Boredoms, Matmos, Gira, Hecker Do London Wire Fest

Well, Wire, cheers. You've outdone yourself. Following closely behind the Chicago incarnation of your Adventures in Modern Music festival is the London-based rag's own hometown party, stretched out into a wild month and taking the show to venues large and small, near and far.

And, fine as the U.S. lineup is, yours ain't nothing to scoff at, neither, what with Boredoms (as V∞redoms), Matmos (and Matmos gentleman/Pitchfork contributor Drew Daniel's the Soft Pink Truth), Michael Gira, Tim Hecker, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Lydia Lunch, Kode9 & Spaceape, and so forth to our Boris, No Age, Excepter, Qui, Deerhunter, and so on. Well played, Wire.

"The Wire 25" is-- you called it-- Wire magazine's 25th anniversary party, featuring films, workshops, and more experimental/left-field music than you can shake a theremin at. The London installment runs at various venues around the city October 26 through November 22. The entire musical performance schedule is available after the jump. [MORE...]

Girl Talk, CYHSY, AIH, Cold War Kids Play SoCo Gig

It would appear from the recent rosters for their Music Experience concerts that Southern Comfort, the unsettlingly smooth "wussy whiskey," doesn't reserve the sweet stuff for their liqeurs.

Following gigs in Madison and San Diego (and, in total defiance of my thesis, one this weekend in St. Louis with one of the worst lineups ever conceived), Tempe, Arizona gets theirs October 20 when the pretty sweet lineup of Girl Talk, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Architecture in Helsinki, and Cold War Kids plays the free Experience at the city's Marketplace. They'll be joined by William Reed, Sick Puppies, "other local bands" to be determined, and, come Sunday, at least half a day's worth of regret.

Perkins, Muldrow Form G&D, Craft a Message

G&D could've done a little better in choosing their joint recording alias/acronym: you gotta be one heck of a good guesser to know it's actually the new shared venture from Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins.

Still, if you're hip to them, you'll know what you're getting into on G&D's debut as a duo, The Message Uni Versa: smooth, slinky R&B dusted up a bit and crooned in a pleasantly off-kilter fashion. "And yet," the press material states, "there's another quality of [Perkins'] voice, which mere mortal music critics cannot describe." Oh yeah? It's warbly. Get the Message September 25 from Look Records. [MORE...]

Patrick Wolf Adds Dates to World Tour
Ok, these are getting ridiculous

Photo by Warren du Preez and Nick Thornton-Jones

Eh, I think we can safely say that Patrick Wolf is not retiring from live performance. With the addition of a handful of Australian dates (and a one-off in Japan) to his already plump tour schedule, Wolf's covering four continents before December, leading us to, yet again, point to his earlier conniption, shrug, and be glad everything worked out.

So, yes, on to Patrick, then. Right around the time he kicks off his tour in the Rebel Capital, our little airplane boy and his digitally-encoded sparklemotion will roll on through your computer speakers on his digital-only "Magic Position" EP. Beyond that, he'll still be chipping away at that new LP of his with Alec Empire. Will the other stars of 1998 join Wolf in his quest for pop immortality? Wherefore art thou, Tjinder Singh, Bis, and Jimi Tenor? [MORE...]

Sir Richard Bishop Collects Fragments on LP, Tours

Sir Richard Bishop is not a knight; yet again, he's no lady, either (...I think). He's just a guy, often in a hat, who can wail the heck out of an acoustic guitar, and write some wacky songs besides.

Polytheistic Fragments is former Sun City Girl Sir Richard Bishop's second album of 2007, following the invitingly-titled While My Guitar Violently Bleeds, and it's due September 25 from Drag City. However, Chicago-dwellers who happen into Whole Foods stores in the city's Lakeview, Lincoln Park, and South Loop neighborhoods tomorrow (September 22) at 2 p.m. (central) can hear Fragments and the Red Krayola's Sighs Trapped by Liars while they decide between 62 different brands of homemade granola. Sweet!

Bishop has a date with Low this weekend, and another round with Bill Callahan to follow. [MORE...]

Bad Brains Kick Off Tour This Weekend
Pay to come

Photo by Frank W. Ockenfels 3

Yacht rockers and soccer fiends Bad Brains begin a too-short tour of California this weekend (specifically: tomorrow, September 22) to support their reunion record of sorts, this year's Build a Nation.

After they finish those shows, they'll take a little break before heading over to Europe for a similarly limited set of dates in October. What a bunch of teases. [MORE...]

The Who Celebrated in Amazing Journey DVD Doc
Follow-up Amazing Race reveals Townshend as totally awesome at scavenger hunts

Who doesn't love a good documentary, right? Wrong! The Who do love a good documentary, which is hopefully what Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who will be.

Following in line with the definition of a documentary, Amazing Journey tells the story of the band with previously unreleased concert and archival footage. The film, directed by Murray Lerner and co-directed by Paul Crowder, also features interviews with some fans whose names we don't really recognize: U2's the Edge, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Sting, and Oasis' Noel Gallagher.

The film's footage was culled from the archives of surviving band members Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey as well as those of many fans, obtained through a call to the public Daltrey and Townshend put out in 2005. One particularly choice clip is a performance by proto-Who group the High Numbers in 1964, shot by managers Chris Stamp and Kit Lamber.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment will release Amazing Journey on DVD with-- according to a Billboard.com report-- a companion film called Six Quick Ones on November 6. The film will have a limited run in UK theaters later this year, and there will also be a few U.S. screenings.

