Ryan Adam Delivers Two New Cardinals Records, New Website

We should have known something was up. Two weeks ago, Ryan Adams decided to appear on stage for the first time in quite a while at an 826 Valencia benefit. Then last week his website for Pax Am Records was completely remodeled, and included 5 free never before heard jams with the Cardinals.

Well on Friday, we finally got wind of what was going on: Apparently Mr. Adams has two awesome new Cardinals records in the can, and he's ready to deliver. Entitled III and IV, (ah, originality), the two pieces of wax are available in a wide variety of formats (picture above) and are available for preorder starting next Tuesday.

While we have no idea what the records are going to sound like, if the free jams are any indicator, it's going to be a guitar powerhouse. We're pretty psyched, because the Cardinals' big guitar live sound hasn't really found its way on record yet, and it's seeming like this might be the time. We've posted one of the jams below, you can snag the other four at the PaxAm website.

mp3: Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - DRA/Neal/Brad Riffage 4

Blur Preselling Live Albums Of Hyde Park Reunion

As we mentioned previously, the "true" Blur reunion will take place in Hyde Park at the beginning of July. Now the band has given notice that the two reunion shows will be recorded, and sold to fans as CD's or downloads. Given that the show is on the other side of the pond, we can guess that there'll be a lot of American interest in picking up these tasty morsels. You can preorder at the Blur on-line store now.

Cardinology Vinyl Pre-Order Announced

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals have released details of a vinyl preorder for their new record Cardinology. The package will feature a t-shirt, post cards, a comic book, translucent red vinyl, and album art exclusive to the first pressing. In addition it'll come with a bonus 7" and a digital download code. No word on pricing, but you can register at the site above for notification of the preorder getting off the ground.

New Pavement Remaster On The Way

If you're like us, a doting adorer of Pavement, then you've been champing at the bit for this bit of news (yes, it's "champing", check your references folks): Brighten The Corners is finally on slate for release in the Pavement reissue program. That means a second disc of B-Sides, remastered audio, unreleased tracks, and uber-pretty album art. And it's all arriving on November 18th! So close! Plus there's going to be a "Buy Early Get Now" promotion with even more details. Awesomeness. Get all the track listing details over at the Matador blog. Thanks to Pitchfork for the tip.

Cardinology: Ryan Adams' Latest Secret Revealed

As you've no doubt obviously heard, the secret of the "Cardinology" mailbox has been revealed: Ryan Adams And The Cardinals will be releasing Cardinology on October 28th. The record appears to leave behind the solo "Ryan Adams" label of Easy Tiger, with full band collaboration and the Cardinals moniker running strong.

On top of the new album release, Adams also has a book of "non-musical writing" on the way entitled Infinity Blues. The volume will be released on March 16th, 2009, but pre-orders start October 6th. By jumping in on the preorder, you not only get a signed hardcover copy of the tome, but a bonus "poetry chapbook" titled Sad American Mythology. Get on the preorder here.

The tracklist for Cardinology features a bunch of the tracks that the band has been playing live, and we're thinking it may have a bit more rock flavor than Easy Tiger, which sounds like a plan to us. Here's the tracklist:

Born Into A Light
Go Easy
Fix It
Magick
Cobwebs
Let Us Down Easy
Crossed Out Name
Natural Ghost
Sink Ships
Evergreen
Like Yesterday
Stop

"Fix It" will be the first single, as the band continues their North American tour over the next month or two.

The Walkmen's You & Me Limited Vinyl

We've been sort of staying under the radar in regard to the Walkmen's upcoming release You and Me: Given the band's recent claims that some of their more recent live offerings don't sound like the album, it seemed sensible to avoid mention until we got to hear it ourselves. However, the more we put it off, the more we get psyched to hear the new disc. Stereogum hyping it with a prerelease review didn't help to calm us down either. Well, today we got an email from Insound saying that they'll be the exclusive purveyors of the vinyl edition of the record, pressed on 180 gram red vinyl. Being the vinyl fetishists that we are (and colored at that!), we figured it was worth a mention. The preorder gets you the vinyl, plus mp3s: awesome.

Malkmus Goodness Rocks Your World

It's no secret to regular readers that we here at H.A.D. are pretty stoked for the new Stephen Malkmus album dropping on March 4th. In light of that, we were pretty excited to snag a few piece of news.

First, a little bird informed us that SM+Jicks are apparently playing Harlow's in Sacramento come April 28th. We're pretty sure that this will mean a San Francisco date as well, but if not we're willing to make the trek out to the valley.

Second, we got an email from the cool folks over at Insound revealing a pre-order bonus package for Real Emotional Trash. We're not normally the type to go for such things, but this one is a little too good to pass up:

• A pre-stream of the complete album
  
• An unreleased recording of a live show
• Multiple exclusive B-Sides
• A free poster

So, yeah, we'll be jumping on that bandwagon. Details are here.