Ted Leo and the Pharmacists to Open for Pearl Jam
Don't they just look like one big happy Photoshopped family?

Hmmm, wonder if they'll spend any time talking politics? Pearl Jam have made their selections for the opening slots on their forthcoming summer U.S. tour, and dashing young punk Ted Leo and his Pharmacists are among them.

It seems Ted and company will take up with Eddie etc. starting June 19 in Camden, New Jersey and follow the stadium-rock staples through the rest of the month. Actually, it sounds like a good choice all around: Pearl Jam get one of the best live bands in the world to front for 'em, and Ted can school the masses to the ways of the world a few more folks at a time than he's generally accustomed. Plus he gets to rock Madison Square Garden!

Kings of Leon, who are kind of the complete antithesis of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, will open the rest of Pearl Jam's tour.

Ted, sans Ed, hits the UK next month. He also recently remixed Spoon's "Don't You Evah" for an upcoming single, and appears on the just-released DVD of the first season of "Human Giant".

As for Pearl Jam, the rest of their dates are available after the jump. Eddie Vedder has a solo West Coast trek going down at the beginning of April. [MORE...]

El Guincho Signs to XL/Young Turks

Photo by Daniel Cantó

Welcome to the big (indie) leagues, El Guincho! As the latest signing to XL Recordings/Young Turks (according to a Drowned in Sound report confirmed by the Beggars Group), you join a label family that includes Thom Yorke, M.I.A., and Vampire Weekend, just to name a few heavy-hitters. May they be merciful in their hazing.

The deal covers both the UK and U.S., and XL/Young Turks plans to deliver El Guincho's genre melting pot of a debut, the Best New Music-inducted Alegranza!, later this year. (For the moment, it's available on import outside Spain via Discotea Océano.) We hope it's just in time for his set at the Pitchfork Music Festival!

Before then, folks on El Guincho's side of the pond have ample opportunities to catch their new hero in action. Find out where below. [MORE...]

Kimya Dawson Tours Into Summer

Hide your switchblades, Kyuss records, and anarchist cookbooks, kids, because in the next few months, there's a good chance your town will be the target of a cuteness invasion. And there's no way to resist! In other words, (sorta) former Moldy Peach and current hot-hot-hot Juno songstress Kimya Dawson is on tour.

The tour takes Dawson through the U.S., UK, Europe, and Australia, and most of her dates are with her husband, Angelo Spencer. Her other tourmates include Paul Baribeau, Spoonboy (son of Soundgarden's Spoonman, no doubt), L'Orchidee D'Hawai, and even, on one date, Band of Horses.

Dawson's next show is this very night (March 20) in Tallahassee. [MORE...]

Hey Kids! It's a One-of-a-Kind, Four-Hour-Long Charity Remix of Radiohead's "Videotape"...on VHS!

There's no doubt about it: Radiohead inspire people. They gave producer Amplive the impetus to craft a whole remix album (which, despite hang-ups, did finally see the light of day) and they've arguably provoked a number of post-In Rainbows name-your-price schemes and 11th hour album announcements.

And now Radiohead have touched UK knob-twiddler James Rutledge (aka Pedro) in a special way, the way that makes you want to create a 240-minute remix and, sure, why not, throw it on a VHS tape.

Believe it: Four glorious hours of In Rainbows' haunting closer "Videotape", committed to an obsolescent media format, with accompanying visuals from Philip M. Lane and some pretty swank cover art designed by Jacob Blandy.

Rutledge's press release happily accounts for any thoughts you might be having right now: "Is it a comment on the state of the music industry, or music PR? Fan boy tribute? Ambient epic? Inspiring idea? Bad joke? Deranged waste of time? You decide."

Or you can decide if you're the one lucky person who scores the one existing copy of this piece that makes even The Disintegration Loops seem radio-friendly. Rutledge intends to auction off his unique remix of "Videotape" and donate all profits to the UK-based Missing People charity. Auction details are forthcoming, so until then, looks like you have a little time to ask mommy what a "VHS" is.

