Scene and Heard with Will McGuirk

Trudeau Park, Tweed

Now its only fair that the Rawkers from the Shwa get their due as well as the alt-twang folkies. I'll admit that the quieter sounds get more play here and we know why... but seriously this weekend in Tweed looks rad as the kids say. The line up has a couple of mouldie oldies on it but its also well padded out with some new sounds that the our locals are laying down. Its Tweed so its a bit of a drive. However its three days so you can just sleep (it off) there.... wicked. Its a field.... its cars and mud and booze and music and if you troll over to their Facebook page there is a pile of pics from previous years for y'all.
Think Le Scratch and the Dungeon in a forest after a thunderstorm... yeah....totally!!!!

Heres some links to the Shwa-kats playing over the long weekend.

RIDES AGAIN

HAIL THE VILLAIN,

MY DARKEST DAYS,

HELLO BEAUTIFUL,

BROWN BRIGADE

DOWN WITH WEBSTER

CURE GRAVITY

COUNTERFIT FIFTY

ONLY WAY BACK

ONE SECOND 2 LATE

The medium is the message

A couple of Chicago area music reviewers had a chat with Reveille about "the biz"... here's an excerpt... you may wish to read it all... its, uh, inneressing!!!

Reveille: There’s been a lot of press lately about film critics getting laid off from their papers. You have reviewers from Village Voice, Newsweek, and Newsday losing their jobs as print publications lose money because advertisers are moving online. Is the same trend affecting music critics?

Derogatis: Newspapers and other print media aren’t doing well. It’s not pretty at the New York Times; it’s not pretty at the Gary, Ind., Tribune. But there’s always a local element to music coverage. Jesus, if you’re in Omaha, in Saddle Creek, there’s a big music scene worth covering. Whereas, with movies, you can just pick a review up off the AP wire, and it’s basically the same everywhere.

Kot: One thing newspapers are discovering too late is that cultural coverage is important to readers. Since I started writing, there’s been a complete reversal in attitudes toward entertainment versus so-called "serious" writing. A lot more attention is being paid to the writers covering what’s happening in your back yard. It’s Journalism 101: If you cover your own back yard well, you’ll be fine.

You Say Party, They Say D'Urbervilles

The above video is for a track called Downtown Mayors Goodnight, Alley Kids Rule... we'd like to dedicate it to the ultimate demise of the Dungeon and 10 years of keeping kids off the streets and out of trouble.

You Say Party We Say Die! have posted a bulletin on their MySpace.... its goes a little like... well a lot like... this...

Devon offers up four bands he thinks you should hear. Tigerrr Beat, Lioness, Ruby Jean & the Thoughtful Bees plus they have this to say about...

The D'Urbervilles

"these dudes recently put out an album called We Are The Hunters. i play it at work a lot, and most people come into the store really dig it and wanna know who it is that i'm playing, or they just wanna know what the deal is with the peep show booths.

if you've never seen them before you'd probably assume that their music is made by a bunch of greasy suits who leer down their collective noses at you while they wait for you to get your fingers out of their beluga caviar.

what i mean to say (in a roundabout way) is that the music these guys make doesn't sound like music made by what's basically a broke-ass group of musical nomads who tour the country.

their music sounds like music made by some huge band from the future, when maybe really good bands that don't sound like U2 (i hate you U2) and don't totally suck (yeah you, maroon5) actually get recognition beyond dudes like me writing about them on myspace bulletins,

okay, so there you go. fulfill your destiny and check these bands out. it'll only take a few seconds of your life right now, and you can appreciate them for the rest of your life, or at least until world wars 3 through 16, during which time music will be banned and replaced by sloganeering, which will become known as art and will, i'm sure, have a top ten and a monthly chart in the back of exclaim!, and cool things like downloadable ringtones."

Women

Its all happening on the prairies.... Women is a Calgary outfit which includes members of Chad VanGaalen's touring band. Chad produced this debut S/T recording. Clean and clear as early 60's folk the songs were recorded in a variety of spaces including a culvert!?! So there... thats the West for you... what are you doing?

Download Black_Rice.mp3

Cure Gravity

Cure Gravity, Kessel Run and Red Roses Black at the Tattoo Rock Parlour on Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Doors open at 9pm/ Showtime at 10pm. Cover charge of $7 includes Free Cure Gravity CD. TRP is down in the BIg Smog aka Toronto.

Review catch-up

Spring
The Great Outdoors
DDG Records
"Open up your love like a Spring flower
Share this river
Revel in its power"
Move over Vivaldi and tell Tchaikovsky the news...The Great Outdoors has a series of EPs in mind themed on the four seasons. Spring is first of course and has just been released on DDG Records
The Great Outdoors is a Vancity folk collective built around songwriters Adam Nation and Steve Wells. Its a chunkier rockier sound that spotlights Ladyhawk as well at the more traditional instumentation of Rock Central Plaza. There is an undercurrent of melancholy in these three tracks of rebirth but overall there is a sense of clapping away the dust and enjoying those early rays of sunshine.

The Contradictor
Ndidi Onukwulu
Jericho Beach Music
When one has a blues rooted vox such Heather Luckhart as we have here in the D.Rock it serves as a gauge for others. Someone should have this record's producer Steve Dawson listen to the Hokum Runners for a lesson or two in subtlety. B.C.'s Ndidi's chops are audible and I'm sure she is a powerful presence live but here her voice overpowers the song. Talent is not measured by volume. The quieter approach she takes on the latter half of the record showcases her warm frayed edge that sits so well with the Blues. Opener SK Final has been presented as a single but the track, Her House Is Empty KH, works better.

The Arc
Young And Sexy
MInt Records
The appeal of Y&S is beyond me. I find them ernest and boring. But as the Sloan track goes we try to find the good in everyone so...maybe try Spill The Sky. It has some cooing and a psychedelic vibe and the oddest ending.

Rejoice Remain
Junior Pantherz
Saved By Vinyl
Hard driven El Camino blues rocks and progressive psychedelia that has Danko Jones strength riffs and Tricky Woo noodlings. The Mongrels too would fit the bill. Tuba, trombone and violin make appearances but the vox of JP Corp lead Terry Mattson renders it all for nought.

Out with the Old

You're My Home is on the road.

The Godfather of D. Rock... Neil Young's Archives to be released (sooner rather than later) UNCUT

D.Rock's wandering son Jonas Bonnetta is in SPIN

Just becos

It’s not about standing on the shoulders of giants anymore… it’s about jumping over the giants...-

jason tate
absolute punk

Brendan Canning

The ever elusive one time Ajacian member of the D.Rock now BSS founder Brendan Canning has a solo project which will be on Arts & Crafts of course but under the moniker Broken Social Scene Presents.... It's release has been postponed from May until July.  In the meantime as they say...

There's this...

Download hit the wall.mp3

Saint Alvia Cartel

Multiculturalism is the great truth of Canada but in real terms its lead to much division. The idea that one is encouraged to retain one's inherited culture is admirable but when mixed with the unknowns of a new land it can actually breed monoculturalism. The new immigrant worried about losing their identity and told by their new government to hold on to it, will do so possibly to the point of turning their culture into a profession.

Toronto is cited as a city of neighbourhoods but they are not built around geography but ethnicity. One can sample the wares on display without having to engage with the people. The GTA's citizens are tourists in their own town.

I had a chat about this with Matt Richmond of St. Alvia Cartel recently. The other members are Greg Taylor, Ben Rispin, Greg Fisher, Rob Pasalic and Brandon Bliss.

Matt was in Hamilton but his band is a supergroup of Burlington alumni. With members of punk rock pioneers Grade and Boys Night Out plus Matt's band Video Dead, they have moved away from the hardcore past to a mellower sound that quickly references English bands such as the Clash or the Specials or early UB40. HIs band has an Islands sound.

I was curious about the source of the White Reggae S.A.G. play. Matt's says that the band borrows from everywhere and that their collective record collection is vast. He touted Rancid and Offspring as influences.

Its too big a subject for one phoner  but I guess what I was asking was whether the band had any interaction with O.G. ska or roots reggae. Had they come across a Jamaican dancehall band on tour that knocked their socks off? Had they been affected by the annual Caribana parade held in Hogtown?

The answer is that like most kids in this multicultural landscape their real interaction with other cultures is miniscule. Matt (who is the youngest member at 24) couldn't name one reggae or dub or dancehall band that he wished to tour with although he agreed that the idea intrigued him and should S.A.G. reach the point where they can pick their line-up he would love to have those types of bands on the road with them.

None of this has anything to do with the skills that the Cartel bring to the stage. They have written great tracks. But the Clash heard those sounds coming from the West Indian homes in London first hand. They were immersed in that culture on a street level. Its why Strummer (RIP) & Company still sound more authentic. They allowed those voices to speak clearly in their songs. The dub is upfront. Its the core. In Canada the bands add touches of rap, reggae and Caribbean elements as decoration, as the hook but they defer to the Rawk.

When a song that is in real terms foreign to the dominant founding cultures of the Great White North makes it way to the top of the pops then those advocates of multiculturalism can clap themselves on the back.

But for now as the song says Yas gotta keep them separated....

St. Alvia Cartel play the Groove Lounge this Friday night. They are playing with Only Way Back, a hardcore punk band. The Cartel have a long way to go before they can shake their past I guess.