The CanCon Catalogue

I have no idea how you feel about Valentine's Day. But if you're looking for some romantic songs for whatever reason, here's some of the best Canada has to offer. If nothing else, take a listen to "Some Kinda Wonderful" by Sky and reflect on the fact that we didn't appreciate the genius pop songwriting skills of James Renald before he left the band and they started getting all "Superhero" on us. Individual tracks are below, you can download the whole thing as a .zip file right here.


"Inside the Molecules" - Chad VanGaalen


"Lover's Spit" (alternate version f. Feist) - Broken Social Scene


"Astounded" - Bran Van 3000 f. Curtis Mayfield (youtube)


"Blue Moon (Song for Elvis)" - the Cowboy Junkies


"Your Rocky Spine" - the Great Lake Swimmers (mp3 via slowcoustic.com)


"Never Quit Loving You" - Jill Barber (mp3 via iheartmusic.net)


"Nowhere With You" - Joel Plaskett


"Heroes of the Sidewalk" - Two Hours Traffic (mp3)


"Fireworks" - the Tragically Hip (mp3 via wolveshawksandkites.com)


"Lovers in a Dangerous Time" (Bruce Cockburn cover)- the Barenaked Ladies (youtube live performance)


"Lost Together" - Blue Rodeo


"Crown of Love" - the Arcade Fire (mp3)


"Miss You Now" - Elliot Brood (mp3 via sixeyes.blogspot.com)


"Some Kinda Wonderful" - Sky (youtube)


"Oh You Delicate Heart" - Hawksley Workman


"I'm In Love" - Major Maker


"Taj Mahal" - Sam Roberts


"I'm Your Man" - Leonard Cohen (mp3 via themusicslut.blogspot.com)


"Tentacles" - Rah Rah (mp3 via iheartmusic.net)


"Before You" - Chantal Kreviazuk (youtube)


"Evergreen" - the Wheat Pool


"Oh, My Darling" - Basia Bulat


"My Favourite Chords" - the Weakerthans


"Proof of Love" - Old Man Luecedeke (mp3 via herohill.com)


"Oh Yes, It's Love" - the Bicycles

*Singles Going Steady



Good morning. If you were someone I was jealous of, then last night you would have watched Joel Plaskett open for Sarah McLachlan in for the Olympic countdown. If so, then stop reading. You've had enough Plaskett goodness for now. This is for the rest of us.

Alright, my friends. In his bid to make up not touring anywhere beyond Vancouver until April, the man who is taking a serious run at the best singer-songwriter in the country released the first single from his upcoming album Three yesterday. If you don't know, it's a three disc album, each with nine (3x3) songs, often with songs titles that repeat the same word three times, etc, etc, etc. If you want to see how far he's taking this thing, I suggest you take a look at this. The single, which is the second song on the first disc, is called "Through & Through & Through" and doesn't see Plaskett departing too far from his older work, just complementing it with some female vocalists and horns. At first I didn't like these additions, but having listened to the song three times, I think it's growing on me. You can hear it below, or on joelplaskett.com.

Also yesterday, the only band in the world who's more Canadian than Plaskett, the Tragically Hip released the first single from their forthcoming album, We Are the Same. I can't say I was expecting much this far into their career, but by the sounds of it this could be a good one, with the Hip, on this song at least, moving towards their understated roots side after the pop sheen of World Container. The song is called "Morning Moon," and you can read more about the April 7 release on their MySpace.

I should so be on Hype Machine.

Joel Plaskett - "Through & Through & Through"


The Tragically Hip - "Morning Moon"

I wanted to love this show. I really did. You Will Land With a Thud was one of my favourite albums of last year, and the raucous eight-piece band I heard on record seemed like they would put on an exciting, high-energy live show. And don't get me wrong, they do-- or, at least, they obviously can. But there were enough bad ideas in the night's organization to take what should have been a great show and turn it into a merely ok concert-going experience. So what follows is a list of suggestions for either the band or the venue (I'm not sure who was behind these decisions) so that future shows aren't similarly tarnished.

