Can I let you in on a little secret? I don’t really like The Fiery Furnaces. I have a couple of their records and find them perplexing and fascinating and artistically audacious, but enjoyable? I dunno about that. Some of it I like, some of it I don’t. Their new album, Rehearsing My Choir, I couldn’t take. That’s great that they’re bonding with grandma and creating something undeniably unique, but I found it damn near unlistenable.

So what, praytell, was I doing at Lee’s Palace last night seeing The Fiery Furnaces live? Well, as I understood it, no matter what you thought of the Furnaces on record, you had to see them live, if just for the spectacle. And I’m all about spectacle. Unfortunately, spectacle was in short order last night. Splitting the set between older material and the new stuff probably prevented them from doing the non-stop medley thing I’d heard so much about – or maybe they’re just over that. The energy onstage was also lessened by the fact that Eleanor Friedberger was nursing a bad cold – as it was, I give her full marks for making it through the hour and a half-long set, she was looking rough up there.

I have to say, I like the Fiery Furnaces quite a bit more live than I do on album. What can come across as overly artsy and precious on record gets a good dose of frantic energy in the live setting, making their rather unique carnival-punk a lot easier to get into. Even the Rehearsing My Choir material was a lot more enjoyable without their grandmother singing the material. The crowd seemed to dig the new stuff but then they were hearing Eleanor sing it… we’ll see how they like the actual album when it comes out later this month. I know some people who have heard the album and love Gramma Sanatos, but I suspect Fiery Furnaces fans are probably a little more inherently eccentric in what they do and don’t dig. But I digress. The Choir stuff was sandwiched between big chunks of Blueberry Boat and Gallowsbird Bark material, which naturally were the crowd pleasers, even when they were musically inverted in their live incarnations. Despite Eleanor’s sorry physical state – you felt sorry watching her struggle through the set – they still came out and performed an encore nearly half as long as the main one. So maybe not the spectacle I was hoping for, but still definitely a good show.

I showed up late and missed the ubiquitous Apostle Of Hustle, who opened things up. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen Mr Whiteman’s outfit live without ever actually making an effort, so I’m sure I’ll catch him another time. Another consequence of being fashionably late was getting stuck fairly far back from the stage – thus the photos are nothing to write home about. Oh well, can’t win ’em all.

JAM! talks to Feist in advance of a show in her hometown of Calgary and she reveals a bit about her plans for both a live record and new studio album in 2006.

Paste follows My Morning Jacket on the road and through the making of Z. I may have been ambievalent about Z in my post last week, but the critics are more convinced about its greatness.

A dose of Death Cab – interviews with The A/V Club and New City Chicago. Links via Largehearted Boy.

Pitchfork reviews the second series of the Directors Label DVDs. Though I’m not the biggest fan of many of the artists these directors have done work for, you don’t necessarily have to like the music to appreciate the films. Check out the trailer for the new DVDs here.

Metacritic is now collecting TV reviews! Thanks to the newly independent My Mean Magpie for the tip.

A recent study on national personalities shakes a fundamental pillar of the Canadian identity to its very core – Canadians aren’t nicer than Americans.

np – Trespassers William / Different Stars

If you were looking for a high concentration of people who value pop music over family last night (including yours truly), the Phoenix would have been a good place to start. Though not quite sold out, it was packed to the gills with folks skipping out on Thanksgiving dinner in order to spend some quality time with The New Pornographers and their extended family. It was a good sized crowd, one that still probably wouldn’t have filled one-third of the Docks, where this show was originally booked. Though it caused grief for the underagers, going from all-ages to licensed, it surely made for a better experience.

I’d seen Immaculate Machine once before, a couple years ago at Wavelength. I have to admit, though, I wasn’t paying too much attention to them since my band was on after them and I was a little preoccupied. And though we played the best show of our (brief) career, they’re the ones still at it and playing the Phoenix on one of the hottest tours of the Fall, so I guess they win. The cynical might have assumed they were only on this bill because of nepotism (singer Kathryn Calder is head Pornographer Carl Newman’s neice), so in that sense Immaculate Machine had something to prove. I admit I fell somewhat in that camp, but am happy to report that after seeing them power through their half-hour set, it doesn’t matter how they got the gig because they deserve it. I didn’t remember them being this good two years ago, that’s for sure. The songs were catchy, the musicianship was good and the multi-part vocals solid. These kids know their way around a pop song, and while they might be a couple albums or good producer away from doing something really special, they’ve got the goods to do so.

