The Buck Starts Here

You will recall late last year when R.E.M. officially called it a day.  Sad news for music lovers but news today that guitarist Peter Buck has reportedly lined up his first solo full-length endeavour.  (While Buck has released numerous albums with side projects such as the Baseball Project, the Minus 5,Tuatatra, Hindu Love Gods and as a member of Robyn Hitchcock's band, he has never released a solo record proper.)

From the Guardian:

One of the band's long-time collaborators, guitarist Scott McCaughey, told Seattle's KIRO 97.3: "Peter's making this record of his." McCaughey offered no further details about the project, saying simply it will be "pretty 'out'". Buck will probably sing on the record, but is unlikely to sing in concert. He is also considering releasing the LP on vinyl only, with no download version.

Looks like 2012 should be lining up to be a stellar music year.

Radiohead Announce More Tour Dates

UPDATE : Radiohead Announce More 2012 Tour Dates

Radiohead have announced a number of new dates through North America and Europe on this stretch of their current world tour.  Check the website for ticket availability however it appears tickets for Canadian dates will go on sale March 8^th.

From  Radiohead.com:

05/29/12 – Comcast Center – Mansfield, MA
05/31/12 – Prudential Center – Newark, NJ
06/01/12 – Prudential Center – Newark, NJ
06/03/12 – Verizon Center – Washington, DC
06/05/12 – Riverbend Music Center – Cincinnati, OH
06/06/12 – Blossom Music Center – Cuyahoga Falls, OH
06/10/12 – First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre – Tinley Park, IL
06/11/12 – The Palace of Auburn Hills – Auburn Hills, MI
06/13/12 – Susquehanna Bank Center – Camden, NJ
06/15/12 – Bell Centre – Montreal, QC
06/16/12 – Downsview Park – Toronto, ON

SLED ISLAND ANNOUNCES INITIAL HEADLINERS FOR 2012

Sled Island organizers have announced the initial headliners performing at this year's festival across multiple venues in Calgary this summer.  Running from June 20 - 23, 2012.Canadian songstress Feist leads the pack of initial headliners, along with New York's hardest working rockers The Hold Steady, indie rock pioneers Archers of Loaf (pictured below) and purveyor of party rock Andrew W.K.. Indie rock god Stephen Malkmus  (and The Jicks), rising star Grimes, Toronto's eerie folk artist Timber Timbre, and (Sonic Youth’s) Thurston Moore. These eight initial headliners will be among more than 200 musical acts performing at Sled Island 2012.
 
Let the stampede to the ticket windows commence.

From the Press Release:

Entering it's sixth year, Sled Island will once again return to Olympic Plaza, the fully licensed and all-ages main outdoor stage on Friday June 22 and Saturday June 23. Friday night at Olympic Plaza will feature performances by Feist and Timber Timbre, with others to be announced. Saturday at Olympic Plaza is an all-day event featuring several of the festival's biggest headliner acts including The Hold Steady, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, plus more to be announced. Tickets to both Olympic Plaza outdoor events go on sale at $45 for each day on Saturday March 3 @ 10am  MST via www.ticketmaster.ca

 
Sled Island also pleased to participate in Calgary 2012, the celebration of Calgary as the Cultural Capital of Canada. 2012 marks a pivotal year in Calgary's cultural history including the centennial anniversaries of some of the city's cultural cornerstones: Calgary Stampede, City of Calgary Recreation, Calgary Public Library and Theatre Junction Grand and Pumphouse Theatres. As a celebration of the city's vibrant and youthful culture, the festival plans to shine a spotlight on the flourishing music and arts communities that exists in Calgary.  
 
Festival passes are on sale now for middle-bird prices at $179 for the Festival Discovery Pass and $299 for the Festival Discovery Plus Pass until Saturday, March 31st. Visit shop.sledisland.com to pick up your festival pass today!

www.sledisland.com or www.ticketmaster.ca 

UPDATED: Wilco and Billy Bragg Announce Ambitious Mermaid Avenue Release

(*Just released project artwork.)

Wilco and Billy Bragg are set to release a Woody Guthrie tribute called Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions.  The ambitious four album set will mark the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birthday. You may recall this musical  collaboration started when Woody's daughter Nora Guthrie and Billy Bragg met at a show in Central Park in New York, and as far back 1997 Wilco and Billy Bragg started recording old Woody Guthrie songs from archived recordings. This lead to the release of Mermaid Avenue.   And now there are four volumes, which will be released by Nonesuch Recordings.

From Billy Bragg's website:

"To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Woody’s birth, Nonesuch Records will be releasing ‘Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions’, a four disc set, comprising of remastered versions of Mermaid Avenue Volumes Iand II as well as a new collection of 17 songs from the original sessions,‘Mermaid Avenue Volume III’. The fourth disc will contain ‘Man in the Sand’,Kim Hopkins’ 1999 film, which documents the collaboration between Woody, Wilco and me," said Billy Bragg about the release.

This is just the latest in a string of recent Woody Guthrie tributes, which includes a museum and archive and some star-studded tribute compilations.  Although a firm release date has yet to be announced Woody’s birthday on July 14^th might be just the ticket.

John Peel in Space

Massive John Peel Record Collection Will Be Available Online

I remember very well fine tuning my shortwave radio to static filled BBC broadcasts of the late John Peel’s influential radio program.  At one time these groundbreaking sessions would serve as the primary source for my voracious musical appetite.  This was the one program that I could guarantee I would hear music that barely any one on the planet had ever heard before.  Hearing the Fall for the first time was transformational on my young musical sensibilities.  I miss the man and everything he did dearly.

John Peel spent decades digging up amazing music and bringing it to the masses, and sure you can still find low quality mp3’s and compilations of some of his sessions if you dig.  Great news (thanks Amity)  has emerged though at and now we'll get online access to Peel’s entire music collection. It's a new BBC-backed project called The Space, and it goes live in May. The Space will feature music from John Peel's 25 000-deep vinyl LP library as well as 40 000 vinyl singles and CDs.

"We're very happy that we've finally found a way tomake John's amazing collection available to his fans, as he would have wanted," said John Peel's widow Sheila Ravenscroft when speaking to the BBC. The plan for The Space is to make 100 new albums from the collectionavailable online each week, with the goal of hitting 2,500 by October.

"What we're hoping to do is create an online interactive museum which which answers the question 'what is in John Peel's record collection?' but also provides the audience with a visualisation of it.We hope that giving them access to a particular band or their first album orlistening to his show will inspire people to tell us their stories," said Tom Barker, director of the John Peel Centre.

I cannot tell you the palpable joy that this news brings to me.  I’ll be sure to update when further details emerge.

“My Own Colors On My Own Canvas”

It was around this time last year that White Stripes fans the world over were mourning the demise of the beloved dichromatic duo.  Sure we could depend on their always prolific front man-  After all what project did Jack White not have a hand in? The Raconteurs, Dead Weather, Rome, Wanda Jackson and even his own Third Man Records…  The inevitable has finally happened though as Jack White III has announced his debut solo LP. Titled Blunderbuss, it's due out April 24th via Third Man/Columbia/XL.

The album was produced by White and recorded at the Third Man studio in Nashville.  A statement on the Third Man website reads:

“(Blunderbuss is) an album I couldn’t have released until now. I’ve put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colors on my own canvas."

The first single is called "Love Interruption" and it's due out on seven-inch vinyl on February 7, backed with the song "Machine Gun Silhouette." The single will go up for sale digitally tonight at midnight EST.
Go here though to  hear it streaming.  A slightly quieter affair, but I like it.

Of course this video has nothing to do with Jack White but I enjoyed this on Portlandia recently.

2012 Year of the Dragon- Correction: 2012 Year of the Horse

Some great music news today as a report of a new album  by Neil Young and Crazy Horse has now been confirmed by Rolling Stone.  According to a fan site report (Thrasher's Wheat) Young shared the news over the weekend at the Slamdance Film Festival (in Park City, Utah) at an event with Jonathan Demme to promote their new movie Journeys.  The news that he was, “working with the Horse again”  was welcome news to their ravenous fanbase.  The full line-up of Crazy Horse hasn't backed Young on an album since Broken Arrow in 1996.

According to the report on Thrasher's Wheat, Young said that he's already recorded one album with Crazy Horse and another is in the works.  Speculation is high that the first recording will surface sometime in the spring although a firm release date has yet to be announced.

Cross your fingers and toes folks.  Perhaps a full tour could be in the offing too.

Belle and Sebastian’s Late Night Tales

The supremely excellent Late Night Tales artist-curated series will release a second compilation by Belle& Sebastian on March 26th. Late NightTales Volume 2. The mix is the follow-up to the Scottish popsters Late Night Tales from 2006. This second ambitious volume will be available digitally and on CD and will feature musical favourites from the band with many drawn from their personal libraries. The compilation features diverse artists like Broadcast, the Pop Group, the Lovin Spoonful, Toro Y Moi, Mulatu Astatke and Pete Shelley. It also includes a Belle & Sebastian cover of the Primitives' 1988 hit single "Crash".

 

Toro Y Moi "Still Sound" {Official Video} from Steven G Daniels on Vimeo.

