Yo La Tengo, Animal Collective on Shortbus Soundtrack So yes, s (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) new film is the one where some dude sings our nation s national anthem into another dude s butt. Perhaps you ve also heard it s a skin flick with heart, or that it takes a thoughtfully candid look at the sexploits of various dispossessed persons, or that it s phenomenal and/or abominable.
What you may not have heard is that it also boasts a bangin soundtrack featuring an exclusive cut by , among other treasures.
And who better than lovemonkey Conor Oberst and his label to bring that amor-rific soundtrack to the streets? Shortbus (the CD) arrives November 7 bearing previously unreleased YLT tune Wizard s Sleeve alongside still fresh selections from Animal Collective, Azure Ray, the Hidden Cameras, Swedish glam-rockers the Ark, and even a few Shortbus (the film) stars: Sook-Yin Lee, Justin Bond (aka Kiki of Kiki Herb fame), Scott Matthew, and Jay Brannan. Perfect for, dear god, sing-alongs with your friends!
Hold any lately? Proceed with caution. Wait, forget that-- risk it all to get to Castell o n, Spain for the eighth edition of the music festival, running several venues across the city: Centro Municipal de Cultura, Teatre Principal, and Casino Antiguo.
Might want to ditch the cell phones, clinking beer bottles, and boisterous buds, however, as Tanned Tin s website boasts an almost religious silence accompanying past festival performances. Yikes!
Acts scheduled to perform include: M.
Ward, Six Organs of Admittance, Okkervil River, Psychic Ills, I Love You But I ve Chosen Darkness, David Thomas Broughton, Lisa Name Is Alive, the Radio Dept., Magik Markers, and more. Wonderful, spectral folkstress Annelies Monser e will open the festival with a free show on November 8.
Make the jump for the complete event schedule.
Seattle s , home of the Black Angels, the Os Mutantes resissues, and the compilation, has just announced its newest release: a remastered edition of s 1971 lost classic In My Own Time, due out November 7 on CD and vinyl.
Circa 1960, Dalton was a regular performer at the pass-the-hat clubs in New York s Greenwich Village, where she d gig with the likes of Dino Valenti, Fred Neil, and Bob Dylan.
She was often compared to Billie Holiday (and hated it). But, perhaps because she interpreted other people s songs ( When a Man Loves a Woman , Katie Cruel ) and (dare we say it?) was a Native American woman, she s been largely forgotten by the public.
However, one look at In My Own Time s liner notes will set you straight. The ten tracks were originally recorded by Harvey Brooks (who played with Dylan on Highway 61 Revisited), and masterminded by Michael Lang (who, like, totally signed a young Billy Joel and co-founded Woodstock). Dalton, who sings and plays the twelve-string guitar and banjo, was backed by dudes from the Gaslight and the Cock and Bull (two Greenwich Village clubs), and also Robbie Robertson s the Band.
Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith Group guitarist, wrote the album s introduction. His essay is joined by testimonials from (who, along with the rest of the Band Seeds, considers Dalton a hero) and , who purposefully recorded Cripple Crow at Bearsville-- the same studio where Dalton created In My Own Time.
Pretty much, when I tell the story of how I got into Vashti Bunyan, said Banhart in an interview with Pitchfork about Dalton, where I was living out in France and didn t have anywhere to stay, I always say that the two things that really kept me alive-- that became my pillow, and my food, and my blanket, and my bed, my friend-- that was listening to Bunyan s Just Another Diamond Day LP and Karen Dalton s Ribbon Bow .
When Banhart returned to New York, he paid 50 bucks for the In My Own Time LP, which probably also meant living on beans and really, really cheap whiskey for at least a week afterwards.
Featured in the colorful, junk, white noise, some seriously cool boots, and an astonishing waste of plastic wrap. Its bustling nature is telling of both Tokyo Police Club and, humorously, Tokyo (even though the band actually resides in Canada).
A+, dudes.
Jay-Z continues his run of either completely selfish or completely misguided decisions as president of Def Jam with the December 19 release of debut for the label, Hip-Hop Is Dead. So now both and Nas get to experience the joy of having their albums buried at a time when shopping for the biggest holiday of the year is winding down.
Questionable business plan on the part of his label head aside, Nas album looks promising. It s tracklist-less at the moment, but-- (if you don t, listen below)-- first leak Where Y all At was a good sign of the MC being in top form on the LP.
He s certainly not lacking star power on the featuring side of the equation.
Kanye produced and provided the hook for Still Dreamin ; Snoop Dogg appears on Play on Player ; the Game guests on Q.B. True G , which Dr.
Dre produced; Damian Marley appears on White Man s Paper (War) , which samples Marley s father; Scott Storch produced Carry on Tradition ; surprise Midas will.i.am produced both the title track and the Sam Cooke-sampling Unforgettable ; and Nas himself flipped a James Brown sample in producing Where Are They Now .
Considering Def Jam s recent approach to promoting their non-Jay artists, this might be the last time you hear about Hip-Hop Is Dead, so mark your calendars. One month is probably enough time for you to forget all about the disappointment that Kingdom Come is sure to be.
The Twilight Sad [Fontana s; 8 p.
m.]
CMJ boot camp began on trash night in Chinatown, Metallica s Master of Puppets lifting spirits in Fontana s upstairs bar. Meanwhile, in the basement, noisy Glasgow pop group the Twilight Sad tore eardrums: The quartet s self-titled EP s great, but I imagine if I hadn t heard it three dozen times, I would ve failed to untangle the melodies from the feedback.
They opened with vocalist James Graham wielding a drum stick and smashing cymbals along with the fresh-faced, Campbell Soup-kid drummer. But it was the Daniel Johnston t-shirt wearing guitarist who stole the show with his awkward teenage Kevin Shields impersonation-- all the more charming because he was out of tune. Strumming in a slapdash style, now again sipping from a cup with a Yankees logo on it, he looked bored and utterly fascinated at the same time.
Still, despite the white noise hubbub, the general focal point remained the swoony Graham, who another Pitchforker later called the most attractive man alive. Well, he must ve been scared of his own beauty because he kept his eyes shut for 75% of the set, issuing romantic utterances about kids on fire in the bedroom, running out of time, the invisible boy, and feeling bitter, so very bitter. Halfway through, amplifier problems led to a slight delay, so a bearded oldster jumped on stage and read, gently, a poem, Twilight Sad.
It was a great calm in the storm, but had me wondering: What came first, the poem or the band? Anyone?
Beach House [Cake Shop; 10:15 p.
m.]
Murph will take to the road late this month, meeting up with Sonic Youth and Thalia Zedek along open the trio s London gig with an acoustic solo set. On December 16, Mascis will perform a solo set in Germany, opening for Sonic Youth.
Dinosaur Jr. plan to release a new album, produced by , in Spring 2007. It is, according to a recent entry on Barlow s website, very nearly complete, though we still don t know anything with regard to its title, label, or release date.
A DVD from the band is also on its way. Directed by Mascis brother-in-law Phillip Virus, it documents the first half of the band s reunion tour, and hits stores May 8. solo front as well.
As he continued in the aforementioned post, I m working on a CD EP for my friend Jesus right now...
I figure it s good practice for my next solo LP to throw some new + old songs together...
get my engineering chops back, twiddling knobs...
flexing the old hard-drive...
Jesus has a label. He does lotsa one-off CDs for indie-types like myself..
.That will come out and I will do my best to get a box or two to sell on this here site..
. In addition, the bassist Collection of Home Recordings (1994, ) reissues. Tacked on to the disc is the Losercore seven inch, now on CD for the first time ever.
Barlow also acquired a 12 vinyl of s Dare to Be Surprised, so stay tuned to see if these rarity items pop up on his online merch table. Finally, we d like to that Barlow, Eric Gaffney, and Jason Loewenstein have reunited . The legendary three-piece will tour this spring, from late February to early April.
Specific dates have not yet been confirmed.
The Knife s performance at Webster Hall last night wasn t just great, it was kind of revelatory. Olof and Karin Dreijer, dressed in black coveralls and black ski masks (or was it blackface makeup?
), were just a small part of the entire immersive experience, a combination rave/art installation/laser light show. They stood both behind and in front of screens, on which were projected trippy geometric shapes, childish drawings, and ghastly figures, and were flanked on the stage by balloons bearing images of distorted faces. The way the elaborate light show hit their own faces made the pair look alternately like jack-o-lanterns, monkeys, or bank robbers, which pretty much sums up the varying moods of the performance: mischievous, playful, terrifying.
I m not sure how much live music the Dreijers actually performed. Karin s mouth definitely moved, and Olof was certainly hitting something with his giant drum sticks, but it wasn t clear whether or not those motions corresponded with anything inside the crystal clear, surround sound sonic stew enveloping the venue. They played rejiggered versions of Silent Shout favorites such as Like a Pen , We Share Our Mothers Health , Forest Families , and the title track, and even threw in a shimmering, subdued take on Heartbeats .
The music was flashier and more dance-oriented than on record, much closer to Euro-trance/cheese/trash than I m used to. Of course, it sounded amazing. So we re confronted with the reality of one of the best albums of the year, by one of Pitchfork s favorite bands, delivered using tropes that send the authenticity police into fits of rage: lip-synching, silly dancing, cool light show, superclub dance beats.
Does that mean the Knife s performance was insincere, or lightweight, or somehow less worthy than that of a band sweating through a set, pounding on their own instruments and pouring their hearts out on the mic? Fuck no. Does it mean that we need to alter our antiquated notions of worthiness and realness in pop music performance?
Fuck yes. The Knife [Webster Hall; 11:30 p.m.
] , the ...
it s safe to say we ve been aware of s colorful personality for quite some time now. But nothing, nothing Really, bag the Jamaican flag and replace it with these babies, because they embody the country and its music like nothing I ve ever seen before. Plus it s nice to lift these clunkers off the ground.
The photos come courtesy of SIRIUS s Elise Brown. Scope one more after the jump.
Dr.
Dog [Bowery Ballroom; 10:25 p.m.]
Wednesday night at the Bowery Ballroom felt like a Battle of the Bands Awkward Names.
The shaggy hippies of Dr. Dog played a pretty glorious pop set, but is that a medical degree that dog has? (These guys seem more homeopathic.
)
Cold War Kids [Bowery Ballroom; 11:25 p.m.]
Def Jam taps T.
I., the Game, Ludacris, Big Boi for video game soundtrack is already releasing a follow-up of sorts to this year s d . It s called More Fish, and it comes out December 19 on , featuring the single Good .
According to Ghost s website, Theodore Unit-- his post-Wu posse that includes his teenage son Sun God-- are heavily featured on the record, which makes it seem like a or sort of thing. And that s fine by me.
Def Jam is also planning the release of Def Jam Icon-- the company s third video game in association with -- and its accompanying soundtrack.
According to Billboard.com, Big Boi, T.I.
, Ludacris, Paul Wall, and the Game are among the project s confirmed participants. Apparently, Icon, a fighting game, will also incorporate music into the various interactive environments in the creation of such necessities as a car wash that keeps to the beat of the song. Riiiight.
Def Jam Interactive and EA will release the game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in March.
Cat Power, Raconteurs, Damian Marley, and more to follow a passing mention in a weekly programming lineup. Case in point?
. and will star on the long-running live music series, the The Dress Looks Nice on You , and Oh Detroit, Lift Up Your Letter to Bowie Knife , All Systems Red , and-- with s Sam and Sarah Beam as special guests-- He Lays in the Reins . TiVos at the ready!
December 30, and Damian Marley on January 6, with the network showing Folds/Ray LaMontagne on December 2. Other acts scheduled to appear in the coming months: Van Morrison, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, James Blunt, Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently?
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