I once joked (to myself, mostly) that if I ever decided to drive north to where the roads end I could escape everything... everything but CBC Radio One. No matter how many times I pushed 'seek' and hoped for the dial to eat itself, I'd never be left with just static when that's what I really wanted. I'd always have dulcet pontificating about gardening or aviation history, and flute-heavy interstitials. (Turning the radio off, of course, was never an option...)

Well, it turns out that CBC is all I listen to now, but that is not the point.

Sunset Rubdown - Us Ones In Between

This song greeted me up north this summer on CBC's Freestyle. It came about two cigarettes from Blind River when I wasn't particularly looking for a soundtrack, but moreso for static. I was retracing footsteps my father had taken forty years ago, and I was on some sort of silent cathartic mission.

That guy from Wolf Parade comes on my radio, and distracts me with droning and twinkling and unsteady vocals; that's musical crack for me. I was taken out of my head, and all I wanted to do was stare at my shoes... Nothing else that came through the speakers on the ten hour drive could break me, from pop music's latest sentence fragment, to the Moody Blues.

And so this song has stayed with me, well past my mission or my road trip, or my summer. My whatever. It's so much more than Wolf Parade. Wolf Parade tries too hard. This is simple and sad, yet smirky all at once.

Imagine sitting and listening to static, hoping that a word, or a message will somehow form itself and come through. We've all done it. This is what becomes of static if it feels the need to sing or sound pretty. No one ever figures that will happen.

-kam

I realize that when I tell people my favourite genre of music is 'shoegazing', they laugh. They think I just made up a funny word or I may have some sort of fetish for Vans (I've done some reading...)

Most people are right to have not ever heard any shoegazing music- it's essentially unlistenable. Honestly. It's music for quintupling a daily Gravol dosage.

Cocteau Twins - Cherry-Coloured Funk

Which isn't to say this is a good example of a shoegaze song. The guitars aren't right, and the vocals are too commanding. The vibe is though- it's all smoke & christmas lights & trains overnight.

What is remarkable about this song is it's commercial ambiguity; it's on your iPod whether you have a yoga mat in the closet, or condom of heroin in your colon. I'm somewhere in between, I suppose.

Whoever I am, it makes my blood clot. And this is how today felt. I'm not sure if I'm suffering from some sort of metaphysical angst, or a case of the Mondays. All I knew is I needed to keep dreaming. You can't do that when you're out being useful and making money.

-kam

Alright, I had to do it. Regrettably:

limpbizkit - Home Sweet Home/Bittersweet Symphony

Over the years I've not been the best friend, the best son, or the best boyfriend. I realize this as I slowly grow older, and mature.

When I'm uncreative, I am Fred Durst. I'm a man who can sometimes try so hard it borders on transparency. This song could have been composed with Cool Edit and a Colt .45.

I actually don't really care so much for anything the Verve did after A Storm In Heaven. And, well, Motley Crue... snicker all you want, but I do have fond memories of Theater of Pain being eaten in the cassette player of my brother's Chevette.

Fred Durst can put it all together... can try to belong moreso than wearing a Smiths shirt to the Teen Choice awards. Good Lord he's trying, you can't fault a man for trying. Even if it sucks & insults the memories of so many people my age.

And I love how he says the word 'sweet' like a frat boy after a keg-stand. "Swaaaaitt!" He'd call me 'fag' because my hair's uneven.

So yes, I do have regrets: I regret my limpbizkit years. I don't think I need to really explain what I mean by that.

And if you think I do, this 'cover' should explain it all for you.

-kam

The Johnny Boy - You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve

Where did I get this song? I have no idea. Who is 'The Johnny Boy'? Aside from a song and a silly band/artist name, no idea.

What year was it written? Dunno. Probably sometime in the zeroes, based solely on the length of the title. All I can personally surmise is that it is a catchier, uptempo rewrite of 'Vox', a poorly aged, yet somewhat still pleasant Sarah McLachlan song. Oh, and they have an EP going for fifty bucks on Amazon.

Oooh, rare-ness. I should be piqued, eh? Nah. Wherever I got this song (or why-ever), it's enough for me. Since it was published in the zeroes but sounds like the early nineties mated to watered down chamber pop is all I need to realize that 'Johnny Boy' likely has issues with innovation.

But I like that this song's lack of personal context ends up becoming context itself. It was probably nothing more than the dolphin that got pureed into my virtual can of tuna while trawling the mp3 blogosphere one day. Probably a Sunday, the only day this sort of song could ever shoe-horn itself a context.

Then again, I am of the generation that shoe-horns more contexts. I get what I deserve from looking too hard for meaning. In this case a blog entry that amounts to nothing- so meaningless in its search for meaning.

Now my head hurts. But hey: a song you may not have heard!

Oh, and if anyone earnestly knows anything about this band/artist, please comment and educate.

-kam

Alright, I'm going to hop off the irony train for a second. I was indeed tempted to post Leif Garrett doing 'Teen Spirit' w/ The Melvins. But it sucks.

---

Box sets. I'm supposed to care. I really do not. I find the majority superfluous, and filing them a baffling ordeal. I've allowed many quality artists' box sets slip through my fingers... XTC... Kate Bush... Guided By Voices... nah. Nirvana's? I hate the sight of that cash cow.

But: 'The Aeroplane Flies High'. I bought that. It's pleasing to look at. And while one may call a Missing Persons cover superfluous, it- well...- okay, it is. But I like it. So to each their own, I suppose.

The Smashing Pumpkins are a band who frequently elicit groans when mentioned. Either that or smoke-sharing, hand-holding, puppy-love memories soundtracked to the opening bars of 'Today'.

But there was so much more. Beneath the megalomania & the looking like Powder, Billy Corgan could really 'fuck off' on a guitar. He pounded together grunge, dream pop, space rock & twee into an ethereal summer sound. Sure, the band was an autocracy, so nothing good could really become of them after this box, which ended on this note:

The Smashing Pumpkins - My Blue Heaven

See, now, this is the sort of cover/arrangement mainstream rock bands just wouldn't try in the mid nineties. Perhaps if they had, there'd be fewer belligerent SUV drivers on the road today.

I think I almost got a veldt-sore listening to this song, stargazing. Satellites move sharper than shooting stars- beyond all that I just fell asleep... In the morning there were snake-tracks all around and underneath my bedroll.

