Friday, September 2nd, 2005

It Was 30 3 Years Ago Today…

Wow, with all the madness that has been going on lately, I’d totally forgotten that today marks the three-year birthday of this here blog. My goodness. It started as a lark and has now, by default, become my day job. An incredibly poorly paying day job, but fulfilling in many other important respects. But anyway, now we are three. Soon I hope to be sleeping through the night and then we’ll work on the bed-wetting.

Rob Dickinson talks to Billboard about life as a solo artist. Well, not that solo – apparently the rest of Catherine Wheel played on a few of the more rocking tracks on the album. Early word from some hardcore CW fans is that the album is pretty solid – good news. Pity about those promo photos, though. Fresh Wine For The Horses is out September 13 and he plays the Horseshoe in Toronto October 7. Other east coast tour dates have been popping up in all sorts of strange bills and configurations. Joss Stone? Matt Pond PA? Weird.

Angryrobot does some sleuthwork and finds that Miki Berenyi, formerly of Lush, contributes vocals to a remix of a Flat 7 track by former Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie (who incidentally produced Lush’s early work). This is noteworthy because while Emma Anderson has continued on in music with Sing Sing, Berenyi basically quit music after the band dissolved in the wake of drummer Chris Acland’s suicide way back in 1997. With a dearth of information about this track beyond what AngryRobot has sussed out, it would be presumptuous to assume that this is anything but a one-off by Miki, but it’s still welcome news.

And tangentially – something called Cocteaufest is happening in Toronto at the Dance Cave on September 8 and promises live cover bands, dancing and raffles. Raffles! Seeing as how this Summer’s Coachella reunion failed to happen, I guess this still gives Cocteau fans something to look forward to.

While Carl Newman insists to Exclaim that The New Pornographers have stayed the course in making their third album Twin Cinema, I find myself liking it even more than the first two albums. There aren’t the huge giddy highs like “Letter From An Occupant” or “The Laws Have Changed”, but I think it’s much more consistent front to back and there’s more musical depth to it. And for my money, “The Bleeding Heart Show” could be the best song they’ve ever recorded.

Guided By Voices the band may be gone, but Guided By Voices the cash-making nostalgia trip remains. A four-hour DVD of their final gig from New Year’s Eve, 2004 in Chicago entitled Guided By Voices: The Electrifying Conclusion will be out November 15 from Plexifilm, who have a cute little trailer up on their website. And if that’s not enough for you, the week before on November 8, they will release a box set, Suitcase II: American Superdream Wow which serves up another four discs of rarities and things that the world probably would have been no poorer for having never heard.

Bit of a disturbing email from In Support Of Living in regards to the Ear To The Ground festival later this month at which they’ll be playing. Apparently there is some politicking going on between the Exhibition Place people and the organizers about jacked up rental fees, and the festival is in jeopardy. We are reminded of the last-minute cancellation of the Toronto Bluesfest at the Exhibition grounds last year for the same reason, so this isn’t an idle threat. Basically, they’re asking anyone who is planning on going to buy an advance ticket ASAP. There’s really no reason to wait. Go to it.

np – Uncle Tupelo / Anodyne

By : Frank Yang at 8:27 am
Category: Uncategorized
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  1. uwmryan says:

    Happy B-day.

  2. Marc says:

    RIP: R.L. BURNSIDE 1926 – 2005

  3. Gary Campbell says:

    I remember reading an article years ago about Miki Berenyi in her post-Lush days. She did release one solo single (a 7" limited edition thing), but then removed herself from public life and eventually went to work as an editorial assistant for the BBC and does editing work for the Radio & TV listings guide. There was something about wanting to just hang out at home and be a "normal person."

    Further web searching turns up lots of rumours that she works in the porn industry, but I think that’s just wishful thinking. :)

    It’s sort of like the bassist from Ride who these days runs a furniture shop near Oxford with his dad.

  4. jj says:

    regarding Ear to the ground…read between the lines..rumour is they have sold ONLY 700 tickets…so the "threat" of only 4000 being allowed in each day is a BIT silly….

  5. graig says:

    While Mass Romantic was an instant favourite, it actually tired itself out after repeated listenings. Electric Version was a slow burn and it took me a loooong time to get into it (3 or 4 months before it actually clicked, but once it did… AWESOM-O).

    Twin Cinema has been much the same as EV, except it’s taking much less time for me to find myself sinking into it’s songs. I’ll agree the Bleeding Heart Show is one of the high points of their discography (if not THE high point), but I think Falling Through Your Clothes, with it’s glitchy tape-loop cut-n-paste feel is just one of the most sonically intriguing songs I’ve heard this year.

    Meanwhile, I see that Pulp and Radiohead members are supposed to appear in the next Harry Potter movie (dose.ca/radiohead), replacing Franz Ferdinand.

  6. Frank says:

    was it supposed to be Franz Ferdinand? The Radiohead/Pulp combo had been listed on IMDB as the Weird Sisters as long as I’ve remembered…

    …yeah, I’ve been reading the books and watching the movies lately…

  7. angryrobot says:

    Just to be clear…

    As I mentioned in the last paragraph of my post, the <i>Possessed</i> CD, for which "Smile" was originally recorded, appears to have been released in 2000. So this is definitely not new work or a comeback from Miki.

  8. Frank says:

    thanks for the clarification, surlyrobot.

  9. angryrobot says:

    I wasn’t trying to be snippy. I just didn’t want readers to think I was suggesting something which I was not. This story has now been picked up on the Village Voice site with the headline:

    AngryRobot: Lush singer Miki Berenyi has not retired

    Obviously, they didn’t bother to read my original post. I assume they picked it up here, or from xrrf, who also apparently didn’t read my post (at least not past the giant portion they copied & pasted) and "hope[s] this might be a hint of more to come."

  10. Frank says:

    oh, no I wasn’t implying you were being snippy, just having some fun with your name, testyrobot.

    I certainly should have read your piece a little more carefully, but i’m just some unemployed mook. This is the blogosphere – ain’t no time for fact-checking! the Village Voice should know better. Shame on you, Village Voice! Shame!

  11. the dirty canuck says:

    re: Ear to the Ground

    the kerfuffle with Exhibition Place has be resolved for now. as always, it was an misunderstanding.

    at the same time, we are encouraging everyone to buy their passes SOONER rather than later. there are a limited number available and they are going quickly. we have capped the number of people we can have on site to a number that is supportable by our infrastructure (i.e. cops, paramedics, labour, etc).

  12. jj says:

    re: ear to the ground – are you saying that you have actually sold a few thousand more than 700 passes..or are you just PRETENDING that it is ALMOST sold out when it by far isn’t because you are actually desperate to sell tickets….its not fair to mislead people with false statements.

  13. Thierry says:

    Hey Frank, I just thought I’d mention here that Alex Chilton is still missing in New Orleans – he was okay on Monday, after the hurricane passed, but hasn’t been heard from since the levee broke. I thought you might want to spread the word.

    For people to contact in case you here anything, go to the Posies’ forum <A HREF="http://…/

  14. Frank says:

    yeah, I’ve been following that all day. Hope Chilton is okay. Obviously I hope that as many people as possible in NOLA are okay, but Mr Chilton is someone I actually know (through his music, anyway).

  15. Thierry says:

    Damn. I meant "hear". And to think I was an editor…

  16. some random guy says:

    re: Ear To The Ground. There have been no misleading statements about the festival. Because of the nature of the festival, and the location, people are waiting to buy passes, and we expect a lot of walk-ups, which means big line-ups. It also makes it hard for us to plan for numbers when everyone waits. We are merely encouraging people to buy now, rather than wait. Why would we be desperate to sell passes to the event? Have you seen our line-up? I’d like to know where you’ve heard that we’ve only sold 700 passes, because we have sold a lot more than that. We’re not pretending that we’re almost sold out, nor trying to mislead anyone. We’re simply trying to avoid the headache of having everyone buy two days before and at the gate.

  17. jj says:

    Yes I have seen the line up and it is great but at the same time the main acts JUST played here. DFA 4 shows, Sleater Kinny, RJD2 within the last few months, so I would think those concert goers with limited funds are going to put their money towards someone who hasn’t played here in awhile or is "hyped". What I heard from an industry insider is that it’s NOT selling as much as needed. Many "festivals" are not doing well this year and lollapolloza got cancelled last year very close to the date(and had bigger name artists than yours). So yes from what i have seen/heard I think you probably ARE desperate and if you admit that people might be more likely to support you than if they think its doing great and almost sold out.

    Good Luck!! and hope things change since its sad to see events like this fail.

  18. anon says:

    well, hearing straight of the source, as of about two weeks ago, 500 passes were sold. so maybe you sold a lot more than that within merely two weeks. good for you. and if it’s indeed true that these passes are selling SO fast, then why is anyone worried about having HUge line ups at the gates?

    i’m sorry if that seems like an attack, and i’d really like to see your festival do well, but that’s merely a logical question.

  19. lingling says:

    Miki Berenyi released a 7" single after the LUSH split? Hmm, i don’t ever recall having heard about this. What is the song? I doubt this ever came out.