Rilo Kiley fans owe it to themselves to hunt down a copy of the new Live At Fingertips EP which I found in Chicago last weekend. It was recorded at the titular record store (or at least I think it’s a record store?) in Long Beach, California in August of this year on the eve of the release of More Adventurous (pics from the performance here). It contains six tracks from the show, performed mostly unplugged (though Blake is on quiet electric guitar), including the non-album song “Somebody Else’s Clothes” which is as good as anything that made the cut. Besides that treat, the recording quality is excellent and Jenny Lewis’ voice is in marvelous form – well worth the price of admission (which, incidentally, is $8 – you can buy a copy here – the tracklisting is correct but the order is wrong – and you can get a poster of the cover art here).

And speaking of live albums, the Pernice Brothers are streaming selections from their forthcoming live album Nobody’s Listening (the audio half of Nobody’s Watching, which technically refers to the DVD portion) off their website. Go to the news section, linked above, and click on the banner – voila, Bob’s your uncle. Actually, that’d only be true if Joe was your dad.

The Toronto Star gets Frank Black Francis to answer the same questions he’s probably answered a million times already about the Pixies reunion.

Elvis Costello interviews Joni Mitchell for Esquire. From LHB. And while on the topic of Declan, you can watch the video for “Monkey To Man” from The Delivery Man, which features a brief cameo from Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis (around the 53-second mark). And I think I see some other celeb cameos but aren’t sure… It’s a fun vid, apparently he got some inspiration from his appearance in the Austin Powers films.

The new Doves record Some Cities has been pushed back a fortnight from February 15 to March 1. That’s right, I said “fortnight”.

Does anyone have an email with which I can contact Ted Leo or his posse? The contact page on his new website doesn’t work and I want to plead with them to bring some merch to their Toronto show in a couple weeks. Or if not, to at least smuggle a single t-shirt across the border for me… Update: Thanks everyone, I sent Ted an email. And I mentioned the typo on his website.

np – The Sadies / Favourite Colours

Bright Eyes have finally accepted that there is no more threat of SARS in Toronto and are stopping by to visit on January 21 at the Phoenix. If I go, it will be for the sole purpose of coughing on Conor Oberst and making him cry. An Asian guy in Toronto having a coughing fit? That’ll freak him right out, It’ll be great.

But seriously, I’m not sure if I want to go to this – I have Lifted, and like it alright, but it didn’t spur me to want to hear MORE of their stuff, collect the back catalog, etc., which is usually pretty easy to do. Similarly, I’m not sure how keen I am to hear either Digital Ash in a Digital Urn or I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (both out January 25). I’m guess I’m just incredibly dispassionate about Bright Eyes, which is probably just the cosmos’ way of keeping balance with their usual screaming/crying fanbase. Oh yeah, it appears the tour is only meant to promote the more traditional-sounding Morning. Maybe that means the Conor + iBook tour is still to come?

Emily Haines of Metric will be playing a solo show at the Church of the Redeemer at Bloor and Avenue on December 17… We all remember the minor shitstorm I stirred up when I reviewed her last solo show back in July, so let’s just say I expect to miss this one. But if you want to go, tickets are $17.50.

And looking waaaaay into the future, Keane are at the Kool Haus February 13 (tickets $26.75), Of Montreal return to town April 23 and Deerhoof are supposed to be here on May 18, venue TBA of course. Or at least that’s what their booking agency says. How they can plan that far into the future is beyond me. What if we’re struck by an asteroid? What then? There’ll be no Of Montreal, that’s what.

Ted Leo has given his website a fancy-pants do-over and there’s a slew more mp3s for your guilt-free downloading pleasure. So if you’ve not experienced the joy of rock that is Ted Leo, you no longer have an excuse. There’s nothing particularly rare but it’s a helluva good sampler for the unindoctrinated.

eye asks Frank Black Francis probing questions about both the Pixies reunion, which hits T.O. next Wednesday and Thursday, and his ongoing solo career. I bought my tickets for this show seven months ago. SEVEN. Back then, I was excited. Now I’m just, “I’m going to see who where now?”

Stereolab will be clearing out the vaults with a double-CD/single-DVD compilation of EPs and rarities. It should be out in mid-April on an indeterminate label, since Elektra dropped the band earlier this year.

More Cowbell has compiled an indie-riffic Christmas mp3 mix. Go download and be festive.

I’ve been making squeaky noises for some time about maybe going to SXSW next year – about when should I start translating talk into action and look into transport, accomodations, etc? I’ve never been (obvs) and aren’t really interested in being a formal ‘attendee’ (read: no badges or such nonsense), but don’t want to miss out on anything cool due to sloth (not the guy from The Goonies, thanks). Any veterans or folks who’ve been before have some advice? And who’s going next year?

Information Leafblower has compiled his annual ‘Top 40 Bands in America’, of which I was pleased to be a participant. For the record, my selections were:

1. Wilco

2. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists

3. Spoon

4. Drive-By Truckers

5. Centro-Matic

6. Luna

7. Steve Earle

8. The Shins

9. American Music Club

10. Yo La Tengo

I can’t say I spent a helluva lot of time thinking it over – I basically pulled out my ten favourite and (IMO) most artistically vital American artists, threw them into a rough ranking and sent it off to Kyle, and six of my selections made the cut. To anyone who’s followed this blog or knows my tastes, there’s not a surprise in the bunch. No point in pretending I’m hipper than I am, after all. But more fun than the list are the comments that follow – some folks get waaay too worked up about these sorts of things. Do people not realize the fundamental absurdity of trying to argue points like, “How can you say band X is good when it’s OBVIOUS that band Y is so much better”? Folks, everyone is equally full of shit, it’s really not worth getting into a lather about. Now let’s all go down to the corner store and have a malted. You’re buying.

np – The Flaming Lips / Clouds Taste Metallic

Last night: Sufjan Stevens, Nicolai Dunger and Awry at Lee’s Palace. Let’s begin.

Awry exists as both solo and group propositions, but is essentially just Shara Worden. Also a member of Sufjan Stevens’ band, she opened the evening alternating between electric guitar and electric piano for a set of tunes mixing cabaret songs with dirgey blues guitar and torchy/operatic vocals. The resultant music was pretty interesting stuff – if I can make some lazy comparisons, I was hearing bits of PJ Harvey, Tori Amos and Edith Piaf in there. I also caught one of the plastic spiders she threw out into the audience for reasons unclear. Overall, a little on the odd and quirky side, but I enjoyed it.

The same cannot be said for middle act Nicolai Dunger. I don’t know what coffee house in Stockholm they found this guy, but they should send him back. Looking and sounding like an accountant who likes to unwind with some guitar picking, he played a set of interminable acoustic blues featuring annoyingly smug, faux-soul vocal acrobatics. I never thought I’d discover a worse form of white man blues than the Blueshammer phenomenon, but I have. I swear, I cringed with fear when he came back onstage after his set but thankfully he was just retrieving his guitar. Harsh? Maybe, but it was pretty damn bad.

The headliners, however, totally compensated for that middle-set drag, and were overwhelmigly excellent. Sufjan Stevens and his Michigan Militia, as his band is called, started things off with their musical tour of the fifty States, though I don’t think they got out of the Midwest. Naturally, a lot of time was spent in Michigan – in fact, much of the set was comprised of paeans to Stevens’ home state. I can’t comment on specific songs or whatnot since I didn’t have any of the albums prior to the show and had only heard a couple mp3s off their website, but that wasn’t a prerequisite for enjoying the music. Having listened to Seven Swans a grand total of 2/3 times, I can understand the “folk” tag Stevens’ music often gets assigned, but after seeing the live show I think that ending the discussion there is doing them a great disservice. Where the recording is hushed, delicate and somewhat sombre, the live experience leans far more to the ebullient pop side of things. Everything was impeccably orchestrated and arranged with spot-on choral vocals and perfectly placed bits of trumpet, xylophone and percussion, and the addition of a fantastic drummer turned many numbers into musical celebrations. A real highlight was their moving and meditative take on “The Star Spangled Banner”, which put the American national anthem in a completely new light.

I think this was also the first show I’ve ever been to that featured costume changes – the band started off in the scout uniforms representing Greetings From Michigan and changed to the swan outfits of Seven Swans (at one point he apologized for mixing concepts) and then into matching band t-shirts (available for sale at the back!) for the encores. So cute. Top to bottom (excepting Mr Dunger), it was easily one of the prettiest nights of music I’ve had in some time. Excellent stuff, thanks to everyone who inisisted I go to this.

Getting pictures was a little tough on account of the jungle of music and microphone stands all over the stage – I only had semi-unobstructed views to Stevens and the xylophonist/backing vocalist, but that’s okay because he was the most important and she was the cutest. Still, I think I did alright.

As mentioned before, Mercury Rev will be releasing their new album The Secret Migration on January 25 in North America – but only on iTunes. The physical album won’t get a release on these shores until late April. It will be out in the rest of the world in January. Maybe if I find a way to sabotage the Canadian edition of iTunes, they’ll have no choice but to release the CD up here? Stupid stupid iTunes, and stupid stupid people who will view this sort of nonsense as ‘progress’ of some kind.

Google News is an amazing thing. I should really make more use of it when I’m looking for content… A search on “American Music Club” yielded the following – Maisonneuve nominating the band as the most anti-social outfit in existance (but in a purely adoring and respectful sense), The Chicago Tribune reviewing the Saturday show at which I was in attendance and The Orlando Sentinel talking to drummer Tim Mooney about the reunion.

Sign On San Diego finds out what a whirlwind 2004 has done to Nellie McKay (who insists she’s 20, for those keeping score). From Pop (All Love).

You can now pre-order the Pernice Brothers live DVD/CD set Nobody’s Watching set here. Estimated delivery date is second week of December. Put a little Pernice in your stocking for Christmas!

I’ve got the photos from my trip to Chicago up here. There’s a lot of zoo pictures. Don’t read anything into that. I just, y’know, like monkeys.

Man, would you look at how short my concert calendar is now? If that doesn’t pick up soon, I may never leave my apartment again.

np – Sufjan Stevens / Seven Swans

It was the American Music Club reunion tour in support of Love Songs For Patriots that brought me to Chicago this past weekend. The Luna show was undoubtedly a bonus, but I had already bought my plane ticket before it was announced. I’ve mentioned before the deep impression Eitzel made as a solo performer opening for Low a couple years ago, so the promise of seeing a revitalized Mark Eitzel fronting his old band was motivation enough to get me on a plane. Which brings us to last Saturday night.

Schubas was thankfully easier to get to than the Abbey Pub the previous night, though I did get there pretty damn early and ended up sitting around in the bar waiting for the live music room to open up. Schubas is nice – since the music room is totally closed off from bar, there was really no one talking during the show. The wood decor gave it a nice church-y feel as well. I approved. Of wood, that is, not so much church.

When the doors finally did open, I made a bee-line for the merch table where I got to chat with opener Will Johnson of Centro-Matic for a little while. He said that the exorbitant border crossing fees, which were turning out to be pricier than their guarantees, were why they hadn’t toured through Toronto in ages. He did promise to try to make it up here next year when the new Centro-Matic album comes out in August. I picked up a copy of his new solo record Vultures Await as well as a tour-only live album that was recorded in his kitchen. When he took the stage a little while later, I was surprised to find that his voice wasn’t as raspy as it seemed on record, but was actually deeper and more soulful than you’d expect. Friendly and gracious throughout his set, he played mostly material released under his own name with only a couple of Centro-Matic (read: familiar to me) songs thrown in. The addition of a second player on subtle keyboards and violin added an extra textural dimension to the proceedings, all in all a pretty compelling performance. I would so love to see a full Centro-Matic show.

And then American Music Club. There’s no backstage at Schubas, so there wasn’t much in the way of fanfare when the band took the stage, weaving their way through the audience to get onstage. They just strolled onstage and tore into “Royal Cafe” from Everclear, followed by “Blue & Gray Shirt”. Even though they had a splendid new album to push, you could tell from the get-go that this was going to be an evening spanning their entire career (they actually only played four songs from Patriots) and that was fine with pretty much everyone in attendance. It took the band a few songs to really lock in, but when they finally did, they were ferocious. The rhythm section of Tim Mooney and Dan Pearson were particularly thundering, while Vudi’s ability to coax the prefect texture and atmosphere out of his guitar wasn’t dulled by his day job driving buses, though that gig must pay better than you’d think – he was not playing inexpensive gear. And Eitzel? Well, the notoriously mercurial singer must have been having a good day, because he was positively jovial. Maybe being back in his adopted hometown (at least during his solo years) put him in a good mood – he was cracking jokes and in huge voice.

It was hard to believe that they’d been apart for almost a decade before this album and tour, because together they were still a fearsome musical force. Mercury‘s “Challenger” was especially explosive. If there was one shortcoming, it was in the pacing of the set. The sequencing of the set and in-between song lulls could have been better handled, and the one hour-ten minute set time including encore seemed just too short. Curiously, the set list (which I snagged) listed two encore sets, but instead of following the schedule, Mark picked songs at random after being called back up to the stage. But all this is nitpicking – in this year of the cash-in reunion tours, it’s good to see one band that’s still artistically vital and hasn’t lost a step.

Want more? The band’s website seems to have all of Love Songs For Patriots available to stream. Columbus Alive talks to Mark Eitzel about the AMC reunion (from Donewaiting). As I mentioned yesterday, here are my pics from the show. I think I overheard that the band will continue touring in the new year, so hopefully that’ll bring them up this way – I’d love to see them again.

Bob Mould finally addresses the rumours of a Husker Du reunion that have been swirling since Grant Hart joined him onstage at the Benefit for Karl Mueller concert last month. Long story short? Don’t expect to be dusting off those Land Speed Record-era t-shirts anytime soon. Or likely ever.

Billboard gets some info on the new Aimee Mann album, now entitled The Forgotten Arm and due out in March. Apparently it’s a concept album set in the ’70s. Alright then.

Ottawan Lucinda-like Kathleen Edwards will release her sophomore album Back To Me on March 1. Funnily, I was just thinking this weekend that I haven’t listened to Failer in ages. I should do something about that.

TV On The Radio has won the Shortlist Prize. I’ve actually never heard them, so I can’t comment on how deserving they are, but I do take some comfort in the fact that at least it wasn’t Franz Ferdinand.

So this guy claiming that he’s found Atlantis off the coast of Cyprus. I hope he’s right and that he’s wrong. Naturally, if his claims prove true, it’s an amazing find, but being a secret subscriber to crazy archaeology theories (hello Graham Hancock), I was/am hoping that one of the more out-there theories, like Atlantis is actually Antarctica, is true. It just makes the world that much more interesting. Hell, I’d settle for anywhere outside the Mediterranean. Personally, I’m more interested in them opening up the secret chamber underneath the Sphinx. The one Edgar Cayce predicted would hold the secret knowledge of the Atlanteans. Yeah, that one. I’ve just lost, like, ALL credibility, haven’t I? Chromewaves = nutbar. Yeah.

np – Will Johnson / Vultures Await

So I’m not sure where to begin with my Chicago trip, so we’ll start with last Friday – I’ll cover Saturday tomorrow. Left Toronto with no incident, and while I’m not religious, it was comforting to see a gaggle of nuns get on my flight. After landing in Chicago, I caught the El into downtown – okay, having a direct rail link to the airport is brilliant. Toronto has GOT to get off our asses and get to work on that.

Downtown Chicago is something else – epic and monolithic, it’s like the streets were carved out by narrow glaciers. Even on the sunniest days, the streets are predominantly in shadows and it’s like being in a canyon made of stone, glass and steel. The Sears Tower is one of the tallest buildings in the world, but if you look at the skyline of the city, it really doesn’t seem that tall – because they’re ALL that tall. It’s quite amazing and rather intimidating. As for the Sears Tower, I did the tourist-y thing and headed up to the observation deck. Nice view and all, though not as freaky as being up on the skydeck of the CN Tower, with the see-through floors and all. But the architecture around downtown was something else, though my favourite sighting were the two apartment buildings that adorn the cover of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Yah, big geek me. Millennium Park with the Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Concert Pavillion was also a real sight, and the Lincoln Park Zoo was fun. Hooray for free zoos and monkeys – actually my timing was excellent as pretty much all the animals were awake and active and otherwise doing stuff. I took a batch of pictures at most of these locales, which I’ll have online with more commentary sometime in the next few days. This post is going to be long enough as is.

And on the topic of scale (was I talking about scale? Well I am now…), I hadn’t realized that it was the third largest city in America, nor what that really meant in terms of scale. The place is huge – Toronto is hardly a rural outpost, but Chicago is a CITY. Here, everything interesting (at least by my measure) is located pretty centrally in the downtown – you could concievably walk from Little Italy to Yonge St, up to the Annex and back down to Queen West without really killing yourself. In Chicago, no way. There are countless districts, all of which have their own scene and things to do, and they’re not necessarily close to each other as I learned to my dismay. I don’t know how Larry and Balki managed to squeeze all that sightseeing into the opening credits of Perfect Strangers. As I mentioned before, I got lost on a couple occasions – with no CN Tower to use as reference, I had no concept of direction after coming out of an El station. Let me tell you, I felt like a winner getting off a bus after going a couple miles in the wrong direction, then standing at a bus stop for a half hour waiting for one heading the right way. Winner!

I did my best to dine on the local fare, including a deep-dish pizza at Pizzeria Uno and some interesting Mexican grub at Flash Taco in Wicker Park. The food at Schubas was quite good as well. I don’t know if I had everything I was supposed to, but I’m impressed I ate at all – usually when I travel, my meal schedule goes all to hell and I’m lucky if I get some McDonalds into my system. The number of actual sit-down meals I had this time was unprecedented.

Seeing the sights and savouring the flavours and all was nice, but of course I was here for the music – and there was good music to be had everywhere. Hell, even just waiting in line at the Chipotle for lunch, I heard native sons Jim O’Rourke and Wilco over the PA, as well as Luna in a Best Buy (don’t ask what I was doing in a Best Buy) and Sparklehorse on not one but two separate occasions. The record stores were also excellent – though I didn’t manage to find Championship Vinyl (har!), Reckless Records’ two locations were more than up to the task of taking most of my money – check out my haul over on the sidebar. All I have to say is thank God for the strong Canadian dollar.

