THEESatisfaction – awE naturalE (Album Review)

As many hacky newspaper articles are sure to tell you, 2012 is the “Year of the Female MC.” Look, I don’t besmirch newspaper editors for trying to find a way to squeeze Azealia Banks into the stuffy confines of old gray ladies, but let’s be honest: Lauryn Hill was one of the top three or five MCs of the ‘90s, and women in rap have been just as marginalized in rock. That there are suddenly a bunch of interesting rappers with two X chromosomes does not a trend make.

But at the same time, there’s certainly someone at a major label desk right now, tasked with trying to find the “next” Nicki Minaj. This is how Iggy Azalea gets signed to a real record deal, with ink and everything. And while THEESatisfaction are sure to find themselves tacked on as footnotes in articles about Azealia Banks and Kreayshawn later this year because the group features two female MCs (Stasia Irons & Catherine Harris-White), know this: their Sub Pop debut awE naturalE is, with Heems’ Nehru Jackets excluded, this year’s most artistically complete hip-hop album. Imagining a new lane between the spacious electro future-rap of labelmates Shabazz Palaces and Spoek Mathambo, the Native Tongues and the neo-soul rap of Lauryn Hill, awE naturalE is a triumph from front to back.

THEESatisfaction first made a splash last year, when their soulful voices broke through the stream-of-consciousness flow of Ishmael Butler’s Shabazz Palaces album, Black Up. Since his name has helped THEESatisfaction get noticed outside of the Seattle stomping grounds they’ve been working in since 2008, he’s unavoidable when discussing awE naturalE, particularly because it’s clear the influence was two-ways. THEESatisfaction’s own compositions bear the splintered vibes of Shabazz Palaces’: “Earthseed” and its unsteady percussion and inconsistent beat pattern being the most ample example. But Butler is hard to ignore here for another reason: He pops up a couple times on awE naturalE, lending master class verses to album standout “Enchantruss” and “God.”

But awE naturalE’s greatest strengths lie in its invocations of the conscious black empowerment that fueled the Native Tongues hip-hop renaissance in the early 1990s. Lead single “QueenS,” with its looped vocal beats, is at its heart a fun jam—it plays on the first couple of passes like Queen Latifah doing an electro rap song—but it’s really a song about turning your swag off, standing up for yourself and letting loose. On the outro verse of “Enchantruss” the duo traces a line from drinking gourds, “taking a course in white,” Black Jesus, Orson Welles, and the “war beat drum,” while on “Deeper,” they repeatedly say “my melanin is relevant.” Meanwhile, on “Needs,” they conjure a campfire drum circle as they repeatedly chant, “I need to prove myself,” while spinning twisting verses about men and defining their personalities. But there’s never direct, to the point messages here: Irons and Harris-White rap in splintered thoughts, jumping from complex thought to complex thought, while linking them together with their rich, all-encompassing production.

Considering everything, this album could have out in 1993, which puts THEESatisfaction in a rarer camp than being a female rap group: a new rap group paying honest and true homage to classic sounds with deft skill. Think about it? Did you ever think you’d hear a new hip-hop album that sounds like a long-lost Ladybug Mecca solo album? THEESatisfaction’s awE naturalE is one of the most adventurous and tradition-bending hip-hop albums of the year, and further cements Sub Pop as the place for imaginative, left-field hip-hop.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Bluegrass legend and banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs, who helped profoundly change country music with Bill Monroe in the 1940s and later with guitarist Lester Flatt, has died. He was 88.

Scruggs’ son Gary said his father died of natural causes Wednesday morning at a Nashville, Tenn., hospital.

Earl Scruggs was an innovator who pioneered the modern banjo sound. His use of three fingers rather than the clawhammer style elevated the banjo from a part of the rhythm section – or a comedian’s prop – to a lead instrument.

His string-bending and lead runs became known worldwide as “the Scruggs picking style” and the versatility it allowed has helped popularize the banjo in almost every genre of music.
The debut of Bill Monroe and The Blue Grass Boys during a post-World War II performance on The Grand Ole Opry is thought of as the “big bang” moment for bluegrass and later 20th century country music. Later, Flatt and Scruggs t eamed as a bluegrass act after leaving Monroe from the late 1940s until breaking up in 1969 in a dispute over whether their music should experiment or stick to tradition. Flatt died in 1979.

They were best known for their 1949 recording “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” played in the 1967 movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” and “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” the popular TV series that debuted in 1962. Jerry Scoggins did the singing.

After the breakup, Scruggs used three of his sons in The Earl Scruggs Revue. The group played on bills with rock acts like Steppenwolf and James Taylor. Sometimes they played festivals before 40,000 people.

In a July 2010 interview, Scruggs said in the early days, “I played guitar as much as I did the banjo, but for everyday picking I’d go back to the banjo. It just fit what I wanted to hear better than what I could do with the guitar.”

Scruggs will always be remembered for his willingness to innovate. In “The Big Book of Bluegrass,” Scruggs discussed the breakup with Flatt and how his need to experiment drove a rift between them. Later in 1985, he and Flatt were inducted together in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

“It wasn’t a bad feeling toward each other as much as it was that I felt I was depriving myself of something,” Scruggs said. “By that, I mean that I love bluegrass music, and I still like to play it, but I do like to mix in some other music for my own personal satisfaction, because if I don’t, I can get a little bogged down and a little depressed.”

He said he enjoyed playing because “it calms me down. It makes me satisfied. Sometimes I just need to pick a few tunes.”

At an 80th birthday party for Scruggs in January 2004, country great Porter Wagoner said: “I always felt like Earl was to the five-string banjo what Babe Ruth was to baseball. He is the best there ever was, and the best there ever will be.”

In 2005, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” was sel ected for the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry of works of unusual merit. The following year, the 1972 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band record “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” on which Scruggs was one of many famous guest performers, joined the list, too.

Scruggs had been fairly active in the 2000s, returning to a limited touring schedule after frail health in the 1990s. In 1996, Scruggs suffered a heart attack in the recovery room of a hospital shortly after hip-replacement surgery. He also was hospitalized late last year, but seemed in good health during a few appearances with his sons in 2010 and 2011.

In 2001 he released a CD, “Earl Scruggs and Friends,” his first album in a decade and an extension of The Earl Scruggs Revue. Over 12 songs, he collaborated with an impressive stable of admirers: Elton John, Dwight Yoakam, Travis Tritt, Sting, Melissa Etheridge, Vince Gill, John Fogerty, Don Henley, Johnny Cash and actor Steve Martin, a banjo player, were all featured.
Scruggs, born Jan. 6, 1924, in Flint Hill, N.C., learned to play banjo at age 4. He appeared at age 11 on a radio talent scout show. By age 15, he was playing in bluegrass bands.

“My music came up from the soil of North Carolina,” Scruggs said in 1996 when he was honored with a heritage award from his home state.

He and Flatt played together in Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, then left to form the Foggy Mountain Boys in 1948.

Their popularity grew, and they even became a focal point of the folk music revival on college campuses in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Scruggs’ wife, Louise, was their manager and was credited with cannily guiding their career as well as boosting interest in country music.
Later, as rock ‘n’ roll threatened country music’s popularity, Flatt and Scruggs became symbols of traditional country music.

In the 1982 interview, Scruggs said “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Beverly Hillbillies” broadened the scope of bl uegrass and country music “more than anything I can put my finger on. Both were hits in so many countries.”

Scruggs also wrote an instructional book, “Earl Scruggs and the Five String Banjo.”
In 1992, Scruggs was among 13 recipients of a National Medal of Art.

“I never in my wildest dreams thought of rewards and presentations,” he said. “I appreciate those things, especially this one.”

Louise Scruggs, his wife of 57 years, died in 2006. He is survived by two songs, Gary and Randy. Gary Scruggs says funeral arrangements are incomplete.

Check out an excellent 1972 PBS documentary called Complete Earl Scruggs Story below:

Good things come in threes. Jack White’s Third Man Records recently celebrated its third anniversary. At their anniversary party, they gave away– get this– the world’s first 3 RPM record. No, not 33 RPM. THREE RPM. That means it’s intended to spin on a record player at three revolutions per minute, which is pretty much impossible. The record contains every “Blue Series” single the label has ever released.

Here’s how Third Man describes the thing:
The world’s first 3 RPM record is a study in contradictions– it’s cut at the slowest speed yet it plays faster than anything you’ve ever heard. It’s a compilation of 7 inch records but it’s packaged like a 12 inch. But the 12 inch sleeve is made like our 7 inch sleeve (as it is one continues piece of paper folded in half and put into an acetate sleeve). A bit like a snake eating its own tail. It comes with three bumper stickers yet there is no bumper. We gave it away for free yet given what it has fetched on eBay it is proving to be fairly valuable. It’s easy to play but impossible to hear. You put your finger on it to slow it down, but this is no easy task (as evidenced by these YouTube videos) and we estimate it would take 333 days of 33 hours training per day for your finger, hand, and arm muscles to spin at a continuous speed of 3 rpm for X hours and X minutes.

It wasn’t enough to play on The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, a star-studded limited-edition two-LP set the Flaming Lips will release this year as part of Record Store Day. To truly satisfy Wayne Coyne, the enduring indie band’s kooky frontman, the album’s numerous guest musicians will have to bleed for their art.

As the NME repots, Coyne is hoping to incorporate the actual blood of his collaborators — a motley bunch that includes Bon Iver, Ke$ha, Neon Indian, Nick Cave and Erykah Badu — in the Heady Fwends packaging.

“I don’t have everybody’s blood just yet, but I collected quite a few vials of blood and it’s actually sitting in my refrigerator as we speak,” Coyne said. “I’m going to try to take that same concept and put little bits of everybody’s blood in the middle of this record. Like a glass specimen thing.”

Thus far, Coyne has procured hemoglobin from Neon Indian, Prefuse 73 and Ke$ha. According to the NME, only “five or six” of these extra-special records will be produced, meaning the discs will be even more collectible than the posters Coyne printed up in 2010 using his own blood.

NME:
He’s an asshole. That guy has $2 billion that he made from figuring out ways to steal royalties from artists, and that’s the bottom line. You can’t really trust anybody like that.

I honestly don’t want to see Sean Parker succeed in anything. I imagine if Spotify becomes something that people are willing to pay for, then I’m sure iTunes will just create their own service, and they’re actually fair to artists.

—The Black Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney continues to rage against Spotify—but this time, it’s personal. What Carney says here dovetails nicely with a story from earlier today on the problems Spotify faces until it’s operating on an astronomical scale. (Sidebar: Do you know how easy it is to find a picture of Sean Parker looking like an asshole? It’s very very easy!)

