Two weeks before its release, Conor Oberst’s highly-anticipated solo album is now available for streaming on www.conoroberst.com and right here.

Oberst has also announced plans for a series of rare in-store performances around his upcoming tour. Conor and his Mystic Valley Band will be playing at independent records stores in Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Nashville and
NYC. See details below.

Recorded this winter in Tepoztlán, Morales, Mexico with The Mystic Valley Band, Conor Oberst will be released in the US on August 5th on Merge Records and on August 4th in the UK/Europe on Wichita Records.

In-store performances:

07/30/08 Seattle, WA - Easy Street Records at 6 PM
08/02/08 San Francisco, CA - Amoeba Music at 3 PM
08/04/08 Los Angeles - Amoeba Music at 6 PM
08/08/08 Nashville - Grimey's at 6 PM
08/12/08 New York, NY - Other Music at 1 PM

After years of badgering by fans, Mac McCaughan, aka Portastatic, is clearing out the vaults with Some Small History, a 2-disc collection of rarities. Some Small History compiles material including b-sides, compilation tracks, EPs, fanzine vinyl and previously unreleased material recorded between 1990 and 2007. Recorded in bedrooms, living rooms and sometimes even real studios, the tracks are sequenced for your maximum listening pleasure (rather than chronologically).

Tracklisting:
Disc 1

1    Starter
2    Sandals With White Socks
3    Oh My Sweet Carolina (Ryan Adams)
4    Lousy Penpal **
5    A Cunning Latch (acoustic) **
6    Teenage Kicks (The Undertones)
7    Too Trashed to Smoke **
8    Skinny Glasses Girl
9    Trajectory
10    Power Supply
11    Josephine (The Magnetic Fields)
12    Race You Home
13    Make You Up **
14    Your Own Cloud
15    Love Breaks Down (Prefab Sprout) **
16    Portraits From Before the War
17    Soft Fruit
18    Easily Aroused
19    Guessing
20    Little Fern
21    All I Need Is You (Sandy Denny & the Strawbs)
22    You Love to Fail (The Magnetic Fields)

Disc 2

1    Some Small History
2    San Andreas Crouch
3    Not the Same
4    Boy From School (Hot Chip)
5    Spying on the Spys
6 Too Close to the Screen7    Weighted Raft
8    Dragging A Crow
9    Gray Robins
10    I Wanna Know Girls (acoustic demo)
11    Feel Better
12    Useless Switch
13    Had (full band) **
14    Secret Session
15    Tugboat (Galaxie 500)
16    Codes, Runes, Dunes
17    Candy Cigarettes
18    Firefly (American Music Club)
19    La Pelicula
20    Look, Honey, Peaches
21    Replacement Parts **
22    It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan)

** previously unreleased

Days before She & Him's highly anticipated summer tour, their video for "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" will premiere on the Pete Wentz-hosted MTV video show FNMTV. Airing Friday night at 8pm ET, FNMTV will give audiences a chance to witness the musical match of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel in a video directed by Ace Norton.

The soon-to-be-classic "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" is a perfect homage to 1960s pop, amongst nine original gems and a few heart-felt cover songs on She & Him's sterling debut album, Volume One. Ward and Deschanel recorded an interview with Pete Wentz which will also air during Friday Night's episode of "FN MTV." 

Keep your eyes open for subsequent airings of the "Why do You Let Me Stay Here" video on MTV and MTV Hits during the following week!

Check out She & Him's upcoming tour dates.

On October 7, Merge Records will release OH (ohio), the new album by Lambchop, a group the All Music Guide has called "arguably the most consistently brilliant and unique American group to emerge [in the past two decades]."

OH (ohio) was recorded in Lambchop's hometown of Nashville and produced by part-time 'chopper Mark Nevers at his Beech House studio. It features 11 new songs all written by Kurt Wagner, many with evocative titles - the stately soul folk of "Slipped Dissolved and Loosed," the galloping rhythms and chiming guitar-piano interplay of "National Talk Like a Pirate Day," and the shapeshifting, nearly funky "Popeye" - that have become a Lambchop hallmark.

