Music Notes: Mindy McCready Dead; Alabama Shakes on "SNL;" New Music from Civil Wars, The Strokes, & More

Among the notes on new albums this post was going to report, there's a sad new bit of news: country singing star Mindy McCready was found dead of a gunshot wound Sunday, apparently self inflicted, at a home in Heber Springs, Arkansas.



The 37-year-old performer, best known for her mid-1990s hits such as "Guys Do It All the Time" and "Ten Thousand Angels," had a turbulent personal life following her initial professional success. There were problems with doing drugs and with trying to fraudulently buy OxyContin, as well as a custody battle (with her mother) over her oldest son, a drunk driving arrest, an overdose, and at least two suicide attempts.

It's sad to see such a talented and popular singer derailed by personal demons. R.I.P., Mindy McCready.

Here's some other recent music news, which all of a sudden doesn't seem so important...

* Alabama Shakes got a big publicity boost last night when they were the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live." The band, which played "Hold On" and "," was the number-one item on Google Trends, a listing of the most-searched-for topics on the world's leading search engine.



* Radiohead fans will be glad to know that Thom Yorke and the boys are planning to start work on a new album in September. (via Rolling Stone)

* British Sea Power is also coming out with a new album, "Machineries of Joy," and you can stream the title track at Consequence of Sound. (via Consequence of Sound)

* And there's more new music: The Strokes have released a new single, "All The Time," and the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett (who just won a Grammy with Taylor Swift for "Safe and Sound") also have a new song out. (via Rolling Stone)

* The word "out" is also associated with Lady Gaga, but not in a good way: the singer is out of action for the time being. She's been forced to cancel her entire current tour due to a tear in a hip muscle, which will require surgery. (via Consequence of Sound)

* Mudhoney is going on tour to support their latest album, "Vanishing Point." The Seattle band, one of the original grunge-rock bands from the 1990s, will play Bowery Ballroom on May 11th and Music Hall of Williamsburg the next night. (via Consequence of Sound)

NY Area Concerts On Sale: Radiohead, That Dog, Edward Sharpe, & More

Some big shows in the NYC area are going on sale Friday and Saturday, so here's a heads-up on a few of them, with links to tickets. The biggest event is Radiohead's return to the metro region with two concerts at Newark's Prudential Center, May 31st and June 1st. These are the first shows the band will play at The Pru, as well as the only New York area shows scheduled on this leg of their tour.

Indie rock favorites That Dog return for a concert at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

At the other end of the spectrum (in terms of commercial success, anyway) is the first East concert in more than 15 years by the much-loved 1990s indie rock band, That Dog. There's no words on whether the band will be mounting a full tour, but after doing at least a couple of reunion shows in L.A. last year, they're playing at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on May 25th. Comedian Fred Armisen of "Saturday Night Live" opens.

The members of That Dog have an impressive musical pedigree: frontwoman Anna Waronker is the daughter of record producer Lenny Waronker (and is married to Steve McDonald of Redd Kross); sisters Rachel and Petra Haden are daughters of famed bass player Charlie Haden.

• That Dog at Music Hall of Williamsburg, Thurs., May 24th. With Fred Armisen. On sale: Fri., March 9th, 12 Noon.
• Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros at Roseland Ballroom, Tues., May 8th. On sale: Fri., March 9th, 12 Noon.
• Zappa Plays Zappa at NYCB Theatre at Westbury, NY, Sat., June 30th (Dweezil Zappa and others playing the music of Frank Zappa). On sale: Fri., March 9th, 10 a.m.
• Radiohead at Prudential Center, May 31st and June 1st; with special guest Caribou. On sale: Sat., March 10th, 10 a.m.

For all those trying to get Radiohead tickets, let's hope that Ticketmaster is more prepared for the onslaught than it was for Springsteen tickets when they went on sale.

Coachella Announces 2012 Lineup; Expands to Two Weekends

Coachella fans, your wait is over: the lineup was announced last night for the festival's 2012 edition. For the first time ever, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will be held over two consecutive weekends, April 12th to the 15th and April 20th to the 22th. What's more, the lineups are exactly the same for each weekend (all bands playing on the first Friday are playing on the second Friday. etc.).

You'll see the full lineup in the poster below, and some of it in this post below the poster. (Since the poster photo here is small, see the Coachella site and click on the poster graphic at the lower left corner to see a larger version.) Check out the Coachella 2012 lineup in alphabetical order, with social media links for performers, on the festival's lineup page.

Coachella 2012 has a strong lineup each day.

Headliners for Coachella 2012 will be the Black Keys on Friday, Radiohead on Saturday, and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on Sunday. And the rest of the lineup is quite strong, too. Here's a brief look at some of the acts performing:

Friday: The Black Keys, Swedish House Mafia, Pulp, Refused, Arctic Monkeys, Mazzy Star, Afrojack, Explosions in the Sky, M83, Amon Tobin, Cat Power, Jimmy Cliff, Girls, and The Horrors.

Saturday: Radiohead, Bon Iver, the Shins, David Guetta, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Kaskade, Miike Snow, Jeff Mangum, Sebatian Ingrosso, Andrew Bird, Feist, Firehose, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, St. Vincent, SDTRKT, Kasabian, and Buzzcocks.

Sunday: Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, At the Drive-In, Justice, Florence and the Machine, AVICII, La Roux, Beirut, The Weeknd, Girl Talk, the Hives, DJ Shadow, Wild Flag, and Calvin Harris.

And those are just the acts listed on the top three of the six or seven lines on the Coachella poster. Other highly popular performers include groups that have headlines arena shows or have had well-reviewed albums that showed up on many "best-of" lists in 2011.

This includes Texas psychedelic rockers the Black Angels, the quirky Tune-Yards, British pop-folk singer Laura Marling, and the all-female Mexican garage-rock group Le Butcherettes, whose album "Sin Sin Sin" was named best of the year by Jim DeRogatis of the "Sound Opinions" music podcast.

It's not unusual for defunct bands to herald their return at big festivals, such as Rage Against the Machine did at Coachella a few years back. This year the much-admired post-hardcore band At the Drive-In, which split up more than a decade ago, announced its return with a new Twitter account (@AtTheDriveIn_).

Coachella is held at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, California. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific time.

Free Album Streaming: Radiohead Remixes; New Music from Indigo Girls, Dan Mangan, & More

The remix album of Radiohead's 'The King of Limbs" is one of the albums you can preview this week.

The new Radiohead remix album called "TKOL RMX 1234567" heads up the new releases that are up for online streaming this week. It features songs from the band's most recent album, "The King of Limbs," remixed by artists including Caribou, Four Tet, SBTRKT, and more. I'm generally not a fan of remixes (they generally come across like novelty songs to me), but since it's Radiohead I'll be giving a listen. OK, probably a few.

Paste says that the band had released a series of vinyl singles over the summer, each featuring a few of the remixes, and it is now assembling them into one double-length album, to be released Oct. 10th. To celebrate the occasion, Radiohead is holding a record release party the next night in London, featuring Thom Yorke and other artists playing DJ. (The article says it will be streamed online.)

What other new albums are streaming online this week: "Beauty Queen Sister" by Indigo Girls, "Reverie" by Joe Henry, "People and Things" by Jack's Mannequin, and "Oh Fortune," the latest by rising Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Mangan.

There's also the promising-sounding collection "Batman: Arkham City - The Album"with tunes by some of my favorite groups of the last few years: the Duke Spirit, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Raveonettes, and the Boxer Rebellion, as well as Coheed & Cambria and Panic at the Disco.

Spinner.com's Listening Party:
"TKOL RMX 1234567" by Radiohead
"Batman: Arkham City - The Album"by Various Artists
"Oh Fortune" by Dan Mangan
"Beauty Queen Sister" by Indigo Girls
"People and Things" by Jack's Mannequin

KCRW Album Preview: 
"On the Water" by Future Islands (streaming until Nov. 1)
"Reverie" by Joe Henry (streaming until Nov. 1)

Alright, what new albums are you looking forward to hearing or buying this week?

Music Notes: Radiohead Plays Roseland, Arcade Fire Wins Polaris, $5 MP3 Albums

Radiohead video for "Lotus Flower" from their most recent album, "The King of Limbs."

Radiohead playing two shows at Roseland next week and Arcade Fire taking home the Polaris Prize headline this latest edition of Music Notes. Also in this edition: last call for Amazon.com's $5 MP3 album salefor September.  

* Radiohead is returning to New York for two shows at Roseland Ballroom on Sept. 28th and 29th. Roseland isn't exactly an intimate setting, but it's much smaller than the arenas the band is capable of selling out. There have been a couple of presales for the shows, but if you misssed out on those you can get Radiohead at Roseland tickets here at 10 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 26th.

All tickets are priced at $79.75 ($65 base price plus $14.75 in fees).

Note: an announcement on Radiohead's website says: "There is a 2 ticket limit per household. All tickets will be available for pick up at will call the evening of the event beginning at 6:30 PM and entry into the venue is required immediately upon receipt. No tickets shall be distributed prior to the event."

You can also get a shot at winning tickets to the concerts by contributing to L.A. radio station KCRW (a very worthy cause). Enter for a chance to win Radiohead at Roseland tickets here (enter by 3 p.m. Eastern time on Monday).

Also on the bill with Radiohead are Four Tet and rocketnumbernine.

