Neko Case Hurts Foot, Leaves New Pornographers Tour

Photo by Kathryn Yu

Even the toughest of Challengers face insurmountable obstacles on the road. Such is the case with the New Pornographers, who have suffered the loss of über-talented vocalist Neko Case from the rest of their tour with Okkervil River.

According to a missive from the band itself, "Neko had a really bad fall in Washington, DC, which resulted in a fractured ankle (which also did some damage to her ligaments), and will be leaving the tour today. She was really trying to be a trooper and stayed on as long as she could through Richmond and Athens, but it has gotten to the point where she must return home to have her ankle taken care of and to recuperate. She's very upset about having to leave. It's been super fun having her on tour and around again, but she just had to go to avoid doing some real permanent damage to herself.

"We hope that you understand, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago, Madison, and Cleveland."


The sad news aside (get better Neko!), the New Pornographers still have a summer scattered with festivals after they wrap up the current tour. And remember, a brand new song by Case and head Porno Carl Newman is featured on the compilation CD accompanying the latest issue of ESOPUS. [MORE...]

Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners on Tour

With the Drag City release of his Sings Country Winners album on April 22, Neil Hamburger will make the transition from sadistically awkward stand-up comic to full-blown (albeit humorous) country western crooner. True to its title, the record consists of honest-to-goodness honky tonkin' music.

To complete the metamorphosis, Hamburger will play a series of West Coast shows in May and June where he'll be joined by the band that plays on the record. Those players include Rachel Haden, Prairie Prince, Dave Gleason, Atom Ellis, and Joe Goldmark, and between them, they've worked with the likes of George Harrison, John Fogerty, Weezer, Link Wray, and...the New Cars. Well, you win some, you lose some.

Hamburger also has two solo shows coming up on the East Coast April 19 and 20. The latter is also the date of Sings Country Winners listening parties at Chicago's Rainbo Club and NYC's Knitting Factory. [MORE...]

Two Pipettes Enter, Two Pipettes Leave
The campaign to become the indie pop Menudo starts now

As they prepare to record the follow-up to their 2006 debut We Are the Pipettes, the lovable, polka-dotted popsters in the Pipettes are experiencing personnel changes.

According to a press release and a note on their website, "The Pipettes have two new members, Ani and Anna... This means that RiotBecki and Rosay have left to pursue other musical pursuits (which will be brilliant when they emerge). We wish them all the best, we're all still great friends, and news on their pursuits will be closely supported by us.

"People may be confused by such a drastic change in line-up, but please rest assured-- if we were to be an imitation of ourselves we would stop. Plus the Pipettes has more members come and go than major labels have A&R men, it's just another day in the office for us (plus we've got to go one better than Sugababes). [British pop tarts the Sugababes have a notoriously fluctuating lineup-- Ed.]

"We refer you to the manifesto on our website for a more in-depth explanation on the functioning of the band; this was the natural step to take. For a more in-depth series of answers, we direct you to the prepared video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU."

Ah...well played, girls.

However, the news is still true, and the new Pipettes are currently recording demos of new songs with a hope to record their sophomore album this summer.

Islands Throw Some Dates on That Tour

Wednesday evening in Buffalo, New York, Nick Thorburn and his Islands kicked off their spring/summer tour, and Friday morning in cyberland, they've already lined up a whole lot more. Islands have affixed a good deal of new stops to their trot around North America, leading them all the way through late June.

Islands' sophomore album Arm's Way (yes, the one with the weird--and weirdly suggestive--cover art) is due May 20 from Anti-. [MORE...]

Stereolab to Issue Chemical Chords in August

Out from the lab and onto your stereo this summer, Chemical Chords is the first proper LP from Stereolab since 2004's Margerine Eclipse (not counting the EP collection Fab Four Suture).

The disc is due worldwide August 18 and in the U.S. August 19 from 4AD. Featuring 13 songs by Laetitia Sadier and Tim Gane and one solo Gane composition, the record also sports string and brass arrangements from former member/current High Llama Sean O'Hagan.

Stereolab have plans to tout the release of Chemical Chords with a few festival appearances this summer. If you can't wait, there's always the recently released (and very good) Monstre Cosmic from Sadier's Monade project. [MORE...]