For me, the Smashing Pumpkins ascended to 'My Blue Heaven', and just stayed - a perfect epilogue. (I ignore 'Adore' and that other one).

-kam

I think my largest problem with current music is that I feel none of it promises much staying power. MP3 blogs are a good example of this; plopping musical treats of the week onto conveyor belts that drop off into obscurity. We tend to set our watches to Pitchfork Standard never looking behind... rendering today's music largely disposable. Does anybody still talk about Bloc Party? Last year the blogs wouldn't shut up. Eight months ago it got remixed. Four months ago, covered. And now... wait, who was I talking about? Kaiser Chiefs?

I do realize that we are as much to blame as the music, I mean I can now shuffle through 60 songs in 60 seconds. It's far simpler than fast-forwarding- risking my mixed tape being eaten. But whether I like it or not (& attention spans notwithstanding), music will still form a canon.... even if only to be compacted into a retro lunch-hour someday.

I just don't see any one band or sound bearing the flag for the 00s. There's no Nirvana... there's no Smiths. Coldplay? They were actually their most palatable in '99. James Blunt? He looks like he just made poozies.

And further down into indie-land... The Arcade Fire? It remains to be seen if they're more than a one-off gimmick band. Sufjan? He gave himself a gimmick to fall back on like a crutch. Polyphonic Spree? gimmick gimmick gimmick gimmick gimmick!

So, umm... suggestions?

Adam Green - My Shadow Tags On Behind

-kam

(This is so much easier when I am drinking.)

What have I done today? I spilled a can of beans down my leg. I, uhh... scalded my right hand in dishwater. I watched some bonus features on the complete second season of Lost until I realized that bonus features are for sad people. (the actor who plays Sayid smokes!)

I decided to drink tea instead of wine. It's that tea with the bear in pyjamas on the lime green box. There's a rotten smell from the traps of my sink. No matter how much drain cleaner I pour down there, it seems to get more foul.

This could all be a metaphor for something. But it's not; it's mere minutia. I stopped looking for meaning when I started amassing credit card debt.

How does this relate to music? It's days like today I shouldn't be allowed posting access to this blog. Because I can't form the language to contextualize a certain song, and make it magic. I can't drum up the passion to make anyone else care... if I simply don't myself.

Most pop music is rooted in some form of angst. While I'm writing with my 2002 angst-tone, I'm really not feeling a whole lot of angst. (Angst. Angst. I like the word- it's a great KMFDM album- but I'm just not feeling it at 26.)

More feeling just a bunch of nothing... it was just Wednesday. And while I am one day too late to come on here and post a bunch of new wave songs with 'Halloween' in the title, or some l33t remix of K-Fed, destined to be an ironic club anthem, I would never do that anyway. I hate being topical & I hate being current.

So let's do something dated that makes dated cool:

Faith No More - We Care A Lot

Yes, that will do.

(I am banning the word "Cusack" from the comments for this entry)

There is this band named 'Hinder', and they have this song called 'Get Stoned'. This is the song all the SUV driving types are asking for. We all had never heard it past our assumptions, so I figured this maybe just deserved a chance.

Of course it sucked. I won't waste my words telling you why (because you already know), but I will steal from the allmusic review this gem: "Hinder's Extreme Behavior revives the simpleton riffs and stupid misogyny of 2001".

Ahh, yes, 2001: A Musical Idiocy. I like to consider myself far removed from the fist-pumping, over-sized-pastel-poloshirt-wearing, Coors-drinking scene that single-handedly ruined the word "Woodstock" worse than Dave Matthews might have.

But no. I'll admit it: I hooted when Martin Streek introduced 'Break Stuff' to the dancefloor... As a boy who grew up on nothing records & Waxtrax, I fed on heavy music, but somehow lost my way after 1999, being caught in the sweaty jock strap laundry sack of nu-metal.

(as a digression: both nu-metal's segregation from the best heavy music of the 90s, and its death knell as a cultural powerhouse came when Fred Durst agreed to pay Trent Reznor royalties for use of lyrics in a song he 'wrote' disparaging Reznor himself)

Luckily for me this didn't last long. My dad kept the Toronto Sun in the house- yeah, never thought I'd be thankful for that- it's bonafide birdcage literature, but used to house John Sakamoto's weekly 'Anti-Hit List'- a collection of genuine 'alternative' songs of the week: indies, rarities, downloads... Very much a pioneer of mp3 blogging.

Thanks to this list, I caught up on scenes I missed from about 1996-2000: the (arguable) zenith of brit-pop, the genesis of mp3 culture, the last of the must-have b-sides, and orchestral noise-pop. To wit:

Mercury Rev - Opus 40

Finally, melodrama more meaningful than the f-bomb. Just mentioning Mercury Rev opens up a whole lot of doors for me:

Door #1: Their touches are finally being felt in the current scene; The Arcade Fire's "Funeral" reminds me of a more organized rendition of Mercury Rev's "See You On The Other Side". Furthermore, starting with "The Soft Bulletin" (but especially "Yoshimi...") The Flaming Lips began to adopt more of Mercury Rev's cinematic, gently fucked up sound after so many years of being intertwined.

Door #2: Mercury Rev probably becomes my longest, consecutively loved band, and they came from elsewhere than the radio, or my brother's collection.

There was a time when I considered anything played on CFNY to be the alternative. CFNY... became the Edge. They still had me hypnotized long after the days of Jane Siberry & The Inspiral Carpets, thinking that The Toadies were the next big thing. They falsely presented nu-metal as alternative based on their reputation which I still held on to. Mercury Rev has probably never been played on the Edge.

Door #3: ...well, that's the mystery box & it's going to remain in the box... for now.

-kam

post-amble:

John Sakamato is still doing it, though he's still a big fan of something I never quite understood: the mash-up. Check it out here.

And Kevin never saw me being "Down With The Sickness" on the Phil's dancefloor, though he really might have could have.

Buy Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs

I feel different already.

Lest I revert to livejournal-tone, I'll talk about a time that... isn't too much different than now. For me. For the world, really.

That's when I got the job that I currently have. Of course, at the time it was supposed to be temporary. Funny how these things work out. I've since reaped a social scene, health benefits & Pearl Jam bootlegs out of it... nicey nice.

