R.E.M "Live @ The Olympia" 2 CD set due out this fall!

Exodus - There Will Be Blood on LP!

Re-issue of this classic metal album coming out on Aug. 18th. Limited edition (2500 copies), hand numbered on blood red vinyl. $27.99 list

Riceboy Sleeps out July 21st (XL)

Very excited about this new side project from Sigur Ros frontman, Jon Thor Birgisson.

Here is the album description: Jon Thor Birgisson (Sigur Ros) and Alex Somers (Parachutes) have been exhibiting artwork and staging exhibitions under the name Riceboy Sleeps for a few years now. Their track "Happiness" was featured on the "Dark Was The Night" compilation. This record is more active than its antecedents in the ambient output of Brian Eno and other deliberately low-impact works. "Riceboy Sleeps" is awash with tension and stimuli, as well as being frequently and stunningly beautiful. "Emotionally evocative, mostly instrumental, and pretty great" - Prefix.

New Spoon EP 6/30!

Super late addition to the release schedule! New Spoon EP with 3 brand new songs. Hopefully they will be here by Wed. 7/1

Vinyl in stock!

God Help The Girl back in stock and Regina Spektor finally showed up on LP!

RZA talks about the new Wu-Tang related project, "Chamber Music"

Billboard: RZA says "Chamber Music" is NOT a new Wu-Tang Clan album -- but it's pretty close.

"This is not a Wu-Tang Clan album, but this definitely feels Wu-Tang Clan inspired," explains the hip-hop impresario, who executive produced the June 30 set that features Clan members Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck and U-God working out with guests such as M.O.P., Kool G Rap, Havoc, Az, Tre Williams and more over live music beds played by the New York band the Revelations.

"I think the ('Chamber Music') title is very fitting. This music is totally in the chamber, or in the mind-frame of Wu-Tang like in the ('Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)') days. But it's not a Wu-Tang Clan album. The whole clan's not on this album. But it couldn't be in any other category but Wu-Tang."

RZA credits the "Chamber Music" idea to collaborator and producer Bob Perry, who proposed "an album with Wu-inspired music with you (Wu-Tang) guys spitting all over it and bringing it back to that vintage sound -- without sampling." An extensive search yielded the Revelations, who RZA says "just basically had the vibe" and allowed the album to have a consistent flavor across its 17 tracks. "It was like the old days where I would produce Wu-Tang Clan albums -- one producer, one mind, one sound," RZA notes.

On "Chamber Music" RZA also warmed to the idea of sending tracks around to the different MCs and singers rather than requiring everyone to be in the studio together. "I don't usually like to do that," he explains, "but in this case we were able to do that and get it successfully done. I'd rather have Ghostface right there. I'd rather have Method Man come to the studio. I still like the energy in a room, but in a digital age people are kind of ignoring that."

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

All-Star Benefit Album for Mark Mulcahy

Courtesy of Pitchfork: On September 29, Shout! Factory will release Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy, a tribute album. An amazingly stacked lineup of indie rock greats have contributed their versions of Mulcahy songs. Thom Yorke takes on "All for the Best", Michael Stipe turns in his version of "Everything's Coming Undone", and the National handle "Ashamed of the Story I Told". Dinosaur Jr., Mercury Rev, and Frank Black also contribute songs.

Tracklist below.

Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy:

01 Thom Yorke: "All for the Best"
02 The National: "Ashamed of the Story I Told"
03 Michael Stipe: "Everything’s Coming Undone"
04 David Berkeley: "Love's the Only Thing That Shuts Me Up"
05 Dinosaur Jr.: "The Backyard"
06 Chris Harford and Mr. Ray Neal: "Micon the Icon"
07 Frank Black: "Bill Jocko"
08 Vic Chesnutt: "Little Man"
09 Unbelievable Truth: "Ciao My Shining Star"
10 Butterflies of Love: "I Have Patience"
11 Chris Collingwood of Fountains of Wayne: "Cookie Jar"
12 Frank Turner: "The Quiet One"
13 Rocket From the Tombs: "In Pursuit of Your Happiness"
14 Ben Kweller: "Wake Up Whispering"
15 Josh Rouse: "I Woke Up in the Mayflower"
16 Autumn Defense: "Paradise"
17 Hayden: "Happy Birthday Yesterday"
18 Juliana Hatfield: "We're Not in Charleston Anymore"
19 Mercury Rev: "Sailors and Animals"
20 Elvis Perkins: "She Watches Over Me"
21 Sean Watkins: "A World Away From This One"

Neko Case & Dirty Projectors vinyl back in stock!

"Bitte Orca" and "Middle Cyclone" back in stock now.

Slayer in the studio

Sunset Rubdown and Future of the Left

Pitchfork just gave the new Sunset Rubdown (Jagjaguwar) an 8.3 rating "Best New Music" and gave the new Future of the Left album (4AD) an 8.0. Both releases came out on 6/23. Order now on CD and LP!

Beastie Boys single due out in July

New 12 inch single from the Beastie Boys due out for Vinyl Saturday 7/18. Single is for the track "Too Many Rappers" w/Nas. It's limited and an indie exclusive. $5.98 list. Contact your rep. by Thurs. June 25th to pre-order now!

New Tortoise LP already cut!

Bad news: LP version of the new album gone already. It was more limited than we expected.

Trent Reznor likes Grizzy Bear

From Newsweek.com (June 18, 2009):

What music do you listen to that might shock your fans?

I saw Sufjan Stevens last year, and I was like, how is his singing that good? The band Grizzly Bear, I think they're excellent. There's a beauty and a musicality there that I wish would have been in vogue in the late '80s, when I was forming bands. The aesthetic I was tuned into was a more dumbed-down kind of thing. Sometimes listening to stuff like they're doing makes me feel irrelevant. That's a nice, healthy kick in the ass. And it's interesting to see there's room for that in what's considered hip these days.

Under the Radar - David Lynch Presents: Fox Bat Strategy: A Tribute to Dave Jaurequi [EP]

Cool release coming out on 6/30. Here is the description:

A long-time pet project of film director David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive), Fox Bat Strategy features a cast of musicians who began collaborating with Lynch surrounding the filming of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The same line-up of players appeared on Fire Walk With Me's two roadhouse cuts: "The Pink Room" and "Blue Frank" (as well as made cameos in the film itself). In 1994, these same musicians, with an invitation from Lynch, re-entered the studio for experimental collaboration. What emerged were these 6 tracks. For nearly fifteen years these songs have remained unreleased and unheard, slow-cooking in the ether of time, all the while retaining a uniquely modern sensibility. This release is a tribute to the album's late singer and guitarist Dave Jaurequi, who passed away suddenly in 2006.

Wilco LP Re-issues Update

180 gram re-issues w/bonus CD of "A.M", "Summerteeth" and "Being There" have been bumped to 8/25.

GG Allin Bobblehead info.

It's listed in the 6/30 Streetwise under the DVD section for some reason. List is $19.98 and cost is $11.63. UPC is 76013748894. Grab one, it's super cool.

Sunny Day Real Estate to Reunite

The band with the original lineup are reuniting for a North American tour and will be re-issuing a couple of their classic albums this fall.

Per Pitchfork: "On September 15, Sub Pop will reissue the band's two original-lineup albums: the stone classic 1994 debut Diary (one of the best-selling albums in Sub Pop history) and the 1995 follow-up LP2 (better known as The Pink Album). The reissues will include bonus tracks and new liner notes."

Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Pt. I

New album due on Sept. 15th. Here's the cover art:



Re-issues of Ill Communication (July 14th) and Hello Nasty (August 25th) coming this summer.

The Almighty Defenders

King Khan, BBQ aka Mark Sultan and The Black Lips have a project coming out Sept. 22nd called The Almighty Defenders. Album is being released by Vice Records. They will be performing at the Pitchfork Music Festival in July.

The Coast "Expatriate"

Cool new band I just stumbled upon. Album came out May 5th on Afternoon Records distributed by Koch. Check out their song "Killing Off Our Friends":

Dead Weather Performance on The Tonight Show

Two Cool Releases on the horizon for My Morning Jacket's Jim James

MMJ's Jim James will be releasing an EP of George Harrison covers under the moniker, Yim Yames on August 4th. And due out Sept. 22nd is the highly anticipated Monsters of Folk album with James, Conor Oberst and M. Ward.

New Muse Album Scheduled for Sept. 15th Release

Bjork - Voltaic (Live) bumped until June 30th

All 5 versions bumped until June 30th. Sounds like it's going to be a cool release.

“This relentless restlessness liberates me,” Björk declares on “Wanderlust” from her 2007 studio album, Volta, which is also the dramatic concluding track of her new Voltaic live CD. “I feel at home whenever the unknown surrounds me.” Volta had been designed, Björk has said, as a journey, with the sound of fog horns and clanging bells linking individual tracks and artists from around the world making guest appearances, including Congolese band Konono No. 1, Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, beat-master Timbaland, Lightning Bolt drummer Brian Chippendale and sublime chanteur Antony Hegarty.

The New York Times called it “a 21st-century assemblage of the computerized and the handmade, the personal and the global.” Voltaic, then, is a remarkable, multi-media document of what happened after the record was completed, a journey of a different sort as the ever-evolving singer assembled her live band, made a collection of typically amazing videos and one-step-ahead remixes, and toured the world for two years, making headline appearances at diverse venues and large festivals, including Glastonbury, Coachella and even Harlem’s Apollo Theatre.