Tracklisting:

01 Broadcast - Ominous Cloud
02 The Wonder Who? -  Watch the Flowers Grow
03 Joe Pass - A Time for Us
04 Mulatu Astatke - Yekermo Sew
05 Milton Nascimento & Lô Borges  - Tudo Que Você Podia Ser
06 Marie Laforêt - Et Si Je t'aime
07 Bonnie Dobson  - Bird of Space
08 Dorothy Ashby - Soul Vibrations
09 McDonald and Giles  - Tomorrow's People
10 Gold Panda - Quitters Raga
11 Broadcast  - Chord Simple
12 The Pop Group - Savage Sea
13 Stan Tracey Quartet  - Starless and Bible Black
14 The Lovin Spoonful - Darlin Be Home Soon
15 Belle and Sebastian – Crash  (The Primitives )
16 Roland Vincent -  L.S.D. Partie
17 Toro Y Moi -  Still Sound
18 Ce'cile - Rude Boy Thug Life
19 Remember Remember -  Scottish Widows
20 Trees - Streets of Derry
21 Blood, Sweat & Tears  - Spinning Wheel
22 Pete Shelley - Homosapien (Dub)
23 Steve Parks -  Still Thinking of You
24 David Behrman - On the Other Ocean
25 Paul Morley - Lost for Words [Part 3]

Pack the Suncreen, Coachella 2012 Performers Announced

If there is one music festival that never fails to disappoint, the Coachella Music Festival is just that. Every year, music fans the world over flock to the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, CA for a gathering in the desert quite unlike any other. In most cases a live edition of most Best of Year End list bands coupled with a handful of unbelievable reunion sets, the extended event is a not miss. This year's edition, which runs two consecutive weekends (April 13th-15th, April 20th-22nd) is nothing short of stellar.

Headlining duties for each night will be handled by long-running veteran acts, with the Black Keys on each Friday, Radiohead on the Saturdays, and performances from Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre closing out both Sundays. On top of that, a number of current acts to perform at the California concert event include Bon Iver, M83, Frank Ocean, Girls, Cat Power, Neon Indian, Justice, Florence and the Machine, Beirut, the Shins, Feist, Andrew Bird, St. Vincent, Destroyer, Real Estate, Wild Flag and many more.

In keeping with tradition, the festival will host a number of artists in full reunion mode. (Looks like some of those rumours were true-) Brit-pop stalwarts Pulp, hardcore Swedish punk band Refused, Mike Watt's post-Minuteman spielmeisters fIREHOSE as well as a reunion set from post-rock legends Godspeed You! Black Emperor.



Weekend passes have yet to go on sale for this year's Coachella, but you can check out the rest of the line-up on their website. Really though, who was asleep at the switch when they didn’t book the Black Keys, Black Lips, Black Angels and Godspeed You! Black Emperor on the same evening. It only makes sense.

Modeled after major long-running European festivals such as Denmark's Roskilde and England's Glastonbury, Coachella is coming off its second consecutive sellout year, hosting approximately 90 000 people per day. Tickets for the 2011 edition sold out in a record six days.

Pack up the Microbus Chester! We’re headed to California.

Grndrmn 2 RMX CMNG

Late last year Nick Cave announced that his garage-blues project Grinderman, would cease to be.  Fortunately though the raucous outfit will be departing, kicking and screaming with a new twelve track remix album called Grinderman 2 RMX was just announced.  The outstanding collection features new and previously released mixes of cuts and collarborations from the band’s sophomore album by members of the King Crimson (Robert Fripp), Yeah Yeah Yeahs, UNKLE and the National.

The record is set for release on March 13^th via ANTI- Records in both a two record package CD included as well as those much less tangible digital downloads.

The full tracklisting below.
Grinderman,Grinderman 2 RMX

01. Grinderman | “Super Heathen Child” (with Robert Fripp)

02. Grinderman | “Worm Tamer” (A Place to Bury Strangers Remix)
03. Grinderman | “Bellringer Blues” (Nick Zinner Remix)
04. Grinderman | “Hyper Worm Tamer” (UNKLE Remix)
05. Grinderman | “Mickey Bloody Mouse” (Josh Homme Remix)
06. Cat’s Eyes with Luke Tristram | “When My Baby Comes” (Grinderman cover)
07. Grinderman | “Palaces of Montezuma” (Barry Adamson Remix)
08. Grinderman feat. Matt Berninger | “Evil” (Silver Alert Remix)
09. Grinderman | “When My Baby Comes” (SixToes Remix)
10. Grinderman | “Heathen Child” (Andy Weatherall Remix)
11. Grinderman | “Evil” (Factory Floor Remix)
12. Grinderman | “First Evil” (Demo)

Chartsengraffs - 2012 Edition

I love Last.FM - I love the site for a number of reasons. Whether it be the networking with likeminded musical Last.FM friends, poring over playlists and previewing new music. Most of all though, I love the graphing capabilities that are generated by scrobbling my music library.  (Not captured are the late night music listening sessions in the music room, but illuminating nonetheless.)  Overall though, this is pretty accurate and reflects what is playing on my computer as I am drafting reports for work or scribbling emails, blog posts or searching out the next big musical thing.