Destroyer, I’ve never listened to. I quite like Dan Bejar’s contributions to the New Pornographers but was always afraid, in the back of my mind, that outside the rigid pop structures of the New Pr0ns that his solo work would be too whacked out for me to really like, and then I’d feel like an uncouth savage. I knew a few people in attendance who had made a point of saying that they were really going just to see Destroyer and were mostly indifferent to the Pornographers. That seemed kind of silly, since their nearly $30 ticket netted them exactly half an hour of Dan Bejar’s idiosyncratic, skewed-blues singer-songwriter material. Though completely unfamiliar with the material, I was still able to enjoy listening to Bejar’s curiously elastic voice and found his set intriguing. I may have to investigate Destroyer’s work further, maybe with the new album Destroyer’s Rubies when it comes out in February.

This New Pornographers tour was not one to be missed as far as fans were concerned, since it would feature the complete lineup for the first and possibly/probably last time. Dan Bejar had never gone on the road with them before, thus forcing them to shelve some of their best material till now, and coordinating tours with Neko Case’s schedule will only get more difficult as her solo star continues to rise. Maybe they’ll pull it together again for occasional shows, but I really doubt they’ll be able to stage a full tour like this again – it’s a damn good thing, then, that they put on a show to remember. From the opening chords of “Twin Cinema”, the band unleashed a non-stop attack of irresistable pop hooks that got everyone (around me, anyway) dancing, clapping and generally carrying on. Pure pop goodness, one song after another. I needed insulin.

Despite playing as a seven-piece (eight whenever Dan Bejar wandered onstage, beer in hand, to take vocals on one of his songs), the sound was perfectly balanced between guitars and keys and gave the multi-part vocals plenty of room to take the fore. Not surprisingly, the loudest cheers came whenever Neko took the mic, but for my money the finest vocal moments came on Bejar’s songs, when he, Case and Newman all harmonized with their totally distinct but simpatico voices. Throw in more harmonies from Calder and drummer Kurt Dahle and it was almost too much to take. They packed a lot of songs (and some mildly awkward attempts at stage banter) into an hour-fifteen – from the number of requests shouted out during the two encores, they didn’t get to everyone’s favourites but I can’t imagine anyone left the show disappointed.

Photos! The lighting was bright, if oddly-coloured this time around. And since they relied mostly on the stage lights behind the band, those of us up front got cooked just as much, if not more, than the band. Not a huge variety in shots but when you’ve got that many people onstage, moving-around real estate tends to be limited.

East coast Calexico/Iron & Wine tour dates are starting to come to light. No Toronto date yet, but seeing as how they’re in Montreal on December 8 and Detroit on December 10, it stands to reason they’ll need to stop for gas halfway down the 401 in Toronto sometime around the 9th. I’m guessing they’ll be at The Phoenix, hopefully not the Opera House.

Here’s an interesting idea – local booking agents Emerge now has a blog. No teases about upcoming shows, but the set time information is handy.

RIP, Tom Cheek. Tom was the radio announcer for the Toronto Blue Jays from their first game back in 1977 through June of last year when he had to step down first to attend his father’s funeral, and then to treat the brain cancer that ultimately took his life. I listened to many, many baseball games called by him and partner Jerry Howarth. A sad day for Toronto baseball fans. Friends and associates reminisce.

Happy Thanksgiving!

np – Mark Eitzel / Demos Before Love Songs

The Joggers / With A Cape And A Cane (Star Time) The Joggers don’t sound like they come from Portland. If I were none the wiser, I’d have placed their point of origin firmly across the Atlantic. With A Cape And A Cane, the title of which the band insists has nothing to do with Aleister Crowley, sounds like a mish mash of Blur and The Fall, thanks mainly to singer Ben Whiteside’s mealy-mouthed, Brit-affected vocal delivery. Musically, they trade in the sort of herky-jerky, stop-start vaguely funky brand of indie rock that’s so popular with the indie kids these days, which would account for the minor buzz that currently surrounds the band. It all sounds simultaneously interesting and not – there’s lots going on on a sonic level, but the songs don’t quite have the pop hooks to make listening enjoyable beyond the cerebral. Perhaps further listens would be more revealing, but I suspect my tolerance for Whiteside’s voice would run out before that happened. Hear some of The Joggers at MySpace. With A Cape And A Cane came out on September 27th and they’re at Sneaky Dee’s on November 14.

The Sharp Things / Foxes & Hounds (Bar None) New York’s Sharp Things prove that massive musical collectives aren’t strictly a Canadian phenomenon. Boasting ten players (at least that’s how many get their pictures on the website), The Sharp Things are the brainchild of pianist Perry Serpa. Foxes & Hounds is a sprawling throwback of an album that draws heavily on the grandiose chamber pop of the ’60s, obvious touchstones being The Left Banke and Burt Bacharach, with some R&B flourishes and some decidedly modern touches like the squalling guitar solo in “The Suicide Bombers”. Serpa’s voice isn’t always quite up to the task of pulling off the range and melodies that the songs call for, but laid overtop of the sweeping string- and horn-laden arrangements, but hearing it strain that little bit actually gives it all a pleasant dose of humanity. Great Sunday listening (as I’m doing right now). Hear some Sharp Things at MySpace.

Heroes Of Switzerland Heroes Of Switzerland are not a band comprised of the Ricola guys, but a new British four-piece celebrating the release of their debut album, Disposable Fiction. Some press likens them to recently departed fellow Nottingham natives Six By Seven, but while there are some similarities in the dense sheets of guitar and high energy, but favour a more in-your face attack than the twisted tension and release of 6×7. The band’s strengths definitely lie with the rhythm section – drums are thunderous and nimble and lock in nicely with the weaving bass. On the other hand, the guitars are of a rather conventional indie style, the vocals tend to be rather buried and the songwriting is not especially remarkable. All in all though, a solid if somewhat conventional effort. Check out the title track from the EP: MP3: Heroes Of Switzerland – “Disposable Fiction”

np – Antony And The Johnsons / I Am A Bird Now

Going into last night’s Rob Dickinson show at the Horseshoe, there were a few questions that remained unanswered. Who was opening? When they promised Rob solo, did they mean solo from Catherine Wheel or solo from anyone else, acoustic troubadour style? And who, more than one person asked when I told them what I was doing last night, was Rob Dickinson?

I won’t bother addressing the last question, because it makes me feel old. And to the first question, I have no idea. I arrived just as Rob’s set was starting and the sandwich board out front only read “& guests”. Not even “special guests”. No one I talked to knew who I missed. Finally, as for the configuration, the answer was both and neither. Rob was indeed playing acoustically, but he brought along a second guitarist and keyboardist and was definitely not above running his Taylor acoustic through a bank of pedals. This unconventional configuration necessitated a rearrangement of most of the songs from Rob’s new album Fresh Wine For The Horses, but it worked really well. There wasn’t a lot of hard, fast material in the set so the bed of acoustic guitars and thick keyboards did a fine job of laying the musical bed for Rob’s amazing vocals to soar over.

I had forgotten how powerful his voice is – though it broke and rasped at a few points, Dickinson managed to remind everyone that he probably has one of the best voices anywhere in rock music. Warm and chatty with the adoring crowd (the ‘Shoe was near packed – Toronto has always been freakishly adoring of the Catherine Wheel), he was able to switch it into raw intensity as soon as the music started. Goosebump-inducing. The bulk of the set was drawn from Fresh Wine, which is actually a better record than I had expected, but he naturally closed things out with Catherine Wheel material – the main set with a gorgeous “Heal” and the encore with “Future Boy” and “Black Metallic”. Even with the stripped down band configuration, they managed to create a convincing wall of sound that retained all the majesty of the fully amplified album versions. I don’t know if Rob is going to get the tour support from Sanctuary to continue touring his record, but even if he doesn’t, I’m sure it’s comforting to know that he’ll always be able to pack a house with the faithful in Toronto.

Since I arrived late, there was no fighting my way through the wall of big dudes to get up front. I did manage to squeeze close enough in to get some decent pics. They really had Rob lit up really well on stage – and he was sweating buckets as a result. That’s the price of rock, Rob.

Zoilus’ secret identity of Carl Wilson has a piece in today’s Globe & Mail about the re-emergence of the storyteller in indie rock, using upcoming shows by The Decemberists (October 13th @ The Phoenix), The Fiery Furnaces (October 10 @ Lee’s Palace) and Destroyer (October 9 @ The Phoenix) to make his point.

Starting this week and running every week through December, American Analog Set will be making available demos for every song from their new album Set Free on their website. Go to the “recordings” section of their site to grab the first one, for “Immaculate Heart”. And thank them by going to see them at the Horseshoe on November 13. Thanks to Andy from the Galaxie 500 mailing list (and a defunct AmAnSet fanpage) for the info.

Stylus has finished compiling their week-long countdown of the 50 best movies of the ’90s ’00s. If you don’t feel like scrolling down, The Royal Tennenbaums takes top spot, to no one’s surprise considering Stylus’ demographic. I’m not challenging the selection, just saying that when I saw it, I though, “figures”. Myself, I’ve seen 30 of these 50, more than I’d expected. I guess that explains why I can never find anything to rent at the video store. I’ve already seen most of the good stuff.

np – Bob Dylan / The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 – Concert at Philharmonic Hall

Manchester’s Elbow and I got off on entirely the wrong foot. Their debut album Asleep In The Back came out when I was at prety much the nadir of my Britpop interest. I’d heard a track or two on some compilations but it didn’t quite grab me enough to pursue. I had a very low tolerance for anything that sounded remotely Coldplay-ish so into the “ignore” pile they went. Fast-forward four years to the release of their third album, Leaders Of The Free World. I’m feeling much more generous to music from the UK these days, and the glowing reviews piqued my interest. Thanks to the good folks at V2, I got a copy of the new album to investigate.

Short answer? It’s very good. There isn’t much in the way of pop hooks to catch the ear on early listens, but that’s because the true strengths of the record move deeper below the surface, moving slowly with great weight and determination. It actually took me a little while to identify what it was that I was hearing from this record – it sounded familiar, yet long-forgotten. It wasn’t like my alt.country records, or my shoegaze stuff, or pure pop. Then it hit me – this is rock. Not ironic cock-rock bullshit or fake aggro suburban metal, but thoughtful, muscular-yet-delicate, singularly British epic rock the likes of which Radiohead used to make and which I used to love. That love affair ended not just because my tastes changed but because there didn’t seem to be any more purveyors of the style after the ‘Head went all Kid A on us.

Over the course of 49 minutes, Leaders Of The Free World swells, soars and offers drama, gravitas and emotion while avoiding the pitfalls of pretentiousness or preciousness. The instrumentation is as lush or austere as required, anchored by singer-guitarist Guy Garvey’s elastic rasp which reminds me more than just a little of Peter Gabriel. Upon rereading the last few paragraphs, I wonder if I might be a little over-effusive with my praise – it sort of sounds like I’m anointing Leaders Of The Free World the album of the year. I’m not. It’s good, surprisingly so, but it’s not changed my world. What it has done, and I’m thankful to it for this, is re-introduced and reinvigorated a style of music I’d wrtten off and/or forgotten about.

Though the album has been out for a little while now, the media machine hasn’t caught on yet – I’ve been able to find very little link-worthy press. Just this piece from Manchester Online wherein they talk to the hometown boys about the making of Leaders Of The Free World. If there’s any justice, however, this album will get the attention it deserves – it surely stomps on much more hyped 2005 albums from the likes of Oasis and Coldplay.

Soaring With Eagles points us to this interview with Metric in UofT newspaper The Varsity. We say thanks. Gothamist also has an interview (via Prefix).

Feist talks to The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix because, let’s face it, there’s nothing else to do in Saskatoon. Via LHB.

Macleans profiles/reviews Broken Social Scene/Broken Social Scene. I got my copy yesterday. One-listen impression? It’s a dense album and will take some time to dig through. You Forgot It In People was the same way, but there were the all-out pop numbers to bring you back to the surface for air – not so much on this one. I expect/hope that it will still ultimately prove as enjoyable/rewarding, but time will tell the tale.

And speaking of Metric and Feist and Broken Social Scene, Under The Radar loves Canada. We love you too.

Tom Vek is at the Drake on November 10. Wanna know a secret? I have no idea who Tom Vek is. I only posted this because I’ve seen his name on other cool kids blogs. What should I know about him?

More Bob Mould news – Billboard reports that tonight’s show in Washington, DC will be recorded for release as a live DVD. And after the current full-band electric tour wraps up, Mould will hit the road again for an acoustic tour – no Toronto date for that one, though.

eye’s comic-friendly column The Panelist closes out its last column with a profile of Neil Gaiman, who is in town tomorrow for a reading of Anansi Boys. It appears eye is rebranding themselves in a few weeks time and from the look of the ads in this week’s issue, they’re going for a “sick”, “suggestive” and “penetrating” direction. Eww.

np – Broken Social Scene / Broken Social Scene