Unofficial 2008 TMT Reader News Story Pledge Drive; RTX Tour Template Included
By The Friz on 01-30-2008
Again, it’s that time of year when we ask for your support. Unsatisfied with our brief winter break, the TMT news staff has caught itself in a quagmire of lugubriousness, and that means, in order to keep your little eyeballs filled with texty goodness, we need help. Your help.
That’s why I am taking the totally unsanctioned initiative to launch this year’s “Unofficial 2008 TMT Reader News Story Pledge Drive,” where you, the reader, can write your very own TMT news story. You may remember the theme from previous articles such as “Exclusive: Create Your Own Burning Star Core News Story!” (TMT News) and “Let’s Write A News Story: Marah — Which Sounds A Lot Like Mirah — Is Touring; Hey What Is Mirah Up To?” (TMT News). Today is the first time, however, that TMT has gone the extra step and suggested that you (YES! LOWLY YOU!) have the potential to climb the ivory tower of music journalism and become published (albeit anonymously) on the virtual Olympus that is Tiny Mix Tapes.
The most basic and essential part of this process is the selection of an artist who is doing something newsworthy and has not appeared on TMT for that newsworthy thing. To make the experience more realistic, you may want to recreate the writing process as it exists for the actual TMT newswriter. First, I would suggest wasting a sizeable chunk of time reading Wikipedia entries or even a past TMT feature. I enjoyed a Chuck Klosterman exposé while writing this very tidbit. If you want to go for the full experience, you may also want to become an ex-convict, learn conversational Esperanto (Estas bela tago!), or cover yourself, or a neighbor, in Vaseline.
When completed, just copy the goods into this box, or better yet, compose a story in the style of your favorite TMT newswriter and send it to him or her. No one will ever know.
The formatting should resemble something close to the text for the upcoming RTX tourdates that follows. As you may have noticed, the content doesn’t really matter:
$ El Paso Hot Button
! Bad Wizard, Blues Control and more
% Viva Viva, the Life Partners
@ Telepathe, Child Abuse, Necking
* Monotonix
^ Panache/Lovepump SXSW Showcase w/ Monotonix, HEALTH, Clipd Beaks, Old Time Relijun, The Apes
( Burning Brides
) The Mae Shi, Bad Dudes, Foot Village
Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Volcom Entertainment Hath Announceth Subscription Club Utilizing New Recording Format: a 7-Inch Vinyl Record! RTX, Turgonegro, and Valient Thorr Sign Up For Middle English Language Lessons
By David Nadelle on 01-29-2008
In a move that provoked astonishment from both the liberal left and the righteous right (and bursts of flatulence from a few old codgers at the back of the room) Volcom Entertainment has bucked the popular trend of releasing music in playable formats by establishing a singles club. Lonely hearts need not apply (unless they have working turntables), because the Volcom Ent. Vinyl Club (VEVC) will be a yearly, six-release, subscription-based, split 7-inch vinyl series of records shipped bimonthly to paid-up punters beginning in February.
The class of VEVC '08 will include the following impressive graduates: Birds of Avalon, Dark Meat, Earthless, Monotonix, Red Fang, RTX, Totimoshi, Turbonegro, Tweak Bird, Valient Thorr, Witch, and Year Long Disaster. The first single shipped will feature Turbonegro and Year Long Disaster. As a bonus incentive, Volcom will throw in three free 7-inch singles from their back catalog with each subscription (Riverboat Gamblers’ “Keep Me From Drinking,” Totimoshi’s “Viva Zapata,” and Year Long Disaster’s “Leda Atomica”) as well as a Volcom Ent. slipmat (while supplies last).
So that’s $30 for the six VEVC 7-inch singles released every other month starting in February, the three bonus singles, a trusty slipmat, and...
...call now and we’ll include the Hercules Hook!, 1-Stitch Personal Sewing Machine!, Slice 'n' Dice Mice (“the mice that slice and dice!”), a Samurai Shark!, “Urine Gone!,” The Lens Doctor (M.D., Rx, PhD, BaRf), The Infinity Razor, Riddex Pro, the “Pull Up and Get Chicks” door bar!, Abs + Ass = “Abss of Steel,” Time Life Classic Soft Rock Series #3 (who doesn’t wuv “soft rock”?), “Dust Be Gone!,” “Swivel and Sweep While You Sweat to the Oldies Vol. 4,” Green Bags! (you haven’t “gone green” yet? Sinner!!!), Handy Switch!” (the WIRELESS light switch! TM), “Camel Toe Be Gone!,” Velcro Fromaggia (the Velcro that actually smells like cheese, for some reason), 5-Minute Forearms!, “Abss Be Gone!,” and many more products that can only be advertised using many exclamation points and some capital letters!
Call now!
Witnessing The Stillborn Birth of a Child: Supergrass to Release Diamond Hoo Ha in April
By Mango Starr on 01-29-2008
Supergrass are releasing their sixth album, Diamond Hoo Ha, April 15 via Astralwerks (March 24 in the U.K. via Parlophone). Since I know you guys are all simply dying to read our review, I've managed to talk Mr P (editor-in-chief) and Jay (music reviews editor) into letting me post the intro and conclusion of our forthcoming Supergrass review (author to be revealed at a later date). Enjoy!
INTRO:
I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Supergrass were hunched over their instruments. Gaz Coombes slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Mick Quinn tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Supergrass's new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.
CONCLUSION:
The experience and emotions tied to listening to Diamond Hoo Ha are like witnessing the stillborn birth of a child while simultaneously having the opportunity to see her play in the afterlife on Imax. It's an album of sparking paradox. It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes. It will cleanse your brain of those little crustaceans of worries and inferior albums clinging inside the fold of your gray matter. The harrowing sounds hit from unseen angles and emanate with inhuman genesis. When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that four men created this, it's clear that Supergrass must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over.
We'll post the entire review around the album's release date! Something tells me this review will go down in history.
Tourdates:
[Photo: Ben Ling]
CFTPA (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone) Goes MIA (Missing in Action) From Left Coast USA (United States of America)
By Hanky Panky on 01-29-2008
My roommates are playing Balloon Golf. Their course: the entire house. The rules to Balloon Golf are simple and go like this -- you have a balloon, you have something you need to hit with the balloon, and depending on the complexity of the "hole," there are parameters, like banking off a certain wall and not stepping past a particular line. Furthermore, you must drink Scotch both before and after each round. As you can imagine, Balloon Golf is a carefree and exciting game of drunken fraternal competition in which I'm usually pleased to partake, but not today. Not knowing what I know: Casiotone For The Painfully Alone is shunning the West Coast. For Florida.
FLORIDA ONLY MINI-TOUR MMVIII (download show flyer here):
02.16.08 - Miami, FL - White Room *
02.17.08 - Tampa, FL - Transitions Art Gallery *
02.18.08 - Orlando, FL - Back Booth *
02.19.08 - Gainesville, FL – TBA *
02.21.08 - Tallahassee, FL - Club Down Under @ Florida State University *
02.22.08 - Jacksonville, FL – TSI *
02.23.08 - TBA Mystery Show *
* Dear Nora
It's a grievous thing, and when grievous things happen, I usually listen to CFTPA's Etiquette, but listening to Etiquette under this circumstance only exacerbates my indignation. I have locked myself in my room and am wearing my black pajamas, so as to lounge in mourning. I even wrote a song to express my grief while my ukulele gently wept; one verse goes like this:
"Hey guy from Casiotone For The Painfully Alone/ Why you gotta' play me like that?/ When I found out your mini tour wasn't intended for the West Coast/ I felt pretty bad."
That one's entitled "Hey Guy From Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Why You Gotta Play Me Like That?" and I recorded it early this morning after a couple gin and tonics (I expect it to be released through Sub Pop as part of my debut EP just as soon as they pick it up). In the original take, you can hear my belly growling due to the fact that I've also gone on a hunger strike, except for just a few meals a day, demanding that Casiotone come to California before they jet off to the U.K.
UK & IRELAND TOUR:
So, tell me, Casiotone -- what's a U.K. audience got that we don't, huh? Nothing! Just non-American accents, which get old real fast -- you'll see. I'll have you know that we here in Cali speak a non-regional dialect marred only by stoned slurs and surfer slang, which is WAY COOLER than English-English. You'll be sorry for avoiding us till early summer 2008.
Castiotone For The Painfully Alone April East Coast tourdates TBA +
May/June West Coast tour dates TBA %
+ Clue To Kalo
% Foot Foot
