News Roundup: Bright Eyes, Ryan Adams, Bon Iver, The Baseball Project

Hot on the heels of the new, Wilco-themed Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company, (we could go for a “Hell Is Chrome” right about now), another alt-country style eatery has been discovered — this one in honor of the oft-prolific singer-songwriter Ryan Adams. Sticks and Stones clay oven pizza restaurant, in Greensboro, North Carolina, has named every item on the menu for one of Adams’ songs or albums. There’s the Rosebud, the Heartbreaker, the Gold, and the Easy, Tiger. Unlike Adams’ work, most of the food items err on the “cheesy” side.

Saddle Creek will reissue One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels, a 2004 collaborative EP between Bright Eyes and Nebraska indie rock band Neva Dinova, on March 23, featuring newly recorded material. 

Jessica Simpson and her presumed boy-toy Billy Corgan have released their first collaboration upon the world, and it’s far more pop than rock. “I just can’t find good enough words to speak about Billy,” says Simpson. “He’s a very, very dear friend…I hope we can do more music together.” Listen to the track, dubbed “Who We Are,” here.

Then, wash the taste out of your mouth with Bon Iver’s cover of Peter Gabriel’s “Come Talk To Me,” from his 1992 hit record Us ( Gabriel reinterpreted Bon Iver’s “Flume” on his new Scratch My Back album.) That recording features Justin Vernon’s sister and brother in law, but alas, no Billy Corgan. 

The Baseball Project, featuring R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and members of the Minus 5 and Magnificent 3, first banded together to record their first ode to America’s favorite past time, Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails, in 2008. Now the group is teaming with ESPN for the Broadside Ballads project, in which they’ll write and record, a track per month during the 2010 baseball season, which they’ll offer up for free download on ESPN.com. The first installment, which you can pick up here, is called “All Future and No Past.” Says The Baseball Project’s Scott McCaughey: “I’d been reading all the pre-season reports and realizing that this is the time of year when every team has high hopes, no matter how unrealistic. Then I stumbled upon a saying from the great Indians player/manager Lou Boudreau: ‘On opening day, the world is all future and no past’. And for me that really sums up the beautiful feeling that comes with spring training each year.”

The band’s second album is due in early 2011.