• The old green and blue colors of the Roots & Crowns vinyl have been replaced by the fall colors of Funeral Singers.
• I added Funeral Singers’s lyrics, an MP3 of the title track, and links to purchase the album to the discography page.
• I added some Funeral Singers-centric news links to the sidebar. If you come across anything else that belong there, let me know!

All of your horoscopes show good Califone in the future. Tour starts Saturday!

It’s a rare feat: the venerable site has reviewed ten Califone records over the years, and no single one has ever ranked below an 8. Of All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, they said:

“Giving Away the Bride” is one of the most radical deconstructions of normal rock production in the band’s catalog, eschewing even their normal roughly recorded acoustic guitars for a spaced-out beat and a monster of a distorted electronic bass figure, over which Rutili floats dreamily, intoning like a blues singer from the 1930s who got lost and tripped into the 21st century. The otherworldliness is so well-developed that it’s genuinely startling when the piano drops almost four minutes in or the live drums take up the rhythm a minute after that. If the band had hits, this would be among the greatest…

Yes, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers is just another Califone album, but it’s also a reminder of just what a special thing that is. They’ve carved a place in the rock landscape by discovering a previously ignored way of building a record and perfecting it over time through repetition. In my mind, it puts them in a lineage that includes bands like Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis, and This Heat, not sonically but artistically. If you’re already switched on to them, you have to hear this. If you’re not, well, what’s keeping you? The debate over which Califone record is their best just got even more complicated.

The record will be released in just a few days (Oct. 4). You can pre-order it on CD or 2xLP at Dead Oceans, Insound, or elsewhere. Pre-order customers will receive a link to download the MP3s right away. Speaking of MP3s, you can download the title track, free of charge, immediately, if you like. You can also pick up a copy of the album at of their shows, beginning 10/10 in Chicago. It’s Califone season!

10-10 Chicago, IL – Museum of Contemporary Art #
10-11 Chicago, IL – Museum of Contemporary Art #
10-13 Pittsburgh, PA – Andy Warhol Museum #
10-14 Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom #
10-15 Buffalo, NY – Mohawk Place
10-16 Ithaca, NY – Cornell Cinema #
10-17 Montreal, Quebec – Ukrainian Federation #
10-20 Northampton, MA – Iron Horse Music Hall #
10-21 Portland, ME – Space #
10-22 Cambridge, MA – Brattle Theater #
10-23 New York, NY – 92Y Tribeca #
10-24 Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live
10-25 Washington, DC – Rock and Roll Hotel
10-26 Charlottesville, VA – The Southern #
10-27 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
10-28 Birmingham, AL – WorkPlay Theatre #
10-30 Bloomington, IN – Bear’s Place #

# Film screening

Greg Kot talks Red Red Meat history, Califone’s Funeral Singers, and more at the Chicago Tribune:

When Red Red Meat, one of the finest bands ever to come out of Chicago and emblematic of a ’90s rock scene rich with creativity, plays Monday at the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park as part of the city’s excellent, free “Downtown Sound” series, it will likely be the quartet’s last show for quite some time.

The band briefly reunited last year to play a handful of shows when Sub Pop re-released the quartet’s 1995 album “Bunny Gets Paid.” But now that brief reunion is nearly at an end, and Rutili says the band won’t continue unless it writes new material and records another album — something he doesn’t see happening for at least a year.

Details
When: 6:30 p.m. Monday with Rural Alberta Advantage
Where: Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park
Price: Free; millenniumpark.org

Link

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers Trailer from Califone on Vimeo.

The band also just announced the first leg of their All My Friends Are Funeral Singers tour, featuring rock concerts and live soundtrack film performances showcasing the feature length movie. Tourdates are after the jump.

