Andrew Bird is keeping busy, or so reports the BBC 6. All whilst on a lengthy tour, Bird is finding time to score a film, create an art installation, and cover Kermit the Frog’s “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

The film in question is titled Norman. It’s a high school drama starring Adam Goldberg and is the first legit full-length feature Bird has scored. The art project is harder to explain. According to Bird, “I’ve been collaborating with this sculptor in Chicago who makes these horns that I play through – they are like speakers – to create a whole installation, a room full of these horns that are shaped like poppies, making loops that come out of different horns. It’s like an arboretum of sonic sculptures. It’ll be a traveling museum show.” Whoa.

The Kermit cover is part of a Sesame Street 40th Anniversary disc, featuring artists like My Morning Jacket and (no surprise) Weezer playing your favorite Muppet tunes. It’s due out early next year. No word yet on whether or not Steve Martin will cover “Dueling Banjos” for the comp. (via P4k)

Tour Dates:

11.13 Paris @ Casino de Paris
11.15 Amsterdam @ Melkweg
11.16 Tumhout @ de Warande
11.17 Gent @ Vooruit
11.19 Katowice @ Festival Ars Cameralis
11.21 Madrid @ Joy Eslava
11.23 Valencia @ Palau de la Musica
11.24 Barcelona @ Sala Apolo
12.08 Champaign, IL @ Foellinger Auditorium at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
12.10 Minneapolis, MN @ St Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral
12.11 Minneapolis, MN @ St Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral
12.15 Chicago, IL @ Fourth Presbyterian Church
12.16 Chicago, IL @ Fourth Presbyterian Church
12.17 Chicago, IL @ Fourth Presbyterian Church
12.30 Marion Bay, AS @ The Falls Music & Arts Festival
12.31 Lorne, AS @ The Falls Music & Arts Festival
01.01 Melbourne, AS @ The Hi-Fi
01.03 Sydney, AS @ Sydney Opera House
01.07 Brisbane, AS @ Sunset Sounds
01.09 Busselton, AS @ Southbound
01.26 Singapore @ Esplanade
01.27 Hong Kong @ Grappa’s Cellar
01.29 Shanghai @ Zhijiang Dream Factory
01.30 Beijing @ Mao Live House
02.03 Tokyo @ Club Quattro
02.06 Honolulu, HI @ Pipeline Café
02.20 Los Angeles, CA @ Bovard Auditorium at the University of Southern California

Bands making appearances in cartoons is tradition, from The Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth rocking Homerpalooza on The Simpsons to a cameo from Radiohead on a particularly demented episode of South Park (yes, they make fun of a kid for being tricked into eating his parents).  Later this month, American Dad will continue the lineage of real-life rockers lending their voices to animated versions of themselves when one character becomes obsessed with Louisville, Kentucky’s My Morning Jacket.  The episode, titled “My Morning Straightjacket,” also features a cameo from Zach Galifianakis and is slated to air on November 22 on FOX.

Monsters of Folk, bka Conor Oberst, Jim James, M. Ward and Mike Mogis have just made available the first track off their forthcoming self-titled album. It is called “Say Please” and you can get it by submitting, and we do mean submitting, your email address to their web overlords. The B-side to “Say Please,” entitled “Small Fork on the Outside” can be had by anyone willing to cry like a baby as Conor Oberst gives them a purple nurple. Welcome to the Record Industry 3.0.

My Morning Jacket’s Jim James will be releasing an EP of George Harrison covers called Tribute To on ATO Records August 4th. The songs listed below, three solo from All Things Must Pass and two Harrison-penned Beatles songs, were recorded shortly after the late great songwriter passed in 2001. Yames/James’ versions will apparently be low-key, acoustic and, we’re sure, good for sparking some incense and reciting mantras.
Tribute To Tracklist:
1.) Long Long Long
2.) Behind That Locked Door
3.) Love You To
4.) My Sweet Lord
5.) Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)
6.) All Things Must Pass

—Nikki Turner

A slew of awesome artists are lending their talents to charity, making a compilation album called Causes 2, to try and help benefit charity organizations aiding in the effort to stop the mass genocide occurring in Darfur. Among the artists participating in the project are, My Morning Jacket, LCD Soundsystem, RJD2, and Gnarls Barkley.

The loaded album is due out on May 5 on Waxploitation, and 100% of the proceeds will go towards three different humanitarian organizations — Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam America — that are volunteering their efforts to help end the mass killings in the Sudan region.

Causes 1 was the start of these compilation albums aimed at projecting the word about Darfur, while giving it’s proceeds to the aforementioned organizations. Causes 1 also enlisted a great mixture of artists for its tracks, including The Shins, Bright Eyes, Animal Collective and Spoon, so even if you don’t know much about what’s going on, buying the album is an attempt at throwing some sort of support to those who need it.

You can view a video for Causes 2 here, and you can pre-order the album worldwide here.

Already the third Jagjaguwar release on our year end best-of list, and undoubtedly one of our favorite bands of 2008, Parts & Labor quietly put out one of the best records of the year. With an entire line-up that boasts side projects and a label between band founders Dan Friel and BJ Warsaw, Parts & Labor are a band that remains both an integral part of their hometown Brooklyn musical community as well as the national independent music scene. Yet despite their DIY ethos and with nary a miss on the entire album, Receivers is the type of epic record we’ve come to expect from bands like My Morning Jacket and Band Of Horses. And one that opens up the discussion that Parts & Labor are becoming a band worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as bands of that level.

Jagjaguwar