DAILY NEWS PICKS

Danger Mouse (DJ From Gnarls Barkley) and James Mercer (Megalomaniacal Frontman of The Shins) Team Up For New Band, Broken Bells; Debut Released Early Next Year [Pitchfork]

Whoa, British Post-Punk Legends Echo & The Bunnymen Are Playing New York’s Tiny Lower East Side Club the Mercury Lounge On October 17; Tickets On Sale Friday – It’s Sure to Be One Mopey Evening [Brooklyn Vegan]

Lil Wayne To Appear On Weezer Track, “Can’t Stop Partying,” Off Upcoming Raditude; A Copy Of Pinkerton Rests At My Feet, As Smashed and Broken As My Once Youthful Heart (See, Rivers? Melodrama is Still Awesome…Go Back to It) [Spin]

Stream Pivot Covering Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House Closer “Colorado” – It’s Uhh…Really Slow. Slower Than the Original. Which Was Also Really Slow [Stereogum]

Electro-Hip-Hop Artist RJD2 Announces Follow-Up to 2007s God Awful The Third Hand; The Colossus Released January 19 (And Apparently Be Largely Sample Based…And Will Hopefully Not Feature RJ Singing; That Was a Bad Idea) [Pitchfork]

Watch Dirty Projectors Debut New Song Jimmy Fallon; Then Watch Them Do An A Capella Jam Backstage For ?uestlove; ?uestlove Recorded the Thing And Gets Pretty Liberal With His Excitement Over the Performance (i.e. Camera Shaking) [Brooklyn Vegan]

Stream New Burial Track “Fostercare,” From Upcoming 5 Years of Hyperdub Compilation; Feel Uncomfortable, Ghostly, and Surreal, and Then Get Psyched, Because How Else Should a New Burial Track Sound [Youtube]

compiled by Max Sebela

DAILY NEWS PICKS

Devastatingly Earnest Punk Rocker Ted Leo Signs To Matador; Announces It Via Devastatingly Earnest Blog Post ; New Ted Leo Album Due Out “Sometime In the Coming Spring” – Chances Are It Will Be Devastatingly Earnest [Brooklyn Vegan]

Justin Timberlake Set to Star As Napster Co-Founder Sean Parker in The Social Network, A Movie About The History of Social Networks…In a Post-Modern Twist, Since Justin Timberlake’s Music Was Downloaded On Napster, His Character May Have To Mention Downloading N*Sync Tracks; Brains Hurt [NME]

Kanye West and Lady Gaga Release Teaser Video For Upcoming “Fame Kills” Tour; Features What Looks Like Kanyes Hand Doing Unspeakable Things To Lady Gaga (Yeah, It is a Must-View) [Pitchfork]

Watch Video For Danish Rockers Mew’s “Repeaterbeater” – It’s Uhh…Really Weird (But It’s Got Ghosts! And Air Guitar!); No More Stories In Stores Now [Prefix]

Stream “Bad Lover,” A New Track From (REALLY REALLY GOOD) Brooklyn Duo Small Black (Did I Mention They Are Like…REALLY REALLY GOOD?); Small Black EP Released October 13 [Stereogum]

Philadelphia Dream Pop Act Sunny Day in Glasgow Looking For Another Singer, Even Though From the Sounds of Their Albums, They Already Have 30; Ashes Grammar In Stores Now [Brooklyn Vegan]

Stream Ben Gibbard’s and Son Volt Frontman Jay Farrar’s Collaboration, “These Roads Don’t Move,” Supposedly Based on Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur; Search For Kerouac References, Realize There Are None, And Accept That It’s Just a Twangy Death Cab Song [NPR]

Watch Trailer For Some Days are Better than Others, Starring Shins Frontman James Mercer and Sleater-Kinner Guitarist Carrie Brownstein; Better Yet, Watch This…It’ll Change Your Life, And Is Ostensibly The Same Thing [Pitchfork]

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees Announced; Among the Crappy Ones (cough Kiss), Are The Stooges, Donna Summer, and Laura Nyro; If Red Hot Chili Peppers Are Inducted Before The Stooges, Rock and Roll Has Lost All Meaning [Spin]

Remember The Last 48 Hours, As You Had To Cope With T-Pain Giving Up Autotune? Well, Breathe Easy…And Then Proceed To Take Your Shirt Off (T-Pain Said So) [Nappy Boy Online]

compiled by Max Sebela

TOP DOG
It’s been about a month since we last heard from our jilted friend Jesse Sandoval, and his expulsion from the Shins. And for those who found pathos (or at least interest) in his downgrade from the world of indie-rock stardom to the world of street taco vending, we have some good news. An update has been released on Sandoval’s truck, Nuevo Mexico – not by Rolling Stone or Pitchfork, but rather, by vendrtv.com, the web’s center for food served from shacks on the side of the road.

