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Robyn, I'm From Barcelona, Shining Play EuroSonic
Plus: Lightspeed Champion, Kleerup, Familjen, Hanne Hukkelberg, Para One

EuroSonic (aka Noorderslag Weekend) is a bit like the CMJ of Europe: 250 bands, few of whom could carry a marquee on their own, gather in Groningen, Netherlands over three days to make themselves known to the industry and just about anyone else who sees fit to pack a long weekend with rock. (Also like CMJ, there are panels and talks too to help the industry folks justifying writing off their bar tabs as business expenses.)

This year's EuroSonic takes place January 10-12, with the likes of Robyn, I'm From Barcelona, Shining, Familjen, Lightspeed Champion, Kleerup, Para One, Hanne Hukkelberg, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Reverend and the Makers, Mugison, Calvin Harris, Blood Red Shoes, Hooverphonic, Yelle, Ida Maria, Lykke Li, Little Dragon, and oh so many others making the trip. If you're stuck behind a desk that weekend, fret not, as much of EuroSonic will be broadcast on the radio via the European Broadcasting Union's many services.
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Karlheinz Stockhausen R.I.P.

Photo by Harald Fronzeck (via Stockhausen.org)

Renowned German composer and electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away December 5 at his home in Kuerten, Germany, according to statement released today by Stockhausen-Verlag. He was 79.

Born August 22, 1928 in a village near Cologne, Stockhausen rose to prominence in the 1950s with a number of pieces that broke decidedly with convention. Across a career that extended into this century, he invoked both awe and controversy with his unorthodox works, noted for their innovation and complexity.

A man content to exist outside the classical establishment, Stockhausen saw his influence extend beyond it as well. Among his advocates were the Beatles, who included the composer on the collage cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The 362 works Stockhausen composed include the world's longest opera cycle (Licht, completed in 2003), the first annotated and published piece of electronic music (1954's Electronic Study II), and a piece for string quartet that also called for four helicopters (1993's Helicopter String Quartet). Like John Cage, he demonstrated a fascination with aleatory composition, that which accounts for an element of chance. Early in his career he was also a proponent of serialism, composition based on mathematical formulas.

Stockhausen studied under Olivier Messiaen and Les Six member Darius Milhaud, among others. He was a highly respected teacher as well, whose students included several of krautrock's prominent figures, including Can's Holger Czukay and Irmin Schmidt.

"In friendship and gratitude for everything that he has given to us personally and to humanity through his love and his music," wrote longtime collaborators Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer in the Stockhausen-Verlag statement, "we bid farewell to Karlheinz Stockhausen, who lived to bring celestial music to humans, and human music to the celestial beings, so that Man may listen to God and God may hear His children."

Licht will be performed in its entirety for the first time at October 2008's Donaueschingen Festival in Germany.
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Kanye, Wilco, Flaming Lips Items in Darfur Auction
Also, stuff from: Decemberists, TVOTR, Gnarls Barkley, Bloc Party, Aesop Rock, Common, El-P

Once again, Waxploitation has united a ton of excellent artists (and sure, some less than excellent ones too) in a benefit for the victims of the conflict in Darfur.

The label's fourth auction for the cause has already begun, and it includes signed guitars and other items from Kanye West, Wilco, the Flaming Lips, the Decemberists, TV on the Radio, Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz, Bloc Party, Aesop Rock, Common, El-P, Coldplay, Thievery Corporation, RJD2, and my personal faves (seriously) Deftones.

There are also unsigned items in the auction from Brian Wilson, Lupe Fiasco, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bob Marley, Julius "Dr. J" Erving, Don Cheadle, Bam Margera, and Adult Swim. You can access the auction here.

100% percent of the auction's proceeds will benefit three organizations: Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam America.

If you'd like to help those organizations' Darfur relief efforts even more, there's also Waxploitation's Causes 1 compilation.
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Dead Meadow Herald New LP With Show, Pre-Release

Dead Meadow will return to the world of non-reissue releases with Old Growth, their new album coming February 5 on Matador.

The band will celebrate the album's release with a show at New York City's Bowery Ballroom on January 16, their only currently scheduled show. But this isn't just any show; it's also a chance for eager beavers to purchase the new record early.

