First three cassette-only album to be augmented with bonus tracks, natch.

By Blurt Staff

Among aficionados of lo-fi, hi-quality UK pop with more than a dose of British dry wit, musician/author/poet Martin Newell is considered godlike, having launched his signature combo the Cleaners From Venus back in 1980 and additionally helming other beloved projects over the years (among them, the Brotherhood of Lizards). His 1993 solo album The Greatest Living Englishman, produced by XTC's Andy Partridge, also remains one of that decade's most memorable under-the-radar releases. Revisit some of Newell's glories, below.

Meanwhile, word recently arrived that the Captured Tracks label has plans to release the first three Cleaners From Venus records - originally issued only on cassette - as a remastered box set on CD, vinyl and download. Coming March 13 are Blow Away Your Troubles (1981), On Any Normal Monday (1982), and Midnight Cleaners (1982). There will be a slew of bonus tracks and a booklet featuring liners from Newell.

The Captured Tracks blurb reads thusly: "Lol Elliott and Martin Newell, who together formed the legendary lo-fi band Cleaners from Venus met in the small town of Wivenhoe, southeast England at the turn of 1980s. Newell, a rock singer and part-time kitchen porter who'd left his band the previous summer, and Elliott, a drummer and former hippy traveller, had much in common. They shared a love of sunny 1960s pop music, punk rock and musical comedy. Neither Elliott nor Newell cared much for any kind of musical rule book, both were dismayed by the new right -wing politics which had now taken over their country. Both were in their twenties, had time on their hands and were keen to create something new."

Meanwhile, VINYLMANIA: When Life Runs At 33 Revolutions Per Minute, a film by Paolo Campana, chosen as the Official Film of Record Store Day 2012.

By Blurt Staff

Record Store Day has announced the appointment of Iggy Pop as this year's official Ambassador. The annual event happens on April 21. Let's see what Iggy has to say about this:

 A person should have a personality. You won't get one dicking around on a computer.  It helps to go somewhere where there are other persons.  Persons who are interested in something you are. That's how a record store or any shop that's got some life to it should work.  It's not about selling shit. I got my name, my musical education and my personality all from working at a record store during my tender years. Small indie shops have always been a mix of theater and laboratory. In the 50's and 60's the teen kids used to gather after school at these places to listen free to the latest singles and see if they liked the beat. You could buy the disc you liked for 79 cents and if you were lucky meet a chick. Clerks in these places became managers, (like Brian Epstein), label heads, (Jack Holzman) and Faces on album covers (like me). Personally I feel best in a store that, while staying small and socially relaxed, still keeps a complete variety of music types and non musical recordings on offer. I'm aware though that a lot of great places are genre-specific, like dance hall shops in Jamaica or Compas here in Little Haiti. In Europe and on the West coast the same goes on for Punk and Goth. All of this is cool and has a much bigger future than most people realize today. When the record and record store businesses began to die at the turn of the new century, they deserved it because they got too big too boring and too plastic.  

As Record Store Day Ambassador for 2012 I feel like a representative from some exotic jungle full of life and death and sex and anger, called upon to wear a leopard skin and translate joy to the world of the dead.

Record Store Day has also announced their selection of VINYLMANIA: When Life Runs At 33 Revolutions Per Minute, a film by Paolo Campana (75", 2011) as the Official Film of Record Store Day 2012. Produced by Stefilm in coproduction with Lato Sensu and ZDF in collaboration with ARTE, Vinylmania is described as "a tour through the grooves of an object that has never lost its soul, investigating what makes it so legendary in a world dominated by liquid music: Nostalgia? Possession? The search for an idenitity?" 

More details, on events, performances, screenings and releases are forthcoming. The Record Store Day website is www.recordstoreday.com 

"A Wasteland Companion" due in April; to be accompanied by extensive North American tour.

By Blurt STaff

Portland's M Ward released his last solo album Hold Time three years ago, although he hasn't been idle in the interim, releasing a pair of albums with She & Him as well as one with Monsters of Folk (extensive tours from both groups, too). Now comes word Merge Records will release his sixth solo album, A Wasteland Companion, on April 10.

Inspired by his increasingly itinerant lifestyle Ward set forth to create something of a musical travelogue. He explains, "Between now and when I made Hold Time there has been a lot of traveling which requires a lot of reckoning with what to leave behind and what to carry - material and otherwise - and thinking about what I want versus what I need, creatively and otherwise. I wanted to get a reflection of that on the album. It was a process of stripping away my security blanket, which is the same four walls I always record in."

Let's tally up the numbers: The album was made with 18 musicians and recorded in eight different studios in Portland, Omaha, New York City, Los Angeles, Austin and Bristol (UK). It features the talents of Ward (piano, guitars, voice, production), Mike Coykendall (percussion, bass), Giant Sand's Howe Gelb (piano), John Parish (percussion, marimba), Bright Eyes' Mike Mogis (organ), Susan Sanchez (vocals), She & Him's Zooey Deschanel (vocals), Jordan Hudson (percussion), Adam Selzer (bass), Nathan "JR" Andersen (piano), Scott McPherson (percussion), Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley (percussion), Dr Dog's Tobey Leaman (bass), Devotchka's Tom Hagerman (strings), Oakely Hall's Rachel Cox (vocals), Amanda Lawrence (violin), John Graboff (pedal steel) and Tyler Tornfelt (bass). The recording utilized eight engineers, including Tom Schick (Rufus Wainwright) and John Parish (PJ Harvey).

Tracklisting:

1- Clean Slate (for Alex & El Goodo)           

2- Primitive Girl                                           

3- Me And My Shadow                                 

4- Sweetheart                                               

5- I Get Ideas                                               

6- The First Time I Ran Away                     

7- A Wasteland Companion

8- Watch The Show

9-There's A Key

10- Crawl After You

11- Wild Goose

12- Pure Joy

Tour Dates:

 February 2      Los Angeles, CA @ Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

April 11            San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore

April 12            Santa Cruz, CA @ The Cocoanut Grove Ballroom

April 13            Indio, CA @ Coachella **SOLD OUT**

April 14           Santa Barbara, CA @ SoHO

April 16           San Diego, CA @ Belly Up

April 17            Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom

April 18           Flagstaff, AZ @ The Orpheum

April 20           Indio, CA @ Coachella **SOLD OUT**

May 5              Portland, ME @ State Theatre

May 6              Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground

May 7              New Haven, CT @ Toads Place

May 8              Boston, MA @ House of Blues

May 11             New York, NY @ Webster Hall

May 12             Philadelphia, PA @Union Transfer

May 13             Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club

May 15             Durham, NC @ Duke Performances at Page Auditorium

May 16             Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre

May 17             Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre

May 22             Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre

May 24             Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue

Jonathan Richman supports 4/11

fIREHOSE supports 4/12, 4/16-4/18

Lee Ranaldo Band supports 5/5-5/22

Kicks off March 18 in Atlanta, runs through early May, then off to Europe.


By Blurt Staff


As anyone within earshot of the music industry knows by now, Bruce Springsteen has a new album, Wrecking Ball, due on March 6, and there's also plans for him to do the keynote address at this year's SXSW in Austin. A late spring-into-summer tour of the UK and Europe was previously announced.


Now comes word of the hotly-anticipated US leg of the tour, and as expected, it will start immediately the aforementioned SXSW speaking appearance. It starts March 18 in Atlanta and runs for 19 dates, wrapping in Newark. Rolling Stone reports that "the first batch of tickets go on sale this Friday."


Here are the dates, and listen to the first single, "We Take Care of Our Own," below.

March 18 - Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena (on sale Feb 4)

March 19 - Greensboro, NC - Greensboro Coliseum (on sale Feb 3)

March 23 - Tampa, FL - Tampa Bay Times Forum (on sale Jan 28)

March 26 - Boston, MA - TD Garden (on sale Jan 28)

March 28 - Philadelphia, PA - Wells Fargo Center (on sale Jan 28)

March 29 - Philadelphia, PA - Wells Fargo Center (on sale Jan 28)

April 1 - Washington, DC - Verizon Center (on sale Jan 28)

April 3 - East Rutherford, NJ - Izod Center (on sale Jan 27)

April 4 - East Rutherford, NJ - Izod Center (on sale Jan 27)

April 6 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden (on sale Jan 27)

April 9 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden (on sale Jan 27)

April 12 - Detroit, MI - The Palace of Auburn Hills (on sale Jan 28)

April 13 - Buffalo, NY - First Niagara Center (on sale Jan 28)

April 16 - Albany, NY - Times Union Center (on sale Jan 28)

April 17 - Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena (on sale Jan 28)

April 24 - San Jose, CA - HP Pavilion (on sale Feb 3)

April 26 - Los Angeles, CA - Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena (on sale Feb 3)

April 29 - New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (on sale now)

May 2 - Newark, NJ - Prudential Center (on sale Jan 27)

Hey, we don't like MP3s either, Neil! Below, let's briefly recap why we love the Horse...

By Fred Mills

Yesterday it was announced by Neil Young at the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah that he was working on new album with Crazy Horse. According to Rolling Stone, a rep for Young confirmed, "It's looking good," while drummer Ralph Molina posted to Facebook, in response to fan questions about the news, "Yes!"

It's known that he recorded a "moody, jazzy" album with the band in 2000 called Toast but shelved it; no word if that record or material from it is in the mix now, or an exact release date, although spring is being presumed as the target.

Meanwhile, Young also took a stand while at Slamdance to editorialize against MP3s and compressed digital music in general, telling MTV News, "I'm finding that I have a little bit of trouble with the quality of the sound of music today. I don't like it. It just makes me angry. Not the quality of the music, but we're in the 21st century and we have the worst sound that we've ever had. It's worse than a 78 [rpm record]. Where are our geniuses? What happened?"

Young was at the film festival with director Jonathan Demme to promote their latest screen collaboration Neil Young Journeys, filmed last year at Toronto's Massey Hall during Young's solo tour last year. Speaking to reporters, Young contrasted it with their 2006 concert documentary Heart of Gold:

"'Heart of Gold' was a massive production with great caretaking to present this whole image of this forgotten style of presenting music, in this great old chapel of country music. This film we just made is so opposite of that. It's just one person. The sound is completely different and the attitude of it is different. The look is different. ... The sounds are kind of enveloping. You get to move way inside, whereas, ‘Heart of Gold,' you're way back, going, ‘Oh, it's beautiful seeing it from the back, seeing all these beautiful people, these great musicians.' And this one here, you're like inside my instrument, inside the distortion of the guitar. There's nothing in the way."

"Tonight" from forthcoming album.

By Blurt Staff

As expected, 2012 is to bring a new Saint Etienne album, their first since 2005's Tales From Turnpike House. Over at Pitchfork they have just premiered the first single off the record, "Tonight," which drops March 5. Listen to a stream of it, below, or download it for free from their website.

Saint Etienne - Tonight by Saint Etienne

 Member Bob Stanley noted at Pitchfork, "[The track is] about the anticipation of going to see your favourite artist. For some reason, I imagine this show is at the Forum in Kentish Town. The whole album is about the power of pop, how it affects and shapes your life. People talk about the problem of landfill indie, but there's so much landfill pop around at the moment - we're trying to do something about it."

Memphis band taps Memphis talents for a pure Memphis rekkird!

By Blurt Staff

Lucero has set March 13 to release 'Women & Work,' their debut for ATO Records. It once again finds the core six-members of Lucero joined by Memphis horn legends Jim Spake (Solomon Burke, Ray Charles) and Scott Thompson (Al Green, Cat Power) and  was recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis with production by Ted Hutt (The Gaslight Anthem).

W&W follows Lucero's 2009 release '1372 Overton Park' (reviewed here) and a solo album by frontman Ben Nichols, 'The Last Light in the Pale West,' (inspired by the Cormac McCarthy book 'Blood Meridian.') Nichols also starred in the 2009 MTV series '$5 Cover' by filmmaker Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Footloose).

