Sunday, February 20th, 2005
I was going to see the Rwanda genocide documentary Shake Hands With The Devil last night at the Bloor, but was just too exhausted and didn’t think I could handle something quite that heavy. So I stayed home and watched one of my favourite movies of last year (and one of the greatest films ever, for my money), Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle instead. I’d seen it before off of a bootleg VCD but this was my first opportunity to see it in all of its full digital widescreen glory. Still awesomely funny. I had not realized that Freakshow was played by the guy who plays Stabler on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. That just blows my mind. They really need to make a sequel to this.
As a primer to his show with the Dukes at Palais Royale on March 4, Steve Earle will be a keynote speaker for Canadian Music Week that afternoon at the Royal York. I’d like to go, but the $20 admission is a little dear and it’s at 12:30, so I’d end up having to miss work.
Five Seventeen has finally “released” the Teenbeat tribute record he was overseeing, just in time for their twentieth anniversary festivities in DC next week. I actually make an appearance on one track, adding guitar to a cover of In Camera’s “Fragments Of Fear”, which is otherwise performed entirely by Five under the name of Nora Drenaline. You can hear it and all the other tribute tracks here. I was originally going to cover Luna’s “Bobby Peru” all on my own, but I just didn’t have the time to get it all together (Teenbeat put out the vinyl edition of Pup Tent back in 1997, hence their eligibility). The Washington Post has a piece on the label’s birthday (bugmenot: biasedmedia@yahoo.com / rathered).
It occurs to me that I have to do my taxes this week.
np – various SxSW preview tracks
Saturday, February 19th, 2005
One of the acts I’m most looking forward to seeing at SxSW is New York’s Asobi Seksu. I won’t be in town in time to catch their evening showcase, but I will be at their daytime show at Emo’s on the 18th. I only got their debut self-titled album this week, but it’s already burned its way into my consciousness. Curiously, it sort of sounds like three different bands on the album, depending on who’s taking vocals and what language they’re singing in.
When Yuki Chikudate is singing in Japanese, it sounds like a giddy combination of Puffy Ami Yumi J-pop vocals over top of a huge wall of My Bloody Valentine-ish barbed wire guitars, but when she’s singing in English the music takes on a darker, more edgy quality not unlike Caithlin De Marrais of Rainer Maria. But when guitarist James Hanna steps up to the mic, things get rather drab and plodding by comparison, sorry.
Asobi Seksu is a fairly strong debut with a few fantastic high points, a number of good songs and only a couple that don’t quite inspire. It’s somewhat front-end loaded but is very addictive and enjoyable all the way through and definitely augers well for the future.
MP3: Asobi Seksu – “I’m Happy But You Don’t Like Me”
MP3: Asobi Seksu – “Sooner”
There’s a few more downloadable goodies available on their website, and Earlash has this interview with the band from last Summer.
Womenfolk profiles Feist, whose Let It Die will finally be coming out in the US in April. They’ve also got a couple mp3s from Feist’s first record, Monarch, which used to be pretty easy to turn up in the used bins around town but now? Not so much.
The CBC addresses complaints that Muslims are portrayed badly in 24 by pointing out the good guys don’t come off much better.
Snow Patrol are coming back to town on May 18 at the Kool Haus and they’re bringing some of their Britpop buddies with them. Support for the show will be Embrace and Athlete. I’m amazed that Embrace is still around. I got a copy of their debut The Good Will Out from my college paper to review back in, like, 97 or 98 and I remember it being unremarkable and actually one of the records that signalled to me that perhaps my Britpop days were over. I thought they split up. As for Athlete, well Stylus is not impressed.
Bradley’s Almanac has the new video for Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” for your viewing pleasure. It’s a big file, download that puppy.
Microsoft offers some helpful tips on understanding what the kids are trying to say on the internet these days. Sadly, I actually found the information helpful. Thanks to More Cowbell for the link.
