Peter Bjorn and John Are Touring the States, But I'm Sure They Miss Sweden!

By Scout Leader Kyle on

Peter Bjorn and John are that sexy Swedish indie pop group that everyone was talking about last year and earlier this year. They topped the pop charts in the UK with their happening single, “Young Folks,” and successfully had their songs featured in Levi and Pontiac commercials. Go them! You may be asking why they're so fly, and -- let me guess -- you think it's because they have both a knack for creating really nice pop structures and a nice publicist who has helped them along the way. You'd be wrong. The reason Peter Bjorn and John are so cool is because they're Swedish.

Most people don't know that Sweden kicks an unusual amount of ass as a country, so let's cast aside our ignorance of the Swedes for a bit. I'm here to point out three really incredible facts about Sweden to you.

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Number One:

Sweden Is Second On The Environmental Performance Index

The EPI is a scale used to measure a country's environmental impact, using factors such as air quality, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and child mortality. Sweden is second in the rankings of the EPI, where Canada is eight and the U.S. is twenty-eight. The report is fairly new and these findings are from the pilot test, but Sweden obviously kicks a lot of ass when it comes to the environment.

Number Two:

Sweden Is The First Country To Officially Join Second Life

Second Life is a gigantic online computer game where tons of people sign up and play. The real draw for the game is its ability to offer a way to build and create your own avatar to explore a digital world that is built by other users like yourself. The game is pretty fascinating and possibly could be as addicting as World of Warcraft. This year, Sweden opened up a digital embassy in the world of Second Life to help promote and educate people about how kick-ass Sweden is.

Number Three:

The Same Dude That Invented Dynamite and Instituted The Nobel Prize Is From Sweden

That's right, Alfred Behnard Nobel was from Sweden. Homeboy patented dynamite in 1867, and not long after, he invented gelignite, or a blasting gelatin, that could be handled without protection. This sparked the eventual invention of other plastic explosives. Alfred ended up using his massive fortune to fund the Nobel Prize. Long story short, the reason he wanted the Nobel Prize to be established is because certain media sources condemned him for inventing dynamite and Alfred Nobel wanted to leave a more positive legacy behind him.

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And to think you thought Sweden was only good for pop music! Shame on you! You might want to make it up to the Swedes by attending one of their biggest musical attractions in these cities:

Deerhunter Officially Go on Hiatus

By Mango Starr on 11-19-2007

According to a post titled "Goodbye 21st Century" on Deerhunter's blog, the band members have decided to go on hiatus after their appearance at the Estrella Damm Primavera Club festival in Barcelona, saying they need time to "organize" their lives. Check it out for yourself, straight from the loving fingers of Bradford Cox:

So we have one show left tomorrow night in Leipzig, Germany. Then we drive through the night to Prague where we fly home from early in the morning. This tour has been really insane. We met a lot of amazing people and finally got to play the UK, making our debut at the forum even. We are totally grateful for the opportunity to play everywhere we did. When we started this band years ago we never imagined playing outside of Atlanta, so this has all been like a hallucination. We are all exhausted now and ready to be home. I would like to announce that the show we are playing at Primavera in Barcelona (I hope to god i spelled that right) will be our last for quite some time. It will also be the last time we are ever playing the Cryptograms set we have been playing for the last two years. After that the band are going on hiatus. We all need some time to organize our lives. Thanks to everyone who has helped us out. This has been a crazy year that I will always remember.

Meanwhile, Bradford Cox's solo project Atlas Sounds will release an album, Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, on February 19, 2008 (TMT News). You can read our reviews of Cryptograms (TMT Review) and the Fluorescent Grey EP (TMT Review). And then you can weep like a stupid little baby, all the while knowing that this probably isn't the last we'll hear from Deerhunter. Do I smell a greatest hits?

Dan Deacon to Tour, People Like Me Never to Dance at Dan Deacon Shows, People like Tracy from Hairspray to Shimmy-Shake-It and Ultimately Find True Happiness While I Continue to Sit at My Computer Drinking Red Bull, Wondering Who Left Lifetime on in the Living Room and Why I Just Made an Overused Family Guy-esque Lifetime Humor Reference; Dan Deacon to Wonder Why I Make Everything About Myself and Not Just Do My Job and Discuss His Work

By AJ Pacitti on 11-19-2007

Dear Dan Deacon,

[See above headline.]

Yeah. I wonder also.

THE POINT, READER: The Good Deacon will tour with Jimmy Joe Roche, visual artist and partner in release of the recent Ultimate Reality DVD. Hipstahhhh females and fellas in attendance should expect:

1. Presentation of the DVD
2. Live drumming
3. So much dancing, so little time
4. The closing of the show culminating with a Dan Deacon set in the traditional crash-static-boom-boom bright-lights-wicked-flash-flash-electric sense*.

THE DATES:Tracy, the lead from Broadway musical Hairspray is (figuratively) singing “Good Morning Baltimore” with pride over the accomplishments of Deacon and Roche, fellow citizens of her great city; Tracy would also (most likely) be way pumped to note the Girl Talk inclusions below:

* When I grow up I want to be: Tom Wolfe.

EMI Labels Sue MP3tunes for Copyright Infringement; Have Still Not Mastered That Whole “Changing Business Model” Thing

By Heidi Vanderslice on 11-19-2007

1. Record companies sue online music industry executive Michael Robertson circa 2000.
2. Said executive pays $100 million to record companies in settlement.
3. Vivendi's Universal Music Group buys Robertson's MP3.com, which is later sold to CNET Networks Inc.
4. EMI sends take-down notice to Robertson's related company, Sideload.com, in September.
5. Robertson sues EMI in response to said notice.
6. See headline.
7. Michael Robertson sez; "These guys rush off to court and tell the court that I am terrible and then they end up buying my company. It is really a shame because instead of using these technologies to improve their business they make an enemy of every technology company out there."
8. TMT sez: WE ARE TIRED OF WRITING THE SAME NEWS STORY. SOMEONE PLEASE PROVIDE BIG RECORD LABELS (especially EMI, who have been hemorrhaging for quite some time now) WITH WHAT ONE WOULD REFER TO AS A "CLUE."

Fergie’s Favorite Band, Pissed Jeans, To Tour

By David Nadelle on 11-19-2007

Oh yes, I could play the true-blue game of talking about a band’s name, in this case, how shitty it is to have Pissed your Jeans like this. I could also spitball y’all little ditties about a friend of mine who used to get drunk and sleepwalk nightly, eventually ending his stumble-bum stroll by pissing on himself, pissing in the household recycling box, pissing on his sleeping girlfriend’s head (true story), or pissing into an oven that was cooking a seven layer “good friends, good times, macho nachos” (untrue story). I will slyly tease you with those urine-soaked yarns and instead talk about Pissed Jeans, Sub Pop’s rather aggressive art-punk undergrounders, who will be embarking on a short ‘n’ sweet tour of the nation’s hot spots (and Allentown, PA) starting today, with copies of their new album, Hope for Men (TMT Review), in hand.

Although I will provide the formulaic dates, locales, and venues that you have grown to expect and love or else incur the wrath of getting bullwhipped by our editorial board, this tour is so short that I can also describe every date quickly using descriptive, insane sentences:

Pissed Jeans start their mini-campaign tonight in Baltimore, at Ottobar, named for the 14th descendant of Colonel Von Ottobar, a rarely heard-of general who bowed out of the Isis Crisis after getting his scrote stuck in the zipper of his jodhpurs (incidentally, that was the inspiration for Ben Stiller’s famous ball-twist scene in There’s Something about Mary). They will then march to Philadelphia to play the Vacuum Warehouse November 21, where it is an unwritten custom for every band that plays there to go through a strange hazing ritual of tea-bagging the nozzles of every Electrolux, Hoover, and Bissell in attendance. On November 30, the Pissed Jean Jeanies will entertain Allentown, where they’re closing all the factories down... out in Bethlehem they’re killing time... filling out forms, standing in line (Yes! I knew I’d get the chance to quote Billy Joel here eventually!). Then it’s off to New York, where they will play for the coolest people in the world -- first at the Williamsburg Music Hall to an audience of Vice Magazine writers, then at the Bowery Ballroom for Interpol, their posse, and their posse’s posse. The last U.S. date is in Austin at Beerland December 8. The band is not really playing a show but is contractually obligated to drink all the beer in the land and entertain fans by seeing which band member can ride a mechanical bull the longest without pissing their own jeans. The band will also play a All Tomorrow’s Parties vs. Pitchfork thing sometime in the future.

I told you it was a short tour, barely long enough to fill your bladder

11.19.07 - Baltimore, MD - Ottobar #
11.21.07 - Philadelphia, PA - Vacuum Warehouse $
11.30.07 - Allentown, PA - Jan’s Room %
12.01.07 - New York, NY - Williamsburg Music Hall ^
12.02.07 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom ^
12.08.07 - Austin, TX - Beerland
05.09-11.08 - East Sussex, England - Camber Sands Holiday Centre, All Tomorrow’s Parties

# Black Dice, Wzt Hearts, Pony Tail

$ Black Dice

% Iron Lung, Off Minor, Salvation, Ghaddar

^ Mudhoney

Merge To Reissue Big Dipper Discography Including Previously Unreleased Album; Tom Scharpling Soars Into The Night Sky On A Jet Of Satisfaction

By Squeo on 11-19-2007

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the fertile Boston music scene of the late ‘80s -- like most of the TMT staff, I wasn't born until 15 years later - but one of the most highly-regarded and under-appreciated rawk bands of that time was Big Dipper. Formed in 1985, the band managed to release one EP (Boo-Boo) and two bitchin' (my word is law) LPs (Heavens, Craps) before throwing in the sweat-soaked towel in ‘92. After that year, the Boston area entered a police state and no one dared mention the band for fear of immediate castration.

UNTIL NOW: the kind folks at Merge have announced that they will be remastering and reissuing all of the band's output March 18, 2008 in a 3-disc anthology, including an unreleased album culled from their final recording sessions in the early ‘90s, entitled Very Loud Array -- hopefully a description of the sounds within. The set is called Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology, and as an added feature, it will include nine bonus tracks, one video, and liner notes by "The Best Show on WFMU" host and fellow latter-day Seinfeld hater, Tom Scharpling, who campaigned to reunite the band in 2004 but was cruelly denied.

Speaking of reuniting the band, the original lineup of Big Dipper is currently working out their abs and investing in Rogaine before a planned East Coast reunion tour in April 2008. Precise dates are still being hammered out, but depending on how many drunk guys spill beer on their amps, shorting them out halfway through the shows, there may be a tour of the midwest later in the year.

Yes, no precise dates yet, but until then, may I recommend some other, far more delectable precise dates?

Tracklisting:

Disc 1:

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