Wow! What a surprise! Our Icelandic queen of weird-sad-bastard-alternative music, Bj o rk, is primed to release another box set sometime in April.
This upcoming set, which will be a collection of Bj o rk's singles, comes after the recent wallet-buster releases of Greatest Hits and Family Tree (which reviewer Chris Ott fondly referred to as a "disaster"), the Live boxes, and seemingly endless DVD's. The singles box, which as of this writing was still unnamed, will contain every freaking Bj o rk single ever made. Bj o rk's official website nearly wetted itself in happiness over the news, saying: "It is the complete singles box.
Every single, mix and white label combined in one box." Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking.
Who's going to spend their hard earned skrilla on another collection of already-released music, we already bought the first two sets, who really needs another, etc. Does Bj o rk really need the extra cash? Is she bankrupt?
Well, hold on a second-- Bj o rk's site has the answer: "[The box set] is being released to cater for the demand for the obscure mixes which are no longer available, hard to get or were never released in some countries." Well, sweet! So, instead of downloading said mixes off Kazaa or Soulseek, you can lay down a Ulysses S.
Grant or two for them. Now, to be fair, this set has been in planning for a number of years now, and was originally slated some time ago to be released through label One Little Indian. As Bj o rk's site explains, "Looks like some sort of itch is setting in, because for seven years, we have had plans to make a SINGLES BOX SET and.
.. guess what-- that soup is being stirred again.
.. it certainly looks like it is has gotten a confirmed final release.
" Okay, fine, Bj o rk, I'll buy it. But release your next album already, dammit! The design for the box set is being done by the London-based design group Me Company.
Just thought I'd share. There's no official tracklist as of yet, but the singles expected to be included, in every possible combination and incarnation, are "Human Behaviour," "Venus As A Boy," "Big Time Sensuality," "Violently Happy," "Army Of Me," "Isobel," "It's Oh So Quiet," "Hyperballad," "Possibly Maybe," "I Miss You," "J o ga," "Bachelorette," "Hunter," "Alarm Call," "All Is Full Of Love," "Hidden Place," "Pagan Poetry," "Cocoon," and "It's In Our Hands." With more than twenty distinct variations of the "Human Behaviour" single alone, you can bet this will be a collector's dream (and an anal-retentive's nightmare).
Some noteworthy names have been added to the official Coachella Festival lineup, including Belle Sebastian, Le Tigre, Mogwai, Q and Not U, Erase Errata, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Ash, and Pitchfork 2003 best-of champions The Rapture. Rumored additions Death Cab For Cutie, Bright Eyes, Stereolab, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Basement Jaxx, Sage Francis, The Black Keys, DJ Danger Mouse and LCD Soundsystem have now signed on officially for the two day festival, the dates of which by now should be burned into your screen like a defective screensaver (May 1st and 2nd at Empire Polo Field in Indio, CA). Some other rumored Coachella acts including PJ Harvey, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Weezer, and the Streets have yet to report for rock-fest duty-- but not in a George W.
Bush say-you-played-there-even-though-no-one-remembers-it kind of way. For one thing, PJ Harvey may yet show as part of the latest incarnation of Queens of the Stone Age ringleader Josh Homme's Desert Sessions project, who are booked for May 1st. It's way worth mentioning that the authors of Pitchfork contributing curmudgeon Brent DiCrescenzo's current "worst song ever recorded" (though he says that about everything), The Killers, are booked for May 2nd.
"Worst. Song. Ever," DiCrescenzo hyperbolizes regarding the band's latest, "Indie Rock 'n' Roll": "Everyone download this and just put a pad on the floor under your jaw.
" So there's a little something for everyone. Full lineups are now posted on the official Coachella site linked below. Oh!
I almost forgot. Pixies. Radiohead, Kraftwerk, Pixies.
Pixies, Wilco, Radiohead, Flaming Lips, Pixies, Broken Social Scene, Rapture, Pixies. Radiohead Radiohead Radiohead, Pixies Pixies Kraftwerk Wilco. Death Cab, Stereolab, Rapture Rapture Pixies Pixies.
There, that oughta do it. Chik chik chik! Stars Tour U.
S. and Canada, Spawn Side Projects Stars' "soft revolution" took a foothold last year, when they made their mark with their bittersweet, boy-girl pop masterpiece Heart. And 2004 is shaping up to be the perfect follow-up to such a pivotal year.
Keep an eye out for two Stars side-projects to emerge sometime in 2004: vocalist/guitarist Amy Millan has completed her solo album, and Torquil Campbell also plans a release sometime this year under the moniker of Memphis. Memphis released an EP in 2002 (which also featured Ms. Millan), but this will be their first full-length effort.
Millan's yet-to-be-titled collection was produced by "Canadian musical legend" Ian Blurton and features members of Broken Social Scene, Metric, and other members of the Stars musical family. According to her management at Canada's Arts and Crafts, it incorporates some country flavors as well as the velvety pop we've come to expect. A release date has not been set.
But the big news at hand is the comprehensive North American tour, already underway in Canada. On March 2nd, the luscious foursome crosses the border to kick off the U.S.
leg in Seattle. They'll make their way to SXSW, pick up their Broken Social Scene buddies, and head east. Dates: 03-20 Houston, TX - Proletariat $ 03-23 Atlanta, GA - Echo Lounge (w/ Preston School of Industry, Broken Social Scene) 03-26 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts $
Sadly, not getting nearly as much play at lesbian bar as Kelis Good news for everyone!
The Modern Lovers' back catalog is getting expanded, album by album, by the wonderful Castle Music over in the UK. Back in August, Castle re-released the Modern Lovers' incredible, quintessential, and downright bad ass debut Modern Lovers. Recorded in 1973 and produced by John Cale, the first recording from Jonathan Richman and compatriots stands as one of their strongest.
Bound with problems from the start, the album wasn't first released until 1976, and has gone in and out of print over the past three decades. Castle's reissue of Modern Lovers sports eight bonus tracks, including the incredible "Government Center" (seriously one of the greatest songs ever fucking written), and alternate versions of three album tracks. Though the album has never been reviewed by the 'Fork, I'd wager a testicle it will rank in the 10.
5-11.8 range. Tracklist: What's more, the Modern Lovers' extremely difficult-to-find second album, 1977's Rock 'n' Roll with the Modern Lovers, is due for a re-release and expansion in March.
The album, which contains the Richman classics "Fly Into The Mystery" and "Egyptian Reggae," will include an extended version of "Dodge Veg-O-Matic" as a bonus. With and without the Modern Lovers, Richman has produced an astounding body of work, which has streamed continuously from his start in the '70s. While one of the most underrated songwriters of our time, Richman's knack for writing clever, timeless, and most of all lovable pop tunes has prompted his embrace as one of history's greatest songsmiths by those even vaguely familiar with his catalog.
His work is highly regarded among his peers-- David Bowie's cover of "Pablo Picasso" on last year's Reality being but the most recent example. If you haven't, track down any of many early (through the '70s and '80s) Richman recordings-- Modern Lovers, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, or the seminal compilation Beserkely Years are good places to start-- and be reminded how it feels to fall in love with music. The Pixies will apparently play their first live gig in more than a decade in Bost-- wait.
New York? Anaheim? Nope, make that Winnipeg, Manitoba on April 14th.
Though undoubtedly more popular-- and indeed, heard of-- in populated areas, the reformed Pixies are blazing a decidedly road-less-traveled itinerary for their 12-date North American tour leading up to a headlining appearance at the Coachella Festival in Indio, CA on May 1st. Most of the dates are in Canada-- giving Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia multiple-night engagements, with a handful of off-the-beaten-path U.S.
stops (Spokane, Boise, Eugene, Davis) on the road to Indio. Interestingly, the band has booked two nights at Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom, the infamous site of the Pixies' final two gigs in April 1992. New Musical Express reports that two London shows, at Brixton Academy June 2nd and 3rd, sold out "within minutes" of going on sale last week.
