Ra Ra Riot

Ra Ra Riot will return to Toronto this fall! The band will play at Lee’s on September 11th; tickets are $13.50 and will go on sale this Thursday. This is a 19+ show.

Pink Mountaintops will be playing an in-store at Sonic Boom this Sunday, June 14th! The in-store will take place at 3:00 pm and is completely free! But if you miss out, make sure to catch his set later that night at the Horseshoe, with openers Great Aunt Ida and Megan Hamilton. Tickets are still on sale right now for $11.50.

Gaslight Anthem, Murder By Death, Jesse Malin, and Broadway Calls will be at the Kool Haus on October 3rd Tickets are $21.50 and this will be an all ages show.

A new Yo La Tengo song is out now! “Periodically Double or Triple” (from their upcoming album Popular Songsout September 9) can be streamed and downloaded here.

Great Bloomers will be playing a free show this Saturday at the Audio Recording Academy, as part of AUX TV’s Secret Sessions at Tara! For more information on this event, and many more upcoming shows, click here.

The Entrance Band will open for Sonic Youth at Massey Hall on June 30th.

Amanda Mabro will be at the Rivoli this Wednesday, along with special guest Darrelle London! Tickets are available at the door for $10.00; make sure you check it out!

You Ain’t No Picasso interviews Angel Deradoorian of the Dirty Projectors. Read more here! The band will be in town on June 24th for a show at Lee’s with Skeletons; tickets are still on sale now but hurry, they’re almost sold out!

Tegan and Sara have recently relaunched their website. Check it out here! You can’t actually hear any of their new tunes yet, but you can watch a video of Tegan Quin and album producer Chris Walla (Death Cab For Cutie) listening to it! Their upcoming album will be released in October.

The Rural Alberta Advantage needs your help! The newest Saddle Creek members are looking for donations for an upcoming seven inch record, featuring reworked material from their record, Hometowns (which will be re-released on July 7th via Saddle Creek). Click here to watch a video from the band and donate now!

And finally, congrats to Lisa T. for winning our Yellow Bird Project T-Shirt contest! Our lovely winner walked away with a shirt designed by the National!

Happy listening!

Musically,
Melody

Malajube

Again, I apologize for the delay this month! But alas, the Lamb is up and running and here’s some news from the past week!

Malajube will be back in town for a free show at Lee’s on June 12th, with openers Hollerado. According to Rootsmeansquare, tickets are available now at Rotate This and Soundscapes, so grab one now! If not, tickets will also be at the door. This is a 19+ show. As to why it’s free, I don’t know but I’m not one to refuse a free show.

Other show announcements:
Maps & Atlases @ El Mocambo (June 7th, $10.50, 19+)
Sonic Youth @ Massey Hall (June 30th, $36.50-48.50, ALL AGES *On sale Saturday; presale on now)
Torche, Harvey Milk @ Lee’s (July 23rd, $13.50, 19+)
Fleet Foxes, Dungen @ Massey Hall (August 4th, $32.50-38.50, ALL AGES * On sale Friday, presale on now)
Casiokids @ El Mocambo (August 5th, 19+)
John Vanderslice, Cotton Jones @ Horseshoe (July 10th, 19+)
Deer Tick, Dawes @ Horseshoe (July 17th, 19+)
Elvis Costello @ Massey Hall (August 28th, ALL AGES)
Maximo Park @ Lee’s (September 18th, 19+)
Kylie Minogue @ Air Canada Centre (October 9th, ALL AGES)
Place Hands, The Guest Bedroom, The Rescue, Fall of Heroes @ the Matty Eckler CRC (June 12th, $5.00, ALL AGES)
Apostle of Hustle, CCMC @ The Music Gallery (May 28th, $33.33, ALL AGES, *as part of The Music Gallery’s 33 1/3rd Birthday Fundraiser)
Evening Hymns, The Youngest @ Tranzac Front Room (June 5th, PWYC, 19+)

This year’s Pride Week is shaping up quite well, musically-speaking. Artists, including Islands, Gentlemam Reg, Esthero, OPOPO, Mansion and more will be performing free sets during the festivities at various stages in the city. For full listings and schedules, click here.

Regina Spektor’s new album Far is set to be released on June 22nd.

The Beastie Boys have a new song out called “Lee Majors Come Again” Listen to it here.

Bat For Lashes recently performed “Daniel” from her latest release Two Suns on Letterman. Watch it here.

Kids on TV, Gentleman Reg and Katie Stelmanis will all be playing short sets at the Inside Out Film Fest: Local Heroes Party on May 20th. This will be taking place at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.

For those dying to pick up The Dirty Projectors’ new album Bitte Orca on June 9th, your fantastic choices of formats are CD, LP, MP3 and now cassette! Both cassettes and LPs will include codes for mp3s downloads.

Also, stream Deradoorian’s Mind Raft EP on Muxtape now!

And to cap things off, Gonzales will be attempting to break the Guinness World Record for playing the longest concert ever; 27 hours on May 18th. You’ll be able to stream the whole show on his website here. Good luck, Gonzo!

Happy Listening!

Musically,
Melody

Deradoorian

It always sucks to read about events that you missed out on but there wasn’t much I could do about this year’s SXSW. I will begin planning my hitchhiking plans for next year though; something along the lines of when Sideshow Bob hung on for his dear life to the bottom of the Simpsons’ car in that one episode. Okay, maybe I need to work on my plan a bit.

Even though I missed out on amazing acts such as PJ Harvey, Camera Obscura and Dinosaur Jr. the band that I was most excited to read about was Toronto’s very own Rural Alberta Advantage (of which a blog accidentally called the Royal Alberta Advantage). Something tells me that the trio’s appearance at this year’s festivities will mark the beginning of something big. Already, they’re receiving fantastic praise from Pitchfork,Brooklyn Vegan and Paste Magazine and now everyone is asking the big question: Why are these guys not signed yet? Even Pitchfork has said “This band could be huge.” Well The RAA are already huge to me, but Pitchfork is right – they are going to be bigger. Congrats, guys!

In other news…

Passion Pit has cancelled their upcoming Canadian tour, so please disregard my news yesterday about Ruby Coast. That is a bummer. (Thanks to nowhere for the tip)

Camera Obscura is going to be back in town on June 27th at Lee’s Palace.

Gregory and the Hawk will be at the El Mocambo on May 2nd.

Metric will be making an appearance (and performing) at The Edge 102.1 studios (228 Yonge St.) on April 14th (the same day their new album, Fantasies will be released). They will also be making an in-store appearance at the HMV Superstore (on Yonge, near Dundas) on April 9th from 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm. And last but not least, according to ‘For the Records’, Metric and Holy Fuck are apparently going to be at the Mod Club on April 14th (via Beggars Group Canada) but there has been no mention of this elsewhere. I’ll keep you posted; if this is actually true though, it sounds very exciting!

Holy Fuck will be playing a free show this summer at Harbourfront, as part of the annual Beats, Breaks and Cultures Festival on July 10th.

John Richman and Vic Chesnutt will be at The Great Hall on June 25th.

Jay Reatard will be at the Mod Club on June 29th.

Deradoorian has a new song out called “You Carry The Deed”. Listen to it here!

More of a Dirty Projectors fan than Deradoorian? Well you can listen to their recent set at SXSW here!

Buck 65 has formed a new band called Bike For Three! The band will consist of the MC himself and Belgium’sJoelle Phuong Minh Le (Greeting From Tuskan). Read more about it here.

i(heart)music is offering up live mp3′s of Hannah Georgas’ recent Radio 2 concert. Download it here!

The French Kicks will be at the Horseshoe on April 27th. Tickets are $11.50.

According to their MySpace, Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees will be back in town on June 17th and 18th for NXNE. Excellent!

And for those in Mississauga (because I know you’re out there, reading this), the Mississauga Waterfront Festival will be taking place June 19-21 (unfortunately the same time frame as NXNE) this year at Port Credit Memorial Park. The first night will include Sam Roberts and Kathleen Edwards, with Spoons and 54-40 on the second and Bruce Cockburn and Hunter & Collectors’ Mark Seymour on the third.

And playing on Canada Day in M-town will be the one and only Sloan. Pending on the line up for Harbourfront’s Canada Day festivities (as I’m there EVERY year), I may actually be in Mississauga this year. Wow. (Again, thanks to ‘For the Records’ for the news)

Happy listening!

Musically,

Melody

Peaches

Sorry for disappearing yesterday! I was going to post a news update but ended up going to Darrelle London’s CD release party instead. Great artist; definitely worth checking out if you’re into Regina Spektor or just cutesy, piano driven melodies. Check out some tunes on her MySpace now!

Now to make up for yesterday, here’s a super-sized news update!

SHOWS ANNOUNCED:
The Dears @ Mod Club (April 30th, $20)
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 @ Mod Club (April 16th, $20)
TV On The Radio @ Sound Academy (June 2nd)
Wavves @ Sneaky Dee’s (March 31st)
The Whip, Late of the Pier @ Kool Haus (April 10th)
Tricky, Natalie Stewart @ Mod Club (April 2nd, $29.50)
Bruce Peninsula @ Lee’s Palace (March 28th, $8.00)
The Prodigy @ Kool Haus (March 25th, $30-40?)
The Constantines, The Weakerthans, The Waking Eyes @ Phoenix *3rd Show Added* (April 2nd, $25)
Rye Rye @ Circa (February 27th)
Gravity Wave, Paul Banwatt @ The Boat (March 3rd)
Damien Jurado, Laura Gibson @ Drake Hotel (April 14th)

Great Bloomers, whose debut album Speak of Trouble will be out on April 21st, will join Sports (The Band)and Boys Who Say No at the Drake Hotel on February 26th as part of the venue’s 5th year anniversary. Doors will be at 8:00 pm and the event will be FREE.

Other shows that’ll be part of the Drake’s anniversary series will be Mike Simonetti, Mikey Apples and Steve Yanko (TOMORROW NIGHT), Bonjay and Young Flux (March 5th), and Lee Douglas and Jaques Renault (March 12th).

Also, opening for Ladytron and The Faint at the Phoenix on April 6th will be Telepathe and a FIGO DJ set.

Opening for Mates of State/The Black Kids at the Phoenix on April 10th will be Sunbears!

Planning on trekking to the Air Canada Centre for Kings of Leon? Well here’s more of an incentive – The Walkmen will be opening for them!

If you’re looking for a show tonight, The Peter Elkas band will be playing with Zeus and The Golden Dogs at the Dakota Tavern as part of “Gods Dogs and Fire Logs” Wednesdays at the venue. Doors are at 10:00 pm!

Wanna just sit at home instead? Well here’s some suggestions of what you can watch and/or listen to:

The big news of yesterday must be the release of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ new single, “Zero”. Stream it now on their MySpace! Exciting? I thought so!

Lily Allen was recently on Leno and performed her latest single, “The Fear”. Watch here!

Ra Ra Riot has a new video out for “Can You Tell”. Watch here!

Download and listen to the Air France remix of the Friendly Fires’ “Skeleton Boy” here!

The lovely Deradoorian (from the Dirty Projectors) have a new song out called “High Road”. Download and listen here!

The Decemberists also have a new one out called “The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle The Thistles Undone)”. You can stream it on their MySpace!

If that’s not enough, Peaches has finally announced a new album entitled I Feel Cream, coming out on May 5th. That sentence sounded weird, didn’t it. Download new tracks from the album here!!!!

Also, here’s the tracklisting:

I Feel Cream:
01. Serpentine
02. Talk To Me
03. Lose You
04. More
05. Billionaire
06. I Feel Cream
07. Trick Or Treat
08. Show Stopper
09. Mommy Complex
10. Mud
11. Relax
12. Take You Out

I think that’ll be it for now!

Happy listening!!

Musically,
Melody