Cowbell Magazine, March 2011

peter bjorn & John

Swedish popsters work it out

indie rock with a slice of green

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mountain goats John Darnielle sees the future on

All Eternals Deck

$4.95 | ISSUE no. 10

plus Radiohead, Rye Rye, Akron/Family, PJ Harvey, STRFKR, Telekinesis, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, J Mascis, Cave Singers, Lucinda Williams

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> music 04 Rye Rye ready to Go! Pop! Bang!

06 STRFKR’s party at the end of the world 07 Telekinesis’ strange powers 08 Cut Copy, the synthpop wizards of Oz 10 Pains of Being Pure at Heart: 2 cute 2 B true?

12 Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis goes fullon solo with Several Shades of Why

24

The Man on the Silver Mountain The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle— hockey buff, death metal junkie, songwriting treasure—gets mystic on All Eternals Deck cover photo by jason arthurs and matt wittmeyer

14 Peter Bjorn and John get back to their power-pop roots

John Darnielle, Feb. 12, 2011, in the woods of Durham, NC. Photographed by Jason Arthurs.

> movies

18 Music City Indie Queens: Nashville’s got a bumper crop of talented young ladies poised to take over the world 29 Lead Review: On No Witch, Cave Singers brews up a cauldron of full-on rock ’n’ roll.

46 Soylent Green Spoiler alert!

30 CD Reviews Akron/ Family, Ray Davies, Decemberists, Dum Dum Girls, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, Matthew Friedberger, Lucinda Williams and more

48 Sharktopus Schlock and roll!

> green mind

49 DVD reviews Mad Men, 127 Hours, Skyline, Stieg Larsson, The Tourist and more

40 The Opinionist Mark Bittman leaps to the op-ed page

44 Love Your Work Big Love’s lady power

43 Kill Your Junk Mail

> from the editor

Mountain Man “When I hear the screeching weathervane, in the wild wind and the pissing rain, I know that one of us, I’m not saying who, has got rocks in her head. The rain comes through the open window, but you don’t think so. I sure do love you, I sure do love you.”

—the Mountain Goats, “Orange Ball of Hate” I don’t know for sure if “Orange Ball of Hate” was the first Mountain Goats song I ever heard. In fact, it’s likely “Noche del Guajolote,” off the legendary 1994 Walt Records 7-inch EP compilation I Like Walt, claimed that title by a nose. But it was “Orange Ball of Hate,” a song that showed up on some mixtape floating around my dorm, that sealed the deal. That verse—witty, tender and oh, so bitter—launched an obsession. Ever since, I’ve been living and dying with the work of this month’s cover boy, John Darnielle, a guy who through the early part of the Mountain Goats’ existence was chief cook and bottle washer.

Being a fan of the Mountain Goats in those early years was not an uncomplicated matter.

Darnielle seemed as possessed of his singular muse—flights of historical fancy, intense-andtwisted character studies, wistful globe-spanning travelogues—as he was dispossessed with the trappings of standard music industry success. His music came out erratically. At times it appeared in bursts, a machine-gun blast of singles and tapes and comps and one-sided 12inch EPs with artwork etched into the flip side (and on a dozen different tiny indie labels besides). Then there were the droughts, like the interminable, totally unbearable wait for the release of 2000’s stunning The Coroner’s Gambit.

At the heart of all this music, there seemed to be one constant: a sense of pervasive disquiet in the songs’ characters and, perhaps, their puppetmaster. It was a disquiet you couldn’t help but think might be behind the label-hopping. It was as if the man couldn’t find a home.

It’s a heck of a lot easier to follow the Mountain Goats these days. The band (now fleshed out by bass thumper Peter Hughes and Superchunk skinsman/“The Best Show on WFMU” crank caller Jon Wurster) hadn’t made a label switch since 2003, when Tallahassee marked the first of an eventual six straight releases on the venerable 4AD imprint. The jump to Merge for the brand new All Eternals Deck (the 17th officially sanctioned full-length MG album; like Darnielle, we don’t count the unreleased-but-leaked Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg) should not be read as a return to the band’s wandering days.

But it is a return in some ways. There’s a frantic energy to the music of All Eternals Deck that’s seemed a little dialed down on recent efforts.

Darnielle tells J. Bennett in this month’s cover story (p. 24), “[W]hat I’m about is the comic power of darkness. That in your personal darkness there are these moments of comic triumph that you can really revel in.”

And that—through all the label switches, scattershot release schedules and hundreds of unforgettable songs—is probably the true common thread running through all of Darnielle’s music.

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Precocious popster Rye Rye shakes up a startling debut / by Raymond Cummings

yeisha Berrain is thinking about going to col-

lege someday soon. Right now, though, she’s got more pressing concerns: the impending release of debut album Go! Pop! Bang! (N.E.E.T. Recordings), playing Coachella in April, and, oh yeah, a 1-year-old daughter. Of course, your average 20-year-old doesn’t have Baltimore rapper Rye Rye’s problems—but then again, Rye Rye is hardly your average 20-year-old.

When, for example, Rye exclaims, “Of course it was amazing,” she isn’t talking about her first keg party; no, the one-time cheerleader is gushing about cutting pom-pom monster stomp “Shake Twist Drop” with Neptunes producer extraordinaire Pharrell Williams. A comment like “too many to name” isn’t about all the boys she’s crushing on; it’s a coy prelude to shout-outs to fellow up-and-coming Baltimore MCs like Greenspan and Smash. Rye’s professed idols include the likes of Jay-Z, Missy Elliott and fashion designer Brian Lichtenberg; given the cultural circles mentor/pal/N.E.E.T. head M.I.A. runs in, it isn’t difficult to imagine she’ll wind up collaborating with all three in one way or another.

The onomatopoeiac Go! Pop! Bang! showcases the attributes that began to garner Rye hometown buzz when the Blaqstarr-produced “Shake It to the Ground” blew up in 2006 and raw one-offs like “Bang” and “Tic Toc” started surfacing online: a syntax-precise, rapid-fire flow; an uncanny selfconfidence; and the myopic invulnerability of youth.

And because on the album the former step-team dancer/marching band member is surrounded by producers who get that less texture is more—Williams, Blaqstarr, M.I.A., Herve and Sinden, among others—Rye presents as larger-than-life, running roughshod over skeletal, double-dutch rhythms with bombshell boasts and tart-text quips. On record, she’s like an overadrenalized kid—so it’s odd when she explains that motherhood has actually made the process of writing, recording and developing as an artist easier.

“Easier because it’s motivation—that’s my responsibility now, so I have to focus and be on point for the baby,” she says, sounding wiser than her tender years. “I’ve gotta make her proud to have a mom that’s actually being productive.”

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Death Magnetic A

The clock may be ticking, but STRFKR is going down partying / by Jeanne Fury

s a lonely 21-year-old, Josh Hodges would lie

Reptilians

March 8 [ Polyvinyl ]

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in bed at night and try to comprehend that some day he would cease to exist.

“I’ve always been really interested in death,” says the STRFKR frontman. “The potential of losing everything, even my sense of self… it’s just overwhelming.” A meditation retreat to Thailand introduced him to Eastern philosophies on death that put things in much-needed perspective. In the parlance of noted Western philosopher Butt-Head: “You need stuff that sucks to have stuff that’s cool.”

Inspired in part by the death of Hodges’ grandmother, the Portland, Ore., band’s second full-length, Reptilians, takes a Zen approach to the end of life.

But this isn’t gooey, new agey crap. The danceable party jams are full of brisk, dulcet tones and zippy beats that refuse to get mired in the existential.

Psych grooves à la Flaming Lips lend additional dimensions, a must for the songwriter.

“‘Bury Us Alive’ and ‘Julius’ are the strong electropop tracks, but I didn’t want a whole album of that,” Hodges says.

To stay fresh, he got by with a little help from his friends. “I [had] never let anyone help in the writing process, but this time I did,” he says. And he worked with producer Jacob Portrait instead of sitting in his room and futzing around until he happened upon the sounds he was looking for.

Hodges also got high with a little help from his friends. “I started smoking pot again while we were making the album, which I hadn’t done in years. I think that influenced how we were doing things in the studio,” he laughs.

His death fixation is still alive and kicking, but Hodges has finally got a grip. “Everything that makes us happy is gonna go away,” he says. “It’s comforting to me to think of it as a universal problem. There’s no victim in this. This is life.”

photo by sarah cass

Paranormal Activity S eattle songwriter Michael Benjamin Lerner,

a.k.a. Telekinesis, sounds incredibly cheery on the phone. So cheery, in fact, that one believes him completely when he says, “I always looked at myself as someone who couldn’t write a sad song.”

And yet, Lerner’s new album, 12 Desperate Straight Lines (Merge) seems comfortable with darker hues. The pop pep that characterized Telekinesis’ self-titled debut is still there, but it’s cut with a strong dose of disappointment, as the 24-year-old multi-instrumentalist mixes New Order and the New Pornographers until you can’t tell the difference. Though his new road band features bassist Jason Narducy, who has played with Robert Pollard and Bob Mould, and guitarist/former Blood Brother Cody Votolato, Lerner recorded everything himself with producer Chris Walla as on the debut.

“I was between bands at the time,” Lerner says.

Nevertheless, he went in wanting to make a more self-consciously “rock” album. “I think a lot of it has to do with how many shows I have played since that first record was made. We toured pretty constantly photo by kyle johnson

Michael Lerner exerts his will, loudly, as Telekinesis / by Joe Gross

for about two and half years, playing shows in front of people and taking the first album into this whole different rock ’n’ roll place.”

Personal chaos was a big factor as well. “I was at a really weird point in my life,” Lerner reveals. The drama of a breakup and problems with his hearing— “I had this fluid thing in my left ear that made it feel like I was on a boat all the time”—was channeled into songs such as “Please Ask for Help” and “50 Way.” But not once does he hint that he feels sorry for himself.

Indeed, Lerner sounds nothing but grateful for his success. “I totally didn’t plan to be a songwriter,” he says. “I just wanted to be a drummer in a band full time. I started writing songs, then just taught myself guitar and bass and piano.”

Which means yes, Lerner is a singing drummer. “I will be rocking the Phil Collins/Don Henley thing,” he promises. “Hopefully, it will be louder than those guys. Very, very loud.”

12 Desperate Straight Lines Available Now [ Merge ]

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Intercontinental Divide

Technical precision meets slapdash improvisation on Aussie synth-poppers Cut Copy’s dizzying, Afro-beat-tinged Zonoscope / by j. poet

D

an Whitford never intended to start a band. The Mel-

bourne, Australia-based DJ behind Cut Copy’s mash-up of indie rock, new wave and club beats just wanted to make mixtapes that combined all the music he liked. But then the resulting sonic blasts of hip-hop, new wave, punk, disco and space music went and made the one-man jam, y’know, massively popular in his homeland. When his first releases—single “1981” and EP I Thought of Numbers (both 2001)—took off, he hunkered down to create a proper album.

Tim Hoey, who Whitford enlisted into the makeshift band as guitarist/bassist/ keyboardist, recounts: “Cut Copy started as Dan’s bedroom producer project.

When he started writing [2004’s] Bright Like Neon Love, our first proper album, he asked me to play bass and guitar on some of the demos. I used my four-track to record guitar and bass over the digital tracks he’d given me. It was an interesting marriage: my naïve, badly recorded instrumentation played against the more structured, mechanical, hi-fi arrangements Dan made on his computer. Our drummer, Mitchell [Scott], was my housemate at the time. He had a drum kit he was intending to sell on eBay when we asked him to record some drums in Dan’s studio.

We put together a group to play a garage band version of the record we’d made and started doing shows.”

Cut Copy’s gigs struck a nerve with rockers, club kids and dance fanatics.

They toured Europe and America, and, when Daft Punk embarked on their Never Ever Land tour of Oz, Cut Copy opened.

Their sophomore album, In Ghost Colours, dropped in 2008, entering the Australian charts at No. 1. They toured heavily to support the record, then dropped off the map to work on Zonoscope (all their releases have been on Modular Recordings), an al8

cowbell

We don’t like things to be too immediate. The kind of albums I enjoy are the ones you tend to appreciate over time. I like songs that puzzle you.”

—tim hoey

bum that took more than a year to make.

“We built a studio in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Melbourne,” Hoey explains. “Because we weren’t in an expensive space constantly watching the clock and wondering how much money we were spending, it opened up the creative process to a lot more experimentation.

It was really the first time we’d been in a room together and worked through ideas over a long period of time. In the past, the writing process has been restricted to our bedrooms and exchanging files over the Internet. The process felt a lot more organic this time around.”

The band’s approach has always been collaborative, but being able to play together in a proper rehearsal space moved the music in unexpected directions.

“The songs begin in the cramped space of Dan’s bedroom,” Hoey says. “The dude uses a Prophet [synthesizer] as a pillow, and you can’t take a step without tripping over a record or effects box. Moving the studio out of our bedrooms and into the warehouse gave us room to try out different approaches. We could loop up sections of ideas and play them over and over again, swapping instruments from time to time. Sometimes these sessions would last for hours. We’d record everything, then go back to distill the freeform ideas into songs. As we hone our craft as musicians—and I use that in the loosest sense of the word—and become more confident in our abilities, the songwriting process can only benefit.

“I think the warehouse once belonged to the Little River Band. There was a lot of vintage equipment lying around, and a lot of junk that we used to make odd percussion sounds. We hooked up contact mikes to old rusty ladders and banged on empty wine bottles and pots and pans, as well as traditional percussion instruments such as bells, blocks, different kinds of timbales and bongos. The sonic palette is quite different from In Ghost Colours. This album has a more rhythmic and hypnotic nature. The idea is that the album begins as some kind of transcendental medita-

tion and ends in this euphoric, hedonistic a motif that ran throughout the record to blowout.” give the songs a cohesive nature.

Cut Copy have no plans to become a “When we approach an arrangement, world music band any time soon, but we tend to focus on texture. Our albums tracks like “Blink and You’ll Miss a Revoare quite sonically dense. The idea behind lution” and “Take Me Over” have that disthat is that every time you hear a song, tinct Afro-beat-era Talking Heads feel. you’ll find a new element in it. We don’t “There was period in time when art and like things to be too immediate. The kind music were very much informed by African of albums I enjoy are the ones you tend to music and culture,” Hoey says. “Eno, David appreciate over time. I like songs that puzByrne, Konk, Liquid Liquid and zle you. When you hear them, you Paul Simon used African music hear something you aren’t totally to add color to their songs. This familiar with and you can’t wait was an idea that interested us to listen to them again.” while we were making this alZonoscope also features one bum. We utilized the rhythms of the more straightforward and percussive nature of those rock tunes the band’s ever cut. records while we were creating “Where I’m Going” is a bright, Zonoscope is the music for Zonoscope. We bubbly tune that harks back to available now thought that it would become the sound of ’60s Merseybeat. from Modular.

“I think that song’s more in line with psychedelic pop than straight-up rock,” Hoey says. “Every Cut Copy album has a healthy balance of rock and dance elements. It’s always been about the contrast between more organic ‘traditional’ instruments and the bedroom producer/synthetic instruments. I think there are purists on both sides of the rock and dance community whose attitude will never change, but the boundaries between these two genres have been blurred somewhat over the past two decades. As a band, we’re open to all kinds of genres. Dan and I still DJ and put together DJ mixes for every record we make. We like the idea of both disciplines working in tandem with one another.”

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Push It Good NY nu-gazers the Pains of Being Pure at Heart are growing in fits and starts / by Michaelangelo Matos

G

iven that their too-cutesy-to-be-true moniker—it was, no lie, nicked

from a children’s story—you can be forgiven if you thought the Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s music would be so gooey it’d melt in your hands. ¶ Of course, now you know you were wrong. No shame. Lots of people were caught off guard by the New York indie-pop quartet of singerguitarist Kip Berman, bassist Alex Naidus, keyboardist Peggy Wang and drummer Kurt Feldman. Their self-titled debut was startlingly fresh—despite its obvious nods to noisy, mid-’80s British indies like the Jesus & Mary Chain and Talulah Gosh, not to mentions more recent artists such as Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura. But the driving, straight-ahead beats and chewy tunes soon announced themselves as the Pains’ alone. ¶ That’s also true of the new Belong (Slumberland), recorded last summer in New York with vocal overdubs done in London while on tour.

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“We toured a lot. It sort of shaped how we wrote songs,” says Berman. “Before, we didn’t have any expectation of anyone hearing it. When we played it for people, some things probably seemed boring or not exciting, and other things were exciting. With this, it’s, ‘Oh, we’re going to have to write these songs for a whole bunch of people now, so they should be more dynamic.’ That experience, the ups and downs of touring and playing music for people, like we did in 2009 and 2010, kind of shaped the kinds of songs we wanted to write. I certainly think we went beyond what we did on the first album, but not, like, in second-album clichés.

I think we pushed beyond that.”

So, no horn sections for the Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

They haven’t gone chillwave; jam sessions are out, and so are most things that fall under the broad rubric of “sophomore studio experiments.” (Though they’re not averse to remixes—the fall 2009 Higher Than the Stars EP featured four Pains songs reworked, the big-deal one being Saint Etienne’s “Visits Lord Spank Remix” of the title cut.)

And all that touring notwithstanding, the group hasn’t gone chops-wild.

“We’re not trying to prove we’re good musicians to anyone,” admits Berman. “I like different approaches to playing music. We’re not expert musicians who can do anything, like, ‘Now we’re going to do this post-punk fusion.’ We have limits. We push beyond what we can actually do. That’s what’s exciting to me about bands. I like bands like the Ramones or the Exploding Hearts, or even Titus Andronicus, more contemporary-wise, where there’s a kind of ideology to the band that sort of forces them forward to create music even if you’re not hired to play on the new Garth Brooks record.

You’re in a band for a reason.”

Berman says that one of the reasons he and his band mates got together is that they began club-hopping at the same time a number of like-minded units were forming in and around Brooklyn, clustered around labels such as Captured Tracks and Slumberland.

“When we were starting out,” explains Berman, “the bands we went out to see were Crystal Stilts and Cause Co-Motion! Vivian Girls were coming out at that time. We were almost more like fans of a lot of bands that were happening, like My Teenage Stride. There were a lot of local pop-oriented bands, a noisy kind of pop. There was an indie-pop tradition—a more punkish approach. Crystal Stilts were really dark and alluring. Aside from Slumberland’s tradition”—early releases by Lilys, Velocity Girl, Stereolab and the like—“we also knew Crystal Stilts were putting out a record with them. It was the best of both worlds: Here you have an aesthetic that really influences the music we make. And [they were] putting out contemporary bands that matched that aesthetic. It’s one guy putting out bands he likes, not an A&R man looking Belong will be available for commercial potential—because there is March 29 from no commercial potential.”

Slumberland.

Which is not quite true anymore: If the small-but-encouraging breakthroughs by Wavves, Best Coast and Vivian Girls are any indication, fuzz-laden indie-pop is bigger business than usual in the U.S. The Pains have become festival regulars, tour constantly, and with Belong, they’ve expanded their sound without straying too far from its pebbly, nuggety roots. That’s partly due to the album’s producer, Flood, the British post-punk veteran who’s worked with Nine Inch Nails and U2, and its mixer, Alan Moulder, who gave My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless its overwhelming sheen. You can hear that thicker, stickier sound right away on Belong’s title track, which opens the album: There are points when the guitars sound like they’re playing the musicians rather than the other way around. (“Belong” even throws in an early-’90s-style breakbeat at the end just to extend the aural wink.)

The songs themselves, though, are classic Pains boygirl laments (“I wonder what it’s like to be liked,” Berman

We’re not trying to prove we’re good musicians to anyone.”

—kip berman

moons on “Even in Dreams”) and dissections (“Heart in Your Heartbreak,” which glides along on Wang’s synth chords). Still, Berman feels Belong differs plenty from the debut on the words level.

“I think in a lot of ways, the new one is different in the lyrical approach,” he figures. “The first record did have a lot of reflections on things that happened 10 years ago or eight years ago or whatever. It’s sort of making some kind of rationalization of it. … On the new record, there’s a lot less of that. It’s more immediate; there’s a sense of not knowing what the resolution is, in the midst of it, if you can make sense of it. The new record is more like being in the midst of conflict. You don’t know who’s going to win or lose; you don’t even know what’s going to happen.”

Speaking of which, I’d always wondered about the scenario of the debut’s “Young Adult Friction” about having semi-anonymous sex in a public library—was it based on real life? Berman doesn’t volunteer details, but indicates that it is, with a heavy patina of fictionalization: “It’s a terrible thing to do, to write about the past. There’s a kind of arrogance to rewrite your own history and have an advantage in creating this resolution of your life. It’s kind of self-aggrandizing: ‘Ha ha ha, I made a clever pun about this thing that happened.’ They’re pop songs, and they’re enjoyable for people to listen to, hopefully. With this [album], it’s even more honest, unadorned—more like trying to get at the emotional core of language, and not just showing off.”

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Shades of J Mascis is a quiet man — not particularly demonstrative

or animated. Even when he takes the stage as the master of maelstrom with his venerable Dinosaur Jr., the passion of his guitar ministrations manifests physically in just a rocking motion that’s sedate by adrenalized rock standards. ¶ But as Mascis hides behind his curtain of gray hair, delivering lyrics in a voice charitably described as unique, he unleashes a tumult through his amps not unlike a magnitude 9.5 earthquake set to music. Mascis’ guitar squall is a palpable sonic force, a visceral wall of melodic noise that sounds as though it could break glass, bend steel and alter heartbeats.

But on Mascis’ new solo album, Several Shades of Why (Sub Pop), the pummeling guitarist unplugs (mostly) and delivers a largely acoustic album with an uncharacteristically delicate atmosphere informed more by acoustic folk elegance than electric punk bombast. Although Mascis—who began his career as a hardcore drummer—has put just his name on a number of releases, this is the first time he has emerged from a studio with one, making Several Shades of Why the perpetually engaged guitarist’s first true solo album.

Mascis spoke with Cowbell—in his signature opaque style—about his new album, his approach to the acoustic guitar and the slipperiness of inspiration.

You’ve done acoustic albums in the past, but Several Shades of Why still feels unusual for a guy whose name could be the Italian translation of “volume and lots of it.” Did this one evolve differently for you?

Oh yeah. Martin and Me was a live album, and this was a new album done in the studio. And there’s a lot of people on the record, too.

Did you write these songs specifically for the album?

Most of them. A couple of parts I had hanging around.

Do you tend to write acoustic songs differently than you write electric songs?

No, not really. Whatever comes in, I use it for what’s appropriate for acoustic.

Who are some of the guests on Several Shades of Why?

Ben [Bridwell] from Band of Horses, Kurt Vile, Matt Valentine [from the Golden Road], Pall [Jenkins] from Black Heart Procession, Sophie [Trudeau] from Godspeed [You! Black Emperor] and Suzanne

Mascis [Thorpe], who used to be in Mercury Rev. And my friend Kurt [Fedora].

Were these people that you specifically wanted, or did they just present themselves by happenstance?

They were people I asked. I asked a lot of people to just kind of play whatever they wanted and I used what pieces worked for me. They could have played a lot of stuff on any one song and I just picked out little parts of it that I liked.

Did you have more songs than actually wound up on the album?

I have one that I’m using for a b-side. I’ll usually stop somewhere in the middle of a song if I know I’m not going to use it on the record. I usually won’t have anything finished but what’s on the album.

Do you feel like you’re guided by different influences when you’re working in an acoustic setting, or is your muse essentially the same?

It’s probably slightly different. It’s more the acoustic stuff I listen to than the electric stuff.

What kind of acoustic stuff do you tend to listen to?

I like English folky stuff, like Pentangle, Fairport Convention and the offshoots, and solo albums from them. Those are the two main bands that everything shoots off of.

I don’t know. It’s possible.

[Laughs] I haven’t really examined it too closely.

Is that something that reveals itself long after you’ve finished an album?

Several Shades of Why hits stores March 15 from Sub Pop.

Sometimes. Or it’s about something when you’re writing a song and then [you] forget about until later.

