April 2007
That environmentally friendly magazine from CiTR 101.9 FM
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fl%P cJERR flRUDRILLRRD M@co*2>@9t
APRIL'2007
Editor
David Ravensbergen
Art Director
Cole Johnston
Production Manager
Laura Henderson
Copy Editor
Cheyanne Turions
RLA Editor
Danny McCash
Datebook Editor
Laura Henderson
Review Manager
Cheyanne Turions
Layout & Design
Cole Johnston*
Laura Henderson
Production Team
Cole Johnston
Melanie Coles
Caroline Walker
Graeme "XML" Worthy
Michelle Mayne
Arthur'Krumins
Catherine Rana
David Ravensbergen
Alanna Scott
Laura Henderson
Cheyanne Turions
Photo & Illustration
Cole Johnston
Luke Meat
Freddy H.
Melanie Coles
LlNDSAYSDIET.COM
Besh from Greenbelt
Program Guide
Bryce Dunn
Charts
Luke Meat
Distribution
Amanda McCorquodale
US Distribution
Catherine Rana
CITR Station Manager
Lydia Masemola
Regulars
The Gentle Art of Editing
3
Riff Raff
4
Bryce Dunn
Copyfight!
4
GregMcMuUen
Cinema Aspirant
5
£ J^S^'S Allan Maclnnis
Textually Active
6
Adverbs, Inkstuds
Mixtape
10
Kara Peet
Calendar
16
Spring Waltz
Real Live Action
23
Under Review
26
CiTR Charts
29
The Dopest Hits of March 2007
Program Guide
30
The Highlight
31
CiTR Spring Bash
Features
Cris Derksen
Vancouver's cello ambassador excels at
every genre but country. Mr 11
Greenbelt Collective
Most musicians take their fans for granted.
These pop collaborators not only appreciate
your support, they want your to join their
band. Mr 13
Signal + Noise
Multimedia artists converge on Vancouver
from Aptil 19th to 21st to prove there's more
to the message than just the medium. mt 18
SXSW
In case you Weren't already jealous, Luke Meat
rescounts a week of beer, bands and BBQ at the
legendary Texan Festival. MT 20
Cover Art by Cole Johnston
©DiSCORDER 2007 by the Student Radio Society of the University of British Columbia. All rights
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Send words to discordered@gmail.com and art to discorderart@gmail.com. From UBC to Langley
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#233-6138 SUB Blvd., Vancouver, BC, V6T1Z1, CANADA.
the (Jentle j4rt of Editing
I have a confession to make. While I've
been moonlighting as the editor of Discorder,
an alleged champion of independent media
and free expression, I've been making a living
through far more sinister means. A job that's
not only shameful, but directly contradicts
my professed values. A job that actively makes
the world a slightly worse place. As any good
twelve-step program will tell you, the first step
on the road to recovery is to admit that you
have a problem. So—deep breath—it's time to
face my fraudulence head-on: I've been spam-
ming. For real. I write spam.
No, I'm not the one responsible for those
malicious emails offering the cure for your
girlfriend's dissatisfaction in the boudoir, and
I don't saturate your blog's comment section
with nonsense. What I do is write advertising copy for products that I know absolutely
nothing about. My words are then placed on
fake websites that jockey for supremacy on
Google's page rankings, luring in users with
hollow promises of real information about
real things. In truth, these sites are little more
than AdSense farms, each waiting to generate revenue from the frenzied clicks of disoriented web surfers. Each article I write makes
the internet a little bit less useful, and for that
I apologize.
On top of it all, writing spam is decreasing my enchantment with the written word.
There used to be times when I would read a
great sentence and feel a rush of endorphins;
I remember reading Nietzsche for the first
time and exclaiming yes! under my breath
every few pages. These days words have little
effect on me. Even though I secretly enjoy a
Uttle spam here and there, like the email with
the subject line "he saxophone on poop" that
landed in my inbox the other day, the effect is
like literary crack: it doesn't last. From books
to blogs, the sheer volume of text vying for
my attention actually seems to strip words
of their meaning. The internet has become a
masterpiece of empty signifiers, the definitive
book that Baudrillard never wrote.
Call me a dinosaur, but what I really
like about Discorder is the tangible feeling of
newsprint in my hands. I like spending the
long hours of production weekend with my
friends and cohorts, working on a collaborative project that bears the marks of our collective effort. I lite the fact that when I say,
"We've switched printers again this month,
and now run on 100% recycled paper and
vegetable inks," I'm talking about an actual
change we've made, one based on something
as old-fashioned as conviction. I like having
a new Art Director and Production Manager,
both eager to step in and carry on the legacy
of this magazine that's as old as I am. I'm
going to kick this spam-writing habit, and
Discorder is the higher power that's going to
help me do it.
David Ravensbergen, Editor
discordered@gmail.com
cWr_AL'A
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4148 Main St
Open daily @ spm
You're invited for
one TWEE (A(PT(Ert(lZ(E(K.
vdtfi the order of an entree.
'Entertainment every Thursday
starting at 8:30pm
'African Music By Yorojrom 'Benin
www.nyala.com
Coupon expires (May 15th, 2007 -=l=l AJ\
by
BRYCE
DUNN
531
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THE BLACK HOLLIES
THEDANSETTES
Hello again music lovers, time for another journey into the center of my turntable for sounds fantastic and scary, like our first single by gangly
goth-rockers The Horrors. Currently buzzing around the heads of British music critics, these boys from nowhere are now everywhere, and
stockists can't keep their records on the shelves. The first batch of tunes released on these shores come in specially designed sleeves, naturally
upping the collector factor. "Gloves" is a slice of organ-grinding dementia (played by Spider Webb) that sees singer Paris recounting one heck-
uva nightmare over a squealing guitar riff provided by Joshua Von Grimm. "Kicking Kay" is a similarly grounded garage pounder that tells of
equine emulation, while the rhythm section of Tomethy Furse and Coffin Joe nail the lid shut on this three minute burst of primal punk. Already
getting flak from the garage purists and favour from the entire British teenage girl population, The Horrors are onto something, and only
time will tell if they still wear their influences on their sleeves or rip them off and make you eat them. (Loog Records, www.loogrecords.co.uk).
Probably the only band that could melt the black hearts and mascara of those lads is the trio of lasses known as The Pipettes. They attack with an
arsenal of pop confection so sweet it could put Charlie and his chocolate factory out of business. "Judy" is the latest in their batch of sticky sweet
sixties-girl-group-inspired songs and it's definitely a winner. The b-side? the oddly titled "The Burning Ambition of Early Diuretics," mentions the
word "love" at least eighty-eight times (yes, I counted) and acts like a,lost song from the vaults of Tommy James. The Pipettes' chops are backed
by an ample band, and the puppet master is the man known as Monster Bobby, the Phil Spector of the new millennium. Their debut album,
We Are The Pipettes will be getting a proper release on this side of the Atlantic in the coming months as they just inked a deal with Interscope
Records. Make sure you got a toothbrush and floss in hand, 'cuz this one's gonna hurt, kids. (Memphis Industries, www.memphis-industries.com).
Not only have those Brighton babes been the boon of dentists nationwide, it seems they've spawned offspring in the state of New York with The
Dansettes, named after a 50s record player that could be carried around with you and used to play several records at once. Seems the ladies (Leah,
Jaime and Jennie) were born behind the decks of their local soul spot, the Subway Soul Club, and couldn't stop belting out their favourite songs. They
employed the Brothers United backing band and the rest, as they say, is Soul Power! The song "Forty Days" is a stompin' mid-tempo number that
hearkens back to the glory days of the Wigan Casino and the Northern Soul movement. They share one side of a new forty-five with their friends
The Black Hollies, who turn in a decent cover of Deep Purple's "Hush" (which just so happens to be one of my most hated garage songs EVER).
I think I got turned off by this song when I heard it being slaughtered by a local Vancouver band (trust me, you don't want to know who they are!)
and can't listen to the original for wanting to tear my eyes out. However, the Hollies' freakbeat stylings are much better suited to their likeable full
length, Crimson Reflections (released last year), so I won't dissuade from checking them out. (Ernest Jenning Record Co., www.ernestjenning.com).
Finally then, some covers I can endorse without breaking down are supplied by Torontonian malcontents Brutal Knights on a recent single fittingly
titled The Breakdown EP. Whether these guys and gals were just looking for an excuse to record some of the "classics", or actually ran out of original
material is anyone's guess, but they don't fool around on "Communication Breakdown" by the legendary Led Zeppelin and "Nervous Breakdown"
by Black Flag: Both songs are treated with just the right amount of sneer and savagery, as you would expect from a group whose take on punk rock is
nasty, brutish and short. But what I didn't expect was how they chose to start the next song immediately after the one chosen for the side then quickly
fade to black AND do it on both sides. Oh, those cheeky monkeys! (Perpetrator Records, P.O. Box 68-984 Newton, Auckland New Zealand), j)
"''■• 'mj&.'~ Thanks for coming along on the voyage—we blast off again next month!
THE CORPORATION --HELLO COOL WORLD - KATHERINE DODDS -THE CORPORATION - HEtLO COOL WORLD - KATHERIINE DODDS -THE CORPORATION - HELLO COOL WORLD - KATHERINE DODDS
ASPTRATTT
Illustrations
by Melanie Coles
by
ALLAN MaclNNIS
/■ recently discovered something odd and
delightful. Nearly all of the most politically
engaged, intellectually stimulating, and inspiring documentaries I've seen in the last five
yearsare being promoted by the same rather remarkable Vancouverite, Katherine Dodds. Dodds
has two companies of note: Good Company,
which used viral marketing via the internet to
promote The Corporation, and Hello Coo! World,
whose webstore includes films like.the intense
and disturbing Winter Soldier, an essential film
about the Vietnam war that I've Written about
here previously. Dodds' work as an advertiser is
entirely tied to causes she believes in, and she
has an energetic, hyper-articulate manner that
is difficult to match. With several new titles on
her site, including the compelling Manufactured
Landscapes, and an upcoming two disc, extra-
laden re-release of the landmark film about
Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, it
seemed an ideal time to check in.
Dodds' long-term model for promoting films began "almost ten years ago, when
The Corporation was just a germ of an idea. It
was basically years in the funding, and then
years in the making, and my role during those
early years was as friend and communications
consultant. Then, as it came closer to being
released, I also raised the moriey for the new
media component and became the producer of
the website. And then* I moved onto taking what
money there was for publicity and leveraging-it
into what became a fairly substantial promotions
budget for a documentary. What I did was somewhat unprecedented, because I was in the position of having produced the money that I then got
to spend."
. Dodd's work on The Corporation, collecting
email addresses and building a strong grassroots
network (and audience), put her "on the map" and
led to her promoting The Take, a film about worker-
. occupied factories in Argentina, made by Avi
Lewis and Naomi Klein. "I had done PR for a lot of
documentaries before that, but it wasn't turning
it into its own mission, which Hello Cool World has
become." Hello Cool World's mission statement
is 'Ideas to Audiences, Audiences to Action, and
Action to Outcome.'
One manifestation of this is the Campaign
for Corporate Harm Reduction, which, Dodds explains, "is us saying that we want to find a. way
to sustain this network post-launch. While I can
say, 'Yay, we managed to get money to launch
the film,' that money, after.a year, was gone.
So what we're trying to do now is figure out
how we can sustain the momentum of all these
people, who asked two questions endlessly in
the year The Corporation was released: 'What
can I do,' and 'When can I buy the DVD?'"
(Continued on next page) CINEMA ,
ASPIRANT!
COPY-n
by GREG
McMULLEN
J t's easy to generate a list of Canadian stereotypes-
delightful images of hockey, maple syrup, dog sleds,
and Celine Dion spring to mind immediately. However,
in recent weeks a new character has been added to the
national roster—callous movie pirates. Reports in many
media outlets, from the CBC to the National Post, have suggested that we sneaky Canadians have been busy beavers
indeed, surreptitiously bringing camcorders into our theatres. Once inside, we record the latest Hollywood cultural
gems, then let the Hell's Angels, Rock Machine, or, horror
of horrors, al-Qaeda, sell the resulting knockoff DVDs at
discount prices.
Fearmongers froth Hollywood and their allies in
Washington have unveiled a media campaign, painting
Canadians as sinister infringers of copyright in an effort
to bolster their lobbying campaigns in Ottawa. They hope
to get Canada to adopt new legislation to "get tough" on
piracy. Recently, the U.S. ambassador to Canada went on
record insisting that Canada bring in tougher copyright
laws, claiming that our provisions are "the weakest of
the G7 countries" and that piracy costs our economy
$10-30 billion a year. Canada has been added to a "priority watch list" of copyright villains, including China,
famous for cheaply available bootleg DVDs, and Russia,
home of the much-maligned AlIofMP3.com, a discount
music store that the recording industry claims is completely illegitimate. The head of 20th Century Fox has
even threatened to delay movie releases in Canada in order
to keep early copies out of the hands of DVD pirates. The
prospect of waiting an extra month or two to see the new
Rob Schneider opus and the inflated talk of law and order
might have some Canadians ready to lock up pirates and
throw away the key, but there are problems for the industry groups—the numbers they use are grossly exaggerated
and Canadian laws already prohibit the criminal behavior
of selling bootlegged copies of DVDs.
Let's look at the statistics thrown out by the movie
industry. They suggest that 50% of all pre-release bootleg
DVDs can be traced to camcordering in Canadian theaters.
Strangely, this doesn't seem to jive with earlier industry
statistics, which peg that number at closer to 30%. If this
smokescreen isn't enough to rouse your suspicions, studies done by AT&T Labs suggest that 77% of pirated movies come from DVDs given to industry insiders, hardly the
stealthy theatre pirates portrayed in the recent media blitz.
As for the ambassador's numbers/there is no indication of
how he reached this $30 billion estimate or how pirated "
media could cost us 3% of our gross domestic product.
Michael Geist, a prominent copyright activist and
Canada Research Chair at the University of Ottawa, did
o
It's pretty easy to buy the DVD now, but
questions from people concerned about corporate abuses still flood in. Dodds reports that they
have received "about 300" feedback forms from
people who held "Corporation house parties" to
discuss the film and "what, strategically, we can
do about the institution and the problems the
film exposed. What we're trying to do is sustain
a base by which we can review some of the feedback we've had. I keep hearing things about what
has happened because of the film, but there'd be
a lot more outcome stories if we were able to do
that research."
One singularly inspiring outcome story
Dodds offers involves the issue of corporate
personhood. This legal gaffe is "one of the root
causes of corporate harm that the film presents,"
by which corporations are granted "rights" like
any individual—a problematic status, which a lot
of activists have been working to revoke. "Last
year," Dodds tells me, "I met a human rights
lawyer from Seattle who said, 'By the way, I
saw one of the rough cuts [of The Corporation],
and because of that film, I had some input into
the Democratic Party platform for the State of
Washington, and we put the issue of corporate
personhood on, and it got passed.' Haying it on a
state-wide political agenda is huge, it's major, and
I found out about it by accident. We would like to
be able to look for those stories."
Mongrel Media distributes the Canadian
version of The Corporation and is behind the
forthcoming Canadian release of Manufacturing
Consent (a film that sparked Dodds' career
in media and is the reason that she and The
Corporation's Mark Achbar first met.). Mongrel
also hooked up with Good Company on the
Vancouver-made Scared Sacred and Jesus Camp,
a scary documentary about the religious right in
the USA. Mongrel and Dodds also united on the
more recent Manufactured Landscapes—which
follows photographer Edward Burtynsky to
China, where he captures some truly stunning,
and.often horrifying, images of how industry is
transforming the planet.
More fun is Gary Burns' Radiant City. A sly,
incisive, and funny dissectionof suburbia, it won
the Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the
2006 VIFF and is running from April 6th through
12th at the Vancity Theatre. I loved it, and, having
grown up in Maple Ridge, found it depressingly
accurate. The film goes beyond the normal barrel-shoot, looking at urban planning, the semiotics of the suburbs, and peak oil—which is the
theme of another great documentary that played
last fest, A Crude Awakening. No surprise—the.,
ubiquitous Dodds is behind promoting that, too.
