Need something to do tonight?

Check out Low Level Flight at Arlene's Grocery TONIGHT if you're in NYC!

Neon Neon's "Stainless Style"

Neon Neon -- I Lust U (featuring Cate Le Bon)

Neon Neon, the collaboration between Boom Bip (who I've had a soft spot for ever since he released that amazing track with folk favourite Nina Nastasia) and Gruff Rhys (of Super Furry Animals), have finally released their first album Stainless Style. You might remember Boom Bip's Neon Neon "Stainless Style" mixtape from November, which featured a few tracks from the album, as well as Prince, Janet Jackson, Neil Young, and that crazy catchy funereal Goblin track which you probably know better from Justice's "Phantom" (which, unlike "D.A.N.C.E.", doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out every time I hear it.) The album, after a long delay, came out this tuesday on Lex Records, and is basically concept album about... John DeLorean (yeah, that's right, DeLorean, as in the car in Back to the Future. Gary, are you reading this?)

Pitchfork described Stainless as a culmination of recent hipster zeitgeist (actually... pretty accurate) and my friend John brushed it off as a weaker Sebastién Tellier ripping off Kavinsky(whose alter ego died in a car crash in 1986 and apparently is making music from beyond the grave -- check out the video for Testarossa Autodrive, which is so cool it hurts, if you haven't seen it.) But, er, it's a really well done culmination of hipster zeitgeist, and I mean, I really like Sebastién Tellier, and Kavinsky, and also The Knife and Ladytron, which "I Lust U" in particular also recalls -- though Boom Bip's other influences, from hip hop to mechanical car clinking noises, plus a heavy dose of 80's pop and Italo disco, surface throughout the album. And, uh, I kind of can't stop listening to the album.

Download an older mix of "I Lust U" from XLR8R or stream the whole album on imeem. Tracks to note besides "I Lust You": "Trick for Treat", which features Spank Rock and Sean Tillman, the synthy "Belfast," and the "Neon Theme," which just sounds like a badass 80's movie soundtrack.

dressed in the dark?

In fourth grade someone's zitty older brother weeded the banks of the polluted stream next to my school and called it a nature trail, and my scribbles with Crayola magic markers won the competition to make a logo for the trail. The school got teeshirts with the logo printed, and just around the time when I would have actually started wearing it, my mother threw it away. This isn't a good story, but it's sort of almost relevant to the fact that Hot Chip and Threadless have teamed up for a Made in the Dark teeshirt competition. Basically, design a teeshirt around the theme of "made in the dark" (the name of their latest album), and the winners can get all kinds o' cool sheeit, like Hot Chip's full discography, a $500 Threadless gift card,  or a MicroKorg keyboard, not to mention getting to snicker at some douchebag on the L train wearing the shirt you designed. Maybe the winning design will be almost as cool as the Packanack Elementary Nature Trail teeshirt whose loss I'm still bemoaning.

In other news, as if you didn't know, Frontside favourites Chromeo open for Justice at the most ambitiously booked show of 2008 tonight at MSG -- oh, wait, I mean the WaMu Theatre, while most of the music-relevant world is waiting in security lines at LaGuardia for their flights to Austin for SXSW.  And Myspace FINALLY gets it together and is talking about launching a music service, possibly by the end of this year -- and actually with the support of EMI, Warner, and Sony BMG. (More on that at Daily Swarm).

Beatles to be available on iTunes; REM to be available on iLike

I don't care too much for money 'cause money won't buy me love -- but now it'll get me Abbey Road on my computer. Finally, The Beatles are going to be available on iTunes -- and it only cost Apple four hundred million dollars.

Meanwhile, R.E.M. are planning to pre-release their album Accelerate exclusively on iLike one week before its official release on April 1. iLike has been one of the fastest-growing music sites of late and is pretty much the single thing holding Facebook's attempt to encroach on Myspace's hold over music social networking -- seriously, if this were a band posting an album for streaming on Myspace before the release date, it would hardly be news-worthy. A few months ago, though, iLike was another glitchy Last.FM rip off which was awkwardly linked up with garageband.com, but not so anymore -- and this certainly gives the site a lot more cred. Says REM lead singer Michael Stipe: "We wanted to do something super fast and superreal." Read the whole story at the Wired blog.

what i'm listening to lately 1.0

Manchester's Working For a Nuclear Free City played their first shows ever in NYC this week. I tagged along to one of them as a friend's +1 because of the "free" thing, you know, but ended up actually... really digging the band and sort of can't stop listening to them since.


Working For a Nuclear Free City -- Rocket

WFaNFC play layered guitar-driven synth-y dream pop (?) that's somehow both shoegazey and dancey and incorporates influences from more weird shit than I can comprehend. Mysteriously, most of their songs seem to work as the soundtrack to the entirety of my Friday night, from the getting-ready-drinking-vodka-red-bull part, to the dark-bar-bright-lights-dancing part, to the mopey subway ride home alone, to the part where i drink half a Brita filter of water and lay on my floor with my huge DJ headphones staring up at the ceiling which is still kind of spinning while bemoaning my existence but secretly being pretty content about how awesome my headphones are and how awesome whatever I'm listening to sounds right then (you do it too, shut up.) (Also, for those of you that know the weird crap I listen to, Pitchfork gave them a 7.8/10, so it's not like I'm alone in loving their sound, either.)

