Photos by Frank Yang

Know how I was complaining last week that blog fodder was lean? And I promised this week would be better? Well damn, was I prescient or what. It’s been a whirlwind of newsworthy material in the last day, so much so that I don’t really know where to begin. I guess today will be the show announcements – either of these first couple of these are “stop the presses”-worthy, but I’ll go with the one that gave the post its title.

I was told about the co-headline “Rock And Roll Means Well” tour of The Hold Steady and Drive-By Truckers last week but had to keep it hushed up, but thanks to the Truckers’ website, the dates are out of the bag and the double-barreled rock’n’roll assault will hit the Phoenix on November 11. Expect beer, beer and more beer, equal quantities of sweat and guitar solos that don’t want to end. The bands have chosen to alternate headlining slots from night to night, and for our show it’s the Truckers who’ll close things out. Tickets are $27.50 and go on sale Friday.

That was the one I knew about. This one – which came courtesy of the comments yesterday – took me completely off guard. December 4 at the Air Canada Centre – Neil Young and Wilco. And a band called Everest who deserve a salute just because it’s on their web site that the tour dates were revealed. It’s not accurate to call this a co-headline tour – no one “co-” headlines with Neil – but it’s a pretty amazing one-two punch though after being spoiled by seeing Wilco at Massey Hall so many times, I do worry about how the acoustics of the ACC will treat them. Thrasher’s Wheat has some general ticket info about the tour, including the fact that the floors will be general admission and coming in around the $75 mark while the stands are reserved seating, ranging in price from $45 to $250. Tickets for Toronto go on sale Friday. And finally, Thrasher’s Wheat is also floating November 3 as a release date for the first volume of Neil’s Archives – believe it when you see it but it’s a reasonable target – and Billboard reports that Wilco are hoping to have a new record out in the Spring of next year. I’m sure we’ll be hearing the new songs that have begun cropping up in recent shows.

On a much smaller but still scale, The Acorn and Ohbijou are teaming up for a tour this Fall – dates are coming today, but it kicks off October 4 in Kingston, weaves its way right across Canada, down the US west coast and back through the midwest, wrapping up in Chicago on November 1. Then after a breather, southern Ontario gets a string of dates in late November including a stop at Lee’s Palace on the 27th, tickets $10. I’m not sure who will close that one out, but Ohbijou technically has home field advantage. The pairing will also be releasing a 12″ split-single this Fall which will contain a new song from each band as well as a cover of each other’s songs. The Acorn are also releasing an album of live/session material and rarities called Heron Act – look for it September 30. Update: Full tour dates now available.

And also doing the co-headline thing are Attack In Black and Ladyhawk, who will be alternating closing out the Horseshoe on November 14 and 15. Tickets $12.50.

Plants & Animals have a date at the Horseshoe on September 18, tickets $10 in advance.

Nashville’s Lambchop will release their new record OH (ohio) on October 7 and frontman Kurt Wagner will be setting out on a solo tour to support. Seek him out at the Drake Underground on October 6 – tickets $15.

MP3: Lambchop – “Slipped Dissolved and Loosed”

Angela Desveaux is now listed as support for The New Year at Lee’s Palace on October 15. Both acts have new albums out September 9 – Desveaux with The Mighty Ship and The New Year with a self-titled affair. Desveaux is also at The Boat on September 4.

MP3: The New Year – “The Company I Can Get”
MP3: Angela Desveaux – “Sure Enough”

We Are Wolves are at the El Mocambo on October 17.

New York City shoegazers Asobi Seksu will be at the Horseshoe on October 20 previewing material from their third album, due out in early 2009 courtesy of their new home at Polyvinyl. Tickets are $10.

Great Lake Swimmers return home for their first headlining show in a while on October 25 at Lee’s Palace. There’s a video of them playing “Moving Pictures, Silent Films” in a studio over at Toro.

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings have a date at the Kool Haus on October 29, tickets $21.50.

