Best Canadian music festival ever: Pop Montreal

"Hi. I'm Burt Bacharach. You know me for my classic pop gems, created with the help of such stars as Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield, among others. But what I'd really like to talk about today is an incredible music festival, in an incredible city--namely Pop Montreal. It's a music festival with many of your all-time favorite performers, in the best season of the year, autumn. And you'll never be able to afford it! Because although you have at last gotten a job, Alison, you are still broke as a joke, and gettin' ready to wallow in some serious debt! So why don't you just go home and play some albums from the feature artists in succession, and pretend like you're there. Because that's as close as you're gonna get! Ah ha ha ha!!"

Ok, ok. There is no way Burt Bacharach is a jerk like that. However, the above statement does perfectly sum up my feelings about Pop Montreal--so awesome, yet so implausible. Perhaps you would like to go with me? I would find a way to go if you, my friend, would go with me. It's October 1-5!! We could go to another country together! Oh please, another country!!! I haven't even been out of the STATE (ok, with the exception of SXSW) in 8 months....CHECK OUT THIS LINE-UP OMG YOU CAN'T LOSE:


Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Irma Thomas, Burt Bacharach, Silver Apples,
Hot Chip, The Persuasions, Dan Deacon, Cori Bishop (aka Elyse Weinberg), United Steel Workers of Montreal, The Dodos, Liam Finn, Wintersleep, Dark Meat, Headlights, Playdoe, Dabaaz, Kim, Eric Bélanger, The Veils, WIRE, Crystal Castles, Black Kids, St Catherines, Vetiver, Thomas Function, Julie Doiron, Chad Van Gaalen, Dominique Grange & Jacques Tardi, Great Lake Swimmers, Katie Moore, Socalled, Woodhands, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Sam Shalabi, Gatineau, Jason Collett, Chocolat, Wedding Present, Evangelicals, Beach House, Jana Hunter, Cex, Teeth Mountain, Teki Latex, D’Urbervilles, Michie Mee, and so much more!


Noooooooooo!!!! Please don't happen without me!!!! Check out the Pop Montreal website for more reasons why you should go with me. Don't forget, I speak very rudimentary and poorly-pronounced French! Imagine the excitement of being misunderstood by waiters and taxi cab drivers, with me, your super-excited pal!

Finally...Wire tour dates!

I feel like I've been talking about this Wire tour forever. But in really nebulous terms like "I don't know when, but there's definitely a Minneapolis date!" or "they have a new album...so I mean...logically they SHOULD tour...." And finally here we have them, real legit tour dates. I'll keep this short, because I've been talking about this tour and their latest album Object 47, for so long that even I am bored. At last! At last, my dreams of seeing Wire--dreams I have carried with me ever since one of my friends lived in a house with a Wire/Sonic Youth tour poster in the bathroom that would taunt me "You will never see Wire! You will neeeeever see Wire! They will never come to the United States again AND YOU MISSED IT when you could've seen them"--those dreams will be fulfilled. Sigh. What an inspiring bathroom.

Here's the dates, in all their glory:

08-30 London, England - Hainaut Forest Country Park (Offset Festival)
09-08 London, England - The Scala
09-09 Leeds, England - Met University
09-10 Nottingham, England - Rescue Rooms
09-11 Glasgow, Scotland - The Arches
09-12 Manchester, England - Academy 3
09-19 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg
09-20 Ghent, Belgium - Minnemeers
09-21 Tilburg, Netherlands - ZXZW Festival
09-22 Brussels, Belgium - Botanique
10-05 Montreal, Quebec - Le National
10-06 Ottawa, Ontario - Barrymore's
10-07 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace
10-08 Cambridge, MA - Middle East Downstairs
10-10 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
10-11 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
10-12 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
10-14 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex
10-15 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
10-16 Vancouver, British Columbia - The Commodore Ballroom
10-17 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
10-18 Chicago, IL - Metro

Wire reveals a few more dates....

Still not much to say about the upcoming Wire tour of America this autumn, apart from that it IS confirmed--it just hasn't been posted anywhere yet. For the time being, here are a few summer dates that you probably will not be attending. (Sorry to any readers in Calgary that I may have and be unaware of.)

