Finally Getting My Dose of TWEE POP LIVE

When Seattle dream-poppers Seapony open for Toronto dream-poppers Memoryhouse at the Waldorf Hotel on March 10.

Oh, February to April is going to be good to me. Actually, February to April has already started being good to me, starting four nights ago with a live orchestral/folk/blues/doo-wop/slightly Semitic cabaret performance (more than a concert: a performance) by the Plastic Acid Orchestra with Maria in the Shower at the Vogue Theatre. With shows by Andrew W.K. with the Evaporators (this Saturday), Memoryhouse with Seapony (the Saturday after that), Sharon Van Etten with the War on Drugs (two Saturdays after that) and shows by Chilly Gonzales and Shane Koyczan & the Short Story Long in April, the December-to-end-of-February concert dry-spell was worthwhile.

Here's "Always," my other favourite Seapony track, also from their debut album Go with Me (Hardly Art, 2011):

Ramones Redux

When I first listened to the Ramones in high school (I think it was grade 10 or 11), I wrote them off almost immediately. I'm not entirely sure why I disliked the them. I think I mainly had a narrow view of what punk was, and the Ramones, while they fit my visual conception of punk, didn't fit my aural conception of punk; they didn't rock as hard as I thought punk did - as hard as I thought punk was supposed to have rocked. Punk to me was the Stooges and the Sex Pistols, even though I disliked the Sex Pistols for reasons I won't explain here. I didn't dislike the Ramones in a "they're not for me" way either: I flat out thought they sucked. Yet, I always liked the idea - the image - the legacy - of the Ramones. I guess partially, that is to say, I may have disliked their music, but I was always able to appreciate their historical importance.

So, what turned me around? A few things: having developed an even deeper appreciation for straightforward, poppy music than I already had; having delved deeper into punk this past year; having realized punk was more diverse than I'd thought in high school; and eventually having delved into many of those different forms of punk including pop punk and more technical punk. Lastly, I've also been watching "the punk rock chef" Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations pretty much since Christmas, and he frequently references bands like the Stooges, Television, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, New York Dolls and, you guessed it, the Ramones. Hell, Bourdain even had dinner with drummer Marky Ramone (who turned out to have been quite a food enthusiast) in the Cleveland episode.

Christ, This Hurts the Eyes

The colours, the camera-cuts, the garish attires and hairstyles. Combined with the piercing feedback and overlapped shouting and yelping, this whole video makes for one angsty, dizzying head-trip - in many ways, sensory overload of the best kind.

The psychedelic punk freak-out doesn't stop with Huggy Bear. Here's Daisy Chainsaw, in their even more snarling, manic, cross-dressing, pink-boa-flaunting glory. Embedding has been disabled on this video, so click here to check them out.

These videos seriously look like episodes of Uh-Oh!

Someone Please Tell Me When Half Chinese Is Playing

Because they totally fucking melt my brain.

I heard about this local Vancouver band from a friend this past summer. So fucking good. Very propulsive, catchy rock buried under a crunchy layer of searing guitars, slabs of noise and tinny production. Check out their MySpace page here.

One of Those Shows

I bought my ticket for Canadian rapper/composer/producer/piano virtuoso/all-around musical madman/genius Chilly Gonzales yesterday. Like with most of my favourite musicians ever, I haven't written about him yet because it's so difficult for me to say everything I want to about him. And I'm probably not going to be able to in this post.

Gonzales, whom may be best known as a long-time friend and collaborator of Feist's (including having helped produce her last two albums), is one of today's most chameleonic, progressive musicians I can think of. Almost all of his albums vary drastically from one another, jumping from dark, excessively coarse, primitive-beat-oriented rap on his first four albums (okay, bad examples with which to start) to the velvet-soft and completely self-descriptive Solo Piano to the glistening, shimmering 70s radio pop of Soft Power to the slick, scatter-shot rap-pop of Ivory Tower (the soundtrack to the film of the same name in which Gonzo appears) to the orchestral rap of The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales, his latest and certainly most ambitious release yet.

