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Pitchfork Seeks Web Developer

Pitchfork seeks an enthusiastic web developer with webmaster/content management experience to work full-time as a multi-faceted technologist in our Chicago or Manhattan office to maintain and develop multiple high-traffic, Drupal-based sites. Work environment is creative, fast-paced, and Mac-based with competitive pay and benefits. Most day-to-day tasks deal with the development and maintenance of a frequently updated e-zine. Job requires round-the-clock availability (when needed).

All candidates must possess:

* Expert level knowledge of PHP, MySQL, Apache and Unix/Linux
* Intermediate level experience with Drupal, JS, and jQuery
* Passion for standards-based XHTML/CSS layout

* Webmaster/Content Management experience
* Experience administering large-scale sites
* Strong non-technical communications skills
* Knowledge of video codecs and compressions a plus

Interested parties should send a resume to jobs@pitchforkmedia.com, along with a link to your portfolio, and references from previous clients/employers.

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Wilco, Bright Eyes, Wrens on Rock the Net Compilation
Also: Portastatic, DJ Spooky, They Might Be Giants, more to come

DC-based non-profit Future of Music Coalition is celebrating the first anniversary of its Rock the Net campaign. To celebrate a year of fighting the good (and somewhat confusing) fight for network neutrality, the campaign is assembling a compilation called Rock the Net: Musicians for Net Neutrality.

The full list of the compilation's contributors has yet to materialize, but it is shaping up nicely with confirmations from Wilco, Bright Eyes, the Wrens, They Might Be Giants, Portastatic, and DJ Spooky. And there is still time for other artists to join the fold, as Thirsty Ear Recordings is preparing the comp for a June release.

On the legislative tip, strides are still being made for net neutrality. Congressmen Ed Markey (Democrat, Massachusetts) and Chip Pickering (Republican, Mississippi) recently introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act to the House of Representatives in an attempt to set guidelines for net neutrality. And on March 11, singer Damian Kulash of founding Rock the Net band OK Go will testify to the issue's importance for musicians before the House Judiciary Committee.
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Langerado Kicks Off Tonight in Florida Everglades
Festival features R.E.M., Beastie Boys, Roots, National, Of Montreal, !!!, Dan Deacon, Walkmen, Built to Spill. But no Vampire Weekend.

Amidst the curious stuff (Early 90s lite-rap troupe Arrested Development! The resurrected Blind Melon!), the jammy stuff (Phil Lesh, Disco Biscuits, Umphrey's McGee, etc.), and the giant cartoon alligators (look left!), they're gathering in the swamps. Who? Why, R.E.M., Built to Spill, the Beastie Boys, the Roots, the National, Of Montreal, !!!, Dan Deacon, the Walkmen, Blitzen Trapper, Shout Out Louds, Minus the Bear, Dr. Dog, Antibalas, Pelican, Busdriver, the Postmarks, Josh Ritter, Matt Pond PA, Thievery Corporation, Earl Greyhound, and many, many more bands.

And why? Why, that's easy. It's the Langerado Festival, which kicks off its sixth incarnation tonight at the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation in the South Florida Everglades. Those wetlands will be rocked to their core well into Sunday, March 9.

Note, of course, that Langerado will have to make due without Vampire Weekend, who'll be up in New York City playing Hillary Clinton apologists one of their peppy jams on "Saturday Night Live". Still, the rest of the lineup (including, yes, 311) is intact and ready to roll throughout the weekend.

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We Are Scientists Display Mastery on LP, Tour
Mastery of having a confusing band name

What is brain thrust, and how might one master it? And what in the heck is that We Are Scientists band up to these days?

These questions, and not all that many others, will be answered when Brain Thrust Mastery, the sophomore set from We Are Scientists, hits shelves via Virgin on March 17 in the UK and March 18 in the U.S. The disc has been preceded by the single for "After Hours", out this week.

After wrapping up a brief round of in-store performances in the UK, the band will return to Europe for a tour from late March through early May. Their fellow New Yorkers Oxford Collapse will open a good chunk of those dates.

And apparently they've been covering Nickelback lately. Haha, very funny, guys. [MORE...]

