Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Laura Marling covers Mumford & Sons
Frank YangI can’t count the number of times (okay, I suppose via a text search I could) I’ve looked back to the evening of October 4, 2008 and shaken my head at the quality of the bill that played the Rivoli that night. Amongst the van full of exhausted young British folk revivalists wrapping up a North American tour were Laura Marling, at the time the marquee name on the bill with having her debut Alas I Cannot Swim being shortlisted for a Mercury Prize, headliner Johnny Flynn riding a well-received debut of his own in A Larum and the third act on the bill were there as Marling’s backing band, but had a few songs of their own they wanted to show off – that was Mumford & Sons.
Fast-forward a couple of years – Flynn has a second album in Been Listening, though it still awaits a North American release. Marling has gone two-for-two in Mercury Prize nominations with this year’s I Speak Because I Can and already has a third album in the can. And the boys in Mumford & Sons? Even though they had nothing released at the time of that Rivoli show save for an impossible-to-find EP, their anthemic bluegrass-rock has clearly struck a chord as they’ve gone on to be bigger than either of their tourmates, at least on this side of the Atlantic, where they’ve gone from unheralded opener to filling venues the capacity of Toronto’s Sound Academy, as they’ll almost certainly do on November 13. And oh yeah, their debut Sigh No More is also up for a Mercury Prize, which will be awarded next Tuesday, September 7.
So if Marling was looking to give her bandmates a bit of a leg up in terms of exposure when she covered “Roll Away Your Stone” months and months in advance of Sigh No More‘s release when she played a World Cafe session for NPR… I’d say it worked.
The Independent talks to a number of this year’s Mercury nominees, including Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons about the honour.
MP3 Laura Marling – “Roll Away Your Stone”
Video: Mumford & Sons – “Roll Away Your Stone”
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Frank Yang
Who: The Dø
What: French-Finnish duo covered hereabouts back in May who are impossible to pigeonhole and just as hard to resist
Why: Released in France to wide acclaim in 2008, their debut A Mouthful was released in North America this past May – they are touring to support
When: Saturday, September 11, 2010
Where: The Mod Club in Toronto (19+)
Who else: Local singer-songwriter Allie Hughes previews songs from her debut album, due out next year
How: Tickets for the show are $15.00 in advance, but courtesy of Embrace and The Musebox, I have one grand prize consisting of a pair of passes to the show, a copy of The Dø’s A Mouthful on CD and a copy of Allie Hughes’ self-titled EP and two secondary prizes of a pair of passes each to give away. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to do The Do” in the subject line and your full name and mailing address in the body, and have that in to me before midnight, September 8.
MP3: The Dø – “At Last”
Video: The Dø – “At Last”
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Samantha WestWho: Sam Amidon
What: American singer-songwriter who ranges from dense, avant-garde orchestrations as sparse, haunting folk and all points in between.
Why: Hitting the road in support of the release of I See The Sign this past Spring
When: Saturday, September 4, 2010
Where: The Drake Underground in Toronto (19+)
Who else: Forest City Lover frontwoman Kat Burns supports solo
How: Tickets for the show are $13.50 in advance and $15.00 at the door, but courtesy of Collective Concerts, I have two pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see Sam Amidon” in the subject line and your full name in the body before midnight, September 1.
MP3: Sam Amidon – “Cabin In The Corner”
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Crosby, Stills & Nash at The Air Canada Centre in Toronto
Frank YangHonestly, I’d thought that Tom Petty had retired. Between the themes of he and The Heartbreakers’ last studio record, 2002’s The Last DJ, and the victory lap of 2006’s 30th anniversary tour, I thought that he’d called it a day on active touring and my opportunities to see him perform had dried up. I don’t know how or why I had that notion, but it was clearly wrong as Wednesday night, there I was at the Air Canada Centre, ready to see Mr. Petty and company for the first time and, needless to say, excited about it. Update: And further proof I thought he retired – I completely forgot about the existence of 2006’s solo record Highway Companion. Oops.
