Sound Salvation Army

Another year, another Hillside over and done. My clothing is soooooooo muddy. As usual, it was a weekend filled with inclement weather (why so angry, sky?), environmentalism, epic performances and spirited company.

Final Fantasy performed tonight and holy frijole! Owen Pallett played a song or two, thanked us for coming out in the bad weather and added he hoped the rain wasn’t the last straw for us. “Oh, Owen doesn’t have a band, he’s playing old songs. AND IT’S RAINING!” And then it REALLY started to rain. And thunder. And lightning. And yet… he continued to play.

Even as a Hillside organizer clomped onstage to ask him to wrap it up for a minute until the rain died down a little, he continued to play. Even as the organizer came back a second later and made the “cut it” motion to the soundboard, Pallett called “Just one more minute!” He played to the end of the song and the lights went out. He basically invoked a thunderstorm and played through blinding wind and rain under constant threat of electrocution.  It was the best performance of the night for sure, maybe even the best performance of this Hillside!

But there were some other highlights:

There seemed to be a theme running through many of the side stage performances. Bahamas performed a cover of “Purple Rain.” Rural Alberta Advantage played “Eye of the Tiger.” And Woodhands rocked out to “Electric Avenue.”

Speaking of Woodhands, their show Saturday night was great (except for the douchey frat boy who insisted on crowd surfing like it was 1994) and they deservingly got an encore. This doesn’t happen often at Hillside. Bands generally get on and off when they’re supposed to. They ended with Be Back Soon.

Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long were the surprise of the festival for me and many others, judging from audience reaction. The talk rockers from Pentiction, B.C. were part of the crowd onstage during the Sunday Morning Gospel Hour and a Half (now two hours) and they blew the roof off the tent after just one song. People. Went. NUTS. Nobody seemed more surprised about this than the players themselves. After their first song, a man sitting beside us cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled “WHO ARE YOU!?” These old hippies couldn’t get enough! Introductions during gospel hour can be harried and the program doesn’t list everybody who performs, so they appeared to have come out of nowhere to testify in a combination of blues, spoken word and folk. Flustered, the bearded Koyczan (but I won’t hold the beard against him) called out the group’s name and directed people to head over to the Sun Stage where the spoken word artists were holding court later in the day. Then, they launched into a cover of “Sexual Healing.” A woman danced topless through the entire gospel hour and two women slow danced. We all went crazy again. Hamilton’s Melissa McClelland was up next and she joked “How do you follow ‘Sexual Healing?’ ” Somebody from the audience called up “With a cigarette.” Zing! Line of the weekend.

If you missed Hillside for whatever reason or you were there and didn’t get to see these the Short Story Long, they’re playing at the Drake tomorrow at 8 p.m.

 

 Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Woodhands - Be Back Soon: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long - Apology: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Buy Final Fantasy and Woodhands albums from Zunior. Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long don’t have albums available on their website yet. In the meantime, check them out on iTunes.

*****

Thanks for coming out and we at Sound Salvation Army hope you enjoyed our coverage of Hillside this year. As the lone atendee (I’m trying to convince Pat to come out to Ontariariario in 2010), I was extremely pleased to find out that Pat played a bunch of bands who were live at Hillside this weekend for our corresponding radio show on CJTR. Hooray for synergy! So, think I left something out? Feel like I am wrong and stupid and want to tell me what I missed? Send me an email at tanisfowler@gmail.com or go right ahead and click the little comment button. Feedback is our friend!

Tanis entries Canadian content, Final Fantasy, Guelph, Hillside Festival, live music, mp3, shane koyczan and the short story long, Woodhands

Remember when Bloc Party used to be awesome? When their first album came out they were on top of the world, their frenetic blend of fast-paced guitars, break-neck drums, dance beats, and yearning vocals forming the foundation of what was easily one of the best records of the year. I’ll always remember the first time “Banquet” came on my iPod while I was doing dishes at my parent’s house. I had downloaded the single, probably after some hyperbolic Pitchfork hype, and from the first spin I just wanted more. I must’ve hit the back button eight times in a row.

I got the CD for Silent Alarm the day it came out, reveling in its energy and enthusiasm. Even the goddamn love songs have galloping drums and driving guitars. “This Modern Love” has been a favourite right to this day, still making the cut on mix tapes every once in a while.

Today I stumbled on the Take Away Shows website for the first time in a few months and I found a stirring performance by Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke and guitarist Russell Lissack. The video is much more intimate than usual, but the singing is what really takes an already great song to another level.

Too bad its already been done before!

 

 Bloc Party - This Modern Love (acoustic) [3:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Final Fantasy - This Modern Love: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Pat entries acoustic, Bloc Party, covers, Final Fantasy, live music, Take Away Shows

If the new Final Fantasy album sounds like this song, I may have a new all-time favourite record.

Pardon my use of hyperbole (once again), but the first single from Owen Pallett’s new EP is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Once you take a look at it’s construction, however, it should be no surprise.

Press material for the Spectrum, 14th Century EP goes into great detail about the origins of the album, recorded while he was arranging and performing string parts on Beirut’s the Flying Club Cup. For those unfamiliar with that band, it’s basically a pocket orchestra boasting a plethora of different instrumentation (see our previous post on the live, Take Away Shows-produced version of standout track “Nantes” for a taste of what Beirut is capable of).

Why do I think this collaboration is so great? Well for starters, the heart of this song’s musical bed consists of the band’s brass players going, as Pallet put it in a piece on Stereogum recently, “choral for a bit.” That’s all well and good, but after sonically limiting his last album to piano and string quartet, I find the expanded musical pallet (pardon the pun) to be quite refreshing. Don’t get me wrong; I like his previous work, but I haven’t raved about it. As I felt the case was with Beirut’s latest album, I think the full breadth of what Pallett is capable of hasn’t yet come across in a studio recording.

But this song musically meshes so well with Pallett’s voice (which is sounding stronger than ever) I can hardly stand it. Add a typically lovely string arrangement and one of the oddest, creepiest animated videos I’ve seen since “Paranoid Android” and you’ve hooked me. Awesome.

 

 Final Fantasy - the Butcher [4:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Technically the Spectrum, 14th Century and it’s sister EP, Plays To Please are out, but I’ll be damned if I can find any place to purchase the vinyl for them. Vinyl for both and the CD release of Spectrum is being handled by Blocks Recording Club and Pays To Please’s CD release is available from Slender Means Society.

Pat entries Beirut, Canadian content, Final Fantasy, indie, orchestral, Owen Pallett, violin

This weekend was the 39th annual Regina Folk Festival. Like most of the big folk festivals in major Canadian cities, “folk” is a very loose term, as most of the headliners wouldn’t typically be lumped into that genre. Still, it’s a relatively small, very well-organized and well-attended festival that is continually drawing “bigger” acts every year, thanks I’m sure to a brilliant artistic director.

Finances restricted myself, my lady Jenny, her sister and her little boy to one day’s worth of paid attendance. We chose Friday, which saw main stage acts including: Final Fantasy, the Weakerthans, and closer Broken Social Scene.

Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett is a bit of an anomaly at the best of times and I think live performance reinforces that. It takes a lot of guts to put on the show that he does; a single, small man occupying a large stage with nothing but a violin, two microphones, and a couple of keyboards constructing intricate songs out of numerous (recorded live) loops and live playing and singing. Not easy to pull off, as evidenced by a couple of occasions where his foot-tapping got a bit out of control and accidentally stopped entire songs in the middle of a verse or chorus, only to have them awkwardly re-started again. He’s a consummate professional, though, and aside from those odd missteps the performances were flawless and filled with heart.

The Weakerthans offered little that wasn’t seen a few months ago in their latest touring performance here. Granted, for the constantly-growing crowd that’s all they needed to do. They’ve played the festival numerous times and they seemed to genuinely enjoy their set.

After fetching a few blankets from home (the perks of attending a festival two blocks from your apartment) and standing in an interminably long line at the beer gardens, we settled into a nice spot for Broken Social Scene. While much of their set was spent drinking beer and enjoying each others company without having to worry about the boy (he’d fallen asleep between sets), I was still very impressed with the show the Scenesters put on. Only seven or eight band members made the trip, and perhaps the neatest aspect of their performance was their willingness to open up the stage. Members of local acts and other performers with lower profiles at the festival were brought on to fill in missing components (female vocals, horn section, etc), to a very nice effect. They played an energetic set with a fairly representative mixture of their work, promising to come back soon to do a real show.

My personal highlight, however, came the next day when we didn’t actually have passes to the main stage events. We took Solan to play in the park after breakfast and were in an ideal position to take in a set by Old Man Luedecke. As I mentioned in a previous post, Luedecke is a very lively, spirited songwriter who pens very real, touching, and relatable songs about things like napping and breakfast. He expressed some mild concern at the beginning of the set (when only about five or six people including us were watching) about being relegated to the Children’s Stage, saying he wasn’t sure if that meant he was supposed to play kids songs. Thankfully he stuck to original material, beautiful songs about kissing at the airport and a woeful character named Monsanto Jones whose parents brought the ire of the GMF grain giant just by naming him. Between songs he proved just as entertaining, relating stories and inspiration in a very loose, comical fashion. Ironically, despite his reticence, I’d find it hard to imagine he’d perform anywhere else; banjo music is apparently the perfect soundtrack to the innocent twirling, running, and frog-jumping that mark the dancing of toddlers and infants. By the end of the set, his crowd had grown to probably about 100, each of them grinning and singing along when prompted.

The free performances on three stages throughout the park (centrally located in “lovely” downtown Regina) are a brilliant idea. National bands just gaining renown (Woodpigeon) and local acts doing the same on a smaller scale (Library Voices, Rah Rah) got a showcase that ensured maximum possible attendance, due to their freeness. It’s a great idea that really speaks to the character of the festival itself. All in all, a great couple of days.

 

 Old Man Luedecke - At The Airport [2:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Library Voices - the Lonely Projectionist [4:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Broken Social Scene - Major Label Debut (fast) [3:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Final Fantasy - This Modern Love (live, Bloc Party cover) [4:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Old Man Luedecke: Zunior and physical albums
Broken Social Scene: Zunior and physical albums
Library Voices: physical albums are available through Young Soul Records, but good luck finding them.
Final Fantasy: Zunior and physical albums
the Weakerthans: iTunes and physical albums

Pat entries banjo music, Broken Social Scene, Canadian content, festivals, Final Fantasy, indie rock, live music, local music, Old Man Luedecke, pop rock, rock, the Weakerthans