Jesu’s Conqueror “so Siamese Dream you’ll just die”

My good friend Godfrey just hipped me to Jesu’s Conqueror album. The band is made up of ex-members of Napalm Death, Godflesh and Swans and falls somewhere in the whole drone/doom/avant-metal scene that I’ve apparently ignored for WAY to long, cause this, and a lot of the other bands on Hydra Head are fantastic. I think Godfrey sums it up best:

“Very rarely do i find a record more finely suited to what you want from rock and roll. Read Morene is so Siamese Dream you’ll just die.”

Well put my friend. To be brutally honest, the reason I’m a little out of it in metal circles these days is due to an ill-advised foray into nu-metal territory in the late 90s. I bought records by Slipknot, Korn, and Limp Bizkit among others and even went to Ozzfest. The whole thing kind of left a bad taste in my mouth (alright, I’m still okay with Korn, and Ozzfest was awesome). But I digress…

New Q-Tip video – “Gettin’ Up”

Holly crap…cold hard evidence this record is actually coming out. After almost a decade and with two rejected albums under his belt, A Tribe Called Quest MC Q-Tip is finally putting out a new solo album. ‘Bout time Tip. There was also a pretty cool interview with him in Spin last month. The Renaissance is out in November.

more about “Q-Tip – Gettin’ Up“, posted with vodpod

New Salem video – “Dirt”

So my friend Patrick North has got a new record label on the go. It’s called Acephale and the label’s first release is a mighty fine 7 inch by Salem, a mean, spooky sounding group from somewhere between Chicago and New York (I’ll have to get back to you on that one). I’d recomend them to anyone who digs Burial, or any of the other dark sounding electronic stuff that’s slowly making it’s way around the blogosphere.

The record is called Yes, I Smoke Crack and was available on limited edition white vinyl. Unfortunately, the label is sold out of this little gem of an EP, but I managed to get a copy through the Rough Trade Shop. Anyway, Salem has a video for the track “Dirt.” It’s mean and spooky looking, just like the song.

more about “SALEM – DIRT on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

In Defense of the Band: Blind Melon

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

Unlike most folks out there, I didn’t come to Blind Melon via “No Rain.” I have vague recollections of the video when I was like 12, but I never knew who the band was, let alone the song. No, for some reason “Galaxie,” from the band’s most excellent album Soup, was the one that did it for me. Unfortunately, it didn’t do it for anybody else and the band got the “one-hit-wonder” tag for life. But maybe it was because Soup was the record I fell in love with and not their jammy sounding self-titled debut, that I’ve always had a soft spot for the band and always defended them to anyone who knocked them (which happens more than you’d think).

The “one-hit-wonder” tag was even more convenient when you consider the story behind that first album. The group was signed after only a handful of gigs and lead singer Shannon Hoon was childhood friends with Axl Rose, singing backup on their Use Your Illusion albums (and appearing ever so briefly in the “Don’t Cry” video). The iconic “No Rain” video, while propelling the band to the top of the charts, had the unfortunate effect of making the Bee-Girl more recognizable than the band. What kept Blind Melon in the rock press more than anything was Hoon’s drug-addled, erratic behaviour which culminated with him urinating on the crowd at a gig in Vancouver.

Soup though, was going to be different. The record, in my opinion, stands as their greatest artisitic achievement, and is one of the most overlooked records of the 90s. It was recorded in New Orleans, and smacked of the cities vibrant and diverse musical heritages. Each song was different enough to stand on it’s own, but together made a brilliant distallation of American music through a mid-90s filter. It could have been the group’s London Calling if anybody had cared.

For whatever reason, “Galaxie” was chosen as the lead single, probably because more than any other song on the album, it sounded like the rest of the alterna-rock fair populating the radio. But the song was a major departure from their previous work, and really didn’t sound like the rest of the album either. Soup entered the world with little fanfare, save a fantastic Intimate and Interactive special on Much Music. A second video for “Toes Across the Floor” was released but that saw even less airplay than “Galaxie.” The band went on tour, supporting an album nobody cared about. Hoon was clean and sobre, but relapsed and died of an overdose in October of 1995. In stark contrast to Kurt Cobain’s suicide a year and a half before, there was little press coverage.

Nico, a posthumous odd-and-sodds collection came out a few years later and is a favourite of many fans, but I could never connect with it’s cut and paste feel. And earlier this year, in the biggest WTF move, the rest of the band reformed with a new lead singer and put out a new record under the Blind Melon name. It’s grossly unimpressive, and a bit of an embarassment.

For me, Soup will always be my favourite, and I highly suggest everyone go to their local record shop’s discount bin and find out for themselves.

As a side note, Details Magazine’s 1996 music issue had a fantastic article about Shannon Hoon’s last days written by Chris Heath. If anyone knows where you can get this online, I’d love to have it.

Classic Footage: Green Day – Jaded in Chicago

Here’s a gem of a find. Much Music used to play this concert way back in the day, when they used to play concerts on a semi-regular basis. In fact, I think I have a VHS tape with this on it somewhere at my parents house. So the gig is from way back in 1994 when they were just starting to really take off. What I love about this gig is that Green Day are still throwing in quite a few tracks from their early EPs and albums like their opener “Going to Pasalaqua.” And while the last time I saw the band (on the Warning tour) they were still playing a couple of those old tunes, I suspect it wasn’t long after this concert that they dumped most of those songs from their set. It’s also refreshing to see the band full of self-confidence from their success, but not yet full of the kind of false self-importance making a concept record tends to give musicians.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I wanted to get the whole concert here and unfortunately whoever posted it on youtube cut it up into individual tracks.

Going to Pasalaqua

Chump

Longview

Burnout

Coming Clean

When I Come Around

Welcome to Paradise

2000 Light Years Away

Basketcase

I Was Alone/Dominated Love Slave

F.O.D.

Paper Lanterns

Christie Road

She

Classic footage: Saves the Day – “The Choke”

The quality is crap, but you get the idea. This is the once fantastic Saves the Day playing somewhere a long time ago. Something about the energy between the band and the crowd makes me love this video. The way EVERYONE is singing along, and Chris Conley’s right in the crowd. I saw these guys open for Gob and Face To Face at the Icehouse (which was normally a strip club) in Victoria eight years ago, and it’s still the best bar show I’ve ever seen. They released three wicked LPs, then jumped ship from Vagrant and dropped one big, fat flaming turd or an album with this as the lead single. Oh, how the mighty fall. Insult was added to injury, cause at the time my three favourite bands – The Get Up Kids, Dashboard Confessional and Saves the Day – were all signed to Vagrant and proceeded to drop shit records in quick succession. I could have cried.

and to keep the good times rolling, their swan song…

Canrock 90s: Limblifter – “Tinfoil”

Celebrating the best(?) of 90s Cancon sanctioned modern rock.

My God did I ever love this song when it came out. In case you haven’t noticed, I was a bit obsessed with Much Music when I was in highschool, sitting around with the VCR remote after school, taping videos and watching them over and over. This was one of those videos. In fact, I think I learned to play the song on guitar from the video because I didn’t have the CD at the time. Like most of these videos, I really can’t explain why I was so captivated – it’s just the three of them in a room. In fact almost ever video was the band playing in a room, interspersed with cuts of them walking around somewhere, never emoting. In a weird twist, the drummer, Kurt Dahle who also played in Age of Electric with his brother (and Limblifter lead singer)  Ryan is now in Vancouver super-group the New Pornographers. He also produced what I assume is the only record by Vancouver band Bloody Chicletts.

New Air France video – “Collapsing at Your Doorstep”

You know, I was in Gotenburg, Sweden for a few days in 2004 and never got the sense that they had a big important music scene or anything. Now it seems like every week there’s an awesome new act from the city. Maybe it has something to do with all the government programs to help push Swedish acts abroad – Stephen Harper take note. Anyway, I still haven’t been able to find the new EP by Gotenburg’s Air France in Toronto, although I’m sure it’s out there somewhere. The tracks I’ve heard remind me of M83’s Before the Dawn Heals Us, but where that had a bit of a ominous, pessimistic vibe, this feels more earnest and hopeful. I know that’s a bit of a simplistic explanation, but it’s all I’ve got at the moment. whatevs… I could probably just download it, but I have a feeling I’m gonna love this record and then wish I had a physical copy, cause I’m old skool like that.

New Streets video – “Everything is Borrowed”

Here’s a little addition to the post I wrote a while back about the upcoming Streets record. This is the official video for title track “Everything is Borrowed.” My expectations are high for this disc… please don’t disappoint me Mr. Skinner…

Can-rock 90s: Nickelback – “Fly”

Celebrating the best(?) of 90s Cancon sanctioned modern rock.

Want someone to blame for Nickelback’s current dominance of modern rock radio? One of those fingers could be pointed right here I’m sorry to say. See, way back in 1995, Nickelback were just another grunge aping rock band kicking around Vancouver. But someone over at local radio station 99.3 “The Fox” (“The Fox Rocks!”) thought that their song “Fly” from demo ep Hesher deserved some radio play. I was 15 at the time, a fan of bands like Silverchair, Bush (Bush X in Canada at the time) and Seven Mary Three. So naturally I thought the song was awesome. Hey, it was the first local band I could champion. Being underage, the first time I saw them was a free in-store at Virgin Records and about 30 people showed up. They continued this trend, playing similar in-stores at Sam the Record Man and Future Shop. My constant appearance at these sparsely populated gigs coupled with the fact rhythm guitarist Ryan Peake used to baby sit my friend Tyler meant Chad Kroeger actually started to recognize me. By the time I saw them play a gig at the rec centre in Port Moody (the only time I ever paid to see them), they were selling VHS cassettes with this music video on it. So yeah, I was an early Nickelback supporter. What’s a guy to do?

Oh, back then Ryan Peake also used to sing when the band covered Soul Coughing’s “Super Bon Bon.”