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Archive for the ‘Canadian Music’ Category

C.E. Morgan–”Twins” (New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, C.E. Morgan, Canadian Music, Dave Bidini music, New Yorker, Racism, Rheostatics, Short Story, The Tragically Hip, tagged on August 4, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Record Runner, Ottawa ON, November 29, 1996 – In Store Acoustic (1996).

In Dave Bidini’s book On a Cold Road (which I am reading now), he writes how bad in store record appearances really are.  You don’t play your own equipment, typically (no room), you have to play stripped down versions of the songs. People are shopping around you.  And, the punch line (see end of the review).

Despite that, this set (a pit stop after opening for the Tragically Hip the night before (and later the same night, too)) is really fun.  Martin Tielli says that they’re usually not up so early (it’s 2PM).  They play a couple of acoustic numbers and then invite someone in the crowd to sing “The Ballad of Wendell Clark Pts 1 & 2,” and a young lady does an admirable job.  They also throw in “Bud the Spud.”

Then the take some more requests, and tell the crowd that they have a new shirt out (with Chickadees on it).  But they tell them not to buy it at the HIP show, because they had to sell the shirts for $40 (what the HIP charge).  They’ll be back in a couple of months and they’ll sell them cheaper.

The punchline at the end of the show is when they say that their albums are available at the store.  And when they ask someone if that’s true, it turns out that they have one copy of their new album and one copy of an old one.  (“enough for everyone,” quips Tielli).

You can download it here.

[READ: July 29, 2010] “Twins”

I didn’t like this story in the beginning.  In fact, if I hadn’t promised myself I’d read all 20 of the 20 under 40 authors, I probably wouldn’t have finished it.  The exposition felt too long, too detailed, and without a lot of focus.  In fact, it wasn’t until about four pages into the story that it really caught my interest.

The story is about twins, born to a single black mother from a white father.  One of the babies, Mickey (named after his father Mike) is white, while the other boy, Allmon, is black.  But other than that they look alike.

And the interesting part for me came when the mother (Mike is long out of the picture at this point) is walking with the kids and they see a yard sale.  The host of the sale can’t help but comment about the two kids.  And she asks one question after another until she goes too far.  The way this scene played out was very emotional, very powerful, and it really brought the story to life. (more…)

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Robert Coover–“The War Between Sylvania and Freedonia” (Harper’s, July 2010)

Posted in Canadian Music, Duck Soup, Harper's, Marx Brothers, Rheostatics, Robert Coover, Short Story, War, tagged on August 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS–Bathurst Street Theatre Toronto ON October 7 1994 (1994).

I have been listening to a bunch of the Rheostatics live downloads as of late.

This is one of the first concerts they have available on the Rheostatics Live website (there’s a 1991 show as well).  But what’s especially nice about this one is that it was broadcast (and taped) on the radio, so the sound quality is quite good.

The show is from just before the release of Introducing Happiness, so the band is trying out some of those tracks.

I’ve never seen the band live (and of course, now I never will) but these recordings show how much fun they had live.  They were never afraid to experiment or to make jokes in their chatty sections (original drummer Dave Clark was also a lunatic–it often seemed like he wasn’t taking things seriously at all, and yet he never missed a beat).

The shows from 1996 & 1997 also showcase a lot of these songs too, but having the crisp recording of the radio (and the reasonably short set) makes this a good place to start if you want to hear some Rheostatics live.  Some of those other early shows are recorded in the audience, so the fidelity isn’t always 100%.

All of the shows are available at the Rhesoatics Live site (thanks all contributors).  This show is available here.

[READ: July 27, 2010] “The War Between Sylvania and Freedonia”

Your enjoyment of this story depend a lot on whether or not you have watched (and enjoyed) the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup.  The reason is that this is a retelling of Duck Soup–sort of from the perspective of the mayor of Sylvania and sort of from an impartial observer who is on the side of Sylvania, or more specifically, anti-Firefly.

What Coover does is simply present the audacity and insanity of Groucho’s character, Rufus T. Firefly, as if it were a historical account.  Any reasonable person could see what a terrible mayor he would make.  And this accounts for the amusement in the story. (more…)

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Skylaire Alfvegren–“Grokking Rush” (The Believer, July/August 2010)

Posted in Alex Lifeson, Books about music, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, Rush, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, Skylaire Alfvegren on August 1, 2010| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK:  RUSH-“La Villa Strangiato” (from Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage) (2010).