October
10 Chicago, IL – Museum of Contemporary Art #
11 Chicago, IL – Museum of Contemporary Art #
13 Pittsburgh, PA – Andy Warhol Museum #
14 Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom #
15 Buffalo, NY – Mohawk Place
16 Ithaca, NY – Cornell Cinema #
17 Montreal, Quebec – Ukrainian Federation #
20 Northampton, MA – Iron Horse Music Hall #
21 Portland, ME – Space #
22 Cambridge, MA – Brattle Theater #
23 New York, NY – 92Y Tribeca #
24 Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live
25 Washington, DC – Rock and Roll Hotel
26 Charlottesville, VA – The Southern #
27 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
28 Birmingham, AL – WorkPlay Theatre #
30 Bloomington, IN – Bear’s Place #

# Film performance w/ live soundtrack

There’s a nice writeup by Jim DeRogatis in the Chicago Sun-Times:

How did guitarist-vocalist Tim Rutili, drummer Brian Deck, bassist Tim Hurley and percussionist Ben Massarella come to return to the scene now, given that they’ve all been busy with myriad other projects since the group’s last album for Seattle’s Sub Pop Records, “There’s a Star Above the Manger Tonight” (1997)?

“Last summer, Sub Pop asked us to play the [label's 20th] anniversary [show], and at the time, we were putting together the reissue of ‘Bunny Gets Paid’ [1995], so we were like, ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, we might as well play some shows.’ And it turned out to be a lot of fun, so we’ve played six shows in the last year.”

Now, the group is set to play a free show at Millennium Park on Monday [Aug. 24] for a potential crowd 10 times the size of the biggest it ever drew back in the day, when it peaked at selling out Metro. The times, it seems, have finally caught up with the musicians’ unique and otherworldly sounds.

There’s also a little information about the next Califone album, due October 2:

Califone is set to release its next album, “All My Friends Are Funeral Singers,” on Oct. 6, and Rutili brags that it’s the best the group has made. It’s certainly the most ambitious: Rutili wrote the songs at the same time as a feature-length screenplay of the same name, and he’s just finishing editing the film, which the band will screen as it performs the music live on a fall tour that includes prestigious theater and museum gigs such as the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The film is “about a woman who lives in the woods, and she’s a psychic,” Rutili says. “She lives in a house full of ghosts, and one day, the ghosts realize they’re trapped, and she has to find a way–even though she doesn’t want them to go–to get them out of the house. Then they start destroying her life.

“I’ve always goofed around with film and made videos, and it seemed like it was really, really time to do this. I just wanted to play a show that was a real show and to give people a story, instead of like, ‘Welcome to the bar; have some drinks while we play some songs.’ I think it’s going to be a really amazing experience for us, and for the audience as well.”

1742 N. Milwaukee, Chicago
near the corner of Milwaukee and Wabansia in Wicker Park, next to Cafe Con Leche
$5 – $7 door donations

Things are coming together in the Califone world, friends. Today, Pitchfork announced details about the new record and feature film, both of which are titled All My Friends Are Funeral Singers.

Additionally, the band also launched a new official website. You should check it out.

The record is set to be released on October 6, 2009. According to Pitchfork, the film will be submitted to festivals in 2010, while the band will play a live soundtrack to the film during their upcoming tour.

Funeral Singers tracklist:

1. Giving Away the Bride
2. Polish Girls
3. 1928
4. Funeral Singers
5. SNAKE’S TOOTH = PROTECTION AGAINST FEVER AND LUCK IN GAMBLING
6. Buñuel
7. Ape-like
8. A WISH MADE WHILE BURNING ONIONS WILL COME TRUE
9. Evidence
10. Alice Marble Gray
11. Salt
12. Krill
13. SEVEN, FOURTEEN, OR TWENTY-ONE KNOTS
14. Better Angels
15. Lunar H.

Hey everyone, a short, quick announcement for you: 

Baby Alright, Tim Rutili & Jim Becker of Califone, The Judy Green, and DJ Bobby Conn. will be playing the Hideout on Monday, June 22, 2009 at 9PM. It’s a benefit for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. 

Hope to see you there!