Silver Jews Announce First Tour Ever!

Or so we hope. Apparently, the Silver Jews have decided to do this Barnum and Bailey style, as the "Love With the Lights On: Ballroom J Tour" will feature "a fiery oratorical performance" by ex-Pavement percussionist Bob Nastanovich, a "‘professional style' multimedia stageshow", and "country comedy" by Kevin Guthrie and Corny Crow, according to a press release. The whole she-bang will be co-hosted by Berman's wife (and fellow Jew) Cassie.

Exactly who will be in the band (besides David and Cassie) has yet to be announced, but Berman warned potential ticket buyers, "Don't expect the Blizzard of the Masterminds this March. Think more along the lines of the Theatre of the Nephew." No, we have no idea what he's talking about either.

Power cities:

3-10 Athens, GA - 40 Watt
3-11 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
3-12 Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle Tavern & Music Hall
3-16 Charlottesville, VA - Satellite Ballroom
3-17 New York, NY - Webster Hall
3-19 Cambridge, MA - Middle East
3-21 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
3-22 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
3-24 Columbus, OH - Little Brother's
3-25 Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig

Also, keep in mind that the "SERIES 4" art exhibit at Brooklyn's Fire Proof gallery, featuring Berman's drawings, closes December 18. Also on display are artworks by Magnolia Electric Co.'s Jason Molina, the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle, Black Heart Procession's Pall Jenkins, and the Sea and Cake's Archer Prewitt. Get on that.

Silver Jews: http://www.silverjews.net/
Drag City: http://www.dragcity.com/

Robert Pollard Announces Solo Tour

Motor away:

01-26 Athens, GA - 40 Watt
01-27 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
01-28 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
02-09 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom
02-10 Columbus, OH - Little Brother's
02-11 Newport, KY - Southgate House
02-24 Los Angeles, CA - Knitting Factory
02-25 San Francisco, CA - The Independent
02-27 Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
02-28 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Café <br> 03-30 Minneapolis, MN - First Ave
03-31 Chicago, IL - Metro
04-01 Detroit, MI - St. Andrews
04-20 New York, NY - Irving Plaza
04-21 Boston, MA - Paradise
04-22 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts

Fans should prepare to expect...the expected, as Pollard recently explained to Billboard.com: "I don't think it will be much different than a Guided by Voices show. I don't know how else to do it. It's not going to be me sitting at the piano with a spotlight on me. I'll get drunk, come out and stumble around!"

He added, "There are 26 songs on From a Compound Eye, and we're going to do 22 or 23 of them. That's a big chunk of the show. I'll do a few songs from some of my EPs, two or three from the Moping Swans, and there's a Circus Devils song I want to do. I may do eight or nine songs from old Robert Pollard albums, and maybe a GBV song or two in the regular set. Then, maybe an entire Guided by Voices encore."

And it looks like the "P" section of the record store is going to be packed in 2006, as Pollard has already announced plans for his second solo album of the new year. He recently revealed to Billboard.com that the new project, which bears the working title Normal Happiness, is already complete, and tentatively due for release in October 2006 on Merge.

The LP is said to feature a number of tracks originally written for the soundtrack to Steven Soderbergh's upcoming film, Bubble, which is set to hit U.S. theaters in January. An EP of material from the Bubble sessions, creatively titled Music For "Bubble" was released on Fading Captain in December. One of the tracks from that EP, "Boxing About", has been reworked for Normal Happiness, according to Billboard.

Pollard described the upcoming release as "a pop album" jam-packed with "16 two-minute pop songs." Which means it's pretty much business as usual.

Not surprisingly, Pollard is also involved in a pair of new side projects. Billboard.com reports that he's collaborating with ex-GBV bassist Chris Slusarenko as the Takeovers, and with Tommy Keene as the Keene Brothers. The debut releases from both outfits are expected to be issued this May through Fading Captain label, with firm dates and tracklists yet to be finalized.

