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Hey there, internet. Did you miss me?
(… Don’t all answer at once.)

Well, I’m finished with school for good this year, and it’s about time. I have a lot to catch up on here — I still worked quite a few evenings at Massey Hall over the last month, so I have a bit of a backlog of reviews for you. Before that, though, quick news: Phoenix’s new record Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is in stores today. All right! Check them out here. I’ll review it as soon as I get it.

Also in the news, the Calgary Folk Music Festival has revealed its full 2009 lineup! Highlights include The Decemberists, Bell Orchestre, Steven Page, Alejandro Escovedo, Sarah Harmer, Chad VanGaalen, and so many more … the list is fantastic. And of course, you’ll see reviews of all four days here.

So like I said, I’ve seen a fair number of shows that haven’t been reviewed here yet, so I think I’ll just condense them into this post — they’re all belated anyway and I’d rather not put them off any further. Going in reverse: I was a patron for the first time at Massey Hall (after seeing nearly fifty artists there since September) on Saturday, where Joel Plaskett made his seated venue debut accompanied by the Emergency, his father Bill, and songstresses Rose Cousins and the palindromic Ana Egge. The first set, a brief 45 minutes, was just the Plasketts and the two women, mostly acoustic — slightly twangy and very intimate. Ana and Rose both treated us to one of their own songs as well, and some tunes featured Joel and Bill by themselves in a father/son duet (like Ashtray Rock’s “Nothing More to Say”). We also got a bunch of great versions of songs from Three: particular highlights of the first set were “Deny, Deny, Deny”, “Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’,” and the incredibly John Prine-ish “Pine, Pine, Pine”.

The second set kicked off with the Emergency (Joel, Chris Pennell and Dave Marsh)’s one-two punch of “Work out Fine” and “Extraordinary,” both from 2003’s Truthfully Truthfully. After that it was just one big party. Peter Elkas joined the Emergency’s ranks and Bill, Rose and Ana returned to beef up the stage and sound. Lots of tunes from Three — including a fabulous second-set finish with “Wishful Thinking” — and old favourites too, sometimes in interesting new versions. The encore started off with Joel playing solo versions of the Hermit classic “Before You Leave” and his own “Love This Town,” whose lyrics he had changed a little after a good show in Kelowna … glad to see that city’s not taking too much Plaskett abuse these days!

If the crowd was any indicator — getting up and dancing, singing along with all of “Love This Town” (Joel left the mic and sang it from the edge of the stage, a testament both to Massey’s great acoustics and the attentiveness of the crowd), cheering for everything — the Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Massey Hall debut was a resounding success. And I have a feeling that “Wishful Thinking” might be prophetic — “Thank you, good night, we’ll be back in the fall”.

Also recently featured at the Hall were Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer on the Unwigged & Unplugged Tour — you may remember them as the men behind This Is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind and Waiting for Guffman. This tour saw the three guys tossing aside costumes and assumed identities and playing their material mostly acoustic. I think they did everything from the Spinal Tap film: “Big Bottom” (walking bass, lounge style), “Sex Farm” (I don’t even know how to describe that one — McKean did a bit of a rap in the middle!), and, yes, “Stonehenge”, complete with Nigel Tufnel intro from Guest and a video of trolls dancing around a miniature Stonehenge piece projected onto the screen behind them. Hysterical. They also did a great deal of Folksmen material including the theme from A Mighty Wind (“It’s blowing peace and freedom, it’s blowing you and me!”) and the Folksmen cover of the Stones’ “Start Me Up”.

While it was hilarious to hear these acoustic versions of Tap songs (“The Majesty of Rock” on acoustic guitars?), even more fun were the between-song banter and the other segments of the show, including the “audience participation,” where they gave one man 3D glasses and made him stand in front of them for an entire song, promising that the song was written in 3D and it would “blow your mind”. They also told stories about the making of various films, including the fiasco when NBC wanted to show This Is Spinal Tap on television shortly after its theatrical run (Shearer: “Well, it wasn’t so much a run as a power walk.” McKean: “Ah, those were the day!”). The head of whatever department they were dealing with watched the film and made a list of everything he wanted to censor, which was pretty much the whole movie. Lines included things like “The lyrics to ‘Sex Farm’ are unacceptable.” “Hand on girl’s breast.” “‘Shit sandwich’.” Yup — totally unacceptable!

And of course, I can’t forget to mention the Tragically Hip’s six-night run at the Old Lady of Shuter Street: May 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 19. I wasn’t there for all of them (thank goodness) but I experienced rather enough as it was. They did put on solid shows, although they were obscenely loud — I get it, you’re a rock band, but at least play to the hall a little! Downie was up to his usual madcap stage adventures, and while I’m not sure what the final mic stand casualty count was, there were certainly a few sent to their graves during the week. Their setlist changed around a fair amount from night to night, which was great for those of us who had to see more than one show; highlights included “Fireworks”, “Fiddler’s Green”, “The Bear” (apparently they’ve only played that one live a few times), “Yer Not The Ocean” and so on. The new album is okay — it’s no World Container, but the songs translated a bit better live than they did on record, I think.

In Hall news, recent announcements for summer shows include Sonic Youth (June 30), Steve Earle (July 11), Neko Case (July 14), Fleet Foxes (August 4), Tori Amos (August 10), John Prine (August 14), and Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes (August 28). It’s going to be a good run! See you all soon — more posts on the way.

The weekend. The glorious, glorious weekend. That may have been one of the longest weeks I’ve ever experienced, and I’m not keen to repeat it!

I guess I have some blog catching-up to do as a result of that week. Thursday (April 9) I had the immense pleasure of seeing Willie Nelson at Massey Hall, supported by the incredible Ray Price and the petulant Billy Bob Thornton with his band the Boxmasters.

I know we’re all tired of hearing about BBT, but I suspect this review wouldn’t be entirely complete without a mention of his conduct. We all know what happened on CBC Radio on the 8th, but for some reason, Thornton decided it would be a good idea to try to “set the record straight” at his second night at Massey Hall. He called Ghomeshi an “asshole” and pontificated on how one is expected to keep the promises that are made, forgetting about two things in the process: one, that journalism is about all the facts, not some of them; and two, that his band isn’t very good and decidedly would not be playing with such country legends as Nelson and Price if he were not Billy Bob Thornton, actor, as well.

Anyway, there was no tossed gravy, but I heard later that security intercepted a guy with a container of it intending to do just that. I wish they’d let it go! Either way, Thornton was booed continually during his speech to the crowd and the next day bailed out of the rest of the Canadian dates on the tour. He cited an ill bandmate, but he probably just can’t handle Canada.

Here’s a review from the Globe and Mail about the Massey show and about his behaviour in more detail, and here’s a column by Russell Smith that pretty much sums up the entire situation perfectly.

Back to the show: Thornton’s band is not all that great, and there were five guitarists. Overkill in itself, but four of them were playing identical Fender Telecasters, and one guy had a steel-string. This did nothing to cover up Thornton’s lack of imaginative drumming when he got behind the kit during their extendo-jam, and the end was very welcome when it finally arrived.

Ray Price, who is a whopping 83 years old, delivered a beautiful set with a large band sounding more intimate than I have ever heard twelve people sound. It felt like you really were back in “the good old days,” two-stepping and wearing big skirts. His voice is among the best I’ve ever heard, and the string section were scored like horns — I’ve never heard strings act quite like that before, and it was magnificent. If you ever get the chance to see this man perform, do yourself a favour; he’s done so much more than most of us could even hope for, and he’s still going strong.

Willie was great, of course. He performed with a very stripped-down ensemble, in total contrast to the acts preceding him: the focus was entirely on his voice and amazing guitar chops, and rightfully so. He brought Price back out to sing “Crazy” with him, which is probably the only way that song could be any better than it already is; other favourites included “Always On My Mind,” “On the Road Again” and a fantastic medley of the classics “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “I’ll Fly Away”. I’m not familiar with a large portion of Nelson’s repertoire (he has an eye-popping 77 studio albums, so I suppose that’s excusable!), but it seemed like the setlist was hit after hit after hit, with a couple lesser-known songs thrown in here and there. The crowd loved it, and he proved to us — not that we needed convincing — that he’s legendary for a very, very good reason. And he’s only seven years younger than Ray Price, which is pretty remarkable too.

I also saw familiar funnyman Jerry Seinfeld last night, supported by Tom Papa, who I’d never heard before. The latter was really funny — good, clean, PG-rated comedy (I realised with some embarrassment that most of the comedy I have been watching lately has been significantly more than PG), and a lot of observational stuff similar to Seinfeld. And of course, Jerry was hilarious — the crowd loved it, and he really gave them a good set. He mentioned the cast of Seinfeld’s upcoming appearance on Larry David’s new show Curb Your Enthusiasm, which should be an interesting reunion: apparently they’re recreating the show on CYE? I have no idea. Stay tuned, I guess!

