Pitchfork

How's about a little Mountain Goats news, straight from Mr. Darnielle himself? Take it away, John!

"The new Mountain Goats EP-- the one I mentioned a few weeks back, with the limited gatefold vinyl and the special cover art and the pay-whatcha-like download option (about which we'll tell you more once we sort everything out)-- is called Satanic Messiah. It has four songs on it, one per side at 45 rpm, the way God intended. Two songs are mainly piano and voice; the other two are mainly acoustic guitar and voice. This is the lineup:

A1 Satanic Messiah
A2 Wizard Buys a Hat
B1 Sarcofago Live
B2 Gojam Province 1968

The other news-- at which I hinted on my Flickr, here-- is that Kaki King and I, under a cloak of great secrecy, snuck into Baucom Road studios in western North Carolina last month and recorded the six-song Black Pear Tree EP together with Scott Solter producing. The record is presently at the pressing plant and the idea is to have copies ready on vinyl for tour, with a sleeve designed by Horse & Buggy press, and the first 200 on colored vinyl. People who know how I feel about Kaki's music can imagine what an honor it was for me to get to work with her. Here are the songs we played:

A1 Black Pear Tree
A2 Mosquito Repellent
A3 Bring our Curses Home
A1 Supergenesis
B2 Roger Patterson Van
B3 Thank You Mario but our Princess Is in Another Castle

We are both really excited to share this record with everybody. So excited in fact that here's one of the songs [look over in Forkcast -- Ed]. On this one, I played piano and sang; Kaki played drums and glockenspiel, and also sang harmony. The song is sung from the point of view of Toad. If you know who Toad is, that's all I'll need to tell you. If you don't who Toad is, you better recognize."

Thanks, man! So there you have it: not one but two tour EPs for that Mountain Goats/Kaki King "Last Happy Night of Your Life" jaunt, which kicks off October 13 in Chicago.

Each and every Tuesday night from September 16 through October 21, at a handful of locales in the greater Mid-Atlantic region, peppy indie popsters Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will take the stage to act out their verbiest desires and probably play a song or two. For now at least, the band's gigging on Tuesdays, and only Tuesdays.

Perhaps fueled by their time spent making music on the most productive day of the week, the band are reportedly busy at work on a follow-up to last year's Some Loud Thunder LP. We don't know much about the album, but we'll take just about any odds on the song titles being long, the rhythms holding steady, and the domestic release date falling on a Tuesday.

Photo by Natasha Tylea

Thrill Jockey brethren Arbouretum and Pontiak kick off a tour tonight (September 5) in support of the July release of Kale, their split 12" collection of originals and John Cale covers. Pontiak are also supporting TJ's September 9 re-release of the band's second album, Sun on Sun.

Speaking of new records, Arbouretum will make this trip a short one so that they can return home to Baltimore to record their Rites of Uncovering follow-up.

With his array of vintage synths buzzing behind him, master remixer Rex the Dog has put the finishing touches on his debut LP, The Rex the Dog Show. The disc collects some new jams from Rex, slides them in alongside some familiar singles, and spices things up with Rex's remixes of the Knife's "Heartbeats" and the Sounds' "Tony the Beat".

The Rex the Dog Show premieres September 8 on Hundehaus/Cooperative Music, though a remix-laden single for album track "I Can See You, Can You See Me?" is out now in 12" and digital formats.

Rex the Dog has a handful of European dates over the next few weeks.

Brooklyn's Stars Like Fleas are itching to get back out there and continue the slow, steady pan they began with this spring's release of their Ken Burns Effect LP. So they're hitting the road for a late-summer jaunt, to be followed by a smattering of shows off in the fall. First on the list is a September 10 gig at the Bug Jar in Rochester, New York.

Photo by Mike White

Trent Reznor's impeccable taste in opening acts continues. In a move that we hope gets somebody a promotion, Japanese metal monsters Boris, L.A. spazz-rockers HEALTH, and London sound scientist the Bug have all been chosen to open a string of dates on Nine Inch Nails' fall/winter tour.

Nine Inch Nails are currently out with another fine choice, the lads and lass of Deerhunter, before taking a brief break from the road through most of September.