And finally, if the recent Guided by Voices concert DVD (The Electrifying Conclusion, and book (Guided By Voices: A Brief History by ex-GBV member Jim Greer) don't take up enough room under the tree this holiday season, hip shoppers looking for that one-of-a-kind stocking stuffer for their GBV-loving spouses can head over to eBay, where Rockathon Records is running an auction to benefit Pollard's brother Jimmy Pollard and his wife, who are in danger of losing their jobs at an auto plant due to the downturn in the economy.

But get ready to shell out major cash-- an original copy of Propeller, signed by both Bob and Jimmy, went for a whopping $4,850.00 last week. The person who bought that is either an exemplary human being whose altruism should be admired by all, or completely insane.

* Pitchfork Review: Robert Pollard: Zoom (It Happens All Over the World) EP / Music From Bubble EP

Robert Pollard: http://www.robertpollard.net/
Rockathon Accessories: http://rockathonrecords.com/access.html
Merge Records: http://mergerecords.com

Elvis Costello Schedules Two-Faced Tour

Come March of 2006, Elvis Costello will embark on an orchestral tour of the U.S., teaming up with symphonies throughout the country to pull it off. The performances will be divided into halves: Segment number one features Costello's full-length orchestral piece "II Sogno", while number two focuses on some good time rock and pop. Intermission will be devoted to bathroom breaks, concession stand lines, and the discussion of when, exactly, Costello became unbearably lame.

Tour dates:

03-27 San Francisco, CA - Davies Symphony Hall *
04-13 Houston, TX - Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts #
04-20 North Bethesda, MD - The Music Center at Strathmore ^
04-21 Baltimore, MD - Meyerhoff Symphony Hall ^
04-22 Baltimore, MD - Meyerhoff Symphony Hall ^
05-10 Boston, MA - Symphony Hall &
05-12 Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Academy of Music @
05-13 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre $

* with San Francisco Symphony
# with Houston Symphony
^ with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
& with Boston Pops
@ with Brooklyn Philharmonic
$ with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Costello has been hard at work on the opera front as well. His first work, "The Secret Arias", is structured around the life of fairy tale author extraordinaire Hans Christian Andersen, specifically zeroing in on his unrequited love for a Swedish singer. Wow! Who knew classic literary figures and Chris Carrabba were so alike? Though Costello recently hit the Copenhagen Opera House for a jam session on ten songs from the piece, the full opera doesn't hit the stage until next year. We'll be playing Bizet's "Carmen" on loop until then... you know, for practice.

Jens Lekman: http://www.jenslekman.com/
Secretly Canadian: http://www.secretlycanadian.com/
Elvis Costello: http://www.elviscostello.com/

Joey Burns Talks New Calexico Album

"I guess it kind of sounds different from previous records," frontman Joey Burns told Pitchfork earlier this week. "The Southwestern element is downplayed more on this release. It's focusing more on the songs themselves. There's no instrumentals on this record."

Calexico have been riding high recently. They've been out on the road in support of their successful collaboration with Iron & Wine, In the Reins, and finally secured their place in the adult contemporary world when NPR recently aired a performance from this tour. That's got to be worth, like, three OC soundtrack appearances.

Burns said that Calexico's desire to branch out was inspired by working with Iron & Wine and Neko Case (the band appears on her forthcoming album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood), as well as touring with Wilco. "It's helped us reconnect to the music scene in the States more, and I can see where in the past our music and our style has maybe been hard for people to identity with here, especially outside of the Western states. So having gotten to tour with Wilco and Iron & Wine, and playing festivals like Bonnaroo, has helped us play to bigger audiences and [ask], ‘What is about us that makes us different?' and 'What else do we have to offer that hasn't been highlighted before?'" "Listening to bands like Iron & Wine and Sufjan Stevens, digging into this tradition of singer/songwriters from the States, has had a big influence," Burns said. "I wanted to put down the nylon string guitar and pick up the steel string guitar, which may sound like a small factor, but for me, what you gravitate towards as far as what you're going to write songs on really does have an influence as far as where the songs are going to go."

