Suicide Squeeze Preps New Releases by Latch-Key Kids Cotton Jones (ex-Page France) and Past Lives (ex-Blood Brothers); Afterschool Specials Were Never This Exciting!

We never saw it coming. It is always the quiet ones. And et cetera. Who would have ever guessed that behind the quiet, enterprising façade there would be a conniving home-wrecker in Suicide Squeeze, a label otherwise known for its purity and sweetness? Word on the street has it that the Seattle-based imprint has tapped two new bands to fill its roster but how they got them may be frowned upon in certain circles. In fact, we’re not even sure Angelina Jolie would stoop to this level of domestic disruption. We know this happens all the time, but we can’t ignore the fact that whenever it does happen, it’s the kids who suffer. Tsk, tsk is all we have to say.

Whatever, it’s 2008, not 1955, and breaking up is just another part of everyday life, like getting dressed or slashing your boss' tires. From two broken homes come two new bands ready to start afresh without any past painful limbs pulling the creative body back. Fresh starts are always welcome in TinyMixTapesLand, so it gives us much pleasure to report that Suicide Squeeze has signed Past Lives (ex-Blood Brothers) and Cotton Jones (ex-Page France) to their growing concern and new releases by both clans are due just around the corner (November) and right around the bend (January), respectively!

Cotton Jones is the nom de plume of Michael Nau, former leader of the admirably wistful Page France. His first album on the label will be Paranoid Cocoon, due at the beginning of 2009. Nau has already released a couple EPs-with-art-books on Quite Scientific as “The Cotton Jones Basket Ride,” but whether or not he and professional partner Whitney McGraw will be using the “Basket Ride” appendage in the future is anyone’s guess. We hope so; we like baskets. And rides.

Live Jones:
09.05.08 - Frostburg, MD - Duncan’s #
09.26.08 - Baltimore, MD - Talking Head $
09.28.08 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge %

# Ghostfinger

$ Throw Me the Statue

% David Vandervelde and Throw Me the Statue

Meanwhile, Past Lives, comprising former Blood Brothers Jordan Blilie, Morgan Henderson, and Mark Gajadar (the remaining two-fifths of Blood Brothers + J Clark of Pretty Girls Make Graves have begun playing as Jaguar Love). Past Lives’ first release on the hard-hearted label will be a debut five-song EP, entitled Strange Symmetry, which will be available for mass consumption November 4, although you can get the digital version now.

Let there be song titles:

1. Beyond Gone
2. Strange Symmetry
3. Skull Lender
4. Reverse the Curse
5. Chrome Life

Got remaining live dates if you want it:
09.04.08 - San Francisco, CA - The Hemlock Tavern ^
09.06.08 - Portland, OR - Satyricon *
09.07.08 - Seattle, WA - Neumo’s +

^ Clipd Beaks, Leyna Noel, and The Finer Things

* Fucked Up, Crystal Antlers, Sex Vid, and Street Plants

+ Dead Science

102 Fans Arrested After Rage Against the Machine Show in Minneapolis

Rough week for Rage Against the Machine. Not only did they cause quite a stir on Tuesday by attempting to hop on stage for an impromptu gig nearby the Republican National Convention (TMT News), but their show last night at Minneapolis' Target Center eventually culminated in 102 arrests.

According to several reports, a crowd of roughly 200 (of 13,000+) left the Target Center and began marching down the streets of downtown Minneapolis after the show (which saw RATM wearing Guantanamo Bay detainee suits). More than 100 officers, most equipped with riot gear, greeted them outside. Witnesses say police used pepper spray on the crowd, while the Pioneer Press reported that "a group of officers in a six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle fired two rounds from what appeared to be either a beanbag or pellet gun."

Eventually the march thinned, and although there was reportedly no violence or damage, the police arrested 102 people, 30 for blocking traffic. This count adds to more than 320 people who have been arrested in Minneapolis and St. Paul since Saturday (many in pre-emptive raids).

Meanwhile, at the Republican National Convention, Rudy Giuliani spewed venom before Sarah Palin's "hi, this is me" speech, which also heavily criticized the Democrats. In response, Joe Biden claimed it was all style, no substance, while Barack Obama is expected to increase his diatribes in retaliation. There's nothing like showbiz!

Music Tapes’ Julian Koster Organizes Elephant 6 March Across America with The Holiday Surprise Tour; America Surprised, Pleased

The Holiday Surprise Tour, a spectacular series of shows organized by The Music Tapes frontman Julian Koster, is set to take place throughout October, featuring various members of the Elephant Six Collective. The shows will act as a salute to select members of the Athens-based, loosely-defined, tight-knit collective. Artists slated to be memorialized include Olivia Tremor Control, Circulatory System, The Music Tapes, Elf Power, The Gerbils, Scott Spillane, Nana Grizol, Nesey Gallons, and tons more. And it’s a pretty safe bet to assume that at least a handful of other Elephant Sixers will show up. Maybe even that one guy.

Koster described the whole extravaganza as “a big orchestra, variety show, silly happy thing,” according to Pitchfork. Want to go? You better want to. Here are the dates:

But wait, don’t go yet! I still need to tell you two more things! First, Koster will be releasing another album, The Singing Saw at Christmastime, October 7 via Merge, this time under his own name, not his Music Tapes moniker. Second, Orange Twin will be releasing a CD/DVD version of the decade-in-the-making short film Major Organ and the Adding Machine in the fall of 2009 (based on the crazy Koster/Mangum-related album from 2001). As an added bonus, the movie is also set to take its initial round of bows at The Holiday Surprise shows.

Wow! Music and movies! You better go to this show; the cool kids are all going to be there anyway, and you’re cool, right? Right.

Wolf Parade Announce Tour; I Get Closer to a Complete Set

I’m hoping that, by the end of the year, I will have accomplished a “complete set, mint” of all the news Spencer Krug feels fit to be in. In my personal quest to cover all Krug-related reports throughout the interweb and world as a whole, I have a couple brand new items for you! First off, Wolf Parade recently announced a quick little Euro-Trip throughout November and early December. Hopefully when they get back to North America, they’ll feel withdrawal from hamburgers and play throughout the States so I can see them live... so I can feel whole again. Here are the dates!

My second bit of news is a tad more on the personal side. While shopping at a “local” drug store, I observed Krug buying toothpaste and aspirin. I also scored a righteous interview:

Kid Midnight: Hey Spencer, can I call you Spencer? Wow! I love all your music! What’s going on?

Spencer Krug: Stay away from me, I got the court order.

Kid Midnight: But... I... I love you...

Napster Looking for Buyer… Again

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Seekers of free/unrestricted digital music, Nostalgic People, Rich People, lend me your ears!

I come to bury the current Napster, not to praise him;

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones,

So let it be with Napster... The noble Julbucket

Hath told you Napster was ambitious

For Julbucket is an honorable man;

So are they all; all honourable men)

Come I to speak in Napster’s funeral...

In 1999, He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

He hath brought many record labels home to court

Whose lawsuits did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Napster seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Napster hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Julbucket says he was ambitious;

And Julbucket is an honorable man.

Help Julbucket buy Napster.


I Would Go Out Tonight, But I Haven’t Got a Management Company Anymore: Morrissey and ie:music no longer BFF

Life is a process of giving and giving up, of growing and growing apart. As we get older, relationships change, and what may have seemed like the perfect partnership yesterday might seem, in some indiscernible way, to have gone irretrievably in the wrong direction tomorrow. Many of us learn these truths from teenage serial dramas such as Gossip Girl or Judy Blume novels. Others of us -- namely Tim Clark and David Enthoven of artist management firm ie: music -- learn when prized roster addition Morrissey departs from your company after only three months.

Yes, it's been a tough year for Morrissey. So if you see him, give him a hug and my cell phone number, so that we can meet up in a dimly-lit 15th-century pub and direct cutting but affectionate witticisms at one another into the wee morning hours. Because, as you may or may not know, Morrissey has not been having the best of luck lately. His most recent completed work, Years of Refusal, was slated for a fall release on Universal music, but was later pushed back to February 2, 2009 for "unspecified reasons." At this date, no North American label has agreed to release the project . To make matters worse, Warner Bros. -- Moz's former label -- announced this year the DVD release of Live at the Hollywood Bowl, which the former Smiths frontman decried to Billboard as being planned "without any consultation to me whatsoever, and in breach of their terms as laid out by themselves in an agreement made for the film between Warner and my ex-manager." And since, as they say, bad things come in threes, this story wouldn't be complete without a mention of how Years of Refusal producer Jerry Finn passed away last week.

Wow! What a cheery story this has been! My offer stands, Morrissey. You pick the place, I'll pick the absinthe, or red wine, or whatever it is I happen to imagine you drinking at the moment. And to any Minneapolis/St. Paul radio stations who happen to be reading this story, please play "This Handsome Devil" today while I am at work; it has been stuck in my head for a little over two weeks.

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