Frank YangFull writeup of the day over here.

Freelance Whales
– New York twee-popsters whose debut Weathervanes is being re-released on April 13, will be in town twice over the next while; at the El Mocambo on April 6 with Cymbals Eat Guitars and May 8 at the Mod Club with Shout Out Louds. NPR has a World Cafe session with the band, The San Francisco Examiner an interview and they’re keeping a tour diary over at Spinner.
Photos: Freelance Whales @ Eastbound & Found North Stage – March 18, 2010
MP3: Freelance Whales – “Generator 2nd Floor”
MySpace: Freelance Whales

Diamond Rings
– Toronto electro-glam solo artist is prepping his debut full-length Special Affections for release later this year.
Photos: Diamond Rings @ Eastbound & Found South Stage – March 18, 2010
MP3: Diamond Rings – “All Yr Songs”
Video: Diamond Rings – “All Yr Songs”
Video: Diamond Rings – “Wait & See”
MySpace: Diamond Rings

Ume
– Austin power trio continue to spread the word of last year’s Sunshower EP while working on a full-length follow-up.
Photos: Ume @ Eastbound & Found North Stage – March 18, 2010
MP3: Ume – “The Conductor”
MP3: Ume – “Pendulum”
MP3: Ume – “Wake”
Video: Ume – “The Conductor”
MySpace: Ume

Warpaint
– Los Angeles quartet will follow up last year’s Exquisite Corpse with a debut full-length due out later this year. Spinner has an interview.
Photos: Warpaint @ Eastbound & Found North Stage – March 18, 2010
MP3: Warpaint – “Elephants”
Video: Warpaint – “Stars”
Video: Warpaint – “Elephants”

Slow Club
– Sheffield duo whose giddy folk-pop debut Yeah, So? just got a North American release after coming out last Summer in the UK.
Photos: Slow Club @ Eastbound & Found South Stage – March 18, 2010
MP3: Slow Club – “It Doesn’t Have To Be Beautiful”
Video: Slow Club – “It Doesn’t Have To Be Beautiful”
Video: Slow Club – “Because We Are Dead”
Video: Slow Club – “Me & You”
Video: Slow Club – “Trophy Room”

The Morning Benders
– San Francisco quartet whose latest Big Echo shows they’ve discovered the joys of noise and drama to go with their unerring pop sensibility. They play the Drake Underground on April 14; Express Night Out and The San Francisco Examiner have conversations with the band.
Photos: The Morning Benders @ Eastbound & Found North Stage – March 18, 2010
MP3: The Morning Benders – “Promises”
MP3: The Morning Benders – “Waiting For A War”
Video: The Morning Benders – “Waiting For A War”
Video: The Morning Benders – “Damnit Anna”
Video: The Morning Benders – “Boarded Doors”
MySpace: The Morning Benders

Here We Go Magic
– New York outfit led by Luke Temple will release their new album Pigeons on June 8; download the first MP3 from Secretly Canadian. They play Lee’s Palace on April 27.
Photos: Here We Go Magic @ Eastbound & Found North Stage – March 18, 2010
Video: Here We Go Magic – “Fangela”

Delorean
– Spanish electro-poppers bring their Summer-y new record Subiza – out already in the UK and out in North America on June 8 – to the Phoenix on April 3 in support of Miike Snow.
Photos: Delorean @ Eastbound & Found South Stage – March 18, 2010
Video: Delorean – “Stay Close”

Frank YangBeyond the pleasure of being able to attach one’s name to a lineup of great acts that you can (mostly) whole-heartedly endorse, one of the big perks of presenting a day show at SxSW is that it gives you an excuse to NOT run around the city all day from showcase to showcase. If you’ve done your job in curating well enough, there’s no real reason you’d want to be anywhere but your own show. And so most all of yesterday afternoon was spent at a parking lot just on the wrong side of I35 where Eastbound & Found, the party put together by myself and esteemed bloggers and sponsors.

Freelance Whales were generous enough to take one of the earliest spots, their peppy co-ed indie-pop almost the perfect thing to rouse the keeners who were on site at the break of noon. At times I find them almost a bit too chirpy but there’s usually a hook or melody waiting just around to corner to get me back onside. Their show at the El Mocambo with Cymbals Eat Guitars on April 6 is probably a bit too soon for me to need to see them again, but I’m perfectly happy to have them opening for Shout Out Louds at the Mod Club on May 8.

Down the hill at the south stage, Toronto’s Diamond Rings was letting his unicorn flag unfurl, dishing out electro beats perfectly suited to the bright, sunny weather – same songs but somehow different vibe from his Canadian Musicfest gig last week. The crowd was pretty sparse to begin with but as Freelance Whales’ set ended and people discovered there was a second stage (not the easiest to locate without signage), they filled in and danced. And there was even some celeb-spotting, as Little Boots – who’s even littler in person/off stage than you’d think – was in attendance and tweeted her approval.

Back at the mainstage, Austin’s own Ume were setting up to shred some faces – they were one of my top discoveries of last year’s fest so I was very pleased to have them playing our show, and not just because a daytime performance meant I’d have enough light to try and capture Lauren Larsen’s guitar heroics on film (well, digital sensor). As they’ve done every time I’ve seen them, they played a demolishing set of pure rock drawn from their Sunshower EP as well as new material that will hopefully be out sooner rather than later. The only difference from past shows was that Larsen’s axe-mangling didn’t end with her on her knees, strangling notes out of her Fender – the painful-looking skin marks on her legs made it clear that there’d already been a little too much of that before this show.

Next up were Los Angeles’ Warpaint, who despite taking a kind of meandering approach to their set – were they soundchecking? Jamming? Playing songs? – walked a very appealing line of musical experimentation and pop sensibilities. I was only able to stick around for a couple of songs, but was intrigued enough that their remaining shows for the week – and there were a lot of them still – all stayed on my schedule so I could hear some more. Odds are I won’t, but it won’t be for lack of trying. Or wanting to try.

Back down at the second stage was one of my picks for the party, Sheffield’s Slow Club, whose debut Yeah, So? has been one of my favourite debuts of the year (in North America, anyways – it came out in the UK last Summer). Evidently I wasn’t the only one won over by the drum-and-guitar duo, as there was a small but very enthused audience gathered for their set of wonderfully hepped-up folk-pop. Charles and Rebecca are maybe the most adorable pairing since Matt & Kim, and after simultaneously destroying their guitar amp and kick pedal respectively, took to the edge of the stage with acoustic guitars to sing out to their fans unamplified. Giddy and glorious.

I’d seen The Morning Benders back in February of last year and while I found their indie-pop stylings pleasant, with the requisite jangles and hooks, but not especially distinctive. With their new one Big Echo, however, they’ve not only raised the ante but bet the house – it’s a much more massive and interesting record; noisier and moodier than I’d have thought them capable of but still immensely pop at its core. Correspondingly, the live show was much more intense and volume-abusing than I’d expected. Most impressive. They are at the Drake on April 14.

As Here We Go Magic got started on the main stage, I could feel myself hitting a wall in terms of being able to concentrate on new music, or even stand up for any period of time. Their stuff required a little too much attention to properly appreciate, so after a few songs I wandered back down to the south stage where Spain’s Delorean were kicking up a mostly-instrumental electro-pop dance party. That held my interest for a little while, but the need to not be where I was became overwhelming and I had to hoof it back to the hotel to get my head together. Which, sadly, meant missing our headlining set with GZA AND the fact that Bill Murray apparently accepted my invitation and showed up. For serious, people.

Araba FilmsIf there’s one thing Austin, Texas needs during Spring Break, it’s some live music. Particularly in the form of a day party. The past few years I’ve been very lucky to have been able to help put on some fantastic parties with some of my favourite blogger buds. And while the Hot Freaks marque has been put to bed for the time being, I’m very happy to be able to announce that You Ain’t No Picasso, My Old Kentucky Blog, Ultra 8201, Yours Truly and, uh, yours truly, will be presenting Eastbound & Found, a one-day, two-stage to-do that will be held on Thursday, March 18 at 1001 East 6th St – a location that’s a parking lot for 51 weeks of the year but on this occasion will be an epicenter of awesome.

What I like most about these blogger-assembled shows is how random the final results end up being. Without teaming up with a specific label, PR company or booking agency and just pursuing acts based on little more than a “what we like” mandate, we get shows that can veer from the sunny indie-pop of Freelance Whales to the insane guitar heroics of Austin’s own Ume, from the electro-glam of Diamond Rings (Toronto represent!) to giddy Anglo-folk duo Slow Club, right through to our headliner – GZA of the motherflipping Wu-Tang Clan. Eclectic? Yeah, a little.

This party is free and all-ages, though you do have to RSVP – information on that at the Sweet Leaf blog. Many many thanks go out to our sponsors Sweet Leaf Tea, Ziegenbock, Dos Lunas Tequila, Knuckle Rumbler and Car Toys for helping make this happen. And despite what the attached image from Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee & Cigarettes might imply, Bill Murray will NOT be making an appearance at the show. Unless he wants to. If any of you know Bill Murray, do let him know he’s invited?

The (almost) full lineup and set times are as follows:

Stage one:
12:15PM Ragen Fykes
1:10PM Freelance Whales
2:05PM Ume
3:00PM Warpaint
3:55PM The Morning Benders
4:50PM Here We Go Magic
5:45PM Maluca
7:00PM GZA

Stage two:
12:30PM Burnt Ones
1:25PM Diamond Rings
2:20PM Kid Sister
3:15PM Slow Club
4:10PM Danielson
5:05PM Delorean
6:00PM White Denim

MP3: Danielson – “Animal In Every Corner”
MP3: Diamond Rings – “All Yr Songs”
MP3: Freelance Whales – “Generator 2nd Floor”
MP3: The Morning Benders – “Promises”
MP3: Slow Club – “It Doesn’t Have To Be Beautiful”
MP3: Ume – “The Conductor”
MP3: Warpaint – “Elephants”
Video: GZA – “Liquid Swords”
Video: Here We Go Magic – “Fangela”
Video: Kid Sister – “Right Hand Hi”

And some concert news for Toronto folk NOT heading down to Texas next week – not content with playing two nights at The Horseshoe, The Black Lips have added a third local appearance during their visit. They’ll be doing an in-store at Sonic Boom on March 28 at 4PM; admission free with a canned good.

MP3: Black Lips – “Short Fuse”

Jakob Dylan has put together a new band to help perform his new solo record Women & Country, out April 10. They’re called Three Legs and you might know them better as a couple of women in country – Neko Case and Kelly Hogan. That got your attention, eh? Jacob Dylan & Three Legs will be at the Phoenix on April 25.

She & Him – yes, Zooey and Matt – will be hitting the road in support of Volume Two and are going to be at The Phoenix in Toronto on June 9. Tickets are $26.50, the album is out March 23 and the new video is just about the most adorable thing ever.

Video: She & Him – “In The Sun”

Stars have announced they will release their fifth studio album The Five Ghosts on June 22 – details at Chart.

Spinner talks to Metric in advance of their appearance at SxSW where they’ll be opening up for Muse at Stubb’s on the Friday night.

Broken Social Scene also talk to Spinner; they’re doing a couple of shows at SxSW and of course have that Toronto Islands show on June 19. Their new album Forgiveness Rock Record is out May 4.

Continuing on with the Spinner-SxSW interviews (there’s lots of them) – they chat with Venice Is Sinking, whose new album Sand & Lines will be out June 15.

Kunstlicher, The Georgia Straight, The Huffington Post and Spinner have interviews with Midlake. They’re at the Mod Club on May 25.

Spinner talks to The Uglysuit. They’re playing Lee’s Palace at 2AM on Friday night as part of Canadian Musicfest and their MySpace implies they’re making the most of their visit to Toronto with a bunch of other unofficial performances.

Spinner asks some pretty banal questions of Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea.

NPR has a World Cafe session with Holly Miranda.

Filter takes all of the fun out of The Bird & The Bee’s internet scavenger hunt for streams of their new Hall & Oates tribute album Guiltless Pleasures Volume 1: A Tribute To Daryl Hall And John Oates , out March 23.

Spinner and NME have collected a number of tributes from musicians for the fallen Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. And a couple of worthy reads and listens from the Boston area – Buffalo Tom frontman Bill Janovitz has an essay and Sparklehorse cover at his blog Part-Time Man Of Rock while Bradley’s Almanac is sharing some thoughts and a recording of Sparklehorse’s last show in Boston from 2007.

MP3: Bill Janovitz – “Gold Day”

Ben RitterHospice, the much-praised new record from Brooklyn solo project turned trio The Antlers, is an exceedingly difficult listen for me. The album is built around a central narrative about a man losing a loved one to cancer and it’s so successful in evoking the emotions and atmosphere around that that when I listen to it, my teeth clench and chest tightens. It’s actually physically uncomfortable.

Hospice accomplishes this by means both obvious and not. To the former, the ghostly production with its hazy atmosphere and subtle whirs, clicks and swells in the background do a good job of evoking the sterile yet foreboding atmosphere of hospitals and cancer wards, where the whiff of hope is faint at best. And Peter Silberman’s voice, all wavering falsetto, is made for gut-wrenching whispers-to-screams though that dynamic is put into effect only sparingly and thus retains its effectiveness. In less capable hands, these tools could still get the desired emotional response, but only in a mechanical and manipulative sense – the way that even terrible suspense films can still make you jump as a reflex, not out of genuine fear. Hospice, though, possesses an intangible sense of genuineness that gives its strange, haunting beauty a real and painful weight and heft that’s tinged by all-too-brief moments of uplift. All the more remarkable considering that Silberman remains coy about how much of the story played out on the record is autobiographical and how much is fiction.

So while I don’t know if Silberman has gone through the experiences he details in such clarity, I can say that while the details and settings of his tale don’t fully line up with my own, the underlying emotions conveyed definitely resonate and often feel like touching – no, grabbing and squeezing – a raw nerve. Hospice captures the anxiety, anger, fear, denial and despair of being past hope and the bleak understanding that the only way out will come with a price that can’t be comprehended but must be paid. I did not enjoy listening to this record, nor did I enjoy writing this piece, but I think it helped.

There’s an Interface session with the band at Spinner, another video session at Laundromatinee and Exclaim has a very brief interview. The band are currently on tour and will be in Toronto next Thursday night, September 24, for a couple of performances – a free in-store at Criminal Records at 6PM and a headlining show at the Horseshoe later that night. Tickets are $10.50 in advance but courtesy of Against The Grain, I’ve got three pairs of passes to give away to the show. To enter email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see The Antlers” in the subject and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, September 22.

MP3: The Antlers – “Two”
MP3: The Antlers – “Two” (remastered)
MP3: The Antlers – “Bear”
Video: The Antlers – “Two”
MySpace: The Antlers

There’s a preview track available from Sufjan Stevens’ forthcoming multimedia project The BQE – out October 20 – and it’s a real departure, all shredding guitars, vocodered vocals and fat synths. No of course not, it’s orchestral and twinkly and pretty and has an excessively long title. Pure Sufjan. He’s at Lee’s Palace on October 1.

MP3: Sufjan Stevens – “Movement VI—Isorhythmic Night Dance With Interchanges”

GQ UK talks to Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste.

Early Day Miners give Aquarium Drunkard a tour of Bloomington, Indiana. Their new record The Treatment is out next Tuesday.

Filter talks to Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse and Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, about their Dark Night Of The Soul collaboration.

Music Snobbery interviews Anna Ternheim, in town on October 14 at the Horseshoe.

Out next week, September 22, is the self-titled debut from Monsters Of Folk – it’s currently available to stream at their MySpace. They play Massey Hall on November 2 and Reuters has an interview.

Stream: Monsters Of Folk / Monsters Of Folk

PopMatters interviews Emily Haines of Metric. They play Massey Hall on October 20 and 21.

Chad Van Gaalen, who has a show at the Church Of The Redeemer this Saturday night – September 19 – has made an EP’s worth of outtakes and whatnot from Soft Airplane available for free download at softairplane.com. His Black Mold alter-ego has also just released a new video.

Video: Black Mold – “Metal Spiderwebs”

Exclaim talks to head Hidden Camera Joel Gibb about plans to take their new record Origin:Orphan, out Tuesday, to the stage. The theatre stage, not the concert stage. Though they’ll do that too come December 5 at the Opera House. Which despite the name is not an opera stage.

Islands are streaming their new record Vapours, out next week, at Exclaim and have set a November 7 date at the Mod Club in support.

MP3: Islands – “Vapours”
Stream: Islands / Vapours

Also at Exclaim – details on the sophomore record from Basia Bulat. It’s entitled Heart Of My Own and will be out on January 26 of the new year. Here’s a taste.

MP3: Basia Bulat – “Gold Rush”

UK electro-pop outfit We Have Band will be at the Drake Underground on October 22. They’ll have a digital EP available Grab a new remix track at RCRDLBL.

MP3: We Have Band – “Hear It In The Cans”
Video: We Have Band – “You Came Out”
Video: We Have Band – “Oh!”

J Tillman may be the drummer for Fleet Foxes but he’s also an established solo artist and he will continue to establish his solo-ness with his new record Year In The Kingdom, which is out next week. He’ll be touring to support and has a date at the Horseshoe on November 11, tickets $13.50. And if you need more reason to attend, consider the fact that he is one funny dude. Seriously.

MP3: J Tillman – “Earthly Bodies”

Denver Westword talks to The Depreciation Guild, who’ve been named as support for School Of Seven Bells at Lee’s Palace on October 15 along with Los Angeles’ Warpaint. It pains me to miss this show for Wilco, but sacrifices must be made.

MP3: Warpaint – “Billie Holiday”
MP3: Warpaint – “Elephants”

And one more September 22 release to talk about – the Higher Than The Stars EP from The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The title track and a non-EP remix of the title track are available to download.

MP3: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – “Higher Than The Stars”
MP3: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – “Higher Than The Stars” (Others In Conversation remix)