Today's Hotness: Icy Demons, Ringo Deathstarr, 65DaysOfStatic

>> Bob Extrawack! suggests Oxfam America's Cyclone Relief and Rehabilitation Fund as the vehicle for your donations to help ameliorate the suffering in Myanmar. More info here. And now on to the music...

>> We've got a huge backlog of stuff to share that will probably not be cleared until we get a couple more posts up, so we're just jumping in anywhere. Jazzy post-rock outfit Icy Demons return in July with a third set titled Miami Ice. The Chicago-and-Philly-rooted band's sophomore collection, Tears of A Clone, was issued on Scott Herren's Eastern Developments imprint. But the new nine-song collection will be issued July 15 on Obey Your Brain, a new label set up by Icy Demons bandleaders Chris Powell (also in Man Man and Need New Body) and Griffin Rodriguez (Need New Body, Bablicon). On the new set the pair are joined by musical luminaries including Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker and Prefuse 73/Sam Prekop collaborator Josh Abrams on bass. You can hear three of the new tracks -- "Spywatchers," "Buffalo Bill" and the title track -- at the band's MySpace dojo here. We reviewed Icy Demon's Tears Of A Clone here in 2006. Here's an MP3 of our favorite jam from the set, the album-closer "The Flea Garden."

Icy Demons -- "The Flea Garden" -- Tears Of A Clone
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[buy Icy Demons records from Newbury Comics here]

>> A brief note from Texas shoegaze giants Ringo Deathstarr reports the band's planned next release will likely be an EP released digitally and on vinyl. Please, God, let it be 10" vinyl, as that is the coolest vinyl format that is still useful (sorry Boyracer, but that 5" was so small it was hard to keep track of). The quartet is also in pre-production on a new self-made music video, likely for the track "Sweet Girl," although "Down On You" is in the running as well. In the meantime you can watch a nice live clip of the band performing "Sweet Girl" over at Switchburn right here. The Deathstarr's next live appearance is June 3 at Emo's in Austin with the mighty and resurrected Swervedriver.

>> While our familiarity with the band doesn't go beyond a few listens to their first (The Fall Of Math, recently reissued) and last (The Destruction Of Small Ideas) records, we are very surprised about how-dance oriented the new 65DaysOfStatic EP is. Of course, the fact that the EP is titled The Distant And Mechanized Glow Of Eastern European Dance Parties should have been more of a hint than it was. Based on the title -- because even at 34 we still make stupid assumptions now and again-- we were hoping to hear something akin to Silkworm's devastating "There Is A Party Tonight In Warsaw." But Sheffield, England-based 65DaysOfStatic's new EP is as close to a rave mix as we've probably subjected ourselves to in about 15 years. We expect there is a big audience for music of this stripe, particularly across Europe. But we're not feeling it. The quartet this past week commenced a strand of dates opening for legendary alt-rock act The Cure; the tour comes to Boston's Agganis Arena Monday night. The Distant And Mechanized Glow Of Eastern European Dance Parties was issued April 29, and you can stream it in its entirety here.

>> We're just getting going with our new laptop, but here are two things we are excited about: 1) the onboard sound (that is the quality of the sound coming from the built-in speakers) on our new Dell 1720 is far superior to that produced by our five-year-old Dell 5150; 2) the optical drive rips discs at up to 17x, almost three times faster than our old drive. Cool.

All The Dreams You Gave Up On, Other Things You Might Have Done

>> Word on the street -- well, in our email -- is that all of the Mendoza Line tour dates we reported about here last week are canceled, despite the fact the dates are still posted on Misra's web site. The TT The Bear's date in late August we've been looking forward to for a while has been excised from TT's web site. And that's all we're going to say about that. The Mendoza Line releases its final record, 30 Year Low, on Glurp Aug. 21. Incidentally, tonight's headline is from our favorite Mendoza Line song, 2000's "I Hope That You Remember To Forget." You can stream the track on Rhapsody here, but you should really just buy the record its from, We're All In This Alone, from Newbury Comics here. In our opinion it is the best Mendoza Line record.

