FacebookCustom dictates that for tenth anniversaries, the traditional gift is something made from tin and the modern equivalent is aluminum. Or diamond. How on earth do you get from tin to diamond? Happily, Toronto’s Paper Bag Records pays no attention to such convention and to mark their tenth year of releasing great music from both Canada and abroad, they’ve opted to put together three nights of shows at The Great Hall from September 27 to 29 and featuring the best of their current roster as well as a surprise and welcome return – You Say Party.

The Vancouver dance-rock band were riding high on their third album, 2009’s XXXX, when their drummer Devon Clifford suddenly and tragically died onstage in April 2010. They soldiered on for another year and then, promotional duties done, went on indefinite hiatus – a hiatus that would last a year and a half, as they state on their website, “Over the course of the last year, we came to realize a simple truth: that the four of us missed making music together”. Their appearance on the third night of the PBR anniversary shows will mark their first step back and as a four-piece, reconfiguring their old songs to fit and presumably crafting new ones.

Their return will surely be a highlight of that third night, which also features Young Galaxy, The Luyas, and a special guest that you probably don’t need to do too much thinking to guess who it will but all three evenings are pretty stacked. Thursday night features Elliott Brood, Born Ruffians, Woodhands, and The Acorn and Friday brings in The Rural Alberta Advantage, Cuff The Duke, PS I Love You, and Slim Twig.

Tickets for each night are $25 and a three-day pass comes in at $60, on sale now. The Great Hall isn’t that big so if you’re thinking this is something you should be at, turning thought into action soon is recommended.

MP3: The Acorn – “Restoration”
MP3: Born Ruffians – “Sole Brother”
MP3: Cuff The Duke – “Standing On The Edge”
MP3: Elliott Brood – “Northern Air”
MP3: The Luyas – “Too Beautiful To Work”
MP3: PS I Love You – “2012”
MP3: The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Stamp”
MP3: Slim Twig – “Young Hussies”
MP3: Woodhands – “Dissembler”
MP3: You Say Party! – “Laura Palmer’s Prom”
MP3: Young Galaxy – “Peripheral Visionaries”

Under The Radar chats with Torq Campbell of Stars, who released their first albums on Paper Bag and will put their sixth album North out on September 4. They’ve made a new track from said record available to stream and will be at the Air Canada Centre on November 14 supporting Metric.

Stream: Stars – “Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It”

The New York Times has a feature piece on Purity Ring, whose much-anticipated debut Shrines is out this week and who’ve made another track from it available to download.

MP3: Purity Ring – “Belispeak”

Damian Abraham of Fucked Up rattles off his favourite records of the past two decades for CBC Music. They’re at Historic Fort York on September 9 as part of Riot Fest.

Melancholy & The Infinite Shadness is the name of a new mixtape from Shad that you need in your life. Get it for free.

ZIP: Shad / Melancholoy & The Infinite Shadness

The Georgia Straight and The Victoria Times-Colonist talks to Kathryn Calder.

CBC Music has five tracks to preview for the forthcoming live Dears album Never Destroy Us, due out this Fall.

Patrick Watson gives Spinner his thoughts on and ambitions for the music video medium; he also chats with Vermont’s Seven Days. He’s at Massey Hall on December 6.

Lane MeyersHave I been waiting for this for a while? You might say that. Ever since Evening Hymns’ debut album of gorgeous folk-pop Spirit Guides made my 2009 year-end list, I’ve been eagerly anticipating its follow-up, following along on their Tumblr as it was recorded in early 2011 and keeping an eye for its expected release date of that Fall. I even had a spot on this year’s Polaris Prize ballot reserved for the record, dubbed Spectral Dusk as early as last January, in expectation of its arrival in the eligibility period. That’ll teach me to be presumptuous.

A Fall 2011 release turned into Spring 2012 and then Summer, and while a first taste of the record was offered up last October in the song “Asleep In The Pews”, it has since been quite effectively redacted from the internet; only a live acoustic video featuring band principals Jonas Bonetta and Sylvie Smith remains. But this week, it finally looks like the wait is ending: a Facebook post declared an August 2012 release for the record – though I’ve been told that it’ll be out the 21st of that month – and a stream of a new song from the record which, based on the Soundcloud information, has been sitting around for a good eight months. Maybe someday it will come out just how/why it’s taken so long to get this record out, but for now all that really matters is that a) it’s almost here and b) based on “Arrows”, it will be a stunner.

