The Fiery Furnaces Preparing Two LPs for Release

There will now no longer be a 2xCD Fiery Furnaces album, but two separate records that will be released within several months of each other. First up is Rehearsing My Choir, due October 25. This is the album that features assistance from Matt and Eleanor's grandmother, Olga Sarantos. Following that, tentatively scheduled for release in early 2006, will be Bitter Tea. TheFieryFurnaces.net reports that "while Rehearsing My Choir is fully finished, the delay is due to the band still working on Bitter Tea."As always, expanded details are forthcoming.

Now, to prove they still exist: The Fiery Furnaces are already confirmed to play Austin City Limits in September, and Iceland's Airwaves Festival in October. Rough Trade says "the band will be announcing a U.S. tour during September and October shortly for those without passports or unlimited credit."

Somewhere, Rob Mitchum is smiling.

The Fiery Furnaces: http://www.thefieryfurnaces.com
Rough Trade: http://www.roughtradeamerica.com

Interpol Announce North American Tour

These busybodies, still riding high on their sophomore album Antics, will embark on this leg of the neverending tour with barely enough time for a siesta after arriving home from overseas. Throughout September, Interpol will be traveling a whole lot-- from Mexico to the United States to Canada. Yep, that's a North American tour!

Ticket presales and...regular sales will be "announced shortly," says their official site. Good luck scorin' those.

The old and the new:

07-27 Melbourne, Australia - Metro
07-29 Sydney, Australia - Enmore Theatre
07-31 Sydney, Australia - Enmore Theatre
08-02 Auckland, New Zealand - St. James Theatre
08-03 Wellington, New Zealand - Victoria University
08-13 Tokyo, Japan - SummerSonic
08-14 Osaka, Japan - SummerSonic
09-05 Mexico City, Mexico - WTC
09-06 Mexico City, Mexico - WTC
09-07 Guadalajara, Mexico - Foro Alterno
09-09 Dallas, TX - Nokia Center
09-10 Kansas City, MO - Uptown Theatre
09-11 Denver, CO - The Fillmore Auditorium
09-12 Salt Lake City, UT - Kingsbury Hall
09-14 Davis, CA - Freeborn Hall
09-15 San Jose, CA - San Jose Civic Auditorium
09-17 Phoenix, AZ - Peoria Sports Complex
09-19 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel
09-20 Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theatre
09-23 Tulsa, OK - Cain's Ballroom
09-24 Champaign, IL - Assembly Hall
09-25 Ann Arbor, MI - Michigan Theater
09-26 Cleveland, OH - Agora Theatre
09-28 Toronto, Ontario - Kool Haus
09-29 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis
09-30 Portland, ME - State Theatre

href="http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/i/interpol/antics.shtml">Interpol: Antics

Interpol: http://www.interpolny.com/

Adventures in Modern Music Festival Lineup Announced

The event begins on September 21, running its course over a period of five fun-packed nights. Highlights from the lineup include Acid Mothers Temple, Akron/Family, Isolée, Gang Gang Dance, Earth, William Basinski, and Four Tet. The shows go on at 9:00 each evening and will run you $15 each-- a small price to pay considering all these delicious bands.

The festival came to life way way back in 2003 and has quite the record of past performances, which includes Lightning Bolt, Adult., Six Organs of Admittance, Wolf Eyes, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and Xiu Xiu.

2005's schedule goes a little somethin' like this:

>>Wednesday, September 21
Red Krayola
Mandarin Movie
Diverse
Hisham Bharoocha, Tyondai Braxton, and Robert AA Lowe

>>Thursday, September 22
Acid Mothers Temple
Eats Tapes
Akron/Family
Harris Eisenstadt's "The Soul and Gone" featuring Jason Adasiewicz, Jason Ajemian, Jeb Bishop, Jeff Parker, and Sara Schoenbeck

>>Friday, September 23
Isolée<br> Henry Grimes
William Basinski
Daniel Higgs

>>Saturday, September 24
Earth
Gang Gang Dance
Pita
Ghislain Poirier

>>Sunday, September 25
Four Tet
Khanate
Hot Chip
Phill Niblock

* Wire Magazine: <a

The Concretes Recording New LP With Mike Mogis

Mogis, who records exclusively at his Presto! recording studio in Lincoln, Nebraska, has gone a long way to Stockholm to produce the Concretes' new album. While he has worked with non-Saddle Creek bands before, this marks the first time he has left his studio to record in a European studio with a European band. It'll be his first major project in seven months-- during that time, he was on Bright Eyes' world tour, playing with both lineups. It's nice to get out and see the world.

A source at the band's PR company tells us recording is going well and the band intends to come to Lincoln in September to finish the album with Mogis at Presto! The record, which will be released on Astralwerks, is currently slated to be come out in early 2006.

The Concretes have also recently issued a collection of B-sides and other rarities titled Layourbattleaxedown, which is available now from Astralwerks.

The Concretes: http://www.theconcretes.com/

Shudder To Think's Wedren to Release Solo Album

Wedren spoke to Pitchfork from the set of "Stella", where he was getting ready to make out with his real-life fiancée for an upcoming episode. He said the album, which features Kevin March (Guided By Voices, Shudder to Think) as well as some of Wedren's other friends from Stella and Baby, was something he had been sitting on for a little while. He passed the demos to Oberst last fall when Wedren backed him up at a show in New York. "[Team Love] feels perfect for this album," he said. "It's a more organic, somewhat more traditional record, with some of the little jagged edges. It's still very idiosyncratic, I think," he said, "But it's more accessible without being deliberately commercial."

Wedren also said he was pleased to be working on a solo record, since much of his output over the last few years has been collaborations with bands or soundtrack material, most recently for the Michael Showalter film The Baxter, and for "Reno 911!" and "Stella". "It's nice to do something for yourself, as opposed to soundtracks where you don't really have control over the final outcome," he said. Lapland tracklist:

01 Kingdom
02 Night Is Over
03 Do You Harm
04 Wanna Drive
05 Alone in Love
06 Fifteen Minutes Late
07 Rain Diamonds
08 Born Curious
09 Stuck
10 She Don't Sleep
11 Love Among Ruins
12 One Man's Heart

Craig Wedren: http://www.craigwedren.com/

New Liz Phair LP Gets Title, Release Date

Following 2003's cred-neutering self-titled release, the presence of producer John Alagia (Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Jason Mraz) doesn't do much for our reservations, although Phair recently told Spin to expect a slightly less glossy approach than her previous release. "I wouldn't say it sounds like old Liz Phair," she offered, "But it's definitely more band-driven than pop. The last record had a lot more shebang in the production; this has a lot more emphasis on the songs."

And speaking of songs, a full tracklist has yet to surface, but fans wanting a preview of the upcoming album can head over to radio news site FMBQ, which is offering a stream of the first single, "Everything to Me", which is expected to hit airwaves on August 1. Other tracks said to be in contention for the final release have also surfaced online in the past few months, including "Everything To Me", "Giving It All to You", "Part of Me", "Lost Tonight", "Stop By", "Table for One", and the title cut, "Somebody's Miracle".

In related news, a handful of new dates have recently been added to Phair's previously announced late-summer tour in support of the new LP. The 15-date trek is been billed as an acoustic-only affair, with the first show kicking off in Boston this week. And while we're happy the formerly stage-wary Phair has amped up her touring duties as of late, the reviews for her recent Lollapalooza performance have been less than kind, driving ChartAttack's Noah Love to declare it, "No question the most embarrassing set of the afternoon." But hey, soccer moms need concerts too, so don't let that discourage you! Enter the matrix:

07-26 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
07-27 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
07-29 Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live
07-30 Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live
08-01 New York, NY - Joe's Pub
08-02 New York, NY - Joe's Pub
08-04 Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere
08-05 Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere
08-10 West Hollywood, CA - The Troubadour
08-11 West Hollywood, CA - The Troubadour
08-12 West Hollywood, CA - The Troubadour
08-16 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe
08-17 Portland, OR - Douglas Fir Lounge
08-18 San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord
08-19 San Francisco, CA - Swedish American Hall

Liz Phair: http://www.lizphair.com/

Big Star to Release New Album

To be released by Rykodisc, In Space will feature mastermind and principal songwriter Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens, both original members of the classic quartet. Rounding out the lineup are Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of fellow power-poppers the Posies. Auer and Stringfellow have been part of Big Star since 1993, when the group reformed to tour. Tracklist:

01 Dony
02 Lady Sweet
03 Best Chance We've Ever Had
04 Turn My Back on the Sun
05 Love Revolution
06 February's Quiet
07 Mine Exclusively
08 A Whole New Thing
09 Aria Largo
10 Hung Up With Summer
11 Do You Wanna Make It
12 Makeover

Big Star recorded three much-lauded albums in their brief time together, 1972's #1 Record, 1974's Radio City and Third/Sister Lovers, which was released after the band imploded. Formed in 1971 in Memphis by singer/guitarist Chris Bell, Big Star melded British Invasion pop/rock with Chilton's penchant for eccentricity. Bell and Chilton had a turbulent partnership and Bell exited the group in 1972, after the release of #1 Record. Bell later died in a car crash in 1978 at the age of 27. Commercially unsuccessful and ignored during their time, Big Star gained notoriety later when acts such as REM and Teenage Fanclub cited them as major influences-- not to mention the Replacements' song "Alex Chilton".

