Sound Salvation Army

I’ve been busy this summer, moving to Toronto, starting a new job, hanging out with friends, doing some freelance writing, running on the beach, roller skating on the boardwalk, going to ToRD bouts, running around Kitchener/Waterloo in my draws and listening to new music at local shows.

But really, I live right by the beach and most of my summer has been spent there, getting sand in uncomfortable places. So far, there are no computers there. Yay! It has been one, long, beach party! Surf surf surf!!!

I’m sure you can understand why I haven’t found time to write about any of this. I’ve just been letting emails from promoters pile up in my inbox and having intense twitter arguments with Pat about the musical worth/artistic merit of Lady Gaga. Stay tuned for an epic post of epicness resulting from said twitter fight. That fight also sort of jump started me into remembering that I have two blogs that I am ignoring and that I need to pay attention to them.

I also tend to wait too long and write too much. Well no more! I am turning over a new leaf!

Please enjoy these songs from five artists I have been digging this summer:

The Canned Goods, my favourite little Guelph group that is growing up splendidly, played the main stage at Hillside Festival this year, and will be performing at Pop Montreal in September!

Toro Y Moi, whose beats are not necessarily phat, but blissfully curvy in all the right places. Check him out. You’ll like it. I promise.

M.I.A., who seems to hate the Internet that loves her so, but who makes up for it with interesting music.

Rah Rah, who can apparently be compared to Christian rock group Hillsong United and also “learned to write songs” according to two music reviewers in their home city of Regina. To this I can only shake my head and say: Nope. No. They are miles above Jesus rock, and they’ve ALWAYS demonstrated an ability to write songs. So yeah. Take that, dudes who get paid to do what I am giving away for free! Forget killing the music industry. I hope the blogosphere kills the shitty excuse for “arts journalism” that is currently on offer.

And San Francisco beach pop enthusiasts Sonny and the Sunsets, a project from musician/artist/novelist Sonny Smith, whose 100 Records project (where he wrote and recorded 200 different songs by 100 different fictional bands with 100 different album covers, all loaded into one jukebox and available for visitors to listen to) is currently available for you to see at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn.

Please continue to have an excellent summer!

[display_playlist]

 

 Julia - The Canned Goods : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Leave Everywhere - Toro Y Moi: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 It Takes A Muscle - M.I.A. : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Breaking Hearts - Rah Rah : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Too Young To Burn - Sonny & The Sunsets: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tanis entries M.I.A., miserable excuse for arts journalism, music, Rah Rah, Sonny & The Sunsets, summer, The Canned Goods, Toro Y Moi

So I just got a new computer. I’m typing this on a brand new MacBook Pro. So pretty. So shiny. So precious.

But I faced a serious challenge when it came to transferring my music library. It was a headache and a half and the only relief came when I realized that the first music I put on this bad boy was Rah Rah’s Going Steady.

It was the perfect way to bust this machine’s MP3 cherry. This album has been around for awhile, but it’s a feat that it still feels as fresh as the day I first downloaded it.

Rah Rah is another one of those huge collectives born in the wake of Arcade Fire’s success. Their sound is big and lush, but folkier than Arcade Fire. The songs are poppier, the lyrics sing-a-longier and if they are sometimes depressing, they are humorously so.

At Hillside Festival this year, another Regina collective topped many a “best performance” list. And Library Voices had a brilliant set. I walked into that performance a fan and walked out a bigger, drunker fan. Any band that can write a song dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut with the lyrics “There’s an asterisk beside your name” is all right by me.

I feel sorry for anybody who had to listen to me that weekend, but after seeing Library Voices perform, I was overcome with a profound and lengthy bout of homesickness. Which I expressed by morphing into Slater from Dazed and Confused and extolling the musical virtues of my home prairie province, saying loudly, to anyone who would listen “Maaaaaan, Saskatchewan bands, man! The prairies are where it’s at!” And “I miss the State. We were hardcore back in the day. You know a club is good when there are no doors on the stalls in the bathroom!”

And finally: “If you think Library Voices are good (and if you don’t, you’re stupid), you should hear Rah Rah! They’re even better!”

It’s nice for a change, to see bands from the prairies get their due. I had a big schwak of complaints written out, whining about Regina’s concert scene and the mandate to bring huge, awful acts through the city since the Stones brought their walkers and canes to town and put on the biggest outdoor concert in Canadian history a few years ago. But the I realized that I can’t very well talk about what I don’t know. And I don’t know Regina anymore, but Rah Rah does. And they hearken back to a time when the city was undiscovered on The Innocent One.

What I do know is that the city is breeding a new guard of bands that are gaining some deserved attention. Rah Rah was best band in Regina by the Prairie Dog in 2007, and it is a goddamn shame that they weren’t included on the Polaris list because Going Steady is an album deserving of your attention.

“Duet for Emmylou and the Grievous Angel” is the gem of the album. It plaintively laments living the single life in a small town the way you and your single friends do, but with a bittersweet The chorus wails “It is fashionable, to be single/ in big cities but not in small towns/ in Regina, Saskatchewan/ I fell in love with her frown.” That is the charm of Saskatchewan (and this group) in a nutshell. It’s easy to fall in love with a smile of a city like Vancouver. But falling in love with Regina’s frown is another thing. I also dig the fantastical love story that is “Tentacles” (he loves her and if not for the language barrier, he might marry her, though she has tentacles.) There’s the sweetly simple back and forth of “Cuba/Peru” that highlights the way this group has mastered silly love songs.

In fact, they’ve moved on to hate songs.

Both “F**CK NAFTA” and “The Innocent One” have deceptively soft intros. Both are driving, frustrated anthems for a generation growing up in the wake of corruption, scandal and two huge, unwinnable wars. Going Steady is a near-perfect album filled with soaringly happy songs and bittersweet memories of a fading city. It is made better by its fortuitous release during an era characterized by its unending appetite for destruction of icons held dear by the generation before them. It don’t get much better than the command “Fuck all you stockbrokers in the crowd.”

It gives me heart that this is a band that has not yet had its dreams crushed by a harsh world and is still writing songs about damning the man and saving the empire.

Buy Going Steady from Sonic Unyon, Zunior, and iTunes and more importantly, go see them when they come to a town near you on their It’s Never Too Old To Believe a Dream Tour.

 

 Rah Rah - Tentacles [3:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Rah Rah - Duet For Emmylou and Grievous Angel: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tanis entries live music, mp3, Rah Rah, Regina