Islands' Thorburn Works With Les Savy Fav's Butler
And hip-hop producer Daddy Kev

Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell

Unicorns-spawned pop ragamuffins Islands, responsible for latest year's rather nice LP Return to the Sea (a recipient of the Best New Music seal of approval), have indeed been suspiciously quiet of late.

Sure, there's an Islands track on that David Shrigley-penned compilation, and the promise of an Islands gig during CMJ, but c'mon guys, what have you really been doing?

Well, as it turns out, at least a couple things.

First up is the curiously named Juiced Elfers. The quartet, which popped up at a pair of recent NYC shows headlined by Metric offshoot Bang Lime, consists of ex-Unicorn/Islander Nick Thorburn (aka Nick Diamonds) and ex-Unicorn/ex-Islander Jamie Thompson (aka J'aime Tambeur), along with a chap named Chris Taylor and a certain Syd Butler (whom you may recall from beloved adult contemporary combo Les Savy Fav).

The Elfers have but a handful of songs to their name, though they've also been known to cover the Troggs and the Trashmen. It remains to be seen whether these boys will have a fruitful and enduring career together, but for the moment, alas, there's no further activity on the Juiced Elfers radar.

Butler, Thorburn, Thompson, and members of Wolf Parade and Black Mountain previously collaborated under the bummer of a name Final Fantasy: Online a.k.a. Internet at a McSweeney's-sponsored benefit this past spring.

Thorburn's kept especially busy, as he's also one half of "Hawaii-inspired indie superduo" Reefer (er, not these guys). The other half is noted Los Angeles hip-hop producer Daddy Kev, whose label/distro Alpha Pup served up the quoted descriptor above and will also serve up Reefer's debut mini-album, The Life Narcotic.

The six-song/three-interlude LP, tentatively planned for release in spring/early summer 2008, was in fact recorded in Maui, Hawaii, and L.A. Reefer hope to also release an album of remixes to compliment The Life Narcotic. No word yet on who's contributing.

Along with Reefer, Alpha Pup also has releases in the pipeline from Daedelus, Omid, edIT, Carlos Niño & Gaby Hernandez, Kail, Nocando, and Existero.

Pipettes Announce Tour, North America LP Delayed

North American residents: If you went to the record store/rolled out of bed and loaded up your digital music retailer of choice yesterday looking for a non-import copy of We Are the Pipettes, you already know what we're about to tell you. It's not there yet!

Fortunately, Cherrytree/Interscope has come through with a new North American release date for the Pipettes' debut, and it's not too far away. We Are the Pipettes will now see shelves from Fresno to Halifax on October 2, and the new edition of the album comes with exclusive new tracks "Dance a Boogie" and "Baby, Just Be Yourself". It also has a new cover (see above).

To celebrate their (delayed) arrival, the trio has reloaded on North American tour dates, which begin in Chicago on the new release date. [MORE...]

Beach House Add Dates

With the summer waning, most folks weatherstrip around their windows, chuck all the perishables from the fridge, lock up, and get the heck out of their seasonal domiciles. But when you've determined to live your whole life in a Beach House, whatever the weather, you've gotta go where the vacation takes you.

Following their previously reported stint with their four Friends in Grizzly Bear, Baltimore's mobile Beach House will take in all that Europe has to offer-- for a couple weeks, anyhow. On the Euro dates, the duo share digs with fellow Baltimoreans Arbouretum. [MORE...]

Bloc Party, Justice, Shout Out Louds Play Detour Fest
Also Raveonettes, Teddybears, Cool Kids, Aliens, Busy P, SebastiAn, Kavinsky

A bunch of big bands getting together to play in Southern California isn't exactly a diversion from the beaten path, but LA Weekly's done gone and dubbed it a Detour anyway.

The second annual Detour Music Festival rounds up a few of this year's usual festival suspects-- Bloc Party, Justice, uh, Satellite Party-- and provides them with yet another big stage. Along for the ride are the Shout Out Louds, Turbonegro, Teddybears, the Comedians of Comedy, Augie March, the Raveonettes, the Cool Kids, DJ Mehdi, Autolux, the Noisettes, SebastiAn, Kavinsky, the Aliens, Busy P, So Me, Kinky, and others. Though it seems somehow incongruous to provide directions to something called Detour, the whole shebang is going down October 6 on L.A.'s Main and First Streets. A portion of the profits will go to the L.A. environmental group Tree People.

Sleater-Kinney's Brownstein Does Comedy, Lecture, Ads

Hard to believe it's been over a year now since Sleater-Kinney played their final show (repeat after me: "It's just an indefinite hiatus. It's just an indefinite hiatus."). And indefinite hiatus though it may be, the vacationing members of the iconic trio have found plenty to fill the space between their ("Temporary! Temporary!") break-up and their (fingers-crossed!) barnstorming reunion tour.

Singer/guitarist Carrie Brownstein in particular has been on a roll, having recently reprised her comedic dabblings with "Saturday Night Live" funny guy Fred Armisen. Brownstein, as you may recall, played host Cindy Overton on something called "Boink!", which surfaced on YouTube about a year ago. In the clip, she interviewed former Iraq dictator/Brit-accented rocker Saddam Hussein (played by a quite hilarious Armisen).

Now Brownstein and Armisen have a new bag called "ThunderAnt". Stereogum.com has the first episode, which features a slick stop-motion animated intro soundtracked by a Brownstein/Armisen ditty, and a routine in which the two say "This is nice" at each other a whole lot. Future installments of "ThunderAnt" are expected soon.

Carrie's also a writer, and will read some of her work and discuss music and culture at an upcoming event at NYC university The New School. The talk/reading, moderated by preeminent rock scribe and New School faculty member Greil Marcus, goes down October 10 and is presented by the school's Writing Program. Thanks to Matthew Perpetua for the tip.

Comedy and writing sure don't pay the bills, however, so for that it seems Carrie has turned to advertising. Reader Karissa Sutton points us to the website of prominent Portland ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, which lists Brownstein as one of the overseers of the company's "12" school for young aspiring advertisers. W+K, among other successes, created the Nike slogan "Just Do It" (and "Bo Knows"!!)-- indeed, they're very same Nike-affiliated company that once employed Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, who called W+K an "evil advertising empire" in a Hot Rock-era interview with Vancouver wacko Nardwuar. Irony, some would say.

Brownstein's formernot current Sleater-Kinney bandmates, meanwhile, have been making some rumblings of their own. Weiss is now an official member of Stephen Malkmus' Jicks, and she's been touring as part of Bright Eyes' band. Corin Tucker, meanwhile, lent some backing vocals to one of Eddie Vedder's contributions to the Into the Wild soundtrack (Forkcast, yo!).

Anti-Pop Consortium Talk Reunion
Beans readies new solo album

It's been 10 years since they originally formed to "disturb the equilibrium" of hip-hop, and five years since they broke up, citing creative differences after releasing the 2002 album Arrhythmia. But the four members of experimental hip-hop group Anti-Pop Consortium (Earl Blaize, M. Sayyid, Beans, High Priest) have reunited with plans to make a new record.

"The type of music that we're doing, I feel that there's still a place for it," said Earl Blaize in an interview with Pitchfork. "There have been developments within the climate, but it hasn't changed that much. There are ideas that I've had for years that I haven't even tried yet. Over the past few years, technology being what it is, I would have thought that some of those ideas would have been applied, but there's still lots of room to experiment. There are still old ideas I haven't tried that no one else has really reached into yet, so I'm just ready to pull those out. The ideas don't stop coming."

M. Sayyid touched on a more basic motivation for the reunion: "It's about having my friends back. That's the number one motivation: having my peoples back in my zone. It's just a blessing to be back and have your people in the studio. I can't stress that enough to the people out there who supported us, how great we feel just being back, putting bars on things. APC represents not always being inside the lines, represents that creative freedom, so that's another reason why I'm real happy to be back on deck. I'm just really happy to be experimenting and trying new ways to break up flows, to break up productions, having my man Blaize, having Beans in the mix. That gives me an extra push to just kill it."

"Ultimately, time will tell how necessary [the reunion] was," High Priest laughed, "but that's more for the fans [to decide]. For us, it felt right at this time more than any other time previously. It was just a matter of when it all clicked for us."

As for how they plan to avoid the creative differences that accounted for the breakup in the first place, Sayyid said they're choosing not to focus on them. "Everybody's examined their own individual selves as well as their relationships in the collective, and it's just about moving forward, not so much about the past."

"It took us to go through our individual journeys to reach this point, so now when we come back, we're actually going to be a lot stronger," Blaize added.

The four of them met this summer to map out the shape of the new album, but they won't really start work on it until October. And when it comes to titles, release dates, and labels, "everything is preliminary," Beans said. "We don't really know anything about the album [except for] making that shit super hot. The meetings that we've had have been really productive. The things we've discussed that we want to do and that we want to start accomplishing in October, it's pretty exciting shit. I'm not gonna lie, man, it's shit that we've never tried before collectively. It's gonna be ill, man. It's gonna be a good record."

"We're definitely going to expand our vocabulary. It's going to be something that's well worth our catalogue," Blaize said. [MORE...]

