2016 was a truly tragic year for music, with many talented musicians, both big names and up and coming talents falling prey to the shittiness that was 2016. (Canadian musicians marked with a *)
Paul Bley*
Long John Hunter
Nicholas Caldwell (The Whispers)
Kitty Kallen
Otis Clay
Red Simpson
David Bowie
Rene Angelili*
Gary Loizzo (The American Breed)
Blowfly
Mic Gillette (Tower of Power)
Dale Griffin (Mott the Hoople)
Glenn Frey
Jimmy Bain (Rainbow)
Colin Vearncombe aka Black
Signe Toly Anderson (Jefferson Airplane)
Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane/Starship)
Jon Bunch (Sense Field)
Brad Kent (D.O.A.)*
Joe Dowell
Maurice White (Earth Wind and Fire)
Dan Hicks
Roy Harris
Vanity*
Paul Gordon (The New Radicals)
Vi Subversa (The Poison Girls)
Lennie Baker (Sha Na Na)
James Atkins (Hammerbox)
Gavin Christopher
George Martin
Aaron Huffman (Harvey Danger)
Andrew Loomis (Dead Moon)
Ray Griff*
Ernestine Anderson
Keith Emerson
Ruth Terry
Frank Sinatra Jr.
Steve Young (Colourbox)
Phife Dawg
Joe Skyward (Sunny Day Real Estate)
Thunderclap Newman
Bill Henderson
Merle Haggard
Jimmie Van Zant
Jade Lemons (Injected)
Tony Conrad
Gib Guilbeau (Flying Burrito Brothers)
Richard Lyons (Negativland)
Pete Zorn (Steeleye Span)
Lonnie Mack
Prince
Billy Paul
Eddie Watkins (Polvo)
Papa Wemba
Isao Tomita
Candye Kane
John Stabb (Government Issue)
Peter Behrens (Trio)
Marlene Marder (LiLiPut)
Guy Clark
John Berry (Beastie Boys)
Nick Menza (Megadeth)
James King
Joel Hastings*
Floyd Robinson
Thomas Fekele (Surfer Blood)
Dave Swarbick (Fairport Convention)
Bobby Curtola*
Christina Grimmie
Randy Jones
Henry McCullough (Spooky Tooth)
Attrell Cordes (PM Dawn)
Brian Rading* (Five Man Electrical Band)
Pierre Lalonde*
Ralph Stanley
Bernie Worrell
Rob Wasserman
Genevieve Elverum/Woelv/O Paon
Alan Vega
Lewie Steinberg (Booker T and the MGs)
George Reznik*
Pat Upton (Spiral Starecase)
Nigel Gray
Penny Lang*
Pete Fountain
Ruby Winters
Glenn Yarbrough
DJ Official
James Walley (Nine Inch Nails)
Lou Pearlman
Tom Searle (Architects)
Toots Thielemans
Fred Hellerman (The Weavers)
Kacey Jones
Bob Bissonnette*
Prince Buster
Ken Aldcroft*
Jerry Corbetta (Sugarloaf)
Trisco Pearson (Force MDs)
Buckwheat Zydeco
Oscar Brand*
Caroline Crawley (This Mortal Coil)
Guy Nadon*
Issa Bagayogo
Pete Burns
Bobby Vee
Paul Demers*
Bap Kennedy
Kay Starr
Jean-Jacques Perrey
Eddie Harsch* (The Black Crowes)
Leonard Cohen*
Doug Edwards*
Leon Russell
Holly Dunn
Mose Allison
Sharon Jones
Craig Gill (Inspiral Carpets)
Ray Columbus
Micky Fitz (The Business)
Mark Gray
Greg Lake
Esma Redzepova
Joe Ligon
Barrelhouse Chuck
Gordie Tapp*
Mick Zane (Malice)
Rick Parfitt (Status Quo)
Alphonze Mouson (Weather Report)
George Michael
Debbie Reynolds
Friday, December 30, 2016
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Some thoughts on digital music storage
Once again, I apologize for missing blogging last week. Christmas time is a busy time for everyone, and my writing and reviewing schedule kind of goes out the window with travel and lots of sleep. Plus, I have my annual Who We Lost list coming up on the 31st, and my annual Top 10 albums list due on January 1st.
Just a week before Christmas, I was transferring my latest purchases on to my iPod. And the day finally came I thought was still a year or so away - I ran out of space. I was fearing this day coming. As a voracious consumer of music, I'll often dump everything I have on to my iPod, set it to shuffle and enjoy what I have. But I've filled up 160 Gigs of my iPod with music.
I've always been resistance to digital music. The idea of digital music isn't what I'm looking for for a number of reasons. The biggest is that it takes me out of the experience of listening. When I listen to music, I don't just put it on in the background and use it as noise to fill up my day. Instead, I prefer to think about what I'm listening to, as an active listener. With an album, I can make a conscious choice as to what I'm listening to. I can pick up the CD, I can put it in the player and then I can listen to it while I write or read or whatever. A digital file takes me out of the that experience. It's just a file I have no connection to. Just like listening commercial radio, I feel no connection to what I'm hearing. It's just kind of there.
As digital storage has become cheaper, the value of a digital file of music is even less today. You can store a massive hoard of music on a $100 1 TB harddrive without much thought as to what you have or what you've downloaded. Adding to this is the Napster phenomenon, where listeners of music have been trained not to pay for music, and therefore, not attach a value to it.
Back in mid-1990s, I began to take walking seriously as a way of exercising and stress relief, and I'd often make mix tapes for myself and my classic Walkman to hoof around the area and keep me motivated. I dropped out of the habit after gallbladder surgery, then picked it back up with a vengeance in the early 2000s, and I continue to this day as a way of weight management and stress relief, as well as a great way of managing my diabetic blood sugar.
I bought my first mp3 player in 2004. It was a Rio Forge, and I found it really great for workouts. It was the largest I could get at the time 512 MB, and I could fit about 300 songs on them. So I'd put some of my favourite tunes on the Forge, set it to shuffle, then get on the treadmill or set to walking around the neighbourhood. It was also super compact and the interface it used to load in music was really simple. It also ran off of one AAA battery and that battery seemed to last for a week of regular play. It worked great for a while, then I started to hear the same songs over and over again. I needed something that would hold more music.
Then there was the problem of getting more variety into it. At the time, I had about 4-500 albums on CD, all of which I wanted to put on an mp3 player. It would be fantastic to have my entire collection in one place so I could set it on shuffle and just listen to what's in my collection. With a collection as large as I had then, it's tough to get to listen to everything, and you often forget what's in your collection. The really wonderful thing, I thought, about having your collection all in one place is that you'd be exposed to things you wouldn't normally listen to given a conscious choice, so it exposed me to everything I owned at roughly the same time, which no filter to what I really wanted to listen to. This appealed to me. A constantly new playlist of music, with familiar tracks mixed in with obscure bits that I knew I liked but rarely listened to. It's such a joy to bring up a song you know you like, say to yourself, "What is that song? It's great!", see what it is, then go back into your collection and rediscover the album! Problem was, they never made a player with storage that big. Until the iPod Classic came around.
I figured I needed about 60 Gigs to get my entire collection in one place, so I bought an 5th generation 80 Gig iPod in 2006. I fell in love with it pretty quickly. It was great for workouts. And I had my ideal music rotation, where I could listen to my whole collection at random, dig into my own physical collection when needed and rediscover music I had forgotten. It also gave me a lot of ideas for my radio show. If I heard something I hadn't played in a while, I could mark it, go back to my collection, dig it out and start constructing a show around it and other songs I had marked. It was an ideal world!
My 5th generation iPod died after a while, and it took me a few months to get up the money to get a new iPod. I upgraded to a 6th generation 160 Gig version, I think in about 2009. This was a step up from my previous one, and gave me even more versatility in exploring my collection. It was great on long car trips too, where I could set it on shuffle and ensure I'd never hear the same thing twice. I went through two of these, with my first dying quickly from a software error. I was able to replace that one free of charge through the Apple store in the mall, but I lost all my music, and had to reload everything back into it. By the time I had done that, it had taken months over the summer, and filled up about 90 Gigs.
Last week, I filled up the last bits of space in my 160 Gig iPod. And after learning my lesson about backups from my second iPod, I have everything backed up on a 2 TB harddrive sitting up on my shelf should I need it again. At the time, I still had about 20 albums to add, and I've just come back from vacation in Vancouver with a whole stack of new albums. Where do I put the music now? I don't want to just put it on the harddrive and listen off that. I want the iPod to work as my re-introduction to what's in my own library and keep things fresh, and also have it portable for car trips.
I came upon a bright solution a few days ago. Why not take all the music I'm familiar with out of the iPod and replace it with less familiar music? That would free up the space. It would also solve a problem I sometimes have with workouts. Often, in the middle of a workout, I'd get to a track that doesn't motivate me. Say I come off of a loud post punk track that has me moving and pushing hard, then drop into a 10 minute drone track? It throws off my rhythm. On the treadmill is one of the few places I want to focus on my workout, not the music I'm listening to. So the solution came to me: a smaller, back up iPod. Better yet, I dug out my Rio Forge again. I had it stored in my junk drawer and hadn't turned it on in years.
Sure enough, after a fresh battery, it powered right up. I used it for my workout today and got some tunes I hadn't heard in a long time (I totally forgot how much I loved Banditas!). The same problem exists though, only 300 songs. Would I have to get a iPod touch? Looking around, it looks like the Rio will take a 4 Gig SD card, which, thanks to advances in digital storage, will cost about $10. Problem solved.
Now I have my workout player with enough variety and space for good tunes to keep me from getting bored, and a player for home and long trips that will keep my creative juices flowing.
Just a week before Christmas, I was transferring my latest purchases on to my iPod. And the day finally came I thought was still a year or so away - I ran out of space. I was fearing this day coming. As a voracious consumer of music, I'll often dump everything I have on to my iPod, set it to shuffle and enjoy what I have. But I've filled up 160 Gigs of my iPod with music.
I've always been resistance to digital music. The idea of digital music isn't what I'm looking for for a number of reasons. The biggest is that it takes me out of the experience of listening. When I listen to music, I don't just put it on in the background and use it as noise to fill up my day. Instead, I prefer to think about what I'm listening to, as an active listener. With an album, I can make a conscious choice as to what I'm listening to. I can pick up the CD, I can put it in the player and then I can listen to it while I write or read or whatever. A digital file takes me out of the that experience. It's just a file I have no connection to. Just like listening commercial radio, I feel no connection to what I'm hearing. It's just kind of there.
As digital storage has become cheaper, the value of a digital file of music is even less today. You can store a massive hoard of music on a $100 1 TB harddrive without much thought as to what you have or what you've downloaded. Adding to this is the Napster phenomenon, where listeners of music have been trained not to pay for music, and therefore, not attach a value to it.
Back in mid-1990s, I began to take walking seriously as a way of exercising and stress relief, and I'd often make mix tapes for myself and my classic Walkman to hoof around the area and keep me motivated. I dropped out of the habit after gallbladder surgery, then picked it back up with a vengeance in the early 2000s, and I continue to this day as a way of weight management and stress relief, as well as a great way of managing my diabetic blood sugar.
I bought my first mp3 player in 2004. It was a Rio Forge, and I found it really great for workouts. It was the largest I could get at the time 512 MB, and I could fit about 300 songs on them. So I'd put some of my favourite tunes on the Forge, set it to shuffle, then get on the treadmill or set to walking around the neighbourhood. It was also super compact and the interface it used to load in music was really simple. It also ran off of one AAA battery and that battery seemed to last for a week of regular play. It worked great for a while, then I started to hear the same songs over and over again. I needed something that would hold more music.
Then there was the problem of getting more variety into it. At the time, I had about 4-500 albums on CD, all of which I wanted to put on an mp3 player. It would be fantastic to have my entire collection in one place so I could set it on shuffle and just listen to what's in my collection. With a collection as large as I had then, it's tough to get to listen to everything, and you often forget what's in your collection. The really wonderful thing, I thought, about having your collection all in one place is that you'd be exposed to things you wouldn't normally listen to given a conscious choice, so it exposed me to everything I owned at roughly the same time, which no filter to what I really wanted to listen to. This appealed to me. A constantly new playlist of music, with familiar tracks mixed in with obscure bits that I knew I liked but rarely listened to. It's such a joy to bring up a song you know you like, say to yourself, "What is that song? It's great!", see what it is, then go back into your collection and rediscover the album! Problem was, they never made a player with storage that big. Until the iPod Classic came around.
I figured I needed about 60 Gigs to get my entire collection in one place, so I bought an 5th generation 80 Gig iPod in 2006. I fell in love with it pretty quickly. It was great for workouts. And I had my ideal music rotation, where I could listen to my whole collection at random, dig into my own physical collection when needed and rediscover music I had forgotten. It also gave me a lot of ideas for my radio show. If I heard something I hadn't played in a while, I could mark it, go back to my collection, dig it out and start constructing a show around it and other songs I had marked. It was an ideal world!
My 5th generation iPod died after a while, and it took me a few months to get up the money to get a new iPod. I upgraded to a 6th generation 160 Gig version, I think in about 2009. This was a step up from my previous one, and gave me even more versatility in exploring my collection. It was great on long car trips too, where I could set it on shuffle and ensure I'd never hear the same thing twice. I went through two of these, with my first dying quickly from a software error. I was able to replace that one free of charge through the Apple store in the mall, but I lost all my music, and had to reload everything back into it. By the time I had done that, it had taken months over the summer, and filled up about 90 Gigs.
Last week, I filled up the last bits of space in my 160 Gig iPod. And after learning my lesson about backups from my second iPod, I have everything backed up on a 2 TB harddrive sitting up on my shelf should I need it again. At the time, I still had about 20 albums to add, and I've just come back from vacation in Vancouver with a whole stack of new albums. Where do I put the music now? I don't want to just put it on the harddrive and listen off that. I want the iPod to work as my re-introduction to what's in my own library and keep things fresh, and also have it portable for car trips.
I came upon a bright solution a few days ago. Why not take all the music I'm familiar with out of the iPod and replace it with less familiar music? That would free up the space. It would also solve a problem I sometimes have with workouts. Often, in the middle of a workout, I'd get to a track that doesn't motivate me. Say I come off of a loud post punk track that has me moving and pushing hard, then drop into a 10 minute drone track? It throws off my rhythm. On the treadmill is one of the few places I want to focus on my workout, not the music I'm listening to. So the solution came to me: a smaller, back up iPod. Better yet, I dug out my Rio Forge again. I had it stored in my junk drawer and hadn't turned it on in years.
Sure enough, after a fresh battery, it powered right up. I used it for my workout today and got some tunes I hadn't heard in a long time (I totally forgot how much I loved Banditas!). The same problem exists though, only 300 songs. Would I have to get a iPod touch? Looking around, it looks like the Rio will take a 4 Gig SD card, which, thanks to advances in digital storage, will cost about $10. Problem solved.
Now I have my workout player with enough variety and space for good tunes to keep me from getting bored, and a player for home and long trips that will keep my creative juices flowing.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for December 16, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Untrained Animals - CyberFade* - Obsolescent the Moment You Get it (Independent)
The Extroverts - Pretty Fascist* - Supple (Independent)
The Cyrillic Typewriter - Built Echoes* - Your True Emblem (Jaz)
The Dean Ween Group - Bundle of Joy - The Deaner Album (ATO)
Ancient Highways - Love, the Clouds Above* - Until the Cow Comes Home (Independent)
Jons - Blood Red LeBaron* - At Work on Several Things (Independent)
Brazilian Money - Tin Hammer* - Fly Free Rock Angel (Independent)
Whence Came Pestilence - SOS Stands for Save Our Souls* - Sixteen for Sixteen (Baffled Octopi)
New Fries - Mary Poppin's Pockets* - More (Telephone Explosion)
Fear of Noise - Flight of the Red Shoe* - Hierarchy (Independent)
Never Betters - Dirty* - Bitchin' (Independent)
Hobo Lord - Gloves Off* - Sweaty Already (Independent)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Untrained Animals - CyberFade* - Obsolescent the Moment You Get it (Independent)
The Extroverts - Pretty Fascist* - Supple (Independent)
The Cyrillic Typewriter - Built Echoes* - Your True Emblem (Jaz)
The Dean Ween Group - Bundle of Joy - The Deaner Album (ATO)
Ancient Highways - Love, the Clouds Above* - Until the Cow Comes Home (Independent)
Jons - Blood Red LeBaron* - At Work on Several Things (Independent)
Brazilian Money - Tin Hammer* - Fly Free Rock Angel (Independent)
Whence Came Pestilence - SOS Stands for Save Our Souls* - Sixteen for Sixteen (Baffled Octopi)
New Fries - Mary Poppin's Pockets* - More (Telephone Explosion)
Fear of Noise - Flight of the Red Shoe* - Hierarchy (Independent)
Never Betters - Dirty* - Bitchin' (Independent)
Hobo Lord - Gloves Off* - Sweaty Already (Independent)
Monday, December 19, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for December 9, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Wizaard - Mountain of the Underground* - Starfish Buffet (Independent)
Cygnets - Rouge* - Alone/Together (Negative Gain)
Aiwass - Jealous* - Demo (Independent)
Twin Rains - Flash Burn* - Automatic Hand (Independent)
The Hidden Cameras - Counting Stars* - Home on Native Land (Outside)
Big Dik Blak - Come On, Let's Go* - Tales from the Wreck Deck (Independent)
Ace Martens - Baby Blue* - Palm Springs (Independent)
Foonyap - Mourning Coup* - Palimpsest (Independent)
No Museums - The Hospital* - The Drifting Knives (Independent)
Knots - Long Road* - Four Years in the Shade (Independent)
Jihad Jerry and the Evildoers - Army Girls Gone Wild - Mine's Not a Holy War (Cordless)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Wizaard - Mountain of the Underground* - Starfish Buffet (Independent)
Cygnets - Rouge* - Alone/Together (Negative Gain)
Aiwass - Jealous* - Demo (Independent)
Twin Rains - Flash Burn* - Automatic Hand (Independent)
The Hidden Cameras - Counting Stars* - Home on Native Land (Outside)
Big Dik Blak - Come On, Let's Go* - Tales from the Wreck Deck (Independent)
Ace Martens - Baby Blue* - Palm Springs (Independent)
Foonyap - Mourning Coup* - Palimpsest (Independent)
No Museums - The Hospital* - The Drifting Knives (Independent)
Knots - Long Road* - Four Years in the Shade (Independent)
Jihad Jerry and the Evildoers - Army Girls Gone Wild - Mine's Not a Holy War (Cordless)
Sunday, December 18, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for December 2, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Brahja Waldman - Bushido* - Wisdomatic (Fast Speaking)
Fond of Tigers - Uninhabit* - Uninhabit (Drip Audio)
Fine Young Cannibals - Love For Sale - Red Hot and Blue (BMG)
John Scofield - Mama Tried - Country for Old Men (Impulse)
The Bad Plus - Maps - It's Hard (Okeh)
Bernard Hermann - Twisted Nerve - Kill Bill Vol. 1 OST (Maverick)
Andrew Downing - Head Start* - Otterville (Independent)
Retired - Aging Swindler* - Crimes Against Jazz (Raw Materials)
Anna Atkinson - The Water* - Sky Stacked Full (Independent)
Lorenz Kellhuber Trio - Consequences - State of Mind (Blackbird)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Brahja Waldman - Bushido* - Wisdomatic (Fast Speaking)
Fond of Tigers - Uninhabit* - Uninhabit (Drip Audio)
Fine Young Cannibals - Love For Sale - Red Hot and Blue (BMG)
John Scofield - Mama Tried - Country for Old Men (Impulse)
The Bad Plus - Maps - It's Hard (Okeh)
Bernard Hermann - Twisted Nerve - Kill Bill Vol. 1 OST (Maverick)
Andrew Downing - Head Start* - Otterville (Independent)
Retired - Aging Swindler* - Crimes Against Jazz (Raw Materials)
Anna Atkinson - The Water* - Sky Stacked Full (Independent)
Lorenz Kellhuber Trio - Consequences - State of Mind (Blackbird)
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Forgotten Music #23: Lone Justice - "Ways to Be Wicked"
Since I'm currently reviewing the latest Drive-By Truckers album for Earshot online, I got in the mood for some classic roots rock. So I thought of Lone Justice.
Back in the early 80s, anything that didn't fit into the pop and rock charts tended to be lumped into the new wave genre, regardless if the band sounded new wave or not. Los Angeles' roots-punk bands often had this problem. They weren't new wave bands, but didn't fit into radio, so they got called new wave.
Los Angeles has a vibrant and varied mishmash of sounds in the 80s. The style of music that Lone Justice did was often called cowpunk, with other bands like X, The Blasters and Arizona's venerable Meat Puppets doing similar styles. Lone Justice were formed by guitarist Ryan Hedgecock and vocalist Maria McKee. They were joined by stellar session musicians, bassist Marvin Etzioni and drummer Don Hefflington, who had played in Emmylou Harris' band. With the backing of Linda Ronstadt and frequent guest guitarist Benmont Tench from Tom Petty's band, they got signed to Geffen Records, with the thought they'd be huge.
Their debut self titled album came out in 1985, to critical acclaim. They set into a tour opening for U2, but their fabulous debut album failed to click with anyone. They were too in the middle of the punk and roots crowds to appeal to either of them.
The band split up, leaving McKee as the only remaining member. She put together a new version of Lone Justice for Shelter, their second album, in 1986. McKee's new band abandoned the cowpunk and roots rock sound they started with, and instead adopted a more generic new wave sound. This album, too, failed to excite audiences, and the band broke up for good afterwards.
McKee set off on a solo career afterwards, which gained her much more success. Her 1990 song, "Show Me Heaven", from the Days of Thunder soundtrack, went to #1 on the UK charts. She has five studio albums to her credit and has written songs for Feargal Sharkey, The Dixie Chicks and Bette Midler.
"Ways to Be Wicked" comes from 1985's Lone Justice, and was written in part by Tom Petty. It definitely had Petty's signature sound all over it.
Back in the early 80s, anything that didn't fit into the pop and rock charts tended to be lumped into the new wave genre, regardless if the band sounded new wave or not. Los Angeles' roots-punk bands often had this problem. They weren't new wave bands, but didn't fit into radio, so they got called new wave.
Los Angeles has a vibrant and varied mishmash of sounds in the 80s. The style of music that Lone Justice did was often called cowpunk, with other bands like X, The Blasters and Arizona's venerable Meat Puppets doing similar styles. Lone Justice were formed by guitarist Ryan Hedgecock and vocalist Maria McKee. They were joined by stellar session musicians, bassist Marvin Etzioni and drummer Don Hefflington, who had played in Emmylou Harris' band. With the backing of Linda Ronstadt and frequent guest guitarist Benmont Tench from Tom Petty's band, they got signed to Geffen Records, with the thought they'd be huge.
Their debut self titled album came out in 1985, to critical acclaim. They set into a tour opening for U2, but their fabulous debut album failed to click with anyone. They were too in the middle of the punk and roots crowds to appeal to either of them.
The band split up, leaving McKee as the only remaining member. She put together a new version of Lone Justice for Shelter, their second album, in 1986. McKee's new band abandoned the cowpunk and roots rock sound they started with, and instead adopted a more generic new wave sound. This album, too, failed to excite audiences, and the band broke up for good afterwards.
McKee set off on a solo career afterwards, which gained her much more success. Her 1990 song, "Show Me Heaven", from the Days of Thunder soundtrack, went to #1 on the UK charts. She has five studio albums to her credit and has written songs for Feargal Sharkey, The Dixie Chicks and Bette Midler.
"Ways to Be Wicked" comes from 1985's Lone Justice, and was written in part by Tom Petty. It definitely had Petty's signature sound all over it.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for November 25, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Circlesquare - Dancers* - Songs About Dancing and Drugs (!K7)
OneOverZero - Life Inside a Moment* - Chimera (Independent)
A Shell in the Pit - Atlantis* - Ohklos OST (Independent)
Texture and Light - Theft of the Sky* - Inner Space Odyssey (Independent)
Hello Moth - A Song About Transcience* - Slave in the Stone (Independent)
Phantogram - Barking Dog - Three (Republic)
YACHT - White Mirror - I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler (Downtown)
Goldroom - Underwater - West of the West (Glassnote)
M.I.A. - Visa - AIM (Interscope)
Santigold - Banshee - 99 cents (Atlantic)
A Tribe Called Red - The Virus* - We Are the Halluci Nation (Pirates Blend)
Le Couleur - Starlite* - P.O.P. (Lisbon Lux)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Circlesquare - Dancers* - Songs About Dancing and Drugs (!K7)
OneOverZero - Life Inside a Moment* - Chimera (Independent)
A Shell in the Pit - Atlantis* - Ohklos OST (Independent)
Texture and Light - Theft of the Sky* - Inner Space Odyssey (Independent)
Hello Moth - A Song About Transcience* - Slave in the Stone (Independent)
Phantogram - Barking Dog - Three (Republic)
YACHT - White Mirror - I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler (Downtown)
Goldroom - Underwater - West of the West (Glassnote)
M.I.A. - Visa - AIM (Interscope)
Santigold - Banshee - 99 cents (Atlantic)
A Tribe Called Red - The Virus* - We Are the Halluci Nation (Pirates Blend)
Le Couleur - Starlite* - P.O.P. (Lisbon Lux)
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for November 18, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Francis Cheer - Find a Light* - Black White and Grey (Independent)
Concrete Blonde - Everybody Knows* - Pump Up the Volume OST (RCA)
The Handsome Family - Famous Blue Raincoat* - Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man OST (Verve Forecast)
Sebastian Owl - Only for Tonight* - Captain Tomorrow and the Dream Orphans (Independent)
SIRR - Shoot the Buffalo* - Begat (Independent)
Fox Opera - Wild Wilderness* - Nowhere Native (Independent)
Elizabeth - Black Elvis* - Death to Rebels! (Independent)
Cygnets - Modern Youth* - Isolator (Independent)
Deap Vally - Smile More - Femijism (Dine Alone)
Glass Animals - Mama's Gun - How to Be a Human Being (Wolf Tone)
Toddler - You Came Along* - Girls on My Mind (Independent)
Fuzz Monkey Reunion - On Call* - Birdbath (Independent)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Francis Cheer - Find a Light* - Black White and Grey (Independent)
Concrete Blonde - Everybody Knows* - Pump Up the Volume OST (RCA)
The Handsome Family - Famous Blue Raincoat* - Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man OST (Verve Forecast)
Sebastian Owl - Only for Tonight* - Captain Tomorrow and the Dream Orphans (Independent)
SIRR - Shoot the Buffalo* - Begat (Independent)
Fox Opera - Wild Wilderness* - Nowhere Native (Independent)
Elizabeth - Black Elvis* - Death to Rebels! (Independent)
Cygnets - Modern Youth* - Isolator (Independent)
Deap Vally - Smile More - Femijism (Dine Alone)
Glass Animals - Mama's Gun - How to Be a Human Being (Wolf Tone)
Toddler - You Came Along* - Girls on My Mind (Independent)
Fuzz Monkey Reunion - On Call* - Birdbath (Independent)
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Video Playlist #11: Bundle Up!
Better late than never, this month's playlist is appropriate with the vicious cold snap we currently have all over the province. It's -12 in town and another big snowstorm is set to hit Vancouver. Let's bundle up with some bands named after cold things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rV1SXgp0tc&list=PL0QOmyo1JgZfIQRGp6v55VCMTyVjYDL3t
1) Cold Cave - Black Magic Punks
2) Ice-T - Colors
3) Test Icicles - Circle Square Triangle
4) Fresh Snow* - Proper Burial
5) Snow* - Girl I Been Hurt
6) Kid Frost - La Raza
7) Ice Cube - Today Was a Good Day
8) Iceburn Collective - Behind the Oblivious
9) Chilly Gonzalez* - White Keys
10) Snowblink* - Ambergris
11) Winterpills - Celia Johnson
12) Wintermitts* - Schoolyard
13) Wintersleep* - Amerika
14) Icicle Works - Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rV1SXgp0tc&list=PL0QOmyo1JgZfIQRGp6v55VCMTyVjYDL3t
1) Cold Cave - Black Magic Punks
2) Ice-T - Colors
3) Test Icicles - Circle Square Triangle
4) Fresh Snow* - Proper Burial
5) Snow* - Girl I Been Hurt
6) Kid Frost - La Raza
7) Ice Cube - Today Was a Good Day
8) Iceburn Collective - Behind the Oblivious
9) Chilly Gonzalez* - White Keys
10) Snowblink* - Ambergris
11) Winterpills - Celia Johnson
12) Wintermitts* - Schoolyard
13) Wintersleep* - Amerika
14) Icicle Works - Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)
Monday, December 5, 2016
Concert review: Future Temple/Weird Candle/Cygnets at Zack's
You'll forgive me for not posting a video playlist on Thursday, since I took a rare night out to see a live music show. Cygnets were back in town, one of the best Canadian new wave revivalists right now, and I had to see them.
The show took place at Zack's which, over the last few years, has been putting on a great deal of great, cutting edge shows. This was another one of those shows.
The show was supposed to start at 8 PM, but it actually started just after 9 PM, leaving everyone to do shorter sets. The excuse was technical difficulties, though every band save the first sounded fine.
Future Temple is a semi-local musician who wears many hats. Tonight he was wearing a noodly, industrial, experimental kind of a music hat. He spent most of the time sitting down, fiddling with knobs on a mixing board and sampler in an attempt to make something listenable. The only instruments he actually played were a guitar, which he played for about a minute to drop some audio into a sampler, and a trumpet, which he played for about 20 seconds. I think the idea was a electro-primitive style of industrial, but it failed pretty badly with no stage presence to speak of. I know the guy behind this project, and he's always been more "grand ideas" than "proper follow through". This was much like an art piece, but without the art.
Weird Candle were much more interesting. A two piece from Vancouver, they had a set up of guitarist and vocalist, with some live electronics with a drum machine. They reminded me a lot of Cabaret Voltaire, very early industrial styles, extremely high energy and confrontational. The lead singer sang into his mic like he was in a hardcore band, right up to his mouth and in a clenched fist, with shouted, angry, staccato lyrics. He lept up on the window sills, shouted at outside passers by and waded into the crowd like Iggy Pop. They only did about 5 songs, but you got the full blast of what they were all about. I got their album, Alter Ego, but it's only on tape, so it's going to take me a while to get to listen to it. Only tape deck I have right now is in the car, and it's just dropped below zero here...
Edmonton's Cygnets are part of the current awesome electro/retro scene there. Bands like them, MoonMuseum and Shout Out Out Out Out are making some of the best electro-rock in the country right now. They were touring on support of their latest album, Alone/Together, their second for US label Negative Gain Records. They were much more lively than the previous time I saw them, two years ago. They played at the Dirty Jersey in a barely publicized show, with only about 10 people total in the crowd. They were playing as a duo here (they're normally a trio), but there was no way to tell just from their sound. Using the same set up as Weird Candle, they pounded out lots of dark, moody new wave. They played a lot of material from their newest album, which is their best yet, dark, sensual brooding synth pop.
The show took place at Zack's which, over the last few years, has been putting on a great deal of great, cutting edge shows. This was another one of those shows.
The show was supposed to start at 8 PM, but it actually started just after 9 PM, leaving everyone to do shorter sets. The excuse was technical difficulties, though every band save the first sounded fine.
Future Temple is a semi-local musician who wears many hats. Tonight he was wearing a noodly, industrial, experimental kind of a music hat. He spent most of the time sitting down, fiddling with knobs on a mixing board and sampler in an attempt to make something listenable. The only instruments he actually played were a guitar, which he played for about a minute to drop some audio into a sampler, and a trumpet, which he played for about 20 seconds. I think the idea was a electro-primitive style of industrial, but it failed pretty badly with no stage presence to speak of. I know the guy behind this project, and he's always been more "grand ideas" than "proper follow through". This was much like an art piece, but without the art.
Weird Candle were much more interesting. A two piece from Vancouver, they had a set up of guitarist and vocalist, with some live electronics with a drum machine. They reminded me a lot of Cabaret Voltaire, very early industrial styles, extremely high energy and confrontational. The lead singer sang into his mic like he was in a hardcore band, right up to his mouth and in a clenched fist, with shouted, angry, staccato lyrics. He lept up on the window sills, shouted at outside passers by and waded into the crowd like Iggy Pop. They only did about 5 songs, but you got the full blast of what they were all about. I got their album, Alter Ego, but it's only on tape, so it's going to take me a while to get to listen to it. Only tape deck I have right now is in the car, and it's just dropped below zero here...
Edmonton's Cygnets are part of the current awesome electro/retro scene there. Bands like them, MoonMuseum and Shout Out Out Out Out are making some of the best electro-rock in the country right now. They were touring on support of their latest album, Alone/Together, their second for US label Negative Gain Records. They were much more lively than the previous time I saw them, two years ago. They played at the Dirty Jersey in a barely publicized show, with only about 10 people total in the crowd. They were playing as a duo here (they're normally a trio), but there was no way to tell just from their sound. Using the same set up as Weird Candle, they pounded out lots of dark, moody new wave. They played a lot of material from their newest album, which is their best yet, dark, sensual brooding synth pop.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for November 11, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Lesbo Vrouven - Spy Ra* - Grifff Pifff (P572)
Trampoline - Dog Collar* - Sometimes a Song is Just a Cigar (Independent)
Deerhoof - The Merry Barracks - Deerhoof vs. Evil (Polyvinyl)
The Pixies - All I Think About Now - Head Carrier (PIAS)
The Switching Yard - Hard Luck* - Yet Again (Independent)
The Melvins - Queen - Stoner Witch (Atlantic)
Kellar - Scorched Schemes - Sacred Cyclical Pilgrimages (Foolproof)
DS Lori - D-Town* - DS Lori (Spirit Rock)
Flatbed - Meat Hammer* - Risin' Death (Spirit Rock)
We Are Wolves - In the Land of the Real* - Wrong (Fantome)
Gringo Star - Knee Deep - The Sides and In Between (Nevado)
Psychedelic Furs - President Gas - Forever Now (Chrysalis)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Lesbo Vrouven - Spy Ra* - Grifff Pifff (P572)
Trampoline - Dog Collar* - Sometimes a Song is Just a Cigar (Independent)
Deerhoof - The Merry Barracks - Deerhoof vs. Evil (Polyvinyl)
The Pixies - All I Think About Now - Head Carrier (PIAS)
The Switching Yard - Hard Luck* - Yet Again (Independent)
The Melvins - Queen - Stoner Witch (Atlantic)
Kellar - Scorched Schemes - Sacred Cyclical Pilgrimages (Foolproof)
DS Lori - D-Town* - DS Lori (Spirit Rock)
Flatbed - Meat Hammer* - Risin' Death (Spirit Rock)
We Are Wolves - In the Land of the Real* - Wrong (Fantome)
Gringo Star - Knee Deep - The Sides and In Between (Nevado)
Psychedelic Furs - President Gas - Forever Now (Chrysalis)
Thursday, November 24, 2016
RIP Craig Gill
2016 has been a bad year, particularly on famous musicians. While Craig Gill and his band, Inspiral Carpets, weren't as well known as David Bowie or Leonard Cohen, the band deserves a bit of space on this blog.
Inspiral Carpets were one of the core bands of the Madchester scene from the late 80s and early 90s. The Madchester scene was a mix of alt-rock, electronic dance and psychedelic rock. The bands that came from the scene were diverse, from trippy alt-rock with Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses, pure electronica with 808 State and Northside, to more earnest indy rock with James. Inspiral Carpets were known for their use of organ in their music.
They formed in 1983, but only got significant airplay 1988, when the legendary John Peel picked up the Planecrash EP and played it on his show, then invited the band for a live session. in 1989, Inspiral Carpets formed their own label, Cow Records, then released an EP called Trainsurfing. Around this time, two founding members left to form the Rainkings. They picked up two new members and championed on.
Their big break came in 1990, after signing to Mute Records, with their debut album Life shooting up to number 2 on the British album charts, and their single "This is How it Feels" hitting number 14 on the singles charts. The band remained successful to 1994, when Mute Records dropped the band after their Devil Hopping album. The band split up soon afterwards.
The band members played in other bands through til 2003, including The Lotus Eaters, The Lovers and the Clint Boon Experience. They reformed in 2003, releasing a single, touring sporadically and releasing a singles compilation called Cool As. The band has stayed together since then, releasing a handful of singles and EPs, plus a full length self-titled album in 2014.
Craig Gill was the drummer for the band and joined at the age of 14. He remained with the band through their entire career. He was just 44 when he died November 22nd.
Inspiral Carpets were one of the core bands of the Madchester scene from the late 80s and early 90s. The Madchester scene was a mix of alt-rock, electronic dance and psychedelic rock. The bands that came from the scene were diverse, from trippy alt-rock with Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses, pure electronica with 808 State and Northside, to more earnest indy rock with James. Inspiral Carpets were known for their use of organ in their music.
They formed in 1983, but only got significant airplay 1988, when the legendary John Peel picked up the Planecrash EP and played it on his show, then invited the band for a live session. in 1989, Inspiral Carpets formed their own label, Cow Records, then released an EP called Trainsurfing. Around this time, two founding members left to form the Rainkings. They picked up two new members and championed on.
Their big break came in 1990, after signing to Mute Records, with their debut album Life shooting up to number 2 on the British album charts, and their single "This is How it Feels" hitting number 14 on the singles charts. The band remained successful to 1994, when Mute Records dropped the band after their Devil Hopping album. The band split up soon afterwards.
The band members played in other bands through til 2003, including The Lotus Eaters, The Lovers and the Clint Boon Experience. They reformed in 2003, releasing a single, touring sporadically and releasing a singles compilation called Cool As. The band has stayed together since then, releasing a handful of singles and EPs, plus a full length self-titled album in 2014.
Craig Gill was the drummer for the band and joined at the age of 14. He remained with the band through their entire career. He was just 44 when he died November 22nd.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for November 4, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Kroy - Bones* - Scavenger (Dare to Care)
Douse - Unrest* - The Light in You Has Left (Independent)
Wishkicker - Big Trouble* - Widervision EP (Independent)
Lanikai - Stay a Little Longer* - Lanikai EP (Hidden Pony)
Jesse Mac Cormack - Repeat* - After the Glow (Secret City)
Diamond Rings - All Yr Songs* - Secret City Records: 10 Years (Secret City)
Velocity Girl - Living Well - Copacetic (Sub Pop)
Boreal Sons - Strangers* - You and Everyone (Independent)
Preoccupations - Anxiety* - Preoccupations (Flemish Eye)
Pang Attack - Monk Song* - North Country Psychic Girls (Independent)
The Contortions - Contort Yourself - New York Noise: Dance Music from the New York Underground 1978-1982 (Soul Jazz)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Kroy - Bones* - Scavenger (Dare to Care)
Douse - Unrest* - The Light in You Has Left (Independent)
Wishkicker - Big Trouble* - Widervision EP (Independent)
Lanikai - Stay a Little Longer* - Lanikai EP (Hidden Pony)
Jesse Mac Cormack - Repeat* - After the Glow (Secret City)
Diamond Rings - All Yr Songs* - Secret City Records: 10 Years (Secret City)
Velocity Girl - Living Well - Copacetic (Sub Pop)
Boreal Sons - Strangers* - You and Everyone (Independent)
Preoccupations - Anxiety* - Preoccupations (Flemish Eye)
Pang Attack - Monk Song* - North Country Psychic Girls (Independent)
The Contortions - Contort Yourself - New York Noise: Dance Music from the New York Underground 1978-1982 (Soul Jazz)
Saturday, November 19, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for October 28, 2016 - Halloween Special
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Skinny Puppy - Rodent* - Rabies (Nettwerk)
Ministry - Every Day is Halloween - 12 Inch Collection (Wax Trax!)
Peter Murphy - Crystal Wrists - Deep (Beggar's Banquet)
Electric Hellfire Club - Prince of Darkness - Unholy Roller (Cleopatra)
Dead or Alive - In Too Deep - Youthquake (Epic)
Industrial Artz - Braineater* - Six Demon Bang (Cargo)
Switchblade Symphony - Witches - Gothspotting (Cleopatra)
DOA and Thor - Give 'em the Lumber* - Are U Ready (Sudden Death)
The Agonist - The Pursuit of Emptiness* - Five (Napalm)
Forbidden Dimension - The Shadow Knows* - Every Twisted Tree Watches As You Pass (Independent)
Chemlab - Summer of Hate - Burnout at the Hydrogen Bar (Fifth Column)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Skinny Puppy - Rodent* - Rabies (Nettwerk)
Ministry - Every Day is Halloween - 12 Inch Collection (Wax Trax!)
Peter Murphy - Crystal Wrists - Deep (Beggar's Banquet)
Electric Hellfire Club - Prince of Darkness - Unholy Roller (Cleopatra)
Dead or Alive - In Too Deep - Youthquake (Epic)
Industrial Artz - Braineater* - Six Demon Bang (Cargo)
Switchblade Symphony - Witches - Gothspotting (Cleopatra)
DOA and Thor - Give 'em the Lumber* - Are U Ready (Sudden Death)
The Agonist - The Pursuit of Emptiness* - Five (Napalm)
Forbidden Dimension - The Shadow Knows* - Every Twisted Tree Watches As You Pass (Independent)
Chemlab - Summer of Hate - Burnout at the Hydrogen Bar (Fifth Column)
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Forgotten Music #23: The Psychedelic Furs - "President Gas" (1982)
You'll excuse my week hiatus from the blog. After November 9th's election result in the States, I was legitimately depressed. This is the first time this has happened, I lived through both Bushes and Mulroney and multiple Harper elections without trouble, but Trump's election was out of right field for me.
More savvy writers than I will write more and better words about Trump. What struck me most was the acceptance of the casual bigotry, sexism, Islamophobia and general intolerance of this president. That alone should have been a deal breaker for most voters in the States. He called all Mexicans rapist and drug dealers and vowed to build a wall to keep them out. Called Muslims from unstable states terrorists. Insulted women with his casual sexism and his ability to do what he wants because he's rich. He straight up mocked a disabled reporter! Yet it meant nothing. While I realized that not all Trump voters were racist, the fact that his racist didn't turn them off meant it was accepted. At worst, a Trump voter was saying "racial issues, sexist issues, equality issues don't matter to me". Or, more direction, "I don't care about anyone who is denied their rights."
The racist attacks that followed Brexit are now happening in the US. White men telling anyone who isn't white that they're going to be deported. Muslim women with hijabs being hauled to the floor and having them ripped off their head. KKK rallies celebrating Trump's win. Thousands and thousands of racist twitter and Facebook posts. Sexual assaults on buses and trains. All of this has happened because Trump's win normalized this behaviour.
Trump's win is probably the least of the US's worries. The racism of the right is the much bigger problem. Racists, white supremacists, evangelical Christians, and others are now taking out their frustrations on anyone not white and male. I fear for anyone who came to the US looking to flee oppression for freedom, only to find more oppression. Those of us who are more enlightened must stand up for our friends regardless of their skin colour, religion or sex and say, "This is wrong" and tell those who are hurting others that it's not acceptable. As the saying goes, the loss of human rights to anyone is the loss of human rights for everyone. And, as the old punk saying goes, you don't stand up to fascism, you smash it.
Which brings me to our musical selection for the month. As any dyed in the wool punk knows, oppression from the right always breeds punk music pushing back against it. The Reagan and Bush years were incredible for the punk movement, taking the classic late 70s punk vibe of the lower class rising up against the ruling class, fighting for the rights of the downtrodden and calling out the hypocrisy of the rich. With a new ultra-right wing ruler in both the US and the UK, the stage is set for another wave of skewering music to pin the right to the wall. As I pointed out in my article about Janet Green, the right just doesn't know how to make good political music. Fighting against the left seems greedy, corrupt and shallow. But knocking down the self-important, the racist, the sexist, the intolerant, that's something worth fighting for.
Admittedly, punk music isn't my thing, save for a couple of bands. But post punk and new wave is my thing. After the election, I found myself listening to The Psychedelic Furs' 1982 album, Forever Now, which starts with "President Gas", an uncharacteristically political song from the band. Their work has rarely been political, but "President Gas" seemed cathartic for me.
"President Gas" captures the malaise of the late 70s and early 80s, as disco dies and the hedonism and apolitical age begins to die. It was easy to party away your sorrows while ignoring the corruption and wars going on in the halls of Parliament and the White House. The Vietnam War dying down and the rise of the years of Thatcher, Reagan, Mulrooney and the fear of the Cold War. It was in this time, with disco coughing up blood and the punk movement rising, that music returned to the 60s style of political activism. And the players might change, but the horrible, racist underbelly of the common man always comes back and pushes the ugly American back onto the throne. President Gas is President Gas again.
More savvy writers than I will write more and better words about Trump. What struck me most was the acceptance of the casual bigotry, sexism, Islamophobia and general intolerance of this president. That alone should have been a deal breaker for most voters in the States. He called all Mexicans rapist and drug dealers and vowed to build a wall to keep them out. Called Muslims from unstable states terrorists. Insulted women with his casual sexism and his ability to do what he wants because he's rich. He straight up mocked a disabled reporter! Yet it meant nothing. While I realized that not all Trump voters were racist, the fact that his racist didn't turn them off meant it was accepted. At worst, a Trump voter was saying "racial issues, sexist issues, equality issues don't matter to me". Or, more direction, "I don't care about anyone who is denied their rights."
The racist attacks that followed Brexit are now happening in the US. White men telling anyone who isn't white that they're going to be deported. Muslim women with hijabs being hauled to the floor and having them ripped off their head. KKK rallies celebrating Trump's win. Thousands and thousands of racist twitter and Facebook posts. Sexual assaults on buses and trains. All of this has happened because Trump's win normalized this behaviour.
Trump's win is probably the least of the US's worries. The racism of the right is the much bigger problem. Racists, white supremacists, evangelical Christians, and others are now taking out their frustrations on anyone not white and male. I fear for anyone who came to the US looking to flee oppression for freedom, only to find more oppression. Those of us who are more enlightened must stand up for our friends regardless of their skin colour, religion or sex and say, "This is wrong" and tell those who are hurting others that it's not acceptable. As the saying goes, the loss of human rights to anyone is the loss of human rights for everyone. And, as the old punk saying goes, you don't stand up to fascism, you smash it.
Which brings me to our musical selection for the month. As any dyed in the wool punk knows, oppression from the right always breeds punk music pushing back against it. The Reagan and Bush years were incredible for the punk movement, taking the classic late 70s punk vibe of the lower class rising up against the ruling class, fighting for the rights of the downtrodden and calling out the hypocrisy of the rich. With a new ultra-right wing ruler in both the US and the UK, the stage is set for another wave of skewering music to pin the right to the wall. As I pointed out in my article about Janet Green, the right just doesn't know how to make good political music. Fighting against the left seems greedy, corrupt and shallow. But knocking down the self-important, the racist, the sexist, the intolerant, that's something worth fighting for.
Admittedly, punk music isn't my thing, save for a couple of bands. But post punk and new wave is my thing. After the election, I found myself listening to The Psychedelic Furs' 1982 album, Forever Now, which starts with "President Gas", an uncharacteristically political song from the band. Their work has rarely been political, but "President Gas" seemed cathartic for me.
"President Gas" captures the malaise of the late 70s and early 80s, as disco dies and the hedonism and apolitical age begins to die. It was easy to party away your sorrows while ignoring the corruption and wars going on in the halls of Parliament and the White House. The Vietnam War dying down and the rise of the years of Thatcher, Reagan, Mulrooney and the fear of the Cold War. It was in this time, with disco coughing up blood and the punk movement rising, that music returned to the 60s style of political activism. And the players might change, but the horrible, racist underbelly of the common man always comes back and pushes the ugly American back onto the throne. President Gas is President Gas again.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Video Playlist #10: Veggies!
A playlist about vegetables. Because why not!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0QOmyo1JgZdaSQSR-xsJK9UdDz0GTkoT
1) Heavy Vegetable - Junior
2) Smashing Pumpkins - Zero
3) Of Cabbages and Kings - Crawl
4) King Lettuce* - Higher
5) Bloody Beetroots - Butter
6) Beans - Toast
7) The Gourds - Ziggy Stardust
8) Swamp Cabbage - Jesus Tone
9) Radish - Little Pink Stars
10) Beautiful Pea Green Boat - Hammers of Islam
11) Red Onion Jazz Band - See See Rider
12) Garlic Boys - Too Late True Love
13) DEVO - I'm a Potato
14) Shonen Knife - Tomato Head
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0QOmyo1JgZdaSQSR-xsJK9UdDz0GTkoT
1) Heavy Vegetable - Junior
2) Smashing Pumpkins - Zero
3) Of Cabbages and Kings - Crawl
4) King Lettuce* - Higher
5) Bloody Beetroots - Butter
6) Beans - Toast
7) The Gourds - Ziggy Stardust
8) Swamp Cabbage - Jesus Tone
9) Radish - Little Pink Stars
10) Beautiful Pea Green Boat - Hammers of Islam
11) Red Onion Jazz Band - See See Rider
12) Garlic Boys - Too Late True Love
13) DEVO - I'm a Potato
14) Shonen Knife - Tomato Head
Saturday, October 29, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for October 21, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Alice and the Serial Numbers - Chlorophylle* - Obit (Independent)
Bear Mountain - Can't Stand to Lose* - Badu (Last Gang)
NoProfit - Future Test* - Vol. II (No One)
Harrison Brome - Midnight Island* - Fill Your Brains (Nettwerk)
Factory Floor - Slow Listen - 2525 (DFA)
Automatisme - Transport 2* - Momentform Accumulation (Constellation)
HWYS - Further from the Truth* - Beaches (Lisbon Lux)
Crystal Castles - Char* - Amnesty (I) (Last Gang)
Peppermoth - Dusted Wings* - Now You Hear Me (Big Mind)
Buscemi - Praja Boogie - Camino Real (EMI)
Laika - Red River - Silver Apples of the Moon (Too Pure)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Alice and the Serial Numbers - Chlorophylle* - Obit (Independent)
Bear Mountain - Can't Stand to Lose* - Badu (Last Gang)
NoProfit - Future Test* - Vol. II (No One)
Harrison Brome - Midnight Island* - Fill Your Brains (Nettwerk)
Factory Floor - Slow Listen - 2525 (DFA)
Automatisme - Transport 2* - Momentform Accumulation (Constellation)
HWYS - Further from the Truth* - Beaches (Lisbon Lux)
Crystal Castles - Char* - Amnesty (I) (Last Gang)
Peppermoth - Dusted Wings* - Now You Hear Me (Big Mind)
Buscemi - Praja Boogie - Camino Real (EMI)
Laika - Red River - Silver Apples of the Moon (Too Pure)
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Werid World of Old Records #4: Mohammed Rafi - "Jaan Pehechaan Ho"
When American style music jumps continents, weird things happen to it. Cultural references get lost or misinterpreted. One need only look at Japan and Korea to see the weird things that happened to American pop there (PSY being just one example).
This month's Weird World of Old Records is less about a record, and more about Bollywood. From North American eyes, Bollywood films have some of the trappings of what we know as movies, but it soon gets warped into a surreal direction. Actors break into song without an inkling they will. Dance numbers appear out of nowhere. Strange video filters are used. It's a fun trip, but often a disorienting one.
I was first exposed to Bollywood music, ironically, through an American cult film, Ghost World. Being a fan of Daniel Clowes, I saw Ghost World when it first hit theatres in 2001. This film opens with the dance sequence from a 1965 Indian film called Gumnaam. I've never seen the original film, so I don't have a context for the film, but I understand what Ghost World is about. I do know Gumnaam is a murder mystery, so it's even more strange that there's a huge rock and roll dance sequence in the film.
Ghost World follows Enid and Rebecca graduating from high school and trying to figure out what to do with their lives. They want to move into an apartment together, but only Rebecca strives to find a job to pay for it. Enid and Rebecca are both outsiders in their high school, and Enid takes this to an extreme after high-school, struggling to find a place in the world, and not fitting in anywhere she goes. Instead, she goes around annoying other people, eventually answering a personal ad, where she meets Seymour, a reclusive vintage record collector. By the time the movie ends, Enid has pretty much destroyed the life of everyone around her. Enid eventually leaves town on a bus, heading for somewhere unknown.
The opening sequence from the film finds Enid (played by Thora Birch, whom I've had a crush on since I first saw Ghost World) dancing around her room to the dance sequence from Gumnaam, featuring the song "Jaan Pehechaan Ho", sung by Mohammed Rafi. Rafi, incidentally, is not the singer in the film. That band is called Ted Lyons and His Cubs, who have been featured in several classic Bollywood films. The dance sequence features dancer Laxmi Chhaya, jerking around in a strange dance, reminiscent of 60s American dances, but filtered through the funhouse mirror of Bollywood. It has the trappings of what we'd know as 60s America, with the music and costumes, but none of the cultural touchstones. Instead, it becomes a surreal, psychedelic landscape, sung in a strange and alien language. Like Ghost World, this is a strange and absurd lens looking through at something that's almost familiar, but ultimately alien.
Dan Clowes discovered this song through Peter Holsapple, of the legendary 80s indy rock band, the dBs. The song was also used in a 2011 ad for Heineken.
After learning about this song, I also learned about the Sublime Frequencies record label, which specialized in oddball and archival releases of worldbeat music like this. "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" also appears on their compilation Bollywood Steel Guitar, where is takes another bizarre twist, Van Shipley covers the song on the compilation. For some reason, in Bollywood, steel guitar is used for easy listening songs. So, this instrumental cover comes of like a weird spaghetti western version set in India.
Yes, I do love music like this. Music taken out of a familiar context, twisted through some bizarre genre and culture bending, and coming out the other side looking like nothing we'd every think we'd ever see.
This month's Weird World of Old Records is less about a record, and more about Bollywood. From North American eyes, Bollywood films have some of the trappings of what we know as movies, but it soon gets warped into a surreal direction. Actors break into song without an inkling they will. Dance numbers appear out of nowhere. Strange video filters are used. It's a fun trip, but often a disorienting one.
I was first exposed to Bollywood music, ironically, through an American cult film, Ghost World. Being a fan of Daniel Clowes, I saw Ghost World when it first hit theatres in 2001. This film opens with the dance sequence from a 1965 Indian film called Gumnaam. I've never seen the original film, so I don't have a context for the film, but I understand what Ghost World is about. I do know Gumnaam is a murder mystery, so it's even more strange that there's a huge rock and roll dance sequence in the film.
Ghost World follows Enid and Rebecca graduating from high school and trying to figure out what to do with their lives. They want to move into an apartment together, but only Rebecca strives to find a job to pay for it. Enid and Rebecca are both outsiders in their high school, and Enid takes this to an extreme after high-school, struggling to find a place in the world, and not fitting in anywhere she goes. Instead, she goes around annoying other people, eventually answering a personal ad, where she meets Seymour, a reclusive vintage record collector. By the time the movie ends, Enid has pretty much destroyed the life of everyone around her. Enid eventually leaves town on a bus, heading for somewhere unknown.
The opening sequence from the film finds Enid (played by Thora Birch, whom I've had a crush on since I first saw Ghost World) dancing around her room to the dance sequence from Gumnaam, featuring the song "Jaan Pehechaan Ho", sung by Mohammed Rafi. Rafi, incidentally, is not the singer in the film. That band is called Ted Lyons and His Cubs, who have been featured in several classic Bollywood films. The dance sequence features dancer Laxmi Chhaya, jerking around in a strange dance, reminiscent of 60s American dances, but filtered through the funhouse mirror of Bollywood. It has the trappings of what we'd know as 60s America, with the music and costumes, but none of the cultural touchstones. Instead, it becomes a surreal, psychedelic landscape, sung in a strange and alien language. Like Ghost World, this is a strange and absurd lens looking through at something that's almost familiar, but ultimately alien.
Dan Clowes discovered this song through Peter Holsapple, of the legendary 80s indy rock band, the dBs. The song was also used in a 2011 ad for Heineken.
After learning about this song, I also learned about the Sublime Frequencies record label, which specialized in oddball and archival releases of worldbeat music like this. "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" also appears on their compilation Bollywood Steel Guitar, where is takes another bizarre twist, Van Shipley covers the song on the compilation. For some reason, in Bollywood, steel guitar is used for easy listening songs. So, this instrumental cover comes of like a weird spaghetti western version set in India.
Yes, I do love music like this. Music taken out of a familiar context, twisted through some bizarre genre and culture bending, and coming out the other side looking like nothing we'd every think we'd ever see.
Monday, October 24, 2016
RIP Pete Burns
So many people have said to me, "I can't wait for 2016 to be over". I gotta agree. It's been a pretty shitty year, not only from a personal standpoint, but from a musical standpoint. We've lost so many giants this year, from David Bowie and Prince, to many smaller but no less loved people, like Peter Burns today.
A lot of people dismiss Dead or Alive as a one hit wonder. They're best known for their wonderfully campy and poppy "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", a staple of 80s dance parties and wedding receptions since 1985. Dead or Alive were pioneers in bringing goth to a more commercial and mainstream audience. Their music was poppy but dark. Their 1985 record, Youthquake, was a huge seller worldwide.
Dead or Alive took their goth leanings seriously early on in their career, turning more poppy as their career went on. In a lot of ways, Pete Burns was a poor-man's Boy George, having the androgynous look of Boy George, but not the presence or the pop chops that Boy George did. Though, after Dead or Alive broke up in 2000, Burns became a huge advocate for fluid sexuality, in ways that Boy George never did.
Burns claimed he wasn't gay, bi or any other type of named sexuality, claiming his type of sexuality "hadn't been invented yet". He also had many plastic surgeries, giving him an almost freakish look.
Burns also had a mildly successful solo career in the 2000s, with his most successful single being "Jack and Jill Party" in 2005.
My personal favourite Dead or Alive track is "Brand New Lover" from 1986's Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know.
Burns died at the age of 57 from a sudden cardiac arrest.
A lot of people dismiss Dead or Alive as a one hit wonder. They're best known for their wonderfully campy and poppy "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)", a staple of 80s dance parties and wedding receptions since 1985. Dead or Alive were pioneers in bringing goth to a more commercial and mainstream audience. Their music was poppy but dark. Their 1985 record, Youthquake, was a huge seller worldwide.
Dead or Alive took their goth leanings seriously early on in their career, turning more poppy as their career went on. In a lot of ways, Pete Burns was a poor-man's Boy George, having the androgynous look of Boy George, but not the presence or the pop chops that Boy George did. Though, after Dead or Alive broke up in 2000, Burns became a huge advocate for fluid sexuality, in ways that Boy George never did.
Burns claimed he wasn't gay, bi or any other type of named sexuality, claiming his type of sexuality "hadn't been invented yet". He also had many plastic surgeries, giving him an almost freakish look.
Burns also had a mildly successful solo career in the 2000s, with his most successful single being "Jack and Jill Party" in 2005.
My personal favourite Dead or Alive track is "Brand New Lover" from 1986's Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know.
Burns died at the age of 57 from a sudden cardiac arrest.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Covers Courageous #10: Brad Mehldau - She's Leaving Home
It's a bit of a cliche, but jazz musicians seem to love the Beatles. For some reason, McCartney/Lennon songs seem to be able to easily jump the gap between pop music and jazz. Not only have jazz vocalists taken on Beatles tunes in a jazz setting, but many instrumental artists have arranged Beatles tunes to jazz orchestration, and even into sprawling avant-garde styles.
Brad Mehldau is a legendary jazz pianist, arranger and composer in more modern styles of jazz. His first recording came in 1991, and he has since become a very well known and critically acclaimed performer. His own style merges modern jazz forms with contemporary styles and avant-garde leanings. Not only did he record "She's Leaving Home" for his 2005 Nonesuch album Day is Done, he's also tackled other Beatles fare like "Blackbird", "Mother Nature's Son" and "Martha My Dear"
"She's Leaving Home" is one of the saddest songs in the Beatles repertoire. It's a heartbreaking song about a daughter leaving her parents suddenly, running away in the wee hours of the morning. She leaves a short note, trying to explain why she had to leave, while her parents struggle to understand why she left. The instrumental treatment that Mehldau gives the song evokes the memory of the lyrics of the song while not explicitly singing them. Instead, it's like a distant, dreamlike memory of a song, the sadness coming along with the minimalist, half-remembered melody he weaves. Mehldau's improvisation strings the track along past the 3 minute length of the original song, prolonging the desperate sadness of the song to unbearable levels.
While it is cliche to see a jazz Beatles cover, Mehldau is able to leap past the cliche of a jazz musician grasping at popular music to be relevant, and turns it into something uniquely his.
Brad Mehldau is a legendary jazz pianist, arranger and composer in more modern styles of jazz. His first recording came in 1991, and he has since become a very well known and critically acclaimed performer. His own style merges modern jazz forms with contemporary styles and avant-garde leanings. Not only did he record "She's Leaving Home" for his 2005 Nonesuch album Day is Done, he's also tackled other Beatles fare like "Blackbird", "Mother Nature's Son" and "Martha My Dear"
"She's Leaving Home" is one of the saddest songs in the Beatles repertoire. It's a heartbreaking song about a daughter leaving her parents suddenly, running away in the wee hours of the morning. She leaves a short note, trying to explain why she had to leave, while her parents struggle to understand why she left. The instrumental treatment that Mehldau gives the song evokes the memory of the lyrics of the song while not explicitly singing them. Instead, it's like a distant, dreamlike memory of a song, the sadness coming along with the minimalist, half-remembered melody he weaves. Mehldau's improvisation strings the track along past the 3 minute length of the original song, prolonging the desperate sadness of the song to unbearable levels.
While it is cliche to see a jazz Beatles cover, Mehldau is able to leap past the cliche of a jazz musician grasping at popular music to be relevant, and turns it into something uniquely his.
Monday, October 17, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for October 14, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Videotape - Beaches* - My Favourite Thing (Independent)
Jojo Worthington - Mid Youth Crisis* - Two Lines (Epoch Tapes)
Charlotte Day Wilson - Work* - CDW (Independent)
L CON - Without Colours* - Moon Milk (Independent)
Minor Victories - A Hundred Ropes - Minor Victories (Fat Possum)
Sex with Strangers - Gift of Fear* - Disclosure (Northern Light)
Bob Mould - Losing Sleep - Crack the Sky (Merge)
Fuad and the Feztones - Soul Camel* - Beeramid (Ricochet Sound)
The Goatbox Rebels - Open Ocean* - Let's All Bleed Integrity (Independent)
Latcho Drom - Knapweed* - Don't Measure, Cut Yourself (Independent)
Owlface - Colour Bars* - In Spiral Sleep EP (Independent)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Videotape - Beaches* - My Favourite Thing (Independent)
Jojo Worthington - Mid Youth Crisis* - Two Lines (Epoch Tapes)
Charlotte Day Wilson - Work* - CDW (Independent)
L CON - Without Colours* - Moon Milk (Independent)
Minor Victories - A Hundred Ropes - Minor Victories (Fat Possum)
Sex with Strangers - Gift of Fear* - Disclosure (Northern Light)
Bob Mould - Losing Sleep - Crack the Sky (Merge)
Fuad and the Feztones - Soul Camel* - Beeramid (Ricochet Sound)
The Goatbox Rebels - Open Ocean* - Let's All Bleed Integrity (Independent)
Latcho Drom - Knapweed* - Don't Measure, Cut Yourself (Independent)
Owlface - Colour Bars* - In Spiral Sleep EP (Independent)
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Canadian indy band round up - October 2016
Time for another Canadian indy band roundup. Three new bands you need to check out
Wishkicker
Wishkicker is Vancouver's new biggest buzz band. They just appeared on the cover of Discorder and Beatroute this past month. Their first EP is out, called Wider Vision. They've got a melodic dreampop/post punk vibe to them. These guys should be huge in a couple of years if they can stay together.
Trampoline
A new band from Winnipeg, they have just released a 4 song EP called Sometimes a Song is Just a Cigar. They have a weirdo indy rock/new wave vibe very similar to Deerhoof or Xiu Xiu
Lesbo Vrouven
Montreal's Lesbo Vrouven aren't exactly a new band, they've been around since 2008. They might not be well known out of Quebec due to their tendency to sing in both French and gibberish. Their latest album is called Grifff Pifff and is out on the P572 Records label, home to many bizarre French new wave and punk bands.
Wishkicker
Wishkicker is Vancouver's new biggest buzz band. They just appeared on the cover of Discorder and Beatroute this past month. Their first EP is out, called Wider Vision. They've got a melodic dreampop/post punk vibe to them. These guys should be huge in a couple of years if they can stay together.
Trampoline
A new band from Winnipeg, they have just released a 4 song EP called Sometimes a Song is Just a Cigar. They have a weirdo indy rock/new wave vibe very similar to Deerhoof or Xiu Xiu
Lesbo Vrouven
Montreal's Lesbo Vrouven aren't exactly a new band, they've been around since 2008. They might not be well known out of Quebec due to their tendency to sing in both French and gibberish. Their latest album is called Grifff Pifff and is out on the P572 Records label, home to many bizarre French new wave and punk bands.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for October 7, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
IDALG - Queztalcoatl* - Post-Dynastie (Independent)
Hot Panda - Golden Arch* - Bad Pop (Bandwagon)
JPNSGRLS - 2009* - Divorce (Light Organ)
Pony Girl - Adultery* - Foreign Life (Independent)
The Fluid - Is it Day I'm Seeing? - Sub Pop 200 (Sub Pop)
Love Battery - Brazil - Straight Freak Ticket (Atlas)
Tad - Throat Locust - Inhaler (Giant)
Lucid 44 - I Will Find You* - Black//Veins (Bart)
Communism - One of Everybody* - Get Down Get Together (Independent)
The Peptides - Attack of the Treadmill* - EP (Bart)
Twist - Bleached* - Spectral (Buzz)
Red Arms - In Frauds We Trust* - Let Every Nation Know (Yeah Right!)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
IDALG - Queztalcoatl* - Post-Dynastie (Independent)
Hot Panda - Golden Arch* - Bad Pop (Bandwagon)
JPNSGRLS - 2009* - Divorce (Light Organ)
Pony Girl - Adultery* - Foreign Life (Independent)
The Fluid - Is it Day I'm Seeing? - Sub Pop 200 (Sub Pop)
Love Battery - Brazil - Straight Freak Ticket (Atlas)
Tad - Throat Locust - Inhaler (Giant)
Lucid 44 - I Will Find You* - Black//Veins (Bart)
Communism - One of Everybody* - Get Down Get Together (Independent)
The Peptides - Attack of the Treadmill* - EP (Bart)
Twist - Bleached* - Spectral (Buzz)
Red Arms - In Frauds We Trust* - Let Every Nation Know (Yeah Right!)
Monday, October 10, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for September 29, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Mocky - When Paulie Gets Mad* - Keychange (Independent)
Jason Sharp - A Boat Upon Its Blood Part 3* - A Boat Upon Its Blood (Constellation)
Off World - Extraction* - 1 (Constellation)
Golfam Khayam/Mona Matbou Riahi - Parlando - Narrante (ECM)
Wolfert Brederode Trio - Olive Tree - Black Ice (ECM)
Jon Lundbom and Big Five Chord - Period - Play All of the Chords (Hot Cup)
My Son the Hurricane - Roll with the Punches* - Is This What You Want? (Independent)
BHZ - Flaming Radio - Total Harmonic Distortion (Innova)
Mehmet Ali Sanlikol and Whatisnext? - Love Theme from Ergenekon - Resolution (Dunya)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Mocky - When Paulie Gets Mad* - Keychange (Independent)
Jason Sharp - A Boat Upon Its Blood Part 3* - A Boat Upon Its Blood (Constellation)
Off World - Extraction* - 1 (Constellation)
Golfam Khayam/Mona Matbou Riahi - Parlando - Narrante (ECM)
Wolfert Brederode Trio - Olive Tree - Black Ice (ECM)
Jon Lundbom and Big Five Chord - Period - Play All of the Chords (Hot Cup)
My Son the Hurricane - Roll with the Punches* - Is This What You Want? (Independent)
BHZ - Flaming Radio - Total Harmonic Distortion (Innova)
Mehmet Ali Sanlikol and Whatisnext? - Love Theme from Ergenekon - Resolution (Dunya)
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Video Playlist #9: Ghosts!
In celebration of Hallowe'en, here's a bunch of bands with Ghost in their names! (and lots of them Canadian too!)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0QOmyo1JgZds_68TqVJRK397DM5YE2XK
1) Ghost - Square Hammer
2) Cellarghost* - Jackals
3) Ghostkeeper* - Haunted
4) Extra Happy Ghost!!!* - Mercy Mercy
5) Ghostface Killah - One
6) Frozen Ghost* - Should I See
7) Reign Ghost - Long Day Journey
8) Give Up the Ghost - We Killed It
9) The Ghost is Dancing* - This Thunder
10) Ghost Bees* - Tasseomancy
11) Jukebox the Ghost - Hollywood
12) Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger - Comic Strip
13) I am Ghost - Saddest Story Never Told
14) Ghosttwin* - Mystic Sabbath
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0QOmyo1JgZds_68TqVJRK397DM5YE2XK
1) Ghost - Square Hammer
2) Cellarghost* - Jackals
3) Ghostkeeper* - Haunted
4) Extra Happy Ghost!!!* - Mercy Mercy
5) Ghostface Killah - One
6) Frozen Ghost* - Should I See
7) Reign Ghost - Long Day Journey
8) Give Up the Ghost - We Killed It
9) The Ghost is Dancing* - This Thunder
10) Ghost Bees* - Tasseomancy
11) Jukebox the Ghost - Hollywood
12) Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger - Comic Strip
13) I am Ghost - Saddest Story Never Told
14) Ghosttwin* - Mystic Sabbath
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
The changing face of record shopping in Vancouver
I just got back from another trip to Vancouver, and, as usual, I got in some record shopping. Things are changing in Vancouver for record shopping. While I was only there one day, I can see that things are shifting quite a bit.
First, tangentally, about driving in Vancouver...
I've been driving in Vancouver for a few years now (a couple of days a year) and, sadly, I think I'm getting used to it. Yes, there's strangely aggressive drivers everywhere, swerving in and out of lanes, failing to signal, blatantly running through red lights or exploiting yellow lights. That's par for the course in Vancouver.
Trying to find shortcuts through the city has become futile and I've mostly given up on it. I used to try to find easier ways through the city by avoiding the main, busy routes and going one street over into residential areas. The traffic would be non-existant and driving would be slow, due to roundabouts, but it was a lot less stressful than trying to drive down Main or Knight or whatever main street. I've found you can only get a few blocks doing this, before a street becomes blocked off by a bike-only path, a park, or some other obstacle, forcing you to go back to a main road. Likely, this is deliberate, to force drivers to main arteries, or, in my case, make them not want to drive at all! If I have a choice, I'll park my car from now on and take the Skytrain.
Highway driving is getting easier too. The only stretch I hate is the part from Abbotsford to Vancouver. It's almost always slow going and, often, forced down to a crawl or even a stop due to heavy traffic. In the future, I'm going to get off on Abbotsford, head north on Highway 11 to Mission, then take Highway 7 into Vancouver. It takes a bit longer, but it's more relaxing and the scenery is nicer too.
Parking is easily the most annoying part of driving in Vancouver. Parking is expensive, and almost non-existent in places. Often, you have to park a couple of blocks away, and even then, you need to watch the parking signs, since a lot of places need a permit to park there. It's easy to rack up a hundred bucks in fines if you aren't watching what you're doing. And I suck at parking, so it's even harder for me. I don't mind the walks though. I like parking on Victoria, then walking over to Commercial Drive for walking and shopping.
On to record shopping.
Zulu Record is fast becoming a place to avoid. Since I was last there, they've sold off the upper half of the store to a trendy clothing shop. The store itself used to have a thriving and vibrant local section for music, now it's just a couple of rows in the shop. Used music is still the name of the game there, though most of it is vinyl now. A few years ago, they decided to let vinyl take over most of the shop. The upstairs part still has dirt cheap CDs, which is a great reason go there, even if the selection has been picked through, there's still thousands of albums for a buck or two there. I think it's downfall has two factors. First is the neighbourhood. Kitsilano is an prime example of gentrification. A previously fairly affordable place to live slowly turned into a trendy place to live, in turn, jacking up the prices on everything from housing to food, and changing all the local shops into trendy hipster joints. In one stretch of road, I counted four specialty tea shops right next to each other. Simply put, it's a tourist trap since only the rich can afford to live there. And tourists aren't looking for used vinyl, I suspect. Second is Red Cat Records, next on my trip, which seems to now be handling the lion's share of live ticket sales, which used to be one of Zulu's main sources of income. Their ticket wall seemed anemic to me, compared to other times I was there.
Red Cat Records on Main is the best place to go to find new music. Their local section is usually brimming with new material. They have a tape section of new stuff. All the biggest indy bands are represented on the new wall. Their vinyl selection is healthy, same with the CD selection. I buy most of my new music there. I found the new Factory Floor, Preoccupations and Pixies album there, but they didn't have the new Thermals or Tacocat, which I was really hoping to buy. I got the new Light in the Attick reissue of the Shaggs "History of the World" finally. Yes, I finally own a copy of one of the albums that is a contender for "Worst Album Ever Made". Red Cat is doing great in live ticket sales too. They just opened a second location near East Hastings and Nanaimo. I checked that location out too. It's very new, so it's small and clean, and pretty empty of customers so far. I bought an Evaporators album there and chatted with the clerk about how the cover of the album is an homage to a classic Subhumans album. This is the best record store in town right now.
Neptoon on Main still is a great niche record store. Basically, if you're looking for an album in rock, classic rock, blues or jazz, Neptoon is likely to have it on vinyl or on CD. Indy music and the obscure is much rarer here. I went in for the first time in years looking for some of their recent Vancouver band releases on CD, but they mostly had them on vinyl. I picked up a sweet Dave Edmunds collection there.
Lastly on my trip was my favourite record store, Audiopile on Commercial Drive. I'm constantly amazed by the sheer variety of music in Audiopile, and the excellent prices. Routinely, I'll walk out with 15-20 albums I know I'll love for like $50. Their vinyl collection is nice too, but I rarely dig into the vaults. As with any serious record buying and collecting, digging through the stacks is vital, and Audiopile always has interesting finds, obscure ones too.
For the first time, I also got to go to the Vancouver Flea Market on 1st. I always saw it on my Skytrain ride into Science World, but never got to stop there. It was fascinating just for looking. If I had the time, I would have loved to dig through the vinyl crates and through the vintage comics. I bought a couple of albums there, but just looking around at the constant weird stuff, from wax cylinder players to iPhone cases to bizarre old dolls. If you were into something, chances are someone had a table there that catered to your interests.
Of course, thrift store shopping is always worthwhile in Vancouver. From small thrift shops to places like Value Village and the Salvation Army, you're always bound to find something. If you have time, always crate dig in thrift shops, no matter where you are. Every time I dig through vinyl boxes, I'll find the usual thrift store stuff like Slim Whitman or 101 Strings. But there's always an intriguing album like a banjo player from Swift Current, or a choral album of 60s pop hits. Something like that. One day, I hope to have the space and the money to start buying these strange bits of musical history that just scream "weird".
There's a lot more record shopping to do in Vancouver. I still have to get back to places like Scratch Records, Dandelion Records, Vinyl Records, Highlife, Stylus and Sikora's, amongst others, so there's more research to do!
First, tangentally, about driving in Vancouver...
I've been driving in Vancouver for a few years now (a couple of days a year) and, sadly, I think I'm getting used to it. Yes, there's strangely aggressive drivers everywhere, swerving in and out of lanes, failing to signal, blatantly running through red lights or exploiting yellow lights. That's par for the course in Vancouver.
Trying to find shortcuts through the city has become futile and I've mostly given up on it. I used to try to find easier ways through the city by avoiding the main, busy routes and going one street over into residential areas. The traffic would be non-existant and driving would be slow, due to roundabouts, but it was a lot less stressful than trying to drive down Main or Knight or whatever main street. I've found you can only get a few blocks doing this, before a street becomes blocked off by a bike-only path, a park, or some other obstacle, forcing you to go back to a main road. Likely, this is deliberate, to force drivers to main arteries, or, in my case, make them not want to drive at all! If I have a choice, I'll park my car from now on and take the Skytrain.
Highway driving is getting easier too. The only stretch I hate is the part from Abbotsford to Vancouver. It's almost always slow going and, often, forced down to a crawl or even a stop due to heavy traffic. In the future, I'm going to get off on Abbotsford, head north on Highway 11 to Mission, then take Highway 7 into Vancouver. It takes a bit longer, but it's more relaxing and the scenery is nicer too.
Parking is easily the most annoying part of driving in Vancouver. Parking is expensive, and almost non-existent in places. Often, you have to park a couple of blocks away, and even then, you need to watch the parking signs, since a lot of places need a permit to park there. It's easy to rack up a hundred bucks in fines if you aren't watching what you're doing. And I suck at parking, so it's even harder for me. I don't mind the walks though. I like parking on Victoria, then walking over to Commercial Drive for walking and shopping.
On to record shopping.
Zulu Record is fast becoming a place to avoid. Since I was last there, they've sold off the upper half of the store to a trendy clothing shop. The store itself used to have a thriving and vibrant local section for music, now it's just a couple of rows in the shop. Used music is still the name of the game there, though most of it is vinyl now. A few years ago, they decided to let vinyl take over most of the shop. The upstairs part still has dirt cheap CDs, which is a great reason go there, even if the selection has been picked through, there's still thousands of albums for a buck or two there. I think it's downfall has two factors. First is the neighbourhood. Kitsilano is an prime example of gentrification. A previously fairly affordable place to live slowly turned into a trendy place to live, in turn, jacking up the prices on everything from housing to food, and changing all the local shops into trendy hipster joints. In one stretch of road, I counted four specialty tea shops right next to each other. Simply put, it's a tourist trap since only the rich can afford to live there. And tourists aren't looking for used vinyl, I suspect. Second is Red Cat Records, next on my trip, which seems to now be handling the lion's share of live ticket sales, which used to be one of Zulu's main sources of income. Their ticket wall seemed anemic to me, compared to other times I was there.
Red Cat Records on Main is the best place to go to find new music. Their local section is usually brimming with new material. They have a tape section of new stuff. All the biggest indy bands are represented on the new wall. Their vinyl selection is healthy, same with the CD selection. I buy most of my new music there. I found the new Factory Floor, Preoccupations and Pixies album there, but they didn't have the new Thermals or Tacocat, which I was really hoping to buy. I got the new Light in the Attick reissue of the Shaggs "History of the World" finally. Yes, I finally own a copy of one of the albums that is a contender for "Worst Album Ever Made". Red Cat is doing great in live ticket sales too. They just opened a second location near East Hastings and Nanaimo. I checked that location out too. It's very new, so it's small and clean, and pretty empty of customers so far. I bought an Evaporators album there and chatted with the clerk about how the cover of the album is an homage to a classic Subhumans album. This is the best record store in town right now.
Neptoon on Main still is a great niche record store. Basically, if you're looking for an album in rock, classic rock, blues or jazz, Neptoon is likely to have it on vinyl or on CD. Indy music and the obscure is much rarer here. I went in for the first time in years looking for some of their recent Vancouver band releases on CD, but they mostly had them on vinyl. I picked up a sweet Dave Edmunds collection there.
Lastly on my trip was my favourite record store, Audiopile on Commercial Drive. I'm constantly amazed by the sheer variety of music in Audiopile, and the excellent prices. Routinely, I'll walk out with 15-20 albums I know I'll love for like $50. Their vinyl collection is nice too, but I rarely dig into the vaults. As with any serious record buying and collecting, digging through the stacks is vital, and Audiopile always has interesting finds, obscure ones too.
For the first time, I also got to go to the Vancouver Flea Market on 1st. I always saw it on my Skytrain ride into Science World, but never got to stop there. It was fascinating just for looking. If I had the time, I would have loved to dig through the vinyl crates and through the vintage comics. I bought a couple of albums there, but just looking around at the constant weird stuff, from wax cylinder players to iPhone cases to bizarre old dolls. If you were into something, chances are someone had a table there that catered to your interests.
Of course, thrift store shopping is always worthwhile in Vancouver. From small thrift shops to places like Value Village and the Salvation Army, you're always bound to find something. If you have time, always crate dig in thrift shops, no matter where you are. Every time I dig through vinyl boxes, I'll find the usual thrift store stuff like Slim Whitman or 101 Strings. But there's always an intriguing album like a banjo player from Swift Current, or a choral album of 60s pop hits. Something like that. One day, I hope to have the space and the money to start buying these strange bits of musical history that just scream "weird".
There's a lot more record shopping to do in Vancouver. I still have to get back to places like Scratch Records, Dandelion Records, Vinyl Records, Highlife, Stylus and Sikora's, amongst others, so there's more research to do!
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for September 23, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Ghosttwin - The Vulture* - Here We Are in the Night (Independent)
Valiska - Suspension* - Healer (Bow Bottom)
Purveyors of Free Will - In the Valley of the Mesmer King* - Bridge to Here (Baffled Octopi)
Air - Cherry Blossom Girl - Twentyears (Parlophone)
The Avalanches - Subways - Wildflowers (Modular)
MSTRKRFT - Little Red Hen* - Operator (Last Gang)
Drop the Lime - Unfold - Shot Shot Hearts (Tigerbeat6)
Jaunt - Comfortable* - Chat (Independent)
The Submissives - Forces* - Do You Really Love Me? (Fixture)
Natasha Lepine - Wells* - Awkward (Independent)
Bliss Club - Breeze Punk 2* - Bliss Club (Independent)
An Ant and an Atom - Entropy (excerpt)* - Entropy (Independent)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Ghosttwin - The Vulture* - Here We Are in the Night (Independent)
Valiska - Suspension* - Healer (Bow Bottom)
Purveyors of Free Will - In the Valley of the Mesmer King* - Bridge to Here (Baffled Octopi)
Air - Cherry Blossom Girl - Twentyears (Parlophone)
The Avalanches - Subways - Wildflowers (Modular)
MSTRKRFT - Little Red Hen* - Operator (Last Gang)
Drop the Lime - Unfold - Shot Shot Hearts (Tigerbeat6)
Jaunt - Comfortable* - Chat (Independent)
The Submissives - Forces* - Do You Really Love Me? (Fixture)
Natasha Lepine - Wells* - Awkward (Independent)
Bliss Club - Breeze Punk 2* - Bliss Club (Independent)
An Ant and an Atom - Entropy (excerpt)* - Entropy (Independent)
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Nirvana at 25: Overlooked bands in grunge
Last Saturday was the 25th anniversary of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind, an album that was so revolutionary, it changed the face of music and of radio in general.
I was just on the end of my first stint in campus radio, from 1989-1991, when Nirvana started coming into the public consciousness. I had heard some rumblings from the Seattle scene, hearing Soundgarden's first album and the first few songs from Green River. No one was really prepared what what was going to follow though. Nevermind was a total left-field phenomenon. No one saw this album coming and no one put any faith in Nirvana of all bands, cracking into the public's collective eardrums. But happen it did.
Looking back, it's easy to forget just how tame radio looked in 1991. Check out the top singles of 1991. Brian Adams, Paula Abdul. Color Me Badd? Top 40 radio in 1991 was pure pablum. Easily digestible mush. Nirvana's arrival was like punk's arrival in 1977-1979. Punk came at the time of soaring soft-rock anthems and masturbatory prog rockers. While punk didn't make much of a dent into Top 40 radio, Nirvana sure did. And many bands followed them into the mainstream.
We know much about the Seattle bands of the time, like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, The Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains and others, plus the knockoff bands looking for a slice of the pie that Nirvana brought to the picnic. Bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox, Gruntruck and Veruca Salt.
So many other bands plied this style and had little to show for it commercially, but plenty in critical acclaim and solid music legacies. Let's take a look at a few bands from that era that may have escaped your memory.
Tad - I've blogged about Tad before, and he bears talking about again. Tad Doyle's take on grunge was unique, a sloppy, beer-fueled, almost redneck style of guitar playing, heavy and precise. His lyrics took from the absurdity of rural life in the Pacific Northwest, captured well in the early track "Jack Pepsi". Tad was scooped up by Giant Records during the grunge feeding frenzy, and released a couple of solid albums on the major label, but it led to little commercial success. Their albums Inhaler and Infrared Riding Hood are great late-era grunge.
The Fluid - Denver's The Fluid had a psychedelic/garage style to their grunge. A bit too dayglo for most grunge fans, they nevertheless put out some great albums in the grunge era. A dalliance into major labels produced 1993's Purplemetalflakemusic, their best known album.
Treepeople - Treepeople were an oddly loud and arty band from Boise, Idaho. They got their big break on C/Z Records, that other grunge label in Seattle that wasn't Sub Pop Records. Their output as a band was small but had a big cult following. Frontman Doug Martsch went on to form the venerated 90s alt-rock act Built to Spill.
Love Battery - A more melodic take on grunge, Love Battery are a Seattle area band that had more in common with Soul Asylum than anything. Equally heavy, slugdy and upbeat, they had a style that would have fit right in on college radio at the time, had they not got lost in the shuffle and overlooked. They put out three albums for Sub Pop and one for C/Z. This band is still going too, after a lot of line up changes.
Green River - Green River had a short lived career and are mostly known as the band that spawned Mudhoney. Their style is much like Mudhoney's, but shorter and sloppier. In some ways, they're better than Mudhoney due to their raw, punk-based style. They're only album, 1988's Rehab Doll is a must own for any grunge fan.
Seaweed - Tacoma's Seaweed had a sound unique to the Seattle bands, much more rooted in melodic hardcore than grunge. They were more along the lines of Black Flag or Pegboy: tight, loud punk hooks that hit like a punch in the nose. This band is still together and recording, having reformed in 2007.
The Melvins - One of the longest running grunge bands of all time, Aberdeen, Washington's Melvins are also one of the strangest. Starting in 1983, their discography is full of oddly artistic sludge-metal. The Melvins are known for punishing, sloppy and loud guitars, long, slow guitar solos and completely insane, nonsensical lyrics. Notably, Kurt Cobain got his musical start as a roadie for this band. Thanks to Cobain's love of the band, they ended up on a major label too. 1993's Houdini and 1994's Stoner Witch came out on Atlantic Records. They became a favourite of Mike Patton, who signed them to his Ipecac Records label, and has recorded several albums with the band.
I was just on the end of my first stint in campus radio, from 1989-1991, when Nirvana started coming into the public consciousness. I had heard some rumblings from the Seattle scene, hearing Soundgarden's first album and the first few songs from Green River. No one was really prepared what what was going to follow though. Nevermind was a total left-field phenomenon. No one saw this album coming and no one put any faith in Nirvana of all bands, cracking into the public's collective eardrums. But happen it did.
Looking back, it's easy to forget just how tame radio looked in 1991. Check out the top singles of 1991. Brian Adams, Paula Abdul. Color Me Badd? Top 40 radio in 1991 was pure pablum. Easily digestible mush. Nirvana's arrival was like punk's arrival in 1977-1979. Punk came at the time of soaring soft-rock anthems and masturbatory prog rockers. While punk didn't make much of a dent into Top 40 radio, Nirvana sure did. And many bands followed them into the mainstream.
We know much about the Seattle bands of the time, like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, The Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains and others, plus the knockoff bands looking for a slice of the pie that Nirvana brought to the picnic. Bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox, Gruntruck and Veruca Salt.
So many other bands plied this style and had little to show for it commercially, but plenty in critical acclaim and solid music legacies. Let's take a look at a few bands from that era that may have escaped your memory.
Tad - I've blogged about Tad before, and he bears talking about again. Tad Doyle's take on grunge was unique, a sloppy, beer-fueled, almost redneck style of guitar playing, heavy and precise. His lyrics took from the absurdity of rural life in the Pacific Northwest, captured well in the early track "Jack Pepsi". Tad was scooped up by Giant Records during the grunge feeding frenzy, and released a couple of solid albums on the major label, but it led to little commercial success. Their albums Inhaler and Infrared Riding Hood are great late-era grunge.
The Fluid - Denver's The Fluid had a psychedelic/garage style to their grunge. A bit too dayglo for most grunge fans, they nevertheless put out some great albums in the grunge era. A dalliance into major labels produced 1993's Purplemetalflakemusic, their best known album.
Treepeople - Treepeople were an oddly loud and arty band from Boise, Idaho. They got their big break on C/Z Records, that other grunge label in Seattle that wasn't Sub Pop Records. Their output as a band was small but had a big cult following. Frontman Doug Martsch went on to form the venerated 90s alt-rock act Built to Spill.
Love Battery - A more melodic take on grunge, Love Battery are a Seattle area band that had more in common with Soul Asylum than anything. Equally heavy, slugdy and upbeat, they had a style that would have fit right in on college radio at the time, had they not got lost in the shuffle and overlooked. They put out three albums for Sub Pop and one for C/Z. This band is still going too, after a lot of line up changes.
Green River - Green River had a short lived career and are mostly known as the band that spawned Mudhoney. Their style is much like Mudhoney's, but shorter and sloppier. In some ways, they're better than Mudhoney due to their raw, punk-based style. They're only album, 1988's Rehab Doll is a must own for any grunge fan.
Seaweed - Tacoma's Seaweed had a sound unique to the Seattle bands, much more rooted in melodic hardcore than grunge. They were more along the lines of Black Flag or Pegboy: tight, loud punk hooks that hit like a punch in the nose. This band is still together and recording, having reformed in 2007.
The Melvins - One of the longest running grunge bands of all time, Aberdeen, Washington's Melvins are also one of the strangest. Starting in 1983, their discography is full of oddly artistic sludge-metal. The Melvins are known for punishing, sloppy and loud guitars, long, slow guitar solos and completely insane, nonsensical lyrics. Notably, Kurt Cobain got his musical start as a roadie for this band. Thanks to Cobain's love of the band, they ended up on a major label too. 1993's Houdini and 1994's Stoner Witch came out on Atlantic Records. They became a favourite of Mike Patton, who signed them to his Ipecac Records label, and has recorded several albums with the band.
Monday, September 26, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for September 16, 2015
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
METZ - Wasted* - METZ (Sub Pop)
Snake River - Dear Franklin Gabriel McCrebee* - Sun Will Rise (Independent)
The Pixies - What Goes Boom - Indie Cindy (Independent)
Advertisement - Covert* - Advertisement (Independent)
The Veils - King of Crime - Total Depravity (Nettwerk)
Step Rockets - Phantom Flower - Future Nature (Harbour)
Puff - Psychological Survival - Living in the Partyzone (Puff)
The Fours - Shadows - Weekly Elbows (World of Birds)
Dead Messenger - We Will Live Again* - The Owl in Daylight (Skull Central)
JPNSGRLS - Holding Back* - Divorce (Light Organ)
Sailboats Are White - The Sex Drive Thieves* - Turbo! (Let's Just Have Some Fun)
Traitrs - Youth Cults* - Rites and Ritual (Pleasence)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
METZ - Wasted* - METZ (Sub Pop)
Snake River - Dear Franklin Gabriel McCrebee* - Sun Will Rise (Independent)
The Pixies - What Goes Boom - Indie Cindy (Independent)
Advertisement - Covert* - Advertisement (Independent)
The Veils - King of Crime - Total Depravity (Nettwerk)
Step Rockets - Phantom Flower - Future Nature (Harbour)
Puff - Psychological Survival - Living in the Partyzone (Puff)
The Fours - Shadows - Weekly Elbows (World of Birds)
Dead Messenger - We Will Live Again* - The Owl in Daylight (Skull Central)
JPNSGRLS - Holding Back* - Divorce (Light Organ)
Sailboats Are White - The Sex Drive Thieves* - Turbo! (Let's Just Have Some Fun)
Traitrs - Youth Cults* - Rites and Ritual (Pleasence)
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Weird World of Old Records #3: Janet Greene
Lately, I've been digging through the Oddity Archive, er... archives, a great Youtube channel about obsolete media and other weird things, like oddball music. I was reviewing the bits about the Max Headroom Incident, which still fascinates me, then saw the link for something I had totally forgotten he had recorded: a show about right wing folk music.
Yes, right wing folk. We tend to think of folk music as the genre of the left wing singer, people like Pete Seeger or Billy Bragg, singing about the union and the rights of workers. But, yes, the right wing establishment did try to make folk music to lure the people listening to folk away from the commies on the left. And it's equally hilariously inept and infuriatingly ignorant.
With Trump monopolizing the right wing dunce demographic right now, it's easy to dismiss him as a simple moron. With some of these songs, recorded back in the 60s, you can hear that Trump's ideas, or the ideas of the Tea Party and Free Republic, aren't that new.
With Janet Greene's "Fascist Threat", we see her framing the argument that fascism isn't a right wing idea, but a communist idea. Because Benito Mussolini, that guy was a total socialist and bleeding heart, right? The same shifting of the goal posts like the Tea Party claiming the KKK was created by the Democrats and that they are the real racists, save that the Democrats that gave rise to the KKK were people like Strom Thurmond.
The music is horrid in its craftsmanship, and completely inept in it's political framing. But it's a very strange and interesting listening. These are the records that I truly cringe and grin at, and the one's I really want in my collection, because they're so weird, not in their musical styles, but in their place in history. The type of records you say, "Really? Someone recorded this? I need to hear that!"
Yes, right wing folk. We tend to think of folk music as the genre of the left wing singer, people like Pete Seeger or Billy Bragg, singing about the union and the rights of workers. But, yes, the right wing establishment did try to make folk music to lure the people listening to folk away from the commies on the left. And it's equally hilariously inept and infuriatingly ignorant.
With Trump monopolizing the right wing dunce demographic right now, it's easy to dismiss him as a simple moron. With some of these songs, recorded back in the 60s, you can hear that Trump's ideas, or the ideas of the Tea Party and Free Republic, aren't that new.
With Janet Greene's "Fascist Threat", we see her framing the argument that fascism isn't a right wing idea, but a communist idea. Because Benito Mussolini, that guy was a total socialist and bleeding heart, right? The same shifting of the goal posts like the Tea Party claiming the KKK was created by the Democrats and that they are the real racists, save that the Democrats that gave rise to the KKK were people like Strom Thurmond.
The music is horrid in its craftsmanship, and completely inept in it's political framing. But it's a very strange and interesting listening. These are the records that I truly cringe and grin at, and the one's I really want in my collection, because they're so weird, not in their musical styles, but in their place in history. The type of records you say, "Really? Someone recorded this? I need to hear that!"
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Forgotten Music #22: Those French Girls - "Close Up" (1982)
I came across Those French Girls thanks to a sampler I bought at a used record store about a year back. Kelly's Records used to have these in-house samplers they'd play in their stores, and most of them covered a lot of Canadian new wave. Finding one of these samplers in the wild is unusual, since they weren't meant to be sold. I love me some Canadian new wave, and I also love me some obscure records, so I had to have it.
On Rocktober 82, in between tracks from Spoons, The Extras, Blue Peter and (oddly) Anvil, Santers and Steppenwolf were two non-Canadian bands, English metal band Tank and Scottish new wave band Those French Girls.
Scottish new wave has a long and varied pedigree, and a unique sound in the world of new wave music. Scottish new wave had a jangly and melodic tone missing in English new wave, and many bands had an almost folky sound. The biggest names to come out of the Scottish scene were Simple Minds, Big Country, Lloyd Cole and Aztec Camera. The scene also spawned the Waterboys, who had a distinct Celtic folk feel, the punk feel of the Rezillos, and the affected pop of Altered Images. Then there were less successful but no less interesting bands like the manic Orange Juice and the noise-punk of the Fire Engines.
Those French Girls were one of the more obscure bands from the Scottish scene. They released just one album, 1982's Those French Girls, and two EPs, then disappeared. This album appeared on the UK label Safari Records, which was then released on the Canadian label Attic, which explains why they're appearing on this Canadian record store sampler.
On Rocktober 82, in between tracks from Spoons, The Extras, Blue Peter and (oddly) Anvil, Santers and Steppenwolf were two non-Canadian bands, English metal band Tank and Scottish new wave band Those French Girls.
Scottish new wave has a long and varied pedigree, and a unique sound in the world of new wave music. Scottish new wave had a jangly and melodic tone missing in English new wave, and many bands had an almost folky sound. The biggest names to come out of the Scottish scene were Simple Minds, Big Country, Lloyd Cole and Aztec Camera. The scene also spawned the Waterboys, who had a distinct Celtic folk feel, the punk feel of the Rezillos, and the affected pop of Altered Images. Then there were less successful but no less interesting bands like the manic Orange Juice and the noise-punk of the Fire Engines.
Those French Girls were one of the more obscure bands from the Scottish scene. They released just one album, 1982's Those French Girls, and two EPs, then disappeared. This album appeared on the UK label Safari Records, which was then released on the Canadian label Attic, which explains why they're appearing on this Canadian record store sampler.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for September 9. 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Beast - Mr. Hurricane* - Beast (Pheromone)
MoonMuseum - Edge City* - Eternal Return (Independent)
MoonMuseum - Expressions* - Eternal Return (Independent)
MoonMuseum - Manta Ray* - Eternal Return (Independent)
MoonMuseum - Sow* - Eternal Return (Independent)
Kenna Burima - God's Little Soldier* - Hymn (Independent)
No Aloha - Season of Light* - Deluxe (Independent)
Lie - Big Enough* - Truth or Consequences (Monofonus Press)
I ran an interview with Edmonton's MoonMuseum in this show. Listen to it here.
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Beast - Mr. Hurricane* - Beast (Pheromone)
MoonMuseum - Edge City* - Eternal Return (Independent)
MoonMuseum - Expressions* - Eternal Return (Independent)
MoonMuseum - Manta Ray* - Eternal Return (Independent)
MoonMuseum - Sow* - Eternal Return (Independent)
Kenna Burima - God's Little Soldier* - Hymn (Independent)
No Aloha - Season of Light* - Deluxe (Independent)
Lie - Big Enough* - Truth or Consequences (Monofonus Press)
I ran an interview with Edmonton's MoonMuseum in this show. Listen to it here.
Monday, September 12, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for September 2, 2015
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
White Lung - Demented* - Paradise (Domino)
Woolworm - Evil Until I Die* - Everything Seems Obvious (Hockey Dad)
T.O.Y.S. - Soul Remains - Sicks (Independent)
Moulettes - Underwaterpainter - Preternatural (Pipe and Hat)
TJ Webb - Country Girl* - Logic and Guns (Independent)
Braids - Trophies for Paradox* - Companion EP (Flemish Eye)
Ominar - The Lake* - Leaving (Independent)
As Waters - Dame Atlantis* - As Waters (Independent)
Forbidden Dimension - The Lucifer Brain* - Every
Heaven for Real - No One Knows Her* - Kill Your Memory (Mint)
Fountain - Landline* - Fountain 2 (Independent)
Rose Windows - Come Get Us Again - Rose Windows (Sub Pop)
The Vagrants - Respect - Nuggets 40th Anniversary (Elektra)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
White Lung - Demented* - Paradise (Domino)
Woolworm - Evil Until I Die* - Everything Seems Obvious (Hockey Dad)
T.O.Y.S. - Soul Remains - Sicks (Independent)
Moulettes - Underwaterpainter - Preternatural (Pipe and Hat)
TJ Webb - Country Girl* - Logic and Guns (Independent)
Braids - Trophies for Paradox* - Companion EP (Flemish Eye)
Ominar - The Lake* - Leaving (Independent)
As Waters - Dame Atlantis* - As Waters (Independent)
Forbidden Dimension - The Lucifer Brain* - Every
Heaven for Real - No One Knows Her* - Kill Your Memory (Mint)
Fountain - Landline* - Fountain 2 (Independent)
Rose Windows - Come Get Us Again - Rose Windows (Sub Pop)
The Vagrants - Respect - Nuggets 40th Anniversary (Elektra)
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Someone Knows Something: The J. Jonah Jamesons - "Parker Get in Here"
For years, I've been hunting for a white whale. I only vaguely remember the song, but I know for sure I ran into it during my time at CKUL/CKXU in Lethbridge. It was a punk band, I think from Calgary, called the J. Jonah Jamesons, doing a song called "Parker Get in Here".
