Willie sings Christmas classics, and none of the really annoying Christmas songs you never want to hear again like “Feliz Navidad” or “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Highly recomended.

This latest album from one of Canada’s finest bands comes as a surprise, as it wasn’t originally due for another two months. The band decided to release it to the internet almost immediately after they finished production. I have enjoyed each release since Nightsongs was released in 2001, and their live show at Bimbo’s in San Francisco rates among the best shows I’ve ever seen (including seeing the Cure, the Buzzcocks and the Tragically Hip at the Eden Festival at a racetrack in rural Ontario). Stars makes beautifully elegant indie-pop, occasionally showing electronica influences and often veering into clear Smiths/Morrissy territory (they covered “This Charming Man” on their first album!).

In Our Bedroom After the War strikes a fairly consistent tempo throughout and is dominated by the vocals of singers Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan. While previous albums seemed more dependent on the instrumentation and melody, this album is held together by very bare-sounding (but beautiful) voices.The song “Barricade” consists mostly of a simple piano part with Torq’s voice singing over it (a clarinet (?) and a sound sample come in at the very end), and both “Midnight Coward” and “Personal” feature male/female back and forth vocal parts reminiscent of some of the band’s earlier work. I also have to say that at times, particularly during “The Ghost of Genoa Heights”, it almost starts to sound like 1980s soft rock.

“Bitches in Tokyo” breaks free of the tempo set by the rest of the songs on this album, with loud guitars and crashing symbols letting loose as the song explodes. It’s the one song I can imagine the crowd dancing to at a concert (and maybe some jumping around during “Take me to the Riot”).

There is less reliance on obvious electronic instrumentation here than on Stars’ previous albums. It also does not seem like a natural sequel to 2004’s Set Yourself on Fire but it is by no means a letdown. Much like some of Morrissey’s recent output (think You are the Quarry) the album is good and will probably get better with each listen, but nothing on it stands out immediately. Maybe after a week of listening I’ll have a favourite?

The final track ends is the grand ballad “In Our Bedroom After the War” with the line repeated again and again “the living are dead and the dead are all living.” Conflating war and romance (one of the band’s favorite themes) the song alludes to fact that in war now there is never an “after the war” because the war never ends.

If you’re already a Stars fan, go and download this today (the CD doesn’t hit stores until September 25th). If you’re not a Stars fan yet, I suggest listening to Nightsongs and Set Yourself on Fire first. This album falls somewhere in the middle of the two stylistically and slightly behind them qualitatively.

I almost missed this show because I didn’t even hear about it until the last minute. My friend Jason had an extra ticket, so after a brief stop at the California Academy of Sciences I headed over the Berkeley.

The Berkeley Community Theater is part of Berkeley High School, which makes it an interesting place to see a show being played by a band that you listened to while you were actually attending high school. Waiting outside and seeing people in their original Sonic Youth, Mudhoney and Nirvana tee shirts really took me back to seeing Nirvana for $12 in 1993 at the University at Buffalo’s gym.

Tonight’s show was a special performance of the groundbreaking album Daydream Nation. It was part of a mini-tour Sonic Youth is doing that will also travel to Los Angeles and New York and is being put on as part of the “Don’t Look Back” concerts series. The series features seminal bands of the last 20-30 years playing concerts that feature their most memorable work.

As you can see (faintly) here, the stage was set with a huge fabric candle in the background, alluding to the Gerhard Richter painting on the cover of the album:

This was a fantastic album to hear live because of the inherently performative nature of Sonic Youth’s best work. It is rigorous and experimental with elements of improvisation in layers of distortion and feedback. The band also tried out some alternate-alternate tunings to change things up from the original album. All of this combined to make the album feel much more psychedelic than it does when listening to parts of it at home on a CD.

Considering the band has been playing together since 1981 and the key members are all in their late-40s to early-50s, the sound is still remarkably fresh and the band members are all amazingly energetic- especially considering they were playing an album that is now itself almost 20 years old. Kim Gordon couldn’t stop moving as she sang, and at one point during the encore she jumped off the stage and danced through the crowd from one side of the floor to the other.

After they finished playing the full album, there was a short break and the band came back out for an encore of newer music from Rather Ripped, starting with “Incinerate” and ending with “Do You Believe in Rapture?” It was interesting to hear the old album and new album performed live side-by-side. There were clearly many similarities, even in musical phrasings. I think the newer material could have been cut short though- I would love to look back and think about the night I heard Sonic Youth play Daydream Nation, not the night I sat in the hot balcony just a little bit too long listening to a different album that isn’t quite as good as the one they put out in 1988.

The highlight was certainly going to the San Francisco zoo on Saturday. Natasha and I went to see the new Grizzly Gulch exhibit that was just completed for a pair of female bears that were relocated to San Francisco from Montana. They were orphaned at a young age and had become too aggressive around humans, so the options were either to relocate them to a zoo or kill them. San Francisco offered to house them and built this fantastic new exhibit for them- it allows you to get inches from them through glass walls spaced through the eclosure. As you can see in my photo, the bears are clearly visible to zoogoers… even when they are sniffing their own poop.

Last night I had the opportunity to see Architecture in Helsinki at Bimbo’s 365 Club with my friend Ariane. It was a fantastic show, and it was made better by opening bands Yacht (from Portland) and Still Flyin’ from San Francisco. Yaht is one guy who does everything, and Still Flyin’ is 19 people who also do everything and play a fun variety of music that sounds something like a children’s chorus blended with ska. I’m not sure that is the most accurate description.

Speaking of music, I also stopped by Aquarius Records and picked up the classic Kurtis Blow EP “Party Time?” on vinyl for a dollar yesterday. Then I had to go to Radio Shack and get cords to hook my record player up to my stereo. It was certainly worth it. Despite questioning Mr. Blow’s lyrical judgement at times (i.e. “Corporate leaders smokin’ joints, big time athletes shavin’ points”) this is a very enjoyable album for it’s musical qualities alone. It’s not “The Breaks” but it’s pretty decent and touches on a number of political issues of the early 1980s. Plus, you’ve got to love the cover art. Yes- that is the New York State Department of Unemployment in the background.

Today was another unexpected day of warm weather in San Francisco. Check out the beach: