Radiohead has opened the doors of its archives by giving us the online Radiohead Public Library. It’s a vast treasure trove of everything from obscure album art and ad-free live performances to cool ephemera like old fan club letters, photos of out-of-print shirts, and rare music videos.
Fans can also download their own library card, like I did.
Be seeing you at the library.
The library is set up with the oldest stuff at the bottom of the page, and I’m sure they haven’t released everything they have in their vault, but the availability of so much free streaming material is a treat for Radiohead fans and music fans alike.
Keep your mind open.
[Check out the subscription box while you’re here.]
Australian punks The Chats announce their debut album, High Risk Behaviour, out March 27th on Bargain Bin Records/Cooking Vinyl Australia, and a North American tour. In conjunction with today’s announcement, they present a video for lead single, “The Clap.” High Risk Behaviour buzzes like an out-of-control chainsaw, propelled by spoken-spit-sung vocals, their three-chords-is-one-too-many approach, and an exacting combination of youth, vigour and drunkenness. It’s a perfect name for an album that does not f*ck around – one that’s over in 28 blistering, funny, sweaty, unforgettable minutes. WATCH VIDEO FOR “THE CLAP” https://youtu.be/POM_98oi0oo
LISTEN TO “THE CLAP” https://orcd.co/highriskbehaviour The Chats – made of Eamon Sandwith, Matt Boggis, and Josh Price – formed in 2016 while still in high school. Since then, they’ve released a self-titled EP in 2016 and 2017’s Get This In YaEP, and have accrued a fanbase that includes Dave Grohl, Queen of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, and Iggy Pop – the latter two who asked the band to open on their respective Australian tours. And despite being the subject of a record label bidding war, they’re releasing High Risk Behaviour on their own label (Bargain Bin Records). It’s indicative of a band that has embraced DIY culture since day one. Their determination to do things “our way” extends to their music, which is why High Risk Behaviour delivers everything you’ve come to love from The Chats – only more of it – and confirms their status as Queensland’s greatest ever export.
To create High Risk Behaviour, the band worked with engineer Bill Gardner in his studio on the Australian coast. It took nearly 18 months to finish and several, quick-paced sessions. “If we’d just done a week and slogged it out we could have had an album before now but we just kept going in there and making newer and better songs so it’s hard to put a stop on it,” says Sandwith.
Its lyrics are drawn from everyday experiences; from paying attention to the kind of stuff so banal that the rest of us don’t even notice it. Such as its lead single, “The Clap,” sung by Sandwith and Price, which is both a cautionary tale and the closest you’ll ever hear The Chats get to write a love song. Its accompanying video was directed by Matt Weston and features the band.
“I just want people to have a good time,” says Sandwith. “I want them to dance around and have a beer and enjoy it. We don’t make songs for people to look at in a fucking emotional or intellectual way. We just make songs for people to jump around and have fun to.”
In support of High Risk Behaviour, The Chats will embark on a North American tour later this spring. A full list of dates can be found below and tickets are on sale Friday, January 24th at 10am local time. PRE-ORDER HIGH RISK BEHAVIOUR https://orcd.co/highriskbehaviour
HIGH RISK BEHAVIOUR TRACKLIST: 1. Stinker 2. Drunk N Disorderly 3. The Clap 4. Identity Theft 5. Guns 6. Dine N Dash 7. Keep The Grubs Out 8. Pub Feed 9. Ross River 10. Heatstroke 11. Bill Backwash’s Day 12. 4573 13. Do What I Want 14. Better Than You
THE CHATS TOUR DATES: Fri. April 10 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Sat. April 11 – Berkeley, CA @ The UC Theatre * Sun. April 12 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades * Mon. April 13 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom * Tue. April 14 – Seattle, WA @ El Corazon * Fri. April 17 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Sat. April 18 – San Diego, CA @ Observatory North Park * Sun. April 19 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom * Mon. April 20 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf * Wed. April 22 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues * Thu. April 23 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s * Fri. April 24 – Houston, TX @ Bronze Peacock at House of Blues * Sun. April 26 – Denver, CO @ Marquis Theatre * Tue. April 28 – St. Paul, MN @ Amsterdam Bar & Hall * Wed. April 29 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues * Thu. April 30 – Nashville, TN @ Exit/In * Fri. May 1 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre * Sat. May 2 – Charlotte, NC @ Epicenter Festival Sun. May 3 – Washington, DC @ The Fillmore Silver Spring * Tue. May 5 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts * Wed. May 6 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club * Thu. May 7 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw * Wed. Oct. 7 – Amsterdam, BL @ Melkweg Max Sat. Oct. 10 – Paris, FR @ Maroquinerie Sun. Oct. 11 – Cologne, DE @ Gloria Mon. Oct. 12 – Hamburg, DE @ Gruenspan Tue. Oct. 13 – Berlin, DE @ Festsaal Kreuzberg Fri. Oct. 16 – Southampton, UK @ 1865 Sat. Oct. 17 – Nottingham, UK @ Rock City Mon. Oct. 19 – Dublin, IE @ Olympia Tue. Oct. 20 – Belfast, UK @ Limelight Thu. Oct. 22 – Glasgow, UK @ Galvanizers Fri. Oct. 23 – Manchester, UK @ O2 Academy Sat. Oct. 24 – Newcastle, UK @ Boiler Shop Sun. Oct. 25 – Leeds, UK @ Stylus Mon. Oct. 26 – Brighton, UK @ Dome Tue. Oct. 27 – Bristol, UK @ O2 Academy Wed. Oct. 28 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton Thu. Oct 29 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton
Okay Kaya – the project of Norwegian-born, New York-based Kaya Wilkins – shares the new single/video, “Psych Ward,” from Watch This Liquid Pour Itself, her forthcoming album out January 24th on Jagjaguwar. She also announces initial performances in support of Watch This Liquid Pour Itself. A full list of dates can be found below.
“Psych Ward,” produced by Kaya with co-production from Christoph Andersson (Cautious Clay), follows previously released singles/videos “Asexual Wellbeing,” “Baby Little Tween,” and “Ascend and Try Again.” On “Psych Ward,” Kaya’s scene of nurses making rounds is based on her personal experience of time spent in a hospital. Kaya describes the track and the video in her own words:
“This is basically a Hospital Evaluation Form. The last few days I was in a hospital a nurse unlocked one of the cabinets and let me use the rec room guitar, to play outside of art therapy class. I wrote what I saw to understand how I felt. It turned into this funny bop, I wanted it to feel like a Ramones song or something.
I wrote the lyrics in a very literal way as I often tend to do. When it was time for a music video I took the words ‘do the rounds’ even more literally by making Kaya pole dance in her daydream during her morning fitness routine. The fitness routines were always to an ABBA greatest hits CD, it felt much too ecstatic compared to the heavily drugged hospital bodies, barely out of bed, barely moving. I wanted the video to show that effort, because I am scared to forget. This whole album is filled with moments I am scared to forget, coming right at you projectile style.”
Although Kaya recorded most of Watch This Liquid Pour Itself herself, she also collaborated with producers Jacob Portrait (UMO, Whitney, (Sandy) Alex G) and John Carroll Kirby (Solange, Kali Uchis) to fully realize her ideas for how this record should sound. Each of the music videos for the new record are co-directed by Kaya and Adinah Dancyger, and were shot respectively in Germany, Japan, Norway, and New York.
Additionally, Kaya is pleased to announce that all of her music videos will be screening later this month – January 15th at Film Noir in New York and January 23rd at Now Instant in Los Angeles. She’ll also be performing solo on January 27th at the Van Leeuwen Ice Cream shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as part of her Van Leeuwen collaboration. Kaya’s special “Eat Your Feelings” a vegan black sesame ice cream flavor, will be available for a limited time at their Williamsburg, Lower East Side and Silverlake (Los Angeles) scoop shops. Watch “Psych Ward” Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nedrz5vDug
Okay Kaya Tour Dates: Mon. Jan. 27 – Brooklyn, NY @ Van Leeuwen Ice Cream (RSVP) Tue. Jan. 28 – New York, NY @ Whitney Museum of American Art (DJ Set) Thu. Feb. 13 – Brooklyn, NY @ National Sawdust Fri. Feb. 28 – Oslo, NO @ By:Larm Mon. March 2 – Paris, FR @ Pop Up Wed. March 4 – London, UK @ SET Sun. March 8 – San Diego, CA @ CRSSD Mon. March 9 – San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord Tue. March 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Moroccan Lounge Tue. March 17 – Sat. March 21 – Austin, TX @ SXSW Fri. May 8 – Berlin, DE @ Pitchfork Festival
“This is as much an atmosphere as a song, warm and leisurely and insinuating.” — The New York Times
“…a meditative, twangy song that blends the band’s Thai-funk proclivities with Bridges’ rootsy vocals.” — RollingStone
“…a sun-baked, languid rock song that coasts on Bridges’ smooth vocals.” — Pitchfork, The Most Anticipated Albums of 2020
Khruangbin & Leon Bridges will release TexasSun, their forthcoming collaborative EP, on February 7th via Dead Oceans, in partnership with Columbia Records and Night Time Stories Ltd. Following the EP’s titletrack, a slow rolling song about the pull of the unique Texas landscape, they today offer its second single, “C-Side,” a shimmering track comprised of wah-wah guitar lines, burbling Latin polyrhythms, and soft vibraphone. Stream “C-Side” below.
