Steve Albini-produced album drops April 3 via Don Giovanni, to be preceded by single and intimate tour.

By Blurt Staff

Screaming Females' seven years as a band, four full-length albums and 700 globe-spanning live shows has made them difficult to miss. Through it all, the New Brunswick, New Jersey trio have continued to exude a frenetic energy which is built upon the zeitgeist of America's punk and indie underground yet has always remained forward-looking. Fittingly, for Screaming Females' 5th album Ugly, the band enlisted legendary recording engineer Steve Albini, famed for his unique ability to capture the ferociousness of a live performance while delivering gorgeous sonic clarity. The album's 14 tracks reaffirm the touchstones of the band; they can still shred and front-woman Marissa Paternoster can still unleash a powerful howl. But it doesn't end there. The album ushers in new explorations for the band, a truly remarkable feat considering their already prolific output. Ugly has the perfect combination of raw energy and honed musicianship that produces the type of rock & roll which is still a force to be reckoned with. 

As a lead up to Ugly, Screaming Females will release the album's first single, 'It All Means Nothing', on February 11, 2012 at the Don Giovanni Records Showcase in Brooklyn, NY. The 7" record will be backed with a live version of 'A New Kid' from a session recorded at the fabled independent radio station, WFMU. The showcase will be followed by a weeklong tour of free shows at record stores (and a bookstore). The new single will be exclusively available for purchase from the band during this run of shows.

WATCH SCREAMING FEMALES TINY DESK CONCERT 

RECORD STORE TOUR 

2/11 Brooklyn, NY - Don Giovanni Records Showcase @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 

2/12 - Manhattan, NY - Generation Records 

2/13 - Cambridge, MA - Lorem Ipsum Books 

2/14 - Northampton, MA - Feeding Tube Records 

2/15 - Philadelphia, PA - Long In The Tooth Records 

2/16 - Richmond, VA - Steady Sounds 

2/17 - Asheville, NC - Harvest Records 

2/18 - Nashville, TN - Grimey's New and Preloved Music 

2/19 - Chicago, IL - Permanent Records

First new album in over 5 years. And it's going to be a bloody good time... including a huge tour with The Melvins.

By Blurt Staff

Legendary NYC rock powerhouse UNSANE has completed work on its long awaited new album, titled "WRECK". Their seventh full length, it gets a March 20 release date via Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label. 

      Recorded by the band and producer Andrew Schneider at Brooklyn's Translator Audio (Pelican, Keelhaul, etc.), "WRECK" is described by the label as "an unfettered burst of pent up emotions and frustrations channeled into song and an unflinching glance into a type of life others probably should not lead....  darkly abrasive and poetic music delivered with a fearsome intensity."

     "Making the album "WRECK" has been amazingly cathartic. Not only musically, but personally," comments vocalist/guitarist Chris Spencer. "Writing with Dave (Curran, bass) and Vincent (Signorelli, drums) is always great, and having been together so long made it easy to focus on what musically and lyrically would sum up this period of time. Recordings about modern urban life. The constant noise, confrontation, stress and alienation that goes with it, and the dysfunctional ways people try to deal with it. The death, drugs, attempted suicide and completely degenerative behavior of those around us really left a mark. I really was feeling like I needed to get it out of my system. There are some moments of redemption, but more often than not things did not end well. As the world population reaches seven billion it's impossible not to feel the overcrowding."

Track listing:

          1.) Rat
          2.) Decay
          3.) No Chance
          4.) Pigeon
          5.) Metropolis
          6.) Ghost
          7.) Don't
          8.) Stuck
          9.) Roach
         10.) Ha Ha Ha (* Flipper cover)

     Upon the release of the new LP, Unsame will team up with The Melvins for what promises to be one of the year's most anticipated underground rock tours. The like-minded bands will launch the 21 city trek on April 11 in San Jose, CA and will collaborate on an über-limited tour 7" EP featuring each band covering a song from the other. The tour-only vinyl release will feature cover artwork from Amphetamine Reptile Records founder Thomas Hazelmyer. 

Tour Dates:

 April 11     San Jose, CA            The Blank Club
     April 12     San Francisco, CA     Great American Music Hall
     April 13     Los Angeles, CA        The Troubadour 
     April 14     San Diego, CA           Casbah
     April 17     El Paso, TX                House of Rock
     April 19     Austin, TX                  Mohawk
     April 20     Houston, TX               Warehouse Live
     April 21     New Orleans, LA        One Eyed Jack's
     April 23     Orlando, FL                The Social
     April 24     Gainesville, FL            Double Down Live
     April 25     Atlanta, GA                The Loft at Center Stage
     April 26     Charlotte, NC              Amos' Southend
     April 28     West Chester, PA       The Note
     April 29     New York, NY             Webster Hall
     May 1       Milwaukee, WI             Turner Hall Ballroom
     May 2       DeKalb, IL                   Otto's Nightclub
     May 3       St. Louis, MO              The Firebird
     May 4       Nashville, TN                Exit In
     May 7       Dallas, TX                    Trees
     May 9       Santa Fe, NM              Santa Fe Brewing Company
     May 11     Santa Ana, CA             Galaxy Concert Theatre

Episode includes brief, funny interview with the band.


By Fred Mills


As noted last week, Arcade Fire was the star of the most recent episode of Austin City Limits. PBS is streaming the entire show from this past weekend and it's well-worth watching (again). Enjoy.

Watch Arcade Fire on PBS. See more from Austin City Limits.

Which of course, is all part of the larger Del Rey marketing plan (as it has been for some time): get the client's name into the press, period, regardless of the context of content, because it's all about generating buzz. Hey, it worked for us! At any rate, watch both clips from last night's broadcast.


By Fred Mills


No real surprises here if you have paid attention to previous television appearances from buzzed-about pop gal Lana Del Rey; she's still a work in progress, and she still seems to command enough fascination among the media that even non-professional pundits (like, er, Juliette Lewis) feel compelled to weigh in with their observations.

As part of her pre-emptive promotion for the upcoming Born To Die album (Jan. 31, Interscope), Del Rey did two songs last night on Saturday Night Live, "Video Games" and "Blue Jean." This resulted in an instantaneous spate of blog reports and even celebrity tweets - for example, US Magazine online gleefully reported how actresses Lewis and Eliz Dushku slammed the performances. (Lewis apparently tweeted "Wow watching this 'singer' on SNL is like watching a 12 yearold [sic] in their bedroom when theyre pretending to sing and perform #signofourtimes.") And NBC anchor Brian Williams tweeted, "Brooklyn hipster Lana Del Rey had one of the worst outings in SNL history last night-- booked on the strength of her TWO SONG web EP, the least-experienced musical guest in the show's history, for starters..."

Heck, even web pundit and industry gadfly Bob Lefsetz got into the action and played Sunday morning quarterback about the Del Rey appearance.


Decide for yourself, kids!

Annual benefit concert in New Jersey yields a bouty o' Brooce!


By Fred Mills


We weren't there, but... damn. Wish we were. As Rolling Stone reported in great detail this morning, the annual Light of Day benefit concert (for Parkinson's disease) in Asbury Park was held last night (Jan. 14) at the storied Paramount Theater. Rocker and BLURT hero Joe Grushecky, as usual, was on hand for the bill - which included David Bromberg, Garland Jeffreys, Southside Johnny, Joe D'Urso & Stone Caravan, Willie Nile,  John Eddie, and sundry NJ-centric folks - as was The Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen.


Read the full, detailed RS report, then check out a couple of the clips that have already hit YouTube, standout performances referenced in the review. No doubt many more are being uploaded at this very moment.

The proof is in the photo, above. Hey ladies!

By Perez Mills

In this week's scanning of celebrity news headlines: Rolling Stone is reporting that Fred Durst - yeah, the Limp Bizkit dude - undertook a 60-day juice fast a couple of weeks ago and has been blogging about it at Tumblr, additionally posting shirtless photos of himself to the site.

Yeah, we know, we know... we'll spare you the Anthony Weiner jokes here.

At any rate, we learn from the report that "though Durst has lost some weight, his posts have become increasingly sporadic and distressed. "Another day of juice down. Definitely NOT getting easier. And I cheated tonight with an oatmeal cookie. She was good!!," he wrote on the fourth day" of the diet/fast. Then apparently he went silent, finally posting again yesterday (Jan. 12):

"The diet has been challenging to say the least. I haven't seen any significant results yet. That's why I haven't been very excited to post anything. I am about 2 lbs lights and definitely feeling better internally. My thoughts are clear and inspired, but I'm discouraged in some ways. I guess it's my own personal baggage that's lugging around behind me. All comes to the forefront on a diet like this. Bullocks."

"Personal baggage"? Coming from a guy like Durst, that's easily the most insightful thing to come out of the mouth of a public figure since George W. Bush admitted he didn't really do too much newspaper reading. Good luck, Fred, we wish you the best, because, after all, we know you are only doing this... wait for it... drumroll, please... for the nookie.

EP officially released next week. Also check out the video for "Sail Away."

By Blurt Staff

The Rapture is following up their 2011 album In The Grace Of Your Love with a remix EP for "Sail Away," which features re-workings of the single by Cut Copy, Cosmic Kids and Aeroplane. You can head over to DFA's soundcloud page to stream the full EP (below too).

The Rapture - Sail Away - Remixes by DFA Records

It sees a digital release on January 17th. The Rapture is also playing Coachella on April 13 and 20, along with two additional tour dates with Justice in Oakland and Las Vegas.

Tonight's the night!

By Blurt Staff

Next week, starting Jan. 19 at a sold-out Austin show, the Mountain Goats will resume their Eternals Deck tour - with a twist. They've decided that in addition to spotlighting material from that 2011 album, they will also unveil new songs they've recently been demoing and attempt to refine, elaborate and otherwise work out the material's kinks. Risky, yes, and in 2012 an increasingly un-used strategy by artists. Sounds like just the right band to attempt this sort of thing!

Darnielle posted the following on his website regarding this new plan:

"One small word about these shows. For years bands have been pretty judicious about playing unreleased new material, because much of it becomes available online immediately, even when the new songs are still in fairly raw form. We, too, have gotten into the bad habit of holding new stuff back. We are done with that whole philosophy, though. I miss playing stuff that's unreleased & unrecorded, stuff that still stings fresh. So we got together and decided to tour the new songs before we even record them. I don't guess that we'll be touring all ten of the new songs I've written for the next album (eleven if you count one that's presently being herded back and forth between its cell & the chopping block), but be advised that if you're the sort of person who wants as many surprises as possible when you hear a new album, you should tread lightly around recordings of these shows, because we're not going to be holding the best o nes back for the album release like people tend to do now."

Tour Dates:

* = w/ Nurses
Jan 19 Austin, TX - Antone's* SOLD OUT
Jan 20 Houston, TX - Fitzgerald's*
Jan 21 New Orleans, LA - Tipitina's*
Jan 23 Tallahassee, FL - Club Downunder*
Jan 24 Orlando, FL - The Social*
Jan 25 Tampa, FL - Crowbar*
Jan 27 St. Augustine, FL - The Original Cafe Eleven*
Jan 28 Atlanta, GA - The Earl*
Jan 30 Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club*
Jan 31 Charlotte, NC - Visulite Theatre*
Feb 02 Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle*
Feb 04 Saxapahaw, NC - The Haw River Ballroom*
Mar 09 Denton, TX - 35 Denton Festival*
Mar 13 New York, NY - Carnegie Hall: "The Music of the Rolling Stones: Hot Rocks 1964-1971"
Mar 24 New York, NY - Ecstatic Music Festival w/ Anonymous 4
Apr 02 London, UK - The Barbican w/ Anonymous 4

Technically, yes.. but we'll have to wait another year to find out...

By Thee Creeper

That sawing sound? It's a thousand music critics snoring loudly as they drop off in the middle of reading the list of nominees for the 2012 Brit Awards.

Okay, so admittedly they are, of necessity, English-centric in nature, which means that a lot of us can dismiss a bunch of the nominees right off the bat. I mean, who the heck are Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sande, Jessie J, Chase & Status, Professor Green, Pixie Lott and The Wanted? But it's a sad state of affairs when a country with a legacy of generating cutting-edge music dating all the way back to the ‘60s winds up with a roster of nominees that makes our own Grammys look positively Pitchfork-esque (and I say that with the assumption that everyone realizes that as recently as 3 years ago the Grammys were still considered a joke, a place where musicians went to preemptively bid for "legacy artist" stature, also known as "putting themselves out to pasture").

No, by and large, as you can quickly surmise by scanning the list of nominees, the Brit Awards have become more conservative than the Tea Party - which makes the handful of genuinely credible, non-mainstream artists that did manage to get included stand out all the more prominently. That said, our hunch is that these deserving nominees will not go home with trophies on Feb. 21 when the awards ceremony is held at London's O2 Arena: Laura Marling, Kate Bush (British Female Solo Artist), Arctic Monkeys, Elbow (British Group), Noel Gallagher (British Male Solo Artist), The Vaccines and Anna Calvi (British Breakthrough Act).

(We should add PJ Harvey to that list as well, although we have to note that the BLURT-beloved icon is up for the "Mastercard British Album of the Year" award, for Let England Shake, and as more than one punter has pointed out in the past, being nominated for an award with the name of a credit card as a prefix leaves a bit of a taint.)

As for a bunch of the other categories that delve into international artists, those are, likewise, extremely mixed bags. We love us some Feist, Bon Iver, Foo Fighters, Ryan Adams and (for the moment at least) Lana Del Rey, but the rest... zzzzz....

Decide for yourself by checking out the Brit Awards site.

What's inside a girl, hmmm?

By Fred Mills

Ever wonder what the gals in the Ettes look like backstage when they are changing into their stage attire, fixing their makeup, etc., before a gig? Wonder no more - their new video for the song "Teeth" (off their latest album Wicked Will, which placed pretty high in the BLURT Top 50 Albums of 2011) will reveal all.

Well... sort of. As you shall see:

The video was directed by Poni Silver (of the Ettes) & TM, and filmed/edited by Trevor White. Starring Jonas Stein (Turbo Fruits - www.turbofruits.com) as Coco Hames, Seth Sutton (Useless Eaters - http://www.myspace.com/uselesseatersmemphis) as Poni Silver, and Jem Cohen as Himself. Shot at the Cannery Ballroom, Nashville Tennessee.