Monday, April 19th, 2004
The hardest-working band in indie rock? The second leg of the “Never Send To Know With Whom the Van Rolls, It Rolls With Thee” tour will bring The Decemberists back to Toronto June 6 at Lee’s Palace with The Long Winters as support. Their show last month was terrific – this one will be a little less intimate, sure, but should still be a fine evening of music. The Long Winters were pretty damn good when they opened for Death Cab last year, too. Boo-yah.
Plexifilm has posted the cover artwork from the forthcoming Galaxie 500 DVD, Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste, out June 29.
Pitchfork is on a Pixies reunion jag for today’s “We Are The World”, scrutinizing three tracks from their reunion show live CDs.
I watched 24 on tape delay as I had to watch the Leafs lose in double-overtime live. It’s really the only way to do it. But what a treat I had waiting for me: Ack. Eek. Urk. Okay, that was the most tense and unnerving episode in a while, congratulations to the producers for managing to torpedo my snarkiness about most of this season and genuinely freak me out. The infiltration of Saunders’ apartment building was really tense, but I’m getting irritated with the ‘always-one-step-ahead’ villian device, I mean, come on. I realize that it’s a plot necessity, but I’m still feeling a little cheated. As for the closing scene was… man. Jack’s bosses have got to stop getting into aircraft with him. It just ends badly. I really felt for Jack and Chapelle, and as Sam correctly pointed out, that may have been the first truly good piece of acting we’ve seen this season. Bravo. Finally – what’s with putting Cleveland on the list of cities to unleash the virus in? Cleveland? Why not just pick Buffalo? Sheesh. These last five hours are gonna be good – and the next one is in less than 48 hours.
np – Nellie McKay / Get Away From Me
Sunday, April 18th, 2004
It’s always nice to find something new and interesting on the newsstands. Case in point: Harp Magazine. Their tagline is “Words On Music” and indeed, it contains many many words, mainly about music. The content leans to the singer-songwriter side of the indie/alt worlds, and it comes off as the bastard child of Magnet and No Depression, but somehow slicker and glossier than both. What’s curious to me is the abundance of ads for musical instrument manufacturers – who exactly is the target audience of this publication? Musicians who just want to read about good artists and look at ads for gear? Sign me up. The ads are the only thing I really like in guitar magazines anymore, so if I can get them with some decent editorial content (this month – Sparklehorse, Magnetic Fields, Will Oldham and a Minus 5 cover story), all the better. I haven’t really read anything yet, but it looks to be a very well-put together mag. Anyone know who publishes this? I can’t imagine it doesn’t have someone with deep pockets behind it. It’s a bi-monthly, and I only wish it was published on off-months from Magnet instead of the same month so that I would have something to pick up at the newsstand every month.
The Jay Farrar live album, Stone, Steel & Bright Lights, will come with a bonus DVD that contains 11 live songs from a San Francisco show in January of this year. This practice of issuing DVDs chock full of content with albums? I like it. It’s out June 8.
I bit the bullet and picked up some stuff yesterday that had been on my ‘to get’ list for ages now.
Neil Young / Tonight’s The Night – It’s to my shame that I didn’t have this record before now. Hell, I’d never even heard it before now – pretty lame for a self-professed Neil disciple. In fact, I’ve let Decade stand in for his prime 70s material in my collection for too long now. I’m beginning the slow (but thankfully inexpensive) task of building up my collection of Neil.
The Replacements / Hootenanny – Holy shit, this thing’s rough. Finally I witness the drunk and disorderly ‘Mats of legend – If nothing else, it makes the achievement of their next album, Let It Be, that much more amazing. These guys must’ve taken some awesome pills sometime between making these two records.
Emm Gryner / Asianblue – Been an Emm fan for a long time, but I’d put off getting her latest album for a couple years now for whatever reason. Actually, I know why – her last few releases have all been pretty quiet, piano-led collections. Really nice stuff, but definitely on the sedate side. Much as I liked it, I didn’t need to add more of that to the stacks, so Asianblue stayed on the ‘will get eventually’ list. Well now that I have, it’s like – wow. She’s been saving the rock out for this. While I’d have preferred a little more live drums and a little less programmed drums, it’s easily her most energetic and fully-produced work since Public, this thing is crackling. Bravo, Emm. I knew you still had it in you.
np – Neil Young / Tonight’s The Night
Saturday, April 17th, 2004
Chart talks to Elf Power about Walking With The Beggar Boys and the decision to release it themselves. They’ve also redone their website – very nice. EP will be in Toronto on Monday with Tobin Sprout, you can’t imagine how much I’m looking forward to this show. I don’t have the new album yet, but reviews have been decent and I will be picking it up at the show. I haven’t heard anything Tobin has done since Let’s Welcome The Circus People, but apparently he’s promised to play everything he ever wrote for Guided By Voices on this tour – Inestimable pop goodness will abound. Hamiltonians can catch both Tobin and Elf Power on Sunday at the Casbah – don’t miss it.
Longwave’s Life Of The Party EP, out June 8, will feature new songs and videos to keep the fans satiated until they finish working on their new album with producer John Leckie, slated for release early next year.
I think I watched like a dozen episodes of Sports Night last night. Damn, this show was so good. I’m not surprised it went off the air though – Ted McGinley is broadcast death, everyone knows that.
Know what’s weird? Any Blogspot pages I try to read I have to refresh at least once, the first time it loads there’s inevitable loads of code gibberish about one screen down. What’s up with that? Anyone else getting that? Weird.
np – The Jayhawks / Rainy Day Music
Friday, April 16th, 2004
24 fans may want to swing by their local funny papers show on Free Comic Book Day this July 3rd to pick up a preview of 24: One Shot, an officially licensed comic-book detailing Jack Bauer’s first day at CTU, being put out by IDW Publising. There’s no way to make sure you take an entire day to read the thing (it is 48 pages after all – you’d have to read pretty damn slow) nor is there any guarantee it won’t suck, but it’s an interesting idea and the artwork looks nice, so… The full version will be coming out later on July 30. Comic Book Resources talks to the creators about the genesis of the project.
Another day, another Wilco nugget – the press release for A Ghost Is Born has some interesting info about the making of the album, the themes on the record and the thinking behind the current lineup of the band. Note – it’s a PDF so you better have Adobe Acrobat installed.
I have my Pixies tickets for the Arrow Hall show. Now I have seven months to figure out exactly how I’m going to get up to the airport and back in November. But to whet my appetite, JAM has a review of Wednesday night’s show in Winnipeg. Verdict? GOOD. Apparently bootlegs of the show are already circulating online. I’m shocked.
The Punisher is getting some truly heinous reviews. Dolph Lundgren must be feeling pretty vindicated right now. “It wasn’t me, it was the material!”
I got myself a DVD-RW drive last night – easiest new hardware install ever. No software (besides installing Nero to burn) and within 15 minutes I was clearing crap off my hard drive in 4.5 GB increments. I went with the DVD burner instead of a new hard drive because realistically, I shouldn’t ever need immediate access to more than the 100GB of storage I already have. And now I can pirate movies! Ahhrrrr. Nuts to that set painter guy in the PSA before the trailers. Nuts, I say.
np – Steve Earle / Sidetracks
Thursday, April 15th, 2004
Goddamn Bell Canada. As I’ve implied, I’ve been having telephone problems. There’s been static on the line for a few days now, and on Monday I came home to a dead line. It miraculously recovered later that evening and I called and made an appointment for a technician to come by and fix the static. That was to be last night. So I leave yesterday morning after reconnecting a couple jacks I had disconnected last year (long story) and all was well. I come home and my phone is again dead. Great. Good timing, I think, since I have an appointment with the technician scheduled for that evening anyway. The window given was 5pm-9pm, and since I only get off work at five, I nearly killed myself biking home to get back just before 5:15. No note indicating I’d missed the guy, so I figured I was good. Fast forward four hours and still no tech, no dial tone, and I’ve had to bail on any number of things I could have been doing. Me very unhappy. As soon as 9pm ticks by, I get my coat and hoof it down to a payphone at the subway station where I call Bell’s repair line and get a little snarky – justifiably so, I think. Turns out the repair person had come by in the morning and found no problem, and left me a message saying so. A message I would have gotten if, say it with me, MY PHONE WASN’T DEAD. And it doesn’t even address the point that the appointment was for him to check for problems in the wiring IN THE HOUSE, which isn’t something you can really discern from OUTSIDE THE HOUSE WHEN I’M NOT THERE. Fuck’s sake. It’s a damned lucky thing no one ever calls me… but if I’d wanted to order a pizza, there would have been Hell to pay. So now the Bell people are outside as I type, checking out my lines and getting me sorted out. Which is all well and good, but I was just about to leave for work and now I’m going to be late as I wait for them to finish up. Even when they help they don’t. Sheesh. I am going to look long and hard at switching to Sprint – does Candace Bergen still shill for them? I’ve always liked her. I’d trust her to advise me on my telephony needs.
Gret Kot’s upcoming book on Wilco has its own website. Learning How To Die hits shelves June 15, one week before A Ghost Is Born comes out. And in less happy news, the band has cancelled the first eight dates of their North American tour including their May 1 appearance at Coachella. They will be fulfilling their massive European tour commitments from the end of May through July, though.
Aimee Mann has finally run out of ways to re-package and re-sell Lost In Space and will be hiting the road this Summer and a new album this Fall in order to pay the rent.
4AD has the artwork and tracklisting for Rachel Goswell’s debut solo EP The Sleep Shelter, out May 10 in the UK.
Some concerts taking place in our fair town – The Wrens are coming back to the Horseshoe June 5, $10.50 advance, and The Dears are at Lee’s Palace May 7, tickets $15.00. Sadies/Blue Rodeo/Elevator psych-rock side-project The Unintended play the Horseshoe May 7.
The ‘Shoe will also host the Three Gut fourth anniversary parties May 28 and 29. The entire label roster will be making an appearance – Royal City, Gentleman Reg and Cuff The Duke play the first night, The Constantines, Oneida and Jim Guthrie the second. Tickets are $12 per night, on sale now. And as a sidenote, Royal City’s new one Little Heart’s Ease is out June 8.
Tom Verlaine is also coming to town, but it’s not with Television. He and Jimmy Ripp will play Music for Films at Innis Town Hall tomorrow, April 16, at 9:15. eye talks to Verlaine about the project here.
The joke is a little dated now, but William Shatner riffs on the old “I am Canadian” ads. From LHB.
The Exorcist in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. It is what it is. From Neil Gaiman(!).
np – The Shins / Oh, Inverted World
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