Cat Power Performance

Cat Power performed on David Letterman and didn't break down crying- she even did the chicken dance! She sure is purdy.

Even though I'm not too sad I'm missing Pitchfork this weekend, I am a bit bummed to be missing the Pitchfork pre-party at the Metro on Friday with Sunset Rubdown. Luckily, my Spencer Krug needs will be satiated in a few weeks with a double dose at the Wolf Parade/Frog Eyes show at the Metro on August 7 and8. And what's this? Spencer's next side project is coming out in November? It's the summer of Krug!

Today Pitchfork posted an mp3 of the Junior Boys song they reviewed so highly a while ago and called it "an obvious standout on a record packed with them." It is, indeed, an awesome song. Album's out August 17th!

The WLUW ebay auction is live now here and runs until August 1. Spread the word!

Sadly I won't be making it to the Pitchfork Music Festival this weekend (or any of the week-long festivities, for that matter) due to out-of-town plans, so I won't be joining in the usual bevy of festival coverage (not that you won't have enough as it is). To be honest, though, I'm not all that into the lineup this year anyway. I mean, it is a good line-up and all, but there aren't any bands that I haven't either seen very recently (the National, Tapes 'N Tapes, Band of Horses), seen at least 5 times already (Spoon), don't care to see at all (Destroyer and Yo La Tengo, both very boring live IMHO), will get to see in the next couple months (Mountain Goats at the Empty Bottle in September, Ted Leo at the Touch and Go festival), or admittedly never heard of before now (Os Mutantes). Plenty of great bands, yes, some that I really love in fact, but at the same time they're all bands that are touring the city pretty heavily these days. Other than Os Mutantes and maybe Jens Lekman, there's no one that's making a rare appearance that usually makes a festival really exciting.

Or maybe I'm just getting old and I weigh the decision of using up an entire weekend of potential free time more heavily this year than I did last because last summer I was unemployed and could take a day or two to recover from the heat and the standing and the partying, and this year I have a day job and have to get up at 6:45 every morning! Sigh, the rock and roll lifestyle sure is hard when you wear a suit.

New design is up now! Feel free to take a second to look it over and let me know what you think, as well as if there are any bugs or if you have any suggestions. Thanks!

AirTap!

Check out this musician out of Montreal with some mad acoustic guitar skills.

Awhile ago I mentioned another WLUW benefit that was coming up, the Ebay auction. It starts next Monday, the 24th, and runs through August 4th. Among the many items up for acution include: a Jon Langford/Sally Timms artwork guitar, a brand new Lakland bass, great signed, screen-printed posters, one-of-a-kind artwork, etc. The link to the auction will be posted to the WLUW homepage on Monday morning; I'll be sure to link to it then!

There's a pretty cool series of concerts coming up in a few big cities around the country called the Revenge of the Book Eaters series. It's sponsored by McSweeneys and the money benefits children's literacy via the 826 projects the publication has going. The Chicago concert lineup isn't bad:

August 24 @ Park West: 826 Chicago Benefit featuring Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, Dave Eggers, ZZ Packer and John Roderick of the Long Winters (VERY funny man); hosted by Ira Glass.

But some of the other ones are better:

August 23: 826 NYC Benefit featuring Sufjan Stevens, David Byrne, Jon Stewart, Jon Roderick, Dave Eggers, Sarah Vowell, John Hodgman

August 26: 826 LA Benefit featuring Jenny Lewis, Aimee Mann, Dave Eggers, Mark Kozelek, Sarah Vowell, The Mountain Goats and John Roderick; Hosted by Andy Richter

But some aren't as good either:

August 28: 826 Valenica Benefit featuring Aimee Mann, Jonathon Richman, Dave Eggers and Sarah Vowell; hosted by Patton Oswsalt.

