Category: Tunes

Tunes

Best tunes of 2011: #15 Kasabian “Let’s roll just like we used to”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date April 2, 2019
3 Comments on Best tunes of 2011: #15 Kasabian “Let’s roll just like we used to”

A few years ago, I developed this theory that Kasabian’s records alternated between excellent and just mediocre. I was completely enamoured with their self-titled debut in 2004, with its melding of the best of Madchester’s best party-down qualities. I was disappointed with the sophomore record, 2006’s “Empire”, but then, the quartet from Leicester hit it out of the park again with 2009’s “West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum“. Now, I don’t know if the pattern continues because I have yet to give their last album, 2017’s “For crying out loud”, a chance but if it does, their next album should be one for the ages.

Of course, according to this dubious theory of mine (and I realize it is only my own opinion, man), their 2011 effort, “Velociraptor!”, would not be one to recommend to those looking to hear the best of the band twice named best live act by the Brit Awards. There are, however, a handful of tracks worth mentioning and the opening number, “Let’s roll just like we used to”, is most definitely at the forefront of these.

The lyrics are a harkening back to a simpler time “when we were young our hearts got lost in the circles”. The party boys are older and looking wistfully back at their rises and falls, the friends they’ve lost and the “ones that got away, oh”. The gong and horn call from far off that begin the song resound to us as if from a dream or through the ages from this half-remembered time. Then, the beat kicks in with the bass line, all snazzy and suave, and you see yourself walking into a bar or a party like James Bond oozing retro cool. The music is your theme song, calling to mind action hero invincibility and youthful exuberance. Yes, the song is remembering things better than they actually were, No bad times or hangovers, only euphoria and drunken debauchery, providing all sorts of stories to regale.

Can our aging bodies still handle the grind of party life? Well, let’s roll just like we used to and see.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.

Tags 2010s, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Best tunes, British rock, Indie, Indie rock, Kasabian, Psychedelic

Tunes

Best tunes of 2001: #1 Elbow “Any day now”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date March 28, 2019
6 Comments on Best tunes of 2001: #1 Elbow “Any day now”

<< #2

As great as 2001 was for indie rock as a whole, especially considering the garage rock explosion and all the bands I discovered as a result, whenever I think of the year, there is one band and one album that always comes to mind. Interesting, then, that I didn’t really come upon Elbow’s debut album, “Asleep in the back”, until the spring of 2002.

As I mentioned a few times over the course of this series, I made the move to Ottawa with Victoria in the summer of 2001. However, we were pretty regular in our trips back to Toronto that first year in the city to visit family and friends. The following spring we managed to coordinate a trip to Toronto with my friends’ annual spring camping trip to Haliburton. I had arranged beforehand to hitch a ride back to Ottawa with James, a friend of ours from high school, who was actually living in the area. It was a great trip as usual but a bit cold still and my ride back to Ottawa decided to ditch the trip early. And so it was that we made the three plus hour trip back in the wee hours of the Sunday morning and I got back to my apartment just before 6am.

Victoria wasn’t due back until much later that day so I had plenty of time to sleep. While getting ready for bed, I slipped into my CD carousel this album I had just gotten by chance and pressed play. In my sleep deprived state, the opening track just enveloped me in warmth and I smiled in spite of myself. I slipped under the covers and replayed the track, set the sleep mode, pressed the repeat button and fell asleep to it. Later, when I awoke, I gave the rest of the album a listen and fell in love with it too. It has since become one of my favourites, not just of the year, but of the whole decade. You might remember that another song off “Asleep in the back”, the first single off it, “Red” appeared at #12 on this list.

Of course, that opening track that serenaded me to sleep in that early morning in the spring of 2002 was “Any day now”, my pick for the best tune of 2001. At just over six minutes in length, it feels epic and immense, a song about yearning, impatience, and the need to break free. There’s something sinister about the organs, lots of sustain and reverb, menacing and teasing. And then, the bass drops in with the drums, heavy and violent but the violence never appears, it’s always a threat, which makes it worse, almost like a Tarantino film in this way. The tension is only raised by the hints of children playing at the playground. The vocals are repetitive and mechanical and mesmerizing, looping over and over again, practice makes perfect makes reality. Guy Garvey finally shows his stride and breaks out at the end, adding a flourish of vocals that foreshadow a whole successful career that this song is hoping for, twisting fate into a pretzel.

Not convinced? Listen to it again, maybe next time it’ll take. It certainly has done me in.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.

Tags 2000s, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Best tunes, British rock, Elbow

Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #5 The Lowest of the Low “Bleed a little while tonight”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date March 19, 2019
11 Comments on Best tunes of 1991: #5 The Lowest of the Low “Bleed a little while tonight”

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If and when I get around to counting down my favourite albums of 1991, you know this album’ll definitely be high up on the list. Indeed, “Shakespeare my butt”, The Lowest of the Low’s debut album, is right up there with my favourite albums of all time. Another great track from it appeared just six songs ago at number eleven (“Rosy and grey”) and if this top thirty was a top one hundred instead, I’d say a good deal more of the album would be on here. Already I’m wishing I’d squeezed on one or two more songs from it. It’s criminal that this Toronto indie band never broke it bigger but in a way, it was their own doing.

“Shakespeare my butt” with its folk punk roots, literate and honest lyrics, great guitar hooks, and melodic harmonies won lots of fans and sold lots of copies for an independent release back then. Some of its songs even found their way on to commercial pop radio. Its infamy only grew after they broke up, but mostly in southern Ontario and just across the US border into Buffalo. It’s an album that didn’t reach far but on those it did touch, it left an indelible mark. And if you asked any LOTL fan to name their favourite song, there’s a good chance that they might point to “Bleed a little while tonight”.

Like many of Ron Hawkins’ tunes, it’s a song that ‘shows’ rather than ‘tells’ its story and it’s a story that feels very real and one with which most of us can identify. Here, it’s a love (or perhaps lust) that is unreturned. A universal subject for sure but Hawkins comes by it honestly.

“And I’d forget about you if I could dare but
I just want to make love to you in some dark, rainy street somewhere.”

Its five minutes is a mix of acoustic strumming and careening electric guitars and uneven and crashing drums, the mood rough and passionate and messy, reflecting that of the song’s protagonist. It might almost fall apart if it weren’t held tightly together by the call and response vocals by Stephen Stanley and Hawkins that appear at the bridge and return to close out the song, lines any of us fans can sing along with and drum up all sorts of memories.