a resurgence of '90s rock - Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots are all back touring this summer - Pearl Jam never left, releasing a solid album every few years, the most recent last year's Backspacer. The result is a deep, rich catalog, from which the band drew at the D.C.-area show.

The group opened with fan-favorite "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town," from 1993's Vs. After getting the crowd warmed up, what followed was a blistering quartet of songs that included "World Wide Suicide" from 2006's self-titled release; and "Brain of J" from 1998's under-appreciated Yield. Eddie Vedder and company were able to make their classic songs still sound fresh. Guitarist Mike McCready's shredding solo on "Even Flow" demonstrated why he might be one of the most underrated axeman of the era. McCready showed up again on "Black," another track from the group's 1992 debut album Ten. The song came across as almost too-heavy, but Vedder saved it with his still authoritative 45-year-old voice. "Garden" and "Alive" were also just as brilliant as they were when released 18 years ago. Those in attendance greeted "Spin the Black Circle" and "Better Man" - both off of 1994's Vitalogy - with enthusiasm in the second encore, and the crowd relieved Vedder of his duties by singing most of the opening to the latter.

While the trip down memory lane came across as vibrant and exciting, the newer stuff was also warmly received. The most evident was the rollicking "The Fixer," off of last year's Backspacer, and the band played a number of tracks from that release.

Surprisingly, it took the usually outspoken Vedder a little more than an hour to get on his soapbox less than a 45-minute drive from the nation's capital. But he made more than made up for it. Prior to "The Fixer," he asked if there were any lobbyists for Goldman Sachs in the crowd, before asking them "to kill yourself. Save the lives of others," and suggested that the country could use the bank bailout "money for other things." The lead singer did admit that suicide may be a little much, and that the lobbyists finding another line of work may be more appropriate. Vedder later made reference to Sean Penn and Haiti, as well as a shout out to Montana senator Jon Tester just before going into "Alive."

Wrapping up with a cover Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer" and their own classic "Yellow Ledbetter," Pearl Jam demonstrated that while the old songs still sound fresh and the new stuff is almost as gripping, a little nostalgia isn't a bad thing at all.

Opener Band of Horses' 10-song set was received warmly, though the enormity of the venue didn't suit the band's more intimate needs. Popular songs "The Funeral" and "The Great Salt Lake" were greeted with cheers, and the opening track "Factory" off the new album Infinite Spaces promises more good things to come from this South Carolina five-piece.

With their major label-powered Infinite Arms in stores this week, Ben Bridwell & Co. are determined to demonstrate they still know what's best for them and their fans. But do they?

By John Schacht

It's good fun blaming major labels when indie bands sign up and then lay a turd, especially given the majors' storied "we don't hear a single" stupidity. But in the case of South Carolina-based Band of Horses and its third full-length, Infinite Arms (Columbia/Brown/Fat Possum), you can only point the finger at the band for what's gone so terribly wrong.

First, some essential back-story. After Band of Horses' 2006 debut Everything All the Time became an out-of-left-field hit thanks largely to the epic-sounding and much-YouTubed single "Funeral," audiences for the band grew steadily before and after the release of 2007's Cease to Begin. By the time the band's contract with Sub Pop expired, those ballooning crowds had been duly noted by the remaining majors, and the courtship of Band of Horses and its built-in fan-base began. 

But Ben Bridwell - who is the only remaining member from the Everything days, and who was raised on DIY indie rock and Sub Pop's substantial teat - insisted on complete creative control over Infinite Arms, even agreeing to finance the record himself to achieve that freedom. He also asked that any label deal include the resurrection of his Brown Records imprint, which Bridwell established to release Carissa's Wierd (sic) records even before he became a member of the Northwest cult favorite which birthed Band of Horses. (Columbia Records was able to claim signing honors, while the distribution deal went to Fat Possum, hence the triple label designation affixed to the record sleeve.

Now, with cash in hand from that burgeoning fan-base, Bridwell and his bandmates - South Carolinians Ryan Monroe and Creighton Barrett, and Asheville-based Tyler Ramsey and Bill Reynolds - put their money to work. Recording began at Asheville's Echo Mountain, but the band decamped to Muscle Shoals and brought in strings and horns, and eventually headed out to Hollywood to, among other things, record vocals through the same reverb tanks that the Beach Boys used for "Good Vibrations." But Bridwell and friends soon discovered that major label toys cost major label money, and recording for Infinite Arms halted while Band of Horses mounted another round of well-attended tours to finish financing the rest of the record two years after basic tracking began.

Unfortunately, best intentions don't always pan out, and Infinite Arms is, sadly, merely the latest step in a downward trajectory from the band's debut. Creative control only highlighted Bridwell's songwriting weaknesses, judging by the many soporific songs here. In fact, the most telling tidbit about the record is buried in the press material. Producer Phil Ek (Built to Spill, The Shins), who was responsible for the canyon-deep and mountain-high dynamics on the band's prior records, left the recording very early on due to "scheduling conflicts." That's often PR jargon for artistic differences. Whether that was the case or not doesn't even matter; whatever the reason, that's where the trouble with Infinite Arms manifests most noticeably. The band has often replaced Ek's trademark cavernous sound with the equivalent of a soft-rock throw pillow. It's meant to convey intimacy, but instead throws a spotlight on the (mostly) dynamics-free songwriting and Bridwell's sophomoric narratives.

The album is frontloaded, but still undermined by the same weaknesses that soon sink it for good. Opener "Factory" signals the new direction and bigger budget with syrupy strings, Wall of Sound drumbeats and a guitar line that winds - and whines - through a lazy, pleasant-enough melody. The narrative is meant to lament the loneliness of the road via snapshots of "temporary" late-night hotel lobbies and even later-night TV movies, but dead-end details and a juvenile comparison of a loved one to a snack machine candy bar are excruciating. By the end of the track confusion reigns anyway, since Bridwell's declaration "I don't ever want to come back home" cancels out what the rest of the song was about. The rocker "Compliments" buries the guitars in warm fuzz, but at least they're back and fueling the album's best chorus and middle-eight - still, the less said about Bridwell's lightweight meditations on the deity "looking over everyone," the better. Then there's the simple love-is-gone "Laredo" which, with its chugging beat, twangy riff and wistful melody, made it an obvious choice for the LP's first single.

But whatever good will these opening cuts engender is crushed by much of what follows. Tepid numbers like "Blue Beard," "On My Way Back Home," and the title track are virtually free of elemental dynamics. All three are lovelorn laments with bridges nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the meandering melodies: no instrumental solos, no tempo shifts, no highs or lows for contrast. The worst offender is "Evening Kitchen," another trite love-is-gone tale this time built on twin acoustic guitars and harmonies so mawkish you wonder if all that late-night hotel TV viewing included too many Time Life Classic Soft Rock infomercials. This is where the absence of Mat Brooke - the delicate yin to Bridwell's reverb yang on Everything - is most noticeable (contrast this schmaltz with "St. Augustine," for instance).

"Dilly" and "NW Appt" at least have pulses, though the driving beat and staccato keyboards of the former lead only to a chorus of derivative Brian Wilson harmonies, while the latter's furious guitars seem only to remind us how much more fun Everything's "Weed Party" was. "Older," on the other hand, blends its harmonies with twangy guitars and comes up with a nice low-coast ditty that could serve as a bookend with Cease to Begin's "The General Specific." But disc-closer "Neighbor," clocking in at 6 minutes, spends half its running time leading up to a crescendo remarkable mostly for its lack of punch - compare it to the build-and-release of Everything's "Monsters," and Ek's "scheduling conflicts" become even more unfortunate.

Bridwell will never be mistaken for Stephen Merritt or Joe Pernice, but at least the music and textures of the two previous records kept your mind off his clunky, if heartfelt, narratives. Here, however, he's insisted that he and the band know best, and the result is more than just a major label misstep - it's a major misstep, period.

Blurt contributor John Schacht is also the editor of North/South Carolina independent music scene publication Shuffle magazine. He profiled Band of Horses for the Fall 2007 issue's cover story.

Clothing worn by Jacko in the This Is It movie goes on the auction block this week. Expect all rational thinking to come to a temporary halt as bidding commences.

By Blurt Staff

If you're like the rest of us on the BLURT staff, you've long fantasized about dressing up like Michael Jackson - not the pug-faced, leather-jacket-with-zippers mook Jacko who ran rampant on MTV back in the day, but the adult, mature, fiscally and chemically responsible Mr. Jackson whose tenure on God's green Earth came to a sad, premature end last year.

Now's your chance.

In classic dance scenes from Michael Jackson's legendary final performance, captured on film for the This Is It movie, Jackson wears his signature fedora, a sport coat and bright orange pants. This week, the bright orange pants that Jackson wore in the posthumously released film This Is It and other Jackson items will be auctioned by Nate D. Sanders, Inc., one the world's leading dealers of Hollywood memorabilia, autographs, rare books and gold coins. (Gold coins?)

The pants, which will be auctioned on Thursday, May 20, are one of the last-known garments worn by Michael Jackson to be captured on film. They'll be accompanied by certificates of authenticity and photographic evidence so bidders will know they're the real deal. The winning bidder in the Sanders auction will get the Jackson-worn pants, photos of Jackson wearing the pants during the taping of This Is It, a letter from Jackson's personal bodyguard (the former owner of the pants) who worked for Jackson until the day of his death on June 25, 2009, and a copy of the bodyguard's paycheck confirming his employment and relationship with Michael Jackson.

The auction is a one-day event and will also close on May 20. No word on whether the high bidder gets any gold coins, however.

Other Jackson garments and props have recently captured record-breaking prices at auction. White sequined gloves, a mainstay of Michael Jackson's wardrobe, have sold recently for more than $400,000. On May 5, a diehard Jackson fan from Costa Rica paid $170,000 for the glove Jackson used during his 1983 classic "Motown 25" television performance of Billie Jean (where he debuted the "moon walk"). At another auction in New York City, one of Jackson's flashy gloves captured $420,000 from a buyer in Hong Kong, China.

Yes, people really are nuts. The only question we have is - what the hell was Jackson doing wearing his bodyguard's pants?

At any rate, if your bid doesn't make the final cut, don't worry: you'll have plenty of other goodies to choose from in the same auction. To wit:

*"many other Michael Jackson items" (not specified)

*a handwritten letter by President George Washington

*a huge collection of classic sports memorabilia

*Marilyn Monroe's personal address and phone book (written in Monroe's own handwriting)

Th-th-th-that's show biz, folks!

His iconic vocals powered everyone from Elf and Rainbow to Black Sabbath and Dio. Those flashing devil's horns were no less iconic, too.

By Fred Mills

Ronnie James Dio, erstwhile vocalist for Black Sabbath as well the longtime frontman for his own eponymous outfit Dio, died yesterday, May 16. He reportedly had been diagnos4ed last year with stomach cancer. The musician was 67.

A message posted by wife Wendy Dio at his official website read thusly:

"Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever."

In addition to Sabbath and Dio, the diminutive but powerhouse singer born Ronald James Padavona also held down mic duties with his early band Elf as well as Rainbow (with Ritchie Blackmore), and in recent years he teamed up with some other Sabbath musicians, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice, as Heaven & Hell. His distinctive vocal screech influenced several generations' worth of rock singers, and he will indeed be missed. Read about his long career at his Wikipedia page.

The band's ninth album is tentatively set for a fall release. Check the live video from Merge XX, below.

By Fred Mills

Word is getting out about the forthcoming Superchunk album, due this fall from Merge. It's titled Majesty Shredding and will be abetted by a string of (somewhat sporadic) tour dates. The Tarheel band will be warming up this weekend at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, although unless you're in specific cities for specific festivals this summer, you'll have to wait until September for the actual tour.

Speaking to Stereogum about Superchunk's "occasional" status as a recording outfit, drummer Jon Wurster noted "I think it was having the time. Or maybe not even having the time but knowing that if we wanted to do this we have to make the time for it, which is kind of how it turned out. There was never really a defining moment where we decided, let's do this again, actually making an album. And I don't even think we had a goal in mind. I think it was just ‘Let's see how it goes, and if we're still into it-it's like five songs, let's keep going.'"

Of the album itself, Wurster added, "To me, it feels like we're doing what we do best in a way. I hate to say it's that classic Superchunk sound, but it kind of is! It's more straightforward than the last two albums."

Tour Dates:

5/21 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
5/27 Barcelona, ES - Primavera Sound Festival w/Pavement and The Fall
6/19 Denver, CO - Westword Music Festival
6/20 Chicago, IL - Taste of Randolph Street Festival w/The Love Language
7/24 Omaha, NE - MAHA Music Festival
9/17 Washington, DC- 930 Club
9/18 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
9/19 Brooklyn, NY- Music Hall of Williamsburg
9/21 Boston, MA- Royale
9/22 Philadelphia, PA- Trocadero

Superchunk - Cast Iron / The First Part from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Newly remastered edition will include bonus disc of pre-album demos. Check the video from 1985, below.

By Blurt Staff

The latest expanded edition of a classic R.E.M. album has been announced: on July 13, Capitol/I.R.S. will issue a two-CD, 25^th Anniversary version of 1985's Fables Of The Reconstruction. It will have the digitally remastered original album, plus 14 previously unreleased demo recordings, cut prior to the album's studio sessions, including one long-sought track that has never been released.

Also part of the package: liners from Pete Buck, plus a poster and four postcards. The original LP will also arrive on 180-gram vinyl.

The commemorative release also adds insightful new liner notes by R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, with the 2CD package presented in a lift-top box with a poster and four postcards.  On the same date, the remastered original album will be released on 180-gram vinyl.

The bonus disc should be of particular interest to fans. The album was originally recorded in London in the winter of '85 with producer Joe Boyd (Nick Drake, Fairport Convention), but prior to that the band went into Jim Hawkins' Athens, Georgia studio for a few weeks to do rehearsals and polish up fresh material - some of the tunes on hand, notably "Driver 8" and "Old Man Kensey," had already been debuted in concert and were already making the rounds on bootleg and among the R.E.M. tape trading community.

In his liner notes, Peter Buck recalls, "The last day of rehearsal, I think with Joe Boyd in attendance, Jim Hawkins recorded what we had come up with.  We spent about four hours recording all the new songs live, with minimal overdubs.  I hadn't listened to this stuff since we recorded it, and I'm kind of stunned at how good it is.  My memory of the rehearsals is us scrambling to finish songs.  The songs on both Murmur and Reckoning had been performed for months if not years by the time they were committed to tape.  I remember feeling dangerously unprepared when we flew to London, but on the evidence of this recording we must have known what we were doing."

