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Archive for the ‘Canadian Content’ Category

Seven Love Letters: Meditations on Desire (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Best Coast, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Carrie Brownstein, David Bezmozgis, Dreams, Fantasy, Fears, Jonathan Lethem, Juli Zeh, Leonard Cohen, M.G. Vassanji, Margaret Atwood, Religion, Romance, Sex, Sheila Heti, The Muffs, The Walrus, Travel on April 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BEST COAST-Live at the 9:30 Club, Washington DC (2010).

Best Coast made Carrie Brownstein’s best album of the year accolades, but when I listened to the track she selected for the post, I wasn’t all that impressed.

But I have to say that live, Best Coast blew me away.  Bethany Cosentino, the lead singer and guitarist has an amazing stage presence.  She is charming and funny and very silly (and I guess she loves cats).  The band sounded tight and impressive and even though the songs are kind of dopey bubblegum pop, they are drenched in enough noise and rock to make them really wonderful

They seem like they should have come around during the 90s, when all those rocking female bands were all over the map.  And so this is like a wonderful blast from the past.  Best Coast is sort of like The Muffs (except they write love songs) and other bands that play really catchy pop but bury it under a layer of fuzz and rock.  This is a great set available on NPR, and will definitely get me to check out their album a little more.

[READ: March 28, 2011] “Seven Love Letters”

Six of the seven letters here were later collected in the book Four Letter Word which I reviewed in September 2009.  When I reviewed the book, I didn’t give very much in the way of detail, I just summarized the letters.  I’m going to copy what I wrote then (since my thoughts didn’t change all that much), and I’m going to include a few more lines about some of the pieces (original stuff is in italics).  I’m also including titles which (for some reason) were not given in the book.

I’m also not sure why Sheila Heti’s story did not appear in the book.  (It’s only 4 paragraphs and is, indeed, a letter so why not include it?)  If you enjoyed the book, think of this story as a Bonus Feature. (more…)

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Yiorgos Skabardonis–“Pericles” (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Culture Shock, Death, Fears, Humiliation, Military, Short Story, Surfer Blood, The Walrus, Violence, War, Yiorgos Skabardonis on April 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SURFER BLOOD-Live at SXSW (2010).

I really enjoyed Surfer Blood’s album Astro Coast.  There was something familiar about it, yet it never aped any sound exactly.  It’s a fun collection of upbeat almost-summer music.

This live set is a great representation of the band.  They don’t break from the CD all that much, but the band is lively and generous.  They play 7 songs, all of them fast and fun (they say that one song is going to be slow, but it seems to wind up as fast as the rest-and someone in the crowd shots “Play another slow one”).

There’s some good banter and the audience is very appreciative.  It’s great set and worth checking out even if you don’t know them yet.

[READ: March 28, 2011] “Pericles”

This story is set in Greece in 1941.  Bulgarians have occupied the land.  And as the first few paragraphs explain, a thief has come to steal some goats.  The goatherds catch the man (a Bulgarian) and kill him.

When the Bulgarians find out, they take it very seriously.  The army travels to the village and rounds up every single male and all of the young females and intend to shoot them in the center of the city.

The story pulls back to explain that during the occupation all of the men were forced to do labor.  This even includes Pericles, the strongest man in the village.  Before the occupation, he was a helpful giant, able to throw four bundles of hay at a time.  Of course, Pericles was also fearsome, and if he got drunk (which he did from time to time) everyone in the town hid until he sobered up (except for his diminutive wife who could calm him down with a look). (more…)

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Robin Collyer–“Fictional Houses” (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Ministry, Photo Essays, Robin Collyer, Sleigh Bells, The Go! Team, The Walrus on April 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SLEIGH BELLS-Live at SXSW (2010).

Sleigh Bells were a very polarizing band last year.  Their album made many year end best of lists, but they were also hated by many music fans as well.  I fell somewhere in the middle.  They reminded me of The Go! Team, but without their quirky aspects.  Nevertheless, I found their songs to be a kind of industrial-lite, maybe a baby Ministry or something.  And that was interesting.

So I was intrigued by their live set which I downloaded from NPR’s All Songs Considered.  Their set is plagued by technical malfunctions.  And although they are the headliners (I guess, I don’t really know how SXSW works) their set barely ekes out to 25 minutes.  But they are very apologetic and seem to be nice enough folks.

They manage to play 6 songs (2 songs are beset with disaster–they restart “A/B Machines” but give up on the second to last song altogether and play a different one).  Their onstage dynamic was interesting (at first I thought they weren’t going to talk to the crowd at all, but once the machines broke, they were quite amiable).  I gather the whole band was Derek Miller playing guitar and all the samples and Alexis Krauss singing (she’s really out of breath when the song malfunctions, so she must be quite an energetic performer).  Their set impressed me enough to want to check out their CD for real (I only listened to one song when it made all those lists).

This is an interesting set, especially if you like to hear a band cope with technical difficulties.

[READ: March 28, 2011] “Fictional Houses”

This third piece in The Walrus’ 2005 Summer Reading issue is more of a photo essay than anything.  But the premise behind it is really great (and it is included in the Fiction section of the magazine).

The essay explains that in neighborhoods across Canada, hydro companies created electrical substations to handle power for those communities.  But rather than allow huge electrical monstrosities to reside in these communities, they corporations built full houses around them.  These houses were not simple facades but actual houses with electricity and which really gave the appearance of families living there (even though no one ever would).  That is an amazingly thoughtful thing for a huge corporation to do.

Now, since these stations are no longer needed, the houses are being sold off. Collyer made a point of travelling around to as many as were still extant to take pictures of them.  The pictures themselves don’t speak much because they are simply normal houses that blend in with the community.  But it’s amazing seeing the seven houses and seeing how very different they are.  The two in Toronto are quite lovely two-story houses.  Indeed the one on Spadina Road, with the trees grown in, is quite lovely (see below).  The houses in Scarborough are smaller affairs but are not too shabby either. (more…)

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Wayne Johnston–“Cathechism” (The Walrus, July/August 2005)

Posted in Agalloch, All Songs Considered, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Content, Cars, Eric Rücker Eddison, Swans, The Walrus, Wayne Johnston, Worm Ouroboros on April 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WORM OUROBOROS-Live at Le Pousson Rouge, March 22, 2011 (2011).

I had never heard of Worm Ouroboros before this concert. They opened up for black metal guys Agalloch.  I was very intrigued by their name, because I love the word ouroboros, and then I learned that their name comes specifically from a novel by Eric Rücker Eddison called The Worm Ouroboros.

Now Agalloch is a heavy, fast, scary kind of band, so I expected that WO would be too, but they are almost exactly the opposite.  A trio (bass, guitar/flute (!)/keyboards, and drums), the band plays very ethereal music.  It has a kind of sinister edge to it, but for the most part it never really has a beat or anything.  The sounds drift and flow over each other.  This is all held together by the gorgeous vocals of bassist Lorraine Rath and the even more gorgeous harmonies of guitarist Jessica Wray.  Their voices are reminiscent of Jarboe from Swans.

The most amazing part of the show comes on the occasional ends of songs when the band seems to come down to earth  and they play a loud and aggressive doom metal stomp. It only last for a minute or two and it doesn’t happen on every song, but it’s amazing and really surprising when it does.

I don’t know what the band sounds like on record, but they make an exquisite noise live.  And you can tell how intense they must be because the rowdy crowd is quiet and respectful for their entire set.  You can get a free download (or listen online) at NPR.

Worm Ouroboros – Winter from (((unartig))) on Vimeo.

This is a video of “Winter” (a song that gets really heavy at the end) from the show.

[READ: March 26, 2011] “Catechism”

Although I have been posting past stories from The Walrus on Saturdays, the July/August 2005 issue was a Summer Reading Issue complete with 5 pieces of fiction.  So, it seemed like a good time (the week after the release of The Pale King, when I will be otherwise occupied) to go through thee five pieces.

This story uses a scene that I think is used an awful lot in fiction–that of the car sitting on a frozen lake with people taking bets as to when it will sink.  It’s not central to the story by any means, but this is I think the third time I’ve read it.  Of course I gather that if you have a  community that is frozen most of the time, it’s a reasonable thing to see there.

Anyhow, this is the tale of an East Coaster moving out to Regina to be writer-in-residence at the Regina Public Library. He finds that there isn’t all that much to do (in the year he’s there, two people ask him for help with their novels in progress.  [Frankly, I would love to hear THAT story instead.  A story where the writer in residence helps these misfits with their novels.  It sounds great.  So, I enjoyed that aspect of the story very much].  In fact I enjoyed it more than what would eventually develop as the plot. (more…)

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The Best American Comics 2006 (2006)

Posted in Africa, Alex Robinson, Alison Bechdel, All Songs Considered, Anarchy, Ander Nilson, Ben Katchor, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Bust, Canadian Content, Chris Ware, Collecting, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, David Heatley, David Lasky, Death, Depression, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Esther Pearl Watson, Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, Gilbert Shelton, Graphic Novel, HOB, Ivan Brunetti, Jaime Hernandez, Jesse Reklaw, Joe Sacco, Joel Priddy, John Porcellino, Jonathan Bennett, Justin Hall, Kim Deitch, Kurt Wolfgang, LGBTQ, Lilli Carré, Lloyd Dangle, Lynda Barry, Military, Olivia Schanzer, R. Crumb, Rebecca Dart, Rick Geary, Seth Tobocman, Sex, Short Story, Sonic Youth, Supernatural, Tom Hart, War, World Cafe Live on April 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH on World Cafe, August 21, 2006 (2006).

Travelling back even further on the NPR timeline, Sonic Youth appeared on World Cafe in 2006 to promote Rather Ripped.

This is a brief session (only three songs) but as with the interview with Thurston Moore, David Dye does another great interviewing the band here.  Although it must be said that saying the band is once again a four piece (when clearly there are five people in the picture and in the studio and when he later says two guitars, two basses and drums–which I also think is incorrect, as I’m pretty sure Kim switched to guitars at this point, although I don’t know if she did during this set) is not a great way to start the interview.

Facts aside, the interview is informative and interesting and provides a glimpse into the band’s psyche all these years into their career.

The set is also good (although Thurston’s voice sounds a little off on the opener “Incinerate”).  The surprising thing about the set is that even with the five of them, the feeling is one of restraint. True, the songs on Rather Ripped are not as noisy as previous records, but this feels like they are trying not to wake anybody up the NPR folks.  It’s a weird feeling for a Sonic Youth set, but the plus side to it is that you can really hear everything clearly.

The other two songs are sung by Kim: “Jams Run Free” and “What a Waste” (why do they never promote any of Lee’s songs??).  And there’s the very amusing comment that the first time they played “What a Waste” Thurston and Kim’s daughter said it sounded like the theme from Friends.  Ha!

[READ: April 15, 2011] The Best American Comics 2006

I just recently learned about this series from The Best American line of books.  I had known about the Best American Short Stories and Essays and even Non-Required Reading (which I have not yet read).  But once I found out about the best comics, I knew I had to check it out.

The first issue came out in 2006.  The series editor is Anne Elizabeth Moore and the Guest Editor for this volume was Harvey Pekar.  Each of them has an introductory essay in the book.  To me the amazing thing about Pekar”s essay is how aggressively defensive he sounds (a sort of, “you may not like this one, but try this one” attitude) about these comics and comics in general.  I don’t know much about Pekar’s work.  I know he’s a kind of underground icon, but I seem to have missed him.  My impression of him is that this sort of antagonistic/defensive attitude seems to go along quite well with his comics, so I guess that makes sense, but I didn’t find it very welcoming.

But that’s okay, because I really enjoyed the comics.  And quite a few were by artists that I had never read before, which is even better! (more…)

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Randy Boyagoda–“Water Spider” (The Walrus, March 2006)

Posted in Africa, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Death, Demons, Fears, Jane Siberry, Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Boyagoda, Rheostatics, Short Story, Squarepusher, The Walrus, Violence, War on April 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-2067 (2004).

This was the Rheostatics’ final release.  I’m not sure if they knew this would be their last disc, but it kind of feels like they are throwing everything they can into it.

It opens with a delicate song from Martin which reminds me of Jane Siberry (the “row upon row” section).  Although at about 4 minutes it starts rocking out.  It’s a kind of meandering song, which is odd to open an album with.

It’s followed by “Little Bird Little Bird” a great folky song form Bidini.  But the disc really come alive with “Marginalized” a song that reminds me in some ways of “Horses,” as it is rocking and a little twisted (it seems surprising that it came from Tim Vesely).  It’s got some great guitar and an impressive keyboard solo (!) from new member Michael Phillip Wojewoda.

