Catbird HQ is a mess of cutting mats, glue, cases…this can only mean one thing: CBR 005 is just around the corner. It also means that we need to start being better about estimating how much manual labor it takes to pull off some of these hare-brained packaging ideas. Anyway, it should be a pretty big CBR summer: CBR 006 is set to be done right about the same time as CBR 005 (crazy!), and CBR 007 should follow really soon after. And 008, 009, and 010 are all already on the docket for the second half of the year!

I realize it’s hard to get excited by vague catalog numbers, but remember, patience is a virtue.

Hey, remember earlier this month? The post about Frightened Rabbit? Their full length, Sings The Greys, showed up in the mailbox the other day, and wow, goddamn, it’s a good one. I had no idea. You can check it out for yourself, the whole thing’s streaming over at the Hits The Fan Records site. I think I paid 13 pounds fifty for it, and I’ll tell you, it was worth every last p.

Good Hodgkins has been doing a lot of those group-type posts of late. The newest one is “cover songs,” and I my owe gratitude to my old interweb pal Lee, for hooking me up with my contribution mp3, which saved me from a long day of cursing/wire-wrangling/vinyl-ripping.

Ladies, try to contain yourselves when watching this video by Home. I realize that it’s incredibly sexy and enticing.

::: Home - “Bubbles” video (Quicktime) :::

Rich over at Cable & Tweed has mp3s of Destroyer live in Atlanta, 3-31-06.

So these dudes in this band Clawjob dropped me a line and asked if I’d be interested in checking out their new Intergalactic Rock Opera, Space Crackers. Of course, I’d be interested, DUH! Anyway, they sent me the disc, and I did in fact check out Space Crackers. Problem is, I don’t know how to describe it to you. Thus, I have developed a mathematical formula to explain:

You can download the first 1/4 of the story <a mce_thref=” />here.

Save up your pennies and stockpile your seizure medication.

Load Records is releasing a Paper Rad DVD on June 13th.

Here’s the Paper Rad - Trash Talking DVD Trailer (Quicktime).

Portland’s Holy Sons have a new record out on Italian label Awful Bliss. Technically, the CD’s not available in the US, but The Slight Record does have a handful of copies available right now for $10 PPD. Listen to this mp3 and you should pretty quickly be able to decide if you wanna grab one of those few available copies.

::: Holy Sons - Saccharine Trust :::

I honestly couldn’t tell you how many times I saw Brainiac back in the day, but it was *a lot*. Seems like they used play, like, every other week or something. Still, no matter how many times I saw them, I never stopped being totally freaked out by Monostereo, the bass player. His eyes were always rolled back in his head and he was always pumping his head and sweating profusely and etc. He was like a tweaker Cliff Burton.

Well, Monostereo’s got a new band called Model/Actress, their debut EP just came out on Thick Records, and it’s fairly Brainiacky, but still pretty much its own animal. Which is to say: it’s fairly good shit.

::: Model/Actress - Equestrian :::

The new Parenthetical Girls record I mentioned last month? They’ve just released an mp3 from it, and hey! It’s the sequel to my favorite track from (((GRRRLS))):

::: Parenthetical Girls - Love Connection pt. II :::

And obvs, some of you missed pt. I, so:

::: Parenthetical Girls - Love Connection (O Mix) :::

Points to them for one-upping the creepiness factor for this new cover. Safe As Houses is out June 27th on Slender Means Society.

The Foundry Field Recordings come from Missouri, and are Very Good Chaps^TM, from what I’m told. I have people in Missouri. I asked around. Anyway, it’s slightly bombastic indiepop, wanna hear?

::: The Foundry Field Recordings - Buried Beneath The Winter Frames :::

Their new record, Prompts/Miscues, comes out June 13 on Emergency Umbrella.

Now, on the other hand, I don’t have anyone to vouch for this guy Tim, who records as “Wrapping Paper.” He could be a complete nutjob for all I know. But I can tell he’s probably a fan of 70’s AM, Todd Rundgren, and Teenage Fanclub, and that’s good enough for me.

::: Wrapping Paper - Black Lace Shoes :::

Apparently, Subpop will be releasing a new Chad VanGaalen disc on 8/22, called Skelliconnection. They say it’s “culled from hundreds of songs Chad has recorded in over the last year or so”.

New Thermals the same day, how ’bout that? Here’s their old classic, because why the hell not?

::: The Thermals - No Culture Icons :::

Our old friend Magnus, aka Pet Politics, has just posted a new song to his Myspace called “The Spring”; go check it out. Hmm, I wonder if a new Pet Politics disc on Catbird Records is far off? Hmm, I wonder…

Well, we love Erlend Øye, so it stands to reason that we’re gonna love his new project, The Whitest Boy Alive. This one’s not softacoustic, nor sololectronic; it’s more, um, “regular band-y”. They’ve got tracks streaming at their Myspace, so go check ‘em out (the whiteboy funk groove of “Above You” burned itself into my skull after just a few listens). Their full-length, Dreams, is out June 1 on Service (well, probably not in the US, but c’mon, you should be import-saavy by now).

You may have caught the Golden Hours mention on Popsheep (thankfully back in a posty mood of late) recently, but maybe you missed it. If so, here’s one of the things you missed:

::: The Golden Hours - Shallow Breath :::

Sweet and lofi!

The Golden Hours are a threesome (no, not like that, you perv), consisting of Portlanders Eliza Sohn, Brian Yoder, and Mr. Raf Spielman (alias “Der Kommissar Rafschpielmann”), who you also know as the key-tickling dynamo for Get Him Eat Him. Their mini-album, Mystery and Her Crew, was originally released in 2005, on a limited-edition of 100 cassettes on L.A.’s Not Not Fun label. But realizing that it was silly to release it in such a small amount on cassette, they’ve just re-released it. In an edition of 100 CD-Rs.

Grab one while you can; they even come in lovely hand-screened sleeves. Five bucks-ish, just shoot an email to Raf.

Must be “Side-Project Announcement Day” or something…

Every Tuesday, Todd (the man known as “Arms” (hey, that’s synecdoche, baby!)) and Leah (who is an artist what draws pictures) meet up and write and record a song in one hour! Every song is about something that can fly. This project is dubbed The Sea & The Gulls, and I have selected a few tracks for you:

::: The Sea & The Gulls - Seagulls :::
::: The Sea & The Gulls - Bat Season :::

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, or 1/3 of the way around at least, Chris Magnusson, the golden boy of Hemstad, is working on his side project, Das Kometen, which is a sort of gay A-D-D disco / 80’s aerobics workout soundtrack for tweakers.

::: Das Kometen - Mhm…Yeah :::
::: Das Kometen - Mototrack :::

The video is essential viewing.

And I’ve been told that (probably maybe) very soon, there’ll be a Hemstad 12″ of all-new (or all-old) material coming out (probably) on a French record label (we think).

Everyone keeps writing me to tell me what a great summer-afternoon record the Hemstad CD is. I know, I know, right? It’s like a shot of Vitamin H up in ye. Cesar Millan is boycotting the Hemstad CD because it induces the opposite of “Calm, Submissive State.” A lady in Secaucus put the disc on, and her Corgi went spastic and tore her shins off. Sad.