This Saturday night offers an opportunity for the Toronto club-hopper to put together their own Korn-free Family Values tour. First up is an early show at the Drake Underground featuring Brooklyn’s Say Hi To Your Mom and later that night Ottawa’s My Dad Vs Yours are at Lee’s Palace followed by a new local outfit I’ve never heard called Kids, but who claim some choice influences (Mojave 3, Belle & Sebastian). Since I can’t offer up any thoughts on them without having any any way to hear their stuff (not even a MySpace) and since I wrote up MDvsY not long ago, lets talk about Say Hi To Your Mom.

The trio plays a downbeat yet hooky form of indie rock, equal parts dry, snaky guitar and whirring keyboard textures, DIY-recording aesthethic and effective atmosphere, topped off with a wry lyrical touch. Sufficed to say their fourth and latest album Impeccable Blahs, out July 25, is a low-key laid back treat. I want to namecheck Spoon and Luna, though I couldn’t necessarily back that up. The Postal Service gets held up as a reference point pretty frequently but I don’t really hear it. Yeah, it’s pop songs with electronic touches but its much more organic and less programmed than anything that act puts out. And you can’t really dance to Say Hi To Your Mom. Shuffle, maybe, but dance? Not so much.

But who wants to dance on a Saturday night? Say Hi To Your Mom will go on around 9-ish, leaving plenty of time to hoof it up to Lee’s for My Dad Vs Yours’ 11:30 set. Kids will get to stay up late on this eve, going on at 12:30. Cover for the former show is $7 advance, $10 at the door and Lee’s will be $5 at the door.

MP3: Say Hi To Your Mom – “Angels And Darlas”
MP3: Say Hi To Your Mom – “Sad, But Endearingly So”
MySpace: Say Hi To Your Mom

The Edmonton Sun welcomes Son Volt to town for the first time ever while The Ottawa Citizen takes the clever journalistic tact of comparing Jay Farrar’s career trajectory with Jeff Tweedy’s. And I Heart Music chats with Wilco’s Glenn Kotche about his solo record, Mobile, which you can hear a piece of below. Sure to appeal to fans of other men who’ve stepped out from behind the kit on their own, you know like Don Henley or Phil Collins.

MP3: Glenn Kotche – “Projections of (What) Might. . .”

The National go alligator hunting. Calamity ensues.

Pitchfork has details of My Morning Jacket’s upcoming double-live album Okonokos, out September 26.

The Rich Girls Are Weeping offers some clarification to their statements earlier this week about Shearwater’s future with Misra Records. As I posted in an update to my post a couple days ago, they are still very much working together to promote Palo Santo and you should go buy a copy now. I kinda think the band and label should have milked this for some PR though – nothing gets press better than good old fashioned knock down, drag out indie rock street fight. Pitchfork gave their recent live show in Chicago a solid thumbs-up.

Also worth noting – the MySpace for the Okkervil River Navigational Auxiliary Guild – a registration-required fansite – has a couple of unreleased Okkervil River songs streaming, one a radically different and dreamy version of “No Key, No Plan” and the other a demo from last year of uncertain fate. They also report that some of the tracks recorded at their marathon recording sessions from this past January will be seeing release in the form of vinyl-only singles, starting with a tune called “The President’s Dead” b-sided by “The Room I’m Hiding In”. No details on when to expect that yet.

Some of you who’ve been around a while may remember my old band Lake Holiday – well while I’m no longer playing with them, they soldier onwards and are embarking on their first tour of the American midwest. It’s a brief tour but does hit some key market cities, so if you’re around do try to stop in and check them out. Dates, bills and info are available on their MySpace. Their/our first album This Is How We Say Goodbye should be out next Tuesday. I say “our” because I play on it. I think. It’s been a while.

np – M Ward / Post-War