ANA KEFR "discriminated against" in effort to perform at disaster relief benefit concert.

By Blurt Staff

Last week Los Angeles extreme progressive metal band ANA KEFR (Arabic, meaning "I am Infidel") had to cancel the Tupelo, Mississippi date on their upcoming US national tour supporting their recent album The Burial Tree II due to what the band describes as "discrimination." Apparently the group was slated to play a disaster relief benefit on Oct. 11 (along with several other bands) but complaints from the Bible Belt-based community about their presence on the bill prompted the pullout.

ANA KEFR says that its music is "complemented by lyrical themes of militant atheism and humanist philosophy" but was deemed "unwelcome by venues local to Tupelo."

In a statement, frontman Rhiis D. Lopez commented, "We're seriously disappointed that we've been forced to re-schedule our October 11 date in Tupelo, and apologize to fans who were planning to attend. This was to be a benefit show, organized by a local non-profit organization to raise relief funds for victims of natural disasters in Mississippi. There were 3 other bands scheduled to support us on the show and now all 4 bands have found themselves shut out from the opportunity. Apparently, to the owner of Good Time Charlie's and numerous others who flooded the promoter with hate and intolerance on our account, aiding victims of natural disasters is trumped by whether or not one believes in their merciful and benevolent religion. Their vicious stupidity only further strengthens and reinforces the truth of the band, and it is a shame that faith must come before charity and philanthropy."

Of the tour, which now includes a rescheduled Oct. 11 show, Lopez added, "We are looking forward to our first U.S. national tour, and can't wait to meet and make new fans and friends. To our fans in Tupelo - one way or another, we can and will overcome this. See you all on the road!"

 
New tour dates:
 
October 5 - Phoenix, AZ - Chaser's
October 6 - Austin, TX - Headhunter's
October 7 - Jackson, MS - Sam's Lounge
October 8 - New Orleans, LA - Checkpoint Charlie
October 9 - Metairie, LA - Babylon
October 11 - Miami, FL - Churchill's
October 12 - Panama City, FL - C-Level
October 13 - Birmingham, AL - The Nick
October 14 - Atlanta, GA - The Little Tree
October 15 - Columbia, SC - Outt Saloon
October 16 - Charlotte, NC - The Bonu5 Room
October 19 - Pittsburgh, PA - Pounder's
October 21 - Ithaca, NY - The Haunt
October 22 - Ithaca, NY - WVBR radio show
October 23 - Cincinnati, OH - Bogart's
October 25 - St. Joseph, MO - Rock n Metal Room
October 26 - Wichita, KS - Kirby's Beer Room
October 27 - Salt Lake City, UT - 5 Monkeys
October 28 - Seattle, WA - The Backstage Bar
October 29 - Portland, OR - Black Forest
October 30 - Seattle, WA - The Fun-house
November 1 - Portland, OR - Saratoga
November 2 - Fresno, CA - Babylon
November 4 - San Diego, CA - Kensington Club
November 5 - Los Angeles, CA - Whisky A Go-Go

"Nomad By Fate" hails from new album Covering Ground, out now on SideOneDummy.

By Blurt Staff

Folk troubadour (and frontman for Florida punk mainstays Hot Water Music) Chuck Ragan released his new album Covering Ground last week via SideOneDummy Records. It was produced by Christopher Thorn of Blind Melon. Special guests on the album include Christopher Thorn, Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem, Frank Turner, Audra Mae, Rich Steff & Todd Beene of Lucero, Chris Phillips of Squirrel Nut Zippers, and of course his bandmates Jon Gaunt on fiddle and Joe Ginsberg on upright bass.

We've got a great video premiere to mark the album's arrival: it's a live performance clip of the song and first single "Nomad By Fate." Check it out:

Ragan just wrapped a tour supporting Dropkick Murphys and will also be support for Social Distortion on their upcoming national tour in November. Prior to that he'll be in Europe and the UK on the "Revival Tour' with Brian Fallon, Dan Andriano and Dave Hause. You can find tour dates at his official website.

[Photo Credit: Scott Toepfer]

Live webcast streamed over the nascent Indie Store Network!

By Fred Mills

The Girls' tumultuous North American tour continues apace; tonight they're in DC followed by dates in Philly, NYC, Boston and Montreal. The tour hasn't been without incident however: Thursday night in Asheville, NC, frontman Christopher Owens was reportedly in a foul mood, apparently due to a couple of people in the audience being excessively "noisy" during an opening act's set, and as a result he slung plenty of attitude back at the audience during The Girls' set, duly alienating a good chunk of the crowd. ("But otherwise it was a great, really interesting show," one attendee told Blurt. "The rest of the band was really on the entire time.") At this late stage in the game we probably don't need any aspiring young Ryan Adamses flexing their hissy fit muscles; whether they realize it or not, these kids are being paid by the rest of us to put on a professional show, and in this economy, that's a notion that holds doubly true. But everybody's gotta grow up eventually, and we are sure Owens will too. Plus the new album is great, so that counts for something, hey! (Read the Blurt review here.)

