My first guest blog is up over on RDM Music Blog, on Canadian band Eight and a Half. This should be the first of a monthly guest blog on Canadian music I'll do for them. I've already got two more reviews in the works. Head on over and support them!
http://rmdmusicblog.com/2012/07/20/album-review-eight-and-a-half-go-ego-electronicexperimental/
http://youtu.be/mWnq8op-IN8
Friday, July 20, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
The Shadowy Men Change Their Hearts
Two nice surprises from the summer festival scene have been the return of two classic Canadian indy rock bands: Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet and Change of Heart.
Shadowy Men are much better known outside of Canada due to their penning and performing "Having an Average Weekend", the opening theme for the legendary comedy show Kids in the Hall.
http://youtu.be/CqmFspZqr34
The band formed in the late 80s and released their first album, Savvy Show Stoppers, in 1990. The band mixed surf rock and touches of punk and indy rock, performing almost entirely as an instrumental band (very few of their songs had singing on them). They released only three full length albums during their short existence, but the band is well loved and well known by Canadian music fans. After the band's break up after 1995, Don Pyle and Reid Diamond formed another instrumental band with Dallas Good (later a member of the much loved Canadian alt-roots band, The Sadies) called Phono-Comb. Guitarist John Connelly formed another surf-rock instrumental band called Atomic 7, who released several albums on the Mint label, and played in Neko Case's band for a while. Diamond passed away in 2001. The band returned for some dates this summer, most notably at Calgary's Sled Island festival, with Dallas Good filling in on bass for Diamond.
What's even better is that the bands back catalogue is being re-released by the Lethbridge, AB based Mammoth Cave Records, which will be a nice treat for anyone who was a fan of the band, but had a hard time tracking down their albums.
Change of Heart was a heavily psychedelic influenced band from out of Toronto and part of the Canadian indy rock explosion of the late 80s/early 90s that included bands like Sloan, Thrush Hermit, Jale and Eric's Trip. Fronted by Ian Blurton, the band put out 6 albums, their last in 1997, Steelteeth, on the major label Virgin. After breaking up, Blurton worked as a producer for a lot of Canada's biggest names, such as the Weakerthans, Cursed and Attack in Black. He also formed the short-lived Bionic, and his latest band C'Mon, which just broke up in the last couple of years.
Blurton announced last month that Change of Heart were reforming for several reunion shows, as well as putting out a long awaited retrospective.
http://youtu.be/JsmKSN3rBPM
Shadowy Men are much better known outside of Canada due to their penning and performing "Having an Average Weekend", the opening theme for the legendary comedy show Kids in the Hall.
http://youtu.be/CqmFspZqr34
The band formed in the late 80s and released their first album, Savvy Show Stoppers, in 1990. The band mixed surf rock and touches of punk and indy rock, performing almost entirely as an instrumental band (very few of their songs had singing on them). They released only three full length albums during their short existence, but the band is well loved and well known by Canadian music fans. After the band's break up after 1995, Don Pyle and Reid Diamond formed another instrumental band with Dallas Good (later a member of the much loved Canadian alt-roots band, The Sadies) called Phono-Comb. Guitarist John Connelly formed another surf-rock instrumental band called Atomic 7, who released several albums on the Mint label, and played in Neko Case's band for a while. Diamond passed away in 2001. The band returned for some dates this summer, most notably at Calgary's Sled Island festival, with Dallas Good filling in on bass for Diamond.
What's even better is that the bands back catalogue is being re-released by the Lethbridge, AB based Mammoth Cave Records, which will be a nice treat for anyone who was a fan of the band, but had a hard time tracking down their albums.
Change of Heart was a heavily psychedelic influenced band from out of Toronto and part of the Canadian indy rock explosion of the late 80s/early 90s that included bands like Sloan, Thrush Hermit, Jale and Eric's Trip. Fronted by Ian Blurton, the band put out 6 albums, their last in 1997, Steelteeth, on the major label Virgin. After breaking up, Blurton worked as a producer for a lot of Canada's biggest names, such as the Weakerthans, Cursed and Attack in Black. He also formed the short-lived Bionic, and his latest band C'Mon, which just broke up in the last couple of years.