1. If you're playing a government town, don't do it on a weeknight.
I've never been to the East Coast, so I don't know if this applies there. But if there's one thing I've learned about Victoria in the short time I've been here, it's that the party is reserved strictly for the weekend. Other than that, the nightlife is limited to-- well, none as far as I can tell. Put it this way: when it's nigh-impossible to find a downtown restaurant that's open past seven on a Sunday night, you can be darn well sure that putting on a concert by a little-known band after ten o'clock on a Wednesday is a good way to ensure a far-less-than-capacity turn-out. When one in four of the people there is in the band, something's wrong with the scheduling.

2. If you have to play on a weeknight, start earlier. Or at least on time.
Not being much of a bar person, it is a giant pet peeve of mine when I go to see a show and have to hang out in said bar for an hour before the band I came to see starts, especially when I arrive after the advertised start-time. This goes double when the advertised start-time is ten o clock and I have to go to work the next morning. And again, this is a government town, and you're playing in the government district-- odds are I'm not alone with the early morning wake-up call.

3. If you start after the advertised start-time, the opening act should not play a full set.
Especially when the opening act is actually three people from the headliners.

4. If the opening act plays a full set, then you should start almost immediately after they do, and not take a half hour break prior to taking the stage.
Especially when the opening act is actually three people from the headliners, meaning there's no need to switch set-ups. Everything was already on stage! Why didn't you tune your instruments before the opening act went on? Why did you wait half an hour after they finished before even going up there to see if they worked?

5. If you have made all of the above errors, for god's sake when you finally take the stage, put the crowd into a great mood, have a full dance-floor (a real feat when doing that involves having literally 95% of the audience out there, do not take a "short break" twenty minutes in.

This is where it really became clear someone involved was not thinking straight. Because despite all of the above setbacks, they could have been erased from my memory if the band had just played their set right through. Let me reiterate: the Tom Fun Orchestra put on a great show. Eight band members (including an accordionist, trumpeter, and violinist) crammed onto a tiny stage, all but the drummer right up front, giving a full-on assault of dirty Celtic rock led by a guttural, Tom Waits-ish front-man that has almost the entire audience dancing is something you are unlikely to experience anywhere else. I was loving it as they sped through what was shaping up to be their entire recorded output, building to momentum which each new song, when suddenly it's announced that the band will be taking a short break. What?

Again, let me state the facts: it's a Wednesday, it's a government town, and now it's after midnight. It's also freezing (inexplicably, the doors were left open, possibly to allow the smoke machine to keep doing its thing, but who really likes smoke machines anyways?) and we had to pay a cover to get into a a bar that is almost empty. This is not Saturday night at the city's hottest bar. People are not just hanging and-- wow!-- they get treated to a great live show.

No, people have very obviously changed their nightly routine and handed over cash to come watch the band. So you don't pull the "take a break so they buy more drinks" after the band plays for less than hour, especially when it's now past midnight, and especially when the audience is already dwindling despite an undeniably exciting performance. The "short" break is the perfect time to leave, and leave they did-- at least a quarter and probably closer to half. This pared down those who watched the rest of the set to just over two dozen. I was tempted to leave myself, but only stayed because I was familiar with the group's work and really wanted to hear some of my favourite songs, which I was sure would be great. And I was right-- when "Last of the Curious Thieves" with its beautiful violin line made way for the driving "Rum and Tequila," it becomes clear why this group has won and been nominated for such high-profile awards as entertainer of the year on their home turf.

But for anyone who just thought they might check the band out and had someplace to be the next day, a break is a great time to take off. And, yeah, they likely left thinking "they seemed like fun," but having missed about half of the band's best songs, the incentive to look into them further or pick up a CD was likely lost. And as to the bar, those who left weren't buying more drinks.

So here's my verdict: the Tom Fun Orchestra are worth seeing, but not so worth it that if you're only sort of interested in them it's worth giving up a good night's sleep to do so. Singer Ian MacDougall was joking when he said "If you haven't figured it out... we're famous. Really famous," and I laughed at the time. But looking at the way the way the show was set up, I can't help but wonder whether someone involved actually believed that they had such high-profile entertainers they could get a big late night/early morning audience coming out on a weeknight to see them, and get them to fill up on drinks besides. Again, I don't know if the band or the venue or some combination are to blame, so I don't want to dissuade you from seeing the band in the future-- it was an enjoyable show despite these set-backs, and that is a testament to their entertainment value. They are a talented group of performers, and if you like their recorded output, you will like them in person. As for me, I still like the band, but am disappointed that a poor set-up prevented me from loving them, and while the small minority of people who stuck the whole thing out were clearly happy, in the end the band was left preaching to the choir while the unconverted skipped out early.

The Tom Fun Orchestra is currently on a cross-Canada tour. For more dates, see tomfun.ca or the band's myspace.

Band Name: The Racoons
From: Victoria, British Columbia
Members:
Matty Lyall- Vocals, Guitar
Jeff Mitchelmore- Drums
Murray Mckenzie- Synthesizer, Guitar
Alex Bodman- Bass
Other Discs: None, although they do used to have three other songs on their MySpace and are working on a full-length.
Sounds Like: Synth-driven garage rock delivered with precision. Equally suited for the dance floor and the mosh pit.
Is that how you spell "raccoon"? No.
Does this affect the music? No, I don't think so.


It would be easy to pigeonhole the Racoons as an 80s-nostalgia group. After all, their name recalls animated Canadian cult classic the Raccoons , (although it's just as likely a reference to Victoria's animal mascot), their album cover/t-shirt is clearly a throwback to the graphic tees of twenty-odd years ago, and their music is liberal with the synthesizers, with an open nod to the Cars and the Cure. But like any good throwback (think TV on the Radio or Bloc Party), the Racoons take the dark undercurrents of the 80s pop-dance movement and apply it to the modern world. In many ways, this is appropriate given the similar themes running through the two times-- economic turmoil, technology recreating our relationships into an increasingly fractured social landscape, and a nagging sense of impending doom.

 The sense of consistency in their music could well be due to the fact that, according to an interview with Briding the Atlantic, the band gives itself very clear limits as to what sort of sound they're going to project. Album opener "Rise and Fall" establishes the musical mood immediately with a driving synthesizer line being joined by chiming, clean high notes, minimalist bass, and understated, nearly-machine-like percussion. The lyrics may or may not acknowledge the sense of history repeating itself and ongoing doom that I alluded to earlier with it's message of "It's all a rise and fall" and references to "dead waste putting holes in the ozone."

Vocalist Matt Lydall has the perfect voice for delivering this sort of message, projecting the cold intonations of Robert Smith of the Cure one moment and the authoratative urgency of the Kaiser Chiefs' Ricky Wilson the next, with just the right amount of Spencer Krug and Dan Boekner (Wolf Parade) thrown in there to make it sound more unhinged than either of those other two bands ever manage.

As Lydell says, the comparisons to Wolf Parade are "inevitable", and warranted, in track two "No, It Meant Nothing." Horns complement this song well as it shifts from an almost light-hearted opening riff to  marching-band style percussion to swing, though perhaps a doom-laden Said the Whale might be a more apt descriptor. As in the live show, this is a highlight among the EPs eight songs, as are "Be My Television" with its dancefloor-ready drums, uplifting trombones, and understated chorus, "Room to Operate," which sounds like a love song played through a Nintendo Entertainment System before turning into an all-out breakdown, and "Tangiers" which could well be the next Kaiser Chiefs single if they were still putting out stuff as consistent as their first album.

Of course, after all of those we're only left with three tracks, each of which are quality excursions in themselves. "Over Our Shoulders" is radio-ready despite showcasing Lyall at his yelp-iest, and the introspective untitled track at the end is a nice, quiet way to end things off. But before we get there, we're given "Islomania," a slow-building track which demonstrates the quality arrangements this group is capable of. According to Lyall, the title is a reference to the fact that "Victoria is a funny city in that sense though, because no one really ever gives it credit for Frog Eyes, Immaculate Machine, Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, etc.... there's a rule that as soon as you start selling out you've gotta move to Montreal and erase your Island alter-ego... it's this basically irrelevant little island that we all have this funny little love-hate relationship with. We want to be left alone, but we're also really scared that we're missing out."

Based on the strength of this EP, and with a fair amount of buzz being generated, I think it's safe to say that the Racoons will be next on that list of Island bands to jump onto the national scene. Whether or not they'll relocate to Montreal remains to be seen.

Rise and Fall


No, It Meant Nothing


Be My Television


Sites: myspace, facebook, radio3, livevictoria profile

If you like Canadian artists covering one-hit wonders from the 80s (and really, who doesn't?), then February is your month. First, A.C. Newman puts his acoustic spin on A-Ha's "Take On Me" for a Starbucks compilation, and now electro-pop-rockers Woodhands have come out with a digital release of "Electric Avenue" by Eddy Grant. Both are worthwhile takes, with Newman's version re-imagining his track as as a heartfelt and understated ballad, and Woodhands adding a lot more grit to theirs.


And the lines between indie cred, selling out, and ironicsm are obliterated once and for all.

A.C. Newman - "Take On Me" (A-Ha cover, from Starbuck's Sweetheart)


Woodhands - "Electric Avenue" (Eddy Grant cover, from Paper Bag Records Digital)

Thank goodness for laundromats.

Because if I hadn't stopped in at one, I would have totally missed this show. But I went into a laundromat and there, amidst old calendars and invitations to walk your dog for cash, was notice that Cape Breton's the Tom Fun Orchestra would be bringing their Tom Waits goes to the the East Coast sound to Victoria in the form of the Pan(Handling) Canadian Boxcar Crusade. Their album, You Will Land With a Thud, deserves to be far more popular than it is, even in indie-rock circles. This tour has all eight of their members squeezed into a van, and based on some of the reviews of their shows so far, tonight's show should be a good one. They're playing tonight at the Upstairs Cabaret, and here's some of their songs for you to enjoy.




More songs here and here.

Further Reading:
tomfun.ca
See Magazine, the Gauntlet, the Hour, punktv.ca interview.

As promised, here is my review of the excellent Mother Mother show at Sugar Nightclub this past Saturday night.

First off, let me give you my impressions of Sugar. Having been to enough concerts with drunken/hopped up idiots, I appreciate their high level of security-- everyone was scrutinized, and any possible problem-causing material taken away. However, nothing can protect you from the decor.

I'm all for dives, but generally dives involve concrete or wood. Not carpet. Sugar is completely unique to my experiences for being a bar with carpet. From the 80s, too, by the look of it.

Having been to so many shows recently that were in a theatre setting, it was somewhat disorienting to find myself in a bar, without assigned, or, well, almost any seating, save a few chairs, a couple of booths, and a questionable looking couch. But after grabbing a couple of drinks, we soon carved  out a little corner for ourselves to listen to the music.                                        


The first act was one Laura Smith, who I know nothing about. Her music seemed to be in the vein

of the indie-chanteuse that's so popular nowadays and that you can find in almost any town. She performed ably and the crowd was appreciative, although she definitely seemed better suited to a coffee shop than a dance floor and pool table venue.

 






Next up were the Racoons [sic], whom I'm gathering are turning into something of hometown heroes around here. I'd listened to a couple of their songs prior to the show and found myself shrugging, but that changed once I saw them going live. I'm rarely converted to a completely unknown band solely on their live performance, but in this case I was. They occupy a sonic density somewhere between Bloc Party, Tokyo Police Club, and Wolf Parade, with lead singer Matthew Lyal recalling some combination of the latter's Spencer Krug and the Kaiser Chief's Ricky Wilson. I'm not going to talk too much about them here since I grabbed a CD and plan on doing a full review, but suffice it to say they're likely going places.




The Racoons hyped the crowd up sufficiently for Mother Mother to take the stage for a room of
happy people. With their band's name hanging behind them they opened with a high-energy rendition of "Hayloft" from their newest release, O My Heart. New singer/keyboardist Jasmin Parker fit in seamlessly, with her vocals melding in perfect sync with the brother-sister combo of Ryan and Molly Guldemond. Despite the darker post-punk tendencies of the music, these two clearly come from a country/folk background based on their vocal harmonies and Ryan's guitar-picking style and tendency to keep said guitar above his waist, not to mention his Chris Isaak-style coifs. While the enthusiasm of the female singers was infectious, it is Ryan who occupies centre stage, and for good reason. He is an entertainer, playling like a man possessed-- at times, he acted as if his finger-picking hand was getting away from him and there was nothing he could do to control the results.

What would have been an enjoyable show became a great one when drummer Ali Sidait and bassist Jeremy Page started the instantly-recognizable rhythmic pulse of "Body of Years." They wisely played up the introduction, slowly building the parts with Ryan semi-improvising the opening riff. This is the song that very-rightly won the CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award for "Best Vocals" and my fear going in was that the band wouldn't be able to replicate it's sonic range in a live setting. Well, they can and they did, to great effect. After the jam session on the end of the song, which works far better live than on record, they wisely kicked immediately into the next song so as not to lose any momentum. Other bands take note: this is the mark of a professional-- switching gear is cool once in a while, but if you want to keep the crowd going, you use the gear you're holding while the audience is hyped.

While this one-two punch was easily the pinnacle of the night, the denouement didn't lack for excitement. While Mother Mother's two existing records, Touch Up and O My Heart, each have unique sonic qualities, they are similar enough that songs from each record can be blended together without coming off schizophrenic. They also threw in a new song, the name of which I didn't catch, into the mix, and this one seemed to be delving further into the 60s-girl-group harmonies the band has flirted with on occasion. Other highlights included "O My Heart," the haunting "Ghosting" (which garnered a huge reaction from the crowd with it's somehow-snarky line "You don't need no treats, you don't need no tricks, and you don't need me," and the encore-opener "Dirty Town," which, with its shifting styles and time signatures, really let the band show what sets them apart from anyone else.

This was Mother Mother's last date before heading to the United States to open a series of shows for the Sam Roberts Band. It's really too bad that they'll have to condense their show into an opening act, because these guys deserve to be headliners worldwide, and if they perform as well as they did last week for the rest of their tour, they soon will be.

Mother Mother: official site, Myspace, tour dates
The Racoons: myspace
Laura Smith: myspace

It seems the world is finally catching up to the Canadian boombastic style that infected our eardrums fifteen years ago. Here is a new cover song by Iranian-Swedish artist Arash featuring Pakistani-Persian singer Aneela from Denmark. If you attended high school in Canada over the past decade, you should recognize the tune. If you don't, I suggest you click "Read More." But give yourself some time.


via the Georgia Straight




Now this is going to be in my head for the next week.

I'm not usually a fan of experimental music projects. Check that-- I usually like the concept, but I'm not likely to actually listen to them for fun. That is not the case with Charles Spearin's The Happiness Project. I first heard of it on an episode of the Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean in which the show's host invited various musicians to share home recordings with them. There was some good stuff on there, including bits from Chad VanGaalen and Ohbijou, but the highlight was two tracks from Charles Spearin's (he's in Broken Social Scene, by the way) then in-progress The Happiness Project. I immediately made a mental note to check it out when and if it was released.

