Monster

It's Hip Hop Month Bitches!

All Hip Hop all this month on the Snake.

Neon Indian at Detroit Bar!!!

Mark your calenders like I have already marked mine. Also, here is a sick remix of the song "Psychic Chasms"


05-12 New York, NY - Terminal 5 *
05-13 Boston, MA - House of Blues *
05-20 Calgary, Alberta - Hi Fi Club
05-31 George, WA - Sasquatch
06-02 San Diego, CA - Casbah
06-03 Costa Mesa, CA - Detroit Bar!!!!
06-04 Los Angeles, CA - Natural History Museum / First Fridays #
06-05 Corvallis, OR - Flat Tail Musical Festival
06-07 Austin, TX - Emo's
06-09 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
06-10 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo
06-11 Cincinnati, OH - Fountain Square
06-12 Pittsburgh, PA - Brillobox
06-13 Baltimore, MD - Sonar
06-17 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
06-19 Denver, CO - Westword Music Showcase
07-17 Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall Ballroom

Upcoming shows

It's going to be a great weekend if I make it to all of these.
Thursday is She & Him

Friday is Washed Out and Small Black(not shown)

Saturday is Best Coast and Surfer Blood

Sunday is Ty Segall

Ty Segall Can Do No Wrong

Too Good To Pass Up

Amazing song(the description had me at for fans of panda bear, memory tapes, fuck buttons and washed out) plus some random polaroids for good measure.

Golden Age - "Be Cool"

New Broken Social Scene album plus tour dates

taken from pitchfork.com
It's been five years since the nebulous indie rock guitar maelstrom known as Broken Social Scene last graced us with a full album of their sprawl. But after a couple semi-solo albums and near-constant touring, the group is ready to let loose their official follow up to 2005's Broken Social Scene with a new, as-yet-untitled LP due out May 4 via Arts & Crafts.

Thanks to Broken Social Scene's revolving-door member policy, you never quite know who's going to be (or who's not going to be) involved in a new BSS record. This time, the album was written and arranged by a core six-piece (pictured), including singer-guitarist Kevin Drew, singer-bassist Brendan Canning, drummer Justin Peroff, guitarist Charles Spearin, and singer-guitarist Andrew Whiteman, along with relative newcomer Sam Goldberg on (what else?) guitar. Of course, that's not all.

The new album's extended cast features many names fans will recognize from their previous triumphs with the group: Leslie Feist, Stars' Amy Millan and Evan Cranley, Metric's Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, Jason Collett, Do Make Say Think's Ohad Benchetrit, John Crossingham, Marty Kinack, Julie Penner, Leon Kingstone, and Lisa Lobsinger.

And there are a bunch of newbies, too, chief among them being the LP's producer, post-rock icon John McEntire, who plays in Tortoise and the Sea and Cake and has manned the boards for his own groups as well as others including Stereolab and Teenage Fanclub. Along with McEntire, Sea and Cake's Sam Prekop, Tortoise's Doug McCombs, Pavement's Spiral Stairs, former Death From Above 1979 singer-drummer Sebastien Grainger, Poi Dog Pondering's Susan Voelz, Helen Money's Alison Chesley, and the Weakerthans' Jason Tait can all be heard (somewhere) on the album.

Recorded at McEntire's Soma Studios in Chicago and Shaw and Grainger's Giant Studios in Toronto throughout last year, the new record does not, however, feature the talents of producer Dave Newfeld, who played a sizable role in shaping the band's self-titled release and their 2002 breakout, You Forgot It In People. But rejuvenation and reinvention are intrinsic to these anthem-prone Canadians; if you're looking for stability and constancy, it might be best to look elsewhere.

As if all of that info wasn't enough to get the BSS blood churning once again, band co-founder Kevin Drew recently took a brief break from mixing to speak with us about the gestation of the new album and hinted at what we can expect to hear. The interview-- along with a handful of new North America and European dates set to take place around the time of the album's release-- is below.

Pitchfork: Your last album came out five years ago but, considering the "Broken Social Scene Presents" albums from you and Brendan and the touring you guys did behind them, it's almost like you never left.

Kevin Drew: That's why the "Broken Social Scene Presents" records worked. After the tour for Broken Social Scene in 2006, it was a very confusing time. I know I say it a lot-- it almost sounds like I use it as some marketing tool-- but if there was any time when we were going to break up it was after that tour. Andrew [Whiteman] and Charles [Spearin] split. And Brendan [Canning] and Justin [Peroff] and I had to go out and find a new band and try to make this "Broken Social Scene Presents" thing work on the road. But we ended up with a great band and we found [guitarist] Sam Goldberg, who is now a full-time member. On this new record, Sam brings such a melodic sound-- we call him "Stadium Sam," he's our stadium rock guy. And then, in 2008, Andrew and Charlie returned, and we ended up touring the world that whole year. That's when this album's core six-piece formed.

