I can’t believe he hasn’t played on American Television before. UK heartthrob Ed Harcourt will be on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show this evening to promote his new album (well, that is to say his 2006 album that never got released in the States) The Beautiful Lie, which came out on Dovecote Records last Tuesday. Listening to The Beautiful Lie (and his back catalogue as well) it baffles me why he isn’t as huge in North America as he is in Europe. Last March during SXSW I ended up tagging along and filming Ed and his wife Gita as he got a sweet tattoo of one of his first songs, “Sing For My Supper” on his arm in Austin, TX. Enjoy our lil’ mini doc:

ED HARCOURT TO MAKE U.S. TELEVISION DEBUT ON THE TONIGHT SHOW JUNE 6, WEEK OF ‘THE BEAUTIFUL LIE’ RELEASE

LOS ANGELES, May 6, 2008 - Not long since wreaking havoc on Austin, Texas during SXSW, the illustrious Ed Harcourt will return to the States from his native England to perform on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Friday, June 6. Timed perfectly with the release of his fourth full-length album, THE BEAUTIFUL LIE, due June 3 on Dovecote Records, Harcourt will celebrate the arrival of this much-awaited LP with a national television debut.

The Mercury Prize-nominated Harcourt has been keeping extraordinarily busy on tour with the Gutter Twins overseas, where he has been joining Greg Dulli, Mark Lanegan and co. on stage following his own opening set. “Ed Harcourt’s songs are as close to cabaret tunes and 1960s pop as they are to current rock,” recently noted the NEW YORK TIMES while UNDER THE RADAR hailed ‘The Beautiful Lie’ as “his best work to date.” The WALL STREET JOURNAL was on hand for one of his acclaimed Austin performances, calling Harcourt, “a gifted songwriter in the mold of Karl Wallinger and XTC’s Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding” adding, “and thus a descendant of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.”

Lead radio single, “Revolution in the Heart,” mimics Harcourt’s larger-than-life personality, brimming with his exquisite piano playing, booming delivery, thunderous rhythms and bursting backup vocals, compliments of The Magic Numbers. The track is currently going for adds at radio, already receiving early support across the country from stations like Starbucks XM Café, KBAC and others.

This visit is a precursor to additional U.S. tour dates this summer, to be announced soon.

If you’re wondering why the previously unstoppable churn of our blog has slowed to a snail’s pace, its that the majority of the Synthesis office is currently suffering from a debilitating case of WordDepression, which has necessitated the inputting by hand of the oodles of HTML code that makes our blog fancy. And since we’re all basically lazy pieces of shit, we’ve been sitting on our hands, waiting for our blog-guru Na3s to come through and save the day once again. However, something happened today, of such great magnitude, of such utter import that I am forced to bring it to you, hand-coding and all.

This event is known in office parlance as “Worth My While,” which is what we call it when someone sends us free shit, making our time spent building this machine worth our while. Today’s bringer of worthiness are our old friends at Saucony shoes, who were kind enough to lace me and fellow Synthesis Editorial Mastermind Spencer up (pun intended) with a free pair of Saucony Jazz kicks just because we rep their shit on this here blog. And this isn’t even the first time! Back in 2006, Saucony was also responsible for saving the lives of myself and Mr. Teilmann at SXSW, when they provided us footwear suited well to the marathon of walking that is covering SXSW, something we had both neglected to think of ahead of time (note: the dudes who used to play basketball in Chuck Taylors must have hated their lives after every game, or just been tough ass motherfuckers). If you’ve never worn a pair of Saucony Jazz shoes you seriously don’t know what you’re missing. They feel so smooth its like walking on a pair of babies asses. If you’re feeling adventurous, pick up a pair at Zappos.com TODAY!

So the moral of the story is, even if you have a busted ass Wordpress blog, you can still get rad ass folks at sweet shoe companies to recognize game. Thanks Team Saucony!!!111

Cool Kids, who you can check out above live at The Red Bull House in Ausin during SXSW, are set to release their debut EP on Chocolate Industries later this month:

Chicago-based hip-hop duo The Cool Kids are set to release their debut EP on Chocolate Industries on May 20th exclusively on iTunes, and June 10th on CD and other digital outlets. Heralded by Rolling Stone and many others as an artist to watch in 2008, The Cool Kids have recently toured Europe and Australia as well as selling out shows nationwide. This spring and summer finds them doing spot dates in America, hitting Europe again June 14-July 14, rocking Lollapalooza and appearing on many of the dates on the Rock the Bells tour.

The band will also be on tour this summer in the US and Europe, dates after the jump, as per custom

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I think SXSW broke my brain a little bit. When I got back and I had a show to play that week, I started brainstorming. The result was taking two pages out of the Tony Clifton playbook, one page out of Neil Hamburger’s, and a paragraph of Bill Hicks, and roll them into possibly the best show I’ve ever played.

Drunk Not Retarded by Catlike Reflexes

Half of the audience loved it. The other half was calling for blood. I don’t think I’m going to get invited back to Nick’s Night Club, but fuck it, that place is over rated anyway, and it was worth it.

Not having a camera during a music festival can be a real drag. I made the best of what I had by utilizing my previously unused camera phone, but I’ve been a walking disaster since last week, and today I managed to break my cell phone as well. I fully expect to break my guitar at my gig tomorrow. Over my own head. Tired…still so incredibly tired….

SXSW is different for all types of attendees, and after attending as a music journalist for the last three, I really am looking forward to being a spectator or band member next year. While ‘08 was my best South By Southwest music festival yet, it was also been a draining one. Interview after interview, broken up by meeting with publicists and filming shows, it feels like I hardly saw any music; Incredible, given the 1,800 bands and 70 venues that buzzed and clattered as I made my way to the next assignment. I think i saw 5 bands total that I was not actually working on in some way.

That’s why on Saturday night, I cut loose loosey-goosey. Bonkers mad drunk. I managed to worm myself and Brit Unicorn past the lines to catch Two Gallants and a bit of Tokyo Police Club (where double Stoli Redbulls were $8, $14 and $12 depending on which bartender you wound up with) before heading to the Promised Land where American Spirit Cigarettes were being given away two packs at at time and free vodka flowed like the whores out of a crumbling Babylon.

I am a people person, and instead of badge-snooping for Spin hotshots and BBC personalities who I heard were in the herd, i ended up doing what I do every SXSW: finding a group of Austinites and shooting the shit about music while getting pissed. I remember Colin having a sweet handlebar moustache, some girl with a big booty named Ann freaking me, and encouraging some random dude to sign his name on my arm, all while spouting Bill Hicks quotes and being affable drunk Spencer.

Then I noticed Sweden’s Soundtrack of Our Lives setting up. It would prove to be the most epic set I had witnessed at SXSW, if not ever. Okay, so my cameraphone is less than ideal, but I did get a few snaps as I was right up front, thighs against the stage.

Pretty much stationed right underneath Ebbot Lundberg’s impressive rock tummy. Restrainign myself from reaching up and patting it.

I felt the show so hard, hanging on Ian Person’s unbelievable rock moves. Inspirational. He’s got moves like my dog’s got fleas. How is it that Scandinavian rock bands know how to rock about 100 times harder than most American and British rock bands? I was awestruck with TSOOL’s set, a heady brew of psychedelic trippiness and kick-out-the-jams face melting. Honestly, I’d seen the band at Curiosa from about 50 yards back, but being right up front was way more than 50 yards better. Don’t do the math.