* Arcade Fire took home the 2011 Polaris Music Prize for best Canadian album, which could be considered something of an upset since the award prides itself on going to the most deserving candidate based only on artistic merit, regardless of commercial success. (In the past more well-known acts have lost out to relatively obscure artists; last year's winner, the francophone group Karkwa, beat out albums by Broken Social Scene, Tegan and Sara, and The Sadies.)

Big congrats to Arcade Fire on taking home the Polaris (and the $30,000 prize).

* Amazon.com's $5 MP3 album salefor September is in its final week. If you're looking to expand your music collection on the cheap, you'll find albums there by artists including Mumford & Sons, The Decemberists, Feist, Fitz & the Tantrums, Regina Spektor, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Blind Pilot, Surfer Blood, Richard Buckner, and TV on the Radio.

Are you going to try to get tickets to see Radiohead at Roseland next week? What shows are folks exciting to see this weekend?

Radiohead Makes Its New Album, "The King of Limbs," Available for Pre-Order

Radiohead has made its latest album, titled "The King Of Limbs," available for pre-order. If you were hoping this would be another pay-what-you-wish arrangement unlike "In Rainbows," well, you're out of luck.

The band is at first making the album available only as a digital download and as part of a "newspaper album" package. This includes a CD, digital, and vinyl versions of the album (two clear 10-inch vinyls disks); a special record sleeve to hold the vinyl; and "many large sheets of newspaper artwork, 625 tiny pieces of artwork, and a full-colour piece of oxo-degradable plastic to hold everything together," according to the official "The King of Limbs" website.

Buying just the digital download without all the fancy packaging costs $9 U.S. for MP3 and $14 for WAV. Customers who pre-order "The King Of Limbs" will be able to download the digital versions on Saturday, Feb. 19th.

Buying "The King Of Limbs" through this pre-order "newspaper album" will cost either $48 or $53 for U.S. customers, depending on whether you go for the MP3 or WAV format.

But if you'd like a physical product but don't want to shell out the extra bucks for the photos, vinyl, etc., don't worry: "The King of Limbs" will be on sale in regular CD and 12-inch vinyl on March 28th "in all good record stores" (however one defines that). And, I would assume that the digital versions will be for sale on iTunes and Amazon.com's MP3 store.

As much as I like Radiohead, I'll opt for the plain old CD or digital download, rather than going for the "newspaper album."

Music News: New Phish CD, No More Radiohead Albums, Woodstock’s Forgotten Man, and Michael Jackson Concert

This week's developments in the music world involve everything from '60s classics to today's alt-rock groups.

Vermont jam-rock band Phish will release its new album "Joy" on Sept. 8th. Paste Magazine says that fans can buy the album in "CD, vinyl records, or splurge on the Joy Box, containing an explosion of Phish paraphernalia, including a second album, Party Time, just in case Joy alone doesn't cut it." Phish worked on the album with producer Steve Lillywhite, who also produced their 1996 album as well as recordings from U2, Dave Matthews, and other big names.

Thom Yorke has said in an interview that Radiohead will release no more full-length albums. The article in Believer quotes Yorke as saying that recording full-length albums had become "a drag" and that the band will instead focus on producing EPs and downloadable singles, such as their new “Harry Patch (In Memory Of),” a tribute to the recently deceased last British veteran of World War I.

It's the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, and the Wall Street Journal has an article on Bert Sommer, which it calls "Woodstock's Forgotten Man." The musician, who performed on the iconic festival's first day, wasn't represented on the Woodstock albums, and the article says his name was even omitted from the original commemorative plaque placed at the site of the concert. Though he recorded a few albums, he never became widely known, and died in 1990. A friend created a tribute Web site to him, www.BertSommer.com.

Michael Jackson will be getting a tribute concert fit for the King of Pop, an affair in the lavish Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna, home to the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Jermaine Jackson, the oldest brother of Michael, is lining up artists to perform at the gig, which may attract an audience of "at least 85,000."

British folk-rocker and activist Billy Bragg criticizes the record labels for trying to sic Internet providers on illegal music downloaders. In an article in The Guardian, Bragg says that while he is opposed to copyright infringement, record labels and Internet companies shouldn't be penalizing music fans. He suggests that "Clearly, some form of P2P subscription service is the way forward, if only because it provides the most convenient way for consumers to access music."

All Points West Wrapup: Looks Like a Winner

The sets went off on time, the weather mostly cooperated, and the inaugural All Points West Festival has attracted good notices.

