THESE STONES ARE MEANT FOR THROWING

SUPERGOD! THE MOVIE

2012-01-16T01:03:00.000-08:00

Alright folks, after almost a year of work I'm ready to début this sonnavabitch to the world in Youtube form! This Christmas I spread it around as a DVD (which makes a lovely present for a loved one and can be easily purchased through my Bandcamp page here) and had a couple of small screenings but now it's time for the internet to get it's chance at it.

The movie is a strange little experimental thing I got the idea for last January while I was musing about what I was going to do for the RPM Challenge. I wanted to do something more ambitious. So I decided to actually do it and throw myself into this album length video project I've had in the back of my head for a long time, for my RPM project. I figured I would film most of it during January and do the music and editing in February. After about a week into February I realized that I was never in million years going to be making that deadline. So instead of killing myself to get a really shitty film done by the end of the month I decided to concentrate on making the soundtrack album first and then try to make the film as best I could afterwards.

When figuring out the plot and concept of the film there were three things I had to keep in mind, for one I knew it had to be something that I could do all by myself or otherwise it wouldn't get done (anyone who has experience organizing volunteers knows this to be true). For 2, it can't cost any money (I'm poor). And for 3, the story has to be something that can be expressed without dialogue because I am not an actor and I am not a fan of my speaking voice. While I was in Hava Java's on my Christmas visit last year I had some inspiration while recalling a short British film from the 60's I'd seen a few months earlier (I've been trying to find the name of it for the last 4 hours without any luck, if after my description you think you know what it's called please tell me). The film was about an intellectual and sceptical man on a sabbatical retreat to a coastal village who after an argument with a local resident about the nature of the universe goes on a walk and finds an ancient looking flute thing in an exposed grave site on a cliffs edge, and after picking it up and trying to play it without thinking much of it, is then followed by an apparition of some sort that in all a flurry appears in his room at night (which ends the film). I thought something like could be evocative and could be done by one person essentially and not need much or any dialogue. The perfect plot! But I had to screw around with it.

The movie was definitely a learning project. Pretty much every scene of the film involves some sort of fairly complicated effect that I had to figure out.from scratch. The movie was definitely influenced by (and I'm going to make the bad decision of comparing the works of proper masters to my cheap and shitty student film) the work of Svankmajer, Lynch, Tarkovsky and Maddin and it features many loving shots of food, random music videos, vaseline lenses, triptychs, moody drone pieces and a drawing that is either 1.21 billion miles across or 1 millionth the size of an atom depending on how you view it (it starts about 34 minutes in if you're curious). If you are curious about how the drawing sequence was accomplished then check out my entry on the Vicar Ouroboros video as it's pretty much the same method only slightly more elaborate and using 32 panels instead of 9.

Anyway, I'm pretty damn happy with the film and I guess the challenge now is to figure out what I can do with it since it's finished. I'm gonna try getting it into some festivals (possibly as a much shorter edited down version) and see what else can happen with it, but I'm the type of creative dude who as soon as I finish a piece I don't want anything more to do with it and only want to move onto the next project. And I gotta lotta ideas for new projects I wanna jump on. So I hope you all like it and don't just watch the first few minutes and move on to some other youtube piece of crap. You can buy a copy of the DVD or download the Score from me from my bandcamp page here. Enjoy!
Cheers!

Here Stands Your Lover - Another new video by me!

2011-03-30T00:53:00.000-07:00

I have a weird way or procrastinating where if there's a project that should be taking priority over other things (let's say it's a short film project you have about 25% finished and promised everyone would be done by May) and I find myself not wanting to work on it for some reason I end up doing every other project I can think of. I guess that's not really a weird way of procrastinating, more like the definition of normal procrastination. Anyway, I made this video instead of working on my movie (or finding a job or doing my taxes) it's a dark and moody performance piece for a dark and moody song from my still new "Let's Celebrate With Blood" album. This came together a lot easier then I thought it would.

My original idea was to do a really fuzzy experimental piece. It would start with a simple lip sync that I would edit it into a sorta finished piece, I would then point the camera at the monitor and re-film the initial edit and then dump the re-filmed version onto the computer and then film that version and repeat the process x amount of times. I was then gonna layer all the re-filmed videos on top of each other until it made an interesting mess of computer screen textures and hazey feedback, but when I tried it I realized it wasn't gonna give me the effect I wanted. So I went with just one of the layers (it was re-filmed four times) which I placed over top the original lip sync and carefully moved it around and scaled it to fit the composition from scene to scene. Since the song is about a car crash and a drunk driver I then layered in some footage I had lying around that I took from the window of a Megabus ride I took from Toronto a couple months ago. All in all I think it's one of the better looking videos I've made which is pretty good considering all it took was a camera, a flashlight, a dark room and bottle of red face paint.

I've been spreading around the youtube version but I think I'll put the vimeo version up on the blog since I think the vimeo compressors did a nicer job on it and youtube's view counters seem to be all fucked up and not giving me accurate numbers lately. It's hard to get people to watch your videos when they think that nobody is watching your videos. People are dicks like that. Anyway, enough of that petty bickering, here's the video, enjoy!

Vicar - Ouroboros (How I made the video)

2011-03-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

When Tyler Lovell asked me to do the album art for the next Vicar album I had to say yes and not just because he used an image of mine for his last album but because Vicar is one of the most interesting bands to come out of St John's ever (IMHO) I want to contribute what I can. When he told me the concept for the album I got even more excited.

Ouroboros is an album designed to be played on random and repeat, it is one long 6 minute song and forty five 16 second "chunks" each chunk is a different chord that segues into the next chunk seamlessly, listening to it on random mode makes the song it plays different each time but it never feels "random". The albums theme is infinity so it only fits that you listen to it on repeat until you are sick of it, it's so hypnotic I ended up listening to it for about three hours the first time I tried it.

When discussing the album art Tyler said he wanted something that evoked an infinite void, while sketching out ideas for it I came up with something, but soon realized that it would work best as a video piece as opposed to a simple image, but it was compelling enough (to me anyway) that I wanted to try it. Here, just watch the video I made to see what I came up with:

The video ended up being a lot trickier then I thought as I had to figure out the process while I went along. The process for making the cover image was pretty simple though (simple but lengthy). First I started with a simple ink drawing of my interpretation of a black hole (you can see it at the very top left hand corner of the image below) I then took the drawing and scanned it into the computer. Then I took the scanned image and printed it off at 60% the original size. I then took the smaller printed version of the image and drew around the outside of it until I get to the outer edge of the paper (this is the drawing directly beneath the first drawing on the picture below). I then take this drawing and scan it into the computer and print it off at 60% the original size. I repeated this process four times until I got a shape I was satisfied with and the rich density of thin thin lines towards the centre that I like. This is the final cover image. I then went back to the first drawing and blow up the tiny hole at the very center of it until I can print it off at a decent size. I then take my sharpie and fill in the hole a little bit (this is the drawing at the top right hand side of the image below). I then scan this in and enlarge it by 60% and print it off again and repeat. I do this a couple times and then take the final cover image and shrink it down and place it in the center of the hole and print it off. I then take my pen and fill in the spaces between the inner edges of the hole and outer edges of the final image and scan it in. I then go into photoshop and start crafting the master image.
For the master image that I use in the video I took a very high resolution scan of the cover image and blow it until it's about 56000 pixels wide (any larger then this and my computer freezes up, I find this out the hard way). I then take the scan of the drawing that came before that one (it would be the second one up from the bottom of the first column on the picture below) and blow it up and tweak it until it fits in where it's supposed to in the last drawing. I keep doing this process until it reaches a point where I have to shrink down the scans to fit it in, at that point I realize I would be sacrificing resolution and I start a new image from an appropriate cropping of the master image where I continue this process of blowing up drawings and fitting them into one another.

The final video uses three master images that are around 50000 pixels wide. Making them this large allows me to zoom in on them without losing any resolution or have it get pixel-y. This process might sound kinda complicated but it wasn't that hard, but getting everything to work in the video editing programs was a whole other ordeal in itself, and that proved to be the hair pulling experience of this project. I won't get into that since I've bored you enough as it is and I tried so many things in After Effects and Premiere Pro that I can't remember how exactly it all worked. But anyway, I'm pretty happy with the final product, I can't find any other examples of drawings mimicking fractal zooms anywhere on the internet and I think it matches up with the atmosphere Tyler's sounds pretty well. I think I'm gonna try this process again as I know more or less how to do this now and I think I could make it much deeper and more bizarre. I'd love to see it projected up on a wall really huge somewhere.
Suppose I should go work on my movie now.
Give Vicar some friggin' money, they deserve it!

SUPERGOD!!!!!! The Motion Picture Soundtrack: Rainbows, Piss & Meat

2011-03-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

Well another February has came and went and that can only mean that now the deluge RPM Challenge albums will now start raining down from the heavens like hastily made indie manna. Here this years entry from me "SUPERGOD!!!!!! The Motion Picture Soundtrack: Rainbows, Piss & Meat". As you can tell from the title this is a soundtrack album to a movie I am currently working on. The original plan was to complete a short movie in the month of January, or at least get enough done so that I could start scoring, and then do a score during RPM month. This plan failed... It's not that I didn't get enough done to get started, I had about 15 minutes or so past the editing stage, I just realized fairly quickly that if I pushed myself to get this movie and score done by the end of February I'd just end up with a totally unwatchable movie with a shitty score. As much as it would've been awesome to pass in a finished DVD this year instead of a lowly CDR I didn't think it would worth it if it ended up looking like shit. So I swallowed my pride and just worked on getting some decent music down all the while thinking "cinematic" in my head. About 10 minutes or so of this album is actually scored to some scenes, which is trickier then I thought, but I'll leave it up to you to figure out what parts will make it into the movie or not.
This is without a doubt the most minimal SUPERGOD! album I've made yet, my whole focus this last year of music production has been trying to get more from less, while some parts are quite layered (there's about 20 guitars at the end of "Training bra stapled to a prison shed") most tracks have around 4 or 5 instruments instead of 20 or 30. I also took this project as an opportunity to try out some new software, I was sorta forced into this decision as I discovered that the software I've been using was giving me latency issues on this new computer I'm using with the fancier soundcard. This new program (I'm using REAPER by the way) took awhile to get used to but ended up winning me over with some nice features (or at least nicer features then my outdated version of Adobe Audition had) and it allowed me to come up with the loop studies on tracks 7, 9 and 16 that I'm quite pleased with.
I'm pretty happy with this years RPM, some songs like "A cage match with benefits" and "Don't listen too carefully to what the gunman says" got the atmosphere I was going for just right. Of course this wouldn't be an RPM without a few concessions: If I had more time I would've probably changed the vocal or pretty much all the lyrics on "Training Bra..." I'm not very satisfied with the transition between "The world is smiling now that I have no legs" and "A cage fight with benefits" even though I worked on it forever (the bandcamp player fucks up all the transitions anyway by adding the pause between tracks) and the album as a whole could use more RAWK (although it has a bit here and there) and a bit more silliness. But y'know, deadlines make things happen.
I can't wait to hear what everybody else came up with this year!

Next New Video! "Hope is Fleeting"

2010-12-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

I didn't lie, here is the next video off "Let's Celebrate With Blood" for a song called "Hope is Fleeting". I worked on this thing on and off for a few months, I wanted to try my hand at some animation. For some reason. I'd frigged around with the animation tool in photoshop a few times in my "Crutches" video a couple years ago but this is the first time I used it to animate something frame by frame instead just selectively adding filters and crap to some footage. That being said; this is really basic animation stuff, I pretty much used the smudge tool exclusively for 90% of it. But I think it's got an interesting atmosphere to it. I was watching a lot of old NFB classics when I got the idea to start this project and I'd like to think some of it rubbed off on me a bit. "Hope is Fleeting" is kinda a weird track and it's not at all what you would call a break away hit or even slightly indicative of what the rest of the album sounds like, but I made the visuals first and none of the other songs came even close to synchronizing as well as that one. Anyway, here it is.

I know I said I didn't lie at the beginning of this post, but I did lie a bit last week when I said three videos in a row. Due to some shitty personal shit going on in my life right now I don't think I'm going to have a video ready for next week. In fact I don't think you'll see a new video from me until the end of February when I debut my dvd that I will be filming and scoring for the rpm challenge next year. So look forward to that, when that happens.
I hope you enjoy my video, spread the fucker around if you got a chance, I need some viral action working for me.

New Video! "These Hands" from my new album "Let's Celebrate With Blood"

2010-12-06T23:51:00.000-08:00

The album is at the printers right now getting all printed up, I got a CD release show booked at CBTG's for January 1st and I'll somehow get my band, who haven't played together in almost a year, on the stage playing with me. I am excited!

So to hopefully get some other people excited I'm gonna release a music video every Monday for the next three weeks until I have to leave Kingston and do some Christmas stuff.

This here is the first of the three, a video I made for the song "These Hands" off the upcoming album. The video is the first time I tried any kind of lip syncing, I thought it would be interesting to take all the different takes and layer them over top one another and then find an effect that would make the differences between them really pop out and become dynamic. The end product is a little ridiculous and my Bono poses might give people the wrong idea about me (or maybe the right idea!) but I think it does a pretty good job bringing out the mood of the song.

Anyway, next weeks video is way stranger, and loads more labour intensive. Stayed tuned!

Vicar - Moment

2010-11-22T12:55:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for proof that I'm biased in my blog content you might want to pay attention here since that's my painting on the cover of Vicar's new album "Moment". And to be fair I am biased as all hell, but I also don't do album art for bands I don't think are absolutely awesome. Vicar are absolutely awesome.
The brain child of Tyler Lovell bass player for one of my favorite bands going AE Bridger, the guys are real young but they know what they're doing. Vicar are easily the most experimental and sonically confrontational band that can also call themselves "rock" on the east coast. The sound is DENSE, the drums and vocals march like the gestapo and the guitars perform fine needlework on your brain. Listening to the album is like watching a Max Ernst collage violently destroy a car park. There is not much tranquility on this release, Orwellian death marches are broken up only by the voice of Tron-like demon gods operatically pummeling a theatrical Einstürzende Neubauten chorus into your chest plate. Look at me, the hyperbole is spilling from me like tropical geyser. Anyway, it's real good.
It got nominated on The Scope's long list for the Atlantis music prize, it's not gonna win, but give this album some friggin' attention anyway.

Giv'er a listen in the player below.

Hunting Winter

2010-11-21T00:50:00.000-08:00

Before I start flooding this blog with vile self promotional nonsense I should talk about some of the cool stuff my friends have been doing since I went on blogging hiatus.

Justin Mahoney is one of my oldest friends/most talented musicians I know. He's the first of a few of my Corner Brook friends who went from playing BRUTAL technical death metal in highschool and naturally transitioned into jazz and then of course to country music. For the last few years he's been working as a genuine, fer reals professional musician in Toronto backing up mainstream acts such as Brian Byrne and Tara Oram while also working the underground in acts like North Amorica, The Evelyn Room and The Coastguard. Over the years we have been bugging the crap out of him to get on the go recording his own material and this year he is relenting in a big way.

Under the moniker "Hunting Winter" Justin has come up with a haunting and dramatic short player with bare boned but exquisite guitar playing and aching close knit vocal harmonies. The songs express a certain kind of sorrow with a simple poetic understatement that doesn't beat you over the head with any trite sentimentality. If you are the type who needs a list of similar artists to compare to before you listen to anything, I'd say you wouldn't be too far off comparing Hunting Winter to Bon Iver mixed with a bit of the more polite John Frusciante. The songs are a more direct and a little less "precious" then a Bon Iver or Fleet Foxes but have a similar direction towards the transcendental despite the homespun quality of the recordings.

Anyway, give the EP a listen to yourself in the player down below if you're curious. And if you like it GO BUY IT.

ZOMBIE BLOG COMING BACK FROM THE DEAD SOON!! as soon as my new album is done...

