There is a snowstorm hitting the city tonight and I am at the studio watching curling. There is not a whole lot more I can say.
Here’s what I played tonight.
AC Newman - Drink To Me Babe Then (From The Slow Wonder)
Archers Of Loaf - Wrong (From Icky Mettle)
Built To Spill - Strange (From Ancient Melodies Of The Future)
The Constantines - Young Lions (From Shine A Light)
Destroyer - 3000 Flowers (From Destroyer’s Rubies)
The Ghost Is Dancing - Organ (From The Darkest Spark)
The D’ubervilles - Shout It Out (From S/T)
The Buzzcocks - Running Free (From Parts 1-3)
Tegan & Sara - Dark Come Soon (From The Con)
The Weakerthans - Tournament of Hearts (From Reunion Tour)
Morrissey - All You Need Is Me (From Years Of Refusal)
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Bridges, Square (From Hearts of Oak)
Spoon - The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine (From Gimme Fiction)
The Replacements - Unsatisfied (From Let It Be)
Samiam - The Bridge (From S/T)
Nothington - Stop Screaming (From Roads, Bridges and Ruins)
Sebadoh - Truly Great Thing (From III)
Pavement - Here (From Slanted & Enchanted)
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Airplane Over The Sea (From In The Airplane Over The Sea)
Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal (From S/T)
Nada Surf - Blizzard or ’77 (From Let Go)
John Rae & The River - Fire (From Knows What You Need)
Neko Case - South Tacoma Way (From Furnace Room Lullaby)
Lucero - Nights Like These (From Tennessee)
Ladyhawk - S.T.H.D (From Shots)
Pretty Boy Thorson & The Fallen Angels - Remember The Lillies Of The Goddamn Field (From Take It Easy)
Rumbleseat - Cursing Concrete (From The Rumbleseat Electic Demos)
Attack In Black - Let Wander Your Restless Heart (From Attack In Black / Baby Eagle Split)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Topic Of Conversation - February 19, 2009
Tonight, we slowed things down.
On a typical Friday, I am raring to go; Full of energy. This week, by contrast, I just needed to wind down after a long week.
Here then, with the exception of a few notable tracks, is what I put on to relax.
Cake - Sad Songs and Waltzes (From Fashion Nugget)
The Constantines - Sub-Domestic (From Daytrotter Sessions 2/18/2010)
The Constantines - Million Dollar Hotel (From Daytrotter Sessions 2/18/2010)
The Constantines - Trans Canada (From Daytrotter Sessions 2/18/2010)
The Constantines - I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song (From Daytrotter Sessions 2/18/2010)
Daniel, Fred & Julie - The Gambler And His Bride (From S/T)
Woody Guthrie - Do-Re-Mi (From Folkways: The Original Version)
Leadbelly - Cotton Fields (From Folkways: The Original Version)
Attack In Black - Sparrow (From Curve Of The Earth)
The Palace Brothers - I Am A Cinematographer (From S/T)
Chad VanGaalen - Willow Tree (From SoftAirplane)
Tim Barry - Avoiding Catatonic Surrender (From Rivanna Junction)
John K. Samson - Heart Of The Continent (From City Route 85 ep)
American Steel - Hurlin’ (From Destroy Their Future)
Brian Fallon - Tin Pan Alley (From Ragan/Fallon 7”)
Chuck Ragan - Geraldine (From Feast or Famine)
Chris Wollard & The Ship Theives - Reason In My Rhyme (From S/T)
The Deadly Snakes - Gore Veil (From Porcella or A Bird In The Hand Is Worthless)
Defiance, Ohio. - Oh, Susquehanna! (From The Great Depression)
Against Me! - Unsubstantiated Rumours (From As The Eternal Cowboy)
Old 97’s - Old Familiar Steam (From Wreck Your Life... And Then Some)
Old 97’s - Sound Of Running (From Wreck Your Life... And Then Some)
The Pogues - Dirty Old Town (From Rum, Sodomy & Lash)
The Replacements - Androgynous (From Let It Be)
Thrush Hermit - I’m Sorry If Your Heart Has No More Room (From Sweet Homewrecker)
Dinosaur Jr. - We’re Not Alone (From Beyond)
Lucero - The Devil & Maggie Chascarillo (From 1372 Overton Park)
The Hold Steady - Yeah Sapphire (From Stay Positive)
The Clash - Robber Dub (From Super Black Market Clash)
You can find The Constantines Daytrotter session here:
On a typical Friday, I am raring to go; Full of energy. This week, by contrast, I just needed to wind down after a long week.
Here then, with the exception of a few notable tracks, is what I put on to relax.
