"Like an awesome mythological beast...another fantastic hybrid creation." (Time Out New York) Riding the beast this time: Eugene Mirman, Lenny Kaye, Robbie Fulks, Buffalo Tom, Sondre Lerche, Nicole Atkins, Langhorne Slim, Freedy Johnston, Janeane Garofalo, Sarah Vowell, Rick Moody, Ben Greenman and Paul Muldoon.

By Fred Mills

BLURT fave John Wesley Harding brings his acclaimed Cabinet of Wonders back to New York's Le Poisson Rouge for a 3-show residency on March 25, April 15 and May 2. Per tradition it will feature a cross-section collaborators from the worlds of music, literature and comedy, Harding once again curating, hosting and performing, variety show format, with close friends and hand-picked icons.

Last year the Cabinet featured the likes of Rosanne Cash, Josh Ritter, A.C. Newman, Rhett Miller, Colson Whitehead, Graham Parker and Colum McCann, and when Harding took it on the road with co-host Eugene Mirman he added such stellar talents as Colin Meloy, Grant Hart, Jill Sobule, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket), Sherman Alexie, Lucy Wainwright Roche and many others. This time out Mirman will be in tow, naturally, along with Buffalo Tom, Sondre Lerche, Nicole Atkins, Lenny Kaye, Robby Fulks, Langhorne Slim and Freedy Johnston, comedienne Janeane Garofalo, authors Sarah Vowell, Rick Moody and Ben Greenman and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon. The roster of performers will change from show to show - see below for the details.

 "I wanted to bring together my novel writing friends (who mostly envy my musician friends) and my musician friends (who mostly envy my novel writing friends) under one flag," says Harding. "The fact is: I like everyone who's performing."

The Village Voice calls the Cabinet of Wonders "a brilliant evening of laid-back fun," while the Portland Tribune raves that it is "one of the most whip-smart variety shows on the market. Highly recommended."

Boy howdy to that.

JOHN WESLEY HARDING'S CABINET OF WONDERS:

March 25 at Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY

Freedy Johnston

Sarah Vowell

Eugene Mirman

Errollyn Wallen

Jake Slichter

Langhorne Slim

April 15 at Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY

Eugene Mirman

Sondre Lerche

Ben Greenman

Rick Moody

Nicole Atkins

Leona Naess

Daniel Felsenfeld

May 20 at Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY

Paul Muldoon

Eugene Mirman

Janeane Garofalo

Robbie Fulks

Buffalo Tom (acoustic)

Lenny Kaye

[Photo Credit: Bill Wadman]

"Enormous in scale, absorbing, obliterating..." - and an early candidate for 2010 year-end best-of lists, too. The Montreal duo gives My Bloody Valentine a run for its money on Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night, issued this week by Jagjaguwar.

By Jennifer Kelly

The third album by Montrealean married duo Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek churns cathedral-sized anthems and clots them with MBV-ish miasmas of guitar murk.  It pits unstoppable melodic climaxes against paranoiac visions of espionage and betrayal.  Enormous in scale, absorbing, obliterating, this is an album that picks you up on a tidal wave of conjured emotion, sucks you under, tosses you about and finally leaves you beached and gasping.  It is an anti-war album that could rally an army, rousing powerful, untethered emotions to who knows what end.  It is inchoately persuasive, and you buy in without really knowing what the message is.  

Besnard Lakes come out of the same northerly scene that spawned Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, but also Constellation bands like Godspeed and Silver Mount Zion.  Their aesthetic is somewhere in the sweet spot where damaged Dennis Wilson choruses meet squalls of feedbacked improvisations.  The giant two-parted cuts that frame the album, opener "Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent" and second side epic "Land of the Living Skies", proceed weightily, at a measured pace, from shadowy noise-scapes into soaring, solidarity-engendering melodies.  To listen, even without humming along, is to feel yourself swept up in a larger enterprise, a journey, a shared ethos, that ruthlessly incorporates all comers.  "Albatross," the single starts in a wavering flare of Loveless guitar distortion, picks up Goreas' angelic, dreamy vocals, then intensifies into a dream-march to the sea.  Even casual observations like "Chicago Train"'s repeated assurance that "This is the last train...to Chicago" gain heft and otherworldly significance when tethered to this slow-moving ritual music.  

Roaring Night pulls off the difficult feat of being nearly all crescendo, all finale, without becoming tedious or overblown.  Like 2007's Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse (and, if anything, even more so) this is music right at the edge of bombast but not over it, grand but not grandiose, ambitious but not overweening.  