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Sonic Youth, Sunn 0))) Members, Fennesz Contribute to Table of the Elements Singles Series
So do Rhys Chatham, Belong, Benjamin Curtis (School of Seven Bells, ex-Secret Machines)

In 1993, weird little label Table of the Elements issued Guitar Series Vol. 1 and Guitar Series Vol. 2, a pair of limited edition 7" records containing solo guitar performances by some of experimental rock's titans. Folks like Jim O'Rourke, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Derek Bailey, and Keiji Haino (like I said, titans) flaunted their fretwork for the sets, which sold out immediately and subsequently became the stuff of record-nerd legend.

Flash forward 15 years, and you've got Guitar Series volumes three and four, emerging over the course of 2008 from the still weird but not quite as little Table of the Elements. A dozen artists contributed tracks to the series: Thurston and Lee (though not together-- those dudes really oughta form a popular rock band to pass the time between rarified geekery), Christian Fennesz, Rhys Chatham (commanding a guitar army), Sunn O)))'s Stephen O'Malley, Collections of Colonies of Bees, Belong, Oren Ambarchi, Ateleia and Benjamin Curtis (of School of Seven Bells, ex-Secret Machines), Andrew Burnes and David Daniell of San Augustin, and Jon Mueller of Collection of Colonies of Bees.

Each track will be carved into a clear vinyl 12", with an etching on the flipside from noted UK illustrator Savage Pencil. The first two-- from Collections of Colonies of Bees and the Ateleia/Benjamin Curtis combo-- are due May 20, with the rest to follow throughout 2008. A portion of the proceeds will go to Sweet Relief, which provides services to ailing musicians. And yes, once again, the series is limited edition.

In other Table of the Elements news, Chatham's "GUITAR TRIO IS MY LIFE!" live album, featuring contributions from members of members of Sonic Youth, Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor/A Silver Mt. Zion, Hüsker Dü, Fog, Final Fantasy, and more, is out this week. And the label will hold their SXSW showcase Thursday, March 13 at the Hideout Theatre. Collections of Colonies of Bees, Megafaun, and Northampton Wools-- a collaboration between Thurston Moore and Bill Nace-- highlight a bill that also includes Neptune, Melissa St. Pierre, Carlos Villarreal and Jon Mueller.

Look at these things! They're gorgeous!

 

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Robyn to Issue "Who's That Girl" Single

Front page photo by Kathryn Yu

Produced by the Knife and possessed with an icy groove belied only by the ebullience of its singer, Robyn's "Who's That Girl" is a standout among standouts on her 2005 self-titled LP we're so fond of over here. In April, "Who's That Girl" will get its own UK single on Konichiwa, with remixes of its titular track by Seamus Haji, Rex the Dog and Drop the Lime. Director Diane Martel-- who, among her other credits, recently helmed the clip for the White Stripes' "Conquest"-- will direct a video for the track to be released around the same time.

The album version of the song is out now as a digital download in the UK, with the radio edit coming April 14. The CD and vinyl versions of the single will be out April 21.

Robyn recently made good on a long-promised trek to the U.S., and she'll hop yet another plane for the States in March to rock the shit outta SXSW. Who's that lanky so-and-so in the front? Oh, yeah, that'd be me.

Robyn the album finally hits U.S. shores in April, via Konichiwa/Cherrytree/Interscope Records. And, shit, if you live in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, you can watch Robyn hosting MTV's "TRL" this afternoon. Nice!

Check out our recent interview with the lady herself here. [MORE...]

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Smoking Popes Down With Flameshovel for New LP

Photo by Hayley Murphy

Beloved (and reunited) Chicago pop punk veterans Smoking Popes have signed to hometown indie label Flameshovel to release their first album of new material in over 10 years. (The Party's Over, an album of covers, came out in 2003 after being held up by industry red tape for five years, and 2006's At Metro was a live collection of previous material).

The studio follow-up to 1997's Destination Failure is tentatively titled Stay Down, and Flameshovel will release it this fall. And hey, speaking of 10-year gaps-- that's the exact amount of time by which the Popes' existence pre-dates their new label's.

For an early taste of Stay Down, head on over to Smoking Popes' MySpace to hear "Welcome to Janesville" and "Grab Your Heart and Run". Sounds like the quartet still knows its way around a melody. Good work, fellas!

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Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan Team Up Once Again

His voice is pretty damn foreboding, but Mark Lanegan must be an agreeable guy in person. Saturnalia, his collaboration with head Afghan Whig Greg Dulli as the Gutter Twins, just came out this week, but he's also revisiting his partnership with former Belle & Sebastian member Isobel Campbell on a second album.

