Les Savy Fav, Hot Chip, No Age Join ATP vs. Pitchfork
Explosions in the Sky pick BSS, Iron & Wine, Dinosaur Jr., Trail of Dead for 2nd ATP Weekend

Hey folks! LOTS to share today, so pull up a chair!

From 24, down to 18: that's how many names you'd have to pry out of us to learn the full lineup for the previously reported ATP vs. Pitchfork festival, going down the weekend of May 9-11, 2008 at the original All Tomorrow's Parties venue, Camber Sands Holiday Park, near Rye in Sussex, England. Behold, six all new reasons (in bold) to contact a travel agent, pronto:

Chosen by Pitchfork:

Hot Chip
Les Savy Fav
No Age
Of Montreal
Man Man
Los Campesinos!
Caribou
Glass Candy
Dirty Projectors

Chosen by ATP:

Meat Puppets
The Black Angels
Shit and Shine
Sebadoh
Ween
Pissed Jeans
Fuck Buttons
Apse

My oh my! And, with a dozen and a half bands left to be revealed, the likelihood of you seeing a better show anywhere else in the world on this particular weekend is fast approaching nil.

As mentioned previously, the ticket price of £140 includes accommodations at Camber Sands' chalets, which feature private bathroom suites, bars, a swimming pool, restaurants, a supermarket, go-karting, and mini-golf! Tickets for the weekend can be purchased through ATP's website in blocks of four, five, six, seven, or eight.

If you're tied up during our little throwdown-- or if you come by and plan on sticking around a while-- you could always try to make it the following weekend, when the second All Tomorrow's Parties-hosted Weekend of 2008 sets off May 16-18 at Butlins Holiday Resort in Minehead, England.

This one's curated by Explosions in the Sky, and along with a set from the epic Texas instrumental troupe, Dinosaur Jr., ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Iron and Wine, Broken Social Scene, and Adem will take the stage at Explosions' behest.

Around 50 acts will perform at the second weekend, so expect updates to follow. Tickets for the event-- £140 for "Room Only" accommodation and £150 for "Self Catering", and available in groups of 2-7 depending on your lodging selection-- are on sale presently.

Swervedriver to Reunite for World Tour Next Year
They're been gone so long, color photography was invented in the interim

It's been nigh on ten years since Swervedriver's 99th Dream, which even the least casual observer might've pegged their swan song. And perhaps it was: on record, anyway. We'll just have to wait and see.

But for now, these boys-- Adam Franklin, Jimmy Hartridge, Steve George, and Jez Hindmarsh-- have announced an end to their extended hiatus, as the fondly remembered Swervedriver plans to tour the world early next year, breaking almost a decade of silence. The dates have yet to be confirmed; we'll have 'em for you when they are.

Swervedriver's not-so-former-anymore frontman Adam Franklin is currently out shooting Bolts of Melody all over North America. Those dates available after the jump. [MORE...]

Times New Viking Issue Matador Debut in January

With an utter disregard for fidelity and a more than compensatory deftness with all things melodic, Times New Viking have one of 2007's better efforts-- the unduly snoozed-on Present the Paisley Reich LP on Siltbreeze-- under their belts.

To follow, the cacophonic Columbus-based crew have blasted out Rip It Off, their debut for the Matador label, due January 22 (the same day Cat Power's Jukebox arrives via the same label). Stretching sixteen songs tightly over a half hour or so, the disc will-- according to the band's MySpace blog-- birth a single sometime next month.

Looks like they took their labelmates' Ass-beating challenge seriously, too: Rip It Off contains a track titled "Times New Viking vs. Yo La Tengo". Ooh, it's on!

An East Coast tour, too, is in the works, though those details are pending. The band will play Cafe Bourbon Street in their native Columbus tomorrow evening (October 20). [MORE...]

RZA Wins Chess Competition!
Checkmate, Bill Murray

Photo by Daaim Shabazz

Wu-Tang Clan's love affair with chess is well documented, but for as much as they talk about the game of strategy, I personally always assumed it was more of a hobby than anything particularly serious. Silly me, because now Wu leader RZA is a certified Chess King, and he's got the 20-pound, gold-plated leather belt to prove it, according to a HHNLive.com report.

