I’d mentioned earlier that we were hoping to get some reports from Patrick and Natalie about how things are progressing for Jay Reatard and Times New Viking on their first dates in the UK.  Of course, I made this comment without remembering just how difficult it was to obtain an internet connection at Pontin’s Holiday Camp, site of this weekend’s All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival.

That said, while we might have to wait another day or two for their field reports, I’m pleased to announce a mole deep within Barry Hogan’s organization has leaked the following video from Day One.

For the record, I personally believe No Age have other songs besides a cover of “I Shot The Sheriff”, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

hello there. for quite awhile, all has been quiet on the psoi front… until now! a new record is in the works, hopefully done by the end of spring, a new website (still working on it), and the most exciting of all… we’re playing shows again!  we’ve been asked to support the posies for their 20th anniversary show in seattle may 17th. we’re excited, since we still like the posies very much (even if the drummer is a rush fan). we’re also playing a bunch of new songs… as well as some old family favorites. if you’re up in the northwest, come on down. i’ve also been asked to be a guest curator for the sled island music fest up in calgary, alberta, canada june 25-28. very excited about this! i’ve picked a few of my favorite bands, old and new, to play. psoi will also be performing, but what is really gonna be special is that we’re doing a collaboration with the lads in broken social scene. most of it will be new material made up just for sled island!  ok, thanks for listening and hopefully see you soon. spiral….

spiralstairsmusic.com

5/17/2008
seattle, wa.
psoi/posies 20th anniversary
nuemo’s
$12

6/25-28/2008
calgary alberta, canada
sled island festival

Lavender Diamond’s Ron Reyes writes, “we knew were were going to have a song on a JC Penny commercial, but this looks like some joke on the Matablog!”

Hey, if America’s department stores wanna take further tips from the nation’s foremost source for music-related advertorial bulletins, we’re more than up for it.  In this instance, however, Nordstorm should just send the cash directly to Becky, Ron and Steve. Or at the very least, a gift certificate.

The initial lineup for the 2008 edition of the Village Voice’s Siren Festival was announced yesterday, and we’re pleased to note headliners Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks will be joined by Times New Viking and (making their first East Coast appearance-at-an-amusement-park) Jaguar Love.

This free event takes place on Saturday, July 19.  Times New Viking will be hopping on a plane after their set, as they’ll be playing on the 3rd day of the Pitchfork Festival the following afternoon. Mayor Bloomberg, consider this an advance request for a police escort to the airport.

(pic taken from the Wooster Collective. Trust us, the new Burma shirts are a) snazzier and b) will not mess with your head)

In addition to Mission Of Burma’s forthcoming two night stands at the Paradise (Boston) and Bowery Ballroom (New York), the band have just confirmed the following shows :

June 27 - First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, PA (performing ‘Signals, Calls & Marches’) - tickets
June 28 - The Black Cat, Washington DC (performing Vs.) - tickets

We’re expecting field reports from Patrick and Natalie. Until then, I’m just psyched Cheap Time tees are available in purple.

Wow.  Gig-of-the-year-candidate might not be doing this event proper justice.  Shearwater’s triumphant performance Monday at New York’s Florence Gould Hall is going to be hard to top ;  augmented by strings, harp & horns, plus the fantastic projections compiled by Kahn & Selznick, Shearwater reduced a near capacity throng to one big gasping mess last night.  Performing the forthcoming ‘Rook’ LP/CD from start to finish (followed, after a brief intermission, with selections from ‘Palo Santo’) this was like no Shearwater show any of us could recall. Rising-to-the-occasion is one thing, but on this evening,  the grandeur and intensity of ‘Rook’ was fully realized and then some. Color us blown away,

After innumerable delays and despite the best efforts of Peter Giftopolous, ESQ., tomorrow, May 6, Matador will finally unleash the most important comedy recording since Jesus Jones’ ‘Perverse’.

Earles & Jensen’s ‘Just Farr A Laugh, Vol.’s I & II’ will be available in all it’s lavishly packaged glory.  You’re gonna remember what you were doing tomorrow many years from now and hopefully that memory will involve spending some money on the funniest double CD of the modern age.  The Man Cannot Bust Our Music Spoken Word.

(Jeff Jensen, profiled in the Lawrence News)

We are having some serious party moments in eager anticipation of the release of Earles & Jensen’s “Just Farr A Laugh Vol. 1+2″ on May 6th. We’ve been looping the sampler, rifling through our legal documents, and sending out pre-orders. That said, everyone knows that a party isn’t a party without some bonafide DANCE MUSIC (and pizza). Thanks to Mixmasters AeFlo, DJ Rainstick, and the words of our fave E& J character, Bleachy we’ve filled this vacuum…Glowsticks required!

“Bleachy Tonight- Dance Mix” (mp3)

You can still PRE-ORDER “Just Farr A Laugh Vol. 1+2″ and get a few dollars off of purchase and a free poster!

Pt.’s I & II available at Pitchfork today.  (’Rook’ LP/CD, out June 3)

Charles Ray Fuller: Aspiring Hip-Hop Label Entrepreneur?

Look at his face. This man is HIGH AS SHIT. But then again, you’d have to be (this) high to start a record label. Is there any more ambitious way to fund a label startup? Who else is dying to hear the records he intended to release?

Not since William G. McAdoo handed to Lord Cunliffe, Governor of the Bank of England, a Treasury warrant for $200,000,000, have I heard of anyone attempting to cash out this much scratch.

The Dallas Morning News lays out the mind-fucking facts:

A man has been accused of attempting to pass a $360 billion check, which he claims was given to him by his girlfriend’s mother to start a record business, Fort Worth police said.

Lt. Henderson said he did not know if Mr. Fuller and his girlfriend were still together.

Middle age has taught me that regardless of my current views on the state of print media, nobody wants to hear about the good old days reading Suburban Relapse and Sick Teen ’til 4am whilst surrounded by vomiting kitty-cats. Look, I already know that Rusty Clarke and Mission Of Burma excepted, most everything I used to love has completely gone to shit. Fortunately for the rest of you, however, former NME/current Guardian scribe Steven Wells (above) isn’t quite prepared to take the death of modern rock criticism lying down. “Once music journalism was the playground of punks, pirates, arse bandits, chancers, hardcore lesbian punk bondage freaks, revolutionaries, drug addicts and the borderline insane,” writes Wells in the current Philadelphia Weekly. Man, have you ever heard someone so romantic for the glory days of Alternative Press?

Three leading indie music magazines have bitten the dust since the beginning of the year. The spectacularly dull No Depression, the stunningly uninteresting Resonance and the jaw–droppingly mediocre Harp have all recently gone to that great Belle and Sebastian disco in the sky. All of which is great news for anybody who hates mediocrity.

Harp founder Scott Crawford was actually proud of how timid and unambitious and bland his baby was. He described Harp as ”a nice middle ground between the indie–centric Magnet and the dad–rockin’ Paste,” which is not so much a manifesto as a prenatal death rattle.

Full disclosure: I worked for Harp for a while. Publisher Glenn Sabin recently described the magazine as ”irreverent.” It wasn’t. It licked musician ass until its tongue bled. The line ”Joe Strummer must be laughing his rotting cock off,” was cut from a review I wrote of an embarrassingly necrophiliac Clash re–reissue box set because it was ”disrespectful.” And the editor who hired me—admittedly a rampaging punk rock lunatic—was told to clear his desk and vacate the building immediately.

Eventually the dullards reached a dull critical mass. They formed hundreds of dull, white, sexless and punchably smug suburban bands. And they started magazines with names like No Depression and Harp and Resonance and Corduroy. Yes there really is a magazine called Corduroy. One imagines they passed on Beige as too incendiary and Cardigan as just a shade too fucking exciting.

Hey Chicago!

You get TWO chances to see Dead Meadow this weekend!

Saturday - May 3rd

1. 3:30 FREE in-store at the Apple Store on N. Michigan Ave.

2. Later that night at The Abbey!

Last week, Dump made a rare live appearance at Maxwell’s.  I took a photo as proof.  Regarding the 7″ Gerard so kindly posted about below, you can also get it on the Dump myspace page and in the Matador Store! Love,Jennifer 

shown above, the latest 7″ from Jennifer’s own Kiam label :   Jennifer O’Connor - “I Was A Race Car Driver”, b/w “I Was So Wrong” (Dump remix) and Dump’s version of Rose Royce’s “I Wanna Get Next To You”.  Sleeve art by Mr. James McNew, all copies on beautiful white wax.  Jennifer’s peddling these gems for $5 (+ $2 for U.S. shipping), with full details available at the Kiam MySpace page.

I’ve recently been obsessing about West Coast burgers, which typically use thinner patties, more toppings and place a greater emphasis on proportion than those from around here. East Coast burgers can be as thick as baseballs, the emphasis is on grilling and quality of meat, and individuals put on their own condiments. My attempt to combine the two failed miserably, so this time I tried to go purist.

For meat I chose fatty ground chuck (grass-fed) from Ceriello’s at Grand Central. I formed 4 patties where I would usually make 2 (from slightly under two-thirds of a pound of beef), handling them as little as possible, and making them very thing. Burgers contract and puff up during cooking, so these had to be extremely thin.

I heated a well-seasoned cast iron griddle pan to very high, rubbed it with a little butter, and placed my patties in it. Simultaneously I put English muffins in the toaster. I would have preferred to use the kind of egg-flour (or is it potato-flour?) rolls that you get out West, but these are not the kind of things you can buy at Grand Central or my local deli, and I didn’t have time to hit the supermarket. Not that a NYC supermarket would be a slam-dunk for finding those either.

All my eating is really just trying to find an excuse to eat bread-and-butter pickles. But they really are a necessary condiment for West Coast hamburgers.

Other condiments included lettuce, ketchup, French’s yellow mustard (pictured) and thinly sliced sweet onion (not).

Result was beyond delicious. Though after second one I ran out of English muffins. Next time I need to apply American cheese (an obvious gaffe here), and that mysterious and wonderful substance SWEET RELISH.

A little more malevolent than my mental pic of the good doc, but still follows the script. I’d like to think he’d ride the deer to safety or something….

Missing man found dressed like doctor with dead deer in stolen ambulance

Holliman was admitted to a North Carolina hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Police said they would decide whether to charge Holliman after that evaluation is complete.

For those of us who didn’t spend the weekend baking away in the Coachella sun, a friend of the Matablog sent along some photos of our first experiment with skywriting. To celebrate Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks’ performance we emblazoned the skies with their name. It went so well that we’ll be floating triumphantly above every summer festival this year! Keep an eye on the sky!

Incidentally, we are currently running a Stephen Malkmus Bundle Sale. You can get all 4 Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks CDs (Stephen Malkmus, Pig Lib, Face The Truth, Real Emotional Trash) plus a free rare 7″ flexi of “Jojo’s Jacket”, all for $40. Supplies of the flexi-7″ are very limited.

Order HERE

Time to line up all you pretty people, Times New Viking are coming in for the kill. Ugly people you need not worry, TNV have lined up over 2 months of tour dates for you. Miscreants, child prodigies, Rock n Roll hall of famers, Lebron James and music fans the world over are encouraged to attend as well. And to all who are worried that they may just be too pretty for Times New Viking, well simply look in the mirror and repeat after me…”I’m good enough and I’m smart enough and darn it people like me”. That always seems to answer any questions we have.

Fri, May 09 Proud Gallery, London (Vice Calling)
Sun, May 11 All Tomorrow’s Parties, Camber Sands (ATP vs. Pitchfork)
Mon, May 12 Louisiana, Bristol
Wed, May 14 Barden’s Boudoir, Dalston, London
Thur, May 15 Old Blue Last, London (Stag & Dagger Festival)
Fri, May 16 Great Escape Festival, Brighton (DiS stage)
Sat, May 17 Great Escape Festival, Brighton (Bosh)
Mon, May 19 Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff (plus Super Furry Animals DJs)
Tues, May 20 Korova, Liverpool
Wed, May 21 Corsica Studios, London (with Lovvers)
Thur, May 22 The Common Place, Leeds
Fri, May 23 Studio 24, Edinburgh
Sat, May 24 Captain’s Rest, Glasgow
Mon, May 26 Andrew’s Lane Theatre, Dublin
Sat, May 31 Primavera Sound ‘08, Barcelona

Wed, June 04 Bloomington, IN Waldron Art Center
Thur, June 05 Omaha, NE Waiting Room
Fri, June 06 Denver, CO Larimer Lounge
Sat, June 07 Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court
Mon, June 09 Missoula, MT The Badlander
Tues, June 10 Seattle, WA Neumo’s
Wed, June 11 Portland, OR Doug Fir
Fri, June 13 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
Sat, June 14 Visalia, CA Howie & Sons Pizza
Sun, June 15 Los Angeles, CA The Echo
Tues, June 17 San Diego, CA Casbah
Wed, June 18 Tempe, AZ Modified
Thur, June 19 El Paso, TX Hush Gallery
Fri, June 20 Austin, TX Emo’s
Sat, June 21 Dallas, TX Club Dada
Sun, June 22 Memphis, TN Hi Tone
Mon, June 23 Atlanta, GA The Earl
Wed, June 25 Washington, DC Rock N Roll
Thur, June 26 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s
Fri, June 27 New York, NY Whitney Museum
Sat, June 28 Providence, RI The Living Room
Sun, June 29 Boston, MA Great Scott
Mon, June 30 Montreal, QUE Divan Orange
Tues, July 01 Toronto, ONT Horseshoe Tavern
Sun, July 20 Chicago, IL Pitchfork Festival

(we all have different ways of coping with disappointment)

It’s a good thing American insurance companies don’t commission these sort of polls — you don’t see the folks at Blender hawking cheap policies, do you?  From the Daily Mail :

Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell” was voted the number one driving anthem in a survey of more than 2,000 motorists, it was revealed yesterday.

Runner-up to Meat Loaf in the in-car charts was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, with Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild third and Queen’s Don’t Stop me Now fourth.

june 08

6 bristol venn festival
8 london beaconfield gallery
9 london beaconfield gallery with carter/tutti
12 dublin future days festival
15 amsterdam holland festival special program stockhausen mikrophonie
17 berlin festhall kreuzberg with carter / tutti
18 praha archa teatro
19 wienna szene wien
20 lubljana teatro
21 barcelona sonar festival

from the upcoming LP/CD ‘Supreme Balloon’ due out May 6, directed by M.C. Schmidt.

(preorder album)

(photo by Jeff Allen)

Matador is pleased to announce the signing of a multi-album, worldwide, exclusive recording agreement with prolific Memphis people person Jay Reatard. The label was already engaged in a series of limited-edition 7″ releases, to be compiled on CD for fall release. The first 7″, “See/Saw,” is already sold out; the second, “Painted Shut,” is due out on May 20. Jay will be recording in August for a brand-new studio album out in early 2009. (His former label, In The Red, is releasing a compilation of early singles in June.)

(above, sleeve art to the limited edition “Rooks” b/w “The Rainbow” 7″, available starting at the May 5 Florence Gould Concert Hall show in NY)

As we’re getting ready for the June 3 release of Shearwater’s ‘Rook’ LP/CD, major live events in New York and Austin and a May tour supporting Clinic, we’d be remiss if we didn’t spill the beans on a headlining tour starting in June :

June
13-Atlanta @ Earl
14-Chapel Hill @ Local 506
15-Washington DC @ Black Cat
17-Philadelphia @ Johnny Brenda’s
19-Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
21-Danbury, CT @ Heirloom Arts Theatre
24-Chicago, IL @ Mansion
27-Fort Worth, TX @ Lola’s
28-Austin, TX @ Mohawk

Further U.S. dates, and quite likely some UK/European activity, will be detailed shortly.

Hey…we’ll have news about the US dates that are being moved to October pretty soon. Until then, the following shows, previously planned for this week, have been rescheduled as follows :

Cat Power & Dirty Delta Blues

Mon    05.05.08     Mexico City (MX)    Lunario
Wed    05.07.08     Bogotá (CO)    Teatro ECCI