Quick Notes: Diamond Rugs, The Black Keys/Wu-Tang Clan, Red Hot Chili Peppers

*[press release] Diamond Rugs, the collaboration between John McCauley (Deer Tick), Robbie Crowell (Deer Tick), Ian Saint Pe (The Black Lips), Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Hardy Morris (Dead Confederate) and Bryan Dufresne (Six Finger Satellite), played on CBS' Late Show With David Letterman on Monday. The band played a rowdy rendition of "Blue Mountains," the single from their debut full-length, Diamond Rugs, which was released on Partisan Records in May. In case you missed it, the video can be seen below.

Diamond Rugs was chosen by VICE Magazine as their "Album of the Month" for July 2012. Said VICE, "I see what you've done here, Diamond Rugs. You made the soundtrack to Beer. Nice job. I can't wait for the sequel, This is How to Not be a Boring Pussy." The record landed at #1 on Paste Magazine's "Best Albums of 2012 (So Far)" list, celebrated for being "sweaty and unpolished with just the right amount of self-awareness--everything a great rock record should be." SPIN called the record a "raucous, loose hootenanny," and FILTER agreed, noting "this ain't no Chickenfoot; this is the really really real deal." Diamond Rugs made their live NYC debut this past week, playing a surprise show at The Bell House, followed by a performance at Central Park Summerstage opening up for Alabama Shakes. Look out for a fall tour announcement soon!



*[consequenceofsound.net] RZA has tapped some big names to soundtrack his forthcoming directorial debut, The Man With the Iron Fist. According to the film’s just released trailer, Kanye West, The Black Keys, Wu-Tang Clan, Wiz Khalifa, and RZA himself will contribute new music.

Directed and co-written by RZA with Eli Roth, and presented by Quentin Tarantino, the film stars Russell Crowe as a blacksmith who defends himself and his fellow villagers in feudal China. It will be released on October 26th.

*[rollingstone.com] The most heartbreaking moment of the Red Hot Chili Peppers latest LP, I'm With You, comes during "Brendan's Death Song," a ballad the band wrote for their late friend Brendan Mullen, founder of late Seventies Hollywood punk club the Masque. After it was shut down in 1978, Mullen booked shows on the Sunset Strip's Club Lingerie. One day in 1983, Anthony Kiedis and Flea showed up at the club with a boom box and asked Mullen to listen to their demo. He did, and offered them an opening gig for Bad Brains.

"It was a huge step for us to get that gig," Flea said in an interview in 2009. "But in a much more important way, I felt profoundly validated to be accepted and acknowledged by Brendan Mullen, who was a crucial part – a hub – of a scene that for me had mythological status." Mullen continued his friendship with the band until his death in 2009. At the time, he was co-authoring the 2010 RHCP book An Oral/Visual History with the band.

Watch the premiere of the jazz funeral-themed video for "Brendan's Death Song," which was shot in one day in New Orleans and directed by Marc Klasfeld, exclusively at RollingStone.com, and get I'm With You on iTunes.