Pitchfork

The few, the proud, the independent record stores. With the rest of the economy joining the music business in a perilous free fall, indie shops are getting hit hard right now. But help is on the way in the form of the second annual Record Store Day, which will be celebrated April 18 at mom and pop favorites around the country. As an incentive to get customers into the shops, Matador is releasing several sweet limited edition vinyl specials.

There's a 7" with Sonic Youth covering Beck's "Pay No Mind" on the A-side and Beck doing SY's "Green Light on the flip, a previously unreleased LP of a 1997 Pavement gig from Cologne, Germany and another 7" with Jay Reatard's "Hang Them All" on the top and Sonic Youth's "No Garage" on bottom. Start drooling.

Only 2,500 copies of each record will be available at participating Record Store Day spots, so plan your camp-out accordingly. Nice and orderly-like:

First off: an apology. Sometimes we get so busy pawing through Decemberists album cover news that we miss something big. And so we're late to the punch on this one: Super Roots 10, the latest entry in the ongoing EP series from monolithic Osaka scene kingpins the Boredoms, is out now. It exists. There aren't any copies up on Ebay yet, but if you keep a watchful eye out, you can probably own a copy for somewhere in the low triple-digits.

The EP went on sale last Wednesday, though CDJapan says that the first pressing is already completely sold out, unsurprisingly enough. The EP comes with typically headache-inducing cover art from frontman EYE, who also produced the thing. Thrill Jockey, the band's U.S. label, has no word on an American release, so tough titties and happy downloading.

The tracklist mentions a remix from Norwegian space-disco master Lindstrøm. Given that the Boredoms and Lindstrøm are basically the only two entities on the planet capable of producing 20-minute tracks that we can bear listening to all the way through, this is pretty much a genius pairing. There's also a remix from someone named DJ Finger Hat, which is such an awesome DJ name.

All the info on the Boredoms' site is in Japanese, and Babelfish is typically unhelpful: "Unexpectedness the seizure rhythm which is attached, the destruction heaven it is rough the vocal and tape operation ......And so on it consists sound, the bold approach use for music the music life body which you are proud in outer space saying, is not overstatement." Actually, that's probably exactly how the Boredoms meant to phrase it.

Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell

The Decemberists' new album, The Hazards of Love, is due out March 24 on Capitol, but SXSW attendees will get to hear the album played live in its entirety nearly a week earlier. On March 18, Colin Meloy and his merry men and women will headline NPR's SXSW showcase at Stubb's with a top-to-bottom run through The Hazards of Love. It will be the very first time the album has been played live. My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden and Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark, who play important roles in the album's fairytale, will be on hand to sing their parts.

For those who can't make the show, it will be broadcast and webcast on NPR. Other bands playing the NPR showcase have yet to be announced.

-- Rap biopic alert! The former music writer Cheo Hodari Coker, who adapted the script for the Biggie biopic Notorious from his own surprisingly great Biggie book of the same title, has signed on to write a Run-DMC biopic. According to the Hollywood Reporter, he'll adapt Bill Adler's book Tougher Than Leather: The Rise of Run-DMC for the horribly named production company DJ Classicz, which hopes to secure the involvement of Run, DMC, and Russell Simmons. Weirdly enough, this won't be the first Run-DMC biopic, though the last one had basically zero basis in fact and also had Blair Underwood playing Russell Simmons. And lest you think Coker only adapts biopics from books about rappers who were murdered (though, honestly, that wouldn't be a bad career niche), the Hollywood Reporter reports he's also writing a movie called Lowriders, which I really hope is like The Fast and the Furious except with lowriders.

-- The story of DMX's recent headfirst slide into insanity now has a climax: On Friday, an Arizona judge sentenced the once-great rap star to 90 days in prison and 18 months probation on charges of theft, drug possession, and animal cruelty, The New York Times reports. Please, please let this guy get his life back together.

-- Prog-metal nerds rejoice: Swedish pastoral death metal kingpins Opeth will spend the month of May touring the U.S., bringing epic Norwegian Viking metal survivors Enslaved along with them. Average song length at this show is going to be well into the double-digits.

-- Justin Greaves, a former member of doom metal institutions like Electric Wizard and Iron Monkey, now fronts the awesomely named stoner-folk band Crippled Black Phoenix. In Crippled Black Phoenix, he gets help from plenty of acquaintances who want to prove how down they are with doom metal, like Mogwai bassist Dominic Aitchison. On April 15, Portishead's Geoff Barrow will release 200 Tons of Bad Luck, the band's second album, on his own Invada Records.

-- Warp Records is riding a nice little wave lately with Jamie Lidell and Flying Lotus, and the long-running IDM label hopes to keep it going with its latest discovery, electro-pop producer Tim Exile. Warp, in association with Planet Mu, will release Listening Tree, Exile's third album, on March 17.

Photo by Eirik Lande

Okkervil River will release their deconstructive car-radio jam "Pop Lie" as a single on Jagjaguwar on April 21.

On its two B-side tracks (one "Pop Life" revamp and one orphaned song from the Stand Ins sessions), frontman Will Sheff lets the rest of the band take a coffee break and plays all the instruments himself.

OK. So. Erykah Badu had another baby. That's probably the big, important news here. She gave birth to a baby girl at home in Brooklyn yesterday morning, and by all accounts the kid is healthy. No name yet. Congrats, etc. But the part of this story that everyone is going to remember is the way Badu and the baby's father, blog-rap enigma Jay Electronica, let the world know about the birth: They Twittered it.

Both Badu and Jay have protected their Twitters, so you had to have been among Badu's 4595 followers or Jay's 4560 followers to keep up on all the baby-related goings-on this weekend. Because, you know, privacy and all. But someone at MTV News must be among those followers, since this article gives us the complete TMI blow-by-blow.

According to MTV, Badu started things off with "Morning, I'm in labor," then told all her Twitter followers about the length of time between the contractions. Then she disappeared from Twitter until the baby was actually born, for understandable reasons. Jay, however, stayed on his Twitter grind throughout the experience, starting things out thusly: "Labor has begun. Stand back. No hospitals. No doctors. No medicine. We're waiting for the midwife to show." Um, where the fuck was the midwife?

Jay would go on to Twitter about Badu's water breaking and how much she was dilated. And then this Twitter-bomb: "I see the head, full of hair." He also sent a Twitter-message to the producer Just Blaze: "You should be here." Just Blaze, ever diplomatic, managed not to Twitter back with "Um, that's OK, I'm good."

Later, from Jay: "Feb. 1 2009 my first child, my daughter born at 130 PM exactly. It's the happiest day of my life." Aw. And then, from Badu: "I can't believe it's over. Home birth, no painkillers, about five hours, she was a little past due date, but I didn't mind waiting. Breath."

Great news about the baby and all, but this has to be the weirdest leap any major artist has ever taken into the post-everything Web 2.0 universe. The sense of mystery and remove that great artists once projected has now given way to this rampant, almost pathological oversharing, and now pretty much anyone with an internet connection can learn about every squishy moment of Erykah Badu's labor. Maybe it's time for the artists of the world to get off the damn computer.

Badu already has two kids from previous relationships, one with OutKast's Andre 3000 and one with the West Coast rap legend the D.O.C. If they'd had Twitter a few years ago, the world might never have looked at Andre the same.

A-Trak freaks getting sick of jogging to last year's Nike Running Man mix, there's hope for you yet. The famed DMC champ/Kanye DJ/Kid Sister boyfriend/remix-a-holic is readying another chopped-up comp for all your exercise and/or dancing needs. It's out April 14 on Thrive and it's called Infinity +1, as in "I hate you to infinity" ... "Well, I hate you to infinity...plus one!" Well done, A-Trak.

The disc covers au courant indie dance-night heavies-- MSTRKRFT, DJ Mehdi, Midnight Juggernauts, Little Boots. (Full track list below.) And those looking for a more interpersonal A-Trak experience should check him out when he hits clubs from coast to coast starting February 13 in Chicago. One-up yr bros:

Photo by Jackie Ransier

Sixteen years ago in Seattle, Jesus Mezquia attacked 27-year-old Mia Zapata, raping and beating her before strangling her to death with her own sweatshirt cord. Zapata was the frontwoman for the great Seattle blooz-punk band the Gits, who only had time to release one album, Frenching the Bully, before her death.

Zapata's murder sent shockwaves through the alt-rock community at the time. Directly in response, friends of Zapata founded Home Alive, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching women self-defense, and the Gits' labelmates 7 Year Bitch recorded their seriously whoop-ass 1994 album ¡Viva Zapata! in tribute. Joan Jett joined up with the remaining members of the Gits under the name Evil Stig ("Gits live" backwards) and released a live album in 1996. Home Alive released two benefit compilation albums featuring artists like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, and the Gossip. Last year, a documentary about Zapata and the band, called The Gits, was released.

And now, 16 years later, Mezquia will finally go to prison for that murder, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports. (Via the Daily Swarm.) It's been a long time.

The investigation of Zapata's murder took ten years. TV shows like "Unsolved Mysteries" and "America's Most Wanted" covered the case. Police finally linked crime-scene DNA to Mezquia in 2003. The attack, it turned out, was completely random.

In 2004, a jury convicted Mezquia, and a judge sentenced him to 37 years in prison. In 2005, his sentence was thrown out due to a U.S. Supreme Court decision. According to the Post-Intelligencer report, though, Mezquia returned to court last Thursday and asked the judge who originally sentenced him to reimpose his sentence. His attorneys gave no reason for Mezquia's request, but he'll finally serve his 37 years.

Photo by Kathryn Yu

At this point, Of Montreal is basically Gwar, except glammier and less scary (more sparkles, less fake blood). But the Athens pop-theatre institution still keeps it real with its Elephant 6 people. And when keeping it real means recording a split 7" single for a tiny uber-twee indie label's monthly singles club, they're ready to take one for the team.

And so the band has joined indie-pop brothers-in-arms like Apples in Stereo and Tullycraft in recording something for Athens label Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records' singles club. On Of Montreal's split, they'll share space with their own multi-instrumentalist James Husband. The band reports that their contribution will probably ship in May. And though they may eventually sell individual copies of that 7", right now the only way to make sure you get a copy is to sign up for HHBTM's singles club.

In other, slightly juicier Of Montreal news, kabuki-painted frontman Kevin Barnes has graciously given some love advice to the readers of Drowned in Sound, which is exactly what you want from a dude who wrote an entire album about arguing with his wife. However, a lot of Barnes' counsel is kind of disappointingly dry and pedestrian. More "you just have to be confident," less "strap on your gold lame thong and ride a white horse into her office." But Barnes does offer a few gems, and as a public service, we've picked them out:

-- " I like slip ons, canvas trainers... I have on blue ones, I like colour, I always wear colourful socks and shoes."

-- "Puking is the line for me. I mean I can be jumping on tables and that's okay, but as long as I'm not puking then I haven't crossed the line."

-- "It could be a bit awkward if you're super excited to be with the person and you have to pace yourself or maybe pull out for a little bit or something. They say thinking about other things is a good trick, like being in school or whatever. But I wouldn't think about like, your grandma's vagina, it'd kill the erection, you don't wanna ruin the moment."

Got that, guys? Colorful socks.

Of Montreal also recently announced a run of U.S. tour dates in April, including three nights at Brooklyn's Music Hall of Williamsburg.

Live music on TV this week:

Tuesday, February 3:

ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: the bird and the bee

Wednesday, February 4:

CBS: Katie Couric's All Access Grammy Special: Lil Wayne, Justin Timberlake
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Yelle
SUNDANCE: Spectacle: Elvis Costello With...: Herbie Hancock

Thursday, February 5:

ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Morrissey
PBS: The Tavis Smiley Show: Q-Tip
CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Mark Olson and Gary Louris
NBC: Last Call With Carson Daly: Razorlight

Friday, February 6:

CBS: Late Show With David Letterman: Beirut
CBS: Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Franz Ferdinand
NBC: Late Night With Conan O'Brien: Death Cab for Cutie (rerun)
NBC: The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: Ben Lee
FUEL TV: The Daily Habit: the Walkmen

Saturday, February 7:

NBC: Saturday Night Live: TV on the Radio
PBS: Austin City Limits: Drive-By Truckers

Sunday, February 8:

CBS: 51st Grammy Awards: Radiohead, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, U2, Coldplay, Jay-Z, T.I., Rihanna, Paul McCartney and Dave Grohl, Justin Timberlake