Tom Waits

We sift the ‘net for today’s top stories so you don’t have to…

• FACT interviewed Salem.
• Zombie Zombie teamed up with Joakim for a collection of John Carpenter covers.
• Optimo’s JD Twitch is working on the final mix of Tussle’s next album.
• Kode9 talked to Darkstar, and promised to play some tracks from Burial’s next album.
• The War On Drugs announced their next album.
• 1/2 of Lemon Jelly is finally back with some new music (kinda).
• Sub Pop signed a Digable Planets-related project.
• The Quietus went through Antony and the Johnsons‘ new album, track by track.
• The FADER taped an interview with Big Boi.
• Panda Bear’s next 7-inch got a release date and cover.
• Atmosphere announced a pair of new EPs.
• Sutekh wrapped up a Bach-inspired record.
• Radio Slave readied a double-disc mix CD.
• Spin premiered a Hot Chip remix.
• The A.V. Club ran a rather awesome guide to Tom Waits.
• Stereogum listed the “40 Best New Bands of 2010.”
• Josh Homme discussed the Nick Oliveri era of Queens of the Stone Age.
• Atlanta’s hosting a “Jay Day” show on Saturday as a tribute to Jay Reatard.
• Peter Saville designed a new shirt for England’s national soccer team.
• Olde English Spelling Bee released new records by Autre Ne Veut and Big Troubles.
• Caribou readied a tour-only record of his Vibration Ensemble concert from ATP last year.
• Valient Thorr discussed his “Top 5 Albums That Make My Beard Scream and Dance.”
• Vanity Fair spoke to one of the few rock critics that’s ever looked like a rock star.
• The Sex Pistols endorsed a new perfume.

Cheers to that. Crocodiles’ latest LP, Sleep Forever, drops on 9/14 through Fat Possum. And their fall tour dates—most of which happen in late October/early November—can be found after the jump…

Crocodiles live:
9/17 Las Vegas, NV – Neon Reverb Festival @ Aruba Showroom
9/20 Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
9/22 New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
9/24 Brooklyn, NY – Glasslands
10/26 Hoboken, NJ– Maxwell’s
10/27 Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brendas
10/28 Washington, DC – Rock N Roll Hotel
10/29 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
10/30 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
10/31 Birmingham, AL – Bottle Tree Cafe
11/2 Orlando, FL – The Social
11/3 Miami, FL – Grand Central
11/4 Tallahassee, FL – Engine Room
11/5 New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks
11/6 Houston, TX – Mango’s
11/7 Austin, TX – Fun Fun Festival

Of all the J Dilla tributes we’ve seen in the four years since the producer’s untimely death, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson’s Suite For Ma Dukes project has to be one of the most revelatory/rewarding. Mostly because it gets to the heart of what makes Dilla’s music so great—the grooves themselves, as rendered in brassy jazz arrangements of his productions for Common, A Tribe Called Quest, and more. The video above is from a recent free L.A. concert that featured Flying Lotus and some of his key Cosmogramma collaborators (harpist Rebekah Raff, bassist Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner). We’ve included a free MP3 version after the jump, along with another video and download from a track with Bilal (“Someday We’ll All Be Free”).

If you’d like to actually own pieces of the Ma Dukes puzzle, you’ve got two options: Timeless, a deluxe DVD box set that also includes the works of Mulatu Astatke and Arthur Verocai, or the Suite For Ma Dukes 12-inch that Atwood-Fegurson cut with Carlos Nino. An interview with the latter can be found here.

Warp Records will release Shobaleader One: d’DEMONSTRATOR, a mysterious nine-track release from Squarepusher, on 10/19. An Ed Banger single related to the record is now available and can be streamed here. An epileptic teaser video also trickled out this morning…

We’ve never been to Ibiza before. And you know what? We’re not ashamed to admit that part of us really wants to go to there; to turn off our laptops, toss our iPhones in the ocean, and get loaded on liquid GHB as someone—probably Steve Aoki—plays “We…are…your friends!” one last time.