The report names RZA as the winner of the previously reported 1st Annual Chess Kings Invitational, which went down this past weekend in San Francisco. The Abbott's victim in the final round? One of his own: Wu affiliate Monk.

We obviously can't beat him, but we can still join RZA and the rest of the Clan for the release of their new album, 8 Diagrams, on December 4.

Nas Reveals Greatest Hits, Talks Controversial LP Title
No, it's not just Illmatic with "Ether" stuck at the end

Until he finally made nice with Jay-Z and found himself in the Def Jam fold for Hip Hop Is Dead, Nas was a Columbia man. The ace MC's former label has compiled a dozen of Nas' pre-Dead "greatest hits," tacked on two bonus cuts, named it Greatest Hits, and pressed the collection for release on November 6. Not surprisingly, the set leans heavily on Illmatic, with a few highlights from the rest of Nas' Columbia catalogue thrown in for good measure.

There's a pair of new tracks, too, sort of: the Cee-Lo laced "Less Than an Hour", which first appeared on this summer's Rush Hour 3 soundtrack, and opener "Surviving the Times", which appears here for the first time anywhere.

And, as any frequent peruser of the world wide interweb is no doubt aware by now, Nas has stirred up quite some controversy with the title he's chosen for his next LP of new material: Nigger. Nas stood by his choice in a recent interview with MTV.com, however, concluding "We're taking power from that word." It's well worth reading the whole interview; at the very least, check out the portion excerpted here:

"I'm a street disciple. I'm talking to the streets. Stay out of our business. You ain't got no business worrying about what the word 'nigger' is or acting like you know what my album is about without talking to me. Whether you in the NAACP or you Jesse Jackson. I respect all of them...I just want them to know: Never fall victim to Fox. Never fall victim to the shit they do. What they do is try to hurry up and get you on the phone and try to get you to talk about something you might not know about yet.

"If Cornell West was making an album called Nigger, they would know he's got something intellectual to say. To think I'm gonna say something that's not intellectual is calling me a nigger, and to be called a nigger by Jesse Jackson and the NAACP is counterproductive, counter-revolutionary.

"I wanna make the word easy on muthafuckas' ears. You see how white boys ain't mad at 'cracker' 'cause it don't have the same [sting] as 'nigger'? I want 'nigger' to have less meaning [than] 'cracker.' With all the bullshit that's going on in the world, racism is at its peak. I wanna do the shit that's not being done. I wanna be the artist who ain't out. I wanna make the music I wanna hear.

"We're taking power from the word. No disrespect to none of them who were part of the civil-rights movement, but some of my niggas in the streets don't know who [civil-rights activist] Medgar Evers was. I love Medgar Evers, but some of the niggas in the streets don't know Medgar Evers, they know who Nas is. And to my older people who don't know who Nas is and who don't know what a street disciple is, stay outta this muthafuckin' conversation. We'll talk to you when we're ready. Right now, we're on a whole new movement. We're taking power from that word."

The LP is due December 11 via Def Jam and is expected to feature production work from Diddy, Jermaine Dupri, DJ Toomp, and long-time Nas associate Salaam Remi, according to MTV.

Though Nas' tour itinerary-- like that of most rappers-- is a little tough to pin down, he's got a few Australian shows lined up in the weeks to come. Hip-hop may be dead, but those frequent flyer miles don't expire until the new year. [MORE...]

Devendra Banhart Plots European Trek for November
"Mom, dad, I'm taking a month off to go to Europe to find myself. And play some shows."

Photo by Alissa Anderson

Looks like our furry friend Devendra Banhart's about to pull out from his excursion in the mind's eye and embark on a journey of the more literal sort.

Having recently wrapped a good trip through the North Americas on tour, Mr. Banhart will take it Europe-ward next month for a baker's dozen gatherings of the flock, taking a piece of Thunder Canyon to village greens and town squares and so forth.

Actor/studmuffin Gael García Bernal must be entranced by Mr. Banhart's eccentricities (or perhaps just the entangled trail of black, curly hairs he leaves in his wake). Not only does Bernal whoop it up with Smokey, but according to reader Valerie Enriquez, he was at a recent L.A. show, along with a couple Strokes. How nice that those boys can take some time to visit their bud Devendra. [MORE...]

CSS, Ulrich Schnauss Remix Asobi Seksu on New Single
Asobi Seksu tour Europe

Asobi Seksu, dream poppers and warriors in the unending battle against scurvy alike, have found another single in the grove of Citrus.

The buoyant "Strawberries" will see release in the UK November 12 from One Little Indian on two different red 7" records, a CD, and a digital download. "Strawberries" appears in its album form, followed by remixes of the track from CSS, Ulrich Schnauss, and the Whip. Gosh, Ulrich, how many more layers of fuzz does this track really need?

Europe's getting their fair share of Asobi this winter: apart from the single, the band is also touring the continent from late October through early December. [MORE...]

Mick Jones' Carbon/Silicon Prepare Debut LP

Once upon a time, Mick Jones was in the only band that used to matter, the Clash. Tony James did time in in Generation X, the semi-obscure Billy Idol-fronted punk act.

Now, along with ex-Big Audio Dynamite bassist (so, therefore, old pal of Mick's) Leo "E-zee-Kill" Williams, and Reef's Dominic Greensmith on drums, they're Carbon/Silicon. And they've put all those pedigrees to good use for The Last Post, Carbon/Silicon's debut LP, available October 23 from Caroline.

Of course, you may be wondering just how you got all those Carbon/Silicon MP3s long before you could buy their album. Well, Jones and James and have been using the band website to get material to fans for years now, dropping mini-albums and digital-only EPs whenever they saw fit. These old cats are schooling you, Yorke!

The group looks to be firming up a series of Stateside dates at the moment, with November gigs planned (but unconfirmed!) in L.A. and New York. [MORE...]

Deerhunter Add Dates, Atlas Sound Tracklist Revealed
Plus: Bradford does correspondent work for MTV at CMJ

Photo by Jason Bergman

Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox's Kranky debut under the Atlas Sound name, has a tracklist.

Cox, recently in Chicago to mix the record and play with some friends old and new, posted said tracklist on his MySpace (we've also taken the liberty of reprinting it below). He hopes to have the disc available in the early spring, though a concrete date has yet to be set.

Someone must've given Cox carte blanche with MTV's AV cabinet at Wednesday night's Windish Agency showcase at CMJ (more than ably reported on by Pitchfork's own Zach Baron and Marc Hogan in these pages yesterday), as a series of videos of Cox seeking out "all the bands at CMJ that matter" has popped up on MTV's website.

See Bradford and Dan Deacon exclaim things at each other and discuss Dan's misprinted t-shirts! Watch Bradford try to charge a No Age shirt to MTV! See No Age and Bradford discuss their scatological habits! Watch a bunch of girls pamper Bradford just before he goes onstage! Oh, and don't miss a bunch of frustratingly short clips of what already seemed on paper like the festival's showcase to beat.

Hands down, though, the best bit finds Bradford crafting a love note to No Age and taking a couple swings at MTV in so doing. Read along after the jump.

A bit of clicking around reveals Chicago's favorite daughter Kid Sister doing a similar thing at the Fools Gold showcase our Amy Phillips told you about yesterday, and John Norris going wild for "new queen of indie rock," Celebration's Katrina Ford.

Don't miss Pitchfork's own dispatches from CMJ, which continued today and will run through the weekend.

As for Deerhunter, they just revealed their finalized schedule for 2007, which finds them more often than not in Europe. [MORE...]

CMJ: Thursday [Marc Hogan]

Black Kids photos by Jason Bergman; St. Vincent photos by Kathryn Yu; Above: Black Kids

Black Kids [The Annex; 10 p.m.]








Black Kids arrived at Lower East Side dive the Annex with little concert experience outside of their native Jacksonville, Fla., and some lofty expectations to meet. In just a couple of weeks, the indie pop quintet's MySpace page-- where you can download their fantastic, internet-only Wizard of Ahhhs EP-- had gone from about 30,000 views to more than 160,000. Amid heady acclaim from blogs and the UK press, along with ourselves, the group recently signed to the same management company as Björk and Arcade Fire. That fickle mistress, hype, was in the house.

This summer, Black Kids opened their reputation-establishing Athens Popfest set with slapstick dialogue quoted from cult film classic The Labyrinth. At the Annex, in their first prime-time New York appearance, the band gathered near the drum set, and then singing guitarist Reggie Youngblood delivered a couple of lines from Get Lost-era Magnetic Fields: "Baby, you could be famous/ If you could just get out of this town." The words were all too apt, but if many in the uncomfortable squashed crowd at the oversold event caught the reference, maybe they were still waiting to be impressed.

Impress Black Kids did, but not before the unthinkable happened for a young band trying to convert gawkers into fans in the ADD-addled mp3 blog era. Youngblood's guitar amp died as the band kicked off their first song, a non-EP track that might have been their cover of the Clash's "The Magnificent Seven". It wasn't exactly the kind of problem that could be easily fixed. Youngblood was visibly nervous, but he's not the kind of frontman who excels at charmingly awkward self-deprecation-- the rest of the band may bring some twee, but Youngblood's confident swagger usually belies his shaking, Robert Smith-like vocals. "I wanna fight somebody," he quipped. There was some cussing all around.

An eternity and a new amp later, Black Kids returned, and played a set that lived up to all the lofty expectations (a few quibbles about sound quality and seemingly slower tempos aside). Youngblood shimmied and made guitar-solo faces. His sister, Ali, turned out to be the band's secret weapon, shouting out cheerleader chants like the Go! Team's Ninja on non-EP track "Look at Me When I Rock With You", playing the keyboard, waving her hands, or just smiling infectiously. The other keyboardist and backing vocalist, Dawn Watley, wore a short, billowing polka-dot dress, dancing and singing like one of the Pipettes. Bassist Owen Holmes and drummer Kevin Snow made themselves inconspicuous at the back of the stage, but were no less essential.

Best of all, Black Kids managed to keep their music's spirit of fun, despite the tense opening circumstances. On non-MySpace song "I Wanna Be Your Limousine", they oh-wee-oh'd fit for The Wizard of Oz. They caught me with the false ending of "I've Underestimated My Charm Again", which gave way to Motown bounce and an indelible closing line: "Every time we kiss, it's like an inside joke I always miss." And of course, the place came alive for "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You", even if there was more bouncing around than dancing. On my way out, an English gentleman nudged my elbow. "What's that band called?" he asked.

St. Vincent [Knitting Factory; 12 a.m.]

Though Black Kids' amplifier problems seemed pretty egregious at the time, St. Vincent actually spent far longer setting up, pushing the band's start time until well after 1 a.m. Even when the set had begun, waifish singer Annie Clark-- elegant in formal dress and shiny necklace-- continued signaling to the sound guy for adjustments. It didn't distract much of the crowd, though, who were here to hear songs from Clark's first solo turn, St. Vincent's Pitchfork-recommended Marry Me, following her stints with Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree. ("She must be really talented, because she hangs out with Sufjan a lot," a young woman to my left observed before the set...) Live, the gaps between St. Vincent's artier, Kate Bush-like impulses and traditionalist, vaguely jazzy core were more evident. On her album's title track, she took to the keyboard, evoking Feist. She possibly oversold the song's blasphemous innuendos with overt heavy breathing, but it still brought the room to a hush. Elsewhere, her drifting guitar chords and fluttering vocals also brought to mind the late troubadour Jeff Buckley. Still, Clark engaged the best with the audience when her music was the most distant. Veering occasionally into drones and screeching guitar solos, Clark even broke into a smile.

Joanna Newsom Kicks Off Orchestral Tour

Joanna Newsom will give the Ys Street Band a break this fall on her previously reported orchestral tour, which kicks off Sunday, October 21, in Milwaukee.

