I suppose you could call this my “year end” post. Don’t worry; I’m not going to list a top 5 and use the word “incendiary” or anything. Also, it's not technically my last post of the year, I just thought of something I liked (for a change).

I’m hard pressed to think of much that jumped out at me this year and I “discovered” a ridiculously small amount of new bands. Come to think of it, I don’t really pick up on bands in their infancy as much as I think I do. It’s happened before, but it’s the old tale of boy meets band, boy loves band, band meets and sleeps with thousands of other boys. I no longer find it satisfying to say that I heard something first.

I did, however stumble (quite literally) into two bands this year, Grizzly Bear and Born Ruffians. I ended up seeing Grizzly Bear headline a show that they were supposed to be supporting, and watched them with an amazingly hushed room of people. Turns out that Horn of Plenty had been a bit of a buzz record, but I hadn’t read that anywhere that I can remember. That’s fine, because the song that leapt out at me was from their (then) forthcoming record Yellow House. I remember telling the entire staff of Zero and their girlfriends (meaning Kam and Caitlin) that the song in question “sounded like David Lynch”. That song was “Knife”. (And now you know the re-e-e-est of the story).

Finding the Born Ruffians was a stumble aided by alcohol, but a stumble nonetheless. That’s all documented here.

Born Ruffians – Knife (Grizzly Bear Cover-Live KEXP)

What a nice little package to end the year.

I absolutely love when bands cover their contemporaries' songs (see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ cover of Sonic Youth’s “the Diamond Sea”, or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Rentals cover or…well, just about any Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover). That’s always been something that appealed to me since I heard a snippet of Pearl Jam playing the first bars of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” when opening for Nirvana in ’91.

That’s the second time Pearl Jam has been mentioned in a row, as well as the first (and hopefully last) time I blog about the same band twice.

-kevin

Buy Born Ruffians’ "ST"

Buy Grizzly Bear’s "Yellow House"

Hey, remember this blog?

So it's December. I'm sick of the Arcade Fire Christmas EP already. They were just screwing around at a party. Kind of like that time I photographed myself throwing up peanutbutter Shasta all over my Zubaz pants. Except more warbling.

December is a tough month for me, and this one is shaping up no different. I'm trying to avoid an entry ham-fisted with winter-emotion, or which contains the phrase "snowfalls on sleeping pills".

Just a song or sound that I find (and have always found) quite interesting.

The Russian Futurists - A Mind's Dying Verse (You And The Wine)

It's the soundtrack to a tour of Paris courtesy your Intellivision, yet still burning up the McDonaldsland wi-fi at a linger-zone in your near future. Or maybe it's Teddy Ruxpin breaking into interpretive dance, while his tape's being eaten.

Who cares, I just like to cram those pop-culture allusions.

I've been aware of The Russian Futurists for quite some time. Much like nine inch nails, or Bright Eyes, it's essentially one guy. I had the chance to see him several times while I lived in Hamilton, but alas was deeply immersed in the brown waters of Falcon Beach that year. Why was it summer all the time... in Manitoba? Further, how can one not be addicted to a show that has innovated the lost art of the mid-programme wake-board montage.

I regret a lot about that year.

But I digress. I 'discovered' The Russian Futurists back in... 2001? Yeah, my first winter living away from home, adrift in introductory philosophy and Barney Miller. And you know what? When I think of Barney Miller I'm awash in sepia tones as the precinct always seemed so... yellowed.

And this is how I hear The Russian Futurists... muddy, yellow, but damn catchy. As if Wojo, Yemana and Fish busted out the toy keyboards.

-kam

Buy The Russian Futurists' "Method Of Modern Love" here.

This is terrifying to listen to, yet I recommend...

Lately I've had a hard time ignoring 'possibilities', we'll say, within chaos. About how every single choice affects the future. I used to find fatalism pretty easy to believe, however now when I close my eyes, I see threads sewn into stiches- several individuals making seams. They're quite easy to rip apart if you tug from the right angles...

I now understand the appeal of Choose Your Own Adventure books, and why I had to read the first paragraph of both options before I settled upon one.

Failure - The Nurse Who Loved Me

So here's a song with potential. Here's a song that could have at least been #63 on CFNY's top ninety of the nineties. You probably recognize it thanks to A Perfect Circle's banal cover which strips it of its mess.

True, messes cause headaches for some, and true, this can come across as an ugly weld of Snoopy's Classicks On Toys and Candlebox-grade post-grunge. But it works in the same way a paint-by-numbers bleeds outside the lines to make something softer, more pleasing to the eye.

And this song begins the soundtrack of the adventure I didn't choose. I could have stayed in school after returning from India... never moving to Hamilton, never working in Oakville and St. Catharines... I'm pretty sure I know where I might have ended up, and I'm pretty sure it would have been a success at the cost of great emotional health. This song may have been played at that wedding.

Things were a haze, really, when I brought this into my canon. My verdant memories of Summer 2004 end with a brushfire I lit myself. Luckily I chose the correct adventure, which began by putting out the flames instead of burning down a third of Patagonia.

-kam

Buy Failure's 'Fantastic Planet' (but don't laugh at the cover-art)