Spank Rock's 2 Live Crew-Inspired EP Revealed
Uh, NSFW... too late?

Back in June when Pitchfork spoke with MC Spank Rock (of the raunchy supergroup that bears his name), he touched on a project by turns very strange and very fitting: An EP he'd been working on with producer Benny Blanco that takes freak nasty Miami bass pioneers 2 Live Crew as its inspiration.

Well, Benny and Spank must've tweaked their nasty just right, as the Bangers & Cash EP is ready to hit the dance floor, complete 2 Live Crew samples on every song and an homage to 2 Live Crew's notorious Nasty As They Wanna Be cover as its artwork (see, um, above).

Myspace will be rolling out four of the EP's five tracks as free streams, starting with "Shake That" this Thursday, September 6. Every week, MySpace will feature another Banger as their "single of the week," with a video for "Loose" to follow on October 3. And, starting October 9, you can sneak Bangers & Cash out of the record shop with a sheepish look on your face, thanks to Downtown Records.

In other Spank Rock news, there's a number of live dates on the way, including a couple this week with the Beastie Boys. Spank Rock DJs Devlin and Darko also have a few shows scheduled for later in the fall. [MORE...]

Sufjan Guests on Debut EP from Marla Hansen

Photo by Murat Eyuboglu

You may not know Marla Hansen by name, but there's a good chance you've at least heard-- if not seen-- the talented young lady. As an unassuming but in-demand violist, she's lent her string-pulling skills to the likes of Kanye West (even appearing with the MC on "Saturday Night Live") and Jay-Z (as part of an orchestra that backed Mr. Carter when he did Reasonable Doubt at Radio City Music Hall in June of 2006).

Hansen's also dabbled extensively with non-chart-topping music-makers, including the New Pornographers (playing on Challengers), the National (singing on Boxer), and Oneida (playing on The Wedding). And she rolls with a fine crew, including Sufjan Stevens, Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), and Rob Moose (of Antony's Johnsons and MBD), all of whom guest on the gal's debut musical offering, an EP entitled Wedding Day.

The six-track set hit shops today (September 4) courtesy of Standard Recording Company and features Sufjan on vocals, piano, and hand percussion, and Worden on vocals. Other contributors include My Brightest Diamond family members Sebastian Krueger, Nate Lithgow, and Maria Jeffers.

As a honeymoon of sorts to follow Wedding Day, Hansen will hit the road with fellow friend of Sufjan Denison Witmer. After a pair of record release outings, their tour kicks off September 20 in Athens, Ohio. Hansen will also join Sufjan as he performs his ode to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, "The BQE", at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in early November. [MORE...]

Vitalic to Issue Live Album
OK Concertgoer

Maybe they spotted your fake ID coming down the block and turned you away at the door. Perhaps you sipped a few too many appletinis before the show and spent the evening doubled over in a heap of green regret. Or does your agoraphobia make the idea of hordes of people getting down to dance music in the flesh seem a little too much to take?

Whatever the reason, if you've missed out on some of the finer electronic artists doing their thing in front of an audience recently, you're in luck: Pascal Arbez-- the man behind Vitalic-- has joined a few other notables in dropping a live set onto wax this fall.

Recorded at an October 2006 show at Brussels' Ancienne Belgique, Vlive collects a full, unedited, postproduction-free Vitalic throwdown, complete with "extracts" from his awesome OK Cowboy and eight tracks native to his live set. It's out September 24 on Different.

Those of you impervious to the elements and willing to get your troubled groove on with Pascal in person can do so on a handful of Vitalic live appearances across Europe this fall. [MORE...]

Jeff Tweedy, Bill Callahan Play Free Bluegrass Fest
As do Mekons, Jason Isbell, Steve Earle, Nick Lowe, Emmylou Harris, Charlie Louvin

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass? You ain't funnin', Jack.

The seventh installment of San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass fest-- taking place in San Fran's Golden Gate Park October 5-7-- lives up to its name, with about a 1:1 ratio of high and lonesome to mandolin-less roots and rock. Still, they do both the hardly and the strictly well, with a lineup that packs Jeff Tweedy, Bill Callahan, Charlie Louvin, Steve Earle, Nick Lowe, the Mekons, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Sadies, Earl Scruggs, the Del McCoury Band, Hazel Dickens, Blanche, Heartless Bastards, the Knitters, Los Lobos, Doc Watson, Gillian Welch, T Bone Burnett, and several dozen of their fellow twangmakers taking the stage under the landmark edifice.

What's more, it's free! Hardly strictly an excuse not to go now, eh?

The Clientele Extend Tour Into the Fall

English wisp-pop maestros the Clientele will bring their songs about girls, rain, and girls in the rain to their homeland, as they've scheduled a UK tour for this fall. (Yes, songs about rain should be quite appropriate in England in October.) The trek is in support of the UK release of latest mope-sterpiece God Save the Clientele, out October 1 on Track and Field. (It came out in May in the U.S. on Merge.)

As you know, the Clientele hit the North American road with Peter Bjorn and John and Marissa Nadler later this week. "Whistling banned in Clientele tour van," according to a MySpace post. Good call. [MORE...]

Devendra Banhart Kicks Off Tour

Photo by Lauren Dukoff

Devendra Banhart begins his Roll through North America this weekend in support of that new album he has with the silly title coming out September 25 via XL. The tour's first show is September 1 in Vancouver.

Earlier this week, Devendra formally released the album's "Tonada Yanomaminista" via iTunes.

And finally, in other Devendra news...that photo. [MORE...]

Various Issue New Material in Various Ways

UK-based enigma Various (aka Various Production), known to hitch disparate styles to their first-rate dubstep buggy, sure like to make things difficult, don't they?

As if the name weren't confusing enough (Google seems to have gotten wise, but just try typing "Various" into the Pitchfork search engine), now the XL-signed phenoms are planning to release an album's worth of new tracks in a manner best suited to scavenger hunts, Smashing Pumpkins kiss-offs, and Coldplay tour announcements.

Lucky for you and I, they've spelled things out in fairly plain King's English via a mysterious link on the XL website. Beginning this week and continuing through the three weeks thereafter, Various will issue the new tunes to three exclusive online retailers. One per retailer per week, multiplied by four weeks of exclusive digital download action, yields 12 choice new Various cuts in all. Details below.

The retailers in question are iTunes, Rough Trade's digital shop, and UK electronic clearinghouse Boomkat. Each song also comes with a unique piece of digital artwork-- presumably not unlike the kick-ass black and white-with-a-touch-of-red renderings that grace The World Is Gone and the heaps of Various vinyl releases.

And speaking of those vinyl releases, Various have yet another in the pipeline. "Phortune" comes backed with "Limbs" and arrives September 17 on the band's own imprint. That same day they'll also serve up another Boomkat exclusive, a 12" boasting "Chief", "Suj Mix", and "Bun". The Boomkat version of this release will be screen-printed and limited to 200 copies.

Those who sleep on it can still pick up the regular edition of the "Chief" 12" on October 1. Additionally, XL will release the first remix of "Hater" in an unspecified physical format (possibly involving plastic) on September 24. [MORE...]

White Williams Unfurls Smoke on Debut LP
Tours with Battles, Dan Deacon, Girl Talk

New York City via Cleveland scenester Joe Williams will release Smoke, the debut album from his White Williams moniker, via Tigerbeat6 on November 6.

For his tour this fall in support of the album, Williams will join up with Dan Deacon and way-back pal Girl Talk on their joint jaunt. He'll also play a handful of dates with Battles in November.

Williams' next show is September 5 in New York City. [MORE...]

Oakley Hall Follow You on New LP, Tour

Brooklyn sextet Oakley Hall, recently adopted into the Merge family, will release its first full-length for the label (and fourth overall) on September 11. I'll Follow You is the follow-up to the band's not one but two 2006 albums, Second Guessing and Gypsum Strings.

Sure, four albums released in just over three years is quite an accomplishment by itself, but the band seems intent on keeping up its productive pace with I'll Follow You's accompanying North American tour, scheduled for this fall.

The tour begins September 4 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Joining the band on select dates will be the Clientele, Black Mountain, the 1900s, the Teeth, and Whalebones. [MORE...]

