Hey, it’s all the rage these days.

Grab a cup of joe, and check it out, yo!

The Rapture is apparently “Helping hipsters dance one song at a time.” According to Pitchfork, the Rapture’s latest release, Pieces of the People We Love, includes a postcard with that inscription. While we knew LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy had the new focus of getting indie hipsters to excercise, it seems like the Rapture’s latest goal might be a bit more well-placed. Anyways, I digress.

They’ve got new tourdates in the U.S., Europe, and 2 festival spots in Australia:

01-25 Orlando, FL @ The Club at Firestone
01-26 Tallahassee, FL @ Beta Bar
01-27 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
01-29 Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle
01-30 Charlottesville, VA @ Starr Hill Music Hall
01-31 Louisville, KY @ Headliners Music Hall
02-02 Cincinnati, OH @ 20th Century Theatre
02-03 Pittsburgh, PA @ Rex Theatre
02-05 Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
02-06 Indianapolis, IN @ Birdy’s
02-07 Columbus, OH @ The Basement
02-09 Baltimore, MD @ Sonar
02-10 Northampton, MA @ Pearl Street
02-22 Paris, France @ La Cigale
02-23 Lyon, France @ Ninkasi
02-24 Dijon, France @ La Vapeur (Eurokeennes Winter)
02-25 Mulhouse, France @ Le Noumatrouff (Eurokeennes Winter)
02-26 Lille, France @ Grand Mix
02-28 London, England @ Astoria
03-02 Manchester, England @ Academy
03-03 Dublin, Ireland @ Tripod
03-04 Glasgow, Scotland @ ABC
03-05 Leeds, England @ Met University
03-07 Bristol, England @ Academy
03-08 Portsmouth, England @ Pyramid
03-09 Coventry, England @ Coliseum
03-10 Middlesbrough, England @ Empire
03-31 Sydney, Australia @ Centennial Park (V Festival)
04-01 Gold Coast, Australia @ Avica Resort (V Festival)

Also, the band !!! (aka Chk Chk Chk) seems to be on a similar mission to shake some hipster asses, as they have some new tourdates as well. Justin’s got them and some other bands new dates in a nice a mid-week round-up.

As much as I dig these two bands, I’m really hoping disco-punk masters, LCD Soundsystem, add some U.S. gigs to those European dates. C’mon, James, don’t you guys have a new album to promote?

Indie music blog stalwarts, Stereogum and I Guess I’m Floating have been posting various new tracks and comments on the new Arcade Fire album, as well as discussing the difficulties of scoring tix to even 1 of their 5 NYC shows (previously mentioned here). Pitchfork has gotten in on the news, now dubbing it an “Arcade Fire” weekend, and documenting the tracklisting from their new album, Neon Bible, plus new tourdates (in Europe), and some other commentary.

Although all the hype around this new release seems a bit overblown, I also really dig Arcade Fire’s 2004 album Funeral, so maybe I’m just another salivating Internet/Indie geek?

update:
Man, the album is pretty dark (to the point that Pitchfork’s wondering if these crazy Canadians have gone all Goth on us). Not so sure, but this is definitely one that will require a few solid listens…and that’s probably just what the band wants.

Arcade Fire adds some NY C shows
(they’re doing 5 nights in a Greenwich Village Church!)

Cold War Kids are doing some shows on both U.S. coasts
(and according to ghostmedia, they’re here in Chicago at the Sub-T on March 9th)

Some others you may have missed:

Andrew Bird

Grizzly Bear

M Ward

update: Cold War Kids played a free show at the World Cafe in Philly, which is now available for streaming on NPR.org.

But the archive is no longer limited to the bands like String Cheese Incident, moe, and Disco Biscuits. Because the archive is open to any band that is open to non-commercial file-sharing, many other types of bands have taken notice and have begun to see audience tapers not as a threat but as a useful resource for generating buzz, fan interest, and a community around non-profit file-sharing.

I frequently pen a “live from the ‘Live Music Archive” post to highlight a particular gem of a show, but this post is more about highlighting bands that you might not expect to have concert recordings on the LMA or that you might not consider a typically “taper-friendly” band.

By the way, if you’re wondering why I’m including all of this in a series about streaming live music, the LMA now offers streaming as well as downloading of the concert recordings. This is a great feature so that you can check out sound quality or decide if you really want to use the bandwidth or hard-drive space for downloading a given recording (sidenote: not every show will offer the option for streaming; that typically depends on the band’s policy and when the recording was uploaded; I’ve noticed some older gems that are only available for download in certain formats and not to be streamed).

So other than the usual suspects of jambands and groovin’ jazz groups, here are a bunch of bands with concerts on the archive that are more frequently associated with other genres (the numbers in parentheses are the number of shows available):

Andrew Bird (69); Animal Collective (4); Ben Kweller (11); Ben Lee (13); Bob Schneider (64); Buckethead (33); Butthole Surfers (27); Calexico (6); Carbon Leaf (175); Cowboy Junkies (119); Cracker (93); Dan Bern (20); Death Cab For Cutie (34); Del McCoury Band (68); Drive-By Truckers (211); Elliott Smith (58); Fishbone (6); G. Love And Special Sauce (72); Godspeed You Black Emperor! (34); Gomez (46); Hank Williams III (80); Jack Johnson (106); Jason Mraz (275); Low (6); Maroon5 (30); My Morning Jacket (90); Of A Revolution (464); Rogue Wave (11); Rusted Root (42); Ryan Adams (78); Spin Doctors (90); Spoon (35); Supersuckers (16); Tenacious D (31); The Decemberists (26); Willy Porter [Band] (33); Xavier Rudd (39); 311 (73)

And here are some of my favorites (which run the gamut from live electronic dance music to heavy guitar rock or groove-laden jazz):

Brothers Past (388); Derek Trucks Band (493); Disco Biscuits (651); Future Rock (34); Garage A Trois (30); Grateful Dead (2,827); John Brown’s Body (40); KVHW (89); Lake Trout (25); My Morning Jacket (90); New Riders Of The Purple Sage (44); Sound Tribe Sector 9 (396); Steve Kimock Band (439); Soulive (163); The New Deal (142); Tom Hamilton (7); Toubab Krewe (23); Zero (275)

Of course, you can always go to the “Browse all” page and check out the constantly-growing list of bands that have shows hosted. Lastly, if you’re completely a “newb” to the archive and how it works, check out the FAQ section.

sidenote:
(in case you missed part 1 of the series, check it out here: “Stream the day away part 1: because great live music need not require a ton of extra HD space!”)

Happy streaming and downloading!

LMM has been pleased with the emusic subscription, as we continue to discover great music every month….and it’s all independent music, downloadable as MP3s, at a reasonable monthly subscription rate. Seemed a like a winning strategy when I originally heard about it, but it’s nice to see it’s still going relatively strong!

In honor of the occasion, I thought I’d take a look at all the downloads I’ve nabbed over the last several months(?). These are all solid picks, but I’ve highlighted a few for extra special attention:

• 120 Days (dark, indie electro from across the pond)
• Augustus Pablo
• Booka Shade (great, EDM that makes me groove)
• Broken Social Scene (what can I say, they had me at Lollapalooza)
• Calexico (ditto)
• Carey Ott
• Centro-Matic
• Diblo Dibala
• Glenn Brown and King Tubby (DUB-nasty!)
• Isaac Hayes
• John Brown’s Body (my long-time reggae favs from Ithaca)
• Johnny Cash
• Lotus
• Of Montreal (love the psychedelic weirdness)
• Ratatat (fav new instrumental indie crew)
• Ray Charles
• Secret Machines
• Supersuckers
• The Benevento-Russo Duo (let’s stop with the jamband label and just say these two rock…punk-jazz!)
• The Congos (great dub/reggae find!)
• The Disco Biscuits
• The New Deal (new addition to eMusic – live and groovin from Canadia)
• The Raconteurs (slightly over-hyped, but hard to not love a J. White side-project)
• The Stills
• The Whigs (these guys RAWK!)
• The White Stripes (Jack White, again, rocks)
• Thievery Corporation (see above DUB-Nasty reference and update for 2006)
• Tortoise (recent find on eMusic and very happy about adding to my “post-rock” collection)
• Umphrey’s McGee
• Various Artists
• Yo La Tengo (a bit of everything with these guys; not sure what it IS but I dig it)
• Zero 7

I could have commented on everything, but that might have to wait for an update. Cheers to emusic for offering an indie biz model that works. I would love to see other labels open up their catalogs to emusic, so here’s hoping they take notice. If anything, maybe the Majors will start to see that the DRM battle is basically over and they’ll need to start offering MP3s to us consumers so they can work on our iPods, computers, Zunes, or other players. Maybe then I’ll start diggin into their archives and spending some real money.

I’m finally taking a moment to catch up on some much-needed pitchforking and indie MP3 blogs, and it looks like I’ve missed quite a bit. There’s just lots of cool “indie” rock music happs going on these days.

