Here's the latest from Jason Lytle formerly known as Grandaddy. May 19th marks the release of his solo record Yours Truly, the Commuter. -IL

Rock Star Game's follow up to the Western to their 2004 classic, Red Dead Revolver, has been announced. It's called Red Dead Redemption and will hit retail in the coming months. The game looks solid, but I haven't learned much about the music just yet, but if it's coming out Rock Star, the music is always sure to please. Check the vid out below. -SB

5/22 - OAKLAND, CA - Fox Oakland Theater*
5/23 - PORTLAND, OR- Roseland Theater*
5/25 - VANCOUVER, BC - Malkin Bowl*
5/27 - EDMONTON, AB - Edmonton Events Centre*
5/28 - CALGARY, AB - Macewan Hall*
5/29 - SASKATOON, SK - Louis' Pub*
5/30 - WINNIPEG, MA - Burton Cummings Theatre*
6/02 - TORONTO, ON - Sound Academy*
6/03 - MONTREAL, QB - Metropolis*
6/04 - BOSTON, MA - House Of Blues*
6/05 - NEW YORK, NY - Summerstage*
6/06 - BALTIMORE, MD - Metro Gallery
6/08 - WASHINGTON, DC - 9:30 Club*
6/09 - WASHINGTON, DC - 9:30 Club*
6/10 - RICHMOND, VA - The National*
6/11 - CHARLOTTE, NC - Amos' Southend*
6/12 - MANCHESTER TN - Bonnaroo Music Festival
6/17 - PHILADELPHIA, PA - First Unitarian Church Downstairs
6/18 - BOSTON, MA - Somerville Theatre
6/19 - BROOKLYN, NY - Williamsburg Waterfront
6/21 - COLUMBUS, OH - Wexner Center
6/22 - CHICAGO, IL - Millenium Park - Pritzker
7/03 - SEATTLE, WA - Chop Suey
7/04 - PORTLAND, OR - Holocene
7/07 - SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Independent
7/08 - LOS ANGELES, CA - Troubadour
* WITH TV ON THE RADIO

Natalie Portman is the guest on the third installment of Galifianakis's web series. Boy how we love "Between Two Ferns." Enjoy! -IL

Lucky us! Kitsune Maison, the French fashion brand and record label, has announced The Lucky One, the seventh volume in its celebrated series of compilations, to release on June 9. Past compilations have included Au Revoir Simone, Achitecture In Helsinki, Hot Chip, Tom Vek, and tons more.

Volume 7 is releasing digitally, so look for it on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, and such. Here's a freebie in the meantime: click here to download the Kitsune Maison 7 Mini Mix now. Full track listing for Volume 7 after the jump.-AM

Kitsune Maison 7 Tracklisting

1. TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB - Something Good Can Work
They're very young, very shy, very three, very Northern Irish. Theyre into melody, very much so. We believe in them. Close your eyes and here you are: somewhere else. The most beautiful song there is.

2. WE HAVE BAND - Time After Time
They're young too, also three, although there's a couple in the trio. A mental energy on stage that's left the Parisian audience of a Kitsune En Vrai gig totally battered. Proper heroes.

3. PHOENIX - Lisztomania (CLASSIXX Version)
Here's the first single of the long awaited new Phoenix album, remixed by the new Los Angeles scene: Classixx. A production that's evocative of a Corvette in the sun, carefree, before it all gets dangerously heated up. Quite convenient too when you're fifteen (at least spiritually) to French kiss for a whole five minutes.

4. CRYSTAL FIGHTERS - Xtatic Truth
They say: "We make dance music with Basque instruments, synths and our voices". In London people talk of Folktronica. At Kitsune's headquarter in Montmartre, we find that it opens the door quite a bit and let fresh air comes in.

5. THE GOLDEN FILTER - Favourite Things
The italo-disco scene revitalized by these New Yorkers who have been close to Kitsune for a long time. The girl goes through her list of favorite things and that's enough for us: "coffee, sugar, ice cream, vintage dresses, kittens, rabbits, Paris, nice girls, cute boys". Feels familiar.

6. LA ROUX - In For The Kill (LIFELIKE Remix)
Here La Roux is remixed by Lifelike, mr glamour from Strasbourg. These days she's one of the most fashionable artists in the Kitsune Maison. The track is as smooth as a yellow Testarossa that won't stop, just like Donna Summer's endless orgasms. The beat revolves around broken glass, yes we drink Russian-style at Kitsune.

7. BENI - Fringe Element (Short Like Me Edit)
Young, charismatic producer, he makes club music. He's part of the good, ebullient Aussie scene. The track takes an unexpected turn, in discotheque slang it's called 'major sweating'.

8. autoKratz - Always More (Yuksek Remix)
The band of the moment remixed by the remixer of the moment, a healthy Manchester/Paris connectivity. The break is sublime: 'take my hand, you can break my heart' sung through a vocoder. We don't aim to be too lyrical but… In June 2009 Kitsune releases Autokratz's album.

9. 80 KIDZ - Miss Mars
A Tokyo trio that's crept up on the electro radar these last few months. They're extremely polite, take great care of the way they dress; they’re Japanese and we believe the best of their scene right now.

10. JAMES YUILL - This Sweet Love (Prins Thomas Sneaky Edit)
Atmospheric and acoustic, check the contrast between the simplicity of the voice and the richness of the Prins Thomas remix. Extremely beautiful song, another vision of the sun. Because we're talking of a maison and not a barn, Kitsune likes to relax but not let go totally.

11. MEN - Make It Reverse
There had to be an act who would call itself Men. The lesbian scene moves in la Maison. A very militant sound, alternative sexuality, new hormones for a new life. They have as much energy as 'radicality', it quickly entices you to jump up and down. Very good very loud at four in the morning to do what you do at four in the morning.

12. CHEW LIPS - Solo
The sound of east London now today, not just another guitar band. Music that experiments and improvises among four tons of influences. The city's urgency, the impatience, the vitality, the whirling.

13. CHATEAU MARMONT - Beagle
The thirteen track on the seventh Maison. Here are some French people impressed by the luxurious Californian hotel where fashionable actors come to die. They're childhood friends, into science fiction, and down the end a sound quite hard to grasp.

14. HEARTSREVOLUTION - 薔薇と彼女の王子
The band behind the craziest track of Maison 6 makes a welcome return. Their album will come out in September 2009 and love will rain. They're handsome, they have a Swarovski microphone, plenty of ideas, they'll go a long way. True idols.

15. DELPHIC - Counterpoint (Delphic's En Route Mix)
Delphic is a British band from Manchester, Kitsune will release their album in September 2009. Influences range from Orbital to Underworld, very much what we like. To listen at sunset, sunrise and in between.

16. ENCORE
An empty index, the moment people scream for an encore at a concert.

17. MAYBB - Touring In NY (Short Tour Edit)
Here hides a very, very famous guy who doesn't wish to be named. So we can't give away much, it'll drive you crazy, but really we can’t tell you more.

18. RENAISSANCE MAN -- Rythym
They're Finnish from Helsinki, used to be students with Abake, Kitsune's graphic designers. Yes there is nepotism too at Kitsune. The result could be used as soundtrack for contemporary ballet, it sure cleans the aural pipes.

19. TANLINES -- Bejan
Tribal and epic music from New York. Their own press release sums it up perfectly: 'Balearic and disco Larry Levan-style with an insistent euphoric charm that's perfect to blow up the soft-skinned British students.'

Swede rocker Loney Dear will cross the U.S. this May starting tonight in Philadelphia. He'll be headlining, this one, unlike his last U.S. jaunt, where he opened for the polished songwriter, Andrew Bird. Loney Dear's latest album, Dear John, whose title nobody has surprisingly given him any shit for despite being a pretty stupid pun, is on sale now from Polyvinyl and features some fairly beautiful pop tunes. The tour dates are available after the jump. -SB
LONEY DEAR TOUR DATES

05/04 Philadelphia, PA Kung Fu Necktie
05/05 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg
05/06 Boston, MA Great Scott
05/07 Montreal, QC Il Motore
05/08 Toronto, ON Rivoli
05/09 Chicago, IL Schuba's
05/10 Minneapolis, MN Cedar Cultural Center
05/13 Seattle, WA Crocodile
05/14 Portland, OR Doug Fir
05/15 San Francisco, CA Bottom of The Hill
05/16 Los Angeles, CA Spaceland
05/17 San Diego, CA UC San Diego

By Danny Fasold

It feels like just yesterday that "Lazy Eye" first burst onto the college radio charts and drenched us head to toe in tube-tastic fuzz from the days of Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine and all those other grungy harbingers of dreamy nineties guitar rock. That's what "Lazy Eye" meant to us then--a reminder of the good old days, pre-Bush administration, pre-American Idol, pre-VH1's I Love Anything That's Not Related to Actual Music.

To longtime Silverlakers, the band members became local heroes overnight, the biggest act to come out of their town since Elliott Smith. Indie 103.1, back when it was still an actual radio station, blasted singles like "Little Lover's So Polite" and "Well Thought Out Twinkles" as a constant drone, like air-raid sirens. They were proof that a little bit of elbow grease and a genuine love for the grungy sounds of the nineties were still worth something. But while their longtime fans were still getting used to the idea of hearing them on the radio, the Silversuns were traveling the world and rocking king-sized stadiums with the Foo Fighters, Wolfmother and Kaiser Chefs. "It's hard to realize that while you're going around the world for two years, everything here is still going on," says lead singer/guitarist/professional chain smoker, Brian Aubert. There's a cigarette dangling haphazardly from his fingers, and as he speaks his eyes space out to someplace in the distance. "You have relationships with not just girlfriends but with people and family, and those are still going on without you. When you come back home, it's a big reminder of what's been going on without you."

Read the full interview after the jump.

Aubert turns out to be a master conversationalist, finding the humor in anything and everything, even his music. He's an upbeat guy--surprising, considering his penchant for grand, melodramatic songs that often stretch beyond the five-minute mark.

Nikki Monninger sits quietly to his side. She doesn't say much, and when she does it's tiny, hard to hear. It's almost impossible to believe she's the one responsible for the huge, bombastic bass lines that thump Silversun's songs along. Next to her are drummer Christopher Guanlao, and keyboardist Joe Lester. We're outside at the Edendale Grill nursing drinks, talking about their new record, Swoon.

Swoon sounds so much darker and more anxious than the last record.

Brian Aubert: You think so? That's great!

Was that your goal with this album?

BA: I figured it was going to be a darker record. I think we wanted to be a lot more honest. Not that the other one wasn't, I just think it was a little more guarded.
Joe Lester: It was obtuse on purpose. It was less direct.
BA: For me, this one is almost blatant. It actually made me nervous the first time I heard it. "Oh my god! Are people really going to be hearing this about me?" Coming home after being gone for such a long time is an interesting experience. Relationships with your family or your friends aren't quite the same because you haven't really taken the time to come water them and make them healthy. So you have to put your life back together.

You think you're coming back from WWII but you're actually coming back from Vietnam?

Nikki Monninger: [Laughs] Yeah...
BA: Right when we got back, a member of my family passed away, and it's just like, Man, shit's going on. And even though we're not here, it's happening. So all that stuff affects the mood of the album.

I wanted to talk about your beginnings a little bit. Apparently one day you recorded a practice-session, which Nikki recorded on tape and then sent to CMJ. And you guys actually played CMJ just based on that tape?

NM: Yeah. That was very surprising. And then we realized that we really needed to start practicing and that we needed some more songs.

What was the band like at that point? How many songs did you have?

Christopher Guanlao: We had five, but they weren't really songs, they were more like really loose, long, mellow ideas. And there were different band members at the time then. We didn't even use the word "band members" yet.
NM: CMJ kind of solidified us as a band. We were so excited because we had a show, and that meant something.

So CMJ was your very first show as a band?

BA: It was. We said screw it, we'll just get through this one thing and then somehow or another, some of club owners that we knew in Los Angeles were also there. So they started to book us right when we got back to Los Angeles. From there, we just started to work out how to do everything in front of people. We just had certain ideas and would kick the drums so the drummer would stop. We didn't really know anything. I would never go to the mic. It was pretty horrendous.
NM: We played the one a.m. circuit for a couple of years. We would always be the last band during cleanup time.

That's a curse, right, because everyone's leaving at that point?

BA: You kind of hope they do sometimes. [Laughs]
JL: It's kind of a blessing. "We can just try this out, right? No one's paying attention!"
BA: We got really lucky with that because we had a really good social network through all these friends that we really liked and enjoyed, so we’d all go to each other's shows. It was a great opportunity to learn how to become a band.

You guys have stated in the past that Carnavas was the first time you really utilized the studio. With Swoon, do you feel like you now understand the studio as an instrument in and of itself?

BA: Oh yeah. Before we were always wondering, Well I wanted to do this, but how does that happen? We'd go in there and record and have everything set up like you'd play live, but you'd learn that those same pedals live don't sound the same on a record. They sound muddy and kind of goofy. So you have to learn new ways to get it to sound right.
JL: It's like it's the first time you're on stage. You just have no idea.
BA: Today was our first rehearsal trying to play these songs and I can already hear a little bit of that kind of frequency stuff. Like my guitar--it's too bass-y. I love the lower, warmer end of things. But what you learn also is that we still have the warmer things because I have this woman over here [turns to Nikki] who's doing them. And just because I'm not doing them doesn't mean they're not happening. So you've got to accept your role in it.

This record is surprisingly heavy on the strings...

BA: We didn't know it was going to be as grand as it is. We were thinking a four-piece, and it ended up being a sixteen-piece string section.

For me, that's the differentiating point for Swoon. It adds this cinematic quality to it.

CG: It's funny; in our Pikul-era days we actually had a cello player by the name of Tanya Hayden. We always loved that element. But when it came to Carnavas, we specifically decided to move away from that.
JL: No acoustic instruments, no strings, none of that.
CG: When it came time to do Swoon, we felt it was time to bring that back.
JL: I think we had a better handle on the potential of it and where it could go.
BA: The day that we did the strings was the first happy day with making the record. It was pretty hard and daunting. It's funny--to me Swoon sounds like a nervous breakdown. And that day we did strings it kind of took us out of ourselves for a minute. I almost wish everyone in the world had a chance to say these things and feel this way with a sixteen-piece orchestra behind them.

You guys have been in Silverlake for quite some time. Has it changed since you've been here?

BA: It's the same but cheaper. But it seems like we're about to head back to the cheaper again. We just did this interview in England, and the journalist we were talking to was really fascinated by it. He asked us if we could actually see the economy slipping, and I said yes, of course, I see it all the time. Nobody can get a fucking job. There are people way too over-qualified doing little jobs that they shouldn't be doing.
JL: We watched all the little Gelato shops move in and now they're all going to start closing, I think.
BA: I'm okay with a world where people who actually work hard can have a home. That's really how the neighborhood has changed--it became really rich, and now it's starting to regulate itself.

What are your proudest accomplishments with Swoon?

CG: I really like "Surrounded." You're climbing out of something that you just fell into and you're working your way up. And that's positive in that sense, but there's also the negative in that you're in that hole to begin with.

So what's next? Who are you guys touring with this time around?

BA: We don't know. All we know is we're doing a couple of festivals.
NM: And then we have a couple of secret things we're doing that we're not allowed to talk about. But there will be secret things. Secret is fun.
BA: Oh, we'll make sure they're not that secret. [Laughs]

Any final advice for our readers?

BA: Don't be a dick. It's so easy to not be a dick! So why be one?

Here's the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's next film Tetro. June 11th marks its release date. Vincent Gallo (currently gracing the Terry Richardson-shot Belvedere vodka campaign) stars. And yes, Tetro is the film Coppola's been working on for a while ...you may recall a news bulletin from two years ago announcing the pilfering of Coppola's computer, which contained the only copy of the script. Well, this is that movie and the legendary filmmaker somehow went on and completed what he calls, "the most beautiful film [he's] ever made." For the record, we think it just might be. Sorry Brando. -IL