2010-11-19T00:20:00.000-08:00

I mean it! I am gonna start blogging again (eventually), and I won't stop for it awhile. I will do this as soon as I am finally finished this friggin' bloody album, which I have been slaving over since January of this year. It is just about at the stage where I can no longer make it sound any better without scrapping the whole thing and starting over again. I've been so deeply entrenched in the production of it I've basically forsaken all other aspects of my life such as this blog and my reviews for The Scope. It's gonna be friggin' good though. At least I hope it is, I listen to all the songs about 4 times a day and tweaked and re-tweaked them to the point that I have absolutely no idea if they are any good or not. Sometimes when I listen to it at night I fucking LOVE it and sometimes when I listen to it in the morning I fucking LOATHE it. I've heard other people talk about how they can only hear the flaws in their own work when they listen to it, and I definitely have a bit of that on the go (not that other people won't find flaws in it, they are plenty of obvious ones just littered all over the place). But I have got to get it done soon as I have a CD release show booked at CBTG's for January 1st (more details on that to come as I get shit organized).
The album will be under the name of my band "Patrick Canning & the Suffering Mothers" and will possibly be titled "Let's Celebrate, With Blood!". It will be 65 minutes long with 14 tracks which a lot of people will say is stupid because audiences barely have patience for a 4 song EP nowadays. But fuck those people, I still like my albums the way they're supposed to be: long and meandering with a ton of filler. You can listen to it in installments if you are too lazy or impatient to sit through the whole thing, but hopefully that shouldn't be a problem.
I've already made two fancy shmancy videos that are sure to shock ya eyelids but they won't get uploaded until I have the thing ready to sell. One of them is a fully hand animated thing I made frame by frame in photoshop that I think worked out pretty good, but you have to tell me what you think of it when I finally get it revealed.
Anyway, I gotta finish up and start the promotion train engine up to full throttle until I inevitably run it off the tracks in a few months. Make sure you got me on your RSS feed as new non-self-promotional posts are coming at you in the very near future.

Review Round Up! ~ Puddle of Mudd, Bon Jovi, Slayer, Ke$ha, The Disengagement, Bob Dylan, am/fm dreams, Pathological Lovers, Dead Language,

2010-01-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

Whoops! I haven't done this in awhile. Here's all The Scope music reviews I've done since the Last review Round-up. I'm starting with this review of Puddle Of Mudd's horrible new album: "Volume 4: Songs In The Key of Love and Hate". This was rejected by The Scope for being too obscene or something. Whatever! Pansies! Onward the reviews!

Puddle of Mudd
Volume 4: Songs In The Key of Love and Hate
Oh God... So it's come to this? This is what mainstream modern rock music has come to? This despicable 36 minute audio tumor? Puddle of Mudd have sold 7 million CDs! In this day and age that's equivalent to around 70 million 1980's albums. Their horrible song "Blurry" is one of the most played songs on the radio of the last 10 years! Wes Scantlin's voice is like shitting sandpaper. Listening to his strained nasal mewl spew out poetry like "Let’s get it over and just get naked with sweat dripping down your little back" is enough to make your genitals recede all the way back into your body. This album is like a hundred screaming colonoscopies in a building on fire. It's like having a catheter inserted in you and ripped out again over and over and over by a very angry orangutan, or maybe a very angry Fred Durst.

Bon Jovi
The Circle
Jon Bon Jovi is here to help you America! His grand ageing carapace keeps his hand on his heart (which is swaddled in the American flag) while he Rides into town on the back of a majestic unicorn soaring through the sky on clouds formed from the purest, gossamer nebula of cheese. Jon Bon Jovi woke up from his giant platinum bed in the sky and through the power of his magic douche goggles he saw that America was in trouble. Instantly he knew that only his retarded over produced power balladry could save the day for all the soccer moms out there in desperate need of his ridiculous, grandiloquent, throat-ripping choruses. With anthems like "Work for the Working man", "We weren't born to follow" and "Brokenpromiseland" he clearly is at heart a true working class hero and clearly not a vapid, ultra-processed, piece of auditory vomit with a thousand dollar hairdo and cadre of image consultants.

The Disengagement
Masters in Escapism
You ignore the west coast long enough and eventually they try to sneak some awesome albums by you without you noticing. The sophomore release "Masters in Escapism" from Stephenville native band The Disengagement is a tasty slab of guitar driven rock with a distinct 90's indie throwback edge to it. The album is busy with the sounds densely layered with great inventive guitar lines and rambunctious drum work throughout. The songs are full and rich but are thankfully left natural and unpolished with the just right level of murk present to ease your head in pillow of guitar fuzz as you listen through your headphones. If I had to be a boring music reviewer and compare them to other bands I'd say their kinda reminiscent to a poppier sounding Built to Spill with some "Washing Machine" era Sonic Youth thrown in for good measure. A thoroughly enjoyable hard plastic disc from out of left field.

Slayer
World Painted Blood
What's wrong with prepositions? Why couldn't they call the album "World Painted in Blood"? All their other album titles make sense grammatically. But I digress. Slayer, if they didn't invent the genre of thrash metal they certainly perfected it 23 years ago with 1986's Reign in Blood and their fans have pretty much looked disapprovingly at everything else they've put out since then. But metal fans are mostly assholes when you get down to it. Slayer's signature sound and quality haven't really changed at all in the 9 albums since "Reign" and when your catalogue is that consistent or in other words totally interchangeable, fans will always value the first album they got into above the others. Pretty much every Slayer fan starts out with "Reign in Blood". So is World Painted Blood heavy? Hell yes it's fuckin' Slayer! Is it identical to every other album they've put out? Hell yes it's fuckin' Slayer!

Bob Dylan
Christmas In The Heart
I'm pretty sure Bob Dylan could record himself raping a llama for 45 minutes and a certain ageing section of the population would hail it as "an amazing display of evocative and confrontational songwriting prowess". I know it's not really kosher to be overly critical of charity albums (all profits go to help the World Food Programme which sounds like a fine charity) and I know you gotta set the bar lower when criticizing Christmas records and I've had a long history of barely tolerating mister Dylan; but honestly, was anybody (not obsessed with irony) really begging for 45 minutes of Bob gargling his intestines through 15 ancient, cornball Christmas standards? Everything on the album is so syrupy and over produced Dylan's presence is like throwing a dying horse into thedebutante's ball. Hearing Dylan sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing is like listening to a pit-bull choke on a bag of marbles, it's totally hilarious.

am/fm dreams
Whistle and Sing
With this being their third full length release this year I don't think anyone will call am/fm dreams a lazy band anytime soon. Maybe lazy in terms of gigging and promotion but certainly not in terms of writing and recording. On Whistle and Sing am/fm dreams change stylistic gears again turning away from the retro grunge of last February's "Plaid Album" and the synth-pop of January's "Suburban Teenage Riot". This time around they opt for a stripped down, strictly acoustic sound with 17 short and sweet, banjo and harmony rich tunes all concerned with mortality and matters domestic. The recording and production is as tasteful and rich as always with delicately balanced arrangements that are simple but inventive and really help to highlight the songwriting which is some of their strongest yet. And Just think, the February RPM is just 2 months away, that ain't much time before they kick your ass with another full length!
listen to it here.

Pathological Lovers
Calling All Favours
The Pathological Lovers' debut album Calling All Favours is an hour long propulsive blast of high energy rock ambition. Jody Richardson with his miracle pipes (voted best local rockstar two years in a row don'tcha know) sounds as passionate and powerful as he ever has and the production sparkles and snaps as it should. The thing is The Lovers seem to be suffering from a bit of ADD nowadays. Very few songs are played straight. Big left turns, sudden change ups and complicated wordplay are paramount throughout a lot of the album and can make it a bit of a challenge to absorb at times. It would risk being too much to take if it weren't for the fact that everyone involved is givin' it their all and playing at the height of their game. But when Jody hits on the vocal hooks and keeps everything as direct as possible like on songs "Wednesday", "Change is Good" or the beautiful closer "Parking lot in life" the album really soars.

Dead Language
s/t
Local pickers and crooners the Dead Language's debut self-titled album proves a fine display of their spare and delicate arrangements and a showcase for singer/songwriter Katie Baggs rich and enchanting vocals. The songs have a direct rustic simplicity to them with a surprising amount of restraint shown in the guitar, banjo, mandolin and violin combinations with no one player dominating the spotlight, choosing instead to subtly fill in the empty space with their understated pluckings while Katie's voice seduces you. Obvious standouts are the ballads "Breath by Breath" and the album opener "The Dance" which are just total heart rippers. This is a CD that falls into the rare list of albums where the hidden end track is one of the most compelling on the record, the sprightly and energetic instrumental would've been better placed somewhere in the second half where the pace starts to drag. All in all a truly lovely set of ballads and lullabies.

Ke$ha
Animal
Am I a 14 year old girl?
Not the last time I checked.
I have no business listening to this album. Mainstream pop music has always been run by an evil consortium of Hollywood Svengali, Freemasons and Swedish engineers but now in 2010 it's reached the point where I feel like I'm reviewing a Reebok sneaker. No there's definitely more honest artistic expression in a typical sneaker then what I hear here. The Milli Vanilli scandal would never have happened nowadays, why bother hiring nameless studio singers to cover up for your VH1 drone's total lack of talent when you can just drench a shit ton of autotune over every worthless syllable they drunkenly mutter? I guess all the stupid Hot Topic kids who grew up watching "The Hills" or "Paris Hiltons New BFF" looking for role models need something to reaffirm their worthless lives before the real world inevitably crushes their dreams. I've always hated teenagers and I always will.

On Christmas Day The World Ended

2009-12-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

Last year I started a tradition of writing the a Christmas song and making a video for it just before Christmas day. This year's song "On Christmas Day The World Ended" is my second Christmas classic, it is destined to be played in preschool Christmas pagents and Christian Bookstores across the nation for decades to come.
If you're so inclined you can buy the tracks from my Bandcamp page Here.

Merry Christmas! Thanks for your support. Cheers for the New Year!

Oh and here's last years Christmas video "Everyone Cries at Christmas" if you were at all curious..

Review Round-up - Creed, Do Make Say Think, Lightening Bolt, YSP!WSD!, Hellothisisalex, Daniel Johnston, The Idlers, The Flaming Lips, Chris Kirby

2009-11-05T18:05:00.000-08:00

It's that time again. Here is a round up of all the CD reviews I've done for the Scope over the last couple of months. Enjoy.

Creed
Full Circle
Has it really been 8 years? Wow. It's seems like just yesterday when Creed were the biggest, shittiest, 5th generation grudge band dominating the radio with their tasteless, overblown, chest-thumping power ballads. But it's been 8 years since Creed put out their last album "Weathered" and left the modern rock world with nothing but Nickelback to fill their void. Now *Finally* they have reunited and delivered "Full Circle" which is "probably" their best album (I wasn't curious enough to actually re-listen to any of the previous ones) with Creed giving a more concentrated effort to appear to be "Edgy" and "Metal" (for the first couple of songs at least) and not at all like ageing, washed up bags of sadness. Scott Stapp has the lyrical subtlety of a sledgehammer and a sac of kittens. Regardless if it's Godsmack or R Kelly they're trying to emulate, Creed are the auditory equivalent of a glass of piss warm Red Bull and a bag of Styrofoam peanuts.

Do Make Say Think
The Other Truths
Is it a sign of the times / the failing music industry when more and more modern recording artists seem intent on making movies or at least music that sounds cinematic nowadays? This could always be said of Toronto's premiere post-rock (what an awful genre term! let's never use it again) instrumentalists Do Make Say Think whose long form instrumentals always seem to evoke a strong visual synesthetic sense. The Other Truths is a detour from the direction of their previous album "You, You're a History in Rust" which had them stripped back and recording in a barn to capture a more "authentic" band sound. But this time around they are very much in a studio artist mode densely packing arrangements with orchestras and thickly woven guitars. The four 10+ minute tracks (each titled cheekily "Do" "Make" "Say" and "Think") ebb and flow epically but with much more vigour and exciting dynamics then usual. The final product is a finely crafted and rich audio layer cake from experts in their prime.

Lightning Bolt
Earthly Delights
For the last few years there seems to been a weird trend in hipster music to purposefully make music sound like shit. I'm not necessarily saying purposefully making shitty "music" but to make the music of highly regarded and popular acts, who should have access to decent recording gear, sound like it was recorded with the built in microphone from a 1989 Magnasonic boombox and mastered by a living compression pedal. No band more clearly defines this aesthetic then Rhode Island's Lightning Bolt. On their latest album the drum and bass duo turn up the psychedelics, dumb down the riffs and turn the oppressive wall of relentless static way the hell up. The duo's modus operandi has always been total sensory overload and although the album occasionally slows down the onslaught of blast beats and nonsense riffage to fine druggy sludge, on the whole it is near a Merzbow level of audio carnage clearly not meant for those of a milder disposition.

You Say Party! We Say Die!
XXXX
Most people seem to focus on the "Party" part of Vancouver indie/disco/punk band You Say Party! We Say Die! and not the "Die" part. Through all the upbeat energetic club beats and sing/shouting histrionics there is a pronounced dark and gloomy streak. Always catergorized as a band best appreciated live rather then on record, YSP!WSD!'s new album XXXX does a much better job of conveying them as more then just a pile of drunken scenesters. The songs have a deeper maturity then you would expect and work best when mining the lonely nightclub atmospheres. I will say this though: Hipsters nowadays have got to get off the cocaine and stop trying to sound like Berlin or the Psychedelic Furs, the tacky vintage casio tones were a fun novelty four years ago but you can't live in a Degrassi Junior High episode your entire life, even though many people would clearly love that..

Hellothisisalex
The Accidentals
Hellothisisalex is an electronic duo formerly of Corner Brook fame who now live in dirty old Ontario. The duo's new album "The Accidentals" is a light fizzy concoction of 8bit analogue beeps and bloops with playful jaunty melodies. Many of the song titles reference Newfoundland locales such as "On the shore of Walden Pond" or "Blackpoll Party at Lobster cove Head" but the tunes are more prone to elicit images of Konami games rather then lobster pots or heritage sites, although the fog horn sample on "The Paper House" does set a bit of a nautical scene. The retro Gameboy tones are kept pretty dry throughout and the bass deficient buzz of the keys can grate the ears after awhile, especially to those of us who are sick of the ubiquitous 80's Nintendo nostalgia music circuit ala Dan Deacon, but there is enough enthusiasm and invention present on this short offering to make it worth the while.

Daniel Johnston
Is and Always Was
Some people will try to make you feel bad for enjoying Daniel Johnston. While it is true that a large part (if not most) of his fame comes from stories related to his mental illness, this attitude that by listening to him and buying his albums we are taking advantage of his disorder and belittling him or making fun of him somehow is misguided to say the least. Yes, part of Daniel's appeal through the years is in his unusual delivery and his bent ways of writing pop songs that do show evidence that he is damaged in ways that most of us aren't, but that's only part of the equation. The new album is a lushly produced and arranged collection of pop gems that truly emphasizes Daniel's gifts for satisfying melodies and raw heartwarming sincerity while providing the needed variety that has escaped most of his early home recordings. "Is and Always was" is the most accessible and lovely album of Daniel's career.

Idlers
Keep Out!
I've always found the phenomenon of dance bands with overtly political messages in their songs a little bizarre. You'll never find an audience less concerned with the lyrics then an audience at a disco, and you'll never find a singer with a harder job of being heard then the singer for an 11 piece dance band. Is it the fact that people are less likely to be paying attention that gives the frontman more gumption to throw in controversial political statements? Is the idea to subliminally influence the dancers while they're distracted? The idlers new album "Keep Out!" seems to be circumventing these questions by being surprisingly laid back and stripped down and putting Mark Wilson's voice front and center in the mix. Compared to their high energy live shows which are all bombast and over-stimulation Keep Out! is a refreshingly mellower change of pace and the songs seem more like songs rather then musical backing for Wilson's politics. A groovy little album that wants to give a message but not at the cost of a good tune.

The Flaming Lips
Embryonic
The strongest release from the Lips since 1999's The Soft Bulletin, Embryonic finds the Flaming Lips moving away from the overblown grandiosity and fursuit and fake blood shtick that's been their bread and butter for the past 10 years and finds them returning to their experimental roots with some inspired results. There is scarcely a single radio friendly moment anywhere on the sprawling two disc set and the buzzed out confrontational production aesthetic seems to be designed solely for the purpose of dissuading casual listeners. The songs take the form of elaborate jam sessions with an unmistakable love of 70's era German prog with less of the Beach Boy's on space acid pop the Lips have become known for. Wayne Coyne pulls back the melodrama in his voice and the band lock into fuzzy hypnotic grooves with more aggression and menace then they've shown in decades. Not all the 18 tracks are classics but the band hasn't sounded so much like "a band" in ages and the album just gets richer and richer with repeated listens.

Chris Kirby
Vampire Weekend
Chris Kirby is a musician who wears his influences on his sleeve. Drawing a straight line to classic blue eyed Philly soul Kirby's new album Vampire Weekend, with the able help of producer Gordie Johnston of Big Sugar achieves a lush vintage sound with big punchy arrangements, sweet horn sections and a tight well tuned (and this time more keyboard driven) backing band. The songs have a lot of bounce and playfulness to them but if your looking for any kind of lyrical depth or original sentiments look elsewhere. Most of the tracks on Vampire Weekend are of the classic "you-no-good-two-timing-heart-breaker" variety but Kirby's voice and demeanour is way too musical theatre precious and affable to sell any kind of emotional turmoil, not that you'd want much turmoil on a mostly agreeable, breezy pop cabaret album like this. The album has a rich well developed sound but the material is ultimately too light for it's own good.

Halloween Spooktacular!!!

2009-10-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hello poor neglected blog, how are you doin'?

If any of you people out there are confused and still wondering what to do with your Halloween festivities, might I suggest you check out The Levee for a delightful selection of bands such as AE Bridger, Local Tough and Ye-Yeti (plus special guests?).

I did the poster for it, first time in a long time since I've done a show poster, I think it turned out pretty good. Should be fun fun fun fun fun fun fun times.

Go To The Show!

Review Round-up - Amelia Curran, Gwar, Mount Eerie, Spring Breakup, Our Lady Peace, Yo La Tengo, Wax Mannequin, Hidden Cameras, Vicar

2009-09-23T20:34:00.000-07:00

I realized that I haven't updated the review section of the blog in a couple of months. So here are all the reviews that I wrote for The Scope since July. Enjoy my godless opinions on other peoples music. Cheers

Gwar
Lust in Space
Recently while watching the captivating Youtube infomercial for "The Tenth Annual Gathering of The Juggalos" (look it up you will not be disappointed!) I came across the shocking news that GWAR Still Exist! The last time I had listened to or thought about Gwar was 1997 when at a house party my friend Trevor borrowed my "Scumdogs of The Universe" cassette tape and never gave it back. Somewhere in my subconsciousness my mind erased all mention of Gwar from of this traumatic experience. But Gwar never ever stopped and with the newly released "Lust in Space" marks their 15Th official album. So has anything changed about Gwar in the near twenty years since 1990's hit album Scumdogs? Hell no.. The prosthetic and polystyrene covered masters of party thrash metal and juvenile gross out humor still pound out the power violence and scatology and dick joke obsessed lyrics with much more ferocity and freshness then I ever remembered them having. So can one go back in time this many years later to when one wanted nothing more then to be sprayed with fake blood and pummeled with foam hammers? No not really. But 14 year old boys will always exist and so will Gwar. Amen.

Amelia Curran
Hunter, Hunter
On her much anticipated new album "Hunter, Hunter" Amelia Curran delivers the goods with her trademark rich sonorous voice and it's cool detached restraint. Restraint is the key word with this album, the arrangements are pulled back to tasteful swells of gently plucked banjos, slow muted trombones, accordions (etc) all making sure to never get in the way Amelia's voice and guitar. Even on the liveliest songs like the Tom Waits inspired jazzy romp "The Dozens" Amelia reigns it in with a smooth composure. While the album is designed for mellow evenings and I enjoy the laid back atmosphere; I feel it needs more of a kick in the pants here and there and seems to drag out a lot in the first half, but the album's standout tracks like "Mad World, Outlive me" and "Loves Last regard" are truly lovely and are the best examples of Amelia's craft. Amelia's tales of bad or doomed relationships wear a strong Leonard Cohen influence placing an emphasis more with metaphor and esoteric imagery rather then spelling out a narrative directly and as a result the album is a bit hard to absorb on the first listen and best rewards those who are willing to give it some repeated turns and it is an album that well deserves it.

Spring Breakup
s/t
Kim Barlow and Mathias Kom are Spring Breakup, a songwriting duo created during a Yukon winter devoted entirely to songs about the endings of relationships. The songs run the emotional gamut of true sorrow and despair, detached indifference, to almost happy and upbeat. The pair of them make ideal collaborators. Both share a sharp sardonic wit, a gift for intricate wordplay and simple but engaging melodies. The album is a bare-boned affair stripped down to just their Ukulele and Banjo and two voices, Mathias' deep baritone well complimenting Kim's rustic croon. The duo keep the strumming light and slow with just the minimum amount of bounce needed to keep the songs from devolving into depressing dirges when the duo croon sentiments like "you said we were Ginger and Fred, we were Sonny and Cher, but it was more like Tina and Ike then Rogers and Astaire". But while the sentiment may be dour at times the album is breezy and entertaining with a palpable charm. Their genuine chemistry when the two of them trade lines like "you're so beautiful I could stareat you all day/ you look strangely like me/ and it turns me on" make The Spring Breakup ultimately much more of a beautiful marriage then an ugly pro-longed divorce.

Mount Eerie
Wind's Poem
Wind's Poem first four minutes twelve seconds opens it's gates to the listener with a punishing rising tsunami wall of impenetrable guitar squall and blast beats coated in a thick lo-fi crust that Phil Elverum's fragile mumbling voice floats over, just barely audible against the violent feedback. On his latest album the prolific songwriter Phil Elverum has finally shed the a lot of the gentle and overly precious balladeering that had gotten a bit ubiquitous and stale for the last few years. "Wind's Poem" has Elverum finding that captivating balance between raw experimental ambition and listening accessibility giving Mt Eerie their strongest album in many years. The pace throughout is glacially slow with styles varying from dark minimal, ambient meditations to several brutally grinding tracks like "The Hidden Stone" and "The Mouth of the Sky" that straddle the line halfway between underground Black Metal and Kevin Sheilds style shoegaze. As always Phil's ear for arrangements is utterly exquisite as his lyrics mine complex narratives on the darkness of nature. Wind's Poem is a rich and uncompromising album that is not intended for casual unadventurous listeners.

Our Lady Peace
Burn Burn
It seems in recent years Raine Maida; leader singer of Canrock staples Our Lady Peace has been taking vocal coaching to tame the adnoidal fury of his yelping weasel voice into a more mid-range modern-rock radio friendly croon. This is unfortunate. While in the early days listening to him sing was akin to piercing your septum with a burning drill bit, at least it made the band a bit distinctive. When their old songs would come on the radio you would say "Oh! it's that heinous singer from Our Lady Peace" nowadays he's been watered down to almost sub-Chris Martin boring, you don't know if you're listening to Our Lady Peace or some new Rob Thomas track. The songs on "Burn Burn" are so middle of the road, so painfully uninspired that desite all the uplifting lyrics about how "the sky is blue" and how "we all have wings" you'd just wish someone would shove him down a flight of stairs just to get some kind of interesting response from him (just for the record I'm not advocating anybody doing that).

Yo La Tengo
Popular Songs
For the last few years New Jersey critic darlings Yo La Tengo have crossed the line from "introspective and hypnotic" to plain boring. The first half of their new album "Popular Songs" doesn't help much to rectify this. Apart from a few inspired moments like the upbeat rocker "Nothing to Hide" and the stately ballad "I'm on my way" (which is as beautiful as anything they've ever made) the trademark drowsy vocals of Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley seem to be struggling to keep awake more then usual. While nothing on the first half is particularly offensive you could call all of it album filler to lead up to the last three songs which make a 35 minute suite of everything Yo La Tengo have ever been good at. The last three songs move from 9 minutes of pure trance inducing fuzzed out grooving to 11 minutes of delicious ambient rumination to 15 minutes of feedback soaked free form guitar histrionics. You could call it a great mini-album within a bloated major release.

Wax Mannequin
Saxon
In a world so filled to the brim, over-saturated and sick to death with acoustic guitar playing singer/songwriter dudes, it's hard to find a character as original as Hamilton Ontario's Wax Mannequin. The gruff voiced, rose covered balladeer's new album "Saxon" isn't much of a departure from his previous albums, maybe slightly sparser and more restrained then usual but it is an further refinement of his Tom Waits psychedelic folk by way of Foreigner sound. Every song bounces to a strange jaunty beat as he skillfully crafts very melodramatic verses around greedy volcano gods, oil barons and an apparent obsession for drowning. The album suffers a bit from a draggy middle section despite the hidden Cyndi Lauper quotes. The song "Treading Water" is a little too aptly titled maybe. But in the final third Wax Mannequin really shines in a strong one-two punch of fist-shakin'-boot-stompers that run his already coarse voice ragged in gleeful abandon. It's a stirring entry in the canon of a truly unique Canadian character.

The Hidden Cameras
Origin: Orphan
One could be forgiven for shoving indie pop sensations The Hidden Cameras into that league of performers like T.Rex or Bon Jovi or Bob Dylan who basically spent their whole careers writing the same song over and over and over again. Previously one could only notice that the CD track changed when the chorus would switch from Ah-wooo-ah's to doo-doo-doo's. But you had to admit it was pretty damn catchy song. On their latest album The Hidden Cameras actually summon the bravery to change it up a bit. The arrangements get much more variety with keyboards and orchestras featured prominently, the tempos shift and slow down occasionally and many more genres and styles are explored. But while it's admirable and totally necessary that they moved out of the signature sound they've been pedaling for 8 years now there is nothing on this album near as catchy and enjoyable as their best earlier material. It's an unfortunate catch 22 where you either tread the same water you always have or move on to different areas you aren't as well adapted to. But it's a step in the right direction at least.

Vicar
YAIC
A solo offering of Tyler Lovell (bass player of local prog weirdos the AE Bridger band) YAIC is a brief but very potent Ep of intense and abrasive experimental rock music. The EP runs heavily on hypnotic rhythms and angular, menacing, repetitive lines which function as a trance inducer while more and more disconcerting and discordant ingredients are poured on top and shift in and out of the mix. The sounds are all heavily manipulated and and very densely layered in a way that recalls old school krautrock pioneers "Can" at their most aggressive or early "This Heat" with sharp piercing guitar lines like rain of needles skirting the edge of the periphery. There's a cinematic quality to the music but it wouldn't be a movie you'd bring grandma to This is not music for everyone, or even most people, but if you are someone who has a need for challenging but rewarding (also violent) music that is not afraid to throw some ugliness into the mix, you should seek this out.
http://vicar.bandcamp.com/

Ultimate Internet Dream Band Addendum: Tonetta777

2009-09-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

Most people are boring, some people are prudes, some other people are shameless, and some take shamelessness to a point where it is heroic and sublime. While I was making the previous list I made the terrible discovery that the man who was my first choice for frontman singer/songwriter of my Ultimate Internet Dream Band had his youtube account suspended; in an atrocious act that I can only take as youtube's own personal vendetta against love, life and happiness.
My subscription to Tonetta777 was 90% of the reason for checking my youtube front page everyday. Every week he would upload 5 - 8 videos of him dancing mostly naked to his latest track of catchy, Totally Obscene, creepy as hell, fractured but infectious pop/funk tunes. His profile had no information at all and in all 300+ videos he had up only the byline "MUST SEE..." was written on them. He was a mystery.. I was so sad when I couldn't embed any of my favorite Tonetta moments, but now I happily discovered Tonetta has another account (!) it appears to be an older private account that he switched over to public to host his backlog of videos. How long until youtube suspends this account due to "term of use infringement" who knows? But for now here are some of my favorite Tonetta777 tracks for your delinquent eyes.

This was the first Tonetta video I saw and I think it's still my favorite. Definitely one of his more menacing tracks.

The other favorite of mine..

a couple more..

This one might have gotten him kicked off. I seem to remember this was one of his last that he posted.

The Ultimate Internet Dream Band

2009-09-01T23:35:00.000-07:00

I already have an awesome band, but a man can dream can't he?
Lets just pool our Youtube resources and put together the ultimate Internet Dream Music Ensemble right here anyway.

I'll start with this guy as my Drummer:

On Keyboard:

Lead Singer (I might take the bassist as well):

Or maybe this person as Lead Singer? I don't know...

Or Maybe this Woman as Singer/Songwriter? I can't decide.. Goddamn it!

On Rhythm Guitar:

On Lead Guitar:

Every good project needs a Guest Rapper. I pick Eli:

And this other guy as well:

This would be our banjo player and he would repeat this performance every night:

And then there'd be this guy:

If you have any other suggestions for players put them in the comment section below.

SUPERGOD!! ~ The Party Controls The Gun - volume: Horse + volume: Lazerbeam

2009-08-31T13:04:00.000-07:00

above: volume: Horses. click here to download from Mediafire

above: volume - Lazerbeam. click here to download from Mediafire

Continuing my SUPERGOD! Give Away Fever! here are the second and third albums in my SUPERGOD! series, "SUPERGOD!! The Party Controls the Gun - volume: Horses and volume: Lazerbeam". I made these while I was working on "The Pervert" album and I released them simultaneously as companion CDs back in 2007, I literally spent 95% of my time recording music that year. All the audio bits flow into each other like the first SUPERGOD! album, but this time I was nice enough to break them into separate tracks for listening convenience. This also gave me the opportunity to give my songs silly names which is where 90% of the appeal of SUPERGOD! material comes from. The material is much the same as the first one except a good bit darker, more or less random, a bit more "song" oriented and more polished then the first one.
I read an interview with Tom Waits where he was talking about his albums and how he purposefully puts the most challenging and abrasive song on the album first so it would quickly get rid of any "casual" listeners, as those are the worst kind of listener, and keep any active/interested ones (That's probably nothing like the actual quote but I can't find that interview anywhere right now so I'll go with that). I always liked that idea so most of my albums start with something horrible or ridiculous sounding. These two albums are the best examples of that theory as they both start with pure abject terror. I never made that many copies of these albums so you've got the opportunity to own something pretty rare here, so if you do listen to them tell me what you think.
Cheers

New SUPERGOD! Video - "A Scalpel Scrapes The Crust off the Sky"

2009-08-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

Howdy!
I went and made a fancy new SUPERGOD! video for you fine people to feast your eyeholes at. I was all in epic mode when I recorded the song yesterday. The footage is from last weekend when me and my ladyfriend went up Signal Hill to do some illegal kite flying (we didn't know it was illegal at the time, I only found that out the other day, flight paths my ASS!). I named the song "A Scalpel Scrapes The Crust off the Sky" for obvious reasons. In other SUPERGOD! news I'll be sharing another couple of old SUPERGOD! albums here later on in the week, so look forward to that. Anyway tell me what you think of my video.
Cheers

Download the First SUPERGOD! album for Free

2009-08-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

On a whim today I started up a Mediafire account and decided to christen it with the first self-titled SUPERGOD! album I put out three years ago. It's a ridiculous 40 minute affair (all one continuous track) whose main purpose was for me to get to know my recording gear a bit better and work on some wacky ideas I'd been brewing for awhile. You'll here chanting inanities, random freak-outs, experimental drones, disconcerting atmospheres, Steve Reich-y experiments, some soul balladry, some Godspeed You Black Emporer rip-offery, lots of Residents rip-offery and much more.

I'll post up the next two SUPERGOD! albums shortly, as no one cares about those albums anymore so I might as well give them away for free.

Download it Here

*

What I've been up to Lately

2009-08-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

That's Me, Victor Lewis and Alison Corbett playing a little set at The Eastern Edge Gallery a couple of weeks ago. Ahhhh.. I remember a time when I used to play music in public a lot.. I got to get back on the go with shows. Anybody need an opening act?
Blogging, Mastering other peoples albums and not working have gotten in the way of my productivity lately. I will eventually get an album done. sometime..
This poor neglected blogspace....boo hoo..
I figured I'd give all you people who still follow me on this RSS feed and haven't switched over to my new one yet an update on what I've been doing in my new Scope home over the last few weeks. While also telling you to GO LOOK AT MY FRIGGIN' NEW BLOG!

I started off with a 5 video post on The Satans last show and a few other bands that were playing that night.

Then I did a piece on visiting awesome Yukon based songwriting duo The Spring Breakup (who I was playing with the night of the video above).

I then did my most ambitious concert blogging effort ever with a mighty three part post about the Mt Eerie/Julie Doiron show at the George Street United church.

Part 1 was a 3 video post of local opening act Danny Keating who played awesome.

Part 2 was a 4 video post of Julie Doiron and fellow Sackviller "Calm Down it's Monday"

And Part 3 was a 4 video post of Mount Eerie, whom I have been a long time fan.

Just this week I have posted about talented multi-instrumentalist Allan Ricketts' CD release show

And I did another post on some other talented pickers "The Killer B's" and "Bread and Roses".

I got the 24 Hour Art Marathon coming up this weekend which is always the highlight of my year and I'm really excited about it. I'm gonna tackle a 4' by 5' painting this year so I'm gonna be worn out (but not too warn out to not take some vids).
Also, tomorrow is Night Music at The Ship with the Cara Coleman Band (and possible a mini reunion of The Origin of The Sound Band (Woo!)) and it's also Trailercamp's big reunion show, so I'll probably be editing shit for a fortnight at least.
Anyway, that's my life from the last few weeks. Stay tuned for more of the same.
Cheers

NEWS-NEWS-NEWS

2009-08-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Hey folks who have kindly subscribed to this blog or just read this blog occasionally or just happened upon it by accident, I have news. These Stones are Meant for Throwing has now officially moved to The Scope's website! It now called "Throwing Stones At You" and from now on you will have to look there to continue to read my adventures of looking at bands in St John's and to read my reviews and such.
A couple of weeks ago Elling (head editor at the Scope) told me he was looking to provide more regular daily content on The Scope website, he said he enjoyed the silliness I do over here and wondered if wanted to do it over there. This is cool beans for me as it is a larger built in audience with more official status then this here cheap blogger rag. I just posted my first entry over there today, this one all about The Satans last show from the weekend past. The Satans were always at the top of my list of bands I wanted to cover here but could never get to their shows with the camera for some reason, so I'm really happy I could christen my new blog home with some videos of them.
So what are you going to do with this old place you might ask? Well I'm not going to delete it or anything foolish like that. This is still an important archive (for me at least) of bands I care about and I'll probably end up recycling a lot of this stuff for the new blog eventually (I have that much faith in my laziness). But in the meantime I'm thinking about other ways I could you use this blog space. I've always wanted to turn this into an album sharity blog for local releases, but I would want to make sure that the bands I post up would be cool with me spreading their albums around for free. That involves something I've always hated which is correspondence. Also I would have to get a mediafire account and crap. But I do have tons of out of print local releases that I'd love to talk about and share with people. If you're reading this and are in a band and like the idea of me sharing your albums at no profit to you other then extra people hearing it, tell me and I'll do it.
Other things I could use this old blog space for:
* Stupid youtube clips I find.
* Unsolicited opinions of popular culture.
* Unsolicited opinions of the arts
* Shameless self promotion
* Animated gifs
* Angry rants and troll baiting (you have no idea how much rage I suppress)
* Shameless reposting from other blogs
* More Shameless self promotion

Anyway, change is good. Or maybe it's not. Who knows? now there is more of it in different places. I'll be keeping busy in the meanwhile.
Cheers

Album Reviews - The Dardanelles, The Once, Tony Benn

2009-07-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

Well it's that time of the fortnight again. Time to re-post my reviews from this weeks scope here for your perusal. This week they are all local, all acoustic folk, all self titled debut albums, all pretty good. This weeks Scope is particularly awesome as it is the annual "New Music" issue with an ass load of bands covered and my favorite band in town made the cover. Although I gotta say they could've chose a shot that made them look a bit more active. I think every shot of Andrew Waterman should be of him screaming and covered in blood. Maybe this is just me. Anyway, here are my latest three reviews. enjoy them and check out the links if you can. Always check out my links.

The Dardanelles
s/t
The Dardanelles debut self titled album is an taut, dynamic and energetic mix of various strings, squeeze boxes and worldly influences. The Dardanelles are tight. The seven piece folk combo effortlessly weave a dense tapestry of swirling reels and dervishes that they make flow naturally while never letting up on the whirlwind pace. The production is crisp and lush but never overdone and thankfully stripped of any tacky studio trickery and affectations leaving just the raw textures of the instruments and the expert hands guiding them. I'm gonna avoid any talk of "authenticity" or adhering to traditions because frankly I'm the farthest thing you get from an expert on Newfoundland trad music. All I can say is that to me this album reveals a depth of interplay and a relentless energy that can only be experienced at the best kitchen parties and even when mixing in the more exotic foreign material the songs flow naturally and sweetly.

The Once
s/t
Geraldine Hollett's voice is an instrument like a deep warm river of sweetness and honey. Thankfully her band The Once know this well and on their debut album have built all the arrangements like a shrine or alter to properly display that lovely instrument. It is an album of tasteful covers; half traditional and half more contemporary (but not obvious) classics, all with strong and somewhat dark narratives that take good advantage Geraldine's theatrical pedigree by pushing the dramatic envelope, the stark a capella reading of "Marguerite" in particular has Geraldine taking on the role of the lead character and full on emoting her emotional breakdown to stirring effect. Their version of Leonard Cohens "Anthem" is stellar. My biggest complaint about the album is the cover. Look at it. It has to be one of the dullest album covers I've ever seen.. Three red rectangles and some Times new roman lettering do not a compelling visual make. Try harder.

Tony Benn
s/t
Irish ex-patriot and current local singer-songwriter Tony Benn's new album travels onto a lonesome road with a simple directness and a strong and sorrowful voice. Most of the album is stripped down to just guitar and vocals with occasional band arrangements and female vocal choruses punctuating it at times. The album keeps a sparse and quiet tone throughout with Tony's voice evoking a steady but sad, contemplative quality that draws comparisons to Damien Rice or John Martyn and on songs like "Her Hair Came Down" and "Walk with you" he let's it soar to devastating and beautiful effect. The lyrics are direct and unpretentious but are lacking a little in depth and originality, the simple sentiments in songs like "Please don't say goodbye" don't offer any new insights we haven't heard many times before, but this is a small qualm in an album as perfectly suited for cloudy Sunday listening as this one.

Vicky-Lou and Brad Power

2009-07-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, it's been a pretty quiet weekend for yours truly. I didn't get up to much mischief and I didn't get any real band videographing done either. I did take some video of the Lantern Festival, but I'm gonna sit on it until I have the time to edit it into something or until I have a computer that will do what I need it to do. But I did take some footage of my hero Victor Lewis and his stunt guitarist Brad Power playing a subdued set at The Rose and Thistle last Thursday. It's been awhile since I've seen Vic do his solo set material and it was nice to have Brad there providing the edge and the atmospheres. In this first video we have Victor and Brad doing a pretty upbeat version of the classic murder ballad "Stagger Lee" I'm more used to this version then any other but Vic's version here is not without it's charm.

The next video is of an ambitious cover Vic and Brad worked out for for a 60's French pop song. It's ambitious because Vic and Brad don't speak any French. I can't really tell if the phonetics are correct but it sounds like proper music to my ears.

Also, for all you 7 or 8 regular Throwing Stones readers, in the near future keep your eyes peeled to your RSS feeds for exciting "These Stones are Meant for Throwing" news. It's real exciting, or it might not be. No hints.

Japan Batteries and some Sorcerer

2009-07-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

Japan Batteries are a new indie-ish acoustic/electro band that are getting some good buzz around town. Darrell Hopkins is a friendly acquaintance of mine from university who wrote me up to check out his new band and hopefully bring my camera. The band is pretty good I gotta say, Darrell has always been a singer with a warm and engaging presence and I think I was immediately won over by the strobe-light attached to his head..

As a friendly bit of criticism and knowing that they are a really new band I would suggest that Darrell stay a bit further away from that fast paced talk/sing/rap style that brings him dangerously close to Dave Matthews territory. I made a promise that I would shoot a poison dart into the next person I find singing a Dave Matthews cover, so I just felt like I needed to state that bit of rudeness. I like this next song, it's got a good kinda Mark Bragg vibe to it and it reminds me that I also promised I would write more songs with catchy stops and starts. Who did I promise these things to?....um.......... jesus?

Also during that night I couldn't help sneaking over to CB's to catch "Sorcerer", who I was told were a fun stoner metal band, and it had been a long time since I'd seen a good stoner metal band, and they were a lot of fun. They played in complete darkness as you can see (or not see) here, and I'm not sure but they may have only played covers that night. I'm not sure if this song is a cover, but I think it is. If anybody can tell me one way or another please do.

AE Bridger at Night Music

2009-07-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

AE Bridger returned to scene in grand form after a few months absence to concentrate on school and whatnot. Armed with a new set of songs he took to the job of hosting this months Night Music at the Ship with two full drum sets, a full time keyboardist, and the usual vast array of effects pedals and battery of guitar pyrotechnics. I took a bunch of videos but tragically two of my favorites (one of which was 19 minutes! and the other was the only video where I start taking the video from the audience perspective and end up filming the band from behind the keyboards I was jamming on) were destroyed by my computer (which an asshole to me constantly). But never fear here are three fresh AE Bridger videos of a shorter variety from that same show.
Nothing made me happier this week then watching AE play "Smelly Tongues" by my heroes The Residents-

This one ends with an impressive percussion jam.

And here are two swell new tunes I medley'd together

New CD Reviews in The Scope + Fiery Furnaces and Swords

2009-07-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

Well the new issue is out and they ran a couple of my CD Reviews this week. But I have a couple of other ones I did for them that they never ran so I figure I'd stick em' up here. In other Scope related news, Elling got me to conduct an interview with Banjo picker and worldly music collaborator Jayme Stone, he's playing in Bowring Park on Saturday as part of the Wreckhouse International Jazz and Blues Festival. Everyone should go check him out, you can read the interview here. Anyway, here are some reviews:
The Dead Weather and Precious Fathers ran in the Scope and Fiery Furna ces and Swords did not.

The Dead Weather
Horehound
The debut album of Jack White's new supergroup/side project The Dead Weather is a bit of a mixed bag. Featuring members of The Kills, The Raconteurs and Queens of the Stone Age. Jack White's duties take an uncharacteristic step away from the spotlight by (mostly) sticking with the drums while backing up singer Alison Mosshart, although he is the producer and co-writes 7 of the songs so the focus is never completely away from him. There is plenty of swagger and bravado soaked into this album and if nothing else Jack White as a producer is a master of getting guitars to sound wickedly bestial, but here the riffs miss just as often as they hit. The greasy high plains groove of "60 feet tall" and the oppressive grind of "New Pony" attack the body in just the right way while Rote rockers like "Treat me like your Mother" and "I Cut Like a Buffalo" come across as an uncomfortable fit of Rage against the Machine and Black Mountain. Bottom line, The high points of this album compare favorably to most of White Stripes catalog but the low points reek of "disposable side project"

Precious Fathers
Alluvial Fan
Vancouver based instrumental band Precious Fathers' new album "Alluvial Fan" is a dense soup of cavernous guitars, grandiose swells and dramatic dynamics, but it never strays too far from a warm emotional center. The band constructs it's songs from slow tidal crescendos and wide screen cinema-scope releases, always with a steady driving pulse behind it moving it forward. While the album is decidedly on the introspective and meditative side of the Tortoise/Do Make Say Think canon of epic post-rock, the album never feels morose or overly melancholic. It's hard to describe the sound without using the word "cinematic" or imagining wide open vistas while you listen to it, the songs go for gradual understated shifts as opposed to sudden shocks and if there is a major problem with the record it's that it lacks the immediacy and the show-stopping technical showiness to grip the listener fully on the first listen. This album takes time to fully digest and reveal itself but if you're the patient type of listener then it's well worth the effort.

The Fiery Furnaces
I'm Going Away
After the success of 2004's "Blueberry Boat", a strange, and catchy pop opus that won over the hearts of hipsters and music geeks all over, The Fiery Furnaces have spent the last 5 years steadily releasing albums that perversely try to alienate themselves from their audience. Although I admired their willingness to experiment wildly and to keep challenging their fan base's expectations, I just couldn't actually find much to enjoy in the albums. "I'm Going Away" is an excellent return to form. In this album the songs come first and formost and the band hasn't sounded as natural and happy in ages. While there is plenty of weirdness and progressive flourishes present, this time none of it comes across as a hollow gimmick. Matthew Friedberger's trademark excessive wordplay is thankfully reigned (a bit) and the songs are allowed to have proper Hooks(!). The Friedberger sibling have finally stopped being so concerned with the avant-garde and made an album that is actually charming and enjoyable from start to finish.

Swords
album: [Monument of] Swords
This is the type of music I like to listen to on headphones while walking around a Wal~Mart the day before Mothers day or while waiting in outpatients at St Claires for five hours. The kind of music that expresses and transposes your epic existential disgust for societies most dehumanizing institutions while it hypnotizes you in it's oppressive waves of panoramic, Teutonic brutality and incomprehensible screaming about mythological warriors. This is metal but it's not very easy to headbang to. The riffs are slooooow and relentlessly churning in a thick gravy of dissonance with only brief clean strummed respites to break it up. [Monument of] SWORDS gets the formula of epic discontent just right for those days you'd sooner push thumbtacks into your skull then go to Services Canada.

Another weekend at Holdsworth court = Mopey, Local Tough, Pathological Lovers, Mudflowers, Cyanides, Justin Guzzwell

2009-07-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

Howdy!
This weekend I was just itching to test out the new camera further and during this weekend pretty much all my favorite bands were playing simultaneously. I had to make some hard decisions and try to make the best of everything. I took a shitload of videos. I pretty much did nothing else yesterday except edit and upload 9(!) new videos for you all to enjoy.

First of all I was out at CBTG's on Friday and got a couple of good Local Tough videos, including this one which I think is my new favorite live video ever, just for visceral shirtless carnage and audience participation.

They also played some new material which is kinda rare for them.

But it was on Friday night that I went totally OCD on videographing everything that I could. I decided to go to Mopey Mumble Mouses CD release party at Distortion. There I got to see Justin Guzzwell's new band "Justin Guzzwell and the Crooks" and they were really good, the edition of Brad Morgan on bass made Justin's intense ivory punishing live show 10 times more palatable. Justin has an unique sense of structure to his progressions and an interesting sense of dynamics. Here's one of my favorite songs of his "Mornings that Shake Me"

and this spirited one: "Dependable"

I then snuck across the deck to catch The Mudflowers at CBTG's, but unfortunately only caught the last two songs. They remain on the top of my list of bands to properly give blog treatment to. In this video they are playing their sweat covered encore to a packed CB's crowd at the end of their second full set that day (they also played an all ages show early that day). It's a pretty good Joy Division cover but I would've preferred to film one of their originals. I will keep my eye out for them in the meantime.

