Keeps Me Alive

Yes, it's been a pathetically long time since my last appearance here. But remember, it's like John Lennon said, "life is what happens when you're busy making plans," and man, I have been busy making plans to post here for WAY too long. So here's some of the shit I've been listening to. More to come, 'cos I've filled my iPod with all kinds of stuffs. Wahoo!

Terrible Hostess, Volume 2

Hooray for our friends at Mint Records! As you all know, Carolyn Mark and NQ Arbuckle have just released a tasty new disc of excellent music called Let's Just Stay Here. Talk about making our year! So, in honour of this release, our great friends at Mint sent us some really sweet swag... buttons and stickers (love the airline 'Fragile' stickers with Air Carolyn on them!), a Carolyn and NQ luggage tag, and a blood red dish towel to go with a beautiful copy of Carolyn's Terrible Hostess: Recipes For Disaster, Volume 2 cookbook! Some of the recipes look downright tasty and I can't wait to try them (with recommended music playing and recommended drink in hand).

Slayer - World Painted Blood

Business-as-usual chaos as only Slayer can muster it. Play this as loud as your player can go. SLAYER!

Slipknot - Slipknot 10th Anniversary Edition

The CD's the real draw in this set, with all the brutal honesty and aggression intact... and bonus tracks! Sweet.

Hawksley Workman - We'll Make Time (Even When There Ain't No Time)

New Hawksley is coming! Get ready! James found this radio broadcast world premiere. It's a one-idea slow build with enough lyrics to make anyone run out of breath, crashing full-on into rock-out bliss. Ah, Hawksley.

Guided By Sloan

Just noticed that in the liner notes for Sloan's Navy Blues, Guided By Voices is listed as having shared the stage. Imagine THAT show! I think I'd pass out with bliss...

Big Pink - A Brief History Of Love

Spent the whole time listening to this recognizing all of the influences that have given them their sound (U2, Oasis, Coldplay and tiresomely beyond). Shame they haven't found their own sound out of the list.

Cage The Elephant - Cage The Elephant

This would sound great live. Kind of reminds me of the Trews although, if they meant what they said in the first track, they don't give a shit what comparisons I can make. Just a great, fun rawk record.

Wild Beasts - Limbo, Panto

Oddly compelling, with weird party music and falsetto vocals. Could almost be the soundtrack to a 60's stage show musical. Are we sure this isn't a Darkness side project?

Yim Yames - A Tribute To

My Morning Jacket dude's tribute to George Harrison. Stripped-down renditions show the strength of the originals and let the covers shine too.

Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

New country meets the moxy of the classic country ladies of days gone by, with a few dud tracks thrown in. This lady can sing, that's for sure. One foot in a bold new direction, the other stuck in the same old schtick.

Iggy Pop - Preliminaires

Man, Iggy rules. Only this particular wild man could foist such a collection of jazzy. bluesy, rock-ish and Parisian-sounding stuff on our ears and get away with it. And without ridicule, too. Strangely compulsive, and not just because it's Iggy (and therefore we must love it). A welcome diversion, so long as it's not an admission that he's finally slowing down for good.

Harry Connick, Jr. - Blue Light, Red Light

This takes me back to high school .Yes, I was THAT guy back then. Still am now, I'll have you know. Great swing, astounding arrangements in the best of this style's traditions. Could be the soundtrack to a grainy-colour 60's musical, and that's a very, very good thing.

Flight Of The Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky

We all love these guys by now, with their quirky humour that's laugh-out-loud funny. Even if you set aside the images from the TV show in your mind, this is still an hilariously danceable record. These guys are really onto something.

Yeah, so it's been a while. Again.

Fuck Your Pain Away

Our buddy Brian is the King of Mixes. He has a long history, going right back to the mix tapes of years and years ago. He spends hours on them, getting the mix just right. He always picks just enough bands I've heard of (but not always the usual tracks), and tons of bands I've never known existed. Where he finds all this stuff, I'll never know. These days, the internet must be helpful, but back in the day it must've been more difficult. Brian just attracts good music to him, somehow. And now he has computer technologies so he can even fade one song into the next, like a radio station, and he photoshops fancy covers to go with it all. It's very High Fidelity, and it's awesome because every so often I am privileged to receive a new mix from him.

During their recent visit here from the States, Brian brought several new mixes with him. Hooray! This first one is called Fuck Your Pain Away, after the first line of the first song, and it's a great mix. Rockin' indie-sounding mayhem that shifts into smooth reggae bliss and then back again. Loved it.

Track List:

Clicks - Complicated
Olympus Mons - Being God
Gossip - Fire With Fire
Against Me! - Don't Lose Touch
Eagles Of Death Metal - I Want You So Hard (Bad Boy News)
Magenta Lane - Daggers Out!
Tapes N' Tapes - Insistor
Kings Of Leon - Charmer
White Stripes - Little Cream Soda
Silver Sun Pickups - Lazy Eye
Clicks - Oh Yeah
Johnstones - No Time For The Moment
Zerolene - All Good
Aggrolites - Work It
Delroy Wilson - This Life Makes Me Wonder
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Hold Tight
Detroit Cobras - Shout Bama Lama
Immaculate Machine - Jarhand
You Say Party! We Say Die! - You Dit It
Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive
Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
Clicks - Cry Me A River
Noisettes - Don't Give Up
Chris Ligon - Crazy Daisy

That was awesome.

The Visit

Another mix from Brian, this one is very soulful, with tons of great tracks that groove and slide and gently hold your hand as it smoothly goes from song to song. Nice one in the car.

Track List:

Ray LaMontagne - You're The Best Thing
Rapheal Saddiq - Sure Hope You Meant It
John Legend - Slow Dance
Al Green - Take Your Time (f. Corinne Bailey Rae)
Emiliana Torrini - Heartstopper
Adele - First Love
Rocco DeLuca - Open Pages
Alexi Murdoch - Orange Sky
Brett Dennen - Desert Sunrise
Coco Rosie - Noah's Ark
Nizlopi - Helen
Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
Ben Folds - You Don't Know Me (f. Regina Spektor)
Kooks - Naive
Pretenders - Breakin' The Concrete
Jill Sobule - Palm Springs
Decemberists - The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid
Loretta Lynn - Portland, Oregon (f. Jack White)
Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes
Bob Dylan - One More Cup Of Coffee
Madeline - I Left The Light on

Lovely!

Jowi Taylor - Six String Nation

Charting the adventures of a guitar named Voyageur, which was made from many chunks of our collective nation, this book is fascinating. It has warmth, humour, intelligence and creativity - just like us. Well done, and recommended.

Reinhard Kleist - Johnny Cash: I See A Darkness

I was quite impressed by this graphic novel. The artwork is stark yet full, and the choice of black and white is fitting. The story is the one we all know already, with a bonus bit that you might not know about, told by a prisoner at Fulsom. We all love Cash. Bet he'd love that someone made him into a comic book.

Jack Johnson - En Concert

I have this thing about Jack Johnson's music. Although there's a fundamental punker part of me that resists it on some level, ultimately I always get into the groove pretty easily. This live record is beautifully recorded and the track-to-track mixing (each track recorded in a different place on tour) is seamless. It's a showcase of the talented musicians on stage, pure and simple, and a love-fest with Johnson's ardent fans. I will play this many, many times.

Y'all need to get yourselves on over to www.sloanmusic.com and sign up (or update) your email subscription to Sloan's newsletter so you can download their new single for FREE!

Go! Go! GO! NOW!

Tell 'em the KMA sent you...

So yah, it's been a while. Good to see you.

Robert Pollard - Elephant Jokes

You'd think we'd get tired of this guy's constant output. After all, how much can one person create and not have it all sound the same? If you said 'not much,' then you've never really listened to Robert Pollard. This is intelligent jangly weirdo power pop that always hits the sweet spot. It's varied and creative and fun. This is reason to celebrate! I hope he makes a million more. He probably will.

Ford Pier - Adventurism

Perfect freak-out session of musical insouciance from Mr. Pier. Subtitled "Torture Is The New Anal," this record offers up so much time signature-twisting awesomeness that first listen doesn't come close to giving it all to you. Even the cover is upside down (or is it just my copy?). Along for the ride this time are Jason Tait, Michael Philip Wojewoda and Ryan Granville-Martin. And I'd really like to know why Martin Tielli is the man to see about schedules... Well, whatever. Folks, this record is another slice of unabashed, unapologetic brilliance. A snapshot of a rare talent, indeed. Loved it.

Les Paul

R.I.P. Les Paul.

Oasis

Yeah well, down the hatch. Good riddance.

Busted Flatt

First heard Rascal Flatt's atrocious cover of Tom Cochrane's 'Life Is A Highway' on country radio on my neighbour's crappy stereo in his garage. I couldn't believe my ears. So, of course, I went home and looked it up on YouTube. I was blown away by the absolute horror of this version. The life has been sucked right out of it. The vocals are slow, and the twangy good-ol'-boy schtick does not work at all. The backing track is perfunctory New Country to the point of making it faceless and unrecognizable from any of a million other songs on CMT. Holy shit, that was BAD. Bad bad bad bad bad!

Trivia! Carolyn Mark 'Slithers'

Bet you didn't know that Carolyn Mark and The New Best Friends are on the soundtrack for the movie Slither. Yep, there they are, doing '2 Days Smug And Sober' from the brilliant Pros And Cons Of Collaboration record. Neat!

Still gotta try making a Bourbon Decay one of these days...

