Girls Against Boys Do Venus Luxure for ATP

Seminal D.C.-born Girls Against Boys have been picked for a pair of performances of their classic Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby for the All Tomorrow's Parties Don't Look Back series.

Venus, as you may recall, is a member of the elite "Touch and Go 25" our own Jason Crock penned up for last year's quarter-century anniversary of the Chicago label. The dates-- one in New York, one in L.A.-- mark the whole of Girls vs. Boys news at the moment, but that's sure somethin', ain't it? I mean, "In Like Flynn" all the way to "Bughouse"! It's gonna be post-awesome. [MORE...]

Photos: Shearwater [New York, NY; 07/05/07]

Photos by Kathryn Yu

Move over, James Lipton. Shearwater were scheduled to play a free, outdoor gig at Castle Clinton last night, until inclement weather forced the festivities inside...the Actors Studio? Yes, the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts, home to Bravo's long-lived talk show, became the setting for Jonathan Meiburg & co.'s summer set. The makeshift confines nicely accommodated a grand piano and a screen with projected, colored lights as well.

Lipton was a no-show, unfortunately, although the band were on their best behavior anyway. When drummer Thor Harris was asked what his favorite curse word was, he declined to state, as his parents were in the room.

The band played a mix of new material and songs from Palo Santo. As he often does, Meiburg dedicated a song to a figure of nature (this time it was the bald eagle). Shearwater also treated the crowd to their cover of "Baby's on Fire" and an older song, "Mullholland", from their 2001 debut, The Dissolving Room.






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Akron/Family Pack Up for Summer Vacation, Prep Love

Hello, world, there's some experimental freak-folk that they're slingin'; and a whole lotta lovin' is what they'll be bringin'. Yep, Akron/Family are gonna make you happy on a North American tour setting off in September. But wait! Not before they go nuclear on France's Rock Dans Tous Ses Etats Festival (run that through Babelfish, it's awesome!) and that Roskilde thing which is apparently happening right this instant. Your mind is blown, no? And you haven't even heard any live Akron/Family yet. Just you wait.

What's more, all this wayfaring goes down in anticipation of Akron/Family's latest LP, the follow-up to last year's mini-album Meek Warrior. Young God Records will drop Love Is Simple on September 10. No complete tracklist yet, but it will include the tunes "Ed Is a Portal" and "Lake Song". [MORE...]

Slits Set for U.S. Summer Tour

They're back! Again! Avant-punk legends the Slits will hit the road for a smattering of U.S. dates throughout the next month or so, following a set at Oslo's Slottsfjell Festival. Along the way, they'll warm up the poolside patrons of Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool before Sonic Youth tackles their classic Daydream Nation. Hopefully they'll shop for some nice new blouses too. Gotta join the world of grown-ups sometime, ladies. [MORE...]

Wizard Prison Tour With Animal Collective, Unleash II

In addition to mixing and engineering records for the likes of the Arcade Fire and Animal Collective, Scott Colburn also plays as a member of Wizard Prison, a self-proclaimed "multimedia project complete with [a] prison, projected abstract films of our own making, esoteric software synths of our own modification, and heavy guitars and drums designed to (magically) lure you into allowing our escape from the prison."

Thus, Animal Collective's choice to bring Wizard Prison on the road with them this fall almost seems aimed at making the once-masked troupe look tame by comparison. The two bands have a handful of West Coast dates together in September; Wiz Priz have some more on their own as well. They also have one show before then, a CD release party in Seattle tomorrow (July 7).

The release party coincides exactly with the release date of the new Wizard Prison album, II, which the band can unleash on a Saturday because it comes out on Colburn's own Gravelvoice label. Also, at the moment, the whole record is available for free download at the Wizard Prison website. [MORE...]

Eddie Argos Gets Nude for NME, Ditto Style
I've seen him naked, once!

So we've already gone on the record to declare our love for NME's recent cover depicting Gossip frontlady Beth Ditto in a state of undress. Girl keeps it real, and we'll take real over whatever synthetic material Fergie is molded out of any day.

But, in the interest of gender equality and the eradication of body-image issues and so forth, we would also like to show some love for NME's recent, er, spread of Art Brut's loutish Eddie Argos. Forget your Seth Cohens and your Gideon Yagos; speaking as a dude in a room well-stocked with dudes who don't get much sun and eat a lot of burritos, I assure you that this is the face (and belly!) of the American indie rock male in 2007. If you don't like it, well, there's always other genres: that Toby "Big Dog Daddy" Keith's usually good for an oggle.

Thanks to BrooklynVegan for alerting us to the image. Both Art Brut and the Gossip have tours on the way. Dates after the jump. [MORE...]

Roskilde Diary: Thursday [Jason Crock]

Björk photo by Thomas Kjær

Welcome to Day 1 of Jason Crock's Roskilde diary. For Brandon Stosuy's Day 1 diary, click here. For Stosuy's Day 2, click here.

Arcade Fire [Arena Stage; 6 p.m.]

Photo by Terje Sørgjerd

Like a sign from the heavens, the rain ceased and a beam of light split the clouds just as "Wake Up" peaked...nah, just kidding, it poured like a bastard all throughout the day and during the Arcade Fire's late-day set-- one of the first major artists to perform on Thursday. Festival-goers who didn't queue up under the "intimate" Arena tent in time were left without cover from the weather, but a sizable gathering of dutiful fans stuck through it. A heartfelt dedication from Win Butler to the throngs of attendees caught outside could only warm us so much underneath our ponchos and garbage bags, and the band didn't change the slow-building approach to their setlist for a crowd that could have used an early rush of relief, considering most of these people are camping through this misery.

Now, maybe the weather made me cranky, but a "life-changing" live act should be adaptable, and their job should have been to make us forget we were there. For a band that specializes in rousing choruses, I'd have thought Butler & Co. would be a little more rousing. Chalk it up to vantage point, maybe, as I was one of the stragglers caught in the cold, and even the large monitors that flanked the stage were hard to make out from a distance. Still, they played many highlights pretty early, such as "Crown of Love", "Intervention", and, er, "My Body Is a Cage". Aside from just some good money, festivals of this size offer bands the chance to snag a wider audience, but due to the already-packed-full Arena stage/tent, Arcade Fire were preaching to a waterlogged choir. It quickly became apparent that you'd have to hit the next stage early if one hoped to stay dry, but the crowd never thinned for a moment. Who needs new fans when your fanbase will follow you anywhere?

Talib Kweli [Cosmopol Stage; 8 p.m.]

Photo by Thomas Kjær

Björk [Arena Stage; 10 p.m.]

Photo by Rune Johansen

Everyone who made it this far deserves a cookie. Walking between stages, checking for directions, eating food, even using the bathroom meant dealing with what was a historic amount of rainfall in the festival's 30-plus lifetime and ground that had turned into two feet of mud, if not straight-up soup. A large red stoplight on the monitors meant the standing room in front of the main Orange stage was at capacity a half-hour before Björk took the stage, but what seemed like every last attendee stood out in the wind and rain as night finally fell on Roskilde.

Wearing a dress I can only describe as a pan-global explosion of color (even for her), green leggings and bare feet, Björk's set was just as much a spectacle as her recent tour, and after a cloud of smoke and fire introduced "Earth Intruders", her set kept the crowd rooted in their muddy place by coming with Homogenic hits early with tracks like "The Hunter" and "All Is Full of Love". Sightlines were surprisingly clear from a great distance, easy enough to see Björk bounding across the stage in her merry way in person as the monitors switched between the performer dancing and waving a collapsible spiderweb-like net, her DJ's enviable video interface, her stoic keyboardist, and her incredible backing choir, lending their voices while swaying back and forth to the thumping beat with a rhythm that betrayed their flowing church-like robes. Each member waved a tall flag that mirrored the ones the crowd held up as signposts for their friends, like a real-world application of the supposed one-tribe attitude that's inspired Björk's recent album and rash of concerts. (Well, it was Björk's hand-crafted medieval symbols versus the crowd's skull-and-bones or an inflatable alien violating a cow, but, it's all one world.)

Not only that, the same chorus doubled as a brass ensemble, adding gentle accompaniment to "All Is Full of Love" or a well-timed atonal blurt for the laser-light augmented "Army of Me". Indeed, Björk's set veered from fragile lullabies to screeching dance-rooted experimental material like "Innocence" without ever seeming disjointed, while her voice was in top form and her impervious enthusiasm swept through the crowd. To say she's an inimitable performer is an obvious affirmation, but to the girl behind me in the blue Hefty trying to sing along with "Joga": Just stop.

Roskilde Crowd

Photo by Tobias Zehntner

Roskilde Diary: Thursday [Brandon Stosuy]

Jens Lekman photo by Rune Johansen

Welcome to Day 2 of Brandon Stosuy's Roskilde diary. For Day 1 (Wednesday), click here.

To quote 50 Cent, when it rains it pours. When the rain arrives in buckets and you no longer own a dry pair of pants, it's easy to develop a low-level addiction the emergency updates at Roskilde's website, checking to see if it's time to board a ship. It was posted yesterday that "this is the wettest Roskilde Festival ever" and that mud's being "sucked up" by trucks, while hamster-cage woodchips absorb additional moisture. To put the dampness intensity on a more human level: Imagine eating a falafel and realizing your pita's filled-up halfway with rain after four bites.

But I'm not complaining: It's comforting to realize this is historical, that we're not only dodging drunk folks pissing into overloaded puddles, that we're also a part of something huge. Really, it makes everything-- even Willy Wonka-sized lakes of brown-- kind of majestic. Plus the concertgoers are hearty: A middle-aged duo made out-- with vigor, I might add-- during LCD Soundsystem, some guy danced ecstatically in a puddle for Björk, and every now and then groups break out into rousing fight songs.

LCD Soundsystem [Odeon Stage; 7:30 p.m.]

Photo by Terje Sørgjerd

We found a dry spot at the Odeon tent to watch James Murphy. The crowd was excited, folks singing an off-key "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" and bouncing a beach ball 20 minutes before sound check was complete. Murphy and the gang were announced as the "fathers of punk electro disco rock." Or is that "funk electro disco rock?" Hard to tell once the master cowbell banger starts rocking his fleshier, more on-key version of "Daft Punk". As the set started Murphy was a tad listless-- adjusting speakers, moving monitors, tugging at his shirt-- but he quickly locked into a groove. Certain tracks-- "Us v. Them", "Tribulations", and "North American Scum"-- felt especially weighty due to the weather and hearing them so far from New York. Of course, "All My Friends"'s "If you're worried about the weather/ Then you picked the wrong place to stay" felt tailored for our precipitation-obsessed brains.

It's difficult to tell if it's the same person, or if there are a bunch of these floating around, but someone has an inflatable alien fucking an inflatable cow on the end of a large stick, and kept bobbing it back and forth above the crowd during both the LCD Soundsystem and Matmos sets. Rather perfect for LCD's sweaty entropy. Felt more romantic and hazy during Matmos...

Matmos [Astoria Stage; 8 p.m.]

In the Astoria tent, which is part ad hoc nightclub/part circus ring, Matmos were joined by a guitarist wearing a glow-in-the-dark Bill Cosby sweater for an oscillating, pulsing wash of gorgeous space drone: Multi-tasking Pitchfork contributor Drew Daniel manipulated laptop(s), M.C. Schmidt read from a book ("She leads a double life/ She makes two out of one"), and Cosby bent notes. Rather fitting beneath the silver roofing and blue and red lights lining the walls, a pack of rave kids closed their eyes and made like it was Castlemorton, 1992. The set ended as M.C. Schmidt manipulated a metal (lightning?) rod, transmitting waves of sound throughout the appreciative crowd. I'd been curious to see if they could figure out a way to turn the mud into an instrument... no dice.

Mastodon [Arena Stage; 10:30 p.m.]

Photo by Terje Sørgjerd

By the time Mastodon played, the water was knee-deep. Another illustration: In order to buy a much-needed Tuborg I waded across a puddle, hopped on one foot, then jumped across three wooden pallets. The rowdy Mastodon crowd seemed equally willing to run that boozy obstacle course: The highlight of the Atlanta quartet's tight, loud, but oddly distant and same-sounding set was listening to "Wolf Is Loose", "Sleeping Giant", and "Crystal Skull" and trying to avoid a) a wavering, vision-questing bald guy held precariously aloft and photographed in funny poses by his friends, and b) some dude brandishing a flag on the end of an elastic-seeming poll that bent precariously toward the crowd like a wilting razorblade. It felt like a standoff to see who would create their own blood mountain first, but both made it out unscathed and unscathing.

Ironically, as we bundled back up and left the Mastodon tent, it was no longer raining.

Addendum
I received a kind letter all the way from Massachusetts regarding my comments yesterday that nobody locks up their bikes in Copenhagen. It turns out there is "a small lock on the inside of the spoke." Thanks for the tip! Wonder if this would fly in New York?

Decemberists Kick Off Orchestral Tour Tomorrow

Photo by Matt Jordan

From the multipart song suites to their fondness for esoteric foreign folktales, Colin Meloy and his Decemberists don't exactly shy away from the grandiose. So it's fitting that tonight, at one of the more splendorous musical locales the world over-- the Hollywood Bowl-- the Decemberists will perform with symphonic accompaniment in the first of a series of orchestral shows. Hey, it worked wonders for Metallica, and that was way more incongruous than this! Bonus for you svelte young Hollywood types: tonight's show comes complete with Band of Horses and orchestra-of-one Andrew Bird.

In other Decemberists news, there's an unreleased Colin Meloy demo you can get for practically nothing on that PDX Pop Now! comp, and Chris Funk's Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble's debut release Plastic Bag in the Tree is out now. There are quite a few regular old Decemberists shows for you starting in September too, as the theatrical troupe heads to Europe for a month or so; all that and more after the jump. And by "more," I mean some lovely little asterisks. [MORE...]

St. Vincent Tours Like St. Christopher Would
St. Christopher being, like, the patron saint of travelers

Sufjan sidelady, Polyphonic Spree-dispenser, and, now, the patron saint of indie shredfests: Annie Clark of St. Vincent wears more hats than Alex Mack, and, coincidentally, we turn into a silvery pool of liquid every time we hear her music. So it's lovely news for us (and you) that Annie keeps on adding to her big ol' tour, which has her sticking pins in a giant map of the U.S. (with the occasional errant Canadian tack).

Clark will cross paths with Death Vessel and Scout Niblett over the course of her travels, which kick off tonight.

As previously reported, St. Vincent's Marry Me hits U.S. shelves Tuesday (July 10) from Beggars, though the UK will just have to wait 'til next month. [MORE...]

Cadence Weapon Attacks the Road Tonight

Cadence Weapon (which, as we are morally obligated to mention, is the pseudonym for ex-Pitchforker Rollie Pemberton) is a rapper of significant talent and wit. And, if our Dave Maher's take on his set at SXSW is at all representative of his current live thing, Pemberton is a "restless and spastic" live performer. You may select your own well-chosen adjectives, loyal reader, should you attend one of Cadence Weapon's many July tour dates, listed as usual behind the jump.

Speaking of well-chosen adjectives, we're sure Rollie's just as excited as we are to welcome him back into Pitchfork's sinister clutches July 15, when he plays our sold-out Music Festival. After the last notes ring out over Chicago's Union Park, we'll all don ceremonial garb, chant "DOWN WITH KEANE," and gorge ourselves on the vital organs of the nonbelievers. Since that is, after all, how we do things. [MORE...]

Simian Mobile Disco Release EP, Tour a Ton

If you've peeked over in Forkcast very recently, you've noticed an MP3 for a Simian Mobile Disco song titled "3 Pin Din". It's one of three previously unreleased tracks on the duo's forthcoming self-titled EP, which was released digitally this week and will appear in stores on July 24 via Interscope.

The EP's other unreleased tracks are "Simple" and "State of Things", and they are joined by Attack Decay Sustain Release track "Tits & Acid". ADSR, as previously reported, makes its way to U.S. shores on September 18.

Jameses Ford and Shaw have months and months of tour dates to accompany these releases. Their next show is in Philadelphia on July 6, and they. just. do. not. stop. until December 8 back in England. For the last leg of their tour in the UK, they will support Klaxons. [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.)