Edwyn Collins Puts Together a Tour

Considering he was facing some life-threatening ailments less than three years ago, Edwyn Collins has been making serious strides getting back on his musical feet.

Last fall the onetime Orange Juice frontman released his sixth solo offering, the superb Home Again, and this spring he's poised for a full-on return to the road.

This tour, as we can safely call it, follows a few scattered live engagements for Collins late last year. It begins April 20 in Birmingham, England, and wraps up just over a week later in London. All too soon, really, but any opportunity to witness this member of the Scottish indie pop royalty doing his thing is a welcome one indeed.

Many thanks to reader Jono Henderson for the tip! [MORE...]

Numero Starts New Series With Recording Tap Comp

The tireless compilers at Numero Group kicked off their newest series of compilations this week with the CD release of Don't Stop: Recording Tap. This first Don't Stop volume is a chronicle of Jeremiah Yisrael's disco label Tap Records, the source of a couple 12" singles Numero Group has already reissued. Those tunes from Fabulous 3 MCs and Jackie Stoudemire make appearances on Recording Tap, as do contributions from Arnie Love & the Lovettes, Magnetism, and Bonnie Freeman, among others.

For the Numero fanatics who don't mind waiting for the vinyl, the compilation comes out on LP April 8. Just like the CD, the vinyl comes with two booklets, one telling the story of Tap and the other reprinting sheet music selections from Tap's songbook. But unlike the CD, the 3-LP package is limited to 3000 copies and includes a bevy of bonus tracks. [MORE...]

New Gnarls Barkley Video Too Hot for TV
Plus: New album tracklist

For those of us who spend most of our daylight hours staring at computer screens, Gnarls Barkley's video for "Run"-- the first single from sophomore album The Odd Couple-- is par for the visual course. In fact, it's downright pleasant in comparison to, say, the spazz-out that is M.I.A.'s website.

According to a Billboard.com report and an email from Gnarls' management, however, it turns out the video is not yet fit for MTV airplay. Because of its strobe effects, the video failed the Harding Test, which is used to tell whether or not televised images might trigger epileptic seizures.

While the Happy-directed, Justin Timberlake-starring video obviously needs editing to comply with the Harding Test's standards, Danger Mouse told Billboard.com, "I think [the video] is cool. It works for me. But I'm not necessarily that easily seasick. We can't predict how people are going to interpret it."

The video is currently being tweaked, with designs for it to "premiere" (ha) on MTV's "TRL" tomorrow afternoon.

UPDATE: Apparently all this only applied to the UK, not the U.S.A. The video that is airing tomorrow hasn't been edited. Guess British people are more easily made nauseous than Americans?

Maybe Danger Mouse and his Gnarls Barkley partner Cee-Lo should just wait to tease The Odd Couple with the video Chris Milk is directing for second single "Who's Gonna Save My Soul".

The Odd Couple is set to hit stores via Downtown/Atlantic on the previously reported release date of April 8. The Billboard.com story also gives us an album detail we didn't have before: a tracklist. Check it out after the jump.

They're still planning a summer U.S./European festival tour, but Gnarls Barkley's only confirmed date remains their July 27 appearance at L.A.'s Hollywood Bowl. [MORE...]

Ladyhawk Take Shots on New LP, Tour

Photo by Scott August

The music of Vancouver's Ladyhawk sure sounds like it was recorded under the bleariest, booziest circumstances, and as it turns out, that's pretty much how the magic happens. Rumor has it (OK, it was in a press release) that their sophomore set Shots-- out now in North American on Jagjaguwar, with a UK release to follow April 7-- was put to tape in an abandoned farm house with a bottomless supply of sangria serving as fuel for the proceedings.

You can take in all that sloppy, sticky glory-- sans the hangover-- on either the record or Let Me Be Fictional, a documentary about the Shots sessions by filmmakers Mona Mok and Rob Leickner that's hitting the festival circuit now. And, hey, if you wanted to fix yourself a drink while you were taking in that Ladyhawk, well, that'd probably be all right with them.

