I am calling next week “Crazy string of shows week”. Here’s a preview:

It starts Sunday night at the Rivoli with Sea Ray. I’m tingly in anticipation of this show, but am concerned that there’s not going to be much of a turnout – there’s no press on the band in either eye or NOW, I don’t think you can get the album locally and I’m not hearing anyone (except me) in the city talk about them. So I’m going to formally plea with any Torontonians reading this and who don’t have plans for Sunday night to come down and see the show – it’s $8 at the door and I guarantee you a great show. Not a money-back guarantee, that’d just be silly, but a guarantee with absolutely no real value whatsoever. But if you don’t like it, you can… I dunno, yell at me or something. Need a taste? Here’s some sample MP3s from their Stars At Noon album – “Revelry” and “Quiver”.

Then after a Monday off, I’ve got Iron & Wine at the Horseshoe Tuesday night. Advance tickets are all sold out though you’ll be able to get some at the door. And don’t forget the in-store at Soundscapes that evening at 7pm. If you need a Sam Beam fix before then, NOW has an interview and you can check out the lovely video for “Naked As We Came”. From Pop77.

Then the night after that I’m going to see Nellie McKay at Lee’s on Wednesday. Local songstress Jill Barber will be opening.

Next Thursday is Canada Day and thus a holiday and I’m also getting Friday off, making it a four-day weekend. Which is good because it gives me a whole day to prepare for The Magnetic Fields’ show at Trinity-St Paul’s that evening. And by “prepare”, I mean sit around all day eating Fritos and reading comic books.

Four shows in six days. That’s pretty hardcore, ain’t it?

The Black Table lists off what they consider to be the defining moments of humour for our generation. I confess I haven’t seen most of these, or even heard of a lot of them. I guess that’s why I don’t understand you damned kids these days.

Last night’s Lake Holiday show went pretty smoothly – there’s something to be said for intense regular gigging to polish out the performance. Of course, we’ll now probably take a couple months off before the next show, but whatever. Curious lineup with us, a five-piece with a slew of instruments, sandwiched between two solo performers. Dan Gorman was on first and impressed me with his soul-folk material. A shame his electric guitar was giving him technical difficulties after one song and he had to go acoustic as it gave his material a distinctive dimension. His vocals were really strong and soulful and the material quite strong. And he’s a really nice guy. Wax Mannequin, I didn’t really know what to make of. A guy with a guitar and a drum machine playing prog-arena rock anthems in leather pants and a wig. His fans ate it up though – it was like the most earnest joke act I’ve ever seen. Whatever floats your boat.

A nice touch on the evening was the number of unsolicited compliments we got on our set from people we don’t know. That’s rarely happened. A not-so-nice touch was some guy stoned on an unwise combination of chemicals going backstage during Wax’s set and stealing my camera and guitar strap from my gig bag. Thankfully, he had made a bit of a spectacle of himself earlier in the evening, so I had a pretty good idea of who the culprit was. Didn’t help his case that he was standing in the middle of the Rivoli fondling my guitar strap when I came looking for him. I browbeat him into giving me back my camera and he came by a little later and apologized, which was fine, and then he hugged me, which was a little weird, and then he tried to lick my ear, which was simply NOT on. Yeesh. Anyway, no harm done overall. No pictures from last night, which is a shame because we were all looking dead sexy, but we do have an mp3 of our cover of New Order’s “Love Vigilantes” if you want to hear it. I think the recording sounds pretty good and it’s as tight and clean as we’ve ever played it. Really freaking fast, though.

Also sad was that this was possibly/probably Five Seventeen’s last show with us, on account of him moving out west at the end of the Summer. It’s possible we’ll schedule more shows before he goes, but we’re already working on getting a replacement so we’ll have to cut the cord sometime. Sniff.

And now, once again, I am tired at work from having been up far too late the night before. I’m telling you – rock’n’roll is killing me.

np – Lambchop / Aw, C’Mon

So everyone’s playing the blame game over the demise of Lollapalooza – and don’t think that this is just for this year, it’s dead for good. Tell me what person in their right mind would lay down cash for tickets for this festival ever again? They could trot out a reunited Beatles with zombie John and George and people still wouldn’t go. It’s over. Now while I had hoped for the best – I did buy a ticket after all – I can’t say I’m surprised things ended up this way. I had my doubts about the viability of the whole festival from the get-go, but gave the organizers the benefit of the doubt that they had done their due diligence before embarking on the venture. After all – they were professional concert promoters and I was just a monkey with a blog. What did I know? Well, while I’m sure more specifics will come to light as the fallout from this continues, but it’s pretty obvious someone horribly misjudged their market. Information Leafblower, The Black Table and Zoilus have some solid thoughts as to what specifically might have gone wrong and I’ll reiterate what I would consider to be the key reasons in addition to the obvious ones of high ticket price and lousy venues.

First off, there was no slam dunk headliner. Though his disciples may say otherwise, Morrissey is not the act to anchor a tour of this size. His fans are devoted, but they’re not that numerous and don’t forget this is a guy who couldn’t get arrested a few years ago. I don’t know who would have been a better choice though maybe a reunited Pixies headlining every date might have done it? Probably not, actually. It’d likely take someone on the scale of a Radiohead to ensure success. But not the Moz and the String Cheese Incident. I mean come on. As Carl Wilson put it, even in Lollapalooza’s heyday, the headliner had radio hits and video play. We’re talking Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins at the height of the alternative/grunge explosion, not cult favourite veterans with solid but not huge fanbases. The music scene has gotten a lot more polarized in the last decade and there’s simply not the same amount of crossover between the underground and the overground anymore. The lineup put together this year certainly appealed to the indie cognoscente, but how many records have they sold? Even collectively? There’s only so many hipsters in the world, and when you factor out the ones who are utterly cynical about anything stadium-sized or corporate-scented, and you don’t have a crowd that’s going to fill the stadiums. You need to appeal to the mainstream for that, the people who attend maybe a half-dozen concerts a year and for whom shelling out $30-$40 to sit in a big outdoor venue is the norm. Not the scenesters who are accustomed to $10 shows in dank clubs. Coolfer succinctly put it in Leafblower’s comments, “the promoters were going for cred over fans”. And that thinking ain’t putting asses in the seats.

Secondly, scheduling it as a two-day events was pretty dumb. If they’d trimmed the lineup to include just the cream of the crop for a single day, they probably would have done alright, not to mention they would have been able to hit more cities. But trying for the two-day setup introduced a host more problems. First, if your city got the tour on weekdays you would have had to take days off work, at least if the punter wanted to catch the whole show (scheduled to start at 2 in the afternoon). Of course, this applied mostly to the 9-5 working stiffs – you know, the ones who’d likely have the scratch to shell out for the expensive seats. So in addition to the high ticket prices and convoluted pricing structures, you had to factor in the time off of work and if you wanted to go to both days, that’s times two. I can’t speak for anyone else, but two vacation days are worth a helluva lot to me. If Toronto’s day two had fallen on a day that I didn’t already have off, I probably wouldn’t have bothered getting a ticket.

While the demise of Lollapalooza, the fiasco of Field Day last year and the quiet disappearance of All Tomorrow’s Parties on these shores puts a question mark on the concept of huge festivals in North America (Europe seems much more receptive to the format), it’s important to note that there are still successful festivals going on in North America – witness the longevity of Ozzfest and the Warped Tour, and Curiosa seems to be doing well. Similarly, by all reports Coachella, Austin City Limits and Bonnaroo were pretty damn successful (people dying notwithstanding). I think the fault is lying more on the shoulders of the organizers (using the term generously) rather than the festivals themselves. It’s just that for the amount of money you have to invest to make something like this happen (I imagine the overhead and logistics are staggering), you can’t take a gamble on the goods. Ozzy and Black Sabbath are a sure bet. Morrissey is not.

In the end, though, I feel bad for the bands. While they will still get a percentage of their fees, they’re still pretty much fucked for the rest of the summer. They’re in tough to book shows of their own for July and August this late in the season, so that’s a couple months they won’t be making the money they had budgeted on. I do hope that some of the acts on the bill will manage to find their own way into town, but it’s a raw deal for everyone involved, any way you slice it. Lollapalooza, RIP.

Postscript to this screed – It occurs to me that I may come across as slagging on the Moz for not being a good enough headliner. I’m not, really – adding him to the bill was inspired. It just wasn’t enough. No hate mail, please, but if you’re going to send it at least come up with some clever epithets.

And now for something completely different. News that isn’t a eulogy for Lollapalooza!

A new Saturday Looks Good To Me album hits September 14 on Polyvinyl, name of Every Night. You can hear sample unmastered mp3s from the record here. Their last album All Your Summer Songs was easily one of my favorite discoveries of the past year, so I’m quite looking forward to this one. Great indie-pop music done up in that sweet Motown/Spector style. Yessir.

The new Luna album Rendezvous (which seems to have graduated from tenative title to actual title) will be out September 28. Touring to follow in October and November.

Live and demo versions of songs you might be hearing on the new Spoon album. From Catbirdseat.

Thought I was all out of Wilco news? Not quite – you can download a live version of “Hell Is Chrome” from their recent hometown show at the Vic in Chicago here or listen to whole show streaming-like via the enhanced portion of the A Ghost Is Born CD. They just give and they give and they give.

The Globe & Mail reflects on the glory of vinyl. It has long been my secret shame as a music geek that I don’t own a record player. I’m sure I could take the old one from home anytime I wanted – I think it’s a Dual – but I have nowhere to put it and I’m sure it’d need a goodly amount of TLC to get it back into game shape. I think the next time I move, provided it’s somewhere with more room, I’ll inherit myself the turntable and see what it can do. From Thrasher’s Blog.

Anyone planning on coming out to see Lake Holiday wtih Wax Mannequin at the Rivoli tonight, doors are at 9 and cover is $7. Hey, it’s not our show, we can’t do anything about that. I’m also not sure what time we’re on, or whether we’re on first or second. In fact, I don’t know anything. At all.

np – Wilco / A Ghost Is Born

For the sake of brevity, let’s just say everything I wrote about Ted Leo back in March still holds. It was a little bit smaller and probably a little more sedate crowd to see him last night, but come on – it’s a Monday night. Cut us some slack. Thankfully, I don’t think it’s possible to dampen Ted’s spirits. He was in high spirits all night, chatting with the crowd between songs like an old friend, even though his gear was slowly self-destructing behind him. Last time it was his Echoplex that was cutting out – this time, his amp started giving up the ghost about halfway through the set and while he managed to keep it going, his tone deteriorated steadliy throughout and by the end of the encore the guit was sounding pretty crappy. Not that that affected the quality of the performance, of course. There was a hefty amount of new material in the set and I can say with some authority that Shake The Streets is going to be rocking even more than Dokken. Can’t wait till October for that one.

If I have any complaint, it’s the absence of any merch for sale. Alas, no Pharmacists t-shirt for me. Also, I applaud the lighting guy for managing to determine the exact combination of lights that would make the band nigh invisible to my camera. Seriously, I was standing not three feet in front of Ted, yet any flash-less photos just came out black. Amazing. I didn’t want to blind the guy from so close so I held off snapping any shots until he pulled back from the stage whilst soloing (which was a lot, thankfully). You can see last night’s shots here, or the ones from March here.

It’s officially A Ghost Is Born day today! Everything has a ghost theme. I myself and dressed in a white sheet and let me tell you, typing ain’t easy. Metacritic has compiled all the major reviews online (currently sitting at a 79%, which is actually about what I’d expect). Also, interviews/features/stories from MTV, The Associated Press, NPR (in audio!), Pitchfork and Stylus. And no, I don’t have the record yet. Will dash out after work and grab it.

The bad news for the day is that Lollapalooza has been cancelled. After my initial shock and disappointment passed, I can’t say I’m that surprised. The costs of assembling a huge lineup like they did can’t have been insignificant, and they may have overestimated the ability of the acts to draw the necessary crowds – in fact I questioned the financial viability of the festival from the get-go. Sure, it was an amazingly hip lineup but hipsters don’t generally have money. I will blame the Bush economy for this one. So my questions are:

1) How much of my money will I get back from Ticketmaster? If it’s just face value, I will be very unhappy since there ended up being about a 75% markup on the thing. Not that I can do anything about it but whinge.

2) Wilco has shows booked in Montreal and Ottawa on the two days preceding their originally scheduled Lolla date in Toronto on the 6th of August. Will they try to re-book? I mean, they’ll be in the neighbourhood and from what I can tell, none of the larger venues have announced any shows on that date yet. If there’s a silver lining to this, maybe it’d be that Wilco would do their own proper show rather than a festival date. Though missing out on The Flaming Lips sucks.

Rough Trade is releasing a nice little compilation featuring indiepop from yesterday and today and you can listen to a aural documentary about the story of Creation Records here.

My legs hurt.

np – various artists / Wig In A Box: Songs From and Inspired by Hedwig & The Angry Inch

The Hidden Cameras are playing a show at Trinty-St. Paul’s on July 23rd to celebrate the release of Mississauga Goddam on July 12. Tickets $10 at the door. Of course, this is the same night I was planning to see Camera Obscura at the Horseshoe… Two photographically-named bands on the same night – what are the odds? The Toronto indie-kid contingent has some hard decisions to make that night. Hard decisions indeed. Hidden Camera shows are always a blast, but Camera Obscura have come such a long way from Scotland and I already have my ticket… I figure I’ll still go to that and hope the Hidden Cameras play more local shows through the summer. Or at least one more.

Blah blah blah Wilco blah blah blah New York Times article blah blah blah… Look, I can’t help it that people keep writing about them and I have to keep linking them. It’s a compulsive disorder. Help me. Oh, and some may have noticed that Amazon.com was offering a bonus track for those who pre-ordered A Ghost Is Born before it’s official release tomorrow – if you’re curious, it’s a studio version of “Kicking Television”, which was a staple on the last few tours. I have a copy and honestly, it’s a throwaway. Live, it was a punkish treat amongst the slower numbers in the set but the recorded version is pretty lifeless. Download it if you like – I’m sure it’s available everywhere by now – but if you don’t find a copy don’t lose any sleep over it.

And if you ever wanted to learn to make cookies the Tweedy family way… now you can.

Fans of Wonderfalls may want to kick up their Bit Torrent clients – screener versions of unaired episodes 5 and 8 have made their way onto the internet and you can find the seeds on Suprnova. Save Wonderfalls also has good news for those waiting for a DVD release – series writer Tim Minear recently posted the following on a message board: “Looks as though 20th is going to go through with Wonderfalls DVDs. The folks on the DVD marketing side love the 13 episodes and see great potential. We’re talking about extras and commentary and all that good stuff. December/Holiday release was mentioned. I’ll keep you updated.” YAY.

Watched Stephen Frears’ The Grifters last night, after having the DVD-R sit on my shelf for at least a couple months. Interesting film – a story about con artists where there’s not actually any con. Nice performances by Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening and a very young John Cusack.

Made lasagna last night for the first time ever. Pretty fucking good if I do say so myself.

np – Royal City / Little Heart’s Ease

Death Cab For Cutie have a website! Lots of good stuff there – journal, news, mp3s and videos and a breakdown of all their gear for the guitar geek-inclined. From Tomorrow Is Already Here.

Glorious Noise interviews The Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot, author of the Wilco book Learning How To Die. And Jeff Tweedy will be appearing as a guest voice on the Canadian animated series Odd Job Jack, starring Don McKellar. The episode will air July 17 at 8:30pm on the Comedy Network in Canada.

A note related to the current mp3 of the week – the Daniel Johnston tribute album The Late, Great Daniel Johnson: Discovered Covered will be out on September 21. Check out the all-star lineup and tracklisting at Filter.

Clinic and their surgical masks will be at Lee’s on November 5.

Note to Liz Phair on the occasion of her Stuff Magazine photospread – no one cares anymore. Sorry.

Cheers to Largehearted Boy for including Lake Holiday in his list of daily downloads. Must’ve been a really slow day, eh? But to make it worthwhile, we’ve added an mp3 of a new song recorded this past Thursday at Sneaky Dee’s. Check it out in the ‘Music’ section of the website.

I may hate Clear Channel with every fibre of my being, but I am pleased they’re bringing the Blue Man Group to Toronto. That was the one show I had really wanted to see in Las Vegas but didn’t feel like trying to explain exactly what it was to my parents. Now I’ll be able to just go down the street to see it! Nice.

As I mentioned yesterday, I did my democratic duty a week early and voted in the Federal election at an advance poll. So much more convenient than rushing out on Monday night after work. So while I’m still anxious about how things are going to turn out, my part in all this business is done.

np – Calexico / Hot Rail