- Arcade Fire’s Régine Chassagne (pictured above) used to be a part of Les Jongleurs de la Mandragore, a medieval band that dressed the part, as you can see in this video. Les Jongleurs still exist, and are available for bookings. You could have the best Bar Mitzvah ever!
- Before Ethan Kath formed the polarizing electro outfit Crystal Castles, he was in a shitty rock band called Kill Cheerleader. They sounded like this.
- Female shoegaze duo “No Joy” used to be Bad Flirt, an indie rock act that apparently won a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson battle of the bands. Their music video is actually pretty decent.
The fine folks at Toronto Standard had a simple-yet-brilliant idea: Get Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew to interview Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham. As you can see in the picture above, the two Toronto celebs had a bro down (and jam sesh?) at Drew’s apartment. According to TS, “Abraham arrived at Drew’s Toronto apartment bearing a vinyl copy of David as a gift. The two hugged and briefly reminisced about partying to excess while at a festival together in North Carolina not too long ago (it ended with them wrestling in a swimming pool)… Over the course of almost two hours, they talked about the origins of David [Comes To Life, their latest highly-acclaimed record], rock operas, drugs, touring, straight-edge, the Toronto music scene and Abraham’s predilection for smashing things on his head while performing.”
Now in its sixth year, the Polaris Prize is Canada’s arguably highest musical honor (oh come on, nobody gives a shit about the Junos). Plus the whole $30,000 prize thing – a big increase from the previous prize of 20 grand. Broadcasting live from the Drake in Toronto, Polaris’ annual host Grant Lawrence and his sidekick Damian “Pink Eyes” Abraham (whose band Fucked Up won the prize in 2009, and is now a Much Music personality hosting the newly-resurrected The Wedge) read through this year’s short list earlier today. Here it is, corresponding to the album covers in the image above (starting from the top left, running clockwise):
Hey Rosetta – Seeds
Galaxie – Tigre et diesel
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Austra – Feel It Break
Destroyer – Kaputt
Braids – Native Speaker
Timber Timbre – Creep on Creepin’ On
Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
The Weeknd – House Of Balloons
Ron Sexsmith – Long Player Late Bloomer
We’d love to hear your thoughts – post them below or hit us up on twitter/facebook. I’ll post my thoughts soon!
If you’re an Interpol fan, a songwriter, a literature fiend, or all of the above, I highly recommend you check out this interview with Paul Banks in which he discusses his favourite authors and lyrical inspirations. On the other end of the interview is Benjamin Opipari, a music fanatic with a Ph.D. in English lit.
Here’s an interesting snippet: “[T]he reason I don’t put our lyrics in our albums is because the stanza format of lyrics looks too much like poetry, and I don’t hold my work on that level… Music is not as high an art form as poetry or any other writing form. That’s why I listen to so much hip hop: lyrically it’s superior to rock music because it doesn’t rely on melody. It’s a much more poetic form. Granted, bad hip hop is bad hip hop, but the greats surpass every rock artist in terms of lyrics, except for folk-based rock artists like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, who are coming from a more writerly approach that most songwriters… [Y]ou can make the best rock song ever, and no one needs to know what the fuck you are talking about. You don’t even need to make real words half the time. Look at “Hey Ya” by Outkast. That’s one of the best pop songs of the past 20 years. You don’t wish there was a better lyric there, because what’s there just works. I don’t hold what I do up that high. It’s music, and melody always comes first.”
Read the whole interview here, and poke around the rest of the site to find interview with other great songwriters like Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus, Dirty Projectors’ bassis Nat Baldwin, both Jona and Claire from YACHT, Colin Newman from Wire, and a whole lot more.
I found myself discussing Kreayshawn in two separate conversations yesterday. You may have seen the above video for her single “Gucci Gucci”, which has a hit count just shy of four million. Response to the video was big, loud, and highly polarized. But why?
“What city in Canada has the best music scene?” It’s a question that has been and continues to be a source of great debate amongst music fans in this country. The music scenes in Canadian cities are constantly changing, and what might be the centre of attention one minute could be a deserted ghost town the next. Mostly it comes down to listeners’ personal preferences when it comes down to artists, genres, festivals, record stores, venues, etc. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Toronto’s music scene. After all, it was one of the main reasons I moved here in the first place. Lately though, I’ve found myself making the case to anyone that will listen that Canada’s music capital isn’t Toronto, or Vancouver, or even Halifax. From buzzed-about new artists (Dirty Beaches, Grimes, Lunice) to the hottest music festivals (Osheaga, Pop Montreal) to seasoned “veteran” bands (“Who the fuck are The Suburbs?”), hit the jump to read my list of ten reasons why Montreal might be the best Canadian city for music in 2011. As always, feel free to agree or argue in the comments below.
As you may have already seen, yesterday Toronto’s North By Northeast rolled out the first batch of bands playing this year’s festival, which takes place June 13-19. There’s plenty to love here, including Cults, Dum Dum Girls, Shad, Twin Shadow, Ty Segall, Wild Nothing, and up-and-coming Canadian acts Braids, Dirty Beaches, No Joy, and PS I Love You. Yonge-Dundas Square will again see plenty of action during NXNE 2011 with free performances from 80s new-wave “legends” Devo (that’s them above) and Men Without Hats, seminal Californian punk band Descendents, Los Angeles hip-hop collective The Pharcyde, and Montreal indie-pop darlings Stars. You can check out the rest of lineup so far over at NXNE’s website, and follow the festival on Twitter for plenty more announcements in the upcoming weeks.
I realize this is the third Odd Future-related post on Side B in the past two weeks, but I thought this was too funny not to share. Odd Peanuts Wolf Gang Kill Them All is an anonymously-created Tumblr that takes Charles Schultz’s Peanuts cartoons, and pairs them with lyrics from songs by the politically incorrect Los Angeles rap collective. On the scale of recent Internet memes, this ranks somewhere above Hipster Ariel and below Who Is Arcade Fire? (which inspired this amusing YouTube video). In case you aren’t familiar with Tyler, Hodgy Beats & Co. yet, than read this article on the group from last month’s issue of FADER.
When Calgary-based concert organizer and promoter Adam Oppenheim isn’t arguing with Bon Jovi over ticket sales, he likes to rant about the music industry (among other things). Here’s his first guest post on Side B.
The two most significant footnotes in music history textbooks will undoubtedly be November 27, 1967 and October 7, 1959. On the former’s fateful 60s day, a sixteen year-old Johannesburg native named Andrew Oppenheim lined-up at his local record store with 5 rand crumpled in the pocket of his bell-bottomed jeans. He pushed open the shop door, browsed the aisle and placed his selection on the cashier’s counter. After collecting his change, he tucked the album under his arm and made his way home. When Andrew got back to his bedroom he closed the door behind him. He examined the album’s cover art, pulled the disc from its inner-sleeve, and gingerly placed it on the turntable. When the needle dropped, what emanated from his over-sized wood-cased speakers, is arguably the most important piece of vinyl in recorded sound.
Yet another one bites the dust. On April 2nd, 2011 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, LCD Soundsystem will play their final show.
Unsurprisingly, James Murphy and the gang plan to go out with a bang. They’ve committed to playing for at least 3 hours complete with “special guests” and “special surprises” – needless to say, it should be a phenomenal show. The band requests that all in attendance be wearing black or white, and participate in the what they describe as “the best funeral ever”. Added bonus? Murphy recruited his heroes Liquid Liquid to open up the night.
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