San Francisco’s Film School were a little behind the eight-ball with me before last night’s show at the Horseshoe. A very long and rainy day/week combined with a late scheduled start time wasn’t exactly getting my gig-going heart aflutter, but I managed to haul my ass down to the ‘Shoe just in time for their midnight set (apologies to Uncut and The Anti-Q’s for missing their sets). And thank goodness I did.

I’ve seen them live and have been living with their self-titled full-length for a few months now, but somehow they managed to surprise the hell out of me with the intensity of their show. Compact, taut and powerful the five-piece tore through much of their album as well as a couple of older songs from their Alwaysnever EP and a new one to cap off the encore. The band may be insisting they’re not part of any shoegazer revival (at least that’s what they told The Boston Globe) but there’s little question what sort of audience their stuff appeals to. Take the drive and aggression of Swervedriver, who themselves never quite fit into the “shoegaze” tag, and the atmospherics and vocal traits of The Cure, throw in a touch of American hardcore and UK post-punk danceability and you’ve got a pretty damned good sound. The crowd was smallish for the band’s first Canadian show (and only one of the tour since the Montreal date for tonight has been cancelled) but seemed totally into it from my vantage point and were even dancing by the end. Dancing. In Toronto. Think about that.

Gig photos here. Got to try out my new Sigma 30mm f1.4 and am quite pleased with the results – hooray for more light! Check out one of the tracks from Film School and the new video for “11:11”. And there’s also the requisite MySpace account.

MP3: Film School – “Pitfalls”
Video: Film School – “11:11” (MOV)

Starting Sunday night, Film School will be teaming up with Indianapolis’ Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s for what should be two weeks of a stupidly good bill. Coincidentally, I saw both Margot and Film School back to back at SxSW in March – of course, I had to run across halfway across downtown Austin between their sets, but whatever. Half of Margot recently stopped in at AOL Music for an acoustic session/podcast/Q&A/thingee.

Another band in the “we are NOT looking at our shoes!” genre are Norway’s Serena Maneesh – though rather than take Film School’s tense, tightly-wound approach they instead infuse it all with a healthy dose of glam. They’re offering a free MP3 of a remix of “Sapphire Eyes” which originally appeared on a limited-edition Insound-only split 7″, but you have to sign up to their official mailing list to get it. The band’s self-titled album came out domestically either two weeks ago or on this coming Tuesday, depending on who you ask. Either way, it’s available over here – if you’re looking. Check out some audio at their MySpace, download a track and watch a new video at Insound:

MP3: Serena Maneesh – “Un-Deux”
Video: Serena Maneesh – “Drain Cosmetics” (YouTube)

Sigur Ros tells The Independent about a recent close encounter of the Tom Cruise kind. And while you’d generally figure them to be one of the great, uncoverable bands – New York’s We Are Scientists (not We Are Scientologists) gave it a shot anyway with a rendition of “Hoppipolla” off of Takk. Stereogum’s got it and you know what? It’s… actually quite good. Huge props for trying and not failing – if you want my respect and admiration (for whatever it’s worth) by covering some Sigur Ros, I’ll send you here first. We Are Scientists will be in town June 17 at the Kool Haus supporting Arctic Monkeys.

Everyone wants to talk to Tom Verlaine. The New York Times (Bugmenot) gets a pretty good piece – The New York Post does not. Verlaine is in town as a keynote speaker the second weekend of June for NxNE and will saddle up with Television for a hugely anticipated show (by me) at the Phoenix June 9.

Elvis Costello is (almost) coming to town. He’ll be at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls on July 7 and 8. A casino, Declan? I think you might be taking this namesake thing a little far. A line has been crossed. His new album with Allen Toussaint, The River In Reverse, will be out June 6.

np – The Like Young / Last Secrets

Whither wimpiness? When former mentors and countrymen Belle & Sebastian discovered Northern Soul and moved onto glammier things, it was assumed that Camera Obscura would hold down the fort of twee and continue to turn out lovely albums of grammar school anthems. However, no one seems to have consulted the band about this.

The new album Let’s Get Out Of This Country, out June 6, opens with the first single “Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken”, an insanely catchy and cheeky paean to Scottish pop legend Lloyd Cole & The Commotions (I know, Cole is English but the band was based in Glasgow), and carries on for nine more tracks of glorious pop music with a seriously stomping Motown bent. There’s still a fair share of sad, folkier tunes but the head boppers are the real standouts on this record – who’d have thought this band had it in them? This new angle on their sound can perhaps be credited to producer Jari Haapalainen who has some experience with sassing up indie pop groups – he manned the boards for the first Concretes album.

The growth in the band’s sound isn’t accidental, either. As TracyAnne Campbell tells The Daily Record, the band wanted to make a grab for that commercial brass ring – maybe land a Target commercial perhaps? But when you’ve got a record as shimmering and shimmying as this one, the whys and wherefores are really unimportant. Expect the merch table to be swarmed on July 4 when the band plays the Horseshoe in Toronto – tickets are on sale now for $15.50. It’s been two years since they visited us last so you can be sure that this one will be sold out lickety split. Presumably there are more North American dates forthcoming but I’ve not seen them yet.

Much media to share – Merge has a couple of the more rollicking tracks from the record available to stream. “If Looks Could Kill”, in particular, reveals that Camera Obscura sound damned good when they’re pushing the needles into the red. For those of you who like to save things to your desktops, there’s the album’s title track available to download and the naturally adorable first video in RealVideo format. Furthermore, because Camera Obscura are no slouches when it comes to cutting-edge technology, check out their blog, their MySpace AND their podcast for Merge (download the MP3 or stream it) where they talk, rather sheepishly, about the new record. Recommended for people who dig Scottish accents.

Stream: Camera Obscura – “If Looks Could Kill”
Stream: Camera Obscura – “Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken”
MP3: Camera Obscura – “Let’s Get Out Of This Country”
Video: Camera Obscura – “Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken” (REAL)

And if you’ve never heard the inspiration for the single, then by God we need to rectify that. “Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?” is the final track on Lloyd Cole’s classic Rattlesnakes album. Wonderfully literate, romantic and melodic, All Music Guide calls it “one of the finest debuts of the ’80s and possibly the defining album of the whole U.K. indie jangle scene” and I call it a classic of any era.

MP3: Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – “Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?”

While everything is coming up Camera Obscura, their aforementioned Swedish colleagues in pop The Concretes aren’t having such a good time. After having their gear stolen last week, Pitchfork reports the band have now cancelled the rest of their North American tour, all told six west coast dates, due to illness. Best wishes to lead Concrete Victoria Bergsman for a quick recovery from whatever ails her.

And I’m disapointed to hear (via For The Records and I Heart Music) that one of my favourite local bands The Airfields is going on… well, the blog post isn’t exactly clear, but it doesn’t sound like there’ll be much news from the band anytime soon. A real shame, as their Laneways EP, released just a couple months ago, is a real gem of jangly, C86 goodness. Give some tracks from the EP a listen and hope with me that this isn’t the last we hear from them (thanks to Largehearted Boy for finding that second track).

MP3: The Airfields – “Nowhere Left To Go”
MP3: The Airfields – “Lonely Halls”

And a final wimp-rock note – Chart has an interview with Young & Sexy about some of the critical slings and arrows their latest record, Panic When You Find It, has been getting.

Finally finally FINALLY I’ve got my pics from the past week up. Go here for my Rainer Maria pics and here for shots from Tuesday’s Mogwai show at the Phoenix.

np – Loose Fur / Born Again In The USA

Sunderland, England’s The Futureheads will release their second album News And Tributes on June 13 via Vagrant Records, who seem dead set on ditching the “emo label” label they’ve been saddled with since their inception. The DIY Rockstar makes an interesting point that this will be the first sophomore effort from the wave of Northern England dance-punk-new wave bands that were all the rage a couple years ago.

