vintage

Sorry about my continued absences. I am currently knee-deep in the 2008 Calgary Stampede, where I work as a guest services supervisor; it leaves little time for such frivolities as music blogging. But here I am on a bit of downtime ready to give you exciting things to read again. I know how excited you are, trust me.

The Polaris Music Prize shortlist was announced today! The final ten vying for the prize are:

Black Mountain, In the Future
Basia Bulat, Oh, My Darling
Caribou, Andorra
Holy Fuck, LP
Kathleen Edwards, Asking for Flowers
Plants and Animals, Parc Avenue
Stars, In Our Bedroom After the War
Shad, The Old Prince
Two Hours Traffic, Little Jabs
The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour

Place your bets now!

—

Yesterday I also had the opportunity to see Sloan. Again. This time they played in Calgary at the Tequila Nightclub, not a place I would ever go to of my own accord. It used to be The Republik (which has since been resurrected a few blocks down the road), where Sloan played back in the day, interestingly enough.

I only got to see the last half of the show, which contained exactly one song from Parallel Play (lead-off track and single “Believe in Me,” which was a terrific live rocker). Old favourites in the set included “People of the Sky,” “Who Taught You To Live Like That?” and “Money City Maniacs.” The crowd was a beer-drinking Stampede party group but seemed to be really into the show, which was nice.

Many thanks go to Mike from the Sloan ‘entourage’ who helped me make it to the show after work in the first place. Working til 12.30 is not usually a situation conducive to going to see shows, but you know how it is … things always work out in the end.

By the way, some of you may remember me mentioning how Yep Roc had failed to send me my copy of Parallel Play at the time I wrote my review. Well, it finally came - on July 2. Three weeks and a day late! I will tell this story in full so you can experience the good times with me (ha, ha).

Have a good week, everybody!

Wikipedia defines cover thus: “In popular music, a cover version, or simply cover, is a new rendition (performance or recording) of a previously recorded song.”

Cover songs are a subject of great debate among music fans. Are they good? bad? unthinkable? terrific? For my part, I am firmly on the “awesome” side of the fence - if, of course, the cover is done well. True to form or re-worked, it doesn’t matter, as long as the new version does justice to the original tune. In some cases they are even better, which is a great little surprise.

Here, in no particular order, is a list of some covers I can’t get enough of:

1. Marshall Crenshaw, Rave On
   (Marshall Crenshaw, 1982; remastered edition from 2000)

   I can’t get enough of Marshall Crenshaw, and I listen to this song over and over and over. It’s true that it’s a pretty form-fitting cover of the Buddy Holly (which is also really good, of course), but there’s something about it that I particularly love. Crenshaw’s voice is terrific. Even his countoff is endearing.

2. Jully Black, Seven Day Fool
   (Revival, 2007)

   A lot of people seem to have no idea that this is actually a cover; Etta James first did it on her album The Second Time Around in 1961, and now Black has brought it back to the forefront with her excellent version. Quite similar to James’ song, Black has still managed to infuse it with her fantastic sense of soul. Beware of earworms.

3. Sloan, Waterfalls
   (Listen to What the Man Said: A Tribute to Paul McCartney, 2001)

   An uptempo version of the somewhat ponderous tune from 1980’s McCartney II. This is one of those cases of “cover is better than the original”, and I’m not saying that lightly (I love Sir Paul); however, Sloan’s interpretation just seems to suit the song so much better, and Ferguson’s crooning of “polarbears” is the cherry on top.

4. The Bad Plus, Tom Sawyer
   (Prog, 2007)

   Yeah, a jazz cover of Rush. No big deal. I had the pleasure of seeing this ridiculously cool cover performed live, and it was just as great, and perhaps even better, than the Bad Plus’ recording. (Some argued it was better than Rush, but I wouldn’t go quite so far.) This trio fragments, reworks, and solos all over the Geddy Lee & Co. standard, but it is still completely recognizable. A pretty fun romp around jazzland, especially if you like the original.

5. The Golden Dogs, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
   (Big Eye Little Eye, 2006)

   I know, two Paul McCartney covers in the same post? Really, though, the Golden Dogs’ take on the Wings tune is a super good one, and I didn’t want to leave it out. It’s taken a little faster than the original, but otherwise is quite true to it; barring the little “Band on the Run” reprise at the end, it is pretty close.

* I’m having some trouble uploading “Seven Day Fool,” so check back in a little while to see if it’s back. Sorry about that.

It’s finally here: Sloan’s release of a follow-up to the mammoth 30-track Never Hear the End of It (2006); clocking in at 37 minutes, Parallel Play’s thirteen tracks seem to fly by. More than on previous records, this really showcases Sloan’s four-songwriters modus operandi, and the result is an improbable stew of sounds that somehow still works. I suspect the brilliant production has something to do with it.

