Welsh singer-songwriter Matthew Jay has died. I remember him getting a goodly amount of press a few years ago when he performed at NXNE, and saw him opening for Doves in July 2001. He’d disappeared from the radar recently, but had a lot of potential. 24 years old is far too young. Sympathies to his friends and family.

Tipping Habits Of The Rich And Famous. Riotous stuff.

Someone talk to me about The Wrens. I have yet to read a non-gushing review of The Meadowlands. I suspect the album will be a little tough to track down hereabouts – will I regret not doing so?

Rehearsals for our set at the Joy Division vs New Order tribute night next Friday at Sneaky Dee’s got underway last night. It’s great fun deconstructing these songs and rebuilding them from the ground up. There’s a really interesting lineup of bands participating in this show, I’ll post more specifics when I get them.

Autumn has struck quickly and fiercely. The bike ride to work has gotten a helluva lot brisker – we’ve already broken out the heavy shirt, coat and gloves. Contemplating something to cover the ears. I am hoping to be able to keep riding to work through October, but that will probably require a more sweater-heavy wardrobe.

np – Bedhead / Transaction De Novo

All x-chromosone (except the drummer) neo-goth cello squad Rasputina have scored the opening slot on the upcoming Belle & Sebastian North American tour. The same tour for which I just got four front row centre tickets for the Massey Hall show. Who wants to be my friend?

Lisa Oliver of Stylus Magazine offers up a list of her Top-10 Musical Turn-Offs. Link from LHB.

San Diego Zoo Panda-cam! Now featuring all-new panda cub! Awwwwwwww.

Okay, the image is so large that it’s fucking with my layout, so I will have to pad this entry with some further nonsense. What to do, what to do. Hmm…

Let’s see what the lead story in the Toronto Star is today? The provincial election is on Thursday, it must be something topical.

Tories put public at risk, nurses say

Sep. 29, 2003. 11:06 AM

The Ontario government failed to live up to its moral and legal obligations of protecting both health-care workers and the public during the SARS crisis, the head of the Ontario Nurses Association told public hearings today. ‘Their job – to conduct random, thorough inspections of health-care facilities – simply was not done,’ Barb Wahl testified.

Well that’s not good at all. Click here if you want to read the whole story.

Did that do the trick? Seems so. Cool.

np – The Costello Show / King Of America

As I mentioned to Kevin last night, Metric are one of those buzz bands that supposedly everyone is talking about, but I don’t know anyone who is (besides me). Does that make any sense? This show was a sort of homecoming for these Toronto ex-pats now relocated to Los Angeles and despite there being no advance ticket sales, a good-sized crowd did show up to welcome them back to Hogtown.

Support was awfully-monickered Boy, who played a set of pleasant, but ultimately bland and forgettable singer-songwriter acoustic pop. They struck me as the sort of band who might place well in a college coffee house competition. They’ve been getting a moderate amount of press lately and I see the CD everywhere (mostly in used stores, take that as you will), so maybe there’s something more noteworthy in what they do that I’m missing, but I don’t feel a great void in my life for not getting it.

Metric took the stage nearly a half-hour later than their scheduled start time of midnight, which you might think would result in a late late night, but when you’re only talking about a 45-minute encore-less set, it’s not really a problem. The brevity of the set was my only complaint, though to be fair, they don’t have that much material. They eschewed the slower numbers off their debut album Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? for some uptempo new numbers, keeping the show’s energy level always dimed all the way through. The whole band was positively kinetic onstage with much bounding around, but the focal point of the band was obviously frontwoman Emily Haines – despite being under the weather with a cold, she radiated confidence and sex appeal from the stage. She also photographs well.

So the set was a little short, yeah, but there can be no gripes about the quality of the performance – they left it all on stage, to borrow a sports cliche. Use of samples and loops to reproduce the song arrangements from the album were thankfully kept to a minumum, almost everything came straight from the live band, well-polished from relentless touring. My only request would be that the next time they come through town, they at least break the one-hour mark with their set.

Exclaim! ran a cover story on Metric a few months back.

Before the show, I caught Whale Rider at the Bloor. It was pretty good and made me realize I knew absolutely nothing of Maori culture – not that I think I should be expected to know anything about Maori culture. The performances were all solid if a little restrained and New Zealand won’t be losing the title of ‘most beautiful country in the world’ in my mind anytime soon. Not that I’ve ever been there.

Congratulations to Doc Halladay on his 22nd win of the season yesterday and his upcoming appointment with Cy Young. Esteban who?

I got to bed a little late last night and wanted to be up early enough today to get a little work done, but didn’t want to set my alarm. My body, god bless it, took care of that with a well-timed nosebleed at 8:45. That’ll get you out of bed.

np – Mojave 3 / Spoon and Rafter

Guided By Voices tour Earthquake Glue through the Opera House on November 14, 2003. You won’t be able to get quite as close up to craggy Bob’s face as you could during their two-night stand at the Horseshoe for UTAC, but maybe that’s a good thing.

UK buzz band Britsh Sea Power play the Horseshoe November 3rd. Apparently they sound like Joy Division? I predict full-on hipster saturation at this show.

Also at the Horseshoe November 25 is a tribute night to Big Star. We are not playing, sadly, but it’s free so if there’s a decent lineup participating, it should be worth attending.

Ironically-named Vancouver twee-poppers Young & Sexy’s sophomore album Life Through One Speaker will be released on October 7th. They had been scheduled to play the Horseshoe on October 23rd, but that has been postponed until December. Which suits me fine, because I am going to too many shows in October and not enough in December.

Exclaim! talks to both Sofia Coppola and Kevin Shields about Lost In Translation.

np – The New Pornographers / Mass Romantic

Rolling Stone is currently running a tribute issue for Johnny Cash, which is of course a perfect follow-up to their softcore Brit Brit cover.

And speaking of heavily Photoshopped images, there’s a cool site with PS tutorials and tips at Luminous Landscape. Check it out.

And speaking of things to light up landscapes, Backyardartillery.com offers the most compelling argument yet for owning property. Elastic band machine guns aren’t permitted on most condo balconies.

And speaking of building weapons of mass annoyance out of household goods, I was surprised to find that Cathy Rogers, formerly of Heavenly and Marine Research, is also creator and co-host of TLC’s Junkyard Wars. Who knew? That’s an impressive resume of cool.

And speaking of indie pop bands, photos from last night’s Lake Holiday show at the Silver Dollar are up here.

np – Bedhead / Transaction De Novo