At SxSW 2005, one of the buzzier acts on the slate were Austin natives I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness who, if such a thing existed, would have taken the prize for best band name. They wouldn’t have gotten any blue ribbons for seizing the moment, however, as they promptly dropped off the musical radar shortly thereafter. Well mine, anyway. Well in the interim, it seems that though they were quiet, they weren’t unproductive. Now signed to Secretly Canadian, they’re going to be releasing their debut full-length Fear Is On Our Side on March 7. For whatever reason, I expected them to be awful when I saw them last March, but while I wasn’t blown away I was pleasantly surprised. Enough to remember them (the name helped) and to have my interest piqued when news of the album’s impending release came out.

Secretly Canadian has a track from the new album available to preview, and it’s interesting to compare that with a track from their debut 2003 eponymous EP. The newer track has a more interesting, atmospheric quality to it than one of the older ones (“When You Go Out”), which sounds very much of the jaggy indie-disco style that will hopefully be dead and buried soon. Interestingly, the older one was produced produced by Spoon’s Britt Daniel, who should really have known better. But the other EP track floating around online, “Your Worst Is The Best”, is a surprisingly pop number that shows the bands versitility (or potential for).

MP3: I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness – “According To Plan”
MP3: I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness – “When You Go Out”
MP3: I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness – “Your Worst Is The Best”

ILYBICD will be at SxSW again this year, according to this expanded list of attending artists which Angryrobot has thankfully converted into a proper tabular form. God bless his angry, robotic heart. On a quick once-over, I’m a little disappointed that there’s no Radio Dept or Howling Bells on the list – bands I had no reason to expect would attend, but one always hopes – but the opportunity to see Gemma Hayes and Charlotte Hatherley (who will have a new solo album in the middle of this year!) for the first time as well as catch Dirty On Purpose and Shearwater again is awfully exciting. But while I’m keeping a preliminary “to see” list, things won’t really get into high gear until the official site posts all the band bios and sample tracks. Seeing the acts you already like is all well and good, but it’s the stuff you’ve no idea about that really makes fests like this worthwhile. That and the BBQ.

The Chronicle-Herald talks to Feist about her Nova Scotian roots.

Jenny Lewis talks about going solo with Rabbit Fur Coat to CMJ. I was lukewarm on the album at first, but am beginning to appreciate it’s rather subtle charms. I’ll have a full review soon. The album is out January 24.

Pitchfork really likes Belle & Sebastian’s live If You’re Feeling Sinister album. Shocker. Tickets for their February 25 show at the Docks are on sale now! I can’t imagine 3500 tickets will go THAT fast, but don’t dawdle too long. And if you’re still kvetching about the venue, get over it. It’ll be a great show. Just make sure you have transportation back into the city arranged beforehand – it’s a long, cold February walk back to civilization. Oh, and keep an eye out for the new issue of Under The Radar, in which the band graces the cover looking fairly bad-ass. It’s the anoraks. They make anyone look tough.

And a final plug for the Bluescreen show at the Horseshoe tonight. Four bands! $7! We’re on at 12:30. It would be lovely to see you. And hey – you can pick up your Belle & Sebastian tickets at the bar and save the service charges! You can’t turn that down.

np – New Order / Power, Corruption And Lies

The University of Georgia’s Red & Black tells of Professer Patterson Hood teaching Drive-By Trucking 101 at the school while fellow DBT Jason Isbell cut class to hang out with The Chatanooga Pulse. Luckily, Billboard was in the front row taking notes and learned that their new album, A Blessing And A Curse. will be out April 25. And he’s willing to share the tracklisting, but that’s all.

While the official website for the new album used to have a download of the leadof track, “Feb 14”, it’s now only got that streaming in the background as a soundtrack to a shot of the new album art, photos (from their Flickr group) and videos of recent DBT live performances.

Paste has a pre-independence interview with Nellie McKay.

The Toronto Sun catches up with A Northern Chorus, who are at the Lula Lounge with Sianspheric tonioght. And if that doesn’t satisfy your space-rocking joneses. come see Bluescreen at the Horseshoe tomorrow night. Their/our new album A Survival Guide To Mishaps And Losses got a shiny 4-star review from eye.

I was supposed to go to the Over The Top Fest launch party last night with Final Fantasy, Akron/Family and Great Lake Swimmers, but alas – something came up and I had to bow out. It’s no biggie – I’m sure the opportunity to see FF and GLS will come again soon enough, and Akron/Family are already due back in town on March 21 for a show at the Music Gallery with Deep Dark United and Laura Barrett (tickets $12).

