Sound Salvation Army

Get ready, Hillside. Guelph group Green Go are going to blow. you. away. Guaranteed. Hometown heros always make for a great show and these dudes have been demanding their pound of sweat from audiences all over southern Ontario.

I’m not a big fan of electronica. I just have bad memories of terrible 80s songs, I guess. But groups like Holy Fuck, Shout Out Out Out Out and Bocce have been slowly curing me of the shivers I get when I hear a synthesizer.

Green Go joined their ranks last year when I discovered their single “Mad Man Max.” A few songs from their album Borders started to find their way onto my iPod and I wrote about them for the entertainment blog I created for the newspaper I worked at. I said they should have made it onto the lineup for Hillside Inside. They didn’t.

But they DID sign to Pheromone Recordings and release their album Borders in April. Right around that time, word started to spread about their Remix Project, in which they took songs from their favourite Canadian groups and put their own spin on them. They got favourable writeups in the Star and the Globe and various other rags. And now, they ARE playing Hillside! Ahhh, sweet vindication!

Borders is alternately dreamy and funky and gritty. They have risen up out of the basements where they played for years and are coming into their own as a group that you should watch out for or, at the very least, get out of their way. Their album is a sonic smorgasborg and if I, a person who loathes most electronic muisc, loves this, imagine what it will do for you! The thing that sets them apart from most electronic/synth groups are the vocals. Several tracks see accomplished pianists Ferenc Stenton and Jessica Tollefson employing some harmonized shout-singing that is charmingly bossy and frantic. Fun and funky pop is the order of the day for “Brains For Breakfast” and “Danger Bay,” which uses my all-time favourite thing: hand claps. You guys, I am a sucker for hand claps! They’re sassy!

The Remix Project Vol. 1 sees Green Go reinterpreting songs by The Rural Alberta Advantage (not actually from Alberta) and Gentleman Reg (not actually an albino). “Sleep All Day” and “How We Exit” are fantastic in their own right and it takes a great remix artist to do more than put an annoying dance beat under the song. Green Go will not ruin your favourite song. They will rebuild it. They will make it better, stronger, faster. More danceable.

Green Go perform noon Saturday on the Lake Stage at Hillside Festival. Be there. Get funky. Get sweaty. Dance!

Gentleman Reg performs Sunday at 5 p.m. on the Island Stage. The Rural Alberta Advantage play at 6 p.m. the same day on the Lake Stage.

Buy Green Go albums and MP3s on Maple Music and iTunes.

 

 Green Go - Brains for Breakfast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Green Go - Danger Bay: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Gentleman Reg - We're In a Thunderstorm (Green Go Remix): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 The Rural Alberta Advantage - Sleep All Day (Green Go Remix): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tanis entries Canadian content, electronica, Gentleman Reg, Green Go, Guelph, Hillside Festival, live music, mp3, remix, The Rural Alberta Advantage

So there’s some crazy shit going on in the states right now. A bunch of old, rich, white people are protesting a tax increase by… buying tea bags? Sounds like a bunch of somebodies failed history. And economics.

Since, you know, taxes have actually been cut if you make less than $250,000. And if you don’t make less than that? Fuck you, that’s what. Also, the ORIGINAL Boston Tea Party? Was about taxation without representation. Not whatever this ridiculous display of entitlement and misplaced rage is on about.

Just how stupid is this? Well, Shepherd Smith, an anchor on FOX NEWS, is actively calling for people to get a grip and I quote “read a newspaper with a different viewpoint than your own to get some context.” Let me repeat that: FOX NEWS is calling for reasoned debate and context. And reading. Um, is the earth rotating backwards? Is the sky orange? Do I have a great, bushy beard? Things are getting crazy out.

This is all just an excuse to run this photo and talk about the original being better than imitators. I’m not a remix fan. It is rare when I like a remix or a mashup. It’s not my fault that they’re usually lame.

But I’ve seen the light recently. You will recall that I loved the Diplo remix of M.I.A.’s Paper Planes. Which was itself, cribbing from Straight to Hell by The Clash.

I was forced to further examine my prejudices concerning remixes when one of my favourite local groups, Green Go, started their remix project, which saw them take several songs, awesome in their own right, and rework them.

Women, Gentleman Reg, The D’Urbervilles, Born Ruffians and the Rural Alberta Advantage all get the remix treatment on the Guelph group’s remix project.

They wisely steer clear of messing with the songs TOO much, but the remixes all enhance what’s there, rather than slapping a drum track behind it.

Somebody else on another blog said it better than me: The best remix, I like better than the original. I believe that person was talking about the Gorillaz 19-2000 soulchild remix, which was released as a b-side. He argued it should have been on the album and called the original something that better fit his idea of a typical remix, that is: “interesting to hear once, inessential, and in the way of the version I’d rather hear.”

That’s not EXACTLY how I’d classify any of the original songs that Green Go chose to remix. Because I love all of them. But probably the best is the updated version of Women’s Black Rice. It’s just a little tastier the second time around. They don’t slouch on any of the other remixes and their version of the Born Ruffians’ song This Sentence Will Save/Ruin Your Life is inspired.

Their original stuff is pretty spiffy, too. It’s like a kinder, gentler, Shout Out Out Out Out or a raunchier Metric. I’ve written about Green Go before and said publically, before they started doing the remix stuff, that they should be added to a Hillside Festival bill. I have a feeling that the remixes might just do the trick for getting them the notice they deserve. They’ve been favourably reviewed in Exclaim! and the Toronto Star and I’d like to think my own little voice shouting from the hilltops that they’re awesome counts for something, too.

If you live in Guelph, be sure to hop down to the eBar TONIGHT, where Green Go, who just signed to Phermone Recordings, are holding a CD release for their new LP, Borders, which will be available to the masses on April 28. But you should come out to this show anyway. For $5 (or PWYC), they promise a good time. Well, they don’t. I do.

 

 Women - Black Rice (Green Go remix): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 The Rural Alberta Advantage - Sleep All Day (Green Go Remix): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Gentleman Reg - We're In a Thunderstorm (Green Go remix): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 The D'Urbervilles - Dragnet (Green Go remix): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Born Ruffians - This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life (Green Go Remix) : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Green Go - Cash Money Gremlins: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tanis entries Born Ruffians, Canadian content, Gentleman Reg, Green Go, Guelph, live music, local music, remix, the D'urbervilles, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Women