Twilight Singers Prepare Covers Album, Tour U.S.
Crack'o'Dawn Whistlers still in search of record deal

Former Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli and his band The Twilight Singers have announced serious plans for a grand follow-up to their comeback year, including the release of as many as three records, an expanded tour, and more melancholia than even you crybabies can possibly handle.

Following a successful European tour, the band returned home and promptly booked their asses into an undisclosed L.A. studio to cut a covers album for an anticipated fall release. She Loves You, as it is now known, was originally planned as an EP, but has been expanded to a full album format. Longtime pal and collaborator Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) joined the Singers for several of the covers. The selections include tunes by George Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Björk, John Coltrane, and Kate Bush, among others. In a recent message to fans, Dulli described the project as such: "In some cases we have radically reworked the originals; in others, I just let my velvet vessel glide away upon gossamer wings." We, of course, look forward to all the ridiculousness that implies.

A glaring omission from the tracklist is the presumed title source, a quintessential Beatles tune. But as of this writing, as great as we could ever imagine it to be, there's no indication that "She Loves You (Yeah Yeah Yeah)" has been recorded or will make the cut. The album is also expected to include two "surprise" tracks that will be recorded on tour, so shrug your shoulders and behold the current tracks slated for inclusion, not necessarily in their final order:

Strange Fruit [w/ Mark Lanegan] (Holiday)
Too Tough to Die (Topley-Bird)
Cloudbusting (Bush)
Ain't Nobody (Khan)
A Love Supreme (Coltrane)
Please Stay (Gaye)
Hyperballad [w/ Mark Lanegan] (Bjork)
Hard Time Killing Floor [w/ Mark Lanegan] (Skip James)
Black is the Color (Traditional)
Summertime (Gershwin)

There are also some reports that Dulli is logging some additional studio time with Lanegan under the name The Gutter Twins. Although not much is known about this project at press time, we have operatives and paparazzi waiting behind cacti in the Joshua Tree area, where the recording is allegedly taking place.

And finally, there's this matter of another Twilight Singers U.S. tour. Those who missed their opportunity to catch a piece of the band's captivating live show last autumn, complete with Dulli swagger and extended jams melding Van Halen with Outkast, may have another shot. The Singers have recently announced a final sweep across the U.S. in support of Blackberry Belle before returning to the studio to begin work on their third full-length. With many of these stops being second visits, the setlist has reportedly been rehashed and reinvented to include the aforementioned covers, as well as some Afghan Whigs chestnuts. Dates:

03-27 Orlando, FL - The Social
03-28 Atlanta, GA - Smith's Olde Bar
03-29 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
03-30 Baltimore, MD - Fletcher's
04-01 Philadelphia, PA - The North Star
04-02 Boston, MA - Paradise
04-03 Brooklyn, NY - Warsaw
04-05 Columbus, OH - Little Brothers
04-06 Newport, KY - Southgate House
04-07 Chicago, IL - Metro
04-08 Indianapolis, IN - The Patio
04-09 Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Music Cafe
04-11 Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
04-14 Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour
04-17 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
04-19 Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan
04-20 Seattle, WA - Neumo's

Twilight Singers: http://www.thetwilightsingers.com