Tracklist for Royal City’s Little Heart’s Ease (and mp3):

1. Bring My Father A Gift [mp3]
2. Jerusalem
3. She Will Come
4. Count the Days
5. Can’t You
6. Cabbage Rolls
7. My Body Is Numbered
8. O Beauty
9. Ain’t That The Way
10. That My Head Were A Spring
11. Enemy
12. Take Me Down To Yonder River

Murmur has a
couplathree live tracks from a Dec. 2002 performance by Iron & Wine.

Over at In Music We Trust, you can check out a new track from
Matt Sharp’s upcoming s/t full-length.

(I’m still digging “Goodbye, West Coast“, too)

And holy shit, I just noticed that you can buy Destroyer’s 2000
disc, Thief, over at the Merge Store; I had thought
that shit was long out of print!

Finally got to see that video for
Royal City’s “Bad Luck“. Cute. It’s one of my favorite songs ever. Little Heart’s Ease is out June 8th on Rough Trade.

The much-anticipated-by-some Bright Eyes/Neva Dinova split will be is out
on Crank next week. CD or
the ever-popular limited 10″. It’s not one of those halfsies things,
it’s a full on Co-lab, much like the split Conor did with Britt D on
Post-Parlo. Anyhow, mp3s:

And The Shins will be performing “So Says I” on
Gilmore Girls tonight. I’ve never watched
that show, but I’ve always assumed it’s about as much fun to watch as The Waltons.

Startime, at some point, posted the
“solo” version of The Fiery Furnaces‘ “Tropical Iceland”, from
their old Supercuts comp.

The incredibly exciting Minus Story Release Party.

Two songs from Bro. Danielson’s new record, Brother Is To Son,
have been posted:

And sample a few tracks from the upcoming Jagjaguwar release by
The Pink Mountaintops, who are described by the question,
“Can a sexually frustrated Canned Heat seduce a hot and bothered Neu into a cheap one night stand?”

I never even bothered to check out The Grey Album, but I’d be remiss if I failed to mention this: Pavement + The Black Album = The Slack Album. (thx stereogum)

Rough Trade’s limited 10″ vinyl of
The Hidden Cameras Play The
CBC Sessions is out this week. Limited to 1000, so get on it. The 6 tracks are pulled from a 2002 session, which
you can actually listen to, in its entirety, right here,
though you should note, it’s in “Real” format. Yick.

Tracklist:
1. Worms Cannot Swim Nor Can They Walk
2. Music Is My boyfriend
3. Boys Of Melody
4. Breathe On It
5. Day Is Dawning
6. Shame

I celebrated my birthday Wednesday in Pittsburgh
watching The Bigger Lovers and
The Pernice Brothers. I think you’d be
hard pressed to find two more rock-solid bands. It was a good birthday.

Pernice Bros. Dates:
04/09 New York NY - Bowery Ballroom w/ Kevin Devine + Lambchop
04/10 Cambridge MA - The Middle East w/ Lambchop + Long Winters
04/12 Albany NY - Valentines w/ Long Winters
04/13 Philadelphia PA - NXNW w/ Long Winters
04/14 Charlottesville VA - Starr Hill Music Hall w/ Long Winters
04/15 Washington DC - Black Cat w/ Long Winters
04/16 Chapel Hill NC - Cats Cradle w/ Long Winters
04/17 Athens GA - Tasty World w/ Long Winters
04/18 Nashville TN - Exit/In w/ Long Winters
04/19 Memphis TN - Hi-Tone w/ Long Winters
04/20 St. Louis MO - Off Broadway w/ Long Winters
04/22 State College PA - Darkhorse Tavern w/ Bullet Parade + Bigger Lovers

The Bigger Lovers are pretty much off the road for the moment, but I believe they’re going
to be touring with Grand Champeen some time
in the near future, so keep your eyes open.

dios on Morning Becomes Eclectic. [via Miss M.]

I would tell you that you can now stream Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born over at the Wilco site, except the Wilco site’s pretty much unreachable right now, due to all the traffic from people streaming A Ghost Is Born.

The first single from Communique’s upcoming album, Poison Arrows,
has been posted. More sweet sweet pop. I heard that all the girls think the keyboard player is really cute.

And a track from the upcoming French Kicks album, The Trial Of The
Century, is up too. Check it:

Ben Kweller’s new record, On My Way, is out
today. You can stream some of the tracks over at the BK e-card page. (and here’s an mp3 of “Hospital Bed”, courtesy of esselle.)

Merge’s redesigned site is live now.

Britt Daniel’s out for a short solo tour in
a week or two. Dates:

Apr 15 - Tucson, AZ - Solar Culture
Apr 17 - Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland
Apr 19 - San Francisco, CA - Hotel Utah
Apr 21 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah
Apr 23 - Phoenix, AZ - Stinkweed’s

Last night I went to see Burd Early
w/ The Strugglers and
Parker Paul. Was nice. I really
dig Burd Early’s quietish sangin. You should check ‘em too, if you’re into
that. There’s an assload of tourdates
here.

Q. What separates your favorite “indie” music magazine from the corporate music mags like Spin?

A. About an inch of rack space at the Virgin Records Enormo Mega Store.

Contrary to popular belief, indie rock *is* about glossy full page ads, backroom deals, and sneaky marketing tricks. Lucky for us, Ben & Co. over at Nude As The News pulled together a 2003 annual featuring some of the best legit indie music writing still out there (except 75 Or Less, whose corporate asses are owned by ______). Measure is available for ’bout $8 over at (ahem) Insound.

Elf Power’s new record, Walking With The Beggar Boys, is out tomorrow.

And Of Montreal’s new one, Satanic Panic In The Attic, is out tomorrow as well.
Polyvinyl is offering limited colored vinyl, with a bonus 7″ featuring “Everything About Her Is Wrong” b/w “The Pimps Are Simpering”.
Further, the album will also be bundled with an extra 4-song covers EP, if purchased via mailorder or at an indie record shop.
The EP features “Know Your Onion” (The Shins), “Spanish Dance Troupe” (Gorky’s), “Delinquency” (V-Twin), and “Color Me In” (Broadcast).
Here’s your MP3:

And, the dios enhanced press kit.