Bonde do Role, Black Angels Play Swerve Festival
Also: Oh No! Oh My!, Thee More Shallows, Snowden, Illinois

Bonde do Role and the Black Angels are among the artists who will play at the inaugural Swerve Festival this year, which will take place at the Barnsdall Art Park and the Echoplex in Hollywood from September 28-30. Other musical performers include Oh No! Oh My!, Thee More Shallows, Snowden, Illinois, and Foreign Born.

Since Swerve is an offshoot of FUEL TV, it also offers plenty of visual stimulation in the form of art exhibits and showings of music videos, short films, and even a few feature films (including Anton Corbijn's Ian Curtis biopic, Control). Plenty of workshops and other activities are also planned.

Guitarist Colin Mee Explains Why He Left Deerhunter
"I don't want to be overexposed. I don't want the world to know what our excrement looks like or what we are selling on eBay or whether we got robbed. I think that it devalues the music."

Photo by Greg Silver

The gloriously abnormal Deerhunter is now a foursome, following the departure of guitarist Colin Mee. This morning, reader Michael King, who attended a Deerhunter show in the nation's capital yesterday, sent us this:

So last night at the Black Cat in DC Deerhunter showed up minus guitarist Colin Mee. [Frontman] Bradford [Cox] played his Fender Jazzmaster through the whole set (except for "Dr. Glass"). His only mention of the missing Mee was that they were now a four piece and this was their first show as such (He mentioned this about four different times throughout the show offering no details or reason for the line-up change). I can't say the music suffered (the music was a bit different though) but Bradford's stage antics were all but gone because of his new guitar duties.

Indeed, Deerhunter's MySpace already indicated the change: "Deerhunter is now (as of 8/29/07) back to being a four-piece."

We got in touch with Mee regarding the situation. Here is what he had to say:

"What happened was that initially I told them that I couldn't play a couple of shows that we had booked next weekend in Portland and Seattle because it was too much of a strain on my schedule. It wasn't necessarily my intention to quit.

"Brad basically reacted by saying that if I did that I was giving up my position in the band, which is pretty much what I expected. I told them that I thought the last few shows we did were a little subpar and I figured they could still do the shows without me and get paid or whatever if it wasn't going to be good even if I was there. I just felt that we had booked too much stuff to support one album just because of the money that was being offered us and whatever networking opportunities went along with that, which I was never involved in.

"By the end of the year we would have toured with basically the same set six or seven times over a two year period, which I would have been fine with, but this particular few weeks was just too much for me considering my other time commitments.

"This sense of being overwhelmed was exacerbated by the fact that I felt we were receiving (and creating) too much press that had nothing to do with any new music being created. I don't want to be overexposed. I don't want the world to know what our excrement looks like or what we are selling on eBay or whether we got robbed. I think that it devalues the music and it is just a way to maintain attention when the music should just speak for itself.

"I understand that is not the way the media works but I found it disgraceful and sensationalistic. I felt misrepresented and that the band was being portrayed as opportunists. I was willing to tolerate it, however, but I am not going to put my life on hold for this."

No dates have been cancelled or rescheduled on Deerhunter's ever-expanding world tour. The full itinerary is available after the jump. [MORE...]

Patrick Wolf Announces North American Tour

Glitter and face paint and Photoshopped swaths of ethereal pastel haze, oh my! Patrick Wolf is fixing to unleash his inner diva on North America this fall, and you'd do well to make the young man's acquaintance.

Wolf's latest reconnaissance mission onto North American shores commences September 30 in Philadelphia and wraps up a few weeks later in Los Angeles. And in keeping with his recent rant against age-restricted shows, Wolf and his handlers have taken special care to keep as many of these upcoming gigs all ages as possible. Indeed, only the San Francisco one is 21+. Sheesh, way to ruin it for everyone, San Fran.

Wolf also alludes, via his MySpace, to forthcoming dates in Japan, Australia, and the UK, so don't be surprised to find another Patrick Wolf tour story in these action-packed pages soon.

And after that? Wolf writes of starting "a self imposed non public phase of my next year when I will dissapear [sic] into the studio to make my fourth [album]" in the same recent MySpace post. Then again, Wolf writes a lot of things, but we're fairly confident he's being straight with us this time. [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.)