Guitarist Patrick Pentland leads the record off with “Believe in Me”, a breezy rocker with stunningly unremarkable lyrics. Though Pentland has never really been known for his earth-shattering wordplay, he usually hits the nail on the head with a solid song, and this is the track’s redeeming factor. It’s fun and singalong-able, but not that enduring; for now, I’ll certainly enjoy belting along with the chorus when no one’s listening. The organ is an enjoyable addition.

Pentland’s other tracks are slightly disappointing. “Burn For It” and “The Other Side,” both under three minutes, have their moments of glory but fail to really hit the mark - the kind of songs you don’t mind listening to but forget about when they’re over. The chorus of “Burn For It” - I wanna walk through fire, walk through the fire and burn for it - is catchy enough, though. I can’t say that I dislike his work on this album, but his songs don’t grab me. It is not Pentland’s worst showing by any means, but he is capable of quite a lot more than he shows us here.

Jay Ferguson (Rickenbacker, denim jacket) provides his usual dose of charming pop with his three offerings, all below the three-minute mark. The second track, “Cheap Champagne,” features some beautifully sly vocal harmony and guitarless verse sections. The shouty “ba ba da”s that lead it off are really too jarring, but they sound much better when they return later in the song, and the rest of the tune with its perfect feel more than makes up for that.

Ferguson’s others, “Witch’s Wand” and “If I Could Change Your Mind,” are no less delectable. The latter is reminiscent of ’60s Motown/Phil Spector, a sure way to my heart. “Witch’s Wand,” a nice little swingy tune, features a chorus so catchy it is maddening. Jay’s been on quite a roll the last few records, and this is no exception; sometimes his tunes can come across a bit formulaic, though his current fixation on making them super-short helps alleviate that, but he’s good at throwing in some handclaps and piano ornaments to get you back to feelin’ the love.

Sarcastic bassist Chris Murphy has, thankfully, improved upon his lyrics since Never Hear the End of It. While we are still unfortunately subjected to many verses about how his life is going lately, at least it isn’t “People Think They Know Me”. Here he weighs in with three pretty solid tunes, the best of which is probably “Living the Dream” - some more of “this is my life!”, but disguised in a happy little song with a cute riff and some delicious placement of D7s.

“I’m Not A Kid Anymore” features good solid power-chording, but is not the most remarkable of songs. The chorus is probably the most exciting feature, but overall it stands around the same place as “Believe In Me” (fun, but not all that enduring). “All I Am Is All You’re Not” is surprisingly understated, giving it a cool, playing-hard-to-get vibe. I’d been listening to All Things Must Pass the day before the record came out, and the lyrics constantly remind me of Harrison’s “I’d Have You Anytime”; lyrical allusions aside, though, it’s a good song. Nice to have you back, Chris.

And finally Andrew Scott (drums/guitar), who rambles all over the map on this album. “Emergency 911″ has a bit of a Stooges/Sex Pistols feel, wherein he yells about bullies and ambulances and firetrucks. The looseness and anger comes off well, but I wish he had left off the Henry Rollins ending part. The rest is a good shouty rant of a time.

“Down in the Basement” is a happy, rolling Bob Dylan blues number, featuring lots of good keys; Scott pulls off the blatant Dylan ripoff well. It’s definitely my favourite of Scott’s tracks on the record. “The Dogs” is slightly ponderous, but grows on you, and even features an Animal Farm reference (Four legs good and two legs bad keep chasing each other ’round my head). Brownie points.

Scott also provides the album’s closer, “Too Many,” a somewhat confusing reggae-influenced loose thing with tons of organ. It is a strange choice for a final track, but then none of the tracks stand out as the perfect closer. It has some great harmony and little nuances, and he shows us quite often that he’s not afraid to play with boundaries and different sounds at every opportunity.

Scott and Ferguson definitely carry this record to great heights; Murphy, though, is finally staging a comeback from the lyrical Someone to not watch The View with rock bottom. Pentland is coasting a little, but manages to redeem himself with excellent instrumentation and some undeniably good hooks. Parallel Play is a solid 9th record, and I can see it sitting in my CD player for a while - or it would, if Yep Roc would bother actually mailing it to me. Well, you can’t win ‘em all.

Listen: Cheap Champagne or Living the Dream

A heads-up for Sloan fans: American label Yep Roc has put the band’s ninth studio album Parallel Play, due for simultaneous Canadian and US release on June 10th, on their website for your ears’ enjoyment. You can listen to the entire album streaming here.

If you do, let me know how it is; I’m going to be old-fashioned once again, and buy it the day it comes out without having heard the tracks beforehand. How revolutionary.

Sloan. If you’re Canadian, you’ve likely heard the clichés; pioneers of Canadian independent music, quintessential Can-rock, etc. But after surveying their previous work associated with the murderecords label, and checking out the new stuff they’ve signed, there’s no denying there’s some truth to them. Clichés kick around for a reason, and Sloan’s still doing what they do over fifteen years into it all.

Toronto is smack in the middle of Canadian Music Week, and as part of it, the aforementioned label put on a showcase at a little bar in Kensington Market to display some recently-signed talent (as well as their venerable, at least in rock & roll years, owners). Murder is expanding again to include bands other than Sloan, which can only mean good things. And, in almost every case, it did.

I missed the first two bands at the actual showcase, but I’ve had the great pleasure of seeing the first, Will Currie & the Country French, before. As many would attest, they are an excellent match for the label. They’re incredibly young, but have great musicianship; their music is full of breezy pop melodies and tight hooks, and the piano work is really well done. I have the demo they sold at that show for the remarkable price of $1, and it’s tighter and better produced than some recent full-length albums. Their EP will be out on murderecords sometime this year, and rest assured, there will be a review here!

The second band, Pony Da Look, is one I’ve yet to experience live; from what I understand, though, “experience” is a fairly appropriate word. Their music is very 80s influenced and awash in synthesizer and strange vocals. I’ll reserve full judgment, but I’ll say here that missing their set was not the disappointment of a lifetime.

I arrived in time to catch the slimmed-down Meligrove Band, now playing as a three-piece after the departure of guitarist/synth player Andrew Scott (yes, he’s heard the Sloan jokes!) of The Bicycles. The last time I saw them was coming off of Planets Conspire, so it’s been a while, and there was a fair amount of material in their short set that I hadn’t heard before. They did add some Planets favourites, including the explosive single “Our Love Will Make the World Go Round”; the arrangements are remarkably different live, and especially without Andrew, but they are an excellent trio of musicians and put on a great show. And they even added a Local Rabbits cover as a tribute to murderecords. Nice work, lads.

Finally came Sloan. There had been some talk that they were going to pull out some “old favourites,” but we hadn’t realised to what extent; boy, were we surprised. Right off the top, their first two songs were both sides of a 7″ from the One Chord to Another era (”Stood Up” and “Same Old Flame”), and the third, “Take Good Care of the Poor Boy” - one of Jay Ferguson’s best! - from Between the Bridges. Truthfully, they could have ended there and I’d have been happy.

They didn’t, of course, and other surprises showed up as well (namely “Before I Do,” somewhat shortened from its album version and sounding great). Each of the four did one of their new songs, as well, from their upcoming record tentatively titled Parallel Play. Unfortunately, bassist Chris Murphy - now finding himself in a comfortable and secure familial situation - seems to have lost the ability to write playful, meaningful lyrics like he used to (see “Autobiography,” “The Marquee and the Moon”); new song “I’m Not a Kid Anymore”, while musically solid, featured lyrics far too much like “Will I Belong?” or similar to be completely great.

However, newly bearded guitarist Patrick Pentland and drummer Andrew Scott - the other one - pulled off a couple of solid ones (”Believe in Me” and “911″, respectively), both rocking rather admirably, and the former conjuring shades of a more driving and uptempo sequel to “I Understand”. Guitarist Ferguson regaled us with a curious number titled “Witch’s Wand,” written in a surprisingly low vocal range, and complete with expected catchy chorus. Certainly all four were a welcome glimpse into the content of what will be their ninth (!) studio album, likely a fair bit shorter than their last effort - Never Hear the End of It was thirty tracks long, plus two bonus!

When all is said and done, Sloan definitely still knows how to put on a tight show, most of the time - and judging by the new murderecords lineup, they know how to find other bands who can do the same. If this is the new face of the label, I’ll be driving the bandwagon.

Last week (sorry, I’ve been a bit slow) saw the announcement of the East Coast Music Award winners, and boy … were there some real winners. Allow me - here are some highlights:

Recording of the Year: Joel Plaskett Emergency, Ashtray Rock
Group Recording of the Year: Joel Plaskett Emergency, Ashtray Rock
Single of the Year: Joel Plaskett Emergency, “Fashionable People”
Songwriter of the Year: Joel Plaskett, for “Fashionable People”
Rock Recording of the Year: Joel Plaskett Emergency, Ashtray Rock
Video of the Year: Joel Plaskett Emergency, Fashionable People (Randall Thorne)

I think I’m seeing a pattern here.

I guess there’s little to comment on, as the slew of awards speak for themselves. Joel is certainly well-deserving of attention, and lately he’s getting it in spades; the Polaris Prize nomination for this same album brought him a great deal of recognition that was, previously, sorely lacking. Not that the East Coast didn’t know about the Halifax native before, but I guess everyone can do with a few reminders.

Other notable award winners, though, include Prince Edward Island’s sweet foursome Two Hours Traffic for pop album of the year. Little Jabs was on my pick of the top 10 records of 2007, and while sometimes the sugar can grate a little, the album is tight and hooky and certainly deserving of the award. They seem destined for great things (and, coincidentally, opened for Plaskett for the final two nights of his Horseshoe residency); I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard a lot more about them in 2008.

There were few surprises at the East Coast Music Awards this year. George Canyon took the fan choice award for the fourth straight year, Classified came out with the best hip-hop recording, and the Rankin Family took the best DVD award (a category in which former Haligonians Sloan were also nominated, for a tour DVD filmed by Small Sins‘ Kevin Hilliard). Nothing came close to Joel Plaskett’s 6 awards, but quite frankly, not a whole lot came close to Ashtray Rock, either.

Next awards: the Junos, from my hometown of good old Calgary! Stay tuned.

… I solemnly swear not to post about the Joel Plaskett Emergency for the next little while. What can I say? He’s been a busy guy.

If you’re a fan of the Joel Plaskett Emergency, chances are you heard about his 6-night run at Toronto’s Legendary Horseshoe Tavern in mid-December. And if you live in Toronto, chances are you probably attended at least one show, or fought unsuccessfully for a ticket - five of the six shows were sold out.

Never mind that Winter Nationals had been a Rheostatics tradition since Joel was cutting his teeth in Thrush Hermit. Never mind that they had just broken up in March and the fans were still sulking over the loss - and the end of the formidable Nationals run. The fact of the matter was that the Horseshoe’s 60th anniversary was coming up, a giant party was in store, and suddenly … there were no Rheos. A slight dilemma.

Enter Joel Plaskett. With his popularity on an exponential rise, a song in a Zellers commercial, recent tours with the Tragically Hip … well, he seemed like a pretty reasonable candidate for the ‘Shoe and a big anniversary bash. When he was approached by the head honcho of the Horseshoe, he gamely accepted - but decided that damn it, he was going to put a twist on things. For one, it was a milestone birthday; for another, a lot of people were probably not going to take a different artist playing Winter Nationals very lightly. So it was up to Joel to make it worth their while.

Being one part excited musician and one part sly businessman, Plaskett decided that he was going to play one of his albums every night (totalling five), and play the sixth night as a wild-card themeless Emergency set. Of course, this ensured attendance at multiple nights for people who “just couldn’t miss” certain albums; some crazy fans even went all six nights, this writer included. Sneaky.

Herein lies the genius of naming Plaskett the successor to Bidini, Tielli et al. There are few artists who could rehearse a repertoire of over sixty songs, play a full set each night (ramping it up a notch each time, as you’ll hear about) of almost completely different material, draw sellout crowds for an entire week, and still come away with fans who are not sick of seeing them. I’m still trying to come up with any other bands that are currently active who could do the same for me. Who on earth would I want to see six times in a row? Is there anyone?

Interesting: with these six Horseshoe Tavern shows, the Emergency has tied for most times I’ve seen a band live (nine) with Sloan, but I don’t think I’d ever voluntarily see Sloan that many times in such a ridiculously short period of time. Well, unless they played four album shows, Twice Removed through Between the Bridges - that would definitely get me out. But I digress.

The point is, Joel has a stage presence and a way about performing that is always, and I do mean always, fun and exciting. He does all the right things: engaging with the audience, making jokes, messing up every once in a while, having extended harmonica duels (Elkas playing “Low Rider”? Golden). Oh yeah, and bringing up a set of guests a la The Last Waltz didn’t hurt either.

If you’re curious, you can check out the complete setlists of his six-day residency at the ‘Shoe. If you’re not so into looking through them, allow me to impart the list of his guests:

• Tara S’Appart (Elevator)
• Gordie Johnson (Big Sugar, Grady)
• his father, Bill Plaskett
• Taylor Knox & Neil Quin (Major Grange, The Golden Dogs)
• Andrew Scott (Sloan)
• Mr Chill
• Gord Downie (Tragically Hip)
• Sarah Harmer
• Ian McGettigan (Thrush Hermit, former Emergency, Camouflage Nights)

Seeing Plaskett, McGettigan and Marsh on the same stage was certainly cause for quite a lot of celebration (especially their performances of “Light of the Moon” and “Down at the Khyber,” as well as unexpected Clayton Park favourites “Oh My Soul!” and “From the Back of the Film”. Let’s just say I picked that as one of the best shows of the year for a reason, mmhmm? There are few things more excellent than that.

Anyway, without going into excessive detail about each night, I’m going to say that there was no one week better than the reborn Winter Nationals at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern. Everything from seeing Joel play with his father to Gord Downie singing on “Love This Town” to the Hermit to “In a Town This Size” and “The Lakes of Pontchartrain”. Ladies and gentlemen, Canada mourns the Rheostatics, and we will for a long time; but in their absence, it sure is nice to have a guy like Joel.