“The only girl I’ve ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes,
But then they buried her alive one evening 1945 with just her sister at her side
And only weeks before the guns all came and rained on everyone,
Now she’s a little boy in Spain playing pianos filled with flames
On empty rings around the sun all sing to say my dream has come.”
– “Holland 1945”, Neutral Milk Hotel

Okay, update for days one and two, starting with two. Most of today was spent a) sleeping in, and b) wandering aimlessly through the city. Both were incredibly easy to accomplish since a) I was jet lagged, and b) it’s an easy city to get lost in. Impenetrable street names and countless identical-looking canals arranged in circular fashion equals something something. I did manage to take in two impressive sights, though. The first was the Anne Frank House, which was as solemn and sobering an experience as you might imagine. I was actually somewhat surprised how large the annex where she and her family hid from the Nazis was, but maybe it’s not so spacious with eight people in it and if you’re not allowed to leave for two years. Photos weren’t permitted inside, hence my use of an old picture of the secret bookcase entrance to their hideaway for this post.

My other stop was to the Foam photographic museum, which was featuring an exhibition of the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson. I was not familiar with him before seeing this exhibit but am absolutely going to rectify that – his photographs taken all over the world throughout the 20th century were nothing short of amazing. I’m still new to this photography thing, but his work was really inspiring.

Last night was spent in the company of Pink Is The New Blog and Rachel And The City, both of whom are my hotelmates out here at the Lloyd. A quick stroll through the notorious Red Light District was kind of disappointing – very tourist-y and not nearly as seedy as I’d expected/hoped. What was a little surprising was to see the working girls still at work early this afternoon. I don’t know how short a straw you have to draw to end up with the 1PM shift on a Friday afternoon, but it can’t be an especially choice time slot.

Also last night was an after-gig show/party in the hotel lounge by Belgian band Zita Swoon. Honestly, it sounded like a big hippie jam-fest to me, but the crowd was pretty excited about it. I’m more interested in zipping down to Utrecht tonight with Coolfer to catch Jens Lekman. Fingers crossed that we can find the place and it’s not sold out!

The weather has been pretty dismal while I’ve been here, so the camera hasn’t been getting a real workout. Besides not wanting to get it wet, the grey, overcast skies don’t really inspire. But I’m putting the shots I do take up on ye olde Flickr page, so have a boo over the next few days if you will.

I was very excited to see the first draft of the SxSW schedule go online yesterday. Most of the big-name showcases don’t have set times yet, which makes planning still something of a crapshoot, but since getting into the big shows is a pain in the ass anyway, it’s a good start for figuring out where I’m going to be and when. And since the schedule also comes with band profiles and some audio samples, it also allows investigation of new and interestingly-named bands.

Torontonian Anglophiles will be happy to hear that Elbow will be in town April 17 at a venue to be determined. PopMatters has an interview. Also new – Editors at The Phoenix on March 24 and Nine Black Alps with Giant Drag at the ElMo on April 4.

And in town next Saturday, Carl Newman of The New Pornographers talks to The Calgary Sun.

np – The National / Black Sessions 2005

“Hello Amsterdam my name is Fernando
Hello Amsterdam I bet you’ve seen my kind before
Another sad tourist with his eyes rolling in his head
Another sad tourist who never had a drink before”

– “Hello Amsterdam”, American Music Club

So hi from Amsterdam. I’m not entirely sure what day it is… The flight out was pretty uneventful, I slept through pretty much all of it. I may still be jet-lagged though, I’m really not sure. I guess I’ll find out tonight. The photo was taken out of a window at the Lloyd Hotel, where I’m staying. It’s pretty nice here – I’ve got a view of a canal. I suspect I’ll spend most of the rest of today puttering about and planning the rest of the trip properly. Hopefully the weather will be a little less damp and blustery, but I somehow doubt it. Either way, I’ll surely have more to report tomorrow, but for now I will sign off on the travel end and rattle some music news.

With the release of The Cardigans’ Super Extra Gravity in Canada, there’s another flurry of press with the band – here’s an interview with Nina Persson with JAM!.

Chromewaves faves She Wants Revenge are at the Horseshoe on April 9 and super-heavy but still somehow indie-friendly Isis are at Lee’s a fortnight later on April 27.

There’s now an e-card for Trespassers William’s Having, allowing you to preview a few tracks before the record is released on February 28.

Drummer Murph talks to Pitchfork about zombie Dinosaur Jr’s recording plans – “just kind of hanging out, getting ready, jamming around…” So don’t get too excited about a new album just yet.

From the department of broken-up bands: Luna’s farewell tour DVD Tell Me That You Miss Me will be out in May on DVD but first premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival at the end of April. And around the same time, The Delgados will release a double-disc collection of all their Peel Session tracks. And Emma Pollock’s website finally has a little content to it, and an opportunity to sign up for her mailing list and get an exclusive MP3 for your troubles.

np – Olympic Curling / “HAAARD!!! HAAAAAAAARD!”

