5 or 6 years ago a long-smoldering canadian music scene split the atom and fireballs of renewable (if somewhat teratogenic) musical energy have been burninating the countryside: wreaking havoc on eardrums, toe-tapping, and the elderly ever since.
the epicenter is MONTREAL (the frenchy-est frenchy-town in all of Royal-Mounted Canadia). home to record labels Alien8 and Constellation (nice post-rock; godspeed! you black emperor)and the Pop Montreal music festival. montreal is a magnet town. yeah, there's plenty of home-grown talent, but just like seattle in the early-mid 90's and chicago of the mid-late 90's, montreal built it and they all came packin'. personally, my favorite "montreal" bands are from British Columbia or elsewhere. ARCADE FIRE, for example: a canadian band? the Butler brothers hail from TEXAS (Win moved to canada to attend mcgill university and the rest is ancient history...) i was born on an air force base in arizona. am i from arizona? heck no. home is where you hang your hat (hi-hat, that is!!)
but i digress... i'd have to say that the montreal and brooklyn, NY "scenes" are probably the most consistently exciting and innovative musical hotbeds right now (although baltimore deserves some attention too).i prefer a "music community" to any "music scene." (besides, a "scene" always sounds like something that's already happened...) a music community is an environment that is so much more than the mere sum of its parts. you see rampant collaborations, side-projects, multiple-personality disorder, and bursts of prolific recording that you seriously have to hustle to keep up with. it's a nuclear reaction. bands bombarding other bands, energy begetting energy. the music that has most consistently burnt my ears off for the last couple years are members of the montreal community. so......
forget Saint Patrick's day- i'm declaring
OH, CANADA! Month
(per the canadian lunar calendar, this extends from right about now to sometime in april)
THIS MONTH IS DEDICATED TO JACOB
so, i'm not approaching this with any systematic plan. i'm gonna hit you with what i'm listening to A LOT lately.
WOLF PARADE
i first read about wolf parade in 2005 with the release of their debut LP: apologies to the queen mary. i listened to a couple clips. no $$. moved on.
some time later romney gave me a disc of tracks "music what spencer burned for bart," that included this album. sometimes you rhino-charge through a heap of new music and not everything gets impaled on the first pass. this aint no old-country buffet... everything deserves a second taste or two...
anyway, we was on a road-trip to california for a PLANK family vacation and i had my iPod on super shuffle and "it's a curse" hijacked my malleus, incus, and stapes all at once and with a vengeance. what the crap is this?? no hint of 60's or 80's pop-nostalgia? where does that voice come from?!? is it human?? emotion without the inherent whining of EMO?? guinea pigs?!?
yeah, i listened to that song over and over and over and over. (you can't always do this in front of loved ones... i recommend headphones: i'm always paranoid about playing something i'm addicted to too many times in front of leslie...) i finally got around to listening to the whole album and as of late have developed a physical dependency... is there musical methadone???
ok, so back in '03 when ARCADE FIRE were still wee babies, they went on tour promoting their first recording, the self-titled EP. (the tour, "us kids know" is a lyric from "no cars go" which was later re-recorded for their 2nd LP, NEON BIBLE) the Fire-lings contacted ex-Frog Eyes (Victoria, B.C.) member Spencer Krug and asked if he'd be interested in opening for them.
without a band, he hastily assembled one (with only a drum-machine for percussion initially). Krug plays keyboards, and co-vocals with lead guitarist Dan Boeckner (Atlas Strategic). WOLF PARADE was born on the road and songs like "it's a curse" embody that. there's a raw power that emanates as much from the compositions as the gripping voice of Boekner. (i think Krug sounds like the Flight of the Conchords lampooning david bowie...and i like it) (Boekner's got some bowie in there too).
a trio of EP's were released (two self-releases, the third following being signed to SUBPOP). "apologies to the queen mary" their debut LP came out in 2005 and the sophomore release, "pardon my blues" is set to be released sometime this summer.
since 2005, Krug has been all over the map (that dang MONTREAL community!) promiscuously lending vocals and tunes to other artists' recordings (Swan Lake, Fifths of Seven), while forming a "side project" SUNSET RUBDOWN (now with more recordings than WOLF PARADE!). (he even got Frog Eyes back together for another album and did a joint tour with WP)
boekner has also embarked on a "side project"- HANDSOME FURS in a QUASI-esque pairing with his wife, alexei perry. they released "plague park" out last year on SUBPOP.
so, i've emailed you "it's a curse" and "this heart's on fire." i was inches away from sending you "modern world" and "you are a runner and i am my father's son," but i've been fighting the urge to send out more than one or two tracks. the entire album, "apologies to the queen mary" is worthy of multiple listens. as always, if you want some more... i'll send you more. otherwise- download it from emusic.com.
FOR SERIOUS. I'm re-sending you all invites to join emusic for a FREE TRIAL. no strings attached. you sign up, you get 50 free mp3's... if you don't likey... you drop out and don't pay a dime, and you keep the music. if you do hang on for a month... i get 50 too! (but hey, no pressure...) presently, i'm on a year-subscription. $10/month for 30 songs. almost everything from independent labels you could wish for (not to mention just about everything else... yes, even creedence clearwater revival...) NOT BAD, SUCKAS!!
next week: Krug's side project,
i first read about wolf parade in 2005 with the release of their debut LP: apologies to the queen mary. i listened to a couple clips. no $$. moved on. some time later romney gave me a disc of tracks "music what spencer burned for bart," that included this album. sometimes you rhino-charge through a heap of new music and not everything gets impaled on the first pass. this aint no old-country buffet... everything deserves a second taste or two...
anyway, we was on a road-trip to california for a PLANK family vacation and i had my iPod on super shuffle and "it's a curse" hijacked my malleus, incus, and stapes all at once and with a vengeance. what the crap is this?? no hint of 60's or 80's pop-nostalgia? where does that voice come from?!? is it human?? emotion without the inherent whining of EMO?? guinea pigs?!?
yeah, i listened to that song over and over and over and over. (you can't always do this in front of loved ones... i recommend headphones: i'm always paranoid about playing something i'm addicted to too many times in front of leslie...) i finally got around to listening to the whole album and as of late have developed a physical dependency... is there musical methadone???
ok, so back in '03 when ARCADE FIRE were still wee babies, they went on tour promoting their first recording, the self-titled EP. (the tour, "us kids know" is a lyric from "no cars go" which was later re-recorded for their 2nd LP, NEON BIBLE) the Fire-lings contacted ex-Frog Eyes (Victoria, B.C.) member Spencer Krug and asked if he'd be interested in opening for them.without a band, he hastily assembled one (with only a drum-machine for percussion initially). Krug plays keyboards, and co-vocals with lead guitarist Dan Boeckner (Atlas Strategic). WOLF PARADE was born on the road and songs like "it's a curse" embody that. there's a raw power that emanates as much from the compositions as the gripping voice of Boekner. (i think Krug sounds like the Flight of the Conchords lampooning david bowie...and i like it) (Boekner's got some bowie in there too).
a trio of EP's were released (two self-releases, the third following being signed to SUBPOP). "apologies to the queen mary" their debut LP came out in 2005 and the sophomore release, "pardon my blues" is set to be released sometime this summer.since 2005, Krug has been all over the map (that dang MONTREAL community!) promiscuously lending vocals and tunes to other artists' recordings (Swan Lake, Fifths of Seven), while forming a "side project" SUNSET RUBDOWN (now with more recordings than WOLF PARADE!). (he even got Frog Eyes back together for another album and did a joint tour with WP)
boekner has also embarked on a "side project"- HANDSOME FURS in a QUASI-esque pairing with his wife, alexei perry. they released "plague park" out last year on SUBPOP.
so, i've emailed you "it's a curse" and "this heart's on fire." i was inches away from sending you "modern world" and "you are a runner and i am my father's son," but i've been fighting the urge to send out more than one or two tracks. the entire album, "apologies to the queen mary" is worthy of multiple listens. as always, if you want some more... i'll send you more. otherwise- download it from emusic.com.
FOR SERIOUS. I'm re-sending you all invites to join emusic for a FREE TRIAL. no strings attached. you sign up, you get 50 free mp3's... if you don't likey... you drop out and don't pay a dime, and you keep the music. if you do hang on for a month... i get 50 too! (but hey, no pressure...) presently, i'm on a year-subscription. $10/month for 30 songs. almost everything from independent labels you could wish for (not to mention just about everything else... yes, even creedence clearwater revival...) NOT BAD, SUCKAS!!
next week: Krug's side project,
SUNSET RUBDOWN
SHINE A LIGHT
LATE LATE LATE LATE SHOW
SHINE A LIGHT
FANCY CLAPS
MODERN WORLD
I'LL BELIEVE IN ANYTHING
LATE LATE LATE LATE SHOW
so, check out "this heart's on fire" as performed live on the LATE LATE SHOW. (Boekner on vocals).
4 comments:
those are good songs. Canadians are cool.
jake's always talkin' smack about canada/canadian bands. i'm surprised he hasn't weighed in yet on my dedicating the post to him...
but yeah, i think for a long long long time canadian music has been criminally overlooked.
dang, ster- your blog is stirring up some good debate lately!
Yes, I've never heard him say one nice thing about Canadians. I'm not sure where that stems from, because everytime we went to Canada as kids, I found them to be quite hospitable, and I never heard them say a mean thing to Jake.
Yeah, so I put a new post on my blog that could probably go here too about poor Paul McCartney's unlucky situation.
i'll have to direct folks over there in my next post. be interesting to see what folks say.
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