Cut Copy’s latest CD, “In Ghost Colours,” is one of the best albums I have heard this year. Not only are the songs filled with bouncy electronic beats, but the flow of the whole CD from track to track is such a smooth transition that after hearing it you will feel like you were just smooth talked into donating your life savings to Unicef. You feel so good about it, but you’re not really sure why?
Some of you will recognize “Feel the Love” from the TV commercial for Virgin Mobile Canada. This song was huge this year and brought Cut Copy to a sold out show on October 9th at the Commodore Ballroom with “The Presets” as the opening band. I bought tickets to this show as soon as they were available because a wicked lineup like that does not come along often enough. It was no surprise that the show fucking rocked, and people were eating it up like they had been fasting for years for something of this caliber to finally come along.
My favourite track on the album is “Strangers in the Wind” which has a reminiscent "Don't Fear The Reaper" feel to it for me, until the electronic chorus comes in and it almost sounds like a completely different song. In any case this track makes me want to put a sweater on, get my ass outside on a crisp Autumn day and score myself one of those fancy lattes sans dairy.
“So Haunted” begins with guitars that remind me of something off the Pixies “Doolittle” album, but as the song progresses the chorus kicks in and you feel like you are caught somewhere between a seventies-era sing along and a new wave pop show, and somehow it all works.
“Hearts on Fire” sounds like a track that was rejected by the producers of “Night at the Roxbury” so you feel less guilty about actually liking the song, especially since it has less head bobbing tendencies to it. This song has a retro early 90’s feel to it, without being overly cheesy, and still keeps the pace and flow of the CD, which seems to subtly encompass many different eras and styles of music.
If you couldn’t make it to the sold out show in October, do yourself one favour before the year is over and pick up this damn CD, if you download it, pay for it, because unlike many one hit wonders, this CD actually pays for itself. You are going to listen to “In Ghost Colours” so many times it’s going to get scratched to shit, and then I will give you permission to download it for free.
Miss Goldfrapp took the stage with six other men, and a stage full of musical equipment and instruments, ranging from a key-tar to a harp. She was dressed in a picnic blanket with pom poms on the front to give you the illusion that she was a harlequin clown. The only reason I could make this assumption though was from the backdrop behind her which looked like flags from a circus tent. She marched along to most of her songs and near the end swayed and shimmied up to the mic tossing her hair around and getting more into the electronic songs she breathed out.
For me, the whole show lacked energy. I have danced my ass off in the club to "Train" "Number One" "Oh La La", and "Strict Machine" and I just didn't feel any inclination even to seat dance at this show. The bass line was great in a few of the songs and you could feel your bones vibrate in your body because there was so much depth in the songs, but the power behind the songs just wasn't making me move. So instead of really wanting to get up and tear a strip on the floor with the hundreds of others at this sold out show, I sat back and actually enjoyed the beautiful sound of her voice, which surprisingly I had never done before.
I should have expected her show to be a bit more mellow and vocal, as her latest CD "Seventh Tree" is a lot more acoustic than the previous two. Even though the show was far from what I had expected, it was still a pretty decent. I know a few friends of mine left early as they just couldn't handle the lack of inspiration in her farty electro-tunes she was now swooning to, and don't even get me started on her boring bandmates! The merch table left much to be desired, the shirts were beyond boring, with logos on them that only said Goldfrapp, so you may as well just buy a sticker and stick it on a white shirt and say you were there. They even had tote bags for about $40 bucks that I wouldn't even put my empty beer bottles in! Needless to say, if Goldfrapp comes back to Vancouver I probably won't pay to see them again, when I can go to the bar and shake my booty to the UK queen any given Saturday night.
ohGr, "Devils In My Details" I would love to say that the first time I listened to "Devils In My Details" I instantly fell in love with the album, and that it became an instant classic. A self-described Skinny Puppy fan boy, I lusted for proper material after the disappointment that was "Mythmaker" and slightly formulaic "The Greater Wrong of the Right". Unfortunately my first listen of "DIMD" was a mixture of confusion and frustration. I found myself quizzically looking at the stereo, and generally felt as though my expectations were constantly disappointed. Where was the follow up to both "Welt" and "Sunnypsop" that I so desperately wanted? For me the ohGr project was a very divergent, and enjoyable change from the apocalyptic sludge that is Skinny Puppy, and I kept waiting for such. I found myself questioning if Ogre had "jumped the shark" and feeling genuinely disappointed. It was at that point that I realized I was bringing too much history into this listen.
Ideally a review of the latest ohGr CD, "Devils in My Details", should come from a vacuum; allowing it to stand on it's own merits and ring out as a unique creation. Realistically though, Nivek Ogre's body of work (Skinny Puppy, ohGr, Rx, numerous guest appearances) and general cult status in the genre make it entirely impossible to do so. I came in to this album fully expecting a continuation of the previous two ohGr releases, and was initially hurt at the complete about face the project seemingly took. Bearing this in mind I re-listened to the album a few more times with a clear palette of expectations and frankly the results were quite surprising.
Oh yes, gone are the multi-layered Nord Lead synthesizer melodies, the auto-tuned Ogre-wanting-to-sound-like-Cher, the glitched up "digital rap", the pop sensibility and structure, and the general accessibility of the project as a whole. Moving beyond that though I found a real diamond in the rough. What Mark Walk and Nivek Ogre have delivered is a finely crafted dark concept album that follows the mantra of "the sum is greater than the individual parts", and a listening longing for some original sounding material can be pleasantly surprised.
Starting us off, the seemingly Ballroom Blitz inspired track "Shhh" maintains a constant shuffle snare pattern punctuated with orchestral hits and a growling Ogre that sounds more like "My Voice Sounds like Shit" era Ogre, than the poppy auto-tuned Ogre from recent releases. Moving forward into "Eyecandy" we've got more sludge, and doom as trilling time stretched samples riding detuned washes set the background for a mixture of spoken word and distorted growling vocals. Sharp staccato barking laughter makes you wonder what ride you just signed up for, and clearly this isn't the "Tim Burton-esque" Ogre we've grown recently accustomed to. Instead we have a decidedly dark and malicious sound that is more reminiscent of the Rx project. Then there's the singly most disturbing track on the CD: "Feelin' Chicken". At this point I'd like all readers who predicted a deliberate ohGr song with a polka back beat to raise their hands. Those same readers I then call "bullshit" on. This is not to say this song is a skip track; on the contrary it fits perfectly into album's bearing, and hearkens back to Ogre singing about the "Crackhead Waltz". From here on, as the ride continues to spiral in a mixture of tension and lack of resolution, the rider feels compelled to continue along yet still clueless as to where it's going.
This is not an album to pick up and bounce to. I walked into it with considerable expectations, and those expectations were disappointed, but more importantly once those expectations were gone I was able to really appreciate a unique album. The sound is all Mark Walk, just not the Walk we've grown used to. While the first 2 releases had a very discrete palette of sounds, "Devils In My Details" instead creates a sonic brick. Still each sound maintains the lo-fi quality that Mark Walk is famous for. Nivek Ogre returns to classic Skinny Puppy era form with his use of vocals and manipulations. I enjoyed the poppy Ogre we've heard recently, but I have to say it too me a while to realize how much I missed the scary Ogre. In short, don't pick up this album and attempt to skip to the first "hit". Instead carefully set aside time to listen to the album in it's entirety, digest it, and listen again. More than likely you'll be glad you did.
This beautiful version of Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" exists at the nexus where all the Def in June contributors' tastes intersect. Issued on record to celebrate Alan Vega's 70th (!!!) birthday, apparently the Boss used this to close out his live shows on the 2005 Devils and Dust solo tour. Of course New Jersey's native son (fuck Bon Jovi straight up) has been talking up the New York synth punk legends for years, and has stated that his song "State Trooper" was heavily influenced by them. From a 1984 interview with Kurt Loder from Rolling Stone:
"Bruce Springsteen:...They had that two-piece synthesizer-voice thing. They had one of the most amazing songs I ever heard. It was about a guy that murders... Rolling Stone: "Frankie Teardrop"? Bruce Springsteen: Yeah! Oh, my God! That's one of the most amazing records I think I ever heard. I really love that record."
Maybe that's where he got the name for Joe Robert's no-good brother on "Highway Patrolman"?
Bruce Springsteen - Dream Baby Dream
Super Bonus Video: Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Philadelphia (Live and Hella Emotional)
Oasis has released their seventh album called "Dig Out Your Soul" in hopes of resurrecting the fame they once knew. Its not that the album isn't good, sure the tracks are catchy, and you can sing along to them, heck you can even download them onto rockband if you so desire. However, like Green Day, I feel as though I have heard these songs before, as though I should saddle up for the ride on this one trick pony one more time. The Gallaghers can still make a killer rock song, but its still the same old thing, like the turkey leftovers that you haven't finished from Thanksgiving. Do I really have to pretend to enjoy this again?
"The Shock of the Lightning" has been the single from the CD to get radio play, but I much prefer "Bag it Up," even though the chorus leaves you wondering if you didn't just hear Lady Marmalade singing "more, more mooooore..." Liam Gallagher apparently tried his hand at the song-writing process on this CD, which is probably why it has so many damned Beatles references in it, I mean, didn't John Lennon come back reincarnated as Liam Gallagher? Seriously! The first five tracks on the CD are reminiscent of the old Oasis we loved, just more weather-beatan from all those drunken nights of passing out in the alley behind the pub. But really, now that Oasis is sober and there are no mind-altering substances used as inspiration for the new CD its no wonder that they haven't had a hit since "What's the Story Morning Glory?" At this time, the boys were dabbling in crystal meth and living a real rock-n-roll lifestyle. Now they are just two burned out english blokes with rotten teeth and caterpillar-thick unibrows, not that they weren't before, but now they just have that arrogant rock-star attitude to boot.
Oasis recently preformed in Vancouver, but I was reluctant to spend the fifty dollars on the show since it was only a mere nine years ago when they caused a fiasco here by storming off stage after a shoe had been thrown at them. I think it is becoming quite evident in the Gallagher brother's career that its possible their fighting and onstage antics have become more entertaining than their music.
The Cure, "4:13 Dream" Being a Cure die-hard (and I'm nothing if not that) has been a taxingly schizoid experience since the band's output slowed to a steady one-LP-every-four-years pace. We get a seamless, majestic album that recalls their ability to create unified thematic pieces like "Faith" and "Pornography" via 2000's "Bloodflowers", but then we have to make do with a slap-dash mess with weak singles (and admittedly a couple of decent deep cuts) that sounds like it was recorded by a session-band backed Robert in a weekend (2004's self-titled disappointment).
From a fan-service point of view, it's been an equally weird ride. One had to buy no less than three different versions of their last LP in order to collect all of the exclusive bonus tracks appended to region-specific editions (I don't think I need to mention how aggravating it is to have to buy a record you aren't that nuts about three times). On the other hand, in anticipation of their new release, four singles were released on CD and 7" at regular monthly intervals: just the sort of sneak peak/collector's material we Cure nerds love. After treating us to a reverent live presentation of three of the band's greatest records via the Trilogy tour and DVD, Robert did his best to squander that legacy by collaborating with a plethora of musicians connected only by their shittiness: Blink 182, Junior Jack and Korn, among others.
So here we are: four years on and a new Cure record again, this one surprisingly arriving without the usual hubbub of rumours that this would be the last one (for those just joining us, Robert's been perpetuating that myth since 1983). The canny promotional release of the singles and their outings at a hella-premature world tour boded well for "4:13 Dream", and the cover art's a damn sight better than the last one. So what've we got? A pretty damn satisfying contemporary Cure record. Not one that instantly buries you in lush arrangements and maintains a uniform mood the way "Bloodflowers" did, and certainly not one that makes you scratch your head and wonder why on earth the majority of the cuts made it past the demo stage (okay, I'll stop dumping on the self-titled record now).
We start off with "Underneath The Stars", which for the life of me can't be described as anything other than a more organic revision of "Plainsong", and right off the bat "4:13 Dream" reminds you that it is the first Cure record to not feature a keyboard player as a band member since 1984. Jason Cooper's characteristically torpid drum fills occupy the space where we'd usually hear Roger O'Donnell's synth washes, and the chiming guitar phrases which made me realise that This Band Was It years back trickle through the mix like liquid crystal.
The band's made up for the lack of keyboards by adding all manner of effects and production-saturation. Some have kvetched about this as a rare reversion to amateurism from a veteran band, but to me it sounds like a simple reclamation of the sheer conceptual quirkiness that marked so much of The Cure's mid-80s material, especially on the B-sides that era produced. I'd argue that "4:13 Dream"'s strength lies in its off-the-cuff delivery. It reminds us of just how easily Smith can toss together candyfloss dream-pop with little concern for conceptual trappings. All too often those tracks have ended up as B-sides over the course of the last three Cure albums ("Spilt Milk", "A Pink Dream"), but here "The Only One" is cavalierly offered as the lead single, gleefully aping 1992's light-as-a-feather "High" - not bad footsteps to be following, considering that song was able to dethrone U2's "One" from the top of the Billboard singles chart.
Anyway, along with the casual production of "4:13 Dream" come abrupt shifts in tone and mood: we careen through a manic psych-rocker like "Freakshow" (somehow recalling both "Never Enough" and "A Man Inside My Mouth') and an acoustic slow-burner like "Sirensong" (think "Jupiter Crash" from "Wild Mood Swings") in the space of five minutes.
With all of these callbacks to previous Cure songs and eras, one might think that there isn't much terribly original to be found on "4:13 Dream". That might be true as far as the actual songwriting structures go, but given how surprisingly bland Robert's attempt to write new types of Cure songs proved on the band's last outing (okay, one more dig), I don't think there's much wrong with letting the Cure formula stay as is for at least one full album this late in the game.
So what is new? Well, lyrically, Robert's in a much more listless and playful space than he's been for years. "The Perfect Boy" goofs on how awesome the imaginary child he and his wife have is in much the same way that Patton Oswalt once did. There are no songs about growing older or feeling uninspired (thank Christ). Robert's batting about classic Cure themes (love, happiness, self-deception) as though they were lively sparring partners, valid reasons to pick up the guitar and wail about rather than monotonous cliches beneath which he suffers. Furthermore, the stimulation of having another certified guitar wizard back in the fold through the return of the erstwhile Porl Thompson has kicked the latent psychadelic side of the band back into full gear, with generally positive results.
The album's not without its duds. "Sleep When I'm Dead", a resurrected "Head On The Door" demo certainly bears all of the structural characteristics of a Cure tune circa 1985, but also shows that it's slightly ridiculous to try to apply the current sonic palette of a band to twenty year-old material. "The Scream" tries to build the sort of menace tracks like "The Kiss" or "Bloodflowers" but falls flat.
"4:13 Dream" won't do much to change your opinion of The Cure, whatever that might be. The casual fan who picks the disc up on a whim will find no small number of singles that compare favorably with whichever best-ofs they happen to be familiar with, while committed aficionados like myself will have fun debating the merits of the tracks hidden between the singles (I'll opt for "Sirensong" and "The Hungry Ghost"), and those who find the idea of a man pushing fifty playing dress-up for alienated teens to be patently silly will likely have their (incorrect) suspicions proved. That said, the liberty and sense of play which surrounds the whole outing gives some hope that we might be seeing the end of four year waits between records, and the beginning of a new phase in the band's career.
So, this summer I came across this mp3 of a track by an unsigned group called Fan Death. "Veronica's Veil" is exactly the sort of thing that piques me, a bit of electro bounce behind some dark disco-esque strings and some sultry, wounded vocals. I've seen comparisons to Hercules & Love Affair, but they made me think of the Junior Boys' darker moments. So, I kept tabs on them, downloaded their 12" from Beatport and occasionally check in to see if anything new has surfaced. And today during a cursory glance around the web I find pictures of them playing a gig. At local Vancouver shithole Pub 340. Naturally curious, I look around a little more and what do I find, but that despite claiming to be from a fictional city named Grey Gardens on their myspace, the group is actually based out of Van City. This is just like Lynx & Ram all over again.
At any rate, I'm still totally smitten with them, especially after hearing a recent remix of they did for australian chanteuse Ladyhawke. No word on when a full length might be out, but they're playing a gig at Storyeum on December 5th with another great local act who couldn't possibly be more different, Bison BC. I will unfortunately be out of town seeing Nine Inch Nails, but everyone else should go, seriously.
The Rundown is a semi-regular feature on Def in June where we assess old and new albums on a track by track basis. Not to be taken strictly as a review of the record in question, it is intended to serve as an assessment of album craft, songwriting quirks and the album's overall place in the artist's discography. Yes, it's quite nerdy. This is what we do.
Arguably the album that most typifies New Order's coming of age as a band in their own right, Power, Corruption & Lies was born from the band's desire to create a record that mixed the tight sequencing and synthetic texture of their monster single "Blue Monday" with their origins as a rock band. Although the attempt might have yielded awkward transitions between bouncy synthpop and guitar, bass and drum driven songs, the uniformity of production and spirit of studio based experimentation insures that it holds together as a consistent long player.
The Rundown: New Order Power, Corruption & Lies (Factory Records) Released: May 2nd, 1983 Personnel: Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Gillian Gilbert, Stephen Morris Producer: New Order
AGE OF CONSENT
A propulsive blast of Stephen Morris' frenetic drumming anchored by an insistent bass riff. Notable for a hundred different reasons, including it's inclusion of several soon to be familiar vocal tics and Bernard Sumner's attempts to emulate the guitar sound of disco legends Chic (no really). A stone classic, and possibly the group's most notable side one track one.
WE ALL STAND
Calm and reflective, a meandering melody over a snaking bassline with a wide variety of synth noises and drum reverb leftover from the movement era. Not especially fantastic but fittingly melancholic and not at all out of place.
THE VILLAGE
Borrowing some electro bounce from Arthur Baker (who they would later work with to produce "Confusion") and featuring some of Bernard's careless but genuine lyrics. Upbeat and charming in it's naivete.
586
After a solid minute and 45 seconds of drum machine and synth fuckery, it breaks into a nascent version of Blue Monday. Legend has it it was partially written as part of the group's desire to have a song that was based on computer sequencing so they could leave the stage during shows to get a start on drinking before the gig was officially over. Hence there exists a version that is 20 minutes long and was released as a single under the name "Video 5 8 6".
