Woot! My guesswork has been proven correct, as The Wedding Present is confirmed at Lee’s Palace on April 26! It will have been almost four years since the patron saint of romantic losers has been through town, and it’s not a minute too soon, thank you very much. Their last time through was as Cinerama and they drew only a modest crowd at Lee’s. I wonder if touring under the more familiar name and maybe with some “reunion” press will draw a larger audience, despite it being essentially the same band?

I personally don’t draw any real distinction between the Wedding Present and Cinerama. I only discovered the Wedding Present after it had morphed into Cinerama and while their debut Va Va Voom was a bit of a stylistic departure from the Weddoes material, their sound became more and more like the Wedding Present as time went by – if you graph out the evolution of Wedderama’s sound from George Best through Torino, I think you’ll find that the name change was almost wholly cosmetic. I like the Cinerama material as much as anything that came out under the Weddoes moniker and am a little sad that there will probably be far less Cinerama material played on the upcoming tour, if any at all. But of course, that’s tempered by the fact that I’ll get to hear more classic Wedding Present material – the five Weddoes tunes they played in 2001 weren’t nearly enough.

The new Wedding Present album is Take Fountain and you can hear the first two singles on their MySpace page. While the record isn’t due out until February 15 (new music from Dave Gedge on Valentine’s Day – how perfect is that?), I’ve been told that it’s already available on iTunes.

As promised last year while opening for The Delgados, Crooked Fingers will be back in town March 31 at the Horseshoe (tickets $10) to push Dignity And Shame, out February 22. They/he was quite good performing solo last time, this time he promised to bring a band. Also returining are Oakland’s Gris Gris, who by all accounts kicked serious ass the last time they played, will be back on April 5 and/or 6 (details unclear) at the Silver Dollar.

Brendan Benson’s new one, The Alternative To Love, is out March 22 and he’s at Lee’s Palace April 11 to promote. The Stands support. Get it? “The Stands support?!?” Oh fuck, I kill me. Seriously, I need to go sit down for a minute.

The lineup for this year’s edition of the Exclaim cross-Canada tour will feature Stars, The Organ, Wooden Stars, and Montag at the Phoenix on April 14. The lineup will shift a bit as the tour crosses the country, full details here.

Caribou, who used to be Manitoba, is at the Horseshoe April 28. His new album, The Milk of Human Kindness, is also out in April. And finally, the British Sea Power show that had been scheduled for April 21 at Lee’s Palace apppears to have been rescheduled for May 17, same venue. Their new one, Open Season, is out March 21 in the UK.

Check out the first official list of acts at SxSW. MADNESS. There’s over 1000 acts on this list and it isn’t even all of them… Donewaiting has done the good deed of expanding the listing into a list format, and I’ve made a nice little spreadsheet of the info, for easy access to info. I was going to start putting in confirmed show data, but that just sounded like work. But if anyone wants to download the spreadsheet for their own scheduling purposes, you can grab it here, with my compliments. And if you want to plan out what I’m going to see while I’m there, feel free. Hell, if anyone wants to assume full control of all aspects of my life, I’d be grateful. I’m not doing a bang-up job on my own.

NOW profiles the Chromewaves-approved Frontier Index, playing tomorrow night at the El Mocambo with Beneath Augusta and League Champs. I just realized I referred to myself in the third person. That’s not a good sign.

Zoilus reports on how Arcade Fire (and Final Fantasy) are conquering New York City. He has a link to an .avi of their performance on Conan O’Brien the other night and Brooklynvegan has a rough but perfectly listenable recording of David Byrne joining the band onstage last night to sing on their cover of Talking Heads’ “Naive Melody”. Also in attendance was David Bowie – I dunno, anytime I think about David Bowie in the audience for something, it just turns into the walk-off scene from Zoolander.

I was watching this Girls Guitar Club short film that someone sent me and it wasn’t until about 2/3 of the way through that I realized, “Holy shit – that’s Chloe!!!” Yes, no other than Mary Lynn Rajskub, Five Seventeen’s secret girlfriend. I’ve never understood that guy…

np – Heavenly / Heavenly Vs Satan

How much do you still love The Stone Roses? Enough to pay $32 (plus applicable service charges) to see King Monkey Ian Brown whoop it up at the Mod Club on February 28? Yeah? Then you love the Stone Roses more than I do. Sure, technically he’s touring to promote Solarized, and people will almost certainly clap politely for “Corpses” (hey, I tried to get into Brown’s solo material but it just elicited raging indifference) or whatever, but you know that everyone there’s just waiting to hear those opening notes to “I Wanna Be Adored”. But you know what? No matter how hard you close your eyes and try, that won’t be Reni, Mani and Squire up there. But hey, if you want to go and pretend it’s 1990, feel free – someone’s gotta pay for Brownie’s parkas.

April 13 brings Ash and The Bravery to the Opera House. They will be pushing new records Meltdown (out March 8) and The Bravery (out March 29) respectively. Ash shmash. I want a Charlotte Hatherley show!

Stephen Malkmus’ third solo disc, Face The Truth, will be in stores May 24. Matador describes it as his “first bona fide solo recording” – which also draws attention to the fact that the album is NOT credited to “The Jicks” the way Pig Lib was. Hmm. I liked his first two post-Pavement efforts well enough, but that doesn’t make the new one a must-have. We’ll have to see how it sounds. Pitchfork has more deets.

With the impending release of Ivy’s In The Clear on March 1, some folks have been wondering what that means for the timing of the promised b-sides/rarities album – sez Andy Chase, “The Ivy bsides/dvd should appear sometime in late 2005/early 2006, once In The Clear has basically run it’s course”. I guess I didn’t really need to quote that directly.

Tired of waiting for that new Sigur Ros record? Stop waiting – play your own, with these Sigur Ros guitar tabs! Perfect for singalongs around the campfire. Actually, it’s a pretty neat site – the tabs with MIDI accompaniment are actually quite nice. I am going to learn to play “Vaka”. Someone else can sing.

And you know what’s fascinating listening? The individual instrument tracks for “Hunted By A Freak” on Mogwai’s Happy Songs For Happy People (these tracks were provided along with some multitracking computer software to allow the fans to make their own remixes of the song). Following along with just one guitar line, say, is like an education in space. Anyway, I think I need a new Mogwai record – the BBC Sessions disc out on February 22 will satisfy for a bit, but I want a new studio album.

Happy Groundhog Day. Celebrate by eating a groundhog.

np – Mogwai / Happy Songs For Happy People

Spoon.

Gimme Fiction.

May 10.

About.

Bloody.

Time.

Pitchfork has more details.

The Ambulance Ltd show that had been scheduled for March 2 at the Mod Club (yes, I just used the past tense) is no longer. Earlier yesterday, Ticketmaster had the show listed with the date TBA and Autolux, who had been tipped as support, appeared to be confirmed in Virigina on that day continuing to support The Secret Machines. Emerge has confirmed that the rescheduled date is April 16, still at the Mod Club, and that all tickets for the March 2 show will be honoured on the new date. I have no idea who will support, but I am going to stop saying “Autolux” because I’m starting to sound stupid. But on the plus side, it’s a Saturday show now.

Of course, what this also means is that I may well have the energy to hit some CMW shows on the Thursday night after all. We shall see.

The Ratio is a new online music zine based out of Toronto that just started up. Their first issue (looks like they’ll be publishing biweekly) looks promising with some interesting feature topics (Gowan?) and the writing is pretty good. Worth a look.

Another new site is Popstars Feet, brought to my attention by Largehearted Boy. The idea of a blog based on photos of indie pop musicians’ feet is a novel one, but you just know what someone, somewhere, is getting off on this.

24: I don’t know, are we supposed to cheer that Soul Patch (nee Tony) is back in the game? What I want to know is, what has he been doing for the past two years that he can be at a garage in Burbank, armed, within 10 minutes of getting a phone call from Jack. Driving a cab? And next time I need a security firm that can efficiently get massacred in their own offices, I’ll be sure to call those guys. Otherwise, not too much to say about the other storylines. Behruz and Mom on the run, CTU not quite getting the job done. Etc etc. I like how Sarah told Maryanne in precise detail where Jack and Audrey were going – she’s just helpful like that. And this Jack/Audrey/Paul triangle thing would be a lot more interesting if the husband didn’t look like Mr Bean.

Wonderfalls is out on DVD today! Go buy/rent it. It’s good.

Yes, Canadians buy our milk in bags. Metafilter is agog.

This is turning out to be kind of a slow week.

np – M Ward / Transfiguration Of Vincent