Beck, Shins & Strokes Light Up SNL Compilation

The full track listing for Live From SNL! Music Performances From Saturday Night Live can be found below. The album will be released on September 9th at Targets all across the country. MP3 at bottom.

1 Avril Lavigne: "Girlfriend"
2 Kelly Clarkson: "Since U Been Gone"
3 Foo Fighters; "Best Of You"
4 Arctic Monkeys: "I Bet..."
5 Pink: "Trouble"
6 Beck: "Nausea"
7 Dave Matthews: "Save Me"
8 The Shins: "Phantom Limb"
9 The Strokes: "You Only Live Once"
10 Maroon 5: "Harder To Breathe"
11 Franz Ferdinand: "Take Me Out"

MP3: The Shins - Phantom Limb

The World Of B-Sides & Rarities, #110

The Shins - Little Boxes

The quartet tackles the Weeds theme song.

Enjoy the tune below. Photo courtesy of The Village Voice.

MP3: The Shins - Little Boxes

Man Man, The Shins & Joan Baez To Sing 'Weeds' Theme

This just in via Zap 2 It:

*The show's third season will kick off on Monday, Aug. 13 with Grammy and Oscar winner Randy Newman singing the semi-classic Malvina Reynolds track.

Following Newman, in no particular order, will be Joan Baez, Donovan, Billy Bob Thornton, The Shins, Michael Franti, The Individuals, Angelique Kidjo, Kinky and Man Man, Persephone's Bees. At least four more singers are bound to be brought into the fold, since "Weeds" is producing 15 episodes for this fall.*

Wooo!

Can't wait.

Previously: a selection of covers from Season 2 of the hit show.

MP3: Regina Spektor - Little Boxes

Balloons Plus The Shins Equals

I've never been a huge fan of The Shins (sue me) but I will admit that their latest video for Wincing The Night Away's second single, 'Australia', is adorable.

Watch the whimsical clip (which just got its debut today) below and dare to tell us you disagree...

The Shins, The Rapture & MTV Raise Darfur Awareness

Seems like this year's MTVU’s Campus Invasion tour, unlike years past, will actually help out a social cause (it's about damn time!). The shows (in 3 US cities) will assist in raising money & awareness for the ongoing crisis in Darfur; proceeds will benefit the Save Darfur Coalition. The organization will also have booths at the concerts where students can learn more about the cause.

The first show goes down at The Backyard in Austin April 22 and will feature the Shins, the Rapture, Shiny Toy Guns, and the Academy Is. The April 27 show at the Hi Fi Buys Amphitheatre in Atlanta is hip-hop-centric, with Rick Ross, Fabolous, Rich Boy, and DG Yolla. And April 29 at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia has Dashboard Confessional, K-os, Kenna, Gym Class Heroes, Augustana, and Kidz in the Hall. (dates/line-ups via Prefix)

MP3: The Rapture - Get Myself Into It

Can The Shins Pull Off A #1 Album??

Whoa!

Just when you thought it couldn't get any stranger. HITS is reporting that the new Shins album is on target to sell close to 100,000 copies this week! The (lackluster) SNL appearance and an 'impressive pre-order at iTunes' are the main reasons for the huge numbers, the article claims.

For anyone who's been following the current state of album sales, 60,000 is now enough to top Billboard's Album Sales chart (Dreamgirls and Chris Daughtry are currently #1 and 2 with figures close to that total). The only thing standing in the way for The Shins is R&B act Pretty Ricky whose numbers are being estimated around 110,000...

The massive first-week tally, regardless if it's at #1 or #2, will easily give Sub Pop their best selling debut week in its history.

New Shins Album Info!

I've kinda lost interest in them after Oh, Inverted World but lord knows you guys love 'em!

Straight from Billboard:

Indie rock kingpins the Shins stretch out on their third album, "Wincing the Night Away," due in January via Sub Pop. Save for a handful of backing vocals, the set is completely finished and will be mixed in the coming weeks in Portland, Ore. Frontman James Mercer tells Billboard.com the album will likely feature 10 songs and one short introduction.

"Wincing the Night Away" was initially expected this summer, then bumped to October and finally into early 2007, but Mercer says the extra time paid huge dividends for the band.

"It would have been great to have released this a year ago, but the benefits [of waiting] are big," he said backstage before the Shins' performance last night (Aug. 23) at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool. "I'm constantly reminded of how much better the project gets as new discoveries are made. That only happens through taking your time and being able to approach it with some new perspective."

Mercer is particularly enthused about the song "Phantom Limb," which he says was inspired from a production standpoint by early Jesus & Mary Chain albums. "The song is a hypothetical, fictional account of a young, lesbian couple in high school dealing with the sh*tty small town they live in," he says.

Elsewhere, "Red Rabbits" is what Mercer describes as "a strange, psychedelic piano number with this really tweaked out sound," while "Sea Legs" employs a hip-hop beat reminiscent of the Beta Band. "Spelling Lessons," "Spilled Needles" and "A Comet Appears" will also make the final cut.

"I was just talking to some of the people at Sub Pop who were listening to the rough mixes, and they agree with me that we've stretched," Mercer says. "We're trying some different styles."

"Wincing the Night Away" is the follow-up to 2003's "Chutes Too Narrow," which has sold more than 393,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It's also the band's final album under contract for Sub Pop, and although the Shins have not ruled out re-signing with the label, they are also entertaining other offers.

"We really like the more creative sort of ways people have been putting out their records lately," Mercer says. "People are owning their own masters and having distribution deals. That's real attractive. It's an expensive business. It's probably more expensive for the artists than anyone else."

A smattering of live shows are on tap in the next few weeks, as well as a Nov. 2 appearance at Sub Pop's showcase during the CMJ Music Marathon, but the Shins will hold off on extensive touring until the release of "Wincing the Night Away."

The Shins - When You Notice The Stripes

I'm your villain

*yawn*

Sorry, apologies once again for lethargy over the last month - I'm blaming my trip to Germany and that damned thesis which no-one else seems to want to write for me...


Anyway. I love Franz Ferdinand. I think they're great. I don't care that Q tells me that they've got no substance, or that what I think is intelligent- dancy- poppy- rocky- stompy- quoting German-y- hook- laden- tunage has been appropriated by the neds whom I had the misfortune of standing next to in Edinburgh. FF are awesome, and I can't wait for the new album, especially after luvin' new single Do You Want To? (Yes, Franz, I certainly do). Now I know that I wasn't overly gushing about seeing them in Edinburgh a month back, but to be honest, coming after the Arcade Fire, no-one was going to shine. Well, except maybe Belle and Sebastian.

So anyway, for your aural ecstasy, here are some links to some new FF material being hosted by BBC Colllective:

Do You Want To? [Real Media, Streamed] - [Quicktime video, Streamed]
I'm Your Villain [Real Media, Streamed]
Walk Away [Real Media, Streamed]

[Read the BBC Collective Review]

If I'm being honest, the real reason I have't been posting is because I've spent large amounts of time watching the first and second seasons of Scrubs. But thanks to that, I've been listening to The Shins rather a lot recently, so that's got to be a good thing. A friend of mine from New Mexico keeps telling me they're from Albuquerque; I have no reason to disbelieve him, but still I do. I like their winsome charm, and the way they go wooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooo-ooooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooo in New Slang. Here's a live DVD you can bittorrent.

A couple of Quick Ones

Jack White and Brendan Benson have called their side project the Raconteurs and have nearly finished recording their debut album (NME.com). I can't wait; Brendan Benson is a favourite of mine (since Lapalco, anyway) and a liking for the White Stripes needs no justification (although having said that, I haven't heard the new album, and new single 'Blue Orchid' has left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed; although I did just listen to it again on BBC Collective's playlist and quite enjoyed it; maybe it's a slow burner. Talking of that playlist, the Coral's 'In the Morning just came on; damn, that's good, and I don't really like the Coral).

Download some free mogwai tracks, and bask in their joy(?)

Got a conscience? Got guilt? Buy your music from warchild.

Watch the video for the Shins' So Says I at platesanimation.com and join me waiting pathetically for the awesome video for the Arcade Fire's Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out) which I've seen once before but can't find again... (sob)

Athlete play for KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic (streamed). Prompted by Q's article on Athlete this month, I had a listen to some of their second album Tourist on the way into work today. To be honest, I'd downloaded it and then it had got lost in the depths of my iPod, but had never really given it a decent listen (and to be honest, I still haven't); after Vehicles and Animals, which I really enjoyed even if I thought it was a bit, well, inoffensive, I'd thought that Tourist was just a bit... dull, to be honest. More Coldplay-lite. However, I think I was probably a bit unfair to damn them to the same brain-compartment as post-Good Feeling moan-rockers Travis, as Tourist has some lovely swooping choruses and a few decent hooks, although I don't think there's anything as good as the hooks of El Salvador and Vehicles & Animals.

*EDIT to say that after wasting much too much time looking for it, I finallly found the PlatesAnimation video for Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out); thanks go to the guys in the fora at Us Kids Know.*