Stephen Malkmus Streams Mirror Traffic, Schedules Free Shows And Contest

Stephen Malkmus at Great American Music Hall, from the HAD Archive

You may recall that Stephen Malkmus has a new record, Mirror Traffic, on it's way next Tuesday. Well, lucky for you that you don't have to wait that long. NPR has gotten ahold of the record, and is streaming it in full over at their page. But that's not all!

In addition to streaming the brand new LP, Malkmus is also looking to clean up the lyrics from its lead single. Apparently, the FCC wasn't too happy with the words "blow job" being in the tune, and it wasn't going to see radio play. As such, Matador has devised a contest to convince fans to come up with a replacement phrase for the two words. The prize is a limited edition 7" featuring your very own lyrical modification. Head here to enter.

Finally, in support of the record's release, Malkmus will be playing two NYC acoustic shows next week. On August 25th, SM will hit Academy Records at 6 PM, and Other Music at 9 PM. Long lines are not just anticipated, they're guaranteed. See you there!

Portugal. The Man Contest Winner!

We're happy to announce that Julia from Berkeley won tickets to catch Portugal. The Man at The Fillmore tonight. The Bowie song that Portugal. The Man has been covering that won her the tickets? "Moonage Daydream" Check out the vid above - Yup, it's a doozy. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Contest: Tickets To See Portugal The Man At The Fillmore

As we stumble out of bed to greet you on this Wednesday morning, we have some fantastic news: we've snagged a pair of tickets to catch Portugal. The Man at the always lovely Fillmore this Friday night. The show finds the band on an unquestionably upward trajectory, and should be packed to the gills.

So, how do you snag tickets to this lovely show? Easy: send an email to contests@hippiesaredead.com answering this question: What classic David Bowie track have Portugal. The Man covered live? We'll pick the winner from the entries at random, and notify you by Thursday afternoon!

Good luck!

Caribou Streams Album, Announces Remix Contest

Caribou at Slim's in 2007, from the HAD Archive

News just came over the wire that the new Caribou album Swim (which is obscenely fantastic, btw), is now streaming in full over at Soundcloud. We've had our hands on the record for a month or two, and are truly loving it. We highly recommend you head over and check it out as soon as you get a chance.

Additionally, the band has announced a remix contest centered around a track from the record, "Sun". All the multi-track parts are downloadable here, and once complete, remixes are to be uploaded here. While we haven't heard it yet, we're sure the Record Store Day "Odessa" remixes 12" will certainly serve as a source for inspiration.

Finally, as previously noted, the band are out on an extensive tour of Europe and North America. Take our word for it when we say that this is a band you definitely want to see live. Check out the dates below.

mp3: Caribou - Odessa

stream: Caribou - Swim

Caribou Spring 2010 Dates

Apr 17 Freebutt Brighton
Apr 19 Deaf Institute Manchester
Apr 20 Corsica Studios London London
Apr 21 Paradiso (Upstairs) Amsterdam
Apr 22 Beursschouwburg Brussels
Apr 23 Le Point Ephemere Paris
Apr 24 Le Romandie Lausanne, Waadt
Apr 25 Palace St. Gallen, St-Gall
Apr 26 Magnolia Milano
Apr 27 Feierwerk Muchen
Apr 28 Berghain Berlin, Berlin
Apr 29 Prinzenbar Hamburg
Apr 30 Pop Revo Festival Århus
May 1 Hornstull Strand Stockholm
May 3 Phoenix Concert Theatre (AA) Toronto, Ontario
May 4 Babylon (AA) Ottawa, Ontario
May 5 La Tulipe (AA) Montreal, Quebec
May 6 Middle East Downstairs (18+) Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 7 Music Hall Of Williamsburg (18+) Brooklyn, New York
May 8 Bowery Ballroom (18+) New York, New York
May 9 First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia (AA) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 10 Rock And Roll Hotel (AA) Washington, Washington DC
May 11 Jefferson Theater Charlottesville, Virginia
May 12 Cat’s Cradle (AA) Carrboro, North Carolina
May 13 Earl East Atlanta, Georgia
May 14 Spanish Moon Baton Rouge, Louisiana
May 15 Warehouse Live Studio Houston, Texas
May 16 Emo’s (AA) Austin, Texas
May 18 Clubhouse Music Venue (AA) Tempe, Arizona
May 19 El Rey Theatre (AA) Los Angeles, California
May 20 asbah San Diego, California
May 21 Teatro Fru Fru Mexico City
May 24 The Independent San Francisco, California
May 26 Hawthorne Theatre (AA) Portland, Oregon
May 28 Sugar Nightclub Victoria, British Columbia
May 29 Rickshaw Theatre (AA) Vancouver, British Columbia
May 30 Sasquatch Festival George, Washington
May 31 Republik Calgary, Alberta
Jun 1 tarlite Room Edmonton, Alberta
Jun 2 Amigos Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Jun 3 oyal Albert Hotel Winnipeg, Manitoba
Jun 4 7th Street Entry At First Avenue Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jun 5 Rock Island Brewing Co. Rock Island, Illinois
Jun 6 Granada Theatre Lawrence, Kansas
Jun 7 The Firebird (AA) St. Louis, Missouri
Jun 8 Zanzabar Louisville, Kentucky
Jun 9 The Grog Shop Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Jun 10 The Casbah Hamilton, Ontario
Jun 11 Paragon Halifax, Nova Scotia
Jun 16 Heaven London
Jul 31 Victoria Park London, London and South East

