Dean and Britta from Luna are releasing a side-project album on Jetset in May under the wacky name of “Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham”. Entitled L’Avventura, it was produced by Tony Visconti and features originals as well as covers of songs by Madonna, the Silver Jews, the Doors, Buffy St. Marie, Opal and Angel Corpus Christ.

np – Elliott Smith / Either/Or

Happy day – long the best part of JAM Music, John Sakamoto’s Anti-Hit List disappeared abruptly midway through last year, resulting in much wailing, gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands from the Greek choir.

To the surprise of everyone, namely me, and the delight of many, or at least myself, it’s returned as a regular feature in eye. Check out the first installment here.

Ever want to see a rodeo monkey ride a Collie? Well now you can.

np – Idlewild / 100 Broken Windows

This was my evening – sitting cross-legged on my floor, safety glasses on, power drill in hand, gouging out holes in an Altoids tin.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. I used the Dremel more than I did the drill. What prompted this festival of arts and crafts? Building a little power distribution box for my pedalboard. Okay, that’s a fancy name for a simple device. The new power supply I have on order ends in a male plug. The daisy chain I will be powering all my pedals with also ends in a male plug. The two male plugs do not fit in one another (please, no comments…). I need a female-to-female adapter to make everything fit (hush!). So I bought a couple of panel mount DC power jacks, took a vacant Altoids tin graciously donated by Mark, and mounted the jacks on the lid of the tin. Wired them up, et voila – I can connect the power supply with the daisy chain. On top of that, it looks cool and I can use the inside of the tin to store stuff like batteries. Or weed. If I had any weed. Or knew what to do with weed. Anyway. The power supply should be here by the weekend, and if I get a new tuner on the weekend I should have the final (yeah right) iteration of my pedalboard ready to go by next week. I’m also going to hit the thrift stores this Saturday looking for a suitable sized suitcase for toting the board around.

I realize no one cares about this, but I’m rather proud of it. Not too many of my electronics-related ideas works on the first try, if at all.

np – Mogwai / 4 Satin

Sputnik 7 – Hands down the best repository of music videos on the web. I had found it a couple years ago, but they had some bandwidth and server stability issues that seem to have been rectified. Come on – anyone that offers every one of Spike Jonze’s videos in one spot is worthy of a high five.

Currently watching videos by Interpol, Velocity Girl, Beulah, Elvis Costello, GBV, Six By Seven, Superchunk and Yo La Tengo – they even have a high quality version of “Sugarcube”! My life is complete.

Other choice clips on offer:

Bjork’s “All Of Full Of Love” defies words. Go watch it. Now.

The Shins’ “New Slang” is a treat for anyone up to speed on their seminal indie rock album covers. Best song from a McDonalds commercial, ever.

What’s to say, besides SCREW YOU, MUCHMUSIC!

Thanks to Audrey for reminding me about this site!

Yo La Tengo is coming to Canada in April. Details forthcoming. They also have copies of their The Sounds Of The Sounds Of Science available on their website for $10 US, way cheaper than how much it is in stores up here. I may have to order me up one.

It appears that we will be getting to perform at a Wavelength sometime in the upcoming months, it’s just a matter of scheduling. This is very exciting, and also means we need to get our shit together lickety-split. Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t use the words ‘shit’ and ‘lick’ in the same sentence. This also means that we’ll need some sort of photo for the monthly zine… hopefully I will have better hair than the toque-head I am sporting today.

np – Mogwai / Rock Action