Here's how: Go to Matador's online store, the Bowery Ballroom, or Other Music, and plop down some bills for a ticket to the show and the Old Growth CD. Then bring your receipt to the show's merch table and cash in. Ah, simplicity. [MORE...]
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Waits, Weller, B-more Club on "The Wire" Soundtracks
Oh, indeed

As if we "Wire" geeks needed yet another thing to get riled up about this winter. Two different soundtrack albums to accompany "The Wire"-- one of the finest things to touch TV since rabbit ears-- are due January 8 from Nonesuch.

The first, "...and all the pieces matter" - Five Years of Music From The Wire, contains a sampling of the music the show has employed over its four seasons. It includes several takes on the show's theme-- the Tom Waits-penned "Down in the Hole"-- by the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Neville Brothers, and DoMaJe, as well as tunes from Steve Earle, Paul Weller, Solomon Burke, the Pogues, and others, all interspersed with dialogue culled from the show.

The second, Beyond Hamsterdam: Baltimore Tracks From The Wire, is just as heavy on the club rap native to the show's Baltimore locales as its title would suggest. The disc features such underground cuts as Rod Lee's "Dance My Pain Away", Tyree Colion's "Projects", Diablo's "Jail Flick", Mullyman's "The Life, the Hood, the Streetz", and "What You Know About Baltimore?" by Ogun featuring Phathead.

The booklet for Five Years includes essays from series writer George Pelecanos and hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang, and an interview between the show's creator David Simon and novelist Nick Hornby that originally appeared in The Believer.

The release of both discs coincides with the show's fifth-- and, alas, final-- season premiere January 6. Oh, and in case you hadn't heard, season four of "The Wire" hit DVD this week. [MORE...]
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The Mountain Goats Reveal 2008 Dates

Photo by Kyle Gustafson

After the announcement that their Heretic Pride-- which is definitely not by Queen-- comes out February 19 via 4AD, it was only a matter of time before the Mountain Goats spilled the beans about some tour dates to go along with it.

Well, those beans were spilled, and John Darnielle and co. will hit the road for a couple weeks of West Coast shows in February and March, starting with a trip to Alaska! Jeffrey Lewis & the Jitters, bracing for the January 29 Rough Trade U.S. release of Lewis' all-Crass-covers disc 12 Crass Songs, provide support on most dates. The Goats also still have a trio of UK dates that start tomorrow, December 8. [MORE...]
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Photos: Dewey Cox and the Hard Walkers [Chicago, IL; 12/06/07]

Photos by Joseph Mohan

John C. Reilly is a man of a thousand faces: he's been a WWII sergeant, a lonely divorced man, a race car driver, another race car driver, and even a porn star. But you'd be hard pressed to find a Reilly character with more stage presence or cross-marketing potential than Dewey Cox.

A parody of both Hollywood's recent biopic fascination and our enduring fascination with legendary musicans, Reilly's newest film, Walk Hard, finds him playing Cox, an archetypal dim-witted, womanizing, drug-addled rock'n'roll star. To spread the word about the new flick, Reilly and his ad hoc band have been playing a few dates around the country as Dewey Cox and the Hard Walkers; last night found the act at Chicago's Cubby Bear. Walk Hard hits theaters December 21.








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Sufjan to Play Tibet House Benefit

Photo by Denny Renshaw

Sure, Sufjan Stevens tends to focus on the good old U.S. of A. in his music (assuming he even remembers his own 50 States project at this point), but his most recently announced gig will find him branching out into international territory. On February 13, Sufjan will join Philip Glass, Nawang Khechog, Marisa Monte, and some as-yet-unannounced others at New York City's Carnegie Hall for the Tibet House Annual Benefit Concert.

The rest of Sufjan's 2008 looks to be pretty international as well, with his Australian and Japanese dates scheduled for January. The Down Under dates, we're told, will be supplemented by video projections and a wind and brass ensemble. Stevens' only appearance before that tour is at that rescheduled PENultimate Lit show in Brooklyn this month. [MORE...]
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Bjork "Declares" New Single Details

We were going to put "Declare Independence" at the top of our list of New Year's resolutions, but with Björk's third Volta single of the same name coming out January 1, 2008 via One Little Indian in the UK, it's like she's done it for us. Now the Icelandic singer has revealed the full details of the single, which will come in CD/DVD, download, and 12" formats.

Jarring remixes from Matthew Herbert, Björk's former Sugarcubes bandmate Einar Örn's Ghostigital, and Mark Stent all appear on each version of the single. The two-disc CD/DVD comes augmented with the song's recently Forkcasted Michel Gondry video, Björk's sixth video collaboration with the French director. The download, exclusive to iTunes, features the same tracklist as the CD/DVD, including the video.