I love the self-titled record to death but it was difficult to make. But that point is so over for us. I don't think we've ever really entered this territory of just feeling amazing about everything like it is right now.

Pitchfork: After working in Toronto with producer Dave Newfeld on You Forgot It In People and Broken Social Scene, you decided to go to Chicago with Tortoise's John McEntire for the new album. How did that come about?

KD: It goes back to when [Stars bassist] Evan Cranley was trying to figure out where to record their album In Our Bedroom After the War, and-- knowing that I was a massive fan-- he just casually said to me, "I spoke to your boy John and he seemed like he was into producing the new Stars album, but we're going to Vancouver." I just kind of spit my cigarette out and was like, "What do you mean? You can work with John McEntire?!"

Then, in October 2008, we fooled around and had a session in John's studio. It was so much fun, and that's when the wheels started turning. So we had to start figuring out what we were going to do in terms of Newf, because there were still issues that I hadn't worked out with him. A bunch of us didn't know how we were going to do this record without Newfeld because he played such a massive, massive role in all our success. He was very involved-- I mean, he used to come on the talkback and suggest lyric changes [laughs]. So we were quite scared to take a lot of it on ourselves. I called Newf up and told him what was going on and he gave his blessing, and that actually was a catalyst for him and I getting back on the same page, which I'm really grateful for because he is one of my favorite people in the world.

Then I suddenly I found myself in a whole different world. Johnny is very, very different. Very quiet. He lets you figure it out. Sometimes we would bust into tunes and be like, [takes deep breath] "OK, let's see what he thinks about this one." We didn't really know how he was feeling about everything for a little while. Then one night a couple of us went out for drinks with him and at about the fourth drink in he started opening up and telling us what he thought about the songs. It became a trend. And then it became sort of a joke-- a band member would come up to me and be like, "I'm really tired and I can't go out tonight but would you ask John how he felt about my part in this song?" [laughs] I consider John a good friend now and I'm happy to say he's joining the band. Obviously, he's still got Sea and Cake and Tortoise-- but when he's free, he's going to come out and play with us. I'm just trying to live my teenage dreams over here, and this was definitely one of them.

Pitchfork: Was it tough to get people like Feist, and members of Stars and Metric involved this time around?

KD: Well, there was a point where it looked like it was going to be a core-member record and we weren't going to get those people because they were so busy; Stars were making a record, Metric was on the road. We thought, "It's OK, we can do this without them. We can move on. It's not like that anymore." But when we brought Johnny to Toronto and set up it was immediately like old times. So, right at the end, everybody made it on.

We played a show in the summertime when all of us were together and I think it was our favorite show. After it, there were a few days when we just wished we could go into the studio and do a ground-up album and then take everyone out on the road, but it wasn't in the cards. It wasn't what the others wanted. It gets confusing about who brings what to the album but everyone just came in and put some visiting touches on some songs; a few vocals, horns, guitar lines. I really want to be cautious talking about this because the last few years of my life have been trying to figure out a mature way to not market your friends and overuse people's names and misguide listeners to thinking this person or that person's involved. So: Everyone visited the record, but it's not a ground-up album.

There is one tune where all the ladies sing together-- it was originally my favorite instrumental on the album [laughs]. But [Metric singer] Emily [Haines] came out of the woodwork and dropped a vocal on it and it broke our hearts. Then Charlie wrote a nice e-mail to Leslie [Feist] and [Stars singer] Amy [Millan] saying, "If you sang on this I think it would be really beautiful." And they did and I can't say how grateful I am for it. And in the Toronto sessions we got Les and Amy on a crazy jam with us all, too.

And now we have some new things on the table, too. Like Lisa Lobsinger, who we plucked from her life and dragged onstage during the Broken Social Scene tour and really put her in a serious situation to step up to the plate and suddenly become the female vocalist. She's all over this new record and she's going to come out on tour with us again.

Pitchfork: Would you say the making of this record was more like You Forgot It In People than Broken Social Scene or different entirely?

KD: It's different entirely. We really don't have anything to prove. So many bands have come out in the last five years and sometimes you question your relevancy. But when it locks into place you just keep going. Right now, everyone's in place-- I can't stress that enough. Between Chicago and Toronto we recorded about 42 tunes. Obviously some of them might be a kazoo and an 808 but we got a lot of ideas down.

Pitchfork: Are there any themes running through the album?

KD: The Canadian music scene boomed during the George Bush era but now we're in the "yes, we might be able to" world. We had lots of conversations about how we could sing about our views and opinions without trying to make a poor man's R.E.M. song. It was a challenge to personalize everything and embrace the state of the planet. I love a distraction as much as the next guy but we always feel some urgency to speak about what's going on. I remember when U2's single ["Get On Your Boots"] came out, I thought, "All right, what's it gonna be? What's the man gonna sing about?" And Bono's opening line was like, "I don't wanna talk about politics, I just wanna rock!" And I thought, "Uh oh-- we're in trouble." This is a crazy state of limbo right now and we tried to embrace it and bring those subjects up here and there. We've always been a band that sings about exactly what's inside of us and exactly what's happening outside as well. Like, if we're screaming, let's have something to scream about.

Pitchfork: It sounds like you guys are in a pretty great headspace at the moment.

KD: I can't tell you how happy we are. There are so many exciting albums coming out this year and that's great for us because when we do the festival circuit we get to bum rush the stage. I still have to redeem myself to the National, though. We played a show together in Mexico City and they dedicated a song to me-- and then they stood side stage during our set and saw me screaming at the monitor guy for ten minutes. It's a bit of a regret-- I'm glad they didn't Wayne Coyne me on that one.

Right now, we have two mottos: "kill 'em with kindness" and, um, "if it's yellow, let it mellow."

Pitchfork: That sounds like a potential album title to me...

KD: [laughs] I'm sure somebody copyrighted "if it's yellow, let it mellow"-- it must be patented.

Broken Social Scene:

05-01 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
05-03 Los Angeles, CA - Henry Fonda Theatre
05-07 New York, NY - Webster Hall
05-13 London, England - Brixton Academy *
05-14 Minehead, England - All Tomorrow's Parties
05-17 London, England - Heaven
05-18 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg
05-19 Cologne, Germany - Burgerhaus Stollwerck
05-21 Paris, France - La Maroquinerie
06-19 Toronto, Ontario - Toronto Island *#

* with Pavement
# with Band of Horses

Gang Starr - Moment Of Truth

i wish i had this cd three months ago

A self-titled cd by Real Estate. This would have been perfect for all the warm nights spent on the patio not worrying about the noise complaint that was going to show up in the mail the next day. Go ahead and enjoy the song.

lemmy interview

courtesy of vice


I thought about trying to make the intro to this interview sound like an impartial journalist wrote it. But fuck that. Lemmy is my hero and I’m not going to try and hide it because that’d be no fun. When I was meeting, photographing, and interviewing Lemmy backstage at a recent New York show, I felt like a young boy sidling up to the kitchen table with my grandfather when the houseful of relatives had finally gone silent and he decided that it was time for me to hear his stories. At first I was nervous because this was the big show, but within the first few words Lemmy had already disarmed me. Then he let it rip and told his tales. As a Motörhead fan, I can think of nothing greater.

Lemmy is by far one of the most down-to-earth people I’ve had the good fortune of coming across. He’s a goddamn gentleman and not too shabby of a scholar either. Like his music, he is also quite savage. Some find him too brutal to handle. But offending those who are weak in constitution is just a byproduct of his total honesty. Lemmy has never changed in order to gain fanfare or subdue his critics. His entire existence speaks boundlessly about what it means to stick to your guns. There are no astronomical highs or abysmal lows in the story of Motörhead. There is simply the trajectory of a band plowing insolently through an endless blizzard of gigs, women, trends, naysayers, ass kissers, and industry swine. Lemmy is THE exemplary road dog for the ages.

Vice: What was it that made you say, “I’m going to be in a band”?
Lemmy: Women.

Women.
Hands down, women. Seeing them on TV flocking around rock singers. I came up in the 50s, you know, and that was kind of basic at the time. I got my first record in 1958. I was pretty young then, and I saw this English singer, Cliff Richard, who is still going but is very different now from what he was then. He was on TV, surrounded by chicks trying to pull his clothes off. I said, “That’s for me. It doesn’t even look like work.” I found out later that it was, but it does have its advantages over working at the washing-machine factory.

Yeah, I would say so.
So that’s what made me go for it. My mother played Hawaiian guitar, right, but there was really bad action on it, if you know what I mean. Nevertheless I put strings on it and took it to school during the week after exams, when you don’t do anything.

When you’re just sitting around.
Right. And I was immediately surrounded by chicks. It worked like a charm, and I couldn’t even play the fucking thing.

How soon after that did you think, “Maybe I’ve got to learn”?
Oh, about two hours. I find it quite easy to play chords and, you know, that was all I ever did. I never wanted to be a lead guitarist. I didn’t even realize there was such a thing as a bass player till later.

I understand.
So I was a good rhythm guitarist for a long time, but I was shit at lead. Really mediocre, man.

But you did try doing lead guitar?
Yeah. I played lead for two years in a band called the Rockin’ Vicars. I just cheated, you know. I used to put on a lot of fuzz and move my fingers up and down really quick, and they thought it was a solo. I didn’t want to tell them it wasn’t.

Great bands usually implode after three albums or so, but you’ve kept Motörhead functioning for so long.
Coming up on 35 years now.

What are those other bands doing wrong?
They don’t think the music is important enough to sink their personal differences for the sake of it. I always felt that no personal differences were big enough to break up the band. I mean, people have left the band, but I always carried on. I never considered doing anything else. This is what I’m supposed to do. This is what I’m supposed to be. I’m supposed to be in the fucking dressing room doing interviews. It’s my life.

Yeah.
It’s not a job anymore.

I want to ask you about Hawkwind, who you played bass for before you started Motörhead. How did you get it going with Hawkwind?
I went to see the band play live once before I joined them. Everybody was having this collective epileptic fit—the whole audience, 600 people. I thought, “Fuck it, I’ve got to join these guys.”

What were the pros and cons of being in Hawkwind?
What I liked about it was that it was the first time I played bass, and I found out that I could be a good bass player. So I became a bass player and I was really good at it, you know? That was a great thing for me—kind of an eye-opener—and also there was a lot of freedom within that band to play bass. I did a lot of fill-ins and a lot of smart shit behind Dave, who played lead guitar. You know, I was showing off as usual.

For the chicks.
What’s it for if you can’t show off? It’s rock ’n’ roll, so you might as well.

What were the things that really bugged the shit out of you?
In Hawkwind? Their attitude. I mean, they never told me I was in the band.

Fuck. That was like five years.
Five years. They fired me, and I said, “You can’t fire me, motherfuckers, you never told me I was in the band!”

Who ran that band?
Dave Brock, the lead guitarist. It’s his band, lock, stock, and barrel.

I’ve always thought, from watching interviews, that he seemed like a pretty levelheaded dude.
He was, but at the time we were very successful in Britain—number one and all that. And that gets to different people in different ways. They never really forgave me for being the singer on their only hit single. [laughs]

read the rest here

Mississippi Fred

I'm so glad this...

led to this...

one of the best interviews I've ever read

Nathan Williams has spent 2009 busy and stoned. Rapturous press attention for his lo-fi pop project Wavves quickly translated into a Fat Possum record deal and a transcontinental tour schedule--best of all, the 22-year-old will finally be moving out of his parent's San Diego house. His latest effort, Wavvves--which was recorded in Apple's GarageBand, at a fidelity that might charitably be described as substandard--features three-chord anthems about boredom, beaches, and weed. We called to find out how this combination could possibly bring about success, and left just as confused.

I read something about you jumping off a trampoline into the water off of a forty foot cliff.

That is fucking great, I love that that story got there. [To someone in the background] Apparently I jumped off a trampoline into the ocean now.

Is that true?

Off of a trampoline? [laughs] No, that's not true.

You don't actually like going in the water.

It's not that I don't like going in the water, I'm just afraid of the ocean because the ocean is scary.

What is the scariest part about the ocean? Are you afraid of the sharks, the reef?

I just almost drowned once, so I don't make a habit to go in and test my luck.

But your music has a lot in common with Dick Dale, and you've cited the Beach Boys as an influence. How big of an influence is surf rock?

Musically, ...the Beach Boys... I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. I'm really high right now.

How important is surf rock to you?

Yes it is. It's very important. Everything about the beach, the music that is influenced by it, and the surroundings of it.

You told Pitchfork that your dream merchandise would be a surfboard made of marijuana with a Garfield logo on it. But you've said you don't like the water.

I would smoke the surfboard, I wouldn't take it in the water. It's made of weed.

Do you think California should legalize pot?

Yes, but it basically is legalized. You can get a medical card, anybody can get it.

Obama answered that question and gave a straight up "no."

Oh really? I don't know why my dog let me down.

Are you still writing songs about being bored and lazy?

I'm on to new stuff, I can't write that anymore because I am neither. I guess I'm still lazy.

So this stoner persona, this is for real, it isn't some kind of joking exaggeration?

Sadly it's real, my friend.

Animal Crack Box

After being discussed for years before its actual production, this vinyl-only box set finally received its promised treatment. On 18 March 2009 Catsup released the tracklisting and coverart.[1] A test pressing was offered on eBay to benefit Doctors Without Borders.[2] The commercial version, a single vinyl-only edition of 1000 copies, was made available for purchase on May 11, 2009 via Fusetron.

Printed by VGKids in Ypsilanti, Mi during the early months of 2009.


if someone wants to buy me one off ebay for christmas, they're only 120$

WARFARE + A SONG

Home - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

gettin' shit started

be ready to have your face fucking melted