While you were digging out all your wooly sweaters this weekend, a whole lot of stuff was happening in the world of live music. Here are some highlights.
Actually, to be perfectly accurate, Mac DeMarco jumped out of a cake, then threw the cake into the crowd, then crowdsurfed after it while Connan Mockasin and Perfect Pussy's Meredith Graves crowdsurfed after it and the audience took off their clothes. The venue was celebrating its first birthday.
Back in 1982, 13-year-old Dave Grohl went to visit his aunt and uncle in Evanston, Ill. While he was there, his older cousin Tracy took him into Chicago to his first show, Naked Raygun at the Cubby Bear. More than three decades later, Grohl went back to Cubby Bear with the Foo Fighters, to play the small club as part of their new HBO show Sonic Highways. Ragyun frontman Jeff Pezzati was among the artists who joined the band onstage.
Here's the quote from festival organizer John Giddings:
"We're not building headliners anymore. Nobody can invest in building a band over five albums. And if boring acts like Ed Sheeran are the future then we're all screwed!"
Daniel Lanois Flesh and Machine Stream until Oct. 28
There are many creative sides to Daniel Lanois— producer, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, author, filmmaker — but in all he does, sound is at the centre.
The 63-year-old Canadian musician has been creating, bending and exploring sound since he first started looping in his Hamilton, Ont., studio in the mid-1970s. His soundscapes can be heard on work by U2, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, on his own solo records and through his groundbreaking electronic music collaboration in the 1980s with his mentor, Brian Eno.
It's those albums with Eno that provide the closest relation to his latest work, Flesh and Machine. Building off his cherished steel guitars and the stick work of the great Brian Blade, Lanois built an album that meshes physical performance with electronic manipulations, creating an album with no singing and no real songwriting but a whole lot of sounds you've probably never heard.
"I wanted to get back to the values I operated by when I was working on those ambient records with Brian," says Lanois on the phone from his home in Los Angeles. "It's not specifically the sounds, but the devotion we had to the direction. I like this record because it's sonically bold."
You can listen to Flesh and Machine in full above, and read Lanois' track-by-track guide to his new record below.
"The piano part is following the chords of a Bach piece. I added my Taurus bass pedals, which is a Moog synthesizer, and has a deep, soft cinematic bottom end. My friend Rocco DeLuca, who lives across the pond here in Silver Lake, he's a good friend, and a great singer. I asked Rocco to ad lib on top of the pedals. He did 10 tracks and went home, and I combed through and compiled what I thought was his best moments. A few times it touched on a sound I love — the sound that I remember from a Bulgarian women's choir that I was exposed to by Brian Eno many years ago. I was very excited when I heard those collisions of harmony. And I named it after him. There's something very deep and emotional about that one."
"A sort of protest instrumental. A piece responding to all the headlines we need to endure these days — it seems to be non-stop war across the planet and people need to live through atrocities. It represents the crying voices of war zones as we get to talk comfortably on the phone. There's a lot of anger in there — sounds of war and people suffering. It really sounds like the sky is falling down. It's not meant to be peaceful listening, it's meant to be a challenging piece, that causes people to stop in their tracks and make people wonder what's happening in the parts of the world that don't have our comforts."
"'Sioux Lookout' is my idea of a contemporary native cry — a cry for balance, for us to live in balance with our relatives. It's an ancient native philosophy, we need to respect our relatives: the sky people, the four-legged people and the water people. I made an attempt on mixing human sounds with animal sounds. I touched on this with Brian Eno back in the day on a record called On Land, and I see this as a continuation of that way of looking at music."
"I keep a house in Jamaica, and this was a drum track I already had in my library and I manipulated that track in Jamaica through a couple of processing boxes. But I was so limited with my equipment, I only had one little mixer and two boxes. The signal is going through the box, and not even going through the mixer. I was so limited that results turned out to be very radical. The drums suddenly become like they are coming from another dimension. I think it's a very fine example of a lot of depth of feel to be had out of very little equipment."
"'Two Bushas' started out as a Rocco DeLuca song that I was mixing for him. I processed and sampled my sounds and created two tracks that were meant to be ornamental sitting in the distance behind Rocco's song. But then I stripped away the song and featured the processings and I found that they were fascinating in themselves and quite orchestral. I started to see the future of symphony — the results very symphonic but the sounds are not recognizable. I played it for Rocco and he got very excited about it. I asked him if I could put it on my record, and he said, 'Of course.' It's a deconstruction where only the hidden components are heard and brought to the forefront."
"This features my steel guitar, very manipulated. It goes very electronic, where the electronic components sound like little animals whispering. There's something very touching and romantic about it, like two little muskrats making love in the bushes [laughs]. It's one of my favourites actually. What's in the foreground is so far away from the source, it really appeals to me."
"I sat at the piano, and Brian Blade sat at the drums. It's a very pure form live performance. When [Blade] left the studio, I then carried on with my manipulations and processing. Everything you hear is piano, but I overdubbed a nice dulcimer — a dulcimer that I used on Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball— and that dulcimer plays the lead, and there's something very touching about the pure sound of that. A nice combination of nice acoustic instruments, but very electronically processed."
"Again features my steel guitar. This one is very much a throwback to the early '80s when I was working with Eno because I used this little toy instrument called the Suzuki Omnichord, it's like an electronic autoharp. It was only meant to be a toy instrument but there's something sweet about it when you slow it down. So I played it fast, slowed it down and did all the overdubs on top. And a nice drum performance by Brian Blade as simple as it might seem, it has a lovely zip and lilting effect. If you ever heard Esquivel — he was a Mexican orchestrator from the '50s who did very cinematic music that always had a little humour in it — this is as funny as I get on this record."
"'Opera' is very high speed, very electro. The basis of it is this drum machine, a famous drum box called the Roland 808, and I found a complimentary echo to the 808 beat. So that became the spine of this. It has a curious personality trait: halfway through it goes off into melody and the bass part follows the melody line, which is a very unusual thing to do but it feeds quite well."
"A solo steel guitar performance, with a very overdriven sound. I hit on this sound putting it through a couple of overdriven Fender amplifiers that I used on Neil Young's Le Noise record that I made a few years ago with Neil. So I used the same Neil Young setup and I put my steel guitar — it has a very cavernous and sometimes submerged sound. It reminded me of some of the sounds I heard coming out of San Francisco in the '60s. It always felt it was underwater. I created this image in my head of a character — let's say me — floating at the top of the St. Lawrence all the way to the open mouth to the Atlantic, and the characters I bump into along the way. It's constantly unfolding, a very lonely journey, but a beautiful one."
"'Forest City' started out as one note on my Les Paul guitar. I have a little sampling device that I use as part of my Les Paul rig so I pushed sample, pushed hold on it. It had this beautiful mantra-like tone and personality, so I carried on with it. I just kept adding on to that, so that whole five-minute journey is built from one note. It's very textural. I played it for [filmmaker] Terrence Malik, and he fell in love with it. He said, 'This is exactly how I see life.'"
The R3-30 for the week of October 20, 2014 30. High Ends "Intoxicated" 29. Wish "Retrograde" 28. The Provincial Archive "Full of Water" 27. The Harpoonist and The Axe Murderer "Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To" 26. Slow Down Molasses "Summer Sun" 25. Port Juvee "Revenge" 24. Buck 65 "That's The Way Love Dies" 23. Elephant Stone "Wayward Son" 22. White Lung "Down It Goes" 21. Meligrove Band "Don't Wanna Say Goodbye" 20. Grimes "Go (feat. Blood Diamonds)" 19. Caribou "Our Love" 18. T. Nile "If Only" 17. The Wooden Sky "Saturday Night" 16. Mac DeMarco "Blue Boy" 15. The Wilderness Of Manitoba "Leave Someone" 14. Bahamas "Stronger Than That" 13. Megan Lane "Someday We Will Leave This Town" 12. Cold Specks "Bodies at Bay" 11. Stella Ella Ola "Hypersleep" 10. Rococode "Banks" 9. Close Talker "Burnstick" 8. Rich Aucoin "Want To Believe" 7. Alvvays "Atop A Cake" 6. Stars "From the Night" 5. Elliott Brood "Tired" 4. Rural Alberta Advantage "On The Rocks" 3. Dan Mangan + Blacksmith "Vessel" 2. New Pornographers "Dancehall Domine" 1. Library Voices "Windsor Hum"
Every week we take a little detour from the R3-30 to play a few of the tracks you’ve chosen around a theme, we call it the Listener List.
This week you’ll be hearing tracks that that capture the feeling of a Turkey hangover. Looking back, I must have been dealing with my Thanksgiving hangover when I chose that theme, but you came through! And now on to another seasonably fitting theme…. HALLOWEEN!
Constantinople and Suzie LeBlanc Metamorfosi: Impressions Baroques Stream until Oct. 28
Constantinople, the Montreal trio named for its trademark fusion of Eastern and Western traditions, strikes again with Metamorfosi: Impressions Baroques, an exploration of 17th-century Italian music with fellow time and space traveller, soprano Suzie LeBlanc.
Never content with the straight-ahead reading of a score, Constantinople instead uses early musical sources as a point of departure to create their own musical synthesis.
"In some pieces we stay close to what the composer wrote, but in others, we alternate the musical phrases and also add some new parts to the existing pieces," wrote Constantinople's artistic director, Kiya Tabassian, to CBC Music via email. "We try to make this music our own and pass through the same process of inventing and improvising as the composers themselves used to pass through while playing their music."
In addition to spontaneity, Constantinople brings a signature sound to these 17th-century compositions. "The use of the setar — the plucked Persian instrument that I play — in this music is unique. It gives a whole different accent and twist," adds Tabassian.
The project is a perfect fit for baroque specialist LeBlanc, who uses her supple soprano with improvisatory passion and fantasy, joining fully in the spirit of the project.
Purchase or download Metamorfosi: Impressions Baroqueshere.
Catch Constantinople in concert at Montreal's Bourgie Hall on Thursday, Oct. 30, at 8 p.m.
Tracklist
Claudio Monteverdi 1. Il ballo delle ingrate (excerpt) 2. "Si dolce è il tormento"*
Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, Marco Uccellini 3. Bergamasca
Stodgy, they say? Elite? Burdened by tradition? Browse through our exciting gallery of the year’s best-dressed and you’ll discover that these long-perpetuated stereotypes of the classical musician are as outdated as waiting for the TV guide to arrive with the weekend paper.
Proving there isn’t a cookie-cutter image of a classical star, our top 10 exhibit an array of diverse styles. What they do have in common, besides awe-inspiring talent, is a desire to engage a wider, younger audience. By embracing fashion to make the aural message both more visually dramatic and more accessible, this group of remarkable musicians will open many minds. And, yes, as our title suggests, they really do rock.
It’s a brand of shoe so iconic that a mere mention of its name — Fluevogs — can send diehard followers into a swoon, and it turns out that big-name musicians are not immune.
For more than four decades, Canadian shoemaker John Fluevog has been designing some of the most memorable footwear on the market, and music stars including Arcade Fire, Perry Farrell, Madonna, Jack White, John Legend, Alice Cooper and many more have sported the Vancouver native’s unforgettable creations.
So in honour of Music and Fashion week, CBC Music caught up with Fluevog at his part-time home in New York to talk music, celebrity and, of course, incredible shoes.
You can find that Q&A below. To see pics of the musicians who sport his soles, make sure to check out the gallery above, too.
What music did you grow up with?
I grew up in an evangelical Christian home school, which was extremely musical. You know how a lot of jazz musicians and funk guys came out of the church? Well, that was me. The music wasn’t as funky, but my dad played the piano, and I grew up singing three-part harmony with my brother and whomever would be there. So there was a lot of music going on in the household, but not popular music. That was a no-no in my house.
The closest I ever got to rock ‘n’ roll when I was growing up would have been Mahalia Jackson, because she sang gospel, but she rocked it. So I was like, “Whoa, she’s cool!” [Laughs]
And in your teens?
I grew up right in the middle of rock ‘n’ roll central. I lived next door to a high school, and I grew up in an ice-cream drive-in on Kingsway [a major road in Vancouver]. So I grew up with rock ‘n’ roll and hot rods. But I was kind of a weird kid in a way. I never really followed any bands, and I missed a lot of things by not going to live concerts. You know, the Beatles came to town and I didn’t go.
But I was born in ’48, so there’s a lot of history that’s happened in music since that time, and I grew up through it. The ‘70s, the ‘80s, the ‘90s. The ‘80s I never quite understood, and then as the kind of footwear I was into was all alternative, so in the ‘90s I had to force my old ears to get into Kurt Cobain [laughs]. But my footwear has always been youth-oriented, more so probably in the past than now, so I’ve lived all those eras.
Do you associate yourself with any of those eras?
I’ve never gotten into any one look, any one thing, because I’m a bit of a watcher. So I’ll stand back and look at something rather than enter into it. It’s just my personality. And I also think it gives a better perspective on things. If you enter totally into something, you become so focused that you can’t see other things going on around you.
What music do you like to listen to when you’re working?
I don’t like sounds that are too rough around the edges. Maybe it’s my old age or something. [Laughs] I like Brazilian music, Portuguese music. I like most jazz, but not all of it. When they pull the saxophones out and start wailing, I get a little disconcerted. I guess I’m in the middle: I don’t like elevator music or jazz that’s watered down and doesn’t have any energy to it, and I also struggle with really raw things. I also like simple music. I guess that’s why I like the blues: it’s so simple, and soulful. But certainly, the emotion that music puts forth helps soothe the soul, it helps with the creative process, and it makes my life more complete.
Of course, there are many musicians who enjoy your creations, including Madonna. I hear you actually sent her a pair of shoes?
It was a funny thing. I don’t watch TV a lot, but one day I was watching TV — and it was way back in the early ’90s —and I was watching Madonna on a talk show. She was being really naughty, talking about sex and being spanked. And I’m going, “She is a smarty pants. This is a game she’s playing. This girl needs a pair of my shoes.” So I found out what size she wore, through one of my employees, and I sent her a pair of my shoes. I never heard from her. Occasionally I’d think, “Uh, thanks a lot there, Madonna.”
Then that movie Truth or Dare came out, and she dangled them around in front of the camera. They’re these platform shoes, with a big curvy heel on them. And the fact that Madonna wore my shoes, and she wore them to an opening of the movie, gave me so much press. People still talk about it. Suddenly I got authorized and I was OK.
Is it true you’ve never watched the movie?
I have never seen it. I’ve kind of steered clear.
Why?
I don’t want to be stuck in a time frame. I don’t want to be connected with one kind of look, or start thinking, “Oh gee, look how great I am,” or “How awesome this is,” and then stop moving forward and get stuck. I also quite understand that really, like a musician, we create our own hype. But I am just a regular dude, and I want to stay that way. I don’t want to think of myself as anything special, because I’m not. And so I don’t watch the movie.
Jack White is another one of your fans, and regularly wears your designs.
That’s right. Well, the brand has always been kind of alternative, and I don’t know exactly what the word alternative means, but it’s not mainstream. And I’ve tried not to follow mainstream things. Sometimes I hit it. So it works for non-mainstream people who appreciate the same kinds of sentiments. Jack White is one of those people, so I find it kind of natural. It’s like, “Yeah, he should wear my shoes. Of course he should.”
I didn’t realize that the shoes Lady Miss Kier was wearing on the cover of Deee-Lite’s album World Clique were Fluevogs, too. That must have been a big moment.
Yeah, it was. She just picked up on the same kind of feeling, you know? When I opened up here in New York in 1990, there was such a club thing going on, and all of my shoes were club shoes, and Kier was a club queen. And I remember her phoning up to Vancouver and asking for different colours in whatever I had. And at that time, there were certain shoes that were really iconic to me, but I never sold them in Vancouver. I didn’t really care whether they were selling, because I knew they were right and I really liked them. Those were the types of shoes that she picked up on — and those shoes became an integral part of her persona.
At the other end of the musical spectrum, there's Alice Cooper.
Alice Cooper has been buying my shoes for years. He’s got a feeling about them, and we’ve become friends, because he and I share some similar ideas on faith and music. And the way he’s put his music together over the years, Alice being his alter-ego, that's storytelling, right? And he’s into cars, like I am.
Do you see your shoes as musical?
My shoes are all a little bit cartoonish or storybook-ish and I put messages in them. And it’s a bit like music, where you’ve got the music and then you’ve got the lyrics. I put lyrics into my shoes, and to me they are soulful. They always come from something I’m thinking about or doing or something that strikes me when I’m doing the shoes. And I like the idea that people can walk in the story that I’ve put out. It’s like music. People walk in those stories.
Any musicians you would like to see in your shoes?
Not really. I just don’t think that way, and we don’t chase it. Maybe I am so much of an egotist that I’m not looking for someone else to give validity to my products. I don’t need that. The biggest compliment to me is just average people wearing my shoes.
What advice would you give someone who is just starting out in a creative field, whether it’s music or art or shoe design?
I think it’s important to take yourself seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously. Search out what the ether is saying to you. Because I believe that we’re all created unique, and there is something out there that you can uniquely claim and do as your own. And it comes to you, so you want to have an ear to it.
And I think entertainment at its core is making people feel good. So it’s not all about me when I do my shoes. It’s about making my customers feel good. When somebody is a gifted entertainer, they understand that they’re up there to give, and to make people feel good. Yes, it’s about them, and it’s coming through them, but it’s a gift to be shared. Just keep focused on that, and when you focus on that, you won’t go off track.
Each day, Rich Terfry and Radio 2 Drive wraps up your day with music and stories about the interesting things going on in the world.
RICH'S PICK: "Heavy Traffic" by Bill Monroe
JUNK IN THE TRUNK:
It's a spontaneous dance part on a train in Australia:
REAR-VIEW MIRROR:
Three times a week, Rich Terfry looks back in our Rear-view Mirror at a great song from the good ol’ days. Today, we celebrate "Where Are They Now Week" with Norman Greenbaum and "Spirit In The Sky."
One of the biggest one hit wonders of all time is Norman Greenbaum, a Jewish guy who wrote a song about Jesus with some inspiration from a country legend, a guitar god and cowboy movies.
Listen to Rich tell you about one of the biggest one hit wonders of all time!
Norman Greenbaum was a big fan of classic westerns. He liked the idea that the heroes always wanted to "die with their boots on", as he put it. After watching a couple of cowboy movies in 1969, Greenbaum was watching the Porter Wagoner Show and heardWagoner and Dolly Parton sing a gospel song.
He thought to himself, 'I could do that.' He sat down with a pad and paper and fifteen minutes later, a cowboy-inspired gospel song called "Spirit In The Sky" was written. More than anything else, it was a creative exercise for Greenbaum. The song has clear Christian themes, but Greenbaum was and still is devoutly Jewish.
When the song was released, guitar geeks marvelled over the sounds in the recording.Russell DaShiell of the band Crowfoot had been hired to play guitar during the recording session. In an interview years after the release of "Spirit In The Sky", DeShiell said he used tricks he learned by closely watching Jimi Hendrix perform the song "Voodoo Child" in a small club in Madison, Wisconsin.
Here's the song that went to #1 on the charts in Canada and in many countries around the world in 1969 and 1970, a success Norman Greenbaum never again matched in his musical career. This is "Spirit In The Sky" on Rear View Mirror.
Here are some other great editions of Rear-view Mirror:
We have some good news for anyone who hasn't managed to catch this past summer's break-out indie pop act Alvvays yet; they are coming to a city near you. The Toronto-based band announced a bunch of new Canadian dates this week.
Their current tour was originally supposed to end in Vancouver on Dec. 3, but now the band will be making their way back home by way of the Prairies and the American midwest. Here are the new dates:
Dec. 3, Vancouver, B.C., Biltmore Cabaret Dec. 5, Edmonton, Alta., Starlite Dec. 6, Calgary, Alta., The Gateway Dec. 9, Saskatoon, Sask., Amigo's Dec. 10, Winnipeg, Man., Park Theatre Dec. 11, St. Paul, Minn., Turf Club Dec. 12, Iowa City, Iowa, Blue Moose Tap House Dec. 13, Cleveland, Ohio, Beachland Ballroom Dec. 18, Montreal, Que., La Sala Rossa Dec. 19, Kingston, Ont., Grand Theatre Dec. 20, Toronto, Ont., Opera House
It’s that time of year again: the leaves are turning, the wind is bitterly cold and you’ve stocked up on sleep and anti-cold vitamins for this week’s Halifax Pop Explosion (well, we hope you have).
Hitting its 22nd birthday, HPX will see local names like Ryan Hemsworth, Mo Kenney, Rich Aucoin, Cheryl Hann, Outtacontroller and more grace its stages — 62 more, in fact— as well as the likes of Against Me!, Lights, Ghostface Killah, Danny Brown, Swearin’, Tanya Tagaq and Cold Specks, to name a few.
We’ve asked 20 musicians, writers, organizers and publicists — who've known the fest for years — for their most memorable HPX moment, from that 2004 Arcade Fire show that people are still talking about to the time Rich Aucoin played We’re All Dying to Live in sequence and had 80 people onstage in a church. They've also chosen a must-hear track from bands playing this year, to aid with your show-going indecisiveness.
Read on for 20 love letters to the Halifax Pop Explosion. And for those who can't make it: put on a pair of headphones, hit play and pretend you're in the thick of it (sorry).
“Girl Talk at Halifax's St. Antonio's Hall, 2009. I went with my brothers, but I veered off on my own, getting as close to the stage as I could. I spent the whole show by myself dancing, probably the only time I've ever gone to a show and done that. But the energy was so high, it felt really inclusive. I really wanted to meet him after but I was too nervous, and then my brother literally threw me at him before they closed the doors. He was so, so nice. Also gave me the chance to take a picture with him to prove we're different humans.” [See below.]
Carla Gillis (Plumtree, Overnight, the Lord Almightys, music writer at NOW)
Most memorable HPX moment:
“I played almost every year between 1993 and 2003, when I left Halifax, so I have a lot of good memories. One time my sister Lynette and I wandered into Blowers Street Paperchase, and we ran into Peter Rowan, who was a big part of the Halifax Pop Explosion at the time. 1993 or 1994. He very excitedly told us that he was going to put our band, Plumtree, on a HPX bill opening for Velocity Girl and Jale. Lynette and I were not hip to the American college rock scene at the time, and we were like, ‘Ah, sure. Sounds good to us.’ Like, no big deal.
“We walked back around the corner to Café Ole, the all-ages club, and told Amanda [Braden] and Nina [Martin], our bandmates in Plumtree. They completely freaked out, literally screaming and crying in joy. They had a radio show on CKDU and followed indie music closely. Their instincts were right on. The actual show turned out to be really special. It was our first or second bar show — we were teenagers so our parents had to be there as chaperones. There was a large crowd, we did our thing, and members of Sloan danced with members of Jale during our set. It felt like a big deal to be playing for Halifax's older, cooler crowd, and to be embraced by them.
“We got encored, and that caught us by surprise and we had no idea what to do. We decided to play the one remaining song in our repertoire, this joke song called ‘It's Fun Like Twister!,’ which involved all of us switching instruments. It was terrible, and I think the crowd regretted encoring us. But it was still an amazing night that now seems like a real capsule of a moment in time. That show kicked off our ‘career’ and led to lots of touring. The casual ease of how it came together reflects how thriving and supportive the scene was and still is. Things happened by just running into people downtown. Lots of folks were making things happen and were eager to bring younger bands along for the ride and were working hard to build something that transcended the smallish size of the city, which they did and continue to do.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“Nova Scotians won't need any introduction to Mo Kenney, but I'm going to suggest ‘Telephones’ from her recently released In My Dreams album. It's a perfect pop gem. The arrangement is so good!”
“One of the most memorable nights at HPX for me must have been seeing Arcade Fire at The Marquee in 2004 right when Funeral came out. The place was packed, more full than I think I've ever seen it. I had a badge but couldn't get in as they were way over capacity. Luckily Loel Campbell and Mike Bigelow's band at the time, the Holy Shroud, were opening the show and snuck me in the stage door. We tried to go out front but it was impossible. I think it was Jeremy or Tim from Arcade Fire that said, ‘Maybe you guys can hang out onstage behind the amps and it would be really rad if you could change a string for us if we break one.’ I don't think they had much of a crew, if any back then. We obliged and watched most of the show peering over the wall of amps and gear, but it was rad and they killed it!”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“This may seem a little biased because Loel [Campbell] and I played on her record and are playing the Pop Ex show as well but you should check out ‘Absisto’ or ‘Bodies at Bay’ by Cold Specks.”
“Well I did play one year close to Halloween and we dressed up as Ghostbusters for the encore and went raging through St. Matt's Church to that song ‘I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost,’ and several friends were in the audience dressed up as ghosts so of course we shot with our ghost-busting guns. Kinley Dowling stabbed me with a glow stick. That's all I remember.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“‘Good Sex’ by Kevin Drew. I like this song and this video a lot and he's also a very nice guy.”
“There are so many, this is incredibly hard, I think about Josh Ritter in the dark, Arcade Fire in The Marquee, the Thermals secret show at The Carleton, Yo La Tengo at the Lord Nelson — just four that come to mind. As a statement about what the festival can be on an emotional and community level, though, I think the most memorable was Joel Plaskett playing acoustic at St. Matthew’s Church. He is onstage saying, ‘My band is in Texas opening for the Tragically Hip and I flew home for this show,’ and he never told us and never complained, he did it because he believes in the festival and the music community. Then, later he says, ‘My grandmother was a parishioner at this church her whole life, she sat there in the fifth-row pew. She was here every Sunday. She passed away this year and I’ve been trying to finish writing this song inspired by her. I finished the song and I would like to play it for you tonight.’ Again, we had no idea about that direct personal connection. People were bawling. He flew out the next morning at dawn to rejoin the band in Texas. It was amazing.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“I just hit the venues and absorb as much as I can, but there is no doubt in my mind that Rich Aucoin will play an amazing show. Rich Aucoin, ‘Yelling in Sleep’ is my tune de jour, love his new record, Ephemeral.”
"I really remember flying in from Texas to go straight to St Matthew's Church to play a show with my father. It was an amazing night in an incredible venue. I was exhausted until I took the stage and then the audience picked me right up. I even remember the western shirt I was wearing. The arms were too short so I had to roll up the sleeves."
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
"This year you should listen to Mardeen's Telephones and then to Mo Kenney's new version. Amazing song no matter what way you slice it."
“1994, the U.K./Belgian band Stereolab playing a track called ‘Anamorphose’ from the album Mars Audiac Quintet. Mary Hansen (who sadly passed away in 2002) played a keyboard line that changed first on the fourth beat of a four-four bar, and then on the fifth, and then on the sixth beat, until eventually the entire structure of the song got turned around. It was just really cool and trippy and mathy and made me want to play spacey pop songs in weird time signatures, too.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“I'm in love with Tanya Tagaq; she's far and away the most interesting, challenging, scary, beautiful and totally punk-rock artist in Canada/the world right now. Try to see her live; she will explode your mind and your heart. If I have to recommend one track, I guess I'd go with ‘Fight’ from this year's Polaris Music Prize-winning album, Animism. But please do not put this track on while you're doing the dishes. You have to get close and listen.”
“While the Girl Talk show I opened for was a really exciting time, I would have to say my own album release at St. Matthew's for We're All Dying to Live will be one of my favourite moments in my lifetime. Just surrounded by so many friends and family and a hundred fellow musicians to play the show with me felt incredible. Such a rare moment when that happens. I'd say, unless something else that big and collaborative happens for me, that album release was almost wedding-like as so many friends from all over happened to be able to attend.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“‘Card, Crane, Ha’ — was the first song that drew me into the music of Moon (spelled 'muun' for Bandcamp). Such a sweet bassline and groove for this psychedelic wonder.”
“It was 2011, when Rich Aucoin played St. Matt's and had 80 people onstage. It was a beautiful mess. He did We're All Dying to Live in sequence, which is one of my favourite things about album release shows, and at that point the myths around the record were so huge because he'd worked on it for so long, the whole ‘500 people played on it’ gimmick, but none of that matters when the guy is in front of you. And at the end of the first full song — he did an overture first — ‘All You Cannot Live Without,’ which is a very slow, seven-minute jam, he appeared on the pulpit with his trumpet, up above this stage with people spilling off of it — and it was so triumphant and wonderful and I am crying thinking about it. He's such a nice person and he works so hard and sometimes you can be nice, talented and a hard worker and it doesn't add up to shit because that's life, but here was this hot, full church of people just completely in love and that love has carried on throughout the world in the years since. That show was really special.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“Swearin', ‘Dust in the Gold Sack.’ They are a dope, high-energy band from Philadelphia (maybe New York now) — I saw them at NXNE in June and they're killer live. The singer is Allison Crutchfield, who has a twin sister, Katie, who you may know as Waxahatchee, and both of their acts are rising in tandem and it's great to see. Swearin' is really tight and fun and are playing twice and I plan to go both times.”
"A very memorable HPX moment was playing at St. Matthew's United Church last year. It's a beautiful venue and an intimate setting. I remember that show feeling really great! I always have a blast playing the festival and love getting the opportunity to be over on the East Coast. Also, I remember going to Two If by Sea the next morning for coffee and a chocolate croissant and it was unreal."
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
"Chad VanGaalen is playing this year and he's one of my favourite Canadian artists! I'm always blown away by his performances and love his new record. I recommend listening to 'Where Are You?' off his latest record called Shrink Dust."
“Tie: Participating in a mosh pit that Mr. Dibbs created on the Velvet Olive dance floor (yes, the Velvet Olive dance floor [long closed]), or rocking the Palace with the best battle DJ of all time, DJ Craze. Both were opportunities to share stages in my home town with international DJs that I looked up to, and both did not disappoint.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“The young gods BBNG just keep getting better and better. Their last album, III, is one of the best-sounding pieces of vinyl that I own, and this new full-length with Ghostface takes them in a new ‘cinematic' direction. Read: It’s a movie. This performer's selection kind of kills three birds with one stone, which is good because it was hard to pick one. Hats off to HPX for programming a great lineup this year.”
“Arcade Fire at The Marquee Club, Halifax Pop Explosion 2004. I vividly remember the excitement around Arcade Fire in general leading into their Pop Explosion show. The band just released Funeral the month prior, and there was a palpable buzz around the record and the band. I was so excited to buy this record that I was having dreams about it. By that point, I had been to many a Marquee show but until that night I don't think I'd been in that venue with so many people. It seemed like everyone attending HPX that year was crammed into the club like sardines. Then, this band — this insanely energetic, captivating, theatrical, art rock band — comes out and blows the roof off the place. They were unlike any band I'd ever seen. Looking back 10 years later, this is the kind of thing I love about this festival. They always manage to grab bands on the cusp of their explosion (if you'll pardon the pun) and give you a sneak peek at what's to come. We're talking about a band that is literally one of the biggest acts in the world right now. And I got to see them here, in Halifax, well before that point. Amazing.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
"Outtacontroller has this unique ability to take a seemingly mundane thought and transform it into an anthem. Take 'Put It On High,' a track from their debut LP, Don't Play Dumb, for example. It's a song about needing white noise to be able to sleep ('I know that it's November/ Put it on high/ Let's sleep with the fan on/ Put it on high'), but I will probably include that track on summer mixtapes for the rest of my life. 'I Gave Up On Weezer' is another prime example of the band pairing an everyday sentiment with high-octane energy, ripping guitars and pop-punk melodies. The lyrics are not just clever but also on point ('I loved them from the very start/ but every new record just breaks my heart/ Why bother? It's gonna hurt me'), and the band is tight as hell. Hands down, one of my favourite bands in Halifax."
“One year the Brian Jonestown Massacre were supposed to headline and couldn't make it over the border. Mooney Suzuki (who were my favourite band at the time — I worked at Sam the Record Man on Barrington and made a giant checkerboard display of their black-and-white 7" and they came in and I got embarrassed, but they liked the display — took their place and played an extra set. They launched into their first song by saying, ‘Hey, we're the Charlie Watts Riots.’
“Also when Thee Oh Sees played Reflections I lost my mind.”
"For very selfish reasons, my most memorable HPX moment was when the Heavy Blinkers played our first ever live show! If memory serves me, it was at the now defunct Velvet Olive and the year was either 1997 or 1998. I can't remember exactly, because it was in a different century/millennium. I think I had maybe seen the internet twice by this point? It was a lifetime ago — sigh."
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
"I would suggest listening to 'Casio Love Song' by Cheryl Hann. Any song that has the lyrics 'pre-set samba beat' sung over an actual pre-set samba beat is going to get me every time."
“My most memorable moment was in 2004 or 2005. I can't remember the exact year. But I was new to the city, newly immersed into the music scene. And The Marquee Club had about 900 people packed in there — about 300 too many. You could hardly move — one big mosh pit from the front door to the stage — but I made forward and watched the Organ (!) open for Arcade Fire. I fell in love with Deb Cohen's guitar playing for life. And was blown away by Arcade Fire. It was lightning in the bottle. They were blowing up all over the globe but honoured their HPX play. I feel like Stars or BSS was on the bill, too. In hindsight, had there been a fire there would have been no Jenn Grant, In-Flight Safety, Wintersleep — or Arcade Fire or the Organ for that matter. Sardines in packed club.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“Been digging Vogue Dots lately. Been a fan of Babette for a while. Also gives me a chance to shout to Whaleskin (Willow Bell) on P.E.I. — I'm a big fan. Love this version of the tune.”
“My favourite memory of HPX involves dancing, a church and vomit. A few years back, Handsome Furs played the festival. We performed in an old church. Prior to this I was pretty anti-playing in a church. Especially with the Furs. To me, church shows represented the bizarre, anti-fun movement in mid-2000s indie music. A kind of preciousness and posturing that seemed antithetical to exciting underground music. HPX proved me wrong. The church had been fitted out with a huge PA, massive subs and it was packed. We debuted a bunch of material for Sound Kapital and to my amazement, there were dancers. Onstage. Folks were shaking it. I remember playing an early live version of 'Serve the People' and getting lost in watching people dance, listening to the squall of feedback bounce around the rafters and just generally having a blast. Playing live, making a joyful noise in front of an audience — that's as close as I get to a religious experience. I'll always remember that show as one of the best sets we ever played. Later on, someone from the fest told me they'd found some vomit in the pews. Mission accomplished. I never second-guessed church venues again. So: thank you HPX.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“My pick is Cold Specks but honestly — the whole lineup looks great.”
“I have this really fond memory of seeing Chad VanGaalen's secret set at Tribeca a few years back. It all ended with this super raw song that I fell in love with. I never forgot it. I found a recording of him doing it on YouTube and watched it all the time. I was blown away by the complex chords and the raw, primal energy. I had never heard Chad scream like that before. It was like Nirvana meets the Jesus Lizard. It seemed like a whole new development from this artist that I already saw as fully formed. I tried to learn it on guitar. I told everyone that would listen about this 'hit' that was bound to change everything once Chad finally recorded it.
“A few years later Chad agreed to do a Black Mold set at one of the Pigeon Row shows. After making sure there was no way he could back out, I said, ‘I'd never usually do this, but a few years ago you played an amazing new song at Tribeca. Is there any chance you could play it at my show?’ and I sent him the video to prompt his memory.
“He replied, ‘Nope, we made that one up on the spot.’”
“I think two moments are tied in the ‘most memorable’ category. The first one was back in 1997 when I was in a band called State Champs. In 1997, a band called Ladybug Transistor from Brooklyn, N.Y., came to town, and myself and Michael Catano (also from State Champs) pretty much chaperoned that weekend. I knew the guitar player, Jeff Baron, who I met a few months earlier while I was visiting NYC and going to every record store in town. Jeff worked at a place called Rocks In Your Head, and I met him when the Ladybugs played with a band I loved called Guv'ner. As a side note, the Ladybug Transistor song ‘The Wheel’ is still an all-time indie rock classic.
"That weekend was the first time we got to hang out with real-life NY musicians and they were on Merge Records, which of course we all thought was the best considering our love for Superchunk, Polvo, etc. They were and still are some of the nicest, sweetest people around, and I remember feeling really, really sad when they got back in the van and drove back home. But luckily for me I was scheduled to do my journalism school internship at CMJ in NY the next month, and the Ladybugs invited me to stay with them the entire time. They took me to shows, bars, museums and on tour with them to Boston and Connecticut, and I even had my first American Thanksgiving with them in Brooklyn. It was a magical time all made possible by the Pop Explosion.
“The second moment happened in 2001, when North of America played the Olympic Bingo Hall with Spengler, Weights & Measures, Rockets Red Glare and Sweep the Leg Johnny. There's a Weights & Measures song called ‘A Most Efficient Method of Removing the Pants’ that seamlessly worked with one of our songs called ‘Central Port of Equal Times,’ so we decided instead of doing a changeover we'd just join W&M onstage and we'd segue from their set into ours. It worked perfectly and it was a blast to all be onstage together.
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“Heaven For Real, ‘You Are the One with the Iron-Heart Device.’ H4R probably don't even play this one anymore because they write so many songs, and I'm always getting them confused with Quaker Parents. But, I have to give this one to H4R since Mark Grundy named my new band Cryptorips when we were in our darkest hour trying to think of a name.
“P.S. I would have said any song by Angel Olsen if she were only playing.”
“1996. Giant Sand at Reflections. In the midst of a hurricane, Howe Gelb (a songwriting genius) laid down a jazzy, rambling set with drummer John Convertino that seemed as informed by the buckets of rain outside as their prolific recorded output. Talked to Gelb for a bit about Bill Monroe, who had just passed away. One of those weird moments when HPX made Halifax the centre of the musical universe.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“This year I want to see Walrus play, I’ve been working on a record with them for a while. One of those bands that have it all: songs; musicality; noise and a sensibility that is both classic and forward-looking. The last time I tried to see them I got the flu, I’m going this time come hell or high water.”
"Perhaps my most memorable moment was when Japandroids played the Paragon (The Marquee Club's alternate identity for a few years there) in 2009, just after their debut Post-Nothing had taken off. You Say Party opened, and their set went long, which was strange because HPX set times are rather reliable, all things considered. Turns out the Japandroids lads were incredibly sick, and organizers told You Say Party to keep playing until they could go on. When they finally made it to the stage, it was getting dangerously close to curfew — and while Japandroids can play fast, they can't play THAT fast. After a handful of songs, the band were told there was only time for one more. Pissed off as all hell, they thrashed through the most intense take on 'Young Hearts Spark Fire' I've ever heard, with the crowd belting along to help out Brian King's torn-up voice. Then, they were ushered off the stage.
