I’m late in writing about this, but what the heck.
Last Thursday, July 21, was the hottest of the summer so far, and one of the hottest on record ever. (And must say I was surprised to discover that these parts have never registered 40C before. Because, like, Sudbury has…) Nevertheless, we decided to go to an outdoor event: Music and Movies in the Park.
Sponsored by Beat Goes On and Princess Cinemas, these free events take place in Waterloo Park, supporting the food bank. The evening begins with a live band, then as the sun lowers, they put up a big screen and show a movie. We arrived armed with lawn chairs, water, hats, bug stuff (not needed), and a few snacks. Though I couldn’t resist also buying a bag of popcorn.
The band we saw were called The Slacks, and they were a quite decent cover band who did tunes by artists like Neil Young, the Grateful Dead, the Dandy Warhols, and The Who (“Drowned” from Quadrophenia). We had a pretty good viewing spot, and didn’t find the heat too bad. It was evening, albeit still 32C when we left, but the sun wasn’t beating down overhead anymore, and there was a breeze. Plus, we were just sitting there. One thing I did notice was that my feet got really warm, despite my being in little sandals. Guess the ground was just really hot.
The movie, shown on this big inflatable screen we watched them set up after the band was done, was the animated Rango, starring Johnny Depp’s voice. Interestingly for such a warm day in the middle of our drought, it all takes place in a desert town, centering around lack of water. Pet lizard Rango is thrown from his owner’s car during an accident, and has the cope with being in the real world filled with suspicious locals.
Though nothing you can’t let kids see, this particular animated movie really has more to offer adults, I think. There’s no way kids are going to get all the sly references and tributes to other films (including some of Depp’s, and adult fare like Chinatown), or the jokes about lesbians and peyote and such. But for grown-ups, it’s quite entertaining. (Jean expressed amazement that I finally took him to a movie he liked!)
Then the Saturday after, we escape to Port Stanley where, if anything, it was even hotter and stickier. But we took our time walking around, took refuge in air conditioned shops—which featured some nice paintings, photos, accessories, gourmet foods—and on the beach, including a dip in Lake Erie, which hasn’t overheated. We also enjoyed the very good local restaurants, partaking of Lake Erie fish and nicely priced Ontario wines from the banner 2007 year. Jean put some photos up at Picassa.
Huh. Wrote this up ages ago and somehow never got around to clicking the Publish button. No longer actually reflects the last 15 songs played, but otherwise… Pretty much as randomly relevant now as it would have been then,
Random play 15 songs on your MP3 and say what they are. (Inflation, I guess, because last time I did this, it was only 5 songs.) Played them then, but only got around to listing them now.
1. The Golden Boy – Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé – Instrumentals
I have this Freddie Mercury box set. It’s a gorgeous thing, really, that includes a large book on glossy paper with great photos. But they also stretched out his original three (3) solo albums onto ten (10) CDs. (There are also two DVDs.) This particular one, called Instrumentals, is actually Karaoke versions of his songs. The music and the backing vocals are there; just not the lead.
Want to feel particularly inferior about your singing voice? Attempt Freddie Mercury Karaoke.
2. Imagination (Is a Powerful Deceiver) – Elvis Costello – My Aim Is True (Bonus Disc)
3. Darling Nikki – Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain
Ah, dear, dirty, darling Nikki, the song that inspired Tipper Gore to request parental warning labels on albums. At least it’s not particularly misogynistic. Nikki owns her own sexuality, and the singer seems to admire her for it. On the Purplish Rain tribute CD, it’s song by a woman, and it’s pretty awesome.
4. Never in a Million Years – The Boomtown Rats – V Deep
5. Eleanor Rigby/Julia [Transition] / I Am the Walrus / I Want to Hold Your Hand – The Beatles – Love
Until the recent reissues, Love was almost the only remastered Beatles CD available, and I still love the sound of the whole album. (It’s the soundtrack for the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show.) Lots of interesting mash-ups of the songs, like this one.
6. Bell Boy – The Who – Thirty Years of Maximum R&D Disc 3
From the compilation, but it’s the same version as on Quadrophenia. Nice duet between Daltrey and Moon. But as with many things Who, even better live. I love the ceremonial hand-off of the lead mike they’d do in concert.
7. It’s a Boy – The Who – Tanglewood
A live snippet (40 seconds) from an American stop on their long Tommy tour. Tanglewood is a classical music hall, so having a rock band perform there was highly unusual. You can hear the whole the concert at Wolfgang’s Vault.
Still remember this song being played the day Nelson Mandela was released from, and it seeming so odd that this full song was all ready for the occasion, which came as something of a surprise at the time. (When Simple Minds wrote the song, they were just imagining how great would be the day that Mandela was released from prison…)
9. Slow Love – Prince – Sign ‘O’ the Times
10. Blue – Joni Mitchell – Blue
For some reason Joni has come up in conversation a few times this week. This is the only album of hers that I have.
11. Killer’s Eyes – The Kinks – Give the People What They Want (Remastered)
From my first-ever Kinks album, one I still really like. Inspired by John Hinkley, Jr., this tune is about a family’s confusion on finding our their son / brother is a murderer. (‘We’ve seen your picture in the paper. Your little sister pinned in on the wall. She thinks you’re some kind of movie…”) Cheery, huh?
12. Grand Illusion – Styx – Return to Paradise (Disc 2)
I think the hope of this exercise is that something really embarrassing will come up. I’m not completely mortified that I own a Styx CD (double CD at that), but I have to say, their music has not aged well. All the synths, the trite lyrics… Not stuff I’m too interested in listening to anymore.
13. Imagine – Jordis Unga – Rock Star: INXS
14. Dumb – Nirvana – MTV Unplugged in New York
Interesting sequence, as it’s largely through Rock Star: INXS that I got into Nirvana, actually…
15. Trouble In Mind – Janis Joplin – 18 Essential Songs
I’ve been adding some of Jean’s CDs to his iTunes, and bringing a few over to my iTunes as well. This would be one of those.
Last night, May 7, Lowest of the Low played Massey Hall the first time, the capper on their tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of “quite possibly the best Canadian debut album ever”, Shakespeare My Butt. I was not there. But I did see their sold-out show at the Starlight Club in Waterloo, on April 21.
The show itself, I have no complaints about. The opening act were Mick Thomas and Squeezebox Wally, an Australian duo so taken with Shakespeare My Butt that they would play the entire album at their shows. They even made one of the songs—“Rosy and Grey”—a hit there. So there was much more collaboration between opening act and headliner than you normally get, with Lowest members joining in on Mick’s set, and Mick contributing to the Lowest set.
Lowest of the Low played the entirety of Shakespeare My Butt, in order, then came back to do various songs from their other two albums, including “Black Monday” and “The Last Recidivist”. It was fun being in a room full of people who also knew all the words to all the songs. And it was nice to hear, from singer and main songwriter Ron Hawkins, that both “Subversives” and the afore-mentioned “Black Monday” were as honest and beautiful as they were because each was inspired by women he really loved. (He explained it in a less mushy way, but that’s what it came down to.) Performances of both those songs, I found particularly powerful.
But the room? With the low ceiling and all, the music was painfully loud. I had to do the extremely cool “Kleenex in the ears thing” to survive. And with the full house, it was hot and crowded. Plus, way too many tall dudes. I had to keep moving around, trying to get a spot where I actually see the band, and not just the back of someone’s head. The crowd was very well-behaved—no smoke of any kind, and surprisingly little beer spilled. But still. I’d say I’m too old for this kind of show, but I didn’t really like them when I was younger, either.
So kind of glad I didn’t drag any friends with me to this, as I feel I would have just had to apologize. Instead, I suggest, just check out Lowest of the Low on record. That way you’ll thank me later. Maybe start with these ones:
“4 O’Clock Stop”, Shakespeare My Butt, the insanely catchy opening number. Lyrics may not cohere as a whole, but they sure feel right as they hurtle along.
“Black Monday”, Hallucigenia, as the singer regrets the effects of his depressive nature on the “sad and beautiful” Kate. “The way I am has never been too good for us.”
“Rosy & Grey”, Shakespeare My Butt, the most Canadian love song ever, where even “the smell of snow warms me today”.
“Gamble”, Hallucigenia, which sounds like it’s exactly about Buffy and Spike, Season 6, even though it was written before then.
“Henry Needs a New Pair of Shoes”, Shakespeare My Butt, a deceptively upbeat little ditty that, on closer listening, reveals the social conscience of the band, along with their sense of humour.
And now for something completely different….
A couple years ago I wrote about attending the Open Ears festival, and the organizers noticed. So the notified me about this year’s festival, “celebrating the art of listening”. It took place at a busy time for us, but we did manage to attend one concert: Toca Loca, on April 30.
Where Lowest gave me some unpleasant flashbacks to concerts of my youth, this was like nothing I’d ever seen or heard before. The opening number was “Temazcal”, a piece for maracas and tape. So recorded sounds were played, then a live percussionist joined in on maracas. That was followed by “AK-47”, a piano solo based on the assault rifle. It was both virtuosic, and pretty noisy.
Then there was “Pattycake”. Two performers sat facing each other clapping out the familiar childhood rhythm, but at increasingly dizzying speeds, and with some variation in the original words. It was riveting, as mistakes would be—if not disastrous—at least potentially quite painful. “Repetition is good. It builds trust. Soon you come to know what’s expected.”
In the next two pieces, all three members played along to pieces composed for them, one a fusion of New Wave, Synth-Punk, and No Wave (I don’t know what that means, either), the other a love song as expressed by an industrial machine.
And finally, the “Halo Ballet”. In this one, five gamers manipulated the Halo participants into a kind of dance pattern, instead of the usual trying to kill each other. They would shoot patterns into the sky, or be stacked on one other and twirl, or leap around in synchronicity. We watched all that projected on video. Meanwhile, of course, the band was supplying the soundtrack.
Afterward, Jean commented on how we had paid $48 to watch people do Pattycake. “Did you dislike the music?” “No, can’t say I disliked it.” “Were you bored?” “Absolutely wasn’t bored.”
Me either. $48 well spent. And looking forward to the next Open Ears, where I can hopefully experience more of the aurally novel.
No, I can’t tell you how to do that. Trust me, if I could compose popular songs that would sell, I wouldn’t be toiling away in the tech industry. Just like Hugh Grant in About a Boy, I’d be living a life of leisure paid for by my song royalties, all cool toys and artfully tousled hair.
Another person who doesn’t feel he really knows how to compose popular songs that will sell is Bob Geldof, who therefore mockingly uses that as the title of his new album. Now much better known for his ongoing humanitarian work with Africa (Live Aid and all all that), as a musician he’s mostly remembered for one song: 1980s “I Don’t Like Mondays.” (Mind, if you’re only going to be remembered for one song, that’s a really excellent one to be associated with.)
It’s not entirely correct that’s been his only success. Particularly in the UK, the Boomtown Rats had numerous top 40 (and other number 1) hits, and even as a solo artist, “This Is the World Calling” and “The Great Song of Indifference” were pretty big hits. Not to mention his being the cowriter of everyone’s favorite rock Christmas song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
He is a rich man, but the fact is, that’s more from his TV productions (did you know he created Survivor?) and other business holdings than from song royalties. He loves making music but, he says, doesn’t feel comfortable trying to sell it.
So the title is amusing, and apt, and layered in meaning. But is it any good? Well I think so. I’d say it’s better than any of his other solo albums, other than Sex, Age, and Death. Geldof calls this new album the companion to that one. That one, written as he emerged from a deep depression brought on by his marriage ending, was very dark, deeply personal, and hauntingly intense. This one, written as he amazes in the restorative power of love in second marriage, is much brighter, still fairly personal, and incredibly varied in musical styles (including a couple hauntingly intense numbers).
A lot of the songs are pretty catchy. There aren’t any I don’t like. I already love “She’s a Lover” and the hidden track at the end, “Young and Sober”, which synopsizes his entire life in an amusing three minutes. So will it sell? Unlikely, given the decline of album sales in the music industry as a whole. But the mighty few who find their way to this record won’t be disappointed, I don’t think.
PS Excellent 15-minute documentary about Bob Geldof, the musician, then and now: http://vimeo.com/20829390
… On winning Album of the Year at the Grammy’s. Which I actually didn’t realize would be such a shock to everyone who isn’t me. (Cause it was certainly the best 2010 album I heard all year…)
And congratulations, Grammy’s, on giving Neil Young an award for an actual song (not just nice music repackaging), thus eliminating one from your embarrassing top 10 list of people who’ve never won a Grammy.
And to all the people in Twitter-ville so very, very upset that the Grammy’s dared award Album of the Year to a band they’ve never heard of… I gave you my very mature response:
This is another situation where you can’t really find a good reason as to why the group has yet to receive this award; they were popular commercially and critically for not just a brief time but for a long while, and you would think that at some point, one year, in one random category, people could have thought that The Who of all bands did the best job. But that apparently wasn’t the case. Because, as we all should realize by now, these people are morons.
Nevertheless, I do plan to record and watch this year’s Grammy’s. At least they had enough sense to nominate and invite Arcade Fire… And with three nominations, they even have a serious shot at winning one.
A concert is not a live rendition of our album. It’s a theatrical event.
—Freddie Mercury
The most recent “Electric Thursdays” concert did not feature the usual Jeans’n’Classics band. Instead, it was the Classic Albums live crew, trademark “Note for note, cut for cut”. We were warned that there would not even be any talking to the audience ( I guess, because there wasn’t any on the album).
The subject of the “full album” treatment was The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper. And although the Centre in the Square website had the peculiar note that this concert did not feature the KWS (Kitchener Waterloo Symphony), that was not the case. They were there, although sitting farther back than usual. And also just sitting around more than usual, because of this idea of faithfully rendering the original album. Not all of which featured orchestra.
Now, though it is not my favorite Beatle album, I do like Sgt. Pepper. The musicians performing it were very good. The Symphony, when they did have occasion to play (“She’s Leaving Home”, “Mr. Kite”, and of course, “A Day in the Life”) sounded wonderful. The songs they played on were the highlight to me. The sound mixing seemed particularly good.
But the whole concept is kind of peculiar. The no interaction with the audience. The covering everything on the album, including the little sounds effects and spoken asides. Seemed more of an exercise than a performance, and left me a little cold, and Jean somewhat bored.
Fortunately, the second act, of “Beatles greatest hits” was somewhat more free-wheeling. They still stuck with the “as originally performed by the Beatles” idea, but by selecting a whole series of songs that were originally orchestrated, at least the Symphony had more to do. And this one did feature some of my favorites: I Am the Walrus, All You Need Is Love, Eleanor Rigby, Hey Jude.
The “encore”, which the only the band (not the symphony) came back for, turned into a rather extended set of various other Beatles classics like Ob-la-di Ob-la-da, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (with truly awesome re-creation of the original Clapton guitar solo), Twist’n’Shout, Norwegian Wood (with sitar, which was cool) and Helter Skelter! (And Jean amused me to no end with his shock that this cacophony of feedback was actually a Beatles song.) The band really seemed to be having fun at this part, and interacted a lot more with crowd, speaking occasionally, and getting us to clap and sing along at times.
Still, I have to say that overall, I prefer the Jeans’n’Classics approach. Even though they also sometimes do entire albums, sometimes even with the original artist, it’s never presented exactly as it was originally recorded. It’s always a re-creation, designed to take advantage of the concert hall and the variety of talented musicians available in the orchestra.
And isn’t that the point of live? To hear something different than what you can hear in your living room?
I have a Twitter account now, but this is no request for followers, as I have yet to “tweet” a darn thing.
I have, however, been following a few people, like the recently launched @BobGeldofFans. It’s not Bob (who, I learned on Twitter, apparently doesn’t even email, let alone tweet), but it is sanctioned by him.
I had some quiet days off after Christmas, during which I had the time to enjoy my newly acquired music. Though the “new” should perhaps be put in quotes…
Lowest of the Low – Shakespeare My Butt Deluxe Edition
First of all, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since this was first released. I guess I can’t continue to refer to Lowest as one of the “new” bands that I like.
The core of this reissue is a remastering of the original CD. But though I played it through my best available sound system, I couldn’t actually tell if it the sound quality was noticeably improved. I suspect that’s because I couldn’t help singing along with every track at the top of my lungs. (Yes, I was home alone at the time. Cats didn’t seem to mind.)
What remains apparent, though, is that this is a damn good album. Nearly 65 minutes long, with no bad songs. It’s an irresistible mix of super-catchy tunes and really intelligent lyrics. So you like the album on first listen, and don’t hate yourself for it later on repeat listens.
Below is an audio-only video of “Rosy and Grey” from Shakespeare My Butt—it appears they never made proper videos for these tunes…
The reissue also includes a DVD, where the same visuals come with two soundtrack options: Interviews and Soundtrack. On Interviews, you get various band interviews that were all news to me, because for a band I like so much, I actually knew nothing about them. Like, the band members’ names, or anything. Now, I’m better informed, and they do come across as thoughtful and decent guys. On the Soundtrack portion, you get these alternate versions of the Shakespeare songs on variety of instruments, including a kazoo! It’s pretty cool, actually, and I’ll probably replay that version more.
And finally, you get liner notes, mainly by Dave Bookman of 102.1 The Edge (so it really strikes me that in the interview segment, the band says they can’t get their newer stuff played on The Edge anymore, because they’re not on the corporate playlist) and British novelist John Donoghue, for whom this album inspired a novel of the same name.
Ray Davies: See My Friends
While this CD does consist of all new recordings, it is of older songs, redone as duets between composer Ray Davies and various artists: Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Jackson Browne, Lucinda Williams, and so on. A lot of long-time Kinks fans hate this thing, some complaining so vociferously about it that I was almost afraid to play it.
But now I think they’re just being grumpy and close-minded. True, not everything is great here: Bon Jovi doesn’t exactly improve on the original “Celluloid Heroes”, and while I’m all for women tackling songs originally interpreted by men, Paloma’s version of “Lola” just comes across as weird.
But other things work really well. There’s just a rightness to Metallica, one of the best metal bands ever, interpreting the song widely credited as the original metal song, “You Really Got Me”. And Amy McDonald made a great choice in covering “Dead End Street”, a 1965 song that unfortunately sounds like it’s describing today’s conditions. The interaction between her and Ray is also quite charming.
I also enjoyed the creative mashing of certain songs: “Days” with “This Time Tomorrow” by Ray with Mumford & Sons, and “All Day and All of the Night” with “Destroyer” by Ray with Billy Corgan. The slightly less-known songs “Long Way from Home” and “This Is Where I Belong” are nicely interpreted by Lucinda Williams and Black Francis. And if Jackson Brown doesn’t really improve on the Kinks original “Waterloo Sunset”—who could?—at least he doesn’t wreck it.
The Who – Live at Leeds Deluxe 40th Anniversary Edition
This one was my Boxing Day gift from me to me, as Amazon.ca put it on sale from $79 to $49 Christmas Day. UPS delivered it to me on December 29. (I see it’s now back to $79, plus you have to wait 3-4 weeks for it.)
I’ve read a lot of reviews of this that basically boiled down to:
Damn! I’m tired of buying this same album over and over!
Wasn’t the original six-track album perfect in itself? Why keep adding stuff?
To point 1., I sympathize, but I’m not really in that boat. OK, I did buy Leeds once before, but only once, and that was as an iTunes download. I’d since been kind of regretting that, since iTunes downloads don’t have quite the full audio quality of a CD. Plus, I’d been feeling that this was one case where having the LP would be fun too, if I could find one with all the original inserts and such.
So, this package, a mondo thing that includes the original LP, a hardcover book with all the originals inserts (and other stuff), the deluxe CDs, plus another two CDs of the previously unreleased Hull concert, and even a 45 of Summertime Blues / Heaven and Hell, was perfect for me.
And point 2—why keep adding stuff?—I thought was just stupid. I mean, if The Who had sucked that night except for the original six songs, then you might have a point, but they didn’t. The whole concert was amazing. So why wouldn’t you want it all? If you’re that nostalgic for the six songs, create a playlist of just those ones.
Nevertheless, the LP is the first thing I played when I got the set. Apparently it preserves the original cracks and ticks that were excised from the digital version, but I can’t say I found them that noticeable. And it’s good, of course, but man, is it ever short. I will say that it is impressive that the original made such an impact, despite its brevity.
And the other add-ons? Well the book is a nice collection of Leeds-related information, some of which I’d read before, some I hadn’t. Along with reproduction of album inserts, it has some great photos, and a play-by-play of each song on deluxe CD.
I’ve listened to the Hull concert a couple times. Though they did an admirable job of restoring the sound to this (in particular, bass was missing from the first six tracks and had to be Frankenstein-ed in from Leeds), there’s no doubt that Leeds sounds better overall. Hull also has a lot less of the between-song patter you get on Leeds, and I miss that, since Townshend and Moon are hilarious. But it is a great one for admiring Moon’s druming, as that’s really forward in the mix. It’s also interesting how two concerts, with identical song line-ups, two nights apart, can nevertheless have quite a few differences in interpretation. This was not a band that just went through the motions. Therefore, to me, it’s worth having both (even though I also have Isle of Wight, and Tanglewood, and some of Woodstock, all of from this same period).
I do find it slightly annoying that we get both concerts not in the original order, for the purpose of keeping all of Tommy on one CD. But that’s easy enough to rectify manually.
So, the only thing missing from this package? Video. Herewith I gave you the only footage released from the concert so far, from a Japanese release of Leeds, apparently. (This was pulled down from YouTube a while ago, but seems to be back.)
Striking to me how tiny the stage was. This was one of the biggest bands in the world at that time, and they were playing at a university hall. That doesn’t happen anymore, and that’s partly why we no longer get live albums as good as Live at Leeds.
The movie, shown on this big inflatable screen we watched them set up after the band was done, was the animated Rango, starring Johnny Depp’s voice. Interestingly for such a warm day in the middle of our drought, it all takes place in a desert town, centering around lack of water. Pet lizard Rango is thrown from his owner’s car during an accident, and has the cope with being in the real world filled with suspicious locals.
While 
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