Lucero are known to play up to 200 shows each year, and 2012 is no different, with a 40+ date winter/spring blowout already announced (see dates below), where they will be joined by Built To Spill, William Elliot Whitmore, J. Roddy Walston & The Business and others.

Track Listing:
1. Downtown (Intro)
2. On My Way Downtown
3. Women & Work
4. It May Be Too Late
5. Juniper
6. Who You Waiting On?
7. I Can't Stand To Leave You
8. When I Was Young
9. Sometimes
10. Like Lightning
11. Go Easy

Tour Dates:

2/23 - Hot Springs, AR @ Maxine's Pub
2/24 - Fayetteville, AR @ George's Majestic Lounge*
2/25 - Fayetteville, AR @ George's Majestic Lounge
3/01 - Girdwood, AK @ The Sitzmark Bar & Grill / Aleyska
3/02 - Girdwood, AK @ The Sitzmark Bar & Grill / Aleyska
3/03 - Girdwood, AK @ The Sitzmark Bar & Grill / Aleyska
3/09 - Louisville, KY @ Headliners Music Hall^
3/10 - Birmingham, AL @ Zydeco^
3/11 - New Orleans, LA @ Tipitina's Uptown^
3/12 - Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald's Upstairs #
3/14 - Dallas, TX @ Trees^
3/19 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom
3/20 - Solana Beach, CA @ The Belly Up Tavern
3/21 - Los Angeles, CA @ Music Box
3/23 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
3/24 - Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
3/25 - Seattle, WA @ Neumos
3/28 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge**
3/29 - Fort Collins, CO @ Aggie Theater**
3/30 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater**
3/31 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater**
4/01 - Colorado Springs, CO @ The Black Sheep**
4/03 - Rock Island, IL @ Rock Island Brewing Company^
4/04 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue^
4/05 - Madison, WI @ Majestic Theater^
4/06 - Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall^
4/07 - Chicago, IL @ Metro^
4/09 - Columbus, OH @ The Bluestone^
4/11 - Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart's^
4/12 - Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop^
4/13 - Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick^
4/14 - Toronto, ONT @ Lee's Palace^^
4/15 - Montreal, QUE @ Les Foufounes Electriques^^
4/18 - Northampton, MA @ Pearl Street Nightclub^^
4/19 - Boston, MA @ Paradise^^
4/20 - New York, NY @ Webster Hall^^
4/21 - Pawtucket, RI @ The Met Cafe^^
4/22 - Philadelphia, PA @ Abbey Bar Appalachian Brewing Company^^
4/24 - Harrisburg, PA @ Abbey Bar at Appalachian Brewing
4/25 - Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
4/26 - Richmond, VA @ The Hat Factory^^
4/27 - Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel^^
4/28 - Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade - Heaven Stage^^

* w/ Adam Faucett and The Tall Grass
# w/ Built To Spill and Dinosaur Feathers
^ w/ William Elliott Whitmore
** w/ Larry and His Flask
^^ w/ J. Roddy Walston & The Business

Released next week on the TNP label, Making It is the culmination of a life in art and music (and a good bit of theatre, too.)

By Michael Toland

When last we heard from Stew, erstwhile leader of underground indie pop darlings The Negro Problem, he was busy conquering Broadway with his metafictional musical Passing Strange. Several awards (including a Tony for Best Book of a Musical) and one Spike Lee-directed film later, it seemed the long-struggling songwriter had finally found his niche in the popular consciousness, along with success his fans justifiably felt was long deserved.

As brilliant as Passing Strange is, it seemed to close the book on any further records with Stew's much-missed band. Not so, as it happens - he and his stalwart musical partner Heidi Rodewald merely folded TNP into their current endeavors. Originally commissioned as a song cycle by St. Ann's Warehouse, Making It picks up where Passing Strange left off - not so much literally, as it doesn't continue the first musical's story, but metaphorically, as it surveys the changes in Stew's life following artistic and financial success. That includes the damage done - the romantic relationship between Stew and Rodewald disintegrated as their professional one thrived, a situation chronicled with genteel bitterness in "Love is a Cult" (sung, in a smart twist, by Rodewald herself) and the duet "Leave Believe." "Love is a great gig/But the pay is crap" indeed. Meanwhile, "Speed" laments both the use and loss of its title drug (an ambivalence toward drugs Stew has explored before), while "Therapy Only Works If You Tell the Truth" rolls its eyes at its narrator's emotional reticence. "Treat Right," "Suzy Wong" and "Pretend" take on the creative process itself, connecting Making It thematically and more explicitly to its predecessor.

