Music Snitch

Tokyo Police Club recently released their latest ‘Champ’ single, “Wait Up (Boots Of Danger)”, and their tour buddies, Passion Pit, gave it a little remix treatment.

Take A Listen: Wait Up (Boots Of Danger) from Tokyo Police Club (Passion Pit Remix)

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Download: Wait Up (Boots Of Danger) (Right click on link and select “Save Target As” in IE or “Save Link As” in Firefox)

Tokyo Police Club’s new album, ‘Champ’, will hit stores June 8th via Mom + Pop.

The National’s latest album, ‘High Violet’, was released in the states today, along with their new music video for the track, “Bloodbuzz Ohio”.  In other Nacional news, the band’s performance @ Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 15th is being streamed live on YouTube in benefit of the Red Hot Organization.  Here is the link.

Video: Bloodbuzz Ohio from The National

Minus the Bear’s latest album, ‘OMNI’, hits stores today, and if you want to give it a test run before making a purchase decision, you can steam it here.

A bit of insight into ‘OMNI’ (from Dangerbird Records):  This time out MTB wanted to collaborate with an outside producer and began interviewing potential candidates.  Joe Chiccarelli (My Morning Jacket, The White Stripes, The Shins) flew up to Seattle and the rapport was immediate, with producer and band in agreement about how to proceed.

“We played the songs for Joe in our rehearsal space and he had a ton of ideas,” Snider says. “He had a great sense of where things could be trimmed, so he was a good set of ears to help us edit what we were trying to get across.”

On April 27, 2009, Minus the Bear began sessions at Seattle’s Avast! Recording Studios, opting to take a more organic approach towards recording.  A conscious effort was made to play together as much as possible, eschewing the usual scratch tracks and overdubs whenever possible.

“He was really awesome about wanting to find the perfect sound before we even started tracking the songs,” Knudson says. “That was a big thing for us, changing the way we record, trying to keep as much of the performances that we were doing in the studio together to maintain the energy.”

“Joe kicked a lot of us in the ass more than any of us had ever been kicked in the ass before,” Knudson says.  “We were doing 10 or 12 takes, more than any of us had ever played, but obviously all those takes paid off. He broke us down and made us evaluate what we were doing and maybe made us think of it from a different perspective.”

Looks like Apple Inc. is shutting down their recently acquired web-based music streaming service, Lala (Apple bought Lala in December).  According to the notice on Lala’s site, their services will no longer be available as of May 31st.   There is speculation that Apple plans on using Lala’s “cloud” technology to develop a web-based iTunes product that would allow users (mobile) to access their music library from various locations.

Lala sent out an email to their customers that included some additional information:

“In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple’s iTunes Store.  If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request).  Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.”

You can listen to The National’s forthcoming album, ‘High Violet’, in its full glory right now over at the New York Times website.  But move quickly because it will only be available until April 27th.

Along with the release of their sophomore album, ‘La La Land’, Plants and Animals will be broadcasting a live performance from Toronto’’s, Horseshoe Tavern (I think it’s a free gig).  Dose.ca will be streaming video of the show via LiveStream tonight…the set time is 10:40 p.m. EST.

You can also stream the album, ‘La La Land’, in its entirety over at Secret City Records.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of checking out Sunbears! at one of my favorite locations in Tampa, New World Brewery.  The Sunbears! rolled through town from Jacksonville for their vinyl release party.  The vinyl is actually a split four track record with MRENC.

I became a fan of Sunbears’ sugar topped tunes by way of their most recent EP, ‘Dream Happy Dreams’, and figured the show would be a breezy affair, which it was.  The duo’s sense of humor was the first thing I noticed as the projector screen behind them spiraled out large images of their heads.  For the majority of their set Jonathan sat behind his keys singing (at times picking up a guitar) while Jared banged away on his drums, but the show was definitely not stagnant.  It took me a few songs to notice that their music was in sync with the video clips behind them, but once I realized this, I couldn’t look away.  It was pretty cool, and something I had never seen before.

As far as the setlist goes, the duo played most of their Dreams EP and I believe a couple songs from their debut EP, ‘For Everyone.’  They also played a cover of New Order’s, “Thieves Like Us”, although the guy in front of me was chanting for an MJ cover.  To be quite honest, I was surprised at how good they sounded…I saw a few live videos floating around the internet prior to the show that did not do them justice.  It was a fun, colorful show and I look forward to seeing Sunbears! again.

After the show I had the opportunity to chat with the friendly bears! and ask them a few questions.

I noticed that your new 7″ was released via New Granada Records, does this mean you’re signed with a label now?
Keith, who is the president of New Granada Records, approached us about doing this split 7″ with MRENC (Eric, who is a good friend of ours) and we thought, awesome, let’s do it.  But no, we are not signed to a label.

Both of your EPs were independently produced, so do you prefer the DIY method or would you be open to a label?
So far it’s been working, but if bigger and better opportunities come along we would certainly be interested…but we can’t complain about how things have been going so far.  The cool thing about what we’ve been doing is that none of it feels bigger than what we can handle.

Yeah, the production quality on the EPs, especially Dream Happy Dreams isn’t too shabby.
We had a friend help us out with it.  He believes in our music so he took it, mixed it, and made it sound pretty sweet.  But we recorded the majority of it ourselves, probably 90%.  We recorded most of it in Jacksonville and some in California (vocals) and Atlanta (drums).

Have you played at any festivals ( or showcases) like SXSW or Austin City Limits?
We haven’t yet but hopefully next year we can get on that bandwagon.   Maybe we procrastinated a bit (smirking), and didn’t make the deadline, but it’s a lot of work to make that happen, with two guys.  But next year.

Do you have any plans for a full-length?
We have aspirations, yes (laugh).  We’re trying to write songs and get everything set up at home.  Our soft goal is to have it done by the end of the year.

Oh, and as for their ability to play music in sync with the projections behind them, they use a metronome.

Dr. Dog’s new album ‘Shame, Shame’ is set to be released next week (April 6th) via Anti-Records, but thanks to the folks at NPR, you can get an early preview.  Stream ‘Shame, Shame’ here.

The band is also about to kick off a rather lengthy tour.