Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, RunRunner

>> Hi everyone. We have no idea why you are all here today. Our best guess is that everyone just realized 1) the new Johnny Foreigner record is on its way and 2) that we can't help but track the band's every move, and additionally there must have been some news having to do with '70s rockers Foreigner at the same time. Or maybe Google started hitting us in new and interesting ways today? Cards on the table, we usually get about 200 people a day here reading this stuff. It's 6:30 and we've already had that many while not really posting anything substantive today. Unusual.

>> Speaking of Johnny Foreigner, we cracked open our Technics SL-4 direct drive turntable today to spin the band's single that we received earlier this week in less than satisfactory condition, and we found the vinyl disc was pretty well warped on top of the jacket being messed up. HMV, you rock. Fortunately there was no audible problem, but it is easy to notice the edge of the single undulating as "Our Bipolar Friends" and then b-side "The Houseparty Scene Is Killing You" unwind under the tone arm. Hot on the heels of selling out that single pretty much before it was even released March 10, the indie rock superheroes have posted their planned next single to its MySpace shack. The song is "Eyes Wide Terrified," and you may recall that the band had posted a stream of a radio session version of the track late last year. The studio version is a dramatic improvement (although we're still on the fence about the gang vocals at the breakdown at the end, the rest of the song is a real rocker), as guitars crash and bass pops in pleasing ways that were more muted in the radio performance. "Eyes Wide Terrified" will have two b-sides, the surprisingly still unknown to us (save for references on the psychogeographical map thingy) cuts "Ties Up Cats" and "Kandy Cane." The single will be issued as a limited release 7" -- some signed, and you can bet we're not ordering ours from the dolts at HMV again -- and digital download. No release date has been disclosed, but we do know that guitarist Alexei Berrow believes Johnny Foreigner's full-length debut will hit racks in June, so perhaps the single will come in May? Just speculating. Another interesting thing about June -- the band has no shows booked that month, according to MySpazz. That's odd, considering they have spent most of the year on the road and they are booked pretty solidly through the end of May, and then festival dates pick up in July. We can only guess that the band is going to spend the month doing press and relaxing. Or perhaps they'll do some international touring? Say to a large, largely English-speaking country with an incredibly unpopular president? We can only hope.

>> You know what we've been loving today, besides our new wireless router (which hasn't quite fixed our computing problems, so either Dell or Comcast are next on our sh** list)? Philadelphia power-pop trio RunRunner's new video for "Bad Timing," a highlight from the band's self-titled, self-released set that came out in 2006 or 2007, depending on where you looked for it. The clip below gives the band some concrete context for us. We thought RunRunner exhibited clear '80s power-pop influences (Plimsouls, etc.), but the somewhat drab colors and earnest performances in the video for "Bad Timing" seem particularly contemporary. We're hopeful that the clip draws a lot of new fans for the band, because we fear that the band will be yet another Philly act unable to break free of the city's invisible tractor beam. Check out the clip below, and read our review of the band's record here, which we posted almost exactly a year ago. And while we're at it, what the hell, here is the MP3 of "Bad Timing."

RunRunner -- "Bad Timing" -- RunRunner
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[buy RunRunner from the EMusic here]

These Were Our Jams, When We Were 10 Or So

We weren't always an indie rocker. It didn't really kick in until 1990 or so. Above are selections that randomly float in our heads when we're not thinking of anything in particular, and most of them are a result of obsessive MTV viewing and FM radio listening in the early 1980s. The above little doohickey was created at ThisIsMyJam.com, where you can go and create your very own time capsule.

Today's Hotness: Seb Roberts, The Anwering Machine, Spinto Band

>> Heretofore you probably had little idea what you would be doing April 14. Frankly neither did we, until we received an email this evening from Spoilt Victorian Child Records. You may recall the label issued the stunning debut EP from Texas-shoegaze behemoth Ringo Deathstarr last year. Well on the aforementioned date the rising label will issue Seb Roberts' Exit Strategy. Mr. Roberts was born in Canada, has apparently lived and rocked in Baltimore, and now splits time between Hamburg, Germany and Japan. Along the way he's released nine records under almost as many different monikers, which we suppose makes Exit Strategy his 10th? The two songs we've heard from the set (posted below) are sinewy, spare and fragmented rock numbers that slap together spoken word, feedback, forthright grooves and profanity into a strangely arresting product that would have played very well at the goth/industrial all-ages dance night we frequented in our youth. We hear similarities to Wall Of Voodoo, Police drummer Stewart Copeland's Klark Kent side project, and "Jesus Built My Hotrod"-era Ministry. There's a palpable Fall thing going on as well. Seriously. Seb Roberts' Exit Strategy will be issued digitally and on CD in the UK and Europe, and North Americans should be able to find the record via ITunes and Amazon. As an added inducement, both the digital and tangible releases come with full artwork and a link to download an additional album of improvised instrumentals called NO Sense, NO Feeling performed by Roberts and Tokyo-based psych unit NO.

