Fuchs was on his way to a benefit for The Uniform Project, an organization that helps  children in India’s slums. He was apparently stuck in a broken freight elevator and attempted to leap to a fourth floor hallway when a piece of his clothing caught and swung him back into the empty shaft.

LCD frontman James Murphy spoke at a gathering of Fuch’s friends Sunday night, calling him “one of the only people we all knew who was literally great at what he did.” Longtime friend Jon Fine noted, “He could play metal, prog rock with multiple time signatures, aggressive indie disco … His passing puts an enormous hold on the Brooklyn music scene. The world of independent music has sustained a really significant loss.”

Tributes:

The Juan MacLean website

Maserati website

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are coming to The Fox Theater in Oakland to pump folks up about their latest record It’s Blitz! on September 9th & 10th. I’m thinking it won’t be too tough to get a ticket to such a big joint on a Wednesday or Thursday night but hey, no reason superfans shouldn’t get tickets now before they go on sale to the general schlepulous Sunday.  To that end the good Samaritans at Another Planet are providing a pre-sale for ya. The password is “yeah105″ (though I’m hearing that “foxy” will work too and that’s a lot more fun!).             Click here to buy ‘em.

While we’re on the subject, you gotta wonder how the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are feeling about the video for “Heads Will Roll” now that the fella the werewolf is imitating has kicked the bucket:

And since I’m still in awestruck-by-Sonic-Youth mode here’s a nifty acoustic cover of Diamond Sea from an iTunes session a couple years back. Oh what the hell, let’s toss in a Bjork cover for good measure…

Diamond Sea (Sonic Youth cover)

Hyper Ballad (Bjork cover)

How ’bout we throw in an It’s Blitz! bonus track?

Faces (thanks to becca darling is: the bee charmer for this one)

Still a transcendent live experience after all these years, Sonic Youth rocked me OUT last night at the Independent in San Francisco to close out the first US leg of their current tour. At a capacity of under 500 folks the Independent is by far the smallest place they played around these parts since I had the pleasure of seeing them at the I-Beam back in July of 1986. That night 23 years ago saw the death of the Kent hollow body that they wrote “Kill Yr. Idols” on, its neck snapping in two in Lee Renaldo’s hands. While nothing so dramatic occurred last night we were treated to so many old songs from all the way back to the debut LP it certainly felt like a special occasion. That this surprise show (announced just  a week ago) sold out in about two minutes drove that thought home. Lee Renaldo & Thurston Moore jumped around like indie rockers half their age and Kim Gordon spent most of the evening wielding a third guitar with former Pavement bassist Mark Ibold now appearing to be a permanent member. Kim did pick up her base for a double thunderbroom (as Mike Watt likes to call it) treatment on older songs like “World Looks Red” (complete with screwdrivers and drumsticks stuck in the guitars for old time’s sake) and the encores.  The lone exception was “Brother James” delivered by the classic four piece lineup.

The setlist:

onstage @ 9:55 PM

1. No Way
2. Sacred Trickster
3. Calming the Snake
4. World Looks Red
5. Walkin Blue
6. Poison Arrow
7. Anti-Orgasm
8. Silver Rocket
9. Malibu Gas Station
10. Antenna
11. Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)
12. Massage the History
13. White Cross

offstage @ 11:10 PM

Encore:
14. What We Know
15. Expressway To Yr Skull
Encore 2:
16. Brother James
17. Death Valley ’69

done @ 11:35 PM

And a nice video of “Anti-Orgasm” (thanks to hurricanewe)

Bummed I missed the Bat For Lashes show at the Great American Music Hall the other night. You just can’t get to ‘em all unfortunately. And judging by the snippets of live tracks she’s streaming on her myspace page it was a magical night. I say snippets because the full versions are on the Pearl’s Dream EP available on iTune’s UK store (no word on whether or not the US store will have it). Here’s the tracklist:

- Pearl’s Dream (album version)
- Pearl’s Dream (Cenzo Townshend Radio Edit)
- Sleep Alone (909′s In DarkTimes Mix)
- Siren Song (Live At Shepherd’s Bush Empire)
- Good Love (Live At Shepherd’s Bush Empire)

909 is apparently the pseudonym of David Sitek (TV on the Radio & Telepathe). Since we haven’t gotten our own copy here at NHT we’ll just have to share what BFL tracks are kicking around the old hard drive already (covers of course):

I’m On Fire WAY more convincing than the Boss, from the beeb’s Dermot O’Leary Show in 2007

Sweet Dreams The Eurythmics’ classic from Jo Whiley’s Live Lounge (also on the BBC) in 2008

Use Somebody A Kings Of Leon cover also from Jo Whiley’s Live Lounge, this time back on April 9th of this year

THere’s a video for Pearl’s Dream up on BFL’s website but it’s not nearly as cool as the video for What’s a Girl To Do from her 2006 debut Fur And Gold so I’ll post that instead!

Here’s the whole track:

Tune In An Afternoon

Jel’s Myspace

Odd Nosdam’s Myspace