Last night’s season premiere of Alias didn’t amount to a reboot of the series as much as it did a rewind, likely to put as much distance between this season and the last, which started promisingly enough but was an utter mess by the time it wrapped last May. Plausibility is essentially thrown out the window for the purposes of setting up the new scenario, which is very much a deliberate throwback to the first season. While on one hand, this could be seen as a “back to basics” approach, taking the series back to what they know works, but it’s also really familiar – formulaic, even. And for a show that got attention for being fresh and surprising, that could be deadly. This is not a show that can get away with spinning its wheels.

To recap: Sydney has daddy issues. Sydney has mommy issues. Sydney dresses up in lingerie and kicks some Eurotrash guy’s ass. Sydney executes daring heists. Sydney doesn’t trust Sloan, but has to work for him. Jack goes to extreme measures to protect his daughter. Sydney cries. Vaughan is intense but perplexed. Marshall is a dork. Been there, done that. Even the addition of Mia Maestro as Sydney’s equally ass-kicking half-sister spy is yawn-inducing. For a while I thought they were going to have an Asian big bad this season, and that might have been interesting, but no – he bites it. Unless J.J. Abrams has some real rabbits up his sleeve (am I mixing metaphors?), I’d have to imagine they squeezed as much blood from that particular stone as they’re ever going to. What, is Sloan going to betray them? Again? I’ll certainly give the show some time to prove that it’s still got some fresh ideas, but based on the premiere, I have my reservations. Better they would take the lead of 24 (which premieres this Sunday with a two-hour episode, and then another two hours on Monday), who have cast aside almost all the supporting cast from the first three seasons for the upcoming one in an attempt to revitalize the show. Of course, they’ve neglected to write any sort of story yet, but you can’t have everything.

BBC1 has some video footage from the Keeping It Peel tribute concert to the late legendary DJ, including a set of classics by the newly-reformed Peel favourite, The Wedding Present. Their new album Take Fountain is out officially February 15 and is aleady apparently making the P2P rounds (though the band would really prefer you didn’t go this route – they’ve stated as much on their message board). From Bradley’s Almanac.

Catbirdseat points us at an mp3 from the new Low record, The Great Destroyer out January 25. The word on this album was that it was much heavier and more rock than anything Duluth’s favourite Mormons have put out before and if “Monkey” is any indication, that’s true. See what signing to SubPop can do to a band?

And while we’re previewing forthcoming releases, go here to stream a few new songs from Ivy’s In The Clear, out March 1.

Emm Gryner celebrates the release of her new album Songs Of Love And Death January 17th with a show at the Top Of The Senator – $10 reservations, no advance tickets. No, I don’t know what that means but I suspect you’re going to have to have a meal or something if you wanna see the show.

CMJ. Arcade Fire. Blah blah blah.

eye submits their picks for local bands to watch in 2005. The only act I’m really familiar with are The Great Lake Swimmers, who I concour are quite good. I didn’t know they’d signed an American deal with Misra, though. Labelmates with Centro-Matic – that’s pretty cool.

np – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / The Best Of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Everything I know about Ernesto “Che” Guevara, I learned from Wikipedia and now The Motorcycle Diaries.

The film, which is an adaptation of Guevara’s memoirs of the same name, document his trip around South America in early 1952 with his friend Alberto Granado and their experiences on the road. The first half is fairly standard On The Road buddy/road movie type stuff, with the friends out looking for girls, adventure and generally just experiencing the amazing scenery of South America. It’s not until the titular motorcycle gives up the ghost and they must continue their trek on foot that the tone of the film shifts.

When they cross into Peru, they begin to see evidence the social injustices that would drive Guevara from an idealistic young medical student to a Communist revolutionary to a t-shirt design. The message of the film occasionaly flirts with heavy-handedness and its portrait of the Commandante as a young man is almost certainly over-romanticized, but for the most part the film strikes a reflective, sincere tone. But as much as the politics and ideology colour parts of the film, it’s first and foremost about the friendship and loyalty between the two main characters, helped along by excellent performances by the magnetic Gael Garcia Bernal as Guevara and Rodrigo De la Serna as Granado. Props must also go out to cinematographer Eric Gautier for committing some startling visuals of South America to film.

Broken Social Scene and “fellow label family members” (read: Arts & Crafts party) will be playing a special benefit show at Lee’s Palace on January 25th. Tickets are a very dear $30, but 100% of proceeds will go to a tsunami relief fund. On sale this Thursday at 10:00AM. I think… I will have to go to this.

A requiem for Guided By Voices, by Nude As The News. From LHB. Wow, it took me five days to get to my first Largehearted Boy citation of the year!

Team Canada won the gold in the World Junior Hockey Championship. YAY. With no talks scheduled between the NHL and the NHLPA, the 2004/2005 season is almost surely done. BOO.

After a long seven-month break, the season premiere of Alias is on tonight! YAY. It’s now on opposite one of the only other shows I watch regularly, The West Wing. BOO.

Metacritic is reviewing books now! YAY. …No, no “BOO”. This is good news all around – I’ve been waiting a long time for a resource like this.

np – Mojave 3 / Excuses For Travellers

Rest in peace, Mr Eisner.

Rememberances from Neil Gaiman

The Beat reflects on Eisner’s life

The Onion re-publishes a 2000 interview with Will Eisner

Sanctuary Records continues to corner the market as the official archivists of anything Creation. After releasing compilations for Slowdive and Hurricane #1 (?!?), the next Creation acts to have their respective vaults raided are Liverpool’s Boo Radleys and Oxford’s Swervedriver. The Boos’ Anthology and Swervies’ Juggernaut Rides will both be out on February 28 in the UK, and presumably follow the pattern of including both singles and rarities.

If you were to draw out their respective styles Venn diagram-like, they’d both intersect the shoegaze circle, but the Boos would also have a foot in the Britpop grouping while Swerverdriver had a fair bit of rock in their recipe. Even their common ground was pretty different, the Boo Radleys trading in melodic pop wrapped in walls of fuzz, Swervedriver in a leaner, more driving psychedelic sound. Both had brief windows of success (Giant Steps and Wake Up! were critical and commercial hits, respectively, and Swervedriver’s Mezcal Head is fairly essential), but never quite managed to establish themselves as much more than also-rans in the annals of music history. Which is a shame, cause they both had some great tunes – mayhap the compilations will earn them some critical reappraisals. I may look to pick up the Swervies one if they become available over here – I’ve only got Mezcal Head and their other albums are somewhat difficult to find. The Boos, I’ve got loads of their stuff already, don’t really need any more to be honest.

Neither act is currently active, the Boos officially disbanded and Swerverdriver on indefinite hiatus. Since the Boos split, guitarist and songwriter Martin Carr has been plugging away under the name of Brave Captain while Swervedriver frontman Adam Franklin now operates as Toshack Highway. Oh, and if you wanted some Swervedriver stuff, they’ve got live versions of all their albums available to download, gratis, on their website.

The New York Times tries to figure out just who Nellie McKay is. Via Pop (All Love).

TTIKTDA offers up an aural history of Colin Meloy. And for everyone who’s been trading leaked copies of Picaresque, Colin is very very disappointed in you.

Moving Units will be supporting The Secret Machines at the Mod Club February 2, and Autolux should also be on that tour but I haven’t seen them listed for the Toronto show yet. Also, Hood from Leeds, England are at the Drake on March 15, tickets $10. Either of these shows worth my attention?

NME lists off some of the confirmed acts for SXSW this year. Getting tingly!

According to this Chicago Sun-Times piece on the massive tastemaking influence of Pitchfork (read in as much sarcasm as you see fit), Arcade Fire – the darlings of the indie rock world and the most hyped act since, um, The Beatles, have sold a whopping 28,000 units in the USA. I don’t really have a perspective on what is and isn’t a lot of units sold, but that seems awful low to me. Like, Britney Spears probably sells that many from a single Wal-Mart store.

Nominations for the 2005 Bloggies are open. You’ll note they’ve folded several categories, including “Best Music”, into a new single category, “Best Entertainment”. I’m not gonna be all disingenuous here and pretend I wouldn’t like to be nominated again – I’m itching for a rematch with Moby. However, with the broader category definition, I imagine there’ll be tougher competition for nominations let alone prizes. Oh well, we do what we can do. You know, looking over the nomination form, I realize just how few different blogs I actually read. Sad, really.

np – Interpol / Antics

Welcome back from holidays, everyone. Unless you’re still on holidays, in which case a pox on your house.

Poptones poses their always entertaining Questions Of Doom to “indie-chanteuse” (their words, not mine) Rachel Goswell. She talks about the recent Catch The Breeze anthology, the transition from Slowdive to Mojave 3 and what’s been spinning on her stereo lately (Jesse Sykes and Drive-By Truckers!). There’s also this slightly older but much longer and in-depth interview with Penny Black Music that covers almost the entire history of Slowdive and M3, including the admission that “A lot of Slowdive’s lyrics were rubbish. Why do you think we never printed the lyrics on the sleeves?”

I have to admit, when her long-awaited solo album Waves Are Universal came out last June, I was a little disappointed. The weight of expectation was pretty heavy, what with her vocal contributions on Spoon & Rafter being pretty minimal and her one lead vocal on Excuses For Travellers’ “Bringing Me Home” being so sublime. Hell, even the lead-in EP The Sleep Shelter was pretty good. Yet Waves somehow left me feeling disappointed – it was so delicate and so fey. I guess I was looking for something with the haunting power of the best Slowdive tracks or Ask Me Tomorrow, not the mainly acoustic, pastoral record that I got. However, with time, I’ve been able to appreciate Waves for what it is – a very pretty, if still somewhat slight folk record. I guess there’s something to realizing that her singing Neil Halstead’s songs are something quite different from her singing her own songs. Still, I hope that we’ll be hearing more of her on the new Mojave 3 record due out sometime this year.

MP3: Rachel Goswell – “Sleepless & Tooting”

Filter is streaming the new Doves single, “Black and White Town”, taken from the new album Some Cities out March 1.

The Secret Machines play the Mod Club on February 2, and I’m not just telling you that because Warner Bros. asked me to.

I said I wasn’t going to link any more 2004 posts, but when they’re as great as Brooklynvegan’s best shows of 2004 (complete with photos and live mp3s), I have to make an exception. Just another reminder of why I would probably die of exhaustion in under a month if I lived in New York City.

I went rock climbing last night for the first time, and while I don’t necessarily hurt as much as I’d expected, I am concerned about the fact that my hands are fucked up. There’s little gripping strength in either this morning, which is fine, I expected that, but my left middle finger has no strength in it whatsoever and I can’t even bend it all the way in. There’s no pain or anything when I try, it just won’t do it. Typing is a little hit or miss this morning, but considering I also call my left hand my fretting hand, I’m a little panicked. Someone tell me this will get better in a day or two. Seriously.

This is what I get for trying something new.

Update: I have slowly been getting mobility in my finger back over the course of the morning. Thank GOD.

np – Swervedriver / Mezcal Head