Seb Roberts -- "U.S. Out Of N.Y." -- Exit Strategy
Seb Roberts -- "Man-Whore, Fashion Hag, and Former Neighbor" -- Exit Strategy
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[watch this page for your chance to buy this record]

>> Streaming radio outfit WOXY has finally posted here the March 13 live session recorded with indie pop upstarts The Answering Machine. Perhaps because the band has yet to release a full-length, the Manchester-based quartet still seems very much like a little secret. But The Answering Machine sounds huge in this WOXY session. They tear through a version of the superlative single "Silent Hotels" and the guitars sound bigger than on the recording, and the drums doubly so. The second track, "Your Father's Books" is new to us and very promising, particularly in the breakdown section. Suddenly this band is outgrowing it's lockstep dance rhythms a bit, and it is exciting to hear. Download the whole session at the link below.

The Answering Machine -- WOXY Lounge Act Session 3/13/2008
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>> We remember reading about the making of Spinto Band's new video "Summer Grof" [link] at some point, perhaps when we were researching the goings-on of the band in the fall around the time we saw them play Bowery Ballroom with Los Campesinos! and Johnny Foreigner. Anyway, on paper the concept seemed a little flat, but the clip is actually really fun, appealing as it does to the universal joys of the water balloon fight and food fight. And the clip's black and white rendering dovetails nicely with the nostalgic vibe that permeates Spinto Band's music like smoke in an old carpet. The Delaware-based septet play T.T. The Bear's in Cambridge, Mass. Friday, April 4, and if we can fit it in after an earlier commitment (meaning if we can keep awake) we hope to see the set. As we reported here about six weeks ago, Spinto Band is poised to release its eighth full-length, Moonwink, later this year.

Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, The Raveonettes, The Notwist

>> The blog Death To Music delivers a nice interview with Johnny Foreigner frontman Alexei Berrow that conveys a lot of useful information for rabid fans of the band (present company included). Most notably, Mr. Berrow believes the brilliant indie trio's full-length debut Waited Up Till It Was Light will be out in June. And he confirms that the next single will be for the song "Eyes Wide Terrified," something an associate of the band had mentioned to us some weeks ago. The funniest line in the piece is when Alexei responds to a question about the importance of the band's hometown -- Birmingham, England -- in its music by explaining he writes about what he knows. And then he delivers the punchline: "By this logic our next album will obv[iously] be about living in a van and playing gigs and only be bought by members of Los Campesinos!" Read the whole thing here. Speaking of the band's singles, we'll post a rant later this week about the how we won't be buying any imports from HMV in the future, as our copy of the new Johnny Foreigner single "Our Bipolar Friends" b/w "The Houseparty Scene Is Killing You" arrived all dinged up and with a sticker permanently affixed to the front of the sleeve. What the hell, HMV? Why could the tiny (and awesome) indie Laundrette get a Johnny Foreigner single to us quickly and in pristine condition, but you can not? Well, we guess we just ranted there, so no need to come back to it.

>> We're excited about the prospect of MTV celebrating the 20th anniversary of the program "Yo! MTV Raps," because we watched it religiously during high school. During the summers when we weren't working (the good summers) we watched "Yo!" at 10 and 10 again, just like hosts Dre and Ed Lover advised. With the release of Public Enemy's amazing Fear Of A Black Planet we lost the thread on hip-hop, but there was a time when we actually considered ourselves knowledgeable. Anyway, more about the celebration of this fine cultural touchstone can be read here at Idolator.

>> Also found at Idolator is this news about a Feelies reunion. Longtime readers will recall we were clamoring for just such a reunion here 370 days ago.

>> The Notwist-Ultras blog is reporting here that German electropop geniuses The Notwist will definitely tour North American in the fall. This is great news. Additionally, Notwist-Ultras here links to what seems like a pretty great video blog. However, the hosts are speaking German, so there is only so much we are able to follow. Still, if you click the video and forward it to about 2:00 you can hear an excerpt from a song on the Weilheim-based quartet's forthcoming new record The Devil, You + Me. It sounds great, and we are increasingly excited for the record's release in June.

