Belle and Sebastian Delay U.S. DVD Release Until Winter, Play Shows in Japan
Sorry, "Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son" not a duet with Triumph The Insult Comic Dog

[Posted Wednesday, November 19th, 2003 04:15:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Way back in May-- a simpler, more innocent time, when it seemed like Zwan would last forever and Guided by Voices had released a mere 638 records, Pitchfork reported that Belle and Sebastian were working on a comprehensive DVD laden with promotional videos, short films, interviews, TV spots, live material, and more. We, wide-eyed idealists that we are, believed Matador when they said it would be out in June. Nevertheless, come June, we could be found in record stores with moist eyes and quivering lips, a clutch of bills drifting to the floor from our slackened hands as the kindly record store proprietor shrugged helplessly, palms upturned, and shook his head "sorry friend."

In September, we learned that the DVD, now titled Fans Only, would be released all right, and in October-- but not in the U.S., where label shake-ups had robbed the DVD of distribution and a dollop of footage, since rights issues would only allow material from Belle and Sebastian's time on Jeepster to be included.

Well, we're back with a new round of information on Fans Only, and this time it seems pretty solid. Of course, so does ice, and we all know what happens when you leave that shit laying around for too long. According to Matador Records, they've inked a deal with Jeepster for Matador distribute the DVD stateside in winter of 2003, with an exact release date forthcoming.

As mentioned above, this is no longer a career retrospective, but will only represent the band's time on Jeepster (from If You're Feeling Sinister through the Storytelling soundtrack). The DVD was compiled by the band in cooperation with Glasgow-based filmmaker Blair Young, and features a hot naked woman on the cover (bosoms tastefully concealed by a book, to the eternal frustration of our pubescent readers-- sorry, kids, it's 2-D; you can't see under there no matter how you tilt it).

Note that Fans Only was originally planned as a VHS and DVD release, but will now only be on DVD, presumably to prevent these same randy youngsters from using the pause feature to freeze frames in which you can sort of see Isobel Campbell's ta-tas behind a cello. We obtained the following tracklist from a British distributor, so note that this is for the UK release, which may not be compatible with your tough-ass all-American DVD player. You'll have to wait for Matador to get it all together. Tracklist:

01 Dog On Wheels
02 I Could Be Dreaming
03 A Century of Fakers
04 Like Dylan in the Movies
05 Lazy Line Painter Jane
06 Dirty Dream #2
07 Is it Wicked Not to Care
08 The Boy With the Arab Strap
09 Poupée De Cire Poupée De Son [Serge Gainsbourg]
10 This is Just a Modern Love Song
11 Legal Man
12 The Wrong Girl
13 Wandering Alone
14 Jonathan David
15 I'm Waking Up To Us
16 The State I Am In

Finally, Belle and Sebastian have a few Japanese tour dates scheduled in January, so drop on by if you're in the neighborhood, and in the mood to sit quietly and nod:

01-25 Osaka, Japan - Zepp
01-26 Nagoya, Japan - Diamond Hall
01-28 Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya AX
01-29 Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya Public Hall

Belle and Sebastian: http://www.belleandsebastian.com
Matador: http://www.matadorrecords.com
Jeepster: http://www.jeepster.co.uk

Power Struggle/Sissy Slap Fight At Kindercore?
They want to have their Japancakes and releasae it too

[Posted Wednesday, November 19th, 2003 04:15:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Rod Waterman and Will Bryant report:
Almost immediately after our reporting the impending demise of the Kindercore and Telegraph Company labels last week, Pitchfork was forwarded some very interesting correspondence indicating some kind of power struggle (and at the same time some kind of a meltdown) taking place at whatever remains of the Kindercore empire. Evidently some Kindercore bands were taken somewhat by surprise that their label might no longer be operational: indeed, one Kindercore band informed us that the first they heard of their label's extinction was when they read about it in this very organ. Others felt unable to comment on the situation due to their pending search for a new label, and still others had absolutely no clue what was going on. Whom you believe might depend to some extent on where your loyalties lie (or whether you actually care, which is not something we're taking for granted here):

Our original story, linked below, was based on a statement regarding the labels' closure issued by Jerod Gunsburg, the New York-based label manager and spokesperson, and a correspondence with Pitchfork confirming the circumstances surrounding the closure. But on Friday, Pitchfork was forwarded a bizarre press release from one Stanley Hartman, the Kansas-based CEO of IDEA, which owns Kindercore and The Telegraph Company and handles their distribution. The somewhat comical rant presented a scenario in which Kindercore's phone bank was literally jammed with calls from well-wishers and distributors frantic to secure copies of Dressy Bessy and Maserati/Mercury Program discs. Uh-huh.

Compounding the already shaky credibility of this document (a Word attachment titled "Press releasae.doc"), Hartman went on to claim that Kindercore is in fact "shipping record numbers" and that a Kindercore artist was recently booked on The Daily Show, which doesn't in fact book musical acts (we'll assume he meant the Carson Daly show, where Dressy Bessy was a recent guest). He then contradicted just about every point of Gunsburg's press release from the previous day: "[We] are expanding our distribution, and have some amazingly good new music in the works. We are also working all current releases... The last thing we were expecting was a press release conveying that we were ceasing operations completely."

Curiously, several posts discussing the labels' closure on the official Kindercore forum-- including Gunsburg's eulogy for the label and best wishes for the now-homeless bands-- were deleted by forum moderators on Friday. This week, moderators deleted the entire Kindercore general discussion topic, which had been overrun with anonymous posters second-guessing the status of the label and bands and re-posting censored topics. Gunsburg had the following to say about this: "Any information that [IDEA] is now releasing about Kindercore still operating is in direct contradiction to what they informed the label staff... It saddens me that the artists are being dragged into this. This sort of palace intrigue is what you would expect from a major media conglomerate, not from an indie rock label that placed a premium on artist development."

Finally, Hartman himself weighed in on the matter with Pitchfork: "The label is active and running. We are not defunct." It seems that of all the bands that were on the Kindercore roster before this whole thing blew up, maybe three remain in Kindercore's good graces-- those being Japancakes, Paper Lions and Maserati, the latter two of whom are merely "talking about another release." Everybody else is toast, which is to say that Of Montreal, Dressy Bessy, Mercury Program, Jet By Day and Agenda are, in Hartman's verbiage, "not currently under contract for another record."

Gersey, Palomar and I Am The World Trade Center, whose forthcoming albums formed the bulk of Kindercore's projected 2004 release schedule, are "not releasing their records [on Kindercore] and are finding other homes," Hartman told Pitchfork. Hartman also mentioned the possiblity of three further signings in 2004, adding that the new Kindercore "will only be working with four active artists on the label at one time." Something seems slightly amiss with Stanley's math here, but that's not the main point to take away from this, unless you consider math skills an important part of running a successful business operation with some level of financial acumen.

In response to this, Gunsberg remarked that "if the Kindercore and Telegraph labels do continue, which is highly suspect in and of itself, they will bear no resemblance to what they have been and were growing into." So, the bottom line, if such can be gleaned from this sorry saga, is that at the very best Kindercore seems to be seriously downsizing. At the worst, well, we don't really want to think about the worst case scenario, but it sure does look like a lot of bands don't have a label anymore, and so far as we can tell, there's really only one band that is definitely and unequivocally still on board.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we give you Japancakes-- the only survivor from the bloody Kindercore massacre of November 2003. With the entire weight of the Kindercore publicity operation behind them, the mind boggles at the giddy heights Japancakes will be able to attain in 2004 and beyond. We were going to end this with some kind of pithy and witty punchline, but you know what? Sometimes a story just speaks for itself.

Kindercore: http://www.kindercore.com

New Trans Am Full-Length, Vegan-Rock Cooking Show, New Zealand Parliament Position
Entire band on cement blocks in Manley's front yard

[Posted Wednesday, November 19th, 2003 04:15:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

For the love of all that's good and holy, where do I start on this one? I suppose moving from most-likely to least-likely accurate information makes as much sense as anything, so in the spirit of starting on the right foot, here goes. Trans Am will be releasing Liberation in February. Sticking with Thrill Jockey, the record will contain 14 tracks primarily written around the time of the terrorist attacks back in '01, and promises to be a return to a Trans Am of days gone by.

According to Thrill Jockey, the mostly-instrumental record will be "the closest thing to conveying the excitement of their live show since Surrender to the Night. Many Trans Am fans will surely take this as good news, as their most recent album, TA, a party rock album that sounded more like the Miami Vice incidental music than the Kraftwerk-meets-AC/DC sound of their earlier work, was met with mixed reviews to say the least. Tracklist:

01 Outmoder
02 Uninvited Guest
03 Idea Machine
04 White Rhino
05 June
06 Music for Dogs
07 Divine Invasion
08 Washington DC
09 Total Information Awareness
10 Pretty Close to the Edge
11 Is Trans Am Really Your Friend?
12 Remote Control
13 Spike in Chatter
14 Divine Invasion

In more more-than-likely true news, Phil Manley is currently in San Francisco working on the newest collaboration between Trans Am and the Fucking Champs. 2001's first collaboration was entitled Trans Champs, so it's only logical that next year's release be dubbed Fucking Am. Phil has also written and recorded music for Ivan Hurzeler's film Fashion Town Two: Race for Oblivion, and is rumored to have an extremely brief cameo in Peter Jackson's upcoming Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as a young Gandalf during a flashback scene. This last little gem is precisely where this reporter starts getting suspicious.

In more highly suspect news, a Thrill Jockey representative has informed us that Trans Am drummer Sebastian Thompson has been pitching a "vegan rock themed" cooking show to a local Washington, D.C. TV station, putting a supposed multi-year position as a contributing food editor for the Washington Post (under an alias, of course) to good use.

Last, but certainly not least, our sources are telling us that Nathan Means has been living in New Zealand with a family of Maori Sheep farmers where he is apparently working on his dual citizenship so that he may hold a position in the parliament there. Take that, Schwarzenegger! He has apparently built up a decent amount of popularity due to lobbying for a "highly-specific farm related issue." That's highly specific, and yet unconvincingly vague.

We'll let you draw your own conclusions about this one folks, but rest assured that Liberation will be sneaking its way into stores in late February. *

* liberation not available in Afghanistan, China, Congo, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Taiwan, Venezuela, and parts of Ohio. Offer void where prohibited or not cost-effective.

Thrill Jockey: http://www.thrilljockey.com

The Darkness Tour U.S., Japan, Merrie Olde England (and Scotland)
Bonnie "Prince" Billy to see them multiple times: "Do you know how much I love you?"

[Posted Wednesday, November 19th, 2003 04:15:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

The Pitchfork staff got a big kick out of a recent hate mail about a review of The Darkness' first full-length Permission to Land. The letter predominately stated that we "suck for all time (ALL FUCKING TIME) for even remotely considering the Darkness listenable." If any of you out there in cyber-land hate The Darkness like our nameless assassin, just go about your daily lives.

But if any of you out there like The Darkness (as we do), England's very own late-'70s hard-rock indie metal minimalist power rock band, of course. Enjoying minor success in their native land with the release of their EP I Believe In A Thing Called Love, The Darkness struck real acclaim with their recent album (the one in question). And now with a brief U.S. tour on the itinerary before flying off to Japan and their homeland, their Metallica-gone-wrong (very wrong) sound can be evaluated in person. Maybe. The dates:

11-19 Chicago, IL - Double Door
11-21 San Francisco, CA - Slim's
11-22 Seattle, WA - Studio Seven
11-25 Osaka, Japan - Club Quattro
11-26 Tokyo, Japan - Zepp
11-27 Nagoya, Japan - Club Quattro
12-03 Plymouth, England - Plymouth Pavilions
12-04 Bournemouth, England - International Centre
12-05 London, England - Brixton Academy
12-06 London, England - Brixton Academy
12-08 Birmingham, England - TBA
12-09 Edinburgh, Scotland - Corn Exchange
12-10 Manchester, England - Carling Apollo Manchester

The Darkness: http://www.thedarknessrock.com

Planes Mistaken for Stars Gain Bassist, Tour
New bassist still not sure about changing name to Chuck Freedom

[Posted Wednesday, November 19th, 2003 04:15:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Back in August, we reported to you that Planes Mistaken for Stars had indeed lost their bassist. We are now happy to report that, although they never found the one they lost (my guess-- in the closet, under that junior-high amp with the Winger logo Liquid-Papered on), they have replaced him. Out on tour with the Ataris (hey, a gig is a gig, right?), the three original members are breaking in Chuck French, formerly of Peralta, who has officially made the transition from temp to perm.