And finally, two news announcements!

The first is that Phoenix have announced their tour dates (see them here) … and their Toronto date is at, yes indeed, the Phoenix Concert Theatre. I guess it would be pretty hard to forget the venue for this one. They’ll be here on June 15; check out the tour page for the rest of their dates.

The second is that the Calgary Folk Music Festival have been releasing their Leak of the Week for quite some time, and the lineup is getting mind-blowing. Already. The full lineup will be announced on May 14, but for the time being, I’m already getting excited: artists confirmed include Mavis Staples, Akron/Family, Bell Orchestre, Justin Rutledge, The Acorn, Mark Berube & The Patriotic Few, Glen Campbell, and Iron and Wine. And that’s not even the full list of leaks!

The festival runs July 23-26 and tickets will be available starting May 14.

Have a lovely weekend!

As we all know, since I’ve probably mentioned it here a thousand times, Phoenix are coming out with a new album on May 25th called Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. It’s already awesome.

We finally get a sneak preview, though, as the band recently released an mp3 of the song “1901″ for our auditory enjoyment. It sounds like classic Phoenix, but more synthy than It’s Never Been Like That. I can already hear the club remixes coming. Still, it feels like they infused the whole thing with sunshine; it’s bright, it’s snappy, it’s breezy, and it’s just as great as anything from their previous record. I hope the rest of Wolfgang sounds like this, because it’s going to be the best beginning-of-summer album ever. Guys, I love this band.

Phoenix’s poppy electronic-infused hooks have always reminded me a little of Field Music, and maybe that’s why I took to them so quickly. Europe has a lot of sweet exports. Whatever the case may be, this track is awesome, and you can bet I’ll be picking that album up the day it comes out. Hope you like it enough to do the same!

Tunesday 12: 1901

Wow, my friends, it has been too long. Blame it on the black hole they label “school”; now that that’s out of the way, we’re back in business here. Shows to review! Artists to talk about! So much music.

I recently picked up Jason Collett’s latest LP Here’s to Being Here (it’s on marble pink vinyl!), which I’ve been thoroughly enjoying. I don’t know that there’s any song quite as catchy as “I’ll Bring the Sun” (from Idols of Exile), but “Papercut Hearts” is cute and a really good time, and “Roll On Oblivion” is a well-chosen way to open the record. The groovy “Charlyn, Angel of Kensington” is a slightly sultry, funky, fun song that I’ve been pretty into since getting the album, and Collett’s voice on this and a few others sounds uncannily like that of Peter Elkas. Funny, as the two are actually on tour together, covering both Canada and the United States in a giant sweep; clearly a well-matched pair.

I also got the newest Mountain Goats album, Heretic Pride (also on vinyl, but unfortunately, not coloured). Right away, Darnielle’s voice seems remarkably more nasal than on previous records, hitting its peak on the title track with its jerky lyric; I’ll have to admit, that track bothers me a bit stylistically, but most everything else seems to make up for it. Songs like the slightly ethereal, muted “Sept 15, 1983,” for example – perfectly arranged and performed, and probably among my favourites. It’s true, the titles seem to be more reminiscent of Zappa than Darnielle sometimes (“How to Embrace a Swamp Creature,” “In the Craters on the Moon”) , and I have yet to find songs that I love as much as I do those on We Shall All Be Healed, but like with most Mountain Goats albums, I think it’s a grower.

I have to say, too, that I recently discovered Phoenix’s album It’s Never Been Like That, and I am hooked. Prior to this musical epiphany, the only track of theirs I was familiar with was the frustratingly catchy “Too Young,” from 2000’s United (#6 on Jay Ferguson’s 10 perfect pop songs!). I loved it, but the rest of the album left me cold. Somehow, It’s Never Been Like That just passed me by, and I’m only waking up to it now. I can’t stop listening to “Consolation Prizes,” which is singalongable, catchy, energetic, and slightly electronic-sounding – in other words, trademark Phoenix. Once you hear it once, you can’t stop. Have a listen – but don’t say you weren’t warned!

Coming up: Brent Randall & His Pinecones, the Weather Station, and more. (Side note: My band, Entire Cities, are releasing a CD tomorrow! Reviews of the other bands shall follow.)