Losing Today, whom I can never tell if they’re actually still publishing a magazine or not, has an interview with Idlewild’s (relatively) new addition, bassist Gavin Fox. Covering the other members of the band, Left Lion has a chat with the other new kid in the band, second guitarist Allan Stewart, BBC spends some time with first guitarist Rod Jones and SoundsXP draw’s singer Roddy Woomble’s interview straw. Last but not least, Heathen Angel has an interview with drummer Colin Newton. Bet you thought no one wanted to talk to the drummer, eh?

Their new album Warnings/Promises, which has been getting middling reviews, will be released in North America on August 16, touring presumably to follow. You can preview some of the album here and check out some of the videos from the new record:

Video (WMV): Idlewild – “I Understand It”

Video (WMV): Idlewild – “Love Steals Us From Loneliness”

Billboard re-acquaints North America with Manic Street Preachers by talking to James Dean Bradfield about the parallels between their two latest releases – new album Lifeblood and the re-release of The Holy Bible.

Under The Radar talks to Petra Haden about her a capella cover album of The Who Sell Out and about joining The Decemberists. I have been mesmerized by her cover of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” which she has been performing at Decemberists shows – I do hope it’s a regular part of the set and I’ll get to hear it Saturday.

The Organ will be at Lee’s Palace June 9 as part of NXNE (via For The Records) and The Bravery are at the Opera House on July 12, tickets $16.50.

This is the start of crazy concert week for me. Doves and Mercury Rev tonight, British Sea Power tomorrow, Rilo Kiley/Nada Surf/The Brunettes on Thursday and then Decemberists on Saturday. Then, thankfully, things are a lot lighter through June.

Wetlabel talks to Jeph Jacques, creator of indie-informed webcomic Questionable Content.

np – Spoon / Gimme Fiction

The following comes from this week’s edition of Insound.com’s “Insound Clips” email newsletter. I can’t find any online version, so it’s copy and paste time:

8 analogies that are just so true and smart that if you use them at cocktail parties we almost guarantee you’ll score.

Cat Power’s Moon Pix (Matador) is the modern day equivalent of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks (Warner Bros). The flutes. The slow, weird tempos. The delicate genius/damaged mental thing.

Built to Spill’s Perfect From Now On (Warner Bros.) is the modern day equivalent of Television’s Marquee Moon (Elektra). 8 songs. Guitar solos sent down from the future. Wonderful lyrics by guys who can’t sing.

Spoon’s Series of Sneaks (Elektra) is the modern day equivalent of Wire’s Chairs Missing (Restless). Tight. Angular. Sounds like art school in England.

Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot it in People (Arts & Crafts) is the modern day equivalent of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours (Reprise). A feast. About love. And loss. Both sold 25 million copies.

Love As Laughter’s Sea to Shining Sea (Sub Pop) is the modern day equivalent of The Rolling Stones’ Goats Head Soup (Virgin). Awesome songs that are loose and easy and dirty and sad and romantic and rocking and underrated.

The Mars Volta’s Frances the Mute (Universal) is the modern day equivalent of King Crimson’s In the Court of King Crimson (EG). I’ve never heard either album. Maybe one song from each. At most.

Beck’s Sea Change (Geffen) is the modern day equivalent of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (Columbia). Life is so sad and hard and poetic and women will be the death of us all.

The Fiery Furnaces’ Blueberry Boat (Rough Trade) is the modern day equivalent of Patti Smith’s Horses (Arista). Channeling Jim Morrison and Lou Reed and both gals are pale white and dress great and forget about what I said in the previous one about women and the death of us all.

Nice new music tip from Mystery & Misery – Ottawa’s As The Poets Affirm produce some lovely strings-heavy instrumental post-rock not unlike a less apocalyptic Godspeed. I’ve only listened to a few tracks, but it certainly seems like the sort of thing that I’d like to hear more of. Fortuitously, they’re playing at the El Mocambo upstairs on May 27 as part of their cross-Canada CD release tour for their first two albums, now available from Zunior.com. I don’t currently have anything else going on that weekend, so I’m planning on going to check them out in person.

JS Online chats with Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood about the inspiration for Decoration Day‘s “Deeper In” and life on the road. Via Largehearted Boy.

Also from Largeheart – Boston.com talks to Feist about the imprecision of genre labels and the making of Let It Die.

Glide profiles M Ward.

Further Down Films now has the trailer online for A Good Band Is Easy To Kill, the Beulah concert DVD out August 2.

Went out last night to properly celebrate my 30th birthday and am feeling properly wiped out this morning as a consequence. One way in which the 30s is already better than the 20s – I made it past midnight whilst staying conscious and not throwing up on anyone. This is progress. Thanks to everyone who came out, I had a great time. And I should really go back to sleep.

np – Engineers / Engineers

Some thoughts on Saved!, which I watched a couple nights ago – it’s not really as satirical or offensive to Christianity as the indignant would have led me to believe. It’s actually a pretty standard high school comedy, the whole born again plot device is pretty superficial. Mandy Moore’s character is really the only one really worthy of scorn, and that’s got more to do with being an uber-bitch than any religious persuasion. All in all it was mildly amusing but was really let down by the heavy-handed moralizing at the end. I don’t care about the pro- or anti-Christian message, but I do prefer things to be presented in a slightly more subtle manner…

Random observations – I found it really strange that the Christian rock band at the prom were playing The Replacements’ “We’ll Inherit The Earth” at the Christian high school prom, and Jena Malone and Mary-Louise Parker were the cutest/hottest mother-daughter combo, like, ever.

