Songs of the Week YouTube Edition

Hey internet.

So because all of my musical goodies are still on my old computer’s defunct hard drive I’ve been watching music videos on YouTube all week. It kind of hurts.

First up is Ash and one of their newer songs “I Started a Fire”. I’ve always liked Ash, but they fell out of my favour with the album Meltdown, which meant I missed what they’ve been doing the last few years and incidentally missed out on their 26 single set they released (and sold out) in October. I’m fuming a little.

Last night in preparation for the Morrissey concert on Sunday, I watched Who Put the M in Manchester? which is a concert from the You Are The Quarry era, and it is amazing.

And a little bit of Television Personalities for the road.

Nothing fancy. I miss my hard drive of music.

Stay Gold.

Review: Pet Lions

So I came home today with a shiny new Macbook Pro, named Thor. I still haven’t recovered years worth of music, writing and art documentation sitting pretty on the hard drive of my deceased iMac, so I’m sitting here writing for one of the first times without any music playing in the background. Silence is jarring. Luckily, my iPod still works and has most of my music on there (although, I made the grave mistake of never putting my own compositions on there for fear of narcissism) so hopefully this hard drive can be recovered. In the last month or so I’ve been listening to a couple of songs by Pet Lions. Their EP, Soft Right is available for free when you sign up to their mailing list.

The band, hailing from Chicago, sounds at times surprisingly European. I found myself thinking of France’s Phoenix, if not a bit more rock and a little less retro. The songs aren’t brilliant, but they have some decent hooks and are firmly planted in the realm of pop rock coupled with the recent trend towards to dancier drum beats. It is pleasantly unpretentious, but not stupid and conventional–although the songs certainly reference conventions. I would say I hear glimmers of potential mixed in with duller moments. On Myspace Pet Lions’ most heard song is “Roman History”, a tune that is a fast-paced dancey rock romp with some idiosyncratic lyrics to do with a love affair and Roman History class (?) certainly, a more interesting and cute pop song than the standard fare. My favourite off of Soft Right is “Propeller Plane” which is initially a bit slower than “Roman History” but has very catchy and interesting lead guitar lines and some compelling gang vocals, that I could picture being a joy to sing along to live. The other songs on the EP evoked less enthusiastic responses from me, because they had elements of fun, but didn’t quite hit the mark sometimes. Perhaps, in concert they hit their stride, because the songs are mostly upbeat. “Stuck at the Bottom” has a fun bridge with synth jabs and a fun guitar solo breakdown, but the preceding verse and chorus are a little lacklustre, for instance. Vocals on “I Will Track You Down” are simply too overwrought when compared to “Roman History” for me to enjoy the rest of the song and lyrically is the weakest song of the EP. “Girl in Athens” has some smart vocal decisions coupled with a fun tom and snare drum pattern in the verse, culminating into a pseudo-Beach Boys vocal harmony, that I wish would last longer.

All in all I can see the potential for some smart pop rock coming from Pet Lions, which would be a welcomed addition to the current wave of American pop music, that lately seems to have that gap, and I’m interested to see how the band matures musically. Considering it is free, I would definitely recommend anyone checking out Soft Right and deciding for themselves.

 

borrowed from their myspace, they look like cool kids

 

I Love You With Throwing Knives

What do you spend your time doing? I listen to records, read books, watch movies, draw and build some awful art. But guess what guys I’m writing some awesome music, if I may be so humble. I’m also watching Pirate Radio Aka The Boat That Rocked. It’s alright, except Young Carl looks like a guy I went to high school with named Brayden, which I find distracting. Brayden doesn’t have an English accent.

Also, I’ve been helping my buddy Oliver make what I want to call ‘mix records’. He’s actually just been carving up old Value Village records and sticking them back together. He also busted the needle so we’ve replaced it with masking tape and a sewing needle. It’s actually awesome sounding, in that it sounds a bit awful. I will provide photos later and hopefully sample the results for future musical endeavours.

Sorry for the underwhelming update. On the upside, I totally met Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu today, who is producing The Shiny Diamonds‘ record. He’s a very swell chap. Obviously we should be great friends almost sharing the same first name and all…. We’re not friends yet, I’m working on it. (That line would be funnier if you’d heard one of my latest songs called “We’re Not Friends Yet”.)

Stay Gold

Songs of the Veek and Stuff.

Okay I’m a bad bloggist. School started again and I had a bit of a life again. I’ve noticed that when I am writing or playing music, I tend to write less about it. So, blame enormous amounts of creativity on my silence.

Anyway, what has happened? I saw the fucking Manic Street Preachers (last month…) There’s nothing I can say except that it’ll be difficult for any concert to ever top this one. Who knows though… I am seeing fucking Morrissey next month! So maybe he can top the Manics. I met James and Nicky too, and they were as charming as I could have hoped. Nicky grinned and bared it as a psychotic fan clamped on to him (it wasn’t me, by the way). The show itself was spectacular with 21 songs. Hopefully the boys will return before it’s another ten years. I had begun to write an in-depth review of the gig, but decided it was impossible to describe. The opener, Nico Vega was awful though, I felt as though I were witnessing a bunch of kids playing dress-up with their parents old 70s clothes. Not recommended.

Some footage a person with a decent camera took of the gig. Amazing.

 

Some songs I’ve been enjoying lately.

Marina and the Diamonds “I Am Not A Robot (unplugged)”- If you’ve not heard Marina’s lovely voice, that seems to harken back to Kate Bush, although less mystical and more interested in electronic music. Her lyrics aren’t brilliant but they’re catchy. Here’s the unplugged version.

Four Tops “I’ll Turn To Stone”- One of my favourite Motown groups, I’ve been listening to this song constantly the past week.

Saint Etienne “Jackie Collins Existential Question Time” (Manic Street Preachers cover)- This comes as a free download with the Journal For Plague Lovers vinyl record, it says “remix” but it’s actually a cover song. Featuring the soft and sweet vocals of Sarah Cracknell, who censors the line “a married man fucks a Catholic” and replaces it with “does a Catholic”. It’s kind of cute.

Chapterhouse “Precious One”- From the classic shoegaze album Whirlpool, the song features the standard soft buried vocals and shimmery droney guitar, but the best part of this song is the interesting percussion and the really pumping bassline. It makes me think of Screamadelica meets shoegaze. It’s this close to being a dance song like Primal Scream or The Happy Mondays.

download here.

Stay Gold

Swarm 10

For ten years every September in Vancouver the art galleries organize mass openings over the course of two nights. Thursday and Friday night marked both the successful event called Swarm’s tenth anniversary and also the end of Swarm. As a result of the recent 81% cutbacks to funding in the arts of British Columbia thanks to Premier Gordon Campbell, a large number of these small galleries will be closing. There have been protests, and small victories in fighting back for the little funding there was to begin with, but what have protests really done for us lately? Protests signal social unrest, but what difference does that make to the people in charge? I’m not a pacifist, no, I really do feel as though there must be some alternative method of getting a group of people’s points across. Petitions can be ignored; angry letters can be ripped up; riots just make your group look unstable; silent protests are easy to turn a blind eye to. I just don’t know what a good method actually is. The world has gotten so big that local problems are often overlooked and dismissed as not being part of ‘the big picture’. So we can talk about Iran (where riots haven’t been working either) and say that’s more important as a world issue and say that some artists out of work isn’t so crucial by comparison, but that’s exactly the problem. Economies have ups and downs, but it is the responsibility of the government to keep it together. We may be losing money, but nobody said I had to sacrifice my culture too.

Review: The Motorcycle Boy

I don’t really have any songs of the week, as such, however, even better is that I found someone who posted online the unreleased debut album of The Motorcycle Boy. Scarlet was set to be released in 1989 and it just never happened. The singer, Alex Taylor, was formerly of the more well-known indiepop royalty from the C86 era, The Shop Assistants. The Motorcycle Boy was a more rock orientated incarnation with some amazing hooks. I can’t believe this stuff is unreleased. This is a real treat and I just wanted to share it with as many people as possible.

Here’s the blog that originally posted it.

More importantly here is the link to download it.

The band’s name came from the character from the S.E. Hinton novel, Rumblefish and also the Coppola film adaptation featuring Mickey Rourke and Matt Dillion in 1983. All are swell.

-stay gold

The Beach Boys’ New Song (Sort Of)

I was a late-comer to the joys of The Beach Boys. I’m still not their greatest advocate, but I appreciate their genius now and I always liked music influenced by The Beach Boys. Of those who admire the boys, is Florida’s Lane Steinberg, who has been active in various bands since around ‘84. Wall of Orchids, a more recent musical endeavour, features some beautiful arrangements a la Brian Wilson. Perusing Steinberg’s youtube account (it’s either Steinberg or a really big fan), I found this ditty that features an unreleased track from the Pet Sounds sessions called “Trombone Dixie” except Lane Steinberg has turned it into a song! He sings (and does a fairly convincing Brian Wilson-esque job) and basically he makes a true-to-the-vision song out of it. I think it’s a real treat and his other songs on the account are worth looking up too.

Songs of the Week, Again

“Blue” by Monaco- From the 90s Peter Hook side project, Monaco were a great sort of britpop meets New Order sound. This particular song leans more to the former.

“Tristesse Joie” by Yelle- Odd French pop borrowing from 80s synths.

“I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to be Nicer” by The Cardigans- I’m not a big fan of The Cardigans, but a few years ago Nina Persson sang along with James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers, so I have respect. Also, “Lovefool” is a classic 90s tune. This particular song is from their last album, and has a good driven sound.

“Fade In-Out” by Oasis- In tribute to the disbanding of Oasis.

Download

-stay gold

The Death of Britpop: Oasis Bust Up

 

"Get the fook away from me."

Britpop’s peak was about 14 or 15 years ago, mid-90s, bright coloured track jackets, “football”, the Gallagher brothers’ eyebrows, Gibson ES-335 guitars in red, anti-grunge, Tony Blair (we all make mistakes)….

Oasis have gone up to the big Champagne Supernova in the sky.

While most of the bands from this era had busted up long ago, lucky to make it past the year 2000, and we lamented the loss of Blur (although they did reunite for some shows recently), I somehow thought Oasis were going to be like The Rolling Stones and just keep going. However, it was just announced that Noel Gallagher has left the band, evidently citing irreconcilable differences with Liam. “It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.”

I saw the band play last year, almost down to the day actually and I clearly remember somehow finding Brits in a Vancouver audience, and the sense of camaraderie in a huge stadium crowd during the old favourites was unmatched. On the way to the show and back, my friend Oli and I sang songs from Be Here Now.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure the band will reunite after Noel gets a stint of solo work out of the way, and Liam will make a fool of himself by attempting to write his own songs. I know how this goes. I just feel saddened because this really does signal the absolute end of an era, I mean, it was pretty much over with anyway after most of the Britpop bands busted up, but now that Oasis has finished it’s like an exclamation point on what was more like an ellipses. We all know that it’s just not the same when a band reunites, but let them get it all out of their systems.

Tomorrow I will wear one of my Oasis t-shirts.

Come on Noel, what do you think Andy Bell is going to do now?

 -stay gold.

Review: Yul Brynner Did Sci-Fi?

It’s a sad thing that Yul Brynner’s final film appearance was merely a cameo of a murderous android cowboy. That sounds better than it actually is. In 1973, Brynner signed up to play “Gunslinger”, as he is billed in the credits, a tough-guy cowboy android in an amusement park where guests can live out fantasies in the distant future. The film is called Westworld, and while it’s a vaguely interesting Michael Crichton film, it’s not up to snuff with the Oscar-winning Brynner’s previous works. The plot consists of these two men arriving at Delos, to fullfill their fantasies of living in a western-style town, there they can partake in bar fights, duels (where they can’t get shot, but can shoot the true-to-life androids) and sexual pleasure with saloon android hookers. Predictably, things begin to malfunction. In neighbouring fantasy towns, Medieval World and Roman World, people get killed by androids even after their power has been shut off. Yul Brynner begins a hunt for one of the men, which lasts most of the film. He speaks fewer than 5 lines of western film clichés, and mostly stalks with steely eyes. Brynner’s role was to play the unemotional “Gunslinger” and while it’s convincing, it’s hardly of note when compared to The King and I! The film itself is pretty alright, keeping at a tidy hour and a half, we get to see the “behind-the-scenes” work of the employees, inter-spliced with the main story of the two men, and the mishaps in the other fantasy worlds. I found it particularly interesting that in a sci-fi film, most of the movie takes place on a consciously fake western set, making sure not to rely too heavily on fancy computers as being convincing devices for sci-fi credibility. It’s not a deep film; we never find out why things went wrong. It’s another example of the utopian vision going wrong, but it does it fairly well in typical 70s style.

Brynner’s last role was a small cameo during a dream sequence of Westworld’s sequel, Futureworld (1976). While Westworld had a fairly solid, if not predictable plot, Futureworld is a strange film that tries to forge a sequel out of a film that really didn’t call for one. A few years after the massacre of renegade androids, the company Delos decides to put 1 billion dollars into revamping with added safety features and redesigning the androids for a better fantasy experience. Chuck, played by Peter Fonda, is a newspaper reporter of the standard cinematic fare (determined and rough-edged); about to meet a man with a tip for a story, but upon his arrival the man dies saying only “Delos” before croaking. Chuck decides to investigate and finds out the company is reopening and he and a love interest/anchor woman are invited for exclusive news reports. This time, in addition to the old timey worlds featured in Westwords, there’s Future World, filled with outer space simulations. Soon it becomes clear that something is awry, and the special guests invited are political leaders from various companies, whom get drugged and eventually have android replicas made, programmed to act in Delos best interests. Chuck and the love interest, hot on the tail attempt to foil the plan. Yul Brynner’s lone and final scene is during a dream sequence, playing the “Gunslinger” from Westworld–what a strange way to bow out.

Anyway, what Futureworld is missing is the already interesting topic of androids themselves, not the fiendish plans of corporate America to take over the world. The Uncanny Valley is worth investigating in such films with androids, not some corporate pig’s elaborate scheme to use them to dominate, because you don’t need androids in order to make a film like that; it’d be far more frightening with humans that act like androids, than the reverse. The point here being, Westworld focused on the creepiness and dangers of entrusting computers with your life, and hinted at the selfish drives of humanity to enslave for its own carnal pleasures, while Futureworld was more centralized around cheesy ploys to use androids in order to say the corporations can’t be trusted. To bring this up to date with some validity for discussion today: for some reason Japan and Korea, especially, keep working away at making androids and they’re damned creepy. Meanwhile, a remake of Westworld has been in the mix since 2007.

 

Brynner as the Gunslinger--kind of scary.