Was out last night to celebrate yet another 30th birthday for one of my friends (Sudeep is now an old man) and ended up at another of my frequent mid-20s haunts, Ye Olde Dance Cave, for old time’s sake. They’ve done some minor renovations to the place since I was last there probably a couple years ago, but it’s still got that same hole-in-the-wall vibe. We even scored our old table way back on the left of the stage. Good times, even though I didn’t really recognize a lot of the music they were playing (as opposed to when I was a regular and I knew the playlist top to bottom). But one of the things about going out and feeling young in the evening is feeling old in the morning. Ow.
np – Elliott Smith / From A Basement On The Hill
Friday, February 18th, 2005
So one of the things causing a bit of an uproar in the indie rock eddys of Lake Blogosphere is this from the ladies of Sleater-Kinney asking folks to not download their new album, The Woods, before it’s officially released on May 24 (the full text of the letter is no longer on their website. Intrepid interneters can no doubt find it, though). Of course, this is like asking a dog not to lick its nuts – simply not going to happen. But still, it raises some interesting questions.
Opinions are like blogs – everyone’s got one, and they’re usually poorly spelled and not updated frequently enough. My personal take on it is that if the artist asks you not to download it, then that should be the final word on the matter. No one is going to die from having to wait a couple months to hear a record. I don’t care how big a fan you are, you are not going to die. Your organs will not be harvested without your consent in the middle of the night. Nothing bad will happen to you. You can wait till it comes out and buy it – because you were intending to pay for it, right? – and there you go. And if you’re eager to get it for “be the first kid on your block” bragging rights… come on. No one cares. Anyway, it seems pretty simple to me, but then I’m one of those folks who still likes the tactile experience of physical media and believes in the album as an artistic entity greater than just the sum of the tracklisting. You know, a freak.
Naturally, there’s been a lot of debate on this – I’ll link to the discussion on the Donewaiting message board which I think is a pretty good micorcosm of the debate. Some think the fanbase should respect the band’s wishes, others are of the mind that once its out of their hands, even unofficially via advance promos, then nature (such as it is) will take its course and the band should appreciate the fact that their fans are so rabid. And then, of course, there are those who have the whole “Music should be free!” angle and are not only about downloading the record, but in distributing it as widely as possible. Don’t ge me started on those people. I want to punch those people in the kidneys.
And from here, I segue into leaks in general. I don’t do leaks. Not because of any particular high moral ground, though that is a consideration, but because I’m too lazy to go looking for them (yes I know how easy it is – I’m THAT lazy) and because I never listen to them. I have a copy of the new Decemberists album on my desktop. Total plays? Zero. Generally speaking I don’t listen to music on my computer – an mp3 or two here and there if I’m too lazy (that again!) to get up and change the CD in my stereo, but the occasions on which I’m willing to listen to a full record on my computer? Very few. My stereo sounds better and I’ve usually got craploads of stuff I’ve actually bought to get through, to say nothing of the promo stuff that’s been showing up in my mailbox with increasing regularity. Usually, stuff that I haven’t made the effort of actually going out and buying, I forget I even have it. This isn’t to say that if I come across a leaked track or two I won’t grab those to whet my appetite, but entire albums? Nah. I like going to the record store on new release days, buying the record, tearing off the cellophane and listening to it proper-like, not piecemeal. Which brings me full circle to the “I’m a freak” observation from earlier.
It’s like they say – you don’t value that which costs you nothing. And if I were to start listening to records that aren’t due out till, say, May (hello Sleater-Kinney, Spoon), when would I find the time to listen to stuff that’s come out in January and February? There’s a never-ending backlog as is, last thing I need is to jump the queue. That would disrupt the natural order of things and I truly believe that if that happened, reality as we know it would cease to exist. I don’t download leaks because it safeguards the universe.
The preceding was probably more meandering than I’d intended. It was profound in my head, really. But then, my grocery lists are profound in my head as well. I thought I had another topic I was going to explore tangential to this one, which is the whole matter of distributing leaked materials over, oh let’s say blogs, but this post is long enough as is. Maybe I’ll get to that another day.
Update: Here’s Colin Meloy of the Decemberists’ letter to folks who had leaked copies of Picaresque last month, courtesy of Brooklynvegan. And this thread on Last Plane To Jakarta is also a very good read on the topic, thanks to Largehearted Boy for the pointer.
On a related note, Prefuse 73 is a little less diplomatic about people downloading his work.
Will Johnson of Centro-Matic keeps a tour diary of their recent stop in Athens for for Flagpole. This would be the same tour that once again, doesn’t cross the 49th parallel (well, technically Toronto is well south of the 49th, but you know what I mean), only coming as close as Buffalo on March 3. Even after I went to Chicago to plead our case… But that’s okay, if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed will come to the mountain. Centro-Matic is on my must-see list for SxSW.
Lacunae lists off 100 things he loves about comics. Cheers for #9, the “wuffa wuffa wuffa” issue of Cerebus.
A little late, but still cute – Rachael Yamagata offers up some advice on how to survive Valentine’s Day. She forgot #11 – “wuffa wuffa wuffa”. Hmm, okay, that probably came out wrong. From Achtung Baby.
Behold – my photos from Wednesday’s Comas show. Please, no comments on how Andy Herrod’s skin is the same colour as his coat. Blame the lights.
So my streetcar hits a car on the way to work this morning, making me 30 minutes late. Newsflash lady – the streetcar couldn’t turn even if it wanted to.
np – Doves / The Last Broadcast
Thursday, February 17th, 2005
I have no idea where it was, but I was reading a piece on The Comas wherein they reveal that a lot of the material from their debut album Conductor was written whilst front-Coma Andy Herrod was dating Dawson’s Creek starlet Michelle Williams (the blonde one who apparently died after I stopped watching. Yes, I watched Dawson’s Creek. Shut up.) and that relationship informs a lot of the material (like the not-so-subtle song title that makes up this post title). What’s the point of that? No idea. But it was hard to completely put that little bit of trivia out of my head at their show at Lee’s Palace last night.
Openers and tourmates VietNam looked like they hadn’t bathed in weeks but used the time saved effectively by smoking up as much as possible. Dirty hippies would probably look at these guys and say, “hey, dirty hippies”. They played a set of drawn-out noodly jams that occasionally got interesting but for the most part would have benefitted if the band had decided to pass the bong around instead of keeping it for themselves.
I knew very little of The Comas before last night – I’d downloaded a couple tracks, listened to some clips, read some good reviews (they made Magnet’s year-end list for 2004) and read the aforementioned little bit of gossip. Just enough to know that I liked their sound and a free show would be worth my time. In the live setting, they were considerably less sonically quirky and more straight up earnest indie rock than I was expecting, but they still put on a good show. Andy Herrod was fairly restrained for most of the night but his bandmates were pretty bopping through the set. I got a copy of the CD at the show and it’s remarkable how different the songs are presented on it – there’s a lot more delicacy and detail, attributes which were traded for a fuller live rock attack.
Full batch of photos tomorrow. In the meantime, there’s a crapload of media available on the Yep Roc website as well as the band’s site.
And, uh, out of curiosity – how did Dawson’s Creek girl die? Was it something dull and melodramatic like cancer? Or something cool and interesting like her losing control of her mutant powers?
Though their new album There’s A Fire won’t be out for another month, New York’s Longwave will be back in town at Lee’s Palace on March 16, tickets $10.50. Hmm, is it very smart to plan on going to a show the night before I have to get up at 5:30 AM the next morning to fly down to Texas and spend the next three days going to twelve hours of concerts each day? Probably not, but like Bon Jovi says – “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. Which at this pace should be about early June. Well, I’ll keep it on my calendar for now but I wouldn’t be surprised if I totally wimped out. And they’ll be back.
Also – Adam Green is at Lee’s on May 3.
And back to the topic of SxSW, it’s not the schedule but they’ve posted a much more useful band list, some with MP3s. The official sched should be out soon, though. Thanks to Joyce for the link.
Prefix talks to Rogue Wave, whose Out Of The Shadow was beloved by many though only moderately liked by me. Hey, you can’t please everyone.
The Magnolia Electric Co finally has an offical website, and they’ve got goodies galore – namely a new video and three complete live shows available for download. Their proper full-length studio debut What Comes After The Blues is due out in April.
Billboard finds out why Gary Louris and Marc Olsen’s tour together isn’t actually a Jayhawks reunion.
