While I’ve been here in Australia I’ve been able to keep up with the music scene from Vancouver (and Canada) thanks to CBC Radio 3′s AMAZING podcast (I also stole that awesome CanRock logo above from their site) and the hard work of the Canadian music bloggers, especially my friend Quinn who does From Blown Speakers. While not all the following artists are particularly new, I just felt like giving a bunch of Vancouver/Canadian bands some more exposure to my 3 readers down here.

Small Sins (formerly known as The Ladies and Gentlemen)

The bio on Small Sins label’s site, Boompa reads as follows:
Like Grandaddy and The Postal Service, electronic elements dominate Small Sins, but despite the presence of myriad keyboards, electronic effects, and drum machines, the organic feel of the new album is never compromised. Small Sins doesn’t show off, as it takes the more subtle approach; it might sound simplistic and bare in production upon first listen, but dig a little deeper, and you’ll find each song is skillfully arranged to achieve a rich texture of background instrumentation, surrounded by honest and complex lyrics.

Download: Stay
Download: Small Sins / Big Within

Leeroy Stagger

Also on the Boompa label, Leeroy Stagger came to my attention because Quinn is really into him. And since Quinn has great taste it was not surprising that I too enjoy Stagger’s blend of rock, country, and punk. I think this guy will be getting lots more attention in the future.

Download: Just In Case
Download: Beautiful House

Ladyhawk

While we’re talking about bands Quinn won’t shut up about, Ladyhawk are a Vancouver band who are about to be getting a LOT more exposure. Their new self-titled album on Jagjaguwar (the home of Okkervil River and fellow Vancouver bands Black Mountain and Pink Mountaintops…of which more later) will be released on 06.06.06. If that’s not rawk, I don’t know what is. (Boards of Canada also release an EP entitled Trans Canada Highway that day as well…) Anyway, enough yammering, check out Ladyhawk NOW.

Download: The Dugout

Pink Mountaintops and Black Mountain

Two bands…sort of. Stephen McBean leads both these Vancouver bands through different terrain in the modern rock wilderness. Much of the music in both bands hearkens back to the 70s for me. In a good way. Is that how you spell hearken?

Download: Druganaut (Black Mountain)
Download: New Drug Queens (Pink Mountaintops)

They Shoot Horses Don’t They?

Sure every other blogger has written about this band lately but I’m never one to shy from a bandwagon that doesn’t suck. TSHDT? signed to Kill Rock Stars (home of Deerhoof, Xiu Xiu, and The Decemberists before they jumped ship) who who have recently released their album, Boo Hoo Hoo Hoo. I’m still not sure where I stand with this band actually. It’s a bit weird, which I don’t mind, but I find myself not in the mood to listen all that often. Perhaps I just need to give the album more time.

Download: Emptyhead

OK, I’ll stop there. I was going to post a couple Constantines songs…maybe later.

In other Canadian music news, Morrissey hates Canada.

And finally, Dan filled me/us in on the details for the Liars show in Sydney. The show will be kicking off a new “club” night called Rebel Rebel at Home. Shout Out Louds will be opening and the night promises to be one to remember. Tickets are $44.

Things seem to be a bit quieter on the concert front lately after a busy couple months here in Sydney. Well, at least for me. One band I am really looking forward to seeing however is Liars who will be touring Australia in May. The venues seem to be unconfirmed at this point (leave a message if you know), but the dates are as follows:

MAY
2 – Melbourne, Australia
3 – Melbourne, Auatralia
6 – Sydney, Auatralia

A band I don’t like but are unavoidable it seems, the Arctic Monkeys will make their way to Australia and New Zealand for the first time this winter:

Fri Jul 28 – St James Theatre, Auckland
Sun Jul 30 – Metro City, Perth
Tue Aug 1 – Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
Wed Aug 2 – The Palace, Melbourne
Sat Aug 5 – The Arena, Brisbane
Tue Aug 8 – Enmore Theatre, Sydney

We got our tickets for The Grates last week and I was directed to some YouTube footage of the band in Texas this past month. Check out these clips and see why everyone loves Patience.

A Message:

19-20-20:

Wash Me:

Slide:

New Order.
Nottingham.
Palais.
1984.06.04.

LINKS REMOVED

1. Perfect Kiss
2. Ceremony
3. Hurt
4. We All Stand
5. Leave Me Alone
6. Thieves Like Us
7. Confusion
8. Everything’s Gone Green / Temptation
9. Blue Monday

TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED

Radiohead will be touring the UK/EU in May, playing a short series of theatre shows before heading off on an American and Canadian tour in June (dates TBC). They’ll then play some European festival dates before headlining the V Festival in Chelmsford and Stafford in August.

The tour will be the first opportunity to hear a selection of brand new material that the band has been working on in the studio.

Other than for the festivals listed, w.a.s.t.e. will be selling a limited pre-sale allocation of tickets to w.a.s.t.e. members.

This pre-sale will commence at midday on the 22nd March 2006 at http://tickets.waste.uk.com/

To repeat American and Canadian tour dates are yet to be confirmed

KB Hall Copenhagen 6th May
KB Hall Copenhagen 7th May

Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam 9th May
Heineken Music Hall Amsterdam 10th May

Empress Ballroom Blackpool 12th May
Empress Ballroom Blackpool 13th May

Civic Wolverhampton 15th May
Civic Wolverhampton 16th May

Hammersmith Apollo London 18th May
Hammersmith Apollo London 19th May

Bonnaroo festival (no presale) 17th June
Sziget Festival (no presale) 12th Aug

V festival Hylands Park 19th Aug
V festival Weston Park 20th Aug

Meadowbank Edinburgh 22nd Aug
Marlay Park Dublin 24th Aug

Info from WASTE

If they play a theatre in Vancouver or Seattle, I may have to go home…

Just a quick little note…check out Brooklyn Vegan’s recent post about The Grates. The photos are brilliant! He’s also linked to some mp3s (the entire EP actually). This is just the beginning for The Grates in North America methinks.

And just a reminder (!) for the Sydney peeps, tickets for The Grates show at the Metro go on sale THIS FRIDAY (March 24) and are hella cheap (like 18 bucks). Make sure you get your tickets because I have a sneaking suspicion this band is going to be spending a lot of time overseas this year.

Buy your tickets here

On Friday (St. Patrick’s Day) I wore the only proper green shirt I own as we ventured to an Irish pub. The shirt was the Sufjan Stevens ‘Come on Feel the Illinoise’ t-shirt I bought last summer when I saw him in Vancouver. In the lineup at the pub we met two girls from New Jersey, here in Sydney studying. They asked about my shirt and I explained to them Sufjan’s 50 states project and they seemed intrigued, though I’m sure the many beers consumed later will ensure no memory of poor Sufjan.

Anyway, all this is a long way of me saying that the discussion led me back to some Sufjan Stevens stuff that I actually hadn’t listened to in a while, including this show from SXSW 2004. And since this year’s festival has just wrapped up, I figured I’d share the show with y’all. The show is more or less just Sufjan, with some backing vocalists. The highlight for me is the early version of ‘Chicago’ which is just Sufjan and a banjo, unlike the lavish version that appeared on Illinois. The R.E.M. cover is nice as well. Download the whole set through Rapidshare here (follow the link) or as individual mp3s below.

Sufjan Stevens Live at SXSW – March 19, 2004

1. The One I Love
2. The Upper Peninsula
3. Vito’s Ordination Song
4. All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands
5. In the Devil’s Territory
6. Rake
7. Sister
8. He Woke Me Up Again
9. Chicago

Bring on more states Sufjan!

Feist will be releasing a compilation of live tracks and remixes on April 17. According to this site the following tracks will be included on Open Season:

1. Mushaboom (Postal Service (Remix)
2. The Buildup (Kings Of Convenience Feat. Feist)
3. Jane Birkin and Feist (The Simple Story)
4. Elle Aime (Albin de la Simone Feat. Feist)
5. One Evening (Gonzales Solo Piano)
6. Inside & Out (Acoustic: BBC Session)
7. Mushaboom (Solo from the Red Demos)
8. Tout Doucement (From French release of Let It Die)
9. Gatekeeper (Alternate Version)
10. Lonely Lonely (Ungodly Hours Remix)
11. Gatekeeper (DoRight Remix)
12. Lovertits (Feist/Gonzales cover of Peaches)
13 When I Was A Young Girl (VV Remix)

While some of those songs seem a tad odd, I’m still looking forward to it. Too bad the album doesn’t include one of her live versions of ‘Major Label Debut’ or ‘See Line Woman.’

Douglas Coupland meets Morrissey for The Guardian

Morrissey fans, check out this torrent from the other night in Oklahoma City (registration required)

The setlist ran:

First Of The Gang To Die
Still Ill
You Have Killed Me
The Youngest Was The Most Loved
Reader Meet Author
I Have Forgiven Jesus
I Will See You In Far-off Places
My Life Is A Succession Of People Saying Goodbye
Girlfriend In A Coma – band intros
Let Me Kiss You
Life Is A Pigsty
Trouble Loves Me
How Soon Is Now?
Suedehead
At Last I Am Born
I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
Irish Blood, English Heart

Encore:
Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before

You Ain’t No Picasso has a new Spoon song played at SXSW this week

Photo of Feist courtesy of this site.

Discovery of the week? Guillemots. I’d been reading about them on the net for a little while, but it wasn’t until Good Weather For Airstrikes posted two lengthy posts recently that I was persuaded to check them out. And I’m glad I did. “Trains to Brazil’ is pure joy encapsulated in song form (I see Dan agrees as well). So thank you GWFA. I suggest you just see the threads here and here (you may need to scroll down a bit) to see if you’re convinced (included are plenty of mp3s for you to download and enjoy). Apparently The Grates just opened a show for them as well (See how I snuck a Grates plug in there?).

Over a month old, but I just found out about this. The Guardian asks:

Could we chart the branches and connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map? Dorian Lynskey explains how a box of coloured crayons and a lot of swearing helped.

Download the map as a PDF.

Read the article.

See how Four Tet and Nick Drake are only one stop apart.

CMG counts down the Top 10 things about Broken Social Scene’s second Melbourne gig.

And finally tonight, B(oot)log has a nice little Jason Collett radio gig for you to download.

This week Colin posted another telling photo from the studio on Radiohead’s blog. The band are continuing to work on their seventh album, but have several confirmed dates for the spring and summer to get ready for. The above photo lists a stack of new songs under the heading “Tour.” Presumably, these are new songs to be rehearsed for the shows over the coming months.

Those dates:

May 1 – The Big Ask Live @ Koko, London, UK (Thom and Jonny only)
June 16-18 – Bonnaroo Music Festival @ Mancehster, Tennessee, USA
August 9-16 – Sziget Festival @ Budapest, Hungary
August 19-20 – V Festival @ Chelmsford/Staffordshire, UK

To help tide you over until the eventual bootlegs from these shows (and others that will be announced soon) here are some live mp3s of songs from that list in the photo above.

Reckoner (live at The Gorge 2001-06-23)
Arpeggi (live at the Ether Festival 2005-03-27; feat. The London Sinfonietta with Thom and Jonny)
Mornin’ M’Lord (aka Good Morning Mr. Magpie) (live webcast December 2002)

In addition, here’s a solo show by Thom that includes 2 more songs from the list, a very different version of Reckoner as well as one new song not on the list. And No Surprises.

Thom Yorke, Trade Justice Movement Demonstration 2005-04-16

1. Intro
2. Last Flowers
3. House of Cards
4. Nude (Big Ideas)
5. No Surprises
6. Reckoner

…but not for requesting ‘Summer of 69′ at shows (though that joke is so old it should be punishable by law). It seems a couple of Ryan Adams‘ FANS posted a few songs from Jacksonville City Nights on their fan site a month or so before it was released. Obviously their intent was to promote interest in the artist and his forthcoming album. Ryan’s label, Lost Highway (which falls under the Universal umbrella), thinks otherwise. These fans have been indicted in the United States and face 11 years in prison. Ryan has yet to speak out on this. He has no control over the case really as an artist doesn’t control the publishing side of their work, but you’d expect him to come to the defense of fans who were devoted enough to start and maintain a website (tobeyoung.org which is currently down) dedicated to his music. Lord knows Ryan puts his fans through more than most…

Further reading:

A press release from the US Department of Justice (let’s hope I never link to that site again)
An article concerning the indictment in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Some fan discussion on Ryan Adams Archive

This is a change from the usual RIAA suing thing…those were all settled out of court I believe. This is scary.

Photo courtesy Lost Highway Records (Please don’t sue me. I like Ryan so much I even own Rock ‘n’ Roll.)

————

Ear Farm has another stellar set in his Weekend Live Music series, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

And just a note on the site. I’ve added concert listings for the major Australian centres in the sidebar. It’s just links to the FasterLouder site, but it does the trick as they are always up to date. That said, if you know of shows coming up, leave a comment and I will keep everyone up to date.