Today’s post is all bits and pieces, so instead of trying to elevate one of those to the coveted “lead story” slot, I’m just going to go with this Mr T video. Treat your mother right! Full story on the origins of this masterpiece here. Yeah, Stereogum posted this a few months ago but I didn’t see it, so maybe you haven’t either. And really, you should. I called my Mom on Monday, so I’m all good.

Maria Taylor talks to NOW about growing up in the South and going solo. I still have passes for her show tomorrow night, just email me! Please? I get so lonely sometimes.

Arcade Fire, you’ve got the biggest-selling record in the history of Merge Records, you’ve toured all around the world and are the darlings of the indie rock set. What are you going to do next? Buy a church. Oh. Okay. MTV.com has a more expansive interview with the band.

Coolfer wonders out loud just what it means to be indie in this day and age and if the term is obsolete. Death Cab plays case study.

Seattle Weekly asks Joe Pernice what it’s like living in Toronto.

“Toronto—Canada—is so different in so many little ways. It freaks me out a little. It’s like, ‘Is the blue money a five? Is the pink money a 10?’ And all their Kit-Kats are in red wrappers, not orange. It’s not right. I’m very much in a period of adjustment. But I love it. Toronto is a beautiful city; I don’t even drive there because I don’t have to. I walk everywhere.”

We love you too, Joe. From Coolfer.

Billboard talks to Sufjan Stevens about how the Superman imbroglio may or may not have a deliberate PR stunt. Or at least that’s my take on it.

My Morning Jacket’s Jim Jones talks to Pitchfork about forthcoming album Z, out October 4. Stereogum has one of the new tracks available to download – it’s… very very different.

Hello, Newman wonders if Broken Social Scene is the new Grateful Dead. You know, having witnessed the single-minded rabidness of some of their fans, I think I may have to get behind Evan on this one.

Michael Penn is doing two nights at the Rivoli, September 28 and 29. His latest, Mr Hollywood Jr, 1947, is out August 2.

It appears my post singing the praises of The National has fallen off the front page so I will give them more props with this link to Welcome To The Midwest, who has mp3s from their radio session for KEXP.

Jeff Tweedy tells JAM! he’s feeling pretty good.

Torontoist week in shows here. Teenage Fanclub on Monday! Woot! The Toronto Star (Bugmenot) is similarly excited.

20 things that only happen in movies (via Goldenfiddle).

HotOrNot.com + Google Maps = A whole new world of stalking possibilities. This just doesn’t seem right.

Server hiccup this morning. Sorry.

np – Sianspheric / RGB

Hot on the heels of my Jason Lowenstein contest (good show last night? Everyone enjoy themselves? Good), here’s another – I’ve got five pairs of passes to see Maria Taylor, touring in support of her first solo album, 11:11, and Statistics at the El Mocambo this Friday night, July 22. As always, first five emails get on the guest list – BUT, this time, there’s a skill-testing question. To win, you have to name the band Ms Taylor was in before striking out solo that’s NOT Orenda Fink, but couldn’t really get into the super-hushed style they pursued with Azure Ray. It was all quite lovely – their voices are gorgeous both separate and together – but it was just a little too insubstantial to really get my attention. From the sounds of it, 11:11 is an natural evolution from Azure Ray – light electronic flourishes and languidly pretty, but not quite so whispery. The mp3s I’ve linked below actually sound quite good. Orenda Fink’s own solo debut, Invisible Ones, will be out on August 23 and it will be interesting to see if she mixes things up a bit or if you could shuffle play her record with Maria’s and essentially get the third Azure Ray album.

MP3: Maria Taylor – “Song Beneath The Song”

MP3: Maria Taylor – “Speak Easy”

Pitchfork has the straight-from-the-assaultee’s mouth story of Broken Social Scene producer Dave Newfeld’s run in with the New York City Police Department last weekend. He didn’t do anything, he swears.

The Fall concert season continues to fill up. Dirty old men Louis XIV are at the Mod Club on September 2 and Portastatic tours in support of their new album Bright Ideas, out August 23, with a stop at Lee’s Palace on September 12. Labelmates Tenement Halls support. Finally, Son Volt v2.0 rolls into the Opera House on October 17.

And speaking of Mr Farrar, he gives Amazon.com a list of recommended listening. Via LHB. I haven’t heard Okemah & The Melody Of Riot yet. Does it have riotous melody or is that just false advertising? Reviews have been kind of lukewarm, but when you’re talking about Jay, you have to take it with a grain of salt. He’s never going to change or surprise you – he’s just going to keep doing what he’s doing and if you like it, you like it. After all, as the New York Times eloquently puts it, “the band’s underlying, stubborn seriousness, and nearly Amish unwillingness to change, creates its appeal”. Amen.

