Tomorrow is every vinyl addict’s favorite day – Record Store Day. Think of it as Black Friday for wax. There are many awesome releases this year – you can check out the full list here. Show up early, fight the crowds! Throw elbows! And if you don’t get what you want, buy something anyway and scalp it on eBay like a BOSS. Here are some records I’m thinking about picking up.
Arcade Fire – Sprawl II
Beach House – Lazuli B/W Equal Mind
Garbage – Blood For Poppies
JEFF the Brotherhood – Upstairs at United Volume 3
Katy Perry – Part of Me (Thin White Duke Remix)
M83 – Mirror
Mclusky – Mclusky Do Dallas Reissue
Refused – The Shape of Punk to Come Reissue
Tallest Man On Earth – King of Spain
The Black Keys – El Camino
The Clash – London Calling 2012
The Flaming Lips – And Heavy Fwends
White Stripes – Hand Springs/Red Death at 6:14
Crosses – Option/Telepathy
Longtime readers will know I am a devoted Ringo Deathstarr supporter. They are far and away my favorite Austin band, and their debut album Colour Trip was one of my picks for the Best of 2011. They recently toured with a little band called the Smashing Pumpkins, and are currently hard at work writing songs for their next album and planning to tour the world and visit even more places than previously.
But they need our help. The group must gather funds to record their second album, and they have set up a Pledge Music page for donations. The page has only been up two days, and the group has already accumulated 62% of their goal! You can help Ringo Deathstarr by visiting the page; additionally, the band has lined up some pretty sweet rewards for big spenders. While you’re donating, listen to a few of my favorites from Colour Trip.
Great awesome fantastic news everyone! My favoritest band in the whole universe has announced a new album release! In fact, they’ve announced THREE new album releases! So yeah, basically, I’m freaking out over here. Uno!, Dos!, and Tre! will drop September 25th, November 13th, and January 15th, respectively. The band has stated they are at “the most prolific and creative time” in their careers, and that every new song “has the power and energy that represents Green Day on all emotional levels.” Get more in-depth, fanboy style, via this link.
Man, oh man, I’m kind of glad I didn’t make 2012 the year I finally journeyed to Indio, because I came oh so very close to doing so. I mean, the lineup for Coachella this year is FANTASTIC, but now that they’ve has released the set times, I can see that too much of a good thing makes for some difficult decisions for the desert dwellers this year. At least they get two weekends to catch what they missed. Peep the set times below, and stare in awe at just how many hypothetical heartbreaks you would have to make.
The lineup for Lollapalooza 2012 has been revealed, and while the headliners aren’t mind-blowing, the meat of the festival is promising overall. That’s not to say the main people don’t rock; I wouldn’t mind crossing the Chili Peppers and Black Sabbath off the list, and the Black Keys are so hot right now. There’s not a bad band here, and there’s enough variety here to please even the most jaded music lover. From hyped buzz bands to festival mainstays to popular artists, C3 has put together a brilliant little shindig for Chicago in August. Now if they would only do this for ACL.
Seminal post-hardcore band At the Drive In reunited and played their first show in 11 years right here in Austin, and I heard the whole thing. I didn’t get tickets to the intimate 400-capacity show, but I joined about 100 alley rats behind the venue, who were holding their own private party amongst dumpsters and barbed wire, moshing and singing along to every word. The moment when the band finished their last song and hopped in the van to make their getaway was straight out of A Hard Days Night with the addition of several camera phones. It was incredible. And now there’s videos of the actual show, which looks like it was exactly how I imagined. Can’t wait for Thursday, when I’ll be making the trek to Marfa to watch these guys in an even smaller venue.
Another “One Armed Scissor” with cooler editing, but worse sound. I thought these guys hated crowd surfing…
It’s been a great couple of weeks for comedy, friends. First Anchorman 2 gets the green light, and now one-half of the Farrelly Brothers has revealed Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are both on tap to shoot the sequel to the 1994 classic Dumb and Dumber. Filming begins in September, reportedly. If you’ve never seen Dumb and Dumber, the breakthrough comedy for Carrey that featured two lovable idiots traveling the country in a sheep dog van, just turn on TBS for a couple of hours and it will come on. I swear I’ve seen the movie probably three million times, and it’s still one of the funniest flicks ever made. And hopefully this will rid us of that awful aftertaste the horrid prequel Dumb and Dumberer gave us a few years ago. What’s that? That never happened? Gotcha.
Relive the Oscar-winning magic (not) and remember, you can’t triple stamp a double stamp:
Yesterday, whilst driving home from class, I heard via 101X the first track in 15 years from Soundgarden, which will be available on the upcoming soundtrack to The Avengers. And…..it’s pretty bad.
It’s called “Live to Rise” and it sounds more like bland Cornell solo material than anything remotely close to old, awesome Soundgarden. I really hope radio sticks to overplaying “Pretty Noose” and “Fell On Black Days” than this dreck. I think I’d rather hear “Black Hole Sun” for the millionth time over this. I can’t say I’m surprised, but I can still be disappointed. Maybe the album will rock harder than this sappy safe single. Apparently the track will be part of the upcoming new album from the group, and it leads off the spectacularly awful tracklist for the Avengers soundtrack, which features new tracks from bands I forgot existed since graduating high school. Shinedown and Theory of a Deadman are still soldiering on, it would seem.
Today Pitchfork reports something I should’ve known in retrospect, but didn’t: Neil Young is quite the audiophile. I guess releasing your box set on Blu-Ray qualifies as dropping a pretty big hint. So much so he has filed trademarks with the US Patent and Trademark Office to develop a high resolution quality audio file format comparable to studio quality sound. The whole thing has apparently been in the works for years, and it may be a year or two more worth of paperwork before we see Young’s project come to light. But like most things with his name on it, I would expect nothing but greatness. Read more here.