She recorded the Voltaic live CD in one take at Olympic Studio in London with her new band, prior to her 2007 Glastonbury appearance, presenting the set she would play on tour – songs from Volta and new arrangements of such older material as “Pagan Poetry,” “All Is Full Of Love” and a thunderous version of “Army Of Me.” It’s a stunning performance, featuring cutting-edge computer technology, an old-school horn section and a female, flag-toting Icelandic choir – “bursting with raw life,” to paraphrase The Independent’s description of Volta. The Voltaic DVD contains highlights of Björk’s visually dazzling Volta tour, full of on-your-feet moments, filmed in Paris and Reykjavik.

Deluxe editions of Voltaic also include a CD of remixes of Volta album tracks by such fellow travelers as Spank Rock, Simian Mobile Disco, Ratatat and Modeselektor, plus a DVD of Volta video clips, including Michel Gondry’s take on “Declare Independence,” set in a drab factory, that manages to reach a colorful, hopeful conclusion – a revolution meant to be televised.

Pavement - Brighten The Corners 4LP Set (Matador June 23rd Release)

Vinyl edition of one of the Pavement deluxe re-issues, "Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed." from 2008. A rather joyous pop explosion after the complications of "Wowee Zowee", "BTC" received both critical acclaim and commercial success. This four-LP vinyl box set includes eight extra tracks not on the CD, five of which are previously unreleased, plus one great unreleased song. Also includes material from the CD version: the remastered original twelve song album, ten non-album B-sides, ten outtakes, and fourteen live radio session tracks. Super deluxe M-Pak accordion style box set, 16-page, 12" x 12" full color booklet, MP3 coupon, and huge essay by New Yorker critic Alex Ross. The wealth of extra material testifies to the extraordinary creativity of the band in this period.

G.G. Allin

EDGE is carrying arguably the coolest bobblehead ever created by mankind. I just bought one for myself.



This ghoulish effigy is a striking representation of GG ALLIN circa 1991. The figure, limited to 2000 numbered units, stands at 7 inches tall and is made of a lightweight polyresin. Displayed in a tri-windowed box, here GG is accurately sculpted right down to the tattoos, blood, and filth.

SPIN's 10 Best Moments of Bonnaroo 2009

http://spin.com/gallery/10-best-bonnaroo-moments

The Gossip

Looks like the new album produced by Rick Rubin scheduled for release in June has been bumped until Oct.

Vinyl Sales Are Up! (L.A. Times June 11, 2009)

Origami Vinyl in Echo Park. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

The resurgent vinyl market isn't showing any signs of slowing down. In fact, recent figures released by Nielsen SoundScan indicate that overall U.S. vinyl sales will once again set a benchmark in 2009, with sales up 50% through the first five months of the year.

SoundScan predicts vinyl sales will reach 2.8 million units in 2009, up from 1.9 million in 2008, a record since SoundScan began tracking sales data in 1991. Already in 2009, vinyl sales have topped 1 million. At this point last year, vinyl sales stood at 701,000 copies. To be fair, the number is still tiny compared to overall album sales.

Vinyl, SoundScan points out, accounts for less than 1% of overall album sales. In other words, vinyl sales represent about six months in the life of Taylor Swift, whose late 2008 release, "Fearless," has already sold more than 3.3 million copies. To date in 2009, 121.8 million CDs have been sold, versus 33.2 million digital albums, compared to 151.01 million CDs and 27.52 digital albums for the same period last year.

Yet vinyl appears to be a niche market that's here to stay, and one that's showing signs of expansion. Rock albums account for 70% of all vinyl sold, but country vinyl is enjoying a growth spurt. Year-to-date country vinyl sales are already at 15,000 copies, compared with 5,000 for the comparable period in 2008.

Of course, if someone wants to rain on the vinyl good news, there's this stat: Vinyl sales were up 90% in 2008 over 2007, and the rate of growth has certainly slowed.

-- Todd Martens

Vinyl Saturday

The Record Store Day folks have conjured up a new monthly promotion, Vinyl Saturday, where limited edition vinyl titles will be made available only to indie record stores.

Info. regarding the first batch of titles is here:

http://www.recordstoreday.com/NewsItem/1587

Under the Radar

3 bands with albums coming out Tues. June 23rd that you and your customers should know about are Deer Tick, Phenomenal Handclap Band and Foreign Born. Here is some info. on all 3:

Deer Tick "Born On Flag Day" CD & LP on Partisan distributed by Allegro. They were recently featured on NBC's Brian Williams web series, "BriTunes". Check out the interview here:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Here is a solo performance by the lead singer, John Joseph McCauley III:



2. Phenomenal Handclap Band "Phenomenal Handclap Band" CD on Friendly Fire distributed by Redeye. PHB were one of the bands being buzzed about the most this year at SXSW. You have to check out this live clip:



3. Foreign Born "Person to Person" CD & LP on Secretly Canadian distributed by ADA. Check out their brand of dreamy California indie rock: