Eddie Vedder US Tour

Pearl Jam’s frontman Eddie Vedder began a US Tour in support of his solo album,  Ukelele Songs, yesterday in Providence.  The tour’s closing date is on  July 15th at the Benaroya Hall in his hometown of Seattle.

Ukelele Songs is out now on Pearl Jam’s Monkeywrench Records.

Eddie Vedder – US Tour Dates:

June 15
Providence, RI
Providence Performing Arts Center (PAC)

June 16
Boston, MA
The Wang Theatre

June 18
Hartford, CT
The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts

June 21
New York, NY
Beacon Theatre

June 22
New York, NY
Beacon Theatre

June 25
Philadelphia, PA
Tower Theatre

June 26
Detroit, MI
Fox Theatre

June 28
Chicago, IL
The Chicago Theatre

July 1
St. Louis, MO
Fox Theatre

July 2
Minneapolis, MN
Orpheum Theatre

July 5
San Diego, CA
Copley Symphony Hall

July 6
Long Beach, CA
Terrace Theater

July 8
Los Angeles, CA
The Wiltern

July 9
Santa Barbara, CA
Santa Barbara Bowl

July 11
Oakland, CA
The Paramount Theatre

July 14
Portland, OR
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

July 15
Seattle, WA
Benaroya Hall

For more information on Eddie Vedder, visit www.pearljam.com.

the black angels

The Black Angels have unveiled an amazing and disturbing video to accompany their latest single Haunting at 1300 McKinley, which will be released on Blue Horizon on March 28th.

The track is the latest to be lifted from The Black Angels third album Phosphene Dream, which was released in September 2010 and with famed producer Dave Sardy at the helm is their most focused and forward thinking effort so far.

Haunting at 1300 McKinley has the feel of an early lo-fi, British sixties rhythm and blues track fused with fuzzy psychedelic guitars, representing the leaner more urgent side to the band on their latest album.

The video to support Haunting at 1300 McKinley is bound to court controversy, shot in black and white in Paris it is incredibly dark, mysterious and unsettling.

The Black Angels – Haunting at 1300 McKinley

The Black Angels believe in ghosts. They believe in them because they lived with one, at 1300 McKinley, the house they shared from 2004 to 2007 in Austin, Texas. “We’ve also seen several on Civil War battlefields and at the Alamo,” boast the band. “At Gettysburg we heard rifle fire and cannon fire. We saw old lanterns dangling from trees in the distance. Up a tower, we saw a Union soldier slam his face against one of the windows; blood splattered everywhere and one of his eyeballs was dangling, then he disappeared.”

The Black Angels were recently being named Band Of The Week on RollingStone.com and the last few months have been a phenomenal period for the band. As well as sold out tours across the globe, they’ve notched up a Letterman appearance (and a Conan O’Brien slot is due in May), performed on the Jim Jarmusch-curated stage at New York’s ATP and appeared on UNKLE’s new album on the track Natural Selection. Another Black Angels/UNKLE collaboration, With You In My Head was included on the smash hit Twilight Saga: Eclipse Soundtrack.

The Black Angels will perform with Queens of the Stoneage at Rolling Stone magazine’s SXSW party on March 16th, and have many other performances planned for that manic week in Austin.

The band are also looking forward to hosting the fourth installment of their annual music-and-arts festival, Austin Psych Fest, which runs from 29 April to 1 May 2011. Fast becoming the premiere destination for psych lovers, this year’s bash will see performances from Spectrum, Roky Erickson, Crystal Stilts, Crocodiles, The Fresh & Onlys, The Growlers, Cold Sun and tons more.

“The original idea was just to throw a party and invite the bands that we liked,” they say. “With something like SXSW or ATP you never get to see all the bands you want to see, so we’re being a bit selfish in a way and bringing them all to our place!”

The EP provides a taster for the second album and finds Dum Dum Girls moving away from the lo-fi bedroom pop of their debut and heading towards a punkier pop rock sound.

Check out the lead track from the EP He Gets Me High below, the song is being offered as a free download.

The new tracks are produced by the legendary songwriter and producer Richard Gottehrer who has previously worked with Blondie and the GoGo’s as well as writing the hit songs My Boyfriend’s Back and I Want Candy. He is ably assisted on the production by lead Dum Dum Girl Dee Dee and Sune Rose Wagner from the Ravonettes.

He Gets Me High EP Tracklisting:

1.Wrong Feels Right
2. He Gets Me High
3. Take Care of My Baby
4. There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (Smiths cover)

Following the release of the debut album, Dum Dum Girls embarked on a non stop schedule of touring in 2010, appearing with the likes of Vampire Weekend, Beach House, MGMT, Male Bonding and The Crocodiles.

This year already promises to be just as hectic with the band touring the US and Canada and arriving in the UK  at the end of March for a handful of dates here and in Ireland.

31-Mar UK Manchester  Deaf Institute
01-Apr IRE Dublin  Whelans
02-Apr UK Belfast  Black Box
03-Apr UK Glasgow  Stereo
04-Apr UK Leeds  Brudenell Social
05-Apr UK London  Dingwalls
06-Apr UK Brighton  Komedia

When Will I Be Queen - Bearsuit

A dramatic new line up and fierce new electronic sounds are promised from Bearsuit with the release of their eagerly awaited album The Phantom Forest which will be released on March 14th.

As a taster of what to now expect from the Norwich based five piece can be heard on the latest single When Will I Be Queen? which will be available through Fortuna POP! on February 28th as 7″ vinyl or digital download.

Quirky schizophrenic vocals, coupled with killer beats, filthy bass and synths, When Will I Be Queen? finds Bearsuit in superb form with what could easily be construed as a topical song that is definitely not aimed at Kate Middleton!

The album Phantom Forest promises a fierce new sound from the band who have swapped violins, flutes and horns for dirty synths, urgent guitars and infectious beats in the light of a dramatic line-up change.

New recruits are Charlene Katuwawala on bass and keyboards and Joe Naylor on drums, they join existing members Iain Ross, Lisa Horton and Jan Robertson, effectively giving the band an option of five vocalists to compliment the new musical direction.

Bearsuit – When Will I Be Queen?

The disco-synth debut single Please Don’t Take Him Back was playlisted on BBC 6Music in October, as well as being hotly tipped in the music press including Artrocker. Weeks later and their second release A Train Wreck was rated an NME Top 10 Download and Track of the Day at Clash Magazine.

Bearsuit lead into 2011 having secured a profile spot on the upcoming SXSW Festival in Texas for Huw Stephens Radio 1 showcase. The band have previously supported the likes of Crystal Castles, You Say Party! and Hot Chip, but will headline their own UK tour in March.

Bearsuit live dates:

Feb 25 – The Labour Club, Northampton

Feb 26 – 100 Club, London (London Indie-Pop Fest featuring Monochrome Set) SOLD OUT

Feb 27 – The Hope, Brighton

March 4 – Head of Steam, Newcastle Upon Tyne

March 5 – The Tunnels, Aberdeen

March 6 – Glasgow, King Tuts Wah Wah Hut

March 7 – Norwich Arts Centre

March 8 – The Well, Leeds

March 9 – The Haymakers, Cambridge

March 10 – Boileroom, Guildford

March 11 – The Railway Inn, Winchester

March 12 – The Cavern, Exeter

March 13 – The Harley, Sheffield

March 15 – SXSW Festival, Austin Texas

March 16 – SXSW Festival, Austin Texas

March 17 – SXSW Festival, Austin Texas

March 18 – SXSW Festival, Austin Texas

March 19 – SXSW Festival, Austin Texas

April 2 – The Windmill, London

vivian girls

On their third album Share the Joy, Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls continue to sharpen and refine their transcendent mix of garage thrash, girl-group warmth and infectious pop sensibilities.

The trio’s vibrant blend of guitar noise and melodic sweetness has already made Vivian Girls one of America’s most celebrated and influential young bands, and has helped to spark a wave of similarly-inclined female-fronted acts who’ve followed in their wake.

Cassie Ramone and ‘Kickball’ Katy Goodman are joined by new drummer Fiona Campbell in the latest Vivian Girls line up which delivers their most memorable songs and most focused performances yet.

Their new tunes successfully venture into challenging new musical and lyrical territory, reflecting the band members’ developing instrumental rapport and their far-reaching musical influences, while retaining the raw immediacy that originally endeared the group to its fans.

“It’s cleaner and more hi-fi than the previous records,” Cassie says of Share The Joy, which the band recorded at Rear House, the home studio run by Jarvis Taveniere (of the Brooklyn combo Woods), who engineered the album.  “The sound is more open, more free.  I think that this album really shows our strengths as musicians, and shows us melding together musically.  It’s more psychedelic and less shoegaze.  There’s also a lot of organ on it, which is new for us.”

Share the Joy’s musical and emotional depth is reflected on The Other Girls and Light In Your Eyes, each of which clocks in at over six minutes.  The former song manages to encompass hammering hardcore, Beach Boys-esque melodic bliss, Neil Young/Nirvana-inflected guitar frenzy and ethereal harmonic drone, while the latter closes the album on a triumphant note of surging sonic uplift.

Elsewhere, Dance If You Wanna and Take it As It Comes rank with the band’s most intoxicating pop confections, while Lake House and Vanishing of Time maintain a thoughtful, introspective tone that may come as a surprise to those who’d had Vivian Girls pegged as a lo-fi garage outfit.

Cassie Ramone reflects on the latest album;

“Share the Joy has the most diverse batch of songs of any of our albums, I feel like these songs are more expansive; a lot of the themes and lyrics are less direct than other albums.  These songs focus a lot on the themes of alienation, reconciliation, identity, and trying to figure out what really matters in life.  It’s a dark album, but unlike our first two albums, it has a happy ending.

“Our music continues to get more and more defined and developed, but it’s never going to be completely polished. A thing I like about our band is that we seem to mean different things to different people.  Another thing I’m proud of is that, while a lot of people may have initially heard about us through internet buzz and things like that, I think our audience likes our music because it’s honest and because we mean it.  I think that people can pick up on that.”

The Vivian Girls album Share the Joy is released on April 11th through the Polyvinyl label.

In the meantime you can download the track I Heard You Say for free as a taster for the full album.

Vivian Girls will be resident on the Bruise Cruise in Miami during the last week of February and will undertake a month long tour of the US in April.

UK dates are promised with details yet to be confirmed.

Dum Dum Girls EP He Gets Me High

As well as releasing their brilliant debut album I Will Be, a gorgeous example of lo-fi bubble gum bedroom pop if ever there was one,  the rest of 2010 has been a haze of non stop touring for the band, sharing stages with the likes of Vampire Weekend, Beach House, MGMT, Male Bonding and The Crocodiles.

So far the schedule for 2011 doesn’t look much easier for the girls as they have announced US dates for February and March, with a brand new EP to be released on March 1st entitled He Gets Me High.

Now Dum Dum Girls have confirmed they will be returning to the UK and Ireland for dates starting on March 31st to April 6th when they will no doubt be performing tracks from the EP amongst their growing repertoire.

Like the album the EP is produced by lead Dum Dum Girl, Dee Dee under the watchful eye and not a little help from Richard Gottehrer (Blondie, The Go Go’s) and also Sune Rose Wagner from The Ravonettes.

The four track EP features three brand new songs along with a cover of The Smiths’ There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. The EP promises to sonically propel the band in a new and exciting direction, out of the lo fi bedroom experience and into the realms of punky pop rock.

He Gets Me High EP: Formats: CD/12”/digital  Release date March 1st 2011
1.Wrong Feels Right
 2. He Gets Me High
3. Take Care of My Baby
4. There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (Smiths cover)

Dum Dum Girls UK Dates:

31-Mar UK Manchester  Deaf Institute
01-Apr IRE Dublin  Whelans
02-Apr UK Belfast  Black Box
03-Apr UK Glasgow  Stereo
04-Apr UK Leeds  Brudenell Social
05-Apr UK London  Dingwalls
06-Apr UK Brighton  Komedia

lower dens

Baltimore’s excellent new wave, post-punk drone pop band Lower Dens release their debut full length album Twin-Hand Movement this week, containing eleven tracks of eerily perfect and beautiful songs that will swim around your head while grinning like a sectioned mental patient.

Swarming guitar fuzz, bass waves and insistent drum throbs accompany the charred intimate ghost-heavy vocals of Jana Hunter, creating a distinctive and original sound that will either mesmerise or infuriate the listener.

Their is no in-between ground, you will either love or hate Lower Dens and personally I fall into the former category.

TWIN HAND MOVEMENT TRACK LISTING: 1. Blue & Silver 2. Tea Lights 3. A Dog’s Dick 4. Holy Water 5. I Get Nervous 6. Completely Golden 7. Plastic & Powder 8. Rosie 9. Truss Me 10. Hospice Gates 11. Two Cocks

LOWER DENS @ CMJ
20-Oct Brooklyn NY  Bruar Falls  (CMJ Chouette)
20-Oct Brooklyn NY  Don Pedros  (CMJ Impose)
20-Oct New York NY  Santos  (CMJ Stereogum)
21-Oct Brooklyn NY  Union Pool  (CMJ Sinister Foxy)
21-Oct Brooklyn NY  Knitting Factory (CMJ Mexican Summer)
22-Oct Brooklyn NY  Rockwood Music Hall (CMJ Windish)
23-Oct Brooklyn NY  Southpaw  (CMJ Rooftop Films)
23-Oct New York NY  Arlene’s Grocery (CMJ Windish)
23-Oct New York NY  Bowery Ballroom (CMJ VFW)

UK DATES
18-Nov UK London  The Lock Tavern ++HEADLINE++
19-Nov UK Manchester  Manchester Cathedral (with Beach House)
20-Nov UK Glasgow  Oran Mor  (with Beach House)
11-Nov IRE Dublin  Crawdaddy  ++HEADLINE++
22-Nov IRE Dublin  Vicar Street  (with Beach House)
23-Nov UK London  Shepherds Bush Empire (with Beach House)
24-Nov UK Bristol  Trinity  (with Beach House)
25-Nov UK Brighton  Concorde 2  (with Beach House)

karen elson

Karen Elson releases the second single from her critically acclaimed album The Ghost Who Walks on November 1st, the new track is the wonderful The Truth Is In The Dirt and comes backed with a previously unreleased cover of Donavon’s Season of the Witch.

Karen will be joining none other that T Bone Burnett in a ‘multi artist concert extravaganza’ in the USA, called The Speaking Clock Revue, which takes place at The Wang Center in Boston on October 16th and The Beacon Theater in New York City on October 20th.

In addition to Burnett and Elson, both evenings of the Revue will feature performances by Elton John & Leon Russell, John Mellencamp, Elvis Costello, Gregg Allman, Ralph Stanley, Jeff Bridges, Punch Brothers and newcomers The Secret Sisters.  In addition, Neko Case and Jim James from My Morning Jacket will join the lineup in Boston and New York respectively.

Sadly no UK dates to report, but here is the video that accompanies the single, Karen Elson – The Truth Is In The Dirt

the secret sisters

The Secret Sisters

Laura and Lydia Rodgers are The Secret Sisters, born and raised surrounded by music the sisters absorbed their 1920’s singing style performing at family picnics and church services.

The girls release their cover of the Johnny Cash song Big River on November 1st with Jack White turning his hand to production duties!

Redefining the boundaries of folk music The Secret Sisters have been described as The Andrews Sisters southern gothic cousins. In this video T Bone Burnett presents The Secret Sisters:

pujol

Pujol releases the vinyl 7″ single Too Safe/Black Rabbit on November 1st, he has previously embarked on collaborative art and music projects such as MEEMAW, WIZARDZ, the book Meta Motor Speedway, and Skunkape.

Pujol has a girlfriend that’s Scully from X Files, three tattoos, a healthy fascination with Sylvester Stallone, and thinks Jiddu Krishnamurti is a total bad ass, check out his thoughts on vinyl versus CD here:

the greenhornes

Last but not least on Third Man Records, The Greenhornes release their first full length LP of new material since 2002, their strongest collection of songs yet, the album is both diverse and concise  and is called ****.

From the dark pop of lead single “Saying Goodbye”, the glam bubble of “Song 13”, to the moody psych “Cave Drawings”, Produced by The Greenhornes and John Curley, it’s an eclectic and mature work and very much band’s own.

UK Dates
19-Nov London  Cargo
20-Nov Birmingham  Institute
21-Nov Cardiff  Clwb Ifor Bach
22-Nov York  Duchess
23-Nov Glasgow  Stereo
24-Nov Manchester  Ruby Lounge

The Xcerts appear to have upped their game on the new recordings adding a darker edge to their sound while retaining the pop sensibilities and well crafted song writing skills shown on their debut album In The Cold Wind We Smile.

Drawing on the grunge influences of the nineties along with raw emotion and top production from Mike Sapone, Scatterbrain shows a band with abundant confidence in what they are doing, moving on to the next stage with apparent ease while undoubtedly widening their appeal to a larger audience.

The Xcerts – Young (Belane)

Life on the road is second nature to The Xcerts and the band are currently playing dates in the UK supporting Futures, they will be appearing at the following venues this month:

SEPTEMBER

21 Joiners, Southampton w/Futures
22 Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff w/Futures
23 Borderline, London w/Futures
25 Roadhouse, Manchester w/Futures
26 Underground Festival, Gloucester w/Futures
27 King Tuts, Glasgow w/Futures
28 Cockpit, Leeds w/Futures
29 Academy 2, Newcastle w/Futures

The Xcerts will continue to tour in October on their own headline tour and have recently been asked to appear at the prestigous music industry festival CMJ in New York.

OCTOBER
1st Kirkcaldy The Windsor
2nd Stirling Tolbooth *Reloaded Festival
3rd Bathgate Attic
4th Aberdeen Snafu
6th Sheffield Academy 2
7th Brighton Concorde 2 *Brighton Live – Free Entry
8th Plymouth White Rabbit
9th Bristol Fleece
11th Stoke Sugarmill
12th York Fibbers
13 London Electric Ballroom (supporting Get Cape)
14th The Hippodrome, Kingston (New Slang)

Album opener Bad Vibrations.

 Conditions for use: Purchase The Black Angels’ latest long player, carefully press play on your musical system. You will then have a few seconds to bring the curtains down on dilated pupils, make the short, mental trip to the doors of the black lodge and wait…here it comes…one, two, three, four!

 Phosphene Dream shudders into life with the mesmerising Bad Vibrations. From here on in there is no natural light, just synaptic phosphenes sliding and darting under lidded eyes, as the smiling dwarf and Bob beckon from beyond . You’re in their hands now, as they guide you through the vortex walkways to the charred enchanting heart of The Black Angels.

Formed in Austin, Texas in 2004, the band quickly established a reputation for delivering seismic psychedelic hits. This wasn’t the legal high of a farfisa riff, an illusionary line or litho-cut single covers; this was real.

 It’s easy to wake to Sunday Morning, develop a high-contrast negative image of Nico and cut your new, shiny moniker from the beginning of The Velvet Underground’s The Black Angel’s Death Song. But The Black Angels had the musical chops and lithe pose to back it up. They were soon touring with The Warlocks, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and Roky Erikson, briefly performing as his backing band.  First two albums, Passover and Directions to See a Ghost, warped minds and drew comparisons with the 13^th Floor Elevators, acid-soaked Fillmore jams and The Velvet Underground.

 But it turned out that these were the warm-up acts. White noise experiments and deep-space sonic explorations are difficult journeys. And accomplished as they were, these two releases are merely incomplete charts compared to the astral-flashback-mapping on Phosphene Dream.

 The scorched shadow of the piper at the gates of dawn stretches throughout the album’s many hypnotic, mind-melting moments. From the reverb-wrapped, guitar treble of Barrett and syncopated off-key organ stabs to soaring, dissonant harmonies, The Black Angels beautifully capture the lost-boy mischief and saucer-like eyes of early Pink Floyd.

 The distinctive and unsettling jug sound that drove classic 13^th Floor Elevator tracks, such as You’re Gonna Miss Me, is used to minimal and compelling effect. And on True Believers the band take a Jefferson Airplane ride to the haunting brilliance of White Rabbit.

 Signposts to the psychedelic masters of the mid-to-late 60s are plentiful. But Phosphene Dream is far from an empty pastiche. The Black Angels, in the hands of producer Dave Sardy, have managed to capture the sonic mind map that propelled the forefathers that clearly populate their musical space dreams. The album switches from distorted explosions, yelps and twisted six-strong howls to wonderfully sparse pastures against a backdrop of rumbling menace.

 Many have tried to explore this period in time but few succeed. However, like Spaceman 3, The Warlocks and The Horrors (to name some of the few), The Black Angels manage to evoke the excitement of listening to the 60s pioneers for the first time without inducing sickly, nostalgic rashes. And allied to their more abstract sonic explorations, the band also displays fantastic, scuzzy pop sensibilities. Listen to Telephone and Haunting at 1300 McKinley; neither of which would be out of place on the original Nuggets album.

But why carry on reading my words. Phosphenes are generated from the light within. Close your eyes, press play and conjure your own dreams.

 The Black Angel’s European and UK tour kicks off on  24 September. Find out if they’re playing at a venue near you.

Watch The Black Angels live

Listen to Telephone.