LADYTRON seem ready for world conquest as they are about to take the United States by storm in February. During their first ever US tour by the entire band, fans should be ready to hear plenty of material from Light & Magic & 604. Tickets are going fast as Light & Magic received rave reviews the world over, including Rolling Stone's top 50 records of the 2002.

You've heard of the Ben Folds Five, what about the Ben Folds Three? Ben Lee, Ben Folds and Ben Kweller have planned an Australian tour together as The Bens. Catchy eh? Since all three musicians have new material out this was a perfect time for all three to play together and confuse the hell out of the roadies in another country. "Oi, say Ben where do you want this amp?". The shows are currently planned as:
Friday, March 14 The Arena Brisbane
Tuesday, March 18 The Enmore Sydney
Monday, March 24 Palais Melbourne

The lineup for the annual NOISE POP festival has been announced. Some of the major acts to hit the stage this year include Tortoise, Stephen Malkmus & The Jucks, Cat Power, Trans Am, the Mountain Goats, the Donnas, Calexico, Folk Implosion and more. The festival is to be held February 25 - March 2 throughout the San Francisco area. Badges go onsale today and can be picked up on the website. Otherwise tickets to individual shows go on sale through each venue's normal ticket outlets. Among the features of NOISE POP this year are an educational series, panel discussions, music-themed film screenings and more.

Spiritualized will be releasing 24 tracks of pure, unadulterated rarities on Spaceman/Arista Records in March. All material is previously unavailable on LP and has been personally selected for the double disc set by Jason Pierce. The Complete Works Part 1 includes over an hour of covers and music from various singles and EPs including 'Electric Mainline'. The set will encompass the first 3 years of the band's existence and will be followed up by a Part 2 later in the year.

Washington DC's Teen Beat Records is about to celebrate their Anniversary with a string of shows in the DC area on February 20-21-22. Bands performing include Currituck Co., + / -, Flin Flon, True Love Always, Aden, Tracy Shedd, Phil Krauth (Unrest) and more. Details are available at Teen Beat. Thanks for all the years of putting out great music!

A date has been set for the release of the new Clientele album The Violet Hour. In an interview with Joseph at Mundane Sounds Alasdair Maclean (lead singer-songwriter of the trio) talks about the recording process, the origins of the album title, and his favorite drink recipe. Look for the new album on May 6, but in the meantime you can pick up their new 7" "Haunted Melody" c/w "Fear of Falling" on Merge or Pointy.

In one of the first relationships of it's type, Air has collaborated with Italian author Alessandro Baricco with his new novel "City". Baricco approached the French duo (Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel) last summer to play live whilst he read exerpts from his book at Teatre Valle in Rome. The collaborative effort, City Reading (Tre Storie Western) will be released in the states on March 25. It contains over an hour of instrumentals by Air that have been remixed by Nigel Godrich and combined with readings of Baricco's novel. Also in the works is the band's followup to 10,000 Hz Legend, which they are hoping to release before the end of the year.

KEVIN BARNES, the man at the helm of acclaimed Athens, GA popsters OF MONTREAL, is taking the month of February (and some of March) to do a solo trek through the States. Billing himself under the guise of "A Pollinair Rave," Barnes' solo tour will consist of "acoustic songs, a reading of a short story with a slide show accompaniment created by Lecithin E [aka Barnes' brother David, who collaborates on Of Montreal's concept albums and handles all of the band's album artwork], some modern rock 'n' roll, and a hell of a lot of slam poetry (just kidding.)" We'll get you the dates as they become more set in stone. Should be interesting.

PETE TOWNSHEND of The Who held one EXCEPTIONALLY odd press conference this morning. That is to say, his PUBLICIST did, as Pete didn't actually attend. The Daily Mail newspaper ran a VERY interesting article this morning, discussing a kiddie porn sting that's going on with joint cooperation between the US and the UK. The article then goes on to mention that British police were investigating an "unnamed rock star" as part of the sweep. Within hours, Townshend issued a statement essentially affirming that he was the particular rock star in question, and that he had, in fact, used his credit card to join an underage "lolita" porn site. BUT... he claims he joined the site for one reason only: to do research for his upcoming autobiography. (Pretty weird, eh?) Apparantly Townshend believes that he suffered some form of sexual abuse as a child, a memory that's he's since repressed. He's currently in the process of writing a book on his childhood, and wanted to view an underage website to get a sense for the evils of child pornography. "To fight against pedophilia, you have to know what's out there." Coming from a normal person, this explanation might be hard to swallow. But stangely, coming from Pete Townshend, it sounds pretty believable.

MAURICE GIBB of the Bee Gees died this morning at the age of 53. Now, some of you might sadly be saying, "So?" And if that's the case you need a history lesson. Forget the disco era. Forget the horrid "Sgt. Pepper's" movie. Before the Bee Gees went the way of bellbottoms and drum machines, they made some of the grandest folk-pop music of the early 1970's. I'd reckon to say that if it weren't for the Bee Gees, you wouldn't have bands like Belle & Sebastian around today, whether they want to admit it or not. They were a HUGE influence on the sound and stylings of MANY folk-ish bands, and beyond that you have to admit that disco, whether at the hands of the Brothers Gibb or not, has pretty much revitalized French dance culture over the past 3 years (see: Daft Punk, Air, Dimitri From Paris, etc.) If you want to know what the Bees Gees were capable of back in the day, go no further than clicking on our downloadable "Intertwined" CD (there's a link on the right-hand side of this page,) and listen to Paula Kelley's amazing cover of "In the Morning," one of the finest Bee Gees tunes. RIP Maurice - we'll do everything in our power to preserve your memory as anything BUT a disco novelty act.