Elliott Smith’s last album, From A Basement On The Hill, came out yesterday. Elliott Smith died a year ago tomorrow. I remember being floored when I heard the news – if I’d heard it a year previously, when Smith had pretty much disappeared off the radar and there were rumours that he was in bad shape in regards to his drug use, I admit that I may not have been surprised. But throughout 2003 there were encouraging reports that he was clean, productive and hard at work on his new record – and then on the morning on October 21 on my usual rounds of the music news sites, there it was – “Elliott Smith dead at 34”. What the hell. And I still shudder when I think about HOW he died. If it was suicide, which still isn’t conclusive (though the last thing anyone needs is a Cobain-esque conspiracy theory), then the sheer violence of the act is still incomprehensible to me.

The San Francisco Bay-Guardian looks at the aftereffects of his death, one year on and talks to engineer Dave McConnell, who believes that Basement is not the album Elliott would have wanted. He says that the family-endorsed mixes stayed too close to Smith’s past works whereas he had intended the album to be a stylistic step forward. You can hear some of those more experimental tangents on tracks like “Coast To Coast” and “Shooting Star”, with their denser, rawer production values – even after being mixed and mastered under the ministrations of Smith’s family, they still stand in pretty stark contrast to the more conventional, prettier numbers on the record. Is this the direction that Smith would have ultimately moved in or just a detour in his musical path? We can only speculate. As it is, it’s difficult to listen to the record without considering the context of its creation, without hearing some manner of foreshadowing of his death. Grim, but true.

NPR also has an audio piece on Smith and the record, including interviews with many of the principals involved with preparing the final album for release. The Grand Rapids Press wonders if Smith’s death will overshadow his body of work. And as a final note, the Elliott Smith – Olympia, Washington live DVD which was supposed to come out November 30 has been postponed due to legal wranglings with Smith’s former label Dreamworks. What a surprise.

The New York Times reviews the Arcade Fire’s show at CMJ this year. Verdict? They likey.

In talking about the release of Aimee Mann’s live album and DVD Live At St. Ann’s Warehouse on November 2, Chart reveals that her next studio album, King Of The Jailhouse, should be out in March of next year.

The Brett Anderson/Bernard Butler project has a name – The Tears. Um yeah. That’s bad, sorry. NME has an interview with the, uh, Tears, about the new record due out in the Spring.

Season premiere of The West Wing tonight! Finally, something presidential that doesn’t make me want to gouge out my eyes with dessert spoons.

This clip from an old UK children’s TV show called Rainbow is insane. From Pop Tart.

I am giving up the guitar. Anyone who needs someone to rock one of these in their band, take a number. I am going to be the coolest kid on my block, fo’ shizzle. From Gizmodo.

Kurt Vonnegut grills Kilgore Trout about voting, giraffes, and the tying of shoelaces. Trout then kills himself by drinking Drano.

Oh – and to the guy I made fun of earlier this week for getting to my site by Googling “odds of red sox winning from three nothing defecit”? I take it back.

np – Calexico / The Black Light

Saturday Looks Good To Me the studio band and Saturday Looks Good To Me the live band are two very different propositions.

Hailing from Ann Arbor, Michigan (is it bad form to call Ann Arbor Detroit?), the former is a massive collective effort (the last two albums featured 27 and 19 different credited players and singers, respectively) masterminded by Fred Thomas, creating massively ornate, unapologetically retro-sounding pop in the spirit of Motown, Brian Wilson and Phil Spector. The use of a large cast of singers makes the records sound more like long-lost mix tapes found in the back seat of a 1969 Chevelle.

The live experience, on the other hand, varies depending on who can come out on the road with them. Their show last July at Rancho Relaxo was as bare bones as could be, with Thomas fronting a three-piece unit that rearranged the songs into highly-charged fuzzy pop blasts that while entertaining, didn’t do the recordings justice. To their credit, they did the best they could and did put on an entertaining show, but if you’d heard the albums you couldn’t help but be a little bit disappointed.

This time around, however, they got it totally right. The six-piece touring band comprised all the main players who recorded Every Night and the difference they made was night and day. The most key addition was of Betty Marie Barnes to handle all the female vocals on the album (as well as provide some nice visual benefits… read: she’s a cutie) – I couldn’t imagine numbers like “The Girl’s Distracted” or “Underwater Heartbeat” without the boy/girl duets. In addition, the saxophone and separate bassist and keyboardist (last time it was one guy, the saxophonist, ironically, who handled both duties) really filled out the sound and brought the album arrangements to life.

The turnout was pretty meagre, to be expected for a Monday night, but the band put on a terrific show regardless – my butt was bopping pretty much the whole night. Thomas was oddly charming as frontman, though not as hyperactive as last time around, and full props to Scott DeRoche who, despite breaking the e-string on his bass three-quarters of the way through the set, still managed to finish the show by tuning the a-string down a fifth and playing everything on one string. That’s impressive. I highly recommend anyone who can catch this tour while it’s still going – they’re in Canada for the next few days:

Oct 19, 2004 @ Irene’s Pub – Ottawa, ONT

Oct 20, 2004 @ El Salon – Montreal, QBE

Oct 21, 2004 @ The Underground – Hamilton, ONT

Oct 22, 2004 @ Call The Office – London, ONT

I only arrived in time to catch the second opener, Picastro. Their PJ Harvey/Cat Power-esque droney narcolepsy-core was an odd match for SLGTM’s buoyant retro-pop, but they kept their set short so it didn’t throw off the mood too much. Don’t get me wrong – I like some of what Picastro does, but it just wasn’t the sort of thing I was in the mood for last night.

Photos from the show here.

…So I missed The Daily Show last night, on account of being at the aforementioned concert. Anyone know where I can find a downloadable copy of it? It hasn’t shown up on bit torrent yet.

Comic book fans will be pleased to know that the Miracleman drama is apparently finally over. While on the road, Neil Gaiman confirmed that the series would be returning to stores within 18 months or so courtesy of Marvel, presumably in the form of trades collecting both Alan Moore and Gaiman’s legendary runs on the title, and the conclusion of “The Silver Age” storyline. There’s some question as to whether it will return as Miracleman or Marvelman, seeing as how the latter was the character’s original name and it was only changed when Marvel – the same company who will be publishing it – complained in the 80s.

Hamsters piloting giant robot hamsters to combat evil make me happy. From Gizmodo.

There is a courtyard of naked men at the club/lounge outside my office window. They appear to be shooting something. It’s like 6 degrees Centigrade out there – not very flattering weather. The girls in my office have gone to take pictures regardless. A very perplexing way to start the morning.

np – Charlotte Hatherley / Grey Will Fade

Comic blog The Beat is reporting that the title role in the next Superman film has finally been cast. According to their sources, Some dude named Brandon Routh will be donning the tights and leaping tall buildings in a single bound, and unnamed Warner Bros execs have confirmed the casting. There’s even pics of him dressed up like the big blue banana for a costume party of some sort circulating – though how these got out so quickly, I don’t know if I want to know. I realize those big black plastic National Health-type glasses were supposed to make Clark Kent look extra nebbish, but nowadays they just make him look like some hipster or emo kid. But I suppose that’s offset by the fact that he sometimes wears his underwear on the outside. Interesting bit of trivia – Mr Routh’s birthday is October 9 – the same day that the last Superman, Christopher Reeve, died. Last movie Superman, anyway. Dean Cain is still alive, even if his career isn’t. Zing!

And not to be outdone by his Metropolis rival, Gotham City’s Batman today released additional cast photos from the his upcoming film, Batman Begins, including a shot of Ken Watanabe as Ra’s Al-Ghul.

I’m quite excited about the release of Pavement’s Crooked Rain Crooked Rain in its expanded L.A.’s Desert Origins double-disc format next week. In addition to the original album, there’s an additional 37 (!) tracks filling out the set – as much as I liked the Slanted & Enchanted deluxe set, I think I’ll prefer this one simply because it collects material from an era where they were arguably at the peak of their powers. I like scratchy, lo-fi recordings with noisy, hamfisted guitar as much as the next guy, but the extra bit of refinement and polish that the CRCR material should have in the production, performance and writing departments will be quite welcome. Anyway, until the reissue hits the stores, both their North American and European labels are doing what they can to further whet peoples’ appetites – Domino Records is streaming 21 of the new tracks, one per day, through the rest of October. They’re already a cou[le days in so you’ve missed a wee bit of it. Meanwhile, Matador is letting you have only one track for the time being, but they’re letting you download it and keep it and rename it “Skippy” and build it a little house out of a matchbox if you so desire. Cause they’re just those kind of guys. Thanks to Catbirdseat and Stereogum for the tip-offs.

Spin gets Jeff Tweedy to list off the records that changed his life. Link from For The Records. Update: Odd, link doesn’t seem to be working anymore…

Stylus handicaps the Shortlist of Music finalists.

The Modern Age has come back out of hiding in her /temp directory.

Note for anyone else who’s planning to hit the Saturday Looks Good To Me at the Silver Dollar tonight – doors at 9, openers are locals The Don’t Be Shys and Picastro and the headliners should be on at approximately 11:15. Cover will be approximately $7. Approximately.

So I’ve been going through my Chromewaves email inbox and seen there’s been a number of emails that I haven’t replied to or have otherwise gotten lost in the shuffle – if you’re waiting for a response to something, I apologize. I am utterly slack sometimes. Um, but don’t necessarily interpret this as a sign that you WILL get a response back any time soon – I’m just apologizing.

np – My Bloody Valentine / Loveless

The Pernice Brothers have revealed a little more info on their upcoming live album/DVD. On the audio side, it’ll have a show culled from two nights at the Mercury Lounge in New York from this past January and the DVD will contain live footage from all over combined with wacky ‘on the road’ hijinks and the music videos for “Baby In Two” and “Weakest Shade Of Blue”, which you can also see on the website. They’re shooting for a Thanksgiving release (late November, for non-Americans) and it’ll be available almost exclusively through mail order domestically – it may get proper distribution overseas.

And on a Boston-related note, I found this as a search string in my referer logs yesterday: “odds of red sox winning from three nothing defecit”. Oh you poor, poor bastards.

Caught The Manchurian Candidate at the Bloor last night. Some interesting bits of political commentary, especially in the current climate, but the main story was too absurd to really consider as social commentary. I didn’t think Denzel Washington was nearly paranoid enough considering the scope of the conspiracy he was beginning to unravel, but that’s neither here nor there. Meryl Streep was suitably over-the-top hammy as Liev Schrieber’s manipulative Senator mommy though also creepy where the film demanded it. And in the ‘just odd’ department were Robyn Hitchcock’s brief appearance as a bad guy and having the film’s climax play out over Fountains Of Wayne’s “Better Days”. Overall it was just alright, nothing really special. Though I think John Kerry should keep a sharp eye on that John Edwards fellow. He looks a little shifty.

Jon Stewart is on the cover of the new Rolling Stone. Excerpt from the cover story here. I haven’t bought an issue of Rolling Stone in many many years, but I *may* have to put aside my general disdain for it this week.

Craploads of Calexico downloads available here. Don’t forget their World Drifts In DVD just came out and it’s supposed to be excellent. From Sixeyes.

Rolling Stone runs a brief piece announcing the dissolution of Luna. From LHB.

Cause you all know I’m a covers whore – Stylus compiles a list of ten cover versions that altered the meaning of a song.

Tickets for the December 2 Feist show at The Phoenix will run you fifteen bones, on sale now. Ah, hell – I think I’ll go to this.

np – Tift Merritt / Bramble Rose

I don’t ever watch CNN’s Crossfire, so I can’t say that I just happened to miss Jon Stewart’s appearance on the show – I didn’t know about it and never would have… if it hadn’t ended up being such a remarkable piece of television. In a nutshell, the show had wanted Stewart to come on, make some jokes and shill The Daily Show‘s new book but instead Stewart wanted to be dead serious (as much as he can be) and tear them a new one for their journalistic failings in regards to their political guests. He calls them “partisan hacks” and singles out host Tucker Carlson as “a dick”, and when Carlson tries to stop his screed by saying, “Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny”, Stewart retorts, “No. I’m not going to be your monkey”. So fucking good.

It’s truly fascinating to watch. I think it’s one of the rare times that Stewart seems 100% sincere about what he’s talking about – and I don’t mean that he usually seems insincere, far from it, but here he’s not using irony or “we’re fake news” card to cover his position. When he’s pleading with them to “Please stop” as they’re cutting him off to go to commercial, there’s a real desperation there. I didn’t think it was possible for me to respect Stewart more than I already did, but there you go. Whether he admits it or not, he’s got tremendous influence right now and to see him actually take a serious position on an important issue was heartening. The Big Ticket has a good synopsis of the incident and a slew of links for your further edification, and you can grab a torrent of the segment here – it’ll be a super-fast download ’cause I’m sure EVERYONE is trying to download this as well – download it in non-torrent form here or here, or read the official transcript of the episode here. But really, you have to see it.

Keeping on a political angle, Mother Jones talks to longtime political activist Steve Earle about his activities over the current election season and The Nation talks to newbie political activist Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie about taking part in the Vote For Change tour. Both links from Largehearted Boy.

And in a completely apolitical story, Billboard gets an update on the status of the new Broken Social Scene record, now due out in late March or early April.

The Guardian takes a nostalgic look back at the great British indie-pop C86 boom of the mid-80s and how it’s making a comeback in the sounds of today’s hot new artists. And as a primer for the curious, they offer a list of their top 10 indiepop singles.

You know how last week I posted a couple covers of Wire’s “Outdoor Miner”? If you liked that, you’ll LOVE this – A Houseguest’s Wish isn’t just a tribute album to Wire – it’s a tribute album to Wire’s SONG. You get nineteen – yes, that’s IXX for you Romans out there – different versions of the classic tune. And you know what? I’d actually like to hear this – it’s a great song. The Luna track I posted is NOT on the comp, while the Lush one is. I also hear there’s a Ted Leo cover kicking around – anyone have it?

np – Scud Mountain Boys / Massachusetts