The theme for today: Reunions and break-ups.

I guess there is such a thing as karma. Wednesday I was aglow with the news of Son Volt’s revival. Then yesterday comes this horrid, horrid news from camp Luna:

“On October 26, we will release our seventh studio album, Rendezvous, on Jetset Records. This will be Luna’s final record. We will tour the United States and Europe over the next six months, playing our last shows in 2005.”

FINAL RECORD. What the hell what the hell. One of my very favourite bands in the world is calling it quits. Folks on the mailing list are understandably all a-panic and the only response from from bassist Britta Phillips, who acts as band ambassador on the list, is a cryptic yet clear, “I really don’t have anything to say about it right now. There will be interviews, of course”. Sadly, this isn’t a nasty rumour can be debunked – it’s a pretty clear announcement on the band’s official website. Luna is done. Sigh.

In one sense, I’m not that surprised at the news. People have been expecting it for years now – folks were writing band eulogies when they got dropped by Elektra after Pup Tent, when drummer Stanley Demeski left, when bassist Justin Harwood left… But the most recent lineup seemed to have energized the band and they’d undergone something of a creative renaissance with the last few releases – both Romantica and Close Cover Before Striking were some of the best records they’ve put out in ages. I imagine that Dean and Britta from Luna will continue making music as Dean & Britta, but it’s just not the same. Sniff. Alls I can say is those November tour dates damn well better not conflict with anything else on my calendar or my trip to Chicago. I would be inconsolable if I missed their last Toronto show. In-con-freaking-solable. Or really peeved, at the least. I will, however, save the eulogies for later. For now, I will listen to Bewitched on my headphones and weep bitterly.

Does anyone else find it ironic that as all the indie acts of the 80s are reuniting, the big names of the 90s are all splitting up? And somewhere in between, you have the bands that aren’t reuniting but are putting out all sorts of archival material – like Pavement. Billboard talks to SM about the Crooked Rain Crooked Rain: L.A.’s Desert Origins fancy-pants double-disc set coming out October 26 (and yes, that is the formal title). And as for a Pavement reunion? Malkmus says, “It doesn’t feel exactly right yet for me to do it. I mean, it could. I guess you just know when it’s right, just like so many other things in your life. Or, you force it due to financial reasons or someone telling you how much you could make. No one has told us that, so that’s not an issue at all. But we all get along; no one is like a lawyer with a huge caseload or has lost an arm.”

Meanwhile, Paul Westerberg considered reuniting The Replacements for a special concert to benefit cancer-stricken Soul Asylum bassist Karl Meuller, but it didn’t end up happening and now he says, “There’s probably no chance we’ll get back together again… It did bother me for that long because I was secretly excited and some of them weren’t.” But he’s made up for it with a shit-hot lineup for the October 23 show featuring almost every noteworthy Minneapolis native short of Prince. In addition to Westerberg, Bob Mould and some incarnation of Golden Smog will play the benefit. Hmm, Wilco is in town October 25. What do you think the odds are that Jeff is going to be hooking up with the Smog boys? Pretty damn good, I’d say. Pretty damn good.

Still reunion-related (albeit only tangentially), the opening acts for the Toronto Pixies shows have been announced, and neither of them really interest me. At least that means I don’t have to kill myself getting up to the airport after work that day… Oh, it’s New Zealand’s Datsuns and Hamilton’s Marble Index. Whoo.

The Omaha Reader looks at the why Rilo Kiley ditched the rustic charms of Saddle Creek for the bright lights and big city of a major label, or more specifically, their own label with distribution courtesy of Warner Bros. From LHB.

Sondre Lerche, cover boy for the October 2004 issue of Non-Threatening Boys, is at Lee’s Palace October 30 with The Golden Republic as support. Tickets $15 on sale now. Fellow cutie-pie (but opposite gendered) acoustic/chamber/indie/jazzy/Euro-esque/insert-meaningless-adjective-here songstress Keren Ann is at the Drake December 2, tickets $10.

And finally, Jeff Tweedy is really really really sick of George Bush (mp3 link).

np – Luna / Bewitched

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