Here’s a quick run-down, with some wordier thoughts below:

• Arcade Fire: announced some tourdates (only London so far, but only multiple-night runs in London and Montreal; hopefully some U.S. dates are in the works)
• New Pornographers: live album and tour (also only INTL dates, so far)
• The Rapture: winter tour and their own record label
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: new album and some promo tunes

• LCD Soundsystem (new songs leaking, and album on the way)

Daft Punk is, unfortunately, not playing at my house. Just as soon as the new track(s) from LCD Soundsystem’s forthcoming album were leaked, they were yanked. DFA (owned by EMI) didn’t like all those damn MP3 bloggers posting their hard-earned IP…And apparently, neither was James Murphy. But, fortunately, folks posted them long enough for plenty of us to get a taste of what’s to come from the James Murphy’s disco punk conglomerate. I’ve mentioned LCD Soundsystem before, including a post about Murphy’s efforts to get indie fans to work-out more. This band is just so much fun, so LMM can’t wait till the new disc comes out….Apparently, “Sounds of Silver” is available for pre-order here.

Update: Pitchfork followed up with a short interview with James Murphy.

Speaking of album releases, according to MusicSlut, 2007 is looking good for new albums from indie stalwarts. Here are my picks from their slightly longer list:

1/23: Animal Collective – People EP
1/23: Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer
1/23: The Shins – Wincing The Night Away
1/30: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Some Loud Thunder
1/30: Lily Allen – Alright Still
2/6: Bloc Party – A Weekend In The City
3/6: !!! – Myth Takes
3/6: Air – Pocket Symphony
3/20: Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha
3/20: LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
3/20: Low – Drums & Guns

But wait, there’s more!!!

+/- gets more hype:

The poppy math-rock of +/- (aka Plus/Minus) is getting some well-deserved hype. Plenty of press from your “go-to” indie sites: Stereogum, Pitchfork, and a bunch of Hype Machine MP3s. Mocking “indie” comments aside, I really do like the poppy “heart-on-the-sleeve” stuff these guys are pushing. It’s a bit of a departure for my tastes, but these guys have hit on some sort of whiny “I really miss you, girl!” nerve of mine. They also have a great sound, with interesting dynamics and textures. I know nothing of this “pitchfork double-review scandal” and could care less (well, okay, I was curious and and found the two reviews on pitchfork here: review 1, review 2).

I say they just keep bringing the goods and play more shows in the U.S. Definitely come back to the Chi! (I missed my chance in November…yet another band that played a show over the Thanksgiving holiday while I was away; they’re heading to Japan now, but will be back stateside in the spring).

And last but not least, the list of all indie rock lists: “The Top 40 Bands in America as Voted on by a Bunch of Effing Music Bloggers That Only Listen to Cooler Than You Guitar Based Indie Rock and Not Much Else.”

Solid list, but I think “Clell Tickle, Indie marketing Guru” might have something to say about the placement of Tapes’n'Tapes:

Their new disc, called Eisenhower, was released on Bar/None Records and is an album I’m taking my time to take in. I’ve been digging the two tunes they released for promo for a few months now (“Even Rats” and “Children of December”). But overall, it’s a wonderful disc, with some interesting textures and solid songwriting beyond these two powerhouse tracks. One thing’s for sure, this disc is definitely a big way for the Slip to say, “We’re no longer just some New England jamband.” They may still stretch out some of their songs and do some improv, but the Slip are continuing to combine cool sounds and textures with powerful songwriting.

• My Morning Jacket
• The New Pornographers
• The Hold Steady
• Cat Power
• The Dirty Blues Band
• Cut Chemist

Looks like my initial reaction that this festival had gone straight back to its jamband roots was a bit premature. Good to see them continuing to branch out, but will the “indie kids” take the bait? We’ll see.

Tickets go on-sale this Friday, 12/1 at 10am EST at Langerado’s site.

I’ve always put a lot of time into improving my workouts (when they actually happen) with carefully chosen songs and playlists. This process has become even more important since the introduction of the iPod made it so much easier for me to build playlists just for the purpose of building up a sweat. Last year, I grabbed a live show from LCD Soundsystem–who performs a sort of disco-punk electronic rock–and they immediately found a place in my rotation for workout music.

So I absolutely loved reading this news bit from Pitchfork. Apparently, LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy was commissioned by Nike to write a set of music designed around a runner’s workout. The result was a 45:33 minute track called, yep 45:33, and is available on iTunes as of today. Pitchfork has the details, but here’s another blogger’s unabashedly adoring review of the “track.”

Looks like Murphy and LCD Soundsystem are working on an album set for a Spring 2007 release, but if you’re curious, they also have a few tracks available for streaming at their MySpace page.