So this isn’t anything resembling a proper post – I am on vacation after all – but an expansion and solicitation related to a previous post. As mentioned last month, ye olde Hot Freaks collective is helping out with this year’s Monolith Festival, taking place September 13 and 14 at Red Rocks in Denver, Colorado. In addition to the previously announced lineup featuring DeVotchKa, Justice, TV On The Radio, Neko Case, Band Of Horses, Vampire Weekend, a passel of bands of the “up and coming” variety have just been added. Amongst them are Atmosphere, Hercules and Love Affair, Foals, Does It Offend You, Yeah, Port O’Brien, American Bang, Colour Revolt and some CanCon in Rock Plaza Central.

And since the subject of this post says “contest”, I should mention that I have goods to give away. Courtesy of the Monolith Festival, I’ve got one pair of weekend passes to give away to the fest. That’s good for both days of the festival and a $220USD value. Obviously this is geared more towards my huge US/Colorado audience rather than my usual Toronto-based readers, though it should be noted that a return ticket from Pearson to Denver costs less than you might think. Anyway, the logistics I leave to the entrants – all I’m concerned about is giving these ducats away. To enter, shoot me an email at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to go to Monolith” in the subject line and your full mailing address in the body (physical tickets will be mailed). Contest will be open until midnight, May 30, and if you’re really keen on going and want to hedge your bets, check out the sites of other Hot Freaks for more chances to win.

And tangentially – following up on the wonderful video highlights of Hot Freaks Day One this past March at SxSW, Pete Ohs and The Projectmill have finished doing the same for Day Two, with clips from Lykke Li, Islands, A Place To Bury Strangers and the freak-out majesty of Peelander-Z.

Anyway. Something resembling a proper post soon. Ish. Hi from London, btw.

Photo by Frank Yang

Hello from Dublin. I have heard two different versions of Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” in the last hour. Willie Nelson is also a radio playlist staple hereabouts. Strange. Have some concert announcements.

The reconstituted Eric’s Trip will at the Mod Club on June 3. The Stills are at same venue on June 11 and Rob Dickinson, whose deluxe-ified Fresh Wine For The Horses will be out June 10, will grace the stage on June 18. And looking a little further ahead, Hot Chip are back for a show at the Kool Haus on September 30 – full tour dates at Pitchfork.

JAM is carrying an AP piece on DeVotchKa while NPR is streaming a complete show from DC for both them and tour opener Basia Bulat.

Kathleen Edwards talks to JAM about her new, hockey-powered video while NPR is streaming a World Cafe session.

Spinner interfaces with Duffy.

An Aquarium Drunkard interviews Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers.

Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab talks to CokeMachineGlow about their new album Chemical Chords. They’re at the Phoenix on October 8.

The New York Times profile’s Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallet.

Beirut is the focus of features in The Georgia Straight and The Stranger.

Dan Bejar of Destroyer talks to AZCentral.

Photo via Blur

I should be packing, not blogging. Similarly, over the next week and change I should be vacationing, not blogging. And yet, here we are. Heading overseas tonight and will be checking in over the next week or so – less so than normal but moreso than any rational person who would claim to be on holiday should. But I’m at peace with that.

Anyways, for now there’s a few bits and pieces to clear out before checking out.

Nick Cave is a regular video-making machine, with yet another new clip from Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!. Very much excited for his October 1 show at the Kool Haus.

Video: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “More News From Nowhere”

The Lightspeed Champion show at Lee’s Palace on June 11 has had the support lineup bolstered, with Flowers Forever now joined by the sunny sounds of South Carolina’s The Explorers Club.

MP3: The Explorers Club – “Do You Love Me?”

eye, Express and hour.ca meet British Sea Power, who will be at Lee’s Palace tomorrow night.

Spin and The Montreal Gazette talk to The Long Blondes, coming to Lee’s Palace on May 22. There’s a new MP3 available from Couples.

