Random Ten #1

Ok, so "Random Ten" is totally a rip-off of an Onion A/V Club feature called "Random Rules", where they ask artists and generally cool people to put their iPod on shuffle and write down the first 7 songs that come up. I like this idea, and since they don't do it anymore and no one reads this blog anyway, I'm gonna do it semi-weekly so anyone who does happen upon it may find some new music, or judge me on mine.

The difference will be that I'll do 10 songs (10 songs is a miminal for a mix tape I figure....), and I will update the sample playlist to the right of this each time I do a Random Ten. If there is a better player with full songs please let me know.

Keep in mind that I do sample and sometimes review a lot of new and old music so some things that come up may not be some of my fave songs, just songs on my iPod, so sorry if they suck. I also have a 16 gig iPod so it's not exactly all my music, but because of all this I have to change the music on it quite often (with just the essentials staying on all the time) and hopefully there will be a fresh, different list every week.

So without further delay, Week 1:

1) Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot
2) Magnolia Electric Co. - Heartbreak at Ten Paces
3) Blur - To The End
4) The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
5) Dizzee Rascal - Paranoid
6) Daft Punk - Something About Us
7) Barrington Levy - Send a Moses
8) Gorillaz - Double Bass
9) John Coltrane - Serenity
10) Blur - Movin' On

Please leave your own Random Ten in the comments!

Soundproofmagazine.com Pt. 3 - Album Reviews

So this brings us up to date - I'm now doing mostly record reviews for Soundproof, and here are the ones I've done up until now. Unpublished stuff + updates on what I do get published will follow.

The Beatles - Rubber Soul
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/Albums/The_Beatles_-_Rubber_Soul_Remastered.html

Still Life Still - Girls Come Too
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/Albums/Still_Life_Still_-_Girls_Come_Too.html

Most Serene Republic - ...And The Ever-Expanding Universe
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/Albums/The_Most_Serene_Republic_-_And_The_Ever_Expanding_Universe.html

John Legend - Evolver
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/Albums/John_Legend_-_Evolver.html

Soundproofmagazine.com Pt. 2 - Interviews, Warped Tour '09

My live review for Warped Tour's Toronto stop this summer:
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/Events/Vans_Warped_Tour_2009_-_Toronto.html

....and these are the two "Quick and Dirty" feature interviews I've had published with Soundproof for the US writing team, which is based in Toronto, haha.

The Everyday Visuals
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/United_States/Features/Quick_Dirty_-_The_Everyday_Visuals.html

Blind Man's Color
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/United_States/Features/Quick_Dirty_-_Blind_Mans_Color.html

Soundproofmagazine.com Pt. 1 - NXNE

These are the live reviews I did for North By Northeast this summer.


Black Lips
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/North_By_Northeast_2009/Black_Lips_Yonge_and_Dundas_Square.html

The Stills
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/North_By_Northeast_2009/The_Stills_The_Courthouse.html

Dead Science
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/North_By_Northeast_2009/The_Dead_Science_Lees_Palace.html

No Age
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/North_By_Northeast_2009/No_Age_Lees_Palace.html

King Khan & BBQ Show
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/North_By_Northeast_2009/The_King_Khan_and_BBQ_Show_Lees_Palace.html

Megan Hamilton
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/North_By_Northeast_2009/Megan_Hamilton_Bread_and_Circus.html

Lovely Killbots
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/North_By_Northeast_2009/Lovely_Killbots_Rancho_Relaxo.html

Jason Collet
http://www.soundproofmagazine.com/Canada/North_By_Northeast_2009/Jason_Collet_The_Horseshoe_Tavern.html

Spill Magazine Pt. 2

K, so here are the rest, these and the last post were all published between July and October 2008 to spillmagazine.com since I wasn't too clear before....




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Breakfast In Suburbia
The Telepathic Butterflies
Rainbow Quartz

Winnipeg’s Telepathic Butterflies, led by singer/lead guitarist Réjean Ricard, perform guitar pop so pure that it is hard to believe they exist in this century. The music on their third album Breakfast In Suburbia brings to mind some of the great UK bands of the sixties such as The Beatles and The Zombies without imitating them or turning to empty nastalgia, rather using the sound of that era as a launching pad for the band’s own unique vision. The melodies are consistently strong and the guitar leads avoid clichéd patterns and challenge the listener in a pleasant fashion such as on album standout “Telescope”. Far from being a one-man-show however, Ricard is backed by an able band; specifically drummer Jacques Dubois who brings a fresh, simple approach to his instrument that propels the music especially on songs such as “The Trouble With Keeping Up With The Joneses” and “Mr. Dysfuntionality”.

As hinted in the title, the album is about suburban living in the 21^st century - finding beauty in the minutiae of neighbourhood gossip and the shattered dreams of a man going through a midlife crisis, elevating its subject matter through the beauty of the music. This brings us to the major issue with Breakfast in Suburbia: The vinyl LP version of this record is a concept album with 8 more songs and a completely different sequencing. Considering that double LP version is on a limited run of 500 copies there is a good chance many may never hear it in its full form with the original story arc intact.

Still, even though most of us will never even hear the full album, the shorter CD version still qualifies as one of the best records to have come out this year, and is a definite must-listen for anyone who likes music, period.

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Plutonium Blonde
The Legendary Pink Dots
Roir

The Legendary Pink Dots recorded at the pace of about two albums a year from 1980 to 2002. Since then the rate has understandably dropped to one every two years but not, as one might imagine, because lead songwriter Edward Ka-Spel has run low on ideas for awe-inspiring soundscapes. In fact the band’s latest offering Plutonium Blonde is a completely essential modern record, not merely a passable latter day offering from a classic group.

The sound that permeates the majority of the songs is a cinematic minimalist industrial beat that could be referred to as trance if that name were not already used (perhaps erroneously) for a completely different brand of music. The simple beats complement slowly morphing aural scenery consisting of keyboards, guitars, Theremin, found sounds, and many other elements that are harder to pin down such as the underwater church organ of doom heard on “Faded Photograph”. Relief from this claustrophobia comes in the form of a few forays into pop territory - the downright pretty “World Without Mirrors”, which glides along on little more than light acoustic strumming and flute; “My First Zonee”, an 80’s leaning synth pop update to Tom Waits’ “Step Right Up”; and the creepy but playful banjo-led “Mailman”.

It is difficult to convey the variety of sounds and ideas found on Plutonium Blonde – no song sits in one place for long, and no ideas are recycled. Even the strange sequencing that has the record starting with two of its longest songs only adds to its enigmatic nature. This is required listening for anyone who fancies them self a fan of modern psychedelia.




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All Together
Pattern Is Movement
Home Tapes

The latest offering from Philadelphia’s Pattern Is Movement shows how sometimes a record can completely fall on its face after a rather promising start. This classically trained group boasts a fractured songwriting style that works as long as they try to ground the oddball arrangements by actually thinking the songs through and not just jamming one idea after the other. The first two tracks are successful – “Bird” has a tripped out vocal that leads the song through a remarkable amount of different melodic ideas in under three minutes, giving it an urgent feel that doesn’t outstay its welcome. “Peach Trees” boasts an infectiously noisy two-note violin riff in the choruses juxtaposing the pretty piano-led verses. From then on, cracks begin to show in the songwriting (starting with the forced and uninspired vocal refrain in “Trolley Friend”) that seems to get worse with each track.

Far from an abject failure, All Together has few songs that don’t at least have some interesting ideas, and in the latter half of the album where low points “Jenny Ono” and “Tragedy” are found, the song lengths are kept forgivingly short. The problem is that the adventurous nature present in even many of their mistakes along with their obvious virtuosic chops seem to add up to a product that is at its best somewhat uneven, and at its worse inane and unlistenable.

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Vernacular Violence
Slim Twig
Paper Bag Records

Vernacular Violence, the new 5 song EP from Toronto artist Slim Twig (who in true eccentric fashion writes and plays all the music himself) shows a lot of potential and many possible direction he could take in the future. A sense of high drama, along with insistently lo-fi drum machine patterns are the common threads that tie these brilliantly dark melodic pieces together. “White Fantaseee” is the strongest and longest track, and in particular brings to mind Bauhaus in more ways than just Slim Twig’s Peter Murphy-esque voice, and reinforces the notion that reverb is for sad people. Another stand out on this exceptional but brief offering is “Tormen”, making use of plucked violins, surf noise guitar and a fun little demented organ that that perfectly suits his unique vocalizations and dark lyricism.

Slim Twig is a singular artist making unique music, and this EP sets the bar very high for any future foray into recording that he may make.

http://www.myspace.com/slimtwig

Spill Magazine Pt. 1

http://spillmagazine.com/ is the site, but their setup is weird so I'm gonna upload screen shots of my reviews. If you want to navigate their site then my stuff is available under album reviews, and then in the archive section. Good luck with that.

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The Virgins
The Virgins
Atlantic

The Virgins’ principle members Donald Cumming and Wade Oates were models on a photo shoot when they met and decided to start playing songs. This, along with their unabashed pastiche of re-popularized post-punk styles have garnered many knee jerk reactions comparing them to another New York band of recent years, and indeed “Radio Christiane” off their self- titled debut LP does channel the Cars via the Strokes.

This should not however be seen as a negative trait, as the tendency of other current and trendy sounding bands to phone in performances for effect (or perhaps out of lack of talent) is completely absent in the Virgins. The song writing is strong and varied, creating a mixtape quality that can often sound messy in lesser hands but works in this case. This is largely due to the solid rhythm section of Erik Ratensperger and Nick Zarin-Ackerman who are as adept at the mid tempo balladry of closer “Love is Colder Than Death” as they are at the rhythmic stop-start funk of “Murder”.

The Virgins are also no strangers to melody and lyricism in spite of their seemingly party-ready instrumentation. “Fernando Pando” in particular seems genuine and heartfelt in way that is immediately familiar and anything but disposable with sentiments such as “The kids I used to know they died/Well they’re not around/I wonder what they think of life/When they’re looking down”.

A strong first effort from a promising young band, The Virgins will not disappoint any one looking for a strong pop album that would be at just as home alone in their bedroom as it would be at their next party.

http://www.thevirgins.net




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Haute Voltage
The Jolts
Haute Voltage Records

The Jolts’ Haute Voltage practically invites you to judge them harshly. The band mugs on the cover in leather jackets literally posing like their apparent influence The Dead Boys and the members have names like Joey Blitzkrieg. Luckily this serves only as a ruse because the music handily rises above the ridiculous packaging.

Innovation is not the Jolts’ game, but they do not hide it with unnecessarily lo-fi production like so many of their more garage-leaning peers, choosing instead tastefully well produced tracks. Right out of the gate they demonstrate with the solid opener “Hey! Alright!” that a band can be totally lacking in originality and still make music as strong as its obvious influences. Also, the lyrics tend to be literal rather than literate, and again this suits them well especially in songs such as “I Never Loved You”, treading on the familiar teenage pop theme of rejection through song.

The Jolts are no fools – in fact they’re one step ahead of us all, throwing us red herrings in the form of an inane album title and packaging only to remind you how silly it is to judge a band by such superficiality. Self-consciously unselfconscious, the Jolts ride a fine line and totally pull it off, delivering a solid album that is much a reflection of the current state of music as it is anachronistic.

http:// www.myspace.com/thejolts

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Yesterday You Could Save The World
Broadcast Zero
Rebel Time Records

Kitchener-Waterloo’s Broadcast Zero deal in the kind of “straight-up punk rock” that seems to draw exclusively from the Fat Wreck/Hellcat/Epitaph Records school of music as a mark of authenticity. This often rigid approach is problematic and contradictory to the original spirit of punk rock, which was always about individuality even before it was about DIY. That said, Broadcast Zero still really kick ass because the approach in question packs a lot of power when put into the right hands. From opener “Off The Wagon” to closing track “The Devil Song” there is rarely a moment of pause aside from the occasional acoustic intro. Resembling Leftöver Crack with less ‘groove’, the music on Yesterday You Could Change The World is a unswerving lesson in economically-controlled bursts of “straight-up punk”.

The lyrics, however, are not really the political manifesto the cover art would have one believe, often dealing with politics at the personal level - raging on about a number of topics such as sexual empowerment (“My Body”), twenty-something self destructive party lifestyles (“Neverland Forever”) and scene politics (the appropriately titled “Scene Politics”). The tendency toward directness that characterizes this album is summed up neatly in “This Distortion” when singer Nick hollers, “All this abstraction is a distraction....This ain’t no poetry, this music is reality”.

Mostly though, it just kicks a lot of ass.

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Olly Oxen Free
Mason Proper
Dovecote Records

Occupying the available sonic real estate between Broken Social Scene and Moon And Antarctica-era Modest Mouse, Michigan band Mason Proper write shimmering pop gems that never stray far from the now familiar post-punk revival sound. What makes them stand out is not necessarily an original take on the form but rather a move toward the perfection of it – Olly Oxen Free, their second LP, is a sleek, polished and professional sounding affair that nevertheless manages to retain a sense of genuine feeling throughout.

There isn’t a single weak track on this album, but there a few standouts such as “Lock and Key”, and the rocking “Shiny”, a song that changes from steel drum sounding guitars to a rhythmic stop start riff without sounding strained. The lyrics are also noteworthy, as vocalist Jonathan Visger is capable of heartfelt moments in songs like “In The Mirror” as well as more upbeat and aggressive moments with a sense of pessimistic humour that never sounds disingenuous.

Blessed by a short run time and a multitude of great ideas, Olly Oxen Free is a consistently rewarding listen that places Mason Proper head and shoulders above their peers.

First Post

.....and some catch-up (to the whole "blog" thing, I'm not exactly on the cutting edge). My intention for this is to primarily post links to whatever I get published, so now there is a central place where it will be available. I will also post live reviews, etc. that I do on my own and don't get published so there will be blog-exclusives...

Or I'll never use it and it will just sit here, either or.