And to get more specific on why I was in Chicago, we’ll just fast-forward to Luna’s show at the Abbey Pub on Friday night. Barring some sort of freaky temporal/physical displacement phenomenon, this would be my last time seeing Luna, so it was a little bittersweet. The Abbey is smaller than Lee’s Palace, where I saw Luna last Sunday, but has a capacity of 700 versus Lees’ 500 on account of a second balcony level around the perimeter. The upshot of all this was a much more packed and boisterous house than the Toronto show at this, the second of a two-night stand for the Luna. And speaking of Hogtown, opening things up was our very own Apostle Of Hustle. It seemed a little strange to travel 700 km to see a guy who could very well live down the street from me, but there we were. His set was interesting, combining instrumental and vocal numbers with a loose, jammy feel. I particularly liked the Cuban-inflected piece that he introduced as, “inspired by a place you’re not allowed to go”. It was certainly interesting to see a show from the perspective of an American audience.

Luna then came out to rapturous applause and got right to work. There’s not much to say that I didn’t already say in regards to last Sunday’s Toronto show, so I’ll keep this one brief. The setlist was pretty different from the Toronto show, thankfully for me. This night had a slightly mellower feel than the more rocking Toronto show and incorporated more Pup Tent and Days Of Our Nights material. Treats were “Bonnie and Clyde” with the audience covering Sean’s whooping background vocals for him, the first encore set of “Season Of The Witch” and “Indian Summer” and the appearance of Dean’s Galaxie 500-era black Gibson ES-335 Studio for a couple numbers. He didn’t actually play it when they did G500’s “Fourth Of July” for the second encore, but you can’t have everything. I’d also never noticed that Lee only plays a 3-piece kit. Even more respect to the man for doing what he does on just a kick, tom and snare. And cymbals. All in all, it was another excellent show that I’m glad to have caught. Here are my pics from the show – I wish I’d adjusted the white balance better. Everyone looks fine except Dean – the combination of his white outfit and the yellow spotlights make it look like he was soaked in pee or something. He wasn’t. The Chicago Tribune has a review of the first of the two shows (login: katie/navin) and there’s a set list here. And finally, a special thanks to Erik from the FDP for identifying a solitary Canuck in the audience and giving me a lift back to the hostel. I don’t want to guess how long it’d have taken me or how much it’d have cost me to get back from the Abbey. That place is in the middle of nowhere, or at least nowhere near transit.

Oh yeah, it was… interesting to be in a bar where smoking is allowed. I’m spoiled up here at home, I guess. I’d forgotten how much I hated having smoke waft in my face or leaving a club stinking of stale cigarettes.

I’ll save the American Music Club review for tomorrow. But if you want to see the pics, they’re already up here. Sneak preview – it was a GREAT show.

The Pernice Brothers live DVD/CD set has a name – Nobody’s Watching (har har) – and is now going to be coming out in late January. Maybe. And the new studio album is February/March. Maybe.

Okay, so I’m a little late on the news that Death Cab For Cutie has done the expected and gone major, signing a worldwide deal with Atlantic. Barsuk retains all rights to the back catalog and will be releasing a new live EP in the near future. I will be disappointed if there’s any sort of backlash by the indie kids – Ben and the boys have been courted by Atlantic and other majors for several years now, I imagine that they’ve taken the time to sign a deal that’s right for them and ensures they’ll remain creatively in control. Of all the indie-pop bands around, they have the most obvious cross-over appeal and they’d be silly not to try and capitalize on it. My goodness they’ve come a long way since I saw them play a half-full Horseshoe in October of 2001. Good luck, DCFC.

Chicago Innerview finds out from Jay Farrar just what went wrong with the Son Volt reunion.

Matador has updated their discography page. Get a sneak peek at what’s coming out next year! Triple-disc Yo La Tengo best-of with b-sides! New New Pornographers and Cat Power! No further info on these yet, but if the label is expecting them and has set aside catalog numbers, you can expect to see them in the first half of next year, at least. And on that topic, DJ Martian has a list of records that should see the light of day in 2005. From LHB.

Also from LHB – Wired talks to Wilco about the future of music and technology.

Bradley’s Almanac was at the Arcade Fire show in Boston this past weekend and even taped the thing. Sounds pretty good, too.

Good – Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy trailer and artwork. The movie is out May 6 of next year.

Bad – Elektra trailer and poster designs.

np – The Essex Green / The Long Goodbye