Having returned from what we presume was some kind of holiday reprieve, the band called is back in the recording saddle again, according to a post by today on , the quintet s often-cryptic blog.
we have staRTed up again had a good today, wrote Yorke. Our experts in the field of hypertext are also working on a version of 15Step [a new song they ve been recently] and rebuilding our studio in the wind.

We hope this one fares better than the one they built on the moon last year.
And, holy Moses, they re still supporting causes as well. This time Thom urges us to sign against nuclear proliferation, and if you ever want to see another Radiohead album again, you d damn well better do it.

You can still catch Thom Yorke performing live on Nigel Godrich s downloadable web-programme, . And, , Jonny Greenwood will deliver his reggae compilation Jonny Greenwood Is the Controller, on March 6. Finally, it s not too late to enter the , held as part of the D AD Global Student Awards.

Get those entries in by March 23, or else, you know, no Radiohead. We re warning you.
Sure, it s only three shows.

And they re all in the same city, at the same venue, on three consecutive nights. But this is we re talking about, people, and the name alone is reason enough for whole lot of folks out there to get batshit excited.
So here we have it, the reprise to Morrissey s 2006 U.

S. excursions, a three-date stint at Pasadena, California s . Expect jams from last year s , expect old favorites from the Moz and Smiths back catalogues, except much swooning, and expect boyfriends to propose to their girlfriends (and vice versa) during the mandolin swell on Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want .

I mean, who could refuse that?
As a playful Moz told a London crowd last May (as quoted on NME.com), I was horrified but not surprised to see the UK fail again in the Eurovision Song Contest, and there is one question I keep an asking: why didn t they ask me?

That question keeps going round my head.
Taking the joke further, Morrissey s You Have Killed Me depicts the charismatic singer performing in the song contest circa 1970.
But it seems most of that Eurovision chatter is haberdash.

While the BBC has admitted to inviting Morrissey to partake, according to a in The Independent, the former Smiths frontman is not likely to accept. He has certainly had an invitation, a representative from told the paper, but we think it is unlikely he will be taking this forward.
In related news, the , Moz-centric photo exhibition is now showing at New York City s .

Featuring s candid shots of the pope of mope and his congregation in action, it remains open though February 10. Spazz out enough at those upcoming California gigs, Moz-ites, and you just might make the next exhibition. Postal Service Cheat on USPS-- With UPS!

Now, honestly, we re not ones to gossip over here at Pitchforkmedia.com, but OH. MY.

GAWD. You won t believe who we saw together during the Bears game this past Sunday!!

(Aside: GO BEARS).
Being superfans of , our ears perk up whenever snippets from Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello s heartfelt electro-pop project slip into movie trailers and such (Zach Braff = hottie 2 teh maxxx!!

), so of course we were at full attention when those warm, opening chords from Such Great Heights came wafting through our cathode ray tubes Sunday afternoon.
Ben and Jimmy get around, sure, but here s the kicker: the tune served as the backdrop in a commercial for-- you won t believe this-- !!

! As in, the United Parcel Service? As in, like, the chief rival of the real postal service, the ?

?
As any discerning gossip-hound knows, the Postal Service and the USPS ever since they kissed and made up after all that . They even talked about cross-marketing campaigns, which can only mean it was true love.

So what on earth are Ben and Jimmy doing with this UPS tramp? I mean, UPS gets around all over the world, if you know what we re saying. And UPS is the first to admit that it s fast.

Catch our drift? We tried reaching those players in the Postal Service for comment, but no such luck.
If you still don t believe us, just click (and select TV Spots) for all the cold, hard, brown-hued evidence you need.

The Postal Service even soundtrack the UPS website!
So okay, maybe we re jumping to conclusions here. Maybe the Postal Service and the USPS are taking a break, or maybe they re in an open business relationship?

Rest assured, once we get the skinny in all its scandalous glory, we ll totally pass you a note during study hall. For those of you who missed this mess , -- a name we can barely bring ourselves to type it s so awful-- has uploaded a video chronicle of his beef with to YouTube. With the Notorious B.

I.G. s What s Beef?

playing underneath, the video begins with footage of You Know Who walking around in the Mezzanine s parking lot. It goes on to cover Lady Sovereign s show, the audience s chanting of Battle Jelly Donut! and his subsequent expulsion from the club at her request.

It ends with him freestyling back out in the parking lot before quickly recapping the entire event and flashing the words Bring it. Immediately after the video was uploaded, the Bay Area s idiot white boy quotient rose to dangerously high levels. For those still suffering from the side effects, long walks outside, deep breaths of fresh air, and repeat listenings to Tell Me When to Go are all valid cures for the specific form of depression caused by watching this video.

What a week for Lady Sovereign! The ecstasy of victory, the agony of defeat. Playboy bunnies, jelly donuts.

Late night television. It all started Monday night, January 8, when Sov performed at San Francisco s Mezzanine club (a make-up show for when she was sick back in November). However, this wasn t an ordinary performance.