"The Athens Demos," as R.E.M. has dubbed them, comprise the new edition's second disc of 14 previously unreleased recordings, including drafts of Fables' 11 songs and three additional tracks that didn't make the album. The three non-album demos include two early versions of songs that were later revisited by the band and recorded for other releases and one song, "Throw Those Trolls Away," making its release debut on this new edition.

Tracklisting:

Disc One: digitally remastered original album

1. Feeling Gravity's Pull

2. Maps and Legends

3. Driver 8

4. Life and How To Live It

5. Old Man Kensey

6. Can't Get There From Here

7. Green Grow The Rushes

8. Kohoutek

9. Auctioneer (Another Engine)

10. Good Advices

11. Wendell Gee

Disc Two: "The Athens Demos"

1. Auctioneer (Another Engine) [demo version]

2. Bandwagon [demo version] [final version was B-side to "Can't Get There From Here"]

3. Can't Get There From Here [demo version]

4. Driver 8 [demo version]

5. Feeling Gravity's Pull [demo version]

6. Good Advices [demo version]

7. Green Grow The Rushes [demo version]

8. Hyena [demo version] [album version appeared on Life's Rich Pageant]

9. Kohoutek [demo version]

10. Life and How To Live It [demo version]

11. Maps and Legends [demo version]

12. Old Man Kensey [demo version]

13. Throw Those Trolls Away [demo version] [previously unreleased]

14. Wendell Gee [demo version]

Yeah, b-b-b-b-but... the Eagles? WTF?

By Blurt Staff

You could call it the "mainstreaming" of Austin City Limits, and some will definitely call it the lamestreaming of the annual music festival, too, what with the inclusion of middle of the road acts Norah Jones, Muse, the Strokes and... drumroll please... The Eagles.

Welcome to the fucking Hotel Austin, kids.

Anyhow, don't let that deter you, as there are plenty among the 130 acts that you'll dig in Zilker Park, October 8-10, for the 9^th installment of ACL. Among the headliners: Phish, M.I.A., Flaming Lips, LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, Vampire Weekend. Not to mention Band of Horses, Monster of Folk, Deadmau5, Sonic Youth, Gogol Bordello, The National, Robert Earl Keen, The Ettes, Broken Bells, Girls, Ryan Bingham, Trombone Shorty and Yeasayer.

The full line-up is below, and also listed day-by-day is at www.aclfestival.com.  Single Day Tickets are on-sale today, May 18. (Note that three-day passes sold-out in 14 hours, but a limited number of Three-Day VIP passes and travel packages are still available.)

List of Performers:
 

The Eagles
Muse
Phish
The Strokes
M.I.A.
Flaming Lips
LCD Soundsystem
Spoon
Vampire Weekend
Norah Jones
Band of Horses
Monsters of Folk
Deadmau5
Sonic Youth
Gogol Bordello
The National
Robert Earl Keen
The Black Keys
Broken Bells
Slightly Stoopid
Yeasayer
Pat Green
Rebelution
Beach House
The Sword
Matt and Kim
The XX
Portugal. The Man
The Temper Trap
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
Girls
Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses
Local Natives
Gaslight Anthem
Lucero
Devandra Barnhart
Blues Traveler
Pete Yorn
The Soft Pack
Gayngs
Amos Lee
Robert Randolph & The Family Band
Ozomatli
Richard Thompson
Martin Sexton
Manchester Orchestra
The Almighty Defenders
Miike Snow
Mountain Goats
Bear In Heaven
Mayer Hawthorne
Midlake
Foals
Switchfoot
Cage The Elephant
JJ Grey & Mofro
Kinky
Angus & Julia Stone
The Morning Benders
Hockey
White Rabbits
David Bazan
Asleep at the Wheel
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
Nortec Collective
The Very Best
Beats Antique
Henry Clay People
Blind Pilot
GIVERS
Dawes
Band of Heathens
Charlie Mars
Two Door Cinema Club
Lissie
Sarah Harmer
Constellations
T. Bird and the Breaks
Chief
Frank Turner
Those Darlins
Carolyn Wonderland
Kings Go Forth
The Relatives
The Ettes
Qbeta
Mynamisjohnmichael
Basia Bulat
Balmorhea
Dan Black
The Jane Shermans
The Kicks
Ponderosa
Two Tons of Steel
Caitlin Rose
SPEAK
Run With Bulls
Maxim Ludwig
Gospel Stars
Heavenly Voices
Wesley Bray & The Disciples of Joy
Jones Family Singers
Ashley Cleveland & Kenny Greenberg
Buddy & The Straight Way Travelers
Ruby Jane Smith
Verve Pipe
Frances England
Jellydots
Elizabeth Mitchell
Okee Dokee Brothers
Tom

You sure kin trust ‘em to make another near-perfect record...

By Blurt Staff

August 3 is the target date for the new Los Lobos album, the little ol' band from East L.A.'s first new collection in over four years. It's titled Tin Can Trust and the good folks at Shout! Factory will be doing the honors. On hand, as usual: Steve Berlin (sax), Louie Pérez (guitar, drums, vocals), David Hidalgo (guitar, violin, accordion, percussion, vocals), Cesar Rosas (guitar, vocals) and Conrad Lozano (bass, vocals).

Seven songs on the album are Hidalgo-Pérez collaborations, including the opening track "I'll Burn It Down," which features a guest vocal harmony from blues-rocker Susan Tedeschi. Three others were written in whole or in part by Rosas - including the album's two Spanish-language numbers: the cumbia "Yo Canto" and the norteño "Mujer Ingrata." Also included is a cover of the Grateful Dead's "West L.A. Fadeaway."

Of the group's ever-evolving, yet singular sound? "An intuitiveness," says Pérez, "that happens only from being in a band for so long."

The band will be touring extensively this summer. Details at www.loslobos.org.

[Photo Credit: Drew Reynolds]

30 years of frammin' on the jim-jam, punk style...

By Blurt Staff

As threatened way back in March, Bad Religion has a FREE live digital album it wants to give loyal fans as a kind of 30-year thank-you. Beginning today, the band's 30 Years Live is available for a limited time - just  sign up for the band's mailing list at http://www.badreligion.com/mailinglist.html to receive a link to the free digital download.

Bad Religion toured this spring as part of its 30^th anniversary celebration and has plans to record a new studio record this fall. More touring is expected. Meanwhile, here's the tracklisting for the live freebie:

1. Fuck Armageddon, This is Hell
2. Dearly Beloved
3. Suffer
4. Man With A Mission
5. New Dark Ages
6. Germs of Perfection
7. Marked
8. A Walk
9. Flat Earth Society
10. Resist Stance
11. American Jesus
12. Social Suicide
13. Atheist Peace
14. Tomorrow
15. Won't Somebody
16. Los Angeles Is Burning
17. We're Only Gonna Die

We're picturing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" with tubular bells... "Transmission" for piccolos and strings... "The Eternal" done for church choir...

By Fred Mills

Today is the anniversary of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis' 1980 suicide, and it's been announced that some schoolkids in England are planning to make a symphony out of Joy Division's music to help commemorate the singer's death.

According to the NME, members of the Northern Chamber Orchestra are planning to work with children from Macclesfield (Joy Division's hometown) to "teach them musical techniques while exposing them to the music of Joy Division."

"The style of music is quite sparse and very simple," the orchestra's education co-ordinator Helen Quayle is quotes as saying. "The kids can understand and take elements of that and write for a string quartet using the same technique."

There's also going to be an exhibition this summer in Macclesfield curated by UK author Jon Savage featuring Joy Division memorabilia. What's interesting is that it took 30 years for the town to get around to finally recognizing what's undoubtedly the most famous person ever to come out of the burg.

Jim James, Daniel Martin Moore and Ben Sollee will tour July 22 through August 1 to help raise awareness about coal mining's effects as part of the "Appalachian Voices" effort.

By Blurt Staff

Jim James (aka Yim Yames) of My Morning Jacket, singer-songwriter Daniel Martin Moore and genre-bending cellist and vocalist Ben Sollee - Kentuckians, all - will embark on a nine date "Appalachian Voices" tour in an effort to raise public awareness of the devastating practice of Mountaintop Removal coal mining throughout Appalachia.  While Moore and Sollee completed a US tour in early 2010, the upcoming "Appalachian Voices" tour marks the first time the three will perform together since recording the 11-song album that James produced, Dear Companion, in 2009.

A portion of the proceeds from Dear Companion as well as the upcoming tour benefit Appalachian Voices, for which the tour was named, an organization devoted to ending mountaintop removal coal mining together with diverse environmental problems impacting the central and southern Appalachian Mountains.

 "The people and the land of Appalachia are too important to us as a nation to be sacrificed for something as short-sighted as Mountaintop Removal (MTR) coal mining. Our cultural stake in the region, from its music to its log cabins, is an indispensable part of our history and identity as Americans. People all over the world know our country music, our dances and our stories and they call them American. They are the fruit of Appalachia.  Learn more about MTR's destructive impact, and how we're all connected to it, at www.ILoveMountains.org."- Ben Sollee, Daniel Martin Moore and Yim Yames.

Tour Dates:

7/22         Lexington, KY                          Lexington Opera House

7/23         Knoxville, TN                           The Bijou Theater

7/25         Charleston, WV                       Mountain Stage

7/26         Marlinton, WV                          Pocahontas Opera House

7/27        Charlottesville, VA                    Jefferson Theater

7/29         Woodstock, NY                        Bearsville Theater

7/30         New York, NY                          Music Hall Of Williamsburg

7/31         Newport, RI                             Newport Folk Fest (Yim Yames Solo Performance)

8/01         Newport, RI                             Newport Folk Fest (Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore Performance)

Legendary Ipecac-hosted post-metal outfit decides to call it quits with a month-long farewell tour.

By Blurt Staff

"It has been a complete honor to be a part of the ISIS team. ISIS is a major part of our label's foundation. Those 5 talented guys are our friends and we look forward to see and hear what they each do in the future." That's Mike Patton and Greg Werckman, of Ipecac, commenting on one of their label's mainstays' decision to put the beast down. The mighty ISIS will be no longer after completing a final tour.

Last night the band issued a statement confirming this and more:

ISIS has reached an end. It's hard to try to say it in any delicate way, and it is a truth that is best spoken plainly. This end isn't something that occurred over night and it hasn't been brought about by a single cataclysmic fracture in the band. Simply put, ISIS has done everything we wanted to do, said everything we wanted to say. In the interest of preserving the love we have of this band, for each other, for the music made and for all the people who have continually supported us, it is time to bring it to a close. We've seen too many bands push past the point of a dignified death and we all promised one another early on in the life of the band that we would do our best to ensure ISIS would never fall victim to that syndrome.

We've had a much longer run than we ever expected we would and accomplished a great deal more than we ever imagined possible. We never set any specific goals when the band was founded other than to make the music we wanted to hear and to play (and to stay true to that ideal), so everything else that has come along the long and winding path has been an absolute gift. As with any momentous life-changing decision (which this certainly is for the 5 of us), we feel a very dynamic range of emotions about this and cannot express all of it within the space of a few sentences, and perhaps it's best to do what we've always done and let our music speak for us. It is and has been the truest expression of who we are as a collective and in some ways who we are as individuals for the 13 years in which we've been together.

The last and perhaps most important thing we might say in relation to all this is how grateful we are for the people that have supported us over the years. It is a lengthy list that would include those who put out our records, those that played on them and put them to tape, the many bands with whom we shared the stage, all of our family, friends and companions who supported us in our individual lives and thus made it possible for us to continue on in the band, and most importantly those who truly listened to our music whether in recorded form or by coming to out to our shows (or both). It is quite true that we would never have done what we have without those people, that is many of you who are reading this. Our words can never fully express what we feel, but we hope that our music and the efforts made to bring it into being can serve as a more proper expression of gratitude for this life and for everyone in it. Thank you. 

In more immediate and practical terms the tour we are about to embark upon is indeed our last. We are hoping that these final live rituals can help us bring a close to the life of this band in a celebratory and reverent way, and also provide us with a chance to say goodbye to many of those that have supported us over the years. While there is a measure of sadness that comes with the passing of this band, we hope that the final days can be joyous ones during which any and all that wish to come and join us will do so. It seems fitting that the last show of the tour and of our active existence will take place in Montreal, the site of the very first ISIS show in 1997 (though that was an unintentional move when booking the show initially). After the tour we also plan to follow through with other projects set in motion some time ago - pursuing the completion of a final EP, compiling live audio and visual material for future releases, and generally doing whatever we can to make our music available for as long as there are people who wish to hear it. 

Thanks again to any and all,

ISIS, May 18 2010

Tour Dates:

May 26 2010 6:00P

 The Casbah w/ Jakob & Tombs San Diego, California, US

May 29 2010 6:00P

 Wow Hall w/ Jakob & Tombs Eugene, Oregon , US

May 30 2010 7:30P

 Capitol Theatre w/ Jakob & Tombs Olympia, WA

May 31 2010 6:00P

 Rickshaw Theatre w/ Jakob & Tombs Vancouver, British Co, CA

Jun 1 2010 6:00P

 Neumo's w/ Jakob & Tombs Seattle, Washington, US

Jun 2 2010 6:00P

 Doug Fir Lounge w/ Jakob & Tombs Portland, Oregon , US

Jun 4 2010 6:00P

 Great American Music Hall w/ Jakob & Tombs San Francisco, California, US

Jun 5 2010 6:00P

 The Troubadour w/ Jakob & Tombs Los Angeles, California, US

Jun 12 2010 6:00P

 Bonnaroo Festival W/ Clutch, Melvins, Flaming Lips, etc. Manchester, Tennessee , US

Jun 14 2010 6:00P

 40 Watt Club w/ Melvins Athens, Georgia , US

Jun 16 2010 6:00P

 9:30 Club w/Melvins Washington, Washington, US

Jun 17 2010 6:00P

 Theater Of Living Arts (TLA) w/ Melvins Philadelphia, Pennsylvan, US

Jun 18 2010 6:00P

 Webster Hall w/ Melvins New York, New York , US

Jun 19 2010 6:00P

 Music Hall Of Williamsburg w/ Melvins Brooklyn, New York , US

Jun 20 2010 6:00P

 Paradise Rock Club w/ Melvins Boston, Massachuse, US

Jun 21 2010 6:00P

 Paradise Rock Club w/ Melvins Boston, Massachuse, US

Jun 22 2010 6:00P

 Port City Music Hall w/ Cave In Portland, Maine , US

Jun 23 2010 6:00P

 Club Soda w/ Cave In Montreal, Quebec , CA

With new album A Small Turn of Human Kindness in stores this week via Hydrahead, the entire world gets to hear "how slugs cry." Check out the tour dates and a stream of the record below.