Campbell and Lanegan's follow-up to 2006's Ballad of the Broken Seas is called Sunday at Devil Dirt, and it will come out May 5 in the UK on V2/Cooperative Music. Like Ballad, the new album features Lanegan tackling lead vocals while Campbell handles the writing, production, and arrangements.

There's no touring planned behind Sunday at Devil Dirt at the moment, but Lanegan has plenty of Gutter Twins dates to keep him busy for now, including a bunch of newly added European ones. That duo's next show is Friday, March 7, in Chicago. [MORE...]

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Chris Corsano's Young Cricketer Gets Vinyl Release

Experimental drummer extraordinaire Chris Corsano has worked with the likes of Björk, Thurston Moore, and Jandek. On his latest project, The Young Cricketer, Corsano's got another awfully talented collaborator: himself.

Originally self-released on CD-R, Cricketer showcases the percussive powerhouse banging on just about everything but the kitchen sink. The 16-track album has been remastered by J.J. Golden for a vinyl release this week on Family Vineyard. The label only pressed 600 copies, so if you're aroused by such a clatter, you might wanna act fast.

Check out the rather ridiculous tracklist below. [MORE...]
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Edwyn Collins Puts Together a Tour

Considering he was facing some life-threatening ailments less than three years ago, Edwyn Collins has been making serious strides getting back on his musical feet.

Last fall the onetime Orange Juice frontman released his sixth solo offering, the superb Home Again, and this spring he's poised for a full-on return to the road.

This tour, as we can safely call it, follows a few scattered live engagements for Collins late last year. It begins April 20 in Birmingham, England, and wraps up just over a week later in London. All too soon, really, but any opportunity to witness this member of the Scottish indie pop royalty doing his thing is a welcome one indeed.

Many thanks to reader Jono Henderson for the tip! [MORE...]
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Numero Starts New Series With Recording Tap Comp

The tireless compilers at Numero Group kicked off their newest series of compilations this week with the CD release of Don't Stop: Recording Tap. This first Don't Stop volume is a chronicle of Jeremiah Yisrael's disco label Tap Records, the source of a couple 12" singles Numero Group has already reissued. Those tunes from Fabulous 3 MCs and Jackie Stoudemire make appearances on Recording Tap, as do contributions from Arnie Love & the Lovettes, Magnetism, and Bonnie Freeman, among others.

For the Numero fanatics who don't mind waiting for the vinyl, the compilation comes out on LP April 8. Just like the CD, the vinyl comes with two booklets, one telling the story of Tap and the other reprinting sheet music selections from Tap's songbook. But unlike the CD, the 3-LP package is limited to 3000 copies and includes a bevy of bonus tracks. [MORE...]
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New Gnarls Barkley Video Too Hot for TV
Plus: New album tracklist

For those of us who spend most of our daylight hours staring at computer screens, Gnarls Barkley's video for "Run"-- the first single from sophomore album The Odd Couple-- is par for the visual course. In fact, it's downright pleasant in comparison to, say, the spazz-out that is M.I.A.'s website.

According to a Billboard.com report and an email from Gnarls' management, however, it turns out the video is not yet fit for MTV airplay. Because of its strobe effects, the video failed the Harding Test, which is used to tell whether or not televised images might trigger epileptic seizures.

While the Happy-directed, Justin Timberlake-starring video obviously needs editing to comply with the Harding Test's standards, Danger Mouse told Billboard.com, "I think [the video] is cool. It works for me. But I'm not necessarily that easily seasick. We can't predict how people are going to interpret it."

The video is currently being tweaked, with designs for it to "premiere" (ha) on MTV's "TRL" tomorrow afternoon.

UPDATE: Apparently all this only applied to the UK, not the U.S.A. The video that is airing tomorrow hasn't been edited. Guess British people are more easily made nauseous than Americans?

Maybe Danger Mouse and his Gnarls Barkley partner Cee-Lo should just wait to tease The Odd Couple with the video Chris Milk is directing for second single "Who's Gonna Save My Soul".

The Odd Couple is set to hit stores via Downtown/Atlantic on the previously reported release date of April 8. The Billboard.com story also gives us an album detail we didn't have before: a tracklist. Check it out after the jump.

They're still planning a summer U.S./European festival tour, but Gnarls Barkley's only confirmed date remains their July 27 appearance at L.A.'s Hollywood Bowl. [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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