Cover Art Cop: Colin Meloy vs. Peter Moren

Above: Colin Meloy album cover. Below: Peter Morén album cover.

Colin Meloy and Peter Morén are brothers from another mother. Here are the things they have in common:

• Both are frontmen for popular indie rock bands: The Decemberists (Colin), Peter Bjorn and John (Peter).
• Both are adorable, slightly doughy men with modified mop top haircuts, occasional beards, and side parts.
• Both are releasing their debut solo albums on April 8 in North America. As you know, Colin's is called Colin Meloy Sings Live!, and it's on Kill Rock Stars on CD and Jealous Butcher on vinyl. (If you pre-order it from Kill Rock Stars, you'll get a poster and a "one of a kind bookmark.") As you also know, Peter's is called The Last Tycoon, and it's on Quarterstick. (According to a Myspace blog post from Peter, Wichita / Cooperative will release The Last Tycoon in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Scandinavia.)
• Both will embark on solo tours in April. They will play many of the same cities, often within days of each other.

And most importantly for this here news story:

• Both decided to feature portraits of themselves on their album covers.
• Both are depicted with their eyes closed in said portraits.
• Both commissioned their significant others to draw/paint the portraits: Frequent Decemberists illustrator Carson Ellis (Colin), Christine Jacobsson (Peter).
• Both are apparently very much in love.

UPDATE: Looks like Victoria Bergsman wants in on the action as well! Here's the new Taken by Trees single, which features a cover of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine": 

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Radiohead North American Tour Breaking Development

We're on pins and needles over here awaiting the imminent unveiling of the dates and venues for Radiohead's upcoming North American tour, frantically refreshing Dead Air Space, Ticketmaster, Ticketweb, TicketsWest, Pollstar, Ateaseweb.com, eBay, Craigslist, AllAboutHorses.com (don't ask), and anything else we can think of in the hopes of getting a peek at the elusive tour information.

So imagine how our blood pressure doubled and our eyebrows arched up into our receding hairlines when we came upon this: A Radiohead date confirmed for West Palm Beach, Florida! May 5! Wooo!

What's more, according to this little Ticketmaster bulletin, web trollers can soon purchase tickets for something called "Lakewood Amphitheatre Parking: Radiohead". We put our detective hats on and, after several hours of careful deductive reasoning, determined this very well may refer to one of the Radiohead tour venues!

Yes, that's right people, Radiohead will in all likelihood also be performing at the Lakewood Amphitheatre in Atlanta. We don't know when, or how many nights, but hey, Radiohead, you know? Of course you do.

And here, ye olde liste of recente Radioheade miscellany: Greatest Hits comp! Coachella East? No Oscar for you, Greenwood! Live! Popcorn! Kings of Leon???
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R.E.M. Add Dates, Reveal Accelerate Special Edition
Plus: Brief Michael Stipe video interview

Geared up to Accelerate and readying themselves to pal around North America with the youngsters in Modest Mouse and the National, R.E.M. have announced their big plans for the summer. The band will head to Europe in July, August, and early September, with more festival appearances and a full UK trek to be announced shortly.

But before any of that, the band will play a one-off show in London on March 24 at the legendary Royal Albert Hall. It's a benefit for the ICA.

Accelerate drops March 31 in the UK and April 1 in the U.S. from Warner Brothers. And like any major album these days (and a lot of minor ones), it will be available both as a regular ol' CD and a special edition. The latter is a CD/DVD combo featuring "special Amray package with a 64-page booklet inside" and, on the DVD, " a Vincent Moon 48 min. film of behind-the-scenes footage, and performance pieces of various songs on the album." And if all that wasn't enough, you also get two bonus mp3s: "Red Head Walking" (ooh ooh, Beat Happening cover?!) and "Airliner".

Speaking of bonuses, check out this video of Michael Stipe in NYC cooling out with a coffee and chatting up the record. Turns out first single "Supernatural Superserious" is a "geek anthem" about "terrifying, humiliating things that happened to us in our teenage years that follow us through life." And it turns out Michael Stipe doesn't much like that President of ours. I never would've guessed!

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Photos: Daniel Johnston [Omaha, NE; 02/09/08]

Photos by Paparazzi by Appointment

True love will find Daniel Johnston in the end, but until then, the one-of-a-kind troubadour will continue roaming the land and sharing his distinct songcraft with all who care to hear it. This past Saturday night found Mr. Johnston in Omaha, gracing the same Slowdown stage that Bright Eyes and M. Ward had used but two nights before to rally for Obama (not in vain!).

No word yet who gets Johnston's endorsement, but the man's own campaign for our hearts continues February 20 in Boston.

DANIEL JOHNSTON





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Lupe Fiasco Turns The Cool Into Clothing

While we continue to unpack his lyrics, Lupe Fiasco has crafted another curious-on-the-outside, surprising-on-the-inside treat for his fans: a line of reversible jackets in collaboration with designer Dr. Romanelli.

As you can see from the pictures (thanks to High Snobiety), the jackets feature the artwork from Lupe's latest album The Cool on the black side and a dizzying pink pattern on the reverse. It's like Lupe created the fashion statement equivalent of a concept album personifying different aspects of urban life and featuring a song with lyrics from the perspective of a cheeseburger! Or something.

Back in the music world, Lupe still has a chunk of headlining shows scattered throughout the next few months, which will tide us over until the dates for his tour with Kanye, N.E.R.D., and Rihanna surface.

Finally, congratulations to the Fiascinator on his Best Urban/Alternative Performance Grammy for his song "Daydreamin'" featuring Jill Scott.

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Envelopes Bring The Wind on Second Album
They bring the wind but do not break it

They may be less heralded than countrymen Peter Bjorn and John and Jens Lekman, but Envelopes are happy to buoy Sweden's indie-pop quota nonetheless. And soon, the band will add to the recent glut of musical exports from the land of blue and yellow with the release of sophomore album Here Comes the Wind.

Like the band's debut, Demon, the new album will come out on Brille Records. Its release date is February 18, but folks eager for a taste can scoop up the "Party" single that came out today.

Or, if you're willing to invite something called a "widget" onto your hard drive, you can actually hear Here Comes the Wind in full right now by going here. [MORE...]

Daft Punk, Shins, Hot Chip, Iggy Pop Pose for Playboy
Made you look

Photos by Mick Rock

Adding a little rock'n'roll to the usual T'n'A, the previously reported annual Sex and Music issue of Playboy hit newsstands this past weekend boasting totally smokin' pin-ups of a bevy of your music faves: Daft Punk, Hot Chip, Iggy Pop, the Shins (a move still perhaps ill-advised in light of recent events), Duran Duran, and Gogol Bordello.

By totally smokin' we of course mean totally wholesome and fully clothed-- even perennially topless Iggy has his shirt on! How's that for irony?

If principle or circumstance precludes your person from procuring a copy of the new Playboy despite your penchant for the rock, fear not, for Pitchfork has the goods right here. Additional scandalously SFW photos of the aforementioned-- culled directly from the pages of Playboy-- await (plus there are even more here).

And that ain't the half of it. Like last year, Playboy once again invited these musical types to design special t-shirts incorporating that iconic rabbit insignia for the Rock the Rabbit campaign. The limited-run shirts will go up for sale at Bloomingdale's locations and RockTheBunny.com soon, while the original designs will be auctioned off to benefit Rock the Vote.

Check out tee design selections from most of the above plus T.I., Tokyo Police Club, the Pipettes, Working for a Nuclear Free City, and New Young Pony Club below, and scope the rest of the offerings here. Daft Punk, you win again.



Designs left to right, top to bottom: Daft Punk, Hot Chip, the Pipettes, the Shins, Iggy Pop, T.I., Working for a Nuclear Free City, Tokyo Police Club, Duran Duran, New Young Pony Club





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Boston's Pretty & Nice Sign to Hardly Art

Their name may be Pretty & Nice, but they refer to themselves on MySpace as "the four horsemen of pop doom." Confused? Perhaps one of these Nice young men can help you out. Oh, and they're so Pretty, too! Clearly, it's a win-win.

Tuneful, tightly-wound Beantown foursome Pretty & Nice have become the latest to sign into the Hardly Art family. The band has a full-length and a remix EP to its name at the moment, and Hardly Art will-- as labels tend to do-- put out whatever Friendly & Nice come up with next. For now, though, there's a March tour to attend to, and attend to it they shall. [MORE...]

