Pitchfork

C'mon, you know you missed 'em. Th' Corn Gangg, whose creative spellings serve to remind that they give fuck-all about what you think, have revealed plans to take their thangg to the next level.

Th' Gangg, as you may recall, features current and former members of Islands and the Unicorns rocking out while underground MC chums like Busdriver and Subtitle spit game over the riffs. While there were live gigs and chatter about an album a few years back, nothing really materialized. But now, according to a MySpace post from Gangg-banger Jamie Thompson (who also records as Small Is Beautiful), the Gangg is primed to spring back into action.

Wrote Jamie, "My former co-conspirateur in the unicorns/islands Nick Thorburn and myself are hard at work on the long talked about, much rumoured corn gangg project. We have honest-to-goodness songs in the can and are building up our roster of rapper friends. We should be releasing the debut ep sooner than you think."

First though, they'll dump the name. "We are considering changing the name to 'the G-whizards' AKA 'the Whizz Kids'. We'll decide later." Clearly nomenclature is not these fellows' forte.

Thorburn confirmed the news via email, and also shed some light on, yep, more side project action. In addition to the previously mentioned Juiced Elfers thing with Les Savy Fav's Syd Butler and a former member of AIDS Wolf, and the previously mentioned Reefer thing with Daddy Kev, he now has a thing called Human Highway with sometime Island and ex-Royal City mayor Jim Guthrie.

Human Highway have recorded their debut LP, Moody Motorcycle; they've yet to mix and are still looking for a label. Described Thorburn, "It's largely acoustic with rich harmonies, kinda-sorta-sometimes reminiscent of the everly brothers, orbison, sam cooke. garfunkel and simon." Good company, that.

Thorburn's also doing a comic book, mixing the next Islands record in Los Angeles with Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith), and hoarding "an album's worth of Islands songs up my sleeve for the next next record." Sleep is anathema to this man.

Thanks to reader Dean for the tip.

Finally, Islands have a pair of festival performances lined up.

Islands:

10-06 Montreal, Quebec - Cabaret Juste Pour Rire (Pop Montreal)
10-18 New York, NY - TBA (CMJ)