Signs of Life 2008: Best Music
Leona Naess - "All is Fair"
the everybodyfields - "Worth Keeping"
The Low Anthem Covers All the Bases
Album Stream: Listen to Mindy Smith's Christmas album My Holiday
Los Angeles indie-pop squad The Little Ones explain on their website how they realized once upon a time "that their only weapon against reality was their imagination." So what did they do? All that a group can, really. "They embarked on a radical experiment: to see if they could convince themselves that everything was going to be all right."
A uniformly compelling fine tuning of an already-luminary act
If there was a Girl Talk School of Album Release Technique, The Walkmen would be at the top of the class. Their latest offer, You & Me, will be available on the cheap three weeks early, via the interwebs. But the group has perhaps one-upped Prof. Gillis by adding a new and quite refreshing twist to the lesson: They will be pairing up with Amie Street, an online indie music marketplace, to donate all the proceeds of the $5 album to the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Marissa Cooper might be long-since dead, but The Walkmen prove there is life after the O.C. The New York City indie-rock quintet that once performed on the So Cal teen-soap is gearing up to release its fourth original album this fall and play a handful of shows in August.
One mere day before their tour with padawan learners White Rabbits, fresh details on The Walkmen's upcoming record have arrived to us via Billboard.com. The website reports that the group has wrapped work on nine songs for the album, with six more tunes to go.
"We're all really pumped about it," frontman Hamilton Leithauser told Billboard. "We've written a lot of songs in the past year and really done some editing, which I think is a new move towards maturity for us."
There aren't many concrete details available about this untitled fifth record at the moment - mostly because The Walkmen are working on a new label deal to distribute the set. Still, they're shooting for a spring release. Song titles include "Around and Around," "Blue Route" and "Lost You."
Meanwhile, The Walkmen band mentorship program continues. After their White Rabbits dates, they'll take Brooklyn's (latest) great white hope, Vampire Weekend, under their tutelage for a run of spring dates.
The complete Walkmen tour rundown:
January
16 - Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Diesel *
17 - Pontiac, Mich. @ The Crofoot *
18 - Milwaukee, Wisc. @ Turner Hall *
19 - Madison, Wisc. @ High Noon *
20 - Chicago, Ill. @ Schubas *
21 - St. Louis, Mo. @ Duck Room *
22 - Columbus, Ohio @ The Basement *
23 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Jonny Brenda's *
24 - Baltimore, Md. @ Ottobar *
February
27 - San Francisco, Calif. @ The Independent
28 - Orange County, Calif. @ Samueli Theater
March
3 - Carrboro, N.C. @ Cat's Cradle
4 - Charleston, S.C. @ The Maproom
5 - Tallahassee, Fla. @ Club Downunder (FSU)
6 - Orlando, Fla. @ The Social %
7 - South Florida Everglades, Fla. @ Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation (Langerado)
8 - St. Augustine, Fla. @ Cafe Eleven %
9 - Atlanta, Ga. @ The Earl %
10 - Birmingham, Ala. @ The Bottletree %
12 - Charlottesville, Va. @ The Satellite Ballroom
* - w/ White Rabbits
% - w/ Vampire Weekend
Related links:
TheWalkmen.com
The Walkmen on MySpace
YouTube: The Walkmen play "The Rat" on Letterman
Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.
Aww... isn't this sweet? The Walkmen, acting like a surrogate big brother band, are rolling out on tour with White Rabbits. Both groups are based in New York, and the White Rabbits sound has always had a few notable strands of Walkmen DNA in it (just read our Band of the Week feature on the group). What lessons will the elder Manhattanites pass on to their juniors? How to duck the blogarazzi after a gig? Tips on finding the perfect drum sound? Or will they all just get drunk and talk sports and pop culture? Oh to be a fly on the wall...
Walkmen + White Rabbits dates:
January
16 - Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Diesel
17 - Pontiac, Mich. @ The Crofoot
18 - Milwaukee, Wisc. @ Turner Hall
19 - Madison, Wisc. @ High Noon
20 - Chicago, Ill. @ Schubas *
21 - St. Louis, Mo. @ Duck Room
22 - Columbus, Ohio @ The Basement
23 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Jonny Brenda's
* w/ White Denim, Bound Stems (Tomorrow Never Knows Festival)
As previously reported, The Walkmen are also on the varied lineup for the Langerado Music Festival, taking place March 6-9 on Florida's Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation. We did not, however, alert our readers when the band read scripts from Sex and the City on Daytrotter Sessions earlier this month. Hamilton Leithauser as Sarah Jessica Parker? The mind boggles!
And finally, one last little tidbit from the band's website: The Walkmen hope to have a new album finished by the end of the year and in stores by Spring of 2008. Score!
Related links:
The Walkmen on MySpace
WhiteRabbitsMusic.com
YouTube: The Walkmen - "Louisiana"
Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.
Instead of going through the usual waiting period and record company bureaucracy sometimes involved in creating a new album, the Walkmen are bringing a new batch of songs to the streets now. Recently holed up in Hoboken, N.J.’s Water Music Studio, the band has six songs recorded, or “about half” of their new album, says frontman Hamilton Leithauser. As such, the Brooklyn-based guys are hitting the road.
“If you told me two months ago I would be on tour, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Leithauser tells Paste. “But we were so excited about the songs we wanted to go out and play them.”
After releasing two albums in 2006, the Walkmen will shift focus to new material. “We’ll be playing less and less older stuff,” Leithauser says. A Thousand Miles Off was released in May of last year, and the band’s song-for-song cover of Harry Nilsson and John Lennon’s 1974 release, Pussy Cats, hit stores in October. Some of the Pussy Cats songs may find their way into setlists every once in a while, though. “They’re kind of ridiculous,” Leithauser says. “So, when the time is right.”
After the relocating of Marcata, the Harlem studio built by the band, the Walkmen decided to head to Jersey. The large recording room at Water inspired some interesting new sounds for the album currently being recorded, which contrasts A Thousand Miles Off’s smaller sound.“We’ve got some really good, big sounds going that we haven’t had in a long time that we’re really pumped about,” Leithauser says.
The singer expects to use the upcoming live shows not only to premiere the new songs but also to work them out in front of an audience. “You can definitely learn things [live] you can’t get from playing an empty studio,” he says. The band will be joined on the April leg of the tour by Kaiser Chiefs.
2007 Walkmen tour dates:
February
23-Melbourne @ Corner Hotel
24-Melbourne @ Laneway Festival
25-Melbourne @ Laneway Festival
28-Perth @ Perth International Arts Festival
March
02-Sydney @ The Factory
03- Brisbane @ Laneway Festival
04-Sydney @ Laneway Festival
08-New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
09-Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar
10-Columbus, OH @ Little Brother's
11-Chicago, IL @ Schubas
12-Newport, KY @ Southgate House
13-Louisville, KY @ Headliners
18-New Orleans, LA @ Parish
19-Tallahassee, FL @ Beta Bar
20-Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club
21-Asheville, NC @ Grey Eagle
22-Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
23-Washington, DC @ Rock & Roll Hotel
April
06-Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
07-Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
09-Boston, MA @ Avalon
12-New York, NY @ Roseland Ballroom
17-Montreal, Quebec @ Spectrum
18-Toronto, Ontario @ Kool Haus
20-Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
21-Minneapolis, MN @ Trocadero
24-Vancouver, British Columbia @ Commodore Ballroom
25-Seattle, WA @ Showbox Theatre
26-Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
27-San Francisco, CA @ Warfield
28-Los Angeles, CA @ venue TBA
Related links:
The Walkmen official site
Marcata Studios site
Water Music Studios site
Kaiser Chiefs site
| Dec 3 Wed |
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Episode 70
August 19, 2008
