January 14, 2009

Today's Hotness: The Beatings, Video Nasties, Morrissey

The Beatings, Live, July 2007
>> Boston-slash-New York based noise rock titans The Beatings will begin recording a new record at the end of this month at Liberty And Union Recording Co. in beautiful Taunton, Mass. The new set, expected to be released this fall, is the first since the quartet's 2006 collection Holding On To Hand Grenades, which we raved about here, among other places. The Beatings make a rare live appearance Feb. 21 with labelmates The Spanish Armada at Beachcomber in Quincy, Mass. While fall seems a long way off, most of The Beatings' various associated projects -- all released through its bi-city label enterprise Midriff Records -- will be busy in the coming months. Beatings guitarist and singer Eldridge Rodriquez, a/k/a E.R., will issue his second full-length solo effort, You Are Released, May 26. Sometimes Rodriguez sidemen Greg Lyon and L. Tiburon Pacifico's Spanish Armada will release a record of its own March 9. If you are not hip to The Beatings or the rest of the band's under the Midriff shingle, next month is an ideal time to get familiar: Feb. 3 Midriff will launch (re-launch?) its ecommerce enterprise. So dig it. And while you're digging that, let's throw out some free Beatings rock and roll, namely our favorite track off of Holding On To Hand Grenades. We're too busy to re-rip or transcode for you, so you're getting an M4A file.

The Beatings -- "Villains" -- Holding On To Hand Grenades
[right click and save as]
[buy Beatings records from Midriff right here]

>> Here are some new facts to add to the file you are building on up-and-coming London quintet Video Nasties. On the heels of the November release of the band's very good and surprising Albatross EP, Video Nasties have disclosed that its forthcoming full-length debut is titled On All Fours. Three tracks from the set, whose mastering was only just completed, are now streaming at the band's MySpace cabin right here. "HNB" continues to mine the new rough-and-ready rock sound the band began exploring with "Albatross," and touts raw, throaty vocals, thundering, dense production and some discordant guitar stabs in the chorus. "Jellybean" is more of the same while being more melodic and more discordant at the same time, and we expect if the lyrics weren't so obscured by the mix we might harbor a little grumble at there not being much there. "Old Flowers" is a promising anthem that we think we'll be listening to a lot in the coming days. The band launches a two-week tour of the UK tonight, and you can inspect all of the tour dates at the aforementioned MySpace.

>> This is exciting: the flip-side of the vinyl version of Morrissey's forthcoming single "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris" is a live version of the late-period Smiths classic "The Death Of A Disco Dancer," according to the NME. The single will be out Feb. 9 in the U.K. It will also be released as a double CD single with two other b-sides, "Because Of My Poor Education" and "Shame Is The Name." Clearly, Moz wants all your pocket money. The latter cut features vocal contributions from The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde. Morrissey's next full-length Years Of Refusal will be issued in the U.S. on Lost Highway Feb. 7. We've heard it, and it is awesome.

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