For upcoming Canadian tour on sale now via an Arts & Crafts presale. Clickhere to buys tickets.
Dates are as follows:
12/06/2007 - Le National Cabaret, Montreal 12/07/2007 - Capital Music Hall, Ottawa 12/08/2007 - Kool Haus, Toronto 12/14/2007 - MacEwan Ballroom, Calgary 12/15/2007 - Edmonton Events Centre, Edmonton
- Mike at For the Records has concert announcement news with regards to Band Of Horses, back in Toronto November 9th in support of their forthcoming new album Cease To Begin. Be sure to also check out his reviews of Stars free U of T show and Basia Bulat's free show at Yonge/Dundas Square. Stars are back in Toronto on November 24th with Miracle Fortress, Basia Bulat plays two record release showcases at the Music Gallery this Saturday September 22nd. Tickets for Basia's shows available here.
- Stars are now slated for three back-to-back shows at the Phoenix starting Monday November 26th to Wednesday November 28th. Pre-sale tickets available right now through Arts & Crafts website.
- Chad VanGaalen takes the night off from his support duties on the Great Lake Swimmers tour to perform at the Drake during Nuit Blanche September 29th.
- While in Austin for the The Austin City Limits festival this past weekend, Stereogum attended Arcade Fire's live studio taping for the PBS show of the same name (..as the festival). Read about it here. Frank at Chromewaves was also in Texas for the festival. Read his review of day one here.
- Stylus Magazine has a great article about indie labels going digital. Check it out here.
It's no secret that Beirut's incredible new record The Flying Cup Club has leaked a month early on the Internet (out October 9th on BadaBing Records, but you can download it now via iTunes). I've had it on constant rotation on my iPod since. There's something incredibly familiar about Beirut's music, new and old. His first record Gulag Orkestar sounded like something that would have been played at family get together's by my grandfather, an album deeply rooted in traditional eastern European music, lush with accordions and gypsy-like instrumentation. The Flying Cup Club although still sounding quite familiar takes its cues from a different time and place. It's grounded in early 1900's Paris, in an interview with Pitchfork, Beirut front man Zach Condon explained that the title of the album is derived from a hot air balloon festival that use to take place in Paris. The album sounds like a mish-mash of french and eastern European cultures, new instruments are introduced into the Beirut sound but Zach's beautiful songwriting stays intact. It freaks me out that he's only 23 and makes me wonder what's to come from him. Highlight tracks: Nantes, A Call To Arms and the perfect marriage of two of my favourite bands occurs on Cliquot, where Owen Pallett (aka Final Fantasy) takes the lead and sings.
Zach and his gang of merry show men/women are taking to the road this month. Tour dates as follows:
9-23 Princeton, NJ - Terrace F Club 09-24 New York, NY - Society for Ethical Culture (Wordless Music Series) 09-26 New York, NY - Delacorte Theater 09-30 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa 10-02 Toronto, Ontario - Danforth Music Hall 10-04 Chicago, IL - Portage Theater 10-08 San Francisco, CA - Herbst Theater 10-09 San Francisco, CA - Herbst Theater 10-10 Los Angeles, CA - Avalon
La Blogotheque has an takeaway show featuring Beirut performing two songs from The Flying Cup Club on the streets of Paris here. It boggles my mind how strong Zach's voice is live.
Read Stereogum's Premature Evaluation of The Flying Cup Clubhere.
Watch Beirut perform an impromptu cover of Grizzly Bear'sKnife on the streets of Paris above (via Pitchfork/Stereogum/La Blogotheque).
GIRL TALK W DAN DEACON & WHITE WILLIAMS September 12, 2007 Phoenix Concert Theatre
Quick review this morning. Last night was my second time seeing Girl Talk (first was in Buffalo, see posts from April). What a huge difference a summer makes. Last time we saw him, the venue was a tiny bar in the basement of a gallery, capacity couldn't have been more than 300. Last night, Greg/Dan and the boys from White Williams were able to sell out the Phoenix, no small feat for two laptop/electronic musicians (and a band that only played their first live show about two weeks ago). The venue last night was packed, and extremely hot (hence my lack of photos, I didn't feel like battling the masses to get close to the stage). We arrived at 9pm and headed to the balcony for drinks. Due to the crowd being much thinner upstairs we decided to watch White Williams from there. I've listened to their debut Smoke (release date is November 6th on Tigerbeat6) a couple times and overall have enjoyed it. Live, they couldn't pull me in. Maybe it was the poor sound on the balcony, or the fact that I wasn't familiar enough with their material, but I wasn't sold. They are back in Toronto November 10th at Lee's Palace opening for Battles.
Dan Deacon was up next. In typical fashion, Dan set up his bank of electronics/laptop and DIY lighting on the floor of the venue in front of the stage. From the first electro bleep Dan had the entire venue in his hands. The hype surrounding his live sets is 100% justified, he worked the audience up into a hot mess, dropping tracks from his latest album Spiderman of the Rings (The Crystal Cat, Woody Woodpecker) and incredibly fun tongue in cheek tunes such as Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid soundtrack. Hilarious. He finished with an extended version of Wham City, with the bulk of the crowd chanting along with him.
Greg Gillis aka. Girl Talk's set was less exciting for me. Although an entirely different set from the Buffalo show, I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. I think it had something to do with the fact that it was so hot and crowded. The crowd really seemed to enjoy it, within minutes the stage was crammed with at least 75 people. Fern, Cara and I were in the centre of the room and in typical fashion, I had to use the washroom 5 minutes after Greg started. What a terrible mistake. I lost them for the rest of the night, which defo added to my disappointment. Greg did two encores, one featuring tunes from Night Ripper (highlight: Elton John's Tiny Dancer versus Biggie) and a second set featuring new "rock" remixes (didn't recognize any of it).
Overall impressions: Dan Deacon was really fun. High expectations will lead to disappointment, especially on a Wednesday night.
OFF TO V-FEST Heading out to the island in an hour or so. Schedule is confirmed, I'll be at the main stage for the bulk of the day, checking out K-OS, M.I.A, Arctic Monkeys, Interpol and Bjork. Want to catch Voxtrot on the second stage, but their set is at the same time as Arctic Monkeys. Would also like to check out Dragonette at 2pm. The 4:55pm time slot on the main stage is still vacant. I'm hoping for Bloc Party or YYYs, but neither will probably happen. Not looking forward to the food, last year at the Broken Social Scene/Bloc Party show I had a hot dog that was still cold on the inside. Will probably update when I get home.
AMY WINEHOUSE LOVE IS A LOSING GAME LIVE AT THE MERCURY MUSIC PRIZE SHOWCASE
Amy Winehouse is NOT playing Virgin Festival this weekend. I'm pretty heartbroken, this performance laments the fact that Winehouse is really incredible.
