Those of you who may have caught OF MONTREAL on tour in early 2001 may have been lucky enough to see ELEKIBASS opening. The Japanese band have finally released their first record, "California," on the very excellent Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records (on the web at www.hhbtm.com.) The best news is: they're coming for a quick Stateside tour! Dates for November are still being finalized, we'll put them up as they become available. Let me just tell you, though: This is one band you do NOT want to miss if you've got the opportunity. Their limited English combines with their twee-tastic pop enthusiasm to make what we can easily describe as one of the cutest, most charming groups around. Although none of the band are fluent in English, they've tried to put up an English version of their website, and it's true brilliance. For instance, THIS is how their website announces their tour:

"There is the American tour. We go to America again. The tour, 10 days, has planned all the 10 shows.
Details do to know, are to be it announces. Please come to play by all means. Just it is possible, we want enjoying at show in many people, is!"

While Kindercore keeps pushing around the release date of the new OF MONTREAL record, "Aldhil's Arboretum," the band have apparantly gotten sick of waiting and put the album for sale via Paypal through their website, www.ofmontreal.net. Go ahead, order it and see if Shane's crazy for proclaiming them the greatest band in America!

NOTE: The Of Montreal website linked above has been flooded with people ordering the new album. As a result, their site keeps jumping on and off-line due to bandwidth restrictions. If you go to the site and you get a message saying that it's temporarily down, just wait a few minutes and try again...

As one of the greatest bands in the history of rock and roll, The Frogs are capable of putting one hell of a show. I've seen it with my own eyes, and will gladly attest that they indeed are one of the best live acts out there today.

The infamous file-sharing website, Audiogalaxy, has returned with a subscription service called, Rhapsody. For only ten bucks you gain access to over 17,000 albums by over 7,000 artists. The good thing is that artists actually get paid with your monthly fees. The bad thing is that you don't actually get anything. You pay for the ability to stream the music to your computer. You can try out their service for free until September 15th. I searched for a bunch of artists, click on 'read more' to see which ones they have in their catalog.

Well, we weren't gonna comment on this one until some definite confirmation came around, but it's officially starting to look as though GRAHAM COXON has left BLUR. Rumours started flying last week in the UK tabloids that Coxon had left the band -- but were quickly denied by Blur and Coxon spokespeople within the day. Then earlier this week it was discovered that the other three members of Blur - Damon, Alex, and Dave - had adjourned to Morocco to work on new recordings, while a seemingly unconcerned Coxon told NME he had no idea the band were even recording, claiming he's focusing on his next solo record. And now today, the news seems extraordinarily bad - Norman Cook (aka FATBOY SLIM), who is producing the new Blur record - went on record with The Evening Session and admitted that Coxon had effectively left the band and had not contributed to the new album. These statements were, to a degree, confirmed tonight by Blur's manager Chris Morrison, who issued a statement reading, "Blur and Graham are currently contemplating and deciding amongst themselves what the future arrangements will be." In other words, it doesn't look good for Coxon's continued presence in the band. We'll keep you updated.

I read this over at slashdot and it just sounded too insane. This site talks about how you can rip the audio off your vinyl and into MP3's by using a scanner. The audio samples are pretty crappy and some believe that it's a hoax, but I think it's funny anyway.

SpinART has put up an mp3 of the new APPLES IN STEREO single for a limited time. It's a tune called "Please," and it's pretty swell. The new Apples album drops in October (though copies are circulating around the internet in the usual spots). You can check out the single by clicking HERE. (Look for the link to the download in the bottom left corner of the page!)

CDNow put out a list of The 10 Essential Shoegazer Albums. It's not a bad list in that they've managed to get Swervedriver and Slowdive on there. And while I'm not the biggest Boo Radleys fan out there, I could swear that 'Giant Steps' was a more important shoegazer album then 'C'mon Kids'. Also the inclusion of the greatest hits packages by Charlatans and Lush is just offensive. Surely 'Between 10th and 11th' and 'Gala' would've been more appropriate.

Labrador Records announced today that they are buying Summersound Recordings of Stockholm. The two companies will merge into one, maintaining the name Labrador. "Labrador is better established abroad and has a strong visual identity in album covers, internet presence and promotional material," says Matthias Berglund.

Paul Westerberg is a little full of himself, despite the popular ignorance (and critical acclaim) of his recent double cd release. Read the Reuters story for more...