Bonnie "Prince" Billy Adds 2007 Dates
Bonus: Hear Oldham chat with Neil Hamburger

Bonnie "Prince" Billy has announced a European tour, which will bring him to the UK in January and Germany, Turkey, the Netherlands, and Belgium in March. But first, he has a single Canadian show scheduled for December 11.

The UK dates coincide with the January 22 UK release of the "Lay and Love" single on Domino. The song is from Will Oldham's latest album, The Letting Go. Also, on January 26, the film Old Joy, starring Oldham, will open in the UK via Soda Pictures.

As previously reported, Bonnie stopped by "Poolside Chats With Neil Hamburger" recently to chat with the comic for Tom Green's online TV channel. The archived clip, which can be viewed here, is over an hour long, and it's exactly the stoner's wet dream it should be, including an "ad" for Gay Cigarettes, appearances from Andy Dick and Tom Green, and Bonnie "Prince" Billy playing a version of John Denver's "The Eagle and the Hawk". [MORE...]

MP3: Loney, Dear: "The City, the Airport (CSS Remix)"

I. I was standing. You were there. Two worlds collided. And-- er, you can decide whether these two should be torn apart or not. Sub Pop labelmates, hemispheres between them-- both geographically and genre-wise-- joined together at last by one pretty solid remix.

Brazilian dance crazies CSS crash earnest swede-popper Loney, Dear's party, reworking "The City, the Airport"-- from the latter's 2006 release Sologne-- into something you might dance to given the proper libations. Download the results below.

The remix comes courtesy of Something in Construction, the fine label that treated the UK to Sologne and a 7" of the original version of the song in question. CSS's take is set to appear as a bonus track on the iTunes version of Sologne, as well as on a radio single and a forthcoming SIC label sampler. As previously reported, Loney's Sub Pop debut, Loney, Noir, hits the streets February 6.

TV Personalities Cover Killers, Remixed by Black Dice
Sweep Daytime Emmys

Some things just make you feel good all over. Like when a group of bands get together to play music and raise money for an idol who's fallen on hard times.

Flashback to July 30, 2004, when New York City's Baskervilles and several area acts they'd recruited-- including My Favorite and Burnside Project-- are doing just that at NYC's Sin-é, paying tribute to Dan Treacy of Television Personalities, who found himself penniless after being released the month before following a term on a prison boat.

Together, the acts raised over $1,000, which Treacy used to record a bunch of songs set to appear on the forthcoming Are We Nearly There Yet?, a collection of semi-new TVPs material slated for U.S. release on February 20, 2007 via Overground Records. Treacy recorded these 13 tracks-- including covers of Bruce Springsteen's "If I Should Fall Behind" and the Killers' "Mr. Brightside"-- with producer Simon Trought at London's Soup Studios. He subsequently recorded My Dark Places at Soup, which saw release earlier this year via Domino.

"I'm as proud and disappointed of this CD as anything I've ever done," wrote the ever-amusing Treacy in a press release. Seems the man hasn't rested since resurfacing, and according to his ever-amusing blog, he's already writing songs for the next TVPs album.

February 20 will also see the release of a four-song Television Personalities EP collecting remixes of tunes from All My Dark Places. Domino will deliver the affair, and remixers include Black Dice, E*Vax of Ratatat, I Will (aka Ian Williams of Battles), and Brooklyn duo LingLing. That same disc arrives January 29 in the UK.

Catch Treacy live this winter as Television Personalities play two London dates. [MORE...]

Trail of Dead Dudes Brawl Onstage, Guitarist Collapses
Breaking news: Trail of Dead smash their gear after gig!! Holy shit!!!

Guess it wouldn't be a Trail of Dead/Blood Brothers tour without a little bit o' the old violence. Details remain sketchy, but according to several eyewitness reports and a couple shoddy YouTube videos, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead guitarist Kevin Allen collapsed several times during the band's November 18 show at St. Petersburg, Florida's Jannus Landing Courtyard.

The Austin-based combo eventually cut the gig short, but not before vocalist/guitarist Conrad Keely ceremonially smashed his instrument and shoved an ailing Allen into an amp.

As Pitchfork reader and show attendee Gabe wrote, after Allen reemerged following his initial collapse, "Conrad then walks to the mic, announces that this will be their last song, lifts his guitar over his head and smashes it. He then ran over to Kevin and pushes him backwards (it was one helluva running shove) into his amp. Kevin and the amp hit the ground, hard.

"Conrad keeps going right off stage and onto the bus (it was a courtyard venue, [and] the stage exits to the front gate, where the bus was parked). The rest of the band looked shocked and bewildered."

