The Basics… do these guys even need an introduction anymore?

We tend to write about them every couple of weeks so I think it’s safe to say that we’re fans, and like any good fan, we are going absolutely mental over their brand new everything-but-”Basic” single, their nautically themed music video and now, the announcement of a handful of intimate acoustic shows featuring never before seen photos, videos and various other previously unseen delights which will be exclusive to the tour.

These upcoming showcases will give us a taste of what’s to come from The Basics later this year with the release of their next album, Keep Your Friends Close!, so be sure to get in quick as tickets are limited due to the tiny venues.

11th April - The Studio, QPAC, Brisbane
18th April - St Martins, Randall Theatre, Melbourne
25th April - The Vanguard, Newtown, Sydney
26th April - The Vanguard, Newtown, Sydney

The video, directed by Matt Arnold, is really a cut-and-paste masterpiece, so if you haven’t seen it yet you can check out Wally, Kris and Tim naked right here.

Yes, I understand that the above title is somewhat odd. A song over forty years old leaking in this day and age of the interwebs is almost a farce, given how common it is to witness entire records appearing online in crude mp3 matter months before being released. What is more odd is that someone who calls themselves a Beatles fanatic, such as myself, didn’t even know this take (it was take 20) existed! I’ve known about the infamously mythological Sgt. Pepper-era, LSD-infested unreleased sound collage “Carnival of Light” and the orgasm-inducing approx. seven hour long “Helter Skelter” slow-groove jam that Macca won’t release; but I’ve never heard of this “full version” of the White Album classic, “Revolution 1″.

According to those bickering yet informative sods over at the atease message boards, the extended take leaked as part of a new bootleg, Revolution.. Take Your Knickers Off. Where things start getting interesting is that apparently only two copies of the take in question were ever made at the end of the session: one was taken home by John Lennon and the other by someone whose name isn’t noted in EMI documents. Hmmm. Scandalous!

How does it sound? Well imagine “Revolution 1″, and then imagine “Revolution 9″. Now, imagine the where the first song normally ends. Then, imagine the “shooby doo wop” back up vocals continuing for a further seven minutes while some of the sound collage noises from number 9 play over the top, eventually arriving to a crescendo before scaring the shit out of us all with a creepy spoken word piece by Yoko. I guess, John decided to chop the song in half, or rather, separate the sanity from insanity. ROCK AND ROLL!

For their first appearance together in two years, Jack and Meg predictably did something a little different to send off their ol’ pal Conan O’Brien on his last ever gig as host of Late Night, though I’m pretty sure no one could have guessed sister Meg would step out from behind the skins to accompany brother Jack on guitar for this emotional re-working of White Blood Cells favourite, “We’re Going To Be Friends”.

I must say, I was hoping the band would announce some crazy Raconteur-esque rush release for the eventual next White Stripes’ record but alas, no such news was to be told. As a side note, I predict YouTube will take this down in 3 minutes.

Hey there Tweeters! Here at Twelve Major Chords there’s nothing we love more than a bandwagon that we can jump straight on to, and Twitter is no exception.

For all you mums and dads out there, Twitter is the latest social networking craze to take over the internetz. Users start an account, follow their friends and before you know it, the micro-blogging is off the richter. To cut a long story short, a bunch of researchers discovered that Twitter does a better job of communicating information to a large group of people than ye olde regular news, and before long folks over at CNN, ABC News and even our dear Prime Minister hopped on board too (just to name a few).

So hey, if it’s good enough for KRudd, it’s good enough for us, right? Head to @12majorchords to start reading our updates, and get Following. Also, check out Joe.Blog’s master list of other cool and hip Australian music blogs and musicians who have all started hitting da Tweetz.

Well, it appears that The Basics are back and sadly not with a vengeance a la Bruce Willis, but rather a more “mature” sound. I really tried hard to refrain from using that term because it reminds me of your Dad’s CD collection - but I’m talking the ‘good’ mature - like a fine, dusty bottle of wine that’s been sitting on a long forgotten wine rack in yesteryear’s basement. The good news is that unimaginative metaphor seems rather fitting since it’s been a long while we’ve heard from these 12MC favourites. Enjoy the cut and paste video from Matt Arnold and expect a super special 12MC-exclusive video with The Basics facing off The Bawdies in some super-challenging pub trivia, coming soon to an embedded YouTube video near you.

A big “thank you” to The Basics’ very own Neil Aspinall, Syms Covington.

Howling Bells have been all over the place since recording their May 2006 debut of the same name, Howling Bells. Between writing songs in a country house in Victoria, recording in LA, and mixing in London, the foursome have been working like crazy getting ready for the release of their second album, Radio Wars. Here’s what Juanita, lead singer and hottie extraordinare, had to say about it:

“On the first record we might have made songs that were subtle and dusty, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t bursting at the seams with intent and desire. This album is no different, it just feels like the door’s wide open now. There’s a lot more colour splattered on this record.”.

While the album won’t be out on shelves until March 6 in Australia, we’ve managed to get our hands on one copy of Radio Wars and we want to share it with you. Forget downloading one measley sample mp3 of the same single you’ll hear everywhere else, we want to give you the entire album. Fo’ keeps!!

If you’d like to win your very own copy of the record, hit up our comments section below with the answer to this super simple question: What were Howling Bells called before they moved to the UK and reinvented themselves? Be sure to include your name and email so that we can get back to you if you’ve won.

Jack and Meg will be making their first public appearance as The White Stripes since 2007 (my dreams don’t count) on their BFF Conan O’Brien’s final show as host of Late Night with Conan O’Brien on February 20, before the tall redhead moves on to the much more illustrious job as host of NBC’s Tonight show on June 1. Obviously, I am excited. Conan and the Stripes have shared NBC’s studio several times, with the band having a week-long residency to promote 2003’s Elephant which infamously formed the as basis for Michel Gondry’s 2005 video for The Denial Twist. So what does this appearance mean for the future of The White Stripes? Didn’t Meg go ga-ga? Isn’t Jack off gallivanting with his Raconteur posse and writing Bond themes?

Well all I have to say is: Yo, what’s up Nostradamus? It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to realise that 2009 is going to be what I like to call a ‘White Stripes year’. Since their inception in 2006, Jack’s “other band” The Raconteurs, have taken up every other year that Jack and Meg don’t release a record. Allow me to explain:

2005: The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
2006: The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
2007: The White Stripes - Icky Thump
2008: The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
2009: The White Stripes - ???

See a pattern forming? No? Well, maybe I will make things easier by bolding every year The White Stripes release a record. Here goes:

2005: The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
2006: The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
2007: The White Stripes - Icky Thump
2008: The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
2009: The White Stripes - ???

See? No? Aw, come on. There’s not much else I can do to help explain it to you. Maybe just shoot me an email or something, and we can set up a Skype conference. Either way, I’m pretty certain that on the 20th, we’ll find more about what 2009 holds for the world’s favourite duo. Watch this space.

I’m not really into re-posting/circle-jerking other blog’s news, unless I heavily edit/dumb down the piece by throwing in street smart slang in order to pass the work off as my own, but this was too good not to share. Or RT. I don’t know. Social networking terminology has me confused.

(Via goldenfiddle.)

Hey, remember that struggling Rock ‘n’ Recipes segment we occasionally have here on Twelve Major Chords? No? You have no idea what I’m talking about? Well, that would be because despite us coming up with the brilliant idea of having all your favourite rock stars contribute a recipe of theirs to this glorious website of ours, we rarely actually get off our asses and follow through with the aquisition of said recipes.

This time, however, we got lucky. That lovable Sydney quartet known as the Cassette Kids have done all the hard work for us and sent in a recipe for “probably the best apple muffins ever”, according to their drummer Jacob (with a bit of credit to his sister).

You’ll definitely want to jot this one down and save it for a lazy Sunday afternoon spent drinking tea and reading Frankie Magazine:

Apple Muffins

1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2 apples, peeled and cut into cubes

Method:

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Whisk the oil and eggs, add the sugar, flour, baking powder and cinnamon and mix well. Add the apple, and mix. Pour into muffin tins, and bake for about 30 minutes or until they look and smell cooked. Leave in the muffin tins until cool, and then turn out carefully.

Enjoy!

The cool cats over at Way Cool Jnr. have compiled a list of the Top 25 Australian Music Blogs and just like Spinal Tap we here at Twelve Major Chords go all the way to 11. Using a combination of ones and zeros, stuff to do with Google Rankings and something about Technorati, Nick has compiled the following list…

1. Electrorash
2. Mass Hyperbole
3. Who The Hell?
4. A Reminder
5. Mess and Noise
6. Silence Is A Rhythm Too
7. Waves At Night
8. Fat Planet
9. Cyclic Defrost
10. Polaroids of Androids
11. Twelve Major Chords
12. Off The Record
13. It All Started…
14. Hooverdust
15. Oceans Never Listen
16. Whiteboydancefloor
17. Rose Quartz
18. Wireless Bollinger
19. Lexicon Devil
20. Before Hollywood
21. Reel Around The Fountain
22. Decomposing Trees
23. Open Your Eyes
24. Flop Eared Mule
25. Scatterblog

Be sure to check out all the other amazing blogs featured, you won’t be disappointed. A big thank you to Way Cool Jnr. for including our humble little blog in the list, and of course all you kids for reading what we have to say from time to time.

There’s no easy way of putting this so I’ll be frank: for the first time in my life, Rivers Cuomo, Weezer’s erratic and idiosyncratic frontman has officially creeped me out. Period.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely loving the volume of output we’re receiving from RC and the Weezy kidz at the moment (iPhone apps, home demo collections, bizarre YouTube videos) because it seems as though Cuomo is quite happy being Cuomo for the first time, but RC’s extremely eery and downright disturbing reading of his self-penned poem, “By The Side Of The Road”, for Daytrotter’s Bookery series has given me chills. And they’re multiplying.

Stream: Rivers Cuomo - By The Side Of The Road

Changing Horses, Ben Kweller’s newly released fourth album has been described by the lovable manchild as his “country” record, which is both unsurprising and completely logical seeing as though seven out of the nine times I’ve seen him live he’s donned a western shirt (that’s approximately 77.8% plaid). This might just be the “I finally have new music to listen to” buzz talking, but I’m finding it his best work since 2002’s Sha Sha and definitely his and most mature release to date, which is saying something because the guy still looks eleven.

If you’re ready for some gool ol’ fashioned honky tonkin’ good times you can stream the whole record over on at Last.fm, or if you’re feeling like spending some dollars I’m pretty sure I saw it at JB Hi-fi yesterday and am almost certain it’s on iTunes. Alternatively, if you know a thing or two about Google you could probably find it for a lot less (read: free).

In other news, BK is headed to our shores to showcase Changing Horses and presumably some older hits, depending on how good your manners are. The dates are as followed, partners:

April 10 - Chill City, Melbourne
April 11 - Metro Theatre, Sydney
April 13 - Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
April 15 - Republic Bar, Hobart
April 16 - Corner Hotel, Melbourne
April 17 - The Gov, Adelaide
April 18 - West Coast Blues n Roots, Perth

Ben Kweller - Wantin’ Her Again.mp3