Scarlett Johansson and David Sitek talk Tom Waits album
Joe’s Pub in New York is known for gathering industry types for debuts of major label artists. Tuesday's event was only different in that the crowd consisted of a handful of shaggily clad journalists and the artist on stage had an unusually familiar face. Scarlett Johansson was there, answering questions after the house speakers played through Anywhere I Lay My Head, her album of Tom Waits covers which is set for release on May 20. Paste happened to be in NYC, and caught the last three tracks of the album as well as the question and answer session. The record... read more
Pere Ubu announces spring tour dates
Having emerged from the Cleveland scene over 30 years ago, post-punk band Pere Ubu has announced it's still alive and warbling with a new mini-spring tour in support of its most recent full-length, Why I Hate Women. The quintet only plans on taking its shows--and lead singer David Thomas' "gruff caterwauls," as one Paste concert review of them and recent Band of the Week Mahjongg put it--to four cities. Two of the dates, which dot the South, will also feature a live underscoring of Roger Corman's 1963 film X, The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. May we relay a quote... read more
eMusic.com starts new Selects program
Let's talk digital music. Listeners today (the ones who aren't stealing their music on P2P networks) still pay retail prices at iTunes and Amazon.com for what amounts to a series of zeroes and ones. To a casual fan looking for the hot new Soulja Boy jam, the iTunes/Amazon route is a legit way to download major label releases while putting your two cents into the artist's wallet. But adventurous ears that need more varied stimulation can turn to eMusic.com, the independent, subscription-based digital retailer established in 2003. The site has grown exponentially since its creation and now offers over three... read more
The Eagles to headline Stagecoach 2008's added third day
The brains behind the Stagecoach Country Music Festival (Coachella's alter-ego) just added a third day - Friday, May 2 - to its schedule, and have pulled down none other than The Eagles to headline it. The event, billed as "California's country music festival" features other big-name country, bluegrass, folk, roots rock and alt.country acts like Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw, the Judds, Carrie Underwood and Big & Rich. The added opening day alone boasts John Fogerty, Trisha Yearwood, Shelby Lynne, Glen Campbell and Rissi Palmer. The Eagles released their most recent album, the extremely-high-selling Long Road Out of Eden, last year,... read more
Jim Jarmusch to Control Bill Murray, Javier Bardem, more
When we last left him, Jim Jarmusch was readying his first feature in years. Called The Limits of Control, the film is a road movie being shot by Jarmusch and Christopher Doyle about a mysterious protagonist traveling across Spain. And now, less than a month before shooting is set to begin, more casting announcements have started coming in about the film. While Isaach De Bankole will be playing the film's lead, Jarmusch is enlisting the help of many past contributors. First and foremost of these is Bill Murray, who worked with Jarmusch previously in Broken Flowers and Coffee and Cigarettes.... read more
Kathleen Edwards plans major U.S. tour
Canadian singer-songwriter Kathleen Edwards will release her new album Asking for Flowers March 4 on Zoe Records, and set out on a 21-date U.S. tour shortly after. Edwards burst onto the folk rock scene back in 2003 with her brooding debut album Failer, and won rave reviews for her 2005 follow-up Back To Me. Since her first album was released, she has performed with the likes of Aimee Mann, Willie Nelson and My Morning Jacket, and has seen her music showcased on television’s Austin City Limits and in Cameron Crowe’s 2005 film Elizabethtown. Edwards’ upcoming tour, her first in more... read more
Man Man and Yeasayer join forces for (best) tour (ever)
Ferocious live bands pair up all the time to conquer a few lucky cities. In fact, one of the subjects of this very news item, Yeasayer, hasn't quite finished doing just that with MGMT, two bands Paste writer Jeremy Goldmeier predicted will be "a pretty big deal over the next few years, if they aren't already dominating your eardrums." But sometimes, just sometimes, two bands that are so wildly awesome live get together and pandemonium breaks out. You can imagine our delight, then, when we discovered earlier today that Yeasayer and the constantly gigging Philly boys of Man Man will... read more
Comedian Todd Barry to release new album
Stand-up comic-turned-comedy actor Todd Barry, recently seen doing the “Doggie Bounce” on the season finale of Flight of the Conchords, will put out his third comedy album From Heaven through Comedy Central on March 4. Barry's comedy, which ranges from the crudest of the crude to humor as tame as in Sesame Street, draws heavily from his past experiences as a substitute teacher, a tennis court maintenance technician and a clerk at a VD clinic (no, really). Related links: ToddBarry.com ComedyCentral.com - Todd Barry clips Todd Barry on MySpace Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.... read more
Writers Guild of America strike officially finished
Cutting to the short and quick of it, the Writer's Guild strike is officially over. The announcement came yesterday (Feb. 12) evening from WGA West president Patrick Verrone, who said, "The strike is over. Our membership has voted. Writers can go back to work." The announcement comes after 100 days of picket lines. Final ballots for the new contract agreements showed outstanding support for the newly negotiated terms, with 92.% of 3,775 ballots cast in favor of returning to work. In response to this agreement, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers issued a statement saying, "This is a... read more
The Mars Volta announces first set of spring tour dates
The Mars Volta has confirmed a handful of spring tour dates in support of its new album The Bedlam in Goliath. Goliath is the band’s fourth album since its inception in 2001 by former At the Drive-In bandmates Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala. The album was released Jan. 29, and entered the Billboard Top 200 last week at #3. Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala have a reputation for being anything but conventional, and indeed, they have already completed an 11-date preview tour for the new album in January. The band also released the video game Goliath the Soothsayer Jan. 2 as a... read more
Radiohead announces tour dates, gets remixed