Anyhow, the next day The Girls were in Nashville, and they stopped in at Grimey's record store and did a free performance which was webcast from Grimey's, with the feed also being picked up by indie shops elsewhere. You can watch the rebroadcast of the set (which was heavy on material from Father, Son, Holy Ghost - including "Honey Bunny", "Magic", "Love, Like a River", "Vomit", and "My Ma") at the band's label's site, True Panther Sounds, or in the handy dandy box below.

Video streaming by Ustream

At the 9:30 Club on September 15, the young bard returned to the scene of previous crimes and took care of unfinished business.

TEXT/PHOTOS BY ADAM FRIED

Iowa folk singer William Elliott Whitmore is no stranger to Washington, D.C. This year alone, he opened - briefly, but enthusiastically - for Chris Cornell back in April at Sixth and I Synagogue, and he was here just a few weeks ago playing a sold-out headlining show at the Red Palace on July 24.

Last Thursday, Sept. 15, the whiskey-swilling banjo man returned once again to the nation's capitol, this time opening for Rhode Island indie rockers The Low Anthem at the 9:30 Club.

Whitmore arrived on stage promptly at 8:30 p.m. and with banjo in hand started his set with "Bury Your Burdens in the Ground," the opening track on his most recent album, Field Songs. Compared to the bleakness of his usual opener - the vocal-only "Cold and Dead" from 2003's Hymns for the Hopeless - "Burdens" is a much more upbeat way to open a set.

Building off that positive start, as well as an outpouring of applause, Whitmore launched into his always-popular working class anthem, "Lift My Jug (Song for Hub Cale)." In spite of the somewhat depressing subject matter - a salute to Hub Cale, an engineer-turned-hobo - Whitmore's charisma sold the song's optimistic vibe.

Taking a brief break between songs, Whitmore both introduced himself to fans and tinkered with his malfunctioning banjo. The former resulted in a front-row fan giving him a drink; the latter in a swap from banjo to acoustic guitar after giving up, remarking, "Well, that didn't do anything."

Whitmore continued his set with "Field Song" and "Don't Need It," two of the catchier tracks off Field Songs, both of which reflect Whitmore's admiration for farm life and honest work - common themes in nearly all of his songs, but especially so on the latest album.

But good music wasn't all Whitmore's set had to offer. Whitmore is one of few artists who can rival the Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle when it comes to endearing and humorous stage banter. Following a fan yelling for "Midnight," Whitmore not only agreed to play it, but reminded the audience that he will take polite requests, "but it's gotta be a song I wrote." Pointing in feigned anger at no one in particular, he added, "Don't fucking say ‘Freebird.'"

Before obliging the fan's "Midnight" request, Whitmore continued by asking if it was Friday, implying it would be a good party night. It was Thursday, and after the audience pointed that out, he agreed to vouch for anyone who calls out of work the next day. "Tell ‘em I said you need off, and tell ‘em I said you need a raise too."

The rest of Whitmore's set was enjoyable, if not surprising: a handful of newer songs from 2009's Animals in the Dark, two tracks from 2003's Hymns for the Hopeless (including "Pine Box," another fan request), and his acoustic cover of Bad Religion's "Don't Pray On Me," which was featured on the 2010 tribute mixtape / online album, Germs of Perfection.

Whitmore finished his set, as he often has lately, with his higher tempo live version of "Old Devils," which always yields an energetic and emotional performance. The ever-appreciative performer, he again thanked fans and shook hands with most of the front row before exiting the stage, amid several sporadic yells for an encore.

The downside to William Elliott Whitmore so frequently opening for other bands is the brevity of his sets - in this case, 11 songs, roughly 45 minutes. With every show, however, his charm and showmanship seem to win over more fans who had never heard of him before.

So it's not hard to imagine that he'll be back in D.C. just as frequently next year, and hopefully it won't be too long until he's headlining the 9:30 Club instead of the Red Palace.

All Hours released this week on Nettwerk.

By Blurt Staff

As previously announced, NYC's Ivy - Parisian-born singer Dominique Durand, Andy Chase and Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne - have a new album, All Hours, that arrives tomorrow, Sept. 20, via Nettwerk. It's the trio's their first release since 2005's In The Clear, and the 11 tracks that comprise All Hours were written, produced and mixed by the band in their own Manhattan studio. The first single, "Distant Lights," came out in July, followed by second track, "Fascinated," last month. Now you can hear the entire thing streaming for free online right here.

IVY - All Hours [Full Album] by nettwerkmusicgroup

The trio will peform their first live show in five years at the Gramercy Theatre this coming Saturday, September 24 in their home city with special guest Tahiti 80.

Two stone(d) classics that roughly bookend the '90s - and in the process, outshine nearly everything else released that decade.


By Fred Mills


Among fans of forward-looking, inward-gazing, cortex-twisting music with touches of ambient, jazz and musique concrete, Talk Talk's 1991 LP Laughing Stock perhaps knows few peers. If you weren't there, then what are you waiting for? So word now arrives (thanks for the tip, Pitchfork) that venerable label Ba Da Bing! has plans to reissue the platter on October 11. Concurrently, they weill also reissue Mark Hollis, the 1998 album from Talk Talk's vocalist Mark Hollis, originally recorded several years after the British band had split up in '92.


Now those should be among 2011's most significant reissues...

It's mysterious....


By Blurt Staff



Here's the new music video for the single "Quail and Dumplings"! from you know who. Directed by Benjamin Berman & starring Kennan Gudjonsson with special appearance by Nina Nastasia.

UPDATE: By the end of the day yesterday (Sept. 16), Interscope Records had issued a statement regarding the matter below. Billboard.com reports that a company spokesperson commented:


"The information being reported in the press regarding Interscope Records' involvement with the ongoing criminal prosecution of James Rosemond is both erroneous and completely unsupported. Interscope Records has been informed by the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York that there is no evidence that any employee of UMG or Interscope Records had any involvement in the drug trafficking ring being prosecuted by that office, nor any knowledge of the contents of any of the packages that were purportedly shipped to its offices. Further, neither UMG nor Interscope Record are a subject or target of the investigation.  UMG and Interscope will continue to cooperate with the United States Attorney's Office regarding this matter."


-----------------------------------------

Now THAT's nothing to sniff at! Innovative, though traditional, method discovered to combat declining revenue from music piracy.

By Perez Mills

There's music biz gossip, and then there's music biz gossip. Yesterday The Smoking Gun reported on allegations by federal prosecutors that the offices of Interscope Records were used by dope dealers to send "large amounts of cocaine and cash back and forth across the U.S. in music ‘road cases' [and arrange] pickups and deliveries" at those offices. Shipping records have apparently been unearthed that outline multiple pickup and delivery transactions via the Rock-It Cargo freight firm - the aforementioned music cases were "alternately stuffed with kilos of cocaine and upwards of $1 million in cash."

Yes, that would be how pickups and deliveries are generally handled in the drug business. Money goes in one direction, and dope in the other. At least that's how we used to do it back during our hustlin' days.

James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond, CEO of Czar Entertainment, also manager of Interscope artist The Game, was indicted this week on 18 felony charges related to the case. It's alleged that Rock-It made deliveries and pickups at Interscope as well as a Manhattan recording studio. Interscope is owned by Universal; a spokesperson for the media conglomerate did not respond to requests for comment from Billboard or other media outlets.

It boggles the mind: people at a record label involved with DRUGS? And COCAINE? What is this, the friggin' EIGHTIES or something?!? Maybe someone should start examining the fine print on all those rappers' concert riders just like back during the hair metal ‘80s....

Read the entire report at The Smoking Gun, including scans of the original source document.

Watch advance clip, below.

By Blurt Staff

Sigur Rós will be releasing their first-ever live film and double live album in the form of Inni in North America on November 15^th on XL Recordings.  A first glimpse at Inni was presented in the film's trailer, up on sigur-ros.co.uk.  Now, the first proper excerpt from the film is premiering today on NPR.org for the song "Festival," from their 2008 album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. 

Sigur Rós: Festival from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.

A free audio download of "Festival" is also available now via Sigur Rós' website - http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk . The album will come in multiple formats - see tracklisting and details below.

Recorded and shot over two nights at London's Alexandra Palace at the close of the 2008 world tour around their fifth full length album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, Inni sees the band at the peak of their powers, captured on film for the first time as a core four-piece since they were joined by string section amiina at the start of the century.  Directed by Vincent Morisset (Arcade Fire's Miroir Noir), with film manipulations by Godspeed You! Black Emperor visual collaborator Karl Lemieux, Inni is Sigur Rós' second live film following 2007's hugely-celebrated tour documentary Heima.  Whereas that film positioned the enigmatic group in the context of their Icelandic homeland, providing geographical, social and historical perspectives on their otherworldly music, Inni focuses purely on the band's performance, and stands as a stark counterpoint to Heima's kaleidoscopic richness.  Filmed in a manner that invites both intimacy and claustrophobia, Inni cocoons the viewer in a one-on-one relationship with the band, eschewing the audience for closeness, depicting how it feels for both band and fan to experience Sigur Rós live.

The live album Inni - a first for the band - is comprised of the full set from Alexandra Palace, played in order with just one omission, and clocks in at one-and-three-quarter hours.  Recorded by Sigur Rós' in-house studio engineer Birgir Jón Birgisson, Inni's live audio recording is far and away the best way of replicating the full-force effect of standing in front of one of the world's most extraordinary bands for an evening. 

A full track listing for Inni's live album component is below.  In addition to songs from the show, Inni features a previously unreleased song called "Lúppulagid" which is used over the credits of the film and as the final non-live track on the album.

TRACK LISTINGS:

FILM                                                     BONUS TRACKS

ny batterí                                              glósóli

svefn-g-englar                                       vid spilum endalaust

fljótavík                                                hafsól  

inní mér syngur vitleysingur                    all alright

sæglópur

festival

e-bow

popplagid

lúppulagid

ALBUM DISC ONE                                ALBUM DISC TWO

svefn-g-englar                                       sæglópur

glósóli                                                  festival

ny batterí                                              hafsól  

fljótavík                                                all alright

vid spilum endalaust                              popplagid

hoppípolla                                            lúppulagid         (bonus track)

med blódnasir

inní mér syngur vitleysingur

e-bow

FORMATS:

1/         Standard CD/DVD Edition - 
- 1 x DVD - 75 min. full HD feature in 5.1 Dolby Audio, NTSC format + 4 bonus performances
- 2 x CD - Double live album

2/         Blu-Ray/CD Edition -
- 1 x Blu-Ray Disc - 75 min. HD feature in 5.1 Dolby Audio, NTSC format, + 4 bonus performances

- 2 x CD - Double live album 

3/         Triple Vinyl/DVD Edition - CLEAR VINYL LIMITED TO 3000 COPIES!

- 3 x 150g audiophile quality vinyl with printed inner sleeves housed within a single outer jacket made from heavyweight board

- Digital download code for double live album

- 1 x DVD - 75 min. HD feature in 5.1 Dolby Audio + 4 bonus performances

4/         Digital Edition
- film version = 75 min. full HD feature in 5.1 Dolby Audio
- audio version = 15 track, double live album

5/         The Limited Special Edition -  Exclusive to sigur-ros.co.uk

This edition is packaged in a 7" x 7" x 1" box, printed inside and containing;

- An exclusive and unique-to-each-box artefact from the show itself in a numbered, printed envelope

- One-sided 7" coloured vinyl with unreleased track "Lúppulagid", with etching on reverse.

- 1 x DVD - 75 min. HD feature in 5.1 Dolby Audio + 4 bonus performances. (box will include both NTSC and PAL formats) (track listing link)

- DVD exclusive 5 minute short "Klippa" 

- 2 x CD - Double live album

- All discs are housed in a printed 7" sized 4 panel slitpack

- Black opaque envelope with 10 pieces of A5 light sensitive paper with instructions and special url for posting your homemade images to the sigur-ros.co.uk website

- 4 x  7" sized photographic prints

- Enamel "INNI" pin badge

Part of newly-launched "Epitonic saki Sessions" series.

By Blurt Staff

Eleanor Friedberger (Fiery Furnaces) is currently on tour with her band - you can read a glowing review of her recent appearance in Oakland right here - and she also found time recently to cut a session at the Epitonic offices in Chicago. It's the first "Epitonic saki Session," in fact, and the exclusive video and nine live MP3s from the session are available at Epitonic.com. 

Eleanor Friedberger - Epitonic saki Session from Epitonic on Vimeo.

Over the summer, the newly relaunched Epitonic moved into its first office space. They now share a corner of saki, Carrot Top Distribution's new retail space in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood. The two brainstormed the idea of producing live sessions captured during in-store performances, hence the name Epitonic saki Sessions. 

Over the past few weeks Epitonic and saki have also recorded sessions with Son Lux, Amy LaVere, Tyler Jon Tyler, and Telekinesis. Upcoming sessions are being announced weekly.

Check out the video above, and you can also view it as well as download Friedberger's tunes at the Epitonic saki Sessions site.