Michael SchmellingI warned you this’d be another one of those days heavy on links, light on context. Let’s begin.

Sonic Youth’s current tour in support of The Eternal has predictably yielded a lot of interviews with various band members. The Quietus scores face time with all save drummer Steve Shelley, while The Detroit Free Press talks only to Shelley. Spinner chats with Lee Ranaldo and Kim Gordon while Time Out Chicago, The Chicago Tribune and Paste each have interviews with Thurston Moore. I could only be called a casual SY fan at best, but The Eternal does continue their late-career streak of releasing albums that I am quite enjoying, balancing their noisier, experimental excursions with more structured songcraft. I approve, and am quite looking forward to seeing them at Massey Hall next Tuesday. Pitchfork has information on forthcoming Sonic Youth box set about which details are slim, but which will contain a cassette tape recording of Beck covering their EVOL album.

The Pernice Brothers website has some more information on the promotional activities – namely combination solo acoustic show and book reading – that will surround the release of Joe’s new novel It Feels So Good When I Stop, and the accompanying soundtrack/covers album of the same name, both out the week of August 4. The most exciting part of the update is the part that says, “we will add a Toronto date at some point”, thus finally making me shut up about the fact that despite Joe’s having lived here for many years now, he’s played live here almost not at all. I guess they’re just working out the intense logistical difficulties of getting him to walk from his house to a venue – any venue – with a guitar. Streetcars may have to be involved.

Pitchfork has an interview with Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars while Minnesota Public Radio welcomed the band to their studios for a session. There’s also feature pieces at The Denver Daily News, PopMatters and The San Francisco Examiner. Apparently they’ve been wowing everyone on this tour just as much as they did in Toronto. Good for them.

To no one’s surprise, Alberta’s media – namely Vue, See, The Calgary Herald and FFWD – all line up to welcome The Rural Alberta Advantage to Alberta. Hometowns gets its re-release on July 7 and the band will play a hometown release show on July 30 at the Horseshoe.

The Dears will be playing a free show at Harbourfront Centre on July 26 as part of their Canadian Voices festival, whose lineup already features performances from Jenn Grant, Gentleman Reg and Amy Millan earlier in the weekend. Reg is also playing Pride this weekend – eye has an interview.

Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler tells NME that the band have begun work on their next album.

Decider talks to Michael Benjamin Lerner of Telekinesis.

A couple Daytrotter sessions of note went up this week. This one featuring White Lies was recorded at SxSW – they’re back in North America this Fall including a date at the Phoenix on September 28 – and this one features Love Is All.

Paste gets to know School Of Seven Bells.

PitchforkTV has a couple new videos – one from The Depreciation Guild, who will be in town on September 7 at the Horseshoe accompanying The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, and Jenny Lewis has released her second video from last year’s Acid Tongue in just over a week. Did she just realize the record was getting old?

Video: The Depreciation Guild – “Dream About Me”
Video: Jenny Lewis – “Carpetbaggers”

Also at PFTV – Dinosaur Jr’s set from last year’s Pitchfork Festival. They’re at the Phoenix on September 30.

Filter has posted online their recent feature piece on Antony & The Johnsons. They’re releasing a double a-side single on August 4, one of which will be a Beyonce cover. Details at Exclaim.

NME reports that Editors’ next album In This Light And On This Evening has been given a September 21 release date.

Virgin Music has a two-part video interview with Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine, whose debut Lungs is out in the UK on July 6 and October 13 in North America.

Noah & The Whale have set an August 31 release date for their new album First Day Of Spring, and are offering a free download of the title track.

Same Same talks to Patrick Wolf.

www.california66revue.com/MySpaceWe always seem to be talking about (relatively) new music hereabouts. Let’s talk about some old. A few acts with legendary names recently announced tours that are coming through town, but as is the case more often than not, the actual product bears some extra scrutiny.

First, you’ve got ’60s British pop giants The Zombies, who have a date at the Mod Club on July 15 – tickets $39.50. Though four of the five original members still survive – guitarist Paul Atkinson died in 2004 – and they’ve reunited for special shows in the UK in recent years, this touring outfit boasts just two original members. Those members are singer Colin Blunstone and pianist Rod Argent, though, so it’s probably reasonable to think that they’ll sound pretty damn good when running through their stone-cold yet still probably underappreciated classic tunes like “She’s Not There”, “Tell Her No”, “Care Of Cell 44” and “Time Of The Season”. I think The Zombies have toured through Ontario in the past, but usually well out of town at casino resorts and such – their playing a show in downtown Toronto could well draw a completely different but hopefully appreciative audience.

Slightly more questionable in the credentials department is the California ’66 Revue, which will be at Lee’s Palace a month later on August 14, tickets $25. That bill is topped by psych-rock forebears The Electric Prunes and also features Sky Saxon, who once fronted garage rockers The Seeds, but it’s the middle act that is simultaneously the most intriguing and most probably disappointing – Love.

When I was younger and was far more keen on amassing a more comprehensive musical education, I spent a lot of time with albums that had been acknowledged as “classics” but I think one of the only ones that I really, really grew to love beyond the historical context – and that includes from the Beatles and the Stones – was Love’s Forever Changes. It’s such a unique record, towering with ambition and somehow delivering on every promise – glorious both for its singles and as a single, unified artistic statement. With a number of reissues over the last few years, each with different bonus goodies, as well as a live CD/DVD set, one could argue that it’s no longer the criminally overlooked treasure it once was, but it’s also so good a record that you could also argue that it’s simply not possible for it to get the praise it actually deserves. I hold this record in that high esteem.

And so on one level, it’s exciting that Love is coming to town, but also problematic due to the fact that Love frontman and mastermind, Arthur Lee, died three years ago. The current outfit isn’t without some claim to the name – they boast guitarist Johnny Echols and drummer Michael Stuart-Ware, both of whom played on Forever Changes and are otherwise comprised of Baby Lemonade, who were Lee’s backing band in his later years while performing as Love with Arthur Lee but they also actually fired Lee in 2005, citing his unpredictable and unprofessional behaviour, and continued on as The Love Band. It later turned out that this was due, in part at least, to Lee’s battle with leukemia which he would eventually succumb to the following year.

The point of all this being that though they’re called Love, and have members of Love, and may even sound a helluva lot like Love (I don’t know who’s handling vocals), it’s just not Love. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be good, just not Love. And it makes me wistful about the show that Lee and the band had originally scheduled for Lee’s Palace back in 2002 but had to cancel on account of immigration issues – apparently Canada took exception to Lee’s criminal record for firearms offenses. That would have been something.

Video: The Zombies – “Time Of The Season”
Video: Love – “Alone Again Or” (live)
Video: The Electric Prunes – “”You Never Had It Better/I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)”
Video: The Seeds – “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”

Blurt reports that in addition to the upcoming reissues of Big Star’s seminal Number One Record and Radio City albums – as a remastered single CD or individual LPs – on June 16, there’ll be a four-disc box set chock full of unreleased goodies due out September 15. Update: Pitchfork has box set details, including the title – Keep An Eye On The Sky.

Magnet plays over/under with Elvis Costello’s oeuvre, hoping to point out that Declan’s post-2000 output is worth your time. I wonder if that’ll apply to his new one, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, when it’s released next week. There’s an interview at The Wall Street Journal as well as a feature piece and The Irish Times also has a chat. Costello plays Massey Hall on August 28.

Jambase talks to Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. No, I don’t know when he’s coming back to town, stop asking me.

Exclaim puts Apostle Of Hustle on their cover, eye just gives them an inside story. They play the Music Gallery tonight and tomorrow night.

State, The Journal-Sentinel and Decider interview various Decemberists. They’re at the Kool Haus on August 3.

Aquarium Drunkard is offering a recent Neko Case session from CBC Radio 3 for download. Neko is at Massey Hall on July 14 with Jason Lytle as support. The Georgia Straight and Paste have interviews with the former Grandaddy frontman.

Pitchfork talks to Jason Molina of Magnolia Electric Co about their new album Josephine, due out July 21. The title track from said record is now available to download.

