49 minutes of new Paul Westerberg coming tomorrow?!

Here's some news out of nowhere (thanks Gregg!):

Tomorrow Paul Westerberg will be releasing "49 minutes of music for 49 cents" on his website (yes, that does actually still direct you to an AOL page, don't hold it against him). I believe this is the first new solo material from the former Replacements frontman since 2006's Open Season soundtrack. Curious!

LISTEN: Lots of Westerberg/Mats tracks

New song from The Avett Brothers :: "Murder In The City"

North Carolina's The Avett Brothers stretch their rustic tunes into unclassifiable yet beautiful territory on a regular basis. Their 2007 album Emotionalism reverberated with twang, but also rollicked and screamed with a healthy dose of smack-you-in-the-face rock and roll. And then they also go and wrench out these spare, honest, gorgeous ballads that hurt to listen to (please hear "If It's The Beaches" from the Gleam EP, for my favorite excruciatingly lovely example).

On July 22, they will release the second installment in the raw Gleam series, and following in the initial footsteps of the first recording, "the Second Gleam EP sings to the uncommon senses of the common man." Our first listen of this collection comes via new song "Murder In The City." A friend of mine is a bit of an Avett Brothers megafan (to put it mildly), and recalls one particular time he saw them perform this song. He writes that it was "effing heartbreaking. Scott was crying on stage, my friend Kevin was crying in the audience, the rest of us were fighting back the tears."

Murder In The City - The Avett Brothers

The Morning Benders free Bedroom Covers

Berkeley's The Morning Benders have a sunny sound that I've recently raved about. Hot on the heels of their lovely release Talking Through Tin Cans, they've now gathered together some of their favorite covers, recorded them in their bedrooms, and are releasing them free to you.

Through a partnership with a few of us music blogs, The Morning Benders are releasing one track each day this week through a different site. The full collection will be available next Tuesday on their blog. For now, here is the Fuel/Friends debut, see below for locations of the other ones:

Lovefool (The Cardigans) - The Morning Benders

The band says:
"These songs sound the way they do, because we recorded them with a laptop and one mic. We used mainly acoustic guitars and shakers because that's what we had lying around, and we couldn't make much noise in our apartment anyway... We learned the chords and the lyrics (which was pretty easy because we've heard all these songs hundreds of times), and we played 'em."

OTHER SONGS ON THE EP:
via 3hive: He's A Rebel (The Crystals)
via MOKB: Mother & Child Reunion (Paul Simon)
via I Pick My Nose Blog: Pull Up The Roots (Talking Heads)
via Spinner: Temptation Inside Your Head (Velvet Underground)

Covers coming in the full batch next week will include songs by Fleetwood Mac, Randy Newman, and more. Check the Morning Benders blog for details. And rock on with the free summer covers music.

The Dandy Warhols love you, independent record stores, free EPs

The Dandy Warhols are giving away free music starting this Saturday, just because they think you are neat. Really. Oh, and they want to pimp their new album in creative form.

Starting July 19, you can pick up a gratis copy of their Earth To The Remix EP Vol. 1 at your friendly local neighborhood record store, wherein each Dandy takes a turn remixing a track from their August 19th release Earth To The Dandy Warhols (Beat The World Records).

For a complete list of participating stores, visit the Record Store Day site. Also, there is an interesting new interview with leadman Courtney Taylor-Taylor in The Sentimentalist.

EARTH TO THE REMIX. VOL. 1 - TRACKLIST
1. Come the Fuck On (A Peter Holmstrom/ Jeremy Sherrer remix)
2. THE MONSTER MISH (A Taylor-Taylor / Jacob Portrait remix)
3. Welcome to the Skin-up Remix (Fathead / Jeremy Sherrer)
4. Dub In The Lotus (A Zia McCabe / Jeremy Sherrer Remix Paul Brainard – Pedal Steel)


LISTEN (from the new album):
The Legend of the Last Outlaw Truckers aka The Ballad of Sheriff Shorty - The Dandy Warhols


DANDY WARHOLS TOUR
June 17 - Victoria, BC @ Element Nightclub
June 18 - Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
June 20 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo^
Sep 09 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue*
Sep 10 - Madison, WI @ Barrymore*
Sep 12 - Chicago, IL @ Vic Theater*
Sep 13 - Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus*
Sep 14 - Montreal, QC @ Club Soda*
Sep 16 - Boston, MA @ Wilbur Theatre*
Sep 17 - New York, NY @ Terminal 5*
Sep 20 - Philadelphia, PA @ TLA*
Sep 22 - Washington, DC @ 930 Club*
Sep 23 - Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse*
Sep 26 - Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall*
Sep 27 - Denver, CO @ Gothic Theater*
Sep 28 - Aspen, CO @ Belly Up*
Oct 03 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern #
Oct 04 - San Francisco, CA @ Warfield %
Oct 05 - Portland, OR @ The Roseland Theater*

More dates TBA

All shows with the Upsidedown
*With Darker My Love
# With A Place to Bury Strangers
% With the Charlatans
^With Monstrous

Denver's Hearts of Palm

Yup, that's a lot of people in one band. Call them Denver's own Polyphonic Spree (minus the cult-tastic fashion robes), the warm and sparkly effervescence of Hearts of Palm is a bright spot in our city's musical landscape. Previously named Nathan & Stephen, the 8-piece band decided to change their name earlier this year to more accurately reflect their gigantic size (not a two-piece!) and as a salute to their favorite vegetable (I might have made that up).

They've recently self-released a lovely free 4-song EP, originally available only at the delicious Mexican restaurant Illegal Pete's in a creative arrangement that funded the production. It has been on heavy rotation here lately in anticipation of their two upcoming high-profile appearances at summer festivals.

On August 1st & 2nd they'll play two shows as part of the Denver Post Underground Music Showcase. DPUMS is in its eighth year, and in a mere two weeks will invade South Broadway for a completely non-hostile takeover. And then on September 14th, Hearts of Palm will bring their "characteristic and customary joy, enthusiasm, and abandon" to the red rocks of the Monolith Festival.

So check these two tracks (my favorites from the EP), watch their recent interview with the fabulous R. Baca to get the firsthand story on the controversial name change, and then go download the rest of the songs. Because you can always use more free music, and this is good stuff.

No Water - Hearts of Palm
Give Em Hell - Hearts of Palm

Would you care to join the mile high club?

The Mile High Music Festival is coming to the Denver area this weekend in the somewhat awkwardly-named but supposedly pleasant Dick's Sporting Goods Park out in Commerce City (incidentally, the only city in Colorado with a liquor store that sells this nectar of the gods).

I'm going to be covering the fest, and sure Tom Petty and Dave Matthews are headlining. But depending on circumstance and how the day unwinds, I am more looking forward to seeing some folks like:

Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers
Bob Schneider
Josh Ritter (!!)
Andrew Bird
Spoon
Lupe Fiasco
The Whigs
The Flobots
Grace Potter
The Roots
The Black Crowes

[full schedule here]

I still regret missing The Roots at Red Rocks when they were here opening for Wilco, Athens' The Whigs are supporting their excellent sophomore album Mission Control, and Josh Ritter always absolutely slays me in the best possible way (like this). Not too shabby for a weekend, close to home for once. Come on out!

Feist acknowledges her popularity with the 4-year-old set

Feist was in Denver last night and I missed it, but this recent performance from Sesame Street is clearly a match made in heaven. Kids love the original "1234" song, even if they tend to be a bit troubled by the way she skips 7 and 8 -- this cheerfully makes up for it.

Ms. Leslie Feist joins a fairly formidable pantheon of past performers on one of my favorite kid's shows since back in the day, when the youth were all so much more fashionable:

R.E.M.


Johnny Cash


Stevie Wonder


There are also some unfortunate missteps, and this one always always makes me feel sad for undefinable reasons, not having to do with Aaron's regrettable earring.

And my goodness my head kind of just exploded from vivid nostalgia (the crayons!!).

Hold Steady contest winners

The Hold Steady's new album Stay Positive is out today on Vagrant Records, and the randomly-selected winners of the contest are as follows:

STAY POSITIVE CD
Cousin Walt
The Blot
Ryan

STAY POSITIVE VINYL
Benjamin K.
Miles in Denver (hi neighbor!)

If you are a winner, please let me know where to have the good folks at Vagrant send your musical winnings. Thanks for all the amazing entries; what a breathtaking lyrical pool we have to select from.

Last night: Supergrass covers 1978-era Police, before Sting went all tantric and Fields of Gold

[one spot of loud audio at the beginning - it gets better!]

Supergrass rocked what felt like a secret show last night at Denver's tiny Larimer Lounge, after the Foo Fighters cancellation at the larger venue up the road. "Hellooooo Red Rocks!" Gaz Coombes shouted as they took the stage, looking back at his bandmates with a grin. With three of the band members sporting matching fedoras, they launched into a short but intense set of songs drawn largely from their new album Diamond Hoo Ha, which all sounded ferocious --and very, very loud-- in the compact club. Three merry Britons next to me seemed elated by their dumb luck of seeing one of Britain's biggest bands of the Nineties (who regularly play to massive festivals and stadiums) in the well-loved confines of our Larimer.


[full pics here, one other video here]

Monday Music Roundup

This was a lovely summer weekend of champion gyro-eating at the Greek Festival (and watching the dancers click their heels about in traditional garb), summery new Japanese-abstract print bedding, and some indoor thrashing of the Rock Band drum pads. Pretty soon I'm clearly going to be an expert; for now it would help if I could follow along with which side of the screen I was supposed to be playing to.

Summer is also bursting with juicy tunes:

Momentary Drowning
Young Coyotes
"Stomp, clap, point at the map. Nod, shake, we'll head to the lake. We'll dive off the floating dock into the green unknown. This Denver threesome might own the copyright on summer this year." [linesthroughlines blog] Oh, Young Coyotes, you had me at hello. This Denver collective comes to us through the deaths of a few other bands, and consists of people who like "campfires, chanting, oceans, deserts, spontaneity, and lots and lots of drums." I like all of those things although I haven't chanted since...Coachella. There is a charming rawness and joy that permeates this music from the opening handclaps. Young Coyotes are currently unsigned and living just up the highway, finishing their debut album. They are totally down to soundtrack my summer.

Boarded Doors
The Morning Benders
This foursome from Berkeley just announced fall tour dates with Ra Ra Riot, which means an excellent evening wherever that tour lands them. Classically-constructed and sunny, The Morning Benders make spry pop music that tries for nothing more than to be authentic and honest. This particular sampling rises and falls, marches and prowls with that vibrating surf guitar and the best bits of the British invasion. Their debut album Talking Through Tin Cans is out now on +1 Records and they are relentlessly on tour, with We Are Scientists now and Ra Ra Riot come autumn, hitting Monolith and Treasure Island in between. Heck, they can almost see Treasure Island from where they filmed this video.


Black Ghost / Black Girl
Starling Electric
The Clouded Staircase album definitely looks like something I would find in my parents' old walnut laminate record cabinet, nestled cozily amidst the Keith Green and The Mamas and the Papas. The halcyon light on the cover and swirling cursive letters give it away. But hey, drop the needle on this album from Ann Arbor's Starling Electric and you'll be surprised to hear a variety of decades and moods reflected in lush and heady music that's absolutely sublime -- "a call to arms for anyone still interested in melodies, harmonies, and the power of a good pop song." Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow (of The Posies/Big Star) fell in love with this band and were early and vocal proponents. I also enjoy the picture on their MySpace of drummer John being wrapped in Robert Pollard's loving embrace (Pollard invited them on tour with him). Clouded Staircase is out August 19th on Bar/None Records, with a record release party that night at NYC's Mercury Lounge.


We Are From Venice (La Serenissima mix)
The Bloody Beetroots
Italy possesses some of the best nightlife in Europe -- nay, the world. So it makes me happy inside to see how duo The Bloody Beetroots are rocking those dirty dancefloors with their electronica, while moving to take over the rest of the world. Masked in a potential crosscultural salute to the Mexican luchadore (?) this duo is signed to the Dim Mak label and cranks out headspinningly filthy sounds. I'm not sure what's going on with the masks, but at least they're having fun. Be sure to check out the new Bloody Beetroots 8-song mini-mix over on the XLR8R podcast last week, and Los Angelenos can see them (well sort of, with the masks and all) this Saturday with N*E*R*D and labelmates MSTRKRFT & Steve Aoki.


She Does
Locksley
When Fuel/Friends first mentioned this freshfaced Brooklyn quartet with a ragged retro sound, Locksley were just preparing to self-release their own album. Don't Make Me Wait is now seeing re-release with two bonus tracks and a wider distribution through Fontana Records on August 19th. "She Does" is a screamer of a song that possesses some of the eager roughness of very early Beatles material, back when they'd still unleash those screams with a teen-angst edge. Locksley has toured with The Dandy Warhols & The Hives, and are playing now with Rooney, so you get a delightful idea of what you're in for. Locksley will be at Denver's Walnut Room July 22.


And sweet goodness, did you see that Sub Pop is resurrecting their epic Singles Club for a limited time? Details here. And since I don't have to rely on allowance and babysitting income anymore, I might actually JOIN this time around!

Supergrass at the Larimer Lounge tonight

Supergrass and I had a hot date tomorrow night at the Foo Fighters show at Red Rocks, but then Dave Grohl went and got sick.

To soothe our wounds until the make-up dates in September, Supergrass is going to play a Denver show anyway tonight at the teensy Larimer Lounge. Should be a rad evening; their new album packs a swaggering punch with a surprising hint of dare I say glam. Los Angeles band Year Long Disaster opens.

Diamond Hoo Ha Man - Supergrass

I'll be on it all night :: Girl Talk in Boulder on Friday

Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk) is many things: Pittsburgh native, biomedical engineering school graduate, skinny white guy with piercing blue eyes -- but most relevant to you, he is a Master of Mashup with his massive throwdown shows. On Friday night, the Boulder kids (and Denver kids, and Colorado Springs kids) all packed ourselves into the Fox Theatre, pressed sweating up against each other to dance and sing along at a super-sold-out show with Mr. Gillis. He almost rocked all the cheeky unicorn backpacks, shortie tracksuits, and neon sweatbands clear off. Check the video (oh, warning - douchebag content):



I've said before that listening to Gillis feels like the way my brain plays music snippets all right on top of one another when I flip through an eclectic jukebox in a bar after drinking a few. It is a little disorienting but so wonderful. He clearly loves what he does, and that enthusiasm vibrates out into the crowd. It was an all-ages show so I begrudgingly kept feeling vaguely old at 28 (!) and the temperature inside on the sweltering July night must have topped the high ninety degree mark. But despite all the sweating (or because of it) this was one of the best evenings I've had in a long time.

What floors me about Gillis on his album --and times 10 in a live setting-- is the way he mashes such unexpected songs from different eras, and they all fly so damn well. The dirty version of Khia's "My Neck, My Back" layered in with Yael Naim's "New Soul"? Surprisingly flawless. A closing moment of communal epiphany with arms interlaced to Journey's "Faithfully" right in there with "Pop, Lock & Drop It"? Sweeet.

My new friend Ben was commenting on how it was a little odd to be standing facing a stage waiting for a "show" and then an "encore" by a "band" that was just one guy and two laptops wrapped in plastic bags (to protect against dripping sweat?). Seconds after Gillis started his set, the floor started to undulate. One guy ran on stage which started a landslide, and soon the room and stage both were converted into one big writhing mass of people.


You think you've experienced the fun of Girl Talk by spinning Night Ripper at your party or Feed The Animals in your dorm room, but I gotta say that you simply have not gotten the full GT experience until you hear him work his craft live, drenched in sweat, with hundreds of your new friends. GO!

GIRL TALK LIVE DATES
Jul 24 Commodore Ballroom - Vancouver, BC
Jul 25 Capitol Hill Block Party - Seattle, WA
Jul 26 Roseland Theater - Portland, OR
Aug 3 Lollapalooza - Chicago, IL
Aug 6 The Øya Festival - Oslo, Norway
Aug 7 Way Out West - Stockholm, Sweden
Aug 8 All Points West Festival - Jersey City, NJ


And this is still my favorite Girl Talk jam:
Bounce That - Girl Talk

[top photo credit Robert Castro - check his Flickr set for a couple pics I took as well when I borrowed his camera. My Facebook set here]

Free M. Ward demos over at Merge Records

The good folks over at Merge are offering free downloads of three demos from M. Ward's third album Transfiguration of Vincent, to celebrate the re-release of the album on 180 gram translucent sky-blue vinyl through Jealous Butcher Records.

