Dispatch 1: Love From Rainy London

Rainy London

There’s not much else to do when it’s rainy but stay inside and pay tribute.

Say Say Say (MJ+PMcC) by Woodpigeon

xox, mark and louise hull… Continue reading


Ready, Set, Go.

Ready, Set, Go.

Tomorrow afternoon, WP leaves the comfy confines of our prairie Canadian abodes for a short string of festivals and shows in UK cities we haven’t made it to quite yet. In preparation, the focus has not stayed on booking the necessary train tickets or filling the gaps left in accommodations. No, instead, it has been the far more important act of filling up one’s iPod touch that has taken up much of this last-minute panic zone.

Just added: Scout Niblett’s This Fool Can Die Now, Quasi’s Field Studies and Featuring “Birds”, Stereolab’s Sound-Dust, and The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs. These join Coeur de Pirate’s Coeur de Pirate, Do Make Say Think’s You, You’re a History in Dust, and John Cale’s Paris 1919. I’ve been figuring out a perfect time and place … Continue reading


NXNE 2009: we came, we played, we ate pad thai

nxne

Damn, Toronto. This is total ‘from the bottom of our hearts’ kind of stuff: thanks for the amazing weekend. Thanks for packing into the Horseshoe and making us feel welcome (and a tip of the hat to Grant Lawrence for reminding us that NXNE was also our return to playing on Canadian soil for the first time in months), and for somehow letting us go over the written-in-stone LIVE ON CBC / NXNE set time allotments. And oh, the whole surprise live-on-air awarding of the NXNE Galaxie Rising Star award thing was an added beautiful surprise. We’ll come back any time you’ll have us, Toronto.

As for the rest of our trip, that too was grand. Boompa Erin and I tried to take in as many Pad Thais as possible over the course of four food-stuffed days. The Red Room … Continue reading


When the going gets tough, the tough get going

windows

Seriously, if you’d ever told me that we’d someday find ourselves on a list of names alongside Leonard Cohen vying for the same prize title, I’d have laughed in your face. Really close and spitty-like. With deep, throaty guffaws. But, alas, it’s happened, and Woodpigeon’s Treasury Library Canada c/w Houndstooth Europa was named this morning as one of the records on the Polaris Prize’s long list, alongside such personal favourites as Chad Van Gaalen’s Soft Airplane and WOMEN’s self-titled record. And oh. Leonard Cohen.

But where’s everyone else? It’s easy to feel complimented by this sort of thing, but once you realize who didn’t make the list, it’s kind of mind-boggling. Every blogger from here to Halifax has already written on who they think is missing, but here’s a couple of others we really think you should check out: … Continue reading