By Ron Hart

My Love is Higher Than Your Assessment of What My Love Could Be, the 1994 debut album from Harvey Milk - undoubtedly the heaviest, most uncompromising band to ever emerge from the otherwise jangly and twee college town of Athens, GA - is 66 minutes of pure, unreconstructed sludge metal as noisy and lumbering as a brontosaurus sauntering across a crowded city street. So, following the reading of an online post from a fan who chided the group's triumphant 2008 comeback album, Life...The Best Game In Town, as being too accessible, frontman/guitarist Creston Spiers was so affected by this dig that he chose to bring Harvey Milk back to their roots by crafting their loudest, slowest and most difficult album to date.

Taking its name from the opening track off their first proper LP, A Small Turn of Human Kindness serves as a perfect bookend to My Love in every way. The six tracks that make up this 37-minute sonic avalanche play out like apocalyptic concept album featuring near-black metal epics like "I Just Want to Go Home" and "I Know This Is No Place for You" so bleak and brutal in their delivery they make Cormac McCarthy's The Road seem yellow-bricked by comparison. Fans of such newer Harvey material as Life... and their ZZ Top-copping 1997 classic The Pleaser might be taken aback by the challenge of listening to A Small Turn of Human Kindness, but those who relish in the salad days of these uncompromising Southern titans of experimental metal just might find it to be their singular masterpiece.

As Christopher Weingarten put it in his review of this album on 1000TimesYes, "This is what it sounds like when slugs cry." Amen.

You can listen to a stream of the album at NPR Music right here.

Tour Dates:

May 22 2009 Louisiana / New Orleans / The Zeitgeist

May 23 2009 Texas / Houston / Rudyards

May 24 2009 Texas / Austin / Red 7

May 25 2009 Texas / Denton / Rubbergloves

May 26 2009 Alabama / Birmingham / Bottletree

July 11 2009 Florida / Miami / Chuchill's Pub

July 12 2009 Florida / Gainesville / Common Grounds

July 13 2009 Alabama / Birmingham / Bottletree Cafe

July 14 2009 Tennessee / Memphis / Hi Tone Cafe

July 15 2009 Mississippi / Oxford / The Two Stick

July 16 2009 Tennessee / Nashville / Exit/Indiana

July 17 2009 Indiana / Indianapolis / Emerson Theatre

July 18 2009 Illinois / Chicago / Subterranean

July 19 2009 Ohio / Columbus / Ravari Room

July 20 2009 Ohio / Cleveland-Heights / Grog Shop

July 21 2009 New York / Buffalo / Tralf Music Hall

July 23 2009 Ontario / Toronto / Lee's Palace

July 24 2009 Quebec / Montreal / La Sala Rossa

July 25 2009 Massachusetts / Cambridge / Middle East Downstairs

July 26 2009 New York / Brooklyn / Music Hall of Williamsburg

July 28 2009 Pennsylvania / Philadelphia / First Unitarian Church

July 29 2009 Washington DC / Washington / Rock and Roll Hotel

July 30 2009 North Carolina / Charlotte / Milestone

July 31 2009 Georgia / Atlanta / EARL

August 1 2009 Georgia / Athens / 40 Watt Club

Now's your chance to get that White Stripes marimba you've been coveting all this time...

By Blurt Staff

Thousands of people in the Nashville area were nailed by the recent floods and lost tons of property, so to pitch in, White Stripes/Raconteurs/Dead Weather mainman Jack White is auctioning a one-of-a-kind red and white Ludwig Musser marimba which was custom-made for The White Stripes and used live on their 2005-06 worldwide tour for Get Behind Me Satan.  

All of the proceeds from this auction will be going to benefit The Red Cross - Nashville Chapter.

 
The marimba made its live debut on May 11th 2005 at the Fundidora Amphitheater de Coca Cola in Monterrey, Mexico and was subsequently used in concert in Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Latvia, Poland, Russia, New Zealand, Japan and every other country the White Stripes played in 2005-2006. The marimba itself was unceremoniously flipped over by Jack White at the last show of the tour in Osaka, Japan on March 9th, 2006, and has since been safely stored in Nashville in its custom red white and black flight case, which is also included in the auction.

 
Bids are currently being accepted, now through May 24th at eBay - follow this link to bid and view additional photos. As of this writing, the current bid (out of 33) is a nice tidy $2,050.00.

In addition, White and Third Man Records donated all sales made on May 8th from their Nashville-based record store to flood relief, while also joining Hands On Nashville last week to aid in clean-up.

Pics, music and more...

By Fred Mills

Folks who dropped by Elviscostello.com recently got a few surprises, as the site has been overhauled to include tons of goodies, including a nice cache of live recordings, beyond the usual news, tour dates and images.

(Speaking of images, the one above, culled from the "Smudges" part of the site, is pretty priceless. Somewhere, Johnny Cash is smiling.)

One interesting section to feature Costello's music is "The Wheel," where you can stream samples from any one of hundreds of his songs. Much like EC's in-concert deployment of the physical Wheel, you spin the digital version and it lands on a tune that then starts streaming. Or you can simply pull up an alphabetical queue and make individual selections. (Note these are all roughly 1-minute snippets and not the entire songs.)

Another section, "Look & Listen," includes the aforementioned "Smudges" photo gallery, plus "Recordings" (a selection of live tracks - currently featured are several tracks recorded in April of 2008 in Memphis for the Beale Street Caravan radio show, although these, curiously, are also snippets); and "Flicks" (live and promo video clips).

Admittedly, the fact that EC is only offering to let you hear bits of tunes makes the site somewhat compromised; some fine tuning is in order before it's genuinely fan friendly and not merely another means of steering folks towards a purchase or two. Perhaps some full-concert free downloads would be a good start?

[Photo Credit: Keith Morris]

December concert was recorded in Los Angeles just days before Darby Crash overdosed on heroin. Rhino Handmade is releasing it in June.

By Fred Mills

Veterans of the LA punk scene will tell you: the Germs, during their brief late ‘70s run, were one of the most primal, vertiginous bands on the planet. The quartet - singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and drummer Don Bolles - debuted in '77 with what's widely credited as being the first LA punk single ("Forming" b/w "Sexboy"), and went on to release the seminal, Joan Jett-produced (GI) album in '79 before flaming out the following year in the wake of Crash's suicide on Dec. 7, 1980.

Over the years, a handful of somewhat-listenable live Germs tapes have surfaced (the band also appeared in Penelope Spheeris' film The Decline of the Western Civilization), but now, stepping into the gap, is Rhino Handmade with a primo live artifact. Titled Live at the Starwood: December 3, 1980, it documents the band's final concert, and it's due June 22.

Details, according to Rhino:

The unique packaging has a genuine DIY feel including black and white liner notes folded and stapled to resemble a punk fanzine, a reproduction of the handwritten set list, and an 8 1/2" x 11" replica of the original poster for the show. The collection's liner notes provide a vivid eyewitness account of the show penned by Jonathan Gold. Describing the band's place in history, he writes: "The Germs are to the Los Angeles punk scene what Brian Jones was to the Stones or Syd Barrett to Pink Floyd-the primal creative force that was both too flatulent to live with and too vital to have come into being without."

The disc contains the entire unreleased concert, considered by many fans to be The Germs' finest hour. Performing together for the first time in a year, the quartet played possessed, blasting rapid-fire through nearly every song in its arsenal. After opening with "Circle One" from the 1978 EP Lexicon Devil, the band bashed its way through all but two songs from (GI)-the band's sole studio album-including "What We Do Is Secret," "Our Way," and "Shut Down (Annihilation Man)." "Caught In My Eye," an outtake from the (GI) recording sessions found its way onto the set list as well. The disc also features "Lion's Share," a track the band recorded in 1979 with producer Jack Nitzsche for Cruising, a film starring Al Pacino; "No God" from the Lexicon Devil EP; a cover of Public Image Ltd's; "Public Image"; and "Forming" the first song the quartet recorded together.

 Track Listing 

1. "Circle One"
2. "Manimal"
3. "Caught In My Eye"
4. "Lion's Share"
5. "No God"
6. "Our Way"
7. "Strange Notes"
8. "What We Do Is Secret"
9. "Richie Dagger's Crime"
10. "Land Of Treason"
11. "My Tunnel"
12. "Media Blitz"
13. "Communist Eyes"
14. "The Other Newest One"
15. "Let's Pretend"
16. "Forming"
17. "Lexicon Devil"
18. "Shut Down (Annihilation Man)"
19. "Public Image"
20. "American Leather"
21. "We Must Bleed"
22. "Richie Dagger's Crime" (Reprise)

Sci-fi conceptual alert!

By Blurt Staff

Based on the sonic evidence at hand (the song "Electro Snake," which you can check out below), it's not particularly heavy metal, other than the strangulated Bon Scott-esque vocals. But it does rock, and it's still metal, according to Ryan Adams, and as Pitchfork is reporting, the parent record, Orion, is a "fully realized sci-fi metal concept album," whatever that means.

Recorded in 2006, Orion is available on limited edition clear wax (no CD; download card included however), and you can purchase it at the official Adams website. Dig that artwork: it's by Voivod's Michel Langevin.

Track Listing:

01 Signal Fade
02 Imminent Galactic War
03 Disappyramid
04 Fire Away
05 Defenders of the Galaxy
06 Fire and Ice
07 By Force
08 Ghorgon, Master of War
09 Ariel
10 Electro Snake
11 Victims of the Ice Brigade
12 2,000 Ships
13 End of Days

ORION . ELECTROSNAKE by ryanadams

From his early band The Early November to the more recent Ace Enders & A Million Different People to the celebrated solo project I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business, the New Jersey punk rocker is never less than ace.

By Blurt Staff

We've got the EXCLUSIVE Debut and a free download of the second single "You're Not So Good At Talking Anymore" from Ace Enders' I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business... The World We Know is the first album of his musical trilogy, which sold over 1k copies the first day alone plus it was also #50 on Amazon overall.

Just click on the link...

I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business (Ace Enders): "You're Not So Good At Talking Anymore"

About to Choke arrives June 15 on CD and vinyl.

By Blurt Staff

The Plain Recordings label, responsible for key reissues from Elliott Smith, The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Mazzy Star, the Breeders, Pulp, The Flaming Lips, Ween and others, is now set to reissue the late Vic Chesnutt's classic from 1996, About to Choke. It drops June 15.

Chesnutt produced About to Choke with the help of John DeVries, John Keane and Mark LaFalce, and his longtime friend (and fellow Athens, GA resident) Bob Mould helped to mix the recording. About to Choke was his only major label release, bookended by numerous critically acclaimed indie releases, and Capitol Records/EMI issued it in 1996 with the intentions of breaking Chesnutt to a mainstream audience. Earlier that year, Columbia Records released Sweet Relief II: Gravity Of The Situation, on which R.E.M., Madonna, Soul Asylum, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage and others interpreted Chesnutt¹s songs. That album was a benefit for the foundation Victoria Williams founded to help provide medical care for musicians like Chesnutt, who struggled with healthcare-related debt throughout his adult life. (A drunk driving accident left him paraplegic when he was 18.)

Members of the cult following that Chesnutt garnered over the first five years of his career were heartened by About to Choke, which made no concessions to be salable to the mainstream. In fact, the disc was in many respects simpler and more intimate than the albums that immediately preceded it, Drunk and Is The Actor Happy? "Ladle" and "Giant Sands" are accessible full-bodied rock & roll, but they are complemented by the low-tech synthesizer backing of "Little Vacation" and the primarily acoustic arrangements on "New Town," "Swelters" and the epic-length finale "See You Around." The album is as moving as anything Chesnutt recorded, and it is cited in many of the countless obituaries and profiles that have appeared since his death.

The Onion¹s AV Club said of About to Choke: "Mostly stripped of cumbersome accompaniment, the songs strike a fine balance between bare, Palace-style mewling and accessible pop-rock arrangements. Lots of media attention is paid to Chesnutt's impressively complicated lyrics, but his voice and guitar work are underrated: The tribute album did a nice job showing how effectively his songs can be covered, but few of them were as emotionally affecting as the gorgeous simplicity and beautiful guitar lines of ‘Swelters' and ‘Degenerate.'"

Hey, it's friggin' Mick Collins - what else do you need to know?

By Fred Mills

One of Detroit's most beloved cult acts from the past couple of decades is surely The Gories, formed by Mick Collins, Dan Kroha and Peggy O'Neill, (future Dirtbombs, Demolition Doll Rods and '68 Comeback players, respectively). The garage-punk anarchists tore shit up from 1986 until 1992 and issued a string of classic LPs and singles before passing into legend.

Out of the blue last year, the Gories got back together for a string of reunion gigs, primarily in Europe. Accompanying them were erstwhile Memphis cult outfit the Oblivians, which of course was Reigning Sound mainman Greg Cartwright's early band, and Cartwright told this writer not long ago that the tour was "a total blast, not only just getting to hang out with Mick again but also being able to watch the band just destroy the audiences... Both bands sold a ton of merch, too!"

Now's your chance, North American fans: The Gories have announced a string of dates for July and September, including the NYC version of the Ponderosa Stomp. Check the list below, and start making your plans. Don't forget to buy lots of merch.

As the band might put it: "We're gonna mess your head around."

Tour Dates:

7-15 Ottawa, Ontario - Ottawa Blues Festival
7-16 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Place
7-17 Montreal, Quebec - Cabaret Du Mile End
7-29 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's
7-30 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
7-31 New York, NY - Lincoln Center (Ponderosa Stomp)
9-07 San Diego, CA - The Casbah
9-08 Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
9-10 San Francisco, CA - The Independent
9-10 Portland, OR - Dante's Musicfest
9-11 Seattle, WA - Neumos

[Photo Credit: Willem Kolvoort]

Would you want this gal looking after your rights to free speech? Actually - yeah, we would.

