Oh man, I can’t even begin to tell you all how excited I am about this show. If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, you better get there early and hope someone is selling one outside, because it’s 10 kinds of sold out. And if you do have tickets, get there early anyway because new Asthmatic Kitty artist My Brightest Diamond is opening and she’s wonderful. Doors open at 7PM and show starts at 8PM.

Garden Ruin is easily one of my favorite albums of the year and I’m quite excited about this show. Doors open at 9:00 and tickets should be around $10.

Don’t drink too hard for this one. Sufjan and My Brightest Diamond are tomorrow night.

Shortly after seeing their lively, albeit under attended, show at The Republic in New Orleans, I had the opportunity to speak with Ana Rezende from CSS. We spoke about Diplo, t-shirts, touring and the internet. Through our conversation, I found a person who seemed both genuinely contented with and excited about her new life as an indie rock star. The same came across blazingly clear in their live performance with: windmill sweeps upon the guitar, rollicking and rolling on the ground, golden boots, drunken dancing, power chords, looping synth, and ever infectious excitement. (more…)

Since Cursive’s Domestica in 2000, Tim Kasher and company have elevated their (don’t say it) emo (gah!) theatrics to the concept album stage. It was a bold move that could have gone horribly awry, but instead produced a couple of fantastic albums (Domestica, The Ugly Organ) and some great songs about writing songs to boot. The formula evolved thusly: instead of just singing songs about a bunch of fucked-up characters, they first introduce themselves as the band that will be brining us songs about a bunch of fucked-up characters. This technique, known in some circles as “breaking the fourth wall” or “meta-fiction”, has served Cursive well in the past on songs like “Art is Hard” and “Sink to the Beat”. (more…)

Brought to us by Black Heart Procession’s Paulo Zappoli, Mr. Tube & The Flying Objects is a saxophone infused, distorted, digital, rhythmic galactica. According to the band’s website, their forthcoming album Listen Up! is supposed to capture: “the sounds of horns that drift through the back alleys of our ghettos. Pulsing and pumping sounds from the trunks of lowriders. Like stories from the last living tree in this concrete jungle…this universe is like a pinball machine and Mr. Tube is the music. ”

That all sounds very nice and intriguing, as does the rest of the elaborate back-story surrounding Mr. Tube, but is it true? (more…)

Well I generally bemoan anything at House of Blues, but I guess if you’re feeling up for it, this isn’t a bad show to hit up. Fortunately I’ve seen these bands gobs of times. Deadboy & the elephantmen are opening and I know some of you kids like them.

Tickets are $20 and doors open at 7PM.

The “official after party” is at One Eyed Jacks after the show.

Only a few days into the tour, The Procession will be touring their little black hearts out for the next several months. With The Castanets in tow, I guess that makes Jacks the place to be tonight. Each band is celebrating relatively new material, with Black Heart Procession’s The Spell being the most recent.

Cover is a less than paltry $15 and doors open at 9PM.

To be released on September 12th on Sarathan Records, The Purrs newest album doesn’t actually contain any new material. The bulk of this 9 song album was previously released on 2005’s The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of, with two songs coming from their self-released EP No Particular Bar, No Particular Town.

The music on this album fits pretty squarely into the adult-alternative mix of the mid-90’s complete with sha-la-la’s, sliding guitars, boppy drums, dabbles into psychedelia, feigned urgency, and a singer with more comparisons to The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft… than I know what to do with. However, unlike The Verve, and other bands of the day, there is no “Bitter Sweet Symphony” or “The Drugs Don’t Work” to be found on this album. Instead, on an album that is as close to a greatest hits compilation as The Purrs (still a young band) can get, there isn’t a single obvious stand-out track.

Nevertheless, truth be told, if this Seattle bands new album of recycled goods was to find itself on the counter of suburbia’s Starbucks it would probably sell pretty well – stirring into the consumer’s homogenous life of brown paper bags, Volvo’s, suede, and beige homes as well as cream and sugar in de-caffeinated coffee.

The point being that, The Purrs, despite being solid musicians, won’t bring anything fresh or outstanding into your life, just as they haven’t brought any new material to this album. The Purrs should order a different drink, write some new songs and get back to us.

Grade: C

Announced via their Myspace (which is spazzing something awful right now) and subsequently named through their website, The Decemberists have dropped the proverbial ball on a US fall tour. And some fortuitious twist of fate has placed them in New Orleans on October 26, just days before Voodoo Music Festival 2006, the same fest they were slated to play the previous year before the meddlings of one Hurricane Katrina.

Sadly, like Sufjan, the preeminent lit-rockers will be playing at House of Blues, but concessions must be made, of course. No word on ticket prices just yet, but presales are supposed to be available from their website on August 1.

The rest of the tour is thus:
10-17 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
10-18 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
10-19 San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theater
10-21 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern
10-22 Tucson, AZ - Rialto Theater
10-24 Austin, TX - Stubb’s
10-25 Dallas, TX - Gypsy Ballroom
10-26 New Orleans, LA - House of Blues
10-27 Atlanta, GA - Tabernacle
10-29 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
10-30 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
10-31 Northampton, MA - Calvin Theater
11-01 Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory
11-03 New York, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom
11-04 Boston, MA - Orpheum Theater
11-05 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis
11-04 Toronto, Ontario - Kool Haus
11-07 Pontiac, MI - Clutch Cargo
11-09 Cleveland, OH - Agora Theater
11-10 Columbus, OH - Lifestyle Communities Pavilion
11-11 Chicago, IL - Riviera Theater
11-12 Minneapolis, MI - First Avenue
11-14 Denver, CO - Paramount Theater
11-16 Missoula, MT - Wilma Theater
11-17 Seattle, WA - Paramount Theater
11-18 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore Ballroom

So Blake asks me to listen to this album. He says he thinks it’s “my style.” I thought I was the hippy around here, but whatever. I put it on and start doing a little bit of research and I immediately lose interest. That is to say, it wasn’t love at first listen. Nevertheless, I decided to keep at it. To give it a chance and see where it would take me.

For those of you unfamiliar, and I assume that’s most of you, The Mutts are the latest indie rockers to emerge from the UK. This four-piece rock outfit who seem to be channeling everybody from The Doors to Black Sabbath to The Strokes. Yet, somehow, The Mutts come off as original. The music is rough and aggressive. The lyrics are honest and in your face. Where there are hoards of bands in this genre of heavy-on-the-pedals rock today, this may be the most solid attempt I’ve heard, which is impressive for it being only the band’s second LP.

The release consists of nine songs and it’s pretty cheap, and if you give it a chance, I think you’ll find it hard not to listen to over and over. Catchy, without being pop; good without being overbearing; and dead-on for a band on what appears to be the quick path to success. The distinction here is that they manage to take the music of old and somehow make the sounds their own. People say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that may be, but homage is certainly a more appealing form. That’s how The Mutts seem to me. A sincere homage to the bands who inspired them. I Us We You seems exist as a musical thanks to the musicians who paved the way for rock. It revels in the classicality it deliver and pulls its hooks and jabs deliberately and effectively.

Grade: A