Their first time writing with a vocalist, Texas Sun finds Khruangbin—comprised of LauraLee (bass), MarkSpeer (guitar), and Donald “DJ” Johnson (drums)—tailoring their exotic funk to Bridges’ soulful melodies. On the EP, these Texas natives meet up somewhere in the mythical nexus of the state’s past, present, and future—a dreamy badlands where genres blur as seamlessly as the terrain. The state’s music is as varied and wild as its geography, producing Southern rap pioneers GetoBoys and UGK, lysergic trailblazers The 13th Floor Elevators, and genres-unto-themselves like St. Vincent, Gary Clark Jr., and Beyoncé. TexasSun lives here too, a record that calls equally to the chopped-and-screwed hip-hop fans rattling slabs on the southside of Houston, to those who grew up on listening to both mariachi and post-hardcore out on the Mexican borders of El Paso, to the Austin acid-dropping art school kids.
Texas Sun started on the road and wrapped up in the studio. Both Bridges and Khruangbin had been touring nonstop behind their acclaimed sophomore LPs when their paths converged for a joint North American tour in 2018, a run of shows stretching from Los Angeles to New York. Although both of their musical lanes were slightly different, they shared a dusty, laid back vibe. When a Khruangbin session yielded a song that seemed like it might pair well with Bridges’ voice, the band sent it over. Bridges returned the track with his vocals the very next day. They all soon decamped to the studio with engineer SteveChristensen, hoping to make it into a B-side. But everything flowed so naturally, it was obvious this would be something bigger, leading to TexasSun.
Australian band Tropical Fuck Storm are pleased to announce a North American tour in support of Braindrops, their newest album released last year on Joyful Noise Recordings. The band will bring “their good old-fashioned down-under rock kick to the gut” (Chicago Reader) of a live show across the states, including some cities they have yet to visit. Tickets are on sale now.
Tropical Fuck Storm – comprised of Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin (The Drones), Erica Dunn, and Lauren Hammel – was formed around 2017 in the city of Melbourne, Victoria along Australia’s south-eastern coast. Following their debut album, 2018’s A Laughing Death in Meatspace, Braindrops overflows with compelling sounds and visions that reflect the often dark and fractured reality of life on planet Earth as we hurtle toward environmental and social decay at a frighteningly rapid clip. Listening to the album is a jarring and exhilarating experience, full of pulsating grooves, black humour, dissonant experimentation, and unsettling dystopian plot-lines.
Braindrops is an unrelenting work, from an unrelenting musical ensemble. “Tropical Fuck Storm is a full on thing,” Liddiard offers. “Everything we do, we do it to the death.” Purchase Braindrops – https://bit.ly/2ZPsO2Y
Tropical Fuck Storm Tour Dates: Tue. March 31 – Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theater Thu. April 2 – Iowa City, IA @ Mission Creek Festival Fri. April 3 – Detroit, MI @ Deluxx Fluxx Sat. April 4 – Toronto, ON @ The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern Sun. April 5 – Montreal, QC @ Bar Le Ritz P.D.B. Mon. April 6 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair Wed. April 8 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s Thu. April 9 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg Sat. April 11 – Baltimore, MD @ Metro Gallery Mon. April 13 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl Tue. April 14 – Nashville, TN @ The End Wed. April 15 – Bloomington, IN @ The Bishop Thu. April 16 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
Keep your mind open.
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Too Free – the Washington, D.C. based trio of Awad Bilal (Big Freedia, Vasillus), Carson Cox (Merchandise), and Don Godwin (Callers, Impractical Cockpit) – announce Love in High Demand, their debut album out February 21st on Sister Polygon. In conjunction with today’s announcement, they share a video for lead single “ATM.”
