Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Elephant Stone [2012]

(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.)

Elephant Stone @ Zaphod Beeblebrox, 2012

Artist: Elephant Stone
When: November 28th, 2012
Where: Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ottawa
Context: I got to see Elephant Stone for a second time in late 2012 at the legendary, but sadly now defunct, Zaphod Beeblebrox in Ottawa’s Byward Market. The four-piece psychedelic indie rock band out of Montreal, led by bass/sitar player, Rishi Dhir, took to the stage in a blaze of swirling, psychedelic guitars. It was as if the doors to Zaphod’s were thrown open and instead of crisp wintry cold, wafts of fresh and warm summer air breezed through the room. Even though they started off their set with a couple of newer tracks, there was still a familiarity that pervaded their sweet sixties-influenced sound and I couldn’t help but allow a smile to creep on to my face. From the Polaris prize-nominated debut album, “The seven seas”, Dhir and company breathed fresh life into personal faves, “How long?”, the title track, and the elegantly epic, “Don’t you know”. They also introduced the crowd to eagerly anticipated new material from their sophomore album, that was due out the following February, including the latest single “Heavy moon” (the namesake for that particular tour), which only whet my appetite for more.
Point of reference song: “Love the sinner, hate the sin”

Rishi Dhir of Elephant Stone
Miles Dupire-Gagnon on drums
Stephen ‘The Venk’ Venkatarangam and Gabriel Lambert
Miles and Rishi
Gabriel Lambert and Miles Dupire-Gagnon
Rishi with the sitar
Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Spiritualized “Laser guided melodies”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Spiritualized
Album Title: Lazer guided melodies
Year released: 1992
Year reissued: 2011
Details: 2 x 180 gram, 45 rpm

The skinny: So this six-ish week journey through my collection of Spiritualized records ends where it started for the group. “Lazer guided melodies” is the 1992 debut album that appeared two years after Jason Pierce dissolved his first band, Spaceman 3, and re-formed the same members, minus Peter Kember, with a new name. It was a natural progression forward and laid the bedrock for what was to come, the special production just a glimpse at Pierce’s ear for perfection. From what I can tell, this 2011 reissue is a faithful reproduction of the original packaging and 45 rpm mastering, albeit pressed to two 180 gram discs. Each side is a colour-coded, three song, cross-faded suite. And each side is an exercise in psychedelic noise beauty. This is just yet another record in this set that I purchased early on in my collecting and has seen many a late night on my turntable.

Standout track: “Run”

 

Categories
Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #96 The Wonder Stuff “Unbearable” (1988)

credit to Derek Ridgers, Brighton 1988
credit to Derek Ridgers, Brighton 1988

<< #97    |    #95 >>

At song #96, we have The Wonder Stuff and their snarling, acerbic track “Unbearable”. This is a band that I typically identify with the early nineties because this is when I discovered them and also when the band released the bulk of their original catalogue. However, their startlingly upbeat debut album, “The eight legged groove machine” was released in the latter part of the eighties, back before the fiddle was added to the stuffies’ repertoire and before The Bass Thing left the band for America. I featured this very same album when it appeared at number two on my Best albums of 1988 list*, back when I counted that down a few years ago. And in that post, I described how the album was my introduction to the band and a bit of the story behind how the band became one of my favourites during my last few years of high school and into my early twenties.

For those unfamiliar with The Wonder Stuff, “Unbearable” is a good starting block. It is certainly representative of their early work and the rest of their debut album, seamlessly blending the pop mentality of The Beatles with the guns blazing, two-minute guitar rock of The Ramones. Yes, it’s the thirteenth track on a fourteen track LP that falls well short of the forty minute mark. Another song about money and the way it’s misspent, priorities and greed. It was this angst and snarling lyrics and vocals of frontman Miles Hunt that drew me (and by all accounts many others) to the band in the first place and what most probably led to the band’s downfall. They were quite popular for a time in their native country but sadly, The Wonder Stuff never quite broke into the North American market.

Original Eighties best 100 position: #98

Favourite lyric:  “I didn’t like you very much when I met you / And now I like you even less” Classic Miles Hunt.

Where are they now?: After their original break up in 1994, The Wonder Stuff re-formed for a string of shows in London in 2000. The shows were so successful, Hunt, who had been recording solo up to then, began recording new material under The Wonder Stuff name with the original guitarist, Malc Treece. The two of them are still at it these days, having added violinist Erica Nockalls in 2005, and the rest of the band has pretty much changed every few years since. They last surfaced with a new album called “Better being lucky” in 2019.

*In fact, each of their first three albums have appeared in the top five for albums on this blog for the years in which they were released.

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