Lisa Oliver at Stylus has a new column entitled “Ask A Girl” that address issues that arise when the mystifying worlds of music geekery and women collide. Read the first two installments, “Gigs, Record Collections, PMS and Know-It Alls” and “Approaching Girls At Shows” here. And she’s soliciting questions!

Chart chats with Ryan Adams.

Guitarist talks to Flaming Lips drummer Steve Drodz. Who is actually a guitarist, live. So it all fits, you see. Warning! Guitar geek talk inside!

Conan O’Brien has confirmed he’s bringing Late Night to Toronto. The show will be setting up camp in the Elgin Theatre on Yonge St from February 7-10 next year. Repeat after me: Sweeeeet. I must get tickets.

Rilo Kiley has a special holiday gift for their fans… video footage of the band watching the Paris Hilton sex video. From LHB, your number one source of indie-rock/Paris Hilton sex-related links.

np – The Jayhawks / Hollywood Town Hall

The Young & Sexy show at the ‘Shoe last night was my first club show in over a month – and I missed it (the club shows, not this show in particular – I was there in plenty of time). Gentleman Reg started things off with some pleasant and light pop – it took a few numbers for his voice to reach full elasticity but once warmed up they were sounding pretty good. Second act Hotel… the less said about them, the better. The headliners took the stage at 11:30 sharp – isn’t it nice when bands stick to the schedule? – and played a pretty good set. I think they were a little discombobulated from coming in from the west coast because they didn’t seem totally in sync with one another, but still were sounding alright. Not mind-blowing (though a little ear-blowing until I decided that standing right next to the keyboard monitor wasn’t such a good idea), but enjoyable. Particularly nice was the “A Day In The Life” breakdown in the middle of “Television” and the set closer, a nicely arranged cover of Big Star’s “Thirteen”. Yeah, it’s been covered a million times, but when it’s done well, it’s still a treat. The crowd was smaller than I’d expected, but there were a lot of other hot ticket shows in town last night so I guess the hipsters were scattered. Graig has his own review of the show here.

It was also nice to be able to bust out my camera again for some photos, though the Horseshoe’s drably unchanging lighting didn’t make for really interesting photo ops.

The Wrens show at the Horseshoe has been confirmed for February 7th, not the 6th as I’d initially said. Rotate This already has tickets – $8.50.

The Jayhawks and Josh Rouse will be playing the Phoenix on January 20. The Jayhawks kicked ass opening for Lucinda Williams back in October, a full set will be even better. I think this will be thir first headlining show in T.O. in a long, long time. Can’t wait. Tickets are $17.50, on sale next Friday.

Congratulations to Fountains Of Wayne for the “Best New Artist” Grammy nomination. It only took them seven years and three major-label albums for the powers that be to acknowledge they exist. And in case you didn’t notice, there’s a big “Sarcasm” light flashing on and off above my head right now. Dumbasses. The Grammy people, not you. I would never call my readers dumbasses.

Radio.Plus has scads of downloads – legal and supplied by the artist, no less – of songs performed on John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 radio show over the last few years. Some tracks are actually taken from the John Peel session, others are the album versions of the songs. Either way, there’s lots of good stuff here.

A neat selection of music videos available online at Domino Records. See those Pavement videos that MuchMusic won’t touch with a ten-foot pole anymore. Link from the newly dressed-up for the holidays Slatch.

Blundership Of The Ring – Peter Jackson acknowledges and explains where and why they goofed in making The Lord Of The Rings.

np – Wilco / A.M.

Thanks to a friend with ‘industry contacts’, I got to go to an advance screening of Big Fish, the new Tim Burton film. In a nutshell, Billy Crudup is a son trying to find out who his dying father, played by Albert Finney, really is. This task is made tougher by the fact that dad only likes to recount his life story under the veil of tall tales and mythology. Ewan McGregor takes the lead role in these flashbacks, though his Alabama accent sounds an awful lot like Scottish. It’s pretty different from Burton’s usual work – the wacko fantasy has been turned down several notches in favour of a subtle touch, and it works as it prevents Burton from getting buried under the weight of his artistic ambition. There are still a number of terrific visual effects and bizarre sequences in the flashbacks, but they’re offset by the simple, subdued presentation of the present-day scenes. It takes a little while to reconcile the two disparate presentation methods – pretty much the whole film – but that might be the point. Overall it’s charming and enjoyable, good holiday fare.

Check it out check it out check it out. Lenore cartoons! For those of you not in the know, Lenore – The Cute Little Dead Girl is a damned funny blackly humourous comic book by Roman Dirge and published by Slave Labor Graphics. Many thanks to Mystery & Misery for the link. Now go watch the cartoons.

Speaking of cartoons – what ever happened to Bill Watterson after he wrapped up Calvin & Hobbes? Cleveland Scene tries to find out. Link from Heart Murmur via Catchdubs.

Also from Heart Murmur – Neil LaBute’s Top 10 black comedies.

eye managed to conduct a Ryan Adams interview without any mention of Parker Posey. Astonishing. But callling Rock N Roll his best albums since Strangers Almanac? Please. Was kissing his ass with bullshit a condition of getting the interview?

NOW chats with Young & Sexy. Looking forward to the show tonight, though I suspect I’ll have to get there early early. No advance tickets sucks.

Oh good, Grammy nominations are to be announced this morning! Let me find my retching bucket.

The Lake Holiday rock machine may be kicking back into gear early next year. We may be doing a show January 17th at the Cameron House with Aaron Booth. Stay tuned for confirmation/more details.

np – The Postal Service / Give Up

24 – What I want to know is what kind of a world do we live in where you can’t trust a drug lord and terrorist to let you go after you break him out of prison? For shame. I am at least comforted in the fact that even from the safety of the heart of CTU, Kim can still manage to be taken hostage. At least that will never change. You are my rock, Kim Bauer. Your ineptiude a compass that can guide my ship through even the stormiest waters.

I am all out of Preacher. I binged on all the trades – bought and devoured the final volume, Alamo, last night – and now there’s no more. I’m not dissatisfied with how it all wrapped up, to the contrary – I thought it was great. It just reaffirmed my belief that the best stories are the ones with endings, even if their conclusions leave the reader feeling bittersweet and wanting it to never end. I want more Jesse, more Tulip, more Cassidy, but I also know that their stories are done. Sigh.

So what else should I read?

Exclaim! has gotten their year-end lists online. They split theirs into genre – the only ones of interest to me are the pop/rock (9 of 20) and the folk/country/blues (6 of 10) lists.

That last bastion of power pop Not Lame Records is releasing a tribute album to Glasgow’s finest, Teenage Fanclub, next year. What A Concept is scheduled for a February 2004 release and features cuts from Redd Kross, Superdrag and a host of other bands that, honestly, I’ve never heard of. But apparently they all owe something to the Fannies. From The Catbirdseat.

There’s a complete Shins live set from the Austin City Limits Festival this past September available for download here. Link from Largehearted Boy, who has some other neat links to downloads today. Go peel slowly and see.

From Stereogum – Derek Zoolander’s Favorite Holiday Movies. “Taxi Driver is one of my favorite Christmas movies because at the end he’s wearing a green jacket, and then he gets red all over it.”

Emily Ypersound’s top 10 of 2003.

np – Velvet Crush / A Single Odessey

A couple items of note in the year-end issue of Exclaim – An interview with Broken Social Scene about the year in Canadian music and a short piece on Young & Sexy just before their tour of Eastern Canada kicks off. There’s also their year-end lists in the new ish, but those don’t seem to be available online.

But a list that IS available online is this one – 25 albums that should never have been made. I am proud to say I own none of these. Hell, I think I’ve only heard two or three of them.

Anyone missing The Hidden Cameras’ show on Boxing Day as part of Vazaleen at Lee’s Palace may be interested to know that they’re taking part in a five-night stand in conjunction with the Toronto Dance Theatre called “The Skin and Leather Show”. It runs from January 21 to 25 at the Winchester St Theatre. I don’t know if these will be proper concerts or something else, if I find out I’ll report back.

Elvis Costello comes back to Toronto yet again, presumably still touring North, on February 28 of next year at Massey Hall.

Kate Askew has her year-end list up now as well. And Catchdubs. I am feeling the blogger peer pressure to get mine in order…

Taking the subway to rehearsal yesterday, there was a jumper at St Andrew station right when the train I was on was there. I don’t think it was in front my train – we had pulled in and let everyone off as usual, then sat at the platform for a few minutes before they cut the power to the tracks and herded everyone out. To the people complaining and asking, “what’s going on, why do we have to leave, how long do we have to wait?” – shut the fuck up, put two and two together and get out. I overheard one TTC employee saying that come December, the number of these incidents increases dramatically. Up on the surface, I saw five EMS vehicles pass by and pull up at the subway entrance. It was a long walk from University to Sherbourne, but I didn’t mind. I was happy to be walking away from there in good physical and mental health, and sad that someone else wasn’t.

np – The Decemberists / Castaways And Cutouts