Sean O'Donnell at Harmonium Music has posted the first part of an amazing, in-depth interview with Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo at that site; it even has an audio excerpt from the interivew. Part 2 should be up on Thursday. Required reading!

Robert Schneider Interview at Harmonium Music

One of my favorite blogs, Cable & Tweed, recently posted a complete live show by one of my favorite bands, Casper & the Cookies. The set is from the Ultra Mod in Athens, and consists entirely of covers, including songs by the Zombies, XTC, Joan Jett, and even "Sweet Transvestite" from Rocky Horror, which I will certainly be requesting when they come to Madison with The Apples in Stereo (tour dates here).

Casper & the Cookies at the Ultra Mod 12-16-06

By popular demand, Of Montreal will be extending their stay at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. Per their MySpace blog:

So, much to our surprise and delight, all three of our San Fran shows sold out in advance, and the good folks at the Great American Music Hall have agreed to have us for one more night. (Sunday, Feb. 4) So all y'all party people watch Prince at the Superbowl and then come out and dance it off!!!!!!!!

To date, Scott Spillane, one of the singer/songwriters for the Gerbils and member of Neutral Milk Hotel, has released only one solo recording: "Angel Wings Will Carry Me," a lovely acoustic piece which was released on Happy Happy Birthday to Me Volume 2. You can listen to it below. He did perform a solo concert a couple years ago at the HHBTM PopFest, and you can listen to it at Sloan Simpson's excellent live music blog, Southern Shelter. Enjoy.

Scott Spillane - Angel Wings Will Carry Me

Here's part 4 of "The Sun is Out," the documentary on the making of The Apples in Stereo's New Magnetic Wonder. (Part 5, the last part, is included on the enhanced CD of the album.)

Today is the official release date for the self-titled debut album from Ideal Free Distribution. You can read our review here. To celebrate, the band has released a brand new track, "Kodak Stare," at their MySpace page. This is one of their songs which will be featured on the upcoming Happy Happy Birthday to Me singles club (which should be announced in late February). They've also made mention that they'll be playing at SXSW this year; apparently they were invited on the strength of their new record. The attention's well deserved, and here's hoping they get lots more of it. You can buy the record now at HHBTM's online store.

Pitchfork continues the lovefest for Of Montreal with this review of their San Antonio show. Thanks to Adam for noticing that. A live recording and interview should be surfacing soon at the Funeral Pudding blog, as well as a little game which, if you follow the clues, will allow you to download the concert early. You can already download select tracks from the concert at the site now.

If you're at all interested in that Instruments single of Joy Division covers ("with lots of cello," as Heather McIntosh writes), you might want to hop over to Happy Happy Birthday to Me and place a pre-order now for $5. Copies are going fast. She talks a little about the single, and what songs she considered covering, in her Optical Atlas interview. Expect a new full-length later in the year.

Shot in my old stomping ground, Park City, Utah!

Here it is: the new Of Montreal video!



Personally, I love it. Is that David Barnes as Robin Hood? He looks familiar, anyway...

Polyvinyl is selling special Hissing Fauna buttons modelled on the circular designs from the album. Check it out at their online store.

Casper and the Cookies recently recorded a session at the very fine music site Daytrotter, and it's just been posted for you to download. The band, whose 2006 release The Optimist's Club was one of my two favorite records of last year (the other being Summer Hymns' Backward Masks), will be opening next month for The Apples in Stereo as they tour America. You can see the dates here.

Casper and the Cookies at Daytrotter

Harmonium Music has conducted a nice interview with Kevin Barnes. He discusses the songwriting process and the transition from playing in the shadow of other bands to getting his own sizable crowds.

Harmonium Music: Kevin Barnes Interview

Metacritic, which tabulates opinions on music, movies, and games from reviews online and in print, had just added Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? and come up with a pretty high score--higher than they rate the new Shins, anyway. Worth visiting for the links to the various reviews.