YOUR SILENT FACE
Not hard to tell why the working title of this piece was TK1 (an abbreviation of "The Kraftwerk One"). Reminiscent of the German robot's seminal The Man Machine for it's cool, measured synthetic blips and textures and immaculately programmed drum machine. Also it's out of the blue final lyric where Bernard encourages an unnamed muse to "piss off", a sentiment so out of touch with the song it stands out as a profoundly anti-intuitive and characteristically New Order-like.
ULTRAVIOLENCE
Mostly notable for Stephen's drumming mixing fluidly with chirping synthetic percussion. Not violent really, but somehow kind of Ultra.
ECSTASY
A nice workout for various bits of sampling and processing gear. Evidence of the time Stephen and Bernard allegedly spent in the band's studio playing with then cutting edge equipment from E-Mu and Oberheim.
LEAVE ME ALONE
A perfect bookend for the album, revisiting the elements and sentiment of "Age of Consent" with a much more elegiac and downbeat feel. One of the most heartfelt vocal performances of the band's career, and one of the few where they let themselves to be unremittingly pensive without self-sabotaging in some way.
REISSUE BONUS MATERIAL
Well, it has "Blue Monday" which is essential but also kind of unnecessary for a package like this really. The instrumental takes on "Thieves Like Us" and "Confusion" are both nice to have.
I am starting to notice a trend in Vancouver; not only due to lack of venue capacity but lack of venues available, live shows seem to sell out the day the tickets go on sale. Now, I am sure that some of the bands actually do have legit fans buying up all their tickets, I for example, purchased four tickets to see Franz Ferdinand on November 9th, because there seems to be a pattern in which Isaac and I are usually on the ball when tickets go on sale, however our friends usually seem to miss the boat. This sucks for us, since we obviously want to go out to a live show with our friends. I picked up two extra tickets that I was going to offer to our friends, that I was not going to scalp on craigslist which seems to be what the majority of people are doing with concert tickets these days, making it even more unaffordable for the average low-income Vanouverite. I would only ask my friends to pay me the same cost of the ticket (including all of those horrible service charges) because I want them to have the opportunity to go, without patiently waiting by their computer at 10am on a Saturday morning to buy tickets online. Whatever happened to the days of camping out at B.C Place the night before the tickets went on sale where no one could budge in line and take what was rightly deserved of the true fans?
Not only has scalping become common practice on Craigslist, but it seems as though Ticketbastard, who already makes us pay through the nose for service charges, also seems to be holding back tickets to auction them off after the concerts have been sold out. After letting you know that "no exact matches (to your request) have been found" you can click on the link that takes you to www.ticketsnow.ticketmaster.com, where you can buy tickets that were originally $35 for $85 or more, where you are also charged a convenience fee of $6.60 per ticket. So for one ticket I originally purchased for $47.09 including service charges, I am paying $108.68 for. That is over double the regular ticket price and is fucking ridiculous!!
I am asking you fellow Vancouverites to please only buy tickets that you or your friends will actually be using to go to conert events. I understand that at times there will always be events that come up for which you have a ticket but can't actually make it to, however when there are over thirty ads on Craigslist for tickets just after they go on sale, its obvious that some people are just making a living on selling tickets to sold out shows because we don't have enough venues with large capacities for live bands to play in! And why is it that all other provinces in Canada except B.C, scalping is illegal? Food for thought my friends.
Via SideLine, we've caught word of the departure of vocalist Yasmine "Yaz" Uhlin from Ashbury Heights. Initial reports of the band splitting up permanently proved to be premature (ignore the SideLine headline indicating otherwise), as remaining member Anders Hagström has swiftly recruited new vocalist, Kari Berg. For those of you who were as in the dark as us regarding the division of labour within AH, the spate of emotion-soaked posts on their MySpace blog indicates that Hagström was the primary composer within the initial duo. As far as what this means for a change in Ashbury Heights' sound, Hagström's being cheekily optimistic:
"Vince Clarke left Depeche Mode and that turned out alright; Gini left Blutengel and Chris Pohl is still the master of nocturnal cheesiness; Human league once recruited not one, but two new female singers and that was sort of their defining moment."
Touche.
On a personal note, we at DIJ fucking love Ashbury Heights. They're one of a very short list of recent synthpop bands who aren't a flagrant embarrassment to their predecessors, and just about the one one which has been able to weld the contemporary dancefloor demands for oontz with classic pop songwriting. Take "Derrick Is A Strange Machine" as an example: dunno about you, but I'm much more up for a "Your new boyfriend's a creep but I'm not just saying that because we used to fuck" song than I am another round of vague metaphysical wankery from Ronan. Just about every track from AH's "Three Cheers For The Newlydeads" is perfect for both club and home enjoyment, and Alex and I have been dropping new cut "Morningstar In A Black Car" like mad in anticipation of their forthcoming sophomore LP "Take Cair Paramour". Here's hoping that Yaz's new project, Javelynn Fate, gives her the opportunity to explore new avenues, and that Ashbury Heights continues to flourish in its new incarnation.
I walked into the Commodore as a Gwar virgin, and left the building surprisingly unscathed. I laid low at the back of the venue by the bar, but not because I wanted to devour my weekly earnings in a liquid dinner, but because I feared the mayhem this mosh pit would unleash. I was surrounded by metal heads, longhairs and scary bald guys with goatees who were probably still on parole. You could recognize someone who had seen Gwar before since they were decked out in white shirts that were previously stained from one of the past tours, and the rookies like us, were in blinding white t-shirts that were fresh for the carnage. There was a group or guys who showed up in painter’s jumpsuits with a Gwar logo on the back, a guy in fisherman’s hip waders, and a girl who adorned leather shoulder pads with large spikes on them. One guy accidently spilled some beer on me before the show and profusely apologized, to which I could only respond, “dude, we’re at a Gwar show, it’s expected, and there are going to be worse things spilled on me tonight.” In true rock fashion, there was even a fight that broke out before the show had begun, where the bouncers had to step in and remove someone from the venue.
I cannot honestly name you one Gwar song, and I highly doubt I am the only person at the show who couldn’t, people don’t go see Gwar for their amazing thrash metal songs, they go see them for their live performance. With fewer hits even than KISS, but just as much stage presence, Gwar took the stage after their “countdown to death” ended, turning this rock show into a wrestling arena, complete with rings on the stage. We were greeted by Steve Wilcos, who got beheaded on stage much like the nurse from the movie “Dead Alive” in which blood gushed out of his neck. Steve still had his head attached by a string to his body, and it dangled on his back like a knapsack. We also got to see the real fight between Barrack Obama and John McCain over the American presidency. McCain got his guts ripped out and he was beaten with them, while Obama was beheaded with a five foot sword and blood sprayed at all the fans in the audience. Hilary Clinton also joined the wrestling ring, but had her breasts ripped off, which shot even more blood into the mosh pit.
The members of Gwar were rocking out in their crazy outfits, one which looked like a mix between a Trojan warrior and a stegosaurus. They brought a giant gun on stage, which looked like the kind of immobile gun you would find positioned in a water park, only as in pure Gwar style, this one sprayed blood. The venue had actually put carpeting on the floor so that attendees would not slip due to the floor being covered with fluid, and they had also covered the ceiling in plastic, so that the thousands of dollars in lighting equipment would not get damaged from the spray. They taped up the pillars with plastic as well, all the way back to the bar, which made me wonder if their sound check included a shooting test to see how far they could go.
The show ended with the Reaganator, which was a giant robotic Ronald Reagan, who had his chest slashed open to reveal a baby inside which was sacrificed by the five foot sword. The baby was taken out of the Reaganator and cut in half and used to beat the giant robot with, before they finally ripped Reagan’s arms off and the grand finale of blood poured over the audience. With such elaborate costumes, body paint and blood, would anyone even recognize these guys if they ran into them on the street? “How did you recognize me without my thirty inch cock spraying blood and jizz in your face?” Not to mention the fact that only Oderus Urungus (Dave Brockie) is the only original member of the band, so even if you did recognize one of the members, you’d have to figure out if they were a current or former one. The show wasn’t as loud as I had thought it was going to be, however it could be attributed to my old age and consistent rock show attendance, but it definitely wasn’t a text-message-the-person-next-to-you show because you couldn’t possibly yell loud enough. That being said, I would recommend earplugs for when you do see Gwar play, because after you see them once, you’re going to want to get jizzed on again and again.
The Pleasure Seekers were an all-girl Detroit garage band who recorded two singles in the mid-60s. They're mostly remembered (if at all) for being the first musical project of a pre-"Happy Days" Suzi Quatro. Their first single, 1965's "Never Thought You'd Leave Me" is no slouch of a song - it's a nice bit of piano-driven go-go. But it's the B-side, a track called "What A Way To Die" that leaps out of the speakers with its classic garage groove and banshee shrieks.
The lyrics have to be heard to be believed. A paean to teenage boozing and groping that's equal parts slinky come-on and proto-riot grrrl flip-off, the song's sentiment could perhaps be reduced to "Fuck off, boyfriend, I'm drinking. And drinking is AWESOME."
When I start my drinking my baby throws a fit So I just blitz him outta my mind with seventeen bottles of Schlitz
The Rundown is a semi-regular feature on Def in June where we assess old and new albums on a track by track basis. Not to be taken strictly as a review of the record in question, it is intended to serve as an assessment of album craft, an artist's songwriting quirks and overall place in their discography. Yes, it's quite nerdy. This is what we do. Our inaugural series will look at Rhino's recent reissues of New Order's five albums for Factory Records.
It's important to keep in mind that New Order has always really had two stories, two parallel but not always intersecting histories. The first (and most well known) is New Order: The Singles Band. The second, and our focus this week is New Order: The Albums Band. Any assesment of Movement as an album must keep in mind that during it's writing and recording process the band was releasing such classic 12" records as "Ceremony" and "Everything's Gone Green". Standing in the shadow of those records and the almost monolithic legend of Ian Curtis and Joy Division it becomes somewhat clear why Movement is frequently cited as one of the weakest albums in the New Order discography. It isn't a bad record, it simply can't help be outshined by what was proceeded it. It's also not entirely unwarranted to say that the band had not yet crystallized as a unit in it's own right, despite Gillian Gilbert's addition to the lineup. In fact, the band had not actually settled on a vocalist when they entered the studio with JD producer Martin Hannet in 1980. With that in mind, it holds a great deal of interest as a document of the group's evolution, the finding of feet and exorcism of a few notable demons.
The Rundown: New Order Movement (Factory Records) Released: March 13th, 1981 Personnel: Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Gillian Gilbert, Stephen Morris Producer: Martin Hannet
DREAMS NEVER END
A sister song to "Ceremony" featuring the same propulsive bounce and energy and the same melancholic sentiment. Listening to the bassline lends some credence to Peter Hook's claims that Cure bassist Simon Gallup copied his style. One of the two tracks that Peter Hook sings lead on.
TRUTH
Not overly remarkable in any way other than it's not inconsiderable debt to Joy Division's Closer era songwriting. The guitar has more of a distorted wall-of-noise sound then is typical of Bernard Sumner.
SENSES
Deep synth sweeps and a distinctly Peter Hook style lead with a pretty forgettable vocal, seems more like an instrumental really. Really starts to cook in the last minute with some fantastic interplay between the drums, bass and keyboards.
CHOSEN TIME
Once again reminiscent of the latter Joy Division era, and once again suffering from Bernard's lack of an identity as a vocalist. Still pretty good, and the added percussion at the end sort of presages "Blue Monday".
ICB
Fantastic song, Bernard is actually starting to sound like Bernard, and the laser beam synth blips (a la Insight) are an excellent production touch. The band claims that Martin Hannet didn't do much other than smoke and drink during these sessions, but his fingerprints are all over tracks like this one.
THE HIM
Almost a straight Joy Division number from it's "Atrocity Exhibition" drums on up. Pretty good for being that though and probably the best of the songs like it that appear on the album. The lyrics especially have a Curtisian bent, "Small boy kneels, wandering in a great hall/He pays pennance to the air above him".
DOUBTS EVEN HERE
The second Peter Hook vocal on the album (and his last in their discography). Long on keyboard driven atmosphere, and some spoken contributions from Gillian. One of the songs that I always remember as standing out on the album but I couldn't say why.