My video camera was on the fritz. My digital camera was broken. My brain was scrambled and my hands were in the air, making continuous rock gestures. I spilled drinks on the leather jacket-clad rockers behind me. I grabbed random drinks off stage when mine was empty. The rock took over and I became my alter ego. Before I knew it, Buck Knuckle leaned over to Synthesis editor James Barone and said something like “I think this is their last song,” before grabbing the monitors and hoisting myself onstage, making a mad dash for the free tambourine over by Fredrik Sandsten’s drum kit. I smacked that damn instrument for all its worth, and when the song was over I escaped into the VIP section to retrieve another drink, getting nods of approval from, well, the VIPs I suppose. I doubt I was nonchalant about it. One guy did say something about ‘thanks for runing the show,’ but envy-green wasn’t a good color for him. “Mmmm, how witty, you must be a writer for Spin, mmmmm…” I condescended back.

The Soundtrack of Our Lives set was then over, but the band decided on an encore and made their way back out on stage, with Ian and Martin beginning the song in a soft manner. (For the record, I am not a TSOOL expert, so I have no idea about track names and was too drunk to find out or care. I just know that I felt the rock like never before.) As Frederik began clicking his sticks to a Latin-flavored rhythm, I had to get back on stage, knowing full well I was pressing my luck.

But I had plenty of luck to be pressed. I sauntered back on stage and grabbed the free tambourine again, making eye contact with their mildly concerned drummer. It wasn’t the easiest rhythm, so he began mouthing me the hits. I followed him, and once I had it down Frederik pushed the overhead mic over to me to play into. From then it was on. My hand was so bruised because, well, drunken tambourine players show no mercy. I shook that thing in the way you should NEVER shake a baby. I was throwing high kicks in there, earning a shit-eating grin from the Townsend-dressed Mattias Bärjed who i was situated behind.

I don’t think I was too off, either. Of course, given my state I can’t be certain. All I know is that for two songs I was a member of The Soundtrack of Our Lives for the closing set of SXSW 2008, and it felt perfect.

Of course by then Ryan, who got great shots of the band earlier in the set, had taken off. So I have no photo evidence of my moment in the sun. If anyone was there at the Soundtrack of Our Lives Saturday late night Spin/American Spirit party and got photos of the band with that random long-haired dude who decided to jump up on stage and play tambourine, please, PLEASE send them to:

gorgeousarmadapresents (at) gmail [d0t] com
myspace.com/gorgeousarmada

I’m trying to find new ways to both stoke out my bandmates and make my mother feel mortified. Thank you.

I remember my first South by Southwest experience pretty well, considering the whole kid in a candy store / free music, free booze thing that happens in Austin TX every March. But the one thing I remember most was how much my feet hurt after the second day, and how happy I was when I visited the Riot Act Media party and found out that they were giving away free shoes. Saucony Jazz sneakers. I had brought nice-looking, but ill-fitting kicks with me, and once slipping into a pair of comfy shoes I was good to go for the rest of the week. It was like walking on the wings of sponge-angels. I podcasted something to that effect on the Synthesis radio site. In fact, since 2006, I’ve bought nothing but Sauconies (How’s that for good marketing, yo? You’re welcome for the free plug, thanks for the free shoes). Having saved my feet in 2006, David Lewis will forever be a saint to me.

This year, however, I failed to make it to a party featuring free shoes, and right now my brown Saucony Jazz sneakers, going on 6 months old, are in flattened shambles. It’s true, as outlined in my astute friend’s blog, musicismyboyfriend, there’s pretty much nowhere to sit at SXSW for more than a minute. You’re on the go from venue to venue to venue the entire time because, honestly, there’s just too much to see and so little time to see it. Sure, there are rickshaws (known in these parts as pedicabs), and I did use one after Chiodos‘ set on Friday night since La Zona Rosa is kind of a long walk from the main drag on 6th street. Otherwise I was on foot, and as of Sunday I’ve been developing the gnarliest athletes’ foot you’ve ever seen. If it gets any more personality I may have to give it a name. Updates as they come. In the meantime, Check out Video Matt being a drunk ass on a rickshaw. Hilarity! Snoochy Boochies!