Picked up a couple magazines this weekend – the new issue of TapeOp has a lengthy interview with Andy Chase of Ivy about their studio, Stratosphere Sound, and the making of Guestroom. There’s also a feature on Daniel Lanois, one of my favorite producers. Good stuff.

Under The Radar is a magazine I’ve been trying to hunt down in town for a little while now, and I finally found a copy at the Chapters in Yorkville. Now I just need to find some back issues… Under The Radar is a quarterly magazine that nestles itself quite nicely between Magnet and The Big Takeover in frequency, size, content and even price. Perfect. I haven’t but leafed through it yet, but there appears to be a lot of good stuff in there. Currently on their website is one of the last interviews with Elliott Smith from last issue. The title of the piece is sadly ironic.

Melodynelson.com is a year old today – happy birthday, Audrey!

Daylight savings time ends today. Or does it start? I don’t know. What’s the point, really? Damn farmers and their daylight.

np – Ivy / Apartment Life

Why why why why why can’t Tell Us The Truth be coming to Canada? Well, probably because Canucks aren’t at the top of the list of people who need to be exposed to the bullshit political agenda of the US government, but still – Billy Bragg and Steve Earle on tour together? God. I would kill a man for live recordings of these shows. Honestly. I would. But if you’re so fortunate to be living somewhere that this is coming within 100 miles of, for the love of Levi Stubbs GO. If not for you, then your children. Or your children’s children. Or for ME. Do it for me, man. And sneak in a recorder.

Some news from the merry land of Gedge – Cinerama have released a new live album, Live In Belfast, available only from their website. This is the perfect companion piece to the Live In Los Angeles CD from last year which is also only available on their website. The tracklisting comprises material from both Cinerama and the Wedding Present and Dave’s stage banter is usually pretty good for a larf. The new Cinerama single, Don’t Touch That Dial, is also now out and produced by Steve Fisk, who produced Watusi. I’m curious to hear what having a new dude behind the board will do to Cinerama’s sound – working with Steve Albini the last couple of records combined with Sally Murrell leaving have made the band tougher and more Wedddoes-like than ever. Maybe it’s time for a hard left?

Neil LaBute’s The Shape Of Things was transferred to film directly from the stage, with the same cast and director (LaBute). It shows, too, as the story of a guy being slowly changed inside and out by his new girlfriend is very talky and visually static. It was alright, overall, but the plot twist, if you can call it that, was telegraphed a mile off. Watching this, I was reminded of LaBute’s first film, In The Company Of Men, and how utterly vicious it was. LaBute really doesn’t seem to like any of his characters, otherwise he wouldn’t do such nasty things to them.

Buckley’s cough syrup is quite probably the most vile-tasting thing in existance.

np – Mojave 3 / Spoon & Rafter

A little under 10 years ago, charming local shoegazey indie-pop outfit NC17 changed their name into Treble Charger and began their transformation into bland thirtysomething wanna-be skate punks responsible for bringing Sum 41 into the public eye. Well founding member Bill Priddle has had enough and has left the band. Good for him – Bill always wrote the best songs anyway.

Get your online bootleg music freak on here. Parsnips a-plenty. From Glamorama.

A couple links from LHB:

The Guardian lists off their top 40 most exciting American bands right now. Fannypack?

The always excellent Morning Becomes Eclectic has a slew of performances from top-notch artists available to listen to/watch. Be sure to search the archives, almost anyone who’s anyone has done a set at one point.

I’ve said it before, but man I wish Toronto had some more interesting traffic on Craigslist. Just look at the Best Of. Side-splitting.

np – Love / The Best Of Love

Stylus talks to The Wrens – who they are, what they do, where they’re going – and gets a tangential song-by-song breakdown of The Meadowlands. And it’s this insignificant speck’s opinion that The Meadowlands is as good as everyone says it is.

Travis do an in-store and autograph session at the HMV on Queen W in Toronto next Thursday, October 30 at 5pm, prior to their show at the Hummingbird Centre.

NOW chats up Mojave 3 prior to their show next week at Lee’s Palace.

As we look at the bare walls in our apartment with growing dissatisfaction, a nation turns its lonely eyes to Gigposters.com. Show prints are cool, I wish there was a way to find nice ones in town and not just online. But failing that, can anyone recommend me some sites with good selections and prices?

Elliott Smith stabbed himself through the heart. My God. Where a man’s head has to be to do something like that, I hope I never know.

np – My Morning Jacket / At Dawn

I first saw John Vanderslice last Fall at the Horseshoe opening for Spoon, and was impressed enough to pick up his latest, Life And Death Of An American Fourtracker, at the show. What I remembered most about that show was his utterly insane drummer. Playing off a tiny jazz kit, he was all drumstick flourishes and pulling off cymbals in the middle of songs, grabbing new ones off the floor and putting them on the stands, all without missing a beat. He was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, he wasn’t behind the kit for this edition of the ‘Slice experience, they still put on an enjoyable opening set. Mixing up songs from Fourtracker with ones from the forthcoming Cellar Door (out Jan 20, 2004), Vanderslice is still all about quirky, sparse pop songs spiced up with loops and keyboards. Bassist Paul Hoaglin has taken over as the visual focus of the band, mixing up posing and mugging with flawless execution of his bass, keyboard and backing vocal duties. Vanderslice and co. will be back in March, and are definitely worth seeing.

I had missed Beulah every prvious time through town despite having been a fan since When Your Heartstrings Break, so there was no way I was missing this show – especially with them hinting that this may be the last album and tour. And if it is, it’ll be a damn shame, because Beulah put on a pretty kick-ass show. They are sparing no expense, travelling with a pretty fancified lightshow setup and shitloads of gear. The San Franciscan sextet broke out almost two hours of awesome pop music drawn equally from all four of their albums, doing a pretty good job of reproducing all the sonic textures of the albums. As has become standard on this tour, they took requests during the encore on the condition that the requestor come onstage and play/sing with them – there were more than a few takers, and thankfully most of them seemed to know their way around a tambourine. Predictably, guitarist/trumpeteer Bill Swan held my attention for most of the show, particularly after he pulled off the solo from “Landslide Baby” live – I was convinced that on record it was pieced together from various takes, but no more. It was a revelation.

Bonus was buying a shirt and the tour-only Demo album (comprising the entirety of Yoko taken from the original cassette four-track recordings – a very nice companion piece) from Miles Krukowsky. As always, props to bands that man their own merch tables.

I got some really good pics last night – getting there hella early and being in the front row helped a lot, but so did Beulah’s lightshow – it’s nice to have anything besides Lee’s standard red stage lights to work with. It was a late night, so I only got the Vanderslice pics up, but the Beulah ones will be up tonight. See here.

Update : The Beulah pics are up now as well. I know I had a good spot for taking pictures because the videographer who was filming the show also planted himself right in front of me – most of my shots are taken while I’m dodging his head. I’m pretty pleased with this batch – the lightshow really helped.

Sorta related – the new Vanderslice-produced Mountain Goats record We Shall All Be Healed has been given a February 2nd release date by 4AD for Europe. That hopefully means a February 3rd release date for North America.

np – Beulah / Demo