It’s a little bit cute, it’s a whole lot gross. Happy Tree Friends. From 517… eeeep.

Ted Leo has a website, and it’s pretty swanky. Now if there was any musical justice in the world, he’d be living in a swank Beverly Hills mansion instead of at home in New Jersey with his parents.

Built To Spill are doing a rare tour of the northeastern US this Fall, but are of course giving Canada a pass. They play Vancouver, but not Toronto. What is up with that? Is it the SARS? We’re sorry about the SARS but the SARS is gone. The closest date is September 21 in Detroit. Full tour dates at Tiny Mix Tapes.

np – Heavenly / Le Jardin De Heavenly

Spent most of today driving Kate to sell a big box of CDs, getting groceries, etc. I bought Lambchop’s Is A Woman off her, as well as the second Amos House Collection. This to go along with the new Starflyer 59 album I picked up yesterday.

Went to see another apartment this evening… I am dropping off an application and deposit cheque tomorrow. God willing it’ll be mine. I don’t want to say anymore for fear of jinxing it. But it’s pretty nice and I have my fingers crossed.

There is a website for the new Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean children’s book, Wolves In The Wall.

np – Broken Social Scene / You Forgot It In People

A little bit of grist for the long-dormant My Bloody Valentine rumour mill… the Blisscent mailing list offered up the following tidbit:

My Bloody Valentine Back in the Studio after 12 Year Hiatus

Sometimes news comes down the grapevine that’s so good you have to spread the word. Otherwise it would be an injustice to humanity. When word came to those of us at Under the Radar that My Bloody Valentine have been holed up in a Berlin studio we couldn’t quite believe it. After all, the band hasn’t released anything in twelve years. Being the dutiful rock journalists that we are we sought confirmation on the rumor only to be foiled again. Our source on this bit of breaking news wishes to remain strictly anonymous. But he did confirm the buzz.

My Bloody Valentine is finally back in the studio. As it turns out an MBV box set is due out sometime this winter and Kevin Shields, Colin O’Ciosiog and Bilinda Butcher are back in the studio to re-record a few songs for it. No, there will not be a new MBV album, but the band is re-recording 5 songs they had abandoned for the Glider EP. Originally the Glider EP was to be a full-length album, but due to pressures from the record company Shields decided to only release five songs as an EP because the other material wasn’t ready to see the light of day. The left over Glider songs were shelved and Shields and company moved on to the never-ending Loveless sessions. As many of you know, after Loveless the band went their separate ways (for whatever speculative reason) and those leftover Glider songs remained on the shelf….until now. Although there has been no confirmation on whether or not vocalist Debbie Googe is also in on the new sessions it is a bona fide fact that My Bloody Valentine will release Glider as a full-length album contained within the new MBV box set, if all goes well.

Woo hoo!

np – Teenage Fanclub / Grand Prix

Went to see two more apartments today. The first was the farthest one I’ve considered to date, and as I was cycling up there and realizing just how far out it was, I decided it was time to sit down and re-evaluate my criteria for a place to live. The place itself was *okay*, but the area felt like the north end of Hamilton for some reason, and I don’t much care for the north end of Hamilton. And it really was far – probably a 15 to 20 minute walk to a subway station. I can do better than that.

Like the second place I looked at – you could see Bathurst station from the porch. The location was the best imaginable, right in the middle of everything, but off the main streets just enough to be quiet. The landlady was very nice, the price was reasonable for what was offered. So why aren’t I taking it? Short answer is it’s too small. It’s the main floor of a small house, and there are no closets. No storage. You couldn’t call it a one-bedroom, there was just what used to be the living room and dining room. The kitchen and bathroom were about as small as you could get while still fitting in all the appliances and whatnot. I think the kitchen was the kicker – you had to turn sideways to squeeze between the refrigerator and the countertop. It’s a shame, because there were a lot of positives about it, but the negatives weren’t fixable and I wouldn’t be able to get past them. And so we keep looking. This whole rigamarole is wearing me down, let me tell you.

Sandwiched between looking at apartments, I went to see a play at the Fringe Festival – this one was called Leggs Over Easy, featuring sketch comedy by the Scrambled Leggs troupe. It was alright – a few real prize moments and a lot of just okay ones. They were well received, though, and show potential.

Tonight, after I take a little nap and digest the sushi I had for dinner, it’s off to an indie-pop night called The Stolen Wine Social. It’s probably the same thing as the International Colouring Contest was, and every other indie pop night in the city, but it’ll be some decent music and get me out of the house, so that’s a good thing.

The Catbirdseat strikes again! Hipster Bingo. This stuff is gold.

np – Starflyer 59 / Old

The Billy Bragg show tonight at the ElMo was correctly billed as “Talking Woody” – as in Woody Guthrie – because that’s exactly what it was. Billy talking about Woody, singing his songs. It was as much a history lesson as concert, with Bragg taking extended breaks between songs to talk about Woody Guthrie’s post-dustbowl days, when he wrote most of the Mermaid Avenue songs, the making of the Mermaid Avenue records and generally provide a deeper insight to the man who’s mostly known as the “This Land Is My Land” guy to some and a dirty Commie to others. Bragg’s reverence for the man and his work was clearly evident but so was his trademark mischeviousness, as he easily traded quips with the audience and took a couple good-natured shots at Morrissey. Unsurprisingly, he had a lot to say about recent world events – though always hilariously so – and his views and opinions were well-received by the sold-out audience of, and this is me taking a wild guess, socialists, lefties and more than a few Commies.

Musically, it was just Bragg, his green Burns Steer (by far the oddest and maybe ugliest guitar ever made – but perfect for him) and a songbook comprised of photocopies of Guthries original lyric sheets, which he took great delight in showing off. It was interesting to hear Bragg’s cockney in place of Jeff Tweedy’s rasp on the songs that Tweedy performed on record, the delivery sometimes adding a different spin to the song, sometimes just sounding odd (“Joe DiMaggio Done It Again”, mainly). He did apologize for not doing any of his own material, but was fairly emphatic that this evening be about Woody. It was an understandable decision but still mildly disappointing, though that was alleviated by his hilariously ad-libbed version of encore closer “Waiting For The Great Leap Forward” (one couplet being, “If you’ve got a website/I wanna be on it” – well Bill, here you go. He did promise to return next year with a proper set of Bragg material, likely to promote the double disc Must I Paint You A Picture? compilation, out October 7. I doubt that show will be nearly as intimate as this one was, but I don’t doubt it’ll be terrific.