Wolf Parade on ‘Indefinite Hiatus’

Montreal band, Wolf Parade, announced to it’s fans on their unofficial fan site that they will be on an ‘indefinite hiatus’ from making music. The band says the reasoning for this is to focus more on their other bands.

Wold Parade began in 2003 when Spencer Krug (of Frog Eyes) was offered a gig by Grenadine Records. Krug only had three weeks to find a band when he contacted guitarist Dan Boeckner (of Atlas Strategic) to begin writing music. Arlen Thompson on drums was finally added to the band only a day before the band’s first show. On tour they wrote, recorded and released their first self-titled full length. By the end of 2003, Hadji Bakara was added to the band and this is when Wolf Parade released their self-titled EP, commonly called 6 Song EP.

In 2004, the band traveled to the Northwest and eventually signed with the Seattle-based label, Sub Pop Records. In 2005, Sub Pop released the band’s debut album, Apologies to Queen Mary which was widely-received. Eventually the band added Dante DeCaro (of Hot Hot Heat) and their sophomore album, At Mount Zoomer, followed. At the end of 2009 the band began working on their third album, Expo 86, which was released June of 2010.

The band had only just recently started their 2010 North American tour when the decision to part was made. The band has now just ended their Expo 86 album tour with a show at the Sound Academy in Toronto this past Friday. At the show, Spencer Krug, singer/keyboardist for Wolf Parade, announced this would be the last show performed in a long time.

As their unofficial fan site states, Toronto was not their last show ever and they do have plans for a few short shows next year. After that is when the band will take a serious break. But there isn’t any telling of exactly how long the band plans to be on hiatus.

The tracklisting for Danger Mouse and Italian composer Daniele Luppi’s forthcoming ‘Rome’ album has been revealed

The album features vocals from The White Stripes’ Jack White and Norah Jones.

It was recorded in parts over the past five years, and was inspired by the film soundtrack work of Ennio Morricone. It’s release is expected early next year.

The tracklisting of ‘Rome’ is:

‘Theme Of Rome’
‘The Rose With The Broken Neck’
‘Morning Fog (interlude)’
‘Season’s Trees’
‘Her Hollow Ways (interlude)’
‘Roman Blue’
‘Two Against One’
‘The Gambling Priest’
‘The World (interlude)’
‘Black’
‘The Matador Has Fallen’
‘Morning Fog’
‘Problem Queen’
‘Her Hollow Ways’
‘The World’

PJ Harvey’s eighth studio album ‘Let England Shake’ is set to be released on the February 15, 2011 on Vagrant Records in the U.S.

‘Let England Shake’ was recorded in a 19th Century church in Dorset with long time collaborator Flood who co-produced the album with PJ Harvey, John Parish and Mick Harvey. The record was also mixed by Flood.

The new album will be supported by a run of sold out live shows early next year, with dates in Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and London’s Troxy on February 27th and 28th. 2011 will also see Harvey return to the festival stage, with more details to be announced. PJ Harvey will perform with a live band which includes Mick Harvey, John Parish and Jean-Marc Butty.

A new album track will be previewed at the official website www.pjharvey.net beginning Tuesday November 30. The completed tracklisting for ‘Let England Shake’ is as follows:

1. Let England Shake
2. The Last Living Rose
3. The Glorious Land
4. The Words That Maketh Murder
5. All And Everyone
6. On Battleship Hill
7. England
8. In The Dark Places
9. Bitter Branches
10. Hanging In The Wire
11. Written On The Forehead
12. The Colour of The Earth

Business Insider:

The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE has launched a major crackdown on websites enabling copyright infringement or selling counterfeits of trademarked goods. In just the past few days ICE has seized at least 12 domains, TorrentFreak reports.

The sites fall into two categories: torrent sites that enable the download of copyrighted music, and sites selling knockoffs of trademarked goods like designer handbags.

A controversial bill that would allow the Attorney General to shut down domains on similar grounds was recently derailed (temporarily) by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.

The owner of an affected site told TorrentFreak that his domain was taken over without any prior complaints or notification from the court.

Torrent Freak:

Following on the heels of this week’s domain seizure of a large hiphop file-sharing links forum, it’s clear today that the U.S. Government has been very busy. Without any need for COICA, ICE has just seized the domain of a BitTorrent meta-search engine along with those belonging to other music linking sites and several others which appear to be connected to physical counterfeit goods….

N.Y. Times:

In what appears to be the latest phase of a far-reaching federal crackdown on online piracy of music and movies, a number of sites that facilitate illegal file-sharing were shut down this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.

By Friday morning a handful of sites that either hosted unauthorized copies of films and music or allowed users to search for them elsewhere on the Internet, were shut down, their content replaced by a notice that said, in part: “This domain name has been seized by ICE — Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court.”

In seizing the domain names of the sites, or Web addresses, the government effectively redirected any visitors to its own takedown notice.

“ICE office of Homeland Security Investigations executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names,” said Cori W. Bassett, a spokeswoman for ICE, in a statement. “As this is an ongoing investigation, there are no additional details available at this time.”

Among the domains seized were torrent-finder.com and three that specialized in music: onsmash.com, rapgodfathers.com and dajaz1.com. TorrentFreak, a news blog about BitTorrents — a file-sharing system that has tended to elude the authorities because it is decentralized — said that at least 70 other sites had been seized, most having to do with counterfeit clothing, DVDs and other goods.

This Saturday Nov 27th at Smarty Pants in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle, WA. DJ Kingblind, DJ Teenage Rampage and Dj Self Administered Beatdown will be spinning at our DJ night…

It’s called: KINGS OF THE VINYL FRONTIER

Here are the details,

Kings of the Vinyl Frontier is a DJ night on the last Saturday of every month for vinyl lovers at Smarty Pants in the georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. Each month we pick a new theme for the night.. This month? The 80′s! that’s right all 80′s all night long..

Cost: 100% free
Date: Saturday Nov 27th 2010
Time: 9pm till closing

Please check out the website for complete details and directions
http://www.kingsofthevinylfrontier.com

Kings of the Vinyl Frontier (At Smarty Pants)
6017 Airport Way S, Seattle, WA. 98108
(206) 762-4777

Since becoming available on iTunes for the first time last Tuesday, Nov. 16, the Beatles have sold over 450,000 albums and two million individual singles worldwide, figures released by reveal.

The Beatles’ debut week on iTunes has, according to the Guardian, been hailed “a pretty amazing achievement” by an insider at the band’s label EMI.

Despite the overall success of the back-catalogue, only one track — ‘Hey Jude’ — managed to break into Sunday’s, Nov. 21, Top 40 singles chart, while greatest hits compilations known as the ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ albums were the only LPs to chart in the UK.

Meanwhile in the US, ‘Abbey Road’ was the top-selling Beatles’ album and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ proved most popular as an individual download, Billboard reports.

The Beatles had been expected to dominate the UK charts after the recent Fab Four-themed ‘X Factor’ but industry observers now believe that sales have been affected by the decision to make the band’s entire back catalogue available simultaneously.

Tom Waits is to publish his first book of poetry, in collaboration with photographer Michael O’Brien. Hard Ground is described as a portrait of homelessness, combining Waits’s words with images of people who “live on the hard ground”.

This is the publishing debut for Waits, a songwriter who, after 40 years, dozens of film appearances and about 20 albums, has noticeably avoided committing himself to print. As he remarked in a 1975 interview, according to TwentyFourBit, “poetry is a very dangerous word”. “I don’t like the stigma that comes with being called a poet,” he said. “So I call what I’m doing an improvisational adventure or an inebriational travelogue.”

But Hard Ground seems much more serious and sincere. O’Brien has spent 30 years as a photojournalist, winning prizes for his portraits and returning several times to the theme of homelessness. For the new book, he and Waits sought to communicate the “common humanity” of people who live on the streets, letting words and images “communicate on their own terms, rather than merely illustrate each other”. Hard Ground is modelled on the 1941 classic, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which combined James Agee’s poetry and Walker Evans’s photographs of Depression-era farmers.

Although this is Waits’s first collaboration with O’Brien, the photographer has frequently taken pictures of the singer. He also shot the cover of Waits’s recent album, Glitter and Doom Live.

Hard Ground will be published by University of Texas Press in March 2011.

Mark David Chapman’s autographed copy of John Lennon’s ‘Double Fantasy’ is up for sale and is expected to fetch a staggering $850,000. The album, which Lennon signed for his killer outside of New York’s Dakota building five hours before he was shot dead on Dec. 8, 1980, has Chapman’s forensically enhanced fingerprints on the sleeve.

“The album is the most extraordinary artifact in rock ‘n’ roll history,” autograph dealer Gary Zinet told the New York Post. “There are evidence markings from the NYPD.”

But for some heartbroken Beatles fans, the idea of someone profiting from Lennon’s death goes beyond being just disturbing. And it explains why Zimet — who first sold the disc in 1999 — is again handling the confidential sale. “The current owner doesn’t want to be named because he received death threats,” Zimet said.

After Chapman murdered Lennon, the autographed album was found at the entrance to the Dakota, where Lennon lived, by a maintenance man, who handed it over as evidence.

Digital Music News:

According to the UK-based Musicians’ Union, 87 percent ofmember artists are making less than 16,000 pounds ($25,530) pounds a year. The figure was actually relayed to Digital Music News by British licensing agency PPL, after we reported Songkick data showing that less than 30,000 artists are actually earning a sustainable living. The Musicians’ Union represents about 30,000 musicians across a variety of negotiations, as well as a variety of other services…

But wait, it gets worse. According to more stats we uncovered, it turns out that 90 percent of PRS for Music members are earning less than £5,000 a year, or roughly $8,000. PRS handles royalties for songwriters and publishers, and often finds itself defending against accusations of unfair licensing demands on small businesses, startups, and just recently, Google. (via the daily swarm)

Last night, Sufjan Stevens brought his elaborate live show to “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon”. Dressed in angel wings, neon stripes, and a backwards rave-kid visor, Sufjan and his massive band (backup dancers included) worked through a dense, choreographed version of the Age of Adz track “Too Much”. Maybe I’m projecting here, but Fallon looked slightly baffled afterward. Watch the video below, via Stereogum.

Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, the new album from Scottish quiet-to-loud post-rock dons Mogwai arrives February 14 in Europe via Rock Action and February 15 in North America via Sub Pop. you can use a widget to download first single, the floaty five-minute instrumental “Rano Pano”. (see below)

Could this be the last we ever hear from Stereolab? With the veteran experimentalists on a self-imposed hiatus – and now a drummer light – ‘Not Music’ offers a stopgap if not a final full stop to a kaleidoscopic career.

Recorded alongside previous album ‘Chemical Chords’, the latest record bears the band’s hallmarks, from the skipping AHD of ‘Everybody’s Weird Except Me’ to the chamber-funk of ‘Two Finger Symphony’. So is this goodbye? Let’s hope not: at the risk of sounding partisan and overly dramatic; a world without Stereolab would be like a school without a playground.

Best Coast and Wavves have announced details of an upcoming joint 2011 tour of North America.

The 26-date jaunt will begin in San Diego, California on January 21.

“We’re both in summery California bands and I think by doing the tour in winter, we’re bringing summer to places where it’s fucking freezing,” Best Coast’s singer Bethany Cosentino told Spin.com. “We’ve been talking about what we want the vibe to be, we want it to be a beach-themed sort of thing, but we’re still brainstorming.”

As previously reported, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino and Wavves frontman Nathan Williams have released a joint Christmas song called ‘Got Something For You’.

Best Coast and Wavves will play the following:

San Diego, CA Soma (January 21)
Tempe, AZ The Clubhouse (22)
Dallas, TX Granada Theater (24)
Austin, TX Emo’s (25)
New Orleans, LA House Of Blues (26)
Tallahassee, FL Club Downunder (27)
Athens, GA 40 Watt Club (28)
Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle (29)
Washington, D.C 9:30 Club (31)
Philadelphia, PA Starlight Ballroom (February 1)
New York, NY Webster Hall (2)
Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg (3)
Boston, MA Paradise (4)
Montreal, QC Cabaret Mile End (5)
Toronto, ON Phoenix Concert Theatre (6)
Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall (8)
Milwaukee, WI Turner Hall Ballroom (10)
Minneapolis, MN Varsity Theater (11)
Omaha, NE Waiting Room (12)
Boulder, CO Fox Theatre (14)
Salt Lake City, UT Urban Lounge (15)
Vancouver, BC The Rickshaw Theatre (17)
Victoria, BC Sugar (18)
Portland, OR Hawthorne Theater (19)
Los Angeles, CA The Music Box (24)
San Francisco, CA The Grand Ballroom at Regency Center (26)

As Billboard reports, an official statement on digital music provider eMusic’s message board lets customers know that releases from indie labels Domino, Merge, and the Beggars Group will no longer be available on the site starting tomorrow, November 18, “pending further discussion.”

eMusic writes, “This is as heartbreaking to us as it is to you. Please know we have done everything we could to keep them from leaving. Forging deals with our label partners can be pretty complex. As many of you know, labels have come and gone over the years, and we hope to see these labels back soon.”

