The Clien­tele are per­fect for autumn, so it was with great for­tune that I dis­cov­ered this lit­tle gem in the used bins of New­bury Comics a few weeks ago. Released in 2000, just at the cusp of the Clientele’s golden era, A Fad­ing Sum­mer fea­tures four songs not seen on any sub­se­quent LP. There’s noth­ing espe­cially note­wor­thy here, but that’s kind of its charm – mod­est lit­tle pieces con­tent to reside on a used EP. “Sat­ur­day” is marked by a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cally irrel­e­vant dark open­ing pas­sage and gen­tly tum­bling verses, and “Dri­ving South” employs a “Dear Pru­dence” rip-off that’s so shame­less it can only be an homage.

Also of note are dis­cov­ered links to the Clientele’s blog, vocal­ist Alas­dair MacLean’s Flickr page, and an archived per­for­mance on KEXP, all c/o the Merge Records blog.

First off, here are a cou­ple pic­tures & a short video from the final Sleater-Kinney show in NY. They rocked for a solid 2 hours with no air con­di­tion­ing, so my hat really goes off to these ladies. It was a great show. I know no one left disappointed.

Up next, a day so beau­ti­ful, it should almost be ille­gal — this past Sun­day (8/13 — crap! only 3 months until my birth­day) — McCar­ren Pool offered up sev­eral bands & a DJ (super cool ?uest­love from The Roots) FOR FREE!. I got to see Apollo Sun­shine, although, sorry Bosto­ni­ans, I didn’t like it all that much — too jammy for me, Beirut, who’s slowly grow­ing on me and head­lin­ers Deer­hoof. A cou­ple years ago, a friend of mine said Deer­hoof was the mod­ern Cap­tain Beef­heart. I can’t say it’s not true! They just have a high-pitched Japan­ese woman singer. :) I was joined at this show by two for­mer WRUW DJs: Matt of apple­jack­they­lack and Denise of The Make Please Me Radio Hour. It was nice to see those kids!

So, in response to the above show, I’d like to share a track from Beirut & Deer­hoof, as well as the song I loved to hear by ?uest­love (hint — it’s a DJ Heroin(e) 80’s throw­back favorite).

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