They're bats! Cheetah Chrome and Sylvain Sylvain form Batusis - official debut at SXSW to be followed by an EP.

By Fred Mills

It's a punk rock supergroup that'll make your inner Tim Stegall weep tears of joy: Batusis is the brainchild of erstwhile Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome (spotted in recent years as part of the reunited Rocket From the Tombs) and New York Dolls founding member/guitarist Sylvain Sylvain. The band - which includes bassist Enzo Penizzotto and drummer Thommy Price, the rhythm section from Joan Jett's Blackhearts - will issue a colored wax 7" EP (and digital download) on the Smog Veil label on May 4. Prior to that Batusis will make its official debut at SXSW in Austin (featuring a different bassist and drummer tba).

"I've known Sylvain since 1975," explained Chrome, in a statement. "The Dolls were a huge influence on me." Sylvain adds "We're just nuts about rock ‘n' roll. We knew that's what we'd come up with, no matter what!"

"We really had no idea what we were gonna do until we got together and jammed," added Sylvain. "We're just nuts about rock and roll, and we knew that's what we'd come up with."

Producer Ken Coomer (late of Uncle Tupelo and Wilco) cut the EP with the band last November in Nashville, where Chrome had relocated not long ago.  "I asked Ken for a sound that would peel paint and piss people off, and I got it," said Chrome.

Songs on the EP: "What You Lack in Brains," billed as "a salacious, piano-spiced workout"; instrumental "Big Cat Stomp"; "Bury You Alive"; and a cover of Davie Allen and the Arrows' Wild Angels soundtrack classic "Blues' Theme."

Incidentally, sharp-eyed readers might note the curious choice of band name: it's derived from "The Batusi," the Watusi variation that Adam West, as Batman, danced in an episode of the ‘60s TV show Batman. "We kicked around a lot of names," said Chrome. "My favorite at that point was The Uncalled Four.  We were listening back to ‘Blues' Theme' and Syl started doing this dance where he drew his fingers across his eyes.  I immediately asked him ‘What is that?'"

"I said, ‘It's the dance Batman does!'" recalled Sylvain. "The next thing you know, Cheetah gets his laptop out and starts to Google it and then tells me the dance is called the Batusi. We immediately looked at each other and said, ‘Cheetah, that's the fuckin' name!'"  

Catch ‘em at SXSW March 18th at the Prague, followed by Cheapo Music at 5pm on March 19th. In May the band will be doing a tour of the UK.

More details here.

[Photo Credit: Anna O'Connor]

Fifth album from acclaimed Canadian combo.

By Blurt Staff

Stars return with their fifth full-length album, The Five Ghosts, available June 22 on the band's new label imprint Soft Revolution Records. It's the band's follow-up to their 2007 release, In Our Bedroom After The War and also sees Stars returning to producer Tom McFall, who recorded 2005's Set Yourself On Fire.

Recorded in Montreal, The Five Ghosts was written by all five members :Amy Millan, Evan Cranley, Torquil Campbell, Patty McGee and Chris Seligman.  The album features a guest appearance by Toronto singer-songwriter and Broken Social Scene member Andrew Whiteman. 

 
 "We have never written an album with this much cohesion and unity' said Millan, in a statement.  "It is the first time we've had the luxury of being together in a huge room writing songs off the floor.  The Five Ghosts is quintessential Stars."

The first single is "Fixed" featuring Millan on vocals and will be available on iTunes soon.

 
This summer, Stars will embark on a  U.S. tour where they will play The Five Ghosts in its entirety, along with fan chosen selections from their back catalog: Nightsongs (2001), Heart (2003), Set Yourself On Fire (2005), In Our Bedroom After The War (2007). Details on dates and tickets will be announced through the band's web site, www.youarestars.com.
 

Tracklisting:
 
1) Dead Hearts
2) Wasted Daylight
3) I Died So I Could Haunt You
4) Fixed
5) We Don't Want Your Body
6) He Dreams He's Awake
7) Never Been Good With Change
8) The Passenger
9) The Last Song Ever Written
10) How Much More
11) Winter Bones

No details other than the group plans to go into the studio in May.

By Fred Mills

It certainly wasn't a denial: back in December we ran an interview with Sunny Day Real Estate frontman Jeremy Enigk in which he talked about his band's 2009 reunion tour - the September concert in Portland is reviewed here - and he also left the door open for the possibility of new recording, as evidenced by this exchange:

Apparently a new song has already crept into the set? Tell me about that.

We didn't set out to write any new material when rehearsing for the reunion tours. It's just something that happened. It's impossible to stand in the room as SDRE and not try something new. It's like the music is just waiting there in the air for us to try it out. The new song (still untitled) was a basic jam I wrote one night after rehearsal and casually brought to the band the next day. What was a decent song idea the night before was instantly transformed into something much better...An SDRE song.

How has the tour made you feel about the chance that you'll overcome the various inertias and obstacles to produce a new album together?

It seems to get clearer every night we play that we have to record a new album. It's like someone wants to give you a free Ferrari with no strings attached and all you have to say is yes.

***

Well, now comes word via the good folks at EarCandyBeat.com that "yes" is now the operative term: the blog is reporting that SDRE will be entering the studio in May to record a new album.

Writes ECB: "That's what Marco Collins, former KNDD and current KEXP jock reported [via Twitter] late Monday night. Collins wrote that he received an e-mail from SDRE/Foo Fighter member Nate Mendel stating the band would be recording in May."

The tweet reads thusly:

Great news yesterday. Just got an email from Nate from Sunny Day Real Estate/Foo Fighters... SDRE is recording A NEW RECORD IN MAY!!

As of this writing there's no indication when the album might see release or who will release it. 1994's Diary and its followup LP2 were reissued by Sub Pop last year. You can read our review of them here.

The Bride Screamed Murder - title is self-explanatory, yo.

By Blurt Staff

The Melvins release The Bride Screamed Murder on June 1 via Ipecac Recordings - that same day they'll kick off a U.S. tour in San Diego. They'll also drop in at the Bonnaroo festival on June 12.   

The Bride Screamed Murder is the third release featuring Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover and Big Businesses' Coady Willis and Jared Warren.  While the Melvins recently celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary, the latest incarnation debuted with the highly-praised (A) Senile Animal (2006) and continued with Nude With Boots (2008).

Joining the Melvins on tour for a half dozen shows will be label mates ISIS (who will also perform at Bonnaroo) while Totimoshi will be along for the full run of Melvins dates.

Tour dates:

June 1     San Diego, CA     Casbah

June 2     Tempe, AZ     The Clubhouse

June 3     Albuquerque, NM     The Launchpad

June 5     Austin, TX     Emo's

June 7     Houston, TX     Warehouse Live

June 8     Baton Rouge, LA     Spanish Moon

June 9     New Orleans, LA     One Eyed Jacks

June 10     Birmingham, AL     Bottle Tree

June 12     Manchester, TN     Bonnaroo Festival **

June 14     Athens, GA     40 Watt Club *

June 16     Washington, DC     9:30 Club *

June 17     Philadelphia, PA     TLA *

June 18     New York, NY     Webster Hall *

June 19     Brooklyn, NY     Music Hall of Williamsburg *

June 20     Boston, MA     Paradise *

June 21     Boston, MA     Paradise *

June 23     Cleveland, OH     Grog Shop

June 24     Detroit, MI     Small's

June 25     Chicago, IL     Double Door

June 26     Madison, WI     High Noon Saloon

June 27     Des Moines, IA     House of Bricks

June 29     Denver, CO     Ogden Theatre

July 2     Calgary, AB     Sled Island Festival +

July 3     Calgary, AB     Sled Island Festival +

July 5     Vancouver, BC     Rickshaw Theatre

July 6     Seattle, WA     Showbox at The Market

July 7     Eugene, OR     John Henry's

July 9     San Jose, CA     Blank Club

All dates feature Melvins (2 sets) w/Totimoshi except:

* = Melvins/ISIS/Totimoshi

** = Melvins/ISIS

+ = Melvins

‘Toon time in toyland once again, with Plastic Beach to be released this week by Virgin... but have these musical apes finally slipped on their banana peels?

By Jason Gross

Recently announced: that Gorillaz will be one of the headliners at this year's Coachella festival. But how important is Blur frontman Damon Albarn's futuristic cartoon-themed band?  Virgin parent company EMI actually blamed them and Coldplay for declining profits.  Maybe not surprisingly, since Gorillaz notched up multi-platinum sales when such a thing's become a rarity in the biz.

Keeping a relaxed release schedule, album #3 appears half a decade after Demon Days and maintains the theme of multi-styles (funk/rap/soul/rock) and as many guest appearances than your average rap album.  For anyone who found the first two albums too head-spinning, Plastic Beach is a relief as it's their most consistent release.  Unfortunately, that also makes it their most boring one, too, as their earlier wild highs (singles like "Clint Eastwood" & "Feel Good Inc.") and lows is what made them exciting and interesting.

