Scripted Failures

SmashingPumpkins.com announced the departure of Jimmy Chamberlin, the only remaining member of the original line-up other than Corgan. Corgan is going to continue to release material under the SP moniker, and will be heading into the studio this Spring. Here’s what Chamberlin had to say about the split:

By now you have heard the news of my departure from the Smashing Pumpkins. I will say, without going into any unnecessary details that this represents a positive move forward for me. I can no longer commit all of my energy into something that I don’t fully possess. I won’t pretend I’m into something I’m not. I won’t do it to myself, you the fan, or my former partner. I can’t just, “Cash the check” so to speak. Music is my life. It is sacred. It deserves the highest commitment at every level and the Pumpkins are certainly no different. I’m sorry but it really IS that simple. There is no drama, bad blood, or anything else but a full commitment to music. My best goes out to Billy and I’m glad he has chosen to continue under the name. It is his right. I will continue to make music with the Jimmy Chamberlin Complex as well as pursuing other musical interests. I feel that I have a long way to go and a lot to give. Thanks to everyone for your kind words and support through all of this. I am constantly humbled by all of you! It is an honor and a privilege to play music for a living and I don’t take it for granted not even for a second.

Stay tuned……. JC

And here I was, thinking they had chosen their Twitter username SmashingPumpkin because the full name was too long.

Alkaline Trio is having a contest to remix “I Found Away” from their latest album Agony and Irony (which is phenomenal). It’s hosted by Indabamusic.com.

The winner gets his/her mix put on the upcoming Remix CD and there are a bunch of other cool prizes on the contest page. Check it out!

I’m going to try to do a mix myself this weekend. “I Found Away (Scripted Failures Mix)” Be on the lookout for it on the listing of recent entries.

I was reading a nifty interview with Jason Kulbel of Saddle Creek records (once again from (d)NOT) and he let something slip that made me start. When asked if they might use Cursive’s $1-a-day model for any other releases, here’s what he said:

[W]e don’t have plans to do this with the Beep Beep record or the Tokyo Police Club records that come out later this month.

What new TPC records? It’s been a year since Elephant Shell, which was phenomenal, but I haven’t heard anything about a new release. Did he misspeak? I’m incredibly curious…

Robert Smith’s sentiments about the Radiohead Model have been reported pretty widely recently. I have to admit that, while I actually agree with him on a point or two, I’m pretty disappointed in his overall notion.

It’s true that the Radiohead model can’t work for everyone, and it’s true that it may be bad for the industry (if the industry is thought of as the record labels). But I disagree that giving your art away in some way devalues it. Rob Spectre at Dream Not of Today has a good take on it:

Ultimately, Radiohead is doing the best thing for Radiohead. Pay-what-you-want won’t work for the Jonas Brothers, won’t work for smaller independent artists and probably won’t work for The Cure. But both as artist and as businessman, Robert Smith should be at worst ambivalent to the release of In Rainbows. His criticism from both perspectives are hallow [sic] and coarse. Radiohead clearly valued their art sufficiently to bear the brunt of its writing, recording, mixing, mastering, and digital distribution entirely on its own.

Art is sacrifice. Radiohead put a lot of work into their art. I would go so far as to say that by doing art for the sake of art, even by giving it away, they are valuing their art at such a high pinnacle, they are willing to sacrifice money in order to give more people a chance to experience it. Of course, they made money, but it was a huge risk, and if they hadn’t made money, I don’t think Thom Yorke would’ve cried himself to sleep. Art for art’s sake.

Side note: I have to disagree with Rob’s assessment that The Wrestler is art and Madea Goes to Jail is not (and thus should not be valued as such). It’s a common conception that art has to be serious to be art, but I think that’s short-sighted (and maybe a little elitist). Being entertainment does not preclude a work from being art. Art evokes emotion; humor and happiness are emotions. And in the U.S., right now, humor and happiness are what we should expect to see from a lot of art, as is historically the case in hard socioeconomic times.

So I got the Wordpress iPod app. Maybe I’ll update more now that it’s so convenient. We’ll see.

Cursive’s new album, Mama, I’m Swollen, is selling for $2.00 digitally today at the Saddle Creek store. It was $1.00 yesterday, and it’s going to increase $1.00 a day until the physical release date on the 10th. I just bought it (even though I’m buying the physical one) so that I can hear it early legally. Sweet deal. Awesome band.

For those of you not into Cursive, a good entry point is probably The Ugly Organ, as it’s the album that got me into them.

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.