Category Archives: Recollections

by | December 10, 2011 · 6:49 pm

Aaron’s Top Albums Of 2001

Gord Downie's Coke Machine Glow

Gord Downie's Coke Machine Glow

This is my official Top 10 album list for 2001:

1. Gord Downie Coke Machine Glow
2. The Strokes Is This It
3. By Divine Right Good Morning Beautiful
4. The Avalanches Since I Left You
5. Ours Distorted Lullabies
6. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club BRMC
7. The Dears Orchestral Pop Noir Romantique
8. Spiritualized Let It Come Down
9. Ashley Park The American Scene
10. The Constantines The Constantines

Since I started unearthing these Top 10 lists a week or so ago this is probably the first I’ve felt close to entirely comfortable with.

My #1 album in 2001 was Gord Downie’s Coke Machine Glow and I continue to maintain it’s a brilliant Cancon canon album. I think I might have even given it a 5 out of 5 rating at the time, which is something I’ve done max 10 times in my years of music writing. What’s so special about Coke Machine Glow is it’s so guilelessly “art.” The fact that it was a solo album by the lead singer of a beer-rock arena-level band was secondary. Here, Downie dove deeply into his poetic narratives and then surrounded those stories with alternately beautiful/weird/exciting complimentary music courtesy of The Diner Is Ruined and a cast of related Can-indie veterans. This is the album that proved that Downie was definitively on the side of good.

Gord Downie “Chancellor”:

Everybody had Strokes fever back in 2001 and it was totally deserved. Is This Is? was a super-relentless dance party. It was bold and free and it’s still a great listen today, which is more than I can say for every other Strokes record. It’s funny, I got this record, Spiritualized’s Let It Come Down and Mercury Rev’s All Is Dream on the same day and I remember the V2 Records rep at the time being mad that nobody cared about All Is Dream, but why would they? There were two other nuclear bomb statement albums on everyone’s desks.

“Last Nite,” if you’ve never wildly danced to this song at a club you’ve been at the wrong clubs:

I love By Divine Right and consider them one of the under-appreciated pillars of Canadian indie rock, so I was pretty excited when Good Morning Beautiful came out. In hindsight is more “good” than “great” an album — still Top 10, but probably lower. I would’ve ranked it this high at the time because of the epic hippie jam “Hugger Of Trees.” It’s a song that can cut through all my layers of Grinch.

By Divine Right “Hugger Of Trees”:

Man, The Avalanches’ Since I Left You. Four billion samples, legal bullshit, mystery… none of which matters because if you know this album at all and I say the words “Radio,” “Flight Tonight” or “Frontier Psychiatrist” you should be experiencing an immediate Pavlovian reaction.

The Avalanches “Since I Left You”:

The voice of Jimmy Gnecco from Ours remains one of the most powerful, most chilling things I’ve ever heard. When Ours’ Distorted Lullabies came I out I was convinced they were going to become the biggest band in the world. I’m not sure why they didn’t. I suspect drugs, record company bullshit, band troubles, etc., etc. — the usual stuff — all had a hand in it. Mostly though, I’ve come to learn over the years that most people don’t actually like intense music. They can’t handle the emotional gravity of it all and just want something to hum along to. In the grand scheme that’s probably why Ours never hit it. It’s the world’s loss.

Ours “Meet Me In The Tower”:

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are the perfect rock band. They’ve got black leather jackets, their music’s kinda noisy and dangerous, and the band members themselves are often difficult mumblers. Which all makes them hella cool.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club “Spread Your Love.” I was at this “video shoot,” which wasn’t really a video shoot so much as a proper concert with pro cameras capturing everything:

This would be the second year in a row I had The Dears in the #7 spot, this time for Orchestral Pop Noir Romantique. The best thing about this EP is it gave the band an identity. Something that was theirs alone — which is extremely underrated a commodity in the music universe. This was the dangle that made people want to know more.

The Dears “Autotomy”:

At #8 was the aforementioned Spiritualized record Let It Come Down. This was supposed to be super-huge and it was. Something like 115 people worked on this record and it shows.

Spiritualized “Out Of Sight.” Fuck, this song’s big:

And in every Top 10 list there must be something you no longer care about. For this one it would be Ashley Park’s The American Scene. I remember really digging on this album when it came out, but I’ve never been back to it. And in the sign of true listener death for me — I haven’t bothered to rip the album into iTunes.

I haven’t ripped #10 into iTunes either. That would be The Constantines debut album. I feel no need or desire to revisit this record. I rode that hype train at the time, and enjoyed parts of that journey, and that’s enough.

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

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by | December 8, 2011 · 4:28 am

Aaron’s Top 10 Albums Of 2000

Songs: Ohia "The Lioness"

Songs: Ohia "The Lioness"

This is my official Top 10 album list for 2000:

1. Songs: Ohia The Lioness
2. King Cobb Steelie Mayday
3. The Dandy Warhols Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia
4. Richard Ashcroft Alone With Everybody
5. Sarah Harmer You Were Here
6. Mike O’Neill What Happens Now?
7. The Dears End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story
8. Elevator A Taste Of Complete Perspective
9. Fu Manchu King Of The Road
10. Dr. Dre 2001

This would be the year that my budding Jason Molina obsession officially took hold. I knew of the 1999 Songs: Ohia album Axxess & Ace and liked it, but The Lioness was a whole different ballgame. This album’s pretty much the most intense, all-consuming expression of love one can imagine. It’s not mealy, over-sentimental goop, but the raw stuff of the heart. More than 10 years later this record still resonates and I can still marvel that someone was able to combine those words, with that music, to create those songs.

I was totally at this show at the El Mocambo. Here’s “Lioness”:

How good was Mayday? Don’t know? OK, I’ll tell you — really good. This album and King Cobb Steelie’s prior record Junior Relaxer were two of the best, most fascinating albums produced in Canada over those years. They weren’t dance or dub, or punk or electronica, they were just these heavy, monstrous, uniquely groovy songs that were completely haunting.

King Cobb Steelie “Below The Stars:

Y’know how sometimes bands complain that record labels are horrible and controlling and demanding? And how these same artists complain non-stop about how their artistic instincts are being oppressed and it’s not until they get off said record label that they can find true freedom? Well, if the The Dandy Warhols’ Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia is the sound of them imprisoned by the system, the system was doing the right thing.

The Dandy Warhols’ “Godless”:

Until we reached #4 this list had been holding up remarkably well. Richard Ashcroft’s Alone With Everybody, however, does not deserve to be in this spot. Because it’s not very good. I know why I put it here — because The Verve’s Urban Hymns is one of the best albums of all time. And I was an intern when that album came out and therefore had no Top 10 list-making forum to express said view of that album. Then The Verve broke up and I was heartbroken, so I overcompensated by propping this album up. I’m wiser now.

I like my gal singers with a certain grit, a certain type of dark angst. I sense very little of that in earth mom Sarah Harmer, so logic would dictate I wouldn’t care very much for her — and I don’t. But sometimes there are songs that are undeniable. On You Were Here that lightning bolt moment is “Lodestar.” This song is close to the perfect representation of a certain specific type of Canadian experience and it’s the singular reason why this album hit #5 on my list.

Sarah Harmer “Lodestar”:

Man, forget the Arcade Fire Can-indie explosion years, by 2000 Canadian indie was already making power moves (in quality, if not in sales numbers and obvious “industry” markers). Mike O’Neill was a slept-on vet in post-Inbreds mode at this point, but What Happens Now? was proof he was still a vital foundation guy for the scene.

Speaking of foundations, if King Cobb Steelie were one of the best bands in Canada at the time, The Dears and their album End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story was right there behind them. The only reason why this album was that much lower than Mayday was because Hollywood truly couldn’t capture the absolute riveting intensity of the band’s live show at the time. I saw The Dears pretty religiously every time they came to Toronto around during this period and these remain some of the best shows I’ve seen by any band ever.

I wanted to play “This Is A Broadcast,” but couldn’t find a good version on youtube.

I love the idea of Elevator. Band leader Rick White is a particular sort of psychedelic outlaw I admire in part because I know I’ll never be able to “unhinge” in the way that he does artistically. He exists in a fantastical world that’s foreign to me.  A Taste Of Complete Perspective is a “good” record, not a “great” record, so I’m pretty sure it got the bump into the Top 10 owing to the band’s general awesomeness and that Rick White out-there factor.

Fu Manchu King Of The Road. If you’re not down with the Fu you’re a wack ass bitch.

“Hell On Wheels” set to Mad Max clips:

Dr. Dre 2001? Oh snap, I’ve forgotten about Dre.

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

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by | December 4, 2011 · 8:42 pm

Aaron’s Top 10 Albums Of 1999

The Boo Radleys

The Boo Radleys

This is my official Top 10 album list for 1999:

1. The Boo Radleys Kingsize
2. Guided By Voices Do The Collapse
3. Tricky Woo Sometimes I Cry
4. Hefner The Fidelity Wars
5. Death In Vegas The Contino Sessions
6. Brian Jonestown Massacre Bring It All Back Home Again
7. Kula Shaker Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts
8. Nine Inch Nails The Fragile
9. The Flashing Lights Where The Change Is
10. Sloan Between The Bridges

I don’t know what I was thinking on a bunch of these records.

Kingsize at #1? I mean, I really like this album — it’s grand, has a number of interesting songs, and shows more sophistication than the Boos’ earlier noise-filled Creation Records-defining albums. It all probably had something to do with the pre-millennium tension at the time. That song “Monuments For A Dead Century” had a particular melancholy hold on me. Also ruling were “Comb Your Hair,” “Adieu Clo-Clo,” “Eurostar”… actually, it’s coming back to me now… yeah, I guess I still dig it.

“Monuments For A Dead Century”:

Guided By Voices Do The Collapse? This is a peculiar aberration. It’s the only GBV record I own. I don’t really care for ’em, I haven’t even bothered to rip this record into iTunes over the years, or had the inclination to listen to it. Frankly, the fact that I put it at #2 at the time is kind of embarrassing.

My #3 album, though, remains an all-timer for me. Right around the time Tricky Woo put out Sometimes I Cry I was convinced they were going to be the biggest rock band in the entire world. The rest of the world ended up not caring but I steadfastly maintain that in ’99 the Woo WERE the best rock band in the world.

I never really paid attention at the time so I don’t know if this Hilarious House Of Frightenstein riff is a fan video or an official video for “Fly The Orient,” but it pretty much perfectly sums up my feelings on the matter:

At #4 is another album I rarely go back to, Hefner’s The Fidelity Wars. Hefner were a great and underrated band, and their particular brand of intimate observations on relationships were cuttingly spot-on. I was pretty swept up in Toronto’s whole Blow Up scene around this time, so that probably accounted for the high placement. Realistically this isn’t a Top 10 album anymore.

The Contino Sessions by Death In Vegas would have hit all my buttons back in 1999. Dark electronica that was too smart to be big beat and too rock to be electronica, plus Jim Reid, Bobby Gillespie and Iggy Pop as guests? Yes please. But I’ve kind of forgotten about this album since then, which means it’s probably this year’s place-and-time record.

Film students appear to have gotten their hands on the particularly wicked song “Soul Auctioneer”:

The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Bring It All Back Home Again is the musical high-water mark for Anton Newcombe’s band as far as I’m concerned. The six songs on this back porch psychedelic outlaw masterpiece capture a particularly dangerous and unique strain of rock ‘n’ roll. It probably helps that the epic 13-minute song “Arkansas Revisited” was adapted from a Charles Manson song, but sometimes that’s what it takes.

BJM’s “The Gospel According To A. A. Newcombe,” from Dig:

I know lots of people hate Kula Shaker for the same reasons they hate the band The Tea Party, but Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts speaks to me. I appreciate its lack of shame in being a spiritual quasi hippie quest of an album.

Kula Shaker’s “Mystical Machine Gun.” Watch this video ’til the end for the payoff:

Nine Inch Nails The Fragile was a big deal at the time, sort of like Chinese Democracy for the Alternative Nation. I think NIN rule but I’ve never really warmed to this album. Heck, I can’t even name any of the songs on it anymore. It’s too long and there’s too much to digest. But these are relative complaints. The Fragile remains a better album than whatever got put out that wasn’t by any band named Nine Inch Nails, so that’s probably why this snuck onto the list.

The Flashing Lights were an amazing band. Definitely better than The Super Friendz. And Where The Change Is was their lightning bolt moment. It bothers me to think that this album will be lost to all but the most dedicated Can-Rock hunters because it fairly matches anything in the Sloan catalogue.

Check out this clip from Jonovision(!), featuring both the poppy song “High School” and their super-amazing Elevator To Hell tribute “Elevature”:

Ah Between The Bridges. This is Sloan’s very much slept-on we’re-going-back-to-Halifax album. I loved it and it reminded me of those hyper-provincial British records by the likes of The Kinks, The Smiths and Blur. It was romancing their hometown and songs like “The Marquee And The Moon” did a whole lot to mystify Halifax to impressionable music listeners.

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

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by | December 2, 2011 · 10:48 pm

Aaron’s Top 10 Albums Of 1998

Baxter in 2010

Baxter in 2010

This was my official Top 10 album list for 1998:

1. Baxter Baxter
2. The Jesus And Mary Chain Munki
3. Lauryn Hill The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill
4. Massive Attack Mezzanine
5. Mercury Rev Deserter’s Songs
6. Space Tin Planet
7. PJ Harvey Is This Desire?
8. 54-40 Since When
9. Godspeed You Black Emperor! F#A#∞
10. The Inbreds Winning Hearts

Not to be confused with the post-hardcore band Baxter featuring Tim McIlrath, later of Rise Against, the Baxter I’m talking about were a Swedish electronica trio signed to Madonna’s Maverick label. I still stand by their self-titled debut album and listen to it today. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it was one of the best, most slept on records of the ’90s.

Singer Nina Ramsby cooed morbid Nordic spells over an elegant wash of drum ‘n’ bass in songs that were just a touch too jagged and heartbroken to rank as car commercial sellout techno. This was the stuff.

Here’s their song “Television,” 13 years before Lykke Li:

The Jesus And Mary Chain are one of my favourite bands. And when they put out Munki on Sub Pop I was pretty excited about it. Time has tempered my enthusiasm somewhat and I can admit now what I couldn’t admit then — Munki is definitely not a Top 10 album.

Remember that year when Lauryn Hill was the greatest? I do. Then she went cray-cray. In hindsight this album has a few mind-blowers, a personal fave being “Lost One,” but it maybe captures more of a time and a place. And Hill’s dropping off hasn’t helped its legacy.

“Doo Wop (That Thing)” remains classic:

I interviewed Massive Attack for the Mezzanine album on the same day that Avi Lewis from The New Music did. I remember being so bummed that I didn’t get a great interview out of them when I finished, but later, when I saw that they FELL ASLEEP during Avi’s interview I felt pretty awesome — at least I was able to keep them awake.

Mercury Rev Deserter’s Songs is still beautiful. It’s definitely their high-water mark as a band, and if you’re the sort that likes to map out family trees, I’d argue that Deserter’s Songs is one of the pillar records for the sprawling indie rock that would eventually be perfected by Arcade Fire. This still holds up.

The band Space are responsible for one of the best singles of the ’90s.

This:

That song’s not on Tin Planet, though. So I think I was feeling a bit compensatory by trying to jam this one onto my Top 10.

It does at least have the song “The Ballad Of Tom Jones,” which is a particularly cheeky duet between Space’s Tommy Scott and Cerys Matthews of Catatonia. Sarah and I have contemplated learning it as a karaoke slayer.

“The Ballad Of Tom Jones”

PJ Harvey’s one of my foundation artists. I think she’s brilliant and fascinating, and Is This Desire? remains one of my favourite albums by her. I prefer her when she’s doing less howling, and more dark purring, which is what she does here. PJ believes it’s the best album she’s ever made and I just might agree. This should probably go higher in hindsight.

Check out “The Wind”:

54-40’s Since When? I really like this band. Always have. Not really sure why it made it on this list, though.

Yeah, I was just as swept up in Godspeed You Black Emperor! and their album F#A#∞ as every other young, enthusiastic music writer. Going back to it, this record’s still unique and interesting, it’s just not… special anymore. The best parts of their sound and technique ended up getting lifted by all the next generation Montreal bands who’d take what they heard here into more manageable/palatable territory. Which arguably makes F#A#∞ still relevant and awesome, but nobody in 2011 wants to do their computing on an Apple Classic II, right?

The Inbreds Winning Hearts? This one’s probably another sympathetic choice. The Inbreds were just about done as a band at this point and as someone who had spent his teen years romancing the Halifax scene and finally having the authority to write my very own fancy published Top 10 album list in a music magazine I was probably swept up in the drama of it all. I haven’t even ripped this album into iTunes all these years later. Still like the band, though.

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

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by | October 30, 2011 · 11:27 pm

When Lady Stig Met Basement Cat

Sexy Stig meets Basement Cat

Sexy Stig meets Basement Cat

This is what happens when Sexy Stig comes across a Basement Cat at 4 a.m. while holding a scythe:

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