So hi and welcome to Chromewaves.net v7.0. Now 50% cleaner and lighter with no unpleasant aftertaste. I’ve needed a facelift for some time and now, here it is. You like? Thanks to Ms Renée Nault for the beautiful masthead – far nicer than the horribly dated rendered turntable I’ve been rocking for the past couple years.

While I’ve tried to ensure that the transition is as seamless as possible, I don’t doubt that there are some pages that are going to look weird or, at worst, not work at all – if you find one of these please let me know. But I’ll be making cosmetic tweaks through the weekend, getting this ride all pimped out, as the kids say.

Otherwise… yeah. Redesign. Woot.

Now I have to go watch The Office. Go Team Pam!

Matthew from I Heart Music has been riding me for a little while to check out Jetplanes Of Abraham – the band who topped his 20 Hottest Bands In Ottawa poll and whom he manages… pure coincidence, I’m assured. But they’ve got a clever name for those of us who took eighth grade Canadian history and were playing a free show at the Horseshoe this past Tuesday, so I bit.

There’s a Toronto band I’ve seen and written about a few times in the past called The Ghost Is Dancing, whom I liken to Arcade Fire overdosed on cane sugar and crack. Jetplanes remind me of The Ghost Is Dancing on ritalin (and therefore of an Arcade Fire on cane sugar and crack and ritalin, if you need a more universal frame of reference). The six-piece possess a similar giddy streak and joy in making music, but are less anarchic about it – more focused.

With a rotation of lead singers and heavy on the instrument swapping – often within a song – the Jetplanes were a whirlwind of activity onstage. Though they dress their songs up with sounds that have become de rigueur for Canadian indie rock – keys, violin, glockenspiel, melodica, extra snare drums, handclaps, shouted background vocals – underneath all that, the songwriting is fundamentally strong and they possess natural pop instincts that comes across quite strongly on their just-released debut self-titled full-length. Anchored by a very solid rhythm section (no matter who was playing bass at the time), their live show was quite good with some really excellent moments near the end of the set where they really began to coalesce into something joyous and special.

I’ve also had some time to spend with their album which has allowed me to offer a more considered assessment of the band. Clocking in at a compact 34 minutes (even more compact if you remove the three “interlude” instrumental bridging pieces), Jetplanes manage to cover a lot of stylistic ground from the pure pop of “Four Part Harmony” to the almost-disco groove of “Not Tonight” and the violin-lovely centrepiece “Complications, Fascination & Quitting Your Job”, yet sounding cohesive all the while. Rick Devereux, who takes the majority of lead vocals, has an interesting voice – sort of a cross between a holler and a croon – that I want to compare to a more powerful John Darnielle, despite the fact that I don’t think he really sounds anything like Darnielle. If I’ve a complaint, it’s what I stated earlier – the production and aesthetic they’re embracing is very much like what a lot of other young Canadian bands are going for these days and to my ears, at least, there’s not a whole lot of distance left to ride on that particular horse. Someday soon, someone is going to have to strike out and craft something new – I nominate Jetplanes Of Abraham.

Photos: Jetplanes Of Abraham @ The Horseshoe – November 14, 2006
MP3: Jetplanes Of Abraham – “Four Part Harmony”
MP3: Jetplanes Of Abraham – “Complications, Fascination & Quitting Your Job”
MySpace: Jetplanes Of Abraham

Thanks to For The Records for pointing out that another fine Ottawa band, The Acorn, will be opening up for Elliott Brood at Lee’s Palace on December 15. It will be a CD release party for their new EP Tin Fist, which is quite nice.

NOW and The Ottawa Sun talk to Murray Lightburn of The Dears, kicking off a three-night stand at Lee’s Palace tonight. They also tell The Toronto Sun, in no uncertain terms, how they felt about V-Fest. Update: Apparently the terms were more uncertain than reported – the band has printed a retraction of their harsh words towards V Fest on their website. I’m not sure how that quote can really be misconstrued, but okay.

Radio Free Canuckistan is the new blog of local music scribe Michael Barclay, whose work can be found in eye and Exclaim!, amongst other places, and on his site he’s offering up the full transcripts of his interviews before they’re edited down for final publication. I really enjoy this form of interview presentation as it generally gives a far better sense of the personality and headspace of the interviewee. In his latest posts, Barclay focuses on Mr Owen Pallett, aka Final Fantasy, presenting the interviews with Pallett and those that know him that would become the June 2006 Exclaim! cover story.

Though the 2006 concert calendar is pretty much run its course (thank God), it’s not done just yet – Howe Gelb will be at Lee’s Palace on December 17 – why he’s leaving warm and sunny Arizona in mid-December to come up to Canada is beyond me, but I’m glad for the news. I was kind of afraid that I’d have nothing to do next month. And looking to next year, a bit of a mish-mash bill in Snow Patrol, Silversun Pickups and OKGO are at the Ricoh Coliseum on March 31.

MSNBC is beguiled by Under Byen, who were wonderful opening for Gelb as Giant Sand last month at Pop Montreal.

Aversion reports that Neko Case’s 2003 set for Austin City Limits, already out on DVD, will be released on CD on January 9. You can watch one of the performances below, don’t know the name of the song unfortunately.

Video: Neko Case – “Behind The House” on Austin City Limits (YouTube) – thanks Cindy!

This BBC piece on Billy Bragg’s thoughts on the internet and digital music neglects to mention that though he did pull his music from MySpace in protest of their intellectual property policies, they did amend their legalese and you can once again befriend Billy at MySpace and listen to his tuneage there.

Probably like many, my favourite Billy Bragg albums would be those from what I call his middle period – 1986’s Talking With The Taxman About Poetry, 1988’s Worker’s Playtime and 1991’s Don’t Try This At Home. On these, he moved away from the “one-man Clash” punk folker approach that defined his earliest works and went for a more produced produced sound with fuller band arrangements. This sonic evolution perfectly complimented his lyrical growth on these records, as he began concentrating on more personal matters in his songwriting, dealing with the politics of relationships as well as government – surely a far more delicate and dangerous terrain.

I had Taxman and Playtime on a single compilation CD, Victim Of Geography and so in my mind they’re less two separate albums than one double-length masterpiece. So when the powers that be decided to split the two albums apart and put the former in the Volume One box set and the latter in the just-released Volume Two, inserting the 1990 protest mini-album The Internationale in the first box instead of taking things in the proper chronological order, well it went against my much more logically-ordered Billy Bragg cosmos. I certainly understand the logic – if they’d included Playtime in the first box it would have been an embarrassment of riches but would have left the second box with Don’t Try This At Home as the only must-have record in the set and almost certainly not worth the price of admission. The way they divvied it up, both sets have loads of crucial material.

After Don’t Try This At Home, Bragg took a half-decade off to be a dad and sadly, hasn’t managed to get his pen back into game shape since. Neither 1996’s William Bloke or 2002’s England, Half English were especially inspiring or inspired and while the Mermaid Avenue records with Wilco were certainly artistic triumphs, they were Woody Guthrie’s songs – not Bragg’s. This isn’t to say that I don’t expect him to never put out a great album again – I’m just saying that it’s been some 15 years since he’s seemed to be in that zone. Which is a while.

But Bragg has been busy in 2006, touring heavily in support of the box sets as well as releasing his first book – The Progressive Patriot. I’ve got a copy and am only a little ways in but so far, it’s a reasonably interesting if a bit meandering memoir and rumination on Englishness, nationalism and multiculturalism in today’s England. I’m currently getting a crash course in the history of the English monarchy. It helps if I read it aloud in a Cockney accent.

But check this out – courtesy of Outside Music, I have one copy of Billy Bragg’s Volume Two box set to give away. This has the four double-disc reissues plus live concert DVD circa 1991 and big fat booklet. To enter, leave a comment telling me your favourite Billy Bragg track – any era – and why. The contest will close at midnight, November 21 so that gives you a week. Hop to it.

Bragg talks to The Evening Standard about some of the topics covered in his book and takes a look back at his now-boxed career for Scotland On Sunday.

Got some media for you – the first few are Volume One-era MP3s provided by Yep Roc. Of the others, one is a live version of a track from Worker’s Playtime, another is the album version that is available as a free download from Billy’s website (but I’m saving you the trouble of going through the whole absurd e-commerce transaction to get it) and the last is a rather ill-advised remix of a song off England, Half English, also available free from the website. Billy Bragg + dance beats = no no no. Plus some of Bragg’s Volume Two-era videos.

CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – thanks so much to everyone who entered, but congratulations to Nick who was selected as winner.

