Lauryn Hill receives three-month prison sentence from big government robber barons
So, if you’re like me (and I really hope you are because I feel very alone right now) you’ve been following this whole Lauryn Hill tax evasion story closer than a Joy Division reference. You’ve also no doubt seen our previous coverage of the developments in which our Liz Louche loosely compared the folks at Sony to the likes of the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. Well, now the story’s changed and I’ve got one thing to say: Santa Claus is dead and we have killed him.
Okay, I’ve actually got a couple more things to say than that, but most of them are about how Sony are a bunch of jerks, and how, with all due respect, I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with Liz Louche about the whole Santa Claus/fairy godparents connection (actually, fwiw, I’m starting to wonder if corporate record labels really only care about money, and not at all about the smiles that may or may not light up our little faces come Christmas/Easter/Monday morning).
First, according to the Associated Press, it turns out Lauryn Hill is going to prison after all, despite her recently inked deal with Sony. She’ll spend three months in prison and an additional three months in “home confinement.” #thanksSony, am I right? I mean, it’s not her fault she got a little “mis-educated” about tax policy. You had one job, Sony! Geez. It gets worse though. Apparently the corporate suits at Sony are forcing Ms. Hill to fulfill her five-song contract EVEN THOUGH THEY DID NOT STOP UNCLE SAM FROM SENDING HER TO THE CLINK. Un-freaking-real! I’ll even bet the bigwigs at Sony are in bed with some of the mediumwigs at the IRS, trying to squeeze every last ounce of creative and monetary blood, sweat, and tears out of her. For her part, Ms. Hill is exuding all sorts of rebellious energy, throwing off the shackles of corporate control the best way she knows how: by adding a parenthetical onto the title of her song, “Neurotic Society (Compulsory Mix).” Get it! You can find her note about the song on her Facebook, and purchase the song from iTunes.
• Lauryn Hill: http://www.lauryn-hill.com
• Heartless Corporate Monsters: http://www.sonymusic.com
Boyd Rice and Cold Cave announce tour; maybe they’ll change things up this time and wear Hawaiian shirts?
Boyd Rice gets around like a cat in heat. He’s worked with everyone up to and including Frank Tovey, Coil, Chris and Cosey, and David Tibet. Now he is teaming with Wes Eisold of Cold Cave to bring doom, gloom, and that wonderful brew of industrial he does so well to exactly 10 cities in North America.
*sigh*
Really, here’s hoping this is the tour he finally pulls out all the stops and goes full Tiki. No more black curtains, hyper-bright aggressive spotlights, and ambiguous use of Nazi imagery. It’s time for little wooden Tiki idols, Hawaiian shirts, and Zombies with little fiddly umbrellas in them. His synthesizer will be covered in dashboard hula girls that’ll be rocking out right along with him. Maybe he can draw little pentagrams on their tummies, just to keep all parties satisfied. I don’t know if all this would fit with his most recent album, Back to Mono, which I’d imagine is the focus of this tour, but a boy can dream. Maybe dreaming hard enough will get us all an appearance by The Rock Cats.
Boyd Rice/NON June tourdates:
06.14.13 - Los Angeles, CA - Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock
06.15.13 - San Francisco, CA - Public Works
06.19.13 - Philadelphia, PA - Morgan’s Pier
06.20.13 - Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel
06.22.13 - Columbus, OH - Skullys Music Diner
06.24.13 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
06.25.13 - Pontiac, MI - Pike Room at The Crofoot
06.26.13 - Toronto, ON - The Shop at Parts & Labor
06.28.13 - Cambridge, MA - TT the Bear’s
06.29.13 - Brooklyn, NY - 285 Kent
• Boyd Rice/NON: http://www.boydrice.com
• Cold Cave: http://coldcave.net
• The Rock Cats: http://www.circuscats.com/rockcats.html
Mac DeMarco announces summer US/Canada tour, shares new video imbued with creep-magic
A new era is upon us. The old ways no longer make sense. The stars no longer chart our courses. A new animal had to be added to the Chinese Zodiac, that’s how CRAZY shit is getting. That new animal is gap-toothed rock ‘n’ roll charmer Mac DeMarco, the Montreal weirdo pop madman who has been steadily conquering the supple, pliant, silky eardrums of music fans everywhere, a man who’s basically the living, walking, breathing embodiment of a Tiger Beat cover from Hell. He’s partying with snakes and tigers and rats and what-have-you, turning fortune cookies into cookie DUST with one fateful strum of his guitar. And now this wild, flannel-loving genius is coming to a town near you, and you, and YOU! Yes, even you, Saskatchewan. It is a new era indeed.
Mac’s hitting the road this summer for an epic US/Canada tour, featuring stops at Halifax, Nova Scotia’s OBEY Festival, Tennessee’s Bonnaroo, Calgary’s Sled Island Festival, Quebec City’s Summer Festival (someone take me to this, it sounds Frenchified and wonderful), and wrapping up at Chicago’s Pitchfork Fest. Dude just finished a huge tour with Phoenix, so you know his tourin’ shoes are still tap-tap-tapping at the door to get out again. Until that first June tour date, however, fans will have the creepy magic of the Alex Lill-directed video for “My Kind of Woman” to keep them warm (or chilled, depending on how you respond to DeMarco’s crazed Joker eyes and spidery mascara.)
Dates:
06.06.13 - Halifax, NS - OBEY Festival
06.13.13 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl (Panache Northside Festival Showcase) *
06.14.13 - Raleigh, NC - Kings Barcade
06.15.13 - Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Festival
06.16.13 - Bloomington, IN - Russian Recording
06.18.13 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry
06.20.13 - Calgary, AB- Sled Island Festival
06.21.13 - Calgary, AB - Sled Island Festival
06.22.13 - Calgary, AB - Sled Island Festival
06.24.13 - Edmonton, AB - Wunderbar
06.25.13 - Saskatoon, SK - Vangelis Tavern
06.26.13 - Winnipeg, MB - The Park Theatre
06.27.13 - Fargo, ND - The Aquarium
06.28.13 - Madison, WI - University of Wisconsin
06.29.13 - Ann Arbor, MI - The Blind Pig
06.30.13 - Toronto, ON - The Hoxton
07.13.13 - Quebec City, QC - Le Cercle (Quebec City Summer Festival)
07.20.13 - Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Festival
* White Fence, Walter TV
• Mac DeMarco: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mac-DeMarco/301768729858252
• Captured Tracks: http://capturedtracks.com
Deerhunter announce tons of tourdates to support some new punk album I read about on NPR
You’re never going to believe this, readers, but the Atlanta-based “dirty-southern” punk band Deerhunter just had the best idea that anyone’s ever had! (I’m pretty sure Bradford Cox either thought of it himself or cleverly appropriated it from an idea jointly hatched at some historically significant moment in rock’s past by Iggy Pop and John Cage). See, they had a new album come out yesterday, and on the SAME DAY, they announced a gigantic tour of Europe, North America, and beyond for the next thousand months that starts pretty much next week!
Don’t you see the genius here? Now they can play music from the new record AT these live shows, thereby simultaneously increasing the likelihood that a) fans who don’t own the record will be won over by what they hear and see from the stage and proceed to purchase it based on the positive concert experience they’ve just had; and b) fans who arrive at the show having previously purchased the album will have their affinity for certain tracks reinforced by experiencing the presumably more visceral and immediate “live versions” of those tracks, thereby sorta “sealing the deal,” as it were, on those fans’ general, you know, geeked-out love of Deerhunter. In other words, they’ve found a way to LITERALLY turn commerce on its METAPHORICAL EAR and impregnate that ear with John Lennon’s frozen semen to create a true post-historical Gesamtkunstwerk of Art-commerce metafusion! Well, the whole idea is actually all a little more “Berlin” than that, but you get the idea.
