So I get home last night from the Chin Up Chin Up/Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin show, it’s late, I’m sick and I’m tired and doing a little surfing before turning in when what do I find? The SxSW schedule is up. Goddamn. So I spend the next hour cruising showcases, copying stuff into my calendar and just generally getting the excitement levels ratcheted up a couple hundred notches.

The artist MP3s are also up but I’m waiting for the ginormous .zip torrent appears before I start wading through the stuff I don’t know. As it is, I’ve jotted down dozens of showcases from bands I already know, love and have seen which if all goes according to plan, I won’t be attending. Must find new bands! I’m not flying across the continent to see the same olds, even if they are great. Okay, maybe some. And I’m definitely catching Buffalo Tom because, well, I’m old. And The Tragically Hip closing things out on Saturday night at Antone’s is also tempting – though not the smallest club, I think it’d still be a pretty cozy and unique experience catching the greying Canadian ambassadors deep in the heart of Texas.

So if you’re perusing the sched and see something that you think is a must-see, do share the recommendation. Lots of the bigger showcases don’t have times scheduled yet so it’s tough to figure conflicts, but there’s more than enough info to get started on.

And some Hot Freaks-related news. Due to overwhelming demand from more performers wanting to get in on the action, we’ve moved the start time on both days up by an hour and are now hoping that the punters (and bloggers) will be able to haul their asses out of bed for 11AM on Friday and Saturday to catch one or all of The Broken West, The Hylozoists, Small Sins, The Hot IQs and Mezzanine Owls. Where and when info is on the website.

So it’s been a week. In no particular order, I’ve caught a cold, had my hard drive with all my music and photos on it fail, had my internet connection go kaput and various other sundry minor catastrophes not worth itemizing. On the plus side, I think I’m recovering, I managed to get all my data off said drive before it sank (whew) and am back online. The point? I’ve actually had a lot of stuff I wanted to get to writing up this week but it simply hasn’t happened. I’m hoping to use this weekend to get my affairs back in order and finish up the stuff I wanted to.

Let’s start with some good news for Ottawa’s The Acorn, whom eye reports have just signed with Paper Bag Records. I’ve gone on about The Acorn’s wonderfulness before and I’m pleased to see that more folks will get a chance to be enthralled by their quintessentially Canadian pop – and I don’t mean that in a cheesy beaver/Mountie/maple leaf montage sort of way. Just listen, you’ll understand.

They will begin by re-releasing their excellent Tin Fist EP on March 20, to be followed by the equally excellently-named Tin Fisting tour across Canada. But before that, they’re in Brampton tonight playing the Brampton Indie Arts Festival and then on March 10, they will play a show at the Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto on March 10 along with Montreal’s Hot Springs, Toronto’s Uncut and what’s only being billed as a “special dancey guest band”. My guess is Black Eyed Peas, but I’ve been wrong before. They’ll also be back in town on April 12 for a show at The Drake Underground.

Here’s a couple tracks from 2005’s Blankets! EP – they’re streaming some Tin Fist material on their MySpace but it’s really meant to be heard as a whole – I refer you again to eye‘s review from last December. You can buy both releases at Kelp Records right now.

MP3: The Acorn – “Blankets”
MP3: The Acorn – “Plates & Saucers”

And while rattling off show announcements, Sondre Lerche, Willy Mason and Thomas Dybdahl offer up an evening of non-threatening boy action at the Mod Club on April 2, tickets $16.50. And on April 19, also at Mod, Art Brut are in town. Tickets $15.50, on sale Wednesday.

I would have to turn in my Yankee Hotel Foxtrot decoder ring if I didn’t mention that Billboard has the track list for Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky, due out May 15.

Also in May, on the 8th to be precise, a collection of Elliott Smith rarities will be released by Kill Rock Stars. New Moon will span two CDs and Smith’s fertile creative years between 1994 and 1997 – Pitchfork has more details.

CMJ compares acronyms with Peter Bjorn & John. The Sydney Morning Herald points out that their name can be contracted too. No one cares. PBJ are at the Phoenix on May 6.

Pitchfork has the full “director’s cut” of the video for The Decemberists’ “Oh Valencia”, which you may recall from a couple weeks ago. Apparently it’s better. Or worse, depending on how much you liked the original version.

The San Francisco Examiner talks to Camera Obscura guitarist Kenny McKeeve.

Pulse Of The Twin Cities talks to Midlake and Gorilla Vs Bear is offering a new remix from the band. And in my Midlake contest, a few people nominated ELO as a 70s band due for a hipster reevaluation – PopMatters gets the ball rolling.

Nerve lists off 20 comics – er, graphic novels – that can change your life. I’ve read fully eight of them, and I don’t think my life has changed… OR HAS IT?

So I was taking a look at my initial review of Midlake’s album The Trials Of Van Occupanther and figured I was probably overly harsh or dismissive. It’s true that when I first listened to the record last Summer, I was rather nonplussed – especially considering the effusive praise that they were getting everywhere else – but having revisited the record in anticipation of their show at Lee’s Palace on Monday, I can say I now have a greater appreciation for the record’s charms. It’s still steadfastly 70s soft rock (though I’ve never listened to Fleetwood Mac so I can’t comment on those oft-repeated comparisons) but certainly strong enough to stand up without being propped up by nostalgia.

Which brings us to Monday night. Opening the tour was fellow Texan Annie Clark who plays guitar for The Polyphonic Spree but plies her trade solo as St Vincent. Playing without a band, Clark’s set was quirky and engaging, showcasing her formidable guitar skills (equal parts jazz and post-punk) and off-kilter songwriting that goes from delicate to deranged in a heartbeat. Her scattershot banter about being in Canada for the first time was also greatly entertaining. I look forward to seeing St Vincent again next month in Austin, as she will be playing Hot Freaks inside at the Mohawk on Friday, March 16 at 2:30PM. End plug.

If there was such a thing as a charisma-o-meter, Midlake would rate somewhere around -10 (the scale is whatever you imagine it to be). This is simply a fact, and the band probably wouldn’t dispute it even if they were able to find their way out of the small fortress wall they built across the front of the stage with their banks of keyboards. But don’t think that this meant that it wasn’t a good show – far from it, actually. Despite the fact that the video projector was more prominent on stage than any of the players, they still but on a great show thanks pretty much entirely to the strength of their songs and musicianship.

Live, they sound almost as smooth as they do on record but with a little less of the studio sheen that so immediately identifies them as disciples of that particular decade (you know the one). Though they couldn’t reproduce the multitracked layers of vocals on Van Occupanther, they still sounded pretty damn good with the two- and three-part harmonies they could pull off live. With the aforementioned supply of keyboards and synths on hand and some very tasteful and tasty guitar work, they brought pretty much the whole of Van Occupanther as well as some older material to life, seemingly preferring to soundtrack the odd visuals projected behind them rather than be the focus of attention themselves. But again, I’m not really complaining – my appreciation for the album, which had been growing steadily over the past few weeks, reached a new level after seeing the band live.

And as a footnote, I was quite amazed at how packed Lee’s Palace was for a Monday night. I didn’t piece together why until I overheard a few people in the audience mentioning Jason Lee. Then it all made sense (third paragraph). Now why Jason Lee would have so much sway over people is another question entirely. But I digress. The Boston Globe talks to the band about being stuck in the ’70s.

Photos: Midlake, St Vincent @ Lee’s Palace – February 12, 2007
MP3: Midlake – “Roscoe”
MP3: Midlake – “Young Bride (CWL Remix)”
Video: Midlake – “Roscoe” (YouTube)
Video: Midlake – “Young Bride” (MOV)
MySpace: Midlake
MySpace: St Vincent

The Gateway has words with Josh Ritter, in town tomorrow night for a solo show at the Horseshoe.

Chart brings word of a rather star-studded Go-Betweens tribute album. Tribute records are kind of played out but I have to say – if anyone deserves one, it’s the Go-Betweens and with the talent involved, there’s no reason it can’t be excellent.

My Mean Magpie follows I Heart Music’s lead and posts some Royal City rarities of his own.

Stylus defends Terry Gilliam’s oft-reviled The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, and I say hear hear. I’ve always loved that film and even if it’s not perfect – or really, far from it – it’s hardly the travesty that some would make it out to be.

So fun fun fun – my 300GB hard drive, which holds all my music and photos and isn’t even a year old, is dying very quickly. I’m getting a “Windows – Delayed write failed” error intermittently but more and more frequency. I *hope* there’s enough life left in it to get all my files off, but it won’t be easy and it sure as hell won’t be fun. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate technology lately? ‘Cause I do – I really really do.

After eight years off between Weird Tales and Another Fine Day, Golden Smog are damn near prolific (relatively speaking). They’ll be releasing an 8-track mini-album (that’s eight songs, not on 8-track) on April 24 with the typically Smoggish name of Blood On The Slacks. Gary Louris discusses the record with USA Today, revealing that it’ll include two covers – David Bowie’s “Starman” and Dinosaur Jr’s “Tarpit”. It sounds like the remaining six original songs, however, will be Tweedy-free.

Ira Kaplan talks to Daily Yomiuri about being onstage with Yo La Tengo.

Drowned In Sound discusses All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone with Explosions In The Sky. The album is out February 20. Which is next week. If you didn’t have a calendar handy. You’re welcome.

Carl Newman of The New Pornographers updates Chart on the status of their next album – “We’re looking to be all done by the end of April-ish for a release later this year”.

Chart also talked to The Last Town Chorus’ Megan Hickey about the lap steel guitar’s place in her life. Wire Waltz is out March 6.

Pitchfork has it that the next Iron & Wine album will be called The Shepherd’s Dog. Look for it later this year.

Peter Bjorn & John have booked a full North American tour for May, including a stop at The Phoenix in Toronto on the 6th. Man, you get one song on How I Met Your Mother and you’re playing 1000-capacity clubs.

Meanwhile Scotland’s The View have had to cancel their just-announced North American tour (including the March 5 show at Lee’s Palace) due to their alleged hotel hijinks. Not really, just visa issues. It is expected to be rescheduled very soon, however, so hang onto your tickets – they’ll still be good for the new dates.

As you may have noticed, I didn’t have a lot of time for today’s post. No 24 either – check back tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the day after that. But if I may play Kreskin for a moment, I expect that we got two hours of Jack looking intense, Palmer looking un-Presidential, various people being tortured, etc etc. Wake me when Zombie Nina arrives.

Finally. After all the rumours, denials and mind-changing, the details end up exactly as they were originally planned over a month ago.

Arcade Fire.
May 15 and 16.
Massey Hall.
Tickets $34 and $38, plus fees, service charges, charitable donation, etc.
On sale Friday, February 23 at 12:00 Noon, only through Ticketmaster and the Massey Hall box office.

You may wish to complain about some of the numbers noted above, that is your right. However no one will care and both shows will be sold out before you’re done bitching. Pitchfork has all the North American tour dates.

Neon Bible is out on March 6. Merge would be happy to let you pre-order it in either regular or deluxe editions – the fancy one is pretty and everything, but all I see is something that won’t fit on my CD racks. It’s also available in double-LP format, but note the 6-8 week delay in delivery on those. Life is never easy for the analog types.