Rodolphe BarasJeff Buckley passed away twelve years ago, drowned in the Mississippi River at age 30, leaving behind just a single completed album – Grace. It wasn’t a perfect record, but still an excellent one and has gone on to achieve near mythical status due as much to the the immense potential that Buckley demonstrated with it as the music it actually contained.

Since Buckley’s death, a string of new releases and reissues have poured forth and while naysayers might say these recordings are unnecessary at best, that the tale is best told in its entirety by Grace alone, the intensity of devotion that much of Buckley’s fanbase still holds for his work even this long after his passing ensures that every new bit of work unearthed will be greeted wholeheartedly, helping to flesh out a story that never got the chance to tell itself. The latest of which is Grace Around The World, a combination CD and DVD package that collects audio and video footage from television performances filmed during the first world tour in support of Grace. The CD and DVD share performances and a deluxe version includes a second DVD with a documentary feature on Buckley.

And courtesy of Toolshed, Fun Palace Entertainment and Jeff Buckley Music, I’ve got some nice items to giveaway for three such devoted Buckley fans. First is a Grace Around The World prize pack consisting of a copy of the CD/DVD, a poster, some Jeff Buckley guitar picks, temporary tattoos and postcards. Second is a CD from Jeff’s personal CD music collection, stamped with an official Jeff Buckley Music archive sticker. Third is a limited edition t-shirt circa Mystery White Boy (front/back). To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want Grace Around The World” in the subject line and in the body, your mailing address and which prizes you’d like to be considered for in order of preference. Contest is open to anyone, anywhere, but note that the DVD is only available in region 1/NTSC format so if you live abroad and don’t have a fancy, “plays everything” DVD player you may want to pass on it, though the CD is of course universal. And if you want a t-shirt, please note your size. Contest will close in two weeks at midnight, June 21.

Also note that screenings of the DVD are being held in various locales around the world and for the Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin events, Buckley’s mother and caretaker of his estate, Mary Guibert, will be in attendance:

June 9, 2009 – Los Angeles, CA @ Largo (tickets)
June 11, 2009 – San Francisco, CA @ Opera Plaza Cinema (tickets)
June 19, 2009 – Manchester, UK @ Ruby Lounge
June 21, 2009 – Paris, France @ La Scene Bastille
June 24, 2009 – Dublin, Ireland @ Andrews Lane Theater
June 28, 2009 – Austin, TX @ Mother Egan’s
August 2009 – New York, NY (date and venue TBD)

And note that you can subscribe to the Jeff Buckley mailing list to get more information on these events and other Buckley happenings.

Jess BaumungThere’s many reasons to be thankful that Beacons, the sophomore effort from Toronto’s Ohbijou, has finally arrived. Twelve at least, but for me there’s also the fact that two and a half years after first discovering the act at the very first V Fest, it gives me something new to talk about as I’ve completely run out of things to say about them with respect to their debut record, Swift Feet For Troubling Times.

If Swift Feet was the aural equivalent of a walk through the woods on a crisp and silent Winter’s day, Casey Mecija’s voice and the band’s bedroom chamber-pop orchestrations keeping your head warm like the furry lining of a parka, then Beacons continues that walk through the city on the cusp of Spring. It’s not concerned with the bright lights and hustle and bustle of downtown, but the side streets where real life happens and a thousand individual stories unfold behind closed doors. And it’s these intimate tales that populate Mecija’s songs, impressionist in rendering yet exquisitely detailed and lifted up by a band that’s infinitely more confident this time out. Whereas Swift Feet was happy to keep things consistently cozy, Beacons embraces Ohbijou’s more extroverted side, which frequently bubbled up and over in their live show. Songs like “Make It Gold” and “Black Ice” build and swell to crescendos that might have been jarring on Swift Feet but feel not only natural, but necessary on Beacons – the sense of renewal and potential that permeates the album demands action. Sweeping, musical action.

If Beacons had come out on its original mid-April release date, it would have been a wonderful record for Spring. But the business of signing of record deals both at home and abroad necessitated its
delay – it was released in the UK last week via Bella Union and Last Gang is putting it out in Canada next Tuesday, June 16, and in the US on June 23 – so it will simply have to settle for being a wonderful record.

Ohbijou will play a hometown record release show at the Opera House on June 25, and courtesy of LiveNationa, Last Gang and the band, I’ve got three terrific prize packs to give away consisting of a pair of passes to the show, a copy of the album on CD and an Ohbijou t-shirt. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to Ohbijou” in the subject line and your full name, mailing address and t-shirt size in the body. Contest open to local-type folk and will close at midnight, June 20. And if you can’t make the show for whatever reason, take heart – the band have announced that they will play an in-store at Soundscapes on June 17 at 7PM and Casey Mecija will play a set accompanied by Evening Hymns at the Whipper Snapper Gallery on June 20 at 9PM as part of NxNE.

MP3: Ohbijou – “Black Ice”
MySpace: Ohbijou

Also playing a just-announced in-store, Pink Mountaintops. They’ll warm up for their show at the Horseshoe the evening of June 14 in support of Outside Love with a short set at Sonic Boom at 3PM.

MP3: Pink Mountaintops – “Vampire”
MP3: Pink Mountaintops – “While We Were Dreaming”

NPR gets Great Lake Swimmers’ Tony Dekker to play a Tiny Desk Concert. I’m sorry, but that desk looks decidedly normal-sized, if not rather large.

The Seattle Times interviews Dan Boeckner of Handsome Furs.

The recent revival of interest in the life and times of Royal City may center on the Royal City compilation of rarities due out June 23, but in the band’s former home base of southern Ontario, at least, that’s not the end of it. Exclaim has details on a pair of tribute shows dubbed “Burning Torch: A Tribute to Royal City” taking place at the Ebar in Guelph on June 24 and at the Tranzac in Toronto on June 26. Performers will include Gentleman Reg, The Wooden Sky’s Gavin Gardiner, Constantines side-project Woolly Leaves and former Royal City skinman Nathan Lawr.

MP3: Royal City – “Can’t You Hear Me Calling”
MP3: Royal City – “A Belly Was Made For Wine”

It’s not much secret I’m an unrepentant Anglophile (I was actually repentant for a few years in the early part of this century but I got over that) so it’s good that UK music blog The Line Of Best Fit is balancing out the cross-Atlantic karmic balance with their Canuckophilia, manifested in their new column Oh! Canada, where they gush about new Canadian talent from a British perspective, and they’re taking it one further but compiling all-Canadian downloadable mixes, the first of which also contains another Beacons track from Ohbijou.

Secret Sessions is a new series coming to the online music portal aux.tv and they’ve just begun filming the first batch of episodes at The Audio Recording Academy in Toronto and will run through the Summer – upcoming tapings will feature Great Bloomers and Oh No Forest Fires, amongst others. Admission to the tapings is free, just RSVP via the information on their website.

And another new show coming to aux.tv is City Sonic, a series dedicated to interviewing Toronto artists such as Holy Fuck’s Brian Borcherdt, Sarah Slean and Sebastien Grainger about the rooms and venues in the city that shaped their careers. A preview of some of the episodes will be taking place at the Drake on June 17 as part of NxNE, along with performances from Woodhands, Lioness and The D’Urbervilles.

Blind PilotWhen you find out that Blind Pilot are from Portland, it doesn’t seem quite so strange that the duo-turned-quintet used to conduct their tours on bicycle. It also puts into context their genial, acoustically-based, orchestrally-flavoured brand of pop which goes down smooth and easy. It also gives a notion of what you can expect from their tourmates on their current east coast tour, southern California’s Local Natives. Their sound is somewhat fuller, but just as rooted in rich melodicism and unlikely to upset any apple carts. Expect a lot of head-nodding and not a lot of moshing when the two acts play the El Mocambo in Toronto this Friday night, June 12.

And courtesy of Against The Grain, I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Blind Pilot” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, June 10.

Richmond.com, 77 Square and Express Night Out all have interviews with Blind Pilot.

MP3: Blind Pilot – “Go On, Say It”
MP3: Local Natives – “Airplanes”
MP3: Local Natives – “Cards & Quarters” (live)
MP3: Local Natives – “Sun Hands”
Video: Blind Pilot – “Go On, Say It”
MySpace: Blind Pilot
MySpace: Local Natives

Nick Thornton Jones/Warren Du PreezBelieve it or not, Patrick Wolf is really just like the rest of us – he gets lonely, insecure and frustrated with life and at the end of the day, just wants to be loved. It just so happens that he’s also a 6’4″ musical prodigy with a penchant for melodrama, a sartorial sense that ranges from the unusual to the outrageous and whose inner monologue of self-affirmation sounds an awful lot like Tilda Swinton.

His new album The Bachelor – out in the UK and digitally in North America now and getting a physical release here on August 11 – is dizzying sonic mash-up of facet of Wolf’s works, from the gothic electronica of Lycanthropy through Wind In The Wires‘ ghostly folk to The Magic Position‘s giddy techniclour pop, all wrapped around the very basic theme of Wolf wondering if he’ll ever find love. In the hands of some, the collision of all these sounds might be a cacophonous mess, especially when you add in the electro-industrial textures of Alec Empire, but with Wolf it somehow sounds perfectly natural to veer from Celtic folk to 8-bit synth-pop, all of it swathed in strings and Wolf’s dramatic, emotive baritone – the enormity of his creative vision unable to be confined by any single genre. The man thinks in widescreen – no, IMAX – and the breadth of The Bachelor is simply intended to capture it in all its grandiose, over the top glory.

Wolf’s larger than life aesthetic isn’t for everyone, certainly, but for those who allow themselves to be swept up in Wolf’s epic creations, The Bachelor seems a watershed record for the young auteur. There’s never been any question that Wolf has had a very clear idea of what he’s wanted to say and how he wants to say it, but with The Bachelor, there’s the sense that the listener is now hearing what Wolf himself hears – it sounds like the sum of all his previous works, blended into one concise, chaotic statement. Though initially disappointed that the double-album Battle was split into two albums and the second part, the triumphant The Conqueror, pushed back to 2010, I suspect that’s now for the best. The Bachelor is so rich and dense that if the companion record is nearly as good – and I really hope it is – it’d really be too much to absorb. I think I’ve managed to avoid this sort of hyperbole for the year so far, so I’ll give myself a cookie now – The Bachelor will almost certainly be one of my favourite albums of the year. Just watch.

Wolf is currently on tour in North America as part of the Nylon Summer Music Tour alongside The Living Things, The Plastiscines and Jaguar Love and will be at the Mod Club in Toronto on June 17. And, courtesy of REMG, I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Patrick Wolf” in the subject line and your full name in the body. The contest will close at midnight, June 14.

There’s features on Wolf at The Skinny, The Quietus, Clash and Decider, videos of a couple of exclusive acoustic performances at Out and a behind-the-scenes feature on the making of the glow-in-the-dark video for “Hard Times” has emerged.

MP3: Patrick Wolf – “Who Will?” (Buffet Libre mix)
Video: Patrick Wolf – “Hard Times”
Video: Patrick Wolf – “Vulture”
MySpace: Patrick Wolf

God Help The Girl has released one more MP3 from the forthcoming album – out June 23 – that should be extra-familiar to Belle & Sebastian fans. It also offers a pretty good reference point for how God Help The Girl differs from Belle & Sebastian, and how it’s alike.

MP3: God Help The Girl – “Funny Little Frog”

Under The Radar interviews former Pipette Rose Elinor Dougall, who is putting the finishing touches on her solo debut, due out later this year.

MP3: Rose Elinor Dougall – “May Holiday”

The Horrors talk to The Independent about being outsiders.

Sonic Youth Week is underway at PitchforkTV – first up is an A>D>D session with the band featuring a couple tracks from The Eternal, out tomorrow. They’re at Massey Hall on June 30.

Minnesota Public Radio has been on a roll with the studio sessions – last week they welcomed Jenny Lewis and also St Vincent, the latter of whom is at the Horseshoe on August 8 and was interviewed by The Chicago Tribune.

Pitchfork has details on a forthcoming Jayhawks anthology Music From The North Country, due out July 7. It’ll be available in standard and deluxe editions, the latter of which includes a disc of rarities and a DVD of the band’s videos.

The Georgia Straight and The Santa Barbara Independent talk to with Jens Lekman.

Two-thirds of the new A Camp covers EP, out tomorrow, is available to hear right now. Stream their Grace Jones cover at Spin and their Pink Floyd cover at Spinner. There’s interviews with the band at 2 Advocate, The Denver Post and The Montreal Mirror.

If you couldn’t be at The Radio Dept’s show in New York last month – and judging from the number of curses sent my way, there were a few of you – here’s the next best thing. Not one, but two live recordings of their set at the Bell House in Brooklyn, one from Bradley’s Almanac and another by a fan but made available at the band’s website.

Via Audio and Ha Ha Tonka will be at the Horseshoe on June 23 for a free show as part of Nu Music Nite.

MP3: Via Audio – “Developing Active People”
MP3: Via Audio – “Presents”
MP3: Ha Ha Tonka – “St. Nick On The Fourth In A Fervor”

Deleted Scenes will be at Sneaky Dee’s on July 5 as part of Wavelength.

MP3: Deleted Scenes – “Turn To Sand”
MP3: Deleted Scenes – “Fake IDs”

Ra Ra Riot have a date at Lee’s Palace on September 11, tickets $13.50.

MP3: Ra Ra Riot – “Dying Is Fine”
MP3: Ra Ra Riot – “Each Year” (EP version)

The mighty Bob Mould will bring his Life & Times to the Mod Club on October 5, tickets $22.50.

MP3: Bob Mould – “City Lights (Days Go By)”

amazon.comYesterday afternoon at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square, 1623 people gathered to try and break the Guinness World Record for largest guitar ensemble by playing Neil Young’s “Helpless”, en masse, as part of the Luminato arts festival, the song chosen via a poll to determine the festival’s “Great Canadian Tune”. They failed.

Obviously in pure quantitative terms, Nick Cave would have only made the shortfall 178 bodies rather than 179, but in terms of pure cool, Cave would easily have counted for a couple hundred normal people. But then, Nick only sang on his contribution to the 1989 tribute album to Young, The Bridge – it was a couple of now-former Bad Seeds, Kid Congo Powers and Mick Harvey, who handled the instrumentation. Still, Nick knows his way around a guitar and probably could have strummed along with the others.

Neil’s Archives, Volume One finally – at long last – was released last week and implausibly yet inevitably, it appears to have been both worth the wait and the price. Cave is going through a reissue program of his own, the first three of his albums with the Bad Seeds having been remastered and rereleased with bonus goodies back in March and the rest of his catalog to follow in the near future.

MP3: Nick Cave – “Helpless”
Video: Neil Young & The Band – “Helpless”
Video: 1623 would-be world record holders – “Helpless”