girl you know it's NEW.
Sally Shapiro: "He Keeps Me Alive" from Disco Romance, out October 16 on Paper Bag records. oooooooooooooooooooooooo. a little piece of heavenly sweetness. similar: Ladytron, Goldfrapp, "Images of Heaven" by Peter Godwin.

Polyphonic Spree and Rooney with the Redwalls. tour dates. fun times.

Oct 12 - Fairburn, GA - - The Echo Project *(poly spree only)
Oct 14 - Pontiac, MI - Crofoot Ballroom
Oct 15 - Cincinnati, OH - Bogart's
Oct 17 - Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre
Oct 18 - Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theater
Oct 19 - Minneapolis, MN - Pantages Theatre
Oct 20 - Lawrence, KS - Granada Theatre
Oct 22 - Englewood, CO - Gothic Theatre
Oct 24 - Boise, ID - Big Easy Concert House
Oct 25 - Seattle, WA - Showbox At The Market
Oct 26 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theatre
Oct 27 - Eugene, OR - McDonald Theater
Oct 30 - Anaheim, CA - Grove Of Anaheim
Oct 31 - San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
Nov 1 - Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up Tavern
Nov 2 - Los Angeles, CA - Music Box @ Henry Fonda Theatre
Nov 3 - Tucson, AZ - Rialto Theatre
Nov 6 - Dallas, TX - House Of Blues
Nov 7 - Austin, TX - Emo's
Nov 8 - Houston, TX - Verizon Wireless Theater
Nov 10 - Jacksonville, FL - Talleyrand Music & Arts Festival
Nov 11 - St. Petersburg, FL - State Theatre
Nov 13 - Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
Nov 14 - Philadelphia, PA - The Trocadero
Nov 15 - Pittsburgh, PA - Rex Theater
Nov 16 - New York, NY - Terminal 5
Nov 17 - Baltimore, MD - Rams Head Live

classic vintage video.
Glenn Frey: "Smuggler's Blues" (1984) A mini movie with lyrics that correspond with the scenes. This is what happens when you get involved in smuggling, man.

SNMNMNM: Crawl Inside Your Head (Unschooled)
release: September 18, 2007
style: smarty geek happy indie rock
similar: They Might Be Giants, Apples in Stereo
rating: *** i got a fever and there's only one prescription: more tuba. That's what the obviously unusually named SNMNMNM has got, though i bet that they get people in the crowd shouting "more tuba" all the time. Tuba solos will be expected here but the amplified Yamaha tuba acts as the bass and if you weren't listening closely it's undetectable. The brass is prominent in "For All I Know" and a few others, when the quartet adds trumpets and sax. "Back to School" is like a late 1950s slow ballad played through Weezer. Any unconventional instrumentation that can pull that off scores a big A. -Kenyon

Recoil: subHuman (Mute)
release: August 14, 2007
style: mixed
similar: Moby's Play, UNKLE, B.B. King
rating: *1/2
Boo hoo, Alan Wilder left Depeche Mode, it's not the same without him. Boo hoo. i'm not making fun, i'm serious. Wilder has been doing Recoil years before he left DM. This of course is nothing like DM. That's what happens with these projects, they get all experimental on us. The last Recoil album was 5 years ago, so Wilder forgot how to use some of the equipment. Whoops. He doesn't sing on subHuman, instead employing two singers-a bluesman and a girl comparable to Kate Bush or Sarah McLachlan. We need more girl on this. Aside from the songs being very long, it's laborious to listen to the guy's vocals being belted out over either electronics or live instruments, all with very little melody. Therefore I am not feeling the blues. It's always great to hear disparate styles being combined. This experiment doesn't gel. subHuman is subPar. -Kenyon

VHS or Beta in the hoouussee! tour dates.

10/1 CONAN O’BRIEN
10/5 Covington, KY Mad Hatter Club
10/6 Athens, OH U. Of Ohio
10/7 Pittsburgh, PA Carnegie Mellon U.
10/18 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall
10/19 Detroit, MI Magic Stick
10/20 Bloomington, IN Buskirk Chumley Theatre
10/26 Mexico City, MEX Foro Scotiabank
With Moving Units
11/12 Washington, DC Black Cat
11/13 Baltimore, MD Ottobar
11/14 Grantham, GA Messiah College
11/15 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church
11/16 New York, NY Blender Theater
11/17 Atlantic City, NJ HOB Harlem Club
11/19 Boston, MA Paradise
11/20 Montreal, PQ Club Soda
11/21 Toronto, ON Lee's
11/23 Chicago, IL Abbey
11/24 Minneapolis, MN 7th Street Entry
11/27 Seattle, WA Chop Suey
11/28 Vancouver, BC Richard's
11/30 Sacramento,CA Harlow's
With Foreign Born
12/1 San Francisco, CA Slim's
12/2 Los Angeles, CA El Rey
12/3 San Diego, CA Casbah
12/4 Tucson, AZ Plush
Solo
12/6 Denver, CO Bluebird
12/7 Kansas City, MO Record Bar
12/8 St. Louis, MO Gargoyle, Wash Univ.

The Green Pajamas
Box of Secrets- Northern Gothic 2 (Hidden Agenda)
release: September 18, 2007
style: gentle psychedelic pop rock
similar: the Posies, "Dont Fear the Reaper," other psych pop artists on HA!
rating: ** Oh man i feel terrible to have been neglecting this veteran Seattle band. i just cut myself. Box of Secrets is just as much psych pop as it is classic country rock on this mythological concept record. It is ripe with Neil Young, Velvet Underground and obsure classic psych rock channeling. They have gotta have better albums than this, cause Box of Secrets is snoozy, most of it on the same note (dare i say, like the acting in the film The Village?). There is some good stuff here if you dig around. "i Just Want to be Your Friend" and "Wild Pony" are enjoyable, the latter with layered harmonies and chugging (there, i said "chugging," i'm such a journalist) guitar. P.S i heart Hidden Agenda. Okay i feel better now. -Kenyon

Longwave. last night at Crazy Donkey, farmingdale.

girl you know it's NEW. aka shite you never heard of yo.

Sylvie Lewis: "Star song" (from Translations on Cheap Lullaby) don't confuse with Jenny Lewis yo. this pretty, crystal clear voice works perfect. currently in Italy. Free at the Living Room, NYC Wed, Sept 19

Spiritual Mansions: "What did I Tell You?" (Afternoon records) what the poly spree sounds like when the record is playing at 33 instead of 45.

Junius: "at the age of decay" record out October 9, 2007 on Radar recordings . yo this shite sounds british. atmospheric killer rock from the get-go. i'm sold. these guys are all wearing black hoodies in the press photo. i pretend to not notice that. this must be very awkward for them when they go out somewhere together.

A Brief Smile- Now We All Have Horns on Wrecking Ball, October 2, 2007. some critics mentioned Spiritualized when reviewing this. these guys are *nothing* like Spiritualized. so just stop that. this is self-indulgent spacey rock. my patience is being lost here. the press photos are original though. too mysterious for their own good.

the Cure show at MSG rescheduled for late June 2008. i kid you not. f-ing JUNE, ok. JUNE f-ing 2008. who knows what life will be like then, it's so far away. but you know, god forbid we disrupt the delicate recording of the Cure's new double album.

no camera for Stephen Morris. blah.

The Real Tuesday Weld
The London Book of the Dead (Six Degrees)
release: August 28, 2007
style: "antique beat"
similar: Pulp, Us3's "Cantaloop," classic big bands
rating: *** Originally on the late great Kindercore records (that first album had a release date of 9/11/01), the Real Tuesday Weld's song about loving the rain has been more recently heard in a Coke commercial. Main guy Stephen Coates' fourth album is another intriguing curiousity. One of the most unique artists you'll ever hear, Coates puts to use a variety of music culled from the 1920s-1940s, adding his Jarvis Cocker-like voice and tinny percussion. Some of this music is so old it's public domain now. It's romantically surreal, which can be expected when his initial inspiration came from a dream with actress Tuesday Weld. The London book of the Dead certainly has a sadness. Brief instrumental "Waltz for One" and "Last Words" for example, are both solemn. "I Believe" and at least a few other tracks are sunny. Coates knows you gotta take the bad with the good in this life. -Kenyon

mwvm: rotations (Silber)
release: September 25, 2007
style: shadowy minimal ambient
similar: other silber artists, NPR's Hearts of Space, 2001: a Space Odyssey
rating: **** If you haven't yet experienced what a guitar can do outside the conventional thinking box, rotations is a place to begin. UK artist mwvm plays with guitars that produce otherworldly ambient textures that you could swear are computer electronics and synth. The UK artist has worked with guitar effects since the mid-90s and finally releases this debut. Goody, there is much to explore here. The coolest thing about rotations is that the tracks blend together seamlessly. Mind expanding for sure. -Kenyon

Bobby Blue last nite at Galapagos Art Space (back room) along with What What Where, Low Lustre and Kenyon DJing. Before seeing him, i assumed those really high range, Diana Ross-reaching vocals by Bobby Blue were from guest female singers. Boy was i wrong. Never assume, my friend! Although it's an influence, this isn't like His Name is Alive. The happy-go-lucky BB brings only a guitar and percussionist. It makes some people dance. Moo.

Blue States: First Steps Into...
(Memphis Industries)
release: September 4, 2007
style: ambient magic
similar: Junkie XL, Air, Sugar Plant
rating: ****
Already a decade as Blue States with or without other members, Andy Dragazis truly impresses with the opening cut on First Steps Into... . The vocals are lush and buried, letting it cross over to latter day ethereal dream pop bands. The guitars rush over synthetic percussion on "Holding Ground" and the piano and strings are uplifting on "The Electric Compliment". The trippy "Gaining Time" and "100's and 1000's" is space-age travelling music for people that don't like space. A triumph! -Kenyon

Klaxons win 2007 Mercury Prize award for best album. yeah see, i told you that record was stellar. how you like me now?! i heard the Mercury Prize is pretty big in England. Dates with the nite:

9/23 Boston MA - Paradise Rock Club*
9/24 New York NY - Madison Square Garden (with Bjork. WHOAAAA! get jealous)
9/26 Los Angeles CA - Henry Fonda Theatre*
9/28 San Francisco CA - The Fillmore*
9/30 Seattle WA - The Showbox*
10/01 Vancouver BC - Commodore Ballroom*
10/04 Boulder CO - Fox Theatre
10/05 Lawrence KS - The Bottleneck
10/06 Chicago IL - Vic Theatre**
10/08 Washington DC - 9.30 Club**
10/09 Philadelphia PA - The Fillmore @ Theatre of Living Arts**
10/10 Toronto ON - Opera House Concert Venue**
*with Mystery Jets
**with Sh*t Disco

excitement. nyc.

the B-52's with the Rapture at Roseland. halloween! october 31.
Morrissey at Hammerstein. october 22, 23, 26, 27, 28. makes hella more sense than playing MSG.

girl you know it's new.
Saturday Looks Good to Me- "Make a Plan"
from the next album out October 23, 2007 on K records. uh oh, that's near birthday time for me. SLGTM playing dates through Oct/Nov with the Blow and other people. go see!