*Sigh* "It's Great To Be Here"

-Calexico

So, apparently Starbucks or someone has put together a compilation CD or something. And Calexico is featured pretty prominently with their cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart". I was excited for this, as I came across a live version a year ago and it was just amazing. Today, I finally got my grubby lil' paws on the Starbucks studio version and...not quite what I was hoping for. It's still decent, and well worth the download, I mean purchase. So, I thought it would be nice to give you the live version, the version that's so dear to my heart.

Calexico "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (this is one of them there yousendit's so you havta right click on them there link)
What I love about this one is how Calexico turn it into an almost breathless declaration of love, whereas the original sounded like a suicide note. Another thing I love about this is the stage banter before it, when he goes, "Thanks to everbody here working with us, behind the scenes, up above, *sigh* it's great to be here", and then the opening riff kicks in, and then, after the first verse the guitar and the drums start to build and it's no longer an homage to Joy Division, but an entirely new song with an entirely new feeling. Download this, play it loud, and just enjoy the day.

Montag "Perfect Vision" {link}
With people all over Stars' album Set Yourself On Fire (which just now got released in the States, take that President Bush!) lately, as well as copious amounts of press covering the just released in January M83 album, I'm shocked and amazed that there isn't more about Montag.

Montag is Antoine Bedard, one of those lonely bedroom electro-pop genius types, from Montreal. Fresh off orchestrating the string sections on M83's glorious "Before The Dawn Heals Us", Bedard decided that it's not better off alone, and put together the new Montag release "Alone, Not Alone" with help from James Cargill of Broadcast, Sixtoo, and, like on this track, the lovely Amy Millan of Stars and Broken Social Scene fame.

This song is gorgeous, a fragile little keyboardy cut that highlights and emphasizes Millan's vocals, that sound fragile enough to break apart, but sharp enough to cut glass. You should pick up this album, and so should I, and I will, once my "Don't buy any more CDs before your birthday" mandate ends (tomorrow, baybee!).

Elsewhere:
-Chromewaves highlight a fun little interview with the aforementioned Ms. Millan as she buys booze and chats on her cellphone. Also available is an amazing, amazing cover of "Your Love" done live by The Decemberists. This is a cover that deserves to be blared loud out of houses and car stereos. Especially, the part when the singer gets the crowd to sing the chorus, then goes "That fuckin' sucked."
-The always prolific You Ain't No Picasso has a "new" Radiohead track that is pretty damned impressive. If anyone dug the Frakkur track I posted a couple months ago, you should really dig this one, it's all instrumenty and ethereal.
-Take Your Medicine is new to me, but is really good, and has recently decided to be a Brit-o-centric blog.
-The venerable Kelsery swears by My Old Kentuck Blog and I'm becoming a convert, too. A lot of blogs are all cookiecutterish and similar, whereas Dodge seems like a cool guy that you could hang out with who wouldn't irritate you like some of the cooler kids might.
-And it may be jumping on the bandwagon, but I really think Stereogum is pretty much one my favourite daily visits. It's hip, it's fun, it's frankly funny. I especially like it when Scott posts links to nudie pics or something b/c the comments are the greatest microcosm of the Internet one can find, for every snide hipster comment, there are two or three "OMG! Britney's boobies are HUUUUUGE!"
-Oh yeah, and I have another blog, but I'm really not sure what to do with it. It was really just more of a test to see what is there, and it is pretty neat, I must say.

I figure the mammothisity of this post makes up for my long absences, but it probably doesn't. I was thinking of doing a week of theme posts, but I don't know if I have that kind of endurance. I thought about a Best of the 90s week, or a best of Wong Kar Wai week (alternate title: Wong Kar Week), or maybe...bah! Any suggestions?

"The Goomba Of Ooh-Aah"

-Big Vito, WCW 2000

I found this at Music For Robots and thought I would share the love.

Ted Leo "Since U Been Gone"

This morphs halfway thru into "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which goes back to Kelly Clarkson's "Since You Been Gone". Sure, Ted's voice isn't quite good enough to handle the chorus, but who cares? It's Ted frikkin' Leo covering Kelly frikkin' Clarkson, what more do you want?