Paul Banks Drops Mixtape featuring El-P, High Prizm, Mike G and Talib
Just in from the department of unexpectedness.... Banks (no, not Lloyd) has upped a mixtape and it's called EVERYBODY ON MY DICK LIKE THEY SUPPOSED TO BE.
Actually, we kinda knew this was happening. Paul sent over a rough mixtape about 9 months ago of his beats and production and it was genius. And what, with all the Kendricks and the A$APs and whatever, we thought a mixtape would take Banks to new heights if we got it out months before release.
But the long-standing issues with Matador and the rap game quickly blew up our pre-release hype strategy. Long story short, we have earned a certain "cash-only" rep in the hip hop world requiring us to either send briefcases handcuffed to interns to studios deep in Flatbush or.... call in favors which takes time.
In this case, Paul called in a some mega-favors and got features from El-P, Talib, Mike G, and... hold up, HIGH PRIZM (né High Priest).
(Programming note, I've spent the entire morning doing things to all sorts of websites that we aren't ever allowed to do. I AM DARKTOOB. And I feel like Dean Bein.)
Listen to the whole thing over on Soundcloud:
The El-P cut entitled "Quite Enough" has been excerpted for those needing "an entry point".
And you can download it at all Datpiff:
http://mata.do/Wrp0ff
What Happens If You Combine Paul Anka, Supertramp, Lil Jon and Chicago?
Ever wanted to see how Sister Moonshine might sound if it was mashed into Get Low? No, me neither. But somebody did.
Taking the idea of music sampling and running with it, Ishac Bertran, a self confessed 'DJ Wannabe', who just happened to have a lazer cutter on hand, decided to take the idea of vinyl sampling quite literally and set about creating his own analog cut and paste techniques to create samples. The process is possibly more impressive than the outcome, but for those vinyl collectors among us, now you know what you can do with those unwanted foot-long's cluttering up your collection.
His full article can be read HERE and the results can be seen and most definitely heard below.
Fucked Up's MIDNIGHT MADNESS (Tonight): David Comes To Life On-Sale For $3.99 And Up + Much Virtual Storage
To celebrate the release of Fucked Up's David Comes To Life, the album will be on sale for $3.99 (in MP3) as "MIDNIGHT MADNESS" takes over MatadorRecords.com starting at 12am EST tonight.
The catch is, the album will only be $3.99 for about 2 minutes. That's right. From midnight until noon tomorrow, the price of the MP3 album will be steadily going up until it hits full price once again.
And that's not all.... while we can't compete with Fucked Up's physical world antics in Toronto, our version of "MIDNIGHT MADNESS" will also include a virtual pop-up store with a screening room, characters from the "story", a live webcam from Toronto "MIDNIGHT MADNESS" and a preview of our just about ready to launch "MataCloudTM."
Can't get your head around all of this? That's cool, because all you will have to do is check back at this space in 15 hours to really understand.
Cold Cave's 'Cherish The Light Years" In Stores Today + Some New Dates
Cold Cave's second full-length album, 'Cherish The Light Years', is available in stores worldwide today.
As a special bonus for the iPad nation, the iTunes version of the album comes with "LP" - the first-ever iTunes LP for Matador. It has a bunch of hand-written lyrics from Wes and a grip of photos from the band's last tour around the world. You can get that here.
And while you can catch the band opening up for the Kills over the next month, the first few shows of the band's upcoming July tour have been confirmed.
Mon 7/18 Fargo ND The Aquarium Cult of Youth Supports
Tue 7/26 San Diego CA Casbah Austra Supports
Sun 7/31 Omaha NE Waiting Room Austra Supports
Mon 8/1 Saint Louis MO Firebird Austra Supports
Tue 8/2 Cleveland OH Grog Shop Austra Supports
LISTEN TO RING
Glasser's debut album Ring, is set to hit stores on 9/28. Something we haven't spent much time talking about is how the album is loosely structured like the chiastic (or, Ring) structure used in ancient literature. Ideas are paired in symmetric order, often leading bidirectionally towards a certain concept. Songs are used to represent often contradictory emotional states.. So we wanted your first listen to it to reflect that. No set beginning or end, just dive into the album and go with it.New Yorkers, Glasser made a special listening installation of the album. Go hang out at AVA Project in the East Village this weekend, bring a beer, and maybe a little pocket change because over the next three days, you can purchase a limited clear vinyl copy of the record at the space 2 weeks before release date (9/28).
Then Glasser is taking off for a string of tour dates with Gayngs, but starting it all off with a really special album release show at Amoeba in Los Angeles!
ON TOUR W/GAYNGS (Feat. Bon Iver)
Sept 24 Los Angeles, CA @ Amoeba Hollywood (Record Release Show)
Sept 29 Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall
Sept 30 Chicago, IL @ Metro
Oct 2 Boston, MA @ Paradise
Oct 3 New York, NY @ Webster Hall
Oct 4 Brooklyn, NY @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg
Oct 5 Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Oct 7 Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
Julian Plenti On Julian Plenti Imposters
Doing a little PSA work for that creep that is pretending to be JP on Facebook. From JulianPlenti.com:Hello,
A friend of mine just told me he was a little creeped-out by a Facebook impostor.
Just so you all know, THIS is my ONLY web presence. I don't twit, facebook, or myspace. (yet)
I always thought impostors were funny, but maybe they're not.
If somebody got a domain and wants to do an homage, that's ok. But someone perpetrating like they're Plenti, that's a no-go.
So stay alert to the phony mojo.
And don't go mailing these monkeys any secrets or brownies.
JP
Fucked Up answer your questions on Gigwise
Log in to the Gigwise chatroom here on Wednesday 8th October at 4pm GMT (11am EDT) and join the kids in asking Mike from Fucked Up for his opinions on the state of global economy and, more importantly, Vampire Weekend.
Jaguar Love - New Official Website, New Song Posted, Disturbing Gig Flyer, etc.
I dunno about you, but I'm having serious nightmares looking at that flyer. Personal problems aside, Jaguar Love started their coast-to-coast tour with the Faint this week, and along with being dubbed Spin.com's "Artist Of The Day" (tomorrow's choice : Gaugin), "Bonetrees & A Broken Heart" from the forthcoming 'Take Me To The Sea' LP/CD can be heard in streaming fashion at the band's MySpace page.
On top of all that, the band have neatly slid beyond mere social networking with the launch of their own official website.
'Take Me To The Sea' is currently available for preorder at the Matador Store (CD, $8, LP, $12) and early adopters are entitled to a free poster with each purchase.
Jennifer O'Connor - NY Times Podcast, Widget, New Dates With Damien Jurado
(Jennifer O'Connor, Box Awesome, Lincoln, NE, July 12, pic taken from derek von's Flickr stream)
As we continue our feverish preparations for Jennifer O'Connor's new LP/CD 'Here With Me' (8/19), there's a couple of exciting they've-got-the-internet-on-computers-now developments to share with you.
For one, Jennifer is the New York Times Popcast (mp3) "Artist Of The Week", and the subject of an interview with the Times' Ben Sisaro and a live performance in the Times' studios. There's some album reviews by Jon Pareles at the start of the program --- fast forwarding, is of course, entirely optional.
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For another, we've launched a Jennifer O'Connor widget (above), which you're free to plug into your own blog, MySpace profile, Facebook profile, Live Journal, etc. If you've got friends who tend to take naps with their laptops left open, you can cut and paste the embed code and let them do some free advertising for Jennifer, too.
Finally, along with next week's dates supporting Wilco, a record release show at the Mercury Lounge on 8/21 and an instore at Brooklyn's Permanent on 8/23, Jennifer will be hitting the West Coast with Damien Jurado in September. More dates to follow, soon.
August
10-Wilmington DE @Grand Opera House with Wilco
13-Brooklyn NY @ McCarren Park Pool with Wilco
21-New York NY @ Mercury Lounge with Dump
23-Brooklyn NY @ Permanent Records 3 PM in-store performance
September
7-Sacramento, CA @ Harlow's Night Club with Damien Jurado
9-Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland with Damien Jurado
10-San Francisco, CA @ The Independent with Damien Jurado
12-Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge with Damien Jurado
13-Seattle, WA @ The Triple Door with Damien Jurado
19-New Haven, CT @ Cafe Nine
25-Northampton, MA @ Iron Horse Music Hall with Great Lake Swimmers
What Happens When Fish In A Barrel Fire Back
The appropriate answer to the question, "have you ever seen a woman naked?" would've been, "yes, but let's not talk about your mom on television." But that's not to say it was handled poorly.
I Have Seen The Future Of Rock....
....and with apologies to Jon Landau, it doesn't look a fucking thing like these guys. The Independent's Rhodri Marsden calls The Trons, "the most magnificently stupid collision of geekery, music and technology I've seen for quite some time". Hey, I'll admit they're more charismatic than the Kooks, but that's not saying much. However, I will confess the Trons might be the ultimate Tony Victory wet dream : a band that won't bolt for a major label or ever request an audit.
Shat In The (Linkin Park's) Van!!
No square inch of scenery left to chew, no square inch of Shatner's ass to kiss, and no clips of the interview on YouTube yet, but one can enjoy Mike Patton exploring everything that happened in music between The Infectious Grooves and Linkin Park!The Perils Of Being An Early Adopter
I don't know what you were doing at 3am last night, but I'm sure it was more fun than what I was up to.
What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians? - Of Sticksmen, Virtual And Otherwise
Through the auspices of Blabbermouth.net, the drum cam footage of Sepultura's Jean Dolabella (above) , while fascinating on a number of levels, pales in comparison to the Aquarius Records-touted clip below :
[ifilm]http://www.ifilm.com/video/2666667[/ifilm]
Calling Blind Item Boo-shit
Fox News' Susan Estrich is fed-the-fuck-up with the Interweb's "unbridled ugliness", and in addition to obscene threats she receives daily, " I don’t even have to read my own mail to be exposed to such garbage. It’s on plenty of websites as well." (thanks. we're trying)
Curiously, however, Estrich segues from a rant about online harassment to a personal brush with greatness turned unpleasant :
Some years ago, I was in a ladies room, straightening out my skirt, when a famous celebrity I had long admired began berating me mercilessly for working for FOX News. How can you do such a thing, she asked, rhetorically, because of course she had no interest in my answer.
It was clear that she didn’t want to hear my arguments about reaching an audience that could prove decisive, as opposed to the pleasure of singing for the choir– much less the fact that some of the people I work with at FOX are actually decent people who value dialogue and reward personal loyalty. She was right because she was sufficiently famous that clearly no one had ever told her otherwise.
As she slammed the door in my face, though, I got in the last word: If you don’t like FOX, start your own network. Put your money where your mouth is. Now, whenever I see her, I smile, and she looks away.
Professor Kingsley, how can you in good conscience be such a tease? WHO was it? Jane Fonda? Karen O? Susan Muldowney? Valuable leisure time that might have otherwise been used to write threatening letters to you and your colleagues will now be wasted in a futile attempt to figure out precisely who you're referring to.
While One Of The Label Owners Is Pissed The Rock The Bells Tour Skipped Austin...
...at least there's always the Chuck E. Cheese on the corner of South First and Ben White. Video link swiped from Boing Boing.
If You Wondering Why Matador's MySpace Profile Is So Tame...
...because as the above clip illustrates, we can't be too careful.
Move Over Merzbow, Here Comes Lilly Allen
From the Sun's Thomas Whittaker :Music chiefs were blasted last night for using computer wizardry to make new albums louder than ever. Bosses are artificially enhancing sound levels as they believe the noisier a record is, the more copies it will sell.But music lovers say some tracks are now so distorted they can make listeners feel nauseous. And Britain’s leading studio engineers have launched a campaign to make records range in levels to avoid one loud blur.
Among records blasted by engineers is the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication which some branded “unlistenable”. An online petition has even been launched to have it “remastered”.
Other albums slated by studio experts are works by Oasis, the Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen.
Peter Mew, senior mastering engineer at London’s Abbey Road Studios — where The Beatles made many of their hits — said: “Record companies are competing in an arms race to make their album the loudest. The quieter parts are becoming louder and the loudest parts are just becoming a buzz. This could be the reason CD sales are in a slump.”
Geoff Emerick (above right, shown with George Martin), an engineer on the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s album, said: “A lot of what is released today is basically a scrunched up mess."
Though I sincerely doubt there is any concerted effort on the part of "music chiefs" to artificially boost noise levels, I must applaud any organized effort to categorize the Red Hot Chilli Peppers as "unlistenable".
She's Not Worth It
("uh oh. My upwardly mobile, throughly mature lady friend is on the warpath due to my excesive vinyl consumption. I'd better haul ass to Radio Hut.")
("hey, converting analog sound to low bit rate mp3's is easy and painless with the help of Radio Hut....even though it would take weeks, not hours to convert even a modest record collection, as shown in this bogus advertisement.")
("check it out, intolerant, easily frustrated would-be spouse! A lifetime love affair with one of the coolest mediums invented has been reduced to a tiny black box...and speakers that sound like shit!")
Or to quote Britt Daniel, "Don't Buy The Realistic." On the unveiling of Radio Shack's latest (sexist) commercial, I've got three words for the former Tandy company on behalf of record collector scum everywhere. FUCK. OFF. NOW.
I Am Busy Blogging Right Now
I have gotten out of two marketing meetings just this week using this line.
[youtube]12yD8JyaVvY[/youtube]
(link via Anthony Hype Machine)