News and Notes

It’s time to reboot the Steve Jobs machine, which means I need to clean off my desktop.  Here’s what I am looking at on Halloween morning.

Loutallica

Do you remember last week when I (and the rest of the world) shredded the Lou Reed / Metallica collaboration?  This headline in Spin Magazine “Metallica Already Planning Ways to Make Fans Forget ‘Lulu’” sounds more like something that would be in the pages of The Onion.  Bethany of Best Coast even weighed in with “jaw is on the ground” as in: “i can not believe this is a real thing/this is the worst thing i’ve ever heard.”

Johnny Marr collab

Johnny Marr, the acclaimed English guitarist, best known for his work with The Smiths is working on a collaboration project with Best Coast, Tom Vek, Au Revoir Simone, and Nashville’s Mona.  The project is called Ray-Ban Raw Sounds, and should be pretty interesting.  Of course, we all thought that Loutallica was going to be interesting too.  (See above)  You can read more and have a listen to some cuts here.

Deer Tick

Did you guys make it out to the Deer Tick show last weekend?  It was awesome.  Did you hear that front man John McCauley has moved to Nashville.  I am still loving the new record Divine Providence, and I thought it was awesome the other day when music blogger Louder Than That tweeted about Pitchfork’s rating system being ridiculous.  Luckily Paste Magazine liked it, and wrote up a little diddy about Nashville’s newest rock star resident.

Nashville to New York

Quite a few of the folks that make up Nashville’s independent music scene rolled up to New York last week for the CMJ music festival.  Nashville Cream did a good write up about a lot of the folks.  Another big winner of the CMJ festival was The Alabama Shakes who had to cancel their appearance at that awesome 8 off 8th we talked about last week.  The good news is that they have added a headlining date at Mercy Lounge on December 1st.  Check out what the New York Times had to say about The Alabama Shakes.

Wye Oak covers The Kinks and Danzig

Did you guys make it out to see Wye Oak at The Basement a couple of weeks ago?  AWESOME!  Well, in other news, they’ve taken part in the A.V. Club’s Undercover series where artist come in to do their own take on a predetermined list of songs.  It’s a pretty fun series to waste a bit of time on.  One-Thirty BPM has both of those covers up for you to listen to, and is reporting that those covers are going to be released on a 7-inch soon.

Laughing it up with The Black Keys

The Black Keys put out a funny advertisement for their up-coming El Camino record.  They put out a funny video for their first single from that record.  There is also a funny write up in Spin Magazine about MTV’s “clerical” mistake on their VMA award which was labeled for The Black Eyed Peas.

Atlas Sound

There is a new Atlas Sound record coming out on 4AD soon.  You can grab the single “Flagstaff” off that record over at One-Thirty BPM.  I really hope Atlas Sound throws a Nashville date on his tour.  I’ll key my eyes open and let you know if that happens.

Gibson Guitar Legal Update

Nashville scene put a wordy, but good article asking if Gibson Guitar playing the victim in their legal troubles is really fair.  You can check that out here.

New Music: Mister Heavenly and King Tuff

I recently ran into a couple of new bands Brooklyn’s Mister Heavenly and Vermont’s King Tuff.  Both have a sort of grungy rock sound, and they both peeked my interest.  I’ve attached a track from each below.  Have a listen and let me know what you think.

Mister Heavenly – “Bronx Sniper”

King Tuff – “Dancing On You”

The Zoltars

Austin, TX band The Zoltars have released a “visual album” which really just means it a long, long, long video.  Not to make it sound bad though.  If you wanna check it out, click here.

That’s enough for now.  Thanks for letting me reboot.  Happy Halloween.