News: Blase Splee, Telekinesis, Rock Plaza Central, Jay Reatard, Vivian Girls, Pitchfork Festival

News Splurge:
Upcoming shows of note

June 5 – Prom Night at the Crofoot – featuring Quadruple CD Release for four Detroit bands: Deastro, The Silent Years, Manna & Quail and The Summer Pledge. Special guests include Bars of Gold and The Rogue Satellites (in the lounge next-door). $5 gains you access to the whole complex – with the ability to have a full night of record shopping, fueled by beer.

June 6 – Blasé Splee Album Release at Small’s. Et Cetera is their first full length. “"I can say I think it’s amazing but I’m sad I can’t listen to it with someone else’s ears. It’s hard to hear them as songs anymore after a year and a half of recording. It’s been a long process but it’s definitely time to cut the cord with this one. We’ll never be 100% satisfied but this is easily the most amazing thing I’ve ever been a part of." Post punk guitars meet bearded 70’s road trip rock, relentless shambolic drums and lots of organs and pianos pushing it all forward. The Et Cetera release show is rounded out by Sh! The Octopus and Macrame Tiger, with DJ Bearclizzyawaw. More info: myspace.com/blasesplee

June 8 – Telekinesis is coming to the Pike Room (Crofoot), still burning through the support-tour for their critically acclaimed self-titled debut. The band captures that New Pornographer-ian ability to conjure instantly cozy pop ballads – with fine-sunshine-in-the-summertime-vibes that facilitate grassy field rolls, or breathless twilight city runs or that zen like moment when you realize it’s 4 in the morning and you still somehow have energy to leap the fence into that empty playground you parked in front of…but I’m getting tangential – it’s spirited pop, tight, buzzy and fuzzy with those amorous-toned mid-range indie-literate vocals.
http://www.mergerecords.com/artists/telekinesis

June 12 – Rock Plaza Central (from Toronto) come to the Pike Room (Crofoot), bringing you songs from their forth-coming At The Moment of Our Most Needing (from Paper Bag Records). Starting in the realm of indie/folk but making it smokier, gristlier, with influences from darkly provocative troubadors like Oldham or Waits, then flavored by insuppressible draws to dystopia (that one might apply to electro-pop…without being electro-pop) or riffs that one might apply to a like for hard rock (without being hard-rock). As Magnet finely put it, something like Dust Bowl-era country/folk as crossed with Neutral Milk Hotel.

Album News:
Jay Reatard:

So Jay Reatard continues to write and tour and sing and write and tour and sing and play and get sweaty and write more and yell more and then write more and record record record… As the indie-blogger cliché of calling any such-industrious musician the Bob Pollard Of…, I would put Reatard as the Bob Pollard of….well,... garagey (ala Wire/The Sonics), punk-ish (ala contemporaries Black Lips), new-wave-ish (ala Tubeway Army/Fire Engines) and weird throw-back fuzz-pop (ala contemporary Ariel Pink)…somewhere in there is the essence of Jay Reatard.

And Matador Records is putting out his next release, the ominously suggestive, Watch Me Fall (August 18), a (we should emphasize) self-produced full length that promises to live up to the standards of the last couple year’s releases of Singles…

Mp3: - Jay Reatard - "It Ain't Gonna Save Me"

Jay on tour:

Thu June 11 - San Diego @ Casbah with The Oh Sees + Earthmen and Strangers
Fri June 12 - Los Angeles @ The Echo with Thee Oh Sees + Earthmen and Strangers
Sat June 13 - San Francisco @ The Independent with Thee Oh Sees + Earthmen and Strangers
Mon June 15 - Seattle @ Crocodile Cafe with Thee Oh Sees
Tue June 16 - Vancouver @ Biltmore
Wed June 17 - Portland @ Dante’s with The Oh Sees + Nice Boys
Fri June 19 - Long Beach, CA @ Alex’s Bar with Digital Leather
Fri June 26 - Chicago @ Bottom Lounge with TV Smith of the Adverts
Sat June 27 - Detroit @ Magic Stick with TV Smith of the Adverts
Sun June 28 - Cleveland @ Grog Shop with TV Smith of the Adverts
Mon June 29 - Toronto @ Mod Club with TV Smith of the Adverts
Tue June 30 - Montreal @ La Sala Rossa with TV Smith of the Adverts
Wed July 1 - New York City @ Stuyvesant Oval, FREE
Thu July 2 - Brooklyn @ Music Hall of Williamsburg with TV Smith of the Adverts
Fri July 3 - Allston, MA @ Harper’s Ferry with TV Smith of the Adverts
Sat July 4 - Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda's with TV Smith of the Adverts
Sun July 5 - Washington DC @ Black Cat with TV Smith of the Adverts
Tue July 7 - Asheville @ Orange Peel with TV Smith of the Adverts
Wed July 8 - Knoxville @ Pilot Light with TV Smith of the Adverts
Thu July 9 - Nashville @ The End with TV Smith of the Adverts
Fri July 10 - Memphis @ Hi-Tone Café with TV Smith of the Adverts
Sat July 11 - Oxford MS @ Proud Larry’s with TV Smith of the Adverts

http://www.jayreatard.com/
http://www.matadorrecords.com/jay_reatard
http://www.myspace.com/jayreatard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Reatard
http://www.jayreatard.blogspot.com/
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The Vivian Girls

Brooklyn trio Vivian Girls are following up their busy year (festivals, Bowery Ballroom shows, releasing debut on In The Red records) – by finishing up their 2nd LP – Everything Goes Wrong on Sept 8 (also In The Red). No word on whether the title is a smack at the sophomore-slump cliché… The band said, in a recent interview, that they are slowing things down – not just in the sense that they took more time on the recording process (something like a week as opposed to a few days) – but also stretching from their tribal-pounded pop and surf-shredded swing-rock to the “longer” songs… Our last album was like 22 minutes, so we figure if this album is longer than 44 minutes that'll just be insane,” said guitarist Cassie Ramone in a Pitchfork interview, “It would be twice as long."

Bassist Kickball Katy added, "We're aiming for around 35 minutes.”

Vivian Girls
Everything Goes Wrong (In The Red)
Sept. 8, 2009

01 Walking Alone at Night
02 I Have No Fun
03 Can't Get Over You
04 Desert
05 Tension
06 Survival
07 The End
08 When I'm Gone
09 Out for the Sun
10 I'm Not Asleep
11 Double Vision
12 You're My Guy
13 Before I Start to Cry

See them at the Pitchfork Music Festival on June 21…

Festival News:

Speaking of which, the Pitchfork Music Festival has rounded out it’s 2009 Line Up. The 4th annual festival (always nicely packaged between three-days in Chicago’s Union Park, with a manageable/see-able amount of bands) has had all it’s three-day-passes sold out by now. The “rapidly diminishing” one-and-two-day passes are still available through http://www.pitchforkmusicfestival.com

2009 Pitchfork Music Festival - The Complete Lineup!

Friday - "Write the Night: Set Lists by Request"
Built to Spill
The Jesus Lizard
Yo La Tengo
Tortoise

Saturday
The National
Beirut
DOOM
Yeasayer
Final Fantasy *
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Fucked Up
Plants and Animals
Cymbals Eat Guitars *
Matt and Kim
Lindstrøm
Wavves
Ponytail
Bowerbirds *
Charles Hamilton
The Duchess and The Duke
Disappears
Michael Columbia *

Sunday
The Flaming Lips
Grizzly Bear
M83
The Walkmen
The Thermals *
Pharoahe Monch
Blitzen Trapper
Frightened Rabbit
The Mae Shi
Black Lips
The Very Best
Mew
Vivian Girls
Japandroids
DJ/Rupture
Women
Killer Whales *
Dianogah

* Just added
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Rothbury - July 2 - July 5
Michigan's own festival reaches it's first birthday and gets the "2nd Annual" tag - putting the Eco-friendly, Green/Sustainability-stressed festival amongst the ranks of all those other Californian, Washingtonian, Tennessean-based gargantuan festivals.

Fox News online is giving Detroiter's the chance to vote-in a local band

visit:

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/subindex/contests/fox_rocks

and see Rothbury's site for the full line up (including Bob Dylan, Hold Steady, Man Man, The Hard Lessons and much...much...more) - as well as read up on Eco-tips and how this festival is trying not to destroy the planet...

Label News:

Ann Arbor based Ghostly International released a single for School of Seven Bell’s “My Cabal” – while the band has also put out a video and have started touring with Black Moth Super Rainbow.

The single features a “a blown-out re-imagining of "Face to Face on High Places" by Jesu's Justin Broadrick.

Visit:
http://www.ghostly.com
http://www.schoolofsevenbells.com
http://www.schoolofsevenbells.com/tour/