Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Exclusive!

Exclusive: Melvins Side Project Altamont Ready To Mount A Comeback!

Original: Article:

http://blog.indiepit.com/2009/07/21/exclusive-melvins-side-project-altamont-ready-to-mount-a-comeback/

Main image for Exclusive: Melvins Side Project Altamont Ready To Mount A Comeback

[Why are there five guys in this promo pic but only three in the band? Because Dale Crover is a strange duck, that's why.]



Last week, we chatted up Karim over at I’m Better Than Everyone Else Records, a vinyl-only, more or less one-man operation with a fetish for underground Southern metal. If the imprint rings a bell, it might be because we told you earlier this month about a US Christmas live record it’ll be dropping later this year.


We’ll have an “Inside the Label” profile on I’m Better Than Everyone Else soon enough, but in the interim, we didn’t want to sit on some exclusive news he gave to us.


As usual, Melvins have a calendar loaded with shows. On Saturday, they’ll be hitting up a ski resort in Niigata, Japan - no, we’re not kidding; that’s where the Fuji Rock Festival is happening. On August 7 and 9, the weirdos will swing through San Jose, California, and Eugene, Oregon, respectively. And then, from August 11 through August 22, they’ll be opening for Down.


They also have that wacky remix album - featuring Lee Ranaldo, Matmos and Merzbow - coming September 29.


But because this is the Melvins, you might guess they’re up to a whole lot more no good than just that. And you would guess right.


Amid the touring activity - still in support of 2008’s Nude With Boots - Dale Crover has found time to step away from the skins and strap on a guitar for his Altamont affair with drummer Dan Southwick and bassist Joey Osbourne (no relation to Buzz Osborne). The three stooges all have affiliations with red-eyed San Fran outfit Acid King: Osbourne has sat behind the kit ever since the band formed in 1993; Crover contributed vocals to its debut, which dropped the following year; and Southwick played with them for three years.


Altamont have four albums to their name: three on Man’s Ruin and one on Ipecac offshoot AntAcidAudio.


(Go here for the band’s amusing, fact-free “biography”.)


Last we heard from Altamont - which, you might be surprised to hear, sound like a cross between Melvins and Acid King - was almost four years ago, when they let loose The Monkees’ Uncle. But if all goes as planned, they’ll be crawling out from the rock again before year’s end.


“That hasn’t been talked about at all yet,” Karim confessed to IndiePit. “We’re doing a double album with them.”


Like all I’m Better releases - which are limited edition - a firm release date hasn’t been set and probably won’t be. But Karim sounded confident the effort will be seeing the light of day before the close of ‘09.


He did have a wee bit more info to share: “I only just got a track list, and I don’t know how far along the art is yet. But it’s Buzz’s wife, Maggie Osborne - who does a lot of Melvins art. She’s going to be doing the art on Altamont’s new one.”


We don’t know the album title yet but strongly suggest they go with Stonerhenge, My Tongue Tastes Like Paper or I’m Inside a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here.


We’re also SOL on the Altamont MP3 front, but we do have this Nude With Boots download still kicking around:

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Very nice, birds!

Tweak Bird will be on tour with Tool!

Original blog:


SUMMER TOUR WITH TOOL
The Bird Brothers are extremely excited to announce this independence day that we will be touring the US and parts of Canada supporting TOOL! We will be playing 13 shows over three weeks so check the tour page for all the show dates. We are sure this will be a most rad time, and when it's all over we will pour all that professional experience into recording our first full length record. Happy Birthday America...start the van.

Jul 19 EnergySolutions Arena w/TOOL Salt Lake City, Utah
Jul 21 US Airways Arena w/TOOL Phoenix, Arizona
Jul 22 Santa Ana Star Center w/TOOL Rio Rancho, New Mexico
Jul 24 AT&T Center w/TOOL San Antonio, Texas
Jul 25 Nokia Theatre w/TOOL Grand Prairie, Texas
Jul 27 Gwinnett Arena w/TOOL Duluth, Georgia
Jul 29 Bojangles Coliseum w/TOOL Charlotte, North Carolina
Jul 30 Patriot Center w/TOOL Fairfax, Virginia
Aug 2 Verizon Wireless Arena w/TOOL Manchester, New Hampshire
Aug 4 Kingston Regional Sports and Ent. Centre w/TOOL Kingston, Ontario
Aug 5 Molson Amphitheatre w/TOOL Toronto, Ontario
Aug 7 PNC Pavillion w/TOOL Cincinnati, Ohio