Quintron and Miss Pussycat Tour With Black Lips
Auction off custom-made Drum Buddy

New Orleans blippity bloopers Quintron and Miss Pussycat are naturally still in the throes of Mardi Gras at the moment, but in February, they leave all that hedonism behind for the hedonism of an opening slot on a Black Lips tour.

And those prolific Lips aren't Quintron's only cool music pals. Through Mr. Quintron's creation of a run of 10 Drum Buddies, the Dan Deacon-esque custom-made drum machine he plays, he recently jammed with Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed after Anderson purchased one of the machines. Wilco's Nels Cline also snatched one up, and you can too, if you're the winning bidder in an eBay auction for the final Drum Buddy.

Presented by Brooklyn shop Fresh Kills, the auction begins January 26 and ends February 5. More details at the Quintron site. [MORE...]

Photos: Lupe Fiasco [Solana Beach, CA; 01/15/08]

Photos by Natalie Kardos

The crowd was there, the lights were on, and a certain "Superstar" in the making fearlessly took the stage last night at Solana Beach, California's Belly Up. He goes by the name of Lupe Fiasco and he's out there right now drumming up support for The Cool, his ambitious concept-not-concept record and sophomore release. Perhaps you ought to join him? One cannot attain superstardom, after all, without fandom.

The camera was there too, of course, and it took the photos you see here.

LUPE FIASCO




MATTHEW SANTOS

[MORE...]

Update: Radiohead In-Store Moved by Police
Webcast still on

Bad news for anyone making a bee line for Rough Trade East right about now. The previously reported Radiohead in-store, originally set to pop off at the London record shop pretty much now, has been moved to a venue just a wee bit more suited to the quintet's kinda big following.

Radiohead will now perform at London's 93 Feet East, with doors set to open at 9 p.m. UK time. As the guys put it on Dead Air Space, "On the advice of the police and the local council, it was decided to change the venue to the larger one in the interests of public safety and due to the size of the crowd that turned up for the event. Rough Trade and the band apologise for any inconvenience caused." Wait a minute, people like Radiohead?

While folks left out in the cold will no longer be able to view the proceedings on live television monitors, the Radioheadz still intend to webcast everything via their Radiohead.tv thinger. That is all.

The Dutchess and the Duke Sign to Hardly Art

Armed with an eight track recorder and a handful of "wimpy folk" tunes, punk vets turned harmony-minded auteurs Kimberly Morrison and Jesse Lortz became the Dutchess and the Duke. The former members of such bands as Intelligence, the Fallouts, and the Fe Fi Fo Fums have put together their debut album, the winkingly titled She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke, which will be released by Sub Pop sister label Hardly Art at some point in the next few months. (They sure do like male/female duos with pseudonyms over there at Hardly Art.)

Like what you read? You can skip the wait and take a stroll in the band's "Reservoir Park" / "Mary" single, which Lortz released on his label Boom Boom Castle. Or you could check out the band on a couple of upcoming dates in their hometown of Seattle. [MORE...]

Karen O Pens Tunes for Jonze/Eggers Wild Things Film

Photo by Kathryn Yu

No upbringing is complete without a few hundred bedtime readings of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, and no beloved literary relic of childhood is complete these days, it seems, without a major motion picture adaptation. Thus we have Where the Wild Things Are the film, directed by Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" and "Weapon of Choice") and coming to a movie theater near you in late 2008 or so.

Long before we can smile slyly at the possibility of some ignorant parent renting that other Wild Things for the young ones instead of this film, we can get all jazzed about its soundtrack. For that soundtrack, according to a post on blog The Playlist confirmed by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' publicist, will include musical selections from none other than Karen O.

Ex-beau Jonze has enlisted O to write "songs and other pieces of music for the film," according to the website of composer Carter Burwell (previous Jonze films, various Coen Brothers films), who is "helping with the score." As if the hipster quotient weren't through the roof already, Dave Eggers collaborated with Jonze on the script.

No word yet whether the Karen O contributions have anything to do with the lady's long-discussed forthcoming solo record, reportedly produced by Jonze's brother Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel).

