Matador will be celebrating their 15th anniversary this autumn with a double-disc retrospective in the spirit of What’s Up Matador and Everything Is Nice. Matador At 15 will feature “one disc of much-beloved songs by Matador hitmakers circa 1999-2004, along with a second disc comprising unreleased or too-tough-to-find tracks by many of the same superstars”. This will be hot on the heels of Merge’s 15th anniversary multi-disc collection Old Enough To Know Better, out July 13. Two indie label powerhouses, both celebrating fifteen years in the biz? I know a prospective steel cage match when I hear one, thank you… And Merge has a new website. Most of it still doesn’t work, but it’s somewhat prettier than the old one.

Elvis Costello has two albums coming out this Fall – one rock album and one orchestral album. The former will be recorded with the Imposters and be released on Lost Highway, the latter, entitled Il Sogno with the London Symphony Orchestra and be released on Deutsche Grammophon. Obviously the rock record is more interesting to me, but I did like the album he did with the Brodsky Quartet so I will be paying attention to the orchestral release as well. What catches my eye is that the Imposters record is coming out on Lost Highway – does that mean this’ll be a country-inflected record? And how about despite putting four records out on four different labels (Island and Decca for When I Was Cruel and North respectively), they’re really all the same company? It blows my mind.

The Neko Case show on the 28th at the Horseshoe doesn’t seem to have The Sadies on the bill – just Carolyn Mark and Kelly Hogan in what’s being dubbed, “Lipstick & Dynamite”. Tickets are $18 and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Good Brothers showed up anyway.

Still trying to find out specifics on the Neko/Sadies shows at the Matador this weekend. Well, ‘trying’ might be too strong a word. ‘Waiting for someone to come by and tell me’ might be more accurate. Looks like it’ll just be a matter of showing up at 2AM Friday or Saturday and hoping to get in.

Hayden will be opening both Toronto shows for Sarah Harmer at the Winter Garden Theatre April 26 and 27 after all. He had originally been scheduled to open, then pulled, and now has been put back on. His Elk Lake Serenade comes out May 11.

The San Francisco Chronicle tries to puzzle out why Wonderfalls got the axe and reflects on the inanity of television scheduling in general. Perhaps I should recap the reasons – Fox are dumbasses, stupidheads and other epithets involving the words ‘dumb’ and ‘ass’. Use your imagination, they’ll all apply.

A day and a half after wisdoom tooth extraction and I still look like Marlon Brando in The Godfather. And, it seems, so does everyone else who has dental surgery.

np – Metric / Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?

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