News

Les Savy Fav Expecting To Release New Album In September

Gray Hurlburt :: Friday, June 4th, 2010 2:30 pm

NME.com reports that Les Savy Fav are aiming to release their next studio album sometime in September. Bassist Syd Butler told the British rag that this album would be heavier than Let’s Stay Friends, which I’m all for:

“We’re not buying atmospheric gizmos to fill out space on the songs,” he said. “They’re all three-and-a-half minutes long, they’re more compact and concise. This record feels a lot more ’90s – closer to our roots.” MORE »

Sarah Palin Blames BP Oil Spill on Fussy Environmentalists

Gray Hurlburt :: Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 5:15 pm

Just where Sarah Palin’s logic generates from is a nebulous, national mystery, one on par with understanding the lofty arrogance of BP CEO Tony Haywood. Here’s a comparison for you: the latter “would like his life back”: the former blames the spill on environmentalists. It’s as though we’re being spoken to by martians with only a primer on the present reality of human beings.

And so it played out yesterday with Alaska’s paranoid chatterbox. True to her MO, Palin took to Facebook again, this time with an open letter to “extreme ‘environmentalists’ who hypocritically protest domestic energy production onshore and offshore.” In short, she remarks that it’s environmentalists’ fault the rig explosion happened in the first place. MORE »

Download: Dirty Projectors Cover Bob Dylan

Gray Hurlburt :: Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 1:20 pm

It’s only natural for Dirty Projectors to pay tribute to Bob Dylan, by covering his hauntingly tinctured “I Saw St. Augustine,” from the sparse 1968 album John Wesley Harding. After all, just about everyone does a Dylan at one point in their musical career. For a recent example, look to Sufjan Stevens’ waltzing rendition of “Ring Them Bells.” Now the imaginative, pop-progressionists have their fun with Mr. Zimmerman, which is more appealing for a cover than you can ask for…for free, as a download. MORE »

Listen: No Age Debut Three New Songs In Portugal

Gray Hurlburt :: Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 11:45 am

Last week, No Age’s Dean Spunt had his head used like a punching bag in Lisbon, where he and some buddies went out after a show and met some bouncers who really didn’t like the “English.” Ouch! Unfazed by the violence, he and Randy Randall went on to play again in Portugal, showing off three new songs—one of which is “really new”! Check out the new songs here, where you can also hear the full recording. [Prefix]

Things To Do: Tobacco @ Glasslands - 6/2

Gray Hurlburt :: Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 6:30 pm

If tomorrow night’s an open book for you in The Big Apple (impossible?), then I suggest seeing Tobacco at Glasslands in Williamsburg. The group’s fronted by Tom Fec of Black Moth Superhero, who manages either to excite or nauseate listeners, and Tobacco’s newest album Maniac Meat manages way more of the former. They will be supported by Soundpool, Sunglasses and Telephoned. See y’all there! Flyer after the jump. MORE »

Dirty Projectors Announce Fall Tour Dates

Gray Hurlburt :: Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 4:20 pm

Following their summer tour, Dirty Projectors have announced 14 additional dates for September. Tickets for their New York appearance at Terminal 5 are already available here. Because their last album Bitte Orca is a year old now, we should all expect to hear new material from them when they come around. Fall tour dates after the jump. MORE »

International Trouble With Cage-Fighters: Ritualistic Murder + Bank Heist

Gray Hurlburt :: Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 3:15 pm

With how much adrenaline rides through their circulatory system, who would’ve thunk cage-fighters would turn on society? Not me, no way, never crossed my mind. So it came as a shock today to discover that two separate, unrelated crimes were allegedly perpetrated by two guys that beat the living shit out of opponents for a living. The first is of American mixed martial artist Jarrod Wyatt—he’s been charged with a bit of the ol’ ultra-violence, for having ripped out the heart, tongue and face off of a friend while tripping on mushrooms. Across the pond, the BBC reports that Lee Murray, who boasts an 8 - 2 - 1 career record, has been sentenced in Morocco for masterminding the £53m raid in Kent in 2006, the largest bank robbery in the UK’s history. MORE »

Baltimore Grows Vegetables At City Hall To Feed Those In Need

Gray Hurlburt :: Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 1:15 pm

Baltimore has the right idea on how to care for its hungry citizens. Using the large gardens at city hall, master gardeners and volunteers have uprooted decorative flowers and replaced them with a variety of nutritious vegetables: lettuce, broccoli, kale, mustard greens, et cetera. The harvests are delivered to Our Daily Bread, a soup kitchen that feeds around 500 people of the capital each day, and last year over 1,000 lbs. of grown goods from city hall were served to patrons. This year marks the second season of the community service program, with plants growing more robustly this spring than before, and goes to show just how popular the urban farming movement has become in American cities. MORE »

David Mitchell Wants To Be England’s Andy Rooney

Gray Hurlburt :: Friday, May 28th, 2010 2:30 pm

English comedian David Mitchell was once a fantastic awkward humorist, up in the cadre with Americans Larry David and Ben Stiller. Except, unlike the Yanks, he made his mark in the UK, where a show like his, Peep Show, had far lesser boundaries on what’s taboo and what’s not for public broadcast.

