Cold Cave, The Trees Grew Emotions and Died. From the bands debut disc, Love Comes Close.

Manhattan’s Cold Cave is currently in the UK supporting Editors.

More on Cold Cave via Matador Records.

The Soft Pack, Answer to Yourself. Live on vocalist Matt Lamkin’s roof. From the band’s self titled 2010 record set to be released on February 16th.

Formerly known as The Muslims, this the first record that the band has recorded under their new name, The Soft Pack.

More on San Diego’s The Soft Pack here.

Ace Frehley, Outer Space. From Ace’s fifth solo record, 2009’s Anomaly.

Ace Frehley will be traveling to Australia (via spaceship presumably) to perform a bunch of live dates starting in Perth on February 1st.

More on Space Ace here.

Them Crooked Vultures, Dead End Friends, professional footage shot live in Reading. From the 2009 self-titled release Them Crooked Vultures. For Freddy Pants.

More on one of the best records of 2009 via, Them Crooked Vultures.com.

Soulsavers “Death Bells” remixed by Mogwai.

If you dig this remix hard like me, you can download the track for free via NME.com.

A Place To Bury Strangers, Keep Slipping Away. From 2009’s Exploding Head.

Exploding Head is the third full-length feedback-y release from this Brooklyn based band. Currently in Europe, Strangers will conclude the European leg of their tour with a newly announced show in London on December 15th. A Place to Bury Strangers will be at Neumo’s in Seattle on March 12, 2010.

More here.

Gift Of Gab,  El Gifto Magnifico. From 2009’s Escape 2 Mars. Which sounds like a really good idea right now.

Seattle’s Brother Ali and Del the Funky Homosapien both guest on Gift of Gab’s (aka Timothy Parker, 1/2 of Blackalicious) new record, Escape 2 Mars.

More on Oakland’s Gift of Gab here.

The Sisters of Mercy, Lucretia, My Reflection. From 1987’s Floodland.

More: The Sisters of Mercy.

Russian Circles, Malko. From 2009’s

Hold on to your roof Neumo’s! Russian Circles will attempt to blow you off on November 18th. The awesome Helm’s Alee opens.

More on Chicago’s Russian Circles here.

The Rollings Stones doing Live With Me from Let It Bleed. Live at the Marquee in London, 1971.

The only thing better than this song, is the outfit Mick Jagger is wearing in the video. Girlfriend is hot.

Laura Palmer’s Prom, You Say Party, We Say DIE!. From the bands third release, 2009’s, XXXX.

Because every heart needs a lap dance. Especially (D) Rep Alan Grayson of Florida.

Laura Palmer’s Prom plays tonight, October 23rd, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward.  More on the band from BC, here.

Explode Into Colors, Sharpen The Knife, live.

Listen to the studio track of Sharpen the Knife, here. It’s completely fucking amazing.

Explode Into Colors are from Portland, Oregon. The band will roll into Seattle to play a gig at The Crocodile Cafe with Mission of Burma (!) on November 11th.

More on Explode into Colors here.

Visqueen, Message to Garcia, 2009.

The impossibly catchy WARD! comes Visqueen’s third studio record, Message to Garcia. Without fear of going out on a limb, it’s probably the Seattle trio’s best effort. WARD! is one of those songs you find yourself singing out loud. And that’s because it’s simply impossible not to want to pretend you sound exactly like Visqueen’s powerhouse vocalist, Rachel Flotard. Which of course, you don’t.

Visqueen will play a gig with Shonen Knife (!) at The Tractor Tavern on Saturday, October 24th.

Manic Street Preachers, Peeled Apples. From 2009’s Journal for Plague Lovers. For K.

Journal for Plague Lovers, the ninth studio release from Manic Street Preachers, contains music penned 13 years ago by Manic’s former vocalist/guitarist Richey Edwards. Edwards disappeared in 1995 after checking out of London hotel. In 2008 Richey was declared legally dead, despite the fact that his body has never been recovered.

More on Manic Street Preachers here.

Speech Debelle.

Speech Debelle’s 2009 record, Speech Therapy, just won The Barclaycard Mercury Prize for Album of the Year in the UK.

You can download he track Bad Boy from Speech Debelle for free, here. I myself have fallen in love with Debelle’s trip-hoppy, breathless vocals and madly sampled mixes so enjoy. I know you will.

More on Speech Debelle…

The Heavy, How You Like Me Now. From 2009’s The House That Dirt Built. Little Red Riding Hood getting lost on her way to Funkytown? Rock star video bonus!

UK’s The Heavy are back with their second full length and so far, I’m loving it as much as the bands super bad 2007 release, Great Vengance Furious Fire. You can find my most recent earwig, How You Like Me Now, on 2009’s, The House that Dirt Built. Running a close second in my ears is, No Time, a truly funked out rock track in it’s own right. Kelvin Swaby’s vocals have been injected with equal parts of Marvin Gaye and James Brown.  And that’s enough to send anyone hard. Hard and heavy that is. Meow…

The Heavy will be at The Crocodile on October 30th.

Prodigy, Serial Thrilla from 1997 Fat of the Lamb. 

It’s a long flight from Seattle to New Hampshire, but as usual, I made it. I was on a red eye so I thought I might be able to sleep. That was until this Prodigy noise started eeking  into my ears every time I woke up. Lucky for me, Serial Thrilla (as well as rest of Fat of the Lamb), still sounds great 12 years later.

Off to the rocky coast of New Hampshire, or what is commonly referred to here as the “beach” for the rest of the day. More later…

Amanda Blank, Make it, Take it, from 2009, I Love You.

‘Illadelphia represent!

More on Amanda Blank here.

Soulsavers, Broken. Out on August 18th, 2009.

On the B-side of Sunrise, the new 7″ from Soulsavers (Mark Lanegan and Rich Machin) is a haunting  cover of the Bonnie Prince Billy (aka, Will Oldham) song, “You Will Miss Me When I Burn”. You can listen to it at the bands Myspace. Oldham turns the tables for side-A of the single by lending his vocals to Sunrise, a song written by Lanegan.

Broken, the third record from Soulsavers (the second one with Mark Lanegan on vocals), will be out on August 18th. Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle) and Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers also appear on the tracks Unbalanced Pieces (Patton) and Death Bells (Haynes). Soulsavers will play three gigs in London and Glasgow starting on August 24th.

Soulsavers return to Seattle to perform at Bumbershoot on September 7th. I’m not missing that, how about you?

Halloween II Trailer. Directed by Zob Zombie & out in 2009.

Holy mother of mayhem. I’ll go to this movie just to listen to the soundtrack. Anyway, Rob Zombie’s musical remake accompaniment of my most sacred horror film (yes, really) has got me. Really, really, got me. I think this film is going to change the public perception of The Moody Blues song, Nights in White Satin. Which is good. But what do I know? I’m so easy.  Give me Lemmy anytime, anywhere, and I’m happy. And that’s the truth for once. Okay, maybe twice.

Below is the track listing for HII2009. If you didn’t scream like a girl with hipster pants on at Coachella (hey there hipster watching Band of Horses), then you sir/madam, are not alive.

Halloween II, 2009 soundtrack listing:

01. CAST – “He’s F****** Dead”
02. THE MOODY BLUES – Nights In White Satin
03. CAST – “Halloween Is Coming”
04. 10CC – “The Things We Do For Love”
05. CAST – “Who’s Lee Marvin?”
06. SCREAM – “Amerarockers”
07. CAST – “Jam & Jelly”
08. MC5 – “Kick Out The Jams”
09. CAST – “Ass Good”
10. ROD STEWART – “(I Know) I’m Losing You”
11. CAST – “D-E-A-D”
12. MOTÖRHEAD – “The Chase Is Better Than The Catch”
13. CAST – “I’m Angel Myers”
14. JOHN 5 – “Laurie’s Theme”
15. CAST – “I Want To Party”
16. CAPTAIN CLEGG AND THE NIGHT CREATURES – “Transylvania Terror Train”
17. CAST – “Jack-O-Lantern And A Blonde”
18. CAPTAIN CLEGG AND THE NIGHT CREATURES – “Honky Tonk Halloween”
19. CAST – “Bring Your Baby Back Home”
20. FOGHAT – “I Just Want To Make Love To You”
21. CAST – “Snapped On By Weird Al”
22. VOID – “Time To Die”
23. CAST – “I Love You Mommy”
24. NAN VERNON – “Love Hurts”
25. TYLER BATES – “Nurse Killa”

More on HII, here.