Jim Putnam and his new bros - Brian Hussey (bass guitar, vocals) and Stevie Treichel (drums) - will come east in December to play shows in support of Auditorium!

"Dulcet, sun-hazed textures score lyrics that conjure pretty pastoral landscapes, contentedness, or both." ~Spin

"For Auditorium, the quartet lets a little more jaunt and blackheartedness seep into its sunshine." ~LA Times

Tour Dates:
12/6 Chapel Hill NC Local 506
12/7 Washington DC Black Cat Backstage
12/8 New York NY Mercury Lounge
12/9 Cambridge MA The Middle East Upstairs
12/10 Brooklyn NY Union Hall
12/12 Baltimore MD Talking Head

Don't miss this opportunity to see Radar Bros. live!

Get your copy of Auditorium and watch the fantastic video for "When Cold Air Sleeps."

Tonight, Monday, November 10, Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band travel to DC for a show at the 9:30 Club. NPR will be broadcasting the show live in it's entirety! Listen live beginning around 10 PM tonight and check back tomorrow for the full download.

Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band will appear live on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on Tuesday, November 11. Other guests include Seth Green and Artie Lange.

To celebrate the release of Conor Oberst, Conor visited Other Music in New York City and performed songs and chatted with the Other Music staff about the record. Josh Madell from Other Music described the session, "Raw and passionate and hauntingly beautiful, the band ran through much of their new album and added in a few surprises, and I don’t think that anyone who saw the show could have been unmoved." Visit Other Music online to watch and listen.

Conor Oberst is available on CD, LP and MP3 in the Merge store.

Julian Koster and his friends in the Singing Saw Symphony are heading out to spread some holiday cheer in November. Julian and the saws are planning a tour to several cities and are offering to come caroling at your house. All you have to do is invite them!

The Music Tapes website will carry a complete explanation of the workings of the tour as well as a list of cities as the routing is confirmed. At each house, Julian will play a few songs of the Music Tapes, and the saws will play a few of their holiday favorites for hosts and their assembled guests.  And then, on they will go to the next house.

Households that would like to invite Julian and his friends to come carol may do so up until the night before the carolers arrive in your town by sending an invitation to musictapescaroling@gmail.com or by mailing a written invitation to:

Music Tapes Caroling
c/o G. Stewart
175 Talmadge Street, Apt. 1
Athens, GA 30605

Written invitations will be given priority, should arrive a few days before the carolers arrive, and include an email address or telephone number for reply.  Invitations where the inviters indicate that they would be willing to entertain outside guests on caroling night are preferred. Once the limit on houses on a given night has been reached, the address of each house that will welcome guests will be distributed via email to all who email musictapescaroling@gmail.com and ask to attend. The addresses of the houses will not be posted online.

These will be caroling events (not house concerts) and there will be no monetary recompense of any kind asked for.  People who wish to make a donation to the Carolers Travel Fund via the orbitinghumancircus.com website where all Caroling updates and information will be found.

Caroling Dates:
Nov 11th Savannah, GA
Nov 12th Chapel Hill, NC
Nov 13th Charlotte, NC (afternoon) / Atlanta, Ga
Nov 14th  Athens, GA
Nov 16th Nashville, TN
Nov 17th St. Louis, MO
Nov 18th Fayetteville AK
Nov 20th Houston, TX
Nov 21st Austin, TX
Nov 22nd Denton, TX
Nov 23rd Norman OK
Nov 24th Lawrence KS
Nov 26th Minneapolis, MN
Nov 27th Madison, WI
Nov 28th Chicago IL
Nov 29th Grand Rapids/Lansing, MI
Nov 30th Ann Arbor area, MI
Dec 1st Toronto, Canada
Dec 3rd Buffalo, NY
Dec 4th Geneseo, NY
Dec 5th Oswego, NY
Dec 6th Bennington, VT
Dec 7th New London, NH
Dec 8th Boston / Cambridge, MA
Dec 12th Philadelphia, PA
Dec 13th NYC
Dec 14th NYC
Dec TBA  Maine

With help from the Obama Campaign and a bunch of great North Carolina musicians, we've set up two concerts to promote voting and more specfically voting EARLY to help turn NC blue for Barack Obama. The Asheville show was last night - thanks to everyone who came out!

NC ROCKS FOR CHANGE free concert during the last week of EARLY VOTING in NC!

Chapel Hill, NC
11/1 @ Graham Terrace at UNC
(Adjacent to the Morehead Planetarium Early Voting Site)
VOTE on the LAST DAY OF EARLY VOTING!
9 AM until 1 PM
Enjoy Coffee, Doughnuts and Rock while you vote!

The dBs
Superchunk (acoustic)
Ivan Rosebud
Megafaun
I Was Totally Destroying It
Bowerbirds
Greg Humphreys
Regina Hexaphone
Portastatic
Billy Bragg

Check www.NCForChange.com for updates and information.

Thousands of college kids and several Merge bands will take New York by storm this week. Come say hello!

Merge Records Showcase on Saturday, October 25th @ Mercury Lounge
217 E. Houston St. on the corner of Ave. A & Houston
CMJ Badges welcome and Tickets to our showcase are $15 and available at the door only.

The Music Tapes : 8 pm
Wye Oak : 9 pm
Portastatic : 10 pm
The Broken West : 11 pm
The Rosebuds : 12 am
Oakley Hall : 1 am

Other Merge activities during CMJ:

Thursday, October 23
Wye Oak : 12–5 pm
BrooklynVegan Party
at Piano’s
158 Ludlow Street at Stanton

The Broken West : 11 pm
Presented by Paste Magazine, KCRW and Indie Outlaw
CMJ Artist Lounge at Red Bull Space
40 Thompson St. btwn Grand & Broome

Late Night Extravaganza! at Hi Fi
Presented by Merge Records, Touch and Go, Sub Pop, Suicide Squeeze, Barsuk and ReadyMade Magazine
Party from Midnight–4 am! Free drinks from 1–3 am!
169 Ave. A btwn 10th & 11th

Friday, October 24

Portastatic : 12:30 pm
DJ session
Other Music
15 E. 4th St.

The Broken West : 5 pm
Team Clermont Party
Arlene’s Grocery
95 Stanton St. btwn Orchard & Ludlow

Portastatic : 9 pm
Presented by Paste Magazine, KCRW and Indie Outlaw
CMJ Artist Lounge at Red Bull Space
40 Thompson St. btwn Grand & Broome

The Ladybug Transistor, Wye Oak, and The Rosebuds
The Bell House
149 7th St. btwn 2nd & 3rd Ave., Brooklyn, NY

Saturday, October 25th

Wye Oak: 2pm
Daytrotter/Snow Ghost/Take the Handle Day Party
The Glasslands
289 Kent Ave., Brooklyn, NY

M. Ward has spent the last couple of years touring with Norah Jones, and acting as producer, guitarist, and arranger on She & Him's debut, Volume One. Volume One was inspired by the sun-soaked sounds of ‘60s California pop, an altogether more up-tempo sound than Ward’s fans were familiar with but one which proved his adaptability and cemented his reputation as a world-class producer.

M. Ward's new full-length album, Hold Time, will be released on CD, LP and digital on February 17, 2009. Hold Time is an eloquent and startlingly beautiful album which includes guest performances by Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Lucinda Williams, Tom Hagerman of DeVotchka and Zooey Deschanel. While past critics have compared him to everyone from John Fahey to Tom Waits to his old friend Howe Gelb, with Hold Time it’s clear that M. Ward, with his brilliant guitar playing and innate sense of melody, is one of those rare and special talents who defy comparisons and compartmentalization. Like a true American treasure, M. Ward cuts his own groove while music fans continue to fall under his whispered spell.

Hold Time Tracklisting:

01 For Beginners
02 Never Had Nobody Like You
03 Jailbird
04 Hold Time
05 Rave On
06 To Save Me
07 One Hundred Million Years
08 Stars of Leo
09 Fisher of Men
10 Oh Lonesome Me
11 Epistemology
12 Blake's View
13 Shangri-La
14 Outro

See M. Ward on tour with She & Him and check back for more information and sneak previews of Hold Time.

The Rosebuds will visit Frank Stasio at the Durham, NC studios of WUNC Friday, October 17th to play a few songs and talk about their new release, Life Like. Listen live on WUNC at 12 pm EST or sign up for The State of Things podcast.

Also, our friend Dodge from My Old Kentucky Blog has launched a new website called Laundromatinee. Dodge and his friend Jeff recorded a series of small radio sessions in Pendleton, Indiana at Pendleton Heights High School. Soon, they moved on to The Pop Machine Studios and The Rosebuds were the first band they invited to visit. Watch and listen to their session.

Order your copy of Life Like on CD, LP, or digital download.