Monthly Archives: April 2006

Canadian Musicians form Coalition to fight DRM

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Slashdot reports today that some Canadian musicians have joined to form the Canadian Music Creator Coalition which is speaking out for artists as it applies to the laws and policies that affect them. They feel that the record labels and legislators are representing their own interests and is not necessarily the artists’. Their three tenants are opposing the suing of fans under the Copyright Act, abolition of copy protection or digital locks, and the more localized interest of making sure that government funding of artists in Canada supports Canadian artists. The CMCC includes artists like Barenaked Ladies, Sarah McLachlan, Sum 41, and Broken Social Scene among others. Of course, the thing that everyone is latching on to with the CMCC is their implied stance on downloading music.

Tapes ‘N Tapes Signed to XL

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As reported in Pitchfork and Largehearted Boy, Minneapolis band Tapes ‘N Tapes have a record deal with XL Recordings. The Loon will be re-released on XL in July. There will be a sizeable tour kicked off in June. The seem to have lost their bass player in the process, but this isn’t the first lineup change for this band. They are an example of the incredible PR power of music blogs. In a Pioneer Press article, their band manager Keri Wiese is quoted saying, “It started pretty much right after the first blog wrote about the band in November. We got a call from Capitol Records the next day.” Even playbsides.com got caught up in the furvor– I reviewed the Loon back in March.

Neil Young’s New Album Announced

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Rob Galgano reports in The Great Leap Forward that Neil Young’s new album Living With War is in the can and may come out this summer. Howie Kline, former label head for Reprise talks about having heard it. It will be interesting to hear this album as it sounds like Neil getting back to business. This is an anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war album being described as “Metal Folk,” I guess.

Rob comments in his post that Neil’s work has been “spotty as of late.” I think that is a bit of an understatement. I was a rabid Neil fan for a while in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I remember seeing Neil play the first Farm Aid on Television and he did “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” and “Heart of Gold” among other songs. Prior to seeing that performance, the only Neil Young I really knew was “Heart of Gold” and that was a song that I always loved. I went out and purchased Rust Never Sleeps on cassette and it was in constant rotation in my Firebird. [In retrospect, I am glad that Neil did a solo acoustic set instead of bringing out a band. He was in his “country” period with Old Ways at this time] When Freedom came out, I bought it and immediately wanted to start getting his back catalog. I subscribed to the Neil Young newsletter “Broken Arrow” and joined the Rust@Death mailing list. So, I was immersed in Neil for a while. He released some great albums: The Mirror Ball collaboration with Pearl Jam, Sleeps With Angels the tribute to Kurt Cobain, Harvest Moon, Ragged Glory, Unplugged… He released Broken Arrow in 1996 which was a pretty good record. I saw him play the Target Center in Minneapolis that tour. Then there was a long dry spell where Neil didn’t release anything until 2000, when he released Silver and Gold. I’m not sure what happened, really. I heard a track from it and wasn’t compelled to purchase it. It was almost like I had lost the momentum of fandom. In 2002 he released Are You Passionate? which had a couple of tracks that sounded pretty decent plus that “Let’s Roll” tribute to the 9/11 Hijacking of the United flight. Still, I wasn’t moved to purchase that. Then he released Greendale in 2003, which was the “rock opera/musical.” Again, I wasn’t moved to purchase it.

I imagine that I was feeling the same way Neil Young fans were feeling in the early-Eighties when he moved to Geffen and released the Everybody’s Rockin’/Trans/Old Ways/Landing on Water cycle. For those unfamiliar with these albums, Neil was trying out other music styles: Rockin’ was a Fifties styled record, Trans was done as an electronic type record with Neil’s vocals done through a vocoder, Old Ways was a country album, Landing on Water was a Crazy Horse record, but not in a typical garagy style– more synthesized sounds. This is the cycle of albums that would eventually prompt David Geffen to try and sue Neil for not sounding like himself and sabotaging the sales of those records. Neil Young is known as a guy who re-invents himself periodically, and then seems to slide into the Crazy Horse plus Old Black (his Les Paul) or into a Harvest/Harvest Moon mode.

So, Neil is diagnosed with a brain aneurysm in early 2005 and decides he wants to do an album that may very well be his last. He records Prairie Wind, an album that seems to be refreshingly footed in the folk leanings Neil has. All of the songs appear to deal with mortality and looking back on his life. Prairie Wind might be the most directly personal work that Neil has created thus far. He survives the surgery and is all over television promoting this work, including an unheard of week stint on Conan O’Brien. This is the album I purchased with a sigh of relief.

It sounds like Neil might be re-inventing himself a bit for this next album, but really, I’m sure it will still be Neil Young.

Love Monkey Finds New Life on VH1

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As noted earlier CBS cancelled the show Love Monkey after only three episodes. VH1 has picked up the show [note: this link seems to work best with IE]– at least the eight episodes that were taped. No additional episodes have been ordered. Evidently, there was discussion of moving this show to UPN that yielded no results. The first of the un-aired episodes will show Tuesday night. So, for the next five weeks at least, I’ve got a new show to watch! This Tuesday night’s show is the one with Aimee Mann.

Recent Purchases in Boston

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As stated earlier, I had been in Boston twice in three weeks. Unlike previous trips to Boston, I got some shopping in. I hit record stores and book stores.

Trip #1:

I managed to hit Newbury Comics while the group was waiting for our table at the fantastic Capital Grille, which was just down the street. Newbury is one of the great record stores and I would recommend hitting it if possible. Plus it is down the street from one of the best ice cream places I have been to. It seems this was my vinyl trip.

Cat Power : The Greatest on 180 Gram vinyl (!) Thank goodness for Matador Records and their devotion to the preservation of vinyl. This pressing allegedly has “an extra track not on the regular version of the CD.” That said, I can’t find a version of this on CD that has less tracks on it.

Cat Power : “The Greatest” b/w “Hate” 7″. Sticker says “Pay No More Than .99” and damned if I didn’t!

Stereolab : “Whisper Pitch” b/w “Widow Wierdo”

Stereolab : “Eye of the Volcano” b/w “Vodiak”

Stereolab : “Excursions into ‘oh, a-oh'” b/w “Get A Shot of The Refrigerator” These last three singles complete the set of singles released last year. All of these tracks are compiled on the economy-priced Fab Four Suture collection. I’ve been building a collection of Stereolab releases since last year. Stereolab are very prolific and have a tendency to release great songs on one-off tour releases or on limited-pressing singles. Attracts the collector in me, unfortunately.

A good run, but a pain in the arse to bring back on the airplane!

Trip #2

This is the LinuxWorld trip last week when I went to the Blackalicious show. Hit a number of stores this time.

Newbury Comics:

Athens, GA Inside-Out (DVD) Finally! One of my favorite music documentaries from the late 80’s. I owned this on VHS. The OOP soundtrack came out on IRS at the same time and is one I listened to a lot at the time. The rare R.E.M. acoustic tracks “Swan Swan H” and “Dream (All I Have to do is)” eventually came out as extra tracks on the UK import release of Life’s Rich Pageant. This movie made me a fan of Love Tractor and Pylon.

I didn’t find anything else I was really interested in.

Virgin Records on Newbury:

(If) I’m A Ham, You’re A Sausage: The Don Dixon Collection. Frankly, the big find as far as I’m concerned. This is a drilled cut-out that I found in their discount bin. The only copy! Very Out-of-Print. Unfortunately, Don is one of those lost great Pop Rock guys. He produced some of the greatest records from the 80’s including the first two R.E.M. albums and two Game Theory albums in addition to most of his wife Marti Jones’s albums. He had a notable solo career as well. Mostly known for his song “Praying Mantis” that got some airplay on 120 Minutes back in the day. His best works were on the Restless label– home to the Smithereens (who he worked with), Game Theory, and Poison. Capital ended up buying Restless– I suspect for Poison. Most of the catalog from Restless is OOP. After retiring from music for a big stretch, Don has a new album due out in June on 125 Records titled The Entire Combustible World In One Small Room. I plan to try and get all of his back catalog.

Looney Toons:

Looney Toons is a great old record store with vinyl stacked to the ceilings in moving boxes! Next time I’m in Boston I plan to dedicate some serious time in here digging. They had Dark Side of the Moon on the original Harvest pressing with stickers and poster for $24. I just about bought it, but I didn’t like the cover condition. I think I’ll hold out. I did get some CDs:

Calexico : Convict Pool EP Has their great version of Love’s “Alone Again Or” which is pretty much a live staple for them. Includes a Cartoon Shorty from the Cartoon Network titled “El Kabong Rides Again.”

Calexico : Even My Sure Things Fall Through EP This one has some videos on it as well. I haven’t listened to this one, yet.

Calexico : Feast of Wire. So this is the real beginning of my Calexico collection…

Fargo Rock City Chuck Klosterman (Book). I picked this up at a book store/cafe on Newbury in their cheap book section. This is Chuck’s thoughts about Heavy Metal and growing up in a small town in North Dakota. I like this book quite a bit. Before I discovered REM in 1985, I was a Heavy Metal fan, so this book rings true for me. It seems that Chuck held on to Metal a bit longer than I did, but I remember most of the stuff he’s talking about.

Radio Shack:

Sony MDR-NC11 Noise Cancelling Headphones. This was a bit of an impulse buy. We stopped in the Radio Shack and I saw these headphones on sale for $79, but the sale had passed. So, the manager of the store offered to sell these to me for the sale price, which was $20 off. I already have a pair of Philips noise cancelling ‘phones, but these work better as they seal in the ear canal, so that helps keep the noise out.

Imperial March on the 1 and 2

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I’m sure the blogs will pick this up pretty quickly, but I had to post this when I saw it. This should be the example to show when people doubt that turntablism is an art. Here is a blog entry about it.

Here is the YouTube version.

The best part about it is the facial expression on the guy standing next to him. He must have been the guy he was battling!

Blackalicious @ Paradise Rock Club

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I was in Boston last week for LinuxWorld. This is the second time this year that I have been in Boston for work– and I will be in Boston again in June for Microsoft TechEd. Seems the tech conferences are all moving there this year. I really like Boston. From a music perspective there is quite a bit to do there.

While I was there I saw Blackalicious with Pigeon John and the Lifesavas at the Paradise Rock Club. They also had Pharcyde MC Fat Lip and Leftcoast up-and-comer Omni on the bill. I went to the show with a couple of guys that I work with.

We got to the venue for the door opening at 7PM. Unfortunately, it was raining on and off all day and in the 30’s for temps. We stood in the will-call line for a long time periodically hopping up and down to stir up some heat. Judging by the others in line, I was the oldest person there.

When we got inside I went over to the merch table to see what stuff they had for sale. Lots of nice Blackalicious stuff– tees, CD’s, and some vinyl. There was stuff from Pigeon John, too. Manning the table was a couple of guys one of which I would find out was Omni himself. I picked up a 12″ of breakbeats. Omni helpfully explained that what I had in my hands was used by DJ’s. I nodded, consumed by looking at the stuff. At that point he shoved a record in my face– his record and announced that it just dropped and indicated that I should buy it. When I showed no interest he said that “maybe it’s too hardcore for you.” I nodded ironically and said that maybe it was. I headed to the bar. We snagged a nice corner table that gave us a great vantage point the whole night.

Before the bands started we got to hear DJ See Brown. He ran through a set of funk and HipHop with a little disco mixed in. He seemed to be warming up. He would be the DJ for Pigeon John, Omni, and Fat Lip.

First up was Pigeon John. I knew that he was signed to Quannum and I knew there was a bit of chatter going on about him. I frankly didn’t know what to expect from him. What we got was a fun and energetic set from someone who genuinely wanted to be there. He interacted with the crowd a lot and ran through his catalog including a couple of tracks from his forthcoming Quannum release due in the fall. His lyrics were very tongue in cheek and self deprecating. His set hit a peak when he had the voice of “god” telling him that him that no one in the audience liked him. He fell to his knees to great crowd shouting. Funny! A very good set. I look forward to seeing him in the future. I guess he tours constantly.

Next up was Omni. He did a thankfully short set. That is about all I remember from him except that he was wearing a Lifesavas teeshirt that confused a number of people who wanted to know if he was in that group. Based on that set, I certainly wouldn’t be buying his record.

Next up was Fat Lip. I hadn’t heard him before. I was roughly familiar with the Pharcyde. Based on what I heard this was mostly a set of Pharcyde stuff plus a new track called “Writer’s Block.” He was pretty entertaining. He flows a bit off beat, reminding me of Biz Markie. The crowd was full of fans. By this time the floor was pretty much filled up.

Next up was the Lifesavas. I had heard them before on a couple of other Quannum records as a supporting artist. Their set was very energetic. It reminded me of the Latyrx show I saw a number of years ago in Minneapolis. They did tracks from their upcoming release Gutterfly which seems pretty promising.

After Lifesavas was done, there was a break. I went up to the merchandise table. Pigeon John was manning his area of the table. I congratulated him on a fun set. I told him I liked MC’s with a sense of humor. He agreed and said he did too. I signed up for his mailing list. I asked him which of his CD’s I should get. He handed me Pigeon John Is Dating Your Sister and said that this one was the one that Lyrics Born heard that made him sign John to Quannum. I also picked up a mixtape (are they mixtapes when they are on CD?) done by the Rev. Shines who is the turntablist for Lifesavas called Today’s Good News vol. 1. This was done as a tribute to the late JayDilla.

Finally, it was time for Blackalicious. I have seen DJ Shadow a couple of times, and Lyrics Born with Lateef as Latyrx, but I hadn’t seen the Gift of Gab with Chief Xcel. Now, I’ve seen the entire original Solesides/Quannum crew! Onstage with Gab and the Chief were two background singers– a guy and a girl. There was some concern voiced by some of the people I talked to in line as I guess that due to health issues, the Gift of Gab wasn’t able to make their last show in Boston, and evidently Lyrics Born filled in. No sign of that. While the Chief manned the turntables, the Gift of Gab prowled the stage like a bull in heat spitting out rhymes with precision and speed you just don’t hear from MC’s these days. They did all of the great tracks from Blazing Arrow and Nia, plus a handful of tracks from their new release The Craft. They also did “Puttin’ on the Ritz” off of the Gift of Gab’s solo record 4th Dimensional Rocket Ships Going Up. The crowd went nuts during the couple of freestyles that he delivered. I think that the Gift of Gab is still one of the best MC’s around. In fact, the MC’s on Quannum all set the bar for style and skill. High points of the night included “Chemical Calisthenics” and also “Deception.” On Deception Gab had the crowd singing along to the “La De Da Da Dee Dee Da” part. They wrapped up the night with an encore that included all the MC’s from the night.

It’s pretty clear to me watching all of the acts tonight that the years of working have added a certain polish to Blackalicious’s set. They approached the stage with the confidence that comes with the seasoning of years of work. They knew how to work the crowd and had the whole place rocking.