MP3: The Magnolia Electric Co – “Josephine”

See, Canada.com and The Calgary Sun interview The Dears.

The whole of the star-studded Dark Was The Night benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall earlier this month is now available to stream at NPR.

Frank YangIf only it were as Muppet-simple as “taking Manhattan”. In fact, it shook out more like first, I take a subway, then a shuttle bus, then a ferry, then a plane, then monorail, train and subway again just to get into Manhattan. And just as soon as I’ve arrived in the Big Apple, it’s back on the subway, another subway, then a train, another train and then an unlicensed taxi (“hey you need a ride?”) – all to get into Waterbury, Connecticut. A city which was once apparently a brass manufacturing powerhouse but which now seems to have little to recommend it as a destination, save for a gorgeous theater downtown – the Palace – and on Thursday night, one Leonard Cohen.

Seeing Cohen wasn’t on the agenda as recently as last weekend, as I’d hoped to be able to finagle a way to the Hamilton show at Copp’s tomorrow, but an extra ticket from Without A Yard, serendipitous scheduling and a willingness to undertake a rather ridiculous set of logistics to trek out to the show made it happen. Mostly. Weather delays and other issues fixed it so that we didn’t actually reach the theater until almost mid-way into Cohen’s set – so it’s just as well that he needs no introduction, because I wouldn’t have been able to provide one.

Thankfully, the show was extra-long and with an intermission, for that’s when we arrived and thus managed to avoid being those people who get there late and try to find their seats in the dark. Sure, it meant that instead of a marathon three-hour show, we only got a 90-minute, regular-length show, but even a that much Leonard is like a gift – especially in a venue as stunning as the Palace. There may not be much else to say about a one-cab town like Waterbury, but this was easily the second-nicest place I’d ever seen a show, after only the Royal Albert Hall in London.

And what a show. I don’t know what Cohen played in the front half of the performance, but it almost seemed like he knew to hold back my favourite songs for the finale, as it was stunner after stunner as soon as the lights went down and Cohen, surprisingly nimble, sprinted/danced/shimmied onto the stage. “Tower Of Song”, “Suzanne”, “Take This Waltz”, “Democracy”, “Halleleujah”, “Famous Blue Raincoat”, hell yes. And okay, I just had a look at the set list for the show and am a little pained to have missed “Anthem”, “Everybody Knows” and “Chelsea Hotel” but still, no regrets.

Just as remarkable as hearing the songs performed live – not something I ever thought I’d get to experience – was how good Cohen sounded. He’s obviously not a young man – he may have been spry but was still a slightish figure and a bit stooped – but age seems to have served his delivery very well, somehow making his voice even deeper, richer and more sonorous. He also played more guitar than I’d expected, and I’d have been happy – possibly even happier – to have heard him play solo. It’s no secret my favourite Cohen aesthetic is that of the stark, dark folksinger of his earlier works even if, as far as songs go, I prefer his later works circa The Future or I’m Your Man (and I’m far from unique in this, I know) but the production values on those records – the big bands, the backing singers, the rather dubious synths – have just aged so badly that it can be hard to listen to.

In the live setting, he splits the difference somewhat with a nine-piece backing band including three backing singers – it’s all live, analog instrumentation, toy keyboard on “Tower Of Song” excepted, and masterfully played but I don’t feel the high degree of polish – even if suited for the setting – suits the songs best. They need those dark, dusty corners and the gleam of Cohen’s band doesn’t let those shadows fall where they should. Additionally, Cohen as bandleader was generous to a fault, allowing extended excursions to the musicians – do anyone really need to hear more than one bouzouki solo in a lifetime? – and even ceding lead vocals to Sharon Robinson on their collaboration “Boogie Street”. Perhaps if I’d made the entire show, I’d have been less anxious about it but any moment that Cohen wasn’t singing felt like a lost one.

Understand, however, that these complaints aren’t even really complaints, more just observations, and should in no way imply that I was less than enraptured by the show. No matter how you dress them up, the heart of it is Cohen, his words and his voice, and those were flawless. Obviously I hope that Cohen continues to tour and that I might get to see him again – start to finish – but that’s a huge and probably unrealistic presumption. I feel fortunate to have seen as much as I did, and to anyone who will be seeing him on any of his remaining dates, you are in for such a treat. But of course you already knew that.

The Hartford Courant also has a review of the Waterbury show.

Photos: Leonard Cohen @ The Palace Theater – May 14, 2009
Video: Leonard Cohen – “Democracy”
Video: Leonard Cohen – “Closing Time”
Video: Leonard Cohen – “Dance Me To The End Of Love”
Video: Leonard Cohen – “In My Secret Life”
Video: Leonard Cohen – “First We Take Manhattan”
MySpace: Leonard Cohen

PitchforkTV’s “Don’t Look Down” series welcomes Jose Gonzalez for a session. He plays the Harbourfront Centre on June 26 as part of the Toronto Jazz Festival.

Anyone disappointed that Loney Dear had to cancel last week’s show in Toronto on account of their van breaking down between here and Montreal – I’m looking at you, me – can take a little solace in this performance they recorded for Baeble Music’s new “Guest Apartment” video session series. Seattlest has an interview with Emil Svanangen.

WOXY has posted the MP3s from their recent Lounge Act session with The Dears to share and enjoy.

Pitchfork talks to Peter Buck and Paste has some photos of R.E.M. hunkered down in the studio, hard at work on the follow-up to Accelerate.

Vanity Fair and Prefix talk to Stephin Merritt about his new musical based on Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.

Spinnerette has a date at the Mod Club on June 19. Their debut, which is either self-titled or called A Prescription For Mankind, is out June 23.

Video: Spinnerette – “Ghetto Love”

Abe Vigoda – band, not actor – are at the El Mocambo on July 22 in support of their new album Reviver. Advance tickets are $10.

MP3: Abe Vigoda – “Don’t Lie”

The Rural Alberta Advantage, who will properly release Hometowns on July 7 and tour North America all Summer to support, will play a homecoming pit stop/record release show at the Horseshoe on July 30.

So some details have emerged on why the Olympic Island concert was canceled last week. Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew blogs that the July 11 date was unfortunately scheduled opposite the Molson Indy – both temporally and physically, what with Olympic Island being just across the lake from Exhibition Place, where the very loud cars would have been tearing around the track all day. They’d likely have been done by the time BSS and Explosions In The Sky took the stage but for the rest of the bands, it’d have been near-unbearable. Beach House wouldn’t have stood a chance. So the festival was canned, the free make-up show that same night from BSS at Harbourfront Centre announced and the lineups for it are probably already stretching all along the waterfront. Also covered in the post is the fact that the band are now recording their fourth album – a proper Broken release, not a “Presents” faux-solo record – with Tortoise’s John McIntire at the helm. Considering his aesthetic is very, very different from usual BSS producer Dave Newfeld, it should be very interesting to see what comes of this – one hopes he can curb some/much of the Scene’s meandering sprawl without costing them their spontaneous magic. And Pitchfork currently has excerpts from the new Broken biography, This Book Is Broken available to read.

Frank YangThere’s a scene in the Danny Boyle film Sunshine (a fantastic movie, by the way) wherein the spaceship’s psych officer is in the observation deck and asks the ship’s computer to open up the shades blocking out most of the Sun’s intensity, even though he knows that doing so would be almost instantly fatal (the computer refuses and he settles for the minimum safe amount, don’t worry, no spoiler – it’s the opening scene). The point being that same urge, the one that compels you to do what is obviously unsafe in order to experience something huge and awesome and terrible in a direct, unfiltered form, is what overtook me a couple times on Monday night at the Phoenix when I slipped one of my earplugs out, just for a moment, during sets by both Mogwai and The Twilight Sad.

I hadn’t originally intended to attend this show. I certainly wasn’t going to go to the one it was making up for, a September 2008 cancelled on account of Mogwai drummer’s Martin Bulloch’s pacemaker malfunctioning – not for lack of interest, really, but because I’d seen them when they’d swung through town back in July. And there’s not a lot of bands that I want/need to see twice in the span of three months. But when this tour was announced, it had been long enough since last time that I was considering it and when The Twilight Sad were slated as support, that sealed it – there was no way I was going to miss out.

