Arcade Fire on SNL

Intervention...

Keep The Car Running...

SNL Digital Short: Business Meeting...

Jorm (SNL writer) dancing backstage to/for Arcade Fire...

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The Rosebuds in Moscow

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The Broken West Tour Diary: Entry # 2

Febuary 10th Government Camp, Oregon

After the success of the last couple of shows, it's fair to say the mood was pensive in the van on the way up to Mt. Hood. It all changed when we arrived at The Ratskeller and were greeted by the owner Jamie, who kindly offered us anything on the menu and drinks free of charge. As we set up, people flooded in, some in skiing attire, some with dreadlocks and some looking like they came off a Phish tour. Wait, that was everyone.

The show went well even though all anybody wanted to hear was a 10 minute guitar solo. We decided to play "Baby on My Arm" for the first time and "Horse". After the show Jamie offered us a room in his place. After Ross jumped off Jamie's deck into 10 feet of snow, we all went upstairs to our military style quarters, with 4 sets of bunk beds, and feel asleep to Viva Voce filling our ears from the the downstairs stereo. So nice.

(CONTINUED: Click permalink below for more tour diary entries from 2/11-2/15)



Febuary 11th Salt Lake City

What can I say about Salt Lake City that hasn't been said before? With it's numbered streets and 1% percent beer, it is unlike any place we have ever been before.
The same can be said about Kilby Court.

Kilby Court is an aluminum shack located in a warehouse district in downtown Salt Lake. The crowd and "club" personnel were more than gracious and people seemed in high spirits. On the way back to the hotel we heard about the tragedy that happened within a few blocks of us that night. Poor Salt Lake.

Febuary 12th Denver

Denver was painted white when we arrived at The Hi-Dive on Tuesday night. What a great venue and great people. However, the band was unable to give them the show they deserved. Ya know what they say about high altitudes and drinking.

February 15th Phoenix

On the drive to Phoenix, snow was quickly replaced by barren deserts and sun-filled hills and I have to say the warm weather kind of made us miss LA.

Modified Arts is an art space/venue located in Downtown Phoenix. The first face we saw upon entering the venue was Pat Sanone who plays in this band..um..Wilco? I think that's right. Anyway, around the corner was John Stirrat of Wilco as well. Crazy right? John said, "I heard a couple of your songs online and really liked them".
We said, "We'll check your band Wilco out and maybe we could play together
sometime." He replied, "How about The Forum tomorrow night? I'll meet you there, you can start with out me." Nice.

We played a quieter set with Ross playing acoustic the whole show. It seemed to go well. There is something nice about the occasional sit-down show. People really
seem to listen.

On our way back to California. See you in Tucson in a week!

-dan

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Arcade Fire shows

The Arcade Fire shows at Judson Memorial Church in NYC started last night! Also, Arcade Fire announced their North American Tour yesterday! Less than a month until the release of Neon Bible! We are taking pre-orders now!

Here are some little internet tidbits about the shows so far! Post more if you got'em!

Idolator
Best Week Ever
Spin.com
Stereogum
Brooklyn Vegan
Perez Hilton (For you fellow Celebrity Gossip Mongers)
Toronto Star
Toronto Globe & Mail

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The Broken West Tour Diary

Mon, Feb 5 - San Francisco

Day one of the tour! We were excited. We loaded up the van at Danny's house, stopped in Glendale to pick up the lovely and very talented Darice Bailey (keys), and we were off. Fairly uneventful drive, which was good...we drove by Harris Ranch on I-5 which never fails to disgust with its pungent odors of death (it is a very large cattle ranch)--it was enough to make even the most ardent steak-lover (read: me) re-think eating meat...we got to Cafe du Nord around 5pm and loaded in. They furnished a very tasty dinner--pork chops, biscuits, mashed potatos...everyone at Cafe du Nord is exceedingly nice...Rob the club manager went out of his to make us feel welcome. The show was a total jam--a great crowd of about 100 nice folks, and it was a great way to start the tour. Our friend and "tour manager" Ben, who in his real life is an overpaid "strategy consultant", put us up at a swank hotel we could never afford on our own. They even had oxygen canisters in the room, though despite our best efforts we couldn't really "feel" the effects of the oxygen.

-Ross

Tues, Feb 6 - Travel Day/Hanging in Davis at Ben's Folks' House

Mellow day...I had a very tasty seared Ahi tuna burger then we drove to Davis, CA, where Ben grew up and where is his folks still live. We took it easy--Ben's folks were very generous and hospitable, cooking us a very tasty dinner of sausage and tri-tip, in spite of Dan being introduced several times as autistic. That night we watched "The Limey" with Terrence Stamp, one of my favorite movies. Went to bed early.

-Ross

(CONTINUED: Click permalink below for more tour diary entries from 2/7-2/9)



Wed, Feb 7 - Eugene, OR

Long day of driving--Northern CA and southern OR are beautiful...looks like the planet Endor from Return of the Jedi. It was kind of a raining, misty mountain hop sort of day. We got to Eugene around 6PM and went straight to the venue, Sam Bond's Garage...they had a lot of nice beer and tasty pizza. Eugene, to be frank, however, was kind of a letdown--there are a LOT of hippies and overall, just kind of a weird vibe. They seem to like aliens a lot--there are lots of drawings og otherworldly creatures. The cashier at the health food store--who was very nice--was the highest person we'd ever seen our lives. The show was kind of a letdown, though we did meet Conrad, a crazy, crazy old hippie who defies description. He made many outrageous claims (one of which is that he does a one-man, a cappella Doors tribute act), got really drunk, and basically freaked us all out. We retired to a fleabit motel and all contracted one thing or another from the sheets...the best part was the big sign in the bathroom that said "Don't Steal the Towels and Linens"--and then the bathmat said "Hilton" on it.

-Ross


Thursday, Feb 8 - Portland, OR

We were all very excited to go to Portland, Ross and Dan never having been. We rolled into town and met with up with our wonderful booking agent Kevin. We set up shop at his killer pad and made our way to the Doug Fir Lounge , which is easliy one of the nicest places we have ever played. The food, the soundcheck/soundguy were all very much to our liking. We played a great show for a very respectful, appreciative audience who didn't seem to have any money for buying records. Jim Fairchild (of Grandaddy) has a new band called All Smiles and they were really god. Jim Fairchild might be one of the nicest, sweetest guys we've ever met--Ross has a huge man-crush on him. Ross also has a crush on Janet Weiss. Anyway, it was an amazing night all around. Special Thanks to Kevin and Kelly for all the hospitality.

-Brian

Friday, Feb 9 - Seattle, WA

It was a wonderful homecoming for me, and another first time visit for Dan and Ross. We went immediately to KEXP and did a short performance on air. The people at KEXP are True Believers and they are invariably warm and supportive of the band (this being our second meeting; we all remember the fireworks from our performance on air during CMJ). We then loading into Sunset Tavern and somehow killed four hours either napping or drinking before the show. We had a great, great crowd and played our balls off, despite the drinking/napping. For the first time (for me anyway) there were people mouthing the words to our songs. That is a crazy feeling, although I would like to know how they figured them out; I'm pretty sure none of us know the words to anything except the chorus of "Down in the Valley".

After the show we drove to Snonhomish to stay with my family. We listened to John Lennon and arrived very late. My aunt, uncle and cousin went above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks so much for the hospitality guys! Special thanks to Mike Goldberg for the nice writeup in Seattle Weekly, and also I want to give a shout out to my big brother Dave since I blew it on the radio.

-Brian


Now off to Government Camp, OR to play Mt Hood...more entries soon!!!

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The Broken West on KEXP!

The Broken West made their radio airwaves debut on KEXP in NYC during CMJ in late 2006 and it went so well that they are stopping by again! This time, the band will visit the KEXP studios in Seattle at 4pm PST / 7pm EST this evening!

You can listen live HERE! I will post the link to the archives when they are posted.

The Broken West have also promised to provide us with a tour diary of their adventures on the road! We should have something for you on Monday!

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M. Ward Guest DJ's on WXRT in Chicago

The last time M. Ward was in Chicago, he visited WXRT for a guest DJ set on The Eclectic Company with host Nicholas Tremulis. Listen to Matt's mad record-spinning skillz live tonight at 10 pm CST!

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Arcade Fire cover "Guns of Brixton!"

NME Reports:

Arcade Fire cover The Clash in London
The Canadian band pay tribute to local punk legends

Arcade Fire covered The Clash at the third of their week of London shows last night (January 31).

The Canadian band, performing their final night at St Johns' Church in Westminster, started their set in similar fashion to the previous night by going into the middle of the crowd to perform acoustically. But instead of playing their own 'Wake Up', they performed a mandolin-led acoustic version of The Clash track 'The Guns Of Brixton', a Paul Simonon number which appears on their 1979 classic 'London Calling'.

The band then took to the stage and kicked off the set proper with forthcoming single 'Keep The Car Running'. Most tracks were lifted from forthcoming album 'Neon Bible', including 'Black Mirror', 'Intervention', 'Windowsill' and 'Ocean Of Noise'.

Arcade Fire did find time to play tracks from their debut album 'Funeral' - 'Rebellion (Lies)' and set closer 'Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)'.

The set was:

'The Guns Of Brixton'
'Keep The Car Running'
'Black Mirror'
'No Cars Go'
'Black Wave/Bad Vibrations'
'Windowsill'
'The Well And The Lighthouse'
'Ocean Of Noise'
'Rebellion (Lies)'
'Intervention'
'(Antichrist Television Blues)'
'My Body Is A Cage'
'Neighborhood # 1 (Tunnels)'

The band now head for Porchester Hall in the west of the city to play two sold-out shows tonight and tomorrow (February 1, 2).

NME reported on the first 2 shows as well - Night 1 & Night 2.

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