Frank YangIs it possible for a band to steal their own show? It is when you’re far more interested in the support act than the headliner, as I was Wednesday night at The Horseshoe. I had already planned to attend even when it was just Brighton, UK’s Blood Red Shoes on the bill – I liked their two albums, including their latest and first North American release Fire Like This, well enough – but when Sky Larkin were announced as support, well it became an absolute must-see.

I had loved the Leeds trio’s 2009 debut The Golden Spike and rate this year’s follow-up Kaleide only slightly behind it, though at only a few months old it’s got lots of time to curry more favour. The difference between the two is really just degrees, as both are packed with wiry, spiky pop whose melodic qualities make them immediate and yet whose quirkiness allows them to continue to grow and unfold with repeated listens. And while these traits are very much in evidence in the live setting, what you notice most about the band on stage is just how much fun they’re having and how effortless they make it all seem.

When they’re playing, you just have to watch frontwoman Katie Harkin and how she seems at one with her guitar whilst dancing, hopping and swaying around the stage without missing a beat or note, or maybe drummer Nestor Matthews as he gives some epic drummer face while punishing his kit for some heinous transgressions. And between songs, their bantering with the audience and each other was just as entertaining – bassist Doug Adams may have been generally more placid on stage than his bandmates, but he did offer some choice words about Toronto’s new mayor-elect (“I’ve been reading about this Rob Ford guy – he’s an asshole!”). Their set didn’t crackle quite and fiercely as their visit to the Cameron Houe down the street a year and a day earlier, but it was still plenty great and Matthews got to celebrate his birthday without bleeding all over his kit.

So even before the headliners even set foot on stage, the night was deemed a success but even if, on paper, you preferred Sky Larkin’s more classically indie guitar-pop, there wasn’t going to be any resisting of Blood Red Shoes’ blunt instrument, ’90s alt rock-saluting attack. With Laura-Mary Carter on guitar, Steven Ansell on drums and both on vocals, their musical approach may have been less nuanced than their openers, but they understood the effectiveness of coming on strong and not letting up for a moment. And so it was that their relentless set focused on the most aggressive moments of Fire Like This and their debut Box Of Secrets and the permutations of their simple musical recipe – thick riffs and spidery lines from Carter’s Telecaster and steady, heavy rhythms from Ansell’s kit. On record, the balance of the vocals seems to favour Ansell, his hollers coming across more forcefully than Carter’s dulcet singing style, but live, it was much more evenly split and it was for the better. There may have only the two of them but they roared like a much larger band and in response, the smallish but enthusiastic audience cheered like a packed stadium. Go for the Sky Larkin, stay for the Blood Red Shoes, leave dazed and satisfied.

The Valley Star, Georgia Straight and San Francisco Examiner have features on Blood Red Shoes.

Photos: Blood Red Shoes, Sky Larkin @ The Horseshoe – October 27, 2010
MP3: Blood Red Shoes – “Light It Up”
MP3: Sky Larkin – “Kaleide”
MP3: Sky Larkin – “Molten”
Video: Blood Red Shoes – “Heartsink”
Video: Blood Red Shoes – “Don’t Ask”
Video: Blood Red Shoes – “Colours Fade”
Video: Blood Red Shoes – “This Is Not For You”
Video: Blood Red Shoes – “Say Something, Say Anything”
Video: Blood Red Shoes – “I Wish I Was Someone Better”
Video: Blood Red Shoes – “It’s Getting Boring By The Sea”
Video: Sky Larkin – “Still Windmills”
Video: Sky Larkin – “Antibodies”
Video: Sky Larkin – “Beeline”
Video: Sky Larkin – “Fossil, I”
Video: Sky Larkin – “Molten”
Video: Sky Larkin – “One Of Two”
MySpace: Blood Red Shoes
MySpace: Sky Larkin

Interview talks to Elly Jackson of La Roux.

Clash and Dallas Voice have feature interviews with Antony Hegarty of Antony & The Johnsons.

Prefix has an interview with The Drums, who’ve just released a new video from their self-titled debut.

Video: The Drums – “Me & The Moon”

The Daily Iowan and Interview discover Phantogram.

The Walrus and Consequence Of Sound catch up with Liz Phair, who tries to explain every song on her mostly awful new record Funstyle to New York Magazine.

The Lissie show originally scheduled for last Tuesday and then cancelled when she lost her voice has now been rescheduled for January 18 of next year, but moved from the relatively cozy confines of the El Mocambo to the more spacious Opera House. Tickets for the new show are $15 and tickets for the old one will still be honoured.