Stream: Evening Hymns – “Arrows”
Video: Evening Hymns – “Asleep In The Pews” (live)

A few days after making the b-side available as a download, Young Galaxy are streaming the a-side of their new 7″ single.

Stream: Young Galaxy – “Shoreless Kid”

Billboard interviews Feist.

Earshot has an interview with Joel Plaskett.

A couple of interesting tidbits from camp Sloan: first, come Tuesday they’ll be offering another limited edition live vinyl “bootleg” – this one a soundboard recording from their first Australian tour in 1999. It’s limited to 500 pieces and is available to order as of 12PM on June 12. And to keep an eye out for the Fall – a triple-vinyl Twice Removed deluxe box set and supporting tour.

Spinner talks to Emily Haines about the Lou Reed angle of their new album Synthetica, out next Tuesday.

NPR has a World Cafe session with Kathleen Edwards. She plays a free show at Pecault Square on the afternoon of June 16 for LuminaTO.

Also playing that LuminaTO show is Dan Mangan; Creative Loafing has an interview with the singer-songwriter.

Dan Snaith talks to Exclaim about the new Caribou album. They play Downsview Park on June 16 opening up for Radiohead.

Filter, The Line Of Best Fit, MTV, Clash, eMusic, and CBC Music have interviews with Japandroids – they’re at Lee’s Palace on June 23.

eMusic gets to know Al Spx of Cold Specks while NPR welcomes them for a KUT session. They’re playing the Great Hall on August 8.

NPR and BBC talk Americana with Neil Young. He and Crazy Horse are at the Air Canada Centre on November 19.

And proving the cosmos doesn’t give a damn about my carefully cultivated blog themes, here’s some notable bits that arrived too late to make my, “hey here’s a bunch of show announcements!”, “hey here’s a bunch of new album announcements”, and “hey here’s a bunch of Scandinavian/European stuff!” posts from earlier this week. You notice I do that, right?

First, Beach House have announced the dates for what they’re calling their “Frightened Eyes” tour but what everyone is calling “the long-awaited Fall tour dates in support of their new record Bloom“. Toronto gets them at The Kool Haus on October 13 – smaller than I expected but when you look at the full schedule, it’s hard not to notice that there’s off days on either side of it… mayhap a multi-night stand is in the cards? They’ve also released a new video from the album and there’s a piece at The Wall Street Journal about the whole Volkswagen/ad rip brouhaha that’s been going on the past couple weeks.

MP3: Beach House – “Myth”
Video: Beach House – “Lazuli”

While everyone is rightly excited about the Sugar reissues that are coming July 24, let’s not forget that Bob Mould has a new album coming as well. Consequence Of Sound reports that said new album will be entitled The Silver Age and be out September 4. There are also Fall tour dates that will straddle the Sugar/Silver material, but nothing up this way. Alas.

Finally, Jens Lekman has announced his first new full-length in five years – I Know What Love Isn’t will be out on September 4 and the first taste of it is available to stream below.

Stream: Jens Lekman -“Erica America”

Frank YangI’m sure that the timing was just coincidence, but if Friday night’s Wavelength show at the Buddhist temple at 918 Bathurst featuring Bry Webb and Del Bel was meant as a last-minute bit of lobbying for my Polaris Prize ballot – long-list voting had opened that day – then I salute them. Well played. Though I’ve had a year to mull it over, there was very little actually locked down on my list of the top five Canadian “albums of the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history”, and both Webb’s Provider and Del Bel’s Oneric were very much in the running.

I’d seen Del Bel at another Wavelength in January and Webb’s record release show in February, and while the live show is not supposed to have any bearing on the nomination process, this wasn’t going to hurt with keeping them front of mind. But this show was intended to mark Del Bel’s return from a couple weeks of Canadian touring and celebrate the release of their new single – a collaboration with Webb – and not to squeeze their way onto any Polaris ballots at the 11th hour. I think.

