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.

Frank YangEven though there’s rarely a shortage of things to do in Toronto on any given night, it’s rare that I’ve ever faced a real dilemma about where I should or want to be – that was exactly the case this past Monday night when two tours hit town from opposite directions on the 401 and left me facing a difficult choice. A Camp at the Mod Club or Doves at the Kool Haus? Beautiful Swedish woman or pasty English guys? Lush pop or space rock? You could have flipped a coin and I’d probably have been content with the result, but in the end, even though I’d seen then numerous times before, I opted for the Mancunians – I was just in that Brit-rock kind of mood, I guess.

Doves have had a pretty terrific track record when it comes to selecting opening acts, so I’ll extend them a pass on this occasion (their second – they inflicted Starsailor on use back in 2002) with regards to Wild Light. I’d actually seen them at SxSW 2008, and deliberately so – something in the samples I’d heard must have caught my interest but when I actually saw them play, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was. Over a year later and with the band signed to a major label and their debut album Adult Nights under their belts, this performance did nothing to remind me. The New Hampshire outfit remains a talented crew, with three solid vocalist and instrumental chops to go around but lack any sort of personality, cranking out inoffensive, MOR-approved college rock. I tried to get it, I really did, but it just wasn’t happening. Next.

Consistency has been the hallmark of Doves’ recorded output since they first emerged with 2000’s Lost Souls – a trait that continued with this year’s solid but not revelatory album Kingdom Of Rust. Their live show, however, seemed to take a quantum leap forwards with their last visit four years ago – whereas their first visits featured a low-key band overly-reliant on backing tracks and projected visuals, their last visit featured an outfit decidedly more energetic and charismatic and that more extroverted delivery made all the difference in the quality of the live show.

This time out, taking the stage to the motorik intro of “Jetstream”, they were even looser but that wasn’t entirely a benefit – I don’t know if drummer Andy Williams had decided to play without a click for the first time or was just generally antsy about something, but for the first few songs the tempos were all over the place, the speeding up particularly noticeable in “Snowden”, which came across more lurching than regal. He eventually settled down, however, and Doves turned in another impressive performance, bassist Jimi Goodwin an especially gregarious frontman and guitarist Jez Williams a constant whirlwind of activity.

The set leaned heavily on new material early on but the band eventually worked their way through their back catalog to the classic material and hit all the right notes, including the first reading of “The Cedar Room” on the tour so far. I was particularly impressed with how much they’d gotten away from using pre-recorded backing tracks, adding a keyboardist to help fill things out but largely finally content to allow the live renditions of their meticulously-crafted studio versions be their own loose-limbed creatures, the songs sounding much more organic and dynamic as a result.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Kool Haus was not sold out – the crowd was a healthy size and obviously stoked for the show, but in general everyone’s personal space was being respected. Having been around for nearly a decade, it could simply be that their fanbase has finally hit a steady state, but it’s a good-sized one that many acts would kill to have. But as long as Doves keep turning out records as solid as they have been – and there’s no reason to think they won’t, consistency remember – and their live show keeps improving, these fans won’t be going anywhere.

Epilogue has an interview with Doves while fansite Doves Music Blog reports that the band will be releasing an instrumental-only version of Kingdom Of Rust on June 16 in digital form. Guess reviewers aren’t the only ones who think their music is cinematic.

Photos: Doves, Wild Light @ The Kool Haus – June 1, 2009
MP3: Wild Light – “Red House”
Video: Doves – “Kingdom Of Rust”
Video: Doves – “Snowden”
Video: Doves – “Sky Starts Falling”
Video: Doves – “Pounding”
Video: Doves – “Black & White Town”
Video: Doves – “There Goes The Fear”
Video: Doves – “Caught By The River”
Video: Doves – “The Cedar Room”
Video: Doves – “Sea Song”
Video: Doves – “Here It Comes”
Video: Doves – “The Man Who Told Everything”
Video: Doves – “Catch The Sun”
Video: Wild Light – “California On My Mind”
MySpace: Doves

Elbow’s Guy Garvey discusses the band’s plans for following up their Mercury-winning The Seldom Seen Kid and plans for strategic worldwide domination with Billboard. Look for album number five in late 2010 and for them to play the Phoenix on July 29.

NME reports that Editors will release their new album In This Light And On This Evening this coming September.

Also coming soon is the new album from Arctic Monkeys – the record is still untitled but will be out on August 25, details at Pitchfork.

The 405 interviews Frightened Rabbit. They’re at the Horseshoe July 22.

Little Boots, with whom The Times has an interview, is streaming the whole of her debut Hands in advance of its release this coming Tuesday. Exclaim reports that the North American release will be one of the first on the just-resurrected Elektra imprint – no word on whether the label intends to live up to their “neglectra” nickname during their second go-around.

