Royal City’s all over the Toronto
papers this week: The Star,
Eye, and Now (thx Frank).
They play the first night of the Three Gut Anniversary Party tomorrow night in Toronto. Little Heart’s Ease is out June 8th.

AFAIK, used to be, there was just Matthew, and he had
this cool blog where he’d post a few songs he liked, along with a little bit of commentary.
Well, in case you missed it, there are about 9 bazillion other blogs doing exactly the same
thing now. If you go here,
you can plunder a whole assload of links to these mp3 blogs. (thx lhb).
Thom, the guy who runs that site, also believes that mp3 blogs are protected by fair use,
which is probably a tricky position to debate. In any case, I think Benjamen’s piece
for NPR was probably first really insightful discussion about the legal issues surrounding this stuff.

Pre-order PJ’s Uh Huh Her (out 6/8) over
at Inshmound, and get yisself a bonus 7″ w/three non-album tracks: “The Phone Song”, “Bows & Arrows”, and
“The Falling”.

2 more tracks from the upcoming New Year record:

You can also order the Kadane’s soundtrack to “Hell House” over at the Plexifilm store. (via slatch).

Philadelphia’s Brian McTear, aka Bitter Bitter Weeks,
will have a new album July 19th on My Pal God. Mp3:

Parasol has posted the full info
for the new Unbunny record. There’s one more new track there to sample,
“I Leave Stones Unturned”, though sadly it’s in Asx (a.k.a. “Ass”) format, of course.

More details have surfaced re: that Believer music issue I
mentioned a couple weeks back. In addition to a David Berman contribution of some type (poetry’s likely)
the issue includes interviews w/ David Byrne, Colin Meloy, Q-Tip, plus also more. Included on the
bonus CD are tracks from Death Cab, TVOTR, Iron & Wine, M Ward, and others.

M Ward also appears on the new
Court and Spark EP, Dead Diamond River, out June 15
on Abs Kosh.

Nick, in typical fashion, has managed to put into words the
exact thoughts I’ve been having about the new French Kicks record.

Nice Mountain Goats essay over at
Salon Blorg. (via tim (btw, welcome back, tim)).

NYC Reminder: The inaugural Andrew Spencer show takes place
tomorrow night:

Tues May 25, 2004 – New York, NY – The Knitting Factory (Tap Bar)
Doors 7:30 / Surveyor 8:00 / Andrew Spencer 9:00 / Trumystic 10:30 / L Maestro Presents 11:30 – $6

And that Thermals mp3 from the other day is workin’ now (scroll down).

Big thanks to Keith for the tip-off about these
lovely Edith Frost demos
over at archive.org.

And thanks to Adam for letting me know about this page, hosting new
tracks by Justin Roelofs (ex-singer for The Anniversary). I know they’re always pegged as emo, and granted,
they were on Vagrant, but the only record of theirs I ever heard was the final one, Your Majesty, and that one
was a sweet-ass slab of indiepop if you ax me. Anyway, here’s a nice one from Justin, kinda Folk Implosion-y:

I was holding off posting about The Trouble With Sweeney’s new EP, Fishtown Briefcase,
until I had tracked down an mp3. Lo and behold, Gramophone posted one today: “Evelyn Rochman“.
Also, you can watch the video for “The City Let Me” here. For
your personal edification, a Fishtown Briefcase = a 30-pack of Miller High Life.

And those other Philly representaz The Bigger Lovers recently appeared on the Three Chord Monte
show on WFMU. Their set kicks in at about the hour-thirty mark.

FWIW, Ted Leo finally got those new demos posted:

There’s a track from the upcoming PJ Harvey album, Uh Huh Her, posted over
at Talkie Walkie.

Not sure how long that link will last, but my guess is “not long”, considering
that PJ is on Island Records, who I’m sure have lawyers.

Also up for a ltd. time over at Stereogum: the
Decemberists track from the new Kill Rock Stars comp, Tracks and Fields.

A song from the new Thermals record, Fuckin A:

(Link’s not quite working yet. Let’s be patient and see what happens.)

Next week, Blonde Redhead will be releasing the
second single from their most-excellent Misery Is A Butterfly. Equus will be
available as digital, 7″, or CD, and the b-sides are “Messenger” (performed by David Sylvian), and “Melody”
(French version). You can check out the video here. It
was animated by the same guy that did that Franz Ferdinand video.

And if you click here, you can watch a 5-minute promo spot that Isaac and his
buddy put together to promote Modest Mouse’s Good News for blah blah blah.

While the gettin’s good, you should hie thee o’er to TTIKTDA to grab
two songs from the upcoming Fiery Furnaces record. He’s got “I Lost My Dog” and
“Inspector Blancheflower”. Blueberry Boat was originally slated for a July release (and still may be); however, the UK
release date now reads September 6th. Either the US release is preceding the UK release by 2 full months, or the date’s been
pushed to September for everyone. In any case, you’ll be able to tide yourself over in June when Rough Trade
releases a new Fiery Furnaces single, Single Again.

Also in September (on the 28th), we should be seeing the full-length from the
Robbers On High Street, on New Line/Scratchie.

And I dug up an mp3 from that Ponys disc:

Videos of Devendra Banhart, live at the Spin offices.

Over at the K site, Calvin has posted a bunch of material from the original Sub/Pop zines from the 80s.

Matt Pond PA’s site has had a nice-lookin’ do-over. You can swing by and paypal the new record, Emblems, for 10 bucks.

Bejar plans on returning to the studio after the tour to begin practicing new material and to re-record selections from Your Blues with Frog Eyes for a possible EP to be released on Merge Records early next year.

Next week you can pick up the new McLusky album, The Difference Between Me And You Is That I’m Not On Fire. For now, here’s an mp3:

If all the TV commercials, ever-swelling “festival” sizes, and the O.C. weren’t enough
to convince you that indie rock is the hottest new mass market consumable, maybe an
article in NEWSWEEK will do it
for you.

You probably already read this one about 9 hours ago: Sufjan and Merritt talk about stuff.

Ju miss that Spoon/BK episode of Austin City Limits? No
worries, it’ll be airing again May 22nd. Check your local listings and whatnot.

And I smell a Believer Music Issue coming next month, complete with free CD featuring I-have-no-idea-what-as-yet.