Stars and Hey Rosetta! announce tour dates; New Stars video released

Stars' new album No One Is Lost comes out October 14. I was going to save their new video for "From the Night" for my post including pictures from their performance at Riot Fest. However, that post is a ways off and they just announced tour dates with Hey Rosetta!, so I'm going with that.

Check out "From the Night", go see them on tour, and buy their album. They're cool.



Tour dates:

10/05 New York, NY - Modern Sky Festival
11/08 Portland, ME - Port City Music Hall ^
11/09 Boston, MA - Royale ^
11/12 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer ^
11/14 Raleigh, NC - Lincoln Theatre ^
11/15 Atlanta, GA - The Loft ^
11/16 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge ^
11/19 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue ^
11/21 Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre ^
11/22 Detroit, MI - Majestic Theatre ^
11/23 Buffalo, NY - The Tralf (Music Hall) ^
02/03 Kingston, ON - Grand Theatre ^
02/05 Montreal, QC  - Metropolis ^
02/06 Quebec City, QC - Imperial ^
02/07 Ottawa, ON - National Arts Centre ^
02/08 Guelph, ON - Hillside Inside at RRC ^
02/11 London, ON - London Music Hall ^
02/12 Toronto, ON - Danforth Music Hall ^
02/13 Toronto, ON - Danforth Music Hall ^
02/21 Winnipeg, MB - Burton Cummings Theatre ^
02/23 Saskatoon, SK - O'Brians Event Centre ^
02/24 Calgary, AB - MacEwan Hall ^
02/25 Edmonton, AB - The Winspear ^
02/27 Vancouver, BC - The Vogue Theatre ^
02/28 Vancouver, BC - The Vogue Theatre ^
03/03 Seattle, WA – Neptune
03/04 Portland, OR – Aladdin
03/05 San Francisco, CA – Fillmore
03/06 Los Angeles, CA – Fonda Theatre

^ with Hey Rosetta!

Tour dates from Exclaim.

Yet another Lowest of the Low gig announcement!

No secret. I like the Lowest of the Low. And they're playing in town again. I saw them at Lee's back in December and man, I haven't smiled that much in a long time. They were amazing!

If you missed that show, or if you just want to see them again, they've just announced a show at Massey Hall. Wow! The big time!

If you want to go, follow the link for tickets.

Someday I might post the video I shot, but here are two videos from someone else at Friday December 3rd show.

Emerging: An Horse

An Horse, is an Australian band that I became aware of in the past several months. I think it was a blog post over at Chromewaves that first mentioned the band to me.

The first song I heard was the first single, "Camp Out". There's video of it being performed on Letterman. Based on the strength of that track and the samples on iTunes, I picked up the album.

Here's the official "Camp Out" video. Great song.


Overall, the album is very strong. The simple instrumentation and strong vocals really make the songwriting shine through. Their latest single is "Postcards".

An Horse are in Toronto opening for Cage the Elephant and Silversun Pickups on Thursday, October 15, 2009 at Sound Academy.  Tour dates at the bands' sites.

Here' the video for Cage the Elephant's "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked"



Lots of Silversun Pickups videos on their video page. If you're new to these guys, I'd recommend starting with "Lazy Eye" from Carnarvas and "Panic Switch" from their new one, Swoon.

Origins: Bob Mould

In previous Origins posts, I've written about Husker Du and Sugar. Now it's time to address Bob Mould. What can I say about Bob Mould? He's been an amazing influence on my songwriting and guitar playing. His music, from Husker Du to Sugar to his solo material has been inspirational and consistently enjoyable. He's grown into a person who seems comfortable in his own skin, very down-to-earth, and genuinely happy. He's had his share of rough spots as well, drug and alcohol dependency, and he blames himself for Husker Du's manager's suicide.

After Husker Du broke up, Bob Mould started putting out solo material. It has been great to watch the progression in his career as he moved through classic confessional songcraft, to dance music and back again to alternative rock. [Aside: I'll confess my discomfort with genre tags like alternative and indie, but often fall back on using them to describe certain styles, time periods and esthetics.] Bob is also working on an autobiography which I will be picking up as soon as it is released.

