Might As Well Be Blockbuster.

While I’m in the video type of mood, here’s the one from the new single “Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants” by the excellent Wild Beasts:

last song i heard – “the old dog” – wild beasts

Words Fail Me.

Actually, no they don’t. 

Consider this:

Now…

- How can so many instruments sound like nothing at all?

- Why do I hear girls when I see men?

- Why do bands still insist on doing that awful synchronised guitar movement thing?

- These lot are apparently English, so why do they sound like an average U.S “punk” money shitting machine?

- What sort of Englishman says “lame ass”?

 

last song i heard – “terrible excuse for a song” by some terrible excuse for a band (or if you want to be accurate – “you got guts” by paige)

Concert Review – Le Stack, Hospitals, Hot Panda, The Awkward Stage – 12/10/08

We got to the Merchant Ale House close to 9:30, in time to catch a few songs by the first band, Le Stack. Consisting of a drummer (who’d apparently came down from Milton and learnt the songs on the same day) and a singer, who switched between playing the bass, a keyboard and his hair. It seemed like every twenty seconds or so he was making sure his fringe was pulled over to the right side of his head, in consequence making himself look like a bit of a tit. Music wise, rough electronic indie stuff, that seems oddly out of time in places. They did do a couple of songs where he started rapping instead, and these were probably the best part of the short set. But the songs that focused on making lots of Shout Out Out Out Out Out-esque noise resulted in just that – noise. Next time they should focus on what the keyboard’s doing instead of what their hair’s looking like.

The next act was someone called Hospitals, who had a classical guitar and a laptop. Seems like everyone is using laptops to provide backing music these days, so I was a bit wary, and started concentrating on my lovely home-brewed blueberry beer. However when he started playing it was a nice surprise, with Latin sounding music with some mellow rapping over the top. It reminded me very much of some of Buck 65’s work, but that’s not really a bad thing, and the subject matter of some of the songs was refreshing, and not just the usual “let’s go and get drunk and look at women and fight someone because we’re young.” So all in all a good set and someone I’ll remember – I noticed he had a CD for sale too. Not bad, not bad.

The third band was Hot Panda, who can probably look forward to being bundled in with the “twee-core” genre, if it’s big enough to be called a genre. Playing songs from their EP along with some from their forthcoming album “Volcano… Bloody Volcano”, which is due out in February, they had a good sound to them. Sounding a lot like Los Campesinos on first impressions, but with the added element of an accordian, they rattled through their roughly 40 minute set with a fair level of energy. After the set I got talking with Mike, their keyboard/accordian player, who told me that accordians are very heavy to practice with, and a good way of learning to play one is to watch tutorials on youtube. Well, you learn something new every day.

With my new pint of apricot beer – I know, I know, very manly – I started watching the headliners, the Awkward Stage, who I think are from Vancouver. I’ve got to be honest, they didn’t really stand out to me. One aspect I liked was the trumpet player, which added some extra depth to the otherwise basic one-bass two-guitar set-up. I don’t know why there isn’t more trumpet in music, but I suppose it’s a good thing that it’s not milked for all it’s worth and everybody’s playing one.

Other than the bits with the trumpet, I wasn’t really impressed. They seemed like an average bar-style band, and even kind of looked like one. I think they’ve got a couple of albums out (and were promoting their second one, I believe), and they’re playing a tonne of dates, so for a cheap night out – tickets were only $5 on the door – they’re worth trying, but it might be a good idea not to go in the doors with high expectations from the headliners.

 All in all though, a couple of good bands and a couple of so-so ones, but how often can you see four bands in one night?

 

last song i heard – “careful” – hot chip

 

 

Does This Mean the Dinosaurs Might Come Back?

I was given a college assignment which asked to pick a geopolitical topic of our choice and write about it. I chose to write about biodiversity and its losses:

 

Flick to the environmental section of any magazine or website and chances are you’ll plenty of articles regarding what style of bike to buy, why to shop at a farmer’s market and guides on how to live without power, you know, just in case. Choose to read a newspaper instead and you may more daunting reads, including updates on peak oil and the dreaded global warming. However, there is a subject that doesn’t seem to receive the same hysterical media coverage, and that subject is the biodiversity crisis.

Biodiversity is basically the variety of life forms within a certain area, or ecosystem. For Earth’s ecosystems to remain healthy, they require many varying kinds of plants and animals, from forests to insects.

However, many biologists and environmentalists believe that biodiversity is in serious trouble, claiming we are in the beginning stages of a global mass extinction not experienced since the age of the dinosaurs.

There have been at least five mass extinctions in the history of life on our planet, with the last occurring 65 million years ago, which is known to be the instigator of the end of the Cretaceous period.

In 1998, the American Museum of Natural History carried out a survey with 400 biologists, with almost 70% believing that they were in the beginning stages of a global mass extinction.

You may be asking what ‘s so interesting about this. Clearly it’s not the first time it’s happened, so why are those with scientific experience getting so worked up?

The difference between previous mass extinctions and the current one is us. The last one wasn’t a result of people going around killing dinosaurs with rocks and elaborate Wile E Coyote style traps. Yet many scientists agree that human activity is the root cause of the deterioration in our biodiversity.

The expansion of human settlements, mining, farming and pollution have all been blamed, as well as the seemingly obvious over-exploitation of certain species, such as shark-finning and whaling. There was even a study released in January stating that researchers are killing wild chimpanzees by inadvertently giving them colds.

A 2004 article from the “Nature” journal suggested that by 2050 around a quarter of the world’s plants and animals could die, as a result of global warming. The article was a result of a global collaboration of 19 scientists., each of which fed field data into a computer that simulated the ways that different species are expected to respond to climate changes.

The World Conservation Union has found that animals are becoming extinct at 100 to 1,000 times the usual rate.

My point to all this is: why is this not being reported on the same scale as global warming or peak oil? Does it not matter?

The media have seemed to embrace environmentalism, as seen in this year’s widespread coverage of Earth Hour. I agree that raising awareness of power consumption is worthwhile, but so surely is raising awareness that we’re killing many groups of species that help to keep us alive, through purifying water, carrying out photosynthesis and pollinating crops.

Actually, that last one is interesting. One of the insects largely known for pollinating crops are bees, which have been disappearing from their colonies in recent years. The possible cause is something called Colony Collapse Disorder, which results in a hive empty apart from a few survivors. The others simply leave, with many apparently dying off soon after. CCD, is it’s known, is reportedly occurring in twenty-two U.S states, Poland, Spain, and much of Europe.

The thing is though, bees are a lot more important than we take them for, and I was surprised when I started reading about this. Insects pollinate around one third of the human diet, with bees being responsible for 80% of that third. Some people believe that if bees were to go completely extinct, humans would last no more than 4 years. The theory goes that no bees means no plants, which feed animals, so there’d be no more animals. Animals feed us, so there’d be no more us.

Whether this is exaggerated or not, it is interesting nonetheless. The idea that one species going under could be responsible for the destruction of human live, in four years(!), makes me stop and think.

 I think the reason that nothing is being done with this issue (from a political standpoint) could be down to the belief that this is a natural occurrence, that has happened before, therefore nothing can be changed. Therefore, we may as well continue building, forcing animals out of their habitats and leveling foresty and green regions.

The other reason I can come up with is that, compared to other topics like pollution, offshore drilling and how nuclear power is going to kill us all, spending all your time talking about saving frogs, penguins and pretty little blue flowers seems very self-indulgent and almost weak. Yet, even for a swaggering pile of testosterone like myself, it’s a tough topic to take a concrete stance on – would you rather see people die from hunger due to a lack of cropland, or a few birds?

Looking ahead, the human population is expected to grow at its current rate of 6 million people a month. By 2030, that’ll be 132,000 extra people, requiring current world food production levels to rise by 50% in order to feed them. Obivously those people will have to live somewhere, and food will have to come from somewhere, so that probably means spreading out into more habitats, which probably means a further loss of species.

It’s a tricky subject for me to get my head around. The fact that all this around us is the result of 4 billion years of evolution must mean something, and for us to watch as it dies off must be saying something about us, I’m just not sure what.

In the end, though, maybe there’s nothing we can do. Maybe it’s just a part of Earth’s random evolvement, and this time we’re part of it. But surely the relentless building of suburbs isn’t helping.

In the meantime, though, I’m going to try and get out and see a bit more of it, before it all turns into concrete and tower blocks.

 

last song i heard – “cheerio chaps, cheerio goodbye” – wild beasts

 

U.S > U.K?

It seems that every time you open a magazine, flick around music blogs or go to concerts, there’s always people drooling over the current “next big thing” that’s due to burst out of the U.K like a giant sweaty indie baby, covered in placenta and everything.

True, there are some good bands coming off the island, and there’s even more if you’re willing to dig a bit – I’d safely say about 75% of all the bands in the U.K never get a North American record deal, therefore, no CDs or tour-dates, “buddy.”

Still though, are British bands all that original? Some recent examples of “next big thing” hype bands from recent years include Arctic Monkeys (of course), The Klaxons and The Enemy (who are abysmal by the way).

Nothing too original there, when you think about it. In fact, most of the current indie-boy band trend, which seems to be on its final fatal decline, could be inspirationally traced back to no more than 5 or 6 bands, if you’re that bothered. Point is though, even though there’s still plenty of decent stuff, there’s only a handful of bands that are currently trying something different, outside of the box, if you will. One of them is Wild Beasts. Another is Fuck Buttons.

 It seems that these days that if you want music that is actually trying something different, you’ve got to go to the US.

 Consider Liars, Numbers, Deerhoof, TV on the Radio, Of Montreal, Animal Collective, Mastodon, Deerhunter, Les Savy Fav, Dan Deacon.

 So what’s going on? What’s with all this good American music, don’t they usually just sing about baseball and Miami?

 last song I heard – “the concept” – teenage fanclub

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out Soon: Best of the Best of the Best of The Smiths.

The Smiths are set to release another “best of” compilation, which will be the eighth from their short career. They released four actual albums. 

The album is the first time that lead singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr have collaborated since The Smiths spilt in 1987. Morrissey is claimed to have came up with the title – “The Sound of The Smiths”, while Marr apparently worked with the mastering of the album. However, other reports, apparently from Morrissey’s management, have claimed that Warner Music are releasing the album “without Morrissey’s approval or involvement.” 

The album will be released in two versions, with the second including two discs, the second of which contains b-sides and live recordings. 

In my opinion, if you already have “Louder Than Bombs” (or the actual albums, of course) don’t bother. If you’ve never heard The Smiths before, this would be a good place to start.

last song i heard – “bros” – panda bear

 

CD Review – “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed” – Los Campesinos!

 

The first album by Los Campesinos! was a refreshing burst of glockenspiels, shared boy-girl vocals and violins. The seven-piece, based in Cardiff, released “Hold On Now, Youngster…” earlier this year and proceeded to tour around the world, with dates in North America, Japan and Europe, before taking part in some festivals around August. Not bad for a band barely 2 years old.

In between all the touring, they went to Chicago and recorded an EP. Thing is though, they recorded too many songs and they didn’t know what to get rid of in order to create the usual 5-6 song EP standard tracklist. So they decided they’d made an album instead.

It’s called “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed” and it shows a band that’s developing at a rapid pace. All the usual standards are there – the violin lines, bloopy beep beep keyboard noises and the duel guitars, along with the spoken-word style vocals of Gareth twisted with Aleksandra‘s softer singing voice. But there are some differences too. Maybe they’re becoming more comfortable as a group, with the album seeming more relaxed than the material from their first release and the demo EP before that.

This time around there’s more spacing in the songs, with instrumental and feedback elements giving a kind of ambient, unrushed touch to the whole thing. “You’ll Need Those Fingers For Crossing” is reminiscent of Broken Social Scene at times, for example. In the title track there sounds like some brass in the mix somewhere, and if that’s correct, good for them. There’s not enough brass in music anymore in my opinion.

The music seems heavier too. I’m not sure if twee can be heavy, but that’s what it sounds like.

It’s a short album, coming in at around 32 minutes, but for a band that can get away with 45 minute live sets, it works. The songs still rattle along, but the whole thing seems slower at the same time compared to “Hold On Now…”.

So on first impressions, it doesn’t seem too different from the first, but it’s just different enough for it to warrant giving it a shot.

 

last song i heard – “everyone thinks he looks daft” – the wedding present

 

 

Concert Review – Holy Fuck – 19/9/08

 

We get to the Pepperjack Café around 9.30ish, when there’s a queue consisting of around 12 people and still room on the patio. After getting a couple of Steamwhistles off the tap (a luxury outside of Toronto) we get outside and find a table, with there’s a nice and relaxed atmosphere all round, free of some of the pretentiousness that comes with shows in Toronto.

After a while the first band, Sebastian Grainger, starts up. With a long haired bassist and a singer with massive yellow sweat stains under his armpits, they seem like the epitome of garage rock, just like all those bands mostly seen around 5 years ago.

They’re on for about 45 minutes or so, nothing too bad but nothing instantly memorable about them either. Going into the show I’d heard of the band, but after seeing them live I’m not exactly rushing to the cd shop to get all their material. Maybe worth a download, but you can find a million bands out there that sound like them.

Next up was Slow Hand Motem, who I’d heard nothing about and had no expectations. A folding table is set up with computer-y gadgets on it, and the show starts. A few songs in, my girlfriend says that their songs remind her of the music in the Mighty Boosh, which is a good way of summing it up. What looks like some kind of synth pad plays along with a laptop, providing the drumbeats, as a live bassist sometimes adds a natural sound to the songs. With a singer that can only be called an excellent showman, depending on your sense of humour, the “band” (considering two of them just stood at the sides for most the songs) played for around 30 minutes. Being honest I don’t know enough about the band to provide background context, but what I’ve read so far is that the “band” is basically a one-man project consisting of a Wolfgang Gregorsy Eberhand, from Dundas, by way of what sounds like either Germany or South Africa.  Apparently he has released around 20 albums in roughly 4 years, he produces all his album sleeves by hand and he records all his videos on a mac laptop, giving everything he does a great DIY style that I’m glad more bands don’t use and bastardise. They put on quite an interesting show live, with the Eberhand lurching around the stage, never standing still for a minute, breaking out into jerky, awkward dance moves whenever he gets the chance. If anyone was starting to get a bit tired of the act towards the end, he slung on a bass guitar and, after playing a few short notes throughout one song, burst into a slap bass break reminiscent of Primus that, judging by the laughs and cheers from the audience, came completely unexpected.

Then it was time for the headliners. Two tables were brought out filled with cables and electronic gear, a drum-kit and bass amp were set up, then a tangle of Christmas tube lights were thrown in a heap in the middle of the stage, then the band came out.

I was surprised by the tightness of the band, which relies mostly on memory to get through their complicated songs, which shun the usual electro-standard of laptops and processed drums. With live drums and bass providing the relentless rhythm, the rest of the equipment, including guitar pedals fed into each other, cheap Value Village grade keyboards and god knows what else, is manipulated by hand, giving it all a somehow natural feel.

We were about 3 feet away from the band, watching it all happily, when suddenly some lad barged through and stood right in front of me, in about 10 inches of space, and started dancing like he was in Circa. Either that or he thought it was 1999. 

Obviously from the way he was going on he didn’t know the band, being with his mate who seemed to be someone from some form of press, as she was taking pictures every 10 seconds on her SLR, so they probably got in for free anyway. Taking advantage of this free opportunity to shake his boot-ay, this lad, who I can only describe as a twat of the highest order, gyrated, swung his arms like a cock and held onto his spiky little head and swung it round like he was out of S Club fucking 7. The fact that he was doing it in about a square foot of space between me and the stage showed just what a rude bastard he was, with no respect for anyone but himself.

I know people are out to enjoy themselves, and that’s more than fine, but this was just out of order. I wasn’t paying to go to a fucking disco and I wasn’t happy. For 20 or so minutes, I couldn’t focus on the band at all because of this little bastard in front of me. After several jabs to his ribs and, finally, a few swift smacks to the back of his shoulders (I’m not usually violent, but fuck it), he buggered off, thank Christ, and I finally caught some songs and the short encore.

 So that’s about it. My girlfriend went and bought a Sow Hand Motem cd, “Ear Sports” which all came in a sleeve made out of purple felt and black cardboard, which I thought was a nice touch. Then we left.

I don’t like dwelling on the downside of things, but the night was almost ruined by some bandy cock who wanted a bit of attention.  It’s hard to get away from bastards at gigs sometimes, but this one won the gold medal. Apart from that, the only other negative part of the night was the mistake of ordering a bottle of Amsterdam Nut Brown Ale, which I got as the barmaid had ran out of pint glasses so I couldn’t get another Steamwhistle. Whether it had gone bad somehow or it was just meant to taste that foul, I’m not sure, but I ended up leaving more than half of it on the bar. Shame. 

 Other than that, though, a good night.  Holy Fuck will be playing the Phoenix in Toronto on the 25^th of September, though I’m not sure how a band as intimate as them would work on a larger venue like that. It’s only $12 though, so it’s not exactly breaking the bank.

 

last song I heard – “the old dog” – wild beasts

 

 

 

Rathergate and the Usefulness of Blogs.

I was given an assignment to write about the “Rathergate” “scandal”:

 

If I’m being honest, I think that the amount of time it takes to find a decent blog that doesn’t simply descend into one-sided ranting every couple of sentences could be spent doing something else.

I know that blogs are expected to be the future of everything – journalism, debate, entertainment – but for me, it’s hard for me to take them seriously as the saviour of the media. There’s too many egotistical folk out there. Filled with anger, Smirnoff ices and terrible self-centric poetry, these lot (mostly teenagers) force the minutest details of their lives onto the general public. It gets even worse when those people grow up. With most of them believing themselves to be Gandhi incarnant, they offer philosophical stodge and promotions to love your brothers, man. Oh, along with photos of themselves at arm’s length in a limo.

To me internet debate is, for the most part, a waste of time. There’s always someone with more time than you and a thesaurus by their hand, ready to shoot down anyone foolish enough to post a comment on their turf. You can’t win.

Yeah, I’ve got a few bookmarked. Music ones, mostly. A few friends. A couple of columnists. But I’d say that only about 10% of all the blogs I’ve ever seen have some real purpose, or a catch, to them.

So I was quite surprised when I started reading about “Rathergate”, when a load of forum posters and bloggers started working together towards examining documents presented by “60 Minutes” which attacked George Bush’s National Guard Service. A “virtual think-tank” was formed, beginning with the analysation of the style of the font used in the documents, eventually reaching a conclusion that they were faked.

Is what it means to be a citizen journalist? I’d like to think so, as it’s a good example of ordinary people (who seem to know a worrying amount about typewriters from the 1970’s) doing a better job than the mainstream media corporations. I know that the big media corps have the advantages of advertising revenue, large staffs and other resources available that most people don’t, but they can also suffer from arrogance and the decisions to hold back certain stories, due to the the terrifying prospect of financial support that can be withdrawn in a second if the wrong words get printed.

Rathergate has shown that ordinary people can make a change, on a scale that most people could never have expected. Blogs are showing the big media that there is now a healthy independent alternative that can be free of bias and slant, which is still found in many of today’s newspapers regardless of what they say. Of course there’s bias on blogs, but you can read enough of them easily enough in a short amount of time to come up with your own opinions, which is what journalism is really all about.  In the end, I’d say that if this an example of what blogs can do when they’re serious about it, then maybe I’ll be able to put up with the poetry, obnoxious know-it-all “forumer”s and endless “Myspace photos”.

last song i heard – “if i sit still maybe i’ll get out of here” – this town needs guns

 

Bam! Kabloom! Bonk! Etc!

With all the mad talk of Noel Gallagher being shoved over by a man old enough to know better, it’s probably the biggest falling in news since the Berlin Wall (ha!).

Still though, the underlying fact that, the fella – Daniel Sullivan, 47, from Pickering, Ontario –  could have had a knife, then where would we be? Even more thug bouncers thinking they’re guarding the White House at our concerts? Another musician dead?

Seeing as the video is everywhere, here’s a couple more that you may not have seen.

Annoying Jamiroquai singer getting his due;

My Chemical Romance getting bottled by a good chunk of the crowd at Reading 2006;

 

last song i heard – “peg” – saturday looks good to me