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My Bloody Valentine, Lower Dens, Silversun Pickups and more

So the big news this week is that the My Bloody Valentine reissues are finally going to get released.  Good for them that it's finally getting done.  Also good for Kevin Shields that he's finally working on some new material.  It's only been 20 years.

The other link about Rodney on the Roq is kinda random.  My friend Brian asked me if he was still on the air so I looked him up and was happy that he's still being broadcasted on KROQ in Los Angeles.  His show is where I heard a lot of bands for the first time on the radio.  Granted I was getting most of my new music from friends, reading NME, and watching this public access show called Request Video.  But as Brian pointed out those were simpler times.  You'd read about bands in the NME, then Rodney would play them, then you'd make the hour long drive out to some dingy record store in LA to buy the import single for 10 bucks.  That's right, TEN bucks for three or four songs.

Don't get me started on how pissed I was when bands started doing that CD1/CD2 bullshit.  There are a lot of people that long for the good ol' days of record collecting, but I can't stand it.  Going to a good record store and casually walking around and picking up stuff is fun every once in a while.  But when we were kids we were obsessive about it.  And we poured tons of money into it.  So I'm glad that technology has brought us to this point where we can access way more music for less.  I think it opens it up to more people.  More people who can't spend 20 bucks on two CD's with 6 songs each.  Oh yeah, and since it's a double single, the main track is going to be on both CD's.  Plus that main track is already on the album anyway.  So you're really only buying four bsides for 20 bucks.  And if they just phoned it in by throwing on some bullshit remixes then fuck them.  God I love music but it's so frustrating.

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My Coachella Tweets

Coachella 2012 was an interesting one.  First off, we're still not done with it.  There's going to be a "identical" weekend 2 coming up tomorrow which is just an odd idea.  Secondly, I actually had phone service for the first time ever so I was able to send out some random thoughts while I was there (collected for your enjoyment below).  This was also the first time it's ever rained at a Coachella, it's notorious for being VERY dry and hot all day.  In any case, enjoy!

Note:  It's in reverse cronological order so read it from the bottom up.

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Air's Soundtrack, More new Orbital, and some new tours announced

The very first science fiction movie is a silence movie about a voyage to the moon.  Since it's french it's called "Le Voyage Dans La Lune".  And since it's French, Air wrote the soundtrack to it.  It was a coin flip between them and Daft Punk (HA, stupid americans!).  I find it interesting because it was made in black and white and hand colored versions back in the early 1900's.  The black and white version has long since been destroyed and the colored version was found in 1993 but had to be restored.  Naturally, wikipedia has more info on this film.

Also happening is Killing Joke's return, a bunch of tour announcements, and what the hell was Echo and the Bunnymen doing in a superbowl ad?

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Spring Tours Are In The Air

Many bands are hitting the road and we can't be happier.  Also the return of Rodrigo y Gabriela and Orbital make this a great week for music news.  Enjoy!

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Odds and Ends: Listen to MGMT & National, Elliott Smiths Fans Are Upset, Beck Covers INXS, and more...

Here's some of the stuff I've seen over the week that's kinda interesting but not interesting enough for me to clog up your RSS feed, twitter account or Facebook page over.

  • MGMT's new album was leaked so they decided to stream the whole thing from their site.  Enjoy.
  • The National's new album, High Violet, will be released on May 11th.  You can grab a track from the record, "Bloodbuzz Ohio" on highviolet.com.
  • Larry Crane is a longtime friend of Elliot Smith and he's in the process of remastering Smith's debut album, Roman CandleFans are upset over an album that no one has heard, but I can see why.  It's something that should be preserved, faults and all.
  • Beck, St. Vincent & the Liars have covered INXS's popular "Kick" album in a day.  They are releasing one song a week from their project, first up is "Guns in the Sky".
  • The BBC reviews Jonsi's new album, Go.  I like the intro:  "His voice remains one of modern music's most readily identifiable instruments".
  • Iggy Pop will no longer stage dive after the audience failed to catch him at New York's Carnegie Hall.
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New St. Vincent Video, "Laughing with A Mouth of Blood"

St. Vincent has released their new video, "Laughing with A Mouth of Blood" which features an appearance by Thunderant.  Thunderant is a comedy-duo featuring Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) and Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney).  Check out the video by clicking "Read More".

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St. Vincent Brings "Marrow" To Letterman

We were gonna post Annie's saxy performance of the Actor standout here, but then @tedleo requested it appear on Videogum. And Videogum's a sucker for @tedleo, too. - Source