DENIAL
Gillian's keyboards really sell this one. Ominous and propulsive, and kind of counterintuitive in it's placement as last song, it feels like it would fit more cleanly mid album. It's abrupt ending caps off the album's identity crisis, emerging from one incarnation, unsure of where it would go.
REISSUE BONUS DISK MATERIAL
The complete a and b sides for the "Ceremony", "Everything's Gone Green" and "Procession" singles, as well as the 7" and 12" versions of "Temptation". Kind of jarring to listen to after Movement, despite much of it being recorded and released concurrently with the album this material feels distinctly more assured and New Order-like.
Special Bonus Video: New Order performing "The Him" live at Glastonbury, 1981.
This marks the first of hopefully many installments of Historical Revisionism on DIJ. Historical Revisionism aims to reexamine previously ignored or dismissed music, either by situating it within a broader historical context which wasn't apparent at the time of the music's release, or by ignoring the expectations and circumstances surrounding the music at that time. Historical Revisionism will thus be historical and ahistorical in its approach as it suits our whims. We may also set our sights on the odd sacred cow or two in the process.
Killing Joke, "Hosannas From The Basement of Hell Killing Joke's 2003 outing, their second self-titled LP, garnered more praise and attention than any of the veteran post-punk outfit's releases had in well over a decade. With its shift away from the techno-influenced rhythms of their 90s albums, the drumming of hired gun Dave Grohl and the return of erstwhile bassist Paul Raven, the album was hailed as the sort of return to form that music journalists (who love to champion a commercial underdog like The Joke) are always crowing about.
Arriving three years later, "Hosannas From The Basement of Hell" (named after the stygian underground studio in Prague where it was recorded) didn't attract nearly as much attention. After the return to form, it was considered business as usual, with a much shorter, Europe-only tour. In the aftermath of Raven's sudden death in 2007, the band announced that its original line-up would be reuniting for an extensive tour, focussed on it's earliest records, which were duly given the deluxe reissue treatment. Bookended by Killing Joke's return to the limelight on one side, and the revisiting of the canonical early work which has become de rigeur for post-punkers of Killing Joke's generation on the other, "Hosannas" may end up as little more than a footnote in the history of one of rock's most obstinate, noisy, and underappreciated bands.
If it does, it'll be a crime. This record is a fucking monster. Orange in tooth and claw, this beast screams upward from the Czech underworld in which it was conceived to run riot in blinding sunlight. Paleo-industrial riffs churn up overtop of punishing rhythms and almost seem to wrestle with each other before finding a shared sense of propulsion which drives the listener through futurist landscapes with unparalleled ferocity.
The best tracks on the disc pile chiming harmonies and melodies on top of the already thick mix that lend grandeur and passion to the storm. Combined with Jaz Coleman's plaintive, gutter-scratched bark, cuts like "Implosion" and "Walking With Gods" rank with the best of the band's material.
Songs (or more specifically, riffs) are dragged on to nearly interminable length, which one could either deem annoying or in keeping with Coleman's dedication to hypnotic and altered states of mind: I'm content to rage along with them 'til the cows come home, but your mileage may vary. "Hosannas" bears no small resemblance in this sense to Ministry's "Animositisomina", another slept-on record from a group of industrial-rock legends, which also fell between the cracks of two distinct periods in its creators' oeuvre.
Here's the video for the title track, featuring a plethora of archetypal Killing Joke imagery: warpaint, alchemy, meat, the underclass, Jaz being generally weird and 'mystic'.
It's not exactly a crowded field, but Montreal's Festival Kinetik is fast becoming the premiere Industrial, EBM, Technoid and Rhythmic Noise festival. Only on it's second year, the fest had gathered a pretty amazing line-up of acts from across North America, South America and Europe spread across four days and comparable to some of the more well-known, larger euro-festivals like Wave Gottik Treffen and M'era Luna. Logistically speaking, something like this has to be an enormous undertaking, taking into account the fact that many of the acts will be flying in from other continents with all of the visa issues related to that it's not hard to guess how much work goes into setting something like this up. And although the bar was set high by the first outing (which included performances from Nitzer Ebb, Funker Vogt, Feindflug, This Morn Omina and The Horrorist) the second year seems poised to deliver on an even larger scale.
Although it's not 'til May of 2009, all three DIJ contributors are planning on attending, along with as many of our Van City peoples as can be convinced/coerced. So by way of spreading some news on the event and possibly convincing a few more folks to spend their hard earned sheckles to attend, we're gonna be semi-regularly doing profiles on some of the acts who will be performing in Montreal. Kicking it off, we'll be having a look at the act billed as the first actual performance of the festival, Hymen records signee Marching Dynamics.
A solo project from S. Talada, Marching Dynamics avoids the harsh, beat driven noise fo his other project The Operative in favor of a more melodic technoid sound. Their debut album (preceeded only by a CDr release for Talada's own Mechanismz label) Nailsleeper is the kind of music that initially informed the sound of the Hymen label, informed by harsh industrial and noise music but drawing influence from the abstract techno and IDM scenes. Although certainly not derivative, numerous tracks call to mind the atmospherics and the complex rhythms of Black Lung and Xingu Hill. Especially notable are the tracks which display an electro influence, "Stoic" specifically has the funky, rhythmic energy and classic drum machine sound that kids used to pop and lock to back in the proverbial day. The band's myspace currently has some promising sounding demos for the forthcoming second album, the obscurely titled The Workers Party of Haiti, due sometime in early 2009.
On Thursday October 30, Vancouver had its first concert from the Material Girl, Madonna, at BC Place Stadium. Personally, I have been waiting my whole life for this show to happen, so I was up at the ass-crack of dawn the day tickets were on sale to ensure I had a seat for the show. To my surprise, not only did I get two seats, they were floor seats in Section B!
As I patiently awaited for the day of the show to arrive, thoughts ran through my head, including what I was going to wear. Madonna is not only a musical and gay icon, she is also a fashionista, who has graced us with her different styles and looks over the years which we have all adopted into our own wardrobes. Needless to say the concert was filled with girls in crinoline skirts and lace gloves, boy toy belts, pink Marilyn Monroe dresses, and men in blonde wigs with cone bras. I think my favourite outfit of the night, by a fellow concert-goer was a replica of the white and black polka dot “Holiday” outfit. This girl had it down to a T, dingle-balls and the “I Dream Of Genie” ponytail. I think at that moment I peed a little.
The stage was decorated with two giant 8-story tall M’s on each side, which looked as though they were made of pink rhinestones, and there was a cube box on center stage. There were also two giant live TV screens on either side of the stage for those less fortunate than I, who were too far away from the stage or didn’t have a clear view of it. As the show started however, and the shorter people jumped on the chairs to see, I found myself watching the screens during part of the performance as well.
The box on center stage opened into smaller pieces and Madge appeared donning her white top hat, like a glamorous Willy Wonka, surrounded by visuals of candies and sweets, which only made sense since this was the “Sticky & Sweet World Tour.” She wasted no time in raising her energy levels to sing her hottest dance tunes; she came on the stage and belted out to “Candy Shop” followed by “Beat Goes On” where she had a Rolls Royce car on stage with her that she was dancing around. I can only hope that I am in as great shape as the former Mrs. Ritchie, when I hit fifty, because I doubt anyone else in the world at that age, could have as much stage presence and energy as she did on that night.
The hits continued with “Human Nature", "Vogue", and "Die Another Day”, which I was a bit surprised to hear, since so many people thought it was the worst James Bond song in history. Madge followed that up with “Get Into The Groove” which had her in little red Richard Simmons shorts and heart-shaped sunglasses, and her dancers in 80’s garb, bouncing around with jump ropes doing the double dutch. They used the movable TV screens on stage to make it look like they had just stepped off the subway which was all covered in graffiti and had a DJ mashing up the song with “Jump” from her “Confessions On A Dancefloor” album. I have to admit I usually don’t like when DJ’s mash songs up together, but this DJ had a really good flow to his transitions between the songs and the way he mixed them together.
“Heartbeat” was the next song Madonna roared out on stage, and after that came “Borderline” which had the older lady in front of me dancing along as though she was Madonna, throwing her auburn curls into my face and gyrating her body. Luckily for me, most of the other people who had floor seats had moved forward as soon as the show started and security had moved aside, so I was able to grab my partner’s hand and make our way closer to the front so I didn’t have to stare at the giant TV screens anymore, and have hair in my drink. Now I could stare at five Madonnas on stage! “She’s Not Me”, had Madonna bring four other girls on stage dressed to impersonate her, one as her during her “Like a Virgin” stage in a wedding dress with teased hair and crinoline, one from her “Open Your Heart” era, another from her “Material Girl” days in a slinky pink dress with a big pink bow on it, and the other in her “Like A Prayer” ensemble. As the song progressed she tore the wigs off the impersonators and threw them to the ground.
Madonna continued with “Music” and even though I was hoping for “Don’t Tell Me To Stop” I didn’t get it, instead she did a medley of the Eurythmics “Here Comes The Rain Again” which everyone thought would ease into “Rain” as we heard the first few notes from the song echoing through the stadium, but instead she greeted us a top a piano center stage for “Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You”. This was no lounge singer performance - this was a gothic rendition of a song that reminded me of her “Frozen” video where she danced in the desert and mysteriously changed into a panther.
After the dramatic song ended, Madge ripped off her black cloak to reveal her next costume change and set the stage for a fiesta with “Spanish Lesson” followed by “Miles Away”, and “La Isla Bonita” which gave you the sense that Madonna has recently been inspired by Gogol Bordello, as her Spanish songs took on even more of a European flow of winding up and down and starting over again midway through them.
I was surprised to hear “You Must Love Me” from Evita, but I guess Madonna wanted to cover all her bases, career-wise and politically, as she continued into a reprise of “Beat Goes On” but used it as a message to us that we have the power of choice, and that we should do something, and we are in control of our futures. During this message, she showed pictures of everything from famine, beautiful landscapes, and figureheads. It was a pretty simple statement which was not backed by any sort of beliefs or theories, only that she encouraged us to do something now. In my opinion it seemed a little more watered-down than the usual rise Madonna likes to give her fans with her political statements. This continued into “4 Minutes” with four small screens about 6 feet tall displaying a dancing Justin Timberlake, who virtually sang along to the song with Madonna.
The rest of her set featured “Like a Prayer” and “Ray of Light” before she asked us what we wanted to hear. Some jerk in the front yelled “Like a Virgin” probably because it was her biggest hit single, but I wanted to hear a B side of “Keep People Together” or something really old that would knock everyone’s socks off like “Where’s The Party?” Needless to say Madge obliged and sang one verse and let us sing the other verse of “Like a Virgin” before giving us what she called an “oldie but goody” and gave us “Hung Up”. I wasn’t really sure how that was an oldie, but I am not about to scrap with a lady that is worth over $500 million. Madonna ended the show with “Give It To Me” in a huge dance party of all her performers, but sadly there was no encore. The show lasted about two hours, and was action packed for all of it, and I imagine it was quite the workout for everyone involved, but since Madonna has had so many hits over the last thirty years it was hard to not expect more. The song I had been waiting for all night finally came on with the houselights, as the box at centre stage folded back up displaying the words “game over”. The show was so great that we headed over to Celebrities, our local Vancouver gay bar, to watch a drag queen perform it all over again. I can now die happily.
Just to whet your appetite for the new Mode record coming in 2009, peep this track by Mirror, featuring Dave Gahan. Mirror is a project of Tom Anselmi, ex-vocalist of legendary Expo '86-ruining Vancouver punkers Slow and ex-Grapes of Wrath(!?) and session keyboardist Vincent Jones. It doesn't matter how many times I read that last sentence back, I can't quite get my head around the idea of Dave collaborating on a record with such a weird can-rock pedigree. At any rate, it's the sort of torchy piano number that Martin always seems to end up singing on the Depeche Mode records (shades of Somebody, yo). Between this and the goodwill Dave earned with his excellent solo album last year I daresay I'm a touch excited to hear some new music from DM.
A tip of the hat to my homegirl Skepticle, always a font of science on the synthpop tip.
When Basement Jaxx copped the riff from a 1979 deep cut named "M.E." for their bouncier-than-a-SuperBall and just as irritating 2001 club-smash "Where's Your Head At?", mainstream clubgoers were exposed to a truism that electro nerds and hip hop heads had been meditating on for decades: Gary Numan delivers fat beats.
The Numan renaissance is a much discussed phenomenon that's been addressed from several angles: his return from critical and commercial exile, the use of his beats in records like "Where's Your Head At?" and Armand Van Helden's slightly less ubiquitous, but just as gratingly cloying "Koochy" in 2000, how he's borrowed motifs from the generation of artists who were inspired by his absolutely crucial first four albums in order to forge a set of modern and moody industrial rock outings.
But the impact Numan's had on hip hop has gone largely unmentioned, perhaps owing to the lack of crossover between hip hop and vintage synth-pop fans. But savvy hip hop producers have lent a keen ear to Numan's discography and have found a plethora of beats ripe for sampling. The spacey, often nervous ambiance that Numan's synths create are buffered around simple but often hypnotically compelling rhythm parts, making for head-nodding loops that can't help but draw the listener in. Here's a sampling of tracks from the past decade:
Underdog, "Films" A 2-CD Numan tribute album, "Random", was peppered with all manner of Brit-pop stars and alt-rock also-rans (a second tribute, "Random 2", anticipated the success of "Koochy" and "Where's Your Head At?" by offering up house interpretations of Numan's work), and closed with a grimy and snarling Bristol-influenced take on "Films".
Afrika Bambaataa, "Metal" Bambaataa's never made any secret of the influence of Kraftwerk on foundational hip-hop jams like "Planet Rock", so it was no surprise to see him turn to "Metal" on his 2004 release, "Dark Matter Moving at the Speed of Light".
GZA, "Life Is A Movie" The RZA's selection of the beat from "Films" to finish off his cousin the GZA's excellent "Pro Tools" disc was one of the more pleasant surprises I got from this year's crop of records, although after RZA rehabilitated Zamfir by deftly dropping "The Lonely Shepherd" into "Kill Bill", I suppose I shouldn't have ever underestimated Bob Digi's crate-digging skills. The icy synth sheens are perfectly suited to the rain which is perpetually falling in the RZA and GZA's contemplative verses.
Esoteric, "General Zod" Boston's Esoteric takes some time off of waging war in some of underground hip hop's most legendary battles to wax hella nerdy overtop of "We Have A Technical", one of a clutch of fantastic B-sides from Numan's "Replicas" album.
I was in a Hot Topic of all places, where I picked up the new Gogol Bordello album Super Taranta and popped it into the car stereo for the drive back to Canada. This is the band’s fifth CD, and a strong follow up to their previous Gypsy Punks CD from 2005.
Accompanying the new album, Gogol Bordello staged with an across-the-globe tour which brought them from their home in the U.S. all the way to Moscow and even further to places like Japan. I had the pleasure of seeing their first of two sold out shows at the Commodore in Vancouver B.C, where hundreds of punks sporting their mowhawks, gypsies with their coloured bedlahs shimmying to the music, and a huge range of ethnicities, ages and attitudes all had one thing in common. Gogol Bordello.
Frontman Eugene took the stage wielding a bottle of red wine, with his moustache curled around his mouth. The band looked purely European, as though they would be playing a halftime show at a soccer game. GB was ready to rock in their Adidas running shoes and track pants, and after the first song they had given us so much energy that they were dripping sweat already.
From the new album they gave us hits like Wonderlust King (which I just ntocied has also been featured in a PS3 commercial for Motorstorm, and had all of us at the front of the stage bouncing around signing “dadadadada, dadadadada, dadadadada, hey!” Later, one member of the audience proposed to his girlfriend on stage, making a great lead into American Wedding which was sang as “Canadian Wedding.” If this song doesn’t make you dance and sing it will certainly make you laugh as it pokes fun at how boring and dry our wedding ceremonies are in comparison to the giant weeklong festivals of celebration in other cultures.
From the Gypsy Punk CD Gogol Bordello gave us my personal favourite, Mishto! which is a song that spirals up and down slowly building up force and then kicking you in the pants, like someone just corked a bottle of champagne in your face at 3am at an after party, and you're dancing with some Russian guy who looks like he was the strong man at the circus in 1930.
I knew as soon as I heard the opening notes for Start Wearing Purple that the venue was going to explode, and I was right, some girl behind me that smelled like McDonalds was jumping for joy, or perhaps I should say humping for joy cuz that’s what it felt like from my being in front of her. Lucky for me, I used my bootylischiousness to my advantage and she was quick to jump somewhere else. Sergey, the violinist was constantly playing with so much force that he was breaking strings on his violin and grabbing another violin as he didn’t have time to fix the strings. At one point he went through three bows in a single song.
When they performed I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again Eugene pretended to strangle the two girls, Pamela and Elizabeth while they shrieked blood curdling screams to the song. The girls also donned a giant marching band drum while the band played on, which was mildly amusing since the drum was bigger than the girl who was wearing it, but it only added to the spectacle. GB also preformed hits like Think Locally Fuck Globally and for the encore they gave us Alcohol with the chorus of “I’ll go home” sounding like an end of the night slightly slurred melody where Eugene opened the bottle of red he had brought out at the beginning of the night and took a swig.
If you haven’t seen Gogol Bordello live, I highly recommend checking them out and picking up their new CD Super Taranta, if not for the songs they sang live for the other tracks on the CD which include the mesmerizing violins of Super Taranta and the drunken sing-along of Tribal Connection which will get everyone singing “No can’t do this, no can’t do that…” and toasting their glasses of red to the sky. Gogol Bordello is an energetic and powerful band that gives every performance on stage like it is their last.
Hello and welcome to our new blog, where Bruce, Alex and I will be posting our reviews to some of our favourite, and not so favourite CDs, live shows and movies. Feel free to post comments on your feelings towards the items we are reviewing, or any inquiries you may have about pop culture related articles we have written about.
Cut Copy’s latest CD, “In Ghost Colours,” is one of the best albums I have heard this year. Not only are the songs filled with bouncy electronic beats, but the flow of the whole CD from track to track is such a smooth transition that after hearing it you will feel like you were just smooth talked into donating your life savings to Unicef. You feel so good about it, but you’re not really sure why?
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