Wilco announce only summer East Coast date, pick middle of nowhere

For country bumpkins Wilco, there's virtually no city in the United States that won't have them as guests at their dinner table. Case in point - the band schedules the only East Coast date of their summer jaunt, and they pick Florence, MA. Never heard of it? That's okay. I've lived in this state all my life, and I haven't either. Apparently it's close to Hadley and Williamsburg, and it has a grocery store.

07/16 - Florence, MA - Pines Theatre

If you want your daily dose of Wilco before then, you can check out the new Glenn Kotche record. I hear it's good, but I haven't had the pleasure of line dancing to it yet.

Wilco - Official Site

Akron/Family recording new album with help from Hamid Drake, Broken Social Scene

I spent most of 2005 either running around Boston trying to convince people to like Akron/Family or bringing the band buckets of vanilla granola backstage. Between their first Boston show at Great Scott's and their second at P.A.'s, Akron/Family got really good live. And still no one came.

Despite an avalanche of critical praise and a blistering live show, the band is still struggling for air in the free-folk scene. Hopefully the fact that they are releasing their sophomore album this fall will change those damn Pitchfork-worshipping hippies opinions.

The album is tentatively titled Akron/Family is Empty, and is slated for a late September release. Not only will the sessions feature the ferocious guitar playing of band mentor/former Swans circus freak Michael Gira, but it will also feature special performance from all-around jazz hero Hamid Drake, as well as contributions from their buds from Canadian indie rock collective Broken Social Scene.

According to Pitchfork, that's not all for the band. Akron/Family is planning to enter the studio after their record release show in September and before their December tour to start recording on another new album. These guys just never fuckin' stop. Watch out Sufjan!

12/06 - Somerville, MA - P.A.'s Lounge

Akron/Family - Official Site

Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast (Matador)

Ambient electronic group Matmos (a.k.a. Bjork's backing band) have built a career out of peculiarity and secrecy, but their latest on Matador, The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast takes the cake. On their seventh full-length, the San Franciscan duo have taken the concept album to new heights, dedicating each sound collage to a person who has influenced them. There's a song about Darby Crash (late lead singer of the Germs), Valerie Solanas (famed feminist writer) and even the famous pervert, Boyd McDonald. The best, however, is Matmos's take on William S. Burroughs. The track opens with the clack of a typewriter. Soon a blur of backwards-looped snares join and the typewriter noises swing into a dizzying pulse. I think there's even some excerpts read by Drew Daniel himself.

For a group that is so frequently overpraised, Matmos have really succeeded in making their sound simultaneously captivating and blindingly dissonant. And they actually released an album without bragging about the laundry list of "instruments" used in the making of the record. Here's a list of some of them, straight from the horse's mouth:

amplified crayfish nerve tissue, the pages of bibles turning, a bowed five string banjo, slowed down whistles and kisses, water hitting copper plates, the runout groove of a vinyl record, a $5.00 electric guitar, liposuction surgery, cameras and VCRs, chin implant surgery, contact microphones on human hair, violins, rat cages, tanks of helium, violas, human skulls, cellos, peck horns, tubas, cards shuffling, field recordings of conversations in hot tubs, frequency response tests for defective hearing aids, a steel guitar recorded in a sewer, electrical interference generated by laser eye surgery, whoopee cushions and balloons, latex fetish clothing, rhinestones on a dinner plate, Polish trains, insects, ukelele, aspirin tablets hitting a drum kit from across the room, dogs barking, people reading aloud, life support systems and inflatable blankets, records chosen by the roll of dice, an acupuncture point detector conducting electrical current through human skin, rock salt crunching underfoot, solid gold coins spinning on bars of solid silver, the sound of a frozen stream thawing in the sun, a five gallon bucket of oatmeal

Right. Anyway, the album is a pleasure to pretend to be intelligent and dance to. Check out a clip and some delicious linkz below:

Matmos - Official Site
Matador Records - Matmos Page
Matmos - "Steam and Sequins for Larry Levan"

Holy shit: Paris Hilton debuts single

The most despicable bitch on the planet, Paris Hilton, has released the single to her first album. The song is called "Stars are Blind", and you can download it, courtesy of Stereogum, right here.

Can't anybody decide what stars are? Examples:
Modest Mouse - Stars are Projectors
Nylons - Stars are Ours
Siouxsie & the Banshees - Tears and Stars are One and the Same
The Frames - Stars are Underground
Echo and the Bunnymen - Stars are Stars

I like the last one the best.

Radiohead in Boston, 6/4/06, I met Thom Yorke in a Thai restaurant

The main story is that Radiohead rocked the Bank of America Pavilion last night in front of 5,000 adoring fans. The side story is that I was put on the guestlist by Thom Yorke himself, and I sat seven rows from the stage.

I was walking out of my favorite Thai resturant with a Chaing Mai Lettuce Wrap and motherfucking Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are waiting in line for a table! All I could do was shake Thom's hand and wish him a good dinner. When I got home to eat on my floor, my girlfriend (also known as Alex) suggested we go back and try and get his autograph on one of our copies of OK Computer. Of course, I thought it was a bad idea but she insisted. And she was right.

She ran in, got the CD signed, and got Thom to put us on the list for the show. She even told him we had heard The Eraser! Very gutsy. It seemed almost too good to be true, so we went to the Bank of America Pavilion half expecting to not get in. But we did, and we were very, very close to the stage. And the show was great.

Willy Mason, who, by the way, just graduated from high school in West Tisbury, almost stole the show. I'd say he had a "Springsteen-esque voice but better". Nobody seemed to care that he was there, but I loved him. He even waved back when I said hi.

And then Radiohead. Thom insulted Clear Channel and danced around the stage like a lazy-eyed monkey on K. It was wonderful. I especially enjoyed the re-worked "Gloaming" and all of the new stuff. The girl next to me was upset that they didn't play "Creep", but I didn't care. I enjoyed myself and it seemed like the band did too. Very rare. Set list below:

There There
2+2=5
Lucky
15 Step
Arpeggi
Kid A
Dollars And Cents
The National Anthem
Nude
Videotape
Paranoid Android
Spooks
The Gloaming
House of Cards
Idioteque
Bangers 'n Mash
How To Disappear Completely
--------------------------
Airbag
Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Bodysnatchers
Everything In Its Right Place
--------------------------
4 Minute Warning
My Iron Lung
Karma Police

Poptartssuckedtoasted has posted every new song the band has played on the tour here. I recommend "Videotape".

Reunited! Meat Puppets and Zombies prepare tours

Two of psychedelic rock's most influential acts have decided to reform in the same weekend. And yes, it's just a coincidence.

According to Pitchfork, estranged brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood have decided to kiss and make up and record their first album since 1995's No Joke. The Meat Puppets were highly regarded in the 1980s after a series of releases on SST Records. However, record sales didn't seem to peak until after Nirvana's 1994 appearance on MTV Unplugged, when Kurt Cobain performed "Oh Me", "Plateau", and "Lake of Fire", three tracks from the legendary Meat Puppets II album. Since then, their cult status has only grown. And this probably won't help.

That's not all - Tim Alexander of Primus is going to be their session drummer. This is going to get funky.

Meanwhile, the group behind some of the most memorable pop songs of the 1960s is planning a fall tour of the states. According to Billboard, lead singer/guitarist Rod Argent has taken some time away from his producing duties to reform the Zombies. You may know the band from the song "Time of the Season", or from just having a really cool name.

More information on the bands here:
Meat Puppets - Official Blog
The Zombies - Fan Page