Bumbershoot announces music/comedy/arts lineup
A crazy-huge lineup spanning various mediums and genres that don’t hang out enough has been announced for Seattle’s 37th annual Bumbershoot festival on Labor Day weekend. Wu-Tang Clan, The Shins, Devendra Banhart, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, the Avett Brothers, at least one Christian metalcore band and some group called Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head are among the 100+ artists holding down the music portion of the event. Fergie’s booked as well, sure to arrive with her legion of style-minions. Bumbershoot’s comedy sector will be manned by the Stella trio, Janeane Garofalo, Eugene Mirman and others – plus, some kind of... read more
Exclusive download from Michael McDermott’s Noise From Words
Michael McDermott is a critically acclaimed singer-songwriter with a new album out in late August, but in the meantime, he has managed to invade the worlds of film and literature. And he didn’t even have to put on a costume or buy a typewriter. If standing around your local record store and waiting for Noise From Words to hit the shelves on August 28 seems daunting, there are some other ways to get your fix. You can click here to download “No Words,” an exclusive free track from McDermott’s upcoming album. But if that’s not enough, you can also head... read more
Remix Stephen Kellogg for collaboration contest
Remember when you thought you possessed innate music production skills, back when you owned MTV Music Generator for Playstation? Eight years later, it’s time to dust off those mix-mastering instincts and put them to the test for Indaba Music’s “Studio Access” collaboration contest. Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers are among the bands who encourage you to fiddle around with their music – basically, you go to the group’s Indaba page and start the “simple process” of adding and remixing individual tracks from the artist’s recording sessions. Simple process! You’ll wonder why your favorite local band can’t seem to get it... read more
Gogol Bordello matches up with Madonna
Last summer, Gogol Bordello played a New York benefit concert to raise awareness of anti-Roma police brutality in the Ukraine. Tomorrow, members of the “gypsy punk” rock group are back to cause-oriented performing – this time supporting Madonna during her Wembley Stadium Live Earth show. According to Billboard.com, Madonna invited Gogol Bordello band leader Eugene Hutz and violinist Sergey Ryabtsev to join her due to an “unrelated project” Hutz and Madonna are working on. Hmm! Regardless, the Live Earth plans must have been last-minute, as Gogol Bordello just canceled its Scotland T in the Park Festival appearance. The whole affair... read more
Download Talib Kweli/Cornel West single
Hidden Beach Forum has released a single by Talib Kweli from Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations, a politically charged album released in partnership with Dr. Cornel West’s Black Men Who Mean Business. Called “Bushanomics,” the song criticizes President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina and features interjections from Dr. West like “We go from the bling-bling to let freedom ring.” A professor of religion at Princeton University, Dr. West will participate in the Essence Music Festival Empowerment Seminar Series in New Orleans this Sunday. He and other Never Forget collaborators will discuss the topic “Hip-Hop Moving to A... read more
Bill Callahan announces a few tour dates
Bill Callahan will embark on a somewhat modest tour later this year, with half a dozen stops in Ireland and Great Britain, about as many dates in the US and a triplet of shows in Canada. All ye who take Callahan’s willingness to play your area for granted, consider yourself unworthy of the artist formerly known as Smog and (smog), whose Drag City release Woke on Whaleheart was dubbed a “gospel-tinged ... emergence into spiritual clearing.” Here’s the schedule: August: 10 - Dublin, Ireland - The Village 11 - Galway, Ireland - Roisin Dubh 12 - Belfast, Northern Ireland -... read more
Flavor Flav target of next Comedy Central roast
On August 12, the entire concept of roasting will lose every shred of original meaning and intention during Comedy Central’s roast of Flavor Flav. Riddle me this: how can anyone successfully mock a human being with zero self-consciousness? How they bring new hilarities to light about someone who wears his batcrap-ridiculousness on a five pound timepiece? The joke will be on every single roaster (except Patton Oswalt, who rightfully should attend every roast available, even those of company CEOs), in whom no one would ever trust to disperse witticisms on less obvious targets. The only easier target would be Carrot... read more
Sunset Rubdown unveils new album info
Loads of new info and sounds pertaining to Sunset Rubdown’s next album have emerged, each one presented here for you to cherish and revisit -- just as one shuffles and re-shuffles through an old cigar box filled with marbles, special happy meal toys and loose bits of string, kept under the bedside table. Item one, the title: Random Spirit Lover Item two, the release date: October Item three, the record label: Jagjaguwar Item four, general band information: Unlike 2005’s Snake's Got A Leg and very much like 2006’s Shut Up I Am Dreaming, the new release features people besides animal... read more
Magik Markers restrain themselves on new album
It is interesting how folks who videotape noise bands end up doing said bands one better. You thought twenty straight minutes of feedback was challenging? Try a mere five minutes of feedback recorded through a sub-par digital camera mic, compressed one or two times over for YouTube. Oh the unholy mess of cacophonous brain-to-bowel shaking sonics that result. Magik Markers live videos are impressively painful. Observe: - BWWWBBWWWBWWWWAHBWWAHWBWAHH - EEESKKKKEEEEKKKSKKSKKKKKKRRRRRRRRR - PLIKeeEEAH PLIKeeEEAH PLIKeeEEAH For their very first studio album, on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace label, the Markers claim to exhibit a new sense of “formality and restraint.” Who wants... read more
Castanets finish new album, despite setbacks
“Let’s go outside, my dear, into the murderous night,” Castanets founder Ray Raposa sings ironically on his band’s last release, First Light’s Freeze. Shortly before completing the upcoming record, In the Vines, Raposa was mugged at gunpoint in front of his Brooklyn home. “I have had to halt production and/or writing and/or thinking about this album repeatedly due to actual, incapacitating depressions,” he stated. Appropriately, In the Vines is based on a Hindu fable about inescapable fate. Even though the album is finally ready to hit shelves October 23, Raposa and company continue their struggle – recently in... read more
Appleseed to release 10th anniversary comps.
A decade ago, activist attorney Jim Musselman founded Appleseed Recordings, subscribing to the “rock can save the world” school of thought. Musselman, who previously worked with Ralph Nader and Michael Moore, hoped his totally independent label could raise social and political awareness by fostering “the next generation of Woody Guthries and Pete Seegers.” Since then, Appleseed has attracted the new and original folk rock generation, many of whom are featured on two upcoming compilations showcasing the label’s mission and influence. Its first sampler, Sowing the Seeds: The 10th Anniversary, is a double-disc that hits shelves Sept. 11. Soon afterward on... read more
Paste Culture Club: Bonnaroo wrap-up episode
Holy smokes, a new Paste Culture Club podcast! Check it out for music and interviews from Charlie Louvin, Rocco DeLuca, The Whigs, Martha Wainwright, Tin Cup Prophette and more. Subscribe to the enhanced podcast ~ or ~ Subscribe to the mp3 podcast. ~ or ~ Download mp3 of this episode only. Related links: Paste Culture Club CharlieLouvinBros.com Paste: A Girl's Camera View of Bonnaroo Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com ... read more
Trey Anastasio goes instrumental
Trey Anastasio will self-release his new album The Horseshoe Curve on July 24. The album in entirely instrumental, its titled inspired by a train that passed next to the stage during his 2002 show in Pittsburgh. "You can hear it on the record," Anastasio stated. "It sounded incredible, the band started playing to the rhythm of the train and hence, the name of the album." Neat. A train is probably the second most wicked non-traditional instrument, next to cannon-fire. A portion of money made from sales will benefit Anastasio’s Seven Below Arts Initiative, which offers residency programs at an old... read more
Stars dish out new album details
Break out the poutine and let September 25 be a second Canada Day in your heart, for that is when Montreal electro-poppers Stars release their fourth album, In Our Bedroom After the War. Mixed by Joe Chiccarelli (Morrissey, The Shins, The White Stripes), the record’s greatest song title is definitely “Bitches in Tokyo.” In case you’re unfamiliar, Stars includes two members of Broken Social Scene – but don’t call it a "side project." "People don't say, 'Oh, I had a kid and now I'm having a side-kid.' You know what I mean?" singer Amy Millan told the Toronto Star. Tracklisting... read more
Fergie peddles pumps, makes millions
"The Black Eyed Peas have a rich tradition of lending their support to worthy causes," proclaims the website for the group’s Peapod Foundation – a nonprofit its members founded in 2004 to benefit impoverished children in Africa and foster children in Los Angeles. Maybe these unfortunate youths can finally have leopard-print slippers and platform sandals of their own, now that Peas singer Fergie has signed a 2 million pound contract to product-place the Candie's fashion line in her music. "With record sales in decline, you must find novel ways to make money out of the music," an executive at Interscope... read more
Smashing Pumpkins release video, streamable album
The Smashing Pumpkins made some of the most memorable music videos of the '90s, with "Tonight, Tonight" regularly landing near "November Rain" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on MTV’s annual top 100 video countdown. Inspired by silent film, its intentionally primitive theatrical props were more stunning than any 3-D CGI IMAX High-Definition Ultimate SFX 3000 experience ever could be. Today, the reunited Pumpkins released a somewhat-underwhelming, effects-splattered video for their new single, "Tarantula." It features Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlain and the band’s two new members lost within a sea of alterna-somethings from central casting. The song itself has decent energy,... read more
7-eleven becomes Kwik-E-Mart, sells Squishees
In celebration of the brilliant 7-11/Simpsons movie cross-promotion of converting convenience stores across the country into Kwik-E-Marts, we salute the songwriting of Alf Clausen: YouTube: Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart? For the rest of July, delicious fictional items can be yours, excluding Duff Beer and Laramie “high tar” cigarettes. Folks are already trying to hawk Buzz cola on eBay as “rare,” but nearly all of the 6,000 7-elevens across the U.S. and Canada will have the item and others like Krusty O’s and Squishees. If only each were as comically toxic as their fake-life counterparts. Today is indeed the day... read more
Universal Music Group refuses iTunes deal
Amid Jesus Phone frenzy, during which even this non-technology news blog has finally found some way to use the aforementioned holy moniker, Universal Music Group is uninterested in an immortal bond with Apple. The number one music business group recently refused a long-term licensing agreement with the iTunes Music Store, announcing that it prefers openness to month-by-month contracts. According to Billboard.com, “The market-leading music firm’s decision to break ranks could potentially derail Apple’s dominance of the online music market. . .UMG’s tough new stance comes as the record industry awaits the arrival of Amazon’s download service.” The New York Times... read more
Fats Domino gets much-needed tribute album
[Above: Robert Plant and Fats Domino] A photograph of rescuers helping rock ‘n’ roll founder Fats Domino out of a boat near his flooded 9th ward home was one of the few uplifting images amid the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Since then, the legendary artist has yet to raise enough money to restore his home -- a recent benefit auction of a Domino-autographed baby grand piano attracted no bids. Because every member of the upscale auction crowd failed that one, Domino’s colleagues in the rock industry (that wouldn’t be what it is without his influence) are stepping up with a... read more
Over the Rhine wants a song to be president
Hillary Clinton recently held a widely-publicized election for her presidential theme song, won by Celine Dion’s “You and I.” But what if an actual song could be president? Not that song, of course, since it’s French-Canadian, but something with twang. Ohio-based musicians Over the Rhine lay out the scenario in “If A Song Could be President,” available on their upcoming album The Trumpet Child. Among the predicted results: - Election-day humming (does your vote still count if you’re tone deaf?)- Jukeboxes on the moon (space jams?)- Patsy Cline as a founding father (plenty of room on Mt. Rushmore!)- Neil Young... read more
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