Dan Delaney has the ridiculous job of going around the country and testing out street food and, this week, his travels brought him to the door – I mean window – of Sandoval’s modest eatery. Instead of seeing a downtrodden Sandoval scooping ground beef into tortillas, we got a much different picture: Sandoval looks happy, and the food looks delicious. Most of the delicacies are made to order, and rather than being a cart jockey, Sandoval appears to be a fine cook.

Quality cart vending has become a full fledged sub-culture as of late, and since Sandoval has spent most of his adult life outside conventional living (and apparently has two generations of food carting in his genes), it’s something he’s taken to quite easily. Also, Sandoval has been a cook for the majority of his life, and even while with the Shins he would make meals for the band (how heartless are you, Mercer?), as well as for bands that were passing through town.

So the opening of Nuevo Mexico seems to have been a natural progression for the ex-Shin. Why doesn’t every town have delicious street food served by former rockers? Seems like a great idea to me – just as long as Fred Durst doesn’t open a ‘Limp Brisket’ somewhere.

Here’s a look at Nuevo Mexico:  http://vendr.tv/video/nuevo-mexico/

by Geoff Anstey

TOP DOG
In recent news, seminal indie rockers The Shins have broken up… well, not really. The band still exists, but frontman James Mercer has replaced keyboardist Marty Crandall and drummer Jesse Sandoval with Ron Lewis (Grand Archives, Fruit Bats) and Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse), respectively. When questioned on the matter, Mercer explained, “I started to have production ideas that I wanted to do that basically required some other people. It’s mainly about that. It’s an aesthetic decision.”

Hopefully ‘an aesthetic decision’ wasn’t meant as a cruel insult – Mercer is, after all, known to be pretty ruthless. What does seem particularly callous about the situation though, is that Sandoval was the co-founder of the band. In its infancy, The Shins was just a duo with Mercer and Sandoval playing gigs together; two comrades trying to make it work in the topsy-turvy world of indie pop. Now, with the band growing bigger, and Mercer’s new ‘production ideas,’ there no longer seems to be room for Jesse Sandoval – which begs the question, what will he do?

For those of you who read his name and immediately answered ‘sell tacos,’ not only are you racist, you’re also completely right. Sandoval will be opening a taco cart in his hometown of Portland, Oregon named Nuevo Mexico. Apparently, food carts are a big deal in Portland, so it’s not as much of a downgrade as it might sound. But unless this man really loves his tacos, going from the cries of ‘encore,’ to the cries of ‘extra salsa’ is going to sting a bit. If you’re looking to satisfy your hunger for Mexican cuisine from a former Shin, check out the corner of 3rd and SW stark in Portland – just don’t say that James Mercer sent you.

by Geoff Anstey

IN THE TUBE
Talk about a good week for me. A recap: first, there’s news of Bowerbirds’ sophomore album Upper Air arriving in July on Dead Oceans; then, a collaborative album between Justin Vernon and Collections of Colonies of Bees, not to mention a promise of new Bon Iver material tossing around inside Vernon’s head; now, The Shins’ James Mercer announces he’s set to begin recording his follow-up to Wincing the Night Away, that he’s written thirty songs, that The Shins will record the album with a new lineup. Just get me some new Phosphorescent, Nina Nastasia, and Tom Waits albums, and we’re talking best music year EVER. Not as in 2009, but rather, the year-long stretch wherein these albums will hopefully all come out. Anyway, you get the idea.

I love the Shins. I especially love Chutes Too Narrow and Wincing the Night Away. I don’t think anyone is capable of performing or composing pop melodies like James Mercer is – they’re epic, serpentine, and surprising. A typical Mercer melodic line will stretch itself out over an entire verse, which is what I’ve always been so impressed by: he writes some of the catchiest pop music around, but does it utilizing ambitious and difficult melodies that perhaps don’t even assert themselves on first listen because of their complexity.

Anyway, Mercer is also starring (with Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein) in Some Days Are Better Than Others, a feature directed by Matt McCormick. And here’s why I’m excited about this: The Interview. I don’t really know anything about it, save that it’s James Mercer interviewing James Mercer and, well, it makes me not only want to listen to the Shins but to be his BFF. I think he’s not only a very gifted comedic presence (honestly), but a cracker presence – period. That he can so effortlessly swap between a reserved, poetic sensibility and a lunatic comedic one, in, like, 6 minutes, is really impressive to me. I’m not sure how much exposure this has gotten online (surely a fair amount), but it seems definitely worth seeing, specifically for anyone who’s a fan of the Shins, etc., or who wants further reason to consider Mercer one of the greatest things we’ve got going. Some true-blue booty dance doesn’t hurt, either.

by Chris Kiehne