Pitchfork

These past couple of months have been up and down for skinny white guys. While Phil Elvrum announced the breakup of The Microphones and Michael Jackson got bitchslapped by the press and public, Beck made four successful live TV appearances (Saturday Night Live, Late Show with David Letterman twice, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien) and had his latest album, Sea Change, named second best album of the year, Adult Contemporary category, by Village Voice's 2002 Pazz & Jop Poll. Following up on his recent American tour with The Flaming Lips, Monsieur Hansen will begin a solo acoustic tour of Australia, Japan, and Europe in March, similar to last year's late summer tour of U.S. theaters. And venues, please be sure the fish is properly salted. Dates:

03-15 Brisbane, Australia - Festival Hall
03-18 Melbourne, Australia - Palais Theatre
03-19 Melbourne, Australia - Palais Theatre
03-22 Sydney, Australia - Hordern Pavilion
03-26 Osaka, Japan - Festival Hall
03-28 Nagoya, Japan - Kosei Neonkin Hall
03-30 Tokyo, Japan - NK Hall
04-01 Tokyo, Japan - Budokan
04-18 Hamburg, Germany - Schauspeilbause
04-19 Berlin, Germany - Passionkirche
04-22 Paris, France - Grand Rex
04-23 Bourges, France - La Hune
04-24 Utrecht, Netherlands - MCV
04-26 London, England - Royal Albert Hall
04-27 Manchester, England - Apollo
04-29 Edinburgh, Scotland - Usher Hall
05-01 Dublin, Ireland - Ambassador
05-02 Dublin, Ireland - Ambassador

Although there are no new details on Beck's upcoming, presumably less self-ablandizing LP recorded with potential collaborators the Dust Brothers, Cornelius, Dan the Automator, and Timbaland, he did recently collaborate with Apple Computers on the design of a limited edition iPod MP3 player, which is the official Pitchfork-endorsed format for listening to the album when its songs are inevitably leaked to the public via the Internet. For those of us with Apples, at least. Who's got my firewire?