Yes! , , is finally coming out in North America. Released last year in Europe on , the stylish post-punk troupe s debut will hit our shores June 5, thanks to the good people at .
The North American version of Someone to Drive You Home comes loaded with four bonus tracks, as well as the video for the single Once and Never Again . The Blondes plan to support the release with a brief North American tour in June, followed by a more extensive one in September. They ll also spend the summer festival-hopping in Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan.
As for new Long Blondes music, the band has contributed a song, , to the art gallery s project. The project commissions artists to write songs inspired by pieces in the gallery, then offers the songs on headphones hanging in the gallery next to the work. The Unbearable Lightness of Buildings was inspired by Jannis Kounellis painting Untitled , and has been available in the Tate since April 1.
Starting May 1, the song will be streaming from the Tate Tracks website.
Haha, JK. I m excited about old school recordings.
You should be too. According to Austrian imprint -- who will drop Xiu Xiu s Untitled David Horvitz Picture Disc 7 this month-- we should imagine a more reduced Knife Play-era Xiu Xiu to get an idea about what the 3 tracks on this [release] sound like. If you swear by Knife Play, this here s some swell news.
Uber-swell, even.
As its non-title suggests, the 7 features photography from Xiu Xiu documentarian , along with three proto-Xiu jams that Jamie Stewart recently rediscovered on an ancient cassette tape, which is this primitive mode of audio storage that predates the mp3.
Xiu Xiu just put out the double-disc set, the final release on 5RC (R.
I.P.).
If you believe the Xiu s antics-ridden website, the Covers disc has Claire Huxtable, Rudy Huxtable, Cliff Huxtable, Denise Huxtable, Theo Huxtable and Dillweed Huxtable playing Xiu Xiu songs. The Remixes disc has Ghandi [sic] and Malcolm X remixing a Xiu Xiu song each. Dillweed, huh?
, sleep-averse Stewart joins an elite indie panel entrusted with selecting the best XBXRX video in the history of ever. Xiu Xiu, meanwhile, embark tomorrow night on the portion of that involves Sunset Rubdown. Sanctuary Records to Cease New Releases in U.
S. The American home to Morrissey, Idlewild, Tegan and Sara, Jonny Greenwood s reggae comp, and more, England s will soon cease its front-line operation in the United States and focus exclusively on catalog releases. This is according to a Billboard.
biz report and confirmed by a spokesperson at the imprint. UK operations will presumably continue as before.
Ex-Cranberries frontlady Dolores O Riordan s Are You Listening?
, out May 15, will likely be the label s final new release in the U.S. Meanwhile, the status of Tegan and Sara s latest LP, The Con, is unknown at this time.
That record was slated to come out July 24.
As of June 30, the label will shift focus entirely to its catalog-- which, according to a Sanctuary spokesperson, will include both existing titles (including , , , and more) and future reissues. The Sanctuary Records Group umbrella includes the Attack, Castle, Trojan, Vapor, and Fantastic Plastic sub-labels, among others.
Man Man, Oakley Hall, Buckner on WUAG Comp
Also David Bazan, Hem, Talkdemonic, Swearing at Motorists Greensboro, North Carolina college radio station has assembled another double-disc compilation of local and national artists to follow up last year s . The new compilation is titled Taylor 25: A Nostalgic Retrospective, after the room in which the recordings take place and the approximate number of years the station has occupied that room (it will move to a new building this fall).
Like 18 Watts, Taylor 25 features the national acts on one disc and the local ones on another.
Among those national acts are Man Man, Oakley Hall, Hem, Richard Buckner, Nicolay, Swearing at Motorists, Jolie Holland, and Tara Jane O Neil.
Taylor 25 comes out today, April 10, and WUAG will follow its release with four nights of shows featuring Taylor 25 artists from April 11-14. Non-comp contributors Parts Labor will play the first show with the Foreigners, Boa Narrow, and the Bronzed Chorus at Greene Street, and Emperor X will play the last show with the Never and Embarrassing Fruits at Chapel Hill s Local 506 club.
Oakland experimental punkers are holding a video contest in conjunction with the release of their new album, Wars, on on April 10. Hey, that s today!
They re asking fans to create a video for the album s first track, Center Where Sight , and they ve recruited s Jamie Stewart, , and Erase Errata s Jenny Hoyston to judge the contest.
The first-prize winner of the contest will receive the guitar used on the Wars tour ( though they can t guarantee its condition ), a poster, and a sticker. The second-and-third-prize winners will each receive a copy of Wars and a spot on the guest list when XBXRX play their cities.
