Fucking Champs Triumph Yet Again With VI, Tour

Hard-rocking San Francisco indie veterans the Fucking Champs will continue their winning ways with the release of their latest album, VI (take that Led Zeppelin!), out April 24 via Drag City.

In addition to the core of Tims Green and Soete, Phil Manley from Trans Am and Oneida contributed guitar, piano, bass, and synthesizer to the record. And, in the grand tradition of recent Drag City artists (mostly Bonnie "Prince" Billy), VI also features a cameo from uncomedian Neil Hamburger on "Fozzy Goes to Africa".

The Champs enter the tour arena in support of VI starting May 24 in Atlanta. [MORE...]

Tim Buckley Revisited With Live DVD

The ghost of Tim Buckley will take a break from haunting the dreams of that Starsailor band to issue My Fleeting House, a DVD compiling fourteen televised performances from the late folk-rock maverick (and father of Jeff).

My Fleeting House packs Buckley tunes culled from various long-canceled programs alongside interviews with Buckley co-writer Larry Beckett, guitarist Lee Underwood, and Buckley biographer David Browne. All but two of My Fleeting House's performances are previously unreleased in takeaway form.

Buckley fans in a few select cities will get the chance to peek into My Fleeting House at a series of free screenings in the days prior to its May 15 release (via MVD Entertainment Group). Dates and the tracklist after the jump. [MORE...]

Patrick Wolf to Tour With Amy Winehouse
His latest "magic position": holding her hair back while she pukes

In a seemingly discordant pairing, orchestra-wielding pop sophisticate Patrick Wolf and swamp thing Amy Winehouse will team up for a few North American dates in early May. Wolf, whose lovely Magic Position will arrive Stateside May 1 via Low Altitude/Universal, has also added an in-store at the Virgin Records in New York's Union Square, where he'll whisk about onstage and then write his name on stuff.

As we previously reported, Pat's recent projects include an abundance of UK-only singles. [MORE...]

Klaxons Expand Tour

Klaxons continue their world tour-- which has only gotten bigger-- tomorrow night in Denver. They played a great show here in Chicago on Monday, and will be back July 15 for the Pitchfork Music Festival. The video contest for "Totem on the Timeline" that was reported in QOOB.tv and repeated by Pitchfork is not happening, according to the Klaxons' UK PR agency.

Dates:

04-19 Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
04-21 Los Angeles, CA - Ex Plex
04-22 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's on Richards
04-23 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Café
04-24 Portland, OR - Dante's
04-26 San Francisco, CA - Popscene
04-29 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
05-06 Glasgow, Scotland - Academy (matinee show)
05-06 Glasgow, Scotland - Academy
05-07 Birmingham, England - Academy
05-08 Nottingham, England - Rock City
05-09 Leeds, England - Met University
05-11 Northumbria, England - University
05-12 Liverpool, England - Academy
05-13 Manchester, England - Ritz (matinee show)
05-13 Manchester, England - Ritz
05-14 Bristol, England - Academy
05-16 Norwich, England - UEA
05-17 Portsmouth, England - Pyramids
05-18 London, England - Shepherds Bush Empire
05-19 London, England - Shepherds Bush Empire (matinee show)
05-19 London, England - Shepherds Bush Empire
05-22 Reims, France - La Cartonnerie
05-23 Paris, France - La Cigale
05-26 London, England - Issst Warehouse Party (DJ set) *
05-27 Birmingham, England - Custard Factory (DJ set)
06-01 Porto, Portugal - City Hall
06-02 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Sound Festival
06-14 Paris, France - Bercy #
06-20 Cambridge, England - King's Affair (DJ set)
06-22 Glastonbury, England - Glastonbury Festival
06-23 Glastonbury, England - Glastonbury Festival
06-26 Arendal, Norway - Hove Festival
06-29 St. Gallen, Switzerland - Openair St. Gallen Festival
06-30 Werchter, Belgium - Rock Werchter Festival
07-01 Belfort, France - La Chapiteau
07-03 Lisbon, Portugal - Super Bock Super Rock Festival
07-06 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-07 Kinross, Scotland - T in the Park Festival
07-08 Dublin, Ireland - Oxegen Festival
07-15 Chicago, IL - Union Park (Pitchfork Music Festival) ^
07-19 Ibiza, Spain - Cream @ Amnesia (DJ set) $
07-20 Benicassim, Spain - Benicassim Festival
07-21 Angouleme, France - Garden Nef Party
07-22 Brittany, France - Festival Les Vieilles Charrues
07-28 Warwick, England - Global Gathering Festival (DJ set)
08-05 Byron Bay, Australia - Splendour in the Grass
08-11 Tokyo, Japan - Summer Sonic Festival
08-12 Osaka, Japan - Summer Sonic Festival
08-17 Salzburg, Austria - Frequency Festival
08-24 Leeds, England - Leeds Festival
08-25 Paris, France - Rock en Seine
08-26 Reading, England - Reading Festival