>> You have to wait a couple minutes for the payoff, but once New York-by-way-of-Denmark duo The Raveonettes take the gloves off and rock out, the clip below from a recent performance on "The Late Show With David Letterman" is spine-tingling. We were a bit disappointed that they employ so many pre-recorded backing tracks -- we hate that, as folks who read our review of a Blonde Redhead show last year will recall -- but even so, any band that delivers a nice solid section of white noise on a national TV broadcast deserves props aplenty. The Raveonettes played Boston Monday night, and had it not been for :: clicky clicky :: faves Frightened Rabbit playing the same night we would have liked to go check them out. Or maybe not, if they are performing with all those backing tracks recorded, we're not interested. That said, the recently issued Lust, Lust, Lust is one of our favorite records right now. Here's the opener, "Aly, Walk With Me."

The Raveonettes -- "Aly, Walk With Me" -- Lust, Lust, Lust
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[buy Raveonettes records from Vice right here]



>> Speaking of Frightened Rabbit, Pop Cop has a great interview with the band's songwriter Scott Hutchison. Mr. Hutchison addresses a few of the questions we would have put to him Monday night had things not been loud and had we not already monopolized a bunch of his time. Definitely a good read, so check it out here.

>> Finally, we've been meaning to pimp our friends at Echo Nest's new time-waster, ThisIsMyJam.com. It's fairly addictive. Kiss the next 20 minutes goodbye.

That Was The Show The Was: Frightened Rabbit | Middle East

It would be a tall order finding as passionate a performer in indie rock as Frightened Rabbit fronter Scott Hutchison if his brother Grant wasn't spectacularly smacking the hell out of a drum kit and singing along only a few yards away. Sweating like they were in a spinning class, caterwauling about rotting love with steadfast conviction, the brothers' performed Monday night with the intensity of priests performing an exorcism. The solemn, reassuring presence of Billy Kennedy and newcomer Andy Monaghan on second and third guitars, keys and even bass guitar provided some levity to the proceedings. But even so the Glasgow-based quartet's set -- not unlike its show at Great Scott in November that we reviewed here -- largely conveyed the same desperation that Scott sings about in "The Modern Leper," a song in which the protagonist's body is in danger of completely coming apart due to decay.

The set -- which preceded and in our opinion completely overshadowed performances from Bodies Of Water and Sons And Daughters -- opened with "Fast Blood," and we recall that "The Modern Leper" was performed third. Frightened Rabbit closed out their commitment with blistering renditions of "The Greys" and "Square 9" from the debut Sing The Greys, which was released in the U.S. last year. In between Frightened Rabbit also played the recent single "Head Rolls Off" (after an amusing anecdote about the video shoot), "Old Old Fashioned," "Keep Yourself Warm," a very soulful "My Backwards Walk," and some others. No performance of "The Twist," which after the set Scott chalked up to the midi keyboard the band uses when touring sounding like crap.

We learned a lot during the course of the evening chatting with the guys. Most importantly, we learned our review of the band's forthcoming set The Midnight Organ Fight [link] contained an inaccuracy. We attributed the sheen and remarkable development of the interstitial tracks on the new record to the production work of Peter Katis (Interpol, Mobius Band), but it turns out that those tracks were solely the creation of Mr. Hutchison (as is the album art packaging the new record, incidentally). Despite being wrong, we were pleased to learn this, because it adds strength to our belief that Frightened Rabbit's music is growing in very exciting directions. Hutchison reports that with the release of The Midnight Organ Fight, he has cleared out almost all of his backlog of songs. Because of this the band's third record will not follow so fast on the heels of the second as the second did on the first. Hutchison reports having about a half-dozen songs that he is currently working on, and he expects to do a lot of writing in his future (he doesn't write everyday, but locks himself away and does it all at once).

The bulk of that writing will have to wait a little, as Frightened Rabbit will return to the United States to support the release of the new record in May and June. We'll post those dates when we receive them. The current short slate of dates -- which began at the South By Southwest music confab and closes out tonight in New York at Union Pool -- ended up not timing out well with the release of The Midnight Organ Fight, which was pushed back to its current date of April 15. This release date shuffling led to the band selling pre-orders at the show last night with some sort of air mail scheme that promised willing fans a copy of the record via mail a week ahead of the proper release date. We learned that a vinyl release of the record will only be available as an import in the U.S., so start digging through your couch for change. In the meantime, you can view our photos from last night here, and below are the same two MP3s we posted with our review.

Frightened Rabbit -- "The Modern Leper" -- The Midnight Organ Fight
Frightened Rabbit -- "Head Rolls off" -- The Midnight Organ Fight
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[more on this album]

Frightened Rabbit: Internets | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Today's Hotness: Ringo Deathstarr, New Radiant Storm King

>> Texas-based shoegaze quartet Ringo Deathstarr plans to spend at least part of its late spring and summer recording new music, according to a MySpace bulletin from the band. This is very good news, as the band's sadly small body of recorded work is excellent, but, well, sadly small. The Deathstarr also plans another East Coast tour at the end of the summer, which makes us happy, as we were sick when the band played Boston earlier this year. We'll try to take vitamins between now and the band's return to ensure our attendance. In the meantime Ringo Deathstarr heads west in the first week of April to convert the unwitting. No word yet on who will release the planned Ringo Deathstarr recordings.

>> Legendary Western Massachusetts rockers New Radiant Storm King have been working on a ninth record, which will be released by Darla in the fall. The band will showcase new songs during two performances in early April, including a show at PA's Lounge Sunday April 6. New Radiant Storm King plays The Brass Cat in Easthampton the previous evening. Both dates also feature sets from Dr. Powerful, a band that counts among its number former members of even more legendary angular North Carolina rockers Polvo. No title has been announced yet for the next New Radiant Storm King record, its first since the release of The Steady Hand two years ago. We reviewed that latter set for Junkmedia right here.

>> We're pretty sure we read a MySpace bulletin from exemplary Philadelphia-based rockers The Swimmers last week reporting that they would have a Daytrotter session posted at the venerable music site Friday. We just checked Daytrotter.com and found nothing. Maybe The Swimmers were simply recording the session that day -- this seems likely, as the band is on tour in that general area of the country. The band's recently issued Fighting Trees has been getting a lot of play around :: clicky clicky :: HQ and we reviewed it here.

>> Fans of London-based indie rock act Fields who missed last week's MySpace blog post about the goings-on of fronter Nick Peill, drummer Henry Spenner and plastic dinosaur Godzuki certainly missed alot. Amusing photos and travelogue here. Notable items include the fact that, among other equipment, the studio Fields is using for final tracking and mixing of its planned sophomore full-length contains a piano owned by Phillip Glass and drum gear of The Walkmen. Wild and wildly amusing.

>> We're still hoping that someone out there has ripped their copy of Retriever's "Q-tip" single, which was released in 1995 or so and which we first requested here. In the meantime, however, we finally thought to search for Retriever stuff on EMusic and lo and behold the site is selling one track by the band. The song "Evil K" is the lead track on Zum #10 A CD Compilation. It scorches. You should download it from EMusic here. It is also notable on that comp includes tracks from Boyracer, June Of 44, The Raymond Brake and Vehicle Flips, although only the Vehicle Flips and Retriever tracks rise to the level of remarkable. Not that you asked, but the best June Of 44 release is the 1997 Anatomy Of Sharks EP, and one of the band's best numbers is the harrowing lead track from said EP, "Sharks And Sailors." Here it is.

June Of 44 -- "Sharks And Sailors" -- The Anatomy Of Sharks
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[buy June Of 44 records from Newbury Comics right here]
[we just noticed the copy of The Anatomy Of Sharks we bought used is autographed by two members of the band; how cool are we?]

Clicky Clicky Hardcorner: Before They Were Indie Rockers

The impending release of Julie Ocean's shiny debut Long Gone And Nearly There, as well as the hardcore-referencing Philly sports blog Choketown that our friend TymMac has started contributing to, has gotten us thinking about writing some posts about indie rockers and the hardcore bands from whence they came. You may recall that one of Julie Ocean's members formerly served time in the stunning D.C. hardcore act Swiz, whose No Punches Pulled release is as forthright and powerful a hardcore record as they come. Along the same lines, we recall years ago being amazed to learn that one of the fellows from (erstwhile?) Philly indie band-about-town Lenola once played guitar in one of New Jersey's finest straightedge bands, Turning Point. We once traded several Van Halen and Judas Priest vinyl albums for about as many hardcore records. And while we likely came out on the short end of the deal, our copy of Turning Point's It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn pressed to clear vinyl is a cherished possession. We were too lazy to rip the album, but EMusic did the heavy lifting for us by selling the band's Discography. There are a couple choice tunes below from Swiz and Turning Point. Look for our review of the Julie Ocean record in a couple weeks.

Swiz -- "Ghost" -- No Punches Pulled
Swiz -- "Toon" -- No Punches Pulled
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[buy No Punches Pulled from Jade Tree here]

Turning Point -- "Shadow Of Lies" -- Discography
Turning Point -- "Guidance" -- Discography
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[buy Turning Point's Discography from Jade Tree here]