Category: Music

From the new (to me!) CBC Archives:

This 13-minute clip (Windows Media Player required) from 1996 of the Rheostatics discussing their “Music Inspired by the Group of Seven”, which was commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada.

Sarah McLachlan may have made the greatest video ever for a song. And yeah, it made me cry a little bit. (via darryl)

Good interview with Sufjan Stevens, one of a number of great indie musicians who just happen to be Christians. I’ve always despised the label “Christian music” (thinking that there can’t be Christian music any more than there can be Christian cooking or Christian fishing), but lately I’ve found a number of musicians who wear their faith on their sleeve and whom I actually like:

• Sufjan Stevens
• Pedro the Lion
• Half-Handed Cloud
• Danielson Famile/Brother Danielson
• Over the Rhine

(via crabwalk)

• First Record Bought: Led Zeppelin (the first one) (1969), purchased at Halliday’s TV shop at the Parkway Plaza in Scarborough, 1975. My reaction was “this band can play, but the singer sucks!”.
• First Concert: Queen, touring their “Jazz” album, 1978.
• Favourite Music Movie: URGH! A Music War (1981). Runners-up: Rock and Roll High School (1979), with The Ramones, and Stop Making Sense (1984) with Talking Heads.
• Favourite Music Book: Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain.
• Favourite Songwriter: Britt Daniel (Spoon)
• Favourite Producer: Steve Albini
• Favourite Record Label: Matador
• Favourite Magazine: I rarely buy music mags anymore. I picked up Paste recently, and though it’s skewed a bit older (ie. my own supposed demographic), it’s well-written and attractively laid out.
• Favourite Bassist: Barry Adamson (Magazine)
• Favourite Album Cover: Surfer Rosa (1988) by the Pixies, art by Vaughan Oliver.
• Favourite Teen Idol: Avril Lavigne. I’d like to tell her a few jokes, make her smile a bit…
• Artist Who Broke Your Heart: PJ Harvey, when she stopped playing guitar and started wearing dresses.
• Artist You Will Always Believe In: Ask me again in ten years.
• Singer Who Makes Your Skin Crawl: Shania Twain, Cher, and all those other fakers who put their crappy voices through computers to sell records.
• Singer Who Makes You Swoon: Maria McKee, PJ Harvey, Björk
• Favourite Sound: Music
• Album You Will Always Defend: Meat is Murder (1985), by The Smiths.
• Album You Own That No One Else Does: Stands for Decibels (1981), by The dB’s, and Crazy Rhythms (1980), by The Feelies. No one I know owns these, anyway…
• Classic Album You Own but Don’t Like: Rumours (1977), by Fleetwood Mac.
• Artist You’re Supposed to Like but Don’t: Sonic Youth
• Song You Can’t Stand by an Artist You Like: Silver, from Doolittle (1989) by the Pixies.
• Band That Should Break Up: The Rolling Stones
• Band That Should Re-form: Not sure they’re completely disbanded, but it’s unlikely we’ll get any new music from Neutral Milk Hotel. I’m holding out slightly more hope for My Bloody Valentine.
• Guilty Pleasure: A-ha’s “Hunting High and Low” (1985); I’m finally not ashamed to admit that they were pop geniuses.
• Favourite Music DVD: My bootleg URGH! A Music War (1981) DVD-Rs.
• Concert You Wish You’d Seen: Elvis Costello at the El Mocambo in 1978.
• Dream Collaboration: Thanks to MP3 mashups, this one is becoming irrelevant. 😉

In 1996, I made a mixtape for a young guy I knew at my church. He was really into music; in fact, he was a musician. Eight years later, Jason is fronting a band called China Jean. My friend Jay and I went to see them playing at the Horseshoe Tavern last night. Jason had told Jay quite recently that my mixtape had influenced his tastes, so if China Jean finds any measure of success, I’ll be quite gratified.

Digging around, I found a track listing of the tape I made for him. It amazes me that every single band is from the UK or Ireland. I think I’m much less of an Anglophile these days. I also included some great dialogue bits from the animated series “The Tick” and the Coen brothers’ film “Raising Arizona.”