Vice Records

Hot on the heels of a hugely successful summer tour (selling out both Brooklyn's McCarren Pool and Los Angeles' Greek Theatre!), Bloc Party will be returning to America this fall for one last round of shows in 2006, this time supporting platinum-selling artist Panic! At the Disco!  The tour will see Bloc Party hitting lots of American cities that they have never played before, so if you've been hoping that the band will make it to your town, your wish has finally come true!!  Tickets for these shows go on sale on September 9th.

"We're really excited to come back to America, especially with Panic at the Disco," said Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke. "We hope that our audience and their audience can each discover a great new band."

Bloc Party have been steadily working on the follow up to 2005's Silent Alarm with producer Jacknife Lee, who has previously worked with U2 and Snow Patrol.  The band previewed a couple of new tracks - "Waiting for the 7:18" and "Hunting for Witches" - on their recent tour, which were met with rapturous response from audiences.  It is likely the band will preview some more new tracks for this tour.

This time of year makes us want to go back to school shopping. Sharpen pencils, sniff markers, pass notes in class inviting the cute girl to the Stills and Kings of Leon show... wait, what? Yup, that's right. Canada's finest will be spending the month of September with the pride of Tennessee for a series of dates looping them across the country, with a stop in Austin to rock the Willie Nelson/Van Morrison/Tom Petty Ceberus that is Austin City Limits. All the dates can be found in the Vice Records tour section. If your city isn't listed, don't get all "now Suzie will never go out with me" - have no fear, more dates for the remainder of the year are on their way. This is only the beginning kids.

Not only are there spanking new dates, there's a new Stills video on the way. Go check out past choice clips in the A/V section and visually prepare yourself for how great a video for "In the Beginning" will look on your computer. Oh - and we're giving away a pair of tickets to each of the dates via the Stills mobile alerts. Enter here for a chance to get in on the party.

Is it a technically a "tour" if they only hit up 4 cities? Maybe we should call this one a jaunt. Come jaunt along with the Favourite Sons this September in these following cities. Their debut album Down Beside Your Beauty is in stores September 12 and if you go here you can stream the entire album weeks before release

If you're in the New York area then you can also check out the Sound Fix in-store appearance September 12 at 8pm (110 Bedford Ave).

September
1 Brooklyn @ Union Pool tickets
14 Seattle @ Chop Suey tickets
16 San Francisco @ Cafe Du Nord tickets
18 Los Angeles @ Spaceland tickets
19 Los Angeles @ Safari Sams
22 New York City @ Mercury Lounge tickets

Kip from Panthers has a new album out of past experiments under the name Cloudland Canyon, a collaboration with Simon Wojan, who guested on the last Panthers album. If you're into This Heat, early Ash Ra Temple, heavy vibes, and smoking a lid right before bed, make sure to get with this. It's out now on Tee Pee.

The Stills recently stopped by NPR's World Café program to play a few songs and chat with legendary host David Dye. The program will be broadcasted from WXPN in Philly August 9th. Find out when your local public radio station carries the show here, or listen online at the XPN site at 2pm EST. If you miss the show, you can always listen later on the NPR website.

Two things to watch out for this weekend: The Streets performance on Late Night with David Letterman is re-run on Friday night. Wish the cameras got the meeting between Skinner and Kevin Spacey on film. Watch Mike do a tribute to Kaiser Soze right at the end of "When You Wasn't Famous." Also this weekend, catch The Stills video "Destroyer" in it's MTV2 debut, on Subterranean Sunday night at 1am. links: The Streets page, Destroyer video

“All told, with 18 hours of sets by 26 bands over two days -- including a dozen that rank on my personal tally of the best shows I've seen this year -- the second installment of the Intonation Music Festival was a gift to Chicagoans who love adventurous and diverse music, and it set a high standard indeed for the rest of the summer's festivals, including Pitchfork and Lollapalooza.” CHICAGO SUN TIMES "Intonation’s Day Two was one of the best fest days of any outdoor festival we’ve ever experienced" CHICAGOIST “The Intonation Fest set a new standard for eclectic programming.” PIONEER PRESS Could the Intonation Music Festival possibly be any greater? The weather was beautiful, the crowd was amazing, the performances were some of the best we’ve ever seen. The press was fanatic (Chicago Sun-Times1, Chicago Sun-Times2, Chicago Tribune, Chicagoist1, Chicagoist2, Chicagoist3). The pictures(pic1, pic2, pic3, pic4) and video are amazing. Why is the Tyrades the best punk band in the world? How does High On Fire manage to be so massively heavy? Why is Pitchfork doing reviewing the Jon Brion set? How can anyone take seeing incredible sets from Roky Erickson, The Boredoms, and Ghostface Killah back-to-back-to-back without having their heads explode? Wish you were there. Thanks to all the bands who played and all who came. And thanks to KEXP for the podcast.

Need a quick Death From Above 1979 fix? Here's the scoop: Jesse and DFA79-producer Al-P just released the excellent MSTRKRFT album The Looks which you should get now. They're also Djing 'round the world. Sebastien was recently spotted doing some drumming with J Mascis and Broken Social Scene at Olympic Island (see photo), and also playing with a children’s improv group doing Three Billy Goats Gruff (no lie!). And not only does hot Brazilian art-punk band CSS get woozy for the band on their Sub Pop single “Let’s Make Love And Listen Death From Above,” check out the little tribute to them in their video.

You can now listen to the entire Favourite Sons album Down Beside Your Beauty a month before it’s in stores. It’s an arrestingly beautiful, intense album of dark romantic songs by Ken Griffin (ex-Rollerskate Skinny). Scenestars think they’re sexy and Spin thinks they’re, um, “awesome.” The album is in stores September 12.

The esteemed Sasha Frere-Jones weighs in on the Bore phenomenon. Read the article.