Artist - Song - Album (Label)
* indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
Buck 65 - Square Four (excerpt)* - Square (Warner)
Young Liars - U-Dreams* - Tidal Wave (Nettwerk)
Royksopp and Robyn - Monument - Do it Again (Dog Triumph)
Jungle - Platoon - Jungle (XL)
Seikosays - Swimming* - Seiko Says (Vinyl Republik)
La Roux - Paradise is You - Trouble in Paradise (Polydor)
Kelis - Jerk Ribs - Food (Ninja Tune)
Times Neue Roman - Way Way Down* - Times Neue Roman (Independent)
Triune Gods - Causing Terror - Three Cornered World (Independent)
Kid606 - Smack My Glitch Up - The Action Packed Mentalist Brings You the Fucking Jams (Violent Turd)
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival 2014
The Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival is one of my personal highlights of the summer and something I look forward to every year. This years line up promised to be very eclectic.The thing about festivals is that I never go knowing who's going to be playing or what's scheduled for the day. Going to experience the music, whatever it is, is the point. Often, the most magic moments don't take place where you are looking, but off the beaten path.
I arrived just after 11 AM on Sunday (I'm usually only able to go for one day) and checked out the schedule, then decided to see Rose Cousins at the Shade Stage. She plays a light, traditional style of country and folk. Her set was pretty good, and she worked best with accompaniment. She had two members of Winnipeg's Oh My Darling with her, playing bass and fiddle. It was a plus I was able to sit down on at a picnic table in the shade for the concert too. It was a nice, relaxing way to start out the festival.
I popped over to the Blues stage for my first workshop of the day. Workshops are often where magic starts to happen. What you get is 3-4 musicians together on a stage with a rough idea of what theme will happen, and the musicians work on that theme, often making some collaborative, improvised music. At least, ideally that's what happens. The blues stage featured Alvin Youngblood Hart, Little Miss Higgins, Jim Byrnes and Herald Nix. Jim Byrnes I've seen before, at Salmon Arm a few years ago, playing some very traditional blues and gospel with the Sojourners. Hart impressed me quite a bit with his intricate guitar playing. This session was disappointing otherwise. Everyone was great, but they didn't work together. Instead, they just played songs individually. Byrnes tried to do a bit of playing along to a couple of tunes though.
After a quick lunch, I was back at the Shade Stage for a second workshop n traditional folk music, featuring Doc MacLean, a blues player from Ontario, Mandolin Orange, an old-time folk band from North Carolina, and the country/folk band Oh My Darling. Here is when the magic started. After a couple of solo numbers, Oh My Darling did a traditional French Canadian tune, which turned into a bluegrass tune, which turned into Mandolin Orange taking it over and finishing it off. The last track they played was pretty similar, starting as traditional folk, into bluegrass, frantic fiddling and MacLean playing blues harp. Awesome session!
I dropped over to the Focus stage for another workshop, featuring Chloe Albert and Rolla Olak, whose albums I both liked. I was expecting something more on the country end, but instead got a singer-songwriter style of acoustic rock, a style of music I find grating. Sure enough, local artist Jesse Mast started into a "guy with a guitar" style tune, a style that's all over the radio right now, and it turned me off. Rolla Olak's tune wasn't much better. I stuck around to hear Chloe Albert play, once again expecting a country tune, but got the same, plus her husband playing the bongos. I headed out to the Barn stage to catch the last two songs from Vancouver's Good for Grapes, who are a decent indy rock band. They had the crowd jumping at least.
Next up was one of the bands I was excited to see play live: Jr. Gone Wild. These guys as close to Canadian royalty in indy-rock as you can get. They'd been broken up for a long while through the 90s and recently started touring again, so seeing them means I'd be seeing a tour-seasoned and experienced band. Sure enough, they played a quick 5 song set with American mandolin player Dan Zanes that was excellent. They had the feel of a good party rock band, but with the maturity of a seasoned band, merging fun rock and roll with country themes. They left the stage for Black Joe Lewis, from Austin, TX, who turned in a quick set of blues-drenched guitar rock. His style was like a punked-up Delta blues, a lot like the first couple of Black Keys albums, before they got huge and onto commercial radio. Awesome set.
After dinner, it was time for the main stage to start up. Paul Pigat's rockabilly band Cousin Harley was the first act of the night. I have a soft spot for rockabilly. Pigat is a stellar finger-picking guitar player and his back up band are actually both jazz players, so the playing was excellent. The band is very high energy too. They brought out rockabilly legend Bill Kirchen for the second half of the set, who played a cool extended version of "Hot Rod Lincoln", which included about five minutes of "spot the riff", playing riffs from songs from Muddy Waters up to the Sex Pistols. The whole set was great.
