I swear, I should just move into the Horseshoe and be done with it. I wash the hand stamp from last time off just in time to get another one. Lather, rinse, repeat. My third night there in the past eight days was to see Preston School Of Industry support their new album, Monsoon. I admit that I’d been getting worn out with all the shows and activites and whatnot, so I made a point of not going down until right before the headliner was scheduled in order to minimize standing around time and maximize sitting at home time. And apparently I missed out as Carla gave the second openers The Frontier Index a solid thumbs up. Next time, perhaps.

PSOI is now and will probably always be known as ‘the band of that other guy from Pavement‘. For good or for ill, Spiral Stairs will never fully escape the legacy of his old band but it doesn’t really sound like he’s trying. For the most part, the PSOI material sounds like his Pavement contributions with angularly anthemic guitar pop songs and yelp-y laid back vocals. The man just keeps doing what he’s doing. He did, however, score a moral victory over the folks inevitably calling out requests for “Two States” by playing a very good set without including a single Pavement song. I was pleasantly surprised by how good their show was – lots and lots of energy and songs that were stronger in live presentation than on record. Their secret weapon was the second guitarist (whose name I don’t seem to be able to find) who bopped around manically from guitar to pedal steel to keyboards. He’s also taken on the role of sonic anarchist, sporting a pedalboard just barely on the right side of excess (my hero!) and creating the whacked out sonic textures that his boss was largely responsible for in Pavement. Kannberg mostly stuck to rhythm last night, but did throw off a number of his trademark solos just to remind everyone who was in charge. Overall I was glad to have hauled my ass out on this drizzley evening to catch the just-long enough set. Photos here.

File under things that suck: The release of Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born has been pushed back a fortnight to June 22. No reason given, and this is not an April Fool’s joke. Bastards. I’m going to go figure out how Soulseek works.

Longwave will be releasing a new EP, Life Of The Party, on June 8.

The current edition of Stylus’ “Ask A Girl” column features a woman’s guide to picking up indie boys. Interesting reading, but overlong – here’s my condensed version: “Show up. If they don’t keel over from a heartattack (think chinchillas), you’re in”.

np – Rhett Miller / The Instigator

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