Sasquatch! 2013 lineup revealed

The always underrated Sasquatch! music festival, held every Memorial Day weekend in May, has announced its 2013 lineup.

Headliners this year include Mumford & Sons, the recently reunited Postal Service, Vampire Weekend, The XX, Sigur Ros, and Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis - who are placed pretty high on the billing.

Included in the usually stellar mid-card are: Empire Of The Sun, Cake, Grimes, Andrew Bird, Built To Spill, Danny Brown, Schoolboy Q + Ab Soul, El-P, Japandroids, Death Grips, and plenty others (comedians a plenty, too). Click the poster above to see the whole lineup.

Tickets for the May 24-27 event, held in the stupidly gorgeous Gorge Ampitheatre in Washington, will go on sale February 9 via the festival website.

Bears And Bullets Songs Of The Year (#25-#1)

And here it is, the final piece in the all-too-lovable list week: Bears And Bullets Top 50 Songs Of The Year, numbers 25 through one.

Bears And Bullets Songs Of The Year (#50-#26)

Going in this year, I realized the previous year-end-list formatting was a bit limited. I opted for lengthy descriptions of the year's best songs, other than adding more. Looking at both, I opted to add more without the colorful paragraphs that follow. So as of today, here is the first edition of Bears and Bullets Top 50 Songs Of 2012 (part one):

Bears And Bullets Albums Of The Year (#10-#1)

Continuing from yesterday, here are the top ten selections for Bears and Bullets Top Albums Of 2012:

New Japandroids video - House That Heaven Built

The massive first single from Japandroids last album Celebration Rock, "The House That Heaven Built" has a brand new black and white video to support the band's lengthy tour date additions. You can check out all the dates after the video below, which includes a December stop at Philly's Union Transfer. Tickets for the event go on sale this Friday.



8/14 — Ponte Do Lima, Portugal — Paredes De Coura Festival
8/16 — Dublin, Ireland — Workmans Club
8/17 — Belfast, Northern Ireland– Mandela Hall
8/18 — Skipton, England– Beacons Festival
8/19 — Leicester, England– Summer Sundae Festival
8/22 — Reykjavik, Iceland — Gamli Gaukurinn
8/24 — Hannover, Germany — Bootboohook Festival
8/25 — Dornstadt, Germany — Obstwiesen Festival
8/27 — Frankfurt, Germany — Zoom
8/28 — Dresden, Germany — Beatpol
8/29 — Berlin, Germany — Magnet
8/31 — Poznan, Poland — Fabrika
9/1 — Warsaw, Poland — Hydrozagadka
9/3 — Budapest, Hungary — Akvarium
9/4 — Vienna, Austria — Chelsea
9/6 — Ljubljana, Slovenia — Kino Siska
9/7 — Graz, Austria — Postgarage
9/8 — Zagreb, Croatia — NKC Park
9/10 — Prague, Czech Republic — Lucerna Music Bar
9/11 — Munich, Germany — Feierwerk
9/12 — Luzern, Switzerland — Treibhaus Luzern
9/14 — Brussels, Belgium — La Chocolaterie
9/15 — Leffinge, Belgium — Leffingeleuren Festival
9/16 — Tilburg, Netherlands — Incubate Festival
9/18 — Amsterdam, Netherlands — Paradiso
9/19 — Rotterdam, Netherlands — Rotown
9/21 — Hamburg, Germany — Reeperbahn Festival
9/22 — Munster, Germany — Gleis 22
9/23 — Cologne, Germany — Luxor
9/25 — Copehagen, Denmark — Pumpehuset
9/26 — Aarhus, Denmark — Voxhall
9/28 — Gothenburg, Sweden — Pustervik
9/29 — Stockholm, Sweden — Strand
9/30 — Oslo, Norway — John Dee
10/12 — Madrid, Spain — El Sol
10/13 — Barcelona, Spain — Sala Apolo
10/15 — Winterthur, Switzerland — Salzhaus
10/16 — St. Gallen, Switzerland — Grabenhalle
10/18 — Rome, Italy — Lanificio 159
10/19 — Bologna, Italy — Covo
10/20 — Padova, Italy — Loop
10/24 — Athens, Greece — AN Club
10/26 — London, UK — Heaven
10/27 — Manchester, UK — Sound Control
10/29 — Sheffield, UK — The Harley
10/30 — Birmingham, UK — Hare & Hounds
11/1 — Paris, France — Pitchfork Music Festival
11/4 — Austin, TX — Fun Fun Fun Fest
11/5 — Dallas, TX — Trees*
11/7 — Scottsdale, AZ — Martini Ranch*
11/8 — Los Angeles, CA — Fonda*
11/10 — San Diego, CA — Porters Pub*
11/12 — San Francisco, CA — Fillmore*
11/13 — Portland, OR — Wonder Ballroom*
11/15 — Seattle, WA — Neumos*
11/17 — Salt Lake City, UT — Urban Lounge
11/18 — Denver, CO — Bluebird
11/20 — St Louis, MO — Firebird
11/21 — Nashville, TN — Exit / In
11/23 — Birmingham, AL — Bottletree
11/24 — Memphis, TN — Hi-Tone
11/25 — New Orleans, LA — One Eyed Jacks
11/27 — Orlando, FL — The Social
11/28 — Tampa, FL — Crowbar
11/29 — Gainesville, FL — High Dive
12/1 — Atlanta. GA — The Earl
12/2 — Asheville, NC — Grey Eagle Tavern
12/4 — New York, NY — Webster Hall
12/7 — Washington, DC — Black Cat
12/8 — Philadelphia, PA — Union Transfer
12/9 — Boston, MA — Paradise
12/10 — Montreal, QC — Cabaret Mile End
12/11– Toronto, ON — Phoenix
12/13 — Chicago, IL — Metro
12/14 — Minneapolis, MN — Triple Rock
12/15 — Minneapolis, MN — Triple Rock
12/17 — Winnipeg, MB — Pyramid
12/18 — Saskatoon, SK — Louis Pub
12/19 — Edmonton, AB — Starlite
12/20 — Calgary, AB — Republik
12/22 — Vancouver, BC — Rickshaw

Albums of the Month: May 2012

Albums of the Month - May 2012

Without much question, May has been the standout month of 2012 in terms of new music. There have been quite a few masterful releases during the span, including the highly-anticipated Beach House and Sigur Ros albums. But just like last month, the most-expected releases didn't make my final three. Here are my three favorite albums from last month.

3.) Royal Headache (Self-Titled)
It's tough to say there's anything more to Royal Headache's self-titled reissue than conveniently well-packaged, murky garage rock. There's an inherit vagueness that plagues most of the lo-fi structure of the genre, meddling much of the West Sydney punk vocalist known as 'Shogun.' But despite the near-classic muffled choke of vocals, you can get an easy sense that there's more style thrown into the album than what the lo-fi template originally offered. Songs like "Down the Lane" and "Distant and Vague," despite following a fuzz-rush of garage punk tracks, stick to a soulful idea, sounding as eternally sweet as the other songs filter their vigor. The attachment is there, despite only 26 minutes of endurance to the album's more endearing finishers, culminating with "Honey Joy," the most sincere the band has ever sounded.

2.) Japandroids - Celebration Rock

There's a total vibrancy that comes with the exhausting youth that is Japandroids. Two men, Brian King and drummer David Prowse, sound bigger than themselves, parlaying echoed chorus in between energetic crashes, as they had on their previous release Post-Nothing. But with Celebration Rock (Insound), an album that follows much of the same structure (eight tracks, youthful sentiments), everything begins to resonate a little more. The fury is more clear, the emotions more bright and earnest. But what made Japandroids so profound in 2009 is the same in 2012; unhinged, accessible, and flourishing with potential.

1.) El-P - Cancer For Cure
It's not simply the verses for EL-P (Jaime Meline) that do him justice anymore, or since his last studio album, 2007's I'll Sleep When You're Dead. There's a chasm of industrial technique behind his Brooklyn-centric diatribes, not merely settling for dead-end typical hip-hop production. With the album's first half, culminating with all-star standout "Tougher Colder Killer" featuring Killer Mike and Despot, Cancer For Cure (Insound) kills as much with eye-popping verses as it does with claustrophobic metal beats. There's so much packed together within the first six tracks, that if it had stopped it there it would almost seem acceptable. But the songs continue to trek with sophistication unreal to the rest of modern hip-hop, spilling mind-out-of-matter lines from the alter egos that we, and El-P, understand.

Tuesday Bears: Japandroids - Jack The Ripper (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds cover)

Featured as a B-Side to Japandroids' supremely excellent single "The House That Heaven Built," the Vancouver duo recently covered Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds noir smash "Jack The Ripper." Listen to the cut below and don't forget to grab Celebration Rock June 5.

Monday Bears: New Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built

The hype for Japandroids second album Celebration Rock continues to climb today with the release of "The House That Heaven Built." It's not the first new material from the album that we've heard so far, but it's the first studio version of one since last month's "Art Czars" leak. Listen to the song below and grab the album May 15 on Polyvinyl Records.