With the miniscule attention span of today’s indie scenester, how much of the fanbase for bands like The Futureheads can be expected to still be interested and how many will have moved onto the next hyped thing, especially without a sure-fire hit like the ‘Heads’ cover of “Hounds Of Love” off their debut? And lord knows the NME is due to turn on them any day now. The band tells The Guardian that this second record is a more mature affair, with stronger songwriting and less emphasis on frantic energy and Gigwise hears that it’s simply “better”.

Based only on the first single, “Skip To The End”, I’d say they haven’t strayed too much from formula but that’s fine with me – they’ve proven they know how to craft a hook and few out there can match their eccentric four-part harmonies. Check out the ecard for the album here and the video for the first single below. You can also befriend them at MySpace. They’re at the Phoenix with Tapes’n’tapes on July 26, tickets $15.

MP3: The Futureheads – “Skip To The End”
Video: The Futureheads – “Skip To The End”

Another band that comes from the same local scene is Newcastle’s Maximo Park, whose A Certain Trigger also yielded no small amount of acclaim. Somewhat to my surprise, I prefer their odds and sods comp Missing Songs to the proper record, but to be fair I haven’t listened to Trigger nearly as much. Chart reports that the band is procrastinating on their second album by putting out the CD/DVD set Found On Film on June 5. It will feature all their videos, a tour documentary, live sessions, home videos, footage of the band as children, webcam footage… okay, maybe not the last few but basically anything talkie that they can cram on the disc. The audio portion of the set will feature some BBC sessions.

Video: Maximo Park – “Graffiti” (MOV)
Video: Maximo Park – “Apply Some Pressure” (MOV)
Video: Maximo Park – “Going Missing” (MOV)

And yet another band that shares former members of both Maximo Park and The Futureheads is Field Music, who only just released their self-titled debut album domestically in April but have already followed that up with a b-sides comp called Write Your Own History. Gotta admit, I like them better listening to the album tracks than I did seeing them live at SxSW.

MP3: Field Music – “Your’e So Pretty”
MP3: Field Music – “Shorter Shorter”

Also doing the b-sides/procrastination thing is Sufjan Stevens, who will put out a disc of another 21 songs and 76 minutes in tribute to the Lincoln state on July 11 called The Avalanche. Those of you who thought Illinois itself was too long can start running away screaming now. Those of you who loved the album – and I know there’s many of you/us – will be happy to hear that the flipside album is very much in the same vein as the a-side. While not as cohesive a whole, these aren’t half-finished demos but properly produced and finished songs unto themselves. Pitchfork this week has an interview with Stevens about The Avalanche and the baby they told him he was having. And here’s a track from The Avalanche:

MP3: Sufjan Stevens – “The Henney Buggy Band”

Filter has posted a magazine feature article on My Morning Jacket, who are topical again on account of touring with Pearl Jam. Metro Toronto also ran a piece last week.

Hour.ca talks fate with Film School and The Smidge Of Ashen Fluff has a fun story involving the band, a traffic cop and Seattle radio station KEXP. They’ve also got MP3s from the sessions that they were able to make because of one cop’s cool taste in music. We’ll see if the band tries the same trick tomorrow night when they play the Horseshoe here in Toronto – though saying they’re trying to get to CFNY will probably just get them arrested for having bad, bad taste.

np – Camera Obscura / Let’s Get Out Of This Country

Mogwai! Hard to believe it’s been nearly four years since I saw them last, but it’s probably taken about that long for my hearing to recover. This time, of course, I’d have to be right up front as befits a slave to the lens so I was kind of hoping that the (relatively) kinder, gentler Mogwai evidenced on their last couple records would be in the house rather than the unrelenting volume addicts of the past.

Openers Torche from Miami, Florida I was wary of from the get go, not least of all because they were profiled in Magnet’s recent feature on really heavy new bands. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I have no metal in me. None at all. Torche, on the other hand, have more than enough metal in them to compensate. Their set was quite short but heavy like a ton of bricks. There was some hair whipping, some gutteral screaming and some crazy-ass musicianship. Entirely not my thing but still strangely compelling, like peeking into another world. A metal world.

Much is made of Mogwai’s quiet/loud/quiet thing but while it’s true that their earlier work was mainly about the visceral value of such dynamic shifts, they’ve really grown as songwriters and arrangers with the last three records. This was evidenced in the live show which, while still deafeningly loud at points (I love my earplugs), was far more selective about when and where it slammed the soundboard needles into the red. I actually think I preferred the quieter sections, where the tension and anxiety that really defines their sound churns and builds. Like many things in life, the anticipation can be much more powerful than the release. Since I’d never been as close to the front at their previous shows as I was last night, I’d never actually gotten a good look at the band while playing – it’s amazing how mellow they look up there while creating this intense sonic tumult – no guitar faces, no histrionics, just five relatively placid-looking Scotsmen going about their business of being an audiologist’s nightmare.

The set drew from all points in their discography, the centrepiece being a reworked “Mogwai Fear Satan”. Amazingly, but slowing down the BPM just a touch and using a slightly more delicate arrangement than the fourteen-minute piledriver on Young Team, they gave it a whole new level of complexity and personality. I mean, I LOVE the album version but it’s not the most multi-dimensional piece of music around. Another highlight was encore and show closer “Glasgow Mega-Snake” from Mr Beast. The opening riff is so unbelivably and the rest of the song just demolishes everything. I know that runs contrary to everything I said up to this point about maturity, tension and complexity and whatever… but MAN. ROCK. Mogwai fear nothing.

Look for photos… soon. Update: Or now! Quite the backlog piling up, I know. Mogwai brought their own lightshow with them so there were some really nice shots waiting to be processed. In the meantime, the Mr Beast website is a handy resource for following the trail of destruction that Mogwai are leaving in their wake across North America and Bradley’s Almanac has (almost) the whole of last week’s Boston show recorded and ready to download. And if that’s not enough, there’s a making-of the album video podcast available on iTunes (via Aversion), your can read this Chart piece about how the band felt about Mr Beast leaking and tune into 94.9FM (or online) around 9:10 EDT tonight to hear an interview with Mogwai recorded before last night’s show. And here’s some MP3s from last night’s performers as well as links to their MySpaces.

MP3: Mogwai – “Folk Death 95”
MP3: Torche – “In Return”

The new one from Lucinda Williams, titled Knowing at last check, has been given a November 7 release date.

Trespassers William have started a blog and so far have offered up some more interesting posts than the usual tour news and diaries. In this post, they discuss the many different track orders that Having went through and some of the reasonings behind each iteration.

Despite being dropped by RCA late last year, Longwave are powering forward and have been working with uber-producer Dave Fridmann on new material – you can hear a couple of the new tracks at MySpace.

The Sun and The Sun-Times talk to Jason Lytle about the demise of Grandaddy. If you haven’t before, check out the Grandaddy FTP Site – loads of live and rare downloadables.

Seattle P-I bids farewell to Justice League Unlimited. Though the final episode was available ages ago online, it’s only formally closing out the series now. But all is not lost for fans of Bruce Timm-styled DC animation – there’s a new Legion Of Super-Heroes series in the works. Yeah, I never liked the Legion much either.

24: Oh good, more nerve gas. I missed the nerve gas. Those were the good old days, simpler times. Oh, and Bierko’s got a big scar now, just like a Bond villain! Maybe my favourite moment of the season so far was the look on Jack’s face after Henderson told him his plan? GOLD. There’s your Emmy moment. Okay, big finish! Jack Bauer vs a submarine? Cool. oh, it’s non-nuclear? Oh. Well, I guess that’s kind of scary too. Alright – two hours two hours two hours to go. This all ends Victoria Day!

np – Drive-By Truckers / A Blessing And A Curse

I’d like to think I adequately previewed last night’s Rainer Maria/Ambulette show at the Horseshoe last month, so let’s just get into it.

Rainer Maria have been through town a few times since I saw them last here in July 2003, but usually with some really dubious emo-punk bill that I couldn’t bring myself to see. I still hadn’t gotten my copy of Catastrophe Keeps Us Together yet (damn you post office) so aside from the few preview tracks I’d heard and the SxSW showcase, I was going in a little blind. But what I did knew for certain was that RM are one of the most energetic live acts I’ve seen, especially guitarist Kyle Fischer who spends most of the show flailing around the stage somehow without missing a note. Caithlin De Marrais wasn’t as karate-kicking animated as last time, but still kept up her end of the energy level while handling lead vocals loudly, clearly and passionately. Fischer occasionally doubled vox on older material in a new hoarse scream. It’s not often that the drummer is the most restrained member of the band, but William Kuehn really was, at least relatively speaking.

Again, I haven’t heard the new record in its entirety but do know that it’s a more… mature affair? Polished? But either way, the new stuff works quite well live – there’s maybe a little more crackle to it in that context but put against the more frantic older material it also provides a good dynamic counterpoint. The set, short as it was at an hour including encore, had a really good tempo and pacing and the crowd, smallish as it was, was completely into it. The band didn’t have quite the defiant “something to prove” attitude that I picked up on in Austin, but still gave a fine performance.

Ambulette also seemed to have a different attitude than in Austin, but it was a positive change. They had a friendlier vibe than last time I saw them and were also playing and sounding a lot better. Maura Davis’ voice was in fine form, still huge and dramatic, but there seemed to be some more real emotion behind it rather than just mechanics. The band played much of the material from the The Lottery EP but the songs that really caught my ear were (presumably) the new ones not on the recording – some of it sounded really good. At a high level, it’s likely that Ambulette are simply operating in a genre a little outside of what I’m usually into, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep paying attention.

Gig photos hopefully tomorrow though maybe not till Wednesday. In the meantime, there’s a video available for the title track of the new Rainer Maria album and you can hear more from both RM and Ambulette at their MySpace pages. And City On A Hill Press has posted an piece on the band with some quotes from RM’s Kuehn. Update: Photos are done!

MP3: Rainer Maria – “Burn”
Video: Rainer Maria – “Catastrophe” (MP4)

Though their new one, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass isn’t out till September 12, there’s already new Yo La Tengo to hear! Why, it’s positively JAUNTY. Happy day.

MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Beanbag Chair”

The AV Club talks to Neko Case about geography. And if you haven’t seen it, there’s a video for “Maybe Sparrow”.

Video: Neko Case – “Maybe Sparrow” (Flash)

Toronto’s Diableros have put together a video for “Sugar Laced Soul” and have made another song available for download via MySpace. VUE Weekly talked to the band about playing larger venues thanks to the success of You Can’t Break The Strings In Our Olympic Hearts. They’ll be playing a loaded non-NxNE show at Sneaky Dee’s on June 9 with The Paper Cranes.

MP3: The Diableros – “Working Out Words”
Video: The Diableros – “Sugar Laced Soul” (MOV)

The powers that be have unearthed a slew of videos from Soul Asylum’s heyday. Take a stroll down memory lane and marvel at Dave Pirner’s hair here.

Harp has some behind the scenes video footage from the making of Drive-By Truckers’ A Blessing And A Curse, out in Canada next Tuesday.

The Boston Globe Q&A’s Stuart Brathwaite of Mogwai. They’re in town at the Phoenix tonight.

AOL continues to be a surprisingly cool resource for complete streaming albums – this week, have a listen to the new Doves live EP Some Cities Live and two new Dinosaur Jr reissues for Green Mind and Where You Been. The links may not go to the correct default album, so use the scrolly menu at the top.

I’m proud to have been asked to contribute to Goodhodgkins.com’s list of “Visceral Song Moments”. My pick? Okkervil River’s “For Real”.

Penultimate 24 commentary tomorrow or Wednesday or whenever. I’m busy these nights.

np – Sufjan Stevens / The Avalanche: Outtakes And Extras From The Illinois Album