Del Bel’s set was structurally quite similar to the one in January – Webb’s guesting on the new single “No Cure For Loneliness” was obviously different – but better from the band’s point of view for having been road-tested the past weeks and better from mine for having had many more months to spend with Oneric. Some combination of the two points – probably more the latter – made it much easier to extract and appreciate the songs from their atmospheric cinematic-noir style, and as far as the performance went, the shifts in mood felt more natural and dextrous than before and while singer Lisa Conway still preferred to stand behind her bandmates while she sang, she had less of a wallflower air about her this time out, coming across more mysterious than just shy. Touring: it does a band good.

I don’t think Bry Webb has taken his band out on the road for any extended jaunts since Provider came out, but with over a decade of fronting Constantines before they went on hiatus to his name, he hardly needs the practice of getting in front of an audience. If there was an immediate difference between this night’s show and the one at the Music Gallery in the Winter, it was that Webb had found his guitar strap and was playing standing up although it still wouldn’t mean forays into the audience – electrical noise on stage kept him fairly rooted to one spot to avoid interference. It also featured a few new songs to augment the Provider material but the enlistment of Del Bel’s horns and drummer for a good portion of the set really gave things an extra kick to augment the more solemn, low-key tone of the material. And while Webb’s solo material exists a good distance from what the Constantines were about, there was a taste of the old band’s fire when Webb stepped up for a righteous lead break on “Low Life” which he dedicated to former bandmate Will Kidman. On the other hand, it was impossible to imagine the Cons covering Seals & Croft’s “Summer Breeze” as Webb and seven-ninths of Del Bel (two of whom, it should be noted, are also full-time Providers) did to end their main set.

There’s little question that Oneric and Provider are two of the finest releases to come out of Toronto/southern Ontario in the past year; this evening was strong proof of that. But would that be enough to get them on the Polaris long-list, short-lists, or my ballot for either? To the first two, I’ve no idea and to the last, well we’ll just have to wait and see.

NOW had both a preview piece on Del Bel for the show and a review of the show; Singing Lamb and BlogTO were also in attendance.

Photos: Bry Webb, Del Bel @ 918 Bathurst – June 1, 2012
MP3: Bry Webb – “Rivers Of Gold”
MP3: Del Bel with Bry Webb – “No Cure For Loneliness”
Stream: Del Bel / Oneric

NPR is streaming a short film that Neil Young has made to coincide with the release of his new album with Crazy Horse Americana, out this week.

The June 12 release date of Synthetica not far off, Metric is ramping up the media cycle with a complete stream of the new record, a cover story in this month’s Exclaim, and a fans-only show on the day of release at The Opera House; details on how to win tickets will be available by hanging out on the band’s various social media sites.

Stream: Metric / Synthetica

Spinner and The Winnipeg Free Press talk to Japandroids about not breaking up. They’re at Lee’s Palace on June 23.

Willamette Weekly and San Francisco Bay Guardian chat briefly with Dan Bejar of Destroyer, whose previously Record Store Day-only vinyl edition of Destroyer’s Rubies is now available for anyone/everyone to own and spin.

Grimes has made another MP3 from her breakout album Visions available to download; she’s at Historic Fort York as part of the Full Flex Express on July 13.

MP3: Grimes – “Circumambient”

And speaking of shows at Fort York, I’ve made some jokes about how Toronto seems to be commemorating the bicentennial of the War Of 1812 with nothing but raves, but there’s now something a little more musically patriotic and family-friendly happening to mark the anniversary. On July 14, The Garrison Commons at Fort York will host a free show featuring performances from Sarah Harmer, Shad, The Rural Alberta Advantage, and Alex Cuba. Specifics are still forthcoming so keeping up with the Facebook page probably isn’t a bad idea.

MP3: Shad – “Rose Garden”
MP3: The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Stamp”
Video: Sarah Harmer – “Almost”
Video: Alex Cuba – “Cabello”

Macleans talks to Don Pyle about the Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet reunion, which hits Lee’s Palace on July 14.

Exclaim and The Grid have feature pieces on Cold Specks and Exclaim also ups the ante with a video session. Cold Specks are at The Great Hall on August 8.

Daytrotter has a session and NOW and interview with Great Lake Swimmers, who will be at The Molson Amphitheatre on August 18 opening up for Blue Rodeo.

Leonard Cohen has added a second Toronto show at the Air Canada Centre for December 5, to go along with the December 4 one that is just about sold out now. Tickets range from $72.50 to $250 plus fees. And while you mull that over, check out Clash‘s liste of ten things you didn’t know about Lenny.

Their show at The Music Hall sold out and in the books, Patrick Watson has announced another Toronto date for December 6 at Massey Hall with The Barr Brothers supporting; tickets are $24.50 to $35.00 plus fees, on sale now. NPR also has a Tiny Desk Concert, PostCity and interview, and a second MP3 from Adventures In Your Own Backyard has been made available to download.

MP3: Patrick Watson – “Words In The Fire”

BlogTO has the full lineup of this year’s Open Roof Festival, which pairs bands and movies for a night under the stars at the Amsterdam Brewery all Summer. You’ve got bands like Army Girls, Bruce Peninsula, and The Magic and films like Moonrise Kingdom, Charles Bradley: Soul of America, and Indie Game: The Movie – a bad time can’t be had (okay it can but it shouldn’t). Tickets for each night are $15.

Young Galaxy are releasing a new 7″ single tomorrow and the B-side is available to download courtesy of Stereogum. And if you liked what they accomplished on Shapeshifter working with producer Dan Lissvik electronically across the ocean, imagine what they could do working directly with him in the studio. If you’d like the see that happen, the band would like you to help out.

MP3: Young Galaxy – “Youth Is Wasted On The Young”

77 Square, Pioneer Press, City Pages, Isthmus, and Columbus Alive talk to Feist.

Frank YangThere’s many great things about the long-running Toronto institution of Nu Music Nites at the Horseshoe – not least of all the fact that they’re free – but the fact that they often feature such random assemblages of acts that each set can feel like its own standalone show and not part of a larger bill is certainly a big part of the fun. Such was the case on Tuesday night when rather than one headline-calibre act, as you’d normally be fortunate to have, they had two – and quite markedly different ones at that.

First you had Kathryn Calder, whom you may remember from her old band Immaculate Machine or know from her current band The New Pornographers but whom you should know for her solo work. Her 2010 debut Are You My Mother? was an unexpected gem displaying a pop acumen that was astonishing, even if she had been apprenticing with some of the country’s finest songwriters for the past half decade and this year’s follow-up Bright & Vivid proved not only that Mother was no fluke, but that Calder was still growing as a songwriter and had even better works in her. Which is to say that it’s as good, if not better, than the first record – and that’s saying quite a lot.

While Calder’s strengths as a singer, songwriter and arranger are self-evident from her records, having missed her solo debut here back in the Summer I still couldn’t comment on her skills as a frontwoman. After all, it’s one thing to do your thing with all eyes on Carl Newman, Neko Case and/or Dan Bejar, quite another to be front and centre yourself. And while she seemed perfectly comfortable in the role, switching off between electric and acoustic guitar and keyboards and offering plenty of low-key charm, you wouldn’t say she’s a riveting performer, at least not yet. But that’s a minor complaint against what she and her band brought to the table.

First off there were the songs, with selections split about evenly between the two albums and well showcasing the range and complexity of her work. It’s no mean feat to fill so many songs with both indelible melodies and emotional depth, but delivering them with her crystalline and dexterous voice – she didn’t miss a move or a note – Calder made it look easy. Points must also go to her band, who were fully equipped with both the tools and talent to recreate the many sonic nuances of the record. They could have easily made it sound good while stripping the arrangements down, but the care they took to make sure all the bits and pieces were there was appreciated.

This show kicked off a three-week North American tour for Calder and company but I almost wish that this was coming at the tail end if just because I’ve no doubt the road-testing would make them sound even better. Make no mistake, they sounded terrific already but if there’s one thing her records have shown, it’s that as good as you think Calder is or can be, she can and will be better.

But wait! There’s more!

It’s probably not fair to expect any kind of funk-soul-rock band to show up and impress when one has just seen Prince a few nights earlier, but for their first visit to Toronto, Chicagoans JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound were sure as spit going to try. Besuited and with Brooks sporting an impressinve Little Richer coif, the five-piece – accompanied by a camera crew – put on a barn-burner of a show. Having just released their second album Want More, they showed off their prowess at classically-styled yet modern-feeling soul – mostly Chicago-flavoured but with forays to Philly to show off Brooks’ ability to slow burn and kill the high notes.

They were at their best when in high gear, though, with the rest of the band being dapper, animated and showing off their impressive chops when called on, all without drawing attention away from their frontman – not that that would have really been possible. Brooks has mastered the fine art of great showmanship without going over the top, engaging the audience without pandering and just basically setting the tone for a wholly impressive show. And while their covers of “Tainted Love” and “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” were set highlights, their original compositions stood tall alongside them – not something you can always say in a genre that’s often more concerned with style and delivery than creation. It’s a shame the audience numbers had thinned from their peak during Calder’s set, but the few dozen that remained got a hell of a show.

Chart and The Calgary Herald have interviews with Kathryn Calder while The Lantern and The Phoenix New Times has features on Brooks.

Photos: JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound, Kathryn Calder @ The Horseshoe – November 29, 2011
MP3: Kathryn Calder – “Who Are You”
MP3: Kathryn Calder – “Arrow”
MP3: Kathryn Calder – “Slip Away”
MP3: JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound – “Everything Will Be Fine”
Video: Kathryn Calder – “Who Are You”
Video: Kathryn Calder – “Arrow”
Video: Kathryn Calder – “Slip Away”
Video: JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound – “Everything Will Be Fine”
Video: JC Brooks Uptown Sound – “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”

Paste talks with Kathleen Edwards about making her latest album Voyageur, out January 17. She plays The Phoenix on February 11.

The Diamond Rings b-side which saw the electro-glammer unexpectedly covering power-pop gods Teenage Fanclub is now available to download courtesy of Spinner.

MP3: Diamond Rings – “Mellow Doubt”

NOW marks Feist’s show at Massey Hall tonight by putting her on this week’s cover; Today Online also has an interview. Meanwhile, Under The Radar reports that she and Mastadon will pair up for a split-7″ single wherein each covers one of the others’ songs as a Record Store Day 2012 release.

Exclaim talks to Bry Webb, who is opening up the aforementioned Feist show tonight.

The Toronto Star, Star-Observer and X-Tra have features on Austra, playing tonight at The Phoenix and have announced that a deluxe edition of Feel It Break, featuring a second CD of covers, remixes and whatnot, will be available in mid-December. One of the new tracks, a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying” which has been kicking around since Katie Stelmanis was still playing as Katie Stelmanis, is available to stream below and the third and final instalment of the unplugged Paper Bag Sessions has gone up at Disco Naivete.

Stream: Austra – “Crying”
Video: Austra – “Believe Me” (Paper Bag Sessions)

Young Galaxy, who are playing with Austra tonight, are also capping their very good year with a deluxe edition of Shapeshifting, though it’ll be an iTunes-only release and feature early versions of four songs before they were sent to producer Dan Lissvik for reinventing. That’ll be available on December 13 but as of right now, a remix album called Versus is available for free.

ZIP: Young Galaxy / Versus

Bruce Peninsula have released a new video from Open Flames.

Video: Bruce Peninsula – “Pull Me Under”

The videos for some studio sessions that Kat Burns of Forest City Lovers performed for Exclaim are now available to download as well as watch.

MP3: Forest City Lovers – “Keep The Kids Inside” (Rainy Day Version, live at Exclaim)
MP3: Forest City Lovers – “Tell Me, Cancer” (live at Exclaim)
Video: Forest City Lovers – “Keep The Kids Inside” (Rainy Day Version, live at Exclaim)
Video: Forest City Lovers – “Tell Me, Cancer” (live at Exclaim)

Weakerthans frontman John K Samson will release his first solo album in Provincial on January 24; details at Anti, who are releasing the record.

Exclaim interviews Beatrice Martin of Coeur de Pirate.

There’s a new Fucked Up song available to download courtesy of Stereogum. They play a charity gig at The Great Hall on December 20.

MP3: Fucked Up – “I Hate Summer”

Toronto psych-poppers Heartbeat Hotel are streaming the whole of their new record Intae Woe, while Mechanical Forest Sound has a recording from their record release show for said record last week available to download.

Stream: Heartbeat Hotel / Inate Woe

Memoryhouse have announced a February 28 release date for their debut full-length, to be entitled The Slideshow Effect. Mechanical Forest Sound also has a recording of a show last week.

The Drake Hotel has announced most of the lineup for this year’s What’s In The Box holiday season music series, wherein they line up five acts for each of the five nights following Christmas with a five dollar cover. Still a few “special guest” spots to be filled but there’s at least a couple nights with some acts that I’ve been meaning to check out (Doldrums, Donlands & Mortimer) so I expect I’ll be there at least once that week. You may as well too – don’t pretend you’ve got better things to do.

And another end-of-year institution – New Year’s Eve at The Tranzac – has announced their live music lineup via Facebook and it features The Elwins, Maylee Todd and more. I went to last year’s, it was fun. Tickets are $13 in advance and believe them when they say it sells out every year.

Frank YangMuch of Dan Mangan’s appeal comes from his everyman-ness – and his beard, if you ask certain friends of mine – so when he was playing the back rooms of bars, as at The Rivoli in October 2009 or The Horseshoe in April 2010, it felt perfectly natural. Those shows also felt utterly jam-packed – because they were – making it unlikely that the club circuit would be able to serve his ever-growing audience for very long. And so when he played Trinity-St. Paul’s in his last proper Toronto show last October, it felt like he’d made a significant step up.. or so I’d imagine – I missed that show, making this past Friday night’s performance at The Queen Elizabeth Theatre in support of Oh Fortune the first time I’d be seeing Mangan in such a formal setting. Or as formal as you could get with a Hallowe’en theme park located around the corner.

Openers The Daredevil Christopher Wright were certainly impressed with the venue. The Madison, Wisconsin trio said as much during their set, between showing off songs from their new EP, The Longsuffering Song. Their whimsical, carnival-like musical sensibilities and endearing presence was easy to enjoy, but with the instrument swapping and impeccable harmonies, it was impossible to not notice the formidable musicianship and sophisticated songwriting underneath. It was no stretch to say that while they’re not nearly at a point in their career to be headlining theatres like this, they’ve got the talent to get there. Or to a big top. Whichever.

Dan Mangan, on the other hand, had already grown comfortably into the posher surroundings. Fronting a seven-piece flannel orchestra, he opened with Oh Fortune‘s “About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All” – complete with wall of noise introduction – and over the next hour and fifteen, took full advantage of the room’s acoustics and the capabilities of his band to reproduce the complex textures of the new record. I was sorry I missed The Crackling, who’d opened up the night, as they were made up of some members of Mangan’s band and really stood out in bringing his songs to life and in many cases, eclipsing the recorded versions. In particular, the effected/delayed trumpet of JP Carter was used as a ghostly sonic backdrop for much of the show and the barber shop harmonies that opened up “Some People”, to say nothing of the big instrumental jam in the bridge, were remarkable enhancements.

But just as I described Mangan’s steady presence in the sonic swirl of Oh Fortune, so too was he a rock of solidity throughout the show with his mostly-acoustic guitar, gravelly voice and thoughtful, empathic songs. Interestingly, even with so much going on sonically I found myself compelled to pay even more attention to Mangan’s lyrics in this live setting and more fully appreciating the way he balances simplicity and depth in his songs. A particular standout was “Basket”, from Nice, Nice, Very Nice, which Mangan said was a birthday request though its ruminations on aging make it kind of a grim birthday tune.

Though the set was relatively short, Mangan managed to fit an impressive number of tunes into his allotted time and also a goodly amount of banter; this may have been physically the furthest he’s been from his audience, but he was still able to reach out and connect with them and make it feel intimate. After ending the main set with an aptly-named “Jeopardy” – his amp was making unhappy noises and threatened to blow up at any moment – he returned for the encore solo at first, inviting the audience to sub in for Veda Hille on “The Indie Queens Are Waiting”, offering a faithful reading of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea” and then closing out with a full band “Robots” – of course” – and placing his mic facing out into the crowd to play chorus while he went for a wander in their midst. A fitting end to a show that was eminently satisfying, with Mangan proving that his charms easily translate into larger rooms and larger audiences. There weren’t any surprises, but then that’s not his game – he wasn’t here to argue or debate or make bold declarations; simply to play his songs and strike up a conversation with friends. We were all friends here.

BlogTO also has a review of the show and NOW, Uptown, View, The Manitoban, The Cord, and The Toronto Star all have interviews with Mangan.

Photos: Dan Mangan, The Daredevil Christopher Wright @ The Queen Elizabeth Theatre – October 28, 2011
MP3: Dan Mangan – “Oh Fortune”
MP3: Dan Mangan – “Road Regrets”
MP3: Dan Mangan – “Robots”
MP3: Dan Mangan w Shane Kyczan – “Tragic Turn Of Events”
MP3: The Daredevil Christopher Wright – “The Animal Of Choice”
MP3: The Daredevil Christopher Wright – “The East Coast”
Video: Dan Mangan – “Rows Of Houses”
Video: Dan Mangan – “Sold”
Video: Dan Mangan – “Robots”
Video: Dan Mangan – “The Indie Queens are Waiting”
Video: Dan Mangan – “Road Regrets”
Video: The Daredevil Christopher Wright – “Stewardess”
Stream: The Daredevil Christopher Wright / The Longsuffering Song

Feist talks to HitFix and has also released a video taken from her show at the Glenn Gould Studio in early October, which will be broadcast on CBC Radio 2 tomorrow night – November 2 – at 7PM. She is at Massey Hall on December 1.

Video: Feist – “Caught A Long Wind” (live at Glenn Gould Studio)

The Washington Post talks to Katie Stelmanis of Austra, who are at The Phoenix on December 1 and whose set at Moogfest this past weekend is streaming over at NPR. Both support acts for that show – Young Galaxy and Tasseomancy – have also just released new videos.

Video: Young Galaxy – “Phantoms”
Video: Tasseomancy – “Black Milk”

Heavy Weather has posted a video performance by Bruce Peninsula recorded atop Signal Hill in St. John’s, Newfoundland. And while there, they also chatted with The Telegram.

The Ottawa Sun talks to Chad VanGaalen.

Daytrotter has posted a session with The Wilderness Of Manitoba.

The Darcys have announced they’ll play an in-store at Kops Records on Queen West on November 7 starting around 1PM for a sort of teaser of their full show at The Horseshoe on November 18.

MP3: The Darcys – “Shaking Down The Old Bones”

Pitchfork have inaugurated their new Frames animated feature by turning Fucked Up into a cartoon with Damian Abraham narrating the story of his first stitches.

And finally, how much does Toronto love My Bloody Valentine? Enough to stage not one but two concert events honouring the twentieth anniversary of Loveless, that’s how much. The first, Toronto’s Loveless, goes this Friday, November 4, at the Toronto Underground Theatre and will feature performances from Ruby Coast, Volcano Playground and others – admission $10 at the door. And as a bonus, event organizers Gold Soundz have assembled a Loveless tribute album comprised of Toronto artists – many of whom are playing the event – as well as Memoryhouse and Silver Dapple.

The other event is a Wavelength joint called Lovel(in)ess which will feature a complete reading of Loveless by an assemblage of local players calling themselves So Much Sorry as well as a set from Flowers Of Hell and MBV covers from a variety of other acts. That one takes place November 18 at The Garrison, admission $10 or pay what you can.

MP3: Heartbeat Hotel – “To Here Knows When”
MP3: Memoryhouse – “When You Sleep”
MP3: Volcano Playground – “Come In Alone”