A little while back, I ordered the Never Lose That Feeling compilation CD from the good folks at Club AC30 in the UK, who are both a club night and record label in the same way that Shimmer is both a floor cleaner and dessert topping. It features a slew of current shoegaze-centric bands covering classic tracks by first-generation shoegaze bands, both big names and small. I was somewhat surprised by how solid it is, even if I don’t know a good number of the coverers or coverees.

Thankfully, there’s a lot more sonic variety than you might expect – it’s not all distortion and reverb. There’s some overly faithful covers (Hello Amusement Parks On Fire vs My Bloody Valentine, Hinterland vs Lush), but there are also some more creative reinterpretations (AmAnSet’s Andrew Kenny turns in a lovely acoustic version of Spiritualized’s “Angel Sigh” and Plumbline’s glacial take on Catherine Wheel’s “Black Metallic”).

Club AC30 is streaming some tracks from the album on their MySpace page. It was just released in North America through Clairecords and is available at Tonevendor, and there are two more volumes to follow. It’s a worthy record, not just because of the nostalgic factor from hearing old favourites redone given respect, but because it also shows there’s lots of new acts not only carrying on the style, but moving it forward into new places.

And speaking of the genre and its forebears, Are You Familiar is undertaking the noble and daunting task of chronicling the history of shoegazing. Parts one, two and three are currently up. I don’t know how many parts there will be, ultimately, but it’ll be interesting reading.

And speaking of Ride, sadly plans for the Ride DVD have been scuttled by the fact that one of the centrepieces of the planned document, the live footage of their triumphant Reading 1992 performance, has been lost by the owners. A contingency plan is being assembled, but that’s still very disappointing. Also, Mark Gardener has released his debut solo album, These Beautiful Ghosts, on which he was backed by his touring band Goldrush. Listen to some of it via this e-card. Gardener will be touring North America this December in support.

And speaking of Andrew Kenny (if you backtrack a few items), he’s told Paste that the upcoming tour in support of Set Free will be the band’s last. They’re not breaking up, just giving up life on the road (though a review in the new Magnet calls the album their “swan song”). AmAnSet is a great live band, it’s a shame they’re giving up that aspect of their music, but that’s all the more reason to see them at the Horseshoe on November 13. Via PrefixBlog.

Billboard has more info on the forthcoming Cat Power album The Greatest, out January 24.

The local media finds an angle on tomorrow’s Death Cab For Cutie show at the Kool Haus. Read pieces from NOW and The Toronto Sun.

Monkey. Kitten. Hulk.

np – various artists / Blue Skied An’ Clear

I may have closed the book on the 2005 record release calendar yesterday, but the ’05 concert season’s not dead yet.

Firstly, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that the Toronto Calexico/Iron & Wine date has been confirmed for December 9. The bad news is… The Docks. Goddamn, people. I may have to suck it up for this one and go regardless. I can’t think of a less complimentary venue for Sam Beam’s music (besides, say, a monster truck rally – which they could probably also hold at The Docks) but I have faith/blind hope that those two acts could transcend the crappiness of the hall. No tickets info yet, but the Montreal show is costing $26.50, so there’s your ballpark. I’m not worried about it selling out, at least. Sam would have to appear on The O.C as Mischa Barton’s crazed hippie drug dealer boyfriend before they could sell 3000 tickets.

At least going to the show will provide to opportunity to pick up Calexico’s new tour-only CD, The Book & The Canal. It will feature 17 demos, unreleased and live tracks to satiate the masses until their new studio album is out in the Spring. Also, I still haven’t heard Lays In The Reins. I went to Rotate This yesterday fully intending to pick it up on vinyl, but calamity – they were sold out. Maybe I’ll (gasp) download the tracks until I can get the record at the show or find it somewhere else for a decent price. I hear it’s solid, maybe not as sublime as some might have hoped with the talent involved, but pretty damn good regardless.

Other show news – California’s Innaway have been added as support to the Echo & The Bunnymen show at the Carlu November 23. I reviewed their debut album a few months ago, and quite positively so. If I wasn’t already booked for that night, I’d probably be leaning (more) towards going.

Rogue Wave descends like vultures on the Horseshoe November 27. Their new album, Descended Like Vultures (see my clever wordplay?) is out October 25. People are saying nice things about it. I mentioned before that their debut Out Of The Shadow didn’t really do it for me but I should still give the new one a listen, I suppose.

