Secret Machines Getting Up Close and Personal on Tour

It's no secret that the Secret Machines are best experienced in the live setting. But even haters of their retro-psych might be tempted to check the band out on their newly-announced fall tour.

"Intending to create an extraordinary and memorable concert event for their fans, the band have done away with the common end stage set-up, and will instead appear on an elevated circular platform in the center of each venue, allowing the audience to gather around them just a few feet away," a press release says. "Playing provides a truly communal live experience for the audience, who will be standing close enough to brothers Brandon and Benjamin Curtis and Josh Garza to feel their sweat."

Lightning Bolt--call your lawyers! [MORE...]

Video: Secret Machines: All at Once

Stream: The Walkmen: "Many Rivers to Cross"

A Hundred Miles Off isn't the only Walkmen album we'll get this year; as previously reported, the band has recorded a song-for-song remake of Harry Nilsson's 1974 John Lennon collabo Pussy Cats. It's coming out October 24 on Record Collection, but RollingStone.com has a preview stream of the Walkmen's take on "Many Rivers to Cross".

From the sound of it, this is going to be a whole lot better than Gus Van Sant's Psycho. [MORE...]

Stream: The Walkmen: Many Rivers to Cross

Birdmonster Hit the Road in Support of Debut

How monstrous!.

Despite this roadblock, the San Francisco four-piece has no intentions of ditching its name, especially now that "Birdmonster" is scribbled on venue calendars across the continent.

The band launches a tour this weekend in support of their debut album No Midnight, which will be released by SpinArt on August 29. [MORE...]

MP3: Birdmonster: Cause You Can

Califone Set Release Date, Tour

Fans of Califone's kitchen-sink folk have been tiding themselves over with film and television scores, a reissue, and the promise of a tour documentary, but we here at Pitchfork are happy to announce that the band's honest-to-goodness next full-length is almost here.

Roots & Crowns will see an October 10 release on Thrill Jockey, and if you've read our track review of "The Orchids", you can already guess that some of us think it's pretty great.

Songwriter Tim Rutili explains the album's title in a press release: "Uniting where you come from-- your roots-- with what you strive to be or what you reinvent yourself to become-- crowns... Some of these songs started as hummed melodies into my cell phone recorder while I was driving. Others were triggered by overheard conversations, loops brought in from home, field recordings or sounds we made in the studio before the tape was rolling... We took our time to shape and manipulate a more experimental collage of sounds into solid melodies and more concise song structures."

Longtime collaborator Brian Deck produced most of the album, the tracklist of which is listed after the jump. The tracklist is almost identical to the one we posted in May ("Spider's" instead of "Spiders"), but this time it's confirmed.

Califone have a smattering of tour dates scheduled as well, beginning with two shows in Chicago this weekend and picking up speed in October on the West Coast. The band will also perform live on NPR's "World Café" on November 11. [MORE...]

Video: Califone: Don't Let Me Die Nervous (live)

Boris / Sunn 0))) Collaboration Unleashed
Boris add more U.S. dates

On October 31, All Hallow's Eve, the beast shall awaken and all hell shall be loosed unto the Earth. For on that day, Altar, the Boris / Sunn 0))) collaborative album, is going to be released on Southern Lord. How perfectly EVIL is that?

Altar was written, recorded, and produced by all of the members of both bands, with quite a few special guests: Jesse Sykes (of indie-folk outfit Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hearafter), Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), Joe Preston (Thrones/Earth/Melvins/High on Fire), Bill Herzog and Phil Wandescher (Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter), Rex Ritter (Jessamine, Fontanelle), and Tos Niewenhuizen (Beaver, GOD). Dylan Carlson of Earth plays on the vinyl-only bonus track "Her Lips Were Wet With Venom".

KICK ASS!!! [MORE...]

MP3: Boris: Farewell
MP3: Sunn O))): It Took the Night to Believe

Video: Clell Tickle: Indie Marketing Guru

If there's anything Pitchfork loves more than making fun of the indie rock business, it's making fun of Pitchfork. So when our buddy (and Pitchfork Music Festival pre-party performer) Aziz Ansari does both at the same time, we are full of love. Lots of love.

Just don't ask us about our own marketing department. Things might get ugly.

Stream: Ghostface feat. Trife Da God: "Man Up"

Stream: Ghostface feat. Trife Da God: Man Up

Radiohead Become Lullabies
How to cultivate infinitely hip toddlers

We've heard reggae Radiohead. We've heard goth Radiohead. We've heard classical Radiohead. We've heard emo Radiohead. We've heard electronic Radiohead. We've heard hip-hop Radiohead.

Now get ready for...baby Radiohead! On August 29, Baby Rock Records brings you Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Radiohead. Other planned lullaby tribute victims include Bjork, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Coldplay, Queens of the Stone Age, the Cure, the Beatles, and Tool.