Deerhunter dates (I know a lot of these sound suspiciously like venues, but trust me, they are all garages):
05.18.13 - Utrecht, Netherlands - Ekko Le Guess Who Festival
05.20.13 - Groningen, Netherlands - Vera
05.21.13 - Brussels, Belgium - AB Club
05.22.13 - Paris, France - La Trianon
05.23.13 - Barcelona, Spain - Primavera
05.30.13 - Porto, Portugal - Optimus Primavera Sound
06.07-09.13 - New York, NY - Governor’s Ball
06.21-23.13 - Camber Sands, UK - ATP Festival
08.23.13 - Phoenix, AZ - Crescent Ballroom
08.27.13 - Sacramento, CA - Hawlow’s
08.30.13 - Vancouver, BC - Rickshaw
08.31.13 - Victoria, BC - Sugar
08.31-09-02.13 - Seattle, WA - Bumbershoot
09.03-08.13 - Portland, OR - Music Fest Northwest
09.06.13 - Salt Lake City, UT - Urban
09.07.13 - Denver, CO - Bluebird
09.09.13 - Minneapolis, MN - Fineline
09.10.13 - Chicago, IL - The Metro
09.11.13 - Cleveland, OH - Beachland
09.12.13 - Toronto, ON - Phoenix Concert Theatre
09.13.13 - Columbus, OH - Skully’s
09.16.13 - Boston, MA - Royale
09.20.13 - Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer
09.21.13 - Washington DC - 9:30 Club
09.22.13 - Chapel Hill, NC - Cat’s Cradle
12.01.13 - Tokyo, Japan - Hostess Club Weekender
• Deerhunter: http://4ad.com/artists/deerhunter
• 4AD: http://4ad.com
[Photo: Harley Brown]
Neutral Milk Hotel add more reunion shows, boost online traffic
Get this: Neutral Milk Hotel reunite for a small world tour. I report this. A week passes — they announce 11 more shows, from Baltimore to Chattanooga to Melbourne. I’m on it again. So far so good.
But now I get word of another batch of shows in the East and Midwest being announced sometime in the near future. This I can’t report on. I really want to, but it’s impossible. The details just haven’t been released yet. It’s actually kind of bullshit. These new shows are fine, but what about the shows we don’t know anything about? Why don’t we know what they are? I’d like to know. These new dates are old now and I want the newer ones. I want them. Give me the newer dates. What are they.
10.11.13 - Baltimore, MD - 2640 Space (St. John’s Church) *
10.12.13 - Richmond, MA - The National *
10.14.13 - Covington, KY - Madison Theater *
10.15.13 - Urbana, IL - The Canopy Club *
10.18.13 - Memphis, TN - Minglewood Hall *
10.19.13 - Chattanooga, TN - Track 29 *
10.20.13 - Birmingham, AL - Iron City *
10.22.13 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club *
10.23.13 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club #
10.25.13 - Asheville, NC - Thomas Wolfe Auditorium (Mountain Oasis Festival) $%
10.26.13 - Atlanta, GA - The Tabernacle $
11.10.13 - Melbourne, Australia - Harvest
11.16.13 - Sydney, Australia - Harvest
11.17.13 - Brisbane, Australia - Harvest
11.28.13 - Taipei, Taiwan - Hostess Club Taipei
12.01.13 - Tokyo, Japan - Hostess Club Weekender
* Elf Power
$ Half Japanese
% Daniel Johnston
• Neutral Milk Hotel: http://walkingwallofwords.com
Chromatics and Symmetry among the upcoming artists demonstrating how Italians (still) Do It Better
The bedazzled disco witches over at Italians Do It Better are stirring up a few new releases/reissues/whatever-ya-wanna-call-‘em at some undisclosed, mysterious point in the near future. Disco witches never reveal their secrets… until their magic ear potions are almost up in stores, of course. Witches are capitalists, too, y’all! Anyway, the tripped-out Candyland world that brought you Chromatics and Symmetry is bringing you some more of what you like, with a virtual cornucopia of releases from said artists.
Conjured up from some seriously magickal spellwork comes the vinyl version of Chromatics’ Running from the Sun release, which includes a bunch of gems from the Kill for Love (TMT Review) sessions that didn’t make it onto that album. These include an alternate take on the track “Kill for Love” and a cover of the Rodgers and Hart song that made yer grandma squeal, “Blue Moon.” The disco witches have also stewed up a couple 12-inch releases of previously released tracks “Cherry” and “Tick of the Clock.” Plus: The Messenger, an album by label wizard Johnny Jewel’s Symmetry project that only got a promo release back in 2011 but is now getting a proper vinyl release. Look for these in stores on a date that is not today.
