Maximo Park Walk 500 Miles on New Single, Tour
They're gonna be the men who fall down at your door

Some bands moan about time on the road, but as they while away the hours on the tour bus-- priming for their nightly onstage herky-jerk-- the fellas of Maxïmo Park must be diggin' their extended vacay. Their already substantial tour just engorged itself further with a string of early October dates in their native England, bringing the grand total of times a person with no credit limit and a penchant for getting busy could conceivably catch Maxïmo in action to, like, a billion.

In other Maxïmo news, they'll issue a single for Our Earthly Pleasures track "Books From Boxes" June 11 in their homeland on Warp. "Books" comes on white or blue 7", CD, or download, and spread over its many incarnations are a few new songs and a take on the Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" on Jo Whiley's BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge program. Full tracklists for all five formats of the "Books" single and a truly epic tour schedule after the jump. [MORE...]

Dan Deacon Seeks Choir for Tour That Starts Today

Polyphonic Spree: watch your backs! Good bloke Dan Deacon has announced his intention to assemble a different backing choir in each and every city on his upcoming tour (the one that kicks off tonight). The lucky eight will perform Spiderman of the Rings jam "Wham City" with Deacon and don some fetching Spree-style neon robes created by Baltimore artist Stefani Levin and pictured here.

Do you have what it takes to back up batshit spazz-pop's reigning idiot savant? Fire an email off to handy address dandeaconchoir@gmail.com if so, but act fast! The first eight people (four male, four female) per city are in; everyone else must content themselves with singing along from the crowd and wearing the usual fitted New Era caps and neckerchiefs.

Every performance of "Wham City" on this tour will be filmed for the song's forthcoming music video. So if you make it into the choir, you'll be faaaamous.

God only knows what newly invented odors those robes will emit by the time they reach the Pitchfork Music Festival this July.






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Sasquatch! Festival Kicks Off This Weekend

With excitement built into its very name, the latest annual Sasquatch! Music Festival descends into George, Washington's Gorge this weekend. Um, let's rephrase that in slightly less naughty terms: the Sasquatch! Music Festival will occur this Saturday and Sunday within the venue known as the Gorge that is located in George, a settlement in Washington. Better? Good.

Typical fest-mongers like Björk, Arcade Fire, Interpol, the Hold Steady, Neko Case, and Spoon will dazzle the masses, while funny people like Sarah Silverman and Aziz Ansari say funny things and all sorts of vendors and artisans and revolutionaries tempt you with their wares and ideas.

The complete lineup lies just a click ahead, while even more event info can be found on the Sasquatch! website. Notable lineup additions since our initial announcement include Patrick Wolf, the Polyphonic Spree, Blackalicious, Blitzen Trapper, Earl Greyhound, and the Long Winters, who'll attempt to fill the fashionable shoes of a missing-in-action M.I.A. (who was once again locked out of the USA). [MORE...]

The Orb's Thomas Fehlmann Pushes Honigpumpe

Longtime member of the Orb and house music pioneer Thomas Fehlmann's contributions to electronic music's development are incalculable, as is the depth and breadth of his recorded output. Honigpumpe, his latest album, drops May 29 in Europe and June 5 in the States from Kompakt, and continues the sonic explorations Fehlmann has mounted over his two decades at the forefront of house.

Switzerland house junkies can catch Fehlmann this June on his lone scheduled tour stop. However, the Orb will be performing a few times this summer, mostly at European festivals. A new Orb album titled The Dream is currently in the works. It features collaborations with superproducer Youth, Dreadzone's Tim Bran, Steve Hillage, Andy Kane, and Eric Walker. [MORE...]

Sly Stone Performance Turns Into Tour

We got it wrong when we recently reported that Sly Stone had scheduled a rare live performance. Make that performances, as it turns out Sly's show at the Opera House in Bournemouth, England will actually be the last of a nine-date European tour with the Family Stone.

Most of the band's shows are at festivals, but there is a club date in Paris in addition to the one in Bournemouth. The tour begins July 12 in Perugia, Italy.

Thanks very much to Scott from Portland for the tip. [MORE...]

Malkmus, Decemberist Play Football With Pollard
Also: Tad, Mudhoney members

For his second album with fellow Guided by Voices member Chris Slusarenko as the Takeovers, Robert Pollard has assembled more than even his fair share of top-shelf indie rock guests. Sure, Stephen Malkmus appears, but so does Mudhoney's Dan Peters, the Decemberists' John Moen, and Tad Doyle of defunct Sub Poppers Tad.

The new album, Bad Football, will see release June 12 on Off Records. The label is also currently hosting MP3 downloads of three tracks from the album: "Father's Favorite Temperature", "Molly & Zack", and "My Will". Plus, if you go to the Takeovers' MySpace page, you can download those three tracks and a fourth: "I Can See My Dog".

Bad Football is the follow-up to Turn to Red, one of an infinite number of albums Pollard released last year due to a deal he made with the space-time continuum in exchange for his hair color.

In other Pollard news, he, along with Tobin Sprout and other GBV-ers, will appear at Don Pedro's in Brooklyn on June 9 for the "A Salty Salute to Bee Thousand" party, honoring the classic 1994 Guided by Voices album. The shindig will also feature films, theater pieces, and author Rick Moody performing a Bee Thousand song! The party is presented by Continuum's 33 1/3 series of books about classic albums, which published Marc Woodworth's tome about Bee Thousand last year.  [MORE...]

Nina Nastasia and Dirty Three's Jim White Team for LP
Nastasia tours UK; Dirty Three tour Europe

Since Dirty Three sticksman Jim White helped lay the rhythm on Nina Nastasia's past two solo albums and has long served in her live band (not to mention his work with a kajillion other folks), it's hardly surprising singer/guitarist Nastasia and drummer White have joined forces for a new album that will bear both their names.

You Follow Me by Nina Nastasia & Jim White serves as the follow-up of sorts to last year's Nastasia disc On Leaving. It arrives August 14 in North America and May 28 elsewhere via FatCat Records, which Google still seems to think is a "hip British IDM label."

White and Nastasia recorded You Follow Me with stilts fetishist Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago, and developed their compositions with help from Nastasia's partner Kennan Gudjonsson. The result sounds a bit like free jazz tugging at the seams of traditional folk.

Nastasia will Follow Adem and Richard Swift to a string of UK gigs next month. White won't be around, as he's touring Europe presently with Dirty Three. He also performs as part of Cat Power's Dirty Delta Blues band on her tour, which includes a stop at the rather nifty Pitchfork Music Festival. [MORE...]

Spoon Augment Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga With Bonus EP
Put us, them, and the Knife together, and you've got yourself a dinette set

Anticipation is running high for Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, which is still curiously named, and still hitting shelves July 10 from Merge. Chalk up all the folks going ga-ga in the pre-release frenzy to the efforts of the tireless Texan tunesmiths, who are out, as always, fighting the good fight for hyphen-free indie rock n roll. The underdogs have a smattering of live dates on deck for the summer, setting off tonight in San Francisco.

Though their sound is graciously gimmick-free, their rollout of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is rife with 'em. Not that we're complaining, given the quality of the schwag. Visitors to Spoon's online store can slide their slender frames into a "surprise" new t-shirt, designed by Britt Daniel himself, and the first pressing of Ga will come bundled with Get Nice!, a twelve-track, 22-minute EP packed with new jams, instrumental cuts, and a few early spins through Spoon classics past and future. We've been assured that Ga highlight "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" and Gimme Fiction centerpiece "I Summon You" are the only Get Nice! tracks anyone's ever heard before. Nice!

That generous streak continues at Spoon's dual Portland gigs over the weekend. Dubbed "The Spoon Spring '07 Awareness Benefit Stand", the shows feature the band facetiously throwing their weight (and any scraps of wood) behind the Salvation Army and Sea Otter Conservation League of America. Only, not really. An email from the band reads:

"Canned good and timber donations accepted at the door. Requests to be considered after each show."

Jokers. [MORE...]

The National Add International Dates

Recent Best New Music inductees the National are going to be staying out super late many a night over the remaining months of 2007, picking apples and making pies live on stage for your amusement.

In addition to all those North American dates already tattooed into your cranium, the Human Giant-repping New Yorkers will ring the bell on another two rounds of dates with Boxer.

Their extended travels will take them to the very real empires of Europe (for a bunch of those festival happenings in July), and the UK and Paris (for club dates in November). Tucked in between is a gig at that summer-long South Street Seaport NYC soirée we mentioned prior.

Boxer bowed earlier this week on Beggars Banquet. [MORE...]

The Mendoza Line Splinter, Enter 30 Year Low
Okkervil River's Will Sheff contributes to double disc set

Breaking up sucks! Nonetheless, a lot of good music has come out of crumbling relationships. The latest victims: primary Mendoza Line songwriters Tim Bracy and Shannon McArdle have dissolved both their marriage and their musical collaboration. To, um, celebrate, they will release the mini-album 30 Year Low on August 21 on Glurp. In addition to the songwriting talents of the ex-couple, it features a Jimmy Silva cover and Okkervil River's Will Sheff duetting with McArdle on the Bracy-penned "Aspect of an Old Maid".

Upon its release, Low will come packaged with a second disc titled The Final Remarks of the Legendary Malcontent. Final Remarks is an odds and sods collection of sorts, featuring live tracks, demos, and covers of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Thompson, and Arab Strap, among others.

The Mendoza Line have just two forthcoming shows scheduled, one tonight (May 24) in Boston and one tomorrow night in Providence. After wrapping things up as a band, McArdle will focus on other projects, and Bracy will continue on with the Mendoza Line. [MORE...]

DeVotchKa Plays Around

Kings and queen of the InterCaps DeVotchKa-- they of Balkanite scheming and Little Miss Sunshine themeing-- will embark on a handful of shows over the summer months. Not so much a tour as a smattering of dates, the gigs will see the band sharing bills with everybody from Saul Williams (as we mentioned here) to Lucinda Williams. They'll also witness Ryan Adams' surely inescapable Bonoisms at an August date at Colorado's Red Rocks.

In other DeVotchKa news, their own Tom Hagerman recently released an instrumental album titled The Breakfast Playground . The disc, which also catches DeVotchKa’s Jeanie Schroeder blowin' her tuba on a couple cuts, is available now in limited number from the band’s own Cicero Records. [MORE...]

CSS Add More Gigs, Many With Gwen Stefani
Please, don't let them be the new Harajuku Girls

Man, this post-post-modern period is great, isn't it? Time was, a band like CSS doing two dozen shows with a megastar like Gwen Stefani was akin to cred hara-kiri. Sure, it's not exactly Amy Grant with Bikini Kill, but in 2007, it's a coolness-boosting gesture for both, and we totally wish we lived in Antwerp so we could witness the once-improbable spectacle. Seeing big pop stars and cool rock bands making nice sure does warm our hearts, and we're gunning for a Justin Timberlake/Jamie Lidell double bill this fall.

CSS-- the infection-fighting, Bonde do Role-remixing Brazilian super-sextet-- are hitting the road for a truly massive tour, starting June 1 and tentatively ending sometime in October. Whatever your hood, CSS will be there, hitting festivals and club dates aplenty before taking up with the Hollaback Girl in Europe. If they keep throwing dates on the back of their schedule like this, you may get your shot at being sick of 'em. Nah... not gonna happen. [MORE...]

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