Tag: Alternative

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Live music galleries

Live music galleries: My Son The Hurricane [2023]

(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.)

My Son The Hurricane live at Bluesfest 2023

Artist: My Son The Hurricane
When: July 12th, 2023
Where: SiriusXM stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Context: So we’re exactly two weeks away from the first night of this year’s edition of Ottawa Bluesfest. For the longest time, I was debating whether or not to attend due to being initially underwhelmed by the lineup. But this, I realized, was truly due to the previous year being much more aligned to my own personal taste. In the end, I broke down and got a full festival pass, partially* because of sets like the one I am featuring today. I had never heard of Niagara, Ontario’s My Son The Hurricane before wandering over to the SiriusXM stage early on in the evening but it wasn’t long at all before I was caught up in their energy, right along with the rest of the crowd. Theirs was a mad mix of Mighty Mighty Bosstone ska punk, Jane’s Addiction cali surf rock, old school Chili Peppers gnarly funk, and whatever you call the racket that Rage and the Machine gets up to. They have a dozen or so members that make up a big sound, all contributing to a musical message of change, acceptance, and love. A set I’ll not soon forget, to be sure.
Point of reference song: “Mr Holland’s locust”

Sylvie Kindree on vocals
Chris Darling, Fraser Gauthier, and Alyssa Shangham
Chris Sipos on guitar
Cooper Hannahson adding some beats
Ashlee Standish on the keys
Raphaël Désilets with his trumpet
Sylvie flirting with Alyssa
Raphaël Désilets, Lisa Gudgeon, Chris Sipos, Victoria Cox, and Danno O’shea representing the banner
Sylvie, Cooper, Justin, and Craig
Victoria Cox on the baritone sax
Equality!

*But also because I love live music and finally decided there were more than enough sets that I wanted to see to make the pass worth the money.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Northside “Chicken rhythms”

(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: Northside
Album Title: Chicken rhythms
Year released: 1991
Year reissued: 2024
Details: RSD2024 release, Limited edition, yellow, numbered 1169

The skinny: My last ‘vinyl love’ post back in April featured one of my Record Store Day finds and I hinted, then, that there was one record that I didn’t find, but was still on the lookout for. This was that record. I ended up ordering a copy from one of the indie record stores whose online presences I frequent. I just couldn’t help myself. Released in 1991, “Chicken rhythms” was Northside’s lone full-length album, which I’ve alway seen as a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. And for the longest time, I held a grudge against fellow Mancunians, Happy Mondays*, whose excessive lifestyles likely played no small part in bankrupting theirs and Northside’s record label, Factory Records, forever shortening Northside’s discography. “Chicken Rhythms” was the first album I ever purchased on compact disc** and now I own it for my record shelves, a numbered, special edition Record Store Day release, pressed to yellow vinyl. Oh baby.

Standout track: “Take five”

*Have no fear, I forgave them eventually and we’re friends again.

**Because I couldn’t find it on cassette tape anywhere.

Categories
Tunes

100 best covers: #41 The Lemonheads “Mrs. Robinson”

<< #42    |    #40 >>

By all accounts, the Lemonheads’ frontman and driving force, Evan Dando, hated the original version of the song “Mrs. Robinson”, almost as much as he disliked its author. You got the feeling he was heavily leaned on by the ‘powers that be’ to record the cover to go along with the 25th anniversary release of “The Graduate” on home video cassette. He must’ve really blown a gasket when it was tacked on to the end of the track listing on later rereleases of his band’s now classic 1992 album, “It’s a shame about Ray”.

So it’s amusing that this was likely many listeners gateway to the band. It certainly was mine. I distinctly remember recording the video during one of my Friday night CityLimits viewing sessions and falling for the update of a song I knew from my parents’ oldie radio station listening in the car. From there, I recorded the video for the aforementioned album’s title track based on name recognition and of course, I’ve already told the story on these pages on how showing these two videos to my aunt landed me a copy of the CD for Christmas. So yeah, I’ve got a history with the song.

I later developed an appreciation for NYC-based folk rock duo, Simon & Garfunkel who wrote and performed the original. Parts of it were written before the filming of “The graduate”, were shared with its filmmaker, and these appeared in the final film cut. Versions of these snippets appeared on the soundtrack but the actual full-fledged song wasn’t released until a year later as a single and appeared on the band’s fourth album, “Bookends”.

The Lemonheads’ cover has got raunchier guitars than the original acoustic finger picking and instead of the lilting harmonizing on the iconic do-de-do-do-do-do-do intro, it is Evan Dando’s solo, half hearted mimicry. Theirs is about twenty seconds shorter than the orginal but that’s probably more due to its sped up pacing. Indeed, the song is all there but the tone is very different. It rocks and rolls more and yet, it has been often criticized for being a lazy cover. And that may be so, but I couldn’t help myself but to fall hard for it, and that love hasn’t waned in the least in the 30+ years since its release.

(If you hadn’t guessed, I prefer the cover to the original here.)

Cover:

Original:

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