The full text of my interview with Ms. Dodds
is viewable on my blog, at alienatedinvancouver.
blogspot.com (she is baffled at my branding
myself thus). Be sure also to visit hellocool-
world.com and check out its various campaigns;
some of the proceeds from DVDs bought through
the site go to the Campaign for Corporate Harm
Reduction. 0
some research of his own, examining the actual economic
harm caused by Canadian piracy. He suggests that camcordering has a relatively minimal impact on the industry's bottom line, as the quality of these copies is generally very poor. Even when DVDs made by camcorder are
released, pirates quickly move on in search of illicit copies of the official DVD version, favouring the drastically
increased quality. He also suggests that while box office
numbers are dwindling, the movie industry's earnings
have increased overall. The ease and quality offered by
legitimate DVD home viewing could be keeping people out
of crowded, noisy theatres as much as the availability of
poorly recorded DVD bootlegs.
What about the existing law in Canada? Five years
in jail and a million dollar fine. That's the current maximum penalty for camcordering a movie for commercial
purposes. Still, Hollywood and U.S. senators are pushing
for tighter laws with stiffer penalties. The current law requires that prosecutors prove that the accused camcord-
erer intends to distribute the copy commercially, sticking
with our "innocent until proven guilty" values. One. of
the proposed changes would see that onus reversed, forcing anyone caught with a recording device in a theatre
to prove that they're not going to be selling a copy of the
movie.
We have to keep things in perspective here—we're
talking about movies. There already are stiff criminal
sanctions against camcordering. The problem is far less
severe than the movie industry would like to«admit, both
in terms of volume and financial impact. Producing and
selling DVD bootlegs is a crime. It should be a crime, and
those caught doing it should face criminal sanctions.
However, we have to be careful about how far we go to
limit this behaviour. The existing criminal sanctions are
tough, and doing things like reversing the burden of proof
is a dangerous challenge to the principles of liberty. Is preventing copyright infringement worth the risk to fundamental justice? &g*;<&iS
Tougher laws raise serious questions about what hon
est moviegoers will be able to do in the theatre. Cellphones
with video capabilities are almost universal now, and digital cameras capable of holding hours of video are common
as well. Will we be asked to check our gadgets at the ticket
counter? Why should we trust them with an expensive and
personal piece of electronics when they won't trust us not
to copy their film?
Perhaps the biggest problem is that when faced with
a challenge, the movie industry continues to treat its best
customers as its biggest enemies. Anyone who has gone to
see a film in the theatre in recent years has seen the carrot and stick of public service announcements featuring a
hard-working stunt worker asking us to think of his children before pirating films. These tear-jerkers are usually
paired with ads equating downloading films with purse
snatching and car theft. DVD releases feature similar PSAs
that are completely unstoppable, meaning that every time
you want to watch the Hollywood hit you paid $1.5 to
watch in a theatre or $30 to own, you have to sit through
a lecture about why copyright infringement is wrong.
There's a fundamental flaw in this model—if you pay for a
movie, you're actually getting a product that's worse than
what you'd have if you downloaded it or bought a DVD
bootleg.
What needs to change is the way studios do business. Right now the assumption is that if movie ticket
sales drop, it's because people are stealing movies. This is
deeply flawed logic. Maybe we're renting from Blockbusters
Maybe we're sick of overpriced popcorn and people chatting on their cellphones. Maybe we're playing video games
or reading blogs. Maybe the majority of movies being released are steaming piles of shit that are exceedingly unworthy of our attention. Come up with some ways to get
us back in the theatre. Give us the excitement of the early
days of the moving picture and moviegoers will return in
droves. Give us value that can't be downloaded and DVD
sales and rentals will increase. Changing laws can't make
up for years of disrespecting the customer, but a change
in attitude can. ft
Discorder 5 LOVE AND ROCKETS | THE COLD PANES OF SURFACES | JE/N BAUDRILLARD
LOVE AND ROCKETS
by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez
Fantagraphics
Love and Rockets isn't just some crappy band spun
out from gothic vanguards Bauhaus—the name originally comes from a comic series founded by two brothers
in California. Starting out with a series of magical realism stories, sci-fi, and some great cheesecake art, Jaime
and Gilbert Hernandez quickly gained notoriety as innovators within the underground comics genre. Over
the last 25 years, the brothers have gone from the new
guys on the scene to the pillars of the community; setting
new standards for storytelling. The brothers' status as
Mexican-American creators gives them a unique storytelling viewpoint otherwise lacking in the comics sphere.
While-they initially self-published their work, a copy of
their first book sent for review to the Comics Journal ended
up getting them published by a young maverick publisher,
Fantagraphics. To commemorate the 2 5th anniversary and
expose hew readers to the magic that is Love and Rockets,
Fantagraphics has re-collected the first storylines into two
affordable books, to be followed up by more collections reprinting the classic series. Maggie the Mechanic by Jaime and
Heartbreak Soup by Gilbert start the project on strong feet.
Jaime's early work on Love and Rockets was a mix of sci-fi
fun and serial adventure, which quickly shifted gears into
a dramatic, character-driven narrative. On first glance,
Locas, his ongoing storyline, is a mildly soap-operatic narrative focusing on a small group friends. On further enjoyment and examination, Jaime has created a series that
explores complex characters, seeking to understand their
faults and glories. In addition to his evocative storytelling,
one of my favourite things about Jaime's work is his ability
to draw perfectly. That may sound like an odd statement,
but it's true. I had the chance to look at an original page of
his work and it was pristine—no white, just an incredible
use of blacks. This collection is especially neat because it
details his development from a young, adventure comic-
influenced illustrator to a modern master. But don't just
go for the art; go for the story. The exploits of Maggie, a
young, broke, Latina punk rocker is a unique look into a
culture that most readers wouldn't otherwise experience.
All of the characters take on a life of their own, and it turns
out to be an incredible world spun from one man's mind.
While Jaime's work reflects his own life growing up in
California, Gilbert develops a whole new world of magic,
poverty, and a community in transition. Gilbert's creations
are based in the small Mexican village of Palomar, introducing us to unique characters and families that span a storyline over several generations. Gilbert's work is a little more
of a challenge to get into, but it's a challenge that satisfies.
The epic starts out with the introduction of the buxom
Luba. The dynamic sexuality of Luba sets the men in town
aU aflutter and emotions abound. In discussions about his
Palomar storyline. Gilbert has said that he wanted to show
people what life is like in a small poverty-stricken village in
Mexico. It's a whole different lifestyle, one that places great
importance on community and family. Throughout the dif- -
ferent struggles that face the community, people manage
to stick by each other. Over the last 25 years' Palomar has
developed from its small town roots to the big city, as the
lead characters move to LA and undergo the immigrant
experience. His ability to tell such a dynamic, complicated
story is no easy feat, and Heartbreak Soup is a must-read.
The work that Jaime and Gilbert have put together
has left a lasting influence on the comics industry. The
publishing of Love and Rockets showed other creators
a new way of doing comics. Without the work of a
couple of brothers from California, comics would be nowhere near as interesting as. they are today. And Daniel
Ash would have to find a different name for his band.
Remember to listen to the Inkstuds radio show every
Thursday at 2pm on CITR or online at www.inkstuds.
com, and be sure to check out my interview with Jaime
Hernandez.
by Robin McConnell
THE COLD PANES OF SURFACES
by Chris Banks
Nightwood Editions, 2006
There is a reason why the general public has a bad attitude
toward poetry. There is also a reason why poets are widely
regarded as insufferable, self-important drips—the kind of
individual you wouldn't want to be stuck talking to at a
party, for instance. That stereotype persists amongst even
highly literate people, and even though I sometimes call
myself a poet, I can't blame them. The reason is that books
like this one, from thirty-something Canadian poet Chris
Banks, continue to get published.
Nightwood Editions, the press responsible for this horrible
misstep, operates out of Gibsons, BC, and usually has a
very good reputation for putting out award-winning books
by young poets like Matt Rader, Elizabeth Bachinsky, and
Alayna Munce. The Cold Panes of Surfaces seems to have
been fairly warmly received elsewhere, but the list of unforgivable poetry crimes Banks commits in this slim volume is
long and painful. Hoe it is:
1) Writing poetry about the act of writing poetry.
Banks does this often, throughout, beginning with the
collection's first poem, "Divination," in which our attention is called to "the poem written there," in the poem's
last line. It is written in "moonlight's white / book," no less.
An important sub-crime is the namedropping of dead, canonical poets within the text. Banks seems particularly obsessed with Wordsworth and even offers "My Own Private
Tin tern Abbey." In this bland, grasping, modern-day pastiche of the English poet's most studied piece, Banks gives
us this gem: "But might it not also be that a river is a home
one recognizes / instantly, like to like, for its transitory nature, its beauty, / for the energy that pushes its current is
the same one / stirring our blood?" Come on. Brighter stuff
comes out of the mouths of first-year English Lit students
every day.
2) Trotting out tired Canadiana and pretending to
give it a fresh twist. This includes writing anything about
moose. Or hawks. As in "Ghost Moose" or "Red-tailed
Hawk Elementary School." While nature will always be
an inspiration to artists and writers, there is a way express
this fact without retreading ground that was last broken,
in this country, sometime in the 1940s.
3) Turning abstract nouns into proper nouns, complete with capital letters, as Banks does here with Ages,
Memory, Desire, and Natural Beauty. There is an air of
forced sanctity throughout the book that seems lodged
somewhere in the 18th century, along with'puffy sleeves
and consumptive gaze.
4) Stale fascination with Eastern culture. It seems that
Banks has TESL/TOEFL disease. He's apparently spent time
in Korea and/or Japan doing the English teaching stint so
common to overeducated Canadians, and he has managed
to come back with the weird notion f hat he can write about
a "Mountain Temple" or 15th century Buddhist poet-priest
Ikkyu without sounding like Captain Colonial.
5) Writing, as a young male poet, about maleness
and masculinity with absolutely no balls whatsoever.
Considering that currently Canada is teeming with awesome young male poets (e.g. David O'Meara, Ken Babstock),
I see this as the most heinous crime of the bunch. The
bleakest example is "Ghost Moose" (already guilty of other
crimes; see above) in which the speaker remembers seeing a
trio of hunters showboating over their kill. The stunningly
clunky lines "I know now such swagger is often just a cover
for the difficulty of male / friendships, the immunity some
men feel to suffering" plead with us to see some profundity
in the experience, but Banks' psychobabble is anemic and
awkward and downright embarrassing.
To be fair. Banks does present some interesting images
in places. A "cubist bear corpse" shows up in "Roadkill."
Insects have "hum-bucking bones" in "Tafelmusik."
But for the most part, this book confirms all the terrible
things about contemporary poetry I wish weren't still,
occasionally, true.
by Regan Taylor A SIMULATED LIFE
RIP Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007)
Jean Baudrillard's death on March 6th,
2007 unleashed a torrent of obituaries,
critical essays and blog posts about the importance of the man and his work. These
responses range from the hero worship of
theory geeks to brutally dismissive retorts
from the media and more "traditional"
philosophers. In many ways, this divisive
reaction is entirely predictable, and also
perhaps the only outcome that Baudrillard
would have seen fit.
That is, what people are mourning or
lambasting—to jack terminology from
the deceased—is the simulacrum of Jean
Baudrillard. Not unlike corporate culture,
" critical theory has become a giant battle
of brand names, in which substance is
overcome by surface. No matter how complex and nuanced the work of a thinker
like Baudrillard may be, it is invariably
reduced to an easily consumable idea, a
hyperreal image.' The varying reactions
to Baudrillard's death are as much a response to the post-industrial system that
constructs Baudrillard as they are measured considerations of the philosopher's
work on the Hyperreal. As a way to mark
his death, I'd like to discuss both of these
positions—the worship and the hate—to
consider a fuller picture of Baudrillard.
As far as I can tell, there are two major
, schools of the Baudrillard hate-on: those
who do not understand him and the people
who understand him all too well. In the
former category, I'd lump in all sorts of
critics from the media, the conservatives
and many humanist liberals. The media,
especially its English-speaking Western
incarnation, tends to equate Baudrillard
with his two "celebrity" moments: his famous pronouncement that the Gulf War
(the 1991-92 permutation) did not take
place, and his influence on The Matrix, a
film he hated and derided as "the kind of
film about the matrix that the matrix would
have been able to produce." By boiling
down Baudrillard to only these two facts,
the media reduces his contributions to
mere artifice, popular fluff and the absurd
ravings of an out-of-touch (is there any
other kind?) French philosopher. But those
moments are more than just misguided ad
campaigns for Baudrillard —they fit into
his- larger intellectual project of questioning the importance of the subject, turning
instead towards a study of the object (a
crucial and massive shift in philosophy).
Conservatives and liberals hate him for the
same reason: his soul-crushing and outwardly nihilistic view of the present, which
can be thought of as a postmodern counterbalance to Marshall McLuhan's hope for
technological salvation. If you think of the
modern world in terms of simulacra, simulations and hyperreality, you are, at once,
attacking both traditionally liberal views
of natural rights and humanism alongside conservative notions of tradition and
history. To put it another way, if he was a
rapper, Baudrillard would be Malice of the
Clipse, rather than, say, Young Jeezy. He'd
be much more interested in stark textures,
sinister style and gloomy beats than Jeezy's
inspirational demaira for us to seize the
will to power and make a difference. When
read through traditionally liberal and conservative viewpoints, Baudrillard's work is
unsettling because it rejects many of the
foundational premises of both political
wings.
The category of Baudrillard haters who
know him very well is much more complex, obscurant and unnecessarily academic, but it's important to get an overview of this side of the issue. Put simply,
Baudrillard existed outside of the centre of
continental philosophy for much of his career. He taught German before switching to
a position in sociology at the experimental
University of Nanterre, finally landing in
a more traditional place at the University
of Paris-IX Dauphine. By the time he
settled into the confines of this university,
he had already become a pop philosopher
and a burgeoning icon. Publication of
books like Forget Foucault (a short essay
that dismisses The Man of theory as well
as chiding the influential work of Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari) cemented his
status outside the locus of philosophy typified then by Foucault, Lacan and Derrida.
The overlords of continental philosophy
(and their students and acolytes) ruthlessly
poked holes in his thought, denouncing his
work as, well-written and poetic trifle—a
charge that Baudrillard himself levied at
Foucault.
The thing is, Baudrillard didn't really consider his work as philosophy but rather as
"theory fiction," a kind of creative writing
concerned with the most important issues
of the world (hyperreality, globalization, seduction) in a way that philosophy and critical theory has shied away from. It's probably best then to think about Baudrillard
as a convincing and talented author brand.
He was, in other words, neither a heroic
nor detestable figure, but a dystopic poet
trapped in a theorist's body, trying to make
sense of the ether of the Hyperreal. fr
by Graham Preston
SUNDAY APRIL 01 craftsman tattoo one year anniversary party:
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WEDNESDAY APRIL 11 tarkin, joey only outlaw band, sumner bros.
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SATURDAY APRIL H spm music presents: noize tribe zero cd release
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SUNDAY APRIL 15 sealed with a kiss presents the cave singers (ex-
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TUESDAY APRIL 17 indie folk night with Helena arlock, sean wesley .'
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happening: crocus blooms, winter thaws into the first jacketless day of March, yellow daffodils and seemingly harmless post-commitment coffees. It always starts this way,
but these innocuous springtime indications have the tendency to grow into ah enormous magnolia tree of rosy crush-fantasy blossoms before too long. Yes, I've been suffering from wintertime doldrums, but I swear my response to the new season is something
more than just recognition of colour and fairer weather. It's not just my imagination
or heightened sensitivity—Biology Eleven gave me at least enough scientific information to conclude that bright pink and yellow petals are unambiguous sexual signals,
each whispering "pollinate me." At any rate, alhthis seasonal responsiveness usually engenders a full-blown infatuation or two by the time the cherry trees have blossomed.
0
have noticed through my experience with seasonal sensitivity that spring romances
are subject to many of the same perils as cherry blossoms: at any time a barrage of
rain or a strong gust of wind threatens to shake springtime ecstasy to the pavement.
It's all about the thrilling extremities, either sweet consummation or an allergy attack brought on by errant pollen. And to be sure the real spring infatuation is limited to
a few short weeks, most of which will probably be rainy days spent inside languishing
and longing instead of loving—but when the sun is revealed, you're jacketless and your
fingers graze the one you adore, and it's clear that springtime is undeniably sublime.
<5
Can
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The Clean
Qjloa. dioruj.
