January 25 is shaping up to be one of those huge new release days. On top of …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead’s Worlds Apart, Low’s The Great Destroyer, Mercury Rev’s The Secret Migration (from which Fluxblog has an mp3), Bright Eyes’ I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and Digital Ash In A Digital Urn, M83’s Before the Dawn Heals Us and the Fountains of Wayne b-sides comp, Rhino is releasing fancified reissues of all the Warner Bros-era R.E.M. albums.

That’s right, everything from 1988’s Green through 2002’s Reveal as well as the In Time best-of comp is getting a cash-grab double-disc makeover with bonus tracks. Just think about it – even MORE copies of Monster to end up in the cut-out bins! Cynicism aside, I don’t know exactly how deep the vaults run on these albums, but I am curious to see what gets tacked onto some of these records – Automatic For The People and New Adventures In Hi-Fi in particular… I could see myself upgrading those editions if it proves worthwhile.

The inclusion of the compilation in the reissues is particularly curious – a version of the original issue already came with a bonus disc of rarities. What’s going to be on this one? Will it contain the best of all the bonuses on the other reissues? Wouldn’t that just be nutty and a completist nightmare? I bet their heads are exploding as we speak. I can’t seem to find any further info on these reissues, so if you want to know more, ask someone else. My info came from Pause & Play – go bother them. Update: Upon closer inspection, I see that Automatic For The People is NOT listed at P&P as one of the albums to get the reissue. What the hell? We get the best-of but no Automatic? That’s dumber than leaving The Times They Are A-Changin’ out of the Dylan reissues. Update 2: Dumbek points out that Amazon has an Automatic reissue listed as coming out on January 25 after all. So P&P must have just missed one. There you go, complete Warners set after all.

Oh yeah, R.E.M. are in town tonight at the Hummingbird Centre.

Pics from the Matthew Sweet show on Monday night are up here. Pretty pretty Mod Club lights. I know it seems I’m fairly ubiquitous around town with my trusty camera, but that’s nothing compared to Jasper of jenyk/dot/com in New York City. If you’ve never been to his site and are interested in concert photography, check out his site. The breadth and quality of his work is staggering. It makes me want another (better) camera and, uh, more talent.

P-Fork has the lowdown on the new Wedding Present album. Take Fountain is out February 15, and word is there will be a North American tour in Spring of next year – European dates are already confirmed through early April. I’d love to see the Wedding Present live – The Gedge mans his own merch table, you have to respect that.

Metromix conducts the mandatory, “why you breaking up?” interview with Dean Wareham. Y’know, Dean is much shorter than I would have expected. From LHB. I had the strangest dream last night that Britta left the band and they replaced her immediately. What is going on in my head when I imagine that bands that are breaking up break up even further?

The Guardian really doesn’t like Neko Case’s The Tigers Have Spoken. Me, I love it.

Local stalwarts Blue Rodeo are celebrating their 20th anniversary with a DVD release party at Lee’s Palace next Wednesday the 17th, and will perform with the original lineup. Tickets $20 at the door, crazy wristband policies in effect – full details on the Lee’s Palace website. It’d be very cool to see them with Bobby Wiseman again, but you can bet this will be an insanely tough show to get into. I mean, they’re starting to hand out wristbands at 2:30 in the afternoon. That’s… yeah, never mind. I’m an old-school Blue Rodeo fan from way back but I’ll sit this one out.

Because apparently the joke still isn’t old yet, the Scissor Sisters are coming to town January 17 to play the Guvernment. Tickets $22.50, on sale November 18.

Gothamist has spawned Torontoist. What does this mean? I have no idea. From For The Records.

np – American Music Club / 1984-1995

Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.