Category: Music

Dave Bidini, guitarist for my favourite Canadian band, The Rheostatics, has compiled a list of 50 songs about Toronto. Dave’s just a couple of years older than me, so this brings back floods of memories. One day Dave and I are going to sit down and talk… (via boingboing)

This isn’t exactly breaking news, but Spoon has given permission for people to upload any live shows to the Internet Live Music Archive. There’s just one show there now, but expect this to grow over time. The files are in a lossless audio format (ie. not MP3) and it might take a bit of techie know-how to work with them, but I think that you can make some really great sounding CD-Rs from this stuff.

For those of you who received my limited-edition Compilation Champs SxSW 2003 CD this year, let me know what you thought. If you missed out, and would like one, email me your mailing address and I’ll get one out to you.

A couple of more links for the music fans:

• Punk77: Punk Rock in the UK 1976-1979
• A Chronological History of English Glam Rock

As well, I’ve been using Sam Ley‘s excellent iScrobbler plugin for iTunes for a while now. Unfortunately, the Audioscrobbler site itself has been down for several days with more database woes, I assume. When it comes back up, check out iScrobbler!

As the result of a sales contest at work, I won an iPod a while back. On Friday, I finally received it, and have been deliriously happy ever since. I have almost 2500 songs packed onto the little thing, and am doubly happy I received it in time for my annual trek to SxSW. Speaking of which, if you are going, and have any last minute requests for Canadian candy or maple syrup or Rheostatics or Sloan CDs or mukluks or what-have-you, now is the time to let me know…

The Mod Pop Punk Archives is a nice site documenting the late 70s music scene, and includes a large selection of MP3s from some mostly-forgotten bands. It’s a nice way to immerse yourself in another time. I felt like I was 14 again, that’s for sure.

The reason I’m linking it is that, in compiling my annual Compilation Champs CD for South by Southwest, it came to my attention that a whopping 40% of the music on it was made in the 1970s. I suppose that’s because the 1970s were when I was discovering music in the first place. The first LP I ever purchased was Led Zeppelin’s first album, from Halliday’s TV shop at the Parkway Plaza. My ten-year old impression was that the band could play, but man that singer had a crappy voice. But most of the music that means the most to me was released between 1976 and 1981. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those years correspond to the years between 11 and 16 for me. Does this hold true for the rest of you as well?