"Videotape (James Rutledge Remix)" sleeve art:

Ellen Allien Announces SOOL Tracklist, Release Date

Recorded and produced with the help of fellow Berlin-based artist AGF this winter, Ellen Allien's fourth solo LP, SOOL, is due May 27 on her own long-running label BPitch Control. "Minimal" appears to be the keyword when it comes to SOOL, about which Allien had this to say in a press release: "What does minimal mean to me? Minimal is just there. Permuting that, shaping this kind of immediacy with my own hands - that was close to my heart." Sounds good, no?

Anyhow, the disc is preceded by that Boogy Bytes mix she recently pieced together, due March 31 on BPitch, as well as Allien's appearance on frequent collaborator Apparat's Things to Be Frickled: Parts & Remixes collection, due April 15 on his Shitkatapult label. Allien is also preparing a SOOL fashion line to accompany the album's release.

And there's a big international tour afoot, with one new little tidbit we've learned since our last rundown of the dates: those North American gigs featuring Allien alongside labelmate Sascha Funke will, in fact, find the two in collaborative mode. So if you're looking for Ellen and only Ellen, well, you may really find yourself s.o.o.l. [MORE...]

Jay-Z, Flaming Lips, NIN, DCFC Do Pemberton Fest
Along with Interpol, MMJ, Vampire Weekend, Fiery Furnaces, Black Mountain, Metric

Sure, smaller, more intimate gatherings are very, very nice. But this whole "enormous European-style summer music festival in North America" thing also appears to be a winning formula, given the current crop of promising upstarts rubbing shoulders with the juggernauts of the last several years.

One such fresh-faced youngster packing a wallop is the just-announced Pemberton Festival, which will bring thunder to the mountains near Pemberton, British Columbia July 25-27.

That thunder? Deep breath: Jay-Z, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, the Flaming Lips, Interpol, Death Cab for Cutie, My Morning Jacket, Vampire Weekend, the Fiery Furnaces, Black Mountain, Metric, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, Mates of State, Booka Shade, Secret Machines, M.A.N.D.Y., Buck 65, Brazilian Girls, MGMT, Chromeo, Sia, MSTRKRFT, and others, with more to come.

Also the Tragically Hip. This festival is in Canada, after all.

Like every other festival held in the middle of nowhere, Pemberton isn't exactly easily accessible by public transportation. To make up for the environmental sin of its very existence, the festival will be powered mostly by hydroelectric means, carpools of four or more will be rewarded with free parking, and there will be a farmer's market, making the "totally crunchy" burrito that dreadlocked gentleman sold you in the parking lot not only tasty, but locally-grown.

War on Drugs Sign to Secretly Canadian, Give Away EP

In case you haven't heard-- or smelled the odors coming from down the hall-- the war on drugs hasn't exactly been going so great. Untold sums of money have been spent and many lives have been lost or otherwise destroyed, all ostensibly in an effort to keep Funyuns from reaching their peak deliciousness.

But Secretly Canadian-- steely, sober types, all-- seem to think the War on Drugs they'll be waging may actually stick. And, hell, if they're wrong, at least you've got some new tunes for your late-night, uh, study sessions. The War on Drugs, the Philly-based five-piece fronted by songwriter Adam Granduciel and featuring man-about-town Kurt Vile in various capacities, have signed up with Secretly Canadian for their future endeavors.

The Indiana imprint will issue the band's forthcoming LP debut in the middle of the year. For now, though, there's the Barrel of Batteries EP, released by the band a bit ago but available free of charge-- to lure you into the harder stuff, no doubt-- right here.

The War on Drugs have but a pair of tour dates to their credit at the moment, both of which are in their native Philly. [MORE...]

Interscope Drops Simian Mobile Disco

Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell

It was just last June that we announced the union of British beatmakers Simian Mobile Disco and Interscope Records, joined together in blissful matrimony for the purpose of delivering Simian Mobile Disco's breakout debut album Attack Decay Sustain Release to U.S. shores.

But only eight months, several amazing tours, countless EPs, and a bazillion remixes later, SMD and Interscope have gone their separate ways. That's right: Simian Mobile Disco are now free agents on our side of the pond. (They're still signed to Wichita Recordings in Europe.) Hear that, labels looking for new signings?

James Ford and James Shaw are on the road at this very moment, jumping from Canada to Mexico this weekend, New York to Florida next week, and then back to the West Coast in late April for a string of dates leading up to Coachella. Then in summer, they're off to the summer festival circuit in Europe. [MORE...]

Wilco Announce New North American Dates

Photo by Will Marsh

For folks up and down the mid-section of North America, there's plenty of Wilco to come this spring, as the gents will follow up their current run of shows in Australia and New Zealand with a decidedly landlocked tour of the U.S. and, briefly, Canada.

The new tour kicks off in Rochester, Minnesota on the last day of April and sets down mid-May in St. Louis. Sky Blue Sky in big sky country? "Side With the Seeds" amidst the cornfields? Hard to argue with that kinda synergy.

Wherever you may hang your hat at night, you'll soon be able to pick up a copy of the Rock the Net: Musicians for Net Neutrality comp or the soundtrack to "Heroes", both of which feature a Wilco track. There's also that rescheduled South Carolina date way off in August, a beacon of hope for a full-out summer tour. Not to mention those rumors that Wilco just might be headlining one day of a certain massive festival in their hometown the first weekend in August...

In related news, Wilco's Glenn Kotche, along with the National's Bryce Dessner, will guest with Bang on a Can All-Stars at Northwestern University's Sonic Divergence Music Festival, taking place in Evanston, Illinois on April 6. [MORE...]

The Kooks Issue New Album, Tour the World

Named after Kinks legend Ray Davies' Konk Studios-- in which, it probably goes without saying, it was largely put to tape-- Konk is the sophomore LP from Brighton, England's the Kooks. The quartet will release the new disc, produced by Tony Hoffer (Beck, Air), on April 14 in the UK on Virgin and April 15 in the U.S. on Astralwerks.

If you're just plain kooky for the Kooks and you dwell in their homeland, you can opt for a double-disc version of Konk that includes a second set of tunes entitled Rak (also named after a studio). A single for "Always Where I Need to Be" hits UK shops March 31.

Those Kooks sure do love to tour! Or at least, that's what we gather from the massive string of dates they have lined up. With upcoming gigs in the UK, mainland Europe, North America, and Japan, if you haven't caught up with this Konk-y Kookery yet, it may be unavoidable. [MORE...]

Black Moth Super Rainbow Drop Scratch'n'Sniff Vinyl!

We wouldn't ordinarily advocate scratching your vinyl, but in this case, we'll make an exception. Black Moth Super Rainbow, the convention-thwarting Pennsylvanian bunch responsible for last year's Recommended Dandelion Gum album, have gone and pressed said release into a turntable-ready LP.

Okay nothing so unconventional there, but wait! This isn't just any vinyl we're talking about here. This is, as you may have noticed in the headline, scratch'n'sniff vinyl!! Yes, the friction created by running something coarse (a fingernail, say) across the cover of this record will unleash odors as yet un-smelt by the noses of men! Women, too!

As if this olfactory offering weren't enough, the vinyl version of Dandelion Gum also includes a bonus track not found on the CD, "The Dark Forest Joggers". Both formats are available now via Graveface Records.

And that's hardly the only slice of vinyl BMSR will serve up this year: The trippy troupe also delivers the "Zodiac Girl" 7" via Suicide Squeeze on May 6, as previously reported. Catch of whiff of the weirdness that is Black Moth Super Rainbow at any of the act's upcoming live dates.

UPDATE: Former Minuteman and bass legend Mike Watt interviewed Black Moth Super Rainbow's Tobacco for his podcast, "The Watt From Pedro Show". Look for the stream later today on the show's site, and scope Watt [bottom left] hanging with the BMSR gang right here:


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Saturday Knights Get Dap-Kings, Thayil, Muscle Shoals

Photo by Christopher Nelson

Seattle rap goofballs the Saturday Knights have titled their forthcoming debut LP Mingle, and that's exactly what they did in the process of making the record. Mingle is full of guests from all corners of the music world, featuring appearances from the Dap-Kings, Soundgarden's Kim Thayil, Nirvana producer Jack Endino, the legendary Jim Horn and the Muscle Shoals Horns (Horn played on Pet Sounds and the original Shaft soundtrack), and Chris Ballew from Presidents of the United States of America. And those are only a few names on the Seattle-heavy list of people joining the Knights (aka DJ Suspence and MCs Tilson and Barfly) on Mingle.

But who, you might ask, is putting out this collection of live-accompanied throwback rap tracks? That would be the reissue masters at hometown label Light in the Attic. And they will do so on June 24. [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.)