Three cool pieces of news today:

1. Beck added a third NYC show to his tour, October 8th at the United Palace Theatre. Presale tomorrow (Friday) at 10 AM here, password is YOUTHLESS.
2. There is news about the Information on vinyl. It will be limited to a pressing of 3000 individually numbered sets. It looks awesome!
3. Fake Beck is twittering!

Also, the tour starts up again tomorrow! Have fun at the shows and make sure to send us setlists, pics, and recordings!

1. New music! Go here and listen. A radio contest winner got Beck to write a song about him. The results are marvelous! You think Beck doesn’t have fun anymore? Isn’t weird enough like he used to be? Listen to that.

2. Beck’s show in San Francisco was recorded, and is being shared here. Thanks to the taper!

3. Beck’s father, David Campbell, will be conducting an orchestra at Beck’s show at the Hollywood Bowl later this month. Hopefully they’ll do more than just “Paper Tiger” and “Volcano”! I have no idea what the plans are, but should be awesome. Campbell has conducted all the strings you hear on Beck’s albums; they work quite well together.

4. For some reason I thought I had more, but that’s all I can think of right now.

First, the Reno setlist. Devendra Banhart opened, and played a couple songs with Beck. Our own Vitamin.Deb was there, and from whom I got the setlist:

Devil’s Haircut
Nausea
Timebomb
Loser
Girl
Minus
Que Onda Guero
Black Tambourine
Soul of a Man
Modern Guilt
Gamma Ray
Nicotine & Gravy
Youthless
Walls
Hell Yes (Ghettochip Malfunction)
Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat (with Devendra)
Hey Mama Wolf (with Devendra)
Golden Age
Lost Cause
Orphans
Where It’s At
Chemtrails
E-pro

Second, Outside Lands Festival… tonight. I’m a bit late on this, and am as annoyed as anyone, but apparently Beck’s set was webcast at attblueroom.com. GAH, missed it! Did anyone happen to watch and rip it? Please let us know: computergirls@whiskeyclone.net

UPDATE: Some clips of Outside Lands are already on YouTube. Watch and enjoy!

Beck played a warm-up show tonight at the El Cid, a tapas bar/music venue near Silverlake in Los Angeles. The band has come together very impressively since their first warm-up shows prior to the Europe tour. They head out on a short west coast trip here tomorrow, before a fuller North American tour next month.

Beck covered “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”–a classic Bob Dylan song. I’m told he recorded the song for some sort of compilation or project coming soon.

It was also nice to hear Beck play a bit of acoustic guitar on 3-4 songs, the last few times I’d seen him, he’d only played electric.

The El Cid setlist:

1. E-Pro
2. Modern Guilt
3. Timebomb
4. Nausea
5. Que Onda Guero
6. Gamma Ray
7. Mixed Bizness
8. Nicotine & Gravy
9. Youthless
10. Soul Of A Man
11. Replica
12. Girl
13. Minus
14. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
15. Hell Yes
16. The Golden Age
17. Lost Cause
18. Orphans
19. Volcano
20. Walls
21. Think I’m In Love
22. Chemtrails
23. Devils Haircut

According to Pitchfork, China will be clamping down on artists/musicians who perform there.  After an “outburst” in which Björk shouted “Tibet!” while performing in Shanghai, China says, “Any artistic group or individual who [has] ever engaged in activities that threaten national sovereignty will not be allowed in.”

I’m guessing they would include performing at a Tibeten Freedom Concert in that statement?  Who knows.  Anyways, Chinese Beck fans hang in there and feel the Beck love.

Hey folks, Beck’s tour of Europe begins today at a festival in Norway. The first 3.5 songs were webcast (”Devils Haircut,” “Nausea,” “Timebomb” and “Minus”)… check here, they may be archived there at some point (they’re not right now)? It appears there might be a different drummer from the Echo shows a few weeks ago too…

Anyway I’ll try to be regular with the tour show round-ups, as the tour goes on. If anyone’s at any of these shows and wants to send in setlists, pictures, recordings, or whatever, email us computergirls@whiskeyclone.net

Modern Guilt will have a bonus track on iTunes, called “Vampire Voltage No. 6.”

All the songs are credited to Beck, except “Walls” which DangerMouse co-wrote, and there’s a sample on it by Piot & Guiot.

Still no idea what happened to “Beggar’s Shoes.”

Beck played two shows last week, and cancelled a third (due to illness).

A few new dates were added to the North America tour in August/September:

August 21 - Reno, NV with Devendra Banhart
August 22 - San Francisco, CA Outside Lands Festival
August 24 - Bend, OR
August 27 - Victoria, BC with Band Of Horses
August 28 - Vancouver, BC with Band Of Horses
August 30 - Seattle, WA Bumbershoot Festival
September 19 - San Diego, CA Street Scene Festival
September 20 - Hollywood, CA with Spoon and MGMT
September 27 - Austin, TX ACL Festival

hopefully more will get added soon… Europe tour starts in a week or so too…

So over the last week, there’s been a little bit of news here and there, thought I’d provide a summary.

Two weekends ago, Beck sold tickets on Saturday morning to a show here in LA Monday night. It was at his usual pre-tour warmup club, The Echo (he’s done this 3-4 times in the last few years). On Monday afternoon, the show was cancelled, citing scheduling conflicts. Also there were unsubstantiated rumors about that Beck was unhappy that there were scalpers scalping the tickets for obscene amounts. Either way, show didn’t happen.

Then last night, Beck and his new band finally played The Echo. There was not very much advance notice to fans, tickets weren’t sold. The LA Times, after the fact, called it “invitation-only.” They played a bunch of hits, and 4 of the new songs. I’ll put more on the show on Hijacked Flavors when I get a chance.

Beck’s new band is guitarist (Jessica Dobson (who makes music as Deep Sea Driver), Bram Inscore on bass, Scott McPherson on drums (who played with Elliott Smith), and Brian LeBarton is back on keys (until Wounded Cougar takes off again). Welcome to the new band members!

The album, by the way, is thus:

1. Orphans (with Cat Power)
2. Gamma Ray
3. Chemtrails (listen to it on beck.com!)
4. Modern Guilt (watch Beck play it live at the Echo last night here!)
5. Youthless (also the name of an old poetry zine Beck made as a kid)
6. Walls (with Cat Power)
7. Replica (apparently drum-n-bass-y)
8. Souls Of A Man
9. Profanity Prayers
10. Volcano

Not sure what happened to the song “Beggar’s Shoes” yet; it could be “Soles Of A Man” maybe?

Also… expect the album in about a month (or so I’m told; it could change).

Hey all you west coast frx and other universal travelers. Another Beck performance for the people this summer in Seattle at the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival in Seattle from Aug. 30-Sept. 1 at the Seattle City Center.

Here’s a link to the site for more info.

British Beck fans, don’t forget to watch (and record!) From the Basement featuring Beck tomorrow night, Saturday December 15th at 9PM on Sky Arts (Channel 267) and Sky HD (Channel 268).

For those of you who don’t know, this is a performance by Beck and his band (from last year I think) performing live in Nigel Godrich’s basement. Beck friend Jamie Lidell is also on the episode I believe.

Here’s a YouTube preview, unfortunately the same as the video I linked to before: