There will be no NXNE club crawls for me this year. I was looking at the $24 price tag on a wristband whilst at Soundscapes this afternoon, and figured there was no way I was going to get $24 worth of shows out of the thing. First off, I am just exhausted right now – going out tonight didn’t seem like a very appealing idea. There’s not much playing tomorrow that I want to see, and I already have a reasonably busy evening planned (Toshack Highway and Sianspheric in-store at Soundscapes, followed by Lost In La Mancha at the Bloor). Saturday I do want to go see The Salteens and Sekiden at the ElMo, but for one show I can just pay the cover. A wristband just was not economically viable.

Picked up the single for Radiohead’s There There. The title track is terrific, the b-sides are pretty much throwaways. I remember a day when some of Radiohead’s best tunes were the b-sides. No longer, I guess. But it only cost me $3.99 and has whetted my appetite for the new album out on Tuesday.

Mark Eitzel talks about his new live-in-Greece album The Ugly American here.

While I haven’t paid much attention to the Manics lately, I am interested in their forthcoming double-CD of b-sides, rarities and covers entitled Lipstick Traces (A Secret History Of The Manic Street Preachers). No word on a North American release, but it’s released in the UK on July 14.

np – Pavement / Brighten The Corners

You can find anything on eBay – even poltergeists in a jar.

The Pianist is really a remarkable, heartbreaking and utterly affecting film. Go see it, that’s all I have to say.

It’s only coincidence, but I found it interesting that two films I see on consecutive nights (You Can Count On Me and The Pianist would both feature Bach’s “Cello Suite No.1 In G: I. Prelude (Moderato)” prominantly. Which is fine, it’s a beautiful piece (and I’m not a classical music geek at all – I had to do a fair bit of digging online to find out exactly what the piece was. Doing a google search on “That cello piece from that movie” doesn’t get you very far).

Some concert news of interest (to me, anyway). Billy Bragg plays the El Mocambo on July 11. Billy Bragg in a small club? I don’t think I can miss that, I really don’t. And The Jayhawks have been added to the Blue Rodeo show at the Molson Amphitheatre on August 21, along with Kathleen Edwards. That also is looking mighty appealing.

I don’t think that it’s out of line to say that Field Day is officially a giant farce. Giant – hey, that’s a pun, cause instead of Long Island, it’s now taking place on a single day at Giant’s Stadium in New Jersey. Oh, and they don’t know the lineup yet. And your tickets for the Calverton shows are no good, you have to buy new ones. And you can’t camp. And at the end of the show, you will be assaulted in the parking lot by angry renegade Whack-A-Moles looking for revenge. What a crock of shit.

NXNE starts tonight, and I still have to get a wristband, but I am definitely probably possibly maybe going to be going to a bunch of shows. Or some. The official guide is out in today’s NOW, so I can properly pick out which shows I will grace with my presence and which ones I won’t.

I was commenting to Kyle the other day that Metacritic hadn’t posted any ratings for the new Pernice Brothers, even though it’d been out for a couple weeks – we figured maybe it was too low-profile and had slipped under the radar. Well we were wrong – it’s currently the #1 record for 2003 with a whopping 91%. That’ll no doubt come down as more reviews roll in, but it’s still a pretty fine showing for a pretty damn fine record. And the US release of Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People debuts at #4 with a 90% rating.

It’s kind of sad that I’m following charts like this. It really doesn’t matter to anyone, I suppose, but it gives me something to blather about.

np – The Posies / Amazing Disgrace

Another soaker on the way home tonight. I took refuge in the pub downstairs for an hour after work hoping the unexpected thunderstorm would blow over before I went to get my bike and ride home, but I had to settle for a steady moderate shower instead. But I was still drenched head to toe, and isn’t that really the important part?

The two Posies albums I won on ebay a couple weeks ago showed up. I am acquiring new music faster than I can listen to it!

The rain seems to have finally tapered off – the question is, will it stay away long enough for me to ride to the Bloor to see The Pianist, or will I have the honour of getting soaked twice in a day? Decisions, decisions. Of course, staying home and hiding under the covers is a reasonable option as well.

Well this is interesting – The secret history of Apple Records and Apple Computers. From Done Waiting.

Some Ryan Adams news – the on-again/off-again four-disc box set and forthcoming and oft-delayed Love Is Hell album appear to be one and the same. The box will contain the four albums The Suicide handbook, 48 hours, Pinkhearts and Love is Hell from which Demolition was culled. Now when it will be released depends on how Ryan feels about the material he’s currently recording with Ethan Johns – if that’s stronger, then that will be the new album and the box will come out later. If not, the box will be released and a new proper album whenever it’s ready. The box will be discounted – for a 4-disc set, anyway – so as to cost around the same as an album and an EP. Not a bad deal if you can digest that much RA in one swoop. And to top it all off, he’s talking about a new Whiskeytown record. Time will tell how much of this comes to pass, but it’s nice to see the man concentating on music again instead of being a media whore.

np – Posies / Dear 23

So the news at the bike shop wasn’t as bad as all that. I didn’t have to bust any heads, they’ll have the chain replaced by tomorrow after work. Turns out there wasn’t anything wrong with the sprocket – the teeth are deliberately cut oddly (they showed me some new sprockets cut the same way), something to do with being able to shift gears while off-road. Anyway, I only have to transit it one more morning.

One good thing that did come out of having to go down to Queen St was finding the new Magnet and Ted Leo & The Pharmacists’ The Tyranny Of Distance for $9. I was feeling happier after that. Oh, and my copy of Brighten The Corners arrived in the mail. That was good too.

Also watched You Can Count On Me on Kyle’s insistance, and it was a very good, small-scale character driven film. Quite a switch from my recent viewing material, which has been mostly big dumb action films.

News courtesy of Catbirdseat – the Ben Gibbard (DCFC)/Andrew Kenney(AmAnSet) split album, Home: Volume 5 is out now, and is proving to be quite the hot commodity. I am hoping there will be copies still available when AmAnSet roll into town at the end of the month, but I doubt it. Also, there will be a new Postal Service EP released on July 8 for The District Sleeps Tonight, featuring two mixes of the title track, a remix of “Such Great Heights” and a cover of The Flaming Lips’ “Suddenly, Everything Has Changed”. Yippee.

There’s an interview with Luna’s Britta Phillips here, where she talks about Jem, The Belltower, Satisfaction, Justine Bateman, Julia Roberts and the new album L’Avventura with Dean Wareham, out today.

And just in case you needed to be reminded of your insignificance, marvel at these panaromic photos from the top of Mount Everest.

np – Ted Leo & The Pharmacists / The Tyranny Of Distance

Phil Selway talks about the recording of Hail To The Thief to JAM!. Unconfirmed reports say Radiohead play the Molson Amphitheatre on August 16. While that’s exponentially more convenient and intimate than Molson Park in Barrie, it also means that it will be total law of the jungle when it comes to getting tickets. It won’t be pretty.

The Los Angeles edition of All Tomorrow’s Parties, to be curated by Matt Groening, has been postponed from June till September. But… the NY one was supposed to be in September? Would they run two ATPs within one month? Will the NY one be postponed? Damnation.

My apartment hunt has taken a rather frustrating turn – I had said that I wouldn’t mind a basement if it didn’t feel like a basement, but I’m thinking that the odds of finding one of those is pretty damn slim, and anything above ground in the areas I’m looking at are too expensive. Larger places would probably be ideal but the roommate scenario is still not one I am very enthusiastic about – it runs sorta contrary to my stated goal of living on my own. Hmm hmm hmm.

np – Lucinda Williams / World Without Tears