I Have It! Yo La Tengo to Release Some More Popular Songs
By Mr P on Jun 4 2009
Yo La Tengo, the 25-year-old Alternative Rock Band, are set to release their 12th full-length, Popular Songs, the follow-up to 2006's I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (TMT Review) (not counting Fuckbook) on September 8. The album was recorded earlier this year in Hoboken and Nashville by members Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan, and James McNew with producer Roger Mountenot. Described by Matador as "the bravest musical statement to date in a career full of ‘em," Popular Songs is purported to be stylistically varied and "at the height of their creative powers." But, to paraphrase Thom Yorke, how can we be sure?
To find out, we turn in fact to Thom Yorke, front man of another Alternative Rock Band, who got a sneak preview of the new Yo La Tengo album earlier this week.
So, what's the deal? Is the new Yo La Tengo album all it's cracked up to be?Yes. It's fantastic. It's their bravest musical statement to date in a career full of 'em.
Oh, really?
Yes, I truly believe Yo La Tengo are at the height of their creative powers.
Well... boy, I guess that's all I need!
Wait, don't you want to ask about the new Radiohead album? We've been tinkering in the studio lately.
Thom, this is about Yo La Tengo, not you. Newsflash: not everything revolves around you.
Newsflash: I hate your guts!
There you have it, folks. Check out "Periodically Double or Triple," the first MP3 from Popular Songs. Tracklisting and a Buy Early Get Now campaign will be announced shortly via Matador's Matablog. Also expect a fall tour, but in the meantime:
06.04.09 - Paris, FR - L'Alhambra
06.07.09 - Hamburg, DE - Imperial Theatre
06.08.09 - Berlin, DE - Babylon (seated)
06.11.09 - Amsterdam, - Bimhuis
06.12.09 - Brussels, BE - Botanic, Orangerie
06.15.09 - London, UK - Queen Elizabeth Hall
07.13.09 - Brooklyn, NY - Keyspan Park/Coney Is
07.17.09 - Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Festival
Black Dice’s Eric Copeland Discovers Alien in a Garbage Dump After Following Its Paw Tracks for Weeks, Collaborates on 13 Songs
By Mango Starr on Jun 4 2009
Eric "The Cute One" Copeland, founding member of Black Dice, is going solo AGAIN with Alien in a Garbage Dump August 18 via Paw Tracks. But you, being the fancy-schmancy Black Dice fan, probably already knew this. Shit, you probably own all their albums, all their EPs, all their 7-inches, all their tour-only CD singles, and all side-project releases, not to mention Copeland's 2007 solo debut Hermaphrodite (TMT Review). You also know a friend who's cousin ran into Black Dice at The Pink Pussycat (on West 4th Street in Greenwich Village) jerking off to nudie magz. Hell, you're probably such a big fan of Copeland (Tell-All TMT Interview) that you've already heard the entirety of Alien in a Garbage Dump before we even caught wind of the album!!
Big deal: seven of the songs were released under the same title as a vinyl EP on Paw Tracks last year, and the other six were released on a vinyl EP titled Al Anon via Catsup Plate. So yeah, you're not so cool after all, MR. FUCKING HOT SHOT.
Alien in a Garbage Dump tracklist:
1. King Tits Womb
2. Alien in a Garbage Dump
3. Corn on the Cob
4. Osni
5. Scones and Bowls
6. Reptilian Space Beings Shapeshifting Bloodsucking Vampires
7. Everybody's Libido
8. Auto Dimmer
9. Al Anon
10. Narc
11. Lunar Bad Land
12. Wolfman
13. Muchas Gracias
Meanwhile, Andrew Black Dice Clay are currently on tour:
06.02.09 - Boulder, CO - Boulder Theatre *
06.03.09 - Norman, OK - Opolis
06.04.09 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues *
06.05.09 - Austin, TX - Stubbs Waller Creek *
06.06.09 - Oxford, MS - The Library *
06.07.09 - Birmingham, AL - Bottletree
06.08.09 - St. Petersburg, FL - State Theatre *
06.09.09 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Culture Room *
06.10.09 - Orlando, FL - Club Firestone *
06.11.09 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl #
06.12.09 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 #
06.13.09 - Baltimore, MD - Sonar #
06.14.09 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom #
06.15.09 - Boston, MA - Outside The Lines Studio/Gallery #
06.16.09 - Montreal, QC - Il Motore #
06.17.09 - Toronto, ON - The Gladstone Hotel #
06.18.09 - Detroit, MI - MOFA + #
06.19.09 - Pittsburgh, PA - Garfield Artworks #
06.20.09 - Philadelphia, PA - Kung Fu Necktie #
09.12.09 - Monticello, NY - All Tomorrow's Parties
* Animal Collective
+ Wolf Eyes
# Awesome Color
RIP: Koko Taylor, Chicago Blues Artist
By Shane Mack on Jun 3 2009
From the Chicago Tribune:
Chicago blues icon Koko Taylor died Wednesday afternoon at age 80, after surgery May 19 to correct a gastrointestinal bleed.“She was recovering slowly but surely, and then she had a real bad night,” said Marc Lipkin, a spokesman for Taylor’s longtime Chicago-based label, Alligator Records. Taylor was recovering from her surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital when she died.
She had performed only weeks earlier at the Blues Music Awards ceremony in Memphis, Tenn., where she received her record 29th Blues Music Award.