Change is a subtle thing in Lambchop's world. As his catalogue suggests, Wagner is a great believer in the natural pace of life. But he does concede that, for a group whose ranks once swelled to more than 20, "The last few years have been about a distillation of the collective into a core band: Tony Crow (piano), William Tyler (guitar), Matt Swanson (bass), Alex McManus (guitar) and now Ryan Norris (keyboards, guitar) and Scott Martin (drums). This is their sound, and it's Lambchop's sound. But," Wagner continues, "Lambchop more and more has become a vehicle for my songs and myself as an artist. I've fought against that interpretation for twenty years, but now I've just given up trying to fight it anymore."

It seems only appropriate, then, that Wagner is planning a U.S. solo tour around the release of OH (ohio). Stay tuned for more information on tour dates in the coming weeks.

www.lambchop.net

www.myspace.com/lambchopisaband

Preorder your copy of the new Conor Oberst record.

Produced by Conor Oberst with the help of engineer and longtime associate Andy LeMaster, the album was recorded in Tepoztlán, Morales, Mexico. Creating a temporary studio in a mountain villa for a one-month period this winter, Conor and a tight-knit group of fellow musicians, who aptly call themselves The Mystic Valley Band, crafted a lush and beautiful record that evokes the deep sense of harmony in which they lived and worked during that month.

You can also stream two songs, "Danny Callahan" and "Souled Out!!!", from Conor's new website.

View summer tour dates for Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band.

Also, check out Marissa Moss's interview with Conor on the Huffington Post.

Merge will be hosting Town of Mirrors, a collection of collages by Robert Pollard. Town of Mirrors is the inaugural art show in our downtown Durham office on August 15th as part of Durham’s Third Friday.

The inspiration behind the art show is the forthcoming coffee-table book entitled, Town of Mirrors which will be released by Fantagraphics on August 6, 2008. Town of Mirrors collects the very best of Pollard’s visual art and lyrics/poetry. Featuring over 180 of Pollard’s favorite collages, hand-picked by the artist, as well as over a dozen new collages produced exclusively for this book, the first comprehensive collection of Pollard’s visual art ever released. The Durham show will include collages from the book as well as newer pieces. Original artwork and copies of the book will be available for purchase.

In addition to being a revered songwriter and recording artist, Pollard is a gifted and prolific visual artist, working mostly in the medium of collage. His work has been exhibited at Michael Imperioli’s Studio Dante in New York and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. He has created the covers to almost every Guided By Voices record and countless other Pollard-related releases.

Robert Pollard released four records on Merge, the latest of which, Coast to Coast Carpet of Love and Standard Gargoyle Decisions, were released in October 2007. Mr. Pollard most recently released Robert Pollard is Off to Business on his own Guided By Voices, Inc. label, and will be touring this summer and in early fall.

Town of Mirrors: The collages of Robert Pollard
August 15th @ 6pm
Merge Records
409 E. Chapel Hill St. Durham, NC
Free and Open to the public!
Directions

Merge Records will release Now or Heaven, the sophomore album from Los Angeles' The Broken West on September 9, 2008.

It was in a backyard of their L.A. neighborhood that Ross Flournoy, Danny Iead, Rob McCorkindale, Brian Whelan and friend/writing partner Adam Vine developed Now or Heaven, The Broken West's second full-length album. While many bands' second albums end up being about the road, Now or Heaven originates from home, the longing to get there and all that comes from being there. The perspective generated from the time spent on the road and the distance traveled led to a new, unnameable development.

Drummer Rob McCorkindale and bassist Brian Whelan tempered and extended the rhythms and the tone of longing first explored on I Can't Go On, I'll Go On. Each song on Now or Heaven contains clever guitars and sublime harmonies, while the drums and bass deliver driving, deliberate rhythms that are more than metronomic; these pulses literally and figuratively power the album. Now or Heaven also marks Brian's songwriting debut with the dynamic romp, "Got It Bad."

The Broken West spent a year searching for "a diamond in a bag of ice," only to find what they were looking for in their own backyard. Ross, Danny, Rob, and Brian may have returned from their travels with a more sinister perspective on the world, but despite everything, each song on Now or Heaven is infused with an immediate burst of catchy familiarity and unquenchable charm.

Track listing:
1. Gwen, Now and Then
2. Auctioneer
3. Elm City
4. Ambuscade
5. Perfect Games
6. House of Lies
7. The Smartest Man Alive
8. Got It Bad
9. Terror for Two
10. Embassy Row