28th September 2004
It was mostly mutual

UK Tour
• BNL are back in the UK at the end of November - 5 dates have been announced so far:
November
Saturday 27th - Leeds University
Sunday 28th - Dublin Olympia
Tuesday 30th - Glasgow Academy
December
Wednesday 1st - Liverpool Royal Court
Friday 3rd - London Shepherd's Bush Empire
(I'm pretty sure this is the complete set of dates now - Shaun got it confirmed for us.)

The BNL Variety Show!
• Fox TV in the USA are going to do a pilot TV show starring BNL. It's to be a comedy sketch show, starring the guys and special guest stars, with music and ad lib sketches running through the show. Read more here.

Prius pride
• The Montreal Gazette has a little article online with Steve giving his reasons for driving a hybrid fuel car - the Prius. It also mentions that he was one of the people responsible for a wind turbine in Toronto, which I hadn't heard about before, but is very cool. For lots of reasons I love wind turbines - there should definitely be more of them about. Read the article here.

Holiday album - UK release
• The Barenaked for the Holidays album is the first BNL have released independently since the Yellow Tape back in the day (Desperation Records). Steve talks about it in his recent blog. It's released in the UK the same day as North America (possibly some of the whinging we all did about EtoE being delayed when they came over in May had an effect! ;) ). Find out more here.
Track list:
Jingle Bells
Green Christmas
I Saw Three Ships
Hanukkah Blessings
Oh Holy Night
Elf's Lament (with Michael Buble)
Snowman
Do They Know It's Christmas
Hanukkah O Hanukkah
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Carol of the Bells
Footprints
Deck the Stills
Christmastime (Oh Yeah)
Sleigh Ride
Christmas Pics
I Have a Little Dreidel
Wonderful Christmastime
Auld Lang Syne

3rd June 2004
Maybe it would be fun, to get a new opinion

Sonic Bloom
• BNL did an unbelievable show with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on Saturday 29th May...
• Here's a preview article.
• Set list:
One Week
Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel
Sell, Sell, Sell
Another Postcard
Next Time
War on Drugs
If I Had a Million Dollars
Another Postcard was performed with a full choir backing! Jim played with the symphony orchestra before joining BNL for their section. I wish I could have been there!

Night Light
• Here's a nice interview with Kevin Hearn from the Long and McQuade site. Here's Kevin's own site, and here's where you can buy the album.
• And here's a lovely review of Night Light from the Sun Herald.

Lovely Duffy
• I haven't mentioned the lovely Stephen Duffy since I did the redesign, and as Steve Page mentioned him in the Call and Answer-fest last week, I feel I should remind you all how gorgeous the Duffy man is.
• Go and read his (utterly incomprehensible to me, but fun anyway) blog over at thelilactime.com and then go and buy any of his albums that you don't have already.
• If you don't have any (for shame!), then get Lilac 6 - featuring Steven Page, Tyler Stewart, Kevin Hearn and a bunch of heavenly pop songs. You will want to collect the whole set, I promise!
• Apparently the Japanese release of Lilac 6 has a bonus live disc with songs recorded at the Royal Albert Hall show from 2001.
• And here is a new Duffy lyrics site to gawp at. For the Brits in the audience, Mr Duffy's latest collaboration is with Robbie Williams, of all people.
• To see what Cooking Vinyl has to say about Lilac Time, lookee here...

Banana split
• Posted by bnlbri at barenaked.net: regarding the Reprise split, it has been confirmed again by Steve, who said the band will probably have their own label and distribute through Warner. As to what their label will be called...not sure yet...
• (posted before the TSO Show) Steve is really excited about it.....expect surprises, they'll be slow songs and great uptempo songs....wouldn't give me any hints as to what would be played. what stinks though is that this show will NOT be recorded....he said it would be too expensive but depending on how this goes (and of course it'll go really well) they may record something with an orchestra in the future.

23rd May 2004
For every useless reason I know

Blog,blog,blog,blog
• Steve's been a busy blogger-bunny this week - confirming what Ed told us while they were in the UK, that the band are currently recording a 'non-denominational seasonal' (Christmas!) album! Steve has even put a delicious mp3 treat online for us. hee! I still don't get why Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young is funny though...

Let's Jack it Up
• Steven Page co-presented 'Let's Jack it Up' with Jack Layton of Canada's NDP on Saturday 22nd May. It was a night of entertainment and politics, with the aim of getting young people in Canada more involved in politics. Steve said: "It's time to put the party back into the NDP. It's now time for all of us to go out there and convert the complacent." Read the full Toronto Star report here or listen to Steve speaking on Canada AM this morning here.

I left a tip, but it was never a donation
• P2Pnet.net has an interesting article on music file sharing - Ed has a very simple view on it: "I'm totally fine with people downloading music, as long as they steal everything that they want. If you want pants, go steal them. If you need gas in your car, you should steal it, because you can. As long as people are consistent I don't have a problem. As long as they see themselves as thieves in general then I don't mind if they steal everything that they like. But it irks me that it's only okay to steal music." I've heard Kevin, I think, saying a very similar thing. And I totally agree.

Tracks of my years
• The Ken Bruce show on Radio 2 had each of the guys choosing favourite records every day last week - here's how it panned out...
Steve: Cruel To Be Kind Nick Lowe
Take This Waltz Leonard Cohen
Ed: I Never Cared For You Willie Nelson
Wondering Where The Lions Are Bruce Cockburn
Jim: Rockin' In The Free World Neil Young
Policy Of Truth Depeche Mode
Tyler: Helpless Neil Young
I Remember Clifford Keith Jarrett
Kevin: Walk On The Wild Side Lou Reed
Northern Sky Nick Drake
If you'd like to find out more about Nick Drake, Brad Pitt(!) did a radio documentary on BBC Radio 2 at the weekend that you can listen to online here.

The Casino
• On 23rd April, Billboard reported that BNL will make an appearance on Fox's latest reality show ("unscripted drama") in the US. The cameras follow the attempt to bring The Golden Nugget hotel and casino back to its former glory. The show starts on Fox Tuesday 8th June.

All the jaws'll drop
• Little Celebrity review from Onetel - I've included it as there's been so little press about the single over here! Got to take what we can get I guess.
• Oh, and a reminder that the ici/barenaked-bar competition is open till 28th May 2004 - hurry and enter, everyone's welcome! And there appears to be no correct answer, so everyone's in with a chance!

Further reading
• Nice interview with Tyler from February 2004. (The Daily Journal)
• Beautiful pics from Darrin Johnson's site of the BNL show at the Winter Gardens February 2004.
• Nice review of the Maroon DVDA - comparing the sound quality with a normal CD.
• Very old (1996!) but gorgeous review of a Cleveland show.
• Interview with Jimmy C - dunno when it's from!
• BNL donating $85,000 to Mount Sinai hospital after the Barenaked Circus fundraiser last year.

The site
• I have a whole stack of photos that will be in the gallery soon I promise. It will be the next update, I hope!
• Meantime, I've installed a new guestbook as the old one seems to have died an ugly and painful death. If you have a spare minute, sign it and make it look a little less sad and empty!
• If you missed the instalments all last week, the exclusive ici/barenaked-bar interview is here.

15th May 2004
Recycling moments from others' lives

Exclusive...
So, you may have heard that Barenaked Ladies toured the UK from 26th April-6th May - the first time they'd played here in three long, long years. Much fun was had, many jokes were laughed at, lots of songs were sung and I suspect some alcohol may have been quaffed. And now they are gone. *sniff*

But wait! Halt those sobs...Wipe those tears...Stop that wailing! Word is, from the band themselves no less, that they are hoping to come back to the UK soon - possibly even this autumn! Cue much merriment and dancing around maypoles.
And how do I know this? *ahem* Well, it could have something to do with a little chat that I had with Steve Page and Ed Robertson, in a beautiful and very posh hotel in Kensington, London, last Friday, along with Shaun from Barenaked-bar.
The full interview will be up on this site and at barenaked-bar very soon (by Monday)... here are some snippets to whet your appetite till then:

Next US single
The next US single is going to be For You. I'm surprised, as the majority opinion on the boards seems to be in favour of Testing 1,2,3. However, Steve and Jim remixed the acoustic version of the song that they did at the Glasgow show on 1st May for the record company to send out to radio stations (I think it's as an alternative to the studio version - didn't seem like the live version was actually the single).

Christmas songs
After a week or so off, the band will be gathering at Steve's house to record some 'seasonal' songs for Christmas release. I'm depressed that it's May and Christmas got mentioned already!

Bros Creeggan
Jim said that if the free CD giveaway that he and Andy did over the past few months has stirred up enough interest in the UK, then they will come over - get mailing the Brothers Creeggan site to let them know we're interesting, I mean, interested!

Record company split?
Unfortunately, although we did touch on the subject of record companies during our chat, the guys didn't mention anything about the rumours that are flying this past week about a split from the band's record company, Reprise. I'm gutted that we didn't ask the question - unfortunately, didn't find out there were rumours till after the interview! There's lots of speculation going on over at barenaked.net though. The short version is that someone spoke to Steve after one of the UK shows, and it was mentioned that they are leaving Reprise and going independent.

Other news:
• Au Naturale - BNL are teaming up with Alanis Morissette to do a month-long, virtually non-stop co-headlining tour of the US. There's a funny publicity piece here, according to which, "Barenaked Ladies have been touring the snot out of the USA." I don't know what it means, but it made me laugh!

• Sonic Bloom - Andy Creeggan is orchestrating some BNL songs, and the band will be performing with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at the Sonic Bloom festival 2004 on Saturday 29th May. How fantastic does that sound?! I really wish I could see it live. Not an option for me, but here's a link if you would like to get tickets.

• Live CDs - not really news to most, I would think, but in case you haven't heard, all UK shows (except Bristol and Southampton) are now available from the BNL downloads page. wheee!!

• UK Single - Celebrity is released on CD single in the UK on Monday (17th May). Well, that's what the HMV site says anyway. We all remember the fiasco that was the Pinch Me release date over here, eh?! You could always try and win a free copy in our competition...

• UK tour pics - I have some beautiful pics from Hammersmith - they'll be up on the site in the next few days, once I format them properly.

• Steve and politics - Steven Page is co-hosting ‘Let’s Jack it Up’ with Jack Layton, current New Democratic Party leader in Canada. It’s an “evening of passion, pop and politics”. Article here.

• BBC - Set your recording gear up - this sounds like it could be fun! Audio diary entries from the UK tour on the Vic McGlynn show on Radio 6 from Monday 17th May. You can listen online, so it's not just for UK fans. I hope the show will be available later, as I can't listen from work!
• A review of the Bristol gig. Actually, I think I'd hit him if he said "Chicken of China, the Chinese Chicken" to me!
• And another BBC review - Birmingham this time.
• And a few pics of the guys doing the Janice Long show 6/7 May.You can listen to the show online too if you navigate back to Janice's home page from here.

Stuff to pass the time before the interview goes up:
• Cool old interview with Ty and Kev from Dec 2000 – talking about the band’s lack of coolness in Canada. Part 2 here.
• Lots of interviews from canoe. I loved this quote about Kevin's new baby: On a positive personal front, Hearn just had a baby girl named Havana, in December. The mother, who's Cuban, is someone he's known for a long time. They just started dating a couple of years ago and now they live together. "The doctors said I'd never have children and she's our little miracle baby," he says with a smile.”

• Postcards - in case you missed the note on the front page, I've added some new cards - including chimps! Re-enact Another Postcard and stalk your friends!