- Koko Taylor official website
- Koko Taylor MySpace
- Koko Taylor Wikipedia entry
The Handsome Family Leave Their Family Behind, Go on Tour
By Jon Lorenz on Jun 3 2009
Hot off the release of Honey Moon, their brand new record on Carrot Top, The Handsome Family are hitting the West Coast and aren't looking back. Not even if they pass the world's largest farmer's market! The down-home Albuquerque duo of Brett and Rennie Sparks are now on their 20th year of marriage and their 8th studio record as a band. They recently played a number of sold-out shows on the East Coast, so now it's time to see if the West Side will show them the same love. You don't want them thinking the East Coast loves them more than the West Coast now, do ya West Coasters? They wouldn't want that. As for the Midwest, well, no one cares about the Midwest.
Here are the dates, starting off in Ireland:
06.03.09 - Cork, Ireland Crane Lane Club
06.04.09 - Dublin, Ireland - Whelan’s
06.05.09 - Belfast, Ireland - The Errigle Inn
06.06.09 - Galway, Ireland - Roisin Dubh
06.07.09 - Kilkenny, Ireland - Cleere’s
06.26.09 - Albuquerque, New Mexico - TBA
07.14.09 - Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern
07.15.09 - Vancouver, BC - The Biltmore
07.16-19.09 - Dawson City, YT - Dawson City Music Festival *
07.21.09 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir
07.23.09 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
07.24.09 - Santa Cruz, CA - The Crepe Place
07.25.09 - Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland
07.26.09 - Los Angeles, CA - McCabe’s
07.29.09 - Tucson, AZ - The Congress
* Sunset Rubdown
It Takes a Village of Feet to Hold Us Back: Foot Village Pedal New Album and Website
By David Nadelle on Jun 3 2009
The notice on the bathroom stall was simple: “Seeking foot worshipper for long walks, to watch movies (Walk Hard, Stepping Out, Stomp the Yard) and Scattergories! Will not turn down eager, open-minded ankle biters and calf lovers but prefer those with an erotic, sexual, unshakeable attraction for the foot, proper! No one bearing plantar warts, bunions, or ingrown nails need call." I looked once. Twice. I was no foot fetishist by any stretch of the imagination but I did love L.A. kick-thumpers Foot Village. If this message could get me closer to the sole of the band in any way then maybe I would take my chances. I hesitantly jotted down the number and skulked out thinking about the prophylactic promise of what could be…
Little did I know that I could have just turned on my fuckin’ computer, brought up the new and improved Foot Village website, and gotten dem goods that I so dearly needed! Fellow followers of drum love will rejoice when they see that the Foot Village not only have a new album, Anti-Magic, coming out on Upset the Rhythm on July 21 (July 6 in the U.K./Europe) but have made freely available to everyone a ton of full-length, unedited, mp3 covers of their “Chicken and Cheese 2” -- parts of which will be included in the “super-collage” at the end of Anti-Magic’s LP and CD versions (which use different pieces for their respective collages) -- on the site at this very direct link. While on the site you can check out Anti-Magic’s awesome and insane cover art.
Who be thee artists and friends providing the cover versions of “Chicken and Cheese 2”? Be thee: AIDS Wolf, ANAVAN, Big Digits, Bio Bitch, BITCHES, Blue Sabbath Black Fiji, Brian Lewis Saunders, Cap N Fresh & The Stay Fresh Seals, Death Sentence: PANDA!, Eddie Brnabic, Fuck Hits Combo, Fur Fur, Geiger Retort, Gian Carlo, Herons, Holy Slouch, Ice Sea Dead People, I.E., Italic Indian, Jason Forrest, Kid Infinity, Kyle H Mabson, Laco$te, Lee Noble, Meta Magical, Mr. Pardiero, Narwhalz, Nero’s Day at Disneyland (contributing two versions), Paid in Puke, Power Sherlock, Robert Inhuman, Spirit Duplicator, Sunken Landscapes, tik///tik, T.I.T.S., Tussle, Two 2 Tango, Vankmen, Weird Habit, Window$, Wolfblitzer, and don't forget YNGWLV.
The digital and cassette (!) collage edits have yet to be completed by the band so there is still time to record a version of “Chicken and Cheese 2” and send it along to have your noise live forever in infamy, posterity, and absurdity.
Magic mushrooms:
1. Energy Hunters
2. Reggae War Zone
3. TAKE
4. Death of the Endless
5. -.. .-. ..- -- -.-. .. .-. -.-. .-.. . (a.k.a. Morse code “No Jam”)
6. Grace’s Death
7. National Jamthun
8. Crybaby
9. .-. --- … . .- -. -. . (a.k.a. Morse code “Roseanne”)
10. Anti-Magic
11. Chicken and Cheese 2 (with friends)
The band of sausage-toed athletes will screech their asses across the Atlantic for dates in the U.K. and Europe in October and November (lock up your sons and daughters, etc.) but for now, only residents of California and ambitious travelers will be able to see the band. Hoof it hard to these shows:
06.20.09 - Los Angeles, CA - The Smell %
06.28.09 - Los Angleles, CA - The Smell #
07.11.09 - Los Angeles, CA - The Smell ^
07.12.09 - San Francisco, CA - The Lab $
08.03.09 - Los Angeles, CA - Pehrspace *
% Religious Girls, Our Brother the Native, Voice on Tape
# DAT Politics, Captain Ahab, Battlehooch
^ Upset the Rhythm Showcase with K.I.T., Gowns, Death Sentence: PANDA!, Lucky Dragons
$ Upset the Rhythm Showcase
* Sean Carnage Anniversary Show with Nu Sensai
