According to reports on Billboard.com, Wilco are all to set to release their first ever live DVD in February or March. ‘Ashes Of American Flags’ chronicles performances from Nashville and Tulsa and was shot by Brendan Canty and Christopher Green.

According to a band newsletter, Wilco will play “a handful of gigs” in the U.S. in April, to be followed by an extensive tour of Spain in May and then “the usual summer hijinks with a new record and gigs everywhere imaginable.”

Tweedy also has three solo shows on tap in Michigan and Illinois later this month.

Ahh, the live album. A strange beast at the best of times. This month two cult legends, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Lou Reed both release new live efforts. But do they really bring anything to the artists output? For Will Oldham, it presents an opportunity to rework material from his back catalog with yet another new band (this time Alex Neilson and Harem Scarem), while Reed gets all ‘Don’t Look Back’ for a run through of his 1973 Masterpeice ‘Berlin’. Unable to tour it at the time of release, Reed finally assembled a 30 piece band and 10 person choir in 2006 to perform the album live for the first time. Continue Reading

Here’s some rather good news to mull over your tea and cake this morning.

Future Of The Left are back and are to embark on a UK headline tour this November. Those dates look a little like this:

November
7th The Junction, Cambridge
8th Lazarette Festival, Southsea
9th YHA, Manchester
15th Faversham, Leeds
16th Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
21st Rainbow, Birmingham
22nd Astoria 2 (Mean Fiddler), London
23rd Xscape, Castleford
24th Nice And Sleazys, Glasgow
25th Cluny, Newcastle
26th Jailhouse, Hereford
27th Amersham Arms, London

The band will also be releasing a live album Last Night I Saved Her From Vampires which was recorded in part at their shows at London’s Water Rats on 20th August 2008 and at Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach on 13th August 2008. PLEASE NOTE “Last Night I Saved Her From Vampires” will only be available to buy on the aforementioned UK tour (and the US one they’re embarking on shortly).

The album features four brand-new and previously unreleased tracks “Drink Nike”, “Distant Jabs At A Soul”, “V.D.F.A.” and “Cloak The Dagger”, the latter two songs having been a regular fixture of the band’s live set throughout the summer. The full tracklisting is as follows:

1. The Best Laid Plans
2. Wrigley Scott
3. Plague Of Onces
4. Fingers Become Thumbs
5. Drink Nike
6. Distant Jabs At A Soul
7. Manchasm
8. V.D.F.A.
9. Dancing Etiquette
10. Fuck The Countryside Alliance
11. Olympic Ideals
12. Small Bones Small Bodies
13. The Lord Hates A Coward
14. London Shoes
15. My Gymnastic Past
16. Encores Explained
17. adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood
18. Auf Wiedersehen Pet
19. Cloak The Dagger

There’s lovely.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The absolutely brilliant Frightened Rabbit are to release an album of mostly acoustic live versions of (some) songs from their astounding album The Midnight Organ Fight from earlier this year, set for release on October the 21st in the States and sometime in April for the UK. The recordings come from a gig at Captain’s Rest, Glasgow on July 30th this year, with a guest appearance from FatCat label mates The Twilight Sad’s James Graham on ‘Keep Yourself Warm’.

If the Pure Groove in-store they played on Moday is anything to go by, just… oh my god, oh my god.

Tracklisting for Liver! Lung! FR!:
1) The Modern Leper
2) I Feel Better
3) Good Arms vs. Bad Arms
4) Fast Blood
5) Old Old Fashioned
6) The Twist
7) Head Rolls Off
8) My Backwards Walk
9) Keep Yourself Warm
10) Poke
11) Floating in the Forth
12) Who’d You Kill Now?