But therein lies a problem: I like eating lunch, and I like doing so outside of the workplace. No matter how bad things ever got when I was in school, or the very few times I actually worked in offices, I always knew I'd have a one hour sanctuary wherein I could take refuge in sticky tabletops, sassy menus or jalapeno poppers.

The problem with managing retail is being confined to that oppressive back room, with the third-hand microwave. I'm not a sack-lunch kind of guy. Saran-wrapped ham sandwiches & juice boxes are especially soul-breaking.

But I had a good thing going in 2004. I was still going to school. I was still spending everyday with a variety of people my age. No matter how objectionable 90% of them were, there was always someone there to listen to, or watch, or look at. I don't find that in consumers. I barely find that in the box of new releases that arrives every Monday.

Since then I've met, worked, drank with, learned from & fallen in love with so many people who have come and gone through that place. I see most of them now moving on to far off, yet important places. And I'll be honest with you people- I'm not afraid of much. Moths, that's one thing... but something utterly more rational is a fear of being left behind. So...:

Candlebox - Left Behin- no, no, I'm kidding.

Spiritualized - Lord, Let It Rain On Me

So yeah life is an awkward transition right now.

If you remember my Mercury Rev post, I can tell you that Spiritualized was kind of the runner-up for that inner-cultural movement. Of the writers on this blog, I'm the least worthy of writing about Spiritualized as a sound, or an entity, so I won't.

I just was thinking a lot today about 2004, and reading a lot of what I wrote then. This blog needed a post, and this post needed a song, and when I think about how I feel today mashed-up with how I felt in 2004... this seemed about right.

-kam

Buy Spiritualized's 'Amazing Grace'

I think Kevin and I together joked once- over corn pones & mountain dew no doubt- that a sign of aging... is increased interest in alt-country & world music.

Well, indeed I am at that age where I will begin to buy more CDs at Chapters, than I do HMV. Of course it comes with maturity- I am surely to spend more money now in a bookstore, than I am the Orange Julius in the mall. And of course there is nothing wrong with either of those genres; they just don't endear themselves to the Facebook sect & I wanted to say "pones".

Jack Irons - Shine On You Crazy Diamond

My growing attachment to World music is not just a symptom of spending four months abroad, completely isolated from Western music (oh, glorious it was). Jack Irons is to blame. He is responsible for Pearl Jam. So go egg his house.

Of course I kid. Pearl Jam is my sometimes guilty-pleasure & my sometimes unabashed obsession. Depends on the cloud-cover that day. Regardless what I feel, I have that tattoo to remind me of a time I lived and breathed Eddie Vedder's wine-soaked lyrics.

But as the title states, this isn't my paramount 'favourite-song-ever' post (that comes December 23rd, I am sure). This is something funky but familiar.

Jack Irons introduced- in a way- Eddie Vedder to Stone & Jeff. That, for me, is comparable to the man who first introduced gin to tonic. Years later he got to be their drummer in a move that re-invented the band while at the same time alienated their sound from the mainstream. This was a good thing in an era when American rock music was starved for innovation. I remember being given "No Code" by a disappointed friend. I would earnestly argue that it is one of the most vastly underrated albums of the mid-nineties. Just skip "I'm Open" and you'll be torn between sobbing in your Barq's, and doing interpretive dance.

Jack Irons left Pearl Jam in a good place, but I was sad to see him go. From what I understand he remained emotionally troubled having lost so many peers so young (he was in RHCP, let's not forget), and just couldn't balance a rock star schedule with a family. This is rare for one to admit.

Anyway, a year or two ago I got wind of his first (to my knowledge) solo album. Enlisted to fill in some gaps were many of his friends & former bandmates, including Eddie Vedder, who does vocals on this track.

The whole affair resembles tribal grunge... had it been performed under the sea & mated somehow with electronica-by-Luddites. Yeah, it's difficult to categorize. I am sure it will be hard for Pink Floyd fans to swallow, however it becomes far more striking when contrasting the context of their lyrics, with just how many peers Vedder & Irons could apply them to.

It would also sound absolutely smashing in your favourite coffee bar.

-kam

Buy "Attention Dimension" by Jack Irons

Pearl Jam's new album is available at Chapters.

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)

2006 is over; it ended with Dick Clark in such poor health, he was unable to keep in time counting down with the atomic clock. Somehow, this felt to me like a prologue to dystopia.

The year ended as I kind of walked away from a job that wasn't really going anywhere to finish a degree I once figured would never take me anywhere. It is dangerous thinking to take any sort of degree for granted. They are what you make of them, even if you should choose to make them a waste.

Dave Matthews - Waste

It's originally by Phish, but I find theirs a touch grandiose, even by their standards. A lot of people hate Dave Matthews, and I understand why, yet still he appeals to my few lingering hippie leanings. I first heard it sitting in the back of a jeep after having taken too many anti-nauseants. We were driving into the clouds of the Himalayas, to see a sacred Buddhist lake, when this song came onto my carelessly loaded iPod. I rode an ox that day. Sound idyllic? It was a life without work.

Which brings me to jobs... specifically, McJobs. Though my recent job could have been defined as a 'career', it was a salary & benefits masking a glorified (fast-casual?) McJob. There is nothing particularly appealing about the McJob, save your co-workers. It's much like high school: dozens whom you never need to see again, but will meet awkwardly in shopping malls forevermore. However, the few who mean anything, who by all means could and maybe should remain with you in life, go AWOL.

It's easy to say you'll keep in touch... but we all know it's hard to actually accomplish. Especially as we all plough through our degrees and our McJobs towards a semblance of real life, those 12k e-mails take too much time to write, and those 30 minute phone calls are time needing to be spent eliminating mildew from your cavern of a bathroom in your cinderblock of an apartment.

Everyone has woken up some morning and prayed (whatever that is to them) for some negative time in which to sleep longer, or actually enjoy your cup of coffee. Everyone has at one time or another, touched the tips of their index fingers together like Evie Garland in Out Of This World, hoping for time to freeze; I gather my memories there, of people (and pets) dead or gone and we all hang out on rooftops shooting rubber bands at zeppelins, drinking absinthe, with a million hit points and maximum charisma.

For me, that will be heaven. Wasting time.

-kam

PS- I know my entries have strayed from, you know, actually talking about the music... this will change back, though I did warn you of self-wankery. To be fair, my songs of the week included titles by: Michael Bolton, Serial Joe, and Take That.

Buy the album that this song is on!

See, the problem is I don't want to have to say anything vaguely academic or insightful here anymore (not sure that I ever did). See, when one actually puts effort into school, it's rewarding. It's tiresome. I kind of just want to post a new wave cover of 'Funky Town', and talk about the opening montage of 'Revenge Of The Nerds'.

But no, there's always something more. I found a badly kept secret that I'm sure most of you are already in on.

Elizabeth Fraser & Jeff Buckley - All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun

Not helping that I am currently, once again, buried in between seasons three and four of 'Six Feet Under'... here comes this thing, like going through your attic and finding your deceased grandmother's lifetime of correspondence. Kind of makes you view her in a new light.

Or maybe somewhat like hearing a tape recording of yourself from years passed. Saying things your present self cannot conceive. I sounded like Newhart on Red Bull & vodka. But I digress. Depends who is dead, and how.

I can empathize what it's like... doing a duet with a ghost. But not just a ghost in the hackneyed, Boo Berry sense. More with ghosts of potential, of time fading. Of doors slowly closing, things like that.

But it's not about me. It's a fairly rudimentary song- by far neither of their best vocal pieces. Yet there remains something inexplicably comforting or settling within the cloying guitar line. Images of, like, Casey & Finnegan doing a cameo in the Green Forest.

-kam

Buy Jeff Buckley's 'Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk'

Buy The Cocteau Twins' 'Stars & Topsoil'

This song is on neither. As far as I can tell (ie- allmusic can tell me) it is on nothing. Thank you, internet!

Over the next eight days, I am going to make you all the first side to some bullshit mixed-tape. Apparently Valentine’s Day is next week, so everyday I’ll post a song that gets me going on love.

Let’s celebrate love, then, shall we? I have my issues with how love as a concept is toxic and corrupt… but it’s still pretty cool to have, should you know how to treat it. Like a pet skunk. Love is having your stink removed.

Magnetic Fields – Love Is Like Jazz

The most honest love song is the one that is a baffling ordeal to sit through. And this song is really how love sounds when it gets started, is it not? Somehow it’s onomatopoeia for the rhythm in your bed, or the thoughts in your head. Either way my heart and ass are hurting but my cigarette tastes better than it did three minutes ago.

Buy Magnetic Fields' "69 Love Songs"

See you tomorrow!

-kam

Marilyn Manson... nowadays you hear a lot of "well, I hate his music, but he's a smart man."

Well, he is a smart man, and I have a soft place for his music like an embarrassing Christmas sweater.

Marilyn Manson - The Last Day On Earth

He gets criticized for his vocals, and indeed he often sounds like he spent last night up with croup, but this one is so totally your unmarried uncle doing camp-songs after four and a half shandys. Oh, and maybe it's been night for three days, and the temple's just been destroyed.

Incidentally, if I can even come close to imitating any famous vocalist... this is the guy. I'm certainly not bragging; he's a Weird Al parody waiting to happen. Remember Weird Al?

There's a certain romance in the end of the world. I've always felt it, and many have found this odd. But just the idea that it's over, for everyone, all at once. Who would you spend it with? What would you say? What could be more beautiful than watching the stars fall, and the sky melt like film in a projector? Maybe love is your Winamp visualization come to life like all those stoned dudes in university hoped for...

Buy Marilyn Manson's Last Tour On Earth

(but see if you can find the limited edition... it has his cover of 'A Rose And A Baby Ruth', my first choice for what will be my only Marilyn Manson post.)

-kam

I dislike songs that make too much sense.  Maybe this is why I can't get into hip hop... it's too literal.  I don't get very far deconstructing handguns, hos & mag wheels.
 
I prefer songs with lyrics and progression that really just make me rub my eyes...  that make me search Wikipedia for context.

Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra - Some Velvet Morning

So after yesterday's song, this is the morning after. Some sort of communication breakdown accented by bed hair. Maybe you reach for a drink of water, but accidentally grab a beercan full of cigarette ash.

At first I found this song needlessly complicated, but indeed it's the incompatible (almost stereotypical) discourse between man and woman, buried under psychedelic haze that just isn't possible in today's music.

Love is being lost in translation. Kind of like that movie, I guess, but I swear I didn't think of that until after I wrote this.

Fairy Tales & Fantasies: The Best of Nancy & Lee is out of stock.

Check out Slowdive's cover on their album "Souvlaki". Sounds delicious. I was going to post it instead, but bleh. Chromewaves probably did it. And we post too many covers.

-kam

I sleep in a big bed with my wife.

Kirk van Houten - Can I Borrow A Feeling?

I have the Simpsons playing on the computer in my bedroom 24/7, thanks to Shoutcast TV. So when I come home at night or wake up in the morning, the Simpsons are playing. Because afterall, isn't this really happening subconsciously in the brains of anyone under 30, raised in a TV culture? Love is a Simpsons quote in an awkward pause.

Poor Kirk, though. He is perhaps The Simpsons' greatest tragedy; he suffers to put his marriage back together, loses his job at the cracker factory, and then his arm. A testament to true love, I suppose, as he finally gets Luanne back. He should be an example to us all who sometimes fantasize of sleeping in racing cars, and living next to Arby's.

Buy some Simpsons stuff! I hear if you don't support them, this show will never take off.

-kam del grande

My series is derailed due to technical difficulties... and poor time management. More tomorrow.

Oh, and God hates Japan.

-kam

Little Feat - Dixie Chicken

I'm not the most qualified to write about (or even appreciate) southern 70's rock. As far as I knew there was the song "Free Bird" and all the other songs "not-Free Bird". (thank you, David Spade's stand-up act)

Intolerance, and inbred racism notwithstanding, there's a certain chicken-fried romance about the Southern U.S., punctuated by moonshine and will-o-wisps. Seems to me the air would be thick with temptation; barndances at sundown, grits at sunrise, and fun stuff in between. Love is best when it's totally barefoot.

Alright, that's enough stereotyping.

But oh, the refrain is made far more enjoyable should you add immediately afterward, a rousing "craaaaaash into me!"

Buy the album here

-kam

My garrulous shift supervisor at the pizza place once claimed that every pop song ever written was about love. She may have been correct, but who cares. She was just attempting to undermine my six-holed Doc-boot angst, so we didn't have to listen to anymore of my nothing records bullshit in the kitchen.

Later that shift I cut my finger open on the tomato slicing thingy and then somehow managed to spill hot pepper juice in the open wound. That, somehow, was probably about love too.

That was 1998, and I don't really like pizza anymore. I also don't really pay attention to a song's lyrics until the music hooks itself into my consciousness. Yes, I realize this not only a) makes me a bad music fan, but b) is also making my soon-to-be English degree sob quietly in the closet.

So, something simple, innoffensive, that doesn't sting and stays with me for days:

Blur - Tender (Cornelius Remix)

There's a simple lyric within, but it sums up love the best: "lord i need to find / someone who can heal my mind"

It's all epileptic. It's the planetarium on mushrooms. It's pins & needles (to the heart, I guess).

The original version is all pomp, almost begging to be Brad & Jen's wedding theme (which it was). This version strips that away; injects it with cartoon physics, adds a certain chaos-in-Candyland perspective, and provides a primordial feel in spite of being mostly electronic.

In 1999 I had a journal which listed my potential wedding songs. I can actually see that journal on my bookshelf as I type. I'm afraid to look, for fear that Brad & Jen stole my idea. And because I don't need to be reminded that I was an 18 year old guy who fantasized about his wedding. May as well been marrying some guy named 'Cory'.

Buy this song on the 'No Distance Left To Run' single... Huh. That song is like Divorce Court, to Tender's Love Connection.

Huh. Chuck Woolery.

-kam

(Please note: this entry refers to my lack of a future. And nothing else currently happening in my life.)

So, when everything that is comfortable becomes uncomfortable... here I am (back again to abuse the semi-colon some more).

Econoline Crush - Razorblades & Bandaides

Your first reaction upon hearing it is "shut up, I get it, stop shouting". I post it because it's a song I maybe listened to everyday in 1999, while I sold cigarettes to line-workers during their crossword breaks at the Kwik Mart.

Tonight I just wanted to jump back and not think about today. Mention the words "Econoline Crush" to a 19 year old in the year 2007 and they might anticipate some niche-marketed soft drink.

I don't want to think about what's about to happen in my life. I'm ready for it all, and it's going to be... riveting? (?) But I'd be remiss to umm... not remember where I'm coming from, and, uhh, what it has all meant to me. I just want to dwell in something familiar for a second, before I cough up my lungs.

Kevin got to see Veruca Salt alone at his Frosh Week (I just think that is super)... well no one wanted to come with me to see Econoline Crush at my ex-girlfriend's. She remained nonplussed when I suggested that it may be awesome; that they may play this song: a ham-fisted "Black Metallic". I think we had to stay in instead, and watch Trading Spaces, or smoke weed from her roomate's lizard-shaped bong and pretend not to feel anything.

The bottom-feeding guitars and lamenting chorus have always reminded me that longing comes for everything from extinct affection to discontinued candy-bars.

Buy Econoline Crush's "The Devil You Know". Of note: check the product description; it's Matt Galloway approved. Sort of.

-kam

Times like these I wish I were one of those mp3 bloggers who wrote about the weather outside. And then posted all twenty-seven mp3s in my iTunes with the word "Snow" in the title.

Times like these I wish I followed baseball or something. As a child I always loved sports statistics... probably my only affinity towards anything vaguely mathematical. I even had this simulator for my Atari 130XE where I could manage a baseball team... and watch them play games as stats compiled. Yes, that's right. Watch.

The NY Mets were my favourite squadron, and I did some great things with them one summer seventeen years ago (lord). I won the World Series, and there was much rejoicing; Darryl Strawberry wept tears of joy onto his mountain of cocaine.

Actually, I do recall that I created my own custom team based on Peanuts. Charlie Brown as pitcher, Rerun as slugger... even Charlotte Braun as a seagull Dave Winfield killed. But alas, I've said too much, though a pleasurable digression it was.

The Catherine Wheel - Heal

I didn't really want to write about The Catherine Wheel here. They remain so intensely personal to me, there's not much I can say, even though I'm so detached from those feelings.

I'm just trying very hard to distract myself, and the best way to do it (without intoxicating myself) is focusing on the ephemera that surface behind my eyes, like the answers in a magic 8-ball. Often these are snippets of pop-songs, and not always radio bullshit like the hook from that Collective Soul song. Which song? I don't know, they were all just hooks, weren't they?

The Catherine Wheel are a band that I can never forget, no matter how far buried they are in the canon of shoegaze (sub-Chapterhouse, even) or brit-alt-pop (lacking in mainstream-cred, somehow, maybe because they didn't go all Ashcroft on us... well, they still got a little boring come "Wishville", but not radio-friendly boring). For me, they always rise up exactly when I need that comfort and contemplation.

Oh, and the first few bars of many of their songs are more powerful than many bands' entire catalogues.

You should all buy The Catherine Wheel's "Happy Days", and not just because you must have "Eat My Dust, You Insensitive Fuck" in your libraries.

-kam

All these million little questions breed a billion little more; it makes much more sense once they have something small to believe in again. Yet still, I would be fine if that 'belief' died tonight, because that would be so very Six Feet Under.

Music:

Modern day hipsters, with their cute little hoodies, and careful beard configurations don't seem to allow themselves to respect Jane's Addiction, even though many of the few nineties bands they namedrop consider Perry & co. a huge influence. Jane's' unique brand of anthemic funk doesn't deserve the rug its been swept under.

While some (like Liz Phair) earned their depreciation of hipster cred, Jane's Addiction's mythology has been tainted only by an unnecessary reunion (see also The Pixies, and The Smashing Pumpkins circa 2009). And maybe that's the problem- hipsters (well, music fans in general- I actually like many hipsters I know, but I'm too fat to truly fit in) don't seem to appreciate "mythology" these days. Lyrics are too literal; no one's sitting in their bedrooms anymore trying to figure out who 'Xiola' is (or 'Sarah', as it were), or what that light that never goes out truly represents.