In the bonus features of the DVD for Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, we see (in addition to some awesome live footage of Rush in 1974 with original drummer John Rutsey) a fantastic live clip of Rush playing “La Villa Strangiato,” one of the best instrumentals around.

The camera angle focuses mainly on Alex Lifeson.  And man does he rock!

It’s common knowledge, even among Rush haters, that Geddy Lee and Neil Peart are (or at least were) always at the top of the list of “Best” bassist and drummer respectively.  And yup, they are pretty amazing.  But this has always left Alex in the shadows.

Admittedly, there are thousands of great, amazing, ear melting guitarists.  And, typically, the bassist and drummer are kind of dull, so it makes sense that Alex’s playing is in the shadows of the other two.  But I fear that he is often labelled as just not very good.

This video should totally prove that suggestion incorrect.  He plays quickly and with amazing accuracy, in a multitude of styles.

And speaking of the movie, I always wondered if their families minded that Alex and Geddy changed their names for the band (it’s never addressed in the film). It seems like a weird thing to have done circa 1974 in Canada, although Kiss did the same thing at the time in New York (removing the Jewishness of their names).  I just love the name Živojinović, and it’s a shame it’s not better known.  (Huh, although Wikipedia tells me that Lifeson is a sort of literal translation of Živojinović.  Who knew?)

[READ: July 29, 2010] “Grokking Rush”

Since Rush has been everywhere lately, I figured I’d mention this recent article in The Believer.  There’s nothing terribly new in the article.  In fact, it seems like something of an introduction to the uninitiated, giving a basic history of the band and their lyrical themes.

The only thing I didn’t know, which is teased out in the subtitle, was that so many academic papers have been written about the band. Dissertation titles include “Permanent Changes: Rush, Musicians’ Rock, and the Progressive Post-Counter-Culture” and “Grand Designs: A Musical, Social and Ethnographic Study of Rush.”  They have also been written about in The Journal of American and Comparative Cultures and Popular Music and Society.  And, they are the only band ever to be cited in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. (more…)

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Fredy Perlman–[Week 7] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Anarchy, Big Books, Canadian Music, Dave Bidini music, Epistolary Novel, Fredy Perlman, Funny (strange), Insurgent Summer, Marriage Trouble, Neurotics, Religion, Rheostatics, Sex, Supernatural, Technology, Violence on July 23, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-“Horses” (1991).

I have mentioned the Rheostatics a lot.  I’ve even talked about this song in Melville.  And yet it works so well as a companion to this book.

It starts slowly enough, a simple acoustic guitar with the lyrics:

Word came down and it crashed through my door
From the twenty-first floor
I was thinkin’ about leavin’ early for lunch
When he told me to shut off my press
His face turned green and his white shirt was wet
Like he’d just seen an accident
We threw our masks into a pile, the trucks pulled away for good

The band kicks in a slow beat  as the song builds:

A bus pulled in and I waved at it
Before I knew what it was
We ran in its tracks chasing its tires
But the gates had been riveted shut
I looked for the foreman; his number was empty
Up to Red Deer to stay
We gathered some signs and we sparked up a fire
Gordie got burned on the high-voltage wire

A quick intense bridge:

The first thing she’ll ask me is: “How did it go today?”And I’ll tell her.

The song builds in intensity with some wild screaming guitars until finally settling down to the quiet beginning

I thought there was strength in a union
I thought there was strength in a mob
I thought the company was bluffing
When they threatened to chop us off
Ah, these guns will wilt the winter will seize
And all the bonfires will go out
The company knows when they can afford to be bold
I wish I could, I wish I could, I wish I could

All along the ringing repeated chorus: “Holy mackinaw Joe! (Holy mackinaw).”

I’m not sure if this references a specific event or not.  (Surely someone can tell me that).  But you can listen to it here.  Or, find any of the live renditions on youtube.

There’s an interview with Dave Bidini of the Rheos who tells the interviewer that he also used to do music interviews.  And once he interviewed Neil Peart who, after much chatter, asked Dave if he knew the song “Horses” by the Rheos.  Dave humbly said that he wrote it.  And Neil said that on their last tour he used to come off stage and listen to “Horses” at full blast.  (And that’s how they got Neil to play on the Rheos’ subsequent album).  Neat, huh?

[READ: Week of July 16, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [Sixth Letters]

Insurgent Summer is till moving along, but the insurgents have been quiet lately.  I hope the insanity of these letters and invocations of the devil will bring up the chatter.

Yarostan opens his letter with the most heartfelt emotions.  And yet, anyone who thought (as I did) that there might be some kind of rekindling of romance between the two will be sorely disappointed: (more…)

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Donald Barthelme–“Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel” (New Yorker, October 12, 1968)

Posted in Bison B.C., Canadian Music, Donald Barthelme, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, New Yorker, Søren Kierkegaard, Soren Kierkegaard on July 15, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BISON B.C.-“Two Days Booze” (2010).

Bison B.C. are a hardcore metal band from Vancouver.  I was surprised to hear them on CBC Radio 3, but that’s one of the great things about the online radio station: the diversity is amazing!

Bison B.C. is heavy with growling vocals that I didn’t understand at all.  In between bombastic notes, they had include some guitar riffs that broke the bombast.  The biggest surprise comes at around the 4 minute mark (quite a long song for the genre, although it seems that all of their songs are at least 5 minutes) when the song slows down to a few single notes (and a quiet bass). That’s when the choir (?) of male voices sings an Oh, oh section.

I listened to a few songs from their earlier discs, and it seems that they are going in a far darker direction with this new one.

[READ: June 30, 2010] “Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel”

Before I start let me say that this article was my first chance to plumb the depths fo the New Yorker online (subscriber back issues services) and it’s really awesome.  I printed out some great looking ads from the fifties and sixties!  I also enjoyed looking at the very first issues of the magazine.

This short story article was bandied about among David Foster Wallace fans as being a pioneer for Brief Interviews and other DFW stylings.

It opens with an answer to a question, which appears to be a therapy session. And it’s quite funny.  But from there, the story gets broken down into several sections. Each one is more Q&A (except the 4th one which is just a series of Qs. (more…)

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Salvatore Scibona–“The Kid” (New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Airlines, Canadian Music, Marriage Trouble, Military, New Yorker, PDF Format, Salvatore Scibona on July 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PDF FORMAT-“Waiting for M1D1 Interface”

I cracked up at the name of this band: PDF Format.  And then I heard the music, which sounds pretty much like what a PDF might sound like if you tried to play it in iTunes.  It is one of the most over the top electronic sounding songs I’ve heard in a long time.  It’s very processed, very retro and surprisingly catchy.

It’s an instrumental, it’s pretty long and it has three distinct sections, the third of which is very pretty and, while synthy, is not really electronic sounding at all.  Other songs, which are not instrumental include “Report on Water” which is a fascinating mix of crazily processed vocals (like an old computer voice) and very analog vocals.  Again, very catchy once you get passed the oddness of the processed sound.

I just listened to the wonderfully titled “SYSTEM OVERRIDE /// EROROOEROO ($($” which rocks and is catchy and very cool.  Initially I wasn’t all that impressed by this guy, but after a few listens, it’s really great.  And good luck searching for them online…with those song titles and that band name, you’ll be amazed at all the weird things that come up.

[READ July 6, 2010] “The Kid”

This was a confusing story.  I’m not sure what it was that confused me so much, whether it was the character names, the fact that it started with one character and then focused on another or just the fact that the “kid” in the story is deliberately trying to confuse people.

It opens with a kid in an airport.  No one knows what language he speaks, and although they try many different ones, he simply doesn’t answer or respond to anything they say.

The story then jumps to follow Elroy Heflin, an American solider assigned to Latvia.  While in Latvia, he begins dating a woman named Evija.  He is deployed elsewhere but finds himself sending money to her to support their son Janis, whom he never sees. (more…)

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ZZ Packer–“Dayward” (New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Canadian Music, Death, New Yorker, Racism, Shad, Slavery, ZZ Packer on July 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHAD-“The Old Prince Still Lives at Home”(2007).

Canadian rapper.  Oxymoron?  Not at all.  I had heard about Shad from CBC Radio 3.  The single, “Yaa I Get It” is fantastic.  And I have ordered his new CD TSOL based on it.  (No idea what TSOL stands for).

CBC Radio 3 contains a whole bunch of tracks from his first two discs.  His music is kind of slow and loping, but it’s his lyrics that are really fantastic.  He’s clever, funny and very thoughtful.  “Yaa I Get It” has this opening couplet: “Maybe I’m not big, coz I don’t blog or twitter, heh, not that I’m bitter.”  Or this amusing couplet from “I Don’t Like to”  “I don’t really like to start verses with I you  know, but… iTunes eyepatch, I’m in the same boat where the pirates be”

This earlier album sounds a bit more R&B to me, but there’s a few really great tracks on it.  “The Old Prince Still Lives at Home” reminds me of the Fresh Prince’s style (a comical look at the waste of time that is the dentist).  But he takes it a step further when, midway through the song the music stops.  Shad explains that he couldn’t afford the whole beat.  And they just “have to vibe with it” until the end.

