Opentape.fm

This blog is in no way affiliated with Muxtape or Opentape and absolutely thinks the RIAA is doing a great job cracking down on dirty pirates. You should never share your music with anyone and mixtapes are a horrible idea. Etc. You know.

Also, I would like to draw your attention to a comment left by Charles on this post, in which I commented that Pony Da Look was bringing me more hits than any other search term on the internet. That’s a pretty big deal (and the hits are still rolling in!). I guess if I keep making posts like this …

Well, anyway, Charles here wrote me a review of the band’s record called Shattered Dimensions and I post it here for your viewing pleasure. It’s hilarious.

Here is a review for your blog of what Pony Da Look’s “Shattered Dimensions” sounds like:

You walk into a pub lit by torchlight and candles, and decorated with electronics from a surplus store. Somebody is slamming rhythmically on a jukebox, causing it to skip back and forth through distorted segments of some of Martin Gore’s earlier compositions for Depeche Mode. While this insistent sound fills the air, a bar-room brawl erupts between Loreena McKennitt and X-Ray Spex, who chant taunts at each other from either side of the room, as the tables are cleared aside and the other patrons stamp their bony feet as they begin the first of the many frenzied dances…

Bravo, Charles.

Real Life Update™ - I have moved into a cute little house in Toronto’s east end and am actually posting this on wireless I am stealing from an innocent neighbour. Please send this lovely person, whoever they may be, some happy thoughts on my behalf. Tomorrow is Squeeze! Updates to follow, of course.

• Oct 16 MTS Centre - Winnipeg, MB

• Oct 18 Brandt Center - Regina, SK
• Oct 19 Pengrowth Saddledome - Calgary, AB
• Oct 22 GM Place - Vancouver, BC
• Nov 29 Metro Centre - Halifax, NS
• Dec 1 Bell Centre - Montreal, PQ
• Dec 2 Scotiabank Place - Ottawa, ON
• Dec 4 Air Canada Centre - Toronto, ON

See his full tour schedule here.

I also actually had a post in the works about a mixtape I made … but unfortunately, the RIAA got in the way. Some of you may have already been part of Muxtape, a terrific website geared towards those interested in discovering new tunes. It was a very, very simple and streamlined site; no nonsense, no annoying images, just music. Users had a unique ID (username.muxtape.com) and were allowed to upload a maximum of 12 songs to the site; they could then arrange them in any order or rename them, as well name their tape and pick a colour for it.

After that … the listening. Features like “next” and “random” provided gold mines of new music and old favourites; one that I stumbled upon only had songs that were 2 minutes and 42 seconds long, and another person had just uploaded the entirety of Highway 61 Revisited (okay, I can see why the RIAA would not be too happy with that one). You could also add tapes you liked to your favourites, so you could come back and listen to them again later. Recently, Muxtape added a fabulous feature which allowed users to sync with Last.fm, enabling any tracks they listened to on Mux to scrobble onto their charts. Ingenius! Let me tell you, I was listening to Muxtape quite a bit the last few weeks.

Of course, anything good eventually gets shut down by the RIAA, and this one was no exception. Since there were so many tracks being provided in streaming format to the internet, it was only a matter of time before the problem of royalties surfaced; Muxtape has grown quite a bit in the last little while, and this puts them on par with a lot of other websites that have to pay hefty fees in order to stream that much music to listeners. The future is still up in the air for Muxtape, and if you’re like me, you’re crossing your fingers, toes and anything else that will stand still long enough in the hopes that it will come back.

Disney-meets-Kodak-styled sister site Mixwit just isn’t the same (and probably will get shut down eventually too); where Muxtape was smooth, streamlined and no-nonsense, Mixwit looks like an eight-year-old girl’s room was strewn all over the place. Oh well.

In other news, I’m seeing Squeeze in a week.

Lydon alleges that Okereke is making up this stuff and says he regrets that the singer needs to “lie about what was a perfect evening”.

Read the full story here.

• Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” is an awesome song. It’s #217 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time - a list which is, of course, biased toward American and British acts, left out various influential artists, and includes nothing before 1940, but still! - and it is truly excellent. Not only does Dolly deliver marvelously, but the very structure of the song lends itself to a sound of desperation. Oh my lordy, I have listened to it seven times today.
   

• I didn’t manage to catch on to hip hop well enough in 2007, but Aesop Rock’s None Shall Pass and Buck 65’s Situation are both absolutely amazing (and would have been on my top 10 list, had I been smart enough to hear them when they were released). The former features tunes with the likes of John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, and even has a song called “Bring Back Pluto” that begins And then there were eight, just like that. Um, awesome. Situation features Spanish guitar and quotes of the Clapping Song and Allen Ginsberg, as well as some seriously great singles like the percussion-filled “Dang”.
   

• The Futureheads‘ album This Is Not The World is awesome. I said I would review it and dropped the ball, so here it is in a few words: it is better than News & Tributes and almost as good as The Futureheads. The first single, “The Beginning of the Twist”, is classic catchy, spastic Futureheads fare; the production on everything is a little cleaner than their S/T, but thankfully not as slick as the unfortunate News work. I like it more and more every week. Well done, Sunderlanders. Now bring back Field Music!
   

• I am seeing Squeeze in 17 days. Not that I am particularly excited or anything.

Goodies:
Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass
The Futureheads, The Beginning of the Twist
Buck 65, The Outskirts

Saturday & Sunday: Workshops

The awesome thing about the weekends at the Calgary Folk Music Festival is that the daytimes - 10:30 in the morning until 5:30 when the mainstage starts - are all workshops and smaller concerts, and the workshops are where so much of the magic of this festival lies. They throw together two or three groups, who have probably never even seen each other before, let alone played together, and let them go for an hour. The stuff that comes out of these stages … man, you have no idea. Here’s what I took in on Saturday:

Machinations & Palindromes
Andrew Bird, Master Musicians of Jajouka, A Hawk & A Hacksaw

Wicked and Weird
The Weakerthans, Calexico, Handsome Family, Torngat

Shout, Sisters, Shout!
Woodpigeon, Basia Bulat, The Consonant C, Julie Doiron

Sweetly Undone
Calexico, Bill Callahan, A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Andrew Bird

A Brief History of Rhyme
Wendy McNeill, Josh Ritter, Woodpigeon, Trish Klein (Be Good Tanyas)

as well as a concert by the Handsome Family.

Things I learned: Andrew Bird is a great collaborator with anyone, and so are Calexico (that horn section! that lap steel!); John K. Samson (Weakerthans) and Joey Burns (Calexico) should always sing together; Basia Bulat covering “Thirty Days” is one of the best things to happen to workshops, especially with a backing band of about fifteen people; Bill Callahan sings about blood a lot; and the Handsome Family write really sad songs about milk.

The workshops, in short, were awesome.

Sunday

OK, by Sunday I was exhausted. Saturday ends at 11:30 and you are back at the park at something like 8:30 to get a spot, so everyone is a bit sluggish in the morning. However, the workshops got people on their feet pretty quickly. Here’s what I got to see:

Indie 500
Basia Bulat, Great Lake Swimmers, Julie Doiron, Sam Parton (Be Good Tanyas)

3 Altered Chords & The Truth
The Duhks, Joël Fafard, John Wort Hannam, Diana Jones

That Ain’t No A Flat Major!
Maryem Tollar & The Toronto Cairo Collective, A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Düvö

Blue Blue Grass of Home
Tim O’Brien, The Duhks, Sparrow Quartet, Craig Korth (Widow Maker)

as well as concerts by Julie Doiron and Basia Bulat.

I think “That Ain’t No A Flat Major” takes the cake for one of the best workshops I’ve seen at the folk festival. To give you a bit of background, Düvö is from Hungary, and they play Hungarian folk music (complete with fiddles, hammer dulcimer, etc). A Hawk & A Hacksaw, interestingly, is from Alberquerque but based in Hungary - when they said “We’re going to play a Hungarian czardas for you,” all the members of Düvö cheered and roared and joined in. CLASSIC. Maryem Tollar is the one behind the theme song to Little Mosque on the Prairie, for all you Canadians, and she and her band are originally from Egypt. You can imagine how awesome that sounded. It was terrific, and there was this tiny two- or three-year-old girl running around and dancing the whole time, which just made it better.

MAINSTAGE

To be quite honest I don’t want to spend an hour talking about all these acts because it is going to sound repetitive, so here is the short version!

Josh Ritter - I knew his stuff already from The Animal Years, and I was thrilled he played so many songs from that record; he was incredibly joyful AND he stopped a rainstorm (only to have it start again after he left the stage, unfortunately).

The Duhks - Amazing. They fuse Celtic-type stuff with folk and rock and all kinds of things, and out comes a really energetic live show. Their vocalist can really belt it out! Well worth checking out, and definitely one of my favourite festival discoveries.

A Hawk & A Hacksaw - I mentioned them already, of course, but they were great. I think some of the crowd were surprised to see an instrumental band, because there were a few bewildered faces in the audience, but they were really incredible, and once they started playing some blistering fiddle tunes everyone was dancing anyway. Bonus points for the indie kids as Jeremy Barnes used to be the drummer for Neutral Milk Hotel.

James Blood Ulmer - Serious, gritty blues, backed by soul vocalist and bass player Meshell Ndegeocello. He was good and fun and really grooved well, but I guess I just wasn’t totally into his set. He plays his guitar in a pretty interesting way! Great voice though, holy. Very dirty-blues.

The Men They Couldn’t Hang - Hands down one of my favourite acts of the festival. Slightly aging folk-punk musicians from across the pond, rousing everybody with rather Pogues-like tunes, these guys were a total blast. It also didn’t hurt that everything was delivered in heavy Scottish or English accents, only adding to the fun. They sold out of their records in a flash - I didn’t get to pick one up, but if I do find one, I will post something here for your enjoyment!

Blue Rodeo - Can I just say, I love Jim Cuddy. And the rest of Blue Rodeo, too, but I just think Cuddy is like a really cool uncle who would play your favourite songs on his guitar and let you sit on his knee and take you out for ice cream when your parents weren’t around. I like that guy. Anyway, I am so glad we didn’t succumb to the rain and miss Blue Rodeo - they were amazing. Hit after hit! “Til I Am Myself Again,” “Five Days in May,” “C’mon” etc. One of my favourite live acts and one that I would love to see again and again.

Sonny Landreth - Another really great blues player, but one that I was more into. I loved this guy. Serious chops and serious feel. He reminded me a bit of Jack Semple, but I think I liked Landreth’s playing a lot more. He got a bunch of people dancing, always testament to how well you are doing at a festival.

Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet - Featuring Bela Fleck of the Flecktones, who were Festival performers last year. These guys were amazing. Washburn, a beautiful Southern belle, has spent some time living in China, and consequently is fluent in Mandarin. She sang some Mandarin tunes for us and it is so mind-boggling to see this very fair, red-haired, Tennessee lady singing Chinese folk songs. I was thoroughly impressed. Not to mention her and Bela Fleck’s blistering banjo over everything - Fleck performed a tune by himself, as well, and it sounded like there were two or three banjos playing at once. What a guy. Add this to my favourites list.

It was starting to rain again after their set, so we took off and missed Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band and Ani DiFranco, although to tell you the truth I don’t think any of us were too disappointed.

And of course, Festival Mini-Sampler Pt. 2:

Basia Bulat - In the Night
Josh Ritter - Wolves
Blue Rodeo - C’mon
Julie Doiron - Swan Pond

The Matchstick Zune program is wrapping up shortly and so I am going to toss a few more comments in here while I can. I might actually have to make a switch to the Zune because my Zen has started acting a little funny lately, and I have to remove the battery just to get it to turn off - not a good sign. So I guess we’ll see what happens there.

I just want to reiterate how annoying the software is. I am still not a fan of it at all. I really dislike having to go find the screen to monitor a folder with media in it AND THEN go back and see them being added to the collection, AFTER which I can drag them into the player to sync up. Too many steps. The Zen just has a menu; you explore your computer yourself, select what you want, and in it goes. Really fast and easy and user-friendly. This monitoring business is a pain in the butt at best, and if I wasn’t computer-savvy to begin with I would have a whole lot of trouble with it. Thumbs down.

Also this is not so much a comment about the Zune itself, but all the extra stuff they sell for it (that was sent to me as part of the package), like the extra headphones or the AC adapter, has way too much packaging. I don’t need an eight-inch by four-inch box for a pair of earbuds.

I am really enjoying the videos though, and am starting to experiment with playlists. The player itself has been great and I haven’t had any problems with it so far, so props for that. It’s been fun; I will probably continue to use this (especially if my little red Zen dies - that would be a sad day indeed).

Actual music posts to follow.

Edit: WHOA! My sad face turned into an emoticon. I had no idea those were supported on WordPress. That is pretty awesome.

My top search engine hit is for pony da look.

That’s right. People searching for this band are finding my site; I believe I’ve only mentioned them once, in a short paragraph about how I wasn’t too sad about missing their set. However, 17 people have come here in their search for them. What a head-scratcher! Well … welcome.

Some of my other top hits (these ones are five hits and below; this gap is even more perplexing) are calexico, matchstick zune (that would be this post), and sam roberts love at the end of the world. These ones make a lot more sense.

Well, here I go tagging this entry with Pony Da Look too, just to see if it boosts my hit count even more. Maybe I should actually review their record … but that would only make all the fans go away again.

More folk festival reviews coming up!

Major props go to the following:

Natalia takes first place with a rip-roarin’ eleven (nice one!).
Adam and Barbara tie for second place with a good solid eight correct answers.

Nice work, everybody! And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for:

The list revealed!

1. John Baldwin
   John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin
    

2. Farrokh Bulsara
   Freddie Mercury, Queen
    

3. Robert Cummings
   Rob Zombie
    

4. Reginald Dwight
   Elton John
    

5. Ernest Evans
   Chubby Checker
    

6. Jacob Gershowitz
   George Gershwin
    

7. Frances Ethel Gumm
   Judy Garland
    

8. Charles Hatcher
   Edwin Starr
    

9. Steveland Hardaway Judkins
   Stevie Wonder
    

10. Riley B. King
    B.B. King
     

11. Donovan Philips Leitch
    Donovan
     

12. Declan Patrick MacManus
    Elvis Costello
     

13. James Joseph McGuinn III
    Roger McGuinn
     

14. Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien
    Dusty Springfield
     

15. Karen Lee Orzolek
    Karen O, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
     

16. Ronald Bedford Scott
    Bon Scott, AC/DC
     

17. Richard Starkey
    Ringo Starr
     

18. Sylvester Stewart
    Sly Stone
     

19. Gary Lee Weinrib
    Geddy Lee, Rush
     

20. Robert Allen Zimmerman
    Bob Dylan

Point of note: everyone who entered got Bob Dylan. Surprise. Somehow, though, one of those people missed Ringo Starr! The names in green are ones that stumped everybody. Hey, now you can impress your friends.

Thursday

Things got rolling with the Master Musicians of Jajouka, at best an unconventional way to start the festival. The group hails from northern Morocco and have collaborated with the likes of the Rolling Stones and Maceo Parker. As revered as they are, I still couldn’t get into what they were doing; rather cacophonous and repetitive, I guess they just weren’t my bag.

Following them, however, were Canadian darlings The Weakerthans, who were just delightful. Somehow this was my first time experiencing their joyful live performance, and it did not disappoint; soft-spoken and gracious, John K. Samson and his crew delivered a bucketload of well-crafted songs that fit perfectly with the sunny weather. Their set felt far too short. I’m definitely seeing them again.

Third up was clever and quirky Aimee Mann. Shamefully, the only experiences I’ve had with her music are “Humpty Dumpty” and “It’s Not Safe,” the latter with Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford from Squeeze. I know. So I was quite taken by surprise when I found out just how much I enjoyed her stuff. Her between-song banter was hilarious and delivered in a completely deadpan manner (which just made it so much better). Her performance was really enjoyable - she has a great voice and her easygoing manner made everyone relax and get into it. I am definitely looking forward to seeing her again in about a month when she opens for Squeeze in Toronto (!!).

Sam Roberts closed the night out with some seriously happy rock & roll, throwing in old favourites like “Brother Down” and “Hard Road” alongside some choice tunes from Love at the End of the World, including the title track, “Lions of the Kalahari” and “Detroit ‘67″. It got a little jammy towards the end, but the energy never failed; Roberts and his band blasted the singing and dancing crowd with some joyful rock and things ended Thursday night on a beautifully high note. Man, I love Sam Roberts.

Friday

Off to a hollerin’, boot-stompin’, banjo-pickin’ start with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a young African-American string band formed in North Carolina and working under the tutelage of Joe Thompson. They were an excellent way to kick off the afternoon, playing a whole lot of rollicking, uptempo string band tunes and getting everybody’s toes tapping early on. Some great jug playing was featured, too (what a treat!). These guys were a real party, and I purchased their CD from the official festival record tent. Definitely a favourite of my musical discoveries from the festival.

I took off and missed the blues harmonica stylings of Charlie Musselwhite to run to the Twilight Stage instead, taking in a set by indie favourites Great Lake Swimmers. It was just what I had hoped for - quiet and beautifully intricate songs floating over the crowd flopped in the grass in front of the stage, with the sunset blazing behind us. Tony Dekker’s voice is ethereal at times, and other times just country enough. I hope to have a few more opportunities to see them in Toronto in the coming years; they were fabulous and quite a lovely treat on a beautiful night.

I booked the heck back to the mainstage afterwards; next up were Vancouver’s darlings the Be Good Tanyas, who I have been dying to see for a few years now. Their delicious blend of folk, country and bluegrass gives them a unique sound that lends itself perfectly to the Calgary folk festival. They didn’t play my favourite song of theirs (”The Littlest Birds,” from 2001’s Blue Horse), but they did treat us to a very energetic “Reuben”, as well as a host of other favourites from their three records, including “Human Thing”. Lead vocalist Frazey Ford has one of the most interesting voices I’ve heard in a while, and all three of them sing beautifully, making every song a study in lush vocal harmony. I can’t wait for them to release something else - I really love this group and I bet you would too.

After that, oh, what a treat - Andrew Bird, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, whistler extraordinaire. I don’t really know how to describe him other than “a wonder”. Bird layers track after track of violin, voice and otherworldly whistling until he sounds like an entire orchestra, and his songs are complex and beautiful. Seeing him live is a totally different experience and one that I am completely willing to repeat. What a guy.

Calexico took the stage next, and boy was I really in for a surprise. I’ve only ever heard one Calexico song, and it was on a mix CD I got in a trade called The Country Hour. Thus, I was expecting a country band. However, Calexico - named for the city on the border between California and Mexico, counterpart of Mexicali - takes much of its influence from mariachi bands and other sounds from Mexico and the American southwest. Their horn section is absolutely fantastic, and vocalist Joey Burns’ style - gritty and wistful - conjures images of campfires in the desert at sunset. And, in fact, during their set the sun was going down; perfect imagery for a really enjoyable set.

And finally, the headliner: Kingston (Ontario, not Jamaica)’s Bedouin Soundclash. They were energetic and fun for the first half, but by the end I was more than ready for them to get offstage. I did have a good time to start off, though - they were really pumping up the crowd, playing reggae-heavy danceable tunes for all the whippersnappers up front, and at one point offering up a tribute to Joe Strummer of the Clash. However, reggae beats get repetitive after a while, and the Soundclash did little to offer any variety; a somewhat shorter set would probably have been a better idea, and I was sick of them by the end. Still, a pretty fun way to end the Friday.

More stuff to come, including a series of excellent Saturday and Sunday workshop sessions. In the meantime, Folk Festival Mini-Sampler, Pt. 1!

The Weakerthans - Civil Twilight
Carolina Chocolate Drops - Starry Crown
Bedouin Soundclash - Living in Jungles
The Be Good Tanyas - Reuben