The day the music died

Today, I am devastated and heartbroken beyond comprehension. Despite claims of possible reunification 'sometime in the future', I fear that this is truly the end for Broken Social Scene. I cannot remember a day in my life when I have been so affected by something that has absolutely nothing to do with me directly. Their music has changed my life ever since the very first time I heard the very first chord and I am not quite sure how to handle a 'post' BSS existence. Time to turn off all the lights, get a bottle of wine and loop Feel Good Lost - which will only serve to make me weep uncontrolably. However, I truly don't know how else to honour and mourn the passing of the people who changed my life and saved my soul, because that is what they did for me, every day for the past 9 years.

Now what?

I am hoping that this is yet another case of "the boy who cried wolf" as Kevin has characterized himself. I will remain hopeful and wait patiently . . . thankful for solo endeavours. If this truly is the end, I will be devastated.

How many is too many?

I now officially have 40 versions of Anthems on my iPod. There has been a suggestion that (from someone who obviously has NO idea) that this is unnecessary. I would argue that is bullshit since each one is different - some vastly so. Here are just 2 of my faves - and shining examples of the differences.

Harbourfront 09

Paris 06

The evolution of a song

I absolutely love this song for it's simplicity and have enjoyed watching it evolve with the band over the years. I have to say that they way it is being presented most recently is my favourite - but really, any way will work for me.

2005:


2007:


2007:


2008:


2010:


2011:

Another one bites the dust

As the year winds to a close and I look back at 2010 musically, it will be remembered for 3 things. Firstly, the long overdo release of Forgiveness Rock Record; secondly it is the year I sadly fell out of love with Arcade Fire and lastly; I will remember it as the year I fell hopelessly in love with Mumford and Sons.

Once in a lifetime

When I first heard about the BSS show in Central Park I played the 'Should I, Shouldn't I' game for a few days and then thought, how many times in my life will I want to kick my own ass if I don't go? The answer was well into the triple digits so we immediately formulated the most ridiculous plan ever to attend the not to be missed evening. I flew out of Toronto mid afternoon Saturday, we raced in the cab over to the Park and were met by about 3000 other people who also understood the importance of the event. All told, by the time the show started, I am quite sure attendance topped out at over 6000.

The setlist was phenomenal - my favourite addition being Romance To The Grave - if there is a track off of FRR that can explain to the world exactly who they are, it's that one. Older crowd faves like Ibi, Shorelines, Looks Just Like the Sun and Cause were all present and accounted for, with FRR heavily represented.

The set was longer than I expected and the whole night was surreal (we stayed up all night in NY and caught a 6:00 am flight back to Toronto), but there was 1 disappointment.

Their performance was beefed up with the addition of back up tracks - that cut fairly deep. For anyone who has ever seen them live, we recognize that a huge part of their whole 'mystique' is that any given performance will be different from the previous and the subsequent performance due to who shows up on stage each night. This is why I have 27 versions of Anthems. I am hoping that backing tracks are not now going to be a staple of their live gigs.

Anyway - all in all a pretty inspiring night, I can now say that BSS has brought me to tears in Central Park (thanks to Lover's Spit and Hotel). I feel a bit like I should do a Mastercard commercial . . . "concert ticket $31, return airfare to NYC with 16 hour turn around time $600, seeing your favourite band play Central Park - dreamy and priceless."

Oh, and an aside - if you don't know when to clap in Stars & Sons, just don't effing clap at all!

And thank you to Mother Nature for holding back the rain, although I don't even think that could have ruined our night.

Just another Wednesday night, no biggie

My Wednesday night is not nearly as fun as this . . . so I live vicariously. How can you not love people who can do this?

Aha!

Next time someone asks you the meaning of life, play them this.

New Instructions

Proud to be Canadian

So I am going to send this interview to anyone who ever asks me why I think an overwhelming majority of so-called 'mainstream' artists (and I use this term loosely) are full of shit. BECAUSE THEY CANNOT SPEAK INTELLIGENTLY ABOUT THEIR ART. Alan is my favourite music journalist and he also happens to be Canadian, I have been listening to/reading his stuff in a variety of forms for over 20 years and the man asks questions I want the answers to. He knows the Toronto music scene better than anyone and had a hand in many artists in this city ever seeing any airplay to begin with.

Luckily, the ratio is fairly decent - for every shitty Canadian artist like the boys from Nickelback, Drake or Bieber (to name a few current thorns in my side), there are at least 2 remarkably talented artists like Charlie and Kevin. For that math, I am truly grateful.

A day 4.5 years in the making

So, now that I have had a full 36 hours with Forgiveness Rock Record (and I do mean a FULL 36 hours - it has not been turned off, even slept with it on a loop) here are my thoughts.

For so many reasons I love this album, I cannot possibly put them all into words. The first thing that struck me is how un-unified it is in comparisson to YFIP and BSS, which both seemed to have such a natural flow. FRR does not have that flow that makes it seem like a cohesive 'unit', which I expected to be a bad thing. What I loved most in particular about YFIP was that it seemed like a story unfolding in chapters - each track seemed to follow almost like a natural consequence of the previous track - and this was a huge part of the why I became so addicted to it. Naturally - after hearing clips of a few tracks off of FRR before the leak, I was concerned that this album may not have that quality and I wondered how it would hold up. Turns out - my concern was COMPLETELY unfounded. In fact, a major piece of the puzzle that is my growing love for FRR is the fact that it is so random. The songs still seem to belong to eachother, just in a remarkably different way. Anyway - enough about the album as a whole.

I love World Sick for the conversation that happens all the way through between the guitars.

I love Chase Scene for it's 70's vibe and effects.

I think I liked live versions of Texico Bitches better, but it is still an awesome song.

I am one of the few it seems who don't hate Forced to Love. It's organized chaos, and it is beautiful.

I am still waiting for All to All to grow on me but I do like Lisa's vocals.

I have loved Water in Hell since the first time I heard it - I think in 07. I actually prefer the album version of this one to the live versions. Sure to be my summer anthem.

Art House Director sounds so much more like and AoH song - even minus the Whitey vocals - seems like it should have been on his album.

Highway Slipper Jam makes me giggle - love the mini scat at the beginning and the instrumentation and Lisa's vocals, I am again in the minority in the fact that I actually think Lisa is a valuable addition to the band. It also sounds like it could have been on YFIP.

Sentimental Xs is not what I was expecting but still a beautiful song with great textures.

Sweetest Kill breaks my heart every time I hear it.

I need more time with Ungrateful Little Father, it has not told me how to explain it in words yet.

Romance To the Grave sounds like it could have been on Feel Good Lost - beautiful layers and such a warm feeling.

Me and My Hand was cute the first few times - then I started to skip over it, but it's back in the loop now, I get it.

I have saved the best for last. Meet Me in the Basement may actually overtake my previous favourite song ever (Stars & Sons live in Paris 05). I am left with a dilema however. I am a huge fan of live tracks - often preferring them to studio 'produced' versions of many songs. The 2 things I love most about this song have not been (on the few occasions I have seen it played live) and cannot be replicated live. The first is the wall of sound that is 7,952 horns. I hear so many colours, textures and layers that even if they had all of their sometime horn players (all 10 of them) out with them on the road, they could not match it. The other issue is that my very favourite part of the song is the additional, and decidedly un-Peroff percussion rythyms and sounds that bring such depth to what is easily the best, most well developped track on the whole album. Obviously waiting for liner notes to confirm it (possibly McEntire but not sure), but if that is all Justin, I'll eat my hat. Oh - and if I am not mistaken, there is some flute in there too, how can I not love that?

Anyway, there you have it - and if you read this whole entry - I don't mean to alarm you, but you're a music geek.

Meet Me In the Basement

Forgiveness indeed

Now that I have had some time to sit with the studio production version of World Sick - some early reflections. It should be noted that live versions I have been witness to recently do not do the album version justice - falling exceedingly in love.

-masterful use of dynamics
-beautifully done almost conversational interplay back and forth between guitars
-opening percussion build up foreshadows greatness to come - Justin has stepped up his game significantly here, and he was already pretty damn fucking awesome
-reminiscent of Feel Good Lost (and that is an immensely great thing)
-simply beautiful bass line
-phenomenal textures in the Joy Division-esque instrumental bridge
-glad to hear Johnny in the male 'chorus' vocals

I could go on for hours, so I will leave you with this parting thought. Conclusion: the hiatus was a long 4.5 years (thank goodness for solo projects!) but with art like this, how can we begrudge them whatever it took to get them to a place where something this wonderful is possible?

World Sick

They're back . . . and they've got company!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nuf said!!!!

Feel Great Lost

So if you've read any of my previous entries you may have noticed that I am a bit of a musicophile. More specifically, a Canadian (and even more specifically Toronto) musicophile. I am constantly amazed by the spectacular art that comes out of a city that I have lived in all my life and for the most part I am generally unimpressed with. There really is no other word for my relationship with Broken Social Scene than to call it an addiction, so I thought I would share the song that started it all. In 2002 I was in the passenger seat of a car in Scarborough with the windows open stopped at a traffic light when I was immediately struck by the sounds coming from the car beside us. Going against everything in my nature, I stuck my head out the window and asked the other driver what they were listening to. It was Last Place, and the rest, as they say - is history.

Last Place

Really . . . . .

I was going to wait until I was slightly less pissed at having missed this to say anything, but I can not. One of the very few benefits of living in Toronto is that I get to see more BSS than anyone. If you have read any of my earlier posts, you know that I have been waiting DESPERATELY to see 17 people on a stage again for a couple of years now. Not that the smaller BSS incarnations of recent years have not been fabulous and better than anything else out there, but I fucking loved the S/T era BSS when shows were a minimum of 15 people. So imagine my absolute frustration when I found out that my sister's friends decided that July 11 would be the perfect date for her surprise birthday dinner. Not that I do not love my sister and not that there was even any question that I would go - but because I went to that, I missed 19 fucking people on a stage. Not only that, according to the videos on YouTube - it may have been the best show in years, in particular, Anthems with all 3 girls looked absolutely magical. I can only hope that with the new album come more shows like Saturday night - I know, I'm delusional - let's just let me have that pipe dream for now so that I don't have to kill anyone.

Anyway, not much else to say about it other than that I knew my sister was going to be trouble the day they brought her home from the hospital 33 years ago - I told them to take her back, but no one ever listens to me!!!!

Wayback machine

So I feel like I got in a time machine last night and went back to pre hiatus days circa 2005 ish. What an awesome night! Whitey, Kev, Charlie, Brendan, Sammmy, Liam, Lisa, Leslie, Cranley, Julie, John(!!!), Ohad, Jason, JP . . . epic night. The 6 new tracks were hot, they did some old faves: 7/4, Almost, Fire Eye'd, MLD and the elusive New Country (New Country people - haven't heard that live in about 6 years!), plus the oft heard (at recent shows) anthemic Meet Me In the Basement - new album promising to be stellar. With their new tracks they seem to be waving their indie flag pretty furiously, with less "excessive vocal reverb" and "stabby guitar delay" (yes, that was a dig at Pitchfork).

The AoH set was, as always, an adventure - different arrangements keeping everyone guessing, Jason's set with Zeus was hot in his totally cool way, and then there was the Happiness Project and Years. I don't think everyone in the audience quite understood the artistry of Ohad or Charlie as the DMST boys displayed their phenomenal 'art projects'.

The vibe of the evening in general was much like a high school reunion of sorts (espescially since I did actually go to High School with some members of the band) - like a return home after exploring what the big bad world had to offer and realizing that home is so much more magical than you had remembered. I would have liked to have put my life on pause so I could have replayed it over and over again, I'm seriously hoping it wasn't all a dream . . . and that tonight is equally as fantastic. Going to have a nap now cause I'm old and don't do 3:00 am well - espescially not when I have to do it a few nights in a row.

Blah . . .

Most days I really do believe I have the best job in the universe. Then, I go and see something like this and I realize that my job really sucks. I hate the 9 year old me who decided that because she was a girl she would not play the drums - oh how my life would have been different. Who the hell lets 9 year olds make life altering decisions anyway?




EDIT: And now that I have officially finished Stuart's Book (after reading each section about 12 times before moving on to the next section - it's THAT good), I think my life sucks even more. Boo hiss.

Spring is in the air

OK, so best day in a long time. In less than 2 hours I will have in my hot little hands THE book, I am going to see the Hip at Toronto's awesomest venue tonight and - oh yeah, then there's this . . . from JP's Twitter "departing for chicago in 29 hours. bss new record: activate."
Some days someone out there likes me a lot.

The shit

Just cuz I really miss this and Brendan eluded to them being back on the Olympic bill this summer but there has been no news at all about a date or lineup (usually there would have been something by now). . .

Could there be a better way to ring in a New Year?

So I've just had to change my New Years Eve plans . . .


"If you find yourself in Toronto this New Years Eve, come to the Phoenix where Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning and Jimmy Shaw of Metric will be hosting a dance party for the ages."


It seems I will be ringing in 2009 with a bunch of 17 year olds whilst looking for the ghost of Rory O'Shea in the Parlour . . . ahhhh the Pheonix in the 90's . . .

If I had a million dollars

I was having a conversation with some friends the other night about what extravagancies we would splurge on if we won a million dollars. Some people had noble ideas like donating the majority to Habitat for Humanity or Doctors Without Borders (it should be noted I think those people are full of shit - they would be on a world cruise so fast your head would spin), others suggested helping out family members with mortgages/loans and some were absolutely homest and said they would buy an obscenely ridiculous car and go on lavish holidays. In pondering what I would honestly do with a sudden windfall I have come to a conclusion, which lead to everyone else in the room coming to an entirely different conclusion about me.

My conclusion:
It did not take me long to decide that in all seriousness, I would give my winnings to Jeffrey Remedios in exchange for a seat on the bus for the next tour. There are deeper issues there that I am not going to get into now (another post for another day) that made me choose this, but let's just say that some people dream of running away to join the circus, I dream of running away to join a band. Well, not a band, the band. There's a difference.

Their conclusion:
I am crazy.

Seriously? Who would not want to share this stage?





Did I mention I play a mean bell tree?