Tag: The Cure

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: The Cure [2013]

(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 Cure live at Osheaga 2013

Artist: The Cure
When: August 2nd, 2013
Where: River stage, Osheaga, Jean Drapeau Park, Montreal
Context: I was doing this thing in the spring and early summer this year, posting pics from some of the great sets* I caught at Montreal’s Osheaga music festival back in 2013: a sort of ten year anniversary celebration of a great weekend spent with music and friends. However, I never got around to what was possibly my favourite set of the whole weekend, something I’ve decided to remedy before this year was up.

I had seen The Cure once before back in 2000 for their Bloodflowers tour but this time, it was ultimately more satisfying because the setlist was so wonderfully mixed. The night was cool and pleasant and Robert Smith was at the top of his game, sounding as he did in his prime, but perhaps performing with more joy than he ever had back then. It was a wondrous two hour set, playing everything any fans would ever want to hear. It seemed like it could, and would, go on forever. In fact, festival organizers had to cut the sound just near the end of “Boy’s don’t cry” after the band had gone on way past curfew.
Point of reference song: “Boys don’t cry”

Robert Smith from far away
Reeves Gabrels and Jasson Cooper
Roger O’Donnell
Reeves Gabrels and Robert Smith
Robert Smith closeup

*Past galleries from this festival weekend have included the following:

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: “1993 mix vol. I” (a mixed tape)

Much like the last time I posted one of these playlists based on an old mixed tape, I was downstairs in my basement recently, this time cleaning rather than looking for something, and I came across the same shoebox full of old cassette tapes. Of course, I stopped what I was doing for a good twenty minutes or so and went through said box to remind myself what was in there and to allow the memories of each to come flooding over me. I haven’t played any of these tapes in decades because I have long since dispensed with the last sound system that I had that could play cassette tapes and so I have no idea of any of them even play. I suppose I could get rid of some of the tapes I bought when I was a teenager because I likely now have it digitally or on vinyl format but I’m not certain I’d ever want to throw out any of the mixed tapes. They are as much a document of my own personal history as the photos, yearbooks, letters, and other random bric-a-brac I have stashed away.

Going through these cassettes, I decided it was time to do another of these playlists and opted to replicate one that I created myself, rather than one that was made for me, like the “Raging retro” playlist I previously shared. I chose “1993 mix vol. I” this time around because, as an artifact from 30 years ago, there’s a few fun things you can glean about it’s creator.

Who was 1993 JP Robichaud?

Well, he wasn’t yet inventing creative titles for his mixes, that’s for sure. For a tape called “1993 mix vol. I”, he wasn’t necessarily as concerned with putting together music from the year, indeed, given that it was the first volume, it was likely too early in the year for a mixed tape’s worth of music. Instead, the tape includes music to which I was listening at the time and going through the playlist, it’s obvious to me that I started with songs from the handful of CDs I had in my still new collection and then, moved into the purchased cassettes before finishing off the second side with songs from albums or mixes that had been recorded for me. I can also tell that it was still early on in my mixed tape making career because I hadn’t started strictly following my own self-imposed rule of one song per artist. Indeed, the two appearances by The Wonder Stuff on the tape’s first side betrays how big a fan I was of the band in the early days of 1993.

Some of the photos I’ve included here of the cassette and its J-card sleeve hint that I had a lot of spare time on my hands. I cut out letters from magazines to cobble together a cover and used stickers from old VHS cassette tapes to decorate the cassette. It reminds me that I would later get even more inventive in decorating these things, especially when I made them for others. And finally, the volume one in the title suggests that I fully intended to make more mixes before the year was up but memory does not serve at all as to whether there ever was a second volume created. There definitely isn’t one in the box.