Stream: Little Boots / Hands

Also streaming is Elvis Costello’s new album Secret, Profane & Sugarcane. He’s at Massey Hall on August 28.

Stream: Elvis Costello / Secret, Profane & Sugarcane

Considering the band is formally on hiatus, I’ve been writing a fair bit about Belle & Sebastian lately. Most of that involves Stuart Murdoch’s God Help The Girl project, the album for which is being released June 23. Murdoch has contributed a blog post to The Guardian wherein he explains the impetus for the project and also features the first part of a making-of video series. The Guardian also conducted an interview with Murdoch last month. They’ve also made a b-side MP3 with Murdoch on lead vocals available to download.

MP3: God Help The Girl – “Mary’s Market”

As for Belle & Sebastian’s other singer, Stevie Jackson, there’s a solo record that he has “been rather sporadically putting one together, the odd day here and there” but folks here in Toronto may get a sneak preview of some of the material next Thursday, June 11, as Jackson will be playing an informal jam session at the Imperial Pub. Details of what to expect are vague, but Jackson will be there along with a gaggle of local musicians – Final Fantasy amongst them – and music will ensue. It’s set to start around 10:30 but it’ll probably start later and if you want to be amongst the few in the really-not-large room, you’ll be there much earlier.

Cameron WittigAnother day, another example of my wanton disregard for traditional press cycles. In this case, it’s Chicago’s Andrew Bird and his 2007 release Armchair Apocrypha. There’s no good reason why I never wrote it up – it’s a fine record – but in my defense, the cardboard sleeve was really tough to get off the jewel case… However I’m not going to bother with a review now, if you want some endorsements head over to Metacritic. Instead, I’m going to look to the future.

In particular, January 20. That’s the date that his new album Noble Beast will be released, a week earlier than originally announced. It’ll be available in both a standard single-CD/double-LP form as well as a fancy pants deluxe edition that will include a second CD of instrumental compositions entitled Useless Creatures as well as an assortment of deluxe edition-worthy liner note goodies.

And another date – or set of dates – of note are those of his North American tour. The original February leg ran from the east coast of the US, through the south and up the west coast but those have now been augmented by a second batch covering the middle of American and extending into Canada, including an April 3 date at Toronto’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

If you’re not familiar with Bird, imagine an individual who seems to be a virtuoso at every instrument he touches but is most noted for his violin and whistling skills. Oh, and who’s just as good as a singer and songwriter. And he’s a mesmerizing live performer. He’s probably also kind to animals and small children. It’s really kind of disgusting, if you think about it. Check out a track from his last album and his Live In Montreal record, also released last year.

MP3: Andrew Bird – “Heretics”
MP3: Andrew Bird – “Skin Is, My” (live)
MP3: Andrew Bird – “Why?” (live)
Video: Andrew Bird – “Imitosis”
MySpace: Andrew Bird

NOW and The Guelph Mercury talk to D’Urbervilles frontman John O’Regan. Congrats to Stephanie and Meghan who won the passes to the band’s two-night Rock Em Sock Em shows at the Tiger Bar on Friday and Saturday night.

Emily Haines of Metric talks to The Globe & Mail and JAM about the Jingle Bell Rock tour that brings them to the Sound Academy tomorrow and Saturday night – and congratulations to Michael and Greg, who won the passes to the Toronto shows. Vancouver ones are still up for grabs!

NPR talks to Parts & Labor.

Editors frontman Tom Smith uses reference points like “Terminator” and “Blade Runner” in describing their new album to BBC.

Billboard talks to Adele about where she wants to go with album number two. The Telegraph talks to her about finding success in America.

PJ Harvey will release a new album – another collaboration with John Parish – on March 30. The Quietus has details on the record, entitled A Woman A Man Walked By.

NME reports that Patrick Wolf is looking for investors to help finance his next album Battle. He’s hoping fans will buy 10-quid shares via bandstocks.com and allow him to fulfill his vision of releasing a double album for next Spring.

Kele Okereke of Bloc Party reflects on the band’s eventful 2008 with BBC.

Bradley’s Almanac is sharing a recording of The Wedding Present’s show in Cambridge, Massachusetts this past October.

The Skinny talks to Frightened Rabbit siblings Scott and Grant Hutchison, Tourdates.co.uk gets some questions answered by Scott.

4AD is closing out 2008 by offering a downloadable MP3 mix featuring songs from all their releases this year.

Some of you may recall my gushing about Phonogram back in January 2007, it being a thoroughly enjoyable blend of Britpop nostalgia and comic book fantasy. Well the second series, Phonogram: The Singles Club, went on sale this week and there’s a 6-page preview available over at Comic Book Resources. It looks great – I’m not waiting for the trade on this one.