The Wire is a brilliant television program. Ghostface Killah is a brilliant rapper. But both of them are kind of difficult to understand — their respective art forms are filled with codified language, insider street slang that’s virtually impenetrable.
At least, that’s how Aaron felt about the music of the Ghostman until he watched all five seasons of The Wire. Then it all made sense. The criminals of the show provided him his eureka moment to understanding the Wu Tang Clan member’s music.
Wanting to share this revelation with the world, Aaron wrote How The Wire Helped Me Finally Understand Ghostface Killah for AUX TV. You can read the story by clicking here.
The Grammy-winning Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour recently announced he’s planning to run for president in his country’s upcoming election.
This, naturally, sent Sarah on a fact-finding mission to hunt down other musicians-turned politicians. She came up with 20 people, including amongst others, Krist Novoselic from Nirvana, Martha Reeves, Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, 2 Live Crew’s Luther Campbell, Fela Kuti, Sonny Bono, and her personal favourites, the guys from Iceland — Jon Gnarr and Einar Orn — who are part of a political movement called The Best Party.
You can read her story over at Spinner by clicking here.
The good folks at AUX TV were looking to incentivize their New Year’s workout resolution so they looked towards the only role models they respect — rock stars — for exercise advice.
The natural author for a story like this, of course, would be fitness professional and personal trainer Sarah Risky Fuel.
To read the workout advice of Bob Mould, LMFAO, Hawksley Workman, Patrick Stump and Amanda Palmer, click here.
“Black Water” was my most listened to song this year. Not sure what that says about me.
2. PJ Harvey Let England Shake
It took me awhile to “get” Let England Shake. The song that did it was “In Dark Places.”
3. Chad VanGaalen Diaper Island
If you told me at the start of the year that CVG would create my third-most favourite album of 2011 I’d have eaten my shoe. It’s a good thing I don’t hang around with fortune tellers. This is “Blonde Hash”
4. Austra Feel It Break
Everybody’s all about Austra’s electro-dance-witch-goth vibe. I’m on it, too, but the song on this album that really got me was the spooky piano ballad “The Beast.”
5. Lykke Li Wounded Rhymes
“I Follow Rivers” is heavy.
6. Young Galaxy Shapeshifting
This album was a bold experiment and it completely worked. This is “Peripheral Visionairies”
7. Herpes Symptome und Beschwerden
This is the exact real world manifestation of what I believe the nihilists from The Big Lebowski would sound like. I understand absolutely none of what’s being said in “Das Karnickel im Hut.”
8. D-Sisive Run With The Creeps
The more caustic, outsider and marginalized D-Sisive gets, the more pointed his music becomes. P.S. I found that GG Allin doll, D!
9. Raphael Saadiq Stone Rollin’
There are at least three songs on this record that are genuinely magic. “Movin’ Down The Line (Don’t You Go Away)” is one of them.
10. Destroyer Kaputt
This one’s a personal shocker because I’ve always hated Dan Bejar until this album. I appreciated the audacity of a yacht rock almost-concept record, though. And “Chinatown” is pretty groovy.
Other album lists…
2015 Top Ten — SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart SUUNS + Jerusalem In My Heart is #1 2014 Top Ten — Sharon Van Etten’s Are We There is #1 2013 Top Ten — M.I.A.’s Matangi is #1 2012 Top Ten — Dirty Ghosts’ Metal Moon is #1 2011 Top Ten — Timber Timbre’s Creep On Creepin’ On is #1 2010 Top Ten — The Black Angels’ Phosphene Dream is #1 2009 Top Ten — Gallows’ Grey Britain is #1 2008 Top Ten — Portishead’s Third is #1 2007 Top Ten — Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Ashtray Rock is #1 2006 Top Ten — My Brightest Diamond’s Bring Me The Workhorse is #1 2005 Top Ten — Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl is #1 2004 Top Ten — Morrissey’s You Are The Quarry is #1 2003 Top Ten — The Dears’ No Cities Left is #1 2002 Top Ten — Archive’s You All Look The Same To Me is #1 2001 Top Ten — Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow is #1 2000 Top Ten — Songs: Ohia’s The Lioness is #1 1999 Top Ten — The Boo Radleys’ Kingsize is #1 1998 Top Ten — Baxter’s Baxter is #1 1996 Top Ten — Tricky’s Maxinquaye is #1
Aaron and I went to the opening of American Idiot at the Toronto
Centre For The Arts on Thursday night. He went out of a slightly
morbid curiosity. I went because I was reared on alternative rock and
show tunes in almost equal measure, and the show seemed like it was
made especially for me.
As a rocker, I was more amused than satisfied with the production. But
as a Broadway baby, I was completely entranced.
The 90 minute musical based on Green Day’s 2004 concept album of
the same name isn’t a perfect marriage of rock ’n’ roll and musicals,
but it is a very good musical that is fueled by the spirit of rock.
Much like Spring Awakening (director Michael Mayer’s other
groundbreaking show that infused popular music with a more traditional
theatre structure) used pop to express sexual frustration and coming
of age melancholy, Idiot harnesses Green Day’s fury, frustration and
passion to tell the story of a trio of friends facing a post-9/11
world.
Indeed, American Idiot is almost a companion piece to Spring Awakening, or at least its angsty big sister. If Spring Awakening is a
pubescent teen flailing around, furiously masturbating and learning
about love and loss for the first time, then Idiot is on the verge of
adulthood, clad in combat boots and existential crises, writing angry
poetry about an empty world that is nothing like the one they were
promised.
The plot is bare bones to the point of abstraction (it’s really not
much more complex than the high concept pitch I tossed out two
paragraphs ago) but Idiot is more about feeling than story. And
everything from the choreography, the balls-out performances by the
cast, and the brilliant stage design really nails that essence. It’s
not quite as in-your-face as an actual rock concert, but American Idiot is one of the most visceral musicals I’ve ever seen – although
experienced is probably a more accurate description.
American Idiot runs until January 15 at the Toronto Centre For The Arts
The cast will also be performing as part of CityTV’s New Year’s Eve
Festivities tonight.
Risky Fuel 