Love Is All Return to the States for Brief Tour

Photo by Wyatt Cusick

For the first time in a while, Gothenburg gallants Love Is All will head to the U.S. for a (very) brief tour. After a London gig later this month, the expanded Swedish troupe will head to the East Coast for about a week in the middle of June. Yeah, that's all the All we'll get, for now anyhow.

Still no word on release details for the band's next album, A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night. But the group's resident blogger did post a live video of a propulsive little number called "Give It Back", which they claim will show up on the album. And Hand Held Shows recently posted a video of the band playing another new song, "Wishing Well", live on the street. Adorable. [MORE...]

Spiral Stairs, Broken Social Scene Unite for Sled Island
Preston School of Industry working on new LP, buncha awesome bands added to festival

As you may have read a while back in these pages, Preston School of Industry frontman and onetime Pavement foil Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg is serving as guest curator for Calgary Alberta's Sled Island Music Festival, taking place June 25-28 at a number of Calgary hot spots.

Sled Island recently threw quite a few more bands onto its already impressive roster, including Yo La Tengo, Grizzly Bear, Dan Deacon, Okkervil River, Blitzen Trapper, Qui, Tegan and Sara, the Secret Machines, Fucked Up, and Mark "BBQ" Sultan. Oh, and some raggedy lot who call themselves Broken Social Scene. Not bad!

Kannberg's well versed in the BSS M.O., having lent a hand to Kevin Drew's Spirit If... And BSS seem like the kind of people who'd be cool with collaborating with a guy from Pavement again if he was interested. And so it shall be during Preston School of Industry's set at Sled Island, when Kannberg will be joined by members of the Scene, playing mostly material composed specifically for the fest. BSS will play their own set as well.

Preston are also hard at work on a new record set to wrap later this spring. The band have a pre-Sled Island date scheduled as well: On May 17 in Seattle, they'll open for the Posies, who will be playing a 20th anniversary show at Neumo's. [MORE...]

Yazoo/Yaz Plan Reunion Tour, Prep Box Set, EP
Get remixed by Hercules and Love Affair

The 1980s sure were a funny time, and here to remind us just how funny are Yazoo (or just Yaz to us Yanks), reunited after over 25 years apart! Vocalist Alison Moyet and Depeche Mode descendent Vince Clarke have cast aside whatever differences kept them from each other for a quarter century plus and planned a big happy reunion tour.

The "Yazoo Reconnected" trek begins May 26 in Copenhagen and winds its way around Europe before hopping the pond and heading to the U.S. in July.

As for whether Moyet and Clarke are buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and throwing their computer out the window because they want to make a new Yazoo record, well, that remains to be seen. But the duo does have a couple releases of note in the pipeline.

The first is In Your Room, a four disc box set collecting both of Yazoo's studio albums-- 1982's Upstairs at Eric's and 1983's You and Me Both-- along with a disc of B-sides and rarities and a DVD collecting music videos, television performances, 5.1 and stereo mixes of both albums, and a short film entitled 2 Albums, 4 Singles and That Was It.... Whew! Mute will unleash In Your Room in the UK and mainland Europe on May 26.

To get folks primed for the box set and help remind them that Yazoo is not, in fact, some kind of internet search engine, Mute will hit overseas audiences with the Nobody's Diary EP on May 12. Available in both 12" and digital formats, the EP sports the classic track off You and Me Both along with a bunch of remixes, including one from Erasure's Andy Bell.

And the newly revived Yazoo is all about the remixes lately, having posted quite a few additional ones to their website in recent weeks-- including Mute labelmate Hercules and Love Affair's take on Yazoo megahit "Situation"! Let that one wash over you by following the link below. [MORE...]

Be Your Own Pet Kick Off North American Tour Tonight

Asses will be kicked. Names will be taken. Youths will be corrupted. Fingers will be separated from hands.

Sounds brutal, huh? Well, duh. It's all part and parcel of the Be Your Own Pet live experience. Jemina, Jonas, Nathan, and John will do their very impressive thing all over North America for the next six weeks or so as they head out tour starting tonight in Anaheim, California.

Note again that this NYLON-sponsored jaunt finds BYOP joined at the hip with the well-coiffed likes of She Wants Revenge, the Virgins, and Switches. Those dudes are gonna get blown off the stage by a bunch of damn kids. Every night. [MORE...]

