vintage

I am kind of at a loss as to what to write about these days, since I haven’t seen any shows and I haven’t picked up any records. Heaven forbid, I know. However, one exciting thing remains: Neil Young has announced a North American tour in late fall, and I HAVE TICKETS. I am a pretty happy camper. Here’s a list of his Canadian dates:

• Oct 16 MTS Centre - Winnipeg, MB

• Oct 18 Brandt Center - Regina, SK
• Oct 19 Pengrowth Saddledome - Calgary, AB
• Oct 22 GM Place - Vancouver, BC
• Nov 29 Metro Centre - Halifax, NS
• Dec 1 Bell Centre - Montreal, PQ
• Dec 2 Scotiabank Place - Ottawa, ON
• Dec 4 Air Canada Centre - Toronto, ON

See his full tour schedule here.

I also actually had a post in the works about a mixtape I made … but unfortunately, the RIAA got in the way. Some of you may have already been part of Muxtape, a terrific website geared towards those interested in discovering new tunes. It was a very, very simple and streamlined site; no nonsense, no annoying images, just music. Users had a unique ID (username.muxtape.com) and were allowed to upload a maximum of 12 songs to the site; they could then arrange them in any order or rename them, as well name their tape and pick a colour for it.

After that … the listening. Features like “next” and “random” provided gold mines of new music and old favourites; one that I stumbled upon only had songs that were 2 minutes and 42 seconds long, and another person had just uploaded the entirety of Highway 61 Revisited (okay, I can see why the RIAA would not be too happy with that one). You could also add tapes you liked to your favourites, so you could come back and listen to them again later. Recently, Muxtape added a fabulous feature which allowed users to sync with Last.fm, enabling any tracks they listened to on Mux to scrobble onto their charts. Ingenius! Let me tell you, I was listening to Muxtape quite a bit the last few weeks.

Of course, anything good eventually gets shut down by the RIAA, and this one was no exception. Since there were so many tracks being provided in streaming format to the internet, it was only a matter of time before the problem of royalties surfaced; Muxtape has grown quite a bit in the last little while, and this puts them on par with a lot of other websites that have to pay hefty fees in order to stream that much music to listeners. The future is still up in the air for Muxtape, and if you’re like me, you’re crossing your fingers, toes and anything else that will stand still long enough in the hopes that it will come back.

Disney-meets-Kodak-styled sister site Mixwit just isn’t the same (and probably will get shut down eventually too); where Muxtape was smooth, streamlined and no-nonsense, Mixwit looks like an eight-year-old girl’s room was strewn all over the place. Oh well.

In other news, I’m seeing Squeeze in a week.

Pitchfork Media reports that John Lydon of the Sex Pistols, better known as Johnny Rotten, got a little physical last weekend at the Summercase festival. Apparently, Lydon attacked Kele Okereke of Bloc Party after a racist tirade and left the singer “bruised and bloody”.

Lydon alleges that Okereke is making up this stuff and says he regrets that the singer needs to “lie about what was a perfect evening”.

Read the full story here.

July 16 marked Rush’s first American TV appearance in 33 years; they were guests on the Colbert Report, doing a brief interview and a performance of “Tom Sawyer”. Neil Peart gets in some zingers, and they all sign Colbert’s hand. All in a day’s work!

Watch the video here.

Sorry about my continued absences. I am currently knee-deep in the 2008 Calgary Stampede, where I work as a guest services supervisor; it leaves little time for such frivolities as music blogging. But here I am on a bit of downtime ready to give you exciting things to read again. I know how excited you are, trust me.

The Polaris Music Prize shortlist was announced today! The final ten vying for the prize are:

Black Mountain, In the Future
Basia Bulat, Oh, My Darling
Caribou, Andorra
Holy Fuck, LP
Kathleen Edwards, Asking for Flowers
Plants and Animals, Parc Avenue
Stars, In Our Bedroom After the War
Shad, The Old Prince
Two Hours Traffic, Little Jabs
The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour

Place your bets now!

—

Yesterday I also had the opportunity to see Sloan. Again. This time they played in Calgary at the Tequila Nightclub, not a place I would ever go to of my own accord. It used to be The Republik (which has since been resurrected a few blocks down the road), where Sloan played back in the day, interestingly enough.

I only got to see the last half of the show, which contained exactly one song from Parallel Play (lead-off track and single “Believe in Me,” which was a terrific live rocker). Old favourites in the set included “People of the Sky,” “Who Taught You To Live Like That?” and “Money City Maniacs.” The crowd was a beer-drinking Stampede party group but seemed to be really into the show, which was nice.

Many thanks go to Mike from the Sloan ‘entourage’ who helped me make it to the show after work in the first place. Working til 12.30 is not usually a situation conducive to going to see shows, but you know how it is … things always work out in the end.

By the way, some of you may remember me mentioning how Yep Roc had failed to send me my copy of Parallel Play at the time I wrote my review. Well, it finally came - on July 2. Three weeks and a day late! I will tell this story in full so you can experience the good times with me (ha, ha).

Have a good week, everybody!

Seriously.

Exclaim! reports that Devo bassist Gerald Casale is quite offended with one of the new McDonald’s American Idol toys. “New Wave Nigel,” as the figurine is called, sports a red flowerpot hat not unlike - well, exactly like - the “Energy Domes” designed by Casale for the band.

Ironically, Devo has always satirized and poked fun at consumerist culture and popular trends. They have taken the corporate giant to court over copyright infringement, and there is no word on whether New Wave Nigel will be pulled from the shelves.

Other dolls in the Idol series include Disco Dave and Country Clay.

(Vintage: bringing you really weird music news like clockwork.)

BBC News reported jazz pianist Esbjörn Svensson died in a scuba diving accident near Stockholm on Saturday. Svensson’s piano trio enjoyed great success throughout Europe and won a fair number of European jazz awards throughout their career.

Svensson leaves behind a wife and two sons.

Esbjörn Svensson Trio

The long list for the third annual Polaris Music Prize has been announced. As the website informs us, the long list consists of the top 40 full-length Canadian records released from June 1, 2007 to May 31, 2008, selected by the 185 members of the Polaris Music Prize jury. Thirty of these albums will be eliminated to produce the 10-album shortlist, to be revealed on July 7.

The Polaris Prize is judged solely on artistic merit, without any regard for record sales; the idea is to reward outstanding Canadian artists who may or may not be enjoying proportionally outstanding sales. The winner of the prize will receive $20,000 and some pretty hefty press. The past two years’ winners were Patrick Watson (2007) and Final Fantasy (2006).

This year’s long (long, long, long) list of Polaris Prize nominees are:

The Acorn, Glory Hope Mountain
Attack In Black, Marriage
Basia Bulat, Oh, My Darling
Black Mountain, In The Future
Born Ruffians, Red, Yellow and Blue
Buck 65, Situation
Cadence Weapon, Afterparty Babies
Cancer Bats, Hail Destroyer
Caribou, Andorra
Christine Fellows, Nevertheless
City And Colour, Bring Me Your Love
Constantines, Kensington Heights
Corb Lund, Horse Solider! Horse Soldier!
Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles
Destroyer, Trouble In Dreams
Fred Eaglesmith, Tinderbox
Gatineau, Gatineau
Ghislain Poirier, No Ground Under
Hayden, In Field And Town
Hilotrons, Happymatic
Holy Fuck, LP
Islands, Arm’s Way
Justin Rutledge, Man Descending
Karkwa, Le volume du vent
Kathleen Edwards, Asking For Flowers
The New Pornographers, Challengers
Pas Chic Chic, Au Contraire
Plants And Animals, Parc Avenue
Protest The Hero, Fortress
The Sadies, New Seasons
Sandro Perri, Tiny Mirrors
Shad, The Old Prince
Socalled, Ghetto Blaster
Stars, In Our Bedroom After The War
Tegan And Sara, The Con
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
Two Hours Traffic, Little Jabs
Veda Hille, This Riot Life
The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour
Wintersleep, Welcome To The Night Sky

Note to bloggers: think before you decide to type links for a 40-strong list of artists. Wow.

According to Uncut Magazine, duo Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook from the good ol’ pop/new-wave band Squeeze took home the “Outstanding Contribution to British Music” at the Ivor Novello songwriting awards. The ceremony was held in London on Tuesday; other winners included Radiohead, Amy Winehouse, Mika, Phil Collins, and a Lifetime Achievement Award for David Gilmour (Pink Floyd).

More exciting, though, is the magazine’s report that “[the] band plan to start work on their first album in ten years in 2009.” Squeeze’s last album, Domino, was released in 1998 to less-than-stellar reviews. Their best works, however, including back-to-back Argybargy (1980) and East Side Story (1981), are excellently crafted pop masterpieces; lyricist Difford and composer Tilbrook are oft-compared to Lennon & McCartney, more in terms of sheer songwriting prowess than actual stylistic similarities. Whether or not the comparison is a good one, there is no denying that Squeeze - who have an impressive 22 releases to their name, including a 6-disc remastered box set, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, and some singles and greatest hits collections - are certainly top contenders in the songwriting department, and a new record is an exciting prospect.

The band has announced quite a few tour dates for the summer, which you can browse here. Currently, their only Canadian date is — wait for it — Toronto; they’ll be hitting the Kool Haus on August 28th, supported by Aimee Mann. I have had my ticket for about three weeks already and will probably be first in line. Pack a lunch and come keep me company.

Tom Waits interviews himself.

I imagine it needs no prequel nor commentary.

What news, my friends. Neil Young now has another interesting ‘accolade,’ if you can call it that, to add to his collection; a new species of trapdoor spider was christened this week in tribute as Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi. The spider was discovered by an East Carolina University scientist in Jefferson County, Alabama.

This rather odd naming follows in the footsteps of a recent naming of a species of beetle after the late Roy Orbison (Orectochilus orbisonorum).

Read the full article.

I swear, news gets weirder every day.