Sunny day real estate reunites...again!

Paul F. Agusta   |  Sun, 07/05/2009 11:29 AM  |  Music

Dear Groundlings, welcome to yet another edition of the spiffy music column we all know and adore. As always, I'd like to thank you for all the notes you've sent me, please keep them coming.

Now, let's get to it!

REVERB

International

Rockers My Morning Jacket aren't doing much right now, but angel-voiced frontman Jim James isn't using that band's downtime to sit around braiding his huge beard.

This fall, James will be working his ass off. The long-awaited self-titled album from Monsters of Folk, James's supergroup with Conor Oberst, M. Ward, and Mike Mogis, is due Sept. 22 from Shangri-La in North America, Rough Trade in Europe, Spunk in Australia, and P-Vine in Japan. But before that album even drops, we'll hear even more new music from James.

On August 4, ATO will release Tribute To, James' EP of George Harrison covers, Billboard reports. Under the goofily adorable pseudonym Yim Yames, James takes on six of the late Beatles's songs. Two songs from Tribute To are Beatles jams that Harrison wrote, while the others come from the solo Harrison album All Things Must Pass.

According to Billboard, James recorded the EP a few days after Harrison died in 2001; it's been sitting in the vault since then. James did the whole thing himself, on vocals and acoustic guitar. In the liner notes, James calls Harrison "a prime example of the healing power of music.". Also, Billboard claims that Monsters of Folk are "expected to" tour in September.

Freak-folker and generally serene and peaced out cat Devendra Banhart is getting ready to roll out his sixth solo LP this fall on a label to be named later. According to his publicist, he has parted ways with XL, which released his last two sprawling full-lengths. Recorded in the isolated coastal city of Bolinas, California, the album features production from Banhart and Band of Bees leader Paul Butler.

Familiar sidemen Noah Georgeson, Greg Rogove (Devendra's partner in Megapuss), Luckey Remington, and Rodrigo Amarante (of Little Joy) all help the troubadour bring his skewed visions to life this time around.

Nick Cave and Bad Seeds/Grinderman/Dirty Three member Warren Ellis already have a few film scorescredits under their belts. Together, the duo scored the 2005 Cave-penned Aussie Western The Proposition, the depressing-sounding 2007 neurosurgery doc The English Surgeon, and the it's-not-their-fault-it-sucked pretentious drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

And now they're at it again. On their MySpace page, Cave and Ellis mention that they have scored The Girls of Phnom Penh, which is described as "Matthew Watson's second film about the consequences of Cambodia's *virginity trade'". Sounds unbearably sad! The as-yet-unfinished film is due later in the year.

As reported last year, Cave and Ellis have done the score for the latest flick from Proposition director John Hillcoat: The Road, the filmed adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's bruising 2006 post-apocalyptic novel.

The movie looks pretty badass (you can watch the trailer here), even if it appears to have more of a Hollywood blockbuster sheen than that ridiculously grimy book would demand. But: Omar's in it! And Viggo Mortenson hasn't made a bad movie since Hidalgo.

The Road is due in theaters Oct. 16.Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds will hit a bunch of European festivals this summer.

Seattle proto-emo heroes Sunny Day Real Estate have broken up twice, in 1995 and 2001. But they're back together again for a North American reunion tour, and this time, all four original members are on board.

After the band's 1995 breakup, bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith joined Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters. When Sunny Day got back together in 1997, Goldsmith rejoined, but Mendel remained a Foo. This time, though, Mendel is back in the fold.

In a statement from Sub Pop, Mendel said, "I wasn't around for the second version of the band that recorded the third and fourth albums, so I've always had a feeling of unfinished business there. We had all these outsized ideas back then, *Everyone's going to learn a new instrument,' and *Let's do a rock opera,' but before we could get anywhere with them, the band broke up.

We left behind all these weird and beautiful songs, though, and they've stuck with me all this time. I'm really happy that we get a chance to play them together again." The reunion tour kicks off Sept. 17 in Vancouver, and yes, they will play California.

To celebrate, on Sept. 15, Sub Pop will reissue the band's two original-lineup albums: the stone classic 1994 debut Diary (one of the best-selling albums in Sub Pop history) and the 1995 follow-up LP2 (better known as The Pink Album). The reissues will include bonus tracks and new liner notes. This is going to rule.

That about wraps it up for this week's Reverb. Stay tune next week!

Meanwhile, do drop me a line at undergroundhum@yahoo.com and if you've got a band or know of any cool bands with gigs coming up, email me the full details and I'll be sure to include it in the next Reverb.

See y'all next week!

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