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- The Company I Can GetOctober 17 2008
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Rocking out, of course, would have been wholly inappropriate. The New Year may have finally chosen to visit Toronto after years of passing us by, but to make any sort of production of it would have been completely out of character. Instead, the slow and steady languidness on which they've built their career (or careers, if you count Bedhead) demanded that the Texan quintet show up, do their quietly mesmerizing thing and depart. Which they did, while still blowing at least a few of the 50 or so minds gathered to welcome them.
I'd gotten a preview of what the live show might be like when the two principals - Matt and Bubba Kadane - played Sneaky Dee's as a duo back in July but as anticipated, the addition of the third (and at one point fourth) guitar and rock-solid rhythm section featuring drummer extraordinaire Chris Brokaw put things into another dimension from that stripped-down performance. I covered some of what makes The New Year special in - CONTEST - Mad Decent/Diplo @ Circa - October 21, 2008October 16 2008
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That Diplo would headline the tour that bears his label's name is a bit of a no-brainer. That he'd fill out the lineup with Los Angeles dance-punks Abe Vigoda, the Brooklyn-based embodiment of the "if you can't say anything nice..." adage Telepathe and UK electro act Boy 8-Bit is rather more surprising (okay, not so much that last one) but genre shmengre, right?
The tour is now underway and hits Circa in Toronto next Tuesday night, and courtesy of tour sponsors Incase, I've got a prize pack to give away consisting of a pair of passes to said show - that's October 21 for the calendar-challenged - and a 15" hardshell Macbook Pro case featuring custom to - Sing A SongOctober 16 2008
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So obviously I'm on record as having thought that Rilo Kiley's last record (and according to some, their last record) Under The Black Light was a massive disappointment. It sounded like both principals were disinterested and just phoning it in, and made me think that maybe frontwoman Jenny Lewis' solo career - at that point consisting only of the rather lovely and understated country-soul gem Rabbit Fur Coat - was going to be the actual way forward.
Which put her second solo effort, Acid Tongue, under that much more scrutiny. Was the weak and indifferent songwriting on Black Light an aberration or had the wellspring of inspiration that had served so well up to th - Get Outta Town!October 15 2008
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So - I'm currently in a weird sort of position where after a fairly hectic few weeks of wholly bloggable stuff, I've finally gotten a chance to take a breath and have realized that I have nothing to blog about. Which is not to say that there's nothing worthwhile happening in music, just that I've not had the chance to listen to anything in the last while sufficiently that I feel compelled to write about it nor is anything especially newsworthy happening that I can run with (besides Chinese Democracy! November 23!).
And so, instead, I'll tread water for a day and look ahead to next week, when I jet off to New York City for CMJ though not for CMJ. As previously mentioned, I am going to witness the North American debut of Lucky Soul, which just happens to be part of the CMJ Music Marathon. You may recall that their retro-pop-tacular debut The Great Unwanted was one of my top albums of last year and even a year and a half later, it remains - Alphabetical OrderOctober 14 2008
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So most everyone I know is referring to next Tuesday night's show at Lee's Palace as "the Frightened Rabbit" gig, and quite reasonably so - they released one of the year's best records in The Midnight Organ Fight back in April and have toured North America a few times since then, but have yet to visit Toronto and also, we do love those thick Scottish accents. But as much of an attraction as they are, there's another touring band on the bill, the one that goes on after them. What's the word... oh yeah - the headliner.
And the lucky band that gets to follow Frightened Rabbit (and possibly see the crowd thin considerably?) is the hottest thing out of Deleware right now - Joe Biden. Okay, second-hottest - The Spinto Band, who just released a new album in Moonwink.