Cake - Sad Songs and Waltzes (From Fashion Nugget)
The Constantines - Sub-Domestic (From Daytrotter Sessions 2/18/2010)
The Constantines - Million Dollar Hotel (From Daytrotter Sessions 2/18/2010)
The Constantines - Trans Canada (From Daytrotter Sessions 2/18/2010)
The Constantines - I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song (From Daytrotter Sessions 2/18/2010)
Daniel, Fred & Julie - The Gambler And His Bride (From S/T)
Woody Guthrie - Do-Re-Mi (From Folkways: The Original Version)
Leadbelly - Cotton Fields (From Folkways: The Original Version)
Attack In Black - Sparrow (From Curve Of The Earth)
The Palace Brothers - I Am A Cinematographer (From S/T)
Chad VanGaalen - Willow Tree (From SoftAirplane)
Tim Barry - Avoiding Catatonic Surrender (From Rivanna Junction)
John K. Samson - Heart Of The Continent (From City Route 85 ep)
American Steel - Hurlin’ (From Destroy Their Future)
Brian Fallon - Tin Pan Alley (From Ragan/Fallon 7”)
Chuck Ragan - Geraldine (From Feast or Famine)
Chris Wollard & The Ship Theives - Reason In My Rhyme (From S/T)
The Deadly Snakes - Gore Veil (From Porcella or A Bird In The Hand Is Worthless)
Defiance, Ohio. - Oh, Susquehanna! (From The Great Depression)
Against Me! - Unsubstantiated Rumours (From As The Eternal Cowboy)
Old 97’s - Old Familiar Steam (From Wreck Your Life... And Then Some)
Old 97’s - Sound Of Running (From Wreck Your Life... And Then Some)
The Pogues - Dirty Old Town (From Rum, Sodomy & Lash)
The Replacements - Androgynous (From Let It Be)
Thrush Hermit - I’m Sorry If Your Heart Has No More Room (From Sweet Homewrecker)
Dinosaur Jr. - We’re Not Alone (From Beyond)
Lucero - The Devil & Maggie Chascarillo (From 1372 Overton Park)
The Hold Steady - Yeah Sapphire (From Stay Positive)
The Clash - Robber Dub (From Super Black Market Clash)
You can find The Constantines Daytrotter session here:
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Hey, I'm in Razorcake!
If you haven't heard of Razorcake, you're missing out. It is possibly the best zine around. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to write the following for them. I hope to work with them some more in the future.
enjoy...
English Author Graham Greene once wrote “Man is made by the places in which he lives.”
The line, which comes from his 1938 book Brighton Rock, raises an interesting perspective on life. Perhaps, more than any other factor, where we come from shapes who we are. Think about it for a moment. If you were not born in the city you were, would your friends be the same? Would you have gone to the same schools, have the same favourite books? Listen to the same music?
Personally, I doubt it. At least in my case, had I not grown up in the bedroom community of Cambridge, Ontario, my life would have been drastically different. I would not have had the same friends. Not been in the same band, and most importantly, not likely been exposed to the same music scene.
Cambridge is about an hour’s drive west of Toronto, and doesn’t have a lot going for it. Factories, minor hockey, and coffee shops are its lifelines. There are no grand concert halls, no avant-garde art spaces, or really any big venues to expose oneself to culture.
What Cambridge did have going for it was a love of grassroots art and its proximity to Canada’s biggest and most diverse city, Toronto, and university towns, such as Guelph, Ontario. There were a shit-ton of bored teens who were looking for a way out, and most turned to music at some point.
Growing up, I can recall loads of local bands, playing in makeshift spaces. Kids just trying to kill time and have some fun. The Steel Workers Union hall would put on shows once or twice a year. They were licensed to serve booze, but teens were still allowed. Some of the first punk rock I ever encountered was at theses show. Just as the Epifat sound started getting huge, a large influx of local bands appeared. Bands like Furnaceface or Toronto’s The Sinisters would headline to a rotating crop of bands from around the area.
The woman who worked the bar was about seventy and was easily convinced that you were old enough to drink. The turnout was always great at these shows because kids knew you could get good and loaded and see some decent music.
Some of the better bands started setting up little record labels. They would put out a few demos and every once in a while; the better stuff would turn up at the local shops. Sure, for a few years, there were no record stores in Cambridge, a city of 100,000, but we managed to survive.
In the mid-‘90s labels like Raw Energy Records put out some great stuff from bands all across the greater Toronto area. While the early punks feasted on bands like Hamilton’s Teenage Head, or The Forgotten Rebels, the newer generation had bands like Marilyn’s Vitamins (members later formed the recently defunct Hostage Life), or Jersey to grow up with. It seemed that every time a touring act needed an opener, some band from either Stomp Records or Raw Energy was there to round out the bill. The music was never great, but the scene was forming. The crowds got bigger, and the faces got more familiar.
Guelph was, and still somewhat is, a regular touring stop for bands. Within a twenty minute drive, on most weekends, you could find something to see. For whatever reason, ska hit it big in Guelph. Perhaps the city’s high reggae-loving, hippie population had something to do with it, but there were always ska shows happening at either the University of Guelph, or at the city’s punk rock club, The Trasheteria.
Those days were fun, but as I got older, it seemed like the scene died. The internet started catching on, and the dependence kids had to their local scene started to fade. Why bother starting a punk rock house, where kids could drink, play music, and make demos when it was getting ever easier to do it at home? Sure, punk was founded on the DIY ethos, but part of that ethos was also about community building. The scene started to fold up and die.
Like most places around the world, local record shops started closing nearly as quickly as they opened. The odd one would survive, but, by in large, the only music stores we had left were huge chains like HMV, who rarely stocked punk records that weren’t by Green Day. In a small city or town, the advent on the internet was good and bad. I can recall many hours sitting in front of my old dial-up modem waiting for the new Dwarves song to download, but at the same time, it wasn’t the same. The payoff was never as good as actually going to Encore Records and finding a rare gem in their used bins.
It was around this time I went away to college in a small town near Niagara Falls, figuring there would be tons of great things to do. St. Catherines, Ontario, much like Guelph, used to be a pretty regular stop for bands. I had always heard good things about that city, and my school was fifteen minutes away. Sadly, during the ‘90s the economy tanked, meaning a lot of the bars that used to host bands closed down, leaving one or two scattered throughout the city. Needless to say, I was not pleased with my choice of colleges. To this day, the city of St. Catherines has never returned to its former self. Bands, instead, opt to play in Hamilton, which is Ontario’s third largest city, and a forty-five minute drive from the U.S. border.
If you didn’t grow up in a university or college town, you had to travel for shows. There was no other option available. Bars in most towns were more likely to book an Aerosmith cover band than they were a local punk rock band. For whatever reason, even to this day, there are not a lot of house shows in Southern Ontario. Touring bands seem relegated to bars. There is the odd one, like the Trepid House in Waterloo, Ontario, but they seem to focus on slow and safe indie rock bands, as opposed to anything more aggressive.
In the ‘90s, the Cambridge band Bun had a fairly good setup going. They had a small rehearsal space set up, along with a small record company, but even they didn’t host a lot of shows. There simply wasn’t a place for many local bands to get enough exposure to make a name for themselves. Bands like The Constantines, whose members are mostly from Cambridge, would have to look to Guelph to provide the venue. By this time, the steel worker shows stopped and the local punk scene started to die.
Things started to change when the first “Rock The Mill” festival happened in 1997. Located in downtown Cambridge, along the banks of the Grand River, the annual and free music festival has been a great boon for many local bands. Once a year, for one day only, the City of Cambridge would become a viable music scene.
What started off with mostly local bands has grown into a festival which plays host to some of the larger punk and metal bands from across Ontario. Sadly, once the clock turns 11:00 PM, Cambridge turns back into a bedroom community, full of frustrated kids and their hockey-loving, Tim Horton’s coffee-drinking parents, but for one day a year, the scene is alive.
To be honest, I am not sure the point of much of what I have just written. Looking back at the concerts of my youth has been fun, but also somewhat sad. The internet, for everything positive it has created, has also created a generation of lazy-ass kids, who find it easier to talk to people on a message board than try their hardest to create a viable and creative local scene. Driving around my hometown these days, not many posters line the street poles, and if they do, they are usually for “get rich quick” scams, or hip hop nights at a local strip club. It is sad to think that the passion I shared as a teen has not been passed along to this newer generation of punks.
I still frequent the same record shops I did as a kid, and the average age of the customer has seemingly aged with me.
As a teen, there was nothing better than getting paid, taking an hour bus ride to Encore Records, and spending most of your check on as many records as you could buy and a copy of MRR. These days, Mediafire Records seems to be the main stop for music.
You know what? Fuck that. I want my city back. I want to see local shows, put on by a seventeen-year-old entrepreneur. I want to go to a local record store and see it packed like it was in 1995. Nothing would make me happier. Punk rock is about rebellion, but more than that, it is about community. Building bridges between like-minded kids.
If punk rock is to survive, which I believe it will, it has to be done locally. Each scene must be different from the next. Original thoughts need to be planted in people. Local art spaces need to be created. People need to log off, go out, and pay a cover. Kids need zines. Kids need DIY labels. Kids need spraypaint.
Why do I suddenly sound like Greg Ginn?
enjoy...
English Author Graham Greene once wrote “Man is made by the places in which he lives.”
The line, which comes from his 1938 book Brighton Rock, raises an interesting perspective on life. Perhaps, more than any other factor, where we come from shapes who we are. Think about it for a moment. If you were not born in the city you were, would your friends be the same? Would you have gone to the same schools, have the same favourite books? Listen to the same music?
Personally, I doubt it. At least in my case, had I not grown up in the bedroom community of Cambridge, Ontario, my life would have been drastically different. I would not have had the same friends. Not been in the same band, and most importantly, not likely been exposed to the same music scene.
Cambridge is about an hour’s drive west of Toronto, and doesn’t have a lot going for it. Factories, minor hockey, and coffee shops are its lifelines. There are no grand concert halls, no avant-garde art spaces, or really any big venues to expose oneself to culture.
What Cambridge did have going for it was a love of grassroots art and its proximity to Canada’s biggest and most diverse city, Toronto, and university towns, such as Guelph, Ontario. There were a shit-ton of bored teens who were looking for a way out, and most turned to music at some point.
Growing up, I can recall loads of local bands, playing in makeshift spaces. Kids just trying to kill time and have some fun. The Steel Workers Union hall would put on shows once or twice a year. They were licensed to serve booze, but teens were still allowed. Some of the first punk rock I ever encountered was at theses show. Just as the Epifat sound started getting huge, a large influx of local bands appeared. Bands like Furnaceface or Toronto’s The Sinisters would headline to a rotating crop of bands from around the area.
The woman who worked the bar was about seventy and was easily convinced that you were old enough to drink. The turnout was always great at these shows because kids knew you could get good and loaded and see some decent music.
Some of the better bands started setting up little record labels. They would put out a few demos and every once in a while; the better stuff would turn up at the local shops. Sure, for a few years, there were no record stores in Cambridge, a city of 100,000, but we managed to survive.
In the mid-‘90s labels like Raw Energy Records put out some great stuff from bands all across the greater Toronto area. While the early punks feasted on bands like Hamilton’s Teenage Head, or The Forgotten Rebels, the newer generation had bands like Marilyn’s Vitamins (members later formed the recently defunct Hostage Life), or Jersey to grow up with. It seemed that every time a touring act needed an opener, some band from either Stomp Records or Raw Energy was there to round out the bill. The music was never great, but the scene was forming. The crowds got bigger, and the faces got more familiar.
Guelph was, and still somewhat is, a regular touring stop for bands. Within a twenty minute drive, on most weekends, you could find something to see. For whatever reason, ska hit it big in Guelph. Perhaps the city’s high reggae-loving, hippie population had something to do with it, but there were always ska shows happening at either the University of Guelph, or at the city’s punk rock club, The Trasheteria.
Those days were fun, but as I got older, it seemed like the scene died. The internet started catching on, and the dependence kids had to their local scene started to fade. Why bother starting a punk rock house, where kids could drink, play music, and make demos when it was getting ever easier to do it at home? Sure, punk was founded on the DIY ethos, but part of that ethos was also about community building. The scene started to fold up and die.
Like most places around the world, local record shops started closing nearly as quickly as they opened. The odd one would survive, but, by in large, the only music stores we had left were huge chains like HMV, who rarely stocked punk records that weren’t by Green Day. In a small city or town, the advent on the internet was good and bad. I can recall many hours sitting in front of my old dial-up modem waiting for the new Dwarves song to download, but at the same time, it wasn’t the same. The payoff was never as good as actually going to Encore Records and finding a rare gem in their used bins.
It was around this time I went away to college in a small town near Niagara Falls, figuring there would be tons of great things to do. St. Catherines, Ontario, much like Guelph, used to be a pretty regular stop for bands. I had always heard good things about that city, and my school was fifteen minutes away. Sadly, during the ‘90s the economy tanked, meaning a lot of the bars that used to host bands closed down, leaving one or two scattered throughout the city. Needless to say, I was not pleased with my choice of colleges. To this day, the city of St. Catherines has never returned to its former self. Bands, instead, opt to play in Hamilton, which is Ontario’s third largest city, and a forty-five minute drive from the U.S. border.
If you didn’t grow up in a university or college town, you had to travel for shows. There was no other option available. Bars in most towns were more likely to book an Aerosmith cover band than they were a local punk rock band. For whatever reason, even to this day, there are not a lot of house shows in Southern Ontario. Touring bands seem relegated to bars. There is the odd one, like the Trepid House in Waterloo, Ontario, but they seem to focus on slow and safe indie rock bands, as opposed to anything more aggressive.
In the ‘90s, the Cambridge band Bun had a fairly good setup going. They had a small rehearsal space set up, along with a small record company, but even they didn’t host a lot of shows. There simply wasn’t a place for many local bands to get enough exposure to make a name for themselves. Bands like The Constantines, whose members are mostly from Cambridge, would have to look to Guelph to provide the venue. By this time, the steel worker shows stopped and the local punk scene started to die.
Things started to change when the first “Rock The Mill” festival happened in 1997. Located in downtown Cambridge, along the banks of the Grand River, the annual and free music festival has been a great boon for many local bands. Once a year, for one day only, the City of Cambridge would become a viable music scene.
What started off with mostly local bands has grown into a festival which plays host to some of the larger punk and metal bands from across Ontario. Sadly, once the clock turns 11:00 PM, Cambridge turns back into a bedroom community, full of frustrated kids and their hockey-loving, Tim Horton’s coffee-drinking parents, but for one day a year, the scene is alive.
To be honest, I am not sure the point of much of what I have just written. Looking back at the concerts of my youth has been fun, but also somewhat sad. The internet, for everything positive it has created, has also created a generation of lazy-ass kids, who find it easier to talk to people on a message board than try their hardest to create a viable and creative local scene. Driving around my hometown these days, not many posters line the street poles, and if they do, they are usually for “get rich quick” scams, or hip hop nights at a local strip club. It is sad to think that the passion I shared as a teen has not been passed along to this newer generation of punks.
I still frequent the same record shops I did as a kid, and the average age of the customer has seemingly aged with me.
As a teen, there was nothing better than getting paid, taking an hour bus ride to Encore Records, and spending most of your check on as many records as you could buy and a copy of MRR. These days, Mediafire Records seems to be the main stop for music.
You know what? Fuck that. I want my city back. I want to see local shows, put on by a seventeen-year-old entrepreneur. I want to go to a local record store and see it packed like it was in 1995. Nothing would make me happier. Punk rock is about rebellion, but more than that, it is about community. Building bridges between like-minded kids.
If punk rock is to survive, which I believe it will, it has to be done locally. Each scene must be different from the next. Original thoughts need to be planted in people. Local art spaces need to be created. People need to log off, go out, and pay a cover. Kids need zines. Kids need DIY labels. Kids need spraypaint.
Why do I suddenly sound like Greg Ginn?
Friday, February 12, 2010
Topic Of Conversation - February 12, 2009
So another Valentines Day is nearly upon us. Feeling crushed by the consumerism yet? As disgusting as the capitalism may seem at times, I do think the message and idea behind the day is a sound one. Far too often in life we get caught up in negativity and forget to look at the simplistic things in life.
Love, to me, is the most simplistic thing we have going for us as a species. We all crave that connection and when we don’t get it, it hurts. It hurts so bad it seems like we can’t breathe at times. Yet for all of the heartache, and all of the hurt, we never turn up another shot at it.
No matter how low our batting average is, humans always step up to the plate and take a shot.
In celebration, here is a set list of songs that I played on my show this week. They celebrate the joy, the pain, the happiness an the tears.
As Billy Bragg once said “you have to take the crunchy with the smooth.”
This is a set for just that thought.
Set list for February 12, 2010
Kepi Ghoulie - True Love Will Find You In The End (From American Gothic)
The New York Dolls - Looking For A Kiss (From S/T)
The Smugglers - Especially You (From Selling The Sizzle)
The Pixies - La La Love You (From Doolittle)
The Methadones - Falling Forward (From This Won’t Hurt)
The Riptides - Detention (From Hang Out)
The Riverdales - In Your Dreams (From S/T)
The Ramones - I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (From S/T)
The Ramones - She’s The One (From Road To Ruin)
The Ramones - The KKK Took My Baby Away (From Pleasant Dreams)
Cuff The Duke - Ballad Of A Lonely Construction Worker (From Life Stories Minimum Wage)
The Dears - You And I Are A Gang Of Losers (From Gang Of Losers)
David Vandervelde - Can’t See Your Face No More (From The Moonstation House Band)
Hayden - Let’s Break Up (From The Place Where We Lived)
The Gaslight Anthem - Here’s Looking At You Kid (From The 59’ Sound)
Lucero - Sad And Lonely (From Tennessee)
The Replacements - Can’t Hardly Wait (From Pleased To Meet Me)
The Replacements - Kiss Me On The Bus (From Tim)
The Replacements - Left Of The Dial (From Tim)
Hüsker Dü - Green Eyes (From Flip Your Wig)
Pretty Boy Thorson & The Falling Angels - Remember The Lillies of the Goddamn Field
Nothington - This Conversation Ends (From Roads, Bridges, and Ruins)
Mr T. Experience - I Fell For You (From Love Is Dead)
Sloppy Seconds - Germany (From Destroyed)
The Nobodys - Scarred By Love (Short Songs For Short Attention Spans)
The Descendents - Hope (From Milo Goes To College)
The Queers - Fuck The World (From Love Songs For The Retarded)
Off With Their Heads - Hard To Admit (From Hospitals)
Gwar - Hate Love Songs
Billy Bragg - A New England (Life’s A Riot Vs Spy Vs Spy)
Kepi Ghoulie - This Friend Of Mine (From American Gothic)
Love, to me, is the most simplistic thing we have going for us as a species. We all crave that connection and when we don’t get it, it hurts. It hurts so bad it seems like we can’t breathe at times. Yet for all of the heartache, and all of the hurt, we never turn up another shot at it.
No matter how low our batting average is, humans always step up to the plate and take a shot.
In celebration, here is a set list of songs that I played on my show this week. They celebrate the joy, the pain, the happiness an the tears.
As Billy Bragg once said “you have to take the crunchy with the smooth.”
This is a set for just that thought.
Set list for February 12, 2010
Kepi Ghoulie - True Love Will Find You In The End (From American Gothic)
The New York Dolls - Looking For A Kiss (From S/T)
The Smugglers - Especially You (From Selling The Sizzle)
The Pixies - La La Love You (From Doolittle)
The Methadones - Falling Forward (From This Won’t Hurt)
The Riptides - Detention (From Hang Out)
The Riverdales - In Your Dreams (From S/T)
The Ramones - I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (From S/T)
The Ramones - She’s The One (From Road To Ruin)
The Ramones - The KKK Took My Baby Away (From Pleasant Dreams)
Cuff The Duke - Ballad Of A Lonely Construction Worker (From Life Stories Minimum Wage)
The Dears - You And I Are A Gang Of Losers (From Gang Of Losers)
David Vandervelde - Can’t See Your Face No More (From The Moonstation House Band)
Hayden - Let’s Break Up (From The Place Where We Lived)
The Gaslight Anthem - Here’s Looking At You Kid (From The 59’ Sound)
Lucero - Sad And Lonely (From Tennessee)
The Replacements - Can’t Hardly Wait (From Pleased To Meet Me)
The Replacements - Kiss Me On The Bus (From Tim)
The Replacements - Left Of The Dial (From Tim)
Hüsker Dü - Green Eyes (From Flip Your Wig)
Pretty Boy Thorson & The Falling Angels - Remember The Lillies of the Goddamn Field
Nothington - This Conversation Ends (From Roads, Bridges, and Ruins)
Mr T. Experience - I Fell For You (From Love Is Dead)
Sloppy Seconds - Germany (From Destroyed)
The Nobodys - Scarred By Love (Short Songs For Short Attention Spans)
The Descendents - Hope (From Milo Goes To College)
The Queers - Fuck The World (From Love Songs For The Retarded)
Off With Their Heads - Hard To Admit (From Hospitals)
Gwar - Hate Love Songs
Billy Bragg - A New England (Life’s A Riot Vs Spy Vs Spy)
Kepi Ghoulie - This Friend Of Mine (From American Gothic)
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
John K. Samson strikes out on his own
Here is my piece on The Weakerthans frontman, John K. Samson. You can find the story here:
Perhaps, should The Weakerthans ever break up, and frontman John K. Samson decide to not pursue anymore musical endeavors, he can get a job with Tourism Manitoba.
With the release of his first solo outing in over a decade, City Route 85, Samson has embarked on the start of a series of three 7”s showcasing some of the many roads across his home province. Each of the three songs on the first 7” focus around Winnipeg’s Portage Ave.
Speaking in a phone conversation, from Winnipeg, Samson said he “doesn’t know” where the concept for the series came from, nor why he decided to not include his long-time band mates in The Weakerthans.
“I don’t really think of it as going solo” He said. “It was just really an exercise I wanted to try out. The idea of putting out a few seven inches that would be focused on roads, streets and highways in Manitoba. I like the idea of a seven inch because the time is limited. You can only put a certain amount on there.”
City Route 85, which is available through Epitaph Records, features three tracks, mostly centered within the largest city in the province, but Samson says the other two will be “in smaller communities, North and South of Winnipeg.”
““The theme was is to let the location dictate the songs instead of people or character and how they interact with the land.” He says. “To start with the actual location and build something with that.”
Samson’s songwriting, has been more fiction based, which goes back to the 2007 Weakerthans’ album Reunion Tour. His personal diatribes have been traded for new characters, this time around, the roads themselves. He said he gets his song ideas from “a lot of different places, but mostly where I am from, here in Winnipeg, is really inspirational.”
Besides the series of 7”, the next of which should be available within six to eight months, The Weakerthans are working on putting out a live CD/DVD combo in March of this year. The package, which will feature a few shows the band did in Winnipeg in 2008, may be the only “new” material the band releases for the foreseeable future. Samson said he hasn’t “really written much for the next Weakerthans album”.
Then there is always the much rumoured project between he and his wife, Christine Fellows.
“Every six months or so, we go ‘Oh, we should work on that’ and we add a couple little things to it.” He said. “We are working on a record, but I don’t know when it will be done. Sometimes it seems like we have 20 songs and then they all get used through other things and then we are back to having six or seven.”
Samson said the two don’t play together “that often”.
“We are both each others first editors but we don’t sit around the house and play music.”
In addition to his musical duties, Samson is also the managing editor of Arbeiter Ring Publishing, which has been operating in Winnipeg for 12 years.
“I started Arbeiter Ring 12 years ago” He said. “Within a month of starting The Weakerthans. It has its ups and downs certainly. It is a really difficult industry but I do love it. It is a lot of fun.”
“It is one of the great things that has been afforded to me because I live in Winnipeg is that all I really do is play music and work with books. It was pretty much my fantasy growing up and it kinda came true. I can’t really complain about it.” Samson said.
The publishing house will be putting out an anthology of the 20th anniversary of the Oka crisis later this year. He says the book will be about “Oka and about what it meant, and what it means still.”
When asked if he has ever tried his hand at fiction, he said he “would really like to.”
“I publish poetry really sporadically, in various places. I have always wanted to write prose, but I have never been able to. I think of myself as a thwarted fiction writer. The only writing I manage to do would be two-and-a-half minute songs. “ Samson said. “That is what I have got for now. Maybe sometime down the road I will be able to stretch it out beyond 500 words.”
Samson, whose name first became heard by many when he played with the punk group Propagandhi, is no stranger to politics. His publishing house, along with his music has always been about it.
In the case of The Weakerthans, he said that politics “is in the atoms of the songs. It is in all the foundation and framework of the songs. It exists there and I think you just have to look for it.”
“I think there is a roll for propagandists and I think there is a roll for other kind of writing.” Samson said. “All of it is political.”
When asked whether he still listened to, or connected with punk rock, he said “I can’t say I really am. I don’t really know any punk bands these days. I still listen to quite a bit, and certainly there are a lot of punk bands I enjoy, but I don’t really have any connection.”
“I still consider The Weakerthans a punk rock band, but I wouldn’t imagine many punks would.” he said.
“I think we are a punk band. It probably shouldn’t count for that much. It is up to the punks themselves.”
On his reoccurring character Virtute The Cat and the sound that he loses in “Virtute The Cat Explains His Departure”:
“(The sound) is the cats name.” he said. “Other people have had other interpretations, and as I was writing it, I had a doubt that I wasn’t sure that people would get that idea.
The idea is that the cat has gone feral and has forgotten the sound of its own name. I would think that it would be the last thing to go. It is pretty engrained. I would think that a cat, going back to the wild, in all different senses, that (their name) would be the last thing to go. It is the last remnant of it being a human creation.”
When asked if we would ever hear from the cat again:“I don’t know. I felt like that was it for him. He now lacks any sort of language and I don’t think you can superimpose language onto a wild animal the way you can on a domesticated animal. I guess there could be a prequel.
John K Samson’s picks for 2009:“I have listened to a lot of Attack In Black, all year and I saw them play live for the first time. I really loved that.”
“I also really love Julie Faders record and (the new) Future of the Left”
On Bigfoot!:“That song was based on a real person. A friend of mine was making a documentary about this guy who saw Bigfoot, up in Norway House, and he showed me a bunch of footage of this guy.” he said. “I wrote the song based on that footage and thinking about his situation. He saw and filmed what he thought was Bigfoot. He believed he saw Bigfoot and then pretty much everyone who could take advantage of him, took advantage of him. I found it kind of a tragic story. I wanted to talk about the idea that just because something isn’t real that it doesn’t have a real effect on peoples lives. That can apply to a lot of things and we should have respect for that.”
Perhaps, should The Weakerthans ever break up, and frontman John K. Samson decide to not pursue anymore musical endeavors, he can get a job with Tourism Manitoba.
With the release of his first solo outing in over a decade, City Route 85, Samson has embarked on the start of a series of three 7”s showcasing some of the many roads across his home province. Each of the three songs on the first 7” focus around Winnipeg’s Portage Ave.
Speaking in a phone conversation, from Winnipeg, Samson said he “doesn’t know” where the concept for the series came from, nor why he decided to not include his long-time band mates in The Weakerthans.
“I don’t really think of it as going solo” He said. “It was just really an exercise I wanted to try out. The idea of putting out a few seven inches that would be focused on roads, streets and highways in Manitoba. I like the idea of a seven inch because the time is limited. You can only put a certain amount on there.”
City Route 85, which is available through Epitaph Records, features three tracks, mostly centered within the largest city in the province, but Samson says the other two will be “in smaller communities, North and South of Winnipeg.”
““The theme was is to let the location dictate the songs instead of people or character and how they interact with the land.” He says. “To start with the actual location and build something with that.”
Samson’s songwriting, has been more fiction based, which goes back to the 2007 Weakerthans’ album Reunion Tour. His personal diatribes have been traded for new characters, this time around, the roads themselves. He said he gets his song ideas from “a lot of different places, but mostly where I am from, here in Winnipeg, is really inspirational.”
Besides the series of 7”, the next of which should be available within six to eight months, The Weakerthans are working on putting out a live CD/DVD combo in March of this year. The package, which will feature a few shows the band did in Winnipeg in 2008, may be the only “new” material the band releases for the foreseeable future. Samson said he hasn’t “really written much for the next Weakerthans album”.
Then there is always the much rumoured project between he and his wife, Christine Fellows.
“Every six months or so, we go ‘Oh, we should work on that’ and we add a couple little things to it.” He said. “We are working on a record, but I don’t know when it will be done. Sometimes it seems like we have 20 songs and then they all get used through other things and then we are back to having six or seven.”
Samson said the two don’t play together “that often”.
“We are both each others first editors but we don’t sit around the house and play music.”
In addition to his musical duties, Samson is also the managing editor of Arbeiter Ring Publishing, which has been operating in Winnipeg for 12 years.
“I started Arbeiter Ring 12 years ago” He said. “Within a month of starting The Weakerthans. It has its ups and downs certainly. It is a really difficult industry but I do love it. It is a lot of fun.”
“It is one of the great things that has been afforded to me because I live in Winnipeg is that all I really do is play music and work with books. It was pretty much my fantasy growing up and it kinda came true. I can’t really complain about it.” Samson said.
The publishing house will be putting out an anthology of the 20th anniversary of the Oka crisis later this year. He says the book will be about “Oka and about what it meant, and what it means still.”
When asked if he has ever tried his hand at fiction, he said he “would really like to.”
“I publish poetry really sporadically, in various places. I have always wanted to write prose, but I have never been able to. I think of myself as a thwarted fiction writer. The only writing I manage to do would be two-and-a-half minute songs. “ Samson said. “That is what I have got for now. Maybe sometime down the road I will be able to stretch it out beyond 500 words.”
Samson, whose name first became heard by many when he played with the punk group Propagandhi, is no stranger to politics. His publishing house, along with his music has always been about it.
In the case of The Weakerthans, he said that politics “is in the atoms of the songs. It is in all the foundation and framework of the songs. It exists there and I think you just have to look for it.”
“I think there is a roll for propagandists and I think there is a roll for other kind of writing.” Samson said. “All of it is political.”
When asked whether he still listened to, or connected with punk rock, he said “I can’t say I really am. I don’t really know any punk bands these days. I still listen to quite a bit, and certainly there are a lot of punk bands I enjoy, but I don’t really have any connection.”
“I still consider The Weakerthans a punk rock band, but I wouldn’t imagine many punks would.” he said.
“I think we are a punk band. It probably shouldn’t count for that much. It is up to the punks themselves.”
On his reoccurring character Virtute The Cat and the sound that he loses in “Virtute The Cat Explains His Departure”:
“(The sound) is the cats name.” he said. “Other people have had other interpretations, and as I was writing it, I had a doubt that I wasn’t sure that people would get that idea.
The idea is that the cat has gone feral and has forgotten the sound of its own name. I would think that it would be the last thing to go. It is pretty engrained. I would think that a cat, going back to the wild, in all different senses, that (their name) would be the last thing to go. It is the last remnant of it being a human creation.”
When asked if we would ever hear from the cat again:“I don’t know. I felt like that was it for him. He now lacks any sort of language and I don’t think you can superimpose language onto a wild animal the way you can on a domesticated animal. I guess there could be a prequel.
John K Samson’s picks for 2009:“I have listened to a lot of Attack In Black, all year and I saw them play live for the first time. I really loved that.”
“I also really love Julie Faders record and (the new) Future of the Left”
On Bigfoot!:“That song was based on a real person. A friend of mine was making a documentary about this guy who saw Bigfoot, up in Norway House, and he showed me a bunch of footage of this guy.” he said. “I wrote the song based on that footage and thinking about his situation. He saw and filmed what he thought was Bigfoot. He believed he saw Bigfoot and then pretty much everyone who could take advantage of him, took advantage of him. I found it kind of a tragic story. I wanted to talk about the idea that just because something isn’t real that it doesn’t have a real effect on peoples lives. That can apply to a lot of things and we should have respect for that.”
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