Metacritic: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

I finally updated our Shows page--was falling behind on that, sorry. Of note is that The Minders have finally scheduled another live show: a free, all ages set at the Bagdad Theater in Portland on Sunday, February 25 at 7:30PM. Heather McIntosh will also be bringing the magic of The Instruments to the Summer Hymns/Folklore show at the Cake Shop on February 2, and we've added some more dates for those last two bands as well, as they extend their current tour (launching this week). Of course Of Montreal are on the road and The Apples in Stereo are about to begin their own tour with Casper & the Cookies. The Essex Green is on tour with Camera Obscura. The Ladybug Transistor have a show scheduled in Brooklyn on February 22. And expect more in the near future, as SXSW acts get announced: we know Dark Meat's going to be there, playing one venue with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross of Mr. Show (!).

Check out all the dates here. If you know of any I haven't posted, drop me a line.

To celebrate the release of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (the positive reviews are rolling in already), our weekly rare MP3 is an alternate version of the opening track of the album, "Suffer for Fashion." It ends abruptly--but at 3 minutes it's pretty complete, and offers a slightly different take on the solid glam-rocker. It's from a KEXP session from January 31 of last year (thanks to Hyrum Borrego in the comments of this thread, filling me in).

Of Montreal - Suffer for Fashion (alternate version)

UPDATE: You can hear the rest of the tracks here.

Funeral Pudding, a new indie music blog, recently recorded Of Montreal's San Antonio show and interviewed the band as well. The full interview and recording should be posted on their blog shortly, but they have a preview--an MP3 from the show featuring a cover by the band. I'll post a link when the full concert & interview are up.

Of Montreal at Funeral Pudding

Southern Shelter is torrenting a full concert video of Of Montreal from 2/11/06, with a YouTube preview clip and details at their site.

Of Montreal 2/11/06 Video at Southern Shelter

Of course you have it already, but as an afterthought it should be mentioned that Hissing Fauna is officially released today.

The third part of the Apples in Stereo documentary is now up at iTunes. You can watch it below in YouTube format.

Of Montreal hit the road last Friday, beginning an exhaustive Hissing Fauna tour that will run until April (!). I don't know if it will be an ongoing thing, but Kevin Barnes wrote up their first few days on his band's MySpace blog. Getting "Outback Steakhouse" heckles (if you're going, please don't do that), receiving hats from Little Rock, and seeing New Orleans are among the topics covered.

Adam Schragin, sometime contributor to this site, has just set up a blog called The Apiary News, "a culture blog for Austin and elsewhere." And he's off to a great start--an interview with Heather McIntosh of The Instruments, Circulatory System, and Elf Power. She talks about contributing to the new Of Montreal and Ladybug Transistor records and dishes on the upcoming third Instruments album. Definitely worth your time.

The Apiary News: Heather McIntosh Interview

Just posted my review of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, which is released next Tuesday, although you can buy the album now (along with a bonus EP, Icons, Abstract Thee) from Polyvinyl. Read my review of the full-length here.

Pitchfork has a little article on Of Montreal today with a free download of their "She's a Rejecter" B-side "Little Rock," the song about Nina losing her hat in Arkansas. They also mention that the band will be recording a session with KEXP on February 9.

This week Captain23 has another installment of his Lossless & Live Elephant 6 Archive. It's another Olivia Tremor Control concert, this from a year later, at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. A soundboard recording, a really interesting setlist, and the Olivias...all you could possibly want. Note that these are in lossless SHN format instead of FLAC.

Captain23's Lossless & Live Elephant 6 Archive: Olivia Tremor Control at the Bottom of the Hill 10/17/1997

It's not Friday, but I'm going to post some videos today. Because I did a Hooray for Tuesday's MP3 on Wednesday. So I'm breaking all the rules. Don't be frightened.

The first is the Apples in Stereo's new video "Energy" directed by Elijah Wood.

The second is the new video for Ideal Free Distribution's "New Madrid, 1811" directed by Pierre Chandeze.

Okay, so I'm a little late with this week's "Hooray for Tuesday's MP3." But it's always Tuesday with The Minders. "40 Ferndale Road" is from the first release by Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records, a CD compilation given away with copies of their zine, Bee's Knees. It also featured Of Montreal, Elf Power, Vince Mole and His Calcium Orchestra, Masters of the Hemisphere, Kingsauce, and many others. (As for the zine, you can read the E6-related articles from it right here.) This track, written by Martyn Leaper and arranged by Rebecca Cole, begins with the instrumental and bird-chirping that ends their track "Step Right Up" (from Cul-de-Sacs and Dead Ends), so I've often wondered if they were meant to be played back-to-back.

The Minders - 40 Ferndale Road

The band's new album, It's a Bright Guilty World, was released last year on Future Farmer Records. Be sure to visit the band's MySpace page, as their official website has been under renovations since September.

Neil Carnahan writes in to tell me that part 2 in the documentary chronicling the making of The Apples in Stereo's New Magnetic Wonder is now up at iTunes. Robert Schneider and Bryce Goggin talk about the album's use of piano and the instrumental linking tracks. Go to iTunes and do a search for "Sun is Out" or "Apples in Stereo" and you should find it.

UPDATE: Here's the YouTube version!

Craig Mailman sent me a little note about this awesome article and interview with of Montreal's Kevin Barnes at Remix Magazine online. Kevin discusses the production of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? and his various influences. It's a highly technical article that's extremely illuminating, check it out...

of Montreal at Remix Magazine

Expect my Hissing Fauna review very soon. You know, it's getting kind of exhausting going back and checking to see if I've typed the band's name with an uppercase or lower-case "O." I think I might just go back to the conventional format. It's just too much work to leave that first "O" lower-case.

The new Apples in Stereo video "Energy" (directed by Elijah Wood) has debuted on MTV2's website. It will air on MTV2's "Subterranean" Sunday night at 1am PST/EST. You need Windows Media Player 9 to watch the video.

Kangaroo Alliance has designed a glam-lovely new website for of Montreal, which features on the main page a little animation of Kevin Barnes applying makeup for a Georgie Fruit performance. The website's content isn't radically different than before (although gone, inevitably, are the short stories), but they've added MP3s from all the albums, including the entirety of the Satanic Panic bonus/covers EP and the band's music videos. Go see and have fun. Their new album, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, is released January 23, though Polyvinyl began shipping pre-orders this week.

Nina Barnes premiered her MySpace website this week, too.

They may not be Elephant 6, but I feel compelled to shine a brief light on the greatness that is the Poison Control Center. The Aames, Iowa outfit has appeared on a few compilations here and there, put out some stunning EPs on Bi-Fi Records (notably Kennedy), and are part of the ever-impressive Happy Happy Birthday to Me roster, whose 2006 PopFest they rocked to pieces (our coverage of the band's performance is here). They've been active as hell but haven't really put out a full-length album. That's about to change, and a wealth of even more material will be following in 2007.

Lead singer Patrick Fleming, who also helped organize the recent Optical Atlas/Bi-Fi Records/Marbles Christmas single contest (and many thanks to Patrick for that!), writes in to announce that Poison Control Center expects to release their debut full-length (possible a 2-CD set), a live album, a rarities compilation, a covers album, an EP, multiple (3) compilation appearances, and 2 7-inches, one with The Apples in Stereo, and one with Bunnygrunt.

If you live in or near Des Moines, be sure to check out the Vaudeville Mews bill that the Poison Control Center shares with Summer Hymns, Folklore, and Beati Paoli. The PCC will be recording their live CD! The event begins at 5pm on January 27th, admission is five dollars, and it's all ages.

Download and listen to some PCC tracks at their MySpace page.

Oh, and be sure to check out Patrick's "best albums of 2006" on Daytrotter.

The Apples in Stereo have finally announced some tour dates, and I'm pretty excited, because they're hitting my town. On the road will be Robert Schneider, John Hill, Eric Allen, Bill Doss, John Dufilho, and John Ferguson. Here you go--I'll add them to our shows database later tonight.

UPDATE: These dates are with Casper and the Cookies!

The Apples in Stereo/Casper & the Cookies

02.08.07 Lexington, KY @ The Dame
02.09.07 Cincinnati, OH @ Top Cat's Club
02.10.07 Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
02.11.07 Buffalo, NY @ Buffalo Icon
02.12.07 Pittsburgh, PA @ Diesel
02.13.07 Washington DC @ Black Cat
02.15.07 New York City, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
02.16.07 Philadelphia, PA @ Northstar
02.17.07 Boston, MA @ Paradise
02.19.07 Montreal, QC @ Main Hall
02.20.07 Toronto, ON @ Lee's Palace
02.21.07 Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick
02.22.07 Columbus, OH @ Little Brothers
02.23.07 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
02.24.07 Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theatre (Late Show)
02.25.07 Madison, WI @ UW-Madison Memorial Union
02.27.07 Ames, IA @ Maintenance Shop
02.28.07 Omaha, NE @ Sokol Underground
03.01.07 Kansas City, MO @ Record Bar
03.02.07 St. Louis, MO @ Duck Room
03.03.07 Columbia, MO @ Blue Note

We proudly launch "season two" of Captain23's Lossless & Live Elephant 6 Archive today. This series, for those new to the site, is a collection of live recordings taken from the best possible source and transferred to a lossless digital format by Captain23 of Chicago. First up: The Olivia Tremor Control in a performance from October 20, 1996, at Brownies in New York City. They perform a selection of tracks from their first album, as well as some singles and some rarities. Enjoy, and a very big thanks to Captain23 for all the work he's put into making these shows available to us.

Captain23's Lossless & Live Elephant 6 Archive: Olivia Tremor Control at Brownies, NYC 10/20/96

Check back next week for another concert. And if you're having problems with the files, be sure you've read our FAQ with some tips on getting them to play or burning them to CD.

And while you can, be sure to grab the other two concerts (by Olivia Tremor Control and Elf Power) currently archived at the site, as they'll disappear in a couple weeks!

Yep Roc Records is sponsoring a contest to win a signed silk screen limited edition poster of The Apples in Stereo by signing up for the Apples mailing list. You can do so here. Those who were already signed up to the list, you're already entered.

And if you want to hear some new Apples tunes, more tracks from New Magnetic Wonder are now up at the band's MySpace page.

While we wait anxiously for Fire Records to reissue Neutral Milk Hotel's first album, On Avery Island, with bonus tracks (it's been delayed since August), at least they've put out a news release that indicates the project's still on-track, accompanying the news that they'll be releasing Swollen & Small: The Songs of Neutral Milk Hotel, an EP in which Viking Moses covers "You've Passed," "Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone," "Where You'll Find Me Now," and "Holland 1945." While the actual NMH reissue is only scheduled for "early 2007," the Viking Moses EP will be released January 23 on the UK label. Check here closer to the release date.

You can listen to Viking Moses' current single and watch a video clip of him performing "Holland 1945" live (as well as other songs) at his MySpace page.

Today we highlight three Elf Power-related MP3s, two of them pretty rare, the other not so much. All three have one thing in common: they're lyric-less instrumental pieces, though of very different styles.

"Wrinkles" was a bonus track on 1999's A Dream in Sound, appearing as the B-side to the vinyl 7" that accompanied it. It's a brief snippet of distorted electric guitar that wouldn't quite fit into the more poppy psychedelic album to which it's associated.

"Green Sea Days" appeared on 2000's The Winter is Coming, a pleasant, daydreaming instrumental set to the sound of crashing waves on a beach.

Finally, "Tentacles" isn't really an Elf Power track, but one of the few tracks credited solely to Elf Power singer/songwriter Andrew Rieger. It appeared on a 12" split with Yume Bitsu which is a little difficult to track down, although often Elf Power takes copies with them when they tour. It's an 18:21 epic "drone." This was released in 2001 on Planaria Recordings out of Washington DC.

Elf Power - Wrinkles
Elf Power - Green Sea Days
Andrew Rieger - Tentacles

A few days ago the Apples in Stereo track "Stephen, Stephen" (concerning one Stephen Colbert) appeared on the band's MySpace page for download. Now you can download the single, "Energy," from their crispy-new album, New Magnetic Wonder (to be released February 6). At that site you can also watch the first part of the 5-part documentary on the making of the album. Thanks to Zaby at Tractor Beam for letting us know.

I should also mention that the debut, self-titled album from Ideal Free Distribution has a final final release date locked down: January 30, the same date that HHBTM will release Sarandon's The Completist's Library. Both albums are up for pre-order at the label's website.

A couple of people have written in reminding me that the current issue of Magnet Magazine features a write-up on The Apples in Stereo. They also have Of Montreal as a featured artist, with a brief interview with Kevin Barnes. You can grab this on newstands now--it's the one with the Cat Power cover, as shown. Expect a lot of copy written on both bands in the coming month.

The Elijah Wood-directed video for the new Apples song, "Energy," should be popping up on MTV2 soon. Expect to see it on the channel's website on January 12 and it will air on "Subterranean" on January 14.

If you're a subscriber to the Apples in Stereo Super Fan Pack, courtesy Yep Roc Records, you received a free AIS bonus track yesterday, dropped straight into your "stash." Entitled "Mirror," it's the second AIS bonus track made available exclusively to those who bought the, er, premium package. The third, if you count the Christmas track "Holiday Mood," although non-subscribers can buy this separately from Yep Roc's online store. Missing out on the fun? Go to Yep Roc's site for more info.

There's an excellent little interview with Kevin Barnes at Pitchfork today. He talks about playing at Mexico City to a crowd of angry punk fans, singing "I Will" to Alabee right after her birth, why he's really into Swedish music, and why he's worried his ringtone will get him arrested as a terrorist. Well worth your time.

You can now hear and download the "studio" version of "Stephen, Stephen," the very funny Apples in Stereo tribute to Stephen Colbert, at the band's MySpace page!

The Apples in Stereo on MySpace

I was looking for some appropriate rarities to share with you folks this week, and lots of interesting and super-rare candidates were in the running, but then I thought, why not just put up something short and goofy and strange but still kind of cool instead? For a brief period in the early years of the twenty-first century, middlebrow department stores JC Penney and Kohl's started to show an unusually hip taste in music. And both proved to be Apples in Stereo fans. JC Penney featured "Shine a Light" in an ad. Kohl's went to the Denver tin-pan-alley branch of Elephant 6 asking for submissions, and Robert Schneider submitted three spots. Von Hemmling also submitted some songs, one of which was "Bumping Cocoanuts," which is on their album. But it was Robert's submissions which were ultimately used, and you can listen to them below. They're not full-length songs, but concise snippets of pop. I'm not sure if the titles are "official"; they were probably just dubbed by the nice fan who taped them.

In My Mind
Find Out Something New
How Do You Do

Speaking of Robert Schneider, the episode of "The Colbert Report" in which he appears (singing "Stephen, Stephen") reruns this Wednesday night, January 3 at 11:30 p.m. EST. It will also air on Thursday, January 4 at 8:30am; 2:30pm and 8:30pm EST.

Hey everyone, happy hangover day. Here's some good news to go with your coffee.

AthensMusic.net has announced that their subsidiary label, Iron Horse Records, will be releasing last year's tribute concert to R.E.M., which featured An Observatory (or The Observatory), a makeshift collection of E6 artists led by Bill Doss and including B.P. Helium, W. Cullen Hart, Peter Erchick, and John Fernandes, as well as members of Pylon, Fabulous Bird, Dark Meat, and Beijing. R.E.M.'s Peter Buck also joined the band onstage. Other bands appearing on the compilation will include Liz Durrett, Claire Campbell (Hope For Agoldensummer), Tin Cup Prophette, Modern Skirts, Patterson Hood (Drive-by Truckers), and Five Eight. I assume R.E.M. will appear on this too, at least for the final singalong ("It's the End of the World as We Know It [And I Feel Fine]") but no confirmation on that yet. Nor do we have a release date for you, or pre-order information (which is coming, at the Athens Music site). But that's good news, don't you think?

You can read full details about the concert from September in the Optical Atlas article here.