Frank YangYoung bands who find themselves on the road for extended periods of time without a lot of material to draw on will frequently start throwing covers into the mix not only to pad out the set to a reasonable length, but also to amuse themselves (and hopefully the audience as well). And so it was that London folkies Noah & The Whale introduced a version of The Smiths’ classic (though pretty much every Smiths song could be called a classic) “Girlfriend In A Coma” to their shows in support of their debut Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down, substituting Morrissey’s archness for Charlie Fink’s croak and upping the tempo into jaunty skiffle-pop territory.

On their forthcoming North American tour, which includes a date at the Mod Club in Toronto on April 27, the band should have more than enough original material to fill up a set list – their second album First Days Of Spring is complete and set for release in June. Morrissey still refuses to set foot in Canada, so don’t expect to see him scheduling (and probably cancelling) any dates for his latest Years Of Refusal any time soon.

Filter have an interview with Noah & The Whale in advance of this weekend’s performance at Coachella where, in the broadest terms, they will share a bill with Morrissey.

MP3: Noah & The Whale – “Girlfriend In A Coma”
Video: The Smiths – “Girlfriend In A Coma”

Steve GullickBritish music is full of long, rich traditions. There’s the long rich tradition of bands sounding like Joy Division. And there’s the long rich tradition of bands denying that they sound like Joy Division. White Lies don’t actually sound like Joy Division. They sound like Editors, who sound like Interpol, who sound like The Chameleons and Joy Division (there’s also a long, rich tradition of bands sounding like The Chameleons and no one noticing, but I digress). And yeah, you can call them on it and dismiss them for the same reasons, but to do so would be to miss the point. The world needs bands that sound like this, for vaguely disaffected alt.kids to glom to and for snootish muso-types to rage against. Without such, well sir, there’d be anarchy.

And while the critics have a valid point in that White Lies bring nothing especially new to the gloom/anthem-rock canon, it’s impossible to deny that when they get the formula exactly right, as they do a few times on their debut To Lose My Life, it’s just as potent as when their forebears did it – “A Place To Hide” in particular is a bullseye and a half. Harry McVeigh isn’t the most elegant or eloquent lyricist but his vocal range covers Ian Curtis lows and Mark Burgess highs, he’s able to turn a phrase with at least as much vague import as Editor Tom Smith and can deliver the choruses with the necessary drama to sell it. Bolster it with stadium-size guitars, a thick bed of synths and some strategically placed strings at the really profound points and you’ve got a number one record. Congratulations.

Having topped the charts in the UK with the record’s release in January, White Lies now set their sights on North America, with the record hitting stores next Tuesday. They’re also touring North America starting with SxSW next week in Austin, Texas. The Toronto date is March 31 at Lee’s Palace and is, unsurprisingly, sold out. but courtesy of Universal Music Canada, I’ve got a pair of tickets to said show to give away as well as a copy of To Lose My Life on CD and last year’s “Death” EP for good measure. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to tell White Lies” in the subject and your full mailing address in the body. Contest closes at midnight, March 22.

MP3: White Lies – “Death”
MP3: White Lies – “Death” (Crystal Castles remix)
Video: White Lies – “Farewell To The Fairground”
Video: White Lies – “Death”
Video: White Lies – “Unfinished Business”
MySpace: White Lies

Also on that March 31 bill are Friendly Fires, with whom Clash has an interview.

NOW and hour.ca talk to Bloc Party’s Matt Tong – they’re at the Kool Haus tonight and tomorrow.

Prefix seems to think that Patrick Wolf has already assigned a release date to his second album of 2009, before the first one is even out. They’ve got The Conqueror down as a December 29 release (good luck making the year-end lists), following the already-announced June 1 release of The Bachelor.

Pitchfork recounts the story of the Jesus & Mary Chain.

Magnet plays over/under with The Smiths, tabulating their five most overrated and underrated songs.

There’s finally a proper first video from Bat For Lashes’ new album Two Suns, out April 6. She has a date at the Mod Club for April 25.

Video: Bat For Lashes – “Daniel”

Crawdaddy interviews Bishop Allen.

Spinner talks to Jason Lytle about the end of Grandaddy and the start of Jason Lytle. Yours Truly, The Commuter is out on May 19 and Stereogum has a track from it to download.

Wireless Bollinger interviews AC Newman.

BlogTO has a large photograph of and interview with Nils Edenloff of The Rural Alberta Advantage. They play the Trash Palace tomorrow afternoon – doors at 1, tiny room. Go early.