Flight of the Conchords Deliver Debut LP, Hit the Road

Photo by Akmal Naim

Flight of the Conchords begins with Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement exhausting every French phrase between them over some breezy bossa nova. Then, it gets really weird.

The Kiwi cut-ups-- and stars of the self-styled HBO comedy program you've probably been told to watch a time or two-- have lined up 15 "fully fleshed-out and professionally recorded versions of Flight of the Conchords concert and television favorites" for their eponymous debut LP.

Produced by Mickey Petralia (Beck's Midnite Vultures, Ladytron's Light & Magic), the disc features guest appearances from the Conchords' "manager" Rhys Darby and, um, Rhymenocerous and Hiphopapoatumus. It arrives April 22 thanks to Sub Pop, though I know at least one gal who's already got the leak.

Jemaine and Bret will take to the road in the States for a mess of dates, including a stop up there at the Sasquatch! Festival. And the second season of "Flight of the Conchords" is apparently set to hit your television circa January of next year. [MORE...]

Danny Federici, E Street Band Keyboardist, R.I.P.

Photo: A.M. Saddler / Backstreets.com

Danny Federici, Bruce Springsteen's longtime keyboardist, died yesterday, April 17, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. The 58-year-old E Street Band member had been fighting melanoma for three years.

Posting about Federici's death on his website, Springsteen wrote, "Danny and I worked together for 40 years - he was the most wonderfully fluid keyboard player and a pure natural musician. I loved him very much...we grew up together."

It was also requested that donations be made in Federici's memory to the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund.

Federici, who also played the organ and the accordion, began working with Springsteen in local Asbury Park, New Jersey bands in the late 1960s. He was one of the founding members of the E Street Band, and stuck with the group until Springsteen disbanded it in the late 1980s. When Springsteen reunited with the E Streeters in 1999, he was back on board, and remained in the group until taking time off in late 2007 to undergo cancer treatment. Federici's last performance with the band took place on March 20, 2008 in Indianapolis.

Federici's playing can be heard on Springsteen classics throughout his career, from Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town through Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love to The Rising and Magic. He also recorded as a solo artist. Springsteen and the E Street Band have postponed their concerts in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando tonight and tomorrow, but promise to replace them soon. [MORE...]

R. Kelly Still Sequel-Happy on New Album

The most ridiculous man in R&B will return with a new album a little sooner than expected. The episodically inclined R. Kelly will release 12 Play: Fourth Quarter this summer via Jive, according to a Billboard.com report. The Double Up follow-up's title harkens back to the name of Kelly's 1993 album, 12 Play. And his 2000 album TP-2.com. And his 2005 album TP.3 Reloaded.

Fourth Quarter's first single, "Hair Braider", is out now, and according to Billboard.com, director Malcolm Jones shot a video for the tune in Chicago last month. There is also some sort of braid contest going on over at R. Kelly's site.

There are a couple of interesting things to note about "Hair Braider". First, it casts hairdressers in the same affair-worthy context T-Pain has cast strippers and bartenders, as evidenced by the refrain "zig-zags/ straight backs/ doin' my hair braider." We would love to see someone make a series of service industry employee songs that eventually includes bus drivers, department store cashiers, and Subway "sandwich artists."

Second, the song totally takes a page from The-Dream's glossy, mid-tempo, subtly vocoded playbook, which is just fine by us.

The Orb Send Youth-Boosted New Album Stateside

In the beginning (i.e., 1989) there was the Orb, and the Orb was more or less two people, Dr. Alex Paterson and Killing Joke bassist Martin "Youth" Glover. However, over the course of a discography pioneering ambient house, the Orb began to revolve around Paterson alone. Now, what was torn asunder has been mended on the Orb's new album, The Dream.

Youth and Paterson are back in the saddle together on The Dream, and true to past form, they have a few guests in tow: Steve Hillage (System 7, Gong), Eric Walker (Battersea), Aki Omori, Andy Caine, and Juliet Roberts.

Six Degrees Records will release The Dream in the U.S. on June 10 (it's out now in the UK on Liquid Sound), and the Orb have a good number of European dates and Paterson DJ sets on the schedule before and after that. [MORE...]

John, Yoko, Ben Stein, Killers: Creationist Controversy

Sigh. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a documentary of sorts due to hit theaters tomorrow (April 18). The film takes up the cause of intelligent design, that proposed "alternate" theory to Darwin's whole evolution deal-- and a theory which, to many, is just fancyspeak for Creationism.

Expelled stars Ben Stein, because we all know how compelling it is to listen to Ben Stein speak.

Now that's nice and all, but here's where things get really controversial: all hack science advocacy notwithstanding, the film is currently under fire for its use of a couple pieces of music.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, portions of both John Lennon's "Imagine" and the Killers' "All These Things That I've Done" can be heard in Expelled. As the Journal revealed in yesterday's report, the folks behind Expelled received permission to use the Killers song from the band's label and publisher, but did not get the go-ahead to use "Imagine" from Lennon's representatives.

Earlier this week, some saw fit to lash out at Yoko Ono, believing she had willingly licensed "Imagine" to the film. On Monday, a Huffington Post blogger chided Ono for having "sold out" and also questioned the Killers' motives, before posting a retraction yesterday.

A lawyer for Ono told the Journal that Ono's camp is "exploring all options" with regard to possible copyright infringement. Expelled's filmmakers, meanwhile, issued a statement acknowledging they had used "Imagine" without permission, but also claiming that use was "momentary" and thus protected under the First Amendment.

Whatever the outcome, we suggest you hold onto your $9.75 for another week and spend it on a ticket to Harold & Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo Bay. In theaters April 25!!

The Mae Shi Act Out "The Wire" on Tour-Only DVD
And where there's a tour-only DVD, there is, of course, a tour

Oh gosh. Like you needed another excuse to catch Los Angeles' increasingly-awesome spazz-poppers the Mae Shi when they head your way, well, now there's this: on their forthcoming U.S. and European tours, they'll be carting around copies of a "super limited DVD" chock full of "lots of weird videos and fun stuff for nerds who like" the band. Cool enough, but look: "one highlight from the DVD will be the Mae Shi acting out selected scenes from 'The Wire'." Somewhere, a Technorati server has begun emitting sparks on the strength of that sentence alone.

As for the tour, well, it will see the Mae Shi sticking to the West Coast through the end of the month, with gigs across the pond to busy up their Junes. They're also hard at work on a video for "Party Politics" from the excellent HLLLYH LP that reportedly involves "lots of animated puking." You guys are something else. [MORE...]

Silver Jews Announce Tour, Reveal Cover Art

Given the short time it's taken David Berman of the Silver Jews to go from decidedly anti-show to bona fide road warrior, it's no real surprise that, once he gets going, there's not much use in trying to stop him.

The rather lean itinerary we posted a while back when we mentioned that Drag City had settled on a June 17 release for the Jews' sixth LP Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea was lean for a reason: they weren't done with it yet. Now, the family Berman will hit the UK and continental Europe through most of May, culminating in their performance at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona.

The cover art that Berman talked about in our January interview with him has also been revealed, and it's pretty damn cool. Here's what Berman said about it:

"I really, really felt like the title and the ideas of the songs, the idea of me going out into the world instead of me looking in--all of it came together through the painting that I got to be the cover, which is by a guy named Stephen Bush who's an Australian painter. He's done this painting 27 times. Once a year, he paints it from memory with one tube of black and one tube of white. It's a painting of three elephants, you could say it's Babar, I'm not positive. For him, it's something to do with French colonialism. It's called 'The Lure of Paris'.

For me, it's great. There's this character, this hero, but he's an elephant. He's standing on a rock, the sea is very rough around him, there's amazing light coming down through the sky, and then there's the other elephants coming down a cliff on a rope. I thought for a minute that I wasn't going to be able to use it. It was so devastating that I didn't know what to do.

No other cover has ever... they've all been arbitrary, except for maybe Bright Flight. There's never really been any connection to what's under the cover. And this time, it's everything. Like, when you'd read a paperback when you were a kid, and you'd really like the characters, you'd look at the people on the cover and be like, 'Are these the people?' And you get older and you'd realize, 'Wait. This is a different artist.' And then you get older, and you realize there's no connection, the author doesn't need the artist, blah blah blah. This time, maybe they're all elephants."

[MORE...]

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