Category: Tunes

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Best tunes of 2012: #14 Dum Dum Girls “Season in hell”

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I got into Dum Dum Girls, the sadly now defunct project led by Kristin “Dee Dee” Gundred, with their very excellent sophomore record, 2011’s “Only in dreams”. Though it wasn’t issued as a proper single from the album, “Bedroom eyes”, and the video made for it, became a personal favourite of mine, landing at number five on my Best tunes of 2011 list. And with the repeat listens of that album, I was super excited to see them at the Osheaga festival in Montreal in August 2012. I remember rushing over to their stage right after Of Monsters and Men finished up their eye-opening early afternoon set and though Dum Dum Girls’ performance was shortened due to sound problems, they were fantastic, all attitude and noise.

The following month the group released an EP called “End of daze”, featuring three songs held out from the “Only in dreams” sessions, and I loved it. It was one of my favourite releases of 2012 and it’s one of the very few examples of where I agree with Pitchfork media’s reviewers when they said it was the best thing Dum Dum Girls released up to that point. My only problem with it was that, at a five song EP, it was way too short. I was left wanting more, more, and more. It is still such a favourite of mine that it is one of only a small handful of EPs that I purchased for my vinyl collection and it regularly gets pulled down for a 45 rpm spin.

The final track on the EP is this humdinger called “Season in hell”. It is Sandra Vu crashing away at the drums, soaring guitars all around, that familiar reverb-drenched production by Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner, and Dee Dee’s vocals uplifting and floating in space, way up above the heavens, hinting at a change in direction and a hope for better days.

“Doesn’t dawn look divine”

Taken in hindsight you can read a lot into this track. The ‘season in hell’ could be referring to the period before Gundred’s split with Crocodiles’ Brandon Welchez, or it could be that she was starting to feel constrained by the image, aesthetic, and sound that she had created for Dum Dum Girls. That hat certainly feels tipped at in the couplet that ends the song and gives the EP its name: “Lift your gaze, it’s the end of daze.” And it’s a theory that feels more concrete when taken in context with her next album, Dum Dum Girls’ swan song, “Too true”, where the haze and gaze is all but dispensed with in favour of a glam and britpop influenced sound.

Again, though, that’s only in hindsight and if you’re in a mood to read into things. I typically avoid such heady topics when this particular song comes on and I just give in to the excitement and joy. The bliss and the hope.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2012 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 2002: #3 The Coral “Dreaming of you”

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You want an ear worm? Well, have I got one for you!

Those who are already fans, you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve heard this before but maybe have forgotten about its pure joy, chances are you’re going to thank me for the reminder. If you haven’t heard this track before, well… press play below and get ready to jump up and dance like a maniac.

This is The Coral’s third ever single and early hit, “Dreaming of you”.

The group was formed in 1996 in Hoylake, England when its six members were all still in high school. By the time the group released its debut, self-titled album, they had developed and fine-tuned a sound that was uniquely their own but one that was made up of instantly recognizable sounds. Steeped in old country folk, dub reggae, and all things psychedelic, they sounded old, yet new, and really, out of time altogether. Their relative youth fed their experimentation, their tendency towards fun and the lack of any sense of what shouldn’t work but in the end, did. The album was nominated for the Mercury prize and it and the band are seen as the first in the new wave of British guitar rock bands that kicked off the 2000s.

“Dreaming of you” comes in at track four on the album so if you’re listening to “The Coral” in full, you are already warmed up to the group’s energy, antics, and crazed pace. But I don’t think anything can prepare you for the smile that will instantly form on your face and how your feet will immediately start tapping. The hopping on one foot bass line begins the proceedings but the staccato guitars and whirling organs are not far behind. There’s horns, there’s vibraphone, there’s old style choral backup vocals and of course, there’s James Skelly’s soulful lead vocal turn. It’s like a crazed carnival on an old creaking ship caught in a turbulent ocean storm, navigating the giant waves with no one at the wheel because everyone is caught up in the party. It is mayhem and bedlam and hilarity. And all this in just a shade over two minutes.

“Up in my lonely room
When I’m dreaming of you
Oh what can I do
I still need you, but
I don’t want you now”

Whether you’re on the side of the lyrics being about heroin addiction or on the side of a love that’s no good but can’t be helped, there’s no arguing how wonderful the track is.

You are now guaranteed to be singing or humming this song all day.

You’re welcome.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 1993: #28 Buffalo Tom “Soda jerk”

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“Velvet roof” (number fourteen on my Best tunes of 1992 list) was my introduction to Buffalo Tom. I had recorded the video off CityLimits and pretty much wore that section of the videocassette tape out with repeated rewinds and replays. In the summer of 1993, I found a used CD copy of “Let me come over” at Penguin music in Toronto but misplaced it at the Bathurst street subway station before it even made it home with me. A year or so later, I was scanning lists of available albums in order to come up with my 10 albums for a penny from either BMG or Columbia House*, when I saw “Big red letter day” available for selection. The CD was added without hesitation and so became the first and only Buffalo Tom album to which I would listen in full and actually own in physical format for a number of years.

Hence, “Soda jerk” became the second ever Buffalo Tom song that I would ever hear. And yeah, I loved it. The song leads off the American alt-rock trio’s fourth long player with a bang. It’s perhaps the most upbeat song and obvious single off an album that led the band further from its Dinosaur Jr influenced roots and into crisper sound and a melodic vocal focused direction, a rarity in the grunge heavy music world at the time. The song garnered the band some good coin too when it was used in Nike and Pontiac commercials and received further exposure when it was featured on the cult teen television show, “My so called life”.

A number of people have called “Soda jerk” Buffalo Tom’s masturbation song, referring as proof to the lyric “jerked my fountain”. However, I’ve always looked pointedly at the song title for meaning and figured they were using the term given to old school, soda shoppe employees as a symbol and example of the type of soul sucking job that many members of generation X were forced to take back in those days**. My theory certainly falls more in line with words that frontman Bill Janovitz has used to describe the tune: “a big bouncy song that is borderline despondent and about alienation.”

“Form a line here
I think I’ll die here
These people nauseate me”

And Bill is absolutely right. “Soda jerk” does rock out out in a major key kind of way, showcasing jangly, happily strummed guitars, marching and pounding drums, and call and response vocals that rev you up and knock you down.

*I hit up both of these music subscription services at one point or another in my formative years. Say what you will, it was a great way to bolster your CD collection.

**For more on this subject, go watch the Kevin Smith film “Clerks”.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.