Thursday, May 31, 2001
Traffic was better than the first time I saw it. Durn good film. Too bad the dvd is so mediocre. I'll hold out for the Special Edition that will inevitably appear soon.
My reviews page has been updated with my opinions on Weezer & R.E.M.. Click the link on the left.
Travis is previewing their new album for the next couple weeks, one track per day. Funnily enough, yesterday's track still works, so I'll post daily real audio links to whatever track that's still working. The first track on The Invisible Band is 'Sing', but since that's the current single, it's being passed over for the other stuff on the album. If you haven't heard 'Sing', which is a mighty fine song, then shame on you. Anyway, the links are below. Enjoy.
'Dear Diary'...not bad. A bit mopey. "Dear Diary/what is wrong with me?" Sheesh. C'mon, Fran.
'Side'...now that's more like it. A winner of a song.
'Pipe Dreams'...a shuffling, midtempo, partially acoustic song. Nice.
Thursday, May 24, 2001
My review of Sigur Ros's brilliant, brilliant album is up on my reviews page. Just click on the link in the left margin. I misspelled "insist". Embarrassing...I must proofread these things more thoroughly.
Coming soon: reviews of Weezer and R.E.M....one cd is very, very good, and the other is jarringly ordinary. Take a guess which is which. Also on deck: Doves, Chicks On Speed, and Outkast.
The new dvd of Requiem For A Dream is amazing. The book by Hubert Selby Jr. is one of the best books I've ever read, and Darren Aronofsky's film is probably my favourite movie from 2000, narrowly over Wonder Boys. Harrowing, powerful, and supercool (the edit sequences when the characters shoot up are superslick, always ending in a wild shot of a dilating pupil). The film isn't depressing...no good movie is depressing. Kids should be allowed to see this instead of all the gross-out comedies. Scare 'em straight while giving them a good movie experience at the same time.
Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Jack Kerouac's original scroll manuscript of On The Road has been auctioned for 2.2 million dollars today. The buyer: Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, of all people. I never liked the idea of this sale from the start, and I can only hope Irsay preserves it in a museum like he has apparently said he would do.
Friday, May 18, 2001
We were in the middle of moving when Joey Ramone passed away last month, so I wasn't able to post some thoughts on one
of the greatest rock & roll bands ever. Things have finally settled down enough, so here goes.
I had always known of the Ramones when I was in my teens, and I really got a kick out of the Rock & Roll Highschool movie
(a film I'm dying to see again), but I was too busy listening to my metal stuff in the Eighties to care much for punk. However, in
1989 new metal music was really going downhill fast, and I just gravitated towards the Ramones. All the credit goes to the
library in my old hometown...they had LP versions of the Ramones' first six albums, and soon after bringing them all home, I
was in heaven. This wasn't punk, this was pop music at its purest: three chords, melodic, loud, and most of all, fun. Last night,
as a belated tribute to my favourite bands, I listened to the first five Ramones albums, and rediscovered what had me so
entranced twelve years ago.
The Ramones' first four albums had a colossal impact on me and the way I heard rock music, leaving an indelible mark on my
brain which still remains to this day. Ramones, Rocket To Russia (I still remember the inner sleeve of that LP,
with all its great cartoons for every song), and Road To Ruin are classic albums, with dozens of memorable tunes, but
the one Ramones record that connected with me both then and now is Ramones Leave Home.
The other three albums had great songs all the way through, but there was always a hint of darkness lurking in the background
in some of the tunes. Not that it's a bad thing, but Ramones Leave Home was nothing but pure, unadulterated bliss. It
had to be a happy time for Joey Ramone, because every song is full of teenage giddiness: 'I Remember You', 'Oh Oh I Love
Her So', the ultra-perfect 'Swallow Your Pride', and 'Babysitter' were punk love songs, for crying out loud. In the
testosterone-fueled punk years to follow (right up to today), such an admittance of vulnerablility would never be repeated in
that genre. This wasn't Johnny Rotten yelling that he meant it, Maaaaan or Joe Strummer pronouncing that "phony
Beatlemania" had "bitten the dust." Not even close...in fact, the Ramones embraced the influence of the Beatles and every other
pop group of the Sixties. The songs on Ramones Leave Home have a similar timeless quality and could have easily been
sung by one of Phil Spector's girl groups. Their searing, joyous cover of 'California Sun' further shows their Sixties influences.