Meanwhile back at Distortion my friend Jordan Young was doing his scronky Cyanides thing that he does, so I caught him on digital film doing a short new one called "Sacrificial Seal"

I then snuck back into CB's and caught The Pathological Lovers doing probably the best version of Bonnie Tyler's only classic "Total Eclipse of The Heart". The audience was hella into it as you can hear. My only issue was with this giant motionless jerk guy in the front row whose head was directly in the way of my view of Jody Richardson. I had to extend my arm way out to the side to get Jody in the frame at all, so the video is kinda shaky (I tried correcting it much as I could). Being an overly tall guy who likes to get at the front of the audience myself, it may seem like I am being a hypocrite swearing at this other tall guy, but this dude was clearly not enjoying himself and was just standing there without moving or doing anything besides drinking and blocking everyones view. I wanted to chuck something at his head so badly!

Then of course I went back to Distortion and watched Mopey Mumble Mouse perform for the first and last time as a 7 piece band as they tore through songs from their new album "I Am Happy Being Nothing". I was quite the show and it was their third full set that day, Yet there was no fatigue showing at all and this set was in fact much more andrenilized then their second set I watched early that evening. Here is the Theatrical Ballad "Compassion Comes From The Barrel of a Gun"

and here is a service industry themed hardcore stomper of their's "Food Fair" (I'm sorry but the audio for this one turned out kinda crap)

Anyway, fun times to be had for all who look for it.

Friday Night at Holdsworth Court with a New Camera! Woo!

2009-06-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

Well, as evidence bellow this post shows I was able to somewhat fix Michelle's camera (sorta) and take few more videos with it. But this week Michelle surprised me with a brand spanking new Canon Powershot SX10!, it is her camera technically but we are both under the assumption that I might never give it back. So on Friday night I went out to test what it can do. I was down at the newly renovated Levee to watch some of my favorite band and film them, and the SX10 did such a better job then the old A430 I can't get over it.

Anyway, even though I only put up videos of them just a little while ago, here's Colonel Craze and the Hunch doing what's possibly my favorite song of their's "My Only Hope is a Wet Dream" as shot through the new camera, Check out the extreme close-ups it can do:

The blurry dream sequence effect is something I added because I was bored and I wanted it to look like the lens had fogged up from the heat, because it was Goddamn hot in there. I finished mastering their new album the other day, and it is the best thing you will ever hear...Period.. Camp outside Fred's records until the day they release it. It is that good.

Next up was SURGEON who I covered here a few months ago, if anybody can remember back that far. I've been looking forward to filming them again with my improved technology, since they are such a technological band (they have 2 E-bows!!). They are a super tight-package of epic noodle rockers. I heard someone criticize them as "like video game music.." but I don't think that shouldn't be a deterrent, their songs have epic adventures and dynamic action like a classic Mega-Man game. I don't know the names of these wordless songs, but here are two of their tracks:

Apologies
When Kill Popoff came on I figured I'd try to record their set without using my (girlfriend's) Edirol for sound and this proved to be ill advised as the new camera's microphones are way too sensitive and the end product was a jarring mass of buzzed out distortion. So unfortunately I can't use any of the Kill Popoff videos. I then went next door to check out The Kremlin who I haven't seen in ages, as a card carrying member of the KDPC (Kremlin Dance Party of Canada) it is a sin and a shame that I haven't blogged about them yet. But when I got there it was around 2:40am and it was disgustingly sweaty in there, my arms were tired, the sound through the PA system was just awful, The band was on the dangerous side of intoxicated and Comrade Lenin's guitar seemed to explode and disentigrate after a couple of songs. As one of my favorite local bands of all time it would've been a diservice to put up those videos. It occurred to me that The Kremlin are a band that already have a sizeable amount of good quality official music videos, so within the next couple of days I will give them a proper throwing-stones write up here. Anyway, I'm off. Talk to you all soon.

Night Music at The Ship with McKudo

2009-06-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

Didn't mean to take this long put this up but here it is. When I first had the idea to start a blog I wanted to make a blog where I would share my many bootlegs of Night Music shows and talk about the local bands in them. I'd have to talk to Craig Squires about that but I still might do that one of these days. In the mean time I'm gonna try to take some videos every month of the Night Music jams. Last week McKudo hosted the night, they had added Josh Ward on six string bass to the original group of Adam Staple on drums and random things, Sean Panting on left handed guitar and Rob Power on keyboards and percussion. It was a super fun show. They did improvisations to washing machine and moose call instructional tapes. Here is a video of the moose call one:

They also did the best version of Led Zeppelins "Black Dog" I've ever heard and I'm still kicking myself in the ass because I didn't get the camera ready in time to catch it. I caught the two open Jams this time though. Here is the first one (Michelle took the video) with me playing the upside-down left handed guitar (all my licks came out inverted!) Craig Squires on Saxophone, Rob Power on keyboards (that's a Keyboard Bass you're hearing here), Debra Jackman on crazy vocalizations and CBC radio's Mack Furlong on drums.

The next jam is also very long but it really goes to interesting places I think. This Jam features Alison Corbett on Violin, all of McKudo in their regular roles, and Romano Di Nillo playing a fancy percussion box. This jam gets really trance-y and interesting if you let yourself get into

Mopey, Novaks and Plaskett reviews

2009-06-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

I got some more album reviews published in todays issue of The Scope. Instead of just hyperlinking them like last time, I'll just paste them up here for your reading convenience.

Mopey Mumble-Mouse
I Am Happy Being Nothing
(Independent)
Righteous local weirdos Mopey Mumble Mouse hot off the heels of their 2nd RPM challenge album, release their new full length disc I Am Happy Being Nothing. The album plays like a concept album with all songs—from the WGB cover “Babylon Mall” on down—dealing with Mopey’s rabid contempt for big box stores, blatant commercial capitalism and the de-humanizing industrial trappings of modern day life. The album is by far the most energetic, brutal and confrontational release from Mopey yet. Songs like “Young Professional” and “Food Fair” come at you like a bucket of snarling, frothing werewolves in a swirling centrifuge. The album is a party bag of hardcore punk, experimental pop noise, and melodramatic cabaret that Curtis Kilfoy’s impassioned vocals and the bands endless enthusiasm sell every second of.

Stream or download the album from here!

The Novaks
Things Fall Apart
(Sonic Records)
In the four years since The Novaks last album they’ve had to re-invent themselves as a power trio. As a result Things Fall Apart is much more riff oriented, and the band has moved to a more hard hitting classic rock sound which is more early AC/DC or T-Rex than The Heartbreakers. The change does them good, Mick Davis’ swaggering, woozy howl is better served in a boogie-rich, amped up environment then in the more jangly sounds of their earlier material. I got really hooked into picking apart his vocal theatrics—the way he extends the “staaaaaaaarr-aahh” in “Billy The Kid” is borderline ridiculous (but awesome) and the way he twists and contorts “truuu-uuuu-uth” in “Sometimes I Gotta Go Down” is truly perverted. The big glammed out hooks dig in deeper the more you listen to them and the beats do their job getting your fists pumpin’.

J o el Plaskett
Three
(MapleMusic)
This is an odd day and age to be releasing triple albums. This is a day and age of iPods permanently set to random play, careers made on a single shared mp3 download and world tours to support 4 song ep's. Who has the patience and enough ability to concentrate nowadays to listen to close to 2 hours of mid-tempo, mostly acoustic folk pop? Not me really, but I did. Joel Plaskett decided to go the way of modern day Prince and release his triple disc, numerology obsessed "Three". On it are a good few very enjoyable tracks with sparse arrangements, tasteful acoustic flourishes and intimate vocal harmonies, but as with all projects like this where the main selling point seems to be showing off the artists great prolificness; the bloat gets in the way and chokes the listener with a profundity of half baked, middling ideas. With stronger editing Joel could've sliced the album down to one enjoyable single disc instead of trying the listeners patience with an extra 14 or so uninspiring songs about sunshine or the road. Sadly Plaskett couldn't pull a "69 Love Songs" out of his ass, so do what most people will do and find the 8 or 9 songs that move you the most and keep the rest in the recycle bin.

New Errand Boy Videos.

2009-06-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

Brian Williams of The Seattle Study directed two videos for local laptop genius Errand Boy and I think they are probably the best looking locally produced videos I've seen in a long while. They are simple visual ideas but are just so nicely realized, and no other local artist makes music better suited for lush video treatments then Errand Boy.

Errand Boy actually has a lot of good videos, but the rest rely on manipulation of old stock footage and found public domain clips. I have nothing against this approach, I just wanted to display the excellent photography done in the two above videos first. Of his other videos this is my favorite, for the song "Grindcore She Wrote" it was made to be projected behind the band during live shows but works on it's own just as well.

Thanks to The Product of Newfoundland blog for alerting me to these.

BANDANNA-BAND-BANDANNA-LAND!!

2009-06-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

Don't ask because you will only be disappointed.

SUPERGOD!!! ~ a man pees a hole through his pants

2009-06-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

Hey folks
I got inspired today and decided to make another SUPERGOD!! video. this one is for the song "a man pees a hole through his pants" off of the "Rabid Peripheral Mermaid" RPM album (available for free download here). Unfortunately while I was filming this video the camera suffered an accident and was rendered crap. So it looks like there won't be anymore new videos for awhile, at least until the gods of surprise unemployment money look well upon me and I can afford to buy Michelle another camera (hopefully a better one). Sad sad times. Anyway, here is the video, it gets pretty trippy at the end when I start playing with psychedelic liquid effects and bring out the blood ball. Tell me if this is watchable or not.
Cheers.

I'm writing CD Reviews for The Scope now

2009-06-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

They just appeared in this weeks issue. I covered the new Map To Temenos album "O! Sweet Guillotine" and Halifax gypsy jazz band Gypsophilia's album "SA-BA-DA-OW!". Check em out if you have the time.

What albums should I review next? anybody got any suggestions?

am/fm dreams and Ye-Yeti

2009-06-02T13:43:00.000-07:00

After a year of me nagging them to start playing shows in St. John's, the mythological creatures from Mount Pearl emerged from from their sarcophagus to play a set at The Ship (opening for The Pathological Lovers and Ye-Yeti). am/fm dreams for those of you who are not in the know; are a very prolific band from out in Mount Pearl who drew a lot of peoples attention last year with a really stellar entry in the RPM Challenge and kept everyones interest by releasing three other albums (including this years RPM challenge entry "The Plaid Album") since then. It was a really solid set, especially good considering it was pretty much their second live show ever. It was a real treat to finally catch them, although as a bit of criticism they didn't play my two favorite songs of theirs "I wish I never met you" and "Always The Follower", but I guess that's the problem when you release six albums before your first show, just which of the songs do you play? They need to chill out a bit as well and bounce around a bit more. Bouncing is important.
Here is a rocker of theirs called "Paper Tiger"

and here is their closer "Spaceship". Notice in this video how I capture the four other people (the video quality unfortunately only lets me pick out two of them though) in my vicinity who were also filming this rare beast for their own blogs or facebooks.

Also that night, I caught Ye-Yeti for the first time, who don't play that many shows in town for the good reason of being too young to legally be in a bar without their parents written permission. Now I was very skeptical of them ever since they made the cover of the Scope's "Hot New Music" issue awhile back. "What?! they're like 15 years old and have only played like two shows! why the hell are they on the cover of the scope (and not me)?" is what I thought. I was prepared to to take that bitter cynical attitude with me through their set but Goddammit! they have matching fez's with "Ye-Yeti" written on them! how can I stay mad at that? So how was their music? you ask. well it was about 95% exuberance and about 5% ability, which honestly, is just about all I'm looking for in a highschool band. I can't say my brain exploded or anything but they certainly had energy and got the people moving. Also they had probably the most interesting musical tastes of any teenage band that I've seen in ages and ages. I started taking a couple of videos but they progressively got more and more naked as the show went on and I suddenly became more and more aware that I am a 30 year old man standing around attentively taking videos of half naked hairless teenage boys gyrating in a club, and I felt very very uncomfortable all of a sudden. Not that there's anything wrong with taking videos of unknowing, half-naked children, I just have a public image I have to keep up you know. Here is a video I took, I don't know what the name of the song is (edit: it is called "Ammit"), but here it is anyway. Cheers.

Colonel Craze and Mark Bragg

2009-06-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

I try not to be this tardy when putting up videos. but to today I finally got around to putting the finishing touches on a pile of footage I took on the weekend before last. Since I got hold of my girlfriends fancy Edirol recording devise I've been thinking it might be nice to go back and record some of the bands I've previously posted about. Colonel Craze and The Hunch are pretty much my favorite band going right now. The weekend before last they played a big show opening for Mark Bragg and the Butchers at the Rockhouse. The show was deadly. The Rockhouse has a tendency to sound like a cafeteria if there isn't a packed crowd but Colonel Craze make it work.
Here's "Hard Hat Opportunity" from that show:

And here's the very politically correct song "Nice Day For A Rape" (Don't worry I'm pretty sure Andrew Waterman probably doesn't support or promote Rape directly)

Then it was Mark Bragg and his latest incarnation of The Butchers. Now, I've always been a bit take-him-or-leave-him with regard to Mark Bragg in the past, I've generally liked him, but found his live shows kinda ungainly and all over the place. But this new formation of the band has been stripped down to a tight little four piece (including Bragg) of young guys who don't overcrowd Mark's loquacious compositions with needless baggage. Brad Power was channeling some awesome Marc Ribot tones and I don't think I've ever seen him play more fluidly, and Victor was playing Trombone!!! unfortunately my camera batteries died before I could capture Vic on the horn. But here's "Plans For The Boys" for your viewing pleasure.

Sound Symposium Presents: Justin Haynes, Ryan Driver, Jean Martin, Bill Brennan

2009-05-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

Last night I caught a really fun concert being put on by the Sound symposium organization. It featured Justin Haynes (who is the most skilled ukulele player I have ever seen), Bill Brennan on melodica, Jean Martin on suitcase with brushes and show stopper Ryan Driver playing a steel street sweeper bristle

with a box and a contact mic as a bass. This was truly something, the fact that he could articulate the notes so well with such a tiny piece of steel and the fact he could make it sound so much like a stand-up bass was crazy. But in advantage to just mimicking an acoustic bass sound he could get all the crazy buzzed out farty noises you'd expect from a contact mic'ed steel sprig. Funtimes. The set started with just the three piece of Justin, Ryan and Jean.

And in the second sert Bill Brennan joined in.

The Sound Symposium is one of the most interesting events this city has. To find out more about it go to soundsymposium.com

Kill Popoff

2009-05-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

Thursday night I was itching to go out so I went to watch my friend (and drummer's) band Kill Popoff play down at CBTG's. They were kinda annoyed about having to play last and when their time did come they got experimental with the stage set up and ended up putting the drums on the floor in front of the stage facing the stage. Weirdly enough it seemed to work really well! it gave the band more room to thrash around, bands always play better when you can look the drummer in the eye, the drums certainly didn't get buried in the mix this time and it gave me an interesting angle to film them. It was a really good set, Devon Milley is a riff machine. I'm the only guitarist in my band but I'm the shittiest guitarist of the three of us. Of course it's no fun to play in a band with musicians who aren't better then you. Anyway, here are my two favorite Kill Popoff songs, this time you will notice no more lo-fi 8 bit crap audio, but new fancy schmancy sound provided by my new toy Edirol sound recorder thingy. I moving up in the world of videographing.

My weekend with some bands

2009-05-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well I was feeling better this weekend having just gotten over a vicious flu (not swine apparently). I decided to break my reclusive streak and take in some tunes. I saw that The Kettle Black was back in town and my head was still a flutter with some vivid memories I have of seeing his set from two years ago, I decided to go down with my (girlfriends) camera and with a new portable Edirol sound recording gadget (also my girlfriends) I was eager to try out. So as a result the videos I took have much improved sound (after I took the time to sync it up to the video) but the picture quality remains the same brutal pixelated mess it has always been.
The Kettle Black is without a doubt the most intense solo performer I've ever come across. He is a one man band who fills the stage with dozens of fancy toys and fills venues with blistering cascades of pure pink noise.

