Fresh off their much buzzed about sold out, two-night stand at MSG in New York, Montreal-based act the Arcade Fire have announced the details for their West Coast heavy fall tour. The indie-rock band, whose fourth studio album The Suburbs debuted at number one on the Billboard charts two weeks ago, will kick things off on Sept. 22 in St. Paul, MN at the Roy Wilkins Arena before heading across the border to Canada and back down the Pacific Coast for shows in Seattle, Portland, Berkley, Big Sur and a two-night run at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA on October 7 and 8.

If you’re not into a night of sprawling, bombastic indie-rock than maybe you’ll be interested in hitting one of these recently announced tours…

• Cali-country rockers Dawes continue their assault on the road
• Mumford & Sons cross the pond for a cross country fall run
• Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens hits the theater circuit
• Gov’t Mule confirms their Halloween and New Years plans
• The Walkmen head out in support of their new album Lisbon
• Blind Pilot line up a short 10-date West coast trek

Finally, with so many of different bands to choose from – Bright Eyes, Desaparecidos, Mystic Valley Band, Monsters Of Folk – prolific singer-songwriter Conor Oberst has decided to go a completely different route for his late September, California micro-tour. Oberst has recruited fellow Team Love label mates The Felice Brothers to serve not only as his opening act, but also as his backing band for his shows in Pioneeertown, Santa Barbara and Big Sur – which precedes both acts appearance at the 10th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Lollapalooza is well underway at Grant Park in Chicago. If you’ve been following our man on the scene, Benji Feldheim’s, twitter feed then you already knew that Jeff Tweedy sat in with Mavis Staples and her band during their set at the fest. Benji will be tweeting all weekend long and we’ll post his long-form thoughts on the event throughout the weekend.

Here’s five other links we think you’ll enjoy…

• Billboard reviews last night’s Soundgarden concert
• Jim James discusses MMJ’s new album with R. Stone
• Sly Stone sued over Coachella comments [via TDS]
• Are LCD Soundsystem reconsidering retirement?
• Louisville’s HullabaLOU Festival was an epic tanker

Finally, last night’s Arcade Fire webcast was about the best quality live broadcast we’ve seen on the web. If you missed the show – which was directed by Terry Gilliam – you can watch Rococo, Empty Room and other clips from the ‘cast on the band’s VEVO channel.

We’re closing in on My Morning Jacket’s five-night stand at NYC’s Terminal 5 in which the group will perform each of its studio albums in their entirety. Jarrod Dicker spoke with MMJ co-founder and bassist Tom “Two-Tone Tommy” Blankenship about the dates for an interesting Relix.com feature. Among the nuggets of info Dicker extracts from Two-Tone Tommy is that ex-MMJer Danny Cash might join the band for the first two shows.

Speaking of shows in New York City, last Wednesday we shared the news that Arcade Fire would webcast its August 5th performance at Madison Square Garden. At the time there were rumors that Spike Jonze would be directing the broadcast, but it turns out the directing gig went to Monty Python vet Terry Gilliam. Tune in to YouTube’s Arcade Fire – Unstaged channel at 10PM EDT on the 5th to watch all the action from MSG.

Following up on another story we covered, it turns out all the chatter of a Beach Boys reunion may have been a bit premature. Beach Boy Mike Love tells Billboard.com that “there have been a lot of ideas floated, but nothing decided. So far it’s just conversation. There are no big plans yet — although there’s a lot of interest from a lot of people to see what would happen if we got together and did some new music and maybe did some shows. But so far nothing’s firm.”  We think there’s too much money on the table for the band to pass up a lucrative reunion tour in 2011.

Arcade Fire’s upcoming tour in support of The Suburbs rolls into Madison Square Garden in New York City on August 5th. Yesterday, the band announced that the MSG show will be webcast live via YouTube. Fans will be able to preview songs from the new album during the broadcast. The Canadian group recently posted a trailer for the webcast featuring audio from Rococo – an as-of-yet unheard tune from The Suburbs. Take a look…

Let’s take a look at six other stories of interest this hump day…

• Radiohead’s long-awaited eighth album isn’t done yet
• Rush chats with Rolling Stone about bringing 2112 to GH
• Faster Times shows off the best NBA jerseys at the P4K Fest
• Speaking of the P4K Fest, Pavement said no to being webcast
• The latest subject of JamBase’s Questionnaire is Nathan Moore
• Crowded House performed Twice If You’re Lucky on Fallon

Finally, Live Nation continues to introduce promotions in an attempt to fill amphitheaters this summer. The latest ploy involves $10 tickets for a large number of participating events across the country. You can almost hear the guarantees dropping for most bands next summer.

With last week’s announcement of the details behind Arcade Fire’s new studio album, The Suburbs, we figured that tour dates couldn’t be too far behind. Today, the group added a batch of U.S. headlining shows to its docket including dates at Madison Square Garden, Merriweather Post Pavilion and Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Fellow indie big-wigs Spoon will open for Arcade Fire at Philadelphia’s Mann Music Center, MSG, Merriweather and at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre near Atlanta.

READ ON for a full list of Arcade Fire tour dates…

Over the last few weeks, The Arcade Fire have been having a bit of fun teasing the news that they will have a new album coming out this year. The band first posted a hand-written postcard addressed to “the internet” of a new 12″-single. Now today comes the official announcement from the Montreal-based act via another hand-written note proclaiming that they are currently in the “home stretch” of recording and have released pre-ordering details for their third full-length album to be called The Suburbs.

The album, which was recorded in Montreal and New York, will be hitting stores on August 3 and will be available in a variety of formats ranging from a $7.99 digital download to the deluxe double 12″ vinyl, that also includes the album in digital format and a limited edition screen printed poster for $44.99. All pre-orders will receive an instant download to their new single – Month of May and The Suburbs, which was released on vinyl today.

Yesterday, we found out that U2′s appearance at UK’s Glastonbury Festival has been canceled due to Bono’s back problems. It didn’t take long for all sorts of rumors to fly about which artist would replace the Irish act on the bill including the ubiquitous Led Zeppelin is getting back together story. Today, word has come down that Gorillaz have stepped up to take U2′s spot at the famed festie as the Friday night headliner.

In other news, we finally get to hear some new music from Canadian indie faves Arcade Fire as a rip of Month of May – one half of Arcade Fire’s new 12″ – has leaked onto the ‘nets. Take a listen when you get a chance and let us know what you think. UPDATE: The other half of the 12″, titled The Suburbs, has surfaced. [via P4K and Consequence of Sound]

Finally, Bowery Presents has expanded its reach even further into New England with the announcement that the NYC-based independent promotion company will team up with Alex Crothers of Higher Ground Presents to re-open the State Theatre in Portland, ME. This news comes only a few months after Bowery started promoting shows in Boston. If this keeps up, by December they should be well into Canada and the Midwest.

[Originally Published: December 24, 2009]

Making a list of the Best Concert DVDs of 2008 was a struggle, because there weren’t many quality releases to choose from. This year, we have the opposite problem as there were tons of terrific Concert DVD releases.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at the Best Concert DVDs of 2009…

10. Arcade Fire – Miroir Noir

Arcade Fire fans were thrilled when the band announced they would be releasing a concert film chronicling the recording of Neon Bible and the subsequent tour. Unfortunately, director Vincent Morisset works so hard at not being a typical concert film that the documentary, which appears to be shot by cell phone cameras at points, isn’t all that entertaining. The bonus material makes Miroir Noir worth owning and earns it a spot on this list.

9. Return to Forever – Live at Montreux 2008

Legendary jazz fusion supergroup Return to Forever reunited in 2008 and this DVD gives a good illustration of how good this group of musicians continues to be. Filmed in Montreux, Return to Forever Returns contains a nice of mix of tunes from all of their albums played with passion and verve.

READ ON for the rest of our list of Best Concert DVDs of 2009…

This week we’ve got arguably the first love song that The Talking Heads ever recorded. This track was originally released on the 1983 album Speaking In Tongues. Click here to view the video of this song from Stop Making Sense.

Did you know that the studio recording of this tune had members of the band not playing their primary instruments? It was: Jerry Harrison (bass), Tina Weymouth (guitar), and David Byrne (keyboards).

The Contestants:

The Arcade Fire: Arcade Fire have the advantage of being the only band this week that has performed this song with David Byrne. That performance from New York City, was released on vinyl as the B-Side to the Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) single promoting the band’s 2004 album Funeral. Source: Neighborhood #3 Vinyl Single

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And some video of the band performing the song by themselves:

READ ON for the rest of this week’s Cover Wars contestants…

One of the most popular series of B Lists, Digging Deep, has gone missing since I took the reigns of Hidden Track. It’s been nearly two years since the last time we scoured YouTube for fun covers of popular songs.

This time around we’ll be breaking up our list of ten videos into two parts to help speed up your load times. Better late than never, here’s part one of the fifth edition of The B List – Digging Deep…

1. Arcade Fire treated President Barack Obama’s campaign staff to a private concert last week in Washington D.C. The Canadian group offered their take on Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. for the staffers…

READ ON for four more great covers including U-Melt doin’ Paul Simon, Panic rockin’ out some Marley and Jason Mraz pressing the Peg Button…

Each year, moe. and Umphrey’s McGee headline the Summer Camp Festival in Chillicothe, IL and next year will be no exception. For the 2009 edition on May 22-24, moe. and Umphrey’s play each night of the festival and will be joined by Medeski, Scofield, Martin and Wood, Girl Talk, Keller Williams, Dark Star Orchestra, Cornmeal, Family Groove Company and 56 Hope Road with more bands to be announced early next year. Early bird tickets go onsale on January 3 for the bargain price of $95. Now, THAT’S a deal.

Let’s kick off the week with some links from around the interwebs…

• Robert Plant once again rules out a Led Zeppelin reunion
• An intrepid film-making Phish fan prepares a documentary
• Win Butler of Arcade Fire talks to Pitchfork about Miroir Noir
• Super Hella Awesome has the Jerk Me Off In The Water video
• Check out this clip of Cliffs of Dover played on Electric Violin
• The boom in music video games has helped the original artists
• Sirius-XM kicks off The History of Howard Stern Act II today
• The Monitor lists the Ten Most Iconic Images from MSG 2008
• Where’s Eric details Clapton’s live concert recording history

Before we go, we wanted to turn you onto Wilco spawn Spencer Tweedy’s blog. This slick looking webzine offers the 13-year-old’s political insights mixed with social commentary, pre-teen humor, music appreciation and computer expertise. It’s well written and worth the subscription if only for the behind-the-scenes look at life as a rock star’s son. Spencer’s latest entry reminds us to wish a Happy Hanukkah to all of our Jewish readers.

Phil Lesh and Friends started their sure-to-be-epic five show run at the Warfield with a bang last night when they played all of the Grateful Dead’s self-titled debut album in the first set. As if that wasn’t enough they played all of the Dead’s second album, Anthem of the Sun, during the second set.

Never one to miss out on a good time, Bob Weir joined his former bandmate for a few tunes in each set. Phil and Friends still have four shows left at the Warfield, so we can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves.

• You can win VIP passes for your crew if you carpool to the ‘Roo
• More details about Beck’s new album are starting to emerge
• Andrew Bird blogs about recording at Wilco’s loft for the NYT
• The Raconteurs create and launch their own YouTube channel
• Stereogum’s OldStand looks at Spin Magazine from April 1992
• The New Yorker’s David Remnick lists 100 Essential Jazz Albums
• STP’s Scott Weiland entered and was released from jail yesterday
• Arcade Fire are working on the score for a new Cameron Diaz flick

Finally, we got the sad news yesterday that founding Rush drummer John Rutsey, aka the Canadian Pete Best, passed away this weekend. Most people don’t even know that Rush had a drummer before Neil Peart, but Rutsey actually left the band on his own due to complications from diabetes.

It’s not much of a secret that a healthy number of musicians are pulling for a certain Junior Senator from Illinois to get the Democratic Presidential nomination. As the continuing primary slug fest enters another week, we get a couple more concert/rallies in support of Barrack Obama. This time Arcade Fire and Chapel Hill’s own Superchunk will team up for a pair of shows in Greensboro and Carrboro, North Carolina, on May 1 and 2. Tickets are being distributed on a first come, first serve basis at some of the locations listed in this article.

The Obama campaign is also making a statewide push to encourage voters to take advantage of North Carolina’s first-ever One Stop Early Voting process, which allows voters who are not registered or who have never voted before to register and vote at the same place, on the same day, all at once. So make sure you go and exercise your right as an American. And that’s one to grow on.

If Rockin’ The Vote ain’t you thing, then maybe one of these tours will be for you:

• Here’s one for Ace: Silver Jews announce a European tour (begins: 05/07)
• Despite calling Phish “God-awful” in the latest issue of Spin, we still think you should go see the Black Keys (begins: 05/12)
• Los Lonely Boys and Los Lobos team up for the Brotherhood Tour (begins: 07/12)
• Get your lighters ready for Sister Christian, as Night Ranger celebrates their 25th anniversary (begins: 05/11)
• Dead Confederate bring their sludge-tastic rock to a town near you (begins: 05/23)
• Boy George will be playing his Culture Club hits and beyond (begins: 07/10)
• Indie-popsters Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin are playing small clubs over the next month (begins: 04/25)

Finally, Ozzy Osbourne has ditched the touring metal-fest that carried his moniker if favor of reviving the single day Monsters Of Rock festival that was staple for over fifteen years. The all day fest will take place at the McMahon Stadium in Calgary on July 26th and will feature the likes of Judas Priest, Serj Tankian, Hatebreed, Shadows Fall and of course the Prince of Darkness himself.

While I’m more than 99% certain that by 2011 most if not all music/entertainment blogs and music/entertainment sites will all be talking about their “10 Best Bands of the Last Decade” I figured I would prematurely make a list of who I think are the Best Modern Rock bands of the decade so far. These are the bands I think people will still be talking about in years to come. Let the list begin.

10. Vampire Weekend: the Swift and Steady

There’s no need to reiterate what VW sound like or remind people of (by the way, it’s Paul Simon’s Graceland/Rhythm of the Saints mixed with a little bit of Talking Heads – or vice versa) because they have rode & conquered the buzz of the blog airwaves faster then the speed of light and now–if they want–they can have it all. For fuck’s sake , they have already been featured on the cover Spin and have played Saturday Night Live which means nothing to the people (people who discover music through blogs or word of mouth or randomly perusing Myspace/iLike/Last FM) above Spin/SNL but to the masses this means everything. Two years ago (2006) no one heard of this band. Why? Because they didn’t exist. And if you haven’t heard of them yet, then it’s quite possible you don’t exist.

Read on for the top nine modern rock bands of the ’00s…

We aim to cover nearly every story that’s of interest to our readers, but sometimes our real jobs prevent us from posting the latest news items. This week was no exception, as we found out about so many stories that deserved their own post. So we thought we’d play catch up with our next batch of links.

Here are a few stories that you just have to read about:

• While Van Halen has canceled some shows, they haven’t axed the tour
• Radiohead and Tom Petty will headline the Outside Lands festie in SF
• Nine Inch Nails unveiled an innovative new instrumental release
• The Blind Boys of Alabama returned to school on Friday night
• A.V. Club lists 26 Tempting But Inappropriate Funeral Songs
• The Felice Brothers discuss their brand of American music
• Arcade Fire members rocked for Obama on Sunday night in Ohio
• Greg Kot describes the one concert he will never forget

Finally, we’d like to mention the passing of legendary blues guitarist Jeff Healey. Healey was dealt a shitty hand when we was stricken with a rare form of retinal cancer that took his vision. Jeff fought the disease for 41 years, until the cancer finally took his life on Sunday evening. R.I.P Mr. Angel Eyes.