Category: Music

Still waiting for Quiet Riot revisted

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I’ve tried before to articulate why I don’t tend to like artists who rehash old musical styles. Not that I don’t like a lot of old musical styles, but I’m rarely even impressed by someone who revisits an old style that I loved, let alone one I disliked. Like I said, though, I could never explain clearly when someone would ask me why I didn’t just love The Darkness or The Kaiser Chiefs or whoever.

So today, when I read Carrie Brownstein’s Monitor Mix blog, I found myself nodding along with her explanation for why she feels the same way.

I like new. I like influence drawn from various or, sometimes, obvious genres. I am not averse to updating or reconfiguring the old. But if an artist can’t find a way of making the music feel like it’s been reborn then what is the point? There are plenty of bands that make you feel like you are hearing a genre, a form of music, or a playing style for the first time. In my opinion, The White Stripes are a good example of a band who did more than merely copy the blues, whereas The Bravery exemplify the most benign and pointless regurgitation of new wave and post-punk.

I feel I should point out that I enjoy cover songs. A lot. I quite enjoy established artists taking a crack at an old song, especially if they mess with it a bit. However, artists like the new-wave of female British soul singers that Carrie mentions just seem like poor sequels, the same way that Wolfmother sounds like a local house band trying to be Zeppelin.

Clearly lots of people like Amy Winehouse and The Bravery, etc. I’d have to assume they’re the kind of people who like their music fun instead of interesting, which is fine…different people want different things from music. I’m just glad I found a way to articulate why I don’t want to listen to the retro-act-du-jour. I suppose it was a little inelegant to respond to “Why don’t you like Scissor Sisters?” with “Because I fucking hated disco the first time around, and I wasn’t even there.”

[tags]carrie brownstein, monitor mix[/tags]

Unexpected Peaches

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Sometimes my Zen, which is usually on random, starts playing a song I don’t recognize. I often figure out what the song is, or at least which artist is performing it, within a few seconds. I was stumped on this one for a while though, even though it was a really good song. Usually the ones I don’t know are throwaways from the depths of an otherwise good CD. Finally, once the chorus hit, I realized it was “Boys Wanna Be Her” by Peaches. I don’t remember downloading that or putting it on the Zen, but hey…I’m glad I did. It’s almost as good as “Lovertits”.

Speaking of music, I finally listened to the entire new Death Cab album. It’s good, but it didn’t blow me away. Not that I was expecting fireworks, but because the first song I heard was the 8-minute version of “I Will Possess Your Heart” I think my hopes got up a little too high. Meanwhile, 59.59 by The Sian Alice Group wasn’t great. I like droning melody as much as the next shoegazer, but I think there were only three songs worth listening to again.

Finally, finishing off the topic of music for the day (probably) is word that the CBC will retire the Hockey Night In Canada theme song. Naturally, this rumour has prompted great wailing and gnashing of teeth from coast to coast to coast. Personally, I think the song sounds dated and I have no more love for it than, say, the theme to Mr. Dressup or the nasal magnificence of Rex Murphy’s voice. However, given the recent proclivity of CBC Sports producers to pepper HNIC with gawd-awful versions of Elton John‘s “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” (Nickelback? For the love of all that’s holy…), I fear what they’d end up with. I suspect the devil I know, in this case, is better than the devil that CBC would almost surely choose.

But for fuck’s sake, retire Don Cherry.

[tags]peaches, death cab for cutie, hockey night in canada, don cherry[/tags]

"If we have a hormone race I'm bound to finish first."

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I’m supposed to be at a friend’s house for a barbeque right now, but whatever I had for lunch has made the idea of eating anything very unappealing. Really, the only thing getting me through the shaky afternoon at work was — once again — the Frightened Rabbit album. While the whole thing’s fantastic, I tend to really fall hard for one song at a time. First it was “Floating In The Forth,” then “The Modern Leper,” then “Good Arms vs. Bad Arms.” Today it was “Keep Yourself Warm”* but I can already tell my next favourite is going to be “The Twist.”

Once I got home and called in my bbq regrets, all I had the energy for was to do a couple of computer-based errands, including downloading a bunch of music: A Silver Mt. Zion‘s 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, Sigur Ros‘ Hvarf-Heim, last year’s Frightened Rabbit album Sing The Greys, and the special tenth anniversary edition of Mogwai‘s Young Team. Ye olde eMusic subscription got a workout tonight.

However, just as my energy was flagging, I’ve been dealt a blow that will surely relegate me, bummed and queasy, to the couch for the rest of the evening: the Led-Zep-in-Toronto rumours appear to be groundless. Crapmonkey.

* Not only is this song excellent, I suspect it’s the only song ever recorded to feature the words “choo-choo train” while also including five instances of the word “fucking.” Suck it, Raffi.

[tags]frightened rabbit, silver mt. zion, sigur ros, frightened rabbit, mogwai, emusic[/tags]

Currently…

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reading: The Angel Riots by Ibi Kaslik and Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach by Charles Hill and Gareth Jones. Eye Weekly and Now Magazine every Thursday. Toronto Life once a month.

listening to: Saul Williams by Saul Williams, though any minute now I’ll move on to Death Cab For Cutie‘s Narrow Stairs or Visiter by The Dodos.

watching: almost nothing. I’m paying only marginal attention to sports (go Pens! go Celts!), The Office and 30 Rock are done for the season and The Shield hasn’t started yet. All that’s on right now is Battlestar Galactica, and even that’s on 2-week hiatus.

scanning: 190 news feeds, averaging about 509 articles per day. Of course, these are only my personal-interest feeds; I have just as many work feeds. I mainly skim the headlines here, and pay attention to maybe 50, flagging 5-10 to read later.

browsing: 6-7 websites per day. I rarely have a need to visit particular websites now (see ‘scanning’, above) but a few are applications (e.g., Google Analytics) or snapshots (e.g., the weather) that don’t work in an RSS channel. There’s also Bruce MacKinnon’s editorial cartoon every day which, despite my best efforts, I cannot wrangle into a Yahoo Pipe. Again, this is personal-interest only; there’re other work sites.

running: 3-4 times per week, 3 miles at a time. On a treadmill. Half flat, half slight incline.

eating: penne with sundried tomato pesto. Well…an hour ago, anyway.

looking forward to: our rockies/BC trip in June; Euro 2008; visiting Nova Scotia twice in August, once to visit with family and once to wrap up the MBA.

wondering: why the hell I started writing this blog post in the first place.

[tags]angel riots, ibi kaslik, toronto life, saul williams, death cab for cutie, narrow stairs, dodos, visiter,  google reader, bruce mackinnon, yahoo pipes, euro 2008[/tags]

"nothing is happening! its so boring"

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From Torontoist: Vanity’s Fair. I don’t know David Topping (though LinkedIn keeps telling me I should) but anyone who starts a story this way must be a decent guy:

Canada’s talented children have gone unexploited for far too long, an injustice that Universal Music has finally seen fit to remedy.

According to Hollywood Reporter, the label has “joined the search for Canada’s version of Miley Cyrus,” and, with YTV, has created a new TV talent competition called The Instant Star, designed for children 15 and under. The winner gets a record contract, fame, and, presumably, a shot at pubescence.

I, for one, feel that Canada could really do without a Miley Cyrus. Hannah Montana, though…we need us one of those.

I’d like to say that was the most disturbing TV-related thing I saw/read today, but…well, WIVB (a CBS affiliate in Buffalo, NY) pretty much wins. Poor Nellie just wanted to watch How I Met Your Mother, but WIVB was busy showing 2.5 hours of some wackadoo with a pistol sitting on a bridge. I was amazed to hear that families had come from all around town, sitting on the grass, waiting to see said wackadoo shoot someone (or be shot himself). It was also entertaining to read the [ahem] coverage on their website, rife as it was with spelling errors (click the image on the right for more detail) and amateurish reporting. To wit: “Apparently, one of the police sharp shooters took a shot of the gentleman and police have pulled the guy from the vehicle.”

What was really disturbing was the breathless excitement of the reporters. I’ve never gotten this fascination the American news media has with any kind of criminal possessed of a license and set of keys. If this guy had never gotten in a car, had instead just hung out on his front lawn with a .38, no one would notice. OK, well, the cops might notice, but the news media wouldn’t have choppers circling overhead while Burt the janitor updates the web site. However, because this guy gets in a car, news anchors instantly go from six to midnight as visions of white Broncos dance in their heads. In no time at all, Janitor Burt had created a banner ad pointing to live streaming video of the standoff and a Google Map showing the location. He’d also uploaded a pile of amateur pictures and opened up the comments, which range from “this is absolutely ridiculous, this guy is charging his phone. if i miss How I met your Mother I am going to be super pissed at this guy” to “Shoot the white trash in the croch”.

What’s the emoticon for “the human race is doomed” again?

[tags]torontoist, the instant star, miley cyrus, wivb buffalo, how i met your mother[/tags]

No, not that CSI

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There are some things I know about myself. One of them is that I simply cannot survive in a club. The music, the translucent people…all hideous.

Why was I even in a club? Well, let me back up: after finishing the exam today we had a ceremony at our corporate headquarters this evening, the first graduation ceremony of two, and most of us went out to celebrate afterwards. I’d never heard of the Brant House; having seen it I wouldn’t have picked it, but I’m not most people, and most people seemed to like it. Put it this way: any place that offers bottle service, and attracts people who would want bottle service, is outside of my wheelhouse.

I stayed long enough to be respectable (i.e., not a pussy) and then fled to safety of my home where I could guarantee the percentage of real people (my wife = 1/1) and control the music that was played. In this case, “Million Star Hotel” by The Constantines: low enough not to wake my wife, but loud enough to expunge all the disco blather and Def Leppard remixes from my head. I scarfed down some food as soon as I got home (dinner was disappointing; at least my friend Russ gave me half his fries) and now I’m typing this, reveling in the knowledge that I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.

Oh, and I’m now officially a Fellow of the ICB (or CSI, or whatever it’s called now) as well as a silver medalist. Imagine my excitement.

[tags]mba, brant house, icb, constantines[/tags]

News flash: area introvert craves more emotional attachment

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While I sat at Fran’s eating breakfast I read a few pages of Catherine Gildener‘s Too Close To The Falls. After a few pages a woman, maybe a few years younger than me, who’d been sitting across from me with (I assume) her boyfriend/husband, came over to my table. She told me she’d read the book and loved it, but had never seen anyone else reading it before. I told her I couldn’t take credit for unearthing the obscure find, that it had been recommended by my writing instructor Michelle Berry years before (who I believe had reviewed it for the Globe) and after keeping it on my shelf for six winters I was finally getting around to it. We talked about the fantastic stories Gildener told of her childhood, and wondered how such tales could be real. She apologized for interrupting my breakfast, told me she hoped I would enjoy the rest of the book as much she did, and went back to her table.

This, to me, is the real benefit of the paper book. I see no advantage to the convenience of the medium, compared to an e-book or reading online, but what I’ve found is that people will often come over and talk to me about a book, because they see it as a shared emotional experience. Normally, as an introvert, strange people striking up conversations with me is akin to getting mugged, but in these cases the conversation is about the book, not about me or them, so I don’t mind.

In fact, I wish there was an equivalent for music. Each day on my way to and from work I see hundreds of people with headphones snaking out of their bags and pockets and I wonder what they’re listening to. I assume they’re all listening to the same formulaic, familiar music that infects radio and most iPods, but what about the exceptions? For every Rainer Maria Rilke you spot in a sea of John Grisham and Deepak Chopra there must be a similar musical outsider. How great would it be to see that the baby boomer in a golf shirt is listening to the new Frightened Rabbit? Or that the punk girl carrying a skateboard is listening to Blind Willie Johnson? Or that the accountant with the CostCo briefcase is listening to T-Rex? I feel like every day I’m missing a dozen shared emotional experiences contained in pairs of headphone wires.

[tags]catherine gildener, michelle berry, rainer maria rilke, frightened rabbit, blind willie johnson, t-rex[/tags]

"Take your life, give it a shake"

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I cannot stop listening to “Floating In The Forth” by Frightened Rabbit. It’s just the kind of lovely, warming song (odd, because it’s kind of about suicide) that makes me want to cry and smile and quit my job and sell everything I own and lie in a field with headphones and sun and listen to it over and over and over again.

I know, because of the way I consume music, that by next week I’ll have moved on to something else. But I’ll come back. And, right now, it’s perfect.

[tags]frightened rabbit, floating in the forth[/tags]