Wu, Nas, Monch, Rage Kick Off Rock the Bells Tour
Tour also features Talib Kweli, MF Doom, the Roots, Mos Def, UGK, Mr. Lif

Rock the Bells-- which we called "probably the best hip-hop festival in the country" back in March-- starts its reign as the best hip-hop tour in the country** tonight, July 26, in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

The tour's lineup has expanded in recent weeks and months, and depending on which show you attend, you may see a fair number of the following acts:

Wu-Tang Clan, the Roots, MF Doom, Nas, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, UGK, Public Enemy, Rakim, Rage Against the Machine, EPMD, Pharoahe Monch, David Banner, M.O.P., Erykah Badu, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Cypress Hill, Slum Village, Hieroglyphics, Blackalicious, the Coup, Felt, Sage Francis, Murs, Boot Camp Clik, Immortal Technique, Living Legends, Jedi Mind Tricks, Brother Ali, Cage, Mr. Lif, Grouch & Eligh, Hangar 18, Blueprint, Lucky I Am, DJ Mike Relm, DJ Icy Ice, DJ C-Minus, DJ Rocky Rock, Rahzel (as a host), and Supernatural (also as a host).

Plus, you'll get to hang out in baseball stadium parking lots (totally not lame!). Maybe Barry Bonds will wait until August 18 to break the home run record, and you'll catch the ball in the middle of Murs' set and be totally rich for life! Wait... nope, the Giants are away that day. Just the music then.

** unless Christopher Wallace is resurrected for a Don't Look Back-style Ready to Die tour and brings Outkast along with him to do Aquemini [MORE...]

Win a Bong From BYOP Side Project Turbo Fruits
They call them mellow yellow

Turbo Stein (Be Your Own Pet guitarist Jonas Stein), Turbo John (BYOP drummer John Eatherly), and Turbo Max (does anyone know this guy's real name?) are allowing Turbo Fruits fans to personally experience the band's songwriting inspiration with a contest based on a track from their recently released self-titled debut.

From now until midnight August 12 (technically August 13), anyone willing to count the number of times Stein says the word "volcano" in the Turbo Fruits song of the same name can enter to win a Storz & Bickel Volcano Vaporizer, the apparatus that inspired the song and which the contest's official rules call "the BMW of bongs."

According to the contest's other rules, if the winner of the contest is under 18, he or she will instead receive the cash equivalent: $540, i.e. enough to just buy tons of weed to smoke out of a more Volvo-esque bong. Also, "members of Turbo Fruits and their families are ineligible to enter," meaning Mama Stein might have to pay a visit to Carlos D or Man Man if she has to feed the need.

Turbo Fruits have a handful of U.S. and UK tour dates scheduled for the forthcoming weeks, and we advise attendees not to make any sudden movements at these shows. [MORE...]

Maps Remixed by the Field, Tours
Wait! They don't love you like he loves you

Recent Mercury Prize nominee Maps will issue a single for We Can Create's "You Don't Know Her Name" on Mute July 30 in the UK and July 31 in the U.S.

The single, on CD and 7" in the UK and digitally in the U.S., features a remix of "You Don't Know Her Name" by the Field.

Maps has a number of tour dates on the way, including a few in North America come September. Hey, if Maps gets lost, does he read himself? [MORE...]

Mysterious Fred Armisen Drum DVD Due on Drag City

Photo by Matt Jordan

Who is Jens Hannemann, and what is he doing in a Drag City DVD about drumming? And just what exactly does he have to do with "SNL"'s Fred Armisen? There's no earthly way of knowing for sure, but here's what we've managed to come up with:

Yuk-maker Armisen is a longtime drum aficiando, having sat on the stool for Chicago punks Trenchmouth in the early 90s. He somehow happened upon Jens Hanneman's "Complicated Drumming Technique" and decided the man's technique was just complicated enough for inclusion in the first installment of his Fred Armisen Presents DVD series on Drag City. The DVD features Hanneman demonstrating his technique, presumably while Armisen adopts an accent and eggs him on.

Hmm...come to think of it, that gentleman claiming to be Jens Hanneman at the recent Will Oldham video store gig looks an awful lot like Armisen. Could they in fact be... one and the same?!?!

An e-mail from a Drag City publicist denies all, claiming that "as far as Jens being Fred, he doesn't look at all like him. He's got really long hair." You know, this guy has really short hair... and so does Steve Jobs.

The publicist continues, "It's instructional, not comedy. I suppose people who don't understand music might find it funny, but that's not the intent. Jens is an intense guy with his own style of drumming-- I think that Fred, as a percussionist himself, thinks that Jens has something to say."

Drag City also suggests that the DVD -- out in October -- will only be available at music colleges and instrument stores, but we're not sure what to believe anymore.

We do, however, believe that Fred’s on the new Les Savy Fav record, and has a show July 30 at Chicago’s Hideout, celebrating the first anniversary of Drag City's comedy series the People Under the Stares.

The Hideout? You mean that little club that's getting Bloc Party and Art Brut to play their summer festival? Now that I find hard to fathom.

Four Tet-Produced Sunburned LP Details Revealed
Record features artwork by Boredoms' Eye

Sunburned Hand of the Man photo by Don Harney

Sunburned Hand of the Man will follow through on their promise of an album that sounds like "our older stuff, crossed with a Can record or a dance record" with the Smalltown Supersound release of Fire Escape on October 2.

We take the potentially danceable aspect of the folksy collective's new LP to come from the production by former tour buddy and friend-for-life Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet. And Hebden's not the only fairly famous name attached to the project, as Fire Escape's artwork comes from Boredoms leader Yamataka Eye. Members of Vibracathedral Orchestra also contribute.

Sunburned and Hebden both have some shows scheduled for the coming weeks as well. Hebden's dates are split between Four Tet sets with Brazilian group Open Field Church as part of the TrocaBrahma festival, shows with his band Fridge, and festival performances with recent collaborator Steve Reid.

According to Sunburned's MySpace, the collective has another release planned for October as well: The Blaze Game (Conspiracy Records), credited to "Sunburned Circle". With Z released just a couple months ago, that means they will have served up at least three LPs by year's end. [MORE...]

Franz Ferdinand Tour in the Fall

It's lovely country up there in Scotland, and we certainly don't fault the lads of Franz Ferdinand for sticking close to home on an almost-entirely-Scottish string of September dates. Still, with a third LP a mere wish upon the wind at the moment, and our boys hardly racking up the live appearances this year, we'd like to politely request they loosen their tethers a bit next time. But hey, Scottish Franz Ferdinand fans: go nuts! (And Turkish and Icelandic ones, too-- you've got one show each.)

In other Franz Ferdinand news, you can hear Alex Kapranos on the recently-released Immaculate Machine record, and the (relatively) new Franz song "Hallam Foe, Dandelion Blow" is on the soundtrack to the new film Hallam Foe, which hits theaters August 31. The soundtrack is out on Domino on August 13. [MORE...]

R. Kelly Adds Ten Chapters to "Trapped in the Closet"
Shit! Think! Shit! Think! Shit! Quick put me in the closet!

"Trapped in the Closet", R. Kelly's sprawling, Puccinian ode to enclosed spaces, shall sprawl anew August 21, when ten additional chapters are tacked on to the end of the series' dozen on a Jive-issued DVD. According to Billboard.com, the transformation of "Trapped" from smartly-paced adultery whodunit to neck-snapping pixelated freakshow will be complete once these chapters are in the can:

The new round of "Trapped" videos finds Kelly portraying an old man named Randolph, complete with a pot belly and a fake white beard that nearly falls off mid-scene, as well as a preacher in a gray Jheri-curl wig and garish orange suit. In one of the final chapters, Kelly's Sylvester character talks business with a "Sopranos"-esque mobster who is eating a giant plate of spaghetti.

In other words, everything "Trapped" did in the past, he's about to double up on it. Still, what's to become of Rosie the Nosy Neighbor? Will we ever learn the fate of the hefty Bridget, her husband OmarJames, star-crossed lovers Chuck and Rufus? Will Kells ever reveal just why he has a fiery silhouette of himself hanging in his bedroom? There's no Soap Opera Digest for this stuff, people, and I demand answers.

IFC will air the original twelve chapters in anticipation of the release of the 13-22 DVD, and stream the whole blasted epic on their website. Man, is that water droplet noise ever gonna get annoying around #15.

In other Kells news, Double Up recently went platinum. To celebrate, Kells indulged in dessert.

Mastodon Bro Down With Metallica, Grizzly Bear

In case there was any question as to whether or not being in a rock band is still one of the coolest jobs in the world to have-- in a musical climate where, for better and for worse, our favorite bands are "just like us"-- Mastodon are quick to remind us that it absolutely is.

They've hung out with Borat backstage at "Late Night With Conan O'Brien". Their late-night benders have resulted in bartenders losing their jobs. Tool have even dressed up in gorilla suits and attacked them. And they somehow managed to receive a Grammy nomination for Blood Mountain's "Colony of Birchmen" in the midst of it all.

And now, more photographic evidence has appeared that proves when it's time to party, Mastodon know who to party with.

After their recent Pitchfork Music Festival set, guitarist Bill Kelliher and drummer Brann Dailor posed for the above picture with Grizzly Bear's Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen. Hmm, Mastodon vs. Grizzly Bear... what would GZA say?

Mastodon bassist Troy Sanders mentioned the band's other recent photo buddies in our Pitchfork Festival interview with him, saying the meeting of metal heavyweights resulted in "a piece of the torch [being] passed." Yes, before "drinking with Lars until four in the morning," Mastodon were kind enough to get a photo taken with Metallica at their recent gig opening for the thrash veterans at Wembley Stadium.

Totally awesome. Upon closer examination of the photo, however, we made a fascinating discovery that we have done our best to show with a pixellated, crudely Photoshopped enlargement. The discovery: there are two James Hetfields running around, and one of them is named Brent Hinds.

See for yourself:

 

Thermals, Man Man, Prefuse Play Wicker Park Fest
Visitors, be warned: there are not many dudes in Wicker Park that look like Josh Hartnett

Chicago's summertime neighborhood festivals are a city tradition as ingrained as the copious consumption of pig parts and making apologies for the Bears. This summer's seen some fine ones thus far, but you just knew Wicker Park-- one of the hipper 'hoods in the Second City-- would be the one spot worth braving the Blue Line for.

This year's Wicker Park Fest, stuffing July 28 and 29 with music, food, and a whole lot of dudes in black jeans and bandanas, sports a bodacious lineup: Man Man, the Thermals, a live band set from Prefuse 73, Maritime, Centro-matic, Catfish Haven, Elliot Lipp, and the Benevento/Russo Duo serve as Saturday's highlights, while Sunday snaps up High on Fire, Pit er Pat, the reformed Don Caballero, Russian Circles, Mannequin Men, and a host of others. All that, in exchange for a small donation at the gate!

Black Lips Drop Good Bad Not Evil LP in September

For their last record, Atlanta foursome Black Lips ventured to Tijuana, got bombed on the Cuervo, and coughed up Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo.

On September 11, they're following it up with the Vice-issued Good Bad Not Evil, recorded in Atlanta and hopefully assisted by a lot of Crunk Juice and gin. Whatever Black Lips put into Good Bad reemerges as a baker's dozen clattering, caterwauling rock n roll tracks (and, spoiler alert: a bonus track), including the recently-Forkcasted "Katrina."

Black Lips have plans to traverse North America with fellow ATLiens Selmanaires around the time of Good Bad Not Evil's release. Dates-- and Good Bad tracklist-- after the jump. [MORE...]

Mr. Lif, Cage, Felt Head Paid Dues Tour
Also: Sage Francis, Blueprint, Brother Ali

The Paid Dues Independent Hip Hop Festival is following in the footsteps of fellow Guerilla-Union-promoted hip-hop festival Rock the Bells in taking its fest on the road, with a tour of the U.S. this summer.

The tour kicks off today (July 25) in Chicago and features Paid Dues alumni like Mr. Lif, Cage, Brother Ali, Felt (aka Murs and both MC Slug and producer Ant of Atmosphere), Sage Francis, Blueprint, Living Legends, Hangar 18, Lucky I Am, and Grouch & Eligh, with special guests supplementing the lineup on select dates.

What's more, the Paid Dues tour will join up with the Rock the Bells tour in New York City and San Bernardino for a total of three dates of multi-festival hip-hop goodness. Benzes and backpacks welcome. [MORE...]

Carlos D to Play Pot Dealer in Horror Film
And it's a documentary! JK LOL

You knew spotlight-hogging Interpol bassist Carlos D had compositional ambition. But, like many sidemen with lofty aspirations, Carlos longs for stardom of his own. Mr. Dengler will reportedly step out in front of the camera for his feature film acting debut; a wacky move, indeed, but we'll take our Carlos D as publicly wacky as he can muster, thank you very much.

Time Out Chicago recently visited the Chicago suburbs set of My Friends Told Me About You, Carlos' forthcoming film project-- directed by Golgotha auteur and, as such, previous D-llaborator Daniel Ryan-- and gathered this odd assortment of details:

The six-day shoot was for the insipidly-titled thriller My Friends Told Me About You (a working title I hope), which Dengler is producing, starring in and, most likely, scoring... a source on the film's crew says Dengler is playing a "bad drug dealer." Not "bad" as in badass, though. "Bad" as in bumbling. (At one point, Dengler's character gets duped by the oldest trick in the pot-pusher handbook: subbing oregano for the ganj.)

... the story involves men in butcher costumes, lots of blood, a spooky hotel (the Mayflower Motel in Clarendon Hills), a greasy-spoon diner (Uncle Bill's in Roselle) and a creepy little boy in a little suit in the mold of The Omen's Damien (oh god, another terrible tyke?). Dengler and crew will be shooting more of the film here in August, perhaps when Interpol heads to town to play Lollapalooza on Saturday 4.

Probably not, with an Interpol gig the day before and the day after. But no matter; Carlos D is starring in a feature film, and he's playing a drug dealer!

Nobody from Interpol's camp could confirm whether or not all this is actually true, but we sure hope it is. One often wonders how such an absurd character wound up in such an austere band; then one takes a look directly at the moustache and any such lines of questioning are soon forgotten. That moustache... must grow a similar moustache...

Thanks to Stereogum for the tip. Interpol are, as hinted at, on tour, with a bunch of dates with Liars. [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.)