Another reader, Ana Baez, caught the mess on video and posted it to YouTube (although it's difficult to make out what the hell is happening). Reported Baez, "[Conrad] smashed his guitar into a speaker. The crowd cheered thinking it was a part of the show. He quickly walked away, stopping to say 'thank you' in a nearby mic, and as he passed Kevin he gave him a hard shove, sending his guitarist into his stack of amps. The amps toppled under his weight. The fall looked quite painful."

Several of his bandmates followed Keely's exit-- and most tragic of all, the remaining players subjected the audience to the "worst keyboard-drum jam I've ever heard," wrote Baez. [MORE...]

MP3: Pull Tiger Tail: "Loki (Demo Version)"

Pull Tiger Tail are the latest fresh young things out of London, already bathing in praise despite having sprinkled only a handful of songs on the thirsty public. Due to their friendship with Klaxons and their penchant for childish, day-glo artwork, Pull Tiger Tail are linked to the so-called "new rave" scene.

However, like Klaxons, they don't actually sound like a rave band. More like a pop-punk band with a bit of synth. Do they have the Warped Tour in England?

To celebrate the launch of their digital store, Rough Trade Digital, Rough Trade is giving away a free Pull Tiger Tail download to everyone who signs up for their new download service. The band and Rough Trade are kindly sharing the track with Pitchfork as well, for a very limited time. MP3 REMOVED

Click below to download a demo version of "Loki", a menacing, synth-driven track about the evils of the music industry. The chorus: "This demon has his way with me/ He wants a hit in record time, please/ He'll kill me when I reach my peak/ 'Cause dead singers mean the money keeps rolling in."

Seems like these kids have their heads screwed on right. [MORE...]

Antony Goes Shakespearean, Orchestral

Antony has always been pretty theatrical, but he's about to take it to the next level. According to NME.com, Mr. Hegarty, along with Natalie Merchant, Gavin Friday, and former Cocteau Twin Liz Fraser, has composed music for a two-part project themed around Shakespeare's sonnets.

Antony's creation will be performed by an eight-piece chamber orchestra from Opera North as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works Festival.

According to the festival's website, the show is scheduled to run in Stratford-upon-Avon, England on February 24 and 25. NME says that it will then tour Nottingham, Manchester, Gateshead, and Leeds, England in March.

Also on Antony's live horizon is a March 9 appearance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with accompaniment from the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. [MORE...]

Six Parts Seven Unveil Album, Share Exclusive MP3
Hear "Night Behind the Stars" here

It's as if Six Parts Seven withdrew completely from the music scene for a couple of years just so we could make a "lost notes from forgotten bands" joke upon their return. Success!

The Kent, Ohio collective recently hammered out its latest LP, Casually Smashed to Pieces, which is slated for a January 23 release via Suicide Squeeze on both CD and limited edition 12" formats. The album was recorded at Seattle's Studio Litho and Akron's Ice House, and produced by Six Parts Seven and Matt Bayles.

The label has honored the new with the old in the form of a free download-only EP, Six Parts Seven MP3EP. We recommend you click it, as those sneaky Squeezers squeezed in two Pieces songs in between the collection's otherwise previously released tracklist. And nothing's more satisfying than hearing something first and then bragging about it right off the bat, amirite?

You don't have to stop spinning new songs there. Six Parts Seven were kind enough to share another fresh number, "Night Behind the Stars", with us. The glistening instrumental, available exclusively below, lasts for a mere minute and fifteen seconds, and its title certainly captures its lullaby-esque nature. [MORE...]

Factory Records Book Heads Stateside
Douchebags still wearing Unknown Pleasures t-shirts

Whether through 24 Hour Party People, the magical interweb, or that guy at the record shop, you probably know a thing or two about Factory Records, the legendary Manchester label/collective that gave the world Joy Division, New Order, the Happy Mondays, A Certain Ratio, the Durutti Column, the Hacienda club-- and one of rock history's more colorful stories.

Factory lives on today as F4 Records, but those eager to explore the original label's rich visual legacy need look no further than Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Novel, a 224-page book and future staple of hipper coffee tables everywhere. It finally hits the States in soft- and hardcover formats on November 30.

Originally released in June in the UK, the tome boasts reprints of every album cover, gig poster, and unique article the label-- notorious for assigning catalogue numbers to everything from posters to buildings to websites to a cat-- ever released. The book itself even gets a number: FAC 461.

Factory nut Matthew Robertson put the collection together, and many of the iconic images therein were dreamt up by Factory's resident graphic designer, Peter Saville. Label co-founder and current F4 chief Tony Wilson provides the foreword.

So gather round a holiday tree of your choosing this winter, toast some egg nog and dive into Factory Records with the whole family-- then toss that Anne Geddes shit into the fire.

Lady Sov Talks Breakdown, Missy, TRL, Gonzo Date
"I couldn't breathe, and I really did think that was it. I thought I was going to die."

