Pat GrahamYeah, I know that I probably keep closer track of British bands than some (but certainly not as much as others), but I still get confused as to who’s who sometimes. Particularly when it comes to outfits comprised of skinny, shaggy-looking lads wielding guitars and perhaps scowls, and whose names are some combination of the definite article and a random noun, sometimes pluralized. The Rifles? They’re the ones who’re trying to channel The Jam (and doing a pretty good job of it). The Rakes? They’re the ones who just one-upped their habit of cancelling North American tours by breaking up completely (on the eve of a North American tour, of course). The Cribs? Right, they’re the ones made up of three brothers – two of them twins – and Johnny Marr.

That fact alone renders the band worthy of a closer look, though it’s not enough – I still think Modest Mouse are terrible, Marr or no Marr. Though it’s their fourth album, the just-released Ignore The Ignorant is the first I’ve heard and it’s sort of what I’d expected, even without any prior knowledge – scrappy post-Libertines guitar rock – but with a goodly amount of melody to go with the attitude and, of course, some searing guitar work courtesy of the non-Jarman in the band. Nothing revelatory or game-changing, but certainly successful at scratching the ol’ Brit-rock itch.

The Cribs wrap up an exhaustive three-date American tour tonight in New York, but have already began making plans to return in the New Year with the one announced date so far being right here in Toronto at the Phoenix on January 15, accompanied by Adam Green and The Dead Trees. And presumably accompanied by Mr. Marr, considering how keen they all are to present him as a full-fledged member of the band, and not just the cool uncle figure helping out in the studio. Which if fine with me – can’t say I’m not anxious about the opportunity to see and photograph Marr in such close quarters.

MTV UK has got a live video session with The Cribs available to stream.

MP3: The Cribs – “We Were Aborted”
Video: The Cribs – “Cheat On Me”
MySpace: The Cribs

Another British “The” band – and also a current “it” band – is officially down a member. In an interview with The Stool Pigeon, The xx confirm that guitarist Baria Quereshi has left the band and that they will continue on as a trio – bad news for Marr if he was looking for another band of young’ns to hang out with. The xx are at The Phoenix on December 2.

The previously-mentioned Rifles play an acoustic session in a Berlin park for They Shoot Music.

The Quietus has an audio session and interview with Patrick Wolf.

Pitchfork reports that Tindersticks will follow up 2008’s The Hungry Saw with Falling Down A Mountain, set for a January 25 release everywhere except North America; here it comes out February 16.

MP3: Tindersticks – “Black Smoke”

Taken By Trees cover of Animal Collective’s “My Girls”, taken from her new album East Of Eden, is now available to grab as an MP3.

MP3: Taken By Trees – “My Boys”
Video: Taken By Trees – “My Boys”

The Line Of Best Fit interviews Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear.

The Village Voice talks to Bishop Allen’s Justin Rice about the making of their new video for “True Or False”.

Video: Bishop Allen – “True Or False”

Yahoo’s The New Now is streaming a video session with White Rabbits.

Wilco will be streaming their show in Amsterdam this coming Monday live via their Roadcase starting at 3PM Eastern time.

Great Lake Swimmers’ Mountain Stage session is currently available to stream at NPR, and there’s also an interview at Birmingham Mail. They have a date at Trinity-St Paul’s on February 6.

Zeus will play a free show at The Horseshoe on Tuesday night, alongside Still Life Still and The Most Serene Republic for a special Arts & Crafts-centric Nu Music Nite 16th anniversary party. They also just announced their debut full-length Say Us will be out on February 23.

Sarah CassThere’s not much question that Bitte Orca, the latest record from Brooklyn’s Dirty Projectors, is one of the most feted records of the year – the critical math says so and so do a goodly number of people whose tastes I respect and frequently align with my own. And as such, I’ve put more time than I might normally into the record, seeking a point of ingress to understanding and appreciating what everyone else seems to get but which I don’t. And I think I’m about ready to throw in the towel.

To its merits, Bitte Orca is meticulously crafted and a fine showcase for the talents and abilities of all involved. Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian’s vocals swoop birdlike in, out and around the dense musical arrangements of Dirty Projector mastermind Dave Longstreth and while his own voice isn’t nearly as lovely as theirs, it’s also an impressively distinctive and agile instrument. The record draws deep from modern R&B for inspiration and does a fine job of keeping many of those reference points intact while rendering them with different sounds and textures but that, I think is where they lose me.

The thing that bugs me most about most of what’s classed as R&B these days is the relentless showiness of the vocals. The acrobatics, the over-emoting, the pure ostentatiousness of it all. So that the Dirty Projectors emulate this aesthetic so well and extend it to the instrumentation is pretty much a recipe for not doing it for me. There’s no shortage of moments that come close, but they’re almost inevitably undone by a flurry of vocal trills or an epically meandering guitar line that serve no musical purpose that I can discern except to prove that they could do it. And it’s the fact that they come so close to catching my ear but fail to do so that’s most frustrating – I thought their contribution with David Byrne for the Dark Was The Night charity compilation was terrific, and if Bitte Orca had some of the focus that track did, I’d probably be toeing the party line in celebrating the record’s genius. Instead, despite my best efforts, I have to align myself with one fictionalized Emperor Joseph II, even if it means ultimately being on the wrong side of history… “there are simply too many notes”.

So that’s me, but I know lots of you love you some Dirty Projectors and are excited that the band are coming back this coming Saturday, November 14, for a show at the Opera House. Tickets are $16 in advance but courtesy of REMG, I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to be a Dirty Projection” in the subject line and your full name in the body. Also feel free to tell me why I’m an idiot for not loving the band. Contest closes at midnight, November 12.

Dirty Projectors are declared the epitome of Brooklyn awesomeness in a New York Magazine about how awesome Brooklyn is. Tiny Mix Tapes dissects – including charts and sheet music – a Dirty Projectors song.

MP3: Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is The Move”
MP3: Dirty Projectors – “Useful Chamber”
MP3: Dirty Projectors – “Temecula Sunrise”
MP3: Dirty Projectors & David Byrne – “Knotty Pine”
Video: Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is The Move”

Grizzly Bear, another critical darling whose altar I can’t quite bring myself to genuflect before, have released a new video from Veckatimest.

Video: Grizzly Bear – “Ready, Able”

Paste talks to Beach House, who are preparing to release their third record in Teen Dream on January 26 of the new year.

Clash interviews Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo.

Monsters Of Folk have a new video.

Video: Monsters of Folk – “Temazcal”

Yours Truly has a living room video session with Thao with The Get Down Stay Down.

Pixies are offering a free live EP of Doolittle performances to mark the start of their Doolittle 20th Anniversary tour. Grab it from their website.

Beatroute and JAM interview Ohbijou, who were the victims of a violin theft in Montreal a couple days back. See said violin in happier times in a video performance at Southern Souls.

Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham tells New York Magazine what the band are doing with their Polaris Music Prize winnings – a star-studded remake of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid.

Frank YangIn my review of Yo La Tengo’s latest Popular Songs, I lauded the New Jersey trio for their unbelievable ability to deliver excellent album after excellent album over their 25-year career, and having seen them five times before Saturday night’s show at the Opera House, I felt comfortable thinking that same sense of consistency could be applied to their live shows. There’d be a handful of new songs, a brace of old standards and at least a couple unexpected surprises from deep in their catalog. Performance-wise, you could count on Ira Kaplan being alternately hilarious and irascible, be guaranteed a transcendent moment or two and assured of at least one jam would go on for far too long. I know more than one person who’s said, “I love them but don’t think I need to see them again” and it’s a fair statement to make. I myself was going to skip out on this show in favour of one of a multitude of other entertainment options available that evening, but the excellence of Popular Songs persuaded me to go back for more.

Excepting their Beautiful Noise taping last April (that season is now airing on SunTV, by the by), this past Saturday night was Yo La’s first visit back to Toronto in three years and taking place at the Opera House rather than their usual digs at The Phoenix, it was a cozier show than they’ve played here in some time – TV taping aside. As such it was sold out, 800 steadfast fans giving up the early part of Nuit Blanche (or avoiding it entirely) in favour of getting their eardrums massaged and having no second thoughts about it.

Support for the Canadian dates on tour came from Chicago duo The Horse’s Ha, whose pedigree includes Freakwater and The Zincs, and who’ve just released their debut Of The Cathmawr Yards. Their brand of Americana-folk was on the decidedly polite and proper side, dusty-sounding yet immaculately clean in its delivery. Jim Elkington and Janet Beveridge Bean’s voices worked well together, but it was more their supporting players that kept things interesting, offering a rhythmic, musical backbone that they didn’t let fly until later in the set, culminating in a decidedly rewarding shredding cello solo. The Horse’s Ha have got talent and power on hand, and would do well to loosen the reins a bit.

Here’s the funny thing about the list of Yo La Tengo live givens I rattled off earlier – they didn’t happen. It could be that as much as their fans were feeling their shows were getting a bit familiar to hear, the band thought it was getting a bit familiar to play so just as Popular Songs seemed to take every Yo La song template and offer something new in that mould, their live show would also benefit from such a makeover. The set was far heavier on new songs than I’d expected, making up fully half the main set and as such the show felt simultaneously fresh and comfortable and when the band did reach further back into their extensive catalog for numbers like “Big Day Coming” or “Stockholm Syndrome”, it felt like even more of a treat. I was especially pleased to hear “Black Flowers” make an appearance, it being my favourite track off I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass and sadly omitted from the set last time around. And the choice of encore covers this time out – a James McNew-sung Velvet Underground’s “She’s My Best Friend” and Devo’s “Gates Of Steel” – were also impeccable.

Beyond the marvelous song selection, the show benefited from a dynamic arc that felt new to Yo La Tengo shows. Past shows had felt like enjoyable meanders through their repertoire but this show had a more unified feel to it, starting out a touch restrained despite opening with the uptempo “Double Dare”, going gentle in the middle while inviting Georgia Hubley out from behind the kit to sing and then closing out big with a gloriously frantic and guitar-abusive “And The Glitter Is Gone” and sugar-buzzed “Sugarcube”. Throw in a perfectly casual double-encore – James had to remind Ira of the chords to the VU tune – and you had a glorious, and perhaps more importantly faith-restoring, Yo La Tengo show. “I love them, when can I see them again?”.

And oh yeah, Ira seemed to be in a great mood. Maybe that was all the difference.

There’s interviews with the band at hour.ca, Beatroute and The National Post.

Photos: Yo La Tengo, The Horse’s Ha @ The Opera House – October 3, 2009
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Here To Fall”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Periodically Double Or Triple”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Pass The Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Beanbag Chair”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “The Summer” (live on KEXP)
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “I Feel Like Going Home” (live on KCMP)
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Little Eyes”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Don’t Have To Be So Sad”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “From A Motel 6″
MP3: The Horse’s Ha – “Asleep In A Waterfall”
MP3: The Horse’s Ha – “The Piss Choir”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “When It’s Dark”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Nothing To Hide”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Avalon Or Someone Very Similar”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Periodically Double Or Triple”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Here To Fall”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Sugarcube”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Tom Courtenay”
MySpace: Yo La Tengo

And if you’re wondering, trying to start Nuit Blanche at 1AM at Queen West and Yonge is quite possibly the stupidest thing you can do, and that includes live scorpions infected with bubonic plague. I got a good look at a lot of lineups before giving up and heading home. Oh, and I had some popcorn. Woo, art! Woo, culture!

Spinner and JustOut talk to Bob Mould.

NPR is streaming the new Flaming Lips record Embryonic for a week, leading up to its October 13 release date.

Stream: The Flaming Lips / Embryonic

PitchforkTV has a Cemetery Gates session with Grizzly Bear.

It’s getting/already gotten colder than any right-thinking person would like, but if you’re thinking there’s still time to take one last hop out to the Toronto Islands then do it next Saturday, October 17, and stop by the ALL CAPS! Island Show at the Artscape Gibraltar Point. It starts at 3PM, goes till 10 and features a bunch of acts including but not only Great Bloomers, Adam & The Amethysts and Snowblink. It’s $10 or PWYC and all-ages.

You’ll have a clinic in teaching the indie kids to dance when Junior Boys and Woodhands hit Lee’s Palace on November 6. Junior Boys were just featured in a Daytrotter session.

MP3: Junior Boys – “In The Morning”
MP3: Woodhands – “Dancer”

The annual Make Some Noise events presented by the Toronto Public Library returns on November 7 when Bruce Peninsula and Timber Timbre make the North York Central Library sound like it’s haunted.

MP3: Bruce Peninsula – “Crabapples”
MP3: Timber Timbre – “Demon Host”

Constantines will celebrate their 10th anniversary with a pair of special shows at Lee’s Palace on December 10 and 11. Ticket pre-sales are already on, with early birds eligible for extra goodies.

MP3: Constantines – “Nighttime Anytime It’s Alright”

The Line Of Best Fit is offering a fifth volume of “Oh! Canada” series of downloadable Canuck mixes.

CBC Radio 3 has a shiny new website and the same old annoying habit of constantly rewriting the location in the browser back to radio3.cbc.ca. Seriously, WTF.

And if you’re one of those people who not only still has cable, but has those ridiculously high-numbered channels which seem to only show Law & Order reruns, check out channel 107 as aux.tv went on the air (well, the digital cable air) last weekend and features a slew of terrific music television programming that goes well beyond videos. There’s details on what the channel hopes to offer and how they’ll do it at The Globe & Mail and ChartAttack.

Ben RitterHospice, the much-praised new record from Brooklyn solo project turned trio The Antlers, is an exceedingly difficult listen for me. The album is built around a central narrative about a man losing a loved one to cancer and it’s so successful in evoking the emotions and atmosphere around that that when I listen to it, my teeth clench and chest tightens. It’s actually physically uncomfortable.

Hospice accomplishes this by means both obvious and not. To the former, the ghostly production with its hazy atmosphere and subtle whirs, clicks and swells in the background do a good job of evoking the sterile yet foreboding atmosphere of hospitals and cancer wards, where the whiff of hope is faint at best. And Peter Silberman’s voice, all wavering falsetto, is made for gut-wrenching whispers-to-screams though that dynamic is put into effect only sparingly and thus retains its effectiveness. In less capable hands, these tools could still get the desired emotional response, but only in a mechanical and manipulative sense – the way that even terrible suspense films can still make you jump as a reflex, not out of genuine fear. Hospice, though, possesses an intangible sense of genuineness that gives its strange, haunting beauty a real and painful weight and heft that’s tinged by all-too-brief moments of uplift. All the more remarkable considering that Silberman remains coy about how much of the story played out on the record is autobiographical and how much is fiction.

So while I don’t know if Silberman has gone through the experiences he details in such clarity, I can say that while the details and settings of his tale don’t fully line up with my own, the underlying emotions conveyed definitely resonate and often feel like touching – no, grabbing and squeezing – a raw nerve. Hospice captures the anxiety, anger, fear, denial and despair of being past hope and the bleak understanding that the only way out will come with a price that can’t be comprehended but must be paid. I did not enjoy listening to this record, nor did I enjoy writing this piece, but I think it helped.

There’s an Interface session with the band at Spinner, another video session at Laundromatinee and Exclaim has a very brief interview. The band are currently on tour and will be in Toronto next Thursday night, September 24, for a couple of performances – a free in-store at Criminal Records at 6PM and a headlining show at the Horseshoe later that night. Tickets are $10.50 in advance but courtesy of Against The Grain, I’ve got three pairs of passes to give away to the show. To enter email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see The Antlers” in the subject and your full name in the body. Contest closes at midnight, September 22.

MP3: The Antlers – “Two”
MP3: The Antlers – “Two” (remastered)
MP3: The Antlers – “Bear”
Video: The Antlers – “Two”
MySpace: The Antlers

There’s a preview track available from Sufjan Stevens’ forthcoming multimedia project The BQE – out October 20 – and it’s a real departure, all shredding guitars, vocodered vocals and fat synths. No of course not, it’s orchestral and twinkly and pretty and has an excessively long title. Pure Sufjan. He’s at Lee’s Palace on October 1.

MP3: Sufjan Stevens – “Movement VI—Isorhythmic Night Dance With Interchanges”

GQ UK talks to Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste.

Early Day Miners give Aquarium Drunkard a tour of Bloomington, Indiana. Their new record The Treatment is out next Tuesday.

Filter talks to Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse and Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, about their Dark Night Of The Soul collaboration.

Music Snobbery interviews Anna Ternheim, in town on October 14 at the Horseshoe.

Out next week, September 22, is the self-titled debut from Monsters Of Folk – it’s currently available to stream at their MySpace. They play Massey Hall on November 2 and Reuters has an interview.

Stream: Monsters Of Folk / Monsters Of Folk

PopMatters interviews Emily Haines of Metric. They play Massey Hall on October 20 and 21.

Chad Van Gaalen, who has a show at the Church Of The Redeemer this Saturday night – September 19 – has made an EP’s worth of outtakes and whatnot from Soft Airplane available for free download at softairplane.com. His Black Mold alter-ego has also just released a new video.

Video: Black Mold – “Metal Spiderwebs”

Exclaim talks to head Hidden Camera Joel Gibb about plans to take their new record Origin:Orphan, out Tuesday, to the stage. The theatre stage, not the concert stage. Though they’ll do that too come December 5 at the Opera House. Which despite the name is not an opera stage.

Islands are streaming their new record Vapours, out next week, at Exclaim and have set a November 7 date at the Mod Club in support.

MP3: Islands – “Vapours”
Stream: Islands / Vapours

Also at Exclaim – details on the sophomore record from Basia Bulat. It’s entitled Heart Of My Own and will be out on January 26 of the new year. Here’s a taste.

MP3: Basia Bulat – “Gold Rush”

UK electro-pop outfit We Have Band will be at the Drake Underground on October 22. They’ll have a digital EP available Grab a new remix track at RCRDLBL.

MP3: We Have Band – “Hear It In The Cans”
Video: We Have Band – “You Came Out”
Video: We Have Band – “Oh!”

J Tillman may be the drummer for Fleet Foxes but he’s also an established solo artist and he will continue to establish his solo-ness with his new record Year In The Kingdom, which is out next week. He’ll be touring to support and has a date at the Horseshoe on November 11, tickets $13.50. And if you need more reason to attend, consider the fact that he is one funny dude. Seriously.

MP3: J Tillman – “Earthly Bodies”

Denver Westword talks to The Depreciation Guild, who’ve been named as support for School Of Seven Bells at Lee’s Palace on October 15 along with Los Angeles’ Warpaint. It pains me to miss this show for Wilco, but sacrifices must be made.

MP3: Warpaint – “Billie Holiday”
MP3: Warpaint – “Elephants”

And one more September 22 release to talk about – the Higher Than The Stars EP from The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. The title track and a non-EP remix of the title track are available to download.

MP3: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – “Higher Than The Stars”
MP3: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – “Higher Than The Stars” (Others In Conversation remix)

FacebookThere’s a good run of albums, there’s career consistency and then there’s Yo La Tengo. The New Jersey outfit has been turning out full-length gems for almost a quarter-century now, and while some are held in higher regard than others, their consistently high standard has been nothing short of astonishing. And this isn’t a case of a band finding a style they excel in and working on variations of that theme, at least not unless you consider “restless creativity and experimentation in the realms of pop music” to be a single theme. So in sitting down with their twelfth proper album Popular Songs, you would have an excuse to not be surprised by what they have to offer, but none to not be delighted.

2006’s I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass was a welcome dose of energy for those afraid that the two preceding records were finding the band settling into a comfortable, somnambulant zone, bringing back not only the band’s noisier side but also their genre-hopping aesthetic. It wasn’t as many individually sublime moments as their previous highwater mark I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, but as a collection it was a more than worthy addition to their discography. If this was as good as Yo La Tengo could be 20 years in, then we should consider ourselves lucky. But if Ass was the luck equivalent of finding a $20 bill in the street Popular Songs is like winning the lottery.

Okay, that’s probably overstating it but Songs has a certain something that you didn’t even realize Ass lacked. It’s hard to articulate exactly what that is, but it’s the ineffable quality that distinguishes a classic Yo La record from just a great one. I’ll put it down as a sense of fun. Ass had the sense of the band exploring terrain that they hadn’t visited in a while (and tinged with the sense of looking for a way to stay interested) and that sense of curiosity yielded its own rewards, but now it sounds like they’re comfortable again and are having fun with it. Everything that makes Yo La Tengo wonderful is present in abundance – the quiet, extended meditations (“The Fireside”), the skronky garage pop (“Nothing To Hide”), the gentle folk of “When It’s Dark”, the jazzy grooves (“Periodically Double Or Triple”) – and all points in between. For most bands, it’s probably too much to expect them to turn in one of the best albums of their career after the 20-year mark. Once again Yo La Tengo have defied expectations.

Spinner talks to the band about the secret of their longevity as well as the secrets of their songwriting. Paste also has a feature peice and also gets Ira Kaplan to offer up a recommended listening list.

Yo La Tengo are at the Opera House in Toronto on October 3.

MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Here To Fall”
MP3: Yo La Tengo – “Periodically Double Or Triple”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “When It’s Dark”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Nothing To Hide”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Avalon Or Someone Very Similar”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Periodically Double Or Triple”
Video: Yo La Tengo – “Here To Fall”
MySpace: Yo La Tengo

DCist salutes Velocity Girl’s wonderful Simpatico! record, talking to most of the band about the making of the album. I loved that record. Must put it back into rotation this weekend.

Video: Velocity Girl – “Sorry Again”
Video: Velocity Girl – “I Can’t Stop Smiling”

Decider talks to The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.

Wye Oak have released a new video from their excellent second album The Knot.

Video: Wye Oak – “Sight, Flight”

Billboard talks to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Robert Been about the live CD/DVD set – creatively titled Live – due out November 10. Their new studio album is targeted for a Spring 2010 release.

The upcoming tour that pairs like-it-loud Asobi Seksu with like-it-low Loney Dear and Anna Ternheim was a bit of a head-scratcher until it was announced that Asobi would be releasing an acoustic album entitled Rewolf November 10, recasting old songs originally done loud in a quieter setting. The Village Voice confirms that the band is taking this setup live, so expect to see them as you’ve never seen them before when they play the Horseshoe on October 14 – no bad thing if you’ve already seen them many times before.

The Flaming Lips’ continues to talk smack about Arcade Fire to The Independent. Embryonic is due out October 13.

The Times Daily checks in with Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers. They just released a rarities and b-sides comp entitled The Fine Print last week and will have a new studio album out in February.

Under The Radar mind-melds with Telekinesis.

New Grizzly Bear video.

Video: Grizzly Bear – “While You Wait For The Others”

The endlessly prolific The Fiery Furnaces, whose latest album at the time of this writing is I’m Going Away but may well be something new by the time you read this, will be at the El Mocambo on November 7, tickets $20.

MP3: The Fiery Furnaces – “The End Is Near”

Obviously not ones for verbosity, San Francisco’s buzzy, fuzzy poppy Girls have set a September 22 release date for their debut album Album and Fall touring bring them to the El Mocambo on November 10.

MP3: Girls – “Lust For Life”
Video: Girls – “Lust For Life”

The Quietus talks to Warren Ellis about the second Grinderman album, which should be out sometime next year.

Doves have rolled out a new video from Kingdom Of Rust

Video: Doves – “Winter Hill”

Little Boots recorded a Black Cab Session in Austin during SxSW in March. So THAT’S what the Tenori-On does! And technically, Austin cabs are not uniformly black but that’s neither here nor there. Little Boots plays Wrongbar on Monday night.

Video: Little Boots – “Stuck On Repeat” (live on Black Cab Sessions)

BeatRoute talks to Arctic Monkeys. They’re at the Kool Haus on September 29.

Shanghaiist chats with Handsome Furs.

Blare grabbed an interview with Jay Ferguson of Sloan a couple weeks back at V Fest, where he revealed there were plans to release a new digital EP this Fall and that he’s done with making CDs. Not albums, just CDs. The band also just announced they’ll be playing a free show outside the Air Canada Centre next Wednesday night, September 16, before the Leafs-Bruins pre-season game. This may well be the highlight of the season for Leafs fans.

And speaking of free public shows, that Neil Young performance that was supposed to happen at Yonge-Dundas Square on Monday is off. You can stop lining up now. Why? The Toronto Star, who reported the event in the first place, got a hold of Young and he says he had no idea he was supposed to perform in the first place and was never going to be in town. Hmm. The Jonathan Demme concert film Neil Young Trunk Show is still coming to the Film Festival though, so you can try an line up for that.

Trailer: Neil Young Trunk Show

Pitchfork invites an array of indie-rock luminaries to make “best of” lists for the century so far.