CRYSTAL CASTLES LIVE FROM GLASTONBURY We’ve got some awesome new footage straight from Andy of Lies Records of Cannibal Cheerleader favorite Crystal Castles performing at Glastonbury (finally, a festival that knows how to film shows right). They perform a killer version of non-album track “Baptism”, “Black Panther”, and a scorching rendition of “Yes/No” (Andy says to watch this last one at 3:43 to see the security guard try to shut off the band, awesome). It’s a shame CC doesn’t get the credit in the States that it does across the pond, because here’s one band that’s actually deserving of the hype. Come back to Texas you two for some Austin hospitality!
Crystal Castles – Alice Practice (Futurecop! Remix) ******************************************************************** ACTION DESIGN EXTENDS TOUR TO AUSTIN According to the Action Design Myspace the former Tsunami-Bombers are swinging through Austin Sept. 10 at Red 7 after their jaunt on the much maligned (by this blog anyway) Warped Tour. Since we unfortunately missed the band their last time through, you know we’ll be hitting up this one.
“WE NEED A DRUMMER… We are looking for a drummer living in the New York area with a flexible schedule. Simply submit a photo of yourself along with your astrological sign to heartsrevolution@gmail.com and leave a one word description of yourself as the subject.
Thank you”
There you have it – if you’re interested in participating in one of the most exciting electro-clash acts out there and have a penchant for banging on things, hit these guys up immediately! Who knows, you might be cruising in the Heartschallenger van.
Heartsrevolution – “Switchblade” ******************************************************************** NEW BAND CHEER: SOUTHERN DRAMA A combination of baroque-pop sound and rock aesthetics, with a peppering of jazzy experimentalism and Gothic undertones, along with a great number of other literate descriptors, Southern Drama, an all-girl trio from Austin, are clearly hard to pin down. Violin solos float by the listeners’ ears as easily as lead singer Clarissa Ysel Sugarcube-vocals. It’s either a nightmarish, 50s style vaudeville act or one of the best indie bands in Austin, Southern Drama is not so much a band but a complete art project package and definitely deserving of all the attention we here at Cannibal Cheerleader can muster for them. Check these ladies out immediately at their Myspace and see if you can’t write a better description of them than I can.
BE YOUR OWN PET CANCEL WARPED TOUR DATESOn a recent posting on the Be Your Own Pet website, the band states:
“We regret to inform our fans that we will not be participating in this year’s Warped Tour. We have been going non-stop for the past 6 months and didn’t realize how much the intense schedule would take out of us. Something had to give and sadly it’s this tour.”
Seeing their last live show here in Austin definitely makes it easy for us to understand how the band might be a little tired after all this non-stop touring. Also, as we’ve mentioned before, Jemina Pearl was none too happy to be participating in the poseur-filled Warped Tour, so looks like this might be a win-win. Get some rest guys! ******************************************************************** WHISPERTOWN2000 CHANGE NAME, PLOT TOUR Whispertown2000 (remember, no space!), or now The Whispertown 2000 have begun mapping out their new tour via their Myspace and here’s what their most recent bulletin had to say:
“Hello, fine people.
So, it looks as if our preposed tour should happen in September. Please respond if you or someone you know books at a college or venue. We would love to support or open up for someone in your town!!!
P.S. New Record to be released early October!!
P.S. We’re changing our name to The Whispertown 2000 ..
P.S. Website and Merch Store soon to come
P.S. Pushing Oars… P.S. xo”
So you’ve got a new Whispertown 2000 LP, a new tour (please swing through Austin!), a new website, and a new name! And who wants to bet me ‘Pushing Oars’ might just be the name of this their sophomore release? Only time will tell, stay tuned for more from these guys… ******************************************************************** TREASURE MAMMAL TOUR BEGINSOur favorite motivational speaker/experimental hip-hop artist Treasure Mammal is about to embark on his US tour! He’s going to be swinging through Austin this coming Sunday, and you know that Cannibal Cheerleader will be there with bells on to capture the whole event. If you’re on his itinerary (check out the Myspace!) then be sure and see this guy: the experience is life-altering. ******************************************************************** KANYE WEST RESPONDS TO BONNAROO INCIDENT The blogosphere has erupted over the past week over an incident at Bonnaroo where Kanye West’s late night set, scheduled to begin at 2:45am was delayed until 4:45am for (before today) unknown reasons. What could have been a simple controversy about disgruntled fans quickly turned into racist tirades against proud black artists who don’t display the humility that privileged young hippies feel they should. It of course goes without saying that the backlash against any African-American artist who doesn’t meet the fickle Internet’s standards will be far stronger than a Caucasian performer and the comments section on the likes of Stereogum are proof enough of that. Commentators claim that a mere apology would have sufficed, though given the fact that they were already throwing things on Kanye’s stage, perhaps it was their turn to apologize to him. Obviously I have strong feelings on the issue, however not so much as our friend Mr. West who comments on his blog (copied here in its brutally honest entirety, thanks Pitchfork):
“I am sick of negative people who just sit around trying 2 plot my downfall… Why???? I understand if people don’t like me because I like me or if people think tight clothes look gay or people say I run my mouth to much, But this Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I’ve ever had in my life. This is the most offended I’ve ever been… this is the maddest I ever will be. I’m typing so fucking hard I might break my fucking Mac book Air!!!!!!!! Call me any name you want…. arrogant, conceited, narcissistic, racist, metro, fag whatever you can think of…. BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN’T GIVE MY ALL! NEVER SAY I DIDN’T GIVE MY ALL! THIS SHOWS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO BE GOOD AT SOMETHING THERE WILL BE PEOPLE THERE TO LIE ABOUT YOU AND BRING YOU DOWN! LIKE WAYNE SAYS PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME DOWN CAUSE I’M FLYING! I’M FUCKING HURT BY THIS ONE. ALL I CARE ABOUT ARE THE FANS. JUST SAY THIS OUT LOUD IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE, “KANYE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT GIVING A GOOD PERFORMANCE.” CAN ANYONE HONESTLY SAY THAT ????????? HAS ANYONE EVEN TAKEN THE TIME TO AT LEAST DO THE MATH??? BONNAROO SHOULD HAVE RELEASED A STATEMENT IN MY DEFENSE BUT SINCE THEY HAVEN’T LET’S BREAK DOWN THE WALLS ON THIS TRUMAN SHOW AND LET YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY OCCURRED!!! FOR OVER A MONTH WE WENT BACK AND FORTH ON WETHER OR NOT WE COULD EVEN FIT MY STAGE AT THE FESTIVAL. ONE DAY THEY WOULD SAY YES… WE’D SEND THEM OUR SPECS THEN THEY THEY’D SAY OK… THEN THEY WOULD SEND SPECS BACK THAT DIDN’T FIT THE STAGE. WE WERE OBVIOUSLY DEALING WITH FUCKING IDIOTS WHO DIDN’T REALLY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO REALLY PUT ON THIS SHOW PROPERLY. THEY TRIED 2 GIVE ME A TIME SLOT WERE IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUTSIDE … I HAVE A FUCKING LIGHT SHOW DUMB ASS, IT’S NOT CALLED GLOW IN THE DARK FOR NO REASON SQUID BRAINS! MY PEOPLE WORKED OUT A COMPROMISED STAGE PLOT AND A 3AM TIME SLOT AND I AGREED. FAST FOWARD TO THE DAY OF THE SHOW. MY PRODUCTION MANAGER TRIED TO LOAD IN FOR 24 HOURS BEFORE I WENT ON STAGE BUT THE FESTIVAL WOULDN’T ALLOW US TO DO ANYTHING UNTILL PEARL JAM LEFT THE STAGE. PEARL JAM ENDED ONE HOUR
LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT THAT POINT WE’RE RACING AGAINST THE SUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT 4:20AM DON COMES BACK 2 THE BUS AND TELLS ME, ” IT WOULD TAKE 45 MORE MINUTES TO PUT ALL YOUR PYRO IN!” I SAY I HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE . I HIT THE STAGE AND PEOPLE HAD BEEN THROWING SHIT ON THE STAGE AND HAD ACTUALLY HIT THE JANE SCREEN WITH, I GUESS BOTTLES OR SOMETHING AND HAD BROKEN MY FUCKING SCREEN. REMEMBER WHEN YOU WERE A SHORTY AND WATER WOULD HIT THE TV?????? WHEN I GOT 2 “THROUGH THE WIRE” I STEPPED ON THE FRONT PART OF MY STAGE AND THERE WAS SO MUCH LIQUID ON THE STAGE I COULDN’T MOVE WITHOUT SLIPPING. I HAD TO ADJUST MY WHOLE PERFORMANCE STYLE BECAUSE OF IT. A FEW MORE SONGS IN AND THE SONG WAS ON IT’S WAY UP.. I CUT A FEW SONGS FROM THE SET BECAUSE I WANTED PEOPLE 2 EXPERIENCE STRONGER WHILE THERE WAS STILL SOME DARKNESS TO PERFORM IT IN. I’VE STRUGGLED WITH STRONGER FROM IT’S CONCEPTION. REMEMBER LAST SUMMER WHEN I CANCELED SOME TV APPEARANCES. IT WAS BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT TO PERFORM STRONGER IN THE DAYTIME. ANYONE WHO CAME TO THE GLOW TOUR CAN UNDERSTAND WHY I WANTED PEOPLE TO SEE IT PROPERLY. IT BROKE MY HEART THAT I COULDN’T GIVE THESE FANS STRONGER IN IT’S GREATEST FORM… BY THE TIME I GOT TO STRONGER IT WAS DAYTIME AND IT BROKE MY HEART. I’M SORRY TO EVERYONE THAT I DIDN’T HAVE THE ABILITY 2 GIVE THE PERFORMANCE I WANTED TO. I’M SORRY… SOMETIMES I GO 2, 3 DAYS W/O SLEEP WORKING ON MY PERFORMANCE… I HAVE TO ICE MY KNEES AFTER EVERY SHOW AND THEY HURT WHEN I WALK THROUGH THE AIRPORT… HAVING AN EXPENSIVE STAGE CUTS MY PAYDAY IN HALF… CALL ME WHAT YOU WANT BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN’T GIVE MY ALL!!!”
Spoken like a true artist Kanye. Here at Cannibal Cheerleader we realize when a performer on the level of Michael Jackson with a political slant reminiscent of Dylan reaches the top of the heap. Shame to see so many people trying to pull him down. This is actually a good segue into my next section… ******************************************************************** CANNIBAL CHEERLEADER – PRINT EDITION!As that last section may have made readers realize, I’m an opinionated person. However, Cannibal Cheerleader is more about the music than the politics but that’s going to change when we release the Cannibal Cheerleader Zine here in Austin, Texas. It will be available free in various locations around the city and will feature artist profiles, artwork, politics, music essays, and Austin-centric articles, all based around the theme of brave, creative music journalism with no commercial ties holding us down. Be prepared to be shocked (not that the idea of a Cannibal Cheerleader isn’t shocking enough, haha). Coming in mid-to-late July, look for it then.
PS. MP3’s will hopefully be back next week everyone!
Our favorite punk rock frontwoman Jemina Pearl of Be Your Own Pet has said what we’ve all been thinking about bands on the Warped Tour for quite some time in a new interview on Pitchfork. She says:
“I just associate it with a certain look and a certain style and the kind of kids at school that I thought were– this is really bad, I’m sure– the kind of kids that were dumbasses wearing Rancid t-shirts who thought they knew what punk rock was and threw things at people in the cafeteria. So it’s like, okay, now we’re going to be performing for these people…..Yeah, maybe I’ll be eating my words later, but all those bands have this very specific look and sound and style. It’s like the new hair metal or something. There are like 10 different rules about how you write a song and what everything sounds like and looks like. I’d like to imagine that we’re very much the opposite of that.”
So there you have it AP Magazine crowd – scenester music is a cookie-cutter, shallow musical form devoid of creativity and only popular because record labels push it down young kids’ throats. Good to know that real punk-rockers like Miss Pearl agree with us here at CC. You can read the rest of this excellent BYOP interview here. Also here’s a missing cut from Get Awkward that Pearl describes as “especially important”. We think so too!
Be Your Own Pet – “Becky” ******************************************************************** SF PERKELE SPEAKS OUT In other news, SF Perkele has spoken out about his supposed MF Doom/Madvillainy tape. From his Myspace:
“MF/SF BOOTLEG IS MOS DEF NOT OFFICIAL! Only made a few cdr copies for friends about a year ago, no track/album titles whatsoever. Shit was untitled as fuck, a ruff draft. We don’t know who the fuck made it available to the internet and named the tracks etc. Please delete it from all the sites and don’t distribute it anymore to these ignorant motherfuckers, whom it wasn’t meant for in the first place. Real talk!”
So there you have it, no Madvillainy 2, sad to say, and we won’t be posting any more mp3s of this bootleg per Mr. SF’s request. Still, looking forward to more MF Doom in the future!
According to this Pitchfork article, the mighty munchkins of Be Your Own Pet will be joining the Warped Tour for dates in July and August. The skater-punks will surely enjoy a little of Jemima Pearl’s madcap live antics and you know WE’LL be loving her at her upcoming Stubb’s show this Thursday. Prepare for pictures on Friday of that show. ******************************************************************** JOHANSSON’S TOM WAITS ALBUM STREAMING
Imeem is streaming Scarlett Johansson’s Tom Waits covers album. Check it out here and prepare to float on a wave of shoegazey-goodness with Marilyn Monroe providing vocals. ******************************************************************** CARRIE BROWNSTEIN POSTS NEW MONITOR MIX
Carrie Brownstein, writer for NPR and guitarist of the greatest American punk band to have ever existed Sleater-Kinney, has uploaded a new Monitor Mix. Check that shit out, it’s even got the Libertines on it! ******************************************************************** FULL-LENGTH EVIL URGES REVIEW Here’s a new feature – full-length reviews! Check out this new one for My Morning Jacket’s Evil Urges and comment if you like it! Warning, long text ahead!
“The title track off of My Morning Jacket’s newest LP Evil Urges begins innocently enough, strutting in with a snare-drum downbeat, soft, funky guitar-plucking, and a twangy, country guitar riff, complete with syrupy slides, a seeming reassurance that the alt-country giants are back in fine form. However, as lead singer Jim James slinks in with a surprising, layered alto, a soulful falsetto croon more reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield than Neil Young, it becomes apparent that the Kentucky quintet is not in Louisville anymore. “Evil Urges”, a bricolage of extremely divergent genres including funk, Southern-rock, blues, and country, serves as a warmup to the album as a whole which, through its swerving between the Jacket’s noted strengths and their continuing flights with experimentalist tendencies, makes for a fantastic voyage and the band’s most original and exciting work to date. For any longtime fans of My Morning Jacket it should be clear by now, after 2006’s acclaimed Z, that the band’s penchant for reverb-soaked vocals and hushed instrumental strains have long since taken a back seat to piercing Prince-style vocals and fiery guitar heroics. The flecks of artistry and inspiration that peppered their debut effort The Tennessee Fire and separated it from contemporaries have been given room to breathe and fleshed out in all their glory. The band’s slow rise to fame recalls a roller-coaster ride, clicking up the tall first ascent with their debut and sophomore LP, the excellent At Dawn. The band’s Southern-rock dominance stood high atop the peak with the magnificent It Still Moves. And if the wildly innovative Z is the excitement of the first drop, Evil Urges is the first loop and the listeners are not strapped in but trusted to be stuck to their seats by the music’s sheer chaotic force. Urges, unlike previous Jacket LPs, contains not one extraneous song, not one skippable track, and flows elegantly from classic late-60s outlaw country like “Smokin’ From Shootin” and “Sec Walkin’” to barn-burning rockers like “Aluminum Park” and “Remnants” to radical mutations like the disco-rock “Highly Suspicious” or the bizarre instrumentation of both parts of “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream”. To describe the album as incomparable would not be wholly inaccurate, as its style varies so wildly and its influence seems cherry-picked from the best rock has had to offer since its inception. However, the album might be most accurately described as a rough combination of R&B-style singing and Flaming Lips’ madcap experimentalism, all painted on a canvas of Lynyrd Skynyrd country-fried rock and roll. Overall the piece gels fantastically and weirdly, stunning longtime fans with how different a band with a seemingly simple foundation, that of classic Southern-rock, can sound when they let loose their artistic urges, and flooring first time listeners with its disparity and creativity. During this year’s South By Southwest Music Festival My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James performed a solo set at St. David’s Episcopal Church to a hushed crowd of 240, all of whom witnessed acoustic performances of old classics such as “Gideon” and new tracks like “Librarian”. Much like during this performance, the listeners of Urges are all witness to the church of Jim James, only instead of reverent sermons he is preaching hellfire, brimstone, and yes, evil from the pulpit, raining down a musical storm on we the parishioners. Bow down before the mighty My Morning Jacket because they’ve just crafted one of the best records of the year. “
We’ve got some awesome new footage straight from Andy of Lies Records of Cannibal Cheerleader favorite Crystal Castles performing at Glastonbury (finally, a festival that knows how to film shows right). They perform a killer version of non-album track “Baptism”, “Black Panther”, and a scorching rendition of “Yes/No” (Andy says to watch this last one at 3:43 to see the security guard try to shut off the band, awesome). It’s a shame CC doesn’t get the credit in the States that it does across the pond, because here’s one band that’s actually deserving of the hype. Come back to Texas you two for some Austin hospitality!
According to the Action Design Myspace the former Tsunami-Bombers are swinging through Austin Sept. 10 at Red 7 after their jaunt on the much maligned (by this blog anyway) Warped Tour. Since we unfortunately missed the band their last time through, you know we’ll be hitting up this one.
From the Heartsrevolution Myspace:
A combination of baroque-pop sound and rock aesthetics, with a peppering of jazzy experimentalism and Gothic undertones, along with a great number of other literate descriptors, Southern Drama, an all-girl trio from Austin, are clearly hard to pin down. Violin solos float by the listeners’ ears as easily as lead singer Clarissa Ysel Sugarcube-vocals. It’s either a nightmarish, 50s style vaudeville act or one of the best indie bands in Austin, Southern Drama is not so much a band but a complete art project package and definitely deserving of all the attention we here at Cannibal Cheerleader can muster for them. Check these ladies out immediately at their Myspace and see if you can’t write a better description of them than I can.