The New Hotness

Part of what's been keeping me busy around here arrived the other day, in the form of a 40" television and a surround sound system to go with it. The TV's alright (as far as TVs go, I'm no expert), but the promise of a big sub with surround speakers sets my skin to tingling. Haven't got it hooked up yet, but just imagining Metallica cranked in there makes me really happy indeed. Oh baby.

Apple and iPod

So I announced a month ago that I'd awesomely got an iPod for my birthday. To this day, I still don't have any music on it! I know! The issue seems to be that iTunes only wants me to pull things from my laptop's hd, when all of my music is stored on my wireless external hd. So it means another step to move it all back to the lappy's hd and, frankly, there's not much room there, so it'd require several moves/deletions to get it all on the iPod... and even then that's only if I can figure out a way to be allowed to add things in chunks. Also, iTunes keeps wanting me to make libraries and playlists and all this other proprietary horseshit I care nothing about - man, I just want to drag folders onto the iPod and be done with it.

James has been a big help, but not having a Mac he's a bit out of depth in getting workarounds on that OS figured out. I'm thisclose to calling Mac themselves and having them hold my hand through the process. I'm also considering downloading some external freeware that seems to promise it'll let me do what I want. As it stands right now, iTunes is nothing but a humungous pain in the ass.

Tributes To The Vines and Godsmack

I got these at the dollar store, so you know they're high quality. And not really remembering any of the actual songs by either band will surely hinder these reviews completely. Released on Tributized Records (haha, that's classy), both records are fine, I suppose. Glowing, right? Right!

The Vines Tribute has eight cover tunes by bands you'll surely never hear again and, while they're passable, well, whatever. The disc improves when you get to Iggy Pop (live), Flamin' Groovies and Johnny Thunders tracks as the 'roots of the Vines,' and then the dude from Cinderella's new band's bonus original track. Yes, they went all out on this collection. At least it was only a buck.

As for the Godsmack disc, the Pagan Rock Allstars (oh baby) give us the "essence of Godsmack," which amounts to an exercise in nu-metal imitation. A couple of other bands whose names you'll never utter chip in too before we get the 'roots of Godsmack,' one track of which kinda rules. It's a cover of Metallica's 'Battery' by Eric A.K. (of Flotsam and Jetsam, which was Jason Newstead's band before joining Metallica), Robert Trujillo (haha he plays with them now), Dave Lombardo (SLAYER!!!) and Mike Clark (the producer?). Truly shows you how much that track needs Hetfield's vocals but the song is so awesome that your Grandma could rock it. Now there's an image. Anyway, There's also Venom and Paul Di'Anno and yet another track from the Cinderella dude's new band yada yada yada. Once through this thing was enough.

Hilarious, and not bad for two bucks. Will I play them again? Probably not.

Black Cross - Art Offensive

I also got this one at the dollar store, and actually it's pretty awesome. It's like old school punk, only better produced. Lots of aggression, searing guitars and a driving bottom end. Of course, like all good hardcore-sounding albums - by the end you're sure you've heard the same song 12 times in a row but who the hell cares? At high enough volume, even a couple of these tracks in a row can get your blood pumping and make you indignant as hell without knowing why. Fun.

K'NAAN - Troubadour

I bought this 'cos it was cheap, and I'd heard good things about it somewhere once, I think. Also, somehow I connected K-OS and K'NAAN in my brain. Maybe it was all the upper case letters. And if ever there was a good reason to buy a record, upper case letters is definitely it. Well, it has a duet with Kirk Hammett on it so I'd want to hear that, at any rate. And Mos Def and Damien Marley too, so why not?

And the disc? The music has great moments, with lots of world and soul influences and cool beats. The vocals, however, leave a lot to be desired. He's got flow at times but, seriously, he only every raps on one note. Fine, but after two or three tracks it's incredibly boring. Add to that an Eminem-sounding nasal sarcasm tone in places and it's, well, derivative. When he hits the more melodic tracks and sings, it's soft-pedalled and lovey-dovey. Not nearly as vocally interesting as K-OS. Should I even be comparing these two? Um, I dunno. This record has a whole lotta songs that'd make great mix-tape tracks. Don't think I could listen to the whole thing all the way through again, though. Chacun son gout.

Folks, today is a beautiful day.

I. Have. An. iPod. YES!!!!!!!!

You see, my birthday is this week, and my family and my wife all went in and got me one. Was I surprised? Hell yes! Does this please me? You have no idea how much this pleases me.

It is a thing of beauty. It's the dark grey Classic iPod, with 120 GB of space. Yes, you read that correctly...

120 GB!!!

Recently, I was thrilled when I got Gordie, my (now next-to) newest MP3 player. It has 2 GB on it, and that was huge to me. Well, 120 GB, my friends, boggles the mind. Boggles!!

It is already synced to my Macbook Pro, and it's charging away happily as I type this. Soon I will begin the process of loading it up with everything I could ever possibly want to hear. That'll be SO sweet.

I cannot thank everyone enough. This is huge. This is beyond huge.

This is... amazing.