Ryan Adams has grown up a bit. Well, actually, a lot. Maybe married life is treating him well. Either way, he’s gone from a guy who couldn’t take a “Summer of ’69!” shout out from the audience to a guy who takes weird crowd interruptions and turns them into improvised songs. Adams was notorious for storming off stage and pouting when an old Bryan Adams song title was thrown at him by some drunken hooligan. However, the other night at the Noel Gallagher curated Teenage Cancer Trust benefit in London, Adams misheard an audience heckle as “loaf of bread,” and he just up and wrote a song on the spot and performed it with a full band. Very impressive. [via Stereogum]

I’m coming around on this new Foals record, Holy Fire. The last one took me a long time to get into as well. It’s hard to get past my expectations for a particular style from them. Their debut, Antitdotes, was my favorite record of 2008. Both successive albums have veered off course from that astounding debut, leaning towards a more produced, cultivated, and commercial sound. While I miss frontman Yannis Philippakis’ yelps and the frantic Battles-esque guitar interplay, the darker, more subdued direction is working, albeit painstakingly. It’s just a slower burn. And speaking of dark, this video is crazily dark and violent.

Duran Duran keyboardist and ex-guitarist Warren Cuccurullo began a side-project in the mid-1990’s while working on a Duran Duran album (the underrated and sadly much-maligned Medazzaland). Vocalist Simon Le Bon had lyrical writer’s block, so Rhodes and Cuccurullo started tinkering in the studio by themselves. They produced a mish-mash of samples and beats entitled Bored with Prozac and the Internet?, which was shelved once Le Bon was back in action. Having dusted off the tapes recently, Rhodes decided it sounded fairly current, despite the time delay. So, while Duran Duran is on break, he and Cuccurullo have decided to release the album as TV Mania, which was the name they used as producers back in the 90’s. The album is available as a super limited deluxe edition from The Vinyl Factory. “Euphoria” is the first video, and it was directed by Jean Renard and Dutch Rall, replete with the requisite hot model and artsy vamping from Rhodes and Cuccurullo. [via Paper]

Long-dormant Stephin Merritt disco-themed side-project has follow-up LP in the pipeline for Merge Records, and this is the first taste. Future Bible Heroes also features Christopher Ewen from Figures on a Beach and The Magnetic Fields’ own Claudia Gonson.

Here are the specs on the release from Merge:

Partygoing is available on vinyl in a 3-LP collection containing Memories of Love (1997), Eternal Youth (2002), and three EPs. The collection is also available in a 4-CD set.

Preorders will include a poster and will ship to arrive on or around the release date of June 4.

A friend of mine My friend Pat Wall just messaged me asking if I’d heard Savages yet. I had heard the single “Husbands” the other day on Sirius XMU and almost had to pull over. Savages is an all-female quartet from London, channeling Siouxsie, The Slits, some no wave, and the requisite amount of Joy Division for a bracing, jarring stripe of post-punk that no one else is playing right now. My friend said the band was heavily buzzed last week at SXSW and with good reason. Just watch this video. The debut full-length, Silence Yourself, is being released in May via Matador here in the states. My new favorite band.

[via The Guardian]

Even with the band’s own blasé dismissal of 2011’s Angels, I was just glad there was new music from The Strokes. It certainly wasn’t their best record, but it was better than First Impressions of Earth. And I never could quite get into Julian Casablancas’ solo stuff. Come Down Machine is gearing up to be the comeback record Angels was supposed to be. This second taste is even catchier than “One Way Trigger,” and the video shows a band that actually might be able to stand the sight of one another.