Jeff Tweedy of Wilco takes some time out to tell Billboard how recording sessions for the band’s sixth album are progressing. They’ve begun sorting through material with an eye towards a release sometime next year, and excepting the live album out November 15, this will be the first record to feature the full six-piece lineup. One of the songs Tweedy mentions, “I’m Talking to Myself About You”, has already been road tested and live versions are circulating the interweb under the name of “Walken”. You can grab a couple live mp3s of the track here. There’s also a piece on the band in The Chicago Reader (WARNING – PDF with live links! May cause browser wackiness) where Tweedy talks about the timing of Kicking Television, why there’s no DVD of the shows and various other bits of scuttlebutt and gossip.

And for more Wilco goodness, come back here around, oh, midnight…

NME brings word that Belle & Sebastian’s new album will be called The Life Pursuit and be out in the UK on February 6 (and presumably North America on February 7). I guess the previous working title was just a smokescreen – the goalkeeper will have to seek revenge elsewhere. Via The Rock Snob.

Chart has a long piece on Metric. The Straight has a short piece.

Harp reports that the Billy Bragg box set which was announced for this release this Fall and then cruelly retracted just days later, will be coming out on February 21. We’re talking about the seven-disc box set, in case you weren’t keeping up.

New York Magazine plays Q&A with Matt Pond. From For The Records.

The Daily Texan talks to Mac McCaughan of Portastatic.

Neko Case speaks very very briefly to Billboard about co-self-producing her new record, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, which is out on March 7.

Pulse Of The Twin Cities talks to My Morning Jacket’s new guitar slinger, Carl Broemel. From Largehearted Boy.

Rainer Maria’s new album remains the only one on my release calendar that is supposed to come out in 2005, but has no set release date. Maybe someone can ask them WTF when they tour through town on November 17 for a show at Lee’s Palace.

It’s good to see that even amidst all the chaos and uncertainty, the White House is managing to focus on issues that really matter to Americans.

My iPod is here. It’s pretty. I’ve gone with 256 AAC for ripping, so my hard drive and iPod are filling up a little faster than I anticipated, but it should be okay. Still much ripping and organizing to do. Damn, I’ve got a lot of CDs.

np – Explosions In The Sky / How Strange, Innocence

It’s quite nice to see The National get some press that talks about the greatness of the band itself and not whether or not half the audience left after the opening act played… Check out features and interviews with frontman Matt Berninger at Pitch, Pittsburgh Live and The Tallahassee Democrat. I also can’t help noticing these tour dates with Bell Orchestre… They’re playing with them on November 10 in Montreal and November 12 in Burlington, Vermont, but are skipping the Toronto show on November 11. WTF? You’re already on the good side of the border, why not make the trek down the 401? Is an extra day in maple syrup country really that important? Le sigh.

Oh, I got a copy of Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers (the album before Alligator) on vinyl via eBay last week. A wonderful HEAVY pressing. So pretty. And on the topic of vinyl, I got my copy of Ride’s Going Blank Again back from the record store after having it cleaned. HOLY SMOKE. If anyone ever has a piece of vinyl that needs to be cleaned, find someone with the Nitty Gritty record cleaning system and have them do it. You cannot believe the amount of crap they got off of these records. Seriously. Compared to how it was before, the noise floor now is almost non-existant. I mean, there’s still a little noise, but relatively speaking it’s negligable. And it just cost me $2 a record to get done! Around Again on Baldwin rules.

So following up on Lucas’ comment yesterday that Low were planning on playing a New Year’s Eve show at the Underground in Hamilton – this Stille Post thread certainly makes it sound like a done deal, but if that were the case, why has there been no further updates on the matter since October 6? I personally hope that it’s not happening, because I’d really like to see Low but I don’t want to have to haul my ass to Hamilton on New Year’s Eve to do so. ‘Cause even if it weren’t a logistical hassle, Low isn’t really what I’d call “ring in the new year music”… “This one’s called ‘Whore’. Happy New Year, everyone!” Update: Show not happening. Thanks to Sean for the update.

The AV Club ran an interview with now-departed Low bassist Zak Sally last month, talking about his cartooning and acting projects which he is now presumably going to be concentrating more time on.

There’s some live Okkervil River material available for download here – unfortunately, neither of the two TT The Bears shows are of very good quality, but the Emo’s show in their hometown of Austin is, and of course the KEXP session sounds great as well. Okkervil’s “No Plan, No Key” tour is off to a bit of a rough start as they’ve had to cancel a couple west coast shows on account of singer Will Sheff coming down with strep throat and being unable to sing. Best wishes for a quick recovery.

The Washington Post profiles Death Cab For Cutie (via Coolfer) and I Heart Music has an interview with drummer Jason McGerr.

Mirrormask is finally getting a release in Toronto today! It’s playing at Canada Square up at Yonge and Eglinton, and Canada Square only. Despite the middling reviews, I am going to endeavour to see it this weekend.

So get this – I installed iTunes last night in anticipation of my iPod’s arrival today (hopefully, anyway. It’s in Missisauga!). I allow it to “organize” my My Music folder, and it does a fine job of it – too fine. I had a special folder of covers for the blog set aside, containing all past and pending covers of the week in one convenient location. Note the use of the past tense. iTunes has taken every one of those files and moved them into the folders for each respective artist. This, of course, is a disaster. Well, not really, but a real pain in the ass. I’ve begun the arduous process of moving them all back into their special folder… I have my posting schedule pretty much set for the rest of the year, however, so it’s no big deal to go find the needed tracks, but still. Stupid iTunes, thinks it’s so smart. I also have to go and tag a LOT of random MP3s so as to display in the browser properly. I bet I end up deleting most of them rather than try to figure out exactly what the hell song it is.

np – My Bloody Valentine / Isn’t Anything

It’s been a hard year for Low. 2005 started out great – they released one of their best albums and possibly one of the best of the year by anyone in The Great Destroyer – but partway through their Spring tour, the wheels began to come off. First, they had to cancel a slew of dates (including a June show in Toronto) on account of a mental breakdown on Alan Sparhawk’s part. Within the last couple months, Sparhawk seemed to have recovered well enough to play with his other outfit in The Retribution Gospel Choir, as well as a few one-off Low dates here and there. But now comes word from Pitchfork that bassist Zak Sally has left the band… again.

You may remember the Sally quit before, back in 2003, but was lured back by the prestige (and dollars) of opening a European tour for Radiohead. That time, the terse announcement made it sound like it was a move made out of anger or temper. This time, his announcement seems more thought out and final. He has already been replaced by Retribution Gospel Choir bassist Matt Livingston (whom The Duluth Superior has a chat with), so while his departure is sad – any time one-third of the band leaves, there’s going to be an effect – hopefully this won’t spell the end of the band in any sense. They still owe Toronto a show.

But! Whatever happens in Low-land from here on out, we’ll still have the records. And the videos. Like these ones – I had no idea they’d made three clips for The Great Destroyer. Check em out:

Video: Low – “Death Of A Salesman” (.MOV)

Video: Low – “California” (.MOV)

Video: Low – “Monkey” (.MOV)

And speaking of things I didn’t know about videos – I had no idea that The Decemberists were still milking The Tain. I note that they recently reissued the EP – I guess it was out of print? – but now it appears they’re making a DVD video for their 20-minute epic to soundtrack? Coolio. No release date yet, but BrooklynVegan has some screen caps.

Billboard talks to James Shaw about juggling duties with Metric and Broken Social Scene. It’s this scheduling nightmare that’s led BSS to recruit some new help on their current tour, namely vocalist Lisa Lobsinger, formerly of Calgary’s Reverie Sound Revue. Anyone who’s heard the RSR stuff (there’s a couple working MP3s on that link) know that Lobsinger has got the pipes, but the faithful still aren’t convinced. Change is necessary, kids. The Minnesota Daily also has a piece on the band.

And as they did last year, Stars are closing out the year with a couple of shows – December 16 and 17 at Lee’s Palace, tickets $15. This one is probably already sold out. NOW, who declare Amy Millan as Toronto’s best female singer, gets a couple tips from Amy about where to find good lingerie and country music in the city. Update: the Saturday show will be a double-header, one a dry all-ages matinee performance and a licensed evening show. Both are $15.