One cannot deny the opus that is "Three Days" and the screenplay I may rip off of it someday if I can ever get my shit together. So... I'll post it and say just that it has everything: the first kiss to the good sex to the bad sex to the messy breakup to the next first kiss & all with a mouthful of red wine.

Jane's Addiction - Three Days

I don't expect many of you to enjoy it, or even get through a third of it. Any of you conscious in 1990 who remember, please share... perhaps it's your older brother's song, but your older brother always has better stories than you, so... please share.

Please buy Jane's Addiction's "Ritual de lo Habitual" here.

-kam (i've got enough topical cream for everyone)

Almost everyone I know hates U2 in their present form, yet holds onto some sentimental scrap, whether it be nostalgia from some junior high dance or an episode of Friends... or both. As someone who intended his wedding song to be "All I Want Is You" for many years, I am no different. The fact of the matter is their most popular songs are legitimately their worst and I offer no evidence to back up that statement, as I'm confident the three and half readers of this blog already agree.

So, in the interest of creating cheap content, I offer my two favourite U2 songs, accompanied by dubious reasoning why:

1) U2 - Red Hill Mining Town

See, I romanticize this song because, as far as I know, U2 has never performed it live. Bono never felt he could hit the notes. It was intended to be a single, and there is even a video floating around Youtube, yet neither were released as such. It just sits there on the shelf, and rusts within U2's canon; a non-transferrable relic from their alternative 80s routes.

When I was in India (you know, the only interesting place/life I have ever been/had) I took a jeep up into the Himalayas, just shy of the Chinese border and stayed in a small village in a valley. During daylight hours, there was not an adult in town, only children playing cricket in the streets, and Tibetan refugees making crafts in warehouses, for sale in the big cities down south. I asked my guide where all the adults were, and he explained that they walked several kilometers over the hills before sunrise to tend to their crops or their herds or whatever every morning, and did not return until after sunset.

So, most pop songs are about love, somehow. This song seems to be about labour, for love. And it reminds me of all that. I guess it doesn't work the same for you unless you have the same visual or emotional connections. Which is the inherent flaw with these music blogs, so why do we even bother?

2) U2 - Stay (Faraway, So Close!)

This song is a little more 21st century, perhaps, with the metaphysical angst and all. I am struck with it more because it's a damn good song, rather than a mainstream cultural anthem or radio staple. The guitar line is rudimentary, but the atmospherics beneath lend credence. The lyrics are grandiose, but relatable to anyone who has transformed a lonely night into an aimless walk through city streets, where all it takes to clear your mind is blinking neon and water-damaged Chinese menues in windowsills. I know the song is inspired by some movie I haven't seen, but I don't care about that.

Anyone who reads this has a U2 song they enjoy, whether it be a guilty pleasure or a personal anthem ("vampire or victim? depends on who's around...") I figure this will be the one and only post on this blog that everyone can relate to somehow. So... comment about it? Tell me? (did the wind sweep you off your feet? did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day? with the best soy latte you ever had. and me?)

After that we don't ever have to talk about U2, or office-radio rock ever again.

Buy U2: (they NEED it!)

The Joshua Tree

Zooropa

-kam

Sugar - A Good Idea

Bob Mould's homage (or parody? - I'm never quite sure anymore) to the Pixies. Of note is that I once lifted the phrase "Thick With Temptation" for the title of a high school writing assignment. My teacher loved it, and it helped contribute to my solid 77% graduating average. I suspect nowadays I would have been suspended for plagiarism, due to the internet.

Ahh, the passage of time.

Bob Mould ended up writing for World Championship Wrestling, which either tarnishes his alt legacy, or makes him ironically hipper (I'm never quite sure anymore, nor if 'hipper' is a viable word). Professional wrestling, unfortunately, is not immune from the same trends as the rest of the corporate world; WCW was absorbed by the WWF some years ago, creating a monopoly. Bob Mould lost his job, but yet sustains a prolific solo career in music (ie- the theme for The Daily Show). Even if no one really talks about it in the blogosphere... which automatically makes it somewhat more interesting. But then again, I'm seventy-six in internet years, and don't have a facebook, so what do I know? Gather around while I tell you the tale of Compuserve's hourly rates.

Bottom line is it's as solid a pop song as any The Pixies ever wrote (if a touch less eventful).

And, uhh, (they make me do this) buy Sugar's "Copper Blue" if you can...

-kam

Oh, man. People. People have issues. I'm not the only one.

I don't want this blog to die. Not yet.

Sinead O'Connor - The Last Day Of Our Acquaintaince

Sinead is like the chlamydia of '90s alt; itchy and unforgettable. Something to talk about unabashedly when you're brave, years later at parties. I first became familiar with this song during the denouement of Bret Easton Ellis' "Glamorama". That's a good book, when you can handle it.

But regardless of that context, it's a song you could dedicate on all-night radio to half a dozen people who've since been left behind. Because as these early twenty-something years accumulate, nothing much is accomplished but goodbyes, when even still acquaintances are now just a facebook search away...

-kam, i guess

Buy Sinead O'Connor's "So Far...: Best Of" And go ahead and search out anything after. It's pope-rippingly eclectic!

Bonnie Dobson - Winter's Going

Wow. Never has spring seemed so daunting. Just listen to the song; it's a slow-moving anxiety attack. Through harmless work banter today, I was reminded of my few months on St. John's wort. I never needed it, of course, because I am not clinically depressed. But this was after 'depression' had finally been defined as affliction over emotion by people like Dateline NBC. Being naive, I ascribed.

This was my first year of university. Life became so much more... touchy. In a lot of ways. The side effects were mostly placebo'd I now realize, and I've never quite recovered somehow. There was a reason why I insisted on listening to "Dock Of The Bay" twice everyday on my commute.

The following September, 9/11 happened and Dateline began to fear-monger in other, more proactive ways. Lectures and conversations forever-after seemed to be anchored by a certain context. My campus life never really evolved. Short of three friends, two profs, and a pot smoking hamster, WLU held very little in the way of a social scene for me. More just sitting in corners, befriending smokers, or looking sad in front of the boarded-up noodle hut. I had better luck at Western mainly because I stole a pen almost everyday I made it to campus from the store my ex-girlfriend worked at.

Traditionally, I think of spring as the rebirth, but maybe I am wrong. In winter, it's easy to hide. Seems easier to act brash and knowingly fuck up. It's easier still to make excuses when the sun sets before the evening news.

And yes, I realize I've again said little or nothing about the actual music. In this case, I feel it's justified- the song itself is powerful enough that upon first listen, you'll hear it or something without needing my alliterated adjectives or pop culture pulls.

Buy Bonnie Dobson

Okay, here's my gimmicky plea: I (for now) have a surplus of time on my hands. I (for now) am feeling generous. I (for now) will send anyone of you who e-mails me, a free mixed CD in the mail. All you have to do is provide me an adjective, or a theme, as vague as can be... I'll do the rest.

This is an exercise for me to overcome certain aspects of self-concsiousness... seems silly, yes I know, but I have my reasons. If you're interested, e-mail me at kam [at] uc [dot] org with your address, and your adjective and I'll do the rest. (this offer is only valid for north america)

-kam

Sometimes it is easy to capture an era. Like, if I were to pull up to your basement apartment, get out of my Plymouth Horizon wearing Hypercolor, while carrying an Oopie Ball, you'd be like "oh yeah, it's 1992".

Alas, I was not much more than an ickle firstie when I left my Oopie next to the electric heater one February evening, potentially starting a fire, and having my privileges to the Atari with the 300 baud Pocket-Modem revoked. Back then, the "internet" wasn't so much about blogs, or dressing up Zwinky, but more about ASCII art of the Snorks. So... I can't much relate to what 1991 would have truly been like for a conscious young adult, short of the prevailing trends in my brother's mixed tapes at the time, which may have just been Waxtrax! samplers.

I digress... my late teens were spent mired in the throes of convenience store retail. A Cold War radio, a Game Boy held together by scotch tape, and a rack of out of fashion schoolyard collectables (Pogs? Crazy Bones? Digimon? These words mean nothing to us in 2007).

I ran this store with two lackeys, Dave and Scott. We were literally the gateway into Elmira's nightlife, because that's where the townies came to buy their smokes and mixer. I've probably never been invited out more in my life. But we were happy to just stay in the backroom and play UNO. Somehow it was never dull, because if the drone of our rudimentary existentialism ever ceased, the hum of the Coke coolers kept us company.

It's safe for me to say that as the turn of the century loomed, my life was basically the film "Clerks". I can say this unabashedly because, well... who the hell would ever want to admit to that?

Soul Asylum - Can't Even Tell

"i know you know i wanna know how i feel"

One listen to "Can't Even Tell" and it just sounds like the nineties. You can feel the overcast emotion filtered through the rum & OK Soda piss breaks, even if you weren't there. The whole thing grinds like when you first learned stick in the mall parking lot after-hours that one Sunday.

See, that's the thing about the nineties, it was fashionable to be sloppy and under-produced, while still posing metaphysical questions like you were writing your crush's name on the school's brick wall with a stone. We began to realize that we don't really know anything about anything, and will we ever?

I'm guessing no. Pick up four. Then...: "UNO!".

Buy the "Clerks" soundtrack. Sit through all of "Violent Mood Swings" without hating the 90s, and I'll send you my famous banana bread recipe.

-kam

I'm so disaffected nowadays, my irony is boring. Even though I now know what my problem is, I've still buried myself in glacial dream pop; so very wintery, yet it's what I must retreat behind this summer. This calls for Hope Sandoval since she's perpetually standing behind my shoulder, blowing cold comfort into my ear like a Mentos commercial.

Mazzy Star - Into Dust

Adding Hope Sandoval to David Roback was like adding red wine to dramamine lows. I like Kendra Smith and all (mostly because The Dream Syndicate are largely forgetten), but had she not walked out on Opal, Mazzy Star may have never happened.

So here goes perhaps the saddest sounding song of all the 1990's. I can't help but listen to it over and over even still. I suspect it's been on The O.C., playing while some pleathery-skinned teen drinks too much Vex in the hot-tub and confesses something dire to the awkwardly sexy music geek with curly hair and a girlfriend back in Star's Hollow.

(fuck, it's actually HAS been on the O.C... I just checked.)

Regardless, I dare you to listen to this song and NOT come away driven to regrets somehow. This is the sort of song I figure would start playing ten minutes before I die, even if the clock radio can only receive shortwave.

Death In Vegas (feat. Hope Sandoval) - Killing Smile

Death In Vegas are orphans of the 1990s electronica boom. They seem good enough to earn a Gallagher brother and a BackToMine comp. along with Hope Sandoval who usurps both Elizabeth Fraser and Richard Ashcroft as the queen of providing vocals overtop cough-syrupy arrangements.

Chemical Brothers (feat. Hope Sandoval) - Asleep From Day

And then there's this, with which I share a complicated relationship anchored amongst green minds & crushes on girls upstairs and down; we always kind of figured this would be prom theme for poorly-planned formals on the moon.

So Hope Sandoval, you're my girlfriend tonight, and for the rest of what will be a sour, humid summer.

Buy Mazzy Star

-kam

The Moody Blues - Nights In White Satin

"can the poems, it's ass whooping time!"

Lately, this song is following me everywhere, from the soundtrack to "Easy Rider", to the DVD menu for an episode of "The Sopranos", all the way back to AM oldies radio.

I've always loved the Moody Blues. Well, that's not true. Of my parents' record collection, this was the least offensive to my eleven year old ears on summer nights when my father and I played ping pong in the basement. He let me choose the music, and this was my favourite, after Bill Cosby. It was just him and I... my mom would be hard at work sewing us all summer clothes, and my brothers were out and about riding bikes or building forts. It was the age before the internet, afterall.

Nostalgia aside, I find them overwhelmingly average in the canon of late 60's pomp-rock. Nowadays they may be found playing casinos along-side the likes of Carrot Top, Hootie & The Blowfish and... Bob Dylan?

Whenever I get the chance, I play this song over and over again for whoever will hear it. I remember last summer it coming on one of those classic rock stations up north, driving back to our campsite from Wawa. "The Rock" or "The Moose" or "The Pinecone" or something. I could have nearly crashed the car, it put me in such a head-space... even though for most it draws imagery of a shirtless Fabio on the cover of a Harlequin or broken-hearted maidens jumping off of promontories against a gale.

But to the criticism I hear when I get in those urges, and play it over and over again... I just argue that this legitimately could be an album-closer for The Arcade Fire. And then, somehow, it would be bonafide brilliance by today's standards, whatever they are this week. It suffers because it's still in rotation on 106.7, The Wolf in North Bay... (boating advisories to follow...) but why should that matter?

Please watch the video. There is something oddly hypnotic about it. There is a home video of my brother and I performing "Unskinny Bop" that is more true to life than this. None of you will ever see it though.

Buy The Moody Blues. I spared you the full-length version with the poetry and the wankery... but only because I doubt your interest. All of you.

-kam

the gandharvas...

Seems pompous, perhaps a bit like something Jeff Martin should have done, to name your band after the minstrels that make music for Hindu gods. But the gandharvas never sent me incense in the mail, no, they always seemed more cheerful than that. The perfect soundtrack for riding your bike around the church parking lot Sunday afternoons when the Buick LeSabres finally drove away, scraped out Jello moulds and irreverent weekly gossip in tow.

But I was a little too old for that in the 1990s. The gandharvas may as well have been the house band on 102.1 the Edge's "Live In Toronto", the self-important yet sorely missed dinner hour rundown of all things alternative in the city of Toronto, hosted by the perpetually unphased Kim Hughes. (She talked me through my tenth grade math homework.) It seemed the gandharvas had found that meal-ticket of 90s Canadian alt-rock in regular rotation, that should have scored them beer promotions and roadside attractions. But it was never meant to be. And I don't know why. But I'm glad.

While my peers praised "The Hip", I insisted on Paul Jago who may have sounded like Perry Farrell with more phlegm, but less like a Transformer. He was best remembered for wearing a t-shirt that said "Girlie Boy" in the video for "Downtime". While Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth and the like are all fetishized as being something a bit better than they were for the sake of nostalgia (and perhaps a little Can-Con), the gandharvas seem to have faded out, reappearing every so often on request hours, or within Holly McNarland's stage banter.

It seems I was on to something special that came and went like a summer romance, leaving question marks behind in lieu of latching on to a jilted American singer's new project. We shared a few public displays of affection, but for the most part remained comfortable, embedded in private moments with the stars and the waves and a couple bags of cotton candy from the carnival in the distance. Yes, the gandharvas are a part of my own personal "Wonder Years". But they yet remain timeless. Something that the radio, or the townie reunions can't make me get sick of.

the gandharvas - The Masochistic Minstrel

From the forgotten sophomore album from a mostly forgotten band... those with sharp, patient memories will remember the claymation video. I don't, really, but I'm confident it was no more lame than anything Tool ever put on screen.

But yes. Timeless. A welcome song to remember on these nights when it feels time is being told by melting clocks.

The album "Kicking In The Water" seems to be out of stock everywhere except for the mothy corners of my closet. Keep an eye out for gandharvas albums here.

-kam

This entire entry could also apply to the band Pure. But... naaaah. Not the same. Not as good.

I'm going to keep this one simple since I'm currently suffering from the disease that is 'time'. And while Saturday is purported to be the climax of a typically soul-crushing week, it's becoming my least favourite day.

But I'll try my best to appreciate it, as I once did maybe eighteen years ago when Saturday meant staying in pyjamas watching "Superstars of Wrestling" followed by "American Gladiators", where welders and waitresses dodged Nerf balls thrown by the same guy you just saw Junkyard Dog beat up an hour before. He 'grabbed them cakes' to the point I got dressed and rode my bike down to the park to point at fish mutating in the radioactive creek while kids fell off the creative playground and broke limbs in the background.

My brothers, meanwhile, rode banana-seat bikes and played Dungeons & Dragons in the garage, until Calvin, the kid with the learning disability, got a d20 in the eye.

For the longest time, I thought the "dinner bell" rung from the front porch was a part of my imagination, but no, it actually happened. Home then, for beefaroni, and to play Commodore, while my mom watched "Golden Girls" as the North Stars found Borje Salming's unique brand of Swedish defence impenetrable on the CBC.

Chicago - Saturday In The Park

This song, perhaps, is what it may have been like had it all gone well for the characters in "Requiem For A Dream".

And somehow this song is timeless even though I know full well it isn't. I can just keep it here, in my ranks of databanks and play it when I feel like bathing in certain aromas of nostalgia. I don't like having that sort of control- I much prefer nostalgia as a surprise- but perhaps I'm still bitter, because everytime I go to a retro-diner, I feed the table-top jukebox quarters, yet it's woefully out of order.

Buy Chicago - V maybe? Bah, I don't know, I just wanted to make a post.

-kam

Grant-Lee Phillips - I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock cover)

The Wedding Present - Back for Good (Take That cover)

Every year, at the first snowfall, I seem to pine for the previous year's first snowfall. It doesn't help that this year... I was already mired in last year. Which is odd, because things are remarkably different in a positive way... almost strangely so.

Listen to the songs... am I trying to depress myself? I just know that no matter how happy I ever get, I will always a) dream of trains (& Grant-Lee Phillips singing in front of my corner store) and b) want you back for good.

Two cover songs here, and this is not unintentional. Every passing year seems to cover the last, whether it be a simple acoustic rewrite, or a video with Marilyn Manson in a hot tub.

-kam

I very rarely develop crushes on the subjects of songs. There is, of course, the girl from "Underwhelmed" by Sloan. Every guy knows her. Every guy has a crush on her. Every guy never does anything about it.

But then there's "Suzanne", that purveyor of earthy sadness who may feed me tea and oranges all the way from China. I remember waking up in the country one Sunday- there was a snowstorm, and CBC was doing a piece on the actual "Suzanne" on the TV. She's homeless in California. She never had sex with Leonard Cohen. She shows me where to look among the garbage and the flowers.

People like this don't seem to exist in everyday conversation. Not around these parts, anyway. I think the closest I ever met was an Australian in India... but she just went back home to work at the bank.

Anyway, everyone knows the original. Here are a few versions from artists I love, or at the very least, find interesting. I think my favourite one is The Fairport Convention. Because a) I am a mark for British psych-folk and b) love the way it slowly burns, unlike the original which is hypnotic, but hence, sleepy.

Fairport Convention - Suzanne

Peter Gabriel - Suzanne

Francoise Hardy - Suzanne

Nick Cave - Suzanne

-kam