Where's the furthest you've ventured lately?

Starting TODAY, our triumphant new issue, FILTER 48: "Sigur Rós: A Far Off Place” is available on stands everywhere! So if you don't have a yearly subscription yet (why wait longer?), head to your local Barnes and Noble, Bookstar, Waldenbooks, Hastings, B. Dalton, national newsstands, independent music retailers, or wherever your source of choice is, and pick up the new issue. Be sure to let us know what you think of it over at facebook.com/FILTERmagazine; we have a feeling you're going to love it.

Love,
FILTER

On May 25th, FILTER 48 will hit newsstands, but we'll be making our big cover announcement at the end of this week. We can't hardly wait, so we're doing a small pre-unveil of the gorgeous art that accompanies our cover stars.

Inspired by stereoscope images from the turn of the 19th century, we think the art's got a really cool vintage feel to it—though you could never, ever say that about the band itself! Stay tuned for Friday's announcement to see who we nabbed for our summer cover, as well as who else will appear in the pages of FILTER 48, on stands at the end of the month.

The first thing Jason Sudeikis does when we sit down in his office on the 17th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza is pull out his own digital recorder, a high-tech looking microphone that wouldn’t look out of place in a recording studio. “You gotta get one of these jobs,” the clean-cut comedian says in his Midwestern drawl. “This is what you need right here; you gotta ask Vanessa for one of these for Christmas.”

I should probably mention that my younger sister Vanessa Bayer is one of the featured players on Saturday Night Live so I have some insight into the long hours and amount of work that go into putting the show together—but you wouldn’t know that talking to Sudeikis, who is extremely upbeat and refreshed despite the fact there’s a good chance he was working on sketch ideas in this very room until 4 a.m. this morning.

In addition to his weekly roles on SNL, Sudeikis has been branching out into the movie world in the past few years with starring turns in films such as Hall Pass, Horrible Bosses and, yes, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy—and that was just 2011. You’ve also probably spotted Sudeikis’ recurring cameos on 30 Rock and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and seen him with inventive facial hair on the new season of Eastbound & Down as Kenny Powers’ equally enthusiastic teammate Shane.

After some more small talk, I tell Sudeikis I’m ready to start our interview and, to show off, pull out a hidden USB port on my aforementioned gadget. “I can’t do that, no way,” Sudeikis admits, his eyes transfixed on the undersized recorder. “That was great, it’s like a Transformer! Jonah just whipped out his USB port.” He laughs loudly before suddenly getting serious. “So yeah, what do you want to know?”

I just saw a new episode of Eastbound & Down and I was so impressed you were able to match that level of absurdity with Danny McBride because everything on that show is so…

Heightened and rude? [Laughs.] I’m a big fan of the guys who put that show together and I would have been friends with them when I was 15, so it just sort of felt like goofing around when I was doing it. They’ve done such a good job of making that show so specific in tone that you just get swept up in it. There’s so much care and intelligence to it that you feel OK being awful because it’s so well protected by the way they go about doing it.

You also seem like a well-rounded person, which is so opposite in real life from Shane. Is it fun for you to step into a character like that?

It is, because I know those people. When I was taking classes in Chicago, one of my teachers encouraged me that when you play people you don’t like, you shouldn’t comment on them. One of the characters that I played early on was “Two A-Holes” with Kristen [Wiig] and they’re guys that you see out there in the world and you can’t believe they have no filter. There’s something kind of amazing and impressive about someone who doesn’t care about what people think of them—or at least doesn’t appear to. I appreciate the thinly veiled compliment in there, too. Let me say that right off the bat.

The format of SNL is really unique. Is it strange going from there to a show like Eastbound & Down or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia where you’re not also writing your own material?

I’ve been lucky because you’re allowed to give ideas on both of those shows. I’ve yet to work on a set where that wasn’t the case; whether it’s the Farrelly brothers or Seth Gordon, there’s no one who has been militant to their words. I’d say we’re probably more strict here at SNL because, since you’re editing live, you don’t have time to indulge. You can do little things when you’re doing blocking or maybe make a choice at the [writer’s] table, but for the most part I’d say we’re a little more on the book here. Or on the cards, I should say. 

Electric Guest has produced a song for Charlotte Gainsbourg, composed the music for the Saturday Night Live/Lonely Island digital short “Dick in a Box” and worked with one of the most sought-after producers of our time. But the Los Angeles duo’s success all started with a donut. Well, sort of.

“There was this donut shop by my house that I would hang out at,” says Electric Guest leadman Asa Taccone of his band’s name, the origins of which stretch back to his teenage years in Berkeley, California. “There was this weird, older woman that worked there. Me and her would get into these weird, metaphysical conversations. One of the last times I saw her, she stopped me and said, ‘I want you to remember something, that you are an electric guest of the universe.’”

