The past couple of months have been a bit strange for me and my usually peachy relationship with music. I don’t know why 2008’s been so troublesome, but never have I felt so old and just plain out-of-it as I have this year. I always expected that as I grew older, I’d eventually stop listening to new music and become one of Those People—you know, the ones convinced all the interesting music was made years ago, coincidentally around the time they were in high school or college—but never did I imagine the decline would be so steep or sudden.

It’s in that limbo that I went to Lee’s Palace on Thursday night to catch the Long Blondes, a band whose show last year made me beg for their return. “Couples,” however, is not the immediately satisfying listen that Someone to Drive You Home was, and evidence suggests a lot of people feel the same way I do. So I carried three levels of uncertainty into that concert. Would the new material sound better live? Was my infatuation with the Long Blondes necessarily a short-lived affair? And did any or all of this have anything to do with the fact that me and music appeared to be breaking up with one another?

This probably sounds like way too much introspection for a concert, but then I’ve been trying to figure out the Long Blondes all over again ever since “Couples” came out. First impressions were pretty dismal; aside from “Century,” “Guilt” and “Here Comes the Serious Bit,” there didn’t seem to be anything on the album to convince anyone the Long Blondes were here to stay. But since then, my feelings about the album reached a bizarre equilibrium: there’s still nothing on the new album that satisfies like the old, and yet I can’t quite imagine going back, nor can I get some of these songs out of my head. The chorus to “Erin O’Connor” lingers, even though I can’t bring myself to say I love the song; similarly “Round the Hairpin” and “Too Clever by Half” have gone from dismal failures to stealth favourites in the space of a month. And still I can’t say “Couples” is great; it’s like I can accept the album on an intellectual basis or a subconscious basis, but in the region of my brain that traditionally loves pop music to bits… nothing.

So let’s talk about the show, yeah? It wasn’t so dissimilar from last year’s epic show, but everything else seemed to have changed. The crowd didn’t seem as large or nearly as enthusiastic, for one: at the end of the show it looked seriously like there’d be no encore, so weak was the final applause. Maybe it had something to do with the new songs, only about half of which had the energy of old favourites like “Once and Never Again.” It probably didn’t help that Kate Jackson, the obvious focal point of the band’s stage presence, would occasionally retire to the back of the stage to bang on a snare drum or play keyboards. When Kate disappears from view, you’re left with Dorian, Emma and Reenie up front, and you realize that while the rest of the band may be charmers off stage (Screech and Emma seemed in high spirits after the show at the merch table), on stage they have a more standoff-ish stance. It’s as though they’re content to let Kate be the center of attention.

But they did the same sorts of things last year and everyone ate it up, which leads me to believe the real issue wasn’t so much the show itself as everything else. Standing about a foot away from the stage, and seeing a ragged front row another foot behind me, it almost felt like the rest of the audience had experienced the same musical fatigue I had over the past few months. Maybe the fun people had better things to do on a Thursday night, or maybe I was too busy taking photos half the night to notice (but I put down the camera halfway through the night and noticed no difference!), or maybe I’m just projecting. But last night’s show was not the lethargy antidote I’d hoped it would be, and I can’t even say whether that’s the Long Blondes’ fault, the crowd’s fault, or just my own.

Quick notes:

• “Century” sounds great with a faster tempo, but the laser-blast synths from the middle section were sorely missed. Nevertheless it still remains one of my favourite Long Blondes songs to date.
• “Lust In the Movies” is a great song, but “Swallow Tattoo” and “Separated By Motorways” still wins by a landslide for best. encore. ever.
• I missed most of Hunter Valentine but did catch the Drug Rug set. Their live show turns down the manicured back-country feel of the album and turns up the bluesiness a tad, and the female guitarist doesn’t sound nearly so much like Joanna Newsom in person, so I guess you can add Drug Rug to the list of bands that sound way better live than recorded. Also, BEARDS.

I’m not alone in asking the question; shortly after the first Stewart and Colbert episodes on Monday, TVSquad wondered about the same thing. Who does the graphics? Who ties jokes to those graphics? Who picks out clips and decides they should be the target of ridicule? And in the case of all the talk shows returning without writers, not just Stewart and Colbert, who does the research and plans the questions for the guests? Some of these tasks seem distinctly writer-ish.

Some more insights into TheA Daily Show during the writers’ strike comes from an audience member who saw the taping of Monday’s episode. On the one hand, the description of how the first segment played out originally makes it clear Stewart’s ad-libbing. But then there was the question from the audience of how the show came together, and Stewart’s statement that “thoughts didn’t go through the fingertips”—in other words, an outline of the show but no script. Does writing cease to be writing if you make it sufficiently vague or don’t actually put it down on paper? When you’re not coming up with specific jokes, but you are sketching out topics to cover, is that planning or writing?

One thing’s for sure—by the time the writers’ strike is over, the average television viewer will probably have a much better idea of just what a writer does on a talk show, if only because these sorts of questions are going to keep coming up.

We turned up in Bristol and started unloading only to find the venue locked. We went around the front and found the whole place shut down and a notice announcing the rest of their tour was cancelled due to ‘band illness’. No one had bothered to tell us anything. The only reason we were on this fucking tour was that band. They were all amazing shows, we might have broken even, we might have got some new fans and then they come along and cancel. They’ve never bothered to contact us. They’re not that popular with us right now.

Lizzie Powell of Land of Talk, who was understandably a bit miffed after the Decemberists cancelled the European tour Land of Talk was supposed to support. Thankfully the band is safe and sound back in North America, where at least they have a tour and venues to play. The interview is a bit of a downer—Lizzie’s pessimistic about the value of music, the band gets ticketed in London for setting up a recording session in a park near Buckingham Palace, and, oh yeah, the Decemberists split town without telling anyone and the band was out the cost of assorted transportation and accomodation expenses. Add that to having their original drummer leave the band earlier this year (and as Chromewave mentions, having their gear stolen after returning from the UK), and you start to wonder how many awful twists of fate the band can take before—well, I dare not say.

But if the unthinkable does happen one of these days, I’ll know who to blame. I’ll organize a show with the Decemberists, and then leave them stranded. In the middle of the Sahara fucking dessert.

Anyways, it turns out that because I got the Wii version, and because people have long ago figured out how to connect the Wiimote to a Bluetooth-equipped PC, it means I can connect my Wii guitar to my computer and play Frets on Fire. The day after the game came out, someone had already put together a GlovePIE script for the guitar. This is great except Frets on Fire comes with just three songs. But I didn’t hook up my guitar just to play songs on my computer. Oh no. I hooked up my guitar so I could make songs on my computer. Fake songs. Or rather, fake frets to real songs that I didn’t originally write.

Basically I have become a pretend Harmonix/Neversoft song developer for the weekend. And it’s strange the things you learn about music when you have to line up brightly coloured dots to the beat that correspond to buttons people are supposed to press in order to pretend they’re playing guitar. Perhaps the most frustrating thing, one that’s given me a new fondness for metronomes, is that some bands can’t seem to keep a steady beat. Be Your Own Pet is an awesome band, but holy crap does the bpm change with practically every measure of “Ouch!”

Why does this matter? Because generally games like Frets on Fire and Guitar Hero tend to assume that time signatures and tempos don’t change very much, if at all, during a song. It’s a very digital way of looking at things—everything in regular intervals, no divergence—but it doesn’t exactly reflect reality very well, especially with the smaller bands whose songs I most desperately want to play. So, if you’re an indie band who wants desperately to have a song featured in the next Guitar Hero or Rock Band game, here’s a tip: buy a metronome and use it.

The pointless crush my car/breakdown/stupid car tricks segments: gone. The daytime-TV interstitials: less cutesy and less traditional (though some may not like the new Paul Greengrass shakycam feel to the new interstitials). The great reviews and insightful chatter: piled on! More Tiff: check. More Tom: check. Really, it’s an improvement on almost every element of the last season, itself a major improvement over the horrific season 10.

The 12th season really leaves just one major problem spot to deal with. Why is it that the British motoring shows seem to think we want more celebrities in our shows? Perhaps I’d care more if I actually knew any of the British footballers and talk show hosts Fifth Gear has on every week, but even if you replaced every single one with Christina Ricci the celeb segments would still be horrible. Celebrities driving cars do not often make for good television, and definitely not when Jason Plato pulls his usual “ha ha, look at how much I can scare the civvies by driving sideways!” schtick. The only segment in recent memory that bucked this trend was the Girls Aloud segment, and then only because one or two of the women actually seemed interested in going fast. Even then we got Plato’s lovely “don’t let girls around your Ferraris” comment at the end. Even that was ten times more exciting than the usual “let’s give this cricketer a Lamborghini and see how fast he can drive it” spot.

So consider this another well-reasoned plea to the producers of Fifth Gear. This time we’re only asking for one thing: remove the insipid celebrity fawning spots, add in another car review (or hell, bring Jon Bentley back in front of the camera, he was actually making decent, informative segments before he disappeared), and suddenly you’ve got a top-notch, high-quality show that acts perfectly as the higher minded, more journalistic compliment to Top Gear’s crazy antics.

Of course, if the usual trend continues, next year we’ll get an all-new Fifth Gear where Vicki Butler-Henderson co-hosts with Clint Eastwood’s monkey live from the Chunnel tunnel, Tiff Needell is replaced by Tim Lovejoy in drag, and all the segments feature Geri Halliwell giving you tips on how to do handbrake turns. Stay tuned.

(The title of this post is apparently taken from the end credits of the UK short film Blowout, though obviously it applies to a great many other films.)

After that purchase I learned about bits and pieces of the band’s history, scattered across the internet and missing big chunks of time—like what was the deal with the first two albums, and did Prolapse tour The Italian Flag in America, and hey how come they haven’t released anything lately? And then there were the stories, heard fifth-hand like legendary myths of derring-do on the I Love Music boards, of Prolapse’s live insanity—Scottish Mick the angry ranter and Linda Steelyard the woman scorned, yelling and screaming at each other and beating the living shit out of one another on stage. It’s not as though you couldn’t hear that weird tension in the music, but to see it laid bare like that must’ve been one hell of an experience.

Eight years on, Prolapse is definitely no more, and it seemed like the band’s history would be forever told in bits of half-forgotten internet scripture. But no more, because now we have this dizzying e-mail interview with every member of the band, a sort of oral retrospective of Prolapse’s too-short-by-half history. The most entertaining parts are, of course, the stories about the live shows, but there’s plenty as well on the writing and recording process, the breakup, and life after Prolapse. I figured everyone had forgotten about Prolapse, and never thought I’d see anything as detailed as this interview. Finding this interview has completely made my day.

1. “Swallow Tattoo” followed by “Separated by Motorways”? Best. encore. ever.
2. I can’t decide whether I like the actual intro to “Fulwood Babylon,” “People think I’m being/perverse on purpose,” or what I thought I heard during the show: “People think I’m weird/but that’s on purpose.” How ’bout we call that one a draw?
3. I was walking out with a gaggle of girls who seemed relatively unfamiliar with the Long Blondes, but all they were saying to each other was how it was the funnest show they’d been to in ages. I completely fucking agree.
4. I hear Kate Jackson and company might be returning to North America in September. PLEASE COME BACK TO TORONTO.

Between Land of Talk, the Pipettes and the Long Blondes, the beginning of June has been very good to me concert-wise. I don’t see how the rest of the summer could possibly top this.