Music

Classic Album Review: The Queen Is Dead – Smiths [1986, Rough Trade Records]

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Allison in Classic Albums, Music | Leave a comment

After a long self-imposed hiatus that no one appears to have noticed, the Classic Album Review is back, and this week’s is a doozy.

Firstly, I have somewhat conflicted feelings about including this album at all. As a collective album, I am not sure if it has necessarily stood the test of time given my gargantuan initial appraisal (masterpiece, numero uno, and thrillingly deep all came to mind). As a series of fragmented songs, many of them continue to hold up very nicely.

But then, there is the element of “that was then, this is now,” that plagues much of the music and books I enjoyed in my early teens. When you are a teenager, even discounting the fact that being depressed is very much considered en vogue, there is a definitive end all and be all element to everything you experience in art and hold dear to your heart. The Queen Is Dead is pretty much the epitome of such gnawing emotional tsunami, and for better or for worse represents some embarrassing times for me. No wonder I hardly listen to it anymore. It’s like when you remember sobbing uncontrollably to The Joy Luck Club and thinking that was a pinnacle.

That said, there are some gems on here that will always represent the magic of powerhouse songwriting. The album achieves several coveted things in music:

  1. Distinct atmosphere and era – No doubt due to Morrissey’s album cover choices, love of sophisticated 60’s actors, and the general hollow feel. Listening to this again I realize how underrated Mike Joyce’s drumming is.
  2. Powerful storytelling – So many of the songs from this album derive their impact with the skilled simplicity with which the lyrics construct everything. Frankly, Mr. Shankly is still the ultimate letter of resignation. I’ll get onto the others in a moment.
  3. Intrigue and directness – The best songs on the album create a brilliant dual counterintuitive effect: being direct while creating intrigue. When I use words like “simple” and “plain” stories and ideas, this is the ultimate form of praise. (Almost) everyone is striving for clarity; not everyone manages to achieve it. The uncomplicated potency of these songs just makes us want to know more. And yes, I think Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others means exactly what its title implies.
  4. Humanity – I’m hard pressed to think of an album that might parallel The Queen Is Dead in terms of staunch, raw feelings. Even the sunnier-composed songs (Cemetry Gates, The Boy with the Thorn in His Side) carry an anchor-weight to them and considering the number of times I played it in completion from start to finish, uninterrupted, I wonder how much of the joy in the listening experience is distilled from the wonder of feelings, nothing more than feelings. One of the reasons I think The Queen Is Dead resonates so strongly with teenagers is because everything is heightened…after all, hormones make for technicolor emotions.

BEST

  1. I Know It’s Over – An exploration in self-hatred, human fear and loathing. This song really swims in everyone’s greatest fear: loneliness. But at the core of its being is inspirational optimism for how everyone should be striving to live a better life. This song is a shining example of why the Smiths are a wonderful role model for the young and ought not be thought of as a suicide-making machine. Can you really think of a better general message than, “it’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate…it takes guts to be gentle and kind”? With messages like this, it’s amazing to think Morrissey has never been a guest star on Sesame Street.
  2. The Boy with the Thorn in His Side – Probably tied for my favorite song of the album and the strongest demonstration of what Marr, Joyce, and Rourke contributed to the livelihood of the Smiths and live energy. I still find it difficult to listen to this without scream-singing at the absolute top of my lungs because it’s just so damned easy to listen to. One day children, this song will be considered “adult contemporary” and “easy listening.” Mark my words.
  3. There Is a Light That Never Goes Out – Maybe the most memorable in terms of maudlin thoughts and feelings. After all, it’s all about undying, everlasting, over-the-top love. This song could very well have a subtitle of “a million and one painful ways to die while running away,” yet in spite of all its pyrotechnic dramatism, it  somehow works. Probably the most treasured song of my adolescence, bar none.

Also, does anyone else think that that last song is all about a teenage boy coming out of the closet, running away from his gay bashing parents, and meeting his lover on the way? Just sayin’.

Concert Review: Deerhunter, October 19, Opera House

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Allison in Concerts, Everything, Music | 4 Comments

There are a few bands in this world that can do no wrong in my eyes. One of them is Atlanta’s Deerhunter, being headed by the most prolific songwriting duo since, well, maybe ever (Burt Bacharach and Hal David?). What I like about the Bradford Cox / Lockett Pundt songwriting partnership is that they let each other exist, nurture each other’s independence, and support the band’s collaborative creative growth. Most of all, they don’t appear to take themselves too seriously at all, the key to anyone’s affability.

Let me just start off by saying that even though I have been looking forward to this concert since the end of August, I had once again overbooked commitments and had to rush back from a week in Ottawa, cabbing it to the Opera House with all of my bags in vain hope of catching the band’s entire set (I would’ve liked to have seen Real Estate and especially Kentuckians Casino Versus Japan, but it just wasn’t in the cards). I have to give props to my gracious cab driver at this point, who floored it all the way down Queen to get me there in ample time. I had a duffel bag and backpack with me, and after enduring searches more thorough than anything I ever get flagged down for at Pearson International Airport, checking both bags looking like a traveling transient, and grabbing a beer, I still had about five minutes to spare before grabbing a prime spot on the floor for the sold out show. Again, happy to see them selling out larger venues now as a headliner even if it must’ve been a slowburn.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I have finally mastered the art of perfect show timing. It seems that if you bank for a 20 minute block inbetween openers, and after the door time, maybe a 30 minute block before the headliner, you should be golden. Of course you can always skip all of this guesstimation by simply calling the venue ahead of the time, but I had forgotten my cell phone at home. The universe was either self-aligning itself to absorb my lack of foresight or it was just plain dumb luck. Either way, I guess my determination paid off.

When the band took stage, it occurred to me how shocking it is to see Mr. Cox live and in person if you have never seen anyone with Marfan’s Syndrome before. It’s a natural reaction to seeing anyone that thin/gangly and a guy in the group standing beside me had remarked “He looks like a scarecrow.” True enough. Good thing it doesn’t matter what he looks like, since it’s always been about the music. The band’s wide appeal should be obvious to anyone taking a cross-section of the crowd from last night as well as folks looking for extra tickets outside. BROAD age range, dress, look, and feel, all enjoying consistently excellent music.

As for the music itself, I’m going to do a play-by-play recap of the setlist from last night:

  1. Desire Lines (Halcyon Digest) – I was hoping they’d open with this one based on other setlists I’d seen from previous dates on this tour. It’s the best thing off Halcyon Digest, and that instrumental jam that starts at the 3 minute mark was one of the highlights of the show for me. That guitar line is, for lack of a better word, “sick”. Everything about the long ending and its progression is a reminder of how good this band is at build-up execution. Not too much in the way of variation from studio performance, but again I go back to hearing the long ending live. Even though the acoustics at the Opera House were kind of shitty that night (at least close to the stage), it still sounded amazing.
  2. Hazel Street (Cryptograms) – Glad they are still incorporating this one into all of their setlists. Pleasant surprise for me. Has always been one of my favorites off one of their best albums (though it is becoming more and more difficult for me to rank them in order). Again, no ambient reorchestration going on at this point, but these shorter, punchier numbers were needed to balance out the long, drawn-out noisy reworkings.
  3. Don’t Cry (Halcyon Digest) – One of the best off the new album and got a bit of a vocal makeover as many of the more duwoppy numbers did. Although my short-term memory is fading, I think it sounded more energetic than what we heard in the studio, if nothing else.
  4. Revival (Halcyon Digest) – As many other fans have remarked, I wish this song was thrice the length that it is. It is the best Cox penned song off Halcyon Digest and you never want it to end. The same goes for their performance of it.
  5. Never Stops (Microcastle) – Another upbeat number to keep the flow going. Not as good as I remember from their October show at Lee’s in 2008, but this is a different tour and a different year.
  6. Little Kids (Microcastle) – Part of me wishes they had done a variation on this by performing the demo version (my favorite of all of their demo versions, and may have softened the crunchiness we heard in the venue). No matter though, this one was a crowd favorite that actually got heads bopping.
  7. Memory Boy (Halcyon Digest) – This one got a slight vocal makeover; couldn’t hear if there were any back-up vocals coming through but this is a pretty prominent feature of the song that kind of got lost.
  8. Rainwater Cassette Exchange (Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP) – By far, the highlight of the show for me, and one of the reasons you go to see bands like Deerhunter live. WOW. The 80’s patina gave this song a complete makeover that pretty much blew my head off to smithereens. Completely unexpected, and an awesome gift.
  9. Fountain Stairs (Halcyon Digest) – Unexpected crowd fave–another Pundt song that has hopefully cemented him as one half of the songwriting duo.
  10. Nothing Ever Happened (Microcastle) – Probably the highlight of the evening for the rest of the crowd, and indeed it brought the house down. Bradford really got into the distorted guitar jamming at this point and just when you thought it might never end, it did…and you wish it hadn’t.
  11. Helicopter (Halcyon Digest) – I heard someone complaining outside that this was an “Atlas Sound song, not a Deerhunter one.” While I could see his point, I think this was also one of the best performances of the evening due to the extended remix treatment it received.
  12. He Would Have Laughed (Halcyon Digest) – The last song in the main setlist, and I can understand why they would’ve chosen it to end things off on. The extensive layers and ambient noisiness = license to experiment, and the last third of the song where it morphs into a ballad gave them a nice clean ending to walk off to.

ENCORE

  1. Cover Me (Slowly) (Microcastle)
  2. Agoraphobia (Microcastle) – Two of the best songs off Microcastle that again served as a nice break back to shorter pop songs, although all of the encore songs were along those same lines.
  3. Spring Hall Convert (Cryptograms) – Bradford dedicated this song to the Opera House and I thought it would bring the house down. Probably their best song period, and just damn fine rock ‘n roll music.
  4. Wash Off (Fluorescent Grey EP) – Kind of surprised they chose this one to end off on once and for all. It’s a fast, punchy song, but I was sort of really hoping for something mindbogglingly majestic, like Calvary Scars II/Aux. Out.

Some general notes about the show. Bradford did a better job than most connecting to a local audience by describing his day in the Annex shopping at Honest Ed’s, Sonic Boom, and eating at Pizza Pizza (I am guessing they either know someone from Toronto or loved exploring the area all of the times they have played at Lee’s Palace). While people loudly applauded the first two stops, he noted far less for Pizza Pizza, which he told us we should be proud of. It’s good, cheap pizza, and better than Domino’s. Thank you Mr. Cox. As a loyal Pizza Pizza customer I feel completely validated and think the Bloor/Bathurst shop should have a signed black and white glossy with your endorsement.

He also shone the spotlight on Pundt a couple of times, but he seemed quite a bit more wallflowerish. It must be tough not to make Cox look gregarious onstage, but I can appreciate that bantering with the audience just isn’t really his thing. Cox jokingly referred to Pundt as George Harrison, Joshua Fauver as Paul McCartney, and Moses Archuleta as Ringo Starr; instructing them to “stop gossiping!” They just looked like they were having a good time for the most part, and in a sudden fit of rock ‘n roll impulse, Bradford slapped down the microphone stand. His stagehand jumped right back up to reset it.

While the acoustics up front left that familiar ultra-crunchy nails-on-chalkboardish sound sometimes, it was still a great show that I’ll remember.

If anyone has reviews of Real Estate or Casino Versus Japan, post ’em here.