If you missed WFaNFC at Music Hall of Williamsburg yesterday, they're playing a handful of showcases at SXSW, so try to catch them there. Or just check them out (and stream a lot more of their songs) at Myspace.

Canadian Blast BBQ at SXSW

Are you going to be at SXSW?  Not so keen on Rachael Ray?  You should probably come to the Canadian Blast BBQ.  Even if you're not Canadian you're welcome, as long as you have a SXSW badge, 'sall good.  Canadians are nice people, and also, the bands playing are pretty damn awesome:

United Steel Workers of Montreal

The Pack AD

City and Colour (which is the surprisingly cool acoustic side project of Dallas Green, lead singer of Ontario hardcore outfit Alexisonfire)

Hot Springs (who we at Frontside here are particularly fond of, despite the fact that they have the least google-able band name ever)

Dragonette (the Midnight Juggernauts' remix of their song "I Get Around" -- listen to it here at hypem-- was probably one of my favourite songs of 2007)

and a bunch of awesome hip-hop, featuring Cadence Weapon, Skratch Bastid, Grand Analog, etc....

Wednesday 3/12 from 3 to 7 PM, under the big top at Brush Square (across from the Austin convention center.)  Be there. Or else. K. Cool. 

Canadianblast.com

or be friends with Canadian Blast @ Myspace and Facebook

Pitchfork claims launch of Pitchfork.tv and licensing will not affect criticism

Daily Swarm just posted some quotes (and then predicted that assholes like me would blog about it) from a great interview that music critic Jim DeRogatis did with Pitchfork Media head honcho Ryan Schreiber regarding the upcoming launch of Pitchfork.tv and (oh, god) Pitchfork licensing -- and what that means for the ever-so-strict journalistic and critical standards of the site.

 

There are some who regard Pitchfork as the ultimate in current tastemaking; others think it's devolved from such to a bunch of narrow-minded old-school Pavement fans trying far too hard to write snarky, literary reviews bound entirely to the fast-changing hipster notions of what's cool in the totally passe genre of good old "indie rock." Regardless, its influence and audience remain wide, and this obviously has the potential to become a BFD pretty quickly (case in point: my first reaction was along the lines of "Well, better get to know one of their content editors, ASAP.")  But can a company licensing songs to video games be taken seriously as a source of unbiased criticism?  Will the user rating system (think stars on YouTube, or a section of most-viewed or most-favourited) influence the site's reviews and choice of news to publish?

DeRogatis: Fair enough, and that’s a valid point: Everybody is talking about what the models of the new media universe will be, but what you’re talking about is one of the oldest ideals that have existed from the start of print journalism: The advertising people don’t talk to the editorial people. There’s a firewall between them.

Schreiber: Right! Exactly. Exactly! And I mean, that’s the way that it’s always been set up, and that’s the way that we’re setting up Pitchfork.tv as well. And Pitchfork.tv is not even in the same city as Pitchfork editorial! They are independent things; it’s not the same people writing who are shooting.

DeRogatis: Sure. But at the end of the day, you’re the owner of all of those businesses.

 

Schreiber claims that nothing will change and that Pitchfork is still based on loyalty to fans and not, well, royalty, but DeRogatis definitely ruffled a few feathers with comparisons to the MTV empire and Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone.  Seems to me proof of Pitchfork's widespread media influence and position in pop culture, and an interest comment on the power of more personal internet-based media over print and television  -- but the final death knell of the site as a trustworthy source of unbiased indie journalism and quality criticism.  The whole interview, though lengthy, is a worthy read -- check out the whole thing at the Sun Times here.

Holy f*ck, Rachael Ray likes the Foo Fighters

BrookylnVegan and Stereogum readers couldn't control their joyful disdain when obnoxiously perky Food Network queen Rachael Ray announced that she was hosting a SXSW party, slated to feature her husband's band, The Cringe, along with Holy Fuck, The Raveonettes, Scissors For Lefty, and more. Ms. Ray doesn't care that you indie snobs criticized her, though. In fact, she cares so little that she announced it on MTV News and says she doesn't understand why you all think she's some kind of "food robot." She really DOES like indie rock, especially the Foo Fighters.

"With a band like [Holy F---], I have to say that it was the name that got us listening. But we're glad we did. They're pretty good," Ray told MTV. "And I don't understand why that's so surprising. I find it weird that they find it weird.... I'm a huge fan of rock music in general — all kinds. I like indie stuff, my favorite band is the Foo Fighters."

I don't even know where to start. Indie rock is, like, almost as fantabulous as Dunkin Donuts coffee! Dave Grohl is so totally yum-o!