The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death

It's with great pleasure to find out that The Housemartins will be releasing a retrospective of their BBC recordings entitled "Live At The BBC". According to their press release[right click and save], the collection was compiled by band member Stan Cullimore and will feature 24 tracks. Expect its release on September 18th through Universal[although, I'm not sure if that's a UK and/or general release date]. If we're lucky, perhaps we will get a few Housemartins songs when The Beautiful South perform at the Phoenix on November 1. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know whether The Housemartins ever came to Toronto?[info via paulheaton.com via The Beautiful South forum] [photo from http://../]

I've just become aware that Bettie Serveert are celebrating their 15th anniversary and in honour of the occasion they have released(or will release) a new semi-acoustic CD & (their first) DVD entitled "Bare Stripped Naked". Both have been out in the Netherlands since August 7, will be released in Belgium August 28 and us North Americans will see their release soon on September 12. If you're lucky, you'll catch them when they tour North America starting at the end of September and through October. Unfortunately Toronto isn't on the tour schedule this time around although if you're so inclined they'll be in Buffalo, NY at The Buffalo Icon on October 3. You can currently listen to one track("Hell Is Other People") from their new acoustic CD over at the band's MySpace site.

The latest news update(August 18, 2006] over at Tag Team Media states that the release date for the new disc from Clinic entitled "Visitations" has been pushed back to January 2007 from its original October 2006 release. In the meantime, their MySpace site is hosting several live mp3's[info] including versions of two songs that will be formally released over the next couple of months including "Lee Shan" (a b-side on the "Harvest" single) and "The New Seeker" (a track from the new album, "Visitations").

Further visual wonderment from The Bicycles' CD release party at Tranzac from this past Saturday night, this time from Rock // Paper // Pixels.

Amy at Stille Post says the Lily Allen show for October 8 has been moved from The Mod Club to Lee's Palace, to be confirmed shortly. Update: Confirmed at ticketmaster.ca. Tickets onsale Thursday August 24 at 10 am.

Torontonians, head over to the Toronto International Film Festival website around 1 PM EST today when a complete list of films in this year's festival will be available. I've never gone to TIFF and I think I'll try to see at least one festival film this year. Perhaps something during the festival's Midnight Madness program?