Admittedly a pretty low brow title for a post but Sat, Jan 31st will surely be high times in Dallas. Double the performances, double the fun.

So if you’re in Dallas stop by Good Records tomorrow at 4pm for a FREE in-store performance by Titus Andronicus. And then be sure to swing by Club DaDa later Saturday night to catch them play a proper show with Los Campesinos!

Honestly is there a better way to spend a Saturday in Dallas? We assume not since the Superbowl is technically on Sunday and Paul Blart: Mall Cop is currently sucking life out of your local multiplex.

Please join us and our friends at FADER and Insound in celebrating Dark Was The Night on Friday, 2/6 at Stanton Public (17 Stanton St, NYC).

We’re going to play through the album, drink free Bud and then have some top-notch DJs on the wheels; including DJ sets by members of The National, Blonde Redhead and Yeasayer.

If you feel like stopping by just click on the flyer to RSVP. Hope to see you there!

Erin (the designer de riguer for all the beautiful websites you see us create for bands and labels) pointed this out.  She has this eery feeling of familiarity…

So, in the spirit of our “soundalak music” features, I present this to the court of public opinion.  (And please, any Girl Talk fans, your opinions will be heard but heavily discounted)

A wordpress theme jack?

Exhibit A – The original boompa.ca label web site designed by Erin.  Launched in October 2008, lauded in numerous design trend articles, etc.

Exhibit B – The something kind of music blog site.

Dream Big… Dream Free WordPress Themes.

An exclusive weekend break location to whisk the rock lover in your life away to…

If you’re El Guincho, life this week dealt you a pretty good hand.  A stop in Ghana, to play a special show sponsored by the French Embassy, as you head to Australia for the Laneway Festival.

What? You got to work all week in your office cubicle?  Doesn’t seem fair, right?  Fear not El Guincho fans we have some fun to share with you as we head into the weekend.  It’s not exactly an airline ticket to the Canary Islands to start living it up El Guincho style but in this economy just be happy you have that office cubicle job at all. 

Enjoy!

El Guincho performs an unreleased song, Bombay, at Mania TV’s studio in LA:  www.maniatv.com/jukebox.html#cp:stage5/season_3/stage_5___el_guincho____bombay_;

El Guincho has his song Kalise remixed by Tanlines:  www.thefader.com/articles/2009/1/22/exclusive-freeload-el-guincho-kalise-tanlines-remix-dj-set

The brand new Dark Was The Night web site just launched and has a boat load of information on the album, the cause and the artists.

Most coolest (and if by cool you generally mean iPhone Apps that can send your calls straight to voicemail) is a fully customizable widget maker tool where you can select up to 3 tracks and get the embed code for your own widget. 

Go here to make your own and here’s an example:

At about 8:35 tonite, Caius hit me on the AIM.  What follows is a transcript of an amazing and harrowing day with El Guincho in Ghana.  We hope Pablo is alright.

caiuspawson@mac.com: you there?
Adam Farrell: yup
caiuspawson@mac.com: literally: the best/worst day of my life
caiuspawson@mac.com: wake up – in ghana
caiuspawson@mac.com:amazing
caiuspawson@mac.com: go to the embassy
Adam Farrell: you are in ghana?
caiuspawson@mac.com: they seem to think im meant to be a world famous documentary maker
caiuspawson@mac.com: el guincho and crew had told everyone that i was.
Adam Farrell: but you are doing something like that right?
Adam Farrell: (this transcript is so going up on our blog)
Read the rest of this entry »

Lesley sent me these photos of the pizza party we had today at the office.  It was a festive time.

Usually, I’d attempt something funny about a drinking game we played, chugging Guru^TM everytime Obama said "hope" but, given the weight of this moment… I’d rather sermonize a bit.

This election mattered on many levels and everyone had their own reason for cramming into the conference room today (Gabe just wanted to peep the Barakscalade).

But for those of us in the arts (sure, even though we mastermind a formulaic Billboard Heatseeker Single occasionally, we are at our core purveyors of art), this inauguration represents some significant promise.  

Beyond the many practical pro-arts policy shifts the Obama administration has promised (health care for artists, expansion of arts education, artist visa reform and cultural diplomacy to name a few), Obama is what folks call "a poet President" and promises an engagement with culture that is equal to his engagement with business and politics.

This goes beyond the Shepard Fairey posters and is about working from the bottom up to re-engrain the arts and their appreciation into the very fabric of our society. 

You can read up on Obama’s Platform for the Arts here (pdf), but the growth in appreciation for creavity is something that we all here appreciate, if not live for.

The tires have been kicked and the engine revved as Titus Andronicus started up their US tour last night in Baltimore with their Welsh friends and tour comrades Los Campesinos! If their warm up show in Hoboken earlier this week can be trusted as an accurate preview, and why shouldn’t it be, this tour will be a wild party rolling through a new city each night. Check out their full tour itinerary below and see if your town is one of the lucky stops.

Titus Andronicus tour with Los Campesinos!
Thu 1/15 Baltimore MD Ottobar
Fri 1/16 Carrboro NC Cat’s Cradle
Sat 1/17 Atlanta GA The Earl
Sun 1/18 Gainesville FL The Atlantic*
Mon 1/19 Jacksonville FL Jack Rabbits
Tue 1/20 Tampa FL The Orpheum
Wed 1/21 Tallahassee FL Club Downunder
Fri 1/23 Birmingham AL Bottletree
Sat 1/24 Nashville TN Exit/In
Sun 1/25 Memphis TN Hi-Tone Cafe
Mon 1/26 Hattiesburg MS The Belafonte*
Tue 1/27 New Orleans LA One Eyed Jack’s
Thur 1/29 Houston TX Walter’s on Washington
Fri 1/30 Austin TX The Parish Room
Sat 1/31 Dallas TX Club DaDa
Tue 2/3 Lawrence KS The Bottleneck
Wed 2/4 St Louis MO The Gargoyle
Thu 2/5 Beloit WI Coughy Haus*
Fri 2/6 Madison WI Der Rathskeller @ UW Madison
Sat 2/7 Chicago IL Logan Square Auditorium
Sun 2/8 Iowa City IA The Mill*
Tue 2/10 Grand Rapids MI Calvin College Fine Arts Center
Wed 2/11 Columbus OH Wexner Center for the Arts
Thu 2/12 Swarthmore PA Swarthmore College
Fri 2/13 Boston MA Paradise Rock Club
Sat 2/14 New York NY Bowery Ballroom
Sun 2/15 New York NY Bowery Ballroom
* = shows without Los Campesinos!

Last December, Miwa and Matt trekked to a cold warehouse in Brooklyn to witness first-hand the weaving of ghosts and soldiers that Marcel Dzama and Patrick Daughters have dreamt up for the video for "No One Does It Like You".   While we don’t wanna steal any thunder (or be reductive), if music videos were flavors of GURU, this one would be called "Bloody Pyro Warring Ghost".

Miwa was handy enough to snap a few pics of the shoot so that we might tease you.  Premiere date forthcoming on some kind of online / embeddable video outlet.