Music Notes: Hot Shows on Sale; Les Paul Google Doodle; & the Deal Sisters Turn 50

Happy 50th birthday to those rock & roll twins, Kim & Kelley Deal!

Here's a mish-mash of musical updates for June 10th...

* The most timely news involves some in-demand gigs that went on sale today:

• Black Angels and The Sadies at Maxwell's, July 15
  
• Detroit Cobras at Maxwell's, August 11
  (Also at Maxwell's: a third show with The Feelies has been added on July 3)
  
• Fleet Foxes and The Walkmen at Williamsburg Waterfront, Sept. 24

* Many work hours were no doubt lost on Thursday to employees playing around with the very cool Les Paul "Google doodle" featuring playable guitar strings (Les Paul, who died in 2009, would have turned 96 on Thursday). The guitar-string doodle was so popular that Google kept it as its logo on Friday, and now it has gone one step further: it has created a permanent home for the Les Paul guitar doodle, says the L.A. Times. You can find it, and play it, at www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

* And speaking of birthdays, June 10th marked The Big Five-0 for those rocking twin sisters, Kim and Kelley Deal. The Dayton, Ohio natives have been on the scene a long time, in bands from The Pixies and The Amps (Kim) to The Breeders (Kim and Kelley). (See the video for the Breeders' classic song, "Cannonball," above, from their Last Splash album.) Happy birthday and many more to the Deal sisters.

Free Music: New Podcasts with Frank Black, Blues, and XTC & Motown Covers

Above: The bluesy Roadhouse podcast is one of several offering tasty tunes this week.

The holiday season in the U.S. began right on schedule for music lovers with plenty of great new podcast episodes coming out in the last week or so. (And I haven't even begun looking into podcasts offering holiday music... that will be coming soon.) Here's what's come out recently:

The Pixies are on tour, but their leader Frank Black (under the name Black Francis) is about to come out with a limited release of Der Golem, Black's music to accompany the 1920 German silent film of the same name. The FrankBlack.net podcast previews the album, which they say will come in a box set with a run of 500 copies, in their 12/1 episode, titled "The Golem - Investigated!" There are intriguing tracks from the album that show a different side of Black's songwriting and performing talent, including straightforward rock and tunes with horns and a more orchestral feeling to them.

Speaking of Frank Black, there are a couple of Pixies covers on the latest edition of Coverville, the cover song podcast, "Outside there’s a cover request waiting" (12/1). A couple of November Coverville podcasts offer cover versions of two classic artists: Berry Gordy/Motown and '80s British rockers XTC.

Blues podcast The Roadhouse is out with episode #249 (11/28), with tunes from Moreland & Arbuckle, Sue Foley, Bob Brozman, Doug MacLeod, and The Holmes Brothers. Or check out other episodes, including #248, which features Elvin Bishop, Harrison Kennedy, Bessie Smith, Arthur Adams, and others.

2009 U.S. Tour Dates for the Pixies "Doolittle" Tour

A few weeks ago I mentioned that The Pixies were staging a reunion tour to mark the 20th anniversary of their "Doolittle" album, and were going on tour to play the entire album live. At that time only European tour dates were available, but a number of U.S. tour dates have been announced (they actually seem to have come out a few weeks ago, but I just found out about it today).

Here are the American dates for the "Dootlittle" tour (which will include B-sides and other tunes related to the album). Tickets for most of the dates are on sale already.

November
4th - Los Angeles, Calif. - The Palladium
8th - Oakland, Calif. - Fox Theater
9th - Oakland, Calif. - Fox Theater
12th - Seattle, Wash. - Paramount Theatre
13th - Seattle, Wash. - Paramount Theatre
14th - Eugene, Ore. - Hult Center
16th - Denver, Colo. - The Fillmore
20th - Chicago, Ill. - Aragon Ballroom
21st - Chicago, Ill. - Aragon Ballroom
23rd - New York, N.Y. - Hammerstein Ballroom
24th - New York, N.Y. - Hammerstein Ballroom
25th - New York, N.Y. - Hammerstein Ballroom
27th - Boston, Mass. - Wang Center
30th - Washington, D.C. - Constitution Hall

The Pixies Celebrate 20th Anniversary of "Doolittle" with a Tour

Here's something that will make a rock-music lover feel old: it's been 20 years since the release of "Doolittle," the landmark album by The Pixies. To celebrate the occasion, The Pixies are hitting the road for a special tour to play the entire "Doolittle" album live. Frank Black, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, and David Lovering will be playing a series of dates in October to play all the tracks on "Doolittle," and the setlist will include B-sides and other tracks related to the album.

"Doolittle" was the classic disc that gave us some of the most well-known Pixies tunes, such as "Debaser," "Wave of Mutilation," and "Here Comes Your Man," and others.

Tickets for the "Doolittle" tour are on sale now. Here are the tour dates so far (none in the U.S. yet, unfortunately):

OCTOBER
Thursday 1st - Olympia, Dublin, Ireland
Friday 2nd - Olympia, Dublin, Ireland
Sunday 4th - SECC, Glasgow, Scotland
Tuesday 6th - Brixton Academy, London, England
Wednesday 7th - Brixton Academy, London, England
Thursday 8th - Brixton Academy, London, England
Friday 9th - Brixton Academy, London, England
Sunday 11th - Jahrhunderhalle, Frankfurt, Germany
Tuesday 13th - Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Wednesday 14th - Forest National, Brussels, Belgium
Thursday 15th - Zenith, Paris, France

The Pixies are looking to keep busy in other ways, according to the fan-run site FrankBlack.net, which says that Black is also looking to hire out The Pixies to score movies. “The band needs to work with a film director. Quentin Tarantino or someone like that," the site says. "It’d be like, ‘Make some music for our film, you guys be the sound of the film.'”

Meanwhile, Pixies leader Frank Black is a busy man on the road as always, touring with his own solo shows (under the name Black Francis) and with his act Grand Duchy. He'll be doing a series of dates throughout the Midwest and Eastern U.S. until early August. You can find Black Francis tour dates on the FrankBlack.net Web site.

The FrankBlack.net Podcast is Back (and So is Frank Black)

After a nearly one year silence, the FrankBlack.net podcast is back with new episodes. With one host in the U.S. and the other traveling throughout Asia (and perhaps elsewhere), I guess it wasn't possible to produce the podcast, and the podcast's return, 4/1/08's "The Fools are Back," was itself a cross-continental collaboration between the two hosts, Dean and Brian. A second return podcast, "The Lost Podcast," came out on 5/14.

Frank Black himself has been busy as well (a new child has arrived in the Frank Black/Black Francis/Charles Thompson family), but Black has been working on new music as well. The new FrankBlack.net podcasts delve into this music, including the new album SVN FNGRS. These two podcasts also include some live performances and tracks from a project involving Frank Black and his wife Violet.

If you like The Pixies or Frank Black/Black Francis in any of his various musical projects, you'll definitely want to check out the FrankBlack.net Web site and podcast to catch up with his latest recordings and live shows.