a school unaccredited

LiVE 88.5FM's Big Money Shot, May 27, 2011

2011-06-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Last night, for the frist time in several years I was lucky enough to attend a live music show. The re-baptism came by way of LiVE 88.5's Big Money Shot at Live Lounge on York Street in Ottawa, ON. The Big Money Shot is a great program for developing local musicians and artists and they've ponied up a lot of cash for a lot of bands in the past. The rules of the contest are fairly detailed, requiring you and/or your band to be pretty well-rounded to be able to qualify for the development cash that is on the table. These kind of things include being responsible for drawing a sizable crowd, playing several live shows, obtaining live footage of your band performaing, aving a demo cd with at least 5 songs, and (later in the process) doing a minimum 5-date tour. Essentially, if you or your band aren't trying to be serious musicians you will be weeded out pretty fast. You can read more about LiVE 88.5, the Big Money Shot and schedule by clicking here.

The lineup on Friday included Dave Norris & Local Ivan, Geoffrey the Giant, Loon Choir, Orchid Theives, and The Murder Plans. Now, being out of Canada for a couple years and away from Ottawa for longer, I have not really kept up to date on the local scene. Thus, I've never seen these bands play and have heard of only one of them before. The lone standout being Loon Choir, and I know of them through a couple of good friends who are members. I was lucky enough to be given their album so I'll be reviewing that a little further down.

But first let us steal into the night...

Live Lounge is a pretty cool venue, nothing spectacular, but has a decent sound system and good sound guys. It is owned and operated by LiVE 88.5FM - which is I think a first for a Canadian radio station. DJ Noah from 88.5FM was hosting the evening and spinning tunes in between sets, most of which were okay. Although 88.5FM is a decent station they still play pretty safe music by mu standards; but relatively speaking, they would ibe the best alternative rock station in the Ottawa area. (Side note: I requested a song from Herman Dune but he didn't know who they were - that's fine, Herman Dune's kind of unknown here. But when I asked for Eric's Trip he wondered if that was a place. I mean, I hate sounding snobbish, but if you're a fan of Canadian music you should at least know who Eric's Trip is. Maybe I am snobbish...?)

I was a spot late getting to the show but came in probably half-way throug Dave Norris & Local Ivan's set. Norris is clearly the driving force here; his acoustic guitar and songwriting will jump out at you immediately. While their set was enjoyable it wasn't my cup of tea, which is funny because Dave Norris on his own I quite enjoy (solo he kind of sounds like a mix of Roy Orbison and Jim James). And that's the other thing: a band's live show can often be very different from what they can get on a disc - whether that's good or bad is always debatable. Everything considered, I liked their last song "Cheryl." Check them out: click it.
Next up was Geoffrey the Giant playing solo on the Kurtzweil. I really enjoyed his performance: it was energetic, fun, and polished. His skill on the keys was obvious and the songs and lyrics were catchy, if not a little kitschy. His style reminded me a little of Ben FOlds Five, a little New Pornographers, and maybe Hawksley Workman. My favourites were "Peace by Peace" and "Ode to Lisa Simpson." (Interesting side note: "Eyes Wide Open in the LIght" is the unofficial NDP theme song and is essentially the same song as "PEace by Peace" with different lyrics.) You can listen here and do other stuff here.

Okay so two bands done, three more to go. Thoughts so far: a lot of different styles and people which I like very much. I'm hoping I see something a bit familiar and to my liking in the next few bands. The bands did a great job of bringing a diverse crowd here tonight. Intrerestingly, LiVE Lounge has the pleasure of being next to a couple of other types of clubs, which I mistook for Jersey Shore reunions. My bad.

Loon Choir is a band I've heard before but not live. So I was a bit anxious to see them and was, truth be told, rooting for them a little. They are a larger band with several members playing a variety of instruments, including violin, keyboard, and synthesizer, which lend themselves to a deeper, layered sound with a lot of different facets in their music. Their set was defintely the best oif the night so far: lots of energy, some dedorations, and a few props! Decorations and props never hurt and are great for getting the audience into whatever mood you want. They're a pretty solid group and despite having so many instruments and members, they took great advantage of that flexibility with all members contributing to each song they played. I really enjoyed thier set and every song they played. Later I'll be reviewing their James Bunton produced 201 EP Expansion Forces. (Also of note, Loon Choir recently found out that they'll be playing NXNE later this year). You can listen and/or buy here and a here.
Next we had the Orchid Thieves, and they were also good but I felt a little underwhelmed at times, having gotten a mite excited after the Loon Choir performance. It was a tough act to follow in my opinion but I guess someone had to do it. But they are pretty good and worthy of a few clicks here and there.
The final act of the evening was a band called The Murder Plans, of whom I had heard nothing previously. I was actually quite blown away by their performance. The Murder Plans have two frontmen who know how to write a tune or two - and they have great stage presence. You could tell they have been at this for a while. They also had guys on drums and keys, which really volumized the band. I'm not sure how to describe their sound but the two bands I thought of right away were the Constantines (dog rest their souls) and a darker Pavement. Check 'em out - bing and bong.

All in all it was a really nice night - a rare delight, in fact. Check out the bands' websites below and listen, buy, get in contact with, see tour dates, all that stuff.

Dave Norris & Local Ivan - www.myspace.com/davenorrislocalivan
Geoffrey the Giant - www.geoffreythegiant.com & www.myspace.com/geoffreythegiant
Loon Choir - www.myspace.com/loonchoir & www.loonchoir.com
Orchid Thieves - www.orchidthieves.com & www.myspace.com/orchidthievesmusic
The Murder Plans - http://www.themurderplans.com & www.myspace.com/murderplans

"arctic breath"

2011-05-19T16:48:00.000-07:00

I know penguins don't live anywhere near the arctic. I don't care. Written in song form.

"arctic breath"

a cold wave: God's hushed voice
dances into places previously allocated
for reason;
an arctic breath: crispy beard etched
with snow, you know where the penguins go
don't you, oh Good King Winceslas?

"should've had a part in the war, but
the war is for younger men," you said
"i've loved a lot a long long time,
and it's time i be getting to dying."

a shiver at the mention of God's voice
is back in it's overly familiar spot, he loves
his tiny corpse;
a riverine tundra holds its arctic breath, and chokes
back to where, you know, the snow can't
get at the penguins.

"...by midnight, we had forgotten one another..."

2011-05-19T16:25:00.000-07:00

Iron and Wine - Around the Well

(Sub Pop: 2009)

In May 2009, Iron & Wine released Around the Well, a double-disc effort that features all kinds of intricate and intimate tunes, all of which are generally hard to come b(u)y through legal means. In spite of that fact, there isn’t really anything here that previous Iron & Wine fans haven’t heard, myself included; out of the 23 tracks, only 2 were new to me.

I love this album and that should come as no surprise to regular readers. In contrast to his immediately previous albums, Around the Well exudes the same cozy, exoteric feel that made his early releases like The Creek Drank the Cradle so amazing. But that’s not to make one think that it’s all roses and sunshine with Samuel Beam; on the contrary, many of his best songs have a dark hint of the Southern Gothic tradition, made legendary (in my opinion) by artists like Johnny Cash and Will Oldham. It is not easily tracked and traced, that “Southern Gothic” tradition: it’s just what I call it because it’s easier for me. (And by "Southern Gothic" I mean loosely the following: the absolute detail in his songs, the distinctively southern feel of his music, the dark and mysterious lyrics, full of death and desolation…Yet with death and desolation automatically come their opposites: life and hope.)

In this way, by using these realities he’s able to simultaneously make you cry, shiver, dance, hum along, and smile…Whither Apollo? Whither Dionysos?

With an album of such proportions, figuratively and literally, I will not expand too much. Suffice it to say there are excellent songs and a few okay songs. My favourites are: "Sinning Hands", "Belated Promise Ring", and "Trapeze Swinger". Of course, I love the covers on here as well, and most likely you’ve heard at least one of them. Stereolab’s “Peng!33” is beautifully rendered, as is The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights,” and the Flaming Lips’ “Waiting for Superman”. His cover of New Order’s “Love Vigilantes” is an earnest improvement on the original in my opinion.

But, and I will conclude on this, the real gem is "The Trapeze Swinger". It’s worth posting the lyrics so I’ll wait until the end.

The great thing about this album is its general likability, universality, and sweetness of sound. That is to say your mother, grandparent, or brother could throw it on and like it….and I’m not sure that’s a good or a bad thing. Something tells me bad, just a gut feeling.

“The Trapeze Swinger”

Please, remember me happily
By the rosebush laughing
With bruises on my chin, the time when
We counted every black car passing
Your house beneath the hill
And up until someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank
A vision too removed to mention

But please, remember me fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then they went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like "We'll meet again" and "Fuck the man"
And "Tell my mother not to worry"
And angels with their great handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry

And please, remember me that Halloween
Making fools of all the neighbours
Our faces painted white
By midnight, we'd forgotten one another
And when the morning came I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world and then returned
And now you're lit up by the city

So please, remember me mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower
Calling passers-by but much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour
Gleam and resonate, just like the gates
Around the holy kingdom
With words like "Lost and found" and "Don't look down"
And "Someone save temptation"

And please, remember me as in the dream
We had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees and fast asleep
Aside the lions and the ladies
That called you what you like and even might
Give a gift for your behaviour
A fleeting chance to see a trapeze
Swinger high as any saviour

But please, remember me, my misery
And how it lost me all I wanted
Those dogs that love the rain and chasing trains
The colored birds above their running
In circles around the well and where it spells
On the wall behind St. Peter
So bright, on cinder gray, in spray paint
"Who the hell can see forever?"

And please, remember me seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees, you turned from me
And said, "The trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last", the clown that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs, the parking lot
Had an element of danger

So please, remember me finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear, but if I make the pearly gates
I'll do my best to make a drawing
Of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl
An angel kissing on a sinner
A monkey and a man, a marching band
All around a frightened trapeze swinger

fey darkness, you will be subsumed

2011-05-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

You will see an new link at the right of the screen. It's my friend Derek Atkinson's website. Derek plays in a cool little band called Loon Choir. (loonchoir.com)

Derek has also begun fashioning a website called ardire.ca
At some point, you'll be able to view poetry, listen to music, and look at some pictures from a variety of artists and such. Right now, Derek and Loon Choir are up in Toronto recording their first (I think) studio album, so the website is not at full working order yet, but keep checking back for updates etc...

here's a small piece i just thunk:

"the ardire"

a whisper whisped
in the fey darkness:
"i will if you will."

remember to check out the ardire website, as well as Loon Choir's myspace page for upcoming shows and free tunes.

"It's Time to put God Away."

2011-05-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle

(Drag City: 2009)

Bill Callahan is one of my favourite artists. It actually doesn't really matter what song he is singing, I could literally just sit and listen to him. He's got this huge, rich baritone voice that reeks of authority and emanates a simple, pure beauty with every word. And the lyrics he writes are amazingly introspective and probing. I can only liken it to what it might feel like to be friends with your grandfather: him telling you stories and aphorisms of an older age for a new breed. Does that even make sense? You might know him as Smog or (Smog) - this is technically only his second album under his own name - but you cannot confuse the voice or music. Altogether I think this is his thirteenth or fourteenth album (including his work as both Smog and (Smog) ).

One could try to define his evolution in 3 loose stages: early lo-fi stuff; middle interest in noises; and finally a polished but sparse reincarnation of intimate, essentially lo-fi stuff. Obviously, others may use different categories but for me, those three work fine. I am most interested in the initial and final phases because that's

where my own interests primarily lie. On this album, as on his other recent releases, you will hear his acoustic accompanied by beautiful string arrangements (along with other basic instruments). Beautifully simple/simply beautiful.

The somewhat enigmatic "Jim Cain" is the album's opener. Jim Cain was a 20th century American author (Double Indemnity; The Postman Always Rings Twice) whose dream it was, according to internet searches, to become a singer. It didn't pan out because "his voice wasn't good enough." Now, I have no real idea who Jim Cain was and I don't necessarily care; I haven't read his novels nor do I wish to see any of the films inspired by his works. Yet, I find it amusing he would choose this particular novelist's name as the title because voice is one of the things that people who don't care for Callahan always mention. "It's too melancholy," "It's too sad," "Too deep," "He's not really singing," etc, etc... Maybe he's playing tricks with us, maybe it's a coincidence - who knows for sure. But the thing that gets me is that this may be perhaps the best opening song on any of his albums (and there are quite a few opening gems: "Palimpsest;" "Justice Aversion;"

"Diamond Dancer" to name a couple). "I started out in search of/Ordinary things. How much a tree/Bends in the wind. I started telling the story/Without knowing the end," is a great way to open the song. Aren't we all searching for something ordinary? Aren't we all telling a story without knowing where, how it ends? I suppose if you do have it all planned out chances are we are not friends. The ending resonates with equal intensity, at least for me: "In case things go poorly/And I not return/Remember the good things I've done/Done me in." The opening track is an invitation to us, but also, it seems, a warning. We must remember the good things that we love about Callahan.

The next track, "Eid Ma Clack Shaw," starts out with a frail statement: Callahan is reliving a ghost from the past. It's an impossible thing, to "shake a memory." This song trots along like the steady gait of the pony that Callahan has been prone to use. When you read between the lines, the generally upbeat mask of this song is actually quite a brilliant disguise for what is probably a source of great sadness for the author. The memory of a loved one is dreamt about. Upon waking, he realizes it's just a dream: that, "love is the king of the beasts/and when it gets hungry it must kill to eat." So "ripped by reality" he falls back asleep and dreams the perfect song. While love is cruel and causes suffering, it might be argued that that suffering is the source of great creativity (in this case The Perfect Song). The use of gibberish is also clever in that it can be hard to remember our dreams - almost infuriatingly so - and even harder to write them down legibly.

"The Wind and the Dove" is a very nice song. It opens with some spooky, mystical sounding instruments at the outset - I think they're Indian instruments - I can't be sure what they are. What I get from this song is that it's primarily about fate and circumstance. I read somewhere that a lot of this record is about debunking myths that we have; spectacular things that we attribute to unnatural causes but which are simply acts of

nature. I think that explanation is a great one, especially for this song.

"Rococo Zephyr" is a beautiful song, full of love and elaboration. From my limited word knowledge, the title essentially means a gentle yet intricate breeze. If that's what it really means then it makes a lot of sense, for in this song Callahan is a river and in this song he is trying to personalize the river and how it might feel during a breeze. Going along with the above explanation he gives for these songs, it fits perfectly: "Maybe this is all, is all that meant to be." Sometimes a breeze is simply that.

I suppose that "Too Many Birds" is a song above my level but to me it combines the bad luck of someone who loves a place so much they can't help but come back to it again and again, only to have it get more crowded each day. I might even say it's like the earth in many ways, i.e. overpopulation. I also had this other thought that each bird was an individual thought and the tree was a brain, like in the song "All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast." Sometimes we have too many thoughts and when that happens we always lose a

thought or two in the process. They go out to sleep on a stone only to come back to check if there's more space the next day.

"My Friend" is a great song but probably not really for me. Maybe the "heaviest" song on the album thus far.

"All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast" is an ambitious and sobering song, to say the least. There isn't much one can say about this song except: "please listen to this song!" It conjures up so many powerful images and moments in time for me - very disturbing if you think about it. The persistent rakes of the strings, the stuttering weapon the drums become, the urgency in his voice - all combine for a beautiful nightmare.

"Invocation of Ratiocination" is nothing to write home about but it does continue the creepiness factor. Alternate name for this track: "Common Sense."

"Faith/Void" is a delicious and thought-provoking bookend to an incredible album. From the opening lines of Jim Cain, "I started out in search of ordinary things" to the lines of Faith/Void, "It's time to put God away...this is the end of faith, no more must I strive to find my peace, to find my peace in a lie." It's a long 9+ minutes but Callahan's style and the way he layered this tune makes it work, and the nearly ten minutes is over before you know it.

Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle is a pretty solid record. It is definitely a private record, to be listened to away from the hustle of city streets and loud noises. Maybe it's an "at the cottage record"? I don't have a cottage though, so I will listen to it through headphones and cigarette smoke.

Callahan, despite gaining criticism for his vocal style, is still a top-notch performer who will probably only get better with age - I mean he's fairly old already, turning 45 in June of this year, but more than that I wonder if he continues with this trend of writing as he gets older.

Either way, if you haven't listened to Callahan or this record, take the time to do so and you will not be disappointed. Also you can check out Callahan's newest offering, Apocalypse, released last month on

maybe the greatest label of all time, Drag City.

2011-01-22T04:12:00.000-08:00

3 Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager by Buzz Bissinger

First Mariner Books, 2006

(Boston)

I am a very picky person when it comes to reading books: I don't really like reading fiction all that much and most of the time I can't stand biographies, especially autobiographies. There are many exceptions, which make me think that I am simply lazy when it comes to both fiction and biographies. I tend to think this way especially of fiction, whereas biographies (of both kinds) must be an absolutely interesting person and someone whom I already respect immensely for me to even attempt to read it. Case in point, apparently the actor Ewan MacGregor has a biography out there (albeit an unauthorized one by Brian Pendreigh). I like him and his movies but he doesn't need a biography yet - he's only 40! It's not a knock against him at all, just the idea that someone would write a book about him is a little more than idiotic. Fiction is a little different because, like movies I've never heard of, it really only takes a few people to suggest it to me for me to consider it. This excludes classic works of literature which are mostly more than 40 years old or more. But then there is the many factors that may affect that referral for the better or for the worse. Is the referrer reacting as part of a larger phenomenon in his or her referral? I.e. Harry Potter. Is the referrer a lover of reality shows? Do they like Shia Labeouf as Indiana Jones? Do they consider Korean pop music a "great advancement in culture"? Do they use an inordinate amount of makeup and/or hair product? Do they dislike the movies High Fidelity, The Usual Suspects, or The Castle? All of these things weigh heavy on the mind when getting a referral from a friend or acquaintance. What was I talking about?

Yeah. So anyways, I don't usually read those two types of books. But when I saw this book called 3 Nights in August, I was immediately drawn to it for two main reasons: it's about baseball, and it had Tony La Russa.

Now, you probably don't know me, or maybe you do - I don't know. But if you did know me, you'd know that I am crazy for baseball and I love reading or watching or listening or talking about baseball. This is a reason why Ken Burns has my respect - he did a whole series of specials (9 innings or episodes) all about baseball. I might also argue that I would consider reading a autobiography or a biography about Ken Burns when he is much older.

3 Nights in August is written by acclaimed writer Buzz Bissinger, who also happened to author Friday Night Lights, which I care nothing for because it's about high school football - it belongs in the same theoretical trash bin as autobiographies. Although many people tell me Friday Night Lights was a good television series, I can't bring myself to watch high school kids on television, (yet another reason why the new reality shows are not for me), as if one needs a reason... In any event, he is a pretty good writer although I find him repetitive at times and possibly prone to a type of hyperbole that sportswriters and trend analysts seem to have in bunches.

It chronicles one of the greatest events in baseball, the three game series. This particular series takes place in late August and features a burning rivalry between two of the best teams of the early to mid-2000s: the St. Louis Cardinals (managed by La Russa) and the Chicago Cubs (managed by Dusty Baker). This was one of the best times for the Cubs as they went on to win their first playoff game since the early 1900s, and had one of the best pitching staffs in baseball, with Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, and Matt Clement. The Cardinals too had a great season but finished third in the race for the playoffs. But put all that aside as it isn't really necessary to know - Bissinger does a great job at making you feel the tension of the reality in each page.

Bissinger had been approached by La Russa to write this book and so had complete access to the coaches, players, trainers, and La Russa himself throughout the games. He was also given an amazing amount of journalistic license by La Russa to write about what he observed - a great amount of trust to be sure.

But there is no cause for alarm here because, thankfully, Bissinger stays true to baseball the whole way through as he is a fan of the game. He deals with the players gingerly but toughly, writing about those with the greatest amount of heart (Cal Eldred and Darryl Kile), the greatest talents (Albert Pujols, J.D. Drew), and the least interest (unfortunately also J.D. Drew). He recounts Tony La Russa's improbable beginnings and contrasts it with his now legendary workaholism, studiousness, and sacrifice. Bissinger's writing about La Russa's experimentation when Pujols' elbow was injured kept me on edge, actually worried for the future of La Russa despite knowing the happy outcome (the book was published several years ago).

It is certainly an entertaining read for any baseball fan. I shouldn't say any baseball fan but certainly for special types of baseball fans this book will make you nostalgic and renew your love for genuine baseball people like La Russa, Eldred, Matt Morris, and Pujols. You get to empathize with La Russa and all the decisions he has to make, the hearts and minds he has to win, and the losses he shoulders personally. You get to understand what goes through a manager's head during a ballgame: his worries, his feelings on his players, and his frustration at players who either don't listen or don't want to listen. It was interesting to read about J.D. Drew and Kerry Robinson, whom La Russa wants to play but whom he won't because of injury or idiocy (or both). In the end, you end up not envying the job he has in one bit but, like a true armchair quarterback, you can't help but think that you might have done something different in that series against the Red Sox...things might have been different if you had just...

I'm as nauseous as I've eber been. I have a terrible headache. My head is pounding. I feel like throwing up and I'm having trouble swallowing. And the beauty of it is, you want to feel like this every day. - Tony La Russa

"...the city's residents studiously avoided hearing the screams..."

2011-01-22T02:58:00.000-08:00

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

Picador Press, 2007

(New York)

I had put off reading Shock Doctrine for a long, long time until a good friend had reminded me about it about a year ago. It wasn’t necessarily about negligence or laziness; rather, it was more a situation where I almost knew what she was going to say. Like the tough subject of her earlier book, No Logo, I knew the subject matter contained in Shock Doctrine fairly well due to my studies at university. After reading No Logo I remember being depressed and sad, angry and outraged at corporations and the governemnts that allowed them to ply their wickedly effiecient trades. I knew that Shock Doctrine would be the same: governments exploiting other governments and their peoples; “visionaries” in effieciency and technological advancement held up as idols to millions of believers; and piles upon piles of dead or dying, abused, tormented, broken victims, albeit flecked with a few equally broken but nevertheless defiant survivors. And in spite of all this, I read it.

I was (and still am) outraged, angry, depressed, and sad. But nevertheless, it is a book more than worthy of your time. Hereafter are my thoughts on the matter...

The book begins with an outline of the infamous McGill-CIA brainwashing experiments of the 1940s and 1950s, with Dr. Ewen Cameron as the star protagonist. His special goals were to reduce patients to an infant-like state in order to be able to code whatever he wanted into their minds – tabula rasa style – in order to give the CIA ideal double-agents to fight the Cold War. Of course, it didn’t work. Patients were reduced to babies, their minds conveniently fucked but unable to speak or walk, thus making cultivating a good double agent a difficult and time consuming task. With the parallel neatly set, Klein applies this idea (which is essentially experimental torture) to the government of the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s, where coup d’etats were all the rage. Instead of Dr. Cameron we now are exposed to an even more menacing figure: an economist. Milton Friedman is largely credited for essentially founding the free market ideology in its current incarnation, which Klein goes on to call, and rightly so, disaster capitalism. In the 1970s, he and his infamous Chicago School Economics club pretty much ran the table in South America, to the detriment of the continent. The most important idea that Friedman and his acolytes advocated was that any type of disaster (in the loosest understanding possible) was in fact an opportunity waiting to be pounced upon by men with ideas.

Now, one might wonder (and rightly so) why this is such a bad thing. Well, turns out that South America at that time was very left-leaning; which is to say that the U.S. regarded them as a domino away from becoming Soviets. So, to curb this disturbing trend, hordes of willing students were recruited to study under Friedman in the U.S. to learn the acceptable tools of the trade. Upon graduation they took their fully indoctrinated minds back home to South America to unleash the ideas they had learned on the populace. Such ideas included, but were not limited to, slashing health programs, union breaking, suspending civil liberties, cutting health care, privatization of any money making national resources, torture of social and uncooperative business leaders, and of course, murder.