It’s been a couple years since they released their debut Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters and as long since their one and only visit and even though you could never say that the band had a surplus of conventional stage presence, they still made a hell of an impression with the sheer aural intensity of their performance, and I’ve been waiting a long while for them to return. Though still formally a four-piece, they had with them an extra touring player covering keyboard duties and also second guitar for those moments where a zillion decibels apparently wasn’t quite enough.

With a new album almost done and set for an Autumn release, the set featured no shortage of new material and while I loved Autumns for its ability to essentially take one trick – huge, sustained guitar-driven crescendo and bellowed Scottish angst – and extend it out over an entire record without getting samey, but rehashing that on a second album simply wouldn’t have done. And to their credit, the new material doesn’t follow the formula but as such existed so far outside of my Twilight Sad frame of reference that offering an opinion with further listens wouldn’t be of any value – but I can say that they’re still decidedly dark and morose in tone, so any fears that they’ve lightened up can be put to rest. But it was still the old material that delivered the goods, huge and epic and like a sonic body massage. No, they still don’t do much on stage visually though singer James Graham does wander around a bit more than he did before, but looking is beside the point – it’s about the hearing. And the destruction of your ability to do so.

Going over my review of Mogwai’s show from last year, I find that I’ve already said much of what I’m inclined to say about this one – which is fitting because the general gist of it was that even though one Mogwai show isn’t too different from the next, they’re still always memorable experiences. It’s funny that most discussion of Mogwai focuses on the LOUD part of their dynamic – and make no mistake, when they get loud, it’s loud – but they spend so much more of their time exploring the quiet. And with the night’s set list leaning heavily on the last three records and their slower, more expansive and cinematic qualities, it was the perfect opportunity to listen – really listen – to how marvelously they do the little things. The intricate guitar picking, the gentle taps on the high-hat, the whirring textures of the keyboards – it’s simply gorgeous.

But of course there was the loud. Volume spiked throughout the show but it was the closing triumvirate that reminded, as if it was necessary, that Mogwai remained one of the absolute loudest bands around. First there was the extended apocalypse of “Mogwai Fear Satan”, still as unrelentingly potent as it was when it was released a decade ago and then just as the audience was picking itself off the floor, the thundering main set closer of “Glasgow Mega Snake” featuring one of the nastiest guitar riffs from anywhere, by anyone. And for the encore, a scorched earth “My Father, My King” that left nothing standing. I ducked out as things descended into feedback and even outside the venue, I could still hear it throb. Epic.

Chart also has a review of the show and there’s interviews with Mogwai at The Enterprise News, Metro and Pulse Niagara.

Photos: Mogwai, The Twilight Sad @ The Phoenix – May 4, 2009
MP3: Mogwai – “Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home”
MP3: Mogwai – “Tracy”
MP3: Mogwai – “Dial: Revenge”
MP3: Mogwai – “Hunted By A Freak”
MP3: Mogwai – “7:25”
MP3: The Twilight Sad – “Cold Days From The Birdhouse”
MP3: The Twilight Sad – “That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy”
Video: Mogwai – “Travel Is Dangerous”
Video: Mogwai – “Friend Of The Night”
Video: Mogwai – “Hunted By A Freak”
Video: Mogwai – “Dial: Revenge”
MySpace: Mogwai
MySpace: The Twilight Sad

Drowned In Sound and Clash interview The Vaselines, whose Enter The Vaselines compilation is out now and who play Lee’s Palace next Friday night, May 15.

Patrick Wolf’s new album The Bachelor is still set for a June 1 release in the UK, but in North America, we’ll only be privvy to the digital release on that date (well, the 2nd). Those of us who still like physical media will have to wait for August 11 when his new label NYLON – as in the people behind NYLON – will make it available, details at Pitchfork. But they’re also sponsoring a tour in June – headlined by Wolf and also featuring Living Things and France’s Plasticines – so the delayed release is forgiven. I’d worried that with Wolf now without major label backing, he and his audacious live shows would have some difficulty coming back to North America. Only one date has been made public so far – June 14 in Minneapolis – but based on that we can (hopefully) expect to see Wolf hereabouts in mid-June. There’s interviews with Wolf at Arjan Writes, MusicOhm and NYLON.

The September 18 date at Lee’s Palace was already revealed, but Pitchfork has full Fall tour dates for Maximo Park in support of Quicken The Heart, out next week. They’re also offering up an MP3 from the album.

MP3: Maximo Park – “Let’s Get Clinical”

Drowned In Sound talks to The Horrors. They’re at the Phoenix tomorrow night opening up for The Kills.

Decider talks to Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner. Their new album The Knot is out July 21.

A third Dears b-side MP3 is now available.

MP3: The Dears – “Meltdown In A Major” (OG Demo Version)

Wolfe Island Musicfest taking place August 8 on Wolfe Island in the Thousand Islands at Kingston. This year, the Marysville baseball diamond will be rocked by the sounds of Holy Fuck, Busdriver (this one? Dunno), Apostle Of Hustle, Attack In Black, Woodhands, The D’Urbervilles, Ohbijou, The Rural Alberta Advantage and Julie Fader. Solid? Definitely. Worth the drive to Kingston? Probably.

Leigh RightonVancouver fuzz-merchant duo Japandroids chose an interesting way to celebrate the release of their new album Post-Nothing and the attendant “Best New Music” laurels bestowed upon it by Pitchfork – they cancelled nearly their entire scheduled Spring tour.

Okay “chose” is probably the wrong word, as singer-guitarist Brian King probably didn’t decide this was the perfect time to suffer a perforated ulcer and go in for emergency surgery. But that’s what happened, and so nearly a month’s worth of dates were scrapped but almost immediately rescheduled – Pitchfork has the new dates, including a July 16 date at the El Mocambo in Toronto to make up for the nixed May 9 date.

In the meantime, they can try and keep up with the increased media interest that this record is sure to generate – witness them already on the cover of the latest Exclaim. There’s also interviews with them at JAM and View, while Metro talks to them in the context of what it identifies as a new trend of “lo-fi” bands.

MP3: Japandroids – “Young Hearts Spark Fire”
Video: Japandroids – “Heart Sweats”
MySpace: Japandroids

Exclaim! and Chart talk to Dog Day about new album Concentration. They’re at Lee’s on May 28.

Metric week continues at Drowned In Sound as the band plays tour guide – bassist Josh Winstead relates his favourite things about New York City and guitarist Jimmy Shaw does the same for Toronto.

NOW features The Dears, kicking of their North American tour at the Mod Club tonight.

Fucked Up will be hosting a night of what’s sure to be musical mayhem at the Phoenix on July 16 with a bill that will include Women and Vivian Girls amongst others still to be announced. There’s features on the band at Vue and Uptown.

MP3: Fucked Up – “No Epiphany” (No Age remix)
MP3: Fucked Up – “No Epiphany”
MP3: Fucked Up – “Twice Born”

The Los Angeles Record gets the boys from No Age to interview Bob Mould. No Age will be in town in June for NxNE – specifics still forthcoming.

Aquarium Drunkard interviews James McNew of Condo Fucks.

NPR has a World Cafe session with School Of Seven Bells.

The Guardian profiles St Vincent’s Annie Clark. Her new record Actor is out next week.

John Vanderslice has let loose another MP3 from Romanian Names, out May 19.

MP3: John Vanderslice – “Too Much Time”

M Ward stops by MPR for a session. Metro also offers up an interview.

Magnet offers an over/under analysis of The Hold Steady’s five most over- and underrated songs. Some of those songs make an appearance in the band’s session recorded for Daytrotter during SxSW, which is now available to download (or will be later today – will link when it’s up). Update: There we go.

Paste goes Bob Dylan-crazy on the occasion of his new album’s release. Together Through Life came out earlier this week and is streaming at Spinner.

Stream: Bob Dylan / Together Through Life

Metromix talks to Stephin Merritt about his score for the stage version of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.

I like how much I’ve been able to swear in today’s post, and none if it was me being profane.