“They weren’t very well known,” David Bowie recalls, on seeing The Rolling Stones perform for the first time around 1963. “There were about six kids rushed to the front. That was their fan base at the time. Everybody was there for Little Richard. It was priceless… I had never seen anything so rebellious in my life. A guy yells out, ‘Get your haircut!’”
And Bowie does the best impression of Mick Jagger.
The New Pornographers have proven themselves one of the most excellent bands in indie rock. They’ve constantly offered new sonic surprises with every album, and Continue As A Guest, out March 31 via Merge, their first LP since 2019’s In The Morse Code Of Brake Lights, is their greatest leap to date. The group’s first album for Merge establishes them alongside modern luminaries like Yo La Tengo and Superchunk when it comes to their ability to evolve while still retaining what made them so special in the first place. A dazzling and intriguing collection of songs that are truly built to last, Continue as a Guest finds bandleader A.C. Newman and his compatriots Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, John Collins, Todd Fancey, and Joe Seiders exploring fresh territory and shattering the barriers of their collective comfort zone.
Continue As A Guest Track Listing:
1. Really Really Light
2. Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies
3. Cat and Mouse With the Light
4. Last and Beautiful
5. Continue as a Guest
6. Bottle Episodes
7. Marie and the Undersea
8. Angelcover
9. Firework in the Falling Snow
10. Wish Automatic Suite
Today, Ireland’s The Murder Capital confirm a 13-date North American tour in support of their forthcoming album Gigi’s Recovery (January 20th, Human Season Records). The band, whose 2020 tour was cut short by the pandemic after just two sold out shows in NYC and Boston, will return to perform in cities including Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco in March and April. Tickets for all dates will go on sale this Friday at 10am Local Time.
The band recently shared “Return My Head,” the last single ahead of their forthcoming second album, as well as an accompanying video directed by the band’s own Gabriel Paschal Blake. The video was debuted by The Fader, who called the song “an instant hit and one sure to become a live favorite.”
“Return My Head” is perhaps the most visceral of the singles released so far, an immediate, direct slice of alt-rock that delivers both aggression and melody paired to a lyrical motif that slots firmly into the sense of reinvention surrounding the album as a whole, opening as it does with the following: “I had to realign, To begin, To survive.” Front man James McGovern explains further on the themes: “Return My Head was written in a place of pure frustration, feeling like our sanity had been unwillingly removed through periods of isolation. All I wanted at this point was to get my head back, and to throw it away again. But on my own terms. ‘Return my head, and throw it to the crowd.’”
The John Congleton produced Gigi’s Recovery, set for release on January 20th via Human Season Records, follows the Irish band’s celebrated 2019 debut album, When I Have Fears, which reached a #2 position in their native Ireland and Top 20 chart position in the UK, and featured in media end of year lists internationally with The Guardian calling it “an outstanding debut from a great new band who play it like they mean it.” The album will be available on CD, in several LP editions.
While the material on When I Have Fears captured the vital beginnings of the group, the 12 songs of Gigi’s Recovery push the band into ever braver sonic territories, oceans apart from previous peers. Ambition is put right at the front and center, with the inventive, expansive guitar work of Cathal Roper and Damien Tuit paired to a precise and intelligent rhythmic unit in bassist Gabriel Paschal Blake and drummer Diarmuid Brennan. Electronic elements are noticeably more prominent across the record, with industrial influences explored in greater detail than ever before, James McGovern’s bold melodies acting as a reassuring anchor so we never get totally swept away into the band’s new found soundscape.
The Murder Capital also made their live return this year performing at the likes of Primavera Sound, VYV Festival and Solidays, as well as opening for Pearl Jam at British Summer Time. The performances follow their largely sold-out EU / UK tours in 2020, which saw them sell out their biggest headline show to date at London’s Electric Ballroom.
The Murder Capital Tour Dates
Fri, March 24 Washington, DC DC9 Nightclub
Sat, March 25 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia
Sun, March 26 Albany, NY Empire Underground
Tue, March 28 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg
Thu, March 30 Cambridge, MA The Sinclair
Sat, April 1 Toronto, ON Horseshoe Tavern
Mon, April 3 Chicago, IL Lincoln Hall
Tue, April 4 Minneapolis, MN 7th Street Entry
Fri, April 7 Denver, CO Lost Lake
Sat, April 8 Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court
Mon, April 10 Seattle, WA The Vera Project
Tue, April 11 Portland, OR Mission Theater
Thu, April 13 San Francisco, CA The Chapel
The Murder Capital Gigi’s Recovery Track Listing
1 Existence
2 Crying
3 Return My Head
4 Ethel
5 The Stars Will Leave Their Stage
6 Belonging
7 The Lie Becomes the Self
8 A Thousand Lives
9 We Had to Disappear
10 Only Good Things
11 Gigi’s Recovery
12 Exist
Fuse is the first new studio album from Everything But The Girl in 24 years and it gets released on April 23, 2023. Written and produced by Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn over the spring-summer of 2021, Fuse is a modern take on the lustrous electronic soul the band first pioneered in the mid-90s. Thorn’s affecting and richly-textured voice is once again up front in Watt’s glimmering landscape of sub-bass, sharp beats, half-lit synths and empty space, and as before, the result is the sound of a band comfortable with being both sonically contemporary, yet agelessly themselves.
The pair recorded in secret at home and in a small riverside studio outside Bath with friend and engineer Bruno Ellingham. Early takes focussed on ambient sound montages and improvised spectral piano loops recorded by Ben on his iPhone at home during his enforced pandemic isolation – ideas which later blossomed into atmospheric tracks such as “When You Mess Up” and “Interior Space”. Yet, as confidence grew, so did the pulse and rhythm of the album, culminating in the writing and programming of later songs, such as the new single “Nothing Left To Lose” and “Caution To The Wind”. Shot through with alternating hope, desperation and vivid flashbacks, the album’s lyrics – sometimes allusive, sometimes richly detailed – capture what it’s like to start again.
Tracks
1 Nothing Left To Lose
2 Run A Red Light
3 Caution To The Wind
4 When You Mess Up
5 Time And Time Again
6 No One Knows We’re Dancing
7 Lost
8 Forever
9 Interior Space
10 Karaoke
Today SiriusXM announced a Team Coco Radio original special featuring Conan O’Brien in an hour-long conversation with Neil Young.
Premiering this morning at 8:00am ET exclusively on SiriusXM channel 106, with replays throughout the week, Conan talks with the music icon about his legendary career, his musical influences, and some of his most famous performances.
Throughout the special, Conan and Young discuss the songs that have inspired him the most, as the musician reflects on how each one helped shape his career and define his style. The hour gives listeners a unique look inside the mind of a truly legendary artist, hosted by one of his biggest admirers. This is the first original special to air on Team Coco Radio, a 24/7 SiriusXM channel executive produced by Conan, which launched in November.
During one part of the program, Conan and Young revisit a favorite song of Young’s, Johnny Cash’s “Ballad of a Teenage Queen,” leading to an in-depth conversation about what Young is looking for in a song and why he appreciates original recordings.
“I feel like it would be a blessing and a curse to have your ear, because I don’t pick that stuff apart, necessarily, but you hear it and if it’s in stereo or it’s been remixed, you’re like, ‘I’m out,’” Conan said.
“Well, I’m different. I’m going, when they did that, what else did they do? Things are different. They made more room for the bass, more room to spread things around,” Young responded. “For me, it’s the feeling of the mix. The feeling of the song…. And then as things get modified and changed, you get farther away from that. So that’s all I’m missing. It’s not so much the mix or one thing or the other, it’s the essence of the song that comes from the original.”
In another part of their conversation, Conan recalled watching Young “melt” Studio 8H with his infamous, intense performance of “Rockin’ in the Free World” on a 1989 episode of Saturday Night Live, calling it a “transcendent” moment that “punched through the television.”
“You can’t tell when that’s going to happen, but it was very focused. The band was very good,” Young responded. “And everyone was establishing themselves and a relationship with each other. It was four guys who’d never played together.”
Conan also remembered what a “big deal” it was for Young to be a guest on the early days of his NBC talk show, describing how much it meant to him, and the two laughed about another early TV appearance Buffalo Springfield made on an episode of the ‘60s TV show, Mannix.
In addition to its debut this morning, Conan’s Neil Young special will replay tonight at 9pm ET, as well as multiple replays throughout the week. Fans can also find the program on the SXM App.
Team Coco Radio (channel 106) is available to subscribers nationwide in their car and on the SXM App. The SXM App is available to subscribers on mobile devices and a wide variety of connected platforms in the home including smart speakers, smart TVs and streaming media players. Streaming access is included with all of SiriusXM’s audio trials and most popular plans.
Cher performing a 12-minute version of West Side Story in her self-titled TV special from 1978 is just what you need today.
The work an artist creates on the precipice of their star turn, with attention solidly focused on them…well, those are the moments that become truly magical. If ever a singularly magical moment exists in the history of The White Stripes, it is likely the release and ensuing hubbub behind their 2003 album Elephant.
As explosive initial releases are ever-deserving of further examination and celebration, it should come as no surprise that the 55th installment of Third Man Records Vault subscription series is the twentieth anniversary collection Elephant XX. You can sign up here to buy it, and the deadline to sign up is January 31st at midnight CT!
The centerpiece of this set is an all new, direct-from-the-original multitrack tapes MONO remix of the entire Elephant album. Mixed by Jack White and Bill Skibbe at Third Man Studio in Nashville, the work was executed on the same Calrec board used to complete the original stereo mix of Elephant at Toe Rag Studios in London back in 2002.
As these particular tapes had not been spun in nearly twenty years, little surprises and treasures slowly began to reveal themselves at every turn. An extra four bars at the end of the canonical “Seven Nation Army”? Completely forgotten by all involved until now. A long lost lyric edited out of “Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine”? Faithfully restored here. The snippets and snapshots of studio banter before and after takes? You bet we left it in. Revelations abound, truly gems to be discovered and dissected by die-hards and fairweather alike.
The idea here isn’t to try and COMPLETELY REIMAGINE the Elephant album. We know how near and dear it is to all of the White Stripes fans out there. The goal is to harken back to other similar experiments (like our first-ever Vault package, Icky Thump mono) while shedding light on the nuance and craft contained both in the performance and the mix of this album. In homage to the original US pressing of the album, Elephant mono is pressed on opaque white and opaque red discs.
Additionally, we’ve included Jack White’s original solo demo of “Hypnotize” in two markedly different mixes here. Recorded on 4-track reel-to-reel sometime in 1998 and “gifted” to the local Detroit garage band the Hentchmen as a song White felt was more in their style than his at the time. Come a few years later, with the Hentches having done nothing with the tune, Jack reclaimed it for he and Meg, and their frenetic take quickly became a long-standing fan favorite.
Furthermore, the original, first take version of “You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket” done seemingly as a mic check, is paired here on the flipside of “Hypnotize”, complete with additional flourish and fingerpicking more so than what ended up on the final album version.
All three of these aforementioned songs are shared together on a stunning 7-inch single pressed on glorious glitter red vinyl.
It wouldn’t be a twentieth anniversary collection without a DVD and here we’ve assembled a corker. Elephant-Era Video Artifacts is a simulacrum of the dubbed and traded VHS mixtape compilations that were pivotal to sharing of information and fueling fandom long before YouTubers begged you to smash that subscribe button.
The footage includes the exact album take of Jack and Meg and Holly Golightly singing their hearts out so jolly on “It’s True That We Love One Another” and a previously buried multi-camera Japanese live performance of a wild show kicked off with an impromptu cover of the Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” From the insightful, unseen interview with Jack and Meg (she talks a lot!) through beautiful 8mm film capture of the behind-the-scenes and making of “The Hardest Button To Button” music video, the collection here utilizes variety to convey the breadth and reach that The White Stripes covered in their dogged work supporting Elephant.
Tying it all together is a 28-page 12″ x 12″ booklet chock-full of previously unshared photos from the Elephant album cover shoot, candid backstage pics and all sorts of handwritten lyrics, concert posters, proposed/abandoned tracklists, blood chits, shopping lists, scraps of paper with Támam Shud written on them….you know, the works.
April 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of David Bowie’s ALADDIN SANE, which was released only ten months after his breakthrough album THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS. The title track and songs such as ‘Lady Grinning Soul’ and ‘Time’ marked a significant musical progression from its predecessor, adding brass, woodwind, soulful backing vocals and the distinctive piano playing of Mike Garson.
On 14th April, 2023, one week before its Golden Jubilee ALADDIN SANE will be issued as a limited edition 50th anniversary half-speed mastered LP and a picture disc LP pressed from the same master.
The album was preceded by two singles ‘The Jean Genie’ and ‘Drive-In Saturday’, peaking in the U.K. singles chart at numbers 2 and 3 respectively, and was the first time he topped the U.K. album charts. It also marked his debut on the U.S. charts reaching the top 20 album chart there, where an edited version of ‘Time’ was released as a single.
The cover artwork has become one of the most famous sleeves of all time and was rumoured to be the most expensive produced up to that point. The cover photograph was taken by Brian Duffy, who would also shoot the sleeves for 1979’s LODGER and 1980’s SCARY MONSTERS (AND SUPER CREEPS) and features Bowie with the iconic red and blue lightning bolt make-up, an image which has now entered the planet’s cultural lexicon.
This new pressing of ALADDIN SANE was cut on a customised late Neumann VMS80 lathe with fully recapped electronics from 192kHz restored masters of the original master tapes, with no additional processing on transfer. The half-speed was cut by John Webber at AIR Studios.
Bowie described ALADDIN SANE as ‘Ziggy Goes To Washington: Ziggy under the influence of America’. The album was to be Ziggy Stardust’s last stand, and the persona was laid to rest three months after the album’s release in July 1973 at the infamous final show with the Spiders From Mars at London’s Hammersmith Odeon.
DAVID BOWIE – ALADDIN SANE TRACKLISTING
SIDE ONE
Watch That Man – 4:30
Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?) – 5:06
Drive-In Saturday – 4:33
Panic In Detroit – 4:25
Cracked Actor – 3:01
SIDE TWO
Time – 5.15
The Prettiest Star – 3:31
Let’s Spend The Night Together – 3:10
The Jean Genie – 4:07
Lady Grinning Soul – 3:45
GRAMMY Award winning duo Twenty One Pilots celebrate a decade of their seminal multiplatinum Fueled By Ramen debut album with the release of the Vessel 10 Year Anniversary Limited Edition Boxset. The limited one-time pressing includes a stunning candy-style deluxe box set housing a double-LP (140g) with printed sleeves and tri-fold jackets as well as a lenticular insert and faux-Polaroid photos. Side A and Side B comprised the original album tracklisting. Side C includes four showstopping live songs recorded Live At The LC during a rapturous hometown gig at The LC Pavilion in Columbus, OH. Meanwhile, Side D includes songs initially released on the independent favorite Regional At Best: “forest,” “glowing eyes,” “kitchen sink,” and “lovely” [full tracklisting below].
To accompany the Vessel 10 Year Anniversary Limited Edition Boxset, Twenty One Pilots have unveiled a new Vessel 10 Year merch collection. Inspired by the album artwork and era of the band’s history, the drop consists of t-shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts. The capsule is available now on the band’s official store for fans to shop.
The band celebrated the anniversary yesterday, January 8th (10 years to the exact date of Vessel’s initial release) with a special three hour 10th Anniversary Variety Stream live on YouTube where the band revisited archived never before seen footage, shared memories, and entertained fans with games and spontaneous ukulele performances of tracks from the Vessel era – watch it HERE. The livestream also included a charity component, collecting donations for the Make-A-Wish Foundation which raised over $45,000.00 throughout the stream broadcast.
Vessel marked a monumental moment in the trajectory of Twenty One Pilots. All of the original edition’s tracks achieved at least a Gold certification from the RIAA, later enshrining them as “the first group or artist to achieve this feat with two separate albums.” Among many standouts, it boasted the double-platinum “Car Radio,” platinum “House of Gold,” and more. In retrospect, KERRANG! placed it at #1 when ranking their albums thus far, hailing it as “pretty damn faultless” and attesting, “It’s no wonder that Twenty One Pilots have gone on to have one of the most fiercely dedicated, passionate fanbases on the planet.” Rating it “4.5-out-of-5 stars” upon initial arrival, Alternative Press declared, “their songs just signed a long-term lease in your brain.” It codified their signature genre alchemy, weaving together alternative, electronic, hip-hop, rock, and indie into the soundtrack for the future.
Capping off 2022, Twenty One Pilots received multiple new RIAA certifications ahead of their sold-out headline show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The new awards recognized the Gold certification of their latest album Scaled And Icy, Gold certification of their single “Shy Away,” Platinum certification of their single “Jumpsuit,” and a Diamond certification for their generational anthem “Heathens.” This notably marked the group’s second Diamond award elevating them to rarified air as one of only 18 artists ever to earn multiple Diamond singles certifications.
Twenty One Pilots previously made RIAA history in 2018 when their 5x Platinum 2015 full-length, BLURRYFACE, which features the Diamond certified smash hit “Stressed Out,” became the first album in the digital era with every song receiving a Gold, Platinum, or Multi-Platinum certification from the RIAA. A year later, its 2013 predecessor Vessel repeated the same feat making Twenty One Pilots the first artist / group with two albums to reach this landmark achievement.
Twenty One Pilots traversed North America on “THE ICY TOUR 2022,” headlining arenas coast to coast. This past summer Twenty One Pilots headlined festivals around the globe and shared a special live version “Heathens,” inspired by the opportunity to reimagine the song within the fitting world of Netflix’s original hit series Stranger Things. Filmed on the last stop of their European festival run at Romania’s Electric Castle festival, “Stranger Things // Heathens” (Live from Romania) is joined by an official performance video capturing the surprise live moment from the festival ground’s historic Bánffy Castle – watch it HERE.
They also featured on the iconic MTV Unplugged series where they delivered reimagined versions of some of their biggest and most beloved songs from their catalog – Watch it HERE. Furthermore, the duo also hosted the “Twenty One Pilots Cinema Experience” film event, which gathered fans in sold-out cinemas around the globe to watch an extended cut of the duo’s 2021 epic Scaled And Icy album release livestream performance featuring remastered audio / video, and more than 20 minutes of never-before-seen footage.
Scaled And Icy debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top “Rock Albums” and “Alternative Albums” charts while landing at No. 3 on the “Billboard 200,” marking the biggest opening week for a rock album in 2021. The record is highlighted by the #1 Alternative Radio hits “The Outside,” “Saturday,” and “Shy Away,” the latter of which ascended to #1 at the format in just three weeks, placing the duo in an elite group of acts with multiple songs to rise to #1 at the format in three weeks or less including: U2, R.E.M., The Cure, Linkin Park, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Foo Fighters.
Written and largely produced by Tyler Joseph in isolation over the course of 2020 at his home studio, with Dun engineering the album’s drums from across the country, Scaled And Icy is the product of long-distance virtual sessions and finds the duo processing their upended routines along with the prevailing emotions of 2020 – anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and doubt. The duo had to forgo their normal studio sessions but reached a new of level of introspection in the process, adopting a more imaginative and bold approach to their songwriting. The result is a collection of songs that push forward through setbacks and focus on the possibilities worth remembering. Scaled And Icy is Twenty One Pilots’ first studio album in three years and follows their RIAA Platinum certified LP, Trench.
GRAMMY Award-winning Twenty One Pilots quietly emerged as one of the most successful bands of the 21st century and redefined the sound of a generation. After billions of streams and dozens of multi-Platinum certifications around the world, the history-making Columbus, OH duo—Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun—ascended to a creative and critical high watermark on their new full-length album, Scaled And Icy. The album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top “Rock Albums” and “Alternative Albums” charts, while landing at No. 3 on the “Billboard 200,” marking the biggest opening week for a rock album in 2021. Among a collection of anthems, Scaled And Icy spawned “Shy Away,” which spent eight consecutive weeks at #1 at Alternative Radio, as well as “Saturday” and “The Outside,” both of which also climbed to #1 at Alternative Radio. The RIAA Gold certified Scaled And Icy follows Twenty One Pilots’ 2018 Platinum certified album TRENCH, which features the Platinum singles: “Chlorine,” “My Blood,” and the GRAMMY Award-nominated Platinum song “Jumpsuit.” The album graced spots on “Best of” year-end lists by Billboard, KERRANG!, Alternative Press, and Rock Sound—who placed it at #1. Formed in 2009, the guys grinded towards this moment following the mainstream breakout of 2015’s BLURRYFACE. Certified 4x Platinum in the U.S., it was declared the first album ever to have every one of its songs certified Gold or Platinum by the RIAA, and garnered a GRAMMY Award for the Diamond certified “Stressed Out.” In 2019 Twenty One Pilots announced that their 2013 LP Vessel achieved the same Gold & Platinum milestone with every individual track from the album receiving Gold, Platinum or Multi-Platinum certification from the RIAA, making the duo the first artist / group with two albums to reach this landmark achievement. With their second Diamond certification in 2022 for “Heathens,” they also stand out as one of only 18 artists to earn multiple Diamond singles certifications. They launched “THE ICY TOUR 2022” and kicked off another era this year.
TRACKLISTING
Side A:
1. “ode to sleep”
2. “holding on to you”
3. “migraine”
4. “house of gold”
5. “car radio”
6. “semi-automatic”
Side B:
1. “screen”
2.“the run and go”
3. “fake you out”
4. “guns for hands”
5. “trees”
6.“truce”
Side C:
1.“holding on to you” (live at the LC)
2. “trees” (live at the LC)
3.“guns for hands” (live at the LC)
4. “migraine” (live at the LC)
Side D:
1. “forest”
2. “glowing eyes”
3. “kitchen sink”
4. “lovely”
D2UR are firing up the amplifiers with their latest rock offering, “Live Again” – available now.
Following up their smash, “Right Now”, D2UR are turning up the volume on their newest single. “Live Again” features Diane Isbister’s powerhouse vocals, mingled with husband Mike’s rock riffs. The track is an open highway fist pump – the unleashing of a former life and heading out to find a new one.
“Diane, who had found some of my old lyrics, conjured up this song,” explains Mike, adding: “The foundations for the song were strummed on her acoustic guitar, and then the parts were performed and recorded by myself and Diane in our demo studio using our editing software.” John Colborn and David Sikorski would round out the track before it headed into production.
“‘Live Again’ is about us getting back on our feet after a long run with the pandemic, and our desire to restore things back to the norm. As we rise again, we hope to unleash ourselves from all the rules and fight to restore our lives. We all want to live again … some of us want to live on forever,” the band says.
“Unleash yourself, we gotta fight to the finish
Unleash yourself take my hand, show me
Unleash yourself cause I’m ready to live again
Yeah I’m ready … to live …”
The track bursts out of its seam; building to a crescendo that tears apart conventionality or conformity. As is the messaging of D2UR music, “Live Again” takes no prisoners. From the lyrics to the harmony, layering of rock elements, Mike’s slide, and the electric riffs, “Live Again” forges forward and unbending in its delivery. D2UR lace the track with a southern rock punch, and alternative flair. It leaps from the speakers, and requests you play it on repeat.
Whether your headphones, or car stereo speakers – enjoy two tickets to the D2UR show. This rock outfit is prepared to make you want to “Live Again”.
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Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.
Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com
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