Category: News

Sleater-Kinney to release “Live in Paris” January 27th.

Alt-rock riot grrl legends Sleater-Kinney will release “Live in Paris” on January 27, 2016.  This recording comes from their “No Cities to Love” reunion tour and they’re offering the album on vinyl, CD, and cassette (along with some T-shirt combo packages, too).

Don’t miss what’s sure to be a fine record.  I hope they get back in the studio and on the road again soon.

Keep your mind open.

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Ty Segall offers rare test pressing vinyl LP’s for charity.

 Ty Segall Auctions Test Pressings For Charity

The shittiest year in recent memory is almost over, but it doesn’t have to end on such a lousy note. To help extinguish the flaming garbage heap that is 2016 and in the spirit of giving, Ty Segall is auctioning off his own personal copies of test pressings for 2010’s Melted, 2012’s Twins and 2014’s Manipulator! Hand decorated by the man himself, each item is one of a kind and one of the literal handful of tests that were even pressed. Every single cent of the proceeds for these items will go directly to support a charity of Ty’s choice—in this case he’s raising money for the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

It’s a chance to hear it the way Ty first heard these songs on vinyl, as test pressings straight from the plant, and the opportunity to synchronously give in to the gluttonous desire of being a completest collector while also exercising a moral duty to help out others in need in end times…trust us, these will go fast!

All auctions are available on EBAY and linked below:

Ty Segall– Manipulator 2xLP TEST PRESSING, proceeds go to Planned Parenthood

Ty Segall– Twins TEST PRESSING, proceeds go to Dakota Access Pipeline Donation Fund

Ty Segall– Melted TEST PRESSING, proceeds go to the ACLU

Gary Wilson releases excellent new single – “When Mary Comes Home Tonight.”

As if his excellent Christmas album wasn’t enough of a gift this year, avant-garde rocker / maestro Gary Wilson has released a new single before the end of 2016.  “When Mary Comes Home Tonight” has a cool 1950’s Phil Spector sound to it, but with more fuzzy guitar than I’ve heard on other tracks by Mr. Wilson.  It’s excellent and hopefully a glimpse of another full-length release from him soon.

Plus, he’s selling it for only a buck.  You can’t miss.

Keep your mind open.

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Night Beats, Temples, Deap Vally, & more on Desert Daze tour.

A stunning tour will hit the west coast beginning in February.  The Desert Daze Caravan will bring Temples, Night Beats, Deap Vally, Froth, and Jjuujjuu to California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and even Canada.  Don’t miss this tour if you’re out west.  I’m tempted to buy airfare to Phoenix just to see this lineup.

2/22/17 – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel

2/24/17 – Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom

2/25/17 – Seattle, WA – Neumos

2/26/17 – Vancouver, BC – The Rickshaw Theatre

2/28/17 – Felton, CA – Don Quixote’s Music Hall

3/1/17 – Nevada City, CA – Miner’s Foundry Cultural Center

3/2/17 – Pomona, CA – The Glass House Concert Hall

3/3/17 – Pioneertown, CA – Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace

3/4/17 – Los Angeles, CA – The Regent Theater

3/5/17 – Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up

3/10/17 – Las Vegas, NV – Neon Reverb Festival

3/11/17 – Phoenix, AZ – VIVA PHX – Downtown Phoenix

3/17/17 – Dallas,TX – Not So Fun Weekend @ Trees

Keep your mind open.

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Love him or hate him, President Obama just made it easier to get concert tickets.

Just so we’re clear, you won’t see political-themed posts here unless they somehow relate to good news about music.  This is a music blog, after all.

And this post is about music.  President Obama yesterday signed into law the Better Online Ticket Sales Act (the BOTS Act), which makes it illegal for secondary ticket sales markets (i.e., StubHub, Live Nation) to use robot programs to snatch up massive amounts of tickets for shows and then resell them to fans at ludicrous rates.  It’s also now illegal for secondary ticket sellers to not stop “bot” programs they have in place or claim ignorance of “bot” programs being used by their company when evidence shows otherwise.

This is great news for those of us who enjoy live music or theatre.  The stories of bands like Radiohead seeing tickets to their shows going to scalpers rather than fans are commonplace by now.  Lin Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame has decried such ticket scalping methods as “killing Broadway.”

