Tag: Alternative

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2020: #12 Elliott Brood “Stay out”

<< #13    |    #11 >>

It was an old high school friend that tipped me off to Elliott Brood close to two decades ago. I haven’t seen Jeff in the flesh for many, many years but we’ve long been friends on the Facebook and at some point in the 2000s, he posted on his page about his cousin Casey’s band. I was mildly curious so I checked out their website. Their self-description as ‘death country’ made me laugh enough to give their debut long player, “Ambassador”, a listen and the rest, as they say, was history.

The trio of Mark Sasso, Stephen Pitkin, and Casey Laforet formed in Toronto in 2002, a few years before that fateful Facebook post. I’ve since found much to like in their alternative folk/country/rock over the years, have seen them live a couple of times, and would jump at the chance to do so again. By my count, they’ve released six studio long players and a bunch of EPs, including 2023’s “Town” and 2024’s “Country”, which were collected together to form one super album last year.

Today’s song, though, comes care of their last full-length album, “Keeper”. Of track two, Casey Laforet fully admitted that it was inspired by an old mandolin that he bought in St John’s, Newfoundland, that he calls ‘Old Smokey’. He hadn’t picked the instrument up in a while but when he finally did, “Stay out” simply burst forth into existence. He says that he doesn’t think the song could have or would have been written on a guitar. It was ‘Old Smokey’s tale to tell. Indeed, the mandolin strum is prominent and alive in the song. But so too are the foot stomps and hand claps* and for that we can only be eternally grateful.

“I got healthy kids and a beautiful wife
But I don’t wanna go home
I’m proud and thankful and terrified
But I don’t wanna go home”

“Stay out” is a joyful sounding number despite its not-so-joyful lyrics. Sometimes everything appears to be going well on the outside but things are not quite right on the inside. Thankfully, we have songs like this that make it all feel alright and we can get up to stomp it all out.

Thanks, Old Smokey. And you too, Elliott Brood.

*Both are sounds that the band went to great lengths to include on “Keeper”.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

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Live music galleries

Live music galleries: The Box [2024]

(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 Box live @ The Bronson Centre, September 2024

Artist: The Box
When: September 27th, 2024
Where: Bronson Centre Music Theatre, Ottawa
Context: I hummed and hawed about attending this show but am glad I decided to go in the end because The Bedouin Soundclash show that I had a ticket for in December got pushed to March and I had to sell my ticket for a January Slowdive show due to my ongoing health issues. So this was the last live show that I’ve seen for some time and what a doozy it was. Put on as part of local station, Boom 99.7’s Legends Weekend, the bill included 80s New Wave ‘legends’ Strange Advance, Images in Vogue, and these guys, Montreal’s The Box. I had always loved their tune “L’affaire dumoutier (say to me)” from back when I was a pre-teen and my AM radio-listening days. However, at some point during the pandemic, I decided to give the rest of their catalogue a listen after seeing a poster advertising a show by the band and found that I knew a lot more of their tunes than I realized. The only remaining original member from back in the day is frontman and driving force, Jean-Marc Pisapia but the rest of band is a gaggle of fantastic musicians that he put together when he decided to re-start performing as The Box back in the early 2000s. Given the length of the bill and the average age of the audience members, each act was only allotted a short set but The Box made the most of their time, blasting eight of their greatest and well-known hits, including the song already mentioned, “My dreams of you”, “Closer together”, and Cold War classic, “Ordinary people” (see below). Jean-Marc and his band were pure performers and crowd pleasers all the way through. And I found myself smiling and singing along with the rest of the crowd.
Point of reference song: “Ordinary people”

Jean-Marc Pisapia with Isabelle Lemay
Dan Volj on bass
Francois Bruneau on guitairs
Martin Lapierre on drums
Jean-Marc singin’ it
Categories
Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #85 Thompson Twins “Hold me now” (1983)

<< #86    |    #84 >>

Check out that hair! Yeesh!

Thompson Twins’ “Hold me now”, at song #85, is something of a guilty pleasure* of mine. When I was in grade five, I thought the band was the coolest thing ever and even today, I still know all the words to this song. I’m dedicating this one to Victoria, my lovely wife, for whom this song is also a pleasure, but maybe not so guilty.

Like so many British New Wave bands of this era, Thompson Twins began as a post-punk band (seriously) and at the time of their debut album, had a roster of six members! Alannah Currie was only officially added as the seventh member for the band’s sophomore album, 1982’s “Set”. The band’s core of Currie, Tom Bailey and Joe Leeway were convinced by their manager at the time to whittle themselves down to a trio and expand on their synth pop direction, given the North American success in 1982 of single, “In the name of love.” The changes paid off because the band enjoyed global success for the next four years and three albums, culminating in an appearance at Live Aid in 1985 where they were joined onstage by none other than pop icon, Madonna.

“Hold me now” was the first single released off Thompson Twins’ fourth album, “Into the gap” and despite the sneers of critics everywhere, was a huge hit the world over, charting into the top ten of many countries’ charts. I personally remember watching this video for many weeks running on my favourite music chart show at the time, CHUM FM top 30 videos. Sure, it sounds dated now, as does most of the band’s back catalogue, but it still has a place in my Apple Music library. The nostalgia factor is strong here.

Click the play button on the video below and sing along loudly with me.

Original Eighties best 100 position: #88

Favourite lyric: I like: “You say I’m a dreamer, we’re two of a kind / Both of us searching for some perfect world, we know we’ll never find.” But I’m near certain Victoria likes: “And then I’ll ask your forgiveness though I don’t know / Just what I’m asking it for.” Maybe because it reminds her of the two of us together.

Where are they now?: Joe Leeway left the band in 1986 and the remaining duo of Bailey and Currie officially called it quits in 1993. The band has never considered a reunion but since 2014, former lead singer Tom Bailey has regularly toured under the name “Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey”.

*I’ve always called this one a ‘guilty pleasure’ but I think I’m nearly ready to own it. Give me another year or two. 😉

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