It was a battleground. Remember that guy in San Francisco who raised $10,000 to take Lady Sovereign on a ? And remember how she after the date?

Well, that guy brought a friend on the date. And that guy happens to be a rapper. A rapper who calls himself .

And who dresses up like a giant donut. Which he did at the Lady Sovereign show at the Mezzanine on Monday night. And challenged Sov to a rap battle.

Sov was not having it. Apparently, she spit on, poured Red Bull on, and eventually kicked out the man in the donut costume. However, the crowd was on Jelly Donut s side, bombarding her with chants of BATTLE JELLY DONUT!

and pieces of paper with an image of a donut on them (provided by the man himself, of course). We still don t really understand why she turned him down. It s a great publicity stunt!

Look at the Decemberists: what would have happened if they said no to Stephen Colbert?

Albert Hammond Jr., Final Fantasy, Sebastian of DFA1979 to open have announced a North American tour, but that isn t the biggest piece of Bloc Party news today.

It seems that frontman Kele Okereke kinda sorta came out of the closet in an published yesterday in The Guardian. Apparently, some songs on Bloc Party s forthcoming second album (due February 6 on ), are about homosexual love, which leads writer Craig McLean to ask about Okereke s sexuality, a topic he usually dances around. And while Okereke seems to be on the verge of some sort of confession, he ultimately states, It s not something that I d be inclined to talk.

..It isn t black and white.

It isn t clear-cut. So maybe he s bisexual? Who knows?

Who cares? (A lot of people, obviously. Not that there s anything wrong with that!

) Anyway, none of that has anything to do with the matter at hand: that Bloc Party are headed Stateside for the first time since their . And this time, they re bringing along some much hipper friends: the Strokes Albert Hammond Jr., Final Fantasy, Sebastien Grangier (formerly of Death From Above 1979), the Like, and Smoosh, are all slated to open various dates of the trek, which takes up much of March.

British and Japanese tours precede the North American jaunt. Tomorrow, January 9, The Prayer remix EP will become available exclusively on iTunes, featuring remixes by Paul Phones Epworth and Does It Offend You, Yeah?, among others.

Also, The Prayer 7 , including the b-side England , will be given away for free with purchase of A Weekend in the City by certain independent music stores. So support yr local mom n pop.

Yeah, that's pretty much all we know Since we paid a visit to Pumpkinland (i.

e. ), Pumpkins drummer has continued enthusiastically babbling nonsense about the progress of the band s MACHINA follow-up/reunion record.
Though the exact constituency of the band is still unknown, Chamberlin assures us via the Pumpkins MySpace that, The drums are finished, and that, We have been very busy carving up the sonic landscape with oceans of guitars and a sea of fuzz bass.

We are four songs deep and about a hundred guitars in! Those wondering what sonic touchstones the record might have would do well to take a look at the following Chamberlin shout-out: We would like to thank the Grateful Dead, Rush, [and] Billy Thorpe for their guidance in this hour of need. Honestly, though the promise of engaging Pumpkin prog seems pretty empty at this point, they could do much worse.

According to an entry from the Pumpkins webmistress, fans hungry to set sail on the band s guitar oceans will get the chance to see them live this summer at some European festivals. Vagueness from the Pumpkins camp? You don t say!

In her defense, however, she explained, As for which ones, that s still being finalized, so hold tight!
The Pumpkins webmistress also responded to the recent leak of four demo tracks allegedly from the recent studio sessions by saying, OH! And those Baker Demo leaks.

.. well, we read it was a Brit band who was behind that.

Don t worry Simon, no one s gonna sue you. The band got a kick out of the story. The Simon she refers to is the lead singer of , the London band who leaked their own songs masquerading as Pumpkins demos via a torrent site as a prank.

Pretty clever, actually. Ah, the Internet. Where nothing is sacred, and where if something exists, you can damn well bet it will find its way onto a blog at some point-- especially if that something remotely involves .

Such was the case for handful of O demos collected on a CD-R labeled KO at Home and left in a suitcase at s former residence by a friend. Apparently a private gift to the TV on the Radio guitarist from Karen, the demos found their way onto the blogosphere the other day after someone (a certain Mike ) found the suitcase and thought it apt to share them with the world. Fair enough, maybe you would too?

Anyhow, mistakenly thinking this Mike had rifled through his trash or obtained the demos by some other dubious means, Sitek posted a pretty gosh darn enraged diatribe on his yesterday evening, essentially tearing the O-leaker a new orifice and declaring him worse than a GREEDY CORPORATION .
This prompted an apology e-mail from Mike himself, which in turn prompted Sitek to write a follow-up post on his blog today, essentially apologizing for the outburst-- and a valuable lesson was learned by all!
By flipping out i connected with something i had lost, wrote Sitek, Springer Final Thought stylee.

i am not taking down the post because i want to be reminded how much of an ass i can be, and if i forget , i am comforted by the fact that the blogs...

the web...

will always be there to remind me. i really do need to get offline . in a real way.

