Tag: Alternative Rock

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #11 The Breeders “Cannonball”

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The Breeders were formed in 1989 as a side project for Kim Deal (Pixies) and Tanya Donnelly (Throwing Muses). In the spaces between working with their primary groups, they released an album and an EP before Donnelly decided to part ways with both Throwing Muses and The Breeders to focus on a third project called Belly. Deal brought her twin sister Kelley into the fold in 1992 and when the Pixies disbanded the following year, The Breeders became her main creative outlet.

I still have never really explored The Breeders’ early work, nor am I super familiar with the work that came after their reunion* in 1996. However, I am very familiar with their huge second album, “The last splash”. You would have had to live under a rock to have avoided it back in ‘93. It was a huge commercial and critical success, making Deal a bigger name perhaps than her ex-Pixies band mate Frank Black. And a huge part of the album’s success was due to the ubiquity of this track here: “Cannonball”

“Spitting in a wishing well
Blown to hell, crash
I’m the last splash”

Just like how the album takes its name from “Cannnonball”’s lyrics, the tune really sets the tone and represents the havoc that Deal and company create with the album. Its nonsensical lyrics are merely fun to sing/scream along with and Deal does both, taking turns cooing into and trying to exceed the sound limits of the microphone, also employing the use of a harmonica mike at points to create that distorted effect during the intro and throughout the piece. Jim McPherson’s drumming starts off the song with a tickety-tack drum line before devolving into an Animal-like crash and bash course. The gurgling bass line is accompanied by a guitar lick that slithers and slides up and down your spine. The 3 minutes and 36 seconds of the tune’s duration is a seemingly random tennis match between groove and noisy chaos and when you throw in that false ending two-thirds of the way through, that crashing return has you more pumped than ever to jump into that packed crowd on the dance floor or mosh pit and freak right out.

“Cannonball” was all over the radio and its video graced television screens care of MTV and MuchMusic all the time after its release as a single but it was just one of those songs of which you could not get sick. I remember seeing them perform the album live at Osheaga 10 years ago in celebration of the album’s 20th anniversary and everyone onstage and in the crowd just lit up with the song’s energy. And you just watch the Deal sisters having a blast in the video below and you can’t help but join them in being more than a little crazy.

*The group took a hiatus shortly after the release of “The last splash” due to Kelley Deal’s drug and legal problems.

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

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: The Breeders [2013]

(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.)

The Breeders at Osheaga 2013

Artist: The Breeders
When: August 3rd, 2013
Where: Green stage, Osheaga, Jean Drapeau Park, Montreal
Context: Ten years ago this summer, I attended Montreal’s Osheaga arts and music festival with my good friends Tim and Mark. It was an unforgettable weekend and we saw countless amazing performances over the festival’s three days. I’ve already posted photos* from some of the weekend’s sets and plan to share a few more of these in the months leading up to this year’s edition, which I will sadly not be attending. Some of these posts will have fewer photos than my normal galleries, including today’s, but this should not be taken to be indicative of the quality of the performances, but of the difficulty of obtaining quality pics while being so completely in the moment.

The Breeders were touring in support of the 20th anniversary of their huge sophomore album, “The last splash”, and were performing it from beginning to end on each stop on the tour. They had recently reformed the lineup that had recorded said album, and had even brought violin player Carrie Bradley along for the ride, so theirs was a set we definitely wanted to catch. My friends and I arrived at the stage just in time to hear them play “Cannonball”, the second track on the album. So, yes, we dutifully danced around. It was refreshing to hear the Deal sisters joking around and truly appearing to enjoy themselves but even though I was familiar with their singles, I was still a year to removed from finally digging into the album in earnest. Admittedly, this was also the point in the evening when the drinking started to get serious and we became friends with the shooter waitress. At the end of their set, Tim made us all laugh by quipping, “This band? They’ve got a big future ahead of them.”
Point of reference song: “Cannonball”

Kim Deal and Jim Macpherson of The Breeders
Kelley Deal of The Breeders
Carrie Bradley on the violin
Kim Deal rocking out!

*Past galleries from this festival weekend have included the following:

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2023, part one

Well folks, it’s that time again. It’s time to share part one and the first twenty-five tracks of my annual multi-part playlist of new songs of the year. The beginning of 2023 in music.

Personally, I didn’t get a great start to 2023. I started to feel under the weather on New Year’s Day and it developed into a real nasty cough. Like most, I’m sure, I hadn’t gotten sick much over the past few years, what with social distancing and other health measures during the pandemic, so this one hit me really hard. The cough was so bad most nights that it kept me from sleeping. The eventual trip to the doctor landed me a chest x-ray appointment to screen out pneumonia (negative, thankfully) and a puffer to help keep the airways clear. Still, the cough stuck with me for almost two months.

Then, my workplace started returning back to the physical office in March. I know many had returned much earlier so I’m not likely to get much sympathy here but I had been working strictly from home for three years and the return has been a bit of a shock to the system. Packing a lunch and putting aside clothes from the night before, and setting the alarm for 5am have all been a re-learning process and of course, public transit has been more ugly than good. Still, I try to look at the positive side in that it’s only two days a week so far. Just another new normal to get used to.

2023’s not been all bad though. I’ve been in relatively good health since surviving that monster cough and have been eating very well. With the warmer weather, I’ve been getting out for walks in the fresh air as much as possible. I spent a weekend at the cottage with my some old friends that I hadn’t seen in over a year. And with spring arrived and summer on the horizon, here’s looking at more of these.

But let’s get back to the task at hand.

This will mark the fifth year running that I’ve done this exercise and I’ve found it enjoyable to go back every once in a while to see what I was listening to at various points and see which songs have held up and which have not. For the first year or two, I broke the playlist down into three-ish parts and it wasn’t necessarily as structured, but of late, I’ve done one for each quarter of the year and have somehow managed to put together a hundred songs by a hundred different artists for each of the last few years. This first part here is made up of twenty five songs from albums released between January and March and all things being equal, you should see twenty-five more songs from the spring months at some point in late July.

So without further ado, I’ll present the music that has helped keep me going over the first three months of 2023. Highlights include:

      • The near eight minutes of “The golden age” by Molly, which is as dreamy as dreamy can be
      • The debut solo album by Blur drummer Dave Rowntree was a very pleasant surprise and “Downtown” is just a great groove
      • Samia is lovely and brutal and honest on “Kill her freak out” and she might just have you singing along
      • It’s been seven long years since the last album by New Zealand’s The Veils and “No limit of stars” and the rest of the new double album is exactly what we’ve been missing
      • “Colossal waste of light” is the title track off an album by Eyelids, a group of Portland-based indie veterans that I checked out simply because of the involvement The Decemberists’ John Moen and discovered a heck of a lot to like in their brand of jangle pop
      • “Ghosts again” is my favourite track by synth pop legends Depeche Mode since 2005’s “Precious” and this latest record is quite possibly my favourite since 1993’s “Songs of faith and devotion”
      • The highly anticipated and perfectly titled debut full-length by indie supergroup, Boygenius, has joyously lived up to the hype and “$20” is a prime, rocking example of what to expect

Here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it:

1. “When the cynics stare back from the wall (feat. Tracyanne Campbell” Belle & Sebastian (from the album Late developers)

2. “The golden age” Molly (from the album Picturesque)

3. “When you stop” July Talk (from the album Remember never before)

4. “City of angels” Ladytron (from the album Time’s arrow)

5. “Downtown” Dave Rowntree (from the album Radio songs)

6. “Kill her freak out” Samia (from the album Honey)

7. “My blood runs through this land” Black Belt Eagle Scout (from the album The land, the water, the sky)

8. “Sinatra Drive breakdown” Yo La Tengo (from the album This stupid world)

9. “Odd to even” Amber Arcades (from the album Barefoot on Diamond Road)

10. “Unglow the” Pearla (from the album Oh glistening onion, the nighttime is coming)

11. “Fingers of steel” Shame (from the album Food for worms)

12. “Magic powers” Death Valley Girls (from the album Islands in the sky)

13. “Oil (feat. Stevie Nicks)” Gorillaz (from the album Cracker Island)

14. “The people say” Steve Mason (from the album Brothers & sisters)

15. “No limit of stars” The Veils (from the album …And out of the void came love)

16. “Colossal waste of light” Eyelids (from the album A colossal waste of light)

17. “Come back” Frankie Rose (from the album Love as projection)

18. “Meshuggah” Unknown Mortal Orchestra (from the album V)

19. “Baby snakes” Death and Vanilla (from the album Flicker)

20. “Cut the cord” Black Honey (from the album A fistful of peaches)

21. “Right here” Emiliana Torrini & the Colorist Orchestra (from the album Racing the storm)

22. “Ghosts again” Depeche Mode (from the album Memento mori)

23. “Too late for an early grave” The Reds, Pinks and Purples (from the album The town that cursed your name)

24. “Sixers” The Hold Steady (from the album The price of progress)

25. “$20” Boygenius (from the album The record)

Apple initiates or lab rats can click here to let me know if this link works to sample the above tracks as a whole playlist.

And as always, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe and continue to be well. Above all, enjoy the tunes.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.