Optical Atlas

Because I have four minutes to post this and then get to work, I’m copying-and-pasting from the Team Clermont press release. Blog Journalism!

Team Clermont, the Athens, GA-based PR firm, has announced the dates and lineup of its newest Summer Festival: Team Clermont Summer Camp! Summer Camp will be held from July 31-August 2nd around Athens, Georgia. This year’s event marks the 11th year of the company’s operation and features some of Team Clermont’s favorite musical acts as well as showcasing the various talents of TC Summer Campers through arts, crafts, karaoke, kickball, Four Square, Corn Hole, dancing, drinking, and more. Team Clermont Summer Camp offers an opportunity to tour the finer clubs and sights of beautiful, bucolic Athens, Georgia, where Team Clermont makes its home. And it all culminates in a night of sing-alongs featuring members of Elf Power, of Montreal, Elf Power, We Versus the Shark, Cinemechanica, Casper & the Cookies, Dark Meat, and more covering ESG, Mclusky, and Paul McCartney and Wings songs! That’s quite a diverse lineup of favorites. Add to that performances by So Many Dynamos, Megafaun, Mostly Bears, Benji Hughes, and more, and you’re gonna want your parents to drop you off here right away!

Come to the camp where it’s towel poppin’ and panty raids 24 hours a day: Team Clermont Summer Camp!

FESTIVITIES

Thursday – 07/31
“Camp Orientation” at Caledonia Lounge, Athens, GA

So Many Dynamos
Mostly Bears
Megafaun
Benji Hughes
(18+ , 256 W Clayton St)

Friday – 08/01
Music Director Scavenger Hunt – 12PM-2PM

“Talent Night” at Little Kings featuring…
Karaoke
Dance Party with DJs Cookies & Cream
Arts & Crafts
Four Square and Corn Hole tournaments
Face Painting Station

Saturday – 08/02
Koalas vs. Walruses Kickball Showdown – 10AM-2PM
(All ages, East Athens Community Park, 705 Sunset Drive)
w/ musical performance by Graham MacRae

“Campfire Sing-Along” concert at The 40 Watt Club
(18+ , 10PM – 285 W Washington St)

Tiny Sticks (ESG cover band featuring Josh McKay of Macha/Seaworthy, Bryan Poole, Heather Heyn formerly of Dark Meat, Aaron Wegelin formerly of Elf Power)

Hi Hi Hi (covering Paul McCartney & Wings, featuring Bryan Poole from of Montreal/Dark Meat/Elf Power/the Late BP Helium and Jason Nesmith of Casper & the Cookies)

F*ck This Band (Mclusky cover band featuring Jeff Tobias of We Versus The Shark, Dark Meat and Pegasuses-XL, Scott Smith of We Versus The Shark, Andy Pruett of Cinemechanica, and Brion Kennedy)

For more information, go to Team Clermont’s website.

Here’s a professionally-shot, terrific-sounding video by Chad Patio of The Apples in Stereo performing “Sun is Out” in Lexington, KY, in 2007. Hopefully it will whet your appetite for their new tour (dates below). Note that this Saturday Robert Schneider will be performing a free show at the Morris Book Shop at 408 Southland Dr in Lexington, KY.

7/12/2008 LEXINGTON, KY Morris Book Shop (FREE Robert Schneider solo show!)
7/18/2008 LOUISVILLE, KY Headliner’s ^
7/19/2008 ST. LOUIS, MO Blueberry Hill Duck Room^
7/20/2008 CHICAGO, IL Pitchfork Music Fest
7/21/2008 IOWA CITY, IA Picador^
7/22/2008 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Turf Club^
7/23/2008 OMAHA, NE The Waiting Room^
7/25/2008 TULSA, OK Diversafest
7/26/2008 DALLAS, TX Sons of Hermann Hall^
7/27/2008 LITTLE ROCK, AR Revolution Music Room^
7/28/2008 MEMPHIS, TN Hi-Tone^
7/29/2008 NASHVILLE, TN Mercy Lounge^
7/31/2008 BROOKLYN, NY Masonic Temple#
8/01/2008 RIDGEWOOD, NJ Blend
8/02/2008 PHILADELPHIA, PA World Cafe Live!
8/04/2008 NY, NY The Colbert Report

^ Poison Control Center & Big Fresh support
# Earlimart & Poison Control Center support
! Poison Control Center supports

The Optical Atlas streaming jukebox has been updated with new music.

Brian Dewan, multi-media artist, singer, and player of esoteric instruments, last year released a new album, Words of Wisdom, on Eschatone Records. Dewan has a rich history in the music business, and has also collaborated with Elephant 6 artists over the years, most notably Neutral Milk Hotel, for whom he provided the flying victrola of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and The Music Tapes, whose limited-release storybook album (The 2nd Imaginary Symphony for Cloudmaking) he narrated. In this video (kindly linked by thekingisdead), Dewan reunites with Julian Koster (of both The Music Tapes and NMH) to perform “The Edison Museum” live. Koster improvises on singing saw.

You can purchase Words of Wisdom here, or visit Dewanatron.com for more on Brian Dewan.

Sugarhill and Merge Records have made available a studio session and interview with The Ladybug Transistor, in which the band performs songs that range between The Albemarle Sound up through Can’t Wait Another Day.  You can download an MP3 of the whole set right here. There are some excellent performances contained in that MP3.

They’ve also got a pair of dates coming up in Maine…

07.18.08 Portland, ME @ The Space
07.19.08 Bar Harbor, ME @ The Lompoc

Evansre at the Townhall reports that, per a discussion with Will Cullen Hart of Circulatory System, the 1st side of their long-awaited sophomore album is now complete, and they are halfway through Side 2.  This gels with other reports that much progress this year has been made on the long-gestating album (some of the new songs were posted some months ago on the band’s MySpace, and one was even played on NPR’s All Songs Considered).

On June 19th the band played Athfest, and applesacks has uploaded a multi-part video of the performance to YouTube (direct link to all parts here).  Here’s Part 1, to give you a taste of what the current incarnation of the band is like:

Though they now live in Lexington, KY (well, Robert Schneider does), the Apples in Stereo have a long legacy with Denver, Colorado; and the Boston Phoenix, in their “50 Bands, 50 States” piece, has just named the Apples the all-time greatest band to ever emerge from the state.

In the land of ski slopes and dope-smoking jam bands, Beach Boys superfan Robert Schneider flipped the hippie script. He gilded the Apples in Stereo’s patchwork pyschedelia with recycling-bin orchestration, and tempered his rigorously eclectic popcraft with poetic, newfangled noise. The resultant Elephant 6 movement re-ignited Amerindie-rock’s love affair with facial hair and pawn-shop trombones.

Check out the entire piece here. Thanks to stompclapclap.

There is a brief extract from one of the new of Montreal tracks at les inrocks.  Also, thanks to You Ain’t No Picasso for mentioning the street date of Skeletal Lamping – October 7th, apparently – not too far away.