Gibbard and Fisk's About a Son Score to Be Released

First the theatrical release, then the soundtrack, then the DVD. What's next for fans of Kurt Cobain: About a Son? How about the film's score? Barsuk will release Kurt Cobain About a Son: Original Score digitally on February 19 to coincide with the Shout! Factory release of the DVD. (A limited-edition, hand-numbered double vinyl version of the score will be out in April.)

As previously reported, the About a Son score is the original work of Steve Fisk (he produced Nirvana's Blew EP) and Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard.

Radiohead Greatest Hits Album on the Way

Give them credit: they've held out longer than most. But come spring, Radiohead will join the Eagles, Van Halen, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Joni Mitchell, Journey, and Mandy Moore in the annuls of acts who have foisted "Greatest Hits" albums upon us. Now you may be thinking: wait a minute, isn't every Radiohead album since The Bends pretty much a greatest hits collection unto itself? Indeed, but don't blame the band for this one.

According to a recent interview with guitarist Ed O'Brien on Canadian radio's The Strombo Show [via ateaseweb.com], not unlike that recent catalog box set, this was all the doing of Radiohead's former label EMI. "They're planning to do a greatest hits for April, May to coincide with our tour," said O'Brien. "That's an interesting one. We won't be doing any promotion for that, obviously."

Radiohead's European tour kicks off June 6, while the surrounding two-pronged North American jaunt is, for the moment, still without dates and venues. And unless the guys plan to stick strictly to B-sides, covers, and In Rainbows disc two material, chances are they'll end up inadvertently promoting the greatest hits set anyway.

Drummer Phil Selway also commented on the matter in an interview with Trinity College Dublin student magazine Analogue. "It's well within [EMI's] rights to do it [sigh]. So we'll have to see."

One thing's for sure, though. This thing damn well better have "Pyramid Song" on it. [MORE...]

Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac Expanded, Reissued

What was Ryan Adams like before he was famous? Before he was dating models and actresses and rapping about witches? Come March 4, you'll have a new shot at hanging out with the person Adams used to be. That's when Mood Food/Outpost/Geffen/UMe will reissue the 1997 album Strangers Almanac by his old band Whiskeytown.

Whiskeytown were around from 1994 to 1999, rising up from North Carolina to conquer the alt-country scene. Adams' bandmates Caitlin Cary and Phil Wandscher also went on to successful careers following the band's breakup. Strangers Almanac was their major label debut, following their 1994 album Faithless Street on the indie Mood Food.

Strangers Almanac: Deluxe Edition is a two disc set. The first disc features the original album bolstered by five previously unreleased radio performances. The second disc is a veritable treasure trove: all but two of its 21 tracks are previously unreleased recordings from early sessions for the LP, known by bootleggin' fans as the "Barn's on Fire Sessions". "Kiss & Make-Up", "Indian Gown", "Barn's on Fire", "Streets of Sirens", "Breathe", "Nurse With the Pills", and "10 Seconds" all appear for the first time on any official Whiskeytown release. Acoustic demos of album tracks "16 Days", "Avenues", and "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart", covers of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams", Gram Parsons' "Luxury Liner", Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone", and the True Believers' "The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over" round out the set.

Back in the present, Ryan Adams is currently busy checking out Fashion Week and posting weird stuff on YouTube. [MORE...]

Godspeed Still on Hiatus, Not Completely Broken Up
"If and when we do call it quits permanently, it won't be because of the Iraq war."

Photo: Eva Vermandel

Godspeed You! Black Emperor-- now there's a great band we haven't heard from in awhile. The Canadian collective has been on "indefinite hiatus" for the past five-or-so years. Members of the band have kept busy with various musical projects since then, the most high-profile being Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La-Band, which features Godspeed members Efrim Menuck, Thierry Amar, and Sophie Trudeau.

Over the weekend, GY!BE popped back up on our radar, thanks to a Drowned in Sound interview with Menuck. The interview was in support of the excellent new Silver Mt. Zion album, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, which comes out March 25 on Constellation. (The band will tour this spring; see below for dates.)

In the interview, Menuck commented on the political and personal factors that lead to Godspeed You! Black Emperor's hiatus, including frustrations brought on by the war in Iraq. Drowned in Sound titled their story "Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Iraq war made it impossible to continue". Word spread quickly across the internet that the band had finally, officially, called it quits, and the Iraq war was the reason.

But the truth isn't that cut-and-dry. [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.)