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From The Hips

Walls Come Tumbling Down

I have to admit that way back when I friggin' loved the song Jack & Diane by one John Cougar. Hell, I still love it. The string of hits that followed were some of the best stuff written in those days reflecting a raw, gritty americana that I had yet to be introduced to musically (sure there was tht .38 Special record that my aunts listened to incessantly but...). Not everything that followed was quite as inspired, R-O-C-K in the USA still makes me gag but I've always believed that Sir Cougar now simply John Mellencamp was the real deal - "little pink houses for you and me"!

Mr. Mellencamp is passionate about his causes and his business. He has recently written an excellent essay on the decline of the music industry that is worth a read over at his official site: mellencamp.com.

Got Game?

New goods from Karmella's Game!!!! Live Sessions is available now through Insubordination Records featuring raw, live takes on tracks from their much anticipated sophomore release and one oldie but goodie in the mix for good measure.

Purchase the Live Sessions ep now at Insubordination Records.

LCDivision

Thank you to Some Velvet Blog for mining this LCD Soundsystem gem of a joy Division cover for us from Hayatbayat. So good, oh so good.

No Love Lost (Joy Division) - LCD Soundsystem

Elder Statesmen

It's just wonderfully good news to hear that a new record by hot shot new act Cosmos will hit in this part of the universe on June 9 through Happy Jack Rock. The 14 track slab of pop goodness entitled Jar of Jam Ton of Bricks is a collaboration between two of pop rock's upper echelon of taste makers: Robert Pollard & Richard Davies. The two had had a long running correspondence that inevitably led to the idea of collaboration. Davies agreed to work up music and Pollard would pen his distinctive brand of lyrical musing. And lo! the Cosmos was born. Everyone knows the prolific Pollard - he of the 10,000 records and one certain band dubbed Guided by Voices - though Davies and his sparkling psychedlic pop craftsmanship have flown a little further under the radar in acts like The Moles and Cardinal as well as the excellent solo effort Telegraph. The pairing is sure to satisfy your other-worldly delights.

Magnet has a preview track as does Stereogum.

Ra Ra Riot Return

The Ra Ra Riot crew hit the late night circuit over at Craig Ferguson's place for a take on the new single "Can You Tell" off The Rhumb Line out on Barsuk. No word yet on a New London return but we have our fingers crossed for a certain date in September!

Shins Shows

The Shins have just announced two shows down in Gotham at The Wellmont Theatre on Sunday, May 17 and Terminal 5 on Monday, May 18. The shows are brought to you buy the fine folks at Bowery Presents and go on sale this Friday at Noon. With hope, this means new material and a new slab of tunes from the band!

In the meantime, who can resist the Muppets interviewing the boys:

Extinct Animal Farm

Dinosaur Jr. will release Farm their 9th album (and second since the reunion of the original trio of J, Lou and Murph) on June 23 on Jagjaguwar. The record was recorded and produced by frontman & guitar hero J Mascis at his Bisquiteen Studios in Amherst, MA.

The band will be playing the new material along with old on a tour featuring stops in more intimate settings than you might often get a chance to see them. Locally, they'll be doing a Manic Productions show on April 1 (no joke!) at Daniel Street in Milford, CT. Attendees will also receive a limited edition, tour-only 7" or a digital download code with the purchase of a ticket. The single features new track "I Don't Want To Go There" b/w a new take on classic Dino track "Tarpit" from You're Living All Over Me.

The track listing for the new record goes a little something like this:

01. Pieces
02. I Want You To Know
03. Ocean In The Way
04. Plans
05. Your Weather
06. Over It
07. Friends
08. Said The People
09. There’s No Here
10. See You
11. I Don’t Wanna Go There
12. Imagination Blind

Record Store Day: April 18, 2009

For the third year running, more than 700 independent record stores will band together with artists and labels to celebrate the unique, special, and sadly endangered creature that is your local music shop. Mom & Pops everywhere have been in jeopardy for years due largely to the greed of the corporate music industry. With the business model that the big labels (who are really no better than any of these Notorious AIGs out there) have followed crumbling, the time is ripe to reinvest in the place you probably found yr first loves in music - your local indie shop.

This year's Record Store Day offers up a tantalizing list of limited and rare releases from some of the most exciting acts in the business of making us music. Young and old alike are taking part so this ain't no generational thing, it's all about the love of music and in many cases vinyl! Make sure you get your orders in with your local purveyor soon (in our hood of New London county, make sure to call the Mystic Disc crew at 860-536-1312), so you don't miss out on some very special releases from the likes of: Modest Mouse, Blitzen Trapper, Flaming Lips, New Order, Sonic Youth, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Regina Spektor and many many more.

Ladies and Gentlemen, buy your tickets

Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band will release a brand new album, entitled Outer South, on May 5th on Merge Records.

The record was recorded at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillio, outside El Paso, Texas in November/December and features the same talented group of musicians as were present on last year’s acclaimed Conor Oberst album. The Mystic Valley Band are Taylor Hollingsworth, Nik Freitas, Macey Taylor, Nathaniel Walcott and Jason Boesel.

Outer South is a spectacular 16-track album featuring songs written by Oberst, Jason Boesel, Nik Freitas, and Taylor Hollingsworth, some of which were part of the live show from late last year including “Nikorette” which they performed on Late Night With Conan O’Brien in November.

The Mystic Valley Band will be playing a run of shows in the west and at the Coachella Festival this spring.

Thu-Apr-09 Omaha, NE Slowdown
Fri-Apr-10 Denver, CO Ogden Theatre
Sat-Apr-11 Aspen, CO Belly Up
Sun-Apr-12 El Paso, TX Barnett Harley Davidson (Hands of Love & Hope Benefit)
Mon-Apr-13 Albuquerque, NM Sunshine Theatre
Tue-Apr-14 Tempe, AZ Marquee Theatre
Wed-Apr-15 Pomona, CA Glass House
Fri-Apr-17 Indio, CA Coachella Music & Arts Festival
Thu-Jun-18 Telluride, CO Telluride Bluegrass Festival

Old Time Spectacle

Elvis Costello has announced a new release, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, due out on June 2 on Hear Music. The album is a largely acoustic affair with producer extraordinaire T Bone Burnett at the helm. Joining Costello were Jerry Douglas (dobro), Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Mike Compton (mandolin), Jeff Taylor (accordion) and Dennis Crouch (double bass), some of the most highly regarded recording artists and musicians in traditional American country music, Bluegrass and beyond.

Several of these songs, including "Down Among The Wines and Spirits", were given their first public performances during Costello's acclaimed solo appearances as part of "The Bob Dylan Show" in late 2007. The album includes ten previously unrecorded songs. "Sulphur to Sugarcane" and "The Crooked Line", were co-written with T Bone Burnett while, "I Felt The Chill" marks Costello's second recorded songwriting collaboration with Loretta Lynn. Costello revisits two songs from his catalogue in string band style. Both songs were originally written for Johnny Cash. "Hidden Shame" was indeed included on Cash's album, "Boom Chicka Boom".

Indeed these are first Costello compositions to be predominantly rooted in acoustic music since his 1986 album, "King Of America", which was produced by T Bone Burnett. He also produced the 1989 album, "Spike". T Bone adds his distinctive Kay electric guitar to several of numbers, the only amplified instrument on the recording.

SECRET, PROFANE, & SUGARCANE TRACK LIST
1. Down Among the Wine and Spirits
2. Complicated Shadows
3. I Felt the Chill
4. My All Time Doll
5. Hidden Shame
6. She Handed Me a Mirror
7. I Dreamed of My Old Lover
8. How Deep is the Red
9. She Was No Good
10. Sulfur to Sugarcane
11. Red Cotton
12. The Crooked Line
13. Changing Partners

The vinyl version will include two bonus tracks, an arrangement of Lou Reed's "Femme Fatale" and Costello's sequel to the old Appalachian murder ballad, "Omie Wise", entitled, "What Lewis Did Last".

New Death Cab at Stereogum

Death Cab for Cutie will be releasing a new ep of tracks recorded during the Narrow Stairs sessions that didn't quite fit into the framework of the full LP. The Open Door ep, which features four new tunes anda ukulele demo of "Talking Birds", will be available digitally March 31. In the menatime, Stereogum is revealing the ep one track at a time over the course of the week. Check it out!

Track Listing for The Open Door ep:
01 "Little Bribes"
02 "A Diamond And A Tether"
03 "My Mirror Speaks"
04 "I Was Once a Loyal Lover"
05 "Talking Bird" (demo)

www.deathcabforcutie.com

Satellite of Love

Modest Mouse will have a new slab of vinyl available for Record Store Day, April 18th, in a limited release orange 7" featuring "Satellite Skin" b/w "Guilty Cocker Spaniels". The song's been performed live for a while now and the band (minus Sir Johnny Marr) brought it to network television on March 19th's David Letterman Show. Without further ado.....

Converting Condos

New London via Brooklyn band Conversion Party have gone out of their way to generate some free publicity for themselves over at the Mata-blog. The band has created a virtual dust-up with the Yo La Tengo one-off cover crew Condo Fucks for dissing their scene (or one of their scenes, half their scene, something like that) by launching a weblog called Fuck The Condo Fucks. Not shying away from brazen acts of publicity, the band even managed to tell Gerard Cosley, the founder of Matador Records and friendly blog commenter, to fuck off. If this don't get them signed, don't know what will!

Meanwhile the Condo Fucks will make a "rare" appearance on WMFU March 24:

To commemorate next Tuesday’s release of the long-awaited Condo Fucks LP/CD, ‘Fuckbook’, the fearsome threesome of Kid Condo, Georgia Condo and James McNew have recorded a live set for Joe Belock’s “Three Chord Monte” program, to be aired that same day, March 24 between 12-3pm. You can listen online at WFMU.org, or in the greater NYC area on 91.1 FM.

NIN|JA 2009 tour announced

we saw them together first back at Lollapalooza Round 1 way back in 1991 and they are at it again for an appropriately craftily named tour called NIN|JA 2009. trent's even suggesting this may be Nine Inch Nails last go around (though that's difficult to swallow at this point). either way the tour is probably one you don't want to miss if yr inner metal/goth self is screaming for release here in the recession/depression oughts. the bands have kindly offered up some free goodies to get yr taste buds salivating over at their joint site. there's even a few jane's tracks ready for yr remixing prowess available through the nin remix site so that all are in on the game.

May 2009
8 - West Palm Beach, FL - Cruzan Amphitheatre
9 - Tampa, FL - Ford Amphitheatre
10 - Atlanta, GA - Lakewood Amphitheatre
12 - Austin, TX - Frank Erwin Center
14 - Albuquerque, NM - Journal Pavilion
15 - Phoenix, AZ - Cricket Wireless Pavilion
16 - Chula Vista, CA - Cricket Wireless Amphitheater
18 - Las Vegas, NV - The Pearl
20 - Irvine, CA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Irvine Meadows
22 - Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre
24 - George, WA - Gorge Amphitheater
26 - Englewood, CO - Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre
27 - Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theatre
29 - Chicago, IL - Charter One Pavilion
30 - Noblesville, IN - Verizon Wireless Music Center
31 - Clarkston, MI - DTE Energy Music Theatre

June 2009
2 - Toronto, Ontario - Molson Amphitheatre
3 - Mansfield, MA - Comcast Center
5 - Camden, NJ - Susquehanna Bank Center
6 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center
7 - Wantagh, NY - Nikon at Jones Beach Music Theater
9 - Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavilion
10 - Burgettstown, PA - Post-Gazette Pavilion
12 - Charlotte, NC - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
13 - Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Festival

The Noise reviews the Liz Larsons

THE LIZ LARSONS
Cosmodemonic Telegraph
Talk Like A Male Artist
13-song CD

Singer, songwriter, vocalist, and guitar player extraordinaire Liz Larson (not to be confused with the band itself, named THE Liz Larsons) sings the lyrics “I’m not gonna make it as a superstar to you” during the opening seconds of Talk Like A Male Artist and I have to admit, she is correct. However, I can also admit that her purposeful moaning really does have some legitimate punk moments. With influences from the Swirlies, Courtney Love, and the ’70s TV show Hee Haw, the Liz Larsons rock on in the face of the commercial capitalist mainstream pig. Their signature indy-rock sound takes me back to last call at T.T. the Bear’s on a Monday night (R.I.P. Jeannie; we’ll miss you). I can taste bar tequila and smell the sent of unwashed MIT students. The sound of strumming telecasters, tambourine, and claps remind me of a genre almost forgotten. The Liz Larsons’ cynicism is relentless during all 13 tracks. Liz’s voice wavers sarcastically from note to note as the band jangles and marches fearlessly onward. The Liz Larsons’ new release is a modern soundtrack for the spun-out masses. (Lance Woodward)

original article
band site

Lily Allen - Not Fair vidvid with a lil cowpoke jangle