I’m not even sure why I dig this video so much.  Maybe something about how ready I am for Summer and attacking a big table of crabs.  Oh, and Faunts aren’t too shabby either.

Day of Release Free In-Store Performance!  Get a Limited Edition 7" and priority entrance to the in-store when you buy the new album!!! 

This week, the artwork of Takashi Murakami comes to the Brooklyn Museum.  Louis Vuitton mashup bags aside, I had the chance to see the exhibit out in LA last Fall and it is stunning – akin to covering your eyeballs in primary colored liquid paint and stepping into an anime cartoon on mushrooms. (like, woah)

Entire rooms set up with wallpaper my apartment walls are begging for along with the larger than life-size "Mr. Pointy" (Tongari-kun)  make this all well worth the $8 and 25 minute ride on the 2-3-Q.  Recommended to anyone who likes going to museums and even MORE recommended to those who don’t.  Click on the picture for more deets.

In order to celebrate the release of Mountain Battles, these stores have agreed to hold Midnight Sales (and you thought those were a thing of the past!) on the night before release, April 7th.

Austin, TX – End Of An Ear
Chicago, IL – Reckless
Lawrence, KS – Love Garden Sounds
New York, NY – Sound Fix
Orlando, FL – Park Ave.
San Diego, CA – M-Theory
San Francisco, CA – Mod Lang
Seattle, WA – Easy Street

Love Garden in Lawrence is having a Breeders cover band, The Shes, play the event!

The stores will be giving away goodie bags to those who buy the new album. 
The giveaways are:
-A limited edition 7" "We’re Gonna Rise" (non album b-side)
-The Breeders custom LP bag
-An album poster
-A raffle ticket to win tickets to the upcoming show

Check with your store to see what time the fun begins and ends!

It’s usually a who’s who of bands, celebrities and nobodies performing down in Austin every year at South By Southwest.  2008 was no different.  With that said you know you’ve made a big impression on people @ SXSW when you leave both Lou Reed and Rachel Ray saying HOLY FUCK!

Whether you Walk on the Wild Side of the music scene or the E.V.O.O side of things (our guess is you fall somewhere in between) the one thing everybody seems to agree upon is holy fuck HOLY FUCK are good!

We’re as amused with HOLY FUCK’s two newest fans as anyone but we can’t say we’re surprised.  Look for HOLY FUCK at Coachella and opening for M.I.A. in the US in early May and early June 2008.

This cracking interview with The Fall’s legend Mark E. Smith will have you laugh, cringe and feel extremely uncomfortable, genius! For the first installment of the interview on vbs.tv click here!

I mean, seriously, how many times can Ridley Scott and Warner Brothers get you to give them another $19.99 for Blade Runner (though I have to say, this does look pretty sweet). Hey, I like that flick as much as the next guy but if you really want to go deep on the replicant tip you might want to go back to 1978 rather than ’82 and check in with the original music cyborg Gary Numan.

We couldn’t be more excited to be re-releasing Gary Numan’s classic album Replicas this month as a two-disc set (HD & Blu-Ray versions on the way). Disc two contains the never released early versions of all the songs, rarities, 27 tracks in all and a nice booklet with new photos, essays etc. Get your very own copy right here.

Here’s a little promo piece that we worked up:

Gary Numan & Tubeway Army doing "are ‘friends’ electric?" on the Old Grey Whistle Test

and on BBC’s UK Gold

Other Music caught a surprisingly tan Jeffrey Lewis (and the Jitters) in a pedagogical mood in their "Best Of SXSW" series. Watch Jeffrey (with flute accompaniment!) explain the rules and regulations of lysergic exploration to a receptive crowd of SXSWers, small children, and a security guard. Minds will be blown.