Oh My Darling were back up, making it the third time I got to see them that day. Like the previous two times, they did some nice old-time folk, from light poppy numbers to energetic bluegrass. I've already gushed about them, so not much to add here.
By this time, the sun had begun to dip below the mountains. Around this time in the festival is when the bugs start to swarm (and overwhelm the bug spray I had on) and the pot-smokers come out, which began to give me a massive headache. The next act on the stage was Josh Ritter, who isn't my cup of tea, so I headed back to the Barn stage hoping to catch MonkeyJunk. They took a long time to set up, I waited as long as I could but unfortunately wasn't able to see any of their set.
Overall, it was a great festival. It wasn't on par with last years festival (Malcolm Holcombe and Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside blowing my mind) but it was immensely fun!
I arrived just after 11 AM on Sunday (I'm usually only able to go for one day) and checked out the schedule, then decided to see Rose Cousins at the Shade Stage. She plays a light, traditional style of country and folk. Her set was pretty good, and she worked best with accompaniment. She had two members of Winnipeg's Oh My Darling with her, playing bass and fiddle. It was a plus I was able to sit down on at a picnic table in the shade for the concert too. It was a nice, relaxing way to start out the festival.
I popped over to the Blues stage for my first workshop of the day. Workshops are often where magic starts to happen. What you get is 3-4 musicians together on a stage with a rough idea of what theme will happen, and the musicians work on that theme, often making some collaborative, improvised music. At least, ideally that's what happens. The blues stage featured Alvin Youngblood Hart, Little Miss Higgins, Jim Byrnes and Herald Nix. Jim Byrnes I've seen before, at Salmon Arm a few years ago, playing some very traditional blues and gospel with the Sojourners. Hart impressed me quite a bit with his intricate guitar playing. This session was disappointing otherwise. Everyone was great, but they didn't work together. Instead, they just played songs individually. Byrnes tried to do a bit of playing along to a couple of tunes though.
After a quick lunch, I was back at the Shade Stage for a second workshop n traditional folk music, featuring Doc MacLean, a blues player from Ontario, Mandolin Orange, an old-time folk band from North Carolina, and the country/folk band Oh My Darling. Here is when the magic started. After a couple of solo numbers, Oh My Darling did a traditional French Canadian tune, which turned into a bluegrass tune, which turned into Mandolin Orange taking it over and finishing it off. The last track they played was pretty similar, starting as traditional folk, into bluegrass, frantic fiddling and MacLean playing blues harp. Awesome session!
I dropped over to the Focus stage for another workshop, featuring Chloe Albert and Rolla Olak, whose albums I both liked. I was expecting something more on the country end, but instead got a singer-songwriter style of acoustic rock, a style of music I find grating. Sure enough, local artist Jesse Mast started into a "guy with a guitar" style tune, a style that's all over the radio right now, and it turned me off. Rolla Olak's tune wasn't much better. I stuck around to hear Chloe Albert play, once again expecting a country tune, but got the same, plus her husband playing the bongos. I headed out to the Barn stage to catch the last two songs from Vancouver's Good for Grapes, who are a decent indy rock band. They had the crowd jumping at least.
Next up was one of the bands I was excited to see play live: Jr. Gone Wild. These guys as close to Canadian royalty in indy-rock as you can get. They'd been broken up for a long while through the 90s and recently started touring again, so seeing them means I'd be seeing a tour-seasoned and experienced band. Sure enough, they played a quick 5 song set with American mandolin player Dan Zanes that was excellent. They had the feel of a good party rock band, but with the maturity of a seasoned band, merging fun rock and roll with country themes. They left the stage for Black Joe Lewis, from Austin, TX, who turned in a quick set of blues-drenched guitar rock. His style was like a punked-up Delta blues, a lot like the first couple of Black Keys albums, before they got huge and onto commercial radio. Awesome set.
After dinner, it was time for the main stage to start up. Paul Pigat's rockabilly band Cousin Harley was the first act of the night. I have a soft spot for rockabilly. Pigat is a stellar finger-picking guitar player and his back up band are actually both jazz players, so the playing was excellent. The band is very high energy too. They brought out rockabilly legend Bill Kirchen for the second half of the set, who played a cool extended version of "Hot Rod Lincoln", which included about five minutes of "spot the riff", playing riffs from songs from Muddy Waters up to the Sex Pistols. The whole set was great.
Oh My Darling were back up, making it the third time I got to see them that day. Like the previous two times, they did some nice old-time folk, from light poppy numbers to energetic bluegrass. I've already gushed about them, so not much to add here.
