Underworld Reschedule Tour

Between their name and the title of their new record, Oblivion With Bells, Underworld don't seem like the cheeriest of electro-minded duos. Their gloom even got justified this year with member Rick Smith's riot injury and subsequent tour-derailing "severe illness."

Fortunately, there's some light at the end of Underworld's tunnel in the form of a rescheduled European tour that will take place early next year. The new dates cover almost all of the originally scheduled cities. What's more, the guys will do a special Christmas "live jam" webcast from their studio on December 12; tune in here. Hooray for happy endings, even in the Underworld! [MORE...]

Murdoch, Albarn, Harvey Write Charity Postcards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Less than a week after our subhead suggestion of the merchandising similarities between Belle & Sebastian and Gorillaz, both bands' leaders are part of the same charity auction. Postcards written and signed by Stuart Murdoch and Damon Albarn join offerings from Robert Plant, PJ Harvey, Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett, and Massive Attack's Daddy G, among many others, as part of a benefit for Carers UK, an organization that gives financial and emotional support to individuals who provide unpaid health and social care.

The postcards, which were collected by Nothing to Write Home About authors Michelle Abadie (aka Maj) and Susan Beale (aka Dolly), are up for auction on eBay now.

Murdoch's touching little postcard is pictured above, with one of Plant's four abruptly hilarious ones below it. Among the other celebrity contributors to the auction are actress Helen Mirren and Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London. Check out the full list of participants here.

Dan Deacon to Greyhound Buses: Fuck You!
"These rats stink like rotten cum. Fuck them with 1000 fires...Eat my shorts you dickless pig fuckers."

Something strange is afoot on the Greyhound bus, and for once, it's not that guy in the trenchcoat who won't stop staring.

Included in this month's issue of electronic music mag XLR8R is a four postcard pullout advertisement emphasizing just how easy it is to traverse America's rock'n'roll underground via the notoriously slow transit system named after the notoriously fast dog. The insert bears the likenesses of Dan Deacon, Baltimore laptop-noise act Wzt Hearts, Japan's Ruins, and a crowdsurfer at a Team Robespierre gig. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but there are probably better ways to handle publicity concerns than the way Greyhound allegedly did with this foursome. Both Deacon and Wzt Hearts' Jason Urick have publicly complained that they were not contacted about the use of the photos, and, naturally, aren't too pleased.

Urick apparently caught wind of this business first, and made a post to crewcial.org's message board alerting friends and well-wishers to the budding controversy (his alias is "airplaneglue"). His first post asks, simply, "Can you sue if a company uses a picture and a blurb of your band without asking... because apparently Greyhound just did that with us. wtf?" The resulting discussion finds Urick and the rest of the board readers trying to determine just what Urick's legal rights might be in this situation.

In the meantime, Urick contacted friend and fellow B'more resident Dan Deacon, whose history with Greyhound is, apparently, a bit rocky. In a MySpace bulletin posted this afternoon entitled "IN NO WAY DO I ENDORSE OR PROMOTE GREYHOUND BUSES", Deacon railed against the corporation, claiming that no one had asked the permission of either him or New York's Silent Barn, where the shot was taken. He then went on:

greyhound bus company is one of the worst run, bullshit companies i have ever had the misfortune to use. they are a total monopoly and take advantage of that with poor service and price hikes and route cancellation. they have bought all the other smaller companies and run them out of their office in dallas. they treat both their employees and customers like shit. they are a cancer.

since i do not drive i used to use them to get to shows (when nothing else was available). on many occasions i had to cancel shows because the bus would be late, my luggage would get lost/stolen, the over sell their buses, and fuck i fucking hate them.

it really upsets me that i am being used to promote them. if i had my way i would see all their buses transport guns to all the people they have fucked over.

like many evil companies they are trying to use subversive advertising and i will not allow myself to be a cog in their wheel of lies and deceit. these rats stink like rotten cum. fuck them with 1000 fires.

in case this message finds its way to someone in the advertising department of greyhound: eat my shorts you dickless pig fuckers.

Oh, Dan, you always know what to say! [MORE...]

HEALTH Sketch Out 2008 Dates

Prospective New Year's resolutions: go easy on the O'Doul's, take care of that pesky credit card balance, and spend a little more time improving my health.

Lucky me, the noisy Los Angelenos in HEALTH have a great plan worked out, with a traveling paean to wellness making its way up and down the West Coast in early 2008. There, they'll be joined at times by fitness guru Dan Deacon and the gutbustin' White Williams, and I'll finally have a chance to put my old exercise tape to rest.

Dates are slowly trickling in for that previously mentioned jaunt with Crystal Castles as well. [MORE...]

Malkmus/Jicks Reveal Emotional Trash Tracklist

Photo by Jen Reel

Are you ready for Real Emotional Trash? If not, you have until March 4 to prepare yourself for the arrival of the previously reported new disc from Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. To aid in your preparations, here, just have the freakin' tracklist. No really, just scroll down and take it, free of charge.

Real Emotional Trash gets dumped all over us thanks to Matador, and marks the second release under the Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks banner (technically the follow-up to 2003's Pig Lib) and the fourth to bear the words "Stephen Malkmus" on the cover (first since 2005's Face the Truth).

It's also the first Jicks disc to include latest recruit Janet Weiss, who takes over drum duties from John Moen (now in the Decemberists). Trash was recorded by TJ Doherty (Sonic Youth, the Hold Steady, etc.) at SnowGhost Studios in Montana.

For the moment Mr. Malkmus has but two dates, but recall that he did promise a U.S. tour and possibly some dates in Europe and Asia as well. Let's hope he makes good on that in the '08. [MORE...]

Camel, Rolling Stone Under Fire for Indie Rock Ad
Cigarette company pulls campaign after class action suit

You don't see creepy Joe Camel anymore these days, and that's because he-- and any cartoon used to sell cigarettes-- has been made illegal, thanks to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement of 1997 (Google it).

Yet if you scooped up a copy of the November 15 issue of Rolling Stone, you probably did see a four-page fold-out editorial section titled "Indie Rock Universe", rife with faux notebook doodles, ridiculous music/cosmology puns (Lost in Bass! Planet Twee!), and the names of pretty much every huge-to-marginally popular indie/indie-ish act you can think of. Laughable at best, but harmless-- were it not for the item's placement in the publication.

"Indie Rock Universe" fell amid several pages of advertisements for Camel cigarettes' "The Farm" campaign. The Farm's tagline? "Committed to Supporting & Promoting Independent Record Labels". Coincidence? Rolling Stone would have you think so, according to a New York Times report linked via The Daily Swarm. Publisher Ray Chelstowski, quoted in the NY Times piece, claims Camel's parent company R.J. Reynolds Tobacco "had no idea [the Indie Rock Universe piece] would take a cartoon format." Likewise, "the editors don't see the advertising."

Yet that plea of ignorance hasn't stopped Rolling Stone-- and, of course, Camel-- from drawing the ire of everyone from anti-smoking advocates and promoters of journalistic ethics to fans and the indie rockers themselves.

Amid increasing pressure and a lawsuit filed this week by nine state attorneys general, Reynolds has, for the moment, ceased the Farm campaign, according to a Winston-Salem Journal report (also via The Daily Swarm). Indeed, the campaign's website is presently down. The Journal also suggests Reynolds could face a fine of up to $100 million for violating the Master Settlement Agreement.

Still under debate are Camel-sponsored gigs, a number of which have popped up in recent years featuring big name indie acts like the Flaming Lips, Band of Horses, and the Faint. Camel has no plans to discontinue these right now, according to the Journal.

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone has come under fire from bloggers and message board pundits who believe the publication complicit in an alleged scheme to dupe lovers of indie rock. If some breach of ethics surrounding the advertorial/editorial divide is discovered, Rolling Stone could find itself in what we like to call the "Nasty Litigation Universe". (Regardless, it's pretty funny that this list is probably the only way that many of these bands would have ever appeared in Rolling Stone.)

Still, the greatest crime in all this may be the puns. "Lost in Bass"?!? C'mon, people!

DeVotchKa Sign to Anti-, Ready New Album

March 18, Denver's daring DeVotchKa will return with A Mad and Faithful Telling, their proper LP-length follow-up (epilogue?) to 2004's How It Ends. The disc, their first for the Anti- imprint, spices up its ten tracks with the band's trademark Eastern European folk-inflected flavor and, reportedly, "improved production." Isn't that somethin'?

DeVotchKa have a trio of Spanish tour dates in the run up to Telling's release, and frontman Nick Urata will play a solo gig in his hometown December 14 at Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret. [MORE...]

Wilco Announce Spring U.S. Tour

Photo by Kathryn Yu

With Jeff Tweedy's "Early December Do-Goodery Tour" wrapping over the weekend at that Chicago Obama event, the men of Wilco are taking that generous spirit on the road for a liberal helping of new dates around the States. Yep, the Windy City ramblers will bring that badass live show of theirs to the right side of the U.S. for a little more than two weeks come late February, before heading off to another hemisphere on their previously reported tour of Australia and New Zealand.

Tweedy has also lined up yet another solo benefit show, this time January 26 at the Vic Theatre in Chicago. Proceeds go to raise funds for youth scholarships. (Thx Via Chicago.)

In other Wilco news, that Sky Blue Sky bonus material is out there if you want it, those UK dates remain to be rescheduled, and Jeff's handsome mug is in a new photo book by an old friend. [MORE...]

Mike Patton Lends Voice to Creatures in I Am Legend
Dude is still everywhere

While I tend to envy Mike Patton most for his expressive eyebrows, he's also quite respected as a popular music vocalist. Björk, John Zorn, Melvins, Sepultura-- he lends growls, howls, and a myriad of other vocal sounds to albums by all of them. And that's not mentioning his own innumerable bands and side projects (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom, etc.) Recently we discovered that Patton will provide the voice of the main character in a remake of the Bionic Commando video game, and it's not even the first video game he's done. (It's not the last either, as next year he'll also contribute vocal effects to Left 4 Dead.)

But perhaps the Ipecac label head's most high-profile-- yet likely most unrecognizable-- current project comes as the provider of voices for "the dreaded creatures" (according to a press release) in post-apocalyptic Will Smith vehicle/The Omega Man remake I Am Legend, which hits theaters December 14. Says the Ipecac website, "He is the voice of the creatures in the movie. That is right, the evil screams and howls coming from the 'creatures' will be courtesy of Mike." You can get a little taste of that evil via the film's trailer.

Patton's other film project next year marks his debut as a film composer. He has scored a black & white film noir short called A Perfect Place, which is about "a pair of bumbling friends trying to dispose of a body," according to the press release. The movie will come as a two-disc CD/DVD package with Patton's score via Ipecac in March.

And speaking of Patton and creatures, don't forget about those Ipecac toys.

Nick Cave Announces Single, Soundtrack Releases

Photo by Richard Sharman

Nick Cave plans to give us plenty of new music to Dig in the early months of 2008. Not only is there Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his 14th studio album with the Bad Seeds (coming to the UK via Mute on March 3-- U.S. release details forthcoming), but there's also the album's first single, as well as Cave and fellow Bad Seed Warren Ellis' soundtrack to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

The single is the record's title track, "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!", and Mute will release it in the UK on CD, download, and limited edition 7" formats on February 18. Another new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds track, "Accidents Will Happen", will grace the B-side.

In a recent MySpace blog, Cave had a hefty chunk to say about "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!", and it's a pretty interesting read, so we've reprinted it below:

"Ever since I can remember hearing the Lazarus story, when I was a kid, you know, back in church, I was disturbed and worried by it. Traumatized, actually. We are all, of course, in awe of the greatest of Christ's miracles-- raising a man from the dead-- but I couldn't help but wonder how Lazarus felt about it. As a child it gave me the creeps, to be honest. I've taken Lazarus and stuck him in New York City, in order to give the song, a hip, contemporary feel. I was also thinking about Harry Houdini who spent a lot of his life trying to debunk the spiritualists who were cashing in on the bereaved. He believed there was nothing going on beyond the grave. He was the second greatest escapologist, Harry was, Lazarus, of course, being the greatest. I wanted to create a kind of vehicle, a medium, for Houdini to speak to us if he so desires, you know, from beyond the grave. Sometimes, late at night, if you listen to the song hard enough, you can hear his voice and the sad clanking of his chains. 'I don't know what it is but there is definitely something going on upstairs,' he seems to be saying. It is, most of all, an elegy to the New York City of the 70s."

Then there's the matter of the Cave/Ellis soundtrack to Jesse James, which-- for those who didn't catch its limited release-- stars Brad Pitt as James and also features Robert Duvall, Sam Rockwell, and Casey Affleck. Though the soundtrack is currently available for download, Mute will give it a physical release in the U.S. on the same date the movie hits DVD: February 5. [MORE...]

Photos: David Shrigley's Worried Noodles in Concert [New York, NY; 12/05/07]

Photos by Kathryn Yu; Above: Islands

From book to indie-star-studded compilation to concert extravaganza, David Shrigley's Worried Noodles project has come a long way. Last night at NYC's Knitting Factory, a handful of folks featured on the two-disc Tomlab feast cooked up the pasta of anxiety (anxioni?) live on stage. YACHT, Tussle, and lo-fi legend R. Stevie Moore were there, as was a special pared down incarnation of Islands, along with (not pictured) Phil Elverum (Microphones/Mount Eerie), Nick Krgovich (P:ano, No Kids), and others.

Best of all, these people weren't just noodling idly: proceeds from the event went to Amnesty International.

ISLANDS


YACHT




TUSSLE




R. STEVIE MOORE

[MORE...]

Bauhaus Mark Final Breakup With Final Album

Goth godfathers Bauhaus have once again called it quits after a second reunion that started in 2005 and culminated in a 2006 tour with Nine Inch Nails. A Billboard.com interview quotes drummer Kevin Haskins on the reason for breakup: "We were getting along really well, but there was an incident that occurred. Some of us just felt that we didn't want to carry on as a working unit."

Mysterious indeed, but why tell us now, a good year since the band was active in reunion 2.0 mode? That answer is much more straightforward: Bauhaus are marking their official disbandment with the release of a final studio album, Going Away White. The title seems like a cheeky subversion of the all-black goth stereotype, so at least they have a sense of humor about the whole thing.

Bauhaus will release Going Away White on March 4 via their own Bauhaus Music (via Redeye Distribution). [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.)