While in some respects I sympathize, 25+years of musical output is not to be sneered at, the consensus seems to be that the collaboration with Marr et al represents a far more lasting contribution to the world of pop music the solo releases that followed. Something to be celebrated, surely, but perhaps I'd feel differently were I playing show after show year after year and encountering little to no interest in the new and repeated requests for 'This Charming Man'.

I am back from a week in england of which the highlight was a local music festival called Polstice which is short for the town name Polstead combined with solstice, the day it is usually held... A bunch of music nutters (much like us) rule the place and they all pretty much took me in....
Nothing but kegs after keg of local real ale and 8 or 9 hours of great live music in a farmers field followed by djs till dawn...One of the guys - Oli - is a local music scribe amongst other related skills and he has expressed an interest in swapping music tips back and forth across the ocean. His music website link is this

Kyle will he need a password to get onto metabeats?..... I note you commented about trying to expand metabeats a bit and I think this is a good opportunity... I have given him a link to the site but I am not sure if he mneeds more info to get in...
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Though the twitter scroll to the right suggests a rich banquet of exciting musicians can be seen and heard throughout these fair streets over the next week, you may be feeling a little overwhelmed. Surely the Toronto music scene offers more than vibrant young artists approaching or at the peak of their game performing in intimate settings with fantastic acoustics. It would be nice if there were a place, preferably outdoors where the sound bounces off in different directions, where one could pay through the nose to witness musicians well past their prime slog through playlists that would have been dated over a decade ago. What's that, you say? There is such a magical venue? (Raise hands to heavens)

side note: am willing to concede my snarkiness is perhaps overdone with respect to the first name on the list but les autres....non.

UPDATE: also, while i'm not a big bootleg music/video guy [side question: any really great/famous bootlegs that should change this opinion], this type of technology is appalling.

Ha! Love the intro. Find the album is slowly growing on me as well, after being a little underwhelmed on the first few listens. And who doesn't love a dove release?

One of the few bands post-grunge to really matter and one of the definitive voices of the last decade. Nice to see they also have a sense of humor.

Not to mention the extreme melancholy of the video.

Glad you brought up The Rosebuds, Mike. I quite enjoyed, 'Life Like' and had put 'Concordia Military Club' on many a mixed compilation the year of its release but haven't gone back and listened to it much since. A damn shame because their combination of Church-like mood, melody, and just sharp, clever songwriting shouldn't be overlooked. Suggest others revisit or indeed discover, if they haven't done so already. Streaming on Rdio for those on board. Unfortunately, as a Merge artist, they're no longer on emusic.

Also, thoughts/suggestions on the formatting? Background photo? Placement of elements (search, contributors, links) Elements themselves (Email notification, twitter search feed). It's not quite what I want it just yet. There are some readability concerns (text colour on background, most significantly) but heading there I hope. Don't want to go back to an all white background but if you'd prefer something simpler, please chime in. Won't be offended. Really.

One band that's been growing on me over the last couple of years is the Rosebuds. I have a couple of their albums - "Birds Make Good Neighbors" and "Life Like" and I like them a little more with each listen. I just got an email from them (I expect that it was done through Paste Magazine, as I'm still on their mailing list) telling me that they are touring with Bon Iver this summer. Sadly, Ottawa is not on their itinerary, but Toronto is. I might have considered a weekend visit around the show if that were possible, but they're playing on a Monday night. If any of you are wondering what to do on Monday August 8, I would recommend that you check out the show and then blog about it.

While I continue to screw around with this, you can vote on your best of the year thus far at NPR.

Hey Kids. Fear not the ugly colours and weird layout. Am upgrading to a new template and playing around with different formats. Rest assured, I'll soon settle on a style that each of us will hate but for different reasons.

It could very well have been one of their song titles, Marc.

there I am thinking that "died Saturday of a heart attack" was one of Seth's side projects.

I'm fairly certain the only reason this story is appearing on several news sites is so that editors can boldly string these two words together in a bold headline without fear of reprisal ("What? It's the name of the band!")

Also this.

You won't believe the lengths to which I'll go and depths to which I'm willing to plunge in order to generate content for and interest in this here blog. I'm even willing to resort to finding heavy metal themed recipes (warning to those with peanut allergies, ears).

Kyle,

First thought, "wow". The Tramp, yeah baby.

Second thought, also "wow", though, a different kind of wow.

Third thought, do you often surf Steve's Music site looking for in-stores by washed-up seventies "guitar gods"?

Since we talked a little about Supertramp the other night, thought you'd want to be all over this, Bri.

More cloud, touches on items discussed last week, but goes beyond the question of whether owning music will soon be quaint to idea of books as same. While I'm cool with the idea of not actually owning my own music, I find this concept a little appalling when it comes to books. Is it paranoid to think we're on a path to '1984'?

Personally don't care for the band but novel concept. Think it would be worth it for other artists to try this by offering a chance to competing 'best of' type collections, perhaps curated with an eye towards certain moods. like say, 'dylan songs that will make you politically active', or belle and sebastian 4 disc collection, each based on seasons.

And it almost goes without saying but that shiny Apple cloudy thing that everyone is talking about? Yeah, it's not available in Canada. Though the folks at exclaim seem to think it will be imminent, I'm quite skeptical. Can't see the arcane rules around copyright and licensing in this country allowing this to proceed, at least without onerous costs, idiotic restrictions, etc.