By Fred Mills

Rock ‘n' roll and lawyers don't necessarily mix unless you're a Warren Zevon songtitle, but hey, life's full of strange bedfellows. Such is the case of current Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, who we now learn was involved in the legendary 2 Live Crew obscenity case in 1989.

The "Law & Disorder" column for the Ars Technica website is reporting that according to a questionnaire filled out for the Senate Judicial Committee, Kagan outlined how she helped defend the RIAA against crusading Florida lawyer Jack Thompson - Thompson, recall, pushed trumped-up obscenity charges against 2 Live Crew's As Nasty As They Wanna Be which led to a Florida record store being busted for obscenity after selling the album to an undercover cop. Kagan's involvement subsequently came during the appeals process: a federal judge had declared the album obscene, and "the RIAA wanted to make sure its products weren't in the habit of being censored. The recording industry won the appeal, and the Supreme Court refused to hear it further."

According to Kagan, "Between 1991 and 1995, I wrote primarily about issues of free expression. My major work at this time proposed a theory of the First Amendment focused on the nature of governmental motives underlying speech restrictions.

"We filed an amicus brief in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and numerous record companies, challenging the decision of the district court that a musical recording was obscene under the standard set forth by the Supreme Court in Miller v. California. I drafted the brief in the case, which stressed the difficulty of holding music obscene under prevailing constitutional law."

Read the full story, which includes details of some of Kagan's other forays into the free speech milieu, here.

It's a good thing Kagan wasn't forced to defend 2 Live Crew or Luke Campbell on their musical merits, of course...

By Fred Mills

It's a relatively rare event, or at least not something that happens more than once every few years: Dan Treacy and his Television Personalities - all you young pups may know the band via the MGMT tune off Congratulations, "Song For Dan Treacy" - bum-rush the record bins once again on June 1 with A Memory is Better Than Nothing. You have esteemed UK label Rocket Girl to thank. And vinyl fans, take note: the label assures us that some very fetching colored wax will grace the limited edition vinyl version, which follows in a couple of weeks after the CD release.

Meanwhile, the 7" single "You're My Yoko" is already out.

Treacy will also celebrate his 50^th birthday with a gig at the Lexington in London on  June 18. On hand to help the punk rock legend celebrate: Le Volume Courbe plus new band Golden Glass (featuring Robert Cooksey, formerly of the Sea Urchins / Delta). Ian Watson of How Does It Feel will be holding down DJ duties.

Here's a fun Treacy fact (or non-fact), from the TVPs Wikipedia page: "In an article in The Guardian on April 24, 2006, it was implied that Dan Treacy is in some way behind the Arctic Monkeys, although this is based on little more than a perceived similarity between their lyrical style and that of Treacy, and the fact that the lead singer of Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner is mysteriously not credited with their songwriting.^"

Hmph. We'll take our extensive collection of TVPs singles over anything the Arctic Monkeys have released to date.

Loretta Lynn, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Billy Joe Shaver, Todd Snider, Swell Season, Samantha Crain, Woody Pines (pictured above) and more make the weekend of May 15 and 16 in Nelsonville Ohio one to remember.

By Steven Rosen

The Nelsonville Music Festival in rural, hilly southeast Ohio isn't one of the summer's big ones (though it's growing; this year it stretched over two days, May 15 and 16), but it can lay claim to being one of the more relaxed and charming.

Further, its adventurous, eclectic streak - Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings following Loretta Lynn - shows the potential to be more than just another safe, comfortable, formulaically programmed regional folk/bluegrass fest. It has a wild streak.

I made it for the last two of the three days and also saw, besides the aforementioned, Billy Joe Shaver, Todd Snider with Great American Taxi, Samantha Crain, Michael Hurley, Swell Season, Woody Pines (pictured, above), Lydia Loveless and - worth a special shout-out - an odd singer-songwriter named JD Hutchison who did an amusing imitation of both Dylan and Johnny Cash warbling "Girl From North Country."

The event, now in its sixth year, occurs at Robbins Crossing Living History Site on the grounds of pretty Hocking College, just outside the small town of Nelsonville. Besides a field area for the main stage, the site has a series of old log cabins that can be used as atmospheric settings for secondary shows. Just outside festival grounds - people were free to come and go - were a walking trail, small lake and an area set aside for camping. Trying to be green, the festival offered free water and didn't sell plastic bottles - a reusable bottle was available for sale. Volunteers even picked up cigarette butts off the grass, which begs the question why not just ban smoking? (Of cigarettes, that is.)

The festival is put on by the non-profit Stuart's Opera House, which operates a restored opera house in downtown Nelsonville's town square. Since the area is part of Appalachia, with a gritty past of coal mining and brick-making, parts of Nelsonville look pretty beaten-down and worn-out. But it's also in the Hocking Hills, a recreational area, so tourism is important. And it's near Athens, home of Ohio University and its fairly large back-to-nature counterculture.

So the outdoor festival has good community support. A consortium of 18 local businesses and individuals even underwrites it against losses from weather or other problems - the festival claims this is the only such arrangement in the country.

I'd be surprised if they need that backup after this year. The weather was gorgeous - and the main stage area packed with thousands on the Saturday night that Loretta Lynn and her band played.

It was quite moving to see the crowd; maybe more moving than seeing Lynn, herself, who despite a strong voice (which she rested by letting her male back-up singers and son Ernie have some solos) and spectacularly pleated red sequined gown, did a fairly show-biz-slick, hit-heavy set. That was a shame, because the many young tattooed alt-rockers in the crowd would have loved to hear her and her band get all robust and scruffy like her Jack White-produced Van Lear Rose.

But this is coal-mining territory, and the coal miner's daughter is a hero to a lot of older people who came from all over for the chance to hear her on home turf. As I stood near a passageway on the outskirts of the crowd, I watched one middle-aged woman lead her elderly mother through, trying to get close. I'm sure that was happening all over. And everyone begged for "Coal Miner's Daughter," which they got.

Many of those people left by the time Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings took the stage around 11 p.m. on Saturday night, but a couple thousand younger, soul-loving rockers were still left and did they ever dance! Jones, who is 54 and five-foot-one, is an incredible dynamo on stage - recalling Tina Turner in her "Proud Mary" days - who is able to move frenetically about the stage while singing long medleys with a voice that never loses clarity or strength.

And the band, which featured songs from the new I Learned the Hard Way album, had worked out strong arrangements (with female back-up singers) and segues for the live show. The demand by the crowd for an after-midnight encore seemed to catch the band by surprise. They took a long time to come back for a surprisingly soft, tender version of the Jan Bradley-like "Mama Don't Like My Man," followed by a climactic rave-up on "100 Days, 100 Nights." A fitting end to a beautiful night.

There were, however, plenty of other highlights during the two days:

Ø      Samantha Crain, whose voice has the easy melodic airiness of Natalie Merchant or Edie Brickell but also a dramatic dimension that recalls Bjork, did a solo, intimate acoustic set inside a small log cabin that had listeners singing along to fine, thoughtful songs like "Santa Fe" and her foreboding yet oddly reassuring "The Dam Song." Judging from the people crowded outside the cabin trying to get in, or just wanting to hear, Crain has developed a very keen audience for her music.

Ø      A North Carolina singer/National steel guitarist/harmonicist/kazooist named Woody Pines, who plays rousing roots music that skitters between country, jazz, jug band and folk, worked the audience toward ecstasy during his Saturday night set on a secondary outdoor stage. He was helped immensely by (I think) guest player Nate Allen, who alternated between saxophone and a driving, exciting clarinet - an instrument every band like this should have! They did Cab Calloway's "Reefer Man," and could easily become a rootsier version of Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Ø      Todd Snider already has one of the more devoted followings in Americana for his wit, on-stage charm, genially presented populist politics, and songwriting skills. But while no disrespect intended to his previous albums, solo appearances and touring aggregations, the chemistry between him and Great American Taxi (led by Leftover Salmon's Vince Herman) was so strong you couldn't help thinking as you listened, "This is it. This is the ticket to stardom." 

            On tunes like ‘The Devil You Know" "I Think I'm an All Right Guy," "Song 10," and  "Easy Money," they combined the soaring quality of "Take It Easy" with the sweetly shambolic edginess of The Replacements. It's amazing how many hits Snider has for a guy who's never had an official hit - the crowd was roaring out each song's catch phrases and choruses. And the music rocked and soared without a hint of bombast.

Ø      I think the singer's name was Caitlin Kraus, from an Athens band called the Love Ins (their set was unexpected; only their leader Adam Torres was scheduled to play), but her song about small-town love had some daringly successful, unexpected poetry to go with its introspective melody and her strong voice. Pleading with a lover to stay by her side, she sang, "Come over here, blow your nose on my sleeve/I won't mind, it's already dirty." I'd like to hear more - whoever she is.

Ø      The Swell Season, which closed the festival as the late-afternoon skies slowly darkened before rain, gave the crowd a powerful, pleasingly melancholy send-off. Pianist Marketa Irglova serves basically as a harmony singer for Irish folk-rocker Glen Hansard, getting an occasional chance to do one of her solo numbers and play guitar. She's a shy presence compared to him - but her songs and voice are good.

      Hansard's many years with the Frames have prepared him for handling large crowds, and his band was well-prepared, with Frames' violinist Colm Mac Con Iomaire at times sounding like he was weaving tears into a mournful ballad. Hansard is as much a rocker as a folk busker, despite the image created by  "Once." He played the loudest acoustic guitar ever on a version of Van  Morrison's "Astral Weeks" - reminding me of how Alejandro Escovedo takes "I Wanna Be Your Dog" into the freak-out stratosphere. His more thought-provoking songs, from the film as well as last year's Strict Joy album, have the power of scruffy, elegiac Irish rock - like Waterboys or Black 47's Larry Kirwan.

 The show closed with a 17^th Century Irish folk song, Hansard's voice bearing a pronounced brogue as he sang from the point of view of a corpse: "So raise to me a parting glass/Goodnight and joy be with you." People sang along as he introduced new verses, slowly building in his listeners a revelatory sense that something beautiful was ending.

    And it was. Until next year.

To ticketbuyers, that is. Someone should tell Prince about this marketing strategy.

By Blurt Staff

You know, we just never seem to be able to get any Ozzy Osbourne news posted to this site, so let's take a deep breath for the Lord Of Darkness (and his wife's implants-now-paperweights), and see what's up. Well, the news is good:

He is set to release Scream on June 22 on Epic, his first album in three years and 10th studio album overall. "Let Me Hear You Scream" is the album's first single and it had its world premiere, during a prison riot scene, on "CSI: NY" Wednesday, April 14th.

Heavy metal and prison riot scenes always work nicely together, eh?

Meanwhile, all fans who purchase tickets to this year's OZZFest (at LiveNation.com) through June 18th will receive an email with one unique download link per ticket for the new album - absolutely free. It's a bargain!

Signed to the Black Crowes' Chris Robinson's Silver Arrow label, the L.A. outfit releases their self-titled - and ambitious - debut next week.

By Lee Zimmerman

In the early ‘70s, Elton John recorded "Country Comforts" and subsequently released an album called Tumbleweed Connection, a set of songs seeped in classic Americana. The only thing was, Elton was a Brit whose cultural connection to the material was as far removed as one could imagine.

Likewise, Truth & Salvage Co.'s ties to the classic country rock sound of the early ‘70s, purveyed by bands like Poco, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the New Riders of the Purple Sage, initially seems just as unlikely. Several of the members originally hail from the North Carolina mountains (Asheville/Black Mountain area) where they had a quirky, jamband-tilting outfit called Scrappy Hamilton, and upon relocating to L.A. they gravitated to the Hotel Café conglomerate where the musicians gathered for late night jams and the T&SC lineup gradually coalesced. Regardless, it's been a good 40 years since those aforementioned outfits brewed their classic strains of rock ‘n' roll glee and idyllic imagery. While the Truth & Salvage crew's songwriting credentials might have them perfectly positioned to craft a similar sound, their starry-eyed outlook and its references to mountain vistas, endless highways and down-home designs is rarely emanated by today's breed of down trod troubadours. 

Fortunately, although such ramblings may seem out of sync with today's stressful environs, the feelings of joy and celebration revived in such easily enticing entries as "Welcome To LA," "See Her," "Old Piano" and "Jump the Ship" make the band's self titled debut a tonic for troubled times. When they harmonize about the ecstasy of basking in true love, as in the old time revival of "She Really Does It For Me" with its clap-along chorus, the effusive feelings are all but irresistible. Likewise, "Hail Hail" is a rousing way to herald their arrival, a most appropriate welcome for this eager young outfit.

Truth & Salvage Co. play their CD release party on Tuesday, May 25, at Asheville's Grey Eagle club. To read a lengthy interview with the band, go here.

The gruesome twosome burns down the Queen City on May 19. But, was it loud?

Photos & Text by Michael G. Plumides, Jr.

Boy, was it loud.  I took time off from working on my new film, Ghost Trek (currently in development), to catch the legendary Alice Cooper, and his evil cohort Rob Zombie for "The Gruesome Twosome Tour" at the sold out Uptown Amphitheatre in Charlotte, NC, Wednesday night.  I caught Alice in 1988 when I interviewed Lemmy and Motorhead (who opened the show at the old Charlotte Coliseum), while the last time I saw Rob Zombie was at OzzFest with the Black Sabbath reunion, Slayer and the Deftones in 1998 at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, also in Charlotte.

A spectacular theatrical performance by Cooper, beating his "dummy girlfriend" on stage, sprouting eight legs, and decapitating himself, then a "Billion Dollar Baby" much to the crowd's delight. Performing "School's Out," "Eighteen," "Elected" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy," Coop showed the crowd that he's still got it at 62, with a tight band, and a lesson or two for the youngsters.

With a mesmerizing light and stage show bordering on H.R. Giger plasma-psychedelic, Zombie had the crowd in a frenzy, playing his staples "More Human than Human," "Superbeast," "Thunderkiss '65" and "Living Dead Girl" as fire plumed from the stage in controlled bursts.  A great night for a decidedly metalhead crowd in the Queen City, and under clear skies.

Nothing new here, but still equally enjoyable, and there was awesome crowd watching in a sea of black t-shirts (and one stinky, skinny, long-haired kid reminiscent of the little vampire in "The Lost Boys" throwing horns).  Look out for a tour coming to your area.

Back injury during rehearsals forces the singer into the hospital. Dates not rescheduled as of yet.

By Fred Mills

UPDATE: A message on the U2 website added this information this afternoon: "Following Bono's unexpected back surgery earlier today, Live Nation confirmed that the U2 U2360° tour launch previously scheduled for June 3rd in Salt Lake City has been postponed. U2 fans with tickets to the June 3rd event are encouraged to retain tickets until updated show information can be provided."
     The message also included a link to an audio interview with U2 manager Paul McGuinness in which he talked about the situation.

They may have forged one of those 360 deals, and they may have been planning to kick off their American "360 Degrees" tour on June 3 in Salt Lake City, but it looks like U2 frontman Bono is going to be 180 degrees flat on his back, delaying the opening of the tour for an unspecified period of time.

From the U2 website, the following terse message, posted this morning:

Bono has today undergone emergency back surgery for an injury sustained during tour preparation training. He was admitted to a specialist neuro surgery unit in a Munich hospital, and is under the care of neuro surgeon Prof. Dr. Jorg Tonn and Dr Muller Wohlfahrt. Bono will spend the next few days there, before returning home to recuperate.

Once his condition has been assessed further, a statement will be made regarding the impact on forthcoming tour dates.

Hold onto your tickets, folks. They'll still be good, of course. But better check with your airlines about the status of flight fare refunds in case you were planning on jetting in to one of the dates, listed below. Intriguingly, only a few of the shows have already sold out...

3 June, 2010    Salt Lake City UT       US       Rice-Eccles Stadium  

6 June, 2010    Anaheim          CA      US       Angel Stadium           

7 June, 2010    Anaheim          CA      US       Angel Stadium           

12 June, 2010  Denver            CO      US       Invesco Field 

16 June, 2010  Oakland                      US       Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum 

20 June, 2010  Seattle WA     US       Qwest Field   

23 June, 2010  Edmonton                   CA      Commonwealth Stadium       

27 June, 2010  Minneapolis     MN      US       TCF Bank Stadium     I

30 June, 2010  East Lansing   MI       US       Spartan Stadium        

3 July, 2010     Toronto           ON      CA      Rogers Centre

6 July, 2010     Chicago           IL        US       Soldier Field  

9 July, 2010     Miami  FL       US       Sun Life Stadium       

12 July, 2010   Philadelphia    PA       US       Lincoln Financial Field          

16 July, 2010   Montreal                      CA      Montreal Hippodrome           

17 July, 2010   Montreal                      CA      Montreal Hippodrome           

Moog Filtered Ale guaranteed to be a zillion times better than that damned Sammy Hagar tequila... New brew coincides with Moog Foundation benefit next week.

By Fred Mills

One of the earliest features published here at Blurt Online, in June of 2008, was a story on the Bob Moog Foundation (read "Moog In Vogue" here), outlining the work the late synthesizer pioneer's daughter, Michelle Moog-Koussa, and others to preserve Robert Moog's legacy and "inspire electronic music and creative technology for years to come."

Since then the Foundation has been quite active in and around its home base of Asheville, NC - read more of our coverage here - with outreach programs for schoolchildren in particular being among the nonprofit organization's key mandates.

Next week, May 27, there's to be a fundraiser for the Foundation, "Moogus Operandi," at Asheville's Orange Peel club, featuring performances by synth whiz Erik Norlander and other musicians - full details can be read here, and for those of you who might be interested in donating to the Foundation and the Moog Museum, visit the official Foundation website. (It's a pretty cool site, by the way - check out that Beastie Boys photo!)

Meanwhile, in conjunction with the benefit bash, local brewers the Asheville Brewing Company are unveiling an official Robert Moog beer. They're dubbing it the Moog Filtered Ale, and it's described by Asheville weekly The Mountain Xpress as a "smooth, piney, easy-to-drink American Pale." Proceeds from the sale of the  brewski will go, naturally, to the Foundation. It will be distributed nationally and internationally distributed and available in 22-oz bottles. Check out some of the details right here.

You can never have too many American Pales. Pour it alongside some chips and jalapenos, with maybe a side of synth.

"One of the best fucking days of their life": the wee Scots upstarts receive the official royal Fillmore Auditorium welcome on May 19.

By Jud Cost

Frightened Rabbit, a blood-stirring Scots rock band that, like most of its predecessors over the past 30 years, somehow captures the phantom sound of lost battalions of pipes and drummers as it reverberates from the green hills of its native land, brought down the house last night at San Francisco's storied Fillmore auditorium. There's some unexplainable Gaelic thread that runs through the cloth of just about every great Scottish band, from the Vaselines, Aztec Camera, the Delgados and Teenage Fanclub to Franz Ferdinand, Orange Juice, Glasvegas and the Jesus And Mary Chain, just to name a few.

Like the long fishing line of the Catholic church described by Evelyn Waugh in his 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited, you can run with the hook wherever you like, but at the flick of a wrist (or in this case, the martial beat of those pounding drums) you're right back where you belong, clapping one-two-three-four to the glorious sounds of Frightened Rabbit.

My baptism into the world of Scottish rock-a rousing 1983 show by Big Country at Wolfgang's in San Francisco-made me a lifelong addict, helplessly trailing along after every Scottish combo that came my way. I'd somehow missed seeing the Skids, a Dunfermline-based, art-punk trio founded in 1977 by Stuart Adamson, a band whose anthem "Into The Valley" was an undeniable cornerstone of this genre. When Adamson brought his new, widescreen outfit, Big Country, to California a few years later, I was front and center.

Formed by singer Scott Hutchison in 2003 as a duo with his brother Grant on drums, then picking up guitarist Billy Kennedy, rhythm guitarist Andy Monaghan and keyboard man Gordon Skene on the fly, the Glasgow-based Frightened Rabbit is so new to the U.S. indie-rock scene, the kid next to me mistook the support act, Chicago's Maps & Atlases, for the headliner. Admittedly, Maps & Atlases does have star power of its own in lead singer Dave Davison, the closest thing I've heard to the rebirth of fabled British belter Stevie Winwood.

The audience mis-ID of Frightened Rabbit reminded me of my own similar gaffe in 1982. When asked, "Who are these guys?" by some fellow traveler as a peach-fuzzed R.E.M. warmed up the house for Lords of the New Church at S.F.'s Old Waldorf, I answered, "I'm not sure, but one of them must be Mitch Easter..." (Easter, of course, produced R.E.M.'s then-current debut 12-inch Chronic Town but was never a member of the band, then going by first-names only on the record sleeve). 

Witnessing the R.E.M.-like near mass hysteria of a full house at the Fillmore, clapping in perfect time to virtually everything Frightened Rabbit played, made you suspect the rhythmic audience participation might have been beefed up electronically by an accompanying tape loop. It wasn't. "You may dream about someday playing the Fillmore, but being here is really blowing my mind," marveled Hutchison before launching into "Swim Until You Can't See Land," a high-water-mark epic from Frightened Rabbit's current album, Winter Of Mixed Drinks (Fatcat). "You've made this one of the best fucking days of my life," extolled Hutchison as the band wrapped up its concise 70-minute set. Most of those in attendance would have agreed that the feeling was entirely mutual.

Change in lineup breeds change in musical strategy and direction.

By Blurt Staff

New York's mighty !!! will have their new album Strange Weather, Isn't It? issued by Warp on August 24. It was recorded in Berlin, New York and Sacramento and was co-produced by the band with Eric Broucek (the former house engineer for DFA Records). It's also the first album to feature the new lineup of vocalist Nic Offer, guitarist Mario Andreoni, horn player/keyboardist Daniel Gorman, and saxophonist/percussionist Allan Wilson; drummer Paul Quattrone and vocalist Shannon Funchess helping to round out the live lineup. (Former members John Pugh and Justin Vandervolgen left prior to the recording, while Tyler Pope departed during sessions; drummer Jerry Fuchs died in a tragic accident last November.)

Strange Weather, Isn't It? follows the success of 2007's Myth Takes. The new record is described as having "some of !!!'s poppiest and most immediate songs to date, perfect for late summer dance parties."

Let's hear it for dance parties. Offer elaborated in a statement, saying "In the early days we'd put something deep in the mix, so that kids on acid could hear it the 20th time they listened to it. Now we've learned how to make records better. It's like the deep techno you hear in Berlin; it's molded down to its most basic essence, almost like a sculpture that you keep working on to make it both denser and clearer at the same time." Offer pauses for a moment to consider what he's saying. "Don't get me wrong, though, you should still check the record out on acid. Trust me."

Of the decision to record mostly in Berlin, Offer noted, "There's something happening in the clubs there that isn't happening in New York and is totally exciting. We were trying to soak that up. It's still something that I hope could happen over here. In some ways I guess it never will. But if we could just even begin to try to catch up to what's going on there over here it would be a musical revolution. So this was our stab at starting the musical revolution."

 Viva la revolucion, then. You can stream the lead track "AM/FM" now at the band's website.

Tracklisting:

01. AM/FM

02. The Most Certain Sure

03. Wannagain Wannagain

04. Jamie, My Intentions Are Bass

05. Steady as the Sidewalk Cracks

06. Hollow

07. Jump Back

08. Even Judas Gave Jesus a Kiss

09. The Hammer

It ain't pretty...

By Blurt Staff

"All of BP's efforts since the accident have been geared not towards plugging the leak, but rather towards recovering as much oil as possible..."

Boy, he's got that right. BLURT blogger (and Texas rocker extraordinaire) James McMurtry weighs in today at his "Wasteland Bait & Tackle" column, and as he takes a look at the unfolding fiasco that is the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, what he sees ain't pretty.

That may be stating the obvious, but McMurtry's insights are anything but rote - check out what he's got to say about the spill, about BP's motives and actions, and not so coincidentally, about the way the Republican party is trying to spin this disaster in their favor.

Family sets up the Jay Bennett Foundation; album will be made available as a free download.

By Fred Mills

When Jay Bennett passed away exactly a year ago, May 24 2009, it was known that he had been working on a new solo record. The erstwhile Wilco member now gets an official release date for Kicking at the Perfumed Air - it's due July 10 via the Jay Bennett Foundation, which has been set up by his mother and brother as a means of remembering and honoring Bennett and also to support "charitable efforts to make the world a better place." Worth noting is that the album will be made available as a free download, but fans will be encouraged to make a donation.

According to the Foundation website,

"Beginning July 10, this site will feature a free download of Jay's latest record, Kicking at the Perfumed Air. One thing to make clear: while this is a posthumous release, it is exactly the album Jay wanted to make. Working from his own detailed production notes, we have made every effort to reflect his vision, from recording to sequencing.

While the download will be free, donations are currently being accepted to beneï¬ï¿½t the Jay Bennett Foundation or one of its partner charities. >>DONATE NOW<<

On the site Jeff Bennett adds his own statement:

"Those of us who loved Jay lost a son, a brother, a collaborator and a loyal friend. The world lost a gifted musician, thoughtful song-writer and uniquely creative force in the studio who was always working to make music better. This album is part of a larger effort to honor Jay's memory and enhance his legacy by exposing more people to his music and by supporting charitable efforts to make the world a better place."

Check out free MP3s of two of Bennett's songs, posted at RockProper.com:

"M. Plates"

"Twice A Year"

By Blurt Staff

When Blurt blogger (and singer-songwriter) Kasey Anderson interviewed the ever-fetching and enormously talented Rachel Flotard about her band Visqueen, he may not have expected that the ensuing conversation would dive headlong into Beastie Boys territory. That's when he knew he had a winning entry for his latest column. Among the words of wisdom Flotard imparted to Anderson:

"In high school, my friend Janine and I had to pick a song for our freshman chorus final. We thought we were real wise guys and busted "She's Crafty"."

"I almost had the Licensed To Ill plane tattooed on my face."

Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ. Their stage prop was a giant 50-foot penis that came up from the stage floor. The hardcore band Underdog opened. Effing Joey Ramone walked out at one point. I said "Who the hell is that? He's tall."  At 15 I knew this was a force."

Read Anderson's entire blog right here, folks.

Body discovered in a hotel room on Monday.

By Blurt Staff

Paul Gray, 38, the bassist for Slipknot, was found dead yesterday, May 24, a hotel near Des Moines, Iowa. According to police reports an employee of TownePlace Suites found the musician's body. (Des Moines is the band's home base.)

No immediate cause of death has been announced, although foul play is not suspected, and medical examiners are planning to conduct an autopsy and toxicology tests today.

According to news reports, Gray had been arrested in Iowa in 2003, following an automobile accident, for marijuana, cocaine and two syringes. He received one year probation.

In the photo of Slipknot, above, he is pictured third from the left. Gray, a founding member of the band, is usually referred to as "#2," or "The Pig."

Up-and-coming indie wunderkind and well-established (newly indie) alt-rock act commandeer Toronto's Mod Club on April 23.

Text and photos by April S. Engram

The lovely Toronto night was capped by the carefree feel within the sold out venue, The Mod Club. No photo pit was erected distancing the audience from the stage, no restrictions on the photo taking, and no exceedingly rude drunkards within the audience. This night was simply filled with kick ass tunes and 10 pounds of confetti.

The catalyst for my pilgrimage to Toronto was Earl Greyhound since I'm a long time fan of the Brooklyn trio; OK GO was icing on the cake. For this early show that was to end by 10pm, E.G. singer/guitarist Matt Whyte, bassist/singer Kamara Thomas and percussionist Ricc Sheridan had a short time to win over the Toronto audience. And, naturally, they did just that in just 30 minutes. Though their soulful blues/rock set ended just as quickly as it begun, Earl Greyhound put all of their energies into the performance.

One week after the release of their impressive second LP, Suspicious Package, Earl Greyhound leapt into new songs such as, "Oye Vaya," "SOS," and "Shotgun." And for each number the guys slaughtered them live - in the best, most rocking sense of the word - and after one song the audience was sold. Thomas grooved on her bass as Whyte's fingers flew about his fret board and while these two were entertaining to watch, perhaps the most impressive was Sheridan. Donning his dark shades Sheridan personified "cool" as he calmly obliterated his drum kit, one kick from his massive bass drum sent an extra pulse through your veins.

Simply put, they were damn good and each member brought a special front to the stage. At one point the audience was so engrossed by Whyte's playing they were respectively waiting for a long note to die. Thomas motioned that it was ok for the crowd applause and they roared! To the audience's delight Earl Greyhound rounded up their set with a long track that lasted for several minutes.

With OK GO's newfound independence - it is no secret that the guys left their major label and formed their own, Paracadute (Italian translation-parachute) - the contagiously upbeat quartet shelled out 18 songs for their delighted fans. And in keeping with their independent spirit, front man Damian Kulash, bassist Tim Nordwind, drummer Dan Konopka, and guitarist Andy Ross, recorded their performance for all to enjoy. The guys had tiny video recorders attached to their mic stands, guitars etc. and the unique POV was projected behind them. So in addition to us getting to see insanely close shots of the gents performing, we had the opportunity to freeze the night forever in a USB time capsule.

Of course this thrilled their rabid fans, two of whom wore marching band uniforms (homage to OK GO's video for single "This Too Shall Pass"). Nordwind and Kulash loved that personal touch to which Kulash laughed, "you guys are fuckin' crazy!" Kulash loved chatting with the audience and he had to restrain himself from diverting from the music, however the ever entertaining Kulash could do no wrong. When he did return to the music his falsetto voice peeled through the air as OK GO played their rock infused funk especially on tracks like "Needing/Getting," "Skyscrapers" and "White Knuckles."

Every song sounded amazing live and they knew how to encapsulate on a crescendo moment within a track, with the aid of air guns and streamers. When the night was over the floor would be covered in multicolored paper and each time they began flying in the air once again the crowd roared even louder. However it was perhaps the two quieter performances of the evening that truly engaged the audience.

For song "What To Do," Kulash and the others quickly setup a table and played a rendition with hand bells. The uniquely beautiful interpretation was...dare I say it, better than the album version! And to perform quiet acoustic number "Last Leaf" Kulash grabbed his mic stand and acoustic guitar, jumped off the stage and made his way to the middle of the crowd. "No ass grabbing," he warned as he began to sing.

For their encore the guys emerged with angora, fuzzed-out guitars with lasers attached to the head and jackets lined with lights. Gone are the choreographed dance numbers of their concerts past but OK GO still know how to put on a visual performance. With the concert hall now pitch black the guys lit the stage with their own light show and ended the night with a bang.

OK GO and Earl Greyhound made for a great pairing. The two made it a night filled with passionate performances, kick ass energy, laughs and perhaps 20 pounds of streamers. What more could one ask for in a musical performance?

So much for that...

By Blurt Staff

From U2.com:

Tour promoters Live Nation have confirmed that the 16 U2360° shows from Salt Lake City on June 3rd, through to New Jersey's Meadowlands Stadium on July 19th, will be rescheduled for 2011.

U2 tour producer/promoter Arthur Fogel, CEO of Live Nation Global Touring, said, 'Although we understand the disappointment to U2 fans, first and foremost comes the recovery of Bono.'

Additional details on rescheduled dates will follow shortly and fans are encouraged to hold on to their tickets. We'll have all the information on U2.com as soon as it's confirmed.

The band's official website also indicated that next month's headline performance at Britain's Glastonbury festival has been canceled too. Bono commented, to festival organizer Michael Eavis, "I'm heartbroken. We really wanted to be there to do something really special - we even wrote a song especially for the Festival."

The reason for all this, of course, is the back injury and subsequent surgery that Bono endured last week. You can read the details on all that here.

You may ask yourself... why you're a (former) Republican twat! Incidentally, did you ever notice that these two guys look EXACTLY ALIKE?!?

By Fred Mills

It's news ya can use - Billboard reports that Florida Governor Charlie Crist, the former Republican who's now running as an independent in the Florida Senate race, is being sued by David Byrne. Apparently Crist tapped the Talking Heads' 1985 tune "Road to Nowhere" for use earlier this year in website and YouTube ads, but without obtaining either the permission of the songwriter and publisher or the appropriate synchronization license.

Adds Billboard.com, "The ad also violates the Lanham Act of the U.S. Trade Statue, implying a false endorsement of Crist by Byrne."

Recall a similar deal that went down during the 2008 presidential campaign when John McCain used a Jackson Browne song - and note that Byrne's attorney, Lawrence Iser, also represented Browne in his lawsuit against McCain.

"I was pretty upset by that," Byrne told Billboard. "In my opinion the damage had already been done by it being out there. People that I knew had seen (the ad), so it had gotten around. The suit, he adds, "is not about politics... It's about copyright and about the fact that it does imply that I would have licensed it and endorsed him and whatever he stands for."

The Talking Heads' record label, Warner Bros., notified the Crist campaign to stop using the song, which they did, but Byrne is still going forward with a $1 million lawsuit for damages.

With everyone else weighing in, we might as well too. Here are some our picks to click. See ya there, and if you spot the official BLURT scribe and shutterbug wandering the site, ask for some bumper stickers. Full lineup of acts can be found at the official Bonnaroo website. Don't forget to buy a calendar.

By Blurt Staff

Thursday, June 10:

4:00 pm Frontier Ruckus (Troo Music Lounge)

4:15 pm The Postelles (That Tent)

5:30 pm Elizabeth Cook (Troo Music Lounge)

5:45 pm Baroness (The Other Tent)
7:00 pm Local Natives (That Tent)
8:30 pm Neon Indian (That Tent)
9:00 pm The Dodos (This Tent)
10:15 pm Blitzen Trapper (The Other Tent)

10:30 pm Margaret Cho (Comedy Theatre)

10:30 pm Mayer Hawthorne (This Tent)
11:30 pm The xx (That Tent)

11:30 pm The Constellations (Troo Music Lounge)

Friday, June 11:

12:00 pm Trombone Shorty (Which Stage)
1:00 pm Conan O'Brien (The Comedy Theatre)
1:45 pm The Gaslight Anthem (Which Stage)
1:45 pm Jay Electronica (This Tent)

1:45 pm Carolina Chocolate Drops (That Tent)

2:00 pm Mighty Clouds of Joy (What Stage)

2:15 pm Steep Canyon Rangers (Sonic Stage)

3:45 pm The Gossip (This Tent)
4:00 pm Damian Marley and Nas (What Stage)

4:00 pm Nneka (Troo Music Lounge)
5:00 pm She & Him (This Tent)
5:45 pm The National (Which Stage)

6:30 pm Tenacious D (What Stage)

7:30 pm Steve Martin & Steep Canyon Rangers (That Tent)

8:00 pm Samantha Crain (Café Whre?)

12:00 am The Flaming Lips (Which Stage)
12:00 am The Black Keys (That Tent)
12:00 am Daryl Hall and Chromeo (The Other Tent)
12:00 am Hercules and Love Affair (DJ set) (The Lunar Stage)
1:00 am The Crystal Method (The Lunar Stage)

2:00 am Galactic (The Other Tent)

2:30 am LCD Soundsystem (This Tent)

Saturday, June 12:

12:15 pm Langhorne Slim (That Tent)

1:00 pm Conan O'Brien (The Comedy Theatre)

1:15 pm Mexican Institute of Sound (The Other Tent)

2:40 pm Truth & Salvage Co. (Troo Music Lounge)

3:15 pm Dave Rawlings Machine (That Tent)
3:30 pm Isis (This Tent)

3:45 pm Aterciopelados (The Other Tent)

3:45 Imelda May (Sonic Stage)

4:30 pm Clutch (Sonic Stage)

4:45 pm Avett Brothers (Which Stage)
5:15 pm The Melvins (This Tent)

5:15 pm Los Amigos Invisibles (The Other Tent)

5:20 pm Red Cortez (Troo Music Lounge)

6:00 pm Aziz Ansari (Comedy Theatre)
6:00 pm The Dead Weather (What Stage)

6:45 pm John Prine (That Tent)

7:00 pm Jeff Beck (This Tent)

7:00 pm Ozomatli (The Other Tent)

7:30 pm Angus & Julia Stone (Café Where?)

12:00 am Thievery Corporation (That Tent)

12:30 am Dan Deacon Ensemble (This Tent)

1:30 am Lissie (Troo Music Lounge)
2:30 am GWAR (The Other Tent)

4:00 am Timo Maas (The Lunar Stage)

Sunday, June 13:

12:00 pm Tinariwen (Which Stage)
12:30 pm Japandroids (This Tent)
1:15 pm Calexico (Which Stage)

2:00 pm Lucero (This Tent)

2:30 pm Danny Barnes (Café Where?)

3:00 pm Regina Spektor (Which Stage)

4:00 pm John Fogerty (What Stage)

4:00 pm Supagroup (Troo Music Lounge)

4:15 pm John Butler (The Sonic Lounge)

5:00 pm Ween (Which Stage)

5:00 pm Dropkick Murphys (This Tent)

6:15 pm Medeski Martin & Wood (The Other Tent)
7:15 pm Phoenix (Which Stage)

7:30 pm Aziz Ansari (Comedy Theatre)
9:00 pm Dave Matthews Band (What Stage)

Aimed at raising awareness about Arizona's immigration policies and SB1070.

By Blurt Staff

In response to the recently passed Arizona Immigration Law AZ SB1070, a newly charged version of Woody Guthrie's "Deportees" has been recorded by Outernational featuring Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, The Nightwatchman). The song is available to the public at no cost and it is the band's hope that everyone who hears it will spread it far and wide by posting and re-posting online, and that radio and other media will pick up on it as well.   

Check it out here: "Deportees"
 

Said Morello, in a statement, "As sides are being drawn over the issue of immigration, I'm honored to join with Outernational on Woody Guthrie's "Deportees". Prejudice and ignorance are at the core of Arizona's recent immigration legislation and Woody Guthrie's "Deportees" was written to combat just that sort of prejudice."

 
Woody Guthrie wrote "Deportees" in 1948 some days after a plane crash occurred in the Los Gatos Mountains, near the farms of the California central valley. The crash took the lives of several Americans and 28 migrant, Mexican workers. Guthrie was taken by how the reports of the crash only mentioned the names of the Americans and referred to the Mexican workers as just deportees.  

An airplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
Like a fireball of lightning it shook all our hills
Who are these friends all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"

Outernational will be on the ground, in Arizona on May 29th in lock step solidarity with the thousands of people protesting this law. They believe that taken together, SB 1070, along with House Bill 2281, the new legislation which targets and dismantles ‘ethnic studies,' represents officially sanctioned white supremacy and American chauvinism.
 

Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted
When contract is out, we've got to move on
Its six hundred miles to the Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves

Outernational has been touring non-stop for many months and began to revitalize "Deportees" on stage as they played shows on their way out west from their home in New York City. The band is known for its revolutionary message and electrified genre bending rock sound; it's no wonder their version of the powerful folk song became an up-tempo and rousing celebration of Mexican culture complete with accordion and eventually a classical guitar solo courtesy of Morello.

 
"We recorded Deportees with Tom Morello and are going down to Arizona on May 29th to stand with all the people courageously fighting back against these unjust and immoral laws. Outernational is about a whole new world, a world without borders and nations. Todos somos illegales. We are all illegals," said Miles Solay of Outernational.

Controlled Bleeding, Zs, Child Abuse and Cellular Chaos will be making some serious noise for a good cause next week...

By Blurt Staff

The music community has been painfully slow in responding to the BP oil fiasco, but now word arrives that Solid PR, in conjunction with Arthur magazine, has booked for next Wednesday, June 2^nd, Shea Stadium in Brooklyn in order to put on A Benefit for the Victims of The Gulf Oil Spill Disaster

The event will feature Zs, Child Abuse, the return of Controlled Bleeding, and Cellular Chaos (feat. Weasel Walter) with special guest DJ 1000TimesYes (aka Christopher Weingarten). All proceeds for this event will go to the Greater New Orleans Foundation (www.gnof.org) to help the victims of the Gulf oil spill disaster.

In a statement, the music public relations company observed, "Over the past few weeks, Solid PR has been saddened to hear of the devastation brought on by the recent oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and have tried to think of ways we could help those affected and shine a brighter light on the situation as a whole.

"We care about the delicate ecosystem of our planet and have decided to put together a last minute event to help raise awareness and help those affected by the Gulf oil spill disaster."

Additional details on the web:

Greater New Orleans Foundation

Solid PR

44 years ago the 13^th Floor Elevators burned San Francisco's venerable Fillmore down to cinders. On May 20, their former lead singer returned to the scene of the crime with Austin's Okkervil River in tow.

By Jud Cost

Roky Erickson triumphantly returned to the Fillmore auditorium on May 20 for the first time since the summer of 1966, back when he was the lead singer for trailblazing Austin, Texas psychedelic-rock band the 13th Floor Elevators. The hippie ballroom scene was about to bust wide open at Bill Graham's Fillmore and at the Avalon, run by Chet Helms, fueled by a percolating Bay Area music scene that included Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead, Country Joe & the Fish and Big Brother and the Holding Co., whose vocalist, Janis Joplin, had recently emigrated to San Fran from Texas. The Elevators - featuring Erickson's banshee howl, Stacy Sutherland's blistering guitar leads, Ronnie Leatherman on bass, John Ike Walton on drums and the other-worldly sound of Tommy Hall's electric jug - fit right in with these legends-in-waiting.

Tonight is also Erickson's first San Francisco show backed by hotshot Austin indie-rockers Okkervil River. And some of the natives, many of whom look old enough to have been here for those Elevators shows 46 years ago, are having pre-concert doubts. "I'm afraid this new band is gonna suck," one cane-wielding greybeard was overheard telling another as he handed over his western duster to the hatcheck girl. The old-timers, and recent converts too, needn't have worried. Okkervil River is a perfect fit for the man they backed on the just-released True Love Cast Out All Evil (Anti-), Erickson's first album of all new material in decades. 

Dressed in an oversized black shirt with two white lines going north and south down the front, Erickson's put on a little weight since he was last in town in 2008, backed by the battle-hardened Black Angels. He's sporting shoulder-length hair, shaggy eyebrows and a full, well groomed beard these days. The clean-shaven guy with the semi-mullet, dressed in a shirt he might have purchased at a Honolulu gift shop has definitely left the building. Now decked out to fit his undeniable place in rock history, this man looks like he might really have walked with a zombie last night.

Erickson has an eagle eye trained all night on Okkervil River vocalist Will Sheff, the man who produced the shockingly excellent new CD and helped to totally revamp Roky's set list. An old chestnut kicks things off, "Night Of The Vampire," slowed down to a funereal crawl, with Erickson right on the money, singing as forcefully as he did with the Explosives and the Aliens, circa 1979-82. "Two Headed Dog," a song Roky could nail in his sleep, and "Don't Slander Me" are perfectly rendered with the help of Okkervil's three-guitar, multi-hued lysergic palette.

The only selection that seems a little undercooked is a cover of Little Richard's "Ooh My Soul," a surprisingly lifeless treatment of something from the Georgia Peach, the man Erickson idolized on late-night radio as a youngster. "Starry Eyes," a song Roky might have tracked with Buddy Holly if the Lubbock star's life hadn't been cut tragically short in 1959, sounds terrific, as it always does.

"I Walked With A Zombie," with Roky repeating the refrain by cycling through the alphabet - "I walked with a Zombie/I walked with 'b' Zombie/I walked with 'c' Zombie" - is the last of the Stu Cook-produced 1981 "monster movie" classics hooked up to the electrodes and wheeled out into a lightning storm tonight. "True Love Cast Out All Evil" has a back-porch country vibe that allows Erickson room to show a nice Merle Haggard side to his voice, previously kept under wraps. Adding just the right organ touches to this material, Okkervil's Scott Brackett also wielded a stirring mariachi-style trumpet when called for.

What might have been the absolute highlight of this 80-minute set is also the backbone of the new album, "Goodbye Sweet Dreams." As outstanding as anything Erickson's written since the glory days of the Elevators, it sounds like it was wrapped up in a slightly singed sheet of newspaper, retrieved from the fireplace before it was consumed by flames. Inhaling its smoky perfume simultaneously brings tears to the eyes and raises hackles on the back of your neck as the wailing guitars delicately filet your mind. 

A crushing one-two punch brings this impressive set to a swift conclusion. Without the insinuating madness of the electric jug, Elevators classic "Reverberation" is boiled down to its Jefferson Airplane-like, folk-rock essence. "You're Gonna Miss Me," the regional hit that, for one of the few times in his career left Dick Clark speechless when the Elevators played it on American Bandstand in '66, sends everyone out into the late night drizzle wearing sandals of Mercury. They've born witness to the most recent chapter of the rehabilitation of Roky Erickson, now recovered from the depressed, unhealthy state of 10 years ago, and recently reconnected with former wife Dana and son Jegar. Just as important, Erickson is making some of the best music of his long career before an adoring public. What could be sweeter!

[Photo credit: Todd Wolfson]

Read our interview with Okkervil's Will Sheff about his band's collaboration with Erickson here.

We're trying to work it out so they even personally deliver the goods to your home!

By Blurt Staff

Pssst - hey, fanboy! Yeah, you over there, with the asymmetrical haircut and rocking the ironic inside-out-hoodie - looking for some free alterna-rock swag? Look no further: just click over to the Blurt Contest Page. That's where you can win a SIGNED Bettie Serveert CD and Photo and also get a free sticker.

10 entries will win a free copy of Bettie Serveert's new Second Motion Records album Pharmacy of Love (reviewed here at Blurt) autographed by the entire band, as well as an autographed photo image... and we'll even toss in a Bettie Serveert sticker as well!  

All ya gotta do is fill out the necessary info on the webform then click "register." Simple as that. Some restrictions apply. Void where prohibited by law. Operators standing by. Do not operate heavy machinery. Etc. etc....

Get yer Blurt Murch here: Flaming Lips, Nirvana, Metallica, Fleet Foxes, Mudhoney, Of Montreal, Shins, PiL, Muse, Iron & Wine, Paramore, Gorillaz and tons more products for your discriminating musical tastes.

By Blurt Staff

Psst - hey, fanboys ‘n' girls! Yeah, you over there with the glum look on your face because you didn't have enough dough last night at the club to be able to buy a teeshirt from the band you just saw - we got the solution right here.

Just click over to the new, improved, and freshly relaunched Blurt Murch Store, where you can choose from over 3,000 artists and over 30,000 products ranging from teeshirts and posters to rucksacks and clocks. (Clocks?!? Yes, clocks!) All the artists listed above and a zillion more have pages flogging, er, offering their merchandise - if you don't see a band right off the bat that you dig, just consult the drop-down menu or enter the appropriate words in the search field. There are even goods for films, television shows and the occasional celebrity (everybody needs a Bruce Lee teeshirt at some point in their life).

The ordering process is easy, and we accept Visa, Mastercare, AmEx, Maestro, Solo and JBC cards. Transactions are processed using SSL 128 bit connection and card details are not stored on our server, so you can rest assured that the transactions will be safe ones.

Second record coming in September with Euro tour dates already announced.

By Fred Mills

According to Anti- Records, Nick Cave's Grinderman project is aiming for a September 14 US release date for a new album, the group's second. Sensibly titled Grinderman 2, it was recorded last year at various London studios and was mixed and co-produced by Nick Launay. It's the followup to 2007's self-titled debut.

A series of U.K. and European tour dates have been announced for September and October. No word yet on a North American trek.

Tour Dates:

25th September Nottingham Rock City
27th September Leeds University
28th September Glasgow Barrowlands
29th September Manchester Academy
1st October London Hammersmith Apollo
4th October Lausanne Les Docks
5th October Zurich Volkshaus
6th October Milan Live
7th October Rome Atlantico
10th October Vienna Gasometer
11th October Munich Muffathalle
13th October Leipzig Haus Auensee
14th October Berlin Columbiahalle
15th October Cologne E-Werk
17th October Brussels Ancienne Belgique
20th October Utrecht MCV
21st October Hamburg Docks
23rd October Copenhagen Falkoner Theatre
24th October Randers Power Station
26th October Paris Cite de La Music

"The brown went on for minutes, hundreds of miles, and, a ways to the west, I began to see black streaks in the brown stuff..."

By Blurt Staff

Remember how a couple of days ago Texas troubadour James McMurtry offered a scathing indictment of BP and the oil company's veiled motives behind their oil cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico? Today, at his BLURT blog "Wasteland Bait & Tackle" he recounts how he actually flew over the oil spill yesterday.

He didn't like what he saw.

See what he's got to say about it right here.

Album due in August; band currently doing a string of touring dates.

By Blurt Staff

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band's sophomore album Where The Messengers Meet arrives August 3 via Dead Oceans. While it has only been 18 months since Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band's self-titled debut, as the band puts it, they "have traveled what feels like thousands of miles."

 Where The Messengers Meet expands upon its predecessor, using same frantic and skewed elements and stretch them out, giving them room to breathe and blossom. Thematically, Where The Messengers Meet is an exercise in contrasts: "the delicate and gentle, the dark and furious," we're advised.

More:

"Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band collects powerful compositions into one cohesive whole held together with lush production and a haunting atmosphere. They are imperceptibly inching away from an angular style influenced by Modest Mouse and Wolf Parade, instead incorporating an epic sound recalling both the modern masters such as Arcade Fire, and classic pioneers, like Pink Floyd."

Sounds like c-c-c-classic rock to us, speaking of "classic"!

Check out an advance MP3 from the album: "Leaving Trails"

Tour Dates:

05/27 San Diego, CA- Casbah w/ Frog Eyes

05/28 Los Angeles, CA- The Echo w/ Frog Eyes

05/29 San Francisco, CA- Hemlock Tavern w/ Frog Eyes

06/05 Corvallis, OR- Flat Tail Music Festival- Oregon State University

06/06 Spokane, WA- Elk Fest

07/08 Seattle, WA- Seattle City Hall

[Photo Credit: Chona Kasinger]

Solid Sound Festival, that is... soul legend joins Wilco's big August event in Massachusetts.

By Blurt Staff

Mavis Staples has been tapped to join Wilco's upcoming SOLID SOUND FESTIVAL, which as announced previously takes place at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA August 13 - 15. Staples' appearance precedes the release of her forthcoming album, which was produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy.

The 3-day event features a wide array of musical performances spanning multiple genres including rock, R&B, indie, jazz, folk and more. The weekend's musical lineup includes a headlining concert by Wilco plus performances by each Wilco member's side project (The Nels Cline Singers, Glenn Kotche's On Fillmore, John Stirratt's and Pat Sansone's Autumn Defense and Mike Jorgensen's Pronto), plus musical performances by Avi Buffalo, The Books, Vetiver, Mountain Man, Sir Richard Bishop, Brenda, The Deep Blue Organ Trio and the aforementioned Staples.

Famed comedian Todd Barry will headline and program the festival's comedy stage. Joining Barry will be comedians Kristen Schaal (Flight of the Conchords, The Daily Show), Hannibal Buress (Craig Ferguson, Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham") and John Mulaney (VH1's Best Week Ever, SNL)

Wilco's performance at SOLID SOUND is the band's only East Coast performance of the summer. SOLID SOUND FESTIVAL also features performances by the Vermont-based puppet theater company Bread and Puppet and the arts and creative writing organization Story Pirates. Other intriguing elements of the festival include Glenn Kotche's interactive drum head installation and Nels Cline's Solid Sound Stompbox Station. During the festival, MASS MoCA will display an extensive collection of past and present Wilco concert posters. A poster screening demonstration by long time Wilco poster collaborator Ghost-Town Design will also be presented. Additional art on display in the galleries during the festival includes works by Inigo Manglano Ovalle, Petah Coyne, Leonard Nimoy and Michael Oatman.

More details and tickets: www.wilcoworld.net and www.solidsoundfestival.com.

Album arrives in August. Calder's currently out on tour with the New Pornographers, by the way.

By Blurt Staff

Kathryn Calder's debut solo album Are You My Mother? will feature contributions from her fellow New Pornographers Neko Case, Kurt Dahle and Todd Fancey, along with members of Ladyhawk and Frog Eyes. The album's due August 10 from the File Under: Music label.

Check out an advance MP3: "Slip Away"

After playing keyboards and singing for Immaculate Machine and The New Pornographers for the past several years, a little voice in Kathryn Calder's head started to ask her, 'What would it be like to put out your own record?' When she couldn't wait any longer to find out, she and her producer, Colin Stewart, took over her childhood home in Victoria, BC and set up an impromptu recording studio. With little in the way of props or technology, the pair started to cobble together the songs that would become Are you my Mother?.

Kathryn is the first to admit that she had no idea of what she wanted out of the experience before beginning to work on this CD. She'd made lots of records before, but she'd always been one of many collaborators working together on a project. She was used to half writing songs and then taking them to band members who would each have their input to help transform them. This time, she didn't have that option and was forced to focus, work through her blocks, and go on a voyage of discovery that allowed her to finish the songs by herself.

Are you my Mother? is described by the label as "a transitional record from an already accomplished artist firmly hitting her stride as a solo performer." Amen to that.

Track Listing:

1. Slip Away
2. Low
3. Castor and Pollux
4. Arrow
5. If You Only Knew
6. Follow Me Into The Hills
7. Down The River
8. A Day Long Past It's Prime
9. So Easily
10. All It Is

[Photo Credit: Caleb Beyers]

Album arrives August 3; new 12" out today, but MP3s of the songs have already hit the web. You can listen to them below.

By Blurt Staff

The Arcade Fire is set to release its third full-length studio album, The Suburbs, on August 3. The Pitchfork recording artists - whoops, we meant, THE MERGE recording artists co-produced the record with Markus Dravs, working in studios in both Montreal and New York. It's the followup to 2007's Neon Bible.

The band: Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Richard Reed Parry, William Butler, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld and Jeremy Gara.

A double A side, limited edition 12" will be available starting TODAY, May 27, featuring the tracks "The Suburbs" and "Month of May." A message from the band at their website indicates that they "didn't press that many copies of the single and we sent most of them to independent record stores."

However, both songs will be available for immediate download with pre-orders placed at www.arcadefire.com, natch.

Incidentally, at the website you can view the aforementioned (handwritten) message, along with lyrics to the song "The Suburbs." There are also tour dates listed starting in late June and running sporadically through July and August, most of them UK and European (but there are three Canadian dates plus the August 8 show in Chicago at Lollapalooza.

Meanwhile, if you head over to the good folks at One Thirty BPM, they have posted both songs at their site. "The Suburbs" has an intriguing kind of Kinks-do-British-dancehall sound (the vintage dancehall, not reggae) with a droney background, while "Month of May" is a flat-out rocker, kind of manic glam rockabilly in places that doesn't sound anything like the more progressive/atmospheric Arcade Fire sound people may be expecting.

Here they are:

"The Suburbs"

"Month of May"

You can stream the songs or download ‘em, but nab ‘em quick as they might get removed. Quick, start the countdown to when the full album leak hits the web...

Among the artists agreeing to participate: Rage Against The Machine, Street Sweeper Social Club, Café Tacvba, Kanye West, Conor Oberst, Ozomatli, Massive Attack, Sonic Youth, Rise Against, Tenacious D.

By Fred Mills

To some of us, we've seen it happen before: back in the late ‘80s, the state of Arizona canceled a paid Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday for state employees, and in the ensuing uproar, many boycotts of Arizona kicked in, with artists ranging from U2 to Steve Wonder criticizing the situation and pledging not to perform in the state. Point of fact, it was a boneheaded decision on the part of then-governor (and soon to be impeached governor) Evan Mecham, a Republican, to cancel the holiday, and not necessarily a sentiment shared by the majority of AZ residents; but the result was the same as if it had been a statewide referendum approved by voters, with protests, cancelled conventions, a drop in tourism, and the aforementioned boycotts. (Yours truly moved to AZ not long after the flap, and I can say in all truthfulness that the state was NOT populated by hordes of unreconstructed racists and wannabe Klansment. Well, there were quite a few of militia types, but that's another story. At any rate, the MLK affair was embarrassing to most folks who lived there as they didn't like being portrayed by the rest of the country as being racist.)

So here we are in 2010, and another Republican governor, Jan Brewer, has stirred up some serious shit by signing into law the now-notorious immigration bill, AZ SB1070. You don't need me to brief you on the law and the still-unfolding fallout as it's already made more headlines than the MLK flap. The music community has gradually been coming together in voicing its opinion - negative, as you might imagine - about the matter; just a couple of days ago we brought you word (and an MP3) of Tom Morello and Outernational's collaboration on a protest cover of Woody Guthrie's "Deportees".

Morello's bandmate in  Rage Against The Machine, Zack De La Rocha, is going even further, organizing what he calls Sound Strike, which is calling for a boycott of Arizona by both bands and music fans as well as organizing a online petition (in both English and Spanish) asking President Obama to take action (unspecified) to protect the civil rights of Arizona citizens.

You can view and sign the petition here at the Sound Strike site, while elsewhere on the site you can read De La Rocha's press release about the boycott. It reads, in part:

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, they arrested her. As a result, people got together and said we are not going to ride the bus until they change the law. It was this courageous action that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. What if we got together, signed a collective letter saying, "we're not going to ride the bus", saying we are not going to comply. We are not going to play in Arizona. We are going to boycott Arizona?!

We are asking artists the world over to stand with us, and not allow our collective economic power to be used to aid and abet civil and human rights violations that will be caused by Arizona's odious law.

Listed thus far as having agreed to participate in the boycott:

Cypress Hill
Juanes
Conor Oberst
Los Tigres del Norte
Rage Against the Machine
Cafe Tacvba
Michael Moore
Kanye West
Calle 13
Joe Satriani
Serj Tankian
Rise Against
Ozomatli
Sabertooth Tiger
Massive Attack
One Day as a Lion
Street Sweeper Social Club
Spank Rock
Sonic Youth
Tenacious D

You can readily imagine what clubland in Arizona would look like this summer if the boycott effort snowballs...

As an aside, syndicated columnist Gustavo Arellano, who authors the popular "Ask A Mexican" column that runs in Village Voice and other alternative newsweeklies, recently expressed his sympathy with folks who would call for a boycott, but he suggested an alternate strategy too: a boycott, in which you additionally support (with time, manpower, money, etc.) organizations who actually get threatened by policies and actions prompted by the Arizona law. You can read his column about this and about "some of the good people of Arizona" here - and indeed, just like I discovered when I moved to the state years ago, many, if not a majority, citizens living there don't necessarily support the law, or at least they don't support the way it's likely to be implemented.

Celebration to honor Jewish American Heritage Month.

By Blurt Staff

Tonight, May 27, Regina Spektor will perform at The White House for the first ever White House reception in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month. Spektor will join President Obama and his wife to "celebrate the range and depth of the Jewish American heritage and contributions to American culture."

"Having moved to America from Soviet Russia as a child with my family, we dreamed of reconnecting with our religious traditions and of making America our home" says Spektor, in a statement. "Having lived here for over twenty years, it is an unimaginable honor to be invited to the White House by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, to an event celebrating Jewish Americans, and to be counted among them. Nothing in the world could make us feel more accepted and at home!"

The celebration will take place in The White House with guests including a range of community leaders and prominent Jewish Americans from Olympians and professional athletes to members of Congress, business leaders, authors and military veterans.

"It's the same song over and over again": well, not necessarily. Young unveils a slew of new songs on his current tour. See a video clip, below.

By Fred Mills

It's no secret that when Neil Young decides to go out on a solo tour he often previews brand new material (not to mention pulling out older, unreleased rarities). This is certainly the case, in spades, with his current "Twisted Road" tour, which kicked off May 18 in Albany and runs through June 7 in Dallas (more dates tba; tonight he's in Knoxville, and you can view the dates at his website).

As a pristine-to-the-point-of-perfect recording of the Albany concert that hit the web a few days ago demonstrates, Young's being quite generous with the tunes, as no less than seven brand new ones, along with the obscure-and-unreleased "The Hitchhiker," were unveiled for the ecstatic audience at the Palace Theatre. During the first set, which he performed on acoustic guitar, after dispensing with a brace of old faves ("My My, Hey Hey," "Tell Me Why" and "Helpless"), Young then launched summarily into a trio of brand new vintage" "You Never Call," a soft, contemplative number with a subtle waltz feel; "Peaceful Valley," a long, 7-minute Americana study; and "Love and War," an odd number carrying overtones of both "MMHH" and "Eldorado."

A couple of songs later, having strapped on the electric guitar to kick out some solo jams, Young catapults into "The Hitchhiker," a droning, druggy, effects-drenched excursion into close-to-Sonic Youth territory. ("Druggy" indeed: the lyrics concern taking hash, speed, valium, cocaine and probably more.) After a smoking version of his CSNY classic "Ohio" (the anniversary of Kent State wasn't that long ago, remember), two more unreleased numbers are performed: "Sign Of Love," with some deceptive "Cinnamon Girl"-meets-"Mr. Soul" styled slashing chords, and then, with Young moving over to the upright piano, a somewhat slight, repetitive ditty called "Leia."

Two more fresh tracks are uncorked by Young after he returns to his electric guitar a little later in the concert. "Rumblin'" is a series of intertwining melodies and overtones, darkly psychedelic but with a ballad-like restraint. Then in the encore comes "Walk With Me," which with its prolonged tuning-up intro lasts nearly 8 minutes; the feedback-strafed number is eerie and discordant, like some bastard descendant of the noisy section of the Arc/Weld album, and featuring Young blurting the title phrase over and over. Freaky shit. You can see a partial video clip of the song, below.

The concert as a whole is stuffed with plenty of goodies for longtime fans, as the setlist, below, and this nice online review, reveals. Anyway, the entire show, along with the delightful ten-song opening set by Young's touring companion, Bert Jansch, it out there on the web at all the usual download sites. You know how to use Google, right?

Catch Young on tour for this one, folks - it's a pretty special one.

Setlist:

Intro/False Start
My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue) [acoustic guitar]
Tell Me Why [acoustic guitar]
Helpless [acoustic guitar]
You Never Call * [acoustic guitar w/ pickup])
Peaceful Valley * [acoustic guitar w/ pickup]
Love And War * [acoustic guitar w/ pickup]
Down By The River [electric guitar - Old Black]

Hitchhiker * [electric guitar - Old Black]
Ohio [electric guitar - White Falcon]

Sign Of Love * [electric guitar - White Falcon]

Leia * [upright piano]
After The Gold Rush [pump organ]
I Believe In You [grand piano]
Rumblin' * [electric guitar - Old Black]
Cortez The Killer [electric guitar - Old Black])
Cinnamon Girl [electric guitar - Old Black]
(encores)
Walk With Me * [electric guitar - White Falcon]
Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black) [electric guitar - Old Black]

* = new/unreleased song

Secret Transit, out June 8 via the band's own Daniel Records label and funded via fan pledges finds the Brooklyn guy-gal duo upping the ante with an emphatic pop sound.

By Lee Zimmerman

Kaiser Cartel, an unassuming boy/girl duo comprised of singer Courtney Kaiser and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Benjamin Cartel, have managed to settle well below the radar, despite an album and several EPs that have reflected the twosome's loftier inclinations. Secret Transit more or less ups the ante, substituting an emphatic pop sound for the low-key ruminations that defined their previous attempts. The first half of the record refuses to falter, propelled by a decidedly insistent sound, manifest in the raging pulse of "Falling," the harmonies and handclaps of "Around You" and the kinetic frenzy found in the aptly titled "Ready to Go." Courtney Kaiser's chirpy vocals give the album a girl group persona, especially on songs like "Carroll Street" and "Worn Out Nervous Condition," where a giddy unabashed exuberance all but dominates the proceedings.

That said, the back portion of the album offers moments of repose, from the eerie, ethereal spin of "Minefield" and "The Wait" to the somber strum of "Wherever You Go." No matter though; Secret Transit shows the drive and determination to bring this pair the larger audience they deserve.

[Photo Credit: Anthony Byrd]

The Florida governor is not just on David Byrne's shitlist...

By Fred Mills

They're not just blowing hot air - Florida governor Charlie Crist is shaping up to be the biggest flip-flopper since the heyday of that other political nancy boy, John Kerry. As HotAir.com pointed out yesterday in a pithy-though-pitiless editorial, Crist's recent about-faces paint him as beyond merely opportunistic - "we're watching a different species of animal here," as they put it.

Crist of course famously switched from Republican to independent so he could run for U.S. Senate. He then indicated he'd be returning campaign donations from Republicans who'd given him money in good faith prior to the switch, but subsequently announced that he'd "probably" return the dough, and then finally decided he'd just keep it, period.

Then yesterday Crist reversed himself on his previously-announced stance on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy towards gays. As HotAir.com points out, "As recently as Monday Crist told reporters that the current policy, ‘has worked pretty well for America.' By by Thursday, Crist said he supports the repeal, [saying] ‘Ultimately, as in all military matters, I defer to the Pentagon and to the generals and what the Senate is doing today is giving them the ultimate authority to do what is best for our military. So, I would be inclined to support the Senate's action on this.'"

Granted, supporting the ban was wrong, period, and being in favor of repeal is admirable - the right thing to do. But it sure smacks of licking a finger, sticking it up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, and then making a politically expedient decision (since a majority of Americans wanted the policy repealed).

What's next, Gov. Crist - using some rock music, I dunno, maybe a Talking Heads tune penned by David Byrne, without permission in a campaign ad, then suddenly deciding to stop using it?

Record reportedly "shaped" but touring stints with Dinosaur Jr and the Meat Puppets.

By Blurt Staff

Dead Confederate has its sophomore record Sugar due on August 24 on TAO Recordings/Old Flame. It's the followup to their 2008 debut Wrecking Ball and is described by the label as "exploring new styles beyond the aching, bleak psychedelia with which the band originally made their mark."

Recorded by John Agnello (Hold Steady, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) during a record-setting blizzard in New Jersey, the sessions focused on the malleability of the freshly written songs. The start to this progression was shaped by tours with legends Dinosaur Jr and Meat Puppets, and gave Dead Confederate an increased appreciation for the early underground bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s that laid the foundation on which their sound is built. The album also features a special guest appearance by J. Mascis on the single "Giving It All Away."

Splitting songwriting duties between bassist Brantly Senn and singer/guitarist Hardy Morris, each songwriter picked their favorite of the other's contributions, creating a complementary collection of songs. Instead of touring the newly penned tracks, the band (Jason Scarboro, Walker Howle, John Watkins) spent two days learning 20 songs and a week reworking them, then laid half of them down.  

Dead Confederate is currently touring Europe, with a return to the US in June for Kentucky's Forecastle Festival. More US tour dates tba.

Dead Confederate was profiled in December of 2008 by BLURT right here.

Personally, we'd rather see bottomless pics of Iggy Pop...

By Blurt Staff

Folks with their Google Alerts set to "Paramore" or "Hayley Williams" received a deluge over the past 12 hours or so after the pop/punk vocalist had her Twitter account compromised and a topless (possibly intoxicated) Twitpic photo was posted. As MTV news points out, the photo was removed after Williams and her handlers discovered the incident, but by then her more than 600,000 followers had seen the image and "the photo [had] made its way to a gossip sites all across the Net."

Williams subsequently tweeted, "Well ... my night just changed drastically. Got hacked." No other official comments have been issued, which sorta raises the question - where did the photos come from in the first place, and who hacked the account.

Many of those sites reposted the photo as it originally appeared, while others, displaying an unusual degree of good taste, opted to censor it as above.

BTW, for those of you that just can't stand it and are determined to see the real deal, you should be warned that some of the sites in question are also crawling with virus-type gremlins. A certain BLURT editor picked up a nasty Trojan horse program that, luckily, his virus program caught and quarantined. Just sayin'....

Downloads being made available June 1...

By Blurt Staff

The self-titled free 6-song EP from How To Destroy Angels a/k/a Mariqueen Maandig, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is now available for pre-order at howtodestroyangels.com. Those pre-ordering the EP will receive the track "The Believers" immediately and the remaining 5 songs on June 1.

According to a message posted at the group's site:

We're releasing our debut 6-track EP as a FREE download on June 1st. Pre-order now and get one track, "The Believers," immediately. You'll then be automatically emailed on June 1st as soon as the full EP download is ready. The EP will be delivered as high-quality DRM-free MP3s.

The physical CD release of the EP will take place July 6 via the Null label.  A vinyl version will also be released at a date to be determined.

Tracklisting:

1.  The Space In Between
2.  Parasite
3.  Fur-Lined
4.  BBB
5.  The Believers
6.  A Drowning

Blurt shutterbug Scott Dudelson attended the monster metalfest Rock On The Range last weekend in Columbus, Ohio, and lived to tell about it. Well, he ain't telling, at least not until certain statutes of limitations expire. But he was willing to share his photos with us. Check out his photoblog for BLURT here.

(above) Slash & Myles Kennedy

 Airbourne

Apocalyptica

Bullet For My Valentine

Coheed & Cambria

Deftones

Drowning Pool

Halestorm

Helmet

KillSwitchEngage

Limp Bizkit

Mastodon

Puddle of Mudd

Rise Against

Rob Zombie

Seether

Sevendust

Theory Of A Deadman

Simply put, the man was a giant and a legend.

By Fred Mills

Famed actor and director Dennis Hopper died this morning in his Venice, Calif. (near Los Angeles) home following a battle with prostate cancer, according to the L.A. Times. He was 74.

Hopper had been in the news frequently since his illness was disclosed to the public last September, including a contentious divorce battle with fifth wife Victoria Duffy, for his work on a book of his photography, and for his involvement with television series Crash. On March 26 he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame where a visibly frail hopper posed with his friend and fellow actor Jack Nicholson.

The man's filmography is impressive even by "veteran actor" standards, as this long list at his Wikipedia page attests. Among his iconic roles were Rebel Without A Cause, The Trip, Apocalypse Now, Hoosiers, Blue Velvet and of course Easy Rider. And his wild-child image, though a checkered one that sometimes got in the way of Hopper's career advancing, was almost as memorable as his acting. That he later grew up and out of that image and came back for the proverbial second act was inspiring to actors and fans alike.

On a personal note: in regards to Easy Rider,  which Hopper directed in addition to sharing lead actor duties with Peter Fonda, I'll never forget seeing the 1969 movie as a young teenager and memorizing lines uttered by Hopper, Fonda and Jack Nicholson. I also identified strongly with the hippies-and-rebels themes that ran through the movie and, since I lived in the south at the time and knew my share of unreconstructed rednecks, I found the ending (in which Hopper and Fonda get blown away by a shotgun-wielding, pickup-truck driving redneck) both profoundly moving and disturbing. To my impressionable young, budding-countercultural mind, Hopper's long-haired, buckskin-clad, David Crosbyesque character was one of the more memorable ones I had seen in cinema up until that point - and, quite probably, to this