Tag: Power pop

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1992: #14 Buffalo Tom “Velvet roof”

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“Scraggly hair and messed up shoes
I’m looking all around for you
Find you in the corner bar
But you can’t find the keys to your car”

This one here’s a real rocker! Driving rhythm and flailing guitars and frontman Bill Janovitz singing about blowing chances with love and life. I first came across this track and thus discovered Buffalo Tom when I recorded the music video off City Limits, a story you might recognize by now if you’ve perused other posts in my Best tunes of 1990, 1991, and 1992 lists. I definitely remember rewinding and replaying this video many times over in my basement bedroom, while frantically slapping the tops of my thighs, flat-handed, as if I were drumming right alongside Tom Maginnis. It’s absolutely one of those songs that gets me riled up every time, even now, especially at around the halfway mark of the song where the mouth organ gets whipped out and then, the real craze begins.

Buffalo Tom was formed in Boston in 1986 and apparently, their name was an amalgam of 60s rock band Buffalo Springfield and the first name of their drummer. Their friendship with J. Mascis and the fact that he produced their first two records was likely the main reason they obtained the questionable tag of Dinosaur Jr. junior. I never saw this comparison myself but I always enjoyed Buffalo Tom’s music more than that of Mascis’s group, perhaps not a popular opinion. Nonetheless, it’s true, and of course, it was on their third album, “Let me come over”, on which this song appears, where they sought different collaborators and started to blaze their own trail, that things really started happening for them.

I loved the drive and energy of “Velvet roof” so much that the first time I saw “Let me come over” on a CD rack, I didn’t hesitate to buy it. Unfortunately, as you might know if you’ve read a certain post on New Model Army’s “Purity”, this particular story doesn’t have such a happy ending. I had travelled to Toronto in the summer of 1993 with my friend Tim to see New Model Army live, my first ever concert. We had driven to the Scarborough Town Centre in the afternoon, parked, and took the TTC LRT and subway downtown from there. Before the show, we hit a few of Tim’s favourite used record and CD shops, including the now defunct Penguin Music, which for quite a while afterwards became my own favourite. I picked up copies of Primus’s “Sailing the seas of cheese” and this Buffalo Tom album.

The New Model Army show was so incredible that we stayed almost right to the end, despite Tim’s wary eye on his watch, knowing full well that we had to catch the last subway eastward, which on a week night in those days wasn’t very late. It was a race from Lee’s Palace to Bathurst station and I remember struggling mightily at the entry gate with hands full of CDs and a concert tee and trying to find the token I had purchased earlier. Then, mere moments later, while waiting downstairs for the subway train to arrive, I realized I no longer had the CDs in my hands. I ran back upstairs but they were nowhere to be found and the ticket taker only shrugged.

At some point, I purchased another copy of “Sailing the seas of cheese” but never did replace “Let me come over”. It was reissued on vinyl a few years ago for its 25th anniversary. If I ever see a copy of that out in the wild, I’m thinking the album will finally see my shelves. One can hope.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 2007: #2 The New Pornographers “Challengers”

So The New Pornographers have hit these pages a few times in this blog’s inaugural year. The Canadian indie power pop supergroup is a great band that has defied the odds and last for well over the predicted one or two albums. In fact, “Challengers” is the group’s fourth album and have since come up with three more since 2007.

This album was a bit challenging (pardon the pun) for the group’s long time fans because there was less power in the pop here. All the other elements we have grown to love, the big and interesting instrumentation and arrangements, the turn taking and melodies on vocals by all four principal vocalists, and the way the different elements come together so cohesively are still prominent but just muted. For some, this meant requiring more listens to accept the new record but I had no issues at all.

For me, “Challengers” was love on first listen. Interesting, then, that many critics considered this more the natural sequel to AC Newman’s quiet debut, “The slow wonder”, an album I didn’t much care for, rather than the bombast of The New Pornos’ third record, “Twin cinema”. I thought the toned down approach allowed for the all the pieces room to grow and the results were quite stunning. I don’t know if it’s fair to call this my all time favourite of their albums, given that they are so consistently good, but it just might be.

If you’re not familiar with this stellar group or just this album (or even if you are), have a peek at my three picks for you below and let me know what you think.

“Mutiny, I promise you”: I’m not sure I know what this song’s all about but I just love the idea of promising a mutiny, usurping the captain on the high seas like a pirate. And not just warning in advance but promising it. The song is one of the more upbeat and energetic of the bunch on “Challengers”. It’s like all the instruments are turned up to eleven and their players are at them like crazy. The vocals, too, gang-like, are almost an all out shout, except they’re so beautifully harmonized between Newman and Kathryn Calder. And when they briefly pause their playing to sing “And here is the mutiny I promised you” at the bridge, it’s oh so sweet.

“Myriad Harbour”: This is easily my favourite Dan Bejar penned and sung track. He is so weird but on this track, it works. His almost whiny voice is singing conversationally, for some reason, reminding me of Lou Reed, and he’s glorifying Manhattan too, which is perfect. “Stranded at Bleeker and Broadway, looking for something to do.” The way the guitar climbs up and down, Bejar rejoins and the rest of the band responds, the harmonica flourishes, it all just makes me smile, over and over again.

“All the old showstoppers”: That Carl Newman, he’s quite the lyricist. His songs are rife with wordplay that twist and turn our normal ideas and always leave things open to interpretation. I’ve tried to untangle this one, the meaning seemingly just there beyond reach, but I’ve decided to give it up and just enjoy the tune. And “All the old showstoppers” is a fun one. A verse melody that feels very mechanical while Newman sings a call and answer with Neko Case and Calder. It all comes together joyously for the chorus though, instruments and voices in one sweet harmony.

For the rest of the albums in this list, check out my Best Albums page here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2010: #24 OK Go “This too shall pass”

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When I was in my twenties and early thirties, I didn’t have a lot of money to go see shows so I made them count and nothing but death could keep me from them. Things have changed a bit as I’ve aged. Maybe I’m not as hardcore as I was or maybe I’m turning into a bit of a suck but I’ve missed a number shows over the last ten years for which I’ve had tickets because of the weather or because I’ve felt under the weather. I’m thinking that the first of these shows was when OK Go played the Capital Music Hall here in Ottawa back in 2010. My wife and I were supposed to go with my friend Ian and his wife Diana but a few days beforehand, I caught the death of a man cold and really didn’t feel up to it.

Ian later recounted some of the details of the show for me. Of course, they were great live and had a hell of a lot of energy but he was also quite enthusiastic about their use of multimedia and how they often projected parts of their music videos on the screen behind them for the songs that they were performing. This only poured salt in the raw wound (which I’m sure wasn’t Ian’s intent) but it also made a lot of sense in retrospect since the band’s use of the music video is really what made them a household name.

Not since the golden age of MTV and Muchmusic has a group profited more from the creative use of videos for their songs. These guys became YouTube stars: first, with their highly choreographed backyard dance video for “A million ways” and then, to an even greater audience, with their treadmill routine video for “Here it goes again“. With each successive video, OK Go, who had formed in 1998 and whose 2002 debut self-titled debut album only saw modest success, upped the creative and intricate ante. In fact, “This too shall pass”, the second single off their third LP, “Of the blue colour of the sky”, and track number twenty four on my best of 2010 list, received two different music videos. The first is a crazy marching band performance of the song, the second features a Rube Goldberg machine, and you can watch both below.

But this LA-based quartet is not all style and no substance. They seem to have gone to the Weezer school of geek rock and added a touch of glam for an A plus average. “This too shall pass” is knee trembling bass, bombastic drums, and a shitload of swagger, giving the impression that OK Go are the coolest kids in the class even though they know they’re not. It is a big song, almost to the point of parody. With no build at all, it is a whole song in climax, even at the piano plinking bridge where the chorus joins in, you get the feeling that everyone and anyone is invited.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2010 list, click here.