Angela BoatwrightI don’t really know how things work in the dance/electronic music worlds, but when Fool’s Gold Records elected to celebrate the fact that their fellow Montrealers Chromeo were going to be playing the B-Live stage at this past Summer’s Pemberton Festival up in the Rocky Mountains with a set of remixes by their artists, who am I to argue? Maybe remixes are like high-fives or fist-bumps for the DJ set. Or maybe their mom (Fool’s Gold founder A-Trak and Chromeo’s Dave 1 are brothers… in the literal sense) insisted they play nice together.

And so it is that I’m able to offer you three remixes of “100%”, the final track from Chromeo’s 2007 album Fancy Footwork, by Treasure Fingers, Trackademicks and Nacho Lovers. “100%” showed off the duo’s sexy, seductive flipside to their goofier, good-time persona.

The band released a fancy, deluxe edition of Fancy Footwork this Summer and aim to have a new record out in the new year. RWD has an interview with both Dave 1 and P-Thugg.

MP3: Chromeo – “100%” (Treasure Fingers B-Live Pemberton Mix)
MP3: Chromeo – “100%” (Trackademicks B-Live Pemberton Mix)
MP3: Chromeo – “100%” (Nacho Lovers B-Live Pemberton Mix)
MySpace: Chromeo

Jaime HoggeI don’t know if a duo can really be called a “supergroup”, but if so then the combined resumes of Nick Thorburn and Jim Guthrie, they who go by Human Highway, would certainly qualify them. Guthrie cut his teeth in the dearly departed and wholly underappreciated Royal City before a fruitful solo career that included a stint in Thorburn’s Islands, the band which followed his first outfit – the much beloved by people other than me Unicorns.

Though I reserve the right to be entirely wrong about this, I don’t believe that Guthrie’s stint in Islands went beyond live duties. So Moody Motorcycle, the debut album from Human Highway released back in August, constitutes the first recorded collaboration between these two artists. And fittingly, it sounds exactly as you’d think a collaboration between the two – and named for a Neil Young film – should. It’s simple and homespun-sounding, unsurprising considering it was knocked off in a week, rich in melody and harmony and faithful to the pair’s folk and pop roots. It’s a bit understated in delivery, but there’s a definite bounce to it.

While most humans of Canadian persuasion know that traversing the country’s highways in December can be a bit risky, Human Highway are setting out on a short Canadian tour in the middle of next month. Only four dates, though, including a December 16 date at the Tranzac – tickets $10 in advance, $12 at the door, though I am guessing there won’t be too many of the latter. Chart and Exclaim! talk to Guthrie about the project’s origins, while NPR declares Moody Motorcycle one of the year’s “overlooked gems”.

MP3: Human Highway – “Sleep Talking”

Exclaim has details on the next Handsome Furs record Take Control, out February 3.

Asobi Seksu’s next album has a release date to go with the previously announced title. Look for Hush on February 17.

The Quietus speculates about the possibility of a Condo Fucks record entitled Fuckbook appearing on the Matador release calendar as really being a new Yo La Tengo record. Because goodness knows that Matador/Beggars have no record of signing bands with “Fuck” in their name (though Condo Fucks don’t appear to hail from Toronto, so that’s a strike against).

The Rice Thresher talks to Matt Berninger from The National.

am/fm and Metro talk New Jersey with Nicole Atkins.

There’s much Calexico in the newswires – check out features on the band at Express Night Out, Metro, The Montreal Gazette, Chart and eye. They’re at the Phoenix on Tuesday, and congratulations go out to Fotis and Marius for winning passes to the show.

Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips chats with PopMatters and JAM.

The best part of this two–part video interview with Nick Cave at PitchforkTV is the “I will eviscerate you” look on Nick’s face at the very beginning. Though I suspect he always looks like that.

Pitchfork reports that The Pipettes are once again down a Pipette.

Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke talks to The Sun, complains about John Lydon being a meanie.

Drowned In Sound gets a new album status report from Maximo Park’s Paul Smith.

Pitchfork has got an MP3 from Los Campesinos’ new record We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

MP3: Los Campesinos! – “Miserabilia”

Paste offers up the complete transcript of their recent interview with Of Montreal mastermind Kevin Barnes.

MySpace Transmissions offers up a downloadable session with Bon Iver.

Le Blogotheque takes away a show with Fleet Foxes.

Daytrotter sessions up with The Dutchess & The Duke.

PopMatters interviews The Secret Machines.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette catches up with Robyn Hitchcock.

The Santa Barbara Independent sees how Jason Isbell is doing out on his own.

Mates Of State discuss the balance between rocking out and bringing up baby with Nashville Scene.

Drowned In Sound prognosticates about what 2009 will bring for music.

Frank YangA quick survey of the audience at the Phoenix on Tuesday revealed hoarse voices, sweat-soaked (and beer-soaked clothes) and beaming faces… and that was only after the opener. It was the Toronto stop of the Rock & Roll Means Well tour featuring Drive-By Truckers and The Hold Steady as co-headliners traversing the continent (though this was the only Canadian date), one extended guitar solo at a time.

There had been some debate – some instigated by me – as to which of the two acts should have been deemed the headliner. Sure, the alternating nights solution they went with was the most fair and logical, but considering that both had devout fan bases who could probably have filled the venue on their own there was sure to be some disagreement about who should have the honour of closing things out, to say nothing of the longer set and encore. From my POV, while I love both bands I’d probably call myself a bigger Hold Steady fan but having seen them both many times (though neither in almost two years), I would have been pretty happy either way.

As it happens, the coin flip guaranteed Toronto a Truckers wrap-up and so The Hold Steady, an act whose live shows are well-known as being as much a party as those their songs are about, were up first. Now though there were just the two bands on the bill, the dynamic of the show felt much like a festival where in order to maintain some sort of balance, sets have to be adjusted and truncated from their usual form. And in this case, the Hold Steady were working with a rigid set time they had to make the most of. To that end, they came out guitars blazing and rarely let up for the next hour fifteen. And while that sounds like it might be a good idea, in actuality it didn’t allow them the sort of pacing that would have served them best.

The non-stop guitar riffing and maniacal stage antics from frontman Craig Finn were exhilarating and engaging, but also exhausting to experience without a break. Not helping was a mix that tended to bury Finn’s vocals and as good as they are, without his wonderful mile-a-minute words, The Hold Steady are really just an exceptional bar band. Sound issues did improve as their set went on, though, thankfully. I hadn’t seen them since October 2006, the last of three times seeing them in just three months, and I was hoping that Finn had come up with some fresh between-song banter since then. Alas, the need to cram as much material into the allotted time as possible – 18 songs in total drawing heavily from this year’s Stay Positive – didn’t leave much time for chit-chat or even to take a breath, though the broad grin on Finn’s face was plenty of evidence that it wasn’t all business, not at all. Don’t interpret the above points as implying that I didn’t enjoy their set – I love their songs, their sing-along songs, and when surrounded by scores of fans doing exactly that, it’s hard not to love it – but as terrific as the show and tour sounded on paper, it became obvious that it wouldn’t be without some compromises. After all, the very term “co-headline” is a bit of an oxymoron, is it not?

The set change took the better part of an hour, in which time the audience make-up also turned over. Hold Steady fans were replaced with Trucker fans, who all seemed much more hardcore about their heroes (those of us who were both just stayed put) – it was a decidedly different vibe. While the Hold Steady have a definite “it band” cachet right now, the Truckers have built their fanbase with years and years of hard work and touring. Not to imply that The Hold Steady haven’t, but the Trucker fans were obviously in it for life. And I’m pleased to note that while things got suitably rowdy for both sets (moreso for the Truckers), it wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as I’d feared heading in. Except that little dude with the tattoo.

This was the first time I’d seen the Truckers play post-Isbell, and wasn’t sure how much I’d enjoy it as he’d been my favourite Truckers writer over the last couple records. Their latest, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, didn’t stick with me as much as the others and I suspect that his absence was part of that. So with his and his songs’ absence, the set was a decidedly different one from the last time I saw them – also October 2006. Drawing only from the songbooks of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley (plus two from Shona Tucker), it reached much further back into their back catalog to Pizza Deliverance and Gangstabilly – two records I don’t really know – and thus made for a more unfamiliar show than I’d anticipated. And while The Hold Steady’s set started out turned up to 10 and stayed there, the Truckers kicked off with an huge and ominous “Where The Devil Don’t Stay” but mostly took advantage of their longer set length to slow things down and stretch them out, giving their songs and the characters that dwelled within some space to breathe, building up over the course of the set to a massive climax of “Ronnie And Neil” (happy birthday Neil, btw) and “Hell No I Ain’t Happy”. Oh the guitars, oh the solos.

Reports from previous dates on the tour had the bands collaborating, regardless of who was closing, so it wasn’t any surprise when Craig Finn joined the Truckers for their encore. I can’t say that he particularly fit in, though, with his bounding around the stage whilst clapping and mugging during “Marry Me” more than a little out of place, like a little kid high on pixie sticks running around while the grown-ups took care of business. He settled down and contributed guitar and vocals on the last two numbers, “Let There Be Rock” and a barnburning cover of Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died”, not that the Truckers necessarily needed the assistance – they know how to close out a show.

Interestingly, while neither band put on the best show that I’ve seen either of them give, the combination of the two – as logical a pairing as it was incongruous – made it feel like a real occasion. The sum of the parts being greater than the whole and all that. And the whole question about “who should headline” was, at least in my mind, obvious. Whereas The Hold Steady embody the spirit of giddy youth and the mistakes and mishaps that come with it, the Drive-By Truckers are about life and experience and being worn down by it all, yet still standing up. The running order of the night made perfect sense like this, and after the Truckers’ set I couldn’t imagine anyone having to follow them, or even wanting anyone to. They have a weight, a presence, a gravitas that demands respect. I’m genuinely curious to those who’ve seen the Hold Steady-closed shows, what was it like? Do they manage to make it seem like a no-brainer that THEY close things out? Gotta admit, it’s a nice problem to have.

Free! and CITYNews talk to Patterson Hood, while The Toronto Star and The Philadelphia Inquirer have interviews with Craig Finn and Boise Weekly with Tad Kubler. Chart has a glowing review of The Hold Steady’s set on Tuesday but wasn’t able to stick around for the Truckers’ set. Sucker.

Photos: Drive-By Truckers, The Hold Steady @ The Phoenix – November 11, 2008
MP3: Drive-By Truckers – “Zip City”
MP3: The Hold Steady – “Chips Ahoy!”
MP3: The Hold Steady – “Your Little Hoodrat Friend”
MP3: The Hold Steady – “The Swish”
Video: Drive-By Truckers – “Never Gonna Change”
Video: The Hold Steady – “Chips Ahoy!”
Video: The Hold Steady – “Your Little Hoodrat Friend”
Video: The Hold Steady – “The Swish”
MySpace: Drive-By Truckers
MySpace: The Hold Steady

Hilary WalshWell this certainly took a while. Four years on from the release of her debut Happenstance, Rachael Yamagata has finally released the follow-up in Elephants … Teeth Sinking Into Heart, and perhaps in an effort to make up for the wait, it’s a double album. Well, sort of.

Though the physical release is divvied up into two CDs, the contents could quite easily fit onto one. The separation is intended to be thematic, with the first disc – Elephants – consisting of intimate and sometimes smouldering balladry that treads the well-worn terrain of lust and love and the brokenheartedness that ensues, while the second – Teeth Sinking Into Heart – does much the same, except with louder guitars and a defiantly snarling delivery. Perhaps tellingly, it’s not an even split. Elephants runs ten songs long (one instrumental, one hidden) while Teeth only lasts five, and the last of those, “Don’t”, hardly qualifies as a rocker. It’s more of a final note of resignation.

As she proved on Happenstance, Yamagata is perfectly capable of handling both sides of the musical coin – her smoky rasp of a voice is just as suited to the downcast weepers as it is the more venomous sentiments and she’s just as deft behind the guitar as she is the piano, though the Teeth end of things is decidedly more aggressive than the more uptempo moments on her debut. The imbalance on the album is probably meant more as a mirror of reality – anger is intense but only lasts a short while, but sadness can drag on forever. Or maybe she just had more slow songs.

It’s easy and probably quite accurate to file Yamagata under adult-contemporary singer-songwriter likely to soundtrack Grey’s Anatomy, though the rich-yet-lean production from Mike Mogis probably sounds like it was done by Steve Albini when compared to her more slickly produced peers. And even if she doesn’t transcend that particular style, she’s still damn good at it and everyone – I don’t care who they are – is capable of having their heartstrings tugged by a sad song, if it’s the right sad song. And Yamagata has got lots of them – surely one will do the trick.

Yamagata is hitting the road this Fall and will be at the Mod Club on December 12 for what, I think, is her first headlining show in Toronto in four years and even that was an industry showcase deal. She’s been through a couple times in a support capacity but never on her own. So again, a long time in coming.

BlogCritics talks to Yamagata about the Hotel Cafe Tour which makes up the first leg of her Fall tour, Deseret News also has an interview and NPR is streaming a radio session.

Video: Rachael Yamagata – “Elephants”
Video: Rachael Yamagata – “Sidedish Friend”
MySpace: Rachael Yamagata

The Kills have rolled out another vid from their excellent Midnight Boom.

Video: The Kills – “Tape Song”

Drowned In Sound talks to Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste about the band’s progress on their next album, for which he’s eyeing a late Spring 2009 release.

Laundromatinee is offering a session with The Acorn in video and MP3 forms, WRAL.com has an interview. They’re at Lee’s Palace on November 27.

Pitchfork interviews Calexico. They’re at the Phoenix November 18, passes are still being given away.

When Okkervil River released The Stand-Ins this year, it cut the life cycle of The Stage Names down from what it arguably should have been (or doubled it, whatever), and as a result this video from the first album never made it out there. So the director has put it up himself. Via Antville.

Video: Okkervil River – “A Hand To Take Hold Of The Scene”

Noah & The Whale’s December 9 show has been moved from the El Mocambo to the Rivoli.

Cut Copy return to town for the third time in a year with a show at Circa on March 20.

It’s almost the holiday season, and that means traditions like the Skydiggers Christmas shows at the Horseshoe on December 19 and 20 and The Sadies ringing in the New Year at the ‘Shoe, as always, on December 31. Tickets for all are $20.

Francesca TalloneThe most striking thing about Parts & Labor’s last record Mapmaker, even more than the massively buzzing wall of synths, unrelentingly anthemic songwriting or Dan Friel’s more Bob Mould than Bob Mould vocals – it was the maniacally propulsive drumming of Christopher Weingarten. His breakneck tempos kept the entire record at the very brink of either taking off into orbit or utterly collapsing under itself. So with him having left the band after that record, it was reasonable to question whether their new album Receivers would be able to measure up to Mapmaker‘s adrenaline rush?

And in measures of pure energy, the answer is no. New drummer Joe Wong is hardly a slouch but he doesn’t play at full throttle in the same way as his predecessor, and accordingly the record is less relentless and chaotic, but also more tuneful. The addition of Wong and also second guitarist Sarah Lipstate have shifted the personality of Parts & Labor sufficiently that trying to directly compare the two records (as I’ve been doing) isn’t really appropriate. In terms of analogies, if Mapmaker-era Parts & Labor was Husker Du, then the Receivers era can be likened to Sugar. Hell, the none-more-pop of “Nowhere’s Nigh” sounds like it could have been taken straight off Copper Blue, like the mash-up of “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” and “Helpless”, rendered in keyboard. Which, incidentally, qualifies it as maybe one of my favourite songs of the year.

Rest assured, Mapmaker fans, Parts & Labor haven’t mellowed out. Receivers still buzzes and wails in all the right places – it simply trades a few BPMs and a few notches of cacaphony for a bucketful of melody, and that’s a trade I’d make any day. They’ll still make your fist pump and your head bob. It may simply not hurt quite as much the next morning.

The band are currently on tour and will be in Toronto on November 21 for a show at Sneaky Dee’s. Bassist BJ Warshaw talks to The San Francisco Bay Guardian and Spinner about the band’s solicitation of found sounds from their fans to use on the album while Friel covers similar ground for Tuscon Weekly.

MP3: Parts & Labor – “Nowhere’s Nigh”
MySpace: Parts & Labor

Franz Ferdinand’s Nick McCarthy discusses the band’s next album Tonight with Drowned In Sound. The album is out January 27 and they’re playing Lee’s Palace on December 4.

Brendan Canning has released another video from Something For All Of Us…. He and the rest of Broken Social Scene will be at the Sound Academy on November 27 and 28.

Video: Brendan Canning – “Churches Under The Stairs”

Also with a new video are Death Cab For Cutie.

Video: Death Cab For Cutie – “No Sunlight”

NPR is streaming The Decemberists’ show in Philadelphia from last week. They’re currently in the midst of releasing the three volumes of their Always the Bridesmaid vinyl single series and are targeting an April release for their next proper album, Hazards Of Love.

It’s still just Fall but if looking ahead to Winter (note I didn’t say “looking forward to” because that’d just be madnesS), one of the acts for next year’s WinterCity festival has been announced. On February 7, The Stills will play a free show to the huddled, freezing masses at Nathan Phillips Square. No word yet who’ll do the same on January 30. Looking a little more short-term, they’ve got four nights at the Danforth Music Hall starting tonight.

New York’s Longwave release their fourth album and first in three years today – Secrets Are Sinister is streaming in its entirety at Spinner.

Stream: Longwave / Secrets Are Sinister

And also streaming and out today is The Sound Of The Smiths, the umpteenth compilation of The Smiths.

Stream: The Smiths / The Sound Of The Smiths

And finally, over at Spin, they’ve got the whole of Just Like Heaven, the Cure tribute album due out on January 27. There’s some commentary from the particpating artists over here.

Stream: Just Like Heaven: A Tribute To The Cure