Frank YangSo as I mentioned in passing last week, I spent the Labour Day long weekend up in Rouyn-Noranda, Québec, attending the Festival de musique émergente en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, henceforth referred to as FME. It’s okay if neither the where or the what don’t mean much to you – they didn’t mean much to me before I agreed to attend. Getting up to speed requires a little geography and history, so if you’re sitting comfortably, then we’ll begin.

Wikipedia can give you the vitals, but basically Rouyn-Noranda is a mining city in Québec located about eight hours from both Toronto and Montreal and three hours from Timmins, Ontario. It’s not geographically northern Québec – there’s a hell of a lot more of la belle province above it – but as far as large settlements go, it’s up there. In addition to the mining industry, it’s the regional capital, is home to a campus of the Université du Québec, and hosts a film festival as well as this music festival. It’s not big by any means, but somewhat surprisingly has most any of the amenities you’d want for urban living, not least of which is a 24-hour poutinerie that I got a little too well-acquainted with over the week. It’s remote, but it’s not rural. I’ll get to the “what” of the festival tomorrow, but one of its main venues was the Agora des arts, a charming small church converted to arts centre with a somewhat less-charming lack of working HVAC. Which is to say that if you crammed it full of people in late Summer, it got hot. And on this opening night of the fest, it was crammed full of people. Thus hot.

The first act of the night was David Simard, originally from BC but now based in Québec. Performing with just a guitar and backing vocalist Brie Neilson at his side, he offered a short but charming set of tunes with an laid-back, troubadour vibe laced with a touch of scoundrel. Nothing you haven’t heard done a million times before, but still done well. Southern Souls has featured Simard a few times.

Photos: David Simard @ Agora des arts – August 30, 2012
Stream: David Simard / Slower, Lower

Montreal’s Half Moon Run have done pretty well for themselves for a new outfit and a debut album in Dark Eyes, from being all over NXNE here in Toronto a couple months ago to lining up high-profile support slots in the US for the likes of Patrick Watson and Metric. And yet for that success, I was asked more than a few times by people I met what I thought of them – insecure much? Anyways I told those people what I’m telling you – they have a very of the moment sound with a fondness for late-era Radiohead-y electro-emotiveness, Local Natives-y percussion, and not a little modern R&B funkiness and fondness for slow jams. It was all made very radio-friendly and accessible and rather safe-sounding. A few points sounded like they were riding the edge a bit, but mostly not. I wasn’t especially won over but clearly, they don’t need my support. They’re doing just fine.

Photos: Half Moon Run @ Agora des arts – August 30, 2012
Video: Half Moon Run – “Full Circle”

Timber Timbre were the evening’s headliner and even though we had both traveled up from Toronto, I realized that I’d never really seen them live properly besides last Fall at the Polaris Prize gala, where they were shortlisted for Creep On Creepin’ On. They weren’t quite the nine-piece ensemble that played that occasion – they numbered six this time out – but they sounded great. The church setting seemed like the right one for them, despite there being something decidedly unconsecrated about their sound, even though the dark and creepy quotient seemed somewhat dialed down. That was a good thing, though, as projecting less affected gloom made room for more variety of emotion to come through. And while I’m not sure what the heavy, distorted number that closed their main set was – I don’t know the Timber Timbre catalog that well – it was much more visceral than I’d have expected from them and maybe served to prep the room a bit for Godspeed in a couple of nights.

Photos: Timber Timbre @ Agora des arts – August 30, 2012
MP3: Timber Timbre – “Black Water”
MP3: Timber Timbre – “Demon Host”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Too Old To Die Young”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Swamp Magic”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Bad Ritual”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Black Water”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Demon Host”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Woman”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Oh Messiah”
Video: Timber Timbre – “We’ll Find Out”

With the Agora closed but the night still young, it was then off to the Caberet de la dèrniere chance for a little France French in the form of Jesus Christ Fashion Barbe. Yes of course that decision was based entirely on their name, though it wasn’t nearly as glammy or in your face as you might have expected. Or at least I expected. Instead, they offered a Gallic take on English post-punk with a decidedly low-key presentation. The tunes were alright – they took the melodic rather than abrasive route through the genre – and deceptively complex in structure, but a little more dazzle in the live show or originality in approach would have held my interest longer. Instead, poutine called.

Photos: Jesus Christ Fashion Barbe @ Caberet de la dèrniere chance – August 30, 2012
Video: Jesus Christ Fashion Barbe – “And Make Us Wilder”
Video: Jesus Christ Fashion Barbe – “Diver”

Yes it’s back to school/end of Summer season, but it’s also high-profile record release season. And a whole bunch of those have just been made available to stream. David Byrne & St. Vincent’s Love This Giant collaboration is up at NPR. They play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on September 20 and The Stool Pigeon, New Zealand Herald, and Pitchfork have feature pieces on the project.

MP3: David Byrne & St. Vincent – “Who”
Stream: David Byrne & St. Vincent / Love This Giant

NPR also has Coexist, the new one from The xx. Grantland, The Skinny, Spin, and The Guardian all have features to coincide with next week’s release. And while the NPR stream is fine, the band’s own geo-interactive stream is cool to play with.

MP3: The xx – “Angels”
Stream: The xx / Coexist

CBC Music is streaming Inner Classics, the new album from Snowblink. They play the Bicycle Music Festival at Trinity-Bellwoods on September 15 at 6PM and The Music Gallery on September 27.

MP3: Snowblink – “Unsurfed Waves”
MP3: Snowblink – “Black & White Mountains”
Stream: Snowblink / Inner Classics

The Vaccines’ second album Come Of Age isn’t out until October 2 in North America but its UK release on September 11 means The Guardian can go right ahead and stream it right now. CBC Music has an interview with the band. Update: It’s actually out in the UK and Canada now; only Americans have to wait till October. Sorry folks, commonwealth perks.

Stream: The Vaccines / Come Of Age

The self-titled debut from TOY, on the other hand, is out concurrently in Europe and the UK so the preview stream at The Quietus is the same lead time for both continents. The Line Of Best Fit also has a feature piece.

Stream: TOY / TOY

The release of Pet Shop Boys’ latest Elysium got moved up from September 18 to 11 at some point, hence it being available to stream at The Guardian right now rather than next week. There’s also a new video.

Video: Pet Shop Boys – “Leaving”
Stream: Pet Shop Boys / Elysium

Joel BernsteinIt’s funny. I’ve written this post in my mind countless times, with versions ranging from multi-chapter memoirs to a simple, all-caps “SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH”, and yet now as I actually take metaphorical pen to paper, I don’t really know where to begin. I suppose the best place to start is with the fact that the common thread through all those drafts was, “goodbye”.

Ten years is an astonishingly long time to do anything. When I started this blog, it was out of boredom and with no eye towards it being anything besides a place where I could ramble about whatever was on my mind at the time. Within a few years it had become its own thing, but having not much else to do I was happy to let it become one of the main focuses of my life. Fortuitous timing allowed me to be part of the first wave of music blogs, and with that came a front row seat to the seismic shifts in the world of music, both with respect to the media end of it and the industry as a whole, with the mainstreaming of indie and rise of Canadian music on the world stage as part of that. If I can get just a little LCD Soundsystem for a moment – I was there.

Before I slip into full-on memoir mode, let me switch to broad strokes and say without exaggeration that most everything I have in my life right now – my job, most of my friends, almost all of my daily routine – has come from this blog. It has taken me to far-flung locales, gotten me access to ridiculous places, seen amazing shows, discovered more wonderful music than I ever thought possible, and encountered incredible people. I met Neil Young, for Pete’s sake. There is no measure by which this hasn’t been a long, strange, life-changing trip, and I’m immeasurably grateful for that.

But it has not come without a cost. The number of hours, the kilojoules of energy, that have gone into it have been staggering. The evenings and weekends that I’ve spent hunched over the computer writing posts, hunting down MP3s and videos, processing photos, getting things the exact over-particular way I want it, when a normal person would have been out with friends or just plain asleep are beyond counting. While I’d like to think that in the areas where it matters, I’ve been able to maintain a reasonable balance between work and personal life, I suspect that if were to ask any of my exes over the past decade if that were true, they’d say otherwise. And the only person who has demanded this regimen, who has dictated the terms of my existence over the past decade, and who has unwaveringly agreed to it, is me.

Running this site has been as much a compulsion as a vocation – oh hey, remember that time I posted every day for 1050 days straight? – and as I’ve gotten older, the ability I have to justify the effort and expense has waned with my energy. I can come up with myriad reasons why I wouldn’t want to do another large, outdoor festival or make 2013 my ninth straight SXSW, but they all boil down to one thing and that’s that I’m tired. Physically, mentally, whatever. And while I could probably keep the pace up for a few more years at least – sure it takes a little while longer for the aches to fade but I’m hardly infirm – why would I? I’ve already been doing it for probably too long.

It seems obvious when you think about it, but there’s no finish line for this sort of thing – there’ll always be another hot new artist, someone making sounds that could potentially (but probably not) change your life. Someone rehashing the sounds you grew up one, someone tearing them down. You can’t keep up with it forever. As mentioned, I feel very lucky that I was doing what I was when I was because it’s allowed me to follow a slew of fantastic artists from their days in clubs to headlining arenas. But as much fun as that ride can be, I don’t necessarily feel like it’s something that I want to get so invested in again. The aughts were mine but they’re over now.

And beyond that, the nature of the blogging beast has changed. The blue skies of the medium from five or six years ago are a thing of the past and what I do in the way that I do it has increasingly become a niche thing, anathema to the tl;dr generation and I’m too stubborn to change even as I watch numbers decline (not just mine, anecdotal evidence shows it’s everyone). Further, the degree to which everything is documented, reported, analyzed, tweeted, tumblred, liked, shared, whatever, I can’t help feeling a bit unnecessary now. Everything is commoditized now and we don’t exist in remotely enough of a meritocracy to provide the motivation to working this hard at something.

As wonderful it was to be at the leading edge of this thing, to figure out what blogs were and could do, I feel like while I got there first I started late. I envy my younger peers who, despite the market being as lean and grim as it is, can still try and indulge their rock’n’roll journalist dreams. I had the full-time job when I started this and have had one all the way through, constantly trying to balance the demands of both. I’ve always had too much to lose to try and do more with this, nor have I had the ambition of some of my blogging brethren who, besides having the good sense to enslist help, have transitioned into more sustainable operations of which the blog is just a facet – booking, A&R, proper journalism, photography, what have you. I was always too wrapped up in the day-to-day to think about the long game; I just wanted to get the next day’s post done and go to bed. Which is why, rather than an anniversary party or special event, you get this post. And when I’m done, I’ll move on to tomorrow’s post.

And yeah, there will be a tomorrow’s post. As tempting as it would be to simply give the steering wheel on this thing a hard right, drive it off a cliff, and walk away from the flaming wreckage in slow-motion without ever once looking back – and you can’t know just how close I came to that over the years – that’s just not me. But if I can keep with the automotive metaphor a little bit, what I will be doing is gearing down, moving into the right lane and once in a while, pulling over to a rest stop. And if at some point an exit ramp comes along that feels right, then so be it. It’s time for this to be less of an endless race and more of a leisurely journey. In the short term, you probably won’t notice a thing; there’s enough irons in the fire that the rest of this calendar year will probably play out as it always has. And assuming the world doesn’t end in December – wouldn’t THAT make this whole post utterly moot – when the rest of the world ramps up in 2013, I will as well – just a bit more slowly.

It may take a few more days for show reviews to go up, news might not be quite as timely (though interesting things will still go up nearly immediately on my Twitter and maybe I’ll try to understand this Tumblr thing) as I try to worry less about reaching RSS reader zero, I probably won’t be aggregating the shit out of everything anymore (sorry to those sites who needed the handful of eyeballs I would send over), maybe fewer contests (PR people, get ready for more “no’s”), and eventually will put my cover of the week to bed, at least as an every week thing. I will still be soliciting a redesign – this shit is dated, yo – and have some ideas about changing up the formatting of my posts to be quicker to write and to read while still trotting out the novel-length pieces when I feel like it. But mainly I intend to be less regimented about it all. Allow myself to pause and breathe and tend to other things. I need to. If I can squeeze some free days into my week, find more time to read, to go do non-music things, work on other projects, it’ll make a huge difference. And I suspect that if I am keeping up with the zeitgeist a little bit less, I’ll enjoy what I’m doing a lot more.

You may ask why I need to make this sort of declaration of intent on the blogiversary, why I don’t just quietly make the changes and carry on, and it’s a reasonable question. But the fact is if I didn’t draw this finish line in the sand and close off this decade-long era of the blog as what it was in an official fashion, I’d never do it. I couldn’t. The compulsion that keeps me working this hard at this also stops me from not. I have to give myself permission to allow it to morph into something else or even die, if that’s how it goes. A bit mental? You have no idea.

I recall a round table at SXSW a few years ago with a bunch of my fellow music blogging lifers when the first question raised – by the inimitable Rob Donewaiting, I believe – was, “when can we stop?”. Everyone nodded, but I don’t think that any of us there has actually hung it up yet. What we do can still be incredibly rewarding, it’s just a question of finding the right balance. This has essentially been my life’s work so far, but if I’m not careful it will remain that. And I don’t really fancy a tombstone reading, “He blogged. A lot. And will get you set times when he has them.”

It’s no overstatement that I could write a post this long expanding on each point made so far, but I’ll save that for my incredibly dull memoirs. I’ve chewed the contents of this post over in my mind for so long and it’s not nearly complete, but it’s probably enough. If you’ve read this far, I can only assume it’s because you care to some degree and for that, I thank you. I’ve never taken my readers for granted – you really are the reason I do what I do – and have always striven to be informative, hopefully entertaining, and to maybe introduce you to some music you might not have heard otherwise. Buy a CD or an LP or a concert ticket. If that’s happened, then this has been a success.

And if we’re friends IRL and you extend an invite to go do something – please do – and I get this look in my eye that I feel like I need to write up a blog post instead, you have my standing invitation to smack me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to make the donuts.

MP3: Ride – “Chrome Waves”

Frank YangI don’t think this one requires an awful lot of explanation. Stereogum sets the scene: November 2008 at the Google Lounge in New York’s Lower East Side, where one Jens Lekman, there as a guest of Frida Hyvönen, seats himself at a piano and with the crowd chatter and beats of dance music carrying on in the background, performs a beautiful solo cover of Boyz II Men’s 1995 hit song, condensing their four lead vocals to just his own and making it that much more earnest and lovely. And as he says as he wraps up, “it was not a guilty pleasure, just pleasure”.

Lekman’s new record I Know What Love Isn’t comes out this week and he plays The Phoenix on October 4. Boyz II Men released their latest album Twenty – presumably in reference to their years as performers – last Fall.

MP3: Jens Lekman – “Water Runs Dry” (live at Google Lounge – November 2008)
Video: Boyz II Men – “Water Runs Dry”

Paper Bag RecordsAs previously reported, Toronto’s Paper Bag Records is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year and they’re doing it with a three-night run of shows at The Great Hall featuring performances from much of their active roster. And though it’s their birthday, they’re the ones offering the gifts.

You may have seen the giveaways run at Quick Before It Melts and Soft Signal for prize packs consisting of label goodies and passes to the Thursday and Saturday nights respectively, and wondered where the Friday night one was – well wonder no more, it’s right here.

Courtesy of Paper Bag, I’ve got one prize pack consisting of:

– A pair of tickets to see The Rural Alberta Advantage, Cuff The Duke, PS I Love You, and Slim Twig at The Great Hall on September 28 – note that this is a 19+ show.
– A special PBR10 t-shirt and commemorative poster
– Exercises by CFCF LP
– Days Into Years by Elliott Brood LP
– All Red by Winter Gloves LP
– Contempt! by Slim Twig LP
– PS I Love You/Diamond Rings “Leftovers” 7″ single

Not bad, eh? To enter, leave a comment on this post naming your favourite Paper Bag artist and release from the past decade, and be sure to include your email as that’s how the winners will be contacted. By email. Contest is restricted to folks in the Toronto area – you gots to go to the show – and closes at midnight, September 15.

Tickets for the shows are available from direct from Paper Bag.

MP3: Cuff The Duke – “Standing On The Edge”
MP3: Elliott Brood – “Northern Air”
MP3: PS I Love You w Diamond Rings – “Leftovers”
MP3: The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Stamp”

Julia PerssonWho: Holograms
What: Swedish post-punk quartet carrying on the time-honoured tradition of young people thinking their the first ones to ever discover Joy Division and start a band.
Why: Their self-titled debut came out earlier this Summer. And so they tour.
When: Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Where: The Shop at Parts & Labour in Toronto (19+)
Who else: Mausoleum, Ell V Gore, and S H I T – you try googling that – make it a night.
How: Tickets for the show are $10.50 in advance but courtesy of Embrace, 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 Holograms” in the subject line and your full name in the body, and have that in to me before midnight, September 6.

MP3: Holograms – “Chasing My Mind”
MP3: Holograms – “ABC City”
Video: Holograms – “ABC City”
Video: Holograms – “Hidden Structures”