Up All Night

Skatterbrain has an interview with Toronto indie pop faves The Airfields. They'll be at Sneaky Dee's on February 2 for their CD release party for their debut full-length "Up All Night" being released through Humblebee Recordings on February 5. You can also catch the band on March 6 at Wrongbar in Toronto, along with The Two Koreas, The Paper Cranes, Huckleberry Friends and special guests, Norwegians Syme.

And speaking of Scandinavians, Swedish disco pop cutie Sally Shapiro is coming to Toronto on March 4 to Wrongbar...no not for a performance, but rather as part of an oh-so-short DJ tour she'll be on with producer Johan Agebjörn. For CanCon, Pitchfork reports that Junior Boys did a remix for Ms. Shapiro which will appear on an upcoming spring release on Paper Bag Records entitled "Remix Romance".

Staying on the topic of dance-pop, I've been patiently waiting for my copy of Saint Etienne's "Boxette" to arrive in the mail. "Boxette" is a compilation of several fanclub-only releases in one fancy package(and something to tide me over until they hopefully come back to Toronto - it's been years it seems and I never have seen them live). I believe there were only about 2000 made and at least as of January 7 there were only 450 left so hop to it. Ordering info is here. Purchase it here.

The Canadian Music Week schedule is slowly filling in and it shows that Young Galaxy and Attack in Black have been added to the list of performers at The Indies awards show taking place at Canadian Room (inside Royal York Hotel) on March 8.

Anorak Christmas

The image of the Christmas Tree at the Eaton Centre above is a lot nicer than what a lot of GTA'ers woke up to this morning. I know a lot of people wanted a white Christmas but this is ridiculous.

So to rub salt in to the wound, I thought I'd remind you of a couple of winter outdoor shows coming up in the new year. As part of the WinterCity Festival coming to Toronto from January 25 to February 7 of '08, Nathan Phillips Square will be hosting a couple of free concerts: as you might already know, Tokyo Police Club come to the Square on Saturday, January 26(8:45 - 10 pm) and I just found out that The Weakerthans will be there on Saturday, February 2(8:45 - 10 pm). I didn't make it to The Golden Dogs/In-Flight Safety show at Nathan Phillips Square yesterday - damn, I should have went because compared to today's weather, yesterday was a cakewalk.

Thanks to John Sakamoto and his Anti-Hit List for pointing me towards Swedish pop gal Sally Shapiro's MySpace and her piano mix of her modern Christmas indiepop classic "Anorak Christmas". Reminds me, where could I buy an anorak like this?