Biggest midget in the game Lady Sovereign wasn't simply getting random when she broke down onstage only a few songs into her November 15 gig in L.A.

"Bawling hysterically and falling to the ground", according to one bystander, Sov was "practically dragged" offstage and forced to cancel the performance and two subsequent shows in Las Vegas and San Diego, much to the dismay of the emcee and her fans alike.

"I honestly thought I was going to die," Lady Sovereign told Pitchfork last week.

And while Sov isn't all better yet, she was hell-bent on finishing the tour when we spoke to her. "I'm going to power through [the remaining dates], regardless. If I kill myself, then my family's going to have to take all the money that I'd make."

Sov disclosed all: "What happened was, I was sick in San Francisco, and I did one of the most awful shows of my life. And I probably totally fucked up San Francisco, but at least I did the show. So the next show is in L.A....and I get on stage and three or four songs into it, it just felt like someone had got an ice pick and pounded it into my chest and heart. I couldn't breathe, and I really did think that was it. I thought I was going to die. [MORE...]

Peanut Butter Wolf Talks Stones Throw Anniversary

Stones Throw Records recently celebrated its tenth anniversary with the release of the Chrome Children compilation and a subsequent tour. Label head Chris Manak, aka Peanut Butter Wolf, will head out on the European leg of the anniversary trek with Aloe Blacc in December, but Pitchfork took advantage of his break to speak with him about the label's past, his hip-hop history, and giving advice to his artists when they struggle.

Pitchfork: On the tenth anniversary tour you took to DJing using music videos. How does that work? Do you mix the videos so that the footage bleeds together, or are there quick jumps?

Peanut Butter Wolf: They're just jumps, quick cuts, and the crossfader is hooked up to it, so when you go from left to right or vice versa, the video cuts to the other one as well. But if you scratch back and forth, then the person [in the video] moves back and forth.

Pitchfork: So there is manipulation of the video going on?

PBW: Yeah, definitely. It's difficult to try to re-train yourself, because with the videos you can either manually switch them or you can do it automatically. And [when you do it] manually, you can bring in the video afterward, like, have the audio playing for a little bit so someone will recognize a song and then go into the video. Or vice versa, you can bring the video in first while the other song is going on. It gives you some extra stuff to think about.

Pitchfork: Would you ever release a DVD of this kind of stuff?

PBW: That's definitely something on the plate for me next year for the label. And a lot of other people have been asking me to do stuff since I did this [tenth anniversary] tour. I think I'm kind of the default go-to guy for people. They don't know who [else] does it, or maybe they just like what I did. Our distributor asked me to do a DVD mix for them; they were going to do like 40,000 copies or something. I'm [also] in talks with another company right now.

Pitchfork: Do you have a favorite era of hip hop videos?

PBW: Just the 80s, because that's when people started doing videos, and there were no rules at that point. There was no formula. Everybody was just experimenting. [MORE...]

Video: Lou Reed Scores, Narrates Martial Arts DVD
Joins James Murphy at the gym

Heroin might suppress that monster appetite, but Lou Reed's discovered a healthier way to stay fit: Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan).

The former Velvet Underground frontman has been a martial arts practitioner since the 80s. He is a private student under Master Ren Guang Yi, who has performed Taijiquan onstage at hundreds of Reed's shows since the pair began their partnership. Now, like Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson, they've joined forces...on screen! Alas, it's not for an action-adventure comedy, but for Chen Taijiquan - Lao Jia Yi Lu & Straight Sword, a new instructional martial arts workout DVD.

Reed provides the film with both its 5.1 audio narration and dual-soundtrack options; choose between "slower music to develop your centering" or "quicker music to give you energy". Kind of like the verse part of "Heroin" as opposed to the chorus, right?

The DVD was released through YMAA Publication Center earlier this month. For some serious Central Park sword swingin' (it actually makes a "whoosh" sound) and a sample of Reed's new aerobic tunes (seriously, they're straight out of the Yoga Booty Ballet video set I bought off an infomercial), check out the trailer below.

[MORE...]

Video: Cat Power Covers Cat Stevens, Hawks Bling
Throw your diamonds in the sky

Cat Power covers Cat Stevens on the soundtrack to this commercial, which, unfortunately is not for Meow Mix. It's a Christmas "A Diamond Is Forever" ad, and it features Chan's version of Mr. Islam's "How Can I Tell You".

Like her cover of the Nerves' "Hanging on the Telephone" (also covered by Blondie), which was featured in a Cingular commercial directed by Spike Jonze/Sofia Coppola cinematographer Lance Acord, the song will not be released on its own. So you're just going to have to watch this YouTube clip over and over again.

Cat Power continues to tour, with November dates in Seattle and Vancouver and a handful of December shows in Europe as well.

[MORE...]

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