March 1, 2006

Today's Hotness: Asobi Seksu, XTC, Mission of Burma

>> Ask and ye shall receive: after getting a sneak listen to two new Asobi Seksu tracks yesterday, the band put one of them up at their MySpace hizzy today. Click over here to check out the Brooklyn nu-gazer's track "Thursday," which is from the act's forthcoming record Citrus. The set is slated to street at the end of May.

>> By reading this article in the Boston paper that we actually get home delivered but never read, Coolfer, who we believe is based out of NYC, tells us something we didn't know: digital music distributor TuneCore was co-founded by Spin-Art Records co-honcho Jeff Price. Also, Price divulges that between 17 and 25% of Spin-Art revenues comes from ITunes. We are always attracted to hard numbers, it's what separates us from the apes. But the market power of ITunes, given its dominant share of the digital download market, should come as no surprise. Looking at another side of the equation, perhaps Spin-Art's sales are skewing more and more digital simply because its catalog is large (spanning 15 years) and growing and dwarfs the number of new releases the label issues in a year. That assumes that catalog titles sell better digitally than new releases, but we're not sure if that is the case.

>> Bad news for Mock Orange, whose First EP is among our favorite EPs. According to PunkNews.org the band was robbed. Twice. In Europe. The band is across the pond promoting its full length Mind Is Not Brain, which, incidentally, we didn't enjoy as much as the First EP. A run down of the bad vibes is at this link. There is some reportage that the band has cancelled the rest of its European dates, which is inaccurate. According to a post from one of the band members in the thread below the PunkNews item, the band only cancelled one date so one of the chaps could get set up with a new passport to replace a stolen one.

>> MarathonPacks here points to some great vintage XTC video. Mr. Packs discusses Partridge's "exhaustion" as driving the band off the road shortly thereafter, never too return. Our dog The Good Doctor once blogged that Partridge has crazy stage fright, and we presume that is the reason the act stopped touring lo those many years ago.

>> Word here over at the Matador bulletin board is that etching the flip sides of the singles in the sold-out Mission of Burma singles subscription series is taking longer than expected. The venerable label hopes to ship the first of the eight singles sometime next week.

>> We don't normally give too much thought to FM radio grungers Pearl Jam, since we've never listened to anything they released after 1994, but we're a little surprised the act, which has been hostile to certain corporate interests, has inked a new contract with Clive Davis' Top 40-oriented J Records. What's next, a cameo in "One Tree Hill"? Anyway, Vedder et al., will issue their eponymously titled eighth record via J on May 2. Here's the presser, with info about a first single and a free download.

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