Angel'in Heavy Syrup
Tiger Trap
<^ou. and Qjlle
My Bloody Valentine
%n^9oux8r
or all those who are equally affected by spring's clamouring, here's a bit of psychedelia to say
that I commiserate. I hope you find that it mirrors the kaleidoscopic maelstrom of this most
desirous of seasons. Here's to the possibility of springtime opening petal by petal. j)
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April 13
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May Slth
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{DIRECT YOUR LUSTY FIDGERS TO discorder.ca/ TO TRSTE THE fRUITS OF £PRIRG. <£ris
Derk
For a long time, nobody seemed too willing to explore the possibilities offered to indie rock by a solid
string section, except perhaps Montreal post-rockers
Godspeed You Black Emperor! Yet even then strings still
appeared an exception to the rule. These days, though,
scads of enthusiasts regularly pack sold-out solo performances by quirky musicians on interesting instruments, and not only by Canada's violinist laureate, the
ever-mentionable Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy.
These days, both Owen and his colleagues have a
better home in pop music than ever before. Not just there
to shade in the refrain of some Smashing Pumpkins hit,
classically-trained string musicians head the creative
class, balancing challenging and iconic personal projects
(think Patrick Wolf) with the arrangement of string parts
for larger art rock ensembles (Marika Anthony-Shaw of
both Arcade Fire and Belle Orchestre), Even rarer than
these tag-teaming musicians, though, are string enthusiasts willing to try their hand at just about any score.
Few musicians seem even capable of making the time for
the many genres and styles that colour the musical CV of
East Van's own persona cellist, Cris Derksen.
Currently a principle cellist of the UBC Symphony
Orchestra and well on her way to a Bachelor of Music,
Cris remains-a mainstay of musical collaboration in the
Lower Mainland and beyond, having recorded with the
likes of Rae Spoon, Kinnie Starr, Josh and Amber of Black
Mountain, Ladyhawk, E.S.L., The Approach, and Girl
Nobody, as well as Native composer Russell Wallace.
In a rare off-hour, Cris and I caught up on hercom-
ings-and-goings of another year rife with musical possibility, on the pros and cons of classical training, and on
striking a delicate balance between solo performance and
community involvement.
Fou did a whole lot in 2006, and will do a
whole lot more in 2007. What were last year's best
of the best?
Last year? Hmmm, I can barely remember last year.
The Folk Fest is always good. Vancouver Folk Fest. Oh,
Kanye West was 2006. So that was a good gig.
Is there a short list for the potential best project
of 2007.
Yeah, there's a show with Tanya Tagaq [at the
Vancouver East Cultural Centre in March], I'm going up
to Bamfield to a festival, and you have to get there on a
yacht. And then I [already] went to Calgary and stayed at
the Palhser Hotel. That was fancy.
Besides playing along a lot of different
avenues in Vancouver, you straddle a number of
different communities as a musician. What has been
your philosophy on and approach to musical multitasking?
Well, I want to be able to do it all. I think it's important to be flexible musically, and it gives you a lot more
enjoyment if you do a Uttle bit of everything. It's not like
I'm the best country cellist at all, but it's good to practice.
It's good to expand. I get that question a bit about straddling different communities, and I don't know, it just
makes me more employable.
Hear Cris Derksen and her cello at whoserecords.com/crisderksen or myspace.com/crisderksen.
Okay, cus
tomary question about the looping pedal in
two parts. Easy part first: what kind of pedals and gear do you use on stage when you
perform solo?
I use the Boss Loop Station,.it's like RXL20, and then
I use the Boss MU50, which is a basic effects pedal. I just
got it, like, last week. It has delays and chorus and octave
phaser, flanger, whatever. It's a got a Uttle bit of everything on it. -sllPIl
And looping pedal question part the second: how
were you inspired to join the litany of string instrumentalists who use one in their performances?
WeU, fuck. Okay, classical music is so linear, it's so
straight, one line, "this is the melody and that's about
it." Sometimes you play with other people and you get
harmony but it's very, very linear, and with-a loop station
it's more spherical. You can buUd on something and then
take it down too. It gives it more shape. It gives you way
more options.
On to quick facts. What plays through your
headphones most these days?
I just lost my discman. I was sad because it was my
favourite CD in it (actually, it was my roommate's CD).
On that was Kaki King and the Stars. And, ooh, Lori
Anderson. I've been listening to her a lot these days. Lori
Anderson is old school.
She's married to Lou Reed and she did all this looping
stuff before it was^reaUy possible.
She did it all in studio, and it's fucking rad.
She plays violin and, like, saxophone or something
weird. I don't know but she used a lot of looping
effects before they were easUy usable, which I find very
impressive.
Best performer or ensemble to support in
Vancouver this 2007? Besides you, except that you
might be involved in a bunch of them.
I want to say my friends. Better Friends than Lovers
are reaUy endearing. Oh, a good Vancouver act to
support is Amber and Josh [of Black Mountain].
Favourite place to play a cello?
My bedroom.
Degrees in music, yay or nay, and why?
Both. To get a degree in music is beneficial for the
technique that you gain by taking classical studies intensively. You learn a lot of technique, and all of the theory
is important, but it's not necessary. I want to straddle the
fence while saying that a classical degree is worth it. I
think it's only worth it to a point, and then you have to
make [music] your own. |)
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Discorder 13 The East Van-based group was formed by Besh just
over a year ago. "I started writing in Montreal and got
friends and family to pitch In, but the first real Greenbelt
began in Vancouver. Before then all the members had
just been forced to join in. We only played four or five
times before I moved out here to the west coast," says
the Ontario-born songwriter. "I felt that this idea I had to
form a big group could be a really great thing. I came out
here with it in mind that I would find people to join it and
just see what happened." Besides Besh, Jeff and Karina,
the group's current members include Geoff (guitar), Carly
(keyboard), Mike (guitar), Nicki, Robin, Jon and Sharon
(all playing various instruments). Other members occasionally rotate through the ranks, and guest appearances
from local luminaries Uke Ryan McCormick of CoUapsing
Opposites are not i
While a host of musicians from varying backgrounds
have played with the Greenbelt CoUective, one of the
band's distinct characteristics is that everybody in the
group sings. The force of their united voices creates an
irresistibly joyful and uplifting sound, unnervingly reminiscent of Christian music. Fortunately, in this case, there
is no reUgious motivation, campfires or bad sweaters; Ok,
there are the bad sweaters. Brimming with youthful exuberance and a playfulness that ignores any pretensions of
technicality, the music instead focuses on uncompUcated
and often repetitive songs with catchy melodies. But has
there been a conscious decision to make music in this vein?
"No," Jeff definitively states, "that's just the personaUty of
the people. Nobody is reaUy taking it too seriously; if they
were then they wouldn't fit in. I don't think we have a goal
in particular other than just to keep the band going."
Despite what Jeff says, they do of course have other
goals. One of the primary aims is to avoid the exclusivity
and sense of false celebrity that can be associated with be
ing in a band. By adopting an open door poUcy, Greenbelt
hopes to break down the barriers between audience and
band. While the group's underlying motive is to be ademo-
cratic and inclusive co-operative, rallying all ten members
together in pursuit of the same goal is a compUcated task.
"There are certainly key people," Besh says, and it's pretty
clear who she's talking about. "Besh is the sole lyricist and
writes all the basic songs. She usuaUy has a creative vision for the how the music is supposed to sound," observes
Karina. "Then the rest of us put in our suggestions and she
says 'mmmm, no. I was more thinking Uke this.' Musically
it is a collective, in the way that each person plays their
individual parts the way they feel is right, whilst bearing
in mind what works as a whole. Though the premise of
the coUective is that this is a democracy, there is a core
of influence, which is Besh and Jeff, her musical partner.
They bounce ideas off one another."
Jeff adds, "We do work as a coUective; I don't know
if they do all the time but every member should feel like
they are able to speak up and say what they want." Besh
agrees "I think it's true. It's still in the beginning of the
process, we know where we want it to be and people are
getting stronger as individuals." In the meantime, Besh
seems a Uttle reluctant to be the perceived leader of the
band. "I would say that eventuaUy it would be really great
if it wasn't needed, but it stiU is at this stage. I think once
people get more comfortable with playing their instruments the way they want to and start writing their own
songs, I'll be able to take a step back and we'll aU be able
to get more out of it."
The band has recently completed recording sessions for their first album at the legendary Hive studios
in Burnaby with engineer Jesse Gander. In addition to
the core members, the disc features guest performances
from feUow locals Ryan of CoUapsing Opposites on saxo
phone, Lise of Wintermitts on flute and two friends CaUa
and Chris, who flew all the way from the east coast to be
involved with the recording.
The thirteen-song album has the working title Our
Homes, and should be released sometime in May. Despite
the impending release date, the band isn't concerned
about finding a record label to put out the album for
them. "We've been doing-everything for ourselves"for so
long now that we may as weU keep on doing it that way,"
says Jeff. "I don't think we ever want to find ourselves in
the situation where we become lazy about things. If we
want to set up a tour, we'U set up a tour. We'd love to go to
Japan; we'd love to go to Europe." For now, the Greenbelt
CoUective wiU have to settle for their usual schedule of frequent performances around Vancouver and the exciting
prospect of a planned summer tour down the west coast
of the US.
Despite their cross-continental origins and itinerant
ambitions, the group's lyrics evoke images of community,
comfort and familiarity. With their welcoming attitude
and joUy disposition, the Greenbelt CoUective's music is
Uke a warm hug, a friendly embrace that instantly makes
you feel at home. For aspiring musicians, they offer
an alternate model for working as a band, and perhaps
even a place to come and play. AU this is neatly summed
up in their name, which Besh explains is a reference "to
the concept of greenbelt land, of protection, an isolated
safe area around something chaotic and crazy. "In a musical culture awash in cynicism and irony, the Greenbelt
CoUective is a welcome refuge.
By adopting an open door poUcy, Greenbelt hopes to
break down the barriers between audience and band. M GENERATION LOSSLES
BY CAROLINE WALKER
The 7th installment of Signal & Noise, VIVO (Video ■
In | Video Out)'s annual celebration of explorations
in media, will see the festival continue on its steady
trajectory towards increasing interdisciplinarity
and international presence. This progression has
prompted the name change from Video In to .the
>more ambiguous acronym VIVO because, according to an ad-libbed explanation, they are "more than
just video." Velveeta Krisp, the Festival Director for
this and the past four Signal & Noise festivals, adds
laughingly that the switch to VIVO is also an attempt
to "lose some of the weight of history," In the context of this year's festival theme, "Lost and Found," _W_*_W -^^wlst
a look to the past seems appropriate.
Like many readers, my own experiences with
the Video In have primarily been as a venue, and
I could plead complete ignorance to its history.
>i''*liP^i Likewise my experiences of Vancouver are largely
limited to a three year transplant and some vague knowledge of "Gassy Jack" and that Kitsilano used to be cool in the 60s. Needless
to say, I required an education in VIVO and Vancouver past stat in order to understand Signal & Noise's place in our current state of the
arts. To aid me in my quest to step beyond my immediate experience, I had the pleasure of sitting down with-Crista Dani, currently a
member of VIVO's board of directors and, more significantly, one of the founding members of the original Video Inn back in 1973,
After some research, I began to piece together some basic history. Active in the late 60s and early 70s, Intermedia was an informal
collective experimenting with collaboration and interdisciplinary work. Feeling that the times were right, Intermedia members Michael
Goldberg and Trish Hardman organized an international gathering of alternative video at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1973. The event
was called Matrix conference, and the admission fee was a videotape. Expecting only around 50-60 attendees, they were shocked
. to welcome over 160 from across Canada, the United States, Japan and Europe. A dozen of the Matrix attendees stayed on to found
the Video Inn and its umbrella organization, Satellite Video Exchange Society (SVES). Originally located at Powell Street on Skid Row
(an area that was the center of the Japanese business community before the internment camps of WWII) and starting with the initial
tapes acquired from Matrix, Video Inn began as a video library and resource center. The second "n" in Video Inn was a reference to the
building's former life as a rooming house, and the fact that a few members of the Video Inn (including Dahl) made the space their home."
Initially driven to the location by the affordable rent, the mixture of repeated flooding from bad plumbing, cockroaches and an apathetic
" landlord forced them to move to Yaletown in 1986 and change the name from Video Inn to the more familiar Video .In. As Yaletown
morphed from a desolate warehouse district to a highly fashionable area with a price to match, yst another move was required. 1993
saw the move to the current locale at T965 Main Street. (There may in fact be a move in the near future. Rent is expensive at the Main
Street location, and negotiations for a new home are currently underway with the Woodward's developers).
In Dahl's words the early Video Inners felt they were going to "spread art culture and social change all over the world." She laughs
as she relays this token encapsulation of the late 60s' artist society. However, she retains the idealism of her youth, and when speaking
of political activism she takes a tone .that only someone who has lived it can. Bom in Seattle, Dahl was active in the San Francisco of
beatnik and Haight-Ashbury fame, but left America in 1968 on account of the Vietnam War. Her story is not unlike that of many others
attracted to Vancouver in the 1960s.
It was different then. In the world of video art
Vancouver was a pioneer, aided by the legitimacy
that came with the early support of the VAG, the
site of that seminal Matrix conference. (That would g>%®^
soon change; a clear example of the shift occurred
in 1984 when the VAG cancelled a video installation
entitled Confused: Sexual Views. In response, Paul
Wong, seminal Video Inner and one of the artists
working on the installation, unsuccessfully launched
a suit against the VAG—the first Canadian artist to
sue an art institution). Indeed, the Vjdeo Inn itself,
along with the National Film Board's Le Videographe
in Montreal, was to be one of the first publicly funded
alternative video centers in Canada. In a city with an
infantile desire to make an impression on the world
stage with the 2010 Olympics, it is not customary
The very medium of video, in which so much hope was invested, has become a pacifying force. for Vancouverites to think of .'themselves as global leaders in
anything, but when it comes to the history of video art we can
honestly stake a claim.
The medium of video was bom in a climate of activism
and the rising women's movement, Its lack of history and low
cost (not always true) made it very appealing to those looking
to create a new social order. The goal was to get this tool
into the hands of the masses and to democratize information.
At the Inn's inception, video was new and novel. This was
the medium of the future, and the invention of the Portapak
(the first portable video recording device) put that future in
the hands of the people. It is difficult to imagine now—with
practically anyone being able to communicate ideas in moving
images—the novelty of this new medium. I imagine'it must
have been like the first time you caught your form on a security
camera and became enamoured with the gaze of big brother.
As I look back at the Signal & Noise programs of past
years, the theme of political and social commentary continues,
albeit in a less direct form. When I ask Dahl how the representation of political art has changed, she contends that the'
biggest change is not with the art itself, but rather the support
it receives. The world has changed a lot since the Video Inn
was first conceived, and one profound difference is our media.
We are now free to create our own realities as we please—to
watch or not watch what we choose. Self-created realities
couple with the contradictions of urban life to breed social
disconnection and esqapist tendencies. The very medium of
video, in which so much hope was invested, has become a
pacifying force. Real activism and desire for change is relegated to the margin, while its superficial details are immediately
patented and made for sale-. But as Dahl says, art represented
in festivals like Signal & Noise "has to happen somewhere."
It would be a gross misinterpretation to assume that the
name change to VIVO is the Video In's attempt to leave its
history behind. The new name is a way to reflect the current
state of new media. While video will always be a part of VIVO,
it would not be in the spirit of the organization to remain tied
to it. The group's 34-year evolution has been a delicate process of moving ahead, not being held back by history but
not forgetting it either. The early tapes are invaluable, yet also
ephemeral. The nature of the tape is to decay, a process expedited by infrequent viewing. It is this that brings Dahl, now
in her 70s, back to VIVO. With the help of a grant from UBC
she's taking on the massive job of digitizing the old tapes, in
the hope that more people will see these works that range
from naive to prophetic.
Inspiration continues to be derived from the past. As
Signal & Noise morphs and develops, the festival remains attached to the ideals of VIVO's founding members. When the
group began, the newness of video meant that early pioneers
approached the medium from other disciplines like painting,
sculpture and performance. Interdisciplinarity has been there
from the start, and is still manifest in the Signal & Noise selections. At the first Signal & Noise in 2001, the majority of
the selections were local video productions. In recent years,
the festival has seen video retreat to make way for more installations, performance art and interventions. Audio plays an
increasingly large part of the festival, though not audio that
most music listeners outside of the small electroacoustic community will be accustomed to. The playback pieces (those that
are not performed live) will be presented in 8-channel diffusion, an overpowering sensory experience.
An increasing international presence at Signal & Noise
also hearkens back to the early days of Matrix and the Video
Inn's role as a facilitator of global tape exchange. Now in 2007,
submissions to Signal & Noise come in from all over the worid,
notably from countries with governments that are supportive of
the arts. Last September the Harper government announced
cuts to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade for Public Diplomacy, shrinking the funds available to
promote international exchange of Canadian arts and culture.
(This "cut" is actually a withdrawal of $11.9 million over 2
years—removal of all discretionary funds above the meager
base budget). It will remain to be seen if this has any impact on
the activities of VIVO or related artist productions, but it is hard
to imagine that it would not with artists competing for the same
grant money. In Krisp's words, "If you think about the heirarchy
of 'the arts', where does interdisciplinary art fit? Where does
media art fit?"
While doing outreach and trying to get financial support
for the festival, Krisp was surprised to find out how many people in Vancouver are still unaware of VIVO or Signal & Noise,
despite the fact that word has managed to get to Europe.
Chalking it up to the -Canadian classic," she illustrates the
point with reference to acclaimed Canadian director Guy
Maddin. "When his last big feature, The Saddest Song in the
World, came out it played in Vancouver theatres for maybe a
week. Yet someone was telling me that it plays art house theatres in San Francisco and New York for months—and there
are line ups." The ongoing struggle of getting Canadians interested in Canadian art is not made easier, at least in the case of •
Signal & Noise, by the local media. Aside from an article in the
Discorder last year, there was no press covering the festival.
However, the media blackout hasn't stopped festival* attendance from growing each year. Last year was well-attended
and the most successful to date. Krisp attributes this, and
rightly so, to the posters. The power of that form of low-tech
communication is quite amazing.
Part of the appeal of the festival resides in its collective
nature. In an attempt to make the festival as democratic as
possible, submissions are judged for inclusion by jury members with diverse backgrounds in the arts, including many
experienced in multimedia and interdisciplinary work themselves. During the selection process Krisp ensures the jury
remains blind to artist identity, so that rejection or selection
will be determined by the work itself and-not preconceptions.
Established artists and those emerging from their basement
cocoon for the first time are shown side by side. The final
count sees almost 50 artists represented over the last weekend of April, and the lack of focus on any one artist gives the
festival a casual atmosphere without much pretense. After, all
is said and done, Signal & Noise is a festival, and people go to
festivals to have a good time. What the new media will be and
whether the world will be changed for better or worse because
of it is*impossible to know. Consider Signal & Noise to be an
offering of possibility.
It is important to move forward but retain our connection
with the past. The history of VIVO, formed around ideas of
exploration and integration, is a robust one. The collective behind the organization will continue to experiment, and likely will
continue to exist on the fringe. Yet the fringe offers freedom,
and freedom (the real kind) is where change starts. I'll end by
quoting seminal Video Inner Michael Goldberg's essay entitled
"Before the Generation Loss," a piece that seems quite fitting
today. "I have no illusions that bits and bytes will successfully
communicate our realities, nor that the currently touted electronic information superhighway will inherently change our lives
for the better. Nonetheless, the need for creative expression,
and a desire to use moving images to bring about meaningful
change in an imperfect world, must be a real presence in the
upcoming digital media environment."
Signal and Noise runs from Thursday April 19th to
April 21st centered at Video In Studios (1965 Main Street).
v. signalandnoise. ca
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Discorder 21 AND DONKEYS
al
LU
I
o
BY ALLAN MACINNIS
TIM RAY
The recent reunions of Vancouver punk/
pop bands the Subhumans, the Pointed
Sticks, the Furies and the Modernettes
make it a great time to check in with Tim
Ray. Tim Ray and AV's 1977 track "Time
Waves" was the first self-released single
by an independent Vancouver band. The
band's subsequent seven-inch AVEP was
picked up by Quintessence, and stands as
the legendary label's first release. Ray's
band members included a pre-Pointed
Sticks Bill Napier-Hemy and avant-guitar-
ist (and later Straight columnist) Alexander
Varty. "Dying in Brooklyn," which Tim
describes as a song about "the unrest in
suburban living," is memorable enough
that Liquid Screen, a Japanese band who
opened for the Pointed Sticks last summer,
included a cover of it in their set. This was
much to the delight of the tune's co-writer
Napier-Hemy, who was standing backstage at the concert thinking, "Hey, I know
this song..."
Ray is more than just a piece of local history. After the scene here dwindled, he spent
1982 in Paris, then formed the anti-folk
band Big Yank in New York. Ray describes
anti-folk music as a "combination of punk
and folk," a style Beck was associated with
around the time of Mellow Gold. Ray's last
concert was in 1987 at CBGB's. Since then,
he has changed his creative output to focus
on the finer arts. An abstract expressionist painter and a "self-described outsider
artist," Ray is also an experimental filmmaker, whose assemblages of "found film
and scratched film," drawn from 1950's
sci-fi and horror films, game shows, Three
Stooges episodes, low-budget porn, and .
static have played behind the likes of Pere
Ubu, the Reverb Motherfuckers, and the
Butthole Surfers, and graced film screens
across the continent.
Noteworthy as all this is, I don't get really
excited about the interview until Ray gives
me a tape of as-yet unreleased songs from
various sessions in the 1980s. Trust me:
the best music by Ray has been heard by
very few people in this town. The Big Yank .
stuff in particular gets me grinning widely.
It's pretty far out there, with samples of
voices, radios, and distorted orchestral in-
tros; semi-tuned acoustic guitars, jaggedly
strummed or plucked; near-incoherent
vocals with impressionistic lyrics; and a
deranged playfulness and passion throughout. So, was Ray dropping a lot of acid back
then, or what?
He laughs. "Well I've done my fair swag of
drugs in my time, but no, I wasn't doing
anything then!-We had a bit of marijuana
I think, but that was about it. Everybody
was clean in the band." I marvel at this.
"It's really fucked up music!"
Ray proudly responds, "It is, isn't it! It's the
most fucked-up eccentric stuff I ever did!
Even by today's standards, it's still pretty
different." Tim notes the similarities to
the work of Daniel Johnston, though he
was completely unaware of Johnston at
the time.
There's a particularly interesting story
behind one tune, "Taming of the Donkey."
"Well, the donkey is the democratic thing,
just donkeys and hee-haws and all that
sort of anarchy of a donkey," Ray says, a
tad opaquely. "It was the story of how a
gentrified area had a waterfall in it, and a
building? And the building was ruining the
waterfall - so they had to take the building,
pull it down and save the waterfall. So it
was saving nature, rather than man-made
structures. I kinda related to that story and
then I wrote a song around it." How does
that connect with the Democrats? "Well,
I kinda crossed over a bit—there's a bit of
this, a bit of that. I just sorta melded it all
into one. It didn't have to be literal."
Also on the tape are some stunning new
wave pop tunes from the early 1980s, featuring Varty and Ray on guitars, Marty
Higgs on bass, Ron Cargil on drums, and
Peter Helliwell on keyboards. The music,
produced by Ron Obvious, reminds me of
Devo, early Talking Heads, and even the B-
52s, but it's just challenging enough that it
would probably have scared off most radio
listeners back in the day. "I like to be ahead
of the times," Ray shrugs. Good as it is,
most of this material remains unreleased.
"I didn't really listen to other punk/new
wave bands too much," Ray says, when I
ask about influences. "In the beginning, I
sort of did, because it was such a turn-on,
right? My whole upbringing, I was listening to Iggy Pop and Roxy Music, and everything from The Who to Jimi Hendrix. And
Jonathan Richman. I was sort of naturally
being primed for the new wave movement
in my high school days. And I did like the
Talking Heads, the first two records were
really good. But by that time, 1980,1 was
sort of trying to do my own thing, and I
didn't really want to be influenced." He
concedes that a bit of his roots showing
through was inevitable. "I was only 23,
right? When you're young, you tend to
wear your influences on your sleeve a bit
more." Varty and Napier-Hemy also cite
Television as a band they all liked.
I ask Ray if there were any high points from
playing music in Vancouver. "The John
Cale tour was very good," he tells me. "We
did Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, on
the Honi Soit tour. He had a full-on rock
band." Interested readers can check out
much of the music from the tour on the
John Cale Comes Alive LP. "It was a really
good little tour, actually. [Cale] wasn't really friendly—I think that was during one
of his alcoholic stages. He's had a few
substance abuse stages where he's a bit
anti-social, but it turned out okay. We were
pretty smug, but he bought us some beers
and acknowledged us."
The Commodore branch of that tour is
Varty's favourite memory of performing live with Ray. "This was during Cale's
'Dirty Ass Rock 'n' Roll' phase," Varty says,
"and rather than drag out the Marshall
Stacks and try and go up against him volume for volume, we played with little tiny
Fender Champ amplifiers—basically the
smallest tube amplifiers available, and that
was a band that had Ray, myself, and Scott
Harding all playing guitar. So it was great
fun. We just came out with these sorta
lunchbox-sized amplifiers and put them on
stools and had a great show."
Napier-Hemy also has a fond memory of
playing live in AV, opening for Patti Smith
at the Commodore. "I really admired her,
and she was standing by the side of the
stage while we were playing. I was doing
my zombie routine—I had my khaki work-
shirt on and I wasn't moving around, I was
being very stoic. And when we came off
stage Patti Smith complimented me on the
way I moved. I still to this day don't know if
she was being sarcastic or not," Bill laughs.
"But anyways, she spoke to me, which I
was all excited about!"
It struck me as interesting that, in terms
of his painting, Ray chooses to call himself
an outsider artist. I know from a past interview with the Minimalist Jug Band that not
all people labeled thus appreciate the term.
"Yeah, outsider art was one of the things
that had cropped up in the Zeitgeist in New
York. Outsider art was very cool, and a lot
of people say, you're self-taught, you're an
outsider, so that sorta stuck with me. I have
my own style of drawing. I use tissue and I
don't use a brush." Ray applies the ink to
toilet paper and uses his fingers inside the
tissue to draw. "It's a bit of a technique—
you can use your fingers inside the tissue
and get different effects from the ink, you
can dot it and splash it around and all that
kinda stuff. It works out good." Ray recently had a show at at the JEM Gallery (225
East Broadway) and those who missed it
can check out his paintings at the Naam
starting in May.
A final note: Varty tells me that he is "madly dying to do something," so if anyone is
in need of a "crazed guitarist," seek him
out. And if anyone is interested in facilitating the release of some really exciting music—from shoulda-been new wave hits to
completely unbankable but marvellously
fucked up anti-folk—seek out Tim Ray. He's
been working on putting together two reissues for some time, and has some amazing
surprises in store for the right listener. £)
Xro- m
MARCH 24
Commodore Ballroom
When Subtle took the stage there was a sense of
mystery in the eyes and utterances of the soon to be perspiration-brushed crowd. The band's set, which featured
sardonic jokes and bordered on performance art, soon
had the uninitiated craving more. For those already familiar with Subtle, the liveliness and surprising proficiency
with which the band transferred their complicated recorded sound had much the same effect. Adam "Doseone"
Drucker's ability to control the audience with his socially
charged narratives and manic movements was fascinating,
as was his disturbing delivery of the set-closing Shellac
cover "A Prayer to God." Subtle is interesting and innovative in much the same way TV on the Radio were around
three years ago. ■ "^>_$$
Perhaps TV on the Radio opened their set with "Young
Liars," a song from their early career EP of the same name,
for a reason. Less than seven months removed from their
last Vancouver experience, there was a noticeable difference in the popularity (and attendees) of the show. Fans
reaching on stage to swipe set lists, people insolently pushing their way towards the stage, and perhaps my own peculiar ploys to get them to play 'Ambulance" didn't seem
to impress the band. Largely thanks to the consistency
with which Return to Cookie Mountain graced the top of
2006 best album lists, TVotR have attained a level of fame
they probably never anticipated. Yet lead vocalist Tunde
Adebimpe still gushes gratefully and bounces around
stage fluttering his hands, the incredible vocal harmonies between him and Kyp Malone are still present, and
the band still have an almost unparalleled sound that is
remarkably good live. Which makes the hype inescapable,
and the band worthy of all the acclaim.
Pddraig Watson
REA
i
1
Photo by
Freddy H.
MARCH 3
Fulford Inn
Salt Spring Island
For those who are dub challenged, the layman's definition describes dub music as a bass-heavy version of reggae, with instrumentais laden with echo and reverb. Such a classification is far too narrow for Twilight Circus, who vastly expand
the scope of the genre. Twilight Circus albums are recorded live, vinyl is pressed in
Austria and live shows are presented DJ-style courtesy of Ryan Moore. Based out
of the Netherlands, Moore's Twilight Circus is currently on a North American tour
culminating in Los Angeles, where he opens up for George Clinton. Moore most
likely considers this upcoming performance on March 14 at the Dub Club in LA as
somewhat akin to the Holy Grail.
After a Ferris Bueller-style jeep race to catch the 5:00pm Schwartz Bay ferry,
we finally arrived at the Fulford Inn at approximately 8:00p.m. to find Moore tending to the musical apparatus (including some turntables to die for). After greeting the Dub Messiah the proceedings turned to'Salt Spring Pale Ale and homemade
Buffalo Jerky (had to eat something on the ferry).
Moore started the show shortly thereafter and
didn't let up until a little after 1:00am. Crediting such
influences as John Henry Bonham, Carol Kaye and
Sir Paul, Moore's performance was an inspiring sonic
assault. Consider his latest release, Rasta International,
which was partially recorded at the Mecca of recording studios, namely Tuff Gong studios in Kingston,
Jamaica. An apt snapshot of what lurks within that album could be heard on "Stand Up & Fight", as Moore's
bass roved like a phantom, dropping out at times (except
you're not entirely sure if it does) only to come back unexpectedly with renewed force. Both live and on record,
Moore's dynamic approach embraces intuition, tem
pered with a cautionary
view of new technology.
For Moore, flexibility is
a valued good, and the
quality of the song and
musical ideas are paramount.
As for the audience
response, Moore single-
handedly transformed
the sleepy Fulford Inn
into a hotbed of freaks
from all demographics,
brimming at full capacity. Internationalism
at its finest. Move over
Bono, move over Kofi,
and make way for a true
internationalist with
"dub teeth". While our
existence is rife with
uncertainty, one can
always be certain of an
eventual death, high
taxes and, after watching Twilight Dub Circus,
Moore's unconditional
mastery of the dub
genre. Dario Raymond
AL ZOMBIE!
Discorder 23 REALjl
<pcTiorru
U ...CONTINUED 1
A few weeks ago my
mom, sister and I went to
see Van Morrison at GM
Place; it was one of the
weakest shows I've been to.
Van looked as though he
had been woken up from
a nap when he rolled out
onto stage, he didn't once
address the crowd, and—
though his sax playing was
great—his voice sounded
pretty rough (or maybe he
was just slurring the lyrics, which would explain
the grogginess).. He left the
stage, two thirds of the way
through "Gloria," exactly
(to the second!) 90 minutes
into the show. People booed
and left feeling ripped off.
Maybe Van was having an off night. Still, as a
fan of Moondance and Astral
Weeks, it was a tough show.
Maybe it was naive to hope
to hear "Madame George"
or "Everyone," but to only
get "Moondance" and then
a bunch of songs I wasn't
crazy about (including a
country version of "Have
I Told You Lately," argh)
made me wary of seeing
artists whose output from
the '60s and '70s is what
made me a fan.
The Zombies' show
a couple of weeks later
couldn't have been more
different. Colin Blundstone
and Rod Argent, two of the
original Zombies, are both
older than Van Morrison,
yet they put on an amazing show. Colin's voice still
sounds as beautiful and
wistful as it did forty (!)
years ago, and keyboardist'
and chief Zombies songwriter (along with bassist Chris White) Rod was
full of energy, even if his
'fro is looking a little grey.
They rounded out their
lineup with Rod's cousin on
bass (ex-Kinks bassist Jim
Rodford), Jim's son Steve
on drums and gun-for-hire
guitarist Keith Airey, who—
though a bit of a ham—was
fun to watch.
I imagine there are a
whole bunch of reasons
why The Zombies were more
excited to be in Vancouver
than Van Morrison. They
hadn't played here since
1965 and they broke up
in 1967, shortly after recording their masterpiece,
Odessey and Oracle. They
haven't had the chance to
get scornful of audiences
and become curmudgeons.
A few songs into the
show Rod announced they
would play five songs off
of Odessey and the crowd
freaked out. Hearing "Care
of Cell 44" live is not an
experience I'll soon forget.
"This Will Be Our Year,"
performed live only a few
times since it was recorded
forty years ago, was especially poignant. When
they played "Time of the
Season," they brought
down the house.
They also played
a bunch of songs from
Colin's solo albums, and
Argent, the band that Rod
founded after The Zombies
folded. The whole "show
was great and the band
was incredibly gracious,
fun and tight. If they come
back to town in the next 42
years, you should definitely
see them. If you want to
.see Van Morrison in action, rent The Last Waltz.
Duncan McHugh
At the tender age of
73, Phill Niblock maintains an impressive touring
schedule, putting on shows
with decibel levels befitting
those less than half his age.
Active as a composer, photographer and filmmaker
since the 1950s, he is often
referred to as "the forgotten
rninimalist" who, unlike
most of his contemporaries (Philip Glass, Steve
Reich, et al.), creates sound
works that remain true to
the idiom's form.
Bearing minimalism's
trademarks of formalis- .
tic purity and theoretical
rigor, his long-form studies
use single-mic source tones
from acoustic instruments
like recorder, cello and
e-bowed acoustic guitar.
Originally working with
tape, he now layers sound
files via laptop into dense,
singular drones at rock 'n'
roll volumes which, over
time, reveal microtonal
variations hidden within.
Niblock, along with
saxophonist Thomas
Ankersmit (whose CV
includes collaborations
with Jim O'Rourke, Kevin
Drumm and Keith Rowe—
plus he's an impressive
circular breather to boot),
encouraged the audience
to wander freely in the
sonorous acoustic space
of Saint Andrew's Wesley
Church, so tones could
waver with a turn of the
head as four twenty-minute works played out like
time-stretched exhalations,
hovering between stasis
and motion.
Those who wished
to remain seated could
watch projections from
The Movement of People
Working, Niblock's single-
take films of menial labour
around the world.
Initially puzzling,
the visual and the auditory didn't seem to sync up.
Footage of people mending nets, loading crates
and forging horseshoes
seemed didactic, even arbitrary, when coupled with
such impressively large
sounds. Although it would
have been more satisfying to listen without the .
visual distraction—in the
same way that Francisco
Lopez uses pitch-black
rooms and blindfolds for
his multi-channel anxiety
attacks—the sheer mass of
Niblock's work ultimately
served to maintain focus on
the simple matters at hand.
One was free to watch, close
their eyes and lose time,
alternate between earplugs
and listening to it raw (two
very different experiences)
or move around freely to
examine the interplay of
sound and architecture
while headlights on Nelson
flashed through stained
glass.
Nowadays, drone
comes cheap, whether via
complacent ambient bliss,
quasi-mystical appropriation of Eastern idioms or in
the sludgy (and AWESOME)
theatrical nihilism of
SunnO))). More akin in
spirit to the fluorescent
lights and piled bricks of
visual minimalists Dan
Flavin and Carl Andre,
Niblock's presentation was
experiential rather than
experimental, activated by
the audience's participation in the work. In other
words, it rocked. Slowly.
Christopher Olson
+ fT/lffL ^RHTRSV
i jpmoosH
Orpheum Theatre
^Rmy
A mostly-empty Orpheum greeted the teen/pre-teen
duo of Smoosh. Admittedly, a lot of their appeal came from
their young age: watching the drummer's face light up in
a smile several times per song after nailing some part, or
other, or noticing the pint-sized bass player—even younger
than the two others—who added to a few songs before
scampering offstage. Still, the band had enough twee-pop
hooks to make their set a good one. I wish I could have been
as creative with a keyboard or drum set at that age.
: Meanwhile, Final Fantasy was dazzling, with Owen
Pallett slowly building up a virtual orchestra of repeating
violin parts with his looping effects pedals. It all worked
to glorious effect as his plucks, scratches, and strums arranged themselves into delicate, immaculate compositions.
His compatriot Steph added visual flair by projecting artsy
drawings and cutouts on an old-fashioned overhead projector. A beautiful rendition of John Cale's "Paris 1919"
topped off a brilliant display of talent and ingenuity. '
At long last, we were presented with the four scrawny lads of Bloc Party and their twangy, emotive repertoire. Matt Tong's frenetic drumming anchored "Positive
Tension"'s rhythmic art-punk, while Gordon's bass work
had a forceful impact on the blasting choruses of "Waiting
for the 7:18" and "The Prayer". Softer, swaying crooners
like "Blue Light" and "Sunday" also played a major role in
providing respite from the more frantic tunes.
It's unfortunate that the band's rapid ascendance has
led them to employ some tactics that are a tad distasteful.
Inviting kids up onto the stage for a big dance party at the
end of "Helicopter" didn't seem to suit the song. Frontman
Kele was constantly eliciting cheers from the crowd, as if
to prove to himself that his popularity hasn't quite run
out yet. But despite the populist antics, there were musical
high points around every corner, with "Like Eating Glass"
feeling truly epic and "She's Hearing Voices" turning into
a stomping, show-stopping rager.
Sure, this much-anticipated show had its flaws,
but the intensity those indie heroes put on display was
thrilling and energizing in a way that few among the
sold-out crowd are going to forget any time soon.
Simon Foreman 11
fiERi/Hl RPD flELL \
3 gr/EGRDETH
+ po_un
MARCH 11
Pacific Coliseum
"That was the most
Metal thing I've seen in my
entire life!"
Those were the sentiments of most of the packed
crowd at the Coliseum as
drummer Vinnie Appice,
bassist Geezer Butler, singer
Ronnie James Dio and the
heavy metal architect Tony
Iommi bowed and walked
off the stage after playing
their first concert together
in fifteen years. For those
sweaty club downtown,
they would have been the
headliners, since they are,
after all, a southern metal
supergroup featuring ex-
members of Pantera, singer Phil Anselmo and bassist
RexBrown, guitarist Pepper
Keenan of Corrosion of
Conformity and Crowbar
guitarist Kirk Weinstein
and drummer Jimmy
Bower. The band pummeled
the crowd with relentless
riffing while Anselmo, one
of the most respected metal
vocalists in the last twenty
years, grunted to the brash
tunes like a possessed man.
In their all-too-brief stint
on stage these "young
upstarts" nearly stole the
on the band rested almost
exclusively on Mustaine for
the entire set, leaving the
other members to play in
the dark. To any Megadeth
fan this should come as no
surprise, since the band
has always been Dave
Mustaine's beast. The band
is a revolving door of the
most talented musicians
in metaldom. This time
around the band featured
bassist James Lomenzo, replacing long-time member
David Ellefson, as well as
Canadian brothers Glen
and Shawn Drover on
guitar and drums, respectively.
The night seemed to
have reached a high point
slow, doomy opening riff
of "After AU (The Dead)"
when the house lights
came on and all 5"4' of the
57-year-old Ronnie James
Dio pounced off the drum
riser like some sort of tiny
demon spawn. The audience responded accordingly and proceeded to go
insane.
The band played a
riveting set, with all of the
legendary members playing the marvelously heavy
music they are renowned
for. The throbbing bass
of Geezer Butler perfectly
complimented and anchored the powerful power
chord riffing and piercing
solos of Iommi. These two
band's dark music. Vinnie
Appice was the only weak
link of the performance
with his by-the-num-
bers drumming. Appice
drummed solidly, but nothing he did compared to Bill
Ward's exciting freewheeling, jazz-tinged style.
Of course, a true night
of heavymetalmagic would
not be complete without
some ridiculous lyrics, and
Heaven and Hell did not
disappoint in this regard.
All metal bands have some
cringe-inducing lyrics Oust
ask Mustaine about what's
inside "Hangar 18" to understand) but Dio really
has no competition here.
The chorus to almost every
your dreams" from the
song "Heaven and Hell."
The thing is that Dio is such
an extraordinary singer
and such an exciting, albeit short, frontman that
he makes even the most
absurd lyrics sound like a
revelation.
Before returning for
an encore, Heaven and
Hell finished off the show
with their namesake song,
the only song in their
repertoire that stands
shoulder-to-shoulder
with anything in the
Classic Sabbath catalogue.
Beginning with a slow,
moody riff, the song hearkens back to older Sabbath
but never sounds like a
who haven't heard the
explanation, Heaven and
Hell is the Dio-era lineup of
Black Sabbath (the first
lineup of many after their
split with Ozzy in 1978)
who chose to tour under
the name of their first
album together (Heaven
and Hell) in order to avoid
confusion with the original
Black Sabbath.
The show started off
with ah explosion of noise
from the opening band
Down. If this were a packed,
show from the metal legends that were to follow.
Megadeth took the
stage soon after, appearing in front of an ecstatic
crowd who may have mistook them for the headliners of the evening. Dave
Mustaine may have made
the same mistake as he
lead his crack session
band through a number
of classic and brand-new
Megadeth tunes that set the
Coliseum on fire. The two
Spotlights shining down
after Megadeth. Hell, they
even played an encore: not
bad for the openers. Indeed,
many people seemed to be
leaving before Heaven and
Hell even came on stage.
These people missed out
on a wild ride. The stage
was shrouded in darkness
when a spotlight shone
down upon Tony Iommi
standing stoically in a long,
black leather trench coat, a
cross around his neck and
his jet black Gibson SG in _
hand. He began to play the
original members work
so well together and their
second-to-none guitar
teamwork fueled the powerful rockers like "Voodoo,"
"Lady Evil," "The Mob
Rules" and the heaviest of
them all, the encore "Neon
Knights." Dio's voice may
have been the most powerful instrument of the entire
night, as it sounded better
now than Ozzy's voice did
twenty years ago. Singing
with intensity and passion,
his voice soared over the
song is the title repeated
ad nauseum or yelled once
with a lot of emphasis. The
verses often fare less well,
as Dio has a tendency to
sing about dungeons, dragons and children of the
sea. One of the lines Dio
seems most proud of (it's
on the backs of the concert
T-shirts) is "They say that
life's a carousel/Spinning
fast, you've got to ride it
well/The world is full of
Kings and Queens/Who
blind your eyes and steal
retread. With Geezer's
simple but powerful bass
and Iommi's never-ending collection of great
riffs and licks that build
to a speed metal freak-out
at the end, it is in many
regards the perfect Black
Sabbath song. However, I
can't imagine Ozzy singing it, because "Heaven
and Hell" belongs to Dio as
much as the devil horns do.
Brent Mattson
Seylynn Hall hf-iHt: ^HHHH
I returned for the first time in around a year to the
little popularity contest they call Seylynn Hall to see one of
the only bands that could drag me back there, Fake Shark
- Real Zombie! They always put on a colourful and extremely entertaining show, but on this night in particular
they poured all their energy into one of the best performances I've seen in a long while. Sporting a new bassist
■<f.ERL EOmBIE!
' who thrashed and danced his way through the entire set, they were tighter than ever. Vocalist Kevin
Maher always grabs the crowd arid holds their attention, and he didn't disappoint. His stage antics
are a little loopy and were clumsily complimented
by guitarist Louis Wu's acrobatics. At one point in
the middle of the show Wu climbed up onto a platform above drummer Malcolm Holt, and jumped
clear over him. It was dangerous, and it was totally
rock 'n' roll.
For the first time in what seems like forever, kids danced like
clapping monkeys in a ©fonder without caring what they looked
like or who saw them. FSRZ killed it. Their sound is fresh, unlike anything out there right now. Check out Fake Shark at the
Lamplighter on the 31st before they leave for an international
tour—you won't be disappointed. SarahFischer j) The Belushis
Thunderballs
(Independent)
This sophomore album from one of Vancouver's rudest of
booze bands invites the many cliches of rock 'n' roll: loud,
liquored, ballsy, irreverent, thundering and clearly only
here for a good time. Thunderballs is a decent approximation of the all-out aural abuse of the Belushis' Uve show,
but Uke most booze-rock records, it lacks a certain luster
come sobriety and the light of day. Despite singer XXX's indisputable abiUty to wail Uke Rob Tyner, somehow "city's
got its finger in your ass" feels different from within the
comforts of home than it does when being sprayed with
sweat at a bar, aU the whfle having your butt cheeks unceremoniously groped from behind. That said, live or on
tape, the Belushis deUver with cocky anthems, and enough
guitar wanking to please the most jaded of rock snobs. I'd
argue this band is best Ustened to when horny, sweaty, and
drenched in cheap bourbon. Wherever that might be. Then
again, the Belushis also Uke to make a point of reminding
you that they don't really give a crap what you think of
them, and according to one of their groovier tracks "We're
Not the Cool Kids," apparently they "don't give a fuck about
your MySpace" either. Which is funny, since they added me
anyway.
MyaB
El-P
The Book of Lists
SelfTitled
(Scratch Records)
Early the morning I awoke to review the self-titled sopho-
moric release from Vancouver's The Book of Lists, I dreamt
I was driving in a car with my famUy (a boisterous seven
piece ensemble, if you will) from one smaU Canadian town
to another. My parents bickered in the front seat, and I
tried frantically to reorganize a mountain of coloured
markers my younger siblings had littered about the vehicle, spread across the floor jjf the back seat Uke an impossible game of Pick-Up Sticks. Try as I might, I could
not keep the pieces of the dream—the trip, the car, my
fanrily-—assembled in any meaningful or lasting fashion.
At times, the same could be said of this release, which,
despite a clear agenda to balance a solidly Brit-pop sound
with long-drawn moments of inspired psychedelic rock,
departs after a first spin with little left lingering behind.
Only fragments from tracks like "Lost Weekend," and
"Eating SUver" remain, both of which iUustrate the highly
imaginative stylings of Trevor Lee Larson's layered guitar riffs, which throughout the album compete with
Chris Fey's quirky vocal strains for musical superiority.
Fey and Larson likely earned The Book of Lists much of the
praise they won for their debut release, Red Arrows, an album that moved UK label 1965 to put out the Pacifist Revolt
7". On their setf-titled release, however, and especially on
sure-footed tracks like "Journey East," bassist Laura Piasta
and Brady Cranfield on drums prove the winning duo.
Together the two lend staying power to a sound that sometimes deliberates too heavily on fleeting melodies. Their
soUd back-up of the album keeps the musical hooks that
neverquite bite from leaving the Ustener completely hanging. A self-titled album always offers to be the most of, if
not the best of, the band for which it has been named. The
Book of Lists, though, never quite fulfill their vision on this
recording* although from what I can piece together, their
live show must be well worth seeing.
Mono Brown
#11
IJLL Sleep Nhen YouJre Dead
(Definitive Jux)
Brooklyn native El-Producto, founder and CEO of hip-hop
label Definitive Jux, has released warning after warning of
impending doom and the crumbling of modern society. 172
Sleep When You're Dead, the proper, anticipated follow-up to
2002's Fantastic Damage, displays El-P's anxiety and paranoia in full bloom. Laced with his layered, futuristic production, rap's George Orwell deUvers his ideas with clarity
and precision, touching down on every societal impurity
he can get his hands on.
This album is terrifying, plain and simple. Part of the horror comes from El-P's certainty when describing his vision
of apocalypse and the downfall of human civilization.
At every moment during the thirteen tracks he seems to
speak from experience, and the surrealism of his subject
matter never does seem aU that surreal. In fact, it seems
quite plausible. &&^__$&
The other part of the horror comes from his beat-making.
He creates dense soundscapes of waning sirens, pulverizing drums.and clumsy pianos. Industrial and trashy, El-P's
beats sound Uke a mix between grinding machinery and
Alfred Hitchcock sound effects. When layered on top of
the vocals, it brings a whole new light to the urgency and
panic expressed in his lyrics.
El-P won't sleep soundly. Not for now, at least. But rest assured, some of the best material El-P has recorded can be
found on this disc, and never has he sounded as matured
and focussed. EI maintains his status as underground hip-
hop's heavyweight MC/producer, and there is no doubt in
my mind that he wiU continue to innovate as long as he
can hold the mic in his right hand and the sampler in his
left.
Stuart Mitchell
Albert Hammond, Jr.
Yours to Keep
■(Rough Trade)
The Strokes were formed in New York State
sometime in nineteen ninety eight
then put out Is This It with much ado.
That was in two thousand one,
when people thought the band good fun
and gave their album positive reviews.
Now they're not as widely liked
(outside of Alpha Kappa Phi);
cue Albert Hammond, Jr.'s own CD.
I guess his stuff is good enough
(some decent songs, some boring fluff).
Out on Rough Trade, the album's Yours to Keep.
Some songs are decent; some are not.
Most of them are soon forgot.
" 101" sounds okay in the car.
But underneath that curly hair 4S*gB___i
, there isn't really that much there:
Albert should have stuck to playing guitar.
Maxwell Maxwell
tuart Mitchell m
undeL
Floodlight
Cold Faces
(independent)
There's apparently a new TV show entitled The Couv, based
in Vancouver. It showcases the youth of tomorrow by fouow-
ing their tri als, tribulations, life lessons and cellphone text
drama. The soundtrack is gladly provided by Vancouver's
own Floodlight, a.k.a. Sum41/Matchbox 20/3rd Eye
Blind/Days Away/Shurman/Nickelback Ute. The production on the record is great, done by Floodlight's own
Dave Truscott. This vocaUst/guitarist/composer/producer
is obviously at the helm of this safe-rock EP. I would wager
that the goal here is to break'into opportunities such as the
speakers of a Bootlegger, the newest Big Shiny Tunes, or
jr the smaU stage at the Vans Warped Tour.
The vocals seem to be there just for the sake of being
there. I couldn't make out anything in the lyrics that was
actually "saying" anything. WeU, there actually was a banal take on the "damn-the-man" theme in the title track
and a garden-variety love balladish ditty. The lyrics had no
message, nothing of value. I understand that they're playing to people that don't even know they don't even know,
but seriously, there's no reason to perpetuate this kind of
run-of-the-miU bullshit.
Although pushing no boundaries musicaUy, this
should get the heads of 14-year-old kids bopping. It could
at least be played in the background at a nursing home
kegger. I'm ready for my coma now
Cosmo Digger Wayne Petti
City Lights Align
(Outside Records)
Toronto's Wayne Petti is best known for his work fronting
' Canadian touring band Cuff the Duke and orchestral pop
vibraphone sensations the Hylozoists. City Lights Align is
Petti's first officially released solo album, a more polished
and studio-tweaked version of the untitled disc he's been
hawking at shows.
Musically, City Lights Align largely sticks to the tried and
true formula of acoustic guitar and simple percussion, and
it works. This re-recorded version offers a bit more instrumental depth than the show-only offering that preceded it,
adding a rich organ and even some drum machines on a
few tracks. Despite the added instrumentation, Petti's lyrics are what both makes and breaks this album.
At his best, Petti manages to find the perfect alignment of
folk music and city lights, creating a new folky-country
sound that retains the lonely blue collar sensibilities of old
country while weaving through stories and themes relevant to young, modern citydweUers. "Up on the HiUside"
perhaps best exemplifies this, dealing with relationships,
spirituality, underpaying jobs, poUtics, and how there's
always someone better than him "with money, at sports,
or phUosophy." Petti runs with one idea until distracted by
another without losing the overall mood and even admits
his own disjointed nature, jokingly stating that "a short attention span takes me to the next Une."
The trouble comes when Petti veers into more sentimental
territory. While he manages some clever turns of phrase
in "Moment by Moment" and "I Wait," love songs Uke "I'U
Be With You" are unforgivably sappy. lines Uke "with every pirate movie that I see, I wiU think of you" belong in
unsophisticated dorm room serenades and should never
find their way onto actual albums. City Lights Align is
mostly solid, but this kind of filler is frustrating, making .
me wish that Petti released an EP rather than stretching
this effort to album length. Still, for a Cuff the Duke fan,
this album wiU serve to bridge the gap tiU the band releases
their next.
Greg McMullen
LCD Soundsystem
Sound Of Silver
(DFA)
James Murphy, the man whose toiling effectively fashioned
the genre that has been coined dance punk, is enigmatically influential. Counter-intuitiveness seems to be his secret
to success. LCD Soundsystem's first album gem "Losing
My Edge," a song about Murphy's fading hipsterdom, became a ferociously prevalent song despite being about lost
prevalence. The track could be the thesis statement for the
. dissertation that is Sound of Silver, an album willed on by
Murphy's lost youth. On "Losing My Edge," among other
quips, Murphy proclaims "[he] was the first guy playing
Daft Punk to the rock kids." Sound of Silver seems to usher
back to rock a scene that has become dance-oriented.
The album feels more explicitly derived from influences
than earUer LCD Soundsystem, and is more interesting
due to immense displays of emotion (rather than a focus
on achieving a new sound). The trademark repetition is
stiU evident, but Sound of Silver is lyrically more pungent.
Coming off of an odd undertaking, 45:33, a workout record Murphy made for Nike and Apple that was largely
instrumental, the sentiment is all the more astounding.
"Someone Great" best exemplifies the shift to greater
meaning both on this album and career-wise, and is perhaps the most exceptional track on Sound of Silver. Once
again the focus is vanished youth, but this time the gate
swings open for poignant subject matter on the rest of the
album.
Murphy defies conventions indiscriminately. The album
is at times political yet uncontroversial, which isn't just
counter-intuitive—it's downright oxymoronic. Sound of
Silver is compelling and listenable dance music, which is
contradictory itself, but with LCD Soundsystem that seems
right, and so soon enough it will probably be standard.
Which means Murphy is going to have to mix things up,
which suitably is what he does best.
Pddraig Watson
The Nein-
LuKury
(Sonic Unyon)
During most of The Iliad, the runner Achilles sits in his tent
trying to decide whether to fight and die or desert and Uve.
It is fitting then, that "Achilles Last Tape Solo" is the best
song on an album where The Nein, Uke Achules, choose
an undertaking that will ultimately lead to their defeat.
Luxury, Uke the Greek warrior's last battle, is a noble attempt at something they just couldn't fuUy succeed at—a
smooth synthesis of rock and electronic music.
The aforementioned song is by no means perfect, but it is
a soUd example of how awesome this experiment can be.
AU the elements are there, from strong melodies to computer cacophony, and they are not merely juxtaposed, but
inextricably moulded together. Noisy tape manipulation
cooperates with thumping acoustic drums, and discordant
synth lines complement in-tune human voices.
Unfortunately, this standard is not met by the rest of the
album. The problems that plague the songs vary from
forgivably lazy amalgamations of electronics and rock,
to unforgivably poor inventions of each. The first track,
"Burn Construction," is the strongest example of The
Nein's weakest tendencies. At its core, it begins as a bland
modern rock radio-ready waltz, complete with played-out
lyrics and a guitar line that is on par with even the most
derivative post-grunge tune. It improves towards the end,
but its flaws epitomize the album's greatest failing: weak
songwriting. The Nein could create a far more impressive
album by writing a consistent batch of songs before busting out the moog and tape manipulation. And they should,
because unlike the world of Greek epics, the world of
American rock doesn't grant you immortality for fighting
a losing battle.
Pop Levi
a
The Return to Form Black Magick Party
(Counter)
I have no idea what the title means, but the album Is just as
far-out as the tide sounds. Pop Levi seems to specialize in
pasting zany, weird sounds onto rock songs. Yes, "pasted"
is an appropriate phrase. I am a proponent of wacky or
psychedelic sound bites as long as they're used in a man
ner that complements and is appropriate to the underlying
music. The feelings I get as I repeatedly Usten to The Return
to Form Black Magick Party range from appreciation for its
potential, to muted interest, to embarrassed cringing.
The most striking aspect of the album's sound is the
prominent studio trickery. For example, most of the vocals are overdubbed. The dubbing doesn't hurt, as the album would've sounded too acoustic otherwise. The weird
noises, however, are another story. The bulk of them are
tacked on the beginning or end of a track, instead of being
integrated with the song's flow (as in Pet Sounds from The
Beach Boys).
This is not to say that every single mUlisecond has studio
tricks up its sleeve. Among others, "Blue Honey," "Hades'
Lady," and the lovely "From the Day that You Were Born,"
show Levi's raw, more basic approach to rock. The pick of
the lot is probably "[A Style Called] Crying Chic". At the
same time, it's a shame because I can envision the potential for "Crying Chic" to be even better—it has an acoustic
guitar hook that kills—if only Levi didn't sing the song to
death. Alas, that's another prominent, detrimental aspect
to Levi's record: recycling the lyrics or vocal melody. Some
of the words are thoroughly embarrassing, the worst being "Pick-Me-Up Uppercut," with grunts, endless repetition of the title, and various bewildering one-liners ("The
alligator! The alligator! ... I'U see you laterl I'U see you
later!") that belong in someone's toUet (not mine). The aid
result is an album with loads of great ideas sans the backbone of songwriting savvy.
John Park Nine Inch Nails
Year Zero
(Nothing)
Trent Reznor's latest album, Year Zero, paints a
bleak portrait of a near-
future police state America
that has crumbled under
the weight of its own excess
and vanity; not so pretty
now, the citizens are being
terrorized and-experimented on by their own government. With gritty imagery, shocking sounds and
theme Web sites, there's
nothing thinly veiled about
the album's subject matter
as commentary on today's
political and social climate
in the US.
It's an incredible spectacle
setting the stage for a spectacular album release. And
there hasn't been a stitch
of traditional marketing to
promote it. It's here that
you see Reznor's paranoid
vision of big brother and
digital control isn't just
a sci-fi-fueled cautionary
fable of what's to come, but
rather the very tools he's
using to get the music out
and heard. The advertising
has been a stealth initiative, spread word of mouth
through the internet by
fans and savvy media outlets. The traditional label
channels and methods are
being bypassed.
The campaign is taking the
form of an alternate reality
game (ARG), a blossoming
gaming activity that attempts to teU a narrative
within the context and
bounds of real life. Media
and communication mediums are often manipulated
to contain or be part of puzzles that relate to the story.
For Nine Inch Nails, there's
been coded messages embedded on tour t-shirts, secret images, cryptic strings
of numbers on web pages,
automated e-mail respond-
ers from brainwashed
truth-seekers and chiUing
wire-tapped phone caUs.
On February 14, the song
"My Violent Heart" was
"leaked" when a concert
attendee found a flash drive
that had been "accidently
discarded" in a bathroom
stall in Lisbon. The song
was distributed widely
on the web and features
Reznor's spoken word calm
over soothing bass and
beats before abruptly giving
way to a nrilitaristic call to
arms over distorted guitars
and synth stabs. Running
the song through spectrum
analysis on computer audio editing software turns
the static heard at the end
into an image that may be
the album cover or a clue
to the ARG's reference of
a mysterious force known
as The Presence. The effect
is similar to Aphex Twin's
secret image embedded
within Come to Daddy in the
late 90s.
In the following weeks,
more clues were revealed.
Another flash drive was
found containing two files:
the quietly smothering and
claustrophobic "Me, I'm
Not" and another mp3 file
of chirps entitled "2432".
Analysis of that song decodes a phone number leading to the above mentioned
phone recording.
LA radio station KROQ suddenly played the forthcoming "Suvivalism" twice; a
quick and energetic rocker
with an unexpectedly bouncy chorus. A flash drive was
found containing a video
for the song, featuring an
apartment complex's many
units being monitored by
closed circuit television.
On February 25th, during
the live broadcast of the
Academy Awards, another
USB drive was found containing the track "In This
Twilight" and an image that
led, with no small amount
of irony, to the Web site
r. holly woodinmemo-
riam.org. The song features
beautiful vocals from a usually abrasive or whispering
Reznor over chunks of sonic
debris scraping through the
heavy beat.
Soon after that, fans and
ARG players alike found
themselves clicking to
www.artisresistance.com
for downloadable stickers,
stencils and desktop images.
"Survivalism" was released
in Apple's Garageband format to be remixed, modified
and redistributed.
As digital music distribution becomes de facto, it's
this kind of creativity that
allows a artist to achieve a
vision that was once limited
to album graphics, music*
videos and stage shows;
it's this kind of power that
aUows artists to reclaim
control of their own music
and how it reaches their
audience. With so much of
the album being released in
a controlled way, Reznor is
positioning his music Uke a
brand. Underneath all the
story, technology, and even
the music, the real war is
revealed. And the battle is
just getting started.
Henry Faber
Rich Boy
Self-Titled
(Interscope)
For a rapper to name
himself Rich Boy seems a
little audacious if not unoriginal, Rich Boy hails
from Mobile, Alabama,
again raising a few red
flags. Is Rich Boy just
another flash in the pan
from the southern states?
Another rapper to come on
the scene with weak lyrics
and a funny dance craze?
Well, appearances can be
deceiving. Rich Boy's debut
album oozes the swagger
and drawl of the south but
in ways that seem wholly
genuine. Rich BOy doesn't
take any tracks off; there
isn't an ounce of laziness
on the record. Instead what
you get is a 21-year-old kid
trying, and succeeding, to
prove himself to hip-hop
heads everywhere.
Rich Boy's story isn't the
typical rapper's story. No
coming up through the
ranks of street dealers, no
hard time spent in prison,
and no bullet wounds to
impress the young kiddies.
Rich Boy was going to school to become a
mechanical engineer when
one day he happened upon
someone making a beat on
their computer/From then
on Rich Boy put himseU
into his music.
Good thing he did too. This
album is filled with pleasant surprises track after
track. Guest spots by other
artists play a substantial,
obvious role in the success
of the record and, in turn,
Rich Boy doesn't disappoint. We get both members of OutKast, but on
different tracks, David
Banner, John Legend,
Pastor Troy and Jimmy
Jones, just to drop a few
names. Some of the best
tracks on the album include "Get to Poppin,"
'And I Love You,"
Looka Here" and the street
anthem "Throw Some D's."
Production on the album
is tight, and having LU'
Jon produce some of your
tracks wins points with me
every time.
Various Artists
Imagine the Shapes
(What's Your Rupture?)
"It's all about entertainment, and it's all about
satisfaction"—a line from
Love is All that could easily become the motto for the
NYC-based imprint, What's
Your Rupture? In a few
quick years, a string of excellent releases has pushed
the label to the forefront of
the indie-pop revival. But
so far the label has stuck
almost exclusively to seven
and 12-inch wax, excluding fans whose parents
were too square, or hip, to
pass down the turntable.
Now, What's Your Rupture?
has widened their audience
by releasing Imagine the
Shapes, a compUation that
gathers the label's first four
singles on one convenient
CD. Thankfully, the label is
the type that follows a strict
aesthetic, which makes
the disc play more like a
cohesive album than some
disjointed compUation.
Each band—Love is All,
caUSE co-MOTION!, The
Long Blondes and Comet
Gain—beats out the type
of scrappy indie-pop once
heard blaring from bands
like The Popguns, The
Wedding Present and
Television Personalities.
To set the tone, Sweden's
Love is AU begin with the
sax-infused, guitar-frenzied
workout of their stunning
Make Out, Fall Out, Make
Up seven-inch, showcasing
three of the strongest tracks
from their full-length, Nine
Times That Same Song. The
label's only American act,
caUSE co-MOTION!, follows
with their jangly brand of
herky-jerky rock 'n' roll,
where clean, choppy guitars
briskly lay four tracks to
rest. Next comes Sheffield's
The Long Blondes, who
wrap Orange Juice,
Blondie and Spectorisms
into a disco party destined
for mass consumption. UK
vets Comet Gain wrap up
Imagine the Shapes with
their torrid union of mod-
punk and Northern Soul, a
• formula previously perfected on their grossly underrated album, Realistes. As
the compilation spins to a
stop, it's easy to walk away
feeling both entertained,
and satisfied. Q
Brock Thiessen
BEN SIGSTON
f HE PAINTEB BIRBS
THEfASUJURSTEfS m
CiTR's charts reflect what has been spun on the air for the previous month. Rekkids with stars (*)
mean they come from this great land o' ours. Most of these platters can be found at finer (read:
independent) music stores acorss Vancouver. If you can't find 'em there give the Muzak Coordinator
a shout at 604-822-8733. His name is Luke. If you ask nicely, he'll tell you how to git 'em. To find
other great campus/community radio charts check out www.earshot-online.com.
Strictly the
dopest hits of
March 2007
Artist
Album
Label
1
The Arcade Fire*
Neon Bible
Merge
2
Secret Mommy*
Plays
-Ache
3
The Pack* --Srai||j[
Tintype ^fesf
Jndependent
4
Besnard Lakes*
Are The Dark Horse
Jagjaguwar
5
Trans Am 0^*J|&|g
Sex Change
Thrill Jockey
6
The Queers -:^^^^»' ■
MunkiBrain z~_,% *,»<£]£
Cochon
•'^
Pop Levi
The Return To Form Black Magick
Counter
8
Various*
Aaargh Annual #2
Aaargh Records
9
Various* .
Snowed In: A Tribute To Hank Snow
CJSR
10
Do Make Say Think*
You, You're A History In Rust
Constellation ^ #&*$*£
11
StinkMitt*
The Red Album
Cochon
12
Organ Trail*
Wagon Train
Independent
13
The Black Lips
Los Valientes Del Mundo Nuevo
Vice
14
antibalas
rhythm of the river
Riverboat j,,* H?OO0
15
Marnie Stern
In Advance Of The Broken Arm
Kill Rock Stars *T&h:
16
Amy Winehouse
Back To Black
Island
17
Mum
The Peel Session Vancouver, BC
Fat Cat T^^i.^;
18
Julie Doiron* :
Woke Myself Up
Endearing
19
The Dolly Rocker Movement
Nightmares -^f ^f|§
Distort
20
Jesu
Conqueror \
Hydra Head
21
The High Llamas
Can Claddeirs ■
DragCity *&%?{.'£
22
Deerhunter
Cryptograms
Kranky
23
Deerhoof
Friend Opportunity
Kill Rock Stars. '
24
Psychic Ills 3
Early Violence
. Social Registry
25
Hella
There's No 666 In Outerspace
Ipecac ' IS^iwifi*
Artist
Album
Label
26
Dead Meadow
Dead Meadow Jn&^vi&fc
Xemu
27
Wendy Atkinson*
Pink Noise
Smarten Up And To
The Point _
28
MV SEE With The
Green Blues Ecstatic
Peace
29
Various*
Killed By Canada
Fans Of Bad
Productions
30
BA. Johnston*
Call Me When Old And Fat Is The
Just Friends
31
Klaxons
Myths Of The Near Future
Because Music
32
Apostle Of Hustle* ■
National Anthem Of Nowhere
Arts & Crafts
33
Fun 100*
Goodbye!
Hockey Dad
.34
Elvis Perkins
Ash Wednesday
XL.
35
Panda Sear '■/i$g!%j3S
Person Pitch Paw Tracks **S|2p||B
Independent
36
Barr
Summary
5RC
37
Peter Bjorn-& John
Writer's Block
V2
38
Bonobo
Days To Come (Bonus)
Ninja Tune
39
Bobby Conn
King For A Day W^Sp-'^.
Thrill Jockey
40
Kristen Hersh
Learn To Sing Like A Star
.Yep Roc
41
Ghost
In Stormy Nights
Drag City
42
III Ease
All Systems A-Go-Go
Cochon
43
Alkaline.Trio
Remains sfpslPfP
Vagrant •
44
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Layandlove ' \ _„_- *$&&
Drag City
45
Die Mannequin*
How To Kill
How To Kill
46
Neil Young
Live at Massey Hall
Reprise j
47
Lee Hazlewood
Cake Or Death
Ever
48
GruffRhys
Candy Lion
Team Love
49
Stars of the Lid
And Their Refinement of the Decline
Kranky
50
The View .
Hats off to the Buskers '•|?S|§iS|
'1965
THE BIST DEALS IN TOWN FOR A MEASLY IS BUCKS.
Anti-Social Skate Shop
and Gallery
2425 Main St.
604-708-5678
Audiopile
2016 Commercial Dr.
604-253-7453
Beat Street Records
439 W.Hastings St.
604-683-3344
The Bike Kitchen
UBC, AMS, 6138 Student Union
Blvd.
604-822-BIKE
Burcu's Angels
2535 Main St.
604-874-9773
The Eatery
3431 W. Broadway
604-738-5298
Hit* Boutique
316 W.Cordova
604-662-3334
The Kiss Store
2512 Watson St.
604-675-9972
Lucky's Comics
3972 Main St.
604-875:9858
Magpie Magazin
1319 Commercial Dr.
604-253-6666
People's Co-op
Bookstore
1391 Commercial Dr.
604-253-6442
Puncfurhaus
228 Broadway E.
604-708-8100
Red Cat Records
4307 Main St.
604-708-9422
The Regional Assembly
off Text
3934 Main St.
604-877-2247
R/X Comics
2418 Main St.
604-454-5099
Scratch Records
726 Richards St.
604-687-6355
Slickity Jim's Chat and
Chew .. ~S3h
2513 Main St.
604-873-6760
Spartacus Books
319 W.Hastings
604-688-6138
Vinyl Records
319 Hastings St. West
604-488-1234
www.citr.ca/frieiids
A Friends of CiTR Card scores you sweet deals
at Vancouver's finest small merchants and
supports CiTR 101.9 FM. Show it when you shop!
Discorder 29 You can listen to CiTR online at www.citr.ca or on the air at 101.9 FM
fmmt_j_wsB_mmunm_i
8am
9am
10am
11am
12pm
lpm
2pm
3pm
4pm
5pm
6pm
7pm
8pm
9pm
10pm
11pm
12am
lam
2am
3am
4am
5am
ShookShookta
RimUMSIKDM
Mondo Trasho
TRANCENDANCE
DlSASTKRPlECK THEATRE
Breakfast
with
the Browns
Lions and Tigers Mtertfc
andBbars...
Let's Get Baked
Native Solidarity News
the Jazz Show
Vengeance is Mine
Bvcjvic Pickin'
Third Time's
The Charm
Morning After Show
Career Fact Track
n Avant 1>a Musigtit
Fiex Your Head
Salaaio Minimo
Caughti in the Red
Aural Tentacle
Suburban Jungle
End ofthe World News Cute Ba^d Alert!
Planet
Lovetron
Democracy Now
Necessary Voices
Cnumiroc SAMSQUANCHS
SOMETIMES Hideaway
JUICEBOX
Hans Kloss'
Misery Hour
}______M_tiiS__BMEMSM_WlWi
Duncan's Donuts
Crimes & Treasons
Exquistte Corpse
Live from
Thunderbird Radio
Hkix
:
Ska-T's Scenic
Drove
These are the Breaks
Nardwuar Presents
ShakejA Tail
Feather
I Like the Scribbles
the Saturday Edge
jKNEKAXIUN AKKfiUI ADON
Leo Ramirez Show
Shadow Jugglers
Svnaitic Sandwich
Beats from the
BAnJ"\JVNT
Conception Radio
■■■■SUNDAY
TANA RADIO (World)
SHCX)KSHOOKTA (World)
KOL NODEDI (Worid)
Beautiful arresting, beats and
voices emanating from all continents, corners, and voids. Seldom-rattled pocketfuls of roots
and gems, recalling other times,
and other places, to vast crossroads en route to the unknown
and the unclaimable. East Asia.
South Asia. Africa. The Middle
East Europe. Latin America.
Gypsy. Fusion. Always rhythmic,
always captivating. Always crossing borders. Always transporting.
THE ROCKERS SHOW
(Reggae) Reggae inna all styles
and fashion.
BLOOD ON THE SADDLE
(Roots)
Real cowshit-caught-in-yer-boots '
country.
CHIPSWITH EVERYTHING
(Pop)
British pop music from all decades. International pop (Japanese, French, Swedish, British,
US, etc.), 60s soundtracks and
lounge. Book your jet-set holiday
SAINTTROPEZ (Pop)
QUEER FM (Talk)
Dedicated to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transexual com-muni-
ties of Vancouver. Lots of human
interest features, background on
current issues, and great music.
RHYTHMSINDIA (World)
Rhythmsindia features a wide
range of music from India, including popular music from the
1930s to the present, classical
music, semi-classical music such
as Ghazals and Bhajans, and also
Qawwalis, pop, and regional language numbers.
MONDO TRASHO (Eclectic)
TRANCENDANCE (Dance)
Join us in practicing the ancient
art of rising above common
thought and ideas as your host
Dj Smiley Mike lays down the latest trance cuts to propel us into
the domain of the mystical.
trancendance@hotmail.com
DISASTERPIECE THEATRE
(Talk)
■■■■ MONDAY
BREAKFAST WITH THE
BROWNS (Eclectic)
Your favourite Brown-sters,
James and Peter, offer a savoury
blend of the familiar and exotic
in a blend of aural delights!
UONS AND TIGERS AND
BEARS... (Eclectic)
A mix of indie pop, indie rock,
and pseudo underground hip hop,
with your host, Jordie Sparkle.
ALT. RADIO (Talk)
Hosted by David B.
PARTS UNKNOWN (Pop)
Underground pop for the minuses with the occasional interview
with your host, Chris.
LETS GET BAKED
w/matt & dave (Eclectic)
Vegan baking with "rock stars"
like Sharp Like Knives, Whitey
Houston, the Novaks and more.
NATIVE SOUDARITY NEWS
(Talk)
A national radio service and part
of an international network of information and action in support
of indigenous peoples' survival
and dignity. We are all volunteers
committed to promoting Native self-determination, culturally, economically, spiritually and
otherwise. The show is self-sufficient, without government or
corporate funding.
NEWS IOI (Talk)
A volunteer-produced, student
and community newscast featuring news, sports and arts.
Reports by people like you. "Become the Media."
W.I.N.G.S.(Talk)
Womens International News
Gathering Service.
SON OF NITE DREEMS
(Eclectic)
UNCOMMON PRACTICE
(Classical)
All the classical music you don't
hear on mainstream radio! A
variety of innovative and interesting works from the 20th and
21st centuries, with an occasional neglected masterpiece from
earlier eras.
KARUSU (Worid)
THE JAZZ SHOW (Jazz)
April 2: One of the stars of last
year's jazz fest was vibist Bobby
Hutcherson, and tonight we
feature the great vibist and ma-
rimbaist on a rare album issued
only in Japan called Inner Glow.
Bobby's quartet is augmented on
some tunes by three great horn
players.A hidden gem!
April 9:Tonight's feature honours
pianist/composer/iconoclast
Andrew Hill (who appears in
concert this week April 12 with
his trio). Andrew!!! is classic Hill
with vibist Bobby Hutcherson
and a rare appearance by Sun Ra's
tenor saxophonist John Gilmore.
This music was recorded in
1964 and is as contemporary as
April 16: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with Lee Morgan (trumpet), Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone), Bobby Timmons (piano)
and bassist Jymie Merritt was
the great drummer/band leader's
favourite edition.You'll hear why
in these live concert tracks recorded in Paris. The Messengers
were on fire this night!
April 23: Tonight the leading
voice of the Hammon B3 organ:
Joey DeFrancesco. Joey will be at
the Jazz Cellar April 27 to 29 so
to give you a taste of this young
jazz master we present "The
Philadelphia Connection" with
Joey'D', guitarist Paul Bollenback
(to be replaced at the Cellar by
Canadian Jake Langley) and hot
drummer Byron Landham. Joey
honours the late organ hero
Don Patterson in a great set
April 30: Trombonist/Composer
J.J.Johnson leads in an all-star big
band in a program of originals
by the trombone giant As this
album features all aspects of
Johnson's creativity it was called
"The Total J.J." The band includes
a full array of famous jazz stars
like Hank Jones (piano) and Art
Farmer (trumpet). Big sounds by
one of the true greats.
VENGEANCE IS MINE (Punk)
All the best the world of-punk
has to offer, in the wee hours of
■■■■TUESDAY
PACIFIC PICKIN' (Roots)
Bluegrass, old-time music, and its
derivatives with Arthur and the
lovely Andrea Berman.
HIGHBRED VOICES (World)
THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM
(Rock)
Open your ears and prepare for '
a shock! A harmless note may
make you a fan! Hear the menacing scourge that is Rock and
Roll! Deadlier than the most
dangerous criminal!
borninsixtynine@hotmail.com
MORNING AFTER
SHOW (Eclectic)
GIVE'EM THE BOOT (World)
Sample the various flavours of
Italian folk music from north to
south, traditional and modern.
Un programma bilingue che es-
plora il mondo delta musica folk
italiana.
BESNERIC RHYME (Talk)
Interviews with contemporary
Canadian poets. We'll talk about
line breaks, construction bosses
named Phil, and the invitational REEL TO REAL (Talk)
Movie reviews and criticism.
EN AVANT LA MUSIQUE
(French)
En Avant La Musique! se concentre sur le metissage des
genres musicaux au sein d'une
francophonie ouverte a tous les
courants. This program focuses
on cross-cultural- music and its
influence on mostly Franco-
WENER'S BARBEQUE (Sports)
Join the sports department for
their coverage of the T-Birds.
FLEXYOUR HEAD (Hardcore)
Up the punx down the emo!
Keepin' it real since 1989, yo.
Flexyourhead.
SALARIO MINIMO (World)
Salario Minimo, the best rock in
Spanish show in Canada.
CAUGHT IN THE RED (Rock)
Trawling the trash heap of over
50 years' worth of rock n' roll
debris. Dig it!
PLUTONIAN NIGHTS
(Eclectic)
AURALTENTACLES (Eclectic)
It could be punk, ethno, global,
trance, spoken word, rock, the
unusual and the weird, or it
could be something different
Hosted by DJ Pierre.
■■ WEDNESDAY
SUBURBAN JUNGLE (Eclectic)
PLANET LOVETRON
(Electronic)
With host Robert Robot One
part classic electronics. One
part plunderphonicmixnmatch.
Two parts new and experimental techno. One part progressive
hip-hop. Mix and add informative
banter and news for taste. Let
stand. Serve, and enjoy.
planetlovetron@gmail.com
ANOIZE (Noise)
Luke Meat irritates and educates
through musical deconstruction.
Recommended for the strong.
WRAPPED IN SILVER SOUND
.(Eclectic)
DEMOCRACY NOW (Talk)
Independent news hosted by
award-winning jounaiists Amy
Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
RUMBLETONE RADIO (Rock)
Primitive, fuzzed-out garage may-
NECESSARYVOICES (Talk)
Socio-political.enviromental activist news and spoken word
with some music too.
AND SOMETIMES WHY
(Pop/Eclectic)
First Wednesday of every
month.
SAMSQUANCH'S HIDEAWAY
(Eclectic)
JUICEBOX (Talk)
Developing your relational and
individual sexual health, expressing diversity, celebrating queer-
ness, and encouraging pleasure
at all stages. Sexuality educators
Julia and Alix will quench your
search for responsible, progressive sexuality over your life span!
www.juiceboxradio.com
FOLK OASIS (Roots)
Two hours of eclectic roots music. Don't own any Birkenstocks?
Allergic to patchouli? C'mon
in! A kumbaya-free zone since
1997.
HANS KLOSS' MISERY HOUR
(Hans Kloss)
This is pretty much the best
thing on radio.
■■■THURSDAY
END OF THE WORLD NEWS
(Eclectic)
SWEET 'N HOT (jazz)
Sweet dance music and hot jazz
from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.
DUNCAN'S DONUTS .
(Eclectic)
Hosted by Duncan, sponsored
by donuts.
WE ALL FALL DOWN
(Eclectic)
Punk rock, indie pop, and whatever else I deem worthy. Hosted
by a closet nerd.
CRIMES &TREASONS
(Hip Hop)
MY SCIENCE PROJECT (Talk)
Zoom a little zoom on the My
Science Project rocket ship,,
piloted by your host Julia, as
we navigate eccentric, underexposed, always relevant and
plainly cool scientific research,
technology, and poetry (submissions welcome), myscienceproje
ctradio@yahoo.ca
PEDAL REVOLUTION (Talk)
AFROBEAT (World)
Music of the worid, with a special dance around African drum
beats. My passion is music from
the Afri-can Diaspora. Catch up
on the latest and reminisce on
classic spins.
myafrobeat@yahoo.com
EXQUISITE CORPSE
(Experimental)
Experimental, radio-art, sound
collage, field recordings, etc.
Recommended for the insane.
LIVE FROM THUNDERBIRD
RADIO HELL (Live Music)
Live From Thunderbird Radio
Hell showcases local talent...
LIVE! Honestly, don't even ask
about the technical side of this.
LAUGH TRACKS (Talk)
RAW RADIO (Hip Hop)
wmmmm friday
CUTE BAND ALERT! (Eclectic)
SKA-TS SCENIC DRIVE (Ska)
Email requests to:
THESE ARE THE BREAKS
(Hip Hop)
Top notch crate digger DJ Avi
Shack mixes underground hip
hop, old school classics, and original breaks.
RADIO ZERO (Eclectic)
NARDWUAR THE HUMAN
SERVIETTE PRESENTS
(Nardwuar)
THE CANADIAN WAY
(Eclectic)
Independent Canadian music
from almost every genre imaginable covering the east coast to
the left coast and all points in
between.Yes, even Montreal!
thecanadianway@popstar.com
AFRICAN RHYTHMS (World)
David "Love" Jones brings you
the best new and old jazz, soul,
Latin, samba, bossa and African
music from around the world.
www.africanrhythmsradio.com
SHAKE A TAIL FEATHER
(Soul/R'n'B)
I LIKE THE SCRIBBLES
(Eclectic)
Beats mixed with audio from old
films and clips from the internet
10% discount for callers who
are certified insane. Hosted by
Chris D.
mam Saturday
THE SATURDAY EDGE (Roots)
Studio guests, new releases, British comedy sketches, folk music
calendar, and ticket giveaways.