It’s a bit gimmicky, but he’s right, the track is really strong.

[READ: July 4, 2010] “Dayward”

The photo opposite this story is of a terrifying Rottweiler bearing its fangs.  I mention this because it is so striking (the other stories mostly had drawings to accompany them.  This photo is also scarily appropriate for the story, which is about two young slaves escaping from their master.  The kicker is that slavery has already been outlawed, but who says the masters have to let them go peacefully?

When Lazarus told his mistress that he and his sister were going to reunite with their family in New Orleans, she told them that they would have half a day’s start and then she’d release the dogs on them.  Evidently she wasn’t joking. (more…)

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Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010)

Posted in Alex Lifeson, Canadian Music, Christopher Hitchens, Concept Albums, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Geddy Lee, Hockey Night in Canada, Les Claypool, Neil Peart, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, South Park, William Faulkner on July 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: July 11, 2010] Beyond the Lighted Stage

I had heard about this film around the time that I read .  I was pretty excited about it, and then evidently everyone I know went to the TriBeCa Film Festival and saw it (except me).  And then everyone saw it on VH1 (except me), so I bought the DVD instead.

This film is really fantastic.  Obviously, it helps if you’re a Rush fan, but Geddy and Alex in particular are funny and interesting (even if they think they are boring).  And the film is expertly edited.  They cover 40 years of Rush’s history in 90 minutes.  This leads to a rather cursory look at their history, so the film doesn’t get mired in details, but there are tidbits of fun for die-hards. (more…)

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Miguel Syjuco–”Stet” (The Walrus, July/August 2010)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 3, Funny (ha ha), Jill Sobule, Loudon Wainwright III, Miguel Syjuco, Newspapers, Rob Szabo, The Walrus on June 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ROB SZABO-“If I Could Do It All Again” (2003).

Rob Szabo is a singer-songwriter.  And this song is a pretty traditional singer-songwriter song.  It’s got some humor, it’s got some cliches.  In some ways he reminds me of Jill Sobule (lyrically, not vocally, obviously) or maybe Loudon Wainwright III.

Szabo has a number of albums out already.  I listened to a few others songs on his radio station and I enjoyed them.  He strikes me as the kind of musician that the more you listen, and the more carefully you listen, the more rewarding his music is.

I wasn’t all that impressed by “If I Could Do It All Again,” but the other tracks were certainly good.  And I could easily enjoy listening to his stuff when the mood was right.

[READ: June 15, 2010] “Stet”

This was probably my favorite story of the bunch.  It’s funny, it’s dark and its very Canadian.  I suppose that if you want to write a “Canadian story” it’s easy to set it where he does (so you can mention a LOT of Canadiana) but this story works beyond the surface.

And the surface is that this story is set in a Canadian newspaper.  Mansour, Fabien and Matt are trying to meet a deadline.  They bemoan their late hours, their hard work, their horrible bosses and the inevitable decline of newspapers. (more…)

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Madeleine Thien–”Su Na, Bird” (The Walrus, July/Aug 2010)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 3, End of the World, Huron, Madeleine Thien, Nature, Neil Young, Short Story, Sloan, The Walrus, Thin Lizzy on June 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: HURON-“Corktown” (2010).

Huron‘s “Corktown” opens with a guitar riff that sounds like classic 70s rock (hello Thin Lizzy!).  But when the song kicks in for good, the verses are a light, jangly pop.  It makes for a really interesting mix of styles and it works really well.

Some of the other tracks include the screaming rock of “Big Dig” (which has chord progressions of Neil Young but sounds nothing like Neil Young).  It also features some wonderfully stupid fat bass sounds as the song nears its conclusion.  “Bloodfire” has another great guitar solo.  And the vocalist sounds an awful lot like one of the guys from Sloan (who knew Sloan could be so influential?)

Thanks CBC Radio 3 for introducing me to this great band.

[READ: June 15, 2010] “Sun Na, Bird”

This final piece is at the same time the bleakest and yet most hopeful story of the group.

It is the near future and in this suburban Canadian town, all the humans have fled, with no intention of returning (the TV is still on in the house where the story takes place). (more…)

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