So with that in mind, we asked one of the world’s foremost experts on dance music (Pete Tong, the host of Ibiza’s International Music Summit and one of the most respected DJs on BBC Radio One) to share five of this summer’s proven dancing-under-the-stars-with-your-shirt-off anthems.

If you like what you hear, Tong can be found at this weekend’s Electric Zoo Festival. He’ll be spinning at the Hilltop Arena stage at 4:30 on Saturday. Other artists of note at the glowstick-optional event include Erol Alkan, Martyn, the Chemical Brothers, Richie Hawtin, and our current cover star Flying Lotus.

And now, for some fist-pumping action…

MICHEL CLEIS, “LITORAL”
A secret weapon from the star of Luciano’s Cadenza label and the man who gave us “La Mezcla” last summer. This is the perfect Balearic party tune that captures the spirit of dancing under the stars. Michel kindly played my birthday party in ibiza in July!

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TENSNAKE, “COMA CAT (ROUND TABLE KNIGHTS REMIX)”
The sleeper of the year from this hotly-tipped new German producer now looks set to be one of the biggest hits of the fall. You’ll never get the riff out of your head!

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MARCO CAROLA, “BLOODY CLASH”
Nobody impressed me more in Ibiza this summer than the man from Napoli. He has the techno and the funk! Killer groove that I featured on this year’s Wonderland compilation.

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TONG & SPOON, “MUCHNESS (KINK REMIX)”
Kink is a major new talent from Romania. I was so happy when I got this remix back. Pure Strictly Rhythm style early ’90s beats with the Tong & Spoon bass bobble madness!

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KAISERDISCO, “AGUAJA”
Another major underground tune this summer from Hamburg’s new electronic stars. A carnival on the dancefloor!

Blue Water White Death’s self-titled debut arrives on 10/12 through Graveface Records.

BEAK> (L to R: Matt Williams, Billy Fuller, Geoff Barrow)

As if being friends with Banksky, running an underground record label (Invada), and producing/playing in Portishead isn’t exciting enough, Geoff Barrow has also spent the past year sharpening the sonic teeth of his new band BEAK>. Rounding out by Robert Plant’s recent bassist (Billy Fuller, also of Invada’s first-ever signing, Fuzz Against Junk) and Matt Williams (Team Brick), the power trio formed in early 2009 and tracked their self-titled debut at their first rehearsals. Slapdash start aside, the songs are the sound of three Bristol vets who are on some sort of spiritual plane together—right alongside everything from the classic Kraut-rock of Can to stoner-metal standards like Sunn O))) and Sleep.

It’s music you lose your mind to, in other words—an even weirder version of Barrow’s creative vision than the last Portishead record, if you can believe that. In the following interview, Barrow discusses everything from his favorite Madlib record to why the Horrors didn’t really need his help after all. BEAK> will be making a couple rare East Coast appearances this weekend, including a stop at Bowery Ballroom on Friday and a set at the upstate edition of All Tomorrow’s Parties on Saturday.

“There’s kids that like songs, and then there’s movers and groovers who look at it all as dinner party music”

How did your first gig go at ATP last year?
It was amazing. Really good, yeah. Hardcore British music fans aren’t the most supportive people sometimes. They’ll all go, ‘Yeah, it’s just this bloke from that other band. And he’s put together this project. Look at how alternative it is.’

Like this is just your art project?
Yeah. More like, ‘Fuck you. Don’t try this shit with us.’ But in the end, the venue filled up, and people seemed to enjoy us.

Do people back home view your label as a vanity project?
No, our first release was a 7-inch from Gonga, and at the time, everything was like Pro Tooled hyper-rock. So this was the opposite—proper long-haired hippie/stoner music. Doom, really. And people liked that—they liked that it was a proper rock record. We’ve been lucky with what we’ve signed, although some of it hasn’t sold anything.

