Hard-rocking San Francisco indie veterans will continue their winning ways with the release of their latest album, VI (take that Led Zeppelin!), out April 24 via .
In addition to the core of Tims Green and Soete, Phil Manley from Trans Am and Oneida contributed guitar, piano, bass, and synthesizer to the record.
And, in the grand tradition of recent Drag City artists (mostly Bonnie Prince Billy), VI also features a cameo from uncomedian on Fozzy Goes to Africa .
The Champs enter the tour arena in support of VI starting May 24 in Atlanta. 05-26 London, England - Issst Warehouse Party (DJ set) *
05-27 Birmingham, England - Custard Factory (DJ set)
06-20 Cambridge, England - King s Affair (DJ set)
07-07 Kinross, Scotland - T in the Park Festival
07-19 Ibiza, Spain - Cream @ Amnesia (DJ set) $
07-20 Benicassim, Spain - Benicassim Festival
07-28 Warwick, England - Global Gathering Festival (DJ set)
08-05 Byron Bay, Australia - Splendour in the Grass
-signed country-loving Brooklynites have found the perfect touring partners in .
They ll join the Oberst-led Omaha-dwellers-- who now have a #4 Billboard debut for to celebrate-- on the band s tour, which includes almost a month of dates with as well.
But first, Oakley Hall will play a few dates on the East Coast, one of which is with . Then in June, they ll head to Europe for gigs in Barcelona and London.
According to the act s website, they ve completed recording their Merge debut and follow-up to last year s double whammy of Gypsum Strings and Second Guessing. In a bulletin posted yesterday on their , indie-folk-rock foragers announced that they will be missing a few shows over the weekend due to the death of a relative. The bulletin reads:
Apologies to Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence and Bennington for the last minute cancellation.
Our best wishes go out to the fellas of Grizzly Bear.
For those looking to hunt down the Grizz, they re still on for next weekend at Coachella, a spin around western Europe, and a few of the bigger U.S.
festivals, including the , July 13-15 at Chicago rsquo;s Union Park. You rsquo;re coming, right? Oh, good; then this is just a friendly reminder.
Also, did you hear Born Ruffians cover of ?
I've been getting really drunk in order to even look at the stage, and I don't think it's fair to take money off of people when the show isn't going to be very good. Is some mysterious ailment afflicting Great Britain s pint-sized pop stars, rendering them effete and malcontent?
First an exhausted and massively disappointed Lady Sovereign , then follows suit, and joking about finding the reality of pop-stardom a huge disappointment.
Turns out Lily s pretty much sticking to the story she told on the other day. Speaking to Pitchfork yesterday, Lily chalked up the cancellations to lots of things.
Firstly, you know, I released the album in July in England, said Lily. I ve been touring with it all over the world since then, and I think most people usually release the albums in England and America pretty close within each other. I just feel like it s been dragged out for so long, and that-- you know, the show isn t as good as it was, because I m having to sing so much.
And I ve been getting really drunk in order to even look at the stage, and I don t think it s fair to take money off of people when the show isn t going to be very good. So that s the first thing.
And also, I m pretty tired.
I want to get the second album out, and I m not going to be able to do that if I m touring. So I m going to stay in America and do all the kind of promotional commitments I have to do, which is all the TVs and radios and stuff, and I m still going to do all the radio[-sponsored] shows that I was asked to do in the first place, so it s only about half of the shows that have been canceled.
So that second album.
..?
I ve got some ideas, but I m not going to say what they are, said Lily with a laugh.
Lily s festival dates, too, will go on as planned. That s one of the other reasons, said Allen.
I m getting paid quite a lot of money to do all the festivals, and I don t want to have worn myself out with the little gigs [and] be really tired for the festivals, which have much bigger audiences.
And also, it costs so much money to go on tour! And I m not earning that much, so yeah.
The response from MySpace friends has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, but Lily says bollocks to the haters out there. I m not giving up on anything, Allen insisted. I m just doing it in a different way.
And I think you actually reach a bigger audience if you re doing the radio interviews and playing radio shows and doing the TVs-- and ultimately, I think, my hardcore fans have already been to see my shows. The people who haven t heard of me yet, or who haven t seen me play, can wait till the next album, because I ll be back.
Scope Lily s remaining dates just after the jump.
A lot of people are trying to say that Black Lips are a punk band. But in Atlanta, if you're called a punk, that means you're, like, a little bitch. So we just want to set the record straight: we're not punk.
Between playing approximately 662 shows at a certain Austin festival-- which led to their being designated the hardest working band at SXSW by The New York Times-- and prepping to take the EU by storm, managed to squeak in a few words with Pitchfork.
One of latest signings, the Atlanta punk-rockabilly quartet has already recorded the follow-up to this year s live album . Oh wait, make that Atlanta flower punk quartet.
People will slap terrible descriptions on us, Lips drummer/vocalist Joe Bradley told Pitchfork, so we re going to call ourselves flower punk. We don t need a term to generalize everything. I heard us called rockabilly before; I didn t know we played rockabilly.
Flower punk is tough, but wimpy. Ugly but beautiful. Frank Zappa would be proud.
Flower punk, it should be noted, is quite different from regular old punk. A lot of people are trying to say that Black Lips are a punk band, Joe lamented. But in Atlanta, if you re called a punk, that means you re, like, a little bitch.
So we just want to set the record straight: we re not punk.
No little bitches, these hard-working flower-punkers hope to have the new disc out in early September-- which would make it the second Black Lips full-length already this year. They ve recorded and mixed 19 tracks, and plan to pare those down to around 12 or 13.
The songs are so short that [Vice] might put on more, Bradley said, but we don t want any more than that.
Song titles include Veni Vidi Vici , Navajo ( about Native Americans ) and How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died? ( that s a country one ).
Claimed Bradley, there s a bunch of different types of songwriting on there. We had a song that s, like, satanic jungle music, and then the country song and a punk song..
.a brutal song..
.tons of shit.
You d think the Black Lips would keep the boys busy enough, but bassist/vocalist Jared Swilley has plenty more on his platter.
I have a doo-wop group with Bradford [Cox] from and this other girl, but we never get to play because we re never in town at the same time. Hopefully in April we ll get to record an EP or something.
Oh , why do you tease us so?
! Go to . Click on .
Listen. For the next, oh, ten seconds or so, you will hear what appears to be a clip of the new song 15 Step , according to the fansite . The song was played on the band s tour last year, and fans are so desperate for new material, they ve obsessed over it enough to be able to identify it from a few brief moans and synth bloops.
Come on Radiohead! We re dying out here! In other Radiohead news, various reports have suggested that the rare 2004 Com Lag EP, previously available only in Japan, is being reissued in the UK and U.
S. this spring. However, both Radiohead s U.
S. publicity and UK label expressed doubt about this, and the sole source seems to be Amazon.com listings, with ever-shifting release dates.
Pitchfork researchers are hard at work trying to unlock the mysteries of s new album, . We re tackling the tough questions, like Is for real? (yes) and So, like, did someone in the band just have a baby?
(No). In fact, the title comes from the sound of one of the first songs written for the record, The Ghost of You Lingers , according to Spoon s publicist.
We ve also cracked the super secret (read: you have to sign up) Spoon mailing list and found information about some secret shows on the band s schedule.
First up is an April 23 show in New York City with . Then, not so secretly, on May 7, Britt Daniel will play a solo show in Seattle as part of a muscular dystrophy benefit. Proceeds from the show will go to , an organization that gives grants to muscular dystrophy researchers.
More secret Spoon shows are in the works, so put an online wiretap on that aforementioned mailing list for that information.
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.
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