Blurton announced last month that Change of Heart were reforming for several reunion shows, as well as putting out a long awaited retrospective.
http://youtu.be/JsmKSN3rBPM
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Covers Courageous #4: Jesus and Mary Chain/ZZ Top - Reverberation (Doubt)
I was chatting online with a new friend the other day, who's also a music nerd like me, and got to talking about the early days of psychedelic music. She's got an opportunity to see Roky Erickson in a few days, and we talked about his legacy. That got me to thinking about an awesome tribute album that came out in 1990 called When the Pyramid Meets the Eye, which was artists covering Roky Erickson. Even in the 60s, Roky wasn't exactly a household name, and even less so in the 90s, so the compilation was very leftfield. It introduced me to his music though, which is a good thing.
Roky Erickson fronted a folk/psychedelic band called the 13th Floor Elevators, who started recording out of Dallas, TX in the mid 60s. Their biggest hit was a tune Roky wrote for a band called the Spades, called "You're Gonna Miss Me." The band had their following, but weren't terribly commercially successful. Instead, Roky's work was influential to those that came after him. Roky himself was plagued with health problems, from mental imbalances to general neglect, and constant drug use. He was also routinely exploited by record promoters, swindling Roky out of money owed him through a number of unauthorized releases.
More recently, Roky was embraced by modern musicians and began recording again, releasing an album with Will Sheff (aka Okkervil River) in 2010 called True Love Cast Out All Evil. He was also featured in a documentary about his career called You're Gonna Miss Me.
The range of artists on Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye is surprising. Given Roky's base of Dallas, it's not surprising that ZZ Top took on a song on the album, though ZZ Top isn't really a band you associate with psychedelic music. Regardless, they do a fantastic version of "Reverberation (Doubt)". Second, noted shoegazers Jesus and Mary Chain seemed like a natural match for Roky's work, and they take on the same song. Judge for yourself who does the best version.
http://youtu.be/KmiEC7G43OQ
http://youtu.be/buEGBtLsc1k
Roky Erickson fronted a folk/psychedelic band called the 13th Floor Elevators, who started recording out of Dallas, TX in the mid 60s. Their biggest hit was a tune Roky wrote for a band called the Spades, called "You're Gonna Miss Me." The band had their following, but weren't terribly commercially successful. Instead, Roky's work was influential to those that came after him. Roky himself was plagued with health problems, from mental imbalances to general neglect, and constant drug use. He was also routinely exploited by record promoters, swindling Roky out of money owed him through a number of unauthorized releases.
More recently, Roky was embraced by modern musicians and began recording again, releasing an album with Will Sheff (aka Okkervil River) in 2010 called True Love Cast Out All Evil. He was also featured in a documentary about his career called You're Gonna Miss Me.
The range of artists on Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye is surprising. Given Roky's base of Dallas, it's not surprising that ZZ Top took on a song on the album, though ZZ Top isn't really a band you associate with psychedelic music. Regardless, they do a fantastic version of "Reverberation (Doubt)". Second, noted shoegazers Jesus and Mary Chain seemed like a natural match for Roky's work, and they take on the same song. Judge for yourself who does the best version.
http://youtu.be/KmiEC7G43OQ
http://youtu.be/buEGBtLsc1k
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Forgotten Music #14: Ultra Vivid Scene - Staring at the Sun (1989)
Ultra Vivid Scene is yet another act that had to go to England to gain recognition and critical acclaim. A one man band, Kurt Ralske started in New York before jumping to the UK to sign with 4AD Records, who had jumpstarted the careers of fellow American bands like The Pixies. Ralske's style of music had very little to do with the noisy excursions of the Pixies, but was more in line with dream pop bands like The Cocteau Twins and The Sundays. "Staring at the Sun" wonderfully captures the ouevre of the late 90s style of dream pop, the sound of college radio at the time. This track comes from Ralske's second album as Ultra Vivid Scene, called Joy 1967-1990.
http://youtu.be/n7buuj1JWI8
http://youtu.be/n7buuj1JWI8
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Covers Courageous #3 - Die Krupps - A Tribute to Metallica
Back in the 90s, industrial music was a cool thing. After Nine Inch Nails and their followers brought industrial into the public consciousness, every bald dude with a sampler and a drum machine was making industrial music. While some bands cashed in during the 90s, there were bands like Germany's Die Krupps who were grinding out industrial in the early 80s, long before it was cool.
The band wasn't well known outside of Europe (save for die hard rivetheads), but they suddenly became relatively well known after their album called A Tribute to Metallica was released in 1993. Back in the 90s, it was quite common to see industrial bands covering rock or pop tunes and "industrializing" them up. Cleopatra Records probably made more from this concept than from anything else they released, and I'm sad/proud to say I have quite a few of their industrial tribute comps in my own collection. Some of these, like KFMDM's cover of U2's "Mysterious Ways", were brilliant in their own way. Most, however, feel flat as fads do.