What’s been the biggest-selling release on the label?
Crippled Black Phoenix. We haven’t broken the 10-12,000 copy barrier yet, but I don’t know too many other non-trendy labels that have either.

Right. So how far back do you, Matt and Billy go?
Me and Bill go back to when I released his [self-titled Fuzz Against Junk] record. I met Bill at one of his shows. I got a call from the guy who plays keyboards in Portishead. He was playing with Robert Plant at the time and said they were looking for a bass player. When I finished the call, I walked up the stairs and there was Billy, playing a fuzz-tremolo bass with lots of echo. Just a really heavy sound. So I got back on the phone and told [the keyboardist] how this guy’s killing it. Billy got the job and ended up playing with Robert Plant for two years or something…Matt’s got a reputation as an interesting character musically, too.

BEAK> started at an Invada Christmas party. Every year we play this “Invada Acid Test,” which is a jam between different people on the label. Billy played bass, I played a bit of drums, and Matt was playing clarinet. It went well, so we said we should do it again sometime. Literally a year later, we ended up in a studio and saying, “All right, let’s make some music.”

You were a little vague about Matt being an “interesting character.” In what way do you mean that?
He’s not a traditional musician, or like anyone else I’ve worked with. He’s got avant-garde eyes, really—just brilliant and inspiring. He’s more of a free spirit when we’re locked down, you know?

What were your first rehearsals like then?
Well, they weren’t rehearsals. We jumped right into the recording. The first track on the album is literally us in the studio, once the mics were turned on.

All right then. The record wasn’t recorded in one take though, right? It took about a month?
Yeah. It was all improvised live with no overdubs. We played some of the songs 10 times, but we often went back to the first [take]. We worked out arrangements as we went along, and then edited it because we didn’t want it to be too sprawling. We liked the idea of song structures, you know what I mean? Sometimes it works, and sometimes it’s just boring.

As for the vocals, we all had mics in the room, but I took on that responsibility a bit. I don’t know why. The other guys are better singers than me. Maybe it’s just because I kept coming up with a lot of melodies. But yeah, [the recording] was very straightforward. We didn’t talk about it a lot, we didn’t drink much, we started at 12 and finished at 6. We also ate a lot of tinned fish, like tinned mackerel. Brain food, you know? We had a laugh, really, and got to know each other. I didn’t really produce it. I did like one mix of the second track on the record (“Pill”), but that’s about it.

And you didn’t have any reference points in mind before you went into the studio?
No, the only band we brought in there was the Plastic People of the Universe, a band from the Czech Republic. They got put in jail for making music when the Czech Republic was Communist-run. If you heard them, you’d think they’re rougher than BEAK>, sound wise—really rough, actually, but brilliant.

We’ve all got a massive love for Can too, of course.

That’s the one obvious reference point you keep getting, right? The Kraut-rock influence?
I suppose it is, but what it really comes down to is removing the blues aspect of a jam band.

A little less wankery then?
Yeah. And that usually ends up being kinda Kraut-y. The last Portishead stuff was the same way—we weren’t interested in playing our version of the blues, whereas some of the early stuff was blues or jazz-influenced.

That’s why some people have gotten into BEAK> and the last Portishead record: because they both feel a bit left-field. Not just “cinematic,” which is what I’m sure you heard over and over again during Portishead’s first run.
Well, there’s levels of what you hear about your music. There’s kids that like songs, and then there’s movers and groovers who look at it all as dinner party music. We’ve also had a good, ongoing relationship with hip-hop music.

You mentioned putting out a doom band earlier. Some of BEAK>’s stuff—the bass sound at least—actually reminds me of Om a bit. Are you familiar with them?
Yeah, I love that record Conference of the Birds. We’re all influenced by that, and bands like Sunn O))), Electric Wizard, and Sleep. The Portishead record was a bit, too, although you may not hear that right way.

Right, it’s more that vibe than anything else. Is there anything else you guys are into that most people wouldn’t pick up from listening to the album?
I’m trying to think…Yeah, post-punk like PiL and Joy Division, and British industrial music.

Since the songs were all done on-the-fly, did you ave any breakthrough moments in the studio?
We were into all of it, really, although “I Know” was interesting because it was a really groovy tune, but not. That’s quite nice. We only did two versions of that. Most of the songs were like that—just two or three versions. The first track and “Battery Point” were one take. We’ve all played on really overdub-y records, but we felt like this wasn’t about that. We had enough of a sound between the three of us that we didn’t need to mess around with it.

Were your lyrics pretty free associative too, then?
They were, yeah. I never wrote anything down. And what you hear is what happened in the room. Non-traditional vocals, really. I’m not a very lyrical person, and I’m definitely not a singer. I felt a little weird about it.

“Alternative radio over here is all about Florence and the Karaoke Machine…It’s a hard place to get support”

Fair enough. I’ve gotta ask you about another record now—the Horrors one you co-produced last year (Primary Colours). In a lot of ways, BEAK> sounds like artier versions of those songs. How did all of that happen?
I liked what those guys did with “Sheena Is a Parasite” and Chris Cunningham. Their press person [in the UK] is my wife’s best friend, and she was always saying how ‘into music’ those guys are—that despite them being on the cover of NME with their big hair, they’re really into weird music. So we had them play ATP, and they were really knowledgeable guys. They even made me a compilation.

What was on the compilation?
A lot of odd stuff. I think they called it “God Saves the Queen.” There was a bit of hip-hop, a bit of psychedelic rock…[Keyboardist] Tom [Cowan] has actually made some hip-hop tracks, and they’re wicked.

Anyway, when I came back from touring [with Portishead], they said they’d really like me to produce their record. I was absolutely exhausted at the time, so I probably shouldn’t have done it. The tunes were already written [before I got involved], really. I mean, they were rough, and they had already done two tracks with Chris Cunningham. So they came to the studio and I brought in Craig Silvey, a good friend of mine who’s a great producer himself. That was it, pretty much. I think they thought I was going to work some magic, but there was no need to. What they had done was already brilliant, so I told them to trust their own judgment.

Well, it must have taken them a while to get comfortable with such a drastic change in their sound.
Yeah, but it was all their work. We just helped them along a bit. I think it’s an important British record, actually. The media doesn’t get behind them at all, especially over here. They just won’t play it on the radio because they think it’s too weird. Alternative radio over here is all about Florence and the Karaoke Machine. When people talk about indie music, they’re talking about that. There’s absolutely no love. It’s a hard place to get support.

That said, people seem to be referencing Kraut-rock a lot more these days than they have in years…
Well, how many times can you be punched in the face by a certain sound? Everything’s just so loud, brash and vulgar. So people are drawn to something else. And if it’s out of tune or poorly record, at least it’s honest. I’m not talking about BEAK>. I’m just talking about those records—bands like Neu!.

Tell me a little bit about Malachai, another band you worked with in the past couple years…People don’t seem to ‘get them’ over here.
They’re two guys I’ve known for years in Bristol. They were signed to Universal for a while, but the people over there were going to ruin the record like [major labels] often do.

They probably thought they could pitch it as a ‘Beck record’.
I don’t know, but it’s not what eventually came out. The final release is what they originally worked on. It went from being made on Kaos pads, samplers and rubbish keyboards to massive Pro Tools rigs for a ‘proper record’. And then back again to the simpler setup before we release it on Invada. It’s really tough when you’re signed to a major and they’re holding the purse strings.

Are you going to continue working with them?
I don’t know. We’re mates. We grab a drink here and there.

What do you think of Bristol’s scene right now? Are you into dubstep at all?
I’ve heard a couple tracks by Joker, and they’re really good. They remind me of Bristol right away—a continuation of the dub music that was made here by Adrian Sherwood and artists like that.