Albarn keeps his guest list fascinating (including Lou Reed, Mark E. Smith, a mini-Clash reunion, Bobby Womack, and an Arabic orchestra) but except for Womack, they're mostly wasted, doing undistinguished cameos.  As before, the highlights come from the rappers - Snoop Dogg at his languid best introducing the record, and Mos Def near the end ("Sweepstakes").  As for Albarn himself, he sounds kind of tired, whether he's singing or trying rap.

All in all, not a terrible record per se, but not one you'll run to like the first two albums.  Maybe Albarn needs to let the next record gestate a while longer or try to stop being be an over-achiever with his other multi-star bands (Monkey; The Good, The Bad and The Queen).

The iconic British songstress kicks the collective ass of posh jazz club Yoshi's on March 3.

By Jud Cost

Raising her hands over her head like a triumphant prize fighter, Marianne Faithfull strides confidently onstage, then coughs into the mic. "Sorry," she says in a well-heeled British accent. "I've got a bit of a cold coming on. Just a little one," she reassures the devotees who have filled Yoshi's, the posh jazz club next to the railroad tracks that run through Oakland's Jack London Square. It's the perfect introduction to the legendary singer who somehow combines an air of nervous vulnerability with an attitude that lets you know she could probably kick your ass from here to the Bay Bridge just down the road.

"I loved Jack London," she says, referring to the namesake of the once upscale, now decidedly lifeless shopping center just across the tracks. "When I was a young girl, I wrote an essay on White Fang." It's opening night of a two-night stand, and a rare chance to catch this rags-to-riches, then rags-to-riches again chanteuse in a fairly intimate setting not much bigger than your living room-if you have a very large living room.

No amps onstage. It's evident tonight will bask in Faithfull's quieter side. "We won't be able to play the rockers," she says, nodding towards Doug Pettibone, the nimble acoustic guitarist seated next to her. "Saying that, could you please turn up the guitar in my monitor," she laughs, ended by a bit of a wheeze. Faithfull's fragile condition has her bundled up in a black sweater with what looks like white ostrich feathers protruding rakishly from the sleeves. She dedicates "Falling From Grace" to old pal Allen Ginsberg. "I really miss Allen," she says of the beat poet who helped her through some tough times. "I felt if Allen can do it, so can I," she says. "But I will not be doing 'Howl' tonight." Then she offers up the first line of the epic poem, anyway, once dragged through the U.S. legal system as obscene: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked..."

Faithfull now collaborates with the best minds of a much younger generation, including Colin Meloy of Portland's Decemberists, whose song "The Crane Wife," a highlight of her 2009 album, Easy Come, Easy Go (Decca) sounded even better tonight, stripped to the bone. "Crazy Love," a collaboration with Nick Cave, is simultaneously melancholy and hopeful. "I have to make you listen to my new songs," she smirks. "Then you get rewarded for your attention." The carrot she tosses the faithful is her diary of a mad housewife, "The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan," from her 1979 comeback LP, Broken English: "At the age of thirty-seven she realized she'd never/Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair/So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing/Little nursery rhymes she'd memorized in her daddy's easy chair." 

Equally as heartfelt was "Miss Otis Regrets,"  a Cole Porter chestnut she once warbled as a teenager in coffee bars in her Thames Valley hometown of Reading, about 40 miles west of London. "My god, I thought I was so grown-up at seventeen," she says of the days when she was about to receive "an education" only hinted at by the Carrie Mulligan character in the recent film of the same name.

Her long day's journey into night, which saw Faithfull fall all the way from pop royalty as consort to Mick Jagger to heroin addiction, anorexia and homelessness in the streets of London, was prophesied with deadly accuracy by "Sister Morphine," an eviscerating song she co-wrote in 1969 with Jagger and Keith Richards. "Come on, Sister Morphine, you better make up my bed/'Cause you know and I know in the morning I'll be dead/And you can sit around, and you can watch all the clean white sheets stained red." Faithfull now adds an eyes-wide-open postscript to her lost decade: "I wouldn't change a thing. It's been a long, strange journey, but we're all still here."

When she sings "As Tears Go By," her 1964 debut American hit (and the first song ever penned by Jagger and Richards), Faithfull is old enough now to give the tune a whole new depth of meaning. But nothing could have topped the set-closer to this exquisite evening, "Sing Me Back Home," a Merle Haggard death-row prison tune she learned from Richards and his former compadre, onetime Byrd and Flying Burrito Brother, Gram Parsons. Like her generational peer Van Morrison, and few others, Faithfull is living proof of the old adage: Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. In her case, life's crucible has turned Marianne Faithfull into the singer she was always meant to be.

Digital-only release will be recorded on tour that starts next week, then will arrive on May 18 for those who sign up in advance.

By Blurt Staff

Bad Religion is set to celebrate its 30^th anniversary this year and has announced plans to record a live album, 30 Years Live, during their upcoming spring 2010 House of Blues tour and offer it as a free "thank you" to loyal fans for a limited time only on May 18. 

Beginning today, fans are invited to sign up at www.badreligion.com for a free digital download of 30 Years Live that will be available for a limited time only. Meanwhile, check tour dates below - you just might find yourself attending a gig and becoming part of a live recording.

Bad Religion also plans to enter the studio to record their 15^th studio album which is expected for release this fall.  In a recent interview, prolific singer/professor/author Greg Graffin disclosed new information about Bad Religion's recording plans and the upcoming tour as well as his forthcoming book "Anarchy Evolution" which is due out this fall via HarperStudio. 

Tour Dates:

Mar 17 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
Mar 18 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
Mar 19 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues
Mar 20 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues
Mar 21 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues
Mar 24 - Los Angeles, CA - House of Blues
Mar 25 - Los Angeles, CA - House of Blues
Mar 26 - Las Vegas, CA - House of Blues
Mar 27 - Las Vegas, CA - House of Blues
Mar 31 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
Apr 1 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
Apr 2 - Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
Apr 3 - Los Angeles, CA - House of Blues

Album due May 18, Meanwhile, North American tour kicks off next week, too.

By Blurt Staff

As previously announced, Band of Horses third album is to be titled Infinite Arms - it's due May 18th through Brown Records/Fat Possum Records/Columbia Records - and today they revealed the sleeve art. It features the photography of the band's long time collaborator Christopher Wilson.
 

A tour kicks off next week in Colorado. Full itinerary below, including their two-night stand in Austin at SXSW.

Produced by Band of Horses with additional production from Phil Ek, mixed by Dave Sardy,  and recorded over a 16-month period, the songs on Infinite Arms project the essence of the different locales across America that became the setting for the recording and songwriting process behind the album.  The rich musical heritage of Muscle Shoals, AL, the sublime beauty of Asheville's Blue Ridge Mountains, the glamorous Hollywood Hills and the vast Mojave desert all influenced the sounds on Infinite Arms and helped yield the group's most focused and dynamic recordings to date. The serene woods of Northern Minnesota and the band's native Carolinas inspired the songwriting, lending the compositions an air of comfort and familiarity.

 
Band of Horses are Ben Bridwell, Creighton Barrett, Ryan Monroe, Tyler Ramsey and Bill Reynolds. Infinite Arms marks the recording debut of longtime touring members Ramsey and Reynolds, while Barrett and Monroe graced the last album, Cease to Begin. Through touring together in support of Cease to Begin and during breaks in the Infinite Arms recording process, the band have become a cohesive force with all members making invaluable contributions to the unmistakable sound that founder Bridwell has crafted since the band's inception. As Bridwell himself concedes, "In many ways, this is the first Band of Horses record."

 
Tour Dates:

 
March 15th - Boulder, CO - Fox Theater
March 16th - Denver, CO - Ogden Theater
March 18th - Austin, TX - Stubbs BBQ (SXSW)
March 19th - Austin, TX Central Presbyterian Church (SXSW)
April 8th - Paris, France - La Fleche D'or
April 9th - Brussels, Belgium - Orangerie
April 10th - Rotterdam, Netherlands- Motel Mozaique, Schouwburg
April 12th - London, UK - Koko
April 14th - Koln, Germany - Kulturkirche
April 16th - Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller
April 17th - Gothenburg, Sweden - Tradgarn
April 18th - Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
April 23rd - Raleigh, NC - Walnut Creek Amphitheater (with Widespread Panic)
April 24th -  Raleigh, NC - Walnut Creek Amphitheater (with Widespread Panic)
April 27th - Gainesville, FL - Rion Ballroom
April 28th - Miami, FL - Fillmore
April 29th - Orlando, FL - House of Blues
May 1st - New Orleans, LA  - Jazzfest
May 2nd - Memphis, TN - Beale St. Music Festival
May 27th - Davis, CA - UC Davis Freeborn Hall
May 30th - Bend, OR - Les Schwab Amphitheater (with She & Him)
May 31st - George, WA - Sasquatch Festival
June 5th - Bangor, IE - Ward Park (with Snow Patrol)
June 9th - London, UK - Roundhouse
June 12th - Glasgow, Scotland - Bellahouston Park (with Snow Patrol)
June 19th - Toronto, ONT - Olympic Island Concert (with Pavement and Broken Social Scene)
September 25th - Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theater