By this time, the sun had begun to dip below the mountains. Around this time in the festival is when the bugs start to swarm (and overwhelm the bug spray I had on) and the pot-smokers come out, which began to give me a massive headache. The next act on the stage was Josh Ritter, who isn't my cup of tea, so I headed back to the Barn stage hoping to catch MonkeyJunk. They took a long time to set up, I waited as long as I could but unfortunately wasn't able to see any of their set.
Overall, it was a great festival. It wasn't on par with last years festival (Malcolm Holcombe and Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside blowing my mind) but it was immensely fun!
Thursday, August 21, 2014
DNTTA Playlist for August 16, 2014
Artist - Song - Album (Label)
* indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
Prairie Cat - Bad Storm* - Who Knows Where to Begin? (Independent)
USA Out of Vietnam - Archangel* - Crashing Diseases and Incurable Airplanes (New Damage)
Kuato - Red Sand* - The Great Upheaval (Acadian Embassy)
Kids Eat Crayons - Eunni and the Good Life*
Life in Vacuum - I Don't Fit* - 5 (New Damage)
Jagged - Blue Drip* - Clown Grinder (Ulusulu)
Lower - Lost Weight, Perfect Skin - Seek Warmer Climes (Matador)
Psychosomatic Itch - Cold Call* - Psychosomatic Itch (Shake!)
B-Lines - World War Four* - B-Lines (Shake!)
JPNSGRLS - Tiger* - Circulation (Light Organ)
Scarves - Warm Beds - Empty Houses (Independent)
The Kropotkins - Seconds Past Midnight - Five Points Crawl (Independent)
* indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
Prairie Cat - Bad Storm* - Who Knows Where to Begin? (Independent)
USA Out of Vietnam - Archangel* - Crashing Diseases and Incurable Airplanes (New Damage)
Kuato - Red Sand* - The Great Upheaval (Acadian Embassy)
Kids Eat Crayons - Eunni and the Good Life*
Life in Vacuum - I Don't Fit* - 5 (New Damage)
Jagged - Blue Drip* - Clown Grinder (Ulusulu)
Lower - Lost Weight, Perfect Skin - Seek Warmer Climes (Matador)
Psychosomatic Itch - Cold Call* - Psychosomatic Itch (Shake!)
B-Lines - World War Four* - B-Lines (Shake!)
JPNSGRLS - Tiger* - Circulation (Light Organ)
Scarves - Warm Beds - Empty Houses (Independent)
The Kropotkins - Seconds Past Midnight - Five Points Crawl (Independent)
Thursday, August 14, 2014
DNTTA Playlist for August 8, 2014
Artist - Song - Album (Label)
* indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
A Tribe Called Red - The Road* - Nation II Nation (Tribal Spirit)
Bidiniband and Selena Martin - The Grey Wave* - The Motherland (Pheromone)
Must Be Tuesday - I'll Save My Last Rifle Round for You* - Cover Me, I'm Going In (Independent)
Country Joe McDonald - Cocaine - Steal This Disc 3 (Rykodisk)
Sturgill Simpson - The Promise - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (Signature Sounds)
Tower of Song - Everybody Knows* - In City and in Country (Independent)
Weird Al Yankovic - Lame Claim to Fame - Mandatory Fun (Way Moby)
Tanya Tagaq - Umingmak* - Animism (Six Shooter)
Kokono No. 1 - Masikulu - Congotronics (Crammed)
Blackberry Wood - 10 Cent Moonshine* - Strong Man vs. Russian Bears (Independent)
Cowboy Junkies - Working on a Building* - The Trinity Sessions (Latent)
* indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
A Tribe Called Red - The Road* - Nation II Nation (Tribal Spirit)
Bidiniband and Selena Martin - The Grey Wave* - The Motherland (Pheromone)
Must Be Tuesday - I'll Save My Last Rifle Round for You* - Cover Me, I'm Going In (Independent)
Country Joe McDonald - Cocaine - Steal This Disc 3 (Rykodisk)
Sturgill Simpson - The Promise - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (Signature Sounds)
Tower of Song - Everybody Knows* - In City and in Country (Independent)
Weird Al Yankovic - Lame Claim to Fame - Mandatory Fun (Way Moby)
Tanya Tagaq - Umingmak* - Animism (Six Shooter)
Kokono No. 1 - Masikulu - Congotronics (Crammed)
Blackberry Wood - 10 Cent Moonshine* - Strong Man vs. Russian Bears (Independent)
Cowboy Junkies - Working on a Building* - The Trinity Sessions (Latent)
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
New Earshot Reviews
Finally got some reviews done for Earshot, it's been a while!
Kytami - Remixed
Myriad 3 - The Where
No Sinner - Boo Hoo Hoo
The Soles - Anodos Kathodos
Already working on more, so there will be another post soon!
Kytami - Remixed
Myriad 3 - The Where
No Sinner - Boo Hoo Hoo
The Soles - Anodos Kathodos
Already working on more, so there will be another post soon!
Sunday, August 10, 2014
43 Bumper Stickers and a YOLO License Plate: Review of Weird Al's Mandatory Fun
I'll make no bones about it, I'm a Weird Al fan. I think he's an underrated genius. It takes talent to take another person's song and turn it into something entirely yours. He's so much more than a parody artist. This
album sees Yankovic in pretty fine form.
The parodies are very solid this time around. "Word Crimes" is one of the best he's every done, taking Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and turning it into a rant about grammar. The original sounds almost flat compared to the extra energy Al brings to the song. And maybe more importantly, it's a wagging finger at Robin Thicke's mindless misogyny in the original track, adding something intelligent while remaining dancy and fun."Tacky" is a great send up of Pharrell's "Happy" and his take on Iggy Azalea's "Fancy", relabeled "Handy", is classic Al. The two remaining parodies are a bit off the mark though, "Foil" (Lorde's "Royals") takes a wonderful dark turn in the second half of the song, but falls a bit short. His parody of "Radioactive" ("Inactive") is a bit cliched.
For original material, "First World Problems" is the standout here, a great piss take/homage on the sound of The Pixies. "Lame Claim to Fame" is an homage to Southern Culture on the Skids, an awesome band that more people should check out. The Crosby, Stills and Nash homage "Mission Statement" does it's job, replacing the 60s style folk lyrics with 90s style business gobbledygook, but doesn't hold up to repeated listenings. "My Own Eyes" is a spot on Foo Fighters homage, but interesting. His 9-minute homage to Cat Stevens, "Jackson Park Express" turns into randomness quickly.
Overall, this is a great album, but a bit behind is best work, like on Running with Scissors or Alpocalypse. It's worth listening to just for the parodies, which are some of the best he's done yet.
The parodies are very solid this time around. "Word Crimes" is one of the best he's every done, taking Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and turning it into a rant about grammar. The original sounds almost flat compared to the extra energy Al brings to the song. And maybe more importantly, it's a wagging finger at Robin Thicke's mindless misogyny in the original track, adding something intelligent while remaining dancy and fun."Tacky" is a great send up of Pharrell's "Happy" and his take on Iggy Azalea's "Fancy", relabeled "Handy", is classic Al. The two remaining parodies are a bit off the mark though, "Foil" (Lorde's "Royals") takes a wonderful dark turn in the second half of the song, but falls a bit short. His parody of "Radioactive" ("Inactive") is a bit cliched.
For original material, "First World Problems" is the standout here, a great piss take/homage on the sound of The Pixies. "Lame Claim to Fame" is an homage to Southern Culture on the Skids, an awesome band that more people should check out. The Crosby, Stills and Nash homage "Mission Statement" does it's job, replacing the 60s style folk lyrics with 90s style business gobbledygook, but doesn't hold up to repeated listenings. "My Own Eyes" is a spot on Foo Fighters homage, but interesting. His 9-minute homage to Cat Stevens, "Jackson Park Express" turns into randomness quickly.
Overall, this is a great album, but a bit behind is best work, like on Running with Scissors or Alpocalypse. It's worth listening to just for the parodies, which are some of the best he's done yet.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
DNTTA Playlist for August 1, 2014 - An interview with Cygnets
Artist - Song - Album (Label)
* indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
Cygnets - Hey Alexandra* - Bleak Anthems (Independent)
Cygnets - Sycophant Girls* - Bleak Anthems (Independent)
Cygnets - Telepaths* - Bleak Anthems (Independent)
Cygnets - Teenager* - Dark Days (Independent)
Cygnets - Leave the Prophets Dead Where They Lie* - Dark Days (Independent)
Cygnets - Sick Device* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - Girlfriends* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - There is Something Wrong With Us* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - Human* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - The Passerby* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - The Mask* - Isolator (Independent)
Listen to the raw interview with Cygnets here.
* indicates Canadian Content
Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca
Cygnets - Hey Alexandra* - Bleak Anthems (Independent)
Cygnets - Sycophant Girls* - Bleak Anthems (Independent)
Cygnets - Telepaths* - Bleak Anthems (Independent)
Cygnets - Teenager* - Dark Days (Independent)
Cygnets - Leave the Prophets Dead Where They Lie* - Dark Days (Independent)
Cygnets - Sick Device* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - Girlfriends* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - There is Something Wrong With Us* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - Human* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - The Passerby* - Isolator (Independent)
Cygnets - The Mask* - Isolator (Independent)
Listen to the raw interview with Cygnets here.
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