I don’t know when this law will start being enforced, but it should change the ticket buying game in time for the 2017 music festival and MLB seasons, let alone the remainder of this year’s NFL, NHL, and NBA seasons next year.  Granted, many resellers will risk or gladly pay the fine as a simple cost of business since they’re making millions off inflated ticket prices, but some will think twice.

We’ll see you at more concerts next year!

Keep your mind open.

Temples announce U.S. west coast tour dates.

TEMPLES TO HEADLINE DESERT DAZE CARAVAN, FEBRUARY 22-MARCH 17

FIRST NORTH AMERICAN TOUR IN SUPPORT OF NEW ALBUM, VOLCANO,
OUT MARCH 3RD ON FAT POSSUM
(photo credit: Ed Miles)
Temples, the English four-piece consisting of James Bagshaw (vocals, guitar), Tom Walmsley (bass, backing vocals), Sam Toms (drums) and Adam Smith (keys), will release their new album, Volcano, on March 3rd via Fat Possum. Today, they’re excited to announce they’ll be headlining the 2017 Desert Daze Caravan, kicking off Wed. Feb. 22nd in San Francisco and taking them all over the west coast, south, and south west before the tour wraps up Fri. March 17th in Dallas. This is Temples’ first North American tour in support of Volcano after selling out multiple venues stateside this past fall where they previewed new material for the first time. All new dates are listed below, with tickets available for purchase here this Friday.
Watch/Listen/Share:
“Certainty” video — https://youtu.be/h6zdVaAe0OE
“Certainty” stream — https://soundcloud.com/templesofficial/temples-certainty/
Temples perform “Certainty” on Last Call With Carson Daly — http://bit.ly/2gX2nkr
“Certainty” (Franz Ferdinand Remix) — http://bit.ly/2gDdiAn

Temples Tour Dates (new dates in bold):
Sun. Jan. 22 – Hebden Bridge, UK @ The Trades Club, Heavenly Weekend
Wed. Feb. 22 — San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel (Desert Daze Caravan)
Fri. Feb. 24 — Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom (Desert Daze Caravan)
Sat. Feb. 25 — Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s (Desert Daze Caravan)
Sun. Feb. 26 — Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre (Desert Daze Caravan)
Tue. Feb. 28 — Felton, CA @ Don Quixote’s (Desert Daze Caravan)
Wed. March 1 — Nevada City, CA @ Miners Foundry Cultural Center (Desert Daze Caravan)
Thu. March 2 — Pomona, CA @ Glass House (Desert Daze Caravan)
Fri. March 3 — Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy and Harriet’s (Desert Daze Caravan)
Sat. March 4 — Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent (Desert Daze Caravan)
Sun. March 5 — Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up Tavern (Desert Daze Caravan)
Sat. March 11 — Phoenix, AZ @ Downtown Phoenix [VIVA PHX] (Desert Daze Caravan)
Fri. March 17 — Dallas, TX @ Trees (Desert Daze Caravan)
Thu. March 30 – London, UK @ The Electric
(Volcano album art)
Pre-order Volcano:
Digital – http://smarturl.it/Temples.Volcano
Physical – http://smarturl.it/Temples.Volcano.LP

Download hi-res images of Temples — http://pitchperfectpr.com/temples/

Temples online:
templestheband.com
facebook.com/templesofficial
instagram.com/templesofficial/
youtube.com/templesofficial
twitter.com/templesofficial
soundcloud.com/templesofficial
fatpossum.com
pitchperfectpr.com/temples/
redlightmanagement.com
caa.com

Dinosaur Jr. announce 2017 tour dates.

Alt / grunge rock legends Dinosaur Jr. have announced tour dates for 2017 in support of their new album Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not.  Catch ’em if you can!

DINOSAUR JR. TOUR DATES (new dates in bold)
Sat. Dec 10 – North Adams, MA @ MASS MoCA
Thu. Jan. 12 – Sydney, Australia @ The Metro w/ Luluc
Fri. Jan. 13 – Newstead, Australia @ The Triffid
Sat. Jan. 14 – Miami, Australia @ Miami Tavern
Sun. Jan. 15 – Byron Bay Nsw, Australia @ The Northern
Wed. Jan. 18 – Perth, Australia @ The Capitol
Thu. Jan. 19 – Adelaide, Australia @ The Gov
Fri. Jan. 20 – Thornbury, Australia @ The Croxton
Sat. Jan. 21 – Thornbury, Australia @ The Croxton
Mon. Jan. 23 – Auckland, NZ @ The Studio
Thu. Jan. 26 – Nagoya-Shi, Japan @ Club Quattro Nagoya
Fri. Jan. 27 – Tokyo, Japan @ EX Theater Rappongi
Mon. Jan. 30 – Osaka-Shi, Japan @ Club Quattro Osaka
Thu. Mar. 9 – Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre
Fri. Mar. 10 – Toronto, ON @ The Danforth Music Hall
Sat. Mar. 11 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
Sun. Mar. 12 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
Mon. Mar. 13 – Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
Thu. Mar. 16 – Bloomington, IN @ Bluebird
Fri. Mar. 17 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theatre
Sat. Mar. 18 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room
Sun. Mar. 19 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall
Wed. Mar. 22 – Louisville, KY @ Headliners Music Hall
Thu. Mar 23 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom
Fri. Mar. 24 – Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre
Sat. Mar. 25 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
Tue. Mar. 28 – St. Petersburg, FL @ State Theatre
Wed. Mar. 29 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Culture Room
Thu. Mar. 30 – Orlando, FL @ The Beacham Theatre
Fri. Mar. 31 – Jacksonville, FL @ Mavericks
Sat. Apr. 1 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Keep your mind open.
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Tim Darcy of Ought to release solo album in February 2017.
“If ‘Tall Glass Of Water’ is meant to be a song of himself, as it were, Darcy visualizes it in terms that would be familiar to Walt Whitman, and that are consistent with the concept of Saturday Night: As an artist, he contains multitudes.” — NPR Music‘s “Songs We Love”
There’s a line in “Tall Glass of Water,” the lead single off Tim Darcy’s debut solo album, Saturday Night, where Darcy asks himself a rhetorical question: “if at the end of the river, there is more river, would you dare to swim again?” He barely pauses before the answer: “Yes, surely I will stay, and I am not afraid. I went under once, I’ll go under once again.” That river shows up again and again in the lyrics of Saturday Night. It’s about how wonderful it can be to feel in touch with that inner current. It’s about how good it feels to make art, and how terrifying; how you don’t always get to choose whether you’re swimming or drowning as we grow and move through life, just that you’re going to keep diving in. That’s the impulse that links all the songs on Saturday Night.

Each track on Saturday Night is woven to the next in a winding, complex journey through a charged, continuous present. Darcy’s unmistakable, commanding voice and lyrical phrasing are, as they are in Ought, vital to the entire affair. He over-enunciates. He whoops and croons. He makes damn sure you know there are no tossed-off lines here. At the same time there is an evident softness in these songs and an accompanying musicality. While there are moments that take their strength in sparseness, Darcy is unafraid to paint in economic technicolor as his wry lyricism floats nimbly upon chorused guitars and the occasional synthetic artifact.

The album title comes in part from the nights and weekends when it was recorded: a six month period that overlapped with the recording of Ought’s second album where Darcy gathered with friends to record in the storage room of a commercial studio in Toronto. The result sounds like a person exploring his voice in a room full of people he trusts: joyful, shot through with struggle, unfakeably honest. Intimate and rollicking as a house show, delicate as a late-night phone call.

Born in Arizona, Tim Darcy made his way to both Colorado and New Hampshire before ending up in Montreal where he found university, the city’s rich DIY scene, and the other members of Ought. He began writing poetry as early as the third grade and performed often, and his first attempts at songwriting were him feeling around in the dark to set some of them to music. In Montreal, he played in various projects, his and others, before settling into a groove as the singer and guitarist of Ought.

Tim Darcy’s Saturday Night is out February 17th via Jagjaguwar. All iTunes preorders come with an instant grat download of debut single, “Tall Glass of Water,” presented today with the video directed by Jonny Look. Darcy and band will tour North America throughout February and March (all dates are below).

Watch Tim Darcy’s “Tall Glass of Water” Video — 
https://youtu.be/MbgPiAGspB8

Saturday Night Tracklisting:
1. Tall Glass of Water
2. Joan Pt 1, 2
3. You Felt Comfort
4. Still Waking Up
5. First Final Days
6. Saturday Night
7. Found My Limit
8. Saint Germain
9. What’d You Release?
10. Beyond Me
11. Joan Pt 3 [HIDDEN TRACK]

Tim Darcy Tour Dates:
Mon. Feb. 13 – Hudson, NY @ Half Moon
Wed. Feb. 15 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
Fri. Feb. 17 – Toronto, ON @ The Drake
Mon. Feb. 20 – London, UK @ Lexington
Tue. Feb. 21  – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
Wed. Feb. 22 – Brussels, BE @ Botanique
Thu. Feb. 23 – Rennes, FR @ La Route Du Rock D’hiver
Fri. Feb. 24 – Paris, FR @ Olympic
Sat. Mar. 4 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz
Mon. Mar. 6 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott
Tue. Mar. 7 – Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle
Wed. Mar. 8 – Washington, DC @ The Black Cat
Thu. Mar. 9 – Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter
Fri. Mar. 10 – Raleigh, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
Sat. Mar. 11 – Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover
Sun. Mar. 12 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
Sat. Mar. 18 – Dallas, TX @ Not So Fun Wknd
Mon. Mar. 20 – Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room
Wed. Mar. 22 – Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop
Thu. Mar. 23 – Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle
Sat. Mar. 25 – Detroit, MI @ Marble Bar

Pre-order Tim Darcy’s Saturday Night –
timdarcy.lnk.to/saturdaynight

Foreign Family Collective releases two new singles from electro artist Golden Features.
ODESZA’s Foreign Family Collective has unveiled its latest release with a double A-Side from Australian producer Golden Features aka Tom Stell. Wolfie/Funeral marks two years since Golden Features self-titled debut EP and a year since his last EP, XXIV.

“Wolfie” started as a lullaby for Stell’s nephew (for whom the song gets its title from) and ended up evolving into an ambient, atmospheric production featuring vocals from Julia Stone. The track is layered with velvet beats and gloomy synths creating delicate, headphone-worthy dance music. In contrast, “Funeral” delivers heavy, infectious and dark tones with a pulsating rhythm boasting incredible production and originality.

Foreign Family Collective founders, Harrison Mills and Clayton Knight of ODESZA, comment on discovering Golden Features, “Two and half years ago we played our first show in Australia where we were introduced to one of the most unique and forward thinking producers we’ve ever met. That person was Golden Features. Golden’s tracks are dark, brooding, and impressively detailed. He’s already made a name for himself in the Australian music scene and now we’re proud to say we’re bringing him into the family. “Wolfie” and “Funeral” exhibit his diverse range in production and songwriting. One’s blissfully nostalgic and the other is a dance party in hell.”

Since exploding onto the scene in 2014, Golden Features has become known for his genre-bending sound, collaborating with some of the biggest names in electronic music including Porter Robinson, Bixel Boys and What So Not. 2015 saw Golden Features sell out his Australian headline tour, hit the U.S. festival circuit with stops at HARD Summer, CRSSD and Holy Ship and join Alison Wonderland on her U.S. tour. Now with “Wolfie” and “Funeral,” we’re reminded why Spotify named Golden Features an Artist To Watch in 2016.

STREAM GOLDEN FEATURES’
“WOLFIE (FEAT. JULIA STONE)”/“FUNERAL”:
http://foreignf.am/wolfie-funeral

Failure offer “Fantastic Planet Live” through PledgeMusic campaign.

failure

1990’s shoegaze / alt-rock maestros Failure have begun a PledgeMusic campaign to offer a live album from their October 2016 tour (which, sadly, I missed).  They played their outstanding album Fantastic Planet in its entirety and chose the best versions of each song from the tour for this live record.

In case you don’t know, Fantastic Planet is one of the best records of the 1990’s and a masterpiece of engineering.  You deserve to hear it, so jump on this campaign before all the signed stuff is gone.

Keep your mind open.

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