The contest runs until May 22, and XBXRX will announce the winners on June 10.
Contestants can submit videos via email at xbxrxvideo@yahoo.com or post office at the following address (DVD-Rs are preferred):
Rolling Stone reports that s hotly anticipated second album will be called Kala and will be in stores June 26 via Interscope. Yes, will be on it, as will collaborations with Diplo and Timbaland.
None of this information has been confirmed yet, but the release date at least seems remotely accurate, as it falls between M.I.A.
s two confirmed live performances, taking place at the Sasquatch Festival in George, Washington on May 26 and at the Virgin Festival in Toronto on September 8-9. So she s probably going to put out an album sometime this summer, right? Things are finally looking up for psych rock icon and 13th Floor Elevators operator .
Having re-entered the public sphere just a short while back, Roky s survived drug abuse and asylums to bring his still-strong rock n roll stylings to a venue or festival near you once again in 2007.
Erickson has eight dates lined up in the coming months, including his very first New York City live appearances ever, and stops at Coachella, Roskilde, and Bumbershoot, among other happenin happenings.
Whether you re new to Roky s world, or he s always been there before for you, take in the man s heartbreaking story on the big screen.
Beginning June 8, the Roky doc hits theaters in NYC; it was directed by Keven McAlester, who s fortunate enough to share a name (phonetically, at least) with the main character in Home Alone. Look for the DVD to follow July 10 via . Indies Launching Compilation Attack on Mainstream?
What was your introduction to indie rock? Think back. Was it seeing the Replacements on Saturday Night Live ?
An R.E.M.
video? A band t-shirt Kurt Cobain wore? Garden State?
Hearing Float On on the radio? We ve all had those turning points in our lives (you probably wouldn t be reading Pitchfork right now if you hadn t!), but what about the next generation?
What about those kids out there right now who don t know who Sonic Youth are (gasp!) or don t care about the Arcade Fire (shock!)?
Who or what is going to be the gatekeeper for them? EW.com says that the comps will feature the likes of Bloc Party, the Shins, Bright Eyes, Air, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, M.
Ward, Ted Leo, Cat Power, Silversun Pickups (UPDATE: Silversun Pickups have said that they are NOT involved in these compilations), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Sonic Youth, and that labels such as , , and will take turns putting out each volume. However, both Matador and Sub Pop would not confirm their involvement in the series. Vice s label manager Adam Shore was quoted in Entertainment Weekly s article, but told Pitchfork that those comments went out prematurely and all the information in there is not 100% confirmed.
Said information included Shore saying, We re partnering with MTV2, and the focus is going to be Wal-Marts, big box stores, red states, and TV advertising-- to really go beyond...
We don t really expect indie rock stores to support this record. It s for the casual fan. MTV acknowledged that they have discussed the possibility of becoming involved in the series, but that nothing had been confirmed yet.
Billboard.com reports that the entire project is being spearheaded by the (or ADA, if you re cool), the Warner Music Group-owned company that distributes Vice, Sub Pop, Matador, and countless others. ADA had not responded to questions at the time of this story s publication.
So. Are these compilations actually coming out? Probably.
Will they be on Vice, Matador, and Sub Pop? Maybe. Will MTV be involved?
Not so sure. But the most uncertain thing of all? Whether anybody will actually buy the things.
Believe it or not, the men of aren t always mucking about in masks or drumming and strumming their way to catharsis. Sometimes they are serious, quite serious, and that is the case with today s bit of Animal Collective news.
Simply put, Brian Geologist Weitz of Animal Collective has a grandfather who is suffering from the late stages of disease.
The central nervous disorder, believed to afflict over one million people in the U.S. alone, results from a lack of dopamine in nerve cells and often leaves the afflicted unable to go about day-to-day activity.
Wrote Geologist in a personal message relayed via his publicist, my grandfather...
has been in the hospital hanging on for 2 months now. He had emergency surgery for something unrelated to the Parkinson s, however because of it, he has not been able to fully wake up or recover.
To help the cause of his grandfather and all those with Parkinson s, Weitz has decided to join his mother on s 2007 Walk for Parkinson s in Philadelphia.
Geologist and Mom will tread ten miles to raise funds for Parkinson s research, but they need your help! to Weitz s fundraising efforts via his . Act soon, however, as the walking shoes hit the pavement April 21.
Animal Collective s paws, meanwhile, hit the tour trail with Sir Richard Bishop this May. Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently?
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