Pitchfork

You can eat it so much better... with Alex Kapranos. Despite Franz Ferdinand's nonstop 2006 touring agenda, frontman Kapranos has somehow found time to share his cooking expertise in a food column for British newspaper The Guardian.

According to NME, Kapranos plans to collect his columns into a book, Sound Bites, due out later this year. Andrew Knowles, touring drummer and keyboard player for Franz, will put his Glasgow School of Art education to use by illustrating the book.

In the meantime, it's ramen noodles and mac 'n' cheese for the band, as they'll spend the majority of summer on the road to various festivals. While most of the trek is scheduled for Europe, Franz Ferdinand will also play a few gigs in California, as well as Japan's Fuji Rock Festival. In late August, they'll reel it in with the Carling Weekend in Reading and Leeds.

Yummy:

06-02 Nuremburg, Germany - Volkspark Dutzendteich (Rock-im-Park Festival)
06-04 Nurburgring, Germany - Pfingsten (Rock-am-Ring Festival)
06-05 Landgraaf, Netherlands - Megaland (Pinkpop Festival)
06-09 San Diego, CA - Coors Amphitheatre (X-Fest)
06-10 San Francisco, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre (Live 105 BFD)
06-11 Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl (Summer Roundup)
06-24 Normandy, France - Evreux Hippodrome (Le Rock dans Tous Ses États)
06-25 Roeser, Luxembourg - Open Air Arena (Rock-A-Field Festival)
06-29 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
06-30 St. Gallen, Switzerland - OpenAir Arena (OpenAir St. Gallen Festival)
07-01 Werchter, Belgium - Rock Werchter Festival
07-04 Zagreb, Croatia - SRC Salata Festival
07-06 Novi Sad, Serbia - Petrovaradin Fortress (Exit Festival)
07-07 Gdynia, Poland - Open'er Festival
07-08 Balado, Scotland - T in the Park
07-09 Naas, Ireland - Punchestown Racecourse (Oxygen Festival)
07-11 Athens, Greece - Rockwave Festival
07-13 Lyon, France - Les Nuits de Fourvière
07-14 Torino, Italy - Traffic Free Music Festival
07-15 Arvika, Sweden - Värmland (Arvikafestivalen)
07-17 Rome, Italy - Stadio Olimpico *
07-22 Benicassim, Spain - Benicassim Festival
07-28 Niigata, Japan - Naeba Ski Resort (Fuji Rock Festival)
08-13 Saint-Malo, France - Le Fort á Saint Père (La Route du Rock Festival)
08-18 Salzburg, Austria - Salzburgring (Frequency Festival)
08-20 Orange, France - Théâtre antique d'Orange (Chorégies d'Orange)
08-25 Reading, England - Richfield Avenue (Reading Festival)
08-26 Leeds, England - Bramham Park (Leeds Festival)

* with Depeche Mode

NME also recently reported that Franz Ferdinand turned down a lucrative American ad campaign for an undisclosed company. According to the paper, Kapranos told Scotland on Sunday, "They wanted to do this huge thing that was going to have $50m spent on it. It would have meant we sold four times as many copies of the album, just from the extra exposure it would have got. But the advert meant we had to completely surrender all of our identity and integrity to this product that was being advertised.

"It wasn't Coca-Cola or anything like that. It was just a thing that needed some music associated with it. We just had to say no because of the gut reaction. It wasn't because we didn't want to sell more records. It was just because it didn't feel right.

"We'd have been completely surrendering if we had done that. We'd be lost. You can just tell with stuff like that - you can tell when you're doing something bad. We probably hacked off quite a few people by not doing it. But as ourselves we felt a lot better about it."

Also helping the band feel better: a well-deserved break, scheduled to take place after the summer tour, according to NME.

Earlier this week, Domino released a 12" version of "The Fallen" single. The B-side holds Max Tundra's take on "Do You Want To".

Complete tracklist:

A:
01 "The Fallen" (Ruined by Justice)
02 "The Fallen" (Original Version)

B:
01 "Do You Want To" (Max Tundra Remix)
02 "Do You Want To" (Max Tundra Remix - Instrumental)

"