Tucked in among about a dozen bonus audio and video features on the May 1 home video release of Martin Scorsese’s documentary “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” is a session that’s bound to generate excitement among Harrison and Beatles aficionados: a missing George Harrison guitar solo from one of his most celebrated songs, “Here Comes the Sun.”

It surfaces during in-studio conversation between Harrison’s son, Dhani, longtime Beatles producer George Martin and his son, Giles Martin, who has overseen recordings used in the film and on an accompanying CD.

The three are listening to, and fiddling with, tracks from the original multi-track recording of “Here Comes the Sun,” one of the two Harrison songs on the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album in 1969.

Giles Martin brings up the orchestral score his father created for Harrison’s song, noting that the elder Martin hadn’t done much composing previously for songs written by “the quiet Beatle.” They’re isolating different aspects of the track — the strings, George’s voice — when Dhani pushes another button on the studio console and up comes the sound of Harrison playing a guitar solo not included on the final mix.

“That’s totally different to anything I’ve ever heard before,” says Dhani, his eyes immediately widening.

“We never used that,” George Martin responds. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“I never even knew about it,” Dhani says.

That snippet is included in the bonus DVD material, but isn’t on the bonus audio disc featuring 10 Harrison tracks from his post-Beatles career, including early or alternate takes of several songs from his watershed “All Things Must Pass” solo album, some of his latter-day material and some covers. The CD will be packaged with the deluxe DVD-Blu-ray edition of the film, and sold as a stand-alone album.

Calendar will have a more extensive interview with Giles Martin and Harrison’s widow, Olivia, closer to the release date of the package, which will be available in two-DVD set and single-disc Blu-ray editions, and the deluxe version with both formats and the audio CD. It has been released previously outside North America, but because HBO screened the film domestically, the home video was delayed in the U.S. until May.

Here’s a pretty weird quote from the guy who made the above mega-mashup of dubstep and horror movies, as reported by Wired:

“I want people to see this clip and think, ‘Hey if this guy from the Midwest can work hard and live his dream, maybe I can too,’” he said.

And the very strange contest that Wired is running:

One randomly selected commenter who correctly identifies 50 movies excerpted in “DubWars” will get his or her own 15-second mashup music video crafted by Prescott, set to the music of any dubstep artist requested by the winner.

Womack’s newest record, The Bravest Man In The Universe, was recorded with Damon Albarn and is due out June 11 on XL (you can hear a track from it below). It’s the singer’s first original album in 18 years. The sad news, via the Guardian:

On the eve of his hotly anticipated comeback album, news has emerged that Bobby Womack has been diagnosed with colon cancer. The 68-year-old soul singer is also being treated for pneumonia, according to the bassist Bootsy Collins, but remains “very upbeat about his future”.

We’ve been waiting for these, perhaps unsurprisingly, for A Very Long Time. But now it appears that My Bloody Valentine’s long-awaited reissues are to to see the light of day. Sony will release the reissues of Isn’t Anything and Loveless on Monday May 7th 2012. These will be accompanied by a compilation of the band’s four EPs, ‘Feed Me With Your Kiss’, ‘You Made Me Realise’, ‘Glider’ and ‘Tremolo’, along with seven rare or previously unreleased tracks.

The two studio albums have been “painstakingly re-mastered” by Kevin Shields at Metropolis Studios. Loveless will come as a two-disc release also featuring a previously unheard and unreleased remaster of the album by Shields made from the original master tapes. We’ll have more on this soon, but for now, below you can find the details of the EP compilation version:

EP’s 1988-1991 ‘You Made Me Realise’ (from You Made Me Realise EP)
‘Slow’ (from You Made Me Realise EP)
‘Thorn’ (from You Made Me Realise EP)
‘Cigarette In Your Bed’ (from You Made Me Realise EP)
‘Drive It All Over Me’ (from You Made Me Realise EP)
‘Feed Me With Your Kiss’ (from Feed Me With Your Kiss EP)
‘I Believe’ (from Feed Me With Your Kiss EP)
‘Emptiness Inside’ (from Feed Me With Your Kiss EP)
‘I Need No Trust’ (from Feed Me With Your Kiss EP)
‘Soon’ (from Glider EP)
‘Don’t Ask Why’ (from Glider EP)
‘Off Your Face’ (from Glider EP)

It’s been five years since The Shins’ ‘Wincing The Night Away’ sold a record number of albums and bagged a Grammy nomination in the process. Since then, frontman James Mercer has collaborated with Danger Mouse on the hugely successful Broken Bells project. The project catalysed Mercer’s new vision for The Shins; this, their fourth album finds them operating more as a collective and features the considerable talents of Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer and former Crystal Skulls bassist Yuuki Matthews, while producer Greg Kurstin firmly imprints his pop sensibilities.

The net result is that ‘Port Of Morrow’ is The Shins’ most accomplished work to date. It is both beautifully crafted and exquisitely played. Be it the opening salvo of ‘The Rifle’s Spiral’, or the classy balladeering of ‘September’, Mercer’s songwriting is crisp and confident. Lyrically, he is new territory exploring fatherhood (on the lovely ‘Fall Of ’) and politics (‘No Way Down’ rages against the decline of America’s manufacturing industry).

The ten tracks are not completely flawless. No array of sonic pyrotechnics can hide the clunking melody of ‘Simple Song’, but Mercer’s ability to balance emotion and power in his vocal saves the track from oblivion. After breaking ties with Sub Pop, ‘Port Of Morrow’ will be distributed by the major players at Columbia. The marketing suits will be happy; this record confirms The Shins as one of the very few bands that can shift truckloads of units without compromising their aesthetic one single iota. A gigantic album.

The Beatles’ 1968 animated move and accompanying album, Yellow Submarine, has been restored to be re-released on May 28.

The team behind the new release decided against the usual practice of using automated software to digitally clean up the film. Instead, due to the “delicate nature of the hand-drawn original artwork”, the team up-dated the film frame-by-frame.

Yellow Submarine, based on the song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, follows the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, as they travel to a city under the sea to confront the music hating Blue Meanies.

The re-packaged film will also feature a short making-of documentary, audio commentaries, behind-the-scene photographs and a 16-page booklet that includes an essay by Pixar and Walt Disney chief, John Lasseter.

In the sleeve-notes, Lasseter writes: “As a fan of animation and as a filmmaker, I tip my hat to the artists of Yellow Submarine, whose revolutionary work helped pave the way for the fantastically diverse world of animation that we all enjoy today.”

Ahead of the Yellow Submarine DVD and Blu-Ray and the repackaged soundtrack, Candlewick Press will publish a book of the screenplay from the movie on April 26. The publishers promise the book will showcase “the light-hearted wit of the film’s script”.

Wired:

Bad Brains: A Band in D.C., the first feature-length documentary about the seminal four-piece group from the nation’s capital, premiered here last week at the South by Southwest Film festival. The movie is compelling, deeply informative and expertly edited. It uses a mix of contemporary interviews, archival footage and comic book-style animated segments to tell the band’s back-story, and it augments the historical bits with fly-on-the-wall footage from the band’s 2007 reunion tour.

A rock-rap mash-up, by some guys that call themselves The Bastard Brothers? It might not sound too promising, but hold fire, hang around for a minute and play this – it’s worth it.

By swiping the instrumental from The White Stripes’ most addictive track and adding a scratchy Son House recording as well as Public Enemy’s ‘Bring The Noise’ they’ve created something pretty cool. Makes sense too, as Jack ‘n’ Meg covered Son House’s ‘Death Letter’ for ‘De Stijl’ 12 years ago, and the Stripes / Enemy thing has been around for ages.

Billboard.biz:
After a closed-door sale earlier this year—which according, to the Local East Village, the ownership of the CBGB brand was apparently split between an unnamed party and the daughter of deceased owner Harry Kristal, Lisa Kristal (who had emerged from a protracted, and acrimonious, legal battle against her brother, Dana Kristal, over ownership of the brand)—the long-shuttered legend of CBGB‘s seems poised to return this July 4–8 with a multi-pronged festival of shows, workshops, films, and parties across Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. On its face the fest appears similar in scope, though not scaled, to the annual CMJ Music Marathon.

Gothamist:
This morning we were told that festival details will be released in about four weeks. For now, we can tell you that Duff McKagan (Guns n’ Roses, Velvet Revolver) has expressed interest and could potentially be one of the headlining acts—the venue and the musician have a mutual appreciation for each other. There will also be plenty of smaller NYC-based bands, and the organizers were down at SXSW last week checking some out.

Following a successful outing at SXSW last week, Jack White has announced a new string of dates for May. White will tour North America surrounding his gigs as headliner at the Sasquatch! and Hangout festivals, after which he’ll perform in Europe and Japan.

White’s recent solo shows have featured favorites from the White Stripes, Raconteurs, and Dead Weather songbooks, as well as new music from his upcoming solo record, Blunderbuss, out April 24 on Third Man.
05-15-16 Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
05-18 Gulf Shores, AL – Hangout Music Fest
05-19 Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel
05-21-22 New York, NY – Roseland Ballroom
05-24 Detroit, MI – Scottish Rite Theater
05-26 George, WA – Sasquatch! Music Festival
05-27 Vancouver, British Columbia – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
05-28 Eugene, OR – Hult Center for the Performing Arts (Silva Concert Hall)
05-30-31 Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern
06-22 London, England – Hammersmith Apollo
06-23-24 London, England – Radio 1′s Hackney Weekend
06-25 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Heineken Music Hall
06-26 Berlin, Germany – Tempodrom
06-27 Cologne, Germany – E-Werk
06-29 Werchter, Belgium – Rock Werchter
07-01 Belfort, France – Les Eurockeennes
07-02 Paris, France – L’Olympia
07-05 Hamburg, Germany – Docks
07-27-29 Niigata, Japan – Fuji Rock Festival

In the grim, gritty, NSFW video for Spiritualized’s “Hey Jane”, directed by AG Rojas, the everyday life of a trans person culminates in a series of violent altercations.

“Hey Jane” is from the new Spiritualized album Sweet Heart Sweet Light, which is out via Fat Possum in the U.S. on April 17 and Double Six on April 16.

Hands up: Who had Peter Buck as the first R.E.M. member to go solo after last year’s breakup? It’s true! As Michael Stipe hangs with Muppets and Mike Mills perfects his golf swing, guitarist Buck has been in the lab, working on a debut solo album. As Seattle Weekly reports, longtime R.E.M. buddy Scott McCaughey recently appeared on a Seattle radio station and claimed that he’s been helping Buck work on a solo album. He doesn’t yet know what form that album will take. Buck may put the album out exclusively on vinyl, with no MP3 download, and he may also sing. And according to McCaughey, the album could be pretty “out.” This sounds promising!

AUSTIN, Texas — Let’s say you’re a credit card company known for a certain level of class and distinction that’s trying to promote a new Twitter tie-in, and you want to get the word out in a way that doesn’t suck. What do you do?

If you’re American Express, you hire Jay-Z — the one guy who, when he speaks, everyone listens.
American Express brought in the rapper, long known for dropping references to the credit company and its uber-fancy “black cards” (four references by our count), to hold a concert here at the South by Southwest Interactive festival Monday. The product being promoted was American Express’ new Sync service, which allows cardholders to link their cards to their Twitter accounts and earn discounts for sending tweets with particular hashtags.

In a set that was much more lengthy than the average South by Southwest performance, Hova stayed on stage for nearly an hour and a half. The show took place at the Moody Theater, which also serves as the home for the Austin City Limits television show. The rapper, wearing Air Yeezy sneakers, barreled through a set of his biggest hits, including “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” and “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” But the highlight was “Glory,” the song he wrote for his daughter with Beyoncé Knowles, Blue Ivy. (The song was trending on Twitter during the show with fans requesting the rapper perform it.)

Many of the product launches and promotional parties happening here this week feature performances by big names from the music world. These shows often have a whiff of insincerity, as the performers and the attendees are acutely aware they’re only fanning the flames of hype for their corporate sponsors. If Monday’s performance proved anything, it was that not only can Jay-Z command a crowd pretty much anywhere, his clout (not Klout, mind you) is so high within the music, tech and business worlds, he can pull off a promotion for a product launch without making it feel like a gimmick.

If this blistering cut, the first single, and recent live setlists are any indication, Jack White’s solo debut will be an eclectic trip through the styles he explored in previous projects. Come to think of it, there are hints of a few of White’s other bands in today’s preview, “Sixteen Saltines,” alone: the guitar/drum-driven main riff recalls the White Stripes while the chorus’ harmony vocals bring the Raconteurs to mind and an effects pedal-filtered version of the hook wouldn’t be out of place on one of the Dead Weather’s analog synths. Either way, we’re over a month away from when Blunderbuss arrives in full and things are shaping up nicely. Check out the studio version of the tune he debuted on SNL below:

The Shins will release their much anticipated followup to 2007′s Wincing the Night Away on March 20. As the band points out, you can stream the entire record in full today via iTunes.

The band’s website also points to an extremely bizarre and slightly absurd new “Funny or Die” sketch featuring James Mercer as a picnicking couple, a cowboy, a father, a police officer, a frisbee-tossing hippie guy, a news reporter, a weatherman, and the Sun. Yes, he plays all of those people. (via pitchfork)

Hüsker Dü/Sugar frontman Bob Mould has signed to Merge for a new album, out this fall. It was recorded with his bandmates, Jon Wurster (Superchunk) and Jason Narducy (Telekinesis, ex-Verbow).
Mould recently performed Sugar’s 1992 record Copper Blue from start to finish at the Noise Pop Festival and has confirmed that he’ll do the same thing for a number of European dates this summer. He’ll also play Copper Blue at SXSW on March 17, and close out Merge’s showcase on March 16.

Watch the video for Sugar’s “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” from Copper Blue:

Apparently, all is not well in the world of desert sludge rock. Via a press-release email:

Kyuss members Scott Reeder and Joshua Homme have been forced to file a federal lawsuit against John Garcia and Brant Bjork a/k/a Kyuss Lives! The suit alleges trademark infringement and consumer fraud by Kyuss Lives!

Quote from Reeder and Homme is below.

“It sucks. To think we went to a meeting in January solely to help them with their request to continue Kyuss Lives! With open arms, we made every attempt to help them continue Kyuss Lives! respectfully. Only to discover while they looked us in the eye, Kyuss Lives! management and band had filed federal documents in 2011 in an attempt to steal the name Kyuss.

This is desperately what we were trying to avoid. It’s a sad day for us and for John – but most of all for the fans. What a needless mess.”

A new clip from the LCD Soundsystem documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits is now available to check out. It features an excerpt of the Madison Square Garden performance of “North American Scum” as well as James Murphy being asked to what extent his age played into his ending the band.

Austin take cover! American Express has invited Hov to next week’s SXSW as part of its new “Amex Sync” Twitter campaign: Jay-Z will perform at Austin City Limits Live on March 12 at 8 p.m. EST. (That’s during SXSW Interactive, rather than the music portion.)
Festivalgoers with both American Express cards and Interactive badges can “sync their cards with their Twitter accounts” to gain access to the show. Find more information about ticketing here.

The performance will also be streamed live from a digital billboard on the corner of 6th Street and Red River in Austin, and will be aired live online here.

Watch the trailer for the Amex Sync Show with Jay-Z:

Last month, it was rumored that Baltimore duo Beach House were gearing up to release a new album called ‘Bloom.’ The news came with a release date (May 15) and a supposed track list. While Sub Pop refused to confirm any of that information, we are now being treated with a new song, straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

On Tuesday night, Beach House posted the song ‘Myth’ to their official website. The song was the first on the reported track list and bodes well for their upcoming album. Complete with circular guitar figures, smoky vocals and rising swells of haze, the song hypnotizes like only Beach House can.

The band has steadily been adding in more and more fidelity to their recordings, and it has been paying off. ‘Myth’ plays like the more grownup cousin of ‘Teen Dream’ opener ‘Zebra.’ Check it out below.

LOS ANGELES, CA — He spent two years in a federal lockup for trying to sell cocaine to undercover agents, and all Wayne Kramer can think about these days is trying to find a way to get back behind bars.

This time, though, the guitar god for rock music’s seminal pre-punk band, the MC5, wants to bring his ax with him — and a few dozen others for the inmates to play.

With a little help from friends like the Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett, former Guns `N Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke and others, Kramer has formed Jail Guitar Doors USA.

He runs the nonprofit charitable organization with his wife, Margaret, out of the Hollywood studio where he makes a comfortable living these days composing music for movies and television. Over the past two years, Jail Guitar Doors USA has delivered scores of instruments to prisons and jails in Nevada, California and Texas.

“He’s a great man. He’s taken his skill, his talent and he’s putting it to use, giving back to society,” says Deputy David Bates, who has worked with Kramer in bringing guitars to several jails run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Bates, who calls music “the universal language,” says he’s seen the positive impact it has had on inmates.

So, Kramer says, has he. In his case, first hand.

“When I played music in prison, I wasn’t in prison anymore,” he says, as he sits in his studio over a lunch of vegetarian Thai food.

“And that’s what we’re trying to accomplish with the instrument donations,” he continues. “That this is a way that you can get through this time, that you can go someplace else, you can get involved in your guitar.”

Kramer, who is 63, is dressed in blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt over a white T. Although he still looks about as thin as he did in the days when he was tearing up tunes like “Kick Out the Jams,” the huge white-guy Afro that once nearly defined him as much as his guitar has given way to thinning close-cropped hair.

He was still in his 20s when he arrived at the federal prison in Lexington, Ky., in the 1970s, scheduled to do four years for trying to sell $10,000 worth of cocaine.

The place was bleak and dispiriting, especially for someone who had been a rock star just a few years before. But Kramer would soon discover there was a music class there. It was taught by the legendary jazz trumpeter Red Rodney, who was doing time himself for a heroin bust.

“He’d been to Lexington three times. … He was kind of like the mayor of the prison,” Kramer recalls, laughing. “He taught music theory.”

The guitarist studied with him and, after he was paroled early, returned to the music business. But he still struggled for years to keep from going back.

The MC5, which had helped define punk rock with its screaming guitar chords and intense lyrics, had long since broken up, and Detroit’s music scene had died along with the city’s economy. Kramer, meanwhile, was still drinking heavily and associating with drug users, a prescription for violating parole.

So he moved to LA, got sober and began to do music for films like “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”

He also put together a reconstituted MC5 and took it on a world tour, subbing in people like Clarke and Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators for founding members “Fred “Sonic” Smith and Rob Tyner, who had died of heart attacks in their mid-40s.

Throughout the tours and other projects, however, Kramer kept yearning to give something back to those he’d left behind in prison. Many of them, he says, were similar to him: young guys looking at years behind bars for doing something stupid involving drugs.

“Clearly I knew I was doing wrong,” he says of his own bust. “But these guys had briefcases full of money, and I’m out of work, and I look at those hundred-dollar bills and say, `Hmmm, let me make some calls.’

“I’m not Pollyannaish about it,” he says of prison life. “There are some people who aren’t going to change, aren’t interested in changing and need to be locked up. I would put it at maybe 15 percent.

“But,” he quickly adds, “that leaves 85 percent.”

That thought led him to start visiting prisons, and it was at a concert he put on at Sing Sing in Ossining. N.Y., that Jail Guitar Doors USA was born.

One of the musicians he’d invited to take part was old friend Billy Bragg, and the British rocker arrived with the words Jail Guitar Doors written across his guitar.

He told Kramer he’d recently formed a group to help prisoners in his native England, taking the name for it from an old Clash song.

“Maybe you’ve heard it,” Bragg told him.

“I said, `Yeah, I know the song, Billy,” Kramer recalled with a guffaw. “It’s about me.”

He reminded him of the opening lyrics: “Let me tell you about Wayne and his deals with cocaine.” The Clash had written it for Kramer when he was in prison. Thirty years later it would connect him to the cause he’d been looking for.

He began rounding up others to help. Finding them turned out to be relatively easy for a guy who had influenced a generation of guitarists.

“There aren’t many people you can’t speak too highly of, but Wayne is one of them,” says Clarke who has gone behind bars with him. “The challenges he had in his life, the things he’s overcome and the successes he’s having now. And he’s just one of the greatest guitarists there is. So when Wayne calls, I have to get involved.”

Another was Shiflett, who first heard of Jail Guitar Doors through Bragg’s website and visited a prison with him in England. When Kramer started his USA chapter, he quickly signed on. At one prison stop he taught a music workshop.

“We played a Bob Marley song,” he recalled recently. “One of the most moving things about it, for me, was when we talked music there was no dissension at all. It was just a bunch of guys in a room talking about music.”

Two years after its founding, Kramer would like to take Jail Guitar Doors USA nationwide. He knows that will take much more time, money and phone calls to people like Clarke and Shiflett.

But it’s something he’s committed to.

“I figure if maybe I can get a guitar in a kid’s hand he can start to see himself as more than just a kid from the `hood in trouble,” he says.