MP3: Billy Bragg – “It Says Here”
MP3: Billy Bragg – “Greetings To The New Brunette”
MP3: Billy Bragg – “Help Save The Youth Of America” (live)
MP3: Billy Bragg – “Must I Paint You A Picture?”
MP3: Billy Bragg – “Valentine’s Day Is Over” (live)
MP3: Billy Bragg – “Take Down The Union Jack”
Video: Billy Bragg – “Waiting For The Great Leap Forward” (YouTube)
Video: Billy Bragg – “Sexuality” (YouTube)
Video: Billy Bragg – “You Woke Up My Neighbourhood” (YouTube)
Video: Billy Bragg – “The Boy Done Good” (YouTube)
MySpace: Billy Bragg

np – The Acorn / Tin Fist

Given the premise of Stranger Than Fiction (man hears voice narrating his life and predicting his death), the obvious and immediate comparisons would be films like Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, which basically wrote the book on meta-films. But where Charlie Kaufman’s films were almost incomprehensible (though giddily so) in the extent to which they folded back in on themselves, Stranger Than Fiction is actually incredibly straight and simple at the core of it. The premise of having Will Ferrell’s drab IRS agent suddenly having his life dictated out loud by Emma Thompson’s typewriter is a clever one, but it’s never investigated how or why it’s happening, it is simply accepted and from that point on, the film is a fairly rote if charming romantic comedy.

The cast is solid as you’d expect such a collection of talent to be, though they’re not really asked to do much. Much has been made of this as Will Ferrell’s first “straight” role but really, he’s not huge stretch from his usual comedies where he’s usually a sort of wide-eyed innocent. The main difference is that he’s not given an absurd situation or characters to react to… besides the disembodied voice narrating his life. But his character stays quite reasonably within the parameters of normalcy and he never strips down to his skivvies, figuratively or literally, as I think is contractually mandated in his other films. This isn’t the sort of revelatory performance that Punch Drunk Love or The Truman Show were intended to be, but he’s still quite good – he’s just not the story.

As I mentioned, the plot is smart enough to rise above the usual Hollywood fodder but doesn’t get too caught up in its own cleverness. Instead, it attempts to avoid potentially alienating anyone watching with head games or excessive meta-ness while maintaining a decent level of intelligence – a harder tightrope to walk than you might think – and it largely succeeds. The only point I had some difficulty with was the idea that the book Emma Thompson was writing was such a great piece of fiction that it could, even for a second, be considered more important than Ferrell’s life. After all, as the audience we’re privy to both large portions of the plot and actual writing (the narration) and, well, it sounds incredibly drab.

I was a bit frustrated in everyone’s lack of interest in the mechanics of why and how Thompson was able to control Ferrell’s life, and the greater existential implications of it on him and everyone he knew, but then that’s not the film they wanted to make. And since it’s likely that even looking directly at that particular tar baby would have turned a sweet rom-com into an unmitigated (yet admirably ambitious) mess, it’s probably for the best though it does leave a faint aroma of squandered potential.

Oh, and Will Ferrell is too old to be courting Maggie Gyllenhall, but I digress.

Trailer: Stranger Than Fiction (MOV)
Stream: Spoon – “The Book I Write” (Quicktime)
Stream: Stranger Than Fiction soundtrack (Flash)

PopMatters talks to Cardigans guitarist Peter Svensson about some of the issues surrounding the delayed American release of their current album Super Extra Gravity, which I maintain is much better than Metacritic might have you believe. Of course, I disregard any review whose only frame of reference is “Lovefool” – that was 10 years ago. Get over it. Unless you’re . Public Radio International had Svensson and Nina Persson in their studios a couple weeks ago when they performed an acoustic set at CMJ, and have made one of the songs from the performance available to download – I think you can hear more if you download the whole show.

MP3: The Cardigans – “Don’t Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds)” (live at PRI)

Fred Armisen of Saturday Night Live interviews Cat Power for Pitchfork. It’s a wonderfully strange piece but really, how could it not be? My contest to give away tickets to her show at the Phoenix next Wednesday ends tonight, so if you’re gonna enter, do it now.

oradio interviewed Craig and Tad of The Hold Steady at their recent stop in Toronto. Excuse the weird formatting, I extracted it from an iframe. Exclaim! also has an ultra-brief interview with the boys to go along with their review of the new album.

Neil Young’s new old Live At The Fillmore East 1970 is out today and you can stream the whole thing at AOL:

Stream: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Live At The Fillmore East 1970

Catfish Haven talks soul with CMJ. They’ve just released a video for the title track of their new album, Tell Me – check it out.

Video: Catfish Haven – “Tell Me” (YouTube)

The Dears’ matinee performance at Lee’s Palace this Saturday has been canceled – the evening show as well as those Thursday and Friday night are still on, however. Guess the underagers aren’t all about The Dears.

Spinner does some research into MySpace URLs that aren’t what you think they should be. http://myspace.com/superchunk = “Snowboarding bloke from the U.K”. That just doesn’t seem right.

The musical Venn diagram on stage at the Mod Club this past Friday night was an impressive one no matter how you looked at it. Between the four of them, you had portions of The Soft Boys, The Egyptians, Ministry, The Young Fresh Fellows, The Minus 5 and R.E.M. (amongst countless others) but on this night, they were simply Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3.

Though playing solo, opener Mark Pickerel boasted a similarly diverse and expansive resume including working with Screaming Trees (he was the original drummer) and Nirvana, though in recent years he’s gone and found country, playing with the likes of Brandi Carlile and Neko Case. It was this folker who took the stage Friday night to play a short but sweet set of slow, mellow tunes accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and some clever percussion (keeping time on the kick drum behind him with his heel on the pedal, tambourine under the other foot – brilliant), he reminded me a bit of Chris Isaak but that have just been the hair and the suit. Maybe a bit too low-key to open for Hitchcock in rock mode, but still enjoyable stuff.

Robyn Hitchcock is one of the rare performers for whom you could take a live recording, excise all the actual music leaving just the banter and still have an aural document worth listening to. Each of his songs were prefaced by a story that was either explanatory or a complete non sequiter, but either way it was thoroughly entertaining so you didn’t really care. Even when he seemed to be lost on a tangent, seemingly never to return, he would bring it back around and make some humourous and often political point before launching into another song. There is no denying the man’s wicked and acerbic wit.

My knowledge of Hitchcock’s oeuvre consists pretty much of Underwater Moonlight and Ole! Tarantula but that didn’t prevent me from enjoying every minute of the show – Hitchcock’s tunes are so finely crafted that the hooks will catch on first listen, especially when played by a band as supremely talented as the one he was traveling with (Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin if you weren’t paying attention). Luckily for me, however, the set list leaned heavily on both the albums I do have and I’m happy to say that the new stuff held up very well against the classic material – “Queen Of Eyes” and “I Wanna Destroy You” are for all-time, but “Adventure Rocket Ship” and “(A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations) Briggs” (which was prefaced by a wonderful, extended ramble about Clint Eastwood’s Magnum Force, from which the song draws its title and about which he talks about to the Cleveland Plains Dealer) are no slouches either.

Top to bottom, a terrific show from one of the greats. And it’s always interesting going to the shows whose audiences skew older – Hitchcock’s fanbase are not what you’d call the young and the hip, but they were devout and enthusiastic and I’ll take that any day of the week. Plus they made me feel young, like a spring chicken (though after an almost two-hour set, my back disagreed). And also nice – as I was leaving, I noticed Peter Buck was working the merch table, chatting with fans. You think you’re going to see that next time R.E.M. is in town? Probably not.

If you’re inclined, the show is already torrented on Dime A Dozen – if nothing else, they’ve got the correct final set list, though not the second encore which I believe was a quick “Give It To The Soft Boys”. There’s also this short piece by Hitchcock about the genesis of the Venus 3 (née The Minus 3).

Photos: Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3, Mark Pickeral @ The Mod Club, November 10, 2006
MP3: Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 – “Adventure Rocket Ship”
MP3: Mark Pickerel – “Graffiti Girl”
MP3: Mark Pickerel – “Forest Fire”
MP3: Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 – “Adventure Rocket Ship”
Video: Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 – “Adventure Rocket Ship” (WMV)
Video: Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 – “Adventure Rocket Ship – live” (WMV)
MySpace: Robyn Hitchcock
MySpace: Mark Pickerel

In continuing with last week’s XTC post and contest (which you should definitely read because the responses have been amazing), I direct you to the official XTC fan MySpace, in particular the blog which features a series of interviews with Andy Partridge about the genesis and content of various XTC songs which they also generously stream.

Check out the new video for Rob Dickinson’s “Oceans”, which was apparently shot entirely on camera phone and stands as evidence to Rob’s continuing seahorse fetish. Also note that his live acoustic album, Alive And Alone, is now on sale here and I say – that’s one of my photos as the backdrop. Smashing!

The Deli recounts the story of Asobi Seksu as told by Yuki Chikudate and The Stranger converses with both Yuki and James.

Happy news for the five or six of us who, despite the peer pressure, actually still enjoy Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip – it’s going to run the full season. While the show’s not been perfect – far from it, actually – it’s still not nearly as bad as the haters would have you believe. Some of the complaints are justified (the sketch comedy is generally awful) but the one criticism that I take particular issue with is the one that the characters seem to think their job is terribly important and that the fate of the world hinges on their show. Well don’t most people take their jobs seriously? Would it somehow be more believable or entertaining if the cast projected indifference and ennui towards everything they did? Studio 60 isn’t perfect, not even close, but it’s still a decent show with the potential to be much better. And considering that the two-parter “Nevada Day”, which concludes tonight in the US (the show airs Sunday nights in Canada), was the strongest episode(s) since the pilot (and written by Kid In The Hall Mark McKinney), I’m glad that they’ll at least get a full 22 episodes to try and get there. Via ClaudePate.com

np – XTC / Oranges & Lemons