The Ramones' wicked sense of humour is always present on Ramones Leave Home as well. 'Gimme Gimme Shock
Treatment', 'Sheena Is A Punk Rocker', 'Suzy Is A Headbanger', the immortal 'Pinhead', 'Commando', and 'You're Gonna Kill
That Girl' are all as funny as they are catchy. You can't finish listening to this album without smiling at least once.
I have other favourite songs in the Ramones catalogue, like 'Judy Is A Punk', 'Roackaway Beach', 'We're A Happy Family', 'I
Wanna Be Well', 'I Just Want To Have Something To Do', 'She's The One', 'The KKK Took My Baby Away', 'She's A
Sensation', '(Do You Remember) Rock n' Roll Radio?', 'Danny Says', 'Bonzo Goes To Bitburg', 'Howlin' At The Moon', 'I
Wanna Live'...oh my, the list is endless. We lost a giant and a hero in Joey Ramone, but like the line goes on my fave Ramones
record, everything's gonna be real fine.
Gabba Gabba Hey.
Thursday, May 10, 2001
The Toronto Maple Leafs have finally been eliminated. Now that The Enemy has been disposed of, spring is officially here!!!
Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Good grief, I haven't updated this page in two months! That's what happens when you move...
I'll be adding stuff in the near future...
Thursday, March 8, 2001
Lowgold's new album isn't available in North America yet, and I can't put it on my amazon page, but that didn't stop me from writing a review:
3 stars out of 5:
Someone should have told the members of Lowgold that there's more to Big Star than 'The
Ballad of El Goodo', because almost every song on Just Backward Of Square sounds like the
classic Alex Chilton tune. That's all well and good, and Lowgold have the innocent goof schtick
down pat, but as there was so much more to Big Star, there should also be more to Lowgold.
Instead, the listener is left with a dozen tracks filled with nothing but the current cliche of
Insistent Strumming over a sleepy rhythm, something which Coldplay have perfected recently.
Enough of the moping! Where's the joy? Why not imitate Big Star's 'September Gurls', 'Back
Of A Car', 'Thirteen', 'I'm In Love With A Girl', or 'Oh My Soul' while you're at it?
Don't get me wrong, this album has its high points. 'Mercury', 'Beauty Dies Young', and 'In
Amber' are all gorgeous, gorgeous songs, but after that, aside from the refreshingly uptempo
'Counterfeit', everything gets stale. Lyrically speaking, these guys are no geniuses. The lines
"When I feel cold/you're the sun/to warm my soul" are laughable; you'll find better poetry
reading a pretentious loiterer's jottings at a campus Starbucks.
Play one different Lowgold song to twelve different people and they'll tell you they're hearing a
pretty good band. Play them the entire album and it won't have the same effect. They'll just be
bored. Lowgold have plenty of potential, but have a long way to go if they want to match the
recent quality efforts of bands like Coldplay and Doves.
***
I got my signed PJ Harvey cd yesterday! Woo-hoo! I'm considering getting it framed, at least the cd booklet...
I was perusing album reviews, as per usual, and I noticed a new cd by the Blake Babies called God Bless The Blake Babies. I thought, 'oh, a best-of collection', and looked it up, but it turns out it's a new album. What made them get back together after ten years? (actually, Billboard has the whole story here)
So anyway, yes, the Blake Babies are back, and their new tune 'Disappear' is worth listening to. Quality Juliana Hatfield guitar pop, with her on bass this time. Good stuff.
Tuesday, March 6, 2001
Whew! Back home at long last...
I have a number of things to babble about, and will be updating this page sporadically this week. Perhaps even today...
Friday, February 16, 2001
Gone to Edmonton to visit Erin & Steve. I might update the page while away...if not, I'll be back on the 26th or so...
Wednesday, February 14, 2001
What a shame about napster...my enthusiasm for new music was reborn these past twelve months, and now this tragic decision. It's still working for now, so I'll save my Official Eulogy for when it goes off completely. 'Til then, keep downloading...
Big day today: the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll is out today. It's the only best-of poll I put any stock into, the only one with selections I agree with, and it's also the one list I anxiously await. Not to see who won, but to see how many of my choices made the list! I'll have to re-check, but I think the only cd's from my top 20 of 2000 that didn't make the critics' poll are Ralph's 'This Is For The Night People' and Soulfly's 'Primitive'. I was glad to see Neko Case at #36, and even more glad to see The New Pornographers at #100.