Ryan Adams gets his third album of the year out just under the wire. Look for the final episode in his 2005 trilogy, 29, in stores on December 20. Rachel at Scenestars has assembled a frighteningly comprehensive radio blog covering the entirety of Adam’s career. And I mean entirety.

See, if more labels would do what Merge is doing – namely giving away a downloadable copy of the album with every vinyl purchase, I would be a happy, happy man. Of course, I don’t really want The Clientele record in any format, so this particular offer is moot, but the practice? Gold. Hope it catches on.

The Torontoist week in shows.

My iPod was in Alaska yesterday. ALASKA. This thing is going to be better travelled than I am before I get it.

np – Explosions In The Sky / How Strange, Innocence

I was pleasantly surprised to see Pitchfork’s feature story on twee and indie pop this week. While I’m nothing remotely resembling a connisseur of the genre (as my brief tenure as a member of the Indiepop List proved – I could go through entire digests and not see one band name I recognized), I do like a good dose of anorak-wearing, note-passing, kitten-petting, sugar-frosted wimp rock now and again. Too much of it and I want to go start fights just to get the testosterone levels back into the black, but in properly measured doses, it’s great. I definitely prefer the British stuff to the American (C86 yes, K Records no), and since I already did a Field Mice post earlier this year, I’ll devote this one to Heavenly, as well as their antecendents and descendents.

I was very pleased that the article acknowledged that despite being one of the big bands of the “twee” scene, Heavenly were far from stereotypical of it. The musicianship was top-notch, especially Peter Momtchiloff’s sinewey guitar lines, the production tight and the harmonies between Amelia Fletcher and Cathy Rogers, well, heavenly. But I think my favourite thing about Heavenly was the lyrical content – it wasn’t cutesy, though it may have sounded like it because of the delivery. It was clever, sharp and often quite dark. Themes like shiftless boyfriends, romantic despair and date rape abounded – rather than write about daydreamy schoolgirl crushes, they seemed to prefer to talk about what happens when the boy turns out to be a total dick. But in such a way that you could dance to.

The heart and soul of Heavenly were the Fletchers, siblings Amelia and Matthew. Amelia was the voice that made the indie boys swoon, Matthew played the drums. They’d started out as teenagers in Talulah Gosh, and what that outfit lacked in sophistication, they made up with the bubbly energy that characterized the early British indiepop sound. After a couple of albums and singles (collected on Backwash), Talulah Gosh disbanded and reassembled with a couple of lineup changes as Heavenly. Sadly, their run ended in 1996 when Matthew Fletcher took his own life after the recording of their third and final album, Operation: Heavenly.

A few years later, the remnants of Heavenly regrouped with a new drummer and became Marine Research, who released one wonderful album in Songs From The Gulf Stream that continued on down the pure pop path that Heavenly begun before disbanding themselves. But despite losing Momtchiloff and Rogers (who would go on to host Junkyard Wars), the remaining members soldiered on in yet another incarnation, Tender Trap, who released Film Molecules in 2002. And that’s pretty much the last I’ve heard of Amelia Fletcher’s adventures in indie pop. This article in The Guardian last year says she’s director of economic and statistical advice and financial analysis at the Office of Fair Trading – probably not a euphemism for active rock’n’roller. But she’s allowed to retire – she’s created more than her share of great pop music.

Here’s some muuuusic for ya. I had wanted to post both tracks from this Built To Spill/Marine Research 7″ wherein each band covers one of the others’ songs (BTS does a Heavenly tune), but I see that it’s still in print. Even though I’ve posted both tunes in the past as an MP3 of the week, I’m not comfortable with posting the entirety of the record (and I don’t want Calvin Johnson to come kick my ass) so you’ll just have to buy it if you want to hear it. But take my word for it, they’re great. The BTS track also appears on their The Normal Years compilation. I will give you one old Heavenly tune and one new(er) one. “Shallow” comes from their debut record Heavenly Vs Satan while “Space Manatee” is from their swan song, Operation: Heavenly (mp3s courtesy of Epitonic – they may ask you to register, if you haven’t before).

