News

Run the Jewels to open for Jack White at Madison Square Garden

El-P and Killer Mike, the duo behind Run the Jewels, had a successful 2014. To add to the successful year, Jack White has them to open for his headlining Madison Square Garden show on January 30th. The pair is just planning on performing that one show with White for now.

The show at Madison Square Garden kick-offs a year of shows for the duo. Run the Jewels will perform at Coachella, Buku Music + Art festival, and Flow festival. The touring is joined with the work on Run the Jewels 3 which is supposed to come out later this year.

White has also announced several new tour dates including his set for Coachella. See the itinerary below.

Jack White 2015 Tour Dates:
01/24 – Austin, TX @ Austin Music Hall *
01/25 – Austin, TX @ Austin Music Hall *
01/27 – Starkville, MS @ Humphrey Coliseum *
01/28 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena +
01/30 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden ^
01/31 – Columbus, OH @ The Schottenstein Center *
02/02 – Norma, OK @ McCasland Field House *
02/03 – Albuquerque, NM @ Popejoy Hall *
02/04 – Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas *
03/12-14 – Bogota, CO @ Festival Estero Picnic
03/14-15 – Santiago, CL @ Lollapalooza Chile
03/19 – Asuncion, PY @ Asuncionico
03/20 – Asuncion, PY @ Asuncionico
03/21-22 – Buenos Aires, AR @ Lollapalooza Argentina
03/28-29 – Sao Paulo, BR @ Lollapalooza Brazil
04/11 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
04/18 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival

* = w/ Chicano Batman
+ = w/ Loretta Lynn and William Tyler
^ = w/ Run the Jewels

This company call themselves the Netflix of vinyl

Costumers use Netflix for a number of reasons, including the ability to binge watch anything they could think of. Now there is a service called VNYL that is marketing itself as the “Netflix of vinyl records.”

The company is very straightforward. Subscribers choose between categories called #vibes that include #cooking, #betweenthesheets, #rainyday, and #work. There on, the company will send a pack of LPs depending on the selection the customer chose. Users can either keep the LPs for $12 each or return a record for another at the end of the month.

Company founder Nick Alt told Mic recently: “Right now I feel penalized for not being able to share what I’m listening to and get decent recommendations on vinyl that I may be into. [The inspiration for VNYL] was taking some of the best parts of Beats, Spotify and SoundCloud and translating them into a tangible experience.”

In the last year of 2014, people bought approximately 9.2 million records, the highest number since Nielsen began tracking in 1991.

This new company has its competitors, namely the subscription service of Vinyl Me which sends its subscribers a limited-edition LP every month for $23. On the European competition, the company Wax & Stamp and Klekt will open later this year.

There are questions about whether the quality will maintain after repeated usage and returning as well as possibly scratching the LP and what that could do on a customer’s equipment. It could also be harder to bring subscribers in due to their nearby record stores.

Of Montreal premieres new song and announce tour dates

Psych PPP band of Montreal shared another track from Aureate Gloom, their 13th studio album, due out on March 3rd. Listen to the song here.

Aureate Gloom Tracklist:
01. Bassem Sabry
02. Last Rites At The Jane Hotel
03. Empyrean Abbatoir
04. Aluminum Crown
05. Virgillian Lots
06. Monolithic Egress
07. Apollyon Of Blue Room
08. Estocadas
09. Chthonian Dirge For Uruk The Other
10. Like Ashoka’s Inferno of Memory

The band has expanded their Us tour and they will be on the road in the latter half of January and through most of March.

of Montreal 2015 Tour Dates:
01/13 – Tallahassee, FL @ The Moon
01/14 – Pensacola, FL @ Vinyl Music Hall
01/15 – Gainesville, FL @ High Dive
01/16 – Orlando, FL @ The Social
01/16 – Orlando, FL @ Afterparty at Olde 64
01/17 – Tampa, FL @ Crowbar
01/18 – Miami, FL @ Grand Central
01/19 – Jacksonville, FL @ Freebird Live
01/20 – Macon, GA @ Cox Capitol Theatre
01/21 – Charleston, SC @ The Pour House
01/22 – Greensboro, NC @ The Blind Tiger
01/23 – Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
01/24 – Chattanooga, TN @ Rhythm and Brews
03/05 – Athens, GA @ 40 Watt
03/06 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
03/07 – Washington, DC @ 930 Club
03/08 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
03/09 – New Haven, CT @ Toad’s
03/10 – Boston, MA @ Paradise
03/11 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
03/12 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom *
03/13 – Chicago, IL @ The Metro *
03/14 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall *
03/15 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Ave *
03/16 – Omaha, NE @ Waiting Room *
03/17 – Oklahoma City, OK @ ACM@UCO Performance Lab *
03/18 – Houston, TX @ Walter’s Downtown *
03/19 – Austin, TX @ Polyvinyl Showcase at Cheer Up Charlie’s
03/20 – El Paso, TX @ Tricky Falls
03/21 – Tucson, AZ @ The Rialto
03/22 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Regent
03/23 – Los Angeles, CA @ Largo at the Coronet
03/24 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
03/25 – San Francisco, CA @ Slim’s
03/26 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
03/27 – Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s
03/28 – Boise, ID @ Treefort Festival
03/29 – Salt Lake City, @ Urban Lounge
03/30 – Aspen, CO @ Belly Up Aspen
03/31 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird
04/01 – Lawrence, KS @ The Granada
04/02 – Dallas, TX @ Trees
04/03 – Austin, TX @ The Mohawk
04/04 – New Orleans, LA @ Howlin’ Wolf
05/01 – Annandale-on-Hudson, NY @ Bard College Spring Fling
05/16 – Suffolk, VA @ LAVA Music Festival

* = w/ Deerhoof

Coachella’s 2015 line-up has been announced

The 2015 Coachella line-up has been revealed including headliners such as Jack White, Drake, and AC/DC, as well as sub-headliners such as Florence & the Machine, Tame Impala, St. Vincent, Ryan Adams, Interpol, Belle & Sebastian, Alt-J, Ride, and The Weeknd.

Amongst the other acts are Steely Dan, Alabama Shakes, Lykke Li, Caribou, Ratatat, Azealia Banks, Flying Lotus, Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, Tyler the Creator, Father John Misty, Jenny Lewis, SBTRKT, The War on Drugs, Run the Jewels, Swans, Toro y Moi, Panda Bear, FKA twigs, Drive Like Jehu, Desparecidos, Built to Spill, Action Bronson, Jamie xx, Perfume Genius, Mac DeMarco, Eagulls, Angel Olsen, Vic Mensa, Todd Terje, Squarepusher, The Orwells, The Cribs, Brand New, Antemasque, Marina and the Diamonds, Haerts, St. Lucia, and Parquet Courts.

The California-based music festival will take place between the weekends of April 12th – 14th and April 17th – 19th. Tickets will go on-sale tomorrow (January 7th).

A new Florence and the Machine album coming soon

Florence and the Machine are finally returning to the scene this year. In October, the band made their return to the stage at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit Concert. Now the band has revealed that there is a new album in store.

The fansite, Florence and The Machine Army, had posted a picture online recently showing that the follow-up to Ceremonials is currently being mixed. There appears to be a title as well but that has been hidden on purpose with a permanently marker.

The band also have festival dates lined up including Way Out West and Flow Festival.

Florence and the Machine 2015 Tour Dates:
06/19-21 – Scheeßel and Neuhausen ob Eck, DE @ Hurricane Southside Festivals
06/25-28 – Werchter, BE @ Rock Werchter
08/09-15 – Oslo, NO @ Oya Festival
08/10-17 – Budapest, HU @ Sziget Festival
08/13-15 – Göteborg, Sweden @ Way Out West
08/14-16 – Helsinki, FI @ Flow Festival

Bassist Jeremy Kelshaw quits Cloud Control

Bassist, Jeremy Kelshaw has quit Cloud Control.

Kelshaw announced that he was leaving the band on their Facebook page, citing that he wanted to return to “civilian like” and confirmed that the band will carry on.

“Dear music lovers. After 10 years of blissfully rocking out & playing bass all over the world, I’ve decided to step out of cloud control & return to civilian life,” he wrote. “I’m so proud of what we’ve accomplished & it’s not been easy arriving at this point, but that’s ok. I love my band & I love our fans. To Heidi, Al & Ulrich: thanks for creating this dream with me, you guys are the best. To everyone who has worked with us, played with us, come to a show or listened to our music: you guys are second best & I love you all. CC album #3 is being worked on, never fear, but these Falls & Southbound shows are my last.”

The band’s upcoming third album follows their debut, Bliss Release album and Dream Cave released in 2013.

PJ Harvey to record new album in front of public audience

Singer-songwriter, PJ Harvey plans to record her new album in front of an audience as a part of an art installation in the London Somerset House.

Entitled, “Recording in Progress,” the project was created by Harvey and will be inside an installation constructed of one-way glass that will allow viewers to watch Harvey and her band. The singer’s long-time collaborators, Flood and John Parish will produce the album.

Harvey told The Independent: “I want ‘Recording in Progress’ to operate as if we’re an exhibition in a gallery. I hope visitors will be able to experience the flow and energy of the recording process.”

The recording will take place in between January 16 to February 14, and according to the Somerset House’s website, the installation has already sold out.

This will be the singer’s first album since 2011 with Let England Shake. As well as this installation, Harvey is working on her first poetry book, The Hollow Of The Hand, which is due out later this year.

Trailer for NWA biopic released online

The trailer for the upcoming biopic for hip-hop group, NWA, was recently shared online.

Ice Cube showed the trailer in a concert in Sydney, the video below is a fan shot clip of the trailer. The film is planned to be released in the summer of 2015.

The film was directed by F Gary Gray and Ice Cube will be played by his son, O’Shea Jackson Jr. Jerry Heller, NWA’s manager, will be taken on by Paul Giamatti.

Passion Pit confirms work on new album

After having a fairly inactive year, Passion Pit is gearing up to have a fairly busy year next year with a release of a new studio album.

In a recent Facebook post on Christmas Eve, the band confirmed that they have begun work on a new album. The post included a photo that looked like a blacked-out tracklist with two uncovered song titles, “Intro” and “Five Foot Ten.” There are spots for covers that are yet to be determined and acoustic tracks.

These are the least pirated musicians of the year

The highly popular download website, BitTorrent, has released data about the most downloaded artist legally, and leaving Thom Yorke, Radiohead frontman on the top spot.

Yorke released he second solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes only on BitTorrent as a download in September. Yorke explained about his album’s release: “It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around. If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work.”

This experiment worked in his advantage as the album received 1.1 million downloads in the first week of the release.

Among the other artists whose music was legally downloaded on BitTorrent are Diplo, De La Soul, and Hundred Waters.

BitTorrent’s 10 Most Legally Downloaded Artist of 2014
1. Thom Yorke
2. Diplo
3. Gramatik
4. De La Soul
5. Zeds Dead
6. G-Eazy
7. Ace Hood
8. Mad Decent
9. Vinyl Williams
10. Hundred Waters