So today the blog shifts back into travel mode for a week. I’m off to Amsterdam as part of the Bloggers In Amsterdam promotional junket thingee, so if you didn’t like my posts from abroad last September, well, come back in a week or so. This is actually the first of a few trips I’ll be taking in the next little while – in mid-March, I’m off to Austin, Texas for SxSW and then a week after I get back from that, it’s off to the other side of the world for a couple weeks in Japan and Taiwan. There’s no hitch with that trip, it’s just family and vacation and whatnot. By my math, I believe I will actually be out of the country for fully half of the next two months. But I figure to still be posting dispatches from the Far East when the opportunity presents and happily, I will still be online through this week in Amsterdam because unlike the last time I went to Europe, it won’t be costing me $0.25 a minute to do so, so in addition to thoughts on Holland, I’ll be keeping tabs on music land as well.

This trip comes not a minute too soon as the past four months have been really intense as far as work goes, and last three weeks in particular I’ve been working almost non-stop, every day. But I’m now officially emancipated (read: unemployed) again, and not a minute too soon. I’ve barely been managing to keep my head above water the last month and it will be good to have some time to sift through the general state of bedlam that is my life. Like, seriously. You should see my room.

If you’ve sent me email for mp3 requests or submissions, or CDs, or whatever, and haven’t heard back from me, I apologize but answering email that wasn’t a matter of life and death has been pretty low priority for me. Hell, sleep has been a pretty low priority. But with luck, after next week things will settle into a more bearable pace for me and I’ll get back on top of things. And, as you would expect, there will be no 24 commentary next week. Or it’ll be late.

And now I will clean out the last bits of music news I’ve got before heading off.

New York’s Ambulance LTD have released the title track from their forthcoming EP (due March 14) for download:

MP3: Ambulance LTD – “New English”

The release date of Drive-By Truckers’ A Blessing And A Curse has been moved up a week to April 18.

KyndMusic talked to Broken Social Scene’s Andrew Whiteman and Justin Peroff before one of their recent shows at Webster Hall in New York City.

Matt Pond PA, continuing their North American tour on borrowed gear and good vibes (their gear all got ripped off in Brooklyn) speak to hour.ca. Via For The Records. And Bradley’s Almanac has their show in Boston last week recorded and up for grabs.

Snow Patrol are doing one of those preview tours in really small club things for their new album Eyes Open, out April 11. In Toronto’s case, they’ll be at the Mod Club on March 30. Tickets are on sale Friday for $27.50, but you know it’s probably already sold out.

Billy Bragg, whose Volume 1 box set is out next week and who will be at the Opera House on March 11, puts together a recommended listening list for Amazon.com. Via LHB.

np – Raised By Swans / Codes And Secret Longing

Another wave of news from Scandanvia. Funny how these things seem to happen in bunches?

We should all be so lucky as to have a Valentine like Jens Lekman, who has made available a trio of tour-only EPs available for download right here, as his special gift to you (via For The Records). If you’re not familiar with Mr Lekman’s wry, dry and lyrically spry brand of folk music, these EPs are a perfect place to start. And if you like them, which you surely will, then his recent compilation Oh You’re So Silent Jens should be your next stop (Metacritic agrees). Even though it’s a collection of odds and sods, I actually like it more than his proper full length When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog. Also check out his Dept Of Forgotten Songs page, which while it hasn’t been updated in a while, is still brimming with musical goodness.

MP3: Jens Lekman – “I Don’t Know If She’s Worth 900 kr”
MP3: Jens Lekman – “Black Cab”
Video: Jens Lekman – “You Are The Light (By Which I Travel Into This And That)” (MPG)

And in a stroke of peculiar synchronicity, Pitchfork has an interview Mr Lekman, where he confesses his retirement from music, announced last year, was short-lived when he realized that being a musician was a better job than working in a bingo hall. I also note with some interest that Mr Lekman will be visitng the Netherlands at the same time as I, but I will have to find a map and determine just how feasible a trip to Utrecht on the 17th is. I don’t have a map yet, you see. Something else I should look into. He’s also playing in Rotterdam on the 19th, but that’s when I’m planning on seeing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who are going to be in Amsterdam.

Labrador Records has confirmed titles and release dates for new material from The Radio Dept – they will release The Worst Taste In Music as a single on March 15 and follow that up with their second full-length, Pet Grief, on April 12. Their official/unofficial MySpace page has been redesigned, but is still pretty freaking ugly.

And the new Cardigans record, Super Extra Gravity, finally gets a domestic release today. Get it, it’s good. The witch-y/goth-y video for the second single, “Don’t Blame Your Daughter”, is also now available in RealVideo and Quicktime formats. And Malaysia’s The Star Online talks to guitarist Peter Svensson about the making of the record.

And there’s been some shuffling in Norwegian singer-songwriter Magnet’s Canadian itinerary – while his March 1 show with Stars at The Docks still appears to be on, his March 2 showcase at the El Mocambo has vanished from the official CMW schedule. Instead, he’ll be playing NeXT, a sort of anti-CMW mini festival, with a show at the Comfort Zone that evening along with The Adam Brown, Frontier Index and Basia Bulat. More details at Stille Post.

