Category: Music

"Just kidding."

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I didn’t survive this week at work so much as I climbed out of it. Pushing through this cold (again? seriously? dammit!) I suggested a pub near the Ryerson before our second-last TIFF film. Much to my surprise they had several Unibroue bottles behind the bar, including #9 on the Project FiftyBrew list: Don de Dieu! Kickass. It was very nice, by the way…tasted much smoother than a 9% beer should.

We had time to kill and full bellies, so we walked home, dropped our stuff and then walked back to the Ryerson. I was so wiped that I needed coffee; our barista at Starbucks mistook my ‘sticks of shame’ t-shirt for an indication that I actually speak Japanese and tried to converse with me. My blank stare pretty much answered that question for her. We strolled up to the Ryerson and the oh-so-familiar line-up spot: the concrete wall running along church, a tired movie-goer’s best friend. Oddly enough we were shown in to the theatre 35 minutes before the scheduled start time. That never happens.

Speaking of Japanese, many of the people in the audience spoke it. That’s because we were there to see Confessions (tiff | imdb), aka Kokuhaku, Japan’s submission for best foreign film Oscar. I think I like it more now than immediately after I watched it…it felt a little long at the time, but now I appreciate all the story threads it had to pull together. The filtered slo-mo was beautiful for a while, as was the droning soundtrack, but it wore a little thin in the second hour. Still, very good. It deserves a B, says I.

Tonight is all about relaxing. I could only get about 3 hours of coherent work in at the office today, and tonight — while Nellie is off doing girly things with other girlies — I plan to do nothing more strenuous than write this blog post to the following soundtrack:

  • Ida Maria . “Oh My God”
  • DevotchKa . “How It Ends”
  • Uncle Tupelo . “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”
  • We Are Scientists . “Pittsburgh”
  • The Tallest Man On Earth . “Graceland”
  • FemBots . “Count Down Our Days”
  • Vampire Weekend . “Ottoman”
  • Rogue Wave . “Electro-Socket Blues”

Those last two were from the closing credits of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, playing in the other room, and about as highbrow as it’s gonna get around here tonight. Peace.

This week in entertainment

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I’d kind of forgotten about all the movies we’ve watched over the past week:

  • Kick-Ass: most excellent
  • Precious: good, incredibly well-acted (in that if I ever see Mo’Nique walking down the street I’m likely to punch her face in) but hard as fuck to watch
  • Stripes: I’m sure it was a classic for its time, but it doesn’t really hold up.
  • Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day: look, the original isn’t exactly a classic, but it’s always been kind of special to me because we discovered it ten years ago in a self-serve movie rental machine, not having any idea what we were about to see. I didn’t expect the sequel to live up to that, but I would have been happy with a close approximation of the original. Unfortunately it was hammy and stilted and over the top, and not in the cool way that the first one was. Lots of shots of my neighbourhood though, just like the first one.
  • The Men Who Stare At Goats: I think I had the same reaction as most other people: quite funny in parts, but nothing special. Also: Ewan MacGregor continues to do the worst American accent of any British actor.
  • Paranormal Activity: Okay, we watched this two weeks ago, but whatever. Actually a pretty effective little scare-machine, but completely blew it in the final 20 seconds. Also: Katie Featherston = girlfriend du jour.

.:.

My headphones were filled all week with the new releases by Best Coast (pretty good…almost like the Raveonettes without the male voice), Japandroids (good, but not as good as their last album, I’m afraid; few things last year were), Sleigh Bells (which I like more than I feel I should), Mates of State (hearing them cover the likes of Tom Waits and The Mars Volta seems sacrilegious at first, then awesome, then just fun) and, naturally, The Arcade Fire. Which is < Funeral but > Black Mirror and therefore one of the best things I’ve heard all year. Speaking of CadeFire — which is what I call them now, due to us being so very tight — Frank Yang (aka Chromewaves) summed up awfully well what’s so captivating about them:

They somehow manage to evoke that singular moment in everyone’s life where youth gives way to adulthood, where one becomes acutely aware of the fact that they are not in fact invincible, that they will someday die, but also the sense of still having their entire lives ahead of them and the sense of opportunity that offers – that mixture of anxiety and optimism, insecurity and confidence. It’s a powerful, primal resonance made even moreso when rendered in broad, bold musical strokes. With Funeral, it was conveyed through the lens of family and neighbourhoods, of being part of a special gang. Neon Bible turned it around to be them against the world with no sense that they’d actually triumph. And The Suburbs realizes that there’s no us and them, there’s just everyone.

I’ll probably keep The Suburbs on perma-rotation until my next big anticipated release: Lisbon by The Walkmen.

.:.

With Treme, The Office, Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock and Nurse Jackie off the air right now the only things I’m watching are Mad Men (because it’s the best thing on TV right now), True Blood (because it’s the most entertaining thing on TV right now) and Entourage (because, despite its persistent suck whenever Ari’s not on the screen, for the life of me I cannot seem to stop watching it).

.:.

The miniature time slot attributed to reading is reserved for, as ever, Tony Judt‘s Postwar and Kate Carraway’s twitter feed. However, all other reading shall cease on Tuesday and Wednesday as I have only those days to select our TIFF films.

.:.

And, with that, I’m off to work. After all, all play and no work makes Jack really far behind on his to-do list.

They don't love you like I love you

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I have a special fondness for good bands who take bad pop songs and make them awesome. I picked a few of my favourites, and let me tell you…it was only Gordon Lightfoot’s general awesomeness that kept me from putting The Dandy Warhols‘ version of “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” on here.

The Bird And The Bee . “Don’t Stop The Music” (Rihanna)

Cat Power . “Sweedeedee” (Michael Hurley. Who? Okay, I realize Michael Hurley isn’t a famous pop star, but that version of “Sweedeedee” is just so good I listen to it every chance I get.)

Elbow . “Independent Woman” (Destiny’s Child)

Flaming Lips . “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” (Kylie Minogue)

Frontline Assembly . “Justify My Love” (Madonna)

Johnny Cash . “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” (Moby…kinda…I think Johnny wouldn’t have recorded this except that Moby had popularized the riff a few years back)

Lissie . “Bad Romance” (Lady Gaga)

Ted Leo . “Since U Been Gone” (Kelly Clarkson) Please note: any partial awesomeness in the middle of the song is exempt from any “bad song” label.

Travis . “Hit Me Baby One More Time” (Britney Spears)

White Stripes . “Jolene” (Dolly Parton)

Best songs of the year so far

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  • shearwater . “castaways”
  • hidden cameras . “he falls to me”
  • titus andronicus . “four score and seven”
  • titus andronicus . “the battle of hampton roads”
  • besnard lakes . “like the ocean, like the innocent part II”
  • frightened rabbit . “things”
  • black francis . “six legged man”
  • avi buffalo . “what’s in it for?”
  • vampire weekend . “white sky”
  • vampire weekend . “holiday”
  • kissaway trail . “beat your heartbeat”
  • dead weather . “gasoline”
  • national . “bloodbuzz ohio”
  • national . “vanderlyle crybaby geeks”
  • band of horses . “bartles + james”
  • mates of state . “long way home”

Now we're gonna be face-to-face

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Last night, as part of nxne, about a zurbillion of us crowded into Yonge-Dundas Square to see the godfathers of punk: Iggy and the Stooges. Unfortunately Nellie and I arrived too late to see The Raveonettes play; dinner at the nearby Queen and Beaver dragged a little.

Though I could barely see them from where we were, I could certainly hear them. And feel them. They kicked off with “Raw Power” and “Search and Destroy”, and covered the other things everyone was waiting to hear…”I Got A Right”, “Fun House” and most especially “I Wanna Be Your Dog”. In fact, during the last, a mosh pit broke out…well, pretty much right on top of me.  So I got a little bruised while shielding Nellie from drunk 45-year-olds who never quite let go of grunge. I blame Mudhoney‘s show at the square two nights before.

No matter; a hearty thank you to nxne and Toronto for giving me the chance to see a living legend for free in my back yard.

Best songs of 2010 so far

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  • shearwater . “castaways”
  • spoon . “mystery zone”
  • hidden cameras . “he falls to me”
  • titus andronicus . “four score and seven”
  • titus andronicus . “the battle of hampton roads”
  • besnard lakes . “like the ocean, like the innocent part II”
  • frightened rabbit . “things”
  • black francis . “six legged man”
  • avi buffalo . “what’s in it for?”
  • kissaway trail . “beat your heartbeat”
  • dead weather . “gasoline”

Currently in the 'I keep meaning to listen to these but I have no time' pile

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  • avi buffalo . avi buffalo
  • band of horses . infinite arms
  • black francis . nonstoperotik
  • black keys . brothers
  • bonnie prince billy & the cairo gang . wondershow of the world
  • circa survive . blue sky noise
  • dead weather . sea of cowards
  • for a minor reflection . reistu thig vid, solin er komin a loft
  • jónsi . go
  • kissaway trail . sleep mountain
  • lcd soundsystem . this is happening
  • national . high violet
  • new pornographers . together
  • yellow swans . going places

The ten best albums of the last decade

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Yes, I know we haven’t really begun a new decade yet. And yes, I know we’re already a month into the “new” decade. But everybody else did it, so me too me too me too.

Here are, in my opinion, the best albums released between 2000 and 2009:

    1. The Arcade Fire . Funeral
    2. And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead . Source Tags And Codes
    3. Radiohead . Kid A
    4. Sigur Ros . Agaetis Byrjun
    5. Spoon . Kill The Moonlight
    6. Sleater-Kinney . The Woods
    7. The New Pornographers . Mass Rmantic
    8. The Hidden Cameras . Mississauga Goddam
    9. Mates Of State . Bring It Back
    10. Regina Spektor . Begin To Hope

      The weird thing about this list is that there’s nothing later than 2006. In fact only two albums from 2009 made my initial cut-down list, and none from either 2007 or 2008. Were those three years devoid of great music? Or have my music consumption habits changed so much that I no longer absorb and appreciate great albums? Both possibilities worry me.

      "All is lost, you can't go home"

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      Two tragedies caught my attention last week. One was massive and horrible in scale, the other rather more private.

      I tend to associate songs with feelings or memories, often for no particular reason. This past week, while absorbing scenes of destruction in Haiti following the massive earthquake, a friend emailed me news of the passing of musician Jay Reatard. Of course the two events don’t compare in scale — Reatard (whose real name was Jimmie Lee Lindsey Jr.) was one man, a fairly obscure musician — but on reading the news of his death his songs swam into my head the same way those photos of Haitian ruins imprinted on my brain (especially this one) and Reatard’s “There Is No Sun” became, in my mind, the sad soundtrack of the Haitian disaster.

      That night, on my commute home, my mp3 player randomly started playing Reatard’s “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” and it shook me a little. Eerie enough to hear Reatard singing “All is lost, there is no hope for me” over and over again on the day of his death, but positively chilling to think of all those for whom those lines were so true, lying trapped beneath rubble or searching for family amidst the ruins.

      There’s no logical tie between Jay Reatard and the disaster in Haiti, but they’re now inextricably linked in my mind. Reading the stories, watching the news, donating to the Red Cross, even hating Pat Robertson…for me, Watch Me Fall is now the score to it all.

      Best songs of 2009

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      Lo and behold, my twenty favourite songs of 2009, listed according to artist:

      • and you will know us by the trail of dead . “fields of coal”
      • the antlers . “two”
      • dan auerbach . “heartbroken, in disrepair”
      • neko case . “middle cyclone”
      • drummer . “mature fantasy”
      • florence and the machine . “dog days are over”
      • john frusciante . “unreachable”
      • great lake swimmers . “still”
      • the heartless bastards . “be so happy”
      • japandroids . “heart sweats”
      • lightning dust . “i knew”
      • now, now every children . “everyone you know”
      • the rural alberta advantage . “the dethbridge in lethbridge”
      • the thermals . “when i died”
      • ume . “the conductor”
      • the von bondies . “chancer”
      • william elliott whitmore . “old devils”
      • wye oak . “tattoo”
      • the xx . “crystalised”
      • the yeah yeah yeahs . “heads will roll”

      The list is a bit of a cheat, as I tried not to have more than one song per artist, even though “Kettering” by Antlers, “Ascending” by …Trail Of Dead, “Diamonds To Shake” by Drummer and Wye Oak‘s “Mary Is Mary” are all on my ‘favourite songs of the year’ playlist.