GENERATION
ANNIHILATION (Punk)
A fine mix of streetpunk and old .
school hardcore backed by band
interviews, guest speakers, and
social commentary.
www.streetpunkradio.com
crashnburnradio@yahoo.ca
POWERCHORD (Metal)
Vancouver's only
show; local demo tapes, imports,
and other rarities. Gerald Rattle-
head, Geoff the Metal Pimp and
guests do the damage.
CODE BLUE (Roots)
From backwoods delta low-
down slide-to urban harp honks,
blues, and blues roots with your
hosts Jim, Andy and Paul.
THE LEO RAMIREZ SHOW
(World)
The best of music, news, sports,
and commentary from around
the local and international Latin
American communities.
OUR WAVE (World)
News, arts,
music for the Russian community, local and abroad.
SHADOW JUGGLERS
(Dance/Electronic)
An exciting chow of Drum n'
Bass with DJs Jimungle & Bias, on
the ones and twos, plus guests.
Listen for give-aways every week.
Keep feelin da beatz.
SYNAPTIC SANDWICH
(Dance/Electronic/Eclectic)
BEATS FROM THE BASEMENT
CONCEPTION RADIO (Talk)
CITR 101.9 FM
Springs Into Spring
The sun is shining, birds are singing, flowers are growing, clouds are looming
and it's pretty clear by now that spring is in the air. Spring is an exciting season
here at CiTR, with the National Campus and Community Radio Conference coming
up fast on the horizon. As the days get longer and the sun activates long-dormant
synapses, more and more people are snapping out of their winter slump and trying their hands at something new. We'll have updates on conference planning next
month, but for now check out two new shows blossoming on the airwaves.
Besneric Rhymes
Tuesdays 2 - 2:30pm
What could be better than a show that brings poetry out of the library and
into the street? Frankly, a show that brings a poet off the street and into my house
to help me get rid of the bedbugs in my mattress, as poet Zach Wells did on a recent
episode of Besneric Rhyme. We've also taken the Great Donut Tour of Vancouver
with poet Ben Hart, and gotten convincing performances out of counter workers
who we-asked to read from his sonnet cycle about donuts. Tune in Tuesdays 2-2:30
-pm to listen to host Linda Besner take local poets out on the town.
Duncan's Donuts %__W__t__l
Thursdays Noon - lpm
Some people say I'm living the dream. If the dream is working at UBC and
broadcasting a radio show on my lunch break, then you better believe that the
dream is being lived, by me, Duncan, host of Duncan's Donuts. - ,.-„'ij?~>
Why call it Duncan!s Donuts? I aim to deliver sweet treats from the Pop Underground. Plus, it didn't sound as pretentious as the other names I was considering
("Songs For A Future Generation," meh) and Parts Unknown was taken. What is
the Pop Underground? Uh, well, it's any pop music that doesn't make it on to most
radios. That and it should have something to do with Calvin Johnson. Please bear
in mind, I ascribe to an unusually broad and inclusive concept of pop. Beach Boys
and Kinks, check; X-Ray Spex and the Delta 5, check; Half Japanese and the Beat
Happening, check; Destroyer and The Blow, yup; and much, much more.
Other than music, what will I hear? Well, this being campus radio, expect to
hear all manner of technical gaffes, including feedback, missed cues, bizarro levels
and hearing me talk while the songs are playing because I've left the mic on. That
talking may be of interest; at 12:301 deliver select concert listings. I also try to bring
in co-hosts whenever I can. These co-hosts have all sorts of interests to share with
you, the listening public. Some of them are from France, some are from Toronto,
some of them are ladies, all of them bring a fresh perspective to the pop endeavour.
Who's listening? Well, my mom listened once, and people call in when I give
away tickets (which happens on occasion), so there must be some listeners out
there. Also I recently accosted Canadian film and television legend Don McKellar
and convinced him to do a promo for my show, so it sounds like he listens. I'm sure
that he doesn't, but he is a fan of The Zombies, so he could—feasibly—like the show.
Requests and heckles are always welcome on Duncan's Donuts, Thursdays at noon on CiTR
101.9FM. For more information, visit duncansdonuts.wordpress.com.
Discorder is looking for an Editor.
Responsibilities:
»liasing with label reps, volunteers and staff
» planning, creating and commissioning content for each issue
» organizing interviews and meetings
» editing copy
» contributing to the long-term vitality of Discorder and CiTR
» ensuring the successful execution of the magazine each month
Requirements:
» strong command of the English language
» knowledge of local and independent music
» able to take initiative, delegate responsibility and be resourceful
» comfortable with mac and pc working environment
discorder.ca
This is a volunteer position with a monthly honorarium of
$350. A flexible schedule and a willingness to work 50-60
hours/month is required.
Apply by April 12th with resume and
cover letter to discordered@gmail.com.
Discorder 31, Zulu Serves Up An Ace! m mm mese vm* releases
MODEST
We Were Dead
Before the Ship
Even Sank CD
CARLA BRUNI
No Promises CD
FDrmany it is their dream job
to sit in a comtortable chair and listen to music. I. Baron .
Van Gillgimon am currently sitting very comfortably in a very
exquisitely ornate chair listening to the latest single from Issac
Brocks Washington-based rock outfit Maoist Mouse 8
However, I am terribly sad and forlorn. Jgtote to you as I need
your help. I have been banished on an island, exiled from my
kingdom and my people. An evil lord rules over my domain
and listens to terrible, terrible muzak. Please, build me a magical cBpper ship to return across the oceans to my country. In
gratitude I will drop copies of We Were Dead Before The SMp
Eves Sank in your mailboxes and include a short concise critj-i
cal analysis detailing my opinions as to why Brock and his 8|
pals (which now include Prince of Manchester Johnny Marr)
are the most potent band on the planet Furthermore, I win
demystify their latest release and reveal the secrets that sharpen its poetic lyricism, fanciful sonic melodic exchanges, and
instantly catchy rhythmic hooks! Grab your hammer, build the
ship—set me free and yourselves with It!
CD 16.98
COCO ROSE
The Adventures
of Ghosthorse
and Stillborn CO
UMaison de Mon Reve and
oah's Ark introduced us to
ly unsettling and always captivating musical landscape. From
their minimalist beginnings in 2003, as an acoustic folk vocal
duo, to their latest five revue featuring break dancing and
French MCs, CetaRaile have consistently evolved and
delighted in pushing boundaries and defying expectations. The
Of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, the third ventricle of
sb) Bturgy, represents another stride onward from
us works. After completing demos in the south of
iSe« went to Reykjavik to "collaborate with po
Parisian supermodel turned detached
I Ntea-esque folk diva, Cart* Branl
returns with her first English language
release!! No Promises is Brail's musing
on early turn-of-the-century British ind
American poetry as repositioned with th
fabric of her already well-steeped folky sonic vision. Coached
enchanted diva Martanne FaHMid, Brail's sublime Ne Promises
smoky listen that weaves together magical acoustic instrumentation
accompany her dovebird voice. Standout tracks include "Afternoon,
"If Yon Wen Coming in the Pall, and "These Dancing Days Are
Bone" —all of which speak of an intimate listen a la Cat Power, BJn
or perhaps even Amy Wlnehwua. Rarely does one come across
records that sound as hermetic as Carta's does — break the seal am
CD 16.98
BLONDE REDHEAD
is CD
Consistently a Zulu favourite, Blonde
Redhead never, ever disappoint From
their early days as a more art-damaged
status as predominant post-post-punk
auteurs, this powertrid has pushed the
sonic envelop to create some of Ihe most evocative, emotive, and
explosive pop songs around. Uve, they are amazing, as the visceral
sound of their dissonant compositions leaves their audience awestruck
and completely absorbed in the raDturous din thai forms the tounda-
:\ tion of their arty rock. For this new outing,
'tlial in a more soothing mix with the addition of strings and keyboards
to their pulsing rock bombast, the resatt is something that sonically
approaches the hazy tones of NBVs Unless, futuristic rock of RHfs
OK Computer and the urgency offBTS Daydream nation Upon digesting the opening bars of the spellbinding 23. it ts clear that you are listening to one of 2007s finest releases and a sure contender for year
picks. Enjoy. AVAILABLE APSHjjjiljj
fellow T*
Usa '*r
THE BOOK OF
USTS
s/t CD
Beak Of lists inhabit a
THE CTTY V GLASS SOUND:
Vancouver Lade! Spotlight
1777rex
. brittle glass houses and overpriced
condominiums that currently choke
this western town. This is a coastal band, in-touch *
equally in-tune with the raw street beat. With a love of the classic
UK landmarks of the past 40 years, along with their own interminable twang, it's safe to say that the always evolving holy racket
conjured up by Chris Frey (singer, songwriter), Laura Piasta
(bassist), Trevor In Larson (guitarist),;
(drummer) is pure sound + vision, i
List*' first shot, recorded in the winter of 2004 at the Hive Creative
»art and Josh Welts (Black Mountain) on th
dials. This lysergic jangle pop EP was released by Global
Symphonic and sharply drew the attention of taste maker Jamer
(Rough Traders UK-based 1965 label, who released a
$ft CD
e;
El
ps) on guitar and vocals,
in guitar, vocals and keybs, 0
KfJM
theCi
studio conspirator since Dancer in
the gilts continue to experiment wi
and clashing personalities, juxtaposing de
CD 16.98
BRIGHT EYES
iorate with pro- ~^| a;
asBJetk'smain La
LCD
SOUNDSYSTEM
Sound of Silver
CD
So you lost your edge and
then Daft Punk played your
house. Ever wake awl find that
your life is being controlled by a song? Do you hear the lyrics
forthe song in your head as you act them out? If so. you are
in terrible trouble — unless of course that the song is in fact
one by James Murphy a.k.a. LCD Soundsystem You see,
James' songs are like trips into a NYC fantasy land where aH
the evils of bloated egos, narcissistic voguers and eombed-
over power brokers are exposed for exactly what they are:
scum. Propelled by Murphy's sonic narrative you are granted
access to the after-party party and there you can rip the sheets
off the beds and scale down the skyscrapers of hedonism. All
like the Sound of Silver. Amazing!
CD 16.98
graced Stanley Park ai
allowed us afl to bask in the glorious s
shine while a bright-eyed young man
named Conor Went took to the Malki
Bowl stage and proceeded to serenade
series of fireflies. The young "boy-wonder* is now 27 years old and
has a discography the length ot any freaky, hippy-hair dancer there thai
night. Well, now the fairies have returned with a nice little record for us
all to relive that momentous summer evening! Oberst, back with the'
same band from that tour,'returns with his Caiielapa record and in
doijg so, Hushes his sound out tttjl to ring forward with string
gftgementsfrom fellow BatlBii multi-instrumentalist Nate
Jficett. "Few Winds is the firstiingle and positions Conor and pals
flowing Dylan-esque BiMftg Thunder era minstrels. Elsewhere,
)ins a series of badiajl tales of wanderlust, melancholy
nightmare nights^ajB on the plains. Recommended.
CD 16.98
LOW
Drams and Guns
CQ/LP
On their eighth full-length album
first for the legendary Sub Pop
records), law prove that some thir
only get better with time. Attendee!
recent Im shows will find these tones both familiar and uncanny, as
producer Dave Fridmann (who also worked with them on 2005's The
Sreat Destroyer) has helped them tweak some of their newer live staples into surprising and contemporary shapes with the use of looped
vocals and drum machines^The result is a set of Low tunes in the efas
sic mode (death-obsessed, crawlingly slow, and replete wimachingly
sublime harmonies) that sound like a low you've never heard before,
immediate, fresh, and full of experiments. You can hear the group trying out new approaches on these songs that sound appealingty open-
ended. A sure favourite for fans old and new, and an unexpected triumph from one of indie-rock's most dependable workhorses.
(and
SALE PRICES ON SALE UNTIL APRIL 30,2007
CD 16.98/LP 14.98
ice, the band has shared bills with the
(of which Frey was a member for the seminal
This Night 2LP and tour), Frog Eyes, Brian Jonestown Massacre,
and Tha Bows (UK) among others. With their pedigree intact and
a fresh batch of recently produced Hive recordings in the can
(once again with Stewart and Wells on board), it's time for It*
Beak Of Lists to turn another page. Listen for the cue; this is the
sound of now. AVAILABLE APRIL 10"
(S.T.».E.E.T.S./Pr*.Mtrtps) on drums. They existed from 1996-199
a time when Vancouver felt kinda lacking in visceral, visionary music.
' They were the exception, f II never forget the first time I saw them,
how astounded and inspired I felt as I left The Columbia that night It
ck to me every time I listen to this record.
*» CD 14.96
CHET
Fighting Against Darkness CD
% lictoria's OM have always seemed at the precipice ot mterna-
V tional success. One would be hard-pressed to find a young
band wtth such a wealth of talents coupled with such a focused
musical vision, evocative sound and captured aesthetic. Over the
course of their previous two releases, this charming group have
honed their haywire sound Into a cacophonous splendor of dreamy
vocals, brooding guitars, and austere strings. With this third
embarking, the Beattie brothers seem to be peaking in confluence
and maturity as Fighting Against Darkness has a'trwreatflfetljirsr-"'
rollicking irUhe cookhouse self-assurance. Exploding with Zuma,
shrouded in epic Main Street Exile, and mining the soul searching
of Sister Lovers, Chet are channeling some very heady sounds
and thus evoking the spirits of grandiose passion. Shit, life is a
gamble, win some with Chet!
CD 14.98
Y«%Y PARTY!
WE SAY DIE!
Lose All Time CD
I ose All Time is the sophomore
Laibum from Va
ed post-whatever freak-popsters Yea
Say Party! We Say Die! and the first
for their new label Paper Bag Records (home of Stars. Tokyo
Police Club, etc.). The album is a brilliant, spastic celebration of
hyperactive outbursts and meditative moments. Uke Lose Ail
Time's concept, the bubbling joy of this music strives to touch
something unrestrained by the passing vagaries of fashion. These
kids have come a long way from their rural roots in the churchy
sprawl oi Abbotsford, but you can still sense the origins of their
deep need for a really, really good time and their determination to
make it happen. Currently rockin' on Exclaim's Spring break tour
and featured in uber-hip Brit mag Dazed and Confused. YSPiWSD!
can tear the dome off any home, including your own, proving that
nothing is as inspiring as 8 little OIY.
CD 9.98
THE ANEMONES
Special Times CD
Imagine the bedroom product ot Htstolre
Melody Nelson and any of the better
Velvets records and you will begin ts und<
stand the beautMsrJSBlute that is The
Anemones Soon this group wjH he the toe
of Montreal, as with a lecherous grip the/
have i"oved themseJvM into the hipster-
heavy Mile End to S|8i Btose losers how j
loosen the
tie from Jo
H
Bafea (Tbt ttetk). Sptoei Ur
CD 6.98
ICE PALACE
s/t CD
I yndsay Sung (Dick Para*
LpIi* Mountaintops) SBIch Trawick (3 f:
Inches Of Blood) just got married and consummated their love just before making
these really sweet tunes — reportedly con-
Limited to just 100 lonely copies, as is the
case with all I777rex releases, this beauty
takes it over the line with a sumptuous Bach
Congratulations on love.
CD 6.98
HEY SQUEAKY VOICE, SM6 YOUR SONG FOR ML
TBS PONYS -Turn The lights Out CDAP
D.O.A. - Punk Rock Singles 1977-1999 CO
THE ROSEBUDS-Night of The Furies CD
XHI XIU - Remixed and Covered 2CD
WTEfflWTIONAL NOISE CONSPIRACY-Live at Oslo Jazz Festival CO
BONNIE PRINCE BUY - Strange Form Of Ufa CDEP
CD 16.98
EL-P - TN Steep When You're Dead CB
PANDA BEAR- Person Pitch CD
MYSTERY JETS - Lite Is A Grave And I Dig It CD
DUSTIN COLE WITH THE SPECIALIST -Try and Love Me CD
Zulu Records
1972-1976 W 4th Ave
Vancouver, BC
tel 604^iy|p||
wvv^v.zultjTe^^^s^^rjf:
STORE HOURS
Discorder
Discorder CITR-FM (Radio station : Vancouver, B.C.) 2007-04-01
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