But I will still put forward this question: How has Owen Pallett managed to not get sued by Squaresoft (now Square-Enix, apparently) yet? When he first began performing under the moniker of Final Fantasy, I assumed it would be a temporary, low-profile creative outlet that wouldn’t attract the attention of anyone’s lawyers… but now, as official Arcade Fire alumnus and New York Times profilee, surely someone has taken notice? Or maybe they’re just not saying anyting to avoid anyone remembering their megabomb film of the same name?

The final nominees for the New Pantheon awards are out – the short list (can I call it that?) is up at Billboard. If I were a betting man, and I’m not, I’d have to say it was between Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire (say what?). Because that’s what bloggers like and bloggers are never wrong. Except a lot of the time.

What Would Jesus Blog, a fun new blog with delusions of grandeur, has compiled some 1-star Amazon reviews of otherwise critically lauded indie rock albums… Jesus vs sacred cows. There’s a joke in there somewhere.

Because no one demanded it – Degrassi: The Comic Book. I just don’t get the Degrassi thing. Never have, never will.

np – The House Of Love / Days Run Away

Vincent Moon has directed some gorgeous videos for singles from The National’s Alligator, namely “Lit Up” and “Daughters Of The Soho Riots”, which you can view here. And now he’s added to his impressive videography with some live videos taken from the band’s performances in Paris at La Guinguette this past December, which you can view or download here. They’re so artfully done, they’re practically proper promo clips unto themselves. He’s currently got “Abel” and “Baby, We’ll Be Fine” up, and hopefully “About Today” will be following. Note – these files ain’t small. Which is good news when you’re watching but not so good when you’re downloading.

And speaking of vids, check out the video for “Funny Little Frog”, the first single from Belle & Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit, out February 7. I ordered the CD/7″/DVD package from merry olde Englande yesterday, but since I don’t expect the DVD to play properly in my DVD/TV setup, I will settle for the mildly crappy version from the NME.

KVRX has made available audio from Explosions In The Sky’s very first ever live performance, and I’m sure the band is thrilled about that… Naked post-rock instrumental baby photos! Awww. Via Largehearted Boy.

Some show to note – KT Tunstall is at the Mod Club on March 1, tickets $15. There’ll probably be some dancing at Lee’s Palace on February 10th with OK Go! and controller.controller and on March 22, Lee’s will host Richard Butler, sans Psychedelic Furs.

Thanks to Eugene for sending me the link to this podcast at Public Radio International’s The World, exposing Toronto’s “underground” music scene. Points off for misspelling Jason Collett’s name, but it’s a decent general interest piece otherwise with interview bits with eye‘s Stuart Berman and Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and Feist.

And speaking of Ms Leslie, JAM! takes a few minutes of her time and gets a peek at the upcoming year in Feist. No mention of the live album but look for the new studio record this Fall.

I got my first cease-and-desist yesterday! Someone objected to the mp3s I’d posted for my year-end list and, via DMCA, contacted my webhosting to lay the smackdown on me. Thankfully, they just removed the offending directory and didn’t shut me down, but I guess I’ve found the limits of what I can get away with in terms of posting files. All this means, really, is that my list for 2006 will only have links to legally available tracks already online. The year-end is really the only time I ever rip tracks myself, but I guess that’s not kosher. I don’t know which track in particular raised the ire in question, but I have my suspicions. Y’know, a quick email is all it would have taken. No need to involve the authorities.

Also fun – I spent the night re-upping about 25GB of music to my iPod. It has been crashing with increasing frequency, doing the “won’t play” thing now once a day… A reset and it’s fine, but it’s annoying. So I wiped the drive and reinstalled the software and hopefully that will set it straight. If not… guh. I don’t want to think about that.

But on the plus side, I did get a copy of The Radio Dept’s Lesser Matters on LP for a mere $10 and to tie today’s post alllll back up in a tidy bow, I also got a copy of Alligator on vinyl the day before yesterday. So you DMCA punks can keep your digital music. I got records.

np – Crooked Fingers / Crooked Fingers

So full points to Loose Fur for best smart-ass album title of the year so far – their sophomore record will be entitled Born Again In The USA. Nice.

The free-form rock combo, featuring Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche of Wilco and producer and ex-Sonic Youth-er Jim O’Rourke released their eponymous debut back in 2003 and even now, as I listen to it while writing this, I still don’t know what I think of it. I like some of it and I dislike some of it, but as an album, it didn’t gel for me. That said, opener “Laminated Cat” is still one of my very favourite Tweedy compositions, both in its more conventionally pop incarnation on the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot demos as “Not For The Season” and the sprawling, drugged up feline version on Loose Fur. Finale “Chinese Apple” is also a gem – it’s just the stuff in between that doesn’t really do it for me.

