Velvet Underground Celebrated With Art Exhibit

The John McWhinnie at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller series of art exhibitions will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of the Velvet Underground's debut album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, with "C/O The Velvet Underground, New York, NY".

Johan Kugelberg and John McWhinnie co-curated the exhibition, which features period posters, books, silk-screens, ads, reviews, albums, and photographs from public and private collections. Also included is the rare and rather infamously eBayed 1966 acetate demo of the album.

Artists whose art and design work is featured in the exhibition include Andy Warhol, Adam Ritchie, Paul Morrissey, and Doug Yule. Lou Reed's original lyrics from 1965 are also featured. A catalogue with the same title as the exhibition will include texts by Richard Prince, William Gibson, Jack Womack, Jonathan Richman, Jon Savage, John McWhinnie, and Johan Kugelberg.

The exhibition will run for one month from April 12 to May 12 with an opening reception on the first day.

Blonde Redhead Kick Off World Tour

The ever-beguiling Blonde Redhead, just days from the April 10 release of 23-- which sports some fine, fine cover art-- will express the inexpressible on a spring and summer tour of North America and Europe. beginning tonight in Reykjavik. As we previously reported, the reverberations of Redhead will match wits with the blooming Annuals and some campy Midnight Movies on a smattering of dates.

Blonde Redhead's 23 microsite (their term, not mine-- I'm still learning how to dial into BBSes) is counting on you-- well, you, or perhaps the more musically-inclined person reading this over your shoulder-- to remix new track "Signs Along the Path".

What great riches shall you reap from this generous act of remixery, you ask? Dinner with the band? Untold riches? Perhaps a celebrity dye-job? No, not exactly. To the winner go spoils of a spot on the BR website and a chance to get voted on by fellow Redhead fetishists. So if you're feeling an especially strong urge to be judged on your interpretative GarageBand prowess, well, you've got your instructions.

23 is streaming from the band's MySpace page right now as well, so get inspired! [MORE...]

1990s Treat U.S. to Cookies, NYC Gigs
You bring the milk

1990s-- three Scottish lads who'll nip you faster than a snapper turtle should you even think of marring their moniker with definite articles or apostrophes-- are poised to take their peppy retro guitar pop to U.S. shores this spring.

The trio's Rough Trade-stamped debut Cookies-- recorded by ex-Suede chap Bernard Butler-- hits Stateside shops with a bang and a few snare snaps on July 31. If you can't contain yourself until then, scoop up 1990s' latest single, "See You at the Lights", on UK import beginning April 16 (and scope the video below).

To help the kids get familiar, 1990s will hop in the time machine and touch down tonight at NYC's Bowery Ballroom. They'll also turn up this weekend at Brooklyn's Union Pool for the ol' hipster litmus test, where you can catch them along with choleric noise-rock trio Clockcleaner.

And lest you View this band as just another bunch of fresh-faced Kooks, know that 1990s singer/guitarist John "Jackie" McKeown served time-- indeed most of the nineteen-nineties, as fate would have it-- fronting Glasgow's beloved the Yummy Fur alongside 1990s bassist Jamie McMorrow. The Yummy Fur also counted among their members, for a spell, a certain Alex Kapranos (then going by Alex Huntley) and a certain Paul Thomson-- two fellers would go on to do something called Franz Ferdinand. [MORE...]

Peter and the Wolf Pack Tour CD for Spring Journey

Red Hunter has expanded his Peter and the Wolf touring lineup to a trio, and the next show on their six-week jaunt goes down tonight in Abilene, Texas. The present trek is nomadic Peter and the Wolf's second since the release of Lightness late last year on the Worker's Institute.

In addition to the non-Western instruments they plan to use in their set (e.g., the Chinese erhu, the Tuvan igil, and the African kalimba), the band will also have a tour-only CD of new songs available for sale at shows. They've titled the 10-track CD Fireflies. [MORE...]

Exclusive: Pharoahe Monch Bumps Desire to June
Also announces tour, guest spot on Polyrhythm Addicts album

Pharoahe Monch's long-awaited new album, Desire, finally has a release date on SRC Records. Looks like we'll have to wait a little longer: originally May 1, that release date is now June 25.

To support the album, Monch will tour the U.S. starting April 16 in New York City. His trek includes stops at both Coachella and Rock the Bells.

The MC's MC also appears on "Reachin'", a song on the Polyrhythm Addicts' new album, Break Glass... Babygrande Records will release that album April 24. In addition to the Polyrhythm core of DJ Spinna, Mr. Complex, Shabaam Sahdeeq, and Tiye Phoenix, Break Glass... also features Planet Asia and Phonte of Little Brother. [MORE...]

Knife Unveil Deluxe Silent Shout Details

So how do you make Pitchfork's number one album of 2006 even better? Start by not messing with it at all, then tack on two more discs packed to the brim with bonus multimedia content.

As previously reported, Mute will unleash a deluxe edition of the Knife's Silent Shout, featuring a live disc and a DVD in addition to the original synth-rattled masterpiece. The whole kit and caboodle lands in record stores at last May 8.

Since the Knife are meant to be seen as much as heard, the DVD includes the Silent Shout: An Audiovisual Experience goodies released last fall overseas, including footage of the Andreas Nilsson-designed live show shot in Gothenburg, Sweden on April 12, 2006, all the Knife music videos to date, and the short film When I Found the Knife.

The cold, sleek triptych is rounded out by a live CD featuring audio versions of the Gothenburg gig set.

Olof and Karin, meanwhile, have kept suspiciously quiet in 2007, which can only mean they're getting primed to take us on another nightmarish escapade into the chilling oblivion of our subconscious!! Or maybe they're playing pinochle and crocheting. [MORE...]

Carl Newman Reveals New Pornographers LP Details
"We're like Fleetwood Mac if Dylan joined."

The notion of a fourth album from a band like the New Pornographers— the side-project-gone-amok that, among others, harbors principal songwriter Carl Newman, Destroyer's Dan Bejar, and titan-voiced troubadour Neko Case— seems an almost impossible feat. It's hard enough keeping centrally-located bandmates together, let alone riding out the schedules of so many otherwise-occupied musicians over the many miles that separate them.

But against the odds, Newman tells us that the band's fourth LP of dashing, deftly crafted pop will be out in August, and will almost certainly be titled Challengers.

Pitchfork spoke to Newman in a rare break from recording to discuss the album’s progress, his high hopes for his downtime at the Pitchfork Music Festival (at which the New Pornos will play), the pros and cons of indie rock endorsement deals, and the importance of brevity. [MORE...]

John Vanderslice Hits the Road

[Photo by Piper Ferguson]

John Vanderslice will kick off a U.S. tour with recent Beggars signee St. Vincent April 6 in Portland. He will take the stage as part of a duo with drummer/Moogster Dave Douglas, and St. Vincent's Annie Clark will also contribute some vocals to their sets.

Vanderslice recently posted on his website a new version of his last album Pixel Revolt, remixed by Scott Solter.

All dates listed below are with St. Vincent. [MORE...]

Iron and Wine Set Single for July

Faces will melt as Sam Beam delivers the latest Iron and Wine single-- the first off forthcoming LP The Shepherd's Dog-- on July 10 via Sub Pop. "Boy With a Coin" includes a single edit of that Dog cut, along with two exclusive jams from the Shepherd sessions.

Mere days later, Beam will appear alongside his trap rap idols Clipse at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival. Iron and Wine play the fest's second day (of three), starting mosh pits across Chicago's Union Park on July 14. Tickets are so damn cheap they might as well be free, and you can nab some here.

Look for the complete Shepherd's Dog opus to surface sometime in September. [MORE...]

Mono Tour With Grails, World's End Girlfriend
For once, "out with Mono" doesn't mean make-up work

'Tis a bill made in a languid, sludgy sorta heaven: Japanese, experimental, instrumental, drone metal/post-rock act Mono will join Oregonian experimental, instrumental, drone metal/post-rock act Grails and Japanese, experimental, instrumental, electronic/post-rock act World's End Girlfriend on a month's worth of U.S. dates.

You might remember Mono from last year's Albini-boosted You Are There, their 2006 disc with the snowy mountains on the front. Mono and World's End Girlfriend-- who'll ride the Mono-rail to the end of the line-- go back like car seats, having linked up 2005 for the well-received collabo Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain.

Portland's Grails will join in on all the fun May 3, just two days after Temporary Residence (also home to Mono) lets their new album, Burning off Impurities, free. [MORE...]

O'Death Sign to Ernest Jenning, Deluxe-ify LP

Photo by Ed Zipco

Death Cab for Cutie, Death From Above, Death Vessel, Murder By Death, Death Unit...why y'all gotta be so morbid? Ah well. Add New York's O'Death to the list of demise-mongers.

The Waitsian, Gothic Americana combo-- hotly-tipped, as the Brits would say-- has signed to Brooklyn's Ernest Jenning Recording Co., who will reissue O'Death's 2005 LP Head Home in deluxe format June 12.

The new edition of Home will feature "some additional tracking and a new mixing and mastering job," according to a label spokesperson. European Death-wishers should look to Berlin-based City Slang for the album this summer.

What's more, Ernest Jenning-- who's also served up releases from Dälek, Saturday Looks Good to Me, and the Occasion-- will treat O'Death fans to a 7" packed with non-album cuts shortly after the album's release.

If you believe the hype, the live O'Death show is where it's at. Catch them playing a handful of East Coast dates this month. [MORE...]

Wilco Expand World Tour

Wilco have added North American dates to their previously reported world tour. On June 13, they'll begin their short North American trek in Davenport, Iowa. In July, they'll head to Europe for a few festivals.

The tour is in support of Wilco's newest album, Sky Blue Sky, which Nonesuch will release on May 15.

Thanks to reader Rachel Korman for the tip! [MORE...]

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