I ll drink to that.
Here s Dave s original post, followed by the apology: s Alex Kapranos is one of the world s coolest dudes, beloved by rock and alike, with an , a position on just about every Best Dressed list, and even a side career as a . So what does such a suave, cosmopolitan dude do on a Saturday night?

He hangs out with a bunch of hairy shirtless guys in a Ukranian Hall in Vancouver. That s right: this past Saturday, December 2, Kapranos was a surprise guest at Ridiculously Early Xmas Party , belting Franz s Take Me Out backed by members of and Mint band . It was all captured on glorious video, and uploaded to YouTube.

Click on the magic box below and watch Evaporators frontman (and notorious multi-media rabble-rouser) pull off a keyboard solo while crowd-surfing, then pull Kapranos and his Cribs buddies up on stage. Bask in the glory that is Kapranos scruffy beard and moustache, as he hams it up singing his band s hit while standing next to an enormous bare-chested guy playing the bass. And finally, feel the suspense as Nardwuar leaps off of a keyboard stand and onto the outstretched hands of Kapranos and his stage-mates.

be Living With the Living on March 20, as the gang has revealed that phrase as the title of their new album. and Army Bound (which can be heard, in demo form, by clicking the link below). So yeah, it s safe to say that the record is politically charged, though reportedly not openly so.

scheduled-- two December gigs in Seattle (one with Death Cab for Cutie, and one as part of s ), and, as , one March slot at a North American tour, some of it with Leo s brother Chris group, Vague Angels. On November 24, the siblings and their respective bands stopped by Asheville s Grey Eagle, and, according to text and video accounts from Pitchfork reader Jason Martinez, things got a little rowdy. front row that was on something or really, really wasted, Martinez writes.

He was dancing really weird-like. At the encore he got up on stage and took hold of the microphone and started yelling at the crowd, calling them boring because they weren t dancing and going as crazy as he was. So some guys took him off Treble in Trouble .

During the middle track, the aforementioned guy in the front row starts a scuffle. Fortunately, Leo manages to break it up Ted Leo is so Punk Rock!!

! Martinez commented. John Darnielle, El-P Guest on Aesop Rock LP
Also, mystery project sort of maybe kinda announced When we saw chief John Darnielle rapping along to s lyrics at the MC s Pitchfork Music Festival set, we were rather pleased.

However, we were still a little surprised to find out that Darnielle will appear on Aesop s new album, which the rapper described as having a more diverse sound throughout the record than anything I ve done and lyrically is all stories in one way or another, in a recent update on his . He has titled the album None Shall Pass and says it is scheduled for a release on Def Jux sometime in the first half of 07.
None Shall Pass will feature production from Blockhead (seven tracks), Aesop himself (five tracks), El-P, and Rob Sonic (one track apiece).

DJ Big Wiz adds scratches and turntable trickery to every song (some a lot some a little, but every one), and other voices you will hear on the record in one form or another and some more than once (be it in verse, talking, singing, yodeling, ad-libbing, chorus-ing, etc.) include: El-P, Cage, Camutao, Breeze Brewin, Rob Sonic, John Darnielle. One of these things is not like the other / One of these things just doesn t belong.

..
Aesop added, Most of [the album] is recorded, though a few [tracks] are still a bit in demo form and need some fine tuning and re-kicking.

All of this is with the exception of this me-and-El joint, which I m currently writing. I had to wait til he was done with his [album]. I ghost wrote all his shit for it.

No I m kidding. I didn t do that. Combine all that with whatever last minute song(s) I write that I deem a necessity for the record (which usually somehow happens starting the day after you should have stopped working).

.. Mixing in Jan.

or Feb. probably.

Also, he's calling off touring for a while tore his calf muscle earlier this month, he was forced to .

Bummer, right? But holy overcompensation, now the ex has announced, in an interview with Billboard.com, that he has not one, not two, not three, four, five, or six, but seven new Sheesh!

Not that this guy has ever tended towards restraint, but this seems a bit excessive even for him. He ll have a lot of time on his hands, as he s saying goodbye to the touring life, at least for now, Billboard reports. It s too hard to psychologically re-energize yourself each night, he told the website, partially attributing the decision to a lack of audience turnout.

With Guided by Voices, it didn t matter what day it was. What I m doing now, in my opinion, is not only the same thing, I think it s a step up, even. But you get tired of beating your head against the wall.

instead of playing not-exactly-packed clubs, Pollard is devoting himself to the preparation of new material. He has wrapped up work on his latest album, Silverfish Trivia, Billboard reports, and plans to release it in the fall of 2007. Tracks include the string wtf?

-inducing Coast to Coast Carpet of Love . Merge has not confirmed this release yet, however. Disco, which is currently label-less.

Another record from the (Pollard with former speaking of spring, come March, Pollard s will have officially faded, as Billboard reports that he plans to shutter the label. He ll say goodbye with a 50(!)-track best-of previously unreleased numbers.

Fading Captain will be replaced by a new label named-- I kid you not-- Record Company Records.
took a swipe at our favorite Japanese-folk-tale-loving indie proggers when he premiered a new segment called Who s Riding My Coattails Now? on last night s Colbert Report .

After showing a fake GQ cover placing him next to Jay-Z in the magazine s Men of the Year issue and then accusing Alex Trebek and Jeopardy of stealing his ideas, Colbert pointed out s contest, which asks fans to take green screen footage of the band performing and add animation to create the video for O Valencia! . Apparently, it s strikingly similar to his own Green Screen Challenge , which featured green screen footage of Colbert with a light saber.

How did Colbert respond to this act of plagiarism? He issued a Second Green Screen Challenge : to edit me into the Decemberists green screen challenge..

. Let s see how well they perform their trademark brand of hyper-literate prog rock when I m slicing off their legs at the knee. In order to make this happen, he is offering his green screen for enterprising fans to use in their entries to the Decemberists contest, which must be in by December 15 to be considered.

For the record, we are totally behind this idea and hope that November 29, 2006 is forever remembered as the day When the War Came . (By the way, this isn t the first time the Decemberists have caught the attention of a mainstream TV talking head. , there s a guy on SportsCenter who loves em.

) If recent comments from s rhythm section-- bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris-- are to be believed, the legendary quartet might be hanging it up for good.
In an published in the November 20 edition of Buenos Aires newspaper -- and the following day in rough translation on New Order fansite -- Hook told reporters that a November 18 festival gig in Buenos Aires might be our last show ever.
Hook also shrugged off the band s impending 30-year anniversary, saying We ve been together for 29 years, [and] I don t believe another year would be of importance, truthfully.

When asked how the band was getting along, he joked, We still hate each other. It s a question of love-hate.
Continued Hook, Sometimes when you re lucky enough to have it all, you don t appreciate it as you should.

So you need a reminder of how things were when you didn t have it all. In this moment we do have it all, so perhaps it s time that we lose it, perhaps to begin anew. That s how I feel.

Hook, however, seems generally playful throughout the interview, so it s unclear how much weight these remarks carry.
Morris had plenty to say as well: This is a strange time to be New Order..

.It was good a couple of years ago when everyone was saying we were Godlike Geniuses [in reference to the NME distinction of that name] and the fans recognized the band. In a certain sense there are now many New Orders around and we re the old guys in the neighborhood.

..
The drummer skirted the question about the band s future, however.

I could say there won t be New Order for a couple of years, but...

we re bad at planning things, so let s see what happens. Trail of Dead Dudes Brawl Onstage, Guitarist Collapses
Breaking news: Trail of Dead smash their gear after gig!!

Holy shit!!!

Guess it wouldn t be a without a little bit o the old violence. Details remain sketchy, but according to several eyewitness reports and a couple shoddy YouTube videos, guitarist Kevin Allen collapsed several times during the band s November 18 show at St. Petersburg, Florida s .

The Austin-based combo eventually cut the gig short, but not before vocalist/guitarist Conrad Keely ceremonially smashed his instrument and shoved an ailing Allen into an amp.
As Pitchfork reader and show attendee Gabe wrote, after Allen reemerged following his initial collapse, Conrad then walks to the mic, announces that this will be their last song, lifts his guitar over his head and smashes it. He then ran over to Kevin and pushes him backwards (it was one helluva running shove) into his amp.

Kevin and the amp hit the ground, hard.
Conrad keeps going right off stage and onto the bus (it was a courtyard venue, [and] the stage exits to the front gate, where the bus was parked). The rest of the band looked shocked and bewildered.

Another reader, , caught the mess and posted it to YouTube (although it s difficult to make out what the hell is happening). Reported Baez, [Conrad] smashed his guitar into a speaker. The crowd cheered thinking it was a part of the show.

He quickly walked away, stopping to say thank you in a nearby mic, and as he passed Kevin he gave him a hard shove, sending his guitarist into his stack of amps. The amps toppled under his weight. The fall looked quite painful.

Several of his bandmates followed Keely s exit-- and most tragic of all, the remaining players subjected the audience to the worst keyboard-drum jam I ve ever heard, wrote Baez.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's Cat Returns! Sometimes, in between all the break-ups, gear theft, on-stage meltdowns, litigation, fan-punchings, and run-ins with the cops, something just plain happy happens in the indie rock world.

Right now is one of those times. when s apartment caught on fire? Remember how he lost his cat?

Well, she s back! Rufus came home today. She is skinnier and scruffier than we remember her, but she is home and happy, three weeks later.

Everybody is totally excited. Thanks to the people who wrote nice notes. Your positive vibes did the trick.

I hated disappointing everybody. The pain and frustration hurt so much, it was scary . Last night, was supposed to play a triumphant show at Los Angeles El Rey Theatre.

Her new album, , debuted at number 48 on the Billboard Top 200 in its first week of release, she s , and she s in the middle of a huge North American headlining tour. However, as soon as she hit the stage, everything, it seems, went to shit. According to her publicist, Sov had been diagnosed with a chest infection, and performed despite doctor s orders to rest.

She was clearly ill as she spit, kicked, and cried her way through two songs, according to an email from a Pitchfork reader who attended the show. The reader continued, She then left the stage abruptly a few times..

.she tried going through her songs 9 to 5 and Blah Blah but stopped in the middle of both. She then completely broke down.

..bawling hysterically and falling to the ground.

..They practically dragged her off the stage as the crowd went insane.

She never came back. Today, Lady Sovereign released the following statement: I hated disappointing everybody. The pain and frustration hurt so much, it was scary .

To make it up to her fans, Sov will schedule another Los Angeles performance in December, following the end of her tour. The date will be announced next week. According to a press release, Lady Sovereign will not miss any of the rest of the shows on her tour, as she has two days to rest up before the next one, which will take place in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Drones/Devs carry on with shows, scramble to secure equipment Fans of who turned out to show love to the Brooklyn act in Toronto, Chicago, or Minneapolis recently may have come home a little surprised and disappointed. The -signed five-piece were forced to pull out in the midst of their fall tour with Melbourne, Australia s and Berlin-based due to vocalist and former Rollerskate Skinny dude Ken Griffin s full blown upper respiratory infection, according to a (who knew sick qualified as a current mood ??

) on the band s official .
Tours get cancelled all the time for a variety of reasons, but this one s particularly sticky, because it leaves the Sons tourmates-- both of whom travelled from overseas and plan to forge ahead sans the Sons-- without a backline (club-speak for drums, amplifiers, and other equipment a small band cannot afford to travel with) for the remainder of the tour. Move aside, grainy .

When punches a dude in the face, he provides fans with the accurate (and juicy) details. reader Tyler Gould, who sent an MP3 account of the incident, straight from the horse s mouth. The recording was made on October 27 at the Foellinger Auditorium in Champaign, Illinois, where Tweedy was playing a solo show.

between where I m standing and where you are is in no way, shape, or form a result of being attacked the other day. overpowering whatever Tweedy says next, but there s a definite I know I Actually, I was pretty surprised. I really let that dude have it.

.. stage the other night at a Wilco show, did the Woooo!

you know, like to his friends or whatever, Look at me! I m really drunk and on crystal meth or something! It s Southern Missouri, you know, so.

.. of security at the gig, which took place October 16 at Springfield, MO s Shrine Mosque.

Result? During the show, lots of different things were happening; there were people getting pushed around in front, some girl came up on stage and sat down and started playing piano. While this was all being taken care of, we had a little break and we played our whole set and we came off, and there was this girl laying around, flopping around on the floor.

Tried to get rid of her, she sat down and played the piano, so basically everybody was taking care of that...

starting a song Airline to Heaven , got the guitar, we re playing...

I don t know if you know this, but when you re playing guitar, it s kind of like you re wearing handcuffs...

so i see this nice little boy who looks like he s Devandra is...

He actually stepped on a young woman s wheelchair to get onstage. I m not kidding, that s the truth. That s how he got onstage!

I m not exaggerating; he just hopped up onstage, right up her wheelchair. the thoughts in my head are going, Okay, okay, here he comes. Okay.

He s just going to wave to his buddies and there he goes, okay...

known within five or six seconds tops, a couple of guys in big yellow shirts would have been like pummeling him. Not that he needed to have that happen, but..

.So anyway the next thing I know, I feel this hand on my forehead. I d just had it.

I d had it at that point...

I m quick like a knife, cat-like At this time, based on crowd reaction, we believe Tweedy demonstrated these special abilities before continuing, The next day, Tweedy Attacks Fan, right? referring to, um, download the MP3 below.
Washington, D.

C. (and now you re up-to-date), the glam rockers have indeed cancelled the rest of their U.S.

tour dates. cancellation in a letter on their website, the band promised to reschedule the dates later this fall or early spring. Bowery Ballroom on November 20.

Read the full text of the letter below.
It looks like Sweden isn t all clean streets, amazing healthcare, and golden hovercrafts (okay, we re not really sure about that last one). At a performance at the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.

C. on Sunday, October 22, Ola Salo-- lead singer of Swedish glam rockers -- made a poorly chosen comment involving an airplane and the White House that almost forced the band to cancel their current tour.
, the band s free set was part of an inauguration celebration of the Embassy s new location on the Potomac River along a popular approach to Reagan National Airport, according to a press release.

During the performance, Salo saw a low-flying airplane and joked, In this country, you don t know where those planes are headed. Well, this one seems to be heading in the right direction anyway..

. the White House, before launching into One of Us Is Gonna Die Young, though the band claim the song [was not] in any way mocking President Bush, as [Brit] Hume reported on Fox News. Instead, they say the song is an anthem.

.. about the need to celebrate every moment of one s life to the fullest.

Because you never know when you might have to explain yourself to a foreign government. Salo later explained, I meant [the plane] was heading in the right direction-- to the airport. But sometimes when I m onstage, it s my mouth moving and not connected to my brain.

I couldn t resist making a joke, and adding the White House.
Guns N' Roses Tour..

.in Support of Chinese Democracy? So it looks like maybe will maybe finally maybe heap the maybe steaming turd that Chinese Democracy is sure to be upon us.

Maybe.
Though we are currently unable to find it on their website, Rolling Stone recently announced that the album would finally see release on November 21. Don t know where they got that information.

Now everyone will have to refer to a long-delayed follow-up as the new .
My prediction: Chinese Democracy, whenever it s released, will sound how the cover of The Spaghetti Incident? .

Whether the album actually comes out or not, GNR fans can still get their fix of bloated bullshit rock on the band s upcoming North American tour, which kicks off October 22 in Nashville. Axl s war buddy opens all the shows.
latest MySpace has been M.

I.A. since August 18-- at least to the Pitchfork staff.

Sorry, guys. Better late than never though, amirite? flu lab (see: ) has lost it mystery, as we can now report that M.

I.A. will soon upload a new number to her MySpace the deadly title?

In her words, I CALLED THIS BIRD FLU BECAUSE Attention citizens of Oklahoma s District 46! Are you ready to go to war with the mystics? How about the Republicans?

wants to be your State Senator. The Democratic candidate has a wife named Apple and a brother who was killed on 9/11, and he s worked to solve health issues in developing countries. He s running on a platform of social progressivism (constitutional privacy rights, separation of church state, and personal liberty free of government intrusion) and fiscal discipline (balancing the budget and working for a more efficient use of tax revenue).

He s been endorsed by the Oklahoma AFL-CIO, the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club...

and . See, Wayne doesn t only care about Martians and animal costumes. He cares about politics too!

On Thursday, October 12, Coyne will appear at a Rice for Senate voter registration bash taking place from 8 to 10 p.m. at Raffine Interiors on Film Row, in downtown Oklahoma City.

The event is free for those aged 18 to 21, and costs 10 bucks for everyone older than that. It s not clear what, exactly, Wayne will be doing at the event, although music, food, and drink are promised. Perhaps he ll announce that Christmas on Mars will only be released if Rice is elected.

To label: Why you wanna treat us so bad? Surprise, surprise, long-awaited sophomore LP, Hell Hath No Fury, is not coming out on Halloween, . Though their show at is still on, SOHH.

com reports that the album will not hit stores until early December. As usual, the problem is not with the duo but with their label, Jive, and in with RollingStone.com-- which reports the album s release date as November 28-- both Pusha T and Malice had a few choice words regarding the situation.

Since it doesn t seem like you ll be hearing their words on record anytime soon, here are those quotes in full. Pusha said, I hate Jive. I hate them motherfuckers.

With all my heart and all the passion and my soul I hate these bitches. It s about the lynching of every staff member up in this motherfucker..

.You could ask anyone in here to give you a marketing plan on Clipse and they could never do it. It s like damn, What do you understand about hip-hop?

You ain t had nobody since Spice 1! You don t know the fucking formula. Everybody in here s like 50 years old!

Just drop us. Leave us the fuck alone so we can go where there s plenty of people like Clipse.
To this, Malice added, Have you ever heard anyone say that they d be happy to get dropped?

Besides fucking Prince? Pusha asked. Malice repeated, Besides Prince.

Pusha then said, And he carved his own face, which I won t do. I won t paint on my face. They ain t going to drive me fucking loony.

Pitchfork sincerely wishes Clipse the best, and we hope it doesn t come to lynching. If Hell Hath No Fury ever has a release, let alone in 2006, it will be more than we expect at this point. Still, here s to hoping.

The Matt and Lance of indie! Well lookee here, it s one of s new press photos in support of his forthcoming album, The Information, due out October 3. And who s that lurking right behind Mr.

Hansen in Autumn de Wilde s shot? Why it s , of course. Although D-Ban doesn t play on The Information, he does appear in the video for Cell Phone s Dead , which was directed by Michel Gondry, and is probably awesome.

Minutes after this photo was taken, Beck and Dev stripped down to their shorts and took a jog along the Pacific Coast Highway, muscles rippling in the sunshine and hair blowing in the breeze. First, we were skeptical, then pleasantly surprised. But now it s evident that Chan Marshall is doing victory laps.

In an interview published today in The New York Times, Marshall (aka ) talked about her battle with alcoholism and her past struggles with performing live, as well as her future plans.
I never noticed they really liked me before. Man, these people stuck with me, Marshall said of her audiences, explaining that her erratic behavior at past shows had more to do with being uncomfortable with herself rather than the audience or the instruments onstage.

She also talked about the events leading up to her stay at the Mount Sinai Medical Center earlier this year, where she was hospitalized right before the release of her latest album, The Greatest. I was looking at death. I wanted to die, she said, adding, I lost my mind.

.. I asked God, I said, I m tired, I can t do this.

I was asking him to just take me. For the full article and a video of Marshall answering some of the interview questions, click .
Late last week, when decided to finally confirm the of the end of his retirement , he went straight to the streets.

..by granting an exclusive interview to Entertainment Weekly.

