Thank you New P’s fans! My inbox has been experiencing a heavy volume of interest for more GET TOGETHERS. Well let’s bring it. We’ve had a few additions in the last week. And, here you have it, another three slipping out. + NYC, Phoenix, & more to come!
Tweet Together: Don’t forget to hash-tag# your city’s get together to chat about the new album while you’re there. Why? You may just receive a message, announcing you’ve won a New Porno’s surprise catalogue vinyl package, including the new album, TOGETHER.
Consider it something like a slightly more successful version of Chat Roulette (albeit fully clothed). ‘Together’ is out May 4 and on the 6th, the New Pornographers will be at Bearsville, NY’s Bearsville Theatre performing much of the new album in public for the very first time. Tickets are available here.
For what purpose the popular song? Does the popular song have a purpose? Is it just a sequence of auditory gestures, desperate acts, adrift in the bigger broader silence of an unforgiving cultural landscape? In what follows, we will assume that the purpose of the popular song is to unite warring disputants and to repair the manifold puncture wounds of life, so that life is revealed, again, as less accursed than it appears. And let’s assume that we go on listening to the popular song, which in the vast majority of its iterations is a failure, because we are chronic in our need for this rehabilitation of our puncture-wounded selves. Take any fine example, take “All You Need Is Love,” by the Beatles, or “Walk Away, Renee,” by the Left Banke, or “Tears of a Clown,” by Smokey Robinson. Try listening to these songs. Almost immediately, your suppurations begin to clot.
Into this tryingly difficult history of the popular song stride The New Pornographers, into a period in which it has to be acknowledged that the medium is mostly dead, is passed, is no longer a uniting force, but, more frequently, a medium of division, one entirely controlled by the Ownership Society and made profitable according to shareholders who don’t give a fuck if your puncture wounds are healed over as long as the product ships. The New Pornographers, stunningly, do not seem to understand that the popular song is dead, is passed, and The New Pornographers, despite their complete and nearly monastic understanding of the Secret Knowledge of the popular song, will themselves into being, characterized by a uniform devotion to the great history that precedes them by only a couple of decades, and their coming into being in a somewhat unlikely place, Vancouver, not previously noted for a unvarying profusion of rock genius, is particular not only for uniformity of purpose but because they manage, in this uniformity, to bring a considerable cast of local adepts all as one into the tent. The cast of adepts is now well known, but includes at least two startlingly good songwriters, three spectacularly good singers, one of the very best drummers in all of contemporary music, an in-house filmmaker—and that is merely to scratch the surface on the question of bench strength, the shocking amount of bench strength in a band in which everyone seems to be able to produce quality audio emanations from any instrument and to sing, and in which the studio is an instrument as it is in few bands.
Their first album is great, and is power pop, power pop, and more power pop, their second album (Electric Version) refines the form and tinkers, with more studio brilliance on display, the third, viz., Twin Cinema, is an artier thing and a proggier thing, revealing a breadth of confidence, and a breadth of confidences, both senses, and a command of lyrical nuance and anthemic talents that display themselves in unusual spots, in songs that don’t begin anthemically, but which then reveal urgencies; Challengers, the fourth, has some quieter annunciations on it, seems to come from a place of adulthood, from a recognition that urgency can be in the theme, and the affirmation of the song is not in the lyric necessarily, but in the commitment, in the commitment to the sonnet-like cadences of the popular song, and the title song herein, “Challengers,” a miniature about a romantic entanglement that literally walks past the narrator, takes us far beyond the adolescences of the popular song into the adult spot where really great songwriters begin to ply their craft.
Which brings us to the ineradicable present, which is the moment when The New Pornographers have already done everything they can do, in some senses; they have had songs in films and on television, they have toured the world, they are respected and covered and well reviewed and lionized, and everyone in the band has a justifiably earned reputation for excellence and admirability, chief among them A. C. Newman, first among equals with respect to these musical bulletins, Neko Case, the singer who never met a line of lyrics that she could not in same way make indelible, and Dan Bejar, the stealth member and interpretation-resistant Mandarin troubadour.
There are no more interesting rock and roll bands, you know, there are opiate-addicted white boys who cannot play very well and who are unwilling to turn down the amplifiers so as to be heard, and there are machines and auto-tuned fembots, and there are hip hoppers with public-relations simulated gangster simulations, and there are working-class guys with a lot of tattoos who can play really, really fast. But there are no more interesting rock and roll bands, and there are no longer songs that make you want to get out of bed. Still, The New Pornographers are unable not to behave like underdogs of yearning, like a united front of yearning, and they are also unable, it seems, to resist the challenge to make a perfect album, a form so dead that it is on its seventh wave of maggotry, and so they have an eye on history, and they do love a windmill, they love to charge, and they do not know how to do otherwise now, which means that theirs is a contagious form of yearning, and if in part their longing is postmodern, which is to say that they often writes songs that are about other songs (“Crash Years,” e.g., is about “You” by George Harrison, and “Moves” is, in part, about “25 or 6 to 4,” by the beleaguered Chicago), they are not able to treat the form simply as a kind of commentary (which has caused others fatefully to go awry), but also as a surgical intervention for puncture-wounded civilians everywhere, as a joy delivery-system, and in this joy-delivery system there are new and interesting twists, for those who are curious about what the ineradicable contemporary moment sounds like, sound-wise, and the twists on this new album, have to do with strings, really, and with a sort of chamber pop orientation, lots of cello, that is, of a sort that calls to mind the amazing Sister Lovers LP by Big Star, around whose open wounds A. C. Newman has orbited in the past but more fearfully than now.
Fewer keyboard flourishes, and fewer things that sound like they necessitated a good computer programmer, and more things that sound like A. C. Newman and the rest of the band playing in a room. This is probably an illusion, this playing together, but it is an illusion with a purpose, because there are at least two songs on this album that use togetherness as the assembling cement, the epoxy of their composition. The first of these is a big rock song, “Your Hands (Together),” and as you would expect the putting of hands together also occasions a silver bullet, of the mortally inflicting variety, which is the paradoxical sort of thematic approach that we would expect from songwriters who are no longer young, and who are willing to write a couplet that answers the question “What’s love?” with the response: “What turns up in the dark.” All of this is perforation for the tearing away of the final track, “We [End Up] Together,” in which the hook, the title, is at the very end, buried in the mix, and the whole is about familial dynamics, much in the way that “Oh, Sister,” from Bob Dylan’s Desire is about familial dynamics, which is to say not at all, and more about the injunction to “do damage” than it is about familiar unity, “I’m for damage, sweet damage,” Newman and Case sing, and the cellos come back around, with their genteel bolshevism, with a hint of the early Electric Light Orchestra, and Carl goes in and out of his falsetto as he does when he’s winding up like a violent debater, and they hold back on the drumming, which is what they do, until it’s absolutely necessary, and that is a big advantage when the drummer is this great, and then we come to the out chorus, in which Case seems to be singing “ma ma ma ma,” as if to mislead you into thinking that the song, is about familial dynamics, and Newman sings “we end up together,” and then there is guitar feedback. End credits.
What does he mean about ending up together? What would it mean for a popular song, while clearly supporting an aesthetic palette devoted to “sweet damage,” nonetheless to support the idea of ending up together? Is it, paradoxically, about the kind of romantic failure that makes for all the best popular songs? Is it a recognition that the only unifying that can come from the contemporary popular song is the kind of togetherness that recognizes the truth of human life, namely that all is apartness, and all is lonesomeness, and this even if the principle songwriter in the band is recently married, and, by all evidence, reasonably content? Yes, it’s all about the ship going down, and the rats leaping from the sinking vessel, the vessel of the popular song, and there is nothing to do but to celebrate a recognition of this rats-going-down business, and, nonetheless, to view the articulation of same as a joy and a responsibility, such that the best joy-delivery system is the song itself, so that the medium is dead and yet is being used to celebrate its death, and it’s in our mutual recognition of apartness that we are most together. (The band setting is no different, in this way, from quotidian human life. It is a triumph over the entropic energy that would drive it, the band, apart.)
This is an eschatological approach, and, indeed, some of what you are hearing on Together, by the New Pornographers, is a band of ghosts who are mining their fin de siècle imagery for all its worth, even though we are at the beginning of a century. They are from Vancouver (mostly), they still believe that they have something to say, they are adults, they don’t use drum machines, they are not emcees. What could they possibly have going for them? Everything they stand for is over, they are the last iteration, they are the bitter end, the sweet aftertaste of something intoxicating. And yet they believe in doing it, still, together. We are so much the better for it
(preorder ‘Together’ from The Matador Store on LP or CD before May 4 and you’ll receive a free poster plus a 7″, “The New Pornographers Play Outrageous Cherry”, featuring 3 Outrageous Cherry covers)
photo of Carl and Dan via ilamya‘s flickr
photo of Neko via jacephotos‘ flickr
Good news Atlantans and Los Angelinos, The New Porongraphers GET TOGETHER listening parties stop in your towns next week. Stop in to Criminal Records in Atlanta and Origami Vinyl in Los Angeles to be one of the first to hear The New Pornographers‘ new record, Together.
For all attendees of the GET TOGETHERS: we are announcing a contest via twitter wherein you’ll have an opportunity to win free copies of all the New Pornographers vinyl we can scrounge up!
When you are at the party, tweet about the record with a hashtag that includes #gettogether and your city. (if you’re in Atlanta, you’d tweet #gettogetheratlanta, if in Los Angeles, tweet #gettogetherlosangeles — it’s that simple!). We will select winners at random.
These are just two of the many GET TOGETHERS taking place around the country. Stay tuned for more updates!
TOGETHER again….the New Pornographers music + their fans. As suggested on Friday, the band are staging Get Togethers in a city near you! SWING BY FOR YOUR EXCLUSIVE FIRST LISTEN OF THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS FORTHCOMING + GREATEST ALBUM….TOGETHER!
To sweeten the pot we’ve got free booze (while the getting is good), fun contests with great prizes (New Ps summer tour tickets, vinyl giveaways, etc), and a lucky few will receive an exclusive numbered spring Get TogetherMix that Carl Newman told us he put together specifically for these parties (available nowhere else).
We will be posting individual market specific details this week. For now, check to see when your city is ‘getting together‘ in the next couple of weeks below.
Austin - Wed 4/21 8-11pm @ The Scoot Inn (1308 East 4th St.) - RSVP:oaustin@theonion.com
Boston - Tues 4/20 9-1130pm @ The Independent in Union Square (75 Union Square, Somerville) - RSVP:gettogetherboston@gmail.com
Chicago – Thurs 4/22 6-9pm @ Beauty Bar (1444 West Chicago Ave) - RSVP:ochicago@theonion.com
Don’t see your city? Don’t fret. More togetherness may happen, details coming together soon for: LA, NYC, San Fran, Phoenix, Minneapolis, and more!
** are you a promoter/record store employee/ bar owner/music-planner enthusiast? interested in being in charge/putting on your OWN get together? email: heathermacintyre@beggars.com **
Remember this? We’re not stopping there. Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, DC, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Fran, + more :
Want to #gettogether for FREE BOOZE (amongst other surprises) + FIRSTLISTEN of the New Pornographers’ upcoming release?
(A.C. Newman contends with the stage invasion attempts of former J. Geils Band vocalist Peter Wolf at the 2006 Lollapalooza. Photo taken from Ozmodiar’s Flickr page)
Lollapalooza has added The New Pornographers to this summer’s line up alongside Harlem, Lady Gaga, Blues Traveler and other titans of the alternative music scene. If you’re not gonna be in Chicago this summer for the event Kim Gordon once once described as “about music, advertisement, and youth-oriented product positioning”, rest assured, the New Pornographers are coming to a town near you. .
The New Pornographers Tour:
05-19 London, England – Electric Ballroom !
05-21 Berlin, Germany – Magnet Club !
05-22 Hamburg, Germany – Molotow !
05-23 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Melkweg !
05-25 Brussels, Belgium – Orangerie !
05-26 Paris, France – La Maroquinerie !
05-27 Toulouse, France – Cafe Rex !
05-28 Barcelona, Spain – Primavera Sound Festival !
05-31 George, WA – Sasquatch Music Festival
06-07 Calgary, Alberta – MacEwan Hall *
06-08 Edmonton, Alberta – Edmonton Event Centre *
06-09 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan – The Odeon Events Centre *
06-10 Winnipeg, Manitoba – The Garrick Centre *
06-11 Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue ^#
06-12 Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theater ^#
06-13 Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall ^#
06-15 Toronto, Ontario – The Sound Academy ^#
06-17 Montreal, Quebec – Le National ^#
06-18 Boston, MA – House of Blues ^#
06-19 New York, NY – Terminal 5 ^#
06-21 Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero Theatre ^#
06-22 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club ^#
06-23 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club ^#
06-25 Chapel Hill, NC – Memorial Hall at UNC ^#
06-26 Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse ^#
06-27 Nashville, TN – Cannery Ballroom ^#
06-28 St Louis, MO – The Pageant ^
07-15 Vancouver, British Columbia – The Vogue Theatre ^%
07-16 Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom ^%
07-18 Oakland, CA – Fox Theater ^%
07-19 Los Angeles, CA – Henry Fonda Theater ^%
07-20 Los Angeles, CA – Henry Fonda Theater ^%
07-21 Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre ^%
07-23 Austin, TX – Stubb’s BBQ ^%
07-24 Dallas, TX – The Showroom at Palladium ^%
07-25 Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom ^%
07-26 Lawrence, KS – Liberty Hall ^%
07-28 Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre ^%
07-30 Boise, ID – Egyptian Theatre ^%
08-04 Madison, WI – Orpheum Theatre ^
! with Here We Go Magic
* with the Mountain Goats
^ with the Dodos
# with the Dutchess & The Duke
% with Imaad Wasif
Friday, 5/28 – Parc Del Forum, Barcelona, Primavera Sound
Mon, 5/31 – George WA – Sasquatch Music Festival
Mon, 6/7 – Calgary AB – MacEwan Hall*
Tue, 6/8 – Edmonton AB – Edmonton Event Centre*
Wed, 6/9 – Saskatoon SK – The Odeon Events Centre*
Thu, 6/10 – Winnipeg MB – The Garrick Centre*
Fri, 6/11 – Minneapolis MN – First Avenue
Sat, 6/12 – Milwaukee WI – Pabst Theater^#
Sun, 6/13 – Columbus OH – Newport Music Hall^#
Tue, 6/15 – Toronto ON – The Sound Academy^#
Thu, 6/17 – Montreal QC – Le National^#
Fri, 6/18 – Boston MA – House of Blues^#
Sat, 6/19 – New York NY – Terminal 5^#
Mon, 6/21 – Philadelphia PA – Trocadero Theatre^#
Tue, 6/22 – Washington DC – 9:30 Club^#
Wed, 6/23 – Washington DC – 9:30 Club^#
Fri, 6/25 – Chapel Hill NC – Memorial Hall at UNC^#
Sat, 6/26 – Atlanta GA – Variety Playhouse^#
Sun, 6/27 – Nashville TN – Cannery Ballroom^#
Sun, 6/28 – St Louis MO – The Pagaent^
Thu, 7/15 – Vancouver BC – The Vogue Theatre^”
Fri, 7/16 – Portland OR – Crystal Ballroom^”
Sun, 7/18 – Oakland CA – Fox Theater^”
Mon, 7/19 – Los Angeles CA – The Music Box^”
Tue, 7/20 – Los Angeles CA – The Music Box^”
Wed, 7/21 – Tucson AZ – Rialto Theatre^”
Fri, 7/23 – Austin TX – Stubb’s BBQ^”
Sat, 7/24 – Dallas TX – The Showroom at Palladium^”
Sun, 7/25 – Tulsa OK – Cain’s Ballroom^”
Mon, 7/26 – Lawrence KS – Liberty Hall^”
Wed, 7/28 – Denver CO – Ogden Theatre^”
Fri, 7/30 – Boise ID – Egyptian Theatre^”
Wed, 8/4 – Madison WI – Orpheum Theatre^
with support from :
* = The Mountain Goats
^ = The Dodos
# = The Dutchess & The Duke
” = Imaad Wasif
(preorder ‘Together’ from The Matador Store on LP or CD before May 4 and you’ll receive a free poster plus a 7″, “The New Pornographers Play Outrageous Cherry”, featuring 3 Outrageous Cherry covers)
The New Pornographers and Matador Records are pleased announce the very first opportunity to hear the band’s brand-new fifth album Together (out May 4th) – the South By Southwest “Together Shuttle“:
On Wednesday March 17th in Austin, TX – to mark the start of SXSW (or, our arrival, anyway) – the Together Shuttle will be making several runs to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, gathering travel-weary music fans and providing door-to-door service to the Austin Convention Center and several downtown hotels. Fans who sign up to ride the Together Shuttle will be treated to complimentary cocktails and, of course, the first ever album-playback of the New Pornographers’ Together.
Sign-up for the Together Shuttle is as easy as it is limited. If any of the below pickup times meet your Austin arrival-and-pickup needs (and aren’t yet full), simply fill out your information, press “submit” and confirmation of your airport-pickup will be sent via email:
SIGN UP FOR THE SHUTTLE IS NOW CLOSED. IF YOU ARE A GAMBLER, JUST LOOK OUT FOR A BIG SCHOOL BUS AND TRY TO SNAKE YOUR WAY ON. WE WILL BE DRUNK BY THE END OF THE DAY AND PLIABLE.
For those of you lucky enough to secure a spot on the Together Shuttle – and a first-listen to Together – more details will follow with your confirmation.
If the snowflakes pouring down over the website didn’t tip you off, it’s time for everyone to put their hands (together) right now. Below is a taster from The New Pornographers’ forthcoming album Together, out May 4:
This song is just the tip of the iceberg so far as Together is concerned – here is the full track listing:
1. Moves
2. The Crash Years
3. Your Hands (Together)
4. Silver Jenny Dollar
5. Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk
6. My Shepherd
7. If You Can’t See My Mirrors
8. Up In The Dark
9. Valkyrie In The Roller Disco
10. A Bite Out Of My Bed
11. Daughters Of Sorrow
12. We End Up Together
As always, the album features the immense talents of A.C. Newman, Dan Bejar, Kathryn Calder, Neko Case, John Collins, Kurt Dahle, Todd Fancey and Blaine Thurier. It was produced by Phil Palazzolo and recorded at various studios in Vancouver, Brooklyn and Woodstock New York, and oh man, do we love it.
Now preorder the album and get a free 7″ and a free poster:
(sadly, there are no plans to show the above film at the Gorge during the weekend of May 29-31)
As you might’ve heard elsewhere last night, Pavement, The New Pornographers and Girls are each taking part in 2010′s Sasquatch Festival (May 29-31, The Gorge, WA). A number of our other favorites are taking part (No Age, Band Of Horses, Quasi, Public Enemy) but we’d I’d like to extend a very special thanks to the organizers of this event for NOT BOOKING SOUNDGARDEN. Keep hope alive!
Coming on May 4: the new album from The New Pornographers, entitled Together. Their fifth full-length was produced by the band and Phil Palazzolo, and recorded in Vancouver, Brooklyn, Woodstock, and Catskill, NY. The album is comprised of 9 A.C. Newman songs and 3 Dan Bejar numbers, and features the full eight-person lineup of Carl, Dan, John Collins, Neko Case, Kurt Dahle, Kathryn Calder, Todd Fancey and Blaine Thurier. Additional musicians include Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Zach Condon (Beirut), Will Sheff (Okkervil River), and the Dap-Kings Horns, among other talents.
You don’t need us to tell you the album is great… but we’ll say it anyway. It’s amazing, more varied, deeper, and broader than its predecessors. Please just look forward to extreme enjoyment. First MP3 coming soon.
In the meantime, check out the brand new look on the New Pornographers site (and check out the photo page for over 100 photos from the recording of Together):
And keep in mind – Carl a/k/a A.C. Newman will be joining other luminaries onstage tomorrow nightnext Wednesday, January 27 at the Bell House (including Ted Leo) for a Haiti Benefit tomorrow night, January 27. All proceeds to Save The Children and Partners In Health.
Preorder information coming soon… keep your eyes on this site.
… on the Dark Was The Night compilation, coming out on 4AD. All are unavailable elsewhere. The Yo La Tengo song is a Snapper cover, the New Pornographers song is a Destroyer song (cover?), and the Stuart Murdoch song is a traditional Scottish number. (Other members of Belle and Sebastian perform on the track.) All three can be checked out in the above widget.
There is also an unreleased Cat Power song on the record – a cover of “Amazing Grace.”
This is the new Red Hot compilation, and proceeds will go to benefit AIDS charities.
In stores a week from tomorrow. Preorder it here and receive a free 7″ while supplies last.
We’ll have a major announcement in the next day or so regarding the new A.C. Newman LP/CD ‘Get Guilty’. Oh fuck it, I hate suspense, too. Dates and a new MP3 forthcoming.
Our friends at Super Deluxe bring us the long-awaited, oft-rumored, Fozzie Bear-approved video for the New Pornographers’ Challengers standout “Mutiny, I Promise You”.
Part of the hilarious Penelope: Princess of Pets series, this is one rock video that’s wholesome fun for the whole family. Sort of.
We’re pleased to confirm — after other outlets have done so, natch — a January 20, 2008 release date for the LP/CD/digital album ‘Get Guilty’, the 2nd full-length from A.C Newman, the Vancouver-to-Brooklyn transplant best known to most of us as the primary mind & voice behind The New Pornographers. The first A.C. Newman album, 2004′s ‘The Slow Wonder’ was awfully well received but we’re confident ‘Get Guilty’ raises the bar on Carl Newman’s songwriting prowess even higher. We’re talking about a guy we already consider to be one of his generation’s most accomplished pop composers, and suffice to say we consider ourselves crazy lucky he’s got more skills & ideas than can be confined in one project.
We’re a couple of weeks off from making an MP3 available, however said legal leakage will be part of Matador’s upcoming Fall 2008 Intended Play digital sampler (more news on that to follow).
‘Get Guilty’ (OLE 834-1,2) was recorded during ’08 at Brooklyn’s Seaside Lounge with Phil Palazzo. . Along with the dozen or so other players Carl roped into this affair, the album also features cameos from Jon Wurster (Superchunk), Mates Of State and Nicole Atkins.
Much of the ‘Get Guilty’ contents will receive their live debut on November 15, when A.C. Newman takes to the stage of The Bell House (Brooklyn).
