Arianny Celeste
Arianny Celeste, the lovely ring gal for the UFC, is one of the main figures in the new “Karate” music video by EDMers R3HAB and KSHMR.
In the video Celeste and a bunch of other hot model types do some vaguely martial arts-related exercises before taking part in a hot communal shower.
Sarah recapped the whole thing for Fightland.
You can read about it by clicking here.
Filed under Jock Stuff, Music, Shameless Promotion
Gallows’ Grey Britain
This is my official Top 10 album list for 2009:
10. Bat For Lashes Two Suns
I pretty much only like the song “Daniel” from this album. And it’s not like an intense gut-deep like, either. It’s just a, “Yeah, that’s pretty good.” Really, I’m not sure how this made it onto the list.
9. Dan Auerbach Keep It Hid
The Black Keys hadn’t quite really become THE BLACK KEYS yet, so I didn’t really know the name “Dan Auerbach” and took this record in on first listen with little preconception. The result? I dug it. Funny, if this same record came out right now I probably wouldn’t be as open to diggin’ its blues rock. This is perhaps my own failing.
8. The Veils Sun Gangs
Only recently did I learn that former Suede pillar Bernard Butler produced part of this album. It makes sense. The Veils are a high drama band and the music on Sun Gangs is perfectly designed for those predisposed towards flinging themselves onto their day beds when they catch the vapors. “It Hits Deep” is pretty sublime.
7. Lhasa Lhasa
I burn with rage when I think of this album. Not because it’s bad — it’s truly, astoundingly, deeply beautiful — but because my peers on the Polaris Music Prize jury didn’t think enough of the album to vote it to the 2009 Short List. This, even with the shouldn’t-officially-matter-but-definitely-does narrative juice of Lhasa de Sela’s advanced cancer at the time.
6. The Flaming Lips Embryonic
This album was cool and all, but we’ve pretty much reached peak Wayne Coyne, right? A good decade-long time out for the Lips would probably be just about right for everyone.
5. D-Sisive Let The Children Die
There aren’t exactly a wealth of truly “classic” Canadian rap albums, but Let The Children Die might be one of them. If not full classic, then it’s at least a pioneering disc. Listen carefully to almost any hoser rap record released since then and when that inevitable heart-on-sleeve, song-about-the-struggle comes on you can fairly argue it exists as a direct lineal descendant of the songs on Let The Children Die.
4. K-Dot-O-Dot The Life And Times Of Lucha Lonely
Between this album and Let The Children Die I was convinced Canadian hip-hop was on the vanguard of some brilliant new mope-rap scene/sub-genre. It would be all about this inward-searching, deeply confessional personal insight and less about whatever worst case typecasting you’d want to assign to the worst bits of late-’00s urban music. I ended up being half right. There was a shift to this sort of intense, soul-bearing hip-hop… except it ended up manifesting itself in the much higher gloss form of Drake and all his subsequent shade-of-grey, marketshare-powered spinoffs (see The Weeknd). Apparently sad-sack raps from fat, drunk losers were not what the kids wanted to hear.
3. Alela Diane To Be Still
If we’re being dismissive, Alela Diane is just another in an endless line of School of Joni balladeers who are oh so common on the fringes of coffeehouse open mic nights. To do that, though, would be to miss out on a truly sublime voice. “The Ocean” in particular is a brilliant, melancholy exploration on what it means to sacrifice love for a dream.
2. Timber Timbre Timber Timbre
This was the other album I was super-furious about the Polaris jury not giving more love to. Sure they made up for it by short-listing the next Timber Timbre record, but that felt at least halfway a make-up call.
1. Gallows Grey Britain
It takes a lot for a heavy music record to affect me. I’ve got the requisite rage in my soul, but most of the time hard rock just doesn’t get it right. Not Grey Britain, though. This album speaks. And not just to me. It’s for the millennials left behind, the ones who aren’t cool enough to navigate Tumblr memes, whose parents can’t afford to let them go to school for seven years. It’s for those kids who get scheduled for 18 hours a week at work and when they ask for 40 hours they get laid off. It’s for the kids who’ve looked around, realized everything’s fucked and just want to set it all on fire.
The only reason I can think for Grey Britain not being as big as Nevermind is there’s too much truth for people to handle.
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
Filed under Music, Recollections
Portishead’s Third
This is my official Top 10 album list for 2008:
10. Sam Roberts Love At The End Of The World
I’ve long maintained that Sam Roberts doesn’t quite get the respect he deserves because of his adoption by the Kee To Bala set, but he does good work. Love At The End Of The World is a little bit more about “songs” than Chemical City‘s wicked cosmic jams, but “Them Kids” and “Detroit ’67” are where it’s at.