In new album news, the band is still working on material for the follow-up to 2001's Fuck with Fire. They recently recorded a number of demos with Alex Newport, who has worked in the past with The Mars Volta and The Icarus Line. The demos are essentially being used to shop around for a label to release the record, which they plan on recording during the winter. In the meantime, though, just go see 'em live. Dates:

11-19 Toronto, Ontario - Kool Haus (w/ The Ataris, Hopesfall, Squirtgun)
11-20 Ottawa, Ontario - Club Saw
11-21 Port Jervis, NY - The Vault
11-22 Washington, D.C. - American University (w/ The Ataris, Hopesfall, Squirtgun)
11-23 Columbus, OH - Little Brothers (w/ Lovedrug)
11-24 Omaha, NE - Ranch Bowl (w/ Thrall)

The Strokes Party In Vegas For New Years; New Single In January
Siegfried has an extra ticket, if you're gay and like cats

[Posted Tuesday, November 18th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

The drinks are stiff, the slots are loose, and Vince Vaughn won't stop calling me "honey baby" (that fag). Or, to put it another way entirely: road trip! The Strokes, Pitchfork's little darlings of pretentious (oh, wait, I already called them pretentious in the last article), artfully rough-around-the-edges pop are set to play a special show in the partiest city in the country, on the partiest day of the year-- that's Las Vegas and New Year's Eve, in case you're just waking up.

The show will go down at the Cox Pavilion at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. These are the same guys and gals that romp around half naked in your dad's Girls Gone Wild tapes, but just to up the ante all tickets will feature the word "Strokes" in close proximity to the word "Cox." The current Vegas line puts the chances of the Strokes opening with current single "12:51" at 3:1, with the more thematically relevant "Trying Your Luck" and Room on Fire opener "What Ever Happened" in a dead heat at even odds. "New York City Cops" and a cover of ABBA's "Waterloo" are clear longshots at over 300:1 odds, but if you can get enough drinks into Albert Hammond, Jr. you may just walk away from Sin City a very wealthy sonofabitch.

In other Strokes news, the indie-rock Monkees will be sporting a new single come January 12th. The Billy Idol-esque "Reptilia" will be backed by... hold your breath... a demo version of "Meet Me In The Bathroom." All right! 'Cause that's so much cooler than, say, an unreleased track. Or an Billy Squier cover. But, folks, don't be too disappointed. "12:51" only gave us a demo of "The Way It Is." And that's the way it is.

In case you forgot, The Strokes are jammin' alongside Conan O'Brian every Tuesday throughout this fine month of November. So, if you're out of skrilla, or unluckier than Scott Weiland on a post-binge beer run, you can still check them live.

Strokes: http://www.thestrokes.com
RCA: http://www.rcarecords.com

Low Announces December Dates
Duluth! Duluth! Duluth is on fire

[Posted Tuesday, November 18th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Ah, December: a time to hole up in the living room by the fire, a time to shop, and a time to prepare for having far too many of your friends and/or family in the house for the holidays. Also, possibly, time for yet another major label Christmas release by, oh, let's say, Justin Timberlake (tell me that shit wouldn't be off the hoooook). Or, lastly, a time to tour. Career somnambulists Low are heading out for a few December dates, and it just may be your last chance to catch them before they head back into the studio next year. It's like this, people:

12-03 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
12-04 Millvale, PA - Mr. Small's Theatre
12-05 Newport, KY - Southgate House
12-12 Chicago, IL - Logan Square Auditorium
12-13 Milwaukee, WI - Todd Wehr Auditorium (with Maritime, Troubled Hubble)

So you don't live anywhere near those cities, but you still need a Low live fix. Back in 2000, Low got together with good friends and stylistic siblings Ida, His Name is Alive, and The Secret Stars for a concert with a dual purpose-- celebrating the release of Ida's Will You Find Me, and raising money for the South Brooklyn Legal Services HIV Project (those indie rock stars are nothing if not altruistic). The resulting show was recorded, and has been released on Ida's Last Affair label as Angel Hall. It's one of those limited-edition deals, but you can get a copy at Ida's website or via Insound.

Low: http://www.chairkickers.com
Ida: http://www.idamusic.com

Portastatic To Play First-Ever West Coast Tour In December
"You guys stand and stare at the band with your arms crossed too? Awesome!"

[Posted Tuesday, November 18th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

As indie rock side-projects go, few have been more prolific or pervasive than Mac McCaughan's Portastatic. Over the course of four full-lengths, one soundtrack, and many many EP's, the Superchunk frontman has covered a fair amount of ground with his unassuming moniker, and he recently even spent a good chunk of time on the road, culminating in the recent release of the Autumn Was A Lark EP. But somehow, he's never made it to the warm (and smoky) embrace of the West Coast.

Well, now that California has stopped burning (for the moment), and it's safe to travel to our fine state, Portastatic have announced their first-ever West Coast dates-- and though four dates may seem a little underwhelming, remember that it's a long walk from Chapel Hill. You try it sometime, smart guy! According to the fine folks at Merge, the dates will all feature a solo acoustic version of Portastatic, and they've lined up some enticing headliners for a couple of the dates (dueling Malkmus and McCaughan guitars for "1% of One"? One can only hope.) Take our advice and check it out:

12-06 Seattle, WA - Showbox (w/ Stephen Malkmus, Pernice Brothers)
12-07 Portland, OR - Dante's
12-11 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill (w/ Rogue Wave)
12-13 Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland (w/ the Minders, Nik Frietas)

Of course, McCaughan hasn't given up his day job, and though Superchunk has yet to head into the studio (shit, Portastatic won't stop touring long enough!), they are helping a friend out, and playing a benefit show for Alejandro Escovedo. The show is on November 23rd at the Retail Bar in Raleigh, and in addition to Superchunk, it features a whole lot of bands I've never heard of (although to be fair, I don't get out that much. Or live in North Carolina.)

Portastatic: http://www.portastatic.com
Merge: http://www.mergerecords.com
Alejandro Fund: http://www.alejandrofund.com

The Cure Offer 4xCD Rarities Box in 2004; Entire Catalog To Be Remastered with Bonus Discs
Was Stallone ever goth? I forget

[Posted Tuesday, November 18th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

The Cure are set to release an astoundingly thorough 71-track, 4xCD box set entitled Join The Dots: B-Sides and Rarities, 1978-2001 (The Fiction Years), on January 27th through reissue kingpins Rhino Records. The four-disc set will feature rare gems covering the band's entire career, compiling all of the b-sides fans have come to love spread out over the discs. The second, third, and fourth discs will feature various and assorted rarities. Among the nuggets therein will be covers of tracks by Jimi Hendrix, Depeche Mode, David Bowie, and three (count 'em) versions of the Doors' "Hello, I Love You." There will also be offerings from the soundtracks to such cinematic masterpieces as The Crow, The X-Files, and, well, Judge Dredd.

According to frontman Robert Smith, the band has always made a conscious effort to offer unique b-sides and never resorted to the "cynicism" of other bands who just "put a cover on the b-side, or slapped something together that was filler." Smith should know, since he had to dig through more than 4,000 tapes of material to put the collection together. Divided up more or less chronologically, disc one will feature b-sides from 1978-1987, disc two will have B-sides and promo material from 1988-1992, disc three will include b-sides and soundtrack hits from 1993-1996, and disc four will wrap the whole thing up with various songs from 1997-2001. Tracklist:

Disc one:
01 10:15 Saturday Night
02 Plastic Passion
03 Pillbox Tales
04 Do The Hansa
05 I'm Cold
06 Another Journey By Train
07 Descent
08 Splintered In Her Head
09 Lament
10 Just One Kiss
11 The Dream
12 The Upstairs Room
13 Speak My Language
14 Mr. Pink Eyes
15 Happy the Man
16 Throw Your Foot
17 New Day
18 The Exploding Boy
19 A Few Hours After This
20 A Man Inside My Mouth
21 Stop Dead

Disc two:
01 A Japanese Dream
02 Breathe
03 A Chain of Flowers
04 Snow in Summer
05 Sugar Girl
06 Icing Sugar
07 Hey You!!! [extended remix]
08 How Beautiful You Are
09 To the Sky
10 Babble
11 Out of Mind
12 2 Late
13 Fear of Ghosts
14 Hello I Love You
15 Hello I Love You (Slight Return mix)
16 Hello I Love You (Psychedelic mix)
17 Harold and Joe
18 Just Like Heaven (Dizzy mix)
19 Close to Me (Closest mix)

Disc three:
01 The Twilight Garden
02 Play
03 Halo
04 Scared As You
05 The Big Hand
06 A Foolish Arrangement
07 Doing the Unstuck
08 Purple Haze [live]
09 Purple Haze
10 Burn
11 Young Americans
12 Dredd Song
13 It Used To Be Me
14 Ocean
15 Adonais
16 Home

Disc four:
01 Waiting
02 A Pink Dream
03 Strange Attraction (Strange mix)
04 This Is a Lie (Ambient mix)
05 Wrong Number (P2P mix)
06 World in My Eyes
07 More Than This
08 Out of This World (Steve Osbourne and Paul Oakenfold mix)
09 Maybe Someday [acoustic mix]
10 Coming Up
11 Signal to Noise [acoustic version]
12 Signal to Noise
13 Just Say Yes [live acoustic version]
14 Just Say Yes (Curve mix)
15 A Forest [featuring Earl Slick]

Also worth mentioning is the 88-page booklet featuring track-by-track commentary by Smith, along with many never-before-seen photos. One of the more surprising photos is of a makeup-less Smith laughing during a touching duet with Bobby McFerrin on his 1988 hit "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

Perhaps most interestingly, however, the band will be remastering and re-releasing their entire catalog to date over the next 18 months, with each disc featuring an extra disc's worth of material in the form of live tracks, rare tracks, and other unreleased material. That's a lotta Cure, even if you're sick enough to need the whole regimen. Finally, the band is also in the planning stages for the follow up to their 2000 album Bloodflowers, with the hopes of a summer 2004 release.

The Cure: http://www.thecure.com
Rhino: http://www.rhinorecords.com

DFA To Remix U.N.K.L.E., Release Stupid, Pretentious Single
DEA to keep busting my balls about my GOT WEED? bumper sticker

[Posted Tuesday, November 18th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

James Murphy is white-hot. Not only is he (along with Tim Goldsworthy) part of dance-punk's hottest producing duo, the DFA, but he also records some seriously awesome shit as LCD Soundsystem. And he's currently preparing to release new material under both monikers.

Later this month, Murphy's own DFA Records will release the latest LCD Soundsystem twelve-incher, "Yeah," with two mixes of said composition:

01 Yeah (stupid version)
02 Yeah (pretentious mix)

The DFA are preparing a number of swank remixes this November, including mix-ups of Junior Senior's "Shake Your Coconuts" for Atlantic, a DFA-ified "In A State" for U.N.K.L.E. and Island/Def Jam UK, and a rearrangement of J.O.Y.'s "Sunplus" featuring Yoshimi from the Boredoms for Ape Sounds/Bathing Ape Japan.

DFA: http://www.dfarecords.com

MP3.com To Suspend Operations Next Month
Only 16 days left to download entire discography of "Dr. Chunk"

[Posted Monday, November 17th, 2003 06:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Will Bryant and Jeremy C. Baron report:
MP3.com, a keystone of the digital music revolution, will be suspending operations and deleting all hosted content including music, images, links and artist pages as of December 2nd, according to reports in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. After successfully ligitating the shit out of the popular hosting-and-download site in 2001 (for hosting copies of copyrighted files that could only be accessed by users with legitimate copies of CD's), Vivendi Universal had originally acquired the company in a $372 million cash-and-stock deal. However, amid falling corporate profits and MP3.com's failure to transform into a successful platform for paid downloads, Vivendi shuttered the European arm of MP3.com and put the domestic operation up for sale this summer.

And now, apparently, they have a buyer: CNet Networks (the online media conglomerate behind popular shareware site Download.com and tech news-and-reviews portal CNet.com) has purchased the web address and brand name from Universal for an undisclosed sum. CNet reportedly plans to change the site from a distribution and hosting format into a digital music information and news source.

MP3.com gave any schmuck with some home-recorded music the chance to strut their stuff for the whole world-- including your snot-nosed teenage cousin, your mulleted, mesh-shirted next door neighbor, and (ahem) more than a few Pitchfork staffers (at present, MP3.com claims to host more than 750,000 songs from as many as 250,000 artists). MP3.com download charts were always an entertaining blend of unsigned acts you've almost certainly never heard of, alongside Universal-provided material you might wish you hadn't ever heard of (how ya doin', Something Corporate?). The service also allowed indie artists to sell packaged MP3 content and even MP3.com-branded CD-R's through the site.

Although the popular music-hosting service was free, the site was often cumbersome and slow-loading, and requested a voluminous amount of personal information anytime a user queued a download. Artists who chose not to pay for MP3.com's premium service were often forced to wait out a two-to-three-week "approval process" for every file posted (I guess to ensure that you didn't upload the latest G-Unit joint and claim that's your own skillz on display). The failure of the site to adapt to meet the needs of its bread-and-butter clients (unsigned and independent artists) caused many to give up on the service, leaving thousands of artist pages frozen in time circa 2001.

Still, the service allowed independent artists the opportunity to distribute music worldwide-- a fact not lost on the designers currently at work on CNet's replacement site, which is set to debut sometime in 2004. "We are working hard to build a service that will be best-in-class at hosting, promoting, and showcasing your work," reads a notice posted on CNet.com. CNet.com promises there will be "upcoming services for musical artists" included in the new site, and allows interested users to subscribe to an e-mail announcement service.

Surprisingly-- considering the site is less than two weeks away from complete demolition-- there is little notice of the change on MP3.com's website, and the press release section of the site has not be updated in almost a year. However, there is a notice to artists and prospective users of the site that "MP3.com is no longer accepting new content and new artist signups."

.: MP3.com: http://mp3.cnet.com/artist.html

Lambchop To Release Two New Albums In February
Axl adds pedal-steel ace, washboard player to lineup just to be safe

[Posted Monday, November 17th, 2003 06:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Lambchop, otherwise known as the largest musical collective east of The Polyphonic Spree, is getting ready to unleash not one, but two brand new full-length albums on an unsuspecting public, all G'n'R style, in 2004. According to the official Lambchop website, the new records are (somewhat preciously) titled Aw C'mon and No You C'mon.

Although the site cites Lambchop's 2000 release Nixon as the closest touchstone, a recent cryptic post gives some more detail on the sound: "These records bear only a passing resemblance to anything which has gone before. The albums are not dramatically different in style from one another, but the conceptual call and response of the titles is somewhat reflected in the choice of songs across the two." Ah, the warm embrace of the conceptual-- is there any better place for it to live than rock (or alt.country, if you prefer) music?

The cast list hasn't grown appreciably since 2002's Is a Woman, but hey, 15 members should be more than enough for us. They all have to eat, you know. Not to mention fit on a stage. Aw C'mon and No You C'mon were produced by Kurt Wagner and Nashville household name Mark Nevers. They'll both be out February 17th on Merge Records, and here are the tracklists:

Aw C'mon:

01 Being Tyler
02 Four Pounds in Two Days
03 Steve McQueen
04 The Lone Official
05 Something's Going On
06 Nothing But A Blur From A Bullet Train
07 Each Time I Bring It Up It Seems To Bring You Down
08 Timothy B. Schmidt
09 Women Help to Create the Kind of Men They Despise
10 I Hate Candy
11 I Haven't Heard a Word I've Said
12 Action Figure

No You C'mon:

01 Sunrise
02 Low Ambition
03 There's Still Time
04 Nothing Adventurous Please
05 The Problem
06 Shang a Dang Dang
07 About My Lighter
08 Under a Dream of a Lie
09 Jan 24
10 The Gusher
11 Listen
12 The Producer

Of course, there's no such thing as an album release without a tour (unless perhaps, you're Radiohead... or Madonna), and the details for Lambchop's next jaunt are slowly but surely coming together. According to Mary Mancini, Lambchop's webmaster (and you should definitely go check out their Friendster-styled website): "We just got a very tentative plan for a spring tour in Europe that will start on March 3rd in Amsterdam and end some time at the end of April." They'll tackle the U.S. at some point after that, and we'll fetch you the details as soon as the dates are firmed up.

Lambchop: http://www.lambchop.net
Merge: http://www.mergerecords.com

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