Undertaker (demo) - M. Ward
[get the other two here; registration required]

M. Ward is also playing a few solo tour dates later this summer, in addition to the She & Him tour. And speaking of She & Him, if you're totally hanging out in your basement tonight to watch Pete Wentz on MTV, their video for "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" will premiere tonight at 8pm on FNMTV.

RELATED LISTENING: That M. Ward / Jim James / Conor Oberst show is still live, as is the M. Ward demo tape.

i need an open-return plane ticket

One of the coolest videos I have seen in a long time.
Let's go - somewhere, anywhere.


[direct link to watch in high quality]

From Where The Hell Is Matt?, the site of an Australian guy who does that very-white-guy dance all over the world, and has also never lost a staring contest. Lovely.

You can buy the mp3 "Praan" here.

JDub Records 5th anniversary party at Denver's Walnut Room

The innovative not-for-profit New York record label JDub Records (started in Dec 2002 by two NYU students) is celebrating their fifth anniversary with a party on July 23rd @ Denver's Walnut Room. The shindig will bring a performance by Tel-Aviv based DJ crew Soulico, joined by special guests including the godfather of Israeli hip-hop Sagol 59 and Ethiopian-Israeli MCs Axum.

7/23 - 9:00 PM / 3101 Walnut Street
$8 / Fifty cent PBRs and $2 Wells / 21 + [Tickets]

Although I can't say I've listened to much Israeli hip-hop, this should be an enticingly global & fun evening. As prep we've got a 60-minute mixtape from Soulico here to bring you up to speed.

In a fabulously-titled blog post ("Hasidic Juice") Diplo wrote about the mix: "This is the result of a decade of digging in Tel-Aviv’s record shops & flea markets by the Soulico Crew. An hour full of Hasidic Disco, Spiritual Soul, Yamanite Funk, Turkish Acid Rock, Arabic Jazz & much more, all recorded & released in Israel by local musicians & artists in the '70s and early '80s. 31 songs in all, and they passed on the tracklist which would probably mean nothing to anyone that can’t read the crazy script that is their language." [view tracklist here]

Archaeology Mixtape - Soulico

The Hold Steady / Stay Positive: "Let's clutch and kiss and sing and shake, tonight let's try to levitate"

"Back then it was beautiful
The boys were sweet and musical
The laser lights looked mystical
. . . Messed up still felt magical"

The more I listen to The Hold Steady, the more I think they might have what it takes to save rock & roll from crushing heartlessness, unoriginal pallor, and detached apathy. You might have noticed that people tend to fall diametrically on one side or the other of the Hold Steady spectrum. My friend Barber once described lead singer Craig Finn as "a crazy inebriated prophet, ear tuned to the roar, shouting out real-life scripture over the ocean of noise of society or a really loud bar band." Yet I have other friends who violently object to the whole concept whenever I broach it. The Hold Steady must be something you either get --and get hard-- or don't. On this new album especially, I find it difficult to understand the latter.

On their fourth studio album Stay Positive (which drops in physical form July 15th) these five guys from Minneapolis stretch their songwriting out down new roads, and as always everything feels pretty epic and massive. Pressed up against gorgeously grand and subversively hopeful songs, Finn weaves complex stories of lust and confusion, of cutting and car crashes, of oracles and angels.

You can get an accurate impression of the feelings contained on Stay Positive from the cover and superb inner album art. Despite the muddy ground and the nauseatingly yellow sky with all the color bled out, there is always the potential for something exciting to happen tonight, for some urgency to swoop down and make you feel alive for forty-five minutes. The feeling of continuity that connects all of the Hold Steady's albums is present here, through serial characters like Holly --who has been in the hospital, shaky but still trying to shake it, and now the girl who won't say hi to him-- and also through recurrent themes that perennially crop up to make a Hold Steady song what it is. The landscape is desolate, but the kids in the songs still yearn.

Stay Positive is also their album of bleeding and miracles -- a fitting dichotomy for a band that plumbs both the gritty violent parts of our psyche as well as the redemption. On one of the album's strongest tracks, Finn calls a girl named Sapphire (who possesses some hallucinogenic visionary abilities) and begs, "I know you said don't call until I'm clean . . . but I'm not drunk, I'm cut. I'm gushing blood, and I need someone to come and pick me up." I find something in the desperation of how Finn wrenches and pleads out that line that reverberates throughout the album. There's talk of crucifixion, visions, and miracles, and later he sings "Don't mention bloodshed, don't tell them it hurts, don't say we saw angels, they'll take us straight to the church." Make no mistake, this is an album of the mud and the blood and the beer, but along with that comes some old-fashioned revival-style hallelujah.

Musically, Stay Positive is as richly dense as anything they've done. I always find a sort of deliverance in the crashing piano cadences and expansive guitar solos of the Hold Steady, even as the lyrics detail another sad night, another desperate move. J Mascis guests stars (playing banjo on "Both Crosses"), as do Ben Nichols of Lucero and Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers (on backing vocals in a few songs). This is an album I am obviously enjoying immensely through the throes of this sweltering summer.

LISTEN: Sequestered In Memphis & Lord I'm Discouraged (stream)


NEW CONTEST: Thanks to the good folks at Vagrant, I have Hold Steady largess to scatter upon ye lucky masses like manna from the heavens.

Three lucky winners will win the Stay Positive CD (with the 3 bonus tracks on it, I think) and two of you will be spinning the black circle with the vinyl LP. The vinyl is 160 gram (black color), gatefold, and will feature one bonus track “Ask Her For The Adderall.”

Please leave me a comment indicating which format you are entering for, and since there are so many good ones to choose from, let's talk about favorite Hold Steady lyrics.


Walk away with these lines from the new album -- they leave you with that ache:

"Girls didn't seem so difficult
Boys didn't seem so typical
It was all warm and white and wonderful
We were all invincible

We were wasps with new wings
Now we're bugs in the jar
We were hot soft and pure
Now we're scratched up in scars."




POSTSCRIPT OF OLD CONTEST BUSINESS: The Joe Strummer prize pack garnered some of the very best comments yet left on Fuel/Friends. From lighting Joe's cigarette (a tale I verified with the cool commenter - oh, to have a lighter just when Joe Strummer fumbles for one outside a Vegas hotel) to talking to him backstage, wracked with nervous anticipation, you gotta go read all the great tales. Because I'm soft, I went with a randomly-selected winner: James from Brooklyn. Congrats! Let me know where to send it.

The Lovecats (covered) :: Go and throw all the songs we know into the sea

I do not love cats by any means. Kittens, sure, and I've met a few decent cats but their overall redeeming qualities were their dog-like traits. The musical Cats also is something I never ever need to see.

This is my own personal seventh circle of burning hell.

However recently I was listening to the fine new Luke Doucet album (loved the last one) and found myself enjoying the twangy creativity of his cover of the 1983 Cure song "The Lovecats." It is a challenging song to cover, because it's so weird that really only Robert Smith and his eyelinerness can pull it off. I shuffled around to the sexy OK Go version of it (noble effort), then Googled out a few others. So now you can hear the lines, "We should have each other to tea, we should have each other with cream" through a variety of different lenses. Including (?!) Paul Anka, as much as that makes your skin crawl.

The Lovecats - Luke Doucet
The Lovecats - OK Go
The Lovecats - Paul Anka
The Lovecats - Jamie Cullum & Katie Melua
The Lovecats - Tricky

The original: The Lovecats - The Cure

Chrome-yo gabba gabba

This amuses me. Montreal/NYC electronic synthpop duo Chromeo just became the latest band-of-the-moment to film a segment for the trippy, spastic, retro kids show Yo Gabba Gabba.

We'll find out soon if their set is as reassuringly encouraging as The Shins or as WTF as Biz Markie. For now though, check out this new mp3 from the deluxe edition of 2007's Fancy Footwork, which is out today on Vice Records:

Bonafied Lovin (Yuksek Remix) - Chromeo