Nick Cave offers some memories of Johnny Cash.

Check out a track from the new Ryan Adams album, Rock N Roll. It ain’t country, folks.

Scott Levesque talks about Wheat’s epic multi-label odyssey in getting Per Second, Per Second, Per Second, Every Second released. The way things have gone, if I were them I wouldn’t assume that long, strange trip is over until the CD is actually on store shelves on October 28. Update: I suppose it’d be useful if I linked to the article I’m talking about. Sheesh.

Now that they’ve cast Batman, more info on the forthcoming film is coming to light. Noteworthy is they’ve revealed the villain of the piece – Ra’s Al-Ghul. A classic Batman villain, but hardly a household name (probably because he didn’t appear in the 60s television show).

So you might think that all I did this weekend was go to concerts. Well, that is pretty much all I did. Saturday I rode my bike from one end of town to the other and back again, picking up various sundry items on my ‘housewares to get’ list. Sunday I cleaned… and almost didn’t leave the apartment at all. I set up a server on my computer for doing some development work – it was actually really easy to get Apache, PHP and MySQL all installed and running. Who knew. But mostly, there’s been a lot of puttering around the apartment, coughing up a lung and dealing with the results of going to sleep really late.

np – Wheat / “World United Already”

Saturday night at the Horseshoe was a Good time. There was a pun there, though it’s okay if you didn’t catch it. I don’t mind. The Sadies were playing and anytime those boys take the stage, you’re guaranteed of a shit-kicking party.

Unbilled openers Ox’s Whiskeytown-esque country ballads initially impressed on the strength of Vancouver-ite Mark Browning’s strong vocals and instrumental arrangements, but sets end had lost a lot of interest due to the sameness of the material and consistently slow tempo. Ox would do well to offer a little more variety in their set, but they’re definitely doing something worth paying attention to.

The next band must have bribed someone to get on the bill… The Good Brothers, multiple Juno-award winning Canadian country stalwarts and also father and uncles to the Sadies’ Good brothers. The Good Brothers were consumate professionals delivering Maritime-influenced folk and country songs with gusto and polish.

The Sadies live are a force of nature. Nattily attired in matching faux-Nudie suits, Dallas and Travis Good reel off one jaw-dropping country/psych/rockabilly number after another with an instrumental prowess that boggles the mind. It says something about a band’s drawing power when they can pretty much sell out a largeish club like the ‘Shoe with only walk-up sales, there were no advance tickets. Last night was my third time seeing them, the second time headlining, and like last time this seemed less like a concert than a musical whirlwind that consumed the whole room. The Good brothers are a curious pair, Dallas being the laid back, congenial host and Travis the intense, hard-rocking foil. Watching Travis pummel his Gretsch makes me feel unworthy to come within 100 ft of a guitar ever again. Gawddamn these boys can play!

The family affair theme of the night continued with Margaret Good, the boys’ mother, coming onstage to take vocals on a few numbers (she also appears on most of their albums) and later on, their father as well. What it must have been to grow up in a household with so much music! Mind-boggling. Blue Rodeo’s Bob Egan also guested on pedal steel on much of the set. It was good to see Mike Belitsky behind the kit since he didn’t get to do drum duties this summer with his other band, The Pernice Brothers. And, as with the night before, there was a wholly expected but still rousing tribute to Johnny Cash, this time “Cry Cry Cry”. It seems odd to say, but I think I picked the right weekend to see a couple of unabashedly country-influenced acts.

The moral of this story? If you ever get a chance to see the Sadies live, by god you have to do it.

Photos? Sure.

np – The Sadies / Pure Diamond Gold

Last night was my first concert in about a month and a half, and it seems I’ve grown unaccustomed to large crowds. And there was a large crowd at Lee’s Palace for My Morning Jacket and The Sleepy Jackson. I guess the hefty promotional push this show had gotten over the past week did its job.

The Sleepy Jackson are a hotly-tipped outfit from Australia whose debut album Lovers is getting some solid reviews. Their live show traded off much of the eclecticism of the record for balls-out arena rock moves – there were more than the requisite number of windmills and feet on monitors, maybe something they’ve picked up from touring with MMJ. They were let down somewhat by a shoddy mix, but made up for it with enough energy and enthusiasm to impress much of the audience. I was particularly impressed with frontman Luke Steele’s ability to make sense of his pedalboard – the man must have had at least 20 different effect boxes on that thing. Insane, I’d hate to be his roadie. Lovers is available only on import in Canada, and they had no copies for sale at the show.

Kentucky’s My Morning Jacket were in Toronto for the fourth time in a year and a half, but for some reason this felt like their coming out party, promoting their major-label debut It Still Moves, out just this week. Two of their shows were opening stints for Doves and Foo Fighters and another show at the Horseshoe back in May seemed to have come and gone without anyone noticing. Well people noticed this time – It Still Moves has been getting high praise from everyone who matters (including me! – har har) for its blend of country, southern rock, gospel and blues boogie (yet still somehow remaining indie-rock approved). And there’s nothing about these guys that isn’t big. The songs are big – more than a few epic length jams. The sound is big – the backline was all Mesa/Boogie amps turned up to Spinal Tap levels. The hair is big – lots of whipping around huge huge rock-n-roll approved manes. The beards are big – enough said about that. The moves are big – anyone who thought the Sleepy Jackson had energy hadn’t seen ANYTHING yet. And the voice – Jimmy James has an incredible set of pipes, a massive, soaring, plaintive field holler that sends chills down your spine and wrapped in a huge blanket of reverb, it’s like hearing heartbroken dispatches from a mountaintop in Appalachia. Stunning. And while totally expected, his solo acoustic encore of “Ring Of Fire” was still a touching tribute to the passing of The Man In Black. So everyone who goes on about My Morning Jacket being an incredible live act? They’re right. And having picked up It Still Moves and At Dawn at the show, they’re no slouches on tape, either.

Oh yeah, photos.

np – My Morning Jacket / At Dawn

I watched Johnny Cash on Larry King Live two weeks ago, and was struck by how strong he was in his thought and speech, though he was so physically frail. I think losing his wife June in May of this year took a heavier toll on him than his health problems did. There’s a transcript of the interview here. Godspeed, Johnny.

On the subject of outlaw country, I got Steve Earle’s Ain’t Ever Satisfied compilation yesterday. It covers all his pre-prison records for MCA (a period I refer to as “Skinny Steve”), a section of his catalog that for some reason I can’t fully explain, I’d been avoiding. Maybe it was the ‘good ol boy’ stigma that I’d attached to Guitar Town and Copperhead Road, on account of the first time I heard of Steve Earle was from drunk yahoos back in university praising those albums. But seeing as how I’m out of post-prison (“Fat Steve”) albums to get, and each one kicks my ass like Mr T as Clubber Lang, it was time to investigate the older stuff. And I’m pleased to announce it’s solid. It’s less introspective and political than his more recent works, and the production is pretty slick, but the songwriting chops are definitely there and the man still had attitude to spare. I’m a little surprised I only knew one of the songs on the whole comp (the title track) since he had considerable mainstream success back in the day, but I think I was still avoiding CMT like the plague in my salad days. How little I knew.

RIP John Ritter. As LHB pointed out, however, at least he didn’t take all his secrets with him. Interestingly, there is actually a Regal Beagle pub down the street from me. I should go by tonight and see if there’s any sort of memorial service there.

I am on cold medication. My nose is clear but I have that lovely antihistamine-induced haze where you’re not really sure if you’re in real life or on a really well-built movie set.

np – The Sadies / Tremendous Efforts

Rest in peace. (Full story)