I didn’t know who John Lennon was when he was murdered 25 years ago today. I was five years old, and only had a very vague idea of who the Beatles were. What I do remember is that after hearing Lennon was shot, and then Ronald Reagan barely three months later, and Pope John Paul II shortly after that, I got the impression that it must suck to be a public figure because people were constantly trying to kill them (and unfortunately, occasionally succeeding). It still sort of surprises me that there aren’t more attempts made on famous peoples’ lives. I’m not complaining, mind you, but I was conditioned at a young and impressionable age to think that these things happened every couple months.

What’s this got to do with anything? Very little. But like every other news service and blog in the cosmos, I do feel compelled to offer some tribute to the man on this day. So there it is. As far as genuinely interesting news goes, you can hear that Rolling Stone interview that everyone’s been going on about at the BBC and Billboard has a piece about the Amnesty International tribute project that’s coming together (right now). And Popmatters has a couple pieces.

Me, I’ve always been a George guy. But John was good too. And Ringo? Underrated.

March 7 is looking like it’s going to be an expensive day for me. On that day alone, you’ve got new releases from Neko Case, Mogwai and Mojave 3… and now you can add Centro-Matic’s Fort Recovery to the calendar. And these are all must-have-day-of-release records for me. CM will also be releasing a teaser EP on February 7 called Triggers and Trash Heaps. The early part of 2006 definitely brings a bumper crop of great new releases and that’s good, because the influx of new music will make up for my missing SxSW the following week – yeah, I did the math and I just can’t swing the dollars this year. We’ll see about ’07.

And that also means I can perhaps go and see The Wedding Present at Lee’s Palace again on March 10. There may not be the, “oh my god they’re back” tingle of their show back in April, but reunion giddiness aside they still put on a great show and Take Fountain a great record. Tickets for that one are $16, on sale now.

NOW talks to The Mendoza Line, who are in town next Wednesday at the Rivoli with Great Lake Swimmers and Picastro. It’s a great line, but Mendoza Line are on first so if you’re going, go early – don’t miss ’em.

Chart gets Sam Beam to reflect on the year in Iron & Wine. NOW talks to tourmate Joey Burns of Calexico.

I thought I wouldn’t really be interested, but the new Supergrass album is really pretty good. I guess I prefer their more “mature” sound, meaning I’m an old git. Spin has a Q&A with the band.

Pitchfork reveals the New Pantheon award nominees. Well. That’s one hell of a long list. Anyone who released an album in ’05 and ISN’T a nominee must be feeling pretty low right now.

Thanks to Graig for the tip-off that the complete first season of Justice League is is coming to DVD on March 21. Oh, happy day.

np – Belle & Sebatian / If You’re Feeling Sinister (Live)

Many thanks to Brad of Bradley’s Almanac for shanghai-ing Mark Gardener at his show in Boston on Sunday (of which Drive Blind also has a review) and getting him to pose with this “You’re Reading Chromewaves.net (And I Wrote Chrome Waves!)” sign – I swear I did not put him up to it. For those unfamiliar with my about page, the name of this blog was taken from the song “Chrome Waves” on Ride’s Going Blank Again album – which Mr Gardener wrote.

He recently released his first proper solo album These Beautiful Ghosts, which I only just got a copy of. Credited to Gardener and Goldrush, initial impressions are that it’s much better than I expected, though with all due respect to Mr Gardener, I didn’t really expect much. That’s not meant as a personal slight on Mark, but just past experience has shown that for some reason, the whole of British bands tend to be so much more than just the sum of their parts. I can’t count the number of lacklustre solo efforts that have come from members of great British bands, and I would count Mark’s Animalhouse project among those. These Beautiful Ghosts has a nice, laid back vibe that’s similar in parts to the jangly classicism of Carnival Of Light, with just enough production and full band backing from Goldrush to avoid sounding like a strummy singer-songwriter record, though at the core that’s what it is, albeit a pleasant one. I don’t know how heavy rotation it’ll really get, but it’ll still surely be more than Tarantula… Check out some of the songs at Mark’s MySpace page.

Gardener is in town at Lee’s Palace tonight backed by Goldrush and supported by Hopewell. I’m probably not going to be able to make it, but can at least enjoy the recording Brad made of his Boston show. And here’s a scan of a brief interview Gardener gave to Under The Radar for their Fall issue.

Goldrush’s country flavour have elicited a number of Mojave 3 comparisons for These Beautiful Ghosts – and coincidences, Pitchfork has a brief interview with Neil Halstead about the new M3 album, wherein he reveals the album title (Puzzles Like You) and release date (March 7). YAY.

JAM! talks to Calexico’s John Convertino about working with Iron & Wine on In The Reins, as well as their new album Garden Ruin which is out on April 11. The Boston Herald, meanwhile, talked to Sam Beam about the same. Calexico and Iron & Wine are at the Docks in Toronto this Friday.

Check out some live footage of Wilco playing “Kicking Television” (WMV), via Prefix. I’ve compared the audio with the track that appears on Kicking Television, and I believe they are the same. Yay, the aborted DVD is leaking to the internet! Update: One reader has reported that the video link is loaded down with spyware and other nastiness. Bizarre, but I am disabling the link just in case. If you want to risk it, cut and paste : http://mfile.akamai.com/9139/asf/stream.wmg.com/
wmi/uk/wilco/KickingTelevision_Hi.asx

Said The Gramophone wraps up their 22 favourite singles of 2005, all with downloads and wonderfully-written annotations.

Thanks to Lora for following up on the NME year-end list-fixing scandal I mentioned last week. While Londonist were persuaded by NME‘s lawyers to remove their post, a copy lives on here and The Guardian reported on the story with a little more info (including confirming Londonist’s story about the interim list looking quite different from the final one). Innnnteresting.

And no, still no sign of Belle & Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister – Live at iTunes… but Matador promises it’s coming.

np – Saturday Looks Good To Me / All Your Summer Songs

The day many have been anticipating/ dreading arrived yesterday – the first real tangible fruits of Brett Ratner’s labour on X-Men 3. There’d been a lot of doomsaying since director Bryan Singer jumped ship for Superman Returns and the man responsible for bringing us Rush Hour (both parts!) took over the helm, but I have tried to hold out hope that a decent flick might still come out of it all (though studios announcing release dates before they have a director doesn’t usually instill great confidence). Well, USA Today was first with pics from the new film, including the first look at Kelsey Grammar as Beast. Yeah, he looks a little odd, but I actually don’t mind it. I’ve gotten used to the more feline Beast of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run, but the celluloid version looks more reminiscent of the 80s-era Hank McCoy (though with the current Beast’s fashion sense). There’s also some shots of Angel, whose torso looks inexplicably plastic. Not surprisingly, the peanut gallery at Newsarama had lots to say about the released images.

But that was just a teaser for what would come last night, with the online release of the teaser trailer for X3… and I gotta say, it’s not making me afraid. Of course, it’s relying on road-tested images to get the fans worked up (Magneto smashing stuff, Wolverine snikt-ing, Jean Grey without any pants on) with a smattering of new treats (Shadowcat, Juggernaut, Beast, Angel), but still, I’m glancing at my calendar to see how far off May 26 is. Newsarama is talking about the teaser, natch. I *think* you need to have iTunes installed to see the trailer – the latest version of Quicktime is bundled with it, so if you wanna see it, you gotta have it installed. Boo, Apple. Also new is the official “title” for X3 – The Last Stand. While I’m sure no one is going to say it, it appears they’re prepared for this to be the final X-Men movie (excepting the Wolverine spinoff slated for ’07). Considering how much trouble they’ve had coercing cast members to come back for each production (hello, Halle Berry), I’m not surprised and I won’t begrudge them if they wrap things up – I just hope it’ll be on a high note.

Also on the topic of Marvel-to-film, here are some screenshots from the Ultimate Avengers straight-to-DVD feature film that’s coming out in February. Looks good, and if the writing is half as good as the Ultimates story it’s based on, it should be a winner as well.

And apologies to anyone who saw the post title and was hoping for some Mogwai news… sorry. Mr Beast is still coming out March 7, but there’s no preview MP3 yet or anything. Mogwai do have a MySpace page, though, so you can add them as your friend and get Stuart Brathwaite to curse at you all fancy-like in Scottish.

Sigur Ros are currently streaming the entire two-hours-plus of their recent hometown show in Reyjkavik right here, a perfect treat for those who missed them on their North American tour this Fall (like me). The band will be returning to the US next February for more dates, but will be skipping Canuckistan. Alas. Thanks to Mishie for the link.

Chart surprises the hell out of me by posting a news item about the new EP and album from Amelia Fletcher’s Tender Trap. The EP is called Language Lessons, which is out today, and the album, Talking Backwards, is out in January.

More year end listiness. Indie Interviews and Marathon Packs have their lists up, Metacritic has scientifically calculated the best albums of the year from their meta-scores and Stylus is running down their 50 singles of the year all this week.

np – Supergrass / Road To Rouen

Taunton, Massachussetts’ Wheat never got big enough for a lost album story to take on mythic proportions, but the unreleased version of their last album (so far) Per Second, Per Second, Per Second Every Second certainly attained minor Holy Grail status for me over the last couple years. For those unfamiliar with the Wheat story, check out this post and get up to speed. Anyway, thanks to one of my readers, I recently came into possession of the mastered version of the album that was originally to be released by Nude Records before they went belly up, allowing me the opportunity to finally compare and contrast the two versions instead of just imagining what the original record was like.

What’s interesting is that the Nude version (henceforth referred to as PS-N of the album isn’t THAT far removed from the officially-released Aware version (now dubbed PS-A). My analogy would be it’s the same guy, but forced to stand up straight, comb his hair and have his clothes dry-cleaned and pressed. And while it looks good on him, you can see he’s itching to let it all hang loose again. Even if the Nude version had come out as originally intended, there would surely have still been fans who would have complained about the slick production values. Some of the differences are subtle, like replacing grainy synth sounds with proper pianos or whatnot, and some differences are more pronounced like the all-new anthemic chorus in “Closer To Mercury”. The quirky vocals that defined the original “Hey So Long (Ohio)” were redone completely and offbeat numbers like “We Will Rock” were dropped completely. Being able to compare the two records is particularly interesting in that you can practically see the list of “notes” that the A&R guys handed Wheat after signing them, but it also puts PS-A in a kinder light because you can see how much of the band’s shift in sound was theirs and theirs alone. But all in all, I think I prefer the Nude version. What can I say? I like the rough edges.

But you know, I probably wouldn’t have been so vocal about my distaste for PS-A when it was released if it had simply omitted the re-recorded version of “Don’t I Hold You”. I can accept retconning in comic books and TV shows, but not beloved pop music moments. The glossed-up version of that perfect song felt more like a slap in the face to old Wheat fans than any extra major label buff and shine… But that’s all in the past now. The “everyday i said a prayer for kathy and made a one inch square – 2006” message that appeared on their homepage recently gives hope that Wheat’s hiatus will be over sooner rather than later. In the meantime, Ricky Brennan has just released Elate, the debut EP from his new/other band Duresse, the whole of which is streamable off their website.

I’ve taken the liberty of ripping a couple tracks from PS-A and posting them alongside the PS-N versions that Wheat has posted on the audio page of their website, so you too can comparison shop, and there’s also a live show archive here.

MP3: Wheat – “World United Already (Naked)”
MP3: Wheat – “World United Already (Aware)”
MP3: Wheat – “Closer To Mercury (Naked)”
MP3: Wheat – “Closer To Mercury (Aware)”

As I mentioned in this week’s MP3 Of The Week blurb, So Much Silence has been working overtime converting radio sessions to friendlier MP3 format. His latest feat was converting the NPR stream of last week’s Calexico and Iron & Wine show in DC. Check out his posts for Calexico’s set, Iron & Wine’s set and both acts together.

The Arcade Fire have a creepy-cool new vide for “Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)”. Link courtesy of The New Pollution.

One of the tracks from the new Trespassers William album Having topped this weekend’s edition of Anti-Hit List. Though the album isn’t out till February 28, John Sakamoto included an all-too brief clip in his podcast of the same list. The TW clip starts around the 12:30 mark. PS, John – Trespassers William are now proudly based out of Seattle.

Rolling Stone gets a sneak peak at the in-progress third album from The Shins, which should be out next Summer. The working titles are Wincing The Night Away or Sleeping Lessons.

np – Explosions In The Sky / The Rescue

This week – books I’ve been sent over the past few months!

Nicholas Zinner / I Hope You Are All Happy Now (Evil Twin) This book is a collection of photographs taken by Yeah Yeah Yeah’s guitarist Nick Zinner whilst on tour around the world with his band. There’s candid backstage shots, a series of images of just hotel beds, city scenery, wounds… most interesting are the audience shots. The thing that struck me most about that chapter is just how WHITE everyone is. Seriously, no matter where you go in the world, indie kids are white. Except Japan. There, they’re Japanese. But seriously, I had originally sort of expected this to be a bit of a vanity collection from Zinner, but I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting life through his lens was. He definitely manages to convey the surreality of life on the road with a band (or his band, at the very least), actually getting past the carefully cultivated public image that the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s put forth. Worth a flip through at Chapters is you’re interested in off-the-cuff photography.

Tm Riley / Fever: How Rock ‘n’ Roll Transformed Gender in America (St Martin’s Press) As the title states, Fever attempts to document how starting in the 1950s, rock’n’roll redefined the perception of gender in America, but while it uses that as a starting point, it’s really just a selective history of rock music in general. Tim Riley starts out interestingly, pitting Elvis Presley’s hips against John Wayne’s stoicism, carrying on through the girl groups of Motown and Phil Spector and Tina Turner’s liberation from Ike. At that point, Riley’s thesis begins to waver a bit. He spends a fair bit of time analyzing Pete Townshend’s writing for The Who, and while interesting, there’s not really a strong to be made for the impact on gender issues made by Tommy or Quadrophenia (“I’m A Boy”, yes). A more interesting 70s case study would have been David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, but he’s only mentioned in passing. Similarly, if you were to read the analysis of the Carole King, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor on its own, you might not have any idea that it was anything but an essay on the artists and not part of a larger treatise. Also, an entire chapter is dedicated to Bruce Springsteen and though it did succeed in making me want to go back and listen to all my Bruce stuff, there’s not much argument to be made about his importance in gender issues beyond that he was a man’s man (but a sensitive sort). If I were actually looking for an in-depth study of the impact of rock on gender in America, Fever would be a decent jumping-off point, but it’s far from a definitive tome on the topic. Good reading as just rock history with a bit of an angle, though.

np – Trespassers William / Different Stars