Bat for Lashes Braces for U.S. Tour, Fests

With Fur and Gold (originally released last year in the UK) finally set for U.S. release July 31 via Caroline, Natasha Khan and her wood nymphs/backing musicians will treat U.S. audiences to a welcome little dose of their magic.

Following a couple scattered appearances here, Bat for Lashes' inaugural Stateside foray proper commences July 23 in happening Hoboken and wraps up barely a week later in the City of Angels. It's a brief spell of a tour, but what else Khan you do? (Groan!)

Bat has a pack of European festival commitments lined up as well, and the lady recently released a single in the UK for Gold nugget "What's a Girl to Do". Catch Khan giving us her best Sarah Nixey while on a surreal midnight bike ride in the song's video below. [MORE...]

Justice Criss-Cross Globe on Tour
Kris Kross, LOL

It's no electric pyramid, but Justice's gigantic, groove-powered, cross-shaped (imaginary) spaceship will soon descend upon cities across the globe as the breakout French duo shakes hips from Fuji to Philly in the coming months. Get ready to D.A.N.C.E. to the B.E.A.T., peoples.

The Ed Bangers behind the album known to Mac users as "Option T" do festival duty all summer long before hitting the Land Down Under in late September. They'll then invade the land of liberty and something-or-other for all in October.

Be there or be †.

Thanks to Ian for the tip! [MORE...]

Black Mountain Return to the Road

First, it was Pink Mountaintops. Then Blood Meridian. Then Lightning Dust. Good as they are, the glut of Black Mountain side projects can leave one wishing for the real thing.

Finally, the OGs are back in action, and Black Mountain-- the curiously strong stoner-indie rockers-- have a big ol' tour on the way. Following a stop next month at the Under the Volcano! fest in their native Vancouver, McBean and co. will trek across North America for a month or so starting in late September. They've also got that ever-better ATP Nightmare Before Xmas thing to think about in December. [MORE...]

New Pornographers Add Fall Dates

The New Pornographers thrive on life's little conundrums. Faced with crafting another full-tilt power-pop (er, power-folk) record, they came through with Challengers. Up against the threat of widespread pre-release leaks, they threw a ton of bonus stuff on the album and let it loose early, resulting in much glee amongst their rabid fans.

And now, they face yet another challenge: bringing the new album to the masses in the form of a fall North American tour. Thankfully, they'll have some help, from the likes of support acts like Lavender Diamond, Emma Pollock, and Pornographic side projects Immaculate Machine and Fancey.

But their two Texas dates with Spoon have us particularly excited. Is there a suggestion box where we can suggest that these two tour more together?

The New Pornographers' fourth record, Challengers, as you know, drops August 21 on Matador, though it kinda already did. And the band are playing some music festival this weekend put on by some website. Perhaps you've heard of it? [MORE...]

Flaming Lips-Scored Summercamp! Film Hits Theaters

Photo by Matt Jordan

Ah, summercamp. Sleepless nights in smelly, bug-infested cabins. Capsizing canoes, grueling hikes, bouts with poison ivy. Escaping the kids who beat you up at school to get beat up by kids out in the woods. Weeks of utter freedom for mom and dad. Those were the days!

It's too bad, though, that we didn't have the Flaming Lips soundtracking our summertime misadventures. Lucky for Cameron, Spencer, Holly, and Boo-- the young subjects of acclaimed documentary Summercamp!-- the Lips do in fact soundtrack theirs.

Eternally campy Wayne Coyne and co. contribute original music to the film, directed by Bradley Beesley and Sarah Price. Summercamp!, which premiered at several festivals last year, finally kicks off a theatrical run next week.

The film opens at New York City's IFC Center on July 18, and will play in Milwaukee, Chicago, Boston, Portland, Oklahoma City (naturally), Lincoln, Los Angeles, and elsewhere thereafter. Click here for a complete list of showings. And if you dwell in a decidedly more rural locale, fear not: Summercamp! is also available now on DVD.

Beesley, as you may recall, also directed the Flaming Lips doc The Fearless Freaks, and shares a co-directing credit with Coyne on the U.F.O.s at the Zoo DVD, which landed this week in Roswell and everywhere else. Beesley's also done a bunch of Lips videos and has a significant hand in the upcoming Lips flick Christmas on Mars.

The Lips themselves, meanwhile, wrap up an overseas jaunt this weekend. They return to North America in late fall for a spate of shows with Black Moth Super Rainbow opening. [MORE...]

Internet Radio Receives 11th Hour Reprieve!

With the impending July 15 royalty payouts looming, things had been looking awfully grim for internet radio broadcasters. Many recent legal manouevers taken by webcasters that sought to delay their impending payments to sound recording copyright owners had fallen short of their goals, and the potentially devastating royalty rate increases (and the massive monetary exchanges that go with them) seemed all but assured.

Thursday afternoon, all that changed. According to Wired magazine's blog and confirmed by various sources, SoundExchange executive director Jon Simson promised Congress that his organization-- which collects the payments on these sound recording copyrights-- will not enforce the rate increase as long as a new deal is in the works between SoundExchange and the webcasters involved in the Copyright Royalty Board hearing. Additionally, the per-channel minimums which would've potentially crushed multi-channel sites like Pandora and Live365 are off the table, and the per-station minimum will be capped at $50,000 per year.

There's still some question as to whether webcasters who didn't participate in the CRB hearing will be privy to this reprieve. But beyond that, this is fantastic news for broadcasters and fans of internet radio.

And just in case you thought this whole representative democracy thing of ours doesn't work, Pandora founder Tim Westergren's claim that "this is a direct result of lobbying pressure, so if anyone thinks their call didn't matter, it did" ought to set you straight. The people spoke, and progress was made, but you'd still be advised to contact your Congressperson and tell them to keep pushing for fair play for broadcasters. And stay tuned to Savenetradio.org for updates.

Rock on, net radio!

Tompkins Square Gathers Depressing Songs for Box Set
Tom Waits writes anthology's introduction

With that Pitchfork Music Festival thingy starting in mere hours, you might think we'd be all sunshine and rainbows over here at HQ. And we are, for the most part. But we're also in touch with the fact that-- when you're not attending music festivals with free ambrosia served by Chan Marshall and Stephen Malkmus and where the artists play on stages made of gold (not really, but water is cheap!)-- sometimes life is hard. Like "these aren't only lemons Life just handed me; they're rotten lemons injected with poison" hard.

It's for those poison lemon times that the People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938 box set was created. According to a press release, the set features 70 songs (over 30 of which have never been reissued before) "of death, destruction, and disaster, recorded by black and white performers from the dawn of American roots recording," including artists like Charlie Patton, Charlie Poole, Ernest Stoneman, Furry Lewis, and Uncle Dave Macon.

All of the songs included in the three-CD box set have been remastered from their original 78s, and the package comes with a 52-page booklet featuring rare images and an introduction by Tom Waits.

Tompkins Square will release People Take Warning! on September 25.

MBV, JAMC, Corgan, Coyne, Reznor in Shoegaze Doc
Plus: Cocteau Twins, Primal Scream, Slowdive, Ride

In the mid-to-late eighties, as the story goes, a number of bands based primarily in the UK took their guitars and looked forward-- by looking down.

Shoegazers, as they came to be known (at first derisively), utilized noise and distortion and anything else their amps and pedals could conjure to seek a higher musical truth, and the resulting touchstone records-- My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything and Loveless, the Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy, any number of Cocteau Twins LPs, and others-- have cast a significant shadow of influence over countless acts in the ensuing 20-odd years.

It's this fertile period, during which shoegazers honed their craft and the genre found its voice, that first-time feature director Eric Green intends to address and celebrate with his documentary Beautiful Noise.

Queens-bred, L.A.-based Green and partner/editor Sarah Ogletree conceived of Beautiful Noise as "a celebration of these records," as Green told Pitchfork recently.

"It's basically about the Cocteau Twins, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and My Bloody Valentine, and what an indelible impact they had on modern music.

"The bulk of the movie is in the late 80s-early 90s, which is a pretty interesting time period, because a lot of these groups were picked up by major labels in the U.S. Around 1990, people thought that this was going to be the next big thing. And then there was a huge backlash, and [shoegaze] was turned over for, let's say, more press-friendly genres.

"But I think this music had a lasting impact on me and other people," Green says, "and I think it's important that a story from that time period be told."

To help tell that story, then, Green went straight to the sources, interviewing on camera pretty much anyone who's anyone in the genre: My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields and Debbie Googe, JAMC's Jim Reid and Douglas Hart, and Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde, as well as Robert Smith (the Cure), Neil Halstead (Slowdive), Mark Gardner and Andy Bell (Ride), Emma Anderson (Lush), Adam Franklin (Swervedriver), Toni Halliday (Curve), Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream), David Pearce (Flying Saucer Attack), Ian Masters (Pale Saints), Martin Carr (the Boo Radleys), noted producer Alan Moulder, and Creation honcho Alan McGee.

Green also sat down with noisemakers who owe a debt to shoegaze-- such as Billy Corgan, Trent Reznor, and Wayne Coyne-- as well as contemporary bands still tapping into the genre's essence, like Asobi Seksu, Serena-Maneesh, Ladytron, and Autolux, among others.

Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie
[MORE...]

Postmarks Tour, Appear on Nick Jr. Show

Neither snow, nor sleet, nor hail can stop the weather-obsessed hazemakers of the Postmarks from stamping across the U.S. on a brief but beauteous August tour. They've got a few scattered dates along the way-- including July 19's indie pop hurricane alongside Starlight Mints and the Ladybug Transistor-- but the real action kicks off August 1 in the ATL.

The Postmarks also had a chance to film a scene for an upcoming Nickelodeon childrens' program entitled "Yo Gabba Gabba!". According to the band (as quoted in a press release), the tune, entitled "Balloons", was performed on "this fabulous 60s style tiered stage filled with hundreds and hundreds of balloons." "Yo Gabba Gabba!", which premieres in the fall, is hosted by DJ Lance Rock and features "friendly toy monsters in a magical land full of music, dance, colorful cartoons, and simple life lessons." In other words, it's a show about college. [MORE...]

Savath & Savalas Leaves Tour With Jose Gonzalez
It seems there's been a... glitch... in the plan! Ohhhhh

So that Savath & Savalas/José González tour we mentioned a while back? Yeah, that's not happening. Well, José's still touring-- just without Savath.

In a statement posted on the Savath & Savalas MySpace blog on Wednesday, Guillermo/Scott "Prefuse 73" Herren wrote:

Jose Gonzalez will be touring as scheduled - Savath y Savalas will not be on the bill.
I'm very sorry to all the people that would have gone to see us play...
I feel sad that I'm not doing this tour as well, I was very much looking forward to it. I'm not going to be specific on why but some things are beyond my control.

The tour would have been in support of Golden Pollen, the latest Savath album, released last month on Anti-. José González soldiers on unscathed, touring around the release of his forthcoming Mute album In Our Nature, due September 25. Remaining dates for both artists after the jump. [MORE...]

Edan, Cut Chemist, Oh No Remix Now-Again on Comp
Also: Percee P, J. Rocc, M.E.D., Koushik, Guilty Simpson

For the past six years, Stones Throw offshoot Now-Again Records has quietly brought old and new funk to record store shelves with vinyl-only reissues and new releases. Now, the label will enter the world of the CD release with a compilation called Now-Again Re:Sounds, Vol. 1, out July 17.

Executive produced by Now-Again president Egon, the comp features the likes of Cut Chemist, Oh No, Edan, Percee P, J. Rocc, M.E.D., Koushik, and Guilty Simpson reworking tracks from the label's back catalog. The result is a collection of remixes and alternate versions (some of which are previously unreleased) alongside a few of the remastered original tracks.

True to its roots, Now-Again will also release a vinyl edition of Re:Sounds with a noticeably different tracklist than the CD. But it's not just any old vinyl release; it's a box set of seven 7" singles. Vinylicious! [MORE...]

Xiu Xiu Work on New Album, Do San Fran AIDS Walk

The good people of Xiu Xiu will take a break from more clangorous undertakings this weekend and don their kicks to partake in the San Francisco AIDS Walk.

Recently reconfigured as a four-piece, the Xius hit the pavement of San Fran's Golden Gate Park on July 15. Their efforts, combined with those of other Walk participants, will help raise funds for the Horizons Foundation's HIV/AIDS Community Grants program, which distributes moneys to some 42 Bay Area organizations committed to fighting AIDS and HIV.

Best of all, you can help. Xiu Xiu are accepting AIDS Walk donations, which you may mail to either of the two addresses listed after the jump. Or, to ensure your donation arrives in time, contribute directly via the Walk's website here.

And the next Xiu Xiu album? The one we first mentioned roughly 29 Xiu Xiu stories ago? It's now due in early 2008 from Kill Rock Stars. Contributors, as you may know, include Deerhoof's John Dieterich, Swans/Angels of Light's Michael Gira, and jazz saxophonist Howard Wiley, while Deerhoof's Greg Saunier helped mix.

Xiu Xiu have just four dates lined up at present, all overseas, but a 2008 tour is apparently in the works. Jamie Stewart has a couple of East Coast solo shows with Marissa Nadler scheduled as well. [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.)