Andy Partridge has teamed up with original XTC keyboard player Barry Andrews and drummer Martyn Barker to form Monstrance– an improvisational trio. Its self-titled debut, a double CD set, is performed comletely live and, obviously, improvised and available in two forms, orange, and a very limited pressing of blue. However, due to its extreme rarity, […]

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Tower Records went under because it ripped off customers, overcharging by embarrassing margins that anyone with half a clue knew better than to pay. Most mall record store chains have died similar deaths for similar reasons, but that doesn’t mean the CD is dead. Yet. Slate’s piece today calls the constant CD doomsaying an anomoly, asking […]

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According to Punknews, heart on sleeve bedwetters, Thursday, are parting ways with Island records. Amicably, of course: “Everyone at IDJ has treated the band with respect and we are leaving on good terms with all our friendships still intact.” Right, right. This is all code for “we didn’t sell as many records as our shitty […]

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Battles completely destroyed Local 506 in Chapel Hill, NC Saturday night. If this show was any indication, the new record, Mirrored (due May 15th), is going to be amazing. John Stanier (Tomahawk, ex-Helmet) on the drums is a fucking machine. Playing to all those loops is pretty much like playing to a metronome for 90 […]

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Bjork’s album art has always been, uhh, eccentric, but Volta may be in the running for hands down ugliest- not only for Bjork album covers but also for the year. Here’s to hoping Timbaland doesn’t make her music sound like Japanese enema porn raining down on an elfin, Icelandic songstress.

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I was much more excited about Rhino’s Cure reissue series before they came out. So far, the band’s first seven albums (from 1979’s Three Imaginary Boys through 1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me) have been given the deluxe make-over. Rhino is doling them out in sets of three, and the good stuff has almost […]

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Salon has a piece today reporting the FCC’s rulings in regard to payola and internet radio. Good news and bad news. The good news is moron-rock like Nickelback will have an infinitely harder time getting radio play. The bad news is internet radio broadcasters will have to pay royalties retroactive to the start of 2006, which will pretty […]

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