The Strokes Plan Live Album, Release Early Song
Doug, Billy Yule horn in on performance, hijack bandname

It's Christmas in July (okay, August, but just barely) for members of The Strokes fanclub. The band recently sent out their latest club-only care package, containing a plethora of goodies unavailable elsewhere. Exclusive treats include a CD with two previously unreleased tracks, a DVD titled In Transit which documents the band's 2001 European summer tour, a newsletter chock full of cute Fab and Nikolai photos-- and a fucking button!

The two-track fan club disc contains a live version of the Is This It cut "When It Started" recorded in Iceland, as well as the unreleased demo "Elephant Song", which was recorded by guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. and frontman Julian Casablancas in 1999 for an NYU school project. "Albert was taking a class called Sound 101 in his freshman year at NYU and was required to turn in a recorded tape made using the school's special recording equipment," writes Matt Romano, head of The Strokes fanclub. "The song was later reformatted by the band and played at a few shows before being retired in the year 2000. The 'Elephant Song' recording has never been played for anyone outside of the band (with the exception of Albert's professor at NYU, and a small handful of other people)."

The big important news, however, comes with details of a Strokes live album, which may hit stores in time for (actual) Christmas: "The band hopes to release a live album by the end of the year," reads the newsletter. "The first of the two shows at Alexandria Palace in London, December 2003 was recorded by the BBC... this would be the first official live release by The Strokes." Though there's no word yet on a firm release date, the tracklist would be likely to appear thusly:

01 Reptilia
02 Under Control
03 What Ever Happened?
04 Alone Together
05 The Modern Age
06 12:51
07 New York City Cops
08 You Talk Way Too Much
09 Someday
10 Hard to Explain
11 The End Has No End
12 Automatic Stop
13 Soma
14 Take It or Leave It
15 I Can't Win

In other live Strokes news, the band is apparently considering shooting some concert footage for an upcoming film. "There have been talks of a possible performance on a Mississippi riverboat, which would be filmed for a feature-length documentary-type movie, but so far there have been no confirmations." Finally, as previously reported, fans should be on the lookout for "The End Has No End" as the third video (directed by Sophie Muller) and single from Room on Fire to tide them over as the band continue to spend the summer locked in their studio/rehearsal space writing and recording their third album with producer Gordon Raphael. A mid-2005 release date is likely.

The Strokes: http://www.thestrokes.com