Delta Spirit Team Up With The Shins for US Tour

This tour is in support of their critically acclaimed CD, Ode To Sunshine (Which was release last summer by Rounder Records) - more on this story

He Is Legend Ink Deal With Tragic Label and Set New Release

PR reports: Tragic Hero Records is proud to announce the signing of North Carolina powerhouse, He Is Legend. Their first release with the band, It Hates You, is due out on June 23rd.

Label head, Tommy LaCombe states of his approach to working with his artists, "Tragic Hero likes to focus on the roots of each of our bands' potential. Meaning we don't look to try and change bands into something they are not." "We would rather have happy artists that are 100% satisfied with their end product, than artists that are "geared" to a specific audience." LaCombe adds, "So when I first met with He Is Legend and started talking about the new record I quickly realized that I very much wanted to work with the band and bring It Hates You into the light."

He Is Legend vocalist, Schuylar Croom, had this to say of the signing, "Working with Tommy at Tragic Hero Records has allowed us to feel like a band doing what bands are supposed to do... Make and play music without all the ridiculousness of the behind-the-scenes music business scene." When asked about the sound of the new record Croom states, "It Hates You has that classic He Is Legend sleaze with sexy new underwear." -

Lissy Trullie Hitting the Road With The Virgins and Anya Marina

Big Hassle reports: The New York City four-piece Lissy Trullie is excited to be going back on the road this spring with their friends The Virgins and Anya Marina.

They tackle the west coast for the first time this May, kicking things off in Denver on the 11th of May. But before they head for the Rockies the band holds down Le Poisson Rouge in NYC on April 30th. In June they head across the Atlantic for a string of European dates.

Self-Taught Learner is Lissy Trullie's debut EP. In 2008 they built up their reputation as one of New York's brightest new bands, playing gigs around the city and winning over curious concert goers left and right. - more on this story

Yes and Asia Team Up For US Tour

PR reports: Acclaimed British band YES launch their 24-city U.S. tour on June 26 at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, CA, featuring the classic line-up of guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White with new vocalist Benoit David and keyboardist Oliver Wakeman, son of the group's Rick Wakeman.

The tour runs through August 2 at Bethlehem, PA and includes stops at San Francisco's Warfield Theatre (July 2), L.A.'s Gibson Amphitheatre at City Walk (July 7) and Philadelphia's Tower Theater (July 28). The new dates come after this year's West Coast tour was postponed when Chris Squire was hospitalized for leg surgery.

For this tour, YES will be joined by Special Guest Asia, with Howe, a cornerstone member of both groups, performing as part of each band's set, alongside original Asia members, including ex-YES and Buggles keyboardist Geoff Downes, ELP's Carl Palmer on drums and former King Crimson and UK bassist/guitarist/vocalist John Wetton. - more on this story

Essential Foo Fighters Talk

PR reports: The Foo Fighters are the subject of a new series of limited edition books that will be released this spring and summer. Beginning with Foo Fighters: Essential Interviews 1995–1997 – which will be available for purchase on April 17 at Lulu.com– Rock Reader Books has planned three new titles that explore how Dave Grohl defied the odds to wear multiple rock hero hats.

Not only did Grohl play drums in the most successful rock trio of the 1990s, he also went on to form and front one of the most popular and most consistent bands in modern rock and roll. Documenting the early, exhilarating ascent of Dave Grohl's 'little band that could', Foo Fighters: Essential Interviews 1995–1997 looks back on the FF formation as a one-man project in the wake of Nirvana's untimely end.

The first book in the series revisits the legendary drummer turned guitarist/frontman as he recorded his eponymous debut album in October 1994. Released in mid-1995, Foo Fighters was an instant sensation, leading Grohl's band (which became permanent with the inclusion of former Sunny Day Real Estate members Nate Mendel (bass) and William Goldsmith (drums) plus Germs guitarist turned Nirvana sideman Pat Smear) to conquer the rock music world. - more on this story

HORSE the band To Release A LIMITED the vinyl

PR reports: HORSE the band announce the release of "Shapeshift (ft. Jamie Stewart)" - the first new song from their upcoming summer release, Desperate Living (Vagrant). The song will be pressed on 7" clear vinyl and features an exclusive "Shapeshift vs. Skrillex" remix by Skrillex (aka Sonny) on the b-side. The pressing will be limited to just 500 copies total.

"Skrillex somehow turned our tortuous emotional rollercoaster/time travel adventure song into this heavy industrial club banger that we all love. It's an amazing thing," commented guitarist David Isen.

The 7" is available now - only in the UK - as part of a ticket bundle in support of HORSE the band's upcoming UK tour in May here After May 11, the 7" will be available in very limited quantities worldwide through www.vagrant.com and directly from the band at their European dates. - more on this story

SeepeopleS To Giveaway New Album For Free

PR reports: September 1st, SeepeopleS will unveil their 4th studio album, Apocalypse Cow Vol. 2. In keeping with their philosophy and the times, SeepeopleS is offering their own financial bailout, by giving the entire album away for FREE! The album will be available for download at the band's site, midnight September 1, 2009.

The band is releasing a 15 track "hard cover" version on January 1st, 2010 in honor of the band's 10 year anniversary. Starting this June and throughout the summer, the new songs will be previewed at myspace.com/seepeoples. These songs represent a return to the "electronic" roots of SeepeoleS, and a return to the sound that made their second album, The Corn Syrup Conspiracy, an underground classic.

In other SeepeopleS news, SeepeopleS is happy to announce that Matt McDonald, formerly of Perpetual Groove, is joining the band as the full time keyboard player. McDonald has played a handful of shows with SeepeopleS as well as playing with Bradford's other band, the electronic big beat act, Freepeoples Frequency. Matt is joining the band as a permanent part of the renewed sound that made SeepeopleS what it is today. Former keyboardist, Peter Keys left the band at the beginning of 2009 to begin touring in Lynyrd Skynrd, filling the shoes of the late Billy Powell. - more on this story

This Is A Shakedown!

Kayos reports: Barreling out of the Cleveland music scene, this fresh new music act took a plethora of influences and made a hot, steamy, gumbo of a record that is boiling out of the pot. Taking pieces of industrial, punk, metal, goth, techno, R&B, and dance music, This Is A Shakedown! is releasing their debut album Love Kills on May 5 through Reversed Image Unlimited.

Launched in 2008, This Is A Shakedown!'s Brandon Zano (vocals/guitar), Daniel Lee (bass/synth), Stephen Nicholson (drums), and Justin Nyilas (keyboards/programmer) blend wild electro-groove with heavy rock. Known for notoriously riotous live sets, This Is A Shakedown!'s music gets your blood pumping, your heart pounding, and your body shaking. Tracks like "Circles," "You Make Me Wanna," and "Can't Stop" are instant sparks, electrifying dance floors and charging the psyche to remember those groovy hooks. They even took Frank Sinatra's "My Funny Valentine" and transformed it into a slinky, sexy ballad suitable for a punk rock prom.

Multi-platinum award-winning producer/engineer Michael Seifert is at the production helm on this project. Seifert tapped producer/engineer Sean Beavan (best known for mixing and producing music by Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, System of a Down, and Slayer) to mix the album. Digging into these ground-breaking roots, Seifert and Beavan bring that dark magic to This Is A Shakedown!'s already unique sound. - more on this story

Sodastream's Karl Smith Returns with Lee Memorial

PR reports: Karl Smith, half of the ex-Rough Trade signings, Sodastream has a new outfit. We like to call them…Lee Memorial. Sodastream released 4 albums, 5 EPs and a live recording between 1999 and 2006. They toured Europe 7 times, as well as the US and Japan and cult Radio 1 DJ, John Peel once described them as, "Quite wonderful".

Lee Memorial is named after a guesthouse in Kolkatta, India where Karl's family used to stay when he was a child. (Karl lived in Bangladesh and India until he was thirteen). Smith wanted to try something different to Sodastream with his latest project and the desire was to present his new songs with a full band. Recruiting Laura MacFarlane, one time drummer with Sleater-Kinney and founder of Melbourne outfit Ninety Nine, Tom Lyngcoln from Nation Blue (lead guitar), Madeline Spawton who has no ragged pedigree - which in many ways is a good thing - plays clarinet and cello, and Matt Bailey (ex-Paradise Motel) plays bass.

The chemistry of this line-up was demonstrated in the studio where Lee Memorial managed to record eleven of the tracks form the forthcoming debut album, The Lives Of Lee Memorial in just four days.

The first FREE MP3 sample of these wonderful new recordings, Long Days In Bed, can be downloaded - here

Hockey Album Hype

Capitol Records reports: For a band that named its forthcoming Capitol Records debut album Mind Chaos, which will be released on August 25th, the collective thinking on modern dance-rockers Hockey is already crystal-clear: this is a band set for a worldwide breakout this year.

With a cohesive album marked by ingenious, assured song craft and fresh, loose-limbed new-wave-flavored dance-rock propulsion -- "debauched, joy-inducing floor-fillers, " according to Arena Magazine -- Hockey may have already located and embodied the zeitgeist of 2009 with lyrics and an outlook that's both "soulful and knowingly sarcastic" (Arena).

Hockey played four hotly-anticipated gigs at the famed South By Southwest music festival in mid-March, following a series of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn shows that stoked a chorus of on-line cheers and a notice in Paste Magazine's 10 New Artists to Watch in 2009. - more hype

Serena Ryder Spring Tour Plans

PR reports: Serena Ryder has unveiled a slate of spring tour dates, which begin next week with a headline show at Minneapolis' Hard Rock Café, set for Monday, April 20th.

From there, Ryder will join her Atlantic labelmate Paolo Nutini for a number of West Coast shows, beginning April 22nd at Slim's in San Francisco. Next, Serena will set out on the road alongside Eric Hutchinson, joining him for a series of May dates, kicking off May 5th at Philadelphia's World Café Live.

Furthermore, Ryder will be among the star-studded lineup performing at WXPN's annual XPoNential Music Festival, set for July 26th at Camden, New Jersey's Wiggins Park. - more on this story

.... Road Trip: Tennessee Sounds Good to Me Part II: Memphis

For days the words were stuck in my mind, swirling around endlessly like the rhythm emanating from a joyous drum circle. "I'm goin' to Graceland/Graceland/Memphis, Tennessee…" Thank you Paul Simon! - Read the full Tennessee Sounds Good to Me Part II: Memphis Road Trip article

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