And couture hounds and O oglers alike may want to flock on over to designer Christian Joy's website, where Karen is presently modeling Joy's spring 2008 collection [via TheFADER.com].

Yeah Yeah Yeahs have kept otherwise quiet of late, though guitarist Nick Zinner did contribute to the new Hives single.

Matador Reveals Mission of Burma Reissue Details

Photo by William Kirk

No matter how successful a reunion is, there's something special about a great band's initial run. Unfortunately, recent Mission of Burma converts won over by The Obliterati or OnOffOn have had trouble accessing the band's early days, since original documents like Signals, Calls, and Marches and Vs. have been out of print on CD for two years and unavailable on vinyl for almost 20.

Thankfully, the folks at current Burma label Matador are taking care of that. As previously mentioned, Matador will reissue the band's entire Ace of Hearts catalog, remastered and loaded with tons of goodies, on March 18.

For starters, each of the three reissues will come with a 32-page booklet featuring interviews with the band and producer Rick Harte. And if you choose to opt for the vinyl copies, you'll receive the booklets, the same bonus DVDs that come with the CDs, and coupons for complete MP3 downloads, all in between nifty gatefold sleeves.

The brass tacks of each reissue's contents are after the jump. [MORE...]

Sally Shapiro Tours! Remixed by Junior Boys, Lindstrom
Shapiro lines up DJ dates with Johan Agebjorn

Photo by Frida Klingberg

If hell's feeling a mite chilly today and you swear your swine are jumping a little higher than usual, well, know that Sally Shapiro, elusive disco chanteuse known to eschew her public, has just announced her very first live appearances. You read that correctly: Sally Shapiro is touring.

With young dreamers around the globe afflicted with a bad case of Disco Romance, Shapiro and producer Johan Agebjörn have agreed to spend this winter with but a few extraordinarily lucky North American cities. Their tiny but oh-so-welcome DJ tour kicks off March 4 in Toronto and wraps a couple gigs later in Chicago. Is this DJ jaunt a baby step toward a full-blown Shapiro stage show? That, my friends, remains to be seen.

And that's hardly all that's astir in camp Shapiro of late. In addition to Agebjörn's previously reported "Spacer Woman From Mars" 12", Sally Shapiro has another twelve in the works. "Jackie Jackie (Spend This Winter With Me)" lands overseas in February via Permanent Vacation, with a North American release to follow in April. In addition to "Jackie" (a Nixon cover taken from the North American edition of Disco Romance), the single includes another ace Shapiro track and two remixes-- including an offering from the one and only Junior Boys.

The Junior Boys remix will in fact appear on a forthcoming album of such reworkings titled Remix Romance. Paper Bag Records plans to unleash Remix this spring, and Lindstrøm is also expected to partake.

Finally, let's not forget that Sally is up for a couple PLUG Awards. You know what to do. [MORE...]

Bjork Concocts New "Earth Intruders" Single

Front page photo by Ashley Williamson

Ah, now this is the kind of Björk story we like to report. Nary a torn shirt in sight. Just a remix-laden single for "Earth Intruders", the thunderous leadoff track from last spring's Volta. It's available from One Little Indian, who will ship the "double pack" by February 4.

And what an early Valentine's Day gift it'll be! You and/or your sweetie can nab the heavyweight vinyl 12" version featuring four remixes of "Earth Intruders" from the likes of Spank Rock's Armani XXXchange, Jimmy Douglas, Lexx, and Mark Stent or the CD version, featuring all that plus a radio edit of the Lexx mix and a DVD of the Michel Ocelot-directed clip for the song. Who needs the roses and chocolate when you've got a blippy anthem of interplanetary invasion?

One Little Indian is only making up 10,000 of these sets, so you'd better switch your intrusion target to dad's wallet, and pronto. And, hey, while you're at it, why not score yourself some plane tickets to any one of the exotic locales Björk will be playing over the next few months? I won't tell if you won't. [MORE...]

Radiohead Plan In-Store Webcast Tonight

Our Radiohead radars are going all blippity-bloop this morning, which can only mean one thing: Thom Yorke and his cronies are up to something yet again.

This time our sources have determined that the In Rainbows operatives are planning another webcast, following hot on the heels of that quite amusing Thumbs Down dissemination and their New Year's treat, Scotch Mist. The "Rough Trade East" broadcast, as we'll code name it, will indeed be filmed at the new-ish Brick Lane location of the Rough Trade record shoppe in London. Look for it "round about 8" UK time tonight on Radiohead.tv. Say, that's mighty soon!

The Radiohead transmission we've intercepted indicates the band will "play a short set of In Rainbows material." Those in the vicinity of Rough Trade East are advised to leave their computers immediately and line up in the vain hope of securing admission to this evening's free in-store performance (also set to commence at eight UK time). For detailed, confidential documents pertaining to this occurrence, please consult this.

Still under surveillance: those cities Radiohead are expected to infiltrate on tour, the studios of "Later... With Jools Holland", and Zane Lowe's radio dispatches. [MORE...]

These New Puritans Bring Pyramid Across the Pond
Also prep singles, line up shows

Photo by Dean Chalkley

To our British readers, there's nothing particularly new about These New Puritans' Beat Pyramid, which Angular issued in the UK in November. UPDATE: THE ALBUM ISN'T OUT IN THE UK UNTIL FEBRUARY 4. But, as promised, Domino will deliver the band's full-length debut March 18 in North America. The disc, produced by occasional Wire/Liars knob-turner Gareth Jones, falls in line with the knotty, trance-inducing post-punk of the aforementioned mavericks' early works.

But for Puritans fans on either side of the pond, there's plenty of New stuff to go around. Domino will issue a 12" single for the recently-Forkcasted "Navigate, Navigate"-- a fifteen-minute track head Puritan Jack Barnett crafted as the soundtrack to the runway show for Hedi Slimane's Dior Homme Autumn '07 collection-- on February 5. The single will come backed with a remix from DFA co-owner Tim Goldsworthy's the Loving Hand project. UK audiences, meanwhile, will be treated to a single for Beat Pyramid's "Elvis" January 21 February 11 from Angular. That arrives on both 7" and CD.

And Puritanical sorts the world over can cast off their rigid value systems in favor of rock'n'roll, as the Puritans are touring. They'll stick to the UK in large part, but they plan to join the sunburnt sorts at South by Southwest as well. [MORE...]

Good Shoes Issue Think Before You Speak in the States

British sensations Good Shoes felt no need to put any additional shine on their rollicking debut, Think Before You Speak, in the near-year that's passed since its initial UK release and now. Why would they when it already kicks so hard?

So expect the same effective vocal affectations, the same bright and bouncy guitar rock, and the same high quality footwear at low low prices March 18, when Brille issues Good Shoes' Think Before You Speak in the U.S.

These Good Shoes are no loafers, what with a couple of sturdy new tour dates to their name later this month in the UK. [MORE...]

Decemberists' Colin Meloy Readies Live Solo Album
Includes covers, unreleased songs, stage banter

Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy has released tour-only EPs where he Sings Morrissey and Sings Shirley Collins, but what we really want is for him to sing himself-- to remember his spirit, as Oprah would say. He does it all the time in the Decemberists, and he's done it all by his lonesome on his solo acoustic tours. Meloy's self-singing on his 2006 solo acoustic tour is documented on Colin Meloy Sings Live!, which Kill Rock Stars will release April 8 on CD and gatefold double LP.

Included on Sings Live! are songs from Meloy's first band, Tarkio, as well as cuts from every Decemberists full-length pre-The Crane Wife. There is also a tune from the 2006 EP Picaresqueties, two previously unreleased originals ("Dracula's Daughter" and "Wonder"), bits of covers of songs by the Smiths, R.E.M., Pink Floyd, and Fleetwood Mac, and a traditional folk song in debt to Shirley Collins' arrangement.

Squished in between all these goodies are stage banter interludes.

Meloy will head out on another solo acoustic tour this spring, and before then, the Decemberists have those four previously reported dates in their native Pacific Northwest. [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.)