Optical Atlas

Just a reminder about this special acoustic of Montreal performance, which we originally posted about a month ago:

Pitchfork has announced that of Montreal (specifically, Kevin Barnes and B.P. Helium) will be participating in the Revenge of the Book Eaters charity event on September 26 at Boston’s Berklee Performance Center. The Revenge of the Book Eaters is a series of benefits to help Dave Eggers’ 826 National foundation, which is dedicated to helping young students with expository and creative writing. Of Montreal will be joined by comedian of comedy Eugene Mirman, Found Magazine founder Davy Rothbart, writer Rodney Rothman, and New York’s Via Audio. For more information on the Book Eaters, go here.

Ben Crum of Great Lakes will be playing a show this Wednesday – either solo or with some friends, he’s not sure yet. But there will be new work-in-progress GL tunes on display. Perhaps. He’s opening for Spectacular Bird, and it’s at Sound Fix Records in Brooklyn, NY on September 26. Expect an 8:15 showtime.

Chris Parfitt of Vince Mole & His Calcium Orchestra (and once of The Apples in Stereo) sent in this picture from his reunion with the band at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ, a few nights ago. He also has 6 quick video clips at YouTube, one of which is featured here. (The rest are here.)

All right, so it’s not a wealth of new information, but the band has announced that they’re working on a new album; Tammy Ealom writes on the band’s MySpace blog: “DB is working diligently on a new album! We’ll be working with our friend Trent Bell, (check it out) in the beginning of November and hope to be mixed long before the end of the year … release date – yet undetermined …. 2008 for sure! Oh yeah!”

The album should be coming out on Transdreamer Records, which released the band’s last album, the critically acclaimed Electrified. Might we suggest that someone quickly put their back catalog back into print?

The band has a show scheduled for October 12 at the Mile High Station in their hometown of Denver, Colorado. The occasion is the Core Action Sports’ Winter Fashion Flurry: a woman’s pro skate competition, a runway fashion show, and a concert by Dressy Bessy! So first the Great Lakes play a fashion show, and now their pals Dressy Bessy do…is there a trend here?

Underground rocker extraordinaire R. Stevie Moore joined The Apples in Stereo onstage for a performance of “Open Eyes” during their recent visit to Maxwell’s in New Jersey. Be sure to check out the end of this live video, when Moore visits Robert Schneider backstage.

Here’s R. Stevie Moore’s cover of The Apples in Stereo’s Stephen Colbert tribute, “Stephen, Stephen.”

Just a note that if you forgot to listen to the Apples in Stereo playing live on Wednesday night’s NPR Live in Concert series (from the 9:30 Club in Washington DC) – you can hear the whole thing streaming at NPR’s website.  Streaming archives = great to listen to at work.

Chris Parfitt, who was one of the original members of The Apples in Stereo when they were still releasing music as The Apples, will be joining the band onstage tonight (”barring unforeseen circumstances”) when they play Maxwell’s in Hoboken, New Jersey.  After leaving the band, Parfitt formed the Elephant 6 recording project known as Vince Mole & His Calcium Orchestra.  It sounds like he’ll be joining them for just a few songs - probably not the entire set.  (I’m guessing they’ll do “Tidal Wave,” at the least.)  As for those of us wanting to hear more music from the ever-underground Vince Mole, Parfitt writes encouragingly that we don’t have much longer to wait. 

You can read our interview with Parfitt from last year right here.

We have our second interview of the week now posted, as Jason NeSmith of Casper & the Cookies drops by the Courtyard to discuss the history of the band, why he’d rather they weren’t called “Casper & the Cookies,” and what it’s like to back Daniel Johnston. Read it all here.