Tag: Indie rock

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Better Oblivion Community Center “Better Oblivion Community Center”

(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: Better Oblivion Community Center
Album Title: Better Oblivion Community Center
Year released: 2019
Details: standard black

The skinny: I’m finishing off the re-visit of my five favourite albums of 2019 with this, my number one album of the year: the self-titled debut by the collaborative project, Better Oblivion Community Center. (If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that I skipped over my number two album. And that’s because The National’s “I am easy to find” received the ‘Vinyl love’ treatment shortly after it hit the shelves back in May of last year.) Released as a bit of a surprise to both of their sets of fans, this album brings together Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst, two indie artists of varying success, age, and experience. As I said back in December: “Better Oblivion Community Center is more than two like-minded indie folk singer/songwriters working together. Despite their differences in backgrounds, experiences, and age, their work on this album suggests they are bringing the best out in each other, stretching each out of their collective comfort zones.” I missed out on the initial limited edition, coloured vinyl release but managed to find this one for my collection a few months later. This pressing is the standard, bare bones release but for some reason, my copy has the B-side label affixed to both sides of the disc. Does anyone else have this or was it just my luck?

Standout track: “Dylan Thomas”

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Middle Kids [2018]

(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.)

Middle Kids live at Field Trip 2018

Artist: Middle Kids
When: June 2nd, 2018
Where: Fort York Stage, Field Trip Festival, Fort York Commons, Toronto
Context: Six weeks ago to the day, I posted another one of these galleries and all the while bemoaning the fact that I haven’t seen any live shows for months. My, how the times have changed. While that post was being written and the photos being placed in some semblance of order, our government was still maintaining that the risk to Canadians from COVID-19 was low and life still seemed normal. A mere handful of days later, I was working from home, we were being asked to leave the house only when necessary, and ‘social distancing’ had become a thing. Seeing any new live shows seems a pipe dream at the moment so you can expect to see a few more of these pining live gallery posts popping up on these pages.

This particular gallery comes from 2018 and the last time Arts & Crafts Records put on one of its two-day Field Trip festivals in Toronto. I went down for the weekend in early June, stayed with my friend Tim, and we met up on each of the days with our friend Mark. Australian indie rock trio, Middle Kids, played a 6pm set on the first day, unofficially, the party day for me and my two friends. I had only given their debut album, “Lost friends”, a cursory listen beforehand but had enjoyed it so I dragged my cohorts to the side stage. Unfortunately, the three of us were more focused on replenishing our drinks at this point in the day. I now regret catching most of Middle Kids set from the beer queues because their album ended up being amongst my top five favourites of the year. I won’t make that ‘mistake’ again the next time I see them… whenever that may be.

Point of reference song: “Mistake”

Tim Fitz of Middle Kids
Cameron Henderson, touring guitarist extraordinaire
Hannah Joy and Tim Fitz of Middle Kids
Harry Day of Middle Kids on drums
Cameron Henderson feeling it
Hannah Joy of Middle Kids
Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2002: #14 The Polyphonic Spree “Light & day / Reach for the sun”

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The Polyphonic Spree has already appeared twice on these pages: once for their cover of Nirvana’s “Lithium” for my ‘100 best covers’ series and for the second time, this very song was included on the playlist I created from bands I’ve seen as opening acts. In both of those posts, I wrote about how I discovered the band because of their opening spot on David Bowie’s “Reality” tour so I won’t bother rehashing that tale. Instead, I just want to say a few words about a great film called “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”. (Bet you didn’t see that one coming.)

If you haven’t seen it, the film is a weird, wonderful, and truly beautiful story about love, starring Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey. It was directed by Michel Gondry and the screenplay was written by Charlie Kaufman so that might give an inkling of you might be in for, should you decide to watch it. (And if you do, I’ll try not to spoil it for you with any of the following words.) It’s a film told out of sequence and through the use of memories (and lack thereof) in Jim Carrey’s character’s head. He has just recently broken off a two year relationship with Winslet’s character, who has taken the drastic next step of erasing him from her memories. In a vengeful fit, he decides to do the same. What we see in the film is this very process and posits answers to questions like: what happens when he decides he doesn’t want to forget her anymore? What happens should these two meet up with each other after they have both had this process done? Is the love we feel for another just a culmination of the memories and images we have of the other person or is it something bigger, something more innate, more ingrained in our natural fabric?

I originally watched this film while living in a basement apartment in Vanier with my wife. I think it was likely a few months after the release date early in 2004 because I remember getting a copy of the DVD from the Ottawa Public Library. I watched it by myself and then convinced Victoria to watch it with me a few days later. We both loved it, of course, though I was probably slightly more enamoured with it. I’ve since seen parts of it on television and whenever I do, I linger on the channel if I have the time and just appreciate the ingenuity of how the story is told. Just last week, I rewatched the whole film again when I saw that this post was on deck for me to write.

And in case you’re wondering why all the talk of the film, this song, “Light & day / Reach for the sun”, (as well as another of the group’s tracks) is on the soundtrack for “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”, though I never did place it within the film itself. (Let me know if you are able to do so.) It originally appeared on The Polyphonic Spree’s debut album, “The beginning stages of…”, and was released as a single the following year, along with its original video. The video was redone (see below) when the song was included on the soundtrack and the band began to pick up more steam. It is just as quirky as the film and the gigantic, cult-like band itself and features scenes from the film with superimposed mouths singing words of the song.

Have a look and let some sunshine in on your life.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.