Tag: Indie

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Tunes Vinyl

Best tunes of 2012: #11 Young Galaxy “Youth is wasted on the young”

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Happy Thursday everyone!

It’s doubly happy for me because today marks the first day of a two week vacation from work. And to truly recharge, I’ve decided to take a brief blogging break as well. But first, I’ve got something fun to send things off right. I have a song here that provides a unique opportunity to combine a post for my Best tunes of 2012 list with one for my ‘Vinyl love’ series. Let me explain.

In the spring of 2012, I had just started collecting vinyl. My wife had texted me from Greenwich village in New York City where she was visiting a friend. She had happened upon a street sale and one of the vendors happened to be selling used vinyl, some by bands that she knew I loved, and I remember her specifically asking if I wanted Oasis’s debut album on vinyl. When I responded that I didn’t have a turntable, she said that she planned on getting me one. She ended up coming home with “Definitely maybe”, as well as “Talking Heads: 77”, both of which are still on my shelves. Shortly after that, I ventured out on my very first Record Store Day and purchased my first exclusive. A vinyl addict was born.

If it wasn’t for those events, I may not have even flinched when I heard the news that Paper Bag Records was releasing a double a-side 7”, vinyl only release from Young Galaxy. It’s true that the Montreal-based dream pop band had just released their third album, “Shapeshifting”, on Paper Bag the previous year and though it was a departure for them, it was a welcome one and garnered them lots of new attention. It’s also a fact that I had contributed to the group’s Kickstarter campaign a few months earlier to help raised funds for them to travel to Sweden to work again with the producer of “Shapeshifting” for their next album, but this time in person. So I was already excited and on the lookout for news from one of my favourite Canadian bands in years and it didn’t hurt that they were working with my favourite indie label at the time, who I thought for a while, were turning to gold everything they touched. But it was the vinyl already sitting on my shelf that greased the wheel and I placed the online order.

The record arrived in the mail, wrapped in brown paper, a fun touch that the label was doing back then. I brought it home and admired it with plenty of “oohs” and “aahs” before putting it on the shelf with the rest of the small collection I had amassed thus far. I didn’t yet have a turntable so I had to listen to the two songs on my computer, care of the download rights that came with the purchase. I listened to both the a-side and the double-a-side, “Shoreless kid” and “Youth is wasted on the young”, and was struck by how different they sounded (and yet, at the same time similar in aesthetic) to the album they had released the previous year. I thought at the time that these two songs that were heavier on the guitar were either signalling a return to their earlier sound or a last kiss good bye as they soared off into the synthesized horizon. It turns out it was the latter.

“Youth is wasted on the young” starts off feeling a little construction time again with pipes spewing steam and rivets being pounded and then, the Johnny Marr guitars chime in with the jangles and everything kicks into highway driving roars. It sounds very much like 1983, dark and shiny leather jackets and all manner of sunglasses cool. And Catherine McCandless is channelling some Siouxsie Sioux, a strong woman, glamorous and iconic, against the world, keeping up with the frenetic pace of it all. It’s like a love song to both the music of the band’s youth and to the music of today that is just as fresh and fabulous.

I wouldn’t mind dying at all
If it weren’t for the songs I’d miss…
Youth is wasted on the young

See you all again soon.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2012 list, click here.

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Camera Obscura “Desire lines”

(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: Camera Obscura
Album Title: Desire lines
Year released: 2013
Details: Black vinyl, gatefold sleeve

The skinny: The fifth and final album (so far) by Camera Obscura was the first by the band to be purchased for my collection. In fact, it was a part of a good handful of discs to be sitting on my shelves before I even got around to purchasing a turntable. I had started collecting the previous spring and given that most new releases at the time were coming with download cards for digital versions of the album, it just made sense to go this route. I distinctly remember driving downtown on a Sunday afternoon and going to the now closed Compact Music location on Bank street and finding it right there on the new releases display rack. It felt so great in my hands. Of course, I didn’t know then that this would be their last album with keyboardist Carey Lander. After she died of osteosarcoma in 2015, the band went on an extended hiatus. They were just getting a tour organized and starting to think about new material when COVID-19 put a stop to everything last spring. Here’s hoping the band gets back to it soon. We could use a bit of sunshine.

Standout track: “Fifth in line to the throne”

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2002: #1 Doves “There goes the fear”

<< #2

If you’ve been following along, you would note that Dove’s “There goes the fear” marks the third appearance* on this list of my favourite tunes of 2002, all songs from the band’s sophomore album, “The last broadcast”. So yeah, if I ever get around to counting down my favourite albums from that year, I don’t think anyone will be surprised to see this album atop the list. I haven’t been at all secretive of my love for this band and this album. In fact, I have definitely mentioned that the discovery of this very album pulled me out of a rut that I had somehow fallen into with music and it got me back on the road to discovery and exploration.

On an album full of near perfection for me, “There goes the fear” stands out, loud and clear, and is without a doubt, my favourite track by the band. Indeed, when I counted down my top five favourites by Doves just over a year ago, this near seven minutes of heaven came in at number one there too. The track was released as the album’s first single and was deleted on the very same day, a stunt which might have cost the band plenty of sales, but it doesn’t sound like they regret it any. The trio of Jimi Goodwin and the Williams brothers, Andy and Jez, continue to perform this track live with regularity and with the same passion that you would hope would be there when listening to the studio-recorded version at home. Of course, it riffs on the band’s preferred theme of living life bravely and fully, without regrets and fear.

“Think of me when you’re coming down
But don’t look back when leaving town”

It starts like a wound up music box, topsy and turvy, and slightly off kilter, followed by a slow build in speed and thrust. It’s got a racing bass line, and a thumping heart beat, though easy enough through the first verse. Once it hits its chorus, the song erupts in victory, heart-skipping drum beat flourishes, and guitar explosions. Jimi Goodwin croons his way through, being gentle and soothing and urging, letting the music build with excitement and energy.

And you can feel it all: eyes closed, body humming, everything a blur, light trails and lasers, cars racing into the night, fireworks exploding, a million gleeful souls expounding everything, knowing full well they have to live fully in this moment, pure life, anywhere and everywhere.

Amen.

*”Caught by the river” appeared at number seventeen and “Pounding” more recently appeared at number five.

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