Scots (not Scands, but still northern Europeans!) Camera Obscura have completed work on their newest album and will be putting it out this Summer under the name of Let’s Get Out Of This Century. They have a small smattering of US tour dates scheduled for this Spring, including a SxSW showcase (details still forthcoming). And, like all good bands, they have a blog.

Some shows – The UK’s White Rose Movement are at the El Mocambo on March 25 while Sub Pop’s Kelley Stoltz will be at The Drake on March 31 to push his new album Below The Branches, which came out February 7. An interesting double bill with Margot And The Nuclear So And Sos and South will be at Lee’s on April 3 and the Centro-Matic/Great Lake Swimmers show has been confirmed for April 5 at the Horseshoe. And finally, Pinback are at Lee’s Palace on May 4.

PostSecret has a special Valentine’s Day edition up this week. Equal parts heartening and excruciating to read.

24: The thing that stood out the most to me was the grooving soundtrack music playing as Jack went to his parking garage rendezvous with the terrorists. It was positively funky! And I’m trying to remember here – have ANY of Jack’s undercover excursions ever gone as planned? CTY probably works his being taken hostage into every mission scenario now. Definitely a step up from last week’s ep, with a rather formulaic though still suspenseful moral dilemma to keep things interesting. And Jack rescued a small child! Next week – Jack gets a kitten down from a tree.

np – Young & Sexy / Life Through One Speaker

So I will admit, I was fully prepared to hate Maximo Park. Actually, I already did, though based on little more than watching half a video, I forget which, and thinking they looked way too… dapper? Anyway, I figured they were Franz-alikes and decided I didn’t have any time for them and that was that. But a couple weeks ago, a copy of their forthcoming b-sides comp Missing Songs (which will be out next Tuesday) showed up in my mailbox and I gave it a spin. And another. And another. Turns out that snap judgements based on fleeting superficial evidence might not be the best way to make up one’s mind about a band! Who knew?

For an odds-and-sods collection, Missing Songs is surprisingly solid. There’s a few tracks where they get a little too obviously post-punk for my liking, but a lot of the songs are good catchy, melodic and definitely British tunes. They’re cheeky but not snotty, and that’s a distinction that keeps them on my good side. Their proper full-length album got Metacritic, and If this is how good their cutouts are, I will definitely be picking up a copy of A Certain Trigger soon.

Since Maximo Park counted/counts as a buzz band of sorts, there’s a fair bit of press to catch up on for the newly interested – Drowned In Sound and Ilford Recorder have interviews, while Under The Radar surveyed the band about their 2005 faves while Spin declared them Band Of The Day last month. And proving themselves to be up with the times, the band themselves keep a blog and have not one but TWO MySpace pages. Curiously, the unofficial one has tunes to sample, while the official one does not. They’ve also got some suitably stylish videos for you to enjoy.

Video: Maximo Park – “Apply Some Pressure” (MOV)
Video: Maximo Park – “I Want You To Stay” (eCard)

And according to NME, Maximo Park’s fellow Northern Englanders The Futureheads have completed their second album News And Tributes in time for a release in May of this year. I actually liked their eponymous debut record quite a bit, but never listen to it for some reason. True story.

The Daily Northwestern has words with Greg Wheelan of The Wrens (via Largehearted Boy) and Popmatters catches up with the Little Quill crew about where they’re at with their documentary of the band.

The Fiery Furnaces’ new, got-to-be-better-than-Rehearsing My Choir album Bitter Tea is out April 18. Matthew Friedberger talks to Rolling Stone about their “girly” new record.

Toronto’s Airfields have completed a second EP entitled Laneways, and have a couple tracks posted for your enjoyment on their MySpace page. They hope to have CDs available for sale when they play Wavelength on March 5, and 10″s ready for their gig opening for The Wedding Present at Lee’s on March 10.

This interview between Westword and Amy Millan of Stars is pretty much devoid of value EXCEPT for Ms Millan revealing that her long-overdue solo record Honey From The Tombs will finally be coming out on May 27! Via For The Records. Also, San Diego CityBeat and Boulder Dirt talks to Evan Cranley as Stars tour the western US.

The Globe & Mail profiles current man of the hour Leonard Cohen, who if the writer is to be believed, is only 5’5″. I don’t know why, but I always thought he was taller than that.

Young & Sexy have confirmed their Toronto show, but I was off by a couple days in my guesstimate. They’ll be at the Drake Underground on April 22 and their new album Panic When You Find It is out this Tuesday.

Stylus eulogizes Arrested Development. I’ve only managed to watch the first of Friday’s four episodes, SO NO ONE RUIN THE END FOR ME. I haven’t actually read the Stylus piece for this very reason.

Congrats to Rodney from B(oot)log for winning my Zunior contest – to see his top-ten playlist, click here.

np – Jens Lekman / Oh You’re So Silent Jens