Friday, February 25th, 2005
Let’s combine the last two days posts – Yesterday’s about classic albums from the Eighties getting a makeover from the good folks at Rykodisc and Rhino and Wednesday’s about beloved bands from Minnesota! Billboard gets the details on the Replacements deluxe reissues coming out this Fall on Rykodisc (for the TwinTone albums) and Rhino (the Sire albums). It sounds like this will be in lieu of the box set that was reported last Fall which would have covered the entirety of the Mats’ career. So much for one-stop shopping. I wonder what kind of goodies they’ll have for Let It Be? It’s really the only album I’d consider re-buying.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, the unreleased material from the All For Nothing/Nothing For All compilation wasn’t anything to write home about. Granted, that comp only covered the Sire years, but I wonder how much of the stuff in the vaults from even their earlier days is really for anyone but collectors and completists? However, seeing as how Let It Be is one of the greatest albums in the history of history (yeah, the hyperbole knob is turned up a little bit), one can only hope that the other material from that era was similarly divine, at least to some degree.
And related – Paul Westerberg will have a compilation of with best-of tracks, rarities and odds and ends out sometime this Spring.
Creationrecords.com catches up with former Slowdive-r Simon Scott, who is now fronting Televise. Scott was drummer for Slowdive on Just For A Day and Souvlaki before leaving the band and being replaced with Ian McCutcheon, who continues to play with Mojave 3.
To no one’s real surprise, the April 27 Arcade Fire show at the Danforth Music Hall sold out yesterday in something like four hours. So due to popular demand, a second show has been added for April 28th, same place, same price ($20), on sale now. And if I didn’t mention it before, part of the proceeds from the show will go to humanitarian relief in Haiti.
Thanks to For The Records for the tip that A Girl Called Eddy will be doing an instore at Soundscapes on Sunday March 6 at 4PM before playing the Horseshoe that night with Keren Ann. And on the topic of Soundscapes instores, I’ve been told that Jens Lekman will be doing one the following week before playing Wavelength.
Achtung Baby reports that Nellie McKay’s Get Away From Me will be coming out on DualDisc on March 22, probably the first title released in that format that’s of interest to me. But is it still a double-disc album? I assume the CD side will remain the same but the DVD side will have the album remastered in 5.1 and a live concert performance in high definition for those with really expensive televisions.
So since Lake Holiday broke up last Fall, I’ve been drifting musically, looking for some sort of new band sitch. Had a few false starts, but in the last couple months I’ve been playing with a couple of guys with promising results, but we’ve had a little difficulty pushing things forward with just two guitars and bass. Well last night, former LH drummer Clay swung by the rehearsal space to pick up some gear and climbed behind the kit for a little while. HOLY SHIT, I’d forgotten how good it was to play with a drummer – it was on a whole different level. A shame Clay is now busy with bass duties for Beneath Augusta… I have gots to find me a drummer. Anybody know one?
np – Patterson Hood / Killers And Stars
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
It’s annoying when albums are reissued over and over again, ad nauseum, but every once in a while, it’s worth it. Rhino has been putting out all of Elvis Costello’s albums in deluxe double-disc editions, three at a time, over the last few years, even though Rykodisc had done the same, albeit in single-disc form, scarcely a decade and a half ago. How many times can you go back to the well? So while the Rhino packages have looked to be superior to the Ryko editions that I have, I haven’t been persuaded to buy any of them again. Until now.
One of my all-time favourite albums, King Of America, is next to get the Rhino treatment on April 26 and in a move befitting its stature in his catalog, it’s coming out on it’s own – not as part of a trio. While he made his name as the angry young punk of My Aim Is True and This Year’s Model, he’s always had a real fixation with classic American music. His first homage to this influence was the country covers album Almost Blue, which was initially reviled but is now regarded more favourably. 1986’s King Of America, however, was a classic from the get-go. Coming off his best album in years, Blood & Chocolate, Costello decided to enlist a band of crack session players (including Elvis Presley’s guitarist James Burton, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo and legendary producer T-Bone Burnett) to record an amazing record of roots/folk/soul-rock that features some of his very best songwriting. He also distanced himself from his past work by crediting the album to The Costello Show, listing Declan Macmanus (his birth name) as producer and songwriter and crediting the self-deprecating Little Hands Of Concrete as performer for his instrumental parts.
Because of the length of the original album, the Ryko edition only added five bonus tracks (I think there may have been another edition that had even more material, but I don’t have it). The new Rhino edition does that one several times better, presenting the original album on a single disc but adding 21 additional cuts on the second disc. TWENTY-ONE. There’s demos, live cuts, unreleased material – it’s sure to be a helluva treat. Full details here.
Costello returned to themes of America with his last album, The Delivery Man, which was pretty good but didn’t inspire the same way that King Of America did, but it’s still getting a double-disc reissue. Yeah, it only came out last year, but that never stopped label bean-counters before. A deluxe edition of The Delivery Man will be out on March 1 and feature a second disc containing the seven tracks that first appeared on the Clarksdale Sessions 10″ (yes, vinyl) which came out late last month.
Rock Snob points the way to a couple of new singles available online – there’s a radio rip of “Refugees”, the first single from the still-untitled debut from The Tears’, which is pencilled in for a May 2 release in the UK. It’s not an especially good quality rip, I can’t tell if Bernard’s guitar is effected or just suffering from a low bitrate, but the song’s alright. Brett and Bernard talk about the song with NME.
Also worth listening to is “River (Depot Song)”, taken from the new Longwave album There’s A Fire. It’s due out sometime this Spring and if this track is representative of the record, it’ll be a good one. Production by the legendary John Leckie is also a plus. There’s also some non-album tracks on the website jukebox that are worth a listen. It’s too bad better judgement has gotten the best of me and I’ve decided not to go to their March 16 show at Lee’s Palace… I hope they come back as many times as they did for The Strangest Things (at least three, by my count).
Can’t make The Futureheads show at Lee’s this Sunday? Fret not, you can also see them on April 23 at the Kool Haus with Hot Hot Heat and Louis XIV. I think HHH is headlining, but I’m not sure. Either way, this show will be spastic with a capital spaz.
The SxSW music schedules are up. Oh my God my head is exploding. And now I really wish I was going to be there on the 16th, as well…
The State talks to Neko Case about making The Tigers Have Spoken. From LHB.
M Ward tells The Toronto Star (bugmenot: wow@mail.com/sowhat) how he yearns for the simpler days of radio. Maybe he’ll tell the audience the same thing on Sunday night when he plays the El Mocambo.
More reasons Charlotte Hatherley is awesomeness – great taste in music (obvs). Via Unca Grambo.
Blog Up conducts an interview with Yo La Tengo in two languages! Well, I doubt they asked the same questions in both languages, but still. It’s the first interview I’ve seen that looks like a Canadian cereal box.
np – Asobi Seksu / Asobi Seksu
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005
More Cowbell bids a fond farewell to The Jayhawks, and naturally it got me thinking about my relationship with the band (or their music, anyways). I don’t have a terrific story about discovering them or how much they meant to me – to be honest, I got Tomorrow The Green Grass from Columbia House or something way back in… 1996? when I was just discovering the whole alt.country thing. Their name would pop up in email lists or whatever as being part of that scene and I think I’d heard “Blue” on the radio a couple times, so I ordered it. Hey – 12 CDs for a penny, how can you go wrong? Anyway, I listened to it a couple times, and filed it away. It was alright, but probably didn’t “rock” enough for me at the time.
From there I eventually picked up all their records, mostly whenever I got the craving for more twang than my CD collection at the time could provide. Hell, I think I even bought Smile twice, having sold it once when I was not craving the twang (not that that record offered a whole lot of twang). But somewhere along the way, I grew to really appreciate their stuff, even through all their different incarnations. I’d get excited when I heard some Jayhawks in a TV commercial or over the PA in a grocery store. I discovered the awesomeness of Gary Louris’ guitar tones and really, the production of all their records is sublime – just listen to Rainy Day Music on a good stereo sometime. Fantastic. It was like how a casual aquaintance can become a good friend over time without you even realizing it. I feel lucky to have gotten to finally see them perform two excellent shows in the last few years, once opening for Lucinda Williams and then early last year headlining their own show.
And now they’re calling it a day, at least for now. Fans who’d hoped that the current tour with Gary Louris and prodigal Mark Olsen would lead to a full-fledged reunion of the original lineup must be particularly stung by the news. I’m not especially surprised, though. When a band goes silent for the better part of a year, a live album is put on the release calendar and then shelved, when there’s more news about solo records and side projects than the main band, you know something’s up. But I’m glad for them – sometimes a change of situation is just what one needs to get the batteries charged up again. As I mentioned yesterday, the dissolution news is tempered a bit by news of drummer Tim O’Reagan’s first solo album coming out on April 1 (and it’ll feature most if not all the ‘Hawks anyway) and Louris’ contributions to a new Golden Smog record. The Jayhawks may be shelved, but they’re not going anywhere. Cheers, guys, and thanks.
