DNTTA Playlist for August 21, 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 

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UBT* - The Bumby Song - Ego Orienation (Psychic Handshake)
Slayer and Atari Teenage Riot - No Remorse I Want to Die - Spawn OST (Volcano)
KEN Mode* - The Owl - Success (New Damage)
Love Battery - Harold's Pink Room - Straight Freak Ticket (PolyGram)
Algiers - Old Girl - Algiers (Matador)
Renny Wilson* - Escaping Alive - Punk Explosion/Extension (Mint)
Shooting Guns* - Harmonic Steppenwolf - Sounds from the Workshop (Independent)
White Reaper - Wolf Trap Hotel - White Reaper Does it Again (Royal Mountain)
Softess* - Star Death Chart - Dark Power (Thankless)
Softess* - Medicine - Dark Power (Thankless)
Basic Nature* - Eyelids - Circles and Lines (Sundowning)
Map 71 - Wrong Element - Wrong Element (Foolproof)
Hook and Eye* - God of Gamblers - Sounds from the Workshop (Independent)

DNTTA Playlist for August 14, 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 

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Altered Laws* - 99 - The Outsiders (Independent)
Jerry Granelli Trio* - Mystery - What I Hear Now (Addo)
Gypsophilia* - Dirty Circus - Night Swimming (Forward)
Tony Wilson 6tet* - The Laundry Room - A Day's Night (Drip Audio)
Jeff Richman - North Shore - Hotwire (Independent)
Skydirve Trio - Bravo - Sun Moee (Hubro)
Monkey Plot - Undertiden - Angående omstendigheter som ikke lar seg nedtegne (Hubro)
Hildegard's Ghost* - Some Things are Timeless - Stories (Independenty)

DNTTA Playlist for August 7, 2015 - BC Day 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 

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Connect_icut* - Tennis Players - Small Town By the Sea (Aagoo)
ohGr* - Sunburn - Sunny Psy Op (Eagle)
Landscape Body Machine* - Isolation - Structure (Liquid)
Gang Signs* - Poison One - Gang Signs (Independent)
Tough Age* - Warm Hair - I Get the Feeling Central (Mint)
Weed* - Thousand Pounds - Running Back (Lefse)
The Tubuloids* - Professor Bumbles - Surf Fukushima (Crapitol)
Fountain* - Emerald Dripping Flat - Fountain 2 (Independent)
NoMeansNo* - Slugs Are Burning - All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt (AntAcidAudio)
Purveyors of Free Will* - Eurosonic - The Folded World (Baffled Octopi)
Wendy Atkinson* - Something Overhead - The Last Fret (Smarten Up!)
Grim Tower* - Reign Doom - Anarchic Breezes (Outer Battery)
Aunts and Uncles* - Fictional - SafeAmp Compilation 2012 (Independent)

The Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival 2015

The Salmon Arm Rootsand Blues Festival is one of the highlights of the music festival season in the BC Interior. 2015's edition was a bit different than past festivals. The layout was a bit different and there was one less stage. Nonetheless, it was a great time for me.

As usual, I was only able to go on Sunday. I got to the festival just after 11 AM and after checking in, headed to the Barn Stage to see a workshop just finishing up. I saw the last two songs from Elephant Revival, Cara Luft, Tim Chaisson, Tony McManus at Colin Savoie-Levac of The Duhks. Elephant Revival impressed me just in those ten minutes, so I decided to come back and see them later.

I stuck around the Barn Stage for the next workshop too. Workshops are one of the hallmarks of the Salmon Arm Festival, and where the magic usually happens. What happens is that a few different musicians are put on the stage together, with one leading the show. They come on with no plan of what to play, then play off of each other to make music. You get a nice mix of improvisation and get to see musicians creating music out of thin air. This workshop was with 2015 Juno World Music Award winner Quique Escamilla, Canadian Latin band Marco Claveria Project and Canadian Latin fusion band Tacoy Ryde. What the crowd got was a high energy fusion of Latin with Tacoy Ryde, 20 year veterans of the music scene, mixing in hot percussion, reggae rhythms and some blues licks to boot. Truly amazing stuff, with Tacoy Ryde being the standouts.

Off to the Blues Stage for the next workshop. The Blues stage is a bit different with the workshops, with less improvisation and more showcasing one musician with the rest acting as the backing band. Usually, a musician will call out a key, say what song they are playing, then play it with some members stepping up to solo. This one had some legends, Canadian legend Amos Garrett, US acoustic blues hallmark Geoff Muldaur, some members of Canned Heat, along with some younger and lesser known musicians, two members of the reunited Rockin' Highliners and US musician Tyrone Vaughn. This was a typical blues stage. Everyone was good, but nothing special.

I headed over to the Shade Stage (after grabbing a poutine for lunch) to see Tim Chaisson. He was on the workshop at the Barn Stage earlier. I was also familiar with his work from hearing his first two albums, which impressed me with their maturity. It would be easy to discount Tim Chaisson was just another “guy with a guitar”, the kind that's all over Top 40 radio now, but his work is much deeper. He's got a country vibe to a lot of his work, plus he's also a fiddle player in the East Coast tradition. Of course, he had the women in the crowd swooning, but he's a great musician and showman on top of that. I was lucky enough to get one of his fiddle tunes on my phone and onto Youtube:

Later on in his set, he brought on one of the members of the Duhks on guitar while he played fiddle for some driving Celtic reels. His last two songs, he showed off a loop pedal. He plays a bit, recorded it into the pedal and then set the pedal on loop to act as his backing track. Watching him play and his familiarity with the technology, updating a very traditional Canadian style, was very eye-opening and exciting. Definitely a musician that deserves more exposure.

Back to the Blues Stage for another workshop. This one was supposed to be led by Josh Hoyer, but he was held up at the border. The main reason I wanted to check this one out was to see the Stooges Brass Band. Like I said earlier, the blues stage tends not to lend itself to wild experimentation, but I was reminded of seeing Hazmat Modine at a blues stage workshop a few years ago. Hazmat Modine are an odd mix of blues, rock and brass band jazz, and the addition of the brass section seemed to add a more experimental and unpredictable element. The Stooges, a brass band in the street-walking New Orleans tradition, certainly did that. They added an energy that's often missing at the blues stage, and blasts of horn added into some stellar blues playing was a great addition.

After a break for dinner (food truck donair, a ritual at any festival I go to), The Duhks took the main stage. The Duhks are a long running Canadian folk band, mostly in the East Coast Celtic style, but they also bring in rock, bluegrass and country elements. One song was also sung in French. Great band, put on a good set, if a bit unremarkable.

Over to the Barn Stage again to see Elephant Revival again, this time by themselves. This band was probably the highlight of the festival for me. Merging all sort of American folk styles, this ensemble band did a wide variety of folk songs. The main singer, Bonnie Paine, had a voice that was both belting and incredibly fragile. She did two songs acapella that were incredibly moving. The rest of the band were equally good, with several of them taking turns at singing and leading the band. Great band, great set.

The last band of the night for me was the legendary Canned Heat. And, they were disappointing. More often than not, I've noticed many of the legends I've seen in the past few years have been less than stellar. That's understandable, given age catching up to them and all. But there's something off about a classic band with no new material playing a festival, like Canned Heat. With a band like Canned Heat, the last thing you want to hear from them is “Here's something from our new album.” There is no new album from them. Everyone just wants to hear them do their set from Woodstock and not much else. There's no incentive for the band to be innovative or try something new, and there's no interest in the crowd to hear something new. So the band just keeps playing the same set every festival they play. Without new material and re-invention, then you stagnate. On the other hand, someone like John Oates (who was also at the festival) has worked hard to re-invent himself and distance his work from his iconic run in Hall and Oates, and made some very interesting and great folk music since going out on his own. Canned Heat were pretty boring and sloppy. Not bad, but they were never great. By the time they finished up, the sun had set, the pot smokers came out, and it was time for me to leave.

As usual, this festival was great. I've been to years that have been better. All of the bands were at least listenable, with most of them being great.

Forgotten Music #19: Cristina - What's a Girl to Do (1984)

1980s New York produced a shocking amount of music. Being ground zero for a great deal of punk, post punk, jazz, new wave and experimental music, a few bands rose to the top, and a huge amount were ultimately relegated to footnotes in history, at best. Cristina was one of them.

Cristina, the musical persona of Cristina Monet-Palaci, was part of the no-wave movement in New York. Her first single was called "Disco Clone" and was released on her husband Michael Zihlka's ZE Records. It was a left-field hit and ending up putting ZE on the map. ZE ended up releasing material from many notable musicians including Alan Vega, James Chance, John Cale, Kid Creole and The Waitresses, amongst others.

Cristina recorded two albums, her first in 1980, a self-titled effort, and her second, Sleep it Off, in 1984. She was known for a deadpan vocal delivery, which she showed off in two offbeat covers, Peggy Lee's famous jazz standard, "Is That All There Is" and the Beatles' "Drive My Car". Her music was a strange mix of Lydia Lunch style talk/singing, disaffected Eurotrash pop and snotty punk.

I'll admit, I hadn't heard of Cristina until I heard "What's a Girl to Do" on Ladytron's 2003 DJ mix/album Softcore Jukebox. That album is a wonderful mash up of retro electronics and oddball electro-rock. There's more that's worth looking at in future installments of Forgotten Music, like Fanny Pack, Pop Levi and Dondolo.

Cristina's career was very short, just five years. She now works as a writer in New York. Her two albums were re-released by ZE Records in 2006. "What's a Girl to Do" was from her second and last album, Sleep it Off.

DNTTA Playlist for July 31, 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 

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Nap Eyes - Dark Creedence* - Whine of the Mystic (You've Changed)
Jennifer Castle - Working for the Man* - Pink City (Independent)
Catholic Girls - Berlin* - Psychic Woman (Independent)
Fauna Shade - Marzipan - Baton Rouge (Independent)
Alvvays - Archie, Marry Me* - Alvvays (Polyvinyl)
Ashley Soft - Glass Advice* - Leave (Shaking Box)
Vague - Black Sheep - Tempdays (Siluh)
Untrained Animals - Visitors* - III (Independent)
Braids - Letting Go* - Deep in the Iris (Flemish Eye)
Caribou - All I Ever Need* - Our Love (Merge)
Doldrums - Funeral for Lightning* - The Air Conditioned Nightmare (Sub Pop)
Rose Windows - Strip Mall Babylon - Rose Windows (Sub Pop)