Went to see a new-ish local act last night, Friday Morning’s Regret. Despite the emo-ish name, these guys actually trade in some very convincing alt.country. Just a three-piece (acoustic guitar/harmonica, drums, bass) but the songs and arrangements are terrific. Certainly worth paying attention to.

October 7 continues to pull ahead in the race to be the day most replete with cool new releases. Add to the list the new Ted Leo & The Pharmacists EP, Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead. Full tracklisting and a preview mp3 are available at Lookout! Records’ website.

Spiritualized’s Fall tour to promote Amazing Grace has a stop in Toronto at the Opera House on October 19 with Soledad Brothers in tow. Even when he’s rocking out, as he’s supposed to be doing on the new record, Spaceman & Co. are pretty snoozy. And $31 a ticket? Nooooo.

I missed their CD release party a few weeks ago, but Metric give me another shot when they play the Horseshoe September 27 with Tangiers.

The new issue of Magnet is a 10th anniversary special, and takes a look back at the indie rock scene from 1993-2003. Check out that Pablo Honey-era shot of Radiohead on the cover! Nice hair, Thom!

Speaking of the ‘Head and weird-looking Thom Yorke, you can see the new, all CGI video for “Go To Sleep” here. And if you’re feeling inclined to eat up all your bandwidth, there’s many many many Radiohead b-sides, live tracks and rarities for download here. Like, LOTS. All in zip files. Grab ’em while you can. Link-o from El Boy-o Largeheart-o.

np – Beulah / The Coast Is Never Clear

Ryan Adams has renamed his oft-delayed new album to the simple, Rock N Roll and has it slated for a November release. Which means that it will be delayed and renamed in early October, the 4-disc box set put back on the release schedule sometime around the third week of October and Ryan will scrap the whole deal by the first week of November in favour of writing more pissy letters to music writers who’ve said unkind things about him in the past. Lather, rinse, repeat. From Miss Modernage.

Comic Book Resources talks to Grant Morrison about the end of his run on New X-Men, his upcoming stint on Superman and myriad other things. Clicky.

Hrmm. Slow day.

np – Elliott Smith / Either/Or

Why can’t I live in a place where I can vote for either Arnold Schwazenegger, Larry Flynt or Gary Coleman for governor? Why why why? I bet the campaign ads will be awesome.

I just saw a Mariah Carey video where Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction is prancing around shirtless on the stage with her, striking guitar god moves without there being any audible guitar in the song. I am confused and dismayed.

Stuff like this might have kept me taking piano lessons when I was a kid. Maybe.

Skyscraper talks to Billy Bragg, an excellent interview. Once again, thanks to Largehearted Boy for the link – and the copy of Martin Amis’ Time’s Arrow winding it’s way to me soon.

San Franciscan drum-and-organ popsters Mates Of State pay a visit to the Horseshoe on September 25 to promote the release of their third album Team Boo, out the previous week.

np – Jay Farrar / Terroir Blues

Yesterday was the third or fourth release date I’d had for the new Metric record, but finally it was the correct one. Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? is pretty good, though it’s been a little while since I’d heard something with this degree of polished production. Thankfully, Emily Haines’ vocals are left pretty pure and unprocessed, they’re strong enough as is. She sounds a bit like Sarah Harmer in her phrasing and timbre, but trading in the folkiness for rock and roll attitude. Good stuff from these Toronto ex-pats. Exclaim! ran a cover story on Metric last month.

Dancing robots. Sure, they look like a lot of fun… but wait till they turn on you. From Ms Lonetree.

MyIE2 is a new web browser with all the features of current browsers, such as tabs, pop-up blocking, crazy customizability, but built off of Internet Explorer instead of Mozilla/Netscape. I still have to use IE for a few of my regular websites because they just don’t function right in Mozilla, so this looks like it could be handy for those. I love Mozilla, but it’s not the fastest browser on the market and it’s pretty memory-intensive. I doubt I’ll switch completely but it’ll be fun to have a new web-browsing toy to play with.

Another day, another release date I feel compelled to report on. Yo La Tengo will release a new EP, Today Is The Day, in October. It will feature a different version of the titular Summer Sun track and five other songs.

Update: The tracklisting is as follows –

“Today Is The Day”

“Styles Of The Times”

“Outsmartner”

“Needle Of Death” (Bert Jansch)

“Dr. Crash”

“Cherry Chapstick” (previously unreleased version)

Done Waiting bring word that Beth Orton will release a compilation of b-sides from Daybreaker. The Other Side Of Daybreak is out September 2 and sadly, after the snorefest that was Daybreaker, I can’t bring myself to get too excited about the cast-off material. But hey – her buddy Ryan Adams put out an odds-and-sods collection (Demolition) that was much better than the ‘proper’ album preceding it (Gold), so I might yet be surprised. If I ever get around to listening to it.

The Denver Post ran this article on the success of Matador Records recently. Nothing really illuminating, but it’s nice of them to notice. They also ran a companion piece about other indie labels of note. What, no props for Bloodshot? Links from Largehearted Boy.

While there is absolutely nothing official right now, it would not shock me to see Death Cab For Cutie in or around Toronto on or around mid-October promoting Transatlanticism. I hear things, what can I say.

That mysterious Neutral Milk Hotel release scheduled for August 19, entitled T-Shirt I mentioned a couple weeks back? You’ll never guess what it is. Never ever. Turns out… it’s a t-shirt. Yeah. Debate raged fast and furious on the Elephant 6 Town Hall on the matter.

More Eitzel/AMC reunion news. There’s something wrong with the world when I’m getting my indie rock scoops from Rolling Stone. So very very wrong.

np – various artists / The Bridge – A Tribute To Neil Young

Contrary to my previous report, the new Belle and Sebastian album will be out Oct 7 and entitled Dear Catastrope Waitress. I never thought I’d see the day where I couldn’t believe what I read on the internet. I reserve the right to be totally wrong about this as well, though responsibility for the scoop falls squarely on the shoulders of Tiny Mix Tapes.

While on the subject of fey Scottish pop bands, Travis’ new album 12 Memories will be out in October.

Ted Leo has an EP of new material including Jam and Style Council covers coming out in October. From Delusions Of Adequacy.

The new American Music Club album, You Better Watch What You Say, is scheduled for a Spring 2004 release. Pitchfork talks to Mark Eitzel about the reunion.

JAM! talks to Grandaddy in advance of their Toronto show tomorrow night.

Crazy shit from the Largehearted Boy – Classic videos rendered in ASCII. It’s like the Matrix devoured VH1. Cool and somehow unsettling at the same time.

UPDATE: The new Shins album is entitled Chutes Too Narrow. Full details and an interview with James Mercer here.

np – The Tyde / Twice