Cursive Announce Fall Tourdates, Your Turn-of-the-Millennium Inner-Child is Getting PUUUMPED
Oh, Cursive, Cursive, Cursive... What are we supposed do with you? On the up side, literally almost everyone I know used to listen to you religiously eight or nine years ago. On the down side, that was, you know, eight or nine years ago...
But hey, you’re still here! Rockin’ out, then, are you? How is post-rock these days? “Good?” That’s super. And you released a new record this year after a few years’ absence called Mama, I’m Swolen (TMT Review) on Saddle Creek? What does that sound like, man? Oh right... Cursive... Oh well, hopefully I’ll have a chance to get it from Napster a little later or something. Shouldn’t take too long with my T1 line. I’m not sure what else I have going on today, though.
But for real though, good luck with your headlining dates next month, beginning November 24 at the good old Bottleneck in good old Lawrence, KS. I wonder if that one sticker is still there? You know the one I mean. Ah, and I see that you’re wrapping up on the 13th at the Waiting Room in your home town of Omaha, Nebraska, that magical manila-colored City that my friends and I used to want to visit. How’s the scene there, anyway? Post-rocky, I bet.
Oh, but I hear that the Omaha show is for this Lash's 6th Annual Toy Drive thing and that it’s an annual benefit show organized by Omaha musician Larry Dunn for the children of the Porcupine District of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, a.k.a. one of the most impoverished communities in the U.S. Apparently, donations (a.k.a. toys) will be accepted at the show and 100% of those proceeds will go toward buying additional gifts and holiday stockings. Okay, now that’s pretty unassailably cool.
Anyway, I’ll catch you later, Cursive. Right now I’ve got to set up my VCR to record Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? tonight, and programming that thing just always takes for EVER.
Cursive tour:
10.26.09 - Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya O-Nest
10.27.09 - Tokyo Japan - Shindaita Fever
11.24.09 - Lawrence, KS - Bottleneck
11.25.09 - Springfield, MO - Outland Ballroom
11.27.09 - Denton, TX - Hailey’s
11.28.09 - Austin, TX - Mohawk
11.29.09 - McAllen, TX - Cine El Rey
12.03.09 - Mobile, AL - Alabama Music Box
12.04.09 - Pensacola, FL - Sluggo’s
12.05.09 - Orlando, FL - The Social
12.06.09 - Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds
12.07.09 - Atlanta, GA - Lenny’s
12.08.09 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s
12.09.09 - Little Rock, AR - The Rev Room
12.10.09 - Fayetteville, AR - George’s Majestic Lounge
12.11.09 - Columbia, MO - Mojo’s
12.13.09 - Omaha, NE - Waiting Room (Lash's 6TH Annual Toy Drive)
Starfucker Randomly Decide to Drop Name, and Go with PYRAMID Instead
Starfucker, Portland's electro-pop project, have decided to change their band name to PYRAMID, after launching a "name change contest," in which fans suggested new ideas for what Starfucker's name should be. (Other suggestions that didn't make the cut: Rad Stewert, Emergency Landing, $.89 for a Taco, and LVLS.)
Starfucker-- oops, I mean, PYRAMID will be playing one last show as Starfucker at Portland’s Wonder Ballroom this coming Halloween (oh wait, so I did mean Starfucker). PYRAMID's first action as their new persona will then be to self-release their first UK single, titled "Medicine," which currently appears on the Jupiter EP.
If you ask me, Starfucker are in a strange place to be changing their name so suddenly. They've gained moderate attention via their original name and have nowhere to go but up by using it. I suppose they aren't quite well-known enough to gain LOTS of attention, which I'm guessing is their reason for making the switcharoo in the first place. I'm also guessing that the most this name change will do is baffle people. So, here is Starfucker: caught between a famous-but-not-famous-enough rock and a hard place and wanting to change their name. But it just feels like the awkward turtle attempt to look more accessible. Whatevs!
PYRAMID's leftover tourdates are below.
