Here comes the story of a hurricane
Sometimes, I feel the need for a little aural palate cleanser. Usually, I turn to old favourites: AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses for fun, noisy trash, The Rolling Stones and Otis Redding for bluesy, relaxed drinking. It’s like comfort food and junk food all at once. I don’t consume it all the time, but it’s there when I need to indulge. And right now, I need to indulge.
I’m also trying to run, even though I am not being chased. Some friends and I are doing a 10K run in June and I am sadly and sorely out of shape. Today, I ran 5K in 35 minutes. Huzzah! (That’s good for me, all you runners out there.) I need music when I run and though I have tried mightily, most of the aforementioned groups do not put me in a mind to pound the pavement and beat the street.
So I had to mix it up a little bit.
I wrote about Green Go awhile ago and mentioned that they’d signed to Pheromone. While I was nosing around their site, I noticed that Montreal duo Beast is also on that label. I’d seen them rec’d on iTunes a week or so ago and made a mental note to check them out, but I kept forgetting.
Betty Bonifassi (who can be seen below singing the delightful Belleville Rendez-vous from The Triplets of Belleville at the 2004 Oscars) and John-Phi Gonclaves mix infectious beats with a powerful vocal that reminds me of The Bellrays’ Lisa Kekula on the prowl.
Their song Mr. Hurricane is so goddam awesome. I love, love, LOVE the shouted vocal arrangement on the chorus. Sounds like a baptist choir on fire with righteous indignation. I’m a fan.
Usually, you could purchase Beast’s self-titled album at Maple Music, but it doesn’t look like it’s available right this second. Still, there’s always iTunes, where they’re conveniently featured right now.
I also recently stumbled onto Florence and the Machine while watching ABC’s The Unusuals. Florence (last name Welch) and the Machine (her backing band) are going to blow up HUGE when their debut album, Lungs, is released in July. For now, you can purchase the EP A Lot of Love. A Lot of Blood at IAMSOUND Records.
Flo’s been blessed with a Feist-ian voice, a pretty face and the ability to write incredibly catchy music that would not be out of place selling you some newfangled Apple product in the future.
Check out the video for her debut single, Kiss With a Fist:
Right?
The second single, Dog Days Are Over, is great to listen to while running. Cuz it mentions running. Synergy! Speaking of synergy: Behold! Their myspace, where you can, if you are so inclined, listen to a remix of Dog Days. Unfortunately, it’s not as good as the original. Still. There if you want that option.
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This right here is completely unrelated to music, but I’m gonna mention it anyway: How big of an ass is Stephen Harper when a court has to order him to petition to bring Omar Khadr back to Canada?
Apparently, not a big enough ass. He’s debating whether or not to consider appealing a court order that would force him to seek repatriation for Khadr, who was charged with throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. Soldier way back in 2002.
The defence of this behaviour is ridiculous. According to the Conservative Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon who claims Khadr is charged with “very serious crimes.” I guess this means, logically, that he should not be afforded any basic human rights.
Except for how that’s ridiculous. Omar Khadr has been locked down for seven years in Guantanamo, where it has recently been revealed that authorities have admitted they used torture to obtain information. Shocking! (No pun intended.)
Stephen Harper has done a lot of shitty things since becoming Prime Minister, but letting a teenage boy rot in a prison cell where torture takes place as a matter of course is one of the worst. He’s said he wants to wait to see if the U.S. will drop charges before bringing Khadr home. What the what!? How long are they going to play this weird game of chicken? It’s strange how this observance of niceties didn’t apply to all the other prisoners who were repatriated to other countries around the world.
And those dudes were adults! Khadr was a kid. He was 15 when he was first taken to Gitmo. His lawyers argue that he was a child soldier. There are no international war-crimes tribunals that prosecute child soldiers or terrorists. And Guantanamo Bay isn’t exactly a shining example of a war crimes tribunal.
Harper continues to claim that he doesn’t buy the child soldier argument because Khadr didn’t belong to any army when his alleged crimes were committed. Gee, if only al-Qaeda were more organized! Those guys should really get their act together!
Omar Khadr was brought up by terrorists and encouraged to commit acts of terrorism. We are fighting a war on terror, are we not? Where’s the logic in expecting terrorists to register as recognized armies? The reason we don’t prosecute child soldiers is because to do so legitimizes the act of recruiting them in the first place.
The actions of this government puts the onus to resist recruitment into terrorism onto a child who is not old enough to drive, vote or drink and who has barely gone through puberty. And resisting peer pressure would be one thing, but the pressure Omar Khadr faced came from his family, many of whom are either terrorists themselves or made statements supportive of terrorism. That’s something even the strongest of adults would have a hard time with.
Two years in Gitmo with no lawyers. Five more spent fighting and scraping for even an opportunity to defend himself. If Omar Khadr wasn’t full of hatred for the Western world seven years ago, he probably is now.
Good job, Steve.
Beast - Mr. Hurricane: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