The Pixies reunion saga thus far:
Thanks to D D Anon, seems to have kicked the hobbit The fairies and dragons and elves are coming out to play this winter as the first lady of musical fantasy, Mary Timony, warms up the tour wagon for the first time in quite a while. Pitchfork spoke to Timony via e-mail, and confirmed that she will be heading out on a short tour in February in preparation for recording her next album, which should be taking a different direction from 2002's The Golden Dove. According to Timony, "the new stuff is in a more rocking-out style than the last record.
" However, apparently the next album will not be released on Matador, which has been home to Timony since Helium's Pirate Prude-- no word on what label will do the honor. Assisting her with the rocking-out will be Karate bassist Jeff Goddard and cellist Amy Domingues (Jenny Toomey, Fugazi, Jets to Brazil), who both contributed to The Golden Dove, and new drummer Devin Ocampo (Smart Went Crazy, Faraquet). Following this tour, the current plan is to head into the studio with Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty at Inner Ear this spring.
And in keeping with that comfortable indie nepotism, Domingues' band, Garland of Hours, which features Canty on bass and recently added the aforementioned Ocampo on guitar, will be opening for Timony on all dates. The specs: "S" for seminal. "U" for underground.
"P" for pop-punk. "E" for..
. uh..
. enema? Wait, what?
Forget that noise. Superchunk, roughly fifteen years into their career and still going strong, are one of the most famous obscure bands of our time. They were "indie" when it was more of a description of an ethic than of a style, and have remained so (still putting out their albums on bandleader Mac McCaughan's now-bigtime Merge Records) while many of their contemporaries symbiotically grafted their fates to the majors.
They helped to place Chapel Hill on the musical map and remain one of those bands you use to try and describe to a commercial rock fan what kind of music you listen to ("Stuff like, you know-- Superchunk...
Sonic Youth...
Fugazi."). Superchunk's career retrospective DVD, entitled Crowding Up Your Visual Field, will be released by Merge on February 17th.
Cam Carrithers, who shot the video interview and worked with McCaughan editing the documentary, hooked us up with an advance copy, and let us tell you: this thing is bursting with content! It includes all of Superchunk's music videos with optional band commentary-- from their first professional video, "Throwing Things" (shot in McCaughan's parents' yard), to the angst-ridden, sneering punk of "Precision Auto," to the mature yet playful power-pop of "Art Class." The DVD also includes the documentary Quest for Sleep, which was filmed by the band and documents their exploits on a 2001 tour through Japan, Europe and the U.
S. to support Here's To Shutting Up. It includes the aforementioned video interview/ band history and a metric ton of bonus material: four (mostly live) bonus videos, including a really fucked up animated one for "Ribbon," and ten songs worth of live footage from throughout Superchunk's career, including four songs from their first show ever, in Raleigh, NC from 1989.
These reek of grainy authenticity and glow with the soft halo of dormant, pre-realized potential, and may induce near-epileptic fits of nostalgia for long-time NC music aficionados. More than anything, Crowding Up Your Visual Field reminds one of the long shadow Superchunk casts not only over NC rock, but independent music in general, and of how they've stayed active and relevant for a decade and a half. Brrr, is it just me or is it getting all zeitgeisty in here?
Retrospectives like this are also bittersweet reminders that the subject's career will, at some point, be capped, even when it feels as if they'll persist into eternity. One day, the 'Chunk, too, shall pass-- leaving behind a towering legacy, thousands of miles of conquered road, and the scent of scorched ozone where they'd been. Tracklist: Legendary Talking Heads frontman (and the man Will Bryant calls the James Lipton of rock, thanks to his stint hosting Sessions at West 54th) David Byrne will release a new album, Grown Backwards, on March 16th.
The record features three covers: two arias (one by Georges Bizet, another by Giuseppe Verdi) and "The Man Who Loved Beer" by Nashville indie rockers Lambchop. The vocal talents of showtune queen Rufus Wainwright are featured in duet on Bizet's "Au Fond du Temple Saint." Always a master arranger, Byrne offers faithful renditions of his opera fare with the help of a Texan chamber group called the Tosca Strings, whom Byrne toured with in 2001.
While he achieves an overall mellow tone on the record, Byrne's taste in front-beats (African hand drumming, etc.) is indulged tastefully throughout, along with his penchant for the carnival. On the doo-wop number "The Other Side of This Life," Byrne turns his backup chamber strings into Buddy Holly's Crickets.
"The strings do everything that guitar or keyboards would normally do," Byrne explained to Rolling Stone. "The band is a groove thing-- pretty much me, drums, percussion and bass." Whether experimenting with trip-hop, opera or politics, Byrne's solo work has remained musically interesting.
And while his lyrics occasionally stray into the realm of heavy-handed rhetoric, the allegorical tales and straight talk ("I'm glad when the sex is not so great") keep his work interesting to the greatest of the unwashed. Tracklist: 01 Glass, Concrete and Stone Jeremy C. Baron and Will Bryant report: A My Bloody Valentine fansite has reported that two extensive anthology box sets and a DVD are in the works for possible release in late 2005 or early 2006.
Quoting a "reliable source" who mailed To Here Knows Web last month, the anthologies will be released by Island/Sire. "Contrary to popular belief, Kevin's contract to Island is still valid," webmaster Jeff Birgbauer writes. The first anthology box is designed for the "hardcore devotee," according to the source (the person who mailed To Here Knows Web, not the rap mag).
Possibly limited to "a few thousand" copies, the box will include digitally remastered copies of MBV's early albums, singles, and EP's-- as well as a double-disc compilation titled Live 1984-97 which will include "the best performances" from My Bloody Valentine's pre-Glider period. Expected to be included: The New Record By..
. EP (1986) Little is known about the planned DVD release, but it is expected to contain all of the band's music videos, three live shows, television interviews, and "homemade camcorder footage," according to the post on To Here Knows. With increased exposure for frontman Kevin Shields (who recently scored Sofia Coppola's Oscar-nominated Lost In Translation and was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Award) and MBV, will there finally be new material in the future?
In various recent interviews, Shields has been typically noncommittal. In a September 2003 interview with alternative newsweekly Now Toronto, Shields says that the group "always intended" to make another MBV record, it's just never come together. "There's a whole aspect of My Bloody Valentine that we never really had a chance to explore," Shields told the newsweekly.
Shields, who continues to write and record music in his home studio, may release a short album of his own compositions instead, however: "The purpose for building [my studio] isn't so that I can produce bands, it's so I can do my own music," Shields told Filter magazine back in December. "If the world doesn't end before we're all dead, then of course there will be quite a few records. But if the world ends in the next ten years, who knows?
" Ah, now that's what we wanted to hear-- future album plans contingent on armageddon! Strokes Touring U.S.
, Mexico In March and April The Strokes take off March 9th on a great and wide tour, spanning our nation from coast to coast to Minneapolis, in support of their latest incarnation of Is This It, last year's self-derivative Room on Fire (that's not a bad thing, by the way. Though both Strokes albums sound like they came from the exact same recording session, they remain quite good, regardless of what your jaded girlfriend or that record store pussy with the mod hair says). These hunks broke enough new ground on the first record (placing C.
W. McCall's citizen band over the mouth of Lou Reed was an inspired schtick) to earn some sophomore slack. And they don't take much, so don't hate.
Congratulate. I saw the Strokes in person on their first American tour. Though the Moldy Peaches opened--erased from my mind like an uncle's touch-- and the Strokes' played only 35 minutes, I dug their set.
It was an excercise in perfection. Really. For the first time in my life I got to see a band play its record flawlessly and to a tee: syncopated beats, implied denim jacket openings/closings and everything.
No fuckups. Commendable, really. These kids were the real deal.
The merch table looked like a goddamn Chinese cockfight. Bills in the air, lunchboxes lying everywhere. Haven't seen the boys since.
Might be nice to check them out again this time. See if the booze and overall drudgery of touring have set in a bit; left my old Showbiz Pizza Bear more a Crazy Horse. Truth: Anyone who hangs out with Guns 'n' Roses-- even if Duff is on the clock-- is cool.
Scream loud enough; Nikolai might've learnt to spit n' ketch it: 03-12 North Myrtle Beach, SC - House of Blues 03-15 Lake Buena Vista, FL - House of Blues Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover?
Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.
News RSS