You’ve got a fairly sizable solo catalog but, as you mentioned, Martin and Me is live, as are The Peel Sessions and CBGB’s, and J and Friends Sing And Chant For Amma is sort of a specific and themed side project. That means that Several Shades of Why is really your first true solo studio album. Why haven’t you done more albums like this?

I don’t know. I guess I always end up putting drums and guitars on something.

Naturally, I had to think about it to stop myself from doing it on this album. I decided not to have drums and have some limits to work within.

Do you like playing the drums as a way of sitting back and doing something that’s not so primarily creative?

Yeah, it’s just different. There’s less pressure on me to sing mostly. It’s good to take a break from singing and electricity and amps breaking. I like the fact that with drums, you don’t have to deal with that.

It’s more physical, I guess. You can vent a lot more on the drums.

What do you have planned for the live presentation of Several Shades of Why?

I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about that. I’d like to postpone thinking about that until the last moment.

Are you contemplating Dinosaur Jr. songs that you might include in the set?

Probably.

Have you started projects with the intention of doing this kind of album that wound up turning into what you normally do?

Yeah. And I always kind of liked Bob Dylan’s guitar playing, but no one seems to talk about it much.

Well, the words tend to overwhelm people so no one seems to notice what he’s doing with his hands.

Clearly you do a lot of work. Do you compartmentalize with all of your projects, or is it all just you?

Yeah.

drums and somebody else is writing the songs, so that’s different, for sure. You add what you can on drums, but it doesn’t do that much to the sound.

Were the songs on Several Shades of Why inspired by anything specific in the world or in your life?

Yeah, sort of. I started an acoustic album with drums before the Dino reunion, but most of the songs went into Dino and they became more electric again. A couple of them I have on this album didn’t have drums. One did and I took the drums out.

Richard Thompson, Bert Jansch, Dave Swarbrick…

J Mascis turns the volume down and channels his inner folkie on new solo project Several Shades of Why / by Brian Baker

No, on some of those things, I’m playing

COWBELL

13

Good-Labor Policy

Peter Bjorn and John work it out on their latest pop monster, Gimme Some / by K. Ross Hoffman

B

ack before the whistling, before the bongos,

before the sweetly quirky love songs and cutesy cartoon videos, before they started cropping up on stages with Kanye West and mixtapes with Drake— in other words, before their ubiquitous, deliriously tuneful 2006 breakout hit, “Young Folks”—Peter Bjorn and John were just a regular old rock band.

On their first two records—2002’s self-titled debut and 2004’s terrific, tragically overlooked Falling Out—the Stockholm, Sweden-based threesome sported a sound as simple and straightforward as their no-frills moniker, firmly rooted in the sharp hooks, crunchy guitar riffs and barely contained energy of power-pop, garage rock and new wave.

And that side of the band has been hidden in plain view ever since.

Consider, for instance, the pummeling, fuzzedout “Objects of My Affection,” the tune that preceded “Young Folks” on 2006’s surprisingly eclectic Writer’s Block. Truth be told, despite diversions like 2008’s all-instrumental Seaside Rock, and the electronic flirtations and textural emphasis of their last album, the curiously moody, skeletally sparse Living Thing, they’ve never lost their passion for noisy, no-nonsense rock ’n’ roll—as anyone who has caught their tremendously energetic live shows will attest.

For their fantastic, fiery new set, Gimme Some (they seem to have a thing for two-word titles),

“

PB+J set out to harness some of that rawer energy, deliberately seeking what bassist/songwriter Bjorn Yttling describes as “a more focused experience” by stripping down to basics—setting aside the sonically adventurous streak that’s been with them from the beginning—and simply playing live in the studio.

“We did sort of get it right this time; leaving out all the distractions, not bringing in other elements,” says Yttling. “We love lots of other things too—ESG, hip-hop, ballads—but this time we just wanted to go for garage pop. We almost failed and brought in a symphony orchestra, but we kicked them out.”

“Breaker, Breaker,” which was released to the internet in January along with its suitably spastic, hyper-speed video, gave fans a small but potent taste of what was in store: A furiously kinetic, sub-two-minute mad dash, the song channels the primal intensity of acts like Buzzcocks and the Damned without sacrificing an ounce of melody.

Not everything on the record is quite so aggressive—or, to use Yttling’s word, “harsh”—though at least one cut, the equally brief, brisk and bilious “Black Book,” is an even more extreme snotburst.

(Hint: For maximum impact and a killer one-two punch, try listening to the album’s tracks in alphabetical order.) But a similar spirit prevails throughout, with other key reference points including the Jam, Elvis Costello c. 1978, and the classic garage sides of the Nuggets box sets (including Swedish antecedents the Tages.) Yttling

We did sort of get it right this time; leaving out all the distractions, not bringing in other elements. We love lots of other things too—ESG, hiphop, ballads—but this time we just wanted to go for garage pop.” —Bjorn Yttling

14

cowbell

concisely sums up the record’s guiding influences as “distorted rock songs from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s,” which just about covers it.

You could also add the ’90s to that list. That decade was the heyday of impossibly sunny Swedish power-poppers Eggstone, an early inspiration for the trio, and whose frontman, Per Sunding, was Gimme Some’s producer. Previously, the band had always handled production duties themselves.

Yttling, who has an impressive production résumé of his own, speaks with reverence about Sunding’s Tambourine Studios in Malmo—the birthplace of records by Swedish indie greats including the Cardigans, the Ark and Bob Hund—which he says had a major effect on the album’s sound, particularly the drums and vocals. Even more crucially, the decision to work with an outside producer enabled the band to focus more on playing live in the studio. But he also notes that making an album in this fashion “wouldn’t have been as good a couple Photo by johan bergmark

years back—we weren’t as good at playing live.”

In 2009, the band spent seven weeks opening for Depeche Mode on their North American tour, an experience Yttling says “taught us a great deal about playing live. You gotta play well from the first minute; there’s no excuse… you gotta expend energy. It’s your job. Opening up for someone else—we hadn’t done that ever—that taught us how to be a great rock band. Even if you’re at [Depeche Mode’s] level, and have sold 150 million records or whatever, just playing your old hits isn’t enough; you still gotta work it, bring the energy out to the audience and put your best in it.” (Incidentally, one of those old hits, “Enjoy the Silence,” gets a sly name-check in Gimme Some’s lyrics.)

The importance of hard work also emerged as a vague, unintended lyrical theme to the record, a contrast to the more forgiving, motivational spirit of Living Thing.

“If the last album sort of said, ‘You’ve gotta COWBELL

15

know that you’re doing okay, even though you from the light-hearted, hand-clappy “Eyes,” which won’t always get five out of five,’” explains Yttling, recalls the sentiment and the Bo Diddley groove “this time the message is, ‘You’ve gotta work; you of the Cure’s “Close to Me,” the album’s only other can’t count on a second chance; dig a little deeper; love song is “May Seem Macabre,” perhaps the work harder; we’ve got a revolution coming up.’ sweetest melody here, which is sung from one ‘Breaker Breaker’ is about a lazy asshole jourcorpse to another at a double funeral, suggesting nalist who’s gotta step his game up.” (That song a sort of postscript to the lover’s death wish in the was one of the ones written by drummer John Smiths’ “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”: “I Erikkson, whose playing is in especially fine form never felt as home as when I’m next to you.” these days—“I think he started practicing again,” For Yttling, the album also suggests another Yttling smirks.) sort of work: “I think it’d be good to work out to.

Of course, work isn’t everything. “Down Like Usually if you’re working out in a gym, you get DaMe” targets dead-souled, slavishly ambitious cavid Guetta-style music, but if you run with a click reerists: the jerk-offs who never take work off, in track it’s going to be static music, the same thing the parlance of a certain outspoken PB+J over and over. If you’ve got rock ’n’ roll in admirer. your headphones, that’s going to push you Gimme Some isn’t all whip-cracking forward. This is probably more healthy.” and vitriol, either. “Dig a Little Deeper,” For his own exercise, Yttling prefers tenwhose peppy “oh-oh” backups, afronis, which he plays several times a week, poppy guitars and copious hand percusoften with Erikkson. (“Peter doesn’t play, sion make it an instant highlight—if a but I think he’s secretly practicing and getslight stylistic backpedal—feels reasonting really good.”) And he’s in the market ably friendly and even encouraging. But for a few good teachers: “We’re looking for Gimme Some hits stores there’s precious little on what was once lessons in every city on our [April-May] March 29 from the band’s primary topic of interest: Apart U.S. tour.” Tennis, anyone?

Almost Gold.

16

cowbell

Photo by johan bergmark

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Music City

N Indie Queens

As Nashville reclaims its musical relevance, “ladies first” takes on a brand new meaning / by Sean L. Maloney

ashville used to be a really hip place,

and when it became not a hip place, it died and the only thing going was Music Row. Now it’s becoming that place again, where you don’t know who’s going to show up and really what’s going to happen. Nashville needs to party weird again.” ¶ Caitlin Rose—whose debut full-length, Own Side Now, hits stores stateside this month after racking up an absurd amount of critical praise across Europe last year—is sitting in a Nashville cafe as we try to ascertain exactly why the outside world seems so enraptured with the women of Music City. Three of the biggest new stars of the last few years—Taylor Swift, Ke$ha and Paramore’s Hayley Williams—all call central Tennessee home.

And Nashville’s ladies of the underground haven’t been slacking either.

Rose, folk-rocker Tristen and girl-gang garage rockers Those Darlins are all releasing records this month, generating big buzz from heavyweight sources like NME, Daytrotter and Spin.com. Jessica Lea Mayfield, the Ohio native who released the stunning Tell Me on Nonesuch in January, has had her praises sung by everyone from Rolling Stone to NPR. Wanda Jackson—literally the first woman to record rock ’n’ roll in Nashville—has been brought back into the fold of popular culture with her latest record, The Party Ain’t Over, produced

by Nashville transplant Jack White [See Jeanne Fury’s interview in last month’s Cowbell].

Courtney Tidwell, who’s best known for making epic art rock albums beloved in Europe but hardly heard at home, has seen her import-only album of classic country duets with Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner receive high praise from the likes of Pitch-

fork and the Onion A.V. Club, even though, you know, it’s expensive and hard to find.

Nylon has a crush on all-girl punk group Heavy Cream, and it’s safe to assume that after their spring tour with Ty Segall and their all-out assault on South by Southwest, the rest of the magazines will be, to quote the old song, totally crushed out as well. And then there’s all of the ladies waiting in the wings, whose talent hasn’t been put to tape or the streets yet.

In any other city, a flood of successful records from the fairer sex might be seen as either cosmic coincidence or the result of concerted effort. Here, it’s par for the course. It’s almost invisible to the outside world because each record is so unique and each artist inhabits their own corner of the music spectrum—it’s not an organized movement like Riot Grrrl or conveniently packaged aesthetic like Lilith Fair.

The women of Nashville aren’t plotting to

take over the music world; that’s just what people here do. It’s the nature of the beast, even if that beast runs into some really strange places.

Mama weer all crazee now

“Everyone here is fucking insane,” says Rose, whose Linda Ronstadt-channeling approach to rock ’n’ roll has captured the hearts of critics on two continents. “It’s almost like they appreciate eccentricity, but they don’t appreciate showiness. When somebody comes to town and notices that they can still be their weird little self and not have to play songs in their underwear in the middle of Times Square, then they learn how to be eccentric, as opposed to an outsider.

“Nobody can really make a stink about themselves here. Even if they try, it doesn’t matter—you can’t force people to go to your show by handing out fliers. I’m not gonna 19

go—nobody’s gonna go—unless you make friends, unless you’re a pleasant person to be around.”

Tristen agrees. From a van somewhere between Austin, Tex., and Nashville city limits, touring in preparation of the release of her American Myth Recordings debut Charlatans at the Garden Gate, she explains: “I think the scene is really creative; there a lot of creative people… but you don’t have as many people strolling into town that are wacky and artistic without any skill. You have to have skills to survive.”

The Illinois native makes bright jangly folk with dark and clever lyrics—not unlike Nashville transplant and pioneering ’60s artist Janis Ian—that is catchy and beguiling. Imagine TV serial killer Dexter collaborating with the Lemon Pipers, and you can see why Paste and Daytrotter have been swooning over tracks like “Baby Drugs” and “Matchstick Murder.” It’s new, it’s different, but it’s natural and organic and free of artifice, much like the music scene that helped shape it. traditions collide

“I wouldn’t say it’s the region [that makes women such a prevalent part of the music scene] so much as the people [we’re] surrounded by, the people here—especially [bandmates] Kelly, Nikki, Linwood—it’s just the way that we’ve been living and the way we interact with each other,” says Jessi Darlin, one-fourth of Those Darlins, who started out as a buck-dancing trad-country trio before honing the wall of snarl psychedelic/surf/punk sound of their sophomore album, Screws Get Loose.

Brash and anarchic—possibly the only band in town with lyrics about putting eggs in the microwave and a yen for songs about allergic reactions—Those Darlins are the polar opposite of the well mannered Southern Belle stereotype. Their hard-partying, humor-filled, brazenly honest music—there’s no real consideration

When somebody comes to town and notices that they can still be their weird little self and not have to play songs in their underwear in the middle of Times Square, then they learn how to be eccentric, as opposed to an outsider.

—Caitlin Rose

for the rules of decorum—has won over major league tastemakers like the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, garage rock legend Jon Spencer, Rolling Stone and the Gray Lady herself, the New York Times.

“A lot of people in [Nashville suburb/ indie rock incubator/birthplace of Those Darlins] Murfreesboro [have been very encouraging],” says Darlin. “The last couple of years, it was cool to be in an environment where people supported that. I think of Murfreesboro and the scene that was going on there—I don’t think that that couldn’t happen some where else, ’cause there’s crazy shit going everywhere—but I think that the specific people surrounding us really make me feel comfortable.”

“I do think that [these] women have great ideas, and they’re very set in their ways and aren’t willing to compromise,” says Rose. “I do think it is a lot different from 30 years ago when all it was about was how you looked and if you had a good voice. It also has a lot to do with the way these careers are being approached. We don’t have big budgets, we don’t have big labels, we don’t have a billion-dollar industry behind us. For the most part, we’re just

Caitlin Rose

trying to figure out what works.”

Songwriter Jessie Jo Dillon, who cowrote Rose’s “Coming Up,” thinks it’s about following your bliss. “Everything comes in waves, of course,” she figures.

“It just seems like the time has presented itself for [these women to succeed]. I feel like what there is in common, especially with those three [Tristen, Rose, Those Darlins], and, I would like to say, me as a writer, is just trying to do something we believe in. Something that means something to you.”

As an underground scene staple who’s also seen some mainstream country success—she received a Grammy nomination for her collaboration with George Strait on “The Breath You Take”—Dillon has a unique perspective on the situation: “When I think of Caitlin, her music is very her—it’s not trying to be something that it’s not. It’s just like, ‘Hey, this is me, I’m Caitlin Rose. This is my music. This is my story, my songs. I’m trying to make you feel something with my music.’ And I think, really, that’s what [the buzz is] all about.”

“Back in the day, everyone knew what worked, and that was what they did,” says

Rose. “Now, nobody knows what works, so we’re all just doing our own thing. And that’s the best way for it to possibly be. I don’t really feel anything forced from any of these artists, and I don’t feel anything forced from myself. I really have no idea how it’s even happening—but I think that the main point is that there’s [no one thing] that works.

“But it’s nice to see everyone finding… not their niche, but finding out how to conduct themselves in this business, ’cause it’s a weird fucking thing. Very weird. It was fucked for 10 years, and a lot of people got fucked over, but now it’s fucked in a way that people are finally admitting that nobody knows how to do it.”

Generation xx

“I think that we’re in pretty modern times, and maybe in Nashville and the South— that culture—it’s a little weird to have an outspoken female, but where I’m from we’re all loud and obnoxious,” says Tristen. “Maybe it’s a novelty and a new breed of songwriter in Nashville, but the rock scene—as far as I’ve been informed—is sort of a new thing in Nashville. The whole

attitude—it’s not really about the girls necessarily changing or the new breed of women writers. I think it’s a new scene popping up.”

It’s true—the last decade has seen Nashville’s nascent rock underground become a national contender, and it’s not just the ladies making things happen. Kings of Leon have become arguably the biggest modern rock band in the world, both Jack White and the Black Keys have relocated here and become part of the scene, and hometown boys like JEFF the Brotherhood, Turbo Fruits and Mona have made big splashes on both sides of the pond. The city has exploded with young, ambitious artists bent on making their own music their own way.

While the outside world may still define Nashville music by the honky-tonk tourist traps and the Music Row machine, the locals are working hard to define themselves as something else altogether. House shows, home studios, self-released records and an all-encompassing DIY work ethic are the foundation for everything that’s happening here—not unlike the era in which the city first became known as a music Mecca.

The defining characteristic of this generation—regardless of gender—is that it wants to make music free from interlopers, pencil-pushers and the celebrity-obsessed culture of coastal media centers.

“Nashville, we’re a really weird, eccentric group of people—we’ve got old-time business people with these really hip kids, and that’s who we are,” says Rose. “It’s the reason Mumford & Sons can move here and not be accosted everywhere they go…

They don’t feel like gods; everyone in town treats them normally and they treat everyone normally. That’s why famous people move here. You have to call paparazzi in this town.”

“I think the culture in Nashville—where everybody just wants to play and everyone will play for free and no one cares about money all that much,” muses Tristen, “everyone just wants to play and be a part of something interesting. That drive, that’s what separates us from other music scenes.”

“It’s so unlike anywhere else—I’ve lived in Los Angeles, I have friends in New York and Chicago, but Nashville is just it’s own thing,” says Dillon. “I don’t know if it’s because it’s Southern, or really what to attribute it to, but it is sorta cutthroat in certain aspects, but not to the extreme that these other towns are. Everyone, even if they don’t like something, they try to support ‘Nashville’—especially outside of the mainstream community—because it has been so hard to cultivate something outside of country music.

“There’s something about our generation that has a lot to do with it. There’s such an appreciation—male and female— for the new and the old and trying to somehow merge them and create something fresh, yet paying homage to what’s come before… and I don’t feel like you find that as much in these other music cities.

I know it’s there, but people really pride themselves on it here.”

21

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The Man on the Silver Mountain pg. 24

The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle goes mystic on All Eternals Deck. story by J. Bennett / portrait by jason arthurs

25

John Darnielle is pacing back and forth in what we imagine to be his living room in Durham, NC, reading aloud from the liner notes of the Mountain Goats’ new album, All Eternals Deck. We can hear the footfall, along with the enthusiasm in his voice as he tells us about the inspiration behind the band’s 18th album. From what we’ve gleaned thus far, the record takes its name from an early 20th century tarot deck that may or may not exist.

“The All Eternals Deck predates Crowley’s tarot by at least 10 years,” Darnielle intones with nigh-theatrical cadence. “Its earliest known issue arises three months after the first recorded appearance of the Inhuman Impulse Deck, to which it owes stylistic debt. Beyond these few details, its exact provenance is less certain…”

In the past, Darnielle has written Mountain Goats albums inspired by the Bible (2009’s The Life of the World to Come), his years as a teenage tweaker (2004’s We Shall All Be Healed) and his abused childhood (2005’s The Sunset Tree). With All Eternals Deck (his first album for Merge records), he seems to be tapping into a latent occult tendency or two. Possibly.

“The working title for the album was What Young John Saw in the Entrails,” he offers. “I thought it was kind of an album about telling the future, surviving into a future, but I don’t think I would put my own name into an album title. It’s sort of about this feeling of being drawn to these dark images and being repelled by them at the same time.”

He returns to the liner notes, relaying the minutiae of the different paper stock and ink used to print the All Eternals Deck and the Inhuman Impulse Deck. We cut him off mid-sentence to ask if the information he’s giving us is in any way based on historical fact.

“If I was a good artist, I would decline to answer that question,” he chuckles. “So, I will answer by saying that if I was a good artist, I would decline to answer that question. But I can tell you that what you’ve just heard are the liner notes for the new Mountain Goats album, All Eternals Deck.”

Cagey, that Darnielle. An artist’s artist. His lyrics—highly literary, endlessly dissectible, often very personal, always ardently delivered—have made him no stranger to popular or critical acclaim.

It certainly wasn’t a typo when the New Yorker called him “America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist” in 2005. Nor when Paste proclaimed him one of the “Top 100 Living Songwriters” the following year, placing Darnielle at No. 82, right between Fleetwood Mac and the Flaming Lips.

His fans are even more reverential, writing lengthy essays on, theses about and analyses of Darnielle’s lyrics, and posting them on the forum at mountain-goats.com. In 2009, New York magazine 26

followed a punk rock fan who burned his music collection in his backyard after discovering the Mountain Goats, so profound was his conversion. The band even appeared on The Colbert Report that year, as Stephen Colbert is such a huge adherent. Others have started a Facebook campaign to get Darnielle a bit part on his favorite TV show, Law & Order SVU. (“I consider my chances of getting on the show extremely faint, but I should love for them to become better,” he enthuses. “At the same time, I will act the crap out of any part they might give me.”)

This outpouring of admiration can often border on worship, creating an occasionally uncomfortable reality for Darnielle.

“The one thing that’s overwhelming is that people assume that I’m a good conversationalist, and I don’t really think I am,” he says.

“I think I’m kind of an awkward talker. I love to hear what people have to say, but I don’t feel I have much to say outside of what I write or sing. But I do think that 99 percent of the people who listen to my music are people who are like me. They vary in terms of their beliefs and what they’re passionate about, but we tend to share one thing, and that’s that we like to listen to music, especially if it has some sort of story or lyrical focus that hits us in a certain emotional way. I’m just a guy who happens to have learned how to write this stuff. But when there’re five or six people who wanna talk to you at once, it can feel a little overwhelming.”

The weekend before we spoke for this story, Darnielle, 43, got to witness firsthand how other celebrity types deal with the onslaught. He was at the NHL All-Star Game in Raleigh, watching 18-year-old Carolina Hurricanes center Jeff Skinner field questions from reporters.

“He was surrounded by about 20 or 30 dudes all talking at once, and he was fielding their questions with ease,” Darnielle recalls.

“For me, sometimes it feels crushing because I’m kind of a private person, but I don’t wanna be the guy who says, ‘Oh, this is overwhelming,’ because, seriously, I get to work as a musician.

I hit the lottery.”

Maybe we should back up and point out that Darnielle was not at the All-Star Game as an everyday fan, tucked away in the nosebleeds swilling shitty overpriced lager from a plastic cup. No, he was covering the game as a journalist for Raleigh-Durham’s Independent Weekly.

“In other words, I was hitting the lottery for a second time,” he laughs. “My wife [Lalitree Darnielle] was working there as a photographer, and I was there writing about the game, typing as I was watching. It was completely awesome. I got to go to the locker room and do some interviews, too. I’m the worst interviewer on the planet, though, because I don’t have any questions. I just stood

there listening to other people’s questions, going, ‘Oh, yeah— good question!’ But it was a lot of fun. My copy is actually due at 5 o’clock today, which is so exciting and romantic to me.” (Read his coverage at ow.ly/3WU95) Darnielle’s image as a sensitive, Bible-quoting troubadour doesn’t quite square with the organized practice of toothless Canadians knocking the tar out of each other—on ice—while legions of fat loggernauts get drunk in the stands. And yet, there it is.

“How can you not be a hockey fan?” he asks, incredulously. “I really can’t understand why everyone doesn’t like hockey. It is the best game. It’s like soccer, though—it’s a poem, it’s a ballet, and you can’t sell people on that. But it’s like you’re watching a story develop that is being lived in real life and will count for or against the teams that are playing it. I mean, I grew up a geek, so I wasn’t good at sports. A lot of us maintain those biases, but those biases are silly. Sports are awesome.”

There is another element of Darnielle’s personality that seems

at odds with the guy who wrote an entire album of songs inspired by and named after some of his favorite Bible passages, and it is this: John Darnielle is a HUGE death metal fan. With little prodding, he will talk at length about the virtues of the triple-disc Cannibal Corpse documentary, Centuries of Torment: The First 20 Years. Or The Erosion of Sanity, the 1993 album by Quebecois tech-death dealers Gorguts (“If I had a list of my top 10 death metal albums in my head, this would be on it,” Darnielle insists).

Or the reasons why he chose renowned death metal musician and producer Erik Rutan of Hate Eternal to produce four of the 13 songs on All Eternals Deck.

“Death metal is a lifelong discipline,” Darnielle says with just a touch of awe in his voice. “It’s like working at an iron forge. But for a lot of people it’s kinda funny because there’s so much gore and misogyny in the lyrics. Meanwhile, I’m a feminist who plays an acoustic guitar. But what death metal is about for me is that I may be who I am now—and hopefully I’m an okay person— but I used to be a speed freak. I was not always a good person. I was a nasty piece of work at one point in my life.

So, I think death metal is sort of about learning to really engage the fullness of human experience. It’s for when you have so much aggression in you that you have to put it somewhere. Which is why when I have a bad day, I listen to Hate Eternal. I’ve talked to Erik about it, and he said, ‘Dude, that’s what this music is for.’”

Darnielle’s fans know all about his fascination with death metal, but it’s unclear if they really understand it.

“I often get people asking me why I don’t make a death metal record,” he offers. “But it’s obvious to anyone who listens to the stuff: I’m just not that kind of guitarist. I’d have to go back to my

11th year on this planet, get an electric guitar instead of piano lessons, and then live and die with that guitar for the next 10 years before I was fit to play a riff. The metal I listen to is music of profound proficiency played by people whose musicianship I will never even be able to approximate.”

Though Darnielle may live his whole life without shredding a proper Morbid Angel solo, his involvement in the metal scene runs deeper than just bro-ing down with Rutan and hitting the occasional Cannibal Corpse show. For starters, he’s been writing his hilarious back-page column, South Pole Dispatch, for extreme metal monthly Decibel [Cowbell’s sister publication] since the magazine’s inception in 2004.

In 2008, Darnielle wrote a novella about Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality for Continuum Books’ 33⅓ series concerning the making of classic albums. Whereas most of the books in the 33⅓ catalog examine a particular album through the usual academic contexts—historical, critical, musical, etc.—Darnielle’s is a work of fiction.

“I told them I wanted to look at the album through the lens of a 14-year-old boy being held in a [psychiatric] treatment center,” he says. “I didn’t even pitch them on the back end, in which the kid is an adult looking back on his experience, because I didn’t know it was going to go that way. I’ll never forget the morning that happened, because it came as a surprise to me. Suddenly, there was this feeling of forward motion, and I asked myself, as a former nurse, what would happen next.”

This is where Darnielle’s two writerly disciplines intersect: on the grounds of a mental hospital in Norwalk, Calif. The Mountain Goats began, more or less, while Darnielle was working as a psychiatric nurse at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, where he would record his early songs on a cassette boombox.

But the man who would become the Mountain Goats wanted to be a writer first and foremost.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to think of myself as a songwriter at all because I wanted to be a writer—not a singer, not a songwriter—the longest. But I suppose it depends if you’re asking me what my ambitions are or how I would describe myself from the outside. If John Darnielle was an alien creature and I was a scientist who came to see what he does everyday, I’d say, ‘That’s a songwriter. It’s clear that’s what he does.’ That’s where I work most naturally. That’s where, when I start working, I get where I’m going quickest. Whereas the other types of writing take more effort. But I kind of hope at the end of my life I’ll write a few good novels.”

With the Master of Reality novella already under his belt and a second book in progress, Darnielle is walking the talk. Just don’t necessarily expect his latest manuscript to be published any time soon.

“Death metal is a lifelong discipline.

It’s like working at an iron forge. But for a lot of people it’s kinda funny because there’s so much gore and misogyny in the lyrics. Meanwhile, I’m a feminist who plays an acoustic guitar.”

John Darnielle

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“That’s the other thing: With songs, they come naturally, and I finish them,” he laughs. “Whereas I can see how people work their whole lives on a novel. It goes this way and that way—it’s a big messy thing. A song is a compact and physical experience. Songs can be written in one sitting. Novels could conceivably be written in one sitting by a tweaker, I suppose, but generally speaking, a novel is a very long piece of traveling from one place to many, many other places. As I’m working on my second one, I just feel awe of the people who write good ones.”

In a January 17 interview with Pitchfork, Darnielle mentioned

that he had recently woken up in the middle of the night, listened to Joni Mitchell’s For the Roses, and then listened to All Eternals Deck.

“For people trying fuse poetry and song, there’s hardly anyone higher than Joni Mitchell,” he explains. “She’s in that elite company with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, but for me, she’s the one who’s been most important.

Listening to her stuff just opened up the sky for me when I was

younger. So, I just sort of wanted to A/B them. I doubt I will ever make a work as enduring as Joni Mitchell, but it’s interesting to sort of listen and check myself against the people I really look up to.”

Whether All Eternals Deck holds up to Darnielle’s personal standards will ultimately be up to him. But if early reactions to the album’s leadoff track, “Damn These Vampires” (chorus: Damn these vampires, for what they’ve done to me), are any indication, Darnielle has at least lived up to his fans’ ever-towering expectations.

“There’s a core of people who know that what I’m about is the comic power of darkness,” he ventures. “That in your personal darkness there are these moments of comic triumph that you can really revel in. People have that expectation of me, but they also wanna see where I can take it. Can I make a song where there’s a three-part male choir singing? Can I take it to places that are more interesting musically than a guy playing guitar as hard as he can? But at the end of the day, when I sit down and write, I’m doing the same thing I’ve always been doing.

I’ve got a decent idea, and I try to make it a better one.”

“The working title for the album was What Young John Saw in the Entrails.

I thought it was kind of an album about telling the future, surviving into a future…It’s sort of about this feeling of being drawn to these dark images and being repelled by them at the same time.”

John Darnielle

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photo by d.l. anderson

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new music reviewed and graded for your aural pleasure

Brew Crew

Minimalist Seattle supergroup the Cave Singers louden up on their junior effort

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y the time the Cave Singers dropped Invitation Songs in 2007, “folk music” had become a ri-

diculously baggy catchall used to describe everyone from Joanna Newsom to Animal Collective by way of Hoots and Hellmouth. Never mind that the trio’s early sound stemmed largely from a series of happy accidents, and that guitarist Derek Fudesco, vocalist Pete Quirk and percussionist Marty Lund all claimed backgrounds (and foregrounds) light on folk and heavy on rock.

Simply playing raw acoustic music landed the Seattle-based trio in a pigeonhole that even

The Cave Singers

No Witch

Jagjaguwar

2009’s decidedly more polished Welcome Joy failed to pull them out of—though it did inspire less flexible fans to grouse about the change in emphasis.

They’ll bitch even more about No Witch for one reason: It’s a fully baked rock album, rendered all the richer by producer Randall Dunn (Black Mountain, Sunn 0))), Boris). Not that the journey from coffeehouse to roadhouse has left the Cave Singers bereft of hard-earned roots: Ex-Pretty Girls Make Graves and Murder City Devils bassist Fudesco tweaks various American traditions so adroitly, you’d never guess he was a guitar noob at the band’s conception,

while Quirk now sounds like a bona fide Americana dude rather than yesteryear’s front-runner in a Devendra Banhart parody contest. They even occasionally slouch toward Appalachia, as per “Gifts and the Raft” and the decidedly campfire-friendly “Swim Club.”

Plus, the band never so much as threatens to disconnect from the blues. Buttressed by Lund’s low-key tribal tattoo, “Black Leaf ” rides a riff so murderously efficient, the likes of Black Mountain (or Bob Dylan) should be willing to sell their souls for it. Fudesco even leaks a little Delta mud into 29

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raga-rocker “Outer Realms.” Gospel tendencies find a home on the chorus of “Falls”—right alongside trombone drones and radio drama organ. Even at their most eclectic, the band never overreaches— nor do they venture anywhere near the sort of playacting and minstrelsy the Black Keys sometimes lapse into. Credit for much of the latter resides in Quirk’s insistence on anchoring lyrics to everyday situations—never more than on home-base shoutout “Haller Lake.” The chorus’ “send me away in the evening sun” is notable if only for juxtaposing Sol and Seattle in the same song.

Abundant assets aside, No Witch isn’t without what nitpickers might interpret as the occasional misstep—parts of “Haystacks” smack a little too much of Neil Diamond to engage listeners who, thanks to Vampire Weekend, are observing lifelong embargos on ’70s pop. But one person’s poison is another’s manna. Even the Cave Singers’ enhanced recorded presence is bound to inspire a few haters.

The rest of us have nothing to complain about.

—Rod Smith

Acid House Kings

Music Sounds Better With You Labrador

Wall of sunshine The Acid House Kings don’t play house, acid or otherwise. They’re a bright and sunny band that manages to distill the entire history of American and British pop music into delicious, easy-todigest nuggets.

A giddy guitar line opens “Are We Lovers or Are We Friends?” for a perfect, soaring tune that suggests new wave, Motown and Merseybeat.

“Where Have We Been?” blends girl group handclaps, R&B horns and flamenco guitar to support Niklas Angergård’s breezy vocal. “Windshield” suggests a low-budget wall of sound, although “wall of sunshine” might be a better description of this flighty tune highlighted by Julia Lannerheim’s breathless vocal. “Heaven Knows I Miss Him Now” uses a simple ’60s turnaround played with a slight Latin feel to close the album on a cheerful note.

It’s easy to spot the influences on every song, but the music is played with such innocent enthusiasm that it’s hard to find fault with AHK’s retro obsessions. —j. poet Cloud Nothings

Cloud Nothings Carpark

Noise-pop prince goes postal While Turning On—last year’s rickety, winning debut from this Cleveland project—was lo-fi peevish, on Cloud Nothings, Dylan Baldi goes full douchebag, abandoning dashed-off fake-GBV bummers for a half-hour of noisy punk-pop pityparties-to-go. Pogo-ready tempos, chipmunk

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Space Oddities For shapeshifting trio, the only constant is change

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tylistic changeups notwithstanding,

Akron/Family hardly lack a sense of continuity.

From finger-picked guitars to luminous vocal S/T II: The Cosmic harmonies by way of era-corrected hippie POV, S/T II Birth and Journey swarms with forces at work since 2002, when the bicoastal of Shinju TNT psychonauts first started exploring their shared omnivorousness and seemingly bottomless supply of chops in and Dead Oceans around Williamsburg. What gives the band a chameleonic air is its aptitude for constantly redirecting those forces.

The epic schemes and West African rhythms that dominated ’09’s Set’Em Wild, Set’Em Free hardly figure on the trio’s sixth album. Songs run short—less than six minutes—while their longstanding fascination with field recordings and electronics returns to the fore.

They even use their old work as raw material, dusting the entire album with sampled shards of 2005’s Akron/Family. It’s a testament to the trio’s vision that the decorative elements do nothing to make them seem less barefoot in the head, but simply yank many of the album’s mellower moments off the back porch and hurl them into orbit, as on all-purpose departure announcement “A AAA O A WAY.” Given the band’s manifest fascination with acoustically informed chill-enhancement gambits, S/T II offers a surprisingly high rocker count. Vocation milestone “Silly Bears” gallops toward a burning horizon on legs of vintage electronic drum sounds and a one-note bassline that provides the perfect backbone for its surging choral finale. Ending on the word “friend,” sung a cappella, couldn’t be more appropriate. —Rod Smith Akron/Family

fist-pump Ramones-ish choruses, bleedinglarynx throwdowns—this is the sound of spiraling, post-adolescent agony translated into three-chord ecstasy, an analogue of sorts to the mano-a-mano ferocity of Wavves’ King of the Beach.

“Not Important” is screamo, idol-envying ruckus, whereas the barnstorming, puerile “You’re Not That Good at Anything” may prove that the dispensing of insults is a smokescreen for insecurities on the part of the dispenser, but it’ll stoke plenty of moshpits when Baldi goes on tour later this year.

And the churning, flailing “Rock” is as bittersweet as it is Superchunk-sour: “You love me, but now we’re both dead,” Baldi yelps, ad infinitum, into the herky-jerky maw of his own maelstrom. Dick moves are rarely this striking—or this unrelentingly catchy. —Raymond Cummings

Tides,” is reminiscent of Radiohead’s “Exit Music (for a Film).” This concept of culling from varied sources, though, has always allowed the band to play with an impressive diversity. And their dexterous orchestrations and muscular production, along with singer Murray Lightburn’s Morrissey lounge act, allow them to occasionally even sound innovative.

Degeneration Street is long, stuffed with a laundry list of influences. But by the end, the Dears sound less like record collectors and more like exceptional songwriters. —Shane Mehling

Death

Spiritual, Mental, Physical Drag City

Not much to live for

The Dears

Degeneration Street Dangerbird

Originality is overrated The Dears have always known that everything old is new again. While musicians are finding inspiration more and more in older, defined genres, the Montréal band has blatantly employed familiar sounds over the last 15 years. On their fifth release, Degeneration Street, they continue to prove that this is their greatest strength.

“Thrones” is a glimmering ode to the Jesus and Mary Chain, “5 Chords” mixes ’80s Bowie with the Cure, and the strongest track, “Galactic

Not to be confused with the Floridian metal band of the same name, Detroit’s Death existed from 1971 to 1977. In those six years, the band made one visit to a proper recording studio, which yielded seven songs. Two of those appeared on their only official release, a self-financed 7-inch. These days, that record goes for about $600 whenever it pops up on eBay. In 2009, Death ceased to be a record collector’s secret when Drag City released their entire studio output as ...For the Whole World to See. Where that reissue unearthed a lost relic, Spritual, Mental, Physical finds the band finding themselves. Culled from even earlier demos than the previous reissue, the band dicks around with

partial covers, dabbles in some noises and tinkers with ideas that would later get reworked in that studio session they did. There’s little purpose to this record outside documentary purposes, and it’s too bad the songs mentioned above weren’t included in the previous reissue. There’s little reason to listen to this one instead. —Matt Sullivan

The Death Set

Michel Poiccard Counter

Puree at heart The Death Set, originally from Australia, then of Baltimore, and now of Brooklyn, are an archetypal post-Internet band. They hop from locale to locale musically as well as physically: Michel Poiccard’s leaps from synth-screamo (“Slap Slap Slap Pound Up Down Snap”) to the postcardperfect indie pop of “Is It the End Again?” spring up like images on a Tumblr feed. Or, more historically, like they did on the Beastie Boys’ 1992 Check Your Head, this album’s spiritual predecessor.

“We Are Going Nowhere Man” is skate-video soundtrack-ready, a speedy wall of guitar with a plaintive chorus, “A problem is a problem it doesn’t matter where you from” a strange early-’90s blender of emergent rap-rock and rave synths. All of it is basically here as fuel for their live show—one of the most glorious concert experiences going, as the band leaps around ecstatically and intersperses their own songs with snippets of ’80s faves like Prince and INXS. —Michaelangelo Matos

Well-Respected No More?

Ray Davies’ duets record doesn’t work out the Kinks

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eezus, Ray, what in the hell were you

thinking? We’re all for trying to squeeze a little more blood out of classic tracks, and we’re all for May-SepSee My Friends tember artistic collaborations—when they work—but why would you ever let Jon Bon Jovi and Metallica anywhere near your redecca cord? Did you need the company of other artists that hadn’t made a good record since the ’80s? And what’s with all the milquetoast modern bands? One would think, being Ray Davies and all, you’d be able to rope in more interesting artists than Snow Patrol and Mumford & Sons. Duets records are rarely more than money grabs, and this one doesn’t feel much different.

Which isn’t to say that this album is completely devoid of quality—about half of it is garbage, but the other half is great. Jackson Browne on “Waterloo Sunset”? Awesome.

The dearly departed Alex Chilton revisiting “Till the End of the Day”? Stellar. Same goes for the Black Francis appearance and Lucinda Williams on “A Long Way From Home.”

Billy Corgan, on the other hand, should never be allowed in front of a microphone again, and his screeching more or less ruins what would have otherwise been a pretty cool medley of “All of the Day and All of the Night” and “Destroyer.” Points for trying, but I think I’m gonna just stick with your classic catalog, Ray. —Sean L. Maloney Ray Davies

photo by Lucy Hamblin

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Dum Dum Girls

He Gets Me High Sub Pop

Comfortably dum Somewhere (okay, Los Angeles), there are four girls named Dee Dee, Bambi, Sandy and Jules with the words “Dum Dum” tattooed on their fingers. They’re hanging out in a reverb chamber with Richard Gottehrer (the genius who wrote “My Boyfriend’s Back”) and the dude from the Raveonettes, recording huge jangly pop songs that stick to your brainpan like Bubblicious

sticks oh-so-tragically to the Girls’ stiletto heels.

Like those of their 2010 debut, I Will Be, the cavernous, casually cool tracks on this four-song EP—which closes with a thunderous cover of the Smiths’ “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”— are nothing short of infectious. From the ghostly vocal harmonies and slow Mazzy Star swing of “Take Care of My Baby” to the rubbery bass buzz, shimmering guitar fuzz and Phil Spector drums of the title track, the Girls’ collective sense of melody, of space, of how to wear fishnets without looking slutty—are all impeccable. So is this EP. —J. Bennett

East River Pipe

We Live in Rented Rooms Merge

Ownership issues “The whole world is made on backroom deals / You better get used to it,” F.M. Cornog tells us to start his seventh pseudonymous album. It’s equal parts tough love and tough shit as usual for East River Pipe; world-weariness is presupposed. But Cornog engages with that world rather than just falling back in despair; even a line like “You’re like a visit from the ice man, the

Ordinary People?

For Portland’s baroque poppers, simplicity and subtlety are not mutually exclusive

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he King Is Dead is, unques-

tionably, the Decemberists’ most ordinary record. Markedly less ambitious (outwardly, anyway) than the byzantine story-songs and oldfangled, concept-driven folderol that reached an apogee on the thorny, toilsome Hazards of Love, these 10 relatively straightforward songs—surveying a range of resolutely rootsy American rock and folk styles—present some artistic hazards of their own. There’s an easily bungled subtlety, after all, to what troubadour-in-chief Colin Meloy calls “the complexity of simple songs.”

The Decemberists But while Meloy’s distinctive The King Is Dead diction sticks out occasionally (and capitol you kinda want to hug him for it), he and his band, with a few well-chosen confederates, pull off the gambit admirably. “Don’t Carry It All” trades Picaresque’s scene-setting shofar for a gloriously shrill harmonica, kicking off a rousing, full-throttle Americana anthem (complete with Gillian Welch, the indie generation’s Emmylou Harris), while the superb, driving “Calamity Song” manages to both luxuriate in and transcend its blatant (and roundly, rightly

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reckoned) R.E.M.-iniscent qualities—Peter Buck’s presence aside, it also emphasizes Meloy’s Stipe-ian timbre and capacity for lyrical obfuscation (in this case, dreaming up the end of the world as we know it).

The album’s other pleasures are often subtler: the gentle, moving “Rise to Me” (partially addressed to Meloy’s young son); the pair of sweetly breezy seasonal “Hymns,” recalling the calm clarity of the band’s earliest days. There’s no denying the familiarity of certain sounds here, but it’s always resoundingly, recognizably the Decemberists, which—given their tendency toward stilted theatricality—feels surprisingly natural and comfortable. And if it occasionally gets a little bit dull—well, such are the perils of normalcy. —K. Ross Hoffman

photo by autumn dewilde

angel of death” (“Cold Ground”) sets up a tune of surpassing warmth, with Cornog’s stately, acoustic guitar-driven arrangement and brief electric solo at the end give it a genuine lift.

“Payback Time” describes a disintegrating relationship over steadily rising synthesizer

layers. And most movingly of all, “The Flames Are Coming Back” is both baleful and hopeful, a kind of torch song in reverse—he’s trying to conjure them, pleading, “Baby, can’t you see?”

She probably can’t. But we can hear it.

—Michaelangelo Matos

What It Isn’t Good For PJ Harvey wages a war of words

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s recording artists go, Polly Jean Harvey

is not a risk taker. She won’t touch something until she’s on top of it. She’s had her dull spots, but nowhere in her catalog has she failed to impress with PJ Harvey Let England Shake the way she grips subjects by the throat, even if they’re reciprocating the squeeze.

Vagrant Let England Shake is Harvey’s first foray into the political realm, breaching themes of war and allegiance to/ abhorrence of one’s country, wherever that may be. It’s potentially disastrous territory for any artist who’s built their career dishing on human emotions, but Harvey navigates the minefield. She spent two years on the lyrics before touching an instrument, a process which has yielded some of her best material to date.

From beguiling cries to dissonant caws, her vocal versatility is rock solid. And though the tunes—anchored by whimsical percussion, humid horn accents and carousel-music-like buoyancy—are often at odds with the dire lyrics, Let England Shake is remarkably harmonious. “The Last Living Rose” opens with a creeping guitar reminiscent of the Rid of Me era, while the lilt of Harvey’s tongue beautifully maneuvers through nostalgia for England’s filth and fog. A soft, dreamy hymnal, “Written on the Forehead” speaks of the battered and war-torn. A small chorus implores “Let it burn” behind the slight reverb in Harvey’s angelic voice. And while you’re clapping along to “The Words That Maketh Murder,” she recalls soldiers falling “like lumps of meat.” That Harvey is now able to reap material from the world beyond her own flesh has placed countless possibilities within her reach.

—Jeanne Fury

photo by seamus murphy

Eleventh Dream Day

Riot Now!

Thrill Jockey

Chicago’s best weapon contribution since the Manhattan Project It’s been a quarter-century since Rick Rizzo and Janet Beveridge Bean began filtering their alt-rock chops through their prismatic adoration of Neil Young to create Eleventh Dream Day’s gloriously melodic cacophony. Lineup changes, fickle commercial winds and label indifference have conspired against 11DD, but it’s rarely had an impact on the honesty with which the band approaches its brash and beautiful noise.

Riot Now!, 11DD’s first new album in five years, bristles with the kind of squalling intensity that defined the band’s earliest albums, an amazing accomplishment considering the nearly malicious neglect they’ve experienced. Opener “Damned Tree” is an insistent case in point, a howling mad mash-up of Dictators/Dolls punk rock thunder and Mission of Burma indie rock lightning, with the ever present Crazy Horse squeal drifting through the proceedings like a palpable cloud of feedback smoke. Anyone with memories of Eleventh Dream Day will tremble at the raw wonder of Riot Now! Anyone lacking those memories should fill in the gaps immediately. —Brian Baker Matthew Friedberger

Napoleonette

Thrill Jockey

The first of many solos for the Fiery Furnace stoker Look up “prolific” in the dictionary and you’ll find a picture of Matthew Friedberger laughing at the definition of “prolific.” Friedberger and sister Eleanor have released 14 Fiery Furnaces albums in the past eight years, and his solo career began with 2006’s Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School.

His latest solo excursion is epic, to say the least; aptly dubbed Solos, it’s an eight-album subscription series (vinyl LPs, no CD or digital releases), the initial six dedicated to a single instrument. Napoleonette, the first album in the series, explores the piano with a weird pop vengeance, folding in the quirky sugar buzz of 10cc, Todd Rundgren and Ben Folds, the percussive free jazz schizophonia of Sun Ra and Tom Waits, and a lyrical perspective that would give head scratching pause to Dan Bejar and Robyn Hitchcock. Napoleonette is wildly sophisticated, wonderfully strange and the first of eight this year; there’s a whole lot of Friedberger going on. —Brian Baker Lia Ices

Grown Unknown Jagjaguwar

Cool as ices With mostly subdued, easily digestible songs and a voice somewhere between the eight-figure Irish dyad of Sinead O’Connor

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and Dolores O’Riordan, it’d be easy to dismiss Brooklyn singer-songwriter Lia Ices as a mere coffeehouse careerist destined for a lifetime of Starbucks compilations and Lilith Fairs, forever chasing the overpriced hemlines of Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos. But really, we feel gross and vaguely ashamed for even mentioning all those tired middle-aged opiates in the same sentence as Ms. Ices. Her second and latest album, Grown Unknown, quietly transcends the mainstream female singer-pianist paradigm at almost every turn.

