Wolfbaby Cancels Wolfmother Tour
Chris Ross = Wolffather

Wolfmother recently cancelled the last six days of their world tour due to the premature arrival of a baby boy, born to bassist/keyboardist Chris Ross. As Ross headed back to the home den in Sydney, Australia to be with his new cub, his bandmates-- Miles Heskett and Andrew Stockdale-- had to cancel an instore appearance at Virgin Records in Chicago scheduled for September 25 (the signing and performance will happen at a later date).

The Aussie trio also rescheduled their September 28 sold-out show at the Hollywood Palladium (now set for December 12) and cancelled their appearances at the Viejas Concerts in the Park series and San Francisco's Download Festival.

Instead of playing shows during October, Ross will play dad; then, in November, Wolfmother will return to the regularly scheduled program, playing MTV2's Spanking New Music Tour in the UK, plus a series of North American dates, followed by a few Australian shows at the end of the year.

On November 14, Wolfmother will perform at London's Alexandra Palace as part of the UK Music Hall of Fame ceremony. They will be honoring Led Zeppelin. [MORE...]

Pretenders Reissued, Tour With the Who

Just like they did with fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Elvis Costello's catalogue, the folks at Rhino Records have expanded the Pretenders' first two LPs into two-disc sets and will reissue them on October 3. (Hopefully, unlike Elvis Costello's stuff, these will be definitive versions, and we won't be forced to buy the same albums again in a year.)

These double-disc versions of 1980's Pretenders and 1981's Pretenders II-- the only two albums recorded with the original lineup of Chrissie Hynde, Martin Chambers, James Honeyman-Scott, and Pete Farndon-- are filled with demos, live tracks, and otherwise previously unreleased material.

The tracklists for the first discs of both 12-track albums are identical to the original releases. The Pretenders bonus disc mostly consists of previously unreleased demos of album tracks. The Pretenders II bonus disc features live versions culled from the promo-only Pretenders Live at the Santa Monica Civic in addition to outtakes of "I Go to Sleep" and "Pack It Up" and a demo version of "Talk of the Town".

Although the original band was demolished by the deaths of both Honeyman-Scott and Farndon following the release of Pretenders II, Hynde soldiers on with the Pretenders. They're scheduled to open for the Who on their American tour this fall. [MORE...]

Video: Mates of State: "Like U Crazy"

Despite the fact that it resembles an old-timey black and white movie, and the fact that it takes place in a space blimp, and the fact that this space blimp crashes, corny special effects and all, leaving Mates of State stranded and translucent in the stars, AND the fact that they keep on playing before disappearing into thin non-air...the new Roboshobo (Robert Schober)-directed video for the Barsuk pair's "Like U Crazy" is a bit of a yawn. Zzzzz.

Talk about defying logic!

Wayne Coyne Sez: "Vote or Be Taken Over by Robots"
Sure beats Diddy's "Vote or Die"

Attention citizens of Oklahoma's District 46! Are you ready to go to war with the mystics? How about the Republicans?

Andrew Rice wants to be your State Senator. The Democratic candidate has a wife named Apple and a brother who was killed on 9/11, and he's worked to solve health issues in developing countries. He's "running on a platform of social progressivism (constitutional & privacy rights, separation of church & state, and personal liberty free of government intrusion) and fiscal discipline (balancing the budget and working for a more efficient use of tax revenue)."

He's been endorsed by the Oklahoma AFL-CIO, the Oklahoma Chapter of the Sierra Club...and Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. See, Wayne doesn't only care about Martians and animal costumes. He cares about politics too!

On Thursday, October 12, Coyne will appear at a Rice for Senate voter registration bash taking place from 8 to 10 p.m. at Raffine Interiors on Film Row, in downtown Oklahoma City. The event is free for those aged 18 to 21, and costs 10 bucks for everyone older than that.

It's not clear what, exactly, Wayne will be doing at the event, although "music, food, and drink" are promised. Perhaps he'll announce that Christmas on Mars will only be released if Rice is elected. [MORE...]

Infinite Mixtape #43: Tim Hecker: "Chimeras"

While his peers in ambient music seem content to explore cosmic and terrestrial realms, Canada's Tim Hecker crafts electronic compositions that evoke vast innerspaces as much as outer, both synthetic and organic. A study in contradiction, his pieces temper the warm, the rich, and the inviting with coldness, distance, and longing.

It's the womb-warm, arpeggiated bassline forming the underbelly of "Chimeras"-- from Hecker's forthcoming longplayer Harmony in Ultraviolet (October 16, Kranky)-- that lures us in here. But just as we start to get comfortable, a reverb-soaked guitar creeps in, lending the track a sense of restless yearning. Elementally simple, really, but profoundly affecting.

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#0043 > Tim Hecker: "Chimeras"
[from Harmony in Ultraviolet; Kranky Records]
Info: [Tim Hecker] | [MySpace] | [Kranky]

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// Previously on The Infinite Mixtape:
#0042: Working for a Nuclear Free City: "Troubled Son"
#0041: Fujiya & Miyagi: "Collarbone"
#0040: Malajube: "La Monogamie"
#0039: The Polyphonic Spree: "Sonic Bloom"
#0038: Oxford Collapse: "Please Visit Your National Parks"
#0037: Peter Bjorn & John: "Young Folks [ft. Victoria Bergsman]"
#0036: Flying Canyon: "In the Reflection"
#0035: Califone: "The Orchids"
#0000: All Previous Infinite Mixtape Entries

Video: Love Is All: "Busy Doing Nothing" / "Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up"

If by "nothing" they mean rocking out across North America, painting numbers on their hands, playing "Patty Cake", dancing under the influence in parking lots, wiping out on makeshift skateboards, and fondling rubber chickens, then yes. Nothing.

And if by "make out" they mean playing their tune in a black-and-white, film noir-lit industrial space with projected textures and direction by Andreas Nilsson, then yes. That too.

New videos from Love Is All's Nine Times That Same Song. Clap your hands say hell yizzeahhh!

"BUSY DOING NOTHING"

"MAKE OUT, FALL OUT, MAKE UP"

Chick on Speed Curates Girl Monster Comp

Courtney Love might be the girl with the most cake, but Chicks on Speed's Alex Murray-Leslie is the girl getting the most love in this news story.

Why? Because Murray serves as the brains and steez behind Girl Monster, a new 3CD compilation that celebrates and reclaims music-by-women in several landmark ways (read: no "Women in Rock" sidebar schlock). It hits the U.S. market via the Chicks' own label on Halloween, appropriately enough-- October 31 to the non-ghoulish among you.

Girl Monster, why you so rad? First of all, your timeline stretches from the late 1970s (the Slits, the Raincoats, Malaria!) to today (Björk, Le Tigre, Peaches). Secondly, you contain 61 tracks, many of which are exclusive or previously unreleased, and you list your format as "3 CD + newspaper." Thirdly, you feature new songs and solo work from some of the original monsters (Talking Heads' Tina Weymouth, Throbbing Gristle's Cosey Fanni Tutti, Siouxsie Sioux, the Raincoats' Ana da Silva, and the Slits' Ari Up). It's true: people make music after forty, and sometimes it's great music, too. Fourthly, there is, like, a mutant collage on your cover.

Other P4k favs on the Monster mash: Barbara Morgenstern, Kevin Blechdom, Erase Errata, Planningtorock, Soffy O, and more. [MORE...]

The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower Break Up

Post-hardcore band the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower have announced that they will call it quits after their fall tour.

According to a statement, "The guys feel that as a band they have achieved everything they could have dreamed of and set out to do, including guesting on a Jayne County/Don Bolles project, touring around the world to OZ, Europe, NZ, and everywhere in between, and sharing the stage with almost every one of their favorite bands and friends.

"This upcoming tour is to say goodbye to all their fans and people [who] have supported them as well as to live out their final goal: opening for the Slits in NYC during CMJ." The Plot will also play multiple dates with Genghis Tron, the Mall, and AIDS Wolf.

Three of the band's four members will continue to play and record together as the Prayers, who trade their old band's sound for a throwback to 60s pop. The Prayers have two late September dates in Southern California before the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower tour begins in October.
[MORE...]

First Two Knife Albums Coming to America

The Knife have big plans for America. As previously reported, they will play their first two of four U.S. shows in New York during the CMJ Music Marathon, and now Mute, the duo's U.S. label, will re-release their first two LPs just one day before those shows. That's right-- Halloween, bitches.

These will be the first Stateside releases of 2001's The Knife and 2003's Deep Cuts, both of which come with bonus tracks. The Knife has three: "High School Poem", "Hannah's Conscious", and "Vegetarian Restaurant". Deep Cuts comes as a two-disc CD/DVD package; the CD has five bonus tracks, including the Rex the Dog remix of "Heartbeats" and the Mylo remix of "You Take My Breath Away". The DVD has six videos (two for "You Take My Breath Away" alone) and a short film titled When I Found the Knife, by Frau Rabid.

The Knife will head out on a short tour of Europe in October before playing those aforementioned shows in New York and then moving on to California. [MORE...]

Chris Clark Drops First Name, Third Album

Chris Clark is ready to emerge from the shadows of more senior members of the Warp Records roster like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher with his third LP, Body Riddle, due out October 2 (UK) and October 3 (North America) via Warp. Dude's signaled his ascension by shortening his nom de musique to simply Clark and crafting a slick new album.

Body Riddle keeps 11 tracks to about 40 minutes, and, as a press release colorfully puts it, Clark "hijacks the conventional live instrumentation of rock, draping it in the cloak of electronic composition and running it through the kaleidoscopic filters of krautrock, sunburnt psychedelia, and musique concrete." Whether or not that means anything to you, early reports from the Pitchfork camp show smiles.

To count down the weeks leading up to the album's release, Clark has been making exclusive, non-album tracks available for free download-- including a collaborative number with fellow Warpees Broadcast. There are three tunes in all, available now at www.throttleclark.com.

Or catch Clark as he tours the European circuit this fall. [MORE...]

Rhino Brings the Funk With Four-Disc Box

Once again, Rhino comes riding into town with a box set to put your record collection to shame, this time revealing the source material behind tracks by Kanye, Biggie, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, and the Beastie Boys, among others.

What it is: What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves (1967-1977), a four disc set of rare and classic funk tracks that have long served as rappers' delights. Many of these tracks make their U.S. CD debut here, including a previously unreleased alternate version of Aretha Franklin's "Rock Steady".

Rhino will release What It Is! on October 3 in a clamshell box, with pearly liner notes by writer and Soul Sides blogger Oliver Wang and track-by-track commentaries and testimonials from the likes of Bootsy Collins, Hank Shocklee (Public Enemy), Fred Wesley (James Brown), Howard Tate, DJ Pooh (Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube), and George Porter Jr. (The Meters). According to the press release, the booklet will also include plenty of "rare vintage photos."

The rest of the story is told in the tracklist, which includes two contributions from Sly Stone (performing as 6ix and writing and producing Little Sister's "Stanga") and three from the Meters, who back up Cyril Neville in addition to performing as the Rhine Oaks and as simply themselves. All in all, there are over five hours of funk taken from the Atlantic, Atco, and Warner Bros. archives, and it's all ripe for the (re-)pilfering. Sample away! [MORE...]

Mission of Burma Tour Diary, Part Eleven
The end!

Well, this is it, folks. As the legendary Mission of Burma made their way down the West Coast on a week-long trek, guitarist Roger Miller shared his tour diary with Pitchfork. We laughed, we cried, we got naked. And now it's all over.

Enjoy Roger's final entry, and stay tuned to Pitchfork for all future Burma news.

Read part ten here.
Read part nine here.
Read part eight here.
Read part six here.
Read part five here.
Read part four here.
Read part three here.
Read part two here.
Read part one here.

---

Sunday, September 24: Fly Home

Today's NY Times headlines: "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat." Amazing that it took so long for that to be a headline. Anyone with half a brain knows the following equation: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Anyone who does not know this is not fit to rule a country.

Topic-- Voting: Some people think it's unhip to vote. If so, I am a full-on unhipster. If you pay any taxes at all, I believe you have a conceptual duty to at least try to steer your financial donation towards something you might actually believe in, or that at least doesn't make you ashamed (see above paragraph). Just because it's likely that your candidate will not win is not enough reason not to vote: if we had used that rationale, Burma would never have formed-- we were clearly an "against all odds" band right from the start. In my opinion, only individuals who live their lives as true anarchists can skip voting with a clear conscience. (NOTE: The opinions expressed in this paragraph are the writer's alone, and are not intended to represent the band or the U.S. government).

Said goodbye to Bob last night, since he was leaving for Chicago early this morning. Said goodbye to Sharon today after she dropped us off at the airport. Now the rest of us sit in the incredibly calm, luxurious environs of the San Diego airport. Waitresses stop by and offer us pineapple wedges, avocado with artichoke dip, fine wines from the Sonoma Valley. Highly trained chimpanzees offer to massage our feet. Using an elaborate sign language (developed by Jane Goodall's protégé) we indicate our gratefulness for the offer, but we are so physically at peace that there is no need to "gild the lily".

Interesting how our recent shows are filled with younger people. (Of course we have nothing against older people-- some of our best friends are older people). When we first started playing again, it was mostly people who had "seen us in the day" or had just missed us. As that audience backed off a bit (yeah, we saw 'em-- they were pretty good, but I got a life to live), we wondered if a new audience would take its place. Kind of amazing that it actually happened. It seems to be The Obliterati that is doing this, too. ONoffON was kind of our "novelty record"-- look, they did this after 20 years!-- but our audience didn't increase based on that record. In fact, it seemed to continue its slow downward slip. But with The Obliterati, things are actually climbing back up (yeah, this is a highly honed career move).

At any rate, it's kind of bizarre how well we get along in Burma. We're all ready to go back home, though. Well, for me home is three days, then off with Alloy for a two-and-a-half week Midwest tour. That's the way of my world.

This is where I live-- in the blank spots of a wall

The End

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