There was a large group of us who went to see him at Distortion on Friday but he was unfortunately put at the end of a six band bill with some badly miss-matched acts and some just plain bad acts that I won't get into. Since he has so much gear and theatrical props involved in his set and since he has no one else to help him set up The Kettle Black didn't get to start his set until 3:15AM! this is after the steel gate is locked and nobody else can get into the bar. So there was just a very sparse crowd of enthusiasts left in the room cheering him on, but did he let this this get him down? hell no! he played one of the most ferocious sets I've seen in a long damn while.

I decided to come check out his set the next day at The Ship, this time opening for "The Gramercy Riffs" and "The Pathological Lovers". The hipster quota of the bar was way off the charts, I spent the night counting Keffiyeh scarves (only four so it wasn't so bad) and the faces of really uninterested people in horrible eyewear. This wasn't really the right crowd for The Kettle Black, but it was stil a good set.
I hadn't really had a chance to check out the much hyped "Gramercy Riffs" before Saturday and by the tight packed throng of people gathered by the stage while they played it was pretty clear who the crowd had come for. So did The Gramercy Riffs live up to the hype?? no not really.. I really can't give them a ringing endorsement, but this isn't to say they were terrible. In comparison to the rest of The Nordic Beat, Mercy the Sexton, Texas Chainsaw pool of bands the Riffs have derived from, The Riffs are welcome breath of tolerableness. I actually really liked most of the songs Mara sings lead on and Lee Hanlon isn't without his charm. While there were 3 or 4 songs in their set I can declare as pretty darn good, the rest of the material suffered from some supremely uninteresting lyrics and tempos that plod along way too slow for a band like this. ughh.. I'm being a bitch on my blog and I should stop before I go to far. Here is a new song of their's I filmed called "Hold my Hand" and while it doesn't sound like Hootie and Blowfish or The Beatles, it does have a passing resemblance to Roy Orbison at the end with the classic break down style.

The Pathological Lovers were on next and as previously blogged, I have total chubby for Jody Richardson's voice. This was there third show in three days and they were in a very special drunken mode throughout the night. Much silliness ensued. This video had to be cut short due to 10 minute limits unfortunately. Anyway, it was nice weekend despite the large leather clad man standing way too close to me while I filmed and the table full of overpriced cupcakes tempting me with their delightfully decorated frostings, even though I totally despise the charity they were going for. Look, I don't care how many monkeys you have to torture or murder, if it means my mom won't get cancer go for it. Kill as many monkeys as you want.

Patrick's foibles in the world of internet self-promotion

2009-05-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

Lately this blog has turned ugly and started becoming a meager self-promotional soapbox instead of the insipid scenester rag I intended it to be. I will rectify this as soon as I feel undiseased enough to go outside and actually watch shows again. This flu I've had the last week and a bit has been ridiculous. In the meantime I'm gonna shove a big pile of Internet egotism and sales pitches at you all. I seem to have a problem obsessive compulsive disorder (a fairly common one nowadays) with creating profiles on new music sharing and social networking sites. I got the Myspace, other Myspace, Reverbnation, Garageband, Ilike, CBC Radio 3, Sonicbids, CLLCT, AMP Live, Facebook, Terminus 1525, RPM Challenge not to mention Tubemogul, Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Google, Saatchi and Flickr profiles (notice not twitter, that shit is worse then BRAINAIDS). Why does a man need so many profiles? Fucked if I know, But now I gotta new one at Bandcamp.com. Bandcamp is a bit different from the other ones in that I can properly sell things there and control how it looks and is presented to the public. I have both the "Sex Lives of The Paralyzed" and "The Pervert" albums uploaded there and both can be streamed in their entirety from the website. For downloading the songs people have the choice of either download the 128 kbs mp3 files of the songs for free or paying a small fee and downloading the song or album in whatever higher quality format they prefer.
The thing I like about Bandcamp is that if anybody buys something from me there it goes directly to me and I see it instantly, not a month or two or three down the road like dealing with Amazon or shitty ol' Itunes. Dealing with those companies is a pain in the ass and it's not like they do anything to actually help promote me or sell my music. Fuck em'. So for the time being I want everybody who would like to support me to go to my Bandcamp profile and buy songs from there. They are cheaper for one, and better quality then the third party shit. Anyways, Cheers. Here's the Bandcamp widget thingy for streaming my album. have a good one. I might step outside if it's not too rainy .

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;;a &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;href&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;="http://patrickcanning.bandcamp.com/album/sex-lives-of-the-paralyzed"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Flower Printed Linen by Patrick Canning&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;lt&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

More of ME!!!

2009-04-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday this weekend, I'm motherfucking 30 Goddamn years old now. To celebrate this multiple of 10 anniversary year I played a free show with my band "Patrick Canning & The Suffering Mothers" down at CBTG's (it was also CBTG's 7th anniversary by the way). I'm not going to get into it, but there was a lot confusion and major hassles with schedules, sickness, awkward set interruptions, etc.. It was way more of a hassle then a free show should be but it was still fun. My chickiboo took a few videos of my set, this is the one with the fewest fuck ups by me. It's of a new song of mine called "Don't Be Obscene" it'll probably be on my next album as soon as I can secure a place in town to record drums for it. The song is missing the intro and my voice is shot and it also ends pretty abruptly but it is a new favorite of mine to play. So enjoy

I need to get some more shows on the go, if anyone wants to book them for me go right on ahead. At this point in my life I'm willing to sacrifice all my personal responsibility to someone else. If you want to do it go to town, I'm sure most of you could run my life better then I could right now.

The Burning Hell

2009-04-20T23:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, so they are only 10% local content, but I'm still going to talk about them. "The Burning Hell" the ten piece band from Peterborough Ontario (and other places) seem to be catching a bit of that ol' zeitgeist action as they came into town for a three night stop over here at CBTG's on their cross Canada tour. The place was packed to the gills for the each of their three shows. They seem to have developed a taste or dare I say a chemical dependency for St. John's as this is their third time coming out here in the last year or so and have added local sweetheart Alison Corbett (aka Black Molly) to their roster. The Burning Hell have a ton of infectious energy and just drip charisma on stage. They were in town this time to promote their new album "Baby" (going so far as bringing Burning Hell member Jenny Omnichord's tiny newborn Otis along for the trek)

"Baby" is the album that finally got their sound right. While their previous album "Happy Birthday" had some strong material in it; the mix was weak, the tempo's lagged and it just lacked that spark of charisma and just didn't present the band very well. The new album "Baby" sounds fresh and full and the songs rollick along a zippy, poppy jaunt. Front man Mathias Kom is a master wordsmith with a masters degree who has way more good lines then a songwriter should be allowed. He has a deep droll baritone delivery that sort of instantly recalls Kurt Wagner of Lambchop with the important distinction of being tuneful, entertaining and not crap. Mathias's lyrics are spread on quite liberally with great breadth and depth of detail, but he never forgets the importance of a catchy hook or sing-a-long chorus. Occasionally, the large volume of verbiage can come across as a bit forced and drain a bit of the punch and drama from the song but with lines like "We're all line dancing in a furnace of sex and misfortune" or "So out with the adenoids and in with Ballads" in there it's an easy sin to forgive. Anyway, they are a grand mess of talents and influences and I felt compelled to take a few videos at their Saturday show. The sound and video quality came out shit, even by the already low standards of my ancient digital camera it's shit quality, but I still felt the need to document an amazing show. Even if you can't see or hear it very well.
Anyway, buy their album and go to their shows if you have the chance.

New SUPERGOD!!!! music video

2009-04-20T23:12:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh.. what to do when you're bored and unemployed with too much time on your hands? go out for a walk with your girlfriend and turn it into a experimental music video for your musical side project. That's what I did today. (as a side note, does anybody have a shitty to decent job that needs filling? I could use something like gainful employment right about now)

Cara Lee Coleman

2009-04-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Bad ass local songstress Cara Lee Coleman overcame her prolonged absence from the St John's music scene (I haven't seen her on stage in a couple of years) to put on a CD release show last Saturday at the ship with a full band to celebrate her new CD "8 Weeks". It was an really awesome show and it was excellent to see Cara Lee back at it in top form with a really solid backing band. I took a couple of videos of the event, the audio quality on the video at the bottom didn't turn out so great but I enjoy this song too much to not put it up. Hopefully this marks the start of Cara's full return to the music scene. As well, pick up "8 Weeks" if you get a chance, it's a fun and intimate collection of tunes worthy your ear canals.

The Last of the February Gems: RPM 09 finds Part 5

2009-03-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Hey, It's been a fun month of listening to hastily recorded albums while promoting my own hastily recorded album, but the fun's got to end at some point. The fact that out of 70 albums produced by (mostly) amateurs this February I found 16 or so that I can heartily endorse is quite an accomplishment really. This last set includes a couple that I concede are good but are not really up my alley in terms of my tastes, which are pretty idiosyncratic and snotty I admit. I can be totally insufferable when talking about music and tend to venomously hate many acts that most people tend to enjoy and praise. So there are a couple of albums here that I can't honestly say moved me much but they are definitely worth checking out and I can sense that an audience is out there for them, probably a much bigger audience then mine really, maybe I'm just jealous..

Vegan Porn's album "To The Animals... May We Be Forgiven?" didn't grab me much the first time I clicked their link but that was after a few hours of RPM browsing and I was probably at my limit by that point. At the RPM listening party Elling recommended I give Vegan Porn another chance and I'm glad I did. A lot of snarky fun, a lot of catchy hooks and many nice details are found on this disc. I find them sorta reminiscent of a less ephemeral Gorky's Zygotic Mynci or a more toned down Spooky Ruben, those are both terribly inaccurate comparisons but it's real late at night and my mind is drawing blank. This kinda brand of quirky indie pop is not something I'm terribly well versed in, but if you want to you can take my inability to name appropriate bands to compare them to as a sign of their desirable originality. Standout tracks for me include "Fish In Your Stew" with the singers demanding tone in the chorus of "somethings gotta die for you to live" pushing the right button for me, and the upbeat number "Your Cat's Piece of Steak". Fun catchy pop with a certain bizarrely slick lo-fi'edness to the production with cheap drum machines and close double tracked vocals and everything well balanced and well considered in the mix. It's good stuff that keeps growing on me.

St Brendan's Champions are a pretty descent acoustic indie rocker act that's well produced, well performed and reasonably engaging. The lead singer (Either Brad Madden or Chris Clarke, I don't know who does what in this duo) has a really strong voice and summons the needed enthusiasm to keep the material bouncy and streamlined. The songs are little on the generic side and stick to that form of working class indie rock that's not particularly uncommon nowadays and is something I feel woefully inadequate talking about since I usually avoid that kinda Joel Plaskett/Sam Roberts/Wilco-y plaintive singer-songwriter, acoustic rock stuff. But this is done well and when the songs avoid wordy excesses and genre manipulations and focus more on the singers voice it does really well Like in songs "Fire Ready" and "Risk Reward Girl". Anyway, They'll do well I'm sure.

Sluts on Sluts album "H elp Me With The Missiles" is a fun noise festival in league with Boris or Godflesh or Merzbow. The songs ride on muffled drum thrashings in a fog of toasted distortion and static with moody old keyboards and buzzed out screams drifting in out. Creepy samples of amateur porn, shitty talk show hosts, 911 calls and crying babies float on top of the grisly buzzed out audio gravy like white bits of congealed fat. The sound is thick and intimidating but the blasts come and go quickly and the album retains a slightly lighter air that entertains more then it punishes. It's a brisk but very worthwhile audio buzz spectacle I recommend.

Local Blogger and CHMR radio host Dashiell Brown put out an album (called "Of a Time") of experimental electronic and keyboard music under the name Circuit Tree for the RPM. He whined at me to review it and I held off reviewing it mostly out of spite (I don't take no Damn Requests!). But it's actually pretty descent, there is some very nice use of textures and the songs flow in dreamy surreal ways. It reminds me of some vintage Family Fodder releases and classic Rhino Records weirdness. Dashiell doesn't really sing above a whisper throughout the album but his voice is mostly inoffensive and gentle. The Lyrics are simple confessionals and are delivered in a sincere way, but they are pretty weak and don't really inspire or transport the listener anywhere as interesting as the sounds do. The soundscapes do better when they aren't beat driven, the canned drum sounds mixed with spacey soundscapes in "Man-made Trash Floating in Orbit" comes across like X-Files soundtrack reject. But the album is mostly tasteful and has a certain understated charm to it.

A few Notable Albums I'm not going to do a full review of:

Philosophy Of Bees - "Good Luck in Italy": Very nice little album of piano instrumentals. I fell asleep to it when I gave it a listen (It was 4 am). But it's very pleasant and very nice.

Jordan Young - "Unspoken Rules and Distance": I sing on the second half of "Bob Ross Painting" that's all you really have to listen to there. (burn!)
Les ENFANTS TERRIBLES - "'B' is for Bedlam": whole album recorded in the last 12 hours of February. Fun, kinda horrible, but fun.

Pat c h - "dot matrix with stereo sound": They didn't upload the album and it's not for sale anywhere but I've heard a couple of tracks from it and they are awesome! If anyone finds a copy, make me a copy of it. (edit: nevermind here it is! I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet but it is on my shortlist)

Ditto for Black Molly I have only heard a couple of tracks off her new album she didn't upload it and now she's gallivanting around the Country with the Burning Hell. What a Punk!

Anyway, That it for me and the RPM this year. Until the next one it's business as usual, I gotta make some money. Cheers.

February Gems: RPM 09 finds Part 4

2009-03-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

I continue my hand picking of the bountiful 2009 St. John's RPM harvest with "Varelse or Raman?" by Bobby Young, a total unknown to me here in town. Apparently the music was inspired by the classic young adult sci-fi novel "Enders Game" but I haven't examined the lyrics closely enough to comment on that, plus I haven't read Enders Game in 15 years and ain't nobody paying me to do research for these reviews so I'll leave it up to you the reader to tell what relates to what and I'll get back to talking about what this album sounds like. "Varelse or Raman?" is a gentle loop based collection of mostly acoustic based instrumentals that move and change through the building up of layers and layers of more loops and their eventual release. I get a lo-fi Beirut meets Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells kinda vibe from it thats very pleasant and engaging for the casual listener. Choirs of hushed voices sneak up on you while layers of strummed ukulele and accordion breath in and out in sunny summer day atmospheres. It's a refreshing and untaxing listening experience that also rewards close scrutiny if your feeling in the mood for that.

The 6 Fort Waldegrave (a musical collective that lives at 6 Fort Waldegrave street I assume) have the best concept out of any concept album I've heard in this years RPM. On their RPM album "Long Night on Camp Blood" All the songs are directly inspired by the classic slasher movie "Friday the 13th" some songs are direct references to scenes from the movie and some are meant to by played over certain scenes as a sort of alternative soundtrack. Written and recorded in about two weeks it has the trademark shambolic off the cuff feeling you would normally associate with RPM participates, but this one is recorded well and just oozes good times and the sounds of a group of friends having a blast making ridiculous songs all off the cuff. I especially like the stand out rocker "Kevin Bacon Gets an Arrow Through his Neck" and slightly atonal choir of album closer "Chick Gets an Axe In The Face", They have a knack for song titles that SUPERGOD! appreciates.

Pilot to Bombardier is quite a tasty but subdued offering from Byran Power of the Subtitles fame. The delicate sparse arrangements are very reminiscent of Smog or Red House Painters with the added close double tracked vocals sort of like Elliot Smith or Sam Beam. His voice is warm and understated and gives off a easy going but world weary charm. The production is very delicate and nuanced, highlighting the quiet mood of each song perfectly. I especially like the nod to the theme of "Chariots of Fire" in the vibraphone solo in "Out of Tune" with it's chorus of "I spent hours matching your Harmony, Yet it was all out of tune". This maybe my favorite of the rpm albums I've heard so far just for it's consistency and the perfection in establishing a mood. It is a rich offering that qualifies itself as a perfect Sunday evening disc, it's like a warm blanket and a cup of chai tea on a cold day. That's the most womanly sentence I've ever written, just forget I said that. It's a good album.

Jack Betty is the latest stage name of Boobie Browne or Darren Browne (another bloody Subtitler) as he is actually named. Under Jack Betty Darren has put out "Soundtrack for a Western" which is not a very creative album title, but regardless is a fine lo-fi collection of mostly instrumentals (I'll do him a favor and not bring up the quality his spanish singing on "Mamacita") all of a blue grass or americana variety. The songs are fairly simple but still carry some of that Ennio Moricone epic scope and dusty dessert atmosphere. Darren or Jack or whatever you wanna call him carries some fine picking chops in them hands and while the recordings are unpolished and leave clear traces of room and surroundings they were recorded, this does nothing to distract from the fine playing present on the album and in fact greatly helps capture the personalities of the players give the disc a homey and very human feeling to it (whatever that means). Anyway, it's a fine picking affair to be had.

February Gems: RPM 09 finds Part 3

2009-03-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

Mopey Mumble Mouse are local favorites of mine and RPM veterans. This year they came out with there latest 37 minute weirdness odyssey "The Wrath of Least Persistence" and it's by far their best album yet. The tracks alternate between extended jam outs to short bouts of apocalyptica. All the members take over on songwriting and frontman responsibilities so it's more of a mixed bag then last years, at the same time they come across as more of an actual band in this years album with Steve Ailward's drumming totally replacing all traces of drum machine. The bands gleeful shambolicness is well presented and the voices are much better mixed this time. Each member has at least one classic track on this album; Curtis Kilfoy's vocal performance on "Forever and Ever, Amen" is exemplary and cathartic and Tom Davis gets his tender piano ballad "Grey Afternoon" that really delivers the Syd Barrett fractured pop sensibility and is the best showcase I've heard yet for Tom's fragile tragic voice. Bart Peirson (who graces one of the funniest back cover photos I've seen in a long time) gets the rock classic we all knew he was capable of in "Vicious Circle" which drips in classic Elevator to Hell/Sabbath riffage and thunder. The Album ends in glorious cascades of spastic audio fuckery in "Hey. Kids." that satisfies in many ways. Good stuff.

Justin Guzzwell is a piano rocker from out Gander way that I'm familiar with through all my strange experiences with Gander musicians. Justin is one of the most intense performers I've ever seen with just an electric piano and drummer. Sometimes the intensity is too much for the little clubs he plays at, but it's just perfect for the RPM challenge. His album "Crooked Roots" is a dynamic avant pop piano stomper that showcases a stylistic vareity that I found a bit absent from his live show. The Creative side of Guzzwell is well on display in songs like the proggy "Mornings that Shake Me" the groovy trip hop of "Transparent Profile" and plan trippy "The Empty Quarter" and his high energy ivory punisher "Georgetown Express". Pop hooks abound in the tracks "Bossman" and "Dependable" and album closer "Drink Tank" is the proper dosage of reighteous bludgeoning a body needs. The Mastering is unfortunately a little fuzzy and muffled on my copy of the CD (it is all done in a month, somethings can't be helped especially when it's your first album) but the mixing is actually quite full and sometimes the buzzy mastering benefits the rawness of Guzzwell's vocals and piano stabs. A very interesting and hypnotic little disc.

Local indie rockers The Troubletones took February to craft their reverb drenched second full length album "Run, Play, Mate". If you make the effort to look past that hideous album cover you should appreciate it's classic fun 60's garage pop feel, what with the handclaps, tamborines, catchy guitar hooks and very liberal use of cavernous reverb applied throughout. It rare to see a rpm album nail the Phil Spector wall of sound aesthetic as well as these guys. Although their band bio seems to be written from the embarrassingly overblown school of Patrick Molloy bios. I like the simple sensibility of their pop hooks and they know how to be grandiose without being pompous and showy. Anyway, I should try to make an effort to see them live next time they do a show.

Jody Richardson

2009-03-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

I've been falling behind on my crappy video coverage of "the downtown scene" here is a video I took last Friday of local rock legend Jody Richardson playing a mellow tremolo drenched set with a jazzy horn section.

I love Jody's voice. And I want to steal that guitar.

February Gems: RPM 09 finds Part 2

2009-03-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

Here is part 2 of my series of reviews of outstanding RPM releases that aren't mine. Some of my favorite artists that I know have their album finished (Black Molly, Mopey Mumble Mouse, Justin Guzzwell etc..) still haven't gotten around to uploading it to the Jukebox so I will have to wait until they do before I can write my unsolicited reviews. In the meantime here are some people I can talk about, a couple of them I haven't heard of until today. Click the album covers to here their albums.

Errand Boy the main recording project of Bryan Melanson, is an act getting a good bit of a following in St John's and beyond for his ingenious and stunning recorded work such as last self titled full length album "Errand Boy" (highly recommended). This year he completed a rpm album that changes up the formula a bit, more organic and less sample driven then his previous indie electronica. The textures are rich as always and the songs carefully crafted and structured with more emphasis on atmospherics and meditative spaces. It opens with the quite grand "Ghostride The Relationship" and the songs song flow into each quite naturally throughout. If anything is an issue it's that it flows a bit too smoothly, while the mood pieces are quite rich and tasty there could be a few more distractions and auditory hurdles thrown in throughout to keep the listener from drifting off completely. Still quite a rich audio banquet for a months work.

A familiar face on the downtown scene; solo 12 string instrumentalist Dan Ficken took this February to record his first album "From Tanks to Tractors". It is a nice meditative outing that showcases Dan's lush and nuanced playing, and it also showcases something most people familiar with Dan Fickens work wouldn't expect; that is Dan's singing. I don't think Dan is that used to it either, but his voice is soft and friendly enough that it works. I'm listening to it here at work (I'm also writing this when I should be working, but what odds) and this is an ideal relaxation and ignoring-the-disgusting-office-work-piling-up-and-destroying-your-precious-youth-before-you-ever-really-got-to-enjoy-it disc.

Philippa Gun looks kinda familiar but I'm pretty sure I've never heard or met her before. But her album has some sweet arrangements and she is blessed with quite a nice voice. Her songs are gentle and pastoral in the vein of a more sedated Feist, but her voice doesn't annoy me as much as Feist's does. She does get a bit overly precious with her delivery and lyrics at times but rarely over the line that makes me want to cast her out to the disposal bin with all the Chantal Kreviazuk CD's (ocassionally her voice takes on that kind adult contemporary sheen and that's deffinitely something she should steer clear of if she can help it).

Ryan Taylor is another artist I've never heard of until I randomly clicked his link on the RPM website. Apparently an ex patriot St. John'ser currently in the Alberta way. I gotta say I'm impressed with his album "Transnational Fidelity" (I'm not so impressed with it's title). Being in a familiar category of "one man band recording studio" the arrangements are rich luscious things with tender and vivid guitar work abounding. The album isn't 100% consistent throughout, Ryan's voice being a bit of a bone of contention here and there drifting into whiny white boy singer-songwriter territory, but he more then makes up for this in shear production creativity and musicianship. A nice surprise find.

February Gems: RPM 09 finds Part 1

2009-03-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Well it's March 12th and we're finally able to browse the RPM website to listen to what everyone else in town made over the exceptionally short month of February. This was a record year for the RPM challenge with over a hundred albums (I think, I haven't checked) made in St. John's alone (mine included). So I've been spending a bit of time here and there listening to what's been posted up so far and checking out how the locals fared. And I've found that there have been some damn exceptional participants this year. Lets start with the one I'm listening to now:

Steve Haley's "Two Steps in the Dark". It took me awhile to realize this Steve Haley is same one from local Indie Rockers The Human Soundtrack. To be honest I could never really get into The Human Soundtrack, they had a couple good tunes but something about their delivery always grated me a bit. I have to say I friggin' love "Two Steps in the Dark" this style of dark, down tempo folk is a much better fit for Steve's voice. The songs are lonesome as all hell and are delicately and smartly arranged with subtly roomy acoustic ambiance. The songs ebb and flow with an easy going grace that heightens the unforced dramatic nature of the tunes. Ack! I'm getting all pitchforky here. just give it a listen.

Next let's look at some myspace friends of mine from Mount Pearl am/fm dreams' self titled album. Last years RPM album "How the Aviator sees the Rainbow" gained the obscure Mount Pearl band a good few followers here in town, and they've wasted no time at all in putting out three other full length albums (including this one) since last years RPM. All of them with the same professional quality. They're kind of a 90's nostalgia band in the best possible way, grungy-arsed guitars, big beats, scratchy but lilting vocal harmonies, tight pop hooks with an easy going attitude. The new self titled album is possibly they're strongest yet (I might need more time for it to sink in I've only listened to it once) I especially like the Danielle Poirier fronted track "I wish I never met you" for it's thick sleazy groove and change of pace. "Always the follower" makes great use of some guided by voices dynamics tricks and big arena rock chorus. As far as I know am/fm dreams only appear in record form and don't play shows outside of dismal ol' Mount Pearl. If they ever brought their act into town I know a good few people who would come flocking.

Just by randomly clicking on band names I came across "Pet Legs" a new project of Rebecca Cohoe (of The Subtitles) and Ian Murphy (of some band that I can't remember right now (edit: "Exit Party") ). Pure pop confection of the minimal 80's keyboard variety. Usually that type of thing would send me running in the opposite direction but Pet Legs gets the formula spot on in this one. Strong voices, energetic tempos, catchy hooks all over the place and its the perfect type of project to benefit from the RPM challenge situation. If any more time then a month was spent on the album it would definitely be at risk of over thinking, over producing and needlessly cluttering and compressing the arrangements that happens in 99% of the music in this genre. The arrangements are sparse but the performances are solid and mixes are really full. The biggest complaint I have would probably be the loss of momentum after the spirited first half as the last four or five songs are all in the down tempo ballad mode. But when facing down a four week deadline sequencing almost always gets the short end of the stick (does that metaphor make sense?).

There are a couple of other albums I might've talked about today but I noticed they haven't added themselves to the Jukebox yet. Get off your asses! you lazy punks! I need to scrutinize you haphazard recording efforts and pass unsolicited judgement on you.
Cheers.
More albums being reviewed soon.

Fuck the Fucking Tribute Shows for Fuck's Sake!!!

2009-03-11T15:26:00.000-07:00

Man, bloody tribute shows! this town is crazy for fucking tribute shows!First it was Leonard Cohen, which was fine and all, you know I love Leonard and he is Canadian and has played here a couple of times at least, so I didn't mind the occasional tribute to Cohen. But then it became a yearly phenomenon and got really tired. Really really tired..
Then came the Johnny Cash tribute show, and everyone knows I love Johnny, so I was like "Sure whatever, not really an original idea, but Johnny's cool".
Then a week or two later the Bob Dylan tribute came around. And Bob Dylan can go fuck himself, being the untalented egotistical hack that he is. He can go somewhere dark and smother himself in his huge sack of smarmy tuneless banality for all I care. Lord knows I wasn't going to attend that thing.
Then it was the fucking "Bruce Fucking Springsteen's fucking tribute show at the fucking Ship". Good God! Why?!. Miserable frigging Bruce Springsteen? who the frig would go and spend 10 dollars (or was it $15?) of there hard earned money to see friggin locals (many of whom are waaay better songwriters then Bruce Friggin' Springsteen) pay tribute to his phony guttural mewling and obnoxious cheese orchestra?...
Apparently many many people. The tribute ran three bloody consecutive nights and was sold out and less then a year later they did it again!
Since then we've had more Bob Dylan tributes, Fleetwood Mac tributes, Iron Maiden, Lucinda Williams, Sarah Mclaughlin (Bleech!), and now a Townes Van Zant's tribute?. Is the state of the music scene really so bad and so uninspired that we must rely on these obvious money grabs to get people out to shows? Is the St. John's audience really that wary of original acts with original material that the only way to guarantee a large attendance is to put on some showcase where some shitty top 40 icons of the past are praised up by a collection of local talent who could be doing something much better with there time?
Don't bother answering, I already know, I already know.

SUPERGOD!!! Rabid Peripheral Mermaid

2009-02-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I warned everyone when I started this that entries would be sporadic at best because I'm a busy man who has better things to do with his time then blog about any old thing everyday. Speaking about side projects (was I?) for the last 28 days I've been working on my RPM challenge album "SUPERGOD!!! Rabid Peripheral Mermaid" I have it uploaded on the RPM website ready to be streamed by you frothing at mouth public types. I think it turned out pretty good if you're familiar with my previous SUPERGOD! material (this will be my fourth SUPERGOD! release) it's pretty much in the same vein of audio fuckery and loopy shinanigans. I'm going down to Fred's Records tomorrow give them a few copies. Anyway, it was fun, I might make a couple of videos for it, and maybe in the next few weeks I'll start going to shows again and start this here videography project back up. Tell me what you think if you have any thoughts on it at all.
Cheers!

SURGEON

2009-02-02T07:11:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with up and coming epic instrumental rock force "Surgeon". The band features Steve Cowan (you can see him in action if you check out the AE Bridger entry down below), Phil Maloney, Josh Ward, Andrew Wicks. This was only their third (fourth?) show but the by's are tighter then something really obscene. They got some freaky techniques and I can tell they take it seriously. Anyway, I don't know the name of this song but it's pretty deadly, enjoy!

I took a couple of videos of them but the bass on the other one completely overpowered the microphone and there were a ton of people in the way. I might put it up anyway if I get around to it. Oh, and I'm gonna make sure the next video I take will be at a place other then CBTG's. It couldn't really be helped this weekend since I played there three times in a row. I wanted to take a video of Dan Ficken or "The Mudflowers" from Saturday night but my batteries ran out and I forgot to bring new ones. It was the first time I'd seen The Mudflowers and I have to say they are a lot of fun, I highly recommend checking them out, also they are friggin' adorable so I know my youtube views would soar. Anyway, hopefully my ears will stop ringing sometime soon and I can get some more work done.
Cheers!

More Cyril Sneer action.

2009-02-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

I received some requests from total strangers for more Cyril Sneer videos and while I was at the "Last" Downstairs Mix-up the boys got themselves so pretty I couldn't help but take some footage. They played most of the set as a two piece and Derm got right into it he did. Here we have them playing Their old chestnut "The Puncher".

Here we got Cyril as a three piece doing their song "King"

It was funtimes.

The "Last" Downstairs Mix-up

2009-01-26T21:57:00.000-08:00

I've already been criticized on Blue Kaffee for not having enough videos of different venues and having too many videos of CBTG's and the Ship. I promise I will try to rectify this in the future but already I have to continue the trend and show a couple more videos of CBTG's. I'm playing there twice in a row this week, on Thursday I'm playing the "last" Thursday night Downstairs Mix-up and on Friday I'm opening for "Surgeon" (I'll try to take some vid's of that one). I'm not holding my breath about this being the last, since there has already been about 7 or 8 "Last" Downstairs Mix-ups. Steve Abbott can be a bit of a drama queen sometimes. But when he's not being a drama queen he's a pretty goddamn excellent guitarist. Here is a video I took from the Mix-up a few weeks ago of Abbott, Steve Ailward (on Drums), Christian Gagnon (on bass) and David Caines (usually a drummer, here on especially drunk vocals) all having a vicious psychedelic jam.

Here we got Cyril Sneer playing their new classic "No Balls" at the same mix-up I think.. I gotta take some more videos of the Sneer, it's one of my most popular videos on youtube, which is strange considering Cyril Sneer have basically no web presence at all. Derm has got secret fans all over the place..