All right, Radiohead-heads, it's that time. We know it's been a minute since our last proper Radiohead Roundup, but we are, at long last, ready to satiate your Rainbow-related hunger once again. Tour dates, Amplive remixes and an EMI-released greatest hits collection are coming your way from (or not so much from) the beguiling Brits. 1. Oakland producer/DJ Amplive's Rainydayz Remixes, taken entirely from In Rainbows material, is finally being released after Radiohead's cease and desist put a temporary stop to the project. After acknowledging he probably should have obtained permission from Radiohead before releasing the remixes, all parties came... read more
Rockstar Games issues Bully on Wii and Xbox 360
If you already have a PlayStation 2, then perhaps you’ve already experienced the thrill of being a pixilated high school student. But on March 4, the opportunity will be granted to those individuals who prefer Wii or Xbox 360. That’s right, Rockstar Games’ Bully is coming to a console near you in an expanded version known as Bully: Scholarship Edition. The game offers the same great ability to live the life of an oppressed high school student that you’ve come to know and love, but it also offers some new features. There are fresh missions, classes, characters and outfits, as... read more
Timbaland partners with Verizon on “mobile album”
Remember how cell phone novels are the cool new thing? Oh, you don’t? Well they are. In Japan. We’re not making this up—just take a look. OK, now that we’re on the same page, we can tell you that while you may not be reading works of literature on your phone, you will soon be able to listen to the world’s first “mobile album.” Is that disbelief? Didn’t we prove our truth-telling credentials with that cell phone novel fact? Well, the mobile album is real, as you can see right here. Every month in 2008, Timbaland will produce a song... read more
New album finished, Blind Melon set to tour
Blind Melon has a new album coming out, and will hit the road for a two month tour starting at the end of February. Singer Shannon Hoon died of an drug overdose in 1995, and the four remaining band members issued an outtakes record in 1996. Although they tried to keep the band's identity relevant for a time, they officially called off the search for a new singer in 1999. The four remaining members went their separate ways for a while, until guitarist Chris Thorn and bassist Brad Smith met singer/songwriter Travis Warren. Thorn and Smith were called in to... read more
Shrek takes on Broadway this December
Although the fourth installment of the ongoing Shrek franchise is not scheduled to come out until 2010, this hasn’t stopped people from creating a buzz around the zygote beginnings of the latest edition of the animated film. Most recently, there has been talk of Sir Paul McCartney signing on to do the soundtrack and possibly even a little CGI cameo in Shrek Goes Fourth. But you won’t have to wait two years before hearing some new Shrek-inspired tunes. That’s because the big green ogre and all his fairytale friends are going to be hitting the stage. Although there will be... read more
Bon Iver tours, gives away cool posters
Around this time two years ago, Justin Vernon was just emerging from the three months spent in his father’s hunting cabin up in northern Wisconsin, where he’d unknowingly recorded the first album of the rest of his life. Following the self-release of that record—For Emma, Forever Ago—under the name Bon Iver in 2007, Vernon’s wintery opus will be officially released via Jagjagjuwar this coming Tuesday (Feb. 19). If "Skinny Love," Bon Iver’s track on Paste’s sampler 40, caught your ear—or if you’re just looking to redeem yourself for procuring For Emma by some less-than-legal means last year—you might want to... read more
Sonic Youth plans album, art exhibition, more
Sonic Youth seems bent and determined to prove its superhero levels of endurance this year. With three staggeringly diverse projects in the works, Superman couldn’t keep this kind of schedule. Already one of rock’s hardest working bands with more than 20 albums to date, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley will reunite this spring to begin writing material for a new album after a four-month break, NME reports. The as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2006’s rather-good Rather Ripped is scheduled for release sometime next year. The band is also poised to enter the art world with an upcoming show,... read more
The Long Blondes spread glamour on international tour
Like any good band, The Long Blondes really appreciate their fans, hence why they announced new U.K. tour dates after all their March shows sold out. Then they started feeling really bad that the rest of Western Europe was being left out, so they expanded their April dates throughout the European Union. After that, they realized they were leaving the (former) colonies in the cold and marked their calendars for some late spring shows in the U.S. and Canada. The “Pretty in Punk” group is touring to support its upcoming LP, Couples, coming via Rough Trade on April 7. If... read more
The Gap colors Raveonettes, Dntel, Swizz Beatz, more
Attention synesthetes: The Gap will theoretically be raising public awareness of your disorder—as well as the store's brightly-hued spring and summer collections—this month with the upcoming "Sound of Color" promotion featuring new songs by Dntel, The Raveonettes, Swizz Beatz, Marié Digby and The Blakes. Gap gave each band/artist a color and asked them to work their wizardry, resulting in "Turning Red" (Dntel), "Black and White" (The Raveonettes), "Candy Paint" (Swizz Beatz, for green), "Magic" (The Blakes, for blue) and "Yellow" (Marié Digby). Additionally, in a move that begs the question, "How much money are they spending on this promotion, anyway,... read more
Star Wars CGI animation to hit big, small screens
Movie goers haven't seen the last of the Star Wars franchise. Clone Wars, chronicling the events between Episodes II and III, will take to the big screen this August as an event that will kick off the 3-D series' launch on Cartoon Network. Distributed by Warner Bros. instead of 20th Century Fox, Clone Wars will mark Lucasfilm's first use of CGI in an animated Star Wars spin-off, working as a higher-budget expansion to a 2003 cartoon miniseries of the same name. Related links: Clone Wars trailer TV.com profile Star Wars: Episodes I-VI — The greatest post-modern art film ever Got... read more
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Blind Pilot - The Story I Heard
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Punch Brothers - Punch Brothers at CMJ
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