You assisted with Massive Attack’s Blue Lines album back in the day, didn’t you?
I didn’t, actually. I delivered sandwiches.

How did you get through the door then, beyond the sandwiches gig?
They liked the beats that I was doing, so they signed me up to their licensing company.

Do you still work on hip-hop stuff now?
There’s a hip-hop album that has 30 MCs on it.

A proper mid-’90s hip-hop record then?
Yeah. We’ve got Guilty Simpson, Bootie Brown (of the Pharcyde), just loads of underground people, a proper old-school posse. Dudes rapping about cash doesn’t really interest us.

When you produce hip-hop now, what sound are you going for?
As rough as I can get it, really. Madlib’s always been a major influence, although he’s a little better than me obviously. [Laughs]

What’s your favorite Madlib record?
Jaylib, the one he did with J Dilla.

Did you even like his rapping on that? A lot of people didn’t.
Well, he was Quasimoto. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. [Laughs]

Speaking of, will the next BEAK> record be a little more scripted you think?
Definitely not. The next one will be even more of a non-’proper’ record.

Check out the full NPR stream after the jump.. .

[Photo by Nick Thieneman]

A Few Of My Favorite Songs By DC Bands
By Ryan Patterson of Coliseum

As I write this, I have just turned 33 years old. At times I feel like I might have been born just six or seven years too late, because the time in music that has touched me most seems to be the the late ’80s, when bands from the first few waves of punk and hardcore started to expand their horizons musically and politically. While not entirely limited to bands from Washington, DC, many of the acts from that area—mostly on the Dischord Records label—are my favorites and have inspired me most, both as a musician and in my ethics and ideals.

I discovered punk and hardcore around 12 or 13 years old and dove in head first. Buying a Minor Threat cassette led me to tracking down everything I could get my hands on that carried the Dischord logo. The same went for other labels like SST, but Dischord seemed to have the highest quality and it was obvious they were documenting a community and a movement. Plus, you could order Dischord releases for cheap and they’d send you a catalog with a hand written note. It felt like I was a part of something. I would come to realize that I was—it was—something bigger than a label or a band or even a town. It was a way of approaching life and music and art and everything else…

Luckily for me, I lived pretty close to a cool town (Louisville, Kentucky) where great bands came to play, a solid record store supplied us with the goods, and some wonderful local people made it all happen. So throughout my teens and twenties I was able to see a lot of bands that became legendary, a lot of them from Washington, DC. There’s always been a Louisville/DC connection; maybe just because everyone down here loved everything everyone up there did, but I think it also went both ways.

Putting this mix together took me a long, long time. It almost turned into a box set—about four hours of songs from a ton of different DC bands. I whittled it down to songs that I really, really love. I left out a lot of obvious bands for obvious reasons (Minor Threat, Embrace, Rites Of Spring, Dag Nasty, Scream, The Nation Of Ulysses—you should own these records) and a lot of less obvious bands simply because this was already getting ridiculous (Burning Airlines, Canyon, Chisel, Crownhate Ruin, The Cupid Car Club, The Faith, Fire Party, French Toast, The Hated, Holy Rollers, Jesuseater, Kingface, Malady, The Pupils, Rain, Reptile House, Routineers, Senator Flux, Sevens, Sweetbelly Freakdown, Three, among others).

I hope you enjoy. If you dig it, drop me a line and we’ll nerd out.

“You can take your Bonham and Moon; give me Zentek.”

Bad Brains, “I” (Bad Brains cassette, RIOR, 1982)
Tied with the last band on this mix as my favorite band of all time. Hardcore wouldn’t exist without the Bad Brains, and their influence has permeated through music far and wide. For all the crazy stories and bad situations surrounding the band, their music cannot be denied. My favorite song from their early period.

Gray Matter, “Retrospect” (Food For Thought EP, R&B Records, 1985)
One of the most straightforward rock/punk bands from DC in the mid-’80s, Gray Matter might have been slightly overshadowed by some of their peers, but have always been high on my list of favorite bands. Not a weak spot through their entire discography.

