Au Revoir Simone Kick Off World Tour Tonight
Play many a date with Peter Bjorn & John, Voxtrot

Tonight, bevy of Brooklynite key-pressin' beauties Au Revoir Simone will set off on a lark through the violent yet flammable world, furthering their France fetish, pairing them with their pals in pop-polish Peter Bjorn and John and Voxtrot, and giving them a chance to get uncomfortably close to Au Revoir aficionado David Lynch.

Shhh, don't tell: ARS's second full-length exercise in understatement, The Bird of Music, finally sees its previously-announced U.S. release May 15 from the band's own Our Secret Record Company. Or it can be yours through a few popular digital music emporiums right now if you're so inclined to seek it out. [MORE...]

Lily Allen Talks Canceled U.S. Dates
"I've been getting really drunk in order to even look at the stage, and I don't think it's fair to take money off of people when the show isn't going to be very good."

Is some mysterious ailment afflicting Great Britain's pint-sized pop stars, rendering them effete and malcontent? First an exhausted and "massively disappointed" Lady Sovereign shelves her UK dates, then Lily Allen follows suit, axing a good portion of her U.S. commitments and joking about finding the reality of pop-stardom a "huge disappointment."

Turns out Lily's pretty much sticking to the story she told on MySpace the other day. Speaking to Pitchfork yesterday, Lily chalked up the cancellations to "lots of things."

"Firstly, you know, I released the album Alright, Still in July in England," said Lily. "I've been touring with it all over the world since then, and I think most people usually release the albums in England and America pretty close within each other. I just feel like it's been dragged out for so long, and that-- you know, the show isn't as good as it was, because I'm having to sing so much. And I've been getting really drunk in order to even look at the stage, and I don't think it's fair to take money off of people when the show isn't going to be very good. So that's the first thing.

"And also, I'm pretty tired. I want to get the second album out, and I'm not going to be able to do that if I'm touring. So I'm going to stay in America and do all the kind of promotional commitments I have to do, which is all the TVs and radios and stuff, and I'm still going to do all the radio[-sponsored] shows that I was asked to do in the first place, so it's only about half of the shows that have been canceled."

So that second album...? "I've got some ideas, but I'm not going to say what they are," said Lily with a laugh.

Lily's festival dates, too, will go on as planned. "That's one of the other reasons," said Allen. "I'm getting paid quite a lot of money to do all the festivals, and I don't want to have worn myself out with the little gigs [and] be really tired for the festivals, which have much bigger audiences.

"And also, it costs so much money to go on tour! And I'm not earning that much, so yeah."

The response from MySpace friends has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive, but Lily says bollocks to the haters out there. "I'm not giving up on anything," Allen insisted. "I'm just doing it in a different way. And I think you actually reach a bigger audience if you're doing the radio interviews and playing radio shows and doing the TVs-- and ultimately, I think, my hardcore fans have already been to see my shows. The people who haven't heard of me yet, or who haven't seen me play, can wait till the next album, because I'll be back."

Scope Lily's remaining dates just after the jump. [MORE...]

Black Lips Talk New LP, Side Projects, Hippies
"A lot of people are trying to say that Black Lips are a punk band. But in Atlanta, if you're called a punk, that means you're, like, a little bitch. So we just want to set the record straight: we're not punk."

Between playing approximately 662 shows at a certain Austin festival-- which led to their being designated "the hardest working band at SXSW" by The New York Times-- and prepping to take the EU by storm, Black Lips managed to squeak in a few words with Pitchfork.

One of Vice Records' latest signings, the Atlanta punk-rockabilly quartet has already recorded the follow-up to this year's live album Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo. Oh wait, make that Atlanta flower punk quartet.

"People will slap terrible descriptions on us," Lips drummer/vocalist Joe Bradley told Pitchfork, "so we're going to call ourselves 'flower punk.' We don't need a term to generalize everything. I heard us called rockabilly before; I didn't know we played rockabilly. Flower punk is tough, but wimpy. Ugly but beautiful." Frank Zappa would be proud.

Flower punk, it should be noted, is quite different from regular old punk. "A lot of people are trying to say that Black Lips are a punk band," Joe lamented. "But in Atlanta, if you're called a punk, that means you're, like, a little bitch. So we just want to set the record straight: we're not punk."

No little bitches, these hard-working flower-punkers hope to have the new disc out in early September-- which would make it the second Black Lips full-length already this year. They've recorded and mixed 19 tracks, and plan to pare those down to around 12 or 13. "The songs are so short that [Vice] might put on more," Bradley said, "but we don't want any more than that."

Song titles include "Veni Vidi Vici", "Navajo" ("about Native Americans") and "How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died?" ("that's a country one"). Claimed Bradley, "there's a bunch of different types of songwriting on there. We had a song that's, like, satanic jungle music, and then the country song and a punk song...a brutal song...tons of shit."

