The Mountain Goats Reveal 2008 Dates

MP3: The Mountain Goats: Pinklon / Ethiopians / Red River Valley / Babylon Burning (Daytrotter Session)

Photos: Dewey Cox and the Hard Walkers [Chicago, IL; 12/06/07]

Sufjan to Play Tibet House Benefit

Video: Sufjan Stevens: The BQE (excerpt) (live in the WNYC studio)

Bjork "Declares" New Single Details

Video: Bjork: Declare Independence [from the Volta LP]
Video: Bjork and Michel Gondry: The Making of Declare Independence

Underworld Reschedule Tour

Stream: Underworld: Crocodile [from the Oblivion With Bells LP]

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

MP3: HEALTH: Triceratops [from the HEALTH LP]

Malkmus/Jicks Reveal Emotional Trash Tracklist

Video: Stephen Malkmus: We Dance (live at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival)

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

MP3: DeVotchKa: Venus in Furs [from the Curse Your Little Heart EP]

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...]

Video: Wilco: You Are My Face [live at Voodoo Music Experience]

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.)