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The soft-rockin’ chamber-folk ensemble kicks off their spring tour tomorrow night at the Doug Fir in Portland, and includes a stop at SXSW next week. The band’s homecoming is April 8th at the Crocodile with Friday Mile.

The vid for “Stylo” off the Gorillaz just-released “Plastic Beach” is out and on first glance, I gotta say, it’s kinda creepy. Seeing the Gorillaz crew raging through a landscape in some sort of super-charged monster car is nothing out of the ordinary but taking them out of their normal 2-D animated setting and plopping them Nevada car chase straight out of “Vanishing Point” is a little unsettling. Especially 2D’s empty eyes. Regardless, the video is totally worth the watch, the song is great, and Bobby Womack is the shit.

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My question… where the hell is Russel?

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The band has only the Coachella date confirmed so far, but hopefully more will come soon, inc. a little west-coast love.
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The rampant drone-rock trio will play Neumos Saturday May 1st with Fol Chen. You can listen to the new album Sisterworld, released yesterday on Mute, over on the band’s myspace. So far, so good. If you like it, I’d recommend picking up the special 2CD version, complete with a visually unique folding-style package and remixes/reinterpretations of the album’s songs by Thom Yorke, Tunde Adebimpe, Devendra Banhart, and Bradford Cox, among others.

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I went down to the Showbox last Friday (3/5) with a couple friends to check out Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The San Francisco band is touring on the heels of their sixth LP, Beat the Devil’s Tattoo, which hits shelves tomorrow. The show was sold out. I’ve been a big fan of BRMC for a long time now—since their first record—and this performance did nothing to change that. I’ll admit that the band is less revelatory to me now than in my younger years but Robert Been and Peter Hayes are nothing if not excellent musicians and songwriters. Critics have long derided their lack of ingenuity—save for Howl, I suppose—but to them I scoff. Their heavy-loaded garage-gaze oscillates among the mysterious, the rebellious, the boot-stompin’, and the stirring. I get thrills watching/listening to them play their instruments every time. Not to be outdone, Been and Hayes played each non-new song with noticeable changes and embellishments that made for little rediscoveries throughout the night. The guys were willing to let the songs linger, too, busting out a few divergent guitar tangents here and there.

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One interesting aspect is the addition of new drummer Leah Shapiro (you might recall she toured with the Raveonettes in 2008 for the Lust Lust Lust album). I’d give her an ‘A’ for her skills, especially given how deep the band delved into their back catalog, but she differed from Nick Jago in content. Where Jago was more apt to take an alternate route, Shapiro seemed to keep time in a more straightforward manner. The band pumped out a cool 24 songs (by my count), leaning heavily on Tattoo and B.R.M.C. Songs from Baby 81 included “Berlin”, “Weapon of Choice” and “666 Conducer”. From Howl, “Ain’t No Easy Way”, “Sympathetic Noose” and “Shuffle Your Feet” were also played.

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I like the new record (you can stream it parts of it over at their myspace), but I don’t think it’ll end up being my favorite. That distinction belongs to Take Them On, On Your Own. “War Machine”, “Mama Taught Me Better”, “Shadow’s Keeper” and the title track are all high quality songs, though. Not to mention the 10-minute (!) opening closing track of “Half-State”. As usual, they didn’t talk to the crowd much (I don’t think Hayes said one word), except when Been asked for a request during the encore. “Ok, ‘Rifles’ it is,” he obliged.

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Gallery

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Haven’t seen/heard any new tunes yet, but they’ll be sure to debut them at Sasquatch! on May 31st.

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Update: Reverb apparently has word that the record will be released in conjunction with three different labels: Brown Records, Fat Possum Records, and Columbia Records.

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Listen to the track, “War Again”, from the upcoming album here
Watch the “War Again” music video here

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Explains a lot, don’t it? Except for the puppy – that’s just damn cute.
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Many of you who have NOT had their heads up their asses for the past 2 months already know about Cybersex 2  as it was “released” back in January. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the goddamn  sun’s finally out and I feel like a moldy,  stinkin’ brown bear finally poking its head out of its den. (even though old-man Dick Proenneke -of PBS’s sleep inducing Alone in the Wilderness-has told me in his sleepy papa bear voice how surprisingly clean their dens are – feh! ) So while the tunes on the sampler aren’t as crisp and fresh as they might have been back then, they’ve still got a decent shelf life. Seems most everything in here has been kicking around for a bit anyway, whether released sometime last year or put out as a Sub Pop freebie. Point is you can get them all right here, right now, for the right price. $Free.99

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You can dowload Cybersex 2 by clicking here or visit Sub Pop for the link to the old Cybersex Sampler and lots more kitty-cat gifs that are so fucking cute you’re sure to fall twitching to the floor. Here’s the link! ENJOY!
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Track listing after the jump
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Ungh-Ungh-Ungh,Yeah. Rock n Roll.

1.  Happy Birthday – “Girls FM”
2. The Ruby Suns – “Cranberry”
3. Dum Dum Girls – “Jail La La”
4. Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore – “Something, Somewhere, Sometime”
5. The Album Leaf – “Falling from the Sun”
6. Retribution Gospel Choir – “Hide It Away”
7. AFCGT – “Two-Legged Dog”
8. Beach House – “Norway”
9. Avi Buffalo – “What’s in It For?”
10. Nirvana – “Scoff (Live)”
11. Flight of the Conchords – “Too Many Dicks”
12. No Age – “You’re a Target”
13. Eugene Mirman – “Vancouver, Detroit and Bears!”
14. Grand Archives – “Oslo Novelist”
15. Pissed Jeans – “Dream Smotherer”
16. Fruit Bats – “The Ruminant Band”
17. Obits – “Two-Headed Coin”
18. Handsome Furs – “Radio Kaliningrad”
19. Vetiver – “More of This (Neighbors RMX)”

Plus! From Sub Pop affiliated/endorsed/otherwise related labels…

1. Hardly Art: Unnatural Helpers – “Sunshine / Pretty Girls”
2. Golden Triangle – “Neon Noose”
3. Dutchess & the Duke – “Living This Life”
4. Le Loup – “Forgive Me”
5. Talbot Tagora – “Ichthus Hop”

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I heard Pink Floyd on the radio today, Money, not their best tune, but thinking as I was about SXSW and playing live I was reminded of another Pink Floyd tune, That Great Gig in the Sky. An old band of mine in Ohio played that at a few gigs. The keyboard player, Stephanie, suggested it during a soundcheck one night before a gig at The South Heidelberg (RIP) so we gave it a shot. It was an instrumental version as neither Stephanie nor our other singer/drummer, Frank, had any chance of hitting those beautiful notes Clare Torry did in the recording.
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I remember clearly that first night we played it. Stephanie called out the chords during the sound check, and I wrote them on a piece of paper that I put on the stage in front of my bass amp. There was a foot print on the left side of the paper, and the paper itself was actually stuck in place given all the grime of spilled beer and cigarette ash and marijuana ash and whatever else on the stage. We’d just finished one of our songs, In Memory of Sir Dane Bramage, a lament for a lost bong, and Stephanie went right into the piano intro for That Great Gig in the Sky before the applause died down. We were all a bit nervous as that evening’s sound check was the first time we’d ever played the song, but Stephanie was channeling Richard Wright (RIP). The Korg turned into a monster grand, and she got a little bolder, leaned a little to her left, head back, eyes closed. A woman in the crowd cheered.
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Stephanie continued. The guitars came quietly in. There was a slight swell. Frank hit the snare, and POP! That Great Gig in The South Heidelberg. The descending bass line, the snap of the snare, the guitars playing vocalist and assorted keys. I leaned towards the keyboard amp. I wanted to be wrapped in that monster grand and had no need of my paper on the stage. We channeled as a unit.
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When we finished the song, there was a silence in the bar, not the kind of “What the fuck was that shit?” silence, but more the “I can’t fucking believe that shit. That was awesome!” silence. We knew it. The crowd knew it. There wasn’t any need to acknowledge it. We looked at each other on stage. I took a sip of one of the Rolling Rocks I had on top of my amp. Stephanie was looking down at the Korg that still seemed a monster grand. Frank said, “We’re gonna take a short break.”
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And well getting back to SXSW, this weekend at Neumos there is a SXSW Sendoff Bash featuring Visqueen, Hey Marseilles, Mash Hall (formerly known as They Live!), and Fences. I haven’t seen the other bands, but Visqueen alone is worth the price of admission. I saw them at Easy Street Records in Queen Anne, and even on the horrible PA there they were a little pop, a little punk, and a whole lot of fun. I don’t suppose they’ll talk about That Great Gig at Easy Street, but they may just do so of Neumos, or if you’re in the mood for a serious road trip, SXSW.
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SXSW Send Off Bash at NEUMOS
Fri.Mar.05.10
Neumos, The Stranger, and 3 Imaginary Girls Present SXSW Send Off Bash at NEUMOS, Visqueen, Hey Marseilles, Mash Hall (formerly known as They Live!), Fences :: Doors at 8 pm :: $10 adv :: Advance tickets on sale at: www.ticketswest.com, Moe Bar, select QFCs, Rudy’s Barbershops [Buy Tickets Online] :: 21+