Newbury Comics has been pretty boring in the way of signed cd’s lately, but there has been a resurgence of good shit.
The new Stars album “In Our Bedroom After The War” is the latest of the list of hand scrawled gems. The band did something really interesting with this and leaked the album themselves through their record label, Arts & Crafts. In the times we live in, it’s nearly a certainty that your album will leak, so why not leak it yourself? I think it’s smart. Fans will hopefully download the album through the band, and be so thankful they will gladly buy a hard copy when it’s released on September 25th (especially if it is signed!) Order it here.
And to save a few bucks on shipping, you can also get Kevin Drew’s new album, “Broken Social Scene Presents: Spirit If..” signed. Check it out!
Unfortunately, I can’t pass judgment on these albums, as I haven’t yet given them good listens, but 2 signed albums for under 30 bucks can’t be beat!
The Wolf Parade long weekend is over. I attended the last show on Monday, however forgot to load my memory card into my camera and thus I have nothing from Mondays show, but a wise man once said something like ‘….don’t be sad, 3 out of 4 ain’t bad’. Anyway, as most of you know by now, the current set list contains a lot of new material which can sometimes be bad news for some fans, this was not the case. Upon hearing Stevie, Language City and Fine Young Cannibals at Fridays show my anticipation for the new album rose ten fold.
Back from Sunday Wolf Parade show, and yet again I’m blown away. They’ve kept raising the bar with each performance, I hope they’ll keep this momentum going into Mondays show. The new material is awesome, and keeps getting better every night. Footage is a little dark, but the MP3’s should be listenable. We are hoping to get the footage up soon, some is unwatchable, some is great, we’ll have them up in the next couple of days.
Holy Fuck are sick, and you should buy their album. Those guys put so much energy into their live show, you will be amazed.
Wolf Parade were through the roof last night. The crowd is getting better by the night, as are the new songs. We stayed back a little last night, so the mp3’s may sound a little better (we haven’t had much time to hear them, yet). They played the same songs, but to keep things fresh, they changed the order.
It’s a very cool scene at these shows. It’s the first time I’ve been to Sala Rossa.. It’s just a tiny little room with a great atmosphere. The crowd is very kind (for the most part), and the band just mingles in and out of the venue until they take the stage.
That’s all we can muster for words, due to lack of sleep, beer consumption and system failure. Here are the mp3’s from the show.
This is day 2 of the Wolf Parade weekend. The new material is OUTSTANDING. We have been feasting today, and just being lazy and hungover, so a full review of these shows will come after the weekend. For now though, here are the mp3’s from last night. There is a bit of crowd noise (mostly us, screaming), but they came out pretty good, I think. Keep checking back for the videos. Cheers!
As some of you know, I come from a very small place in Eastern Canada.So, naturally, being the music lover that I am, when I was out of school, I had to get out and see the world a little.I didn’t make it very far, really.I moved to Toronto for a few months, where I was completely overwhelmed with concerts.After spending most of the money I had saved on concerts, I realized something had to give, so I settled in Ottawa. Here in Ottawa the concert scene isn’t as non-stop, for sure, but I do have very good access to Montreal, and between here and there, I can be kept pretty busy with shows.
This move has allowed me to see a few bands go from buzz bands to legitimately amazing live acts.The best example of this is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. As the music blog world was raving about this band with a very new (or old) sound, CYHSY were touring around North America, getting their name out.They hit Ottawa in September of 2005 and played the very small venue, Zaphod Beeblebrox.I had just bought the self-titled album and didn’t really have a chance to take it all in before I saw the show.The boys put on an amazing set to a packed crowd, that even included a few non album tracks, such as “Some Loud Thunder” & “Satan Said Dance” that would later show up on their sophomore album, as well as a couple tracks, “Cigarettes” and “Me and You, Watson”, which seem to be nothing more than amazing rarities.They closed their set, with Neil Young’s “Helpless”, which Alec said they had only done in Canada (Later, this became somewhat of a staple closer).
Since that show, I’ve been lucky enough to see them a couple times. The latest one was at one of my favourite venues, The Metropolis in Montreal.This show was in support of the newly released, Some Loud Thunder.It was here that I realized they had taken up their live act a notch or two.They played to a very energetic crowd, and they seemed to really feed of it.brockmasterflex got most of this show on his trusty camera, but I will let him do a proper post on the show at a later date.For now I’ll just steal one of his videos to prove my point about the energetic crowd.
The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth
Well, I’m sorry about all those words. ‘Bout time to get to the music, I reckon.
