Tom Waits on the Don Lane Show 1981 (Interview and Performance)

Tom Waits on the Don Lane show. This is part one of two videos from the show. This first video is the interview. Tom talks about giving up smoking, his marriage, and some other fascinating stuff. The Second Part is the performance of the song Mr. Siegal.

Wilco will release their new CD, The Whole Love, on September 27. The album will feature a dozen new songs, including the recently released single “I Might,” which you can check out below, and the twelve-minute “One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend).”
The Whole Love is Wilco’s eighth studio album and the first to be released on the band’s dBpm Records label. Jeff Tweedy and crew have also announced a string of dates, which kicks off at the Murat Theatre, Indianapolis, IN., on September 13. Legendary singer-songwriter and silver fox Nick Lowe will be the support at all the shows.
Personally, I thought Wilco’s last CD, 2009′s Wilco (The Album), didn’t quite match the sublime, exploratory heights as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or A Ghost Is Born, although I’m well aware there are fans who hold the contrary view.

In a Q&A with Noah Baumbach earlier this month, Joel and Ethan Coen revealed that they’ve been working on a new script for a music-related film featuring songs “pretty much all performed live” on a “single instrument.” The pair kept further details a bit cryptic in that discussion, but now the L.A. Times have been tipped off with an intriguing update on the project: The Mayor of MacDougal Street, a posthumously published memoir by legendary folk singer Dave Van Ronk that revisits the historic 1960s Greenwich Village scene he helped lead, is serving as inspiration for the script, which is loosely based on Van Ronk’s life.

As documented in Bob Dylan’s memoir Chronicles: Volume 1, “in Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was king of the street, he reigned supreme.” In fact, Van Ronk gave Dylan his first pivotal chance in the scene’s spotlight, when he offered the future poet laureate of rock a set at the popular Gaslight Cafe following an impromtu performance of “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” at a guitar shop. Many others, including Joni Mitchell and Phil Ochs, were discovered by Van Ronk during that era.

Some Coen Brothers scripts never see the light of day, of course, so there’s no guarantee this would-be-awesome project will come to fruition. If they do manage to go folk, something tells me their longtime collaborator Jeff Bridges might make a good Van Ronk. I mean, the guy can certainly sing the part.

Classic Albums – Screamadelica (Primal Scream)

Primal Scream’s seminal album Screamadelica was released in 1991, and synthesized the band’s rock ‘n’ roll roots with the dance culture of that time; for many, the album’s sound and imagery came to be regarded as quintessential symbols of the acid house era, perfectly catching the spirit and mood of the early 90s.

Using rare archive footage and special performances, this film tells the story of Screamadelica and its hit singles and dance anthems “Loaded,” “Movin’ On Up,” “Come Together” and “Don’t Fight It, Feel It.” From the formation of the band in Glasgow to winning the first-ever Mercury prize, the band members explain the record’s inception with insights from main producer Andrew Weatherall, Creation Records founder Alan McGee and many others involved with or inspired by this joyful record.

Screamadelica both defines a generation and transcends its time, and is a true Classic Album.

Atlanta metal monarchs Mastodon have been at work on a new album, replete with hilariously awesome song titles. Today, the Adult Swim Singles Program released a new Mastodon video into the world. But this track, “Deathbound”, won’t appear on the forthcoming album The Hunter. Instead, it comes from the same sessions that produced their last album, 2009′s Crack the Skye.

The song will soon appear on the Singles Program website. But the amazing video, from Authority Films, is below. It depicts total puppet mayhem, and to describe it any further would be to spoil it. You just have to watch it. It’s nuts. (via Pitchfork)

Despite having a new album written, Morrissey has no record deal in place to make what would be his 10th solo record a reality, the former Smiths man has revealed.

Currently resigned to his fate, the singer told Pitchfork, “There’s not much I can do about it. Once it becomes public that you aren’t signed, you assume that anyone who wants you will come and get you.” So far he’s yet to receive an offer.

Morrissey believes the main reason for his situation is that labels are primarily concerned with new bands rather than established acts. He explained, “I think labels for the most part want to sign new discoveries so that that label alone is seen to be responsible for the rise of the artist.”

He continued, “Not many labels want bands who have already made their mark, because their success is usually attributed to some other label somewhere else at another time. Most artists are remembered for the albums that introduced them, or that made their success.”

While a band like Radiohead has embraced new ways to release music, Morrissey has a more traditional stance: “I don’t have any need to be innovative in that way. I am still stuck in the dream of an album that sells well not because of marketing, but because people like the songs.”

As for the state of the music industry as a whole, the singer didn’t pull his punches. “The entire ‘industry’ has been destroyed in a thousand ways. The Internet has obviously wiped music off the human map — killed the record shop, and killed the patience of labels who consider debut sales of 300,000 to not be good enough.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BN07Q7OWXA&feature=player_embedded

The reissued Icky Mettle is out 8/2 via Merge. (Pre-order now.) It was remastered by Bob Weston, features liner notes by Robert Christgau, and includes bonus material (Archers Of Loaf vs. The Greatest Of All Time EP, singles, B-Sides, etc.). See them live:

07/08 – Chicago, IL @ The Bottom Lounge
07/09 – Chicago, IL @ The Bottom Lounge
07/22 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
07/23 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
07/24 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
08/05 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
08/06 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Trocadero

08/19 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
08/20 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
09/02 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
09/03 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
09/08 – Portland, OR @ Music Fest NW
09/09 – Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s

“And at once I knew I was not magnificent.” So sings Justin Vernon in Holocene, his ethereal falsetto serene as he absorbs another of life’s burdens and disappointments. The line snags you for two reasons: it’s one of the few comprehensible lyrics amid the album’s whirlwind of poetic obfuscations; it’s also nonsense. Vernon’s most magnificent act on this follow-up to 2008′s solitary, introspective For Emma, Forever Ago, is to open Bon Iver up to the world. That expansiveness influences everything, from the way the song titles reach beyond Vernon’s Wisconsin home to the number of collaborators (10) and their intricately textured sound. In opening track Perth, you can almost hear Vernon exit his cabin in the woods to be dazzled by the colours and brightness outside, communicated in bold military drums and surging horns. But whether exploring supple R&B in Minnesota, WI, joyful country in Towers, or swollen soft-rock in Beth/Rest, Bon Iver remains rooted in the emotional sincerity that made Vernon’s debut so mesmerising.

In a project that will hopefully be completed in less time than it took for Brian Wilson to finish “Smile,” an independent production company is preparing a biographical film about Mr. Wilson, the troubled pop music genius and creative force behind the Beach Boys. River Road Entertainment, which has previously produced features like “The Tree of Life” and “Fair Game,” said that it is developing a film about Mr. Wilson, who with his brothers, Dennis and Carl, and Mike Love and Al Jardine formed the Beach Boys in 1961. That band’s groovy hits include “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Good Vibrations,” as well as the album-length mini-masterpiece “Pet Sounds.”

River Road Entertainment said in a statement that its film would “take an unconventional look at Wilson’s unique musical process as well as his struggles with mental illness, and how he managed to persevere as an artist with the love and support of his wife Melinda.” The company has secured the musician’s life rights for the project, and Oren Moverman, the director and co-writer of “The Messenger,” will write its screenplay. No title or release date for the film was given, and its producers haven’t announced which actor will be lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did.

Musical mystic and rock ‘n’ roll legend Prince has decided to hold off on recording until something is done about digital music. According to the Guardian UK, the ‘Purple Rain’ singer has been one tough critic of the Internet in general, but it’s file-sharing that really grinds his gears.

“The industry changed,” he told the Guardian. “We made money [online] before piracy was real crazy. Nobody’s making money now except phone companies, Apple and Google. I’m supposed to go to the White House to talk about copyright protection. It’s like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There’s no boundaries. I’ve been in meetings and they’ll tell you, Prince, you don’t understand, it’s dog-eat-dog out there. So I’ll just hold off on recording.”

So that’s all folks. After recording over 25 studio albums, Prince is finished (for now) which means we’ll be seeing a lot more of him on stage — unless he figures a way to outsmart that dastardly Internet. Head over to the Guardian to read the whole interview.

Last night, Sonic Youth co-leader Thurston Moore turned up on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” to perform “Circulation”, a song from his new solo album Demolished Thoughts. He also played another cut from that album, “Blood Never Lies”, as a web exclusive. Watch the “Circulation” performance over at Fallon’s site (skip to the 37 minute mark), and check out the “Blood Never Lies” performance below.

If that’s not enough Our Band Could Be Your Life nostalgia for one “Fallon” episode for you, former Hüsker Dü/Sugar frontman Bob Mould also sat in with backing band the Roots last night, performing an abbreviated version of Sugar’s “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”. Watch that below as well, via the Audio Perv and Pitchfork.

Thurston Moore: “Blood Never Lies” (Live on “Fallon”):

Bob Mould with the Roots: “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” (Sugar cover) (Live on “Fallon”):

Bruce Springsteen read out a touching tribute to his friend and longtime musical collaborator Clarence Clemons at the E Street Band saxophonist’s funeral on June 21.

A private service for Clemons — known as “The Big Man” due to his great height — was held in Palm Beach, Florida, attended by other band members and three of his four ex-wives.

The ceremony included performances by Springsteen, the E Street Band, singer Jackson Browne and a sax solo of ‘Amazing Grace’ by Clemons’ nephew.

“Clarence was a man of unconditional love, but his love came with a lot of conditions,” the Palm Beach Daily News reports Springsteen as saying. “He was a complex guy … an ongoing project. But when you were in his presence, it was like being in a sovereign nation.”

Springsteen also played a solo version of ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,’ the song about how Clemens joined his band in the early 1970s, while Browne returned to his ’70s collaboration with the sax player, ‘You’re a Friend of Mine’.

Clemons died on Saturday due to complications following a stroke he suffered a week earlier.

Bob Mould is one of those rare musical artists who has achieved musical success not just once but three times. From the late ’70s through the ’80s, he fronted the legendary punk group Hüsker Dü. Then in the early to mid ’90s, Mould enjoyed popularity with his group Sugar. Since then, he has maintained a very active solo career, most recently with his last album, 2009′s ‘Life and Times.’

But it hasn’t been an easy path for Mould, 50, as evidenced in his new and thoughtful memoir, ‘See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody,’ co-written with Michael Azerrad and published by Little Brown. Throughout his autobiography, Mould traces the personal obstacles and challenges that have marked his life, such as his childhood in a dysfunctional home in Malone, N.Y., and his homosexuality that led him to come out in the ’90s. Along the way, Mould talks about the stories behind his albums, such as Hüsker Dü’s ‘Zen Arcade’ and his 2002 solo record ‘Modulate,’ as well as his stint in the business of professional wrestling.

“I’d had all this anger and inner conflict when I was younger,” he writes. “I used music to express it, but the irony was that touring the world in a rock band, cooped up with three other guys in a van, was also keeping me from both growing up and coming out. Now … music was helping me heal the wounds and grow as a person.”

In this excerpt from ‘See a Little Light,’ which is out now, Mould talks for the first time about an episode that led to the breakup of Hüsker Dü. The split was preceded by the suicide of Hüsker Dü manager David Savoy and the drug problems of band drummer Grant Hart.

January 26, 1988. [Bassist] Greg [Norton] and I decide that we need to sit down with Grant and talk, to figure out our collective future. This is the story that has never been told. This is the story of the last time the three members of Hüsker Dü sat together in a room.

Greg and I drive separately to South St. Paul to meet with Grant at his parents’ house. Greg and I arrive and Grant’s there, but so are his parents. So we’re having a band meeting with the five of us around a homespun oval wood table, tucked up against the window of the small kitchen. Is this an awkward situation? Yes, most definitely. Grant’s mom is being cordial, his dad a little cranky, as usual. Beverages are offered, How was everybody’s Christmas?, small talk, blah blah blah.

We open it up with “Grant, how are you doing, what are you doing, what do you want to do, what are we doing here?” Grant takes a hard draw on his cigarette, and slowly says, “Well…” That was always Grant’s tell — this sort of pensive cigarette draw and then “Well …” Anytime he did that, I prepared myself for a bunch of words that wouldn’t really add up to anything.

He says, “You know, I just, you know, I really want to get back to work.”

I say, “Well, there’s this problem. Have you talked with your parents about what’s happening?”

Grant’s mother takes the floor. His dad is just sitting there, not adding anything, just grousing a bit. “I think everything’s OK,” she says. “I think it was sort of like — it seemed like a cold almost. I think he’s been good — he was sick for about a week, but, I think, it seemed like a cold or something.”

At this point, Grant wants to have a sidebar with me, so he and I go from the kitchen into the dining room, leaving Greg to sit with the parents. Grant asks, “What’s the advance for the next record?”

“One hundred seventy-five thousand, Grant.”

“We just need to get going. We need to put all this behind us,” he says in a shaky but hopeful tone, “and we need to get back in the studio. That’s going to be the best thing for us.”

I flatly reply, “I think we should go back into the other room.” We go back in, and the next statement from his mom is the one that does it for me.

She says, “You know, what I think might be really good is if — I just think that there’s too much work. I think if you just played on the weekends and weren’t working so hard …”

I flash back to the that summer after my first year of college, when I didn’t have anything going, didn’t have a steady job, didn’t have a dorm room, and I stayed with Grant’s family. I ate at that same table with these people many times, and the poetry of it is not lost on me. The same exact table. Ad now it’s come to this.

By this time Greg is turning three shades of grey. I’m just sitting there like, Oh my f—ing God, this might be the most dysfunctional situation I’ve ever been in, and I grew up in one hell of a dysfunctional home. I push away from the kitchen table, begin to rise, and say, “I think I’m done here. Good seeing everybody. I’m going to home to Pine City now.”

Greg follows me out and asks what we’re going to do. I say, “I’m going to come down to Red Wing and get my stuff in a day or two. I’ll talk to you then. I’m just going home now.”

That was it. It was over.

Grizzly Bear member Chris Taylor will release the solo album Dreams Come True under the name CANT on September 13 in North America, via Taylor’s own Terrible Records, and a day earlier everywhere else, via Warp. In October, Taylor will hit the road with a full band for a full-scale North American CANT tour. Check out his dates below.

CANT:
10-01 Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
10-02 Vancouver, British Columbia – Media Club
10-03 Seattle, WA – Triple Door
10-05 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
10-07 San Diego, CA – Soda Bar
10-08 Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour
10-11 Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge
10-12 Denver, CO – Larimer Lounge
10-14 Lawrence, KS – The Bottleneck
10-15 Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry
10-16 Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon
10-18 Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
10-19 Detroit, MI – Magic Stick
10-21 Toronto, Ontario – Garrison
10-22 Montreal, Quebec – Cabaret Mile End
10-24 Boston, MA – Middle East Downstairs
10-25 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
10-27 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
10-28 Washington, DC – Rock and Roll Hotel
10-29 Asheville, NC – Moog Festival

Radiohead have debuted a brand new track ‘Staircase’ online.

The track, which comes from the same sessions as recent album ‘The King Of Limbs’, emerged on the band’s Dead Air Space site today (June 21).

The murky, heavily rhythmic track is reminiscent of the funkier moments from ‘The King Of Limbs’, yet boasts a more persuasive melody. You can hear the track by scrolling down.

The song is a bonus extra from the Oxford band’s unique session for producer Nigel Godrich’s From The Basement project, a podcast turned TV show. In 2008 the band did a similar session for previous album ‘In Rainbows’.

The performance will be broadcast internationally on July 1 via BBC Worldwide. With the band having yet to announce any live dates, the session will be fans’ first opportunity to hear them perform material from ‘The King Of Limbs’ live.

Salim Mukaddam, VP Music Television at BBC Worldwide said recently: “It is a real honour to be working with Radiohead on this project. Radiohead are a band that rarely performs for television, but when they do, it’s a moment to savour. There is already huge anticipation for this performance and we’re delighted that they’ve decided to work with us at BBC Worldwide, confirming our position as market leaders in music television. As a fan I cannot wait to see these beautiful songs brought to life in this programme.”

Bryce Edge from Radiohead’s management added: “This will be Radiohead’s first collaboration with BBC Worldwide and the band are excited at the prospect of having their first live performance of ‘The King of Limbs’ broadcast around the world. The band will be filmed and recorded by the From The Basement team, which includes Nigel Godrich their long time producer, Dilly Gent ,who commissioned many of the memorable Radiohead videos and Grant Gee who filmed the Radiohead documentary ‘Meeting People is Easy’.”

“Industrial Records hereby announces it’s official re-activation. IR is the sole representative of, and ONLY official label representing and releasing records by Throbbing Gristle.

“TG’s contract with Mute/EMI expired in June 2010, and despite a number of other offers and proposals, all four members of TG elected to re-start Industrial Records to re-release the IR/TG catalogue and the final TG studio album Desertshore along with other archival recordings.

“IR has purchased ALL the remaining warehouse stock of the Mute Records editions of TG recordings. The first batch for sale comprises of the last remaining copies of the original editions of TGV DVD boxed-set, Part Two – Endless Not CD and double vinyl LP along with bargain priced ‘end-of-line’ titles including – The Second Annual Report, D.O.A. The Third & Final Report, Heathen Earth and 20 Jazz Funk Greats.”

These items are available now, exclusively at the TG Mail Order site.

Then, on September 26, IR will release a series of deluxe vinyl editions of the classic albums The Second Annual Report, D.O.A. The Third & Final Report, Heathen Earth, 20 Jazz Funk Greats and Throbbing Gristle’s Greatest Hits, each remastered by Chris Carter and pressed in a limited edition of 2000 copies and packaged with 8-page colour booklet featuring photos (some previously unpublished), press clips and “other visual ephemera from the Industrial Records archive.

These same albums will also be made available as digital downloads in AAC, MP3 and FLAC formats, and on CD as part of a TG Time Capsule series of reissues.

“Each title has been remastered by Chris Carter and comes packaged for the first time in the digi-pak format to better represent their original IR LP artwork. Each release in this ‘Time Capsule’ series, comes with an additional disc of selected TG live performances culled from our TG24 archive recordings. They are selected to represent TG live performances specific to the original release year of each album.”

Last but not least, the band confirm that they will no longer perform under the name Throbbing Gristle, concurring with the late Peter Christopherson’s words:

“About the future of TG live. I do not regard it as possible for any changed band or variation of personnel to perform live as Throbbing Gristle without all the original four of us on stage.”

TG are currently putting the finishing touches to “the final TG studio album”, their long-gestating re-interpretation of Nico’s Desertshore. This is expected to see release in early 2012.

He was the vocalist for albums such as No Prayer for the Dying, Dance of Death and Flight 666. But of all the things Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson has put his name to, none can surely be as terrifying as … er, Safety in the Balance, an educational film designed to maximise in-flight safety.

Still, with nearly two decades of aviation experience behind him, you can’t knock Bruce’s credentials. Dickinson left Iron Maiden in 1993 in order to pursue a solo career, a passion for fencing and an interest in become a pilot. Despite rejoining the band in 1999, he hasn’t stopped flying Boeing 757s and was recently made marketing director of Astraeus Airlines.

Sadly, the Iron Maiden singer isn’t wearing the plastic smile and primary colours of an airport steward in this video for the UK Civil Aviation Authority. Rather, he’s dressed in a high-vis jacket and maintains a serious frown. But what this short film lacks in mile high chic, it gains in amusing moments as the captain leads us through some essential aviation guidelines. So forget powering across the Atlantic or gliding above the Grand Canyon – the most exciting journey Bruce makes here is the trip to the airport’s loading point, (stage)diving on to a mysterious conveyor belt in order to go where no metaller has gone before and, er, follow your suitcase through some rubber flaps. Rock’n'roll!

Working backwards, Digital Music News’ story on Motown’s recent “gutting”:

Universal Music Group is now gutting its Motown label, and folding the imprint and roster into various sister label groups. Radio-focused All Access pointed to a near-complete elimination of the Motown staff, and a folding of the imprint into Island Def Jam Music Group. The report also pointed to the migration of Motown sublabels Cash Money and SRC into Universal Republic.

That fits neatly into information from other sources, who have been pointing to a ‘de-East Coastification’ process at UMG for months. That includes the elimination and consolidation of various units, which is now unfolding before our very eyes.

Of course, Motown is an incredibly-powerful name, so the imprint will remain. But in business terms, this is either getting eliminated or massively reduced. Meanwhile, UMG umbrella units Universal Motown Republic Group and Island Def Jam Music Group have consolidated a number of backend functions to reduce redundencies and overhead, according to information confirmed by the company…

And, previously, Digital Music News covered the vast shakeups happening at Motown’s parent company, Universal Music Group:

We’ve witnessed the blowout of Doug Morris. We’ve seen chairman Lucian Grainge pull the pants down on Antonio “LA” Reid, and delicately boot Sylvia Rhone to the curb. We’ve seen hundreds of layoffs, and marketshare dominance ceded to Sony Music Entertainment. But that’s just the beginning at Universal Music Group, according to multiple sources who have agreed to speak with Digital Music News…

Mark Lanegan, best-known as the seductively lost, smoky-voiced lead singer of the Seattle proto-grunge band, Screaming Trees, but also a solo artist in his own right, christens the Neptune Theatre as a music venue Friday. The longtime University District movie house has recently been refurbished by the Seattle Theatre Group, which operates the Paramount and Moore theaters.

Lanegan is joined in this acoustic outing by vocalist Sean Wheeler and multi-instrumentalist Zander Schloss, both of the Circle Jerks.

9 p.m. June 17, Neptune Theatre, 1303 N.E. 45th St. Seattle; $24 (877-784-4849 or www.stgpresents.org)

It might be fun to try and come up with your own parody Mastodon song titles, but you’re never going to do a better job than Mastodon do themselves. The Atlanta metal greats are currently finishing up work on their next album, the follow-up to 2009′s Crack the Skye, and they’ve released a few shreds of info about the LP. The album will be called The Hunter, it will include songs titled “Blasteroids”, “The Octopus Has No Friends”, “Stargasm”, and “Curl of the Burl”.

Seriously. “Curl of the Burl”. It’s fun just thinking about that title, and it’s even more fun thinking about how it might actually sound.
(via pitchfork)

A Belgian music festival, which prides itself on its horse-meat sausages, is going meat-free on the day that vegetarian singer Morrissey performs.

The 10-day Lokerse Feesten, which boasts online about sales of sausage rolls and snails, will order stalls to sell vegetarian food only on 4 August.

Organisers said “one meatless day” out of 10 was “a healthy break for all”.

In 2009, the singer left the stage at California’s Coachella festival saying he could “smell burning flesh”.

According to Coachella festival-goers, the singer then added: “And I hope to God it’s human.”

The Lokerse Feesten said it had “dreamed” of booking Morrissey for year.

“Many months we worked on it, for weeks we waited for an answer, many nights were spent sleepless,” it said on its website.

The booking “meant a welcomed catering challenge for one day”, it added.

“Our food stalls will be serving you an array of healthy vegetarian dishes.”

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise when you find out Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott are from Detroit. Between their affinity for dressing in stock car racing gear during live shows, titling their debut EP “Horse Power,” and the fact that they perform under the tongue-in-cheek moniker Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Motor City comes off as the only probable option for the duo songwriters’ home base. Listening to the pair’s debut album It’s a Corporate World, however, leaves an entirely different impression of their local origin, one that is as sunny and breezy as any town along the West Coast. Delivering a disarmingly beautiful mix of vocal harmony pop alongside blippy electronic beats, Epstein and Zott honor the melodic tradition of The Beach Boys (the two included an amazing cover of “God Only Knows” on their EP) to create one of the best debuts of the year.

Sly Stone (real name, Sylvester Stewart) of Sly & the Family Stone fame was arrested for possession of crack cocaine when a vehicle he was traveling in was pulled over, in Los Angeles, for a traffic violation. Cocaine rocks were allegedly found in Stone’s clothing as well as in those of the driver. On Wednesday, Stone pleaded not guilty.

Reuters reports that one of Stone’s attorneys, Peter Knecht, maintains that the cocaine in question did not belong to Stone. “A lot of musicians hang out with people who have drugs,” he told Reuters. He went on to say that “you can’t punish a guy for what he did 40 years ago, 30 years ago.”

Stone, age 68, has had a long history of drug and gun charges and the reclusive star has had few, erratic public appearances in the past decade or so, including a disastrous non-performance at Coachella in 2010 and an odd walk-on during a tribute to him at the Grammy Awards in 2006. During the latter appearance, a mohawk-sporting Stone walked onstage during a tribute-rendition of his hit, ‘I Want to Take You Higher’ but, strangely, made his exit before the song was even finished.

Stone’s influence on funk and soul music is immeasurable, as he is considered one of the big three of modern funk, alongside James Brown and George Clinton — all of which championed their own, distinct brand of popular genre.

Le Butcherettes “New York”

Warner Bros. Records A&R executive Steve McDonald has left the company, THR has learned.

Hired a year ago, McDonald is perhaps better known as the bassist for beloved power pop band Redd Kross, which he started with his brother in 1978, and, more recently, Off!, the punk rock supergroup featuring Circle Jerks/Black Flag singer Keith Morris, Burning Brides frontman Dimitri Coats and Rocket From The Crypt drummer Mario Rubalcaba, who had one of the most buzzed about sets at this year’s Coachella.

At Warners, McDonald worked almost exclusively with rock bands. The label has a long history of signing and nurturing rock acts, going back to Fleetwood Mac and Neil Young.

But in recent years, and even more so during the last few months, Warner Bros. seems to be realigning it efforts towards a more pop and urban-leaning roster, partnering with rapper Rick Ross and soul singer Jill Scott on joint ventures, hiring Mike Elizondo (50 Cent, Eminem) as an in-house producer, and signing the likes of Jason Derulo and New Boyz (currently No. 18 and 34 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively).

Somewhat ironically, WBR chairman Rob Cavallo, who was promoted to the label’s top job in October of last year, is one of the world’s most revered rock producers, having worked with Green Day and My Chemical Romance.

During his time at the label, McDonald signed Detroit indie rockers Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. (with Kate Hyman, also no longer at WBR) and was responsible for bringing indie label Vice Records back into the Warner Music Group fold, this time via Warner Bros. (the label previously had a partnership with WMG-owned Atlantic Records, but has been independent for three years).

He is married to Anna Waronker, daughter of Lenny Waronker, the former president of Warner Bros. and Reprise Records.

Off! heads out on tour on June 16, starting at Toronto music industry conference NXNE and later opening for the likes of Henry Rollins, Dinosaur Jr. and Superchunk. The band will also play to tens of thousands at various festivals this summer including the Pitchfork Music Festival on July 16 and Europe’s Reading and Leeds festivals.

On their sixth studio album, Black Lips have distilled the very essence of what they do best and topped it off with an enhanced production value—mostly courtesy Mark Ronson—that thankfully avoids robbing the music of its electric, raw quality. Awash in trippy reverb and surf-rock riffs, Arabia Mountain is further proof that the Lips have matured. The songs are no less fun than the slapdash punk gems they cranked out early in their career, but the lyrics find themselves digging a bit deeper into the nature of the human condition, while the instrumentation becomes more complex and varied. “Spidey’s Curse” is candied surf punk, a natural heir to the Ramones’ sound, while “Go Out and Get It” captures the best of garage rock and mixes it with a haughty pop sensibility. Some new avenues are also explored in songs like “Dumpster Dive” (a rocking track with a slight honky-tonk feel) and “Mad Dog” (a mod stunner with jazzy horn solos and masterfully layered vocals). In the end, though, most of the songs still clock in under three minutes and it’s an innately accessible, jovial climb.

All Things Digital:

Spotify has signed an American distribution deal with Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music label. The pact means that the streaming music company now has U.S. deals in place with three of the four largest labels, making it likely that the European company will finally be able to move across the Atlantic this summer.

The service still doesn’t have a pact signed with Warner Music Group, but people familiar with discussions say the two sides are closer than they have been, and are optimistic a deal will get done.

It’s possible that Spotify could open in the U.S. without Warner, but that would leave holes in the company’s catalog. And that’s a crummy way to introduce a service that CEO Daniel Ek has been promising to bring to the U.S. for two years.

Even if Warner signs next week, though, it will likely take Spotify some time to ramp up a marketing campaign and other elements it would need for a U.S. launch. I wouldn’t count on seeing anything in the States till July at the earliest…

New York Times:

Spotify, a popular European digital music service, has made a big step toward finally opening in the United States, after two years of negotiations with the major record companies and many promises that its debut was right around the corner.

The company has signed a deal with Universal Music Group, the largest of the four major record companies, according to two people briefed on the talks. Spotify, based in London and available in seven European countries, has already made deals for distribution in the United States with Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music.

The fourth major label, the Warner Music Group, is still in negotiations with Spotify, according to two people involved in those talks. These people spoke on condition of anonymity because the terms of the deals were confidential. Spotify and Universal declined to comment…

A sinister-sounding guitar hook marks the tantalizing start to Arctic Monkey’s fourth album. Whilst the first few bars would sound at home in a 60s spy film, the disconcerting feel soon disappears and ‘She’s Thunderstorms’ settles down to become a major key pop song, with Alex Turner enthusing about a woman whose “motorcycle boots give me this kind of acrobatic blood”. When Turner sings “I poured my aching heart into a pop song” on the album’s title track, it’s pretty clear that love and 60s guitar-based pop are the main influences on the songwriting for Suck It And See.

Even though we’re all familiar with the influence of 60s groups on The Last Shadow Puppets, it comes as a surprise that the latest Arctic Monkeys album has this retro feel, especially since the first pre-release track was the plodding rock number ‘Brick by Brick’. The second release ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair’ also had a rock feel to its guitar lines but at least it had a comically dark edge to its lyrics, “Run with scissors through a chip pan fire fight”. Aside from these rather misleading album-teasers, the rockier production of Humbug has been left behind in favour of a template that combines 60s pop with a revival of their own homegrown charm.

On ‘Black Treacle’ Turner sings “Does it ‘elp you stay up late? Does it ‘elp you concentrate?”, recalling the Yorkshire-accented soft aitch pronunciation of ‘Still Take You Home’ from their debut album. But the new song also builds on their guitar sound, effectively alternating moments of fuzz with some impressive glissando. That shimmering guitar sound is also evident on ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’, as is Turner’s tendency to subvert clichés: “Home sweet home, home sweet home, home sweet booby trap”. And ‘Library Pictures’ has the frantic guitar and percussion drive of early tracks like ‘The View From The Afternoon’ or their breakout, ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’.

On a thirteen-track album there are bound to be less-impressive moments. ‘All My Own Stunts’ feels like a filler with no standout melody. And whilst ‘Reckless Serenade’ has some lyrical charm (“the type of kisses where teeth collide”) it fails to deliver the kind of hooky chorus that we’ve come to expect from the band.

‘Piledriver Waltz’ is imported from Turner’s Submarine soundtrack EP but its vibrato guitar, waltz rhythm and lyrics about waitresses and “comfortable shoes” do not feel out of place, given the retro-infused arrangements of Suck It And See. The tambourine beat of the love song ‘Love is a Laserquest’ recalls 60s girl-group percussion. Its lyrical conceit has Turner daydreaming about a girl and forecasting that he will still remember her “When I’m pipe and slippers and rocking chair”. It’s a standout track that lyrically reworks the lover’s imagination idea from ‘505’ on Favourite Worst Nightmare.

The album’s title track is also a highlight. Again, Turner’s songcraft is evident in another warped love song (“Be cruel to me ‘cause I’m a fool for you”). ‘Suck It And See’ charms the listener with its stripped vocal and guitar opening and its brand of peculiarly-British nostalgia, “You’re rarer than a can of Dandelion and Burdock”. Turner’s voice is so crisply recorded here that the glottal stop at the end of that phrase is quite startling. The track then expands on the title line to become a beautifully- layered pop arrangement. ‘That’s Where You’re Wrong’ closes the album in similar style with some fine echo-laden guitar flourishes. It’s driven forward by an unrelenting bassline and some impressive drum fills, finished off with plenty of cymbals and dashes of tambourine.

All in all Suck It And See marks Arctic Monkeys’ return to form. It’s not perfect but it’s poppier and more immediate than their previous album. Those fans wary of the rock direction taken on Humbug will surely find something more to their taste on Suck It And See.

From a release:

To whom it may concern:

karen elson and jack white announce today that they are getting divorced.

“we remain dear and trusted friends and co-parents to our wonderful children Scarlett and Henry Lee.
We feel so fortunate for the time we have shared and the time we will continue to spend both separately and together watching our children grow.

In honor of that time shared, we are throwing a divorce party. an evening together in Nashville to re-affirm our friendship and celebrate the past and future with close friends and family.”

with love
Karen Elson and Jack White

ndie god of apathy Stephen Malkmus’ next album with his band the Jicks is shaping up to be a Pavement-esque tour de rock. The Beck-produced ‘Mirror Traffic’ is set for an Aug. 23 release via Matador, but you can get a little taste of what’s in store for the dog days of summer below, thanks to the Matablog.

In light of the big political sex scandal of the week, there really is no better time to release ‘Senator,’ a true Malkmus rocker with the chorus “I know what the Senator wants is a [slang term for fellatio that you should be able to guess].” If Malkmus had the foresight to record versions for both houses of Congress, this could have been a great addition to all the Anthony Weiner stories out there.

Mirror Traffic’ is Malkmus’ first album with the Jicks since 2008′s ‘Real Emotional Trash’ and will be the band’s last record featuring drummer Janet Weiss, who has recently lent her talents to supergroup Wild Flag. Get your Jicks fix by heading over to the Matablog to download ‘Senator’ for free.

Paul Weller’s new collection for Beady Eye frontman Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green fashion line will be released later this month.

The clothing label, which is named after a 1980 song by Weller’s former outfit The Jam, will sell six items designed by the Modfather including his trademark long sleeved shirts, scarves and leather jackets.

He is also set to release a more extensive collection in the winter, featuring a much larger number of items. Weller said of the collection: “I’ve wanted to design my own range for some time and Pretty Green felt like a good home for my clothes. My main design reference is somewhere between 1968 and 1970. The clothes themselves sit between being smart and casual with quality materials and tailoring.”

Steve Jobs just changed the game. Yes, I realise the whopping number of articles that have begun with that sentence.

In the past, however, ‘the game’ has been ‘the colour of your laptop’, ‘another option for music purchasing’, ‘a phone that’s also a computer’, or ‘a computer that’s kind of a phone but also not quite a computer’. This time, he’s solved a problem that has plagued the music industry for 12 years: How can we make money out of pirated music?

I have a confession to make. I am one of those small-time Gen-Y crooks who believe that everything should come easy in life. Since high-school, when my parents finally signed on to an internet plan that was fast enough to download an entire song on Napster in less than five minutes (I know! Fast, right?), I have downloaded songs, television episodes and movies without paying a dime. It’s been a good ride, but it’s all coming to an end. And while Steve Jobs might be kicking us out of the car, he’s already called us a cab.

On Monday (San Francisco time), appearing perhaps gaunter than ever, Jobs announced his new baby at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference: iCloud. Not merely a new incarnation of the dismal MobileMe, iCloud will automatically sync your calendars, contacts and emails between your iPhone, iPad and Mac. You won’t have to do a thing. But here’s the real sweetener. Additionally, iCloud will automatically sync your music (legal or otherwise). For US$24.99 per year. That’s a lot, if you’re also buying your albums and movies from the iTunes store, or buying a CD and importing it into iTunes. If, on the other hand, you’re torrenting this content, it’s a small price to pay to get the record companies off your back.

Some of you may ask why we can’t just continue downloading illegally, then manually syncing our devices like we always have?

Well firstly, never underestimate the power of automation. Portland-based developer and ‘cyborg anthropologist’ Amber Case studies how digital devices help us to extend our mental selves, just as tools (like hammers) help us to extend our physical selves. Why travel across the country to see someone, when we can talk to them on the phone? Why walk to the shops to buy a newspaper, when we can read the news online at home? Similarly, why plug our phone into our computer to synchronise our music collections, when we can pay seven cents a day for Apple to do it for us?

Secondly, the record companies have been racking their brains for 12 years, searching for a solution to the problem that is pirated music. They’ve tried shutting down peer-to-peer software. They’ve tried suing internet service providers. They’ve even tried suing individual ‘pirates’. Now, Steve Jobs has found a way to get the labels’ money back to them. But they’re still not happy. They see this as a way of legitimising music piracy. And they’re right. Apple is turning a blind eye to music piracy. iCloud has no way of telling if the music on your hard drive has been legally obtained or not. Michael Speck, the lawyer who represented the music industry in their case against Kazaa, equates this to legally parking a stolen car in Apple’s garage.

What the music industry has not acknowledged is that, at this stage, iCloud is better than the status quo. For 12 years, the record companies have been trying to find a solution to music piracy. What they fail to concede is that their 60% cut of $25 per year per person is much more than what they’re getting from pirates at the moment: nothing.

There are currently more than two million MobileMe subscribers, each paying A$119 per year for the barely useful service. When you consider the range of improvements Apple has made with iCloud, along with the 75% drop in price for the new service, it is safe to predict that iCloud will be infinitely more popular than its predecessor. In short, with the record companies raking in 60% of the profits, they are set to make a killing out of this.

Does iCloud signal the end of the war piracy? No way. The record companies will continue to track down pirates (I think I saw Johnny Depp in that one, didn’t I?) and peer-to-peer software developers, while making money out of iCloud at the same time. Steve Jobs might be letting us legally park the stolen car in his garage, but the car is still stolen.

As for us pirates, we’ll probably continue doing our thing for the time being. We’ll feel better about what we do, hoping that the record companies are off our backs now that we’re paying them 60% of $25 per year. The game may not be over. But Jobs has certainly found a way to change it. Until the next change comes, I’ll see you in Steve’s garage.
(Patrick Kelly)

Get ready for a night packed full of soaring indie rock melodies. TV on the Radio, touring hard all year behind new album Nine Types of Light, have just announced another run of North American dates. For many of those shows, they’ll bring along another festival-conquering group: Canadian guitar-fuzz battalion Broken Social Scene.

TVOTR will also play a massive Hollywood Bowl show in September with Arctic Monkeys, Panda Bear, Smith Westerns, and Warpaint. And, lest we forget, TVOTR will also serve as headliners at next month’s Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago.

Below, we’ve got dates for both bands, as well as TVOTR’s video for “Will Do”.

TV on the Radio/Broken Social Scene:

09-06 Boston, MA – Bank of America Pavilion
09-08 New York, NY – Williamsburg Waterfront
09-09 Philadelphia, PA – Mann Centre
09-12 Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore Charlotte
09-13 Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle
09-14 Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
09-16 Dallas, TX – House of Blues
09-20-21 Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre

TV on the Radio:

06-20 Warsaw, Poland – Stodola
06-22 Zagreb, Croatia – T-Mobile Inmusic Festival
06-23 Munich, Germany – Muffathalle
06-24 Berlin, Germany – Astra
06-26 Pilton, Englad – Glastonbury Festival
06-27 Manchester, England – Academy 2
06-28 Glasgow, Scotland – O2ABC
06-30 Werchter, Belgium – Rock Werchter Festival
07-01 St. Gallen, Switzerland – St. Gallen Festival
07-02 Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival
07-03 London, England – Wireless Festival
07-04 Amsterdam, Holland – Paradiso
07-05 Cologne, Germany – Live Music Hall
07-08 Bilbao, Spain – BBK Live Festival
07-09 Lisbon, Portugal – Alive Festival
07-12 Argeles Sur Mer, France – Les Deferlantes
07-13 Paris, France – L’Olympia Bruno Coquatrix
07-17 Chicago, IL – Pitchfork Music Festival
07-20-21 Vancouver, British Columbia – Commodore Ballroom
07-22 Portland, OR – Edgefield
07-23 Seattle, WA – Capitol Hill Block Party
08-27 Kansas City, MO – The Crossroads
08-28 St. Louis, MO – LouFest Music Festival
08-30-31 Minneapolis, MN – First Ave.
09-01 Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theatre
09-02 Detroit, MI – St. Andrews Hall
09-17 Austin, TX – Austin City Limits
09-18 Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom
09-25 Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl *
09-27 Oakland, CA – Fox Theatre

* with Arctic Monkeys, Panda Bear, Smith Westerns, Warpaint

Broken Social Scene:

07-01 Toronto, Ontario – Downsview Park
07-07 Winnipeg, Manitoba – Shaw Park
07-09 Sudbury, Ontario – Northern Lights Festival
07-14 Edmonton, Alberta – Edmonton Northlands Grounds
07-29 Montreal, Quebec – Osheaga Music and Arts Festival
08-07 Dartmouth, Nova Scotia – Alderney Landing Events Plaza
08-19 Salmon Arm, British Columbia – Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival
09-04 Seattle, WA – Bumbershoot Festival
09-18 Austin, TX – Austin City Limits Music Festival

Apple:

iTunes® in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match, a service that replaces your music with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version if we can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store®, it makes the matched music available in minutes (instead of weeks to upload your entire music library), and uploads only the small percentage of unmatched music. iTunes Match will be available this fall for a $24.99 annual fee. Apple today is releasing a free beta version of iTunes in the Cloud, without iTunes Match, for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users running iOS 4.3. iTunes in the Cloud will support all iPhones that iOS 5 supports this fall.

