"I will write a mystery for you to solve." - The Lilys.

Hi there everybody!! (Hi, Dr. Nick!!).

Just a quick post to point you to places I can more readily be found. I am thrilled that people keep being drawn here via Google searches and whatnot. Several people have gotten in touch to help me out with out of print or unreleased music that I've talked about here, for which I am pretty thankful. So this blog, while dormant, is still serving a purpose.

-=- People who arrive here and want to read something fresh can click over to Junkmedia's World of Sound blog, which I write and edit for the Junkmedia overlords. It launched in mid-August of 2005 and I am pretty pleased with how it is going, despite the long hours it takes. I hope that its posts about the contemporary music scene are at least as interesting as the often more archeological stuff that I wrote here.

-=- If you'd like to contact me personally, hit up my MySpace page.

Thanks again for reading.

"1-2-3 And I Come With the Wicked Style"

To paraphrase The Hold Steady, Junkmedia's got something in its sweatpants. And today we're showing it off. Welcome to the redesigned publication, and welcome to our weblog World of Sound. Here we aim to offer more background, context and opinion to complement the features and reviews we've been slinging for the last few years. World of Sound is brewing up a slate of its own features that will gently roll out over the next few weeks, so keep checking in. Want to get in touch with World of Sound? Send an email to jay at junkmedia dot org.

[Originally posted at Junkmedia's World of Sound]

You Heard It Here Second: Animal Collective, Holopaw

Relatively fresh streams abound. You can hear samples of three cuts from the forthcoming Animal Collective record Feels [Fat Cat], which streets in two months, over here at the Boomkat site. Thanks to Stereogum for the link. Fluxblog here posted an additional Animal Collective cut, "Grass," last week and claims the new material is much more accessible than the band's earlier efforts. The samples we heard were delicate, dense and melodic all at the same time -- it doesn't get too much better than that, right? Of the three, we enjoyed "Loch Raven" most, but it all sounds solid. If you can't wait around to develop your own take, access the thoughts, feelings and opinions of the hive mind of ILM here. Elsewhere, Catbirdseat points us to a stream of the new Holopaw record, which is hosted over here at Subpop.

[Originally posted at Junkmedia's World of Sound]

Pick Up The Phone

Seriously, just how long have you been waiting for the day when technology finally caught up with your searing desire to have At The Drive-In's "Invalid Litter Dept." as the ringtone on your cellphone? Or Tullycraft's "Superboy and Supergirl"? Rejoice, rejoice people, because two companies, Xingtone and Digital Rights Agency, have partnered to launch a service called Bliptones that will let you inflict your favorite brand of nerd rock on all those poor commercial radio-fed drones you have to ride the subway with every time your shizzy blows up on your hip. All you need is a compatible phone, a service provider who is on board (it looks there are seven big ones in North America) and two bucks per ringtone. Think this is a stupid idea? Believe it or not, ringtones were a four-billion dollar business globally last year -- Sasha said so. So why not cut Bratmobile in on a little chunk of the action? While there is a Death Cab tone among the 200 or so for sale, there is an obvious glaring omission: how can a service called Bliptones not offer anything from The Postal Service? [Via Billboard.biz]

[Originally posted at Junkmedia's World of Sound]

Where's The Show: Slow Dazzle

World of Sound is going to play favorites, at least a little bit. We've got some favorites, we're proud of it, let's accept we're going to talk about 'em here and move along. One of said favorites is The Mendoza Line, that rag-tag bunch of indie rockers loosely based in Brooklyn. And in case you haven't been paying attention, Mendoza Line principles Tim Bracy and Shannon McArdle put their heads together in the past year or so for a project called Slow Dazzle. The pair concocted a haunting little charmer called The View from the Floor [MP3s here] for Misra Records and they are on the road right now promoting it. Eight dates remain. So where's the show?

8/15 -- Pittsburgh, PA -- Garfield Artworks
8/16 -- Columbus, OH -- Andyman’s Treehouse
8/18 -- Minneapolis, MN -- 7th St. Entry
8/19 -- Des Moines, IA -- Vaudeville Mews
8/20 -- Urbana, IL -- Canopy Club
8/21 -- Chicago, IL -- Schuba’s
8/22 -- Madison, WI -- High Noon Saloon
8/23 -- St. Louis, MO -- Way Out Club

[Originally posted at Junkmedia's World of Sound]

Here I Am Outside Your House At 3AM

We were minding our own business and reading Stereogum's bit about a big rock and roll festival in Staten Island and Brooklyn in early October when we were struck by one name in the line-up: The Lemonheads. Wha? Apparently frontman Evan Dando brought the act (which has not released a record in nine years), or at least the moniker, out of retirement about 10 days ago for a Spanish festival date. This news according to our reputable friends over at NME. Based on the set list for the festival show, it doesn't look like Dando is playing any material from records prior to It's A Shame About Ray, unfortunately. If we were in charge of that All Tomorrow's Parties doohickey this year where bands are playing classic albums front to back, we'd have front row seats for a run through Lick with the band's classic line-up. Oh well.

[Originally posted at Junkmedia's World of Sound]

Sound-Dust

-=- Reuters reports on a new service called BurnLounge that aims to make every Tom, Dick and Harry an online music retailer. AP counters with a story detailing newly stoked but very old fears in the retail music industry about CD burning. Remember when you had CDs? Man, that was weird. Anyway, in the AP piece the RIAA claims burned CDs accounted for almost a third of all recorded music obtained by fans in 2004, almost twice as much as the amount attributed to downloads from file-sharing networks.

-=- Pfork rhapsodizes over Dinosaur Jr.'s recent Detroit performance here.

-=- IndieWorkshop boils down the rumours around major label group EMI's impending announcement of a purchase of Wind-Up Records, which is interesting to us primarily because Wind-Up used to be Grass [The Wrens offer a history lesson on that here]. Grass Records put out some great records including Loomis' You're No Tiger, Meow, Meow, Meow. The album has a perfect leadoff cut, "Conquistador." Try to track it down. Grass also released Wrens stuff, which is also noted in the IndieWorkshop piece, and which most everybody knows via living through it or due to the band's strong resurgence. For a fuller account, read Pitchfork's fairly well-reported recent item.

-=- Chromewaves notes here that a new Belle and Sebastian biography Just A Modern Rock Story is in the racks, and amusingly wonders how interesting a book might be about a throng of quiet, bookish recluses.

-=- Hey, Bauhaus reformed. Jeez, this reunion stuff is getting exhausting.

[originally published at World of Sound]