Detroit pop-meister Brendan Benson’s new one, The Alternative To Love, is out March 22. Everyone seems to be more focused on the fact that Jack White produced it than the merit of the artist himself. Brendan Benson is the new Loretta Lynn. I saw BB play a couple years ago and think I enjoyed it alright – honestly, I probably dozed off a couple times, not so much because he was boring but because I had biked something like 65 km that morning and had grossly overestimated the amount of energy I had. I do remember him being an ungodly skinny man, though. I mean, God, look at those cheekbones? The boy is GAUNT. No small bit of irony in naming his band The Well-Fed Boys, I guess.

Update: Torr correctly points out that Alernative To Love is NOT the album that Jack White produced. He even has a link to a track from the new album. My excuse for the inaccurate information is, uh, I’m drunk.

NOW rounds up some anticipated releases from local artists in 2005, including controller.controller’s first full-length (March) and a new The Fembots record (April). Myself, I’m looking forward to the new Broken Social Scene record, natch, (April), and the Amy Millan solo record Honey From The Tombs which has been delayed almost a full year now. It’s supposedly coming out in the Spring, but will more realistically have to wait until they’re done supporting Set Yourself On Fire.

Oh, and of interest probably to only me, that damn Lake Holiday record should be out sometime in 2005 on Bi-Fi. Maybe. Hopefully. I haven’t heard any of it since I finished tracking my parts back in, uh, March? June? August? I have no idea.

eye waits until pretty much the last minute to roll out their year-end lists. Check out their best (and worst) albums and singles, and the best of John Sakamoto’s always worthy anti-hit list.

Toronto Star music critics Ben Rayner and Vit Wagner compile their respective looks back at 2004 (bugmenot: danshack49@yahoo.ca/123456). No unanimous choice as last year when they both hailed 2003 as the year of Metric, but instead a couple of refreshingly disparate lists. Boo to concensus!

The Fourth Rail submits their picks for best comic book covers of 2004.

So my SXSW is booked. I’ve chosen a slightly further but still SXSW-approved hotel – the La Quinta – Oltorff. No, it’s not right on the strip but 2.5 miles ain’t bad and I got a pretty damn good deal through Expedia.ca. March 17 to 20, I be kicking back Austin-style. Yee-haw.

Alas, Jerry Orbach. You may be gone but Lenny Briscoe lives on in a million syndicated episodes a day. Rest in peace.

Because of a veritable deluge of comment spam in the past day, I’ve had to go into my source code and hack it to block the specific spammers who’ve been bugging me. It shouldn’t stop anyone else, unless your name is “mortgage”, but if you do have a problem please let me know. Thanks.

np – Bob Dylan / Love And Theft

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