Be Your Own Pet Offshoot Turbo Fruits Prep Debut
Selling limited edition single on BYOP tour now

Photo by Becca Gillespie

While Be Your Own Pet are adventuring around North America this month with Arctic Monkeys, two of the band's members are hawking a single from a side project of theirs called Turbo Fruits. Call it a pet project, if you will. Or don't. Makes no difference to us.

BYOP drummer John Eatherly and guitarist Jonas Stein go by Turbo John and Turbo Stein in the trio, which is rounded out by otherwise nameless bassist Turbo Max.

Their aforementioned three-song single is available at the BYOP/Arctics shows, but because it is limited to an edition of 200, they request that people limit themselves to buying only one each. Please be nice. The band will release their self-titled debut album in a much larger edition (we hope) on July 17 via Ecstatic Peace (Ark Recordings in the UK).

Turbo Fruits have one show scheduled in New York City for May 14, i.e., right in the middle of the Be Your Own Pet tour with Arctic Monkeys. After that tour is over, Be Your Own Pet will hit the studio this summer to record the follow-up to their own excellent self-titled debut from last year. [MORE...]

JAMC, Stooges, Devo, Sunn O))) Do Jarvis' Meltdown
Plus: Roky Erickson, Clinic, Scout Niblett, Cornershop(!), Melanie(!!), Motörhead(!!!)

Photo by Anoulay Tsai

You always knew Jarvis Cocker was brilliant, but in the back of your mind, you wondered if he was a bit whacked (he is, after all, the cat who penned the poker-faced paean to infidelity "Pencil Skirt"). Both sides of the Cocker coin are at play with the announcement of the lineup of the previously mentioned, Jarvis-selected Meltdown Festival, June 16-24 at London's Southbank Centre. It's brilliant, sure, but it's also a bit whacked.

It begins with a bang; Jarvis has pegged thunderous kill-meisters Motörhead to kick off the festival's first night. The same evening sees swarthy ivory-tickler Gonzales, and roller-girl/folk-relic Melanie Safka.

There's no shortage of left-field choices over the rest of the fest, either, with the kid's TV theme cover act KPM Allstars, dirge-metallurgists Sunn O))), "Brimful of Asha" Punjabi-poppers Cornershop, purportedly recovering acid casualty Roky Erickson (his first UK gig), a freak folk supergroup with members of Espers, Fursaxa, and Fern Knight (The Valerie Project), and-- in perhaps the most conventional selection contained within this overlong sentence-- Devo. Standing out amongst all that oddball stuff is tough, but the "Lost Ladies of Folk" collective manages the task, gathering together 60s era starlets Bonnie Dobson, Wendy Flower, and Susan Christie.

There's a smattering of the standard summer 07 fest-fare, too: reunions abound with the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Stooges, alongside Clinic, Scout Niblett, and, of course, a set from Jarvis himself. You know you're in for a wild week when Jarvis seems straight-laced by comparison. Perhaps that was his intention? Tickets to the Meltdown go on-sale Thursday.

In other Jarvis news, he'll be the subject of a June 10 episode of ITV's "The South Bank Show", discussing his life's work with host Melvyn Bragg. Fellow pop savant Scott Walker will speak to Jarvis' credentials on the show as well. And Jarv's hitting the road for a spell following the fest, dates for which are available after the jump. [MORE...]

Polyphonic Spree Plot Army Campaign

The newly macabre Polyphonic Spree will kick off a U.S. tour in Nashville on May 7. The tour is in support of their previously reported new album, The Fragile Army, which comes out June 19 on the Spree's new label, TVT.

The Fragile Army's tracklist has changed slightly since our last report. The seventh song is now Wait EP track "Mental Cabaret" instead of "Oh I Feel Fine", and the tenth song is actually called "Watch Us Explode (Justify)", not "Watch Us Explode/Justify". Spree is in the details.

Right now, the band/choir/robe enthusiast club's calendar is pretty wide open after May, with just three festival dates scheduled for this summer. Don't be surprised if more dates crop up soon. [MORE...]

Pit Er Pat Kick Off Tour With Priestbird, White/Lichens

For a month or thereabouts, Chicago-bred jagged-edged synth-freakout act Pit Er Pat will separate the syllables in a string of live dates taking them to the four corners of this great nation. They'll fire through tracks from last fall's Pyramids, and share stages with the floral and faunal likes of White/Lichens (aka Lichens + White/Light) and Priestbird.

As previously reported, their May 3 date (tomorrow, for you calendar nuts out there) is a part of Toronto's Over the Top Festival, featuring the outlandish antics of, among others, Mount Eerie and Flosstradamus. Pit Er Pat's set has them keeping good company with Julie Doiron. [MORE...]

Clipse, Timbaland, Diplo Join Lil Wayne on Mixtape
By the time you finish reading, Lil Wayne will have recorded eleventy-hundred new mixtapes.

Sometimes it seems like Lil Wayne just accidentally talks while a song is playing and-- whoops, another mixtape! However, we have yet to see a mixtape from him that includes as wide a variety of contributors as his forthcoming None Higher: We Got the Remix Special Edition with DJ Benzi.

Benzi-- whose website strangely features his music right alongside paparazzi-esque pictures of celebrity women-- has worked with Clipse, Twista, Rick Ross, and Pitbull on previous mixtapes, and for None Higher, he brought remixing guests to the table ranging from the Neptunes, Clipse, and Timbaland to Diplo, A-Trak, Ghislain Poirier, and Nick Catchdubs. David Banner contributed production on "Monster", and None Higher also includes guest spots from Jay-Z, Devin the Dude, and Bun B. According to Benzi, "almost all" of the material is unreleased, and much was culled from his extensive archives.

Benzi will make None Higher available as a free download at the end of May, and he plans to release both a limited edition hard copy and a 12" of None Higher tracks and instrumentals at the same time. [MORE...]

Built to Spill Announce All-American Dates
All-North American, that is

Photo by Maria Tessa Sciarrino

Baseball, apple pie, power chords, and noodly guitar solos; nothing says good, clean American fun like the Idaho power-pop impresarios in Built to Spill.

And, after a previously-announced jaunt around Europe this May, they'll return to the States for the fireworks and a mess of red-blooded dates (and, okay, a hop up Canada way) sure to inspire patriotism or, at least, a few shreds on the ol' air-axe. And what could be more patriotic than that?

We've been assured that Doug and the fellas are putting all that Yank elbow-grease to work on the follow up to last year's top-heavy You in Reverse. Makes you proud, dunnit? [MORE...]

Mike D Talks New Beastie Boys Instrumental Album
"It would be a great record to eat pie to."

The six years it took for the Beastie Boys to follow Hello Nasty with To the 5 Boroughs may have doubled their usual time between full-length releases, but with their new album, The Mix-Up, scheduled for a June 26 release on Capitol, Mike D told Pitchfork that the trio are "going back to our regular average."

He also said the album's title "is a bit of a double entendre, if you will. Any record we make is always about combining different ideas or different influences we have, and then with this record, it's an instrumental album. There are no vocals, no samples. We played everything. But as different as that might be from To the 5 Boroughs, it's equally different from instrumental songs we've done before, like the ones that were on The In Sound From Way Out! That was kind of one direction and this one [has] different influences, like Public Image Ltd., Gang of Four, the Slits, Killing Joke."

Even though The Mix-Up is a "post-punk instrumental" album, the Beasties have no plans to ditch vocals for good. In fact, they are currently planning another version of the album that will feature collaborations with "a pretty wide array" of "mostly newer" vocalists.

Mike explained that The Mix-Up took shape out of the need for variety. "On To the 5 Boroughs, we all put down the instruments and sat behind the computers and made music that way. [On] this record, we went 180 again and said, 'Okay, let's not sit behind the computers. Let's just play some music together and kind of see what happens that way.'

"What we do a lot is listen to music together, things that we're inspired by, everything from post-punk to Afrobeat to hip hop to whatever. We're almost as much music fans as we are a band that makes music." [MORE...]

Interpol Announce North American Dates

What a heady month April was for Interpol! They met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in hopes of furthering cooperation between the two collectives, and embarked on an adventure worthy of the Hardy Boys, recovering an ancient Iraqi sculpture in Lebanon that was taken from the national museum in Baghdad. Gee willikers!

Oh, so apparently there's this police organization called Interpol that totally stole the name of the moody New York rockers. Still, Interpol the band had quite an April, too, what trickling out details surrounding their third opus (titled Our Love to Admire and due July 10 on Capitol), a set at Coachella, and the debut of Sam Fogarino's chocolate-covered strawberries recipe. Maybe they didn't crack the case of the missing head of King Sanatruq I of Hatra, but they did write a song called "No I in Threesome", and that kind of linguistic detective work would make Nancy Drew swoon.

What'll the summer have in store for these stealthy, synthy, sharp-dresed sleuths? A whirlwind world tour, that's what, including a number of just-announced North American dates. [MORE...]

Sonic Youth Daydream at Brooklyn Pool, Glasgow Club
Cat Power, Built to Spill also set to take a dip

July 28, Sonic Youth'll drop the kids off at Greenpoint, Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool, opting to give their native land a crack at their ATP/Don't Look Back-curated Daydream Nation recreation tour. All the classics will be there, dolled up in their Speedos and laying out on their designer towels: "Teenage Riot", "Eric's Trip", that song where Mike Watt calls and warns Thurston about his memory going out the window. Shoulda used a higher SPF, Ace.

Pre-sale tickets for the splash went on sale today. And while McCarren Park Pool's sure-to-be-sensational summer lineup is still shaping up, there is a succulent Cat Power/Built to Spill show slated for July 7.

Of course, Brooklyn's not the only place to pledge allegiance to the Nation; ATP's set up gigs in Germany, Italy, California, and now, Scotland, in which Kim and co. will tear through the Reagan-era ruckus. And then, there's this little thing in Chicago you might've read about, at which you'll see Daydream, GZA swinging his Liquid Swords, and Slint leading a guided tour through Spiderland. It's called the Pitchfork Music Festival, and for $50, well, you could catch all that, plus the New Pornographers, Battles, Stephen Malkmus, Cat Power, Yoko Ono, and a couple dozen more. Nation's one of those records that deepens with each spin, so we'd never daydream of discouraging folks to see it played through twice (it's gonna be, like, totally historic): but we would like to further extend our proverbial couches and sleeping bags to any and all who care to take a trip to the Second City.

Those of you looking to hit the snooze button on your Daydream can do so June 12, when the record gets the lavish repackage treatment it so verily deserves. Sonic Youth'll be playing some normal, non-Daydream shows and a whole mess of festivals this summer, so check 'em out. [MORE...]

Go-Betweens Frontmen Release Solo Best-Ofs

The extended hiatus Aussie indie-pop mainstays the Go-Betweens-- whose co-frontman Grant McLennan passed away in May of last year-- took during the 1990s was as creatively fertile a period for both McLennan and his compatriot Robert Forster as their many years together.

To spotlight this interregnum, a baker's dozen of each Go-Betweeners' solo work will be compiled on Intermission: The Best of the Solo Recordings 1990-1997. The discs, culled from McLennan and Forster's eight solo albums (four apiece), will be available individually from Beggars Group on June 19. Each member selected his own best songs, McLennan doing so shortly before his passing.

In February, we reported that the Rare Victory label had a tribute to McLennan and the Go-Betweens in the works, with contributions from the likes of the Clientele, Portastatic and Trembling Blue Stars (and, since we last wrote, Stars of the non-trembling or blue sort). We also reported that Rare Victory was accepting submissions for "Love Goes On", the tribute's title track and tune from the 16 Lovers Lane LP, for inclusion on the compilation. Baltimore's Private Eleanor emerged victorious, and you can hear their take on the tune and the four runners up by clicking right here. The tribute will be made available September 25. [MORE...]

Mountain Goats, Darnielle Play Benefit/Celebration Gigs

Mountain Goats songwriter John Darnielle (who still has one of the best music blogs on the interblock) doesn't have a lot of shows scheduled this spring, but the shows he will play are all of the highest quality.

On May 5, the Mountain Goats will play Chapel Hill's Local 506 as part of the club's anniversary celebration. Then on May 11, Darnielle will go solo at a free in-store at respected Brooklyn record store Sound Fix to commerorate the re-opening of the store's café.

Darnielle's last two currently scheduled dates-- both solo and "probably unamplified either in a barn or outside" (according to the man himself in a Mountain Goats website update)-- are benefits for Farm Sanctuary, a vegetarian organization that "rescues animals from all kinds of situations and gives them a place to live out the natural terms of their lives in peace and tranquility." The shows are free, with a ten dollar suggested donation at the door.

In order to raise even more money for Farm Sanctuary, Darnielle is "still batting around the idea of a fan-constructed set where you give more donations the deeper into the back catalog you go. That set would probably be on Sunday [June 17]."

The Farm Sanctuary shows will also feature solo sets from fellow Mountain Goat Peter Hughes and the Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers' Perry Wright. For full information about those shows, including parking, camping, and culinary requests (no meat snacks out of respect for the organization), visit here. [MORE...]

NPR to Broadcast Bjork NYC Gig
I feel the dull flame of Mara Liasson

Raise your flag! Or, at least, your antennae: Björk will beam Volta's electric charge into your whip and down to your tinny computer speakers when her May 5 performance alongside Konono N^o1 at New York City's United Palace is webcast. Bark if you must at the next NPR pledge drive interrupting "Whad'Ya Know?", but the tote-bag surplus shop/public commodity will be kindly hosting the 'cast on their website, with a little help from New York's own WNYC.

Just in case Vicky Promqueen wants to take you out for smoothies Saturday night at 8 p.m. EDT-- leaving you temporarily untethered from that life-giving box you call laptop-- you'll have a couple cracks at hearing the Björk jams while wallowing in dateless self-pity: NPR will host a stream and an "All Songs Considered" podcast from the show absolutely free of charge, and WNYC will rebroadcast the show from their website and over the airwaves May 14 at 7 p.m. EDT.

Been busying yourself with set design for your "Innocence" video, crafting a wimple for Joanna Newsom, or jerry-rigging a giant clock to count down the hours until Volta's May 8 U.S. release? Give the craft fair a rest, Charlie, and get all up in Björk's grill (in a non-stalkery way, please) on one of her oft-repeated string of tour dates, listed again for the delight of your eyeballs. [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.)