Beggars Group (which includes Matador, XL, Rough Trade, and 4AD) issued a statement explaining their departure: “We wish this hadn’t happened, but as eMusic has brought more major labels on board, they have changed the terms on which they deal with labels in certain ways, some of which we have found impossible to accept, in our own interests, those of our artists, and ultimately those of their fans. We have loved eMusic, and the support it has given to our music, but it was the dedicated home for independent music and is, in our view, not that any more.”

Similarly, Merge’s statement says, “Unfortunately, eMusic’s unilateral changes in effort to bring on the major labels has created a situation where it would be harmful to the interests of Merge and our artists to continue our partnership at this time.”

Though eMusic began as an indie-leaning site, major labels Sony and Warner now sell their songs through the service. The biggest imprint of all, Universal Music Group, has licensed its catalog to eMusic with sales starting later this week, according to Billboard.

As of this writing, four of eMusic’s top ten downloads of the month are under the Beggars Group umbrella. (via pitchfork)

On the Food Network show “Ace of Cakes”, the crew of punk rock bakers at Baltimore’s Charm City Cakes construct huge, elaborate cake replicas of all sorts of things: Yankee Stadium, a video game goblin, a Chinese food container. And on a forthcoming episode, they’ve got something in store for reunited indie kings Pavement, a band that probably gets a lot of play around the Charm City Cakes studio (though probably not as much play as Clutch).

Chicago musician and engineer Jeremy Lemos joined Pavement on their reunion tour and is keeping a diary of it for the Chicago Reader. In the latest entry, Lemos writes that the “Ace of Cakes” crew was on hand in New York for Pavement’s triumphant run of Central Park shows, and that they made Pavement a cake. There’s even a photo of Stephen Malkmus with the Charm City Cakes mob, complete with cameras everywhere. We unfortunately don’t get to see what Pavement’s cake looks like, but there’s at least an outside chance that it’s a massive edible Malkmus statue.

Matador confirmed that Pavement will appear on a forthcoming episode of the show. It’s not scheduled yet, so DVR season pass is your friend.

In further Pavement news from today, you can watch the band’s entire set at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival online right now.

We’re still holding out hope for a cloud-based subscription service to make that full-page teaser on Apple.com seem worthwhile, but it looks like today’s unforgettable iTunes announcement will indeed just be the arrival of the Beatles to the store — the Fab Four’s page just went live, about 20 minutes before the official announcement. It looks like the entire catalog is available in a $149 box set complete with iTunes LP content, and there’s also a few videos for your enjoyment. We’re sure some of you are super-stoked about being able to buy this stuff in yet another format — and we’re glad Steve and Yoko worked it out — but unless something else happens today we’re feeling like we just witnessed a lot of empty hype.

Update: Yep, it’s official — the Beatles are on iTunes. No streaming announcement, no subscription service. Apple’s given its entire front page over to a full-size shot of the boys, and as a bonus the “Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964″ video will stream for free for the rest of the year. Ringo, can you sum this up for us?

“I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes,” said Ringo Starr.
(via engadget)

Pulp have announced that they are reforming to play gigs next year.

The Sheffield band, who last played in December 2002, will headline Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival on May 27 and the Wireless Festival in London’s Hyde Park on July 3.

Pulp will feature Nick Banks, Candida Doyle, Steve Mackey, Russell Senior and Mark Webber alongside frontman Jarvis Cocker. It will be the first time the ‘classic’ line-up have shared a stage since 1996.

Tickets for Wireless go on sale on Friday (November 12). To check the availability of Pulp and Wireless tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0871 230 1094.

For more on the band’s reunion head to Pulppeople.com

Gregg Gillis has never been one for patience. Almost immediately after completing work on his new album late last week, Gillis has released ‘All Day,’ his fifth recording under the guise of Girl Talk. It’s available for free — as of right now — on his Illegal Art website. With 373 samples in 71 minutes, the new set would seem to be just as frenetic and densely packed as its block-rocking, music industry-baiting predecessors.
Download the the album here Enjoy kids, The download section is really slow now but should speed back up in a few hours. KEEP TRYING

The rights to offer music from the Beatles on iTunes had eluded Steve Jobs for years but it appears the Apple CEO will finally offer songs from one of the world’s most beloved bands. Apple has obtained the rights to offer The Beatles music at iTunes, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The paper said Apple is planning to make the announcement, but cautioned that the company “could change plans” at the last minute.

Apple posted a note to the company’s Web site today and promised to make an “unforgettable” announcement on Tuesday. Blogs and social networks were crammed with speculation about what Apple might be rolling out next. Apple was thwarted from acquiring rights to the Beatles’ catalog by several factors, including a feud with the band over the Apple trademark. In the late 1960s, The Beatles named their holding and record company Apple Records. Another problem was acquiring exclusive digital rights to the songs. Had the Beatles cut such a deal, it risked alienating Wal-Mart, Amazon, and other music retailers online and off, according to sources with knowledge of the negotiations. There is nothing in the Journal story to indicate whether the agreement with Apple, EMI, and The Beatles is exclusive. If Apple does unveil tomorrow some of the world’s most recognizable songs, such as “Yesterday,” “Help,” and “Across the Universe” then it would end one of the longest-running Apple rumors. Every so often, someone would send the media in a frenzy by floating a rumor that Apple was getting The Beatles. A spokesman for EMI, The Beatles record label, declined to comment. An Apple representative was not immediately available.

If you’re one of those people that burned your Beatles’ CDs long ago or downloaded them off a file-sharing site, then an Beatles-iTunes might be anti-climatic. But that might be all there is.
Apple hasn’t obtained the licenses needed to offer a streaming or digital locker for either music or video according to numerous sources in the the music and film sectors. Apple was working on enabling iTunes users to upload their music and video libraries to the company’s serverswhere they could be stored and then access from Web enabled devices.

As for the probability that Apple will debut the Beatles at iTunes, some fans of the band aas well as music industry execs said they spotted traces of The Beatles in Apple’s post. A graphic in the notice showed four separate clocks pointing to different times. This was reminiscent of the album cover from The Beatles legendary album “Help.”

In the spirit of the “Paul is Dead” conspiracy theories of the 1960s, in which Beatles fans parsed the lyrics and album artwork for clues that Paul McCartney had actually died in a car crash and was secretly replaced in the band, we found that each of the words in Apple’s notice can be found in a song written or performed by The Beatles.
A stretch maybe, but this is Apple, right? (via cnet)

The Arcade Fire hit “Saturday Night Live” to play The Suburbs highlights “We Used to Wait” and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”. They also took the piss out of themselves by performing a “world saving” synth-pop ode to dancing in a digital short. Win Butler did not break a guitar this time, but he did get super close to the camera and, in the skit, he sang the line “rip your shirt wide open and dance,” after which he ripped his shirt wide open. He didn’t really dance though. But his wife Régine Chassagne did during “Sprawl II”. Watch it all happen below, via the tireless Audio Perv:

And, according to ?uestlove’s Twitter, the band played a post-show concert. Generous!

“We Used to Wait”

“Sprawl II”

Digital Short:
(via pfmedia)

Twitter:

Every day, millions of people use Twitter to follow and share what they care about. Twitter users now send over 95 million Tweets a day, many of which are about the music they’re listening to.

Starting today Ping, iTunes’ new social network for music, and Twitter are making it even easier for people to share music discoveries with their friends by putting Ping activity, song previews and links to purchase and download music from the iTunes Store right in their Tweets on Twitter.com.

How does it work?
On Ping you can easily link to your Twitter account to instantly find Ping users among the people you already follow on Twitter.

Once you’ve linked the accounts, whenever you Post, Like, Review, or tell your friends why you purchased a song or album on Ping, this activity will also be tweeted to your Twitter followers – complete with playable song previews and links to purchase and download music from iTunes.

When you click on a Tweet that’s sent via Ping or that contains an iTunes link, you’ll see the song or album in Twitter’s details pane, with the ability to listen to song previews from iTunes, making the experience even richer.

iTunes song previews are available on Twitter.com in the 23 countries where the iTunes Store offers music.

P.R.

We just made an exciting announcement about Twitter and Apple. Starting today, people can connect their Twitter and iTunes Ping accounts to make it even easier to share music discoveries with their friends. By linking their Twitter and Ping accounts, people can put Ping activity, song previews, and links to purchase and download music from the iTunes Store right in their Tweets on Twitter.com.

Twitter now has more than 175 million registered users who send more than 95 million Tweets per day—more than one quarter of which contain a link to some form of content.

Last month, we launched a new version of Twitter that gives users the ability to see embedded photos and videos directly through the details pane. Adding the ability to listen to music previews makes that experience even richer.
(via the daily swarm)

More than three years after their last album, 2007’s Icky Thump, The White Stripes seem to be heading back into the studio. Jack White explained to Vanity Fair that the delay was partially caused by a few projects had to happen first.

“We thought we’d do a lot of things that we’d never done: a full tour of Canada, a documentary, coffee-table book, live album, a boxed set. It was one long project that took almost three years,” White said. “Now that we’ve gotten a lot of that out of our system, Meg and I can get back in the studio and start fresh.”

The box set that White mentioned is a very expensive item that will be available through his own Third Man Records. The White Stripes – 2010 Merchandise Collection will include a record player, headphones and an exclusive 7” Christmas record. Reportedly it will sell for $499 and will be available later in the month.

The complete final Sex Pistols show at Bill Graham’s Winterland, in San Francisco, 1978. For years all I’d ever seen was the B&W Target Video-shot version of this show, then this improved color version popped up on a quasi-legit Chinese DVD about ten or so years ago. Everyone always rags on their supposed shitty last performance… au contraire, folks, they’re incendiary here.

After this show, the supernova that was the Pistols was no more. Say what you will about John Lydon’s later career, in his youth, the man changed the face of music twice, first with the Sex Pistols and later with Public Image, Ltd. Who else can something like that be said about? Miles Davis is the only person who comes to mind. (via dangerous minds)

This Savannah, GA-based hard rock band has finally painted its masterpiece on this, its fifth full-length. Kylesa’s use of two drummers (a practice that began on 2006′s Time Will Fuse Its Worth) has really paid off on this disc, adding rhythmic intricacy without devolving into proggy abstraction or wallowing in Melvins-like thudding. The melodic aspect of their sound is what’s changed the most on Spiral Shadow, though; the songs are more psychedelic than ever, with guitarist/vocalists Phillip Cope and Laura Pleasants shouting and crooning back and forth at each other in a call-and-response style that sometimes sounds like an argument, and other times like a ritual. Pleasants’ dreamy crooning on “Don’t Look Back” recalls ’90s shoegaze, or Kim Gordon’s work with Sonic Youth on albums like Sister and EVOL. Cope and Pleasants’ guitar work is incantatory and powerful, rising to Baroness-like heights of glory on tracks like “Tired Climb” and “Crowded Road.” Those titles reflect a feeling of physicality, of people making music through manual labor in a hot, crowded room, and that’s how this album feels. The mix is somehow both spacious and full, with each instrument clearly audible at all times, yet making up one part of a majestic whole. This is a great psychedelic hard rock album, only occasionally returning to the sludgy metal of Kylesa’s early releases.

The reconstituted New York postpunk heroes Swans have been on tour for a while now, drawing hosannas for what’s reportedly a deeply intense and powerful live show. And they’re not done yet. The band will remain very, very busy up through mid-May, playing shows in Europe, North America, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, and Europe again. Their scope is global. Go see them at any of the dates below.

Swans:

11-23 Gronignen, Netherlands – Vera
11-24 Utrecht, Netherlands – Le Guess Who Fest
11-25 Brussels, Belgium – AB Club
11-26 Lille, France – Le Grande Mix
11-28 Paris, France – BBMIX Festival
11-30 Toulouse, France – Le Phare
12-01 Lyon, France – Epicerie Modern
12-02 Geneva – Switzerland – L’Usine
12-03 Turin, Italy – Musica90
12-04 Bologna, Italy – Locomotive Club
12-05 Rome, Italy – Circglio Delgi Aristi
12-07 Vienna, Austria – Arena
12-08 Prague, Czech Republic – Akropolis
12-09 Wroclaw, Poland – Firlej
12-10 Warsaw, Poland – Stodola
12-12 Hamburg, Germany – Kampnagel
12-13 Berlin, Germany – Volksbuehne
02-18 Austin, TX – Mohawk *
02-19 Dallas, TX – South Side Music Hall *
02-22 Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall *
02-25 Vancouver, British Columbia – Rickshaw Theater *
02-26 Seattle, WA – Neumos *
02-27 Portland, OR – Roseland Theater *
03-01 San Francisco, CA – The Regency Grand Ballroom *
03-02 Los Angeles, CA – El Rey Theater *
03-06 Auckland, New Zealand – Powerstation ^
03-10 Melbourne, Australia – Forum Theater ~
03-11 Brisbane, Australia – Hi-Fi ~
03-12 Sydney, Australia – Metro Theatre ~
04-12 Tel Aviv, Israel – Barby
04-14 Athens, Greece – Gagarin 205
04-16 Tilburg, Netherlands – Roadburn Festival
05-02 Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega #
05-03 Aarhus, Denmark – Voxhall #
05-04 Malmö, Sweden – Babel #
05-06 Oslo, Norway – Rockefeller #
05-07 Drammen, Norway – Union Scene #
05-08 Stockholm, Sweden – Strand #
05-10 Tampere, Finland – Klubi #
05-11 Helsinki, Finland – Tavastia #
05-12 Tallinn, Estonia – Von Krahl Theatre Bar #
05-13 Riga, Latvia – Grivas Mebeles #
05-14 St. Petersburg, Russia – SKIF Festival
05-15 Moscow, Russia – Avant Club #
05-21 Budapest, Hungary – Trafó House of Contemporary Arts #
05-23 Zagreb, Croatia – Teatar Itd #
05-24 Ljubljana, Slovenia – Kino Kiska Centre for Urban Culture #

* with Wooden Wand
^ with Pumice
~ with Necks
# with James Blackshaw
(via pitchfork)

Mark Ronson currently has his hands full with the Atlanta garage-rock riot-starters Black Lips. According to a Creative Loafing interview with Lips leader Jared Swilley, the band is currently in New York working with Ronson on an album due in the spring from Vice.

The Creative Loafing interview mostly concerns Swilley’s thoughts about his father, Jim Swilley, a prominent preacher who came out of the closet to his congregation recently. (Jared Swilley himself recently apologized for homophobic comments made during his feud with Wavves, but the interview doesn’t get into that.)

Jared says, “When my dad told me he was gay, he asked me if it would affect our relationship, and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? No, it’s not going to affect our relationship.’ But it does take a lot of balls to come out in an environment like that, and I think I respect him a little more now. He’s tougher now that he came out of the closet, which was probably one of the toughest things he could have done. I thought it was pretty bad ass.”

It’s an interesting read; check it out over here.

More information has surfaced about the new Iron & Wine album. As previously reported, Kiss Each Other Clean will be released via Warner Bros. in the U.S. and 4AD internationally. And now we have the release date: January 25. The tracklist can be found below, along with a trailer for the album, featuring a taste of new music.

Our first taste of the new music will come on Black Friday, November 26, when Warner Bros. releases the “Walking Far From Home” single as part of a mini-Record Store Day. (It’ll be available digitally on November 30.) That’s the “Walking Far From Home” art up there.

Later this week, Iron & Wine launch a short U.S. tour. In late January, they’ll play the Wiltern in L.A. and Radio City Music Hall in NYC before jetting off to Europe for a tour in February and March. Dates below.

Kiss Each Other Clean:

01 Walking Far From Home
02 Me And Lazarus
03 Tree By The River
04 Monkeys Uptown
05 Half Moon
06 Rabbit Will Run
07 Godless Brother In Love
08 Big Burned Hand
09 Glad Man Singing
10 Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me

Dates:

11-13 St. Louis, MO – The Pageant *
11-14 Memphis, TN – Minglewood Hall *
11-15 Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel *
11-16 Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse *
11-17 Jacksonville, FL – Florida Theatre *
11-18 Miami Beach, FL – Fillmore Miami Beach *
11-19 Tallahassee, FL – The Moon *
11-20 New Orleans, LA – House of Blues *
11-21 Houston, TX – Fitzgerald’s *
01-25 Los Angeles, CA – Wiltern Theater
01-29 New York, NY – Radio City Music Hall
02-02 Stockholm, Sweden – Debaser Medis
02-03 Oslo, Norway – Rockefeller
02-04 Gothenburg, Sweden – Tradgarn
02-05 Aarhus, Denmark – Voxhall
02-06 Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega
02-07 Hamburg, Germany – Fabrik
02-08 Berlin, Germany – Berghain
02-09 Cologne, Germany – Gloria
02-10 Vienna, Austria – WUK
02-11 Munchen, Germany – Freiheizhalle
02-12 Bologna, Italy – Locomotiv
02-13 Zurich, Switzerland – El Lokal
02-14 Frankfurt, Germany – Mousonturm
02-15 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
02-16 Brussels, Belgium – Ancienne Belgique
02-17 Paris, France – Alhambra
03-08 London, England – Roundhouse
03-09 Brighton, England – Corn Exchange
03-10 Birmingham, England – Town Hall
03-11 Edinburgh, Scotland – HMV Picturehouse
03-12 Liverpool, England – Philharmonic Hall
03-14 Dublin, Ireland – Olympia
03-15 Manchester, England – Academy 2
03-16 Gateshead, England – Sage
03-17 Leeds, England – Metropolitan University

* with NOMO

While hardly anyone knew what to expect from Conan O’Brien’s comeback to late-night TV on Monday night, pretty much anyone familiar with Jack White could guess that his performance on the premiere episode of ‘Conan’ wouldn’t be business as usual.

Still, it was somewhat of a surprise when, during the final stretch of the show, the host and Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band joined White to perform a version of Eddie Cochran’s 1956 song, ‘Twenty Flight Rock.’ White and O’Brien previously teamed up over the summer to record the cover for ‘Conan O’Brien Live at Third Man,’ which was tracked at White’s Nashville studio.

As Team Coco supporters reveled in the memorable duet, O’Brien continued the show by doing a short interview with White where the two talked about how they met and what it was like recording their album. And after O’Brien explained that recording with White was the “highlight certainly of the tour and my life,” the Dead Weather member showed off his own funny bone by informing O’Brien that he changed the security code after the host’s stay in Nashville.

Twenty years after ‘The Wagon’ rolled to the top of the college radio charts, Dinosaur Jr.’s iconic guitarist/frontman J Mascis has announced plans for a new solo album. But his new disc, ‘Several Shades of Why,’ which will be released via Seattle institution Sub Pop Records, will be a far cry from Dino classics like ‘Freak Scene’ and ‘Feel the Pain.’

Set for release on March 15, Mascis’ album will be served in an acoustic format. Despite his blasting expertise, he’s no stranger to the wood and wire approach, having first recorded an unplugged album of Dinosaur Jr. staples — and a pretty righteous take on Carly Simon’s ‘Anticipation’ — on 1996′s ‘Martin & Me.’

According to Pitchfork, ‘Several Shades of Why’ will feature no drums whatsoever, meaning that those expecting Dinosaur Jr. drummer Murph to sit in on a tune or two will be out of luck.

It’s never been cheaper to distribute music, and recording costs are now fantastically inexpensive. That’s old news, but it looks like marketing costs are actually increasing, and the number of artists making ends meet remains depressingly slim. In fact, the latest finding shows that less than 30,000 artists are actually earning a living, according to stats shared by Topspin CEO Ian Rogers at New Noise Santa Barbara over the weekend.

More specifically, the number is between 25,000 and 30,000, and the original source of that calculation is Songkick cofounder Ian Hogarth. Essentially, Hogarth analyzed his database of bands by the types of venues being played, and the likely incomes associated with that level of venue. “You can decide that number is slightly lower or slightly higher, you can argue about what the definition of making a living is, but it’s probably on that order of magnitude,” Rogers told the audience at the Canary Hotel in downtown Santa Barbara (see video below).

Meanwhile, the costs of actually marketing music effectively is increasing. “Technology has allowed the cost of production to come down, and the cost of distribution has come down,” Rogers relayed. “But the cost of marketing has come up, because you have empowered consumers and unlimited choice.”

Not only that, successful marketing is extremely time-consuming, resource-consuming, and the results highly unpredictable. Welcome to the new music industry, one whose real dynamics are just starting to come to light – and forcing entirely new approaches and expectations.

Throughout the talk, Rogers urged a more realistic attitude towards ‘making it,’ and reminded artists that the odds are definitely against them. Alongside a Powerpoint slide titled (appropriately) “Be Realistic: The Odds are Against You,” Rogers pointed to millions of MySpace bands, tens of millions of musicians, and a Long Tail that is “well, very long.”

But wait: isn’t Rogers one of the guys responsible for creating all this DIY euphoria in the first place? Well, sort of: Rogers’ charisma is seductively understated and cool, and his smart and innovative approach has always resonated with artists and labels. But the Topspin model is focused on bigger artists, not early-stage, unproven acts. “I feel like there are a lot of people in my position frankly – in the software space – who just said ‘yeah, you’re going to make it,’ and it’s definitely statistically untrue,” Rogers continued, while pointing to a “huge supply and demand imbalance… between artists and people who love art.”

Meanwhile, even the established players are working with more modest expectations. Rogers pointed to Secretly Canadian Records, a group striving to break even while being “stewards of profitability” for artists. Secretly Canadian establishes 50/50 joint ventures with artists, and strives to create longer-term relationships. “They aim for break even on every release,” Rogers relayed. “And their batting average is 90 percent.”

Technically, that sounds like a company making a loss, though perhaps breaking even – and keeping the lights on – is a rich reward indeed. At least for now.

When Cee Lo’s ”F— You” first bum-rushed the blog-
osphere in August, it felt like the perfect late-season palate cleanser — 
a bright splash of bitters in this summer’s corn-syrupy cocktail of pop offerings. (The sterilized radio edit ”Forget You,” however, deserves to languish in PG-rated purgatory.)

While the rest of The Lady Killer doesn’t have anything quite as immediate as that finger-snapping, FCC-antagonizing throwback, the Gnarls Barkley singer (and sometime 
 member of Atlanta rap pioneers Goodie Mob) hardly hangs his third solo disc on one flash of obscene inspiration. Lady Killer both honors and tweaks the tropes of vintage songcraft with hefty doses of sweet Motown/Stax 
 boogie (”It’s OK,” ”Satisfied”), a smattering of Curtis Mayfield superfly (”I Want You,” ”Bright Lights Bigger City”), and imaginary theme songs for James Bond (”Love Gun,” ”Bodies”). Throughout, Green smartly adds enough modern flourishes to keep it all from becoming a too-slavish K-tel trip. But when his voice swoops from a low rumble to its highest register on a stunning, strings-laden cover of Band of Horses’ ”No One’s Gonna Love You,” going retro feels exactly right.

Bloomberg:

Viacom Inc.’s MTV is considering producing new Internet versions of “120 Minutes” and other classic TV shows from the network’s past after testing the idea with “Unplugged,” a program on the air since 1990.

“The Internet is providing us with a similar opportunity to what happened at MTV in its early days,” said Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks Music & Logo Group. “We can really shine a light on the subversive subculture of music.”

The aim is to let fans interact with artists. The popularity of “Unplugged” waned in the late 1990s and MTV has produced a limited number of episodes for cable each year since then, Toffler said in a telephone interview from the network’s New York headquarters. A revival started online in 2009 and won a daytime Emmy for innovative programming this year…

Gizmodo:
UPDATE: Panasonic is in fact ceasing production of the SL-1200MK6 model specifically, while other Technics turntable models will live on. Phew! Sincere apologies for the misunderstanding…

Tokyo Reporter:
On October 20, the company said that it was winding down production of the Technics SL-1200MK6 analog turntable, the SH-EX1200 analog audio mixer and the RP-DH1200 and RP-DJ1200 stereo headphones due to challenges in the marketplace…

Tom Waits is to reissue his first four albums on heavyweight vinyl next month, with a special run of 1,000 copies of each available on red vinyl, it has been announced on his website.

