Photo by Frank Yang

It’s a fact that I don’t get out to see as many local bands play as I’d like. I know there’s a wealth of great or soon-to-be great acts in Toronto that are playing out every night, but it’s simply not possible to keep on top of everything. So it’s nice to have nights like last Thursday where I’m able to not only hit up a show comprised entirely of local talent, but for the bill to turn out to be as solid top to bottom as this one was.

The main draw for me was Oh No Forest Fires, whom I’d tried unsuccessfully to see many times since I first caught them last December. And though they were closing things out, it wasn’t officially their show – that honour went to Modern Boys Modern Girls, marking the release of their debut album I Might As Well Break It. And of the other two bands on the bill, Everything All The Time had been recommended to me a little while back and the other, Dinosaur Bones, well since I was headed down to the Horseshoe anyways, why not see everyone?

Actually, that’s being a bit disingenuous. I’d done some due diligence on Dinosaur Bones via their MySpace and was quite impressed with what I’d heard – they’ve got a sounds that’s fresh yet familiar, but not easily slottable into any particular genre or revival movement. If parallels must be drawn, then perhaps I’d liken them to a rawer (or maybe just less polished) Ambulance LTD, combining Anglo romanticism with a distinctly North American (okay, New York) urbanity. Darkly sophisticated stuff, I look forward to hearing more from this five-piece in the future.

You could be forgiven if you assumed, from the name, that Everything All The Time were an overly slavish Band Of Horses tribute band, but in fact dusty Appalachian roots-rock is about as far from what EATT are about as you can get. For starters, their setup had more keyboards (8) than band members (8) and no guitars. If you think from this that synth-pop is in order, then you’d be correct but there was so much more than that. True, they did start out with relatively twee electro-pop but as the set progressed, they began piling on the stylistic shifts with notable forays into jazz and by the end, full-on electro-funk and disco and doing it all almost seamlessly (I say almost because the saxophone solo stood out more than a bit). Interestingly, the singer on their debut record – Audrey Bankley – is decidedly of the indie folk school, yet their live singer – Alanna Stuart – is an old school soul singer… and yet it works. Really well. Go figure.

Though their name makes specific promises, Modern Boys Modern Girls only half deliver – yes, there’s boys and girls in the band, the latter in the form of two full-time backing singers – yet “modern” is not the best single word to describe them. Their barreling rock quite overtly cherry picks the past – girl group pop hookery and simplicity from the ’50s , stomping classic guitar rock from the ’60s and danceable grooves from the ’70s – and while it’s certainly not the first time that particular musical recipe has been put to work, MBMG deliver it with a swagger and aplomb that makes it seem like they, at least, believe they’re the ones who thought it up. Exceptionally tight, MBMG strike an impressive balance between the party and the polish.

Contrarily, “polish” is not a word you’d use to describe Oh No Forest Fires. The last time I saw them I alluded to them sharing musical headspace with Broken Social Scene and while that knack for pulling pop out of chaos is definitely still present… there’s a lot more chaos. Actually, “bedlam” was the word that most jumped into my head the most, watching the four piece gleefully bound around the Horseshoe stage, eventually demolishing as much of their equipment as the possibly could. Some bands like to jump around on stage – ONFF move like they’re in a pinball machine stuck on “TILT” and slowly filling with lava, and yet they manage to deliver their songs rather impeccably. It’s really something to behold. Their now-completed, soon to be released debut album The War On Geometry should better demonstrate the band’s songwriting chops and range, but for the full, in-your-face experience seeing them live is the way to go. Do so before they blow up. Or self-immolate.

Photos: Oh No Forest Fires, Modern Boys Modern Girls, Everything All The Time, Dinosaur Bones @ The Horseshoe – August 21, 2008
MP3: Oh No Forest Fires – “Swing And A Misdemeanor”
MP3: Oh No Forest Fires – “We Fit Our Charm”
MP3: Modern Boys Modern Girls – “My Baby Says Boy, Don’t You Ever Go”
Stream: Modern Boys Modern Girls / I Might As Well Break It
MySpace: Modern Boys Modern Girls

Chart talks to Angela Desveaux, who will release her sophomore album The Mighty Ship on September 9 and play the Boat on September 4 and Lee’s Palace on October 15 opening up for The New Year.

Jenn Grant has two dates scheduled for Hugh’s Room on September 27 and 28.

In addition to his show at the Mod Club on October 4, Chad Van Gaalen has an in-store scheduled at Sonic Boom the following day, October 5, at 4PM. His new record Soft Airplane is out September 9.

Photo by Steve Gullick

To build up anticipation for the release of The Stand-Ins on September 9, Okkervil River have set up a YouTube channel wherein they’ll be posting videos of various artists covering songs from the new record. Two are up so far – one featuring New Pornograper Carl Newman handling Jonathan Meiburg’s parts in a duet of “Lost Coastlines” with Will Sheff, and one with David Vandervelde tacking “Singer Songwriter. Look for nine more of these to roll out over the next two weeks. Okkervil River are at the Phoenix on October 12.

MP3: Okkervil River – “Lost Coastlines”
Video: Will Sheff & Carl Newman – “Lost Coastlines”
Video: David Vandervelde – “Singer Songwriter”

And speaking of Meiburg, An Aquarium Drunkard has an interview with the now full-time Shearwater frontman.

Pitchfork and The Other Paper interview David Berman of Silver Jews, who are at Lee’s Palace on September 2. Hallelujah The Hills support.

Lucinda Williams is at Massey Hall on October 11 in support of her new record Little Honey, due out three days later on October 14. She talks to Rolling Stone a bit about it.

Filter and The Age get to know Beach House, who recently filmed a performance for the Black Cab Sessions.

The Secret Machines are offering a download of a new song not appearing on their new self-titled album, due out October 14.

MP3: The Secret Machines – “Dreaming Of Dreaming”

Muzzle Of Bees reports that the new studio record from Neko Case will be entitled Middle Cyclone and due out in March 2009.

The Skinny talks to Mercury Rev’s Jeff Marcel about their new album(s) Snowflake Midnight and Strange Attractor, both out September 30. Spin is offering a download of one of the tracks from the former.

MP3: Mercury Rev – “Snowflake In A Hot World”

The Village Voice finds out what the members of Rainer Maria have been up to since the band called it quits two years ago. Singer Caithlin De Marrais will release her first solo record My Magic City in October.

North Country Times talks to Matthew Sweet about his new record Sunshine Lies, out next Tuesday.

The Quietus asks Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste how it feels to be Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s favourite band, as declared at the Toronto show last week. Droste has a final tour blog entry at Rolling Stone.

The follow-up to The Crane Wife is still forthcoming, but Pitchfork reports that The Decemberists will release Always the Bridesmaid: A Singles Series throughout the Fall as three singles available digitally or on vinyl, and I expect as a compilation CD at some point in the future.

Time Out Chicago talks to Joanna Newsom about performing her music backed by an orchestra.

Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers gives Independent Mail a list of his top ten albums of all time. The Truckers are at the Phoenix on November 11.

Stereogum has a new, unreleased track from Centro-Matic available to download.

Jay Reatard returns to Toronto on October 16 for a show at Sneaky Dee’s, just down the street from the rather infamous Silver Dollar scuffle went down in April. Here’s hoping everyone is on their best behaviour this time around… yeah, not likely. Reatard has a compilation of his 2008 7″ singles series cleverly entitled Matador Singles ’08 coming out on October 7. Via Matablog.

MP3: Jay Reatard – “See Saw”

There’s now a second MP3 available from The Broken West’s new record Now Or Heaven, out September 9. I must say the new album is a quantum leap ahead of their debut, and that record was no slouch. Check them out at the Horseshoe on September 17 when they play with The French Kicks.

MP3: The Broken West – “Auctioneer”

You can currently stream The Rhumb Line, the debut full-length from Syracuse’s Ra Ra Riot. They’re at the Horseshoe on September 4.

Stream: Ra Ra Riot / The Rhumb Line

And now let’s hop across the pond to check in with some Scandinavian acts – Lykke Li released her debut full-length Youth Novels this week and it’s streamable over at Spinner. She’s featured in the pages of Paste and the Wall Street Journal, guest lists for Pitchfork and will be at the Mod Club on October 24.

Stream: Lykke Li / Youth Novels

Frida Hyvonen will release her new record Silence Is Wild on November 4, and has made available an MP3 to give a taste.

MP3: Frida Hyvonen – “Enemy Within”

Sigur Ros have released a second, considerably less naked video from Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust. CurrentTV also has their show at the MoMA in New York in June available to watch, while Deaf Indie Elephants has the show in MP3 form. They’re at Massey Hall on September 22.

Video: Sigur Ros – “Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur”

Photo via MySpace

So how about that new Bloc Party record? You know, Intimacy, they one they sneak-announced on Monday and is available digitally as of today to anyone who pre-orders the CD for when it comes out on October 28? A wholly unexpected announcement, but a logical one considering they’ve got a load of North American touring coming up including an appearance at day one of V Fest here in Toronto on September 6.

I can’t say I especially cared for their “Flux” single, which doesn’t appear on the new record, but I liked it more than current single “Mercury”, which does appear on the new record. I do like the new other new song they’ve got streaming at their MySpace though – “Trojan Horse”. Either way, it seems that “energy” is the word of the day in Bloc Party-land, which may not bode well for those of us who loved the melancholic anthemicism of last year’s A Weekend In The City but would be good news to those who preferred the more breakneck pace of their debut Silent Alarm. Or, considering that production duties on the record were split evenly between the producers who worked with the band on their first two records – Paul Epworth and Jacknife Lee – maybe it’ll be both. We’ll have to wait till… well, right now to find out.

Kele Okerke talks to Rolling Stone about where the album came from and how the band “didn’t want to go the whole In Rainbows route” – well no, In Rainbows was a helluva lot cheaper. The Intimacy CD/MP3 bundle would have cost $27 after shipping. I realize that paying $10 for just the MP3s, as I did, doesn’t necessarily come out to much less overall depending on how much you find the CD for but it made me feel a bit better. Just a bit. Pitchfork also has an interview with Gordon Moakes and This Is Fake DIY has first listen impressions of the record.

Video: Bloc Party – “Mercury”
Video: Bloc Party – “Flux”
MySpace: Bloc Party

The new video from Oasis has been posted and pulled from YouTube so many times in the past few days that I have no idea whether this link will still work… but it did at the time I write this so we’ll go with it. Forgiving the horrible audio quality, that’s two tracks from Dig Out Your Soul, out October 7, that I think are actually pretty good. Unprecedented. Oasis headline day two of V Fest and NME has some words from Noel Gallagher about the album’s title.

Video: Oasis – “Shock Of The Lightning”

NME points to a blog entry from Nicky Wire that states Manic Street Preachers are going to start recording their follow-up to last year’s surprisingly decent Send Away The Tigers.

London’s Rumble Strips, who’ve had my ear for a little while now, will be bringing their not-that-new but just-released-domestically album Girls & Weather to the El Mocambo on October 29 with San Francisco’s Birdmonster. A proper writeup on the band/album will be forthcoming but if you like jaunty, ska-inflected rock with horns and even if you don’t – I certainly don’t, normally – give a listen.

MP3: The Rumble Strips – “Time”
MP3: The Rumble Strips – “Motorcycle”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Girls And Boys In Love”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Alarm Clock”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Motorcycle”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Oh Creole”
Video: The Rumble Strips – “Time”
MySpace: The Rumble Strips

PopMatters interviews Los Campesinos!, who will release their second album of the year We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed on November 11. The Quietus, meanwhile, declares war on twee and wants Los Camps to be the first to fall.

MP3: Los Campesinos! – “How I Taught Myself To Scream”

Laura Marling’s Mercury-nominated album Alas, I Cannot Swim is out domestically this week and you can stream the whole thing at Spinner. She’s at the Rivoli on October 4 and The Independent has an interview about her current cultural picks.

Stream: Laura Marling / Alas I Cannot Swim

Also out this week, steaming in whole and coming to town soon are Stereolab and Chemical Chords and a show at the Phoenix on October 8. Tim Gane assembles a playlist, with annotations, for Complex.

Stream: Stereolab / Chemical Chords

And for more hot streaming action, head over to their MySpace to hear the whole of The Verve’s Forth, out next week. Billboard reports that the band is intending to soldier on after the release of this record and not keep with their tradition of breaking up following every release.

Stream: The Verve / Forth

The Interface has a session with Billy Bragg.

Maximo Park’s Paul Smith discusses the progress of album number three with NME.

IGN talks to Reuben Wu of Ladytron about video games.

Photo by Frank Yang

I’m very much an urban soul, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like to get back to the country every now and again – at least once a year, at least, for the Dog Day Afternoon mini-fest that takes place annually at a small farm just outside Guelph, Ontario. Sure, I’ve only been going two years now, but it’s such a comfortable setting I have no problem making it a tradition.

This year’s edition on Sunday marked the party’s tenth anniversary and to mark the occasion… well, they pretty much did the same thing as always. Why mess with a good thing? As always, the incomparable Sadies would be on hand to close things out and the rest of the bill was made up of talent mainly from the Toronto and K-W/Guelph region as well as from further afield. Though there had been vague threats of rain the day before, we were treated to a beautifully sunny day, perhaps feeling a bit more early Fall than late Summer, but splendid nonetheless for the couple hundred (maybe) guests lounging around in lawn chairs and on blankets, working hard at doing nothing.

Kitchener’s One Heart Many Hands was originally slated to kick things off, but had to withdraw and was replaced with a couple of Guelph artists. One Kevin Barnhorst got the opening slot and playing solo on electric guitar, offered a short set of singer-songwritery pop that probably sounded fuller in the context of his band, Elbow Beach Surf Club.

He was followed by Jessy Bell Smith, who impressed armed only with her Gretsch and a big voice. Though naturally inclined to country-soul stylings, she showed she was more versatile than just that with a set peppered with covers ranging from Nina Simone to Bruce Springsteen to a hilarious, rapid-fire version of Akon’s “Smack That”. Folkified rap covers are a bit cliche, but when they’re done as well as this one was, they’re still tremendously entertaining.

I’d seen Toronto one-man space-rock act Now YR Taken a few times before and always felt that while his instrumental compositions, built on guitar loops and drum machine samples, were quite impressive, his songwriting and vocal work really didn’t measure up and diminished the overall experience. This time out, he stuck largely to the instrumentals and despite some technical glitches managed to create an interesting and hypnotic electronic-y atmosphere that contrasted but didn’t conflict with the decidedly rural setting. Unfortunately, he opted to end his set with an almost completely non sequiter, a capella version of G’N’R’s “Don’t Cry” – not just a quote, but an entire verse and chorus. Odd and unnecessary.

It was nice to see Guelph native Gentleman Reg perform live again – it’d been a while. And while he hasn’t released a record since 2004’s Darby & Joan, he hasn’t been idle – he was now sporting a pretty impressive beard. Accompanied by a drummer and thus breaking the solo act trend so far, he played a set of angelically-voiced pop comprised of old favourites as well as some new material from his next album Jet Black, which is unfortunately no longer coming out in October but has been pushed back until the new year. There will still be some touring in the Fall, however, so at least there’s that.

The D’Urbervilles marked the start of the “rock” portion of the day, and the four-piece brought in in fine style, playing tight, taut and lightly funky new wave from their fine new album We Are The Hunters. While the open-air setting probably made it feel a bit less impactful than if it’d had been experienced in closed quarters, it was still a rousing set that raised the bar as far as energy went. Still, I expect their set to be much more punch-in-the-facelike when they open up for Land Of Talk at Lee’s Palace on September 27.

Where The D’Urbervilles were ultra-tight, Halifax’s Dog Day were a decidedly shambolic, but charmingly so. Like the band before them, the effect of their grunge-friendly, melodic pop was mitigated somewhat by the pastoral setting – the blasts of fuzz guitar seemed a bit at odds with the bales of hay and fields of sunflowers behind the band – but I still enjoyed their set though neither time I’ve seen them live has been as satisfying as the recordings that make up last year’s Night Group LP.

Up to this point, the lineup had been largely of the alt.rock variety, whereas last year there was more of a prevalent roots vibe to things. Penultimate act The Shovels certainly made up the twang quotient, the five-piece coming off like a very proficient country-western house band. There was certainly nothing revolutionary about the band’s output – male/female vocals, pedal steel, hot lick guitar solos – but it was friendly and well-played.

Also unlike last year, the Sadies weren’t stuck in traffic and were able to take the stage on time, just as the sun was setting, and put on one of their trademark amazing shows. I’ve seen the band maybe a half-dozen times now, and they’ve never given anything less than 100%, it’s remarkable. Spinning a set of psychedelic country/surf/punk-and-roll, the brothers Good and compatriots Sean Dean and Mike Belitsky again made a case for themselves as one of the most talented bands in the country today.

One new (to me) addition to their repertoire was a cover of Love’s “A House Is Not A Motel”, which fit them so perfectly that I hope they somehow become the spiritual keepers of the song, in the same way that Calexico have essentially adopted “Alone Again Or”. Their version was just sublime. When they closed out their encore with a call for requests, they sadly declined to give the Judas Priest song a go, instead opting for Pink Floyd’s “Astronomy Domine”, but I have a feeling that if they’d gone with the Priest, they’d have a) actually known exactly how to play it and b) absolutely killed it. If you go to either of their shows at the Horseshoe on October 3 or 4, I suggest you demand they play Judas Priest. Don’t take no for an answer.

Sun, straw, Sadies. Cheers, Dog Day Afternoon. See you next year.

Chart was also in attendance and has a review.

Photos: Dog Day Afternoon 2008 – August 17, 2008
MP3: The Sadies – “Anna Leigh”
MP3: The D’Urbervilles – “Hot Tips”
Video: Dog Day – “Oh Dead Life”
Video: Gentleman Reg – “The Boyfriend Song”
Video: Jessy Bell Smith – “Archie”
MySpace: The Sadies
MySpace: Dog Day
MySpace: The D’Urbervilles
MySpace: Gentleman Reg

Final Fantasian Owen Pallett talks to New York Magazine about his forthcoming EPs – Spectrum, 14th Century and Plays To Please – which are due out this Fall. No word on the Heartland full-length, so presumably that’s been pushed back until 2009. Final Fantasy plays the Danforth Music Hall on August 27.

Pitchfork talks to Carl Newman about putting away the New Pornograper overcoat for a bit and putting the A.C. name tag back on in order to turn out his second solo record Get Guilty, tentatively due out in January of next year.

BrookylnVegan has an interview with Wolf Parader/Handsome Furrier Dan Boeckner. The Handsome Furs are at Lee’s Palace on Friday night.

Young & Sexy have a date at the Drake Underground on October 11.

Blast and Filter have features on Constantines. They’re playing day one of V Fest on the Toronto Islands on September 6.