Notable News

So, we've had a few interesting developments in the past few weeks. For me personally, I've bought tickets to a bunch of concerts. This shall be quite the month for shows.

On Thursday I'm headed up to Hartford to see Head Automatica. This is a fantastic electrodancepop band, and their first album was produced by music god Dan the Automator. All their songs are anthemtic sing and dance along compositions, so it should be a fun concert. This will most likely be a younger crowd, more reminiscent of my early concertgoing days, seeing ska bands like Goldfinger and Catch 22. The very first concert I went to was Goldfinger at Irving Plaza in the Spring of 2002, it's still one of my most memorable shows, the crowd was so into it and the whole concert experience was completely new to me. So, hopefully this crowd will be like that and not the stand around too cool for this bunch you run into at a lot of shows.

A week later, on March 3rd, I'll be going to New York City to see Belle and Sebastian and The New Pornographers. These are two of my favorite bands, both featured in the soundtrack to my film Ricky Frost. I saw Belle back in October at the Across the Narrows Festival and it was a great show. I've gotten more into their music since then, and they've got a fantastic new album to draw tracks from. However, I think I'm even more excited for the New Pornos. Their stuff is so fun, high energy, it should be great live. I really want to hear "Testament to Youth in Verse."

And two weeks after that, I'll be going to Irving Plaza to see Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins. She's the frontwoman of Rilo Kiley, and she's out supporting her solo album. It's a great gospel/country/rock piece with some great harmonies courtsey of the twins. You can download the whole album here, legally. Definitely check out "Rise Up With Fists," that's the highlight of the album.

So, this should be a fun bunch of weeks. I'll have reviews of all the shows as they happen.

In other news out there, I was really excited to hear Grant Morrison talk about his plans for a potential Invisibles catchup book, along the lines of Sandman: Endless Nights. The Invisibles is the greatest work of fiction of all time, a work overwhelming in its scope, idea and character. I think it ends perfectly and is pretty much complete as is, however, I'd love to see Grant go back to the universe, even if only for a series of not particularly important short stories, just to fill in some of the undiscussed time periods, more stuff with Edie, or with what the characters do between 2000 and the last issue in 2012.

Grant has never let me down before, and I'm sure if he chose to go back to The Invisibles, it's for good reason.

In other exciting news, Mike Patton talked about plans for a new Lovage album. The original album is one of my top five albums all time, a perfect blend of 60s lounge stylings with modern hip hop to create a unique timeless album. It's completely unique and features astonishing performances from Patton and Jennifer Charles.

So, I would be thrilled to see a new Lovage album. I really regret not getting to see their live show the first time, so a new tour would be cool, but more importantly, there's still a lot of potential territory to cover with the concept. Apparently, Jennifer Charles has not yet committed to the follow up, I'd consider her essential to the album, and I'm assuming she'll get picked up eventually. Though I imagine there will be some changes, along the lines of the shifts between the first and second Handsome Boy Modeling School albums.

Still, just to get new Lovage material would be worth it. Automator hasn't done an album in a while, so I'd be happy to see anything from him. Patton's Peeping Tom album sounds pretty cool as well, I'll definitely check that out when it's available.

I have a feeling that I'll be waiting a while for both the new Invisibles stuff and the new Lovage album, but when it does arrive, that will be a glorious day.