Acclaimed rock band Low has some tour dates on the horizon. The band has been playing a lot of shows at festivals but these are mainly headlining dates. If you’re not familiar with the band, they blend melodic guitar with stark minimalism that creates a somber, quiet atmosphere.

08-27 Saint Paul, MN - Turf Club (Eight Is Enough benefit)
09-11 Tel Aviv, Israel - Barby Club
09-13 Dorset, England - End of the Road Festival
09-17 Chicago, IL - Epiphany (”An Evening With Low”)
09-18 Detroit, MI - UFO Factory *
09-20 Monticello, NY - Kutshers County Resort (ATP New York)
09-22 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge (”An Evening With Low”)
09-23 Brooklyn, NY - Union Hall (”An Evening With Low”)
09-24 Boston, MA - Remis Auditorium at the Museum of Fine Arts #

* with His Name Is Alive
# with Tulsa

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Stereogum is having  a giveaway through their monthly newsletter and this time its a guitar. The guitar in question is an Epiphone SG, not the nicest guitar ever but very nice for free!

“You can learn more about it here. Speaking of knowledge gathering, maybe you can learn a Scars On Broadway song or two. The band’s the new collaboration between System Of A Down’s Daron Malakian and John Dolmayan. They mention Iggy Pop, David Bowie, and Neil Young as influences on the new material, opened for Metallica last month and have a debut out 7/29 on Interscope. Take a listen. Practice. The winner gets the guitar and a copy of Scars On Broadway’s self-titled debut.”

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Stereogum has a very interesting post up today, which essentially is a link to a bootleg of a Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks performance at The Siren Festival from July 19th.

This is interesting because not only is a pretty official website posting a bootleg, but during the performance the band played a new song, not yet released titled “Astral Facial”.

Also of note is the picture above from the post, where it appears that Stephen Malkmus is playing a Japanese Fender Stratocaster, the kind I am always looking for because of the smaller neck radius.

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Pitchfork Media has already gotten around to compiling a 2008 list and its only July! Anyway, the list is for “Overlooked Records” and includes a personal favorite of mine…Earth’s “The Bees Made Honey In The Lions Skull” and others such as “Rook” by Shearwater.

They also included the newest release by The Mae Shi, who I think are terrible hipster crap, I think the record is meant to be overlooked. Different strokes for different folks I guess, check out it out for yourself..

Overlooked Records 2008.

Now I don’t mean to offend anyone who liked Audioslave (I actually liked their first record) or Chris Cornell’s solo material, but he’s gone too far…

“His new track (produced by Timbaland) “Long Gone” is a love song, which is OK because love is nice. It’s got flange-ing “My Love”-y production and a general “Apologize” vibe, which is OK because those were hits or something. But when you add that voice to the canned, cookie-cutter radio-ready mix, the voice that was once “Outshined,” and we’re down on our knees today: the grace fall is complete. You can stop now. Let’s please start with the forgetting. Forget redemption, I’ll go with repression.”

My opinion on all of this is that I saw it coming. It’s just painful to see all these crappy 80’s and 90’s bands reuniting and not see one of the best 90’s band’s (Soundgarden) not reunite. How could a reunited Soundgarden concert/tour not be successful?

Chris Cornell: Please, please call up Kim Thayil, tell him to bring his Gibson SG’s over. Then call up Ben Shepard and get Matt Cameron to take a break from Pearl Jam, strap on your Les Paul, get drunk and start kicking ass again! Please! Everyone wants you to do it.

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Above is the cover art for Metallica’s new album “Death Magnetic” due out in September. James Hetfield recently revealed more info about the album’s title to VG TV…

“‘Death Magnetic’, at least the title, to me, it’s… It had something to do with… It started out as kind of a tribute to people that have fallen in our business, like Layne Staley and a lot of the people that have died, basically — rock and roll martyrs of sorts. And then it kind of grew from there. Thinking about death… some people are drawn towards it, and just like a magnet, some people are drawn towards it, [and] other people are afraid of it and push away. And the concept that we’re all gonna die sometimes is over-talked about and then a lot of times never talked about — no one wants to bring it up; it’s the big white elephant in the living room. But we all have to deal with it at some point. So that’s kind of the subject matter.”

He sounds a little confused about it himself. Once again, nothing from this album has been heard yet besides snippets teased on the bands official website. The album is supposed to be a return to older form for the band, supposedly featuring furious guitar solo’s by Kirk Hammett. This would make sense as the band has brought back their classic logo.

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Last week I posted about VH1’s Rock Honors: The Who, footage of the Foo Fighters performing “Bargain” (with Supergrass’ Gaz Coombes on vocals), is now available online over at VH1’s site.

Dave Grohl appears to be rocking out on some strange electric guitar…I think it might be a Gibson. If anyone reading this knows, please leave a comment and enlighten me as I’m mainly a Fender guy.

The event took place last Saturday at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion and also featured Pearl Jam, The Flaming Lips, Incubus and Tenacious D as well as The Who themselves. The telecast premieres tomorrow.

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Last week I posted about Green River’s reunion show at Sub Pop’s 20th anniversary bash in Seattle, WA. Now Billboard has a full review up for those not lucky enough to attend the event.

“This seemed to be a firm consensus. Some rock’n'roll reunions fall flat when musicians can’t regain the spark of youthful energy and DIY not-quite-incompetence. But Green River’s anthems sounded better with a touch of polish and precision. The 1985 classic “Swallow My Pride” (re-cut by the band in 1988, and also covered by Soundgarden, Fastbacks and Pearl Jam) sounded almost pop.”

Billboard also notes that they heard a fan say “If they were that good back then, they never would have broken up.”

This is a good thing in my opinion, most reunions fall short because the band isn’t as good as they once were, in this case its the opposite.

The article also has coverage of a lot of the other bands playing the Sub Pop anniversary festival.

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An all-star cast of rock bands are participating in another installment of VH1’s Rock Honors series, this time to pay tribute to legendary rock-act The Who.

The Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Flaming Lips, Tenacious D and Incubus will all cover a Who song, followed by The Who themselves performing. This means we’ll most likely see Townshend smashing Gibsons SG’s and Stratocasters at the end of the performance, which is always cool.

Billboard spoke to Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament, The Flaming Lip’s Wayne Conye and Incubus Brandon Boyd about how The Who has influenced them and their music. Check it out here…

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The show airs tomorrow on VH1.

Metallica haven’t even revealed the artwork for their forthcoming album “Death Magnetic” but they have already announced a deluxe coffin-style package. What? You ask, well here’s the info…

“In addition to the album, the package will include a disc of demos, a behind-the-scenes DVD chronicling the making of “Death Magnetic,” a T-shirt, a flag, guitar picks and a poster.

Also featured is a Metallica credit card with a code redeemable for a download of a “special European show happening in September.” This edition is only available from the band’s Web site.”

This is a cool idea on the bands part, if not a little extraneous. Although it makes a lot of sense, as I’m sure a lot of you out there, are still sticking with Metallica and would like to get extra stuff from the band. It is also worth noting that the band is including guitar picks in the package, as I’m sure they know a lot of their fans are guitar players themselves.

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