Just got a message from my pal and venerable indie-folk touring champion Drew Danburry about the fate of Village Green Records, an independent music store in Muncie, Indiana. It seems someone broke in and stole their rent money. As if it wasn’t hard enough to operate an independent record store/tour stop when poeple are caring less and less about buying albums and seeing live music…

If you have $5 to spare (and a paypal account), you can help keep this musical institution alive.

In Muncie, Indiana there is a locally run independent record store run by some of my friends called Village Green Records. They have been providing excellent independent music for a few years now and have done countless shows for local and touring bands including myself.

Unfortunately, on Thursday, someone had the audacity to search through private rooms, and discovered the location of the rent money and stole it. Now the record store is $500 short for their June rent, which is already overdue, and is in danger of being shut down/evicted.

Village Green Records and a band (ITFOW) are asking for your help through small donations to the record store in order to keep it open. If 100 people donate $5 each, then VGR will be able to stay open and provide support to the independent music scene.

If you have paypal, and would be willing to donate to this cause, please send your donations to

endperfecto@hotmail.com

Thanks guys. It would be a good thing to do. Definitely.

On April 1st, The Black Keys will release their new album, Attack & Release, which was produced by Danger Mouse. This will be the group’s fifth release and their first for Nonesuch Records. Below are a couple streams of “Psychotic Girl” in Windows and Quicktime formats to give you a taste of what you can expect. US tour dates after the jump.

Quicktime

Windows Media

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Clutch and Murder by Death, live at the Beaumont Club in Kansas City, MO, February 28th, 2008. Check out the full review written by Crystal K. Wiebe at Synthesis.net. More photos by Lisa Horn after the jump. (more…)

It may not feel like it in many parts of the US, but spring and summer music festivals aren’t that far off. The lineup for this year’s Sasquatch Festival, held at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, WA. Leading the bill will be R.E.M., The Cure and The Flaming Lips UFO Show. Notable support includes M.I.A., Flight of the Conchords, David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion) and The Breeders. This year’s festival will also include a comedy tent with a lineup to be announced. Full list of bands available after the jump.

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Tickets will be going on sale starting March 1st for Iron Maiden’s Western US leg of their Somewhere in Time World Tour. The tour is notable for a few reasons:

1. In celebration of the DVD release of their seminal concert film Live After Death, the band’s set list will include mostly classic songs from their ’80s period and a stage setup similar to that of the Powerslave tour (which was the tour Live After Death was born out of).
2. The band, crew and all their equipment is traveling the world together in the band’s Boeing 757 piloted by Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson.
3. Iron Maiden fucking rules, and they wrote all your favorite Ozzfest-metal band’s riffs 30 years ago.

The world tour is already underway, with healthy showings in Mumbai, India, and Perth, Australia. Pilot/vocalist/rock god Dickinson is excited about hitting the Western US:

“We are all greatly looking forward to getting back to see our fans in places like Texas, the South West and Seattle where we haven’t played for quite some time. And for this leg we will be able to bring along all Eddie’s toys which we couldn’t get on our plane during the first leg. We are all having a great time on this tour and really can’t believe the excitement it is creating round the world and the huge numbers of people who are turning out to see us. It makes for a really very exciting time for all of us, fans and band alike”

You should be pretty stoked too. After the jump, a couple Sky News clips about the band’s trip to Mumbai and Western US tour dates with dates and times those tickets go on sale. (more…)

Starting Feb. 28th, Tilly and the Wall will hit the road for their first full US tour since 2006, bringing America some much needed joy. This time around, the group will have two more touring members in tow and will be premiering new material from a forthcoming album, which Tilly and the Wall begin recording in January with Saddle Creek guru Mike Mogis. The new album will be released on Conor Oberst’s Team Love label, though there is no release date set at this time. Tour dates after the jump.

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