Holy Fuck Contest Winners Announced

Thanks to all who entered our contest for tickets to this Thursday's Outside Lands kickoff, featuring Holy Fuck. We're please to announce that the winners have been selected, and they are Justin Maxon and Sara Pendleton! Congratulations to the winners: it's gonna be a killer show, and a great way to kick off a weekend of fantastic music. For the rest of you, do not despair! There's so much great music going on in San Francisco this week, your options are endless. Get out there, and let us know what you see!

mp3: Holy Fuck - Jungles

Contest: Holy Fuck Outside Lands Kickoff At The Independent

Well, here we are: it's the week of San Francisco's biggest (and youngest!) music festival, so we hope your damn well ready. Outside Lands kicks off on Friday, and is ready to bring you three days of music, with far more bands than you could possibly hope to see, and a crowd fit to compete with Coachella. Luckily things look fantastic (if not, as always, a bit chilly) weather-wise, so now all you have to do is wait. Right?

Wrong! Because guess what? In addition to the massivity that Outside Lands, Another Planet has lined up a series of "night shows" to further augment your musical uptake. Some of the artists at these shows include Conor Oberst, The Dodos, Holy Fuck, Akron/Family, ALO and The Dirtbombs. Not too shabby, eh?

The whole weekend is kicking off with Thursday night's Holy Fuck show at The Independent, and we're glad to say that we have two pairs of tickets to give away. All you need to do is email contests@hippiesaredead.com with the name of your favorite Holy Fuck song, and you'll be in the running. The contest ends tomorrow night at midnight, so get on it!

mp3: Holy Fuck - Jungles

Hippies Are Dead's Second Anniversary: Photo Giveaway Contest!

Yes kids, that's right: it was two years ago today that Hippies Are Dead got our groove on with a tiny little post about an undersold Animal Collective show at The Fillmore. My how times change.

Here we are two years later, and still going strong. We've managed to expand to New York while maintaining a San Francisco presence, and we continue to be impressed and amazed as more and more killer music is propagated upon the world.

Of all of our experiences over the past two years, probably the most rewarding has been our coverage of live shows. Live music has been an HAD focus since the beginning, and as such it's provided the impetus for a lot of our original content, and more importantly the HAD Archive.

So, here's the deal: We're so excited about HAD's 2nd anniversary, that we want to hit you, our readers, up with a little thank you. As such, we'll be giving away two large-size (we haven't decided just how large yet), archival quality prints from the HAD Archive. All you have to do is send an email to contests@hippiesaredead.com with a note telling us which photo you'd like a print of, and how you discovered HAD. That's it! We'll pick two winners at the end of next week and get your photos on their way.

Thanks again for a great two years folks, we're looking forward to a lot more.

Contest: Tickets For Yacht At The Rickshaw Stop

Portland techno-psych-bizarro rockers Yacht are riding high on the wave of a new record, a glowing Pitchfork review, and the launch of a new single entitled "Psychic City". You can check out the video for the tune above, or grab the mp3 below.

However, that's not all - the band are also doing a handful of shows in support of the record's release. While the New York shows have come and gone, we're happy to say that San Franciscans still have a chance to check out the band at the Rickshaw Stop this Friday.

Not only that, but the fine folks at Another Planet Entertainment have kindly hooked HAD up with two pairs of tickets to the show, which we'll be giving away....starting now! All you need to do is email contests@hippiesaredead.com by midnight on Thursday with your favorite Yacht song. We'll pick winners that night, and two lucky winners will be snagging a pair of tickets to the show. It's just that easy!

mp3: Yacht - Psychic City (Voodoo City)

Pains Of Being Pure At Heart Winner Announced

We're pretty amped up for tomorrow night's show with The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, and we couldn't be more happy to be hooking a fan up with a pair of tickets to the sold out show. Thanks to Another Planet Entertainment, Josh Miller will be checking out the show with a pal of his choice! Congrats to Josh, and to the rest who entered, we hope you find your destiny on craigslist. See you at the show!

mp3: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - The Tenure Itch

Contest: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart Rickshaw Ticket Giveaway

We already gave mention to The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's tour, and upcoming show at Rickshaw next week. Well in the months since, the band's hype has done nothing but build, and (accordingly) the Rickshaw show is sold out. You snooze, you lose, right?

WRONG!

Thanks to the kindness of our friends over at Another Planet Entertainment, HAD has a pair of tickets to give away for next Tuesday's show. All you need to do to qualify to win is the following: send an email to contests@hippiesaredead.com telling us your favorite track on the band's full-length, and why. One entry per person, please.

The contest will close this Sunday (July 19th) at midnight, and we'll let you know what happened Monday morning. Good luck!

mp3: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - The Tenure Itch

Contest: Tickets For Little Joy At The Independent

Well, we certainly hope you weren't on board just for some sort of Strokes fetish. Yes, despite the fact that Fab was called back to New York, Little Joy will continue on without him. As mentioned previously, the band will be delivering the awesomeness of their debut record at The Independent on June 3rd. Frankly, while we're sad to see Fab go, we have to admit we're pretty glad it will thin the crowd of all the fankids who weren't in it for the music. This is an awesome band, with some awesome tunes to deliver, celeb status be damned.

If you're of a similar mind, then we have quite a treat for you: in conjunction with The Independent and Another Planet Entertainment, we're giving away two pairs of tickets for the show. All you have to do to get entered in the drawing is answer one question for us, and send the answer to contests@hippiesaredead.com That question is: Rodrigo Amarante is in another band besides Little Joy - what is that band, and where are they from?

The contest will close at midnight on Sunday the 31st, so that we have time to get you all set for the show. Ready, set, go!

Reminder: High Places Contest Ends At One

Looking for something to do tonight? Want to hear some quality tunage? We're giving away two tickets to High Places at the Bottom Of The Hill tonight, so get your entries in by one!

Contest: High Places Are At Bottom Of The Hill Tomorrow Night (Ticket Giveaway)

To be frank, High Places have sort of fallen off our radar since we gave some listening time to their compilation 03/07 - 09/07 last summer. For those not familiar, the band presents an eerie blend of organic beats supported by simple melodic vocals, and minimalist instrumentation. It's something of a genre mashup, but it also reminds us more than a little bit of some of the Mo Tucker Velvet Underground tracks.

So, fast forward six months, and the Brooklyn-based duo is on the road touring in support of their self titled album that dropped last fall. What does this mean for you? Well, the band will be playing an all ages show at Bottom Of The Hill tomorrow night, and we have two tickets to give away! What better way to start a weekend?

As always, winning is easy. Just send the answer to this question to contests@hippiesaredead.com and you could be in possession of two tickets!

Where did High Places play their first show?

Contest closes at 1 PM Friday, one entry per person please. Good luck!

Broken Social Scene: Winter Tour, Potential San Francisco Date?

Photo from the HAD Archive

Broken Social Scene has set up a handfull of winter tour dates for January, as they continue to support their latest record Something For All Of Us. As we perused the dates, we couldn't help but notice that the band is coming to the West Coast without an announced stop in San Francisco.

Given that the band has yet to make a headlining appearance in the city (Outside Lands is their only appearance in San Francisco since the record's release), we have to admit we're kinda surprised. And then we noticed: a conspicuously open date on Tuesday, February 3rd. Granted this is all speculation and wishful thinking on our part, but wouldn't a stop in the city really make for a good time? Come on guys - please?

While you're contemplating the bands possible (or impossible, you decide) arrival in our fair city, you can check out some behind-the-scenes photo goodness over at the band's tour blog and even enter for a tasty holiday gift pack.

Broken Social Scene Winter 2009 Tour Dates
Friday January 30th, 2009 Dallas, TX House of Blues
Saturday January 31st, 2009 Austin, TX Bass Concerts Hall - University of Texas
Monday February 2nd, 2009 Houston, TX Numbers
Wednesday February 4th, 2009 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom
Thursday February 5th, 2009 Seattle, WA Showbox SoDo
Friday February 6th, 2009 Vancouver, BC Orpheum Theatre
Friday March 6th, 2009 Miami, FL Langerado Festival

Ryan Adams Cardinology Contest Winner Announced

Well, this was probably was our most popular contest yet, and we can understand why! Getting Cardinology on vinyl and CD in one fell swoop is about as good as it gets. The winner of this fine, fine, prize is one Mr. William Bronston. William, we'll be contacting you about the prize shortly. In the meantime, thanks again to Filter magazine for sponsoring the contest - we're sure William thanks you as well!

Reminder: Ryan Adams Cardinology Giveaway Ends Tonight At Midnight

Just a reminder kids: if you're hankering for a free vinyl and CD pairing of the latest from one Mr. David Ryan Adams and his band the Cardinals, then make sure you get in your contest entries by tonight at midnight. If you have no idea what we're talking about, then you may as well go check out the original contest posting. Good luck!

Contest: Ryan Adams Cardinology Vinyl+CD Giveaway

Well kids, this is just cool. We'll be perfectly honest with you: this contest we're about to offer up? We paid our own cold hard cash for the same exact thing just about a month ago. Seriously: it's almost too good to be true. The kind folks at Filter Magazine (ardent Ryan Adams proponents if there ever were some) have offered us a combined vinyl and CD copy of the Cardinals' latest, Cardinology, to give away to one of our ridiculously lucky readers.

So, here's the deal: this is a sicktastic prize, so we're gonna make you work a little to get the goods. By midnight next Friday, send us your name and address and the answer to the following question:

Ryan Adams recorded an unreleased session at Q Division studios in Boston in September of 2000. At that session, another musician sang backup vocals. That musician is now in another band - name the band and the musician.

Replies go to contests@hippiesaredead.com - name, address, and answer. One entry per person, please.

Ready, set, go!

Black Keys Contest Winners Announced

Well kids, everyone can play, but sadly not everyone can win. In the case of tomorrow evening's Black Keys show there could only be two winners. Congratulations to Cristy Sanada and Joel Hawkins! Both of you won a pair of tickets to tomorrow nights show, as well as admission to the pre-show meet and greet! Keep an eye out for a confirmation email, and as for the rest of you, well: there are still ways to get tickets, right?

Contest: Black Keys Ticket Giveaway

So, next Thursday The Black Keys will be playing a sold out show (along with Dr. Dog) at The Fillmore. The show is the final date in the "Converse Century Concert Series", which has had dates with various bands across the country. The idea (apparently) is to get people into sweet shows for only $10 a ticket. Not a bad idea. But wait: we'll take it a step further.

See, the folks at Converse were nice enough to give us two pairs of tickets to give away to this show, and they included bracelets for the pre-show meet and greet with the band beforehand. So, yes, you could win and get to go for $0 - plus you get to meet the band. Killer, right?

All you need to do is send the answer to the following question to contests@hippiesaredead.com by midnight on Tuesday at midnight, which is when we're going to shut the doors. We'll announce the winners on Wednesday.

One entry per person, please. Here goes:
At what Bay Area music festival and on which stage and date did the Black Keys play this year?

Spoon Poster Contest Winners Announced

It's been a week since Spoon and The Heavenly States rocked the Fillmore, and we're still reeling. As such, we're happy to announce the four winners of the fancy-dancy poster seen above: Sierra Gribble, Jeremy May, Anthony Chilelli, and Ashley Anzalone. Congrats to all the winners! Give us a week or two to get them out, folks: we're horribly inefficient around here.

UPDATE: Due to an oversight involving multiple entries (tsk tsk) Robyn Smigel is now also a winner!

For all of you who are a little sad that you didn't win, at least there's a consolation prize! The band has just uploaded their October bonus track: the demo of "In The Right Place The Right Time" (which is in and of itself a b-side...interesting) - click below for awesomeness!

mp3: Spoon - In The Right Place The Right Time (Demo)