It's 3:00 a.m. as I write this. I just found out half an hour ago and have been trying, to no avail, to come up with an acceptable homage to a man for whom words like "innovative" and "brilliant" seem grotesque understatements. We may have more on this later. In the meantime, here's a link to the full story:

Ex-Beatle George Harrison Dies at 58

Brandi Haker reports:
Jon Whitney created Brainwashed.com with his bare hands in 1996. Since then, he and an army of volunteers from around the world have created a passionate music alliance while living off the fruit of the land. Not unlike a euphonious halfway house, the website was designed to give a home to bands and labels in need without monetary compensation. Unlike many, Brainwashed thrives on its informational and aesthetically pleasing websites without all that "ad nauseum."

A while back, Whitney had a brilliant idea akin to the idea of solid state physics. Why not ask the artists if they would be willing to contribute a track for The Wire magazine? The response was overwhelming, and the product is now available for preorder.

Brain in the Wire is a 3xCD compilation of new and exclusive tracks by all kinds of Brainwashed-related artists. Subscribers to The Wire were the first to peruse "Disc A" when the CD was sent with the October 2000 issue. Again, subscribers will be the first lucky bastards to grasp "Disc B" in their scrawny little hands when the May 2002 issue arrives at their doorsteps.

The official release date of the compilation is April 16th, 2002 (also the 6th birthday of Brainwashed.com), and pre-orders are available now through February 14th, or whenever they sell out. It's kind of like winning the lottery, except that instead of a few million, you get three CDs, a large pull-out "family portrait" poster, a metal box wrapped in wire, and some mysterious "other stuff."

Only 1500 sets will be sold, and the set is exclusively available through Brainwashed.com. It'll set you back $30 (or a little more if you're outside the U.S.), but look what you get for your money:

Disc A
01 Legendary Pink Dots: "Old Sparky"
02 V/Vm: "Cha-ha Meat Skran-r the 15lb. Turkey"
03 Greater Than One: "Broadcast"
04 Twilight Circus Dub Soundsystem: "Slicer Duplicate" (version 2)
05 Fridge: "Harmonics"
06 Ruby Falls: "The Brave Ones"
07 Panacea: "Battle Stations" (dub version)
08 m²: "I-tuo"
09 Jessica Bailiff: "Shadow"
10 Cyclobe: "Replaced by His Constellation"
11 Windy & Carl: "Trembling"
12 Christoph Heeman & Andreas Martin: "Wires"
13 Little Annie: "Lullaby"
14 Aranos & Nurse With Wound: "Mary Jane" (marbles remix)
15 Current 93 & Pantaleimon: "The Magical Bird in the Magical Woods" (unused mix from Sleep Has His House)

Disc B
01 Matmos: "You Can't Win"
02 Bedhead: "Powder"
03 Meat Beat Manifesto: "Structures" (version)
04 Stars of the Lid: "Requiem for the Dying Mothers" (version i, Zamachowski op. 87)
05 Diamanda Galas: "Birds of Death" (live in Toronto)
06 Gordon Mumma: "Stressed-Space Palindromes"
07 Volcano The Bear: "New Seeker"
08 Tino: "Vice Versa Dub"
09 Thighpaulsandra: "Heaven Lies About Us In Our Infancy"
10 Cex: "Ad Nauseam"
11 !!!: "Hammerhead" (TripleShotMonger mix)

Disc X: Brain NOT in the Wire
It's a surprise!

.: Brainwashed: http://www.brainwashed.com

Ben Johnson reports:
Though the people in line to see Black Knight might not believe it, there was once a distant time known as "The Seventies" when innovative filmmakers were given Hollywood budgets and stars to make adventurous, groundbreaking films. One of those films, Robert Altman's Nashville, also happened to feature a pretty damn good soundtrack built of quirky homages to country music. The album even picked up a Best Original Song Oscar in spite of the fact that the winning tune, Keith Carradine's "I'm Easy," was not sung by a cuddly orphaned animal and in no way involved Elton John.

Under the direction of Canadian songwriter and Corn Sister Carolyn Mark, several Pitchfork-friendly alt-country musicians have now recorded a tribute to that soundtrack, which is set to come out on Mint Records in February. The roster of performers includes Neko Case (the other Corn Sister), Kelly Hogan, Dallas Good of the Sadies, Carl Newman of the New Pornographers, and a number of other primarily Canadian musicians.

The genesis of the project apparently came about a few years back when Mark and several of her friends, many of whom appear on the album, decided to put on a live-action stage rendition of the film at a local bar. I have no clue how this performance actually went, but the very idea has quite an outsider art/really odd "Northern Exposure" episode vibe going for it, so I bet it was a lot more fun than the Highwaymen's remake of Stagecoach or Snoop Dogg's version of Car Wash.

In the meantime, several of the musicians featured on the album are touring about this great continent of ours, and so we list the dates for you because that, my friends, is what we do. It isn't even that difficult:

Kelly Hogan (all December dates w/Alejandro Escovedo):
11-30 Chattanooga, TN - The Attic
12-01 Atlanta, GA - Star Bar
12-02 Carrboro, NC - Go Room 4
12-03 Arlington, VA - Iota
12-05 Pittsburgh, PA - Rosebud
12-07 Lexington, KY - Lynaghs

Carolyn Mark:
12-22 Vancouver, BC - Railway Club

The Sadies:
11-30 Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern
12-01 Chicago, IL - Schubas
12-02 Minneapolis, MN - 400 Bar
12-07 London, ON - Call the Office

.: Pitchfork Review: Neko Case and Her Boyfriends: The Virginian
.: Mint Records: http://www.mintrecs.com

Alan Haworth reports:
Remember Wheat? They were kickin' it central-Massachusetts-style way back in '99 with their minor indie rock hit LP, Hope and Adams. Friends, they're back, and they're mounting a mini-tour of a few Eastern U.S. hot spots-- Beantown, New York, and Philly-- ...this weekend.

And now, a little history about this band that plays low-key but driven tunes with some ambient noodling. In 1996, a fan sent a bootleg to Sugar Free Records that got Wheat signed to a record deal. Since then, Scott Levesque, Brendan Harney and Ricky Brennan have successfully crafted two albums of melancholy indie pop. The aforementioned Hope and Adams, their sophomore release, was produced by the ubiquitous Dave Fridmann.

Rabid Wheat fans can check out the band's official website to download unreleased tunes. This month's installment is the b-side "And First You See a Superstar, Then You Don't." Dates:

11-30 Cambridge, MA: Middle East
12-01 New York, NY: Knitting Factory
12-02 Philadelphia, PA: Khyber

.: Pitchfork Review: Wheat: Hope and Adams
.: Wheat: http://www.wheatmusic.com