AV ClubThe Onion-powered A/V Club is wonderful for countless reasons, but of late one of the best is their Undercover series, which kicked off back in the Spring and has been rolling out a new episode every week. Its premise is having 25 pre-selected classic(ish) songs of the indie rock variety and as bands come through their studios, they choose one form the list to cover. While a few of the results have been poorly conceived or executed, most have ranged from entertaining to sublime, and of course have been a boon to covers bloggers like myself who aren’t above creating an audio rip or two from the videos.

Falling squarely into the “sublime” and “rippable” categories are English chamber-pop outfit The Clientele, who clearly went way outside their comfort zone in selecting M.I.A.’s Clash-sampling, Slumdog-soundtracking breakout hit, “Paper Planes” for their go and come up smelling like roses. Note the excellent use of Mel Draisey’s violin in lieu of the original’s stabbing “Straight To Hell” guitar lines and sly include of lyrics from their own “Since K Got Over Me” in the bridge. Loverly.

The Clientele, who made noises about retiring following the release of last year’s Bonfires On the Heath, haven’t made good on that yet with the impending release of their Minotaur mini-album next week. M.I.A., who also declared she was retiring following touring for Kala in Summer 2008 but the success of Slumdog Millionaire and its soundtrack kept her properly attending to her knitting and after having a baby, she returned with album number three /\/\/\Y/\ earlier this year and will be at the Sound Academy in Toronto on September 22.

MP3: The Clientele – “Paper Planes”
Video: M.I.A. – “Paper Planes”

WarpaintI usually try not to post on the same act multiple times in such a short period of time, but all I’ve got right now is a bunch of bits and bobs and honestly, I just want to get through to the weekend. So here; a second Warpaint-led post in the span of a week. Deal with it.

But this one sort of ties into last week’s review of their show at Wrongbar, in that I’d originally mentioned that I got details on the name and release date of their debut album from one of the band members. Well I was asked to redact that shortly after posting as those details weren’t finalized and as it turns out, they weren’t completely correct. It was announced – complete with track list and album art – earlier this week that the Los Angeles band’s first full-length would indeed be called The Fool, but wouldn’t be out until October 26 and not October 12 as I’d originally been told. So yes, we’ll have to wait a little bit longer to hear it but I’m still certain it will be worth it.

In the meantime, there’s still last year’s debut EP Exquisite Corpse to hold me over, especially since I discovered that the digital version I’ve been living off of for the past however many months was actually short a track compared to the vinyl version, so technically that extra track – quickly acquired thanks to its appearance on a compilation at eMusic – is new to me. And additionally, their cover of David Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes” is now available at iTunes and eMusic, proceeds from which go to benefit War Child. It will also appear on a Bowie tribute album entitled We Were So Turned On, due out later this year (precise date has been a moving target for a while).

Warpaint are opening up for The xx on September 29 at Massey Hall. There’s interviews with bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg at Nashville Scene and guitarist Theresa Wayman at The Daily Beacon. And Exquisite Corpse is streaming in its entirety – including the extra song I had no idea about until last week – at the band’s MySpace.

Stream: Warpaint / Exquisite Corpse

Singing Lamb talks to Chris Chu of The Morning Benders, who’ve made good on their promise to play their sixth show in Toronto this calendar year (including their free in/out-store a couple weeks ago with a headlining date at the Mod Club on November 5, part of an extensive North American tour.

MP3: The Morning Benders – “Promises”

Spin profiles Local Natives, who have a date at the Mod Club on October 19.

The Montreal Gazette talks to Greg Edwards of Autolux about the various factors that have sidelined the band for so long. They’re at Lee’s Palace on Tuesday night.

The previously venue-less Bad Religion show on October 14 now has a home – it will be at the Kool Haus, tickets $29.50.

Hutch Harris of The Thermals waxes nostalgic about collecting trading cards for Under The Radar. Their new record Personal Life arrives September 7 and they play Lee’s Palace on October 9. Check out their new Carrie Brownstein-powered video.

Video: The Thermals – “I Don’t Believe You”

Brownstein’s once (and perhaps someday future?) Sleater-Kinney compatriot Corin Tucker will release her solo debut 1,000 Years on October 5. Paste has an interview.

MP3: The Corin Tucker Band – “Doubt”

Filter profiles DeVotchKa.

NPR has a World Cafe session with the Retribution Gospel Choir.

The Advocate Weekly talks to Wilco bassist John Stirratt.

Broken Bells have released a new video that is apparently in 3D. I can’t say for sure because I refuse to patronize anything in 3D. I’m not kidding.

Video: Broken Bells – “October”

The Georgia Straight, Santa Cruz Sentinel and OC Weekly talk to Craig Finn of The Hold Steady.

Baeble Music is streaming video of a live show from Holly Miranda in New York from last month.

Spinner talks aspirations with Sam Fogarino of Interpol, whose new self-titled album is due out September 7.

Shoot The Player has an acoustic video session with School Of Seven Bells. They’re at the Mod Club on September 15.

Surviving The Golden Age talks to Laura Ballance of Superchunk about their first new record in forever, Majesty Shredding, due out September 13. There’s no Toronto tour date as yet but they’ve just announced an appearance in Montreal on September 23, so I’m hoping/expecting that the following night finds them in Hogtown (they’re in Philadelphia the night before). Come on, guys – we’re right here.

Of Montreal have rolled out a first video from False Priest, out September 14.

Video: Of Montreal – “Coquet Coquette”

Spinner talks songwriting with The Drums. They’re at the Mod Club on October 20.

Saddle CreekWhen their debut mini-album Applause Cheer Boo Hiss arrived in 2006, Land Of Talk appeared as though Canada had a new hard rock heroine in Liz Powell, her white-hot guitar work matched only by her distinctive vocals, equal parts angst and yearning. It wasn’t a title – or pigeonhole – that Powell seemed interested in, however, and their 2008 proper debut album Some Are Lakes surprised not only by dialing down the white-knuckle rock in favour of a somewhat softer and more spacious sound, but by making it sound as good, if not in some ways better, than the big, brash document that many had been imagining it would be.

Last year’s Fun & Laughter EP reignited those expectations, though, as producer Jace Lasek coaxed back some of the rough edges that Lakes producer Justin Vernon had smoothed out and with Lasek also helming album number two, perhaps expectations that we now lived in a kinder, gentler Land Of Talk were premature. Instead, Cloak And Cipher – out next week – again confounds expectations by splitting the difference and proving, perhaps, that it doesn’t really matter who’s producing or what the balance of heavy and light songs across the record are – it’s the quality of the songs that matters and in that department, Cloak And Cipher delivers.

It’s been suggested that Land Of Talk are one big song away from breaking out in a major way and if that’s true, then Cloak And Cipher is probably not the record that will do it. It holds no anthem or ballad that stops you in your tracks or burrows deep into your skull on a single listen – what it does have is ten compositions that showcase the breadth of Powell’s talents, each sounding fully self-realized and yet for all the shifts in tones, textures and players, hang together marvelously. Album standout “Quarry Hymns” sounds deceptively simple but is just about perfect in how it’s assembled, showcasing Powell’s ability to mate her distinctive voice with just the right melody and phrasing and her unconventional, spidery guitar playing while the blistering “The Hate I Won’t Commit” aptly demonstrates her punk edge is still well intact but even then, is exceptionally layered and sophisticated. No breakout hit? No bangers? No jams? That’s fine, I’ll take a rich, solid from top to bottom album every day of the week.

The National Post is currently streaming the whole of the new record with accompanying song-by-song commentary from Liz Powell. In addition to the one download below, you can get “Quarry Hymns” over here in exchange for your email address. Land Of Talk play Lee’s Palace on September 16.

MP3: Land Of Talk – “Quarry Hymns”
MP3: Land Of Talk – “Swift Coin”
MySpace: Land Of Talk

Dan Mangan is staging a cross-country tour this Fall that includes a stop at Trinity-St. Paul’s in Toronto on October 28, tickets $22.50, with Bry Webb (formerly?) of Constantines supporting in his Harbourcoats guise. The Polaris-nominated Nice, Nice, Very Nice was just released in the US.

MP3: Dan Mangan – “Road Regrets”
MP3: Dan Mangan – “Robots”

Also coming from out west and graduating on to bigger rooms is Hannah Georgas, who is teaming up with Royal Wood for a cross-country tour that will be at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on November 26.

MP3: Hannah Georgas – “Chit Chat”

Prefix interviews The Acorn

NPR is streaming a full session with Laura Marling.

The Daily Mail has a feature piece on Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine. She’s at the Sound Academy on November 3.

Just Played chats with Rose Elinor Dougall; her solo debut Without Why is out August 30.

This week, Exclaim is streaming the whole of Mogwai’s live album Special Moves, due out next week.

Stream: Mogwai / Special Moves

Rolling Stone talks to Nick Cave and Exclaim to Jim Sclavunos of Grinderman, whose Grinderman 2 is due out September 14 and whom the Huffington Post is calling the “first great band of the Anthropocene epoch”. Well duh. Grinderman play the Phoenix on November 11.

Frank YangTwo months isn’t an exceptionally long time by most standards, but for Montreal’s Arcade Fire, it seems like a lifetime. It was only that long ago that the band played two theatre shows at the Danforth, closing out a week wherein the band emerged from their post-Neon Bible seclusion to play a series of intimate shows previewing their third record The Suburbs, the Toronto shows the largest of those but still grossly undersized.

I tried to capture the atmosphere at that time in my writeup of the first of those shows but in a nutshell, the question was one of would the band be able to recover from or top Neon Bible, depending on your opinion of their sophomore effort, on any of artistic, critical or retail terms, and remain arguably the biggest and/or most important rock band in Canada right now. The answer came in the form of tremendous critical response, massive sold out shows across the continent and most quantitatively, #1 records in Canada, the United States and United Kingdom – success by any standard.

So their show on Saturday on the Toronto Islands, a setting typically reserved for festival-type events but one of the only locales in the city capable of handling the size of crowds that they were sure to draw. And while the bill was only three bands deep, the breadth of genre, experience and buzz represented would have rivaled any larger festival – in the span of just over four hours, concert-goers would be transported from the countryside to the suburbs via Metropolis. And get to ride a boat.

The Sadies have been around for what seems like forever and are hardly reclusive when it comes to playing out, and yet one suspects that many to most of those thousands who showed up early enough to catch their set had never heard of them let alone witnessed the Nudie suit spectacle that is a live Sadies show. And while I’ve never gotten the sense that mass popularity was on The Sadies’ agenda, they’re probably not unhappy about the attention they’re now getting thanks to the Polaris shortlisting of their latest record Darker Circles. As such, their set was them putting their best county-punk-psych foot forward, treating the audience to a good balance of their more recent works of refined songwriting and old-school guitar pyrotechnics, bringing out their mother to sing on “There’s A Higher Power” and dropping jaws with the show-stopping “Ridge Runner Rell”. There was no way to not be impressed.

The same could be said for funk-soul-r&b-rock firecracker Janelle Monáe, making her Canadian debut in front of a crowd that probably wouldn’t fall under her primary target demographic. But when you’re riding and album as excellently all-over-the-place as The ArchAndroid, maybe there’s no such thing as a primary target demographic – except for everyone. Following an introduction by Win Butler, perhaps to butter the crowd up with an AF seal of approval, Monáe’s band took the stage to “Suite II Overture”, followed by three figures in large black hooded cloaks, backs to the audience, swaying to the opening of “Dance Or Die”. And midway through that opener, the cloak came off and it was game on. Monáe came with a reputation for stellar live performances and indeed, her show was everything you could hope for.

Her signature bouffant in fine form, she was a dynamo on stage, dancing and singing with such power and prowess that when she made clear nods to James Brown and Michael Jackson in her performance, it came across less like a salute than accepting a torch being passed across generations. And it wasn’t just the big production numbers like the rocking “Cold War” or unbelievably catchy “Tightrope” – one of the highlights came early on with a slow and soulful cover of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile”. I couldn’t tell from the sidelines how the bulk of the crowd was responding to her set; they clapped along when she did, but the horizon of heads seemed disappointingly level throughout, certainly not dancing or losing their shit as they should have. But it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort on Monáe’s part and for a while, it looked as though this night might go down in the books as the show where Arcade Fire closed for Janelle Monáe.

Of course, those sentiments only lasted until Arcade Fire took the stage shortly after sunset and the throngs and throngs of assembled fans let out a roar you could surely back on the mainland. It clearly wouldn’t have mattered who opened up the show – this was Arcade Fire’s show, this was their crowd and this was their moment. Now I don’t know why i feel the need to stress that I’m not a zealot for the band any time I review something Arcade Fire-related, but I do. Perhaps to try and stress that I’m still being objective when I talk about them, particularly in the live context, even though the language might imply otherwise. Because like it or not, they’re a band that demands hyperbole. They offer blood and grandeur and to not respond in kind is to not fulfill your half of the artist-performer compact, and Saturday night was splendid example of that relationship at work.

I’ve seen Arcade Fire a number of times over the years and it has never failed to amaze me how strongly their fans respond; it seems disproportionate to the actual music itself, which on paper or even on record shouldn’t be so startlingly powerful. It’s a phenomenon that others have noticed – I’ve read more than a couple of pieces pondering exactly why it is the people love this band so, and while most have been tongue in cheek along the lines of “they’re nice people!”, my explanation invokes the aforementioned excuse to speak in overly flowery terms.

They somehow manage to evoke that singular moment in everyone’s life where youth gives way to adulthood, where one becomes acutely aware of the fact that they are not in fact invincible, that they will someday die, but also the sense of still having their entire lives ahead of them and the sense of opportunity that offers – that mixture of anxiety and optimism, insecurity and confidence. It’s a powerful, primal resonance made even moreso when rendered in broad, bold musical strokes. With Funeral, it was conveyed through the lens of family and neighbourhoods, of being part of a special gang. Neon Bible turned it around to be them against the world with no sense that they’d actually triumph. And The Suburbs realizes that there’s no us and them, there’s just everyone. It’s a record that backs away from the grand gestures of the first two records in favour of a more evened-out experience with lulls to compliment the high points and dabbling in new sounds and styles – it’s worth noting that “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” seems to be most everyone’s favourite song and yet it’s New Wave/synth-pop bounce is as far from archetypal Arcade Fire as you can get.

What does this have to do, exactly, with Saturday’s show? Nothing and everything. It’s what coalesced in my head as I watched the thousands of people assembled in a field commune with the eight on stage and tried to articulate what was happening and why. The set itself was fairly close in selection and structure to the Danforth show, particularly around the open and close, but scaled up to suit the larger setting. And if there’s anything Arcade Fire does well, it’s go big. What differentiated this show from ones past, however, was whereas they used to feel primarily about catharsis and intensity, the prevailing emotions being conveyed by Arcade Fire circa 2010 were exuberance and even joy. It can be a subtle distinction when you’re talking about singing at the top of your lungs whilst banging on guitars and drums, but it felt like an important one. Their main set closed, as ever, with the killer combo of “Neighbourhood #3” and “Rebellion (Lies)”, the latter of which left the audience singing the choral backing vocals by way of calling for the encore, and then “Keep The Car Running” and “Wake Up” as the finishing move and the cap to what was pretty much a perfect show, from start to finish.

Pretty much every outlet in the city was on hand to form an opinion on the show – check them out at The Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, National Post, eye, Exclaim, BlogTO and Chart while The Globe & Mail previewed the show with a list of why people love the band. CBC chimes in with an interview. The San Francisco Examiner interviews Janelle Monáe and The Best Drummer In The World profiles Mike Belitsky of The Sadies.

Photos: Arcade Fire, Janelle Monáe, The Sadies @ Olympic Island – August 14, 2010
MP3: Arcade Fire – “Keep The Car Running”
MP3: Arcade Fire – “Black Mirror”
MP3: Arcade Fire – “No Cars Go”
MP3: Arcade Fire – “Wake Up”
MP3: The Sadies – “Another Year Again”
MP3: The Sadies – “Anna Leigh”
Video: Arcade Fire – “Neon Bible”
Video: Arcade Fire – “Black Mirror”
Video: Arcade Fire – “Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)”
Video: Arcade Fire – “Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)”
Video: Arcade Fire – “Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)”
Video: Arcade Fire – “Rebellion (Lies)”
Video: Janelle Monáe – “Cold War”
Video: Janelle Monáe – “Tightrope”
Video: Janelle Monáe – “Many Moons”
Video: The Sadies – “Cut Corners”
Video: The Sadies – “Postcards”
Video: The Sadies – “The Horseshoe”
Video: The Sadies – “Flash”
MySpace: Arcade Fire
MySpace: Janelle Monáe
MySpace: The Sadies

Frank YangI don’t really maintain any sort of live music “bucket list” – I find the very notion a bit creepy – but there are bands whom I’ve long wanted to see but never gotten the opportunity for whatever reason. Near the top of the list are New York’s Versus, whom I discovered just after they finished promoting their last record Hurrah, back in 2000. Of course, at the time I didn’t know that they’d basically be going on a decade-long hiatus after frontman Richard Baluyut moved to San Francisco. That they weren’t going to be coming around any time soon became clear as every member began rolling out their own projects and aside from very occasional one-off gigs, Versus remained dormant.

But a move back to the east coast by Baluyut took the band out of mothballs and though the band is down to a trio, their new record On The Ones And Threes sounds like almost no time at all had passed between it and Hurrah. It’s still split between guitar-driven ragers and more thoughtful pieces, marked with Baluyut and Fontaine Toups’ distinctive vocals both together and apart and though still quintessentially ’90s college rock in spirit, doesn’t feel out of time or fashion in 2010. It’s a good record and perhaps more importantly, an excuse to tour again for the first time in a decade.

This tour brought them to Lee’s Palace with Merge labelmates and fellow ’90s survivors Polvo, though a lack of history with the headliners and questionable ability to stay upright made it unlikely I’d stay late enough to see them play. I did arrive in time to see local openers Soft Copy, however, and am glad I did both for their own set and the greater role they’d play in the evening’s narrative. To the former, the trio wore their post-punk influences squarely on their sleeves, drawing in particular from Mission Of Burma’s more melodic side. They had all the tension and intensity you’d want from an act trading in that sound, but with an immediate tunefulness that made them accessible to anyone. With two albums in Wolf, Wolves & More Wolves and Vicious Modernism under their belts, they’ve been around a little while as a unit and individually in various bands a hell of a lot longer, but they were a new find to me and a good one at that.

The constants in Versus have always been Richard Baluyut and Fontaine Toups – the rest of the band has been a bit of a revolving door even though they’ve often kept it in the family. For this iteration of the reunion, original drummer Ed Baluyut was back on the drummer’s stool on the record which is why it was surprising when they started playing, accompanied by Margaret White on violin and keys, Ed wasn’t behind the kit. No one was. They played a couple songs with this setup, Toups seeming to attack her bass extra heavily for some percussive effect, and it sort of worked – especially with White’s violin adding un-Versus-ish textures – but I was starting to think that I’d have to put an asterisk beside my “yeah, I finally saw Versus” anecdote when someone came out from the side of the stage and got behind the kit: Soft Copy’s drummer, Paul Boddum.

As Richard would explain, a new baby had necessitated Ed’s return to New York, leaving the band short-handed and so Boddum – who happened to be a sizable fan of the band – was enlisted that afternoon to fill in, though only in principal. They had no rehearsal or sound check and this was their first time playing together, but even without those qualifiers Boddum did a hell of a job pinch-hitting. Fills were kept simple and a couple of cues were missed, but you could see the band get more comfortable with the arrangement as the set progressed and by the set’s end, when the older material circa The Stars Are Insane was aired out, they were practically grooving and Baluyut was able to dig in to some fierce guitar work. I don’t doubt that had the proper line-up been in place, the show might have been a bit better paced or had some more momentum behind it, but this was just cooler to see and they sounded pretty great regardless. They wrapped their set to tremendous applause, Polvo went on, I went home and Paul went with Versus to play with them in Montreal.

Soft Copy’s next show is this Wednesday night at The Shop at Parts & Labour.

Photos: Versus, Soft Copy @ Lee’s Palace – August 13, 2010
MP3: Versus – “Invincible Hero”
MP3: Versus – “Deseret”
MP3: Soft Copy – “Hot Cakes”
MP3: Soft Copy – “Extra Cirricular”
MP3: Soft Copy – “First Date”
Video: Versus – “Scientists”
MySpace: Versus
MySpace: Soft Copy

The Village Voice interviews Dean Wareham of Dean & Britta about the Warhol 13 Most Beautiful project and revisiting the Galaxie 500 ouvre on their upcoming Fall tour.

Seattle Weekly and Spinner interview Craig Finn of The Hold Steady.

Sharon Van Etten previews a couple of songs from Epic for NPR’s World Cafe. The new record is out October 5 and she’ll be at Lee’s Palace on November 5 supporting Junip.

Billboard talks to Interpol about their return to the indies for self-titled album number four, out September 7.

Filter thinks you should already know The Magnetic Fields.

Billboard profiles Ra Ra Riot as they prepare for the of their sophomore effort The Orchard, which isn’t out till next Tuesday but is now streaming in whole at NPR. There’s also a new video from the record but only Americans are allowed to see it – foreigners can watch the ad, but not the vid. They’re at the Molson Amphitheatre on August 28. Video: Non-geoblocked version of the vid now up.

Video: Ra Ra Riot – “Boy”
Stream: Ra Ra Riot / The Orchard

Paste and Filter have features on Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, who just released their new record Let It Sway, currently available to stream at MBV Music. They’re at the El Mocambo on September 4.

Stream: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin / Let It Sway

Belle & Sebastian have revealed the REAL artwork to their new record Write About Love, served up a video clip from an alleged band-themed TV show with a snippet of a new song and given the record a release date – October 12. That is, incidentally, the same day that the band will be playing Massey Hall in Toronto so yeah, that’ll be a bit of an occasion.

M.I.A. will bring /\/\/\Y/\ to the Sound Academy on September 22 – tickets $40 in advance, $75 for VIP.

Video: M.I.A – “XXXO”

Exclaim reports that Marnie Stern has a date at Wrongbar on October 3. Her new, self-title record is out on October 5.

MP3: Marnie Stern – “For Ash”

OK Go return for a show at The Phoenix on October 14, tickets $20 in advance.

Video: OK Go – “This Too Shall Pass”

California’s Avi Buffalo have made a date at the Horseshoe on October 18; The Los Angeles Times has a feature on the band.

MP3: Avi Buffalo – “Remember Last Time”
MP3: Avi Buffalo – “What’s In It For?”

So much of the chatter yesterday was about how Scott Pilgrim vs The World did so poorly at the box office (coming in #5 with $10.5 million in the US) and with some taking some schadenfreude about how despite all the online buzz leading up to its release, it still did relatively poorly. That’s bunk. This film may as well have been called Scott Pilgrim vs The Fated For Cult Movie Status – there’s nothing about it that implies it would have made big bank. Not the cast, not the director, not the premise and certainly not the setting (Toronto? Pah). In fact, it’s remarkable that it was even made in Hollywood. If it just happens that a disproportionate percentage of the otherwise small target demographic is on Twitter, well there’s nothing to be done about that and I do believe that most everyone who expressed excitement about the film before release will go out and pay to see it – it simply won’t add up to much compared to folks who’ve apparently been counting the days until a new Dolph Lundgren film came out.

Anyways, I saw it on opening night (of course) and by and large loved it. It was a little odd having it shift from following the books almost verbatim to being its own thing midway through the Lee’s Palace fight and I was disappointed that none of Honest Ed’s, Sneaky Dee’s or the Reference Library made an appearance, but by and large it was as faithful to the text and the spirit of the source as it could be while still being a decent movie. That came at the expense of some/a lot of the character depth – neither Scott nor Ramona ended up with much explanation for why they were how they were – but so be it. It was still tremendously fun and entertaining and I eagerly await the infinite iterations of the DVD/BR editions. And since there wasn’t going to be a sequel anyways, there’s really no concern about how much or little money it makes. That’s Universal’s problem, not mine.

Filter has a great piece on another film that was probably too weird for the world at the time of its release… and even now – The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. I won’t lie – I can’t see John Lithgow as anyone but Dr. Lizardo and hold out hope that someday, we’ll see Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League make it into production. And come on – best closing credits/theme music ever.

Trailer: The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension