Yes, it's true! _RTX_'s tour begins _today_! Hitting up cities like _Reading_ and _Bristol_, this tour should be _"WITHOUT pre-conditions"_. But despite how _"WITHOUT pre-conditions"_ it'll be, it's expected to be _extra Primal Scream-y_ too, because _Primal Scream will be joining RTX for most of the shows_.
_RTX's_ latest album is _JJ GOT LIVE RaTX_, which was released or is set to be released _October 21, 2008_ via _Drag City_. The funny part? Well, did you know that _RTX's favorite fruit is banana_?? HAHA!
Anyway, here are the tourdates for _RTX_, which again, starts _today_ and hits up cities like _Reading_ and _Bristol_. Just don't be surprised if _RTX's favorite fruit is banana_, like I said in the second paragraph!
Oh, that precocious Zach Condon of Beirut, always sticking his head into new genres of music to experiment with. In the case of his new double EP, March of the Zapotec, due February 17 in the U.S. and February 16 in Europe on Ba Da Bing! Records and his own Pompeii Records, Condon decided to head on down to Oaxaca, Mexico to the village of Teotitlan del Valle, where he recruited The Jimenez Band to help him record some new songs.
Meanwhile, Holland, the second part of the double EP, features new songs recorded by Condon under his old moniker, Realpeople. Got that? New songs, old band name. According to the press release, Holland “gives the listener a unique perspective on yet another side of Zach’s artistic vision.” Or maybe it just gives Condon a chance to use his old band name, for some random reason.
Constancy, thy name is Springsteen. I mean, for real -- at this point, the man is more than just the sum of his over two dozen records. He’s an icon; one of those rare threads that can effectively bind half a century’s worth of dismal and disparate musical/socio-economic American history with the unlikely image of a red ballcap stuffed into some blue Levi’s, summing up the Ginsburgian “howl” of the anguished American youth ably for paleontologists of future centuries with only the gruff bristle of his croon and the absurd off-beat THWAK of that fat fucking snare drum.
The downside? Well, unfortunately, the next stop on the fame train after “icon” is “caricature.” And fresh off of, oh, I'd say 35 years of singing what are essentially variations on the same fist-pumping, sax-soaked, red-white-and-blue-a-thons, the news that the illimitable Bruce Springsteen is back with his latest album -- presumably about cars and baseball and drifters and lonely housewives and punch clocks and sweet God above and middle class such and such -- is, you know, a bit hard to take seriously. But what’s an aging symbol of sexy-ass American stadium rock to do? It’s a catch-22 situation, really. After all, at some point, there comes a need for a new rhetoric if you’re going to stay current, and yet, somehow singing a song about a pink Toyota Prius just doesn’t sound that cool either.
But either way, look out, 2009, cuz here he comes, for better or worse. Springsteen's 24th album, Working on a Dream (presumably pronounced “Workin’ on a Dream,” mind you) has been set for a January 27 release via Columbia Records. Naturally, it was recorded with the E Street Band and is the fourth collaboration between Springsteen and Brendan O'Brien, who produced and mixed the album at Southern Tracks in Atlanta, GA with additional recording in New York City, Los Angeles, and, yes, New Jersey.
Said the Lord Springsteen of the experience:
Towards the end of recording [the last album], excited by the return to pop production sounds, I continued writing. When my friend producer Brendan O'Brien heard the new songs, he said, ‘Let's keep going.’ Over the course of the next year, that's just what we did, recording with the E Street Band during the breaks on last year's tour. I hope Working on a Dream has caught the energy of the band fresh off the road from some of the most exciting shows we've ever done. All the songs were written quickly, we usually used one of our first few takes, and we all had a blast making this one from beginning to end.
The album features 12 new Springsteen tunes plus 2 bonus tracks (which, back in the dark ages would have been called “a 14-track album”). But I don’t see anything along the lines of “Pink Toyota Prius” listed down there, do you?
Jody Reynolds, the 1950s rockabilly singer and songwriter whose one and only Top 10 hit, "Endless Sleep," was the first of a wave of melodramatic "teen tragedy" tales, died of liver cancer Nov. 7 in Palm Desert. He was 75.
“Endless Sleep,” which peaked at No. 5 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart in 1958, opened the door for a string of similarly tragic pop hits including Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel," Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her," Johnny Preston's "Running Bear," the Everly Brothers' "Ebony Eyes," Dickey Lee's "Patches" and the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack."
Ralph Joseph Reynolds was born in Denver on Dec. 3, 1932, according to an interview with Reynolds posted at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame’s website, although many pop music sources list the year 1938. He was inducted into the hall of fame in 1999.
When we last left our hero, Dosh, back in April (TMT News), he had finally escaped from Andrew “The Birdman” Bird long enough to tour and release his latest album. Well, it seems The Birdman has had enough of Dosh blipping and bleeping about him all over the country and has challenged him to a duel in the mightiest of all venues, Carnegie Hall. The fight will kick off the first leg of The Birdman’s 2009 tour to support his new album, Noble Beast, due January 20 on Fat Possum. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have $100 on The Birdman. Sorry Dosh!
Former Crowded House frontman Neil Finn has announced that he is getting his old band back together. No I’m not talking about Crowded House or Split Enz -- instead, Finn is entering the studio with both a fresh set of originals and the group of musicians who performed on his 2002 benefit live album, Seven Worlds Collide.
Members of the untitled supergroup include Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway, Johnny Marr of Modest Mouse (and some other ’80s band that nobody remembers), four-sixths of Wilco, Soul Coughing’s Sebastian Steinberg, 4AD artist Lisa Germano, Eddie Vedder of Temple of the Dog (and some other ’90s band that nobody remembers), Neil’s son Liam Finn, and more. Phew. I would imagine it’ll be pretty tough scheduling practices for these guysm but at least they have a good motivation: All proceeds from the album -- set to drop in 2009 -- will benefit Oxfam International.
It’s unclear if the album will be released under the name Seven Worlds Collide or something else, so I took the liberty of coming up with some alternate possibilities. Neil Finn, if you’re out there, you can definitely have these names for free.
- Wilcoughing - Crowded Mouse (or Modest House, although this band is more crowded than modest) - Pearldioenz - The Splmiths - Radio Jam - Seven Worlds Wilcollide