You'd think the Black Lips would keep the boys busy enough, but bassist/vocalist Jared Swilley has plenty more on his platter. "I have a doo-wop group with Bradford [Cox] from Deerhunter and this other girl, but we never get to play because we're never in town at the same time. Hopefully in April we'll get to record an EP or something." [MORE...]

Radiohead Post Extremely Brief Song Clip

Oh Radiohead, why do you tease us so?! Go to Radiohead's website. Click on "HODIAU DIREKTION". Listen. For the next, oh, ten seconds or so, you will hear what appears to be a clip of the new song "15 Step", according to the fansite Ateaseweb.com.

The song was played on the band's tour last year, and fans are so desperate for new material, they've obsessed over it enough to be able to identify it from a few brief moans and synth bloops. Come on Radiohead! We're dying out here!

In other Radiohead news, various reports have suggested that the rare 2004 Com Lag EP, previously available only in Japan, is being reissued in the UK and U.S. this spring. However, both Radiohead's U.S. publicity and UK label expressed doubt about this, and the sole source seems to be Amazon.com listings, with ever-shifting release dates.

Bill Callahan Drops Whaleheart a Week Early in Texas

When you've romanced both Chan Marshall and Joanna Newsom like Bill Callahan has, you can pretty much do as you please: stick arbitrary parentheses around your long-standing pseudonym, drop said moniker altogether and issue one of the finest albums of your storied career, and make sure that the un-mess-withable folks of the Lone Star State get a crack at your latest jams a full week before everyone else.

Though the artist formerly known as Smog's rousing rebirth record Woke on a Whaleheart will blow up spots continent-wide April 24, Texans can pick up Whaleheart right now. (Drag City is doing the blowing up.) Not only that, but they're the only state in the nation Callahan's playing on his current tour, which will lead him UK-ward for a few dates around the turn of the month. Those drawl-free types dying for a Whaleheart fix can pick up the "Diamond Dancer" single, which was issued sans geographical preference March 20. [MORE...]

Spoon Add "Secret" Shows to Tour
Britt Daniel plays solo for charity

Pitchfork researchers are hard at work trying to unlock the mysteries of Spoon's new album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. We're tackling the tough questions, like "Is that title for real?" (yes) and "So, like, did someone in the band just have a baby?" (No). In fact, the title comes from "the sound of one of the first songs written for the record, 'The Ghost of You Lingers'", according to Spoon's publicist.

We've also cracked the super secret (read: you have to sign up) Spoon mailing list and found information about some "secret" shows on the band's schedule. First up is an April 23 show in New York City with David Vandervelde and the Moonstation House Band.

Then, not so secretly, on May 7, Britt Daniel will play a solo show in Seattle as part of a muscular dystrophy benefit. Proceeds from the show will go to Charley's Fund, an organization that gives grants to muscular dystrophy researchers.

More "secret" Spoon shows are in the works, so put an online wiretap on that aforementioned mailing list for that information. [MORE...]

Shearwater Tour Through the Hot Months

Watch your windshields: Austin-based orinthology buff Jonathan Meiberg and his Shearwater flock will stray far from their nest on a string of summer dates.

The band's hoping to stir up support for their well-liked, Matador-issued (and previously reported) Palo Santo: Expanded Edition-- which adds bonus tracks, five re-recorded versions of tunes from last year's original issue, and a strange and alluring new cover to the mix. [MORE...]

Magic Numbers' Sophomore Album Gets U.S. Release

The Magic Numbers were poised to drop their sophomore album, Those the Brokes, in America earlier this year via Capitol Records. Then this stuff happened, and-- poof!-- the Numbers' major label number was up. Thems the breaks, one might say.

Or so we thought! Now Capitol's sister/sub-label under the EMI Group umbrella, Astralwerks, has stepped to the plate to help drive Those the Brokes home in the United States.

The disc-- originally released in Europe last year on Heavenly Recordings/EMI-- breaks Stateside on July 3. Just to throw you for a loop, the American edition will feature a different track order, as well as an extra tune called "Keep It in the Pocket". UPDATE: THE AMERICAN VERSION ALSO INCLUDES THE HIDDEN TRACK "ALL I SEE".
 
Those Magic Numbers introduce Those the Brokes with a New York show May 9, then play heaps of festivals all summer long.

As previously reported, the quartet appears on the Starbucks/KCRW covers comp, Sounds Eclectic: The Covers Project. That album dropped last month and features the Magic Numbers' take on Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love". The band also contributed a track to Rachel Fuller's "In the Attic" webcast compilation, Attic Jam, which hit iTunes exclusively back in February. [MORE...]

Gang Gang Dance's DeGraw Talks Album, EP, Films

Last time Pitchfork chatted with Gang Gang Dance's Brian DeGraw, he was filling us in on how his Gang's powers transcend those of a mere band-- and mulling over some appropriately ambitious extra-musical activities for the bunch: plays, restaurants, automobile design, and a freaking gorilla sanctuary, to name a few.

DeGraw and company haven't ruled anything out yet, but from the sound of it, the Gang is going to stick to a certain tried-and-true pursuit for the time being, one popularized by more conventional bands. They're going to release some records.

"We're just too busy right now," DeGraw told Pitchfork last week. "We're really still working on the record."

That record, the follow-up to 2005's God's Money, won't reach completion for a little while though, as GGD have "about six hours' worth of material" to sort through.

"We record all our practices," said DeGraw. "[We] then go back and listen to the tapes, pick out some parts, and then compose new songs using all these different parts stuck together. So when we're recording we'll do the same thing: we'll roll tape for a few hours and just improvise, then pick out all these really sweet spots and try to make them into something."

This reductive approach of course leaves many enticing musical paths untrodden, but Gang Gang Dance hope to try a few of them on an as-yet-untitled EP that will proceed the album. "We have all this extra stuff...so we figured we'd just take some of the stuff we knew we weren't going to use on the album and just put it out." The Social Registry will deliver that EP Stateside, while Young Turks will serve it up in the UK.

"Sound-wise," offered DeGraw, the album is "going to sound like a Gang Gang record. I think it's maybe just a lot tighter, [with] less improvisation and more composed songs."

The percussion-heavy band has a new weapon in its arsenal now too: a sequencer. "Recently in practices," said DeGraw, "I'll just throw some drum pattern on for fun; then we start realizing that we're really into it. Tim [Dewitt] started stepping out from behind the kit and just grabbing a mic, and it's sounding pretty interesting. I think it might become a big thing in the future for us, using less drums and more drum machines." [MORE...]

BrakesBrakesBrakes Hit the Gas for U.S./Canada Tour

Looks like the men of BrakesBrakesBrakes (simply Brakes in their native UK) will put the other pedal to the metal this spring. The Rough Trade-signed quartet shifts gears toward North American's highways and biways May 30, pushing the red across a string of Stateside and Canadian dates. They'll surely stock the trunk full of freshly-pressed copies of The Beatific Visions, out at last May 8 in the land of Freedom and fuel emissions.

This tourtourtour culminates with a pair of shows at New York's Mercury Lounge. Brooklyn act Pela sit shotgun for most of the epic road-trip. [MORE...]

Modest Mouse Extend Tour
Johnny Marr designs shoe for charity

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before, but Modest Mouse have added more tour dates. As reported by NME and confirmed by the band's publicist, they'll head to the UK in late May. Then in June it's off to Europe. Fingers crossed that the sharpest thing at these shows is Johnny Marr's haircut.

Speaking of Marr, the former Smith and current Mouse recently unveiled a limited-edition PF Flyer Center Lo low-top that features his signature etched on the tongue of the dark blue leather shoe. 216 pairs of the shoe will be available July 10, 108 pairs in the U.S. and the other 108 in the UK. All proceeds from the U.S. shoe sales will benefit Cure Autism Now, and all proceeds from the UK sales will benefit the Pictor School for children with special needs in Marr's hometown of Manchester. (Via Fader.) [MORE...]

New Stephen Malkmus Album: "67.4685% Completed"
Janet Weiss drumming for Bright Eyes

That's right you hyper-literate slackers: put down the Pynchon and the peace pipe for a moment, and bask in the good news for people who love Pavement: Stephen Malkmus is putting together a new album (with his trusty Jicks, one assumes), and according to his official website and confirmed by Matador, he's just narrowly more than two-thirds done with it!

Spake the scribe at Malkmus' web-home, "basic trax for album committed to tape...67.4685% completed...Looks to be done sometime in Late June." Pessimists take note: the new Malkmus album is 32.5315% not completed.

"Apparently, the songs are so BIG that Matador is pushing for an early 2008 release."

So there you have it! Mr. Stephen Malkmus, fresh off a solo appearance at this summer's Pitchfork Music Festival, should have a new artifact out early next year.

Steve-o's also teamed with T.J. Doherty, perhaps the only living human being cool enough to have worked with both Steely Dan and the Rapture. T.J. "kept an eye on the meters," which leads us to believe he assisted in some sort of production capacity.

BONUS: HUGH MILLER POINTS US IN THE DIRECTION OF PHOTOS FROM THE RECORDING SESSIONS. SWEET!

As for that P4k fest appearance, Malkmus' interweb doppelgänger had a few words on that as well: "[Latest Jicks initiate] Janet Weiss is busy this summer pushing tempo for Bright Eyes, so Chicago gets just one Jick. I've seen him do the solo thing, and i hate to say its ......not........ exactly....... Genius. Still, you get the dude and his voice and some strumming; I say check it out."

If you won't settle for anything less than Genius, then you probably shouldn't purchase festival tickets here immediately.

Malkmus and his Jicks also play the Green Man Festival, from August 17-19 at Wales' Brecon Beacons National Park. Check out the Malkmus statement/update-- a good read-- in full, just beyond the pale...er, the jump. [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.)