Season two of Arrested Development is out on DVD October 11 and season three debuts September 14! A Wednesday? I think I will be in Stockholm that night. Don’t think I’ll be catching it.

And finally, big congratulations to Vic and Liz on the birth of their first child, Rosie. Vic is the guy who introduced me to the world of blogging, and for that he will have my eternal thanks/scorn.

That PayPal class action lawsuit has just netted me a cool $8 USD for doing nothing. This litigation thing is a gold mine!

This daylight savings time extension thing is nuts. What are you guys south of the border smoking?

np – Drive-By Truckers / Decoration Day

Pernice Brothers live and Pernice Brothers on record have traditionally been two rather different propositions. The albums usually utilized a wide range of instrumental textures and orchestration that were difficult to reproduce live, so they were rearranged for a more rocking onstage delivery – just compare the album versions of earlier songs on the Nobody’s Listening live album. But with 2003’s Yours, Mine & Ours, Joe Pernice made the subtle but significant move of dispensing with strings and writing around a more conventional band structure. While the songs maintained his pop smarts and lyrical wit and melancholy, the musical component got more upbeat and electric guitar-driven. The latest album Discover A Lovelier You continues this trend, most obviously indulging Pernice’s love of 80s new wave and British indie.

So with the albums moving steadily towards the rock end of things, would that mean that the recordings and live shows would finally be reflections of one another? In a word, no. Based on last night’s show at Lee’s Palace, it would seem that they’re reining things in a little – the arrangements sounded a little thinner than usual. Maybe it’s that new drummer Patrick Berkery isn’t as aggressive on the kit as his predecessors Mike Belitsky and Ric Menck or maybe it that Joe chose to play exclusively acoustic guitar (though probably a wise choice considering how much he was sweating onstage – an electric would have shorted out within three songs). Whatever it was, the show started out disappointingly flat. The mix was exceedingly quiet, with vocals in particular buried and the opening few songs off Discover were rather laid back in delivery. The oppressive heat certainly didn’t help, as warm as it was in the audience it was surely many times hotter under the stage lights. Thankfully the band picked things up as the night progressed, though there were still some audible flubs and missed changes at a few points. By the end of the night, energy levels were considerably higher, Joe seemed to have given up trying to towel the sweat off his face and guitar and set closer “7:30” was as rousing as you would have hoped (though Peyton Pinkerton and James Walbourne’s backing vocals on the “ba ba ba” outro were still way too quiet).

It wasn’t the best performance of theirs I’d seen, but it still turned out decent enough for the modest Monday night crowd. The stagelights that were causing Joe to lose several pounds in sweat did allow for some decent photos, though. It’d been a little while since I’d shot a show in a club. Just like falling off a bike, which is something else I’ve had practice at lately. And thanks to Thierry of Let It Blog for pre-emptively informing me that the final song of the encore was “Doll in a Music Box”, from the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack. This bit of trivia was given in exchange for never asking how he knew this.

Shows – Bloc Party are at The Docks September 12. Someone REALLY needs to open another medium-large venue in this town. Really. There’s something terribly wrong when you pine for the cozy environs of the Kool Haus. A good show in a good venue, for example, will be Bob Mould bringing his Body Of Song to the Mod Club on October 2. Also, Nada Surf are at Lee’s Palace on October 12 with Say Hi To Your Mom, tickets $13.50.

JAM! documents the summer of Kathleen Edwards, which, incidentally, she is blogging intermittently over at her website (in the News section).

Pop (All Love) questions the shelf life of Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, and nominates his own top 10 albums of recent years that Mojo will still be fawning over decades down the line. Tongue planted only lightly in cheek. I think.

Bradley’s Almanac has mp3s from Dinosaur Jr’s sort-of homecoming show in Boston from last Friday. He manages to make me feel bad that I was scrubbing dirt and grime off my balcony instead of having my eardrums demolished by J, Lou and Murph, but the audio is good and by God, that balcony is clean now. He also gives Jason Lowenstein some love – that contest from yesterday is still open, email me by, say, noon if you want to get on the guest list for tonight’s show. Only a couple spots left! Contest closed! Thanks for playing, winners, hope you enjoy the show. Come back tomorrow, I’ve got another one starting up.

np – Ride / Live at the Town & Country, London – March 1991

I don’t trust one-man bands. I’m not talking about those guys with the kick drum on their back and cymbals between their knees. I’m talking about those sun-deprived looking guys who create entire musical manifestos in their basements. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always been a fan of the “band” – music created out of the chemistry of several individuals playing together rather than someone adding overdubs atop themselves ad nauseum. Not that that approach can’t yield great results, it just seems… less rock. And I also think it helps to have someone able to act as a bulwark against self-indulgence. There is great value in having someone around who is able to say, “dude, that sucks”.

So the eponymous debut album from Nottingham, UK’s unfortunately-named Amusement Parks On Fire is a pleasant surprise in that sense. Everything on the album was written and performed by one Michael Feerick, but instead of being over-laboured and collapsing under itself, it’s a cohesive, organic and gloriously dense work with big anthemic numbers interspersed with quieter, piano- or string-led interludes. The pacing can get somewhat predictable, but over the 43 minute running time, it’s acceptable. APoF is shoegaze in the same way that you can call M83 shoegaze – the sonic influences are unmistakable, but the songwriting trades the navel-gazing tendencies of their mid-90s forebears for a much more bombastic and aggressive style of writing. It can get melodramatic, yes, but what can you do. When it hits, it’s epic.

In the case of APOF, there’s the requisite huge sheets of guitar recalling My Bloody Valentine with just-enough space to allow vocals texturally reminiscent of Swervedriver’s Adam Franklin to creep through. Feerick combines this voice with an earnest, angsty delivery that imply the presence of more than a few American emo-rock records in the author’s collection. I’m willing to forgive the last point because at barely 20 years of age, Feerick no doubt still has issues to get out of his system. I expect better things from him in the future. The solo thing got him through the making of the record bue he’s since assembled a band for the purpose of translating it into live entity. The album was released in North America at the end of May and there was some select US touring to support, but nothing up this way as of yet. Maybe when he/they return for more touring in September/October (I believe they’re playing CMJ).

There’s a sample MP3 available from the good people at Filter, who are apparently a record label as well as a magazine. Check out some of the PR hype machine. They’re also running a contest for you to win APOF schwag. You can hear more audio at APoF’s MySpace page.

MP3: Amusement Parks On Fire – “Venus In Cancer”

A cute animated video for Bloc Party’s “Pioneers”. And by cute, I mean mildly nightmarish.

Supergrass enters their second decade with the release of Road To Rouen on August 30.

The official bio for The New Pornographers features a track-by-track breakdown of Twin Cinema courtesy of Carl Newman. Damn you, Docks. Damn you.

Check it out – got another quickie contest on the go. Anyone who wants to go see Jason Lowenstein, Neva Dinova and May Day at Lee’s Palace tomorrow night (show starts at 9pm, headliner at 10:50), shoot me an email. First five emails get two spots on the guest list, next five emails get rodent porn sent back to them. I’m not even going to make you answer a skill-testing question because, well, I haven’t had time to come up with one. But I’ve got another of these coming up in a couple days and that one you’re going to have to work for a little. But just a little.

np – Crooked Fingers / Dignity And Shame

Stirrings in the land of Spiritualized! Their website has been updated with Quicktime video footage of the band recording the follow-up to 2003’s disappointing Amazing Grace. Hopes that the next album will be a return to form are encouraged by the big organ sounds that start off the clip, but discouraged by the Les Paul-powered blues riffing heard throughout… Good intensity on those handclaps, though. Click on the Medication link to see for yourself.

The Hidden Cameras give Chart a look at what’s happening in their world over the next while, including their upcoming European tour, their new album Awoo which is due out next February or March and their new Learning To Lie 7″ EP which acts as a teaser for the new record.

So I spent the weekend in Niagara Falls for the second part of my brother’s stag. It was actually all quite PG, mainly just going to Buffalo for wings at The Anchor Bar and then back to the Canadian side for some quality time at the casino. I’d completely forgotten how to play blackjack since I was in Vegas last February so I just amused myself at the slots, not that losing $20 in just under five minutes can really be considered amusing. I was really too tired from being out late and drunk the past few nights so I mostly just hung out. Interesting observations about Niagara Falls, where I hadn’t been in some years. Apparently if you’re in a top-40 cover band and need a place to play, that’s the town for you. Every bar seemed to have its own combo playing proficient versions of the soundtrack to my college years. And the main drag is now almost as loud and tacky as the Strip in Vegas, though with more wax museums and without the swarms of people cramming flyers for strip clubs and hookers into your pockets.

I am beat. Such a long, exhausting weekend. Dinosaur Jr tonight? Not going to happen. Noooo way.