Sufjan Stevens Manages to Conveniently Put Off His Illinois Follow-up For a Little While Longer, Tours Australia Instead
By Nobodaddy on 11-05-2007
You heard it here, folks. At one time easily the most ambitious religious man since Thomas Aquinas, unoffensively spiritual noisemaker and sensitive everyman Sufjan Stevens is fucking us all and fucking us HARD.
Oh sure, he may look innocent enough, what with his dreamy voice and positive outlook and all, but believe you me, America, this man is a cad and a roustabout!
Case in point: In a supreme effort to get the most mileage possible out of that sweet, vintage University of Illinois gear that he bought on eBay, that charming, doe-eyed bastard is once again shirking his studio recording responsibilities for a little bit longer and casually making plans to pack up his entire band (which includes a full wind and brass ensemble, of course) and flying the veritable coop to embark on his first ever Australian tour.
See, ol’ boy is currently only two albums into his ambitious 50-album project, in which he is allegedly working toward soundtracking each of the 50 American States. Michigan was released in 2003, and Illinois followed in 2005. Soooo, by my count, Mr. Stevens should be spending early ‘08 knee-deep in the frozen cornfields of Indiana or though the musty microfiche archives at some Wisconsin University’s Graduate Library, NOT gallivanting halfway around the world to hang out with Jet or whoever.
But regardless of what I think, Stevens and co. will land in the reverse-draining land of Steve Irwin come early January of next year for a handful of shows, including a 3-day stint at prestigious Sydney Festival. It’s not really very Christian of him to disregard my opinion like that, but... you know, whatever.
Clever diversions:
* not with Jet
The Pirate Bay Working on New Protocol to Rival Torrent Protocol
By 8bit on 11-02-2007
Allocation of Weekly Allowance ($20):
_______________________
Total: $47.00 + $?.?? = A lot more money than what I have.
Not only does my weekly allocation greatly surpass my weekly allowance, I don't even have a weekly allowance to allocate. Which is exactly why I would, hypothetically, consider illegally downloading music on the internet. This is, of course, a purely hypothetical situation, since I neither have an internet connection nor like music. But if I did, I would probably be a member of various internet websites, utilizing the .torrent protocol, a judiciously handy way to share files, including but not limited to the venerate oink.cd. If this were all true, which it is not, I would be pretty bummed upon hearing that OiNK was recently shut down by the capitalism gestapo.
This has prompted a number of industrious computer science nerds to quickly script a number of new websites to take advantage of the giant gravity well which was vacated upon OiNK's demise, including the previously mentioned BOiNK, an open tracker. Another upstart is What.cd, promising a large, but closed, tracker similar to OiNK. Also open is Waffles.fm, which insists on "bringing back the community OiNK had" and is suspiciously referenced on the restored oink.cd domain. Access to both sites will be invite-only.
But, according to TorrentFreak, the .torrent protocol itself may soon have a new competitor. Citing founder Bram Cohen's decision to make BitTorrent closed source, The Pirate Bay announced its intention to create a new protocol designed with (I assume, illegal) file-sharers in mind. The project page has an extensive list of planned improvements and extensions to .torrent. It seems like the general theory behind the new protocol will be similar to BitTorrent's architecture, both on the back- and front-end, which combined with the transient nature of file-sharing methods (Napster? Kazaa? Direct Connect, anyone?) doesn't make a major shift away from the torrent protocol seem far-fetched.
A Short History of How V2 Records Ended Up On UMG
By Scout Leader Kyle on 11-02-2007
In 1996, Richard Branson started V2 Records. Branson had already dabbled in record label creating and selling when he sold Virgin Records to EMI for $804 million in 1991; so, in 2002, he sold V2 Records to Morgan Stanley and again, in 2006, V2 Records North America to Sheridan Square Entertainment. Over the years, V2 Records acquired quite the roster of artists, including The White Stripes, Grandaddy, Moby, Bloc Party, and The Blood Brothers -- that is, until January of this year, when Sheridan Square let go their staff and made their artists free agents in order to focus on its back catalog and digital distribution (TMT News).
By this time, 95% of V2 was owned by New York City investment bank Morgan Stanley. In August, however, Morgan Stanley finally sold V2 to Universal Music Group for roughly $14 million (a deal that the UK's Office of Fair Trading is currently investigating). And now come the after effects. The first major sign of the acquisition came just a couple days ago -- on Halloween of all days! -- when Universal Music Group closed down V2 Records London with a plan to align the label with UMG's Mercury Records. This means that some of the 50-member staff will still have a job, but only if they're lucky to get absorbed into Mercury. It's still unknown what kind of effects to expect on the smaller V2 affiliates and smaller artists, if any, but a UMG acquisition always seems to come with extra baggage.
It's interesting to think about what V2 had going up until this point. One major appeal was its label licensing network, which represented Wichita Records, Bella Union, City Slang, and others (UMG has promised to keep up this network, by the way). Additionally, V2 Records didn't really appear to be hurting at all before the acquisition; in fact, it was doing fairly well. The new UK chart-topping sensation The Stereophonics are signed to V2, along with other artists such as Ray Davies and Paul Weller. Factor in the back catalogs of The White Stripes and Moby, and you just wonder why the acquisition and why now?
Nonetheless, V2 Records will now be kicking it underneath the new ownership of Universal Music Group. But will the acquisition be bad for the label when all is said and done? That's yet to be determined.
Found Magazine Tour 2007; Bishop Choking, Carrot Chafing, and Filming Dead Birds
By Hanky Panky on 11-02-2007
When it comes to curing writer's block, I've tried everything: reading those who inspire me, writing in the voice of other writers, doing extensive free-writes, drinking to the point of incapacitation, searching my soul, screaming, crying, sleeping, etc.
On this dark and gloomy day, my assignment was to review the Found Magazine 2007 tour. I walked aimlessly around campus, the fog hanging low, my Styrofoam cup of coffee long since cold. Crisp leaves and paper cups danced along the cement in the wind, like in that desperately sappy scene from American Beauty. Among the debris, a piece of paper looking worse for ware fell dormant at my feet, and I recalled some parting words from the Found Magazine show by founder Davy Rothbard:
I hope the rest of you will be inspired to take that one second to pick something up when you see it laying there, to see if it's something interesting... Cause notes like these move and effect me so much that they make me want to pick up every piece of paper I see floating down the street or blowing down the alleyway...
So, I reached to pick it up.
Is "ironic" the word that I'm looking for? Perhaps "serendipitous." I'm not sure -- I still have writer's block -- but regardless, what I found in my hands was a blessing from the deadline gods: The rough and barely legible (yet excusably usable) notes of the very event I was meant to review.
Behold the found, god-sent rubbish (click to enlarge):
11.03.07 – San Diego, CA – Cream 8 pm
11.04.07 – Los Angeles, CA – Skylight Books 7 pm
11.05.07 – Long Beach, CA – Open, 2226 E. 4th St, 8 pm
11.06.07 – Los Angeles, CA – Hammer Museum 7 pm
11.07.07 – Los Angeles, CA – Largo 8:30 pm
11.08.07 – Tucson, AZ – Main Library 12 noon
11.08.07 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress 7 pm
11.09.07 – Albuquerque, NM – Guild Cinema 8 pm
11.10.07 – Tulsa, OK – Coffee House on Cherry Street 8 pm
11.12.07 – Kansas City, MO – Screenland 8 pm*
11.13.07 – St. Louis, MO – Mad Art Gallery 8 pm*
11.14.07 – Lexington, KY – ArtsPlace 8 pm*
11.15.07 – Indianapolis, IN – Big Car Gallery (2 shows! 7 pm & 9 pm)*
11.16.07 – Ann Arbor, MI – Michigan Theater 8 pm*
11.17.07 – Pittsburgh, PA – Future Tenant (2 shows! 7 pm & 9 pm)*
11.18.07 – Columbus, OH – Chop Chop Gallery (2 shows! 6 pm & 8 pm)*
11.27.07 – Pontiac, MI – Clutch Cargo's 8 pm
11.28.07 – Grand Rapids, MI – (details TBA)
11.29. 07 – Charleston, WV – The Empy Glass 8 pm
11.30.07 – Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle 8 pm*
12.01.07 – Durham, NC – Manbites Dog Theater (2 shows! 7 pm & 9 pm)*
12.02.07 – Richmond, CA – Firehouse Theater (2 shows! 7 pm & 9 pm)*
12.03.07 – Atlanta, GA – Push Push Theater (2 shows! 7 pm & 9 pm)*
12.04.07 – Birmingham, AL – Workplay 8 pm*
12.05.07 – New Orleans, LA – (details TBA)*
12.07.07 – Houston, TX – Aurora Picture Show 8 pm
12.08.07 – Nacogdoches, TX – Millard's Crossing 7 pm
12.09.07 – Austin, TX – Alamo Drafthouse (time TBA)
12.10.07 – Dallas, TX – The Public Trust 8 pm
12.11.07 – Oklahoma City, OK – Galileo Bar and Grill 8 pm
12.12.07 – Lawrence, KS or Nashville, TN – TBA
* PostSecret
Low Comes to A Land Down Under, Where Women Glow and Men Plunder
By Liz Louche on 11-02-2007
Quick — what’s the first thing you envision when I mention the word “Australia”? If you’re anything like me, you’re imagining a land where summer comes in January, where water goes down the sink backwards, and where koalas go snorkeling with Nick Cave before retiring to a local Outback Steakhouse restaurant for a lively barbecue cooked up by friendly dingoes.
It’s true that Australians do enjoy some of these phenomena, but let’s look beyond the stereotypes and funny animals. It’s not just Christmas at the beach and Kylie Minogue for our Aussie friends -- they also appreciate a nice, quiet evening with Duluth, MN slowcore legends Low. The band will cut an icy swath through the sunny cities of Australia, with two special events as part of the Don’t Look Back series of concerts, sponsored by UK indie festival promoters All Tomorrow’s Parties. The Don’t Look Back series presents seminal artists playing landmark albums in their entirety, and Low will be performing their 2001 release Things We Lost in the Fire (TMT Review). This is clearly exciting enough on its own, but just to make things even more incredible, the band’s final performance of its southern hemisphere tour will be held in something called “The Famous Spiegeltent.”
In Australia with Low:
01.11.08 – Melbourne, AU* - East Brunswick Club
01.12.08 – Melbourne, AU - East Brunswick Club
01.14.08 – Fremantle, AU - Fly by Night Club
01.16.08 – Brisbane, AU - The Troubadour
01.17.08 – Sydney, AU - The Famous Spiegeltent at the Sydney Festival
01.18.08 – Sydney, AU - The Famous Spiegeltent at the Sydney Festival
01.19.08 – Sydney, AU* - The Famous Spiegeltent at the Sydney Festival
* Performing Things We Lost in the Fire