“The Tarleks” follows (with some fun frog noises). It opens slowly (as Martin songs tend to do) but once it really takes off, its got a great riff with his wonderful dramatic pauses and really funky sound from the bass/keyboards.  Then we get the wonderfully odd “Power Ballad for Ozzy Osbourne.”  It’s a kind of joke (but not really) about rock performers aging gracefully.  Bidini gets a bunch of songs on this disc, and here he gets two in a row, with the bizarrely wonderful “I Dig Music.”  The subtitle is “The Jazz Animal” and it tells you a lot about the song…it is indeed a kind of high-octane jazz.  But it has many different segments (and a lyric that references Squarepusher).

“Here Comes the Image” is a 6 minute track from Vesely which sounds very much like his more mellow tracks.  I’m not sure his tracks belong in the middle o f a disc because they tend to really bring the momentum to a halt.  Although it is a pretty song, it’s quite mellow (the organ solo at the end is pretty sweetly retro).  It’s followed by the five-minute slow instrumental “Who is This Man and Why is He Laughing?”  It really feels like an album ender.

So when “The Latest Attempt on Your Life” comes in, it revitalizes the sleepiness that those two songs imbue.  This track has the wonderful repeated chant “Everyone hates you, you sing like a woman”).  “Polar Bears and Trees” follows and it’s another kind of crazy song from Bidini.  It has such simple verses but the chanted “hey hey ho ho” rocks hard and is wonderfully fun.  (The lyrics are clever too).

Vesely returns with the beautiful, wonderfully catchy “Making Progress” which has another great retro keyboard solo at the end. The final track “Praise This Mutilated World” is one of the most beautiful songs in their output.  It starts as a fairly simple acoustic track (Bidini knows a good melody).  At about two minutes in, the band joins in with amazing harmonies.  The quiet parts keep coming back only to be overwhelmed by the harmonies once again.  The last two minutes are a spoken section.  It goes on a bit long, but is redeemed by another gorgeous chorus.

There’s a bonus track which is a very electronic version of  “Record Body Count.”  So this disc is definitely overly long in some places.  There are some great parts to the disc, but it feels like it could have used a good editor.  Nevertheless, since it’s the band’s final release, respect is due.

[READ: March 15, 2011] “Water Spider”

This very short (three-pages) story turned very dark rather quickly.

It opens with an African man, Bokarie, settling into his life as a convenience store clerk in Ottawa.  We learn that he was granted asylum, and that he has the scars to prove it.  He was quite nervous about leaving his country, and he still puts cinder blocks behind his door, to discourage uninvited guests.

At the same time, the action of the story concerns the accidental drowning of Caitlin, a young girl who presumably got too close to the creek when it overflowed.  The town is obviously distraught that one of their youngest and most innocent kids was killed, and they are planning a memorial service.  They are encouraging everyone to wear pink to the service and are even hoping to get a wreath put on the town’s crest.

Bokarie looks on this entire scene with a kind of bemusement.  His life in Africa was full of death.  Most of it horrifying.  So he seems somewhat unsure of what to make of the town’s outpouring for one lost child.  And then the story slowly reveals a shocking truth.

The truth is NOT that he killed Caitlin.  That’d not how the story is going (I didn’t really think it would go there, but it was a possibility).  Rather, the truth comes out about Bokarie himself, and his life back in Africa.  And it’s frankly horrible.

As the story draws to a close, Bokarie makes a decision that is going to impact the community.  It’s a little unclear what his motivation is, but it opens so many possibilities, that it really brings out a whole new realm to the story,

In some ways this story reminded me of Damon Galgut’s “An African Sermon (from The Walrus July/Aug 2004)  which also had an African character whose past has a hidden element and which turns out to be much darker than originally laid out.

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Adam Gilders–“Barnyard Desires” (The Walrus, February 2006)

Posted in Adam Gilders, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dave Bidini music, Fears, Funny (strange), Mystery, Oddities, Religion, Rheostatics, Short Story, The Walrus, Yuck! on April 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Night of the Shooting Stars (2001).

