Yes, I realize I made a Decemberists post not a fortnight ago, but trust me – this will be worth it. Unless you don’t like The Decemberists, in which case just move on. There’s nothing to see here.

With The Crane Wife one of the biggest releases of the year (in my Bizarro universe, anyway), everyone’s lining up to talk to Colin Meloy and company about the new record. Harp has an expansive feature on the band, covering their origins through to their signing with a major label last Winter and some of the reasonings behind it. They also have a sidebar on some of the inspirations behind the songs. It’s interesting to learn where the ideas come from but one of the things I like most about The Crane Wife is how Meloys lyrics, particularly on the title track(s), work really well on as more personal and subjective metaphors as well as on literal, narrative levels that he’s always excelled at.

Also on the interview front, Meloy talks to The Falls Church New Press and The Dallas News. And before their Dallas show earlier this week, he also gave an interview to Big D Little D. Guitarist Chris Funk Q&Aed with The Daily Collegian and Harmonium (with some of the same Qs and As), The Lance Free-Star talks to keyboardist Jenny Conlee and HeroHill.com chats with bassist Nate Query.

The band’s Fall tour is well underway and Filter is keeping a tour blog, enlisting a blogger in every city on the itinerary to submit their review and photos of the show. Yours truly will be covering the Toronto show on November 6 at the Kool Haus, which leads into the contests portion of this post – I’ve got three pairs of passes to the aforementioned show to give away, courtesy of Against The Grain. But wait! There’s more!

Filter has also donated some sweet prizes to the cause – in addition to the passes, which are really only good for Hogtowners, I’ve got a beautiful autographed lithograph to give away (hopefully that image isn’t actual size – you can also grab the artwork from the lithograph as a wallpaper for your computer here) AND a a copy of The Crane Wife on vinyl – a rather dashing double-LP in gatefold cover. How sweet is that? Pretty damned sweet.

So this is how it’s going to go down. This will actually be two separate contests – if you want to win the passes, email me at contests@chromewaves.net with “I want the Decemberists tickets” in the subject line and your full name in the email body. Usual drill. If you want the lithograph and LP, well then that’s going to take a little more effort. To enter, I will you to leave in the comments a haiku somehow related to the band or the album. I won’t require you to use the word “Decemberist” because that’s almost a quarter of your syllables right there. For this one, you WILL be judged on the quality of your entry so make an effort. And I know I used the haiku thing before, but this time it’s especially appropriate given the theme of the record. Next time I’ll request a dirty limerick.

And to keep it fair, I will select the lithograph/LP winner first and then those for the concert. Whoever wins the former will be ineligible for the latter. The odds of that happening are pretty slim, but I’m stating it up front just in case.

So to sum up – want to win passes to the November 6 Kool Haus show? email me. Want to win a sweet lithograph and LP? Leave a haiku in the comments. Both contests close at midnight, November 1.

MySpace: The Decemberists

Pitchfork has words with Asobi Seksu.

Nashville Scene interviews Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers.

Junkmedia interviews Under Byen and actually asks a number of the questions that I’d intended to when I was trying to get an interview organized earlier this month (which obviously didn’t happen).

Firefox v2.0 spellchecks my blog posts. That’s just creepy.

np – Nellie McKay / Pretty Little Head