>> Brit post-rockers 65DaysOfStatic's show in Boston last night didn't go off, and the band will miss others due to problems obtaining visas for the U.S. tour. Drowned In Sound reports here that shows in Washington, D.C. and Brooklyn are also in jeopardy, but the quartet hopes to be in the United States in time to pick up the trail at Richmond, Virginia's Alley Katz Saturday. Full tour dates are posted at the band's MySpace casa here. We posted MP3s and a stream of 65DaysOfStatic's most recent album here last week. Yesterday we bought overly expensive tickets to see the band open for The Cure at Boston's Agganis Arena in September.

>> This item isn't completely aligned with tonight's theme of cancellations, but we were tickled to read at Stereogum that our favorite nightly news broadcaster, NBC's Brian Williams, is a bit of an indie rocker and has opinions on the work of musical luminaries including Interpol, Feist and Cat Power. Read the Stereogum item here. Getting back to the theme, maybe somewhere is BW's past he had to give up on his dream. Of ROCKING OUT. Woahhhh.

Today's Hotness: Mobius Band, 65DaysOfStatic, J. Church

>> Cyborg rockers Mobius Band disclosed today its sophomore set will be titled Heaven and it will be released this fall (and it will hopefully include a cover of the Bryan Adams power ballad of the same name we used to slow dance to at boy-girl parties in junior high). After releasing several EPs, Mobius Band issued its debut full-length The Loving Sounds Of Static on Ghostly International in 2005. The band made no mention of who will be releasing the forthcoming record, but we've heard some things... Anyway, the trio produced Heaven themselves over the course of 18 months. Mobius Band will play new material at two upcoming gigs, the first at Northampton, Mass.'s The Elevens club Sunday night, and then the second a free show at Hiro Ballroom in New York next Thursday. A fall tour is in the works, during which time the lads will also play a festival in Colorado with a bunch of famous people. We saw Mobius Band for the umpteenth time last September and reviewed the show here.

>> The news that glitched-out post-rockers 65DaysOfStatic will be opening for fellow Brits and alt.rock legends The Cure on a fall tour prompted us to revisit the stream of The Destruction Of Small Ideas, 65DaysOfStatic's third record which was released earlier this year. The band's churning mix of instrumental epics and aggressive electronic textures makes for a very exciting listen, but the overarching thought we are left with each time we stream the set is this: are these guys going to completely upstage The Cure? We guess we'll just have to see. Lest you think Robert Smith is just now, dare we say, jumping on post-rock's train, the Cure band leader noted his love of Scottish dynamos Mogwai more than once in the excellent Cure biography "Never Enough: The Story of The Cure" which we read last year mostly during a day of jury duty. Anyway, here is a stream of the entire 65DaysOfStatic record, and here are some MP3s for you to carry around in your digital player of choice. Finally, 65DaysOfStatic kick off a co-headlining tour of the U.S. that precedes the tour opening for The Cure next week right here in Ye Olde Boston. You can see the full tour dates at the band's MySpace dojo right here.

65DaysOfStatic -- "When We Were Younger & Better" -- The Destruction Of Small Ideas
65DaysOfStatic -- "Don't Go Down To Sorrow" -- The Destruction Of Small Ideas
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[buy The Destruction Of Small Ideas from Monotreme right here]

>> Brooklyn-based nu-gaze quartet Dirty On Purpose have a series of live dates coming up that we've been looking at in our inbox for quite a while. Here they are. No Boston date, but we're sure we'll see them around these parts again sooner or later.

7/15 -- Maxwell's -- Hoboken, NJ
7/16 -- Johnny Brenda's -- Philadelphia, PA
7/17 -- Black Cat -- Washington, DC
7/18 -- Blend -- Chapel Hill, NC
7/20 -- Wexner Center for the Arts -- Columbus, OH
7/21 -- Uncle Fester's -- Bloomington, IN

>> This was news to us when we got the email from No Idea mail order: a compilation benefitting J. Church mastermind Lance Hahn, who is besieged by extensive and life-threatening health issues and has no health insurance, has been put together by five labels. The set, called Let's Do It For Lance, features about 30 bands covering J. Church (and Cringer) pop-punk classics including "Tide Of Fate" and "My Favorite Place." More information here. J. Church's most recent set The Horror Of Life was released by No Idea last year.

>> Word from people who know is that Philadelphia power-poppers Trolleyvox's next set will be a double album. So there. The band released The Trolleyvox Present The Karaoke Meltdowns last year, and we reviewed it here.