Love singer Arthur Lee has died in his hometown of Memphis of leukemia, according to the BBC. Little is known at this point., but Stereogum has some nice Lee-dedicated links.

Chapel Hill songwriter David Karsten Daniels—a founding member of the Bu Hanan Collective that includes The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers and The Physics of Meaning—has signed to Brighton, England-based Fat Cat Records. Fat Cat is one of the more prestigous independent labels that boasts global distrubution: Daniels’ labelmates will include Mum, Sigur Ros, David Grubbs, Amandine and Vashti Bunyan.

In June, Daniels mailed a finished copy of his fourth album, Sharp Teeth, to the label, which, according to the demo section of its Web site, listens and replies to everything it receives.

“They seem to be more on top of it than anyone I know. So I sent them one, and I probably got an e-mail from Dave Cawley [Fat Cat co-founder] a week later. Really fast, I was surprised,” Daniels told the Independent in an interview this morning. “We started talking, but they were pretty much in from the beginning.”

Daniels moved to Chapel Hill as part of the regretfully unnoticed Go Machine (they’re still on MySpace, at least). The band released an excellent EP, Look to The, in 2003, but it went on indefinite hiatus a year later. Luckily, most of the band’s members stuck together, slowly but steadily building Bu Hanan into the most artistically exciting musical cadre in the Triangle. Alex Lazara became the collective’s primary producer, while Daniels played bass and guitar and Daniel Hart played violin with most of the its projects. The label signed Kapow! Music in 2004, but things really began to pickup when indie tastemaker Pitchfork Media reviewed The Prayers and Tears’ full-length debut with a more-than-respectable 7.5. Tours with Durham pal(s) The Mountain Goats followed. The Physics of Meaning, the big-band project of Hart, followed that with an excellent eponymous debut.

Throghout, label interest has been strong, but the collective took its time and waited for the right deal. With Fat Cat, Daniels hopes to have found such a situation, and he feels that, with this deal, he can help raise the entire Bu Hanan label to a new level.

“Actually, for Bu Hanan Collective, I feel it’s very much my burden to bear,” says Daniels, asked if he thinks signing will help raise awareness for the work Bu Hanan is doing. “I mean it’s a total crapshoot, I think. Kapow! Music, The Prayers and Tears, The Physics of Meaning: These are all really strong projects, great songs, stellar production. The new recordings will really show this.”

Daniels and The Prayers and Tears will hit the East Coast together later this fall, and Daniels plans to tour the rest of the country and Europe when Fat Cat releases Sharp Teeth early next year.

“I would love to think that 2007 could be the year I stop temping at UNC, but I’m not counting on it,” says Daniels. “I’m always amazed to hear about dudes I figure are doing it for living—with acclaimed albums, etc.—that still have day jobs or at least had them until very recently.”

To hear two songs from Sharp Teeth, see Daniels’ MySpace. If you’re wondering why Fat Cat signed a guy from Chapel Hill, “Jesus and the Devil” should answer your question. That song is just devastating.

Hit ‘em with another new one: Jeff Tweedy Wednesday night at the N.C. Museum of Art (Photo: Derek Anderson)

I’ve seen Wilco play in several different configurations several different times, but I’ve missed every chance to see Jeff Tweedy play solo. For that reason alone, it was super-exciting when the N.C. Museum of Art’s Joseph Bryan Theater—more given to world music or to served-straight alt.country and singer-songwriters—announced that the Wilco frontman would be playing a one-off solo show this summer.

Wednesday night, Tweedy was indeed alone onstage, following up a fairly bland opening suite from Matador’s Jennifer O’Connor (with local Margaret White on violin) with a sometimes-intense, most-often playful set of one-man arrangements. Surrounded by four acoustic guitars with a setlist-sporting stool to his right and one microphone at stage center, Tweedy stood under one spotlight, staring at a full house. It would be easy to say he was more distracted than usual by a somewhat loquacious crowd, especially given his several references to it. He playfully snapped back at several people during: When one fan in the front row asked if she could sing along, he replied sure—from right there. When another shouted “Were our harmonies OK?” after the crowd voluntarily supplied (rather well) the obligatory chorus of ooh’s for “Summerteeth,” Tweedy chided him for 30 seconds, laughing the whole time: “Are you insecure? ‘Did you like our harmonies?’ You’re lacking some of the self-assuredness you’d need if you were up here, I’m afraid.” But Tweedy seemed to be having a good time, and he’s always been fussy with talkative crowds, band or none. His 90-minute, 22-song set fell under the museum’s curfew by half an hour, though, and that was the biggest disappointment of an otherwise great set.

In fact, he seemed in fine form, nailing songs from every Wilco album, one Golden Smog song, two Uncle Tupelo numbers and “The Ruling Class,” one of the best cuts from the last Loose Fur album, Born Again in the USA. The crowd was even treated to a new song in the one-slot: A new Wilco song that reads like a Guthrie-acolyte creed of self-reliance, “What Light?” found Tweedy confiding, “If you try to paint a picture, but you’re not sure which colors belong/ Just paint what you see/ Don’t let anyone say it’s wrong.” Jon Pareles may be right about Wilco, and even Nels Cline confirmed as much when I spoke to him several days ago. Tweedy even sang a verse of an Elizabeth Cotten tune, nailing it’s complex picking pattern and explaining later that he’d been practicing it for weeks. But he seemed frustrated when very few people in the crowd didn’t respond to the name of the influential guitarist born in Chapel Hill in 1897. After all, maybe he was expecting an art museum crowd to be a little more, uh, arty

Etree delivered the bootleg goods Thursday: This is a pretty good pull of the show. Just play with a few of the levels and bump your pre-amp up a bit to get some volume.

Former Reprise Records president Howie Klein is on a one-man collision course to become the coolest former label executive ever: His appearance in the Wilco DVD I Am Trying to Break Your Heart showed that some money men still care about the music they release, and his popular political blog Down With Tyranny has served as an outcry stump for enraged and engaged liberals and a fundraising source for progressive candidates across the country.

Recently, Tom Maxwell made a donation to a candidate through the site and told Klein that he would like to help the cause by reworking a Squirrel Nut Zippers’ hit for DWT’s progressive purposes. He and Ken Mosher set to work on “Put a Lid on It,” and Klein recruited Rickie Lee Jones to sing and Andy Paley to produce. The resultant “Have You Had Enough?” is available for download here, and it actually turned out really well. All artists waived ASCAP royalties, which means anyone can host the track or play it in any public forum, and the band is shooting for national television exposure through the song. For the story of, see Klein’s post or the omnipotent MySpace.

I’ll hold my tongue on Troika for now and simply pass along the confirmed headliners at this point: The Mountain Goats, Two Ton Boa, The Rosebuds, Asobi Seksu, Okkervil River, Portastatic and Elvis Perkins. Finally, a festival most of Durham will love! At least the Web sites are awesome: The Pin Projekt is scheduled for September 9, followed by the festival October 18-21.

This story appeared in the Scan column of this week’s Indy:

“Two Madison, Wis., software developers love The Mountain Goats, and—at last weekend’s Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park—they were ready to shell out to show it.

Andrew Bazan and Aaron Hook, both 25, won mix CDs tracked, burned and designed by John Darnielle and Peter Hughes of The Mountain Goats. Bazan found himself in the midst of a three-way bidding war for the double-disc set from Darnielle, who now lives in Durham, ultimately dishing $430 for the one-of-a-kind compilation. Hook sailed away with a relative bargain, paying only $100 for Hughes’ single disc. Hughes even packaged the CD case with four $1 bills, so Hook walked away with an instant rebate.

Discs from Darnielle and Hughes, along with those from acts like Silver Jews and Tapes ‘n’ Tapes, helped raise $1,400 for Youth Jam, which provides music education for underprivileged and homeless children. The program is a part of Rock for Kids, a Chicago-based charity.

“They were the only artists that came to check on their CDs, and they came about three times each day,” said Rock for Kids Executive Director Michael Nameche, adding that John and Lalitree Darnielle bid on the mixtape from Mission of Burma’s Clint Conley. “They’ve been great.”

Both Bazan and Hook got a chance to spin the discs on their car ride back to Madison. Hook says Hughes’ disc sports Tom Petty, Pet Shop Boys, The Baptist Generals and several Franklin Bruno tracks. Bazan classifies Darnielle’s first disc as Europop and the second as a heavy slab of metal (he names Ozzy as an artist he recognizes).

“It was an amazing chance to get a piece of Mountain Goats history, to buy something that Darnielle worked on with his hands,” says Bazan.

Bazan and Hook have another connection to The Mountain Goats: Both attended college in Galesburg, Ill. The town of 35,000 was mentioned by name four times in the Goats’ song “Weekend in Western Illinois,” a cut from 1997’s Full Force Galesburg. Neither, though, says it’s necessarily his favorite Mountain Goats album. Hook is prone to reach for Tallahassee, the first Mountain Goats he heard while in college. At $100 for one disc, though, he’ll probably be reaching for his new album for a while.

The Mountain Goats’ Get Lonely appears Aug. 22 on 4AD.”

Some pictures from Rock for Kids follow:

John Darnielle with his mixtapes.

J.D. 1/2.

J.D. 2/2

Peter Hughes mixtape.

Andrew Bazan, fighting a bidding war with a grin.

Here’s “Woke Up New,” a track from Get Lonely. You Ain’t No Picasso also has “Wild Sage,” a scene of a man falling as he walks along Business 15-501 in Durham.

I talked to Nels Cline, one of the most accomplished experimental guitarist of the past decade, about his upcoming solo/duo tour with fellow Wilco bandmate Glenn Kotche for a news story on Pitchfork. We started talking about how hard it can be for him to get any of his other acts booked in this section of the country, simply for lack of time and for lack of higher club guarantees for fringe artists. He did mention, though, wanting to come record with Polvo’s Ash Bowie near Chapel Hill. Here’s what he had to say:

I really want to work outside of Chapel Hill with Ash Bowie.
So you know Ash?
I don’t know him well, but I’m a really big fan of his. We talked about trying to collaborate sometime, and it’s a matter of me really getting myself down there. That’s the only way it’s going to happen, and my life is so wild now, of course, with travel. I’m never really in one place very long. But I’d like to do that very much, come down there and hang out.

That could be interesting, huh? And what’s that I keep hearing about Polvo in a basement? Yeah, probably rumors.

In a city near you? American Aquarium. (Photo courtesy band/Anna Gookin Photography)

One of this year’s real local music surpises—for me, at least—was Antique Hearts, the debut from Raleigh band American Aquarium. I didn’t enjoy the first several shows I saw by the country-rock quintet, primarily because it sounded as though they were oversinging and overplaying every song. But I did understand from the beginning that frontman BJ Barham was a writer worth watching, casting songs full of the same small-town/big-dreams cinematic understanding that marks some of Ryan Adams’ best work. He writes a lot of songs, too. The album, released this winter, pulled through like a winner, though, subduing the band’s oomph by allowing for more intricate arrangements that surrounded Barham’s voice enough to make it sound believable. The band’s looking for a label for the follow-up, which they plan to record in late August.

For now, though, they’re doing what young bands should do: Touring, trying out new songs, feeling out new crowds. Barham says the tour has been a success so far. They’ve played with Yep Roc’s American Princes and, last night, at Chicago’s The Beat Kitchen. Barham, an engaged man, even got propositioned down in Birmingham: “I was up there playing, and this girl just walked right up on stage and said, ‘Those sunglasses are sexy as hell,’” he laughs, adding that she then offered backstage favors. “I turned beet red, and, no, I didn’t take her up.” Oh, rock ‘n’ roll.
Here’s a live mp3 of the band playing a new song, “Lover Too Late,” at Charleston’s Pour House Music Hall. More on MySpace and their Web site. They play Cleveland, New York and Washington before coming home. They play Aug. 19 at Local 506 with Joe Romeo & Twilighter. They then play Raleigh Music Hall on Sep. 9 with Nathan Asher & the Infantry and The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers.

Yes, that is Clay Aiken. No, you won’t stop laughing, either.

Clay Aiken’s career went dumpster-diving today with this announcement—attached to the above image, which is amazingly funny—from his Los Angeles publicist, Roger Widynowsk (after the break): (more…)

Tom Waits played in Asheville last night, and—after getting over the initial thrill of seeing him, in person, for the first time—it was largely underwhelming. His band seemed largely incapable of giving the songs the radiant glow that makes the best Waits albums essential, opting instead for blasé blues shuffles on full-on howlers. Expect a full review in next week’s paper. For now, here is the setlist (“Spring” is a new one), along with some photos from the Indy’s Derek Anderson:

Tom Waits: Asheville, N.C.
Wednesday, August 2

Set
Singapore
Make it Rain
Hoist That Rag
Shore Leave
November
God’s Away on Business
‘Til the money Runs out
All The World is Green
Tango ‘Til Their Sore
Invitation to the Blues
You Can Never Hold Back Spring
Clap Hands
Whistling Past The Graveyard
Heartattack and Vine
Lie to Me Baby
What’s He Building in There
Trampled Rose
Get Behind the Mule
Murder in the Red Barn
Goin’ out West

Encore 1
Down in The Hole
Blue Valentine

Encore 2
Don’t Go into that Barn

Click on these photos to see a larger image.