OK, first the bad news. Upcoming New Pornographers appearances in Spain and Belgium have been cancelled, much to the band’s deep regret. On the sunnier side, there’s a bunch of large and larger events below happening later this summer, including an NP’s-curated festival that has some of us non-western canadians reconsidering our summer travel plans.
august
7- northampton ma @ calvin theater with grizzly bear
8 – Liberty State Park, NJ, All Points West Festival
9-phily, pa @ the electric factory w/ andrew bird
30-sf, ca @ slow food nation festival with gnarls barkley
31-vancouver, bc @ the stanley park singing exhibition – malkin bowl w/ neko case, destroyer, andrew bird, deerhoof, the evaporators
september
1 – vancouver, bc@ the stanley park singing exhibition w/ stevie jackson of belle and sebastian,the 1900s, visqueen, and special guest
While we wish Neko Case a very speedy recovery from her recent ankle injury, we’re pleased just the same to announce the following list of huge, outdoorsy events The New Pornographers will be appearing at this summer :
5/24 – Sasquatch Music Fest @ The Gorge (George, WA)
5/25 – Summer Camp Music Fest @ Three Sisters Park (Chillicothe, IL)
6/21 – Rock the Garden Music Fest @ Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis, MN) (with Andrew Bird)
6/22 – V Fest, Calgary
7/18 – Benicassim, Valencia, Spain
8/08 – All Points West Music and Arts Fest @ Liberty State Park (Jersey City, NJ)
I know for me, every day is Record Store Day, but now there is an official day to celebrate independently owned record stores and it is this Saturday, April 19th! RECORD STORE DAY!
The following bands/members will be participating by:
The New Pornographers – John – DJing at Vintage Vinyl (St. Louis, MO) @ 3:00
Times New Viking – Adam – DJing at Used Kids Records (Columbus, OH) throughout the day between bands
The Cave Singers- In-store performance at CD World (Eugene, OR) @ 3:00
Dead Meadow – Jason – DJing at Other Music (NYC) @ 3:00
Also, this is a list of the very special, very limited edition items we produced specifically for this day:
Matador Turntable Slipmats
Stephen Malkmus – Cold Son 10″
FREE Matador Sampler CD
For the first time, we’re making our annual ‘Intended Play’ label sampler available digitally. Click on the link to get a zipped file of all 12 tracks plus front and back artwork, and burn it yourself (or just listen to it digitally):
1. Jay Reatard Always Wanting More (from 7″ #3, due out June 17 June 24)
2. Times New Viking DROP-OUT (from Rip It Off, released January 22)
3. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks Cold Son (from Real Emotional Trash, released March 4)
4. Shearwater Leviathan, Bound (from Rook, due out June 3)
5. Cat Power Metal Heart (from Jukebox, released January 22)
6. Matmos Polychords (from Supreme Balloon, due out May 6)
7. Mission Of Burma That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate (from Vs.: The Definitive Edition, released today, March 18)
8. Jaguar Love Bats Over The Pacific Ocean (from Take Me To The Sea, due out this summer August 19)
9. The Cave Singers Helen (from Invitation Songs, released last September)
10. Dead Meadow I’m Gone (from Old Growth, released February 5)
11. The New Pornographers All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth (live) (from Live From Soho (iTunes Exclusive), released March 11)
12. Earles & Jensen Bleachy Is Back In Town, Look Out (from Just Farr A Laugh Vols. 1 & 2: The Greatest Prank Phone Calls Ever!, due out April 22 May 6)
The sharp-eyed among you will note that some of these tracks are not the ones released as promo MP3s to date.
The New Pornographers recorded a live concert at the Apple Store in Soho, NYC last December – it is out on iTunes today. Click the link to order it:
Meanwhile, don’t forget that the Executive Edition box set version of ‘Challengers’ is complete and ready for downloading and burning all discs. For those who never got it, you can still order it from the Matador Store while supplies last – either as an upgrade to the regular edition if you already own it, or as a complete box set ready to download and burn.
were one of us not a blessed MySpace pal of The New Pornographers, there’s no telling how late we’d be forwarding the following :
The New Pornographers are pleased to announce their upcoming Spring US tour with special guests Okkervil River!