Searching for this song and band is futile. Someone knows something about this song. If you do, please comment on this post!
Searching for this song and band is futile. Someone knows something about this song. If you do, please comment on this post!
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
DNTTA Playlist for August 26, 2016 - All Covers Show
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Reid Jamieson - Suzanne (Leonard Cohen)* - Dear Leonard (Independent)
The Soup Dragons - I'm Free (The Rolling Stones) - Lovegod (Big Life)
The Bird and the Bee - Kiss on My List (Hall and Oates) - Interpreting the Masters Vol. 1 (Blue Note)
Skullfinger - Walk Right In (Rooftop Singers/Gus Cannon)* - Turn Down the Quiet (Ulusulu)
Hellsongs - We're Not Gonna Take It (Twisted Sister) - Songs in the Key of 666 (Aporia)
Grant Lee Buffalo - We've Only Just Begun (The Carpenters) - If I Were a Carpenter (A&M)
Frank Black - Hang On to Your Ego (Beach Boys) - Frank Black (4AD)
Orchestra Baobab - Clementine Jam (Grateful Dead) - Day of the Dead (4AD)
Von Zippers - Truck Stop Nun (De Slyme)* - Oh Canaduh! 2 (Lance Rock)
Quiet Riot - Mama Weer All Crazee Now (Slade) - Condition Critical (Pasha)
Marilyn Manson - I Put a Spell on You (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) - Lost Highway OST (Nothing)
Weird Al Yankovic - Another One Rides the Bus (Queen) - Weird Al Yankovic (Scotti Bros)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
Reid Jamieson - Suzanne (Leonard Cohen)* - Dear Leonard (Independent)
The Soup Dragons - I'm Free (The Rolling Stones) - Lovegod (Big Life)
The Bird and the Bee - Kiss on My List (Hall and Oates) - Interpreting the Masters Vol. 1 (Blue Note)
Skullfinger - Walk Right In (Rooftop Singers/Gus Cannon)* - Turn Down the Quiet (Ulusulu)
Hellsongs - We're Not Gonna Take It (Twisted Sister) - Songs in the Key of 666 (Aporia)
Grant Lee Buffalo - We've Only Just Begun (The Carpenters) - If I Were a Carpenter (A&M)
Frank Black - Hang On to Your Ego (Beach Boys) - Frank Black (4AD)
Orchestra Baobab - Clementine Jam (Grateful Dead) - Day of the Dead (4AD)
Von Zippers - Truck Stop Nun (De Slyme)* - Oh Canaduh! 2 (Lance Rock)
Quiet Riot - Mama Weer All Crazee Now (Slade) - Condition Critical (Pasha)
Marilyn Manson - I Put a Spell on You (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) - Lost Highway OST (Nothing)
Weird Al Yankovic - Another One Rides the Bus (Queen) - Weird Al Yankovic (Scotti Bros)
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Video Playlist #8: Really Really Red
Kind of a last minute playlist for the first Thursday of September. I've been busy writing and working, but I think I got a good thematic playlist together. Bands all named after the colour red.
Those of you interested in these playlist and who are on reddit, check out r/musicthemetime. I've been posting there regularly since I found it!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0QOmyo1JgZffVDvkpq78HWL2i04NTZz4
1) Really Red - Teaching You the Fear
2) Red Red Meat - Smoke Mountain Double Dip
3) Redambergreen* - Storms and Rain
4) Red Mass* - Sharp
5) King Crimson - Cage
6) Red Rider* - Lunatic Fringe
7) Red Handed Denial* - Manipulator
8) Red Ants* - Dirty Space Alchemy
9) Redd Kross - Annie's Gone
10) Red Elvises - Surfin' in Siberia
11) Green on Red - Sea of Cortez
12) Vox Vermillion* - Underground
13) Leon Redbone - Seduced
14) Red Arms* - Chorus of Life
Those of you interested in these playlist and who are on reddit, check out r/musicthemetime. I've been posting there regularly since I found it!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0QOmyo1JgZffVDvkpq78HWL2i04NTZz4
1) Really Red - Teaching You the Fear
2) Red Red Meat - Smoke Mountain Double Dip
3) Redambergreen* - Storms and Rain
4) Red Mass* - Sharp
5) King Crimson - Cage
6) Red Rider* - Lunatic Fringe
7) Red Handed Denial* - Manipulator
8) Red Ants* - Dirty Space Alchemy
9) Redd Kross - Annie's Gone
10) Red Elvises - Surfin' in Siberia
11) Green on Red - Sea of Cortez
12) Vox Vermillion* - Underground
13) Leon Redbone - Seduced
14) Red Arms* - Chorus of Life
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Festival Review: Nimblefingers 2016
Sometimes, all the best laid plans of
festival promoters go, as they say, gang agley. Sorrento's
Nimblefingers Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Festival in 2016 seemed to
go that way. But, through adversity, some magic can come out of
failed plans.
I got to this festival a bit late,
since I had to work earlier in the day. I had to
be up really early to set up an info table, so I was up at 6 AM and
didn't get out to the festival til about 2:30 PM.
The festival grounds were pretty
interesting. It was held at the Sorrento Centre, which is kind of
like a campground, though almost all of the “camping” seemed to
be done in bungalows. After seeing the crowd for the festival, it
kind of made sense. It was an equal mix of retired baby-boomers with
a bit too much money on their hands (these were most of the
“campers”) and heavily-bearded hipsters in skinny jeans. More
fodder for the article on roots music and hipsters I have knocking
around in the back of my skull...
The weather was rainy pretty much all
day. The drive out was plagued by rain, and the rain came and went
all day at the festival grounds. I arrived at a dry spot in the
weather, and after a quick look around to try to find the concert
organizer to set up some interviews, I went to the main stage. The
stages here were pretty small and also very minimalist. The main
stage looked like a big front porch, complete with a big hedge in
front of it. Canadian Chris Coole was fronting his band, the Lonesome Ace Stringband, doing some pretty straight-forward bluegrass.
After his set, I went to the other
stage, called the Shady Grove Stage. Thanks to the rain, this stage
turned out to be a rubber tarp on the ground, with a rug on top of
it, a low waterproof tent over that, and a blanket providing a
backdrop. I saw BC's Sarah Jane Scouten playing there with a three
piece band, crouching down almost comically under the rain tent.
Despite the cramped space, they seemed pretty happy to be playing and
Sarah's fiddler was top notch.
As for the interviews, I never did
track down the festival organizer, but the people at the merch table
told me just to come by after an artist finished a set, since they'll
be signing albums. I hung out half-heartedly watching the main stage
and standing under my umbrella, and watching the merch table waiting
for artists to show up. Sarah Jane Scouten didn't show up, neither
did Chris Coole. Seemed like the rain was definitely keeping them
away and they were likely somewhere dry.
Old Man Leudecke, a banjo player and
songwriter, played next, purely solo. He was interesting, nice
narrative songwriting. He also ran his banjo through an effect pedal
and seemed to use a rudimentary drum machine for a couple of songs.
He's one of the few people I got on video, since handling a phone
recorder and an umbrella at the same time was pretty tricky. He was
also the only artist I got an interview with; he gave me about five
minutes in between signings and a video performance. I also got to
chat with two bluegrass radio Djs from CJLY in Nelson. Check outtheir show here!
During the All-Stars performance at 5
PM, featuring many of the performers of the day, there were technical
issues, with two amps overheating and refusing to restart. The rain
began to pour at this point, so I think that was a factor too. The
announcers said they were working on some solutions, and eventually
moved everything into a small, domed gazebo in the middle of the
campground. Everyone crammed into the dome and sat on benches, with
everyone else outside the dome looking in, huddled under umbrellas
and roped up tarps.
This turned into a great turn of
events. The festival became really intimate and fun at this point. As
they set up the audio equipment, we were treated to an impromptu set
from the Canotes, a pair of identical twin brothers from the US who
played old-time novelty songs on ukelele and fiddle. They did about
five songs that were really funny and very entertaining. Everyone had
a great time laughing and clapping along.
Once they were done, US guitarist Molly Tuttle and her band took the stage. She was also at Salmon Arm this
year, but I didn't get a chance to see her there. Here's where the
festival really showed why it existed. Not only did they bring in
top-notch Canadian talent like Chris Coole and mandolin player John
Reischman (who played backup on this band), they had some fantastic
American bluegrass players. And they bring it into the small town of
Sorrento, which has only a few hundred people in it. Molly played a
subtle, country-tinged style of bluegrass what was relaxing to listen
to, and a nice compliment to the rain pouring down.
Bruce Molsky, another American player,
took the stage with Allison de Groot on guitar. Molsky is a fiddle
player, and he moved back and forth between bluegrass and traditional
US folk fiddle. He had a great range and several wonderful passages
of just pure fiddle playing.
The last band of the time were the
Railsplitters, a truly sublime five-piece band. Not only did they
play a few traditional bluegrass tunes, they played a huge variety of
folk styles, often melding them together in fascinating ways. They
played all their instruments in incredible harmony, while playing
with incredible virtuosity. Unlike some forms of progressive rock,
this was both intricate and very down to earth at the same time.
There wasn't a sense they were showing off, they pretty much played
and smiled at each other, enjoying what they were doing and how they
were entertaining. They eventually added John Reischman on second
mandolin, a fiddle player and another banjo player, putting eight
people on a tiny stage, playing their hearts out. Fantastic capping
concert for the festival!
Another thing that sets this festival apart from others was that the musicians hosted workshops the week before and after the one day music festival, which is very nice for anyone trying to learn an instrument, to get teaching from seasoned live performers who actually play instruments for a living. This was a great festival, despite the weather and technical problems, and I'll be back next year if I can.
Another thing that sets this festival apart from others was that the musicians hosted workshops the week before and after the one day music festival, which is very nice for anyone trying to learn an instrument, to get teaching from seasoned live performers who actually play instruments for a living. This was a great festival, despite the weather and technical problems, and I'll be back next year if I can.
DNTTA Playlist for August 19, 2016
Artist - Song - Album (Label) * indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
River Tiber - Motives* - Indigo (Independent)
Os Mutantes - El Justiciero - Everything is Possible! (Luaka Bop)
Aleatoire - Headrush* - Aleatoire EP (Outloud)
DJ Shadow - The Sideshow - The Mountain Will Fall (Mass Appeal)
Moths and Locusts - Beach Party Shakedown* - Helios Rising (Noise Agony Mayhem)
Weird Lines - Twin Summers* - Weird Lines (Sappy Futures Ltd.)
The Archaics - Sweet Cocoon* - Soft Focus (Sweetie Pie)
Mike Doughty - American Car - Haughty Melodic (ATO)
Loveland - Blue Sun* - Aloe Hotel (Independent)
Mark Mills - Photo Finish* - Go Love Yourself (Independent)
Holy F - Tom Tom* - Congrats (Last Gang)
The Tubuloids - Do the Creep Boogie* - Getting Weird (Beer City)
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
--
River Tiber - Motives* - Indigo (Independent)
Os Mutantes - El Justiciero - Everything is Possible! (Luaka Bop)
Aleatoire - Headrush* - Aleatoire EP (Outloud)
DJ Shadow - The Sideshow - The Mountain Will Fall (Mass Appeal)
Moths and Locusts - Beach Party Shakedown* - Helios Rising (Noise Agony Mayhem)
Weird Lines - Twin Summers* - Weird Lines (Sappy Futures Ltd.)
The Archaics - Sweet Cocoon* - Soft Focus (Sweetie Pie)
Mike Doughty - American Car - Haughty Melodic (ATO)
Loveland - Blue Sun* - Aloe Hotel (Independent)
Mark Mills - Photo Finish* - Go Love Yourself (Independent)
Holy F - Tom Tom* - Congrats (Last Gang)
The Tubuloids - Do the Creep Boogie* - Getting Weird (Beer City)
Monday, August 29, 2016
Festival Review: Salmon Arm Roots and Blues 2016
August means Roots and Blues time. As I usually say, it's one of the highlights of my summer. And, as usual, I only get one day to take it in. Sunday, August 21st.
This year, I was a bit more prepared for the festival. I took the time to pick up a portable chair I could easily pack around, to save wear and tear on my feet from standing all day. I also picked up a portable phone charger so I could take more photos and videos. Turned out that was a great idea, and I got video from almost every band I saw, which I'll be embedding in this blog.
Saturday at the festival was blisteringly hot, up to 36 Celsius. Sunday was cool and cloudy, windy most of the day. The sun started poking through the clouds just as it began to dip behind the mountains, so it was a very nice and cool day with very little oppressive heat. It got very cold once the sun went down though.
I got to the fairgrounds around 12 noon. I always have the best of intentions to get out of Kamloops by 10 AM, but those plans always get dashed. Eh, I'm used to it. After checking the schedule, I decided to go to the Barn Stage to catch the Latin Quarter workshop. The workshops are usually really entertaining, bringing together musicians in an impromptu jam with a theme of sorts. This one was hosted by Joe Craven, who's a mandolin player from the States, who equally adept at folk music as he is at jazz. He led the other performers, classical/world fusion band Quartetto Gelato and Salmon Arm's own gypsy jazz band the Willy Gaw Quartet, though some Django Reinhardt inspired tunes. It looked to me that, outside of Craven and Willy Gaw, the rest of the performers hadn't had much experience improvising on stage. Quarteto Gelato only half heartedly pitched in until it was their time to play, where they did a nice Eastern-European inspired tune that everyone played along to. Craven was a joy to watch on mandolin, and when that didn't fit in, he eagerly joined in on a pair of bongos. Good start to the musical day.
I went to the Blues Stage next, hauling out my newly acquired portable chair, which was a great purchase. Here we had a set from Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett, both ex-members of the legendary roots rock band Little Feat. Both were seasoned musicians, clearly well versed in their music. While their style started clearly in the blues, Tackett often played the mandolin on stage, which added a bluegrass style to the blues, which was a real treat. Their music was subtle in instrumentality, but very southern in lyrics, with a boozy rhythm riding underneath the intricate picking that they brought to the music. This was a set that had many layers to enjoy, and was quite laid back. Very nice late morning music.
I had a bit of lunch, then headed over to the Shade stage, where I spent most of the rest of the day. Another workshop, this one called From Gravestones to Touchstones. This one was more on the blues end, with Vancouver's Paul Pigat leading things. Pigat is a country guitarist, but also played in the rockabilly band Cousin Harley and in the old time folk band Boxcar Campfire. He was joined by Manitoba's Brent Parkin, a blues/rockabilly player and singer, Martin Harley, a rootsy blues player from the UK, and some of the members of Vancouver gospel group The Sojourners. The Sojourners, I saw with Jim Byrnes at Salmon Arm a few years ago. Pigat and Parkin I also saw the last two years at Salmon Arm. I was really interested to see Martin Harley, who's last album was a wonderful take on blues that the British often take on it, a few degrees separated from American blues with a UK folk feel, The workshop went better than the first I saw, with the players more comfortable picking up off of each other. Pigat and Harley were the stand outs here.
Sticking by the Shade stage, I waited on Jerry Lawson, a soul singer who worked with the Persuasions in the past. Parkin stuck around to lead the band, with Lawson coming onto the stage leaning on a cane, and sitting for the entire set. Lawson was an amazing singer, deeply soulful and deeply moving. You got a sense from him that he meant every work he sang, and he punctuated his songs by repeating some of the lyrics afterwards, often with a “Oh Lord”. When he said to the crowd, “God Bless You”, you felt he really meant it. This was a God-fearing soul singer who grew up in the church. He tackled some originals, and also did a stirring rendition of “Blueberry Hill” and “Georgia On My Mind”, ringing from someone who had actually played the song with the legendary Ray Charles. This was a highlight of the festival for me, truly inspirational and moving music!