The newly pressed 180-gram editions of ‘Closing Time,’ ‘The Heart of Saturday Night,’ ‘Nighthawks at the Diner’ and ‘Small Change’ were originally released through Asylum records between 1973 and 1976.

Officially set for re-release by Rhino on Dec. 21, fans who pre-order the album reissues at Tom Wait’s online store will have the chance to grab one of the limited-edition 1,000 red versions.

Recently announced as a nominee for 2011′s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the songwriter’s debut album ‘Closing Time’ was described as a “unique” start to his career.

Nominated for the first time alongside artists such as Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper and Bon Jovi, Waits is summed up by the Hall of Fame as “Beginning with his first album in 1973, [he] has carved out a unique place in rock ‘n’ roll.”

“His music mixes Chicago blues, parlor ballads, beat poetry, pulp fiction parlance and — when you least expected it — heart-breaking tenderness.”

Winning inductees will be announced in the coming weeks, with the annual ceremony taking place on March 14 in New York.

LCD Soundsystem could’ve spent the week after they played the Glastonbury Festival kicking their feet up and high-fiving each other. Instead, they holed up in a London studio to record the live-in-studio LP The London Sessions, which gets a digital release November 9– next Tuesday– via DFA/Virgin. It’ll be exclusively available through iTunes until December 6.

Anyone who’s caught the LCD live show this summer knows that the band is an absolutely ferocious beast onstage. And even though they basically make electronic dance music, LCD refuse to replicate any of their sounds with computers; you won’t see a laptop onstage with them. Instead, they bash things out the hard way. Hopefully some of that sweat will be audible in The London Sessions, recorded in the tradition of the BBC’s old John Peel Sessions.

The album’s tracklist, which you can see below, draws from every era of LCD’s existence. Frontman James Murphy mixed the album in New York, and Bob Weston mastered it in Chicago..

Meanwhile, LCD’s cover of Paperclip People’s “Throw”, a longtime live staple released digitally as a bonus track for This Is Happening, was released on vinyl for the first time this week by Carl Craig’s Planet E label. (Craig was the man behind Paperclip People.)

The London Sessions:

01 Us V Them
02 All I Want
03 Drunk Girls
04 Get Innocuous
05 Daft Punk Is Playing at My House
06 All My Friends
07 Pow Pow
08 I Can Change
09 Yr City’s a Sucker
(via pfmedia)

Oh, they have a new video too.. For the song “Pow Pow”.. Enjoy.

Damon Albarn has formed a new band featuring drummer Tony Allen and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea.

The band, who are currently unnamed, have “three-quarters finished” their debut album, according to Albarn.

Speaking to Stuff.co.nz, the Gorillaz and Blur man said that the new band is “centred around what [Tony] does,” referring to Allen’s Afrobeat background.

Of Flea, who also plays in Radiohead’s Thom Yorke’s side project Atoms For Peace, he explained: “Flea, of course, is an anagram for Fela and Flea is so into this music – so that’s been great.”

Allen and Albarn have previously played together in The Good, The Bad & The Queen, of whom Albarn said new material was also a distinct possibility. “Well, I would hope so, definitely,” he explained.

Meanwhile, he also confirmed that he is working on a new Gorillaz album while touring with the band.

“I guess it’s my love letter to America,” he said of the project. “I used to be baffled by this place, and I guess I still am in some ways. America confused me enormously. But right now, with all that’s going on, this is a good place to be and this has been a great tour.”

Referring to his future plans, Albarn admitted he thinks the current Gorillaz tour will be his last for some time, saying: “There won’t be another world tour for me, for anything, for five to six years.”

He added: “I have a young daughter and it’s just not feasible, it’s too long away from home.”

However, he also admitted that he plans to make a solo album, saying: “I’ve promised myself that one day there’ll be a proper ballad record, I don’t know – ‘Damon Albarn Sings Ballads’ or something.”

Heavy metal originators Motörhead are to release their 20th studio album ‘The World is Yours’ via an exclusive publishing deal with Classic Rock magazine next month.

Ahead of the official release date of 17 January, a special ‘Classic Rock Presents… Motörhead’ package will be published exclusively from 14 December. Fans will be able to buy The World Is Yours’ combined with a 132-page magazine for £14.99 ($24).

Simultaneously launching their own imprint, Motörhead Music — their first own label in a 35 year career — the 10 brand new tracks by legendary frontman Lemmy Kilmister, Philip Campbell and Mikkey Dee were recorded in Los Angeles and Wales in the spring.

The ‘fanpack’ which includes new interviews and an in-depth career overview follows closely a similar venture by Classic Rock for the release of Slash’s solo album earlier this year.

The deal with Classic Rock’s publishers Future saw the former Guns N’ Roses guitarist sell 30,000 copies of his eponymous debut through newsagents before its official release.

Launching Motörhead Music, the band delivered a suitably rock statement of intent ahead of the album’s release: “Motörhead have never just been the best rock ‘n’ roll band in the world. They’ve never just been the loudest. Or the hardest. Or the toughest. Or the bad-ass-est.”

“No … Motörhead are also a lifestyle. Motörhead are a mindset, a belief, a way to live your life, a way to both survive and beat a society that sometimes seems intent on trying to grind you down.”

The brash trio head out on a 35 year anniversary tour of the UK and Europe beginning at the Aberdeen AECC on 8 November.

The ‘The Wörld Is Yours’ tracklisting is:

‘Born To Lose’
‘I Know How To Die’
‘Get Back In Line’
‘Devil’s In My Head’
‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Music’
‘Waiting For The Snake’
‘Brotherhood Of Man’
‘Outlaw’
‘I Know What You Need’
‘Bye Bye Bitch Bye Bye’

Cult stoner rock band Kyuss are set to reunite for a European tour in 2011, it has been claimed.

Thesilvertongueonline.com states that the band’s original line up of singer John Garcia, bassist Nick Oliveri and drummer Brant Bjork are on board for the dates, although original guitarist Josh Homme is not involved.

Following Kyuss’ split in 1995, both Homme and Oliveri played together in Queens Of The Stone Age.

According to the report, Garcia, Oliveri and Bjork are set to play together under the name Kyuss Lives, and will play the following UK dates as part of a European tour:

Nottingham Rock City (March 31)
Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall (April 1)
London HMV Forum (2)

Arcade Fire was scheduled to play a show in Lisbon, Portugal on November 18, but now Billboard reports that “security concerns” have forced the cancellation of the show. The problem: A NATO summit is in Lisbon November 19-20.

According to the band’s reps, the show’s promoters were informed that the venue, the Atlantic Pavilion, would be unavailable. The band offered to reschedule the show for a day earlier, but summit organizers weren’t having it.

Maybe someone took the band’s name literally?

Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite has said the band came up with their new album title ‘Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will’ after a bizarre run-in at an off-licence.

The frontman said that the phrase was overheard by a friend around the time the band were considering album titles, and that it immediately stood out.

“A friend of James Hamilton – the drummer from Errors – heard a ‘ned’ say it,” he explained, adding: “A chav is what I suppose you would call a ‘ned’ in England. Anyway, he apparently just came out with it and said it to a shopkeeper who wouldn’t sell him wine because he was too young.”

Braithwaite added that the phrase seems to have gone down well among the band’s fans.

“People like it! We actually had a really hard time coming up with the title,” he said. “We were really close to calling it a load of tragically bad stuff. The worst one was ‘Mega Album 7′, which is absolutely horrendous. I mean, I’m the master of the album titles, but I just wasn’t really feeling it.”

Speaking of the recording process for the album, which is due out on February 14, Braithwaite said: “It’s been quite full-on because we weren’t all living in Scotland when we were writing it. John [Cummings, guitarist] lives in New York and Barry [Burns, guitars and keyboards] lives in Berlin. We were writing the album via email so it was different. When we actually got together to play the songs it was probably the hardest we’ve worked.”

A 26-minute track called ‘The Singing Mountain’ will be included on bonus editions of the album, and Braithwaite revealed that the volcanic ash cloud, which disrupted air traffic around the world in April, had a hand in the song’s recording process.

“Oh my god, that was really tortuous! Barry wrote the music when the ash cloud thing happened, but he literally couldn’t get back to Scotland so we never got to play it together,” he recalled. “It kind of got pieced together in the studio. It’s an unbelievably complicated piece of music, but it’s good. And it’s also the polar opposite of the actual album too, which sounds like New Order pop songs.”

via The Guardian:

Before music video director Chris Milk unleashed the wonderful Arcade Fire/Wilderness Downtown project on the online world, he had started brewing another ingenious web-based video – this time a memorial to the legendary Johnny Cash.

Ain’t No Grave was the last thing Cash recorded in a studio. Milk’s tribute has been to invite fans to submit their own single frame for the video – and 250,000 have been submitted so far. Viewers see a video composed of some of those frames, but can also choose director-curated frames, highest-rated frames, abstract frames and so on…

The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies has quashed talk of a reunion and taken a swipe at his brother Ray Davies.

Earlier this month, Ray told Sky News that his brother was “coming round” to the idea of putting the group back together, 14 years after they officially split.

However, Dave has now said he would never entertain the idea of a reunion, stating it would taint the band’s legacy.

“It would be a shame. You don’t need to see silly old men in wheelchairs singing ‘You Really Got Me’,” he told the Daily Mail.

Dave, who has a famously volatile relationship with Ray, described his brother as a “arsehole” and claimed that relations have worsened since Ray was given a CBE in 2004.

“You’ve heard of vampires – well Ray sucks me dry of ideas, emotions and creativity. It’s toxic for me to be with him. He’s a control freak,” he added.

Earlier this year, Kinks drummer Mick Avory claimed that the band had recorded eight tracks for an album of old and new material, although no release date was confirmed.

Founding member and bassist Pete Quaife died in June.

A statement from Throbbing Gristle:

In the evening 27th October TG members and their associated managements
received two emails from Genesis P-Orridge stating he was no longer
willing to perform in Throbbing Gristle and returned to his home in New York.

Cosey, Sleazy & Chris have concluded that once more, and for the time being,
Throbbing Gristle has Ceased to Exist, at least as a live entity.

Therefore, and with deepest apologies, TG must cancel their scheduled
performance at Archa Theatre, in Prague, Czech Republic on 30th October.
It being too short notice to offer an alternative set.

In order not to disappoint fans of the old quartet, Cosey, Peter & Chris
have offered to perform live under the name X-TG at Arena Del Sole, Bologna, Italy
on 2nd November & at Casa Musica, Porto, Portugal on 5th November.

We are awaiting confirmation from both the Bologna & Porto Promoters.

We hope fans will appreciate and enjoy this new project and the trio is looking
forward to performing exciting new and radical electronic musics together.

Full refunds are available at the point of purchase if required.

Industrial Records Ltd, London. 29th October 2010

Over a year ago we talked about the t1200 possibly going away.. Now The Tokyo reporter is saying the same thing.

…On October 20, the company said that it was winding down production of the Technics SL-1200MK6 analog turntable, the SH-EX1200 analog audio mixer and the RP-DH1200 and RP-DJ1200 stereo headphones due to challenges in the marketplace.

“Panasonic decided to end production mainly due to a decline in demand for these analog products and also the growing difficulty of procuring key analog components necessary to sustain production,” the company said in statement issued to The Tokyo Reporter…

PC Magazine:

The clandestine group known as “Anonymous” plans to target the RIAA‘s Web site Friday night as a part of “Operation Payback,” described as retribution for the shutdown of the LimeWire peer-to-peer client.

The group, which also reportedly includes members of the ”/b/” bulletin board at 4chan.org, plans to launch the attack at 4:00 PM EST on Friday, Oct. 29, according to a posting on the Operation Payback Web site…

Digital Music News:

Just moments after winning an injunction against Limewire, the RIAA is now dealing with a shutdown of its own. The riaa.com site was torn down on Friday afternoon, and clandestine vigilante collective Anonymous is claiming responsibility (the site reappeared in the evening and remained online over the weekend). The group first announced ‘Operation Payback’ on Thursday, and is now starting its plan to make life very difficult for the label trade group.

Looks like Anonymous wants blood, but also the prevention of similar attacks against sites like the Pirate Bay. The group has also published personal details on RIAA chief Mitch Bainwol, as well as Bainwol’s wife. Other details, including office numbers and fax numbers, have also been published, with the aim of disrupting the organization with random calls, pizza deliveries, and similar actions…
(via dailyswarm)