A limited number of tickets have been held for New Pornographer fans and will be available through an exclusive presale that begins Saturday, February 2nd at 12 PM Local Time! By buying tickets through our presale, you’ll be able to get your tickets before anyone else AND save some money on service charges.
Apr 9: Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
Apr 10: Pontiac, MI @ The Crofoot Ballroom
Apr 11: Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
Apr 12: Munhall, PA @ Carnegie Music Hall in Homestead
Apr 13: Ithaca, NY @ The State Theater of Ithaca
Apr 14: Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
Apr 16: Richmond, VA @ Toad’s Place
Apr 17: Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre
Apr 18: Nashville, TN @ The Cannery
Apr 19: St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
Apr 20: Chicago, IL @ Riviera
Apr 21: Madison, WI @ Orpheum
Apr 22: Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
Paying homage to Ronald Thomas Clonte, Matador Direct’s Dave Martin writes,
As you all know, we were rather ambitious with the New Pornographers’ Buy Early Get Now endeavor, but now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The first disc of b-sides etc. is complete and today the live disc “Live From the Future” is being posted on the BEGN site and folks are being notified about it. That only leaves the last disc of photos and videos to be completed and we are anxiouslyi awaiting the final cut of the new “Myriad Harbour” video. We expect to have that in house and ready to go out to everyone by the end of January. As I said we realized that the scope of this thing was a bit too grand, however we were pretty confident that once it was all done we would have a really fantastic companion to the “Challengers” album.
Now that it is basically done I’d say that is a bit of an understatement. The B-Sides disc rules, the “Live From the Future” disc rocks and the while the time that folks had to wait did rot, that is all in the past.
Hey, take that LA Times. Like Mark McGwire, we’re not here to talk about the past. Unless you wanna talk about the past year the band and various label persons slaved to assemble a fun, sprawling package that represents a fantastic deal.
ace, Vancouver, not previously noted for a unvarying profusion of rock genius, is particular not only for uniformity of purpose but because they manage, in this uniformity, to bring a considerable cast of local adepts all as one into the tent. The cast of adepts is now well known, but includes at least two startlingly good songwriters, three spectacularly good singers, one of the very best drummers in all of contemporary music, an in-house filmmaker—and that is merely to scratch the surface on the question of bench strength, the shocking amount of bench strength in a band in which everyone seems to be able to produce quality audio emanations from any instrument and to sing, and in which the studio is an instrument as it is in few bands.
are working-class guys with a lot of tattoos who can play really, really fast. But there are no more interesting rock and roll bands, and there are no longer songs that make you want to get out of bed. Still, The New Pornographers are unable not to behave like underdogs of yearning, like a united front of yearning, and they are also unable, it seems, to resist the challenge to make a perfect album, a form so dead that it is on its seventh wave of maggotry, and so they have an eye on history, and they do love a windmill, they love to charge, and they do not know how to do otherwise now, which means that theirs is a contagious form of yearning, and if in part their longing is postmodern, which is to say that they often writes songs that are about other songs (“Crash Years,” e.g., is about “You” by George Harrison, and “Moves” is, in part, about “25 or 6 to 4,” by the beleaguered Chicago), they are not able to treat the form simply as a kind of commentary (which has caused others fatefully to go awry), but also as a surgical intervention for puncture-wounded civilians everywhere, as a joy delivery-system, and in this joy-delivery system there are new and interesting twists, for those who are curious about what the ineradicable contemporary moment sounds like, sound-wise, and the twists on this new album, have to do with strings, really, and with a sort of chamber pop orientation, lots of cello, that is, of a sort that calls to mind the amazing Sister Lovers LP by Big Star, around whose open wounds A. C. Newman has orbited in the past but more fearfully than now.
Good news Atlantans and Los Angelinos, 
