Death Cab, Decemberists, Breeders Hit Oregon
Update: Modest Mouse, the National not yet confirmed

It's not a festival per se, as it's got no fancy name to call its own (well, okay, at least part of it is the "Wells Fargo Concert Series", but that's not really a festival, and is definitely not a stellar name), and there's no particular financial incentive to not pick and choose which days you'd like to attend and which you'd rather sit out.

Still, over Memorial Day weekend at Bend, Oregon's Les Schwab Theater, some fine fine bands are coming to the very same spot, and if you'd like, a single ticket will give you access to all of 'em. You know, like a festival!

And just who is playing this nifty non-fest, you query? Well, there's Michael Franti & Spearhead on Friday night, May 23, with a special guest still waiting in the wings to be revealed. The next evening, May 24, sees Death Cab for Cutie headlining a bill that also features the Decemberists and Rogue Wave. The thing wraps up Sunday evening, May 25, with the Breeders opening (opening?!) for soon-to-be R.E.M. tourmates the National and the evening's headliners Modest Mouse.

UPDATE: The event promoters sent out a premature press release. Modest Mouse and the National have not been confirmed for the May 25 show yet. 

Whatever you want to call it, that's a pretty sweet lineup. According to a press release, these performances feature the bands "in their only Oregon shows," but since Death Cab are already scheduled to play Eugene on April 19, and Rogue Wave are playing in St. Helens on August 20 with Jack Johnson, we'll take that with a grain of salt.

Why? Launch Massive Tour Tonight
Hey, why not?

Photo by Jacob Hand

If you happen to notice a pack of Wolfs at your door sometime between tonight and June, well, take shelter at the nearest possible venue. It's Why?, the genre-defying chatterboxes set to afflict you with their Alopecia March 11 on Anticon. (It's out now in Europe on Tomlab.)

Yoni and Josiah Wolf and the rest of their set kick off their world tour tonight in San Francisco, which leads them across North America until mid-April, and then heads to Europe in May and June. Along the way, they'll meet up with a really strange and stellar crew for support, including Cryptasize, YACHT, Son Lux, Panther, and other like-minded oddballs.

Note that amidst all the other dates, Why? will field any and all queries next week at SXSW. Why, you might just see them there! [MORE...]

MP3: Why?: The Hollows [from the Alopecia LP]
MP3: Why?: Close to Me (Cure cover)

Ted Leo Announces Spring Dates

Photo by Akmal Naim

Ted Leo has laid pretty low recently, spending his rare bit of time between tours filling his website's news section with seasonally appropriate political screeds and helping out some buds over at the WFMU radio station.

But Ted and his merry band of Pharmacists will return to the road this spring, starting with a pair of near-St. Patrick's Day dates in Massachusetts with Celtic punks Dropkick Murphys.

Then, in April, they will keep the Irish theme going by starting a tour there in the homeland, before heading off on a two-week trek across Europe.

UPDATE: The final four shows of the tour, all in Spain, have been cancelled. [MORE...]

MP3: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: Nothing Much to Say (Live on Fair Game)

Wilco, Bright Eyes, Wrens on Rock the Net Compilation
Also: Portastatic, DJ Spooky, They Might Be Giants, more to come

Langerado Kicks Off Tonight in Florida Everglades
Festival features R.E.M., Beastie Boys, Roots, National, Of Montreal, !!!, Dan Deacon, Walkmen, Built to Spill. But no Vampire Weekend.

Amidst the curious stuff (Early 90s lite-rap troupe Arrested Development! The resurrected Blind Melon!), the jammy stuff (Phil Lesh, Disco Biscuits, Umphrey's McGee, etc.), and the giant cartoon alligators (look left!), they're gathering in the swamps. Who? Why, R.E.M., Built to Spill, the Beastie Boys, the Roots, the National, Of Montreal, !!!, Dan Deacon, the Walkmen, Blitzen Trapper, Shout Out Louds, Minus the Bear, Dr. Dog, Antibalas, Pelican, Busdriver, the Postmarks, Josh Ritter, Matt Pond PA, Thievery Corporation, Earl Greyhound, and many, many more bands.

And why? Why, that's easy. It's the Langerado Festival, which kicks off its sixth incarnation tonight at the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in the South Florida Everglades. Those wetlands will be rocked to their core well into Sunday, March 9.

Note, of course, that Langerado will have to make due without Vampire Weekend, who'll be up in New York City playing Hillary Clinton apologists one of their peppy jams on "Saturday Night Live". Still, the rest of the lineup (including, yes, 311) is intact and ready to roll throughout the weekend.

We Are Scientists Display Mastery on LP, Tour
Mastery of having a confusing band name

What is brain thrust, and how might one master it? And what in the heck is that We Are Scientists band up to these days?

These questions, and not all that many others, will be answered when Brain Thrust Mastery, the sophomore set from We Are Scientists, hits shelves via Virgin on March 17 in the UK and March 18 in the U.S.  UPDATE: The album is coming out May 13 on Astralwerks in the U.S.

The disc has been preceded by the single for "After Hours", out this week.

After wrapping up a brief round of in-store performances in the UK, the band will return to Europe for a tour from late March through early May. Their fellow New Yorkers Oxford Collapse will open a good chunk of those dates.

And apparently they've been covering Nickelback lately. Haha, very funny, guys. [MORE...]

Video: We Are Scientists: After Hours [from the Brain Thrust Mastery LP]

Sonic Youth, Sunn 0))) Members, Fennesz Contribute to Table of the Elements Singles Series
So do Rhys Chatham, Belong, Benjamin Curtis (School of Seven Bells, ex-Secret Machines)

In 1993, weird little label Table of the Elements issued Guitar Series Vol. 1 and Guitar Series Vol. 2, a pair of limited edition 7" records containing solo guitar performances by some of experimental rock's titans. Folks like Jim O'Rourke, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Derek Bailey, and Keiji Haino (like I said, titans) flaunted their fretwork for the sets, which sold out immediately and subsequently became the stuff of record-nerd legend.

Flash forward 15 years, and you've got Guitar Series volumes three and four, emerging over the course of 2008 from the still weird but not quite as little Table of the Elements. A dozen artists contributed tracks to the series: Thurston and Lee (though not together-- those dudes really oughta form a popular rock band to pass the time between rarified geekery), Christian Fennesz, Rhys Chatham (commanding a guitar army), Sunn O)))'s Stephen O'Malley, Collections of Colonies of Bees, Belong, Oren Ambarchi, Ateleia and Benjamin Curtis (of School of Seven Bells, ex-Secret Machines), Andrew Burnes and David Daniell of San Augustin, and Jon Mueller of Collection of Colonies of Bees.

Each track will be carved into a clear vinyl 12", with an etching on the flipside from noted UK illustrator Savage Pencil. The first two-- from Collections of Colonies of Bees and the Ateleia/Benjamin Curtis combo-- are due May 20, with the rest to follow throughout 2008. A portion of the proceeds will go to Sweet Relief, which provides services to ailing musicians. And yes, once again, the series is limited edition.

In other Table of the Elements news, Chatham's "GUITAR TRIO IS MY LIFE!" live album, featuring contributions from members of members of Sonic Youth, Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor/A Silver Mt. Zion, Hüsker Dü, Fog, Final Fantasy, and more, is out this week. And the label will hold their SXSW showcase Thursday, March 13 at the Hideout Theatre. Collections of Colonies of Bees, Megafaun, and Northampton Wools-- a collaboration between Thurston Moore and Bill Nace-- highlight a bill that also includes Neptune, Melissa St. Pierre, Carlos Villarreal and Jon Mueller.

Look at these things! They're gorgeous!

Robyn to Issue "Who's That Girl" Single

Front page photo by Kathryn Yu

Produced by the Knife and possessed with an icy groove belied only by the ebullience of its singer, Robyn's "Who's That Girl" is a standout among standouts on her 2005 self-titled LP we're so fond of over here. In April, "Who's That Girl" will get its own UK single on Konichiwa, with remixes of its titular track by Seamus Haji, Rex the Dog and Drop the Lime. Director Diane Martel-- who, among her other credits, recently helmed the clip for the White Stripes' "Conquest"-- will direct a video for the track to be released around the same time.

The album version of the song is out now as a digital download in the UK, with the radio edit coming April 14. The CD and vinyl versions of the single will be out April 21.

Robyn recently made good on a long-promised trek to the U.S., and she'll hop yet another plane for the States in March to rock the shit outta SXSW. Who's that lanky so-and-so in the front? Oh, yeah, that'd be me.

Robyn the album finally hits U.S. shores in April, via Konichiwa/Cherrytree/Interscope Records. And, shit, if you live in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, you can watch Robyn hosting MTV's "TRL" this afternoon. Nice!

Check out our recent interview with the lady herself here. [MORE...]

Video: Robyn: Be Mine / Show Me Love / With Every Heartbeat [live radio session in San Francisco]

Smoking Popes Down With Flameshovel for New LP

Photo by Hayley Murphy

Beloved (and reunited) Chicago pop punk veterans Smoking Popes have signed to hometown indie label Flameshovel to release their first album of new material in over 10 years. (The Party's Over, an album of covers, came out in 2003 after being held up by industry red tape for five years, and 2006's At Metro was a live collection of previous material).

The studio follow-up to 1997's Destination Failure is tentatively titled Stay Down, and Flameshovel will release it this fall. And hey, speaking of 10-year gaps-- that's the exact amount of time by which the Popes' existence pre-dates their new label's.

For an early taste of Stay Down, head on over to Smoking Popes' MySpace to hear "Welcome to Janesville" and "Grab Your Heart and Run". Sounds like the quartet still knows its way around a melody. Good work, fellas!

Stream: Smoking Popes: Welcome to Janesville / Grab Your Heart and Run [from the forthcoming Stay Down LP]

Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan Team Up Once Again

His voice is pretty damn foreboding, but Mark Lanegan must be an agreeable guy in person. Saturnalia, his collaboration with head Afghan Whig Greg Dulli as the Gutter Twins, just came out this week, but he's also revisiting his partnership with former Belle & Sebastian member Isobel Campbell on a second album.

Campbell and Lanegan's follow-up to 2006's Ballad of the Broken Seas is called Sunday at Devil Dirt, and it will come out May 5 in the UK on V2/Cooperative Music. Like Ballad, the new album features Lanegan tackling lead vocals while Campbell handles the writing, production, and arrangements.

There's no touring planned behind Sunday at Devil Dirt at the moment, but Lanegan has plenty of Gutter Twins dates to keep him busy for now, including a bunch of newly added European ones. That duo's next show is Friday, March 7, in Chicago. [MORE...]

Stream: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: Various Tracks
MP3: The Gutter Twins: Idle Hands [from the Saturnalia LP]

Chris Corsano's Young Cricketer Gets Vinyl Release

Stream: Chris Corsano: Various Tracks [from the The Young Cricketer LP]

Edwyn Collins Puts Together a Tour

Video: Edwyn Collins: You'll Never Know [from the Home Again LP]

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.)