There was some griping, of course, mainly about the long walk to mass transit (the promised shuttle buses were nowhere in sight) and about the restrictive drinking policy (attendees had to line up to get wristbands to drink, then were limited to five beers a day, which had to be consumed in fenced-in pens). Other reviewers noted that for the price ($89 per day), the festival should have have more big-name artists, which I can agree with to a point. But seeing festival-length sets from a number of groups I'd been interested in, plus what was pretty much a full Radiohead concert, seemed like a fair bargain to me.

For a first-year festival with dozens of acts spread over three days, I thought the session I attended (Friday) was very well run. Entertainment Weekly offered a review of Friday's All Points West show, while reviews of Saturday's proceedings were available from sources ranging from The New York Times, Yahoo, and The Gothamist, which summed up Saturday's show as "more Radiohead, more crowded."

Friday's show did seem sparsely attended (walk-up tickets were available at least as late as 2:30 p.m.); I guess not enough people have summer hours on Fridays.

New Jersey's Star Ledger offered a hometown review of the festival, noting that the organizer of All Points West (and Coachella) is a Jersey native.

I'll have more later on the specific sets I enjoyed most.

Radiohead (and Lots More) at All Points West: Friday Tickets Still Available

If you're a Radiohead fan and will be in the New York area Friday, you can still get tickets to see the band... and a whole bunch of other great musicians... at the inaugural All Points West Festival at Liberty State Park, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.

You can buy tickets for All Points West at Ticketmaster. If there are any tickets available as of tomorrow, they'll also be on sale at the gate.

Radiohead is the All Points West headliner and is scheduled to perform from 8:30 to 10:30. Other bands on Friday's bill (which starts at 1 p.m.) include The New Pornographers, Underworld, Duffy, Girl Talk, Mates of State, The Duke Spirit, and CSS.

You can get to All Points West easily by ferry or by the light rail system, which goes right to the park. From NYC, you can connect to the light rail via the PATH trains.

Set Times Published for the All Points West Festival

The set times have been announced for next weekend's All Points West Festival in Liberty State Park, one of the most high-profile music festivals to take place in the New York area for some time. With any luck, it will be a recurring event.

You'll find set times for all three days of All Points West at the Festival's Web site. I'm going Friday and am getting excited about seeing many of the acts, but as with any multli-stage festival, there is of course at least one conflict (Go! Team and The Duke Spirit are playing at almost the same time).

Radiohead, the headliner for Friday and Saturday, is scheduled for 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. both nights. Maybe it will be two 45-minute sets with a break in between?

Tickets were previously sold out for Saturday, but I got an e-mail today saying that record companies had released some tickets, so apparently it's no longer sold out. Friday still hasn't sold out from what I've heard, so if you're interested in hearing Radiohead and a bunch of other artists, by all means head to the All Points West Web site.

Should be a great (and long) day of music. Considering that I'll be outside for more than 10 hours hearing live music, I'm praying for good weather.

All Points West Festival - Tickets on Sale

The first annual All Points West Festival featuring Radiohead will be held this August in Liberty State Park, and tickets are on sale now! Here is the link to the line-up for all three days, August 8, 9, and 10 (that's Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).

Liberty State Park is a beautiful park in Jersey City, New Jersey, not a place normally associated with natural beauty, but it's a big park area right near Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I've watched Fourth of July fireworks there several times.

Radiohead is the lead act on Friday and Saturday, while Jack Johnson is the Sunday headliner. Single-day tickets are $89 at Ticketmaster (plus the usual service charges, handling fees, etc. etc.)

Also on the bill are The New Pornographers, Sia, The Black Angels, Metric, and Mates of State, and Cat Power.

Radiohead U.S. Tour Dates On Sale On Its W.A.S.T.E. Site

Radiohead's U.S. tour dates were recently announced, and tickets are now available for presale (starting Feb. 14th) through the band's curiously named W.A.S.T.E. (or WASTE) Web site, the same site that sold its "In Rainbows" pay-what-you-want album download. The public sale starts on Feb. 16th.

NME.com lists the U.S. dates here, noting that the band will be adding more stateside gigs after it plays some dates in Europe.

Radiohead "In Rainbows" Download Goes Off On Schedule

As everyone in the world now knows, Radiohead decided to offer its new album, "In Rainbows," exclusively on through its Web site on a pay-what-you-want download. Meaning that it could be a free download if you choose to pay nothing.

Well, Radiohead was true to its word: it said the download of "In Rainbows" would begin on Oct. 10th, and those who ordered the new album online did indeed receive an email from the band this morning saying that the album was ready for download.

I ordered the album and received the download email the morning of the 10th. Downloaded the zipped filed took a few minutes, then I unzipped the file and found myself with 10 brand-new Radiohead tunes on DRM-free MP3.

"In Rainbows" is still available for free download, or paid download, at www.inrainbows.com.

At Radiohead's Web site you can find information on Radiohead tour dates, announcements, links to other Radiohead sites, and more.