LSF/Wolf Parade/Islands Supergroup Delays Debut

So now that the Ides of March has come and gone, many of you are no doubt asking important questions, such as: "Wasn't that mighty intriguing supergroup comprised of members of Les Savy Fav, Islands, and Wolf Parade supposed to play on March 15?" Indeed they were, and indeed they didn't.

As previously reported, LSF's Syd Butler, Wolf Parade's Hadji Bakara, and Islands' Nick Diamonds will join forces-- now with WP's Dante Decaro (and no Dan Boeckner), Islands' Jamie Thompson, and Black Mountain's Amber Webber along for the ride-- to rock "The World, Explained", an off-kilter, McSweeney's-sponsored benefit for Dave Eggers' favorite creative writing centers, 826NYC and 826LA. Scheduling conflicts thwarted the original March 15 event date, but breathe easy, as Eggers and co. have rescheduled the bonanza for April 10.

As before, it features the supergroup, along with host Eugene Mirman and assorted interesting people talking about such interesting topics as lightweight arm-wrestling, retiring at age 28, and humor. The hilarity ensues at NYC's Symphony Space at 8 p.m. and tickets are on sale now.

Also, remember how all those fairly brilliant musician folks came up with the fairly terrible band name Internet? Well, they heard your cries of frustration and went ahead and made their band name even more ridiculous and confusing and terrible. The fruit of these men and women's loins will now be known as Final Fantasy: Online a.k.a. Internet. :-(

Decemberists to Kick Off Tour Tonight in Jersey City
The most—nay, only—bookish thing about New Jersey, like, ever

It's gonna take a lot of garment bags to transport all the tweed blazers Colin Meloy and his merry band of Decemberists will need to get them through the month-and-a-half long tour they'll begin tonight in Jersey City, New Jersey. Thesaurus-thumbing grad students hither and yon will get their chance to gaze longingly at the much-beloved geeks as they worm their way through these United States of ours.

As previously reported, the band will bewilder the bearded masses at Bonnaroo, fit in rather nicely amongst their ilk at Coachella, and make a stop at the world-famous Hollywood Bowl in early July.

Curious nerds-- and heaven knows there's plenty of you amongst the Decemberists-loyal-- should be aware that Colin Meloy's turn at novel-ranking in The Morning News' 2007 Tournament of Books has come and gone, with the mighty juggernaut that is Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land toppling the linguistic pap of Upamanyu Chatterjee's English, August. Cram it up your word-hole, Chatterjee. [MORE...]

Jeff Buckley Greatest Hits Comp, DVD in Works
The bottom of my Grace CD: Scratches from my roommate, the drunk

Though there's been no shortage of posthumously-released Jeff Buckley material in the decade since the swoon-inducing singer-songwriter's drowning in 1997, the ultimate earthly tribute-- a greatest hits compilation-- has eluded him until now.

Columbia/Legacy will collect 14 Buckley tracks on So Real: Songs of Jeff Buckley, which will be released on May 22, a week before the 10th anniversary of his death.

The collection features a handful of tracks from Buckley's back catalog, an acoustic rendering of its title track recorded in Japan, and a Smiths cover. Everything from the tracklist to the artwork of So Real came together under the watchful eye of Jeff's mom, with brand-new liner notes penned by veteran rock scribe David Fricke. (Hey, at least they're not giving him the Biggie/Puffy treatment and adding guest verses from Jack Johnson or something.)

Not coincidentally, hitting stores the same day is Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley, an hourlong docu-DVD touching on the life and legacy of Mr. Buckley from first-time filmmakers Laurie Trombley and Nyla Bialek Adams. Combining archival footage with new interviews with Buckley's friends and family, the film is sure to leave one wondering why this burgeoning talent had to leave us while John Mayer marches forward, unscathed. [MORE...]

Ellen Allien Tours, Compiles New Camping Mix

Ellen Allien will begin a tour of North America tonight in Miami Beach, Florida. The Bpitch label head has a ton of previously reported mix (and remix) projects coming up this year, so relish your chance to see the prolific techno trackstress now before she's holed up in some Berlin loft at work on her next mix masterpiece.

Florida residents have two chances to see Ms. Allien, however, as she bookends her trip to our shores with a March 25 date in Miami. Both dates coincide with the Winter Music Conference.

Afterward, she has dates scheduled in Germany as well as the rest of Europe. Okay, maybe she's not exactly the hole-up-in-a-loft-somewhere type after all.

In fact, she has recently revealed the tracklist for one of those previously reported mix projects. The third edition of the Bpitch Camping series is out March 26. It features tracks and remixes by Sascha Funke, Modeselektor, Feadz, Safety Scissors, and Ellen herself. [MORE...]

Roll Deep Roll Out New Album(s)

Following their drop from Relentless Records last year, Roll Deep will return March 26 with a street album (i.e. a mixtape of sorts) titled Rules & Regulations Vol. 1.

The grime crew will release Rules through their own Roll Deep Recordings, and they are streaming the album in its entirety via their MySpace. They are planning the release of a commercial follow-up to their first album, In at the Deep End, for the end of summer.

Roll Deep have a few appearances scheduled for March and April. The first is a solo show by producer Target. The second is their album launch party, and the final show is a school visit through Love Music Hate Racism.

Roll Deep will also perform live on Tim Westwood's BBC Radio 1 show on April 21. [MORE...]

Walkmen's Leithauser Responds to SXSW Arrest
"Marice, this bastard who works the night desk at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on North IH-35, organizes room numbers like a very, very smart dog."

Photo by Jen Reel

Toss a million bands, two million industry mongrels, three million gallons of free booze, a couple evangelicals, and a few dozen kids handing out complimentary condoms into the SXSW blender, and somebody's bound to get arrested. Turns out one of the unlucky souls to land behind bars this past weekend in Austin was none other than the Walkmen's vertically imposing vocalist with the aristocratically imposing name, Hamilton Leithauser.

Old Ham, it seems, had been hitting the bottle and returned to his hotel quite late (approximately 4 a.m., according to his publicist) on the morning of Friday, March 16. After some kind of verbal altercation with the fellow behind the desk, Leithauser found himself in Austin's Travis County Jail for 12 hours, according to NME.com.

Said Leithauser in a statement to Pitchfork, "Marice, this bastard who works the night desk at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on North IH-35, organizes room numbers like a very, very smart dog."

He was released in time to perform with the Walkmen at the Record Collection/Burnlounge SXSW showcase Friday night at Emo's Annex, and even found a moment to draft a rather humorous "review" of the jail facility where he spent the night. ("As far as underground dungeons go, the Travis County Central Booking Office is pretty convincing.")

Scribe and Walkmen roadie Giles Morris, who's been documenting the band's tour on his Westing website blog, shed a little more light on the incident:

"The story of Hamilton's woe is not really that interesting, but funny enough in its way. He was drunk and got back to the hotel late. Matt [Barrick] had left keys for him and [Walkmen sound engineer] Stretch at the desk. The desk guy screwed up the room number when he wrote it down, [so] when Ham told him the room number he didn't believe him. Ham got frustrated and asked if he could go up to Matt's room and knock on the door. He did that but it wasn't Matt's room. They asked Ham to leave. Ham got mad and the manager called the cops. I guess they gave the door one more try, the wrong door, and then Ham and the cops got crosswise with each other and the next thing you know our hero is cuffed. Meanwhile canny Stretch has slithered into the back of the van and avoided drama.

"The funny part is after a night in jail, and probably a very long morning in jail, Ham had to go back to the same desk that night and get his key. 'You know the only reason I went to jail is you got the room number wrong?' The guy gets squirrelly and says, 'No... not 'til right now.' But no apology or anything. The next day, after fielding phone calls from concerned relatives and getting some actual sleep, Ham had a sense of humor about it. Before he went on stage we talked about how every rapper has a moment, a show, right after they get out of jail and that they have to decide how to approach it. What would ODB do?"

ODB would likely crash an awards show or something, but the Walkmen will have to settle for touring North America with Kaiser Chiefs. Take that, authority!! Ugh! [MORE...]

Sub Pop to Offer "Loser Scholarship"
Won't it make grandma proud!

Sub Pop, the venerable Seattle label, is offering current high school seniors in Washington and Oregon a shot at the first-ever "Loser Scholarship."

No, it's not like that time George Costanza sought out a C-student modeled in his own slovenly image to take over his ex-in-laws' inheritance. Rather, the good people at Sub Pop are giving $5750 to a senior "interested in music and/or the creative arts in some way."

So read between the lines, people: Johnny Football Star need not apply. Unless Johnny Football Star also has a noise band.

From now until May 1, the college-bound are invited to send Sub Pop digital portfolios or hard copies of their artwork, along with a one-page essay. The prize money will be applied towards the winner's college tuition.

Subtitle Calls It Quits

Subtitle has quit music. The L.A. rapper and Islands acolyte's MySpace now consists of a picture of skull and crossbones with the title "finished." above it. Its all-black interface makes the aforementioned title as well as just about everything else on the page totally unreadable, and, inexplicably, four female friends even more naked than usual for a MySpace friends list.

If you attempt to highlight the right-hand corner of the page, you'll see a link to Subtitle's blog, the most recent entry of which reads as follows:

"nothing witty here but quitting

yup I'm a quitter.
after 4 months of struggling like mad
and hoping a tour would save my sorry flesh,
said tour got cancelled, which means my money for the
next 2 months went with it. I hope whoever has my passport
is dead. I can't make a living in another country and my supergroup
randomizers is really a social club at this point. I hit up labels trying
to submit a DEMO for chrissakes! I've fallen pretty fall from grace, so it's
a wrap. thanks to all the fans and thanks to all the people who liked
my music. If I can hold on to my laptop, I'll make music for fun, but
otherwise fuck it, nothing is worth this much heartache. whatever happens to trunk bomb is news to me. I'm giving b.e.a.r. to nate and phil and..............."

Back in October, we reported that Subtitle would switch to the Giovanni Marks alias this year, but that blog entry sounds less like a repeat official statement of that previous announcement and more like a "Fuck it! I quit. FOREVER!!!" sort of thing.

Thanks to reader Matt Brown for the tip.

Good luck, Subtitle, and may the backpack be with you.

Waits, Watt, Langford Guest on Book of Knots LP
Plus: Pere Ubu's David Thomas, Carla Bozulich, Megan Reilly

The American landscape might not be dappled with picturesque ruins of castles and medieval fortifications, but we do have some pretty nifty relicts of post-industrial fallout-- abandoned factories, hollowed-out silos, the whole city of Detroit, and the like-- which is inspiration enough for NYC's the Book of Knots, whose Anti- debut and second LP overall pays tribute to these ghostly locales.

Traineater arrives today, March 20, and features guest contributions from quite a few special folks, including Tom Waits, Mike Watt, Jon Langford, Pere Ubu's David Thomas, Carla Bozulich, and country chanteuse Megan Reilly. Waits lends his post-industrial-fallout croon to a track called "Pray", while Watt chimes in on "Pedro to Cleveland" and Langford adds some snarled spoken word to "Boomtown".

In related news, Tom Waits contributes "voice, keys and all else" to the new Sideshow Séance: Gatmo Sessions Vol. 3 collection, out now. The disc documents Waits and a bunch of West Sonoma Country free-spirits improvising on experimental, one-of-a-kind instruments at Gatmo studio. Score a copy here or here. [MORE...]

Shins, Rapture Raise Darfur Awareness With mtvU
Also: Kidz in the Hall, Kenna, Rich Boy, Rick Ross, Fabolous, K-Os, Gym Class Heroes

mtvU will continue its series of semi-confounding promotions with the Campus Invasion Music Festival, taking place in Austin, Atlanta, and Philadelphia in April.

One of the festival's main goals is to raise awareness of the genocide in Darfur through a partnership with the Save Darfur Coalition, and what better way to do that than with sets from the Shins, the Rapture, Rich Boy, Rick Ross, Kidz in the Hall, Fabolous, K-Os, Gym Class Heroes, Kenna, and, wait for it...Dashboard Confessional? Yeah, we're confused too. Also, none of the shows will take place on actual college campuses.

Since another one of the festival's goals is to promote up-and-coming collegiate musicians (okay, that one makes more sense), three unsigned, college-enrolled artists will round out each of the three lineups. Those lineups are listed below, with the proviso that the Atlanta festival still has to confirm a few more artists. [MORE...]

Tokyo Police Club Tease Us with New EP

So dudes, um, full-length? No? Not just yet? Well, okay, we'll settle for another EP-- but it'd better be good! Guess we'll find out today, as Tokyo Police Club's digital-only Smith EP hits eMusic and iTunes Canada (iTunes U.S. gets it next week) via Paper Bag Records.

Smith collects three Tokyo tracks, including UK B-side "Box", vinyl-only cut "Cut Cut Paste", and the would-be title track to TPC's debut EP, brand new jam "A Lesson in Crime".

To celebrate, the youngins of Tokyo Police Club continue enduring Cold Wars Kids on tour right now. Then, on May 1, TPC achieve their career goal: they play Tokyo. [MORE...]

Laura Veirs to Release Saltbreakers, Tour UK, US
IKEA to release saltshakers, catalogs ad infinitum

All systems are go for the release of bespectacled Pacific Northwestern chanteuse Laura Veirs' third Nonesuch release, Saltbreakers. The disc-- packed to the gills with languid, folky balladry-- will drop in Europe March 26, with an April 10 release Stateside. The iTunes version of the album will contain the exclusive bonus track "Bright Glittering Gifts".

Recorded with producer Tucker Martine (who twiddled the knobs on the Decemberists' The Crane Wife and might have had something to do with Veirs' guest vocal turn on that album's "Yankee Bayonet"), the album explores the collapse of Veirs' long-term relationship, as well as her short-term stint in a U-Haul from Seattle to Portland. Though most of Saltbreakers was committed to tape in Seattle, of particular note is "To the Country", a track recorded in Johnny and June Carter Cash's home in Hendersonville, Tennessee and featuring the eight-member Cedar Hill Choir.

Veirs fans should also be on the lookout for a disc by The Young Rapture Choir, a cadre of 45 French middle schoolers who belted out Veirs tunes in concert sometime last year. The limited-edition live album of said performance is available on Veirs' own Raven Marching Band imprint.

Veirs and band (the fittingly-dubbed "Saltbreakers") will hit the road for a late-spring trek across Europe before heading back to the States through early June. [MORE...]

Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover? Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.)