Sorry about the dirth of updates - between Modest Mouse and (I think) Christopher O'Riley, two of my six 1&1 mp3 hosting accounts have kicked the bucket from bandwidth over-use. Reluctantly, then, I gotta ask again: if anyone's got a server, high-bandwidth account, .mac account, etc., that they'd be interested in sharing with Said the gramophone, our gratitude would know no bounds. (email me at iwillforeverbeyourslave@shakeitlikeapolaroidpicture.com.)

Oh, by the way, elvithprethley.com now points here, if the full URL is tiring your fingers and you have bookmarkaphobia.

All my whingeing about hosting aside, I will continue posting mp3s until I can't - and there's still four more accounts to burn through.

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The Wrens? Good god do they want to be where they are right now. After fourteen years, they've finally arrived, and they're relishing every second. Their set sounded like Meadowlands, basically, only with twice as much energy and roar, and half the sound-quality. They're not really my thing - I left early - but damn if "Happy" isn't a great song.

The Divine Comedy - "Our Mutual Friend". My favourite thing off their new one, Absent Friends. It's the stabs of strings that make it work, the orchestral drum-tambourine thump, the loose and smilingly unhappy vocals. It's sort of like an Evelyn Waugh "Norwegian Wood." The band's perhaps a little too grandiose for their own good - North America doesn't usually embrace such pompadour affectations - but if someone were to make a Rough Guide to the Divine Comedy, I'd buy it tout suite.

Oh - Dan Beirne, the fine tangmonkey writer will be appearing with his dry-and-true-witted sketch comedy troupe, Better Than Shakespeare, at Montreal's Comedyworks on Sunday. Furthermore, they will be accompanied by Montreal's finest blizzard bossanova group, The Diskettes. It will be a very, very good time.