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tUnE-yArDs Performs Real Live Flesh

tUnE-yArDs blew me away when she opened for Think About Life back in the Spring at the Polish Combatants Hall.  It was one of the most inspiring sets I have seen in a long time, Merrill Garbus has a wonderfully unique voice and her songwriting is nothing short of genius.  Her debut BiRd BrAiNs has been officially released by 4AD (after circulating on cassette tape for the last year) and she’s just wrapped up a supporting tour with Dirty Projectors.  Let’s hope a headlining tour is in the works!  She has recorded a live version of Real Live Flesh for a 4AD session, check it out below.

R

Upcoming: Steamwhistle Presents: YSP! WSD! w Think About Life and Little Girls

This Friday (November 20th), Toronto’s Steamwhistle Brewery will be presenting a pretty wicked bill at the Phoenix.  On the bill are two of my favourite Paperbag Records bands, B.C.’s You Say Party! We Say Die!, Toronto’s Little Girls as well as my vote for best party band of the year, Montreal’s Think About Life.  In between sets, DJ Vaneska will play some tunes.  Tickets, $12, are available now here as well as in person at Rotate This! and Soundscapes.

I’m pretty excited to see YSP! WSD!, haven’t seen them in a couple years  and have had their new album XXXX on constant rotation since its release.  They have really matured as a band, their new stuff has less of a dance-punk sound and relies more on pop structures and good songwriting.  Think Yeah Yeah Yeah’s slower, more introspective material. I’m sure XXXX will end up on tons of best of 2009 year end lists.

The tour will continue throughout Ontario then head west to ending in Calgary.  Little Girls continues to support for the rest of the tour.  Remaining dates are as follows:

November 21st: Townhouse, Sudbury, ON*
November 26th: Royal Albert, Winnipeg, MB*
November 26th: Amigo’s, Saskatoon, SK*
November 27th: New City, Edmonton, AB*
November 28th: Hi-Fi, Calgary, AB*

*w Little Girls

New Vitaminsforyou Video (The xx Cover)

Watch Vitaminsforyou’s cover of The xx’s song Shelter.  It’s pretty great.  Vitaminsforyou are playing their (his) last Toronto date of the year November 13th at The SuperMarket.  The xx play Phoenix with Friendly Fires December 2nd.  Tickets on sale now here.

New Girls Video (NSFW)

Girls have released a new video for their single Lust for Life (not an Iggy Pop cover). Love the song so much. Video has a ton of nudity and is pretty XXX, not safe for work or when children are in the room. Girls play the El Mocambo on November 10th.  Tickets are $12 and on sale at Rotate This.

New Fever Ray Video

Fever Ray have released another video, this time for a live favourite (and Nick Cave cover) Stranger Thank Kindness.  The cover is featured on the new 2CD re-release of their debut.

New Duck Sauce Video

Check out Duck Sauce’s new video for aNYway, which is A-Trak and Armand Van Helden’s new project. Big beat disco greatness. And I LOVE the Ghost paraody. Their debut is slated for an October release.

Vampire Weekend @ The Horseshoe Tavern

Vampire Weekend/The Postelles
The Horseshoe Tavern
Thursday October 8, 2009

I almost wet my pants when this show was announced. I know its probably no longer cool or hip to love this band, but I do, and I will scream it from the rooftops. Their debut is perfect in every sense of the word, poppy, upbeat, summery and fun.  And I was dying to see them in a small venue (last time I saw them was at Rogers Picnic, in the pouring rain with 4000 other fans).

As mentioned earlier, Vampire Weekend have confirmed details for their second album titled Contra, slated for release on January 12th in North America. The band are doing a string of dates as warm up gigs for the release of the record.  Toronto and Montreal were lucky enough to be included as their only Canadian stops.

Got to the venue mega early , met up with Mark, Raj and Kathy for dinner at Fresh prior to. The venue was empty and stayed that way through most of the opening band’s set.  Said band was NYC’s The Postelles.  I find that quite often I’m not a fan of opening bands (unless I know who they are).  I was pleasantly surprised how amazing these guys were, think Vampire Weekend merged with the early 00’s Strokes-like garage rock with a little 50’s pop thrown into the mix.   Their set was really great.  Their debut album should be out in the next 6 months or so (according to on-stage banter).

By about 10pm, the venue was packed, although I thought there would be more people there, I guess they didn’t oversell the venue. Vampire Weekend began their set with two new songs, the wonderful White Sky (which has been kicking around since the last tour) and Holiday. The new stuff is similar to their existing recorded material but has a looser, California pop feel to it.  They played a string of old songs which the crowd ate up and sang along to then went into more new material. Highlight in the new material was definitely California English. The Campus/Oxford Comma set closer was also quite great, the two songs merged was really fun.  The band encored with their new single Horchatta (listen to it below) and Walcott (another crowd favourite).  Set list below:

White Sky
Holiday
Cape Cod Kwassa
I Stand Corrected
M79
Cousins
California English
One (Blake’s)
A-Punk
Run
Campus/Oxford Comma
————
Mansard Roof
Horchatta
Walcott

It’s great to see a young band on the verge of releasing their second album having so much fun.  They really seemed to be enjoying themselves and it’s nice that they treated their Toronto fans to such an intimate gig.  I’m sure they’ll be back in the new year to play a much larger venue.

Listen to their new single Horchata below.

Photo via there are no words.  Check out the site for some great video also.

Now has a small article on the band here.

New Vampire Weekend Album Announcement

Vampire Weekend have confirmed the name and release date for their second album, Contra. The album is slated for release on January 11th and the tracklist is as follows:

1 Horchata
02 White Sky
03 Holiday
04 California English
05 Taxi Cab
06 Run
07 Cousins
08 Giving Up the Gun
09 Diplomat’s Son
10 I Think Ur a Contra

Notice that White Sky makes an appearance, which the band debuted during the tail end of their last tour. Watch the live version of the song below.

They have also confirmed two lone Canadian tour dates in October, the 6th at Le National in Montreal and the 8th in Toronto at the Horseshoe.  No ticket details as of yet, but both are bound to sell out as soon as they go on sale.

Update>>> tickets on sale this Thursday at Ticketmaster only…

via Pitchfork

New (ish) M83 Video

M83 hosted a fan video contest via their website for their song We Own The Sky.  This is the winning entry.  It’s completely perfect, it makes me long to be a teenager again, kinda in the same way Smashing Pumpkins video for 1979 did.  I heart M83.