So Pitchfork is first out of the gates with tour dates for current hipster darlings Clap Your Hands Say Yeah which include a September 18 date at the Horseshoe. Incidentally, that is the date I will be living it up in Tallinn, Estonia. I’m not so upset about missing the CYHSY show – what I’ve heard is alright but hasn’t really set my world ablaze – but I am mighty sore about missing out on their tourmates The National.

Since taking a flyer on their Alligator album in the used bins last week, I’ve been absolutely LOVING the album. I don’t know if I’m as frothing at the mouth as Stylus (more reviews at Metacritic), but I am wholly impressed. It’s moody, haunting and weary but pulls itself up of its barstool for episodes of anthemic glory at just the right moments. I am reminded of a gentler Afghan Whigs or an American Music Club reared in Gotham instead of Frisco, maybe even a little bit of Interpol if they were beatniks. Singer Matt Berninger possesses a baritone like a parallel dimension Leonard Cohen and a charming lyrical fixation with girls named Karen. Safe money puts Alligator on my year-end list. God, I hope they keep touring this record, I really want to see them.

You can stream Alligator here, courtesy of Beggars. Maybe it’s a grower – I was pretty much hooked after two listens.

That weekend I’ll also be missing the The Ear To The Ground festival, which takes over the Exhibition Place grounds September 16 through 18. They’re holding a launch party at the Gladstone next Tuesday night and will feature musical performances from Frontier Index and The Old Soul. A limited number of early bird passes for the festival will also go on sale ($40 for the whole weekend).

Show news – The New Pornographers show on October 9 really is at The Docks, tickets $22.50. Hear that? That’s the sound of that show being taken off my calendar. Regretfully, yes, but definitely so. Docks my ass. Trinity-St Paul’s turns into a full-on cabaret on October 1 when it hosts Antony & The Johnsons and CocoRosie, tickets $21.50. And finally, Ted Leo and his Pharmacists return for a show at the Mod Club on September 29, tickets $15. Ted is always a great show, I will be in attendance for certain. Oh, and Built To Spill are coming… to Rochester. Too bad that’s a Tuesday night otherwise a jaunt on the resurrected ferry might be in order. But no. No BTS for us.

The Toronto Star previews Sunday night’s Dinosaur Jr show at the Phoenix.

Speaking of which… here’s the Torontoist week in shows. Whee. Don’t forget the Torontoist party this Friday at the Embassy in Kensington. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend but many other lovely -Ist people will be there to entertain you with their witticisms. Because everyone knows bloggers are FAR more charming and clever in real life than online. Ahem. Yeah, that’s going to be a train wreck.

Brian K Vaughan is feeling the love. The newest trade paperback for Y – The Last Man came out yesterday. Some people are wetting themselves for the new Harry Potter on Saturday – this is what I’ve been waiting for for months. Sooo good, but even at eight collected issues, too short! Need more! Nurrr nurrr.

Check out this Globe & Mail article on music blogs for a couple of quotes from yours truly. This interview was conducted about a month ago and was considerably longer than what they’ve used in the piece. I’d like to say that they excised all the really good and clever stuff, but they didn’t. Pretty much everything I had to say was inconsequential – perfectly in character. Globe staffer Zoilus seems to find great amusement in the fact that if I happened to miss a day’s post, there would probably be good cause to send out police dogs in search of my corpse. I actually found that fact rather comforting when I was living alone, actually. It was like my own personal Lifecall service – “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up (to blog)!”

np – Crooked Fingers / Dignity And Shame

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