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

I’ve already exhausted any material I might have used in a preamble for last night’s Matthew Sweet/Velvet Crush show at the Mod Club, so let’s just get into it, shall we?

The show was set up rather unconventionally, with the Velvet Crush’s set sandwiched between two Matthew Sweet sets. It was all academic anyway, as it was the same band up there, distinguished only by the songs and Paul Chastain stepping up to the mic instead of Matthew. The net result was a solid two hours of music to rock the crowd of maybe 250-300 punters. The Matthew Sweet portion of the show drew heavily from the ‘rock’ side of his repetoire and any songs played that weren’t necessarily that loud or fast certainly got dressed up that way. Numbers like “I’ve Been Waiting” or “Time Capsule” traded in their jangle and chime for more riff and grind as the band played up the ‘power’ in power-pop pretty strongly. Maybe it was a deliberate attempt to not sound anything like The Thorns, but everyone onstage seemed to be having a blast with the rocking out.

While ostensibly on tour to promote his two new albums Living Things and Kimi Ga Suki, the material also drew heavily on Girlfriend and Altered Beast, while almost completely ignoring 100% Fun, Blue Sky On Mars and In Reverse. While the ‘loud fast rules’ approach definitely made for a higher energy affair, I did wish that they’d laid back a bit on some of the numbers instead of burying everything with the full-on three guitar assault.

And one third of that guitar assault was probably my biggest beef on the night – the lead guitarist just didn’t do it for me. Technically a member of the Crush, I didn’t like his style. He copped enough of Richard Lloyd’s and the late Robert Quine’s licks to remind me that it wasn’t either of them. He was much more aggressive in both his tone and attack that it seemed too abraisive to ears that were so used to hearing the more fluid and melodic guitar work on the records. But what can you do.

As for the Crush, they made the most of their too-brief set, bringing out material from their In The Presence Of Greatness to this year’s Stereo Blues and really, went toe-to-toe with Matthew in terms of quality material and performance (though the latter point isn’t much of a surprise since it was the same band!). It would have been nice to see them with a longer set or headlining their own show, but as it was, they were a perfect compliment to the headliner’s show.

It wasn’t a cheap ticket, but it was definitely worth the price of admission. Pictures will be up tomorrow, I got home too late to go through them.

And as a footnote – spotted in attendance was new Toronto transplant Joe Pernice along with wife Laura Stein. He’s sporting a Dennis Miller-ish beard and the hair’s a little shaggier, but it’s Joe all right. Keep an eye out for him on the streets and your fingers crossed that he (maybe) starts playing some local solo shows. Hey, look at me, I’m playing celebrity sighting!

Check out Ted Leo’s journal entry for November 3… The poor boy was having a BAD week. I mean, on top of the election debacle, the guy’s DOG died. Don’t worry Ted, come to Toronto. We love you. Thanks to Information Leafblower for pointing it out.

G500/Luna fansite Full Of Wishes has a transcription of an interview Britta Phillips did with Philly Online about Rendezvous and the final tour.

np – The Jam / Greatest Hits

I don’t think I’d ever been to a farewell tour before. You know, a show that was officially acknowledged by the band to be their last, at least in that city, ever (or until the reunion a decade later). I’ve seen shows on tours that were rumoured to be swan songs, but never one that came with a press release bidding adieu. So in appreciation of the fact that it would be Luna’s final jaunt through Hogtown, a damn near packed house came out on a Sunday night to bid them farewell. It was a particularly bittersweet occasion for me as I was seeing one of my very favourite bands of the last six or seven years for the (almost) last time, but I was determined to enjoy every mintute of this evening.

Thankfully, openers Wayne Omaha made it easy. I knew them from the Joy Division/New Order tribute night that Lake Holiday played with them last year, but obviously I wouldn’t have gotten any idea of what their own sound was like from that sort of show. Adding some nice droney/spacey influences into a solid base of roots rock, they reminded me of The Skydiggers mixed with some Feelies while looking like Grandaddy. They won me over from the minute they took the stage, what with their guitarist/keyboardist playing the show – and quite ably no less – with a broken arm in a cast. Bobby Baun would be proud.

And then Luna. Oh my Luna. They’ve long held a reputation as a stellar live act, though it’s hard to articulate exactly why. They’re not the most animated band in the world onstage, but jumping around and general hijinks really wouldn’t work for their music, and at least until the recent addition of bassist Britta Phillips, they weren’t a whole lot to look at (though I’ve heard it said by some that drummer Lee Wall is quite a hit with the ladies). No, what Luna does so well live is play. It’s all about the music. They’re so tight, they seem to do it so effortlessly and the songs which can come across as a little sleepy on record crackle with a strong but understated energy. They’re just so GOOD.