Government Issue, “Man In A Trap” (You, Giant, 1987)
I’m often a bigger fan of the later work by bands from the first few waves of hardcore, when the music became more melodic and dynamic, and Government Issue is a perfect example. For their last two LPs, they were joined by the incredible rhythm section of J. Robbins on bass (later singer/guitarist of Jawbox and Burning Airlines) and Pete Moffett on drums (also of Burning Airlines) and started to sound something like a DC version of the Damned. “Man In A Trap” is presumably the grownup answer to their earlier song, “Teenager In A Box.”

Monorchid, “A Was For Anarchy” (Who Put Out The Fire, Touch & Go, 1998)
Monorchid singer Chris Thompson has been the frontman for a long list of incredible bands (Circus Lupus, Skull Kontrol, Fury, Las Mordidas, Red Eyed Legends), most of which played an off-kilter, angular style of punk that took a lot of inspiration from the Fall. As with most of the bands on this mix, it was really hard to pick a favorite song, but something about the recording and songwriting on the Monorchid’s second album sticks out to me as a highlight. The first time I saw Monorchid, my friends and I convinced them to re-learn “Red Meat” from their first single onstage and play it for us.

Kerosene 454, “T Minus 100″ (Came By To Kill Me, Slowdime, 1996)
I was lucky enough to see Kerosene numerous times during their lifespan and it was always an intense, enthralling experience. Their drummer Darren Zentek is my favorite drummer of all time. You can take your Bonham and Moon; give me Zentek. This band fired on all cylinders at all times and remains a big inspiration to me. Bassist John Wall ran Slowdime Records with Warmers member Juan Carrera, putting out much of the best music coming from DC through the late ’90s/early ’00s.

Bluetip, “Hot Fast Union” (Hot(-)Fast(+)Union EP, Slowdime, 2000)
Another band that was touring heavily during my time, Bluetip was the followup from Swiz members Dave Stern and Jason Farrell. Farrell is one of my top handful of guitar heroes, and Bluetip put out a solid run of great records before they dissolved and Farrell returned with Retisonic, who are equally great. Of all their songs, “Hot Fast Union” is probably my favorite with its stops and starts, incredible dynamics and massive hooks.

Void, “Condensed Flesh/War Hero” (Condensed Flesh EP, bootleg, 1981)
Something about the recording, performance and energy of Void’s 1981 Inner Ear demos are vastly superior to their more well known recordings on the Faith/Void split LP. It wasn’t until hearing these bootlegged sessions that I became a Void convert.

Ignition, “Revision” (The Orafying Mysticle Of… EP, Dischord, 1989)
Ignition is among the holiest of holy late-’80s DC bands for me. When people talk about “heavy” music these days it seems to be all about loud amps and slow riffs…This is heavy music to me—intensity, not volume. Ignition guitarist Chris Bald lives in Louisville now, but I’ve never met him.

Slant 6, “What Kind Of Monster Are You?” (What Kind of Monster EP, Dischord, 1993)
I never really dug their albums, but Slant 6’s first EP, especially this song, was a slice of pure melodic punk perfection.

Christ On a Crutch, “Off Target” (State Of the Union compilation, Dischord, 1989)
Dischord’s State Of the Union compilation was incredibly important for me—I love every song on it and the booklet that came with the LP opened my mind to the ideas of vegetarianism and personal/political idealism and activism. This song was one of the best on the album and still gives me chills. I was told once that when Christ On A Crutch decided to relocate from DC to Seattle they rented an entire band’s worth of gear from a DC rental company, packed the van, moved to Seattle and never returned it. I have no idea if this is true, but so the legend goes.