Shivaree (finally) gets some local media love. Check out pieces from The Varsity (bugmenot: pissoff@ijustwanttoread.com) and The Toronto Star (bugmenot: jimbojones@mailinator.com / password) . Again, I advise you to see their final show at the Lula Lounge tonight, but get there early – it’s damn close to sold out if it isn’t already.
The trailer for Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is online… and Amazon.com has it? It looks good – interesting approach to Zaphod’s two heads, I’m sure the purists will be crying foul, but who cares about purists? Movie is out April 29. Why that’s practically tomorrow. Or sixty tomorrows.
Okay everyone, once more with feeling – “Fuck you, NHL and NHLPA!”. Dickwads.
np – The Comas / Conductor
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
The Lula Lounge is a weird place. When I saw Jonathan Richman there last year, the dinner club vibe was evident, but they had the center part of the room in front of the stage cleared out, so the concert-goers could just stand around without being in anyone’s way. Last night for Shivaree, however, the place was filled with dinner tables and diners. The maitre d’ (yeah, maitre d’!) directed me to a table at the back of the club since I was a little late getting there. I managed to work my way up closer before the main act came on, though, as diners finished up and left.
Anyway, opening things up were a duo on guitar and ukelele who played old tin pan alley songs from the early part of the 20th century (and one Nico song from like 1980). They were excellent and entertaining – I didn’t catch their names but they said it was their first time performing together in about 20 years. You couldn’t tell.
First thing I’ll say about Shivaree to get it out of the way is that Ambrosia Parsley (her real name) is ridiculously hot. My pics from last night (which didn’t turn out as well as I’d have liked since I couldn’t really move around…) don’t do her justice. Seriously. Which is why when I say that her voice was the most mesmerizing thing about her, that’s no mean feat. Backed by a superb band (they’re touring as a five-piece), Parsley’s sultry, sexy coo was front and centre and sounded even better than it does on record. As odd as it was, the dinner theatre atmosphere was actually well-suited to Shivaree’s torchy, jazzy material. The sound was excellent and I wonder if it would have come across as well in a bar setting.
And almost better than the music was the between-song banter. Ambrosia Parsley is a very good and very funny banterer – she’s got it down to an art, friendly and conversational with the audience, seemingly unflappable. Almost every song was prefaced with a story, either about doing hash off a CD case in Paris, exorcising ghosts from her house, or her grandmother sticking a knife in her grandfather’s neck, all delivered in the most innocent voice. Sometimes the stories were longer than the songs, but you didn’t mind one bit.
So my official recommendation is for everyone to go to their second show at the Lula Lounge this Thursday. I’m quite tempted to go again, to be honest. I won’t, cause I’m lazy, but this show was just that good. And anyone else who has the opportunity to see them on any of the upcoming tour dates, do so. You won’t regret it. And if you do, well shit – that’s not my problem. Oh, and buy Who’s Got Trouble?, while you’re at it. It takes a little while, but it’s excellent.
I’d also like to check out her Ambrosia Sings The News segments on Air America, wherein she sings the week’s events in a 30-second spot – article here. That sounds too cool. The Montreal Gazette also has an interview.
Thanks to Joyce for pointing out that the new House Of Love album, Days Run Away, is available to stream on their label’s website (click on “audio”). My impressions – it’s pretty good, though it lacks the edge and urgency that made the first two eponymous albums so excellent. But that’s probably to be expected since they are older and (presumably) calmer now. But apparently they still kick ass live. The Guardian takes a look at how this unlikeliest of reunions came about.
Stream M Ward’s newest, Transistor Radio, at Merge. The album is out next Tuesday and he’s at the El Mocambo on the 27th. From Catbirdseat.
And while we’re on the streaming kick, NME has the whole of the new Doves album available to preview. Listen to Some Cities now, buy it on March 1. From Brooklynvegan.
As predicted, Take Fountain was nowhere to be found in stores yesterday, but Bradley eases the pain with some live Wedding Present mp3s from a live show in 1992. I also consoled myself with the Asobi Seksu album and the new Radio Dept EP.
Don’t forget – The Comas are playing a free show at Lee’s tonight! All the cool kids will be there and if we wait around outside afterwards, we can jump them and steal their shoes.
np – The Mountain Goats / We Shall All Be Healed
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