Interpol, Beasties, Decemberists on Charity Comp
Also Go! Team, Pipettes, Peter Bjorn & John, Menomena, Band of Horses, Low, Rilo Kiley

The folks at Filter Magazine and emporium of irony Urban Outfitters have once again teamed up for a pretty admirable bit of do-good-ery. They're peddling the fourth installment in the Give.Listen.Help series, a compilation of "new and exclusive music" from the likes of Interpol, the Decemberists, Band of Horses, the Go! Team, Beastie Boys, Rilo Kiley, Peter Bjorn & John, the Pipettes, Low, and a ton of others. Unfortunately, the Cold War Kids cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come" is on there. But hey, it's for a good cause!

$12.88 from the sale of each $14 two-CD set-- available now at any and all UO locations-- will go to Art of Elysium, an organization that promotes art therapy for hospitalized children. [MORE...]

CBGB Founder Hilly Kristal R.I.P.

Hilly Kristal, founder of New York City's legendary rock club CBGB, died yesterday (August 28) following a battle with lung cancer, according to various reports. He was 75.

Kristal opened CBGB in the Lower East Side's then-seedy Bowery neighborhood back in 1973, on the same site as his earlier club, Hilly's on the Bowery. His intention was to showcase country, bluegrass, and blues acts (hence the name CBGB). Instead, the club would go on to serve as ground zero for the burgeoning New York punk scene, hosting early gigs from the likes of Talking Heads, Television, the Ramones, Blondie, and Patti Smith.

CBGB remained open for 33 years. Following legal wrangling and last-ditch efforts to save the establishment amid financial crisis, the club closed its doors in fall 2006. Kristal spoke of plans to start a new CBGB in Las Vegas.

Kristal was born in Hightsown, New Jersey, and is survived by his ex-wife Karen Kristal, daughter Lisa Kristal, and son Mark Dana Kristal.

Kristal also wrote an extensive history of the club he founded. Well worth a read, it's available on the CBGB website.

Black Mountain To Release New LP...In the Future

Go tell it on the very large, dark mound of rock and dirt: Canuck collective Black Mountain have been digging in for a new album that's sure to catapult their retro sound years into the sweet hereafter.

In the Future, the band's second proper full-length, is due on Jagjaguwar in January. That's just about all we know about the album for now-- there's a whole lotta present to get to before we make it to the Future. At their forthcoming North American shows, the band will be selling copies of a new tour-only 12", featuring the non-Future cuts "Bastards of Light" and "Thirteen Walls". It will also contain a golden ticket that will give fans digital access to a sneak preview of the Future come November 13.

Oh, and about that tour: It's big, and it's gonna get bigger. The North American dates after the jump will precede an as-yet-unannounced European jaunt leading up to the band's appearance at ATP's Nightmare Before Xmas. [MORE...]

Man Man Head Westward On Expanded Fall Tour

Go west, young Man Man! The inscrutable Philly crew intend to follow that bit of directional wisdom on their recently announced tour, which just took on a westward expansion of its own. After a one-off next month in Baltimore and a benefit for the family of Bottom of the Hudson's Trevor Butler, the band will begin their quest towards weirding out the left coast as October grinds to a halt.

Where will Man Man's epic journey take them next? Hopefully towards a new album? Go everywhere, young Man Man! [MORE...]

Comedian Todd Barry Tours With Jens Lekman

You might not know Todd Barry by his name, but you've seen his work: he's lent his talents to "Chappelle's Show" and "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", and he played Greasy in Pootie Tang, for chrissakes.

The riotous renaissance man will follow an appearance as the third Conchord on the September 2 season finale of the apparently-funny (I just got cable, sue me) "Flight of the Conchords" with a comedy tour. But not just your average comedy tour; no, doctor. This tour includes a couple weeks opening up for Jens Lekman in Sweden. Maybe this is all a ploy for Jens to tell that "man walks into a bar" joke? Nah, he always messes up the end of that one.

Before and after he hits Sweden with the country's cutest tourguide, Todd's roadtrip finds him sharing stages with the droll and discourteous likes of Louis C.K. and Sarah Silverman. [MORE...]

Dntel, Daedelus, Nobody Do Dublab Tour

Dntel photo by Brian Tamborello

Dublab-- the internet radio station and sometimes concert putter-onners-- have firmed up the lineup for this fall's "Echo Expansion" tour. Jimmy "Dntel" Tamborello leads a travelling band of laptop-toting roughians that also includes Daedelus, Nobody, Adventure Time, Dimlite, Andrew Pekler, Carlos Niño (Life Force Trio) with Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and Blank Blue. They'll hop around the European continent for a couple weeks in early September while, at all dates, the Dublab Soundsystem and the Gaslamp Killer provide DJ sets.

Dntel assures readers in a MySpace bulletin that he's "not bringing a full band," and although he'll be "playing a bunch of his new album"-- the decent Dumb Luck-- "it will be on a much smaller scale". I know an album you could play songs off, bro. [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.)