Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds @ Massey Hall, Thursday

Here's a performance of Jubilee Street from the King's Theatre show in Brooklyn last Saturday.  

H09909 w/ Injury Reserve @ Velvet Underground, Tuesday

Check out H09909's version of "Attitude" by The Bad Brains followed by their video for War Is Hell.

Happy Birthday Harry Beckett!

Remembering Barbados-born British jazz scene kingpin Harry Beckett on his day with Rolly's Tune. 

Circuit des Yeux opens for Animal Collective @ Danforth Music Hall, Sunday

Haley Fohr aka "Jackie Lynn" plays a solo Circuit des Yeux set opening for Animal Collective tonight. Doors open at 7 pm.  

One For The Weekend: The Heliocentrics

"The Uncertainty Principle" is off The Heliocentrics' new album A World Of Masks out now digitally on Soundway.

Buy six not-so-great Nick Lowe albums and get a lunchbox free!

For years now, you've probably seen Nick Lowe's mediocre 80s albums cluttering used bins in record shops across the continent but now Yep Roc has decided to reissue them so you can get Nick the Knife (1982),  The Abominable Showman (1983), Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit (1984), The Rose of England (1985), Pinker and Prouder Than Previous (1988), and Party of One (1990) on CD and LP all in one place.

Considering the second-hand availability of the albums at a significantly lower price, Yep Roc has cleverly come up with an enticing sales pitch – for a limited time only, if you buy a bundle of all six reissues together, they'll throw in a Nick Lowe lunchbox gratis!

If purchasing the vinyl versions of the reissues, the LPs come with a bonus 45 of live tracks, demos, and rarities, as well as a digital download card. For those getting the CD versions, the 45 tracks are included as bonus tracks. Sorry lunchbox collectors, the snazzy tin sandwich carrier is not sold separately.

Listen to that horribly dated drum sound on "My Heart Hurts" from Nick The Knife (below).

Fiver presents Audible Songs From Rockwood @ St. Matthew's United Church on Friday; Array Space on Saturday

Simone Schmidt performs songs inspired by the stories of women inmates at Kingston's Rockwood Asylum. 

Simone Schmidt, aka Fiver, is a Toronto-based musician working within the frame of traditional North American folk music. Her latest album Audible Songs From Rockwood is a series of eleven fictional field recordings, gathered from case files of patients at the Rockwood Asylum for the Criminally Insane between 1854-1881.

The rigour of Schmidt’s writing process is shown through the work: Over the course of two years, Schmidt researched the asylum's primary documents – patient files, architectural diagrams, superintendents' diaries –  spinning her findings into historical fiction and, from there, into song. The voices on the record are crafty, witty, evasive, despondent, and lucid. Audible Songs From Rockwood shapes its subject matter with wit, optimism, sadness, and even joy. Using an acoustic sonic pallet and working with some local heavies in the old time folk tradition – John Showman, Max Heineman, Chris Coole, Kristine Schmidt – and highly skilled instrumentalists – cellist Cris Derksen and Blood Ceremony's Alia O’Brien  – the performances gives voice to  people living in the margins of history.

The album is accompanied by a book created by fictional ethnomusicologist, Simone Carver, written in the style of the liner notes of Smithsonian Folkways compilations.  It includes lyrics and supplemental information about the historical context of the inmates and their songs along with original artwork by Darby Milbraith, Geneva Hailey, Jennifer Castle, Jeff Bierk and Julianna Neufeld. The package carries questions about the archive as an apparatus of colonial power, definitions of sanity and criminality, and the early settler-colonial agenda foundational to those modes of thought still operating in today’s carceral system. Watch the mini-documentary shot by Colin Medley followed by Meg Remy's video for the song Mouser. Audible Songs From Rockwood is available in various formats from idée fixe records which you can get right here.

Fiver is at St. Matthew's United Church (729 St. Clair West) Friday at 7:30pm (now sold out);
also at Array Space (155 Walnut Ave) Saturday at 9:30pm, $15.