Well, that day is upon us. The Happiness Project has been available online for a while now, and sees its physical release today. And, appropriately for its proximity to Valentine's Day, The Happiness Project is all about love-- of family, of friends, and of community. The project began "a year or so" ago when Spearin started inviting neighbours over to talk about happiness. He would record the sessions, listen back to them to find interesting moments-- "in both meaning and melody"-- and then loop those while he and other interested musicians attempted to emulate the speech with the instrument of their choice. True to it's name, the Happiness Project is extremely pleasing-- it's hard not to crack a smile when someone manages a spot-on emulation of a speech pattern, as in the track "Mrs. Morris" (found below) when the speaker asserts "It makes you happy" and the brass instrument underneath the vocal track matches her rising intonation and rhythmic delivery precisely. If you're looking for a musical gift this February 14, be it for yourself or someone else, then Spearin's Happiness Project is definitely worth checking out. It makes you happy.

The Happiness Project is available in stores today, or for digital download in Gallery AC

Mrs. Morris


Anna (available as a free download at The Happiness Project website)

Good morning. And how was your weekend? Mine was pretty good-- the Mother Mother show on Saturday was an excellent excursion and should feed a couple of posts later this week. But right here I'm going to feed you some new music from K'Naan. I just checked the Hype Machine and they don't have this, so if you are a. a K'Naan fan and b. actually reading this brand-new blog, then I just made your day.

If you don't know anything about K'Naan, here's the quick facts that most media outlets will tell you (nothing new from me!):

-born and raised in Somalia
-learned English by listening to rap records his father sent to him from his job as a New York taxi driver
-as civil war broke out in 1991, his family managed to get the last commercial flight (ever, so far) out of Somalia and to New York
-moved to Toronto, started rapping
-once performed for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
-had a brief, now finished, feud with k-Os
-while touring for his first album, the Dusty Foot Philosopher, made a fan of Damian Marley, who helped him record his new album in the legendary Tuff Gong studios in Kingston, Jamaica (legendary because that's where Damian's father, Bob, recorded)
-the new album has guitar work by some guy named Kirk Hammett, plus appearances from Marley, Mos Def, and Chubb Rock

He appeared on the CBC program Q last Wednesday, talking about his new album, his growing fame, and Somalia, and he also performed acoustic versions of three new songs, which I've put below. If you want to hear the Jion Ghomeshi interview, then you can get the podcast here. Compared to the 80's rap beats and Metallica guitar solos you can hear on his website (click here, as you really should listen to it, too) this stuff is pretty different-- barely a rap to be found, and all acoustic guitar riffs and palm-of-the-hand production. It will be interesting to see how it all fits together on one album. Here's the Q stuff.

Fire in Freetown zshare



Take a Minute zshare



Waving Flag zshare



Aside from recent appearances on Q and CNN, K'naan is also getting a good push in the media as the first-ever X3 Artist of the Month, a partnership between CBC Radio 3, Exclaim! Magazine, and aux.tv to promote one new deserving Canadian artist every month. Here's the playlist of stuff from K'naan's first album they're using to promote it. Definitely check out "Water" and "I Was Stabbed By Satan," if nothing else. I'm going to post some collaborations and rarities I have from him later this week, but if anyone has the k-Os diss track, please pass it along. I believe it's something about an avocado.

X3 Artist of the Month Playlist

I don't know how you go about finding new music, but I mostly do it on the internet, either via blogs or web radio or some combination of the two. So when two of the blogs I respect most, i(heart)music and herohill.com post about the same band in the same week, it's something I'll check out.

That was the case with In-Flight Safety, a group I will openly admit I'd never heard of before (to be fair, I'm on the opposite end of the country). So I gave them a listen, and here's my verdict: the comparisons to Coldplay are fair. But they are also not a reason to dismiss the band. Because being from Halifax, this band does not take the all-out Britpop route. Instead, they find the ground between Two Hours Traffic and radio-friendly stadium rock. Yes, the vocals soar like Chris Martin. But the guitar jangles, the bass bounces and the drum kit is tight. I know you're a busy person, so here's the track I suggest as a starting point.



I also know you like free stuff, so you can stream the whole she-bang here, and if you like it, here's the Zunior way to buy it (if you don't know Zunior, check it out even if you don't want to buy the CD).