Today's Hotness: Robert Pollard, The Replacements, Big Science

>> Still catching up... We were minding our business early last week listening to the "tape delay" of one of the prior week's episodes of WMBR's crucial "Breakfast of Champions" program when a tune caught our ear. It was distinctly Pollardian, and so it was little surprise when the DJ back-announced that the track was from a forthcoming Robert Pollard solo set. We made a note to look for more info on the Internet, but before we even had a chance to sit down and look an email had already hit our inbox with the details. Indeed, Mr. Pollard will issue a new solo set Robert Pollard Is Off To Business June 3, and it will be released on his own new label GBV Records. Pollard's previous four records were released on Merge, and probably all within one twelve-month period, given the man's ability to churn out records like most of us churn out blog posts. Anyway, the track that caught our ear is titled "Gratification To Concrete," and it is the promo track for the new set. Download at will.

Robert Pollard -- "Gratification To Concrete" -- Robert Pollard Is Off To Business
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[pre-order Robert Pollard Is Off To Business here]

>> Interesting grab bag of news for the taking in this Man Without Ties post. To whit: the reissues of The Replacements catalogue will not be available at ITunes (and presumably no other digital music storefront) prior to the release of the Sire titles in September; and apparently Paul Westerberg has taken up ice hockey. More notable tidbits at the link supra.

>> Chicago-based sort-of newcomers Big Science was slated to play its first show Friday night. Not a big deal in and of itself, as new bands play first shows somewhere every day. But the quartet's blend of Big Country hooks and Talking Heads-ish radio pop sensibilities make us believe Big Science will break big at some point. The band, which sprung in part from the ashes of defunct San Deigo post-hardcore act The North Atlantic, recently made its MySpace offerings downloadable, and we recommend snatching them all. To get you started here is the demo for the tune "My Career As A Ghost."

Big Science -- "My Career As A Ghost" -- MySpace demo
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[more at the band's MySpace tent here]

>> So our initial excitement about Jim Guthrie's new project Human Highway is tempered by the two tracks recently posted at the band's MySpace yert here. "The Sound" is a playful strummer with a canned beat that sounds a bit like '80s TV show soundtrack music. It's something like Men At Work, but without Colin Hay's voice and personality. The second track, "Sleep Talking," seems to reimagine Modest Mouse's "Sleep Walkin'" without any of Isaac Brock's pilled-up melancholy. On the whole the songs seem to lean more in the direction of the prior work of former Islands guy Nick Thorburn, who is the other principal member of Human Highway. We'll be interested to hear what else the act has to offer, but for now we're not sure if it is going to excite us at all. The duo's full-length Moody Motorcycle will be issued by Suicide Squeeze Aug. 18.

Today's Hotness: Jim Guthrie, Carrie Brownstein, Mystery Jets

>> We received two separate email blasts today regarding the new act Human Highway, both of which, we might add, arrived after we already saw the "news" in our RSS reader. We put the word news in quotations because it was apparent from reading the item and the emails that the former was rather lazily cribbed from the latter. Normally we don't let this sort of writing get to us, but we found this particularly offensive because the press releases and the "news" both failed to mention what Human Highway principal Jim Guthrie accomplished prior to his 2004 solo set Now More Than Ever. In addition to releasing other very fine solo sets, Guthrie was one of the main fellows in the exceptional alt.country act Royal City [pictured above]. It's all at Wikipedia here; how quickly people forget. We had the pleasure of seeing Royal City topline a bill that also featured The Trouble With Sweeney in, oh, 2001 or so. We're posting a starkly beautiful Royal City track and a sublime Guthrie solo joint below, in case you are not familiar with the gentleman's work. Back to today's news: Guthrie has reunited with former Islands bandmate Nick Thorburn to form Human Highway, which will issue Moody Motorcyle Aug. 19 on Suicide Squeeze.

Royal City -- "And Miriam Took A Timbrel In Her Hand" -- Alone At The Microphone
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[buy Royal City records from Insound here]

Jim Guthrie -- "3 AM" -- Morning Noon Night
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[buy Morning Noon Night from Insound here]

>> Brief Remarks: 1) We only just yesterday added Carrie Brownstein's Monitor Mix NPR blog to our RSS reader, but the decision has already paid off. Revel in the following quote from this item: "Yesterday was Earth Day and I celebrated it by letting my dog sh*t on a lawn that is full of chemicals. When the owner came out to yell at me, I pointed to the excrement and said, "That is the only natural thing in your yard, Happy Earth Day." 2) We don't know what this is, but it is awesome. 3) Trivia: this woman was in our Music, Recording and Sound Design class at university in the mid-'90s. She was -- and likely still is -- very nice. 4) All your metadata are belong to Sony, according to Coolfer. 5) ExitFare has posted here a recent video from London-based quintet Mystery Jets, and the clip is an excellently absurd send-up of all the amazing new wave videos we watched incessantly on MTV in our youth.