Chromatics’ Running From the Sun tracklisting:
01. Dreaming in Color
02. Red Car
03. Kill for Love
04. Last Wish
05. Running From the Sun
06. Disintegration
07. These Streets Will Never Look the Same
08. Blue Moon
Chromatics’ Tick of the Clock 12-inch tracklisting:
01. Tick of the Clock (Film Edit)
02. Tick of the Clock (Visione’s The Stroke of Midnight Remix)
03. Tick of the Clock (Extended Overdrive)
Chromatics’ Cherry 12-inch tracklisting:
01. Cherry
02. Candy (Original Version)
03. Headlight’s Glare
04. Ceremony (ft. Ida No)
05. At Your Door
06. Cherry (I Can’t Keep Running)
07. Vertigo
08. Cherry (Instrumental)
Symmetry’s The Messenger tracklisting:
01. Recurring Dream
02. The Messenger
03. Vanishing Point
04. Carousel
05. Waiting Room
06. Uptown Rain
07. Thicker Than Blood
08. Roulette
09. Lost In Time
10. Tunnel Vision
11. Surface Control
12. The Dancer
13. The Hunt
• Chromatics: http://www.facebook.com/CHROMATICSBAND
• Symmetry/Johnny Jewel: https://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel
• Italians Do It Better: http://vivaitalians.blogspot.com
Raster Noton expands their catalogue of minimalist, computer-based rhythms with Aoki Takamasa’s RV8
I used to lay my head next to my computer at work and pretend that the little noises coming from inside of it were the sounds of a muffled, itty-bitty club playing electronic music. Often my boss would come over, place a hand on my shoulder and quietly ask if I was alright. My response, always without lifting my head or moving, was “shhhh, I can’t hear the miniature dance party in my computer while you’re talking.”
Thank heavens I found out about Raster Noton and their brand of groovy computer minimalism; those visits to the in-house psychologist were beginning to wear on me. And with their impending release of Aoki Takamasa’s album RV8 I will, in the event that I get sent back there, have something to play the psychologist whilst I say “see SEE, this is what the tiny disco in my computer sounds like.” It will probably be a longer session, but totally worth it to make her understand the joy of beeping computers.
Humble reader, I implore you: watch the newly-released video for “Rhythm Variation 06” below, directed by Hisaki Ito, and then place you ear next to your computer and be still. Are the sounds not similar? Does the fun-size fiesta move through you? If you have been converted, consider gripping a copy of RV8 when it lands on June 11 and playing it for your office. Let the diminutive RAM rave breathe in them as well.
RV8 tracklisting:
01. Rhythm Variation 01
02. Rhythm Variation 02
03. Rhythm Variation 03
04. Rhythm Variation 04
05. Rhythm Variation 05
06. Rhythm Variation 06
07. Rhythm Variation 07
08. Rhythm Variation 08
• Aoki Takamasa: http://www.aokitakamasa.com
• Raster Noton: http://www.raster-noton.net
Rivers Cuomo announces Japanese-language album made with guy from Allister, evidently is in possession of my high school journal
When I was 17, I listened to Weezer’s 1996 record Pinkerton, the record that made public Rivers Cuomo’s fascination with Japan, every day. If I wasn’t listening to Pinkerton, I was probably listening to Alkaline Trio or the 2003 Warped Tour compilation CD. That compilation contained a song by the pop-punk group Allister called “Somewhere on Fullerton.” While I enjoyed that song at the time, I have never thought of Allister outside of that particular context.
As Pitchfork reports, Rivers Cuomo and Scott Murphy, formerly of Allister, have made a self-titled Japanese-language record under the name Scott & Rivers, released by Delicious Deli (a Universal Music Japan imprint). Clearly, Rivers Cuomo has gained possession of my high school diary. How did he get it? Actually, my high school diary was just a LiveJournal page. How does Rivers Cuomo know about my high school LiveJournal?
Anyway, the record is out now in digital format through Delicious Deli and Universal Music Japan. You can watch the video for the record’s first single “Homely Girl” below. It sounds basically about how you might expect, while also probably being better than every Weezer song of the past five years. There’s also a tracklist, which you can see below. You might note that “Butterfly” is on that tracklist and, also, that “Butterfly” is the name of the last song on Pinkerton. Is it the same song, but in Japanese? I have no idea.
Scott & Rivers tracklist:
01. Break Free
02. Homely Girl
03. Freakin’ Love My Life
04. おかしいやつ
05. 朝は近い
06. 終わりのないこの詩
07. 遠く離れても
08. I Need Somebody
09. はじける
10. ほどけていたんだ
11. Butterfly
12. 君と二人で
• Scott & Rivers: https://www.facebook.com/scottandrivers
• Rivers Cuomo: http://riverscuomo.com
• Delicious Deli: http://www.universal-music.co.jp/delideli
Sled Island: a place where Swans, Mount Eerie, and The Jesus and Mary Chain share tunes and cheery mugs of cocoa
Sled Island! It sounds like a magical winter playground where it’s never uncomfortably cold, snowmen dance and sing with you, and everyone’s skis are made of candy canes. Sled Island! Yes, that’s right: for seven years, Calgary, Alberta has kept the plains rockin’ with its wondrously-named festival, and this year over 250 bands will converge upon good old Stampede City, which is, according to Wikipedia, a nickname for this fair town situated “in an area of foothills and prairie.” Sounds bucolic!
From June 19-22, the likes of OFF!, The Thermals, The Besnard Lakes, and Suuns will descend upon this hard rockin’ prairie city, taking over 30 or so downtown Calgary venues. Art! Film! Comedy! It’s all there at Sled Island, where Swans wander into gumdrop forests to build snowmen that sing Mac DeMarco songs and everyone toasts each other with a cheery mug of hot cocoa spiked with heavy quantities of cheap whiskey. The lineup also includes The Jesus and Mary Chain, Explosions in the Sky, Divine Fits, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Iceage, Superchunk, Colin Stetson, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Torche, Metz, Tim Hecker, Thee Oh Sees, The Night Marchers, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, John K. Samson, Mount Eerie, BadBadNotGood, Ryan Hemsworth, White Lung, Javelin, The Ghostlamp Killer, Jerusalem Is My Heart, Keys N’ Krates, Ken Mode, THEESatisfaction, Samantha Savage Smith, Renny Wilson, Cousins, and Pete Swanson.
And, of course, like 200+ more bands. Tickets are available online, so nab ‘em.
• Sled Island: http://www.sledisland.com
Matias Aguayo advocates spontaneously dancing into your neighbors’ homes, announces The Visitor LP for June release on Cómeme
So, the crux of this article should understandably center around the news of Matias Aguayo announcing his first album in four years, but it would be a mistake to assume that the Chilean-born producer/DJ, what with his palpable energy and gibberish-laden enthusiasm for ice cream, had ever really been absent from the music scene. Sure, we can point to his recent contributions to the annual Kompakt compilations, but what else has he been doing since Ay Ay Ay (TMT Review), aside from making cl-cl-clubgoers around the world realize the faults of boilerplate minimal techno?
The Visitor will be released on June 24, and it’ll be Aguayo’s first via Cómeme, the label that he founded in 2009, and has been pushing as an international (though mostly South American) beacon for musical integrity ever since. As far as album titles go, this one’s duly fitting when you consider both Aguayo’s personal history and the production of the record itself. Aguayo was raised in Germany, has otherwise lived in both France and Argentina, and The Visitor was recorded, according to Resident Advisor, over a five-year period in locations around the world, including Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, France, and Germany. I’m not a fan of the term either, but I’ll bite down for the sake of its appropriateness — you’re a citizen of the world, Matias.
Joining him on the record are fellow Cómemers Phillipp Gorbachev, Daniel Maloso, Ana Helder, and Alejandro Paz, as well as numerous guest vocalists. Adding to the credit intrigue, Scott Monteith a.k.a. Deadbeat handled the mixing duties. Pluralize the title, and listen to the obscenely groovy track “El Sucu Tucu” below.
The Visitor tracklisting:
01. RRRR
02. Dead Inspector
03. By the Graveyard
04. Llegó El Don
05. Una Fiesta Diferente
06. El Sucu Tucu
07. Aonde
08. El Camaron
09. Do You Wanna Work
10. Levantate Diegors
11. Las Cruces
12. A Certain Spirit
• Matias Aguayo: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Matias-Aguayo/17836647687
• Cómeme: http://www.musicacomeme.com
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