New AC/DC – Rock ‘n’ Roll Train

Wholly mothafuckin’ shit. AC/DC have a new single from their upcoming Black Ice record up on their website, and damn if it isn’t the best thing they’ve put out in 15 years. Now why, you might ask, is a self-professed music nerd like myself so excited about AC/DC. And not old, classic AC/DC, but 30-plus years into their career AC/DC. The answer is because I love them. I love them so much. They are my favourite band of all time. I have loved them since I was 10, and their 1996 Ballbreaker tour was the first show I ever saw – it’s still the best stadium rock show I’ve ever seen. No other band can hold a candle to AC/DC live because as much as they are a schtick, and a bit of a joke, they get the joke, and love it, so it makes it okay to just go with it (kind of like Snoop Dogg) and enjoy the fact that they have a row of canons for the 21 gun salute in “For Those About to Rock We Salute You.” I don’t even give a shit that they’ve set up an exclusive distro deal with Wal-Mart. As far as I’m concerned they’ve never made a bad album (even Fly on the Wall), and they never will.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Train

and just for good measure…

Yes, that is the governor of California.

Can-rock 90s: Pluto – “When She Was Happy”

An odd hobby of mine is trying to find old 90s Can-rock videos on youtube. These are the bands they used to play all the time on the Vancouver rock station 99.3 “the Fox.” Listening to these songs now, I can’t believe a lot of these bands got record deals, but man did I ever love them back then. It should be noted that Nickelback could have easily fallen into this category had they not, you know, sold ass-loads of records. I saw them play free gigs in various record shops around Vancouver and they were lucky if more than a couple dozen people showed up.

This is the second single from the Vancouver band Pluto’s major-label debut. They were one of the first bands signed to Mint Records, along with cub and Tankhog. But somewhere along the way Virgin signed them and they put out a self-titled record that did pretty well on radio, and this video, along with their one for “Paste,” did alright on Much Music as well. They released one last album, that kind of sucked, but had the excellent song “The Goodbye Girl” on it. You can download it all via their myspace page.

‘93 til Infinity y’all

This is my good friend Godfrey (or at least these are Godfrey’s feet). He knows more about music than pretty much anyone else I know. In fact, he championed and then turned on Death Cab for Cutie before Seth Cohen was even a glimmer in the eye of Josh Schwartz. He also runs a pretty neat blog under his stage name r. mutt and posts things from time to time on the blog Mystics Not Wastrels as godfre. By the way, Mystics Not Wastrels is run by our mutual friend Patrick, who works with both Acephale and S.L.U. Records. Check them out! But I digress…

Godfrey posted a pretty great mix he made for the 1993 party he put together last year. If you want to listen/download it use the zSHARE link as the YSI link no longer works.

Shad – “The Old Prince Still Lives at Home”

I don’t know much about this guy other than that he’s from London, Ontario and that last year’s The Old Prince was nominated for both a Juno and the 2008 Polaris Prize. Oh, and I also know that this video is rad.

New Streets tracks from forthcoming “Everything is Borrowed”

Has anyone else ever had this happen? You love a record, so much, you listen to it so often, you know every little word and noise burnt onto that plastic disc, that it’s absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for the artist to make another record that will grab you the way this one did. This is what happened to me after I picked up the Streets “A Grand Don’t Come for Free” when I was in London in 2004.

I had liked their first album “Original Pirate Material” enough to pick up the new one pretty much on spec, but when I slipped that disc into my battered discman (can you believe that was only 4 years ago?) I couldn’t believe what I heard.  Mike Skinner unravled his tale of woe; the loss of 1000 quid, the blossoming of a new relationship, his struggles with fidelity, the betrayl of his mates, the loss of his girl and the eventual recovery of his cash and faith in his friends. The songs were simple, at times understated, humourous and oh so catchy. Maybe it helped that I had just been dumped from across the ocean via email, but I’ve never felt so in tune with a record before that, or since.  It came as no surprise then that Skinner’s next record, “The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living,” with it’s narcissistic ruminations on fame, didn’t really connect with me. It’s not that it was necessarily a bad album, there was just no way it could ever live up to my expectations.

So I’m quite happy to hear the new Streets tracks “The Escapist” and the title track from the forthcoming album “Everything is Borrowed.” The beats and production are pure Streets – thin and simple. But lyrically, Skinner is moving away from the self-reflection and attempting to create something more universal, out of his personal experiences, like a British hip-hop version of Bruce Springsteen. While he doesn’t quite achieve this, the evolution is refreshing, and Skinner once again has me salivating with anticipation for the next Streets record. Thanks Mike…

and just cause it’s kind of hilarious…

New Oasis sounds like old Oasis: an addendum

Nevermind what I wrote about new track “Falling Down,” yesterday – THIS sounds like old Oasis.

UPDATE: peep the official video here…

What the fuck happened? Chris Cornell

Oh. my. God…

How the mighty have fallen. Chris Cornell, former lead singer of Soundgarden has hit rock bottom. And I’m not talking alcoholism or drug abuse rock bottom. No, I’m talking about artistic bankruptcy rock bottom. For those not “in the know,” Chris Cornell has recorded his new album Scream with the help of uber-urban street cred studio guru Timbaland. The results are piss-poor at best.

Now I realize that since Soundgarden called it quites back in ‘97 Chris hasn’t had the most illustrious career. His post SG solo record Euphoria Morning was a decent offering but didn’t exactly set the world on fire (not including the underrated “Sunshower” from the Great Expectations soundtrack didn’t help things in my opinion). And his collaborations with the former-now-current guys from Rage Against the Machine in Audioslave, though lucrative, didn’t match the heights of Soundgarden. Part of the problem is that Cornell was either unable or unwilling to let loose with his fantastic metal wail, the way he would in classics like “Outshined” or “Rusty Cage.” The whole project seemed so laboured compared to the cathartic nature of Soundgarden’s best work. This resulted in a band, one that could have been a real creative standout on rock radio, instead opting to simply be another angry band with a pretty-boy lead singer. The only thing that separated Audioslave from those ass-hats in Creed was the group members’ former glories.

When looking at Cornell and his career it’s hard not to compare it with his peers from early-90s Seattle. Unlike Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley or Eddie Vedder, Cornell always seemed destined for bigger things. He had the looks the body and the voice (Mudhoney figured this out early on and wrote the song “Overblown”). And regardless of where his career leads he was fortunate not to follow the paths Cobain and Staley chose. Still from leading one of the the early-90s most loved and respected bands to writing sub-par One Repbulic rip-offs is a leap worthy of Rod Stewart when he abandoned his Mod, blues-rock roots in favour of “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” panty-waving excess. It’s worse when you juxtapose Cornell with Vedder. Vedder was the grunge poster boy, the one on the cover of Time Magazine, and Pearl Jam were the genre’s bread winners. By all rights, they should be the ones desperately trying to hold on to relevance in a rapidly changing cultural landscape. But instead they chose to forge ahead on their own path. It seemed tenuous at first (does anybody else remember the first time they heard “Who You Are“?) But in the process the group garned a new-found respect from their detractors, the kind that of respect that builds careers, not hit singles. They still get played on the radio (how awesome was it to hear “World WIde Suidcide“) and Vedder received some of his highest accolades for his soundtrack to Into the Wild.

Anyways, I guess what I’m trying to say is this Christmas do everyone a favour and buy your teenage neices and nephews copies of Superunknown and Badmotorfinger and keep the dream alive. And while your at it, maybe buy your single aunt a Faces record…you never know…

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

New Oasis and Verve sound like old Oasis and Verve (not a bad thing)

Over the hill Brit-rockers…unite! Both Oasis and the Verve have new records out early this fall, and so far from all the leaks / singles that have been on offer, they sound like new Oasis and Verve records. Both bands once experienced the kind of “do no wrong” type of sentiments Radiohead seem unable to shake (not that they’d want to), but have since slid into a comfortable groove (Oasis) or just slid away (the Verve, when they broke up). So yeah, these new tracks aren’t going to inspire nations these two bands music did when they were at the height of their powers (“Live for Ever” and “Bittersweet Symphony” in my humble opinion). But I think the great thing about them is that the songs don’t actually suck, they’re just not as good as songs the groups wrote over a decade ago. So I for one will be picking up The Verve’s Forth and Oasis’ Dig Out Your Soul, not out of nostalgia, or even the faint hope of hearing some passing brilliance, but because they’ll be good records that still sound fresh and exciting, where many of their peers have just fallen by the wayside.

Oasis – “Falling Down”

The Verve – “Love is Noise”

Adbusters’ “Hipster: The Dead End of Civilization”

Hey Adbusters, why don’t you crawl back into your own asshole and go fuck yourself.

Sorry, I just had to get that off of my chest. But really, I’m just goddamned sick of that crap-ass magazine printing articles like this. For those not in the know, Adbusters is the magazine of “Culturejammers” and anti-capitalist branding rebellion rebels etc, etc.  Oddly enough they’ve also built themselves into a neat little brand of their own, indoctrinating their readers with their particular world view the same way the companies they purport to disdain do with their own products. Now I’m not saying one is right and the other is wrong (nor am I thinking I’m the first to realize this) but I just think it’s an important similarity to note.

What’s really got my blood boiling at the moment is their latest “all encompassing, last word on the subject” story entitled “Hipster: The Dead End of Civilization.” Like their “The Death of Canadian Journalism,” story from last year, Adbuster’s is once again throwing lightning bolt accusations down from the top of Mount Morally Superior. Now I’ll be the first to admit that these stories have irked me quite a bit due to the fact that I have more than a passing interest in their subject matters. But what I find more bothersome is their writer’s absolute lack of credible research. The recent hipster story in particular is devoid of anything beyond cursory observations. Hipster’s may well be the downfall of Western civilization, and Canadian journalism as an industry is in the shitter, but these stories offer little evidence to convince the haters. The currently in question, Douglas Haddow, spoke to some girls at a party and seemed genuinely surprised they didn’t consider themselves hipsters. Well of course they don’t. Like every counter-culture, the only people that actually categorize themselves are the ones who don’t really get it. Unfortunately, Haddow chalked the girls indifference to the plight of the oppressed as a harbinger to the fall of Rome. Fine. Whatever.

Now I have no special love for hipsters. I could even be accused of being one, due to my interest in the music they listen to, and, because of that, the fact that I like getting drunk and dancing up a storm at so-called hipster clubs. I think a lot of people fall in this category. There are a lot of hipsters who are assholes, just like there are a lot of punks who were assholes and just like there are a lot of anti-capitalist “culturejammers” who are assholes. There’s also a lot of cool people that give a shit in each of those subcultures (or whatever you want to call them).

Haddow asserts through out the story that hipster culture is vapid and devoid of a sense of rebellion, that it has no interest in casting off of the values of the generation before it (challenging “the dysfunction and decadence of their elders”). This might be true on the surface; there is a hipster uniform and a strong sense of detachment from the art, music and media the “movement” has attached itself to. But I believe that the “apathy and irony” Haddow insists hipsters thrive on is a defense mechanism. Hipsters are rebelling against quite a lot. This generation learned from the lessons of Generation X – no matter what you do, companies and corporations are going to co-opt “The Cool,” manipulate it and spit it back out as something the people that originally embraced it can no longer recognize or identify with. By distancing themselves from this cycle (and it is the same cycle that EVERY generation and counter-culture movement has experienced), and constantly shifting their tastes, hipsters are trying to stay one step ahead.

Haddow describes the confluence of “the formerly dominant streams of ‘counter-culture’” as “one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior” and that this cultural manifestation is a negative force. But again, I see this as a positive form of rebellion. 10 years ago the lines between music genres (and social-cultures) were becoming increasingly stringent: punks went to Warped Tour, metal-heads went to Ozzfest, rockers hit up Lollapalooza and the b-boys and girls did whatever it was they did (this is how out of it every sub-genre was. We didn’t know what was going on in other circles) and nobody who gave a shit about music listened to pop. These lines were reinforced by radio stations that made no attempt to breakout of their little niches. This was convenient for record companies because it let them easily categorize their target audience. The internet, Napster and iPods helped the current generation of musicians AND listeners to break these chains and just enjoy the music. That’s why songs like Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella” have enjoyed success both in the mainstream and with “more serious” music fans.

It’s also insinuated that hipsters alone are so obsessively narcissistic that they feel the need to have their every move photographed and posted on the internet for the world to see. Apparently Haddow doesn’t have a facebook account. And while we’re talking about the world wide web let us not forget that the hipster generation is the cohort that led the digital music revolution, stripping away the power of behemoth music conglomerates and putting it back into the hands of the consumer. This is something that Adbusters, more than any other publication, should appreciate.

As for the “mix that sounds like [the dj] took a hatchet to a collection of yesteryear billboard hits…but mashed up with a jittery techno backbeat” that Haddow once again uses as more inconclusive “proof” of our impending doom, I strongly believe the mashup,when done well is perhaps this generation’s greatest artistic achievement (at least in music). Musicians like Girl Talk who shamelessly sample from both the mainstream and the underground are perhaps the most prominent “culturejammers” working today. These DJs take songs that have resigned to the realm of background  music  and used in ads in the hope that previous generations’ nostalgia will somehow transfer onto their product, and re-contextualize them. In essence, they’re taking the songs back from “the man” and reminding us that yes, “These Eyes” is actually one emotional rollercoaster of a song and Metallica did at one time write some of the most brutal guitar riffs going.

So in not so terribly constructive conclusion, fuck you Adbusters. I’m going to go buy an iPhone.

In Defense of the Band: Jimmy Eat World

In which I defend my desire to listen to singers, musicians, artists, bands and groups that are pretty generally regarded as fucking lame.

I like Jimmy Eat World…alot. I have most of their recorded output. I even listen to Singles, the collection of their indie output, with some regularity. I know that they’re mainstream, whiny and the band that a lot of people bring up when they want to talk about shitty emo bands. But fuck it, I don’t care.

Despite starting out on indie labels, Jimmy Eat World never really seemed to care much about indie cred etc. They were playing emocore before anyone knew what that was and had pretty much abandoned it by the time the haters started pulling ranks. They signed to Capitol Records during the first big round of emo signings in the mid-90s and quite unceremoniously dropped before the turn of the century. What’s more, their last record for the label, Clarity, is considered a stone-cold classic amongst their peers and fans (and “Lucky Denver Mint” is one of my favourite all time songs). Spin Magazine just published a story about the annoying emo whine that every punk band seems resigned to copy these days, and almost every singer interviewed points to Jim Adkins, Jimmy Eat World’s lead singer as an inspiration. They all want their voices to convey as much emotion as his.

The band’s commercial peak, Bleed American, a VERY radio ready slab of plastic was purposely a step towards the mainstream funded by the band themselves. They decided to make the leap and it paid off big time. Despite this flirtation with the mainstream, they’ve since seemed content to be too indie for the masses, to commercial for indie scenesters, entertaining a mixed bag of old-school fans and 15-year olds fawning over their blissfully sincere lyrics. And those lyrics on paper, are like a high-school diary.  So yeah, kids make heart shapes with their hands at their shows (I know cause I’ve seen them twice), and yeah, they’re on a major label. But like Counting Crow’s Adam Duritz, when Jim Adkins sings, you fucking believe.

Believe kids, believe.