Conversely, I’d never thought that Crosby, Stills & Nash had called it a day. Even though they’d not released a CSN record proper since 1994, they’d been touring constantly – sometimes with Neil Young, more often without – and though I had respect for their work and reputation, had never felt compelled to see them live. That said, I had no problem with adding another legendary act to my, “yeah I saw them” list. And that’s about all I got out of their almost headline-length opening set, as it was clear that whatever magic they had in their younger days was greatly diminished.
I appreciate that the ’60s are a long ways gone and all three had done more than their share of living in the interim, but hearing how shaky their once-pristine trademark harmonies had gotten was disappointing to say the least. They still performed with aplomb – more rock than their folk roots with Stephen Stills taking more than a few big rock guitar solos and Graham Nash chatty and charming as the group’s de facto spokesman – but the numbers that should have shone brightest, like “Our House” and “Love The One You’re With”, came off the wobbliest and they only got away with it because most of the audience was loudly singing along with all the old chestnuts and probably weren’t paying that close attention to the actual performance. One couldn’t help but think how this would have gone if Neil were along for the ride? He’d have probably kicked their asses backstage.
Petty and The Heartbreakers likewise came to give the people what they wanted to hear but did it almost perfectly, the way you’d expect one of America’s finest rock bands of the past 35 years to do. Petty, dapper in a duster and sporting a sharp-looking beard, was all smiles and Southern charm and opened with the big bold jangle of “Listen To Her Heart” before sliding effortlessly into a slightly greased-up “You Don’t Know How It Feels”. The band sounded nothing short of amazing as a unit – maybe not so surprising considering how long they’ve been playing together, but remarkable to see and hear nonetheless. The arrangements of the songs were largely faithful to the recorded versions, leaving their perfect pop structures and southern accents intact, but improvisationally pushing the edges just enough to let them stretch out and show off a bit. This mainly applied to lead guitarist Mike Campbell, whose economical solos on record serve the song perfectly but in live setting, allow him to inject that extra dose of flash and bang.
One gets the sense that letting Campbell better showcase his talents was a large part of the reasoning behind their blues-centric new record Mojo, which I should and do appreciate for giving them the excuse to head back on the road but not much else. The blues is not alien territory for the band, being an essential part of their Americana stew, but brought to the fore as it is on the new material, it’s just not interesting with their faithfulness to the genre coming at the expense of the hooks and melodies. The four-song set of Mojo material dropped in the middle of the set really put the damper on what to that point had been some terrific momentum though on the plus side, it did give Campbell some impressive solos and allowed a good portion of the audience to refill their beer.
That said, there wasn’t any better way to get things back on track than with a gorgeously stripped down version of “Learning To Fly”, followed by a thundering “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and a grand “Refugee” to close the main set. At this point the 11PM curfew was drawing awfully close, but there was no way the nearly-full arena was going to let things end without the encore, and so they returned for “Runnin’ Down A Dream” and what I thought for sure would be the coup de grace show stopper – and my favourite Petty tune – “American Girl”. But instead of the big ringing D chord I expected, they broke into the Wildflowers-vintage descending riff of “You Wreck Me” and while I like that song a lot, it’s not “American Girl”. And after the big linked-arm bows and the house lights came up, it became clear that there would be no “American Girl”. And as great as most of the show was to that point, it was and remains a bit of a bitter finish for me… In time I’ll be able to focus on the great 100 minutes they did play and not the three they didn’t, but y’know Campbell, you could have soloed just a little less and bought some time and it would have been perfect. Just saying.
The Toronto Sun, The Toronto Star, The Globe & Mail and eye all have reviews of the show.
