Ticket To Immortality

First off, I won tickets to see The Dears at The Mod Club this Wednesday! The show is part of The Edge's Next Big Thing Concert Series. Finally, my Inside Edge membership is paying off. The show is a kick off for their tour which'll bring 'em to the US for a few dates before they head over to Europe, then back to Canada in November. For those not going to The Mod Club this Wednesday, fear not, The Dears will be back in Toronto in November for a two-night stint at Lee's Palace on November 16 and 17[although I have a strong feeling that they'll add more shows like Stars' 6-shows-in-4-days run at the same venue last year]. Check out their tour dates over at their MySpace site. And just a reminder that the band will be performing live on MTV Live tomorrow.[photo from http://../]

YouTube: The Dears @ Schubas[Chicago,IL] - Sept 7, 2006 - clip 1
YouTube: The Dears @ Schubas[Chicago,IL] - Sept 7, 2006 - clip 2
YouTube: The Dears @ Schubas[Chicago,IL] - Sept 7, 2006 - clip 3

For a full review of the above show, go to Kirstiecat's blog. She has some great photos of the band as well.

The Toronto Star sheds some light on a few of the Polaris panelists' insights into inaugural Polaris Music Prize album winner "He Poos Clouds" from Final Fantasy. Owen questions whether the judges even listened to his album and thought his album was "kind of crap". He also thought The New P0rn0graphers' "Twin Cinema" should have won.

Pitchfork interviews TracyAnne Campbell of Camera Obscura. She does mention that most of the bands she wants to see are North American but unfortunately because of touring commitments she keeps missing them - and she does namedrop Final Fantasy which I thought was nice.

Chartattack spoke to Joel Plaskett about his song-writing process and Joel mentions that we can expect a new record this winter or sometime early 2007.

Torontoist has some brief commentary on yesterday's Billy Bragg show at Danforth Music Hall in Toronto.

Phoenix's Thomas Mars spoke to The Straight about the recording process they undertook for their most recent album "It’s Never Been Like That": holing themselves up in a big empty old building for three months, without a single song. The guys performed a live session for Morning Becomes Eclectic on September 21, 2006[via Just Keep Bloggin']. Or download the torrent of the session[via Largehearted Boy].

Listen to/watch the live session The Decemberists performed for Morning Becomes Electic this morning.