By Christopher "CJ" Smith

Yesterday we ran a story about this fall's slate of superstar releases, but there are plenty more albums due out this leaf-changing season.

October 7

Rise Against's Appeal to Reason: Will these punkers be able to follow up on the success and critical acclaim of 2006's The Sufferer & the Witness?

Oasis' Dig Out Your Soul: The Brit rockers cling to legitimacy on their seventh album, which (surprisingly) has been getting favorable reviews. Can they stage a comeback to relevancy? Read more...

By Sarah Muller

The clock is ticking down to MTV's 2008 Video Music Awards on September 7. For the past few weeks, we've been asking viewers to vote for their favorite nominees. And so far, the big names that you always hear about — Britney, Mariah, Kanye — have made the cut, as expected.

But let's just say the indie-rock world hasn't gotten much love this year. This past Sunday, when I spoke with King Khan, the Black Lips' Cole Alexander and Deerhunter's Bradford Cox at the Jelly NYC Pool Party in Brooklyn, out of nowhere, Alexander mentioned the VMAs. He brought it up, not me! That would be like talking about a big blowout party right in front of people you know didn't get invited.

Soon enough, the rest of the gang started chiming in: "How can we go? Please, please, please, let us come!" They promised not to curse and "not to bring any chickens or animals." Alexander swore he wouldn't bother Justin Timberlake, adding, "If you let us perform, I promise we'll be better than Britney was last year." But he admitted that wasn't saying much.

Perhaps as a nod to recovering pop tart, Cox offered to wear a dress with a snake around his neck, and possibly a Chihuahua. ... You've got to check out video for the rest.

Hot. What outrageous stunt would you pull to get a VMA invite? Let us know.

By Sarah Muller and Christopher "CJ" Smith

Live chickens seem more fit for a farm than a concert. An old man on rollerblades doesn't exactly scream rock and roll, either. But Sunday's Jelly NYC Pool Party was all about the punk-rock spectacle.

That's no surprise, though. We're dealing with the triple-threat rabble-rousing crew of the Black Lips, Deerhunter and King Khan And The Shrines — three bands that are known as much for their onstage antics as their various blends of punk. But this time, they turned a party designed for a loft or a basement into a giant outdoor party — complete with audience-participation food fights, an onstage toilet-paper smackdown and plenty of cringe-worthy "did they REALLY just do that?" moments.

The bands are bestest friends. But if you ask them, they're more like family. Sort of...

There's no sibling rivalry here. The performers shared the spotlight with each other throughout the course of the afternoon, and said they're going to officially work together soon. "We would like to officially announce a band that we've started called Butt Flower," King Khan half-jokingly told MTV News, adding that the project consists of the Black Lips' Cole Alexander, Deerhunter's Bradford Cox and himself. With Cox and Khan getting together for an impromptu set at the Pitchfork Music Festival last month — AND Cox and Alexander releasing music as Ghetto Cross — the trio seems closer than ever. Unfortunately, it's been difficult to get them all in one place to record, specifically, Khan noted, "because [Alexander's] helicopter ran out of gas."

Not one to leave anything to the imagination, Khan removed his pants to give the crowd a visualization of the new band's name during Deerhunter's set (with the help of some flowers). But even that stunt seemed tame compared to some of the other outrageous moments of the day.

Read more...

As you know by now, most of the MTV News crew was out in LA all last week for an obscure awards show. So when word spread like email wildfire that the new Deerhunter album had leaked online, many of News' indie collective were frustrated beyond belief that they had to actually “produce live TV” rather than rush to their laptops and download that luminous sonic jewel. (Seriously, Bradford Cox inspires a kind of embarrassing level of musical worship on the 29th floor. And Brooklyn.)

So in the competition to be the first among us to listen to Microcastle (it's not even supposed to be out for months!!), the winner was…Jim Cantiello. His thoughts?

Jim: It rules. Such a neat direction for the band to go in. [Ed: FYI, Jim has patented a neo-hipster use of the word "neat."] Where the "Intro" on Cryptograms is a build-up of mood, the Microcastle intro explodes with melody, a clever signal of what's to come. The influence of 50's pop is much more on the forefront of this record (what with the "Earth Angel"-esque strumming on the album's closer), but they've still kept their signature Deerhunterisms in place. (The vocal loops, doom-and-gloom lyrics, and cathartic releases are all in there -- you just have to listen closely for them.) I'm bummed that "Calvary Scars" isn't the six-plus-minute, boppable version they played at CMJ, but the truncated version works really well as part of the mid-LP suite. All in all, I think it's an awesomely focused and mature offering -- the perfect album for them to put out at this point in their career. Go, Deerhunter!

Have you heard the album yet?

The kids at hipster site Pitchfork announced the starter lineup for their annual music festival, to take place July 18-20 in Chicago's Union Park. In keeping with their "Don't Look Back" series, the festival will kick off on the first night with Public Enemy performing their seminal hit, It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back. Other acts over the three days include LA noise duo, No Age, Deerhunter side-project Atlas Sound, New York's Animal Collective, and the most awesome psych-metal band around, Boris.

Tickets for the festival (one of our favorites) go on sale Wednesday, March 12. The lineup - with more artists to be announced in coming days, weeks, months:

Friday 18 July

Pitchfork and All Tomorrow's Parties Present "Don't Look Back"

Public Enemy performing It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back

Saturday 19 July

Animal Collective
!!!
Vampire Weekend
Dizzee Rascal
No Age
Atlas Sound
Fleet Foxes
and more

Sunday 20 July

Spiritualized
M. Ward
Boris
Extra Golden
El Guincho

and more

Don't know if we'll ever see a Deerhunter vid on MTV but there's a few of us here in the Newsroom who love this band to no end. At the 2006 Corndog O Rama in Atlanta (a fantastic music festival, if you ever get the chance to go), Bradford inexplicably yelled at my then-girlfriend after she introduced them on stage. He apologized immediately afterwards, and really I couldn't be that mad because they were fantastic.

But that's neither here nor there. This dispatch from John Norris on his weekend before Bradford's Atlas Sound shows in NYC:

This weekend I got the chance to sit down for an extended chat with the inimitable Bradford Cox of Deerhunter/Atlas Sound/Ghetto Cross, and the subject of a million blog entries and dozens of side projects – and I’m working on a story from that interview right now. But one of the most exciting collabos he told us about is an upcoming album he’ll be doing in Morocco at the end of March, with Ed Droste from Grizzly Bear and Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett. They’ll spend two weeks in an Ed-rented villa working on a ‘pop record’. That’s quite a threesome – Cox, Droste and Pallett. Kind of an indie Hope, Crosby and Lamour in “Road to Morocco”? (IMDB it) Will there be houseboys, I had to ask? “Um, no” said Bradford, “I’m told there is a house girl.” The better to focus on work.