But what about Frisbie, the best indie band in America? The band, whose spectacular debut The Subversive Sounds Of Love blew me away so greatly that it place a solid #2 on my top 20 list? Well, miraculously, Frisbie finished tied for #560! At least it's something. For the record (bad pun, sorry), the two heroic critics who paid tribute to the guys from Chi-town are Dominic Salerno and David M. Snyder. Hats off to ya, fellas...
That list reminded me that I have a few titles to look for: Grandaddy's 'Sophtware Slump', that one by Outkast which people are praising left and right, Doves, Sigur Ros, and those bombastic Kweebeckers Godspeed You Black Emperor...I'll see what I stumble across in Edmonton next week.
Monday, February 12, 2001
Want a sneak peek at the new Miyazaki film? It's called 'Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi', which means something like, 'A Thousand And Chihiro Spirited Away'...I trust the folks at Disney/Miramax will think of a better title. The movie's about a ten year-old girl whose parents are turned into pigs, and how she hast to go to the Land Of The Spirits to get her folks changed back to humans. There's a downloadable trailer here, as well as a translated summary. The trailer is a very good quality mpeg file, and has the usual exciting Miyazaki animation we've come to expect. The film opens this summer in Japan, and judging by the success of Princess Mononoke, it should be translated in English and opening in North America someday soon.
I've just finished one of the best collections of short stories I have read in a long time, Speaking With The Angel. Edited by Nick Hornby, it contains twelve outstanding short stories by some of the best authors around, including David Eggers, Helen Fielding, Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh, and Hornby himself. Just a great book, from start to finish: very touching at times, but also wickedly funny...the kind of stuff that makes you feel good without getting too syrupy. The book was published to raise funds for the Treehouse school, a groundbreaking school for autistic kids. Hornby has a son at the school, so it's a labour of love for the guy. Get this book immediately...it's a great book, plus it goes towards a good cause. (It's been available in Canada & the UK for several months now, and is being released in the US this month)
Just a side note: the aforementioned book gets its title from Ron Sexsmith's song of the same name. It's a good tune.
Saturday, February 10, 2001
First off, some mp3 picks I highly recommend:
'Fever', by Starsailor...There's a growing trend in new UK music, with artists like Badly Drawn Boy, Coldplay, and Lowgold abandoning overdone production like the stuff Nigel Godrich does (as great as it is) in favour of a stripped-down, warm, minimalist sound. Starsailor doesn't have an album out yet, but this single, with its bare-bones sound enhanced by shimmering electric piano, was described by the NME as Jeff Buckley meets The Verve. That's a dead-on description...the singer is only 20 years old, but this song shows there's a lot of talent coming from the wee bairn.
'Shining Light', by Ash...it's been ages since their first cd, which had that silly 'Girl From Mars' song. This tune is more of the same goofy puppydog-eyed guitarpop, but it's so well-done that it radiates charm. Enjoy it now, because I'll bet it will be heard on the trailer for Freddie Prinze Jr.'s next movie. Yeah, it's that type of song...
'The Fight Song', by Marilyn Manson...This is the first Manson song I've ever liked, and it's brilliant. With its sly parody of Blur's 'Song 2' and its chants of "Fight", it's a poke at those noisy songs that are adopted by sports teams and played ad nauseum. If a hockey team starts using this song, the joke will be complete.
'Snow', by JJ72...This song is so hilariously ridiculous, but because it's so bleeping earnest, I sort of like it. It starts off sounding alright, but when the chorus comes around, singer Mark Greaney wails (and so I mean wails), "Whyyyyyyyyy won't it snoooooowwwwwww? Like theeeeey said it woooouuuuuulllllld..." The kid really wants it to snow. Badly. I dare this Irish trio to whine about snow in Western Canada...the audience would laugh them off the stage. Still, JJ72 deserve some points for being so durn earnest.
Tonight on CBC Radio 2's Radiosonic they're playing Sleater-Kinney's live performance in Vancouver that was back in September. Can't wait to hear it...it can be heard on the net at around 10:00 pm central...go here to listen.
Thursday, February 8, 2001
As promised, I have to talk for a bit about The Januaries. They're one of the coolest-sounding bands you'll hear, combining influences like Burt Bacharach and late-60's pop with today's modern pop rock style, with slick production. The result is irresistable, sort of like Austin Powers music without the tongue-in-cheek attitude. Nah, this is good and sincere...The Januaries revel in the retro sound. The Brigitte Bardot-sounding 'Juliette', the sultry 'Chocolate & Strawberries', and the funky 'Black Transmission' are terrific tunes, all made the better by Debbie Diamond's versatile, playful voice.
The Januaries have a very cool Flash video for 'Black Transmission', featuring some very swanky cartoon images of Debbie (the Kung Fu bit is great!). It's a smokin' vid, and you can see it here.
For once, Rolling Stone magazine looks like they know something about good music. In the new issue they give The New Pornographers' cd a rave review, which is a whole lot better than the write-up they got in Wall Of Sound. So congrats to the band, they deserve the praise.
In the wake of the Jazz tv series, there are some good critiques of the program. Here's a positive review by salon.com, here's a negative review by The Atlantic Monthly, and here's a very funny parody.
Tuesday, February 6, 2001
Yesterday was a perfect example of how amazing and wonderful napster is, how it's a real godsend for music lovers. First, I
downloaded the Music 365 UK Single Of The
Week, by The Webb Brothers. Then, later that day, I was reading a story by Patrick Marber about a couple of
Buzzcocks fans and how they ended up playing 'Love You
More' over and over again, so after I read the story, I quickly snagged an mp3 of that tune (like it a lot, by the way).
Late at night, I then got an e-mail from someone who dug my Coldplay review on amazon. Turned out her name is Debbie, and
she sings in a band called The Januaries, so I immediately went to
napster and got a couple of their songs, which, as it turned out, are fantastic (I'll post some more thoughts on The Januaries in
the near future). Then, right before calling it a night, from out of the blue I found an mp3 of 'Metal Of The Night', by the very
obscure Canadian band Hanover Fist. I had their tape
waaaaay back when in 1985, and I really liked the tune back when I was fourteen or fifteen, and I haven't heard the song in
close to a decade. I got into a chat with the guy who put the file up, and he said he just ripped the mp3 yesterday, so it might be
the only Hanover mp3 in existence, and he was shocked that I had found it right after he put it up on napster. Small world, no?
So I downloaded the massive 11 meg, 256-bit file, which took close to an hour on my 56k modem, started to listen to it, and
realised the song is pretty darn cheesy (never take a fourteen year-old's musical opinions seriously! Yikes...). It's these small
discoveries, not the relentless downloading of multi-platinum groups, that makes napster so brilliant.
Oh man, is this ever priceless! I hope Dennis Miller sees
it...Speaking of Mr. Miller, his rant about the English language was another classic, but it's been replaced. I should have copied
it...
Sunday, February 4, 2001
I'm gonna be an uncle!!!
Saturday, February 3, 2001
Great news for old Iron Maiden fans like yours truly...their official website has downloadable videos from the big Rio concert two weeks ago. Three songs are up right now, and apparently more are on their way. Woo-hoo! You can get the clips here.
It looks like the early pick for The Movie To See In 2001 is Richard Linklater's Waking Life. Judging by all the praise it's received since the Sundance Festival, it looks like a triumphant comeback for Linklater after the ugly trainwreck that was The Newton Boys. From the looks of it, the film sounds like a combination of the loosey-goosey philosophy ofLinklater's classic Slacker and the stunning animation of Ralph Bakshi's American Pop (it even features Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprising their roles in Before Sunrise...can't wait to see it). There's no official site up yet, but this page is a good preview, and you can see some small images from the film here.
Thursday, February 1, 2001
Peter Criss was finally booted out of KISS today...rumours of Criss's 'pay-me-more-or-I-walk' act surfaced in October, so it's no surprise to those of us who heard the gossip a few months ago. I figure he was kept on board so the band could have the full lineup for the pay-per-view thing they did in November. It's all about the cash.
I archived last month's entries, so if you want to relive the magic that was Basement Galaxy In The Month Of January, just click on the link to the left...
So the big Jazz series ended tonight, and what a month it was. All in all, it was exhilerating viewing, but there's still the feeling that the last fifty years was glossed over. I was hoping there would be analysis of solos by Parker, Coltrane, and Davis, just like they did for Louis Armstrong, but it wasn't to be. Everything was excellent, but my favourite albums and artists weren't analyzed thoroughly enough (Bitches Brew got, what, a couple minutes at best?!). I really want to listen to Cecil Taylor now...if so many people can't stand his stuff, then I definitely have to check it out somehow. A real jazz agitator, like Ornette Coleman. So after all that, here are my five favourite jazz albums, in no particular order:
A Love Supreme - John Coltrane
Bitches Brew - Miles Davis
Dancing In Your Head - Ornette Coleman
Thelonious Monk And John Coltrane
Time Out - Dave Brubeck