Too Free is born of the most innate curiosity – their only mission is a desire to connect with others in the space that music creates. Drawing from improvisation and experimentation, they deconstruct their songs to their most necessary elements, leaning into their collective punk ethos and DIY backgrounds. Taking energy that projects a reverence for legacy with the opposite of nostalgia, they lead with a principle of imagining a future and being in it – intentionally making music that skews towards the inclusive and accessible instead of making things insular and pretentious.
Relying on the power of movement and improvisation, each track on Love in High Demand provides an empathetic space for the listener. Drawing equally from elements of South Florida freestyle and Jersey electro into DC’s signature polyrhythms, the record is a continuous refinement of the virtue of motion – each composition rooted in propulsive energy that envelops. Aiming to make something with a more utopian outlook that counters the pervasive pessimism, archaic ideologies and dystopian timelines we interact with on a daily basis, they approach this project with an open-endedness that incorporates higher concepts of what pop art can sound like.
“ATM” examines the duality of attention. Too much can go to one’s head, corrupting a sense of common ground and innate empathy of the human experience, but on the flip side, the effects of too little unlock desperate feelings inside of us, rendering our morality obsolete. “ATM” is about that beautiful, healthy middle ground where it’s okay to desire being noticed, and was consciously written for marginalized people who don’t always have the platform of being seen. The track is an homage to the group’s shared love of ballroom music and the everlasting courtship between the dancer and the music.
Says frontperson and lyricist Awad Bilal, “When we see people who look like us, engaged in situations we could see ourselves in, and have our experiences reflected back at us – we feel seen – and that is everything.”
“I realized at some point that I’m not going to fit into any one box, and maybe that’s a good thing. This record is me embracing being an outsider making my own path.” — Caroline Rose
Caroline Rose announces Superstar, out March 6th on New West Records, lead single/video “Feel The Way I Want,” and a North American tour. The follow up to 2018’s acclaimed LONER, Superstar is a bigger, badder, glitter-filled cinematic pop record. It’s an underdog story, and one not far off from Rose’s real life. After years of struggle to release what would ultimately become LONER, Rose found herself in the midst of a new widespread audience, one both intrigued and perplexed about how and where to place her. This feeling of otherness, combined with a developed set of studio skills and a challenge to “make something from nothing,” marked the beginning of Superstar—the story of a shamelessly odd hero, or rather anti-hero, on a quest to become a someone.
Inspired by cult classics such as The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Mulholland Drive and the mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous, Superstar plays out like a film. After the protagonist receives a mistaken phone call from the glamorous Chateau Marmont hotel in album opener “Nothing’s Impossible,” they (gender neutral pronoun) take it as a sign toward a star-studded future and leave behind everything in pursuit of a newly established destiny. What ensues is a cinematic paradox that in one moment finds them strutting down a neon strip in full Saturday Night Fever hip-swing, and the next, sipping a dirty martini at the rundown apartment complex pool dwelling on life’s unfortunate turns. It’s a narrative Rose pulled directly from the somewhat shameless desires of her own growing ambition, as well as the public breakdowns of several notable celebrities. “To me, there’s both humor and horror in hubris and what it takes in order to be successful. I wanted to make a story out of those parts of myself that I find largely undesirable and embarrassing, then inject them with steroids.”
The goal of lead single “Feel The Way I Want” is to “have people, including myself, not know whether to love or hate this person. They’re kind of like a walking eye roll who’s easy to dismiss, but at the same time you admire their determination. It’s the Kanye effect.” The accompanying video, directed by Rose, was made on an iPhone over the course of an 11-day road trip from Hollywood, California to Hollywood, Florida.
Since LONER’s release, Rose began formulating the ideas and songs for Superstar in between the band’s near-incessant touring schedule, from playing sold out headline shows across the country and beyond to becoming fan favorites at some of the world’s biggest festivals. She wrote, recorded and produced Superstar in her home studio, as well as on a portable rig set up in green rooms while on tour.