And last night, they were SO GOOD. Opening with “Malibu Love Nest” off their latest/last album Rendezvous and following up with almost-signature song “California (All The Way)”, they reached back through their entire catalog (with the exception of Days Of Our Nights) for a more rocking than typical set. I would have liked to hear more Rendezvous material, as I feel it’s their strongest set in years, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain about hearing “Moon Palace” or “Tiger Lily” instead. Even though I’d grokked Britta’s setlist before the show and knew what to expect, they still pulled a fast one dropping “Lovedust” at the last minute in favour of Lunapark’s “I Can’t Wait” and closing the main set with an extended jam of “Black Postcards”, itself not a jammy tune. Proving that this was indeed a career retrospective tour, they opened the first encore with Galaxie 500’s “Tugboat”, altering it slightly to repeat the line, “I don’t want to vote for your President” more frequently. This they followed up with “23 Minutes In Brussels” and the fitting, “Time To Quit”. The crowd wasn’t letting them go that easily though, and the band came back out for one more go-around on “Friendly Advice”. And then that was it.

It was a superb show, but it’s going to be strange to think we’ll not be witness to Sean and Dean’s sinuous dueling guitars again (Luna are my favourite guitar act on the planet, bar none), nor Dean’s bedhead hair (which was looking pretty sharp last night – I’m not cutting my hair for a while) and laconic vocals, Britta’s gorgeous harmonies, Lee’s perfectly understated but propulsive drumming or Sean’s goofy between song MC-ing (the pride of London, Ontario!). I think Dean seemed gratified at the obvious love the audience was giving the band, thanking him for so many years of great music – all three times he left the stage he was wearing a big-ass grin. I get one last shot of Luna magic this Friday in Chicago, but for Toronto, all we have left are the memories. And the photos. I’d never gotten a chance to shoot Luna before, and obviously after this week I never will again, so I’m glad how these ones turned out.

PS – That “I’ve never seen a band on their farewell tour” bit was a lie. I saw the Dismemberment Plan on their final tour last year. I only realized this after I’d written it and didn’t feel like rewriting the paragraph.

The new Doves record has a release date and title! Some Cities will be in stores on February 15.

The Kansas City Star (login with freddy@mailinator.com/a12345) talks to the reclusive Berke Breathed about Bloom County’s 25th anniversary (!!!) and the accompanying hardcover book, Opus: 25 Years Of His Sunday Best. I still have not seen any of the new Opus strip anywhere. From Largehearted Boy.

np – Old 97’s / Fight Songs

Something is up in Wheat-land, and it doesn’t look good. They’ve just recently wrapped up touring for Per Second Per Second Per Second Every Second and not surprisingly all had been quiet for the last little while. Then last week a message from guitarist Ricky Brennan showed up on the mailing list inviting subscribers to come see his NEW band in Boston. New band? As in side-project, or…? Curious, I hit their website and found a message on the news page that recapped their ordeals over the past two years in getting and touring relentlessly to promote it. The tone was one of sagging shoulders and overall weariness, and reading between the lines it sounded very much like a farewell despite some vague mentions of future band activities, both recording and touring. Then one day later, the post was gone. Add to this a thread on their message board titled, “In Mourning” with the message, “Say it ain’t so…please”, with the poster later implying some inside knowledge about the state of Wheat that they weren’t at liberty to divulge. Now if you go to their website, both the news page and message board have been disabled completely.

Obviously, none of this augers well. Wheat have had something of a hard time of it throughout their career. Their first album Medeiros was a slow and hazy piece of slowcore-pop with a charmingly lo-fi wrapper, but it was sophomore effort Hope & Adams that really made them a band to watch. Producer Dave Fridmann threw just the right amount of gloss on their sound to smooth things out but not lose all their rough edges. The songcraft was tighter and it soundtracked my life through pretty much all of 2000 – seriously, I loved this record. I wasn’t the only one, either, as a moderate buzz began building up around the band and they eventually signed on with British indie label Nude only to have it go tits-up shortly thereafter. This left the band and third completed record Per Second pretty well screwed while they looked for a new home. Eventually, they announced they’d made the great leap forward and had signed with Columbia records farm team-subsidiary Aware Records. The indie faithful were concerned. Then came word that the band were re-recording large chunks of the finished Per Second record, which from the leaked MP3s sounded great as is. The next warning sign came when the original early 2003 release date became Spring, then Summer, then Fall, and then second week of October, then third week, then early November, then late Nove… It’s never a good sign when an album gets pushed back seven or eight months.

As a stopgap, they released the Too Much Time EP in March of 2003 and gave their fans a first taste of the new Wheat sound – and reaction was mixed, to say the least. As their official bio put it, “If Medeiros was like a grainy black and white photograph and Hope and Adams was a subtle but momentous shift to muted hues, Wheat’s glorious major label debut Per Second, Per Second, Per Second, Every Second is a giant leap into Technicolor” And it was true – the new songs were hugely produced numbers with an ultra-high gloss sheen. The songs were still strong but the sonics… Naturally the band maintained that this was the natural evolution of their sound, but not everyone was buying it. When the album finally got a release in late November, I had already resigned myself to the fact that they were now a different band than the one that had grabbed my heartstrings three years previous. I learned to enjoy Per Second for what it was, and it wasn’t a bad record by any means, but it just didn’t measure up to their older stuff.

I caught them in November of last year opening for Liz Phair and was pleased to see that they had improved as a live act in the three and a half years since I’d seen them last and that the new songs were still solid underneath the shellac of the recordings. Their touring schedule was fairly relentless through the latter half of 2003 and early 2004, but they never managed to make the big commercial breakthrough that they and Aware were obviously hoping for. Despite Aware’s best efforts, I think that at their heart Wheat were just too ‘indie’ in aesthetic and presentation to really catch on with the top 40 crowd. As overproduced as Per Second was, some of the b-sides and compilation tracks that surfaced over the same period were much more in line with their older sonic style. Perhaps looking to reestablish their original indie/alt fanbase, the band were booked on the second stage of the 2004 Lollapalooza tour… and we all know how that turned out. The abrupt cancellation left the band with a big gaping void in their Summer schedule which they scrambled to fill with dates around the US, but it had to have hurt. Which brings us to today. What’s going on? I don’t know. Does anyone? If so, please let me know. Was this a eulogy? I hope not.

If I’ve piqued anyone’s interest in Wheat, check out the following:

• Some mp3s from the Too Much Time EP and live radio session tracks. The “naked” versions are from the original record that the band submitted to Nude and IMO they sound so much better than the official versions. Apparently a full version of this is circulating the internet ether – I’ve not found a copy yet. Anyone got?
• Epitonic has some samples from their first two records. These were actually the exact mp3s that I listened to incessently in early 2000 before I managed to find a copy of Hope & Adams.
• The video for “Don’t I Hold You”. The closest the band has had to a hit single, it was originally on Hope & Adams but re-recorded and added as a bonus track on Per Second, much to my dismay. I thought the original was damn near perfect and the extra – I’ll say it again – GLOSS on the redo just smothered the spirit of the song. The video is a pretty lousy RealVideo stream, but it’s all I can find right now.

JAM! Music talks to Torq Campbell of Stars.

The Toronto Star asks Ben Rayner and Vit Wagner what it’s like being music critics for The Toronto Star.

It’s rock-n-roll week! Five shows, seven nights, two countries, starting with Luna tonight at Lee’s Palace. Whoo!

Yesterday was Vic’s birthday so we threw him a surprise dinner party at a fancy-pantsish restaurant down in the entertainment district of Toronto, AKA the club district, AKA the worst fucking place on the face of the Earth on a Saturday night. Swear to God, if I could have called in an airstrike last night I would have.

np – The Wrens / The Meadowlands

The Jeff Buckley documentary Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley will make its Toronto debut at the Bloor Cinema on November 17 at 9:30 PM. Admission is just a non-perishable food item. The film has just started making the rounds on the film festival circuit, having screened at CMJ, Woodstock and Leeds. Check out this Rolling Stone piece for some background on the doc, which looks at the legacy of Jeff Buckley and investigates how it was that an artist with only one proper and modestly successful album managed to become so revered and influential – after all, the man’s name has become an adjective for every has (or thinks they have) a soaring, acrobatic voice.

It’s funny, I really enjoy Jeff Buckley’s stuff, but I can’t abide any of his copycats. Usually when I hear someone described as ‘Buckley-esque’, it means histrionics, drama-queen antics and self-indulgent warbling. Hell, even Buckley learned to rein things in and use his voice to serve the music instead of the other way around – compare restraint displayed on Grace versus the occasional over-the-topness of Live At Sin-e. Just because someone has the pipes doesn’t mean they have a clue how to use them properly.

Another Luna break-up article, this one from the Boston Phoenix.

So I finally got around to watching the Van Helsing DVD I won last week, and you know what? It wasn’t awful. In fact, I actually found it enjoyable for what it was. I think the key was that it was exactly the film it wanted to be, and that was a cheesy, campy, low-budget, old-school monster flick. It actually feels, no doubt deliberately so, like an old James Bond flick only set in the 19th century, and with rapid-fire crossbows instead of a Walther PPK and Dracula as the villain instead of Blofeld. Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale are both quite dashing and easy on the eyes as the monster-fighting heros and Richard Roxburgh is quite possibly the least fearsome Dracula to ever grace the screen. The Wolfman is fairly rote – there’s not much you can do with a character whose only dialogue consists of variations on, “Raarrrrhgh”, but the take on Frankenstein’s monster is a good one.

Comparisons to The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman are to be expected (“hey, how does one cheesy Victorian-era monster flick measure up against another?”) and I’d say Van Helsing fares better if for no other reason than there is no reference point for which it can be measured as a disappointment. I will complain that it seemed to hedge itself a little too much. Not enough jokes or self-awareness to function as a satire, not enough depth to be any sort of character piece, not enough money to offer up more than passable special effects, not enough creative action to distinguish it in that category. And not enough naked Kate Beckinsale (none at all, actually. Alas). The only thing there was too much of was too much of was running time – two hours plus is way too long for such a slight film. Oh well, it gave me something to veg out in front of last night. And it didn’t cost me a cent.

np – Pavement / Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe