The True North Strong And Free

For the rest of the month I don't forsee going to many, if any, shows so lately I've turned to posting links to downloads or streaming live sessions which have been rockin' my boat. Mostly, I've been focusing on Canadian indie artists and I find it interesting reading about Canadian artists from music fans outside of Canada.

Kofi's Hat has a review of a recent Death Cab For Cutie/Stars live show in Los Angeles at the Wiltern. While Stars have a loyal indie fanbase, at least in Toronto(and other parts of Canada), I wonder how well-known they are in the States. Stars were scheduled for an acoustic in-store performance(according to Kofi's Hat) at Amoeba Music recently. I highly recommend any serious music fan check out Amoeba Music. When my friend and I went down to Coachella in 20032004(coincidentally the first time I saw Broken Social Scene live) we spent our last day and night in Los Angeles, hardly long enough to really check out the expansiveness of the city, but we did quite a bit of driving and drove through many interesting parts of town. I made a point that we check out a couple of record shops including the Virgin Megastore and Amoeba Music(Hollywood location). While the Virgin Megastore was really just like HMV in my opinion and not terribly interesting, Amoeba Music is a music fan's paradise. Torontonians, think of Rotate This and Soundscapes combined, but Amoeba Music was many times bigger, and had a HUGE used CD section. I walked away purchasing a bunch of good merch including an Afghan Whigs' "What Jale Is Like" EP, and the Japanese edition of Jale's "So Wound". On top of that they have ALOT of instores(none on the day we were there unfortunately), and recently played host to some of our Canadian indie artists including Stars[photo gallery] and Feist[photo gallery]. So to get back to my original statement above, do our beloved acts like Stars and Feist get the same sort of feverish response down in the States that they get in Canada? Unlikely perhaps. All this talk of a Canadian indie music renaissance but I still have this suspicion that we're just but a speck on the American musical radar, The Arcade Fire excepted. Or maybe it's just my Canadian inferiority complex.

Here's a torrent of Stars' acoustic instore performance at Amoeba Music(in Hollywood) on November 11, 2005.

I didn't end up going to either of Bell Orchestre's shows at The Music Gallery in Toronto this past Saturday but here's a torrent of their show from November 10. 2005 at Theatre Plaza in Montreal.

Final Fantasy played a video release show at The Boat in Toronto last Thursday November 10, 2005 which I unfortunately missed. You can find here(courtesy of has_a_good_home) links to a couple of digital camera videos including Final Fantasy and Gentleman Reg performing a cover of Mariah Carey's "Fantasy", a performance of "The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead" and a partial clip of Owen performing Bloc Party's "This Modern Love". These are yousendit links so get on 'em before they're gone. [via suckingalemon]

suckingalemon was also at that Final Fantasy shindig and has a number of great photos as well her personal spin on how the show went. Rock // Paper // Pixels was also there and has some terrific photos to share.

Check out the gig poster over at Stille Post for the upcoming The Diableros CD release show at Sneaky Dee's on November 26th. Their debut CD is entitled "You Can't Break the Strings in Our Olympic Hearts" which is hands-down one of my favourite album titles of the whole year. Listen to audio samples over at their MySpace site. I can't wait for this album.

From Blown Speakers has photos and some good things to say about Broken Social Scene's recent show in Vancouver, including the oh-so-subtle comment about new member "Lisa Lobsinger (who may steal the crown of hottest BSS female singer)." Read the comments of the post in particular, where the debate with regards to who the hottest female BSS band member is gets into full swing.

Here's a torrent of a live session of The New Pornographers who performed for Morning Becomes Eclectic on August 25, 2005.

i(heart)music has available for download a live session that Julie Doiron(with Radiogram) did for CBC's Just Concerts.

Vancouver's The Organ performed a live session for BBC 6 Music's Gideon Coe this morning. Listen here(session around 1 hour and 40 minutes into the show; link is valid only for a week but hopefully will be archived in the future).