"But here's the thing: no one left. The Paragon's lights were on, the 'go home' music was on the speakers, and everyone just stood there, wanting more. Realizing the predicament, the stage managers let us have one more song, and the band returned to deliver an epic 'Crazy/Forever,' which became something truly special under the full brightness of the house lights.
"The next time Japandroids played Halifax a couple years later, vocalist Brian King spent the entire show complaining about not getting to finish the previous one — 'here's another one we didn't get to play last time,' he repeated ad nauseam — which was silly. Japandroids had delivered a better HPX moment with two of their songs than most bands can pull off with a full set."
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
"A track from one of my favourite Halifax albums of the year. Kuato are a five-piece band best described as post-rock, the sort that evokes easy comparisons to artists like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Mogwai, but they more than hold their own with big, swooning guitars and a loose concept based around the Acadian expulsion — and their live show is deaf-defying."
“My most memorable HPX experience would have to be from our performance at Gus' Pub in 2012. Near the end of the set, our good friend Andy Munro approached the stage and grabbed Pat Ryan (former and occasional guest bass guitar, guitar player/hero for Cousins) and hoisted him on his shoulders for nearly an entire song. It was unexpected and unbelievable.”
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“Listen to ‘Keep the Gate’ by Construction & Destruction. They're one of our favourite bands in the whole world and demand many and frequent listens. A true gem; rare and true.”
“In 2012 we were set to play at a new venue in Halifax. Two days before HPX began, the venue closed its doors. The HPX crew, however, had no intention of cancelling any shows, and was able to rig up a church that was willing to allow four nights worth of shows in its gym and foyer.
We loaded our equipment in, just in time to catch Acres of Lions play on a stage that must have been seven feet off the ground. It was the kind of stage that you watch Thanksgiving pageants on, and the gymnasium was the single most echo-y building I have ever been inside. Four-hundred people would have looked like 40 in this room, and there were only about 40 in attendance.
We decided immediately that playing this room would have been a terrible mistake as we’re far too loud and bangy for the venue we lovingly dubbed ‘echo-chamber.’
There were two more bands before our slot, so we put the word out that we were going to play acoustic in the foyer. Word spread throughout Twitter and Facebook that the venue was echo-delight and that we were going to play acoustic. We played to a semi-circle of friends, most standing but some nostalgically sitting in pews, who all sang along while we played a set of Canadian Heritage Minute songs.
There was a certain magic in the room that night. Maybe it was due to the boxes of stale communion wafers lining the walls, the carpet that was older than anyone in the room or that smell of damp church, but it was one of the most fun times I’ve ever had playing. It was also a testament to the sense of community that is HPX.
Must-hear track from an artist at HPX 2014:
“This is a band that’s just doing everything right in my book: Halifax’s Like a Motorcycle’s new video for ‘Hands.’”
If you think musicians don't put a ton of effort into their stage attire, you're dead wrong. Even your favourite up-and-coming indie rock act spent hours staring into their closet before picking that specific Mission of Burma shirt and that particular pair of beat-up Converse.
Here are some of the acts who've taken that to the next level, and are at least as famous for their onstage outfits as they are for their actual performances.
Each day, Rich Terfry and Radio 2 Drive wraps up your day with music and stories about the interesting things going on in the world.
RICH'S PICK: "Everybody Eats When They Come To My House" by Cab Calloway
JUNK IN THE TRUNK:
Kid performs mind-blowing magic:
REAR-VIEW MIRROR:
Three times a week, Rich Terfry looks back in our Rear-view Mirror at a great song from the good ol’ days. Today, The Velvet Underground with "I'm Waiting For The Man".
Listen to the audio version of Rear-view Mirror by hitting the Play button
Here’s the story of a record about drugs, prostitution and weird sex that was made by Andy Warhol, was inspired by the denizens of his Factory, William S. Burroughs and the Fluxus art movement, was released, ignored, thrown in the garbage, dug out by a guy from Montreal and sold on eBay for $25,000.
Andy Warhol, put up the money and gave the freedom to a band called The Velvet Underground to release their first album. The songs were written by Lou Reed. He studied English at Syracuse University and loved the works of writers like William S. Burroughs and Hubert Selby Jr. He thought that combining the gritty subject matter of that kind of literature with rock and roll was an “obvious” thing to do.
The experimental sound of the album was conceived by John Cale who was influenced by experimental musicians like La Monte Young, John Cage and the early Fluxus movement. He and Lou Reed hacked their instruments and invented strange new tunings.
Andy Warhol designed the artwork for the album and, acting as the band’s manager, began to seek a record deal for the outfit.
He was rejected by one label after another. After a long delay, the album was finally picked up by legendary jazz label Verve: home of Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. Of all companies! But Verve barely supported the album at all. It was also banned from almost every radio station and record stores. Magazines wouldn’t even run advertisements for the album. It was just too strange and dark for most tastes in 1967.
The original demo of the album that had been pressed to vinyl was discarded and was lost and forgotten about until 2002 when a record collector from Montreal named Warren Hill found it at a flea market and bought it for 75 cents. By that time, history had shed new light on the album. Critics now hail it as a masterpiece. Spin Magazine put it on their very short list of the most influential albums of all time and Rolling Stonenamed it the most prophetic album ever made. When Warren Hill listed the album on eBay in 2006, it sold for a whopping $25,000.
Here’s one of the songs that people ignored, hated or ran away from, screaming, in 1967, but that is now regarded as a revolutionary classic. The story of a drug score called “I’m Waiting for the Man” by Velvet Underground.
Here are some other great editions of Rear-view Mirror:
We went to see Austra make their Haligonian debut at Reflection's Cabaret last night as part of the opening night of Halifax Pop Explosion. Here's what we saw.
1. The echo-y, dreamy synth-pop of Vogue Dots
If the purpose of festivals like HPX is to discover your new favourite bands, then Vogue Dots are our first big win of this year's fest. They describe themselves as an "experimental pop" band, who are originally from New Brunswick, but are now based out of Halifax. They combine haunting, breathy female vocals with production that ranges from chillwave-y lo-fi electro to pulsating industrial lite. We would like to see big things happen for this band.
2. An unexpected tribute to Jam Master Jay
Astral Swans are one of those acts that sound like they're a band, but are actually just one guy. In this case, the guy is Matthew Swann, a psych-influenced Calgarian singer-songwriter, who is probably the last guy you'd even expect to write a touching tribute to Run-D.M.C.'s late DJ Jam Master Jay. And yet, that's exactly what he did.
3. Hula hoops
We're not sure why, but there were hula hoops in the upstairs mezzanine at Reflections, which meant that there were several drunk people attempting to hula hoop. While that was pretty fun to watch, it also led to a couple hoops narrowly missing going over the railing and into the crowd below.
4. Petra Glynt's kazoo
For those of you who aren't familiar, Petra Glynt is a brilliant, 21st-century one-woman band. She had a table full of sequencers and loop pedals, a floor tom she hits with the intensity of a Mack truck, and a rich, resonant contralto voice. She has the ability to put the crowd in a sort of rhythmic trance. And once you're in that trance, she breaks out a kazoo.
5. The most excited audience ever
We can't remember the last time we saw a crowd dance with such abandon, so many smiling faces at a show or when we were hugged by so many strangers. We didn't think aggressively friendly was a thing until last night.
6. A dancier, funkier Austra
While Austra has always had a dance music element, it was pushed to the forefront last night. Songs like "Home," "Lose It" and "Forgive Me" took on an almost house-y tone, and it was amazing.
7. An up-close-and-personal experience with Austra
Austra is a band that plays a lot of festivals, so seeing them in a club with a capacity of a few hundred on a stage that was just a foot higher than everywhere else is a rare and brilliant experience. Katie Stelmanis's classically trained soprano voice, which is one of the best not only in Canada, but in popular music today, was simultaneously louder and more nuanced than we'd ever heard it. Tiny, subtle inflections were audible as the sound flooded the room. Stelmanis walked around the edge of the stage, inches from the unbelievably stoked crowd, and the band seemed to feed off that energy, with smiles onstage and instruments attacked with a pretty serious level of ferocity.
Want more Halifax Pop Explosion coverage? Read these:
George Stroumboulopoulos welcomed Hayden into his home for an intimate conversation and an acoustic performance on The Strombo Show.
Hayden is a celebrated Toronto folk-veteran with seven critically acclaimed records to his name. In conversation, Hayden talks about the inaugural Dream Serenade concert, meeting Neil Young, Billy Idol borrowing his guitar, finding out he was dead and the special relationship he shares with his daughter.
Watch the complete interview and performance with Hayden below:
When Hayden was courted by Young in the mid-'90s, he visited Young's ranch and Lionel train collection: "I was very happy to see his trains. But, I mean, the beautiful thing about his trains is that he set up a whole world of trains as a way to experience things with his son, Ben, and that's the whole impetus for that. That was a very emotional thing to see."
His relationship with Uncle Neil included a Bridge School Benefit double-night billing, alongside many iconic names: Patti Smith, Pearl Jam, David Bowie, Pete Townsend and an instrument-free Billy Idol.
"I don't know why he arrived there without an instrument to play with, but he did and he asked me if he could borrow mine," remembers Hayden. "I was sitting backstage watching him perform 'Rebel Yell' and 'White Wedding' on my acoustic guitar. Just the coolest thing. At the end of the set, he got up and lifted the guitar above his head and went right up, walking towards the monitor pretending like he was going to. But then he looked at me and winked and put it down softly. "
Bridge School Benefit's spirit was one of the main sources of inspiration for Hayden's own curated benefit concert, Dream Serenade. It features a cattle call of musicians that include Matt and Aaron from The National, Feist, Sarah Harmer, Billy Talent, Barenaked Ladies and more at Massey Hall on Oct. 25 for children with developmental disabilities.
Tickets and further information are found at www.MasseyHall.comHayden is a celebrated Toronto folk-veteran with seven critically acclaimed records to his name. In conversation, Hayden talks about the inaugural Dream Serenade concert, meeting Neil Young, Billy Idol borrowing his guitar, finding out he was dead and the special relationship he shares with his daughter.
For further musical exploration with George Stroumboulopoulos, tune in to The Strombo Show every Sunday night on CBC Radio 2 or CBC Music from 8 to 11 p.m. for three hours of uninterrupted music for music lovers.
A new video game from the company that made Rock Band puts you on the conductor’s podium — sort of.
Fantasia: Music Evolved was released on Oct. 21. It's an interactive take on the classic Disney movie that gave us ostriches dancing to Ponchielli. In the new game, you stand in front of your TV and move in rhythm to various pop and classical hits. The way you move affects the way that the music plays out, just like maestro Leopold Stokowski in the opening of the movie— except without the necessity for years of training and voluminous knowledge of the classical repertory.
Check out the video below to see not only how the game looks, but a little bit of how you’ll look when you’re fake-conducting.
Richard Wagner was the worst. I mean, the worst. In all likelihood, nobody is ever going to take the title of “most horrible person ever to write renowned classical music” away from this guy.
It’s not just that he was venomously anti-Semitic, although that maintains pride of place among his various indiscretions. He was also an inconsiderate, self-aggrandizing womanizer who never repaid his debts. It’s enough to make sitting through the four-and-a-half hours of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg just that much more painful.
Too bad he wrote so much fantastic music. Otherwise, we could all comfortably ignore him.
Check out the gallery above for a selection of stories about Richard Wagner being the insufferable, rude, prejudiced, entitled, egomaniacal prat that he was.
(Note: Information in this slideshow is taken from Robert Gutman's Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music, Oliver Hilmes's Cosima Wagner: The Lady of Bayreuth and Derek Watson's Liszt.)
Many equate fashion with frivolity, but musicians have always used fashion to make powerful political statements. From Lady Gaga's meat dress to Tanya Tagaq's sealskin cuffs to Morrissey's latest tees, there is no shortage of eye-popping examples.
So which ones are the most memorable? Open the gallery to find out.
Each day, Rich Terfry and Radio 2 Drive wraps up your day with music and stories about the interesting things going on in the world. Today, Pete Morey sits in the hot seat as Rich tours his new album, Neverlove.
PETE'S PICK: Can - "I Want More"
JUNK IN THE TRUNK:
Mmmm... Bonobos for breakfast with these pancake apes:
Eagles love golf. Or hate it:
Parrots love ping-pong:
REAR-VIEW MIRROR:
Three times a week, Rich Terfry looks back in our Rear-view Mirror at a great song from the good ol’ days. Today, The Velvet Underground with "I'm Waiting For The Man".
Listen to the audio version of Rear-view Mirror by hitting the Play button
Here’s the story of a record about drugs, prostitution and weird sex that was made by Andy Warhol, was inspired by the denizens of his Factory, William S. Burroughs and the Fluxus art movement, was released, ignored, thrown in the garbage, dug out by a guy from Montreal and sold on eBay for $25,000.
Andy Warhol, put up the money and gave the freedom to a band called The Velvet Underground to release their first album. The songs were written by Lou Reed. He studied English at Syracuse University and loved the works of writers like William S. Burroughs and Hubert Selby Jr. He thought that combining the gritty subject matter of that kind of literature with rock and roll was an “obvious” thing to do.
The experimental sound of the album was conceived by John Cale who was influenced by experimental musicians like La Monte Young, John Cage and the early Fluxus movement. He and Lou Reed hacked their instruments and invented strange new tunings.
Andy Warhol designed the artwork for the album and, acting as the band’s manager, began to seek a record deal for the outfit.
He was rejected by one label after another. After a long delay, the album was finally picked up by legendary jazz label Verve: home of Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. Of all companies! But Verve barely supported the album at all. It was also banned from almost every radio station and record stores. Magazines wouldn’t even run advertisements for the album. It was just too strange and dark for most tastes in 1967.
The original demo of the album that had been pressed to vinyl was discarded and was lost and forgotten about until 2002 when a record collector from Montreal named Warren Hill found it at a flea market and bought it for 75 cents. By that time, history had shed new light on the album. Critics now hail it as a masterpiece. Spin Magazine put it on their very short list of the most influential albums of all time and Rolling Stonenamed it the most prophetic album ever made. When Warren Hill listed the album on eBay in 2006, it sold for a whopping $25,000.
Here’s one of the songs that people ignored, hated or ran away from, screaming, in 1967, but that is now regarded as a revolutionary classic. The story of a drug score called “I’m Waiting for the Man” by Velvet Underground.
Here are some other great editions of Rear-view Mirror:
Are you really going to wear that lame ghost costume again? Or the sexy Big Bird? Please.
If you love dressing up and you love Canadian indie music, we have some ideas for you. Here at Radio 3 we went all out to show you how you can look like your favourite Canadian musicians on Halloween.
Just click on the gallery above, get yourself some supplies and prepare yourself for a whole night of hearing "So, who are you supposed to be?"
Any suggestions for who to add to the list? Post your comments on the blog or tweet @CBCRadio3
Music and fashion are often inextricable, which is why we've been delving into the relationship between the two all week. (Epic, 100-slide photo gallery? Check. Best-dressed classical stars? Right here. Want to dress Drake up in paper doll form? Of course you do.)
But we wanted to know: what do people in Canadian fashion circles regard as their favourite music fashion moments? So we asked 10 fashion bloggers and stylists from across the country that question, and our ever-talented designer, Samantha Smith, illustrated each moment as described.
Scroll below for the full-body, detailed sketches with a description of each, and go through the gallery above for a closer shot. Warning: you're probably going to want all of these on your wall.
Who: Tristan Banning, founder of Sidewalk Hustle (Toronto, Ont.) Music fashion moment: Jay Z circa the 2003 Black Album
“The most memorable moment in music fashion came from Jay Z (then Jay-Z)'s ‘What More Can I Say’ from his ‘retirement’ LP, the 2003 Black Album. I was in my early 20s and for the better part of the last five years, hip-hop fashion had run wild and gotten sloppy. Then Jay Z said, ‘And I don't wear jerseys I'm 30-plus/ Give me a crisp pair of jeans n---as, button-ups.’ I wasn't 30 but I wanted to be taken seriously as an adult. It changed the way I dressed as an adult.
“I look back now in almost horror. But, coming out of the '90s, boxy, ill-defined clothing, we didn't know any better.”
Who: Janis Galloway, fashion publicist and editor of Dress Me Dearly (Edmonton, Alta.) Music fashion moment: Bjork’s swan dress, 2001 Academy Awards
“The dress literally has its own Wikipedia page. The best part: Bjork pretended to actually lay an egg on the red carpet while wearing the dress.
“Why has it stuck with me? Because fashion is about fun and experimentation and sometimes people in the industry forget that. There is nothing that drives me more crazy than people taking fashion too seriously. Bjork was one of the first artists to really push the boundaries of fashion at an awards gala of that level. She was mostly ridiculed for wearing it, and the dress was called out as a publicity stunt — which is hilarious when you think about artists today like Lady Gaga wearing her infamous meat dress. It was a defining moment for Bjork and a genius move in branding. She later wore the dress on the cover of her album released the same year.”
Who: Anna Gilkerson, Make New (Halifax, N.S.) Music fashion moment: Woodstock (Grace Slick, Jimi Hendrix)
“I grew up with the Woodstock double cassette tape that I snagged from my parents.
“Besides listening to those tapes over and over again, I would look at the inset pictures of all of the people in the crowds and the musicians and I would study what they were wearing — how they put things together. It was all so carelessly stylish, such a carefree fashion. All the textiles, the blankets, the long dresses, the nudity, the patchwork, the bell bottoms and long hair, no bras, Grace Slick belting out ‘White Rabbit,’ Hendrix playing his guitar with his mouth, the Hells Angels clad in leather jackets, the haze, the psychedelic colours, the love, the dirt, the freedom.
“Woodstock was the peak of the ’60s love-in. It was anti-fashion, which in itself created huge waves in fashion. Woodstock was a pilgrimage away from the ‘square’ world, and it will always be emblematic of free love and rock 'n' roll. People could finally express themselves in ways they had never been able to before. One of the major ways was through dress. The loose versus tight silhouettes, the romanticism, the denim, the jewelry and the ethnic influences trickle down from rock bands that had been travelling to north Africa, Southeast Asia and India, for example. It was so rich and full of colour and celebration.”
Who: Danielle Meder, Final Fashion, Toronto, Ont. Music fashion moment: Marianne Faithfull’s queen of punk phase
“Marianne Faithfull's style was defiance defined when she rose from her own ashes as a queen of punk. Leaving her bohemian rock princess past behind her, she stripped back to leather jackets over nothing, singing lyrics that would make roadies blush. What I love about this phase of her career was how she proved that you can reincarnate yourself over and over, that you can renounce youth, beauty, money and fame, you don't have to hold on to anything, you can give it all up, throw everything away and become even more yourself.”
Who: Mo Handahu, Lion Hunter (Halifax, N.S.) Music fashion moment: Solange in the “Losing You” video, 2012
“I remember the first time I saw Solange's ‘Losing You’ video, I replayed it so many times I lost count! I loved the chancy maximalism in her outfit changes; all were deliciously print-heavy and so well coordinated. The backdrop of life in that microcosm of a South African township made me long for Africa. Seeing the sapeurs steal the show while suited up in their best threads, and being the elegant people they only know to be, reminded me of the power and importance of self-expression. That made this video truly memorable for me!”
Who: Anita Clarke, I Want — I Got (Toronto, Ont.) Music fashion moment: Grace Jones at the Queen’s Jubilee
“I guess it's pretty cliché of me to select this musician as I always reference her as being one of my heroes in fashion, but Grace Jones is iconic in every way possible. Everything she does takes my breath away. Her album covers give me life. Her music and movies had such an influence on me, as a child who grew up in the predominantly white suburb of Richmond Hill in the ’70s and ’80s. My favourite Grace Jones fashion moment is from her performance at the Queen's Jubilee. This 64-year-old woman (at the time) gets onstage in a red-and-black PVC bodysuit, complete with floor-length bustle and elaborate red headpiece. And if that isn't enough, she kills ‘Slave to the Rhythm’ while hula-hooping. I literally cried watching this performance. Nothing comes close to topping this moment in fashion and music for me.”
Who: M’c kenneth Licon, Little Fashionisto (Vancouver, B.C.) Music fashion moment: The Beatles during the mod movement, 1960s
“The Beatles during the ’60s mod movement. Besides their chart-topping hits, the Beatles were hip, young and dashing in their tailored, fitting suits, iconic hairstyles — which constantly remains a huge inspiration to me.
“The Beatles are the epitome of youth and freedom. Their music and style went on to become influential on a global scale and still continue to be a source of inspiration for many artists that came after, be it in music, arts and fashion.
“The ’60s were and still remain to me such an inspirational time. I could only ever dream of having the opportunity to go back in time and experience it all firsthand.”
Who: Karen Ward, Curvy Canadian (Toronto, Ont.) Music fashion moment: the Spice Girls
“Being a teenager in the late ’90s, I fell completely in love with the Spice Girls. They were instrumental in setting all sorts of fashion trends for women at the time, from Ginger Spice's impossibly high platform boots to Baby Spice's penchant for pastels. If they wore it, you could be sure girls everywhere would want it. I was no exception! I think their influence has stuck with me all these years later because, even though their music and fashion image may seem superficial upon first encounter, in many ways they represented a sort of feminism with which I could actually relate. Their music wasn't about burning bras or rebelling against 'The Man,' but it was about what they referred to as 'girl power.' They sang about so many feminist issues — feminine relationships, healthy, safe and pro-feminine sexuality, reciprocity in romance and they even hinted towards the diversity that is possible in gender identification. They represented womanhood that was not singular. They began to show us that gender can be performed in so many ways: from Posh's heels and dresses to Baby's pigtails, and from Sporty's tear-aways to Ginger's killer heels or Scary's fabulous natural hair, we are all free to perform the gender that we feel represents who we are, and that we are all awesome. Their fashion, and the philosophy behind it, will always be inspirational to me.”
“Kanye West in Celine at the 2011 Coachella Music Festival. I love when people blur the lines of gendered fashion, so Kanye wearing a Celine blouse was definitely a moment. For me, putting genders on clothes has always seemed silly, so seeing someone in a very mainstream position challenging those stereotypes was really interesting. People in music are always trying to push the boundaries when it comes to fashion, but this simple nod to an amazing womenswear line was so perfectly and casually executed. Kanye has been credited with lots of big trends in menswear (leather joggers, kilts, Givenchy), but this look solidified his influence and presence in the fashion world for me.”
Who: Anik Lacasse–Richard, Montreal in Style (Montreal, Que.) Music fashion moment: Gwen Stefani in No Doubt's "Just a Girl" video
“It was the summer of 1995 and I was 12 years old when I saw the music video that inspired my youth and shaped my music taste: ‘Just a Girl’ by No Doubt. First there was the style: with her bleached-blond hair, her red lips, her baggy pants, cropped tank and showing bra straps, Gwen Stefani was fierce, perfectly channelling both a tomboy and super girly style. Right then and there I started wearing baggy cargo pants, twisting my hair into little knots on my head — I even tried the bindi, but in my small town, it wasn’t really working. I did bleach my hair once, but that wasn’t looking too good on me. Her style spoke to me because I am not a ‘girly-girl,’ even today. And their music was a revelation to me. Tragic Kingdom was on repeat until Return of Saturn came out. It’s still one of my favourite albums. When I look at my music playlist today, and it’s been like that for the past 18 years, I see mostly female singers. And of course, there is still some good old No Doubt.”