Musically Stew and Rodewald hit a new peak, deftly mixing the psychedelic pop that's TNP's usual stock-in-trade with the musical sophistication acquired from writing for Broadway. Lush melodies slow-dance with quirky textures and vice versa, each musical universe merging with the other. Stew's lyrics likewise combine the streamlined approach of stage lyrics with his love of wordplay; the latter gets the better of him occasionally (cf. "Black Men Ski"), but otherwise this is his most trenchant storytelling yet. That's indicative of Making It as a whole, frankly, as Stew and the Negro Problem apply every lesson learned in a lifetime of art and music to a record that feels like coming home after a long, fulfilling journey.

From the Josephine The Outlaw King project.

By Fred Mills

Now THIS has gotta be our favorite recent video: "Nolita Growled," by A Brokeheart Pro, a/k/a Cali rocker Jeannette Kantzalis (who you might remember from the late, great grrrl-garage combo The Chubbies). It's a steamysleazysexycool slice of film noir-meets-Latin-rock-twang, and part of her larger, forthcoming book/film/album project Josephine The Outlaw King. More on that soon...

UPDATE: Hypebot is reporting that as of 9:50 am this morning (ET) both the Universal and the Warner Music websites were still down.

Tango down! The timing of all this, coming a day after the anti-SOPA/PIPA forces successfully managed to undermine Congressional support for the controversial piracy bills, is definitely not a coincidence.

By Fred Mills

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the Department of Justice with... well, you know. Yesterday, Jan. 19, the hugely popular file-sharing site MegaUpload was shut down by the U.S. Justice Department and federal prosecutors charged its founder along with company executives with internet piracy. Response was swift - from hacker group Anonymous, that is. Before the end of business yesterday, the hacktivist organization had attacked and disabled the DoJ website along with the sites of Universal Music Group, the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Reports at Billboard.com outlined the Thursday events, noting that "an indictment accuses MegaUpload.com of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content... the Justice Department said in a statement said that Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and three others were arrested Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. Two other defendants are at large." Based in Hong Kong, the CEO of the business is producer (and husband of Alicia Keys) Swizz Beats, but he is not listed as among the indictees. (Read the 72-page indictment.)

MegaUpload has been around since 2005 and had become one of the world's most popular enablers of sharing large digital files, and it had also become semi-notorious in the entertainment industry due to it being championed by a number of high-profile musicians and celebs such as Kanye West and Will.I.Am.

Many of the files transferred at the site were no doubt legitimate and legal, but as one might expect from a site where music and film files are common currency, many of them also contained copyrighted material that can't legally be shared unless authorized by the copyright holders, typically record labels and movie studios. As Billboard points out, "MegaUpload is considered a ‘cyberlocker,' in which users can upload and transfer files that are too large to send by email. Such sites can have perfectly legitimate uses. But the Motion Picture Association of America, which has campaigned for a crackdown on piracy, estimated that the vast majority of content being shared on MegaUpload was in violation of copyright laws.The website allowed users to download films, TV shows, games, music and other content for free, but made money by charging subscriptions to people who wanted access to faster download speeds or extra content. The website also sold advertising."

At any rate, Billboard goes on in a second report regarding the Anonymous attacks, quoting a DoJ spokesman as saying, "We are having website problems, but we're not sure what it's from." Anonymous operative Barrett Brown then reportedly confirmed to British website RT , "It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org." As noted above, the RIAA, the MPAA and the Universal sites also went down.

At the Anonymous Twitter account, AnonOps tweeted, "One thing is certain: EXPECT US! #Megaupload" and followed that shortly later with "Tango down! http://universalmusic.com & http://www.justice.gov// #Megaupload".

Read a comprehensive, updated account of all this also at Billboard.biz.