Pitchfork

Urban Outfitters-- home of the $35 ironic, threadbare t-shirt-- has partnered up with a bunch of broke-ass radio stations and Toyota Yaris (the first car made exclusively for hipsters). And what, you may inquire, has this alliance wrought? An Oprah-style auto giveaway? Comped Bayside Tigers tees?

Nah, even better: FreeYrRadio, an initiative designed with the three-pronged goal of supporting independent/college radio stations, boosting brand awareness, and giving free indie rock shows away to everybody!

FreeYrRadio will put on a series of afternoon performances in the bowels of Urban Outfitters stores around the country, all the while making it rain on local airwave-fillers. It'll work like this: First and foremost, bands will play; you'll need to run off an invite from the FreeYrRadio website, but a little dot matrix action makes for an awfully cheap date with the likes of Klaxons, the Rapture, Man Man, Dinosaur Jr. Voxtrot, Tapes 'n Tapes, Annuals, the Ponys, the Long Winters, and Rogue Wave.

Yaris is also donating a car to each station, which can be used for fund raising purposes. Each band will be asked for suggestions for modifying the car, and those modifications will be realized in a drawing posted on the FreeYrRadio website. Whoever ends up with the car gets $5000 to pimp their ride. So if Man Man suggests planting a tree in the trunk and painting it neon yellow, go for it!

Additionally, proceeds from a FreeYrRadio CD sold through the Urban Outfitters website will go to the stations.

Sounds pretty complicated, but I'll take a free show over pledge-drive-borne guilt and a crappy totebag any day.

The current schedule is below, with shows in Los Angeles, Boulder, Cleveland, and New Haven to follow.

FreeYrRadio:

04-15 Chicago, IL - Klaxons (benefiting WLUW)
04-24 Lawrence, Kansas - The Ponys (benefiting KJHK)
04-28 Houston, TX - Voxtrot (benefiting KTRU)
05-01 Seattle, WA - The Long Winters (benefiting KEXP)
05-09 Durham, NC - Annuals (benefiting WKNC)
05-19 Boulder, CO - Man Man (benefiting KGNU)
05-21 Philadelphia, PA - The Rapture (benefiting Y-Rock on XPN)
05-23 Santa Cruz, CA - Rogue Wave (benefiting KZSC)
06-05 Minneapolis, MN - Tapes 'n Tapes (benefiting The Current)
06-11 Cambridge, MA - Dinosaur Jr. (benefiting WERS)