September 1: 826 Seattle Benefit featuring Stephen Merritt, Daniel Handler, Dave Eggers and Sarah Vowell; hosted by John Hodgman and Jonathon Coulton

September 7: 826 Michigan Benefit featuring Dave Eggers, Davy Rothbart and The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir

Looking for something fun to do on Sunday? Check out the WLUW benefit at the home of acting troupe the Neofuturists, 5153 N. Ashland. From 1-5:30PM, see live bands including J+J+J, Piglet and Sazerac. At 7PM the Neofuturists will do their regular Sunday night performance of the popular "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind." $15 for everything, and a portion of the proceeds benefit WLUW!

The second round of tinymixtapes favorites of the year so far are up on the Insound weekly newsletter and are also 15% off. These are the weirder ones I'm less familiar with.

Are record stores only for old fogeys now?

DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix: "A Series of Tubes"

amillionmonkeys alerted me to this techno remix of Senator Ted Stevens' recent (totally ridiculous) speech about the internet, and I found a video for it on YouTube. Hilarious!

Being really busy at work has made it hard to blog about music these past couple days. Back at full-strength next week!

Lots of reviews for Sufjan's new album of Illinois outtakes, The Avalanche, say the songs aren't as good as the ones on Illinois. Well, duh. Isn't that the point of an outtakes album? Wouldn't it be wrong if the best songs didn't make it on the album? As far as typical b-side albums go (which I usually avoid like the plague because, again, if a song is really good it should have ended up on the real album, right?), this one is definitely above average.

I finally picked up the new Hot Chip album, "The Warning," and it definitely does not disappoint. Downtempo, yet danceable electronica with oh-so-smooth vocals. "(Just Like We) Breakdown" is the sexiest dance track I've heard since the Junior Boys' "Under the Sun".

I have alarmingly heard from several normally trustworthy, independent-minded music sources that some people are guiltily enjoying the new Paris Hilton single. I have accepted my love of Britney Spear's "Toxic," and I've always like Kelly Clarkson, so my passion for "Since You've Been Gone" was totally guilt-free. But if I were to find I liked anything that spewed forth from the mouth of the vile and disgusting Paris Hilton, I just don't know how I could live another day. Thankfully, I finally heard the song/saw the video today, and I can emphatically say I really don't like it. Crisis averted!

I'm very excited to announce that after far too many years, the PFFR website is finally getting a redesign! I've got a great designer working on it as I type this (since my web skills ended with what you see now), so look for a whole new, much-improved look in time for the radio show to start up again in the fall!

Apparently Thax Douglas is moving to New York and having some farewell "shows" before he leaves. I'll be intrigued to see how the New York concert scene welcomes him . . .

Insound.com has a weekly newsletter, and this week's features the Tinymixtapes staff's picks for the best albums of the year so far. We didn't pick these scientifically, just basically took a quick poll, but I made sure my favorite album so far, Sunset Rubdown's Shut Up I Am Dreaming made the list. All albums on the list are 15% off until July 5. Check out next week's list too, which will feature 10 of the site's favorite experimental albums so far (most of which I've never heard of, of course).

What's this? The largest concert promoter in the country, Live Nation, just bought out the second-largest concert promoter in the country, House of Blues. Haven't heard of Live Nation? It used to be called "Clear Channel Entertainment," but media monolith of evil Clear Channel changed the name recently, probably to escape the negative connations that now come with the words "Clear Channel." And so their ever-growing reign of the entertainment world increases yet again.

As hard as I may try, I know I will never be as cool as the girls of Smoosh. 12 and 14-year-old sisters who write and play their own (pretty good!) songs, are signed to a prominent indie label and are already on their second album? Can't touch that. Stream some of the songs from their new album here.

Harry and the Potters are playing an all-ages show at Beat Kitchen this Saturday, with Draco and the Malfoys to open. Seriously, this is so cool- two brothers dressed like Harry Potter singing about wizards in classic rock form. Buy tickets here. Accio, rock!*






*Yes, I'm a huge dork.

I think every band that gets a scathing Pitchfork review should make a video that expresses their feelings about it. Almost as good as the "artist list" David Cross wrote for the site last year.

According to this a Jeff Buckley biopic is being planned. Sign me up.