DISAPPEAR EP APPEARS ON ITUNES
December 5th, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
For a song that is deceptively simple upon first listen, My Brightest Diamond’s "Disappear" reveals its layers only upon repeated listen. It is a careful song, tempered with accurate pace but yet climatic. A new EP released today exclusively to iTunes helps illicit those stratum. The EP features the original "Disappear," an alternate version, and two remixes. The five song EP is available on iTunes.
[Buy "Disappear" from iTunes]
[Tour Dates] In the alternate version, the solid warmth of a string quartet juxtaposes with Shara’s haunting vocals – all while New York City cabs and buses pass in the background. Suddenly, "Disappear" seems less intimidating, more like a warm but slightly bitter coffee on the way to the subway.
In the hands of DJ slash Producer Stakka, Shara’s "One day I may disappear" becomes less a promise and more a dangerous flirtation with existence. Stakka accentuates the drums, giving the song an awkward weightiness, but leaves space for Shara’s voice to dive and swing in the space between beats. It’s comfortably jarring. Drummer James McAlister, whom Shara met while conscripted for Sufjan Steven’s Michigan Militia band, starts at the opposite end of "Disappear." In his reins, the song becomes airy, almost inconsequential, like whistling on a sunny day after the apocalypse.
HALF-HANDED CLOUD PLAYS BASS FOR DANIELSON TOUR
November 27th, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
John Ringhofer (aka Half-handed Cloud), man of many hats, has performed with wind-up sheep, coke-bottle glasses, felted panoramas, and as a cheerleader and militia man (for Sufjan Stevens), to name a few. He plays guitar, banjo, trombone, trumpet, and melodion, sometimes while chewing an apple! Is there anything he can’t do? This month, Mr. Ringhofer tries on a new outfit (military musketeers style, hearts on sleeve) playing bass guitar in the grand and spirited Danielson with the strange and visionary Daniel Smith in the driver’s seat. They are playing all throughout Europe! This will be a tour to remember! Please come out and sing, clap, and dance in support of our road-weary friends as they travel the world bringing you the fruits of rock and roll.
Thur. Nov. 23rd Brussels, Belgium – AB-Box w/ Woven Hand
Fri. Nov. 24th Antwerp, Belgium – Trix w/ The Long Winters
Sat. Nov. 25th Liège, Belgium – L’Escalier
Sun. Nov. 26th Lille, France – La Malterie
Mon. Nov. 27th Brighton, England – Komedia
Tue. Nov. 28th Bristol, England – Thekla
Wed. Nov. 29th Manchester, England – Klondyke Club
Thu. Nov. 30th Glasgow, Scotland – King Tuts w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Fri. Dec. 1st Hull, UK – The Adelphi Club w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Sat. Dec. 2nd Nottingham England – The Social w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Sun. Dec. 3rd London England – The Luminaire w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Mon. Dec. 4th Rouen, France – L’Emporium w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Tue. Dec. 5th Paris, France – La Maroquinerie w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Wed. Dec. 6th Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
Thu. Dec. 7th Utrecht, Netherlands – Theater Kikker w/ JL
Fri. Dec. 8th Darmstadt Germany-Oetinger Villa w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Sat. Dec. 9th St. Gallen, Switzerland – Palace w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Sun. Dec. 10th Dudingen Switzerland Bad Bonn w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Mon. Dec. 11th Lyon, France Grrrnd Zero w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Tue. Dec. 12th Barcelona, Spain – La 2 w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Wed. Dec. 13th Bilbao, Spain – Azkena w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Thu. Dec. 14th Bordeaux, France Son’art w/ Jeffrey Lewis
Fri. Dec. 15th Den Haag Netherlands – State X New Forms w/ Sonic Youth
SHARA WORDEN NOMINATED FOR PLUG AWARD
November 16th, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Our lovely Ms. Shara Worden has been nominated for a Plug Award in the category of Female Artist of the Year. Please head on over to the Plug Awards website and cast your vote for Shara Worden. A panel of independent music taste-testing bigwigs make the nominations, but the public cast the votes. Also, Sufjan Stevens has been nominated for Male Artist of the Year, but we feel he got plenty of attention last year from the Plug Awards and recommend you vote for Chad VanGaalen or Scott Walker. Have you ever listened to Tilt?
MUSIC FOR TOTAL CHICKENS CONTEST
November 15th, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Perhaps we are jumping on the YouTube shameless self-promotion bandwagon, but why the heck not when we’re promoting something that is both pop and lovingly off-kilter as Rafter’s Music for Total Chickens (release date: January 23, 2007).
Contestants will be offered four mp3s to choose from off of Rafter’s upcoming release, Music for Total Chickens. These mp3s will be posted on various blogs and the Asthmatic Kitty website, contestants will choose one of these mp3s to make a video. Contestants will create and upload their videos to the Rafter Contest Group on YouTube. They will have two months to create and post the video. The contest will run to January 23 and the winners will be announced on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2007. No submissions will be taken after January 23, 2007.
Two $500 cash prizes will be given.
THE QUALITY PRIZE: The first prize will go to the video selected by a panel of "celebrity" judges.
THE QUANTITY PRIZE: The second prize will go to whichever video is the most viewed according to YouTube’s statistics.
the MP3s:
http://www.asthmatickitty.com
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SUFJAN PLAYS MILLENNIUM STAGE 10th ANNIVERSARY
November 15th, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Photo by: Carol Pratt The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will celebrate ten years of free daily performances with a program on Monday, February 5, 2007. In an unprecedented event, the Center will present free performances in the Opera House and Concert Hall featuring different disciplines— Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performing […]
Read the Rest...HALF-HANDED CLOUD GOES OLD SCHOOL: RELEASES CASSETTE, TALKS TO PEOPLE
November 8th, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
John Ringhofer, the brains and brawn behind Half-Handed Cloud, has released a new single on Sanitary Records. But instead of employing unreliable digital technology like iPods or mp3s, which you might accidentally forget to backup, or which you may or may not own, or may or may not be sued for owning, John has instead opted to provide this single on quality Chromium2 Tape (aka CASSETTE) as part of Sanitary Records retro-revolutionary Cassingle series. Anyone ever hear of the RIAA while listening to that $90 yellow Sport-Walkman? Exactly. Maybe Older is the New Newer.
Of course, while you’re checking out Half-Handed Cloud’s Cassingle, make sure you order #5, which features our very own The Curtains.And not only is John shunning Digitalia with music, but also with speech. Sure, he has a new-fangled web-log with which he uses to communicate with the Intertubes. But he talks to people too, using his vocal chords, as demonstrated by two witty and informative pieces. In one discussion with the sfist, John reveals that he’s reading a book by a Swissman that loves his knickers, and at The Other Journal, interviewers Josh Golden and Chris Keller manage to tease out John’s long repressed summer camp memories.
Of course, if you don’t want to mosey off the AK-Ranch just quite yet but feel a hankering for some HHC-action, check out John’s newest sidebar post, which includes 103% more waffles than a cassette or an interview.
SUFJAN STEVENS ON AUSTIN CITY LIMITS
November 1st, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
See and hear Sufjan and the Band of Butterflies perform live on the Austin City Limits stage on Saturday, November 4th. Then stick around for gorgeous Southwest serenades by Calexico. Please consult your local listings and TiVo away, or find out when the program will be shown in your area at: http://www.pbs.org/klru/austin/
SONGS FOR CHRISTMAS NOW STREAM-ABLE AND PRESALE-ABLE
October 31st, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Celebrate Christmas on Halloween!? Who ever heard of such a thing? Of course we haven’t forgotten Halloween either.
In the same way that brisk, Northern wind whipped by you last week with its chilly reminder that the holiday season is closer than you think, here it is: Sufjan’s 5 CD Songs for Christmas in all its free, streamy goodness, available for enjoyment right now. These computer bytes of joy broadcast over the Internet feature albums recorded by Sufjan over the course of 5 yuletides (from 2001 to 2006), each employing different friends, instruments, and moods to tease and swizzle the Christmas spirit in all of us, even as early as October. Say, maybe it is time to swirl some shortbread and toss a little tinsel.
Of course, you can’t gift-wrap an internet stream. For those who prefer their Christmas with lovingly reused golden bows and Santa-in-pajama wrapping paper, we will be taking preorders for Songs for Christmas on October 31st, the Christmas of October to ship November 14th. This wonderful set weighs at least 15 pieces of coal, with 5 individually wrapped CDs, stickers, short stories, an essay, a video, a comic strip, songbooks, and an Official Original Christmas Family Portrait of Santa Sufjan! Check those off your list! If we could have placed the CDs in snowman adorned cookie tins and delivered them to you by hand at your Christmas office party, we would have. But we just don’t have enough helper elves.
SIDEBAR-A-THON
October 25th, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Remember A-thons, when "original programming" meant making a new graphic for seven consecutive hours of Magnum PI? Or what about those all weekend long 007-A-Thons on TNT? The oh-so-dreamy, timeless hours of Moonlighting-A-Thons on Lifetime, or the bumbling but lovable Columbo-A-Thons on A&E, or even the Xtreme Celebrity Bowling-A-Thons on ESPN4?
That well established historical legacy of A-Thons is precisely what we’re capitalizing on to launch asthmatickitty.com’s newest feature: The SIDEBAR. Simply put, the sidebar is a place where our very own artists, friends, and arch-enemies will post reviews, thoughts, and diatribes, all on a regular or not-so-regular basis. These range from observations, like John Ringhofer’s Airport Muzak Log; to music, like Michael Kaufmann’s loving unwrapping of Dabrye’s Two/Three; to Rafter’s risky but rewarding theater-hopping.So what a better way to launch than day after day of sidebar update! This week, expect daily updates on the sidebar, including Johnny Bob’s game-by-game commentary on the strange, niche phenomena known as the "World Series." Raymond Raposa of the Castanets will ramble beautifully through the bushes of his current musical brush, and we will introduce our Blogger Hometown Reviews. And More!
And in case this whole "record label" thing doesn’t work out, we think we can sell the sidebar as a dotcom to Google in 3 years for 1.7 billion – exactly .1 billion dollars more than they paid for YouTube. Invest/divest now. In the meantime, pull out the ole Cheetos from the shelf, the seven day old generic Cola from the fridge, and cuddle up to warm phosphorus glow of the sidebar…
CALAMITY HITS STORES TODAY
October 24th, 2006 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Now that it is finally in outer space, as in the space outside of the inner space of Chris Cohen’s brain where only a shrunken Dennis Quaid could get to it, people are starting to think about the sound of The Curtains’ new album. The Bay Area’s very own Owl Mag diagnosed Calamity with "sugary hiccups." The Internet’s Pitchfork has called Calamity a struggle between "twee pop tendencies" and experimentation. And the American grocer’s Spin wrote that this 13 track album is "boisterous and inventive."
Maybe Calamity is best characterized as walking music for the mildly paranoid. Or maybe it’s minimalism falling apart – can that even happen? Why did the cymbal stop? I think it just did. Did I just see that same car on 13th Street? Huh. Whatever Calamity is, it’s not tragedy.
Ohp, there’s the cymbal.