Bits: Music for Alabama, Mike Watt, Vic Chesnutt, Boston Spaceships, Urge Overkill, Rockhall

  • Artist from across the country have contributed to The Wind Will Carry the Voice of the People, a Bandcamp compilation to aid the tornado-ravaged areas of Alabama. All proceeds go to the Red Cross.
  • Mike Watt + the missingmen will perform Watt’s 3rd opera hyphenated-man in its entirety on KXLU on May 19 at 10 PM PST.
  • plan9films is making a documentary about the late Vic Chesnutt tentatively titled Vic Chesnutt – It Is What It Is. MusicFilmWeb reports that Michael Stipe has signed on as executive producer. The film is to be released later this year.
  • In 1986, Black Flag went on tour with Painted Willie and Gone. Painted Willie’s drummer, David Markey, filmed it. He’s now made his tour documentary Reality 86’d available to view on Vimeo.
  • Robert Pollard’s band Boston Spaceships will be release a new album, Let It Beard (how great is that title?), on August 2. Guttersnipe has a tracklisting, as well as a little commentary from Pollard.
  • Urge Overkill have released Rock & Roll Submarine, their first album in 16 years. You can check out a track, “Mason/Dixon”, at My Old Kentucky Blog.
  • Scene Magazine reports that, as promised, the next Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place back in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 14 at Public Hall.

Bits: Cleveland Confidential, Robert Pollard, Beastie Boys, Jay Reatard, The Dirtbombs, The Due Diligence, Grandfather, Record Store Day

  • While I was too late to alert you to the Cleveland Confidential Book Tour‘s stop at the Rockhall and its attendant webcast (which was great), the tour – which features Cheetah Chrome (Rocket from the Tombs, the Dead Boys), Mike Hudson (The Pagans) and Bob Pfeifer (Human Switchboard) reading from their respective books – stops at the Ann Arbor District Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, tonight (April 12) at 7 PM. And if you’re in Los Angeles, California, on Thursday (April 14), you can catch the tour with featured guest Dave Thomas (Rocket from the Tombs, Pere Ubu) at the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live at 7:30 PM.
  • Speaking of Ohio, you can download a few mp3s from various projects of human music machine Robert Pollard.
  • If you somehow haven’t heard it yet, you can check out a leaked track, “Make Some Noise”, from the forthcoming Beastie Boys’ album Hotsauce Committee Part Two on their Tumblr.
  • Jay Reatard documentary Better Than Something will debut at the Nashville Film Festival this Friday, April 15 at 7 PM. (You can check out Waiting for Something a short documentary from the same filmmakers here.)
  • The Dirtbombs have announced a handful of tour dates, kicking off in Detroit, Michigan, at the end of May.
  • The Due Diligence will be playing a double record release show with the Shivers on May 29 at the Mercury Lounge in New York.
  • Grandfather will be playing a free show at The Shop in Brooklyn, New York, on April 23. This will be their first show with their rejuvenated lineup of Joshua Hoffman (vocals), Michael Kirsch (guitar), Phil Sangiacomo (drums) and Justin Mantooth (bass).
  • Record Store Day is this Saturday, April 16, and The Numero Group pop up store in Chicago, Illinois, has a unique offer available.

Bits: Roky Erickson & the Black Angels, Robert Pollard, the Black Keys, the Low Anthem

  • Roky Erickson and the Black Angels: Night of the Vampire is now on Pitchfork’s One Week Only.
  • Paste shares the details on Robert Pollard’s latest batch of releases. Solo album on 1.18, Lifeguards on 2.15 and Mars Classroom on 3.29.
  • The Black Keys returned to the KCRW studios yesterday. You can watch or listen here.
  • If you haven’t yet grabbed the free download of “Ghost Woman Blues” from the forthcoming Low Anthem album, Smart Flesh, you can hear it while watching their beautiful video.

Bits: Robert Pollard, Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival, Big Boi, Local Natives

Bits: mr. Gnome EP, Wayne Coyne is a model citizen, new Bonnie Prince Billy Daytrotter session, new Bob Pollard, Hell and Half of Georgia’s first show

  • Clearly Alarm has good taste as they have voted mr. Gnome’s Tastes Like Magic EP one of the best albums of the week.
  • The Flaming Lips are always popping up in the most unexpected places. Model citizen Wayne Coyne could be seen last Sunday evening on Extreme Home Makeover as he donned hard hat and worked volunteer labor to help build a home. NTSIB is not choked up. We’re just clearing our throat.
  • Daytrotter trotted out (Ha! Get it? …the time change is making us loopy…) a new session with Bonnie Prince Billy yesterday. They’re at SXSW right now taping more great sessions to share with us, by the likes of Phosphorescent and Blair and more.
  • It feels like cheating to announce that Bob Pollard has a new album on the way since you could say that at any time of the year and have it be true. Still, it’s worth noting that you can preview a couple of tracks from the upcoming Circus Devils on Mr. Prolific’s website. They’re hot.
  • Even though we weren’t able to be there, NTSIB is very excited that our friends Hell and Half of Georgia played their first show this past Saturday. Check out a video from the show:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWvNPiLkcLE]