It seems laughable now that when the year began, I was openly concerned that Ted Leo wouldn’t come and tour up here after a poorly-attended show at the Rivoli in the Spring of 2003. Proving that he is a man of great magninamity as well as active sweat glands, last night marked his third visit to our humble burg. His two previous shows at the Horseshoe were barnburning affairs and he’d have a hard time topping them on the third go-around. I had forgotten that it was an all-ages show until I got there and realized that I felt old enough to be a chaperone or something. Apparently Ted Leo appeals to kids of all ages. Literally.

In order to make the event all-ages, they had to hold it at the Mod Club, which is more than double the capacity of the Horseshoe. I had some concerns that this would result in a seemingly sparsely-attended show, but I guess the strategy paid off as while it wasn’t sold out by any means, it still looked like a good crowd and was probably equivalent to a packed ‘Shoe . The early start time allowed for a pretty big freaking bill, with tourmates Matt Pond PA and the Pharmacists sandwiching local acts The Junction and The Meligrove Band. Granted, all the acts – headliner included – had shorter sets, but the collective quality of music was worth the long night.

Matt Pond PA started things off – they’re a band who I’ve been meaning to investigate for a couple of years now, but had never gotten around to it. My loss. I was very impressed, to say the least – the songs, arrangements, very effective and tasteful use of cello, all right up my alley. They reminded me a little of Sea Ray with a little less spaciness, but that may be just because I have very few reference points for indie rock bands with cello. And they get points for seeming to be big fans of Canada, references to our home and native land popping up in at least two albums and the maple leaf adorning the artwork of their latest album Emblems, which I got a copy of at the show. The only thing that didn’t impress me was Matt’s need to retune after every song, and not just a little. Dude, if your guitar – which doesn’t even have a vibrato system – can’t stay in tune for even one song, something’s not right. Anyway, a late addition to the bill, but definitely a good one.

Mississauga’s Meligrove Band were, again, an outfit that had been recommended to me a constantly over the last couple years but who I’d not quite gotten around to hearing. And while I still haven’t heard the records, I can’t imagine they’d be quite the same experience as their live show – couldn’t hear the vocals but the rocking spoke for itself. They’re definitely one of the most animated bands I’ve ever seen, channelling some serious British Invasion mojo. They were a ridiculous amount of fun to watch, leaping all over the stage and distributing take-home tambourines to the audience for a the set closer. A scissor-kicking good time (though I don’t think I actually saw any scissor kicks), I can’t imagine how they’d have had the energy to play any longer than they did, but I suspect they would have.

I was a little cynical of The Junction to begin with, with thier fancy 5-string bass and matching bright yellow track jackets (with embroidered names, no less), but was more than happy to change my opinion after just a couple songs. Take the worst hybrid funk-soul-rock band imaginable, and then imagine their complete opposites – that’s the Junction. Very energetic and fun, keyboardist Joel (if his jacket was to be believed) did a fine job as MC working the crowd and generally pushing the party vibe. While I’d never heard of them, they must have had a pretty decent-sized fanbase in attendance, judging from all the singing along. A bit of an odd choice on the bill but a good one.

And finally, Ted Leo. Ssadly, last night’s show was not as good as either of his last two performances. Besides barely clocking in at an hour including encore (though I suspect there was a curfew in effect), the band seemed a little out of sorts at times. While they absolutly hit a few numbers, “Me and Mia” in particular, I don’t think they quite managed to hit their groove. I also blame the fact that he was using a Marshall stack instead of his trusty old Music Man combo, which was relegated to furniture duty… of course, that was the amp that slowly self-destructed all the way through his last show, so maybe using the backup wasn’t a bad idea. Anwyay, the relative poshness of the Mod Club was also an odd fit for Ted, his music seems better suited to bars and clubs than theatres… or maybe it was just the smoke machines and pink spotlights that didn’t seem right. As always, though, Ted was personable and chatty with the crowd, commenting that it had been a really bad November but he was remaining upbeat. As a tribute to the Toronto crowd, the band did a quick cover of the coda to “Spirit Of Radio”, which thrilled me but was probably lost on a good portion of the crowd. “Rush? Who’s Rush?” Sigh, kids these days.

So yeah, while Ted’s set was a little bit of a letdown, though I would never call him disappointing, the show in its entirety was a terrifically good time. Cheers to Eric Warner and Whacked Out Productions for not only assembling the show, but making it work. Photos will be up tomorrow – I got in too late and was too tired to go through them all last night. Four bands = a lot of pics, you know. But if you’re aching to look at Ted’s smiling mug, check out the galleries from either of his last two shows (March and June).

And as the perfect chaser to last night’s show, I found a used copy of Dirty Old Town, the Ted Leo documentary/concert film which intersperses interview footage with their performance at the Siren Festival at Coney Island last Summer. I’ve only gotten through the bonus features so far, but the performance during the blackout of last August (while feeding off a generator from a Starbucks truck) was just awesome. Looking forward to when I get a chance to watch the feature.

For all you disbelievers – Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as Johnny Cash and June Carter in Walk The Line, the Johnny Cash biopic coming out next year (if the link doesn’t work, go here). I think they’re looking pretty damn good… From Golden Fiddle. Update: Another pic of Phoenix as Cash.

Anyone have any experience with Hostony.com for webhosting? Too good to be true? Should I be concerned that their contact info puts them in Jersey, UK?

np – Matt Pond, PA / Emblems

The new Big Takeover is out, and it’s like a Christmas present just for me. Besides the Wilco cover story, there’s interviews with American Music Club and Sloan (amongst many many others). While it’s only semi-annual, The Big Takeover is one of my favourite magazines. Spider-whomping thick (this issue is 302 pages long), they cover a hugely eclectic range of artists, the only criteria for which is that they create “music with heart”, as per the magazine’s slogan. Interviews are often huge in length and contain almost the entire transcript of the conversation verbatim – they read more like conversations between friends than interviews between publication and artist. The passion and love that editor Jack Rabid and his crew have for the music they cover is evident in every word – they’re never sycophantic, no matter how legendary their subject, but always respectful and honest and the artists usually respond in kind resulting in more insightful interviews than you might get in other publications. And if you’re into reviews, there’s scads – 125 pages this time around. I think they review pretty much everything and anything submitted… it can be a tough slog, but I’ve found some great stuff buried in there. It’s not a cheap mag ($10 in Toronto), but it’ll keep you busy for a long time.

I’m going through one of those periods where every CD I own seems to be scratched. How this can be, I do not know. Can anyone comment on the effectiveness of any of these remedies?

Traveler’s Diagram has his year-end list up. There’s some pretty heavy Canadian content on there, but justifiably so. In all objectivity, Canadians kicked some musical ass this year.

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists tonight! They’ve even corrected the misspelling of “pharmacists” on their website. Bravo, Ted.

np – Interpol / Antics

The first Batman Begins one-sheet… because as everyone knows, bats are creatures of the dusk. See it full-size (well, larger-size anyway) at The Beat. Is it June 12 yet? How ’bout now? Now?

A passing thought – Feist’s Let It Die hasn’t received a proper release or any sort of exposure, really, in the US yet. I wonder if there are plans to do so, and if so, how it’ll take south of the border? Most everyone up here is convinced of Ms Feist’s star potential, I wonder whether her sound and style would connect with a large enough base of the good people of America to qualify as a breakthrough? This isn’t a case of me needing US validation of a local artist to think they’ve truly arrived, just curiosity.

The Guardian lays down some ground rules for bands considering reunions. From Largehearted Boy.

Donewaiting readers discuss their biggest disappointments of 2004.

My Mean Magpie takes a trip in the wayback machine and compiles his year-end list… for 1994.

A second Stars show has been added for December 19th at the Mod Club, this one all ages. Since it’s a Sunday, I assume that it will be an early show, which is good becuase a late one would surely go past everyone’s bed-times.

Chart announces that local cosmic cowboys The Frontier Index (whose website seems to have gone AWOL) have finally signed on the dotted line with Detroit power-pop label Rainbow Quartz. I had originally planned to catch their show at the Horseshoe last night, but opted for the GTA Bloggers Christmas party instead. Luckily, they’ll be back at it in two weeks on the 17th at the 360 with Mod-fetishist labelmates The High Dials and Showroom.

As for the Christmas party, it was hosted once again by the gracious Accordian Guy and quite literally packed to the gills with local blog-folk. It was a good opportunity to eat, drink and be merry with people who don’t look at you funny because you spend an inordinate portion of every day scrounging the corners of the interweb looking for trivia to write about. And by ‘you’, I mean ‘me’, of course. There were some new faces, some old faces and much unbridled geekery on topics of music, photography and comic books. Good times.

Segway Schmegway – I want a Toyota iFoot.

np – Bob Dylan / Bringing It All Back Home

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Feist’s Toronto show last night. The last time I saw her in June, it was a truly unique show that I honestly hoped she wouldn’t try to reproduce. This time around, she kept pretty much the same band configuration, though trading in the projectionist for a second keyboardist.

I’m looking over my review from June, and really, there’s not much to add – it was very similar in sound and structure, but somewhat different in feel. Where the Mod Club show seemed rather scripted and performance art-y, last night felt more like a proper ‘rock’ show. Feist was more engaging and chatty with the crowd than six months ago, which I personally found more appealing. The music (and unusually excellent house sound) must have gotten some people in the mood as there was no shortage of volunteers when she invited audience members onstage to take part in a kissing contest while they sorted out a technical problem. Though it wasn’t so much a contest as an opportunity for two strangers to get on stage and make out for 10 seconds in front of 1000-odd people, which they did and with gusto. The bulk of the material came from Let It Die, naturally, but there were some tunes I didn’t recognize which may or may not have been new. These ones seemed to have more rock spirit in them, so whether it heralds a new direction for her future work remains to be seen.

Local boy Howie Beck got an unusually long opening set (upwards of 45 minutes) which he filled with pleasant, if largely unremarkable, singer-songwriter pop. I, however, am on the record as being especially difficult to impress by a guy on an acoustic guitar (even if accompanied by tasteful electric lead work). Can’t really say why, just am. Within five minutes of him leaving the stage, I’d forgotten everything he’d done.

It was a battle getting photos last night – besides people constantly standing right in front of me (as in close enough that I could tell what shampoo they used… or that they didn’t use shampoo), the lighting was damned peculiar. Very heavy on the reds, and damn near impossible to get a consistent white balance, focus or exposure reading. I managed to get a decent album together, but you should see the number of shots I had to toss… And if you’re looking for natural skintones, well just keep walking.

Pitchfork frankly surprises the hell out of me by awarding Slowdive’s new 2-disc retrospective compilation Catch The Breeze a 9.5. Their rationale is that the band was much more than just another shoegaze act, but a trailblazer in the post-rock and electronica genres, this based largely on the merits of their final album Pygmalion (which gets better every time I listen to it). This isn’t going to be a big Slowdive love-in post, however – I just did one of those back in July. I think there’s some stuff on Catch The Breeze that I don’t have, but I can’t justify shelling out the import prices for it. Thankfully, I have… other avenues for getting the material…

Pitchfork also gives Stars’ latest Set Yourself On Fire a reasonable 7.8. I like the record but it hasn’t entirely grabbed me yet. Mind you, Heart took a while as well. Stars are at the Mod Club December 18.

Brooklyn Vegan has a track from the new Decemberists record to whet your appetite. Picaresque is out March 22.

Toronto entertainment weekly eye now has a blog. Everyone and their mother, I swear…

np – The Delgados / Universal Audio

So it seems that Andy Bell, ex of Ride and current of Oasis, was in town last week and was spotted at the Mod Club where he performed a short acoustic set:

Chelsea Girl

Step Into My World

Live Forever

Fading Dreams (new Oasis song)

Today

Now I can’t say that I’m kicking myself for missing that, because it was completely unannounced and there’s pretty much no circumstance under which I would have been hanging out at the Mod Club on a Tuesday night. But still, that’s pretty cool. In keeping in spirit with yesterday’s post, I dug up another set of Questions of Doom from Poptones, these ones directed at – that’s right – Mr Andy “I’m not the gay guy from Erasure” Bell. Lots of good stuff in this one, including the revelation that Bell and Sanctuary Records are assembling a shoegazing box set to be entitled… get ready for it… The Shoebox. Genius. I’ll take two. Also, the Creation Records fansite has a slew of interviews, mostly recent, with the band members.

Anyone who knows me and/or reads this site knows that a) I am a huge Ride fan and b) I gladly poop on everything that Messrs Bell and Gardener have done post-Ride. Hurricane #1? Poop. The Animalhouse? Poop. Oasis? Double poop. Mark’s solo stuff… well, I haven’t heard too much of it yet and only in solo acoustic format, so the jury is still out on that. Give me anything from Nowhere through most of Carnival Of Light however, including the EPs in-between, and I can sing their praises ad nauseum (excepting Tarantula, which gets the poop, but the band pretty much disavows it as well, so that’s okay). Those records are just sublime. A textbook example of the musical whole being so very much more than just the sum of its parts, which seems to be an all-too phenomenon in the UK indie scene. If you want more background, Pitchfork’s review of the OX4 best-of disc functions as a pretty good capsule history, though it’s excessively harsh on Carnival Of Light.

I still remember being congratulated by the store clerk when I first bought Carnival Of Light in the winter of 98, he seemed genuinely pleased that the album had found a good home. Over the next few months, I sought out the remainder of their discography and am now pretty much complete – all I’m missing is the CD-single for I Don’t Know Where It Comes From, the one with the remixes, and with eBay as my witness, it will not elude me for much longer. It’s been a sort of windfall in the last few years for Ride fans with the albums all getting the remaster/rerelease with bonus tracks treatment, as well as the box set, reunion EP and BBC sessions (Gary – I need my copy of Waves back, please. I’ve already listened to the rest of my stuff), but sadly the well seems to be running dry. They’re still assembling a DVD scheduled for release next year, but after that the vaults are pretty much empty. They could possibly put out some more live albums but none of them would match the Reading 1992 performance released in the OX4 box set which captures them at the very peak of their powers. Since their heyday was more than a decade ago, I never got to see them live – seeing Mark Gardener solo at Lee’s Palace last year was probably as close as I’ll ever get. I actually don’t think I’d want them to get on the reunion bandwagon, to be honest…

…Oh who am I kidding, I’d love it. Coming Up For Air proved that the chemistry was still there. But I doubt it’ll ever happen – word is fellow Oxford-ians Radiohead threw big bags of money at them last year to get them to re-form and support their Hail To The Thief tour, but to no avail. Grudging respect. We’ll always have Reading.

Since it’s the holiday season, I give you this – a performance of their ‘signature’ song, “Vapour Trail” (mp3), live in London circa 1991. Share and enjoy.

I should warn you all in advance that I have been on a heavy-duty shoegaze kick of late, and it may very well trickle down into my posts for the next little while. Just so you know. I need to buy more pedals. And put together a band. And buy all of them pedals.

Chart gets some soundbites from Idlewild about their just-completed new album Warnings/Promises, out next March.

Those REM reissues are coming out February 15, not January 25.

Everybody’s favourite beard, Sam Coomes Beam aka Iron & Wine, is releasing the Woman King EP on February 22 next year. It will feature all new material as detailed here.

Pulse Of The Twin Cities talks to Patterson Hood about the history of his day job with the Drive By Truckers as well as his solo material. Everyone who told me to get Southern Rock Opera was absolutely right – that record kicks my ass. From LHB.

Billboard calls bullshit on the Coachella 2005 lineup rumours floating around the internet. Promoters say that they have just tendered offers to the acts, no one has confirmed and they don’t even have a specific date set aside. The conspiracist in me wonders if maybe that lineup wasn’t leaked by the promoters to see what the reaction of the punters would be?

Largehearted Boy is first out of the blocks with his top albums of 2004, complete with sample mp3s. Some surprises on the list – or more, some surprises NOT on the list… but where’s the fun in being predictable? Mind you, my list will be completely predictable. In fact, anyone who manages to guess my top 10 albums (no ranking this year) will get a prize. I don’t know what prize, I really haven’t thought this out yet.

np – The Sundays / Reading, Writing & Artihmetic