Ted Leo, National, Sunset Rubdown Play Pop Montreal
Also: Magnolia, Fujiya, Black Mountain, Caribou, Final Fantasy

The Pop Montreal festival has announced the first (very large) handful of over 300 artists who will perform at the multi-venue event this year from October 3-7.

The sixth annual Pop Montreal's lineup includes performances by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, the National, Sunset Rubdown, Magnolia Electric Co., Fujiya & Miyagi, Black Mountain, Final Fantasy, Caribou, Patti Smith, Half Japanese, Pere Ubu, Oakley Hall, A-Trak, Kid Sister, the Cool Kids, Qui, MSTRKRFT, Chromeo, Ron Sexsmith, Born Ruffians, Bobby Conn, DJ/Rupture, Chad VanGaalen, Earlimart, Daedalus, Fucked Up, Georgie James, the Watson Twins, Tiga, DJ Mehdi, Cody ChesnuTT, and Jay Reatard.

And the Federation. Yes, the hyphy Federation. Why not?

The festival will also include art shows, a fashion show, a conference, film showings, and a craft fair. (And a ghost riding demonstration? Please?)

Photos: Fucked Up / Pissed Jeans [Brooklyn, NY; 07/21/07]

Photos by Jason Bergman

Frankly, at this point, we'd be disappointed if photos from a Fucked Up show didn't include several shots of the singer with blood streaming down his face. Maybe dude just walks around like that all the time or something?

But the most interesting thing about these photos of the Canadian punk band-- taken Saturday night at an Impose magazine-sponsored show at the Park Slope venue Southpaw-- isn't the blood, or the shots of Pink Eyes sodomizing himself with a drumstick (you're gonna have to click the MORE link for those...).

Nope. It's the pretty sundress that dress bassist Mustard Gas is wearing. It's like she just got back from her grandmother's birthday party, then decided to play a Fucked Up show.

Pissed Jeans opened, and they look about as mean as a bunch of dudes from Allentown, Pennsylvania could be. They also have some scattered tour dates, listed below.

FUCKED UP






PISSED JEANS


[MORE...]

Two Gallants Tour a Great Deal
Two Goofuses learn lessons about the moral order of the universe

When they're not dropping EPs, crafting full-length albums, or getting manhandled by the po-po, the punkish country weepers of Two Gallants are booking shows. Lots and lots of shows.

The San Franciscan duo will cover a lot of ground over the next few months; from Germany to Gainesville and quite a bit of everywhere else in between. The truly gallant among you will pick up their their forthcoming self-titled Saddle Creek LP (due September 25-- check out that cover!), learn the words, and then sing along politely so as not to disturb your showgoing neighbors. [MORE...]

T.V. Eye: July 23-29, 2007

Live music on TV this week:

Monday, July 23:

CBS: "Late Show With David Letterman": Grinderman
NBC: "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno": Common
NBC: "Late Night With Conan O'Brien": Dr. Dog (rerun)
CBS: "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson": Lily Allen

Tuesday, July 24:

FUEL: "The Daily Habit": Dr. Dog
CBS: "Late Show With David Letterman": The National
NBC: "Late Night With Conan O'Brien": Mary Weiss with the Reigning Sound (rerun)
NBC: "Last Call With Carson Daly": Emily Haines

Wednesday, July 25:

CBS: "Late Show With David Letterman": Porter Wagoner
ABC: "Jimmy Kimmel Live": Editors

Thursday, July 26:

FUEL: "The Daily Habit": Tokyo Police Club
CBS: "Late Show With David Letterman": Yeah Yeah Yeahs
ABC: "Jimmy Kimmel Live": T.I.

Friday, July 27:

FUEL: "The Daily Habit": Editors, Busdriver
CBS: "Late Show With David Letterman": Buffalo Tom
CBS: "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson": Big Boi, The Cribs
NBC: "Last Call With Carson Daly": Silversun Pickups

Saturday, July 28:

PBS: "Austin City Limits": Modest Mouse, Guided by Voices (rerun)

Photos: Arcade Fire Playing Basketball [Berkeley, CA; 06/02/07]
Gee, I hope they... Win

Well, now we've seen everything. Before a June show at Berkeley, California's Greek Theatre, several members of the Arcade Fire took to the People's Park for a rousing game of roundball. If the idea of Win Butler "taking it to the hoop" sans the qualifier "emotionally" strikes you as strange, peep game: it seems our boy's got a jump shot with nearly the range of his croon. Boo-yah!

And, hey, dude who blogged about Win and Will stealing your rock (and whose blog no longer exists); is this it? If so, you got served!

Thanks to Flickr user ra_ron for the photos, and to BrooklynVegan for sharing them with the world.

Photos removed at request of photographer. Sorry!

Apollo Heights Befriend TVOTR, Mos Def, Cocteau Twin
UPDATE: NO SHOWS PLANNED WITH JAMC

Twin brothers Daniel and Danny Chavis (wait, they have the same name too? Talk about parents with short attention spans!) have recruited fellow New Yorkers David Sitek (TV on the Radio) and Mos Def (Black Star, The Italian Job, himself) to guest on White Music for Black People, their debut full-length as Apollo Heights.

Sitek remixed and provided most of the music for "Disco Lights" and "Black and Blue", though he appears in the credits as "TV on the Radio." Mos Def guests on "Concern", and Deee-Lite's Lady Miss Kier appears on album opener "Winter in the Summertime".

The Chavises recorded White Music in Paris with Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie (who appears on two tracks himself), and they will release the record on October 2 via Manimal Vinyl. They will also appear on another Manimal release this fall with a cover of "Dress You Up" for the Madonna tribute/charity comp Through the Wilderness.

Finally, Apollo Heights will complete their star-studded year with a tour supporting the Jesus and Mary Chain in November and December, though the exact dates of that tour are still forthcoming.

UPDATE: According to a representative of the Jesus and Mary Chain, Apollo Heights were and are not scheduled to appear on any JAMC dates.

Check out the sparkly "Disco Lights", featuring "TV on the Radio", and "Everlasting Gobbster" featuring Robin Guthrie, available for download below. [MORE...]

The Shins Remixed by Peter Bjorn and John!

Their shows keep getting bigger, their lighting displays more elaborate, their backdrops more involved, their sound more textured and bombastic. Are the Shins ditching the "pop nugget" thing and going prog for real? Probably not, but we're cool with watching 'em dabble. They're showing their splashy stripes a bit on the single for Wincing the Night Away's "Turn on Me," which finds our heroes tackling Pink Floyd's "Breathe". You know, from Dark Side!

UPDATE: THE SINGLE NO LONGER FEATURES THE PINK FLOYD COVER AS A B-SIDE. IT WILL INSTEAD BE INCLUDED ON A BBC COMPILATION.

Oh, and: Wincing highlight "Australia" gets a new sheen on the vinyl single from remixers Peter Bjorn & John. You know, from Sweden! Put another tick in the pocket-sized pop column. (No, we didn't know PB&J wrestled with the wheels of steel either.)

The single also features the Shins cover of Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes," perhaps best known as the oft-covered theme song to the Showtime series "Weeds".

Alas, downloaders, you won't get a big name like Peter Bjorn & John on your "Turn on Me"; as a matter of fact, you'll get a real Nobody. DJ Nobody does his thing to "Sea Legs" on the download in lieu of the PB&J track. A CD version of the single may be on its way, but further details weren't available at press time.

The "Turn on Me" single will be available on 10" vinyl and download September 3 in the UK from Transgressive. No U.S. release, sorry.

Peter Bjorn and John and the Shins have tour dates throughout the next few months, available after the jump. [MORE...]

Photos: Whartscape Music Festival [Baltimore, MD; 07/20/07 - 07/22/07]

Photos by Kyle Gustafson

Doggy Poster [above] by Dina Kelberman

As you may have noticed, it's the festival season, and Baltimore's Wham City just couldn't be left out of the summer fun. This weekend the zany art collective hosted the Whartscape festival, featuring the likes of the Dirty Projectors, Beach House, Spank Rock, Cex, Videohippos, XBXRX, Growing, and of course, the Baltimore boy himself, Dan Deacon.

Held in turns at the Floristree, the Depot, and a few other gallery spaces around town, the weekend-long festival celebrated the best of the bizarre Baltimore house (as in, living space, not dance music) scene, as well as a few cohorts from around the country.

Now, in chronological order, the Whartscape Acts:

FRIDAY, JULY 20

HAWNAY TROOF


LEXIE MOUNTAIN BOYS


GROWING


ECSTATIC SUNSHINE


CEX

[MORE...]

Trail of Dead Announce Dates, Still No New Drummer

A few months back, we mentioned that ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead were seeking a drummer for a forthcoming European tour, with "exact dates coming soon."

Soon has become now, and the terror-inciting trailblazers will set off early next month (following a lone date in Brooklyn) with a stranger temporary filling in on the skins. (No, we don't know who it is yet.)

As TOD frontman Conrad Keely put it in a recent post on the band's website, his confidence in the new dude's rhythm isn't exactly rock-solid. "It's not easy replacing a Doni [Schroader]," he laments. "Doni was developed for us in a laboratory by a scientist named Max Brenner. Max has since gone into retirement, so we are faced with the challenge of having to replace Doni with a human being. I hope that those who see our upcoming shows in Europe in August will be sympathetic to the fact that we will be playing with a human who might not exhibit all the precision and skill that we have all come to rely upon with the Doni computer version 2.9, and forgive any straying from our previous standards of performance due to this."

So long as you still yell a lot and smash all your stuff at the end, you'll pull it off. [MORE...]

Lil Wayne Arrested on Gun Charge

It's been almost a month since we last heard from Lil Wayne, which usually means he has another 15 or so mixtapes ready to hit the world wide web at any moment.

But this time, he has wandered back into the public eye simply to sustain the cliché of the gun-toting rapper, as he was arrested in Manhattan a little before midnight last night (Sunday, July 22) on a criminal gun possession charge, according to a WNBC.com news story.

Apparently, Lil Wayne was arrested after police saw him smoking weed (shocka!) with another man and found a .40-caliber pistol on Wayne's person.

All other information regarding the arrest is unknown at this time, but according to the same report, a separate incident about an hour earlier found Ja Rule arrested on a similar charge. And if there's any career a rapper wants to model his own after, it's Ja Rule's.

On a more lighthearted note, Outkast MC Big Boi's previously reported goofy golf comedy Who's Your Caddy?-- in which Lil Wayne appears-- hits theaters this Friday, July 27.

Photos: Siren Music Festival [Brooklyn, NY; 07/21/07]

Photos by Kathryn Yu

From the looks of it, a good portion of the population of New York City turned out to bid farewell to the Village Voice-sponsored Siren Music Festival this past weekend. After seven years of summer concerts on Coney Island, the Voice turns off the Siren, due to the massive renovations planned for the classic Brooklyn amusement park.

Celebrating the momentous occasion, fans were treated to sets by the New York Dolls, M.I.A., Cursive, Matt and Kim, Voxtrot, the Twilight Sad, Lavender Diamond, and the Black Lips, who trotted a chicken named 'Popcorn' out on stage, before firing feathers from a makeshift cannon into the audience. Good times.

Photographic evidence of all these hijinks and more below.

M.I.A.


CURSIVE


BLACK LIPS




[MORE...]

Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem Extend Tour

From the natural splendor of Red Rocks to the landfill-adjacent banks of the East River, the Arcade Fire/LCD Soundsystem joint tour continues to trickle out tour dates, with a recently-added meetup at New York City's Randalls Island in early October.

Yes, Randalls Island-- that wasteland in the middle of nowhere to which you might have had the displeasure of escorting a sibling during the Warped Tour or Ozzfest.

More AF/LCD dates are in the works, to add to the six currently scheduled. Maybe they'll play a junkyard in Newark?

The Polaris Prize-nominated Arcade Fire, as you'll recall, just got set up with Clinic, whereas James Murphy should be setting up any unattached bandmates with Jessica Alba. Both acts will also play the Austin City Limits festival in mid-September. While they're there, Arcade Fire will tape an episode of the "Austin City Limits" TV show, to be aired in December. [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.)