[Courtesy: Wolf Parade]

Wolf Parade will be releasing their newest album At Mount Zoomer on June 17! The band has made “Language City”, a spankin’ new track, available for download at their myspace! Or just stream it here…

“Language City” - At Mount Zoomer

Woah.

Pretty sweet actually. Kinda Queen, but pretty sweet.

My Morning Jacket at Foellinger Auditorium [12/05/06] Photo: Jono Baron

Jim James and Co. are about to put out their new album June 10th! The album is called Evil Urges, a title as cool as the band that picked it. They will also be playing the huge Coachella festival next week!

My Morning Jacket has released the first single off of the new album also called “Evil Urges”. You have until next Friday to download it for free, so don’t wait!

My Morning Jacket - “Evil Urges”

The track is definitely more along the lines of what we heard from Z, but I’m still crossing my fingers for a little It Still Moves Southern Rock sound

The National [Beggars Banquet]

Not only are these New York slow burners my favorite band, they also happen to have written my favorite album of 2007. Yesterday the band’s label Beggars Banquet announced that la blogotheque director and Take Away Show genius, Vincent Moon, has made a special 60 Minute movie called A Skin, A Night about The National’s days spent creating Boxer.

As if that weren’t enough to make me drool, the band has decided to release The Virginia EP at the same time. The tracklist includes some unreleased tracks and a lot of live material (so good live if you haven’t seen them!). Packaged bundle, here I come!

01 “You’ve Done It Again, Virginia” (previously unreleased)
02 “Santa Clara” (UK b-side)
03 “Blank Slate” (UK b-side)
04 “Tall Saint” (demo)
05 “Without Permission” (unreleased cover)
06 “Forever After Days” (demo)
07 “Rest Of Years” (demo)
08 “Slow Show” (demo)
09 “Lucky You” (Daytrotter session)
10 “Mansion On The Hill” (live)
11 “Fake Empire” (live)
12 “About Today” (live)

Expect both of these out May 20. Until then check out the Trailer for A Skin, A Night:

Ben on a solo tour in 2007 [deathcabforcutie.com]

As you may have heard, Death Cab For Cutie is coming out with a new album soon called Narrow Stairs. Here is a press release from their website with details:

Narrow Stairs Album Cover

“NARROW STAIRS” will arrive in stores and at all online retailers on May 13th. Produced by the band’s own Chris Walla, “NARROW STAIRS” will be preceded by the single, “I Will Possess Your Heart.” (See full track listing below). “I hope this album is a bit of a surprise for those out there that think they have us all figured out. We can’t wait to share these songs with the world,” states Death Cab bassist Nick Harmer.

NARROW STAIRS track listing:

1. Bixby Canyon Bridge
2. I Will Possess Your Heart
3. No Sunlight
4. Cath…
5. Talking Bird
6. You Can Do Better Than Me
7. Grapevine Fires
8. Your New Twin Sized Bed
9. Long Division
10. Pity and Fear
11. The Ice Is Getting Thinner

If you are craving a preview head over to It’s Hard to Find a Friend. They have a download of Ben playing “Cath” on BBC6. Check it out - acoustic track with some fun strumming.

Album Art for Consolers of the Lonely

The Raconteurs are back with a new album released today, Consolers of the Lonely. I have yet to pick up a copy but I’m sure after having a listen or two I will decide to drop some dough on it. After the recent genius of Icky Thump, it’s hard to doubt Jack White.

Here is a version of their newest video, “Salute Your Solution” that is a little more easily accessible than the DOS version on their quirky throwback website.

Nice haircut Jack.

They probably won’t be wearing those clothes in Lolla August heat…

Greg Kot, a music critic for the Chicago Tribune, has reported that insiders have confirmed Radiohead and NIN are booked for this summer’s Lollapalooza Music Festival in Grant Park! The bands and show producers have not announced anything yet, but when someone with connections such as Kot puts info like this out, official confirmations will most likely follow soon.

From Kot’s blog:

Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are expected to headline the fourth incarnation of Lollapalooza in Grant Park Aug. 1-3.

Promoters won’t make the lineup official for a few more weeks, but industry sources have confirmed that Radiohead has been booked as the centerpiece of the festival. The British quintet still raves about the experience they had in 2001 when they headlined a rare outdoor show at Hutchinson Field (Tribune file photo at left), on the South end of Grant Park. The band is expected to perform at the same location this year.

In addition, Nine Inch Nails will play its first Chicago show in several years, following the release of its 2007 album, “Year Zero,” and the four-volume “Ghosts,” made available a few days ago on the nin.com Web site.

Looks like I might have to go back on my promise never to spend money on concerts like Lolla again… too bad those $60 souvenir tickets got eaten up in under a second.

Mascara wearing Vamp by night… Shirtless Masochist by day!

Jared Leto of 30 Seconds to Mars has for once knocked out a fan with a performance instead of his effeminate beauty. Story courtesy of stereogum.

They aren’t allowing the embedding of this video probably to save server overload. Here is the link.

I love the sound of the “thud” clearly audible over that terrible music. Hopefully it knocked some sense into that fan that results in a better taste in bands.

New Album Cover?

Gnarls Barkley, the dynamic duo of costume-changing pop culture freaks, have a new album due out in April. They have kept fairly quiet about everything except the title. The sophomore effort following the crazy (sorry) success of 2006’s St. Elsewhere will be aptly named “The Odd Couple.”

Reports are coming in that a few blogs had the newest Gnarls Barkley track available yesterday. One of them, missionfreak, definitely did. Unfortunately they were shut down temporarily until they removed the link.

For those of you that are cursing yourselves for not getting a download fast enough, you may or may not have to fear. You see, there is this thing called bittorent. SOMETIMES horrible things like LEAKED MUSIC gets put on it. I may or may not have found it where there be lots of booty. yaaarrrrgh *wink*

Hopefully bands can control their urge to cover everything Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo put out. I heard “Crazy” about eight times at Lolla two years ago (Mates of State did a cool one tho).

Ticketmaster, my arch-spam-nemesis, has figured out a new way to annoy people with upcoming show information. As if five emails a week wasn’t enough.

Surgeon General’s Warning: Buying tickets from this vendor will result in ridiculous fees.

Users of Ticketmaster’s new program in the US will be able to earn commission based on how many ticket buyers they draw through the use of website widgets and email widgets. The widgets can be easily embedded on personal websites or blogs. The email widgets are meant to be put in outgoing signature stamps at the end of each message, not sent out as spam. Users sending spam will be removed from the affiliate program.

Commission varies based on the price of each ticket sale. A $25 sale will net the affiliate 25 cents. However, a $50 sale will get $5. Affiliates are payed via direct deposit.

Buy.at will be helping ticketmaster track and report each sale as well as pay affiliates. Users are required to have a buy.at account as part of the program.

Obviously, this is a very clever promotional idea for Ticketmaster. For instance, if certain music blogs like stereogum or brooklynvegan used a widget like that, they could make thousands of dollars a week. Hopefully, they will resist the temptation and refuse to market for an extortionist vendor. I wonder if commission counts for the $8 “convenience” fees or the $2 they charge to have the tickets sent to you via email. Honestly if anyone sent me an email with that widget embedded I would just report spam to gmail anyway.

On another note, if you see a widget appearing on my blog dont hesitate to buy 50 Springsteen tickets from it!