Deerhunter – Fluorescent Grey by defacto

Classic Song Review: Move Any Mountain – The Shamen [1990, One Little Indian]

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Allison in Albums, Article Series, Classic Albums, Everything, Music, Reviews | 3 Comments

Every once in awhile, some unidentifiable thing will trigger a sudden memory for me. Whether it be a smell, sound, image, or whatever, it is always completely random, and usually something from childhood. I had one such backflash late on Monday evening as I was perusing YouTube videos and was struck by the following chorus: “I can move, move, move any mountain”. It was kind of like the “burnt toast, I smell burnt toast” Canadian Heritage Minute.

A quick Google search later, and the autocomplete function reveals a whole lot of other people have been remembering this song, too. What was it, and who was it by, anyway? Besides the incredibly catchy chorus, I couldn’t remember much else.

But then I watched this video

…and it all came flooding back to me.

The song is Move Any Mountain, and the group is a techno-infused-acid-house outfit out of the Aberdeen Scotland (Groundskeeper Willie’s hotly disputed place of origin) called The Shamen that spanned throughout the 80’s and 90’s.  Josh informs me that they were one of his favorite bands from back in the day, openly admitting that he has 10+ copies of the En-Tact album (in case of natural disaster, we might presume he would strategically place these in different residences and locations).  As wonderfully cheesy as the video may be (it has it all–a twirling descent of bodies on a dated graphic, kareoke-video-like ocean footage, an appropriately poofy looking duo against scenic mountain backdrops), and as painful as the short rap run-ons might get, Move Any Mountain is still a fantastic song reminding me of the schitzophrenic ranges of highs and lows a song can take you to.

Unfortunately, one half of the creative duo met an untimely demise after heading to Tenerlife Spain to tape the video for Move Any Mountain. I believe it was the guy with the dreads, but am not really sure. They enjoyed some modest success in the U.K., and irregardless of their tragic end, have managed to record some other good tunes in their time and I really enjoyed Possible Worlds. There’s a little Primal Scream, a little bit of Soup Dragons, predating that flash in the pan rock/dance thing with EMF and Jesus Jones. There’s some guilty pleasure in enjoying this stuff I suppose, but despite what some folks may think, I am not a music snob.

Concert Review: Elephant Stone, Teenage Fanclub, September 23, Horseshoe Tavern

Posted on September 25, 2010 by Allison in Concerts, Music, Reviews | Leave a comment


Ricky’s iPhone concert photography™. The trademark is for consistent blurriness.

Scotland produces great pop music. It’s a fact. Bands like Teenage Fanclub and Trashcan Sinatras that are still trucking after all these years are living proof that there is a way to age gracefully in rock ‘n roll. It always surprises me when older performers take the stage after a long hiatus to be met with gasps like “SHIT. They got OLD.” Newsflash! We are all always getting old. And yeah, the ravages of time are applicable to people we stop paying attention to. A Catholic Education was released in 1990–20 years ago. 20 years ago!

So, I’m impressed that after 20 years, the band is still releasing good material. I haven’t listened to this year’s Shadows, but if their performance of Sometimes I Don’t Need To Believe In Anything is any indication of what they are still capable of, the caliber is still there. I actually think some of their newer songs played better than some of the classics, maybe because of their freshness.

And a lot of the classics were still there throughout their set, even if the incredibly packed venue (full of very tall people standing around the stage)  felt the need to continually shout out things they wanted to hear. It was great to hear Alcoholiday live, but some of the older tunes played a lot better than others. One thing I was totally impressed by was Gerard Love’s consistency (and I always thought he was the strongest songwriter, penning some of the best pop love songs)–Don’t Look Back was probably the highlight of the show for me with the 3 minute mark jam tearing up the place. The lumping of consecutive slow songs kind of lulled everything down in spots, but there would always be a tail end favorite serving as a wake up call.

The decision to encore with two Howdy! songs in a row was something I wasn’t expecting, but I did think that Near You was one of the best songs of the night. I do think the decision to throw in a slower song off Shadows made people feel that by the time The Concept rolled around, there was a “finally” moment instead of a slow build to a “fuck yeah” moment.

Still, a great show.

P.S. What the hell was up with that guy with the tripod and video camera standing in the back area of the stage?!

Setlist

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