Pitchfork

[Updated Friday, January 16th, 2004 03:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Eric Marth, Micah Harding and Ray Sukuki report:
Belle & Sebastian never forgot North Carolina coaching legend Jimmy Valvano or his greatest lesson: "Don't give up. Don't ever give up." The band didn't stop after the dreadful Storytelling soundtrack, or their last few sub-par EPs. But then they regained much lost credibility with their most recent LP, Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Up next for the group is another single from Waitress, the kooky "I'm A Cuckoo."

The single will be released in CD, DVD, and seven-inch formats by Rough Trade Records on February 16th. All formats will feature the spacey country-rocker "(I Believe In) Travelin' Light," which was excised from Dear Catastrophe Waitress at the last minute. The CD and DVD add another non-album track along with a remix of "I'm A Cuckoo" by all-star DJ's The Avalanches. The band thought the remix took "so little of the original we didn't think the title 'remix' did it justice," so the remix bears the subtitle "by the Avalanches." Tracklist:

01 I'm A Cuckoo
02 Stop, Look and Listen
03 I'm A Cuckoo [by the Avalanches]
04 (I Believe In) Travellin' Light

The DVD will also include the Blair Young-directed video for the song, which features Stuart Murdoch as "a budding athlete torn between the demands of his coach, band politics, and the women in his life." The DVD will also feature a photo gallery and outtakes from the making of the video.

And speaking of DVD's, the band's compilation disc, Fans Only, will finally be released stateside January 20th by Matador and Jeepster. As previously reported, the DVD contains live performances, television broadcasts, promo videos, interviews with band-members that discuss backstory on the band, and nearly two hours of documentary footage. Along with the rare and unreleased footage, the DVD also contains 75 songs (including many unreleased gems and covers of artists as diverse as the Beach Boys, Glen Campbell, and Serge Gainsbourg), 16 that are performed in their entirety. Tracklist:

01 Dog On Wheels
02 I Could Be Dreaming
03 A Century Of Fakers
04 Like Dylan In The Movies
05 Lazy Line Painter Jane
06 Dirty Dream #2
07 Is It Wicked Not To Care?
08 The Boy With The Arab Strap
09 Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son [Serge Gainsbourg]
10 This Is Just A Modern Rock Song
11 Legal Man
12 The Wrong Girl
13 Wandering Alone
14 Jonathan David
15 I'm Waking Up To Us
16 The State I Am In