Monday, February 19th, 2007

Hello Starling

Maybe it’s the relatively close proximity from his hometown of Moscow, Idaho to the 49th parallel, but Josh Ritter has always seemed to exhibit a special fondness for Canada and judging from the sold-out Horseshoe Tavern on Thursday night, Canada loves him too. Taking a break from recording the follow-up to his splendid 2006 release The Animal Years, Ritter has been touring across North America in a solo acoustic format playing smaller venues than he would normally, much to the delight of those in attendance.

Opening for him on this evening was Julie Fader, whom I didn’t recognize until she took the stage – once upon a time and under her real name of Julie MacDonald, she fronted Hamilton space-rock band Flux AD whose career I followed a decade ago. Since then, she went on to tour in Sarah Harmer’s band which is where she likely met Ritter (he opened on tour for Harmer a few years back). Her new solo material is rather conventional acoustic singer-songwriter fare, though the textural guitar and keys work from former Flux AD bandmate Graham Walsh helped give it an extra dimension. On the plus side, her voice is still simultaneously crystalline and weary, but on the minus side, her lyrics are almost painfully plain and direct. That could well be by design, but a little metaphor or inscrutability could go a long way.

As a songwriter, Ritter wears his influences a bit on his sleeve with obvious nods to Dylan and Springsteen in his work, but rather than assuming the voice of the former’s barbed-tongued commentator or the latter’s blue-collar everyman, he instead comes across as the earnest collegian – intelligent, optimistic and romantic (if perhaps a bit bruised). Clad in a white pinstriped suit, full beard and a wide grin, Ritter bounded onstage at 11PM and spent the next hour and half communing and commiserating with the crowd. The dynamic between performer and audience was pretty much as you’d hope for in such an environment, with he alternately storytelling or just conversing with his fans between songs – casual, intimate and genuine.

The set list played out pretty much exactly as you’d expect – leaning heavily on The Animal Years with the expansive “Thin Blue Flame” as the centrepiece/finale (or second last song, anyways) but also including some older material – at least some from Hello Starling, maybe even further back, I don’t know the first two records – and some covers. A Springsteen quote here, Waits there, and once again his take on Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel No 2”. All of it sounded marvelous, Ritter proving himself to be an artist who can make a solo acoustic show dynamic and engaging and this is coming from someone who’s a bit of a hard sell on the format. While I certainly won’t complain when Ritter comes back to town with his band, whenever that would be, I also wouldn’t be disappointed if he left them at home again.

The Winnipeg Sun and Georgia Straight talk to Ritter about the roots of his songcraft and the politics of The Animal Years, respectively.

Photos: Josh Ritter, Julie Fader @ The Horseshoe – February 15, 2007
MP3: Josh Ritter – “Girl In The War”
MP3: Josh Ritter – “Thin Blue Flame”
MP3: Josh Ritter – “Chelsea Hotel No 2” (live at the Rivoli, Feb 2005)
MySpace: Josh Ritter
MySpace: Julie Fader

Filter has posted online their recent cover story pitting The Office‘s John Krasinski against The Shins. Okay, it’s not so much a pitting against as a lot of mutual back-patting (and in Krasinski’s case, self-back patting). An interesting idea in theory but not so much in practice. Elsewhere, The Georgia Straight declares James Mercer to be not cocky, Dave Hernandez talks to The Seattle Times and The Salt Lake Tribune about debuting at #2 on the Billboard charts and Marty Crandall chats with The Seattle PI. And The Wall Street Journal compares the band to former SubPop meal tickets Nirvana. The Shins are at the Kool Haus on St Patrick’s Day.

And for more Office/indie rock synchronicity, tune in to Saturday Night Live this week –
Saturday Night Live – Rainn Wilson, aka Dwight K Schrute, hosts and Arcade Fire are the musical guest. For reals.

Mew return to Toronto on March 26 for a show at the Mod Club, Scots Aerogramme and The Twilight Sad team up with Hamilton’s A Northern Chorus for a show at the ElMon on April 6 ($12 advance) and The Wooden Stars mark their return to active duty with a CD release show at the Horseshoe on April 19, tickets $10. Their first album in almost eight years, People Are Different, is out April 10. I used to be in a chess club with one of the guys in The Wooden Stars. True story. And to celebrate the release of The Reminder on May 1, Feist will perform at the Grand Old Lady of Shuter Street, Massey Hall, on May 26. The first single from the album, “My Moon My Man”, is making the rounds on ye olde internet – it sounds great and that show would surely be something to see.

And speaking of Massey Hall, there’s some video footage available from the DVD component of the forthcoming Neil Young release Live At Massey Hall, due out March 13. Pitchfork reports that Young is already at work on his next studio album, so even though 2007 will be the year that he finally journeys through his past (Archives is out this Fall), he’s still moving ahead into the future. Update: Nix on that new album info – for some reason Google News grabbed a PF headline two years old and served it up as current and I didn’t read closely. Until further notice, Neil will be sitting around the ranch, just hanging out.

Stream: Neil Young – Live At Massey Hall trailer

Someone who claims to have knowledge of such things posted the following on The National’s mailing list about their new album:

The music is great, perhaps a bit more of a mellow vibe than Alligator overall — perhaps somewhere between the Cherry Tree mellow/beautiful sound and the Alligator more up-beat/rocking sound. Most notable about the record is that it has the best arrangements they’ve done, by far, and there’s some unexpected & wonderful new elements that you haven’t heard before. Think trumpets, and other brass instruments; increased use of female backing vocals; excellent piano bits by Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman & sideman to David Byrne, Bebel Gilberto, Laurie Anderson, The Frames, Yoko Ono); and possible even some playing by band friend, Sufjan Stevens.

Thematically it intertwines songs about love, songs about war, and songs about office life. Or, more correctly, songs that are about all three topics at the same time.

Sounds plausible. The record is still untitled but should be out on May 22.

And not surprisingly, I spent a good chunk of this weekend perusing the SxSW schedule and while I’ve got a preliminary grid finished, I’m not committing to anything until I’ve gone through some/all of the MP3s provided to assist in the decision making process. HearYa has consolidated links to all with streaming functionality on one convenient page while Donewaiting directs us to the 3.1GB torrent of all available MP3s. You know, I don’t even know that I have that much space on my iPod.

Monday, January 29th, 2007

500 Up

The last time I saw Sloan was in first-year university, almost eleven years ago and MAN does that make me feel old. And it’s not because I stopped liking them, I simply never got around to it. So while there was literally a bounty of other shows going on in town Saturday night, I opted to stand out in the cold at City Hall as Sloan played as part of the WinterCity Festival. And while I guess it was fortunate that the unseasonably warm spell that had defined Winter this far ended a few weeks ago (or it wouldn’t have been very Winter-y), it made for some frigid toes after a while.

Sloan have been Canadian institutions since 1993 and though they’re no longer necessarily the hippest band amongst those inclined to care about such things, they’ve always managed to maintain a remarkable level of quality from album to album. Even when they sound like they’re phoning it in a bit, as some of the more recent records have implied, it’s still pretty decent power pop. And though I’ve not heard it, all indications are that their latest Never Hear The End Of It – out in Canada last September and earlier this month in the US – is their most inspired record in some time. Them boys still got some gas in the tank.

Since I’ve got all their earlier stuff (even if my copy of Pretty Together is scratched and needs replacing) and didn’t recognize most of what they opened up with, I assume they led with the new material. It sounded like vintage Sloan (well, more recent vintage Sloan), meaning equal parts 60s and 70s AM radio rock and intros that tend to sound a bit like the opening of “Spirit In The Sky”. It was all well and good but as an old-schooler, I was happiest in the last third of the show when they finally began dipping into the old stuff. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed those records – Twice Removed and One Chord To Another came along at very crucial times in my musical development. But damn, the songs hold up and you can’t not sing along.

There was a time when a Sloan show was a hit or miss affair (a perception which may well have been a factor in my decade-long hiatus from their concerts) but I guess you can’t really keep at it for as long as they have without getting your act together. And as you might expect, their act was a lot of Chris Murphy being equal parts goofy and dorky, Patrick Pentland getting in his share of rock star moves (no one else’s foot went on the monitor), Jay Ferguson as the shy wallflower type and Andrew Scott generally doing whatever it is drummers do though the instrument switch portion of the show (nice to see they’re still doing that) brought him out front to take lead vocal on a few numbers.

With the exception of Pentland and Scott having gone completely gray, the Sloan boys have aged pretty damn well – I suspect that Murphy and Ferguson maintain their youthful demeanor by feeding on the blood of the other two, but I’ve no proof. At one point, Chris Murphy was asking who in the audience was in high school when their various records were released, gauging the age of the audience. I was around 18 when Sloan first hit the scene, and judging from the response he got, lots of others were around the same age when they first discovered the band, whichever album it might have been. And I realized that at a Sloan show, everyone’s 18 years old. And it felt good.

But Hell’s bells it was cold, even if it was only -4 Centigrade (or so the Weather Network would have us believe). I have to say that unless we get some serious localized global warming action over Nathan Philips this coming Saturday when The New Pornographers play, I’m going to have to give it a pass.

Photos: Sloan @ Nathan Philips Square – January 27, 2007
MP3: Sloan – “Can’t You Figure It Out”
MySpace: Sloan

Josh Ritter talks to The Richmond Times-Dispatch about the direction of his new record and how much he enjoys playing solo, as he will at the Horseshoe on February 15. He also tells The Virginian-Pilot not to look for anything autobiographical in his songs – “I can’t stand autobiography in songs”. And for those of you who were catching him on his west coast dates, sadly opener Will Sheff has had to cancel after injuring his voice recording the new Okkervil River album. Support for the Toronto show will be Julie Fader.

Yo La Tengo are currently on tour in the American southwest and where the Yo La goes, interviews follow. The Daily Beacon, Orlando Sentinel and Miami New Times chat with James McNew while The Tallahassee Democrat minces words with Ira Kaplan.

The Maria Taylor show scheduled for March 21 at the El Mocambo has been moved to The Horseshoe. Saddle Creek has a couple MP3s available from her new album Lynn Teeter Flower, out March 6.

MP3: Maria Taylor – “A Good Start”
MP3: Maria Taylor – “Lost Time”

Look for Interpol’s third album and major-label debut on June 5 (via MusicTAP).

Prefix has it that Idlewild’s Make Another World will see a North American release on April 3. We still get a staggered release from its March 5 UK release but one month is far better than the 12 or more that it took the last few records to make it over here. They’ve just released a second single and thus a second video from the new album.

Video: Idlewild – “No Emotion” (Flash)

Tapes ‘N Tapes are slated to be at Lee’s Palace on May 16. I’m never sure where the apostrophe is supposed to go in their name.

Despite a rocky inaugural edition and the demise of V2 records in North America, Virgin Fest is a go again for 2007 – times two. It’s expanding to Vancouver this year, taking place at UBC’s Thunderbird Stadium on Victoria Day weekend (May 20 and 21) and some of their headliners have already been announced. Looks like they’re looking to attract a more Alternative Press-type crowd, with the likes of My Chemical Romance, Billy Talent, Muse, The Killers, AFI and Hot Hot Heat being counted on to draw the crowds. This is probably a savvy move since the alt.kids seem to have more disposable cash than the indie kids and more inclined to do the big corporate festival thing. We’ll have to see if this M.O. carries over to the Toronto edition when the lineup is announced later this Spring. It’s scheduled to once again hit the Toronto Islands on September 8 and 9. Here’s hoping for warmer weather and fewer leaky boats.

np – Midnight Movies / Lion The Girl