Shots fired, the band has plans for a little North American tour, with a few dates with their fellow British Columbians in Black Mountain. [MORE...]

Feist, Spoon, and Lil Jon, Together at Last
Aw skeet skeet motherfuckers!

Giving Fayetteville, Arkansas' Dickson St. Music Festival a run for its money for the 2008 Pleasantly Deranged Festival Lineup award, here comes Vanderbilt University's Rites of Spring festival.

Taking place at the Nashville, Tennessee campus' Alumni Lawn on April 18 and 19, the spring fling brings together kindred spirits Feist, Spoon, and Lil Jon, in addition to the Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, DJ Kool, the disease known as Colbie Caillat, and others. (Via Billboard.)

David Silverstein, co-chair of the Vanderbilt Programming Board's Music Group, told InsideVandy, "Vanderilt University's Online Student Community", "I think Lil John will bring a fantastic level of energy for the Vanderbilt student community as well as the greater Nashville area that hasn't been seen on Alumni Lawn. And Spoon will bring a twist to the rock 'n' roll sound I think everyone will enjoy."

At press time, it is unclear whether or not the East Side Boyz will be in attendance.

Akron/Family Welcome Megafaun, Dodos Folks on Tour

Talk about your blended family units. On their U.S. tour, going down right about now, the boys of Akron/Family aren't simply receiving a little help in the warm-up department from Megafaun. They're also bringing members of the opening band into the Family when they do their weird, wooly thing to cap off the night.

Megafaun join the hootenanny this month, while the Fam adopts new Frenchkiss signees the Dodos in April and beyond. That Family, they're really going places! Places like the ones right down here. [MORE...]

Laurie Anderson Explores Homeland on Tour, Album

Photo by Laurie Anderson

Multimedia art-rocker Laurie Anderson will unveil her latest politico-musical project, Homeland, on a hefty 2008 tour that spans the globe. The Homeland album, however, won't be out until early 2009 on Nonesuch.

According to a press release, Homeland is "part political dialogue, part poetry song cycle," and it includes musical elements ranging from "Tuvan throat singers, jazz improvisers, and New York experimental artists" to "violin, groove-oriented electronics, and traditional instruments such as the Chinese erhu."

On the conceptual level, Homeland tackles "a breadth of contemporary issues, from the war and the media to America's growing surveillance culture and the environment."

All of these elements will come together for the aforementioned live performances of Homeland, which begin March 26 in NYC and extend all the way into the fall.

Before the Homeland tour begins, however, Anderson has a pair of unrelated appearances. First is a lecture she's giving about Andy Warhol's "Electric Chair" silkscreen series in Washington, DC on March 15. Three days later is her previously reported set at "SPEAK UP!: A Benefit Concert for Peace in Iraq & Justice at Home". [MORE...]

Tindersticks Feeling Hungry on New Album, Tour
Hunger manifests itself in plaintive, heartfelt balladry

Tindersticks! Okay, so they don't quite lend themselves to exclamations the way Guillemots do, but that doesn't mean we're any less stoked about their new record.

The Hungry Saw arrives April 28 overseas in CD/vinyl/digital formats on Beggars Banquet and marks the first album of new material by the full band since 2003's lush and lovely Waiting for the Moon. A 7"/digital single for the title track, backed with a tune called "Back to the Earth", precedes the album on April 14.

And actually we can't say "full band" without qualifying it a bit, as the reduced Tindersticks lineup featured on Saw includes core members Stuart A. Staples, Neil Fraser, and David Boulter, with additional help from drummer Thomas Belhorn and bassist Dan McKinna. Frontman Staples, as you may recall, released the solo album Leaving Songs back in 2006.

Your first taste of The Hungry Saw, a lush and lovely tune called "The Flicker of a Little Girl" featured on Forkcast, is available right now for your listening and downloading pleasure at the Tindersticks MySpace.

And what's an album and a single without a tour? Tindersticks have one of those in the works, kicking off April 29 in Copenhagen. [MORE...]