Montreal’s Kiss Me Deadly are at Sneaky Dee’s December 8. I got a copy of their album in the mail last week. Haven’t listened to it yet but I have a good feeling about it. Based on absolutely nothing. The Subways are at the Mod Club December 9. I’m under the impression these guys are big back home in the UK? Flavour of a recent month? And finally, Anglo-Texan outfit The Earlies are at the El Mocambo on December 12.

And if you’re looking for shows in the more immediate future, check out Torontoist.

Say hello to the redesigned Prefix, now with a new hat. And thanks to Prefix for pointing to this SPIN Q&A with Metric.

As if I needed another reason to hate hate HATE local radio station CFNY (I refuse to call them “The Edge”), check this out – a photo gallery of Rob Dickinson’s visit to their station last week. Only they’ve somehow misspelled his name “Simon Collins”. I guess I shouldn’t expect too much from a radio station that trumpets themselves as “New Rock” on their billboards and then list off bands like U2, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Lenny Kravitz as evidence of their bleeding edge playlist. Someone needs a molotov cocktail through their window. Update: The fixed the caption. But that doesn’t mean they don’t still suck.

Matador has posted an unreleased Laura Cantrell song for your downloading pleasure.

The Believer puts Salman Rushdie and Terry Gilliam in a room together. Ultimate fighting ensues. Via Largehearted Boy.

So if you’re wondering why today’s post is about an hour and a half later than usual, the answer’s simple – I SLEPT IN. It’s what unemployed people do. Yes, yesterday was my last day at work and now I’m living it up, slacker-style. It’s sweet, I tells ya. Of course, I’m only getting to enjoy it for one day as I’ve got a short-term contract lined up starting tomorrow… But until then? Woot. Sloth city.

np – Explosions In The Sky / The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place

Poor 2005. Still almost three months to go and already people are referring to it in retrospective terms, preferring to look ahead towards the bright and shiny future of 2006. And to be fair, there’s not much left in the way of new releases to look forward to – at least not on my list. There’s the Wilco live set (which you can preorder and get a bonus live track to download) and the Slowdive reissues, all out the week of November 15th, but besides those, I’d say the new Cardigans is about it for albums still to come that could concievably make a run at a year-end list berth (See? There I go with the retrospectiveness again). There’s supposed to be a new Rainer Maria record out before the close of 2005, but as each day passes with no new news, I grow more skeptical.

But let’s take a look at what the first quarter of 2006 should hold in store. I’ll start with this one because, well, I’ve got the most links and info for it… and Chan is pretty. Pitchfork has details on Cat Power’s new album, The Greatest. Matador one-ups them with the album art, the correct release date (January 24th, not the 26th), a promise of a full-band world tour to commence in early ’06 (with crying and on-stage meltdowns to follow) and an MP3 of the title track.

MP3: Cat Power – “The Greatest”

I’ve never been the biggest Cat Power fan – Moon Pix is all I have, and it gets spun rarely – but if “The Greatest” is any indication of what the rest of the album is like, I may have to pick it up. That song is lovely.

Taking a look at everything else chronologically – Nellie McKay’s Pretty Little Head is out so late in the year on December 27 that it may as well be an ’06 release and will feature duets with Cyndi Lauper and k.d. lang. Nellie will also be appearing on Broadway in March of 2006 in a production of Brecht and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera.

The third album from The Strokes starts the year off on January 3. Bits of First Impressions Of Earth have already leaked and NME has heard the whole thing. The band is also casting “LESBIANS, 20s-30’s, “Victoria Secret” model-type lesbians, prefer Caucasian” for their new video. Anything for art, right?

Personally, my most-anticipated album of the first part of ’06 is Trespassers William’s Having. A long time in the making, it was mixed by Dave Fridmann and mastered by Greg Calbi, will finally be out January 24. I’m unhealthily excited about this record. As I’ve mentioned numerous times before, Different Stars is probably one of my favourite albums of the last five years.

Belle & Sebastian’s The Goalkeeper’s Revenge should be out in January – You Ain’t No Picasso has a live mp3 of one of the new tracks we should expect to appear on the new record, “Another Sunny Day”. Toe-tapping good stuff, it sounds like classic Belle & Sebastian.

Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis has her debut solo effort (though credited to Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins) Rabbit Fur Coat due out in January as well. Not surprisingly, it will be chock-full of guest stars.

No longer just an instigator, Old 97’s frontman Rhett Miller is now also The Believer, which is the title of his second solo album coming out on February 28.

Ted Leo’s follow-up to Shake The Sheets WAS supposed to coming out sometime in February, but with the whole Lookout fiasco, it could be longer while he gets the label sitch sorted out. Ted promised on his website back in August that he’d address the Lookout situation soon, but still hasn’t. What he DOES advise, however, is that you go watch Teen Girl Squad’s 10th issue-versary.

Neko Case’s Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is out March 7. I covered that a couple of weeks ago.

Also due out in February or March, the new one from The Flaming Lips. According to Billboard, this record is a return to the guitar rock of Clouds Taste Metallic or Satellite Heart. Promises, promises.

Of course, as I say every year, the stuff I’m most looking forward to is the stuff I’ve no idea exists right now. The above are mostly known quantities and I’m reasonably assured that they’ll put out good records (except the Strokes – I posted that bit just to talk about lesbians). If you look at my favourite records of 2005 (which you will in a couple months), many are bands that I’d never heard of or heard on January 1, 2005. Old favourites are always good, but there’s no competing with the rush of a new discovery. I’m done with 2005. Bring on the ’06.

np – The Tears / Here Come The Tears

Can I let you in on a little secret? I don’t really like The Fiery Furnaces. I have a couple of their records and find them perplexing and fascinating and artistically audacious, but enjoyable? I dunno about that. Some of it I like, some of it I don’t. Their new album, Rehearsing My Choir, I couldn’t take. That’s great that they’re bonding with grandma and creating something undeniably unique, but I found it damn near unlistenable.

So what, praytell, was I doing at Lee’s Palace last night seeing The Fiery Furnaces live? Well, as I understood it, no matter what you thought of the Furnaces on record, you had to see them live, if just for the spectacle. And I’m all about spectacle. Unfortunately, spectacle was in short order last night. Splitting the set between older material and the new stuff probably prevented them from doing the non-stop medley thing I’d heard so much about – or maybe they’re just over that. The energy onstage was also lessened by the fact that Eleanor Friedberger was nursing a bad cold – as it was, I give her full marks for making it through the hour and a half-long set, she was looking rough up there.

I have to say, I like the Fiery Furnaces quite a bit more live than I do on album. What can come across as overly artsy and precious on record gets a good dose of frantic energy in the live setting, making their rather unique carnival-punk a lot easier to get into. Even the Rehearsing My Choir material was a lot more enjoyable without their grandmother singing the material. The crowd seemed to dig the new stuff but then they were hearing Eleanor sing it… we’ll see how they like the actual album when it comes out later this month. I know some people who have heard the album and love Gramma Sanatos, but I suspect Fiery Furnaces fans are probably a little more inherently eccentric in what they do and don’t dig. But I digress. The Choir stuff was sandwiched between big chunks of Blueberry Boat and Gallowsbird Bark material, which naturally were the crowd pleasers, even when they were musically inverted in their live incarnations. Despite Eleanor’s sorry physical state – you felt sorry watching her struggle through the set – they still came out and performed an encore nearly half as long as the main one. So maybe not the spectacle I was hoping for, but still definitely a good show.

I showed up late and missed the ubiquitous Apostle Of Hustle, who opened things up. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen Mr Whiteman’s outfit live without ever actually making an effort, so I’m sure I’ll catch him another time. Another consequence of being fashionably late was getting stuck fairly far back from the stage – thus the photos are nothing to write home about. Oh well, can’t win ’em all.

JAM! talks to Feist in advance of a show in her hometown of Calgary and she reveals a bit about her plans for both a live record and new studio album in 2006.

Paste follows My Morning Jacket on the road and through the making of Z. I may have been ambievalent about Z in my post last week, but the critics are more convinced about its greatness.

A dose of Death Cab – interviews with The A/V Club and New City Chicago. Links via Largehearted Boy.

Pitchfork reviews the second series of the Directors Label DVDs. Though I’m not the biggest fan of many of the artists these directors have done work for, you don’t necessarily have to like the music to appreciate the films. Check out the trailer for the new DVDs here.

Metacritic is now collecting TV reviews! Thanks to the newly independent My Mean Magpie for the tip.

A recent study on national personalities shakes a fundamental pillar of the Canadian identity to its very core – Canadians aren’t nicer than Americans.

np – Trespassers William / Different Stars

If you were looking for a high concentration of people who value pop music over family last night (including yours truly), the Phoenix would have been a good place to start. Though not quite sold out, it was packed to the gills with folks skipping out on Thanksgiving dinner in order to spend some quality time with The New Pornographers and their extended family. It was a good sized crowd, one that still probably wouldn’t have filled one-third of the Docks, where this show was originally booked. Though it caused grief for the underagers, going from all-ages to licensed, it surely made for a better experience.

I’d seen Immaculate Machine once before, a couple years ago at Wavelength. I have to admit, though, I wasn’t paying too much attention to them since my band was on after them and I was a little preoccupied. And though we played the best show of our (brief) career, they’re the ones still at it and playing the Phoenix on one of the hottest tours of the Fall, so I guess they win. The cynical might have assumed they were only on this bill because of nepotism (singer Kathryn Calder is head Pornographer Carl Newman’s neice), so in that sense Immaculate Machine had something to prove. I admit I fell somewhat in that camp, but am happy to report that after seeing them power through their half-hour set, it doesn’t matter how they got the gig because they deserve it. I didn’t remember them being this good two years ago, that’s for sure. The songs were catchy, the musicianship was good and the multi-part vocals solid. These kids know their way around a pop song, and while they might be a couple albums or good producer away from doing something really special, they’ve got the goods to do so.

Destroyer, I’ve never listened to. I quite like Dan Bejar’s contributions to the New Pornographers but was always afraid, in the back of my mind, that outside the rigid pop structures of the New Pr0ns that his solo work would be too whacked out for me to really like, and then I’d feel like an uncouth savage. I knew a few people in attendance who had made a point of saying that they were really going just to see Destroyer and were mostly indifferent to the Pornographers. That seemed kind of silly, since their nearly $30 ticket netted them exactly half an hour of Dan Bejar’s idiosyncratic, skewed-blues singer-songwriter material. Though completely unfamiliar with the material, I was still able to enjoy listening to Bejar’s curiously elastic voice and found his set intriguing. I may have to investigate Destroyer’s work further, maybe with the new album Destroyer’s Rubies when it comes out in February.

This New Pornographers tour was not one to be missed as far as fans were concerned, since it would feature the complete lineup for the first and possibly/probably last time. Dan Bejar had never gone on the road with them before, thus forcing them to shelve some of their best material till now, and coordinating tours with Neko Case’s schedule will only get more difficult as her solo star continues to rise. Maybe they’ll pull it together again for occasional shows, but I really doubt they’ll be able to stage a full tour like this again – it’s a damn good thing, then, that they put on a show to remember. From the opening chords of “Twin Cinema”, the band unleashed a non-stop attack of irresistable pop hooks that got everyone (around me, anyway) dancing, clapping and generally carrying on. Pure pop goodness, one song after another. I needed insulin.

Despite playing as a seven-piece (eight whenever Dan Bejar wandered onstage, beer in hand, to take vocals on one of his songs), the sound was perfectly balanced between guitars and keys and gave the multi-part vocals plenty of room to take the fore. Not surprisingly, the loudest cheers came whenever Neko took the mic, but for my money the finest vocal moments came on Bejar’s songs, when he, Case and Newman all harmonized with their totally distinct but simpatico voices. Throw in more harmonies from Calder and drummer Kurt Dahle and it was almost too much to take. They packed a lot of songs (and some mildly awkward attempts at stage banter) into an hour-fifteen – from the number of requests shouted out during the two encores, they didn’t get to everyone’s favourites but I can’t imagine anyone left the show disappointed.

Photos! The lighting was bright, if oddly-coloured this time around. And since they relied mostly on the stage lights behind the band, those of us up front got cooked just as much, if not more, than the band. Not a huge variety in shots but when you’ve got that many people onstage, moving-around real estate tends to be limited.

East coast Calexico/Iron & Wine tour dates are starting to come to light. No Toronto date yet, but seeing as how they’re in Montreal on December 8 and Detroit on December 10, it stands to reason they’ll need to stop for gas halfway down the 401 in Toronto sometime around the 9th. I’m guessing they’ll be at The Phoenix, hopefully not the Opera House.

Here’s an interesting idea – local booking agents Emerge now has a blog. No teases about upcoming shows, but the set time information is handy.

RIP, Tom Cheek. Tom was the radio announcer for the Toronto Blue Jays from their first game back in 1977 through June of last year when he had to step down first to attend his father’s funeral, and then to treat the brain cancer that ultimately took his life. I listened to many, many baseball games called by him and partner Jerry Howarth. A sad day for Toronto baseball fans. Friends and associates reminisce.

Happy Thanksgiving!

np – Mark Eitzel / Demos Before Love Songs