Pitchfork

The Coalition of Independent Music Stores is your friend. The Harry Potter to Best Buy's Voldemort, they fight for the rights of mom and pop shops across the land, helping to keep cool record store culture alive.

For the organization's tenth anniversary meeting in Seattle, CIMS asked Barsuk Records if they'd put together a show for the retailers at the get-together. Because Barsuk is pronounced "Bar-sook" and not "Bar-suck" (and because they're fans of teensy record stores), they organized an acoustic CIMS birthday party featuring Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard, the Long Winters' John Roderick, Nada Surf's Matthew Caws, John Vanderslice, and Jesse Sykes at the Experience Music Project's JBL Theatre.

Barsuk both recorded the event and remembered how Mom always told them to share. Long story short, they're making music from the event available for free to the public through streaming audio at http://www.barsuk.com/songwriters/ecard/.

Today, the first batch pop up at that magical URL, and more are slated to arrive on February 27, March 13, and March 27. The schedule:

>>02-10:
Matthew Caws - "What Is Your Secret?"
John Roderick - "Ultimatum"
John Vanderslice - "Radiant With Terror"
Jesse Sykes - "Your Side Now"

>>02-27:
Matthew Caws - "Blizzard of '77"
John Roderick - "Bride and Bridle"
Ben Gibbard - "Title and Registration"

>>03-13:
John Vanderslice - "Dead Slate Pacific"
Jesse Sykes - "Doralee"
Matthews Caws - "Always Love"
John Roderick - "It'll Be a Breeze"

>>03-27:
John Vanderslice - "Pale Horse"
Jesse Sykes - "Untitled" (unreleased)
Ben Gibbard - "I Will Follow You Into the Dark"

As previously reported, Death Cab for Cutie recently launched a European tour with Vanderslice and will eventually make their way to North America to join forces with Franz Ferdinand. Nada Surf also has a North American tour underway and will continue on until mid-March.

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