E-to-the-Dub got H-to-the-Izzo to admit that yes, a new album will be released this fall, yes, it s called Kingdom Come, and yes, Coldplay s Chris Martin produced one of its tracks. Said Hova of the Martin collaboration, We met at a charity dinner and just really kept in touch. He sent me these beautiful chords for this song called Beach Chair .

I had [Dr.] Dre put some drums on it. It s really, really incredible.

In the time it took to read that quote, Cam ron wrote five new diss tracks, including one about how he used to pimp Gwyneth Paltrow. Jigga also revealed to EW that Timbaland, Kanye West, and Dre have done production work for the album, and that he hopes to also work with Rick Rubin and Eminem. Lyrical inspirations include Superman ( Take off the blazer/ Loosen up the tie/ Step inside the booth/Superman is alive!

), a Basquiat painting (a track called Most Kings ), and the death of his nephew. The album, he said, is more in the vein of The Black Album than The Blueprint. I ve been experimenting with things, different types of music.

He also continued his long-running denial of a relationship with Beyonce. C mon, dude, it s getting really, really annoying.
Possible new album to possibly feature songs, artwork, possibly rapping Welcome to the new Idlewild, folks!

While we here at the Fork believe that s rumored comeback album will be more forthcoming than the finally-released Outkast album and film, it comes with the same monumental mystery and anticipation attached. (Perhaps even more) With all the rumors coming from musicians, industry people, and bloggers everywhere, this is probably the best worst kept secret in music. Then again, maybe the confused and conflicting nature of those rumors make this secret the worst best kept (think about it).

Without further ado, let s get straight to the facts.
The album is called Presidential Gala. Or just Presidential.

Or maybe Kingdom Come. It depends on whether you trust, respectively, and , , or more, but it will have a title. Unless it doesn t.

But it does come out on /Def Jam in November, according to Billboard.com. Unless it doesn t.

Based on of a message shown on a screen during Jay s recent performance in Bratislava, Slovakia as part of his water crisis awareness-raising world tour, Nah Right and AllHipHop.com speculate that the specific release date will be November 21 (though if that s the curve of a 2, why not the 28th?).

On the other hand, reports on SOHH.com and (as well as unconfirmed rumors of one in Rolling Stone, which makes it a rumor of a rumor. Seriously, WTF people?

) list the release date as November 14. Also, the MTV documentary about the tour is supposed to air November 24, so maybe that s the date to which the message refers. Did we mention this is all pretty much completely unconfirmed?

After leaving last April, bassist (who played bass on ) recently found a new musical niche in . The Minneapolis band, featuring the spacious vocals of Joe January accompanied by a revolving group of musicians including Tim Luntzel (Bright Eyes, Gillian Welch), Ryan Sawyer (Fiery Furnaces, At the Drive-In), and Scott McPherson (Elliott Smith), formed in the spring of 2005 and maintained a weekly residency at Minneapolis 400 Bar. Last year, they put out an album, Letters From the Waves, behind which the band toured the U.

S. with the likes of Death From Above 1979, Lou Barlow, Earlimart, and I Love You But I ve Chosen Darkness. This month, PFS crash into California for two shows.

09-20 Los Angeles, CA - Knitting Factory
we the media people just don t get Rivers Cuomo. Really, for the moment, we are done, he told MTV.com of in an interview last month again, unless it becomes really obvious to me that we need to do one.

Translation? Apparently, all is well in Weez Over the weekend, the band Announcement from the weez: ! you by the fine guacamole dip at Scott Shriner s house, co-sponsored by a ring of fine cheese, and a dish of fresh figs from the back yard.

Now please, take those weezer split? headlines and place them firmly into the Don t believe the hype bin. And have yourself a fine afternoon now.

After getting shot and undergoing several weeks of starvation. Somebody, anybody, please put it out of its misery already. lost, leaving Ariel Pink and Holy Shit stranded in Europe without equipment to play Pitchfork via e-mail, both Pink and Corey Lee Granet, the bands most experienced European tour-goers, were forced to abandon the tour due to a lack of tapes things out.

The aforementioned MySpace bulletin asked readers for assistance with accommodations between Hyres and Paris, France (Fishbeck said the message worked beautifully for lodging there, and even clothes!), transportation, and recommendations as to what to do. Now, however, Holy Shit there with gear and crash space.

A hot meal probably wouldn t be looked down
The band as well as the music-playing things. had a busy night out on the town in New York City on Friday. First, he and a few buddies, including Robert Schneider of the Apples in Stereo and Andrew Rieger and Laura Carter of Elf Power, took in the Os Mutantes show at Webster Hall.

Then the crew made their way to the tiny Lower East Side club Cake Shop for performances by the and , both featuring of Circulatory System and Japancakes. During the Instruments set, Mangum joined the band for one song. According to my friend , who supplied the information about both the Os Mutantes and Cake Shop shows, Mangum sat in with the Instruments on a song (er, stood in, sang in his loud I-don t-need-no-microphone way, wordlessly chanting.

(He also joined the Instruments during their in-store performance at Sound Fix in Williamsburg the next day) Mike was also nice enough to share some photos of the event with us.
Antony, Björk Collaboration up in the Air I am not working with Bj o rk on her new record . However we have written some things together in the course of hanging out; the destination of this collaboration is not known at this time.

A subtle distinction I know, but an important one. Oh well. Hopefully something cool comes of this.

Late Sunday night, a mysterious post appeared on , the message board. Credited to a poster named Nigh and written under the subject heading Here is what it said: for the past few months ive been putting together the pieces of everything ive written in the past three years and its been a revelation. whenever i had the time ive been writing melodies and keeping them in my head for later, and songs just accumulate, im not waiting as some have said.

i still dont know how we re going to put it all together, the songs will have more noises and collages in them. because of that we dont know whether this will be korena pang or neutral milk hotel or michael bolton but that doesnt really matter. names are just a box we put things in to separate them, and we re figuring out what box these songs go in.

we dont have a timetable for releasing the album yet, so dont get your hopes up for new songs now. if you want more aeroplane just ignore all of this, the songs are songs but they re longer and more free. when jeremy came down after his tour we just spent days playing noise while screaming and it was incredibly liberating.

it has been so much fun that we will for sure be playing a show or two, probably more. freedom is a wonderful thing but at a certain point you need the routines of normal life. ive had that for a while but i realized last year at the show with the livys that the best sort of normal ive ever had was on the road with my friends.

getting to gigs late with cars coughing and trombones smacking on doors, the giant egg leaks over the masses, the yolk sustains us, we eat whites for days. it can never be the same but i need to get as close as i can to that again. so thats all.

everything is happening soon, this is the year.
thanks for listening. jeff.

Could it be? , arguably indie rock s most elusive character, announcing his return to the spotlight? Or just an elaborate hoax?

Well, according to Kelly Ruberto from , it is not a joke. Jeff Mangum really did write that.
John Fernandes of Olivia Tremor Control ( the livys ), Circulatory System, and Cloud Recordings, had only this to say: Sounds like him, but you never know, probably is.

However, according to Robert Schneider, frontman and Mangum s close friend, Mangum confirmed via email that he did NOT author the post. i had not commented on this thread because i wanted to hear back from jeff mangum directly about it-- i sent jeff an email quoting the initial post on this thread yesterday, and he just replied: hello robert-i am sorry to inform you that this is not my post. could you please inform the good people on the e6 list that this is not my writing?

thank you robert. much love-j this came directly to my email from jeff s email account-- the post attributed to him is 100% FALSE, sorry to bear the disappointing news-- it was a very beautifully written fake post! you are all beautiful and brilliant kids, it would do the whole world a great deal of good if you took all this great energy and excitementyou have been passing around here, rolled it up with your anger and disappointment into a big wonderful pissed-off ball, and recorded a bunch of kickass songs!

!! please go right now and make something special, do something great, retaliate against the mediocrity that engulfs us!

! don t just do it for me, or jeff, or elephant 6 (although it would please us all immensely) do it because the world needs it!!

Pitchfork spoke to Schneider on the phone just a few minutes ago, and he confirmed that his post rsquo;s contents were all true. It didn rsquo;t sound like his writing style because, for instance, it closed with the words thanks for listening, rsquo; which is a phrase that I rsquo;ve always used on Elephant 6 literature, not Jeff. It was kind of my little catchphrase, rdquo; Schneider said.

He added, I wish it were true! So do we, Robert. So do we.

While we had him on the horn, we asked Schneider about the new Apples in Stereo album. He said that he d been working on the record for the past 10 months, and that he rsquo;s headed to Brooklyn soon to mix it. Schneider had mentioned earlier that the infamous email exchange with Mangum had also included a discussion about Apples stuff, so we asked if Mangum had any involvement in the creation of the new album.

But all that Schneider would say is I don t want to comment on the making of the record until it rsquo;s done. The last time released a new album was the 1998 live disc PNYC. The last time Portishead released an album of new material was 1997 s Portishead.

So after nearly a decade, we re pretty desperate for something, anything, resembling news of a forthcoming album. Well, we got some tiny scraps last week, when the Bristol trio updated its with some straight up good news: weve had our meeting with the label it was really positive..

.which makes the whole thing so much easier to deal with nice people, the blog said. the tracks are in a right mess but sounding like a album for the first time in years.

The music is described as fukin a bit weird before the band takes some potshots at artists with whom they re often RIYL d. its nice to think us old gits have a few tunes in us without sounding like coffee table zero 7 - moby - chill out shit!!

Ooh, diss.
bassist Andy Nicholson has left the riot van for good. In an announcement on their website, the remaining Monkeys explained that Nicholson-- the band.

have not yet named a permanent replacement for Nicholson, but the Monkeys do say, Nick O Malley, who stood in for Andy while he was absent from the recent tour of North America, shall carry on playing bass for the remaining shows this all wish Andy the very best, they say, and while it may not be quite the same as before, you can still catch Arctic Monkeys at any of their remaining dates this summer.
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.