Tag: Indie

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2002: #8 Broken Social Scene “Cause = time”

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My good friend and infrequent contributor to this blog, Andrew Rodriguez, once quipped that I wasn’t able to be a fan of a band unless they had at least six members. And while he exaggerated some, it’s true that a lot of the new bands that I discovered and fell for in the 2000s had a lot of personnel. This singular characteristic, however, wasn’t one that automatically made me a fan of the act in question. As a case in point, Broken Social Scene is a band who is quite famous for having a large contingent, filling stages both large and small, whenever and wherever they played live, and try as I might, I was never able to get into them in their early days.

The Toronto-based indie collective actually started out as duo back in 1999. Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning recorded their mostly instrumental, ambient debut album, 2001’s “Feel good lost”, by themselves, for the most part. When it came to performing it live, however, Drew and Canning would enlist the help of their friends, many of them fixtures of the Toronto indie rock scene, members of bands already established or soon to be established, like Metric, Stars, Apostles of Hustle, and Feist. The duo then brought a lot of these same friends into the studio with them when they recorded their sophomore album, the now iconic “You forgot it in people”, and the rest, as they are wont to say, is history. The album was critically acclaimed, did quite well commercially for a Canadian indie band, and was cited in many conversations as one of the centrepieces around which the Canadian indie explosion of the 2000s revolved. And I remember telling people in similar conversations that I appreciated all that, but for me, they were a band of whose parts I enjoyed more than their sum.

Of course, that was back then. These days, I love Broken Social Scene. Somewhere along the line, I came to my senses and became a fan, allowing me to reclaim my Canadian citizenship. I’ve seen them live twice, experiencing the magic that made me question whether or not I was on bad drugs when I listened to them early on. Their show is so much fun, seeing so many talented musicians playing together on the same stage, all contributing to creating that perfect sound and obviously, having fun doing it. Yeah and each time I saw them, the show was completely different because it was a different combination of musicians on stage. It seems that it’s like – whoever’s available, come on out and play. And play and rock, they do.

“Cause = time” is the perfect way to illustrate how they bring the rock. It was an exceptional tune for me because it was one of the few that I liked even before I became a full-fledged fan. The atmospherics of their early work still laid the groundwork but the driving drum beat, rumbling bass line, and screeching, screaming, and scratching guitars all get the heart racing. Indeed, it is a noisy cacophony and could’ve been in danger of becoming unlistenable if it weren’t for the counterpoint put forward by Kevin Drew. He settles things down to a mellow and cool vibe with his vocals and it’s like losing yourself in the beauty of the moment while the chaos of the world flashes violently around you.

Chaos and calm. That says it right there.

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

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Exbats “Kicks, hits, and fits”

(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: The Exbats
Album Title: Kicks, hits, and fits
Year released: 2020
Details: standard black vinyl

The skinny: Like the subject of last week’s ‘Vinyl love’ post, this record is an album that finished just outside of my top ten favourite 2020 albums list*. There aren’t many photos in this gallery, given that the release is pretty bare bones, but it’s still pretty special in that it’s the first studio album the band has pressed to vinyl. Its simple aesthetic also falls in line with The Exbats’ no-nonsense sound. The trio, led by Inez McLain (drums/vocals) and her father Ken (guitars), flip between garage rock and punk, all brightened by 60’s sunshine/bubblegum pop, name-checking The Rolling Stones, The Ramones, The Stooges, and The Monkees.”Kicks, hits, and fits” is angry and fun at the same time. Yeah, The Exbats might just be a band worth watching out for.

Standout track: “I got the hots for Charlie Watts”

*I am still putting the finishing touches on said list in the hopes of beginning its roll-out in just under one week’s time.

Categories
Tunes

100 best covers: #64 The Boo Radleys “There she goes”

<< #65    |    #63 >>

While looking for something to listen to on Spotify recently, I rediscovered that Alan Cross’s amazing radio show, “The ongoing history of new music”, is available on there as a podcast. I may be one of the only people that I know that never got into the concept of podcasts, always preferring to listen to music whenever the opportunity is afforded to listen to something, whether it be in the car, at work, or just puttering around the house. However, I always loved listening to Alan Cross’s radio show back when I was younger and living in Toronto, where his show was originally broadcasted on CFNY, and I decided to give the podcast a try. I’ve now listened to and enjoyed a few episodes (of course, Cross is still as interesting and engaging as ever) and can now see myself checking it out on the regular.

I mention this because in a weird coincidence the theme on the very first podcast episode to which I listened had for its theme, one-hit wonders of the 1990s, and in the middle of the show, Cross called The La’s’ “There she goes”, ‘the perfect pop song’. I myself included this very track and ranked it number one when I did a post on my top five one-hit wonders of the 1980s* a few years ago. In that post, I also referred to it as a perfect pop song, to the ‘jangly guitars that shimmer in the sunlight’ and how ‘Lee Mavers’ vocals alternate between rough and soft’.

This balance and counterpoint and the compact song structure and length is likely why so many artists have covered it and have had success with it. Indeed, “There she goes” has been covered by The Wombats, Robbie Williams, and by an American a cappella act called The Kingsmen. Perhaps most famously, Sixpence None The Richer covered it and released it as the second single off their self-titled album in 1999, the follow up to the ubiquitous hit, “Kiss me”. Their slowed down, acoustic focused version did quite well and sure, it’s lovely enough, but in my opinion, it completely dispenses with any of the edge on the original.

The cover version that I prefer is the one by British contemporaries, The Boo Radleys, and this can be attributed to the fact that I discovered it at the same time and place as I did the original. Both versions are featured on the soundtrack for the film, “So I married an axe murderer”** and the two together are, in a sense, a de fact theme song for the film. They book-end the album, the cover opening the proceedings and the original having the final word. I used to think they were pretty much the same but on closer inspection recently, I managed to separate the intricacies.

The Boo Radleys ease off a bit on the jangle by replacing the iconic arpeggio guitar intro with horns and they unbelievably one-up the original in peppiness by increasing the tempo, adding handclaps, and vocal harmonies. In another ‘how did they do it’ facet, The Boo Radleys’ version even managed to come out thirty seconds shorter than Lee Mavers’ perfect pop song length in the original.

Is the cover better? You won’t catch me answering the affirmative here – the original is so good – but I do enjoy both.

Thoughts?

Cover:

The original:

*”There she goes” was originally released as a single in 1988 but was re-released a couple of times in the 1990s. Hence, it being attributed to both the 1980s and the 1990s.
**It’s a great soundtrack, much better than the film for which it was put together. For a bit more on both, have a peek on my post on Suede’s “My insatiable one”, another track that appeared on the soundtrack.

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