Dan Boeckner
At this point it’s pretty clear Dan Boeckner is one of the coolest dudes in the indie rock music world.
Not only is he in the reunited Wolf Parade and was one-half of the RIP Handsome Furs, his newest band Operators are pretty rippin’ in their own right.
I spoke to Boeckner about all these things and more in a feature for SOCAN’s Words & Music magazine.
To read the feature click here.
Filed under Music, Shameless Promotion
Jay Z
I’ve been doing a bunch of stuff over at the music-ish charity ‘n’ good news website Samaritan Mag. Here’s a batch of recent news pieces:
New Knowledge Center Hopes To Improve Mental Health For Students Of Colour
Joey Bada$$ Says To ‘Fight Back Intellectually’ Against Police, Anti-Black Violence
Unison Benevolent Fund Events Raise $75,000 For Musicians and Industry Members
Jay Z’s New Song ‘Spiritual’ Addresses Police Shootings Against Black Americans
Coldplay, Muse, Foals Part Of Oxfam-Glastonbury Live Album To Help Refugees
MLSE Giving Police $50,000 To Help At-Risk Youth Play Sports
#MusiCaresChallenge Wants You To Declare Your Favourite Album For Good Cause
Ricky Martin Makes Case For Gun Control Post-Orlando Shooting
Filed under Music, Politics, Shameless Promotion
Broad City
Here’s another batch of video playlists I curated for Ditch TV:
21 Great Kids In The Hall Moments
Trailer Park Boys Life Lessons
Charles Bradley: Ultimate Soul Man
Brian Posehn: Giant Ogre Metal Nerd
Filed under Comedy, Music, Shameless Promotion
Gus the polar bear — stingnygaard, creative commons
In anticipation of the release of the new Tragically Hip album, In Between Evolution, and the Hip’s big Canada Day Concert at Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre, ChartAttack is declaring June 25 – 30 “Tragically Hip Week.” Leading up to July 1, we’ll be posting stories culled from a recent interview with Hip singer Gord Downie.
Here’s the third installment:
The Tragically Hip want you to know about the plight of depressed polar bears. One of the most compelling songs from The Hip’s new album In Between Evolution is an earnest ode called “Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park.”
Gus, for those of you not up on your cults of animal appreciation, is one of the main attractions of the Central Park Zoo in New York. The giant bear was diagnosed with depression and obsessive-compulsive behavior back in ’94, largely caused by the fact that tight zoo quarters tend to wreak havoc on the well-being of polar bears used to roaming 25 kilometres per day in the wild.
“Any time you’ve ever seen any animal in captivity — especially big guys like that — there’s a behavior that becomes pretty easy to spot. A dementia is what they call it,” says Hip frontman Gord Downie. “They have other names for it. Depression. So that’s sort of what we’re paying money to go see.”
To the Zoo’s credit, they paid $25,000 to an animal behaviorist to help find ways to get Gus out of his funk, which resulted in extensive activation programs to help his illness. And a few years ago they gave Gus’s quarters a massive expansion as well as providing him with some company in the form of two female companions, Ida and Lily. All this has made Gus and his girlfriends quite the media stars.
In addition to The Hip’s sonic salute, numerous news stories have been written about Gus. He’s also been the subject of a children’s book and a short film as well as inspiring performance art and fringe plays. His own “art” (chunks of log he has scratched up and chewed up rubber balls) will soon be available for sale on eBay.
Downie says the inspiration for the song came from a headline he read in the newspaper during a visit to New York. In the song, Gus is too down to feel like killing anything, which is a symptom of his depression.
“I know for a fact that polar bears, as a rule, and not even as a rule, unequivocally, want to kill anything that moves and eat it,” he says. “So there’s no sort of, I don’t think there’s any really taming them, really. And I think it’s one of those things where, yeah, if you’re up there in the tundra and you’re moving around, the only reason it’s not going to kill and eat you is because it’s already full. There’s something about that that’s kind of compelling to me.
“And we needn’t look much further than our own lives, I guess. I guess you can expand upon those feelings and thoughts as much as you like when you see that. Which I guess is also about what we pay money to see or do.”
The Tragically Hip’s In Between Evolution is in stores today.
This story was originally published June 29, 2004 via Chart Communications.
Filed under Music
Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow
In order to fully understand Gord Downie’s new record Coke Machine Glow you first have to understand the parameters of the comparisons. Downie, the point man for The Tragically Hip, has long established himself as the mildly eccentric singer for one of the most successful Canadian rock bands ever. The Hip’s peers are no less than the biggest of the big (The Guess Who, Rush), but with Downie’s new solo project he’s hoping you’ll join him on a journey that will propel his work into an entirely different class of company.
Best described as the land of the earthy poet kings, this is the place inhabited by artistic giants like Neil Young, Robbie Robertson, Bruce Cockburn and Daniel Lanois. To be lumped in amongst these universally respected, artistically vibrant solo artists takes a massive leap of faith considering Downie is the reigning monarch of beer hoist rock. And when it comes down to it, reluctant mucho props forthcoming, Downie ably meets this challenge.
Coke Machine is a wonderful success for a number of reasons:
1) With the exception of The Rheostatics, I can’t think of anyone whose imagery more effectively defines the term “Canadianna” (see the “Lofty Pines”).
2) It is not — in any way — like a Tragically Hip record. I’ve got a theory going that security on this release was so tight not because the record company were worried about leaks, but because they didn’t want advance word getting out that the record was full of mandolins, accordions and fiddles, thereby alienating the bulk of their cash-cow Hip following (check the jug-band rock of “Yer Possessed”). But I digress.
3) The impeccable eccentricity of it all. With a list of musicians helping out that reads like a who’s who on the permanent guest list of the Horseshoe Tavern, the seemingly disparate contributions of people like Jose Contreras, Dale Morningstar, Andy Maize and others are all unified under the sparse, challenging umbrella of sound they create.
4) If song titles like “Nothing But Heartache In Your Social Life,” “Boy Bruised By Butterfly Chase” and “Insomniacs Of The World, Good Night” don’t reek of titles lifted straight out of The Smiths songbook, I’ll eat my Meat Is Murder CD.
The greatest achievement with Coke Machine isn’t in any one actual song. There’s not a lot of the highest highs here. But as a whole, it’s all both unique and comforting, a sound that can only be described as Kawartha cottage porch rock. Held together by what seems like a case of beer, a half-dozen friends, some acoustic guitars and a few discreet hot knives behind the woodshed, Downie has managed to create a piece of work that defines what Canadian music truly sounds like in all its simple, naive majesty.
This review was originally published March 20, 2001 via Chart Communications.
Filed under Music
I Overcame My Autism And All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder: A Memoir
Risky Fuel 