Tag: The Box

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Playlists

Playlist: O Canada – 45 indie and alternative Canadian anthems

Happy Canada Day everyone!

This is one of those holidays that I love and have always appreciated but have even more so in recent years. I am blessed to live in a beautiful country and one that is relatively safe and free. And though I haven’t gotten downtown to take in the festivities that our nation’s capital puts on for quite some time, I do try to observe the birthdate of my country in my own way, usually by spending time outside, hiking or biking, tending the bbq, enjoying a brew or two or three, and taking in a closer (to me) fireworks display. The weather forecast is looking a bit rough to start today so I’m not sure yet what we’ll get up to but I plan to enjoy the holiday nonetheless.

I often try to do a post on these pages to observe the return of Canada Day in some way, so I’m actually surprised I haven’t done a playlist yet, something I am remedying this year. And honestly, I slapped this one together pretty quickly and it was really easy to do so because there’s lots of great material to pull from. These 45 songs represent some of my favourite tunes by some of my favourite Canadian artists from the last four or five decades. I start the almost three hours of great tunes with the “alternate” Canadian anthem by North Vancouver’s Spirit of the West and end it with my favourite song by Kingston’s The Tragically Hip, the band that for nearly twenty years was indisputably Canada’s band and its frontman Gord Downey, our poet laureate. In between those two tunes, you’ll find alt rock classics from the 80s and 90s (Grapes of Wrath, 54.40, Sloan, Northern Pikes), as well as a slew of tunes from the Canadian indie rock renaissance from the mid-2000s (Stars, Metric, Dears, Arcade Fire) when the ears from around the world seemed to be turned in our direction, and of course, more recent stuff as well (Alvvays, Elliott Brood, Nap Eyes, Tallies). There are bands and artists here representing almost all of the ten provinces but unfortunately, none from the three territories.

So this is mostly for all of my fellow Canadians out there but like my home country, I would welcome anyone from around the world to come and enjoy our riches. I invite you all to put this playlist on, along with your red and white clothes and maple leaf temporary tattoos, and enjoy the music, whether you’re out barbecuing, enjoying a cold one, out for a swim in your pool, sitting on your porch, out for a hike, camping out, or looking for a parking spot close to a Canada Day celebration somewheres.

Cheers!

For those who don’t use Apple Music, here is the entire playlist, with links to YouTube videos:

  1. “Home for a rest” Spirit Of The West (North Vancouver, British Columbia)
  2. “Archie, marry me” Alvvays (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island)
  3. “Stay out” Elliott Brood (Toronto, Ontario)
  4. “Ageless beauty” Stars (Montreal, Quebec)
  5. “Rosy and grey” The Lowest Of The Low (Toronto, Ontario)
  6. “When the night feels my song” Bedouin Soundclash (Kingston, Ontario)
  7. “Don’t haunt this place” The Rural Alberta Advantage (Toronto, Ontario)
  8. “Everything you’ve done wrong” Sloan (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
  9. “The safety dance” Men Without Hats (Montreal, Quebec)
  10. “Follow me down” Nap Eyes (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
  11. “I go blind” 54-40 (Tsawwassen, British Columbia)
  12. “Mari-Mac” Great Big Sea (St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador)
  13. “Hare tarot lies” No Joy (Montreal, Quebec)
  14. “Red” Treble Charger (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario)
  15. “Weighty ghost” Wintersleep (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
  16. “I’m an adult now” The Pursuit of Happiness (Toronto, Ontario)
  17. “I wanna be in the cavalry” Corb Lund (Taber, Alberta)
  18. “Teenland” The Northern Pikes (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
  19. “Sprawl II (Mountains beyond mountains)” Arcade Fire (Montreal, Quebec)
  20. “Claire” Rheostatics (Etobicoke, Ontario)
  21. “Still” Great Lake Swimmers (Wainfleet, Ontario)
  22. “Don’t walk away, Eileen” Sam Roberts (Westmount, Quebec)
  23. “Temptation” The Tea Party (Windsor, Ontario)
  24. “Tournament of hearts” The Weakerthans (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
  25. “Lost in the plot” The Dears (Montreal, Quebec)
  26. “All the things I wasn’t” The Grapes of Wrath (Kelowna, British Columbia)
  27. “Infamous” Basia Bulat (Toronto, Ontario)
  28. “Spiritual pollution” Pure (Vancouver, British Columbia)
  29. “Greater than consequence” Amos the Transparent (Ottawa, Ontario)
  30. “Ordinary people” The Box (Montreal, Quebec)
  31. “Memorize the city” The Organ (Vancouver, British Columbia)
  32. “Walking with a ghost” Tegan and Sara (Calgary, Alberta)
  33. “Breathing underwater” Metric (Toronto, Ontario)
  34. “Made for TV” King Apparatus (London, Ontario)
  35. “Use it” The New Pornographers (Vancouver, British Columbia)
  36. “Rossland Square” Cuff The Duke (Oshawa, Ontario)
  37. “Eat my brain” Odds (Vancouver, British Columbia)
  38. “Goodnight goodnight” Hot Hot Heat (Victoria, British Columbia)
  39. “The ghosts that haunt me” Crash Test Dummies (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
  40. “Paper girl” July Talk (Toronto, Ontario)
  41. “Don’t you know” Elephant Stone (Montreal, Quebec)
  42. “Brian Wilson” Barenaked Ladies (Scarborough, Ontario)
  43. “Mother” Tallies (Toronto, Ontario)
  44. “Swing your heartache” Young Galaxy (Montreal, Quebec)
  45. “Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)” The Tragically Hip (Kingston, Ontario)

And here is the promised link to the Apple Music playlist.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: The Box [2024]

(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.)

The Box live @ The Bronson Centre, September 2024

Artist: The Box
When: September 27th, 2024
Where: Bronson Centre Music Theatre, Ottawa
Context: I hummed and hawed about attending this show but am glad I decided to go in the end because The Bedouin Soundclash show that I had a ticket for in December got pushed to March and I had to sell my ticket for a January Slowdive show due to my ongoing health issues. So this was the last live show that I’ve seen for some time and what a doozy it was. Put on as part of local station, Boom 99.7’s Legends Weekend, the bill included 80s New Wave ‘legends’ Strange Advance, Images in Vogue, and these guys, Montreal’s The Box. I had always loved their tune “L’affaire dumoutier (say to me)” from back when I was a pre-teen and my AM radio-listening days. However, at some point during the pandemic, I decided to give the rest of their catalogue a listen after seeing a poster advertising a show by the band and found that I knew a lot more of their tunes than I realized. The only remaining original member from back in the day is frontman and driving force, Jean-Marc Pisapia but the rest of band is a gaggle of fantastic musicians that he put together when he decided to re-start performing as The Box back in the early 2000s. Given the length of the bill and the average age of the audience members, each act was only allotted a short set but The Box made the most of their time, blasting eight of their greatest and well-known hits, including the song already mentioned, “My dreams of you”, “Closer together”, and Cold War classic, “Ordinary people” (see below). Jean-Marc and his band were pure performers and crowd pleasers all the way through. And I found myself smiling and singing along with the rest of the crowd.
Point of reference song: “Ordinary people”

Jean-Marc Pisapia with Isabelle Lemay
Dan Volj on bass
Francois Bruneau on guitairs
Martin Lapierre on drums
Jean-Marc singin’ it
Categories
Vinyl

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

(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 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.