Those who enjoy watching their music rather than just listening will find lots of time to kill at rockpeaks.com, who are trying to become the online authority of televised live music performances. It will be interesting seeing them trying to do this legally – be prepared to find lots of “clip removed” notices – but there’s plenty of stuff that still manages to stay online and is worth a browse.

DovesJoyous news to start the day yesterday when it was announced that Doves had not only assigned a release date to their fourth album and first in over four years – Kingdom Of Rust will be available on April 7 in North America – but they were also offering the lead track from the record, “Jetstream”, available as a free download on their website for a fortnight in exchange for signing up to their mailing list. Curiously, said offer seems to have disappeared for the moment but I expect that’s due to technical difficulties and it’ll be back soon.

And though the breathless press release verbiage that accompanied the news heralded the new record as their “most sonically adventurous, intimate, cerebral, propulsive to date”, I suspect it’ll be much like the previous three Doves records. Take two parts soaring anthemicism, two parts atmospheric melancholy, season with equal portions of dance and dreampop influences and serve. Guaranteed to be mostly brilliant. Doves arrived almost fully-formed with their 2001 debut Lost Souls and have basically been refining their sound ever since, oblivious to musical trends. Never quite fashionable, but still successful – it won’t surprise me one whit to see Kingdom hit #1 on the UK charts as its predecessor Some Cities did – and basically forging a… what’s it called? Oh yes, a career.

Though it’s amusing to think back to a couple of their first gigs in Toronto, where they displayed a knack for picking support acts who would manage to break quite big. Their first visit in March 2001 was in the company of a scruffy band of New Yorkers called The Strokes and their third in September of 2002 introduced the city to a band of beards who called themselves My Morning Jacket. So if the music thing hadn’t taken off as well as it did, they’d have quite possibly had a promising career in A&R.

Doves expect to tour North America sometime in the Spring. Pitchfork has a tracklist for Kingdom Of Dust.

MySpace: Doves

Spin is streaming Elbow’s contribution to the War Child: Heroes compilation coming out on February 24 – a cover of U2’s “Running To Stand Still”.

The Toronto Sun, The Globe & Mail, Stuff NZ and Out converse with Franz Ferdinand.

NPR welcomes Laura Marling for a World Cafe session.

The Shield Gazette interviews Emmy The Great about the darkness of her debut album First Love, out February 9.

Patrick Wolf discusses his battle to release Battle independently with The Quietus.

That March 31 Friendly Fires show of indeterminate locale I pointed out a couple weeks ago has come into much sharper focus – it will be happening at Lee’s Palace and also feature White Lies, currently holders of the #1 record in the UK, and The Soft Pack, formerly The Muslims. That, kids, is a ridiculously buzzy tour. Full dates at the Windish Agency. The Telegraph and The Shields Gazette have features on who is probably the headliner of that little troupe, White Lies.

Since it was Hot Press who first informed me last Summer that Irish dreampop outfit Butterfly Explosion had split up, it seems appropriate that it be Hot Press be the ones to inform me that they’re not so finished after all. Granted, with a number of lineup changes including the departure of keyboardist/vocalist Sorcha Brennan, it’s not the same band who impressed in April 2007 but still, it’s good that they’ll have another chance to fulfill the potential I saw in them.

MP3: The Butterfly Explosion – “Sophia”
MP3: The Butterfly Explosion – “Chemistry”

Soundproof interviews Mercury Rev.

Rolling Stone gets to know M83. They’ll be playing a one-off show with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in March wherein Anthony Gonzalez will supply each and every member of the orchestra with their own distortion pedals.

Cut Off Your Hands have released a new video, and a local tour date is forthcoming very soon.

Video: Cut Off Your Hands – “Turn Cold”

Magnet finds out what the members of The Smiths are up to these days.

The Guardian seeks the formula to the perfect pop song, consulting at length with Jarvis Cocker, amongst others, on the topic.

Francesca TalloneThe most striking thing about Parts & Labor’s last record Mapmaker, even more than the massively buzzing wall of synths, unrelentingly anthemic songwriting or Dan Friel’s more Bob Mould than Bob Mould vocals – it was the maniacally propulsive drumming of Christopher Weingarten. His breakneck tempos kept the entire record at the very brink of either taking off into orbit or utterly collapsing under itself. So with him having left the band after that record, it was reasonable to question whether their new album Receivers would be able to measure up to Mapmaker‘s adrenaline rush?

And in measures of pure energy, the answer is no. New drummer Joe Wong is hardly a slouch but he doesn’t play at full throttle in the same way as his predecessor, and accordingly the record is less relentless and chaotic, but also more tuneful. The addition of Wong and also second guitarist Sarah Lipstate have shifted the personality of Parts & Labor sufficiently that trying to directly compare the two records (as I’ve been doing) isn’t really appropriate. In terms of analogies, if Mapmaker-era Parts & Labor was Husker Du, then the Receivers era can be likened to Sugar. Hell, the none-more-pop of “Nowhere’s Nigh” sounds like it could have been taken straight off Copper Blue, like the mash-up of “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” and “Helpless”, rendered in keyboard. Which, incidentally, qualifies it as maybe one of my favourite songs of the year.

Rest assured, Mapmaker fans, Parts & Labor haven’t mellowed out. Receivers still buzzes and wails in all the right places – it simply trades a few BPMs and a few notches of cacaphony for a bucketful of melody, and that’s a trade I’d make any day. They’ll still make your fist pump and your head bob. It may simply not hurt quite as much the next morning.

The band are currently on tour and will be in Toronto on November 21 for a show at Sneaky Dee’s. Bassist BJ Warshaw talks to The San Francisco Bay Guardian and Spinner about the band’s solicitation of found sounds from their fans to use on the album while Friel covers similar ground for Tuscon Weekly.

MP3: Parts & Labor – “Nowhere’s Nigh”
MySpace: Parts & Labor

Franz Ferdinand’s Nick McCarthy discusses the band’s next album Tonight with Drowned In Sound. The album is out January 27 and they’re playing Lee’s Palace on December 4.

Brendan Canning has released another video from Something For All Of Us…. He and the rest of Broken Social Scene will be at the Sound Academy on November 27 and 28.

Video: Brendan Canning – “Churches Under The Stairs”

Also with a new video are Death Cab For Cutie.

Video: Death Cab For Cutie – “No Sunlight”

NPR is streaming The Decemberists’ show in Philadelphia from last week. They’re currently in the midst of releasing the three volumes of their Always the Bridesmaid vinyl single series and are targeting an April release for their next proper album, Hazards Of Love.

It’s still just Fall but if looking ahead to Winter (note I didn’t say “looking forward to” because that’d just be madnesS), one of the acts for next year’s WinterCity festival has been announced. On February 7, The Stills will play a free show to the huddled, freezing masses at Nathan Phillips Square. No word yet who’ll do the same on January 30. Looking a little more short-term, they’ve got four nights at the Danforth Music Hall starting tonight.

New York’s Longwave release their fourth album and first in three years today – Secrets Are Sinister is streaming in its entirety at Spinner.

Stream: Longwave / Secrets Are Sinister

And also streaming and out today is The Sound Of The Smiths, the umpteenth compilation of The Smiths.

Stream: The Smiths / The Sound Of The Smiths

And finally, over at Spin, they’ve got the whole of Just Like Heaven, the Cure tribute album due out on January 27. There’s some commentary from the particpating artists over here.

Stream: Just Like Heaven: A Tribute To The Cure

Frank YangIt’s not overstating things to say that three of the four Mojave 3 shows I’ve seen over the years and Neil Halstead’s solo show at the Rivoli in 2002 have been some of my favourite concert memories, ever. The fourth and most recent Mojave 3 show in October 2006 broke that streak, however, or was memorable for the wrong reasons (terrible sound, half the band missing) so I had my fingers crossed going into Saturday night’s show at the Drake that Halstead would be able to renew the streak of memorable performances starring him.

The opener was a local (as of that day, as he mentioned he’d spent the day moving downtown) by the name of Andre Charles Theriault, but who used to ply his trade under the pseudonym “Ghost Hands”. It was as Ghost Hands that I saw him open for Beach House back in November 2006, and while his craft is approximately the same – deft guitarwork paired with detailed and conversational singer-songwriterness – the skill applied has greatly improved, with melodies and turns of phrase that were much more evocative. An impressive little set – now if only he had a more compact and memorable name… like, say, Ghost Hands?

One of the most distinctive things about Mojave 3 as a live band is how powerful and commanding they are, even when their volume is barely more than a whisper. It’s hard to explain, but once experienced, impossible to forget. So it’s remarkable that even without his bandmates and armed just with an acoustic guitar, Neil Halstead still has that sort of effect. Seated alone behind a couple of mics (one for his voice, one for his guitar), Halstead opened the set with a reading of “Martha’s Mantra”, from 2002’s
Sleeping On Roads, that set the tone for the night by absolutely silencing the well-filled room. Halstead’s persona is too low-key and laid-back to fit a descriptor as gaudy as “magician”, but what he creates is most definitely magic.

For a good portion of the set, Halstead was joined by a couple of bandmates on bass and guitar/mandolin who really helped fill out the sound. On a few occasions the lead guitar lost the plot, either in terms of staying on beat or generally over-playing, but for the most part kept things tasteful and more than made up for any transgressions with his spot-on backing vocals. I was somewhat and pleasantly surprised how deeply the set list delved further into the Mojave 3 songbook – given that Halstead had two excellent solo records to work with, the aforementioned Roads and this year’s Oh! Mighty Engine, he could have assembled a perfectly solid set just from those but I suppose he appreciated that there’s no probably no such thing as a Neil Halstead fan who’s not a Mojave 3 fan or vice versa.

It’s difficult to pick a high point since really – the whole gig qualifies – but a peculiar highlight was his inability to remember the final chords to “Sarah”. He tried gamely a few times to find the right one before aborting, and the crowd applauded. You know you’re in a room of devout fans when. And also remarkable was the encore, for the reason that there was one. Early shows at the Drake usually have a hard 11PM curfew and Halstead’s main set ran a full hour and a half to 11. I certainly didn’t expect there to be more. But more there was, as he came back for another three songs despite the house’s preference that we all clear out for a drinkier crowd – at one point they started to turn on the house lights but they were shouted back off by the audience. All told, almost two hours of glorious songs from one of my favourite songwriters ever. Does it get better than that? Maybe, but not by much.

amNY has an interview with Halstead wherein he explains why there’s no Slowdive material in his solo sets – the reason is more mundane than you might think, though I should point out that if I was able to learn to play “Dagger” in 20 minutes, then surely he can jog his memory. Just saying. And also definitely stop by MySpace Transmissions, for which Halstead recorded a beauteous session which is available to watch in video as well as download in high-res MP3 for free.

Photos: Neil Halstead, Andre Charles Theriault @ The Drake Underground – November 8, 2008
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Paint A Face”
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Witless Or Wise” (live on MySpace Transmissions)
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Martha’s Mantra (For The Pain)” (live on MySpace Transmissions)
Video: Neil Halstead – “Paint A Face”
Video: Neil Halstead – “Queen Bee”

A Ride “where are they now”… Andy Bell is in Oasis and cashing large paycheques. Mark Gardener is in Mark Gardener but not seemingly up to too much at the moment. Loz Colbert is in the newly-reformed Jesus & Mary Chain and also International Jetsetters (unremarkable band, sample below). But whither Steve Queralt? One Salient Oversight tracked down the Ride bassman for an interview wherein they cover his start in music, where Ride went right and where they went wrong, what he’s up to now and, of course, the chances of a reunion (slim to none). Good reading.

MP3: International Jetsetters – “Inside Yourself”

Cheers to Muzzle Of Bees for pointing out this blog entry from Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch pointing out that a new set of recordings entitled God Help The Girl are recorded and in the process of being mastered. But as I point out in the comments, this is not a proper Belle & Sebastian release, but the soundtrack to a musical film that Murdoch has been working on and set to start filming in Spring of next year – you can hear samples from it at both iMeem and MySpace. And though any number of band members will make an appearance on said soundtrack, Belle & Sebastian the band are currently on an indefinite hiatus. Fans will have to make do with the release of the BBC Sessions collection due out on November 18 and which contains four unreleased songs.

Those sessions all hail from early part of the band’s career, from 1996 through 2001, and those four new songs are the final ones to feature then-cellist/vocalist Isobel Campbell. She’ll also be appearing on another release coming out on November 18 – Sunday At Devil Dirt, the second album from Campbell and Mark Lanegan. The follow-up to 2005’s Ballad Of The Broken Seas, it was released in the UK in the Spring but will now be available domestically in North America with a half-dozen bonus tracks to sweeten the deal.

MP3: Isobel Campbell & Mark Langean – “Trouble”

Johnny Marr has submitted himself to an interview wherein he talks about the process of revisiting and remastering the material that’s gone into the latest Smiths compilation, The Sound Of The Smiths, out Tuesday. There’s also a conversation with Frank Arkwright, the mastering engineer on the reissue. Via The Music Slut.

Here’s something that certainly caught me by surprise – a Daytrotter session… featuring Wire.

Tech question – anyone running a NAS system, either via a router or a drive enclosure? My Apple Airport Extreme, after being flaky ever since I got it last Summer, finally appears to have died (Extreme POS, more like). I’m probably going to replace it with a non-NAS router, but that then leaves all my iTunes music – which I’d gotten used to being able to stream wirelessly – stuck being tethered to my laptop. And I was looking at getting a big-ass (1TB or so) external drive for backups and archiving so if you want to suggest something along those lines with an ethernet connection and which is reliable, please do so.

I hate technology.