Pricing & Availability

The iCloud beta and Cloud Storage APIs are available immediately to iOS and Mac Developer Program members at developer.apple.com. iCloud will be available this fall concurrent with iOS 5. Users can sign up for iCloud for free on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5 or a Mac running Mac OS® X Lion with a valid Apple ID. iCloud includes 5GB of free cloud storage for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, apps, books and Photo Stream do not count against the storage limit. iTunes Match will be available for $24.99 per year (US only).

iTunes in the Cloud is available today in the US and requires iTunes 10.3 and iOS 4.3.3. Automatic download of apps and books is available today. Using iCloud with a PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7; Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for accessing contacts and calendars.

Sasha Frere-Jones:

How many different companies just went out of business?

Business Insider:

Here’s how it works:

- All the songs you’ve purchased on iTunes will show up as “purchased” in the iTunes store.
– Any purchased song can be downloaded from the cloud to your iOS device
– iCloud will be free.
– iTunes Match: Will scan your library for music ripped from CDs or downloaded elsewhere. You can then stream that music to your iOS device.
– iTunes Match will cost $25 per year to use.

Wired:

For your ripped music, iTunes in the cloud will mirror your full library for $25 per year, up to 20,000 songs.

Engadget:

2:56PM Wondering what happened to Lala? Now you know.

Gizmodo:

If you buy a song from Apple on your iPhone, download it to your iPod. Buy a song on your iPod, download it to your iPad. Set it to push automatically, or pick whichever tracks and albums you’d prefer.

Or, if you’re like a lot of people and haven’t built your entire library from Apple’s trove, there’s iTunes Match. And this is the big one. For $25 a year, Apple will upgrade the crossover between your library and theirs to 256 kbps AAC files, and offer the same re-downloadability as if you’d copped it from Jobs…

Ben Sisario:

iTunes Match “takes minutes, not weeks.” Amazon, Google wince.

Earlier this year, idiosyncratic 90s North Carolina indie bashers Archers of Loaf got back together for a one-off reunion show, which they expanded into a full-on reunion tour this summer. And now Merge has announced plans to reissue all four of the band’s studio albums.

The reissue campaign starts August 2 with an expanded version of the band’s 1993 debut album Icky Mettle. Shellac/Mission of Burma member Bob Weston remastered the album, and O.G. rock critic Robert Christgau provides new liner notes. The album also includes a ton of bonus material, including the Archers of Loaf Vs. The Greatest of All Time EP, as well as singles and B-sides. Up above, we’ve got one of those bonus cuts: “What Did You Expect?”, which originally appeared on an out-of-print Merge 7″.

The Icky Mettle reissue will be available on digital download, CD, and limited edition blue vinyl. Anyone who pre-orders it from Merge’s website will get an exclusive download of live video of that first Archers reunion show. The three other Archers albums (1995′s Vee Vee, 1996′s All the Nation’s Airports, and 1998′s White Trash Heroes) will be reissued in 2012. Also, Archers of Loaf will perform on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” on June 24.

Below, we’ve got all the band’s tour dates.

Archers of Loaf:

06-03-04 Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour
06-11 Austin, TX – Emo’s
06-12 Dallas, TX – The Loft
06-25 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
06-26 New York, NY – Webster Hall
07-08-09 Chicago, IL – Bottom Lounge
07-22-23 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
08-05 Washington, DC – Black Cat
08-06 Philadelphia, PA – The Trocadero Theatre
08-19-20 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
09-02-03 San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
09-08 Portland, OR – MusicfestNW
09-09 Seattle, WA – Neumo’s
(via pitchfork)

Pete Townshend has posted a rare blog entry to announce a new Quadrophenia box set that’s coming out in October. He used to blog all the time, but he got so angry about journalists taking quotes out of context he largely abandoned the practice. With that in mind, here’s the complete text of his statement.

1st June, 2011
WHAT I’M DOING EVERYDAY

So I am enjoying working with the music, but I’m enjoying writing about it too.

Pete’s note fails to mention anything about the future of the Who. They haven’t toured since a brief run of Australian dates in early 2009. They last performed together in January at a charity show in London. Writer Simon Garfield – who interviewed Townshend last month in Intelligent Life – told the Who guitarist that he went to the show thinking it might be their last time onstage. “Your intuition was dead on,” Townshend said. “At the beginning of the year I had decided, ’66 next birthday, I think I’ll just stop.’ Nothing to do with my hearing, because I think I can sort that out on stage. My feeling was that I simply didn’t have the enthusiasm to do reinvention.”

Townshend has contemplated retirement many times in the past, and he says that the same impulse that caused him to finally finish his memoir this year has caused him to re-think retirement. “I look around me and I think, ‘Why aren’t I suffering the way that other people are suffering?’” he said. “‘Is it just that I don’t have to worry about paying the school fees?’ I think for me it’s that if you can take an artistic position and do something useful, even if it’s negative, then action is the best answer.”

Pete Townshend Will Finally Deliver His Memoir

In that same interview, Townshend also suggested that being the main songwriter in the band was often a burden. “The thing about the Who for me, and this is sad in a way, is the amount of control that I’ve had to have,” he said. “Keeping the creative process close to my chest, making sure the other guys in the band felt they were part of the process but they really weren’t.”

He also said that Roger Daltrey – who is playing Tommy on a solo tour this year – sometimes struggled on recent tours. “If I’m out on the road with Roger and he’s as miserable as sin, there is a bit of me, and I know my manager Bill Curbishley shares this, which thinks ‘Why are we doing this to him?’” Townshend said. “He seems to be so unhappy, he seems to be so unfulfilled. Yet when you talk to him he exalts the Who to high heaven, and exalts me. He always says it’s going to be fabulous, and ‘this time I’m just going to have fun,’ and he always ends up distraught, sobbing in a corner somewhere, saying, ‘That was the worst show I’ve ever done and I could do so much better and I can’t work out how I’m going to do this again’.”

If all that wasn’t enough, he also responded to the allegations in Keith Richards’ memoir that Mick Jagger has a “tiny todger.” “To use an apt term, [that] is bollocks,” Townshend said. “I’ve seen them, and they are not small. And it is not just the balls that are big.”

Ok, so she’s hardly Yoko Ono, but Zooey Deschanel might have ruined Death Cab For Cutie. Well, that’s not fair. They’re not ruined, as such, but they’re certainly bruised, a little bloodied perhaps. One eye doesn’t work so good. They walk with a hobble.

The last album we heard from them, 2008’s Narrow Stairs, was a deceptively melancholic affair, its sound an understated snarl taking in obsession, death, loneliness and falling apart. Hardly untouched themes, admittedly, but vocalist Ben Gibbard had a knack for rendering even the most worn sentiments into something that could resonate, his lyrics a barbed rejoinder to the happily-ever-after myths mushed throughout our culture.

So what went wrong? Deschanel. She snared the singer, sapping him, like Delilah, of his bitterness and rage. Made him – spits – happy. And as everyone knows, artists should never be happy.

Happiness is what leads to ‘Stay Young, Go Dancing’, Codes and Keys’ closing track. It is, presumably, the reason for choruses that profess “when she sings I hear a symphony”, for the line “with her song in your heart it can never bring you down.” There’s a game to be played here, cross-fading quickly between this song and its Narrow Stairs equivalent, from “life is sweet” back to the latter’s “we buried our love in a wintery grave”. Try it: see how long you can last, swinging wildly between emotional extremes before the blood starts trickling from an ear.

Certainly that would make for a more memorable experience than the majority of this album. No lie: Codes and Keys was on loop from Brighton to Cardiff and back again and, bar two tracks, it barely formed a memory, the empty, lifeless landscape between Reading and Bristol a perfect complement for an album so doggedly middling that it barely even strives to make an impression.

No, again that’s not right. It’s very clearly striving, and that’s part of the issue. The production is immaculate throughout, the musicianship sterling, new sounds ranging from the electronic patter underpinning opener ‘Home Is A Fire’ to the pitch-bending strings on the title track and the hints of brass near the close of ‘Under The Sycamore’. And yet for all the effort it all sounds too antiseptic, like the product of a focus group for anodyne indie. Little wonder the band provided the key track to the second Twilight movie, that twenty-first century yardstick for mediocrity. But even ‘Meet Me On the Equinox’ had, if not quite a heart, then at least an edge of darkness, a hint of something deeper nesting beneath its chiming guitars and production sheen. Despite an abundance of textures Codes and Keys seems somehow sparse, empty calories around a hollow centre. Perhaps it’s the emphasis upon the synths, the move away from Chris Walla’s guitar towards a more programmed sound, calculated and controlled and shorn of the rather less fettered bursts that lent ‘Bixby Canyon Bridge’ its bite.

There are exceptions. On the understated, gradual build of ‘Unobstructed Views’, its throbbing bass and minimalist piano is actually afforded the space to grow, to transcend its mawkish vocals to feel like something of substance, emotion lurking in its recesses. And the penultimate ‘St Peter’s Cathedral’ is outstanding: a single tolling note rising to a colossal swell, sheets of metallic noise clashing beneath Gibbard’s echoed assertions on a fictitious afterlife that almost, almost justifies the album price alone. “There’s nothing past this”, he sings, again and again, until it seems as though he’s right and it doesn’t matter: that the swell should keep on rising, suffusing and suffocating and filling every space.

But then it ends and the track changes and Gibbard’s back singing a matinee jaunt about the sweetness of life, and blood’s leaking from the ear at how jarring it all is, how sad that a band that can etch out shadows so skillfully have lurched into the light, losing their definition in the haze.

Thurston Moore has said that all the members of Sonic Youth will be getting together later this year with a mind to writing new material.

Speaking last night (May 31) backstage at an intimate solo gig at London’s Union Chapel he said:

“We’ll just gather and see what happens. We made the decision to have a good solid year of not doing too much as a band. We really decided to put the brakes on the juggernaut that was the band. We’d pretty much reached this decision before the gig we played on New Year’s Eve [at Hammersmith Apollo with Factory Floor, Shellac and The Pop Group]. We just wanted to regenerate. I like doing shows like New Year’s Eve where we just play a catalogue of what we do but at the same time I feel [when we do this] that people have decoded us.”

“It’s like they know what we’re about, like there isn’t a question mark hanging over the audience any more. Like they’ve figured it out and they appreciate it.” He added: “That’s totally fine and those gigs are totally fine but they’re also a bit business as usual and that kind of turns me off a little bit. So I wanted to back away from that for a while and do other work.”

A big part of that “other work” this year has been recording the ‘Demolished Thoughts’ album, with the assistance of Beck, which came out on Ecstatic Peace/Matador last week.

Speaking last night (May 31) backstage at an intimate solo gig at London’s Union Chapel he said:

“We’ll just gather and see what happens. We made the decision to have a good solid year of not doing too much as a band. We really decided to put the brakes on the juggernaut that was the band. We’d pretty much reached this decision before the gig we played on New Year’s Eve [at Hammersmith Apollo with Factory Floor, Shellac and The Pop Group]. We just wanted to regenerate. I like doing shows like New Year’s Eve where we just play a catalogue of what we do but at the same time I feel [when we do this] that people have decoded us.”

“It’s like they know what we’re about, like there isn’t a question mark hanging over the audience any more. Like they’ve figured it out and they appreciate it.” He added: “That’s totally fine and those gigs are totally fine but they’re also a bit business as usual and that kind of turns me off a little bit. So I wanted to back away from that for a while and do other work.”

A big part of that “other work” this year has been recording the ‘Demolished Thoughts’ album, with the assistance of Beck, which came out on Ecstatic Peace/Matador last week.

Read moreBeck producing Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore’s solo albumSonic Youth ready new albumSonic Youth’s Thurston Moore releasing Beck-produced solo album in May

Showing off his new ‘unplugged’ line-up in the UK for the first time, which features a harpist, violinist, jazz drummer and two acoustic guitars, he led his band through an almost complete rendition of the new album.

At the end of the evening he sheepishly admitted that they’d forgotten to do the song ‘Orchard Street’ and had to tag an extra encore on to the end of the gig to include it. “The main set felt about three minutes and two seconds too short to us, we couldn’t work out what was going on”, he joked when he got back on stage.

Moore also invited the entire audience to come and spend their summer holidays with him and Kim Gordon at their home in West Massachusetts at the foot of the Berkshire Mountains. And he also treated audience members to the rendition of a poem which contained the memorable line: “Hey Babe, come over to my house and help me alphabetacize my noise tapes.”

The evening ended with a stirring rendition of ‘Psychic Hearts’, the song that Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, claimed should be played at the beginning of every school day.

Thurston Moore played:
‘Benediction’
‘Illuminine’
‘January’
‘Space’
‘In Silver Rain With A Paper Key’
‘Mina Loy’
‘Blood Never Lies’
‘Circulation’
‘Poem’
‘Orchard Street’
‘Friend’
‘Psychic Hearts’

(via NME)

Queens Of The Stone Age have asked fans to pick their 10 favourite songs by the band, which they will then perform during their set at this summer’s Glastonbury.

During an interview with Zane Lowe for BBC Radio 1 (broadcast May 31), Josh Homme explained how listeners would be able to have a say in the setlist for their headline slot on the Other Stage on Sunday June 26.

Voting is open from now until June 9 at 9pm. If you want to have a hand in what songs they play, then visit: www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/zanelowe.

Fans will be able to choose from 50 songs from the Queens Of The Stone Age back catalogue.

The results will be unveiled by Josh Homme on Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show on June 23, the day before the show.

Highlights from the gig will be broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on June 27.