MP3: Lissie – “Everywhere I Go”

New York Magazine gets some choice words from Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields. Strange Powers, the documentary on Merritt and his music, opens in Toronto next Thursday.

Pitch PerfectFor fans of a certain artfully raw and dramatic brand of indie rock, neither Jonathan Meiburg nor Jamie Stewart really needs an introduction. The former was a principal in Okkervil River and now fronts Shearwater, while the latter has been the creative force behind Xiu Xiu since 2002, and for the benefit of those familiar with one and not the other, their bands had toured together in recent years.

And now, they’ve made an album together. Over the course of a week earlier this year, Meiburg and Stewart came together in a studio to write and record and the result is Blue Water White Death – the name of both the project and the album. Presented in very spare sonic terms, it sounds very much like what you’d expect the offspring of Shearwater and Xiu Xiu to sound like, taking advantage of the fact that Meiburg and Stewarts voices are similar enough to sound like flip sides of the same emotional coin; Meiburg the powerful and Stewart the fragile. I didn’t really expect to like Blue Water White Death as much as I do, figuring my affection for Shearwater and disinterest in Xiu Xiu woulf cancel each other out, but these eight starkly beautiful and unsettlingly discordant songs are surprisingly compelling listening throughout.

Interview talks to Jonathan Meiburg about the origins of the project and working with Stewart.

MP3: Blue Water White Death – “Song For The Greater Jihad”
Video: Blue Water White Death – “Grunt Tube”

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals will bring their new self-titled album to town for a show at Lee’s Palace on December 7, tickets $15.

Video: Grace Potter & The Nocturals – “Paris (Ooh La La)”

Proving that there’s still no shortage of demand for things broken and/or social, Broken Social Scene have added a second show at the Sound Academy on December 10, tickets $30 in advance. Note that Superchunk don’t appear to be playing that second show, so they’ll only be performing on the 9th. The Courier-Journal talks to the ‘Chunk’s Mac McCaughan.

MP3: Broken Social Scene – “World Sick”

Former Beta Band frontman Steve Mason released his solo debut Boys Outside back in May and will be playing some select North American dates in mid-December to support; his tour wraps on December 20 at Wrongbar in Toronto. Wales Online has an interview and there’s a couple acoustic live tracks to download over at Domino.

MP3: Steve Mason – “All Come Down”
Video: Steve Mason – “Lost & Found”

Personal matters have forced Dum Dum Girls to cancel the remainder of their tour supporting The Vaselines, including Saturday night’s show at The Horseshoe.

eMusic and BBC have features on Warpaint. Their debut album The Fool was released this week.

Spinner talks to Rhett Miller of Old 97’s – he and bassist Murry Hammond will be playing songs from their new album The Grand Theatre Volume One when the pair play the El Mocambo on November 10.

Strange Powers, the documentary about Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields, will be making its Canadian premiere at the TIFF Lightbox on November 4. No idea if it’s a one-off or limited run, but if you want to see it on the big screen, you best set the evening aside and finagle tickets.

Trailer: Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields

Frank YangI don’t really maintain any sort of live music “bucket list” – I find the very notion a bit creepy – but there are bands whom I’ve long wanted to see but never gotten the opportunity for whatever reason. Near the top of the list are New York’s Versus, whom I discovered just after they finished promoting their last record Hurrah, back in 2000. Of course, at the time I didn’t know that they’d basically be going on a decade-long hiatus after frontman Richard Baluyut moved to San Francisco. That they weren’t going to be coming around any time soon became clear as every member began rolling out their own projects and aside from very occasional one-off gigs, Versus remained dormant.

But a move back to the east coast by Baluyut took the band out of mothballs and though the band is down to a trio, their new record On The Ones And Threes sounds like almost no time at all had passed between it and Hurrah. It’s still split between guitar-driven ragers and more thoughtful pieces, marked with Baluyut and Fontaine Toups’ distinctive vocals both together and apart and though still quintessentially ’90s college rock in spirit, doesn’t feel out of time or fashion in 2010. It’s a good record and perhaps more importantly, an excuse to tour again for the first time in a decade.