Calexico's live improvisations also helped shape the sound of the album. "It's interesting to see what we can do to kind of continue on in the spirit of experimentation, trying new things and coming up with new sounds and new textures and arrangements," Burns said. "I really enjoyed performing and covering the song "Alone Again Or" [by Love] and just having the whole band singing and playing the trumpet, not so much in a Southwestern style, but more in a pop sense. So the first track off the record, "Cruel", is kind of a result of that. I think because of the climate here politically and socially, and the fact that the band is always into reinventing ourselves, we wound up kind of focusing on more of a classic American singer/songwriter or folk or rock influences."

The lyrics on Garden Ruin have more of a liberal political bent than the usual Calexico fare. "Touring a lot in Europe has presented a lot of questions to the band," Burns explained. "How do you feel about your government? Your country's choice for president? What's going on outside the international boundary lines? Living close to the border of Mexico, being born in Montreal, Canada-- these things kind of make you think outside of the TV box and what's being said and what's being focused on. So I think all things have an influence at some point on your life and eventually it kind of settles into your writing and your experiences as you get older, travel about, do music."

Garden Ruin tracklist:

01 Cruel
02 Yours and Mine
03 Bisbee Blue
04 Panic Open String
05 Letter to Bowie Knife Version 2
06 Roka
07 Lucky Dime Version 1
08 Smash
09 Deep Down Version 1
10 Nom de Plume
11 All Systems Red

In addition to the new album and their work on the new Neko Case record, Calexico have other collaborations planned, including work with Gotan Project and singer/songwriter Marianne Dissard (who appeared on Calexico's 2000 album Hot Rail. But there's one group that Calexico want to play with most of all:

"I really want to tour with Broken Social Scene," Burns said. "I love the fact that there's this kind of element of chaos where neither the band nor the audience knows exactly what's going to happen. That element of surprise is so rare these days, with music and stuff that's downloaded and programmed. The spontaneity factor has become squashed in the music business, and so the more you can kind of tap into that or at least open that factor up, I think it's exciting. You might fail and fall on your face, but you usually have fun doing it because you know that you've tried. And just as much as there might be moments where things fall apart, you're going to have those moments that are just sublime, that are just beautiful."

Calexico: http://www.casadecalexico.com/
Touch and Go/Quarterstick: http://www.tgrec.com/

Nellie McKay Spills Contents of Pretty Little Head

Proving major labels aren't always the soulless despots Steve Albini warned you about, that adorable Doris Day-tripping anachronism of a songwriter Nellie McKay recently won a significant battle with Columbia Records over the tracklist to her forthcoming sophomore release, Pretty Little Head. When Columbia moved to axe seven of McKay's 23 originals and serve that abridged edition of Head to the public months ago, Nellie and her manager-mother wouldn't have it. She turned to her fans, beseeching them to write the label, and write they must've. Plot summary: Columbia caved, and Nellie's Op. 2 arrives this January in all its 23-song glory.

In a recent phone conversation with Pitchfork, Nellie revealed why she and mum stuck to their proverbial guns: "We felt that the [complete] album just artistically works better. It had a better balance of songs with the 23." Among the seven tunes out were several lighter, quirkier numbers designed to offset the "heavier stuff", according to McKay. These, such as "Pounce"-- a 57-second piano-pop romp that Friskies' ad department should be fired for not writing-- provide levity's yin to the heavy-handed yang of tracks like "Columbia Is Bleeding", a diatribe against Columbia University's gross mistreatment of laboratory animals (and not a cheap jab at the label, as it happens).

Potty-mouthed genre-bender McKay already made headlines last year when she managed to finagle Columbia into releasing her premiere opus, Get Away From Me, in double-CD format-- this despite the fact that at 61 minutes, the album's 18 tracks would have easily fit on one. Pretty Little Head, however, is planned as a single disc and will drop in mid-to-late January, according to McKay's publicist.

Where Get Away boasted come-ons, put-downs, faux-freestyles, irony-soaked anti-ballads, and a canine paean, Pretty Little Head features shorter songs and more diverse instrumentation-- steel drums, mandolin, and even Nellie's own cello-shredding factor into Head's party mix, as well as duets with fun-girl Cyndi Lauper and cummings-emulator k.d. lang. And now, that tracklist, as the artist intended it:

01 Cupcake
02 Pink Chandelier
03 There You Are In Me
04 Yodel
05 G.E.S.
06 The Big One
07 I Will Be There
08 The Down Low
09 Long and Lazy River
10 Bee Charmer [ft. Cyndi Lauper]
11 Real Life
12 Swept Away
13 I Am Nothing
14 We Had It Right [ft. k.d. lang]
15 Columbia Is Bleeding
16 Food
17 GLADD
18 Happy Flower
19 Lali Est Parisseux
20 Tipperary
21 Mama and Me
22 Pounce
23 Old Enough

Thus far, Miss McKay has but one confirmed tour date lined up for the 2006, but expect her to frolic through a few major American metropolises in the coming months. Sport your tie-DIY'd "Free Nellie" T's:

01-22 Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere *

* with Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players

McKay's muse never rests, as the young starlet continues to pursue an impressive platter of interests: in February, she begins rehearsals for a Broadway production of The Threepenny Opera, based on a new Wallace Shawn translation of the seminal Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill work, portraying Polly Peachum; previews begin in late March and the Scott Elliott-directed show is slated to open April 20 at Broadway's Studio 54.

Nellie's also hard at work on the music and lyrics for the forthcoming film The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mother, and lent her voice to PETA's recent (and victorious) campaign to stop J Crew's sale of fur. "I'm really proud of that," McKay proclaimed. And finally, McKay recently interviewed her idol, Doris Day, "a dream come true," says Nellie, and no doubt one of many for the talent-possessed debutante. The interview will appear in a future issue of The Bark magazine, "the voice of modern dog culture."

Nellie McKay: http://www.nelliemckay.com

Gorillaz, Weezer, Coldplay Get Kidz Bopped

Pitchfork has a lot of so-called guilty pleasures-- Trapped in the Closet comes to mind. But we knows what we likes when it comes to children's music. Kidz Bop 8, released in August, had a fantastic rendition of "Since U Been Gone" (quick, google that video!). And we all played that version of "Float On" to death.

Well, those wacky teenyboppers are back with the ninth entry in the series, Kidz Bop 9, which will be released by Razor & Tie on February 21. The album kicks off with another Clarkson track, "Behind These Hazel Eyes", and moves on to Weezer's "Beverly Hills". A joke about that is too easy, but what's most striking is a cover of Gorillaz' "Feel Good, Inc." Um...has anyone seen that video? I hope they don't remake that one. Yipes, I'm feeling like a pederast just mentioning it.

Other artists to be Bop-ified include such Pitchfork favorites as Gavin DeGraw and Lifehouse. And maybe Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" will be improved upon, who knows. Finally, the album ends with a rendition of England's favorite ringtone, Crazy Frog's "Axel F". But isn't that an instrumental track? Oh, those crazy kids!

For the Kidz Bop completist, fictionalized adventures featuring the kids will be presented in an accompanying comic booklet to be bundled with the disc. Furthermore, the Kidz Bop website will feature "webisodes" based on the comic which will coincide with the release of the album. Essential watching when you're stoned.

The kidz are alright:

01 Behind These Hazel Eyes (Kelly Clarkson)
02 Beverly Hills (Weezer)
03 Don't Lie (Black Eyed Peas)
04 Wake Me Up When September Ends (Green Day)
05 Listen To Your Heart (D.H.T.)
06 Just The Girl (The Click Five)
07 Pon De Replay (Rhianna)
08 Cool (Gwen Stefani)
09 Photograph (Weezer)
10 These Words (Natasha Bedingfield)
11 You And Me (Lifehouse)
12 Feel Good, Inc. (Gorillaz)
13 Chariot (Gavin DeGraw)
14 Boyfriend (Ashlee Simpson)
15 Speed Of Sound (Coldplay)
16 We Belong Together (Vanessa Carlton)
17 Wake Up (Hilary Duff)
18 Axel F (Crazy Frog)

Kidz Bop: http://www.kidzbop.com

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