I did make it to see The Empires at the Horseshoe last night. With every band strip-mining the 80s UK indie scene for inspiration of late, it’s good to see a band get the jump on things and start exhuming the early 90s for a change. The two points of comparison that came to mind while watching them were either a less combustible Swervedriver or a Catherine Wheel without the imminent threat of metal. Take that as you will. While they’ll hopefully grow into some more stage presence with time, their performance was pretty good though it lacked the nuance and texture of their recorded material – the keyboards that grace the studio versions of their songs weren’t coming across very well in the live setting. I wish bands wouldn’t try so hard to rock out live if it comes at the expense of the songs. Sometimes quiet and restraint can be far more powerful. Anyway, I would certainly peg them as having quite a bit of potential and worth watching. If you want to sample some of their stuff, listen to “Lesbian Games” off their website. Awful song title, but pretty good song. And man, I don’t want to think about the Google hits I’m going to get from typing that out.
I’ve been waiting for them to confirm this one for a little while, but The Album Leaf will be at the Horseshoe on April 5, tickets $8. I’ve only heard a little of his stuff (thanks to Epitonic, Better Propaganda), but it sounds interesting. anyone want to testify as to whether it will make for a good live show?
Bradley’s Almanac keeps the live tracks coming with an Ida show in Boston this past Sunday.
I think I missed this one… and now it’s sort of old… but anyway… Tiny Mix Tapes interviews Jeff Tweedy of Wilco.
Stereogum gives us nightmares.
np – The Wedding Present / Take Fountain
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005
March 13th’s Wavelength looks to be a good one with Jens Lekman making what I think is his Toronto debut. Already a star in his native Sweden, Lekman trades in the sort of cleverly gorgeous pop melancholia that makes the indie kids swoon. Need proof?
There’s some audio clips here, No Love For Ned features an in-studio set in this week’s show, his North American label Secretly Canadian also has some rare mp3s available for your sampling as well as some full length mp3s and a video taken from his new album When I Said I Wanted To Be Your Dog, which came out last year. I admit I’ve only heard a little bit of Lekman’s stuff, but it seems quite nice and will probably be enough to drag me out to Sneaky Dee’s on a Sunday night. And I’m feeling partial to Swedes lately.
MP3: Jens Lekman – “You Are The Light”
The other act that night will be The Dating Service, described as “critical synth-pop from members of The Hidden Cameras and Republic of Safety. Head Camera Joel Gibb also handles DJ duties. Admission as always is pay-what-you-can.
While the news hasn’t been good from Wheat-land, there’s at least a silver lining to their current state of hiatus. This site has a number of live and radio shows available for download and enjoyment, courtesy of the band. They’re also hoping to re-release Medeiros and Hope and Adams (I didn’t realize they were out of print) and maybe even the “naked” version of Per Second Per Second Per Second Every Second that was originally supposed to come out on Nude Records. I would love for that to see the light of day as I thought the Aware version that eventually did come out was horribly overproduced and really didn’t do the songs justice. The Nude recordings were much more alive. As for what the Wheat boys are doing now, Ricky has a new band called Duresse and he says that a new project with Scott and Brendan will be turning up any day now.
And speaking of break-ups, The Jayhawks are done (bugmenot: thisisbull / thisisbull). Alas. That Tim O’Reagan solo record sounds mighty interesting, though, and a new Golden Smog record will always be welcome in my home. Silver linings, folks. Silver linings.
Billboard talks to Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo about assembling the Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs, 1985-2003 compilation (due out March 22) and what to expect from the band in the way of new music, namely a couple of soundtracks that may never get released, and a new album which the band is “slowly at work on”.
Stylus declares it’s always time for Laura Cantrell, and points to this interview with her at Drowned In Sound.
Further poking around the Drowned In Sound site reveals this interview with Ambulance LTD. I gotta bookmark that site.
Bradley’s Almanac has the second half of that Wedding Present live set available to download now. Go get it. I still don’t have Take Fountain. Will try again tonight.
Folks looking for something to do in town tonight may want to swing by the Horseshoe for Nu Nusic Night – The Empires are a local combo who play some pretty nice moody space rock. I’ve been meaning to check them out for a while now and if I can get off my ass to be down there for 9:30, I may well do so.
24: So we’re what – ten hours in now? We’re right on schedule for the mid-season ennui to set in. You know, that difficult middle period where the characters are given the equivalent of busy work before things really ramp up into the final few hours of over-the-top madness. This is when we get the subplots like characters getting amnesia, getting attacked by mountain lions, etc. I don’t fault the producers that much – twenty-four hours of solid story is a lot to ask – but it can be a bit of a trial. Anyway, surely they should know by now that anytime anyone leaves CTU, they get ambushed. Go to get the security footage of that party? Ambushed. Go to get that computer file from that place (wasn’t paying that much attention)? Ambushed. Go to the parking lot? Ambushed. Go out to get a coffee? Ambushed. I must admit, I’m a little shocked that no one assassinated Paul at the end of the episode there. But assuming that they’ve now unveiled this season’s real Big Bad, it has to be noted, as Curtis so astutely observed, that he’s American. So much for villainizing Muslims – they’re just pawns in all this. Five will get you six that Mr Height Complex is doing this to make money. Evil evil corporations. Doesn’t that make it white dudes who were the bad guys in all four seasons now?
np – The Futureheads / The Futureheads
Monday, February 21st, 2005
I’d been looking forward to The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou for almost a year now, and yet still took a couple months since its release to get around to seeing it. What can I say. I like Wes Anderson’s films – I wouldn’t say I’m a devotee the way that some are, but I do appreciate his distinctive quirks and directorial style. It’s a simple thing, but the way that he likes to frame his shots with the main subjects in the dead centre of a symmetrical setting is enormously pleasing to me.
Clocking in at two hours, The Life Aquatic is his most ambitious film yet, or at least the biggest budget. It follows a team of marine documentarians as they set out to hunt down the jaguar shark that killed one of their number while making a film about it. Anderson favourite Bill Murray is the titular team leader and the rest of the cast is filled with faces familiar from Anderson’s past films (Owen Wilson, Anjelica Huston). While I thoroughly enjoyed the film as a whole, I can’t call it a complete success. There are some tremendously funny scenes and the quirks and eccentricites are terrific, ie – the Bowie songs sung in Portugese, the stop-animation marine life, the cutaway dolls-house set for the interior of the Belafonte.
It was also nice to see Bill Murray emote a little in a performance for a change – he’s become a little too adept at that stoic, emotionally defeated, deadpan thing of late. While he’s hardly scenery-chewing, he is a little more animated and it looks good on him. The beard works, too. I was a little disappointed in the story, however. I didn’t think it managed to hit the right notes to provide enough emotional heft to the story of Murray and Wilson as his presumed long-lost son, Ned Plimpton. Overall, the narrative seemed maybe a little too obtuse and didn’t build to the climax(es) that effectively, but it was still a fun film. And I’m not sure if the action sequences, which Anderson has never really tried before, were meant to come off like they were coreographed by the Max Fischer Players. Probably, but you never know.
Unfinished reports that The Life Aquatic will get the Criterion DVD treatment and be released on May 10. Details here.
Arcade Fire, April 27th, Danforth Music Hall. Tickets $20, on sale February 24. It’s a seated show, but I’m not sure if that means reserved seating or a free-for-all. Any bets on how fast this sells out? Not surprisingly, there is some griping from folks who’d prefer the band continues to play little loft shows for pay-what-you-can. Win responds. I don’t know if I can do this one, I’ve got a show the night before and I have to move that weekend. Anyway, there’s also an interview with the band at the Arcade Fire Web Community message board.
Stereolab fans should take note that Monade, Laetitia Sadier’s side project, will be in town at Lee’s Palace on May 16 to promote their second album A Few Steps More, out March 8. Tickets are $15.
Whilst assembling my SxSW wish list for next month, I jotted down March 19 at Stubb’s in Austin – that’ll be the first Son Volt concert in something like nine years. I’ve never seen Son Volt or Jay solo, so I’d like to get into that one though it’s sure to be a hot ticket. And for those who insist this new lineup ain’t Son Volt, you can take comfort in the release of their Austin City Limits performance on DVD April 19th or the Anthology compilation, out May 24 on Rhino.
np – Cinerama / Torino
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