See the trailer for Masked And Anonymous starring Bob Dylan here. This may be the first time I’ve ever heard him speak a coherent sentence. A pretty all-star cast surrounding the peculiarly-mustachioed one – I suppose one of the perks of being Bob Dylan is that you can have Penelope Cruz cast as your love interest and no one would question it.

In case I never mentioned it, Tiny Mix Tapes is a terrific music site for as-it-happens music news and tour dates.

Speaking of other blog links, thanks to Done Waiting and The Minor Fall, The Major Lift for funnelling all sorts of traffic here over the last couple days. I feel loved.

Some cool Flash experiments.

np – Pernice Brothers / The World Won’t End

It’s a Saddle Creek kinda morning. Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley to get the day off on the right foot. I think I’ve seen the Saddle Creek 50 comp around town used – is this worth picking up?

The day actually started with the mp3 of Velocity Girl covering New Order’s “Your Silent Face” that 517 generously gave me. Soooo good. Look for that one as mp3 of the week very soon. Like, Saturday, probably.

The long long long awaited (by me, anyway) and oft-postponed new record from Wheat, Per Second Per Second Per Second Every Second FINALLY has a release date in the first week of October, which by my calendar puts it at October 7. While based on past history I wouldn’t make plans to camp out in front of a record store yet, that’s a far firmer street date than the album has had in its long history. While I still have some fears about what effect label machinations have had on the finished product, advance reviews from some trusted sources have been overwhelmingly positive. They’re hoping to do some touring in late summer – Here’s hoping.

And finally, congratulations to Joe Pernice and Laura Stein on their upcoming wedding. They will be tying the knot here in Toronto right around the date of the July 22 Pernice Brothers show. Ain’t nothing more romantic than SARS.

np – Rilo Kiley / The Execution Of All Things

What does two weeks of rust sound like? Pretty bad, to be honest. Sloppy, uninspired and just not altogether there… and that was just me! I had some trouble adjusting to hearing everything again, and it showed. I’m not too worried though, we always suck ass through a straw the first rehearsal after a long layoff. We should be much more on the ball on Thursday. And if not, well… there’s still most of a mickey of rye in the space. That’ll make us sound better.

Radiohead tickets are $48.75 and $58.75? I’m sorry? That can’t possible include lawns, because $50 for LAWNS is a fucking crime.

Today’s Bitchfork column is ‘post-breakup debacles’, and for talking smack about Mojave 3 and to a lesser extent, Cracker, Chris Ott needs a size-12 Doc Marten up the ass.

np – Wilco / The Complete Singles

Out of curiousity, I just checked out my site in Netscape 4.79.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry to any visitors still using it, but there’s not much I can/will do to make things less traumatic for you. The great irony of this is, YOU CAN’T EVEN READ THIS APOLOGY!!!

Oh, that’s rich.

np – Steve Earle / Jerusalem

Did you know the male platypus has venomous spurs on its ankles? You learn something new every day.

Some fun little site upgrades – I’ve added a nifty little favicon to this site that Netscape/Mozilla users should see in the location bar and IE users will see if they bookmark me… So go on. Bookmark me. It’s for the best, really. I’ve also added a Sitemeter counter so I can keep better track of all you lovely people poking around my site. Don’t worry, I’m a benign Big Brother.

This is turning out to be a very slow, lazy Monday, soundtracked by some very slow, lazy music (Red House Painters, Mojave 3, Slowdive). At least the morning is over – just gotta make it through the afternoon. First band rehearsal in two weeks tonight, my fingers are all tingly in anticipation. No, wait. I just hit my funny bone.

np – Red House Painters / Retrospective Disc 2