Awesome Music

Umphrey's McGee Offers Up Groupee Bundle

I should have posted this before it went on sale yesterday but I was conned in to a staring match with a Cyclops and wouldn't you know it they don't blink. So here I am a day later with partial use of my eyes after six hours without blinking. Thanks Crazy Glue. Anyways the awesome that is Umphrey's McGee continue their quest to stay ahead of the curve with new media by announcing a Groupee special, essentially a flash sale for some Umphrey's goodies. Including in the "Umphrey's Bundle" will be their latest studio album Mantis, Live From Toad's Place Acoustic, a pro-shot video of the unreleased "Linear" from the band's Halloween run in St. Louis as well as video of "Tool Meets Umphrey's" from their recent interactive UMBowl II. The best part? This is pay what you want starting at $5. You heard that right, $5.

As an added bonus if the promotional goal of 10,000 purchases is met the band will also include a new unheard song that is currently in production. The deal only lasts til Friday evening so yeah, could you go buy like 5,000 or so please? You can check out the video ad above to get filled in on the details and be reminded of how great Umphrey's are, then get in on the fun over at the official Groupee page.

Music
You're Doing It Right
Viral Marketing
Mantis
Live At Toad's Place
Umphrey's McGee

Music Video Of The Day: The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight

This is a fun one considering it's all serious and stuff. For the official video of The Decemberists' "This Is Why We Fight", Colin Meloy and company go the kid theater route with some serious Lord Of The Flies vibes, albeit with way more hardcore outfits. Oh, and lots of shots of sad kid faces, featuring some not very subtle close-ups during the first chorus. As an added bonus you end on a bit of a cliffhanger, unless you think they just took the beating with their pride intact. I'm hoping more for a trap preferably involving barracudas. I've always thought they were cool.

If you want to catch the band live you certainly have no excuses to miss it as they are playing pretty much everywhere through the summer including official festival whore status with stops at Jazzfest, Sasquatch, Bonarroo, the Newport Folk Festival and Outisde Lands on the docket.   [via consequence of sound]

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Music Video Of The Day
The King Is Dead
The Decemberists

Watch TV On The Radio's Nine Types Of Light Movie

To coinicde with today's release of their new album Nine Types Of Light, Brooklyn indie heros TV on the Radio have put together a film featuring individual videos for each track off of the album. Per the band's vevo page:

Nine Types of Light is as much an album as it is a movie by TV on the Radio. The movie is meant to be a visual re-imagining of the record, and includes a music video for every song on the album. The band personally asked their friends and the filmmakers they admired to help direct the music videos. Tunde Adebimpe, the director for the full Nine Types of Light movie, storybooked the music videos together with interviews from local New Yorkers on various topics, including dreams, love, fame and the future.

I've yet to watch the film and unfortunately have only been able to give the album a once over, granted it was an enjoyable once-over. That's what she said. The new record is the band's first since 2008's awesome Dear Science, with the lengthy delay mainly due to a self-imposed hiatus. To celebrate the release the band is rocking their hometown at the Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight with a national tour to follow. Dates can be found at their official site.

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Nine Types Of Light
TV On The Radio

Download The Title Track "Circuital" From My Morning Jacket's New Album

We've still got a ways to go but we're getting there. Seems like a lyric but more just an accurate statement as to the impending release of My Morning Jacket's sixth full length studio album Circuital, the band's first since 2008's Evil Urges. Thankfully Jim James and company have thrown us a proverbial bone by offering up a free download of the title track, which just so happens to encapuslate much of the My Morning Jacket experience in its seven minutes and seventeen seconds. The album doesn't hit stores until May 31st so you can safely expect some more bones to be thrown your way, or else you are going to have to listen to "Circuital" quite a few times in the next fifty days, not like we're counting or anything.