Next on the Shade stage, a band I've wanted to see for years, but always missed them playing at Salmon Arm: DiggingRoots. They're an First Nations band from Ontario that blends rock, blues, folk, reggae and First Nations music. Their sound is truly unique. Raven Kantakta sang like a 60s rock and roller, and played guitar with wild abandon. His wife Shoshona Kish had a more poppy and folky vocal approach, which made some great accompanying vocals. Their son played percussion and a Grandfather drum, a First Nations drum that could only be played by men. Just before their last song, the clouds began to drift away and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds for the first time. At the crescendo of their set, they invited several men from the audience to play the drum, while the rest of the band jammed, with Shoshona coming out into the audience to get the crowd circling in a huge round dance! This was the most inspiring thing I saw the whole day. Amazing concert!
By this time, it was time for the Main Stage and the Barn Stage to start hosting the late afternoon and night performers. On the Main Stage, Vancouver/Mexico Latin/roots band Locarno started things off. Locarno is fronted by Tom Landa, who used to play with the Latin roots band The Paperboys. Locarno drew influences from traditional Mexican music, with mariachi horns, and South American styles like the mambo and cumbia. They had a light hearted style to them. I listened while chowing down on my traditional Festival dinner, a donair. I think it's been a year since I ate a donair at the last festival!
Back to the Barn stage, where I caught the last few songs from blueswoman Samantha Martin and her band Delta Sugar. She had a unique style, focusing on vocals. He sang and played the guitar flanked by two other soul singers belting out vocal accompaniment. There was a mix of soul, blues, roots and old time R&B here, with Martin having a true blues belter voice similar to the late Etta James. They were super fun!
The New Orleans Suspects were up next, an all-star band of New Orleans players, featuring Mean Willie Green, the long time drummer for the Neville Brothers. New Orleans music is wonderful in it's simplicity and for its ability to play off of different styles. You'll hear Dixieland styles, gritty Delta blues and driving funk in their music. This was music for a street party and dance. They were great music to have around to go with the swiftly setting sun.
My last concert of the night was Jarekus Singleton, an up and coming American electric blues player. He started with Albert King's “Born Under a Bad Sign” before diving into his own catalogue. Every song he did was a bruising style of electric blues with funk undertones, with Singleton himself driving into a five minute solo pretty much every song. Watching him was exhausting. The music was very loud too, much like when I saw Buddy Guy, he was extremely loud for playing on an outdoor stage. This style of blues isn't really my thing, the soloing gets tiring after a while, but it's apparent that Singleton is an amazingly talented guitarist.
With the constant wind, the whole day was amazingly cool and I rarely found myself tired out from walking around or from being in the sun. Another perk was that they wind kept away the mosquitos and wasps that usually come out of hiding when the sun went down. Only negative to the day's festivities was a guy that ran up and screaming into my phone camera when I was filming Jarekus Singleton.
This year, I was a bit more prepared for the festival. I took the time to pick up a portable chair I could easily pack around, to save wear and tear on my feet from standing all day. I also picked up a portable phone charger so I could take more photos and videos. Turned out that was a great idea, and I got video from almost every band I saw, which I'll be embedding in this blog.
Saturday at the festival was blisteringly hot, up to 36 Celsius. Sunday was cool and cloudy, windy most of the day. The sun started poking through the clouds just as it began to dip behind the mountains, so it was a very nice and cool day with very little oppressive heat. It got very cold once the sun went down though.
I got to the fairgrounds around 12 noon. I always have the best of intentions to get out of Kamloops by 10 AM, but those plans always get dashed. Eh, I'm used to it. After checking the schedule, I decided to go to the Barn Stage to catch the Latin Quarter workshop. The workshops are usually really entertaining, bringing together musicians in an impromptu jam with a theme of sorts. This one was hosted by Joe Craven, who's a mandolin player from the States, who equally adept at folk music as he is at jazz. He led the other performers, classical/world fusion band Quartetto Gelato and Salmon Arm's own gypsy jazz band the Willy Gaw Quartet, though some Django Reinhardt inspired tunes. It looked to me that, outside of Craven and Willy Gaw, the rest of the performers hadn't had much experience improvising on stage. Quarteto Gelato only half heartedly pitched in until it was their time to play, where they did a nice Eastern-European inspired tune that everyone played along to. Craven was a joy to watch on mandolin, and when that didn't fit in, he eagerly joined in on a pair of bongos. Good start to the musical day.
I went to the Blues Stage next, hauling out my newly acquired portable chair, which was a great purchase. Here we had a set from Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett, both ex-members of the legendary roots rock band Little Feat. Both were seasoned musicians, clearly well versed in their music. While their style started clearly in the blues, Tackett often played the mandolin on stage, which added a bluegrass style to the blues, which was a real treat. Their music was subtle in instrumentality, but very southern in lyrics, with a boozy rhythm riding underneath the intricate picking that they brought to the music. This was a set that had many layers to enjoy, and was quite laid back. Very nice late morning music.
I had a bit of lunch, then headed over to the Shade stage, where I spent most of the rest of the day. Another workshop, this one called From Gravestones to Touchstones. This one was more on the blues end, with Vancouver's Paul Pigat leading things. Pigat is a country guitarist, but also played in the rockabilly band Cousin Harley and in the old time folk band Boxcar Campfire. He was joined by Manitoba's Brent Parkin, a blues/rockabilly player and singer, Martin Harley, a rootsy blues player from the UK, and some of the members of Vancouver gospel group The Sojourners. The Sojourners, I saw with Jim Byrnes at Salmon Arm a few years ago. Pigat and Parkin I also saw the last two years at Salmon Arm. I was really interested to see Martin Harley, who's last album was a wonderful take on blues that the British often take on it, a few degrees separated from American blues with a UK folk feel, The workshop went better than the first I saw, with the players more comfortable picking up off of each other. Pigat and Harley were the stand outs here.
Sticking by the Shade stage, I waited on Jerry Lawson, a soul singer who worked with the Persuasions in the past. Parkin stuck around to lead the band, with Lawson coming onto the stage leaning on a cane, and sitting for the entire set. Lawson was an amazing singer, deeply soulful and deeply moving. You got a sense from him that he meant every work he sang, and he punctuated his songs by repeating some of the lyrics afterwards, often with a “Oh Lord”. When he said to the crowd, “God Bless You”, you felt he really meant it. This was a God-fearing soul singer who grew up in the church. He tackled some originals, and also did a stirring rendition of “Blueberry Hill” and “Georgia On My Mind”, ringing from someone who had actually played the song with the legendary Ray Charles. This was a highlight of the festival for me, truly inspirational and moving music!
Next on the Shade stage, a band I've wanted to see for years, but always missed them playing at Salmon Arm: DiggingRoots. They're an First Nations band from Ontario that blends rock, blues, folk, reggae and First Nations music. Their sound is truly unique. Raven Kantakta sang like a 60s rock and roller, and played guitar with wild abandon. His wife Shoshona Kish had a more poppy and folky vocal approach, which made some great accompanying vocals. Their son played percussion and a Grandfather drum, a First Nations drum that could only be played by men. Just before their last song, the clouds began to drift away and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds for the first time. At the crescendo of their set, they invited several men from the audience to play the drum, while the rest of the band jammed, with Shoshona coming out into the audience to get the crowd circling in a huge round dance! This was the most inspiring thing I saw the whole day. Amazing concert!
By this time, it was time for the Main Stage and the Barn Stage to start hosting the late afternoon and night performers. On the Main Stage, Vancouver/Mexico Latin/roots band Locarno started things off. Locarno is fronted by Tom Landa, who used to play with the Latin roots band The Paperboys. Locarno drew influences from traditional Mexican music, with mariachi horns, and South American styles like the mambo and cumbia. They had a light hearted style to them. I listened while chowing down on my traditional Festival dinner, a donair. I think it's been a year since I ate a donair at the last festival!
Back to the Barn stage, where I caught the last few songs from blueswoman Samantha Martin and her band Delta Sugar. She had a unique style, focusing on vocals. He sang and played the guitar flanked by two other soul singers belting out vocal accompaniment. There was a mix of soul, blues, roots and old time R&B here, with Martin having a true blues belter voice similar to the late Etta James. They were super fun!
The New Orleans Suspects were up next, an all-star band of New Orleans players, featuring Mean Willie Green, the long time drummer for the Neville Brothers. New Orleans music is wonderful in it's simplicity and for its ability to play off of different styles. You'll hear Dixieland styles, gritty Delta blues and driving funk in their music. This was music for a street party and dance. They were great music to have around to go with the swiftly setting sun.
My last concert of the night was Jarekus Singleton, an up and coming American electric blues player. He started with Albert King's “Born Under a Bad Sign” before diving into his own catalogue. Every song he did was a bruising style of electric blues with funk undertones, with Singleton himself driving into a five minute solo pretty much every song. Watching him was exhausting. The music was very loud too, much like when I saw Buddy Guy, he was extremely loud for playing on an outdoor stage. This style of blues isn't really my thing, the soloing gets tiring after a while, but it's apparent that Singleton is an amazingly talented guitarist.
With the constant wind, the whole day was amazingly cool and I rarely found myself tired out from walking around or from being in the sun. Another perk was that they wind kept away the mosquitos and wasps that usually come out of hiding when the sun went down. Only negative to the day's festivities was a guy that ran up and screaming into my phone camera when I was filming Jarekus Singleton.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
The 80s output of ZZ Top
Recently, after a trip to HMV, I decided to grab ZZ Top's Eliminator and Afterburner for a couple of bucks a piece. Eliminator was one of my favourite albums when I was in high school; I had in on vinyl, back before the days when cassettes took over the musical world. Having it back in my collection was a nice feeling of nostalgia.
I loved the energetic but comedic style of the band. And when I heard Eliminator, I had no idea about the history of the band. I didn't know about "Tush" or "La Grange" or "Just Got Paid". I thought this was a cool new band with a unique feel, and they had one of those logos that you could trace easily onto your school binder, like Van Halen and Metallica. Imagine my shock getting to college in the late 80s and discovering their Southern blues past!
A long running joke I have is, "I wonder what hardcore blues fans think of the 80s albums of ZZ Top?" The band essentially changed their style to gain a huge commercial following during the 80s, then, once the 90s rolled around, they retreated into obscurity and went back to their blues roots. Did they sell out? Does that even matter?
When I hear about bands selling out, I remember Mick Foley's biography. He said, my dream was to wrestle and make a living at it. He became a cult figure for his hardcore matches, but he was beating the hell out of himself for a couple of bucks a day. When he finally got up to WCW, he was doing less work for more pay and didn't have to beat himself up to do it. So, if that's selling out, then he sold out. I could think the same of ZZ Top.
Truth be told, the band was already on the road to their 80s sound by the late 70s. Their first album for Warner, 1980's Deguello, was already using the hybird blues/rock/new wave sound that Eliminator would use, but in an embryonic form. And that album went platinum and produced "Cheap Sunglasses". in 1981, they'd put out El Loco, then, in 1983, their huge breakthrough out of rock radio into the mainstream with Eliminator.
Eliminator produced the sound of what most of the fans of my generation are familiar with from ZZ Top. It had the blues swagger of their classic sound, the slick rock stylings of the 80s, and the electronic flash of commercial new wave. The band's iconic look also came from this time, with Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill sporting chest-length beards, slowly moving and and forth in tandem with their guitar and bass. Then there was the videos.
The videos produced for their singles were beyond cool. They almost always had the band playing rock and roll "angels" that would swoop in with the keys to a souped up 1930s Ford Coupe emblazoned with their logo, allowing some down on his luck every-man to have a night of fun with some model-level women, and stick it to their overbearing bosses or friends. The band even had rudimentary dance moves. The story also continued from video to video, with "Gimme All Your Lovin'" set in the desert with a young car mechanic, to "Sharp Dressed Man" taking the car and girls to a posh night club with a nerdy valet gaining the car, to "Legs", bringing the car to a greasy spoon, allowing a shoe store clerk to get dolled up and show the guy who actually treated her with respect some respect back. The last single, "TV Dinners", was only tangentially related to the first three videos, but also entertaining. All of the videos showcased the bands' trademark humour and self-depreciation, along with their tendency for double entendres.
1985's Afterburner took the band further into the rock/new wave feel and a bit further away from their blues roots. It had three big hits, "Sleeping Bag", "Velcro Fly", and "Stages". The videos that came with this continued on the story from Eliminator. "Sleeping Bag" had the car saving a young couple from burglars, only to have the car destroyed and come back as an ultra-cool space shuttle. The shuttle showed up in the bizarre video for "Rough Boy", featuring robotic women giving the shuttle a car wash in an interstellar space station. "Velcro Fly" had the band dancing and playing in front of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Yes, they danced. They actually hired Paula Abdul to choreography some simple dance moves that they could easily do. "Stages" was a by the book live video with some space footage. By this time though, their sound had begun to lose its lustre.
1990's Recycler was a commercial bust, and finished off the 80s sound of the band for good. "Doubleback" (a lesser known Back to the Future tie-in song), "Give it Up" and "Concrete and Steel" were the main songs to get radio play from this album. The album toned down the synth rock 80s sound and saw ZZ Top moving to a more bluesy sound, which they've stayed til this day.
Did they sell out? Doesn't matter to me much. Eliminator is a solid album and still one of my favourite albums from the 80s.
I loved the energetic but comedic style of the band. And when I heard Eliminator, I had no idea about the history of the band. I didn't know about "Tush" or "La Grange" or "Just Got Paid". I thought this was a cool new band with a unique feel, and they had one of those logos that you could trace easily onto your school binder, like Van Halen and Metallica. Imagine my shock getting to college in the late 80s and discovering their Southern blues past!
A long running joke I have is, "I wonder what hardcore blues fans think of the 80s albums of ZZ Top?" The band essentially changed their style to gain a huge commercial following during the 80s, then, once the 90s rolled around, they retreated into obscurity and went back to their blues roots. Did they sell out? Does that even matter?
When I hear about bands selling out, I remember Mick Foley's biography. He said, my dream was to wrestle and make a living at it. He became a cult figure for his hardcore matches, but he was beating the hell out of himself for a couple of bucks a day. When he finally got up to WCW, he was doing less work for more pay and didn't have to beat himself up to do it. So, if that's selling out, then he sold out. I could think the same of ZZ Top.
Truth be told, the band was already on the road to their 80s sound by the late 70s. Their first album for Warner, 1980's Deguello, was already using the hybird blues/rock/new wave sound that Eliminator would use, but in an embryonic form. And that album went platinum and produced "Cheap Sunglasses". in 1981, they'd put out El Loco, then, in 1983, their huge breakthrough out of rock radio into the mainstream with Eliminator.
Eliminator produced the sound of what most of the fans of my generation are familiar with from ZZ Top. It had the blues swagger of their classic sound, the slick rock stylings of the 80s, and the electronic flash of commercial new wave. The band's iconic look also came from this time, with Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill sporting chest-length beards, slowly moving and and forth in tandem with their guitar and bass. Then there was the videos.
The videos produced for their singles were beyond cool. They almost always had the band playing rock and roll "angels" that would swoop in with the keys to a souped up 1930s Ford Coupe emblazoned with their logo, allowing some down on his luck every-man to have a night of fun with some model-level women, and stick it to their overbearing bosses or friends. The band even had rudimentary dance moves. The story also continued from video to video, with "Gimme All Your Lovin'" set in the desert with a young car mechanic, to "Sharp Dressed Man" taking the car and girls to a posh night club with a nerdy valet gaining the car, to "Legs", bringing the car to a greasy spoon, allowing a shoe store clerk to get dolled up and show the guy who actually treated her with respect some respect back. The last single, "TV Dinners", was only tangentially related to the first three videos, but also entertaining. All of the videos showcased the bands' trademark humour and self-depreciation, along with their tendency for double entendres.
1985's Afterburner took the band further into the rock/new wave feel and a bit further away from their blues roots. It had three big hits, "Sleeping Bag", "Velcro Fly", and "Stages". The videos that came with this continued on the story from Eliminator. "Sleeping Bag" had the car saving a young couple from burglars, only to have the car destroyed and come back as an ultra-cool space shuttle. The shuttle showed up in the bizarre video for "Rough Boy", featuring robotic women giving the shuttle a car wash in an interstellar space station. "Velcro Fly" had the band dancing and playing in front of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Yes, they danced. They actually hired Paula Abdul to choreography some simple dance moves that they could easily do. "Stages" was a by the book live video with some space footage. By this time though, their sound had begun to lose its lustre.
1990's Recycler was a commercial bust, and finished off the 80s sound of the band for good. "Doubleback" (a lesser known Back to the Future tie-in song), "Give it Up" and "Concrete and Steel" were the main songs to get radio play from this album. The album toned down the synth rock 80s sound and saw ZZ Top moving to a more bluesy sound, which they've stayed til this day.
Did they sell out? Doesn't matter to me much. Eliminator is a solid album and still one of my favourite albums from the 80s.
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