Mars Volta Plot 'Goliath' Tour; Albert Hammond Jr. Details Forthcoming LP

Getting behind the Jan. 29 release of Bedlam in Goliath, the galactic rockers' otherworldly follow up to 2006's Amputechture, Mars Volta have mapped a handful of club tour dates set to kick off Jan. 9 in Burlington, Vermont. From there, the spastic duo and their backing band will hit cities like New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Toronto, and Detroit.

Mars Volta tour dates:

1/9, Burlington, VT (Higher Ground)
1/11, New Haven, CT (Toad's Place)
1/12, Providence, RI (Lupo's)
1/14, New York, NY (Terminal 5)
1/17, Philadelphia, PA (The Fillmore at the TLA)
1/18, Baltimore, MD (Rams Head Live)
1/19, Columbus, OH (Newport Music Hall)
1/21, Toronto, ON (Phoenix Concert Hall)
1/23, Detroit, MI (St. Andrews Hall)
1/25, Kansas City, MO (Beaumont Club)
1/27, Boulder, CO (Fox Theatre)

Albert Hammond Jr. Details Forthcoming LP

Continuing to trump the musical output of his Strokes counterparts, ragamuffin New York-based rocker Albert Hammond Jr. is currently wrapping efforts for the follow up to his 2007 solo debut, Yours to Keep. Detailing the forthcoming, yet-to-be titled record to Pitchfork, Hammond said he and his collaborators -- including Sean Lennon and touring drummer Matt Romano, guitarist Marc Philippe Eskenazi, and bassist Josh Lattanzi -- recently wrapped a five week studio session and "got 16 very different songs."

"Now we've got to mix it. So about another week and a half of mixing and then mastering on January 8th and then we'll be done," Hammond said. "I have a studio at home, so I did a lot of pre-production at home with an engineer I work with, Gus Oberg… Matt [Romano] would come and lay down drums on MIDI, so we still have a lot of problems there, but the songs range from an eight-minute instrumental to a two-minute-30-second pop song to..."

Hammond added: "You know, the biggest difference, I'm thinking about it now, is just the different extremes that we didn't really have on the first record. Just from the softest thing I think I've ever written to the hardest thing I think I've ever written, to everywhere in the middle. That's kind of why we went in to record so many songs -- we didn't know which direction the album was going to go in. And now we have to sit down and pick which ones really fit the record." Included in the 16 song titles Hammond has to choose from is "Victory at Monterey," "GfC," "In My Room," "Lisa," "You Won't Be Fooled By This," "Modern Jazz," "Spooky Couch," "Bathroom Time," "And So We Go."

Okay, okay, all this solo Hammond stuff is awesome, but when's the new Strokes record going to drop, you ask? Hammond: "No idea, man."

Pete Wentz Blogs on Grammys

Just last week the 2008 Grammy nominations were announced, exemplifying the academy's lack of relevance with today's popular music. And guyliner-rockin' bassist Pete Wentz, who along with his fellow Fall Out Boy constituents played a Grammy nomination party and were then shunned by the academy, accumulating nary a nod, has taken to the web to offer his two cents on the Grammys' growing absurdity.

"The first reaction is jealousy mixed with a slight sense of entitlement," wrote Wentz. "We just want to be a part of your club. Other than the fact that we play the events for you and the right parties all the time (which is a bit embarrassing either for you or us, not sure which, possibly both. It's kind of like being invited to a birthday party and then not allowed to eat the cake.) -- it shouldn't mean much."

But Wentz explains who really chooses the gravity of a band -- the fans. "We want our songs to be immortal and a statue doesn't do anything to help them live forever. A fifty year old white man shouldn't decide whether we are relevant or not and he doesn't. We wanted to thank you for making us feel relevant for sitting up all night to get into our shows and for buying our music. It means more in the wake of moments like this. We know who we are based on those who would walk through hell with us." [Via NME.com]

Black Mountain to Hit West Coast

British Columbia-based indie rockers Black Mountain have mapped a mini-tour of America's West Coast in support of the Jan. 22 release of sophomore set, In the Future. The band, braving the stringent borders of Washington State (just ask Chris Walla) will drop in to Seattle and head south, hitting Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles before capping their outing in San Diego Feb. 7.

Black Mountain tour dates:

2/1, Seattle, WA (The Crocodile)
2/2, Portland, OR (The Doug Fir)
2/4, San Francisco, CA (The Independent)
2/5, Los Angeles, CA (The Troubadour)
2/7, San Diego, CA (Casbah)