As reported before, their latest full-length is entitled Object 47. And as not reported until NOW, it comes out July 7 in the UK, without any verified North American date that I can find. (Granted I am not searching very hard, I got some allergies today like you wouldn't believe. It feels like a fish swam up my nose.)

In regards to the proposed North American tour, you can probably guess which major cities they'll be coming to as well as I can. Fortunately for the good people of Minneapolis, my hometown, I hear they will be making a visit to our wintry northern lands sometime in October....


05-30 New York, NY - Seaport Music Festival
06-07 Porto, Portugal - Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art
06-27 Calgary, Alberta - Sled Island Festival
06-28 Calgary, Alberta - Sled Island Festival
07-04 Zagreb, Croatia - Rokaj Festival
07-05 Pordenone, Italy - Fiera della Musica
07-11 Turin, Italy - Traffic Free Festival

More Wire dates!!!

But still no North American details. Oh well. I have it on good authority that a North American tour IS still in the works. I mean, I haven't asked about it recently, because probably I shouldn't ask every week, but last time I checked, it was still a very strong possibility.

Anyways, here's Wire's newest plans for rockin' the continent:

04-29 Leuven, Belgium - Stuk
04-30 Utrecht, Netherlands - Ekko
05-01 Diksmuide, Belgium - 4AD
05-02 Zwolle, Netherlands - Hedon
05-03 Manchester, England - Futuresonic Festival
05-05 Ravenna, Italy - Bronson
05-06 Rome, Italy - Circolo Degli Artisti
05-07 Lyon, France - Nuits Sonores Festival
06-07 Porto, Portugal - Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art
06-27-28 Calgary, Alberta - Sled Island Festival
07-04 Zagreb, Croatia - Rokaj Festival

They've also revealed the ultra-revealing information that their upcoming studio LP due later this year will be called...are you ready for it??? Object 47. Sounds in keeping with the rest of the aesthetic.

Dear Wire, please come to Minneapolis. Thank you. Love, Alison

First they put out that new EP, now they're putting out an album! Yay, Wire!! Pitchfork reports that the seminal post-punk band is in the recording/mixing stages of their 11th studio album, and even working on some sure-to-be-awesome live dates. Alas, all they've got listed for the moment are on the continent, as they say, and I am decidedly NOT on the continent. Well, not on the right one, at least.

See?

04-29 Leuven, Belgium - Stuk
05-01 Diksmuide, Belgium - 4AD
05-07 Lyon, France - Nuits Sonores Festival

Word on the street is that the band will play some European summer festivals, before coming over for a North American tour. Great news, guys, please come to Minneapolis. Or New York. Wherever I'm gonna be. Dear God, please somebody give me a job. One that doesn't suck. Also, make it stop snowing. It's like 2 inches within an hour. That is weird and not okay and I'd rather be sitting in a rooftop pool watching the sheer majesty of bats fly overhead at dusk then scraping frost off my windshield. Sigh. Two more weeks till SXSW!

All aboard the learning train!

Choo choo! Got your tickets, ready? What facts will we travel through today on our sinus medication-fueled journey through the music newsosphere?

Well, not many, b/c my repetitive stress injury really fuckin' hurts!!! So, all aboard! Here's three things I learned today:

1. Wire have a new addition to their series of Read and Burn EPs. It drops November 12th in the UK, and various news outlets are reporting that the material on this third EP will not go towards filling a full-length a la Read and Burn 1 and 2 and the LP Send. Read more--but only a little bit!!!--on the Wire webpage/

2. Best movie ever star Casey Affleck is a vegetarian!!!! OMG, boo--So. Am. I.

3. New Morrissey album coming out in September 2008. I have high hopes for the cover art. Will it be as ludicrous as the Glamourshots-style photo of Morrissey with the tommy gun featured on You Are the Quarry?



4. Also today I found out that Kansas City is not in Kansas, at all, but actually located within MISSOURI. WTF?!?!?! What's it doing in Missouri? I know, I know--shock of the century, right!


My arm's gonna fall off and I'm out for the weekend, heading to Florence. Ciao bella!!!