Calling it a freak scene is a little too obvious, no?

On June 23 at the Mod Club, one day before the Olympic Island festival, Broken Social Scene and J Mascis will join forces like Voltron and form Broken Mascis Scene – a one-off charity event for the Amma Foundation wherein they will perform songs from the Dinosaur Jr catalog at sure-to-be excruciating volumes. But really, if there was ever such a thing as a good kind of hurt, this would be it. It’s for a good cause and it’s probably your only chance ever to hear Kevin Drew sing “Raisans” or Feist tackle “Start Choppin'”. Tickets are $30 (charity, people!) and go on sale Thursday.

Tickets still remain for the Olympic Island gig though I’m wondering if the “more bands TBA” is going to come through anytime soon. For those whom this won’t slake their Broken Social thirst, the band will also be playing the WEMF – or World Electronic Music Festival – the weekend of July 23 up in Tweed, Ontario. BSS + electronic music festival + Tweed = WTF?

Jambands.com talks to Lou Barlow about the Dinosaur Jr reunion and his solo works. Why it’s just J at the Olympic Island fest and not Dino Jr, I do not know. And since neither band seems especially down with the free and legal MP3 thing, here’s some videos instead.

Video: Broken Social Scene – “Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better Day)” (MOV)
Video: Broken Social Scene – “7/4 (Shoreline)” (MOV)
Video: Dinosaur Jr – “Freak Scene” (YouTube)
Video: Dinosaur Jr – “The Wagon” (YouTube)

In keeping with the Marvel Team-Up theme of today’s post, I direct you to the new issue of Harp. It’s their “Red Hot + Cool” ish, which is basically an excuse to pull a whole bunch of artists together for a single photoshoot. The theme this year is “Rock Of Ages” so you’ve got a lot of old artist/new artist and “so-and-so was my inspiration” bits. There’s pieces on Steve Earle (article), Emmylou Harris (article), Jay Farrar (article), Josh Ritter (article), Kathleen Edwards (article), Allison Moorer (article) and in the duets portion of the show, Michael Stipe with Conor Oberst (article) and Tom Verlaine with Thurston Moore (article). Whew. I just bought the actual magazine so I don’t have to read all that online, but hey – don’t let me stop you.

And some footnotes – The Event Guide talks The Animal Years with Josh Ritter, Allison Moorer releases Getting Somewhere June 13, incidentally the same day that Bright Eyes plays Massey Hall. Verlaine and Television are at the Phoenix June 9 while Emmylou Harris is at the Molson Amphitheatre with Mark Knopfler June 19.

Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket, who incidentally were last year’s Harp-approved Red Hot + Cool artist, talks to Chart about the band getting back on track following Jim James’ bout with pneumonia at the end of last year while drummer Patrick Hallaran tells The Mercury News . Captain’s Dead has the audio from the band’s recent performance on Austin City Limits Torr).

Thanks to Neil for informing me that I was given a quick shout out in the June issue of Q magazine in the UK. I had a look at the blurb and it said I was witty (yay), American (boo) and covered obscure bands like Voxtrot and The Airfields as well as popular ones like The Strokes (say what?). I’d have bought a copy for my archives but it would have meant that I’d own a magazine with Oasis on the cover. No thanks.

Filmjunk brings tidings of good news that the first season of The Tick animated series will finally be making its way to DVD as The Tick: The Belated 10th Anniversary Edition. Note that it doesn’t say “complete first season” – that’s because of some legal issues (?), only twelve of the thirteen season one episodes will be in the set. Boo. And no extras. Boo. But The Tick! Yay.

np – Mojave 3 / Puzzles Like You