The two holes in Columbia’s otherwise excellent Bob Dylan remasters collection are finally being filled. The eponymous debut album Bob Dylan and the seminal The Times They Are A-Changin’ will be getting the fancy-pants redo come June 21. I’m glad I’ve been dragging my heels on getting Times, I do like the sound quality of the remasters. There’s also volume seven of The Bootleg Series slated to come out on August 16 and are rumoured to contain studio outtakes from ’61 to ’66, but no one’s really sure at this point. Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota will also be renaming the street he grew up on in his honour (symbolically, anyway – it willl officially remain 7th Ave).

Defamer is reporting that hell has frozen over and that Fox has actually renewed Arrested Development for not one, but TWO full seasons. I want to believe, but…

Got a little giveaway I’m running – the first five people to shoot me an email (frank AT chromewaves DOT net) will get a pair of passes to The Good Life show next Tuesday (May 17) at The 360. It’s also worth noting that the head honcho of The Good Life’s label, a little outfit called Saddle Creek, may well be in town that night since his own band is playing the next night… What am I getting at? Hmm. Austin’s Zykos are opening things up – I saw them at SxSW this year, they were pretty good. So yeah, if you want to go to this show, mail me, yo. Update: Passes all gone. Thanks for playing.

Some shows – Toronto’s finest space cowboys, The Frontier Index, play show at the Horseshoe June 24 to celebrate the release of their debut album on Rainbow Quartz June 28. The UK’s Maximo Park are at Lee’s Palace June 14 to pimp debut album A Certian Trigger, which is coming out domestically on May 31. We’ve also got (Smog) on August 8 at Lee’s (the brackets are silent) in support of A River Ain’t Too Much to Love, out May 31, and Pretty Girls Make Graves are at the Mod Club August 25, well, just because. Tickets for that one are $12.50.

Blogpoly!

Check it out – I’m big in Holland! (scroll down). I am assuming this article says nice things and is not calling for some sort of boycott. Thanks to Herman for sending me the link.

np – John Vanderslice / Life And Death Of An American Four-Tracker

Rolling Stone gets a preview of Jenny Lewis’ solo record, tenatively titled Rabbit Fur Coat and due out in January of 2006. Thanks to Achtung Baby for the link. Lewis also tells The Kansas City Star (and repeats it to The Detroit News, via LHB) that Rilo Kiley has graduated from the distribution deal that they had with Warner Bros through their own label Beaute/Brute, and have officially signed with the major label. More Adventurous will be getting re-released in the near future, which seems an odd move considering that the album has not been hard to find at all in major retail stores – in fact, it’s already been discount priced. But the majors will do what the majors will do… Rilo Kiley are at the Opera House next Thursday.

Chart has a tenative list of all the artists scheduled to appear at NXNE next month. I’m looking at the list and… to be honest, save for the local bands who are usually playing around Toronto anyway, I don’t know hardly any of them. I’d certainly like to make it out to a couple of the shows this year, but am going to need some guidance on what’s worth seeing. Recommendations anyone? I like what I’ve heard of Catlow and Marah put on a good show, but otherwise nothing’s jumping out at me.

Billboard talks to Sleater-Kinney about the writing process of their new album, The Woods. Word is is that this is their heaviest album yet, and I believe it – the audio clip on their webpage nearly blew my speakers.

Drowned In Sound interviews British Sea Power siblings Yan and Hamilton. British Sea Power are at Lee’s next Tuesday.

Portastatic have completed a new album, Bright Ideas, slated for release in August. The last Portastatic album was practically a Superchunk record anyway, so it’s hard to be disappointed that Mac is concentrating on the side-project these days, but still – I hope this isn’t a sign that the ‘Chunk are going to be in mothballs for the long term.

Stream half the new Pernice Brothers album off their shiny new website. The stuff certainly sounds different from the solo acoustic renditions, that’s for sure. Discover A Lovelier You, out June 14, seems to continue to mark Joe’s progression further and further away from the orchestrated pop of his first few records and into more rock territory.

Someone please remind me when this comes out, please?

Daily Yomiuri previews the Canadian Wet tour hitting Japan this weekend. Via Pop (All Love).

Here are my photos from Wednesday night’s Mountain Goats show. And as a chaser, check out Zoilus’ piece on The Sunset Tree from last week’s Globe & Mail.

My stereo amplifier, an NAD 302, sounds great but is old school and has no remote. I, being lazy, don’t like having to get up and walk over to it everytime I want to switch a source or adjust the volume. Buying a new integrated amp just to address this seems unnecessary and buying a receiver is also not in the plans at this time, so I am going to build a remote. I figure a length of wooden dowel around 2 meters long will be sufficient to let me poke the channel buttons from my couch. I haven’t figured out how I’m going to handle the volume knob, though. Maybe magnets.

np – Swervedriver / Ejector Seat Reservation

The Mountain Goats were in T.O. last night. I’ve been pumped for this show for some time now, so let’s get into it.

I mean it in the most complimentary way when I say that Minneapolis’ Jeff Hanson, the first opener last night, sounds like a girl. He looked like a pretty normal, somewhat stocky midwestern dude in a hoodie, and his speaking voice is pretty nondescript, but when he sings, it’s like HIGH. One review I read described him as Elliott Smith if he were a girl, and while I can see where they’re coming from, I don’t really agree. Hanson’s stuff didn’t have that desperately sad undercurrent that Smith’s did (which probably bodes well for his mental health) and his guitar playing, while impressive, is less intricate. But combined with that voice, it definitely gave his stuff an otherworldly quality that should make him a standout in the extremely crowded “dude with an acoustic guitar” genre. Worth watching out for.

All I knew about Austin’s Shearwater was that they share some members with Okkervil River, an act about whom I know about as much as I do about Shearwater… I was, however, immediately taken in by their hauntingly fragile country-pop. Some random reference points would be Misra label-mates Centro-Matic and Sparklehorse with a dash of recent Wilco thrown in for good measure – not much surprise then, that I liked them a lot. The sonic cacaphony that closed out their set sounded very Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and while it sounded a little out of place with the delicacy of the rest of their set, I applaud the effort to bring a little more to the table. I picked up a copy of their latest full-length, Winged Life, and hope it measures up to the live show.

Judging from the size and enthusiasm of the crowd at Lee’s Palace last night by the time the headliners too the stage, I’d say some people here have been waiting a very long time for the Mountain Goats to come to town. A decade’s worth of pent-up requests came flying at John Darnielle over the course of their show, forcing him to apologize for no longer knowing how to play some of them. But what he didn’t play he made up for with what he did play. performing mainly as a two piece, Darnielle and co-conspirator Peter Hughes’ set list covered the breadth of the Mountain Goats’ repetoire, from the early boombox-fidelity compositions (which probably never sounded better than they do live) through the recent, more polished 4AD records. I was a little surprised that they didn’t concentrate more on The Sunset Tree, but maybe they knew that the audience would be clamoring for everything and they had best oblige.

Thanks to the stripped-down arrangement and super-clean mix, Darnielle’s frantic guitar playing and high, nasal vocals were loud and clear and well complimented by Hughes’ loping, melodic bass playing and backing vocals. Although it was just the two of them, it never sounded thin or musically lacking. Three-quarters of the way through they brought out members of Shearwater to fill out the sound for the remainder of the main set, but even their contributions were kept relatively sparse. All in all it sounded great, and hearing the songs performed live only reinforces the fact that Darnielle is one of the best songwriters around. His writing ranges from joyous, depressing, poignant, angry and wickedly funny – sometimes all in the same verse, let alone the same song.

Darnielle himself was quite the funny frontman, quite enthused by the response from the crowd and frequently bantering with the audience, declaring his love for Toronto for bringing the world The Junior Boys (though we was corrected that they’re actually from Hamilton – but points for knowing where Hamilton was). He and Hughes were also a good deal more animated on stage than I’d expected, constantly moving about onstage and making use of the open real estate. The set was relatively short – playing just over an hour, including two encores, they left the crowd hollering for more but I suspect that even if they played three hours, people still wouldn’t have been satisfied. It was a fantastic show, one of the best of the year so far, and I only hope it doesn’t take them another ten years to come back to Toronto. I’ll go through my photos tonight and have them up tomorrow. Hey, it was late, I was tired. Update: Photos are now up.

Tiny Mix Tapes offers up a succinct review of the new Nine Inch Nails album.

Taking advantage of the break between tours, Wilco axeman Nels Cline brings the Nels Cline Singers to Toronto on May 20, tickets $20. The Rotate This webpage says they’re at the Silver Dollar, Nels’ website says Tranzac. One or the other. I’d think about going to this, but that’d be five shows in six nights and by god, as we’ve already established, I am not a young man anymore. Update: Looks like it’s at the Silver Dollar. More info here.

The Great Pumpkin, Billy Corgan, will be at the Carlu on July 2 to pimp his solo album, TheFutureEmbrace (no spaces, please), out June 21. In case you didn’t know, The Carlu is the fancy ballroom dealie on the 7th floor of College Park at the corner of Yonge and College. I hear it’s pretty swank.

Anton Newcome and The Brian Jonestown Massacre hold court at Lee’s Palace on July 27. Tickets $10.50.

Damn, thanks for everyone who left me birthday greetings in yesterday’s comments and by email. That’s far and away a new record for comments – now I know how it feels to be Stereogum on a slow day.

It is the middle of May. Why the hell is there a wind chill? Stupid capricious weather gods.

np – Shearwater / Winged Life