One of the top contenders for “next big thing” out of Hogtown, Magneta Lane, close out a cross-Canada tour on February 25 with a hometown show at the Drake and then again March 4 at the Horseshoe as part of CMW.

Now while the simple fact of three teenage girls playing rough-hewn rock’n’roll is bound to garner some attention, to dismiss them as a novelty for that is a great injustice. Behind their gritty, Runaways/Strokes-y sound (I apologize for the stock, unimaginitive descriptions but I don’t have a real broad frame of reference for their sound) lie some impressive pop songwriting smarts. Check out some of the melodies on “The Constant Lover”, that’s some good stuff for any age.

They released their debut EP last September and have been making some pretty serious waves hereabouts since then. The curious should turn an ear to the songs streaming off the band’s own website, their New Music Candada site or check out TTIKTDA’s post from last month about the band.

MP3: Magneta Lane – “The Constant Lover”

Brooklynvegan has an update on all things Arcade Fire, including a disavowal by the band of the Christmas EP that has the subject of much derision over the last little while (and justifiably so). On a related note, Morecowbell.net continues working on his Arcade Fire fansite here (is it open for business yet Kyle?).

This one’s for Mike from For The Records – Keren Ann and A Girl Called Eddy are at the Horseshoe for an evening of smoky, sophisticated pop on March 6, tickets $12. Check out Mike’s review of Keren Ann’s show here last month and some pics of her show in New York last night along with some general praise, courtesy of Brooklynvegan.

XFM gets James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers to give a song-by-song annotation of their latest, Lifeblood. It took a few listens, but now I’m quite enjoying the album – far more focused than Know Your Enemy, by a country mile. And a half.

Billboard reports that New Order’s new album will actually be called Waiting For The Siren’s Call, and not Sugarcane as previously reported, though that is the name of one of the tracks. It’s out March 28 in the UK and a North American release date is still to be determined.

The latest issue of Magnet has a couple bits about bands in the studio right now – Sparklehorse are holed up in Dave Fridmann’s house of fun and hope to have a new disc out for late Spring and Nada Surf will release the follow up to Let Go in June. They will be trying their damndest to not name the new album Under My Skin.

Vin Diesel wants to teach you how to break dance.

np – Neil Halstead / Sleeping On Roads

The Broken Tsunami Scene show at Lee’s Palace on January 25 sold out at Ticketmaster in under two hours yesterday, and Rotate and Soundscapes’ stocks were done by day’s end as well. Some are speculating that the show will be moved to a larger venue like the Phoenix, but the fact that the show was announced for Lee’s in the first place when they certainly knew they could have sold out a larger venue with no problems says to me that they want to keep it at a smaller, more intimate venue – but who knows. Anyway, I got mine promptly at 10AM and thankfully Ticketbastard only charged me $3 more than one of the record stores would have (though I doubt that surcharge will be donated to charity), so I don’t feel excessively ripped off – just the regular amount.

But now that the ugliness of ticket acquisition is taken care of, we can begin to speculate as to what show itself has in store – I would expect the lineup to look a lot like the BSS shows at Lee’s in June of ’03, which was essentially an Arts & Crafts love-in. That is, Stars (who are on tour in Southern Ontario that week), Jason Collett and Apostle Of Hustle. There’s nothing on Feist’s tour calendar so if she’s in town I expect she’d be there. And while they’re not Arts & Crafts rosterees, extended family members Metric are doing two Toronto shows the previous weekend and aren’t due in Ottawa till the 26th, so while I wouldn’t go so far as to predict a full Metric set, Emily and James will almost certainly be playing with the Scene. Wow, that’d be all three BSS ladies performing at the same show… oh my.

The BBC lists off their picks for bands to break out in 2005. Oh good… more angular new wave throwback dance-rock to look forward to. Via LHB.

The Austin Chronicle lists off some of the 400-500 acts that have confirmed for SXSW in March. This site won’t be becoming a SXSW blog, but you can expect that as the festival draws closer and more and more details come out, I will become positively giddy with anticipation, and you guys will just have to endure it. Sorry.

A reminder that Wilco are on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight and on PBS’ Austin City Limits with Bright Eyes this week (for Torontonians, it’s on midnight NEXT Friday, the 14th on WNED) – you can see a video sneak preview of the show here. Also, the NME reports that A Ghost Is Born will be getting re-released in some expanded form to coincinde with their UK tour starting in March. Will this be a UK-only release? What sort of extras are we talking about? Only the Shadow knows, and he’s not talking.

Alas, Chart reports that The Sadies will not be backing Neko Case at the Phoenix on January 16. Who is? Only the Sha– never mind.

np – Lush / Split

Last night’s season premiere of Alias didn’t amount to a reboot of the series as much as it did a rewind, likely to put as much distance between this season and the last, which started promisingly enough but was an utter mess by the time it wrapped last May. Plausibility is essentially thrown out the window for the purposes of setting up the new scenario, which is very much a deliberate throwback to the first season. While on one hand, this could be seen as a “back to basics” approach, taking the series back to what they know works, but it’s also really familiar – formulaic, even. And for a show that got attention for being fresh and surprising, that could be deadly. This is not a show that can get away with spinning its wheels.