Not making this up:

"Rockabye Baby! transforms timeless rock songs into beautiful instrumental lullabies. The delicate sounds of the glockenspiel, vibraphone, and other instruments will lull your little one into a sweet slumber. These versions of Radiohead are sophisticated enough for people of all ages, but sweet enough to introduce your child to rock's smartest band. Their album Kid A imagines the scope and power of music created by a newborn child. What will your baby dream about while drifting off to these serene interpretations of Radiohead's best-loved songs?"

Eat it, Kidz Bop. [MORE...]

MP3: Baby Rock does Radiohead: Paranoid Android (clip)

Pitchfork Seeks Business Intern

According to the Chicago Police Department, last month alone several incidents of kidnapping, prostitution, and arson took place within walking distance of Pitchfork World Headquarters.

If you haven't stopped reading by now, you're ballsy, one of the many desired qualities we look for in our internship candidates.

Business intern responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following: Assisting our sales team with client contact and research, working on things that we think are important, helping with accounts receivable and payable, managing promotional materials, executing promotions, and providing overall help to streamline our business operations. All candidates must be excellent at almost everything. We need to make sure you'll be able to handle an office as unbelievably intense as ours.

We prefer candidates who are able to obtain college credit for the internship, but this is not mandatory. If you're interested, please email us a cover letter and résumé. Also include your hours of availability and a potential start date. Deadline is Thursday, August 17 at 5 p.m. CST.

OXES Sue Old Navy Over T-Shirt Design

In some ways, the band Oxes is the self-appointed Monica Lewinsky of indie rock. No, the Baltimore three-piece hasn't been fooling around with the President (to our knowledge), but the group has gained a decent amount of notoriety via scandal-- including such pranks as generating a fake protest story around their 2002 Oxxxes LP and publicizing a fake split with Arab on Radar. For Monica, the scandal had to do with a certain blue dress; for Oxes, it's a t-shirt.

On Wednesday, August 9, the band filed a trademark infringement suit in Manhattan federal court against Old Navy for printing and selling t-shirts bearing the image of an Oxes concert flier without asking the band or their label's (Monitor Records) permission. (And all this time, didn't you just assume Old Navy made up those t-shirt ideas? "JoJo's Shrimp Shack"..."Viking Field Hockey"...it doesn't seem that difficult.)

Although the lawsuit sounds like an elaborate Oxes publicity stunt, the band assures us this is definitely not a prank. So how did the t-shirt scandal materialize? Jason Foster, owner of Monitor, said he received an email last April from a "confused fan in Texas" who'd seen the shirt at Old Navy. "Since that point we received several emails from fans wondering what was going on with Oxes and...if the t-shirt was a real Old Navy project. We assure fans that unfortunately this is not an Oxes stunt and that the Oxes name has been used without their permission." [MORE...]

MP3: Oxes: Boss Kitty

Deerhoof, Vashti Bunyan, Erase Errata Play Halleluwah

Drink your Sparky Vitamyn Water, kids, because there's another new festival on the block. (And by "the block" we mean Portland, Oregon.) Co-curators Mike McGonigal (YETI magazine) and Chantelle Hylton (Blackbird Booking) recently announced the lineup for Halleluwah, a music, art and film festival taking place in Portland, Oregon September 1 and 2.

"One of the key ideas of the festival is that you are always missing something really cool," says McGonigal (whose 33 1/3 book on Loveless is proof that someone actually does love My Bloody Valentine more than your ex-boyfriend did). Lots of "really cool, interesting stuff" will be happening close-to-continuously at the Disjecta Interdisciplinary Arts Center, a converted warehouse space near Portland's Burnside Bridge.

Disjecta has three floors. The top floor will feature bands like Erase Errata, Vashti Bunyan, Jackie O Motherfucker, and Deerhoof. The second floor second stage has equally "vital and awesome" bands, plus PDX cuisine, crafts, and the spanking-new (gold-covered!) YETI.

The cherry on top is the limited edition Halleluwah vinyl LP. It'll be for sale exclusively at the festival and features unreleased tracks from Deerhoof, Sir Richard Bishop of the Sun City Girls, Tara Jane O'Neil, and many other festival participants. [MORE...]

Video: Ted Leo in Baltimore

Remember when we told you about Ted Leo's triumphant power-outage-be-damned performance on the street outside of Baltimore's Ottobar? Well, now you don't have to take our word for it, because there are two videos of the occasion up on YouTube.

The first is a 30 second clip of "Ballad of the Sin Eater"; the second, according to random people on YouTube, is a full three-minute performance of Hugh Masekela's "Mace and Grenades" featuring Ralph Darden of Jai Alai Savant singing backup. But if it's not Ralph, and it's just some dude in the crowd, our hats are off to Baltimore for having the most musical random citizens in the U.S.

"Ballad of the Sin Eater":

"Mace and Grenades":

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