Superstar will be available across digital retailers, compact disc and vinyl. The album will also be the Vinyl Me, Please”Essential Record of the Month” for March and will be available on colored vinyl exclusively from VMP. Direct-to-Fan and Independent Retail editions will feature an exclusive, fold-out 24×36″ poster autographed by Rose and are available for pre-order now. Watch Caroline Rose’s Video for “Feel The Way I Want” – http://newwst.com/crftwiwPR
Superstar Tracklist: 1. Nothing’s Impossible 2. Got To Go My Own Way 3. Do You Think We’ll Last Forever? 4. Feelings Are A Thing Of The Past 5. Feel The Way I Want 6. Freak Like Me 7. Someone New 8. Pipe Dreams 9. Command Z 10. Back At The Beginning 11. I Took A Ride
Caroline Rose Tour Dates: Fri. March 6 – Albany, NY @ The Hollow Sat. March 7 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Wed. March 11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Café Thu. March 12 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Café Fri. March 13 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Tavern Sat. March 14 – Columbus, OH @ Skully’s Wed. March 25 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg Thu. March 26 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair Fri. March 27 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts Sat. March 28 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat Wed. April 1 – Iowa City, IA @ Mission Creek Music Festival Thu. April 2 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom Fri. April 3 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall Sat. April 4 – Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line Music Hall Fri. April 24 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada Sat. April 25 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall: Upstairs Sun. April 26 – Austin, TX @ Antone’s Tue. April 28 – New Orleans, LA @ Gasa Gasa Wed. April 29 – Oxford, MS @ Proud Larry’s Thu. April 30 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East Fri. May 1 – Sun. May 3 – Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Festival
Austin shoegaze trio ThunderStars share a new single from their forthcoming album, Number Stations today via Treble Zine. Hear and share “Not That Far” HERE. (Direct Bandcamp.)
ThunderStars is a shoegaze/dreampop band from Austin TX. Formed in the fall of 2018, it marks the return to music of longtime Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos multi-instrumentalist, Erik Kang (guitar, lead vocals). The 3-piece solidified when Sven Bjorkman (drums), posted a random thought about creating a band to use the name ThunderStars, which was coined by his toddler daughter during a stress-fueled trip to the hospital.
This art-out-of-chaos theme has hung over the band since its inception. After their second live show, their bassist, Omar Richardson, was assaulted by a vagrant outside the venue, which resulted in a concussion and subsequent trip to the ER. This incident was covered extensively in Austin news, which raised the band’s profile unexpectedly. ThunderStars demos also were well received publicly, and the band subsequently received considerable radio and podcast plays, as well as show bookings with many touring acts.
Number Stations will be available on January 10th, 2020 on LP and digital on Mariel Recording Company. Pre-orders are available HERE.
Keep your mind open.
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“This quartet has been burning up stages all around their hometown, fueled by their abrasive blend of doom metal, psych rock, goth and a tangy soupçon of pop music… They landed a spot on the 2018 Best New Band poll in alt-weekly Willamette Week, but could quickly take over the world.” — Paste Magazine “They mesh elements of doom, Krautrock and atmospheric indie into one bewitching rock whole.” –Classic Rock Magazine “A greasy, sun-baked rock jam calling back to the genre’s classic days while showcasing a heavy doom edge that gives it a modern spin.” 6 Best New Songs Right Now — Revolver Magazine
Portland, OR quintet Blackwater Holylight announce March 2020 headlining tour dates today, while also releasing a new video. The clip is a dramatic art short film set to the song “Jizz Witch” from the band’s 2018 self-titled debut album. Watch/share the video via YouTube HERE. Please see current tour dates below. Blackwater Holylight released their acclaimed sophomore albumVeils of Winter (RidingEasy Records) in October 2019. Hear/share Veils of Winter: YouTube, Bandcamp, Spotify.
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festivalhas announced its lineup for the two April weekends (10-12th, 17-19th) this year. As expected, it’s a weird mix that already has some people praising it and others deriding it.
If you ask me, the Friday dates are the best bang for your buck. Rage Against the Machine, Calvin Harris, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, IDLES, Peggy Gou, Amyl and the Sniffers, Sleaford Mods, and Friendly Fires on one bill are worth the price of admission.
As for the Saturday dates, Thom Yorke and Caribou would be great to see, sure, but the announcement that was blowing up Twitter was that Danny Elfman would be playing there. No one yet knows if he’s bringing an orchestra to perform tunes from his many film scores, Oingo Boingo tunes, or a combination of both. Either way, it’s tempting to fly to California just to see his set. Fatboy Slim will put on a fun set on Sunday nights, I’m sure, but the rest of that lineup doesn’t thrill me.
Get your tickets while you can. The first weekend is already sold out.