This tour brought them to Lee’s Palace with Merge labelmates and fellow ’90s survivors Polvo, though a lack of history with the headliners and questionable ability to stay upright made it unlikely I’d stay late enough to see them play. I did arrive in time to see local openers Soft Copy, however, and am glad I did both for their own set and the greater role they’d play in the evening’s narrative. To the former, the trio wore their post-punk influences squarely on their sleeves, drawing in particular from Mission Of Burma’s more melodic side. They had all the tension and intensity you’d want from an act trading in that sound, but with an immediate tunefulness that made them accessible to anyone. With two albums in Wolf, Wolves & More Wolves and Vicious Modernism under their belts, they’ve been around a little while as a unit and individually in various bands a hell of a lot longer, but they were a new find to me and a good one at that.

The constants in Versus have always been Richard Baluyut and Fontaine Toups – the rest of the band has been a bit of a revolving door even though they’ve often kept it in the family. For this iteration of the reunion, original drummer Ed Baluyut was back on the drummer’s stool on the record which is why it was surprising when they started playing, accompanied by Margaret White on violin and keys, Ed wasn’t behind the kit. No one was. They played a couple songs with this setup, Toups seeming to attack her bass extra heavily for some percussive effect, and it sort of worked – especially with White’s violin adding un-Versus-ish textures – but I was starting to think that I’d have to put an asterisk beside my “yeah, I finally saw Versus” anecdote when someone came out from the side of the stage and got behind the kit: Soft Copy’s drummer, Paul Boddum.

As Richard would explain, a new baby had necessitated Ed’s return to New York, leaving the band short-handed and so Boddum – who happened to be a sizable fan of the band – was enlisted that afternoon to fill in, though only in principal. They had no rehearsal or sound check and this was their first time playing together, but even without those qualifiers Boddum did a hell of a job pinch-hitting. Fills were kept simple and a couple of cues were missed, but you could see the band get more comfortable with the arrangement as the set progressed and by the set’s end, when the older material circa The Stars Are Insane was aired out, they were practically grooving and Baluyut was able to dig in to some fierce guitar work. I don’t doubt that had the proper line-up been in place, the show might have been a bit better paced or had some more momentum behind it, but this was just cooler to see and they sounded pretty great regardless. They wrapped their set to tremendous applause, Polvo went on, I went home and Paul went with Versus to play with them in Montreal.

Soft Copy’s next show is this Wednesday night at The Shop at Parts & Labour.

Photos: Versus, Soft Copy @ Lee’s Palace – August 13, 2010
MP3: Versus – “Invincible Hero”
MP3: Versus – “Deseret”
MP3: Soft Copy – “Hot Cakes”
MP3: Soft Copy – “Extra Cirricular”
MP3: Soft Copy – “First Date”
Video: Versus – “Scientists”
MySpace: Versus
MySpace: Soft Copy

The Village Voice interviews Dean Wareham of Dean & Britta about the Warhol 13 Most Beautiful project and revisiting the Galaxie 500 ouvre on their upcoming Fall tour.

Seattle Weekly and Spinner interview Craig Finn of The Hold Steady.

Sharon Van Etten previews a couple of songs from Epic for NPR’s World Cafe. The new record is out October 5 and she’ll be at Lee’s Palace on November 5 supporting Junip.

Billboard talks to Interpol about their return to the indies for self-titled album number four, out September 7.

Filter thinks you should already know The Magnetic Fields.

Billboard profiles Ra Ra Riot as they prepare for the of their sophomore effort The Orchard, which isn’t out till next Tuesday but is now streaming in whole at NPR. There’s also a new video from the record but only Americans are allowed to see it – foreigners can watch the ad, but not the vid. They’re at the Molson Amphitheatre on August 28. Video: Non-geoblocked version of the vid now up.

Video: Ra Ra Riot – “Boy”
Stream: Ra Ra Riot / The Orchard

Paste and Filter have features on Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, who just released their new record Let It Sway, currently available to stream at MBV Music. They’re at the El Mocambo on September 4.

Stream: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin / Let It Sway

Belle & Sebastian have revealed the REAL artwork to their new record Write About Love, served up a video clip from an alleged band-themed TV show with a snippet of a new song and given the record a release date – October 12. That is, incidentally, the same day that the band will be playing Massey Hall in Toronto so yeah, that’ll be a bit of an occasion.

M.I.A. will bring /\/\/\Y/\ to the Sound Academy on September 22 – tickets $40 in advance, $75 for VIP.

Video: M.I.A – “XXXO”

Exclaim reports that Marnie Stern has a date at Wrongbar on October 3. Her new, self-title record is out on October 5.

MP3: Marnie Stern – “For Ash”

OK Go return for a show at The Phoenix on October 14, tickets $20 in advance.

