Stars and Eskimos

First and most importantly.



Orchestral pop divines Stars decided to make Christmas come in July yesterday announcing,

On September 25th, We will release Stars' fourth studio album, In Our Bedroom After War.

We love it and are excited and proud to be bringing it to the world.

We enlisted Joe Chiccarelli to mix the album. He finished in early June, passing the tapes along to Emily Lazar at the Lodge for mastering. Last Friday, July 6th, a final master was delivered to us.

Traditional music business practice says we are to begin sending out copies of this album now. We give advance copies to print publications in hopes of securing features that coincide with our September date. We meet with radio stations in hopes of securing airplay. etc, etc.

Inevitably someone will leak the album.

Throughout this process, the most important people in this value chain, the fans, are given only two options - wait until September 25th to legally purchase the new album or choose from a variety of sources and download the album for free, at any time.

We hope you'll choose to support the band, and choose to pay for their album. However we don't think it's fair you should have to wait until September 25th to do so.

We believe that the line between the media and the public is now completely grey.
What is the difference between a writer for a big glossy music magazine and a student writing about their favourite bands on their blog? What differentiates a commercial radio station from someone adding a song to their lastfm channel? or their myspace page?

As such, we are making the new Stars album available for legal download today, four days after it's completion. The CD and double vinyl versions of the album will still be released on our official release date, September 25th. We hope you will continue to support music retailers should a physical album in all it's packaged glory be your choice of format.

It's our hope that given a clear, legal alternative to downloading music for free, you will choose to support the creators.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Sincerely,
Stars and Arts & Crafts



This forward type of thinking encouraged me to actually purchase a copy of the album, which I might add, comes without DRM, so you're not having to work around copyright protections. Hopefully more people will encourage artist to trust their fans this way, and hopefully fans will reward that trust.


Can I just say this?

Take Me to the Riot could possibly be the best song of the summer.

Absolutely fantastic and catchy


Also Stars released tour dates finally...

Thursday September 6th, 2007
Grand Rapids, MI - Calvin College Fine Arts Center

Saturday September 8th, 2007
Montreal, QC - Parc Jean-Drapeau

Sunday September 9th, 2007
Toronto, ON - Virgin Festival

Wednesday October 17th, 2007
South Burlington, VT - Higher Ground

Thursday October 18th, 2007
New York, NY - Town Hall

Friday October 19th, 2007
Boston, MA - Berklee Performance Centre

Saturday October 20th, 2007
Washington, DC - 9:30 Club

Wednesday October 24th, 2007
Philadelphia, PA - Starlight Ballroom

Friday October 26th, 2007
Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle

Saturday October 27th, 2007
Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse

Sunday October 28th, 2007
Tallahassee, FL - Florida State University

Tuesday October 30th, 2007
Austin, TX - Stubbs BBQ

Wednesday October 31st, 2007
Dallas, TX - House of Blues

Friday November 2nd, 2007
Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre

Saturday November 3rd, 2007
Minneapolis, MN - Pantages

Sunday November 4th, 2007
Omaha, NB - Slowdown

Tuesday November 6th, 2007
Englewood, CO - Gothic Theatre

Thursday November 8th, 2007
Tucson, AZ - The Rialto Theatre

Friday November 9th, 2007
San Diego, CA - House of Blues

Saturday November 10th, 2007
Los Angeles, CA - Orpheum Theatre

Tuesday November 13th, 2007
San Francisco, CA - Bimbo's 365 Club

Wednesday November 14th, 2007
San Francisco, CA - Bimbo's 365 Club

Thursday November 15th, 2007
Portland, OR - The Crystal Ballroom

Friday November 16th, 2007
Seattle, WA - The Showbox Theatre

I've got two tickets for the show at the 9:30. Stars throws a heckva show and I've been waiting for their return for a long long time.


____________


Also I'm not from the land down under but a reader alerted me to the Aussies Eskimo Joe who also played Live Earth.

Their single "Black Fingernails Red Wine" has an infectious 80's post dance feel to it that makes me want to hear the rest of their album.


The lead singer's got a great voice, a great presence, and fits the sound he puts out quite perfectly.

so check them out, and maybe I'll look up some of their other stuff.