Three Imaginary Girls
Indie record label Light in the Attic is hosting their 3rd annual donut eating contest on Saturday, August 1st at 1p at Top Pot Doughnuts (5th Avenue location). This event is free to the public. There are a few fun and exciting changes this year for participants and cheerleaders alike, including the participation of four other record labels (Barsuk, Sub Pop, Suicide Squeeze, and Hardly Art). As you sink into the inevitable diabetic coma that will result, should you be one of the lucky participants, you will be heralded into it with the sounds of El Vez, who will be MC’ing the event, as well as the Unnatural Helpers, Grant Olsen from Arthur and Yu, and Scott Reitherman from Throw Me the Statue, all of whom will be playing live and doing DJ sets.
Barsuk Moves to Queen Anne, Spawns Tiny Human
Reverb:
Late last week, employees of Barsuk Records quietly packed up their Georgetown headquarters and decamped to the top of Queen Anne.The eclectic alterna-pop label, which launched Death Cab’s career and boasts a roster of artists that includes the Long Winters, Mates of State, Ra Ra Riot, and Say Hi now occupies a large, raw space that formerly housed a photo studio near the Galer St. Trader Joe’s. That’s not the only change that’s afoot at Barsuk: The label’s longtime in-house publicist, Ever Kipp, has started his own media relations company, Tiny Human, with Barsuk’s blessing.
iTunes To Roll Out Indie Exclusives
Billboard:
The recently launched iTunes “Indie Spotlight” store will kick off a series of exclusives later today, Billboard.biz has learned. The exclusives will start with a pre-release of new Crystal Antlers album “Tentacles” (Touch and Go) with exclusive tracks, a Stone’s Throw label sampler, Angus & Julia Stone’s “A Book Like This” (Nettwerk) and Seattleās Say Hi’s “Oohs and Aahs” (Barsuk). Eothen Alapatt, who manages Stone’s Throw, says he sees Apple’s indie store as a return to their roots. “Now that all of the majors who used to bypass iTunes in search of shelf space at Best Buy or Walmart are ‘encroaching’ on our ‘turf’ it’s nice to know that Apple is giving us a leg up and showing that the love they showed us, early on, wasn’t a flash,” he said. “They were serious.”
Ra Ra Riot’s “Can You Tell” Video
There are tons of exciting things going on with Barsuk’s Ra Ra Riot these days, including an upcoming west coast tour with Cut Off Your Hands and Telekinesis, a southeast tour with Tokyo Police Club, a jaunt with Passion Pit and finally a ton of tour dates with Death Cab for Cutie this spring.
The band is also excited to announce that they’ll be playing “Can You Tell” during their upcoming appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on Tuesday, March 3, 2009.
Check out the new video for “Can You Tell,” the second single from Ra Ra Riot’s debut album The Rhumb Line:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asY08yquddo]
Death Cab Caught in Warner/YouTube Fight
Pitchfork:
About a month ago, Warner royally pissed off millions when they pulled all videos featuring their music from YouTube, the result of a licensing dispute. And now the four members of Death Cab can count themselves among those millions. Death Cab had been using YouTube embeds to share their music videos on their official site. But now, thanks to Warner’s machinations, five of those videos don’t work anymore. You can still watch videos from the band’s Barsuk albums, however. Yesterday, Death Cab put a note up on their site explaining the problem: “The removal of our videos caught us by surprise but we are building a new video player so that we can get these videos back up on the website as soon as possible. Thanks for understanding and for being patient while we sort everything out.”