Photos: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Crosby, Stills & Nash @ The Air Canada Centre – August 25, 2010
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Walls”
Video: Tom Petty – “You Wreck Me”
Video: Tom Petty – “You Don’t Know How It Feels”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Peace In L.A.”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “King’s Highway”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Into The Great Wide Open”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Learnin’ To Fly”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Yer So Bad”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “A Face In The Crowd”
Video: Tom Petty – “Free Fallin'”
Video: Tom Petty – “Runnin’ Down A Dream”
Video: Tom Petty – “I Won’t Back Down”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Jammin’ Me”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Rebels”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Don’t Come Around Here No More”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “You Got Lucky”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “A Woman In Love (It’s Not Me)”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “The Waiting”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Here Comes My Girl”
Video: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Refugee”
MySpace: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
MySpace: Crosby, Stills & Nash
As expected with such a massive tour already lined up, Sufjan Stevens will release his first new and proper album in ages on October 12, the day before he plays Massey Hall. Pitchfork has details on what to expect from The Age Of Adz and the first MP3 is up for grabs.
MP3: Sufjan Stevens – “I Walked”
James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem clarifies (or makes vaguer) his intentions to retire the band to The Quietus.
New York Magazine talks to Kevin Barnes of Of Montreal. Their new record False Priest is out September 14.
The Montreal Gazette and Chart have feature interviews with Land Of Talk’s Elizabeth Powell. They play Lee’s Palace on September 16.
alt.ohio interviews Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit, complete video of whose show in San Francisco from this past May is available to stream in its entirety at Revision 3.
Rose Elinor Dougall has premiered a new video from Without Why over at The Guardian. Her debut album is out on Monday.
Video: Rose Elinor Dougall – “Carry On”
The Vine interviews Warren Ellis of Grinderman. Grinderman 2 is out September 14 and they kick off their North American tour November 11 in Toronto at the Phoenix.
The second part of Le Blogotheque’s Take-Away Shows from NXNE is now up.
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
Los Campesinos! release EP, return to North America, won’t stay down
Jon BergmanNot much stops Los Campesinos!. The Welsh troupe shook off the departure of two founding members – keyboardist Aleksandra last Summer and drummer Ollie almost exactly a year later – and have ploughed ahead, continuing to release new music at a ridiculous pace, including their third album Romance Is Boring earlier this year and just this week, following up with a new EP entitled All’s Well That Ends. And just last week, frontman Gareth took a header whilst stage-diving and despite suffering “a sprained wrist, ripped ear, mild concussion and a ‘lump on the head'”, finished the song and the gig.
One thing that they couldn’t plough through, however, was a volcano – namely Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull. Said geological entity’s disquiet this past Spring forced the band to scotch a number of North American dates as they sat in a Heathrow departure lounge instead of pogoing around east coast stages, but they’re aiming to make some of those up and more. They just announced a Fall tour which kicks off in one of the cities who lost a show – Toronto – but instead of the spacious Phoenix, where they were slated to play in April, they’ll instead be at the decidedly clubbier Wrongbar on October 8. Considering the new joint is less than half the size of the old joint, expect the $20 tickets to be gone fast when they go on sale at 10AM on Friday.
MP3: Los Campesinos! – “There Are Listed Buildings”
MP3: Los Campesinos! – “The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future”
Paste reports that Noah & The Whale have targeted a March 2011 release for their third album.
Mojo talks to Johnny Marr about his soundtrack work.
Spinner talks to Glen Hansard of The Swell Season about their upcoming projects, which include a Frames reunion and tour for him and a solo record from Marketa Irglova.
Spin talks to Klara S&omul;derberg of First Aid Kit, who will be in town at the El Mocambo on October 15.
Boston post-punk legends Mission Of Burma have booked a date at The Garrison on October 22. So far it looks like a one-off and not part of a tour, but considering they didn’t come up here for last year’s The Sound The Speed The Light and are making it up to us. Either way, if my records are correct, they haven’t been here since Fall of 2006 and while the reunion has been ongoing for some time, do not take them for granted and if you haven’t seen them, do so. End PSA.
MP3: Mission Of Burma – “1, 2, 3 Partyy”
MP3: Mission Of Burma – “Max Ernst”
Exclaim reports that Matt & Kim have given their next record a name and release date. Expect to hear a lot of Sidewalks when they play the Phoenix on October 29, as it will be in stores the following Tuesday, November 2.
Daytrotter has a session with The Depreciation Guild; they’re at the El Mocambo on October 4.
NPR is streaming a studio session with Stars. They will be at Massey Hall on October 23.
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