MP3: The Long Blondes – “Guilt”

Muzzle Of Bees asks five questions of and the -Ist empire – Chicagoist, SFist and Seattleist at least – make time with Laura Veirs, in town at the El Mocambo May 24.

Minneapolis CityPages and The Guardian meet Bon Iver, who will be at Lee’s Palace on July 22.

The addition of Vampire Weekend to the Rogers Picnic lineup at Historic Fort York on July 20? You can take that to be bank. If you’re in the habit of doing stuff like that.

The Calgary Herald talks Destroyer’s Dan Bejar.

The National Post interviews Bry Webb of Constantines, video-stylee.

JAM and Spin profile Tokyo Police Club.

Cooking With Rock Stars solicits recipes from Okkervil River’s Will Sheff and Jonathan Meiburg.

Photo via MySpace.com

The timing with which my attention wandered from Death Cab For Cutie was rather unfortunate. In the early ’00s, We Have The Facts And Are Voting Yes and The Photo Album were absolute staples of my musical diet, fulfilling my daily recommended amounts of jangle, melody and melancholy. For someone in stumbling into their mid-20s with nary a clue as to what that meant, Ben Gibbard’s earnest, clear-eyed and freshly-scrubbed ponderings from that same grey area between youth and adulthood were particularly resonant.

But around the time of 2003’s Transatlanticism, our frequencies began to diverge. Thanks to a certain television program which has thankfully vanished from the lexicon of pop culture, Death Cab had become the spokesband for a generation that I wasn’t part of, and becoming less so every day. Which is not to say that I had gotten a handle on the confusion of my early 20s, far from it – I just needed more intensely depressive music to soundtrack it. And this is where the unfortunate timing comes into play – I opted to not pick up 2005’s Plans because I found I wasn’t inclined to listen to the Death Cab I did have, so there wasn’t much point in picking up another one that wasn’t likely to get much rotation. Of course, Plans also happened to be their first album for Atlantic and so for someone inclined to read stuff into stuff, this could be construed as a boycott of the band now that they’d signed to a major label. It wasn’t, it was just coincidence.

Of course, in hindsight – and by hindsight, I mean rereading what I just wrote – that’s seems kind of silly. Mostly because no one really cares if I’ve stopped listening to a particular band or why, and since I believe Plans did indeed outsell all their previous records and elevated the band to the sort of stature that signing to a major label is supposed to achieve, so everybody wins. And even to this day, I still haven’t heard Plans. But I have heard their newest album Narrow Stairs, just released yesterday, and as such am comfortable speculating that I didn’t miss any grand evolution (or devolution) in the Death Cab sound because Stairs is still so very familiar.

I’ve been reading some of the press around the release of the new record and the primary talking points seem to be that much of the record was recorded live off the floor (or close to it) and that the first single, “I Will Possess Your Heart”, is really long. And both of these things are true – there is a pleasant dryness to the production that I don’t even recall hearing on their early works and the instrumental intro to “Heart” is indeed really long and creates a groove that has Chris Walla’s shoegaze/britpop-loving fingerprints all over it – a shame that the video edit omits pretty much all of it because the rest of the song doesn’t really measure up. Beyond that, though, much of Stairs – which is backloaded with the best material – sounds like it could date back to Transatlanticism, comprised of jaunty pop numbers alternated with contemplative ballads and capable of rocking out when the need arises (but not too much). Thematically, Gibbard still seems to be broadcasting from the ambivalence of his mid-20s. A bit odd for a guy who’s my age, but he still sells the sentiments as sincere so more power to him. It does mean that I’ll likely never relate to a Death Cab record the way I once did, but that’s okay – I can still appreciate the songcraft and anyways I’ve no great desire to feel like I’m back in my 20’s. No sir.

Spin is all over the release of the new record, with a feature story in the latest issue and a cute set of videos of people around the world listening to clips from the new album. Current also has a documentary short that goes behind the scenes of the making of the new record. The AV Club gets Gibbard to interview Sun Kil Moon’s Mark Kozelek.

Death Cab are headlining this year’s Olympic Island mini-festival on June 7 alongside Stars, Rogue Wave and Young Galaxy, and courtesy of Against The Grain and Warner Music Canada, I’ve got giveaways. One grand prize winner will get a pair of passes to the show on the Toronto Islands and three runners-up will get copies of the new album on CD. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to take a Death Cab to the Stars” in the subject line and your full mailing address in the body. I’ll let this contest run until midnight, May 26 when I’m back from my trans-Atlantic adventures and (hopefully) not overly jet-lagged.

Stream: Death Cab For Cutie / Narrow Stairs
Video: Death Cab For Cutie – “I Will Possess Your Heart”
MySpace: Death Cab For Cutie

Grab a sample of the new Mates Of State record Re-Arrange Us, out next week.

MP3: Mates Of State – “My Only Offer”

Daytrotter welcomes The Ting Tings to their studios for a session. Their debut We Started Nothing is out June 3 and they play the Mod Club on June 16.

Back in March leading up to The Hot Freaks at SxSW, we got AmpLive, the artist responsible for the Raindydayz Remixes rethink of Radiohead’s In Rainbows and between-set DJ for the second day of our event, to take a swing at remixing some of the performing artists. The net result is are a mash-up of MGMT (who didn’t play our show) and Of Montreal (whose Kevin Barnes did a solo set) and a remix of The Jealous Girlfriends (who also played and will be at the El Mocambo on June 3).

MP3: Amplive vs MGMT vs Of Montreal – “Future Faberge”
MP3: Amplive vs The Jealous Girlfriends – “Heiroglyphics”

Okkervil River’s Will Sheff talks to Tiny Mix Tapes about the band’s tough early days, reaping the rewards of The Stage Names, the can’t-be-beat value of their tour with The New Pornographers and the forthcoming Stage Names Appendix.

The whole of Dirty On Purpose’s Dead Volcanoes EP, which had been parceled out one track at a time, is now available to download in its entirety at RCRDLBL for free.

Hey look, Iggy Pop is coming to town, and presumably he’s bringing the Stooges with him. That show will be August 6 at Massey Hall.

Photo via www.iamduffy.com

I had thought that after seeing Duffy twice in three days in March that I had a good handle on the Welsh soul singer. With good pipes and solid material but rather low charisma at the moment, I saw a talent that had a lot of upside that I didn’t think was fully realized yet, but considering the’se sold a shit-tonne of records, what the hell did I know?

But after getting a copy of said shit-tonne-sold album Rockferry, available everywhere for some time now but officially released in the US today, I was a little amazed at how much it kept finding its way into my CD player. Going down so easy and without any overly-contrived aftertaste, it’s an eminently listenable record that deftly balances pop and soul, retro and modern, and comes out as one of those rare collections that can cross over enough audiences to sell, well, hundreds of thousands of copies.

As much as I’d like to credit Bernard Butler with this – given my druthers, I’d give Bernard Butler credit for everything, ever – a read through the liner notes reveal that his influence on this record might be less than I’d presumed, with co-writing and production credits only going to him on four songs out of the ten, and not even the best ones. The rest of the record was handled by two other producers which makes the cohesiveness of Rockferry as a whole all the more impressive.

What I find most remarkable is that though Duffy’s vocals are right up front throughout, she’s not the overt centre of attention. Her voice is in complete service to the song and every piece of the production, be it the strings, a guitar vamp or a bass line, is as crucial to the end product as the singing. The songs are just so well-crafted as recordings that it might explain why I found the live show somewhat lacking – on stage, Duffy IS the centre of attention and that’s not necessarily a role she’s ready to take on. But on record, everything is exactly where it should be and it’s that big picture that makes it a triumph. Time will tell if Duffy the individual will catch up with Duffy the musical entity (which is to say her, her band, her producers, her songwriting) but even if it doesn’t, as long as she keeps turning out records like this (or better), I’ll have no word of complaint.

The Globe & Mail talks to Duffy about her music and upcoming show at the Apollo in Harlem, which You takes a more tabloid-y approach and digs for dirt on her childhood and personal life. The Philadelphia Inquirer considers the current crop of one-named British soul singers.

Video: Duffy – “Warwick Avenue”
Video: Duffy – “Rockferry”
Video: Duffy – “Mercy” (US version)
Video: Duffy – “Mercy” (UK version)
MySpace: Duffy

So Much Silence has helpfully ripped Elbow’s recent session for KEXP into MP3 form. I’ve never managed to be quite as won over by Elbow as many others have, but I picked up their latest The Seldom Seen Kid this weekend to see if this is the record that’s going to click for me. For a while it seemed like Leaders Of The Free World would do it for me but it just missed the target. I will report back with my findings.

The Tripwire is offering one of the new tracks to be found on the reissue of Rob Dickinson’s solo record Fresh Wine For The Horses. The new edition will feature redone versions of the original album tracks, this one new song and a second disc of acoustic renditions of Catherine Wheel classics. It’s out June 10.

MP3: Rob Dickinson – “The End Of The World”

Also out on June 10 and accompanied by bonus material intended to entice those who’ve already got the record, The Charlatans’ latest You Cross My Path. They’re hoping those who downloaded it for free with the band’s blessing will think highly enough of it to shell out for the physical goods which will be accompanied by a bonus disk of non-album and live tracks as well as some videos. Details at NME.

The release of The Futureheads’ new record This Is Not The World has been pushed back a couple weeks until June 3.

Some new videos of note, starting with a clip from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ new one Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, a record which has finally gotten me to investigate Cave’s back catalog beyond just his best-of. Cave and Seeds are at the Kool Haus on October 1. Yes, it’s a ways off but if you’re planning on going and don’t get a ticket soon, you will be sorry. Yes you will.

Video: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Night Of The Lotus Eaters”

Next there’s a new vid from R.E.M.’s Accelerate, a record which isn’t quite living up to the “return to form” hype that preceded it but which is eminently more listenable than their last ten years’ output so I’ll happily take it. They’re at the Molson Amphitheatre on June 8.

Video: R.E.M. – “Hollow Man”

The Kills have made a vid for the best song off of Midnight Boom while MPR has an in-studio session with the duo. And if you missed their scorching show at the Opera House last week, take note that they’ll be back on August 3 at the Phoenix as support for The Black Keys. Two bands, four musicians, no basses. Rock.

Video: The Kills – “Last Day Of Magic”

There’s a new video from Portishead’s Third. I just got a copy of this but haven’t spent much time with it as of yet.

Video: Portishead – “The Rip”

And finally, I find the fact that a Canadian band like Tokyo Police Club should choose to debut their new video for “In A Cave” at MTVu, a site not accessible to Canada, more than a little ludicrous. Americans, you can watch it via the above link. Canadians, you can stuff it. Or just read this inspection of David Monks’ iPod at The AV Club and this interview at The Globe & Mail.

Sad news, but totally expected and understandable – Jonathan Meiburg has formally left Okkervil River to focus on Shearwater. This move follows Will Sheff’s departure from Shearwater before the recording of Palo Santo and thus dissolves what had been an amazing pairing of bands and creative talents, though inevitable given the successes and demands on both bands over the last few years. Meiburg’s final contributions to Okkervil will appear on the Stage Names companion disc due out later this year and Shearwater’s next opus Rook is out June 3. They will be in town on June 23 for a show at the Horseshoe.

PopMatters contemplates the musical world of Neko Case.

The Faint will release Fascination on August 5 and will follow it up with a tour that stops at the Opera House on August 21.

And one from the rumour mill – I have word that one more band will be car pooling with Animal Collective and Dizzee Rascal from the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago to the Rogers Picnic in Toronto on July 20. Who? Let’s just say that it’ll be a Vampire Weekend road trip… Well that wasn’t very cryptic, was it. I will confirm when I can.