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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)