Andrew Bird Adds a Few Shows, Blogs Some More

Photos by Keith Klenowski

Collaborations, studio sessions and, of course, a little time at the blog spot-- all in a day's work for Andrew Bird. The singer/songwriter/violinist/whistler recently lined up a handful of new dates to go along with the somewhat sporadic itinerary he's made for himself over the next few months, including a run out west with Josh Ritter.

Of course, the infrequency of Bird's tour plans probably has something to do with that record he's working up in Nashville with producer Mark Nevers. Bird again blogged about the process for The New York Times' Measure for Measure blog, and if he's to be believed, the record may sound like an amalgam of Studio One echo, the Zombies, Steve Reich, and "Ghanian street music."

And if that ain't enough genre-bending for your tastes, catch Andrew, Jel and others as they join Dosh at Minneapolis' Walker Arts Center May 3. [MORE...]

Nobody at All Playing Vegoose 2008
Because there won't be a Vegoose 2008

Every autumn since 2005, the Vegoose Festival has helped make Las Vegas, Nevada a safer place for music-minded folk who'd rather toss their dollars at awesome bands than slot machines, strippers, and bloodthirsty white tigers. Every year until this one, that is.

According to a Billboard.com report, Vegoose will not return in 2008. "We're not going to do Vegoose this year," a festival organizer is quoted as saying. "We're not saying it's killed, it's just not going to happen in 2008."

The organizer suggests that dwindling profits in recent years most likely tanked this year's proposed event, as 2007's festivities only brought in about half the attendees and half the revenue as the inaugural 2005 event-- this despite the presence of Daft Punk in 2007.

"The first year we were actually really successful, the second and third years we weren't as much so," the Vegoose rep told Billboard.com "Any time you do a show it has its own unique challenges. We're going to continue to be aggressive and try things, and some will be huge successes and other things may not be."

While Vegoose may have vamoosed this year, Bonnaroo 2008-- put on by the same promoters, Superfly Presents and AC Entertainment-- is still very much on.

Robyn Postpones Two Shows to Play "The View"

Barbara! Whoopi! Joy! Sherri! That Republican Lady from "Survivor"! Robyn!?

Yes ma'am. On Thursday, May 15, you and your morning coffee will be greeted by none other than the pop sensation as she joins the ladies of "The View" as the musical guest.

It's a quick follow-up to Robyn's sublime/surreal stint on "Letterman" last week, which presumably means this American invasion is going pretty well.

Alas, Robyn's time with "The View" has forced her to push planned dates in Portland on May 13 at Berbati's Pan and Seattle May 14 at Neumos back to August to accommodate the taping. That's a bummer, Pac NW, but think about it this way: there's another North American Robyn tour in the works, and it is definitely coming your way.

Somehow, Robyn also managed to find the time to craft a series of six short promotional videos with the help of the Blip Boutique. You saw the one where she does "Bum Like You" for a mess of Texans over in Forkcast yesterday and the album-art-themed clip for "Handle Me" today, but my personal fave is a parrot getting down to "Konichiwa Bitches":

How can we convince this person to sit our American pop stars down for a seminar in how to do this shit properly? [MORE...]

Adem Takes on Aphex Twin, YLT, Bjork, Breeders on LP

Who is that man behind the colorful dots and recently featured in Forkcast? Why it's Adem Ilhan, Kieran Hebden's Fridge bandmate and releaser of solo albums under his own first name. Thanks to the folks at Domino, the third of Adem's solo albums will arrive quite soon. The label will issue Takes in Europe on May 12 and in North America on June 3.

Takes is a covers album collecting Adem's, ahem, takes on some of his favorite tunes released between 1991 and 2001. This includes tracks by Björk, Yo La Tengo, Aphex Twin, Smashing Pumpkins, Low, Tortoise, PJ Harvey, and the Breeders, to name just eight of 12.

Providing an even niftier listening experience, the instrumentation on Takes is typically unusual. There are sounds on the record from an Appalachian dulcimer, an EBow, harmoniums, glockenspiels, a banjolele, an autoharp, and found items such as cups and bike locks. There are also pianos, violins, and acoustic guitars.

Takes' tracklist, complete with original artists in brackets, lies after the jump.

Adem has a handful of shows scheduled this month in support of Takes, all in his native England. [MORE...]

Lil Wayne: Sex Columnist, Thespian, Not Guilty Pleader

"He used to be all about the hustle and the green," some silly person over at VH1.com writes of Lil Wayne, "but these days our boy is dispensing information about the wild thing, too." Ah, yes, they must mean "Lollipop", the fascinatingly terrible chart-topper from Mr. Carter's forthcoming (probably) opus Tha Carter III. "'Lollipop,' the saucy single that's currently rocking the top of the charts suggests that a good romantic relationship is always enhanced by a good physical relationship."

Really? I thought the song was about delicious candy!

But no! It is, in fact, about doing it! And, since talking about doing it comes so naturally to the self-proclaimed "pussy monster," it seems our friend Wayne is currently seeking submissions of queries regarding "love and sex" for a new advice column called "Ask Weezy" he'll be doing for VH1's website. For the next week and a half, you can put your burning questions to Wayne, who'll then proceed to get stoned and tape his responses for airing later in May. We expect a lot of giggling, and perhaps a freestyle verse matching "cup fulla slurpies" with "outbreak of herpes."

But hurry! Wayne already has 1264 questions, and it's only four days into the questioning.

In other news from the wide (weird) world of Wayne, he's set to feature fairly prominently in a new film, Patriots, according to Billboard.com. The New Orleans basketball drama also stars Forest Whitaker and Bow Wow. And earlier today, Wayne pleaded not guilty to charges related to his January arrest in Yuma, Arizona for possession of drugs and weapons. He's due back in court on June 19. (Via MTV.com)

To our knowledge, Tha Carter III is still dropping in June, complete with that fly-from-birth cover art. And Wayne's still got all those shows on the way, with the next in Owensboro, Kentucky Thursday night. [MORE...]

James Blackshaw Preps Cloud Follow-Up, Tours

For the follow-up to last year's well-loved (and Recommended and year end list-making) The Cloud of Unknowing, British acoustic axeman James Blackshaw put the guitar down for a moment to tickle a few ivories-- a Blackshaw first on record.

That said, Litany of Echoes (as the new album is called) isn't a total instrument-swapper like Mingus Plays Piano or something, since Blackshaw is still largely sticking to the finger-picking that he does best. He just happened to throw a little piano on the new disc, as he's been doing quite a bit during his live appearances. Litany finds Blackshaw once again joined by Fran Bury, who contributes violin and viola. The record is due June 17 from Tompkins Square.

Blackshaw has a handful of European tour dates lined up through the spring and summer. The next takes place tonight (May 7) in Spain. [MORE...]

Cluster Plot First U.S. Tour in Ages

Legendary krautrock duo Cluster will return to the U.S. for a round of shows this month. The excursion marks the first time Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius have played most of these cities together in quite some time.

Cluster's U.S. dates find them paired with a whole bunch of different guests at various stops, including Ariel Pink, Wooden Shjips, White Rainbow, Tussle, Howlin Rain, and Arp. The band's Baltimore show goes one step further: It's a freaking festival in their honor! The previously reported Full House Fest boasts a bill that includes Cluster themselves ("at sunset"), Lungfish's Daniel Higgs, Black Dice's Eric Copeland, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and Tickley Feather, among others.

Cluster also have European dates before and after their U.S. tour, while Harmonia-- aka Cluster plus Neu!'s Michael Rother-- play a couple of their own shows, including the imminent ATP vs. Pitchfork event. And hey, Roedelius has a few solo gigs too. Find all that below. [MORE...]

A Place to Bury Strangers Too Loud for Record Press

All the nice people at Meal Deal Records wanted to do was release a limited-edition UK-only A Place to Bury Strangers 10" EP sporting "To Fix the Gash in Your Head", "Ocean", and remixes of both tracks from Lillica Libertine and Clapp, respectively. It was supposed to come out on Monday, May 5.

Then, as usual, A Place to Bury Strangers had to go and be all loud and shit. According to an NME.com story confirmed by a publicist, the "red noise levels" on the master tape for "Gash" were so high that the process of transferring them to disc resulted in the destruction of the equipment manufacturing the record. To add insult to injury, the press was one of the few 10" presses left in the UK. You guys ever think about turning it down just a notch?

All is not lost, however. The 10"s are now due in stores this coming Monday, May 12.

Hopefully things will go more smoothly on the road for APTBS. They're over in the UK right now getting ready for ATP vs. Pitchfork festival this weekend, and then are off to the races with Nine Inch Nails in August. [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.)