Today's Hotness: Los Campesinos, Frightened Rabbit

>> Sheer and utter brilliance above from Cardiff, Wales-repping tweesters Los Campesinos! in the form of a video for their tune "Death To Los Campesinos!", which we've only just watched. You never expect the killer unicorn, do you?

>> So it turns out Johnny Foreigner's limited edition single, "Our Bipolar Friends" b/w "The Houseparty Scene Is Killing You," is even more limited. The Birmingham, England-based indie rock superheroes' platter -- slated for release Tuesday -- was intended to be issued in an edition of 1,000. However, apparently more than 200 copies have gone missing. So good luck getting your hands on one, particularly if you are based outside the UK. What with all the pre-sales, there are only about 100 copies left to be had. Fortunately, we pre-ordered in January. For those of you going to South By Southwest, you've got three chances to catch the act, errr... in the act. For those of you with no chance in hell of getting to Austin or getting your hands on the new single, there is still some consolation: Johnny Foreigner has just posted a new track from the forthcoming full-length Waited Up 'Til It Was Light at its MySpace dojo here. The new number is "Henning's Favorite," it touts some gratuitous panning and a simple arrangement, and it is the first track from the band that hasn't blown our minds. We've only listened to it once, so we expect it will be a grower. Finally, we've got some idea of what the band's first official video for a song from the album will be. We won't share just yet, but if you've been paying attention it's a song you already know. So there.

>> Pretty great video blog over at the Frightened Rabbit MySpace hizzy right here. Points of interest: we're always blown away when we are reminded that for whatever reason indie rockers look alike the world over. Also interesting to note that, at least for this date, the Glaswegian indie rock trio has expanded to include a third guitarist, which we expect makes the band's brawling live attack that much more brawling and attackish. DrownedInSound reviewed the same FR show featured in the clip here, for those wanting additional editorial filtration. Frightened Rabbit are also making a beeline to SXSW, and you should see them by any means necessary if you are planning to attend. We're still sitting on our review of the band's forthcoming sophomore set The Midnight Organ Fight, which streets April 15, but we expect we'll get it online this coming week.

>> Indie rockers The Dandy Warhols take their stand against The Man by forming their own label in partnerhip with artist management and label services firm World's Fair Group. While we've never kept a close eye on the band's career, we were wowed when we heard a track from its 2005 set Odditorium Or Warlords Of Mars somewhere, so we picked it up and were favorably impressed. You can read more about the band being dropped from Capitol and its motivation for starting the new label, Beat The World, in this Billboard article. It's interesting to note the The Dandies' licensing revenue was far surpassing its sales revenue at a certain point in its career (we expect having their song used as the theme for the popular television program "Veronica Mars" helped a lot). On a similar note, a Wall Street Journal preview here of the South By Southwest music conference that was published today reports that the nature of the A&R work this year will be firmly tilted toward folks looking to license music for television and et cetera, as opposed to folks looking to sign bands to record contracts.

>> Have you seen the EPK Quicktime clip promoting the Mission Of Burma reissues we mentioned earlier this week? It makes us more and more excited for March 18. You can watch it here; note that it will take a while for the clip to load, but it's worth it.

>> Potentially important news for the Boston live music fan: Berklee College of Music is opening an all ages venue at 939 Boylston. We're almost twice the age of majority, so we don't view this as providing a service particularly germane to us. But we expect we'll see more bands with younger audiences come to Boston as a result of the new venue. Also, maybe Fugazi will reform and play there. Well, probably not -- but maybe The Evens, yeh? But it is hard to see next month's opening of the new venue, called Cafe 939, as anything but a positive for the Boston scene. Now books some shows we want to see. More details at On The Download here.