Whilst picking up various accessories for my new DVD player last night, I found a slightly used, cheap copy of the first Preacher trade paperback. I enjoyed Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s run on Hellblazer and heard all the acclaim for Preacher over the years but never read a single page. And you know what? My loss. I’m only two issues in, but it is good. Very good. I’m so familiar with the writing and art styles that it’s like sitting down for coffee with an old friend you haven’t seen in years, and he’s got all sorts of new stories to tell. And Steve Dillon has really been working on his depictions of people getting the backs of their heads blown open. The shop had another three or four of the collections for cheap, I’ll have to head back and stock up.

The new DVD player is nice, too. Now I’m trying to figure out what to do in terms of tv stand/stereo stand/speaker stands… Ikea’s 2004 catalog sucks pretty hard, I have to say, but I honestly have no idea where else to look. How sad is that?

Norwegian pretty-boy crooner Sondre Lerche plays the El Mocambo November 17. Indie girls should start practicing swooning now.

Bradley’s Almanac has a pretty thorough list of on-line Flash games for your time wasting approval. Guaranteed to stifle productivity but make the day go by faster. A win-win situation! Unless someone catches you.

Governor Schwarzenegger. This isn’t even worth commenting on.

np – Built To Spill / Perfect From Now On

Interesting bit of comic book apocrypha – when Warren Ellis was scribe on Hellblazer, he submitted a single-issue story for issue #141 about school shootings. The timing, however, was terrible. Coming in the wake of the Columbine shootings, DC decided that running a story about a trenchcoat-wearing anti-hero involved in shootings at a high school wouldn’t be prudent, and shelved the story. Thanks to the wonder of the internet, however, you can still read “Shoot” from the uninked storyboards as well as Warren Ellis’ comments on the episode.

Today is crazy new release day for me. I am going to try and reign in my urge to blow enormous wads of cash and only blow a moderate amount of cash. Definitely coming home with me – provided local stores have them in-stock today – are the new Death Cab album, Ted Leo EP, Shins EP (okay, not new this week but still), and probably one more item yet to be determined. Candidates include the new Belle & Sebastian, Portastatic’s 14-track Summer Was A Lark EP or the Ride BBC sessions disc. Decisions, decisions.

Orange Twin has Neutral Milk Hotel t-shirts! Hmmm.

Sloan closes off their Canadian tour for Action Pact with an (adopted) hometown show November 7 at the Kool Haus. That falls smack in the middle of Bloody Expensive Concert Season for me, so I will probably have to give it a pass and extend my live Sloan-less streak to a full decade.

Largehearted Boy has a live mp3 of DCFC’s Ben Gibbard doing a cover of Billy Bragg’s “St Swithin’s Day” available for download. Go get it.

Update: Well my decisions were made for me.

Me: “Do you have the new Death Cab?”

Soundscapes: “That was delayed at the warehouse, we’ll have it tomorrow morning”. Strike one.

Me: “Do you have the new Shins single?”

Soundscapes: “We just sold out.” Strike two.

Me: “Do you have the new Ted Leo EP?”

Soundscapes: “New Ted Leo?” Strike three.

They did have the new Portastatic and B&S, but after my crushing defeat I didn’t feel like settling. But Rotate This did have a copy of The Wrens’ highly-praised The Meadowlands, so I got that. Let’s call that the catcher dropping the ball on that third strike and my making it to first before he could recover. Anyway, I will console myself with a DVD player tonight and the new Death Cab tomorrow.

Update 2: Does anyone have a valid Insound coupon code for October?

np – Death Cab For Cutie / The Photo Album

It seems pretty stupid to pick on a movie like The Rundown for its shortcomings in the department of sociological commentary, but while I enjoyed pretty much every other aspect of it, there was one key plot point during the climax that really rubbed me the wrong way. I won’t get into it in case anyone hasn’t seen it yet, but MacGyver would be hella disappointed. Actually, if anyone wants to read about it, click on the ‘Read More’ link down below. Or click here.