It looks like Mastodon isn’t only covering Feist for Record Store Day (April 21). Warner Bros. has also announced a baby pink (!) 7″ of Mastodon covering the Flaming Lips. The A-side will feature the original Soft Bulletin classic “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton”, which Mastodon covers on the B-side.

Also, that split with Feist has been detailed, and the source material comes from their respective 2011 albums. Mastodon will cover “A Commotion” from Metals, and Feist will cover “Black Tongue” from The Hunter. And we have Jools Holland’s green room to thank.

Now that Record Store Day is just about a month away (April 21st), the list of limited-run discs to hit shelves worldwide and become sold-out mere hours later come April 21 has begun to surface. As with last year’s event, Wax Poetic has an early scoop with a list of vinyl 7″, 10″, 12″, LPs, and compilations aiming for release. Here are the most intriguing items to catch my eye, which in most cases happen to be related to recent stories.

Ryan Adams: “Heartbreak a Stranger” b/w “Black Sheets Of Rain” – 2,500 Copies, Colored Vinyl. This pair of Bob Mould covers were recorded back in the fall at a tribute concert in Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Hall. A decent fan-shot video of the A-side performance hit the web at that time, in addition to Adams’ take on the B-side for a Letterman webcast, but this will be a great chance to revisit a few nods to one of Adams’ heroes as an official recording in the spring.

Sufjan Stevens / Rosie Thomas: Hit & Run Volume 1 – Split 7″ – “Where Were You” b/w “Here I Am” Sufjan’s muse is keeping busy of late, as he’ll follow up two 2010 releases with this year’s collaborative Beak & Claw EP and a split single alongside longtime collaborator Rosie Thomas.

Joey Ramone: “Rock & Roll Is the Answer” b/w “There’s Got To Be More To Life” Our first taste of Joey Ramone’s posthumous sophomore solo LP, Ya Know?, will arrive in the form of these two demos pressed on 7″ vinyl.

The Mynah Birds: “It’s My Time” b/w “Go On and Cry” At first glance, you might think this was a typo meant to read “The Mynabirds” (an excellent indie-rock band performing at our Waynestock party this year). They have a Record Store Day release coming, too, but this is a bit more rare of a sighting: The Mynah Birds were a short-lived mid-’60s group starring none other than a young Neil Young and an even younger Rick James. Back in 1965, they recorded tracks for Motown that never saw an official release, but it looks like they’ll finally reach our turntables this spring. We took a Mynah Birds bootleg for a spin last year.

Regina Spektor: “The Prayer Of François Villon” b/w “Old Jacket” 7″ – If Spektor’s promising new Mike Elizondo-produced single is any indication, these two traditional Russian folk songs should find the Soviet Kitsch songwriter in top form.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy: “Hummingbird” (Leon Russell cover) b/w “Tribulations” (E.C. Ball Cover) & “Because of Your Eyes” (Merle Haggard Cover / Solo Version) A fine addition to the collection of any Will Oldham completist.

David Bowie: “Starman” Picture Disc 7” feat. “The Jean Genie” Live on Top of the Pops This previously unreleased B-side surfaced back in December after a retired cameraman unearthed a reel of film thought to be lost by the BBC. Check out the video here.

Flaming Lips Collaborative LP: It will be very impressive if the Flaming Lips have actually pulled this feat off in time for Record Store Day, but here’s hoping they did, as their list of previously-recorded and hopeful guests includes Bon Iver, Ke$ha, Nick Cave, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Plastic Ono Band, Neon Indian, Erykah Badu, and more.

On June 3, 2011, a widget appeared on Kaiser Chiefs’ website. With little warning, the U.K. rock band, which had been on hiatus for nearly three years since the release of its album “Off With Their Heads,” presented a new one, “The Future Is Medieval.” Except instead of creating a traditional collection of cohesive tracks, the band posted 20 new songs in the widget designed by Special Problems with ad agency Wieden & Kennedy, allowing fans to create their own 10-track album complete with self-made cover art for £7.50 ($12).

“The whole point was that we weren’t making an album,” bassist Simon Rix says, noting that the 20 tracks made available were recorded in 2010 and 2011 in various studios with various producers, including Tony Visconti, Ethan Johns and Owen Morris. “We were making a collection of songs with different sounds about different things-some long, some short. It was up to each individual person to decide what they thought were the best songs were and what they thought the order should be.”

The response was largely positive, with 14,000 albums sold through the band’s website. Fans could even elect to sell their own version of “The Future Is Medieval,” earning £1 ($1.60) per sale. But the group found that many listeners had trouble with the choice, asking the band for a concrete album with a track list and even a single. This request was satisfied by releasing a physical set with 12 of the 20 tracks on June 27 in the United Kingdom on B-Unique/Fiction, with “Little Shocks” functioning as the single.

But after signing a new deal in the United States with Cooperative Music/Downtown at the end of 2011, the band and its labels made the decision to craft a third version of the album under a completely different title for its U.S. debut. The result is “Start the Revolution Without Me.” It contains 12 tracks from the “Medieval” sessions, plus “On the Run,” which the band recorded in December. It will arrive March 6. Both the band and label selected the songs, focusing on tracks that would translate to the current U.S. pop market, following Kaisers Chiefs’ 2005 breakout hit, “I Predict a Riot,” which reached No. 34 on Billboard’s Alternative chart.

“The U.S. has always been the biggest nut for them to crack,” Cooperative Music GM Sean Maxson says. “There definitely is a difference in the two marketplaces. The strategy is to reintroduce the band to their hardcore fans that discovered them from ‘I Predict a Riot’ as a jumping-off point for the album.”

The band will support this reintroduction with extensive touring, including a stop at Coachella in April, as well as promotion of “On the Run” as a possible radio single. The overall aim for the group, however, is to retain a sense of individuality in the music industry, hoping to veer away from as much of the traditional model as the label system will allow. Which is ironic, because “The Future Is Medieval” ultimately reinforced the importance of the album concept.

“People thought we were getting away from albums because we were just releasing songs,” Rix says. “But I think the opposite. We were bringing people’s attention back to the album because you had to choose 10 songs, you had to choose the order, you had to do the artwork. You couldn’t just choose one or two tracks like people do nowadays. It highlighted again how important the album was.”

On last night’s Lindsay Lohan-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live, Jack White took the opportunity to air out a couple of songs from Blunderbuss, his forthcoming debut solo album. Overcoming the usual woes of SNL‘s shitty in-studio sound, he started out with a striking version of the single “Love Interruption,” backed by a white-clad all-female band. When he came back to do the charged-up new one “Sixteen Saltines” — a total feral De Stijl-sounding rager — he had an all-male backing band, and they sounded pretty great too. Watch both below.

Here’s another video to go along with the Shins’ upcoming full-length Port of Morrow, this time for the track “Bait and Switch”. It’s rehearsal footage shot in a log cabin-esque building in Portland, Oregon, and it truly does resemble a “Portlandia” outtake. Port of Morrow is out March 20 via Columbia and James Mercer’s imprint Aural Apothecary. (via Pitchfork)

Bethany Cosentino is bringing her style to Urban Outfitters, the Best Coast rocker revealed on Twitter on Thursday.

The indie singer will launch her debut clothing line for the brand in May, following in the footsteps of Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, who previously designed for Urban Outfitters.

“Thanks for the support guys! i’m stoked to dress y’all this spring! and boys- you will look cute in a crop top, too! xox,” she wrote after breaking the news.

In a synergistic move, Costentino also announced two Best Coast shows at SXSW, on at Urban Outfitters’ event on March 15 and a second at SPIN’s Stubbs party on March 16.

The band’s sophomore album, recorded in L.A. with producer Jon Brion, is expected later this year.

Check out the official video launch for Converse’s newest 3 Artists, 1 Song titled “DoYaThing” featuring Gorillaz, Andre 3000, and James Murphy.

To find out more information and to download the track for free visit:
http://bit.ly/DoYaThing

Radiohead kicked off their 2012 touring schedule with a 24-song set including two new tracks at the sold-out American Airlines Arena in Miami Monday night.

According to reports from fan site ateaseweb, the group kicked things off with ‘Bloom,’ the lead off track off ‘The King of Limbs’ before delving into ‘The Daily Mail’ as lead singer Thom Yorke (sporting a ponytail!) and company settled in.

“It’s great to play again,” Yorke said as reported by Radioheadlive’s Twitter account. “Every night is going to be different I hope.”

‘Indentikit’ and ‘Cut a Hole’ were the songs debuted, with Yorke using a lyrics sheet for the latter (you can watch both songs below).

Another surprise came during the first live performance of ‘Meeting in the Aisle,’ a rare B-side found on Radiohead’s 1998 ‘Airbag/How Am I Driving’ EP, which ateaseweb described as a “WTF inclusion.” The second encore concluded with fans singing along to classic ‘Karma Police.’

The band’s tour continues tomorrow night in Tampa before the first stage wraps up in Glendale, Arizona, on March 15. A second round of shows is set for April before the group performs at Coachella and Bonnaroo later this spring.

L.A. hardcore revivalists OFF!, the supergroup lead by Black Flag co-founder and longtime Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris, accompanied by Burning Brides’ Dimitri Coats, Mario Rubalcaba (Hot Snakes/Rocket From the Crypt/Earthless), and Redd Kross’ Steven McDonald, are back. They’ll follow up their excellent debut collection First Four EPs with a self-titled full-length, out May 8 via Vice. But keep in mind, this is OFF! we’re talking about. “Full-length” means 16 songs in 16 minutes.

The band has also announced a number of SXSW performances as well as record release shows in New York, San Francisco, San Diego, and at home in L.A.

OFF!:
01 Wiped Out
02 I Got News For You
03 Elimination
04 Cracked
05 Wrong
06 Borrow and Bomb
07 Toxic Box
08 Man From Nowhere
09 Jet Black Girls
10 King Kong Brigade
11 Harbor Freeway Blues
12 Feelings Are Meant to Be Hurt
13 Vaporized
14 503
15 Zero for Conduct
16 I Need One (I Want One)

OFF!
03-16 Austin, TX – SXSW Power of the Riff, Scoot Inn
03-17 Austin, TX – SXSW Dickies House, Lustre Pearl
03-17 Austin, TX – SXSW NXNE Showcase, Club Deville
03-18 Dallas, TX – Bro Fest, Club Dada
03-24 Santa Ana, CA – Burger Records Fest, The Observatory
05-08 Los Angeles, CA – Whiskey A Go Go
05-11 San Francisco, CA – Slim’s
05-14 San Diego, CA – The Casbah
05-29 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
06-02 Barcelona, Spain – Primavera Sound Festival