The tour has grown by half since our original report, making for a six-pack of dates. So shotgun a beer sip some tea, raze the venue nearest you purchase tickets online at your earliest convenience, and get ready to rock the fuck out sway gently to the rhythms of Ms. Newsom and her string-shredding, brass-blowing, and woodwind-wielding companions. [MORE...]

CMJ: Thursday [Zach Baron]

Photos by Kathryn Yu; Above: Bowerbirds

Thunderheist [Highline Ballroom; 8 p.m.]

The Canadian gallery rap duo Thunderheist are made up of a DJ, Grahm, who resides in Montreal and has the endearing habit of timidly doing the choruses at the back of the stage, and an MC, Isis, who was born in Nigeria and who now calls Toronto home. At a time when many were still nursing the previous night's hangover, Isis introduced the scarce crowd to the act's special guest: a bottle of Grey Goose, which she was more than willing to share.

Her producer flipped the Eurythmics-- not the last time this trick would be pulled in the confines of Thursday night's Highline Ballroom-- as well as Baltimore club and electro, the standard grab bags for high-toned club-rap DJs in New York and, apparently, all over. "If ya'll can't get hype, I can't get hype," said Isis, but quickly found the Cognac, France-distilled loophole; a couple dead prez and Soulja Boy interpolations later, she was asking "Where the after party at?" like the night was ending instead of getting started. The crowd was won over: "Way better than Kid Sister," said a friend.

Yo Majesty [Highline Ballroom; 9 p.m.]

"Fuck the flu! New York said be there," said one half of the hoarse but definitely there duo Yo Majesty, though they looked like they barely made it. The Tampa rappers coasted up to New York with a reputation for nudity-- check-- and beats of the ESG, J.J. Fad variety, but they turn out to have more of a regional identity than that: one of 'em, in fact, sounds more like Mystikal than, say, Amanda Blank or Santogold. Makes sense though that they have the improbable downtown following that they do, second Eurythmics sample of the night aside. Confided a nearby and hardened rap writer: "This is my most riot grrrl moment since the 1990s."

Papercuts [Knitting Factory; 9:30 p.m.]




San Francisco's Jason Quever performs as Papercuts, and on tour brings three other guys with him to fill things out-- shades of the commune on which he reportedly grew up? Quever was one of many fighting an uphill battle at CMJ, drifting through earnest, jangling chords and sleepy organ sustains while an anxious crowd fidgeted and talked. His record, Can't Go Back, is wonderfully melancholy and orthodox pop-- the kind of thing that can't quite overcome a crowd that's at the halfway point in their evening, with a few shows down and a few more to go; succumb and you'd be sunk.

Bowerbirds [Knitting Factory; 10:15 p.m.]

Bowerbirds, from Raleigh, North Carolina, come out of the same nature-worshipping circles as the Microphones, and are similarly understated: Undersung male-female harmonies, accordion and plucky acoustic guitar, brushed drums, and the occasional violin. Phil Moore wore a cowboy shirt, enforcing the impression of the band as pastoral clique come to serenade New York about places with cleaner air and calmer evenings-- in a way, welcome respite, though isn't CMJ really about embracing all of New York's miserable flaws? (Full disclosure: Pitchfork's Grayson Currin co-owns the band's former label.)

His Name Is Alive [Knitting Factory; 11 p.m.]

Longtime 4AD soldiers His Name Is Alive returned to New York in a style befitting a band nearing their 20th year in existence: "Buy a copy of our album or we'll have to sleep in the park and eat bugs," said longtime frontman Warren Defever. Long-dormant after an acrimonious parting with 4AD, HNIA struck back with an album last year and two this year; the latest, Sweet Earth Flower, out in November on High Two, will be a tribute to free-jazz player Marion Brown, adding yet another odd-ball album to a catalogue that already includes 4-track bedroom pop, AM-folk, electronica, soul, and two r&b records.

Thursday night saw them in Andy FM-fronted, Patsy Cline country-blues mode, Defever occasionally breaking the frame to shred on his improbable Flying V-shaped guitar. "This song is a sing-along," said Defever, "unless you're chicken."

I was, and headed home.

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.)