Opener “Love Is Won” serves as a showpiece for Ices’ celestial voice and spare playing, a melancholy slow burn that builds to an ethereal hook.

“Daphne,” a duet with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, is a bucolic country lament that moans and swells in weary delirium. Meanwhile, the title track— replete with strings, an acoustic guitar and extensive handclaps—is a pop revelation, a song that somehow sparkles without being happy or even upbeat. How does she do it? Carefully, we suspect. —J. Bennett

Isolée

Well Spent Youth Pampa

Monstrous no longer The last Isolée album, We Are Monster, was a watershed for minimal techno and a richly deserving crossover success, injecting unprecedented warmth, melody and personality into the genre’s steely sphere and presaging the so-called “maximalist” likes of Gui Boratto. Six years on, Rajko Müller’s third full-length reverts to the comparatively mild, mannered microhouse of his first (2000’s Rest), but it’s markedly chillier and far less engaging.

Despite the intriguingly woozy claustrophobia and jagged, intermittent funk bass incursions of opener “Paloma Triste”—a twisted Prince allusion in both title and sound—there’s maddeningly little to hold on to here. Müller hasn’t lost his attentiveness to fine detail—his sonic fingerprinting is still readily recognizable—but, at least in this context, these tracks mostly seem to meander aimlessly, with too little of his trademark tunefulness (the Monster-lite of “Taktell” and the wanly pretty “Celeste” are paltry exceptions) to save Youth from being a competent but ultimately drab, generic drag. —K. Ross Hoffman Joan as Police Woman

The Deep Field 101

Arresting developments “Deep” is a good adjective for the third album by the inimitable, unfathomable Joan Wasser.

So are: thick, loose, rich, raw, murky, dangerous and, without a doubt, sexy. Also, patient. It’s not

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nearly as immediate as her immaculate, crystalline debut, Real Life—tellingly, with just as many songs, it’s 20 minutes longer. Gone are the achingly spare piano ballads; in their place is another sort of ache, the kind that sprawls out over gritty, slow-boiling funk and organ-drenched soul, or— in the case of “Flash”—eight minutes of pensive, amniotic floating.

Nothing’s under four minutes; the shortest cut, first single “Magic,” is taut and buoyant enough to scan as pop, but much of Field veers far from conventional singer-songwriter fare. This is a songwriter’s record—indeed, it’s a powerfully frank treatise on love, lust and positivity—but it’s also an astonishing vocal showcase, a rapturous mood piece and a killer blowing session.

Wasser’s versatility and fearlessness call to mind another Joan—the likewise underheralded Armatrading—but what she’s concocted here is something entirely her own. —K. Ross Hoffman

The Joy Formidable

The Big Roar Atlantic

Feel good hit of the bummer The only reason this isn’t a 10 is that there’s no way one of these songs doesn’t wind up in, like, a Cingular or Prius ad within a year. That’s how hard I’ve fallen for The Big Roar, and we’re talking first-spin love, which is brain-scrambling to the point of perhaps rendering your humble scribe untrustworthy. Almost.

The Joy Formidable are a Welsh pop-gaze trio—the guitarist/frontlady Ritzy Bryan (I know…) and bassist/occasional singer Rhydian Dafydd have been refining their shit in assorted incarnations since 2007. It worked. The moment Bryan’s icy wail infiltrates the modest new-wave lope of leadoff “The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie,” you’ll think neat, sounds like Lush. Cue endless, righteous, gorgeous avalanches of overdrive reminiscent of pretty much every unsung ’90s alt-rock band (Hum, Swervedriver, Failure), heartfelt but never cloying overtures (“I Don’t Want to See You Like This,” “A Heavy Abacus”) and the anthem to every fuck yeah moment you’ll have this year (“Cradle”). —Andrew Bonazelli MEN

Talk About Body IAMSOUND

More dance about body… well, both really You might remember JD Samson as the most willfully androgynous member of Le Tigre, the person of whom indie dorks who wanted to see Kathleen Hanna said, “Wait, is that a dude or what?” MEN is Samson’s new gender-futz project, all synth beats and post-punk guitar flickering in here and there, a post-disco, post-gender

party where everyone gets to dance this mess around, possibly while deconstructing everything in sight.

It’s more fun than it sounds, but not that much more, for reasons that have nothing to do with the radical feminism and everything to do with sameness of the songs. Lines like “Radical politics / Sontag in the crib” and “Take your shirts off / don’t take your shirt off” are funnier and cannier than they sound if the beats, rhymes and life are there. One wishes for synth pop that was as progressive as the politics. —Joe Gross

Mi Ami

Dolphins Thrill Jockey

I hear that you and your band sold your guitars…

Last year’s Steal Your Face was sorely underrated, a chaotic, kinetic flail, the sound of dance punk falling ass-over-tea-kettle down the stairs and making it sound like it was intentional. But now that bassist Jacob Long has left the building, founding Ami(s?) Damon Palermo and Daniel Martin-McCormick are going electronic, Palermo rocking the drum machine and samples, MartinMcCormick on scream and keys.

In keeping with their punk past, this machine music was cut live, which was a smart move— Martin-McCormick’s weird wail sounds trapped in these four tracks of electro thud and twitch, a Tron character stuck in a 1982 mainframe, a little 5 a.m. hangover here (“Sunrise”), some disco panic there (“Echo”). Your move, Ghostland Observatory. —Joe Gross Monotonix

Not Yet

Drag City

Hair apparent For an all-encompassing live experience, Monotonix can’t be beat. Once you’ve had a chance to live in that moment, there’s no going back; maybe that’s why listening to Monotonix getting wild ‘n’ wooly on record will always pale somewhat to seeing the Israeli trio skirt the edge of disaster in concert.

But while many bands strive to capture the primordial punk sound of Raw Power/Fun Houseera Stooges, few do it with the sweet, sweaty inspiration of Monotonix. Singer Ami Shalev goes the full Iggy on the group’s second full-length Not Yet: “Fun Fun Fun” is a modern-day counterpart to the Stooges’ “No Fun,” while “Everything That I See” opens with a throat-clearing cough that sets up a series of unseemly vocal contortions.

The pace flags slightly on the languorous “Late Night,” but the rest of Not Yet—three chords or less in three minutes or less—features the band’s most undeniably groovy work to date.

—Nick Green

NEeMA

Watching You Think Tonality

A Different Kind of Bends Radiohead withdraws into alluring minimalism

R

adiohead are most interesting when

they’re in retreat. To reconcile the consumerist commentary and commercial success of their The King 1997 prog opus OK Computer, the band went inward, withof Limbs drawing into Kid A’s haunting world of cold minimalism and existential crises. The album was their first, best statement self-released of the 21st century, and the years since have been beset by diminishing returns. The fanatical reception of 2007’s In Rainbows might have positioned Radiohead as leaders of the industry’s new school, but that album will ultimately be remembered for its effect on retail dynamics, not its actual music.

Once again on the heels of a commercial success, we see the band side-stepping the limelight on The King of Limbs—in the process, making their most satisfying work in a decade. At first, the album seems a collage of skittery beats, staccato synthesizers, vocal samples and space, anchored by two superb songs (that’s two more than the last album had): the nervy “Morning Mr. Magpie” and the unexpectedly optimistic closer “Separator.” The whip-beat single “Lotus Flower” doesn’t impress with its dull take on dependence (“I can’t kick your habit”), while other tracks (“Bloom,” “Feral”) are instrumental drivel. But Limbs rewards repeat listens.

“Little by Little” emerges as a clockwork groove in step with singer Thom Yorke’s solo outing “Black Swan,” sexy but neurotic: “I’m such a tease and you’re such a flirt / Once you’ve been around you’ve been around enough.” Yorke later wails to an empty hall in the solo piano number “Cortex” (call it chamber-soul) and gets vulnerable on “Give Up the Ghost,” the couplet “Don’t haunt me / Don’t hurt me” repeated in alluring harmonies over the background. At eight songs and 37 minutes, it is indeed the band’s shortest work, but you could hardly call it diminished. Rather, The King of Limbs is the sharpest and most accessible showcase of Radiohead’s efforts to skirt convention. —John Vettese Radiohead

photo by sebastian edge

Leonard says, relax Even in adult-contemporary, winning the endorsement of a 76-year-old doesn’t count for much currency in the cred department.

But when said elder is Leonard Cohen, people tend to take notice—and in the case of the living legend’s protégé, NEeMA, they probably should.

Produced “in association with Cohen” by Pierre Marchand (Sarah McLachlan, Rufus Wainwright), NEeMA’s sophomore effort, Watching You Think, shows the Canadian (of Egyptian and Lebanese descent) songstress deftly navigating folk and world-infused singer-songwriter pop, inching dangerously close to the middle of the road without giving in to cringe-worthy clichés. From ruminative, finger-picked ballads (“Running”) to airy sing-alongs (“Escape”) and country weepers (“Sidewalk”), the record’s open, shimmering production and NEeMA’s smoky, sanguine delivery result in a sundry and satisfying long-player for lovelorn listeners who hanker for smart, bohemian pop and poetic lyrics, but don’t want their boat rocked too hard. —Adam Gold New York Dolls

Dancing Backwards in High Heels 429

Too much too late Without going into the whole history of the New York Dolls and why the glam-punk pioneers were so damn special, let’s just say it was a big deal that their thrilling pants-on-fire appeal crossed over to their second incarnation. Since reforming in 2004, the Dolls, with David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain as the only living members (Arthur Kane died shortly after the reunion), peeled off two fresh and bawdy rock ‘n’ roll albums. But now we have Dancing Backward in High Heels, produced by Louis XIV’s Jason Hill. Man, what happened?

Spector-lite arrangements, schlocky island flavors, terrifyingly scarce electric guitar licks, and a lackluster performance by Johansen make the band sound ready for shuffleboard and piña coladas. The lively “Round and Round She Goes” has reassuring vital stats, and “I’m So Fabulous” throws down on hipster carpetbaggers with trademark sass, but it would be more effective if the Dolls didn’t sound like a cruise-ship band.

—Jeanne Fury Parts & Labor

Constant Future Jagjaguwar

The chaotic melodicism of an exploding music box When Parts & Labor sprang to life nearly a decade ago, it was a noisy experimental side project for electronic noodler Dan Friel and bassist B.J. Warshaw, the musical monster stitched together by a pair of weirdly simpatico mad sonic scientists. The

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lurching path from that lightning-struck birth has increasingly proven that melodic classicism can coexist with barely tethered noise rock, each one inexplicably feeding and complementing the other.

Three years after the emodelic majesty of Receivers, P&L return with Constant Future, a more finely-tuned post rock/prog/pop masterwork of epic proportions that manages to sound grand without being grandiose. Just as King Crimson’s bombast was leavened by Adrian Belew’s whimsical gravity, Parts & Labor combine serious execution with a wicked left field sensibility to create a sound that hints at Jawbox’s punk anthemics and Wire’s pop anarchy. Constant Future is uncompromisingly accessible, Parts & Labor’s perfect storm of experimental texturalism and structured rock chaos. —Brian Baker

Corinne Bailey Rae

The Love EP Capitol

Compromising position Corinne Bailey Rae clearly knows how to make the best of a bad situation.

Steeped in grief over the loss of her husband to a drug overdose, last year’s The Sea found the singer-songwriter largely shelving her 2006 debut’s breezy neo-soul in favor of a wide-ranging approach and potential escape from adult contemporary limbo.

With The Love EP’s five covers, she takes four steps back. Sure, Rae’s delivery is impeccable as usual, to the extent that she pretty much brandjacks Prince’s “I Wanna Be Your Lover.” Arrange-

Gravel and Grit Roots rock’s grand dame returns with another sacred text

Lucinda Williams

W

illiams was roots rock before the term was coined, and spent years

struggling to get her music heard. Only after Mary Chapin Carpenter took Williams’ “PassionBlessed ate Kisses” to the top of the country charts in 1993 did people start paying attention. She nabbed a Best Lost Highway Contemporary Folk Album Grammy for Car Wheels on a Gravel Road in 1999, and she’s been going from strength to strength ever since.

Blessed is a strong contender for Williams’ best album. She’s in top form here, her raw, bluesy voice moving from a soulful growl to a desolate purr on a solid collection that continues to shine a bit of light into the darkest corners of the human condition. “Seeing Black” is a song to a friend who committed suicide that’s equal parts grief and rage.

On “I Don’t Know How You’re Livin’,” Williams watches another

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ments are crisp and clever, too. The fault resides in the singer’s choice of material: With one exception, tightening her grip on the Norah Jones demographic seems Rae’s number-one priority.

That exception—a lurching, erotically charged rendition of Belly’s “Low Red Moon”—hints both at what might have been and what might yet still be. —Rod Smith

Rainbow Arabia

Boys and Diamonds Kompaqt

Poly-ethnic breakfast club soundtrack Tiffany Preston is at her Third World-tourista best when puking up lyrics like a woman possessed

friend going down the tubes, despite all the love and care she’s offered. Her anguished vocal here is mirrored by Val McCallum’s weeping pedal steel. “Awakening” is a deeply spiritual song about unfolding the soul to embrace the endless possibilities of life and love. It starts quietly and builds to a dramatic conclusion. “Kiss Like Your Kiss,” which got a Grammy nod for its inclusion on the True Blood soundtrack, is more subdued, given a shimmering summer aura by subtle keyboards, measured bass notes and a breathless, undulating guitar line.

Blessed is also being released in a special two-disc edition.

The second disc includes the demos for all the songs on the album, recorded in Williams’ kitchen, the place where she does most of her writing.

—j. poet

over the synthesizer-splattered ephedrine pop she and hubby Danny brew at their Los Angeles home. Rings on their fingers and bells on their toes, the Prestons stage post-Gang Gang Dance felicities like benign WWE battle royales. Why settle for pitting delirious hand-percussive flurries against organ hiccups and buzzing bass keyboards when clucking xylophones and bonkers sampler effects could really set a smelting-pot party off right?

While long-awaited full-length Boys and Diamonds doesn’t quite hit the breezy, bungee-jumble sweet spot early single “Holiday in Congo” did, it’s a tropical(ia) delight nonetheless. “Jungle Bear” sets off at a kind of wan, irradiated twee-trot, while the keeling “Hai” pulls a Drunken Master, all sloshed, crab-walking swagger and nano-blip blizzard. “Blind” bobs blithely by on needle-sharp guitars, synths compressed to croaking throbs and Tiffany’s all-out commitment to a put-on accent that’s a bastardization of a dozen put-on accents. —Raymond Cummings

Rival Schools

Pedals

Photo Finish

Reattaching the training wheels United by Fate would’ve been an interesting bookend to the music career of Walter Schreifels.

Starting with late ’80s hardcore outfit Gorilla Biscuits, he went on to front the seminal Quicksand through the ’90s. Rival Schools’ lone release then seemed like a proper indie rock coda in 2001.

But Schreifels continued, dabbling in pure pop and folk, and is now back with sophomore effort, Pedals, as if the last decade never existed.

While a preferred alternative to his more recent endeavors, this is still light fare, a nostalgic romp seemingly tailored towards acolytes of Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American. There aren’t any embarrassing grasps for relevance, but the material isn’t strong enough to justify being so out of step.

Schreifels has put out some incredibly important records, but he seems to have lost his bearings. If resuscitating Rival Schools is an attempt to refocus, Pedals is little more than a warm-up.

—Shane Mehling Caitlin Rose

Own Side Now Theory 8

Sanding the edges As a teenager playing under the moniker “Save Macaulay the Band,” Caitlin Rose wowed at Nashville’s top local rock clubs.

Already an accomplished singer-songwriter with an agile voice and precocious charm, Rose masterfully synthesized trad country whimsy and adolescent snarl. Now, more than five years later, comes Own Side Now, a debut full-length crafted with an astounding amount of patience and grace.

In those intervening years, Rose cultivated that

photo by dustin adams

love for classic country, dulling down the youthful bite in favor of lilting melodies and increasingly assured vocals. Standout tracks include the slow burn melancholy of “Things Change,” the bang-up breakup ballad “Song for Rabbits”—her invocation of “routine disaster” one of the album’s many lovely lyrical moments—and the acoustic swing of “Shanghai Cigarettes.” Now a wise and weary 22, Rose exhibits an exhilarating level of subtlety and intelligence in her music. —Lee Stabert

Six Organs of Admittance

Asleep on the Floodplain Drag City

Rather ripping With each passing Six Organs of Admittance record, mainman Ben Chasny affirms two common critiques of his oeuvre: he’s a badass guitarist and a pretty crappy singer. Lucky for us, his hyperprolific career has mostly counteracted the latter with his excellence at the former. Asleep on the Floodplain is no different, and the sweet licks are as sweet as ever.

The songs still suffer when he sings over them, though. The vocals on “Hold but Let Go” and “Light of the Light” are distracting when, given the fluidity of everything going on underneath them, they might otherwise be ignorable. Still, there are asides like “Saint of the Fisherman” and “Poppies” where Chasny flaunts his mastery of the fretboard with simple statements, boiling bass and melodic lines down to the work of two hands.

But the very best of the Six Organs repertoire is long, trippy and trance-inducing songs, and Floodplain delivers a shining example on the album’s centerpiece, “S/word and Leviathan.”

—Matt Sullivan The Sounds

Something to Die For SideOneDummy

Hearts of glass For their fourth album, Sweden’s Sounds have set up a permanent residence on the dance floor. While previous releases have approached new wave via rock ‘n’ roll’s traditional guitar/bass/drums, Something to Die For is saturated in electronica. This is full-throttle moveyour-ass inspired.

Fuzzed-out synths, echo effects and jittery shakers dominate; the bright beats create momentum that swirls rather than charges in a straight path. “Together we conquer our planet with dance,” sings Maja Ivarsson on “Dance With the Devil.” The uplifting sentiment hovers over a few songs, but Ivarsson also has her eye on lovers, both good and bad. “It’s not me, it’s you” she seethes on the bitter “The No No Song,” but “Diana” implores a girl to stay the night, amid a hard-driving snare and squalling guitars that craft sharp edges and a smeared, messy center.

Such infectious tunes make modern new wave something to live for. —Jeanne Fury

John Vanderslice

White Wilderness Merge

Blizzard beast John Vanderslice has brought in reinforcements. Long a solo studio whiz, the singer-songwriter teamed up with the Magik*Magik Orchestra for his latest, White Wilderness. The 19-member collective of classically trained musicians, under the guidance of maestro Minna Choi, is based in the Bay Area; the album’s nine tracks were captured live over the course of just three days.

The collaboration is a fruitful one—Vanderslice’s traditional studio virtuosity (he’s also an accomplished producer, working with indie stalwarts including Spoon and Mountain Goats) has been replaced with a different sort of acumen. The orchestra’s lush textures add a layer of sophisticated atmospherics that perfectly complement Vanderslice’s understated delivery and evocative lyrics. The title track is an ideal example, as talk of falling snow and obscured paths is mirrored in delicate waves of piano and violin. —Lee Stabert Wagon Christ

Toomorrow

Ninja Tune

Waiting for the miracle So, let’s see: playful, anachronistic layering of samples; cheeky track titles; stoner sense of humor—sounds like old-school bedroom electronic producer Luke Vibert’s up to his aging tricks again. Back in the day, Vibert, alongside Aphex Twin and µ-ziq, constituted the first line of defense against mainfloor dance music’s rigorous formulas. Yet on Toomorrow, Vibert’s first release under his Wagon Christ persona in seven years, he sounds like he’s falling back on the same eccentric m.o. that has characterized his work since the ’90s.

To be sure, Vibert’s productions still retain a cockeyed charm. “Ain’t He Heavy, He’s My Brother” lopes along with an engagingly soulful gait, and the album closes with the effectively somber “Mr. Mukatsuku.” But the cleverness wears off by the midpoint of most of these tracks. Indeed, electronica stands still for no one, not even its pioneers. —Justin Hampton Abigail Washburn

City of Refuge

Foreign Children/ Rounder

Pop goes the bluegrass Washburn grew up playing bluegrass banjo, but a job in Chengdu introduced her to Chinese folk music, which had surprising similarities to the music she loved. Her previous albums flirted with a fusion of Chinese folk and bluegrass, and while the credits here mention Wu Fei’s guzheng (Chinese zither) and throat singing by the Beijing-based Mongolian folk band Hanggai, their contributions are buried in the mix.

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Although her long vocal lines may still reveal a Chinese influence at times, the songs Washburn wrote for this album are more folk pop, despite the often troubling lyrics. “City of Refuge” and “Last Train” have a mellow Fleetwood Mac feel, while “Devine Bell” is an almost tongue-in-cheek bit of bluegrass-tinged gospel. Washburn takes a more traditional approach on “Dreams of Nectar,” the familiar tale of a refugee crushed by the American dream, and “Bright Morning Stars,” an aching spiritual balanced between resignation and resurrection. —j. poet

Win Win

Win Win Vice

They are the champions Brooklyn producer Alex Epton, a.k.a. XXXChange, is famous for his work with rapper Spank Rock, Bloc Party vocalist Kele’s solo album, and remixes of Björk and Thom Yorke, but Win Win is where he steps out as a beat-head auteur. Win Win are a trio with Chris Devlin (Devlin & Darko) and Ghostdad, and their debut gives the sense of a notebook (or maybe a MacBook Pro) full of ideas being flipped through loosely.

This being a producer’s album, there are nine guests credited: fans of Danger Mouse should try “Pop a Gumball,” which features Spank Rock, Andrew W.K. and DJ Matt Sweeney of WNYU’s Beats in Space mix show, but the track’s taut rockiness is far removed from what you’d associate with any of those three. Ditto “Victim,” which filters Baltimore club vet Blaqstarr’s sung vocal in swampy guitar and heavily distorted bass and drums like late ’90s big beat gone all the way rock.

—Michaelangelo Matos Wolf + Lamb vs. Soul Clap

DJ-Kicks K7

Houses of low culture New York’s Wolf + Lamb and Boston’s Soul Clap are a pair of DJ-producer duos who make and play a pronouncedly new-era version of classic East Coast deep house, the soul-rooted, purist strain that for decades had been primarily the preserve of older dancers. Wolf + Lamb and Soul Clap’s joint volume of the DJ-Kicks series concentrates almost entirely on artists and recordings from within their homegrown scenes—unusual for DJ-Kicks, which tends to be where selectors stretch out.

Its synergy works nicely: Not everything is great (you’re not going to run out and hunt down an unmixed version of W+L ft. Smirk’s “Therapist”), but the languid tempos and floating instrumental ambience are invitingly cozy. And a number of things do make you look up: W+L’s remix of H-Foundation ft. Aion’s “Tonight,” the neo-soul detour of “In the Park” by Sect ft. Ben Westbeech,

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Wye Oak

and Benoit & Sergio’s narcotic tale of an addict lover, “Walk and Talk.” —Michaelangelo Matos

Wye Oak

Civilian Merge

Citizens on patrol Andy Stack and Jenn Wasner, the partnership behind Wye Oak, are masters of dynamics. Their latest, Civilian, swoops and crashes, swells and whispers. Wasner’s voice is the perfect accent—sweet and pretty, yet willful enough to compete with the band’s occasional cacophony.

Tracks like the rangy, dissonant “Dog Eyes” oscillate between nifty pop shuffle and jagged, somber guitar work, building to a wondrous conflagration of sound. The opening thrum of “Plains” lulls with its delicate melancholia before building to insistent punctuations of noise.

Meanwhile the album’s opener, “Two Small Deaths,” is a swoony gem, augmented by the hum of reverb and an insistent bassline. This Baltimore duo continues to craft beautiful, challenging music, elevated by genuinely exquisite moments—a wistful melody or act of restraint that surprises and delights. Stuff this smart and accomplished should be enough to inspire aspiring bands with anemic ideas to hang up their guitars for good.

—Lee Stabert Yelle

Safari Disco Club EMI

Watch out for that…

Not quite the wild, equatorial jungle party its title suggests, Safari Disco Club doesn’t trek terribly far afield from the sweet ‘n’ spunky synth-pop of Yelle’s 2007 debut. If anything, Safari is actually less animalistic than its predecessor, lacking the harder edge of Pop-

Up’s gritty, electro-laced hip-hop cuts—the trio’s eponymous vocalist generally sticks to singing rather than rapping, though she’s still as sprightly as ever.

The newly polished, more melodically focused approach makes a decently effective trade-off, yielding pleasantly fluffy roller-disco gems like the sparkle-eyed “J’ai Bu” (strangely reminiscent of Sally Shapiro), even if the best cuts here—the enjoyably loopy title song; the pumping fidgethouse of “Comme Un Enfant”—are often the leanest and meanest. Still, despite an occasional oversaturation of generically glossy, faceless synths, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more propulsive, exuberant set of icily retro electro-pop this side of La Roux. And those poseurs aren’t even French!

—K. Ross Hoffman

Yuck

Yuck

Fat Possum

Gross profit Despite a moniker that conjures who-cares sludge, the young Brits in Yuck hark back to the kinds of homespun, enthusiastic guitar records people liked ’90s indie rock for in the first place, because that’s what it largely consisted of then. Sometimes it’s power-pop dressed up in grungy clothes, but faster and hookier, with the whiz-bang sides of Built to Spill and Teenage Fanclub coming out strongly as the tempos rev (“Georgia”), and a Yo La Tengo-ish drift in the lonesome-slide-guitar-driven “Suck.”

Nominally, Yuck are a quartet, but their secret weapon—beyond guitars with the kind of scrappy texture college radio DJs go quietly nuts for—is their fifth member, Ilana (the bio dispenses with last names), the sister of lead singer/guitarist Daniel, whose chiming, winning harmonies give the whole thing just that much more depth.

—Michaelangelo Matos

HOT TRACKS TEN TO REMEMBER IN STORES 3/15

The

IN STORES 3/8

Joy Formidable

The Big Roar

Lupe Fiasco

Lykke Li

Lasers

Wounded Rhymes

IN STORES 3/8

DevilDriver

Wye Oak

PJ Harvey

avril lavigne

Beast

Civilian

Let England Shake

Goodby Lullaby

IN STORES 3/15

Beady Eye Different Gear, Still Speeding

Strong Arm Steady Arms & Hammers

New York Dolls Dancing Backward in High Heels

FEATURING LIAM, ANDY AND JEM FROM OASIS

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No, it’s not a cheesesteak Mark Bittman with a chocolate, olive oil and salt baguette sandwich from Addy’s in Portland, OR.

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portrait by Leela Cyd Ross

The Opinionist

Food writer and former Minimalist columnist Mark Bittman gets expansive on the NYT op-ed page / interview by Drew Lazor

M

ark Bittman is “The Minimalist” no more. After spending 13 years exploring no-frills

home cooking in his New York Times food column, the author and journalist has moved on to a fresh challenge: a weekly slot in the Times’ Opinion section, a platform for him to discuss the far-reaching food issues that influence what ends up on the American dinner table. (He will continue to write about cooking for New York Times Magazine.) Cowbell touched base with Bittman to talk big ideas—all while he prepped a cumin- and chiliscented stir-fry of veggies, brown rice and black beans in his New York City home.

Can you pinpoint an exact moment when you knew you were going to end “The Minimalist” and move into this new role?

It never occurred to me that I could make it happen until [the fall of 2010]. I pitched the [new] column to the Opinion people, and they liked the idea. At the same time, the Magazine was going through changes, and the new editor wanted me to take over that [cooking] column. What an opportunity.

The op-ed column… it’s an idea whose time had come, and I consider myself fortunate to have been in a position to pitch it. I was maybe a week ahead of the curve.

[Laughs] If it hadn’t been me, it would’ve been someone else. It’s something that should be happening. The way I pitched it was to say, “Food, like economics, like politics, touches everybody’s life, all the time.

It’s the prism through which you can look

“

at anything you want to look at.” Having been writing about food for a long time and having been making noise increasingly in the policy world… I’m sort of trying to walk a line between modesty and immodesty with this, I guess. [Laughs] But it’s not as if I’m not qualified to do this.

How do you define your role now? What is your responsibility, your vocation?

It’s clear that I’m interested in food policy and what’s right and wrong in the food world. That’s what I want to be doing.

Whether it becomes a political column is a long-term thing… or whether it becomes more personal and lighthearted, that’s all down the road. I’d like to think it becomes many different things—not only a weekly analysis of policy or current events, but a discussion of food in the broadest, and hopefully truest, sense.

The government is reacting to where the money and pressure is coming from. Most decisions that come from government agencies seem to be wrong about food, and wrong about everything that concerns consumers.” —mark bittman

One thing I struggle with, as far as the American diet goes, is how much responsibility falls on policymakers to shape how we eat, and how much responsibility falls on the individual to get educated and seek out sustainable choices. Is there a specific split there in your mind?

Sadly, it’s entirely up to individuals to press the government to do the right thing.

It’s the government’s role to make the food supply better. That needs to happen, [but] it’s increasingly clear that will not happen without us pushing them. It’s up to us to change diets and educate ourselves. It’s all on us. The Feds are under so much corporate pressure; they’re not going to make positive change unless they’re pushed by people. And I’m not sure I would’ve said that six months ago, but things have gotten worse-looking.

The government is not acting for or responding to the needs of its citizens—it’s acting and responding to the needs of its corporate benefactors. Money is coming from the corporations, but not enough pressure is coming from citizens. The government is reacting to where the money and pressure is coming from. Most decisions that come from government agencies seem to be wrong about food, and wrong about everything that concerns consumers. How do you change that?

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A California woman recently filed a lawsuit against Nutella, claiming she was duped by an advertising claim that it was “part of a balanced breakfast.” What is your opinion on this approach to hold a company accountable for duplicitous marketing?

I think the corporations do need to be held responsible for misleading advertising. That’s part of the problem here. There are a bunch of people in the media, in the public arena and NGOs who are on the right side of this struggle, but most have no money to speak of. Meanwhile, advertising, marketing and lobbying budgets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The people we need to look at are the cereal companies and McDonald’s and fast food companies—big food conglomerates.

Look, all marketing is intentionally misleading. Here’s the thing: If you write that you should do away with Happy Meals, a certain amount of people will say it’s a parent’s problem, parents need to be teaching their children. But parents are just as susceptible to marketing as anybody else.

It’s trying to sell stuff to people who don’t need it, or trying to get you to buy more of stuff you do need. It’s about trying to sell stuff, targeting both children and adults.

It’s very difficult to say to your kids, “Don’t eat at McDonald’s” when you yourself have been sold on eating at McDonald’s. It’s tough to say “Don’t eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch” when you yourself are eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs.

In your mind, what is the worst eating habit Americans have, and how would you suggest we break it?

That’s simple: We eat too many animal products. Even worse than processed food, though it’s not a huge gap, is the animal product thing. We should be growing food for people first, animals second. And cars, by the way, third.

What’s it going to take to fundamentally change the American attitude toward eating? You’ve mentioned the formation of a “Civilian Cooking Corps” in your new column. What is that?

I do think that people are legitimately busy, and people don’t have the cooking skills, and that’s really a deadly combo. You can’t really have an impact on how busy people are, but you can encourage and teach them 42

“

It’s very difficult to say to your kids, ‘Don’t eat at McDonald’s’ when you yourself have been sold on eating at McDonald’s. It’s tough to say ‘Don’t eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch’ when you yourself are eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Puffs.” —mark bittman that cooking is a high priority. There needs to be an ongoing campaign heralding the joys of cooking, if you will—and the rewards of it. Food needs to be affordable and sustainable, as we know, and available.

Then people need the skills to put those things together. They need to want to cook, have the ingredients they need, and they need to have the skills. That would be the aim of the Civilian Cooking Corps. It’s funny—I’ve received maybe a dozen e-mails saying, “We’re already doing that, here’s our program.” It’s really quite cool.

There’s this huge corps of unemployed people. You start a program where unemployed people are trained how to cook, and trained how to cook for other people. They have two jobs: to cook for people who are unable to do it for themselves, and to teach other people how to cook. Someone will say that’s pie in the sky. Fine. But if you end corporate subsidies on commodity foods, you have a lot of money floating around that can be put to good use for a change.

In your debut Op-Ed column, you lay out “A Food Manifesto for the Future,” but point out that many of the ideas are “frequently discussed, but sadly not yet implemented.” So what’s it going to take to implement them?

What’s the first step?

The [government-issued agricultural] subsidies thing gets back to that discussion. That’s huge. If we could take some of this money and turn it toward education, that would be even bigger. Ending subsidies would be a form of taxation on Big Food, taking away their ability to produce junk food cheaply. The price of some food—lousy food—would go up, and that’s not entirely a bad thing.

Speaking of prices: The argument I see coming up time and time again in the “real food vs. frankenfood” debate is money. While it’s our hope that every citizen gains access to sustainable foods, I foresee many struggling to afford to systematically change how/what they eat. How do you tackle this looming question of cost?

Look, people worldwide manage to eat better than we do with less money. I get that it’s difficult for people to get to and from real markets, and that’s a huge issue, one that has to be resolved. And surely real food is too expensive for many people. That’s why we need to subsidize food—and cooking, for that matter—for people who legitimately can’t afford it. We already do that, to some extent, but that’s one federal program that needs more, not less, money.

Is it an altogether good thing that Walmart, America’s largest, most influential retailer, has teamed up with First Lady Michelle Obama to push for healthier food and more product transparency? Or should we as consumers be wary of this move?

Both. Well, not altogether a good thing, but on the whole, better rather than not. Retailers are different from producers. They can make money selling whatever you want to buy. You want to buy canned tomatoes?

Fine. You want to buy Snickers? They don’t care. But the people who make Snickers cannot make canned tomatoes. In other words, Walmart is agnostic as to whether they sell you crap or real food—food you can use to cook. They’ll figure out a way to make money either way. On the other hand, the alliance to produce “better” processed food? This I could do without.

Ending Junk Mail

by Felicia D’Ambrosio

F

orty-one pounds. That’s how much the average American household will receive annually in postal junk mail—not including unsolicited catalogs, handbills and phone books. According to the EPA’s most recent Municipal Solid Waste Facts and Figures report, paper and paperboard made up 31 percent of the municipal solid waste stream in 2008. Even though paper is easily recycled in most communities, only about 43 million of the 77 million tons generated in 2008 were recovered for recycling.

Thus, source reduction—keeping goods out of the waste stream by not generating them—is far more effective than waste reduction, a.k.a. recycling.

Reduce your junk mail and prevent marketers from sharing your information by writing “Do not sell or rent my information” any time you send in a warranty, sign up for a contest, or provide your name and address anywhere. Since a national Do Not Mail list is not yet a reality, use the methods below to beat junk mail’s primary offenders at their game. A comprehensive treatment costs less than half an hour on the Web, and is guaranteed pain-free.

Credit Card and Insurance Offers TransUnion, Experian and Equifax, better known as the Big Three credit reporting agencies, supply their mailing lists to the credit card and insurance companies felling forests to send you limitless plastic opportunity. Call 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888567-8688) to cease receiving pre-screened

illustration by melissa mcfeeters

offers for five years. The 24-hour recorded message will ask for your name, address, phone and social security number, which is creepy but legitimate in this case. Credit reporting agencies already have this information and use it for verification.

Phone Directories Though it may make it harder to find a plumber in a blackout or boost the vertically challenged at the dining room table, visiting yellowpagesoptout.com lets you quit receiving Verizon directories, Yellow and White Pages, after registering and responding to a verification email.

Catalogs Have your mailing label handy when calling the customer service phone number of companies sending unwanted or duplicate catalogs. If you’d only like to receive

a certain number of catalogs per year, let the representative know how many. This approach also works for specific-source junk mail that defies categorization.

Direct Mail Marketing The Direct Marketing Association represents nearly 3,600 companies utilizing direct-mail marketing. In the interest of responding to junk-mail concerns, they maintain DMAChoice.org, where consumers can register to be removed from their members’ mailing lists. Supply your name, address and a credit card number—you won’t be charged, and all info is confidential—to manage mail choices for catalogs, donation solicitations, magazine and credit card offers from national (but not local) marketers.

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Love Your Work* The Women of Big Love triangulate their fire with grace and subtlety / by Joe Gross

E

xcellent acting ensembles thrive on two things: good bal-

ance between cast members and the patina of positive peer pressure. A good ensemble cast can be prevented from being a great one if one actor is clearly operating on a different wavelength from the others. Homicide: Life on the Street had a world-beating cast packed with actors doing smart, often subtle work that was nonetheless dominated by the screen-filling, stage-acting presence of Andre Braugher as Det. Frank Pembleton.

And a balanced cast can be prevented from achieving greatness if everyone seems to be playing their positions all the time. Even with Jennifer Aniston’s subsequent fame, the cast of Friends was pretty evenly matched. But you never got the impression they were pushing each other with their performances.

Then there is Big Love. It sounds like a joke: For all five seasons, Big Love has featured most of the best performances by women on television. Indeed, the punchline is obvious: There certainly are enough roles to go around. But as politically problematic as the show could be—see also Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven for a hypnotic look at the most violent aspects of breakaway, “fundamentalist Mormon” polygamy—it’s jaw-dropping how strong the female talent is in this cast. And it’s an excellent example of the core three actresses—Jeanne Tripplehorn as Barbara Henrickson, Chloë Sevigny as Nicki Grant and Ginnifer Goodwin as Margene Heffman—pushing each other to do better work simply by example and making every woman in the cast seem excellent.

Take the ever-weird Grace Zabriskie, perhaps best known as Sarah Palmer,

* Directors often get all the credit

when it comes to great films, and great TV shows are often seen as ensemble pieces. But what about the actors who help elevate a flick to classic status, or the unsung stars who take a show to the next level? Each month, Love Your Work looks at the actors who rescued a project from failure or added that extra layer of awesomeness.

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frail, touched mother of the doomed Laura Palmer on Twin Peaks. In Big Love, her inherent oddness works in a completely different direction as the semi-homicidal, co-dependent Lois Henrickson, and she’s a blast. Similarly excellent is Mary Kay Place as Adaleen Grant, mother of Nicki and one of polygamist compound leader Roman Grant’s wives. Place’s best moments come in the show’s first two seasons, where she wears her queendom with a sharp humor—she’s aware of the insanity of her situation, but accepts it with a faith that’s as much bemused as humble.

Even Cassi Thomson, who plays Nicki’s daughter Cara Lynn, has grown as an actress exponentially within a season.

The toughest part on the show might be that of Barb Henrickson, the mainstream Mormon woman whose husband convinces her to live the “principle” and accept sister wives. Tripplehorn’s had a varied and largely low-key career, from sharp parts in big-name successes (Basic Instinct, The Firm) to, well, Waterworld.

There wasn’t a lot of evidence that she could anchor a crew quite like this, and she has to do it as the Zeppo. When the others are freaking out, Barb must remain calm. When everyone gets to show their emotions on their sleeve behind closed

doors, Barb must, at least until the end of the fourth season, be the family’s public face all the time. She is the one who believes in this lifestyle the least, and has to run the show. She is Leo McGarry to Bill’s President Bartlet, and she’s never been quite sold on the administration’s goals in the first place.

Sevigny’s accomplishment is even more impressive. The former It Girl proved she had chops to spare in the often unwatchably intense Boys Don’t Cry, but her work on Big Love is rich and dynamic. Nicki is a largely terrible human being, but an enormously complicated one. She’s selfcentered, easily jealous, sheltered and damaged in ways she still can’t fully comprehend. She’s conniving and more than

top Photo ron batzdorff, all others by lacey terrell

a little manipulative. But Sevigny’s (L to R) Chloë Sevigny, Jeanne Tripplehorn ability to play such and Ginnifer Goodwin. a profoundly unlikeable woman and still make her appealing (if not entirely sympathetic) is a wonder to behold. A key to her character comes in the first season.

In a scene as reflective of the show’s roots in Westerns as anything else, Nicki’s father sends her faintly terrifying brother Alby to intimidate Bill’s family. Only Nicki is brave enough to confront him—they have guns and Hummers; she has nothing but mother bear rage, and she scares them off. You suddenly understand why Bill married her—she’s made of iron. If Barb is too mainstream Mormon and Margene

is essentially a civilian, Nicki is the prairie wife who will go down shooting.

And what of Margene? Ginnifer Goodwin was the least known quantity when the show launched in 2006, and as the show winds down, she will leave with the biggest skill set. Margene is an innocent, a non-Mormon who babysat for the Henricksons and got caught up in the lifestyle.

She adores having this instant big family, has an enormous heart and seems the least sexually jealous of everyone in the houses (perhaps because she’s the youngest). A people person in the purest sense, she’s the one to reach out to neighbors and assume the best in people, even if she is a sucker for a Ponzi scheme. Goodwin’s able to pull off the naif thing without seeming

truly dopey, embodying the old axiom that there are plenty of smart people who aren’t funny, but very few who are funny and not smart. Her comic timing is spotless, easily the best on the program. It adds a layer of wide-eyed intelligence to Margene.

Three women, three very different parts, three stellar performances that make the show hustle and flow.

Such is their strength Big Love: that the biggest mysThe Complete tery is what they saw Fourth Season is available on in Bill Paxton in the DVD from HBO first place.

Home Video.

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Fine Old Cannibals

The terrible truth of Soylent Green is still more haunting than hilarious / by Sean L. Maloney

S

poiler alert: It’s made out of people. Wait, no, it’s

soy-eating, unemployed layabouts.

Soylent Green’s New York is one of a radical disnot really a spoiler alert when you’re talking about parity between rich and poor, where if you’re the a cultural touchstone, is it? ’Cause, really, Phil former, a beautiful woman is “furniture” that comes Hartman would have to take more of the blame for with your high-end apartment, and if you’re the spoiling the ending of 1973’s dystopian sci-fi clas- latter, you might just be lucky enough to sleep on sic Soylent Green—Hartman’s impression of Char- someone’s staircase or one of the broken-down cars lton Heston is one of the most classic gags from Saturday that clog the city streets like petrified traffic. The desperate population subsists on processed proNight Live’s ’90s heyday. Or you can pawn fault off on Matt tein wafers manufactured by the Soylent Groening, as the titular human-protein sustenance Corporation, which controls 50 percent squares have been joke fodder for both The Simpsons of the world’s food supply—think McDonald’s meets Monsanto and Walmart, and and Futurama. What we’re trying to say is that, basithen they turn up the evil just for shits and cally, we didn’t spoil it, and, really, neither did they. giggles—and there’s not even enough of the All jokes aside, Soylent Green, based on soy-saltines to go around. People are pissed. the book Make Room! Make Room! by hard Things are hectic. sci-fi master Harry Harrison, is an intense And Charlton Heston’s hard-boiled cop exploration of the effects of overpopulaThorn—along with his awesome ascot— Soylent Green tion, environmental disaster and corpoare caught up in the middle, swept into will be available on Blu-ray ratist plutocracy. Maybe it’s because the the conspiracy to create crispy, crunchy March 19 from developing world is in the midst of Days of people-crackers after a member of the elite Warner Home Video.

Rage—populist uprisings fueled by rising is murdered. Thorn uncovers what’s basifood prices, sweeping unemployment and cally the creepiest approach to keeping a indifferent ruling classes have become an almost company—and a civilization—in the black with the daily occurrence—but Soylent Green’s hypothesis help of Sol Roth (Hollywood legend Edward G. Rob(freeze-dried cannibalism as a last-ditch effort to inson in his final role) as his roommate and research save a species spun out of control) doesn’t seem too assistant. What the pair discovers is a haunting and Charlton Heston far gone. Hell, they nailed the fact that New York foreboding reality that is only a few steps removed (left) with Chuck Connors City would be overrun with unshaven, vest-wearing, from our own.

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IN STORES

03.22.11

IN STORES

03.01.11

in stores 3.8.11 MORE FUNNY FROM TOSH’S

in stores now

RAL COMEDY CENTILAB LE BRETHREN ALSO AVA

MORE JACKASS ALSO ON SALE

© 2011 Comedy Partners. All Rights Reserved. COMEDY CENTRAL and all related titles, logos and characters are trademarks of Comedy Partners. TM, ® & Copyright © 2011 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

© 2010 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

AVAILABLE MARCH 8 in stores march 8 47

/movies

Hybrid Vehicles

Sharktopus is the latest in a long and glorious line of Roger Corman schlock / by Sean L. Maloney

W

e don’t know about art, but we know what we like—

specifically, watching bioengineered mutants devour bikini-clad beach bunnies on a Saturday night. We’re not afraid to admit that, while we may live in a city chock to the brim with fine art, high culture and topnotch nightlife, we definitely stayed in to catch the premiere of Sharktopus on SyFy last fall. Let’s not mince words—we are nerds and we have no shame about shirking off socialization to watch something incredibly silly.

Sure, we set our DVR so we’d have it for posterity, and it’s not like we’ve never seen a Roger Corman-produced monster movie, but there was no way we would actually wait to watch a half-shark/halfoctopus killing machine raging through a Mexican resort town. In this time-shifted era, most things can wait—a movie about a killer shark with deadly tentacles cannot.

Heck, it might have been the most important television event in a generation. Well, for us anyway.

We can’t say exactly why we found Sharktopus so compelling when recent years have been glutted with compositeanimal made-for-TV monster movies: 2010 also saw Corman bring Dinoshark and Dinocroc vs Supergator to the small 48

screen, plus there was the rather prodigious output of Corman-style knock-off studio the Asylum, which brought us Mega-Piranha, Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus, Mega-Shark vs Crocosaurus and 2010: Moby Dick.

Which... really, that’s just a ridiculous idea, even for us. Ahab pilots a nuclear submarine? Talk about a stretch—an even bigger stretch than, say, believing that Sharktopus star Eric Roberts is supposed to be a scientific genius. Thirty years ago it might have been a possibility, but these days Roberts comes off so stoned that he makes Keith Richards look cogent.

Then again, we’re not tuning into watch Eric Roberts stumble through his lines— has anyone, ever? We’re tuning into to

watch a carnage-packed cheese-fest, which is exactly what we get. Yes, the plot is flimsy at best, the acting is, uh, not going to win anybody any awards anytime soon, and the special effects Sharktopus are special in the shortwill be bus sense, but none of available that matters—every few March 15 from Anchor Bay minutes a half-sharkEntertainment.. half-octopus-freakshow eats somebody.

That’s the important thing—the script could be entirely made up of quotes from Whitney Port’s Facebook page and we’d totally be into it, just as long as someone’s blood is splattered all over sand at least once every, say, five minutes. Again, we’re talking about a mutant-shark-octopus chimera on a killing spree—it’s not exactly what you’d call high-concept, but it’s a concept that will still be fun long after folks get over Oscar-baiting ballerinas, stuttering monarchs and socially inept social-networking tycoons. It’s a shark with tentacles for crying out loud!

Celluloid Corral

This month’s best, worst, weirdest and wildest in home video entertainment by andrew bonazelli

Mad Men Season Four It wouldn’t be easy improving on a season that ended with a feel-good Oceans 11-style break-in caper, that spawned a brand-new offshoot ad agency. Yet, as usual, Matthew Weiner and Mad Men’s bevy of excellent writers proved up to the task. Much of the latest season concerned the wild fluctuations of the first year of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, ebbs and flows that successfully pulled the wool over everybody’s eyes as far as determining which of his many paramours was “right” for Don Draper. The answer was a huge surprise, turning this world on its head even more so than the loss of safety net client Lucky Strike. So, while season three’s ending was a crowd-pleaser of the highest order—a rare cocktail of enthusiasm and optimism—season four’s seemed to throw off the (thus far) extremely faithful and patient fan base. But in reality, Don’s very short engagement probably pissed most of us off because we knew how long it would take to enjoy the ramifications. In stores March 29 from Lionsgate.

Out of Sight (Blu-ray) Before the world was exposed to Bennifer, “Jenny From the Block,” Gigli and a decade’s worth of similarly pointless, materialistic drivel, Jennifer Lopez made one decent decision. She insinuated herself amongst some real actors (Clooney, Farina, Cheadle, Brooks) in this exceptional adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s eponymous 1996 novel. Director Steven Soderbergh’s reintroduction to the mainstream, following a series of post-Sex, Lies and Videotapes experiments, maintained a sharp balance of black humor, gritty action and raw sensuality. The intercutting of Lopez and Clooney’s sex scene was a direct homage to Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, but very much stands on its own, and the ending couldn’t be more effectively bittersweet. In stores on Blu-ray March 1 from Universal Studios.

Photo by michael yarish/amc

A Marine Story A somewhat generic moniker houses a pretty compelling saga. Dreya Weber, star of 2006’s little-seen The Gymnast (also directed by Ned Farr), is again the title character here, a discharged casualty of “don’t ask, don’t tell” who returns to her ultra-conservative hometown.

She kills time by playing Miyagi to an effed-up teen (Paris Pickard), but A Marine Story isn’t just your everyday mentor/protégé saga. Weber’s Marine is a fully-drawn protagonist with a litany of regrets and fears to contrast her natural badassery. While the plot gets a little cuckoo at the end (meth lab madness!), AMS is at the very least inspiring, more likely a potential star-making turn for Weber. In stores March 1 from Wolfe Video.

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/movies 127 Hours The wildly inconsistent Danny Boyle— remember, this dude gave us The Beach and A Life Less Ordinary—has finally hit a groove. Big time. Following up the critical and commercial adulation for Slumdog Millionaire, he turned what could have been a patience-testing exercise in single-location shooting into a gripping, minimalist character study. James Franco plays Aron Ralston, an extreeeeeeme outdoorsman who fucks up, finds himself trapped in a Utah canyon with no way of notifying friends or family, and… well, everyone knows how this ends, right? Suffice it to say, it ain’t easy to watch. But credit Boyle for making a foregone-conclusion plot tense and disorienting, and Franco for crafting a character that isn’t a smarmy martyr, à la Emile Hirsch in Into the Wild. In stores March 1 from Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Billy Joel: Live at Shea Stadium The Beatles’ August 1964 performance at Shea remains one of the most seminal, enduring rock concerts on American soil. (Well, short of Limp Bizkit’s set at Woodstock ’99.) Now, before you bitch that the curtain-closer at the endearingly crummy Queens ballpark should’ve been Paul McCartney, well, Sir Paul was in fact one of many guests on this two-gig finale. Joel trotted out some true heavy-hitters, including Tony Bennett, Garth Brooks, John Mayer, John Mellencamp, Steven Tyler and Roger Daltrey, all of whom are now immortalized on this 25-song CD/DVD. Available April 5 from Sony Legacy.

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Skyline Purportedly one of the most derivative, lazy, laughable alien invasion movies of all time (we weren’t exactly afforded a screener, and preferred to not throw $12 on the ground for once), Skyline is about a bunch of hovering ID4/V starships that transfix humans with light beams while a gritty District 9-style ground invasion is launched.

It begins with a Cloverfield-esque beautiful people party, which establishes right off the bat that you’ll prefer every principal character’s brain sucked dry. The Brothers Strause (Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem) are behind this abomination, which could live on as the Battlefield Earth of 2010 if anybody deigns to rent it. Count us in.

In stores March 22 from Universal Studios.

Photo by chuck zlotnick

Stieg Larsson’s Dragon Tattoo Trilogy

The Next Three Days American Gangster. Body of Lies. State of Play. Robin Hood. That’s four straight duds since 2007’s 3:10 to Yuma, and Next Three Days makes it five. Word of advice to Russell Crowe: take a break from Ridley Scott. You’ve had like 20 chances to make the next Gladiator, and short of a prequel, it ain’t happening. That still leaves us with this underwhelming thriller, in which Crowe’s wife—the, as usual, wildly miscast Elizabeth Banks—is sent to the slammer for a crime she didn’t commit, and his everyman has 72 hours to break her out. Except did she commit the crime after all?

Is Elizabeth Banks really worth it either way? She smells like a burger. I don’t like her anymore. In stores March 8 from Lionsgate.

Burlesque Who wants to see a PG-13 Showgirls? The correct answer is: nobody, although that didn’t prevent this nightmare from a) attaining similar cult cache as the 1995 Elizabeth Berkley career-killer, b) possibly killing Christina Aguilera’s career (although she did still wrangle the National Anthem at the Super Bowl). Xtina and the Pussycat Dolls have tried their best to popularize burlesque—along with the Suicide Girls—but it remains a relatively fringe retro entertainment. Not like that had anything to do with the rags-to-riches cliché-fest that is passed off as a “story” here. Christina’s the hardworking barmaid with hidden talent, Cher’s the grizzled manager with an eye for hidden talent, Stanley Tucci needs a third pool or something. Although this thing is still a good bet to dominate the Razzies, it actually took home a Golden Globe for Best Original Song: “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me,” by Cher. Yes, that’s a threat and a promise. In stores March 1 from Screen Gems.

the next three days Photo by phil Caruso

Before David Fincher and Rooney Mara reimagine this wildly popular sado-mystery series for the States, catch up with the original Swedish trilogy. (Weirdly titled for some reason; everybody knows it’s called the “Millennium Trilogy,” right?) Alternately clinical and emotional, these original film adaptations—in order, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest—have made Lisbeth Salander possibly the most popular mainstream adult-lit protagonist since Robert Langdon.

Thanks to Fincher and Mara, she’ll be a go-to Halloween costume next October. But this batch is all about Noomi Rapace’s holy-shit turn as the introverted goth hacker genius. The fourth disc fulfills any remaining Lisbeth void with a look into the late Larsson’s life (he was a journalist and big-time women’s rights advocate after witnessing a gang-rape in his adolescence), long-ass interviews with Rapace and co-star Michael Nyqvist, fight scene deconstructions and oodles more. Available now from Music Box Films.

The Tourist “It was a big year for 3-D movies: Toy Story, Despicable Me, Tron. Seems like everything this year was three-dimensional.

Except the characters in The Tourist. I feel bad about that joke. No, I’ll tell you why: I’m jumping on the bandwagon. ’Cause I haven’t even seen The Tourist. Who has? But no, it must be good, ’cause it’s nominated. So shut up, okay? And I’d like to quash this ridiculous rumor going ’round that the only reason The Tourist was nominated was so the Hollywood Foreign Press could hang out with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. That is rubbish. That is not the only reason. They also accepted bribes.” —Ricky Gervais, the 2011 Golden Globes.

In stores March 22 from Columbia Pictures.

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/movies/new_releases

MARCH 1

127 Hours 420 High Desert Way 8.5 Hours Alive! Is Michael Jackson Really Dead?

Allman Brothers Band: Live at the Beacon Theatre Alonzo Bodden: Who’s Paying Attention?

American Experience: Triangle Fire America’s Great Westerns Vol. 2 Angelina Ballerina: Ballet Dreams Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes Annie’s Coming Out Bambi Beautiful Life Beyblade: Metal Fusion Vol. 3 Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter/Little Bigfoot 2: The Journey Home Black Whole Bleeding Boomerang Brenda Starr, Reporter Burlesque Cake Boss Season 3 Canterville Ghost Celtic Crossroads: World Fusion Central State: Asylum for the Insane Chuggington: Let’s Ride the Rails Class/Johnny Be Good/Making the Grade Classic Westerns Collector’s Set Vol. 2 Clowns Cobweb Cutting Edge: Fire and Ice David Gray: Live From the Artists Den Dickens in America Dinosaurs 3D: Giants of Patagonia Disaster in the Air Dorian Gray Dr. Black and Mr. White East Coast Ryders Vol. 7: Back 2 the Streets Eddie & The Hot Rods: Introspective Family Collection Vol. 1 Faster Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection Gaiam Portraits of Inspiring Lives: Bob Proctor Gaiam Portraits of Inspiring Lives: Marcia Wieder Genius Within: The Inner Live of Glenn Gould Genshiken: Complete Collection Ghosts of Goldfield Good Boy/Fluke/Napoleon Gucci Mane/DJ Fletch: Gucci Gone Bonkers Gucci Mane: In Wonderland Gustafer Yellowgold’s Infinity Sock Half Moon Harmony’s Honeys Harry Connick, Jr.: In Concert on Broadway Hollywood Safari I.Q. If Tomorrow Comes In Loving Memory: Series One Infinite Justice Internal Affairs Joey/The Legend of Johnny Lingo/ Lightning: The White Stallion/ Virginia’s Run

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COWBELL

Just Before Nightfall Kaboom! Kids: Favorite Friends Kaboom! Awesome Adventures Kiss My Blood Last American Virgin/Losin’ It/The Sure Thing L’Autre Monde Leave It to Beaver: The Complete Sixth Season Let’s Go Chipper: Into the Great Outdoors Love and Other Drugs Manhunt MGM March 10-Pack #1 MGM March 10-Pack #2 Midnight Horror Collection: Urban Legends Morgana Robinson: Morgana Show Murder Investigation Team Series 1 My Girlfriend’s Back Nancy Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime Napoleon and Love NHL Pittsburgh Penguins Greatest Games Vol. 2 Noah’s Castle Complete Series Norman Conquests Pioneers of Television: Pioneers of Children’s Programs Pioneers of Television: Pioneers of Crime Dramas Pioneers of Television: Pioneers of Westerns Pop Goes Thomas Precious Life Reluctant Debutante Road Trip Trilogy Robert Kennedy and His Times Robert Young Double Feature Romance S.W.A.T. Fire Fight Satin Shin Koihime Muso: Complete Collection Sid the Science Kid: Weather Kid Sid/The Ruler of Thumb/Gizmos and Gadgets Sleeping and Waking Story of Jen Susan Lenox (Her Fall & Rise) T.A.M.I.Show Tea & Sympathy Thomas & Friends: Pop Goes Thomas Torrent Two Weeks in Another Town Two Weeks in Hell Two Bits & Pepper Two-Faced Woman Ultimate Wave: Tahiti 3D Undercover Angel Walking on Water Walter Pidgeon Double Feature Warren William Collection What If White Sister World of Horses: Season 1 Wow Wow Wubbzy: Egg Cellent Easter Wow Wow Wubbzy: Fly Us to the Moon Wow Wow Wubbzy: Wubbzy Goes Green Young Jeezy: Biggest Movie Ever – The Visuals to TM:103

MARCH 8

Abducted Accused at 17 Adventures of a Teenage Dragonslayer Akane Iro Ni Somaru Saka: Complete Collection Alien From the Deep Ambassador: The Complete Series Aphrodisiac! The Sexual Secret of Marijuana Around a Small Mountain Asia: Spirit of the Night – The Phoenix

Mar 8 Four Lions

Directed by Chris Morris The mainstreaming of “terrorist comedy” has thus far only extended to Jeff Dunham’s thuddingly unfunny Achmed puppet. Four Lions gave it a valiant go last year, but failed to break out of the indie ghetto. Here, U.K. first-time director Chris Morris follows four bumbling jihadists in Sheffield.

Critically beloved, and deservedly so.

Tour Live in Cmabridge Atlas: Uncovering Earth Away All Boats Babysitters Beware Backyardigans: We Arrr Pirates Bestia Big Night Billy Joel: Live at Shea Stadium Bionic Everafter?

Black Butler: Season One, Part Two Bob Dylan: Constant Sorrow Bon Jovi: Blaze of Glory British Metal Butchers Caja Negra Care Bears: 4 Feature Set Carrera Perdida Cazador De La Bruja: The Complete Series Chilly Thrillers: Dead of Winter/ Frozen in Fear/Disturbed/ Interview With a Serial Killer Clifford’s Puppy Days: 4 Feature Set Climate Change: Our Planet – The Arctic Story Colin Mochrie & Brad Sherwood: Two Man Group Dalziel & Pascoe: Season 3 Daniel Tosh: Happy Thoughts Dark Skies: The Complete Series David Murray: Saxophone Man Doctor Who: Seeds of Doom Doctor Who: The Ark Doodlebops: 4 Feature Set Dragonball Z Kai: Season One, Part 4 Eddie Ifft Live Elina Garanca: New Year’s Eve Concert 2010 Every Day Exploitation Cinema: Supervan/ Jailbait Babysitter Exploitation Cinema: Where Time Began/Encounter With the Unknown Film Unfinished First Turn On Four Lions

Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music – The Collection From Within Great Titles Fights of the ‘70s & ‘80s Grim Hannah Montana: Forever – The Final Season Harry & Son Haunting of Marsten Manor/ Haunted From Within Heart: Night at Sky Church Helena From the Wedding High Anxiety Home Fires Burning/The Harvest Ibiza 2011 Inside Job Is That Thing Diesel?

Jackass 3 Johnny Reid: Live – Heart and Soul Jonathan Goldman: Harmonic Visions Judge John Deed: Season Three Kipper: 4 Feature Set Koala Brothers: 4 Feature Set Letters to Father Jacob Life, the Greatest Gift Madeline: On the Town Man From Nowhere Maneater Series: The Hive/Vipers/ Rise of the Gargoyles Matty Hanson and the Invisibility Ray Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends: 4 Feature Set Morning Glor My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Collection Vol. 2 Nature: Birds of the Gods Next Three Days NFL: Super Bowl XLV Nova: Emergency Mine Rescue Off Limits On the Double Ordeal by Innocence Pacific Battlefront Past Lies Pelt Piece of Cake Pingu: 4 Feature Set Play Primeval Paradise Rage Railways Real Interrogations Rediscover the Ancient Mysteries of Egypt Rescue Men: The Story of the Pea Island Life Savers Rubbadubbers: 4 Feature Set Shriven Silent House Son of Terror Speed Grapher: The Complete Series Spongebob Squarepants: The Great Patty Caper Stargazers Tales From Earthsea Terminators/Universal Soldiers Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman Transcendent Man Triangle/2103: The Deadly Wake Vampire Boys Waiting Time Walking Dead Season 1 Zombie Farm

MARCH 15

100 Years That Shook the World 13 Stripes to 50 Stars: The Growth of America Abbott & Costello Absent Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of the Macabre Andy Griffith Show

MAR 22 Katy Perry—The Girl Who Ran Away

Out via Sexy Intellectual Studios, so you know it’s going to be quality. Have fun with this unauthorized DVD bio, which tracks Perry’s unlikely rise from teen Christianpopper to girl-kissin’/teenage dreamin’ megastar. “Rare archive footage” is promised, and should be hilarious.

Arctic Mission: The Great Adventure Babylon 5: The Movies Bailey’s Big Back Yard: The Tropical Rainforest Baker Boys: Inside the Surge Barbie: A Fairy Secret Barney: Mother Goose Collection Basic/S.W.A.T. Batman: The Brave and the Bold – Season One, Part Two Battle of Britain Be My Teacher Best Food Ever Best of Spaghetti Westerns Beverly Hillbillies 1962-1963 Blood BMX Bandits Boat House Detectives Candlelight in Algeria Century of Flight: 100 Years of Aviation Chaperone Charles Bronson Chicago Calling Chihuahua Child in the House Clannad Coach: The Fourth Season Complete Civil War Con Artist D. Gray-Man: Season Two Dangerous Intimacy: The Untold Story of Mark Twain’s Final Years Dinosaur Train: Pteranodon Family World Tour Adventure Exploring Alaska: The Great Outdoors Fast Track Fighter Food Wars Season 1 Footloose/Flashdance Franny’s Feet: Home Sweet Home Freestyle Gamera vs. Zigra/Gamera, Super Monster Gamines Grave Digger: The Clans Will Rise Again Great Battles of WW2

Gunslinger Girl: The Complete Series With OVA Hemingway’s Garden of Eden Hereafter Hidden Love Hiromi: Solo – Live at Blue Note New York Hitler’s Defeat Hollywood Comedy Classics Hollywood Westerns Collection Home Before Dark Horror Classics Hour of 13 House of Mirth/Les Miserables How the USA Grew: 13 Colonies to 50 States Human Trace I Shouldn’t Be Alive: Season 3 In Shanghai Indochine Interplanetary Keith Emerson Band: Moscow Killer Queens Killers of the Deep Kinks: Pictures From the Past Lara Croft: Tomb Raider/Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life Mafia: An Expose Marine Story Martin Taylor: Jazz Guitarist Mary Alessi: Pressing On McMillan & Wife Season 3 Miller Anderson: Live at Rockpalast Mimi Fox: Live at the Palladium NASA: Triumphs & Tragedies Nature: Extraordinary Birds Neil Young: Like a Rolling Stone Night Digger No One Knows About Persian Cats Operation C.I.A. Parking Lot Movie Pink: Alive and Kicking Pteranodon Family World Tour Railway Journeys: The Vanishing Age of Steam Red Green Show: The Delinquent Years – Seasons 1997-1999 Renown British Mystery Double Feature: The 20 Questions Murder Mystery/Tread Softly Rhyme & Punishment Rita Rugrats Trilogy Movie Collection Salvador Allende Shadow Sharktopus Shine of Rainbows Snoopy, Come Home/A Boy Named Charlie Brown Spooner St. Helens Step Off Sugar Boxx Super Why: Peter Rabbit and Other Fairytale Adventures Switch Tales from the Never Ending Story Thunder in ;the City TNA Wrestling: Genesis 2011 Toby Keith: 10 Top TV Westerns 1957-65 Triumph of the Will & Olympia True Believer/Only You TV Nostalgia Twenty Plus Two Vampire Knight: Guilty Vol. 1 Vanquished Vietnam: War in the Jungle Who Do You Think You Are? Season 1 Wildest Dream Wrestlemania Story WWII Crimes on the British Home Front Yes: The Lost Broadcasts Zombie women of Satan

MARCH 22

2012 and the Shift: The Power of Ceremony 4 Movie Marathon: The Perfect Man/ Head Over Heels/Wimbledon/The Story of Us AC/DC: The Interview Sessions Adventures of a Teenage Dragonslayer Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle Volume 1 Adventures of Ma and Pa Kettle Volume 2 Affluenza Air Alien 2 OnEarth America’s Wars Animal Atlas: Family Time Anywhere U.S.A. Associate Bashment: The Fork in the Road Bat Battle of Los Angeles Bedrooms Bee Gees: Spicks & Specks Berkeley Square Big I Am Big Noise Dispatches 07 Bill Cosby Show: The Best of Season 1 Black Oak Conspiracy/The Great Texas Dynamite Chase Bleach Uncut Box Set Vol. 7 Bodl: Battle of the Dancelines Bodyguards & Assassins Boudica Brady Bunch Movie Collection Bratz: Good Vibes Bruce Lee Ultimate Trilogy Call Me Salome Carl Palmer: Drum Solos Carl Verheyen Band: The Road Carlos the Jackal Chloe’s Closet: Super Best Friends Classic War Collection: 4 Film Favorites (Wake Island/Battle Hymn/To Hell and Back/Gray Lady Down) Classic Western Collection (Albuquerque/The Duel at Silver Creek/Whispering Smith/War Arrow) Code Geass: Leouch of the Rebellion – The Complete First Season Comedy Favorites Collection: 4 Film Favorites (Cross my Heart/Fierce Creatures/Opportunity Knocks/ Splitting Heirs) Consinual Count Basie: Then as Now, Count’s the King Creep Creepersin’s Frankenstein Criterion Collection: Eclipse 26 – Silent Naruse Crossing the American Crises: From Collapse to Action Cult Horror Collection: 4 Film Favorites (The Funhouse/ The Serpent and the Rainbow/ Phantasm II/Sssssss) Dark Comedy Collection: 4 Film Favorites (Serial Mom/Very Bad Things/Nurse Betty/Your Friends & Neighbors) Dark Fields Death Will Have Your Eyes Deeper Love Defiled Derailroaded: Inside the Mind of Larry “Wild Man” Fischer Devilles Devolved Dewey Redman: Dewey Time – An American Jazz Life Doodlebops Rockin’ Road Show: Let’s Rock!

Doomsday Earth 2012: Apocalypse Duke Ellington: Reminiscing in Tempo Duplicity

Eco-Energy Explosions Eyehategod: Live Family 4-Pack Vol. 1 Family Comedy Collection: 4 Film Favorites (Dudley Do-Right/Cop and a Half/Sgt. Bilko/Ed) Family Secret Fast and the Furious (1954) Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift Fathers of the Sport Flamebards Flashpoint Berlin 1957-1963 Francis Rossi: Live From St. Luke’s London Frontline: Battle for Haiti Future Flight!

Future Tech!

Ghost Sweeper: Mikami Collection 3 Girls Rock Collection (Clueless/ Mean Girls) Glen Washington: Live Grace O’Malley the Pirate Queen Great Steam Locomotives of France Great White: Live and Raw Guns and Weed: The Road to Freedom Hawkeye: The Complete Series History Lesson Part 1: Punk Rock in Los Angeles in 1984 Hollywood Look I’m Smiling Horror 4 Pack Vol. 1: Midnight Movie/The Attic/Carver/Outrage Born in Terror House of Sin How Do You Know I Spy! Invisible Collecge: Rosicrucians, Mandalas and Ancient Mystery Religions Iron Maiden: The Interview Sessions James Brown: Body Heat James Brown: Body Heat – Live in Monterey 1979 Joan of Arc Kanokon: The Girl Who Cried Fox – Complete Series Katy Perry: The Girl Who Ran Away Kenichi: Season Two Kid Rock: Complete Story Kiss: Lick It UP Kiss: Meet the Press Kiss; Interviews Kluge in the Beginning Last Voices of WWI: A Generation Lost Little Engine That Could Looking for Palladin Lost Missile Lozen: Apache Warrior Malancholy of Harnyoron Marcus Welby M.D.: The Best of Season 1 Meskada Michael J. Fox Comedy Favorites Collection Nature: The Himalayas Neil Peart: Fire on Ice – The Making of “The Hockey Theme” Newsreel History of the Third Reich Vol. 11-15 Nova: Secrets Beneath the Ice Oscura Seduccion Our Hospitality Palestine Is Still the Issue People I’ve Slept With Psych: The Complete First Season Psych: The Complete Second Season Punching the Clown Quiet Arrangement Reeal Mulan Residents: Randy’s Ghost Stories Return to the Dunes Revolutionary War: Heroes & Battles RIN: Daughter of Mnemosyne – The Complete Series Roger Corman’s Cult Classics: Jackson County Jail/Caged Heat Samurai Boys 3: Blood Sugar Boys

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/movies/new_releases Magik Saragossa Manuscript Sasha Scandalous Impressionists Scarecrow and Mrs. King: The Complete Second Season Science of Entertainment Scooby-Doo: 3-Pack Fun Sesame Street Essentials Collection: milestones Sharks of the Great White North Sheep of Stone Sherlock Holmes and the Great London Crime Mysteries Shrek Siren Skyline Smallville: Complete 8th Season Speed Strawberry Shortcake: Puttin’ on the Glitz Streetcar Named Desire Sub O: Ice Man Edition Tales From the Gypsies: Colossal Sensation/School of Senses Teen Comedy Collection: 4 Film Favorites That Kind of Girl Times of Harvey Milk Tourist Twist UFOs Do Not Exist! The Grand Deception Ultimate Death Match II Vanquisher Venture Bros.: Season 4 Vol. 2 Volkswagon UK: The White Noise VW Festival Walking Dead Girls War on Democracy Windmill Movie WWE: Elimination Chamber 2011 WWII: The War That Changed the World

MARCH 29

2001: A Space Odyssey Ace Ventura 3-Film Collection Afterlife Alan Bennett Collection Ali Campbell: Live at the Royal Albert Hall All Good Things American Experience: Lee and Grant – Generals of the Civil War America’s Great National Parks Collection Antony and Cleopatra Apocalypse: World War II Assassins Creed: Lineage Austin Powers Collection Baroque Dance Unmasked Batman: 3-Pack Fun Becoming Eduardo Beneath the Dark Big Time Rush Black Fox 3 Pack Black Swan Blood Diamond Bright Eyes/Heidi Brilliant Moon Bureaucracy Capone Capture of the Green River Killer Civil War: A Film Directed by Ken Burns Clear and Present Danger/Patriot Games Clockwork Orange Colgate Comedy Hour: Anything Goes Colony

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Cool It Cosmos: A Beginner’s Guide Country Western Collection: 4 Film Favorites (Honeysuckle Rose/Pure Country/The Ballad of Little Jo/ Macon County Line) Crazy Like a Fox Criterion Collection: Mikado Criterion Collection: Topsy-Turvy Curly Top/Dimples Dead Awake Dennis the Menace: Season One Departed Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman – The Complete Season 2 Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman – The Complete Season 3 Earth Collection DVD Eastern Mystics Emergency! The Final Rescues Excel Saga: The Complete Collection Fair Game Fatal Secrets Father of My Children Flashpoint Berlin 1957-1963 Friday 3 Movie Collection Funny Face Gangland: The Final Season Gauguin: Maker of Myth Genius of Design Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It Guin Saga: Collection 1 Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown Heat Heaven Ain’t Hard to Find Heavy Water: A Film for Chernobyl Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Season 2 Here’s Lucy: Season Four Hulk vs. Thor Human Experience Hunt for Red October/Sum of All Fears Husk I Am Legend In Plain Sight: Season Three Inferno Ingredients James Last: String of Hits Kids Sports Collection: 4 Film Favorites (Little Big League/Little Giants/Surf Ninjas/Hometown Legend) Kiri Te Kanawa: Definitive Biography Left Behind Prophecy Linebarrels of Iron: Seasons 1 & 2 Loose Women Love Affairs Collection: 4 Film Favorites (Sommersby/10/The Goodbye Girl/A Touch of Class) Loveless: Vocal Collection Loving Lampposts Mad Men: Season 4 Made in Dagenham Mao’s Last Dancer Marillion: Live From Cadogan Hall Max Ernst Hanging Mega Disasters Midnight Run Movie Marathon Mother Lode Movie Music Man: A Portrait fo Lalo Schifrin National Geographic: When Rome Ruled Ocean’s 3 Film Collection One Week Our Planet: The Past, Present and Future of Earth Owls Paris When It Sizzles Pat Travers: Boom Boom – Live at the Diamond 1990 Police Academy 3 Film Collection Prowl Public Enemy Number One (Part 2) Randolph Scott Collection: 4 Film Favorites (Colt .45/Fort Worth/ Tall Man Riding/Ride the High Country)

White House Collection: 4 Film Favorites (An American President/ My Fellow Americans/Dave/Wag the Dog) Who’s the Caboose?

Xena: Warrior Princess – Season Two

APRIL 5

Apr 5 Casino Jack

Directed by George Hickenlooper Despite the presence of Kevin Spacey, not a sequel to 21 (thank god). The Jack in question is Abramoff, a thoroughly corrupt DC lobbyist convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy, and released just in time to see his underperforming biopic released on DVD. Barry Pepper heads a strong supporting cast.

Resident Restaurateur River of Darkness Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Complete Season 5 Roman Holiday Rush Hour 3 Film Collection Sabrina Scar Scorpion: Double Venom Sex and the City: The Movie Sgt. Frog: Season One Shaolin vs. 2: 4-Film Set Solitary Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan/Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Sublime/Believers Tangled Tap Dance History: From Vaudeville to Film Teenage Paparazzo Ten Commandments Tiny Little Lies Treme: The Complete First Season Tribal Revival: American Tribal Style UFC: The Best of 2010 UFOs and Aliens Ultimate Collection: The First Days of Christianity Ultimate Collection: The Real West – Cowboys & Outlaws Ultimate Family Classic Collection Upstairs Downstairs: Series One Upstairs Downstairs: Series Two Upstairs Downstairs: The Complete Collection Vega$: The Second Season VH1 Storytellers: Dixie Chicks Waste Land Watchmen Waterhole Western Movie Marathon: Into the Badlands/Dead Man’s Revenge Wheedle’s Groove: Seattle’s Forgotten Soul of the 1960s & ‘70s

After the Storm Alex and Leo Americah Jihadist Arabesque Araya Arkansas National Parks Atrevete a Sonar Ayn Rand: In Her Own Words Barney: Play Date Pack Beauty and the Beast Behemoth Best of Ask This Old House: 44 Common Household Projects Done Right Best of Soul Train: Dance! Dance!

Dance!

Bill Moyers: The Language of Life Burt the Conqueror: Season 1 Captain Newman M.D. Casino Jack Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That: Tales About Tails Chuggington: Chuggers to the Rescue Come Undone Commando X Dead on Site Dinosaur Collection DVD Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance Florida’s National Parks Fly Boys Friday Night Lights: The Fifth Season Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Part 4 Gap Georgia Peaches/Smokey Bites the Dust/The Great Texas Dynamite Chase Hero Tales: Part 1 Hero Tales: Part 2 Heroes of Telemark Horrid Hurricanes Icarly: Season 2, Vol. 3 Indy in the ‘50s Insight of Evil Kill With the Dance KJB: The Book That Changed the World Lark Rise to Candleford: Season Four Lark Rise to Candleford: The Complete Collection Leaving Life Unexpected: The Complete Series Life With Elizabeth Little Fockers Masterpiece Classic: Any Human Heart Midway to Heaven Mirage Mountain National Geographic: Big Cats Collection Naturally Indiana Night of the Generals Nova Science Now: Can We Live Forever?

Nova Science Now: How Does the Brain Work?

Nova: Deadliest Earthquakes Pennsylvania’s Greatest Sports Heroes Real Cannibal Holocaust Roger Waters: The Wall – Live in Berlin 20th Anniversary Edition Rope of Sand

Sarah Palin’s Alaska Sex and Black Magic Sid the Science Kid: Going, Going, Green!

Sister Wives Special A: Complete Collection Spectacular Arkansas Stand Up for Family Straightman TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, Vol. 1 TCM Greatest Classic Legends Collection: Bette Davis TCM Greatest Classic Legends Collection: Marlon Brando Thomas & Friends: Play Date Pack Tom Arnold: That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It Tough Love Transgression Tron: Legacy Tyler Perry’s House of Payne Vol. 7 UFC: The Ultimate Fighter Season 12 Unknown Comic/Urban Legend/Art of Nude Bowling Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story Wedding Video Wild Florida World in His Arms WWE: D-Generation X – The Final Conflict Year of the Carnivore Your Love Never Fails

APRIL 12

According to Greta Adua e le Compagne Aleutians: Cradle of Storms – After the Classic Fur Aleutians: Cradle of the Storms – World War II American Experience: The Great

Famine Antarctic Mission Antique Bakery BBC Tudors Collection Behind the Burly Q Bob Saget on America Censorship and the New World Order Charles Bronson Collection Chicos Malos Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Classic Slasher Collection Country Strong Crime D’Amour Cult Classics Collection Dallas: The Movie Collection Date With the Angels Deadrise Desde La Tumba Devil’s Harvest Collection Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry/Race With the Devil Disappearance of Alice Creed Doctor Who: Kinda Doctor Who: Snakedance Fabulous Betty White Farewell Female Convict Scorpion Firebreather Forensics: You Decide Ga-Rei Zero: The Complete Series Garfield Show: The Private-Eye Ventures Genova Go Diego Go: Diego Saves the World Goodnight for Justice Good Way to Die Gulliver’s Travels Guy Martin: Portrait of a Grand Chef H.R. Pufnstuf: The Complete Series Harvest Heartless Highwater Hollywood Bombshells

I’m Dangerous With Love Inheritance John Leguizamo’s Freak Keeper of the Flame Kirk Douglas Collection La Nostra Vida Last Breath Last Chase Last Continent Last Continent/Antarctic Mission L’Autre Monde Law Abiding Citizen Let’s Talk About Sex Life With Elizabeth Lisa Balash: Kettlebell Bombshell Looking for Fidel Man With a Camera Marwencol Mask Maker Max & Ruby: Rainy Day Play Men Who Stare at Goats Muay Thai Chaiya National Geographic Classics: World’s Deadliest New Daughter Next Adventure Now That’s Weird: UFOs? Paranoids Plastic Planet Polo Kid Reefer Madness Collection Ricky Robert Sherman: The Pillars of Power Roger Corman Drive-In Collection Russell Peters Presents Sea of Grass Secret of Dorian Gray Secret of the Urn Secretos de la Mafia Sockville: A New Pair of Socks Solitary Man Speed of Thought Stan Kenton: Artistry in Rhythm Sunshine Cleaning

Taking the Oath: America’s History From the Oval Office Third Reich: The Rise and the Fall Tracy and Hepburn: The Definitive Collection Ultimate Fighting Championship: Ultimate Royce Gracie Unearthed Vida Por Mi Barrio White Material Whitney Cummings: Money Shot PBS Explorer Collection: Oceans Vol. 1 PBS Explorer Collection: Wild West Vol. 1 Bob Hope Collection Vol. 2 (The Great Lover/How to Commit Marriage/Son of Paleface/ Paris Holiday/The Private Navy of Sgt. O’Farrell/Cancel My Reservation) Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit Part 2 Needless: Collection 2 LXD: Seasons 1 & 2 Dragnet: Season 4 Man vs. Wild: Season 5 Richter Archives Vol. 21 Car 54, Where Are You? The Complete First Season 100 Cartoon Classics UFC 125 2033 Last of the Summer Wine: Vintage 1988 & 1989

APRIL 19

Aliens From Outer Space: UFO Landings, Crashes and Retrievals Almost Invisible Aquarian Age: Juvenile Orion Bambi

t r u e

Produced by Scott and Seth Avett

IN STORES 3/8

R.E.M.

G Love

James Vincent McMorrow

Collapse Into Now

Fixin’ To Die

Early In The Morning

O R I G I N A L S

IN STORES 3/15

IN STORES 3/15 The Civil Wars

Lucinda Williams

Barton Hollow

Blessed

Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers

Scandalous

Rare Bird Alert

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/movies/new_releases Best of World Cruises Biggest Mystery Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies Bob Dylan: The Never Ending Narrative Born to Raise Hell Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Season One Chicago Overcoat Clannad: After Story – Complete Collection Comedy Western Two-Fer: Three Musketeers Creation of Neverland & Toad Hall Darker Than Black: The Complete First Season Earth From Above Ernie Kovacs Collection Falco: The Rise and Fall of an ‘80s Pop Icon Footsteps Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: The Complete Sixth Season Fubar II Gashole Goemon Green Collar Comedy Show Gritos de Muerte y Libertad Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Harry Potter: Years 1-7, Part 1 Hawaii Five-O: The Eleventh Season He Histories of the Holocaust: Dachau – Liberation and Retribution Howe & Howe Tech Hyenas I Want What I Want Idol of Evil: Hell Is Forever If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise Imagine This/Believe in You Ip Man 2: Collector’s Edition Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story Kes King’s Speech Koerner, Ray and Glover: Live Last New Yorker Let Us Entertain You/Never Give Up Lone Ranger Compilation Lone Ranger Double Feature Lorna Doone Love Me or Leave Me Metal Fest: Live From Germany ‘86 Mind to Kill: Series 3 More Than Famous Most Tragic Victims Nice Boys Nova Science Now: How Smart Are Animals?

One Piece Season 3: Fifth Voyage Pippi & The Balloon Princess Blade Rabbit Hole Railways of Italy Real Jesus: legacy of Deception Rory Gallagher: Irish Tour 1974 Sextette Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure Shaun the Sheep: The Big Chase Spaghetti Western Two-Fer: Gatling Gun Square Grouper Stripperland TNA Wrestling: Mick Foley – Hardcore Legend UFC 126: Silva vs. Belfort Vision Way Back When the Children Cry Wholphin Issue 13 William & Kate: Planning a Royal Wedding Worst Horror Movie Ever Made

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Masters Universe: The Complete Series Upstairs, Downstairs (2010) Wild African Cats Winter Tech Women on the Verge: Rembetiko/ Another Sky Year on Provence: Complete Set

APRIL 26

200 MPH 20th Century With Mike Wallace: America at War Alamo Alamo Tech American Avant-Garde: The Lawrence Jordan Album/The Films of James Broughton American Experience: Stonewall Uprising American Experience: The Greely Expedition Angelo Tsarouchas: Bigger Is Better Asylum Session Belladonna Blood Out Blow Out Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back Brigands: Chapter VII/Chico Bucket List Bunny and the Bull Captured in Stone: Gallery of the Masters Chawz Chobits: The Complete Series Civil War Combat Counting Backwards Custer’s Last Stand Daughter of Death Deep Red: The Hatchet Murders Demob Desert Son Dinoshark Doc Martin Collection: Series 1-4 Don Knotts: Tied Up With Laughter Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Complete Season 4 Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Complete Season 5 Dragonball Z: Dragon Box Vol. 5 Eden of the East the Movie I: The King of Eden Eggs Elle: A Modern Cinderella Tale Fly Away Forgiveness Gangland Growing Pains: The Complete Second Season Hairspray (2007) He’s Just Not That Into You Hindenburg Hiroshima Honeymoon With Mom Horatio Hornblower: The Original Adventures I Heart Doomsday I Love You Phillip Morris Iwo Jima: Fight to the Death John Cage: Works for Percussion Vol. 1 Kan Door Huid Heen Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl: Vocal Collection Kennedys Larry Sanders Show: Season Three Last Days of the Civil War Lucky Lucy Show: The Official Fourth Season Marvel the Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Vol. 1 Marvel the Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Vol. 2 Mega Meals Midnight Chronicles Mixing Karma Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood Mom, Dad and Her Mongolian Death Worms More Sex & The Single Mom Muay Thai Giant Naruto: Shippuden Box Set 6 Nights in Rodanthe

MAY 3

Apr 26 Blow Out

Directed by Brian De Palma Following Sisters, this is only De Palma’s second Criterion film. Which is about right.

Few directors are more willfully derivative, although he certainly has his small victories. Blow Out—an audio homage to Antonioni’s Blow Up—is one of them, a grimy, depraved Philly mystery flaunting a never-moreendearing John Travolta.

No Reservations Notebook Nova Science Now: Where Did They Come From?

Nova: Making Stuff One Way to Valhalla Opa! P.S. I Love You Pearl Harbor Placido Domingo: My Greatest Roles Vol. 4 – Verismo Opera Playing House Potato President’s Book of Secrets Revenge of the Bridesmaids Sacrifice San Francisco Earthquake Selling God Sex and the City: The Movie Sgt. Frog: Season Two Sites of the World’s Cultures: Machu Picchu and the Legacy of the Incas Sites of the World’s Cultures: Stonehenge and Megalithic Cultures Sleeping and Waking Sniper: Reloaded Socalled Movie South Park: The Complete Fourteenth Season Spot: Spot’s Birthday Party Stan Lee’s Superhumans Student Services Stuhr It Up: Three From ActorDirector Jerzy Stuhr Summer Eleven Sveener & The Shmiel Symmetry of Love Testees: The Complete Series Tikki Tikki Tembo… and More Stories to Celebrate Asian Heritage U.S. Open: 2010 Men’s Semifinal – Federer vs. Djokovic Universal Genius: Gallery of the

3 Non Juans According to Jim Season Three Aviation: National Archives Bat Shit Crazy Ben 10: Ultimate Alien – Power Struggle Bound by Blood: Wendigo Boy Meets World: Season 5 Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty Curious George Plays Ball Dave Matthews: 2009 Brixton Dirty Jobs Collection 7 Granada: Let’s Party Guy & Madeline on a Park Bench Identity Julian Assange: A Modern Day Hero?

Junjo Romantica: Season 2 Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D Kiki Melendez’s Hot Tamales Live La Soga Make It or Break It Vol. 3 Season 2 Megan Is Missing Murdoch Mysteries Season Three Pirates: Scourge of the Seven Seas PJ’s Season 1 Samantha Brown’s Passport to Great Weekends Collection 3 Sex, Lies & Death Sinister Word World: The Train Escapade Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: Wubbzy Saves the Day You’ll Never Get Out Alive 4-Film Set

MAY 10

Almighty Thor America’s Railroads: The Steam Train Legacy Chloe’s Closet: Meet Chloe Chop Kick Panda Christmas in July Civil War Journal: The Commanders Civil War Journal: The Conflict Begins Dinosaurs: Extreme Survivors Doctor Who: Planet of the Spiders Doctor Who: Terror of the Autons Getting High Hail the Conquering Hero Home Improvement: The 20th Anniversary Complete Collection How I Ended My Summer My Little Chickadee Pokemon DP Galactic Battles Vol. 2 Pokemon DP Galactic Battles Vol. 3 Pokemon DP Galactic Battles Vol. 4 Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc Vol. 2 Shigurui Death Frenzy: The Complete Collection Sign of the Cross Slime City Massacre Soul of Bellydance Splat the Cat… and Other Furry Friends Story About Ping… And Other Fine Feathered Friends Wild Australia: An Underwater Love Story Wild Australia: Crater of Life Wild Australia: Land of the Giants Wild Australia: The Living Graveyard

QUEENS of the STONE AGE

They’re hitting the road this month and their music is on sale at a record store near you

$9.99 or less

Titles and prices vary by location. More bands featuring Joshua Homme and other rock stars $9.99 or less every day at indie record stores.

R

Songs for the Deaf

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/music/new_releases

MARCH 1

Icon Lives and Treasure Alexander Late Nights & early Mornings Joana Amendoeira Setimo Fado Amede Ardoin Mama, I’ll Be Long Gone Mark Ballas Hurtlovebox The Baseball Project Vol. 2: High and Inside Count Basie Ultimate Big Band Collection Beady Eye Different Gear, Still Speeding Chuck Berry Icon Big Head Blues Club 100 Years of feat. Big Head Todd Robert Johnson Blood Ceremony Living With the Ancients Bloodhound Gang Icon Alfie Boe Bring Him Home James Brown The Singles Vol. 10 Anna Calvi Anna Calvi Christopher … Wolves Reiki Healing Music Cirque du Soleil Totem Harry Connick Jr. In Concert on Broadway Billy Ray Cyrus Icon DJ Screw 3’n the Mornin’ Part Two DJ Screw All Screwed Up Tommy Dorsey Ultimate Big Band collection Dukatalon Saved by Fear Dum Dum Girls He Gets Me High Dying Fetus Grotesque Impalement Dying Fetus Killing on Adrenaline Linda Eder Now Eisley The Valley Melissa Etheridge Icon Father Befouled Morbid Destitution of Covenant Firebird Double Diamond Forever the Sickest Forever the Sickest D Foster & Friends Hit Man Returns: David Foster & Friends Four Tops Icon Peter Frampton Icon The Gap Band Icon Gideon Costs Go Radio Lucky Street Fred Hersch Alone at the Vanguard Ari Hest Sunset Over Hope Street Buddy Holly Icon Humanity Falls Ordaining the Apocalypse Images of Eden Rebuilding the Ruins Harry James Ultimate Big Band Collection Scott Kempner Tenement Angels C King/James Taylor Troubadours Kool & The Gang Icon Kopek White Collar Lies K Kings Pres. Dirtball Nervous System David Lanz Liverpool Left Lane Cruiser Junkyard Speed Ball Less Than Jake Hello Rockview Less Than Jake Losing Streak Aaron Lewis Town Line Los Peyotes Garaje o Muerte The Loves Love You Lumerians Transmalinnia Lykke Li Wounded Rhymes Loretta Lynne Icon The Mavericks Icon Middle Brother Middle Brother Buddy Miller The Majestic Silver Strings Ana Moura Coliseum Abir Nasraoui Heyma Neema Watching You Think Aaron Neville Icon Omnium Gatherum New World Shadows Papercuts 100 Lovers .38 Special Acrylics Alexander Marsha Ambrosius

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Blue Horse Dream: A Liquid Mind Experience Papercuts Fading Parade Papercuts Going Out in Style Papercuts Relax Paris Suit Yourself My Main Shitstain Parliament Icon Austin Peralta Endless Planets John Popper and … John Popper and the Duskray Troubadours Praxis Profanation: Preparation for a Coming Darkness D Premal & Gyuoto … Tibetan Mantras for Turbulent Times Rings of Saturn Embryonis Anomaly Romane Swing for ninine: Complete Romane Vol. 1 Rural Alberta Adv. Departing Rwake Hell Is a Door to the Sun Salt-N-Pepa Icon Scale the Summit The Collective Scene Aesthetic Brother (Deluxe Edition) Ron Sexsmith Long Player Late Bloomer Artie Shaw Ultimate Big Band Collection Skrillex Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites Gina Sosa Can’t Control Myself Omar Sosa Calma Soundtrack Beastly Soundtrack Biutiful/Almost Biutiful Stateless Matilda The Tellers Close the Evil Eye Those Dancing Days Daydreams and Nightmares Tigertailz Berserk: Live… Burnin’ Fuel Tony! Toni! Tone!

Icon Various Artists Bluegrass Gospel Various Artists Cote D’Ivoire 50 Ans Independence Various Artists Le Pop 6 Various Artists Traditional Folk Songs The Ventures Hawaii Five-O War Icon Mike Watt Hyphenated-Man We Still Dream Chapters Lucinda Williams Blessed M Wonder & Friends True Stories of Mark Wonder & Friends K Ziad/Hamid El kasri Yobadi Papercuts Papercuts

MARCH 8

Ancient Astronauts Into Bass and Time Ann-Margret & Al Hirt Personalities – The Velvet Lounge The Antikaroshi Per/son/alien Asia Spirit of the Night: Live Ava Inferi Onyx B Lan 4 Library Catalog Music Series Bang Tango Ain’t No Jive Bang Tango Dancin’ on Coals Bang Tango Psycho Café John Barry John Barry Beehover Concrete Catalyst Benedictum Dominion Tommy Bolin Teaser Deluxe Bon Jovi The Lowdown M Capelli Acoustic Trio Le Nuages en France Exene Cervenka The Excitement of maybe Ray Charles The Soul Explosion Children of Bodom Relentless Reckless Forever Bruce Cockburn Small Source of Comfort Bobby Collins I’m on the Boat The Color Morale My Devil in Your Eyes Condemned?

Condemned2death Luis Conte En Casa de Luis Creepersin The Rise of Creepersin The Curious Mystery We Creeling Stoney Curtis Band Cosmic Conn3ction Matt Cusson One of Those Nights Cut Copy Zonoscope (Deluxe) Dance Gavin Dance Downtown Battle Mountain II Defeater Empty Days & Sleepless Nights Demon Hunter Death, a Destination Destruction Day of Reckoning Neil Diamond The Bang years

Skrillex Mar 1

Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites First there was Derek Miller, guitarist in post-hardcore outfit Poison the Well, who did a stylistic 180 via pop-bangers Sleigh Bells. Now Sonny Moore, former frontman for Tampa terrorizers From First to Last, goes under the stage name Skrillex. His muchacclaimed breakbeat/dubstep DJ work is worth your spins.

Bo Diddley’s Beach party My Divider Welcome Rare Dominos Vols. 1 & 2 Flammentriebe Drive Angry Kainsmal Powder keg Stronger Melotronic Epoch Lasers The Breeze WW Glee: Vol. 5 Thankyou Mi Musica The Yoga Sessions: Go-Ray & Duke Grails Deep Politics Dobie Gray Drift Away/Loving Arms Jonny Greenwood Norwegian Wood Soundtrack Stefan Grossman The Ragtime Cowboy Jew T Gurtu, S Phillips & … 21 Spices Halfbrother Sid Crazier Than Thou Steve Harley Hobo With a Grin/The Candidate The High Kings Memory Lane The Hollies Bus Stop/Stop! Stop! Stop!

Sierra Hull Daybreak The Human Abstract Digital Veil Isomer Face Toward the Sun Jag Panzer The Scourge of the Light Tommy James In Touch/Midnight Rider Jib Kidder Library Catalog Music Series Billy Joel Live at Shea Stadium Jolly The Audio Guide to Happiness Rolf Julius Music for a distance Eartha Kitt & Shorty … St. Louis Blues: The Velvet Lounge Earl Klugh Dream Come True/Crazy for You/Low Ride Al Kooper Easy Does It/New York City Avril Lavigne Goodbye Lullaby Lifelover Sijukdom Lil Keke 713 Volume 4 Long Distance Calling Long Distance Calling Billy Love Gee… I Wish Lullwater Silhouette Mae Evening The Mahones Black Irish The Mahones Draggin’ the Days The Mahones Here comes Lucky The Mahones Live at the Horseshoe The Mahones Paint the Town Red The Mahones Rise Again The Mahones Take No Prisoners Bo Diddley Dinosaur Bones Diversecity Fats Domino Dornereich Drive Angry Eis Riley Etheridge Jr. Sara Evans Factory of Dreams Fen Lupe Fiasco Champian Fulton Gehenna Glee Cast Glen Galaxy Gocho Go-Ray & Duke

The Mahones The Hellfire Club Sessions The Mahones The Irish Punk Collection Phil Manzanera Diamond Head Maruta Forward Into Regression Stevin McNamara Prana Groove Memphis Here Comes a city Micachu & Shapes Chopped & Screwed Mighty Clouds of Joy 50 Year Celebration Morning Teleportation Expanding Anyway Steve Morse High Tension Wire Steve Morse Band Coast to Coast Steve Morse Band Southern Steel Jelly Roll Morton Jazz Biography Mournblade Anthology Vol. 1 Mr. Capone-E & Mr. … South Side’s Most Wanted Murder Junkies Road Killer Alexi Murdoch Towards the Sun Rick Nelson Million Sellers/Rick Is 21 Jim Norton Despicable Ocean Colour Scene Moseley Shoals (Deluxe) Parts & Labor Constant Future Danny Peyronel Make the Monkey Dance Charlie Phillips Sugartime Elvis Presley Elvis Is Back! Legacy Edition Charley Pride Choices Quiet Sun Mainstream R.E.M. Collapse Into Now Raekwon Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang Raiders Country Wine… Plus Rainbow Down to Earth (Deluxe) Rainbow Rising (DeluxeO Red Lili Une vie De Reve Glenn Reeves Johnny on the Spot Keith Richards The Document Rival Schools Pedals Kathy Sanborn Blues for Breakfast Score The Eagle The Shangri-Las Remember Sign of the Jackal The Beyond Simon & Garfunkel Bridge Over Troubled Water (40th Anniversary Edition) Sorcerer Sorcerer Soundtrack Battle: Los Angeles Soundtrack Fringe Season 2 Soundtrack Jane Eyre Soundtrack Shelter Jimmy Spellman Doggonit: Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight Starfucker Reptilians Sufis at the Cinema 50 Years of Bollywood, Qawwali & Sufi Ya Tafari Utopia Tiger Most Wanted Daniel Tosh Happy Thoughts Allen Touissant The Allen Touissant Story Rick Trevino In My Dreams/Whole Town Blue Trust Company Dreaming in Black and White Turisas Stand Up and Fight U.D.O. Mastercutor U.D.O. Mission No. X UFO All the Hits & More Various Artists Electronic Body Matrix 1 Various Artists I’m Going Slightly Mad Various Artists Odd Couples: What Were They Thinking?

Various Artists That’ll Flat Git It, Vol. 27 Various Artists The Red Bird Story Kurt Vile Smoke Ring for My Halo Warlock Hellbound Warlock Triumph and Agony Warlock True as Steel WC Revenge of the Barracuda Wino Adrift Wires Under Tension Light Science Withering Soul No Closure Wye Oak Civilian Natalia Zukerman Gas Station Roses

MARCH 15

Across the Sun Adebisi Shank American Idol Anomalous

Before the Night Takes us This Is the Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank 10th Anniversary: The Hits Volume 1 Ohmnivalent

Little Victories Labour of Lust Rare Bird Alert Several Shades of Why Live at the Aragon (CD/ DVD) Vashawn Mitchell My Songbook (Deluxe edition) Thelonious Monk Monk’s Music Mother Mother Eureka Naked and Famous Passive Me Aggressive You Near Death Condition The Disembodied: In Spiritual spheres New York Dolls Dancing Backwards in High Heels Noah and the Whale Last Night on Earth Daniel O’Donnell Moon Over Ireland Oh Land Oh Land Onward to Olympas The War Within Us Patrick M Nervous Nitelife: Patrick M The Poison Tree The Poison Tree Django Reinhardt The Essential Django Reinhardt Paul Revere & The … The Essential Paul Revere & The Raiders Richie Spice Book of Job Rise Against Endgame Caitlin Rose Own Side Now Rotten Sound Cursed Salt the Wound Kill the Crown Omar Santana Dub Step: Dubterranean Mathew Sawyer & … How Snakes Eat Scala & Kolacny …

Scala & Kolacny Brothers Screeching Weasel First World Manifest Serenity Death and Legacy Nina Simone The Essential Nina Simone Ricky Skaggs The Essential Ricky Skaggs Snowblink Long Live Soundtrack Eve Luna Soundtrack Paul Soundtrack Priscilla Queen of the Desert Soundtrack Rango Soundtrack The Lincoln Lawyer Larry Sparks Almost Home Rick Springfield The Essential Rick Springfield Steel Tigers of Death Precious Moments Traffic John Barleycorn Must die Trap Them Darker Handcraft Alex Turner Submarine Steve Vai The Essential Steve Vai Various Artists Dance Mix USA: In the Club Various Artists Delta Various Artists The Rough Guide to African Guide legends Vreid V Dionne Warwick Only Trust Your Heart The Wedding Present Live 1989 Weedeater Jason the Dragon Kenny Werner Balloons Matt Wertz Weights & Wings Josh Williams Down Home Withered hand Good news Wolf & Lamb vs. Soul … DJ Kicks Wreak Havoc Abandon Everything Yellowjackets Timeline Leeroy Stagger Nick Lowe Steve Martin J. Mascis Mastodon

Mastodon Mar 15

Live at the Aragon The older they get, the harder it is to classify Atlanta’s preeminent metal foursome. Elements of prog, stoner rock and grunge permeate breakout album Crack the Skye, played in its entirety here. If you’re too tr00 for CTS, however, enjoy a long encore of slammers from Remission, Leviathan and Blood Mountain.

As Blood Runs Black Instinct Assaulter Boundless Awolnation Megalithic Symphony Travis Barker Give the Drummer Some The Berg Sans Nipple Build With Erosion Black J Lewis & The … Scandalous Art Blakey & The …

Ugetsu Cassle Cassle Tony Castles No Service Condenados A Painful Journey Into Nihil Cornershop feat. B… Cornershop & The Double-O Groove Of Miranda Cosgrove High Maintenance Crucified Mortals Crucified Mortals Curren$y Muscle Car The Damnwells No One Listens to the Band Anymore Darlings Warma The Dead Kenny Gs Operation Long Leash Deadlock Bizarro World The Death Set Michel Poiccard Devourment Butcher the Weak Devourment Unleash the Carnivore Al Di Meola Pursuit-Rad Rhapsody The Dodos No Color Does It Offend You, … Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You Eleventh Dream day Riot Now! Eternal Tapestry Beyond the 4th Door JadFair Beautiful Songs 3 Jad Fair His Name Itself Is Music The Fifth Dimension The Essential Fifth Dimension Fitzgerald-Peterson Ella and Oscar The Fleshtones Brooklyn Sound Solution Sutton Foster An Evening With Sutton Foster Found Factorycraft Funeral for a Friend Welcome Home Armageddon Bob Geldof How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell Stan Getz/Cal Tjader Getz/Tjader Sextet Giant Sand Purge & Slouch (25th Anniversary Edition) Giant Sand Ramp (25th Anniversary Edition) Gorgasm Orgy of Murder Grave Digger Ballad of Mary Grave Digger The Clans Are Still Marching Al Green The Best of the Gospel Sessions Alan Hampton The Moving Sidewalk Heidecker & Wood Starting From Nowhere The Joy Formidable The Big Roar Eartha Kitt The Essential Eartha Kitt Deniz Kurtel Music Watching Over Me Kvelertak Kvelertak Lamorski, Jurek & … Lucky

MARCH 22

13 feat. Lester Butler 13 Featuring Lester Butler Acid House Kings Music Sounds Better With You Adventure Lesser Known Agnostic Front My Life My Way Alexis & Fido Perreologia Art of Dying Vices and Virtues Richard Ashcroft United Nations of Sound Astrosoniq Quadrant Federico Aubele Berlin 13 Baby Bash Bashtown Bal Sagoth A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria A Bhosle & S Khan Naina Lagai Ke Big Sandy and His … Best of Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys Bing Ji Ling Shadow to Shine Bizzy Bone & Layzie … Bone Brothers IV Bone Thugs Maggie Bjorklund Coming Home James Blake James Blake

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/music/new_releases Murder the World Fly on the Wall Dust Bowl The Discovery F.A.M.E. Hold on Tight A Matter of Black and White Gunz N’ Butta Fabric 56: Derrick Carter Greatest Hits 4 Piano No Ordinary man B-Sides & Rarities Losing Sleep One Girl In the Buffalo surround Legends Oneirology Icon Total Death As Above So Below 8 Songs About a Girl Papa John DeFrancesco A Philadelphia Story DMX Greatest Hits With a Twist DNA Party Tested Dodheimsgard 666 International Dodsferd Splitting With Hatred the Insignificance Eliza Doolittle Eliza Doolittle Dotma Sleep Paralyses Duran Duran All You Need Is Now Roger Eno Fragile ESG Family Bizness Eulogies Tear the Fences Down Evil Survives Metal Vengeance William Fitzsimmons Gold in the Shadow Aretha Franklin Take a Look Gazpacho Missa Atropos Gehenna Seen Through the veils Georgian Skull Mother Armageddon, Healing Apocalypse D Solid Gould vs. Bill … Dub of the Passover Grasstowne Kickin’ Up Dust Grave Digger Rheingold Green Day Awesome as F**k Gucci Mane The Return of Mr. Zone 6 Jennifer Hudson I Remember Me If By yes Salt on Sea Glass Laura Jansen Bells Ke$ha TBA (remix album) Josh Kelley Georgia Clay Keren Ann 101 The Kinks Kinda Kinks (Deluxe) The Kinks Kinks (Deluxe) The Kinks The Kinks Kontroversy (Deluxe) Adam Lambert Glam Nation Live Okkyung Lee Noisy Love songs GBLeighton Hope 1 Mile Les Chauds Lapins Amourettes The Lonely Forest Arrows Mamud Band Opposite People – The Music of Fela Kuti Harvey Mandel Best Of Big Jay McNeely King of the Honking Sax Rick Nelson Rockin’ at the Universal No Man Carolina Skeletons No Man Flowermouth No Man Wild Opera Nostalgia 77 The Sleepwalking Society Odd Dimension Symmetrical Panic! At the Disco Vices & Virtues Pastor Troy H.N.I.C. Pavlov’s Dog Live and Unleashed Pet Shop Boys The Most Incredible Thing Pharoahe Monch W.A.R. (We Are Renegades) Anthony Phillips Private Parts and Pieces Vol. 9 & 10 Protest the Hero Scurrilous Reverberation Blue Stereo Music Reverberation vs. … New Soul Rocky’s Business Rebel’s Roar The Roys Lonesome Whistle Saliva Under Your Skin Sam the Sham and … The MGM Singles M Seeger & P Seeger Fly Down Little Bird Bloodshot Bobby V Joe Bonamassa Born of Osiris Chris Brown Solomon Burke & …

Jaki Byard Cam’ron & Vado Derrick Carter Chalie Boy Peter Chilvers Cipher CKY Edwyn Collins Katelynne Cox Dennis Crommett Crystal Viper CunninLynguists Billy Currington Darkthrone Anthony David Deep Dark Robot

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Great Divide My Kierra Sheard Playlist The Mono Singles ’68 – ‘72 Live on I-5 Saw IV Stripperland Sucker Punch The Voice of the Broken Hearted Coming Home Rod Stewart A Night on the Town Rod Stewart Atlantic Crossing Straight Line Stitch The Fight of Our Lives The Strokes Angles Quinn Sullivan Cyclone Sway Machinery …

The House of Friendly Ghosts Vol. 1 Tesseract One Thorns vs. Emperor Thorns vs. Emperor Jim Tomlinson The Lyric Featuring Stacey kent Josh Turner Icon Wadsworth Mansion Sweet mary Bob Wills 1940-1947: Texas, Hollywood and Chicago Woods of Ypres Woods IV: The Green Album Yellowcard When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes Zion I & The Grouch Heroes in the Healing of the Nation John Zorn Nova Express Tommy Shaw Kierra Sheard Sir Douglas Quintet Soundgarden Soundtrack Soundtrack Soundtrack Dorthy Squires

MARCH 29

Graveyard Shift Disguises Harbors Surtur Rising Stay Kids Suara Naga Most Wanted Source Code Soundtrack Badlands Voodoo Highway Roadside Attractions Top Hat Crown & The Clapmaster’s son John Barron Ballads for You Beardfish Mammoth Gilbert Becaud Un Nouveau Printemps Becoming … Archetype Celestial Completion Benighted Asylum Cave Betty and the Were… Tea Time Favourites Between the Buried … The Best of Between the Buried and Me Bibio Mind Mokeh Big Sean Finally Bjornstad/Henryson Night song Black Dots of Death Ever Since We Were Children Blackguard Firefight Rory Block Shake ‘Em On Down: A Tribute to Mississippi Fred McDowell Bloodiest Descent The Books Lost and Safe The Boxer Rebellion The Cold Still Georges Brassens Une Jolie Fleur Braveyoung We Are Lonely Animals Burzum Belus Burzum Burzum/Aske Burzum Daudi Baldrs Burzum Det Som Engang Var Burzum Filosofem Burzum Hlidskjalf Burzum Hvis Lyset Tar Oss Buzzoven Revelation: Sick Again Cavalera Conspiracy Blunt Force Trauma Billy Childish Archive From 1959: The Billy Childish Story Circus of Power Circus of Power Circus of Power Vices Classified Handshakes + Middle Fingers Michael Cleveland Fired Up Cyanide Pills Cyanide Pills Thierry David The Veil of Whispers G Day & The Gaolers Soundtrack to the Daily Grind G Day & the Gaolers Triple Distilled Donna De Lory Remixes Fabienne Delsol On My Mind 40 Glocc & Spider Lo Aiden All Tiny Creatures Amon Amarth ANR Arrington De Dion…

Assassin Chris Bacon Badlands Badlands Marcia Ball Band of Heathens

Soundgarden Mar 22 Live on I-5

Slowly but surely, the corpse of Soundgarden is enjoying reanimation. And just in time, as Chris Cornell was probably six months away from a Bieber duet. Here, the grungemetal legends’ 1996 West Coast tour (hence the title) is resurrected, mostly covering Badmotorfinger, Superunknown and Down on the Upside material.

Derek & The Dominos Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs Desultory Counting Our Scars Matt Duke One Day to Die E-40 Revenue Retrievin’: Graveyard Shift E-40 Revenue Retrievin’: Overtime Shift Emery We Do What We Want Erland & The Carnival Nightingale Jerad Finck Jerad Finck The Fire Dept.

A Flame From the Fen: The Complete Fire Dept.

Funeral Party The Golden Age of Knowhere Gangpol & Mit 1000 Softcore Touris GDP Useless Eaters Generationals Actor-Caster Goes Cube In Tides & Drifts HollyGolightly God Don’t Like it Holly Golightly My First Holly Golightly Album Grateful Dead Flashback With the Grateful Dead Henry Gray Lucky Man Great White Absolute Hits Juliette Greco La Belle Vie Max Greger Tequila Gridlink Orphan Charlie Haden Quartet Sophisticated Ladies Ben Hall Ben Hall!

The Haunted Unseen Havok Time Is Up The Jeff Healy Band Get Me Some Helix Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge Hugo Old Tyme Religion Julia Hulsmann Trio Imprint Hunx and His Punx Too Young to Be in Love Infinitirock Library Catalog Music Series Innerpartysystem Never Be Content Iskald The Sun I Carried Alone Boney James Contact George Jones Mr. Country and Western Ivan Julian The Naked Flame Kay the Aquanaut Waterloo Paul Kuhn Der Mann Am Klavier Ladytron Best of 00-10 Leb Laze Library Catalog Music Series Lecherous Gaze Lecherous Gaze Lars-Luis Linek Harmonica Globetrotter Lars-Luis Linek Snutenhobel (Plattduutschen Blues) Jennifer Lopez Love?

Los Lonely Boys Rockpango Kermit Lynch Kitty Fur Maks and the Minors Good Morning, Samsara!

Maneesh De Moor Signatures on Water Marillion Live From Cadogan Hall

Mary Mary Something Big Melting Season Harmoni-Pet Delux Mercenary Metamorphosis Pete Molinari A Virtual Landslide Yves Montand La Ballade Moon Duo Mazes John Morales The M and M Mixes Vol. 2 The Mountain Goats All Eternals Deck Mysteria Mysteria Naked on the Vague Twelve Dark Noons Nelson/Marsalis/… Tribute to Ray Charles TJ Nix & Paul Plumeri Blues in Disguise Noah23 Fry Cook on Venus Smokie Norful How I Got Over Sean O’Connell Free at First Light Obits Moody, Standard and Poor Obscura Omnivium Of Legends Stranded Old Merry Tale Jazz… 50 Jahre Orchestre Poly-Rythmo Cotonou Club Original Cast Rec. Sister Act Walter Parks Walter Parks Pearl Jam Vitalogy (Expanded Edition) Pearl Jam Vs. (Expanded Edition) Pearl Jam Vs./Vitalogy (Featuring Live at the Orpheum, Boston, Mass.)

Josh T. Pearson Last of the Country Gentlemen Peter, Bjorn and John Gimme Some Yank Rachell Blues Mandolin Man Nigil Richards The Luxe Life Royal Bangs Flux Outside Secret Cities Strange Hearts Silly Kidz 101 Crazy Jokes for Kids Alex Skolnick Trio Veritas Skybombers Black Carousel Aaron Nigel Smith Let’s Pretend Snivelling Shits I can’t Come Snoop Dogg Doggumentary Solefald Norron Livskunst The Sounds Something to Die For Soundtrack Ceremony Soundtrack Super Southeast Engine Canary Amy Speace Land Like a Bird Britney Spears Femme Fatale Heidi Spencer & the … Under Streelight Glow Billy Squier The Essential Billy Squier Sum 41 Screaming Bloody Swing Combination Yesterdays Ten After Two Truth is Thee Headcoatees Elementary Headcoats Thee Headcoatees Have Love Will Travel Thee Headcoatees Sisters of Suave Those Darlins Screws Get Loose Through the Sparks Almanac (MMX) Year of Beasts Unwritten Law Swan Uptown Swing Gang Time on My Hands The Vermin Poets Poets of England Wagon Christ Toomorrow We Are Defiance Trust in Few Whitesnake Forevermore Joche Wiegandt Ebbe Un Floot Within Temptation The Unforgiving Wiz Khalifa Rolling Papers Brian Wright House on Fire Eiko Yamashita Contemporary Piano Music From Japan Yelle Safari Disco Club Pete Yorn Music for the Morning After (10th Anniversary Edition) Young Jeezy TM 103 Helmut Zacharias Schoner Giggolo/ Charmaine APRIL 5

Ambrose Akinmusire When the Heart Emerges Glistening Armageddon Dildos Untergrund ASCII.Disko Black Orchid Avant Icon Justin Bieber X-Posed Blood Freak Mindscraper Blueprint Adventures in CounterCulture Brotha Lynch Hung Coathanga strangla Burzum Fallen Craig Campbell Craig Campbell

Into the Game Meet the Residents How to Become Clairvoyant Moving Pictures (CD/DVD) The best of Leon Russell The Joys of Living 20082010 Sinister Altered Since Birth Dallas Smith & The ' Dallas Smith & The Boys From Shilo Sons of Seasons Magnisphyricon Soundtrack Arthur Soundtrack Mortal Kombat: Songs Soundtrack Pushing Daisies Season 2 Soundtrack Take Me Home Tonight Soundtrack Tron: Legacy Reconfigured Soundtrack Your Highness Terell Stafford This Side of Strayhorn Cat Stevens Icon Sublime Icon The Submarines Love Notes/Letter Bombs Third World Patriots Timber Timbre Creep On Creepin’ on Ike & Tina Turner River Deep – Mountain High Vigilante The New Resistance Vintersorg Jardpuls We Are Enfant Terrible Explicit Pictures The Who Icon Wildcookie Cookie Dough Ann Wilson & Friends Countrypolitan Duets Mitch Winehouse Rush of Love Jonathan Winters Final Approach Psy’aviah Feat. Ayria Residents Robbie Robertson Rush Leon Russell Sharks

Britney Spears Mar 29

Femme Fatale If this were a homage to De Palma’s 2002 dud—actually a surprisingly unique thriller—well, uh, that would be something. What it probably does have in common with the Rebecca Romijn flop is titillating Sapphic innuendo and beats that make more sense in France than America. “Hold It Against Me.” Ha ha, good one, Brit.

Ray Charles Live in Concert Eric Clapton Icon Joe Cocker Icon Cold Cave Cherish the Light Years Crack the Sky Cut Crack the Sky Ghost Creepersin Faster Creepersin Wolfgang Dauner Tribute to the Past Ray Davies See My Friends Miles Davis Definitive Miles Davis A Diane & Wild Divine Alela Diane & Wild Divine Kit Downes Quiet Tiger Easy Star All-Stars First Light Randy Edelman Pacific Flow to Abbey Road Eldar Three stories Bill Evans Definitive B. Evans FM Static My Brain Says Stop, but My Heart Says Go Tom Glazer A Treasury of Civil War songs Greylevel Hypostatic Union Ha Ha Tonka Death of a Decade Bobby Harrison Anthology Hellfighter Damnation’s Wing Etta James Essential Modern Records Collection Diana Jones High Atmosphere Quincy Jones Icon The Judds I Will Stand by You: The Essential Collection Kampfar Mare The Kills Blood Pressures Andy Kim Happen Again Albert King Definitive Albert King B.B. King Icon B.B. King Icon 2 Komor Kommando Oil, Steel & Rhythm Lisa Lampanelli Tough Love Gee Hye Lee Geenius Monday Local H Icon Madam Adam Madam Adam Malakwa Street Preacher Henry Mancini The Complete Peter Gunn Maritime Human Hearts Marshall Tucker Band Greatest Hits Marshall Tucker Band’s Doug Grey Soul of the South Material Issue International Pop Overthrow McFly Above the Noise Sergio Mendes Celebration George Michael The Lowdown Midlake Late Night Tales Mignon Kiss of Death Dan Milner Civil War Navy songs Movitz!

Out of My Head Mumford & Sons Sigh No More Deluxe Nonpoint Icon Original Cast Mary Poppins Power Quest Blood Alliance

APRIL 12

Voodoo of the Godsent From Night to the Edge The Family Sign EPs 1991-2002 This Is the New Year The Phantom Forest Bloodless Coup Beyond the Blue Horizon Danny Elfman & Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Collection The Byrds The Essential Byrds 3.0 The Church Starfish Brett Dennen Loverboy Bob Dylan Bob Dylan in Concert: Brandeis University Matthias Eick Skala The Feelies Here Before Figurines Figurines Frankie & Alice Frankie & Alice G. Goodwin Big Phat … That’s How We roll Rory Gallagher Irish Tour ‘74 Howe Gelb & A Band … Alegrias Goldberg Sisters Goldberg Sisters Gypsyblood Cold in the Guestway Iro Haarla Quinet Vespers Hate Forest To Twilight Thickets Hauschka Salon Des Amageurs Jimi Hendrix South Saturn Delta Lisa Howard Songs of Innocence & Experience Freddie Hubbard First Light Gregory Isaacs Lonely Lover Jamaica No Problem Jeniferever Silesia Joan as Police Woman Deep Field Jonny Jonny Carole King The Essential Carole King A Krauss & Union … Paper Airplane Lake Giving & Receiving James Leg Solitary Pleasure Letlive Fake History Little Scream The Golden Record Low C’Mon ALull Confetti Mack & Malone Money Music Dave Matthews Band Live at Wrigley Field D Maxxwell & Otis … Conversations in Blue Mazes A Thousand Heys The Milkshakes 107 Tapes (Early Demos & Live Recordings) Monsta Pacific Coast Highway John Oates Mississippi Mile Agnes Obel Philharmonics Old Calf Borrow a Horse One AM Radio Heaven Is Attached by a African Head Charge Azam Ali Atmosphere Autechre Ian Axel Bearsuit Bell X1 George Benson T Burton/D Elfman

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On March 14

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