What to Download Tuesday: "New Multitudes"

Last week we had news about the upcoming release of Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Recordings, a comprehensive four disc set chronicling the landmark Billy Bragg/Wilco sessions -- a set that will include Mermaid Avenue Vol. III, 17 previously unreleased tracks from those sessions. Well if that wasn't enough to get you excited about Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday, then perhaps the release of New Multitudes (out today via Rounder) will push you a little bit closer to cancelling your July 14th wedding and reforming the event into a Woody Guthrie birthday celebration. The record follows the "Mermaid" format, i.e., it is a collaborative effort in which contemporary musicians come together to compose music for unreleased Guthrie lyrics. The Mermaid parallel is all the more poignant in that the project is headed in-part by Jeff Tweedy's Uncle Tupelo partner/nemesis Jay Farrar (Son Volt). But more than Farrar's response to Mermaid, New Multitudes feels like its own thing. This is helped by the fact that Farrar is joined by three other exceptional musicians: Will Johnson (from one of my favorites, Centro-Matic), Yim Yames (the ridiculous solo moniker of the otherwise very awesome James James of My Morning Jacket), and Anders Parker (of '90s bands Varnaline and Space Needle, and more recently a collaborator with Farrar in Gob Iron). Each singer takes lead on three songs with the other three supporting, and the record really does feel like the product of a "band" and not just individual musicians coming together -- see, for instance, the Billy Bragg/Wilco partnership at times. And while there's nothing on New Multitudes that feels as immediately classic as, say, "California Stars," "Airline to Heaven," or "Walt Whitman's Niece," tracks like "Old L.A.," "V.D. City" and "Fly High" are as strong as any country-tinged-rock tunes to come out yet this year, and the record as a whole hangs together nicely. I'd be surprised if Mermaid III is anywhere close to this good.

Other notable new releases this week include the very excellent, Hairdresser Blues, the first solo record from Hunx and His Punx frontman, Hunx (a.k.a Seth Bogart), Lyle Lovett's surprisingly okay Curb Records contractual ending collection, Release Me ("surprisingly okay" because most contractual obligation records are not nearly this good), Toronto electronic duo Trust's debut, Trst, and UK trio We Have a Band's sophomore disc, Ternion. Full list of all the new releases that matter after the jump

Keep on Rockin' in the Free World & Doot Doola Doot Doo...

Music's best interviewer since the late '80s, Canadian oddball Nardwuar "the Human Serviette" is also the frontman and keyboardist for long-running Vancouver punk band, The Evaporaters. On March 6th the band is set to release its sixth album, Busy Doing Nothing, a collection of covers and originals that features collaborations with the likes of Andrew W.K., The Cribs, Franz Ferdinand, Sage Francis and more. Spin has used to the occasion of the record's release to ask Nardwuar to select "his favorite encounters with music's biggest icons." To this end he has chosen seven interviews and they are all indeed essential viewing. I would suggest you drop your plans for the rest of the day and head over here to watch/listen to the clips. And when you are done with those, drop your plans for the rest of the week and head on over to Nardwuar's site for oodles more hilarious/cringe worthy/informative music interviews spanning the last three decades. Of the Spin highlights, an interview with a clearly "depleted" Kurt Cobain given just four months before his suicide; the veritable bro-boner that Pharrell pops for Nardwuar's impeccable research skills; and a "rock out with your cock out" moment with Snoog Dogg. I'd also recommend checking out the interviews with Josh Homme/QOSTA over at Nardwuar.com. Enoy! Doot Doot.

Long Songs Win: "DoYaThing" & "Hey Jane"

I know these tracks have been all over the Internet the last couple of days, and I'm just kind of adding to the clutter here, but what can I say? They're just too good and I can't help myself. While I normally come from the school of "approximately 3-to-4-minutes is the best length for a rock song," the 13-minute version of "DoYaThing" by Gorillaz/James Murphy/Andre 3000 and the 9-minute "Hey Jane" by Spiritualized share the prize this week for single of the week. The former is of course the extended version of the shoe-company song while the latter is our first taste of Spiritualized's new album, Sweet Heart Sweet Light, out April 19th. You can find the shorter and not quite as good radio edit of "DoYaThing" as a free download here; or you can stream the superior extended cut -- and check out the lyrics, which include the line "I can fart on it, I'm the shit!"-- here. "Hey Jane," which as best as I can tell contains no lyrics about farts, is streaming over at NME.

One thing about the Spiritualized record, while "Hey Jane" sounds like classic Jason Pierce, the press release for Sweet Heart Sweet Light states that Pierce's 11-year old daughter, Poppy, helped compose and contributes vocals on one of the album's tracks, "So Long You Pretty Thing." This sounds like some fairly Jimmy Buffett-esque behavior from our favorite druggy trance-rockers. Do we need to be worried about this?

New M. Ward: "Primitive Girl"

Hey, who's your favorite member of She & Him? Get this, mine's Him! I know, weird! She's so cute and funny, her sitcom always delivers, she was in Elf, so-on-and-so-on. But Him is Him, an old fashioned music man responsible for two of the best acoustic-rock records of the aughts, Transfiguration Of Vincent (2003) and Transistor Radio (2005). Plus, let's face it, there's a little over-saturation of She at the moment. She's on the television box every Tuesday night, not to mention those commercials throughout the week; and you can scarcely open a magazine these days without being met by those big adorable doe eyes. Don't get me wrong, I still love her and all. I guess it's just that I could use a little more Him time for a change. And now, finally, my chance has arrived in the form A Wasteland Companion, Him's first solo effort since 2009's Hold Time. The cover art is above. It's worth noting that this is the first Him album to feature his actual likeness on the cover. That's right, he's steppin' out, and we should prepare ourselves for the possibility of a Him sitcom on Fox's upcoming fall roaster. Anywho, we had our first taste of A Wasteland Companion a couple of weeks ago via the delicate "The First Time I Ran Away." We now have our second taste with the slightly more popping tune "Primitive Girl." Give her a whirl over at Stereogum.

I Love What You've Done with the Furnace Room

It's doesn't get much more rock 'n roll than this: a Country Living piece involving Ikea duvets, Anthropologie sofas and Deborah Bowness photo-realistic wallpaper. That's right folks, just by clicking here you'll be taken on a tour of rock and roll songbird Neko Case's historic Vermont farm -- "historic" because it dates back to 1787 and not because Neko Case currently owns it. I don't know what to say about it other than her house looks well decorated and it's weird to know that some of the money I've spent on concert tickets might have gone towards something from Ikea and/or Urban Outfitters. And that's weird because the god's honest truth is that if the money I spent on Neko Case/New Pornographer tickets hadn't been spent on those tickets, it very likely would have gone to something at Ikea and/or Urban Outfitters. It just goes to show, everything really does end up where it belongs.

But to recap, we've got a sneak-peak inside Neko Case's house. That's good. It's not quite as good as, say, being invited to her house after a chance encounter with her at the 2008 Austin City Limits festival, but what are you going to do? I tried my best. Anyway, moving on: this whole seeing how indie rock cuties decorate their abodes is becoming a thing. In 2009 Domino magazine did a cover story about a room in Zooey Deschanel's house (and it was a nice room, though by now it's probably been all blinged out using some of that sweet New Girl money). So that's two of my indie rock crushes; Annie Clark and Alexandra Lawn, what do your houses look like?

What to Download Tuesday: Terry Malts

Hey, are you tired of fuzz-rock throwback bands like The Fresh & Onlys, Thee Oh Sees, and the Dum Dum Girls? Good, me neither. And in a week that features a many other notable new releases (including standouts from Lambchop and Frankie Rose), Killing Time, the studio debut from Bay-area retros Terry Malts, wins the hard-earned distinction of the record to download this Tuesday. Nothing that reinvents the wheel here, just super catchy, three chord pop-inspired punk that doesn't hide its indebtedness to bands like the Ramones and the Buzzcocks. Give it a chance. I'm confident it will get your toes a tappin' and your fists a pumpin' -- if indeed you are a toe tappin', fist pumpin' kind of person. And if it doesn't, no worries. As I said, it's a great week for new releases and there are plenty of records to get excited about. Full list after the jump.

The Make-Up Are Making Up!

This should be fun: 90's garage/gospel/soul post-punk shit-kickers The Make-Up have announced they're getting back together for a show in May as part of the Mogwai curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival. While not exactly slackers in the studio (they released four very fine studio albums in their five years of activity), the Washington D.C. band are most legendary today for their live performances, which in addition to loads of energy from frontman Ian Svenonius involved props, scripted shenanigans, and mucho crowd participation -- and in fact their debut album, Destination Love: Live at Cold Rice, is a live album, not technically included in their "studio" efforts. Svenonius has gone on to form some other pretty great bands (Weird Wars and, one of my personal favs, Chain and the Gang), but nothing has quite matched the energy of The Make-Up, so let's hope more shows are announced -- and if this Washington Post interview with Svenonius is any indication then there is at least some hope of this. At any rate, as far as All Tommorrow's Parties is concerned, The Make-Up are the latest addition to a lineup that already features the likes of The Afghan Whigs and the Arches of Loaf -- so, yes, The Reunioning continues.

The Sound of Silence...

So I finally get the blog up and running, get into a somewhat regular rhythm of positing, and now it looks like I've overdone it: I woke up with severe pains in my fingers last night and was rushed to the hospital. Spent the night going through a series of tests, scans and x-rays. Turns out I've strained my blogging muscle. Can you believe it? I have to take the next week off—doctor's orders. Apparently it's quite serious. Oh well. We'll get caught up in a week's time. In the meantime, keep on listening to Cloud Nothings, Attack on Memory and GBV's Let's Go Eat the Factory, two records that have 2012 off to a very rock and roll start.

Whatchu Talkin' Bout Junos?!

The nominations for the 41st Juno Awards were announced earlier this week and...zzzzzzzz... Oh, sorry, I dozed off. What are you gonna do? Year after year, the Junos just really know how to bring the boredom and the disappointment. Last year I actually had my hopes up: Neil Young and Robbie Robertson were on hand, the Arcade Fire, that tribute to the Younge St. scene in the 50s/60s that featured Canada's best band, The Sadies. But even with all that the show was terrible. Oh well. No sense dwelling on the past. Let's move on to the present and acknowledge that this year's show promises to be terrible too. Shatner's hosting. Need I say more? Okay, well look at these nominations. And some of the categories: look at the "Adult Alternative Album" nominees. No need to explain why Jim Cuddy, Ron Sexsmith, and Jill Barber are considered Adult, but Alternative? Is soccer mom the new alternative? And don't even get me started about The Sheepdogs -- a national embarrassment, but that's for another post. Sure, Destroyer, Fucked Up, Timber Timber and a few other actually good artists are nominated, should be on-hand, and may even perform. But, as I learned from last year's show, a little bit of good is just not enough to offset the crushing Nickelback-Buble-Beiber-Hedley factor. Not that the Grammys are any better. But the Canadian music scene, as relatively small as it is, had so many brilliant things going on in 2011. And these nominations, and media coverage of the event itself, just don't do anything to capture what was truly great about Canadian music last year.

So don't watch the show when it airs April 1. Instead, be content with my list of the ten best Canadian records of last year, keeping in mind that this is my anti-Juno list so I'm leaving off Juno nominated records that I loved (Destroyer most notably). Read the list after the jump...

David Byrne Has Too Much to Watch

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the options out there in movie and television viewing? And do you ever feel like the weight of all those options might just make you go crazy and run around a room until you can't run anymore and you're left with no other option than to just walk away defeated? Of course you do. Well, you're not alone and you're certainly not the first. Talking Heads frontman David Byrne felt the same way all the way back in 1986. And he made this informational video to tell us about it. Well, actually, director Tom Bowes from New York art collective "The Kitchen" made the video, which tracks Byrne as he wonders a room at an increasingly frantic pace, reciting the names of all the movies he can't wait to see. It's an art piece that critic Stephen Holden called "an amusing sendup of a certain kind of media-mad New York jitters." Maybe so, but if it's so "amusing" then how come it leaves me feeling depressed about my own ever-growing insurmountable pile of things to watch? I guess that just like The Great Outdoors or Captain Ron this is a film document that is as true today as it was when it was made. And how is it we're just getting to this video now, more than twenty-five years after it was made? There have simply been too many other things to watch.

Yeah, "Machine Gun Silhouette" Sounds Pretty Great

While I was a little "yeah, it's alright" on "Love Interruption," the b-side to that Blunderbuss track—the non-album (!) ditty "Machine Gun Silhouette"—just might be the best Jack White song since Icky Thump's final track, "Baby Brother." A floor stomper, complete with fiddles, barroom piano, crunchy guitars and vinyl crackles—not to mention lyrics that touch on guns, money and Texas—this is all classic a-side, Stripes-era Jack White. The powers that be have now pulled the song from SoundCloud, but it should be available again soon somewhere and in some format. Will update at that time. It appears to be streaming again, this time at Hype Machine (link). The lesson to take for now is that we should all get excited about Blunderbuss, out April 24.

Here Comes The Jesus and Mary Chain

This week starts as last week did, with some reunion news: in anticipation of a slate of reissues for the upcoming year Jim and William Reid are going to "Head On" tour, taking The Jesus and Mary Chain on the road this March. The tour won't be "Coast to Coast" by any means, with just four dates announced at this point, all in and around SXSW. While those dates are pretty "Far Gone and Out," maybe the Reid boys will extend the tour into "April Skies," so you'll be able to see the guys "Deep One Perfect Morning (Evening)" "In A Hole" (i.e., dingy music club) in your own hometown. Pretty lazy writing, huh, with the song titles and all? What can I say, we "Sometimes Always" can't be the best writers! But thanks for reading, "You've Been A Friend." If you take exception to this post, feel free to "Gimme Hell" in the comment section. What else can I say? "Taste of Cindy."

Read more about the upcoming dates at Prefix. And while you're there watch the video advertising the 35 Denton festival, which the JAMC are playing. The video features a great cover of "Head On" from Denton TX band the Baptist Generals.

Old Five & Dimers: Billy Joe Shaver & Norm MacDonald

Remember when you first heard that Keith Richards and Johnny Depp hung out together? The news was a little weird, but also totally cool and it made total sense. And if you were anything like me you were a little jealous that your life didn't include hanging out with them because they no doubt swap some pretty interesting stories—that, and they're impossibly rich and could probably help me with my student debt and maybe pick up a few more tabs than my friends currently do. You know, life in an entourage. Well here's a story that is even more weird, but makes me more jealous, and fills my heart with so much more joy than knowing that two Richie Riches swill Courvoisier together at their estates in the south of France: in a new interview with No Depression country music legend Billy Joe Shaver—author of numerous Outlaw Country classics, including what is arguably the greatest country song ever written, "Honky Tonk Heroes"—lets it drop that he and Canadian comedy great Norm MacDonald are friends. "We call each other a lot," Shaver says, "Out on this road, a lot of times not getting what you deserve. You gotta have a sense of humor man." Too true. Gots to have a sense of humor man. That's just fundamental, Tao Te Ching-maxim #1, kind of stuff. The article moves on from there without plumbing the depths of this suggestion (i.e., what these frequent conversations might entail, how the two met, what Shaver's favorite part of "Dirty Work" is, etc), but what is important to remember is that Norm MacDonald calls Billy Joe Shaver on a regular basis to shoot the shiz! This news fills me with so much joy. Don't you just love it when two of your favorite things come together?! Like when Boy George was on the A-Team. Yeah, like that. More after the jump...

Of Course a Father Shot His Son for Singing Kenny Chesney...

In "it was justified" news, a 70 year old man in Shingletown California shot his 50 year old son as the latter was singing a karaoke rendition of a tune from the New Country crooner and puka shell necklace aficionado. No word on what particular song sent the dad over the edge, though I bet you it was that "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems" one. Imagine that scenario: some redneck in his wood-paneled rec room, belting out "No Shoes...No Shirt..." and then before he can get the next line out his Sam Elliott lookalike dad busts into the room with a .357 and says "Problem" right before he sprays the room with bullets. There's also that duet Chesney does with Uncle Kracker, "When the Sun Goes Down." That would be a good one too on account of the pun, Sun/Son! Get it! When the son goes down! As in, the son goes down when his dad shoots him! Lovely. Anywho, the son is okay. He got hit in the arm. He'll live. He just might have to rethink the whole karaoke thing and maybe check his dad into a home. The lesson here is that America truly is the home of the best and the worst. The worst, in that it produced Kenny Chesney. And the best in that it has finally come up with a pretty reasonable response to Kenny Chesney songs. Read the full details of the shooting here.

Weekend Plans? Buck 65 @ CTO

Hey London Ont. Are you bored? I know you are. Me too. Not a lot going on. Winter blahs. All the more reason to get out of the house when the opportunity presents itself. And now, finally, it has: we'll have no excuse to be bored on Saturday night when Buck 65 plays Call the Office. You ever notice, though, how this guy sounds just like Rich Terfry from CBC Radio 2? Hahaha! Got you! It's funny because they are the same guy except Rich uses his real name when he's on the radio. And that's because radio, and the CBC in particular, is so professional and rapping is more of a "hey, whatever, make-up a name for yourself" kind of business. Which is a good thing for Rich Terfry because no matter how strong your rapping skills no one is getting by in the rap world with a name like Rich Terfry. I mean, for instance, feasibly Q-Tip or Dre could get by rapping under the their real names (Kammaal Fareed and Andre Young respectively), but Rich Terfry?!! Forget it. And Rich knows this. Jerks like me have probably been telling him this since he first started putting together words that rhyme back in Mount Uniake, NS—which, it has to be said, couldn't have been easy because what the hell rhymes with Uniake? Seriously. But he figured it out. And Buck 65 is a good name for a white Canadian rapper with some Tom Waitsy, out-law country tinged elements to his style. So forget Rich Terfry. Let the loafer wearing CBC crowd have him. Who do we want, London Ont? Buck 65. And when do we want him? Saturday night. Doors at 9pm.19+. Tickets are $20 advance. Kool Krys and local electro-popper Thesis Sahib open. www.calltheoffice.com

2012: The Reunioning

On the heels of the Happy Mondays reunion tour news from my last post, here's a quick glimpse of a few other anticipated reunions for the upcoming year. More will no doubt be announced before I've finished writing. This economy, right? Double dip global recession. No one buying records anymore. Money's tight all around. Hell, Flava Flav and Dee Snider have been reduced to Wife Swap people! If that's not a sign of a dire music industry then blahblahblah. Anywho, whether their reasons be financial or otherwise, these are just some of the cats who will be getting the bands back together and hitting the road this year:

2012 Hour Party People: Happy Mondays Announce Tour

The original lineup of the Manchester ravers have announced they're reuniting for a series of UK dates in May. This is good news. It will be a Madchester summer indeed. Whether or not you agree that Shaun Ryder is the greatest poet since Yeats, if you happen to find yourself in the vicinity of one of these shows I would recommend you grab yourself a glow stick and some E and go and dance your pants off to "W.F.L."—you know, just like your parents did in the '80s. Unless, that is, you suffer from epilepsy. Then it is most definitely not a good idea. Ravers and their flashing lights, what are you gonna do?