I had been quite excited about seeing Brooklyn’s The Last Town Chorus at the Horseshoe this past Tuesday night – since the show was announced last month, I’d been getting cozy with their self-titled debut. It’s a spare, stark record focusing on Megan Hickey’s rich, mournful twang and her equally keening lap steel guitar. The follow-up Wire Waltz, out domestically on March 6, sounds like it’ll be a more fully-arranged and band-based affair and it was that configuration that came across the border for the band’s Toronto debut.

Hickey, accompanied by a guitarist and keyboardist, played seated (they all did) but what they band lacked in onstage mobility, they made up for with emotion and intensity. Considerably louder and more powerful than you’d expect based on the recordings, Hickey was riveting to watch, whether singing her heartrendingly sad songs or coaxing her guitar to weep alongside her. The band recently had a breakthrough of sorts with a cover of David Bowie’s “Modern Love” appearing on Grey’s Anatomy but while that’s a bit of a dubious thing to build a career on, the fact is that the cover really is remarkable and I’ve always thought the song itself was highly underrated (it’s been one of my favourite Bowie songs for nigh on 25 years now – seriously). If a cover on a TV show is what it takes to get people to hear Last Town Chorus, then so be it – I can’t imagine anyone hearing this wouldn’t be drawn in and made a fan. Hickey mentioned that she expects to return to Toronto sometime in March after the album is released. And when she does, you should be there.

While there was a decent-sized crowd in attendance for The Last Town Chorus, it’s likely most of them were there to see the band on after, Montreal’s Young Galaxy. It’s funny – though the band says they don’t want to be considered a spin-off of Stars (singer/guitarist Stephen Ramsay was guitarist in Stars for the past few years before recently departing), they’ve not done much to discourage comparisons, from signing to the same label, selecting a similarly astrologically-inspired name or even just doing the boy/girl vocal pop thing.

The difference, however, would be that on that last point Ramsay and Catherine McCandless don’t offer nearly the chemistry or charisma of Torq Campbell and Amy Millan. At one point in the show, Ramsay mentioned something to the effect of everyone being really high – whether in jest or not, that would actually explain a lot, not least of which was Ramsay’s glassy, thousand yard stare. They seemed laid back to the point of being disinterested and it didn’t make for a very compelling show – their songs, while nicely textured and arranged, don’t boast the kind of hooks that demand your attention so if the band isn’t compensating for that with some sort of effort, it’s just going to drift on by, which is pretty much what happened. Things did pick up towards the end of the set, both in terms of song quality and performance, but by that point I was pretty anxious to just go home. They’ll release their debut album this Spring so I expect they’ll get more opportunities to impress in the near future. Hope they do.

Metromix talks to Last Town Chorus’ Megan Hickey.

Photos: Young Galaxy, The Last Town Chorus @ The Horseshoe – January 23, 2007
MP3: The Last Town Chorus – “Modern Love” (live)
MP3: The Last Town Chorus – “Change Your Mind”
MP3: The Last Town Chorus – “Oregon”
Video: The Last Town Chorus – “Modern Love” (YouTube)
MySpace: The Last Town Chorus
MySpace: Young Galaxy

NY Press talks to M Ward, who is in town for a sold out show at the Mod Club tomorrow night.

Drowned In Sound has details on the debut full-length from Fields – Everything Last Winter will be out April 2 in the UK and will hopefully be out sometime around then in North America via, I believe, Vice. And speaking of stateside releases, you won’t have to pay import prices for the new Idlewild – while Make Another World is out February 26 in the UK, it will be out in North America on Sanctuary sometime in May.

While most of the CMW schedule was posted a little while ago, a couple of the more high-profile showcases had been left blank – namely those at the Horseshoe and Lee’s Palace. Well the lineups for those have been announced and as you might expect during Canadian Music Week, they’re loaded down with, well, Canadian music. The Friday night will be the loaded one, with the ‘Shoe hosting Land Of Talk, Cadence Weapon, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Mother Mother, Peter Elkas, Kill The Lights and The Adam Brown. Of course with seven bands, you’re looking at, what, 15 minute sets? But you can’t complain about lack of variety.

Over at Lee’s Palace, you’ve got a slightly more manageable lineup – The Besnard Lakes, We Are Wolves, Pop Levi, Rock Plaza Central and Baby Eagle and Woolly Leaves with a special guest (maybe the rest of The Constantines?). Admission to either show will be either a CMW wristband though assuming those go with the usual “limited wristbands” policy, buying a $10 advance ticket might be your best bet.

But CMW isn’t the only game in town – Pitter Patter has released the schedule for their festival, running concurrently with CMW and in clubs all along the Golden Horseshoe, from Hamilton to Oshawa. They’ve got an absurd number of bands signed up and if between the two events you can’t find something worthwhile to see in Toronto between March 7 and 11, well damn. Nuts to you.

Y’all know I’m not exactly a hip-hop guy but I do like pretty vinyl. Even if it’s not for me so much as to give away, as is the case right now – EMI Canada has given me four copies of a 12″ single from Toronto hip-hop artist k-os that most certainly qualifies as pretty vinyl. It features four tracks from his latest album Atlantis: Hymns for Disco though whether they’re album versions or remixes, I know not. Maybe if you win you can tell me. Not that I’d know the difference.

But I digress. If you want to win this airbrush-ilicious bit of analog hip-hop goodness, send me an email at contests@chromewaves.net with “I want the k-os vinyl” in the subject line. Then wait. And wait some more. The contest closes at midnight, January 31.

Video: k-os – “Electrick Heat – The Seekwill”
Video: k-os – “Sunday Morning”
MySpace: k-os

Next Wednesday is the Camera Obscura show at the Opera House (for which I’ll be drawing winners in my free pass contest tomorrow night). Doing the press rounds, The Ottawa Sun talks to guitarist Kenny McKeeve, Washington Square News to keyboardist Carey Lander and The Toronto Star to singer Tracyanne Campbell.

Meanwhile, Jeff Baron of openers The Essex Green talks to The Daily Record and tells NOW that he doesn’t like how their latest album The Cannibal Sea sounds.

And if you’re feeling more the homebody type that night, More Cowbell reports that Jeff Tweedy’s January 31 solo show in Charlottesville, Virginia will be webcast on wilcoworld.net. Which only serves to remind me that even though I picked up the Sunken Treasure DVD a few weeks ago, I haven’t even come close to watching it. In fact, my pile of music DVDs that haven’t been cracked open is rather shameful.

Harp catches up with Isobel Campbell and her busy 2006. They also reprint an excerpt from Just a Modern Rock Story wherein she recounts her reasons for leaving Belle & Sebastian.

Paste profiles The Shins. James Mercer’s face irritates Marathonpacks. Speaking of whom, you should read his piece on internet music PR in this week’s Stylus, if you haven’t already. It’s quite good.

PopMatters discusses Christmas album One More Drifter In The Snow with Aimee Mann.

Sorry for the consecutive days of utterly lightweight posts. I’ve just been really busy lately and there’s been a general dearth of blog-ready content. It happens. I’ll have my review of Tuesday night’s Last Town Chorus show tomorrow (short version: wonderful) but for today, this is it.

Idolator pays tribute to a forgotten favourite by offering up a couple of Velocity Girl vinyl rarities to download. One taken from a 7″ split-single they put out on SubPop in 1992 and the other a Beat Happening cover taken from a 1991 tribute album. Both are wonderfully fuzzy bits of pop joy.

And VG lead singer Sarah Shannon will be putting out her second solo album City Morning Song on February 6. And no, it sounds nothing like Velocity Girl, but neither did her self-titled solo debut so this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. You can download the title track below and head over to her MySpace to stream a couple more or, as Angels Twenty points out, you can go the Bazaar section of the Minty Fresh website and sample the whole thing.

MP3: Sarah Shannon – “City Morning Song”
MySpace: Sarah Shannon

Also back from the 90s – Billboard has the skinny on the new Dinosaur Jr album – Beyond will be out May 1 on Fat Possum. They also mention the live DVD also out in May and a forthcoming limited edition Dinosaur Jr Nike skate shoe. Uh, what?

Son Volt will follow up the release of their next album The Search on March 6 and follow that up with a North American tour. More Cowbell has the itinerary which includes an April 12th date at the Mod Club in Toronto.

Pitchfork went all Band Of Horses crazy yesterday, posting not only an interview with Ben Bridwell and Creighton Barrett as well as a news item about some of the guests they’ll have on board when they enter the studio in March to work on their second album which I hope to god they call Pastor of Muppets.

Harp talks to Lucinda Williams about the genesis of the songs that became her new album West, out February 13. They also get her to comment on her whole discography.

Great news about Rogue Wave drummer Pat Spurgeon – he received a kidney transplant on January 13 and is doing well.

Scottish young’ns The View are at Lee’s Palace on March 5, tickets $12. And The Walkmen have been added to the bill of the Kaiser Chiefs show at the Kool Haus on April 18.

Largehearted Boy is celebrating his fifth birthday with a fairly massive giveaway – pop over and enter for a chance to win either fifty (50!) CDs or five (5!) graphic novels.

Yes, it’s a slow day.

I’m in a bit of a rush so you’ll forgive me if I don’t spend a lot of time writing this up – and chances are, if you’re a regular reader of this blog then you’re no strangers to lovely Scottish pop outfit Camera Obscura. They’re coming through town for a show at the Opera House next Wednesday night for a second North American go-around in support of their excellent 2006 album Let’s Get Out Of This Country.

Courtesy of Against The Grain, I’ve got three pairs of passes to give away for said show as well as some posters for the show done by Toronto artist Jeremy Wilson. I haven’t seen them but have been told that they’re nice. To enter, leave a comment on this post telling me if you had to get out of this country, what country you’d like to move to. Just idle curiosity on my part. Be sure to use your correct email address and picking up the posters will entail stopping off at the front bar of The Horseshoe. You don’t have to have a beer while you’re there but if you do, who’s gonna know? This contest closes at midnight, January 26.

MP3: Camera Obscura – “Let’s Get Out Of This Country”
MP3: Camera Obscura – “If Looks Could Kill”
Video: Camera Obscura – “Let’s Get Out Of This Country” (MOV)
Video: Camera Obscura – “Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken” (MOV)
Video: Camera Obscura – “If Looks Could Kill” (YouTube)
MySpace: Camera Obscura