R.I.P. Olga Sarantos, Fiery Furnaces' Grandmother

Olga Sarantos, grandmother of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces, has passed away, according to the Chicago Tribune (via BrooklynVegan).

Pitchfork readers will remember Sarantos (maiden name, Kokoris) as the voice of the Furnaces' 2005 album Rehearsing My Choir, which featured Sarantos recounting tales of her youth to the musical accompaniment of her grandchildren.

According to the Tribune, Sarantos began performing music at the age of 12, playing organ at Rock Island, Illinois' St. George Greek Orthodox Church. She remained active in music for much of her life, directing the choir at Chicago's Assumption Greek Orthodox Church for more than four decades. Her work on Rehearsing My Choir was highly divisive amongst Fiery Furnaces fans, but one thing was never in doubt: Sarantos spun a hell of a good yarn.

The Fiery Furnaces' winter tour kicks off January 17 in Hoboken. [MORE...]

The National Schedule More Shows

You have to sit on a mighty big plane for a mighty long time to get from the U.S. to Australia and New Zealand. But this time of year, when summer is in full swing Down Under and things are mighty frosty in parts north, even our most nationalist bands periodically must fly the coop in order to regroup and flourish.

So, then, the National-- all-American lads if ever there were any-- are heading way southwards for a tour over the next few weeks. A number of these dates fall under the umbrella of the fairly amazing Sydney Fest we told you about some months ago, but one suspects the band figured they might as well justify the leg cramps of those ultra-long flights by adding a few more regional shows. On each night of the Sydney shindig, they'll be joined by Clogs, whose Bryce Dessner is also a member of the National. Boy, is he gonna regret that after doing six sets in three nights!

Once they get back to the northern hemisphere, the band have a smattering of dates over the next few months, including a one-off in Brooklyn, a stop at Langerado, and another interNational appearance at the Explosions in the Sky-curated ATP festival in May. [MORE...]

Feist, Of Montreal, Bloc Party on Environmental Comp
As are Deerhoof, Muse, A Place to Bury Strangers, Asobi Seksu

Contrary to popular belief, you're not going to change the world sitting on your couch watching the Presidential primaries. You could, however, change the world by sitting on your couch listening to The Green Owl Comp: A Benefit for the Energy Action Coalition, a two-CD/one-DVD collection of hot, rare, and otherwise worthwhile indie rock tracks and videos. As the title suggests, it benefits youth-centric environmental do-goodery network the Energy Action Coaltion.

Feist, Of Montreal, Bloc Party, Deerhoof, A Place to Bury Strangers, Muse, School of Seven Bells, Asobi Seksu, Juliana Hatfield, Earl Greyhound, and many others contribute audio from their respective vaults, while the DVD gathers a half-dozen exclusive videos and an interview with Energy Action Coalition co-founder Billy Parish.

All proceeds from the sale of the set go to the Energy Action Coalition, and it can be purchased beginning April 8 from Green Owl Records. [MORE...]

HEALTH, Crystal Castles Tour Dates Revealed

HEALTH photo by Kathryn Yu / Crystal Castles photo by Daniel Cantó

Mind those ears! Los Angeles squall-makers HEALTH and Toronto's madcap Crystal Castles are forging an international alliance of sonic assault on a long-promised North American tour, which kicks off February 21 at a "secret location" in the Ontarian capital. Perplexing!

The tour makes its way over a good chunk of the continent before landing back where it started at the end of the month. The following night, another gig in a city unbeknownst to us at yet another "secret location" will, again, take place. Now they're just messing with our heads.

Both bands have dates aplenty independent of the other, with HEALTH sticking to North American shores (with the likes of White Williams and Dan Deacon) and Crystal Castles sneaking over to Europe. Crystal Castles have promised UK dates for early February, but those have yet to be firmed up. And HEALTH plan to hit Europe once their North American plans wrap, though, again, that's a ways off.

Set in shiny stone (pun intended): Crystal Castles' forthcoming self-titled debut LP, which hits February 19 March 18 thanks to Last Gang Records . [MORE...]