To recap: Sydney has daddy issues. Sydney has mommy issues. Sydney dresses up in lingerie and kicks some Eurotrash guy’s ass. Sydney executes daring heists. Sydney doesn’t trust Sloan, but has to work for him. Jack goes to extreme measures to protect his daughter. Sydney cries. Vaughan is intense but perplexed. Marshall is a dork. Been there, done that. Even the addition of Mia Maestro as Sydney’s equally ass-kicking half-sister spy is yawn-inducing. For a while I thought they were going to have an Asian big bad this season, and that might have been interesting, but no – he bites it. Unless J.J. Abrams has some real rabbits up his sleeve (am I mixing metaphors?), I’d have to imagine they squeezed as much blood from that particular stone as they’re ever going to. What, is Sloan going to betray them? Again? I’ll certainly give the show some time to prove that it’s still got some fresh ideas, but based on the premiere, I have my reservations. Better they would take the lead of 24 (which premieres this Sunday with a two-hour episode, and then another two hours on Monday), who have cast aside almost all the supporting cast from the first three seasons for the upcoming one in an attempt to revitalize the show. Of course, they’ve neglected to write any sort of story yet, but you can’t have everything.

BBC1 has some video footage from the Keeping It Peel tribute concert to the late legendary DJ, including a set of classics by the newly-reformed Peel favourite, The Wedding Present. Their new album Take Fountain is out officially February 15 and is aleady apparently making the P2P rounds (though the band would really prefer you didn’t go this route – they’ve stated as much on their message board). From Bradley’s Almanac.

Catbirdseat points us at an mp3 from the new Low record, The Great Destroyer out January 25. The word on this album was that it was much heavier and more rock than anything Duluth’s favourite Mormons have put out before and if “Monkey” is any indication, that’s true. See what signing to SubPop can do to a band?

And while we’re previewing forthcoming releases, go here to stream a few new songs from Ivy’s In The Clear, out March 1.

Emm Gryner celebrates the release of her new album Songs Of Love And Death January 17th with a show at the Top Of The Senator – $10 reservations, no advance tickets. No, I don’t know what that means but I suspect you’re going to have to have a meal or something if you wanna see the show.

CMJ. Arcade Fire. Blah blah blah.

eye submits their picks for local bands to watch in 2005. The only act I’m really familiar with are The Great Lake Swimmers, who I concour are quite good. I didn’t know they’d signed an American deal with Misra, though. Labelmates with Centro-Matic – that’s pretty cool.

np – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / The Best Of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Everything I know about Ernesto “Che” Guevara, I learned from Wikipedia and now The Motorcycle Diaries.

The film, which is an adaptation of Guevara’s memoirs of the same name, document his trip around South America in early 1952 with his friend Alberto Granado and their experiences on the road. The first half is fairly standard On The Road buddy/road movie type stuff, with the friends out looking for girls, adventure and generally just experiencing the amazing scenery of South America. It’s not until the titular motorcycle gives up the ghost and they must continue their trek on foot that the tone of the film shifts.

When they cross into Peru, they begin to see evidence the social injustices that would drive Guevara from an idealistic young medical student to a Communist revolutionary to a t-shirt design. The message of the film occasionaly flirts with heavy-handedness and its portrait of the Commandante as a young man is almost certainly over-romanticized, but for the most part the film strikes a reflective, sincere tone. But as much as the politics and ideology colour parts of the film, it’s first and foremost about the friendship and loyalty between the two main characters, helped along by excellent performances by the magnetic Gael Garcia Bernal as Guevara and Rodrigo De la Serna as Granado. Props must also go out to cinematographer Eric Gautier for committing some startling visuals of South America to film.

Broken Social Scene and “fellow label family members” (read: Arts & Crafts party) will be playing a special benefit show at Lee’s Palace on January 25th. Tickets are a very dear $30, but 100% of proceeds will go to a tsunami relief fund. On sale this Thursday at 10:00AM. I think… I will have to go to this.

A requiem for Guided By Voices, by Nude As The News. From LHB. Wow, it took me five days to get to my first Largehearted Boy citation of the year!

Team Canada won the gold in the World Junior Hockey Championship. YAY. With no talks scheduled between the NHL and the NHLPA, the 2004/2005 season is almost surely done. BOO.

After a long seven-month break, the season premiere of Alias is on tonight! YAY. It’s now on opposite one of the only other shows I watch regularly, The West Wing. BOO.

Metacritic is reviewing books now! YAY. …No, no “BOO”. This is good news all around – I’ve been waiting a long time for a resource like this.

np – Mojave 3 / Excuses For Travellers

Rest in peace, Mr Eisner.

Rememberances from Neil Gaiman

The Beat reflects on Eisner’s life

The Onion re-publishes a 2000 interview with Will Eisner