Splendid talks to Amy Millan of Stars about the duality of the Canadian thang and her solo record Honey From The Tombs, which is supposed to be out this Summer (I’d heard June). Synergy Magazine also talks to Amy about this and that.

Stars are touring across Canada as part of the Exclaim! tour and Amy plays a solo show May 6 at the Poor Alex in Toronto as part of Over The Top. I think the Exclaim! show is sold out (though maybe not quite yet) while ducats for Amy’s solo show go on sale this Thursday for $13. Also, you can stream the band’s performance on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic from last Wednesday – thanks to Brooklynvegan for the pointer. Set Yourself On Fire just got release in the US a few weeks ago, and so far reviews have been quite positive. And I’ve already talked about them conquering SxSW last week, so I won’t go there again.

BV also links to this Dutch site with a stream of a live Feist performance from 2004. I like how they describe her as “Alternative Norah Jones”. No wait, I don’t.

The Great Lake Swimmers will be playing an instore at Soundscapes at 6pm this Thursday (March 31). It’s probably just Tony Dekker solo, which is how he’ll be performing whilst opening for Crooked Fingers at the Horseshoe that night. Their new album Bodies And Minds came out a couple weeks ago and they’ll be performing a CD release show at the Music Gallery on April 2 though it is damn close to if not already sold out.

As for the headliners of that show, CMJ asks Eric Bachmann about sex, Skynyrd and bullfighting while Junkmedia just asks him about the new album, Dignity and Shame. Booooring. Also, Eastern Fiction has released a new 7″ Crooked Fingers single recorded live on their last tour opening for The Delgados. Both sides are taken from Dignity and Shame, the a-side is a duet with The Delgados’ Emma Pollack. The recording, done live to minidisc, is a little crackly in parts but the perfomance is quite excellent.

The new Fruit Bats album Spelled In Bones will be out on SubPop July 26.

Stylus looks to improve on perfection, coming up with a new tracklisting/order for Wilco’s Being There.

I ended up getting my Doves ticket this weekend after all – while Rotate downtown was sold out, Sonic Temple way up in North York still had a stack almost an inch thick and yet were completely sold out of Weezer tickets. Hooray for the suburbs.

Newsarama talks to creator Frank Miller about Sin City.

np – Kathleen Edwards / Back To Me

Odd as it may sound, one of my best SxSW musical discoveries didn’t come from seeing a band play. When doing some last-minute showcase browsing before heading to Austin last week, I came across The Oktober People, a four-piece from Albequerque, New Mexico. Liking the samples I heard from the SxSW guide, I added them to my “maybe” list but didn’t end up catching them as they were on the same time as Dirty On Purpose. However, when I went to catch Experimental Aircraft’s day show on Friday, the label sponsoring the show was giving out a whack of free CDs, The Oktober People’s self-titled album amongst them. Since the name seemed familiar, though I don’t remember what I liked about them, I grabbed a copy and went on my way.

Now let’s be honest – usually when someone hands you a free CD, the odds of it actually impressing are pretty slim. So when I finally popped it into my CD player at the airport on Sunday, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself very impressed with what I was hearing. Musically, their serpentine, echoed guitar lines and loping bass melodies recall Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky, and while the loud-quiet dynamic is present, it’s not the punchline. There’s also some Verve-like atmospherics enevloping everything and many of the songs have vocals that keep them fairly grounded in more conventional song structures rather than multi-movement compositions (though some do approach epic-length). The quality of those vocals – somewhat frail and spidery, like Deserters Songs-era Mercury Rev – work perfectly with the music. There’s nothing blazingly original in the ingredients that The Oktober People work with, but the end result is quite stunning nonetheless. If you couldn’t tell, I’m quite taken with their work.

I don’t regret my decision to go see Dirty On Purpose last Thursday night at all, but I do wish I’d somehow been able to have been in two places at once. Since The Oktober People seem to rarely tour outside their native Southwest, so the odds of them finding their way up here by any means other than getting horribly horribly lost are pretty slim… but at least I’ve got the record. You can sample some of their self-titled debut at the band’s MySpace page, or start off with this one (from their own website):

MP3: The Oktober People – “The Sky Is Falling”.

Go, discover.

Am I the only one who had no idea that The Decemberists had a Purevolume page that includes a handful of mp3 rarities for free download? So everyone who’s been writing to me to get their “Human Behaviour” cover, go there instead. And while you’re waiting for the files to transfer, check out these interviews with Colin Meloy at Seattle Weekly wherein they play jukebox (via TMFTML) and The New York Daily News (via LHB).

Seattle’s Crystal Skulls will be supporting The Wedding Present on the first leg of their North American tour, including their April 26 show at Lee’s Palace.

As I’m currently trying to come up with a band name, The Guardian offers some suggestions on band names – the best and the weirdest. I’m taking notes.

The Guardian also has this piece on SxSW and what it means for UK bands looking to make it on this side of the Atlantic.

np – Guided By Voices / Half Smiles Of The Decomposed

It’s interesting how after a decade of successfully (for the most part) adapting comics to movies, they’ve for the most part run out of populist, A-list all-ages properties and begun putting the more critically acclaimed but not-for-everyone titles into production at the same time. For example, Sin City, which is out next week, Watchmen (in pre-production), V For Vendetta (currently shooting), Death: The High Cost Of Living (Gaiman is directing, but we will reserve judgement) and a reportedly very dark, very Year One-esque Batman (out in June – check out the revamped website). Yeah, okay, they’re also still making Ghost Rider and they botched Hellblazer, but my point is still valid. It’s time for grown-up comic movies.

For starters, Sin City is looking to be fantastic. Bradley’s Almanac was lucky enough to attend an advance screening and gives it great praise – I know Brad’s an old-school comic book geek like myself, so that endorsement carries some weight. Superherohype.com has a couple interviews with the women and the men of the film, while Comic Book Resources expresses no gender bias with their coverage. iFilm has some interview video clips with the cast while Coming Soon! has an interview with director Robert Rodriguez. Achtung Baby! has compiled a bunch more related links as well. I don’t know if I’ll be there opening night, but I would certainly expect I’ll be seeing it sometime next weekend, though maybe I should catch up on reading the original graphic novels in the interim – you know, so I can be suitably impressed with how well they stuck to the source material.

Meanwhile, Chud.com has an extensive three-part interview with Paul Greengrass, director of Watchmen. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) where he talks about his plans for the film, his history with the novel (he has one!), how it’s still relevant today, and how they’re going to manage Dr Manhattan’s, um, package. Gotta say, after reading this, I’m very impressed with Greengrass’ attitude towards the source material and have pretty high hopes for the film. And while he has no involvement with the film, Comic Book Resources talked to Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons and he said that the script, “was excellent; a better script than I could have imagined being written”. Again, another good sign.

And decidedly non-comic booky or highbrow, I watched 13 Going On 30 yesterday – shut up – and as lightweight trifles go, it wasn’t bad at all – shut up. I think I prefer Jennifer Garner in the goofy comedic role rather than the ass-kicking ninja ones. It seems more natural for her. Shut up. However, one thing about the whole time shift thing was kinda weird to me. Instead of instantly growing up, a la Big, which to my mind would have been the logical response to a wish to be 30, Jennifer Garner was instead fast-forwarded 17 years through a life she’d have lived anyways, essentially turning a 30-year old mind back into a 13-year old one. Meaning that instead of wishing dust, all she really would have needed to accomplish this would have been some moderate head trauma.

Some music bits – Laura Cantrell’s Humming by the Flowered Vine will be out on June 21 on Matador (see the fancy cover art?) and Billboard has some info on Ryan Adams’ Cold Roses, due out May 3 – the same day that he’s scheduled to play the Phoenix here in Toronto, despite there being another show also booked there the same day… Nice to see that Rachael Yamagata makes an appearance on the new record.

Check out this Doves electronic press kit, featuring interviews and making-of footage from the Some Cities sessions (Quicktime: 300k / 100k / 56k).

np – The Oktober People / The Oktober People

File under very cool: A quite good quality version of the video for Ride’s “Vapour Trail”, circa 1990, courtesy of Creation-Records.com. This has found it’s way to the internet in advance of the forthcoming Ride DVD, details of which are still skimpy. BUT. As far as content goes, they at least have this one video. And if you have a basic understanding of how streaming .ram files work, you can have it too… hint hint.

Oh, and does anyone have the Divine Comedy cover of this song that they could, uh, leave lying around in my inbox for me to conveniently find? UPDATE: Mystical Beast has posted it! Thanks! Hmm, it’s a very straight cover. Kinda pub band-ish (save Neil Hannon’s vox). I definitely prefer the Trespassers William version.

The Feist invasion of America has begun. She played a couple of very impressive solo shows at SxSW parties (private ones, so as a member of the great unwashed, I can’t offer a first-hand account, but that’s what I heard), and Brooklynvegan reports back from a recent show in New York City with great praise (and pictures, of course), while Tofuhut offers up a frighteningly comprehensive career overview of the wonder that is Leslie Feist, including a goodly number of rare and live mp3s. It’s interesting that for her Canadian shows, she was dressed all in white and now for the US, it’s black. Maybe this is like some kinda freaky Jedi thing.

Salon’s Audiofile has an interview with Spoon’s Britt Daniel about Gimme Fiction, out May 10, and what he thinks about New York Spoon-a-likes Robbers On High Street.

Billboard has details of the the wonderfully named Paul Westerberg best-of comp, Besterberg, out May 17.

The new Longwave album seems to have been pushed back yet again. Look for There’s A Fire on June 28, if not later. Stupid RCA.

Another great show added to this year’s Over The Top Fest – Amy Millan, Jon-Rae & The River and The Most Serene Republic are at the Poor Alex on May 6. That’ll be three shows in three nights for me… Again…

Bad news good news for the Rilo Kiley show on May 19. The bad news is that it has been moved to the Opera House. The good news is that Nada Surf is opening.

And some ticket bitching – I went by Rotate to get a variety of tickets yesterday and unfortunately, they were sold out of Doves tix. Okay, a minor setback, but I’m willing to swing by Ticketmaster online – service charges for the last few shows have been sorta reasonable, so I figure a couple bucks extra won’t be so bad. Uh, try $12.25 on a $24 ticket. A $7.50 “service” charge? FUCK THAT SHIT. I am counting on Rotate getting another allottment soon, but if they don’t and I don’t go? No big deal, I’ll live. 50% markup. Shit, man.

A belated 24 recap: I dunno, watching 24 on a Thursday night? Just not the same. Know what would have ruled? If the chick who was shagging the pilot guy was MANDY. Oh well. Five – I figured why you thought this was a good episode as soon as you said it. What, does Chloe live next door to CTU or something? She was there in 10 minutes, if even. The look on Dina Araz’s face as Jack knifes himself? “This guy is badass”. Too bad he’s too dumb to come up with a good plan. That was a bad plan. A bad, bad plan.

Happy Good Friday. In the spirit of inclusiveness, I encourage everyone to nail the deity of their choice to a tree.

np – Sparklehorse / It’s A Wonderful Life

Yeah, everyone’s linking to it now but thanks to Achtung Baby! for pointing me to this comic strip illustrating Pulp’s “Common People”, done by Tank Girl/Gorrilaz artist Jamie Hewlett. Pity about the resolution, but it’s still readable and great. It originally appeared in a French promo booklet put out by Island Records.

The new Six By Seven album has a title – Artists Cannibals Poets Thieves – and the band promises it’ll be a much darker affair than :04 was. Dedicated to the memory of a band friend who committed suicide, they say it’s a return to high-tension, tightly-wound The Things We Make-era compositions like “Brilliantly cute” and “Something Wild”, quite an about-face from the almost pop, relatively positive sounds of last year’s :04. They also boast that it’ll be the first Six By Seven album to feature no bass guitar, so expect this one to be in-your-face abrasive. And no one does abrasive quite like Chris Olley – it oughta be a good one. It’s out May 23 in the UK though there’ll be early orders available through their partially functional website. I don’t think the band has ever had a website that actually worked, come to think of it.

The phone conversation between Ryan Adams and the Lost Highway execs (click on the bottom right corner of the bundle of worms on his website) has increased my estimation of the man immeasurably. Yeah, I know it’s a joke but it’s still hilarious. If he doesn’t use it, Mechrobioticon is my new band name.

Steve Earle is blogging again! Let’s hope he keeps it up this time.

Popmatters talks to The Futureheads. Via Largehearted Boy.

Elvis Costello talks to Billboard a bit about the re-release of King Of America on April 26.

Toronto weeklies eye and NOW both report on their respective SxSW experiences.

The late Spring/early Summer concert season is definitely heating up – I don’t remember an April/May quite this chock full, like, ever. Last year, I went to five shows total in April and May. This year, the calendar has got twelve and counting, and that doesn’t include shows I’ve passed on which during less-saturated times I’d almost certainly have gone to. Sheee-it. Anyways.

The Radar Bros are at the Horseshoe on April 18 with the Postage Stamps as support, and Sam Prekop rolls in May 28.

Hankies will be at the ready on May 18 when Bright Eyes come back to town on their second tour of the year, this one for Digital Ash In A Digital Urn. It will be at the decidedly awful Docks, however, so the kids will have one more thing to cry about. The Faint will be both Conor’s backing band and opening act.

Rilo Kiley tour More Adventurous around a second time, stopping at Lee’s Palace on May 19, tickets $13.50. YAY. I was so disappointed in the sound at their show at the Horseshoe last year, here’s hoping this one more than makes up for it.

No 24 today… know why? Cause I downloaded the wrong bloody episode. No I don’t know what time it is.

I spent all of yesterday on a train to Windsor, a rental car to Detroit, in Detroit, a rental car back to Windsor and on a train back from Windsor, all for a meeting in Detroit. On the way back, traffic was backed up from the Ambassador Bridge so badly that I very nearly missed my train… and this was after giving myself an hour and a half to traverse the 25 km or so from client site to train station. It was insane. If I hadn’t taken that Ford Focus up on a couple curbs to get around the tractor trailers, broken several traffic laws or if I had caught one less light (though that doesn’t seem like it’d have been possible – stupid goddamn advanced greens in the WRONG DIRECTION), I would likely still be in Windsor curled up on a train station bench. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that when I got over the border, I had NO idea where the train station in Windsor was. I honestly just drove in what I thought was the right direction, making random turns whenever it felt right. I still can’t believe I found the place. Quite probably the most stressful two hour span of my life. This is why I try not to leave the house if at all possible.

np – M Ward / Transistor Radio