MP3: Heavenly – “Shallow”

MP3: Heavenly – “Space Manatee”

There’s also some good Marine Research stuff available online at their old label.

MP3: Marine Research – “Hopelessness To Hopefulness”

Video: Marine Research – “Parallel Horizontal” (.mov, 15MB)

You know, trying to find online info about lower-profile bands that predate the internet is BRUTAL. The above pre-Cathy pic is the only Heavenly image of any size I could find online. You’d think someone would have scanned the liner notes of any of their albums at some point. Don’t look at me, I don’t have a scanner.

The Cardigans were twee once upon a time. Then they discovered metal. They talk to The Cribs have indeed cancelled their North American tour, the other two acts on the bill – Longwave and Giant Drag will still be playing. Refunds are available for those who only wanted to see The Cribs and tickets for the smaller show are now just $10.

So I ordered an iPod last week. One of the new video dealie doos, a 60 gigger. Please, no congratulations on my indoctrination into the cult of creepy black silhouettes doing funky dances on billboards, it was strictly a pragmatic move since I’ve noticed my CDs are starting to get scuffed from being constantly loaded and unloaded into CD wallets and being toted around. That said, I am excited about getting my new toy which according to FedEx, left Shanghai yesterday and is currently over the Pacific somewhere. What was it doing in Shanghai? Getting engraved, apparently. Why did it have to go to Shanghai to get engraved? I do not know.

np – Mojave 3 / Spoon & Rafter

You may (or may not) remember me saying not too long ago that I had been generally underwhelmed by SF pop combo Rogue Wave – I’d given their debut record Out Of The Shadow and their live show a fair shake but just couldn’t quite get into it.

Well, it turns out I’d simply arrived one album too early if I wanted to be really impressed. Rogue Wave’s sophomore album Descended Like Vultures, out today, is a revelation. Where Shadow was kind of fuzzy and lacking focus, definitely showing its one-man show origins, Vultures is confident, fully-formed and just all-around better. Both the songwriting and production are much sharper than on the debut – I think playing with a full band agrees with Zach Rogue. Hopefully with this record, they’ll move out from the shadow of their labelmates and musical kindred spirits in The Shins and folks like me will stop namechecking them when talking about RW (though it’d probably help if they got different album artwork – compare the album art with that of a Chutes Too Narrow-era single. Different artists, but undeniably similar in style).

The album’s Metacritic page is still pretty barren, but I expect to see a brace of very positive reviews in short order. I’m not sure it’s year-end list material for me, but it’s going to get some serious consideration. Gorilla Vs Bear is also very enthusiastic about the record and has some downloads, old and new.

There’s also some more audio to be found at the band’s sorta-secret MySpace page, including a cool cover of Buddy Holly’s “Everyday”, taken from the soundtrack for the Stubbs The Zombie video game, and on the press side, SF Weekly has a feature on the local boy done good (though the bit about Zach Rogue being supermodel-hot does leave me scratching my head). Rogue Wave the live act will get another chance to impress me on November 27 when they play the Horseshoe. And in the meantime, here’s a track from the new album courtesy of SubPop.

MP3: Rogue Wave – “Publish My Love”

Death Cab For Cutie answers the “sell out” question for the umpteenth time, this time to PopMatters and The Houston Chronicle, while they think out loud to MTV about the next album.

I was apparently overzealous in reporting that Trespassers William’s Having would be out on January 24 – they’re now going with the vaguer “February ’06″… but they have redone their website. So things are progressing. I will keep you posted.

And speaking of guesstimating release dates, Centro-Matic figures we should see their new album around March. Ish.

Brendan Benson is coming back to Toronto for – what – the third time this year? This time, he’s back at the Horseshoe on December 3, a damn sight cozier than his last time through at Massey Hall opening for Keane. Tickets are $12.

Ticketmaster is reporting that the November 12 show featuring The Cribs/Longwave/Giant Drag show has been cancelled – not just the Toronto show, but the whole tour (check out the fourth post from the bottom). Poor Longwave – that’s the second time they’ve had a tour cancelled out from under them this year, the first was when Embrace bailed earlier this Summer. Just goes to show – you can’t count on the British for anything.

np – Centro-Matic / Love You Just The Same