Tag Archives: Music

by | January 2, 2012 · 3:12 am

Timber Timbre Bests Aaron’s Top 10 Albums Of 2011

Timber Timbre

Timber Timbre

This is my official Top 10 album list for 2011:

1. Timber Timbre Creep On Creepin’ On

“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

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by | January 1, 2012 · 12:11 am

Green Day’s American Idiot Awakens Angst

American Idiot cast member Scott J. Campbell

American Idiot cast member Scott J. Campbell

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.

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by | December 28, 2011 · 12:53 pm

How Covering Neko Case Might Save A High School

Neko Case

Neko Case

There’s shady work afoot in Peterborough, Ontario where the local arts-focused high school Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School may end up getting closed.

Some enterprising students are campaigning against this happening, though, and a pair of singers named Kate And Janelle have gone viral with their protest, which comes in the form of a Neko Case cover.

Aaron tracked the gals down to talk about their school and meeting Neko, all with some bonus commentary from PCVS alumni Serena Ryder.

To read the story at Spinner click here.

 

 

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by | December 24, 2011 · 2:44 am

My Women Of 2011 Mixtape Contains Zero Artists Who Performed At The Last Lilith Fair

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey

I just made an awesome mixed CD which I’ll be leaning on during my Christmas Tour Around Ontario 2011™ over the next few days.

The theme for this disc was “Women Of 2011,” as in a compilation of songs from female-fronted artists I dug this year. Looking over the list, it dawned on me that although many of them are emerging as the voices of this generation, none of them played last year’s dismal Lilith Fair.

Now either these artists were too cool to do Lilith, or they weren’t asked. Either way, what I’m taking from it all is that by dodging that lameness bullet they’re all even more amazing.

Here’s my mix:

PJ Harvey “In The Dark Places”
Lana Del Rey “Blue Jeans”
Florence And The Machine “What The Water Gave Me”
Feist  “Undiscovered First”
Cat’s Eyes “Face In The Crowd”
Tasseomancy “Diana”
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi “Season’s Trees”
Austra “The Beast”
Lykke Li “Jerome”
Tennis “Seafarer”
My Brightest Diamond “Feeling Good”
Lindi Ortega “Little Red Boots”
Neko Case “The Pharoahs”
Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea “The Tower”
Anna Calvi “The Devil”
Chelsea Wolfe “PALE ON PALE”

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by | December 20, 2011 · 4:55 pm

Ascension Of The Witches

The Black Belles

The Black Belles

Women who wear black and sing about creepy dead things rule. Relatedly, there were a lot of such women making music this year.

So many, in fact, that AUX TV decided to consider the Ascension Of The Witches one of the “nice” trends for their annual Naughty Or Nice list this year.

Aaron wrote said story and you can find it by clicking here.

 

 

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