As an album, A Tribute to Metallica has it's own unique charms. Hearing Metallica's usual grinding, shredding guitars replaced by angular, pulsing electronics had a novel effect at one point. Sadly, this EP hasn't weathered the years well, but will remain as a neat touchstone when industrial music was being paid attention to.
http://youtu.be/FeoLnwM98aE
The band wasn't well known outside of Europe (save for die hard rivetheads), but they suddenly became relatively well known after their album called A Tribute to Metallica was released in 1993. Back in the 90s, it was quite common to see industrial bands covering rock or pop tunes and "industrializing" them up. Cleopatra Records probably made more from this concept than from anything else they released, and I'm sad/proud to say I have quite a few of their industrial tribute comps in my own collection. Some of these, like KFMDM's cover of U2's "Mysterious Ways", were brilliant in their own way. Most, however, feel flat as fads do.
As an album, A Tribute to Metallica has it's own unique charms. Hearing Metallica's usual grinding, shredding guitars replaced by angular, pulsing electronics had a novel effect at one point. Sadly, this EP hasn't weathered the years well, but will remain as a neat touchstone when industrial music was being paid attention to.
http://youtu.be/FeoLnwM98aE
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Adam Cohen on music
Last week, while driving later at night, I caught part of an interview on Q with Adam Cohen, son of the legendary Leonard Cohen, talking about his father's influence on music and on Adam himself as a musician. Adam talked about music losing it's "cultural relevance", telling a story that when some thieves broke into his car, they didn't touch all the of the great music he had lying around on CD, but they took everything else they could grab. He said this was, in part, to music not being valued.
Adam has a point, but not because the thieves passed up his awesome CD collection. Music, like most types of media, is around and available for free (or almost free) more than ever in the age of the internet. Not only is copyrighted and legally released music pirated as soon as it's released, and made available in very easy to find ways, more and more artists have been releasing their music with little or no expectation of being compensated for what they do. Part of this is a need for a fan base. A band can put out their music on bandcamp or other service for free and people can come by and check it out with no expectation to buy it. This makes new fans quickly. But, is there an incentive to actually buy the music after sampling it for free?
In 2007, Radiohead caused a controversy by offering their album In Rainbows up on their website for "pay what you want". Fans could download the album then, if they wanted, send the band some money for the music. There was no expectation to pay for it though. The album was downloaded 1.2 million times. While Radiohead never released sales figures, they have said they did quite well with the strategy. Some critics say that Radiohead were cutting off their noses to spite their faces, offering up a critical and financial success of an album for basically nothing. This probably set the ball rolling for the free digital download we all enjoy today.
It's a hard road for any up and coming musician. You need people to consume your music, by buying it or by coming to a concert, but few people will take chances on an unknown quantity. Offering up music for free may get you heard, but it takes food out of your mouth.
Adam Cohen was right about music being less culturally relevant, in as much as we've begun to consider music not as something we need to pay for, but as something that we are deserved for free. In addition, the age of the album is slowly starting to disappear. Music is much more ephemeral, with artists riding more and more on a hot single rather than a hot album, sometimes to disappear after they're not the flavour of the month anymore. One can't fault the thieves for not stealing his TV on the Radio CDs, not because they didn't know who they were or know how awesome their music was. Rather, the thieves were interested in monetary value, not cultural value. Making money on music is a hard slog now, both as a musician and as a thief. No one will buy something that they can get for free, unless the artist is offering something of quality, and something that is well known. It's less a cultural issue than a changing musical financial landscape. Until there's a better model of how to market and sell music in a digital age, the CD, the album and the physicality of music will be a relic to all but music collectors and avid fans, like me and Adam.
Adam has a point, but not because the thieves passed up his awesome CD collection. Music, like most types of media, is around and available for free (or almost free) more than ever in the age of the internet. Not only is copyrighted and legally released music pirated as soon as it's released, and made available in very easy to find ways, more and more artists have been releasing their music with little or no expectation of being compensated for what they do. Part of this is a need for a fan base. A band can put out their music on bandcamp or other service for free and people can come by and check it out with no expectation to buy it. This makes new fans quickly. But, is there an incentive to actually buy the music after sampling it for free?
In 2007, Radiohead caused a controversy by offering their album In Rainbows up on their website for "pay what you want". Fans could download the album then, if they wanted, send the band some money for the music. There was no expectation to pay for it though. The album was downloaded 1.2 million times. While Radiohead never released sales figures, they have said they did quite well with the strategy. Some critics say that Radiohead were cutting off their noses to spite their faces, offering up a critical and financial success of an album for basically nothing. This probably set the ball rolling for the free digital download we all enjoy today.
It's a hard road for any up and coming musician. You need people to consume your music, by buying it or by coming to a concert, but few people will take chances on an unknown quantity. Offering up music for free may get you heard, but it takes food out of your mouth.
Adam Cohen was right about music being less culturally relevant, in as much as we've begun to consider music not as something we need to pay for, but as something that we are deserved for free. In addition, the age of the album is slowly starting to disappear. Music is much more ephemeral, with artists riding more and more on a hot single rather than a hot album, sometimes to disappear after they're not the flavour of the month anymore. One can't fault the thieves for not stealing his TV on the Radio CDs, not because they didn't know who they were or know how awesome their music was. Rather, the thieves were interested in monetary value, not cultural value. Making money on music is a hard slog now, both as a musician and as a thief. No one will buy something that they can get for free, unless the artist is offering something of quality, and something that is well known. It's less a cultural issue than a changing musical financial landscape. Until there's a better model of how to market and sell music in a digital age, the CD, the album and the physicality of music will be a relic to all but music collectors and avid fans, like me and Adam.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Canadian Indie Band Round Up #2
Has it really been a year since I featured three up and coming Canadian indy bands? Let's fix that right away. Here's three Canadian acts you need to check out:
1) Foam Lake
Foam Lake are seasoned veterans of the Canadian indy rock scene, having been in bands like The Blood Lines, Slow Down Molasses and The Warbrides. Foam Lake just put out their debut album, Force and Matter, in November 2011.
The band sound a lot like Wire crossed with Depeche Mode. They have solid post-punk and indy rock sensibilities, and add in a nice flourish of electronics in many places in their first album.
http://foamlakeband.com/
2) Rob Crooks
From Winnipeg, Rob Crooks plays a noisy mix of indy rock with plenty of experimentation. As a member of hip-hop collective Magnum K.I,, he made some intriguing hip-hop. Hearts, his 2012 release, sees him abandon hip-hop (for the most part) for oddball experimentation, feedback and singer-songwriter sensibilities. Thing of him as a low-rent, mosquito bitten Canadian version of Beck and you have a close approximation as to how he sounds.
http://www.robcrooks.com/
3) House of Daggers
From Vancouver, House of Daggers is a collaboration between DJ Tone and alt-pop singer Nothingilistic. Nothingilistic has released three albums of weirdly skewed pop so far, but House of Daggers is a dirty, dancable mix of electro-rock. Having been familiar with Nothingilistic's career to date, House of Daggers sounds like nothing he'd produce ever. It's a fascinating departure and the music is driving, noisy and challenging. Their debut EP is called Lightning Swords of Death.
http://www.myspace.com/565073443
http://youtu.be/_Vu7dExkmiI
1) Foam Lake
Foam Lake are seasoned veterans of the Canadian indy rock scene, having been in bands like The Blood Lines, Slow Down Molasses and The Warbrides. Foam Lake just put out their debut album, Force and Matter, in November 2011.
The band sound a lot like Wire crossed with Depeche Mode. They have solid post-punk and indy rock sensibilities, and add in a nice flourish of electronics in many places in their first album.
http://foamlakeband.com/
2) Rob Crooks
From Winnipeg, Rob Crooks plays a noisy mix of indy rock with plenty of experimentation. As a member of hip-hop collective Magnum K.I,, he made some intriguing hip-hop. Hearts, his 2012 release, sees him abandon hip-hop (for the most part) for oddball experimentation, feedback and singer-songwriter sensibilities. Thing of him as a low-rent, mosquito bitten Canadian version of Beck and you have a close approximation as to how he sounds.
http://www.robcrooks.com/
3) House of Daggers
From Vancouver, House of Daggers is a collaboration between DJ Tone and alt-pop singer Nothingilistic. Nothingilistic has released three albums of weirdly skewed pop so far, but House of Daggers is a dirty, dancable mix of electro-rock. Having been familiar with Nothingilistic's career to date, House of Daggers sounds like nothing he'd produce ever. It's a fascinating departure and the music is driving, noisy and challenging. Their debut EP is called Lightning Swords of Death.
http://www.myspace.com/565073443
http://youtu.be/_Vu7dExkmiI
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