10.31.09 - Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom
11.19.09 - Bristol, UK - Start the Bus
11.20.09 - London, UK - The Garage
11.21.09 - Amsterdam, NL - Paradiso
11.22.09 - Paris, FR - Point Ephemere*
11.24.09 - London, UK - Flowerpot
11.25.09 - London, UK - Dingwalls^
11.26.09 - London, UK - Notting Hill Arts Club
* Golden Silvers
^ The Filthy Dukes
Performance Rights Act Approved by Senate Committee
The big congressional news last week was that the Senate Finance Committee voted through a health care plan. Much less publicized (but far more important considering all the historical conflicts and tensions) was the approval of the Performance Rights Act by the Senate Judiciary Committee. A similar bill has already been approved by the House Judiciary Committee.
The legislation aims to compensate artists whose music is played on AM and FM radio stations, one that, according to the Executive Director of the musicFIRST Coalition, Jennifer Bendall, rights a wrong that has existed “over the last 80 years.” She described the Committee’s approval as bringing us “one step closer to winning the fight for fundamental justice that has been waged by countless artists and musicians.” Somebody’s been borrowing Obama’s speechwriters!
According to The Wall Street Journal, the legislation “would force radio companies to pay royalties [fees] of as much as $500 million a year to record labels and artists whose music they play.” A survey conducted by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) found that, when the Act was described in this way, 75% of Americans opposed the legislation. Of course, if it was described as “Paying hardworking Americans for their vital labor that entertains millions of radio listeners every week,” then maybe we’d have a different set of results. This correspondent is not biased (bias doesn’t exist on TMT!); I'm just suggesting that NAB could've benefited from a semester in survey design.
Choir of Young Believers Unleash Their Depressing Brand of Nordic Chamber Pop on North America in Person Starting TOMORROW
Believe it. Starting tomorrow, 26-year-old Danish front man Jannis Noya Makrigiannis will take his Choir of Young Believers from Copenhagen to Canada, where the Nordic chamber indie rockers begin their 10-day North American tour, going from Vancouver down the West Coast to LA, then returning Atlantic-side to play multiple shows in New York City (for the CMJ festival), and finally finishing in Chicago. This past spring, Makrigiannis performed in the U.S. as a duo with cellist Ceciele Trier, but has doubled up this time around to perform as a quartet on the following dates:
10.17.09 – Vancouver, BC – Media Club
10.18.09 – Seattle, WA – The Tractor Tavern
10.19.09 – Portland, OR – Holocene
10.20.09 – San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Shop
10.21.09 – Santa Monica, CA – KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic” Session
10.21.09 – Los Angeles, CA – Spaceland
10.22.09 – New York, NY – Le Poisson Rouge
10.22.09 – New York, NY – Piano's
10.23.09 – New York, NY – Cutting Room Studios (KEXP Session)
10.24.09 – New York, NY – Living Room
10.25.09 – Toronto, ON – Horseshoe Tavern
10.26.09 – Chicago, IL – Schuba's
If you’re only acquainted with the anthemic “Action/Reaction,” a peppy track steeped in sunny chord progressions, you might want to familiarize yourself with the rest of This Is for the White in Your Eyes, the band’s blue-tinged 2009 debut, so you can mentally and emotionally prepare for the melancholy makings of Makrigiannis’ brain. The album unfolds like a cathedral: precisely designed, achingly beautiful, echoing in the cavernous recesses of the soul — with the reverb to prove it. But, like my metaphorical structure, it’s also dark and full of shadows, save for where windows let the light in. This choir is singing less hymnal hallelujahs and more you-done-me-wrongs. “Wintertime Love,” for example, features both the most mournful cello I can remember and the saddest collective string section of all time. Based on the steady solemnity of this song, this “wintertime love” who is “hiding the tears above” must have really wreaked some havoc on his heart. I wonder if Makrigiannis will cry on stage during this one. Guess there’s only one way to find out.
FCC Chief Endorses "Net Neutrality"
Barack Obama campaigned for “network neutrality” during his Presidential campaign in 2008, and on September 21 Julius Genachowski, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (who was appointed by Obama), spoke in favor of "more aggressive action to keep online traffic moving freely, proposing two new government policies to prevent telecommunications companies from restricting websites and other services on the Internet."
The new rules would enshrine net neutrality into the agency’s policy and relate to all forms of internet access, including wireless connections on mobile devices and over fibre-optic lines.
