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Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Preoccupations [2016]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

Preoccupations performing at Ottawa Bluesfest July 9, 2016

Artist: Preoccupations
When: July 9th, 2016
Where: Black Sheep stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Context: We’re only halfway through the first month of 2026 and I’m already itching to see some live music. I feel that with the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and then my health problems last year that I’ve got a lot concert attending to catch up on. Call it a resolution or whatever. It’s what I plan to do. I’ve already got a ticket for one show and my eye on a handful of others. Until then, here’s some pics from a fantastic show I caught 10 years ago (!) at Ottawa Bluesfest and I’ve included some words that I wrote about it at the time for my old blog Music Insanity!

“…The final band of the night for me were headlining the tiny Black Sheep stage and went by the name of Preoccupations. The Calgary-based, post-punk four-piece were formerly named “Viet Cong” but changed it after facing accusations of racism due to their choice in moniker. I was really excited to see them live because I was curious how they would match the insanity on their incredible debut long player. I got my answer when the lead guitarist broke a string within minutes of starting into the first song. The band employed plenty of effects and electronics in changing the sounds of their instruments and their voices but the energy was all theirs. Like their records, it was all angular guitars, rapid fire drumming, surprising time changes, loud booming bass, and yes, extremely dark. The drummer was particularly incredible, employing a mixture of electronic and traditional drums in his kit, and hitting them like he was a machine possessed by a poltergeist. The crowd was relatively small in size but didn’t lack for enthusiasm. Plenty of times, those closest to the stage erupted into violent, tribal dance, much like a mosh pit. I didn’t join in the fun but did often find myself lost in the waves of music. Their set was loud and dense and consisted of many (if not all) of the tracks off their debut album (including personal favourite, “Continental shelf”), as well as a preview of new material. […] All in all, an amazing set, well worth stamping around in the rain for.”
Point of reference song: “Anxiety”

Matt Flegel at the mic
Mike Wallace at the kit
Daniel Christiansen close up
Scott Munro concentrating on the synths
Mike Wallace loses his shirt
Daniel Christiansen rocking out like no one is watching
Scott Munro’s death stare
Matt Flegel singing in the rain
Preoccupations under the cover of darkness
Categories
Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #77 Morrissey “Interesting drug” (1989)

<< #78    |    #76 >>

Song #77 on my Eighties’ best 100 list is Morrissey’s fourth solo single, “Interesting drug”.

Stephen Patrick Morrissey was quick in releasing his first solo album, “Viva hate”, less than a year after the dissolution of The Smiths. “Interesting drug” was released the following year in 1989 as a non-album single, though it would be included on the 1990 compilation “Bona drag”. The song features three former members of The Smiths (Rourke, Joyce, and Gannon) as Morrissey’s backing band, as well as the lovely, inimitable backing vocals of Kirsty MacColl*.

I’m near certain that “Interesting drug” was my introduction to Morrissey as a solo artist. It was track number two on a mixed tape (simply titled “Mixed tape”) that my friend Elliott made for me a very long time ago, a friend whom I haven’t seen or heard from in years, but who played an important part in my discovering my own personal musical tastes during my teen years**. I still have said mixed tape packed away in a shoebox in my basement, and though it hasn’t been played in decades, and likely wouldn’t play even if I could find a tape deck to play it on, I doubt very much that I could bring myself to part with it, like the other tapes in that box.

The song, notwithstanding the nostalgia piece, is one of my all-time favourite Morrissey tunes. Likely because it is also one of his more upbeat songs, the music, I mean, not the lyrical subject matter. “Interesting drug” sounds like it could have been a late Smiths track, given the jangly guitars, though the drumming is a bit heavier handed and funkier than most songs by that earlier band. It jumps and cavorts, getting deep under your skin and crawling up and down your spine, while Mr. Morrissey warbles and croons, giving it to the right. He’s defending the use of drugs for release and accusing the conservative government of the day of clamping down on drug use as a means of control.

It’s definitely an… interesting point of view. I didn’t know any of this back in the day but I did appreciate the anti-establishment sentiment. And of course, it had a great beat and I could dance to it.

 

*Spoiler alert: Despite not having her own song on this list, MacColl will likely get a couple more mentions in relation to other songs.

**Indeed, Elliott’s name has appeared a few times on these pages over the years and likely will again.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 80

Favourite lyric: “On a government scheme / Designed to kill your dream ” Does this really need a comment?

Where are they now?: Morrissey is still performing and making music but unfortunately, his career has been sidetracked by controversy of late, much of it of his own making. He just last week announced the upcoming release of a fourteenth studio album, his first since 2020.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

100 best covers: #31 A.C. Newman “Take on me”

<< #32    |    #30 >>

If you’ve been following along with this list, as I know a bunch of you might be, you’d know that I came across a bunch of the covers on this list by way of compilation albums, many of which placed focus on cover songs. I had a bunch of these on my CD shelves before I started culling my collection and a good portion of them were tracked down in the mid- to late- 2000s. I was definitely on a cover kick in those days. So that would explain why I had a disc purchased from a Starbucks location on my shelves, an impulse buy*, after examining the track listing.

Starbucks actually produced a whole series of these “Sweetheart” compilations from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s. Often released just in time for Valentine’s Day on certain years, they were billed as collections of their “favourite artists” covering their own personal “favourite love songs”. The only one I bought (or even heard) was released in 2009 and was listened to in full only once or twice, though I did rip it to mp3 and keep it for the playback of certain songs that tickled my fancy.

The cover of A-Ha’s ubiquitous 80s classic “Take on me” by The New Pornographers’ frontman Carl Newman (aka A.C. Newman) was one of these.

The original version got a passing mention on these pages a couple of months ago when another single from that massive debut album, “Hunting high and low”, appeared on my Eighties best 100 list. And well, I would say that “Take on me” doesn’t really need any further introduction to anyone with a passing knowledge 80s New Wave. So I won’t go much further into the magnificent, synth pop epic A-Ha number here.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Newman likely recorded this cover around the same time and maybe during the same sessions in which he recorded his second solo album, “Get guilty”. It feels like it was recorded as a shadowy, half-remembered dream of the original. Newman strumming and banging away on his acoustic and singing into his mike, a mirror, his teenaged self smiling back at himself, singing a song he knew better than the backs of both hands, doing his best impression of Morton Harket, belting out those proclamations of love. He surrounds himself with smoky synth washes and every once in a while, that inescapable arpeggiating melody peeks out.

Such a fantastic cover. It’s very different but pays homage to the original, not trying to surpass it but to lift it up closer to the light. It’s hard to call it better but I can’t help but prefer it.

Cover:

Original:

 

*Yeah, those impulse racks do work on suckers like me.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.