Austin-based psych-droners The Black Angels will embark upon a nationwide tour from early April through the end of May in support of their upcoming fourth album Indigo Meadow, due out April 2 on Blue Horizon.

That tour includes a headlining slot at their own Sixth Annual Austin Psych Fest, which will run April 26 - 28, and will also feature appearances by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (appearing at the Rialto Theatre on May 30), Deerhunter, Tinariwen, Warpaint, Clinic and dozens more, some yet to be announced.

Although it hasn't been announced on Club Congress' website yet, The Black Angels' tour also includes a scheduled stop at the downtown hotel on May 22. Wall of Death is slated to open the show.

An email sent out today by the band's publicist includes a sneak peek at Indigo Meadow's first single, "Don't Play With Guns," which according to the press release was "penned just days before last year’s mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado."

Check it out:

The strings tip-toe around the whispering percussion, and then the girl states her case: "He hit me, and it felt like a kiss". Turns out that she slept with another guy, confesses to her boyfriend the next day, and he smacks her up. Call 911 and have the cops haul this guy away? No. Call the record company, because they have a different kind of hit ready to go.

The perpetrators? Convicted ladykiller Phil Spector and co-songwriter/feminist icon Carole King, along with King's husband Gerry Goffin. The Crystals recorded this 7-inch single in May and June of 1962, with Spector at the mixing board and teenaged singer Barbara Alston behind the microphone. Shortly after, it was released to a public who, at the dawning of the Women's Liberation movement, were shocked at a record that so brazenly condoned violence against women. Immediately recalled and shelved, the song grew in cult stature until by 1994, Courtney Love recorded an ironic cover version of it.

"He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" grows more tense as Alston sings about her boyfriend beating her up because he loved her; "he hit me, and I knew he loved me, if he didn't care for me, I could have never made him mad." And then the orchestra swells, the back-up singers explode, and the song climaxes, with Barbara Alston full-throatedly declaring, "he hit me, and I was glad!"

Listening to this song is like viewing violent pornography: You know its wrong, but it is sugar-coated and engineered to turn you on. "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" makes me nauseous, and this is why I love music.

One final note: Despite Spector's best attempts, The Crystals were not merely puppets for his agenda. When touring the segregated South, member La La Brooks refused to pander to white fans. "If I can't go to their bathrooms, then why should they have my autograph?" That sounds better than turning the other cheek.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox71pqO__ow

File #1: The Raiders, Indian Reservation (1971, Columbia Records)

As the inaugural entry of Attractive Nuisance, I should stipulate my aims for this space. My primary goal is admittedly indulgent: I wish to write passionately about misunderstood, overlooked, or dismissed albums, and the artist(s) responsible. I also, however, greatly hope that this space becomes a place that attracts and fosters a like-minded community of music lovers who feel compelled to express themselves in the comments (wink)—not uniform music lovers, mind you, as dissension is both necessary and encouraged. To start, let's head (Pacific North-) Westward, where we meet up with Paul Revere & the Raiders:

The first sound on Indian Reservation (1971), appropriately, is Paul Revere’s piercing, whinnying organ, helping to open the album with its titular smash hit. Funky and of-its-moment—Native American activists championed "red power" during the period, occupying Alcatraz Island in 1969 and clashing with federal marshals at Wounded Knee in 1973—the title track would go down as the only #1 song in the canon of the recently renamed the Raiders; only Revere and singer Mark Lindsay remained from the group’s halcyon days.

As Paul Revere & the Raiders, the group charted a fun path in rock primitivism, meshing colonial attire and daffy showmanship with a lean, raw rock ‘n roll sound—they even served as a kind of house band for Dick Clark's Where the Action Is. Many of the group's singles from the era, be it the nervous jangle of “Hungry” (#6 in 1966), the prickly vamp of “Kicks” (#4 in 1966), or the psychedelic tremble of “Him or Me, What’s it Gonna Be?” (#5 1967), remain sacred artifacts of an era where chart presence was tantamount to prowess; additionally, of course, they’re catchy, great fun that reminds listeners of the indelible fertility of this musical period. In an interview for with The Big Takeover from 2011, Mark Lindsay cites 1967 as his favorite year, musically and personally (“Everything was really poppin’”), before conceding that “rock ‘n’ roll began to develop a sad, dark undercurrent” in the following years.

Well, in that sad, dark undercurrent came Indian Reservation. The album was an evident slapdash attempt to capitalize on the astounding success of “Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)”—the track itself arguably exploiting contemporary American history—by affixing the track with eight additional non-originals and Lindsay’s “The Turkey,” which sounds every bit the meandering studio gag. Still, there is both a resonance and a skillfulness to the Raiders’ exuberant handling of the material, which should be abundantly clear on the bounding funk-swarm of “Indian Reservation” (a track that, I would wager, has heavily influenced many of Jack White’s compositional decisions). Meanwhile, the Raiders twist Terry Melcher’s “Take Me Home” into a lascivious, ecstatic disco-boogie; “The Shape of Things to Come,” an apocryphal tune from the satirical cult film Wild in the Streets (1968), becomes a frenetic, unhinged barn-burner with plenty of ‘70s AM riffage; the Raiders nail both the soul and schmaltzy of “Heaven Help us All,” seemingly sending up Stevie Wonder’s po-faced take; and P.F. Sloan’s apocalyptic lament “Eve of Destruction” is deftly transformed from Barry McGuire’s shaggy, Dylan-esque folk into an almost dementedly giddy, bounding folk-rock number.

The only definitive assessment one can fairly have about Indian Reservation is that it does not serve as an ideal primer for Paul Revere & the Raiders. As an assured, idiosyncratic, disheveled, and appropriately angry musical document of its time, however, it demands attention. Although it is an extremely difficult album to locate digitally, Indian Reservation is worth a record store crawl for the seriously committed. For the rest (who can access Spotify), below are selections that exemplify both its eccentricities and feats.

Blessthefall, a metal band from Phoenix, Ariz., was recently honored with being in Alternative Press magazine’s latest issue, which features the yearly preview, "Most Anticipated Music of 2013."

The band has been privileged to be a part of this issue before, for their last album two years ago.
Along with Blessthefall, other bands such as A Day to Remember, Jimmy Eat World, The Maine, Paramore, and 20 other high quality bands are in the AP article are that have exciting new things coming to look forward to this year.

“It’s a huge honor because that's the biggest music magazine besides Rolling Stone,” said guitarist Eric Lambert about their recognition in the issue.

I was able to talk with lead guitarist, Lambert, about what there is to look forward to in the coming year for the band, as well as discuss what makes the band what it is today.

Ignoring this writer's preferences toward R&B for a moment, the Rialto Theatre has been announcing shows all this week (Local Natives, the Festival en el Barrio, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Soul Asylum and a few others) and if you're a music fan, you should be very, very excited for the lineup of shows coming to our town in the next few months.

Today, they announced that Rodriguez is coming to town on April 19. Now, you might not have heard of Rodriguez a year ago, but riding the success of Searching for Sugar Man, a 2012 documentary covering his strange music career, including his sudden, massive fame in South Africa, the Detroit native has been covered on NPR, 60 Minutes and performed on the late night talk show circuit.

That show will be an amazing opportunity on its own, but HOLY CRAP JEFF MANGUM IS COMING TO TOWN.

Formerly the frontman of Neutral Milk Hotel and now doing seemingly whatever he pleases, floating in and out of the spotlight, Mangum's masterpiece, In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, is one of the best indie-rock albums of all time. Weird, compelling and brilliant, it's one of the albums I go back to over and over again. Who knows what Mangum is going to do, what he'll play, but I'm in when tickets go sale next Wednesday the 23rd.

• Courtesy of The Black Keys

Speaking from experience, it takes heavy motivation for music fans on the far-out fringes of the mainstream to sit through the Grammys. Between the Chris Brown-induced nausea and gaudy Lady Gaga get-ups, the show is rightfully criticized for being all about theatrics and not about, you know, the thing they’re handing out those little gramophones for: the music.

This year, though, things are looking up: the nominations seem to be catering to all corners of the market (the safe corners, of course; let’s not give them too much credit) and have finally shaken off their shameless Taylor Swift crush along with the rest of Hollywood's males. Then, once they released this little preview video, via Rolling Stone, they pretty much had me sold.

In general, I believe Tucson has all of the concerts a person needs to attend, but occasionally, something notable happens up north and a drive to Phoenix is in order. A show by Billy Bragg, who doesn't seem to play shows in America all that often and was boycotting Arizona for a few years, would qualify as reason enough to spend a few hours in the car. He's coming to Crescent Ballroom on March 26, touring in support of his first studio album in five years, Tooth & Nail, coming out on March 18.

Seriously, it's a challenge to come up with the words to describe how good this guy is, using his sharp wit and incredible songwriting skills on songs about politics and love. Tickets go on sale Friday and they won't likely last long.

If you’re still pissed about Tegan and Sara’s postponement of their Tucson show that was supposed to take place at the Rialto on Dec. 8, here’s a silver lining.

The Canadian indie duo’s seventh studio album, Heartthrob, drops exactly two weeks from today, and the band said they’d be periodically streaming tracks on various sites between now and then. The first song, “I Was A Fool,” went up yesterday on Glamour.com, and future releases will be announced as they become available.

As for the show, it has been moved to Sunday, April 14, and all tickets for the original date will be honored. Tickets from the Rialto’s website can be purchased here, and those interested in grabbing the new record’s pre-order before it’s released on Jan. 29 can get it at the band’s website.

Tucson's The Resonars, recently the subject of a Weekly profile by Gene Armstrong, get some love from Spin in a brief piece posted on the no-longer-in-print mag's website today.

Burger Records, which will be releasing the band's new album Crummy Desert Sound on Jan. 29, is putting out a new cassette tape every day in the month of January, and Spin posted preview tracks from three of them: Detroit's The Go; Peach Kelli Pop, who will return to Tucson on March 12 to play a show with The Resonars at Tucson Live Music Space on the way out to SXSW; and The Resonars themselves.

Check out the songs here.

Despite having been the drummer for what was arguably the most influential band of the '90s, and then coming out from behind the drum set to front the alt-rock band Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl is never busy enough.

The former Nirvana drummer’s directing debut “Sound City” is set for home release at the beginning of next month, but not without screenings in theaters across the nation, including The Loft Cinema on Jan. 31.

Judging by the trailer, the film itself aims to provide a behind-the-scenes look into a Van Nuys, Calif., recording studio that produced a number of iconic albums across decades of music (seven of which made Rolling Stone’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time), and features interviews from the likes of Tom Petty, Barry Manilow, Stevie Nicks and Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo. Additionally, an accompanying album will feature Grohl jamming on 11 tracks, each with their own lineup of musicians, including what seems to be a Nirvana revival with Paul McCartney replacing the late Kurt Cobain.

So, while Grohl has long been known as a musician at the forefront of the Seattle grunge scene, folks planning on attending the screening can leave their long-sleeve plaid flannels at home. The film looks like it will run the gamut of rock subgenres as it provides an insight into an important aspect of rock history.

Those interested in going to The Loft’s 10 p.m. showtime can pick up tickets at the theater’s website. The film’s album is also up for pre-order on iTunes.