Video: OK Go – “This Too Shall Pass”

California’s Avi Buffalo have made a date at the Horseshoe on October 18; The Los Angeles Times has a feature on the band.

MP3: Avi Buffalo – “Remember Last Time”
MP3: Avi Buffalo – “What’s In It For?”

So much of the chatter yesterday was about how Scott Pilgrim vs The World did so poorly at the box office (coming in #5 with $10.5 million in the US) and with some taking some schadenfreude about how despite all the online buzz leading up to its release, it still did relatively poorly. That’s bunk. This film may as well have been called Scott Pilgrim vs The Fated For Cult Movie Status – there’s nothing about it that implies it would have made big bank. Not the cast, not the director, not the premise and certainly not the setting (Toronto? Pah). In fact, it’s remarkable that it was even made in Hollywood. If it just happens that a disproportionate percentage of the otherwise small target demographic is on Twitter, well there’s nothing to be done about that and I do believe that most everyone who expressed excitement about the film before release will go out and pay to see it – it simply won’t add up to much compared to folks who’ve apparently been counting the days until a new Dolph Lundgren film came out.

Anyways, I saw it on opening night (of course) and by and large loved it. It was a little odd having it shift from following the books almost verbatim to being its own thing midway through the Lee’s Palace fight and I was disappointed that none of Honest Ed’s, Sneaky Dee’s or the Reference Library made an appearance, but by and large it was as faithful to the text and the spirit of the source as it could be while still being a decent movie. That came at the expense of some/a lot of the character depth – neither Scott nor Ramona ended up with much explanation for why they were how they were – but so be it. It was still tremendously fun and entertaining and I eagerly await the infinite iterations of the DVD/BR editions. And since there wasn’t going to be a sequel anyways, there’s really no concern about how much or little money it makes. That’s Universal’s problem, not mine.

Filter has a great piece on another film that was probably too weird for the world at the time of its release… and even now – The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. I won’t lie – I can’t see John Lithgow as anyone but Dr. Lizardo and hold out hope that someday, we’ll see Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League make it into production. And come on – best closing credits/theme music ever.

Trailer: The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Steve GullickI’m sitting here trying to figure out why I never listened to Oxford’s Foals. It’s not that I hadn’t heard of them – I made note of both tours they undertook a couple years ago in support of their debut Antidotes, but don’t think I gave them any sort of listen beyond the sample MP3 and maybe a MySpace drive-by. Maybe it was the saxophones that turned me off. But I’m revisiting them – both Antidotes and this year’s follow-up Total Life Forever – and it’s doing it for me.

I wouldn’t have thought that I needed another tense, new-wavey/post-punky English band in my life but Foals feel different enough from the stereotype to warrant some attention. They’re certainly pointy in all the right places, but don’t really get as frantic on the dance floor as some of their peers, opting instead to dwell moodily in the corner. I appreciate the moody dwellers, and there’s much more of this side of their personality evident on Total Life Forever. I can sort of see why I might have passed over Antidotes but the extra bit of groove and sophistication on Total Life Forever is pretty much demanding further listens.

And so I won’t be missing them when they come through town a third time – Filter reports that the quintet are coming over to North America for a Fall tour, and that includes a September 27 date at Lee’s Palace. See you there.

MP3: Foals – “Spanish Sahara”
MP3: Foals – “Balloons”
Video: Foals – “Miami”
Video: Foals – “Spanish Sahara”
Video: Foals – “This Orient”
Video: Foals – “Cassius”
Video: Foals – “Balloons”
Video: Foals – “Hummer”
Video: Foals – “Mathletics”
MySpace: Foals

And speaking of third time’s the charm, you can’t say The Charlatans ever give up. Just as they’ve managed to outlive pretty much every other Madchester and Britpop band, they keep trying to come back to North America. They were going to come in October 2008, then canceled almost immediately. Then they slated a tour for September of last year, which got nixed a month before as drummer Jon Brookes required shoulder surgery. Some might take this as a sign, but they’ve just announced a North American tour in support of a new record entitled Who We Touch, out September 14, and it again includes a Toronto date for September 17 at Lee’s Palace. The two cancelled engagements were supposed to be at the Mod Club; maybe they’re hoping the change of venue changes their fortunes. And all joking aside, I do hope they make it over here this time, as there’s not a lot of shows that I can go to and still feel like one of the younger people in the room.