Apparently I really enjoy the music of The Replacements and Radiohead.

Hmmm… Go figure.

The Best Music of 2011

I haven’t been the most prolific blogger this year but I have listened to a lot of music.  A logical equation I suppose as the adage goes – ‘there are only so many hours in the day after all’.  That music was a constant in my life should come as no surprise to those who know me well though.  The ever present iPod, daily scanning of the tubes, a host of great live shows and darkening the entrance of every record store I find has uniquely prepared me to draft a comprehensive Best of Music List this year.


The Weather Station - Everything I Saw from tamara lindeman on Vimeo.

And what a year it has been...  New records from the heavy hitters like Radiohead, Tom Waits and PJ Harvey; sometimes they make it look so easy.  But this year it was the newcomers that kept the musical fires within me alive.  The gentle Canadiana folk of the Weather Station, James Blake’s nervous dubstep and EMA’s noisy rancor.  The stuff of greatness.  The stuff that keeps me forever seventeen on the inside.  The stuff that makes me look forward to what lies down the road for 2012.

Without further adieu.  Everything is Pop’s Top 25 Albums and Top 50 Songs of the Year for 2011.

Best Albums 2011


01 | PJ Harvey | Let England Shake

02 | Beirut | The Rip Tide

03 | St. Vincent | Strange Mercy

04 | Cass McCombs | Wit’s End

05 | Bon Iver | Bon Iver

06 | Fleet Foxes | Helplessness Blues

07 | Sandro Perri | Impossible Spaces

08 | Girls | Father, Son, Holy Ghost

09 | Atlas Sound | Parallax

10 | Kurt Vile | Smoke Ring for My Halo

11 | Tom Waits | Bad As Me

12 | Dirty Beaches | Badlands

13 | Oneohtrix Point Never | Replica

14 | White Denim | D

15 | Yuck | Yuck

16 | Destroyer | Kaputt

17 | M83 | Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

18 | Julianna Barwick |The Magic Place

19 | The Weather Station | All of it was Mine

20 | James Blake | James Blake

21 | Tennis | Cape Dory

22 | EMA | Past Life Martyred Saints

23 | Colin Stetson | New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges

24 | Radiohead | The King of Limbs

25 | Tune-Yards | W H O K I L L


Best Songs 2011

50 | Battles | “Sweetie and Shag”
49 | Shabazz Palaces | “Youology”
48 | Tune-Yards | “Bizness”
47 | Panda Bear | “Alsation Darn”
46 | Radiohead | “Lotus Flower”
45 | Colin Stetson | “Judges”
44 | Ty Segal | “Goodbye Bread”
43 | Thurston Moore | “January”
42 | EMA | “California”
41 | Toro Y Moi | “Still Sound”
40 | Tennis | “Pigeon”
39 | Lykke Li | “I Know Places”
38 | Wild Beasts | “Loop the Loop”
37 | James Blake | “The Wilhelm Scream”
36 | The Weather Station | “Nobody”
35 | Adam and the Amethysts | “The Country”
34 | Timber Timbre | “Creep On Creepin’ On”
33 | Anna Calvi | “No More Words”
32 | Bill Callahan | “Riding for the Feeling”
31 | Marissa Nadler | “Alabaster Queen”
30 | Julianna Barwick | “The Magic Place”
29 | M83 | “Intro”
28 | Cut Copy | “Need You Now”
27 | Destroyer | “Savage Night at the Opera”
26 | Dodos | “Don’t Try and Hide It”
25 | Real Estate | “Out of Tune”
24 | Yuck | “Shook Down”
23 | Arctic Monkeys | “Black Treacle”
22 | Gang Gang Dance | “Sacer”
21 | Braids | “Lemonade”
20 | Deerhoof | “No One Asked to Dance”
19 | Wilco | “Black Moon”
18 | Wye Oak | “Civilian”
17 | Low | “Especially Me”
16 | J Mascis | “Not Enough”
15 | White Denim | “Street Joy”
14 | The Oh Sees | “If I Stay Too Long”
13 | The Black Keys | “Lonely Boy”
12 | Dirty Beaches | “Lord Knows Best”
11 | Tom Waits | “Talking at the Same Time”
10 | Kurt Vile | “Baby’s Arms”
09 | Atlas Sound | “Lightworks”
08 | Girls | “Forgiveness”
07 | Sandro Perri | “Changes”
06 | Fleet Foxes | “Bedouin Dress”
05 | Bon Iver | “Helocene”
04 | Cass Mccombs | “County Line”
03 | St. Vincent | “Cruel”
02 | Beirut | “Santa Fe”
01 | PJ Harvey | “The Words the Maketh Murder”