This is pretty much par for the course if you know anything about neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus, or the demands from loan-giving organizations like the World Bank and IMF. Now, before someone objects, it wasn’t as if there were a bunch of economists recommending that Sally Salvatore be shot – it wasn’t that overt. But after CIA-backed coups put some pretty ugly people in power, death squads in South America became as normal as me farting after eating Indian food.

Klein’s argument goes something like this. The patients whom Cameron experimented on were systematically deprived and tortured to such a degree that they became blank and complacent. They lost their identity in the race for simple survival. The parallel between that and what Friedman et al. did was that, in the face of a disaster, in this case mostly caused by World Bank loans and demands, people were simply intent on surviving in a highly inflated and impoverished country, so they wouldn’t necessarily notice certain things: a passed law here, a decree there, a new owner or two over there, suspension of certain liberties, an abduction or disappearance now and again.

An important aspect of her argument is rather existential. As mentioned above, in order to allow such things to happen, a person must be punished and tortured into a state of complacence or torment great enough to demand inability or unwillingness to respond to outside actions. Therefore, identity and personal or shared narratives must be destroyed; institutions and social bonds, broken; shared history and memories, erased. Her elucidation on the pillaging of Iraq and the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurrican Katrina are particularly good examples of this idea.

Klein is very thorough in her presentation and gives many examples of other such crucubles in the world, including: Israel, South Africa, Russia, China, Iraq, New York City post-9/11, Sri Lanka and New Orleans (disasters can be natural as well). Reading the book gives you a sense that each new disaster unfolding in the world is met with muted cheers of joy from certain business leaders and stock market analysts.

All shock therapists are intent on the erasure of memory. Ewen Cameron was convinced that he needed to wipe out the minds of his patients before he could rebuiold them. The U.S. occupiers of Iraq felt no need to stiop the looting of Iraq’s museums and libraries, thinking it might make their jobs easier. But...new narratives can be created. Memory, both individual and collective, turns out to be the greatest shock absorber of all. (p. 585-6)

So yes, I am angry and outraged at all of it. And so should you. But the ever-present optimist in us begins to speak up at the sight of it, like the lingering New Year’s resolution that lives in the corner of your brain, eating away at a valuable morsel of grey matter. We can choose to keep the narratives alive; in spite of how much we forget in such a short space of time, we can always remember.

"Woman Part One"

2010-07-27T06:20:00.001-07:00

a tiny thing

a small thing

a tornado whip
lashed on to her feet
but,
she cannot be pulled
into richter's scrum.

she howls
and
he runs -

falls! -

outward, but to the center;
stymied
by the very thing
he had beseeched to
enslave her...

a wee bit -

lilliputian -

of her drops against him.
his jaw falls off...
but,
she is kind, merciful,
and lets him run.

the lash falls
and both run.

"Way Down In The Land Of Twins"

2010-07-17T13:14:00.000-07:00

A.C. Newman - Get Guilty
(Matador: 2009)

Allan Carl Newman (AC or Newman hereafter) has, in a single decade, cemented an enviable place for himself in the history of great Canadian music. To me, that's both at once a remarkable and an immensely difficult thing to do. And I'm not necessarily talking record sales, profit made, or legions of adoring preteen/teen youngsters scratching at the heels of his celebrity (although he probably does dandily in all three categories). No, we are talking about quality, about perceived sensibility, about ability, and finally about legacy, to name a few aspects. From his early days with Superconductor to his meteoric rise with The New Pornographers to his more recent solo records, Newman has been a lightning rod for success.

While these are kind words, it wasn't always this way. It has taken me literally years to "get into" Newman's stuff. I was always more partial to Dan Bejar's and to a lesser extent, Neko Case's musical styles. I should mention that I still like Destroyer more than The New Pornographers or anything Neko Case has done, but I suppose what has changed is: a) Neko Case falls to the bronze position, and b) Newman is now in the silver position. I still feel AC is much too polished for my liking but that doesn't mean he's not uber-talented; his songs are well written and most of them are much better than quite a lot of the Pornographers' stuff.

In 2008, Newman released his second solo album, Get Guilty, and hoo-boy was it a dandy! I am still cautious about Newman, as I'm not completely sold on him yet. In spite of my respect for him I still have to hold him at arm's length. I wonder though, if he can make a song that doesn't sound great. Below is a track listing with some comments on the tracks I like the most.

1. "There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve" - Forget opening your new solo album with a humble plea - go straight for the podium! This song is pretty classic - loud intro, soft verses, loud injunctions between verses. I can only imagine what this song would sound like with a full backing band - after each verse there is a majestic ascension of noise that, for some reason, makes me think of "the motherland," though his lyrics denote something a mite more melancholy or wistful: "Once there was a haunted loop/Of your deep fallen tears/Forehead resting on a record shelf/Amid moving boxes stacked/I'm still waiting for the right words/Make of that what you will."

2. "The Heartbreak Rides" - This is kind of a cute song if you take it literally (and I do). It's a frenetic road trip down the west coast out of Vancouver (or Seattle, or Portland, etc...) and into California. Maybe the girl represents the heartbreak; a gutless man who can't say no to the woman of his dreams. Maybe, maybe not.

3. "Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer" - A rollicking acoustic-driven piece, this is what I have come to expect from Newman. I say acoustic-driven, but it would be easily adapted to suit more players. Seems I can hear some feedback and accordion and - what is that? A flute?

4. "Prophets" - As one listens to this album, it gets increasingly hard to find any real fault with the music itself. It's almost as if they have been perfectly engineered - and maybe that's what the issue is: they just sound so good, too good. Anyways, "Prophets" reminds me of The Mountain Goats in the best way possible.

5. "Submarines Of Stockholm" - Again, a nice song but there is a "something" here that puts me in a sea of unease. Although I do really like the sonar-like sound in the background.

6. "Thunderbolts" - Finally, a song that I dislike! It's much too stop-and-start for this album, i.e. the flow doesn't sit well with the previous songs, and it's really annoying at this point in the record. The repetitive "They let you let you ride" is grating, as is the full stop that occurs throughout the song.

7. "The Palace At 4A.M." - This is a really great song, probably one of my top 3 on this album. Maybe it's just me, but I can totally see most of these songs being used in future Pornographer's concerts - I guess that's not altogether surprising considering AC is the main force behind most of their songs.

8. "The Changeling (Get Guilty)" - Another gem, this song bounces along until the chorus, which is a simple and sweet "Change your mind!"

9. "Elemental" - I might regret saying this but, I think Destroyer should immediately cover this song only in order to make it 20 times better. I think he's trying a little too hard here.

10. "Young Atlantis" - From the beginning violin intro to the ending triangle chime, this song is hands down my favourite song on the album, and certainly one of my favourite songs in general. Whether or not it is the piano, or the strings, or the great guitar riff the chorus holds, or the imagery of the lyrics (I've always been a sucker for Atlantis), this song has it all. Again, I don't know if that's a bad thing but the beauty of this song has overshadowed the unease felt previously....for now.

11. "The Collected Works" - Another sparkling effort by Newman is allowing me to enjoy this album more. This song belongs in the same category of "The Palace at 4A.M." and "Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer" for its pure "rocking" nature. The piano-guitar combo here is pretty amazing and the underlying drumbeat is instantly both recognizable and lovable (I want to say that it has given many a band a hit song or two, but I have no proof at the moment).

12. "All Of My Days And All Of My Days Off" - A nice song, but nothing special.

Looking back, I can say that I did give Newman more than a fair chance. More than that, I was rooting for him the whole way through. That probably skewed some of my comments and perceptions of his music. Yet, as much as I would like to I cannot separate his solo work from that of The New Pornographers. That in itself is not a bad thing. It's only that a lot of these songs could be on a Pornographers album - and that's a testament to AC Newman's individual genius as I've come to respect him and his abilities much more in light of this particular album.
There are standout tracks among a lot of better-than-average songs. In my opinion, those that stand out include: There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve, Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer, The Palace At 4A.M., The Collected Works, and Young Atlantis. Now, that's almost half of the album but depending on your musical leanings, it could be more or less. One might say that Newman relies too much on a formula, or is too technical, or possibly his stuff is too polished, but compared to what passes for music these days many of those criticisms, while well-founded, seem a bit redundant. It doesn't change the fact that this album is 3/4 potential singles and easily lend themselves to a larger complement of players, should the need (or tour) arise. And with that, I will give this album two thumbs up with the caveat that if you're a big fan of spontaneity in music and albums you will be very disappointed. Everything on this album seems to be perfectly placed, produced, and constructed.

"The secrecy of your revolt poisons you like a secret disease..."

2010-02-12T10:47:00.000-08:00

Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hitchens
Basic Books, 2002
(New York)

Why should we care about George Orwell? Why does he matter? Does he, in the 21st century, have anything pertinent or relevant to show us? Isn’t Orwell just a crack-pot conspiracy theorist, whose grim outlook on life compelled him to write of a totalitarian, dark future? Are his ideas of that future not overblown and overly gloomy (to say nothing of accuracy)?

Well, as it turns out, he is mind-bendingly relevant and still an important read for us advanced 21st century humans. He died over 60 years ago, yet his voice wafts ever eerily to us over the decades, warning us, scolding us, and in a way shaming us: the type of shame one feels when being told by a healthy person that eating that chocolate bar will make you unhealthy. It's not that we don't already know this, it's just that more often than not, we succumb to our frailty. In relation to George Orwell, this frailty involves a linguistic laziness.

While most people would cite Animal Farm or 1984 as Orwell's most important legacy he is most certainly more important for things other than those two beautiful works. His essays contain a plethora of infinitely more useful and lasting ideas than any work of fiction he was able to scrape together, a major case in point being "Politics and the English Language," which you can peruse here.

Christopher Hitchens has, in the last 8 years, become very close to being my favourite author. This is mostly due to his religious views and criticisms, which fall closely in line with my own viewpoints and opinions, but also because he is actually a great writer and very easy to read. This is something Orwell would have admired in Hitchens.

Why Orwell Matters is a good intermediate introduction to the subject. The slim volume (211 pages) is an easy read and is laid out and dealt with systematically by Hitchens in a workmanlike fashion. In turn, Hitchens deals with Orwell's experiences and writings in terms of: Empire, the Left, the Right, America, 'Englishness', the Feminists, the 'List' (Orwell kept a list of supposed Communists - they were nothing more than educated guesses but yes, a list nontheless), his novels, and the Post-Modernists. To a student of Orwell, there is nothing here that would surprise or serve to catch one "off-guard," save for maybe Hitchens' own encyclopedic and anecdotal knowledge, especially in relation to Orwell's many critics. It is a somewhat difficult introduction for a newbie however, and one can easily get lost among the newsprint.

Orwell was a figure lauded and despised by both the Right and the Left, and most of the time one is not sure who agrees or disagrees with Orwell. Orwell the ardent Anti-Communist is loved by the Right...but the Orwell who warns of a future where every action is analyzed and noticed is despised by those on the Right. Orwell the Champion of the Working-Classes and Minorities is loved by the Left...yet, the Anti-Communist Orwell that is celebrated on the Right is despised on the Left. And these are but 2 small examples one can find both in the book and easily from other sources.
The main idea one gets from Why Orwell Matters can also be found, essentially, in the aforementioned essay but also Burmese Days, and The Road to Wigan Pier. It is Orwell's striking adherence to plain and simple language. On this very trait, Orwell writes: "I knew [from an early age] that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts." In a nutshell, this very fact of his being able to face ugly truths and write about them honestly, is Orwell's most lasting legacy to the world.

It becomes patently clear as one reads Burmese Days that Orwell's outlook on language and proper behaviour stems from his experience of imperialism in the British system. He was in fact a police officer in Burma in his younger years, enforcing (sometimes violently) the British law on relatively helpless natives - something that he hated intensely and eventually led him to quit. It also galvanized his outlook on a wide range of subjects, which is obvious in both his earliest and later works.