Anyway, besides this major issue (to me, anyway), The Rundown was a lot of fun – The Rock has got my vote for the new top action hero. He’s got charm, he’s got the moves and he can actually act – at least as well as he needs to. He’s a damn sight better than Schwarzenegger or Van Damme ever was, anyway. Christopher Walken, who is always a treat, was also in top (or over the top) form. Seann William Scott essentially gets to play Stiffler in the jungle – the writers didn’t really bother trying to give him any sort of distinctive character, and by film’s end, you’re still not sure if he was meant to be a selfish brat or a selfless philantropist. And you don’t much care, you just want to see him get his ass kicked again.

My other main viewing material this weekend offered no disappointment whatsoever – seasons one and two of The Family Guy. This stuff is gold. It’s kinda sucky to have to watch it on my computer through headphones, but I’ll be rectifying my no-DVD player-ness this week. Schweeeet.

np – The Replacements / Pleased To Meet Me
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There were some concerns early on that maybe Calexico had overestimated their draw by booking two nights at a venue the size of Lee’s Palace on their cross-Canada tour. On this, the second night, the crowd was still mighty sparse when openers The Frames took the stage just after their scheduled 7:45 start time (the early show may have had something to do with the size of the crowd as well). Instead of being discouraged, they dove right in and proceeded to charm the slowly-growing crowd with their anthemic folk-rock in their uniquely Irish way and by set’s end they had the audience calling for an encore. Because of time restrictions it was not to be, but they made it up to their fans later on.

Calexico are touring across Canada at just the right time, coming to inject a little dose of southwestern heat into a too-frigid October. Travelling as a six-piece and outfitted with an enormous array of instruments, Calexico alternated from hand-clapping, hip-shaking mariachi numbers to spacious soundscapes evoking the Arizona desert they call home. Local boy Dallas Good joined them onstage for a couple numbers and some of The Frames guested on the encore finale – a rousing cover of The Pogues’ “Fiesta”. Frames frontman Glen Hansard did his best to channel Shane MacGowan’s drunken spirit, and while he was a little too intelligable, it was a good try.

Oh yeah, there was no need to worry about the attendance over two nights – the Saturday night, at least, ended up being packed anyway. And complaints? $25 CDs. Hello, what the fuck is that?

I’m not too thrilled with how my photos turned out. I had a terrific vantage point from a table at the front of the mezzanine at stage left, and thought I’d try going flash-less for this show. I was close enough and the Calexico lightshow was bright enough that I seemed to be able to get some good atmospheric shots, at least from the camera preview. And while there technically was enough light to get the effect I wanted, I’m not steady of hand enough to keep things from getting too blurry. I’ve got 20 shots up – I took a helluva lot more that just weren’t usable. Still, practice makes perfect.

np – Gram Parsons / GP/Grievous Angel

Peter Saville was the house artist for Factory Records and the man responsible for all the cover artwork for Joy Division and New Order, among many others. If you check out his website, you can browse through a gallery of his work – he has a fantastic style. And as a bonus, you can download a whole bunch of the fonts he used on JD and NO album artwork – perfect for creating, oh, little banner ads advertising the Joy Division vs New Order tribute night at Sneaky Dee’s on Friday at which we will be playing. Plug plug.

Now 517 will be along shortly with an expansive commentary on Peter Saville and his work…

The Cure were supposed to release a 4-disc box set of b-sides and rarities called Join The Dots – The B-sides & Rarities Collection on October 21, but that has been pushed back to January 13 of next year.

Off Records is now taking pre-orders for the all-star Hedwig & The Angry Inch tribute album, Wig In A Box. The less devoted can wait till it comes out on October 21, but they will miss out on the FREE POSTER that Off is, er, offering.

Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy has been mauled by a tiger during one of their shows in Las Vegas. Now I don’t really wish ill on anyone, but come on – what the hell did you think was going to happen? It’s called the law of averages. Look it up.

np – Beulah / Yoko