Pitchfork

Photos by Isaac Slusarenko/Jackpot Records

As music lovers brought their hard-earned cash and labels brought all kinds of goodies to ma and pa shops on Record Store Day earlier this month, Menomena brought it to their fans from across the foosball table.

According to Portland's Jackpot Records, who hosted the epic event and shared the photos you see here, Menomena went 19-2 on April 19, schooling all but two comers over 120 consecutive minutes of intense foosball action. Chalk it up to the full soccer/football regalia-- shin guards and all-- that Menomena's Brent Knopf and Justin Harris broke out to intimidate their challengers.

As for those two lucky victors, they were graced with "I Totally Kicked Menomena's Ass in Foosball" medallions crafted by the Beaver State's own Glass Casters Union (which you'll remember from this story). Nice!

Menomena's Danny Seim donned his DJ best, meanwhile, and spun what Jackpot calls "all college 'pot' vibed music." Selections included the Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, Cypress Hill, and-- why not?-- Neil Diamond, among others.

In the privacy of his own dwelling, however, Seim has been spinning a whole lot of the National's "Fake Empire", which he covers on his latest album under the Lackthereof banner. Your Anchor also packs in nine Seim originals and arrives July 22 on Barsuk Records. It's technically the ninth Lackthereof full-length, following a bunch of CD-Rs, 2004's Christian the Christian, and the very recent My Haunted.

Finally, Menomena have a trio of upcoming gigs, including a pair of European festival performances. They bring it next to Middlebury, Vermont on May 2.

Menomena Record Store Day Foosball Challenge














Your Anchor:

01 Chest Pass
02 Fire Trial
03 Choir Practice
04 Doomed Elephants
05 Locked Upstairs
06 Last November
07 Ask Permission
08 You Can
09 Vacant Eyes
10 Fake Empire

Something like a Menomena:

05-02 Middlebury, VT - Ross Dining Hall at Middlebury College
05-30 Berlin, Germany - Immergut Festival
05-31 Barcelona, Spain - Parc del Fòrum (Primavera Sound)