After leaking tour dates one show at a time, the complete itinerary for the Doves’ North American tour is set and brings them to the Kool Haus on May 16. And in keeping with their habit of touring with great – or at least greatly hyped – support acts (The Strokes, Shitsailor, My Morning Jacket, Elbow), they’re coming to town with Upstate New York’s finest psych rockers, Mercury Rev, who will release their latest The Secret Migration the day after the show.

Capitol Records has links to a video interview with the band conducted by NME about the new album, Some Cities. I’ve been living with Some Cities for over a week now, and it’s still growing on me. There are some amazing tracks and some decent ones, nothing I’d call filler, but it hasn’t come together as a cohesive album for me yet the way the first two records did. I saw them live twice for Lost Souls and not at all for The Last Broadcast, so I’ll be looking forward to this one. I hope they’ll have decided to splurge and bring along a touring bassist/guitarist so as to not have to rely on pre-recorded tapes this time, but I’m not holding my breath.

Another reason I’m glad they announced the Toronto date is that it means I can skip out on their SxSW showcase without worrying about missing them. Going to their evening show would have basically meant I was stuck in one place for the whole of Thursday night, and that would have sucked – I’d much rather be mobile and right on the main drag. I will still be catching their instore at Waterloo Records on Saturday, though.

And it’s official – Doves have the dullest promo photos in the world. Come on, boys! Strike a pose!

Thanks to the wonder of browsable directories, you can grab a Broken Social Scene session with Austin radio station KVRX circa March 2003. Link via My Old Kentucky Blog. There’s craploads of other stuff available there, if you feel like digging around. Lemme know if you find anything especially good.

On the occasion of the re-release of all their Warner albums, Pitchfork takes a look at the major-label output of REM. Hey, nice idea guys – or it was when I did it LAST YEAR. Feh.

I couldn’t help but notice several used copies of The Radio Dept’s Lesser Matters in the used shops over the weekend, as well as some new copies in the new release section… does this mean that someone’s been sending out promos of this record recently? Maybe trying to generate some buzz in advance of, oh, a North American tour? That would make me a very happy camper indeed, Lesser Matters is maybe one of my favourite new albums of the past few years. Sooo good. So, it’s either that, or several people around town went simultaneously insane in deciding to sell the record. There’s no other explanation.

And speaking of Swedes, here are the photos from Sunday’s Jens Lekman show at Wavelength. I don’t remember holding the camera at a funny angle, but there you go. And if you want more Jens, La Blogotheque continues to be my new best friend, pointing me to an mp3 of “No Time For Breaking Up”, which Lekman recorded exclusively for them last Winter, as well as an interview from December. Thanks!

Bad news for those heading to Coachella this year to see Cocteau Twins… the reunion is OFF. Details on the news section of their website.

Ain’t It Cool announces Matthew Vaughn as the director of X-Men 3. Um, who?

USA Today compiles 24’s greatest hits, and by hits, I mean gratiutious acts of violence. And speaking of 24… It takes them twelve hours to address critics and point out that there are non-terrorist Muslims in America. They’re the ones who speak perfectly unaccented English and favour wholesome, American pastimes like firearms and gunplay. And it’s good to see that CTU’s definition of securing a location doesn’t include moving corpses (or almost corpses), nor collecting stray handguns lying around. I approach the Tony/Michelle soap opera with some trepidation. Granted, their history is well established so their friction is to be expected, but I hope they don’t get too into that plot thread – after all, they’re professionals… Okay, who wants to start a pool as to which hour they’ll get caught going at it in the broom closet?

Another year, another ugly bridesmaid’s dress. Congrats to Rannie Photojunkie on winning the Best Canadian Bloggie and to fellow Torontonian Sam Daily Dose on winning in Best Photoblog, both worthy recipients, as is Teaching The Indie Kids To Dance Again as Best-Kept Secret. And Largehearted Boy wuz robbed! Defamer Shmefamer. Just goes to show that hard work and daily posting will never get you as far as a picture of Tara Reid’s tit falling out of her dress. Me, I will at least take solace in the fact that I wasn’t beaten my Moby, and maybe I’ll get another shot next year. In the meantime, I will get my sense of self-worth and dignity from the same place I always have – the bottom of a bottle.

np – Mercury Rev / Deserter’s Songs

Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.