As we continue preparations for the May 24 release of Thurston Moore’s ‘Demolished Thoughts’ (LP/CD/digital album), Thurston’s launched an official Facebook page. Visitors willing to take the most mild of virtual loyalty pledges (ie. selecting “Like”) are rewarded with a preview of “Circulation” from the Beck-produced ‘Demolished Thoughts’.

In addition, there’s a new Thurston Twitter feed for news/info surrounding this project ; http://twitter.com/#!/DemoedThoughts

Sometimes, as much as you try to get things ‘right’ they always come out ‘nearly there’.  Yesterday we opened orders for BEGN for the upcoming Fucked Up release of ‘David Comes To Life’ and some European customers may have experienced issues with their digital downloads.

If you are a UK or EU customer, you may have experienced problems redeeming your voucher code, thus unable to download the MP3 delights promised to you.  If this was you, we sincerely apologise.  All gremlins have now been removed from the system and regular service has resumed.  Please do not try to pay again, we’ll only keep your money.  Instead, head back to www.buyearlygetnow.com, log in, re-input your code that you received from Sandbag yesterday and you should be on your way to aural pleasure.  Please note: in the “retailer” field, enter ‘Sandbag’ (not Sandman).  Any other problems, please comment below and we’ll help you out, or refer to the help page on Sandbag.

Regards, The Management.

As announced last week, our ninth Buy Early Get Now promotion goes live today, for the new Fucked Up album, David Comes To Life.

You can preorder NOW via mail order from the Matador Store, preorder in person or mail order from any participating retailer on this map, or if you are in the UK or Europe, from our UK store.

Wherever you preorder, you will be given a code that lets you log in to buyearlygetnow.com, where you can download your extras and early album stream/download. If you preorder physical goods, those will be available for you to pick up at the store you bought it from, or shipped to your house if you’ve mail ordered, according to the schedule below:

NOW Instant download of 5 non-album tracks plus the 3 digital singles already released
MAY 10-13 (EARLY) Full 192k album stream and high-quality album download in 4 parts, one per day
JUNE 7 (RELEASE DATE) Pick up the physical album and poster at the store you preordered from, or if you mail ordered, delivered to your door, plus a download of the Record Store Day Exclusive ‘David’s Town’ LP
JUNE 28 The 4 bonus 7″es are available for pick up / delivered to your door (or as MP3s/FLACs if you ordered the all-digital package)

In addition, we released the third single from the album (of 4), “Ship Of Fools,” today. The first 30 people to respond to a Facebook post / tweet made at noon yesterday were overnighted CDRs of the track:

Ship Of Fools (192k mp3)

Digital single #4 and last, “Queen of Hearts,” will come out on May 3.

Fucked Up on Facebook
davidcomestolife.com
Looking For Gold

(Kurt Vile photo by Shawn Brackbill)

In what’s likely to be one of the hotter tickets of Summer 2011, Thurston Moore and Kurt Vile & The Violators are hooking up for 7 North American dates this July in support of both of their most recent album, the former’s upcoming ‘Demolished Thoughts’, and Vile’s wildly acclaimed ‘Smoke Ring For My Halo’.  Additional dates for both — sadly, only playing in tandem from July 18 to the 30th — are listed below.

This also seems as opportune a time as any to suggest that you check out the new Facebook pages for Thurston and Kurt. You never know when the fateful day might arrive that a crucial bit of news, perhaps some leaked music, might appear over there instead of here.

Thurston Moore at Facebook
Kurt Vile at Facebook

Thurston Moore / Kurt Vile & The Violators / Hush Arbors dates

7/18 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theatre (tickets, on sale April 29, noon))
7/21 Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw Theatre (tickets, on sale April 29)
7/23 Portland, OR – Alladin Theatre (tickets)
7/26 San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall (tickets)
7/28 Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour (tickets)
7/29 Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour (tickets)
7/30 San Diego, CA – Casbah (tickets)

additional Thurston Moore dates :

Friday, May 20 – Music Hall Of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
Sat, June 25, Solid Sound Festival, North Adams, MA
Sunday, June 26, Solid Sound Festival, North Adams, MA
Friday, July 15, Pitchfork Festival, Chicago, IL
Saturday, July 16, High Noon, Madison, WI (tickets on sale April 29 at 10am)

additional Kurt Vile & The Violators dates :

Saturday, June 11, Bowery Ballroom, NYC (with Pissed Jeans and Meg Baird) (tickets)
Sunday, June 12, First Unitarian Church, Philadelphia PA (with Pissed Jeans and Meg Baird) (tickets)
Friday June 25, Saturday June 26 – Sled Island Festival, Calgary, AB
Monday, July 11, Brighton Music Hall, Boston MA (with Woods)
Tuesday, July 12, Le Salsa Rossa, Montreal, QUE (with Woods) (tickets)
Thursday, July 14, The Grog Shop, Cleveland, OH (with Woods)
Friday, July 15, Russian Recording, Bloomington IN (with Woods) (tickets)

Thurston Moore –
“Benediction” [192kbps mp3], from ‘Demolished Thoughts’, LP/CD/digital album, coming May 24

Kurt Vile – Jesus Fever [192kbps mp3], from the LP/CD/digital album ‘Smoke Ring For My Halo’.

(Ohga with his final innovation, a device that converts Mariah Carey’s photograph to pure energy)

thanks to Mark Ohe for the link to the following news item from the BBC :

The former president and chairman of Sony, Norio Ohga, who was credited with developing the compact disc, has died aged 81, the company has said.

Ohga, who led the company from 1982 to 1995, died of multiple organ failure in the Japanese capital, Tokyo.

During the development of the CD, it was Ohga who pushed for a disc that was 12cm (4.8in) in diameter, because it provided sufficient capacity at 75 minutes to store all of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Sony sold the world’s first CD in 1982 and CDs overtook LP record sales in Japan five years later. Ohga’s specifications are still used today, and have shaped formats developed since, including MiniDisc and DVD.

In 1989, he oversaw the $3.4bn purchase of Hollywood studios Columbia Pictures, which was criticised as unwise and costly at the time.

Ohga also presided over the launch of Sony’s game business, which went on to develop the successful “PlayStation” console.

Remember back when we told you that Fucked Up had a new album on the horizon? Well that time is racing towards us faster than you can say “Byrdesdale Spa FC.”  However we’ve still got a little ways to go before the June 7 street date.  But alas!  We’ve found a way to not only get you the whole album early but for you to score a bunch of exclusive content.  We’re talking bonus 7″es, non-album tracks, posters.

The time has come for us to welcome back our dear old (and newly trademarked) friend Buy Early Get Now.

For its ninth birthday, Buy Early Get Now is getting the Fucked Up treatment and by placing a pre-order via mail order directly from us*or at a trusted local independent retailer for David Comes To Life on CD or 2xLP beginning Tuesday April 26, you’ll get the following:

- Instant download of 5 non-album songs plus the pre-album digital singles as MP3s on April 26.
- A full 192k album stream and hi-quality album download in 4 parts over 4 days from May 10-13.
- The CD or 2xLP and exclusive poster mailed to your house via Matastore or available to pick up on June 7.
- Download of Record Store Day Exclusive David’s Town comp on June 7.
- 4 bonus 7″es of 7 extra non-album songs available to pick up on June 28.

And, as always, if you don’t live anywhere near a participating retailer, you can always pre-order David Comes To Life directly from the Matador Store.

For more info on Buy Early Get Now click HERE or email buyearlygetnow@matadorrecords.com for more details.

Check out all the other goings on at Looking For Gold and davidcomestolife.com.

*Any UK/EU shoppers can mail order HERE.

[photo by Shawn Brackbill]

Rejoice, citizens of Britain, for we’re announcing more Kurt Vile & The Violators shows! Kurt and friends will be back in September for a string of shows with the excellent Woods.

September

4th : End Of The Road Festival, Dorset

5th : Sound Control, Manchester (+ Woods)

6th : Stereo, Glasgow (+ Woods)

7th : The Fleece, Bristol (+ Woods)

8th : The Scala, London (+ Woods) [TICKET WEB / SEE TICKETS]

Let’s not forget the rest of the European tour which looks like this….

May

8th : King Georg, Koln

9th : Feierwerk, Munich (+ O’Death)

10th : Chelsea Club, Vienna

11th : Festsaal Kreuzberg, Berlin

12th : Vega (Small Hall), Copenhagen

13th : Voxhall, Aarhus

14th : All Tomorrow’s Parties. Minehead (curated by Animal Collective)

15th : Tivoli, Utrecht

16th : Bitterzoet, Amsterdam

17th : Les Nuits de Botanique (Rotunde), Brussels

18th : Charlatan, Gent

19th : Rough Trade East, London (free in-store, 1pm)

19th : Corsica Studio, London SOLD OUT

20th : Kazimier, Liverpool (Sound City)

21st : Captain’s Rest, Glasgow (Stag and Dagger Festival)

22nd : The Hope, Brighton SOLD OUT

23rd : La Maroquinerie, Paris

24th : L’Abordage, Evreux

25th : Place Saint Michel, Bordeaux

26th : Top of the Folk @ L’antipode, Rennes

28th : Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona

29th : Ghetto, Istanbul

June

29th : Vega, Groningen

30th : Uebel & Gefährlich, Hamburg

July

1st : Roskilde Festival, Roskilde

2nd : Fusion Festival, Lärz

3rd : Metropolis Festival, Rotterdam

If you haven’t already, you can watch the official video for ‘Jesus Fever’ here:

The somewhat unimaginative (but guaranteed to sell out) Reading and Leeds festivals just got a lot better with the addition of Cold Cave and Fucked Up for the end of summer UK weekend festival.

Fucked Up play the NME/Radio 1 tent (Leeds – Friday, Reading – Sunday), whilst Cold Cave play the dance tent (Reading – Friday, Leeds – Saturday) .  Interpol were announced previously and play way up the bill on the main stage (Leeds – Friday, Reading – Sunday).

For a full line-up and tickets head to the Reading or Leeds official websites.

All bands have extensive tours ahead of this, click to check the upcoming tour dates of Cold Cave, Fucked Up and Interpol.

Today Fucked Up release the second of four singles from the upcoming album David Comes To Life. Entitled “A Little Death,” the song is track 13 out of 18. Its urgent tone plays against an underlying tale of resignation and defeat, and showcases a different side of this insanely multilayered album from the first single released a couple of weeks ago.

A Little Death (192k mp3)

Appropriately enough, the band will be celebrating the release of this (sad?) single with a free show at the ACE Hotel in Palm Springs after Coachella ends tonight. They will be performing multiple songs from the new album. Doors open at midnight. Come and get a free postcard containing more information on the story.

If you can’t make it out to the desert, catch them at the Echoplex in LA tomorrow night. Tickets are only $5.

* To avoid confusion, these singles are DIGITAL singles. There will be plenty of REAL singles coming for you collectors.

Stay tuned for the release of single number 3 on Tuesday, April 26.

davidcomestolife.com
lookingforgold

Photo by Magnus Aske Blikeng from the show at St Phillips Church in Manchester, UK

The new Esben and the Witch video premiered yesterday on Pitchfork with several awkward figures shot on location around the Sussex coast by Brighton, England where the band reside when not on tour.  The video provides both a visual representation of the Chorea affliction and a link to their Chorea EP artwork.

The Chorea EP is released tomorrow as part of Record Store Day and features a remix of ‘Eumenides’ by Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai, along with the 18-minute long track ‘Corridors’ from their installation with Karl Sadler.

The band also tour mainland Europe next month, dates for those shows are below:

May

9th – Manufaktur, Schorndorf, Germany

10th – Mascotte, Zurich, Switzerland

11th – Spazio 211, Turin, Italy

12th – Circolo degli Artisti, Rome, Italy

13th – Plastic, Milan, Italy

14th – Covo, Bologna, Italy

16th – Palace, St Gallen, Switzerland

17th – Mousonturm, Frankfurt, Germany

18th – Doornroosje, Groningen, Netherlands

19th – Bitterzoet Club, Amsterdam, Netherlands

20th – Rotown, Rotterdam, Netherlands

21st – Charlatan, Ghent, Belgium

22nd – Les Nuits Botanique (Orangerie), Brussels, Belgium

24th – Gleiss 22, Munster, Germany

25th – Karlstorbahnhof, Heidleburg, Germany

26th – Atomic Cafe, Munich, Germany

27th – B72, Vienna, Austria

28th – Seewiesen Festival, Linz, Austria

29th – K4, Nurnberg, Germany