I have some mixed feelings on the Olympics. While I appreciate the opportunity for athletes to compete at such a high level, I find the governing body and the politics to be somewhat absurd and filled with paranoia.
One thing that I have found interesting with this years Olympics is the large number of Canadian indie acts that are getting a chance to perform. The list includes Stars, Hey Rosetta!, Nathan, The Rural Alberta Advantage, K’naan, Kid Koala, YSP!WSD! and the list goes on. What a great time to be in the Vancouver area. Today I came across an interesting article by Swan Lake’s Carey Mercer citing the censorship contracts that the artists had to sign in order to play. Talk about becoming part of the states propaganda machine. He definitely give us something to think about.
“When artists are not allowed to critique their government, or the governing agency that endows them with grants and funding, then what they are asking for is nothing more than propaganda. Propaganda, for some reason, rankles that sensitivity towards freedom of expression that seems to be hard-wired into our culture. It’s kind of immaterial though: neither propaganda, nor deeply subversive art won’t stop us from, in the foreseeable future, cracking a can of cola/Pabst while loading up our cool, individualized playlists that reflect our life-style identification. Sorry: I just ralphed in my mouth again.”
What you see above is the artwork for Remorsecapade, the new Woodhands album. I know it may still be too early in the year to say this, but I think this is the best album art of the year. I am comfortable with that statement.
I have given the album a once over and it isn’t really my cup of tea. I wasn’t familiar with Woodhands prior to this and my initial thought was that it sounds like Dan Deacon mixin it up with Les Savy Fav. While I don’t have a problem with either of these, the fusion of sounds and their combined energy is a bit too much for me. Maybe I am just old and it was a quick listen, so don’t put too much value in my judgment of the album, I just really liked the artwork.
I keep hearing The Magic on Radio 3 and keep searching for information on them, but am coming up short. While they have a page on the Radio 3 website and an album for sale on zunior.com, I can’t find anything else about this band. I really hope this is an up and coming group that we will hear more from in the future. For now enjoy retro 50’s pop sound of, No Sound, their song that has kept me wondering when we will hear more.
I found this website after listening to an interview on CJSW with the guys form the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society. I think it is such an intriguing idea as there is a bunch of great music out there that never made it to the digital era and I for one was excited to find Bloodbath At The Chinese Disco, a best of Calgary CD from the 90’s.
Unfortunately these albums are all hosted at various free file hosting sites and sometimes you have to wait, fill out a survey or sometimes the account has exceeded bandwidth. Not the ideal setup for these files, but it is still cool to find some of the old Calgary classics living on.
Rather than a belated top list of 2009, I figured I would just share a few of my favorite tunes from the year. Some have already been featured on here. Some will be new. I hope you enjoy.
Paper Bag Records out of Toronto is celebrating it’s Seven Year Anniversary by giving away an album of cover songs. Initially I downloaded it because I just love free music, and as a bonus I happened to really enjoyed it. Sometimes I am taken back by the songs bands choose to cover. Really? You chose to cover Eddy Grant and OMC on this album? But I guess there is a lot of nostalgia behind Electric Avenue and I have to admit the cover of How Bizzarre makes me think that this time it was just done properly.
I think my favorite song on the album is Ottawa’s The Acorn covering Gowan’s Strange Animal. I am sure this is nostalgic move on my part, but in hopes that you will enjoy it as well I will post it below.
Fans of Wintersleep might be interested in a new project by Paul Murphy who has teamed up with his brother Michael to create Postdata. Their album will be launching in January. I have only had a listen to the few songs available on their site (embedded below). It sounds promising.
In addition to these free streamed songs, they do have a free download of Tobias Grey on their media page that you can trade your email address for.
So it wasn’t until I had to give this blog a fresh start with a new focus that I have realized how much great Canadian music I have missed this year. As I am searching and buying albums on emusic.com I keep stumbling across albums that I have overlooked from side projects that I knew nothing about. It is great having a reason to actively look and discover new music, I guess that is why I do this.
One said side project is Lightning Dust, featuring Amy Webber and Joshua Wells of the Black Mountain Army. Yes (with arm pump)! Another Black Mountain side project. Seriously, these guys are starting to seem like the psychedelic west coast version of Broken Social Scene. For those not too familiar with the names, Amy Webber is the sometimes haunting, sometimes warbbly voice from Black Mountain.
Infinite Light, their latest release is still reminiscent of Black Mountain, if you strip back the heavy fuzz. Still psychedelic, but in more of an easy listening way. They heavy guitar riffs have been traded in for a grand piano and plenty of keyboard. For me, the album was an instant hit. The sound is familiar, soothing and catchy without losing the psychedelia that ties them into the Black Mountain Army.
Billboard has released a Top Artists of The Decade list and the top ranking band is a Canadian band, although it was 7 on the list of artists. Now I fully realize that Billboard’s ranking is based on not much more than record sales, but the winner of this prize fell into the lap of a band that I consider music for people who don’t really like music. Consider this quote from The National Post:
“Despite a distinct lack of critical acclaim, the rock band formed in Hanna, Alta., has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide.”
I am not a swearing man, but I was close when I heard that Nickelback won this prize. Seriously this band is a joke. I have no clue how Nickleback has achieved the success it has. I swear that for every person I know who has one of their songs on their iPod, I know 10 more who will make fun of that person. At least the guys in the following video had enough sense to boo them off stage and start throwing stuff at them.
You can rest well knowing that Word Magazine readers also voted this band as one of the world’s worst bands, but sadly Word Magazine doesn’t carry nearly the same sway as Billboard. See the graphic below though as it is good to see that Nickelback was so bad that they made it twice. If only people could spell properly, those two entries may have added up to one that was bigger than Queen.