Canadian "it" indie label Arts & Crafts' website describes The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales perfectly:

"Accompanied by Hollywood swells, tympani rolls, noble French horns, hypnotizing bells and influenced by Prokofiev, Morricone and Phillip Glass among others, this record is Chilly Gonzales’ 'professional confessional', revealing more of himself on these monologues than ever before."

"Professional confessional" is right: The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales is his most lyrically personal work yet. He even tempers his rap-deliveries, giving his lyrics which, on this album, largely pertain to themes of self-doubt, betraying his usual satiric self-image as a boastful, megalomaniacal, supervillainous MC, a peculiarly (for Gonzales) serious tone.

Knowing that Chilly Gonzales, in his bombastic, mad genius persona, is a performer in the complete sense of the word, as well as a technically gifted musician and improvisor, I know he's going to be one of the best shows I will ever see. It's also going to be my first time at the Rio Theatre just blocks from my place, even though the likes of Chad VanGaalen and Daniel Johnston have played there before. Pumped? You're fucking right I am.

How is Chilly going to pare down his band so it can fit in the Rio Theatre? At least I assume, as the Rio is primarily a movie theatre, it won't be able to accommodate such a huge band:

Rainy Day Music: Bright Eyes Edition

I thought I already posted this, but my tags tell me otherwise, so here it is: "Lua" by Bright Eyes, the only Bright Eyes song I still like:

Old Souls

I cannot, cannot, cannot believe I passed on seeing Alabama Shakes. WHAT. A. VOICE. SO throaty and guttural with the perfect amount of rasp - a voice that could scrape my skin and flesh off of my bones. I can already tell Alabama Shakes' debut album Boys & Girls (ATO Records, 2012) is going to be one of my favourite albums of the year.

So, bless my heart
And bless yours too
I don't know where I'm gonna go
Don't what I'm gonna do 
...
So, bless my heart
Bless my mind
I got so much to do
I ain't got much time

Man, haven't we all felt that way before?

I missed No Sinner twice. I missed Alabama Shakes. When am I going to get my blooze-rock live???

I Met This Man.

I shook his hand too. Boy, he did not like being approached.


A few thoughts:

1. I'm blown away by this video's production values, considering it's Pip Skid.
2. So, that's what Pip Skid looks like when he doesn't look like a rat.
3. I'm surprised anyone as attractive as the female lead would have anything to do with Pip Skid. Chalk it up to the "get exposure any way one can" nature of Showbiz.
4. I'm kind of surprised Pip Skid has music videos PERIOD.

Then, I see this video:


That's the Pip Skid I know. I also just read his Wikipedia page. I always thought he was an East Coast guy, but he's actually from Alberta and not merely signed to but "a cornerstone" of Vancouver hip-hop label Peanuts & Corn. Whack.

Rainy Day Music: Mazzy Star Edition

All these years, I thought Mazzy Star wrote "Five-String Serenade" and that the White Stripes uncharacteristically covered Mazzy Star. Then, several months ago, upon having discovered 60s garage rock band Love thanks to the White Stripes, I discovered that Love front-person Arthur Lee actually wrote "Five-String Serenade." Suddenly, the White Stripes' choice of cover didn't seem so uncharacteristic. I still like Mazzy Star's sleepy, sombre version the most though.

Grimes Quote

"In medieval Christian thought, it was assumed that the better you were as a singer, the purer your heart was. I don't necessarily think that's true, but Mariah Carey has the voice of someone who has never done evil."

Hehe.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs Need To Cover This Santigold Song

Santigold here sounds so similar to Karen O. I can just imagine how Nick Zinner might carve up "You'll Find A Way"'s relatively well-mannered riff too. I can dream.

David Bowie Discusses the Pixies

"I found it just about the most compelling music outside of Sonic Youth in the entire 80s."

Rainy-Day Music: Hayden Edition

Excuse the fan-made video:

Robert Crumb Quote

"When I listen to old music, that's one of the few times when I actually have a kind of a love for humanity. You hear the best part of the soul of the common people, you know - their ... their way of expressing their connection to eternity or whatever you want to call it. Modern music doesn't have that calamitous loss that people can't express themselves that way anymore, you know?"

Crumb then throws on a blues record, sits back and just listens.

I wish I could say that scene from Terry Zwigoff's 1994 documentary Crumb describes me to a tee, but I'm not as romantically misanthropic as Mr. Crumb. Crumb made me pick up my sketchbook for the first time since summer in hopes of being as creatively prolific as him some day. I was pretty staggered by how much he has produced, especially considering how obsessively detailed a lot of his work is. I, unfortunately, slave away yet produce little. Ah, well. Oh, hey: this is my first visual art post. My blog description has always said this blog concerns music as well as the visual arts. Me having taken this long to finally blog about art, however inspired by music as this post has been, says something about my current feelings towards the visual arts. But that's another post.

Skip to 3:57 to watch the scene this post concerns:

Full Album-Stream: Grimes - Visions (Arbutus/4AD, 2012)

I'm not usually into danceable electronic pop, but Montreal-via-Vancouver's Grimes (A.K.A. Claire Boucher)'s latest album Visions is pretty fucking great.

I heard about her late last night and found out even later that she's playing an early show at Fortune Sound Club tomorrow. Oh, why do I have to work until 9:30? Tickets are sold out anyway, but for $13, it'll probably be worth the $2.50 bus-trip to try buying a ticket at the door.

Rainy Day Music: Matthew Good Band Edition

Man, can Matt Good write a song or what?:

Let's Start A War

Some of my favourite Riot Grrrl images:

The Flip-Side of Love

Partially. A mix of songs about unrequited love/friendship:

"Unrequited" from Jackson A. Ragg III on 8tracks.

44 min, 49 sec

1. Alicia Keys - "How Come You Don't Call Me?"
2. The Zutons - "Why Won't You Give Me Your Love?"
3. Loretta Lynn - "You Didn't Like My Lovin'"
4. Hank Williams - "Lovesick Blues"
5. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - "(You Better Love Me) Before I Am Gone"
6. Sebadoh - "Ocean"
7. Best Coast - "Boyfriend"
8. The Field Mice - "You're Kidding Aren't You?"
9. Best Friends Forever - "Circus Song"
10. The White Stripes - "I Want To Be the Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart"
11. The Dandy Warhols - "We Used To Be Friends"
12. Beat Happening - "Knick Knack"
13. Weezer - "Pink Triangle"
14. Sia - "The Girl You Lost To Cocaine"
15. Electrelane - "Cut and Run"

"Love Day"

It's a Simpsons reference, people.

Love Day from Jackson A. Ragg III on 8tracks.

1 hr, 15 sec

1. Archie Bell & the Drells - "I Love My Baby"
2. The Funk Brothers - "You Really Got A Hold on Me"
3. Miracle Fortress - "Maybe Lately"
4. Chantal Kreviazuk - "Before You"
5. Buddy Holly - "You've Got Love
6. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - "'Cause I Love Her"
7. Feist - "Secret Heart"
8. Constantines feat. Feist - "Islands in the Stream"
9. Best Coast - "Crazy For You"
10. Tragically Hip - "Fireworks"
11. The Field Mice - "If You Need Someone"
12. Beck - "Think I'm in Love"
13. The Carpenters - "Top of the World"
14. David Sitek - "With A Girl Like You"
15. The White Stripes - "Hotel Yorba (Live at Hotel Yorba)"
16. Yo La Tengo - "Griselda"
17. The Ramones - "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend"
18. Imelda May - "I'm Alive"
19. Summer Twins - "I Will Love You"
20. Lesley Gore - "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows"

I Never Knew This Existed.

And I wish I didn't know now:

18 in the 80s (I Wish I Was)

Jesus and Mary Chain. Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star. Why couldn't I have grown up in the 80s? (It appears to be impossible to embed time-stamped YouTube videos. "Sometimes Always" begins at 0:44):

Forget my previous post about Jesus and Mary Chain; "Sometimes Always" is my newest favourite JaMC song. Such perfect music for walking in empty streets on a drizzly night. I watch videos and listen to songs like "Sometimes Always" and always agree with Blur: modern life is rubbish, at least by comparison.

