Tag: Music and Sound

Soviet Anthem

I watched the replay of Spain beating Russia in the second game of Euro 2004 last night and heard the revived Soviet era anthem of Russia for the first time in years. What with all the Canada v. Russia hockey I watched on TV or at the Halifax Metro Centre it was a reminded that through sports we had something of an adversarial relationship with the old Soviets rather than being simply the enemy. It’s a good think that the anthem was brought back – I can’t think of a better one.

Spain’s, by comparison, was not great – you should not be able to imagine the lyrics from 1960’s TV Slinky ads fitting in a good national anthem.

The Darkness


The Darkness’s fitba team at the Music Industry Soccer Six, 2003

Months too late to be cool, I picked up The Darkness‘s CD Permission to Land. The entire thing is such a worthy tribute to 1970’s power rock or whatever you would call it – the nudie arse on the cover, the Marshall stacks, the ELO spaceship theme, even the fact that it is on the Atlantic label – home to Zep. I was very surprised to find out that I can actually sing along with the rapid falsetto lead vocals of Justin Hawkins – but only alone in the car when there is no one in view. I am in touch with my inner 13 year old channelling to 1975 rec room and it is going to be alright.

Home Awake

Being the only one in the house not sick or three, I am the only one awake this afternoon. I find myself listening to Acts of Volition Radio show #6, watching the sunny melty day outside moving on, wondering whether it would be so wrong downloading Counterstrike for moments like this, surrounded by the snoring, communicating only with headphones and screen.

[Four gerunds and a gerundive in one sentence…wow.]

Grammy Show

I watched last night with half my attention elsewhere. Here is what I saw:

  • I like “Hey Ya” and was happy to see how the video was trasformed to a stage performance for live TV. Sooner or later I am going to be able to hire a high school marching band for some purpose in my life, too.
  • If you did not wait to the very end you missed Faith Hill, looking like a Republican’s dream of the girl to be met at the country club, squawking something into the mike to the effect of “the show is over” and walking away as 43 people (who were not going to be invited to that club) representing OutKast celebrated winning the final award for album of the year.
  • The Foo-Fighters appeared, perhaps uniquely, as a rock band playing things like instruments and singing in to microphones without dancers or lights or any other distractions. That was good.
  • The White Stripes were very good.
  • My world just about crumbled when Richard “Dicky” Marks won an award for best song co-written with the living human tribute of the night, Luther Vandross. The king of the mullet was shown and, though shorn at the rear of his head now and though his song is something of a thematic rip of that 80s “love my departed Dad” song by Genesis going by another name Mike and the Mechanics, at least it was not a loser rock song about going down to the river and offing oneself which Dicky Marks was the absolute king of twenty years ago.
  • Warren Zevon starred and won as the guy who recently smoked himself to death. [Ed.: error fixed in replies.]
  • No one got Yoko Ono when she said give peace a chance.
  • No one told Paul McCartney (who is really looking like a muppet who has sat too near the fire and melted a bit) that he was not speaking for all the Beatles as he followed taped Ringo and live Yoko and a nice also live lady who knew George (last year’s guy who won for smoking himself to death) thanking everybody for remembering they were on TV 40 years ago.
  • Christina A. and Beyonce Knowles were the only proponents of the porcine squealy decending decrecsendo pseudo-gospel thing done really well twenty years ago by Whitney Huston, destroyed by everyone ever since – especially the now disappeared Mariah Carey. Perhaps it will soon die.
  • Funk (the music Jesus loved) had its day with Parliament/Funkadelic and Earth, Wind and Fire.

If you take anything from the show, go buy funk.

Led Zepper

Just listened to Terry Gross’s interview of Robert Plant on NPR’s Fresh Air:

Robert Plant. The former lead singer of Led Zeppelin has a new CD that includes tracks he recorded before ‘Zeppelin. On the next Fresh Air, Terry Gross talks to Plant about his life and listens to recordings that span his career.

The show focused on a recently released record of pre- and post-zep Plant recordings but also had great moments of Plant being asked about the sexuality of his Zep lyrics – he sounded a little embarassed in his fifties to explain himself in his twenties.

Murderecords

My order came from murderecords today:

  • Closed by jale (1995, ep cd)
  • Smart Bomb by Thrush Hermit (1994, ep cd)
  • Peppermint by Sloan (1992, ep cd)
  • Mock Up, Scale Down by The Super Friendz (1995, cd)
  • Peter by Eric’s Trip (1993, cd)

Three months but who cares. Five disks of Halifax scene. I used a cheque with 19__ on it. Thanks Mike Nelson – everyone buy up the back catalog from Mike Nelson. Who uses cheques now anyways? People raised by wolves? Neato small catalog for murderecords up to their 26th release (as illustrated below). I want the Al Tuck shirt.

I want the Al Tuck shirt
Looks like one soft NSCAD summer job to me

By the way, calling something an “ep cd” is a bit of a misnomer but it was the 90s. We should have all been eating food from tubes by now.

“Why Should I Care?”

Brent played the greatest rock drive home record this afternoon, 1973’s “5:15” from Quadrophenia, which it about the thoughts of a stoned kid heading home from a crappy job on a London train. Amazing how the boring old CBC is pushed by this show.

As the greatest teens ever, The Who deserve a come-back but they ran so many farewell tours that they overrode their own nostalgia. With only Roger and Peter left, a duo album would be interesting. In Feburary 1994, there was a two night show in New York of Daltrey singing the songs of Townsend. Pete has a great website. Recent BBC interview with Daltrey here.

Attention Brewers and Distillers!!!

A fan writes...

I am greatly flattered by the above letter which arrived today from Keith of Electron with two CDs and three mini-CDs enclosed, two of his work under the name The Stereo Effect Project and three from his pal in Germany going by Heptane Sun Quad.

I am enjoying this electronica as it reminds me of incidental music from space shows of my childhood, both cartoons and Apollo news coverage, as well as, more generally the Fripp and Eno stuff I got into from King Crimson, Fripp’s Exposure and loop albums to Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports which I first heard at Dave Swick‘s apartment in the winter of ’79-’80 in Halifax when I was in grade 11 visiting with his brother, Rob. Soon there after, new wave like Gary Numan’s cars incorporated the synths into a pop music reaction to punk which itself was reacted to mid-80’s by the Smiths and others.