9. The Dears Missiles
This version of a radically reconstituted Dears painted with a far less bombastic brush than on previous albums, but there was still enough world-weariness to compliment the rest of their discography.
8. Lykke Li Youth Novels
Going to see Lykke Li live on this tour was an oddly awkward sociological experience. See, the audience for her show was a divided one. The front half, squished towards the stage and separated from the back by a very pronounced barrier was an all-ages crowd of teenage girls. On the opposite side of the barrier, in the licensed area, were me, a smattering of couples, and a bunch of solo old dudes. And, by virtue of my status as a no +1 reviewer, I too was a solo old dude. Which, by extension, meant I looked an old creeper leering after some Scandinavian pop star in a room full of teenage girls.
I wasn’t, though. Because I was — and am — much more interested in Lykke Li’s Bergman-ian worldview than what sort of hot pants she’s wearing. And songs like “The Trumpet In My Head” affect me in ways that have nothing to do with lurid intent.
At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
7. The Moondoggies Don’t Be A Stranger
The Moondoggies are a bit of a mystery to me. I don’t follow them, I don’t read about them and I don’t know much about them beyond the fact they’re from Washington and I think hippie types like them. This is probably for the best. Sometimes the more you know about a band, the less interesting they become.
6. David Vandervelde Waiting For The Sunrise
There’s an unofficial micro genre that exists these days where acts like Midlake and Fleet Foxes try capturing that Laurel Canyon sound from the late ’60s. Vandervelde’s Waiting For The Sunrise might be the best contemporary articulation of that vibe. When you listen to it you just want to throw on a poncho, grab some wine and hang out.
5. Graveyard Graveyard
Being a sucker for doom metal and pretty much everything that sounds like Black Sabbath meant I was already predisposed towards Sweden’s Graveyard. Thing is, Graveyard aren’t just rote Sabbath imitators. Their sinister blues rock feels like its own thing, and Joakim Nilsson’s vocals are more intense than most of what Ozzy’s ever committed to.
4. Cancer Bats Hail Destroyer
What I like about the Cancer Bats is that their improbable posi-hardcore never wavers into dork territory. Instead, it’s more about well-directed rage, which is something I can respect. Also, “Lucifer’s Rocking Chair” rips.
3. D-Sisive The Book
This was D-Sisive’s back-from-the-dead album. Its intensely personal narrative, breadth of pop culture reference and sense of gravitas are things I now see getting bit hard by a legion of next gen graspers. I can see you, copycat bitches.
2. The Last Shadow Puppets The Age Of The Understatement
A grandiose, symphonic rock trip, The Age Of The Understatement felt like a series of lost Bond anthems come to life. I listened to this album endlessly when it came out and I haven’t really heard anything similar sounding since then.
1. Portishead Third
I’ve given out, max, a dozen 5/5 album reviews in all the years I’ve been writing about music and this is one of them. Intense, confounding, unique, sinister… Third is the articulation of some kind of sonic menace, a mad clanking machine that lumbers dangerously around your heels. It’s scary, dangerous and unquestioningly beautiful.
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
Filed under Music
Meligrove Band
The Meligrove Band have long been an act I’ve been quite fond of. Their Planets Conspire album a few years back was amazing and their live shows are solid, high energy affair.
They’ve just put out a zesty new album called Bones Of Things, which I used as an excuse to interview the band about how integral they’ve been to the Canadian indie rock community.
To see what I mean, head over to Huffington Post Music Canada by clicking here.
Filed under Music, Shameless Promotion
Ikea’s red Kallax shelving unit. Not quite in place yet…
Back in February pre-fab furniture maker Ikea set off a giant record collector nerd panic when they announced they were discontinuing their Expedit shelving units. This hit close to home as we’ve got a few Expedits in our apartment to store our books, CDs ‘n’ junk and they’re basically the best, most cost-sensible way to store stuff like this.
A pile of my records have still been stored in some old milk crates and fruit boxes, though. It was time to upgrade to actual adult shelving units and to do so I’d have to buy the Expedit replacement, the looked-upon-with-great-suspicion Kallax shelving system.
So I did. I got a very suave red unit ($89 Canadian).
And I’m happy to report that after having assembled the Kallax and transferring the LPs… the world did NOT end. In fact, the unit actually looks kinda sharp.
Ikea’s red Kallax shelving unit.
A stuffed Kallax.
Filed under Music
I Overcame My Autism And All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder: A Memoir
Risky Fuel 