Pitchfork

So whether or not Mike Skinner of the Streets was ever actually walking to France a few weeks back doesn't matter anymore. It seems that Skinner noticed the same fairly big stumbling block on his itinerary that we did: the fact that he had festival gigs scheduled during the time it would take to make the trek from England.

"I also hadn't realized that I had a gig to do in Austria tomorrow," Mike noted in a SkinnerBlog post on May 20, and the show appears to have gone off as planned. And he seems to have made his subsequent gigs in England and Switzerland.

Still, all that time not walking has found Mike with plenty of time to contemplate that new Streets LP, which he's calling Everything Is Borrowed (also the name of that tune Mike called "the biggest song on it"). A recent SkinnerBlog found Mike waxing introspective about the delay-filled nature of music marketing, and his relationship to his most recent work vs. that of his next big project. "The weird thing about being a music artist," Mike writes, "is that you live your life approximately 12 months ahead of your fans. I'm about to wrap my latest album. You're going to hear it in a few months (unless it leaks before then) but I'm already planning the next one. That's what I have to do if you are ever to hear it years from now."

He mentions that the "dark Berlin-influenced" next Streets album-- that would be the one to follow Everything Is Borrowed-- will be the very final Streets LP. Gloom and doom to come, no doubt, but not for a spell: in the same blog, he assures one and all that Everything Is Borrowed is a "peaceful coming to terms album." It's still tentatively due in August.

Whether or not any of this actually happens-- if the new album really is called Everything Is Borrowed or the one after it really is the last Streets album-- remains to be seen. What we do know is Mike's got quite a few of those European festival dates to attend to, the next one being June 7 in Nuremberg.

Stay tuned to Beat Stevie for more adventures.

The Streets:

06-07 Nuremberg, Germany - Rock Am Ring
06-29 Oxford, England - Wakestock Festival
07-02 Kristiansand, Norway - Quart Festival
07-04 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-06 Abersoch, Wales - Wakestock Festival
07-12 Liege, Belgium - Les Ardentes Festival
08-29 Paris, France - Rock En Seine