Keeps Me Alive

It all starts with me making a bit of a pain in the ass of myself, bothering whomever I could think of who might be able to help me get my hands on a copy of the new CM & TM tour-only record, called The Sound of the Tone-Echoes from the Past. All of this because I had to miss her recent show close-ish to my house because of work (gah!), yet I dearly wanted to support these two fine artists. And then yesterday, guess what arrived in the mail! With an Air Carolyn sticker on it, and a hand-written (wine-stained) note from Carolyn herself! Oh yes!

You know, I like to think I know my way around the English language fairly well. But standing there in my porch, words failed me. Completely. The joy, it... damn. This is SO SWEET!!!

And the record itself? So awesome. A window into theis pair's genuine, funny and bright world. Trademark gigantic songs, with Carolyn's stunning vocals and Tolan's stellar guitar and so much more, intercut with hilarious answering machine excerpts. Oh yes. Any one of these songs is better than anything you've heard lately. Seriously.

My SINCERE thanks to everyone involved (you know who you are), and especially to you Carolyn (if you ever read this). You rock!

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...

After all these years, I still feel that giddy sense of occasion whenever Pearl Jam releases a new record. This one rules. Each track is focused, unapologetic and fully alive, as though they've finally rediscovered their joy at the sheer fun of just being in a band. Soaring and tender in all the right places, this is also stunning, mature work. Damn, this band is tight.

We have been fortunate to grow along with Pearl Jam as they've continually made a career's-worth of consistent, solid and entirely excellent records. Backspacer is definitely no exception. Independence suits them. Turn it UP!



PS With my two free concert downloads (included with the record), I chose Halifax, NS (09-22-05) and Santiago, Chile (11-22-05). And I downloaded the two free live tracks (Immortality and Last Exit) from the bonus card HMV gave me too. Sweet!

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.