New Life in Old Loves

My newest favourite Jesus and Mary Chain song. I just happened to really notice "On the Wall" for the first time while doing dishes a couple of days ago, even though it's from my favourite JaMC album Darklands (Blanco y Negro, 1987). Ah, every day, a new musical discovery or, at the very least, new life in an old love!

"Don't Need You": A Herstory of Riot Grrrl

"Don't Need You": A Herstory of Riot Grrrl may be my favourite music documentary - top four for sure. It randomly popped into my mind, and I decided to search YouTube for a trailer I could post. What I found was far better than a trailer: I found the whole damned film.

Since a couple of years ago, Riot Grrrl has been one of my favourite musical movements, due largely in part to this approximately thirty-nine-minute mini-documentary by Kerri Koch. I like Riot Grrrl for an obvious reason: it's simultaneously punk and twee (at least a handful of Bratmobile songs are twee). But Riot Grrrl is also probably the only musical movement the social/political ethics and aesthetics (redundant?) of which have ever interested me (besides male-dominated punk's D.I.Y. philosophy, which Riot Grrrl shares, and Straight-Edge movement); maybe it's my disdain for most things typically "male" or just macho "male" culture in general. That's not so abnormal coming from a guy. Hell, Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat and Fugazi front person and all-around punk icon) was a huge proponent of Riot Grrrl.

Anyway, I don't want to repeat any of my university essays, so just enjoy the documentary.

There’s Fun, There’s the Time of Your Life, and Then There’s Andrew W.K.

November 26, 2011
The Rickshaw Theatre
Vancouver, British Columbia

Spurred by news of New York party-monster Andrew W.K.'s upcoming I Get Wet tenth anniversary show on March 3 at the Venue, I decided it was time I got my ass in gear and finished recapping his show at the Rickshaw Theatre at the end of last November.

My roommate at the time and I arrived at the Rickshaw just as Andrew was starting the second song in his arsenal of keys-and-guitar-driven party metal (so said the guy working the door). My roommate went to get us drinks while I tore through the crowd to get as close to the front as possible; surprisingly, my roommate, who ended up pounding both of our drinks because we got split up, ended up finding me in the mayhem.

Andrew W.K. was, in many ways, the epitome of a great show: a place where and time when complete strangers can get together and for an hour or so are best friends in the world because they're all there for the same thing: their love of Andrew W.K.

Andrew W.K. was another one of those shows where people could go completely limp without worrying about collapsing onto the floor and getting trampled to death because they're squished between equally sweaty bodies in a gigantic, hoarded, soggy mess. With zero energy required to remain upright, I was able to completely focus on enjoying the show as I floated in a nearly weightless state, swaying back and forth as the audience churned as a single sweaty organism.

I was having enough fun (and drunk enough) that I would have jumped on stage and maybe even crowd-surfed (likely not though). But as hard as I tried, I just couldn't push past the two or three people in front of me. Also, a guy named Steve beat me to it. Lucky dog. Considering I almost lost my glasses twice just by having been in the crowd (they cartoonishly bounced around my hands as I madly tried to grab ahold of them), it was probably a good thing I didn't jump on stage ... I'm so hardcore. I felt just like Milhouse when he was forced to evade a fed by jumping down a dam:



My roommate always imagined me at shows as Milhouse after Milhouse and Bart saw Spinal Tap:

"... Heeelllp ... Help! ..."

I've rarely had as much fun at a show as I did at Andrew W.K., yet I hesitate to call him the fifth best show I've ever been to, if only because his set seemed really short and maybe because he fell juusst slightly below my expectations: he actually wasn't as social with the crowd as I'd expected, he didn't have a full band, and he had an unnecessary, at times annoying hype-man. I forget his name and don’t care to look it up, but I believe he was the night's opening act.

Maybe it was the alcohol that made Andrew's set seem so short, but overall, I didn't mind too much because the show was so much fucking fun - so much fun that I was almost immediately able to get over my disappointment that all he had on stage was a dinky keyboard which he played to pre-recorded tracks.

I, unlike my roommate who'd never heard Andrew W.K. before I played some of Andrew's songs a couple of hours before the show, had high expectations, and despite the show's shortcomings, it was still one of the most fun concerts I'd ever seen. That certainly says something about Andrew Wilkes Krier's showmanship. I can't imagine how fun his upcoming I Get Wet tenth anniversary show is going to be, especially since he'll be playing I Get Wet in its entirety with his entire band, and Vancouver staple/music guru Nardwuar the Human Serviette's band the Evaporators will be opening. PARTY HARD!!!

Hehehehehehehehe.

So 90s. So Awesome.

Re-listening to Liz Phair's best-of-list-topping 1993 album Exile in Guyville (Matador Records) was another instance in which I wondered, "How the hell did I ever not like this?" Maybe I've come around to it because I've been jamming on other angsty alt-rockers such as PJ Harvey and the more contemporary Sharon Van Etten lately. Ah, ignorant youth (because I'm so grizzled now, right?). And hey, blog author trivia: Exile in Guyville was released on my birthday. Woop-woop!

Here's another one of my favourite songs from Exile in Guyville album-opener "6'1"":

Tom Jones. Jack White. Howlin' Wolf.

Jack White teams with Tom Jones to cover Howlin' Wolf's "Evil" and Frankie Lane's "Jezebel" in the latest installment of Third Man Records' Blue Series. Listen to White's and Jones' version of "Evil" at Consequence of Sound.

White Stripes' Haircut

I was always disappointed there was no longer, better quality version of the White Stripes' cover of "Devil's Haircut" by Beck. Oh, well. Maybe their cover being so short is a good thing, making me want to (and allowing me to) listen to it over and over again. And the quality isn't too bad, but it'd just be nice to have a cleaner version as well:

Cool Week For Best Coast

First, they were hand-picked by Metallica to play a music festival curated by the metal legends despite Best Coast guitarist and lead-singer Bethany Cosentino having trashed the Metallica/Lou Reed album Lulu. Second, Best Coast was featured as a question on Jeopardy's latest college week show:

Dubstep Nation Army

I've rarely heard a White Stripes cover or remix I like, and I'm not a big dubstep fan, but the Glitch Mob's remix of "Seven Nation Army" is the best White Stripes remix I've heard by far. It's so damned ominous and dense, like how I imagine a Jack White/Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) collaboration would sound. I love the vocal effects, Jack's voice dropping and rising where it doesn't in the original.

They say you can download this track at the Glitch Mob's website, but I've yet to find it - or try very hard either.

X: My Drug of Choice

X performs "Hot House" and "Breathless," both from their 1983 album More Fun in the New World (Elektra Records), on David Letterman:


God, X is just too good. I can only wish to be as cool as guitarist Billy Zoom. Just look at his total nonchalant control and singer Exene Cervenka's and bassist John Doe's posturing. I just LOVE Doe's hicc-uppy "Hep! HEY!"s too.

Fuck Yeah Nova Scotia!

If there was ever a reason why I wished I was back in Halifax, it was because Halifax spawned COLD WARPS. They're exactly the kind of scrappy power-punk I've been digging more than almost anything else for the last year.

If you like Cold Warps, you might like San Francisco's similar but far poppier, nerdier/more charming Nodzzz, a band I've been meaning to blog about for the past year. Or maybe 1985 English indie rockers the McTells, another band I've been planning to blog about for a while ...

Listen to and download full Cold Warp releases at their Band Camp page:

Some Albums I Have To Download For the Cover Art Alone.

Bobby's self-titled album is one of them. Unfortunately, the cover art is the only appealing thing about Bobby.

Does A Bad Cover of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" Exist?

Three of my favourite "Femme Fatale" covers by Beck, Owen and Big Star, respectively:

Leather Jacket Weather in February.

It's time to bust out some RAMONES:

Man, I Totally Forgot About This Song

And how much ass it kicks: