Hey look. It’s John Lennon and Bob Dylan in the back of a cab. Two of the greatest songwriting talents of the past century. Stoned out of their minds. AWESOME. I wonder if this is an outtake from No Direction Home?

Nellie McKay was pissed at Columbia Records for making her condense Pretty Little Head (Out January 3), and she let everyone at a recent show know about it, and The LA Times was happy to relay the message to the world at large. Now it appears Sony has capitulated… but in exchange, they are installing spyware ALL over her CD. You can hear one of the tracks from the new album on her website right now in a variety of streaming media formats (via Largehearted Boy).

The Fader gets some inside info on the new Drive-By Truckers album from Patterson Hood. A Blessing And A Curse is due out in April of next year.

Bob Mould tells The Washington Square News he thinks music audiences are all reunion-ed out.

My Blog Is Poop has some suggestions on how to assemble a proper blogger year-end list.

PopMatters wants to help you with your Christmas shopping with a handy-dandy gift guide.

Thoughts on the alternate ending stunt on Veronica Mars this week? I thought the original was good, the alternate WAY over the top. I can’t imagine they’d allow either scenario to pull the overall plot too far from the other – there’s no way they could have filmed different versions of every episode left in the season. I just hope that the VM audience is sharp enough to not get sucked in by the more sensationalist ending, but I guess we’ll just have to see. Or maybe they’re not going to listen to the audience’s opinion either way, and this is just a test to see how vicious Veronica Mars fans are. It was also fun to see Alyson Hannigan and Charisma Carpenter get catty at each other again, what with Veronica Mars being the natural sassy-girl show successor to Buffy – it even has Joss Whedon’s seal of approval, as given to Entertainment Weekly.

I have survived the first cut in the Canadian Blog Awards, and am one of five finalists for “Best Culture Blog” with a block-rocking 9% of the votes (or 54 in total). Woot. Vote for me! It’s nice to get nominated for stuff, but someday I’d like to actually, you know, win. For a change.

You’ll note I’ve added one of those comment spambot protection thingees – I apologize for the extra step in leaving me pithy remarks, but I was getting deluged with comment spam.

np – Explosions In The Sky / How Strange, Innocence

I think they’ll take away my indie snob decoder ring if I don’t report on these Neutral Milk Hotel demos which have suddenly surfaced, like so much early Christmas presents for the indie kids. Basically, the story is as follows – Skipgoshannon moved into a house formerly occupied by one Jeff Mangum, and came into possession of a number of cassettes featuring demos by the future King Of Carrot Flowers. Eleven years later, it has dawned on her what she has in her possession, and the tracks are slowly being converted into digital form for sharing. What a lovely story, no? She has some of the tracks available to download, as do NeutralMilkHotel.org, My Old Kentucky Blog and You Ain’t No Picasso. I’m sure that before long, all the tracks will be happily converted to 1s and 0s and collected together in an easy to carry bit torrent form. But if you like doing the whole scavenger hunt thing, go to it. Those tracks are out there. Somewhere.

Harp puts one Mr Neil Young on their cover of their new issue, and the world is a better place for it. The extensive feature article is now online. Also in the new issue, Jeff Tweedy ranks his top-ten greatest all-time live albums… and topping the list is one Live Rust, by the aforementioned Mr Young. I had a copy of that CD taped from the library way back when I first started getting heavily into music, and damn if I didn’t wear that thing out.

Popmatters talks football, Noo Yawk and Harry Potter with American Analog Set’s Andrew Kenny.

The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle pays tribute to The Days Of Our Lives for Nerve.

Largehearted Boy has unleashed his year-end list on the world. I have finalized my top 10, and am going to start on the writeups, um, soon. I’ve set a personal deadline for getting that finished though, so barring catastrophe it should be ready in the near future. Meanwhile, the wet blankets at Pitchfork wonder why we even bother. Easy – to get out of having to write new content for a day.

LA Weekly considers the role of blogs in breaking new bands. Via Coolfer.

Londonist has what they claim is inside information on NME fixing their year end list, and a wonderful shitstorm ensues. Now considering how high I hold the NME‘s journalistic integrity, I’m fully prepared to believe the story, but Londonist does themselves no favours by offering no evidence or proof of their accusations. It’s still an entertaining read, though.

Ooh, more random award nominations! Gridskipper, allegedly an “urban travel guide”, is running something called The Urbs: 2005 Urban Blogging Awards, and I’m nominated for World’s Best Urban Music Blog. Hear that? THE WORLD. Oooooh.

np – Bruce Springsteen / The Essential Bruce Springsteen

Back in 2002, director Darren Aronofsky was filming the follow-up to his heartwarming Requiem For A Dream when the Hollywood suits holding the pursestrings began getting nervous about their investment and pulled the plug. Not to be deterred, Aronofsky rejigged the story into what he describes as “a lean, mean, indie film”, and The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, will be hitting theatres next year – the teaser trailer was recently unveiled and damn if it doesn’t look intriguing. It follows three parallel tales set in the past, present and future revolving around the same couple (in incarnations thereof) and matters of life, death, immortality, etc etc. For more info, check out the following interviews – Suicide Girls visited Aronofsky on the set of The Fountain and Ari Handel, the co-screenwriter of the film, in May.

But if you happen to see this hardcover graphic novel of The Fountain by Aronofsky and Kent Williams, don’t go thinking it’s an adapataion – as Aronofsky tells Newsarama and Vertigo: On The Ledge, even though he had to re-envision his original story to get it onto the screen, he didn’t just toss it aside. Instead, he’s converted it into a 176-page graphic novel which went on sale a couple of weeks ago. He likens the film and the graphic novel as distinct, yet related – like siblings. You can see a PDF preview of the graphic novel here, and not surprisingly, it looks gorgeous. I’d forgotten how good a painter Kent Williams is. The hardcover is a little pricey, so I’m hoping that it gets a softcover release sometime… maybe around whenever the film version comes out. Either way, I’d like to read it.

And on the topic of comics, Image has a very interesting item in their February solicitations – Put The Book Back On The Shelf: A Belle & Sebastian Anthology. In it, a plethora of indie comics luminaries like Laurenn McCubbin, Ande Parks, Chris Samnee, Jamie S Rich, Mark Richetts, Leann Buckley, Rick Spears, Rob G, and Andi Watson create stories based on Belle & Sebastian songs. Could be great, could be awful (like the cover art), but it’ll surely be different. The 132-page collection will have a cover price of $19.99 and be out on February 1, just a week before The Life Pursuit hits stores.

Also keeping February twee, Vancouver’s Young & Sexy will release their third album, Panic When You Find It, on February 14 courtesy of Mint Records. There’s a new song, “The Curious Organ”, streaming on their MySpace page.

Also on Valentine’s Day – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club return to town for a show at the Phoenix with Scottish electonicisit MYLO, and proving that multi-night stands are the new black, Metric have added a second show at the Kool Haus on February 25.

The Toronto Star talks to Mark Gardener about starting his solo career nearly ten years after the end of Ride. Gardener is at Lee’s Palace on December 7. I would have written this one up for my Torontoist week in shows this week, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to put that in mothballs for the forseeable future, or at the very least scale it back. I barely have time to stay on top of this site, let alone deal with extra-cirricular activities. Maybe things will ease up in the future and I’ll be able to get back to it, but no promises. Instead, in the off chance that anyone actually used that thing to plan their evenings, I direct you to the Zoilus Gig Guide, from whence I got much of my information anyway.

Harp profiles Laura Veirs and So Much Silence has converted her recent KCRW appearance into MP3s.

Coolfer wonders out loud, “why cover songs”? Easy – so I have something to post every week.

Traveler’s Diagram has posted his year-end list. Mine now has an ETA of about two weeks, give or take. Wheels are in motion. Games are afoot. The magpie flies at midnight. Caw, caw.

And finally, anyone keeping a candle lit for a Smiths reunion… read this, and forget about it.

np – Bluescreen / A Survival Guide To Mishaps And Losses

So word around the internet is that the Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins album, Rabbit Fur Coat (Grok album art here), has leaked two months before its official January 24 release date – in other words, exactly on schedule. Now in accordance with my mostly inflexible stance on leaks (don’t do em), I haven’t heard any of it but people seem to be pretty excited about it. I’m not surprised – Jenny has a voice made for country music, so the twang-friendly sound of this album should suit her just fine. So now while I don’t have any MP3s to share, I can point you to this feature story in the new issue of Harp (from which I also took this fetching photograph). And her MySpace blog has also transcribed this piece from Paste.

People are calling Rabbit Fur Coat a solo album for Jenny Lewis, but that’s unfair because as the credit clearly states, it was created with The Watson Twins, who were in the band Slydell and are currently at work at their own debut album, Southern Manners, also due out in January. If the one song posted at their MySpace page is any indication, they can make some gorgeous music with or without Ms Lewis… Of course, the association can only help them out, but hopefully people won’t forget that the Watsons deserve recognition on their own merits.

And not to be outdone by his Rilo Kiley bandmate (though lets be honest – he totally is), Blake Sennett’s side project The Elected will also put out their second album Sun, Sun, Sun, on January 24. Think they’ve got little side-by-side bar graphs representing respective sales of the albums at RK HQ? Me neither.

My “no leak” policy also prevents me from hearing the new Belle & Sebastian album, but thankfully Matador has revealed the album art for The Life Pursuit, out February 7, and released an mp3:

MP3: Belle & Sebastian – “Another Sunny Day”

NPR will be webcasting Calexico and Iron & Wine’s show in Washington DC tonight at around 10PM EST.

Brooklyn’s We Are Scientists are at the Horseshoe on January 14. Apparently the UK loves em. Take that as you will, and check out press from Chart and MTV.com.

Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene introduces Harp to his Toronto. Which, incidentally, looks an awful lot like my Toronto. I used to work half a block away from the strip club he’s talking about.

Sarah Harmer tells JAM! about how her tour in support of the Niagara Escarpment informed her new bluegrass-y album I’m A Mountain. It’s been out in Canada for a little while now but isn’t out in the US till February 7. She’s playing a run of shows at the Harbourfront Centre tonight through Saturday, and will also do an in-store performance at the Mountain Equipment Co-op on King St on Saturday at 1PM.

Cokemachineglow has taken a different approach to the inevitable deluge of lists coming our way. I’m already becoming jaded, but with titles like “Top 7 Brief and Spitefully Expressed Occurrences of Visceral Disappointment ” and “Top 12 Songs on OK Computer“, you have my attention.

np – The Mendoza Line / Full Of Light And Full Of Fire

Is it wrong that while watching Spielberg’s remake of War Of The Worlds, I was cheering for the aliens? Maybe not to conquer to world, but surely to make raspberry jam of Tom Cruise and his horribly annoying brood before falling victim to the avian flu? Technically, the film was excellent – and I wouldn’t expect anything less from Spielberg. The aliens were menacing, the special effects fantastic, the suspenseful moments, um, suspenseful… but I didn’t really like this film. The main problem is that Spielberg chooses to show the alien invasion from the POV of one family, and it’s an incredibly annoying family. It’s very hard to believe that anyone faced with something as apocalyptic as an alien invasion would still find time to be all, “you never had time for me, dad!” petulant. Give me a break. Also kinda dumb – aliens doing house-to-house inspections for survivors and rooting through Tim Robbins’ porn collection.

Spielberg also continues his streak of weak endings, even though he sticks to the original explanation for the aliens’ demise. He manages to make the idea of the aliens being done in by bacteria seem incredibly trite and a cop-out, even though I think that Wells’ solution was pretty damn clever. Maybe it’s just the presence of Tom Cruise. There’s something about that guy and aliens. And don’t even get me started on the utter absurdity of the final scene… I’ve never read the original novel, nor heard the radio play or even seen the original movie so I have no comments about the 2005 edition in the greater historical context, though I definitely preferred Alan Moore’s League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen take on the story.

Win Butler talks about the year in Arcade Fire to The National Post. Via Largehearted Boy.

Those touring machines in The Magnolia Electric Co will be coming back to town on March 25 of next year. The venue is still TBA, but Lee’s Palace – where they played this past August – seems like a good bet.

The Slowdive reissues? Now Pitchfork-approved!

Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set talks setlists, labels and making out with Junkmedia. I’ve been trying to find a picture of the “iPod != turntable” t-shirts they’ve been selling on tour, but to no avail. I bought one the other week in Toronto and think it’s great, since I’m quite fond of both my iPod and my turntable.

Speaking of which, The Guardian has a piece on the remarkable resurgance of vinyl sales in the UK. Seeing sales numbers like those attributed to Paul Weller’s latest album (55% CD, 38% LP) are pretty astounding, and the general upswing in record sales are attributed in large part to the indie rock demographic. Yay, us. I got my turntable properly set up this weekend and fitted with a Grado Red cart. It sounds superb.

Yes, this is shaping up to be a bit of a slow week. Sorry.

np – Sparklehorse / Good Morning Spider