Pitchfork

We've come up with some pretty bad ideas at our weekly drunken Pitchfork bar gatherings, but this time around the news staff got to thinking: What if there was an Indie Rock Football League? And we're not talkin' teams of faceless street-dwellin' hipsters here-- what if there were some serious squads filled with actual musicians, all suitin' up and fighting over who gets to be the kicker? Think about it, no amount of sloppy Pixies riffs or VU worship'd save you, cause oblique poetry and nods to Krautrock don't score touchdowns. With that in mind, we all pretty much agreed that our money'd consistently be on Secretly Canadian. Seriously, have you ever seen Damien Jurado? The guy's built like Lawrence Taylor. He'd be unstoppable, blowing through a flimsy line of waify Mergesters and out of shape cigarette totin' Matadors.

Speaking of the Jurado (as we make an overdue departure from that misguided and tangential football introduction), he's got a new record coming out on April 5 titled On My Way to Absence, and he's planned a tour to accompany the album's streeting. According to Secretly Canadian, the record is an all new aural experience for Jurado and long time contributor Eric Fisher. Billed as a tribute to jealousy, Absence-- which features some nifty guest spots filled by Rosie Thomas and Eric Bachmann-- is said to be "stripped of any inclination of genre-adopting." Wow, we've never heard that one before. Tracklist:

01 White Center
02 Lottery
03 Big Decision
04 Lion Tamer
05 Fuel
06 Simple Hello
07 Sucker
08 I Am the Mountain
09 Night Out For the Downer
10 Northbound
11 Icicle
12 A Jealous Heart Is a Heavy Heart

And, hey, if you like indie rock linebackers or Jurado's live show-- in which we hear he's a pretty splendid jerk to hecklers-- ten days after Absence hits shelves, he's setting out on a string of dates in support of the record with rootsy throwbacksters Two Gallants-- who've apparently read and enjoyed a bit of Joyce-- and indie pop minimalists Sail On, Sailor! So catch 'em live at one of the following places:

04-15 St. Paul, MN - Turf Club
04-16 Madison, WI - Catacombs Coffee House
04-17 Chicago, IL - Schubas
04-18 Bloomington, IN - TBA
04-19 Kalamazoo, MI - Rocket Star Cafe
04-20 Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe Live
04-21 Philadelphia, PA - The Khyber
04-22 Cambridge, MA - The Middle East Upstairs
04-23 Brooklyn, NY - Southpaw
04-24 Washington, DC - Black Cat Backstage (w/ Radar Bros)
04-25 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
04-26 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
04-28 Austin, TX - Emo's
04-29 Denton, TX - TBA
05-01 Phoenix, AZ - Rhythm Room
05-02 San Diego, CA - The Casbah
05-03 Los Angeles, CA - Knitting Factory
05-04 Oakland, CA - TBA
05-05 San Francisco, CA - TBA
05-06 Portland, OR - TBA (no Two Gallants)
05-07 Seattle, WA - TBA (no Two Gallants)