Saturday, July 9th, 2005
Free concerts are good. Free concerts taking place down the street from home are better. As part of the opening ceremonies for this year’s Celebrate Toronto! street festival, our fair city assembled a suitably eclectic (read: strange) lineup for a free show at Dundas Square last night. The big draw (for me, anyway), was Broken Social Scene’s closing set. The wild card, however, was something called Les Girafes, Urban Operetta.
Described as “ambulatory spectacle set to original music with elements of circus arts, theatre, dance and opera” and imported from France (duh), what it was nine giant (8-metres high) red giraffe puppet things winding their way through Dundas Square and up and down Yonge St while a clown and giraffe-master woman performed an opera of some description with attendent pyrotechnics and explosions of tissue paper confetti. I found it fascinating to watch these things, huge and elegant – they could have been dragons as much as giraffes – wind their way through the crowd and around the Eaton Centre. It’s rather hard to describe in words – here are some pics.
Not surprisingly, the local message board punters are falling over themselves to come up with clever ways to say how much they hated the giraffes. People around here complain about how dull and unimaginative Toronto is, and then when they do do something that is utterly bizarre and unique, they bitch about it. My take? People just like to complain far too much. Yeah, it’s unfortunate that the operetta went on so long as to cut into Broken Social’s set time, but I thought that witnessing something so utterly surreal was worth it. You’ve seen the band a dozen times before and you’ll see them again – lighten up, Francis.
When Broken Social did finally take the stage, it seemed almost as strange as the giraffes to see them in the white plastic tent set up at the front of the Square. I thought the elevated platform built at the southeast corner was supposed to be a stage? Why the need for a temporary one? The band also seemed to feel a little out of place at the venue, Kevin Drew asking the crowd if it was alright that they were playing there (but saying that got a big wad of cash for it) and Brendan Canning pointing out that one of the giant video screens displaying the show made it appear that they were sponsored by L’Oreal.
Playing with a compact lineup (at least for them) of six to nine members, the Scene on this night was bolstered by the presence of Torq, Amy and Evan from Stars who had just flown in from Stockholm that morning. I had feared that due to scheduling, none of the BSS ladies would be in attendence but Amy’s presence headed off any more “Broken Sausage Scene” jokes I might have made, and believe me, I’d have gone there. Also noteworthy was Evan’s dubious moustache. Uh, no guy. No.
Thanks to the giraffe overrun, BSS had to play a somewhat compressed set that incorporated new material and old – the new stuff sounds so good, Windsurfing Nation will simply destroy. Mark my words. But the abbreviated playing time meant that the band didn’t quite get a chance to get up to full throttle. They’re a jammy act and usually need a little time to find the groove, something they just didn’t have the luxury of on this night. And while the huge crowd was surely inspiring, the antiseptic beer tent stage with the “Toronto Unlimited” branding all over it couldn’t have been a real mood-enhancer.
But complaints seem discourteous. It was a gorgeous night, the crowd was into it, it was free and a lovely time was had by all. Unless you were trampled by a giraffe, but then at least you have a story to tell. I was a little ways back so my photos aren’t the most dynamic I’ve ever taken, but not bad either.
Tofuhut has an excellent interview with Feist, complete with musical recommendations. From BrooklynVegan via For The Records.
Rachael Yamagata tells The Salt Lake Tribune that her second album, which she’ll start recording this Fall, will be a more guitar rock affair. Via Largehearted Boy.
Frank Black gives Chart a state of the Pixies (re)union.
What do you get when you cross a guy with a camera and no compunctions with some makeout point in Japan? Hilarity. And rage. Actually a lot of rage.
np – Longwave / There’s A Fire
Friday, July 8th, 2005
Exlaim! asks Stephen Malkmus questions. Stephen Malkmus responds. Magnet thinks this is a good idea and also asks Stephen Malkmus questions. Malkmus answers those as well. And if you need more sage wisdom from the Malk-man, I direct you to these previously posted pieces from Chart, CMJ, Chart (again), Flagpole and Paste. Even Questionable Content pays tribute. Bask in the Malkmus. Bask in his dapperness. Bask.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Blogcritics considers the ouvre of Malkmus’ old outfit, Pavement. And if you were hoping for a 10th anniversary deluxe edition of Wowee Zowee this year, sorry to disappoint you but there will not be one – not in ’05, anyway. Maybe next year.
By the way – how is SM’s new album, Face The Truth? I have the first two and like them alright – I never really feel the urge to listen to them, but when I do I enjoy them well enough. Here’s a track from the new album, courtesy of Matador. It seems to have a little more kick than the stuff on the first two albums but I haven’t decided if that makes it better.