Genachowski said in a speech to the Brookings Institution that “The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads. We could see the Internet's doors shut to entrepreneurs, the spirit of innovation stifled, a full and free flow of information compromised. Or we could take steps to preserve Internet openness, helping ensure a future of opportunity, innovation and a vibrant marketplace.”
Telecommunications companies, however, oppose net neutrality because they believe it will impact on their ability to keep networks “running smoothly.”
BBC Four To Air Krautrock documentary; Julian Cope Sets Aside 50 Copies of Krautrocksampler To Throw At His Television
When Julian Cope first put together his definitive Krautrock book, Krautrocksampler, it was to organize and make sense of all the great German music that was lazily lumped in with all the other "prog" crap that people despised. Since then, Krautrock has become something much more established and celebrated the world over. Case in point: 14 years after the release of Cope's book, a documentary about the music we call Krautrock will be shown on BBC Four, aptly titled Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany.
Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany will feature interviews with some of the genre's most important characters, including members of Neu!, Kraftwerk, Can, Faust, and Cluster. Unfortunately, that is about all I can tell you, because I'm an American, and I'm apparently not allowed to watch the documentary's trailer because of YouTube's country copyright restrictions. Bullshit! If you're lucky enough to not be an American, you can go check out that trailer here. If you are an American, all I can say is "sorry" and provide you a story about the documentary here.
But not all is lost: thankfully, anyone with an internet connection (including Americans!) will be able to find the documentary on BBC Four's website for up to 7 days after the last broadcast.
Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany airs October 23.
Flaming Lips to Release Reinterpretation of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon... AND WE'VE GOT THE EXCLUSIVE TRACKLIST!
At their "secret" MySpace show last night (TMT News), The Flaming Lips revealed that they've already completed their follow-up to Embryonic (TMT Review): a complete reinterpretation of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. Why am I not shocked? According to the LA Times blog, the Lips recorded the album with Stardeath and the White Dwarfs (TMT Review), a band that includes Coyne's nephew Dennis, and also invited Henry Rollins and Peaches to guest. Says Coyne:
I think our audience would forgive us for going out in the further regions of whatever we could think of. But I don’t think we’d be worthy of being forgiven if we didn’t do that. They’re giving us the freedom, the encouragement, the money and the time to say, ‘Go somewhere where no other band could go, and come back and tell us what it was like.’
The Flaming Lips' Dark Side of the Moon will likely be an iTunes-only release, according to the LA Times. (Sorry Winamp fans.) Here's the EXCLUSIVE tracklist:
1. Speak to Me
2. Breathe
3. On the Run
4. Time
5. The Great Gig in the Sky
6. Money
7. Us and Them
8. Any Colour You Like
9. Brain Damage
10. Eclipse
Annie’s Long-Delayed Sophomore LP Don't Stop Gets Release Date
Poor Annie. All she wants to do is release her second album, Don’t Stop. And feel her own heartbeat and chew some gum and hate your band and stuff like that. But, mainly, she wants to finally follow up Anniemal (TMT Review), her 2004 debut album. Unfortunately for her, that’s not what the folks at Island, her old label, wanted to do at all. Hence, Don’t Stop has been stuck in limbo for the past year or so.
Thanks to the good folks at Oslo-based label Smalltown Supertown, Don’t Stop will be escaping from that limbo soon. Real soon -- in fact, as in November 17 soon. According to Annie, the new record is “both immediately listenable and utterly beguiling,” along with “mainstream and underground, all at once.” Sounds confusing, but a good kind of confusing. Guess we’ll unravel these mysteries next month on the 17th.
Don’t Stop tracklist:
1. Hey Annie
2. My Love Is Better
3. Bad Times
4. Don't Stop
5. I Don't Like Your Band
6. Songs Remind Me of You
7. Marie Cherie
8. Take You Home
9. The Breakfast Song
10. Loco
11. When the Night
MOG Starts a Music Streaming Service, Starts Working With Universal, EMI, Sony, and Warner
In a world of nonexistent CD sales and unstoppable music pirating, the question on everyone's mind is "how do we make money off of music again?" Big record labels scrambled to think (all the while hiring lawyers to sue the pants off of citizens who accidentally downloaded six tracks from Kazaa in 2000), but entrepreneurial innovators took the opportunity to get innovative.
Thus arose a new trend in the media sphere. You can have music -- all of the music you could ever want -- streaming on the internet for a minuscule price per month. Spotify does it (but sadly, Americans can't get it), Pandora does it, Last.FM and Rhapsody do it, and now MOG does it. What is MOG you ask?
MOG (a shorter, snappier nickname for "Music Blog") is a music blog aggregate service (of which TMT is a part), filtering music blog content from the web and placing it on their main page. Not only that, but MOG has since formed an alliance with the "Big Four" music labels (EMI, Warner, Sony, and Universal) to create an "All Access" service where music fans can listen to an endless supply of streaming music for $5 a month on the web and $12-$15 via mobile device. Fans can even customize their own playlists on MOG, where, like Pandora, users can create playlists of "similar artists" and share them with fellow MOG users.
"Rhapsody costs too much and Pandora doesn't let you play any song you want at any time. We've taken the best parts of all of the existing services and left behind what didn't work," says Andy Phillips, MOG's Editor-in-Chief, when asked why users would prefer MOG to other web-based streaming services.
According to MOG CEO David Hyman, his service is a "revolutionary listening experience that will forever change how you discover music and truly redefines what radio is, and killer tools for discovery through other users of the service. And you get it all monthly for the price of a beer. We’re setting the music listening bar." Beer, eh? The man has a point.
MOG's music service is currently in beta-testing, but will be available for mass-usage come Thanksgiving 2009.
Public Enemy Look for Album Funding; Good Investment If They Make Another It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Bad Investment if Flavor Flav Has too Much to Do with It
The minstrel show better known as Flavor Flav clearly hasn’t cashed in enough on those VH1 royalties to fund a new Public Enemy album. Or maybe there’s just a political angle to the group’s latest move.
A couple years removed from their last full-length album, with its masturbatory title How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?, Public Enemy has teamed up with Amsterdam-based SellaBand to solicit fans and investors for album funding. The NME reports that the seminal rap group is looking to raise $250,000 in $25 increments, with contributing fans receiving a pro ratio share of 33.3% of all net revenues from album sales. To date, they've raised over $37,000 (or 14%) of their monetary goal.
On the Public Enemy web site, Chuck D says “SellaBand's financial engine model goes about restructuring the music business in reverse. It starts with fans first, then the artists create from there. The music business is built on searching for fans and this is a brand new way for acts to create a new album with fans first, already on board.”
At this point there’s no further information about the upcoming album.
El Perro Del Mar Tours with Peter Bjorn and John, Refutes Claims That Love Is in Fact Pop
Fall is here, and with it comes -- for those of us in North America -- our annual shipment of Scandinavian indie pop singers. Perhaps this assertion cannot be scientifically qualified, although once I do remember writing a story about Lykke Li coming to the States on tour during the cold months or something. Now El Perro Del Mar will join these elite ranks, and, as luck would have it, Peter Bjorn & John are ALSO embarking on an autumnal U.S. tour. So many Swedes!
Okay, so maybe they’re going on tour together and I can’t really use them as two different examples, but frankly I don’t think that one little comment can ruin the integrity of this story. This story has as much integrity as Glenn Beck.
By the way, the Swedish songstress behind El Perro Del Mar has a new album called Love Is Not Pop coming out October 20 in the United States. It’s been around for awhile in Europe, and can also be ordered via The Control Group website before the official release date.
Speaking of dates:
10.20.09 - New York, NY - Other Music (in-store)
11.07.09 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club (2 shows)
11.08.09 - Philadelphia, PA - Theater of Living Arts *
11.09.09 - New York, NY - Joe's Pub
11.10.09 - New York, NY - Terminal 5 *
11.11.09 - Toronto, ON - Phoenix Theatre *
11.12.09 - Chicago, IL - Metro *
11.13.09 - St. Louis, MO - Gargoyle Club *
11.14.09 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues *
11.15.09 - Austin, TX - La Zona Rosa *
11.17.09 - Tuscon, AZ - Rialto Theater *
11.18.09 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues *
11.19.09 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *
11.20.09 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *
11.21.09 - Los Angeles, CA - Club Nokia
11.23.09 - Los Angeles, CA - Hotel Café
* Peter Bjorn & John