Here's a video for "See A Little Light" from Bob's first solo album Workbook. Bob has said that he considers his latest, Life and Times, as being a return to the style of songwriting on Workbook, twenty years later.



Here's a video of Bob performing "I'm Sorry, Baby, But You Can't Stand In My Light Any More" from Life and Times.



Bob has announced tour dates and will be hitting Toronto's Mod Club on October 5. I saw their show there for The District Line tour and it was amazing to see Bob in such great form, playing songs from across his career. The Mod Club is one of my favourite venues for live music in Toronto and I'm very much looking forward to the October show. Other tour dates are at www.bobmould.com

New Young Galaxy On It's Way!

Young Galaxy have a new album on the way. It's called Invisible Republic and it's out August 25. There's a free mp3 link for the song "Long Live The Fallen World" on their home page and you can check out some songs on their myspace.

Exclaim has an article where the band talks about their split from label Arts & Crafts.

They've announced their album release shows via their myspace blog:
Sept 9th, Zaphod Beeblebrox Ottawa, Ont. Canada
Sept 10th, The Drake Hotel Toronto, Ont, Canada
Sept 11th, Il Motore Montreal, Que. Canada

Also via their myspace blog, they've announce that there are 4 new songs on MTV Canada's web site. They sound good to me.

Here's the video for my favourite song from their eponymous release, available on emusic.

Editors New Release, In This Light And On This Evening, On Its Way

Ever since I heard "Munich" from the 2005 release The Back Room, I've been hooked on Editors. It's solid British rock with a dark edge. Tom Smith's deep voice and delivery inevitably lead to initial comparisons to Joy Division, but once you get to deeper listening, Editors' individuality emerges. Their second album, An End Has A Start, was released in 2007. This album upped their game considerably, with singles like "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors", "An End Has A Start" and "The Racing Rats".

Originally I had heard that the new album, In This Light And On This Evening, was to be released on September 21. Amazon UK has the release date posted at October 12. I think this latter date is more likely to be correct since the Editors home page has a countdown to some 56 days from the time of this writing. With several concerts to attend and new releases I'm looking forward to, it looks like October will be a busy musical month.

A while back, Chromewaves posted that “Editors’ Tom Smith keeps up the sci-fi soundtrack talking points in discussing their new record". Based on this and some other articles I've seen around the web, I think we're in for a very different sounding album from Editors. Somehow, I'm still confident it will be great.

European tour dates have been announced. Looks like we'll be waiting for winter, or I'd guess more likely spring before we see Editors touring North America. That actually gives plenty of time to become intimate with the album and ready for the concert experience.

Editors, or their record company, don't want me to embed videos, so here are links to "Munich" and "Blood" from The Back Room plus "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors", "An End Has A Start" and "The Racing Rats" from An End Has A Start. Or you can go straight to their video page and watch even more!

Photo from www.editorsus.com

The Twilight Sad, BrakesBrakesBrakes and We Were Promised Jetpacks on Tour

The Twilight Sad, BrakesBrakesBrakes, known as Brakes outside of North America, and We Were Promised Jetpacks are touring and hitting Toronto on October 10 at the El Mocambo as part of the FatCat Tour. I'd like to go to the show, but it is Canadian Thanksgiving so it might be hard to make it happen.

Music from all three bands is available at emusic.

Here are a couple of clips from BrakesBrakesBrakes




Here's The Twilight Sad's video for "That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy". I have a feeling that this band would really shine in live performance.


We Were Promised Jetpacks

Metric Touring in Support of Latest Release Fantasies

Who could listen to songs like "Combat Baby" or "Succexsy" or "Dead Disco" from Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? and not be hooked immediately? Same goes for songs like "Handshakes" and "Monster Hospital" and "Poster of a Girl" from Live It Out or "Sick Muse" and "Gimme Sympathy" and "Satellite Mind" from Fantasies. Metric are one solid band.

In support of their new album, Fantasies, they are setting out on tour.

All of their albums are available on emusic.

"Gimme Sympathy" from Fantasies



"Sick Muse" from Fantasies



"Combat Baby" from Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?



The MSTRKRFT remix of "Monster Hospital" (original version on Live It Out)


Lots more videos can be found at Metric's channel at youtube. I'll be at the Toronto show, October 20.

Photo from http://www.ilovemetric.com/

Arctic Monkeys: New Album On It's Way

Arctic Monkeys is one of those bands that grabbed me. When I first heard Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not when it came out in 2006, I was instantly hooked. The band was tight, the songwriting was instantly appealing while being unique, and the way the stories were told was engaging. I remember their awesome performance on SNL, too. I still love the album and it certainly has one of the largest number of five-star songs from one album in my iTunes library.

In fact, 2006 was a gigantic year in music for me. Many British groups were on heavy rotation that year including Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, The Kooks, Muse, Kasabian, Maxïmo Park, Klaxons, Lily Allen, The Automatic, and Boy Kill Boy, to name a few. By the way, if you follow the link to Muse's web site today you'll see they're counting down to something exciting. I for one will be checking back tomorrow to see what it is. Their new album The Resistance is due out September 14th. Update: Muse published a major site overhaul July 13.

Favourite Worst Nightmare came out in 2007 and although it had a massive success to follow on, it was a great album, too.



Their new album is called Humbug and the first single is "Crying Lightning". The single's available from iTunes right now and the album is due out August 24th in the UK. Probably means that we'll see it in North America on the 25th.



Check out the tune below.



Arctic Monkeys will be touring North America in September and October. Dates are below.

SEPTEMBER
14th September - Soma, San Diego
15th September - Hollywood Palladium, LA
16th September - Fox Theater, Oakland
18th September - Wonder Ballroom, Portland **FREE SHOW**
19th September - The Showbox @ The Market, Seattle
20th September - Malkin Bowl, Vancouver
22nd September -In The Venue, Salt Lake City - w/Airborne Toxic Event
23rd September - Ogden Theatre, Denver - w/Airborne Toxic Event
25th September - First Avenue, Minneapolis
26th September - Eagles Ballroom, Milwaukee
28th September - Newport Music Hall, Columbus
29th September - Kool Haus, Toronto
30th September - Electric Factory, Philadelphia

OCTOBER
2nd October - House of Blues, New Orleans
3rd October - House of Blues, Houston
4th October - Austin City Limits Festival, Austin
5th October - The Palladium Ballroom

And for your listening and viewing pleasure, here's a gem from the first album - "A View from the Afternoon".



Edit: July 16. I just finished reading a great article on Arctic Monkeys and thought it turned out better than my article, primarily because the writer had access to the band themselves. Enjoy.

New Stellastarr* album, Civilized, out tomorrow

July 7 marks the release date of the new Stellastarr* album Civilized.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the previous two Stellastarr* releases, 2002's eponymous album and 2005's Harmonies for the Haunted. A number of tracks are available for preview.

The first single sounds good and can be heard on the band's myspace and on youtube - embedded below. The myspace link has another new track from Civilized called "Warchild", which actually sounds better to me on first listen. Purevolume has the whole album, plus some classic older tracks, available for streaming.

I'll have more info once I've had a chance to buy the album and spend some more time with it.



To coincide with the album's release, Stellastarr* is embarking on a 13-date tour. The dates are from LiveDaily.

July 2009
15 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
16 - New York, NY - HighLine Ballroom
17 - Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel
18 - Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
20 - Cincinnati, OH - 20th Century Theatre
21 - Columbus, OH - The Basement
23 - Chicago, IL - Double Door
27 - Austin, TX - The Parish Room
30 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah
31 - West Hollywood, CA - Troubadour

August 2009
1 - San Francisco, CA - Slim's
3 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
4 - Seattle, WA - Chop Suey