This is a set from France. I’m unsure of the details right now, but I do know that it’s an FM recording. It sounds great, except for a few minor glitches here and there.
The punk scene was watching and waiting for July 10th to come it marked the major label debut of Florida’s favorite anarchists Against Me!, New Wave. They finally moved from playing in their friends basements to the big leagues. Against Me! have made a career out of being really good at what they do, gaining success for what they do, and getting shit for what they do. Reinventing Axl Rose was their first album release by No Idea Records. The album was a huge underground success and kept No Idea Records in the black for a long time. As time progressed Against Me! switched labels (as their fans moan) to Fat Wreck Chords, a record label setup by Fat Mike of NOFX. That move was met with major criticism of their hardcore anarchist fans who believed Fat Wreck was a “major” label. On Fat they released, with high acclaim As The Eternal Cowboy, another solid and angst ridden album. Rumors began of talks with major labels looking to sign AM!, which in turn sparked the DVD release of We’re Never Going Home. The documentary was filmed between April 1st to May 2nd of 2004 where Against Me! would be wined and dined by all these major label fat cats but in the end, stood their ground and remained with Fat Wreck and released Searching For A Former Clarity. This was a step away from their raw folk punk style, to a more cleanly produced record. The major news of 2007 came though, which broke the hearts of many AM! fans everywhere; they signed to Sire Records and released New Wave with the help of mega-producer Butch Vig. New Wave is miles away from Reinventing Axl Rose (and Nirvana’s Nevermind, if thats what Butch was hoping for), in production, song writing, and overall (IMHO) a wrong direction for the band. I enjoyed certain aspects of the record, but over all it wasn’t what I hoped for or wanted to hear from Against Me!, but I’m certain there where fans that didn’t want to hear As The Eternal Cowboy, and I’m certain that Angainst Me! will lose a lot of die hard fans because of this record, just as I’m certain they will get more die hard fans in return. The album is safe and ready for the general public, and on a side note Ben Lee loves this album!
For you trendwhores out there that (are still reading) and want some live Aganst Me! here is some MP3’s from their live show @ Studio Juste Pour Rire in Montreal back in March.
I’ve been overwhelmingly hooked on the upcoming Architecture In Helsinki album, “Places Like This”. Yeah, yeah, I download leaks, but 90% of the time I also pre-order the album at the same time (speaking of which, you can pre-order “Places Like This” on 180g vinyl or cd for $12 here). It has been getting some mixed reviews on a few forums I’ve been reading, but I’m not sure why. I think it’s their most fun album yet, and that’s what they are all about, right? They’ve taken a bit of a new direction, but that new direction invokes thoughts of Talking Heads, so I’m all for it.
Here’s their set from Morning Becomes Eclectic, one of the finest radio shows around, especially considering some of the performances bands play with hangovers.
This time next week will usher in an entire weekend with Wolf Parade @ Sala Rossa. Hope everyone found some tickets. Wolf Parade are fresh off the Wolf Island Music Fest, and from what I’ve been reading their set contains oodles of new material. Since ryantheduke and I couldn’t make it to give you our opinions of the set, we can however bring their set to you. Thanks to a post on We’ll Believe In Anything(a Wolf Parade Facebook group), I found out that some great person uploaded the entire Wolf Parade set from Wolf Island. A big shout out to http://bootlog.wordpress.com/ for getting this bootleg.
In my opinion, The National are among the top three bands going right now, in this thing I’m forced to call “the indie rock scene”. While many people think that “Alligator” was their first album, they had released two prior to that, and when you listen to them in sequence it’s the ultimate example of an band growing stronger with every album. And if they haven’t reached their pinnacle with “Boxer” their next album will be among the best of all time. I know, that’s strong, but seriously, this band has another level for me that not many artists have reached. The listener’s experience can range from a dark ambiance to an urge to get drunk and dance in the streets. Both very satisfying.
On the menu tonight is the White Sessions show from this year. In the coming posts I’ll try to get the two Black Sessions’ up as well. The Black and White Sessions are a product of the fabulous France radio station, France Inter. These sessions have produced some of the finest radio sets of the 90’s up to today.
Just a note: you’ll find a few imperfections in this recording (a couple skips and digital noise), it is very minor, and this is the best rip of the show out there, to my knowledge.
A video for good measure. Here’s the boys performing an amazing version of “Fake Empire” on Letterman.
And be sure to check out the great teaser site for Vincent Moon’s upcoming film about The National, “A Skin, A Night”. (Vincent Moon runs the amazing site, Blogotheque)
Newbury Comics has been pretty boring in the way of signed cd’s lately, but there has been a resurgence of good shit.