Fans have a few more chances to see Björk live (with Ratatat!) before the resolutions kick in, but her 2008 world tour dates remain intact. [MORE...]
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Underworld Reschedule Tour

Between their name and the title of their new record, Oblivion With Bells, Underworld don't seem like the cheeriest of electro-minded duos. Their gloom even got justified this year with member Rick Smith's riot injury and subsequent tour-derailing "severe illness."

Fortunately, there's some light at the end of Underworld's tunnel in the form of a rescheduled European tour that will take place early next year. The new dates cover almost all of the originally scheduled cities. What's more, the guys will do a special Christmas "live jam" webcast from their studio on December 12; tune in here. Hooray for happy endings, even in the Underworld! [MORE...]
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Murdoch, Albarn, Harvey Write Charity Postcards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Less than a week after our subhead suggestion of the merchandising similarities between Belle & Sebastian and Gorillaz, both bands' leaders are part of the same charity auction. Postcards written and signed by Stuart Murdoch and Damon Albarn join offerings from Robert Plant, PJ Harvey, Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett, and Massive Attack's Daddy G, among many others, as part of a benefit for Carers UK, an organization that gives financial and emotional support to individuals who provide unpaid health and social care.

The postcards, which were collected by Nothing to Write Home About authors Michelle Abadie (aka Maj) and Susan Beale (aka Dolly), are up for auction on eBay now.

Murdoch's touching little postcard is pictured above, with one of Plant's four abruptly hilarious ones below it. Among the other celebrity contributors to the auction are actress Helen Mirren and Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London. Check out the full list of participants here.

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Dan Deacon to Greyhound Buses: Fuck You!
"These rats stink like rotten cum. Fuck them with 1000 fires...Eat my shorts you dickless pig fuckers."

Something strange is afoot on the Greyhound bus, and for once, it's not that guy in the trenchcoat who won't stop staring.

Included in this month's issue of electronic music mag XLR8R is a four postcard pullout advertisement emphasizing just how easy it is to traverse America's rock'n'roll underground via the notoriously slow transit system named after the notoriously fast dog. The insert bears the likenesses of Dan Deacon, Baltimore laptop-noise act Wzt Hearts, Japan's Ruins, and a crowdsurfer at a Team Robespierre gig. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, but there are probably better ways to handle publicity concerns than the way Greyhound allegedly did with this foursome. Both Deacon and Wzt Hearts' Jason Urick have publicly complained that they were not contacted about the use of the photos, and, naturally, aren't too pleased.

Urick apparently caught wind of this business first, and made a post to crewcial.org's message board alerting friends and well-wishers to the budding controversy (his alias is "airplaneglue"). His first post asks, simply, "Can you sue if a company uses a picture and a blurb of your band without asking... because apparently Greyhound just did that with us. wtf?" The resulting discussion finds Urick and the rest of the board readers trying to determine just what Urick's legal rights might be in this situation.

In the meantime, Urick contacted friend and fellow B'more resident Dan Deacon, whose history with Greyhound is, apparently, a bit rocky. In a MySpace bulletin posted this afternoon entitled "IN NO WAY DO I ENDORSE OR PROMOTE GREYHOUND BUSES", Deacon railed against the corporation, claiming that no one had asked the permission of either him or New York's Silent Barn, where the shot was taken. He then went on:

greyhound bus company is one of the worst run, bullshit companies i have ever had the misfortune to use. they are a total monopoly and take advantage of that with poor service and price hikes and route cancellation. they have bought all the other smaller companies and run them out of their office in dallas. they treat both their employees and customers like shit. they are a cancer.

since i do not drive i used to use them to get to shows (when nothing else was available). on many occasions i had to cancel shows because the bus would be late, my luggage would get lost/stolen, the over sell their buses, and fuck i fucking hate them.

it really upsets me that i am being used to promote them. if i had my way i would see all their buses transport guns to all the people they have fucked over.

like many evil companies they are trying to use subversive advertising and i will not allow myself to be a cog in their wheel of lies and deceit. these rats stink like rotten cum. fuck them with 1000 fires.

in case this message finds its way to someone in the advertising department of greyhound: eat my shorts you dickless pig fuckers.


Oh, Dan, you always know what to say! [MORE...]

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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.)

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