Ladies and Gentlemen

Popmatters speaks to Toronto's Thomas D'Arcy aka The Ladies and Gentlemen. The band's now a five piece. I'm gonna have to give the music a closer listen as the electro-tinged pop(not quite electro-pop) samples at the official site are pretty infectious. The Ladies and Gentlemen's album "Small Sins"(recorded by D'Arcy in the basement of his home this past winter) was just released July 12th through Vancouver's Boompa Records. [photo from http://../]

Billboard reports that Junior Boys' next album will be released hopefully early in 2006 via KIN/Domino. Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan describes the new album as "a bizarre combination of Italo-disco, new wave (as usual, but with a heavier influence of Simple Minds, Magazine, Ultravox and others that we love) and strangely, the pervasive influence of classic Tin Pan Alley/Gershwin-esque songwriting. [It] sounds bad, but its definitely coalescing into something new."

Coast to coast, from our nation's weeklies:

The Dears speak to The Montreal Mirror.

Guitar extraordinaire, Kaki King speaks with Hamilton, ON's View Magazine. [btw, she plays Hamilton's Pepper Jack Cafe tomorrow and I'm torn between whether I should check her out or go see The Deadly Snakes at the Horseshoe]

Stuart Berman of eye reviews Neko Case's July 7th Harbourfront show which I went to.

Feist speaks to Vancouver's Westender.

Here's a torrent of a live session of Julie Doiron performing on Dutch radio, VPRO 747 AM.

Welcome to the M!dwest! has posted mp3's of the live session Sufjan Stevens did for Morning Becomes Eclectic yesterday.