Suitably christened but unsatisfied with the music scene in Northern California, Taccone headed to Los Angeles shortly after, where he met Virginia native and drummer Matthew Compton. It was instant musical kismet—as proved by Compton’s willingness to battle the traffic snarl between his West Hollywood home and the eastern Eagle Rock area where Taccone lived. “I feel like we hit it off as really good friends, too,” Compton offers. “It was different music than what I was used to playing, but it felt really comfortable and nice. It was a good fit.”

The springy blend of R&B vocals and 1960s guitar-pop refrains would go on to form the duo’s EP Mondo, released early last year. However, the band members balk at too rigid a discussion concerning genre-labeling. “People get it wrong,” notes Compton. “People will definitely categorize stuff, but it’s what they equate the music with, as opposed to the person who made it.”

Taccone interjects, addressing his bandmate. “I always liked the fact that even if I was doing something, even if the song had what someone would think of as ‘soul,’ or ‘R&B,’ the way that [Compton] played never leaned toward that,” he says, gratefully. “A lot of people think of it as ‘pick a genre,’ and I always hated that kind of shit.”

The lines surrounding their music are blurred even further, classifying elements smeared into an Impressionist glow by the hypnotic repletion of “Troubleman,” the Marvin Gaye–posturing of “Under the Gun” or the bubbly pop of “Waves”—all augmented by an effortless blend of strummed guitars, live percussion and old-school electronic embellishments. But Taccone and Compton didn’t get there alone. To combine their disparate influences—born of youths spent, respectively, indulging in underground hip-hop and rocking out to Archers of Loaf—the band needed a producer equally adept at obscuring genre lines. They settled on Brian Burton—better known as Danger Mouse.

Scoring such an icon—who has worked with the likes of The Black Keys, Beck and Jack White—as the producer of a debut album seems like a near-impossible get. However, the seeds for Electric Guest’s collaboration with Burton were sown long before Taccone and Compton set foot in Los Angeles, extending back to a time before Burton went “Crazy” or was considered an A-list producer. Taccone explains: “I would always call my [older] brother [The Lonely Island member Jorma Taccone], who was living in L.A. at the time, and I would play him little songs that I had made. One day, I played him some track I was working on and he put Brian on the phone.” Impressed, Burton continued to encourage the younger Taccone, officially coming on as a producer and squeezing the fledgling duo in among higher-profile gigs—an act of scheduling that stretched production out over five years.

FILTER Magazine’s third annual Culture Collide Festival will return to Los Angeles this October 4-7, bringing four days of incredible music, art, film and more to Echo Park. As one of the most buzzed about festivals of the fall season, Culture Collide will welcome performances by of Montreal (US), Junip (Sweden), School of Seven Bells (US), Clinic (United Kingdom), Penguin Prison (US), Class Actress (US), Dean Wareham Plays Galaxie 500 (US), John Talabot (Spain), Breakestra (US) and Tribes (United Kingdom), American Royalty (US), Moss (Netherlands), The Standards (Thailand), The Kavanaghs (Argentina), and Marit Larsen (Norway), with many more to be announced soon.

This years’ four-day festival will celebrate the convergence of cultures upon Los Angeles by welcoming artists from across the globe. Festival attendees will experience full-band live performances as well as intimate acoustic sets, film screenings, and happy hours featuring free food and drinks from around the world at a variety of venues.

The 2012 Culture Collide Festival will take place on ten unique Los Angeles stages and will wrap up with an all-day block party on Sunday, October 7th.

A limited number of Culture Collide festival wristbands are now available, priced at just $20 at Ticket Web. Wristbands have sold out the past two years, and with many more artists to be announced in the coming weeks, early wristband purchase is strongly recommended.

FILTER Magazine’s Culture Collide Festival is presented by S.O.Terik. Additional sponsors include Slacker Radio, Onitsuka Tiger and Aqua Hydrate. Promotional partners include The City of Echo Park, LA Weekly and KCRW (89.9FM and KCRW.com).

You can get more info about Culture Collide as well as view all participating countries, artists, festival activities and more at culturecollide.com and via the FILTER Magazine Facebook and Twitter.
Be sure to also follow FILTER on Instagram for special on the ground photos, contests and more! @FILTERMagazine.

It's time to get your good time indie-rock on thanks to Fang Island and their new tune, "Asunder."

This is the first official track from the trio's forthcoming new album, Major, and it’s almost four and a half minutes of rolling drums, overdriven guitars and anthematic vocals. You can download the rocker track, guitar solos and all, via the soundcloud below.

Fang Island, "Asunder" by FILTER Magazine

Major arrives July 24 via Sargent House.

Track List:

“Kindergarten”
“Sisterly”
“Seek it Out”
“Make Me”
“Never Understand”
“Asunder”
“Dooney Rock”
“Regalia”
“Chompers”
“Chime Out”
“Victorinian”
 

JEFF The Brotherhood is one of those bands that you can't exactly pinpoint. Part psychedelic, part fuzz-rock and part...something, the brotherly duo have a new EP coming soon and today they shared a new track with us all.

The brothers recruited Dan Auerbach (of the Black Keys) on the new EP and you can certainly hear a bigger approach to the band's music on "Sixpack." Check it out below and check out JEFF The Brotherhood's upcoming U.S. tourdates.

The Hypnotic Knights EP is out digitally May 22.




Tour Dates:

May
17 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Rhythm Room
18 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern *
19 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater *
21 – Portland, OR @ The Alladin Theater *
22 – Seattle, WA @ Neptune *
23 – Boise, ID @ Neurolux *
24 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
25 – Aspen, CO @ Belly Up, Aspen *
26 – Boulder, CO @ The Fox Theatre *
27 – Lawrence, KS @ The Granada Theater *
29 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown *
30 – St. Louis, MO @ The Firebird *

June
01 – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater *
02 – Houston, TX @ Free Press Summer Fest
13 – Raleigh, NC @ The Berkeley Cafe
14 – Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter
15 – Washington, DC @ Red Palace
16 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church
17 – New York, NY @ The Bowery Ballroom
18 – Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s
20 – New Haven, CT @ Cafe Nine
21 – Cambridge, MA @ TT The Bear’s Place Inc
22 – Montreal, QC @ Il Motore
23 – Toronto, ON @ Wrongbar
24 – Detroit, MI @ Small’s
25 – Indianapolis, IN @ Radio Radio

July
13 – Louisville, KY @ The Forecastle Festival

* = w/ Best Coast

Indie pop duo Summer Camp have a new EP on the way titled Always and today, you can sample a new tune from it.

"Life" is a dance beat driven track with piano melodies and synthy blips, delivering exactly what we have come to expect from Summer Camp.

Stream the track below and grab Always when it drops on July 10 via Apricot Recording Company/Moshi Moshi.
 

Summer Camp - Life by moshi moshi music

Passion Pit is set to release their new album, Gossamer, on July 24 via Columbia Records. And they've finally revealed the album's vibrant cover, which was created by the band's frontman Michael Angelakos and Mark Borthwick.

Gossamer will feature 12 songs, including the single "Take A Walk." You can listen to the single and check out the tracklist below.

Gossamer tracklist:

01 Take a Walk
02 I'll Be Alright
03 Carried Away
04 Constant Conversations
05 Mirrored Sea
06 Cry Like a Ghost
07 On My Way
08 Hideaway
09 Two Veils to Hide My Face
10 Love Is Greed
11 Its Not My Fault I'm Happy
12 Where We Belong

The annual Voodoo Music and Arts Experience, presented by Stephen Rehage will return this year with Grammy Award-winning trio Green Day and legendary Neil Young & Crazy Horse headlining.

The 2012 line-up will once again feature artists reflecting a variety of musical genres like including Skrillex, Justice, Tomahawk, Say Anything, Bootsy Collins, Gary Clark Jr. and more being unveiled in the coming months.

This year's festival will fall on October 26-28th, marking its 14th consecutive year.

This year, the musical celebration will also feature on-site camping, giving festival goers a chance to sleep under the stars among centuries old oak trees, picturesque lagoons and the waterways of New Orleans' historic City Park.

Camping options range from tent camping to all-encompassing camping experiences where attendees will get a 10x13, move-in ready safari style tent complete with cots, bedding, pillows and exclusive VIP access throughout the festival.

Tickets are now available and range from three-day GA at $175 to VIP with parking at $550.

You can get all the details and keep in step with all the announcements right here.
 

FILTER likes music. There's no hiding it. We also like our own opinions a whole bunch, so once a week we give the masses a fleeting glimpse into our selective stereos and Internet browsers to let them see firsthand what fuels our endless devotion. We like to think of it as community service. We're selfless like that. So without further ado, here are the official, inarguable, objectively good FILTER Weekly Picks—providing everything from new LPs you should be spinning to the latest good-fer-you videos. Yeah, we're good at what we do:

Talking Heads - "Once In A Lifetime"
Why: Monday was David Byrne's 60th birthday so I'm picking "Once In A Lifetime" by Talking Heads. - Mike Bell





Father John Misty performs "Only Son of the Ladiesman" on Letterman
Why: Even for those of us who have loved J. Tillman's sad-acoustic-folk solo releases over the years, his newest, Fear Fun (under the moniker "Father John Misty"), is a welcome surprise in many ways. Take this captial-P Performance on Letterman last week. In Fleet Foxes, Tillman was the class clown in the back row to a large extent, but now he's come out of hiding from behind his drum kit, exulted by his pipes, storytelling and showmanship. A little bit of swagger and flirt (and, frankly, he's wearing the hell out of that suit) even had Dave blushing. - Breanna Murphy





Stonefly Inn
Why: Best fly-fishing in Montana - Alan Sartirana





Blood Orange - "Champagne Coast"
Why: A friend talked to me about blood orange earlier this year, and I never took the time to check it out.  Then I read a NY Times article about devonte hynes, blood orange and this video.  Why am I such a late player in this game?  He’s the coolest!  I’m obsessed. - Monique Gilbert
 

Emily Whitehurst and Jaycen McKissick, aka Survival Guide, are in the process of writing a full-length album and today, we have the premiere for their new video for "Prohibition."



The semi-creepy video features the ex-Tsunami Bomb and Pipedown members wandering around and performing in a presumably abandoned hotel. The tune is off Survival Guide's release, Wildcat, out on Side With Us Records.

You can also catch Survival Guide on the West Coast in the coming months. Dates below!

Tour Dates:

May
10 - San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
11 - Portland, OR - Slabtown Bar
12 - Seattle, WA - El Corazon Lounge
13 - Bellingham, WA - The Shakedown

June
14 - Davis, CA - Luigi's

August
2 - Sacramento, CA - Fremont Park
25 - San Jose, CA - San Pedro Square Market
 

Third Man Records never ceases to release the most coveted products, whether albums, turntables, or (now) posters. This week, the label is offering a "Triple Decker" Jack White poster, which was created, designed and printed by Bryce McCloud and Matthew Johnson. 

When the individual posters—one black, one blue, and one white—are stacked on top of one another, they create a silhouette of White's profile and the label's logo in the lower right corner. The black poster is letterpressed with images of a "peacock and vulture egg," and the blue and white posters are laser cut. The white poster dons White's autograph. The label's site describes this "triple decker" as a "new innovation in the visual arts."

However, in order to get your hands on all three posters, you'll need to travel to Nashville. The white and blue posters will be sold at White's performances at the Ryman Auditorium tonight and tomorrow. Only 75 of each will be available per show. The black poster will be sold at Third Man Records today starting at 3 p.m., as well as tomorrow. There will be 75 posters available on both days.

If you can't make it to Nashville, you can watch a short video on the making of the posters below.

Manchester, Tennessee's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival has announced its lineup schedule. Naturally, there are some scheduling conflicts, but that is to be expected for such a massive roster.

Bonnaroo, which will take place from June 7-10, will feature performances by Radiohead, The Beach Boys, Bon Iver, The Shins, Skrillex, Feist, Santigold, The Roots, St. Vincent, Flying Lotus, and many, many others.

You can check out the festival's schedule here.

MEN
Echoplex (Los Angeles, California)
May 10, 2012

The crowd unleashed a barrage of “I love you"s when MEN took the stage Thursday in their Chicago-Bulls-meets-Pierrot matching outfits. JD Samson and the gang smiled back at their adoring audience before counting in their first song that night at the Echoplex.

Now, the only way I can describe how deep the bass was booming is to say that it not only rattled my ribcage and kicked out my eardrums, but it also seemed to vibrate a hidden space inside my nose. I'm not proud to admit it, but for the first time in my concert-going career I felt it necessary to use earplugs, so after their first song I raced to the bathroom, bought a pair of earplugs from the attendant through pantomime, and made it back in time to catch the last half of MEN's second song. (Thanks, JD, for popping my concert-earplug cherry).

JD introduced their third song by welcoming their new keyboardist and bassist Natasha, and added that the band had only met her in person right before the show. Yet, by the way the group laughed and danced on stage, you would have never of guessed that this was the first time that MEN had ever been a quartet or that JD had doubted whether or not anyone would show up considering that MEN hadn't released a full-length album since their 2011's Talk About Body. But the night's crowd of devotees couldn't care less about that. In fact, it was the crowd which kept shouting out requests for songs from even further back in MEN's catalogue.

One of the songs requested was their 2009 single “Credit Card Babies” which started out with drummer Lee Free double-fisting drumsticks and maracas as he set the tribal beat on a pair of bongos. JD and Natasha produced sweeping synthesized effects as Michael O'Neill's percussive guitar got the crowd dancing.

However, the highlight of the night was “Who Am I To Feel So Free,” a driving electroclash anthem that inspired the crowd to dance while unifying their voices to sing along to the LGBT song of praise. The night continued in similar fashion and it was encouraging to see MEN bring riot grrrl ethics to a genre of music that has traditionally acted as a vacuous backdrop for MDMA-fueled absurdities. But it wasn't until MEN left the stage after their encore that I realized that their goal that night was to prove that LGBT politics could not only be accessible, but that they could also be danceable.