What I also like about this book is that Hitchens isn't afraid to give Orwell credit, good or bad, where it is warranted. His famous "list," while not meant to be taken seriously, was probably an error in judgement by Orwell who no doubt did not intend necessarily for anyone to actually see this list. But, alas, it was made public in the 1980s. Hitchens defends him honourably but cannot dismiss the base fact that a list was made by a relatively prominent celebrity (at the time). Orwell's relationship with women and feminists is also illuminated and shown to be fairly disastrous, as is his relationship with homosexuals. (Orwell definitely does not give women much credit, power, or play in his novels, and arguably, has an anti-homosexual stance in many writings. Yet, he has also been accused of being a closet homosexual at "worst" and "at least," has been accused of obvious homo-eroticism. Who really knows? Or cares...)
In spite of Hitchens' efforts to portray an honest (Orwellian?) portrayal or Orwell, unless one is profoundly well-versed in all of Orwell's many works, one mostly has to take Hitchens' arguments at face value. One can draw one's own conclusions fairly easily from primary sources, i.e. the texts themselves.

In conclusion, Why Orwell Matters is a nice foray into one of the most influential political writers of the 20th century, but it is for intermediate readers of the subject and author. If one has no idea that Orwell wrote things other than 1984 or Animal Farm, one could feel a little overwhelmed at times. And as always, one has to be cautious of a figure like Hitchens, for as much as he is someone I admire and like as a writer he certainly does have a specific agenda - both with this book and his overall political beliefs (including his support of the Bush, Jr. regime in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Orwell matters because he valued truth and aspired to objectivity even as he understood such objectivity was impossible and even undesirable. His prescience in relation to language and power was uncanny and all-too-accurate. Very similarly to Hitchens, Orwell advocated and pushed ideas and concepts both abhorrent to and beloved among the Right and Left. The common vein seems to be, at the very least, a power or desire to "face the unpleasantness" and recognize the poisons within us....and to at least speak of a remedy without bitterness or confusion of the language/power dichotomy.

"There was no more talk of doves and pigeons..."

2010-02-12T08:52:00.000-08:00

Pilgrim by Timothy Findley

HarperCollins Publishers

1999: Toronto

I have only read one other book by Timothy Findley, and that book is Famous Last Words, which I enjoyed thoroughly. It is, like Pilgrim, a dark and fantastically mysterious journey that mingles and copulates fact with fiction. That is not to say that Findley portrays his work as some sort of documentary - far from it. What it does mean, however, is that the reader is left with an oftentimes plausible alternative reality that is, most times, only fit for the page or the screen (as fortunate or unfortunate as it is).

We actually know quite a great deal about the novel before we open the first page, which to me is quite unfortunate. I like to delve and discover a novel, which is why I have conflicted opinions on putting writing on the back covers of books. I think sometimes they tell way too much; in this case, the back cover of Pilgrim told me way too much: "Ageless. Sexless. Deathless. Timeless. Pilgrim - the man who has lived throughout human history..." Those are things I would have loved not to know beforehand. I digress...

The book opens darkly with the main character's, aptly named Pilgrim, suicide...or rather, attempted suicide. Again we know it is attempted right away because of the back cover. In any event, we are also treated to a foreboding in the person of Pilgrim's butler/assistant, Forster, who opines whether or not his master has succeeded this time. Pilgrim, of course, has not and is promptly admitted to the Burgholzli Clinic in Switzerland for observation.

During his stay, he is tended to chiefly by a young Dr. Carl Jung, whose career is just starting to grow and whose relationship with a one Dr. Freud has yet to fully falter into a schizm. Jung is, in fact, quite an important secondary character with loads of depth and conflict: he is confused about Pilgrim - a man, an entity - a thing he cannot explain nor understand fully. The scientist in him doubts Pilgrim, but the Jung we know from his theory of the collective unconscious certainly needs to believe him. Indeed, if anything, Pilgrim is just the man to prove Jung's theories.

Jung comes into possession of Pilgrim's journals, which detail surprising and alarming facts about his supposed "lives." One of which, as a woman, he posed for perhaps the most mysterious painting of all time by arguably the most interesting man of all time - "The Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci. Findley takes some artistic liberty here in depicting da Vinci's sexuality and personality but it certainly works on a number of levels. In another life, Pilgrim was a stained-glass shape cutter at Chartres Cathedral. Interestingly enough, he worked on the famous blue glass in the Church - possibly the most beautiful colour of blue to be made from the appendage of a man. Needless to say, Pilgrim is an interesting human being; tortured to be sure, but interesting nevertheless.

With the help of a comically undercover Forster, Pilgrim eventually escapes from the clutches of Jung and the Burgholzli Institute and treks across Europe with a mission in mind: to destroy or upset all of the items, places, things that he has "touched" in his past lives (or as many as possible before he is killed, if that is even possible). I'm being a little facetious here because his reasoning is a lot more nuanced that this - more on this later.

Forster and Pilgrim are able to arrange the theft of the Mona Lisa and set a fire in the Chartres Cathedral before an odd twist occurs: Pilgrim is able to kill himself finally! Or maybe not...it's not clear. He definitely does disappear but his death is uncertain for lack of a body. For such a long book, it ends quite abruptly and mysteriously - maddeningly so in fact.

Other Thoughts

The Dr. Jung character is probably the most interesting character in the book, followed by Pilgrim himself/herself and followed closely by Emma, Jung's embattled wife.

Jung is a deeply conflicted and tragic individual. I don't know much about his real life but in the book he is fallible, passionate about his work, selfish, and thoroughly obstinate about almost everything. He cheats on his wife, who has done nothing but everything for him, including reading his papers, editing, offering advice, bear his child, and read and interpret Pilgrim's journals for him (Jung becomes tired of reading the fantastic tales of Pilgrim and asks Emma to do it for him). His science seems too inflexible to allow for someone, something like Pilgrim.

Emma, on the other hand, lends Pilgrim a welcome touch of sensitivity and intelligence that is simply different in kind to that offered by Jung. She deeply loved her husband, maybe still so, but after one particularly disturbing scene where she finds Jung's mistress giving the good doctor's dude piston a polish, she becomes empty and vacant to and for him. Fair enough. When you get down to it, both these figures are tragically entwined but you really only feel sorry for one of them, that being Emma. Jung is, excuse my language, a selfish, close-minded cock, who had proof enough before him yet dismissed it as insanity.

The character of Pilgrim could have been better written I think, but it is possible that Findley was purposely keeping him opaque in order to foster a sense of Pilgrim's own mind. We never know if Pilgrim was insane or not, or if he actually lived those lives and experiences that he wrote down.

Why did Pilgrim choose to destroy the Church and steal the Mona Lisa (among other things)? Again, his reasoning is blurred by Findley's own wordiness and intentional confusion. But here is my take on it...

Pilgrim, assuming he has experienced all the things we come to believe he has experienced, is tired of being unable to not live. That is to say, he wants to die. But he can't - how frustrating is that?!? The one thing that humans have (or should have) complete and total control over is something that is unavailable to him! Yet, let us wait - often people say that art is simply a language, a life, an extension of one's soul - if this is the case, Pilgrim would say, then some semblance of death is attainable.

There are two sides to my argument or opinion on the matter: First is the above idea: that Pilgrim is tired and wishes his soul to pass on into deathly permanence. Second is the concept of art for art's sake. Pilgrim doesn't really like that all these works of art and symbols of greatness and spirituality are hiding behind glass, or protected with armed guards for the stupid masses to ogle, blink, and chew their cud. For example, the Mona Lisa should be in Italy where it belongs, not behind 2 feet of solid glass where people cannot appreciate its majesty and beauty. It's wrong to him, unacceptable; if he is able to liberate it, he is liberating himself somehow.

This kind of idea is something that Findley can persuade us to think simply because of the cloudiness of Pilgrim's thinking and reasoning. We don't know because Pilgrim himself is either incapable of such thoughts, or is in fact insane.

The beauty of the novel is that we don't know for sure - a characteristic of Findley's writings (not that I am anywhere close to an expert on his writing). There are some negatives about the novel, one of them being his wordiness. Pilgrim is also slow to develop in many areas without cause. The biggest problem I have with it is that it just doesn't tell the reader enough information. We just "don't know" too much. That being said, for those with a penchant for mystery-history, it is an excellent read. Just get used to "not knowing for sure."

"Fact: F is for fart. G is for Gorilla fart. H is for Huge Gorilla Fart."

2009-12-22T04:42:00.000-08:00

Kimya Dawson - Alphabutt

(K Records: 2008)

Kimya Dawson has released an album that....your kid needs to hear!!??!!

It's true. But come on. You knew it was coming, I mean, if her work with Antsy Pants wasn't foreboding enough, she was pregnant you know. It would be weird if she didn't write songs about children now. Alas, rest your weary musical fears, it's still the old Kimya.

Dawson has been around for a fairly long time, releasing some indie gems with Adam Green as The Moldy Peaches. Yet while the Peaches did some really great things as a band, for me the driving force in the band was always Dawson’s witty lyrics, rambunctious energy, and simplicity in style and delivery. Her fame “skyrocketed” with the release of the movie, Juno, for which she allowed several songs to be used (the film features both her solo work and work with her other projects, including The Moldy Peaches and Antsy Pants). I use the term “skyrocketed” only because in most serious music circles, The Moldy Peaches a.k.a. Kimya and Adam Green had already been digested, along with to an extent, K Records, as one of the great “hidden treasures” of the anti-folk genre. But I digress...

Dawson and Green have not officially taken the band off the shelf but haven’t really played together for about 5 years. During that time, both have concentrated on their solo careers, Dawson’s being the more prolific and, most likely, successful. But that isn’t a slight against Green who is an amazingly creative dude; it’s more of a fact of life for Dawson’s new “mainstream” fame. Mainstream: never thought I’d be able to mention that word anywhere near Kimya Dawson – it feels strange and weird and good, all at the same time.

Anyways, much of what Dawson has done recently (within the last 3-5 years) has revolved around her becoming more grown up and mature. She had a baby named Panda in 2006 and since then much of her work has seemingly been child friendly and cute lullabies. Alphabutt is her opus to her child and is replete with songs that mothers the world over can relate to and find common ground with.

If having a child has taken some of the edge off for Dawson, it certainly hasn’t taken anything away from her unique ability to craft a beautifully melodic song, “Little Monster Babies” being a case in point: “...I build it out of blocks, they tear it all down, little monster babies destroying my town.” It’s a wonderful song about playing blocks with your kid – so small, so minute, seemingly so inconsequential – yet so awesome. The title track, “Alphabutt,” is a cute little take on the traditional alphabet song that i would teach my own students if I wasn’t so sure I’d be reprimanded. “Bobby-O” is the closest thing on the album to a Moldy Peaches song, and it’s pretty great and funny. “Louie” is a song, ostensibly, about the family dog named, yes – Louie. “Smoothie” is a cute little crafty song about a mother being worried by the absence of her unborn baby’s kicks. The remedy? A smoothie! “Because when momma drinks a smoothie little baby goes wild.” “I Like Bears” is a nice, quick little sing-a-long; a marching tune for 5-year olds. “Seven Hungry Tigers” is another cute and funny jingle about crazy tigers living in your underwear drawer. “Happy Home (Keep on Writing)” is a bit more serious and refined and, as with many of Dawson’s songs, offers positive messages about fairly serious, “real life” stuff:

When I was a kid we would play Annie at recess

I was always Sandy because I was the smallest

From all that crawling on the blacktop

There were holes in all my jeans

In the toes of my bowed shoes but I never complained

Because I didn’t think that I could sing

See I never perfected that nasally thing

The way all the kids sang in the school play

Now I know it’s better if we don’t all sound the same

“Wiggle My Tooth” is an unabashed anthem for those about to lose their baby teeth: the back-up singers are incredible, especially the young boy in whose voice you can almost taste the brashness encapsulated in every “tooth.” “I Love You Sweet Baby” is a pretty straightforward song – hint – it’s exactly like the song says. I love the way she actually sings everything down to the last small detail – a quality that is lacking in songwriting these days. “Pee-pee in the Potty,” while only a 30-second “song,” is quite amazing: “Pee-pee in the potty, pee-pee in the potty, starts as milk from mommy, then that goes through your body and then you make a pee-pee. Pee-pee in the potty.” Mothers everywhere are nodding approvingly. The good ‘ole kazoo makes a grand appearance on “Uncle Hukee’s House,” possibly a song about going to see a lesbian family – not sure. “We’re All Animals” is another one of those genius songs you wish you had when your mom and dad were trying to tell you about sex, Darwin, and boys and girls, etc... For example: “When you get older your body will grow hair on your legs, your armpits, and even down there. Some people shave theirs off but I let mine grow – because I’m an animal.” Given that Kimya’s daughter’s name is Panda, the content of “Little Panda Bear” should be self-evident. The last song on the album, “Sunbeams and Some Beans,” is my far the most serious song on the album. The song pits two characters on opposite sides: one, a guy named Sam Champion – a TV guy, hungering for fame and glory; the other, Grand Champion – a big-hearted farmer who goes out of his way to share with Sam. Grand does things because people need to eat; Sam does things for the attention. Dawson alludes to the fact of poverty in America despite a food surplus. The song also deals with the lack of compassion and simple common sense that has largely been forgotten nowadays.

Alphabutt is a cute album: it’s funny, clever, and crafted almost entirely for children – albeit a special type of child in this day and age. Most parents would scoff at this attempt at children’s songs, but a lot of my friends would think differently. That being said it’s probably more accurate to say that this album will eventually be popular among younger parents (or, maybe more accurately, me, my wife, and our children). But that doesn’t really matter much – the fact remains that Alphabutt is really unique and the way Dawson can craft a story is truly amazing and inspiring. There are times when I’m just like, “What the fuck?” but those moments are few and only occur because I’m hearing something I don’t expect. Tracks like “Uncle Hukee’s House,” “Little Panda Bear,” “Louie,” “I Love You Sweet Baby,” and “Pee-pee in the Potty” aren’t my favourites but are listenable because of Dawson’s sheer enthusiasm and charisma.

So, yes, recommended to anyone who likes Kimya Dawson’s previous releases, either as The Moldy Peaches or her solo work. You will find songs you don’t like, but there will be more that you do like – guaranteed.

" I Left This Bullwhip With The Night Stand "

2009-11-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

Swan Lake – Enemy Mine (Jagjaguwar: March 2009)

For those not in the know, Swan Lake is a trio of Canadian indie musicians hailing from 3 (or 4 or 5) of the best rock groups currently populating the Great White North: Spencer Krug, of Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown; Dan Bejar of Destroyer and the New Pornographers; and Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes. The unlikely triumvirate emerged in 2008 with their debut album, Beast Moans, a Schumpeterian result of their distinctive and chaotic styles. The album is thrush with the kind of apocalyptic gothic imagery you would expect to encounter at the event horizon of hell. That being said, Enemy Mine offers the same type of style and imagery but it is infinitely more subtle, and one might say, more careful in its total outward perception.

1.   Spanish Gold, 2044 (Mercer)

Spanish Gold begins the album with a drunken stagger: a man begins to sing but slowly descends into madness, microphone clenched in his hand. The track is drenched in dark, its stuttering guitar keeping the time for its beleaguered leader. Until, that is, the comrades chanting his doom in the background join into a cacophonous laughter, wailing prophesy fit for the end of the world. For me, the dominant imagery remains Mercer singing from the mountaintops as the world burns around him – a wizard in a world-eating storm caused by his own hand – his acolytes complementing and helping the destructive conjuration.

2.   Paper Lace (Krug)

From the tornado of fire that is Spanish Gold, 2044 follows a relatively easy song, replete with un-shadowed vocals, and not a hint of madness to be found; even after being the “wild thing” the subject is sent back “to his good home.” I’m not sure it’s a song you should play for your best mate before he gets married but it is a nice song, and it has an interesting little guitar riff that follows it around until the end that reminds me of the Beach Boys.

3.   Heartswarm (Bejar)

Dan Bejar is one of my favourite lyricists and singers, despite the many protestations of musical people everywhere. These criticisms tend to be of three distinct types: his voice is terrible – some people simply can’t handle his voice, and causes their spine to shiver as though afflicted with hypothermia. The la-de-da-de-dums – many criticize his (over)use of this accent in his music. This is a fair assessment as he does this a lot in many songs, but he is consistent about it and it sounds pretty good. The last and greatest criticism, his “poetic lyrics” – many think it is mad genius, many think it is college-level ramblings, with a hint of intelligence and a lot of nonsense. I am of the mind that most of it is genuine, and the rest is there for the critics and possibly without specific meaning. Those with the intent will give it the meaning they want. When you think about it, this is true for almost any art: paintings, poems, fiction, sculpture – people give meaning to it and often, when it doesn’t mesh nicely in the margins, a (often jealous) criticism ensues. I digress.
Heartswarm isn’t Bejar’s best work, but it is a beautiful little piano driven ditty. To me, this song is about Bejar indulging in companionship spawned by an artistic depression, or stagnation (his companion? Probably Swan Lake). The stagnation caused by Bejar believing that Destroyer’s Rubies was his most recent “best” work, and consequently believing that Trouble in Dreams was a disappointment: “...I was stuck inside of dreams, coming off something pretty strong.” In fact, the second verse, possibly the whole song, could be read as an arrow pointed at reviewers and the media people for lambasting his style and music. I read it that way though it is probably way off.
4.   Settle on Your Skin (Krug)

This song is a frantic and dark-toned sprint right from the beginning, and could have been penned by Ed Gein himself. In contrast to most of the album, this is a really rocking tune.

5.   Battle of a Swan Lake, or, Daniel’s Song (Bejar)

This is not a song per se, but more of a poem or a chant – which actually is the reason this is a worthwhile listen. It has some nice lyrics, “I sat down and took a number, at the table where death resides,” and the backing vocals at the end are beautifully terrifying. And another thing Swan Lake does so well is tricking you into thinking you’re listening to a sparse, bare song; out of nowhere comes crescendos and cacophonies of noise – and it sounds damn good.

6.   Peace (Mercer)

Again, Mercer delivers a great song – definitely one of my favourites. It is, as is the trend on Enemy Mine, a dark song with equally dark lyrics sung by a possessed Mercer; it reads like a cryptic account of events that would occur around a suicide: “...no savage detectives to evade”; “No crystal cathedrals to lease. No, dancing in the basement must immediately cease – by order of the Grand Diocese.” Yet, those are only the usual, direct results of a positive suicide; the line, “The important event to behold, is when we purge the terror from your bones,” is full of meaning and importance: it transforms this from a song about suicide to a song about hurt, anguish, depression, and the idea that the person wanting “peace” is under the pressure fist of something they cannot exorcise themselves. The repeated lines at the end, “No suicide” is at once a description and a statement of triumph.

7.   Spider (Bejar)

I won’t lie: Spider is a bit of a letdown in my opinion. It doesn’t really mesh with the rest of the album thematically speaking, and represents somewhat of a degression in terms of scope compared to the other songs. It would seem to belong on a Destroyer album rather than a Swan Lake album.

8.   A Hand at Dusk (Krug)

There is something deeply beautiful and wistful about this song. A beautiful and poignant piano begins and follows this song throughout: the proverbial ghost in the machine, it really sets the tone. The wispy and forlorn lyrics are etched with a masterful grace by Krug, and contribute just as equally to the mood as does the music: “There’s a hand at dusk, in the wake in the water it’s mine,” and “You are the flash of skin seen through the leaves of anxious trees/The summer’s touch just above the knee, just above the knee.” The more I listen to it the more it lends itself to a picturesque vision of nature, where nature is first grandiose, mysterious and wonderful (“there’s architecture here/and there are mountain peaks/and places dwelled upon by those/who have climbed much higher than me”), only to be finally being tamed and “compiled into books and maps by men with pens.” Two-thirds through the song, it really opens up, with louder piano and all three singers combining for a nice stanza before Krug does his creepy best, softly alluding to the Allegory of the Cave and Plato (perhaps).

9.   Warlock Psychologist (Mercer)

Warlock Psychologist is a strange song by any criteria but for Swan Lake it’s pretty par for the course. Most notable are Mercer’s gunslinger poet lyrics, spewed chaotically across a canvas of halting drum beats. The last two minutes of the song are absolutely triumphant and awe-inspiring; something you would want playing at the end of an 8 day bender in the middle of Turkey.

Enemy Mine is a great album from 3 of the best musicians on the Canadian music scene today. It’s been said before and is worth mentioning again: a “super group” formation like this always causes murmurs of nervous anxiety and whispers of doubt. In many cases those doubts are warranted, but in this instance those doubts are somewhat unfounded. All three artists contribute good material on this album and it’s well worth the hard listen. In my opinion, Mercer and Krug really step it up here while Bejar seems to have fallen off the horse (or fallen into the lake, as the case may be) but the good thing about a group like this is that the weight isn’t totally on one artist. In any case, the instrumentation, mixing, and backing vocals more than make up for any particular shortcomings. Enemy Mine is still better than 70 percent of everything released so far in Canada, and maybe the world.

“ Get smart with your smartness. Too busy survivin’ to argue ‘bout Darwin, darlin’ ”

2009-11-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

Mos Def – The Ecstatic (Downtown: June, 2009)

In university I became more interested in hip-hop but I would not for a minute consider myself anywhere close to an expert on hip-hop music. I was more interested with the things that surrounded hip-hop music, i.e. the history of the oppressed, inner-city realities, and the attitudes of (predominantly) young men. Needless to say, I always put a priority on hip-hop that delivered sharp and insightful lyrics, was politically charged, and told a story rather than had "killer sample." There were many artists that I truly enjoyed for this reason alone, Mos Def being one of them.

Mos Def is a somewhat polarizing figure that much of mainstream society simply cannot handle. He is outspoken and articulate (almost enough in itself), he is a Muslim (again), and he is politically conscious hip-hop artist with a chip on his soldier (and for good reason). He has appeared in feature films, on talk shows, and in several television series but it’s not his work on the screen that is most impressive. His most inspiring work involves his collaboration with Talib Kweli as Blackstar and his own amazing solo work, the latest of which is called The Ecstatic...

The first track, Supermagic, begins with an incredible audio snippet from Malcolm X from a debate at Oxford in 1964. It’s a great excerpt for me personally as it is pretty close to what I actually believe in. People always say that extremism is the new weapon of mass destruction and I would partially agree. Though I think there’s more to it than that – I think extremism, in the sense that Malcolm X is using it here, can be a terribly creative and positive force. The experience for most people in the world is miserable, is tragic, and is “nasty, brutish, and short.” It’s worthwhile to quote the passage in its entirety (note that the snippet in the song is between the **):

"I read once, passingly, about a man named Shakespeare. I only read about him passingly, but I remember one thing he wrote that kind of moved me. He put it in the mouth of Hamlet, I think, it was, who said, ‘To be or not to be.’ He was in doubt about something—whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—moderation—or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And I go for that. If you take up arms, you’ll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who’s in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, **you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built, and the only way it’s going to be built—is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone—I don’t care what color you are—as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth."**

This song (and excerpt) effectively sets the tone for the rest of the album, which is fantastically solid by hip-hop standards, each song moving into the other rather seamlessly. Also on Supermagic, Mos is able to use the word(?) phrase(?) "Supermagicblackoriginfreshlyoutofdopeness," which by itself is an accomplishment.
Auditorium features a verse by Slick Rick and boy does he sound slick! This is the first track on the album where we get to hear Mos Def actually rapping.
Wahid is a short but poignant piece, full of anger and spirituality – an acidic tapestry to be sure – something that is common throughout the album.
Def’s timing and delivery is impeccable on Priority, which again brings to mind the image of a spiritual man bracing himself against the wind of debauchery and decadence.
Quiet Dog begins with deceased Nigerian traditional musician and human rights activist Fela Kuti talking about keeping his integrity amid increasing pressure from the government. The song is percussion heavy with what sound like clappers throughout. It’s really fast and manages to blend a lot of styles, and the traditional African element is undeniable.
Life in Marvelous Times begins beautifully with a heavy bass beat flecked with hand claps and Mos Def talking about his young life in Brooklyn and the inequality he sees there, “…they green grass is green, our green grass is brown…”
The Embassy is a nice little rhyme and you can tell Mos Def has a bit of anger towards diplomatic officials, not that I blame him. As someone who works amidst a pile of embassies I can totally understand his rage at the mystification of these losers.
No Hay Nada Mas (which I think translates No, There is Nothing Else) is sung in Spanish and is delivered over a beautiful, dark, rolling guitar.
Workers Comp. is actually a beautifully uplifting song. Infused as it is with heartbreak, it reads like an ode to the workers of America, back-broken in the face record Ponzi schemes and crazy CEO bonuses: “Tell the tough guys we’re tougher than tough times. The nerves don’t snap when the clock touch crunch time.”
The last four songs, Revelations, Roses, History and Casa Bey, are solid. History (featuring Talib Kweli) seems like a little teaser from the new upcoming album from Blackstar. Casa Bey is a great closing song, showcasing Mos Def talent at throwing out rhymes at light speed.

The Ecstatic is a solid album throughout; a return of the Mos Def we remember and love with some interesting and exciting differences. A pretty amazing range of styles showcase what Mos Def is capable of and probably also shows us that there is more to come from him in this vein. In contrast to his earlier work, The Ecstatic represents a maturation, growth, and expansion of style, from simply from and about the street to something more global. He has become more conscious of the world as a musician and he channels this through his music. That’s not to say he woke up a year ago and suddenly thought of the "world" for the first time; far from that, he has been conscious on that level for some time, as is evident in his work with Kweli. Rather, The Ecstatic is, as aforementioned, more of a sign of maturation than anything else – and his fan base should be happy about that, and what that portends for the future.

Apology for Belatedness

2009-06-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

Well, there hasn't been a new post in a while. It will be like that for a little while longer still.
I have been in Korea for the last several months and it's increasingly hard to get good music here without stealing it. Stay tuned dear friends...I have several reviews to add and some other stuff.

"Love was a promise made of smoke in a frozen copse of trees"

2008-01-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog (Sub Pop, 2007)

Iron & Wine’s newest album, The Shepherd’s Dog, is one of my favourite albums of 2007. Why? First, because the songs are both beautiful, and the lyrics even more cryptic than on previous albums. Second, Sam Beam continues his musical evolution in a creative fashion: listening to The Creek Drank The Cradle (2002) and say, In The Reins (2005). Or even, Our Endless Numbered Days (2004) – the progression is constant and expanding – I get wait to hear what he does next time!
The Shepherd’s Dog is a combination of the work he’s done with Calexico, and Our Endless Numbered Days; in regards to the former, this is heard mostly through instrumentation, arrangement, and production, whereas the latter makes its presence known via the lyrical quality and intonation. It’s a very interesting combination that delivers some real gems, like “Carousel,” “Resurrection Fern,” and Flightless Bird, American Mouth.”

Let’s take a closer peek…

1. “Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car” This is a really nice song, and really nice to hear so early on in the album. It is at once an introduction and a re-introduction; this song melds Sam Beam’s traditional sound with new elements like strings, piano, and electronics. Truth be told, this shouldn’t be anything new to anyone who really listened to In The Reins. The lyrics are, as always, cryptic and hypnotically emoted. I would see this as some type of anti-war song but not without an honour of its own. “The shiny blades of pagan angels/In our father’s skies,” leaves little to the imagination. I could be wrong, but the last verse makes me think it’s about Israel/Palestine. The last line in the song makes me feel really happy for obvious reasons: “While with his gun the pagan angel rose to say/”My love is one made to break every bended knee.” Reeking of defiance, one thinks of the pagan angel himself (Satan) and his great refusal. (Whither Daedalus?)
2. “White Tooth Man” opens up with some Middle-Eastern sounding slide accompanied by some bongo beats with Sam Beam’s close breathlessly driving – how now oh folk whisperer! This song is actually quite a downer, chilling even; it seems to be obsessed with disappointment and despair. But maybe the despair is directed more at ourselves, especially when we realize that we don’t have quite what it takes to change a situation.
3. “Love Song Of The Buzzard” is a more familiar sounding Sam Beam, until the accordion that is. To me this song has an uncomprehendingly sad premise behind it, at which I’ll give my two cents. This seems like a girl named Lucy has died (maybe a baby) and soon she’ll “bloom” (rot, etc.) and then the buzzard will do its part. The lyric “no one is the savior they would like to be,” is chilling (this is where the organ kicks in). “The cradle’s unimaginative sense of time,” is another hint. But for sure, it sounds like he’s talking about the frustration of not being able to make someone get better, or keep them from dying. This is evident in the 3rd and 4th lines especially, which to me signifies a death. There are also a lot of cool instruments on this track. Great stuff.
4. “Carousel” opens with a beautiful arpeggio over wave sounds. Beam’s voice is surprisingly altered here, a very watery sound. It’s weird hearing his voice like this but I think it sounds pretty cool and it achieves the effect desired. It’s a very morose song and the imagery deals with the Iraq war, which makes the under-water effect so potent. I think this song deals with a family that has someone serving, and finding it difficult to cope with anti-war sentiment and the general strain it places on a family. After the first few verses, the meaning becomes less clear.
5. “House By The Sea” is an interesting song. It starts with this weird sounding instrument, maybe a bass sax? When the song gets started, it also has this beautiful but understated guitar riff that plays underneath everything. It is a faster tempo song, clearly influenced by Calexico and Co. If Iron & Wine were a different band, say The Decemberists, this song might be classified as a shanty. Not so in this case, it can only be classified as a bayou ballad, in just about every sense imaginable. Around 3:55 things get “whacked,” as the kids say.
6. “Innocent Bones” is more traditional Sam Beam, with a nicely plucked banjo and acoustic guitar but also joined by a number of other elements, from piana to xylophone. This song is well-crafted and is ostensibly a remark on religion (or the Christians, in particular). This lyric is particularly insightful: “[T]he cartoon king has a tattoo of a bleeding heart/ There ain’t a penthouse Christian wants the pain of the scab but they all want the scar.”
7. “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” is also a solid song. It brings to mind an open-air jamboree at sunset, attended by lovers of blues and jazz and performed by the same. The last two minutes or so is pretty fun to listen to, especially if you follow this song with something off of The Creek Drank The Cradle.
8. “Resurrection Fern” is very Endless Numbered Days-ish to me, with its feverishly plucked rhythm and enchanting, heartfelt lyrics. Beam’s voice projects out like a beacon across the swamp, slide guitar in tow to mark the indefinable uneasiness while his steady finger-picking keeps impeccable time. The lyrics are beautiful and hushed, like he’s letting us in on a secret childhood friendship – a kind that we all have but just never really talk about. Maybe he or she moved away, maybe you did; maybe you went to different high schools – whatever – the point is his stunning ability to make the minute loom large.
9. “Boy With A Coin” ” is somewhat of a jagged tune that slithers from the speakers like an apostate serpent. It was released as a single before the full length, along with “Kingdom of the Animals,” and “Carried Home.” It is a playful sounding song (albeit with rather dark lyrics) complete with handclaps, a great sounding instrument (maybe from Africa or Middle East?), and wah-wah pedals. Mesmerizing.
10. “The Devil Never Sleeps” is quite different than anything we’ve heard Sam Beam do before. Here is a piano-driven jazz song, infected with a Chuck Berry/Jerry Lee Lewis-fied Sam Beam. It’s great, it’s up-tempo and new for Iron & Wine, and brings to mind soul music, or swamp jazz if there is such a thing.
11. “Peace Beneath The City” is another dark sounding song, but closer to the traditional Iron & Wine sound. The effects in this song make it pretty disturbing – not a novel thing on this record.
12. “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” is a beautiful song, a perfect album-closer, and also tries to console those old-school fans who despise the “new” Sam Beam. It’s a slow-building ballad about loss of another America; a place where kids ride bikes all over the place, and you could buy 10-cent candy. The last part is what it has become: the fat-cats who are supposed to protect the house from rats instead do nothing; their tongues “sore and blunt,” presumably from “Those fishing lures thrown into the cold and clean/Blood of Christ mountain stream.” It’s a great way to end the album, a little new but comes back to the old – but make no mistake, Iron & Wine is not simply hushed swamp indie; it’s something else entirely.

The Sheperd’s Dog surprised me in a number of ways, all positive. I really love that there is a steady progression of musical ideas and experimentation, both in previous albums but also that which can be heard from listening to this one. I also found myself floundering at the meanings of the songs themselves more than ever, and who knows, maybe there really isn’t much meaning to them. Rather, I feel there is somewhat of a meaning, like a loose outline to some of these songs, and feel too that some of the lyrics weren’t meant to tell a story, or add to a pre-existing one. And that’s just fine.
I am drawn to this type of music, which I liken to Bonnie Prince Billy in the way that it seems to be expressing, or archiving, a type of music that is pastoral, dirty, truthful, and very very dark. I have always thought of Oldham as singing the songs of the Appalachias, whereas Beam's stewardship begins closer to the end of South Carolina. His music feels like a reactant, whipping up some old Jungian memory that deep inside, in the data strains of our cells, we know.

You can buy the album here.

Iron and Wine has a number of live songs up on YouTube right here., all of which are pretty, pretty great. Plus, it’s always nice to see him play guitar.

- Adam Smith

"The Agent & The Apparatus"

2008-01-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

I wish that people, and kids especially, bought and read books more. I have went to some libraries here in Mississauga, and in Brampton also, and I swear all the kids that are in there are on the public computers, or waiting to use one. And while I embrace new technology and learning methods, reading books should still be a high priority in any curriculum. Maybe I'm just getting older, I don't know; I would hate to think of where I would be had I not had books.

Anyways, that's all. Buy books, and try to buy them at second-hand or used stores if you can!

"Books buy people/Buy books, people"

when to start escape from
your beloved Playstation,
and pick up a pen to become
the scribe your father wanted?

when to tread out of the den
and away from television?
trade "reality" for another, and
blink to adjust to the sun.

when to "bank on knowledge," though
"knowledge" will not be understood?
when to "bank on the future" when
so few care to pick up a book?

but we cling to the mighty word
like politics to the absurd,
and look for strength in many places -
maybe it's in you,
maybe it's in these old pages.

"Please Listen Fellow Parasites, To What I Have To Say..."

2007-12-24T10:54:00.000-08:00

Shotgun Jimmie - The Onlys (Delorean Recordings, 2007)

Sacville, NB's secret son Shotgun Jimmie has released his follow-up album to 2004's 6000 True Stories of Love, and if I may say, "Hooooo-boy!" it's a good one!

The Onlys emanates a warming, flesh-comfort-feel-good attitude replete with singalongs and cereal shanties; songs for the artists, songs for the literatis, and songs for the Janitors, this is a highly relatable album that invites you to hold its heart, but only if it can hold yours. A cute and fun album, but there is something mysterious about it, and makes me want to hear more. At most it's a really great record, and at the least one hell of a story.

It is quite safe for me to say that there are only two types of things about Sackville, NB: one, those that I miss and two, those that I miss terribly. Shotgun Jimmie happens to be of the latter type. Forgive the following backstory...

As it turns out Jim, (and Fred and Paul (of Shotgun & Jaybird) for that matter), were some of my closest friends in Sackville during my undergraduate stint. Their first year as a band (at that time a duo) in Sackville was also my first year as a student, and their last year as a band (having expanded and contracted was now a three-piece) was also my last year. In the in-between parts, when Paul joined as drummer/accountant/muscle, the duo became more versatile and experienced their initial renaissance. Paul eventually left to tend to the accounting/security.

