Toronto - Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) is back, this time, he has teamed up with Dizzee Rascal and David Byrne to form the Brighton Port Authority, otherwise known as The BPA. This single got released awhile ago, I think. It’s a good summer party ska tinged song, but more importantly, the video is mesmerizing.
Category: Chapter 0 - Everything
The short list for the Polaris Music Prize was announced a couple of weeks ago. The list is as follows.
Black Mountain - In the Future
Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling
Caribou - Andorra
Holy Fuck - LP
Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
Plants & Animals - Parc Avenue
Shad - The Old Prince
Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War
Two Hours Traffic - Little Jabs
The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour
Three things are wrong with this list; The Weakerthans, Stars and Two Hours Traffic. Everybody has their criticisms with the above list. When talking about inclusion/exclusion of a specific artist people seem to forget who and what this prize stands for.
POLARIS MUSIC PRIZE MISSION STATEMENT
The operation of a not-for-profit organization that annually honours, celebrates and rewards creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music by recognizing, then marketing the albums of the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history, as judged by a panel of selected critics and experts.
Let me tell you, i’m not the worlds largest Holy Fuck fan. Do I think they should be on the short list, absolutely, because they fulfill what the Polaris Music Prize stands for. These albums are supposed to be judged solely on artistic merit.
» Read the rest of the entry..
Concert attended and reviewed by Panic Manual correspondent Karen Parker
(Toronto) I discovered Bon Ivers’ (Justin Vernon) album For Emma: Forever Ago after hearing one of his songs featured on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy……don’t’ judge me. I instantly loved the “sound of a man left alone with his guitar and his memories” (Pitchfork). And when I discovered that he had isolated himself in the woods for four months to write it….I lost my mind. It was like all my fantasies had been rolled into one big one and served in woolly touque. Thoughts of a beefy bearded man in a wool coat ala Gerard Butler, capably chopping wood and foraging for his food by day while nursing a broken heart and healing through the creation of haunting music in front of a roaring fire in the woods by night was almost too much to bear….almost.
At the show my friend Ashley was heard to say:
Mmmm I’ll be your skinny love…..I’ll lose like 25 lbs for you if you let me sit on your face.
He was supposed to go on at 10:15 and as everyone knows bands never go on at their scheduled time. It’s 10:30 and I’m racing from work thinking….I’m gonna make it with time to spare and sure enough…..he went on at 10:13!!!! C’mon Bon! Rock stars make you wait! By the time I got there, got past security and made it inside I had missed most of the show….including Skinny Love! Who plays their best song early in the set anyway? I caught two songs and then two in the encore.
What I did hear was fantastic. The place was packed and more humid than a Brazilian rain forest and speaking of brazilians, clearly I wasn’t the only woman there hoping to witness her fantasy on the stage. He could have done with a bigger venue but I think even he was overwhelmed and surprised by the turnout. And while attractive in his own way, sadly, up close, he doesn’t look like Gerard Butler in a plaid shirt…..but this.
I think I can see his balls.
(Pitchfork photo credit)
Toronto - On the heels of Canada’s Polaris award, the Brits have announced the 2008 nominees for the Mercury Music Prize. Here are the nominees:
Adele - 19
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial - Untrue
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle - Shine
Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep in the North Sea
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
I am obviously hoping this is British Sea Power’s year, given the love I have given that album.
Here is a list of the last ten winners:
2007 - Klaxons – Myths of the Near Future
2006 - Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
2005 - Antony and the Johnsons – I Am a Bird Now
2004 - Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
2003 - Dizzee Rascal – Boy in Da Corner
2002 - Ms. Dynamite – A Little Deeper
2001 - PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
2000 - Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour of Bewilderbeast
1999 - Talvin Singh – Ok
1998 - Gomez - Bring it On
Toronto - When The Subways first came around the block in 2005, they had a fresh bare bones type of garage rock that had some nice grooves. Sounds like ‘At 1 am’ had just the right amount of rock to get someone like me excited. The album, Young For Eternity, while a bit repetitive at times, was a garage rock gem full of catchy tunes. Sure it catered to a MTV rock/Ipod commercial crowd, but you can’t deny the catchyness of tunes such as “City Pavement” and “Rock N Roll Queen”.
Cue 2008, and the young lads and ladie(s) in The Subway are a bit more mature, and this past week, they have released their second album - All or Nothing, which may or may not be named after an O-Town song. How do I know that? I don’t know. The other nite, someone asked who the pink ranger was, and in an instance I was like ‘Amy Jo Johnson’. I guess when you grow up in a desolate outpost in Northern Alberta, there’s nothing better to do then absorb pop culture info. Anyways, the album - it’s more or less the same, only the edge that was all over the first album seemed to be gone. The excitement that made them sound so fresh seems to have dulled. Singles like “Girls and Boys” and “All or Nothing” seem not much different then something you’d hear on any rock radio station in your local city. Not that thats a bad thing, I was probably expecting more.
So to sum it all up, this album is a more toned down, less catchy version of the first album. You’ll get 12 songs of guitar based garage rock I do like the song “Turnaround” one of the few songs with the guy and girl singing, but im a sucker for guy/girl vocal interplay.
2.5/5
(Toronto) For a while now, the Oscar nominated short I Met The Walrus has been appearing on YouTube. It’s the animated audio recording of a 1969 interview done in Toronto by then teenager, Jerry Levitan, with John Lennon. This kid skips school, tracks down Lennon in his hotel and asks him for an interview. Lennon then invites him back later that day to do the interview. Jerry Levitan told the story on The Hour of how after his first initial meeting with Lennon, he had to go and buy or borrow some sort of recording device to actually do the interview. The animation is slick and the interview is honest. Have a watch and listen and then review for yourself.
If this version of the movie gets taken down, head over to YouTube and find another one.