As is the standard nowadays for bands with their heads removed from any orifices, the Kentucky based rockers are offering up all sorts of pre-order goodies like a box set, fancy vinyl or really whatever you want, although I'm hearing the 8-tracks are on backorder. In addition to the Circuital business is the launch of Roll Call, the band's new fan club service which will run you $29.99 a year and includes the following:

• First access to presale tickets (when available)
• 24/7 access to members’ only site (to be launched Summer of 2011)
• A Welcome Letter from My Morning Jacket
• One My Morning Jacket t-shirt exclusively available to Roll Call members
• One My Morning Jacket poster exclusively available to Roll Call members
• One Roll Call Membership Card
• Where possible, a special Roll Call - only Will Call line at shows
• First access to MMJ’s ‘Self-Hypnosis’ series
• Exclusive music ONLY available to Roll Call members (extras, b-sides, demos, live songs, etc...)
• And much more!

Much more you say? Well then, count me in. Hopefully somewhere in there is the inclusion of reasonably priced tickets. You can stream the new track through Soundcloud courtesy of One Thirty BPM or you can download your own copy through the fancy MMJ widget below.

 

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New Music
Free Downloads
My Morning Jacket
Circuital

Music Video Of The Day: Wye Oak - Fish

In honor of today's announcement of this year's Outside Lands lineup, or as a total act of coincidence, here is the official video for Wye Oak's "Fish" off of their new album Civilian. Personally I think the video is awesome because there are puppets and the song is good, I'm easy like that. Painter and shadow puppeteer Katherine Fahey, who created the video along with Civilian cover photographer Michael O'Leary, takes it a bit more seriously:

Andy and Jenn's storyline for the video had made me realize how the song "Fish" is a metaphor. Because of this, I wanted to portray the man's journey through the watery landscape with a more surreal approach. The puppets aren't realistic or in scale with each other, and each seahorse and jellyfish is inspired by more than one species of its kind. Shadow puppetry is an ancient art form, and Andy was interested in having the video show that very basic and simple quality of the puppets. [via npr]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Puppets are cool. Along with the Baltimore based duo's previously mentioned Outside Lands appearance will be a visit to The Gorge for Sasquatch. [via TwentyFourBit]

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Music Video Of The Day
Puppets
Civilian
Wye Oak

Outside Lands 2011 Lineup Features Phish, Arcade Fire, Muse

The lineup for this year's Outside Lands festival is here! Celebrate good times come on, although that should not suggest Kool & the Gang made the cut, granted they certainly should have. Helping the festival move back to the proper three day variety is a solid core of headliners featuring the greatest rock band on the planet Phish, already confirmed to be playing two sets on Friday night, Muse who are rumored to be holding down Saturday night's headlining festivities, and the third night theoretically being split between almost-headliners-but-not-really Arcade Fire and The Black Keys. A solid start if I don't say so myself, granted I just did, but that's why you're here, right? Literal wordplay? Oh, the lineup. Yeah, let's get to that.

Joining in on the fun in Golden Gate Park August 12-14 will be a lot of people who have never been in my kitchen, more specifically Deadmau5, Girl Talk, Big Boi, Erykah Badu, Beirut, Big Audio Dynamite, as well as Bay Area legend/fake southerner John Fogerty. Of course there are some SHA favorites mixed in there as well such as MGMT, Lotus, Mavis Staples, The Decemberists, The Meters, The Roots, The Infamous Stringdusters, The Joy Formidable, The Stone Foxes and four more bands that start with "The". What can we say, we love the article-noun naming convention.

Other notable acts include Arctic Monkeys, Sound Tribe Sector 9, The Warren Haynes Band (who I'm hoping don't play until Sunday so as to guarantee no Warren sit-in mid-Phish), Toro Y Moi and many more. Tickets go on sale starting this Thursday April 14th and there are varying pricing scales so the early birds get the proverbial worm here with savings! Straight cash homey.

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Phish
Lotus
MGMT
The Black Keys
Muse
Arcade Fire
Girl Talk
Outside Lands

Music Video Of The Day: Wild Beasts - Albatross

A while back we had the audio for the wonderful single "Albatross" from Wild Beasts upcoming album Smother, which is set for release on May 3rd. Today we have the Dave Ma directed video which if Youtube is to be believed can be summed up nicely in a sentence: "The video emits a sense of reflection about loss and an underlying hope of being free." Sure, I'll buy that although I like my description better: "Black Swan without mirrors or the black swan but with a little bit of the bug stuff from Silence of the Lambs".  The band will hit the road in Europe at the end of the month in support of Smother with North American dates to be announced soon.

Music
Music Video Of The Day
Dave Ma
Smother
Wild Beasts

Dave Matthews Band's Chicago Caravan Looks Really Familiar

I was, apparently mistakenly, assuming that these roaming festivals Dave Matthews Band was putting on would sort of be independent monsters with the notable exception of the headliner. This was a pretty dumb assumption considering that the word caravan is in the title which by definition means the same people will be traveling together. Then there's that whole Dave Matthews has a record label part. Either way the newly announced stop on the Caravan tour at Chicago's Lakeside will take place July 8th-10th, and it will feature much of the same acts as the first stop in Atlantic City.

Don't let this give any pause to those that wanted to spend their summers going on weekend vacations seeing all the Dave Matthews shows played in 2011 as there are some new acts getting in on the Chicago fun. Joining the traveling festival's holy quadumvirate of subheadliners (The Flaming Lips, Ray LaMontagne, David Gray, O.A.R.) will be our favorite piano playing frontman, of whom we admittedly have quite a bit, the wonderful Ben Folds. Others joining the caravan mid party will be Emmylou Harris, Kid Cudi, Edwarde Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, G. Love, Soulive, Gomez, Ivan Neville's Dumstaphunk and more. According to the official announcement one should "visit the Lineup page for more information on the Chicago line-up and for upcoming late night show announcements."  Hooray late night shows!

Of course as avid Umphrey's McGee fans we assumed their past DMB connections would have landed them a slot at this year's midwest festivities, but you see the image above and there's no UM to be seen. Now keep in mind I have no inside information on this whatsoever but some digging leads me to believe they've still got a good chance. A visit to the lineup page for the Chicago stop reveals placeholders for four acts that simply show the Summercamp logo with a question mark. Presumably this has to do with a proximity clause and the four missing acts would all be playing Summercamp. Umphrey's has no shows scheduled for any of those dates. So you're saying there's a chance!

Tickets for the Chicago stop are currently available through the Warehouse presale. The public onsale starts Friday April 15th.

News
Music
Dave Matthews Band
Ray LaMontagne
Ben Folds
Umphrey's McGee
Drive-By Truckers
DMB Caravan

Stream Paul Simon's New Album "So Beautiful Or So What"

It would be nice if I could have listened to this before posting but that would mean that anyone who learns about NPR's stream of Paul Simon's new album "So Beautiful or So What" by reading this post will (theoretically) find out a half hour later than necessary. Sure I may have stayed at a Holiday Inn a few times in my life, but even aided by the hotel chain's magical healing powers I can't in good conscience keep anyone from new Paul Simon music. The legendary songwriter's first album since "Surprise" in 2006 hits shelves April 12th, so enjoy the stream while you can. That's what she said.

If you like a little visual with your Paul Simon audio be sure to tune to his appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. 

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Paul Simon
So Beautiful Or So What

Listen To One Of Middle Brother's Many Great SXSW Sets

It really goes without saying that NPR does the lord's work and by lord I of course mean Lord Susselberry of Edinterd, but that is neither here nor in Edinterd. One of the latest gems being offered up from their music utopia is a set from South By Southwest by none other than SHA favorites Middle Brother. Unfortunately there's no professional video of the set but that doesn't stop it from being memorable as you do get to hear a band member (sounds like John McCauley?) profess to their mom about the first time they tried acid. Considering how it all turned out I'm sure she is still pretty proud. Good times. Lesson to learn from this set? Shouting can be really expressive and sound pretty too.

Setlist

  • "Blue Eyes"
  • "Blood And Guts"
  • "Me Me Me"
  • "Someday"
  • "Thanks for Nothing"
  • "Middle Brother"

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