HOLY SHIT! Chromeo is back. If that doesn’t get you at least a little bit pumped, you probably should’ve thought twice about having your soul surgically removed. These guys make true crossover dance music – nerds who live on Pirate Bay can listen to it in their rooms while downloading new episodes of Dexter, but it also makes a great soundtrack for doing bad cocaine in night club restrooms. Chromeo songs are basically the perfect thing for anyone who likes stuff. You can download a remix of their new track “Don’t Turn the Lights On” right here, completely free of charge. (Our only request – if this track gets you laid, send pix!!!) Chromeo’s new album Business Casual is available next Tuesday, September 14th.

Chromeo:

• Official Site
• Last.fm
• Facebook
• Twitter

Attention, all Four Year Strong fans: the band’s video for “It Must Really Suck To Be Four Year Strong Right Now” is this week’s free video download from iTunes. CLICK RIGHT HERE and you’ll be instantly transported to a magical place where you can download a free Four Year Strong video. There are some fairly hardcore fans of FYS among the Assault.it staff, and even I have to give them their propers for being just about as spastic, crazy, and mind-blowing as a pop-punk could possibly be. These guys are so ferocious that it should be illegal; I wouldn’t go to one of their shows without an entourage the size of MC Hammer’s circa 1992. These guys are so nuts that their last CD came with a jock strap. Four Year Strong play so fast that their first manager, Sonic The Hedgehog, told them to slow down. This band is so good that we published a complimentary review of their latest album, which you can read here.

Now please, go download the video. You’ll like it.

One of our favorite local bands, Kid, You’ll Move Mountains, recently contributed a couple tracks to Switchboard Sessions, a site that records bands performing tracks over the phone. (Landlines – it’s analog!) The band (or, rather, Jim and Nina, the group’s main vocalists) performed “No Applause” (from their fantastic LP Loomings) and a cover of Queen’s “Nevermore.” Click on the link-y titles there to download the tracks from SoundCloud.

Kid, You’ll Move Mountains:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Facebook
• Switchboard Sessions

Here’s one for the hipsters: Wavves just released a new song called “Post Acid” via Mountain Dew’s Green Label Sound. I’d make jokes about Mountain Dew here, except I’m drinking a liter of the stuff right now while listening to a new Wavves song for free. Hail commerce!

Wavves:

• MySpace
• Last.fm
• Green Label Sound

Like everybody else, we’ve been interested to see what’ll happen with Trent Reznor’s new band, How To Destroy Angels. So far there hasn’t been too much information – a weird intro, an official video, and a pretty dumb name. (Seriously, it is.) But now all those questions are rendered mere obsolete noise, much like Pretty Hate Machine. You can now download How To Destroy Angels’ first EP for free. Pretty cool, huh? I haven’t listened to it yet, but you can bet your ass I’m going to. And then probably go on Twitter and be like “Meh.” (For $2, you can get “HD quality” mp3s, which I didn’t know existed, but [let's be honest] are still mp3s, so why don’t you wait to pick this shit up on vinyl or CD, both of which are coming soon?) Click the widget below:

How To Destroy Angels:

• How To Destroy Angels Twitter
• How To Destroy Angels Facebook
• How To Destroy Angels MySpace
• How To Destroy Angels YouTube
• How To Destroy Angels Vimeo

Atlanta’s The Whigs are one of those bands you know about, but (unless you’re some kind of Whigs superfan) you don’t pay all that much attention to. They’ve received mostly positive notices for their three records (the most recent of which is called In The Dark, and is totally available now for legal purchase) but never set the world on fire. Is that about to change? Possibly. They’re set for a headlining tour, plus dates with The Hold Steady, Kings Of Leon, and the Black Keys. I daresay, these guys might be poised for some serious breakout success!

These Southern gentlemen are also kindly offering their track “Dying” as a free mp3 download, which you can get RIGHT HERE. If you like what you hear, obviously you should pick up their records and check them out live. To faciliate this, here are some tour dates, and also a video of the dudes rocking out on Jimmy Fallon’s show. If you’re not a fan by now, I have totally failed as an amateur music blogger and must immediately exile myself to Canada, where nothing good ever happens except for the occasional moose fight. So please: be a fan! Goodies:

THE WHIGS ON JIMMY FALLON:

THE WHIGS ON TOUR:

With Kings of Leon:
June 5      Borgata Event Center – Atlantic City, NJ
June 6      Saratoga Performing Arts Center – Saratoga, NY
June 8      Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain – Scranton, PA
June 30    Hyde Park – London, UK
Whigs Headlining Dates:
June 10    The Handlebar – Greenville, SC
June 11    Sky City – Augusta, GA
June 12    Riverbend Festival – Chattanooga, TN
June 13    Rib Fest – Chicago, IL
June 17    Belly Up – San Diego
June 18    Troubadour – Los Angeles, CA
June 19    Velvet Jones – Santa Barbara, CA
With The Hold Steady:
July 2      Lac Courte Oreilles Casino - Hayward, WI
July 3      Cabooze Outdoor Stage – Minneapolis, MN
July 4      First Avenue – Minneapolis, MN
July 6      Slowdown – Omaha, NE
July 7      Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
July 8      Santa Fe Brewing Company – Santa Fe, NM
July 9      Diamond Ballroom – Oklahoma City, OK
July 10    Granada Theater – Dallas, TX
July 11     High-Tone Cafe – Memphis, TN
July 12     Square Room – Knoxville, TN
July 14     Newport Music Hall – Columbus, OH
July 15     Crofoot Ballroom – Pontiac, MI
July 16     Kool Haus – Toronto, ON
Other:
July 17     Ottawa Bluesfest – Ottawa, ON
With The Black Keys:
September 2 Town Ballroom – Buffalo, NY
With Kings of Leon & The Black Keys:
September 3  Verizon Wireless Music Center – Indianapolis, IN
September 4  Riverbend Music Center – Cincinnati, OH   
September 7  First Niagara Pavilion – Pittsburgh, PA
September 8  Hershey Park Stadium – Hershey, PA
With The Black Keys:         
September 9  Charlottesville Pavilion – Charlottesville, PA
With Kings of Leon & The Black Keys:
September 10  Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre – Charlotte, NC
September 11  Virginia Beach Ampitheatre – Virginia Beach, VA
September 13  Time Warner Music Pavilion – Raleigh, NC
With The Black Keys:   
September 14   Orange Peel - Asheville, NC
With Kings of Leon & The Black Keys:
September 17   Cruzan Amphitheatre – W. Palm Peach, FL
September 18   Ford Amphitheater – Tampa, FL
September 20   Verizon Wireless Music Center – Birmingham, AL
With The Black Keys:
September 21   House of Blues – New Orleans, LA
With Kings of Leon & The Black Keys:
September 22   Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion – Houston, TX
September 23   SuperPages.com Center – Dallas, TX

The Whigs:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Facebook

Well, this is interesting: the Brooklyn act Extra Life, currently touring behind their recent sophomore effort Made Flesh, are set to release a remix EP called, eh, Splayed Flesh on June 22, and one of the remixers is none other than Battles frontman (and our personal hero) Tyondai Braxton. You can download the remix of “Head Shrinker” HERE for absolutely no cost, and it’s well worth it: weird, rubbery, robotic, futuristic, slightly danceable -- these are all words that come to mind while the track peels off your face and caresses that smooth skull-bone with trancey accents. I like it, you’ll like it, download it NOW. Also check out the video for the unmolested version of “Head Shrinker,” immediately below this sentence:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dja4b-3QwAY

Splayed Flesh tracklist:
1. Head Shrinker -- album version
2. Head Shrinker -- Tyondai Braxton remix
3. Head Shrinker -- Caley Monahon-Ward remix
4. The Body is True -- album version
5. The Body is True -- JG Thirlwell remix
6. Made Flesh -- album version
7. Made Flesh  Justin K Broadrick remix

Extra Life tour dates
5.14    Berlin, West Germany w/ Parenthetical Girls, Former Ghosts
5.15    Brno, Czech Republic, Fleda
5.16    Krakow, Poland, Klub Re
5.17    Zilina, SlovakiaStanica (acoustic duo) w/ Lonely Drifter Karen
5.18    Ljubljana, Slovenia, Kino Siska
5.19    Faenza, Italy, Clandestino
5.21    Lausanne, Switzerland, Le Romandie
5.22    Delemont, Switzerland, SAS
5.24    Grenoble, France, L’Amperage
5.25    Montpellier, France, Baloard
5.26    Lyon, France, Sonic
5.29    Poitiers, France, Confort Moderne
5.30    Lille, France, La Malterie
5.31    Stuttgart, Germany, Schocken
6.1      Köln, Germany, Kulturbunker
6.2      Bielefeld, Germany, Bunker Ulmenwall
6.3      Brussels, Belgium, Les Ateliers Claus
6.4      Cardiff, UK, Cardiff Arts Institute
6.5      Dublin, Ireland, Whelans
6.6      Belfast, UK, Crescent Arts Centre
6.8      Liverpool, UK, The Kazimier
6.9      Hull, UK, The Adelphi
6.11    Rotterdam, Netherlands, Poortgebouw

Hey, you like rock music, right? Of course you do; that’s why you’re reading Assault.it – recently scientifically proven to be America’s #1 music info source. So now that we’ve established that you enjoy rock music, why don’t you help Archers Of Loaf mastermind Eric Bachmann release his current band Crooked Fingers’s new EP of cover songs, Reservoir Songs II? The group recently enlisted Kickstarter.com to help raise funds for the project, which will be released via digital download and a super-limited run of hand-numbered 12″s. What you actually receive will depend upon what you pledge, but it’s definitely worth it to give at least a little to support the arts. I’ve embedded a little widget below that you can monkey around with, and below that a link to get a free download from the EP. The record is being released by Foreign Leisure.

Click here to download “Gentle On My Mind” totally for free!

Crooked Fingers:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Last.fm
• Kickstarter

Cypress Hill have jumped on the bandwagon, and started offering up songs for free! Not sure how long this will be up so make sure to get it while you can.

Here is your chance to get a brand new Cypress Hill joint off their upcoming record Rise Up, due out on April 6. The song is called “It Ain’t Nothin’” and you can download it for free for a limited time at cypresshill.com. Click here to enter your information and download now! The album features special guest appearances from Rage Against The Machine/Street Sweeper Social Club’s Tom Morello, who co-wrote and co-produced the title track and lead single “Rise Up.” The famed guitarist also appears on a second track titled “Shut ‘Em Down.”

I was lucky enough recently to partake in the Chicago Music Commission’s Social Media panel for musicians at the Cultural Center in Chicago. They just posted the MP3 for the panel which they’ve called, “Stand Out In A Digital World”. I highly recommend listening to the podcast if you’re somewhat new to marketing yourself as a musician online. There’s tons of links and resources we discuss throughout the panel, and I only say “fuck” once.

Social Media for Musicians – Musicians at Work Forum

Recorded Monday,  November 16,  2009

We discussed using Social Media to build fan relationships. Developing a strategy that helps you choose how to use the available services and networks. Getting the most for your effort in growing and maintaining your fan base. Setting expectations and converting those relationships into real-time results.

Moderator:
Jim Goodrich Chicago Music Commission

Panelists:
Jeffrey David Goldford The Everyday People
Miriam Brosseau Stereo Sinai
Alan Jay Sufrin Stereo Sinai
Matt Ryd Singer/Songwriter
Tim Toomey Assault, Inc. (Me you turds)

Links from the panel you may like:

• Reverb Nation – Better than MySpace and you get embeddable music widgets
• Tunecore – Digital Music Distribution
• CD Baby – Discover New Music
• Last.fm – Another place to get your music on, like Pandora

Want to design this t-shirt on your own? Download all the custom Photoshop shapes that I used to make this design. Double click on the .csh file and they’ll install themselves to your Photoshop custom shapes tool. (You can access this tool by right click on your canvas when using your custom shapes tool.)

All we ask is that you don’t design the exact same shirt and then try to sell them. if you do this Mr. 51% will have to hunt you down and do scary things to you.

To download the high resolution image of this shirt click here, or click here on my t-shirt SEO optimized link here which we will call the t-shirt design download green grunge free. (or you can click the image to the left.