What’s definitely coming out and when it’s coming out! Of course, I only post what I think looks interesting:
(2/16) – Dum Dum Girls – Jail La La 7″ – Sub Pop
(2/16) – Vivian Girls – My Love Will Follow Me 7″ – Wild World
(2/23) – Joanna Newsom – Have One on Me LP – Drag City
(2/23) – Shearwater – The Golden Archipeligo LP – Matador
(2/23) – The Strange Boys – Be Brave LP – In The Red
(3/02) – Rogue Wave – Permalight LP – Brushfire
(3/02) – The Ruby Suns – Fight Softly LP – Sub Pop
(3/09) – Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks LP – Matador
(3/16) – Ty Segall – Caesar 7″ – Goner
(3/16) – Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush To Relax LP – Goner
(3/30) – Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be LP – Sub Pop
Have you started recording your next album?
Yeah, we’ve started recording it. We’re doing it with Lockett (Pundt) from Deerhunter in his studio in Atlanta. The game plan is that we’re not gonna have a deadline. We’re not going to put it out unless it’s amazing. We’re really a live band. I don’t really care if we ever put out a record again. If it sucks, we’re just going to tour. I’m not too worried about our marketing plan. I mean our last records have some great moments, but they all could be better. We’re not putting out another record until it’s all great.
What one of the things that you disliked on the last album that you want to change?
We didn’t let enough people hear it before it came out. I guess we were too worried that it was going to leak, so we hid it from our friends, and you need friends to tell you things. They’ll let you know if it’s bad. This time we’re not going to be so scared to show it to people.
The fact is King Khan and the Shrines have just announced a Spring 2010 in North America. Their little three week jaunt begins in Atlanta, Georgia and ends in Indio, California, which happens to be the site of the Coachella Festival. They are going to be heading up the East Coast to North Carolina, but just when you thought they’d keep going north, they will go west and back south again! They will be playing some major cities in the South/Southwest/Northwest region on route to California. The way I figure it, they will undoubtedly be coming back to Boston in April or May…most likely May. I’m hoping for that.
My boy Young took a beating for this editorial cartoon, which was published in Thursday’s edition of the Huntington News, the independent student newspaper for Northeastern University. Did Young really send “a middle finger” by drawing this? Come on Baby Fart…you Baby Fart.
What’s the best selling album in the United States? Vampire Weekend’s Contra. Not Lady Gaga or Ke$ha or any other crazy hip-hop electro sensation, but Columbia’s own. They sold 124,000 copies in the first week. And they aren’t even on a major label! Word.
If you go to the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah official website, you can listen to their first two albums in their entirety. I will be reviewing them later on, but I thought I would let you know. It’s good music for January 20. On one hand, there is a whole lot of winter left, but on the other hand spring is coming and fun times and warmth are nearing.
Stephen Pope (Former Bassist) Eulogy: When he signed with Matador he called me and said, ‘Stephen, let’s go celebrate.’ So we went to Checkers first and got a few Big Bufords. We got a $4-bottle of champagne. Two or three. Then we went to Men’s Warehouse. He bought a purple and black suit and he forced me to get a purple velvet blazer. Then we went to a spa Downtown, where we decided to get the most expensive couple’s massage. We drank more champagne, got an hour-long massage right next to each other, then we got in a hot tub filled with rose petals and drank more champagne. Then we got a manicure. A gourmet lunch was supposed to be included, but in true Jay Reatard fashion, he said, “Screw that. Go get me a bacon cheeseburger.” So we ate bacon cheeseburgers while getting a pedicure. And I just remember sitting there getting a pedicure with bacon and grease and cheese and champagne all over me, and looking over at him on his cell phone, telling the story of what we were doing right then.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Alexander’s first band, the Renegades, co-helmed by current Lips bassist Jason Swilley, landed a slot in the Dunwoody High School talent show, but the guys got drunk, kicked stuff around, were hooked from the stage and cut from the video. One of their classmates was American Idol host and radio personality Ryan Seacrest, heard locally on KIIS-FM 102.7 and Live 105.5. “We were freshmen, and he was a senior—a total douchebag metrosexual,” Alexander says. “We used to fuck with him in the halls, but he was a senior and had some big friends, and we were scrawny, so we didn’t fuck with him too much.”
Seacrest graduated from Dunwoody in 1993. Unless Cole entered high school when he was 11 years old, this story doesn’t quite add up. Wikipedia has Cole’s birthday on June 8, 1982. If he was supposed to graduate in 1997, he has to at least be at least thirty years old or older right now. He was a senior when Columbine happened. I do remember him saying he was in special needs classes so it could be possible that he was in school for six years instead of four. The bottom line is that he was probably born in 1979 not 1982.
…LA Times…
How did you end up collaborating with The Black Lips and King Khan?
Originally, it came about through my manager Heathcliff [Berru]. The bands were fans of Wu-Tang and I and we decided to perform together. It worked out well; they’re good musicians and we have a mutual admiration and love. The thing is, they were already connecting with me in some way first. I’d never heard their music before, but I was feeling it and when I saw both of those groups perform live, I knew I could work with them. The vibe was there.
Much of current hip-hop — particularly the more mainstream iteration — is characterized by glossy shiny-sounding production. Did some of your desire to work with the Black Lips and King Khan stem from the similarity of their lo-fi aesthetic to the beats you came up rhyming on?
That’s my problem with the stuff today — it doesn’t sound raw and uncut. When the Black Lips sent a track over to me, I thought it sounded like a Beastie Boys track, the way the singer was singing and flowing on it. He was right in the pocket. You don’t get hip-hop that sounds that gritty anymore, you get some Auto-tune, ping-pong computer-made and Casio stuff.
A lot of rappers have tried to chase whatever trend was hot, whether it’s Auto-tune or getting the hottest R&B hookman on a track, but you’ve carved out a different path.
I think it’s about being original and creative. You’ve got to be comfortable with yourself. There’s no set way to do anything. Sometimes you have to go outside the box, sometimes you can do things the standard way. Like you don’t have to have a beat to write a song, sometimes you can write lyrics without the music. A lot of artists think that to be current, you have to follow what’s out there and do something that’s so unlike what you normally do. It can work but it doesn’t if you chase it.
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 