Tag: Canadian alternative

Vinyl

Vinyl love: Sloan “One chord to another”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date July 1, 2024
No Comments on Vinyl love: Sloan “One chord to another”

(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: Sloan
Album Title: One chord to another
Year released: 1996
Year reissued: 2016
Details: n/a

The skinny: Well, it’s Canada Day again, and on these pages, this just gives me yet another reason to feature an artist from my home country and there are a great many to choose from. Sloan, for instance, is an alt-rock quartet that formed in Halifax, Nova Scotia way back in 1991 and is still a going concern today. I wasn’t initially a fan when I heard their first ever single “Underwhelmed” in 1992 but warmed up to a couple of singles off their sophomore album, 1994’s “Twice removed“. It took their third album, “One chord to another”, however, to make me a full-fledged fan. So of course, this record was destined my vinyl shelves. I purchased this reissue on one of my many trips to Toronto’s Sonic Boom, a massive record shop in Chinatown and I pull it out regularly when I’m in the mood to rock out. Happy Canada Day!

Standout track: “Everything you’ve done wrong”

Tags 12", 1990s, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Can Con, Canadian alternative, Power pop, Retro, Sloan

Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Box “The best of The Box”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date April 28, 2024
7 Comments on Vinyl love: The Box “The best of The Box”

Artist: The Box
Album Title: The best of The Box
Year released: 2024
Details: RSD2024 release, 2 x LP, fluorescent orange & fluorescent green, foil cover, gatefold sleeve

The skinny: I’ve been participating in Record Store Day festivities for more than a decade but with the diminishing amount of exclusive releases to catch my interest, it’s been a number of years since I’ve actually ventured out early enough to get stuck in lines and get involved in the crush and the rush of the crash and grab. This year, though, there were a few on my wishlist and I ventured out before the clock even reached ten. I got coffee and queued up for hours outside and inside a couple of my local shops and in the end, found three of the four that I had my eye on*. One of these was a Canadian RSD release of a new compilation called “The best of The Box”. I wrote recently how I realized that I was a fan of The Box (without even knowing it) when I posted about their single “L’affaire Dumoutier (Say to me)” for my Eighties Best 100 Redux. Listening to this vinyl the other night only reinforced for me how underrated and how talented the Canadian new wave band was at writing an ear worm that stuck with you throughout the decades. This release is pressed to two discs in fluorescent colours (orange and green)** and comes in a foil wrapped gatefold sleeve. Definitely a successful RSD for me.

Standout track: “Ordinary people”

*I wasn’t expecting to find the fourth one here in Canada but am still on the hunt for it and closing in.

**They were an 80s band, you know.

Tags 12", 1980s, 1990s, Alternative, Can Con, Canadian alternative, Coloured vinyl, Fluorescent green, Fluorescent orange, Jean-Marc Pisapia, New Wave, Retro, RSD exclusive, RSD2024, The Box

Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Crash Test Dummies [2022]

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date July 21, 2022
1 Comment on Live music galleries: Crash Test Dummies [2022]

(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.)

Crash Test Dummies live at Bluesfest 2022

Artist: Crash Test Dummies
When: July 14th, 2022
Where: SiriusXM stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Lebreton Flats Park
Context: So I jumped back into live music with both feet over the last few weeks. It was my long-awaited return to Canada’s largest outdoor music festival, aka Ottawa Bluesfest. I had bought a full festival pass back in March 2020, just before everything went to hell, and when that year’s edition was cancelled, I just transferred my pass to the next. And then, the next – this year. I ended up attending five of the ten nights and saw plenty of great sets by acts as diverse as The New Pornographers, Lucy Dacus, Garbage, Run the Jewels, and Rage Against the Machine. But my favourite of all? A side stage headline set by Crash Test Dummies. It was partly nostalgia, I admit, but they really did put on an entertaining show. I had their debut album, “The ghosts that haunt me”, on cassette tape back in high school and I near wore it through with the amount of times I played it on my Walkman. And though it was good, I wasn’t as big a fan of their sophomore release, mostly because they were floating away from the folk-rock sound that I loved from the debut. So I never did see the group perform live. A wrong I definitely righted a week ago tonight. The set was heavy on that sophomore release, it was their biggest success, of course, but I was extremely happy to hear them pull out four tracks from that debut, including the cover song below and their big Canadian hit, “Superman’s song”. For many moments on that night, I was seventeen again and screaming along to lyrics I had never forgotten.
Point of reference song: “Androgynous” (Replacements cover)