Regulator Watts, “‘48 Donut Queen” (The Mercury EP, Slowdime, 1996)
Once again, this is music that defines real heaviness and intensity for me. Regulator Watts was Alex Dunham’s post-Hoover outfit. They released one absolutely flawless LP and one CD compiling their singles and odds n’ ends. This is another band that makes it very hard to pick an individual song to feature. They didn’t write a bad one and their records occupy a special place in my heart.

One Last Wish, “Three Unkind Silences” (1986, Dischord, 1986)
I’m going to ruffle some feathers here, but I’m starting to think that One Last Wish is a better band than Rites Of Spring. Containing 3/4 of Rites Of Spring and 1/4 of Embrace, they burned out fast and disappeared in less than a year, but the music seems barely dated after all this time. If not better, they are at the very least equally as good as their previous bands.

Shudder To Think, “Shake Your Halo Down” (Get Your Goat, Dischord, 1992)
Shudder To Think scared me a little when I first heard them. I knew I liked it and it had the seal of approval of my favorite label, but I just didn’t know what to make of it. In some ways I still don’t; they are the rare band that defies explanation. This album came out at a time when I bought every single thing Dischord released, often ordering it as soon as the catalog came in the mail. Shudder To Think never put out a bad record and for many people their major label debut, Pony Express Record, was the “one.”

Red C, “Pressure’s On” (Flex Your Head compilation, Dischord, 1982)
The best song on Flex Your Head? This timeless. It’s been brought to glorious life again through the years via covers by Rocket From the Crypt and Ceremony.

Soul Side, “Name In Mind” (Trigger EP, Dischord, 1988)
Along with Ignition, Soul Side is one of those bands that has always managed to reach directly into my soul (no pun intended). This is music that I truly love and I come back to over and over again through the years.

Rain Like the Sound of Trains, “Under The Eye” (Waiting For the Water EP, Spring, 1995)
Despite the all star cast (Soul Side singer Bobby Sullivan, Verbal Assault guitarist Pete Chramiec, Beefeater bassist Doug Birdzell) this band took a bit of flak from the punk/hardcore world for its funk/rock/punk/reggae mixture, and I’ve taken some flak over the years for my appreciation of the band. Regardless, I’ve always dug it. Every player is incredible and the songs are powerful. I was lucky enough to see them at a matinee with Endpoint in Louisville in 1994.

Hoover, “Two Down” (Two Headed Coin/Lincoln split EP, Art Monk, 1993)
Hoover is the sound of thousands of bands sprouting in the early-and-mid-’90s. After Hoover debuted on Dischord, a band like this popped up in just about every town across America, and much of the UK and Europe. Often these bands were pretty good, but maybe I just have a soft spot for the sound. Hoover was another band I was lucky enough to see and they did not disappoint. This song is from their split with Lincoln, a band who blew my young mind wide open when I saw them play in the early ’90s… But that’s another story for another time.

Swiz, “Taste” (Swiz, Sammich, 1988)
Total Cool, Total Power. Swiz are one of those bands that seem larger than life, almost mythical in my mind. Just completely and wholly badass. ‘Nuff said.

A live shot of Fugazi playing Lawrence, Kansas, in 1989

Jawbox, “Static” (Novelty, Dischord, 1992)
For Your Own Special Sweetheart is probably their best record, but the sound and songs of Novelty so clearly define a point of time in my life. It will always be my favorite Jawbox record. My first “show” was seeing Jawbox in Louisville while they were touring behind this record. My parents dropped my friends and I off in the parking lot before the show. It was unbelievable—the band that we loved, on the greatest record label in the world, there in front of us, in an old laser tag building that had been fashioned into an all-ages club. It was one of those moments that set me off to follow the path I’m still on to this day.

The Farewell Bend, “Rumors About Lightning” (In Passing, Slowdime, 1998)
A DC import, Brandon Butler started the Farewell Bend after the dissolution of Boy’s Life and moved to DC soon after. This album seemed to fall through the cracks, but I thought it was great and it still holds up. Farewell Bend didn’t last long and Butler emerged soon after with Canyon, a great dreamy, almost psychedelic folk/country band that I caught live numerous times.

Lungfish, “Cleaner Than Your Surroundings” (Pass and Stow, Dischord, 1994)
I think Lungfish are often mislabeled as a meandering post-rock band, when they often wrote some of the most compelling rock tunes of any band in the indie underground of the ’90s and ’00s. To be fair, there is some meandering and it’s all repetitive and hypnotic, but in the best way possible. I come back to this song a lot when I need to get pumped up or inspired. It’s so fucking tough.

Fugazi, “Epic Problem” (The Argument, Dischord, 2001)
Fugazi were the defining band of my life from age 13 onward and they remain, along with Bad Brains, my favorite band of all time. I saw them at least five times and in hindsight wish I’d traveled farther to see them more. They encompass nearly all of punk’s possibilities, its passion and idealism, its musical intensity and experimentation, its anger and its hope. The Argument isn’t my favorite Fugazi record, but it was their final statement and “Epic Problem” was its highlight. Starting with the drum fill a little before the two and a half minute mark, the song gives me chills and moves into one of the most triumphant moments in the canon of a band who exemplified so much of what we all hoped and dreamed could be accomplished with the music and ideas shared within this greater community of punk. I miss them.

Photo: Jen Maler

Dave Longstreth just sent an E-mail to Dirty Projectors’ mailing list, sharing the following details about their month-long fall tour…

“We’re going to pack about 18 nights’ worth of songs into our rucksacks and just plan on letting a few go in every city. The songs will be from phylum Orca, genus Mount Wittenberg; genus Bitte; various specimens of the Rise Above family, maybe some from the New Attitude kingdom, and hopefully a few other more unclassifiable ones … hopefully they’ll fly up into the trees and indigenize alright, like those parrots who build nests on top of phone poles in your old babysitter’s neighborhood.”

He went on to say that the band’s got two new releases on tap. First up: an expanded two-disc edition of Bitte Orca that includes all of the album’s B-sides and a special acoustic set that was captured at Other Music last year. It arrives on 9/21 and can be pre-ordered here. A week later, Other Music will release a limited white label vinyl pressing of their five tracks. You can pre-order one (or two, which is the limit) of 500 copies now.

Check out the tracklisting after the jump, along with tour dates and a free record aisle rendition of “Temecula Sunrise.” 

Bitte Orca Expanded Edition, Disc One:
1. Cannibal Resource
2. Temecula Sunrise
3. The Bride
4. Stillness Is The Move
5. Two Doves
6. Useful Chamber
7. No Intention
8. Remade Horizon
9. Fluorescent Half Dome

Disc Two:
1. Fluorescent Half Dome (Live at Other Music)
2. Temecula Sunrise (Live at Other Music)
3. Two Doves (Live at Other Music)
4. Cannibal Resource (Live at Other Music)
5. No Intention (Live at Other Music)
6. Ascending Melody
7. Emblem of the World
8. Wave the Bloody Shirt
9. Bitte Bitte Orca
10. Stillness is the Move (Lucky Dragons Remix)
11. As I Went Out One Morning

Dirty Projectors live:
9/7 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club *
9/8 Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero *
9/11 New York, NY – Terminal 5 *
9/13 Boston, MA – Wilbur *
9/14 Montreal, Quebec – Le National ^
9/15 Toronto, Ontario – Opera House ^
9/17 Chicago, IL – Metro ^
9/18 Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theater ^
9/19 Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue ^
9/23 Pomona, CA – Glass House #
9/24 Los Angeles, CA – Wiltern #
9/25 San Francisco, CA – Fillmore #
9/26 San Francisco, CA – Fillmore #
9/28 Portland, OR – Aladdin #
9/29 Portland, OR – Aladdin #
9/30 Seattle, WA – Showbox #
10/5 Durham, NC – Page Auditorium #

* with Owen Pallett
^ with Happy Birthday
# with Dominique Young Unique