Aloha Greet the U.S. on Tour

Offer a warm salute to gentle sound-melders Aloha, who have lined up a bunch of U.S. tour dates for March and April, including a stop-in at SXSW. The next goes down March 10 in Rochester, and all this tuneful uprooting comes in celebration of the recent Aloha EP Light Works on Polyvinyl.

The band has also welcomed longtime associate Nick Anderson into the Aloha flock for good, and they presently share drummer Cale Parks with the White Williams live act. Once Aloha wrap this round of touring, they've got big plans to work up their next LP for a fall release. And now, if you please, you can say "Aloha" to this news blurb in the sense of farewell, for we are done here. [MORE...]

Sorry Kids, It Isn't Time to Get Too Excited About This Pavement Reunion Thing Just Yet
But we do have these Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks photos to show you

Photos by Nilina Mason-Campbell

Were there indeed a Pavement reunion in the works, we would almost certainly be freaking out a little too hard to gather our puns enough to write a story about it. So you'll note our calmness when we tell you this: the scuttlebutt about the reformation of one of the greatest bands of all time flying around the old internet today, springing from a story on EW.com entitled "Wait... a Pavement reunion!?", is a lotta nice talk, it is. But, for now anyway, that's really all it is. And it's not even new talk.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly in this week's issue, Stephen Malkmus cheekily mentioned that he wouldn't be averse to "something small in 10 years like the Zeppelin thing," adding "obviously, the arena would be smaller than theirs." In a separate interview, bassist Mark Ibold chimed in and announced that he's game, but that it "needs to be carefully planned" just so he can stave off a recurring nightmare he's had of "a reunion show [where] he couldn't remember the songs."

Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg is quoted as saying, "Matador is having a 20th anniversary party soon, so maybe we'll try to do something for that." EW.com adds, "[When contacted, Matador had no response.]" Matador tells us that no such party is even in the works just yet. But the anniversary isn't until 2009, so that's plenty of time to get a party together, right guys?

Of course, anyone looking at those quotes individually can tell that these dudes aren't ruling anything out, but they aren't suggesting anything concrete, either. Really, the talk doesn't differ much from what Spiral Stairs told us back in September of 2006 when he claimed that "it would probably work well for a 20 year anniversary or something like that... but I don't know."

Certainly we can see why folks would get excited-- it's fucking Pavement, after all!-- but this truly (and sadly) isn't anything to get your hopes up about at the moment.

But hey remember that other band Malkmus is in? The ones with the new record and the big tour? Well, they played a show last night at Satyricon in Portland, Oregon. Above and below, find photos from that show. And way down below, find the band's tour dates, including newly added UK and Europe shows.








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Gogol Bordello Back on the Road

Photo by Eirik Lande

Barely two months into 2008, Gogol Bordello are already back out there, taking their gypsy punk stylings to locales the world over on a big ol' tour.

The "Forces of Victory Tour 2008", in support of last year's Super Taranta!, is happening right now and culminates with GB's appearances at Coachella and Bonnaroo. Before then, the U.S. and much of Europe will witness the likes of Eugene Hütz and his genre-melding act.

Finally, a couple of extracurricular news items from the Gogol Bordello camp: First, the Madonna-directed Filth and Wisdom, which stars Hütz and features footage of his band, recently made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

Also, Hütz's rag-tag style provided inspiration for designer Frida Giannini's garments in the Gucci fall 2008/09 men's collection. The line already debuted at Milan Fashion Week, and it will hit stores once the season after summer arrives. [MORE...]

Dead Meadow Aren't Kidding With This Touring Thing

Boy, if that Meadow ain't Dead by the time you fellas get through with this here ginormous tour of yours, you're gonna have to drive that mess to the hospital.

Dead Meadow, the DC-born sludge captains and tenders to the unruly Old Growth (out now everywhere on Matador) have added a whole ton of dates to their already impressive lineup of such things since our last dispatch.

The lads will stomp, pummel, or otherwise assail just about any bit of turf they see, and over the next few months, they'll be seeing plenty on both sides of the Atlantic. You might wanna start a Miracle-Gro regimen now, just for the pushback.

Look for Dead Meadow in Manchester tonight (March 5). [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.)