Castanets Head West for Tour, Work Up New 7"

On Christmas Eve, Ray Raposa of Castanets set down the candy cane and penned up a bit of a to-do list for the coming year for his MySpace blog. Tucked underneath cryptic messages like "that one DVD" and "Powers LP" and "maybe the other DVD"-- meant to jog Raposa's memory-- comes the final item, and where his 2008 begins: "shows."

Ray and his Castanets will unravel last fall's In the Vines LP on a West Coast tour that kicks off January 15 in Seattle. The band for Raposa's forthcoming tour reportedly isn't set yet, less than a week before these dates commence. Looks like somebody needs to work up a new list!

Before he enumerated his future plans, Raposa had a bit of old business to attend to: a new 7". This one is for a remix Ray's Asthmatic Kitty labelmate Rafter did of In the Vines' "Strong Animal", and it comes backed with Vines outtake "Golden". The disc, sporting artwork from Tara Jane O'Neil, will be issued by Asthmatic Kitty January 22.

In other Castanets news, Ray will appear in some capacity on the forthcoming DVD from the folks at Asthmatic Kitty. [MORE...]

Gui Boratto Travels the World

Gui Boratto's "Beautiful Life"-- and, indeed, the rest of last year's Chromophobia-- never fails to brighten the occasionally dreary days that befall Pitchfork HQ. But it never occurred to us until now just how autobiographical that song may be for Boratto. Just take a gander at all the exotic, tropical locations that Boratto will visit on his world tour. Sounds like a better than average life to us, anyhow.

As the Western Hemisphere goes, Boratto's sticking mostly to his native Brazil, but the brave beatmaker does have plans to head to the West Coast of the U.S. for a four-date run later this month. It's a quick trek for the beloved Boratto, but fear not, East Coasters: Gui will be returning in late March for Miami Beach's annual Winter Music Conference, and he plans to schedule a few dates over thataway while he's around.

In other Boratto bulletins, he pops up on M.A.N.D.Y.'s forthcoming Fabric mix. [MORE...]

Dirty Projectors, White Williams Split a 7"

It's time once again to play Six Degrees of Dirty Projectors, the oh-so-fun slumber party game in which we choose a random musical act and link it with Brooklyn's finest fret-fondlers. Today's subject: White Williams.

And here we go: White Williams recently signed to Domino, a label that is also home to Arctic Monkeys (1). Arctic Monkeys once lost a bassist, and hey, so did Liars (2). Liars once got naked on the cover of-- oh fuck it. We're taking the shortcut: Dirty Projectors and White Williams are both featured on the latest FADER/Southern Comfort hyper-limited edition split 7". Booya.

Only 500 copies of this thing exist, and pretty much the only way you can hope to get one is by emailing the address found here. The A-side features the DPs doing a new take on their new take on Black Flag's "Police Story", off last year's superior Rise Above. WW show a little color on the B-side with a jingle called "Blue Steel".

Artist Matt Furie designed the tripped-out cover you see above. Past FADER 7"s, all insider-only affairs, have seen the likes of Black Lips, YACHT, and an M. Ward/Jim James pair-up, among others.

Dirty Projectors hit Europe in a few weeks as part of Final Fantasy's Maximum Black festival, while White Williams has tucked a few more dates into his previously reported winter jaunt. [MORE...]

The Breeders Announce First Tour in, Like, Forever

It won't provide the Deal sisters with a chance to use the newfound foreign language skills they flash on the forthcoming Mountain Battles, but the Breeders have scheduled a tour of the UK and Ireland. It starts April 7, the day 4AD releases the album there. (The album comes out in the U.S. on April 8.) It will be the band's first tour in almost six years, though all Kim's Pixies playing bodes well for her crew still ably rocking it out.

The tour comes sandwiched in between a trio of festival shows in North America.

We know at least one person who is super excited about this. [MORE...]

Common Does Benefit for Chicago Schools Program

Rapper/role model Common-- in conjunction with his own Common Ground Foundation-- and the Chicago chapter of The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) will come together January 12 at Chicago's House of Blues for a benefit concert and silent auction they're calling Dare to Dream.

The nifty NFTE provides supplemental educational services for Chicago's public school students, with programs in 31 Chicago area schools. A portion of the proceeds from the night's events will go to both NFTE and Common Ground. Common's fellow Chicagoans Office will also perform.

Common has a couple more live dates to his credit before the month is up. He was recently nominated for a mess of Grammys for his work on Finding Forever, with nods for Best Rap Album, Best Rap Solo Performance for "The People", and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for his Kanye collaboration "Southside". And he recently issued a collection of the best bits of his early catalog titled thisisme then. [MORE...]

British Sea Power Tour All Over

If you're still on the fence about this whole rock music business, British Sea Power are coming to help convince you to forge some new allegiances. The jaunty band plans to serve as ambassadors of all things rock on a lengthy international tour that kicks off in earnest in Belfast January 17.

The lads will hit the UK and Europe proper before making their way to North America for a little over a month, with planned pit stops at SXSW and San Francisco's Noise Pop festival. If you haven't grown fond of rock music by the time it's all over, it's probably not gonna happen. But don't give up hope: the band plans to announce a second leg of North American dates, perhaps as a way to make sure they haven't missed anybody with their rock'n'roll missionary work.

But this alone may be all the primer you'll need: Do You Like Rock Music? drops January 14 in the UK from Rough Trade and February 12 in the States from Rough Trade/World's Fair. [MORE...]

Mountain Goats Add Dates, Darnielle's Book Revealed
""John Darnielle describes Master of Reality in the voice of a fifteen-year-old boy being held in an adolescent psychiatric center in southern California in 1985."

Front page photo by Kyle Gustafson

Mountain Goat is in season these next couple of months. Following the February 19 release of Heretic Pride via 4AD (check out the pretty cover right up there), John Darnielle and co. will saddle up for a recently extended North American tour, starting with a release date show in Anchorage, Alaska.

Shortly, the band will unleash the first video from Heretic Pride, for opener "Sax Rohmer #1". The video's director is Ace Norton, who directed Darnielle in Aesop Rock's "Coffee" video.

Then, on April 15, we will all come one step closer to world peace, with the publishing of Darnielle's take on the Black Sabbath album Master of Reality, as part of the 33 1/3 series of books about albums.

According to the book's description, "John Darnielle describes Master of Reality in the voice of a fifteen-year-old boy being held in an adolescent psychiatric center in southern California in 1985. The narrator explains Black Sabbath like an emissary from an alien race describing his culture to his captors: passionately, patiently, and lovingly. This album has a genuinely remarkable historical status: as a touchstone for the directionless, and as a common coin for young men and women who felt shut out of the broader cultural economy."

For a 10-page sample of the kick-ass-sounding book, email sabbathsampler@yahoo.com.

Or for more-- lots more-- writing by John Darnielle, read his excellent blog Last Plane to Jakarta.

Thanks to reader Bryan McKay for the book tip. [MORE...]

Radiohead to Take Over BBC Radio 1 Airwaves

If those recent webcasts further proved anything at all, Radiohead are nothing if not superbly entertaining folks. So it comes as little surprise that BBC Radio 1 host Zane Lowe has asked the band to guest host an episode of his show while he's away on holiday.

The BBC station will turn Radiohead 1 on January 17 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. UK time, and if the band's stint goes anything like the ones before it (whose stand-in hosts include Dizzee Rascal, Klaxons, and others), we can look forward to a Radiohead-curated playlist, goofy photos and videos afterward, and even a minute-by-minute recap courtesy of a lucky fan. Just go easy on the Asian Dub Foundation, okay guys?

Thanks to reader Nick Middleton for the tip.

If you live in or near a major North American city, Radiohead may very well be visiting it this year. European residents already know where to find them. The band is also set to perform on "Later... With Jools Holland" on BBC Two television February 1. [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.)