Weezer sure do love their fans. They love 'em so darn much, they're putting them to work once again. Yesterday, Weezer put out a call to their devoted followers seeking out brief video clips which they'll employ as visual accompaniment on their upcoming tour with Tokyo Police Club and Angels and Airwaves.

Weezer are looking for videos between five and 30 seconds in length that are generated by fans themselves; in other words, no copyrighted material of any kind will fly. They'd prefer "colorful, textural, simple, artistic things," and offer this handy example: "Don't film the dog running around, rather, film a close up of his fur or the slobber drooling from his mouth." Animation, it should be noted, is also encouraged. They want stuff they can loop, so any introductory/closing text should be cut out (tough break, Soulja Boy).

Oh, and because these clips will be playing during a rock'n'roll show, there's really no need for you to consider sound. You can submit as many clips as you'd like to the "WeezerFans"/"Weezer Tour Imagery" group on YouTube, then sit back and wait. Full details can be found here.

Weezer kick off that tour on September 23 after heading to Japan next week.

Photo by Dania Heller

BBQ season might be ending, but don't tell Mark Sultan. The one they call BBQ has cooked up a pair of tours for himself and his BBQ Show as summer turns to fall, and whether the weather be muggy or whether the weather be crap, the dude's ready to fire things up.

First up is an imminent solo tour of Europe, sprinkled with a few dates that find him joining forces with his inimitable bandmate King Khan. Then Khan and BBQ Show are off to North America for a run of shows from late October through early December, including several with their fellow thrower-backers the Dutchess & the Duke. Hot shit.

King Khan's other band, King Khan & the Shrines, don't have anything on their plates right now.

Murs' major label debut, Murs for President, comes out via Warner Bros. on September 30. The goofily coiffed MC will hit the campaign trail shortly thereafter on a U.S. tour that extends all the way into December.

The tour proper starts October 7 in San Francisco, though Murs has a trio of shows before then, including a final Rock the Bells appearance tomorrow (September 6).

Photo by Michael Alan Goldberg

It takes no stretch of the imagination to believe that Art Brut frontman Eddie Argos might be of the slightly nerdy persuasion; just listen to an Art Brut record and you'll probably come up with the same conclusion. But there's a lot of different kinds of nerds out there, and until now, we had Eddie pegged as strictly one of our own: a rock'n'roll geek of great esteem.

As it turns out, Mr. Argos also dabbles in another one of the geeky arts, that of the comic book. In fact, Eddie's so into them, he's taken on a regular column on the matter called "Pow! To the People!" for the St. Louis-based entertainment site PLAYBACK:stl.

Eddie's written four such columns for PLAYBACK thus far (which you can read by clicking here), with ruminations on Batman, his recent exploration into the world of independent comics, and how very much he hates Mark Millar's Wanted. His first column closes with the extremely Art Brut-ish line, "In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably admit that I was once a bullied, sex-obsessed fifteen-year-old that maintained revenge fantasies too."

On the music front, Eddie's got even more culture jams coming at you, in the form of two new side projects. The first is called Everybody Was in the French Resistance...Now. As previously noted in Forkcast, the group is hard at work penning answer songs to hits from throughout pop history. According to a blog post on the matter, "Everybody Was in the French Resistance...Now are correcting the mistakes of pop songs past. So far they have defended the belittled blue collar worker from Kanye West's 'Gold Digger', told Gerry and the Pacemakers that in fact it is okay to walk alone, dumped the manipulative Martha Reeves on behalf of poor Jimmy Mack and taken the misguided instructions of a 17th century ballad to its logical conclusion. THEY ARE FIXING THE CHARTS." The French Resistance album is apparently being recorded in Joshua Tree, California and can be expected early next year.

The second is Glam Chops, an over-the-top glam band that sounds like an even jokier version of Art Brut. Sample song title: "Don't Be Glum, Be Glam". They have a few dates lined up for the fall.

Eddie will also lay down his dog-eared copy of The Watchmen and hit the road with Art Brut at a handful of European dates over the next few months. According to a blog post from Eddie in early August, Art Brut are busy working on their third album, with such prospective song titles as "Art Brut Versus Satan", "Moved to L.A", "Alcoholics Unanimous", and "Summer Job" (Eddie adds: "Although I'm probably going to change the name of 'Summer Job'  to the name of a song that exists already and if not that I'll probably just name it after some sort of weekend.")