The Morning Benders.

A foursome from Berkeley, California made up of Julian Harmon, Tim Or and Chris Chu.... recording their follow up to 2008's Talking Through Tin Cans after touring with Grizzly Bear in 2009... have recorded Big Echo via Rough Trade Records and co-produced by Chris Taylor... after listening to this record three times in a row... I can't wait to hear it again... a full length stocked with catchy hooks that gets better as it goes on... you can listen to a few tracks from Big Echo here.

You can also catch The Morning Benders when they stop in

Toronto at The Drake on April 14.

PETA.

Its been nine years since I became a vegetarian... and when I decided to take the plunge... I wasn’t trying to save the animals so to speak... I just looked at myself in the mirror one day... and at 22 years old I didn’t like what I saw... I was way over weight and some 80 year old smokers had more stamina then I did... I was supposedly in the prime of my life... so I decided to change my eating habits... and the next thing I knew I was replacing double cheese burgers with raw food and two litre bottles of coke with water... I shed 70 pounds in a year and I felt like I had a new lease on life... I also realized the stigmatism from not only becoming a vegetarian... but as a man who eats lettuce on a regular basis... besides... meat has never been a major vice for me... except when I smell bacon... who can resist that? But the one thing that is associated with being a vegetarian is PETA or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals... an organization that boasts over two million members world wide... and some of the propaganda they spew out on a day to day basis must mean most of those two million members are uneducated or at he very least uninformed... I don’t give a shit when I see Pamela Anderson and her giant fake tits standing in front of a KFC with a sign that reads “KFC Tortures Chickens!”... Pamela Anderson has been torturing me with her ever changing face for the past 15 years and until now I’ve yet to complain... but when I see Animal Collective pose for a picture in matching seal shirts to support Peta... it makes me cringe... I somehow doubt David Portner, Noah Lennox or Josh Dibb have ever been to Nunavut... let alone talked to a family that is supported by the seal hunt to hear their side of the story... the Inuit have been hunting seals for centuries and if anyone has the ability to balance nature... all we have to do is look north... in 2010 predators of seals are few and far between... and besides... there is a limit on how many seals are culled each year... and not only do the seals provide food and clothing... they also provide a third of their annual income... coming from a small town in northern Ontario where hunting a way of life I’ve seen this first hand... I was one of the few kids that actually attended school during the first two weeks of November... everyone else would retreat to a hunting camp... and up there hunting wasn’t just for kicks... it provided your family with venison for an entire year... a deer tag would cost only $24... and in a place where so many people rely on government housing and kick backs... a 240 pound deer helps more than you can imagine... is what they’re doing cruel? I doubt it... Peta supports free range chickens... so why don’t they consider hunting to be the ultimate in free range? Is there a difference when a seal is hit in the head with a hakapik or crushed by the jaws of a polar bear? I don’t think so... what Peta has failed to realize is that we live in a cruel world... death is a part of life and there is no easy way around it... so the next time I mention to someone I’m a vegetarian and I hear... “Oh, are you one of those vegetarians?”... I’m going to kill a baby seal right then and there... okay maybe not... but most days I just wish Peta would disappear so people will stop associating my food choices with an organization of two million small minded people... and Animal Collective would just stick to making great records.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy.

Very few things rubbed off on me after living in a town of 1,800 people... my hate for Garth Brooks and David Wilcox has proven that... yet it's hard not to grin when I hear someone pluck a banjo... or when a cheese grater is turned into a musical instrument... it brings back memories of plates full of hash and drinking reserve sixties at fifteen years old while Neil Young and Johnny Cash play in the background... yet I didn't truly realized my love for country music until I left that town in my wake some fourteen years ago... I came full circle when I discovered Will Oldham at twenty... after hearing I See A Darkness in late 1999 I was hooked... and I have almost everything Will has produced under various monikers... the Bonnie "Prince" Billy album "Beware" showed up at #16 on my top 25 records from last year... and he's at it again in 2010... Drag City has confirmed a new record titled "The Wonder Show of the World" and it's credited to Bonnie "Prince" Billy and the Cairo Gang... and is out on March 23rd and will feature ten songs... you can hear a non-album Conway Twitty cover titled "Play, Guitar, Play" here.