Waiting For The Next Music Format

Billy Bragg @ HMV [Yonge & Bloor] (June 17, 2008)


Prior to his proper gig at Harbourfront, Billy Bragg performed a brief solo acoustic instore at the grand reopening of HMV's Yonge and Bloor location this past Tuesday. I missed a bit of it but did catch full performances of 'Waiting For The Great Leap Forward' (with some timely, biting lyrical changes which ponder the next music format that's forthcoming) and set-closer 'A New England' during which Billy encouraged an audience singalong especially during the chorus. Even during the brief time I was there, I still managed to catch some of Billy's humourous banter. He spoke about his son who's in that period of discovering his own musical tastes and Billy recounted how his son would him ask whether he heard of artists like Jimi Hendrix and Kansas, at which the audience chuckled. Given the mention of that latter band, Billy instead turned his son onto The Clash's "London Calling" which had the audience roar with approval only to have Billy respond that now his son's into Green Day. Ha ha.

A few more of my photos are over at Flickr.

MySpace: Billy Bragg

Dive Deep

I had no idea that Morcheeba were releasing a new album until I read the news over at Speed of Dark, but apparently the band's new album "Dive Deep" was released in the UK today. I haven't heard it yet...actually I'd lost interest in them for a while, mostly because I don't think they'd come to Toronto for a full band tour since maybe circa "Big Calm"(I think a few of them came over for a mini acoustic set a few years ago but that's it). According to their MySpace, they'll be in Toronto for a show at The Opera House on March 30. Songs from the new album are streaming at their MySpace.

Cat Power was in the BBC 6 Music Studio's for a live performance on the George Lamb show. Listen here and also check out some photos from the session. Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues are at Kool Haus on February 9.

The Raveonettes performed an acoustic session for LiveDaily recently - they performed stripped-down versions of "Dead Sound", "Aly Walk With Me", and "Lust", three new tunes off their latest record, "Lust Lust Lust". They come to The Opera House in Toronto on March 21. [via Skatterbrain]

Via Pitchfork comes confirmation of an upcoming New Pornographers/Okervill River tour. Both bands will be at the Phoenix Concert Theatre on April 9. Also confirmed lately, sometime-New Pornographer(although not for the upcoming April 9 show at the Phoenix), Dan Bejar aka Destroyer has his own show booked for Lee's Palace on April 19[via Chromewaves].

Eels return to Toronto for a show at The Mod Club on April 4 to promote its latest discs(yes, plural), hits and rarities collections ("Meet the Eels" and "Useless Trinkets", respectively). Via Pitchfork.

NME reports that Billy Bragg and The Blokes newest album 'Mr Love And Justice', is slated to be released in the US on April 22. The UK release date is March 3. NME has the tracklisting.

Just a reminder, that blog-faves Vampire Weekend make what I believe is their network television debut tomorrow night on Late Show With David Letterman. Their debut self-titled full-length was just released in North America recently.

Who'd have thought that perky television chef/cutie Rachael Ray was an indie rock fan. She invited Battles and Holy Fuck to perform at her SXSW party. I bet she makes some mean barbeque.