Celeste Danger, Elisabeth YoungHaving spent most of 2008 on the road and working their self-titled debut to death, Brookyln’s Jealous Girlfriends are quite understandably taking the first part of this year off to recover and recharge. And, in the case of singer/guitarist Holly Miranda, work on a solo record. Well, judging from her MySpace blog, work on the solo record has been ongoing for some time – since late 2007 at least – but presumably the time available now will allow it to wrapped up and hopefully see the light of day.

Details are scarce, but production duties appear to have been handled by TV On The Radio’s David Sitek and it will feature appearances from Celebration’s Katrina Ford and TVOTR’s Kyp Malone. The project may or may not be named Raven Mayhem and the album may or may not be called The Magician’s Private Library. Whatever it’s called, there’s a good number of tracks – demo or completed is unclear – at her MySpace and they sound quite compelling. Some distance away from the Jealous Girlfriends’ rock attack, they’re more atmospheric and sonically adventurous while remaining firmly rooted by her marvelous, sleepy yet soaring rasp of a voice. Who/what/whenever this stuff comes out, I’m definitely interested to hear more.

Thanks to Spicy Times for not only letting me know that this project existed but also pointing the way to this FabChannel solo show recorded in Amsterdam last May, wherein we see some of Miranda’s singer-songwritery side. And Get Glucky got her to assemble and comment on a playlist of favourite songs.

MySpace: Holly Miranda

Spinner premiered the new video from TV On The Radio yesterday.

Video: TV On The Radio – “Stork And Owl”

Prefix reports that the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album has a name – It’s Blitz. It’s due out sometime in the Spring.

Peter Bjorn & John are set to release their new record Living Thing on March 31 and will tour it across North America starting in April. Their Toronto date is April 25 at the Phoenix, and support for the whole tour will be Chairlift, who were featured in a Daytrotter session last week. PB&J have already released a video from the new album and Pitchfork premiered a remix MP3 of the first single earlier this week.

MP3: Peter Bjorn & John – “Lay It Down (Golden Filter remix)
Video: Peter Bjorn & John – “Lay It Down”

There’s a video from the new Loney Dear album Dear John, coming out next Tuesday.

Video: Loney Dear – “Airport Surroundings”

Stereogum has premiered the first MP3 from Marissa Nadler’s new album Little Hells, due out March 3. This ties in nicely with her previously-announced April 21 date at the El Mocambo with The Handsome Family. The Times talked to Nadler as part of a feature on what they call “goth-folk”.

David Berman has dissolved the Silver Jews. Maybe I should have gone to see them at Lee’s in September after all… Pronouncement from the man himself at the Drag City forums.

Clash interviews Of Montreal, who have released a track from their digital-only Jon Brion remix EP.

MP3: Of Montreal – “First Time High” (Of Chicago acoustic version)

NME talks to Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallet about his contributions to the new Rumble Strips record, currently in production.

It turns out the Born Ruffians/Akron/Family double-bill at Sneaky Dee’s reported on last week is also a double-header. In addition to the already-announced and nearly sold-out March 24 date, there’ll be a March 23 show, also at Sneaks, and the two will pair up again on the 25 and 26 at Il Motore in Montreal.

Franz Ferdinand’s Tonight is currently streaming at the band’s MySpace. It’s available this Tuesday. Conversations with the band are up at Clash, Metro and dose.ca.

Stream: Franz Ferdinand / Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

Neil Halstead drops by the Paste offices to play a song.

The Toronto Sun and The Ubyssey talk to M83 mastermind Anthony Gonzalez. They’re at the ACC tonight opening up for The Killers.

Send Me Dead Flowers talks to The Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner.

Aquarium Drunkard gets a Robyn Hitchcock guide to New York City. Goodnight Oslo, his new album with the Venus 3, is out February 17.

JAM reports that the threatened new Neil Young concept album Fork In The Road (which concerns bailouts of banks and automotive manufacturers as well as electric cars) will indeed be released on March 31 and the promised Archives have indeed been pushed back. It’s probably safe to say this will be the least-welcome Neil Young album in the history of ever.

A farewell to Mr Mick Harvey, who has elected to leave Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Details at the ANTI Blog.

Catherine LosingFor The Records pointed out a curious concert listing for UK indie-dance act Friendly Fires at the website for Beggars Canada – it puts the St Alban’s trio in town on March 31, but only narrows the venue down to two possibilities – Mod Club or Lee’s Palace. So all I can accurately say is that they’ll be in Toronto at an approximately 500-capacity venue on that date. And wherever they are, odds of a dance party breaking out are pretty much one to one. Personally, I think that Mod would be a much more suitable venue – the ass-shaking, slick and scratchy new wave/disco goodness of their self-titled debut demands spectacle, which Mod’s famously over-the-top lighting system is equipped to provide. Lee’s doesn’t even have a disco ball.

MP3: Friendly Fires – “Jump In The Pool”
MP3: Friendly Fires – “Paris” (Aeroplane Remix)
Video: Friendly Fires – “Skeleton Boy”
Video: Friendly Fires – “Paris”
Video: Friendly Fires – “Jump In The Pool”
Video: Friendly Fires – “On Board”
MySpace: Friendly Fires

Toronto vibraphone mavens The Hylozoists will release their new album L’ile de Sept Villes on February 3 and showcase it at the Mod Club on February 21. Update: They’re also playing a Soundscapes instore on February 10 at 7PM. Here’s some older stuff.

MP3: The Hylozoists – “Smiley Smiley”
MP3: The Hylozoists – “Strait Is the Gate”

Marissa Nadler, whom I believe ended up cancelling her last scheduled date here last Summer, will try and pay us a visit again on April 21 at the El Mocambo. She has a new album due out early this year. Here’s some older stuff.

MP3: Marissa Nadler – “Diamond Heart”
MP3: Marissa Nadler – “Thinking Of You”

Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains are doing an in-store at Sonic Boom on January 29 at 7PM.

MP3: Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains – “American Names”
MP3: Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains – “By Cover Of Night (Fire Fight)”

Putting lie to the notion that bands can only play larger venues as they get bigger, Born Ruffians and Akron/Family have a date at Sneaky Dee’s on March 24. Tickets are $13 and on sale now.

Earlier yesterday Uncut speculated that the release of that Neil Young video for “Fork In The Road” implied not only the impending release of a new album with the same name, which may well be true, but to also mean that the Archives set has been pushed back indefinitely to accommodate. They’ve since been corrected with the same information that one of the official Archive-ists left on a post at Thrasher’s Wheat – “NYA Vol 1 has been completed in BD, DVD, CD and Digital Download editions. The only thing remaining is announcement of a street date”. Which is good news, though it does put lie to the February 24 release date that most had been clinging to. In short, there’s lots of material coming from Neil this year. Only no one knows what and when.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer interviews Kathleen Edwards, who is at Trinity-St Paul’s on February 13.

MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Asking For Flowers”

The Quietus talks politics with Death Cab’s Nick Harmer.

Beirut have released a video from their forthcoming EP March Of The Zapotec, out February 17.

Video: Beirut – “La Llorona”

The Village Voice profiles Antony & The Johnsons. The Crying Light is out Tuesday and they play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on February 17.

Muzzle Of Bees asks five questions of Los Campesinos!

The Decemberists are giving away a track from their forthcoming album The Hazards Of Love, out March 24. All you have to do is sign up to their mailing list. Colin Meloy was also on NPR’s World Cafe yesterday for an interview.

Clash talks to Kathy Foster of The Thermals, who will release Now We Can See on April 7.

The previously-mentioned untitled Bob Mould album also set for an April 7 release now has a title – Life And Times.

Filter talks to Ra Ra Riot, Daytrotter videotapes them playing in a park.

Pitchfork has an MP3 from M Ward’s Hold Time, out February 17. This track features the She to his Him, Zoey Deschanel, on vocals.

MP3: M Ward – “Never Had Nobody Like You”

Drowned In Sound solicits a mixtape from The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, the buzz around whom is growing at a pace that’s considerably larger than Neutral, the room they’re slated to play here in town on February 12. If you’re curious, an advance ticket may be a good idea. Their self-titled full-length is out February 3.

NPR has an acoustic session with The Hold Steady while Wireless Bollinger has an interview.

Former Grandaddy frontman Jason Lytle will return to active musical duty on May 19 with the release of his first solo record, Yours Truly, the Commuter.

Frank YangThe Dakota Tavern, a little subterranean rec room of a bar, has fried chicken. This is a very exciting fact to me, as I’ve been at a loss as to where to get non-gross, non-fast food fried chicken in this town. This assumes, of course, that the quality of foodstuffs there measure up to reputation the Tavern has as both a cool, rootsy watering hole and a friendly, intimate venue. It was these qualities that made it the perfect locale for a warm-up show in advance of the “Hurtin’ And Flurtin’ Tour” that would take co-headliners Kathleen Edwards and John Doe across America, starting tonight.

While I expect the tour itself will be decidedly more put-together and probably feature full backing bands, I would hope for the sake of their audiences that Edwards and Doe continue to eschew the traditional opener/closer roles and play as they did Monday night to a packed house, alternately playing together and separately. This format allowed them to display their obvious musical and personal chemistry, backing each other up and harmonizing on a choice selection of covers and songs of their own, including “The Golden State” off of Doe’s latest A Year In The Wilderness on which the two duet marvelously. They apologized in advance for being a bit under-rehearsed, and while they definitely were that, they were also quite relaxed and having a great time of it. The tightness will come – the rapport was already there.

I’m not as well-versed in Doe’s repertoire as I probably should be – I know some X material and had a couple of his solo records in university, but that’s about the extent of it. That lack of familiarity didn’t keep me from thoroughly enjoying his songs, though – the man has been at it for some 30 years and is damned good at what he does. I had expected from the company he was keeping that he’d be operating in a more country-rock vein, but I guess he saves that for The Knitters – his solo material was thoughtful, melodic and direct singer-songwriter fare, seasoned with charming and witty banter. And the mention that he was in the process of cutting an album with The Sadies was particularly exciting to hear.

But it was Edwards who really impressed. I’ve counted myself a fan since her debut Failer, but my interest had drifted since then and I’m on record as having found her latest effort Asking For Flowers, Polaris-nominated as it may have been, decidedly underwhelming. I had, however, never seen her live. Came close a number of times but it’d just never happened. And based on this performance, I have to wonder if I might have been even more favourably inclined to her stuff than I am because she was really terrific. It’s difficult to say exactly what’s different about hearing her live than on record because production-wise, her albums have always been pretty straightforward, but for whatever reason her songs – and in particular the characters contained within – really came alive. I think I now more fully appreciate her more intangible qualities, that certain resonance that she has beyond just her songs and her voice. It really was an eye- and ear-opener.

Though there’s no local – or even Canadian – dates on the formal tour, Edwards has already started planning her 2009 and it includes a date on February 13 at Trinity-St Paul’s Centre, a venue that – as lovely as it is – couldn’t be further in vibe from the Dakota. I guarantee you they don’t serve fried chicken.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has an interview with Kathleen Edwards.

Photos: Kathleen Edwards & John Doe @ The Dakota Tavern – November 3, 2008
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “In State”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Back To Me”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Copied Keys”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “One More Song The Radio Won’t Like”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “National Steel”
MP3: Kathleen Edwards – “Six O’Clock News”
MP3: John Doe – “The Golden State”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “The Cheapest Key”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “I Make The Dough, You Get The Glory”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “In State”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “Back To Me”
Video: Kathleen Edwards – “Hockey Skates”
MySpace: Kathleen Edwards
MySpace: John Doe

Beirut mastermind Zach Condon will be releasing two new EPs of material next year on February 17 – March of the Zapotec under the Beirut banner and Holland under the Realpeople nom de plume. Details at Paste.

Okkervil River’s Will Sheff makes a mixtape for Drowned In Sound, makes conversation with Filter.

JAM talks to Emily Haines and James Shaw of Metric about the process of getting their heads together to create album number four, currently looking for an early 2009 release. They’re headlining that big Canuck-rock shin-dig at Sound Academy on December 13.

Spinner’s Interface welcomes Margot & The Nuclear So And So’s to their studios.

Daytrotter offers up a Born Ruffians session for download. And congratulations to Andrew, who won the tote bag and stuff.

In addition to headlining the Make Some Noise concert at the North York Central Library on November 15, Gentleman Reg has got a show scheduled at the Drake Underground for December 4, tickets $12. The release date for his new album Jet Black is still a moving target (though you can hear new material at his MySpace) but there’s a new 7″ single out now and an EP intended to introduce Reg to US audiences entitled Little Buildings is set for release south of the border on November 11.

And speaking of things south of the border… congratulations America. You did a hell of a thing. Though between you and me, I think I was more choked up when Jimmy Smits won the White House on The West Wing. Yeah, sometimes I’m weird like that. But still, bravo.

Timothy SaccentiSo how exactly do you, as a band, know when you’ve arrived? Is it when you quit your day job? When your parents accept that you’re not just wasting your life? In the case of Toronto’s Born Ruffians, is it when your debut album Red, Yellow & Blue proves popular enough that you’re able to headline a venue the size of the Opera House, as they are this Saturday night? When you’re the subject of a documentary program by Bruce McDonald following you around SxSW?

No, I think it’s when you can justify having tote bags as merch. How loyal do your fans have to be to want a tote bag? I mean, how many tote bags can an individual need? How much does one person have to tote at any given time? I do not know. It confounds me. But indeed, the Born Ruffians have their very own tote bags for sale and courtesy of Stage Fright Publicity, I’ve got one to give away – along with a remix 12″ of their latest single “Little Garcon” and a t-shirt. If you want, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want the Born Ruffians swag” in the subject line and your full mailing address and t-shirt size (and gender) and get that in to me before midnight, October 31.

Video: Born Ruffians – “Hummingbird”
Video: Born Ruffians – “I Need A Life”
Trailer: The Rawside Of… Born Ruffians
MySpace: Born Ruffians