Music Updates - Free Music Related News

Little late on this one… Saturday’s Check Yo’ Ponytail with Chicago house legend Green Velvet aka Curtis Jones. If you were alive in 94 then you know him from his single “Preacher Man” — if you weren’t then you should know his recent record “Shake & Pop” which you can stream over at GreenVelvetSpace. Help from bloghouse superstars Guns N Bombs and Vancouver’s My!Gay!Husband!.

We’ve got some tickets to give away!.. so email contests@bigstereo.net to be entered. Play fair: one entry per person and all that.

Share This

If we sang the word "Trans-for-mers" in that all-to-familiar ascending triad, you know you'd be all "more than meets the eye!" (We'd also accept "robots in disguise," but that's a big interval at melody's end, there.) Point is, these car-tunes don't leave the brain, like, ever. So the joke-funny guys at Cracked put together a list of the most aggravatingly memorable theme songs, and it goes like so...

15. Tiny Toon Adventures
14. Gummy Bears
13. He-Man and the Masters Of The Universe
12. Transformers
11. Thunder Cats

Becky Stark's "It's all about love and the earth people, ya know?" shtick doesn't sit well with everybody, but Lavender Diamond's perch on the precipice of over-preciousness has its fans, like us and tourmate Colin Meloy. Mr. Decemberist contributes the b-side to Lavender Diamond's "Open Your Heart" single, covering Imagine Our Love lead track "Oh No" with the requisite degree of wistful self-pity. Fits him like a nice seersucker suit. Have a listen at iGIF.

Here's one to get you talking. Paste solicited nominations for the country's best music venues, taking their readers' 500+ suggestions and whittling 'em down to an unranked list of 40 "according to history, setting, sound, character, comfort, atmosphere, vibrancy, uniqueness and their roles in helping launch careers." Here's their list of the nation's best listening rooms, ranging from the legendary (Fillmore) to the new(ish) kids (Allen Room at Lincoln Center). Pick your favorite region and enjoy.

NORTHWEST
Café Du Nord (San Francisco, CA)
Crocodile Café (Seattle WA)
Department of Safety (Anacortes, WA)
Doug Fir Lounge (Portland, OR)
The Fillmore (San Francisco, CA)
Tractor Tavern (Seattle, WA)
Gorge Ampitheatre (George, WA)
Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA)

Every week, we dig in the archives for videos that we find noteworthy, memorable, or just unbelievably stupid. And then, we break 'em down for you. Why Video Hangover? Because when you watch as many videos as we do, you're going to feel it afterwards.

"Show Me What You Got"
Jay-Z, 2006

Whose evil island is it, anyway?

Still in love with Black Mountain's contribution to the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack "Stay Free," so any BM news is good news. So with a laurel and hardy handshake we welcome Lightning Dust, a project two Mountains have spun off from the Black in their bid to fit in with their Canadian supergrouping brethren. The project comprises Mountain mates Amber Webber and Joshua Wells, trading in the '60s psych rock for daydream Rhodes and acoustic guitar trails. Check the sweet and simple first single from the forthcoming LP...

Lightning Dust - "Listened On" (MP3)

Lightning Dust is out 6/17 on Jagjaguwar. The duo's on tour with the Cave Singers this summer, dates after the jump.

Bobmo - To The Bobmobile!

I've been sitting on this one for a minute, but the guys over at Institubes said it was time. The Bobmo is ready!

Bobmo is a supposedly just a kid - 17? 19? - but he makes some great techno-rave music. He started making rap music a few years ago on his Playstation, gave up on that and got into Detroit techno, and hasn't looked back since.

The result is his new EP, Lets Go Bobmo!, three tracks of banging, filtered, modern dance music. Bobmo should help give you a handle on where the Institubes trajectory is headed, what with the recent EP by Das Glow and some killer stuff coming down the line to look forward to... they might be pals with the Ed Banger guys, but they're on a totally different trip. Their sound is hard but hook-y, and a lot of fun on the dancefloor. Have a look over at Daily Motion for the scoop on the Institubes phenomenon, and a video for "Home Alone" (and Bobmo running around like a crazy kid in Paris).

You can get the Bobmo EP on wax from our friends at the Turntable Lab in the US, Arcade Mode in Europe, or you can get the high-bitrate MP3s from Beatport.

This is the future! Highly recommended.

Thanks to the band's 30th anniversary and Sting's bountiful yogic exercises (yoga kills the ego, ya know), the Police have set aside their personality clashes and embarked on their first tour since '83, starting with a 21-song fan-club/friends-only "dress rehearsal" for 4,000 or so in Vancouver Sunday night. As Andy promised, the setlist is full of vintage hits with no new tunes to dampen the reunion mood, with "Murder By Numbers" and "Next To You" perhaps the most left-field choices. Here's the best vid we could find on the night, Synchronicity's "Walking In Your Footsteps."

Tough to argue with this setlist.

Since Illinois, winged maestro Sufjan Stevens has given us various avian outtakes and covers (Lefty Frizzell w/ David Byrne, Joni Mitchell, etc.), but far as we can figure, this track is the first proper studio shot of original Soof we've heard in awhile -- and it's a complete mind explosion.

For their forthcoming music-comp bearing issue, the Believer coaxed Sufjan from his orchestral-folk chamber and lured him into what sounds like a rusty-hinged garage down the street from Jack and Meg's place, asking him to record "a rock song."

Carl and the Pornos (minus Neko and Bejar) brought their new album cover but none of the record's tunes with them to Coachella, so "My Rights Versus Yours" is our first taste as it is yours from the forthcoming full-length Challengers. The track dashes some Beach Boys (yes the reference point of choice for '07 indie) with the Twin Cinema power-pop chugging we all adore. (via Buy Early Get Now)

The New Pornographers - "My Rights Versus Yours" (MP3)

Challengers is out 8/21 on Matador.

RELATED: Neko sub (and Carl Newman niece) Kathryn Calder's band Immaculate Machine has their second full-length Fables out on 6/12 on Mint, and we're spinning "Dear Confessor" next to non-stop these days. Have a listen at Hype for proof that quality indie-pop runs in the blood.