Pitchfork: Latest News

Pavement to Headline Sasquatch! 2010

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 02:00:00 -0600

Those Pavement reunion dates just keep on rolling in.

As things stand as of this minute, the first reunion show that the indie rock big dogs will play on American soil will be at the Sasquatch! Festival, which will come to the Gorge Amphitheatre in Quincy, Washington May 29-31, aka Memorial Day weekend.

At the moment, Pavement is the only band that the Sasquatch! organizers have announced; the full lineup is coming February 16. And no, we don't know which night they'll play. Maybe they'll headline all three!

The Latest on Lala

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 16:55:00 -0600

Back in January, we partnered with the music service Lala to offer streaming media on Pitchfork. A lot of interesting things have happened since. We're going to take a moment to bring you up to date on a few of them.

When we launched our new website in March, Lala playlists were embedded on album review and artists pages, allowing Pitchfork readers in the U.S. with Lala accounts to listen to the music we write about. Lala playlists were used on our Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s and Top 200 Albums of the 2000s lists, allowing you to play and buy songs and listen to entire albums.

This past week, Lala announced that they are one of the companies partnering with Google to provide streaming music connected to search results. This followed on an announcement that Lala is working with Facebook on the "Music and MP3s" section at the top of the site's Gift Shop, allowing users to give songs as gifts.

Along with these new developments, Lala has partnered with artists to offer free and exclusive content. Check out the Lala blog for information on free tracks from artists like Phoenix, Major Lazer, and Mos Def, and exclusive tracks from Arctic Monkeys, Weezer, Green Day, and more.

For those of you not familiar with Lala, check our update from earlier this year with all the details. We're excited to be working with Lala; stay tuned for continued improvements with how Lala works here on Pitchfork in the near future.

Pixies Release Free Live Doolittle EP

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 16:45:00 -0600

Pixies are really doing everything they can to remind people (and satiate long time fans) of their 1989 album Doolittle. Along with their ongoing Doolittle tour, there are instantaneous live CDs and USB drives being made. They'll play "Here Comes Your Man" on "The Tonight Show", um, tonight, and "I Bleed" with "Weird Al" at a benefit in December.

Now the band is giving away four songs recorded at their recent gig in Paris on October 16. (Via TwentyFourBit via Slicing Up Eyeballs.)

All you have to do is click the widget after the jump and you're on your way:

Doolittle 20th Anniversary Live Sampler:

01 Dancing the Manta Ray
02 Monkey Gone to Heaven
03 Crackity Jones
04 Gouge Away

Yorke, Sitek Remix DOOM on New EP

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 16:05:00 -0600

While we wait for the next Madvillain record, weed-of-consciousness rapper DOOM is keeping his fans at bay with a bounty of material. After his recent Unexpected Guests compilation and Born Like This solo LP, we'll get one more DOOM release before the year is. The Gazzillion Ear EP is due on vinyl and MP3 December 8 on Lex.

The EP collects the Born Like This highlight with a bunch of remixes from pretty famous people, like Thom Yorke (listen to Yorkie's redo here) and TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek. There are also a few bonus tracks, including one called "Green Whore Net". Get it?! Tracklist is below:

Gazzillion Ear EP:

01 Gazzillion Ear
02 Gazzillion Ear (Thom Yorke Remix)
03 Gazzillion Ear (Dr WHo Dat? Remix)
04 Gazzillion Ear (Jneiro Jarel/SITEK Remix)
05 Gazzillion Ear (Acappella)
06 Gazzillion Ear (Instrumental)
07 Gazzillion Ear (Thom Yorke Remix) (Instrumental)
08 Gazzillion Ear (Dr WHo Dat? Remix) (Instrumental)
09 Gazzillion Ear (Jneiro Jarel/SITEK Remix) (Instrumental)
10 Green Whore Net (bonus beat)
11 Feta (scratch samples)
12 Kat Girl (bonus)

Photos: Fucked Up / Titus Andronicus [ft. Andrew W.K., Vivian Girls]

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 14:45:00 -0600

Canadian punks Fucked Up performed their landmark 2008 album The Chemistry of Common Life at Brooklyn's Masonic Temple last night, with special guests Andrew W.K. on keyboards and Vivian Girls on backup vocals. Titus Andronicus opened. Our photographer Rez Avissar was on the scene to capture the spectacle.

For more Fucked Up news, check out our story from earlier today about their planned all-star cover of "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Fucked Up

Vivian Girls

Titus Andronicus

Andrew W.K.

MORE FULL-SIZE PHOTOS IN THE PHOTOBOOK HERE

Watch Yoko Ono With Mark Ronson and Sean Lennon on "Fallon"

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 14:15:00 -0600

Usually, 76-year-old women don't display quite this much cleavage when they appear on TV. But Yoko Ono is not most 76-year-old women. Ono was on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" last night to perform a completely unhinged rendition of her new jam "Waiting for the D Train". She took the stage with a version of her forever-shifting Plastic Ono Band that included son Sean Lennon and super-producer Mark Ronson, and then she proceeded to scream and yowl and cackle and generally freak the fuck out. I wonder what the tourists in the studio audience must've thought.

Check it out below, and skip to the 36:24 mark.

Blur Drummer Dave Rowntree Explains His Political Candidacy

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 13:45:00 -0600

Can playing rhythmic backbone in a band that includes the dueling egos of Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon prepare someone to hold public office? So far, the British voting public has not found this to be the case. In 2007 and 2008, Blur drummer Dave Rowntree ran for seats on the Westminster City Council. He lost both times.

But Rowntree is not so easily discouraged. As we reported last year, Rowntree has something even bigger on the horizon: A Parliamentary seat. And as Spinner points out, this week Rowntree sat down with BBC News to discuss his candidacy.

Rowntree is running as the Labour Party candidate for the Cities of London and Westminster seat in the British Parliament's House of Commons. In the BBC's words, the area is "considered a safe Tory seat," so Rowntree's got his work cut out for him. His platform revolves around housing. He tells the BBC, "The biggest issue in Westminster is housing. It is a particular concern of mine because it sits at the top of a pyramid of lots of other issues. If there is bad housing then you will also get drug problems, mental health problems, unemployment, crime, and anti-social behavior."

Rowntree refers to himself as an activist rather than a politician, and he is currently studying to become a lawyer. He describes the unglamorous work of campaigning, "If you knock on enough doors, then you will find a lot of local issues that people have not been able to solve, and you do your best to bring them some kind of resolution." According to Rowntree, he doesn't get recognized as a member of Blur during his door-to-door campaigning, which must be one of the benefits of sitting behind a drum kit onstage.

Of the important matter of the Blur reunion's future, Rowntree says, "That's an open question that we haven't really talked about yet. We've all got stuff to do up until the summer of next year. So there was no possibility of us just starting the band up again, or even any point of saying what's next."

Rowntree also claims that he'd never ask the other members of Blur to campaign for him: "If people are interested and offer, then I would gratefully take them up, but it is not for everybody."

New No Age: "In Peril"

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 13:00:00 -0600

Photo by Ed Templeton

Death+Taxes magazine has a new, exclusive No Age song called "In Peril" up for free download, but they're going to make you jump through some hoops to get it.

Here's what you have to do: First, go to this website. (Or, a specific page in the latest issue of the magazine.) Then, take a photo of the picture of No Age that you'll find there. Then text or email it to a specific location; the site has all the details. Once you do all that, you'll get a text or email with a link to "In Peril" almost immediately.

That's a lot of work for a 30-second song, but "In Peril" is vintage No Age, fusing oblique pop instincts with grimy basement punk aesthetics. Its sunny, vaguely Afropop guitar part rushes by at a Minor Threat tempo, and it sounds like it was recorded on a tape recorder buried in a sock drawer in the next room.

Check out all the details here.

Fucked Up Plan All-Star Cover of "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 12:35:00 -0600

Back in 1984, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure rounded up basically the entire British pop music establishment to record "Do They Know It's Christmas?", a vaguely condescending but undeniably catchy all-star Christmas song about Ethiopian famine. In 2004, Geldof and Ure recorded the song again, this time with a new cast of all-star characters that included Thom Yorke and Dizzee Rascal.

This year, we might get to hear a whole new version of the song. Except instead of Geldof putting it together, it'll be a gigantic Canadian bellower who named himself after a disgusting disease. So yeah, this version should rule.

In a recent interview with New York magazine's Vulture blog, Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham, better known as Pink Eyes, revealed that his band is using the money from their Polaris Music Prize win to make their own all-star-version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Talking to Vulture, Abraham listed off some of the people involved: "David Cross, members of Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio, Broken Social Scene, the GZA, Bob Mould, No Age, and Yo La Tengo are all confirmed. I'm still waiting on confirmation from Feist, Jarvis Cocker, and M.I.A. We wanted the biggest people we could get. If we could get a Jonas Brother on this, I would get a Jonas Brother."

A rep for Matador, the band's label, confirms that they are indeed working on the track. No word yet on who will get the climactic Bono "thank God tonight it's them instead of you" part. Our vote is for anyone other than David Cross or the GZA.

According to Abraham, the single will benefit "a few different organizations, like Justice for the Missing, that are affiliated with the 500 missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada. That number is an old official statistic that the government uses, but the number is probably closer to 3,000. It’s not like cancer or AIDS. Those are worthy causes but they have big fund-raising machines. This is an undocumented, underreported crime that’s been going on for years. And while this is for Canadian organizations, the same sort of thing is going on at the U.S.-Mexico border, with Mexican women going missing, and in Australia, with aboriginal women there."

He also talked a bit about the band's reasons for picking this song: "I liked the idea of somewhat marginalized indie rockers coming together for a marginalized cause ... There's a kind of cavalier colonialism to the original, like the West has to go in and help this poor Third World country. But the charities that we're trying to help are exactly a product of this colonial history. People who have been subjugated and oppressed for so many years are going missing. So there's an irony to using the song."

Fucked Up have experience rounding up mobs of collaborators for Christmas songs. On the 2007 Christmas B-side "Stars on 45", they collaborated with a titanic cast that included Nelly Furtado, LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, Jay Reatard, and members of the Black Lips, the Faint, and Chromeo.

Watch U2 and Jay-Z Perform Together

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:45:00 -0600

Stadium-rocking pop titans met last night at last night's MTV Europe Awards when Jay-Z came out during a U2 performance in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall coming November 9, the collaboration took on a justly political air, with U2 doing "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and Jay-Z unleashing some of his most ripped-from-the-headlines-style lines since his verse on M.I.A.'s "Boyz" remix.

"Out in Iran the election is fixed/ Out in Rwanda the genocide is sick," he rhymed. "Don't make me have to motherfuckin' build some schools!" Then Bono tried to rap with less effective results. Watch the whole performance below. (Via MTV.)

In other (more shameless) Jay-Z news, the rapper recently re-teamed with his "Empire State of Mind" co-star Alicia Keys for something called "Empire State of Mind Part 2", according to MTV News. The sequel will feature a new verse from Jay and show up on Keys's upcoming LP, The Element of Freedom, which is due out December 15.

And Jay has announced some new, Young Jeezy-assisted U.S. arena dates for 2010. Check those out, along with the U2/Jay-Z live video, after the jump:

U2: "Sunday Bloody Sunday" [ft. Jay-Z] (2009 MTV Europe Awards)

Jay-Z:

11-07 Fresno, CA - Save Mart Center ^
11-08 Los Angeles, CA - UCLA, Pauley Pavilion ^
11-10 Austin, TX - University of Texas, Frank Erwin Center ^
11-12 Champaign, IL - University of Illinois, Assembly Hall ^
11-13 Nashville, TN - Vanderbilt University Memorial Gymnasium ^
11-17 Lubbock, TX - United Spirit Arena ^
11-19 Albuquerque, NM - Tingley Coliseum ^
11-20 El Paso, TX - Don Haskins Center ^
02-22 Houston, TX - Toyota Center *
02-23 Dallas, TX - American Airlines Center *
02-25 New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Arena *
02-27 Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena *
02-28 Greensboro, NC - Greensboro Coliseum Complex *
03-03 Washington, DC - Verizon Center *
03-07 Norfolk, VA - Scope Arena *
03-11 Boston, MA - TD Garden *
03-16 Pittsburgh, PA - Mellon Arena *
03-19 St. Louis, MO - Scottrade Center *
03-20 Indianapolis, IN - Conseco Fieldhouse *
03-22 Denver, CO - Pepsi Center *
03-24 San Jose, CA - HP Pavilion *
03-26 Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center *

^ with N.E.R.D., Wale, J. Cole
* with Young Jeezy

Peter Murphy of Bauhaus to Cameo in Next Twilight Movie

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:15:00 -0600

The New Moon soundtrack is out now on shelves and on the charts, so it's time to start speculating about the next Twilight movie! The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the third film in the series, is currently in production. MTV reports that it'll include a cameo from former Bauhaus frontman and all-around goth-rock deity Peter Murphy.

In a totally shocking bit of casting, Murphy will play a vampire. Unprecedented!

The news comes from actor Billy Burke, who plays the character of Charlie Swan in the Twilight series. Burke told MTV, "He plays a vampire in a flashback sequence. I didn't get to see any of it, but all reports from the director David Slade and everyone around say he just kicked ass. I'm real excited to see it ... [His role] started out as an old Spanish, sort of unrelated vampire, in a flashback sequence. Billy Black's talking and telling the story of the werewolves, how they evolved, and how they met the vampires and stuff. [Murphy's cameo is] in a sequence that involves that."

Eclipse director Slade is a horror vet, having previously helmed the sort-of gross psycho-kid story Hard Candy and the underrated vamps-in-Alaska saga 30 Days of Night. MTV speculates that his decision to cast Murphy could be a sign that he wants to push the franchise in a more adult direction. I don't know about all that, but it would be pretty cool if he found ways to throw Robert Smith and Siouxsie Sioux in there, too.

This won't be the first time Murphy has appeared in a vampire movie, though. Bauhaus showed up in Tony Scott's arty, incomprehensible 1983 flick The Hunger, performing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" during the opening credits.

Video: Grizzly Bear: "Ready, Able"

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:35:00 -0600

Setting: A bucolic, woodsy landscape. Characters: Emotionally expressive claymation blob things. Plot: Something about being sucked up into some sort of polygonal spaceship. This is a weird one, folks!

Director and artist Allison Schulnik's video for Grizzly Bear's "Ready, Able" is online now, and its mesmerizing and hard-to-place sadness almost makes the all-out creepiness of Patrick Daughters' "Two Weeks" clip look like a picnic at the beach.

Why is that one blob thing melting? Why are those faces turning inside out? And why do I get so depressed watching all of it?

Click below to figure it out for yourself:

Now that Grizzly Bear have found their way to the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack, we hope at least a few new kids are going to search them out on YouTube and come away with nightmares.

And hey, speaking of Grizzly Bear! We recently spoke with member Chris Taylor about everything going on with the band, as well as his solo endeavours. And the band just extended their world tour into the spring.

Video Premiere: Jarvis Cocker: "Further Complications"

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:05:00 -0600

Fans of Jarvis Cocker's twitchy tics, beard, and glasses will find a lot to like about this new video for the title track from his recent Further Complications LP. It's pure, unfiltered Jarvis against a white background. At times, he gets stuck in a box or trapped between walls-- it's kind of like a more realistic, less hatted version of Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" video. Watch the Stéphanie Di Guisto-directed clip at Pitchfork.tv or below:

And as previously reported, in a repeat of what went down at a gallery in Paris in May, Cocker and his band plan to set up shop at the Village Underground in London from November 9 to November 11. They'll jam with audience members and special guests, provide soundtracks for exercise classes, and play a show on the last night of the residency. The whole thing will be webcast on Jarvis' website.

M.I.A. Working on "Gucci Mane Meets Animal Collective" Album

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:50:00 -0600

Up until now, psychedelic travelers Animal Collective and mushmouthed mixtape MVP Gucci Mane have had exactly two things in common: (1) Both of them sound like they've ingested mountains of illicit substances in their lifetimes, and (2) Zomby has remixed both of them. (Also, Gucci's line about how his little boy one but his shoes 400 isn't that thematically far from "My Girls". And if Animal Collective were the types to wear diamonds, they might rock something like this.)

But according to Diplo, AC and Gucci might just find some common ground in the near future. On the next M.I.A. album. That's right: M.I.A. is working on a new album, Kala collaborators Diplo and Switch are working on it, and Diplo says it sounds "like Gucci Mane meets Animal Collective."

Pretty much everything about this story screams awesome.

Pedestrian.tv recently interviewed Diplo, who said: "Been in the studio with M.I.A. working on her new record. It's like Gucci Mane meets Animal Collective. I think there are a couple of people [producing], but we're going to finish it off, me and Switch. We've done like four tracks already."

The full interview, which isn't available yet, looks like it'll include some even more intriguing stuff, like talk of plans for a Major Lazer Adult Swim show.

Can this M.I.A. album hurry up and come out already?

Julian Casablancas Talks Solo LP, Strokes, Video Games

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 08:00:00 -0600

Photo by Williams + Hirakawa

With his devil-may-care attitude, expertly weathered leather jackets, and gritted croon, Julian Casablancas once defined what it meant to be a cool rock star in the twenty-first century. And while he still came off pretty damn cool when chatting on the phone earlier this week, he seemed a bit tentative, too.

When asked about living in L.A. compared to New York, it really did sound like he hadn't thought about the issue too much and was working out his preference in real time. The same uncertainty took hold when discussing the future of the Strokes. "We're supposed to get back together in January but don't hold me to that," he said, sounding a little frustrated by the prolonged gestation of his band's fourth album.

But Casablancas has plenty of other things to think about now that his debut solo record, Phrazes for the Young, is out and he's prepping for a globe-hopping tour in support of it. In this interview, the singer talks about his elaborate new live setup ("it's like half Pink Floyd laser light show"), his dog (who happens to be named after a character from "Perfect Strangers"), and his idea for a new video game:

Pitchfork: Are you in L.A. or New York right now?

Julian Casablancas: I'm in L.A. It's beautiful, perfect, sunny.

Pitchfork: Are you out there most of the time now?

JC: I've been working here for a bit so people assumed I moved out here, which is fine. It's not like, "How dare you say I live in Los Angeles!" [laughs] I'm here until December but then I'm done with L.A. for a long while. I'll be back in New York for the winter. I still live there.

Pitchfork: You're so emblematic of New York. Do you ever feel guilty when you're in L.A. for a while?

JC: No. Maybe if I moved out here I would. You hear that debate all the time, but both coasts are amazing. You're lucky to live in either one.

Pitchfork: On "Tourist", the last song on your new album, it sounds like you feel like there's no place you can call home sometimes.

JC: Yeah, I've been thinking that lately. Especially since New York is like one bar/restaurant/Whole Foods/Starbucks thing now. You used to have a range of neighborhoods but now there's like two cool streets in Manhattan. Somewhere between Lower East Side and Chinatown there's the "old vibe." That's what [the Phrazes song] "Ludlow St." is about, too-- that feeling of "what is your home?" It's like where you grew up is an illusion because it changes so much.

Pitchfork: Do you still feel like you have particular ties to New York?

JC: It's different. I don't know exactly where I stand right now.

Pitchfork: You don't hate New York now, though, do you?

JC: [Laughs] No, I don't hate New York. I understand that the cultural center of music in the city is Brooklyn but I would prefer living in a closet in Manhattan than a giant house in Brooklyn. There are a lot of cool bands in Brooklyn, but there are a lot of cool bands in L.A., too.

Pitchfork: In the 90s, people talked about how New York was so much cooler in the 70s and now people talk about how it was so much cooler in the 90s. It's like the city is always getting worse.

JC: Yeah. It's better that than some fucking urban war zone-- even though it's like that in some parts of New York. In L.A., it's so sunny out all the time that even though I'm working all day I have this illusion that I'm on some kind of vacation. New York is so condensed and exciting but you stay there too long and all that turns into anxiety a little bit. It's nice to escape here and there.

Pitchfork: It's easy to get spoiled by New York, too.

JC: Totally. In some places where we toured in Europe, everything closes at like six and television shuts down at like midnight. You're like, "What the hell?" [Laughs] It's like that Woody Allen thing: "I don't want Chinese food at three in the morning but I want to know that I can get it."

Pitchfork: Phrazes for the Young is really dense, sonically. It's a pretty big change from the first couple Strokes albums, which sounded more off-the-cuff. Would you say you're more meticulous now?

JC: Yes and no. Back then, if we wanted to find a certain drum sound I might spend hours on it, but now I just make up my mind quickly because I know what I'm going for and how to get it. But I take a lot more time on other things now. I've been working on this album for about a year and a half. What took so long was working by myself, without a band. When you work with a bunch of different people you're showing this guy the guitar solo, this guy the drum beat, this guy the bass line, and then they make it work together. With this album, I had to put myself in the seat of the drummer or bassist. If I were to do another album like this, I think I would work it all out with a band first and then go record it in like a week.

Pitchfork: Was it intimidating for you to take on this whole project on your own after being in a band for so long?

JC: Maybe a little bit before I started, but I felt pretty confident. I used to do everything-- guitar solos, bass lines, whatever-- with the Strokes but I tried to step away from that to make everyone in the band feel good and happy. Now I'm back in that singular mindset and I enjoy it.

Pitchfork: So now when you go back to the Strokes will you have trouble resetting back to that team mentality again?

JC: No, because it's harder to be the one working out every detail. It's easy to just say, "Oh, I'm just going to work on the main melody and the general structure of the song."

Pitchfork: I feel like the Strokes always represented this pretty youthful, angst-y outlook. But on Phrazes-- given the title and some of the lyrics-- it's like you're talking to the youth instead of for them.

JC: It's just the idea that so much knowledge and wisdom gets lost from generation to generation. For me, it's like things that I wish I had read when I was 16 so it wouldn't have taken me this long to learn them. I'm a pretty hopeful person, but there's definitely a dark undertone. In reality, there's definitely a super-depressing stream somewhere under the surface. I'm not ignoring that aspect but I'm not putting it on a pedestal either.

Pitchfork: I really like the cover of the record, which looks like a re-imagining of the famous RCA logo.

JC: I've always loved that RCA logo but it's always made me super depressed. It's called "His Master's Voice" so I always assumed the dog's master was dead and he was always listening to a recording of his voice like, "Hey, my master is in this machine." The similarity between the cover and the RCA logo was almost a coincidence, though. We were just shooting the thing, and they were like, "Let's take a few pictures with the dog." That's actually my dog.

Pitchfork: What's your dog's name?

JC: Balki.

Pitchfork: Like from "Perfect Strangers?"

JC: Yup. I used to watch it with my mom.

Pitchfork: You've mentioned that you brought some of the songs on your solo album to the Strokes, but some people thought they wouldn't fit on a Strokes album. Do you ever feel trapped by the sound you created with the Strokes at this point?

JC: I definitely don't want to keep sounding the same. I'm just trying to make music that would make people think, "Oh shit, it's cool to do things like this now." People have tried and failed at combining funky, complex rhythms with melodies that work for a long time. Usually it's just one or the other. But some 80s stuff mixed those well, like "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", which has crazy rhythms but is not crazy somehow. I'd like to do the straightforward rock thing and then just go into weird polyrhythmic outer-space [laughs]. The ideal for me is to get really out there but have it go full circle and sound pretty normal.

Pitchfork: Is there a band that you think is doing that right now?

JR: Maybe Dirty Projectors. Right now there are definitely more good bands than there have ever been since I've been alive.

Pitchfork: I read in a New York Times article that your upcoming live shows are going to be quite the spectacle. What do you have planned?

JC: It could be a Stonehenge disaster but I'm going for it. There are going to be changing sets. It's like half normal and half Pink Floyd laser light show. It's not going to be interactive; I'm not going to start juggling. And if it's a disaster I will say "kidding around!" and then we'll just do normal shows.

It all came from wanting to do free shows, but you can't just do free shows because it'll cost thousands of dollars and you'll lose your house. So the idea was to charge more than average for a crazy, over-the-top show and then just play a free show the day after. The free shows would be on a stage on the back of a truck pulling into a parking lot or a park or something.

Pitchfork: Are the over-the-top shows the type of thing you'd be able to do with the Strokes?

JC: No, I would never get those four dudes to agree on something like that. You'd have one guy say, "Let's go out and have some Persian rugs and done!" And you'd have another guy say, "Let's dress like robots," and then nothing would get done.

Pitchfork: I like the robot idea, I'd go with that person.

JC: That person is me. [Laughs]

Pitchfork: I feel contractually obligated to ask you when the new Strokes album is going to come out.

JC: I'm done with the predictions. We're supposed to get back together in January but don't hold me to that. We've been trying to do it for years. I'm always available and they know that but getting together is tough.

Pitchfork: I read in a recent interview in the Guardian that Benjamin Franklin is one of your heroes and that you have dreams of inventing things. What kind of inventions do you have in mind?

JC: I don't know why I say these things in interviews. I'm just talking about practical, silly stuff. For example, a piece of luggage that also turns into a luggage cart. I might sell stuff on a website in the near future and see how it goes.

I've always had a serious desire to design video games, too. Mostly because there are a few things about video games that drive me nuts. Like, when you're playing a car game and you think, "Why can't I make a right turn here?" Or when you're James Bond and you can't turn around and shoot the guy because you aim at the ceiling and then the floor.

Pitchfork: Maybe you're just not that good at these games.

JC: [Laughs] No, I'm not explaining myself well.

Pitchfork: Do you have an idea for your own video game?

JC: No. I mean, yes...but I can't bring myself to get into it. It's embarrassing.

Pitchfork: C'mon.

JC: I have this one crazy idea. Do you remember Mario Kart for Nintendo 64? Well, something like that but the cars would all be from movies and TV shows, like the 60s Batmobile or the "Knight Rider" one or the "Dukes of Hazzard" car. Stupid ideas like that. You end up playing a lot of video games on the road.

Hear DJ /rupture's Remix of Yeasayer's "Ambling Alp"

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 17:10:00 -0600

Photo by Guy Aroch

"Ambling Alp" is the dizzy first single from Odd Blood, the forthcoming sophomore album from Brooklyn psychsters Yeasayer. Even before DJ /rupture got his hands on it, the track was pretty much a headfuck, with jittery beats and reggae one-drops and horn stabs replacing the band's old guitar rumble. But DJ /rupture pushes the track even further out into the ether, slathering it in dubby bass and chopping the vocals all to hell. You might want to spend some time with this one.

It's streaming over on Stereogum.

Odd Blood is due February 19 from Secretly Canadian (North America) and Mute (everywhere else). The /rupture remix comes from the "Ambling Alp" single, which is out now on digital download and 12" vinyl. (The single also features a remix from glo-fi guy Memory Tapes.)

And in this Slate piece, critic Jody Rosen reveals something interesting about the song: It's actually about the 1930s black American boxer Joe Louis fighting fascist superstars Primo Carnera and Max Schmeling. Yeasayer: Rocking you and educating you at the same time!

Fiery Furnaces' Matthew Friedberger Continues Radiohead Fight

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:55:00 -0600

In a Spinner interview that made the rounds yesterday, the Fiery Furnaces' brotherly half, Matthew Friedberger, had some choice (and vaguely confusing) words for Radiohead.

The issue at hand was Radiohead's song "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)", Radiohead's tribute to Harry Patch, the last surviving British World War I veteran, who died in July. (Patch was often known as "the last Tommy," a "Tommy" being an old term for a British soldier.)

But Friedberger went the fuck off, confusing the song's subject with the similarly-named experimental composer Harry Partch, according to his publicist. He said, "'Oh, please listen to our new song about Harry Patch'. Fuck you! You brand yourself by brazenly and arbitrarily associating yourself with things that you know people consider cool. That is bogus. That's a put-on. That's a branding technique, and Radiohead have their brand that they're popular and intelligent, so they have a song about Harry Patch."

He continued, "How's the song? Is it 48 notes to the octave? What does it have to do with Harry Patch? Oh, my wife says I am being very rude. She doesn't like me insulting Radiohead. She's afraid they will send their lackeys through the computer to sabotage us. But they needn't worry -- we are a band that sabotages ourselves."

Well, Friedberger has now issued a statement clarifying what he was saying there. To hear Friedberger tell it, he still doesn't like Radiohead, but he does know the difference between Harry Patch and Harry Partch.

The entire statement, which still doesn't make much sense, is below:

"Like most creative musicians, Matt Friedberger is not a fan of Radiohead and most of their chart busters. Of course, Matt and all the Fiery Furnaces family are great fans of all Tommys living or dead, so much so that lots of the Fiery Furnaces' work is, because of the pun, dedicated to imitating the Who's Tommy.

"Back in the fall of 1996 or whenever that interview was conducted, the interviewer asked what Matt thought of the Radiohead song celebrating a WWI veteran. Matt naturally thought it would be interesting to pretend that they wrote a song about the celebrated American composer of a similar sounding name, hence his joking in the interview about Radiohead composing a song with something like 48 notes to an octave. It was easy and amusing to imagine Radiohead's attempt to colonize that relatively arcane bit of our musical lifeworld. This is what they used to call, in some bohemian and advertising circles, 'riffing' or fooling around.

"Matt has not heard the Radiohead song about Harry Patch, but if he did, he is sure he wouldn't like it. No doubt Radiohead and their fans can ignore his opinion of this matter and continue with their triumphant artistic interventions. Matt would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists."

Oh... snap?

Pavement Best-Of on the Way?

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:10:00 -0600

Photo by Gail Butensky

Indie heroes Pavement will reunite and tour next year, but we probably shouldn't get our hopes up for any new material. However, that doesn't mean there won't be any new Pavement product on record store shelves next year.

Guitarist Scott Kannberg, better known as Spiral Stairs, tells NME that the band is considering releasing a best-of compilation that will include unreleased radio sessions. "Summer Babe", "Cut Your Hair", and "Stereo" on one CD? Yeah, that could work.

Says Kannberg, "There's talk of doing a best-of, with some really cool outtakes on that. The very first radio show that Pavement ever did has never been released. I don't think anyone's heard it, so we'll put that out there sometime."

A rep for Pavement's label, Matador, says that the potential best-of is "one of many things being bandied about."

Matador Buys True Panther Sounds

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 15:50:00 -0600

After a brief and loving courtship, indie powerhouse Matador has bought indie upstart True Panther Sounds, according to Matador's site.

The San Francisco/New York imprint became one of 2009's hottest independent newcomers largely thanks to the much-beloved band Girls, who released one of the best debut LPs of the year on True Panther in September. Matador helped promote the Girls album, and now they'll put their muscle behind other TP artists including Rising acts Glasser and Tanlines, as well as Lemonade and Hunx & His Punx.

News in Brief: Strange Boys, Buraka Som Sistema, Radioclit, Blackened

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0600

-- In the U.S., Austin garage-rock upstarts the Strange Boys are signed to In the Red, a label that's made something of a habit of signing garage-rock upstarts. Now, the sax-addled band has a new home in the rest of the world, as they've just signed internationally to Rough Trade. Next year, they'll release sophomore album Be Brave on February 23 in the U.S. and February 22 in the UK. On January 25 in the UK and the next day in the U.S., they'll release the title track as a 7" single.

-- The anarchic Portuguese kuduro crew Buraka Som Sistema will release the DJ mix album Fabriclive 49, the latest entry in the series from the London superclub and record label Fabric, on December 7 internationally and January 26 in the U.S. It features tracks from Buraka themselves, as well as Major Lazer, Diplo, Zomby, Skream, and Crime Mob.

-- These days, the London-based DJ duo Radioclit is probably best known for being two-thirds of the Very Best. But they also make plenty of music on their own. On December 21, Mental Groove will release their Secousse All Stars 12". The EP will include contributions from a number of African vocalists, including their Very Best partner Esau Mwamwaya, BLK JKS, and Afrikan Boy.

-- Lately, the promotional team Blackened Music has brought a ton of great extreme metal bands to New York City. And this November 13-15, they'll up the stakes with the Blackened Weekend, a festival that'll bring Shrinebuilder, Krallice, Skeletonwitch, Liturgy, Rwake, Black Anvil, Malkuth, and Orphan to different venues in the city.

Mogwai Live Movie and Album Due

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 13:35:00 -0600

Burning is the tentative title of a new film by La Blogotheque auteurs Vincent Moon and Nathanaël Le Scouarnec that chronicles the wig-blowing sonic blast that is Mogwai live.

According to the Scottish post-rockers' site, the concert movie was filmed in Brooklyn earlier this year and will premiere at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival on November 13. There's also an accompanying live album called Special Moves in the works, which will be released by Mogwai's own Rock Action label.

Also screening at the Copenhagen festival is the short film "Adelia, I Want to Love", directed by Moon and Teresa Eggers and co-starring Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite. Described on the film festival's website as "a 90-year-old's first encounter with post rock," "Adelia" follows the grandmother of an Italian festival organizer as she prepares to witness Mogwai live in concert. ("Adelia" was included as a bonus feature on a limited edition version of Mogwai's last album The Hawk Is Howling.)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Play Fever to Tell in Its Entirety at ATP

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:45:00 -0600

Photo by Brian Leli

Continuing with the grand All Tomorrow's Parties tradition of getting great bands to perform their greatest albums in their entirety, this December's Ten Years of ATP fest will feature the Yeah Yeah Yeahs performing their first album, Fever to Tell, straight through. "Maps", "Date With the Night", "Rich", everything.

The fest goes down December 11-13 in Minehead, England and also features Modest Mouse, Stephen Malkmus, Devendra Banhart, the Mars Volta, Lightning Bolt, Deerhoof, Shellac, Battles, and the Breeders, among many others. David Pajo's Papa M project will also perform the 1999 album Live From a Shark Tank in its entirety at the fest.

Check out the full lineup here.

Radiohead to Race in Breeders' Cup

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:20:00 -0600

Photo by Kevin Westenberg

Radiohead's world domination continues. According to a story in the Liverpool Daily Post, a race horse named Radiohead will compete in this weekend's Breeders' Cup Juvenile race at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California.

Really.

No word if the steed jams out to that Thom Yorke song "Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses" or if he's somehow offended by it.

In a strange twist, a horse named Wilko won the very same race five years ago. And there's apparently a similarity between the two gallopers, according to horse agent (!) Andy Smith, who said, "[Radiohead] reminds me of Wilko-- a feisty, well-built sort who should do well out in America."

P4k editors, hire this guy.

Watch Monsters of Folk With the Roots

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:15:00 -0600

You wouldn't think that a band as stacked with indie A-listers as Monsters of Folk would need any added starpower. But when the supergroup of Conor Oberst, Jim Jim James, M. Ward, and Mike Mogis stopped by "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" last night, they got some help anyway. Fallon's incredible house band the Roots sat in on their searching ballad "Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)".

Despite all the muscle at their disposal, the Monsters/Roots combo didn't do anything to seriously alter the song. Instead, the Roots delicately fleshed out the arrangement, giving it the same lightly funky sweep it has on record. Seriously, you've never seen such restrained use of Tuba Gooding, Jr.

Check out the video below, via Prefix.

Sufjan Stevens Calls the 50 States Album Project "Such a Joke"

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 11:30:00 -0600

Photo by Denny Renshaw

It has now been more than four years since Sufjan Stevens released Illinois, the second album in his proposed 50 States project. Sufjan had claimed that he was going to release an album in honor of every one of our United States. But at this rate, unless he picked up the pace drastically, he wasn't likely to ever finish the project, unless he lived to be about 200.

In a recent interview with Paste, Stevens admits that the entire ambitious concept was "such a joke."

Stevens told Paste, "The whole premise was such a joke, and I think maybe I took it too seriously. I started to feel like I was becoming a cliché of myself."

In that same interview, Stevens talks about how his focus turned toward his recent multimedia project The BQE, which consumed his attention after Illinois: "In all honesty, [The BQE] is what really sabotaged my creative momentum. It wasn't Illinois so much. I suffered sort of an existential creative crisis after that piece. I no longer knew what a song was and how to write an album. It overextended me in a way that I couldn't find my way back to the song."

Elsewhere in the interview, Stevens expresses what sounds like a total lack of interest in the album as an art form: "I'm wondering, why do people make albums anymore when we just download? Why are songs like three or four minutes, and why are records 40 minutes long? They're based on the record, vinyl, the CD, and these forms are antiquated now. So can't an album be eternity, or can't it be five minutes? ... I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song."

Looks like it might be a while before we hear any albums from Sufjan Stevens, let alone any albums in the 50 States project.