In music-related Who news, Roger Daltrey will perform in Gateshead, England at the Sage Gateshead tomorrow, September 22, as the headliner of Teenage Cancer Trust's Bandstand 2007. The show is a fundraiser for youth in North-East England who suffer from cancer, with a portion of the proceeds going to help build a new treatment unit at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary.

Sigur Ros, Justice, Paul McCartney Play Electric Proms
Fledgling Acoustic Proms festival settles for Ray LaMontagne and that guy in your dorm who's always playing "Creep"

For some of us, a local band covering Weezer songs is perfectly fine prom music. But leave it to the folks at the BBC to show everybody up with the lineup of its second annual Electric Proms festival.

This year's Electric Proms includes sets from Paul McCartney, Sigur Rós (an acoustic performance following a screening of Heima), Justice, Ray Davies, Kano, the Chemical Brothers, Charlie Louvin, Editors, Siouxsie Sioux, the Coral, and Cold War Kids. The festival will also feature a few special collaborations in the form of Mark Ronson's appearance alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra, Lily Allen, Paul Weller, and others, and a Kaiser Chiefs set arranged by Grammy winning James Bond film composer David Arnold.

In addition to Heima, the festival will feature screenings of a few movies, including Daft Punk's Electroma, the Beatles' Help!, and the Flaming Lips' U.F.O.s at the Zoo.

Electric Proms takes place this year in venues around London from October 24-28, and the BBC will broadcast festival performances on several of its radio and television stations.

Frightened Rabbit Reveal Single Details, Tour
Scared Bear starts to feel unproductive

Few words in the English language are as fun to use as "Glaswegian," and fortunately for us Pitchfork newsies, Glasgow keeps producing sweet bands like Frightened Rabbit, so we get to use it fairly often.

That said, the Glaswegian trio will precede the previously reported reissue of their debut album, last year's Sing the Greys, with a previously mentioned 7" single consisting of two tracks from the record. The 7" features "Be Less Rude" on the A-side and "The Greys" on the flip, and it comes out in the UK via FatCat on November 5. FatCat will then reissue the full-length to UK residents on November 19.

The Glaswegians will meet San Franciscans, Oregonians, Minneapolitans, and Baton Rouger-didgeridoos (sadly not the actual name for Baton Rouge residents) on their forthcoming U.S. fall tour, which kicks off in October. Beforehand, they have a trio of shows in their native country, beginning with a September 21 show in Glasgow.

In conclusion: Glaswegian. [MORE...]

Lebanese Musician Khalife Jerked Around by Venue

Many moons ago, we posted a track from Lebanese oud player Marcel Khalifé. Khalifé seems like a good dude: in addition to really wailin' on the oud, he's a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization "Artist for Peace". Not even Bono can say the same.

Khalifé has a sizable number of North American tour dates ahead of him over the next few months at places like the Kennedy Center and Boston's Berklee College of Music's Performance Hall. In other words, Khalifé ain't no dimestore oud player, and venues who regularly host Lebanese classical music ought to be honored by his interest.

That's not the case for San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Theatre at the Salvation Army's Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, who have forced Khalifé to look elsewhere for a place to play in the area. It's not so much that the Kroc Theatre folks don't like the cut of Khalifé's jib: rather, they feel the show would be "divisive" and "unbalanced" without an Israeli performer taking the stage the same night, according to a press release issued by Khalifé's camp.

It's tough to tell if this is political correctness run amok (soon to come at the Kroc: all Swiss music, all the time!) or-- Khalifé being Arab and this being a Christian-run venue in George Bush's America-- something potentially more sinister. A quick glance at the Kroc Center's schedule of events finds several Christmas events on the docket with nary a Jewish/Islamic/Buddhist/snakehandling/what-have-you alternative offered. Long live hypocrisy.

Kudos to the Birch North Park Theater for stepping in and giving Khalifé a gig in San Diego. The full tour roster is available after the jump. [MORE...]

Aphex Twin Plans Rare Live Appearances

Mystery is Aphex Twin's bread and butter. He who is known to his mother as Richard D. James hasn't released an album under the Twin moniker since 2001's Drukqs. While he'll own up to his AFX work, James may or may not be responsible for that Tuss EP. And aside from the websites of his labels Rephlex and Warp and a six-year-old Drukqs micro-site, he has no real web presence of which to speak.

And yet, the guy expects to come waltzing back into our lives like nothing ever happened when he plays four European shows in December. Whatever, mister, you've got a lot of explaining to do! Is that lipstick on your collar?

James' first show goes down December 1 in Rome, but, in keeping with the mystery, no one knows where quite yet. The one date we previously reported is his appearance at the Portishead-curated edition of All Tomorrow's Parties' Nightmare Before Christmas festival, which takes place in Minehead, England from December 7-9. [MORE...]

Photos: Arcade Fire / LCD Soundsystem [Hollywood, CA; 09/20/07]

Photos by Akmal Naim

The stars turned out last night for a concert under the stars as Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem rocked the Hollywood Bowl. Tucked in the famous Hollywood hills, under the watchful eye of the Fire's neon cross (now where have we seen that before?) Win Butler and company played a sold out gig to the alleged likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Rage's Tom Morello, and NBC stars Jason Lee, Rainn Wilson and BJ Novak.

Of course, there were also some non-famous people there, and celebrities and non-celebrities alike chanted the lyrics to "Rebellion (Lies)" to woo Arcade Fire back to the stage for an encore. Butler dedicated "Intervention", from the Fire's politically-charged new album Neon Bible, to "Governor Bush." From Canada, with love. More photos and tour dates below.

ARCADE FIRE




LCD SOUNDSYSTEM



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