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Saturday, July 31st

4 Word Reviews

After reading the Coolfer blog yesterday I decided they had a good idea. 4 word album reviews. There really isn’t a need for more words then that and you can read tons of reviews in a short amount of time. These are some reviews of albums I’ve been listening to lately.

Foxhole - We the Wintering Tree: Instrumental rock with horns

Pedro the Lion - Achilles Heel: Indie rock storytelling goodness

Jack Johnson - On and On: My friend was right

Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights: Can’t wait for follow-up

Azure Ray - Hold on Love: Wonderful female indie pop

Wilco - Summer Teeth: Beatles were from Nashville

This concludes 4 letter word reviews for today. What did you think?

The Cure, Watashi Break, Pearl Jam, The Hives Live

The Cure have issued a new live EP taken from their appearance at Sessions@AOL. It will be 8 songs long. 3 of the songs will be news ones while the other 5 will be “classic” Cure songs. The whole thing will be made available through iTunes.

/> No more rotted out teeth for you kids. Watashi Wa has officially broken up. In honor of this you can go ahead and read the Phantom Tollbooth’s review of the record The Love of Life. “The opening track “All of Me” could be a bigger hit than Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle.” This song is pop perfection!”

I never could get into Pearl Jam until I listened to their CD, Lost Dogs. Now I love them. PopMatters.com seems to enjoy this particular release too. “Lost Dogs is a worthy reentry into the Pearl Jam canon for the strayed, and a delirious gift to the faithful…”

The Hives, Sahara Hotnights, and The Reigning Sound played a show in New York recently. “Such unrepentant corniness makes a Hives show an irresistible good time, as close to a must-see as there is going right now. They evoke a different kind of nostalgia than the garage-bands of old, not for the unknown teens who banged out the semi-articulate anthems of frustration and rage from suburban VFW halls, but for the enthusiastic professional showmen who made up groups like Paul Revere and the Raiders and the New Colony Six…” Now for me to go and see The Hives. I hope, someday.

Friday, July 30th

WILCO tour dates

Wilco have announced some new tour dates of North America. The band are currently promoting their new album A Ghost is Born on Nonesuch records. This album showcases longer guitar solos and a spaced out feel in comparison to the electronic blip filled Yankee Hotel Foxtrot of 2002. I will be going to the Texas shows and if you haven’t seen them live you are missing out.

08-02 Milwaukee, WI - Eagles’ Ballroom
08-03 Toronto, Ontario - Mod Theatre
08-04 Ottawa, Ontario - Capital Music Hall
08-05 Montreal, Quebec - St. Denis Theatre
08-06 Portland, ME - State Theatre
08-08 Newport, RI - Newport Folk Festival
09-14 Columbia, MO - The Blue Note
09-15 St. Louis, MO - The Fox Theatre
09-17 Dallas, TX - The Granada
09-19 Austin, TX - Zilker Park (Austin City Limits Music Festival)
10-01 Boston, MA - The Wang Center
10-05 New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall

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P.O.D Frontman to be the Face of Competitive Video Gaming

POD frontman Sonny Sandoval has invested in video gaming events company Gamecaster Inc. He will be serving as music director as well as on screen talent for upcoming gaming events. The company is attempting to trun video game competitions into spectator events by broadcasting on TV and the internet. The first live event is scheduled for august 24th 2004 in San Diego, California. Sonny told Billboard.com “Music and video games go hand in hand,” Sandoval says. “We were just out on tour with Linkin Park, and they’re big ‘Halo’ fans — they had two screens hooked up on their tour bus, so they can compete with each other, and they always had about 20 people watching.” Sandoval will serve as a pit reporter during events and conduct interviews with the competitors and hopefully help build the companies popularity.

Indie Vision Makeover

Indie Vision Music has a brand new website. All CD’s in their distro (Militia, T&N, Facedown) are priced at less than $10.

Thank you Ryan

I was reminded by the mighty BoingBoing that today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Oops! With that, I’d like to thank our boy Ryan Briones for doing all that scary “back end” stuff with Buzzgrinder, including database tweaking, server wrangling, and ad serving (plus putting up with ME). Visit WebXDesign for all your web-related needs, including MovableType installs - whew!

Thursday, July 29th

The White Stripes Press of Sorts

Jack White (of The White Stripes…but you already knew that right?) will be joining Beck for a single song on Beck’s upcoming album. The song is untitled and continuing with the theme, so is the album at this point. You can start scooping out your local record shop in late October for this release. The ever-wonderful Coolfer has this to say, “Since Stipe, nobody has taken over as omnipresent American music whore. Not until Jack White, that is.” Ever notice how close the spelling of Stripe and Stipe are? It must be destiny.

In an effort to maintain a common thread in this post you will now have a chance to click on a link for a review on the latest White Stripe b-side. Pitchfork Media has reviewed the song “I Fought Piranhas” and on top of that given it a 3.5 star rating. “I Fought Piranhas” brings fond memories of their beautifully roughhewn earlier material…” All of that after ripping on Elephant (that’s their newest album) for sounding too produced.

Havalina Linkage

This one is from the IM: Havalina has made available on their site the Russian Lullabies album for free, a “fantastic and long out of print release.”

Treble Bandoppler (of Bandoppler, duh) does a great interview with the band. Says Matt Wignall, “our response to the whole swing and ska thing was to release Russian Lullabies. So instead of doing the high color cartoon cover, we just did the grittiest, most stark black and white artwork, and focused on creativity instead of trying to cater to a scene.”

Opus is giggling like a school girl over the whole ‘free download thing’ because, well, Havalina has that effect.

Sahara Hotnights Video Stream

The hip Stereogum has a video stream for Sahara Hotnights called Hot Night Crash. Writes Justin Sinkovich over at Epitonic, “The Sahara Hotnights sound has since evolved into an edgy yet catchy girl-punk style that is considerably tougher than the group’s U.S. counterparts The Donnas.”

Lovedrug Love Fest

Like an empty city street, Lovedrug is quiet and still during the wee hours of the morning. At other hours this album sways its hips in time for the post work, loose tie “happy hour”. Pretend You’re Alive is the condensation on your glass.

Go ahead and call this an emo-rock album. Buy your cheap .25 cent draft. While at first glance Lovedrug gives off this vibe, there is too much well thought-out instrumentation for such a cliche’ title. Michael Shepard does something better than most of those “emo rock” bands just don’t do - sing well. Smooth, big, and all over the place, Michael covers this album with authority. Heck - this reminds me a bit of, dare I say, Spacehog? Oh my. Lines might have been crossed with that one.

This is a solidly produced album that should be around for years to come. These guys are going to be huge.

Buy this album (Amazon | iTunes)

Also: Laura Rae Amos reviews Lovedrug at Blogcritics, saying “They bought their shoes a little too big, and now they just need to grow into them. And I will give them a listen again in a few years, just to see how much they’ve grown. We’ll see.”

Scene Points: Episode 29

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