Tag: Alternative Rock

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Broken Social Scene [2017]

(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.)

Broken Social Scene at CityFolk 2017

Artist: Broken Social Scene
When: September 15th, 2017
Where: Main stage, CityFolk, Lansdowne Park, Ottawa
Context: Broken Social Scene were a big part of the Canadian indie rock renaissance of the mid-2000s and really epitomized the sense of community and collaboration of that scene. They truly were a collective, built around the core of Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, but boasting upwards of close to twenty members at different points in their history, including members of Stars, Metric, Apostles of Hustle, and many others. But to be honest, I couldn’t actually get into them back then, always claiming that they were a band with whom I preferred their parts to their sum. Somewhere along the way, though, I gained an appreciation for them and finally got a chance to see them as part of the line up for the 2017 edition of Ottawa’s CityFolk festival. As with many collectives of this ilk, you never know whom you might see perform with them on any given night. We were lucky enough to have Stars members and husband/wife duo of Evan Cranley and Amy Millan make the two-hour drive up from Montreal, partly as a way to celebrate Cranley’s belated birthday with his musician friends. It was an incredible show and so amazing to see so many talented musicians trade instruments and vocals and contribute to a huge and cohesive sound. I was so impressed that I saw them again six months later and would definitely jump at the chance to do so again.
Point of reference song: “Protest song”

BSS on the chalkboard
Sam Goldberg Jr of Broken Social Scene
Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene
Ariel Engel of Broken Social Scene
Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene
Amy Millan of Broken Social Scene
Charles Spearin of Broken Social Scene
Andrew Whiteman of Broken Social Scene
Evan Cranley and David French
Sam Goldberg Jr and Brendan Canning
Celebrating Evan Cranley’s belated birthday in style
Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Goat Girl “On all fours”

(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: Goat Girl
Album Title: On all fours
Year released: 2021
Details: Limited edition, gatefold, double LP, pink transparent vinyl

The skinny: The first 2021-released record that I bought last year was Goat Girl’s sophomore album, “On all fours”, and it ended up as my fifth favourite album when I counted them down at the end of December. I had never heard of the band before but the track below caught my attention when it popped up on one of those “Release radar” playlists on Spotify last January. I checked out the rest of the album and then, checked it out again. The next thing I knew, I was hunting down a copy to order for my vinyl collection and found this limited edition pink transparent pressing. This all female quartet is post-punk, but less in the sense that we’ve come to know of late. They are their own thing, beating to their own drum, giving no f*cks, and that ethos feels truer to me to the original movement than so much of the music being put out by their peers and that is so much fawned over by the music press. Goat Girl is colourful and unique, much like the album art suggests.

Standout track: “Sad cowboy”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #22 Slowdive “Alison”

<< #23    |    #21 >>

My friend Tim was always a bigger fan of Slowdive than I was, and I suspect that his appreciation of the group was influenced greatly by his crush on one of the principal vocalists of the group, Rachel Goswell. He tried to get me into them and I did my best to give them a shot. I tape-recorded a copy of the “Souvlaki” CD he loaned me. Unfortunately, I would never get very far with it, rarely more than a few songs past the opening track (but more on that in a bit).

Much like the rest of the music world, critics and writers who never appreciated Slowdive until they were gone, I didn’t get into the Reading-based five-piece until much later. I’ve already documented* on these pages that it was long after they had lost a couple members, changed musical directions, and rebranded that I caught up with them again, just after they had released their third album as Mojave 3. When I listen to “Souvlaki” now, though, I can’t help but wonder: “What were we all thinking?”

The album is lush and ambient, the sadness and hurt palpable in every wash and echo. More deliberate and difficult than its predecessor, it is a sophomore album multiplied by a hundred, informed equally by the knowledge that anything they produced would be panned and by the internal strife in the band created by the romantic split of Neil Halstead and the aforementioned Goswell. If it weren’t for the rise of Grunge and Britpop, it may have been just as hailed at the time as it is now. Hands down, it was one of the greatest shoegaze albums ever recorded.

“Alison” is the one track that I can honestly say that I’ve always loved from the album. As an opener, it was a hard one to move past and I rarely did. The guitars jangle and waver, a shimmering of light highlighting millions of tiny specks of dust, lifted and disrupted ever so gently by a passing breeze, the same that caused flutters in the gossamer curtains of sound. Drums are far off in the distance and deep down in the mix, like a harrowing memory. The reverb is like a third person in the room, pushing together the lilting voices of Halstead and Goswell, even as it as ripping them apart. “Alison” could be anyone who’s ever broken your heart, a smoker’s cough and an ashtray overflowing with butts, a hangover and a dozen empty merlot bottles.

“Alison, I’m lost
Alison, I’ll drink your wine
And wear your clothes when we’re both high
Alison, I said we’re sinking
But she laughs and tells me it’s just fine
I guess she’s out there somewhere”

Sigh.

*And likely will do so again…

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