Still, I’ll be picking up Born Again when it comes out on March 21. Tweedy’s comments to Billboard that the new album is “maybe a little bit heavier… a little bit more prog-rock or something” are intriguing – I’m curious to see what he decided to NOT save for the new Wilco record. And in the same way that Loose Fur foreshadowed the sonic experimentation that would influence Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I expect Born Again to hint at what to expect from Wilco’s sixth album, deliberate or not. Update: As has been pointed out, Loose Fur came after YHF so please disregard both the above paragraph and anything I have to say about anything, ever.

And if Loose Fur isn’t your thing, and I know there’s a lot of Wilco fans for whom it’s not, I direct you to this Prefix review of a recent Jeff Tweedy solo show in New York City and the accompanying video of Jeff performing “Sugar Baby”. The visuals aren’t great, but the sound is surprisingly clear.

Drowned In Sound conducts a quick interview with Howling Bells’ Juanita Stein. I was a little disappointed to not see them on this list of acts coming from Australia and New Zealand to SxSW, but if, as the piece implies, they’re seeking to relocate to London, maybe they’ll make it over by way of the UK? And if you don’t know who the Howling Bells are, I guess you missed this post from last month.

The Times-Leader discusses Nellie McKay’s unceremonious booting from Columbia records.

A news update from Merge gives a sneak peak at their upcoming release calendar, which includes a new Essex Green album, Cannibal Sea, on March 21, Lambchop’s The Decline of Country & Western Civilization: The Woodwind Years and a new one from Camera Obscura in April and new stuff from M Ward, Arcade Fire and American Music Club before the year is out. Merge has been on fire putting out great music for the last few years, and 2006 looks like it will be no different. Futhermore, various Merge artists and employees have compiled their year-end lists.

Also fresh to release calendar – Grandaddy’s Just Like The Fambly Cat will be out April 4.

Pop (All Love) has some career advice for Michael Jackson. Because we need Jacko now, more than ever.

Sites like this and this make me feel like this.

np – The Chameleons / What Does Anything Mean? Basically

The Toronto Star talks to jingle-machine Jim Guthrie and Zoilus offers his thoughts on Guthrie – and musicians in general – writing 30-second soundtracks. Alas, the link to the downloadable MP3 on Jim’s site seem to be broken, hopefully just temporarily. Probably indundated with people downloading his infectious little ditty. I personally have no problem with bands writing songs for, or using existing songs, in commercials. The payday can be pretty damn significant and if it gives them the financial freedom to make more proper music, more power to them. I remember getting pretty excited when I heard Galaxie 500’s “Instrumental” in an Acura commercial a few years back. And if you’re one of those who moan that hearing “How Soon Is Now?” soundtracking Julian Sands extolling the virtues of ice-filtered beer cheapens the memory of that song for you… well, tough noogies. Your emotional connections to songs should be a little less fragile.

And jingle talk is always a good excuse to pull Ween’s inexplicably rejected Pizza Hut jingles out of the cupboard for airing. And Yo La Tengo also has some interesting stories about being commissioned to do write (or rewrite) music for commerical purposes. Always fascinating reading.

MP3: Ween – “Where’d The Cheese Go?”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Coke jingle”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Don’t Smoke PSA jingle”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Orange cellphones jingle”

And speaking of YLT, go channel surfing James McNew. Hey James, instead of keeping tabs on Buffy and Freaks & Geeks alumnus, how about rounding up Ira and Georgia and recording a new album? And make this one a pop record, would ya? Thanks.

Jason Isbell of Drive-By Truckers tells The Macon Telegraph about his solo album, Sirens of the Ditch, and frogs. Via LHB.

The February 23 Animal Collective show has been moved from Lee’s Palace to the Opera House. Cue outrage… now. And note that I’ve got a Walkmen contest up – a pair of passes for their January 28 show at Lee’s Palace could be yours… if you dare.

Though 2005 is now but a distant memory, I can forgive Jack Rabid of The Big Takeover for only getting around to running down his best albums of 2005 now… and for dragging it out for who knows how long. I mean, they only publish the magazine twice a year. Time moves differently in Big Takeover land.

Thanks to Largehearted Boy for giving me a shout-out in this interview with the Miwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

The AV Club blog debates the relative merits of both The Simpsons and Family Guy. No matter which side of the fence you fall on, I think everyone can agree on one thing – American Dad sucks ass. Meanwhile, the AV Club mothership rattles off the best of the worst of everything… a list which doesn’t include American Dad because it, you see, is the WORST of the worst.

Well this was my most ellipsis-abusing post in some time…

np – Superchunk / Cup Of Sand