Meanwhile, one Mdme. Julie Doiron (of Eric's Trip) came back to Sackville and started playing with the band and, along with Paul and Jon Claytor, resurrected the once-defunct Sappy Recordslabel. Julie added exquisite melody, a playful charm, and quite frankly, left dozens of people speechless every night she played in Sackville. With Julie, Shotgun & Jaybird were able to push their own envelope and make some incredible music that sounded good and was good. And as her backing band on tour, they made her sound incredible; maybe as good or better than she ever sounded with the Wooden Stars (which won a Juno, by the way).

Anyways, Shotgun & Jaybird ended operations amicably sometime in 2007. Julie and Fred became Blue Heeler and Jim worked on his second solo record. Shotgun & Jaybird, as funny as it sounds, was really one of my favourite things about Sackville. I'll never forget the after hours jam sessions in the Foundry, in mid-February, after running home to get an amp and guitar. Or sitting in Ducky's with Paul talking about music, the upsoming tour, and generally making me feel like this was a real friend, who would do anything for you. Or talking with Fred about invisible forces and waves that are moving around us all the time, and us both trying to talk through some of the impossible physics of the natural world. I feel I really got to understand Jim, Fred and Paul and count them among my true friends and comrades. So anyways, sorry about that ramble and let's get on to the music!

To get an idea where Jim comes from on this record, I understood I had to listen to his earlier solo effort again, 6000 True Stories of Love. It was actually pretty great, as I remembered. Like the earlier Shotgun & Jaybird albums, 6000 is deliciously lo-fi and playful - trademark Jimmie. There are some songs that could be made really spooky and dark like a Songs:Ohia project, but even on those Jim manages to make you smile - by intonation, by pitch, by ukelele. That's what you must understand about Shotgun Jimmie: he has got a natural flair for a good rhyme, a quick lyric, and making it sound safe and good for all to enjoy. There were two distinct parts of Shotgun & Jaybird of course, and you could usually tell who wrote the song by the lyrics: Jim was clearly the guy who wrote the catchy riff song that you would bob your head and stamp your feet to, while Fred was more of the abstract, guitar-driven crafter of beautiful anthems. But this is also to generalize them, which is hard for me to do, so I won't do it (or did I just do it? Hmmm.)

So, from the barren and wistful sounds of 6000 True Stories of Love we come to the considerably more polished enterprise of The Onlys. This album is the love-child between Jimmie and an admixture of things: living in a huge farmhouse in the middle of the marsh; the changing nature of the Shotgun & Jaybird project; and I would speculate, that elusive and mysterious rabbit-muse called Love.

1. "Duet" is a great little opening track. Here is Jim at his best, asking you to help him sing a song while singing the instructions. Beautifully crafted and efficient, with the requisite choppy chords and keyboard drone. Such a playful song it should be on a children's alphabet/phonics learning album.

2. "Sparkelution" starts with driving power guitars before breaking down a bit to reveal a questioning of sorts, about what I need not speculate, "This is looking like an inside job/did someone set us up? Or all we set on self-destruct again? You know I gotta wonder why/and how did we get messed up? When we both made being stuck in a rut." This is actually a pretty sad song in a number of ways and is way more personal I would guess than it presents itself to be.

3. "Onomatopoeia" is very Shotgun & Jaybird and even reminds me of a couple songs/parts of songs they've toyed with before. It is, for all intents and purposes, supposed to be a sing-along power anthem, especially in the chorus. With a full band behind him, he'd blow the lights off most places I can think of with this song. It's also a pretty cute song at its base as well. I mean, we've all been there - the long distance call that doesn't go well - bad connection - whatever. It's also the only song in the universe name "Onomatopoeia."

4. "Summersound" is a beautiful, idyllic song and one of those that makes you smile because you know Jim is beign sincere and absolutely genuine here. "The sound of the fresh cut summer summersong/bring the radios outside/and lemonade in the shade."

5. "Warbler Song" is a delicately crafted song that descends artfully through the chords. It is a soft bird accented with mandolin and love, being hushed to sleep by clouds only it can reach.

6. "Muse Sick" has Jimmie talking about a woman on a mountain bike who he thinks is his muse, and the dangers of getting too close to her: "Please listen fellow parasites/to what I have to say. Keep your distance from your muses/for your heart is bound to break." Wise words from a old soul: who does this guy think he is? Homer? Hahahaahahahaha......aaaaaah, um, I'm a geek.

7. "Bedhead" - This tune starts off with a nice little keyboard riff, pleasant and uplifting with sweet backing vocals. Listen, I know Jim likes this song thoroughly. I can tell by the way he plays it live. A lot of people have told me they would love this song to be on their alarm clock in the morning - Ring Tone anyone??? Though we don't believe him when he says that he's awake the first time, by the time the electric guitar kicks in halfway through the song we know he's not joking around! HOO-BOY!!!.

8. "Pop Shovit to Disaster" is a track that is probably close to Jim's heart as well. He built a skateboard ramp at the old farmhouse while living there, working on and finishing up both projects around the same time, and "Pop Shovit" is clearly an ode to that project. It reminds me of the Flaming Lips or Chad Vangaalen, as it is an instrumental track. The dangers of skateboarding can never be underestimated as one of our good friends in Sackville recently had a spill - don't worry, he's going to be alright - love you Bucky!

9. "Janitor's Luck" was one of my favourite all-time song when the lads were performing together. I heard it maybe 4 years ago for the first time and thought it was the greatest. Little has changed, but the version on The Onlys leaves a lot to be desired. The lyrical work here is amazing, maybe a little incomplete; I would have rather a fuller sounding version of this song, or a stripped down acoustic number. This track is deceiving because it sounds much different live. This should be the SOCAN theme song.

10. "Big City Boi" is a little tongue in cheek song about Jimmie's hometown of Ajax, ON and him missing it. It's a playful song that will speak to those transplanted big-city Canadians living now living in Sackville.

11. "Dark Cloud" is a carry-over from 6000 True Stories of Love and is redone but stays pretty true to the original in tone and presentation. The only difference is it sounds fuller, with some added guitar parts and solos. Taken together with the previous song, the meaning becomes apparent.

12. "Captain Howdy" is a great song that reminds me of hide-and-seek as a child. You were supposed to count to 100 before seeking, but who ever did? I sure as hell didn't. That's how I stayed at the top of my game son. "Captain Howdy" is a fun song that is an odd combo of The Arcade Fire and The Beta Band and ha! what did I tell you? No one counts to 100.

13. "Cereal" is a great album closer: it's just so cute and clever, a modern down home ditty for the early morning riser. Jim writes these kind of songs so well it should be a crime. Taking simple everyday things and really crafting a song that is funny and heartfelt is what Shotgun Jimmie does the best. It's the same with his rock-out songs: extremely good and always easy to listen to.

This is as good as anything Jimmie, either solo or as Shotgun & Jaybird have put out to date. It's a fuller picture and more complete, but that's because it's not Shotgun & Jaybird - this is Shotgun Jimmie. Shotgun & Jaybird albums never really seemed to be complete and always left off like a Lord of the Rings movie - when is the next one? But I think that's a good thing. I think Shotgun & Jaybird was something really special for everyone who cared about music in Sackville, and especially for those who knew them. But nothing lasts forever but the good thing about physics is that no energy is ever destroyed totally; it gets moved and displaced and shaped into other energy somewhere else in the universe. This is like Shotgun & Jaybird. The memory lives, but the energy involved in that process has shifted to other projects, and so it can never totally die; the spectre of the past haunts even the steadiest strumming hand.

Check out Jimmie's cool videos. You can find them on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shotgun+jimmie featuring videos by Paul Henderson, Jim, Bucky Buckler, Steph d'Etremont, Tim McDonough. All are really good cool and lo-fi.

- Adam Smith

"Che Guevara, Rock Star? Fuck Off."

2007-12-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

Buck 65- Situation (Warner/StrangeFamous 2007)

Buck 65's new album, Situation, is a collection of songs inspired directly or indirectly by the year 1957 - which is a unique subject considering we're talking about a rapper. But this be no normal rapper, and he ain't from the hood. Buck can paint a tapestry of scenes easily and get actually very specific about it, and it's actually really good hip-hop. It's really Canadian hip-hop, which is markedly different from mainstream (mostly) U.S. hip-hop. Whatever the case may be, Situation definitely warrants your attention and ear - especially "1957," "Lipstick," "Ho-Boys," "Benz," and "Heatwave."

I love Buck 65. That's right, so what? If you ever heard him you would too trust me. Buck, also known as Richard Terfry, has just released a new album called Situation, and surprise surprise, it's really, really good. Terfry is originally from Lower Sackville, NS and the Halifax area and has been spitting rhymes and releasing underground tapes for years. From my count, this would be around his 10th full length release, but that's not really important right now and besides, I've only been listening since 2002's Square dropped. If you have never heard anything about him before don't worry, Situation is a great introduction to the unique creativity of Buck 65.

Despite being an extremely gifted wordsmith with an inherent undestanding of the literati's beat, Buck hasn't really taken off completely. This might be chalked up to the relative infancy of the Lit-Hop genre, or Buck's own insistence on being both folk/country singer and MC/rapper. Personally, I don't think it's a problem but then again, I'm not the one who has to make a living out of it.

When Buck researches a subject or topic for an album, he really does it up right; in fact, Buck himself reminds me of a different age and time. He's not necessarily violent or aggressive in his style, and the scratches and rips from the DJ also evoke safety rather than fear. He is also clearly influenced by folk/country and small-town happy family atmosphere (that you only find in the East Coast, by the way). He has, sometimes rightly so, been referenced as the hip-hop version of Tom Waits yet that might be a bit of a stretch: Buck is a lot less experimental and weird than Waits, but they can sound alike sometimes. It's strange to have mentioned Square, since it is what Situation reminds me the most of. Right off the bat...

1. "Intro" transported me back to the scratch-heavy elements of Square, as well as the badass voice-overs. It's a great little piece to get you pumped for what is about to come.

2. "1957" opens with the Allen Ginsberg lyric from Howl, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed/devoid of conviction, conflicted, annoyed," and it finally makes sense: this is an anthem (album) for the ones left behind. The year 1957, if you haven't already heard, is the central idea around which Buck wrote most of the material on this album. This is probably my favourite song on the album because it's just so simple and straightforward, but incredibly dense and meaningful lyrically speaking. Like, every line could be translated into something that pertains back to the central theme. So simply speaking, it's a pretty sick tune.

3. "Dang" opens up with a big band, zoot-suit-type atmosphere with Buck interjecting verses here and there, coming back to the unfortunate chorus, which makes me nervously remember Kid Rock. But the steady tambourine keeps me warm. Keeps me warm.

4. "Lipstick" is a song based loosely on the disappearance of the strikingly beautiful starlot and pinup Betty Page. Here we hear Buck rapping about the pornography industry in the 1950s of which Page was a part.

5. "Shutter Buggin' " is a contuance of "Lipstick" dealing with the life of a photographer, "The customer's always right/even if you say it's wrong. I don't ask questions/and the girls just play along." This is vintage Buck 65: rapping about the "unclean" elements of survival but also is able to infuse some moral direction into his verses. Buck is no hedonist but certainly no hard-ass conservative either.

6. "Spread 'Em" is a disturbing little track probably more suited for live performance. You can envision the carnival type atmosphere this would produce at a show filled with recreational drug users. This is no surprise though, Buck often throws a comedic track or two in his mixes (e.g. "Talkin' Fishin' Blues"; "Square 4").

7. "Ho-Boys" is the 'gun 'dat did me.' It's ostensibly a reference to the 1200 Hobos of "Square One" and the lyrical content is a direct connection to the same song. This is also what I love about Buck. He often talks about a itinerant class of travellers who seem to have taken their potential power with them out of the system back into the streets. They are transient students, musicians, and artists. They are people who refuse to cement themselves to one setting, one location, one idea. It is the future he is rapping about. This song is also one of those sick driving songs Buck is known for. The wasteland is a common reference and from that waste comes a tremendous desire to survive, which doesn't care if it's 1957 or 2007. This is another favourite on this album.

8. "Way Back When" is a "Wicked and Weird" type song, which isn't to say it's good or bad; it just has that feel is all. There is also weird old school keyboards that add nicely to the retro-feel.

9. "Cop Shades" is another great song that should maybe have been moved up a couple songs. I like this song, "Rappers lift weights/But still can't rhyme strong," but the chorus is pretty terrible - that's the only bad thing about this track really. Like the previous songs, the lyrical quality is pretty impeccable. Also, the trumpet parts are played by none other than Mount Allison Alum and acclaimed musician David Myles

10. "The Beatific" is a call out to Buck's beloved Beat Generation poets, Che Guevara, and in general a time gone by. His consituents are "know-nothing bohemians, arcane Armenians, disobedient hicks addicted to the main ingredient." Notice also the refrain, "Che Guevara - rock star? Fuck off! The beat, the beat."
11. "Mr. Nobody" is a suitably creepy song about a divorced guy who is down on his luck and horribly depressed. It is also pretty creepy in a way that only Buck can create. And while it is creepy, it also has a benign humour to it.

The last few songs, "The Rebel," "Benz," "Heatwave," "The Outskirts," and "White Bread" are all amazing songs but all really just carry on the overarching theme of Situation. "Benz" is a nice change as it is a static-y, rushing rock/rap song. "The Outskirts" and "White Bread" are are softer in tone than any of the other songs on the album, and again, is a nice change.

Situation is an interesting record. I understand that it has this theme of 1957 which Buck has readily admitted, and the evidence of which is easily found in the lyrics. There is definitely a parallel, or at least an affinity, with the album Square (2002) wherein Buck talks about the 1200 hobos and the idea of the aforementioned travelling/working class of migrants. There is some sort of appeal to that idea that I can't quite place but know it has something to do with the latent polticial power inherent in such a throng (a la Negri and Hardt, as it were). But it's unknown to me if Buck 65 frequently peruses the pages of oft-dismissed Italian autonomists; I suppose that's my problem.

Situation is definitely more hip-hop than some of his previous releases but Buck is a hard artist to pin down, as he shows again and again (including on this record). He'll never be completely in one genre or the other, and I think that's a pretty envious position to be in. As a result, he will always get an over-abundance of questions asking him about his musical genre. Great album, definitely check it out - especially if you're sick of or hate the traditional, Top 50 Rap/Hip-Hop Chart singles. While Buck can give you that feel real easy, you won't be finding him there, for sure.

www.myspace.com/buck65

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=buck+65

- Adam Smith

"Oh Gosh, it's the New Warlord!"

2007-12-24T10:21:00.000-08:00

M.I.A. - Kala (XL/Interscope, 2007)

M.I.A.'s newest album, Kala, is a dizzying display of her talent and her passions. Featuring topics like poverty, oppression, and war M.I.A. is able to bleed the lines of strict classification and transcend normal stereotyping - until, I suppose, until that characteristic becomes a stereotype - it probably has. Either way, this shit is gooooood! It's fun, creative, and very diverse - a lot of tribal elements that made me think of voodoo and zombies. Killer beats and pseudo-cryptic lyrics make Kala one of the best of 2007!

The historical relationship between myself and both hip-hop and electronic music has never been a particularly warm one; in fact, it was maybe 8 years ago that I can remember believing that I would never find an artist of either genre that I could appreciate. Eight years later and I understand what an incomplete and narrow belief that was! One of the more recent artists I have been listening to is Mathangi Arulpragasam, a.k.a. MIA, Maya, etc, etc... MIA's second album Kala follows her spectacular debut album, Arular (2005). Maya is originally a visual artist, which eventually opened the way for her musical career. Doing the artwork for Elastica in 2000 and subsequently video-documenting their ensuing tour, Maya connected with the electro-shock musician, Peaches,, who introduced her to synthesizers and sequencers. From there, and aided by the enormously influential opinion of the online music and blog community, MIA broke large.

Maya, of Sri Lankan origin, spent much of her youth fleeing the violence in her native land, going from country to country, safe haven to safe haven and going back to Sri Lanka when possible, until she and her family eventually ended up in London. Her family did not include her father, but a big part of her life has clearly been the idea of her father, whom has always been a mysterious yet Romantic figure, auguring heavily into her beliefs - artistic, musical, or political. Her father has also had an influence in her life by way of his revolutionary/guerrilla activities coming into conflict with MIA's career aspirations. He was a founder of a Tamil revolutionary group called EROS that eventually assimilated into another group to become the Tamil Tigers. "Arular" is actually her father's name, and yep, you guessed it, Kala is named after her mother.

MIA's lyrics are unsurprisingly infused with a raw political energy; unlike most performers who sing about war, poverty and persecution, she has actually had to live through all of it....

And these experiences clearly have put a chip on her shoulder (in the good way of course), and some of her songs e.g. "Paper Planes" have such an intensely personal quality to them that it becomes hard not to become a convert. Her music melds together so many genres that it would be too time consuming to mention all of them, but suffice it to say that when I think of MIA, I mostly think of weird tribal grunge voodoo, with some trance, house, grime, and heavy bass elements thrown in.

Because of US Visa problems and also because of her political views and support for liberation of those being oppressed, (she doesn't hide her ideas on violent action/resistance of people oppressed by dictators or autocrats. She also doesn't shy away from laying blame where blame is considerably due; the fact that the blame is often levied at one or two countries is both instructive and explanatory), she has not yet reached the level of success in the United States as she has in the rest of the world (not that I particularly mind that fact). While recording and touring this record, MIA spent time in the South Pacific and Austral-Asia, both South and Central America and a lot of time in India learning about and recording traditional drum patters, and many of the tracks have some of these tracks mixed in there. It really is a smattering of global influences and world/web-traveled. Let's go over the songs themselves.

1. "Bamboo Banga" is a crazy opening track with a killer beat with MIA disinterestedly but methodically referencing the Modern Lovers song "Roadrunner." You can't help but fall in love with it's driving and playful drive. You can almost see her in concert singing this song through a mega-phone; a very strong and confident opening track which will undoubtedly spawn numerous remixes.

2. "Bird Flu" is a serious second track. Technically, it's classified as a Tamil rap song, called a "gaana." From the very start, it's all about an organized chaos that is familiar to fans of MIA. An irrepressible and creative drum underlies some pretty crazy shit (something that sounds like a rooster crow and freaky little children voices). MIA also throws a nice little lyrical gem in at the end that makes my philosophical heart flutter, stating "The village got on the phone/said the street is coming to town. They wanna check my papers/see what I carry around. Credentials are boring/I burned them at the buirial ground." But make no mistake, this comes from a place most people cannot really imagine: being asked daily to prove who you are, what you're doing, why you're doing it, and trying to prove you're not a terrorist.

3. "Boyz" incorporates the same traditional drums as the earlier songs, and is also a "gaana." This song is infectious, and chart-worthy, if it wasn't so blatantly ironic. But no matter, this song is such an "outside-block-party-in-uncomfortably-hot-weather" track that it's hard to not like it. Underlying it all is the idea of constricting masculinity, something that MIA is not afraid to rightly point out, having lived in fairly hard-type masculinized societies herself. "How many no money boys are crazy/how many boyz are raw. How many no money boys are rowdy/how many start a war?" she asks rhetorically. There is an alternative to the military and war of course, but who can say if it would be less authoritarian for women or in fact more? If that is the question, she hints at a disturbing answer, singing "Oh gosh, it's the new warlord."

4. "Jimmy" is a cover of a Bollywood song which MIA used to dance to as a youngster. It too, has "hot single" written all over it. It's a pretty uplifting track that seems to dance all over the place without losing the count - like your uncle who came to your 12th birthday party, except not drunk.

5. "Hussel" is a little disappointing and simple compared to the rest of the album; she took this song off. I mean, it's a pretty good song and everything, it just seems a little tongue-in-cheek lyrically speaking. The addition of Afrikan Boy is a plus here, and the sonic quality of the song itself is nice but for some odd reason, it seems off; like 50-Cent rapping about how he's just a businessman while selling albums that teach young urban kids being shot gets you respect and street credibility. and that teaches white suburban kids to buy guns and Escalades and try to be tough. Maybe I'm wrong. But let's move on. The first half is over, welcome to the second.

6. "Mango Pickle Down River" is one of my favourites on Kala. Forget "Hussel" and Afrikan Boy, get introduced the zombiefied Wilcannia Mob from New South Wales, Australia. This song rattles, buzzes and hums itself into a twirling, vampiric-voodoo magic of goodness. The overpowering yet comfortable hug of the didgeridoo is something I can never tire of. The first half of Kala is over, welcome to the second. The Wilcannia kids' parts are basically about what they used to do in their hometown of Wilcannia, which involved a lot of swimming and fishing. This is a pretty fun song, but you can be deceived by the low-fi quality of it at first.

7. After the intensity of "Down River," "$20" is a nice and surprising turn of events. I like to call this style slow-grind-indictment but I don't really know why. MIA opens up with an incredibly harrowing Eastern-sounding call to prayer followed by some pretty quick lyrics. Some personal favourites, "War, war, war! 'Talkin' 'bout' y'all's such a bore/I'd rather talk about moi!" and "Rah rah rah, So I woke up with my holy Koran/found out I like Cadillac." It's a frenetic, ADD take on certain problems in the world but rather than being able to say something productive, the mind cannot deal and we are left with the popular youthful opt-out, "Where is my mind?" (courtesy of the Pixies). Because we have to allow that some people's heads may, in fact, be empty and thus be on the verge of collapse.

8. "World Town" is a rhythmic number suited to the club; that is, it is what the kids call a "booty-shaker." That is all.

9. "The Turn" offers a slightly different side of MIA and has her actually singing instead of rapping. It's not that she's bad at all - she's good; I just think she's a better rapper than a singer and even on this track she is blending the two. It's a nice track, kind of underwhelming like "World Town" but good nonetheless.

10. "XR2" is a weird tune that reminds me of a rave and my older brothers' friends' cars. It's just so old school and it evens references ICQ. How obscure.

11. "Paper Planes" is my favourite song off this album by far. MIA uses a sample from the Clash's "Straight to Hell." It has had it's share of controversy in the media involving censorship of some words and sounds (gunshots and "weed") which incensed fans and artist alike. MIA is also at her singing-rappish best here, referencing her Visa problems and frustrations with bureaucracy. She has also mentioned that this song is also about the lust for power and money and a hatred of immigrants. The controversial chorus, in fact, is a statement about the popular xenophobic belief in some conspiracy of illegal immigrants that want to take all of our money by stealing our jobs. It's a great song and her voice is just really moving.

12. "Come Around" features Timbaland. It's a great song until Timbaland comes in and really screws it up. His part is terrible and he sounds terrible - do people like Timbaland?

Overall, Kala is an impressive and addictive album that talks the talk and is able, for the most part, to walk the walk. MIA is a gifted, far-ranging artist who is not afraid to voice her opinions on some of the most important issues of our time (Palestine, Third-World liberation, women's rights) despite the direct consequences she has had to endure because of her decisions. I don't really see MIA being upset about this though, as her fame in other countries (including Canada) has continued to increase at ridiculous rates. MIA will always be a red-flag target because of her father's involvement with armed rebellion and the Tamil Tigers, whom are US State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and because of her commitment to speaking her mind. Her use of Tamil imagery and the group's use of suicide bombings make her the easiest target since the Dixie Chicks. Yet, I think Maya simply has the substance to make claims and is plenty intelligent enought to tell you why she believes what she believes in and why. "The world", she says, "
can't be separated into two separate parts, good and evil, like George Bush has done. Terrorism is a method. But America has successfully tied all these pockets of independent struggles, revolutions and extremists into one big notion of terrorism."

Smart, pretty, creative, makes amazing songs, and is politically active: what more are you waiting for?

www.myspace.com/mia

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=m.i.a.

- Adam Smith