Photo by Frank Yang

Happy birthday, Canada. You don’t look a day over 140.

It’s become a local Canada Day tradition to trek down to Harbourfront Centre where they offer free concerts featuring the happening Canadian artist du jour – past fetes featuring the likes of Feist, The Dears and Final Fantasy – and that tradition continues tonight with performances from Martha Wainwright and Basia Bulat. But don’t be surprised if before long, you see Ohbijou’s name on that bill.

This year they were on the Harbourfront main stage a couple days early, this past Saturday, not for the Canada Day celebration but for the Rocky Mountain High festival, which kicked off this year’s series of World Routes programming. The context of this event was to celebrate The Banff Centre, an arts centre in Alberta at which Ohbijou spent a week and a half in residency earlier this year, working with other artists and producers in composing material for the follow-up to 2006’s lovely Swift Feet For Troubling Times.

I hadn’t seen the band since their triumphant show at Lee’s Palace last November so it was good to renew the acquaintance. In the interim, they’ve not much changed their sound – if it ain’t broke and all that – but some growth and refinement was evident in the orchestrations and arrangements. Though they had to contend with a few distractions over the course of their set – a bagpipe-led pirate parade and a Jacko-soundtracked yacht party were both difficult to ignore – their sweet sounds wafting out over the lake would win out… though mainly because the pirates kept moving until they were out of earshot. That was tough to ignore. But a splendid way to spend an afternoon by the water and a fine reminder that anticipation for Ohbijou’s second album, hopefully due out Fall-ish, should be high.

CBC Radio 2 is streaming a concert Ohbijou played in March to close out their residency at the Banff Centre.

Photos: Ohbijou @ Harbourfront Centre – June 28, 2008
MP3: Ohbijou – “St Francis”
MP3: Ohbijou – “Misty Eyes”
MP3: Ohbijou – “Steep”
Video: Ohbijou

I’d like to make this post all-Canadian content, but there’s simply not much out there. I’ve got this CBC piece rating various covers of Canadian songs (though the rationale in the comments for including Heart as a Canuck act do not fly at all) and this interview with Hayden over at Aquarium Drunkard, but beyond that, nada.

Back in May, commenter Chuck said “Every time I see the words ‘Mates of State’ in your entries, I always cross my fingers and say ‘please let it be followed by a Toronto show announcement’….sigh. Make my wish come true.” Well Chuck, courtesy of the “Make A Wish Foundation”, your dream has come true. Mates Of State at Lee’s Palace on August 4, tickets $15. Now let me guess – you’re out of town for the long weekend. HA. They’ve just released a new video to go along with the first MP3 made available from their new album Re-Arrange Us. Vindy.com talks to the band.

MP3: Mates Of State – “My Only Offer”
Video: Mates Of State – “My Only Offer”

Mates Of States’ new labelmates at Barsuk in Ra Ra Riot will also be coming to town exactly one month later for a show at the Horseshoe. Their debut The Rhumb Line is out August 19 and their live show is dazzling.

Also out August 19 is You & Me, the new album from The Walkmen. They’re also coming to town and will be at Lee’s Palace on September 10. They stopped in at Daytrotter earlier this year, but don’t look for a preview of the new record – they only recorded Leonard Cohen covers.

The AV Club interviews Silver Jew David Berman. They’re at Lee’s Palace on September 2.

David Bowie picks his favourite David Bowie songs for Mail On Sunday.

Another Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds video? Yes, please. That’s clips now for four of the eleven tracks on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! released as singles now, and there’s surely at least a couple more in the queue before they play the Kool Haus on October 1. Nick Cave, MTV star – it could happen. Okay, no it couldn’t.

Video: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Midnight Man”

Former Mendoza Line singer Shannon McCardle has readied her solo debut Summer Of The Whore for release on August 19. Considering how… untidy the end of her band and marriage was, expect this record to be a touch cathartic. One track from the record is available to download below, another is streaming at her MySpace. Her ex-husband and ex-bandmate was operating as Timothy Bracy’s Collection Agency late last year, but any sign of them seems to have been stricken from the internet (read: their MySpace is gone). Curious.

MP3: Shannon McCardle – “Poison My Cup”

Paste reports that though it was touch and go for a while, Jon Favreau has signed on to direct Iron Man 2. And he knows who’s going to be in the Avengers movie. Beans. Spilt. Everywhere.

Photo by Mick Rock

Perhaps my position on Alejandro Escovedo pretty much sums it up – “Yeah, I’ve heard of him – he’s supposed to be really good, isn’t he?”. Despite heaps of critical acclaim and high-profile fans like Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle, he remains an underground hero at best and inexplicably overlooked by those who should be fans, if they’d only had gotten around to listening. Like me.

I’m not completely unfamiliar with his work – I have the Por Vida tribute record, which was organized to raise money to help Escovedo pay off medical bills from his near-fatal bout with hepatitis in 2003 (now thankfully recovered from) – but even that hasn’t gotten the mileage it probably deserves. But I have spent some time with his new album Real Animal, which is out next week, and as an introduction it makes fine argument for exploring his work further. It’s a vibrant work ranging from janglesome pop to incisive rock to introspective balladry, all delivered with the weathered voice of experience and a healthy dose righteous indignation. You might have thought that his brush with mortality would put him in a quieter, more contemplative mood but apparently that’s what his last album, The Boxing Mirror, covered. With this record he’s quite obviously alive and making the most of it.

Escovedo canceled his last scheduled visit to the area – he was meant to headline one of the days at Hillside last year – but will make it up next Monday, July 6, when he plays the Mod Club. Courtesy of Against The Grain I’ve got a pair of passes to the show to give away, so if you want em, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Alejandro Escovedo” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight July 3.

MP3: Alejandro Escovedo – “Always A Friend”
MySpace: Alejandro Escovedo

Photo by Frank Yang

Last Thursday night, Lee’s Palace played host to a meeting for the Toronto chapter of the “If It’s Got More Than Two Chords It’s #*%?@!-ing Jazz! Society”. Alright, not officially, but if such an organization were to be spontaneously created anywhere, the a show featuring The Black Angels and The Warlocks was as good a place as any. It was a safe bet that most everyone in attendance – almost a full house – was a connoisseur of rock of the droning variety and as such, were pretty stoked to see two of the finer purveyors of craft on tour together.

Los Angeles’ Warlocks started things off loudly as expected but also with a relatively lighter touch. Compared to their tourmates, they ply a dreamier brand of psychedelia – still deafening and utterly stoned but with the pop elements closer to the surface. They were rooted primarily in classic rock influences run through a drone rock aesthetic – there were more than just shades of Spacemen 3 in there – but also the occasional whiff of bubblegum detectable through all the smoke and haze.

There’s not many circumstances where you’d reference The Warlocks as the “lighter” half of a bill – by any measure they’re still hellaciously loud – but when The Black Angels took the stage, things got significantly darker and I’m not just talking about stage lighting. Cloaked either in darkness or projections from actual 16mm film projectors (old school!), The Austinites worked with considerably more low end, led by drummer Stephanie Bailey’s unrelenting tom pounding and giving their set a rhythmic pacing that was part military march, part ritual sacrifice. Material from their latest album Directions To See A Ghost sounded extra intense delivered thusly, which is saying something considering it’s already a bit of a head trip on record. Though both bands work in a style/genre that I have a limited amount of patience for – after X minutes of the same thing over and over again, I get antsy – the show was remarkably engaging. Partly because trying to get a camera to focus in near-pitch darkness isn’t easy, but also because when it works, drone-rock is supposed to be hypnotic and judging from the concert-goers swaying and/or flailing all around me throughout the show, I suppose it was working.

The Boston Globe profiles The Black Angels.

Photos: The Black Angels, The Warlocks @ Lee’s Palace – June 26, 2008
MP3: The Black Angels – “Doves”
MP3: The Warlocks – “So Paranoid”
MP3: The Warlocks – “Isolation”
MySpace: The Black Angels
MySpace: The Warlocks

Wall Of China is yet another blog from Ms Emma-Lee Moss, aka Emmy The Great, wherein she collects bits of writing she’s done for various publications such as this one with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, he himself a musician who also knows his way a blog. Most everything in the blog is entertaining and adorable, but some entries seem to have been excised that still exist in the RSS feed – so until Blogger does something about that, I’d suggest hitting up said feed and finding the December 2007 entry entitled “We Have To Talk”. So best. Also, Emmy was amongst the Glastonbury performers quizzed by The Guardian this weekend about their knowledge of agriculture – she acquits herself nicely with sheep trivia. No further info on her debut album – First Love still due sometime in September – but at least she’s managed to get rid of the Weezer theme that was plaguing her MySpace.

And now that Glastonbury is done, The Verve have made a track from their forthcoming album Forth available to download in advance of the August 19 release date in exchange for your contact info. What a deal! The track, “Mover”, is a damn sight better than the official single, “Love Is Noise”, because you actually get some notion as to why Nick McCabe is one of the best guitarists the UK has turned out in the past 20 years, but as a song it still feels half-baked. Actually everything new that the reunited Verve has released has sounded like that – like jams that had verses and choruses arbitrarily defined and edited down to songs length, with one eye in the studio fixed on the release date circled on the calendar. Or maybe they’re saving the best stuff for the album. Maybe. Update: Stereogum points out that “Mover” is actually not on the album. Whether this bodes well or ill for the material that did make the album is unclear.

First reported by The National Post and confirmed on the official website, this year’s Hillside Festival now has a marquee name to close out Sunday night in Broken Social Scene. And if those Arcade Fire rumours the Post is also spreading have any grounding in reality at all, you can probably expect full-on indie kid amphibious invasion of Guelph Lake this July 25 through 27.

Death Vessel, aka the impossibly high-voiced Joel Thibodeau, will release his Sub Pop debut Nothing Is Precious Enough for Us on August 19 and be at the El Mocambo on August 28 to play songs from it.

MP3: Death Vessel – “Bruno’s Torso”

The Notwist will kick off their Fall North American tour in support of the just-released The Devil, You + Me in Toronto at Lee’s Palace on October 10.

JAM learns that it’s not a good idea to tell Aimee Mann to smile. She opens up for Squeeze at the Kool Haus on August 18.

Pitchfork talks to Liz Phair… wait, didn’t they just do that? Oh, that was Pitchfork.tv. It’s different, cause it’s TV.

The Guardian profiles The Ting Tings.

JAM talks to Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers.

The Telegraph heads to Mexico with Sigur Ros. Ambulances ensue. Hoping their September 22 show at Massey Hall is less calamitous.

Daytrotter joins the Retribution Gospel Choir in song and session. Hallelujah.

Metro asks five questions of The National.

An Aquarium Drunkard has part one of an interview with The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. Their Stay Positive is out July 15. Update: Part two is now up.

Drowned In Sound selects their favourite songs of 2008 so far.

Yesterday was the Pride Parade here in Toronto and seeing as how it’s the most entertaining photographic opportunity to occur within 200 metres of my apartment every year, I was there camera in hand. Photos at my Flickr and anyone who has an aversion to full-frontal nudity is warned not to click. Cause they let it all hang out, yo.

Photo by Wendy Lynch

Though well-regarded by many, I found Calexico’s last effort – Garden Ruin – to be a moderate disappointment. By taking a more conventional, pop-oriented approach, they shed most everything that made Calexico such a unique creative entity – namely the arid, Mariachi-infused desert flavour and instrumental excursions – and turned into a far less interesting band. Which is a shame, since for my money they struck the perfect balance between the pop and experimentalism on 2003’s Feast Of Wire. Now if they’d just called it a Joey Burns solo project backed by Calexico – which is really what it sounded like – then I’d have been fine with it, but with the band marque on it I expected more.

Anyway, they get a chance to make amends with their next record, Carried To Dust, which is out September 9. To preview the new album, they’re doing a cross-Canada tour next month and no matter how you feel about their records, Calexico live never disappoint. They’ll be at the Mod Club next Sunday, July 6, and courtesy of Against The Grain I’ve got one pair of passes to give away for the show. To enter, send me an email at contests AT chromewaves.net with “Yo quiero Calexico” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, July 2.

MP3: Calexico – “Cruel”
Video: Calexico – “Cruel”
MySpace: Calexico