Scripted Failures

KEXP has put up a cool interview with the guys from Stars of Track and Field. Among other things, they’re planning a new album, and, contrary to popular belief, they did not take their name from the Belle and Sebastian song (though they do like the band). Read all about it.

Some bands are known for being political. I gotta say, Portgual. The Man is not one that immediately comes to mind, but with the political climate these days, it’s just plain necessary for anyone and everyone to weigh in. And seeing as to how they’re from the great state of Alaska, it seems like they’re in a pretty good position to on what has been a, to put it mildly, controversial choice. From their blog:

We don’t need book burners and censors. Sarah Palin pushed to get the librarian of Wasilla fired when certain books were not removed from the public library. Who else in history has banned books? Not very good company is it?
…
We don’t need family feuds interfering with duties. I know you feel your ex-brother-in-law was a dick… but trying to get him fired based on this may cause a little trouble. Sarah?

We don’t need another vote against gay marriage. This is just standard every day equal rights being overlooked. Sarah Palin disagrees.

WOW.

There’s a lot more, too.

Censored Colors hits September 16th! Our review is forthcoming.

So, in the vein of Radiohead, Bloc Party have a pre-order up for their third record “Intimacy”, whose cover I’d post if I could find a picture of it. I just found out about it yesterday (the album and the pre-order), through a Facebook update, so I assume this has only been going on since Monday when Bloc Party apparently had a webchat with their fans, and revealed the album news.

It goes like this: When you pre-order the album, you can either just get the digital copy for $10, which you’ll be able to download tomorrow, or get the physical/digital bundle for $20, which will allow you to still be able to download the album tomorrow as well as get the physical copy Oct 28th. Apparently, the physical copy is going to have some new or different tracks on it than the digital copy. I’m not sure what exactly that entails, because, according to an interview with Kele Okereke, the lead singer/guitarist, that Rolling Stone conducted, the band doesn’t even know what it entails yet. Let’s hope it’s possibly another CD of tracks a la Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”

Now, don’t worry, Bloc Party aren’t being dicks (Wait I’m gonna explain it). I know some of you have gone to the site to pre-order the album and noticed that if you get the physical/digital bundle you’re paying $10 for the digital copy plus $10 for the physical copy. I know nearly all of you who just noticed that are thinking exactly what i thought: Greedy fucks. They aren’t though. I checked and the physical/digital bundle, if you live anywhere in the world besides the Americas, is only ten pounds. Now that makes a helluva lot more sense huh? I was quite relieved when I saw that, because it assured me that Bloc Party weren’t being the greedy fucks i had so quickly and wrongly assumed. Although, Kele Okereke, the lead singer, did say he didn’t want to give away for free because he wants to get paid in the Rolling Stone interview mentioned above (He also said it was a break-up album).

So, basically, the shitty dollar strikes again! Yes, folks, since they’re British and we’re American we get to pay double their price. Or if you’re more cynical, Bloc Party are greedy fucks. Personally, I fall somewhere in between. I say if you’re ordering the Physical/Digital bundle then by all means the digital side of things should be free. So given that the Physical only is 8 pounds, that’d be basically 16 dollars. Well, you know, on second thought, I think I’ve just fallen squarely into the shitty dollar category, because I don’t mind paying four bucks to get to listen to an album a little more than two months before it comes out. However, you could argue that the Physical copy should just be $10 bucks, regardless of where you live. On the other hand though, a band does have to make money to survive, especially when they’re still tied to a label. Point is, this debate could go round and round, and is mostly, if not wholly pointless. After all, it’s all about the music.

Economic rants aside, I couldn’t help but purchase it! After all those new tracks might be exclusive only to the pre-order. Plus, I love both of the old Bloc Party records, ESPECIALLY “A Weekend in the City”, and the thought of getting a new Bloc Party record to listen to TOMORROW, which will help get me through another day at work, was too good to pass up.

I shall be listening to this record tomorrow, provided it arrives before I head into work, because my network connection at work is terrible. I’ll try to have something up about it on Monday. If any of you kids decide to do the same feel free to leave some comments over the weekend on this post, or wait and leave some comments on the actual review post, which, like I said, should be up Monday.

PS Forgive me for the weird economic rant. Not quite sure where that came from.

Jacob Marshall, drummer for Mae, wrote in his blog about their split with Capitol Records and their return to a Destination: Beautiful sound:

Happy birthday Singularity! What a self fulfilling prophecy… This time last year we were in Time Square celebrating the release of our first (and only) major label record. As all things converged into a single black hole, and EMI was bought up by Terra Firma, we were smashed against a large brick wall and we broke. We lost two long time members. We parted ways with our manager. Ultimately, we parted ways with Capitol. As we rubbed our eyes and looked around, we decided that there was still enough life inside to give this another shot. We picked up the pieces and slowly inched forward.

Now, after the last few months of planning and gearing up for a new season, I am proud to say that we will be making our most meaningful statement yet. We are over half way through with a new batch of songs that are the most musical yet. We have split our time between Drexel University working with amazing student engineers and are returning home to Earthsound with Mark Padgett to finish some tracking and mixing. For those hoping for a return to the sonic pallet of Destination:Beautiful… you will have it. We have come full circle. We have come home. We are as independent as we were when we started. We have six years of experience behind us and a blank canvas laid out before us. We have more ambition than ever before and I am excited to share the ride with you.

We are your band.

I, for one, welcome this change. I loved their debut and I liked The Everglow, but Singularity seems to have missed the mark a bit. It’s not horrible, and there are songs I like, but not nearly as much as the magic that attracted me to them in the first place.

I love this band. You could call it a guilty pleasure, but I’m not guilty about it. It’s just one of a couple of Warped Tour bands that I just find overly catchy.

They just put up a new song from their upcoming album Life Is Not a Waiting Room on their MySpace page called “Family Tradition.”

Apparently, Matthew Pryor (former lead-singer of The Get Up Kids, and (current?) lead singer of The New Amsterdams and The Terrible Twos) has started his first true solo project, though The New Amsterdams kinda felt that way most of the time anyway.  I haven’t had a chance to listen to the newest song he put up on his Myspace page, but I will when I get home from work.

His album, Confidence Man, is due out July 28th on Vagrant.  I’m incredibly excited.  I’ve never been disappointed by anything this man’s had a hand in.

(Also, if you’re like me, and you still miss The Get Up Kids, check out Blackpool Lights and White Whale for more post-TGUK-member material.)

Equal Vision Records has finally given the date for the new Damiera record: June 24th.  It’s called “Quiet Mouth Loud Hands.”  I’m incredibly excited to see where they’re headed.

Their first album M(US)IC is great.  Imagine early Further Seems Forever with the guitarist from Fall of Troy.  “Via Invested” is just plain amazing.  A friend and I slowed it to half-speed and still couldn’t play it consistently.  Of course, we do suck at guitar.  But that’s not the point.  It’s awesome, so go download it.  And then be as excited for the new album as we are.

Below is the track list:

1. Rainman
2. Quiet Mouth Loud Hands
3. Nailbiter
4. Image and Able
5. Teacher, Preacher
6. Weights for the Waiting
7. Chromatica
8. Blind Sir Bluest
9. Woodbox
10. Silvertongue
11. Trading Grins

As you may have noticed, the blog looks a bit different now. And you may have also noticed that you couldn’t access the site for a short time. We migrated from Lifetype to Wordpress for our blogging software. This makes it a whole lot easier to upload audio/video/photos, and it also allows users like you to create accounts to comment without having to enter your information each time.

Note: If you read by RSS (in which case you may already have seen the message), the new RSS link is different. It is now http://blog.scriptedfailures.com/feed

Easy enough to remember.

I tried to maintain all the entry and comment text, so if you see anything wrong, let me know.

We’ll have a real update soon.

News!

Radiohead is going to be on Late Night with Conan O’Brien tomorrow (Wedesday) night.  Set your DVRs!  They’ll allegedly be playing “House of Cards” off of the new album.  I’ll try to update with a video link to it on Thursday in case you miss it.

Alkaline Trio has a new EP out today entitled Agony and Irony.  I’ll be picking this up whenever I get to the store next.

Winnipeg’s The Paperbacks are still alive!  After finding their Facebook page, I found the news bulletin from last Thursday saying the following: “Major announcements will be coming soon! This year will be very
interesting for us, particularly heading towards the autumn.”  Sounds good to me.  I never got around to buying their second album, but I would if they’d a) sell it around here or b) tour down here.

For those Decemberists fans out there, they’re going to be on All Songs Considered this week.  Either listen on your local NPR affiliate or straight from their website.

That’s all for now.

MoS released the video for “Get Better” today!  Check it out below.  I love the song.  Lovely string arrangement.  And no organ to be found?  Hath hell frozen over?