My hearing is a constant state of distant, impossibly high-pitched whirring, my senses are jarred and surging adrenaline has given way to the onset of a musical hangover.

The performance was fantastic. Here’s what you need to know, at least for now:

Setlist: Elephants / Dead End Friends / Scumbag Blues / Gunman / Highway 1 / New Fang / Caligulove / Bandoliers / Mind Eraser / Daffodils / Interlude w/ Ludes / Reptiles / Nobody Loves Me / Warsaw

Non-album track Highway 1 was played – an eerie, echoing psychedelia whirlwind countering Grohl’s immense pounding and skittering backbeats. If you’d like some lyrics, I got what I think is the first verse shoved in my hand on my way out the door:

The sun sets on Highway 1
Saturn will devour his son
Ghosts on the run forever
There’s no Hell
There’s no Heaven
We must go home, home my brother
Wrong once before
Now wrong another
Saturn will devour his son
As the sun sets on Highway 1

More lyrics:

There was a marked growth in confidence among the entire band, having road-tested the songs. The first two times we saw them, back during our trip to Austin City Limits in October, the band was still trying to keep up with the spazzing robot riffs, the tempo changes, the succession of sudden back doors that are precisely what make them so hauntingly badass.

Them Crooked Vultures’ debut album is in stores today, and in honor of the occasion, we’ve got one more exclusive clip from our interview with Josh Homme in Austin, where the crooked frontman explains the pressures and need for secrecy as the project came together. Check it out:

See the rest of our interview with Homme here, and our in-depth review of the debut album here.

UPDATE 11/18: Photos from the band’s show at The Wiltern last night have been posted to Antiquiet’s Facebook Page.

Them Crooked Vultures’ eponymous debut arrives November 17, after a summer of rampant speculation and mind-blowing live performances, allowing the trio of highly-established rockers the rarified air of having a desperately captivated audience, largely clueless of what was in store but leaping out of their skin with anticipation for what they were about to hear. When they left, they left amazed.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Grohl and Homme are lifelong Led Zeppelin disciples, and the fact that their bassist was fucking in Led Zeppelin obviously lends itself to comparison. But for the sake of sticking with the rational and relative present, how ’bout we leave Zep out of this? There’s really not much meat on that bone when all’s said and done.

Although the band as a whole are credited, Homme’s familiar production wizardry is the crystalline rudder for Them Crooked Vultures on wax, a clean and layered thousand-sided Rubik’s Cube that wouldn’t be a reach outside the Queens Of The Stone Age canon, as far as sheen and color are concerned. Jonesey’s multi-instrumental contributions lend a cockney flare and dash of cultured nobility to the proceedings, whether on a classical piano intro/outro or a keytar solo that pulls at the song’s seams of obtuse cohesion. Amidst Homme’s jittery, hook-heavy sexuality and Grohl’s pulsing metronomic backbone, Jones provides a key bit of cognitive dissonance, a regal spice of sorts.

Self-sustained on arbitrary cool, the album is a planet of popped-collar reptilian kings with wild eyes, razor teeth and twitching, rampant hard-ons, getting themselves off on the groove for the fun and the fuck of it, Rock doctrines be damned. New Fang and Elephants – the latter a gloriously monolithic stampede of crushing riffs, roughly doubled vocals and brain-tick hooks – are evidence of this. The former, being the first single and impression-setter for casual moths to the flame, is a bit misleading; it captures the energy and strut of the album, but is easily the most straightforward of the thirteen songs included.

Traditional arrangements are scarce, and appeasement of quick-fix Rock idolators is clearly not the motive here, with riff-riding rhythms (and rhythm-riding riffs) pulsing like an undeniable heartbeat through the course of innumerable labyrinthian arrangements. It’s not safe, it’s not slight, and the riff and tempo changes demand constant engagement. Trap doors are a vital component to the songs, with the sweet spots setting in unannounced as the polyrhythms shift, the clouds part and a motherfucker of a riff suddenly lifts off, taking you in entirely unexpected and adrenaline-surging directions.

Driven by cocaine confidence dripping with sultry redlight overtones, No One Loves Me is a fuck song, plain and simple. The hip-check strut belies a deeper undercurrent groove, a surging, steady rhythm that remains throughout the album, albeit shifting like a chameleon all the while. If sex is a weapon, then smash, boom, pow, how you like me now? Homme asks, before the song cuts into the first of a countless number of larger-than-life riffs on the album – a chugging, brooding current soaked in sex and attitude.

The vocal production is uneven from one song to the next, likely because the instruments – vocals included – are all given largely common ground. If the song calls for a Jones-driven Middle-Eastern melody on some strange stringed beast midway through the third verse, so be it. Josh apparently felt as if his vocals would dominate New Fang unless it sounded like he was singing from an aluminum-lined pool fifty yards away, so you’ve got a polar shift in vocal presence between Fang and following night-drive murder ride Dead End Friends.

In concert, Interlude With Ludes is a sexy slow-romp, featuring Homme’s rooster-strut and hammy overtness. On record it’s a circus-tent ecstasy ride with a side of raw ether, a mindbending binge that’s not recommended for anyone who can’t hold their psychedelics. If you want me I’m yours, Josh croons, Even if you don’t want me. Definitely the oddball track of the album, Interlude evokes the feeling of sinking into the sunshine after a handful of, well, ‘ludes. Warsaw, by contrast, is a chin-jutting groovefest, an awesome multi-part jam spaz that bathes in blues before giving way to a spacey, long-form psychedelic breakdown.

Jones’ keyboard solos and slap bass run new colors through the squealing-lead funk of Scumbag Blues, and his organ leads out-absurd Homme’s pop-chug riffage in Caligulove, making a guilty-pleasure Halloween jam out of something that shouldn’t have worked in the first place. Reptiles, meanwhile, is a little bit of Talking Heads, a dash of Queens’ Rated R and a whole lotta supercharged classic-rock melody, rolled into a murderous vaudeville song-and-dance freakshow. It’s a terrible, hateful beast in caked-on makeup, singing for the spotlight, barely able to hide its scales and deadly spite. On the jitter-strobe of Gunman, Homme’s vocals seep through like ghosts in the halls of ancient castles – layered echoes over guitar countermelodies and an alarmingly danceable beat.

Having saved the best (and longest) for last, Spinning In Daffodils is possibly the best closing track on an album by any of these men. Grinding to life after an epically melancholy mystic-fog piano intro, the sounds of a herd of shadowed giants running through ancient forests emerges. It’s the feeling of being sixty feet tall, leading an unstoppable march of Tyrannosaurs, the perfect product of millions of years of evolution and raw survivalism or, in this case, decades of top-of-the-mountain Rock experience, craftsmanship and devotion to the sound. A more beautiful, powerful climax would be difficult to imagine.

So high I just may never come down are the final words on the album, a fitting narrative to the feeling you’re left with as you watch the hurricane pass into the night – but the urge to run back into the storm and go through it all again has never been stronger. It’s hard to imagine turning on the radio after such an album. This one is special, a very rare melding of classic, psychedelic blues-rock authenticity and passionate groove-junkie sorcery. Feed with the Vultures – it’s good for you.

But there’s new news to report. Of course we wish it included word on when you can get your hands on an actual song or album, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to sink your fat beaks into.

There have been two promo videos posted since the in-studio clip of Nobody Loves Me And Neither Do I; one featuring more studio footage, set to Elephants…

…and more recently, an animated clip set to Scumbag Blues:

And even more exciting than that, there are a bunch of tour dates, for North America…

10/01 Stubb’s / Austin, TX (ACL Pre-Party)
10/02 Austin City Limits / Austin, TX (Replacing Lily Allen)
10/05 War Memorial / Nashville, TN
10/06 LC Pavilion / Columbus, OH
10/08 The Fillmore / Columbus, OH
10/09 The Sound Academy / Toronto, ON
10/11 House Of Blues / Boston, MA
10/12 The Electric Factory / Philadelphia, PA
10/14 9:30 Club / Washington, DC

…and the UK:

12/10 Pavilions / Plymouth, England
12/11 Guildhall / Portsmouth, England
12/13 Empress Ballroom / Blackpool, England
12/14 O2 Academy / Birmingham, England
12/15 O2 Academy / Edinburgh, Scotland
12/17 HMV Hammersmith Apollo / London, England

Public onsale starts September 5th for the North American shows, and September 4th for the UK shows. For more details, head to the band’s new tour page.

We’ll be in Austin to cover the first two shows of the tour. Stay tuned.

P.S. We’ve been updating our TCV live bootlegs YouTube playlist. Check it out.

But today the band performed at the Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium, their third performance to date. Fan-recorded video of two full songs surfaced, and both are quite listenable. The band even tweeted a link to one, so while they seem to have had some recordings pulled off of YouTube, it appears they’ve blessed the bootlegging in this case.

Here’s New Fang. A brief clip of this song being performed live in Chicago had been floating around, which was the most substantial preview available… Until today:

And here’s Dead End Friends:

Commence boners.

Strangely, it was these same two songs that were bootlegged at the band’s performance at the Melkweg in Amsterdam yesterday, their second. Those videos have worse sound, but slightly better picture. View New Fang here, and Dead End Friends here.

Props to TwilkieBe for the new recordings!

UPDATE: Let’s just lose the ever-growing block of non-descriptive YouTube links. We’ve compiled the most listenable bootleg clips into this playlist. Ten in all, and counting. Enjoy.

Them Crooked Vultures, just in case you aren’t already aware, is the brand-new “supergroup” consisting of Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age, Dave Grohl of Nirvana / Foo Fighters, and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.

Homme provided lead vocals, as many expected, though he was backed up by Grohl, as well as Alain Johannes, present for the full set, playing rhythm guitar.

The setlist, according to various earwitness accounts: Elephants, New Fang, Scumbag Blues, Dead End Friends, Bandoliers, Mind Eraser (No Chaser), Gunman, Daffodils, Interlude w/ Ludes, Caligulove, Warsaw, Nobody Loves Me.

John Paul Jones lived up to his reputation as a multi-instrumentalist, playing a 12 string bass, electric keyboard, and even a keytar.

Some highlights from Twitter:

@jgorrell: Some of the most major riffage I’ve heard in years.

@trangelo: Holy shit… It blew my mind. This band is insanely good.

@LedZeppelinNews: My friend at show says, “Heavy, heavy, heavy.”

@NC17: Some nice vocal harmonies and duos tonight. Grohl comfortable singing while drumming.

During the performance, the band’s official site got a minor update, featuring a new animation and a t-shirt for sale. We’ll have news soon on a headlining tour. In the meantime, a fully detailed review of the show can be found here.

Photo by Tyler Angelo.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Them Crooked Vultures is the new group featuring Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age, Dave Grohl of Nirvana / Foo Fighters, and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.

Also, as many sites have reported this week, the band has announced (via their mailing list) what will likely be their debut public performance, at a Lollapalooza after-party at the Metro in Chicago, this Sunday at Midnight.

We told you it was coming soon… Apparently, soon is now.

UPDATE: Oh, by the way, here’s some ACTUAL MUSIC FOR LISTENING WITH EARS:

Credit for the photo goes to wax, from the Rekords Rekords Forum.

UPDATE: Poster & video are fake. wax is a jerkoff. More info here.

Details are understandably scarce regarding this most secret of collaborations, but in a recent interview we did with Homme’s wife, Brody Dalle of Spinnerette, she shared her opinion:

“I’m not at liberty to talk about it… but I think [the project] is pretty fucking amazing. Just beats and sounds like you’ve never heard before.”

While enticing, that was the last word on the issue for a few weeks… until just the other night, that is.

Here’s the big news: We’ve learned from an inside source very involved in the developments that the band has concrete plans to tour together. Led Zeppelin is not reuniting, Foo Fighters are currently on hiatus, and Queens Of The Stone Age aren’t looking to reconvene until next year to record the follow-up to 2007’s Era Vulgaris. The runway is all clear for the best band you haven’t heard yet, and they’ve got their key in the ignition.

In a 2005 interview with Mojo magazine, Grohl confirmed the roles would be the most logical ones: “The next project that I’m trying to initiate involves me on drums, Josh Homme on guitar, and John Paul Jones playing bass. That’s the next album. That wouldn’t suck.” So the only question remaining is who would be singing. Speculation runs rampant, but nothing has been confirmed yet.

John Paul Jones dropped a vague hint about the tour plans in April, in an interview with French journalist Cyril Deluermoz: ”I’m working on some other music, which is more rock based, with a couple of other people. We hope to be everywhere this summer.”

To summarize, we’ve confirmed an actual, concrete plan for shows this year. But here’s more: Now we’ve got the band’s name; Jesse Hughes of Eagles Of Death Metal let it slip in an obscure interview with Winnipeg’s Power 97 last week: The band is called Them Crooked Vultures.

At 1:20, Hughes drops the bomb… And then pauses at the realization that he probably shouldn’t have. Sorry, Boots.

Thanks to Seth & Why_Go for helping us uncover this news!

[Update 8/20: In addition to the 33-second teaser video from the band, a handful of videos have surfaced from both shows they've has played thus far, each with varying levels of horrible sound. Here's the best we've seen yet from Chicago and Dead End Friends from Melkweg.]

I pressed for more information in an interview I did yesterday with Homme’s wife, Brody Dalle of Spinnerette. Who’s singing? Who’s behind the kit? When do we get to hear it? She was faithfully tight-lipped, unfortunately, but did offer the following tease:

“I’m not at liberty to talk about it… but I think [the project] is pretty fucking amazing. Just beats and sounds like you’ve never heard before.”

We’ll let our imaginations take that ball and run with it (Songs For The Deaf meets Zeppelin IV? Yes please…).

Back in 2005, Mojo magazine did an interview with Grohl, who dropped the news as casually as mentioning the weather: “The next project that I’m trying to initiate involves me on drums, Josh Homme on guitar, and John Paul Jones playing bass. That’s the next album. That wouldn’t suck.”

We didn’t hear much more about the project after that until this past April, when French journalist Cyril Deluermoz reported that Grohl and Homme were recording together, which was shortly followed by an interview with John Paul Jones, who said the following: “I’m working on some other music, which is more rock based, with a couple of other people. We hope to be everywhere this summer.” When pressed for more information, the legendary bassist clammed up. “It’s a secret, actually,” he said. “I shouldn’t have even said that, you know? There are some exciting projects coming up, let’s put it that way.”

Exciting indeed. But summer’s here, so what gives? Chris Cornell’s guitar tech claims to have heard it, and legendary rock photographer Ross Halfin has acknowledged the recording sessions as well.

With the Foo Fighters on hiatus, Zeppelin down for what looks like the count and Queens Of The Stone Age enjoying some downtime, it would make sense that the long-discussed project would finally come to fruition this year.

Grohl has never made any attempt to hide his love for Led Zeppelin, be it with tattoos or all but offering to sell his kids for a chance to sit in John Bonham’s place for a Zeppelin reunion tour that never happened.

Furthermore, in what appears to be news of an entirely separate Homme project, Ipecac Records co-owner Greg Werckman told Rock-a-Rolla magazine that his label’s other co-owner – Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk, Fantomas, etc) – has been approached about joining Homme on some new material.

“He’s trying to get a lot of people involved in it, too,” Werckman says, before adding that Homme is “trying to convince Mike [Patton] to go out to the desert, but Mike hates the desert.”

Greg’s likely referring to Homme’s now-legendary Desert Sessions gatherings that Patton may have been invited out for, because the Grohl/Jones collaboration has been confirmed to be taking place in Los Angeles. But then again, who knows? It’s too early to tell for certain – there’s too little information involved. But for now, we can be happy knowing that somewhere, some amazing fucking music is being made, and someday we might just get to hear it.

[Thanks to Fernando for the tip!]