Cornershop have released a pair of singles in anticipation of their upcoming full length, ‘Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast.’ You can download ‘Who Fingered Rock and Roll?’ and most every other Cornershop release at www.cornershop.com. Also included is an instrumental, ‘Toffee, Coffee Coloured,’ and both were mixed here at Camp Street with long time Cornershop cohort, sitar hero, Anthony Saffery. The quirky UK outfit has also uploaded a video to accompany the single featuring lots of stuff happening in reverse…!yojne

This week at Camp Street is dedicated toward finishing the mixes for Dear Leader’s forthcoming full length album. Go to www.dear-leader.com to get a tentative track list. While you’re there, check out their “In the studio” video which is 32 seconds of pure adrenaline.

Dear Leader also joins the ranks of Led Zepellin, Iggy Pop and Hum, as their song ‘Raging Red’ from the ‘All I Ever Wanted was Tonight’ album is currently featured in a new Cadillac commercial. Let’s just hope that DL’s sonic prowess is enough to save the ailing dinosaur that is the U.S. automobile industry. Support local music–go buy a Cadillac!!

Newly added to the Camp Street Records roster are the Living Sea. If you dig bands like My Bloody Valentine, the Arcade Fire, and Regina Spektor you might dig the Living Sea. Their first Camp Street recording, the 5 song Madeline EP is now available for download here. There will be a follow up release coming up this fall…check out the video that lead singer Catie Zappala put together to get a taste of the Living Sea and what was obviously a very serious and somber recording session:

I didn’t think that ‘awesomeness’ was actually a word…but I looked it up and according to dictionary.com it is a real word–a noun to be specific. How totally badical is that? There’s no better word to describe the guitar that Paul picked up on one of his recent backwoods gear hunting trips. Behold the Hondo Coyote:

The wood is korina and the single pickup just smokes. We’re almost positive that this guitar was designed for and played by Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, but after burning out the google machine and watching hours of ZZ Top videos on youtube, we have yet to uncover conclusive proof. If you’ve got any info on this bad larry–especially if your name happens to be Billy F. Gibbons–shoot us an e-mail.

The latest offering from the Lemonheads features 11 covers (12 if you get the bonus track) from such diverse artists as Gram Parsons, GG Allin, Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, Wire, and yes, even Christina Aguilera. Anthony Saffery and Adam Taylor teamed up with Evan Dando and crew to work on portions of the record here at Camp Street. ‘Varshons’ also features lead guitars by the Only Ones’, John Perry and vocal cameos by Liv Tyler and Kate Moss….va va va voom.    www.varshons.com

We’ve had a full house this week with the World/Inferno Friendship Society in putting on the sparkle and mixing their new full length. We’ve had action upstairs and down and all hands on deck with producer Sean Slade and guest engineer Benny Grotto teaming up with the Camp Street crew and lending their talent to the process. The Inferno’s head honcho, Jack Terricloth, bassist/vocalist Sandra Malak and drummer, Brian Viglione (also of the Dresden Dolls) were in to oversee the process and enjoy mucho vino.

Portugal The. Man has a very cool and very psychedelic looking new website on which are featured daily video clips with previews to the songs on their forthcoming album, ‘The Satanic Satanist.’  Check out the new site, the videos and all of the other neat stuff they’ve got up there at portugaltheman.net. There will be a new vid added every day for each song of the album. Here is the vid for “Everyone Is Golden” :

With the Thorogood transfers finished, we took a spin over to Rounder Records to drop off the reels. While there, a pile of 1/4″ reels caught the attention of master crate digger, Adam Taylor. The tapes were various masters, demos and songwriter versions of cuts from the Ric and Ron Records catalogs that Rounder had purchased many years ago. Adam brought the whole lot back to the studio for transfer and dug in to what is an amazing stash of rare and thought-to-be-lost cuts from Johnny Adams, Eddie Bo, Al Johnson, Professor Longhair, Irma Thomas and many, many more. The quality of the some of the recordings is astounding–it sounds as if Al Johnson is standing right in front of you. We’ll keep you posted as to what Rounder intends to do with these gems…

Noise Pop 2009 continues. The Kool Keith concert was kicking, featuring a “Dr. Octagon vs. Dr. Doooom” medley set, backed by dj, KutMasta Kurt. Rap moves on to the year 3000.

Next week we go back into ‘band mode’ with veteran NYC cabaret punks, World/Inferno Friendship Society in to put some finishing touches and mix their new album.

The Upper Crust’s album, “Revenge For Imagined Slights,” was recently reviewed by Spin Magazine. Not too shabby for a ‘Download Only’ album. Ain’t technology grand? Check out the review here: www.spin.com. Get ready for it…here comes the plug…and you can still download ‘Revenge’ directly from the Camp Street Records Online Store. Here’s a clip of the Crust on the “Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson,” which aired this March.

The George Thorogood tapes are almost completely converted to ones and zeroes. Now we’re getting ready to mix another round of live shows from the 2009 edition of San Francisco’s Noise Pop Festival. We did it last year and it was great—-tons of good bands. This year’s batch features performances by Kool Keith, St. Vincent, Deerhunter, Les Savy Fav, Bob Mould and Camp Street favorites, Portugal The Man. Listen to concerts from last year’s Noise Pop for free at Wolfgang’s Vault.