The Breeders Bring “Last Splash” to Santa Cruz

Friendly heads-up people: the Breeders are coming to the Rio Theatre in August. The band has not played together since 1994 and lucky us, Santa Cruz is one of the stop on the LSXX (That’s the cool name they’ve given it.) tour.

If you want in on the action, get tickets now, because you know that show is going to sell out, and probably soon.

Now you know.

New Stuff From Vampire Weekend

Tomorrow’s the day the new Vampire Weekend album, titled Modern Vampires of the City drops. We’ll have it on vinyl and CD and you can get your vampire-loving hands on it in the morning. In the meantime, here’s a teaser, the official video for “Step,” the first single off the album.

In the Spotlight: HeWhoCannotBeNamed

by Mat Weir

A month ago–or was it two? This rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle tends to addle the brain—I was busily working at the back counter, always a good and faithful servant to the retail world, when I was approached by a customer and his wife. They said the man was playing that night at the Blue Lagoon next door and wanted to see if Streetlight was interested in buying some records. Always a collector first and foremost, I eagerly agreed to see what they had. And oh, dear Streetlight shoppers, did I come up on a score for you.

Turns out, said gentleman was none other than the one and only HeWhoCannotBeNamed from the legendary punk band, The Dwarves. Yes, the masked man who has been rocking your ear holes with such sophisticated classics as “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” “Who’s Fucking Who,” and “Fuck You Up And Get High” was in the store, selling his two solo albums. Not bad for a guy who, according to an official Dwarves press release, was stabbed to death in 1993. Needless to say, your humble narrator and devil in disguise had to buy something. So! Exclusively for Streetlight Records Santa Cruz, I present:

Sunday School Massacre – Originally recorded in 2010, this 2011 second pressing edition is hand numbered, on yellow vinyl and limited to 200 discs. And just in case that’s not enough to get your nerd senses tingling, did I mention it’s normally a German-only release? The album features guest spots from current and ex-Dwarves members such as Blag Dhalia and Nick Oliveri (who later went on to be in some band called Queens of The Stone Age or something).

Humanterrorist – HeWhoCannotBeNamed’s second solo album packs just as much hell-raising, illegal fun as his first. Chalk full of drinking anthems (“Getting’ Pissed”), cannibalism (“I Eat Babies”) and even love songs (“Die Die Die”), this is a must have for any fan of the Dwarves or obscenity.

We only have two of each of these albums and once they’re gone, they ain’t comin’ back! So come on down to ye ol’ record shoppe and buy some trash that’s worth it!

Record Store Day Festivities

You may have heard: This Saturday, April 20 (yes, it falls on 4/20 this year) is Record Store Day. What this means is that we’re going to have a ton of super-limited, exclusive Record Store Day titles.

It also means that you get to see some of the area’s finest bands and DJ’s for free! And, California Honeydrops are going to close the day. Aaaand, on Record Store Day eve, at 8pm, we’re showing the documentary film, Last Shop Standing, about independent record stores, drive-in movie-style at the Felix Kulpa Gallery.

The store opens at 10am on Record Store Day and the music begins at 11.

Here’s the lineup:

11am – DJ Frusen Gladje and the Snack Pack

12pm – Lisa Taylor

1pm – DJ Frusen Gladje and the Snack Pack

2pm – Deep Ellum

3pm – DJ Kowalski

4pm – Dressed In Roses (Jackie Rocks side project)

5:30pm – California Honeydrops

See you there.

The List, the List!!!

The list of Record Store Day releases is up. What does this mean? For some of us, it means figuring out which bills can be bumped, which titles are must-haves, scouring collections to see if you need that reissue or if you have the original floating around, and general drooling over super-limited releases.

See the web version of the list here
Download a pdf of the list (good for keeping track of what you want to get) here

As ever, we order just about everything but we don’t know what we’ll receive until we unpack the boxes. Record Store Day exclusives are a first-come, first-get type of thing. We can’t take special orders or put anything on hold.

For this year’s Record Store Day, we’re excited to be hosting some of the areas finest local bands: Lisa Taylor, Deep Ellum and Dressed in Roses. Follow our Record Store Day 2013 Facebook event page to keep up with announcements.

Today’s Sweet First Listens

by Cat Johnson

NPR’s ongoing, online series, First Listen, is a great way to hear albums before their street date. Today’s First Listen offerings are particularly sweet and include albums from Iron & Wine, Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge, the Flaming Lips, Justin Vernon’s new band, the Shouting Matches, Shuggie Otis, Kurt Vile and more. Swing over to NPR for a listen and then swing by the store to pick up some new music.

Win a Test Pressing of the New Johnny Marr

What’s cooler than the new Johnny Marr album, The Messenger? How about winning a free test pressing of it? Enter to win here.

Unreleased Jimi Hendrix Album? Yep.

Get ready boys and girls: on March 5th a new Jimi Hendrix album, titled People, Hell and Angels is being released. Recorded in 1968 and 1969 and featuring 12 unreleased tracks, the album Hendrix was working on at the time of his death was going to be on a double-album follow-up to Electric Ladyland.

If you just can’t wait to get your hands on the new material, we have an indie-exclusive 7″ of a song called “Somewhere.” The b-side is an unreleased version of “The Power of Soul.”

Here’s a teaser:

And here’s some more info about the album:

After Two Decades, My Bloody Valentine Drops a New Album

by Mari Stauffer

Well, more than two decades after their last release, My Bloody Valentine has shared with the world their brand new album, MBV. After the band issued a statement online announcing that the album was available for download and purchase (vinyl & cd) through their website, the site crashed. Yeah, needless to say there were a ton of excited and eager fans at that moment.

So far, there’s no word of distribution of actual product, but we here at Streetlight are keeping our ears to the ground and will keep everyone posted of any news in that department!

The “Use It Or Lose It” Dylan Collection

by Cat Johnson

Bob Dylan releases are generally met with much fanfare, marketing and critical chitchat, but today Rolling Stone reported that 100 copies of a four-CD, 86-song set of rare Bob Dylan songs, including alternate versions of “Sally Gal,” “That’s Alright, Mama,” “Baby Please Don’t Go” and more, quietly hit record store shelves in Europe.

Due to a change in European copyright law, Sony was forced to release the material or it would have fallen into the public domain. A source from Sony Music told Rolling Stone, “The copyright law in Europe was recently extended from 50 to 70 years for everything recorded in 1963 and beyond. With everything before that, there’s a new ‘Use It or Lose It’ provision. It basically said, ‘If you haven’t used the recordings in the first 50 years, you aren’t going to get any more.’”

As one can imagine, demand for the collection is sky-high. According to Sony, the whole point of copyrighting the material is that they have plans to use the material, much of which has been floating around for years as bootlegs, in the future. So, don’t despair, Dylan fans. Chances are good that one way or another, you’ll get to hear this stuff…eventually.