Now before I get right into the playlist itself, here are some highlights that you definitely should check out:

      • The opening song, “Take 5” by Northside is the first song I’d ever heard by the lesser-known Factory Records product and the song that goaded me into purchasing my first CD, given that I was never able to find the band’s only album on cassette
      • I discovered the second edition of Mick Jones’ second band, Big Audio Dynamite II, before I ever really became familiar with his first band and the words to “Rush” were rarely far from my mind after I committed them to memory
      • As I mentioned above, The Wonder Stuff appears here twice, with two very different sounds: “No, for the 13th time” from their debut and “Welcome to the cheap seats” from their third album
      • The version of Spirit of the West’s “Political” here is the re-recorded rocked up version from “Go figure” because at the time, I was blissfully unaware of the far superior folkier original
      • The Barenaked Ladies were a few years from massive world status but they were already pretty big in Southern Ontario and “Hello city” was just one of the excellent tracks that graced their now classic debut album, “Gordon”
      • The Smiths’ “Please please please let me get what I want” closes things off as it did on many a mixed tape because its short length was often a perfect way to fill up the last bit of remaining tape

For those who don’t use Apple Music, here is the entire playlist as it appeared on the original mixed tape:

Side A:
1. Northside “Take 5”
2. Teenage Fanclub “Is this music?”
3. The Wonder Stuff “No, for the 13th time”
4. The Lemonheads “Alison’s starting to happen”
5. The Cure “High”
6. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Suave & suffocation”
7. Depeche Mode “World in my eyes”
8. Big Audio Dynamite II “Rush”
9. The Charlatans “Weirdo”
10. The Wonder Stuff “Welcome to the cheap seats”
11. R.E.M. “Stand”
12. The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack “Time warp”
13. Spirit of the West “Political”

Side B:
14. The Housemartins “I smell winter”
15. The Farm “Love see no colour” (unavailable on Apple Music)
16. Buffalo Tom “Velvet roof”
17. 808 State “Lift”
18. The Sisters of Mercy “More”
19. UB40 “Red red wine”
20. Barenaked Ladies “Hello city”
21. Primal Scream “Movin’ on up”
22. Suzanne Vega “Blood makes noise”
23. Morrissey “Tomorrow”
24. The Smiths “Please, please, please let me get what I want”

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
Albums

Best albums of 2000: Albums #10 through #6

It’s been more than six months since I started one of these Best albums of the year series so I figured it was about time for a new one. This time around, I am taking for focus my favourite albums of the year 2000, the year chosen in a random, not quite random kind of way*.

My relationship with music around this time was what you could term complicated. If you go back and look at the list of my favourite tunes of 2000 that I did a few years back, you’ll note that it’s only a list of fifteen songs, rather than the usual thirty. I had a real hard time finding music that I liked in those days and this can be attributed to many things. It is most of all likely because I was on a low after the wealth of great British music being exported to Canada during the Britpop explosion in the second half of the last decade. So for me, great songs were few and far between but I still managed to identify ten great albums as favourites when taken as a whole. And it is these that I plan to present to you over the coming weeks.

If you’ve been around these pages before, you’ll recognize today’s post as the tease, introducing the five albums that round out the latter part of my top ten. From here, I used to out my five favourite albums for the year over the course of the following five Thursdays, one per week, but given how well it went when I stretched out my countdown of albums I did for 1991 back in January, February, and March, I’ve decided to do the same here. I will still focus on an album per post, doing my best to the paint each album’s importance to me and to music in general, but instead, will do so every other Thursday and wrap all this up in the beginning of October.

So let’s do this. And of course, as we do, I’d love to hear your thoughts, both on my picks and what your own would be, if you had to rank your top ten albums for 2000, in the comments section provided with each post.

#10 Richard Ashcroft “Alone with everybody”

Still smarting from the breakup of the Verve a mere two years after the release of the near perfect “Urban hymns” in 1997, I went out to the stores to purchase the first Richard Ashcroft solo album on the day it was released. When I arrived back at my apartment that afternoon, I realized that my roommate and friend, Ryan, had done the same and we both sat down that evening to give it a listen. But I’ll stop right there because this is a story that I already told when the lead single “A song for the lovers” appeared at number five on my Best tunes of 2000 list. I’ll just say that I really wanted all of “Alone with everybody” to be just as great as that first single but in my mind, it was only half successful. Richard Ashcroft is a phenomenal voice and songwriter to be sure, but he definitely needs a sounding board. There is an unfortunate amount of forgettable mediocrity on the album but luckily, those are more than balanced by exuberant moments of pure pop perfection.

Gateway tune: “A song for the lovers”

#9 The New Pornographers “Mass romantic”

It’s always been interesting to me that The New Pornographers were referred to as a supergroup right from the beginning. Sure, each member all had other projects on the go, but I’d hazard that when their debut, “Mass Romantic”, was released, only Neko Case and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar had anything resembling a following on their own merit, and even those must be taken with a grain of indie salt. Nowadays, though, the title certainly fits and it’s truly amazing to me that such a large collective of artists have enjoyed such successful longevity together. This debut was three years in the making and displays a wealth of power pop worthy of the praise heaped upon it. It wasn’t always a favourite of mine but it has grown steadily in my esteem over the years to exponential heights.

Gateway tune: “Letter from an occupant”

#8 The Cure “Bloodflowers”

Much like the album at number ten, I bought The Cure’s 11th studio album, “Bloodflowers”, on CD pretty much as soon as it was released. I had gotten into the iconic post-punk band led by Robert Smith over a decade earlier and the love affair that followed culminated with my purchase and adoration of their 1992 album “Wish”. I completely missed out on the interim album, 1996’s “Wild mood swings”, and still haven’t ventured into that whirlpool, with the possible exception of the singles. Speaking of which, the lack of any obvious singles on “Bloodflowers” was what struck me right away on first listen. It was definitely a return to their darker sound, but bigger in scope and immersiveness. Indeed, the whole is greater than its parts in this case, a complete album experience.

Gateway tune: “The loudest sound”

#7 The Weakerthans “Left and leaving”

The Weakerthans are a band that I’ve known for many years but never really appreciated until it was too late. I saw them live twice, once in 2001 (one year after this particular album was released) and again 2008, but in both cases, I wasn’t actually at the show to see them. And though I enjoyed them both times, I didn’t actually getting around to diving deeply into their music until well after they went on hiatus in 2014. Indeed, their sophomore album “Left and leaving” still wasn’t even on my radar when I started counting down my favourite tunes from 2000 back when I started this blog in 2017. Nowadays, though, I find myself in awe of this melodic folk-rock band out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the incredible lyrics of its frontman, John K. Samson. Like all four studio albums by the group, “Left and leaving” is chock full of literate narratives that name-check Canadiana, Winnipeg in particular, and speak to each and everyone of us unsure of our place in the human condition.

Gateway tune: “Left and leaving”

#6 The Clientele “Suburban light”

I first got into the reverb-drenched indie pop of London, England’s The Clientele with their sophomore studio album, 2003’s “The violet hour”. Everything I heard off that album smacked loudly of Luna, another band with which I had been obsessed around that time, except that all the production sounded purposefully older and frontman Alasdair Maclean’s vocals were a lot more breathy than those of Dean Wareham. Nonetheless, I was in love and set about ensuring my eyes and ears were alerted to anything the band had previously released and news of anything new. For years, I thought their first proper release, this one, “Suburban light”, was a compilation album and so wouldn’t be eligible to appear here on this list. However, it was a simple misunderstanding on my part that had basis in the fact that at least half of the songs on this album had been released previously. But perhaps I am talking too much and just need to let you click on the link below for a sampling of what’s on offer. If you like sunshine and lemonade light and naps under the shade of trees and a light a breeze, The Clientele, this debut especially, might just be your cup of tea.

Gateway tune: “Rain”

 

*Don’t ask me how I am choosing the years for these flashback/throwback best albums series… I am trying to spread them out and at the same time, trying not to interfere with the Best tunes lists I’ve got on the go. It’s a delicate game, definitely not for the faint of heart…

Check back two Thursdays from today for album #5 on this list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.