Vampire Weekend are at it again and have announced a new song – Horchata along with a new fall tour that spans the West Coast, Canada, and Japan.

The song, Horchata, is a track off of their new album, Contra.  The airly procussions in the music was provided by Bazillion,  Mauro Refosco and add lots of depth to the song.  For those that don’t know, “Horchata” is a sweet Mexican drink made with rice – on obvious tie in to the “Contra” theme of the album.

Check out the song for yourself:

Vampire Weekend has also announced a fall tour, with dates below:

10-06 Montreal, Quebec – Le National
10-08 Toronto, Ontario – Horseshoe Tavern
10-15 London, England – King’s College
10-22 Paris, France – Nouveau Casino
11-02 Long Beach, CA – The Art Theater
11-05 Pioneertown, CA – Pappy and Harriet’s
11-07 Lafayette, CA -  Town Hall Theatre
11-08 Santa Cruz, CA – Catalyst
11-09 Visalia, CA – The Cellar Door
11-10 San Luis Obispo, CA – Downtown Brew
11-12 Bakersfield, CA – Chencho’s
11-14 Lomita, CA – VFW Hall
11-17 Tokyo, Japan – Tokyo Unit
11-21 Sydney, Australia – Oxford Art Factory

Thom Yorke has unleashed a  video for his new single “The Hollow Earth.”  The video, directed by Raymond Salvatore Harmon.  The single is part of the 12″ LP FeelingPulledApartbyHorses, which was released today.

While the video caused me to experience a seizure, the song is pretty kick ass.  Check it out for yourself!

*Edit* It seems the video has been pulled by Thom Yorke for copyright reasons.

Tis a shame

According to CNET, it seems songwriters, composers, and music publishers are working on a plan to target Apple and other online distribution outlets to increase compensation they receive for their downloads.  Adding more fuel to the fire, they even want to be compensated for 30 second previews found on a lot of sites.

Having already been unsuccessful at negotiating increased fees with distributors such as Apple, the groups, which include the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) among others, have begun lobbying the U.S. Congress in order to pass legislation to address their claims.

The groups are targeting what is know as a “performance fee”, a type of licensing fee used to compensate composers and publishers when their work is performed in public.  David Renzer, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, said in interview late last month with entertainment-industry publication, Encore. “(On iTunes) you can stream radio, and you can preview (tracks), things that we should be getting paid performance income for.”

To further complicate the matter, artists are seeking performance fees for songs played in movies and TV shows downloaded.  Typically, when a movie or TV show is played on the air a performance fee is paid to a artist for a song played in the show.  However, no such fees are paid when the movie or TV show is downloaded.

So far Congress, and courts, have sided with digital content distributors claiming  anything downloaded should be considered a private performance and should not be counted as a public broadcast.  I, personally, believe this to be true as well.

So what are your thoughts on this matter?

Sorry for no posts in such a long time, but I’ve been buried neck deep in school work these past few days.  If someone had only informed me grad school would require so much reading I would have taken the easier route and just gotten a job.

Anyways I wanted to write about my favorite band as of late, Giraffes? Giraffes! (To now be refereed to as G?G!) .  They are this amazing band from the west coast (although according to a recent blog article they are now on the east coast) who only consist of one guitarist and one percussionist  However, if you listen to their music without knowing this you’ll be amazed on how full of a sound they can produce.  They achieve this through looping some of their basic riffs and building on top of this.  While this looping may seem like a cheap trick used in the recording studio, the complexity of doing this during a live show allows G?G! to demonstrate their immense tallent.

You’ll also notice that none of their songs have any lyrics, which requires extra interesting music to entertain the listener.  G?G!’s music is considered “math rock” because of their constantly changing measures that allows the songs to evolve as they are played out.  I’ve included a video below to show just how truly amazing they are.   Let me know your thoughts and if you like them check out their site, where you can download their first album for free.  According to their twitter account, a small tour should happen sometime soon – I can only hope!

Adams’ new website includes a link to an order page. On that page, you can spend $1.49 on two new songs, “Lost and Found” and “Go Ahead and Rain”, which will be released this Friday, Sept 11th.

Kid Cudi has announced that the third single “Pursuit of Happiness” from his forthcoming LP, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, will feature chorus lines from both the MGMT and Ratatat.

Kid Cudi has mentioned before that he was interested in working with Band of Horses, the Postal Service and Ratatat for the LP.  The video of “Pursuit of Happiness” is available via youtube and is listed for your viewing pleasure below.  The rest of the album will be available September 15th so stay tuned to find what else is in store!

According to a note on the Nine Inch Nails website, lead singer Trent Reznor is calling in sick and, under doctor’s orders, he has canceled tonight’s show at the Henry Fonda Theater in Los Angeles.

While there is no word on exactly what he has come down with, the website does mention that show attendees will be reimbursed:  “Reimbursement details will be posted as soon as we figure them out; likely within the next 24 hours. We wish this wasn’t necessary and we’re very sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding.”

Whose for sending him a get well soon card?

Austin Texas, home of the famed South by Southwest and Austin City Limits festivals, has another great festival to add to the mix: Fun x3 Fest.

Today they have revealed their line-up for the festival, which runs from November 7th-8th.  Among many great bands, Of Montreal, Les Savy Fav, Vega, and Alaska in Winter are all scheduled to play.

If your lucky enough to live in Austin be sure to check it out!

As so might know or not, but the Strokes front-runner, Julian Casablancas, has recorded a solo album entitled Phrazes for the Young, due out on August 31st.

However, today, via his website, he announced the debut of his solo career with a show at the Duo Music Exchange in Tokyo, Japan.  Tickets are on sale now so, so go grab them before they are all gone.

The Associated Press reports that the pioneering guitarist and inventor Les Paul died today in White Plains, New York of complications from pneumonia; he was 94.  Les Paul is most remembered for his pioneering of the solid-body electric guitar which was the spark that set rock and roll on fire.

Paul started in the music business at the early age of 13 where he began performing semi-professionally as a country music guitarist.  He later went on to perform as an accomplished jazz musician before he began experimenting with the early electric guitar creating his famous “Les Paul” guitar.

Paul was also an innovator in the field of multi-track recording – a technique made famous with Jimi Hendrix and other rock musicians.  In 1948, Capitol Records released a recording that had begun as an experiment in Paul’s garage, entitled “Lover (When You’re Near Me)”, which featured Paul playing eight different parts on electric guitar, some of them recorded at half-speed, hence “double-fast” when played back at normal speed for the master.

Paul is survived by three sons, a daughter, a son-in-law, long-time friend Arlene Palmer, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. A private funeral service will be held in New York. A service in Waukesha will be announced at a later date.