MP3: The Charlatans – “Oh! Vanity”
MP3: The Charlatans – “You Cross My Path”

They mentioned that it was their first time in Canada when they opened up for Spoon back in March, but Austin’s Strange Boys certainly haven’t been strangers around town since then. I think they played another gig that weekend, were back during NXNE and now they’re coming back with a date at The Garrison on September 22.

Video: The Strange Boys – “Be Brave”

It’s a solid bill from top to bottom as Rogue Wave, Midlake and Peter Wolf Crier team up for a Fall tour that includes a September 24 date at the Opera House.

MP3: Rogue Wave – “Good Morning”
MP3: Midlake – “Acts Of Man”
MP3: Peter Wolf Crier – “Crutch & Cane”

James have compiled a couple of recent mini-albums for the North American market and will release them as the double-set The Morning After The Night Before on September 14, to be accompanied by a North American tour alongside Ed Harcourt that includes a stop at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Toronto on September 30.

Video: James – “Sometimes (Lester Piggot)”
Video: Ed Harcourt – “Born In The ’70s”

Dr. Dog, who’ve just released a new record in Shame, Shame, will be hitting the road in support and bringing Here We Go Magic with them. Look for them at the Phoenix on October 16.

MP3: Dr. Dog – “Stranger”
MP3: Here We Go Magic – “Casual”

Florence & The Machine should probably be working on album number two, which is targeted for an early 2011 release, but instead she’s coming back to North America this Fall, perhaps looking to leverage an appearance on the Twilight soundtrack (the same appearance which has put a Volvo ad on her website… sigh). The itinerary is still taking shape, but in addition to dates in New York and New Orleans, she’ll be in Toronto at the Sound Academy on November 3. Tickets are $30, on sale next Friday, but Rogers Wireless customers have a $20 presale starting Thursday – kind of makes up for that monthly system access fee, doesn’t it?

MP3: Florence & The Machine – “Kiss With A Fist”

Bust out your surgical masks – Clinic are releasing a new album in Bubblegum on October 5 and crossing the Atlantic to promote it. Look for them at Lee’s Palace on November 10.

MP3: Clinic – “Family”

Richard Ashcroft tells The Guardian why this last, past Verve reunion is/was the final one.

Filter and Paste chat with Teenage Fanclub, kicking off their Fall tour with two nights at the Horseshoe on September 22 and 23.

Blurt talks to Joe Boyd, producer of R.E.M.’s Fables Of The Reconstruction. Their third record is being rereleased in double deluxe form today and you can stream it over at Spinner. Only the album, though – none of the bonus goodies.

Stream: R.E.M. / Fables Of The Reconstruction

Spin is offering up another track from Versus’ forthcoming On The Ones And Threes, due out September 14. They’re at Lee’s Palace on August 13.

Under The Radar talks to The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt.

Steve Earle talks to Offbeat about his role on Treme, his Emmy nomination and New Orleans.

Spinner talks to Sharin Foo of The Raveonettes.

Keith KlenowskiTo suggest I’m a little bit biased when it comes to The National is something of an understatement. The Cincinnati by way of Brooklyn band has put out two of my favourite records of the century in Alligator and Boxer, and when word came that their next record would arrive in 2010, I reserved a spot for it in my year-end list. That’s about as big a declaration of faith in the greatness of a record as a blogger can make.

The flipside of this, however, is the probably unrealistic expectations that accompany that faith. Boxer was almost exactly the record I needed at that point in my life, and the odds of that sort of synchronicity happening again with its successor is probably about nil. This understanding did allow me some perspective in contemplating High Violet, but didn’t change the fact that it had some enormous footsteps to follow in. After all, Boxer was widely considered to be a watershed album. How do you follow up a career peak?

By turning it into a plateau. If there were a way to actually quantify such things, High Violet would rate as almost as good or even better than Boxer, with the plus-minus determined only by one’s personal resonance with the material and the tone of the record. Whereas Boxer felt like a lightening of philosophy after the noir-ish Alligator, its elegiac mood has darkened again on High Violet. The glimmers of hopefulness that punctuated Boxer seem to have been muted and the angst and anxiety is again creeping in around the edges. This doesn’t, however, herald a return to the cathartic rock moves of Alligator; much to the dismay of fist-pumpers everywhere, it’s clear the band is well past its days of writing tracks like “Abel” and “Mr. November”. Instead, it manifests itself in a lyrical clarity that’s a ways removed from Matt Berninger’s typical obliqueness and his delivery, which finds him not necessarily expanding his range – I don’t think anyone expects him to find another octave anytime soon – but songs like “Anyone’s Ghost” and “Conversation 16” find him pushing it in unfamiliar directions or dwelling in parts of his voice that he might have only passed through fleetingly in the past en route to more comfortable territory.

Though longtime collaborator Peter Katis is still credited as providing additional production and mixing, High Violet notably lists the primary recording site as guitarist Aaron Dessner’s garage and the band as sole producers; it’s evident that the studio was heavily utilized as an instrument on this outing, which represents an aural shift from the cleaner textures of Boxer towards something denser and sometimes hazier. Album opener “Terrible Love” sounds almost filthy with its base of fuzzy, tremoloed guitars and I’m still not sure what the oscillating tones that bookend “Little Faith” are. More familiarly, the orchestral accents and choral vocals that embellished Boxer have returned, but feel more like integral parts of their sound.

Ultimately, High Violet triumphs by not trying to eclipse Boxer, but stand alongside it. The band offers growth without abandoning its strengths – hell, “Bloodbuzz Ohio” and “England” are two of the most National songs they’ve ever recorded. It’s thoughtful, sad and stately and, for all the shadows it casts, is downright luminous. The National are incapable of disappointing.

There are features on the band at The Wall Street Journal, Spinner, The Fly, Canadian Press and The AV Club. Their live-to-web show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in support of the Red Hot Organization is still available to stream at YouTube and you’ll probably get a lot higher quality stream watching it after the fact than in real time.

The National play Massey Hall on June 8 and 9.

MP3: The National – “Afraid Of Everyone”
MP3: The National – “Bloodbuzz Ohio”
Video: The National – “Bloodbuzz Ohio”
MySpace: The National

The Antlers, who are opening both of those National dates and others on the tour, are interviewed by Beatroute and The Guardian.

Pitchfork interviews Craig Finn and Tad Kubler of The Hold Steady; they’re at the Kool Haus on July 18.

It was announced last week that bassist Carlos Dengler, upon completion of their new record, has left Interpol. Expect to see a new face – and perhaps moustache – holding down the low end when they open for U2 at the Rogers Centre on July 3. No release date for album number four has been confirmed.

PopMatters talks to The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt. Strange Powers, the documentary about he and his band, will be getting a limited theatrical release on October 27.

Trailer: Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields

Acoustic Guitar interviews M Ward, who will be in town on June 9 at the Sound Academy as the “him” in She & Him.

Reuters and The State profile Band Of Horses, whose Infinite Arms is out tomorrow. They play the Toronto Islands on June 19.

Nada Surf busts out the covers for NPR’s World Cafe.

Also paying a visit to the World Cafe is Josh Ritter, who plays a few songs from his new record So The World Runs Away.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have released a video for the title track of last year’s Higher Than The Stars EP.

Video: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – “Higher Than The Stars”

Pitchfork reports that some industrious fans have compiled an album’s worth of Titus Andronicus rarities and made them available for download as Feats Of Strength. Odds of them busting out any of this material when they play The Horseshoe on July 14 are poor.

A couple of big shows have just gotten attached to NXNE – Eagles Of Death Metal at The Phoenix on June 16 and Girl Talk at the Sound Academy on June 18. Expect their names to show up in advertising all over the place and for a modest number of wristbands to get into each show (50 for Girl Talk). And speaking of NXNE, the schedule for this year’s festival is now online and yes, just like every other year, it’s impossible to use/navigate/save/do anything with. It’s called a grid, people – look into it.

Video: Eagles Of Death Metal – “Cherry Cola”
Video: Girl Talk – “Feed The Animals”

Au Revoir Simone have scheduled a date at the Great Hall for July 15. Their last release was 2009’s Still Night Still Light but they were recently featured in session at Daytrotter.

MP3: Au Revoir Simone – “Shadows”
MP3: Au Revoir Simone – “All Or Nothing”

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is back and will be exploding blues all over the Horseshoe Lee’s Palace on July 31. There’s no new material coming out of this short reunion, but there is a best-of comp in Dirty Shirt Rock ‘N’ Roll: The First Ten Years and reissues of the studio albums proper are imminent. Magnet has a Q&A with Spencer, who will be playing guest editor on their site this week.

Video: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – “Talk About The Blues”

I’m really not sure what you could expect from a Van Dyke Parks live show, but Toronto will find out on September 29 when the arranger to the likes of The Beach Boys and Joanna Newsom, along with Clare & The Reasons, plays the Music Gallery.

MP3: Clare & The Reasons – “Ooh You Hurt Me So”