Mopey Mumble Mouse

2009-01-24T19:07:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with local crazy art-rockers Mopey Mumble Mouse yesterday at the now sketchiest bar in town Roxxy's, after "The Musician's Bar" closed down they proudly reclaimed their throne. Mopey Mumble Mouse has been around for what seems a dogs age, I remember them starting out back in 2005 at that very same bar (four normal years is at least the equivalent of 25 rock band years in St John's noise rock) and they are just as crazy as ever.
The nicest bunch of dudes, they've had a rotating roster of members with the core group of Curtis Kilfoy, Bart Pierson, and Tom Davis remaining constant. They certainly bring the intensity to their unique messages. Be sure to download some of their tunes from their website (their new christmas song "Hungry for Bricks" is particularly awesome). Here is a mega mega grainy video I I took of them last night (be sure to watch to the end for a special reward)
Cheers

Bluegrass at CBTG's (Darren Browne, Alison Corbett, John Dawe)

2009-01-24T18:45:00.000-08:00

Fine local pickers Darren Browne and John Dawe host a bluegrass jam session down at CBTG's every wednesday. Me and my main accompanist Miss Alison Corbett were playing all the local open mics last wednesday as a way of rehearsing for our "Out Of The Fog" taping the next day (long story short, It was one of the most awkward and uncomfortable experiences I've ever had, I don't care if you have it taped off I never want to see it..) anyway, me and Al stopped into CBTG's to go over the songs once more. After we finished that Alison started showing off her new found Bluegrass skills in a few impromptu jams at the bar. It was good times I must say, I shall return there at the next opportunity. I caught a video of the event, enjoy.

Victor Lewis

2009-01-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

Victor Lewis is my Hero. Victor with the help of his trusty 8 track recorder makes an album for every change of the season, and they are lush and beautiful. Really, you should go out and track them down, his gift for arrangements is quite astounding considering the limitations he works under. I've played bass for two of Victors bands "The Jim Jims" and "The Outfit" (basically the same band with a few different songs a one different member) and he's played bass (and guitar)in two of my bands "The Bookburners" and "Whatever-the-hell-I-end-up-naming-my-new-band" But I am not alone in my Victor Lewis experience Victor has been in many many bands in town, Trailercamp, Mudlarks, Hanging Horses, Cherie Pyne band, Mother Christie, The Corduroys, Jill Porter etc.. Victor's current main band KUJO is getting a good bit a attention and positive word of mouth in town, and it tickles me to death to see him out there actually rockin' out to his own material culled from his 17 or so albums. anyway, here are some videos of Victor I either took myself or shepherded from the internet. enjoy.

Here is the new one I took last weekend of KUJO at the ship. The video quality was pretty unwatchable so I got a little experimental with effects, I think it looks pretty neat.

Here is one of my favorite KUJO songs "Slumber Party" I snagged this video of them at CBTG's awhile back. check out Craig's backing vocals.

Here's Kujo at "The Rock house" playing "Silver Capsules" (I didn't take this one)

Here they are getting silly with a cover of Matt Spence's classic song (more on Matt Spence Later)"Eight Ball"

Here is The Outfit covering "Teenage Kicks". That's Victor's brother Pete on lead vocals (now in the army strangely enough). This was good times.

and I just found this one of Victor playing "I dreamt of Amy Winehouse". Thank you internet.

AE Bridger

2009-01-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

There is not a lot of prog rock in the St. John's scene... There's a lot of trad-ish bands, there are a good few indie singer/songwriter types, some shitty emo/screamo bands, a few punk bands, a few metal bands, a bunch of generic rock rock bands, a few lonely "other" band types, but not many good ol' prog rock bands.
There is one very notable exception though in the AE Bridger band. Although I'm certain he'll spit on me for referring to him as prog rock, in my mind he embodies many of the better qualities of tradition 70's prog rock. Complicated song structures with heavy dynamics, strong virtuosity in playing, and a strong inclination to experiment in the studio and on the stage. If I had to relate AE Bridgers music to other artists I'd say they're like if Robert Fripp and Fred Frith had joined the band Television back in the 70's (if that makes sense). I could list a pile of different artists I can here in his music but AE Bridger definitely does his own thing. Anyway, you can find out more about them at their Myspace page and here is a video I took of him at The Ship a couple of weeks ago.

And here's their official video for "Stretch-A-Sketch" off their new album "I am a Ghostly Leech"

My embarrassingly gushy tribute to Danny Keating and Planet Chaos

2009-01-17T21:56:00.000-08:00

When I first moved into town back in 2003 (2004? I can't remember) I was spending a lot of time wandering around downtown late at night, most nights of the week. I was staying at my sister and her husband's tiny one bedroom apartment, rent free, sleeping on her futon in her living room. Staying out of the apartment as much as possible was the least I could do to not be a burden. Anyway, being an open mic whore I was looking for a proper good open mic figuring St. John's should be able to fill this need, and after a couple of weeks of trying out horrible places like O'Reilly's or the Breezeway I chanced upon a loud ruckus coming out of a seedy bar on Water Street. Inside the dark but strangely comfortable bar hidden above "The Spur" was a small, skinny, long haired man about my age playing an acoustic guitar so viciously warn down that a hole had been scratched through the front of it near the pick guard, all the mahogany varnish had been scrapped off by brutal, brutal strumming techniques over the years. It was the most awesome acoustic I had ever seen (it played like crap, as you would imagine) and the man playing it was even more striking.
I didn't know what to think of Danny Keating at first. He played in front of painting of a psychedelic gecko and had two microphones in front of him, one was normal and the other was loaded with delay effects and he'd switch from one to the other as the mood struck him. Danny was certainly the most intense open mic performer I had seen up to that point in time. He would hammer that guitar into oblivion and would alternate between a sweet tenor croon to the loudest primal howl I'd heard from a solo performer. He would turn away completely from the microphone and it would be twice as loud as the amplifiers. I swear, back in the day when Danny would be busking out on the laneway in front of The Ship I could here him all the way down to George street. The man was loud..
But it wasn't really until the fifth or so time going to "Planet Chaos" (that's the name of Danny's Open mic for those not in the know) that Danny's songs started to really hit me. When playing solo Danny streams all his songs together so that a collection of two minute power pop songs turn into epic suites that go on to a million different places and seem to never end. Danny doesn't make it easy for newcomers. At this point in time Danny has around 30 privately made albums of original material, and a lot of his best songs and live staples have never been recorded. Danny has forgotten more songs of his then most hardworking professional songwriters will write in the whole lives. It was at least five performance before I started recognizing songs, and it was at this point when I realized that I had Danny songs running through my head all day long. While not every one of Dannys hundreds of songs is a classic for the ages, almost everyone of them has a hook catchier then 95% of all pop songs written in the last 10 years. For my money Danny Keating writes the best pop songs out of anyone in Atlantic Canada, if pushed I'll go rest of Canada. Just listen to "full moon" posted down bellow and tell me that's not the best pop song you've heard all year.
The biggest tragedy is that Danny, for all his boundless inspiration when it comes to writing tunes, he has absolutely no patience for the recording process, none at all. Danny's recordings (I'm talking about his early stuff here, his most recent recordings with Catmanduah have actually been fairly Hi-Fi and well performed) are perfect pop songs immersed in the crustiest impenetrable lo-fi fog of tape hiss and half muttered readings with random noises throughout. I love his albums, but I love all sorts of freaky shit that most no one else would possibly want to listen to. I've always maintained that Danny is one Tony Visconti production away from superstardom, but Danny is cursed like some of us to be just too fundamentally weird at a base level to take any attempt at mainstream appeal seriously.
I went to Planet Chaos every week for about 4 years until it ended, it was the only open mic I've been to that valued originality and songwriting over anything else and the usual drunken requests for shitty covers of Dave Matthews or whatever were universally shunned. Many excellent talents came out of that weekly event, I know I never would have gotten as into songwriting if it weren't for The Planet Chaos venue giving me the weekly opportunity to try out new material (even if the audience can be brutally cynical sometimes). I've seen Danny play at least 200 times at least, and even when he's too drunk hold a guitar or remember any of the words to his songs he's still never boring. He was always the nicest guy in the bar, and (even if he did hog the stage a lot during the open mics) he was always a great host.
Anyway, Let's get to the videos. I was at The Ship last night where Catmanduah played a damn tight set of mostly new material (it had the standard four new songs for every show, that I've come to expect from Danny) I filmed a couple of songs. This "Steaming" of his last Ep he put out called "Steaming"

This is a new favorite of mine "Wayward Bird"

This is a Catmanduah show from the "Rock Can Roll" festival back in November at The Rose and Thistle Pub.

This is a nice video Rachel Jean Harding took of Danny Playing "Full Moon / Tough as Nails, Cute as Buttons" at the Spur

This is one of Danny's crazy videos from back in "The Origin of The Sound band" days. I miss the origin of the sound, that was a great band.

And here's another Danny Band I miss "The Peepholes" doin' a pretty sloppy version of "coatsleeve". This is back when Danny used to write looooong songs.

Danny seems to have abandoned all his myspace pages, so the best place to find out more about him is either his facebook profile or at his reverbnation profile which also might be abandoned.
Danny don't give a shit about the internet.

Geinus, Local Tough, Be Alright

2009-01-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

Good Times were had last night at The Downstairs Mix-up. Steve Abbott knows how to host a party. I've set up a little tribute to Steve here with a video for each of the three bands in town that he fronts. Starting with a video I took last night of Geinus at CBTG's. I think it turned out pretty good. I embrace the crustiness of my girlfriend's primative digital camera and purposefully punch up the graininess when I'm editing the videos. Here is Geinus (Steve Abbott, Andrew Fisher, Alex Pierson) playing "Youth Obsession"

Here is my favorite brutal arseholes in town "Local Tough" (Steve Abbott, Andrew Fisher, Matt Wall, Anthony Brenton) rockin' out at the ship from a week or two ago. "Fecundate" is my favorite song of theirs, the violent jerky motion of this video is from my dancing/filming simultaneous techniques.

and here is the currently defunct "Be Alright" (Steve Abbott, Luke Power, Devon Milley) who were my favorite band in town for a long while. Here they are playing "There she was gone" at CBTG's again.

Night Music

2009-01-16T05:34:00.000-08:00

Man was it cold last night! holy crap!. anyway, I had to play a show last night at CBTG's, which was fun and it went over pretty well, but it upset my usual routine which involves heading over to "Night Music" at the Ship (it's the third Thursday of every month). Night Music, for those of you who don't know, is the main venue for experimental and improvisational music in this city. There is a different host band every month (I'm hosting in March, Hoorah!) and in between set's there is an open stage where people in the audience can ask to go up and jam. It's always a blast and a half and over the course of this blog I'll probably end up sharing some of the Night Music recordings I have (I've got a decent collection). Anyway, I missed this month's band "King Andrews Bridge" which I was really curious about since it has Grant King (crazy jazzcat guitarist) and Curtis Andrews (who is the funnest drummer to jam with in this city) and I don't know the bassist Dave Bridger but if he's playing with those two he's probably really good. I missed that one, but I was at last months show with Brad Power, Matt Hender and Elliot Dicks hosting, which was pretty stellar. I think it was the first time they all played together so the night was nothing but tasty improv. Anyway, I took this video of the show, enjoy..

Colonel Craze and The Hunch

2009-01-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

Colonel Craze and The Hunch are easily one of the most exciting bands to watch in this city right now. Front man Andrew Waterman is one of the purest forms of Lunatic, just dripping adrenaline and James Brown Voodoo charisma. The band is tight but drunk and fierce as all hell. They got some rough mixes of their upcoming album posted on their myspace that has got me excited. Here are a couple crusty videos I've taken of them. and one video that somebody else put up that I'll share with you as well.

"Hard Hat Opportunity" someone else made this one..

"Pregnancy's a joke" This one I took and did some experimental hand stabilizing photoshop stuff to.

"One Eyed Horse" This is a particularily intoxicated performance I captured at a rare show at Junctions. Starts out strong, then ends up someplace else.

Black Molly

2009-01-14T21:32:00.000-08:00

I guess I'll start the real posting with one of my closest friends and music cohorts Black Molly (aka Alison Corbett). The woman gets around, she just recently came back from touring cross country with Al Tuck and no Action and Old Man Luedecke and probably doesn't need me to help promote her but I will anyway. Here are a couple of videos I've taken of Black Molly both of them from a show she did at CBTG's back in November in this she's doing her Bontempi/Tiny Drums thing opening for "The Burning Hell" (friggin' awesome live band, I highly recommend them) playing one of my favorite songs of hers "1995"

In this one The Burning Hell are backing her up on one of her song's "Molly Lee"

Oh yeah I should mention, that she is touring all April as a part of The Burning Hell, which should be exciting times.
In the meantime she's playing with me and some other people in the Angelshakes (more on them later) also hopefully in my own band (if I can ever get this band together properly) and in a dozen or so other ensembles and groups scattered through the city. oh yeah also she is finishing her masters degree in ethnomusicology. She shames me with multi-tasking.

Hello! this my new blog and this is it's first rant!

2009-01-14T19:27:00.000-08:00

Greetings and Salutations immediate audience!
Welcome at my attempt at Music Journalism and "Blogging". I'm a musician and lapsed visual artist situated here in the far east isolation of St. John's Newfoundland. We sorta have a reputation of having a large number of musicians per capita and being generally pretty awesome. There are a lot of musicians and bands in this city that I really enjoy and for the most part I don't regret moving here back in 2003 (or was it 2004? I can't remember..). I've made a lot of friends and I enjoy taking part in the music scene out here, but there are several ugly truths a creative person has to face up to while living and doing things here.
For one; St John's is a small city with a very limited audience that can only support a handfull of artists at a given time. If you are lucky enough to find yourself with a decent sized audience at start after a few months (even if you are totally amazing live) that audience will get smaller and smaller because those people have seen you allready and there is literally no one left in town who would be interested. You'll find that even with the most popular bands in town the total number of their active audience tops out at around a couple hundred people who will follow what the band does and take an extra effort to make it out to your shows every once in awhile. It takes a cross country tour with some actual mainstream media coverage to drag some fresh blood to your gigs at that point.

Which takes you to the next problem with the St. John's scene; It costs a lot of money in travel costs to leave this province and there is very little opportunity to actually make cold hard cash at music in this town. Most musicians around here start off hopeful and excited and gradually over time with gradually receding audience attendance, lack of recognition, lack of money and the growing realization that they have to save up their money and leave this shithole city if they want to chase after their rock and roll dreams; they become disillusioned, despondent and depressive. Also in this city there are none more lazy and brutally nihilistic then the music journalist. The music journalist who long ago gave up going to the bars where they actually play original music, and instead will write some lazy paragraph about whatever band emailed them their myspace page that week or whatever dipshit band from out of town happens to happen through this month. The only local bands that get any type of regular press coverage, any type of regular radio airplay, or any funding from grant giving organizations are the ones that focus all their energy at unrelenting self-promotion. So the equation for musician quality in this town is thus: the awesomeness of the music is inversely proportional to the amount of press it's received (if someone knows how type that as a mathematic equation please tell me). With this here blog I mean to help promote all the bands in town I enjoy that are either inexplicably ignored for some reason or who long ago gave up on the pantomime of show promotion and just put on shows for shits and giggles or the appreciation of their small group of followers.
Anyway, for hypocracy's sake I will make my first posting of my new blog my own music video I produced for my own song "Crutches" off my latest album "Sex Lives of the Paralyzed"
This video is an approximation of my average work week (with added Special Effects!)

"Crutches" - Song by Patrick Canning from Patrick Canning on Vimeo.

I have nothing against self-promotion and you will see me doing a lot of it on this blog. I just feel that in a town as small as St. John's, for a band to spend 90% of it's energy promoting the shit out of themselves instead of, you know, writing good material, and then get celebrated for it, is kinda sickening.
Hopefully my future posts won't be so long winded and whiny. But it's my blog and I do what I want to!
Cheers!