Matador Records | News June 2001

Contest Time — Cause We Like Nothing Better Than Listening To The Losers Complain.

Mogwai Pedal - Win a custom-made Mogwai Big Muff pedal!

Bardo Poster - Write a review of a Bardo Pond/Mogwai show and win a signed, silkscreened Bardo Pond poster.

Stephen Malkmus Flexi - The first 1000 to enter will win a 7" clear flexi of Jo Jo’s Jacket.

Pizzicato Five 12"es - Write us your top 5 P5 memories to win a set of 3 P5 promo 12"es.

Anyone can enter — you don’t have to be subscribed to the Matador newsletter to enter. But if you are, you can use your email and password to have your mailing address auto-filled in the contests.

If you’re a longtime subscriber who hasn’t yet used the new system, login at http://www.matadorrecords.com/subscribe with your email address and NO password. You’ll then be able to update your subscription with a password and mailing address.

Mogwai —
Fighters, not lovers
When they aren’t picking fights with the Strokes (talk about a mismatch — we’re talking ’85 Bears vs. Columbia. The university, not the country), Mogwai are laying down the science for audiences all over the USA. Available only on the current Mogwai/Bardo Pond US Tour: a special limited-edition vinyl 10" with 2 exclusive tracks from each band. Mogwai presents "D to E" and "Drum Machine" while Bardo Pond deliver "Despite The Roar (In Spite of Themselves) Alternate Take" and "Highlands." We’ve got a Mogwai video interview conducted by the esteemed Mr. Nils Bernstein. If you hop over to the Matador Europe site, you can check out Bardo Pond performing "Inside," last month in London.

Preston School Of Industry
PSIO are currently making new friends in the UK as they play their first shows in that territory. There’s a new, non-album EP coming on Amazing Grease sometime this month, followed by a 7"/CD5 of "Whalebones" on Domino UK. The Matador (U.S./Canada) release of ‘All This Sounds Gas’ (LP/CD) hits the shelves in August.

The Funky Precedent Vol. 2
Coming July 31: Matador Records and No Mayo Records are proud to announce the release of The Funky Precedent Vol. 2, featuring emerging hip hop DJs, soul artists and producers from the Bay Area. Like its predecessor, The Funky Precedent Volume 1 (released in 1999 on No Mayo / Loosegroove), FPV2 shines a light on artists who are shaking up the hip-hop scene from the inside out. While FPV1 showcased groups from Los Angeles’ underground community such as Jurassic 5, Black Eyed Peas, Ozomatli and Dilated Peoples, FPV2 is focused on the massive creative energy erupting from San Francisco, Oakland and the greater Bay Area. FPV2 is 15 tracks of hip-hop, soul and turntablism, featuring over fifty MC’s, dj’s and producers including Planet Asia, Rasco, Zion I, Foreign Legion, Live Human, Encore, Protest, Fanatik, DJ Vinroc, DJ Quest and Pep Love.

Consistent with The Funky Precedent series and No Mayo’s stated purpose, proceeds from this release will support music education at Mission High School in San Francisco, Freemont High School and Manchester Elementary in Los Angeles, CA.

A double A-side 12" featuring Zion I’s "We Got It and Skhool Yard’s "Here We Come" will be released on June 26.

Couch
For those about to miss the boat, we give you the one-finger salute. Couch’s 4th album (2nd for us), ‘Profane’ has been out a couple of months, and if you consider yourself any sort of a well-informed, smart person with good taste-in-daring-sounds, you’ve either already bought the album, stolen it or made a copy of it. Or at the very least checked it out. But we’re pretty sure you haven’t, not yet. Our friend Richard Martin at the Seattle Weekly says of ‘Profane’: "guitarist Juergen Soder, keyboardist Stefanie Bohm and their mates succeed again, sping complex rhythms and hidden melodies, straying into fascinating jams." The equally observant Michael Endelman of the Boston Phoenix says, "Couch arrive at a state of suspended animation, somewhere between Sonic Youth’s ‘Daydream Nation’ and Tortoise’s 20 minute epic ‘Djed.’" Sounds right up your alley, right? We can sit here twisting your arm all day or you can download "Slogan" and get a hint of why we’re all bent out of shape.

Couch just completed their first U.S. tour. Here, in unedited form, is Juergen Soder’s tour diary:

new york: with fellow kitty-yo’s peaches and gonzales who made the knitting factory sold out two times that evening. aha: these people from the I-D/Face fashion pages actually exist. we were happy that our equipment arrived in time. let’s not talk about the second show: the audience consisted of raik+patrick from kitty-yo, donovan from matador and david grubbs.

amherst: with trans am who brought their own beer and immediately put it on ice in a drum-case (good idea!). we learned that college-shows are only good for money (sorry, at least that’s what everyone told us). our attempt to attend a college-party with the fitting title "bavarian party" failed dramatically because the booze was all gone.

boston: first headlining show with to quite good local support bands. a women purchased 2 couch shirts: one for her and one for her daughter. which we thought was quite flattering.

montreal: illegal bordercrossing without work permit is nothing we can really recommend. the border guy looked up "couch" in the internet and actually found some things but we were pretending that some other band stole our name. and stupid enough: it did work out. casa del popolo, a nice small club/vegeterian restaurant run by godspeed member mauro, was packed and we didn’t try to speak french.

toronto: with local postrocker white starliner. just a very good show. canada was good to us!

detroit: everyone was telling us: "you are going to see the real america here." obviously the meant the crackheads parading on the streets. gold dollar is a great rock club with three surveillance cameras controling the parking lot and you can check them from the stage while playing. other band: black rebel motor cycle club. poor major bands have to bring their own microphones, light and fog (?). moreover: good detroit based band paik. the attempt to party was crashed by a guy at the best western who made us check in for hours and hours. our keyboarder stephanie forgets all her stuff and a little fedex drama begins but was brought to a good end by donovan.

chicago: noise pop festival with l’altra. we met the booker who ended up not booking us. good show. 5 people in the front row seemed to make notes of michaels finger-movements. scary! the booker who doesn’t book us invited us to the autechre show and we finally got to hear some death metal.

minneapolis: early show as support for bevis frond and michael something from soul coughin. this place was huge. driving days: wow. north dakota is pretty flat, montana is awesome. we passed by white cloud the albino buffalo and got to see some wild life and waterfalls in yellowstone national park.

seattle: with dub narcotic. calvin wears a cowboy hat and dub narcotic got a great new drummer. our show was one of the best of the tour. we stay at calvin’s in olympia and the k people show us their universe and supply us with candies, purses, gloves and good vibrations.

portland: opening for andy smith from portishead as dj. nice but a bit overstyled club without liquor license. why do americans WATCH dj’s spin?

san francisco: we meet our booker christian from the kork agency. very nice. even if he almost kills us in a car accident while showing us around in sf. we open for bevis frond for the second time. these guys are funny! we stay at christian’s who is living next to a crack dealer with a pitbull called "sin." But christian also got a pitbull.

los angeles: we got 20 minutes to see the beach of santa monica. we meet jay from the matador office who has to bring back our car in a 5 day ride. good luck jay! last show. we can’t believe it. This was great.

Mark Eitzel
The songwriter Paris Match called "the most important American voice since Robeson" is in the homestretch of a massive European tour. Mark’s first US trip in support of ‘The Invisible Man’ starts on June 21, with a warm up show at San Francisco’s Amoeba Records on Tuesday the 19th. The performance is free, but if you’d like to give Mark some money, he accepts most currencies. Watch some footage from Mark’s recent Housing Works benefit performance in New York.

D-Stroy instore performance
Saturday, June 16th at 7PM
Cop Shop, 77 West Main Street, Smithtown, NY 11787
631 360 9700

"Roll Out" 12" in stores now. "The Matador" b/w "Vitamin D" 12" in stores August 14th. Look for a D-Story CDEP this fall.

Matmos — Bjork dates announced
Matmos will be supporting Bjork on her upcoming world tour of venues that may-or-may not be Opera Houses, depending on who you ask. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, "no opera dogs?" Dates in Japan and France have been confirmed, with U.S. shows announced very soon.

Lesser — We’d like to yank the academy (around)
Lesser’s ‘Gearhound’ LP/CD has received an honorable mention in the 15th Prix Ars Electronic awards in the category of Digital Music. The competition, organized by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) also gave nods to worldwide talents such as Blectum From Blechdom, Ryoji Idkeda, Pan Sonic, Janek Schaefer and Kid 606. Sadly, Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’ and Billy Idol’s ‘Cyberpunk’ were not recognized — another popularity contest? More information can be found at http://pixarsorf.at and http://www.aec.at

Cat Power
We have no concrete news for you (yet) concerning Chan’s new recordings, but we can let it slip that Cat Power will be making 2 rare festival appearances at the upcoming Reading & Leeds events, which will also feature performances from colleagues such as Mogwai, Stephen Malkmus, Marilyn Manson, Eminem, and uh, well, you get the idea. Chan will be on the Carling Stage at Leeds on Friday August 24, and she’ll be playing the same stage at Reading on Sunday the 26th.

Sonariffic
A big chunk of the Matador roster is traveling to sunny Barcelona this weekend as the label prepares for a big night Saturday the 16th, when Techno Animal, Lesser, Sad Rockets, Matmos, Khan (with Julee Cruise) and Twist of Mount Florida are all featured performers. There’s tons of other stuff happening at Sonar that weekend including performances from Sonic Youth, Sigur Ros, KK Null, Terry Riley, Richie Hawtin and more. For more information, http://www.sonar.ya.com

The (late) listening pile, from Graeme Downes
Ron Sexsmith is growing on me. Cool lyricist. "Lebanon Tenessee" is exquisite.
Shihad - General Electric. NZ band, heavy rock with pop inflections. Some very cool tracks, maybe they should be famous.
Soundgarden - Superunknown, just refreshing my memory. Not my cup of whatever but good to teach from re changing time signatures and the like.
Sonic Youth - Goo, yes I’m terrible, we supported them once in Auckland but I just never got round to checking out the albums."

"Finally the Verlaines other guitarist Paul Winders in conjunction with sister Kiri and drummer Jeff Harford (Bored Games, Shayne Carter’s first band) collectively known as Valve have just released their debut album. Darkmoody and downright beautiful. Not pluggin it cos its Paul’s record (if I didn’t like it I would have kept my trap shut). Anyway anyone interested in checking it out email Valve at jeffchanel@extra.co.nz. The record’s called E minor. Haven’t got hold of Shayne Carter’s new album yet (the band is called Dimmer) but there’s been clips shown here for two songs that are very strong. Very cool videos (and I hate videos as a rule no matter how good they are) good enough that maybe they will turn up on MTV or somesuch in the coming months."

Graeme’s solo debut, ‘Hammers & Anvils’ is coming on Matador later this summer.

Alumni corner:
Dan Cook, formerly of the Lynnfield Pioneers, is the man behind http://www.raremusic.com. Most of these streaming radio things are somewhat underwhelming (ie. the guy at parallelism.com just keeps playing the same Starz album over and over again), but Raremusic.com is a startling exception.

Barbara Manning, formerly of, uh, this label, is once again, staking her claim as one of the finest rock’n’roll performers breathing. Her new album, ‘You Should Know’, recorded with her excellent new band, The Go-Luckys, is yet another highlight in a career packed with ’em. Hey, they can give Lucinda Williams a shopping cart full of Grammys, but ‘You Should Know’ is worthy of a Nobel Prize or 2. For more information, http://www.barbaramanning.com or http://www.innerstate.com