Kid Koala + Wolfmother = The Slew

I interviewed Eric San aka Kid Koala before the holidays about his new blues-rock/hip-hop group The Slew and their record 100%. The story is up over at URB.com for your reading pleasure. Check it out…

WTF? Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger approved?

I’m no legal expert, nor do I have much experience in business, but something tells me nothing good can come of this…

Granted, there are caveats, including concessions for AEG. Check it out yourself and let me know what you think.

Live Review: Owen Pallett @ Mod Club 01/12/2010

Few artists have achieved such unanimous acclaim as Owen Pallett. Upon releasing his He Poos Clouds sophomore record in 2006, Pallett, under his former Final Fantasy pseudonym, received accolades that cut across genre and demography, culminating in his winning the inaugural Polaris Music Prize. Then, nothing.

Well, not quite. Pallett kept himself incredibly busy working with any artist that would have him and even dropped a pair of EPs in the fall of 2008, but there was still no follow up until Tuesday (Jan. 12), when he finally unleashed his excellent new album, Heartland.

Pallett’s choice of The Mod Club as the venue for his record release gig was circumspect at first — the bar’s reputation for its club nights is arguably more renowned than as a live venue, and Pallett’s music seems better suited to more intimate environs. But with the new “poly-sonic sound system” Pallett’s spent the past two years building, and the house lighting system, he was able to create a truly immersing live experience.

Unsurprisingly, Pallett spent most of the night performing songs from Heartland. He’s incredibly adept at recreating its dense and layered sounds by looping his violin through a keyboard and a series of foot pedals.

But seeing him live isn’t all about reconstruction. Watching him slowly build his tracks with little more than the blink of an eye gives a deeper understanding and appreciation of his records, as you find yourself deconstructing each part of his songs in your head. Audience members would even scream with joy as he’d add certain elements to certain songs.

Undeniable highlights of the night included “Lewis Take Action” and “Keep The Dog Quiet,” both augmented by a talented multi-instrumentalist standing to his left. His quirky sense of humour was also on display, joking about “lowered expectations” or after commenting on the beating his bow was taking, he quipped “It’s a bad night for horses.”

He delivered what can only be described as “Final Fantasy unplugged,” when he played “He Poos Clouds,” sans effects, only turning to his loop pedals for the song’s dramatic finale, and even dropped a new song, written since Heartland was recorded.

Pallett ended his set with “This Lamb Sells Condos,” ducking off stage briefly before returning for a two-song encore, including the if-there’s-justice-in-the-world-this-will-be-a-hit “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt.” After exceeding pretty much everyone in the packed audience’s expectations, the crowd exited the building still singing the song’s refrain “I’m never gonna give it to you.”

This review originally appeared at Chartattack.com

Fave tracks of 2009

As the title implies, these were my favourite tracks from last year…

10. Pearl Jam – “The Fixer”

9. Jemina Pearl ft. Iggy Pop – “I Hate People”

8. Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys – “Empire State of Mind”

7. Pink Mountaintops – “Vampires”

6. Julie Doiron – “Consolation Prize”

5. Animal Collective – “My Girls”

4. Japandroids – “Young Hearts Spark Fire”

3. Pains of Being Pure at Heart – “Young Adult Friction”

2. Phoenix – “1901″

1. Dirty Projectors – “Stillness is the Move”

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Favourite Albums of 2009 (Better late than never)

My good friend Godfre recently reminded me that, although I contributed to several publication’s year end polls, I never posted my own favourites here. You can check out Godfre’s picks here.

This list is more what I listened to a lot rather than who made the greatest artistic statement and so such. Also, I had to commute a lot this year, which I personally believe led to the up swing in hardcore and metal on this year’s list…

10. Gallows – Grey Britain (Warner Bros.)

9. Said the Whale – Islands Disappear (Hidden Pony)

8. The Lytics – The Lytics (Independent)

7.Baroness – Blue Record (Relapse)

6. Japandroids – Post Nothing (Unfamiliar)

5. Animal Collective – Merriweather Postpavillion (Domino Records)

4. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (Domino)

3. Converge – Axe to Fall (Epitaph)

2. Pink Mountaintops – Outside Love (Jagjaguwar)

1. Pains of Being Pure at Heart – S/T (Slumberland)

DVD Reviews: This Beat Goes On & Rise Up

These reiviews originally appeared at Chartattack.com as separate articles here and here.

The problem with trying to sum up a decade of music is it’s difficult to relate disparate genres to one another. That’s the case with this second installment of the CBC’s trilogy on Canadian pop music.

Shakin’ All Over, which covered the 1960s, had a much easier task since pop music in the ’60s was easier to track. But by the 1970s, the impact of Bob Dylan’s move to electric rock had taken its toll and musical genres began to splinter, blurring the lines about what “pop music” really meant.

Rather than look at the country’s artistic output through themes or genre, This Beat Goes On’s chronological view gives long-running and influential punk band D.O.A. the same level of recognition as a one-hit-wonder like Gino Vanelli. Similarly, the introduction and impact of the controversial Canadian Content laws are here met with cheers, mostly from the artists who have benefited from them. Couldn’t the documentarians have found someone who thought otherwise, if only to give an alternate perspective?

That’s not to say this is a complete washout — far from it. This series, narrated by Jian Ghomeshi, is an incredible undertaking and is the greatest summation of any period of the Canadian music industry.

But its ultimate flaw is just that — it’s a summation of Canadian music from an industry perspective rather than one that focuses on artistic achievement. It makes this series feel like a cheap overview rather than a critical examination.

The series’ third installment suffers from a focus on the industry rather than the art, just like its predecessors Shakin’ All Over and This Beat Goes On. It also grapples with the difficult task of summing up a decade that spawned sub-genre after sub-genre.

Like most music around the world in the 1980s, what was popular grew increasingly more insipid as the decade dragged on, and the gap between the mainstream and underground widened. But the introduction of MuchMusic in the middle of the decade helped heal those wounds as the new 24-hour music channel looked for any artist — mainstream or otherwise — with a catchy video.

It was this situation which allowed for artists like The Pursuit Of Happiness and Blue Rodeo to gain mass exposure and set the stage for the Can-Rock Renaissance that would explode in the early-’90s.

The trilogy has done an admirable job of including artists from Quebec’s thriving and perennially overlooked music industry, but again, the lack of a critical eye drags down what is otherwise essential viewing for Canadian music fans.

Oink admin not guilty, jury still out as to if we all gots to feel him

Meanwhile, back in the world in intellectual property law, Allan Ellis who ran Oink’s Pink Palace until it was shut down by UK authorities in 2007, was recently aquited of “conspiracy to defraud the music industry.” Check it out over at Wired. com

Record Review: Strung Out – Agents of the Unederground

If your first reaction to this review is “Whoa, Strung Out are still together?” you can excuse your ignorance. Although the California punks were a Warped Tour staple and helped define the Fat Wreck sound in the 1990s, it seemed like they’d sort of fallen off the radar over the past decade.

Or so you thought. The five-piece have been steadily releasing solid material since their inception and this latest, which celebrates the band’s 20th anniversary together, stands as strong as their 1996 Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues classic.

Little has changed in the band’s sound over the years — the melodic vocals, breakneck drumming and buzzing hardcore guitars are all still here. But while so many of their peers have struggled to maintain their edge while retaining their core sound (I’m looking at you, Lagwagon), Agents Of The Underground feels perfectly nostalgic while remaining firmly rooted in 2009.

So yeah, maybe it’s not that Strung Out disappeared; it’s that you just got old.

This review originally appeared at Chartattack.com

Vancouver’s top 50 bands of the decade (according to Discorder)

CITR’s monthly magazine Discorder (the first place that ever let me write about music!) just dropped their latest issue which lays out what they believe are the 50 best bands to come out of Vancouver this decade. And I’ve got to say, this is a pretty comprehensive and accurate list. Some are obvious picks (New Pornos, Black Mountain), others are local phenoms not very well known outside the city (the Red Light Sting,Channels 3&4), but all are awesome. Check out the picks along with justifications below.

Best of the Decade 50-31

Best of the Decade 30-11

Best of the Decade 10-1

Live Review: Phoenix & Holy Fuck 12/05/2009 @ Sound Academy, Toronto

Saturday night’s gig at Sound Academy offered one of the oddest musical pairings Toronto has seen for sometime.

Phoenix and Holy Fuck’s fanbases do overlap, but Phoenix’s recent ascent into the North American mainstream would no doubt bring out a whole new segment of fans who had never heard of Holy Fuck. The question, then, was would fans of the French headliner’s smoothed over pop-rock accept naughty-named purveyors of lo-fi electronic rock?

By the time Holy Fuck hit the stage, the Sound Academy already looked as packed as it could get. The quartet set up in a tight circle with lead knob tweakers Brian Borcherdt and Graham Walsh facing one another amongst a mess of chords protruding from the array of keyboards and effects pedals.

A quick hello and the band were off, delivering a tight set of lo-fi dance instrumentals. The heart of their live show lies in the hands of bass player Matt McQuaid and drummer Matt Schulz; they held the band together while Walsh and Borcherdt created all manner of electronic noises.

Holy Fuck are a surprisingly energetic band considering their cerebral music, with both Walsh and Borcherdt leaping around the stage while still hitting their marks throughout the set. The warm, though somewhat cursory reception the crowd gave the band made it clear that while Holy Fuck’s set had gone over well, people made the trek down to the once-was-The Docks for one reason.

Amazingly, more people managed to make their way into the bar in between sets, adding to the anticipation for the night’s headliner. Phoenix emerged 15 minutes late to a recorded track that wouldn’t have been out of place at the opening ceremonies for the Olympics, before launching into “Lisztomania.” Frontman Thomas Mars got the crowd, which was already singing along, clapping as well.

The Parisian group focused heavily on their breakthrough, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. The seven-minute epic “Love Like A Sunset” was unsurprisingly a set highlight. But they weren’t afraid to drop hits from their previous records Alphabetical and It’s Never Been Like That into the set.

Phoenix really came alive during older tracks like “Run Run Run” and “Napoleon Says.” Their ability to recreate Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’s slick sounds live — with the help of two ancillary musicians — is admirable, but the tracks came off as a little stale at times.

The night’s version of “Fences” was a particular letdown. But the older tunes showed a much rawer version of the band. It didn’t really make a difference to most in the audience, who sang along with almost every word and treated the sextet to rapturous rounds of applause after every song.

Phoenix retired for a brief respite after playing for over an hour before Mars and one of the band’s two guitarists returned to the stage for a stripped down version of “Everything Is Everything.” They finished the night with spritely hit “1901,” which the group stretched into an epic closer.

After working through the standard album length version of the track, Mars waded into the crowd, making his way halfway to the back of the venue, then standing up on the bar and leading the surging crowd through another round of the song’s “Falling, falling, falling” chorus. He then crowd surfed his way back to the stage where he invited the crowd to join him before the band finished the song.

It was a fitting end to a night where Phoenix more than proved themselves worthy of their newfound fame.