This was the first CD by The Rheostatics that I bought as it was released.  I had gotten into them in 1999 or so, and I remember being very excited that this disc was coming out.  I ordered mine from Maple Music (and it was even autographed!) and I recall the evening it came in the mail and I sat in my kitchen rocking out to it.  Night is probably their most accessible disc. There’s a bunch of tracks from Tim Vesely, (who writes the sweet melodies) and although Martin Tielli’s wonderful weirdness is present, it’s more weirdness within conventional songs rather than unconventional song structures.

The disc also features a lot of heavy guitar work.  The disc opens with a heavy guitar riff which morphs into an upbeat poppy number.  Of course, how many pop numbers are titled “These Days Are Good for the Canadian Conservative Youth Party Alliance,”  (Tielli, of course).  There’s a catchy repeated bridge “these days are good for us now” even if the chorus (chorus?) features the bizarre line: “I chipped my eyetooth on the back of a urinal.”

It’s followed by two of the catchiest, poppiest, most wonderful songs the Rheos have done “Mumbletypeg” a delightful ditty sung by Dave Bidini with (again) a wonderful chorus.  And, “P.I.N.”, (Tielli) too catchy by half, and featuring the wonderfully weird lyrics, (in a great descending melody): “You’ve got the key to my heart; you’ve got the P.I.N. to my guts”

“Superdifficult” is sung by Tim Vesely, and sounds a lot like the kind of songs he would later writer for The Violet Archers (he has the most delicate pop sensibility in the band).  Tim also sings “We Went West.”  It kind of slows the pace of the record down, but it is a beautiful song (done with different guitars in each headphone).

“The Fire” is a charming ditty sung by Tielli.  It continues the mellowness of “We Went West” and runs with it until Bidini takes over vocals and adds some heavy guitars.  They end the song with some beautiful harmonies and some screaming guitars.

The next two songs, Vesely’s “In It Now” and Bidinis’ “Here to There to You” are slight songs which are more charming than catchy.  They’re followed by the last three tracks which end the disc with a bang.

“The Reward” has a cool slinky riff and great vocals for Tielli. It’s also sprinkled with some heavy guitar pyrotechnics late in the song.  “Remain Calm” is a calming song from Vesely.  It seems perfectly located between the craziness of “The Reward and the wonderful rocking nonsense of “Satan is the Whistler.”

I always think that “Satan is the Whistler” is a much longer song (it’s six minutes) because there are two official parts to it.  The first 3 minutes are slow and moody, then half way through it bursts into a tremendously heavy riff (complete with whistles!).  It’s a great ending to the disc.

There are also two previously recorded tracks here in new form: “Song of the Garden” is from The Story of Harmelodia, done in a slightly more rocking version here.  And “Junction Foil Ball” (Tielli) was on their odd Nightlines Sessions release.  It opens with some odd effects and guitars and evolves into an incredibly, incredibly catchy riff.  The version here is not vastly different, but it’s a bit cleaner.

I’ve really loved this disc.  And even if the middle is a bit slow, it still rocks.

[READ: March 11, 2011] “Barnyard Desires”

This was a surprisingly odd and twisted story.  And for The Walrus, it was quite long, as well.

It opens with Leona hearing noises in her ceiling.  She suspects that the noises are from rats.  She has called the landlord out several times, but he hasn’t seen any rats.  In fact, he has stopped coming out because he thinks she’s crazy.  She imagines what the rats are up to up there: procreating mostly.  Eventually, she notices a kind of brown stain on the ceiling, which she is convinced is the rats mating and urinating.  The stain grows larger and larger, and it is right above her bed.  She also believes it is taking vaguely human shape.

Meanwhile, we learn about her upstairs neighbor.   The first time they met was in their building’s elevator.  He proudly (and very closely) admittedly that he was recently born again.  She made a quiet comment, turned away and hadn’t really spoken to him since. (more…)

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Alice Munro–“Pride” (Harper’s, April 2011)

Posted in Alice Munro, Canadian Content, Fears, Harper's, PJ Harvey, Short Story on April 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-Is This Desire? (1998).

After the (to me) disappointing To Bring You My Love, PJ Harvey came back with Is This Desire? This disc seems like it took the techniques she explored on To Bring and added more structure to her songs.  Harvey’s songs are by nature minimalist, and that’s why I found To Bring disappointing: it was too minimal.  She fleshes things out here–there’s a kind of Nick Cave quality to the disc as well, especially on the opener “Angeline.”  (She had sung with Cave on his then recent disc)).

These first two songs show an amazing range.  “The Sky Lit Up” has some odd guitar effects and some crazy screams later in the song.  It’s less than 2 minutes long.  As is “My Beautiful Leah,” which is over the top noisy and distorted.  It’s as sinister a song as Harvey has written.  “The Wind” has a wonderful whispered vocal, but it is dynamic and allows her quiet background music to forge its own path).  The harmony vocals are a very nice touch.

But it’s “A Perfect Day Elise” that shows that for all of Harvey’s textures and sounds, she really is a singles writer.  This is a noisy track, but the chorus is simply beautiful.  A fantastic anthem for the late 90s.

But then the disc takes a turn for the ethereal.  “Catherine” and “Electric Light” are quiet, creepy numbers that never really engage. “The Garden” tries to come out of this quiet, and manages somewhat.   “Joy” is another of Harvey’s spookier songs (she can do insane things with her voice) that is filled with anguish.

After these tracks, Harvey returns to the earlier style of the disc, with the beautiful, haunting (but not creepy) “The River.”  “No Girl So Sweet” follows with a noisy short track utilizing some techno aspects and a lot of distortion.  Harvey rocks this song very hard with some great vocals, too.

The final track is “Is This Desire?” It opens with just drums and Harvey’s voice.  It builds in complexity until it reaches a  delicate chorus.  It’s a really beautiful, if not dark, song an a nice ending to a CD that is something of a mixed bag.

[READ: March 23, 2011] “Pride”

I tend to read a lot of peculiar short stories.  So every once in a while, I really enjoy reading a story that is simply about a person or two trying to get by. And if you ever want to read stories about simple human connection, Alice Munro is the way to go!

This story confused me at first because I normally assume that the protagonist of Munro’s stories is going to be female.  This one didn’t state one way or another for a few paragraphs, so I was reading him as a girl (especially since he was talking about another girl in his town).

But no, it is about a boy.  It opens in the 1920s in a small town in Canada.  The protagonist is a poor but reasonably happy boy–with a harelip.  The girl he is talking about is named Oneida (an unusual name that did not catch on in town).  Oneida’s family is wealthy.  Like in a class by themselves wealthy.  Until, that is, her father makes a bad investment (with his bank’s money) in steam automobiles and loses more than his money. (more…)

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Colin McAdam–“Jackie” (The Walrus, December/January 2006)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Colin McAdam, Funny (strange), Sex, Short Story, The Tragically Hip, The Walrus, Work on April 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-Live at Austin City Limits Music Festival 2006 (2006).

I hadn’t heard of this album until I stumbled across it on the Yahoo! music page.  As far as I can tell it hasn’t been released on CD.  Or if it was, it’s no longer in print.  But you can download all of these songs from your online retailer.

Austin City Limits has brought out some great performances, but if the cover photo is to be believed, this is the outdoor music festival and not the usual intimate setting that you see on TV.

This is a seven song EP. I’m not sure if it covers their whole set or not.  But it does touch on many of their high points.  “Courage,” easily one of their best songs,  sounds a bit strained here.  Downie’s voice sounds like he can’t hear the rest of the band (although I suspect he was just being intense).  “The Lonely End of the Rink” sounds great, though. A really solid performance.  “Gus,” one of my personal favorites, also sounds fantastic.  These big anthemic songs work very well in this large setting.

They quiet things down a bit with “Bobcaygeon.”  I’ve always felt that this song really shines live, an it certainly does here.  But there’s little downtime when they rock out with the great “Poets.”  “At the Hundredth Meridian” also rocks really hard, but as with “Courage,” Downie seems less than excited to be singing it.  It just doesn’t have the attention to detail that he brings to the other songs.

The set ends with “Blow at High Dough” and unlike the other older songs, Downie seems to be having a lot of fun with this one.  He plays fast and loose with some lyrics, but the stuff he adds is his usual bizarre stuff.  It was a treat to find this recording, even if it isn’t their best live showing.

[READ: March 9, 2011] “Jackie”

As soon as the story opens, you know it’s going to be unusual: “I made a girlfriend a while ago. String, wax, some chemicals.”  And, indeed, the narrator has made a woman, not an inert sculpture, but a full-fledged woman, who eats and speaks and of course has sex.  He names her Jackie.

After her introduction, we learn about him.  He is an engineer and a pro soccer referee.  She enjoys going to the games.  But aside from the amazing sex (he built her well), she seems mostly disinterested in him.  He senses this but, since he made her, he assumes the best (although he does wish she’d get a job as it’s expensive doing all the fun things she wants to do.

So she gets a job at Imovax, and she is very secretive about her work.  He tries to find out even what the company does but she more or less just blows him off. (more…)

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Merilyn Simonds–“Miss You Already” (The Walrus, November 2005)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Merilyn Simonds, Short Story, The Tragically Hip, The Walrus, Travel on March 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-World Container™ (2006).

After delivering a number of different-sounding yet great records since their musical heyday, The Hip turned a commercial corner with this release.  The producer is Bob Rock, famed for all manner of commercial pop-metal recordings, and his style is all over this disc.  I don’t know how commercially successful this disc was or if it made a dent at all in the U.S., but it’s not for want of trying.

“Yer Not The Ocean” is the big opening song with big chords and soft verses.  The best song is the second one, “The Lonely End of the Rink” a breakneck track which brims with intensity (as a song about hockey ought to).  And then the album shows its commericalness.

“In View” is so aggressively poppy it could be on the soundtrack to any teenybopper movie.  It’s followed by “Fly” an unreasonably over-the-top ballad.  It’s somewhat unfathomable to think that the Hip had this kind of poppiness in them, as they’ve always been slightly left of pop-land.  But wow, they pull out all the stops there.

The Kids Don’t Get It” starts awkwardly (but with fun/clever lyrics) and then it gets catchy.  Those same clever/fun lyrics are repeated in the piano ballad “Pretend.”  It’s a very nice ballad, but seems odd for the Hip.  An instant encore/lighter moment, it’s not sappy exactly, it’s just lacking any kind of edge.

By this time, one hardly expects “The Drop Off” an aggressive track in which Downie’s voice sounds kind of bratty.  It’s an interesting effect.  And it leads to the final track, “World Container,” another major plea for airplay.  It is such an aggressively over the top radio anthem that you almost feel bad for the band.

I remember enjoying this album a lot when it came out, but listening to it now in the context of their other records, it seems like a strange plea for commercial success.  I’m not sure if that’s what they were after, but I hope they got a bit of it.

[READ: March 8, 2011] “Miss You Already”

I’ve read a few stories lately that have been rather dark. So when this one opened with “Mary Ann didn’t think she would want the casket open,” I thought, oh boy another one.  However, this story proved to be dark in an entirely different way.   And in fact, the darkness is tempered with incredible tenderness.

So, we know right off the bat that someone Mary Ann loves has died. It turns out to have been her husband.  He was a cyclist and was very fit.  But he was in an accident with a car and didn’t survive.  She loved him very much, and since they both agreed to never have children, they were very content with their lives.   So it was a surprise to many of her friends how quickly she seemed to move on.  But indeed, she was moving on in her own unique way.

And here’s where the story gets oddly touching and yet kind of creepy. She buys a camper van and drives around the country following a map that she has highlighted in pink.  We don’t learn what the locations are until she gets to the first one.  And here I have to give a kind of spoiler because there’s no way to talk about the story without revealing this bit so, the next paragraph will be a spoiler but nothing after that will be.

SPOILER: When her husband died, he had agreed to donate his organs.  She travels around in her van visiting all of the men who received his parts.  She wants to see her husband in these men, and when she finally arrives at everyone’s doors, she believes she does.  Indeed, as she gets closer she can see (in the eyes) or feel (in the scars) or smell (from the lungs) her husband, so she gets closer and closer.  And closer.

When she arrives unannounced at each circled destination, the people at the other end are overjoyed to see her, for she (via her husband) gave something so precious to each of them.  She spends some time with each one and then moves on to the next.  I found myself tearing up at the warmth and emotional reunions these people had, especially when she realized that she could see her husband in these man.  Yet at the same time I was kind of creeped out by it how close she wanted to get with everyone.

She proves to be a tender woman, expressing her love in an unusual way.  And the multiple uses of the title are really wonderful.  And all of that made it a very good story indeed.

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