Rykodisc: http://www.rykodisc.com/

Sony Busted for Payola!

According to a press release from Spitzer's office, the payola occurred in several forms, including the following: "Outright bribes to radio programmers, including expensive vacation packages, electronics, and other valuable items; contest giveaways for stations' listening audiences; and payments for 'spin programs', airplay under the guise of advertising."

An email found during the investigation, from one executive at Epic to another, read: "At the end of the day, [David] Universal added Good Charlotte and Gretchen Wilson and hit Alex up for another grand and they settled for $750."

Another, from an Epic employee to a Clear Channel programmer looked like this: "WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET AUDIOSLAVE ON WKSS THIS WEEK?!!? Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen."

You can't make this shit up, folks. To pay for their crimes, Sony has agreed to donate $10 million to non-profit charities and music education programs. Don Henley, of Eagles fame, commended Spitzer for "successfully addressing the pay-for-play problem. There is no question that payola hurts recording artists. The Recording Artists' Coalition is grateful to him and his staff for exposing the magnitude of the payola problem and for getting a major label to agree to change the way it does business."

In a statement, the label said: "Despite federal and state laws prohibiting unacknowledged payment by record labels to radio stations for airing of music, such direct and indirect forms of what has been described generically as 'payola' for spins has continued to be an unfortunately prevalent aspect of radio promotion. Sony BMG acknowledges that various employees pursed some radio promotion practices on behalf of the company that were wrong and improper and apologizes for such conduct. Sony BMG looks forward to defining a new, higher standard in radio promotion."

What does this mean for you, the music listener? Hopefully it's a sign we'll be hearing a lot less Good Charlotte on the radio. Fans of good music everywhere thank you, Mr. Spitzer. He can likely count on the New York hipster vote when he runs for Governor in 2006.

Eliot Spitzer 2006: http://www.spitzer2006.com/

The Strokes Reveal More Details on New LP

An interview with generally tight-lipped singer Julian Casablancas offers a number of nuggets, as he speaks at length about the sessions for the new LP-- starting with the band's experience working with producer, David Kahne. "I think he's really cool," Casablancas says. "I think when you first meet him though, you can sort of get caught in the façade. He has a very technical knowledge and he'll be very quick to casually spew it out. You might think he's just some serious slick hit-maker and that he doesn't care about music, but that's what he's all about: music. He cares about it so deeply that if you change a little part, and you're hurting the song, he'll cry."

Kahne, who previously produced albums by Paul McCartney, Sugar Ray, and the Presidents of the United States of America, originally seemed like an odd choice for the band, whose sound is so deeply rooted in New York lo-fi cool, and Casablancas also admits to creative tension in the studio. "He likes that atonal modern stuff, so he doesn't mind being weird and original, and that's what he prays for. But then, sometimes something that just has a cool thing that's not popular, he'll want to transform it into something that could be more accessible, but all it's coolness is erased. That's the main compromise that we have trouble with. I mean sure, I understand on every mindless level why it's, like, pleasant, but no, it's not what I want to sing. It's the difference between lame and cool."

Potential lameness aside, Casablancas also sheds some light on the album's ever-lengthening production cycle, which we've been reporting on since, oh, the summer of 2004 (but who's keeping track?). "I guess the game has changed," he shares. "It's a new sort of approach. I always felt that it [Room on Fire] was sort of Part 2. Is This It was sort of a two-parter. Like the first 22 songs. It's such a different process. I have a lot more trust now. David gets seriously good sounds, and I don't even have to be there when they do the drums and bass and most of the guitars. I think we realized that what we wanted is not some professional slickness to our music, it's the mixture of someone [Kahne] who has that kind of knowledge, with the kind of thing that we want-- which is something that doesn't exist too much. So it's hard, we're sort of inventing it as we go along."

With the band's previous two records so similar in delivery, plus or minus a couple Cars riffs, fans have ultimately been left wondering how the new record will sound without longtime collaborator Gordon Raphael behind the console. "I've sort of made sure there are no parts there that are impossible [to play live]. Some things on the drums are going to be tricky, and Albert may have to mimic two rhythms at times, but it's all do-able. It's not like we have a lute and a harp and it's going to be there live. There's delay on it. I never liked it, but now it's sort of everywhere on the record. Not crazy 80s reverb, just enough to give a lot of the instruments space so it sounds fuller, bigger, and louder, and what I used to call 'more professional.'"

As for the album's current status, the Strokes are now holed up in a New York City studio mixing a total of 14 tracks for the disc with Andy Wallace (Bruce Springsteen, Nirvana, Jeff Buckley). And although it's stressed that they're still unsure how many of the songs will make the final cut, the three tracks we told you about last month-- "Vision of Division", "Razor Blade", and "Ask Me Anything"-- have been confirmed as definite members of the hallowed tracklist. Previous speculation that the album will see a January 2006 release is also confirmed, although a date has yet to be specified (hey, who needs the Christmas sales-- not the Strokes!).

And while Strokes newsletters aren't flying off eBay like they used to, the fan club package also shipped with an exclusive band DVD, which includes a 1-track live clip of "Reptilia" taken from the group's performance at the 2004 Big Day Out festival. And while cool and all, after a couple spins, my inner Ebert says save your auction cash, as it's hardly a professional affair-- looking more like a film school editing project than David LaChapelle wet dream. But since most of you tend to grade the Strokes on a Grand Canyon-sized curve, Paypal away, kids!

In other Strokes news, New York Post's Page Six reports that guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. is opening a New York club with comedian/actor David Cross. The pair and two others are buying into Lower East Side nightclub Eleven, a three-level space. Both the current owner and promoter will remain on, while Cross' girlfriend, Sara Egan, will manage the club.

Finally, as previously reported, the Strokes have also announced plans to tour South America this October-- specifically Brazil, Argentina, and Chile-- although those details are also coming together (sorry live dates, take a number). A large-scale U.S. tour is also supposedly in the works after the new album's release early next year. We'll keep you posted.

The Strokes: http://www.thestrokes.com

Prefuse 73 Readies September U.S. Tour

09-08 Boulder, CO - Fox Theatre
09-09 San Francisco, CA - 1015
09-10 Portland, OR - Roseland Theater
09-14 Austin, TX - The Parish
09-15 Chicago, IL - Abbey Pub
09-16 Cambridge, MA - Middle East
09-17 Miami, FL - I/O
09-18 New York, NY - Rocks Off Concert Cruise
09-22 Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn
09-23 Tallahassee, FL - Club Downunder
09-24 New Orleans, LA - TwiRoPa

And while the outfit have already dropped multiple releases this year (including the full-length Surrounded by Silence, as well as the recently issued EP Reads the Books), the Prefuse website assures that even more band activity is being committed to tape at this very moment, with a lengthy post from Herron proudly stating "I'm pre mastering a full length record I've recorded over the last year with Claudia Deheza who you might have heard on the past Prefuse 73 album. These recordings are literally the most beautiful and cherished things I've musically been involved in."

Herron goes on to note a number of other side projects currently in the pipeline, including "my most ambitious Savath y Savalas albums ever," as well as a number of tracks for Spanish director Roger Gual's upcoming film, Remake, and finally-- a new band he's forming with Tyondai Braxton (Battles) and Hisham Bharoocha (ex-Black Dice, Soft Circle).

While details of the unnamed band project are scant, he did offer the following insight: "Me and Ty recorded some song over the weekend and it's niceness. Since Tyondai is doing mad shit right now, I foresee me and Hisham getting busy soon, then bringing it all in together. Don't expect anything. This is just music between 3 friends that want to do something we normally don't do."

Prefuse 73: http://www.prefuse73.com

Mountain Goats Plan Fall Tour

08-25 Durham, NC - The Duke Coffeehouse
10-12 Urbana, IL - The Canopy Club
10-13 Chicago, IL - Open End Gallery
10-14 Chicago IL - Empty Bottle
10-15 Kalamazoo MI - Kraftbrau Brewery
10-17 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace
10-18 Buffalo, NY - The Buffalo Icon
10-20 Washington, PA - Uptown Theatre
10-21 Pittsburgh, PA - Andy Warhol Museum
10-27 Boston, MA - Museum of Fine Arts
10-29 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom

The Mountain Goats: http://mountain-goats.com

The Police Plan Synchronicity DVD

Hit Police singles, from Synchronicity and beyond were remixed in 5.1 Surround Sound for the DVD, which also includes rare interviews with the band, a theatrical trailer, additional multi-angle footage from another Synchronicity concert in Montreal, and interviews with the band from their final concert in Melbourne in 1984. As for the main show, it goes like this:

01 Intro
02 Synchronicity I
03 Walking in Your Footsteps
04 Message In a Bottle
05 Walking on the Moon
06 Wrapped Around Your Finger
07 Hole in My Life
08 King of Pain
09 One World
10 Tea in the Sahara
11 Oh My God
12 De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
13 Every Breath You Take
14 Can't Stand Losing You
15 Spirits in the Material World
16 So Lonely
17 Credits

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.)