The National set out to make a 'happy' record but fell short and now High Violet comes out on May 11th.   They will touring throughout the US this spring/summer and you can also checkout photo's of their recording session over at highviolet.com.

Jason Lytle and Aaron B. from Grandaddy and Aaron E. and Ariana M. from Earlimart are out searching for "Admiral Radley".  According to their site, "The music, the shows, and the press are all secondary.  Above all, we are looking for Admiral Radley."  Right now they don't have an album, but they do have two shows in March, one in Dallas and Los Angeles.  This is a new project for Jason Lytle who finished up touring in support of his first solo album, "Yours Truly, The Commuter", last year.  He's also uploading some songs that he recorded while touring, aptly called, "The Travelodge Sessions".  The first video is titled, "Wonder Why In LA".

NPR has a couple of albums that you can stream from their site.

First up is the new collaboration by Shins frontman, James Mercer, and Danger Mouse called Broken Bells.  While the Shins linup is changing, the band is going to a new label, and Gnarls Barkley is between albums, Broken Bells formed and put out a pretty fantastic record.

Second is the latest installment from Gorillaz who will headline Coachella later this year.

UPDATE:  fixed the Broken Bells link as it was broken.  Thanks Erik!

Jason writes in with the news that Alan Wilder joined Depeche Mode onstage last week for their benefit gig supporting the Teenage Cancer Trust.  As a kid I remember joking about Depeche Mode with my friends that Dave Gahan was the singer, Martin Gore was the song writer, Andrew Fletcher was the "hand clapping expert" and the only real musician was Alan Wilder.  So I was a little annoyed when he left after the 1994 "Devotional Tour" to persue his side project, Recoil. 

You can watch the video below or check out Slicing Up Eyeballs who has the video from four (!!) different angles.

He'll be playing Phoenix on March 28th and then the Hollywood Bowl on March 30.  Tickets go on sale this weekend at Ticketmaster (and at Live Nation but it just redirects to you Ticketmaster so there's no point.  Isn't the Free Market GREAT!).

He will most likely play a combination of tracks from his solo work, Wings, and of course several songs from the Beatles catalog.  If it's anything like his performance at last year's Coachella then it should be an amazing show.  That performance was one of the best shows I've ever seen and I've been to a bunch of shows.

Over at Sterogum they have the exclusive preview of the new She & Him track, "Thieves".  Their new album, "Volume 2" will be released on March 23rd and you can also pick up their first single from the album, "In The Sun", which was released today over at Merge Records.

Remember that classic track by the Avalanches, "Frontier Psychiatrist"?  Someone analyzed all the samples that they used and it's a pretty impressive amount of tracks:

1. From the movie Polyester
2. Maurice Jarre - Overture
3. Harvey Mandel - Wade in the water
4. Enoch Light Singers - My way of life
5. Wayne and Shuster - Frontier Psychiatrist - I was a T.V. addict
6. Flip Wilson - Cowboys and colored people - Midget - Riot suit
7. Silvana mangano - El negro zumbon

Click on Read More to view the video.

Oasis won the album for "Brits Album of 30 Years" for their superb album, "(What's The Story) Morning Glory".  Liam accepted the award and readied his acceptance speech, "Listen kids, I wanna thank Bonehead, Guigs, Alan White and hte best fucking fans in the world."  Leaving Noel and Andy Bell out.  Then he walked offstage but not before tossing the microphone and the award into the crowd. 

According to the NME, Peter Kay was overheard calling Liam a 'knobhead' (whereas I prefer 'asshat').  THEN Liam writes on his twitter page calling him a "fat fuck" for not insulting him in person.  Yes, Liam's on twitter and he's using it to insult people that insult him behind his back.  Finally, Peter Kay calls Liam a knobhead on his website. 

I long for those years when Oasis just make records and Liam didn't need to act like an idiot just to drum up attention.

John Hughes, the director for many iconic 80's movies like "Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", started working on a script based on The Cure song, "Lovecats".  Slicing Up Eyeballs digged through a Vanity Fair piece about Hughes and found that the author, David Kamp, posted outtakes of the interviews he did with Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall and Matthew Broderick. 

Molly Ringwald:  “When ‘The Breakfast Club’ ended, he started writing a script called ‘Lovecats,’ because I played him that song by the Cure, ‘The Lovecats.’ I was obsessed by the Cure — still am. I think Robert Smith is an underrated songwriter. Anyway, I played this song for John, and he started writing a script, and he gave me a mix tape of what the soundtrack was gonna be. Which was pretty much Dave Brubeck, with the last song by Bob Dylan.”

Primal Scream will play their breakthrough album, "Screamadelica", in full at London's Olympia according to NME.  If you don't recall, Screamadelica came out in 1992 and was quite the departure from the normal shoegaze/indie sound.  At first I remember hating the record especially since I loved the single version of "Come Together" and "Loaded" so much.  The album was more electronic then indie and that obviously had to do with the influences at the time as well as recruiting DJs Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley.

Now I look back and have realized what an important album that was.  And obviously I'm not the only one since the Royal Mail are now making stamps with the classic cover which you can buy.