Here’s something worth hunting down – Palm Pictures has started something called Directors Label, which is issuing DVDs compiling the works of groundbreaking and influential music video directors. The first three salute Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry and will be out on October 28. In addition to DVDs chock full of their work, documentaries and commentaries, they come with a 52-page book of storyboards, photos and interviews. If the names of these directors aren’t immediately familiar, there are previews of their work on the Driectors Label website. Read a review of the first three releases here. A brilliant idea.

This week, The Onion has a chat with Paul Westerberg.

I’ve been going through my CD collection picking out the ones that I would think are more sonically interesting for the purpose of sitting on my couch in the dark listening to my stereo at higher than normal sound levels. I hadn’t really realized before just how much lo-fi sorta stuff I had. Yeah, sorta lame, but it keeps me off the streets.

Bill Maher offers a rather pointed commentary on Rush Limbaugh and the ‘War On Drugs’. Bill’s blog is a good read.

Radiohead tonight.

np – The Flaming Lips / Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

Busy busy day of running around and buying stuff. The details of which are uninteresting and unimportant, but the upshot is, my ‘home theatre’ system is now in place with two glorious channels of stereo sound! Yes, I am on the cutting edge of 1960s phonographic technology. Now I just need to look into this ‘quadrophonic’ sound the kids are talking about.

But seriously, I got some speaker stands and a stereo stand and got everything hooked up around my telelvision and it’s working pretty well. The absence of a remote for my amplifier is a hassle, as there’s a lot of input switching and volume adjustment whenever I go from television to DVD to CD, but what can you do… except maybe look at new amplifiers? Or speakers? My latent interest in audio equipment is stirring. Dangerous thoughts, those. Dangerous.

But CDs are much louder than DVDs. That’s interesting.

I’m still trying to quantify how the use of proper stands has affected the sound of my speakers. While there’s always a danger of Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome, I’d say that the detail and imaging of the speakers has improved, but the bass response has been reduced, maybe made a little tighter. Probably on account of them not being coupled with large bookshelves anymore. Okay, this is shit that is of no interest to anyone, so I’ll stop.

I watched The Score to inaugurate my new set up. A pretty standard heist flick made remarkable by the cast – Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton and Marlon Brando – it’s the story of a thief (DeNiro) looking to get out of the business with one last job for his long-time fence (Brando) with the assistance of a cocky newcomer (Norton). There are some parallels to be drawn to their acting careers, don’t you think? They’re all effective by doing what they do best, so the rather generic story isn’t really a problem. It’s all in the execution. It was nice to see a film set in Montreal, as well. Lovely city.

np – The Postal Service / Give Up

The Jayhawks/Lucinda Williams show tonight was my first time at Massey Hall for a non-Icelandic space-rock band. I was especially excited about the Jayhawks, having been a fan for a good long time but never gotten to see them live, and that’s a damn shame because they were amazing. A lot of old-school fans abandoned the band after Mark Olson left, but after hearing drummer Tim O’Reagan cover the harmonies on the older material as well as lead vocals on his own songs, I’ll play the role of blasphemer and say the Jayhawks are just as strong a band as when Olson was in the band. Seriously, O’Reagan was a revelation – I didn’t realize he was behind a number of my favorite Jayhawks tunes. That’ll teach me to read liner notes. A pity they only played for 45 minutes – from the response they got from the audience, I’d say it’s a safe bet that they could headline a very successful show of their own in this town. Right after their set, the merch table was nearly sold out of their CDs. And Gary Louris is a very tall man.

Lucinda Williams and band had a tough act to follow, and I can’t say they were entirely up to the task. They started the show with Lucinda on her own with acoustic guitar doing “Passionate Kisses”, which may have seemed like a good idea, but they either didn’t have the PA adjusted properly yet, or her voice wasn’t warmed up, or more likely both, because it sounded over-loud and harsh – certainly not the treatment the song deserved. It got better after her band joined her and they played a few more numbers, but still not the best first impression. The band was ultra-relaxed onstage, almost to the point of it working against them as there were extended gaps of silence between songs as they sorted something or other out, Lucinda chatted with the crowd in her slow Texan drawl or leafed through her lyric book for the words to the next number. Things were terrific when they started playing – these guys were pros, no mistake about it – but the pacing of the affair could have been better. The peak of the show came when Louris joined them onstage for “Essence”, first to do harmonies and then to take over guitar duties from Lucinda. For the encore, they acquiesed to do some requests, first with “Blue” and then “Sweet Side”. I questioned their decision to close with “American Dream”, which in my opinion is one of the weakest songs off the new album and an anti-climactic way to end off the show. Overall, a pretty solid show with disappointing bookends, but when Lucinda had the country-blues-soul mojo working, it was terrific.

The Washington Post talks to Beulah about the long road to Yoko and where they go from here.

Coming as no surprise to anyone, Wheat’s Per Second Per Second Per Second Every Second has been pushed back another week to November 4, due to “some delays finalizing the artwork”. This artwork, here. The Aware store has it for preorder now. Bah, humbug.

Slightly more cheerful news – volume 3 of the Amos House benefit albums finally has a street date – November 18. A stellar lineup on this one, including Wilco, Spoon, Elf Power and Wheat. You can preorder from Wishing Tree Records starting Wednesday.

np – The Jayhawks / Rainy Day Music

Things that should have occurred to me: if I have today off on account of it being a holiday, it stands to reason that other folks like, say, supermarket workers, would also have the day off. It would have been more useful if I’d realized this yesterday, when the stores were open, than today, when the stores were already closed. Anyway, I managed to scrounge up the basics I needed for dinner tonight from the 7-11 and corner vegetable stand, so I’m okay.

As with many others today, I bid Miss Modernage a fond farewell from blog-land. Thank goodness Whatevs.org has stepped up and volunteered to be the new source of all things prurient and Britney.

Here’s an bit of news that I haven’t seen picked up anywhere else – Gillian Gilbert has left New Order. The band is recording their new album with an unspecified guest guitarist and according to a source, “It is much more like Joy Division again”. Interesting interesting.

There are some official shots available of Keanu Reeves in character as John Constantine. Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance is contributing to the soundtrack. Gavin Rossdale of Bush has been cast as a character called “Balthazar”. None of this does anything to sway me from my initial opinion that this will be a truly awful film.

Nostalgia – Sugar’s File Under: Easy Listening was the first album I bought in university. I think I picked it up during frosh week. That was almost ten years ago. TEN YEARS. Holy friggaroo.

Happy Thanksgiving!

np – New Order / Substance

If someone asks me how I spent my weeks vacation, I’m going to start with, “Discovered Queen Video. Rented movies. Lost track of time”. The main reason I went out and got a DVD player was so I could raid Queen Video’s expansive stock of cool movies.

First up tonight was Grave Of The Fireflies, a historical wartime anime from Studio Ghibli, home to Hiyao Miyazaki’s oeuvre. While most of Miyazaki’s films are fantasies, Fireflies – directed by Isao Takahata and based on the semi-autobiographical book by Akiyuki Nosaka – is set very much in the real world. Taking place at the tail end of World War II, it details the effects of the American firebombing campaign on a 14-year old boy and his 4-year old sister in Kobe, Japan. Orphaned and homeless, the two try to survive in the ruins of their town.

While the interaction between the two is heartwarming and the love and devotion of the siblings is well demonstrated, the tragedy and horror of their circumstances is just so much greater. This movie was truly heartbreaking. It’s a war movie that really has nothing to do with the combatants, only the civilians and its effects on them. The ‘enemy’ is never identified as the Americans, and is only represented by the bombers flying overhead dropping their firebombs. While the events depicted may be almost 60 years old, the themes and truths portrayed are still sadly relevant. A devastatingly effective commentary on the human cost of war.

np – Neko Case / Blacklisted