* with Black Strobe
# with Daft Punk
^ with Stephen Malkmus, the New Pornographers, De La Soul, Of Montreal, Jamie Lidell, the Ponys, Deerhunter, Craig Taborn's Junk Magic
$ with Simian Mobile Disco

Oakley Hall Tour With Bright Eyes, Gillian Welch

Merge-signed country-loving Brooklynites Oakley Hall have found the perfect touring partners in Bright Eyes. They'll join the Oberst-led Omaha-dwellers-- who now have a #4 Billboard debut for Cassadaga to celebrate-- on the band's previously reported tour, which includes almost a month of dates with Gillian Welch as well.

But first, Oakley Hall will play a few dates on the East Coast, one of which is with Spoon. Then in June, they'll head to Europe for gigs in Barcelona and London. According to the act's website, they've completed recording their Merge debut and follow-up to last year's double whammy of Gypsum Strings and Second Guessing. [MORE...]

Grizzly Bear Cancel Shows This Weekend

In a bulletin posted yesterday on their MySpace page, indie-folk-rock foragers Grizzly Bear announced that they will be missing a few shows over the weekend due to the death of a relative. The bulletin reads:

"There has been a passing in the family

Apologies to Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence and Bennington for the last minute cancellation.

all our love"

Our best wishes go out to the fellas of Grizzly Bear.

For those looking to hunt down the Grizz, they're still on for next weekend at Coachella, a spin around western Europe, and a few of the bigger U.S. festivals, including the Pitchfork Music Festival, July 13-15 at Chicago’s Union Park. You’re coming, right? Oh, good; then this is just a friendly reminder.

Also, did you hear Born Ruffians' cover of "Knife"? [MORE...]

Au Revoir Simone Kick Off World Tour Tonight
Play many a date with Peter Bjorn & John, Voxtrot

Tonight, bevy of Brooklynite key-pressin' beauties Au Revoir Simone will set off on a lark through the violent yet flammable world, furthering their France fetish, pairing them with their pals in pop-polish Peter Bjorn and John and Voxtrot, and giving them a chance to get uncomfortably close to Au Revoir aficionado David Lynch.

Shhh, don't tell: ARS's second full-length exercise in understatement, The Bird of Music, finally sees its previously-announced U.S. release May 15 from the band's own Our Secret Record Company. Or it can be yours through a few popular digital music emporiums right now if you're so inclined to seek it out. [MORE...]

Lily Allen Talks Canceled U.S. Dates
"I've been getting really drunk in order to even look at the stage, and I don't think it's fair to take money off of people when the show isn't going to be very good."

Is some mysterious ailment afflicting Great Britain's pint-sized pop stars, rendering them effete and malcontent? First an exhausted and "massively disappointed" Lady Sovereign shelves her UK dates, then Lily Allen follows suit, axing a good portion of her U.S. commitments and joking about finding the reality of pop-stardom a "huge disappointment."

Turns out Lily's pretty much sticking to the story she told on MySpace the other day. Speaking to Pitchfork yesterday, Lily chalked up the cancellations to "lots of things."

"Firstly, you know, I released the album Alright, Still in July in England," said Lily. "I've been touring with it all over the world since then, and I think most people usually release the albums in England and America pretty close within each other. I just feel like it's been dragged out for so long, and that-- you know, the show isn't as good as it was, because I'm having to sing so much. And I've been getting really drunk in order to even look at the stage, and I don't think it's fair to take money off of people when the show isn't going to be very good. So that's the first thing.

"And also, I'm pretty tired. I want to get the second album out, and I'm not going to be able to do that if I'm touring. So I'm going to stay in America and do all the kind of promotional commitments I have to do, which is all the TVs and radios and stuff, and I'm still going to do all the radio[-sponsored] shows that I was asked to do in the first place, so it's only about half of the shows that have been canceled."

So that second album...? "I've got some ideas, but I'm not going to say what they are," said Lily with a laugh.

Lily's festival dates, too, will go on as planned. "That's one of the other reasons," said Allen. "I'm getting paid quite a lot of money to do all the festivals, and I don't want to have worn myself out with the little gigs [and] be really tired for the festivals, which have much bigger audiences.

"And also, it costs so much money to go on tour! And I'm not earning that much, so yeah."

The response from MySpace friends has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, but Lily says bollocks to the haters out there. "I'm not giving up on anything," Allen insisted. "I'm just doing it in a different way. And I think you actually reach a bigger audience if you're doing the radio interviews and playing radio shows and doing the TVs-- and ultimately, I think, my hardcore fans have already been to see my shows. The people who haven't heard of me yet, or who haven't seen me play, can wait till the next album, because I'll be back."

Scope Lily's remaining dates just after the jump. [MORE...]

Black Lips Talk New LP, Side Projects, Hippies
"A lot of people are trying to say that Black Lips are a punk band. But in Atlanta, if you're called a punk, that means you're, like, a little bitch. So we just want to set the record straight: we're not punk."

Between playing approximately 662 shows at a certain Austin festival-- which led to their being designated "the hardest working band at SXSW" by The New York Times-- and prepping to take the EU by storm, Black Lips managed to squeak in a few words with Pitchfork.

One of Vice Records' latest signings, the Atlanta punk-rockabilly quartet has already recorded the follow-up to this year's live album Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo. Oh wait, make that Atlanta flower punk quartet.

"People will slap terrible descriptions on us," Lips drummer/vocalist Joe Bradley told Pitchfork, "so we're going to call ourselves 'flower punk.' We don't need a term to generalize everything. I heard us called rockabilly before; I didn't know we played rockabilly. Flower punk is tough, but wimpy. Ugly but beautiful." Frank Zappa would be proud.

Flower punk, it should be noted, is quite different from regular old punk. "A lot of people are trying to say that Black Lips are a punk band," Joe lamented. "But in Atlanta, if you're called a punk, that means you're, like, a little bitch. So we just want to set the record straight: we're not punk."

No little bitches, these hard-working flower-punkers hope to have the new disc out in early September-- which would make it the second Black Lips full-length already this year. They've recorded and mixed 19 tracks, and plan to pare those down to around 12 or 13. "The songs are so short that [Vice] might put on more," Bradley said, "but we don't want any more than that."

Song titles include "Veni Vidi Vici", "Navajo" ("about Native Americans") and "How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died?" ("that's a country one"). Claimed Bradley, "there's a bunch of different types of songwriting on there. We had a song that's, like, satanic jungle music, and then the country song and a punk song...a brutal song...tons of shit."

You'd think the Black Lips would keep the boys busy enough, but bassist/vocalist Jared Swilley has plenty more on his platter. "I have a doo-wop group with Bradford [Cox] from Deerhunter and this other girl, but we never get to play because we're never in town at the same time. Hopefully in April we'll get to record an EP or something." [MORE...]

Radiohead Post Extremely Brief Song Clip

Oh Radiohead, why do you tease us so?! Go to Radiohead's website. Click on "HODIAU DIREKTION". Listen. For the next, oh, ten seconds or so, you will hear what appears to be a clip of the new song "15 Step", according to the fansite Ateaseweb.com.

The song was played on the band's tour last year, and fans are so desperate for new material, they've obsessed over it enough to be able to identify it from a few brief moans and synth bloops. Come on Radiohead! We're dying out here!

In other Radiohead news, various reports have suggested that the rare 2004 Com Lag EP, previously available only in Japan, is being reissued in the UK and U.S. this spring. However, both Radiohead's U.S. publicity and UK label expressed doubt about this, and the sole source seems to be Amazon.com listings, with ever-shifting release dates.

Bill Callahan Drops Whaleheart a Week Early in Texas

When you've romanced both Chan Marshall and Joanna Newsom like Bill Callahan has, you can pretty much do as you please: stick arbitrary parentheses around your long-standing pseudonym, drop said moniker altogether and issue one of the finest albums of your storied career, and make sure that the un-mess-withable folks of the Lone Star State get a crack at your latest jams a full week before everyone else.

Though the artist formerly known as Smog's rousing rebirth record Woke on a Whaleheart will blow up spots continent-wide April 24, Texans can pick up Whaleheart right now. (Drag City is doing the blowing up.) Not only that, but they're the only state in the nation Callahan's playing on his current tour, which will lead him UK-ward for a few dates around the turn of the month. Those drawl-free types dying for a Whaleheart fix can pick up the "Diamond Dancer" single, which was issued sans geographical preference March 20. [MORE...]

Spoon Add "Secret" Shows to Tour
Britt Daniel plays solo for charity

Pitchfork researchers are hard at work trying to unlock the mysteries of Spoon's new album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. We're tackling the tough questions, like "Is that title for real?" (yes) and "So, like, did someone in the band just have a baby?" (No). In fact, the title comes from "the sound of one of the first songs written for the record, 'The Ghost of You Lingers'", according to Spoon's publicist.

We've also cracked the super secret (read: you have to sign up) Spoon mailing list and found information about some "secret" shows on the band's schedule. First up is an April 23 show in New York City with David Vandervelde and the Moonstation House Band.

Then, not so secretly, on May 7, Britt Daniel will play a solo show in Seattle as part of a muscular dystrophy benefit. Proceeds from the show will go to Charley's Fund, an organization that gives grants to muscular dystrophy researchers.

More "secret" Spoon shows are in the works, so put an online wiretap on that aforementioned mailing list for that information. [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.)