And via For The Records – Toronto’s Fucked Up, newly signed to Matador, will cap off a two-week tour in support of their new record , out October 7, with a three-night stand at Sneaky Dee’s from October 30 to November 1. While trying to pick out which night of a multi-night engagement will be the best can be a crapshoot, in this case I’m wagering that the middle night will be the one to aim for. Hallowe’en. Yes.

MP3: Fucked Up – “No Epiphany”

Photo by Frank Yang

The one enduring memory I have of Radiohead’s show at the SkyDome in October 2003 is of Thom Yorke’s face on the Jumbotron. He’s seated at the keyboard, to which they’ve attached a little webcam/fisheye thing and he’s leaning into it and making faces whilst playing and his visage – equal parts comical and grotesque – is there in front of me, 110 feet high. Yes, it made an impression.

But that show was most memorable to me not for the performance but for marking what was, essentially, the end of an almost ten-year relationship with the band. History has shown that the Oxford quintet have so far had two very clearly marked phases in their career: their ascension from one-hit grunge contemporaries to arguably the most innovative and important rock band in the world – we’ll call those the ’90s – and their subsequent deconstruction of all that and reinvention as an electronic-rock hybrid.

Being very much from the old school, I found the recent years increasingly difficult to follow and though it seems that others had no problem making the shift with the band and I’ve met many who only began to find the band interesting from Kid A on, I basically gave up on my once-favourite band in the world after Hail To The Thief, which even managed to make their much-ballyhooed return to guitars sound cold and inorganic. They’d been so successful in trading in themes of alienation and paranoia that they’d succeeded in alienating me and that last show was the perfect example. From my vantage point, the band were tiny figures on a stage and what I could see up on the screen offered no sort of connection with the band.

And so it was that post-Thief and post-Skydome show, I went on with life post-Radiohead fandom. It certainly wasn’t difficult – this blog and the new musical discoveries that came with it began to get into full swing thereabouts as well so it’s not like there wasn’t plenty to fill the Yorke-shaped hole in my life. Of course, it was easy enough to not pay attention when they didn’t release a new record in the interim (save for Yorke’s solo record) and I think I only had to not worry about getting tickets to one local show. But then came that whole In Rainbows stunt/event and like pretty much everyone else, I figured that a couple quid or whatever I ended up deciding to pay wasn’t much of an investment to see if THIS “return to roots” claim had any legs.

And amazingly, it did. As I said in my review, it sounded like the band had stopped being so self-conscious about being a rock band and that sense of ease allowed them to make their most natural and, for my money, best record in a decade. I wasn’t going to dust off the fan club membership card or anything – no I never had one – but the idea that there might be a second act for my relationship with the band was genuinely exciting to me.

Which, after a lengthy but sort of necessary-for-context preamble, brings us to Friday night at the Molson Amphitheatre. Five years less a day on from their show scheduled at that same venue, the band were wrapping up the eastern leg of a mammoth North American tour that mixed festivals and headlining shows. And while there was nothing as catastrophic as the blackout that forced the 2003 show to be postponed for two months, it wasn’t necessarily smooth sailing as a steady downpour drenched those on the lawns – but it also conjured up at least two rainbows.

This was commented on by openers Grizzly Bear, who were playing the last date of their stint as support for Radiohead. Though I’d seen them a few times before and was pretty familiar with their last full-length Yellow House, I’ve never been as enthralled with them as some I know. It’s curious, then, that in this setting – a big half-empty venue where no one is there to see you is about as unsympathetic as you can probably find – they made the most favourable impression on me yet. Perhaps the cavernous acoustics worked to their advantage, adding even more reverb to their sound and emphasizing the hazy, dreamlike qualities of their folk-rock. And perhaps their new songs, of which they played a few, are just pretty great. “Two Weeks”, which was premiered on Letterman a little while back, sounded more immediate and hooky than anything I’ve heard from them and, if it’s indicative of where they’re going on their next record – slated for a Spring 2009 release – then it may be that I’m just an album behind the curve with these guys than everyone else.

As for Radiohead, well as pretty much every report from this tour – or their career – and despite a few technical hiccups, they put on an amazing show. Under a stage setup of long, hanging LED pillars that looked like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude (circa Superman II), they were superbly tight yet not mechanical about it – I found the sight of Ed O’Brien grinningly shaking a tambourine to be a charming sight. They kicked off with “15 Step” and plowed through a set that ultimately included all of In Rainbows and drew heavily on their recent records. The 20th century wasn’t even acknowledged until a dozen songs in with “No Surprises” and only once more in the main set (“Climbing Up The Walls”), which finished after a surprisingly brief hour fifteen. But at shows like this, you know they’re playing till curfew and when they returned for a five-song encore, it reached further back with an “Airbag” that suffered for having Jonny Greenwood’s guitar too low in the mix, a surprise appearance of fan-fave b-side “Talk Show Host” and a glorious “Street Spirit”. Still not done, they returned for a second encore which got Bends-y with “Planet Telex” and concluded with “Everything In It’s Right Place”.

As you can probably tell from the above stated highlights, it was still the older material that got my juices flowing and as such, they didn’t get flowing until a good deal later in the set. With much of the more recent material necessarily reconfigured from their studio versions for live performance, I didn’t even recognize some of the Thief material at first – that’s just how much and how recently I’ve listened to that record. And while the second half of the show did redeem the whole for me, I confess I found myself getting a bit agitated earlier on as they seemed be working working from a set list designed to disappoint me. I think I’d gotten the idea that they were going to be drawing much more heavily on the past (and to be fair, some of the other set lists from the tour that I’ve seen seemed to go that way) and, by extension, I think I was hoping that they’d get me as excited about them as I was, oh, ten years ago. I wanted them to make me feel young again and that, obviously, is stupid.

Regardless of how much I like (or dislike) their recent output, the fact is Radiohead are far, far, far away from being a band who need to put together a “greatest hits”-type set and just because I was ready to feel nostalgic in getting back on board with what is still one of the most important bands in my life was no reason to think that they were going to be interested in soundtracking that particular trip. Net result, thanks to my own unrealistic expectations I didn’t enjoy the show as much as most everyone else there and I probably could/should have and that’s not a mistake I’ll be making again (I would hope). I’ve been spending more time with Hail To The Thief and Amnesiac in the past few days than I have in the past few years, trying to revisit them with fresh ears, and parts of them – not all – are coming into sharper focus to me than before. I don’t know that I’ll ever like them, but a better appreciation wouldn’t hurt. Next time Radiohead are back, I’ll be ready for them.

There’s a full set list and fan reaction over at At Ease while The National Post, The Globe & Mail, AOL Music Canada, eye, Chart and The Toronto Sun have reviews. eye also does their bit by celebrity spotting Thom Yorke in Parkdale the night before the show. Elsewhere, Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste has been blogging their tour with Radiohead for Rolling Stone.

And a final question – did the bonus material that came in the deluxe edition of In Rainbows ever make itself available anywhere else? Is there anything especially worthy in those eight songs?

Photos: Radiohead, Grizzly Bear @ The Molson Amphitheatre – August 15, 2008
MP3: Grizzly Bear – “Two Weeks” (live on Letterman)
MP3: Grizzly Bear – “While You Wait For The Others” (live at KCRW)
MP3: Grizzly Bear – “On A Neck, On A Spit”
MP3: Grizzly Bear – “Knife”
Video: Radiohead – “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”
Video: Radiohead – “Nude”
Video: Radiohead – “House Of Cards”
Video: Grizzly Bear – “Knife”
MySpace: Radiohead
MySpace: Grizzly Bear

So with the UK editions of V Fest are ongoing this weekend, which leaves Toronto’s franchise – set for September 6 and 7 at the Toronto Islands – as the only of Richard Branson’s big parties left for 2008. That’s just three weeks off, and with only 24 of the 32 acts announced – and that assumes the same number of bands for the two stages per day, never mind the third stage which appears to be in the plans again this year – it’s understandable that people are just a wee bit curious about who else is coming.

Starting with announcements of Foo Fighters, Oasis, Paul Weller, Bloc Party and Spiritualized, it looked like we were set for a rather ass-kicking lineup this year but since then, the roster has been filled with resolutely club-level acts, who while not necessarily bad per se, haven’t done a lot to keep the excitement – especially not when compared to the talent assembled for the Baltimore edition a couple weeks ago.

Since they announced the Moby-led lineup for the Bacardi B-Live tent, announcements have not been forthcoming and the only two new names – Mardeen and Yoav – were added to the website quietly and without fanfare. There should be one more lineup press release coming – last year’s came on August 22 – and the optimist in me is hoping they’re saving some moderate names to keep it from being too anticlimactic – but all we can do is wait. Some digging has revealed some smaller/local names who’ll be playing – Songs From A Room, Electric Touch, Winter Gloves and contest winners Secret Broadcast – but no one that’s going to sell any tickets. Oasis, that is your burden to bear. Update: Also playing: Paper Lions, Shad and The Arkells (thanks Ryan). And Lights, Jesse Krakow and The Waking Eyes (thanks Colin). And Matt Costa. And Rock Plaza Central.

But what does this have to do with contesting? Not a lot. Just thinking out loud. Here’s the giveaway bit. In case the omnipresent branding around the festival grounds aren’t reminder enough, the “Virgin” in Virgin Fest is a reference to Virgin Mobile and courtesy of Sony BMG Canada, I’ve got an indeterminate number (gotta double-check) two of these “Virgin Festival 2008 Ultimate Survival Kits” to give away. These contain a 2GB micro SD card with adapter and 9 songs preloaded, a mobile phone carrying case, some stickers, a wired headset and three CDs TBD (but almost certainly the Sony artists in the lineup) Oasis’ Stop The Clocks, Foo Fighters’ Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace and MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular. In my opinion it should also include earplugs to use during Yoav’s set, but that’s just me. But whether you’re going to V Fest or not, you may well have need of some or all of the items included in this little kit so if you do, fire me off an email to contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want the V Fest survival kit” in the subject line and your mailing address in the body. Contest will be open until August 30 and is open to residents of Canada.

Photo by Carrie Musgrave

Obviously no one wants to look past what’s left of the Summer, but you must admit that when there’s as much going on in September as there typically is, it’s not the worst thing for the trees to start turning colours. For example, there’s the annual Word On The Street book and magazine festival taking place on September 28 this year. And while there will be the usual many booths and stalls closing off Queen’s Park and celebrating (and selling) the printed word, this year there’ll also be a music stage sponsored by eye featuring some choice local talent.

Starting at 11AM, there’s be music and literary-type shenanigans from Chris Eaton of Rock Plaza Central, Forest City Lovers, $100, Dave Bidini, Castlemusic, Laura Barrett, Ibi Kaslik, Eric Chenaux, author Nathan Whitlock accompanied by Alex Lukashevsky and capped off by members of Ohbijou. All for frees, of course.

And it’s less in the interests of disclosure than simple pride that I point out that Laura Barrett, my former bandmate gone on to bigger and better things will release her debut full-length album, Victory Garden, on September 23. Congratulations! While the strength of her songwriting always allowed her to transcend the potential pigeonhole of her girl with a kalimba act, I’m pleased to hear that the record evidences some serious growth. A little slice of quirky-to-say-the-least orchestral folk-pop, Garden demonstrates that her lyrical approach has evolved such that they’re not just curious and eccentric, but also intriguingly oblique, and also incorporates much more expansive musical arrangements and also showcases her piano skills. But fear not, fans – there’s still plenty of kalimba.

She’s playing tomorrow night at the Theatre Centre as part of the finale of the Summerworks Music Festival alongside the Sunparlour Players, and both The Montreal Mirror and NOW have feature interviews with her. CBC Radio 3 has also made the recording of her show at NxNE this past June available to stream.

MP3: Laura Barrett – “Robot Ponies”
Video: Laura Barrett – “Robot Ponies”

JAM talks to Duffy.

Oklahoma’s Evangelicals are back for what must be their fiftieth local show this year, this time at Sneaky Dee’s on September 27. Tickets $7.

And the band they played with last time through – Shearwater – you can watch their show in New York City from the past May wherein they played the majestic Rook in its orchestrally augmented entirety at Baeble Music. Glorious.

I realize that this has been a fairly light week, content-wise, but there’s simply been a dearth of stuff happening the likes of which I can’t really recall. Next week, however, should be better. For starters, I just got accredited to cover and shoot Radiohead at the Amphitheatre tonight. Yes. I had planned to just spend the night watching TV, but this could very well be better.

Photo via mybloodyvalentine.net

What a time to be a My Bloody Valentine fan! First legendary band reunites after an almost 15-year hiatus with live performances in Europe through the Summer and more dates set for North America in the Fall. Then they announce that their two masterpiece albums Loveless and Isn’t Anything will be remastered and re-released at some point in the Autumn, with new material to follow. And NOW comes the news that the awful 1981 Canadian horror film from which the band took their name is being remade… in 3-D and starring absolutely no one of consequence. EXCITING.

But that’s not out until January 16 of next year. Somewhat sooner is My Bloody Valentine’s (the band) show in Toronto on September 25 at the Ricoh Coliseum and courtesy of Emerge I have two pairs of passes to give away for the show. EXCITING. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I Must See My Bloody Valentine” in the subject line and your full name in the body and as a skill-testing question, you must tell me what sort of rodent Kevin Shields became obsessed with – perhaps/probably unhealthily so – during the band’s downtime in the late ’90s. I’m going to let this one run a while – say until September 14. One month. And earplugs are not included.

Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Only Shallow”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Soon”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “To Here Knows When”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Swallow”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “You Made Me Realise”
Video: My Bloody Valentine – “Feed Me With Your Kiss”
Trailer: My Bloody Valentine
MySpace: My Bloody Valentine

The Quietus talks to a couple of Shield’s former bandmates from his brief tenure in Primal Scream, Bobby Gillespie and Mani. The Telegraph also talks to Gillespie, This Is Nottingham to Mani.

You can currently stream fragments of The Verve’s new record Forth in advance of its release on August 26. Obviously these are just short snippets (and choppy – dear Parlophone, buy some more bandwidth, sincerely, me) but they sound alright though the fairly standard “don’t listen too close to Ashcroft’s lyrics” disclaimer seems to be in effect.

Head over to Stereogum for a stream of the new Oasis single “Falling Down”, which sounds more immediately interesting than anything new I’ve heard from them in a long time. Dig Out Your Soul is out October 7 and they’re closing out V Fest on the Toronto Islands on September 7.

NPR is streaming a World Cafe session with British Sea Power.

As suspected, those North American tour dates for Noah & The Whale which I pointed out earlier this week were incomplete. Be sure to circle September 23 on your calendar because that night the UK folk-pop outfit will be at the Horseshoe to play Nu Music Nite (read: free show!). Their album Peaceful, the World Lays me Down is out September 16. Trivia – the band’s name is derived from the Noah Baumbach film The Squid & The Whale.

Black Mountain have a new video from In The Future. They’re at the Opera House on September 27.

Video: Black Mountain – “Wucan”

Though she’s still playing the November 3 date at the Air Canada Centre, Feist has scheduled another (relatively) more intimate show two night previous (November 1) at Massey Hall. You know you’re big when Massey Hall counts as intimate. Tickets go on sale to the public on August 18 at 10AM.

Yeah, that’s all for today. Don’t tell me you don’t lazy in the middle of August too.