Great new tune from Said the Whale called I Love You

Earlier this year, Said the Whale put out the I Love You EP featuring the track "I Love You". I caught them live opening for the amazing Stars, too.

Now they've announced the September 17 release of the full length album hawaiii. To coincide with the announcement, they've released a silly video for the great tune "I Love You". Check it out!

Two nights with the incredible Stars!

On March 20 and 21 I did something I've never done before - I saw both nights of a two-night stand. Specifically, I saw both nights of Stars' "Evenings of Sex and Death" at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto. It was beautiful, awesome and incredible. So glad I went to both shows!

When I saw Metric with Stars opening back in November, I wished that Metric was opening for Stars so that I could enjoy more Stars music in the live setting. While my wish for Metric to open the show did not come true, my wish of seeing Stars in their full glory was completely fulfilled. Twice over.

One of the reasons that I wanted to go to both shows is that they were doing "Evenings of Sex and Death" at their shows in Toronto, Montreal, Brooklyn and Vancouver. One evening would feature "Sex" and one would feature "Death"-themed songs. As they pointed out, there's a fine line there, and many of their songs touch on both. They did vary the set somewhat over the two nights. Unfortunately, no one put the set lists for the Toronto shows online that I can find, so I can't be sure how much. From my poor memory I think they mirror the Montreal sex and death sets pretty closely. I guess I'm learning my lesson and I need to be that geek who pulls out his phone every song and jots down the titles.

One thing I did notice, that I would not have been as keenly aware of had I not seen both shows, is that they all wore black for the second night: Death.

And now, time to get down to some music...

I'm not usually big on the whole "lyric video" thing, but I'm not hesitating to put this one up, because the song is so good. It's "Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It" from their latest release The North.

And here are a ton of Stars videos for your listening and dancing pleasure.

"Backlines" from The North.

"Reunion" from Set Yourself on Fire.

"Elevator Love Letter" from Heart.

"Take Me to the Riot" from In Our Bedroom After the War.

This was the first Stars song I ever heard. It blew me away. "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" from Set Yourself on Fire.

"Dead Hearts" from The Five Ghosts.

"Fixed" from The Five Ghosts.

Set Yourself On Fire is one of my all time favourite albums. Definitely on the "desert island" list.

They also had two great opening acts. On March 20, Yukon Blonde warmed us up with a solid set of power pop and on March 21, Said the Whale did the same with their rootsy harmonies. Glad I got to see both of these bands live.

Here are a few tracks by Yukon Blonde from Tiger Talk.

"My Girl"

"Radio"

"Stairway"

"Guns"

"Six Dead Tigers"

And a few from Said the Whale.

"Camilo (The Magician)" from Islands Disappear.

"Loveless" from Little Mountain.

"Heavy Ceiling" from Little Mountain.

There are a bunch more Said the Whale clips in this post.

I did opt for seats for this show. This reflects in the overall poorness of the photos I took, since they were taken from the balcony. The photo at the top of the post is the best of the lot. Sigh. Just when I was getting a bit better...

New Said the Whale

In March Said the Whale put out a new album called Little Mountain. They've released a butt-load more videos for the album. I guess they figure that there's a huge audience who finds their music on youtube instead of radio.

Here they are:

"Heavy Ceiling".



"We Are 1980"



"Jesse, AR"



"Lover/Friend"



"Hurricane Ada"



"Big Wave Goodbye"



"Seasons"



"Big Sky, MT"



"O Alexandra"



Good stuff!

You can stream the whole album on their site if you want to hear the rest.

New Tunes from Ume, Fake Problems, Said the Whale and Raveonettes

Here are few tunes that have made my ears happy recently...

Ume is a hard rockin' trio with a cute-as-can-be guitarist/singer. Here's the video for "The Conductor" from their Sunshower EP which is up at emusic.


Fake Problems with "Diamond Rings" from the It's Great to be Alive album. Fake Problems' music can be found on emusic.


Said the Whale's latest album Islands Disappear came out a few weeks back. Here's the song "Camilo (The Magician)". You can find Said the Whale's music at emusic.


Here's The Raveonettes' new single "Last Dance" from their new album In And Out Of Control, which is available from emusic.