The Montreal screening of the Jay Reatard documentary Better Than Something will be shown as part of the Nouveau Cinema festival. There are two scheduled viewings the first is Wednesday October 19th at 9pm and the second, Thursday October 20th at 12:00am, both at Agora Hydro-Quebec (175, avenue du Président-Kennedy) more information can be found at the facebook event page. I, personally have been waiting with baited breath to see this film, hope you cats make it out to see it.

Better Than Something - JAY REATARD - Trailer from Children of Productions on Vimeo.

BETTER THAN SOMETHING: JAY REATARD is a feature documentary about the controversial and prolific garage rock icon Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr, better known to the world as Jay Reatard. This intimate portrait, captured just months before his untimely passing, brings us incredibly close to Jay’s complicated punk-rock world in Memphis, Tennessee. BETTER THAN SOMETHING eloquently interweaves cinéma vérité, interviews, and archival concert performances, and features scenes from an insightful and candid week spent with Jay, who reveals personal childhood stories and the struggles of life in Memphis. The film’s Montreal premiere on the Festival headquarters’ five screens will be followed by a performance by Jay Reatard Karaoke Live. Here’s our chance to scream our appreciation for his songs and their importance to rock history.

One of my biggest regrets of the summer was missing out seeing local cats Citizenship play Pop Fringe. They just released a couple of tracks from their forth coming EP Swan Dive and they are killer to say the least. Checkout their bandcamp page for some download action of just dig into them in the player below. You’ll also be able to witness CTZNSHP in the flesh at Cabret Mile End Saturday September 24th with Yuck, most surely a show not to be missed, get your tickets here.

You can feel it in the air, you can smell it in the streets, it’s Pop Montreal time. I’m not going to write a guide since Sean at STG has already done a great job. One show that I’m totally down to see is Girls (with Nobunny no less!) at Theatre Corona (tickets) Sunday September the 25th. Girls’ latest Father, Son, Holy Ghost is a stellar sophomore release that I haven’t been able to break away from the last few runs up Mont Royal. The album isn’t anything really new muscially, a potpourri of styles that Owens and crew have managed to make their own. I’ve particularly fallen in love with the Tony Iommi-esque riffage in ‘Die’. If you haven’t checkout out the album yet freast your eyes and ears to this lil’ diddy and favorite of mine, ‘Honey Bunny’.

Also you might notice the brilliant painting above, this is the work of a close personal friend of mine Peter Farmer. Pete is an award winning artist who recently moved back here from Halifax. In Halifax he was the owner of the Paragon Theatre (old Marquee) and while there painted most if not all of the artists that played the venue. Check out his Paragon Collection here, his work is magnificent. He’s starting work on a new collection and here’s a taste:

Running around Jeanne Mance this evening listening to the new Night Birds album. I can’t remember how I discovered Night Birds, but the New Jersey punk outfit is really bringing back nostalgic vibes.  Similar to OFF! and their throw back sound to Black Flag and 80’s hardcore, The Night Birds are serving you a plate of Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables with a dash of 80’s surf punk. The Other Side Of Darkness (preorder here) starts off so strong with the 1-2 punch of ‘Demon Haunted World’ and ‘Neon Grey’ then into Brett Gurewitz-esque  ‘Born of Man And Woman’ (listen below) after that there aren’t any really “stand out” tracks but each jam is good and consistent. The lyrics won’t blow your mind but their energy might.

Night Birds - Born of Man And Woman

Back late December 2010 a bud of mine and I where sitting around an after hours bar in St. John’s Newfoundland and decided that we’d make a new years resolution to run everyday of 2011. Not run in the sense of training for a marathon or for any reason in particular, just to do it. So we set up some rules, the first being that it must be outside (face all the elements of the seasons) and the second that it must be for at least for 15 minutes. The 15X365 plan was born. So far we’ve kept to it. There has been no day where we haven’t ran for at least 15 minutes. It’s been hard, much harder than I anticipated. I’ve ran though shitty weather, sickness and while being bombed out of my mind. The past month has been really stale and I’ve been doing the bare minimum. But as I ran around Jeanne Mance park tonight I thought about Trendwhore and what I could “rebrand”. I’ve been keeping a very bland running journal, just to write down how the run went and what I was listening to and as I was listening to the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album tonight sweating with new found excitement I figured that I’ll use Trendwhore as a medium for ….. reviewing (for lack of a better word) the great music I’ve been exploring as I ran around Montreal. I believe that if I apply the same discipline for running as blogging (whilst combining the two) I could maybe make a more consistent and interesting blog (at least for me).

So gone will be the blog that was mostly focused on the Montreal music scene (there are far better blogs for you to read on that subject) and the new Trendwhore will be more focused on my running and listening pleasures. My passion is running and exploring music, new and old and this place will be my medium for writing my bullshit thoughts about it.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed the old Trendwhore but I expect the new Trendwhore to be much more interesting. If you’d like to start a 15X365 of your own, you should…. it fucking feels great and is worth every bit of sweat, pain and shit weather you have have to endear.

If you made it this far you are in luck. I’m sharing the title track from the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album Hysterical, upon first listening I’m into it. It’s great and made me forget how sad I was listening to 2007’s Some Loud Thunder. The four break might have been worth it.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical

Was checking out Beach Fossils at Sala Rossa last week, there I met my girlfriend’s brother and we discussed the genius of Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox over cigarettes. Cox never fails to disappoint me and the b-side from Deerhunter’s Record Store Day single ‘Memory Boy’ is pure fucking heaven. I haven’t heard this kind of jingling pop from Bradford in a while and it’s refreshing. Dig it.

Deerhunter - Nosebleed

Tonstartssbandht are a total treasure for me. I adore their musical range. I adore their hypnotic lives shows. I am a midnight fucking cobra. The brothers Andy and Edwin White are currently in Russia with their new cassette Hymns which you can listen to below. Take notice of the reworked “Black Country” entitled “New Black Fever”, it’s a droning jam that will take your breath away.

Tonstartssbandht - New Black Fever

Tonstartssbandht - Black Country

Hymn Tour Cassette
Tonstartssbandht: Hymn by alteredzones

Back in 2009 I spent a majority of the summer plugged into Ganglians‘ Monster Head Room. A great record full of some of the best psyche-folk I’ve heard.  Now in 2011 the Sacramento band is releasing Still Living [via Lefse] August 23rd and to sample here is a great jangly jam entitled ‘Jungle’. The track doesn’t stray far their ‘09 sound and that doesn’t bother me (or should it you) in the slightest.

Ganglians - Jungle

Above is a clip from the new Skatefairy video. The soundtrack is a gem from Panda Bear entitled “Atiba Song”, which I can only assume is named after the director Atiba Jefferson. Tomboy, the much antcipated new Panda Bear album, finally has a release of April 19th on Paw Tracks. Back in July “Tomboy”/”Slow Motion” 7″ was released which didn’t win me over, but this track is a grand slam. If this is song is any indication of what to expect then Tomboy will without a doubt be golden (not like anyone didn’t see that coming). Watch the video above or download the track below.

Panda Bear - Atiba Song