Watching that sitcom was often an exercise in trying not to puke in revulsion between fits of uncomfortable laughter. The entertainment was in following two sexually-frustrated men in their late twenties, played by Mitchell and Robert Webb, who would eat a girlfriend’s pet dog they killed to hide the corpse and get some booty at the end of the day. That’s funny. What’s not is watching what Mitchell took to after that project, which is to emulate Andy Rooney as a high-brow curmudgeon with a smug, Dickensian wit. MORE »

Fat Cop, Bad Cop!: Obese Mexican Officers Put On Diet Plan

Gray Hurlburt :: Friday, May 28th, 2010 1:15 pm

Everyone knows that police officers come in two varieties. First, there’s the butch, action-figure type that are packaged with a taser, tribal arm tattoo and, for the sporting edition, a flash Smith and Wesson mountain bike. And then we have the iconic, Boss Hog sort, with donut-filling stains on their uniforms, pudgy girth drooping over their action belts and not a lof of the useful can do for running down the bad guys.

However, this later version has been pushed to the rear of public interest in the current days of tightened homeland security, with citizens now preferring the He Man persona over the cute and comical fatty. For good reason, too: danger seems waiting to pounce around every other corner. Such is certainly the case in Mexico, where drug cartels have waged a violent war against everyone standing in their way. Just like in America, apparently, Mexico has an obesity problem. Look at the food they eat: beans, tacos, beef, sugary drinks. To help get their fatty five-o’s into shape, Mexico has restricted the calorie intake of it’s overweight officers in department cafeterias from 4000 to 2500, which, to me, is still a ton of shit to put into your body. MORE »

How To Destroy Angels’ First EP Available June 1st For Free

Gray Hurlburt :: Thursday, May 27th, 2010 7:25 pm

Once again, Trent Reznor has a remarkable surprise for his fans. While, one month ago, the reveal of his new band How to Destroy Angels took the web by storm, his new project then revealed videos to tracks on their forthcoming EP. Now, today it was announced that this 6-track will be available in just a few days on June 1st…for FREE! It will be available gratis through their store next tuesday, where you can also pre-order the HD version and immediately download the single “The Believers.” Leave it to big artists to experiment with new distribution models. I’m excited to see how this “drive it before you buy it” method pans out—if listeners will be driven to purchase the lossless version of the EP. Then again, there’s an army of NIN die hards who won’t need to think twice about it. Sterogum indicates that the CD release will be July 6th via Null Records, with a record release sometime after. Full tracklist after the jump. MORE »

Muziic DJ Turns YouTube Into Mixing Station

Gray Hurlburt :: Thursday, May 27th, 2010 4:15 pm

One of the more accessible sources for music, when you need to find a single to show your friends, is, of course, a video on YouTube. Be it for synching playlists to a party or for browsing an artist before you buy their album, we’re all well familiar with how integral it’s become to our audio lives.

Not long ago came the release of the Facebook app Muziic, which brings music and playlists to your profile via a YouTube source. And now the creator of that program has released a freestanding internet app called Muziic DJ. It works like two turntables with a mixer, giving you the ability to synch and meld songs together into an endless dance track. While the songs spin, their videos stream side by side for your viewing pleasure. The functions available to you include a fader, loops, reverb and brake. I’ll be sure to have fun with this on upcoming summer nights, with buddies huddled around the laptop to take our turn at being Girl Talk. [Mashable]

Review: BRAHMS At Pianos - 5/25

Gray Hurlburt :: Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 4:45 pm

View Brahms Photo Gallery

Photos by Xavier Aaronson

Last night was episode two of BRAHMS’ residency at Pianos, Manhattan, part of a three-date series stacked with a number of prodigious, electro groups, as well as some welcome surprises, such as the mellow rock group ARMS and the meat-loving rappers Das Racist. But yesterday will prove to be the most ebullient, when the red walls of the tiny back room shook with the music of Shadowbox, Gordon Voidwell, Das Racist, DJ Aaron Pfenning (of Chairlift fame), and the headliners, while people were packed within like jolly little sardines. MORE »

A Creative Type, A Musician, “Whatever,” Nancy Pelosi Has You Covered

Gray Hurlburt :: Friday, May 21st, 2010 6:30 pm

Now I can sleep with myself at night, having graduated from art school, for Congresswoman and communist conspirator Nancy Pelosi says everything’s going to be a-okay for people like me! Speaking at the Capitol on Wednesday, to the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Summit, the Speaker said that, thanks to the new healthcare law, musicians and creative types can quit their jobs to follow their artistic endeavors, because the taxpayers will foot their healthcare bills. So, to moms and dads out there, the party’s never over! We’ve got Congress on our side! Video after the jump. MORE »

Enjoy What You See At Beijing Zoo? Have It For Lunch

Gray Hurlburt :: Friday, May 21st, 2010 3:00 pm

Weather you’re a vegetarian or not, news on China’s interest in eating exotic animals is often enough to stir even the most borderline environmentalist into anger. Be it from their reaping of shark fins from international waters, where as many as 75 million dorsals are chopped off each year, to their illegal trade in endangered animals as food items, it’s difficult for me to empathize with their arrogant behavior towards the natural world and the balance of its ecology, particularly as a vegetarian who’s in it for the long haul. What’s come to light at Beijing Zoo recently only highlights the Chinese’ curiosity with strange foods. For a while now, visitors to the park are able to order the very type of species they viewed that day, and eat it for lunch. Am I wrong, or is this something of a disconnect between the purpose of a zoo, and what visitors should go to one for? MORE »