MP3: Stephen Malkmus – “Baby C’Mon”
Billboard has a much more detailed breakdown of what to expect from the Billy Bragg reissues and box set coming out September 20. The clarification provided pretty much assures me that the box is something I want to have – those bonuses sound sweet. It’s sure to be a pricey item, but that’s why God invented Boxing Day sales!
Billboard also previews Death Cab For Cutie’s Plans, out August 30.
My Morning Jacket has had the release of their new album Z pushed back a couple of weeks until October 4.
PopMatters hails Colin Meloy as champion of the “faggy” outsider. Meloy and his Decemberists are once again at the Phoenix on October 13 with Cass McCombs supporting.
The East Bay Express examines the 33 1/3 series of books. Via Coolfer. I haven’t read nearly as many of these as I’d like. I wonder if the library has them?
More comic creator interviews – Londonist talks to Warren Ellis and Comic Book Resources chats with local boy Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of Scott Pilgrim. Volume three is due out in December! Huzzah.
I’ve selected the winners for my Doves contest – if you won, you know already. If not, well, I’m sure your life is still fulfilling in some way. You will soldier on. I expect I’ll be running more contests in the future, so stay tuned. They will certainly require more effort that this one though, oh yes. I will have my entertainment value.
After a day like yesterday, it was great fun to arrive home after work to find traffic snarled around my block in all directions. Turns out the police had cordoned off the entire street in front of the block directly north of mine for some reason they weren’t at liberty to divulge. It couldn’t have been too big a danger since there were only two bike cops standing watch and they were letting people walk by and I was free to go into my apartment, but still – unnerving. This actually happened a few years ago when anthrax scares were all the rage – the building across the street from me is a government facility, hence the potential target-ness of it. I don’t really see what terrorists would stand to gain from disrupting the Ontario drivers license renewal process, but I can’t let that deter me. If I’m willing to drive with a license that has my incorrect address on it, the terrorists have won.
np – Amusement Parks On Fire / Amusement Parks On Fire
Thursday, July 7th, 2005
Mostly bits and pieces today.
The second part of the PopMatters interview with Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers is finally up. Part one ran a month and a half ago – I was afraid they’d completely forgotten about finishing it off. Wire’s thoughts on the first two Manics albums, with the benefit of fifteen years of hindsight, are particularly interesting. Also, where they discuss the US mix of The Holy Bible vs the UK one – I have the Canadian version of that one. Was that the US version?
Stylus rediscovers the bleak majesty of American Music Club’s Mercury.
Frank Black insists to NOW that the Pixies reunion, still ongoing despite all odds, is not a big hate-in for himself and Kim Deal. They might even start recording some new material at year’s end. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t anything near a gramatically correct paragraph, but what can you do.
Some all-ages shows of note coming in September to the X-Space (which I think is in Kensington Market but I’m not certain) – on September 8th, Xiu Xiu with Frog Eyes and Das Yellow Swans and on the 24th, Portland’s The Gossip with We Are Wolves. Both shows $10 advance, $12 at the door. And the Against The Grain ad in this week’s NOW is teasing that The Decemberists will be back in town before too long. Probably late September/early October.
Torontoist. Week in shows. Blah blah blah.
Comic creator interviews with the brilliant and the insane – Millarworld talks to Joss Whedon (via Bradley’s Almanac) and Collector Times gets 20 questions with Dave Sim.
I went to see Old Boy again at the Bloor last night. You may remember me being stupefied after seeing it at the Film Festival last Fall. Um, still stupefying, even on second viewing. I thought I was ready for everything but I forgot about the teeth. Oooch.
I also got a copy of The National’s Alligator last night, though I’m not sure why. It’s on my Amazon wish list which implies that I wanted it at some point, but I don’t really remember adding it. Thankfully, a) it was used and cheap, and b) it’s pretty damn good.
Good thoughts to everyone in London today.
np – The National / Alligator
Wednesday, July 6th, 2005
I don’t keep a list of contemporary artists for whom I would really want a box set, but if I did, Billy Bragg would surely be near the top of the list – at least for his earlier and mid-period records. I had been tempted to get the three-disc Must I Paint You A Picture? compilation a couple years ago but held off, not really wanting the more recent material.
Now with Pitchfork reporting that Yep Roc will be reissuing his first four albums as double-disc reissues, individually and as a seven-disc box set which also includes a concert DVD, I have to consider if this is archive I’ve been waiting for. I find Bragg’s early discography to be a wee bit muddled – His first two albums (Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy and Brewing Up) were already collected on the Back To Basics set while the third album, Talking With The Taxman About Poetry, is available individually or in double-album format with fourth album Worker’s Playtime on the Victim Of Geography collection, which is what I’ve got.
So with Yep Roc releasing the first two albums as individual entities along What does it mean? I don’t know, I’m already confused. How do four individual double-disc sets combine into a 7-disc box set, including a bonus DVD? Something getting lost in the compiling? Or maybe Pitchfork’s math is off, I don’t know – I can’t find a proper press release that might shed some more light on exactly what the reissue configurations will be… Naturally, it’s the bonus materials that will decide whether or not these are worth getting, but I’d like to be reasonably economical in making the stuff I’ve already got redundant.
Billboard reports that in addition to the In The Reins collaborative EP with Iron & Wine due out on September 20, Calexico will be releasing their follow-up to 2003’s Feast Of Wire in the Spring of next year. They’re also doing some touring through the Summer that will bring them to Canada, but they’re going the wrong way up the 401 with stops in Ottawa and Quebec City. Alas. Calexico are one of my very favourite live bands – I hope the In The Reins tour comes through Hogtown.
Also in Billboard – not a whole lot of new information about the new Sigur Ros album. It will be out in September, narrowed down a bit from the Fall window they’d announced previously, and lyrics are written in Icelandic this time, rather than their usual made-up language of Hopelandish. This, of course, means that their songs will be precisely 0% more comprehensible to me. Excellent.
If you, like me, are feeling a Brian Eno-sized hole in your musical education, mayhap this primer/timeline courtesy of Exclaim will be just the thing to get you started.
Not a concert, per se, but sure to be a hot ticket regardless – Pollstar has The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart is coming to town for a stand-up gig at Massey Hall on October 7. Tickets go on sale Monday and will run you $55.50 to $79.50.
Tiny Mix Tapes rattles off ten things that made them (collectively) want to be rock stars. Rather than rock writers. “Bastards Of Young”? Hell, yes.
np – Echo & The Bunnymen / Songs To Learn & Sing
Tuesday, July 5th, 2005
So today was supposed to be the day you could go out and get a copy of Sufjan Stevens’ latest opus, Illinois, but as I reported Saturday, it’s been shelved thanks to the threat of legal action from DC Comics due to the inclusion of one Superman image on the album art.
As a result, Asthmatic Kitty has ended online sales and recalled all copies of CDs already shipped to stores. The Big Ticket has got a nice, concise summary of the story thus far, including links to commentary from around blog-ville and links to an interview with Sufjan by Dusted in happier, pre-recall times. He also has a link to an MP3 of the song for which this post is titled really, the song that’s the impetus for all this legal kerfuffleing. Big Ticket, we salute you.
MP3: Sufjan Stevens – “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts”
Of course, if shops have already sold copies, there’s naught to be done, but if you haven’t already gotten one, you’ll have to wait until August 2 for the new versions with the Supes-less artwork. I expect they’ll just replace the booklets in the already-pressed CD packages… hmm, opening thousands of sealed CDs and swapping booklets? Sounds like someone’s going to be hiring some interns… So yeah, while you can’t buy the album until its new release date of August 2, you CAN buy this sharp poster featuring Sufjan and his Illinoisemakers (née The Michigan Militia).
And as I’ve said before, the album is marvelous and still worth the wait (easy for me to say since I’ve already got a copy, yeah). I’d only had Seven Swans to this point and was surprised by the lush orchestration of the 50 States albums (I assume Michigan is similar in treatment – I’ll have a copy of that one this week), considering how spare and meditative Seven Swans was. Both are so very pretty, but in very different ways. I tell ya, that Stevens boy. He’s got game. Pitchfork concurs.
The new Big Star album has a title – In Space. It’s in stores August 23. I heard one of the tracks off of it yesterday – it was alright, I’m still not really sure what I can reasonably expect from this record. Has Alex Chilton done anything really worthwhile since the Third/Sister Lovers session? Is there any reason to believe that just because he’s calling it Big Star again, that he can find his muse? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Magnet’s featured artist of the month is Aimee Mann.
A Silver Mount Zion are going to be at the Tranzac Club for a three-night stand running July 27, 28 and 29, tickets $10 per night. Now I don’t know ASMZ and I know they’re not GYBE!, but would being a fan of the latter mean that I’d necessarily like the former, or would it just leave me confused and disappointed? Because I can do that without their help.
np – Northern Picture Library / Alaska
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