10KLFYou can be forgiven for thinking that Detroit Lake was somewhere in Michigan. I certainly did. But as it turns out, it’s in Minnesota and it’s surrounded by some 9,999 other lakes – give or take a few – and that’s where the 10,000 Lakes Festival gets its namesake.

The 7th annual event will take place from July 22 to 25 on Soo Pass Ranch in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota and feature headliners Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic and Wilco… so yes, you could say they have a particular target audience. But that’s not to say it’s all jammy goodness – also performing are Gomez, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Kathleen Edwards, Akron/Family and scads more, all in what would appear to be a stunning natural setting.

So if you were trying to decide this Summer between going camping and getting in touch with nature or hitting up a music festival, you can do both. Courtesy of Music Allies, I’ve got a pair of tickets to the festival to give away (for Canadian reference, Detroit Lakes is a scenic (?) four-and-one-half hour drive from Winnipeg). If you want to throw your hat in the ring, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to go to 10,000 Lakes” in the subject line and your full mailing address in the body. Contest will close at midnight, June 23, giving the winner time to dig their tent out of the crawl space and air it out.

MySpace: 10,000 Lakes Festival

thekills.tvWhile I’m very much on record as believing The Kills’ 2008 release Midnight Boom to be a superb album, I’m sure part of that was due to the fact that it was the first Kills record I’d heard. Their reputation to that point was as a garage-blues-scuzz-punk rock duo and that’s not generally my thing, so discovering them to be – at least on that record – all those things but also exceedingly pop was a most pleasant surprise. But this shift in direction, while garnering new fans like myself, probably cost them some as well. Such is the karmic balance of the universe. And with the reissue tomorrow of their debut album Keep On Your Mean Side, The Kills that those long-time fans fell in sleazy lust with is fully on display.

Whereas Boom had me wondering how the duo would recreate all the sounds and textures in a live setting (answer: quite well), there’d have been almost no such question circa Mean Side. Besides some basic drums, Mean Side is all about VV, Hotel, two guitars and a healthy dose of sneering attitude. The prevailing aesthetic is loose and raw, like delta blues by way of The Velvet Underground, and made noteworthy by Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart’s remarkable presence. The songs aren’t all that memorable individually, but collectively they create a definite atmosphere – gritty, grimy and driving – and while what they’re doing isn’t exactly fresh, their execution and charisma commands attention.

Or it did, circa 2003. Since then, The Kills have taken their sound and gone downtown, less juke joint and more nightclub but most importantly, still seedy. I’m not sure what the impetus for this reissue is, and according to this interview with hour.ca neither does Hince, but the most obvious answer is to capitalize on the success of Boom and perhaps get new fans to pick up the old stuff and use the five bonus tracks to reel in some of the older ones. To the former, it’s far enough removed from where they are now to offer another fix while waiting for album four and to the latter, five extra tracks – one new song, one dictaphone piece and three covers – probably isn’t enough to justify the expenditure but either way, there it is.

The Kills are at The Phoenix on Thursday night, May 7, and courtesy of Against The Grain and Outside Music, I’ve got one prize pack to give away consisting of a pair of passes to the show and copies of both Midnight Boom and the Keep On Your Mean Side reissue on CD to give away. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want The Kills” in the subject line and your full name and mailing address in the body. Contest closes at midnight tomorrow night, May 5.

And for this week only, PitchforkTV is streaming the 2005 Kills tour documentary I Hate The Way You Love.

MP3: The Kills – “Black Rooster”
MP3: The Kills – “Cat Claw”
Video: The Kills – “Fried My Little Brains”
Video: The Kills: I Hate The Way You Love
MySpace: The Kills

Ear Farm and Billboard interview Thomas Mars of Phoenix, who will release Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix on May 29 and follow that up with a show at The Phoenix on June 15.

Each Note Secure talks to Aaron Pfenning of Chairlift.

Blurt, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly talk to Flaming Lip Wayne Coyne about the absurd controversy over their “Do You Realize?” being named the Oklahoma state song.

Beirut’s Zach Condon gives Filter a guide of Santa Fe, New Mexico. They have a date at the Phoenix on July 9.

If you didn’t know, the June 12 Malajube show at Lee’s Palace is free, tickets at Rotate This and Soundscapes and also at the door. Don’t ask why, just go.

The Brother Kite continue to work on the much-anticipated follow-up to Waiting For The Time To Be Right, and a sneak preview of some of the new material in progress can be heard at Bandcamp. And unsurprisingly, it sounds marvelous.

New York Magazine and Decider interview Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes.

Deer Tick have a date at the Horseshoe for July 17. Their new album Born On Flag Day is due out June 23.

MP3: Deer Tick – “Easy”

This tweet from Labrador certainly seems to imply that we’ll see a new EP from The Radio Dept this Summer in advance of the release (fingers crossed) of Clinging To A Scheme this Fall. Alls I know is that in less than two weeks, I’m going to be in New York City to see the reclusive Swedes live for the first time and I am stoked. And also for Shake Shack. Stoked for Radio Dept and Shake Shack. And Coney Island. I think I’m going to go to Coney Island.

Still not sure if I’m going to make it out to see Thao With The Get Down Stay Down at the Bowery Ballroom the night I get in, though. Will play that one by ear. There’s an interview with her at the Idaho Statesman.

The National Post has an extensive feature piece on Scott Pilgrim, both the comic and the film, and gets creator Bryan Lee-O’Malley to identify and annotate various locales around Toronto that play roles in the comic and will, presumably, make appearances in the film. Filming is ongoing around the city right now and video blog entries on the film’s website now number four.

And a reminder that the Toronto Comic Arts Festival will take place this coming weekend at the Toronto Reference Library at Yonge and Bloor (another Pilgrim location!) and feature appearances from both Lee-O’Malley and Phonogram artist Jamie McKelvie. Issue two of The Singles Club finally came out last week, by the way, and was worth the wait though that shouldn’t be taken as permission for issue three to take another five months to put together, no sir.

So I actually got sent a Microsoft Zune MP3 player, unsolicited, a few years ago. Unfortunately, it arrived on the same day as my new Macbook Pro so in the battle of shiny new toys vying for my attention, it lost rather handily and even after I was all set up on the new computer, the fact that the Zune software wouldn’t run on the Mac OS basically ensured that it stayed in its box for the indefinite future. But it was a nice box, I give them that. I eventually gave it to a friend and was able to play with it a bit while setting it up and thought it was a nice little piece of kit – inability to handle leap years notwithstanding.

So fast-forward to today and the Zune is now widely available in Canada (it wasn’t at the time of the above anecdote, rendering the whole “social” aspect of the device pretty much moot) and the Zune brand is doing its best to make itself known, in part by sponsoring events such as the recent Zune Concert Series at the TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival in Whistler, BC. There, in addition to featuring performances from established acts like Metric and The Stills, they dubbed a local act – The British Columbians – the “Canada’s hottest undiscovered band” and added them to the bill with the heavy hitters.

But really, the best way to get the Zune out there is, well, to get it out there – as in the hands of people who’ll use them. And that’s where you come in – courtesy of High Road Communications, I’ve got a shiny red 80GB Zune from the Zune Originals series featuring engraved artwork on the back by Canadian artist Meomi – and which looks a little (or a lot) like this – to give away.

If you want a shot, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want the Zune” in the subject line and your full name and mailing address in the body and get that in to me by midnight, May 10th. And, sorry, American cousins, this contest is open only to residents of Canada. And forewarned for Mac folks, I still don’t know if or think the Zune software is OS X-compatible.

Kathryn RathkeMuch as I’d like to be able to comment on The Decemberists’ latest album The Hazards Of Love, I can’t. ‘Cause I haven’t heard it. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoyed their last record The Crane Wife – it even made my 2006 year-end list – but for whatever reason I haven’t gotten around to the new one. It could be because I fear that this album, with its grand narrative thread and musical theatre origins, may be the one that upsets the delicate balance of pop smarts and prog excess that has kept the Decemberists with “most favoured band” status in my musical firmament. Those of you who have the record – what say you?

But while I dither, I know there’s those of you out there would follow Colin Meloy and his merry musical troupe wherever they might go and this is for you. Courtesy of Sneak Attack Media, I’ve got two super-sweet prize packs to give away, each consisting of a copy of The Hazards Of Love on 180-gram, gatefold double-LP and a poster by Kathryn Rathke, winner of the Imeem poster contest, commemorating their SxSW showcase from last month wherin they performed the album in its entirety. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to experience the Hazards Of Love” in the subject line and your full mailing address in the body. And hooray, this contest is open to residents of North America. It’ll run for a week, closing at midnight, May 6.

And while you’re waiting to find out if you’ve won, you can go shopping for more swag at the Decemberists online store, sign up for their newsletter. Also read this Paste interview with Decemberists visual artist Carson Ellis.

The Decemberists are touring through the Summer and that includes an August 3 date at the Kool Haus here in Toronto.

MySpace: The Decemberists

Steve GullickThe last time I gave away passes to see Mogwai at The Phoenix, they ended up cancelling the entire Fall tour in support of last year’s The Hawk Is Howling on account of drummer Martin Bulloch’s pacemaker nearly bursting out of his chest. That would have been bad.

But medical issues have been tended to and everything is where it should be, and they’re back on the road, breaking hearts and destroying eardrums as they do best. And with their May 4 date at the Phoenix nearly upon us, it’s time to again give away some passes and hope that calamity doesn’t follow.

Courtesy of Against The Grain, I’ve got a couple pairs of passes to give away to the show so if you’d like to see them and fellow noisy Scots The Twilight Sad next Monday night, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Mogwai” in the subject line and your full name in the body and get that in to me by midnight, April 30.

Video: Mogwai – “Batcat”
MySpace: Mogwai