Photo by Shannon McClean

Man, after this long on the road, Okkervil River's gonna need a few Stand Ins of their own. The ardent Austin band, soon to release a sorta-sequel to last year's fine The Stage Names LP, have thrown a bunch of dates onto the back end of their tour itinerary, which now sees them on the road at least a little (and mostly a lot) every month from this one through November. A set at Lollapalooza next weekend in Chicago gets things started.

The Stand Ins is due from Jagjaguwar September 9 in North America, October 13 in the U.K., September 1 in France, September 12 in Germany, September 17 in Japan, and September 8 throughout the rest of Europe. Got all that?

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Indietracks is sort of an awkward name for a thing, sure, like Dijonnaise. Then again, just like there's no more appropriate term for the intersection of dijon mustard and mayonnaise, what the hell else are you gonna call a festival where indie bands perform on real live trains? Exactly.

So, Indietracks it is. Taking place July 26-27 at the Midland Railway in Butterley, England, the fest packs a mess of indie pop bands onto three boring old static stages, plus, as we cannot possibly mention enough, one stage on a moving train.

The likes of the Wedding Present, Los Campesinos!, Manhattan Love Suicides, Airport Girl, the Wave Pictures, Comet Gain, Ballboy, Red Pony Clock, Milky Wimpshake, Shrag, St. Christopher, the Smittens, and oh so many others will slide into the station this coming weekend.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, warms the cockles of my heart like ominous, tribal, droning, post-punk abstraction. OK, a video illustrating the joyous energy all the tom-tom pounding and shrill noise-making can generate in a live setting actually does enhance the experience. The clip for These Are Powers' "Cockles", from the Brooklyn band's soon-to-be-reissued 2008 Taro Tarot EP, starts casually, with some live pre-song chatter and footage of fans with glow sticks. From there it's a rapidly edited compilation of shots from several of the band's raw-and-ready small-venue shows. Lead vocalist Anna Barie grins beatifically, closing her eyes as she bangs on a tambourine or sings, "It's all in your heart." Thus warming the cockles of said organ, regardless of your tolerance for "ghost-punk" or other made-up genres.

[from the Taro Tarot EP; out now on Hoss and due as a reissue 10/07/08 on Dead Oceans]

Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell

Low have revealed some tour dates at festivals, a museum, a previously mentioned Obama benefit, and even a "UFO Factory" to keep themselves busy this summer. Aside from the variety of venues, the most notable aspect of these new dates comes in the form of three shows, each tagged as "An Evening With Low". Meaning? Since these shows feature no openers, Low will play longer sets and cover more discography ground than usual. Who knows how far into the back catalog and cover canon they might go?

The fun begins August 27 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and the first "Evening With" gig hits Chicago on September 17.

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Music may be figuratively good for the heart, but forthcoming compilation Beaterblocker takes heart-benefiting a step further. According to a press release, Beaterblocker curator Ed Godden created the "experimental mixed genre compilation...in aid of the ACU and Lamb Ward at the Homerton Hospital" in London. Godden's reason for doing so is simple: "I had a heart attack last year, and the album is a thank you to everyone who looked after me. It was scary. I was 21."

Beaterblocker features tracks from Marissa Nadler, Vladislav Delay, Ghosthype, Alex Smoke, Abdullah Flex, Marsen Jules, Klimek, Panda Bear/Ariel Pink collaborator John Maus, and Angel Deradoorian of Dirty Projectors. Its limited first edition will be available from a couple British shops and from the compilation's website on July 25, and all proceeds will go to the Homerton Hospital.

To celebrate Beaterblocker's entry into the world, there will be a free launch party tonight (July 24) at London's Flea Pit, featuring a live set from Abdullah Flex and DJ sets and visuals from Ghosthype, Dead Leaf Echo, Allez-Allez, and Upset the Rhythm. Copies of the compilation will be available for purchase at the launch party.

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Photo by Jimmy Edgar

Remember the title of Metro Area man Morgan Geist's years-in-the-making solo jaunt when listening to the Italo-techno-r&b of advance mp3 "The Shore". From the Brooklyn producer's forthcoming Double Night Time on Environ, this phosphorescent track conjures moonlit desolation rather than tropical idyll, with Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan contributing limpid, mannered vocals (as he does elsewhere on the album). There can be a humbling beauty in walking alone by the water at night, but it's no day at the beach.

Unlike Geist's 2006 single with Greenspan, "Most of All", which had dreamy electric guitar, "The Shore" is almost exclusively electronic. A bassline of jittery funk trades off with flashing organ sounds on the verses, programmed percussion hissing like the waves down on the beach. The choruses find some release in ascending synth runs. "It's OK to let it out," Greenspan coolly repeats. Sustained keyboard chords recalling Hot Chip's "Made in the Dark" spread out toward the conclusion, made more disorienting by stereo-panned bleeps. Despite some clunky lyrical phrasing, it's here that Greenspan's narrator finds a way to forget-- at last!-- the person whose memory he's been drowning in these waters all along.

[from Double Night Time; due in September on Environ]

It used to be a Shellac tour was a rare occasion, but since just before the release of Excellent Italian Greyhound, Steve Albini and co. have toured regularly enough to be considered a functioning band. It's as if they realized people want to hear from them more than once every couple years. Crazy!

Shellac will give the people what they want again this September and October with a short tour of North America, the UK, and Ireland. The tour starts in Royal Oak Pontiac, Michigan on September 15 and includes a couple of ATP-related performances.

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Once they're all done running rampant over the UK with their recently released debut LP Limbo, Panto, England's Wild Beasts will bring their audio tribute to that bendy dance and that thing where you don't talk (or something) to the States. Limbo, Panto will hit these shores via Domino on November 4.

These Beasts are sticking awfully close to their native habitat this summer with a scattered series of UK shows this month and next.

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Photo by Jacqueline Castel

"Ghost-punks" though they may claim to be, no wavers These Are Powers have nevertheless materialized on the roster of the Dead Oceans imprint. The band, which features ex-Liars bassist Pat Noecker, has signed with the Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar offshoot, who will be re-releasing their 2007 LP debut Terrific Seasons and this spring's Taro Tarot EP October 7. A new LP can be expected in the first part of next year, but just exactly when, no one's sure at the moment. Oooh, spooky.

These Are Powers will embark on a monthlong North American tour in early September.

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The Girls are five Seattle boys who aren't San Francisco's Girls. They're the Girls who are boys who like their new wave to be old-wave new wave, who like their old-wave new wave to be punk. The Girls carefully applied Cars synths like so much eyeliner over spiky Voidoids guitars on 2004's fine self-titled affair, and they're revving the Revlon up again on this song from follow-up Yes No Yes No Yes No. Yes, yes, "Transfer Station" may share its name with the buildings where garbage collectors deposit their garbage, but compared to many of the bands rummaging through similar dumpsters, it's reasonably hot garbage-- though it probably won't still smell as sweet as former Dirtnap labelmates Exploding Hearts (sigh, R.I.P.). "Paranormal overdrive," the Girls' frontguy Shannon Brown twitches, jumbling up my chronology by reminding me to ask where Syd Barrett lives (sigh, lived). But this isn't a history lesson, and it isn't a makeover, either. Reminder: You could be swinging on a Stellastarr*.

MP3:> The Girls: "Transfer Station"
[from Yes No Yes No Yes No; due 09/16/08 on Dirtnap]

Dapper don Nick Cave and his old friends the Bad Seeds must be used to the deluxe treatment by now; after all, they're rock royalty if anybody is. But the band's monstrous back catalog? It may have never been treated so good before.

Mute Records is set to reissue remastered, 5.1 surround sound-enhanced versions of the entirety of the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds discography, with the initial batch of four titles due later in 2008. Cave and the Seeds' first four discs-- 1984's From Her to Eternity, 1985's The Firstborn Is Dead, 1986's Kicking Against the Pricks, and 1986's Your Funeral... My Trial-- make up that initial batch, and boy, are they in for a treat. The collector's editions will be double disc sets containing both the remastered stereo album and the new surround mix, B-sides, and new liner notes. Each album will also contain one of a series of short films (collectively titled Do You Love Me Like I Love You?) made by the UK-based team of Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard.

Indeed, Forsyth and Pollard are putting together Do You Love right now, and they need your help! "Have you been affected by the songs of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds?" they ask on their website. If the answer is yes, and you'd like to explain just how in front of a camera, you should probably click here pronto.

In other Cave rumblings, the theatrical production of Georg Büchner's Woyzeck-- for which Nick Cave and Bad Seed/Dirty Three dude Warren Ellis composed music a couple years back-- is coming to NYC. Woyzeck will play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House on October 15, 17, and 18 as part of BAM's Next Wave Festival.

"Midnight Man", the latest single from the latest Bad Seeds album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, will be released by Mute in the UK on July 28. It will be available as a limited edition, etched 7" (with artwork by Cave himself) and as a download, featuring the B-side "Hey Little Firing Squad" and early versions of Lazarus tracks "More News From Nowhere" and "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!".

And for those wondering, Nick Cave is apparently still gunning to have a huge bronze statue of himself erected in his hometown of Warracknabeal, Australia, an idea he's floated around for a few years now. A recent report in Australia's Wimmera Mail-Times notes that the statue may go up as soon as the end of the year, and quotes Cave as saying, "I am looking for a wealthy benefactor who would be interested in investing in an historical monument." That said, certain of Cave's claims-- such as his having invited Russell Crowe, Kylie Minogue and Snoop Dogg to the statue's unveiling-- suggest he may still be pulling a fast one on us. But you never really know with this guy.

At least one thing's for sure: Cave and company have a bunch of European dates under the Grinderman name through the rest of the summer, with a Bad Seeds tour set to hit North America in the fall.

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This year marks the seventh anniversary of the Québécois convergence known as Pop Montreal, once again bring together fan and band alike over five glorious days and nights at the beginning of October. Things will get on and, you know, Poppin' at many Montreal venues October 1-5.

And just who will be making their way to Montreal this time out? Well, that would be Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Wire, Hot Chip, Dan Deacon, Beach House, Silver Apples, Crystal Castles, Julie Doiron, reclusive psych legend Elyse Weinberg (under the guise of Cori Bishop), the Wedding Present, Vetiver, the Dodos, Black Kids, Jana Hunter, Cex, Evangelicals, Liam Finn, the Veils, Great Lake Swimmers, Jason Collett, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Irma Thomas, Chad VanGaalen, Dark Meat, Headlights, and Burt fucking Bacharach.

Per usual, there'll be panels and chats and the like, DIY stuff for sale, a kids section, a film festival-- including Vincent Moon of La Blogotheque's footage from All Tomorrow's Parties events-- and that sort of stuff.

Prolific Miami-based sound wizard Dino Felipe has made a lot of records-- more than 30 in the past decade, if you count his various groups and compilation appearances-- but this is his poppiest to date and first for No Fun, the noise label run by his friend and colleague Carlos Giffoni.

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Daedelus' ninth album since 2002's Invention and first on Ninja Tune, embraces love and lust in all of their facets.

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Scaling back the unbridled positivity of their debut, California-based Bodies of Water mix their earlier communal, gospel-pop feel with something shadowy and enigmatic.

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Ex-Rocket From the Crypt man John "Speedo" Reis here leads a new group, one that features his former Hot Snakes bandmates Gar Wood and Jason Kourkounis and functions as a more refined, controlled version of RFTC.

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Before they were the biggest band in the world, U2 made three records of flag-waving, populist post-punk, each of which is now reissued along with a huge clutch of rare tracks-- studio B-sides, previously unreleased tracks, live shows, radio sessions, and remixes.

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It was flattering to see a few YouTubes of last weekend's Pitchfork Music Festival popping up on blogs, but over the next few days, Pitchfork.tv will have something even better: high-quality videos from every night of the Festival, taken straight from the live feed. First up is three performances from Friday night's Don't Look Back event, co-presented by UK-based concert-throwers All Tomorrow's Parties.

We begin with Public Enemy. We heard a great many sets described as a favorite over the weekend, but one thing that everyone seemed to agree on is that Public Enemy absolutely killed it with their live version of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. "Rebel Without a Pause" gives a good idea of how it went down.

Just before P.E., indie rock royalty Sebadoh performed their transitional Sub Pop LP Bubble and Scrape. Lou Barlow, Jason Lowenstein, and Eric Gaffney were all on hand, but Barlow performed his ballad "Think (Let Tomorrow Bee)" all by his lonesome, just the way it ought to be.

And kicking off Friday night was Mission of Burma, who tore up Union Park at the Pitchfork Festival two years ago, this time doing their album Vs. That album's moody builder "Trem Two" is a key piece of the 1980s underground puzzle. Stay tuned for more videos here on Forkcast and on Pitchfork.tv.  

Controversy magnet and infrequent musician Courtney Love is being sued again, this time to the tune of a almost a million dollars. According to an Associated Press report, the management and accounting firm London & Co. is alleging that Love broke an oral contract promising the firm 5% of her earnings and those of her company, The End of Music. (The End of Music was established in order to manage the intellectual property of Love's late husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.)

The AP reports that London & Co. claim the 2007 sale of a portion Nirvana's publishing catalog that netted Love $19.5 million dollars would've earned the firm $975,000.

Reminds me of that time in college I sold my copy of From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah for beerbook money. And I didn't get enough back then, either!

In a related story, when two magnets of the same pole come together, things like this always happen.

Way the hell back in November 2006, you may recall us running an item about Scottish rockers Franz Ferdinand laying an exclusive song called "Hallam Foe Dandelion Blow" on the soundtrack to David Mackenzie's film Hallam Foe.

Well hey, that jam and the soundtrack it's featured on-- which also includes tunes from a ton of Franz's fellow Domino artists-- will finally be released via Domino in the States on September 9. Woo!

However, something to note: in every other country in the world, the film is called Hallam Foe, seeing as it's based on Peter Jinks' novel of the same title, and Hallam is the main character's first name. In the U.S., however, where the film will be released September 5? They're calling it Mister Foe. Makes you proud, don't it?

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