Weekly Round-Up: Friday 22nd March

If you're like us, you've enjoyed the drop in temperature this week, using it as an excuse to hibernate after a summer of excess. The cooler weather also signals the beginning of an album release onslaught and announcements abounded this week. The Strokes are streaming their latest - and questionably titled - effort Comedown Machine over here and Depeche Mode dropped their thirteenth (!) studio album Delta Machine online for all those hardcore new wavers to check out. Kurt Vile continued his ownership of Being The Man by announcing his new album and releasing the forthcoming single via a home video of him playing records in front of his adorable daughter, while spindly-legged goth-rockers The Horrors announced a follow-up to excellent 2011 album Skying. Matt Berninger of The National has announced the band will release High Violet follow-up, Trouble Will Find Me in May and that, antithetically: "the songs on one level are our most complex, and on another are our most simple" - intriguing. Finally on the new album front, Mandy Moore's husband and part-time metal musician Ryan Adams has another side-project: a punk band called Pornography with Johnny T. Yerington and Leah Hennessey, and they are set to release a seven song 7" called 7 Minutes in Heaven (see what they did there) on Record Store Day.

In internet tid-bit news: after releasing what is possibly the most cliched music video of all time, DIIV were biting the hand that feeds last week by slamming SxSW, the week-long industry music festival arguably responsible for at least some of the band's hype after their appearance for two consecutive years. Yoko Ono has taken to Twitter with photograph of John Lennon's blood-stained glasses to promote tighter (any) gun control laws in the States, while apparently Dave Grohl asked PJ Harvey to front Nirvana's reunion - for a cover of In Utero's 'Milk It' but she "couldn't do it" (didn't want to?). And to bookend this section with jealousy-fuelling SxSW news, you can watch Spoon / Wolf Parade supergroup Divine Fits perform a new song at the festival. Please note Karen O's glorious head-lamp.

WEEKEND GIG PICKS:

Friday 22nd March

AUCKLAND: Mick Harvey (ex-The Bad Seeds), Kings Arms
AUCKLAND: The DHDFDs UK Tour Fundraiser, Whammy Bar
AUCKLAND: Family Cactus, Anthonie Tonnon + More, Cassette Nine
AUCKLAND: Decortica, New Way Home + Guests, Rising Sun
AUCKLAND: Hang Loose, Drop Dead Redhead + Faster Pussy Cat Kill Kill, Lucha Lounge
TAURANGA: god bows to math, Threat Meet Protocol, Deathbeam + more, Krazy Jacks
PALMERSTON NTH:  So So Modern, The Stomach
WELLINGTON: Freddy Fudd Pucker, Puppies
WELLINGTON: Kittentank and Hoopla, Mighty Mighty
CHRISTCHURCH: Mountaineater, Wunderbar (Lyttelton)
CHRISTCHURCH: Bond Street Bridge Explorers Club, Nor'wester Cafe
CHRISTCHURCH: Brother Love Album Release, 
DUNEDIN: Toy Destruction, A Distant City and Bikk, Taste Merchants
DUNEDIN: Lines of Flight Festival, Chicks Hotel

Saturday 23rd March

AUCKLAND: Mick Harvey, Leigh Sawmill Cafe
AUCKLAND: XXYYXX, Cassette Nine
AUCKLAND: War Requiem, Auckland Town Hall
AUCKLAND: Paul Kelly, Holy Trinity Church
WELLINGTON: Black City Lights and Estere, Mighty Mighty
WELLINGTON: Suren Unka, Riki Gooch + more, Puppies
WELLINGTON: I.Ryoko, Anthony Milton, Fiends + More, The Crypt
WELLINGTON: Louis Baker, Bodega
DUNEDIN: Lines of Flight Music Festival, Chicks Hotel
DUNEDIN: Reverberation, Dunedin Musicians Club
CHRISTCHURCH: Freddy Fudd Pucker, Darkroom
CHRISTCHURCH: Tami Neilson, Delaney Davidson + Marlon Williams, Wunderbar

Sunday 24th March

AUCKLAND: Sherpa, The Leers and Urban Tramper, Grey Lynn Park
AUCKLAND: Bernie Griffith, The Wine Cellar
AUCKLAND: Tony Joe White, The Powerstation 
WELLINGTON: Paul Kelly, Old St Pauls


NEW TRACKS: