Hack Rambling

CD Review: Idol and the Whip, Heavy Sleeper

2011-08-04T14:32:00.001-04:00

This review originally appears at The 1st Five

Idol and the Whip

Heavy Sleeper

Self-Released

It used to be tough finding a heavy band with diversity in song structure and approach without just as easily settling for death metal, Tool or Fugazi. But these days the underground is more accepting of hard rock, or bands with hard rock influences. Suddenly it’s hip (or at least semi-hip) to listen to heavy rock, metal, hardcore, grindcore, and other headbanger material; from Bison BC to Barnburner to Mastodon.

There’s a lot of this crowd in Idol and the Whip, a four piece from Ann Arbor, Michigan who definitely have the heavy rock-near-metal sound down pat: a strength-boasting rock and roll style, flaring naturally with heavy metal harmonies and riffs. Their latest record Heavy Sleeper, available free as mp3 or for a buck in better quality at www.idolandthewhip.com, seemingly takes its title matter as a taunt. Even Hypnos couldn’t sleep through this.

Technical metal fans will be impressed by Heavy Sleeper's ability to pull out all the stops: epic arena-sized endeavours like closer “Calling Down The Dark”, original technical rock leads like that of “Grasscutter”, and utilizing the bass to its full potential with leading riffs in “Nocturne”. This is where the Tool-like aspect plays out.

What pulls Sleeper away from redundancy is that modern metal edge. No hair band shit, the cool stuff (mentioned above) that won’t get you kicked out of hipster circles. “Wasteland Battle Hymn”, “Leveled” and “Broken Crown” propagate a hooky metal sound that’s hard not to dig. Gladly, even harder to align with Guns ‘n’ Roses. Idol's got a heavy sound that isn’t overdone, grounds in riff diversity instead of candy-coated metal proven to sell but consequently unchanged.

Here and there a little Motorhead pops out in songs with fast, get-your-motor-running chugs and riffs, felt hard on album opener “Future Eyes”. There’s even a couple crusty punk jams, like record splitter “Watery Grave”, enough to wake you up amidst slower songs which occasionally dominate the record, like “Artery” and “Augur”. These faster, punkier tunes will let you sigh in relief that Sleeper isn’t all expansive stoner sludge.

With a touch of Dave Grohl tone in his throat, Chris Plumb has the ability to belt out chilling battle-cries throughout Sleeper. A black and white video of a pissed off muddy rugby team, dark rain slow-motion pouring over their angry faces, would fit naturally alongside his and these songs’ intimidation.

CD Review: Marbin's Breaking The Cycle

2011-07-24T23:09:00.006-04:00

This review originally appears in THIS Literary Magazine

Marbin
Breaking The Cycle
Moonjune Records, March 2011

The two Danny's behind Marbin - saxophonist Danny Markovitch and guitarist Dani Rabin - must be basking in the sun following the release of their second full-length album, Breaking The Cycle. The record, out on Chicago's Moonjune Records, follows up their 2009 self-titled debut, which helped establish the duo in the contemporary jazz scene.

Compared to how they stood in 2009, the shape of Marbin changes on Cycle. Getting a decent share of the limelight is Paul Wertico, Marbin's new, seven-time Grammy winning drummer. They've also picked up Steve Rodby on bass, and a slew of special guests including vocalists Matt Davidson, Leslie Beukelman, and Daniel White and percussionists Jamey Haddad and Makaya McCraven.

With the bountiful additions, Marbin's range expands. Much of their debut's sound, a unique and distinct guitar-saxophone serenade, resonates on Cycle. But along with it is Wertico's constant, integral back beat, more outgoingness from the two frontmen, and newly ventured vocal dimensions.

The near six-minute "Loopy" opens the album with a massive big band feel. Wertico's upper toms whap around behind the roaring melody of fat stomps and contrasting musical breaks. Markovitch is quickly front and centre for a wailin' solo, followed by a psychedelic offering from Rabin.

"A Serious Man" would go well backing a sixties undercover detective chase scene with Markovitch's elusive saxophone and Wertico's space filling high-hat technique. Markovitch's sound runs up and down the scale so non-chalant, James Bond's perked eyebrows and erect pistol seem a natural fit.

"Mom's Song," the shortest song at just over two minutes, features Leslie Beukelman on vocals. The acoustic interlude is easy to digest, and the female vocal presence is refreshing.

"Bar Stomp" keeps the shades changing with a ratty distorted guitar tone dancing around blues riffs and slide innuendos. When Rabin is compared to Hendrix, this is what people are talking about.

Other songs on Cycle revolve around the same structures, an acoustic ballad here, a rock and roll tune there. "Winds Of Grace," an eight minute song featuring Daniel White on vocals, is indeed the best capturing of Rabin's ability to raise traditional spirits on his acoustic. The song is enchanting, and White's vocals sail high and wide with integrity.

Review: Barney's Version

2011-07-22T16:15:00.005-04:00

This article originally apears in THIS Literary Magazine

BARNEY'S VERSION
directed by Richard J. Lewis
Screenplay by Michael Konyves, based on the Mordecai Richler novel
December 2010, 134 minutes

It's too bad Barney's Version, the motion picture adaptation of Mordecai Richler's 1997 Giller Prize-winning novel, didn't hit the big screen nine months ago with the Montreal Canadiens waist deep in a run for the Stanley Cup. Richler, a Montreal native and cultural satirist, used the legendary hockey team as a symbol in all his novels. In Richler-lit, the Habs hover around as the epitomic hometown heroes, a cultural constant to believe in and stick by.

The film's Barney Panofsky (played by Paul Giamatti) is then, what you would say, Richler's Rocket Richard. Epic, nostalgic, filled with valour, Barney's is the story of an underdog with brute strength against all odds, fighting for dignity to win back those he loves.

A memoir told to set the record straight about the suspicious death of his lifelong friend Boogie (Scott Speedman), the story opens with twenty-something Barney living the artist life in Rome in the seventies. Here we meet the Barney that loves life, fine Canadian rye, a Romeo y Julieta cigar, Israeli hash. But things quickly sour when his first wife Clara (Rachelle Lefevre), a brazenly modern poet, commits suicide.

After this, Barney craves his hometown Montreal. He returns there to a job at a relative's TV studio, Totally Unnecessary Productions (zing!), through which Barney is introduced to the Second Mrs. Panofsky (Minnie Driver), a business-daddy's-girl looking to settle down. Barney jumps at the prospect of family and financial stability, thinking a quick marriage will mend his tumultuous life.

That's when Barney's issues really multiply. In literal love at first sight during his own wedding reception (night of the 1986 Stanley Cup final in which Montreal defeats Calgary for their twenty-third championship), Barney finds Miriam (Rosamund Pike). He ends up marrying her after he catches Boogie in the sack with his current wife, perfect grounds for divorce.

But getting to Miriam means losing Boogie, who eerily ends up dead amidst a raging booze-fest, and the only thing keeping Barney from a murder conviction is the absence of Boogie's body. It's an odd subplot that haunts Barney's life with Miriam, hinting that murder may be within his capabilities. He ultimately maintains his innocence, but the whole debacle brings light to how we should view Barney: he is a limit pusher, an excess junkie. So, in philosophical terms, what does this represent?

This question is key to Barney's Version. Barney, himself, offers us his last word when everyone around him no longer cares. Surrounded by feminism, modernism, generation X-ers, and other things that threaten him, Barney's habits are politically incorrect. He's slipperier than a bottom feeding carp; it's no wonder he ends up alone. If it weren't for his downfalls, his loved ones would drift from his pessimistic, grain-pushing ways. But for some reason, like Miriam, we still love him.

We, the viewer, do want to know Barney's version, because Barney gives all the underdogs, forgotten and obsolete, a model for redemption. This is sly Richler style. He, too, was an underdog, a Jewish Montrealer trying to make it in a literary business neglectful of his opinions. In his novel, Richler successfully brought the Jewish immigrant story out of the closet with all its shameful skeletons. He denounced Quebec separatism when an English shop sign in the Francophone province meant jail-time. He liked being the pickle up popularity's ass. Richler-lit is underdog-lit in its purest form.

And that's where the Habs come in. No matter how many contenders threaten their integrity, they always pull through. Like a rock, they prevail through ups and downs, grow tougher with every bruise. That's Richler, patriarch of custom, believer in what's right through what works, in a world too polite to appreciate him. Hollywood would love a movie about the Los Angeles Kings, but it just wouldn't have the same squeeze.

Review: Agnostic Front, My Life My Way

2011-05-04T01:53:00.005-04:00

Agnostic Front
My Life My Way
4.75/5

Listen To: Self Pride

In their thirty-plus year career Agnostic Front has been a band of eras: way-back, gritty blasting street punk of United Blood and Victim In Pain; in the late eighties crossover thrash with Cause For Alarm and Liberty and Justice For...; even Oi! revival in the nineties.

AF's latest release, My Life My Way, is the third in their macho-hardcore Madball-esque period, starting with 2004's Nuclear Blast debut Another Voice. My Life My Way is arguably a mix between that record and 2007's Warriors.

In many areas of My Life, Miret's vocals fill out an edginess dropped on Warriors. On "Self Pride" he proclaims My pride burns deep with such weight, you can't help envisioning a brass-knuckle to your worthless gob. "That's Life" also packs a punch with classic AF blast-beats, think "United & Strong" or "Last Warning" ruthlessness.

Yet Warriors' deep dive into expansive breakdowns and slightly easier hardcore is also on this record, heard best on "Us Against The World" and "Until The Day I Die". These tunes don't rely on straight ahead thug-core like Another Voice, which some might dig. Their and other songs' uplifting Believe in yourself motif is also nice to hear.

There's even a little Riot, Riot Upstart found in album opener "City Street", a classic Miret homage to the only place him and Vinnie will ever be accepted. My Life's title track and "Now And Forever" have soulful street rock echoes. Mind you, all the influences on My Life surface from a solid bed of metal-hardcore.

Anyway, the haters won't like this record because there aren't any Cocksparrer covers. But they can fuck off. This is a band who invented their own genre, they do as they please.

STIGMA!

Track Listing:
1. City Street
2. More Than A Memory
3. Us Against The World
4. My Life My Way
5. That's Life
6. Self Pride
7. Until The Day I Die
8. Now And Forever
9. The Sacrifice
10. A Mi Manera
11. Your Worst Enemy
12. Empty Dreams
13. Time Has Come

Written for Tangible Sounds

CD Review: Warpaint's The Fool

2011-02-02T16:51:00.004-05:00

This review appears on This Literary Webzine's Blog.

Warpaint
The Fool
Rough Trade Records

It's earth rattling how LA hipster-garage outfit Warpaint pull off such a provocative offering with their first full-length, The Fool, released October 2010 on Rough Trade. Fool does nothing less than hypnotise with a mountainous trip-factor of layered, reverb-drenched guitar; rhythms intricate and entrancing - there are points when the most straight-edge scenester will worry about being slipped a hit of acid.

Albeit Fool and Warpaint's lone other release, 2009's mass-hailed Exquisite Corpse EP, were produced by ex-Chili Pepper John Frusciante, explaining the clean, surfy approach. But there's more to dropping distortion that makes this band admirable.

Warpaint's sound is an eclectic mash-up of pop-past, misconstrued and re-sorted into a post-modernist's dream. "Undertow", Fool's poppiest tune, has distinct shades of sixties, Luv'd Ones style girl-garage with its traditional chords and psychedelic vocals. (The song even makes a two-word Nirvana reference, right?)

Elsewhere more influences bleed through the facade, favourably on "Baby" and "Shadows" which obliquely play on a Johnny Thunders, near-folk yet drearily alt-acoustic style. You can see Emily Kokal strumming away in a manly fedora as a seventies tranny-punk inverse. Nerds rejoice, these and countless other oldschool markings, embedded deep in Fool and bared only by slight mocking flair, impress beyond belief.

Rock 'n' roll highschool grads they are, Warpaint also has a stark sense of originality. Most awakening is the sharp-toothed clean guitar tone, the most unique approach in the LA alt-cum-indie scene yet. On a wider scale, they embody the essence of post-modern rock - or post-punk, whatever you call it - much more than all their LA and London buddies who tend to recycle each other's shit.

Almost downplaying its freshness, numerous areas of Fool, notably with tracks like "Undertow" and "Set Your Arms Down", are radio friendly. But, like every track, the near indefinable Warpaintness eventually illumines. "Composure" wittily hints at this constant clash with familiarity: How can I keep my composure? proclaims Kokal amidst guitar leads so over-reverberated, the panicky thought mirrors the sound, emphasizing a disconnect from structure.

It's tough not to envision Warpaint - Theresa Wayman, Jenny Lee Lindberg, Stella Mozgawa and Kokal - as a cliquey gang, locked up in a members-only clubhouse, working away at their big shot amidst scattered records, ashtrays and herbal tea. I can butter it up to no end; in short: Fool is what modern music needs to be - catchy, knowledgeable... above all, new.

CD Review: Electric Wizard - Black Masses

2011-01-14T01:35:00.005-05:00

Electric Wizard
Black Masses
4/5

Listen To: Venus In Furs
Skip It: Nothing.

Stoner-doom purveyors Electric Wizard waste no time getting your head grooving on their latest full-length Black Masses, their seventh studio album. With record opener and (almost) title track "Black Mass" the band's darkened sense of sludge monstrosity lands front and centre and perches there for all eight tracks.

Tempo shifts are barely noticed between songs on the record, but tunes like "Venus In Furs (no, not a Velvet Underground cover),” "Black Mass" and "Patterns Of Evil" chug along at a slightly faster rate than others. In these up-tempo songs you get a fresh vibe of Wizard-renewal: more hooky, classic-rock sounding solos, less sole reliance on avant noise.

But the pack of Dorset occultists also offer an array of down-tempo exposes such, as "Satyr IX" and "Night Child,” that will keep your cloak and scepter in good use. Riffs roam around deep tones and make cunning use of reverberated delay and feedback. Drummer and percussionist Shaun Rutter clanks out clear-cut pace setters full of meaty crash and bassy thud-work.

Most enticing is long-time vocalist Jus Oborn's cryptic wail distraction that floats shamelessly atop the sweeping melodies. Notably in choruses of "Black Mass" and "Turn Off Your Mind,” hidden in others like "Scorpio Curse,” he manipulates an old school Ozzy pitch, bordering Richard Hell-type condescending tone. If it isn't for Liz Buckingham's easily adored doom-sludge guitar work, Oborn's offering will definitely make you a believer.

Track Listing:

1. Black Mass
2. Venus In Furs
3. Night Child
4. Patterns Of Evil
5. Satyr IX
6. Turn Off Your Mind
7. Scorpio Curse
8. Crypt of Drugula

This review appears in Tangible Sounds

Book Review: The Matter With Morris by David Bergen

2011-01-14T00:54:00.002-05:00

This review originally appears in This Literary Webzine

THE MATTER WITH MORRIS
by David Bergen
Harper Collins
(September 2010, CAN $29.99, 254 pages)

A link is drawn between Morris Schutt, fifty-one year old writer and main character of David Bergen’s Giller Prize-nominated novel The Matter With Morris, and Haggai, whom Bergen’s third person narrator tells us is “a less than minor prophet [. . .] who in the Bible gets two chapters.” The image of Haggai – a silenced prophet – is a lot like Morris. Once a syndicated columnist read by people worldwide, he loses his writing contract when his thoughts turn sour. Wouldn’t yours after your son dies at war?

Indeed, the matter with Morris and the Schutt family is the death of their son and brother Martin while serving in the Canadian army in Afghanistan. The fallen infantryman haunts this text; his absence tears apart a modern family along with their aging home. Solemnly, Morris and his wife, Lucille, part by way of a death they never expected. And Morris holds squalid relations with his daughters: Meredith, a working class mother with a grudge toward her selfish father, and Libby, a distant teen too smart to be trapped by adulthood’s hypocrisy. In a touchingly realist depiction of the new millennium as war era, the Schutts are today’s army family strewn by tragedy.

Living alone in a condo, Morris is patted down by moral anguish. Museless and desperate, he focuses on his life’s worst moment: a father-son huff, daring Martin to join the army. To boot, Martin was killed accidentally by one of his own men. For Morris, it’s just as well as pulling the trigger himself.

Mentally and spiritually unhealthy, Morris copes through self-destruction. Most pertinent of all, he is hooked on a woman’s touch and hires prostitutes to relieve his inner tension. There is also Ursula, an American reader of Morris’s column who, too, lost her son to war (in Iraq). Ursula and Morris become intimate pen pals, and eventually meet. Contemplating his choices in a hotel room as Ursula sleeps, Morris yearns for the solace he is searching for. Eventually, he does declare a breaking point. Things will change, he will get his family back, even if it takes some extreme measures.

Bergen admits in Morris’s afterword to borrowing ample inspiration from Cicero, Plato, Socrates and Bellows when creating Morris’s deep philosophical rhetoric. For some readers, his pondering of freedom, humanism and rabid individualism may seem pretentious, constantly lathered on without letting the last big question settle. However, I empathise with the abstractness needed to make sense of this character’s gall-filled world.

This empathy solidifies in many scenes that war parents and families can relish in. “[Morris] had heard of the Highway of Heroes near Toronto,” Bergen writes in sardonic prose, “he wondered how it was that he had come to live in a place where a fallen soldier was driven ignominiously past warehouses and big box stores.” Revenge is also offered through Morris’s habitual letter writing, one to the Prime Minister and another to the company who manufactured the gun that killed Martin. Morris notes the absurdity of sending a letter that will never be read, nodding at Bergen’s apostrophe technique and the simple closure the act offers.

Aside from lashing outward, Morris’s hurt drives hard toward nihilistic tendencies too. His son’s death causes him so much despair, loneliness, inadequacy, guilt, and scepticism, it’s no wonder he contemplates suicide more than once. His existential traits, borrowed from Kafka and Kierkegaard, lead him to declare solitude and to have feelings of despair and worthlessness. Don’t worry Morris, we hear your story, along with the 152 lonely Canadian fathers that live it every day. It’s the bleak story of modern global politics and its disastrous impact on the family. And, it’s something Bergen obviously wants us to consider.

CD Review: Neil Young -Le Noise

2011-01-13T21:46:00.005-05:00

Neil Young
Le Noise
4/5

Listen To: The Hitchhiker
Skip It: Nothing.

On Le Noise, Neil Young takes us into possibly his most experimental project yet. Melding his trademark rabid, loosely controlled guitar technique with producer Daniel Lanois' extensive lineup of ambiance generating delay effects, this disc, on which Young is the sole composer, is completely fresh.

There are only eight songs on Le Noise, making Young's sound diversion easily digestible. A little snack of something foreign in between helpings of what the old loner does best. Contrasting his classic folk-rock or more recent organic big band approach, Le Noise is uncharacteristically heavy; surprisingly tentative and modern; enough to believe Young, as an artist, will walk every path.

Reminiscent of the "Cinnamon Girl" sound, but entirely less conventional, the songs are a massive build-up of numerous layered guitar tracks. To Lanois' credit, the songs' slow moving, grungy drop-D riffs never muddle into a mess, but tack on inch after inch of intimidating sludge. These get accentuated with punky garage jangles and even scratch fills that a technical whore would polish and perfect, but Young's talent simply creates butter from beans. "Walk With Me," "Sign Of Love" and "Angry World" all employ these techniques in similar patterns, but take varying turns here and there to widen the soundscope.

Young's rawness with the guitar only slightly exceeds his lyrical presence on Le Noise. The poetic prowess tops on "The Hitchhiker" which delves into the dark side of cocaine and amphetamine addiction that plagued past Young eras. The epic track sums up the record - Young is comfortable telling, and playing, whatever he wants.

Track Listing:

1. Walk With Me
2. Sign Of Love
3. Someone's Going To Rescue You
4. Love And War
5. It's An Angry World
6. The Hitchhiker
7. Peaceful Valley Boulevard
8. Rumblin'

Published by Tangible Sounds

Best of 2010

2011-01-13T21:38:00.005-05:00

First things first: Warpaint's The Fool was this year's best record. I'm a punk at heart, so most of my friends gawked at my love for them. Whatever, you don't get a Rumours every decade, so when it comes you have to take notice.

That said, I still had my eye on a lot of punk this year. From my list you'll see my pallet is quite Canadian-centric. Well, it's not my fault that we have some of the best punk and metal bands around.

Hoser-shit aside, I was blissfully impressed by Early Graves's debut record Goner. That came viciously close to Agnostic Front's Victim In Pain, for many, myself included, the pinnacle new-age hardcore record. On the other end of the spectrum was Jam frontman Paul Weller's solo record Wake Up The Nation. Chock-full of dubs and delectable garage-to-anywhere guitar, he approached filling Joe Strummer's shoes.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Here's my favourite records, in the genres I have the right to judge, of 2010.

PUNK

1. Fucked Up - Year Of The Ox
2. Germ Attak - Death to Cops EP
3. Little Girls - Concepts
4. The Business - Doing The Business
5. No Age - Everything In Between

HARDCORE/METAL

1. Fuck The Facts - Unnamed EP
2. Bison BC - Dark Ages
3. Early Graves - Goner
4. 1349 - Demonoir
5. Madball - Empire

INDIE/GARAGE

1. Warpaint - The Fool
2. Myelin Sheaths - Get On Your Nerves
3. The Sadies - Darker Circles
4. Best Coast - Crazy For You
5. Weakerthans - Live At The Burton Cummings Theatre

This article was originally published by Tangible Sounds

No Age at Great Hall

2011-01-13T21:34:00.001-05:00

No Age
W/ Henri Faberge and his Navel Academy Marching Band,

John Milner You’re So Boss, Lucky Dragons
Thursday, November 18, 2010
The Great Hall, Toronto

Henri Faberge and his Navel Academy Marching Band opened up for No Age at the Great Hall in Toronto. The fifteen piece band clad in Vaudevillian garb marched around the floor, following a microphoned man sporting a sinister stare yelling dictatorial orders. Faberge took the mic for the group’s single song, with subject matter of letting loose and having fun, while black paint was slapped on others' nipples and a Mary Wollstonecraft look-a-like poured booze down yet others' throats. You had to be there.

Up next was Toronto spazz/noise-punk band John Milner You're So Boss. Playing on the floor in front of the stage, Milner showed the flannel-draped sea just how quick a punk track can get - some of their rip throughs lasted only thirty seconds. Singer Danielle LeBlanc trotted around with beer in hand while yelping out her vocals in time with the blast-beat mainstay and entrancing strobe light show. The fifteen minute set ended with "Toquitos,” nothing less than a spazz-ballad for the salty snack.

Before No Age went on fellow L.A.'ers Lucky Dragons transformed the entire venue into what seemed like the inside of a giant kaleidoscope. Backed by Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Rara's ‘everyday sounds turned alluringly other,’ the main attraction of this performance was a vivacious light display projected toward all corners of the Great Hall. People everywhere tripped out in sheer awe of the impressive visual show and ambient music which mixed Oriental and Indonesian instrumentals with spacey techno elements.

Then No Age took the stage and immediately intensified the night's tempo via Randall's raging force of murky distortion and Spunt's power drumming. They opened with "Life Prowler" off their latest LP, Everything In Between, which displays a tellingly more choreographed approach to previous No Age skate-rock infused post-punk. Spunt and Randall, along with a touring DJ, looked aggressive and anxious to keep belting out one crowd pleaser after another. They did with "Teen Creeps" off 2008's Nouns, following with the punky "Fever Dreaming" featuring a blue cyclone visual projected on a massive backdrop during the tune's shrill-fills. The visual component continued for the entire set with split second movie clips strewn about abstract multicolour shapes and silhouettes. The atmosphere achieved compares to legendary Velvet Underground acid trip-inspired visual-audio performances.

No Age filed through nearly all of Everything In Between with "Depletion,” "Common Heat,” "Chem Trails,” "Shed and Transcend,” fan favourite "Glitter,” and a rendition of "Valley Hump Crash" for which Randall traded the Brit-Glit twang for a punkier, more driving tone. They also knocked out "Eraser,” "Sleeper Hold,” and finished the set with "Miner,” all from the Nouns LP. No Age worked hand in hand in song arrangement, Spunt puttering about the stage or talking to the crowd between songs while Randall recorded the next song's loops. For the kids who don't know what the hell I'm talking about, it's impossible for Randall to play No Age's various guitar lines simultaneously. So, he records several guitar tracks with a loop pedal before each song, and kicks on the appropriate line when needed. Now that's fucking minimalist, for sure.

This article appears in Tangible Sounds

Give Singles A Chance

2011-01-13T21:31:00.002-05:00

Ever find yourself wondering what the deal is behind single records? What's with those little seven inch, coaster size records? If I'm going to shell out five bucks, I might as well get a whole album on iTunes! It's true, in this day and age, record singles are obsolete. But there is good reason why bands still bother with 45's.

I won't go into the history of vinyl, Alan Cross already covered that shit. Just keep in mind that for a long time the record single was how people checked out new music. For a quarter you could take home a new song by the Stones, Elvis or Chuck Berry. You dig, you buy the LP (long play record). Essentially, record singles were your parents' sample downloads.

Today more than ever, there is a resurgence of original forms of music. For the same reason fashion runways are covered with skinny jeans and scally caps again - they are too rad to forget. Records are most popular among what we will call "vinyl" types of music. You know what I'm talking about, underground bands too cool for modern technology. It's obvious that these bands' styles stem from the original vinyl artists of the blues, country, rock 'n' roll, and especially early garage and punk. Naturally, they follow suit with putting out records.

New vinyl bands keep record collectors salivating most with singles. Finding an LP of a new album is easy, but a limited pressing of single on blue vinyl creates massive demand. However, some of the coolest singles are easy to find as long as you frequent a decent record store. A true rock and roll business has at least four or five fat stacks of old, and a couple new, singles. Once you've found your vinyl mecca, dig in! For a couple bucks you can get a bootleg Cramps live set, pre-Vegas Elvis hits, a radio promo of Nirvana's "Come As You Are,” Fucked Up's latest song only available as a single, and endless more possibilities that won't be found on a regular record, and sometimes even iTunes.

But at the centre of the whole debate, singles are just really cool. Vinyl bands love reproducing vintage art styles, following the look of original record labels. A band knows there shit when their single sleeve remarks in bold lettering how cheap the price is, a true throwback to the sixties single craze. For me, this aesthetic keeps me coming back for more of what Billboard won't cover.

This article appears in Tangible Sounds

Don't fall victim to e-Hoarding

2010-12-20T23:45:00.005-05:00

A couple of months ago I explained in THIS Reads how my library is home to an exhausted number of big-name titles and not so many lesser known, underdog books. Believe it or not, the problem is still troubling me. No, I haven’t been brainwashed by Penguin and Random House into zombie-walking to the nearest Chapters or some other chain store looking for the ex-president’s memoirs. And no, it’s not an odd catch-22 that I’d like to go out and pick up a copy of The Sentamentalists, the biggest small press book in a long time (although if you happen to miraculously find a copy, I’d love to borrow it once you’re finished).

No, the only problem troubling me is that I can’t find enough independent literature. I’ve become a bloodhound sniffing out anything under the radar. I thrive on the minnow-like, unheard author’s view of the sharks and whales in the rest of the sea. I obsess over the small press.

Lately, in order to feed my habit, I’ve taken on a risqué lifestyle quite frowned upon in the current reality TV age: hoarding. But my home isn’t billowing with pocketbooks and paperbacks. I want to avoid all the dirty stares. So, I’ve come up with the perfect little secret – the big “H” without any of the kickback – e-Hoarding. I’ve taken to spending many late nights turned early mornings searching the web for any sort of underground-lit I can find. And this month in THIS Reads, I’m going to let you in on some of the best online literature collectives I’ve found so far. I must say, in terms of niche writing, finding stuff that’s brand new and fresh is easiest through online journals. How ironic, you’re reading one right now.

Without further ado, I give you my e-picks of the month:

PANK – This is one of the best free literary magazines I’ve come across. They publish monthly with tonnes of new poetry and prose from writers worldwide. But that’s not saying much once you read a bit of PANK – the stuff they put out is very high calibre. Contemporary, relevant, cutting edge, the best adjectives represent what PANK is all about.

Abjective – Along the same lines as PANK, Abjective e-publishes great fictional prose and poetry, but there’s a catch. Abjective comes out weekly with only one piece of either poetry, prose, or creative non-fiction. It’s a stripped down literary ‘zine – the only thing on the site is the current piece and a minimalist description of the Abjective manifesto. If anything, it keeps you on your toes in anticipation for the next issue only every few days away.

My e-journeys in the past month have also brought me to Mel Bosworth’s Grease Stains, Kismet, and Eternal Wisdom available as a free e-book (yes, free!) at Brown Paper Publishing. The short novel of about one hundred pages is an interesting read, it definitely doesn’t bore with its parameters of lust, drugs and borderline insanity. But I won’t ruin it for you because you can, just as easily as I did, read it yourself.

Oh, and keep reading this, it’s also free, independent and full of great writing.

Published by This Literary Webzine

Live Review: Delinquints at Bovine Sex Club, Toronto

2010-12-20T23:40:00.001-05:00

The 8th annual Toronto Zombie Walk hit downtown T.O. Saturday, October 23, giving Hallowe’en lovers a chance to try on their costumes a little early. I caught one of the many after parties happening that night, this one at the Bovine Sex Club, where the Delinquints laid down a gritty and captivating set.

The Delinquints’ live performance is a powerhouse of noise. A raw, electric spectacle comprised of singer Jimy Delinquint’s dark, Misfit-greaser aesthetic; Beardo and Sarah’s classic punky-garage, U.K. Subs style guitars, coarsely distorted and frantically chugging away; and Dan Arget’s blistering drums continually cycling through high tempo, four on the floor beats. The Delinquints play heavy, monstrous punk, yet simple and with enough soul to stay out of the new hardcore-cum-metal spectrum. This is hardcore punk in the classic sense: Johnny Cash down on Avenue A. Back alley Elvis wielding stiletto. Ramones on speed.

Of course, with so much punk history encroaching on their sound, the Delinquints had to pay homage to their heroes. This came with a much more core than Social D cover of Cash’s eternal psychobilly anthem “Folsom Prison Blues.” And three Misfits classics, “Horror Business,” “Hybrid Moments” and, which got everyone fist pumping, “Last Caress.” Belting out the songs at double speed, sounding almost exactly like today’s touring Misfits, all of the Delinquints’ covers were graceful nods to their forebears. This band isn’t out to prove they’re punk; they naturally strut in intimidating confidence.

Sending off guitarist Sarah Hoedlmoser in her last set with the group, plenty of Delinquints favourites were also on hand. These included “Punish The Wicked (With a 2X4),” “No Cure For” and “Criminalise The Poor.” Demonstrating their early eighties street, specifically anarcho anthem meets fifties garage sound, these tracks got local followers chanting. By the end of the set, the Bovine was packed shoulder to shoulder with people catching a glimpse of these punks who know that respect for elders trumps striking a pose.

Published by Thiz Literary Webzine

CD Review: Elvis Costello

2010-12-20T23:34:00.004-05:00

Elvis Costello
National Ransom
3.5/5

Listen To: The Spell That You Cast
Skip It: Stations Of The Cross

Wearing your stripes is inevitable as time goes by and Costello, on his latest album National Ransom, looks like he's almost out of steam. Take the title track for example, its mid-tempo beat and low-fi organ background attempt, but fail to pack a punch. Forget the reggae club; this song is only dance hall appropriate at the senior's centre.

That said the tune grabs more than its follower, "Jimmie Standing In The Rain,” a lackluster moment of intimacy between Costello, acoustic, trumpet and violin. The song has gravity - Costello's usual lyrical depth is present, and the Vaudeville inspired sound is on the mark. But it still leaves an indelible WTF? on your mind.

Shadowy ballad "Stations Of The Cross" is similarly confusing. Tinkering around dark piano lines, the intended approach on the heart strings is out of touch. "Five Small Words" would be acceptable if the country guitar line was left alone, but its drowning reverb bothers.

Surprisingly, the other ten tracks on National Ransom takes you in a better direction. Out comes the impressive Costello we all know and love, and were waiting for.

"A Slow Drag With Josephine,” "Bullets For The New-Born King" and "One Bell Ringing" have an essential organic country quality showcasing Costello's acoustic and vocal skill. The songs, and especially "You Hung The Moon,” fondly recall Costello/Bacharach era integrity.

"Church Underground" offers the most dedicated throwback with a ratty reggae guitar line. And "The Spell That You Cast" has the legendary fifties "Radio, Radio" sound with exciting organ and Chuck Berry solo.

Overall National Ransom falls slightly short, leaving room for more from the great who gave us "Allison" and "Watching The Detectives.” But the disconnect fades once a few consumer tracks are rid with and we meet again with one of the best modern musicians.

Track Listing:

1. National Ransom
2. Jimmie Standing In The Rain
3. Stations Of The Cross
4. A Slow Drag With Josephine
5. Five Small Words
6. Church Underground
7. You Hung The Moon
8. Bullets For The New-Born King
9. I Lost You
10. Dr. Watson, I Presume
11. One Bell Ringing
12. The Spell That You Cast
13. That's Not The Part Of Him You're Leaving
14. My Lovely Jezebel
15. All These Strangers
16. A Voice In The Dark

Published by Tangible Sounds Magazine

Book Review

2010-12-20T01:21:00.004-05:00

WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER
by Howard Norman

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(October 2010, US$25.00, 256 pages)

At the beginning of Howard Norman’s What Is Left The Daughter, Wyatt Hillyer, a teenage boy recently orphaned by double parent suicides, embarks on an apprenticeship to his uncle Donald as a toboggan maker. Odd, but these two scenarios are more closely knit than you may think. They set up the depressing chain of events that this World War Two era novel follows.

Written as a letter to Wyatt’s long-lost daughter Marlais, this novel’s most striking trait is its focus on tragedy-touched characters. The fatal theme flourishes quickly, once Wyatt is moved from Halifax to Middle Economy, Nova Scotia, a small town in the maritime province where his aunt and uncle live. Here, Wyatt reunites with Tilda, his adopted cousin whom he secretly loves. Also in her late teens, Tilda decides to become a professional mourner – yes, she weeps alongside deceased loners whom no one else will pity. In diverse representation, Wyatt isn’t the only one full-up on sadness. The man Tilda eventually marries is Hans Mohring, a German exchange student of philology at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

And then there is Tilda’s father, Wyatt’s toboggan-making mentor Donald, overcome with paranoia caused by German U-boat attacks off Canada’s east coast. Donald withdraws from the family, gives up the sleigh racket, and starts bunking alone in his work shed like a soldier. On her last night in town before travelling to Newfoundland on a family visit, Wyatt’s aunt Constance, Donald’s wife, breaks the shield and sleeps with Donald between walls tacked up with war stories from the newspaper.

Things climax when a German torpedo takes out a ferry with Constance onboard. With this, Donald’s hate for Hitler peaks; his paranoia proves its worth. He even goes as far as smashing his beloved Beethoven and Bach gramophone records, the ones that always got caught in the last groove before the needle could lift: a broken record repeating its last note over and over again, like the newspaper and radio reports Donald couldn’t ignore.

In one last, foul move, Donald tricks Wyatt into inviting Tilda’s German husband, Hans, to their house, apparently to make peace. Instead, Donald’s rage overpowers wit when he kills Hans with a steel toboggan runner. Daughter takes on a small town, court drama feel for a couple chapters. Donald gets life in prison for the murder; Wyatt receives a couple years for his involvement.

Upon his release, Wyatt slowly becomes part of Tilda’s life again and one night they conceive a child: Marlais. However, Wyatt is once again abandoned when Tilda moves to Denmark with Marlais, and until the point that the book is written—March 27, 1967—Wyatt goes without seeing his daughter for nearly thirty years. The story ends with Wyatt encountering more death (from both important characters and not), old friends, and living his life as a dedicated gaffer at the Halifax Harbour.

Daughter is a bleak and empathetic story, dissolved slightly with pockets of classic, uppity, home front war era scenes. To Norman’s credit, there are many unforeseen right turns that follow constant tragic foreshadowing. From page one, death is on the mind, and the avenues in which the theme is experimented with are not obviously revealed. Like any wartime novel, Daughter does have flavours of stories told once before. Hitler’s encroach on Middle Economy, even though he and his troops are distant, is represented only by a foreign sit-in. When it’s revealed that there are Nazis posing as RMC soldiers roaming around Nova Scotia and that a friend of Wyatt’s was attacked by them, you start to sympathize with Donald, the unabashed defender of reasonable revenge. Although he sacrificed an innocent bystander, he had the right intention. I guess that’s the worth of any good war novel: breaking down misconceptions loaded with controversial politics.

Published by This Literary Webzine

Small book wins big prize

2010-12-20T01:07:00.005-05:00

Johanna Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalists winning the Giller Prize, Canada’s highest literary achievement, does more for CanLit than for Skibsrud. That’s taken lightly though, because the young, thirty-year-old author of a highly esteemed novel will feel the Giller effect of worldly recognition and mass sales in the ball park of 75,000 copies. But even that sounds miniscule compared to the real story behind The Sentimentalists. When this novel was first published in 2009 by Kentville, Nova Scotia micro-press Gaspereau Books, it was in a wiry run of 800 copies.

That’s what makes this year’s Giller so unique in the world of CanLit, and so groundbreaking. The Sentamentalists is the smallest book ever to win the prize, which pays a pleasant $50,000, and beat out two big commercial novels, David Bergen’s The Matter With Morris and Kathleen Winter’s Annabel. Winter’s novel was also nominated for the Writer’s Trust and Governor General’s awards. Last year’s Giller winner was long time CBC newscaster Lynden MacIntyre for his widely successful novel The Bishop’s Man. In its fifteen year existence, past Giller winners include Alice Munro, Joseph Boyden and Margaret Atwood. No one saw the major literary award centering in on something as obscure as Skibsrud's novel, an account of her father’s life as a soldier in the Vietnam War.

At the same time, The Sentamentalists contended with other underdogs, including Sarah Salecky’s This Cake Is For The Party and Alexander MacLeod’s Light Lifting, two considerably smaller books, thought their quantities were at least in the thousands when recommended by the jury.

Once the 2010 Giller longlist was announced, Gaspereau owner Andrew Steeves turned down commercial offers to mass produce copies of The Sentamentalists. “If you are going to buy a copy of that book in Canada, it’s damn well coming out of my shop,” Steeves proclaimed in an interview with the Globe and Mail. He’s since changed his tune, telling the press on Monday that Vancouver publishers Douglas & McIntyre will be producing 30,000 paperback copies by the end of the week, with an additional 20,000 lined up when demand bubbles again.

Also currently hitting the news is a dash of Giller controversy. Ali Smith, British author and one of the three Giller jurors this year, reportedly tipped off a publishing friend during the middle of deliberations about her love of Skibsrud’s novel. The National Post reported that Smith’s friend, Tracy Bohan of The Wiley Agency, may have taken the advice a little too seriously, because she sold foreign printing rights of the book to a UK Random House imprint with a release date set for next March. Giller president Jack Rabinovitch acknowledges the information sharing was out of line, but was done innocently.

Meanwhile, Steeves at Gaspereau in Kentville, Nova Scotia is trying to keep his head above water while pumping out 1,000 hand-printed and hand-bound copies a week, with enough on backorder to keep them in business until e-books really do take over the world. Oddly enough, The Sentamentalists is available online as an e-Book from Kobo. Since the announcement of Skibsrud’s win last week, Amazon.ca has her novel topping the bestseller list ahead of Keith Richard’s Life and George W. Bush’s Decision Points. Beating out famous names like that is no little feat.

Published by This Literary Webzine

Oh, Winston.

2010-12-20T00:53:00.003-05:00

I find it interesting how we stumble over the things we end up reading. What makes us pick up a certain newspaper, magazine or book, only to have it become one of our favourites? In hindsight, I sometimes realise odd licks of fate that initially guide me to a certain trend in writing, only to view it later as something monumental. For instance, I’ll always remember the cornerstone novel in my life being Orwell’s 1984. I first read it on a philosophical whim when I was thirteen years old; I was coming of age and getting interested in world politics, and had heard how prolific was the novel’s satire of modern democratic society, derived from a premonition. I not only fell in love with Orwell (since having read most of his catalogue), but 1984 influenced my perception of the world. Whenever I reminisce on how I forged my left-wing, anti-establishment, down-with-globalisation ways, I often think of how trapped Winston Smith is, constantly evading Big Brother, and how the thought of becoming him forever changed my outlook.

It seems like lately, in a much less momentous way, I have oddly stumbled over more reading when titles jumped out at me for some reason and became some of my favourites. Here are a few that I have tripped over in the past few weeks.

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
I fell upon Packer while reading an article about the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 list in this a few months back. Skimming through the finalists, the words Drinking Coffee Elsewhere pulled me in for a couple of reasons. One: It reminded me of the movie “Coffee and Cigarettes,” one of my favourites, a documentary about rock and roll warlords. Two: Because it sounds so good (I know, but if you share this sentiment, you know what I mean). Thankfully, the witty title of this collection of stories was not a guise to lure in readers, only to have them disappointed at some lame, poorly written life story. Contrarily, ZZ Packer’s style is sensational. She not only attacks identity and gender theories, racism, and other contemporary controversial topics in Coffee, but does it with some of the best writing I’ve ever read. I highly recommend.

Anton Chekhov
I recently reviewed a book of modernised Chekhov tales and while doing so realised that I had never actually read anything by Chekhov. It’s hard to say this as an English major, but true. I had only heard of his prowess – how he is the best Russian story writer of all time and second to Shakespeare in the world-scope of bards. And, I’m pretty sure a few Simpsons episodes are taken straight from Chekhov‘s pages. Needless to say, I had to do some buffing up. What I mainly love about Chekhov’s over two hundred stories (and a number of plays) is the focus on everyday life. Whether drawing characters from working class Russia or writing about important national landmarks, Chekhov had an unbelievable knack for depicting reality in a highly important era.

Death In Venice by Thomas Mann
The other day I was reading the arts section of the newspaper and came across a review of a new opera in Toronto, Death In Venice, based on the novella by Thomas Mann. Once again, and I don’t know why, this title leapt off the page at me. I instantly hit the library. Now, if there is one thing I love about literature, it’s being able to get entranced by writing. Venice opens with its hero Gustav von Aschenbach taking a very Poe-esque walk by the cemetery where he bumps into an eerie stalker. From this, I was hooked. But the story is more than a Gothic stroll; it deals with everything from ancient philosophy, Shakespearian tragedy and the Narcissistic archetype. Check this out if you enjoy quick reads and allusion rich literature requiring an afternoon or two full of research.

Published by This Literary Webzine

Record Review: Fucked Up - Year Of The Ox

2010-11-22T22:55:00.007-05:00

FUCKED UP
Year of the Ox
Merge Records, 2010

We all know bands grow up, but it’s usually into whiny commercial whores. That’s why it’s so great to watch Fucked Up somehow, with increasing severity, undercut punk’s simplistic ethos with every release. Indeed, they do it again on their latest, Year Of The Ox, the fourth instalment in a Zodiac themed singles line which has led the band in some of their most audibly absurd travels. And on a whole, at times completely off the cusp in any sense of hardcore punk, Fucked Up’s past five years, since their debut full-length record Hidden World and acclaimed follow-up The Chemistry of Common Life, showcases a band with an itching experimental side waiting to let loose.

On Ox, title track “Year Of The Ox” opens with an eerie violin and cello build-up, donated by Toronto orchestra ensemble New Strings Old Puppets, foreshadowing the song’s bass line and classical elements. Tension rises for just over a minute before the band kicks in. Damian Abraham immediately spits out his bludgeoning vocals in time with the guitar section’s stomping yet gentle hook that prevails as the thirteen minute song’s main riff.

A slight change in that hook switches up progression five minutes in. When the formula returns after a quick bridge, Abraham’s throat lashings assume an authoritative air while New Strings returns for an epic orchestral bridge. The guitar takes a backseat to elevating classical monstrosity reminiscent of Hidden World opener “Crusades” but with much more drawn out ampleness. Zola Jesus’s Nika Rosa Danilova dawns her voice in the latter half of the tune, offering mystical vocal swells amidst the now grittily palm muted guitar line.

“Ox” mixes the grandiose with the gutter, making it easy to wonder if Abraham would for once stop wrenching his guts, then Fucked Up would have to be labelled something other than punk or hardcore. What's punk about classically epic? Perhaps a question never to be answered by the troupe, but this song’s rule bending consciousness displays how punk doesn’t always have to laugh at itself, and can be seriously measured for all signs of integrity. Fucked Up proves punk is real music, even an academy-trained ear can recognise that.

The single’s B-side is another eye opener. Unlike previous Year Of’s backed with a couple two-minute punk standards, Ox flips over to the twelve minute “Solomon’s Song” uniquely featuring a saxophone line by Aerin Fogel of the Bitters. The bluesy intro leads to another low-mid tempo drum beat while a high-pitch guitar lead cycles over distant power chords. The song gets trippy as psychedelic delay effects are laid on the guitars during the choruses. When Abraham rests during the many, almost unnoticed bridges, the band is a marvel. Sandy wraths the bass strings offering low pitch punches; spacey bell rings and tremolo feedback jet out from hidden crevices; and Fogel wails on the sax for a broad five-minute outro.

Ox is monumental in mapping the evolution of Fucked Up from being an abrasive streetcore band to the scene’s forerunning innovators. Long time fans know they’re still thrashing and crashing, but to an obviously more intricate, grown-up style.

Published by This Literary Magazine

CanLit Award Predictions

2010-11-15T00:54:00.004-05:00

CanLit awards season is heading into its last few weeks (our big three prizes will all be handed out by mid-November). Thus, it’s time for predictions, and, if you are a real lit-junkie, some serious bets. First, a few quiet observations.

What everyone is perhaps not so quietly talking about is Kathleen Winter’s triple nominations for the Giller Prize, Governor General’s Award and Writers’ Trust prize for her novel Annabel. It is Winter’s debut novel after her 2008 Winterset Award winning short story collection boYs.

Feeling two-thirds the heat as Kathleen Winter is Emma Donoghue, up for the Writers’ Trust and GG for her novel Room. The novel was also short-listed for the Man Booker earlier this fall.

There are lesser hopefuls that may surprise Canada with a big win after all. David Bergen’s new novel The Matter With Morris has had its share of recognition this season. It is up for the Giller and may just take the cake out of Winter’s mouth.

That said, it would be doggishly ironic if Sarah Selecky’s This Cake Is For The Party won the Giller. It is her debut work and has created considerable buzz in critic’s circles. Perhaps if the GG and Writer’s Trust accepted story collections, it would also approach taking those awards.

On to my predictions: be warned, the following is purely unfounded speculation.

On November 2, Michael Winter’s The Death Of Donna Whalen will win the Writers’ Trust award for fiction. In non-fiction, Sarah Leavitt will win for her graphic memoir Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me.

A week later on November 9, Emma Donoghue will win the Giller Prize for Room.

And in mid-November the Governor General’s Award for fiction will be presented to Kathleen Winter for Annabel. In non-fiction, Allan Casey will win for Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada.

Published by This Literary Magazine

Album Review: Pantera - Cowboys From Hell 20th Anniversary

2010-11-15T00:46:00.004-05:00

Pantera
Cowboys From Hell 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
4.5/5

Listen To: Domination (Alive and Hostile EP)
Skip It: Nothing.

For any old school metalhead, Pantera's mainstream breakthrough, Cowboys From Hell, has some sort of nostalgia tied to it. Upon its release in 1990 Pantera, who had previously been known as Pantera's Metal Magic and strut to a glammier kind of metal, received mass recognition for their reworked sound. Without getting into the politics of who started what first - Cowboys From Hell is deemed by most as the definitive groove metal album, though condemned by defenders of Exhorder as not - we can agree that Cowboys From Hell popularized the genre, a first, and that's nothing to shake your prick at.

Celebrating the twenty year anniversary since this influential album, legendary Rhino Records re-released it in a box set alongside an array of previously unreleased Pantera material.

The original Cowboys From Hell leaves well enough alone, letting you relive past mullet days by head banging along to "Cemetary Gates," "Psycho Holiday," "Domination" and the rest of the twelve monstrous tracks that thrust Pantera onto pick-up truck dashboards across America. Dimebag, Anselmo, Rex and Vinnie are all still indefinitely in your face. What still resonates most is Dimebag's incurable talent - the punchiest death metal sound funneled through groundbreaking orchestrated technique.

The second disc, available on the Rhino Extended release, is all live Pantera. Seven tracks, recorded at the Foundations Forum set in LA in 1990, are previously unreleased. The latter five tracks come from 1994's Alive and Hostile EP.

For diehards who splurge on the Deluxe Edition, there is a third disc featuring the eleven legendary demos that became Cowboys From Hell, and one previously unheard Pantera tune entitled "The Will To Survive," a hairier track more like pre-Cowboys Pantera.

Shit, now that's more than an afternoon's worth of music. More like twenty years' worth.

Track Listing:

Disc One
1. Cowboys From Hell
2. Primal Concrete Sledge
3. Psycho Holiday
4. Heresy
5. Cemetery Gates
6. Domination
7. Shattered
8. Clash With Reality
9. Medicine Man
10. Message In Blood
11. The Sleep
12. The Art Of Shredding

Disc Two
1. Domination – Live
2. Psycho Holiday – Live
3. The Art Of Shredding – Live
4. Cowboys From Hell – Live
5. Cemetery Gates – Live
6. Primal Concrete Sledge – Live
7. Heresy – Live
8. Domination – Live, Alive And Hostile EP
9. Primal Concrete Sledge – Live, Alive And Hostile EP
10. Cowboys From Hell – Live, Alive And Hostile EP
11. Heresy – Live, Alive And Hostile EP
12. Psycho Holiday – Live, Alive And Hostile EP

Disc Three
1. The Will To Survive
2. Shattered – Demo
3. Cowboys From Hell – Demo
4. Heresy – Demo
5. Cemetery Gates – Demo
6. Psycho Holiday – Demo
7. Medicine Man – Demo
8. Message In Blood – Demo
9. Domination – Demo
10. The Sleep – Demo
11. The Art Of Shredding – Demo

Published by Tangible Sounds

CD Review: Apocalyptica's 7th Symphony

2010-11-15T00:30:00.004-05:00

Apocalyptica
7th Symphony
4/5

Listen To: At The Gates Of Manala
Skip It: Not Strong Enough

You have to love when metal and classical fans have something in common. It's not all that rare these days with the growing neo-classical metal scene gaining a following. There are even classical-punk bands kicking around and getting recognition. But, undoubtedly, at the forefront of neo-classical alt music is Apocalyptica from Helsinki, Finland, who are back with their seventh studio album, aptly titled 7th Symphony.

The record follows suit with previous Apocalyptica works with four songs featuring well known guest vocalists, being Bush X frontman Gavin Rossdale, Brent Smith of Shinedown, Lacey Mosley from Flyleaf, and Gojira's Joe Duplantier.

With such variance in vocal presence, 7th Symphony's lyricised tracks keep the band pushing new boundaries. Apocalyptica is cello metal, but, for example with Gavin Rossdale's track "End Of Me," they create a very radio friendly heavy rock sound. It's just too bad the radio doesn't pay any attention. Joe Duplantier's vocal offering, coming late in the ten song record, avenges the mainstream's lacking acknowledgment of this band. "Bring Them To Light" is dark, heavy, and spattered with crackling death metal vocals.

On the heavy side is where 7th Symphony holds tightest. The other six tracks, all instrumentals, are gritty, incorporating death, thrash, and even metalcore tactics, hardly sounding like cello music at all. Seven minute album opener "At The Gates Of Manala" mixes riffs and feedback; blast and triplet drum beats; and tempo-dampening breakdowns.

The record also has mellow tracks, like "On The Rooftop With Quasimodo," that rely on less doomish, mood-setting metal. "Sacra" dawns a beat riding tambourine for the album's second last track, the cleanest tune on the record. However, on the whole, this is a heavy; at times hooky and catchy offering from... shall I say it? Hell, from the Mozarts of Metal.

Track Listing:

1. At The Gates Of Manala
2. End Of Me, featuring Gavin Rossdale
3. Not Strong Enough, featuring Brent Smith
4. 2010, featuring Dave Lombardo
5. Beautiful
6. Broken Pieces, featuring Lacey Mosley
7. On The Rooftop With Quasimodo
8. Bring Them To Light, featuring Joe Duplantier
9. Sacra
10. Rage Of Poseidon

Published by Tangible Sounds

Tape Review

2010-10-31T16:32:00.006-04:00

FUCK THE FACTS
Live In Whitby
Self-Released/Band Camp

Spitting on 2010 technology, Fuck The Facts released a cassette tape last month, Live In Whitby, a recording of a performance at the Wing Shack in Whitby, Ontario on April 11, 2009. Enough to get die hard collectors antsy, the tape was limited to a slim fifty-three copies (they’re already sold out). The album is also available as a Name Your Price download on BandCamp.com, where FTF’s punk/grind masterpiece Unnamed EP (February 2010) is also available.

Continuously transforming over eight studio albums, countless singles, splits and compilations, FTF’s ever indefinable style tiptoes around punk, noise, stoner-groove and industrial influenced grind since 1998. Live In Whitby offers a glimpse of the band during peak Disgorge Mexico (2008) era with six of the nine tracks, including “Kelowna” and “Sleepless”, taken from the album. The oldest song on the tape is “La Tete Hors De L’eau,” originally appearing on 2003 release Overseas Connection.

One constant throughout FTF’s distinct grindcore approach is sampling voice and sound into their music. Evidently, this is not a studio-only technique. I was at the Wing Shack show, mesmerised watching drummer Mathieu Vilandrê swivel back and forth between drummer and sound dub roles, whacking at a synthesizer to his side when called for. Nothing is excluded from FTF style when playing live.

Singer Mel Mongeon also impresses on the tape with her monstrous stage presence, as intimidating as a ravenous Pit Bull. From her territorial markings spattered into the mic – “We’re Fuck The Facts from fuckin’ Ottawa!” – to her dedicated, intestine spindling scream assault, she shoves a middle finger up the ass of any hollow commercial metal.

The Live In Whitby lineup (left to right): Marc Bourgon, Topon Das, Mathieu Vilandrê, Johnny Ibay, Mel Mongeon.

Lead guitarist and band founder Topon Das, along with second guitarist Johnny Ibay and bassist Marc Bourgon, feed you the integral cherry on top of FTF’s approach. Drenched with distortion and devilishly down-tuned, the fellows rip through their unique grind sound with exact precision on Whitby. Not a brow-raising pick squeal nor panic inducing lead is fumbled.

FTF followers will be glad to get their hands, or hard drives, on this, the band’s first live release since 2003′s Live Damage. Whitby brings live new era FTF into your home and an opportunity to salivate over the richness of their performance whenever you desire. The sound quality is undeniable; aside from the cattle calls between songs, nothing differs from the studio. It is an imprint of a strikingly tight and technical group.

Whitby is dedicated to the memory of Canadian visual artist and musician Michal Majewski, who passed shortly after the event. He designed the poster for the show, pictured above. A catalogue of his artwork is available here. Majewski was the bassist for Ontario thrash/grind band F.A.T.O., who opened at the Wing Shack show.

Track Listing:
1. Absence And Despite
2. The Storm
3. Kelowna
4. Everyone Is Robbing The Dead
5. The Sound Of Your Smashed Head
6. La Culture Du Faux
7. The Pile Of Flesh You Carry
8. Sleepless
9. La Tete Hors De L’eau

Published by This Literary Magazine

Karkwa wins Polaris Prize

2010-10-31T16:17:00.006-04:00

Polaris Prize season is always exciting for Canadian music journalists. The hype around the heftily weighted $20,000 purse acknowledging the best independent album of the year takes on a feverish holiday feel. This year, after a summer of waiting since the longlist was announced on June 17, and the shortlist on July 7, music nerds were getting antsy. For months, record biz insiders, journalists and music fans were making their predictions known all over social networks. Leading up to the special day, September 20, people were wishing each other a “Happy Polaris Prize Day” on Twitter and Facebook.

Now it’s all said and done and, I am pleased to announce, the winner of the 2010 Polaris Prize is Montreal indie rock group Karkwa for their record Les Chemins De Verre. The band has been around since 2003 and have released four albums on Audiogram Records.

Much like the hype preceding Polaris day, after the winner is announced there is always strong reaction from media and music listeners alike. Last fall I was happier than a punk with a bottle of malt liquor when I heard one of my favourite bands, Fucked Up, won for their record The Chemistry Of Common Life. But after the Toronto hardcore-turned-experimental troupe took home the oversized cheque, reaction ensued, and critics unleashed. People couldn’t believe that a curse-named punk band could beat out more radio friendly underground music. “For heaven’s sake,” mainstream snobbies protested, “Metric was up for the award – and Fucked Up won?!”

This year, it’s much of the same jealousy fired at Karkwa. I guess it is tradition for people to lash out, usually in defence of the bands that don’t need twenty grand. Mostly I’ve seen people angry about popular bands like Tegan and Sarah and Broken Social Scene being sidelined by the judges in lieu of an underdog. I confess, I haven’t heard Les Chemins De Verre entirely, yet, but from what I’ve Youtubed I like. I applaud Karkwa for proving Edge102 radio and MuchMusic aren’t the be all, end all to what’s hip in Canada.

2010 Polaris Prize Winners Karkwa

However, I wonder why some well-known underground bands were left out this year. Although one of my favourites, The Sadies, made the shortlist (much to my surprise), I think some other Canadian albums should at least have been considered, like Bison BC’s Dark Ages, which I heard back in March and immediately declared the best Canadian album of 2010. I also would have nominated Fuck The Facts’s Unnamed EP, which to your next door neighbour sounds like the heaviest metal of all time but is really one of the smartest, genius punk/grind records ever.

I’ve kept quiet on my thoughts because, frankly, I know it will be a while before a heavier bands take the Polaris. For some reason hardcore and metal are too out of reach for vogue listeners. This is why it still amazes me that Fucked Up won last year. If the judges heard any of their music prior to Chemistry, I’m sure they would have barfed in disgust and declined them any right to acknowledgment in the arts scene.

Published by This Literary Magazine

CanLit: John Leigh Walters wins Edna Staebler Award

2010-10-15T16:55:00.000-04:00

This week, Kitchener, Ontario author John Leigh Walters was awarded the 2010 Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction for his first book A Very Capable Life: The Autobiography of Zarah Petri.

Walters’s A Very Capable Life is the story of his mother, Zarah Petri, and her life as an immigrant during the twentieth century. Walters is being heralded for mastering the first-person autobiography of another person. He writes Petri’s stories in her voice, from her point of view, and creatively reinterprets landmark twentieth century events through her perception.

Now retired, Walters hosted and produced television shows in Canada and the United States for most of his life. Most recently, he hosted a program on CTV in Waterloo.

The Edna Staebler Award, established by Staebler in 1991, annually acknowledges the best first or second non-fiction work of an author that significantly portrays Canadian culture or takes place in a Canadian locale. The winner receives $10,000 from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Wilfrid Laurier University recently published a collection of Staebler’s diary entries entitled Must Write.

Edna Staebler was one of Canada’s most well-known writers, regarded widely for her Mennonite cookbook series Food That Really Shmecks. She also wrote for popular Canadian magazines Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Reader’s Digest and Star Weekly. In 1996 she was awarded the Order of Canada.

Published by This Literary Magazine

White Moustache

2010-10-11T23:53:00.003-04:00

by John Coleman

I read in the newspaper
about a man with a white moustache
who said he wanted to burn the Qur’an.
His moustache looked just like Hulk Hogan’s,
and it reminded me of white bread.
Fake, like white bread -
so overworked and distant from nature.
Bleached, misshapen, manipulated, unnatural.
Unreal – like wrestling.

The moustached man said that
if they built a mosque where
(people can pray)
so many innocent people died,
that would comply with the enemy.
He didn’t have mighty arms like Hulk Hogan does,
but he worked in the same way:
to bring down the enemy.
And I thought,
I belong to the most violent generation.
But not like,
My generation is so violent, it’s absurd.
My thoughts wandered to the conclusion that
I live in the most violent generation ever.

That’s all burning the Qur’an is anyway, right?
Violence.
Instead of burning the Qur’an,
this man really wants to burn the enemy.
He really wants to burn human beings.
But burning the Qur’an sends the same message:
red-white-and-blue
(so easily, how it flows)
wants you to die.

Target, burn, kill your enemy
preached the white moustached man.
It made me want to burn
red-white-and-blue mentality.
I want to burn my Wonder Bread.
I want to darken my white bread mind.

Because my side
(culture)
is being strung up
(hung)
like a(n) flag
(enemy).
I feel misrepresented.
I don’t believe in flags.
Because of the man with the white moustache
I will never believe in God
because believing in God means being hung.

There is a mosque in my neighbourhood in the GTA.
Little mosque on the concrete prairie.
It’s like a church in a school gym
with a Coke machine in the entrance
where my neighbours pray to
Jesus.
But opposite
(wrong).
Right, white moustached man?

I later read that Hulk Hogan
stepped down from his challenge
and that bruised his integrity
because he was fake.
If he was real he would have
burned all the Qur’ans.
But some Hoganites were still going to
carry out the crusade,
the original plan.

They said:
This is the right thing to do.
The only thing left
but more so right
thing to do.
Burn people that burn you.

And a friend, or two, or many of mine read the Qur’an.
Read, or pray, or wander in thought,
then we all watch wrestling.
Hulk Hogan on the screen in fiery yellow and red.
When he powerslams the enemy, the violence is
fake, thin, blank.
Like Wonder Bread.
But there is always a small city who thinks
it is worth standing up to say
“Hulk Hogan is the best,
I would do anything he tells me.”
It is the most violent generation.

Published by This Literary Magazine

Book Review

2010-10-11T23:12:00.017-04:00

CELEBRITY CHEKHOV
by Ben Greenman
Harper-Perennial
(October 2010, $13.99, 205 pages)

Anton Chekhov meets the twenty-first century in Ben Greenman’s latest novel, Celebrity Chekhov, in which Greenman rewrites a selection of the master Russian storyteller’s works with modern day celebrities in place of the original characters.

The shift in rhetoric may be easier for humour readers to stomach than students of Russian literature. Chekhov’s romantic, classical picture of Russian life during the industrial revolution and pre-Communist revolution takes a back seat to current Hollywood headlines. The plots of the twenty reworked stories, which include “An Enigmatic Nature,” “Death of a Government Clerk,” “The Darling,” and “A Classical Student,” are the same, but Greenman’s contemporary symbols encompass a world of difference.

For example, in Celebrity’s opening story, “Tall and Short,” based on Chekhov’s “Fat and Thin.” The original story portrays a pair of childhood friends all grown up and, by way of the fat friend becoming a privy councillor, examines the fear capable of being instilled by Russian elites. Less politics are tied to Greenman’s “Tall and Short,” which replaces Fat and Thin with Paris Hilton (Tall) and Nicole Richie (Short) a few years after falling out of BFF-ship. The looming elitist comment is personified in Paris, but the story loses Chekhov’s intent.

Chekhov’s “A Transgression” is a perfect fit for Greenman’s take on David Letterman’s life. The story depicts a practical joke played on a rich socialite by his angry maid, who gets back at him by leaving a baby on his doorstep and leading him to believe it is the product of an affair. He jumps through the hoop, and the rich man/David Letterman fesses up to his wife about an illegitimate child he does not have, and an affair he did. Although “A Transgression” is a quirky anecdote, it is muddled by a Letterman we see acting out of character. He mopes, worries, and shows a soul, which is hard to imagine in the egotistical late night king. The Letterman character seems like it could be any cheating celeb.

The same feeling comes in “Bad Weather,” which focuses on Tiger Woods’ recent infidelities. The story is consuming - big names and Chekhov style draw you in - but Tiger is not himself. It’s almost like a Mad Magazine interpretation of the stars: inflated and satirised to a point of absurdity, where it’s hard to find any reason for reading them at all.

Greenman gets his impressions right at the end of Celebrity in an adaptation of a Chekhov trilogy, consisting of “The Man In A Case,” “Gooseberries,” and “About Love.” Here, Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson converse about tragic love stories in a truly cinematic way. The anecdotes are witty and funny and, most importantly, when you imagine the dialogue in their voices, their renowned personalities fit the roles. “The Man In A Case” even makes Jon Lovitz look like the paranoid shut-in we all think he is, but tastefully of course.

Greenman obviously brings classicism into the new millennium in Celebrity Chekhov and shows how story archetypes are recycled everywhere in literature. But it might be too far out for purists, who value Chekhov’s perception of turn of the century Russian society - symbols much more inspirational than flashy Hollywood gossip. However, to Greenman’s credit, there are a few smirk inducing scenes that show how certain celebrities actually do match-up with some Chekhovian characters. For a Hollywood obsessed gossip queen looking for an unsurprising reiteration of the past year‘s biggest scandals, this book is perfect.

Published by This Literary Magazine

2010-10-11T17:25:00.017-04:00

EYAL MAOZ & ASAF SIRKIS
Elementary Dialogues
Ayler Records (France), 2009

The fact that Eyal Maoz and Asaf Sirkis were childhood friends, growing up and attending school together in Rehovot, Israel, makes their musical careers all the more interesting. Maoz, a jazz guitarist, left Israel for a musical career in NYC, where he now leads such musical ensembles as Edom, Dimyon, Crazy Slavic Band, and co-leads Hypercolor and Manganon. Sirkis settled across the pond in London, England, after establishing a name for himself as a drummer in Israel during the 1990s. He now leads two ensembles, The Asaf Sirkis Trio and The Inner Noise, and has collaborated with numerous artists such as Harold Rubin, John Williams, and Nick Homes.

After banding around and making names for themselves in their respective cities, Maoz and Sirkis reunite on 2009′s Ayler Records release, Elementary Dialogues. What a force they have concocted! Relying on traditional instrumental jazz formulae of lead trading and intuition fuelled improv, the record fuses blues, jazz and rock styles for a unique picture of avant-garde experimentation.

Eyal Maoz

“Regae” opens Elementary Dialogues with a twangy, fairly conservative blues melody. The simplistic, smile inducing tune effectively sets the plain for Eyal’s clean guitar side, which guides him through tell-tale jazz unconventionality on the album. However, the safe, mood-setting album opener contrasts the feverish intensity found on the rest of the record.

To be blunt, after “Regae” simplicity vanishes from Elementary Dialogues. Second track “Foglah” dawns Maoz’s distinct experimental sound which frequently pushes toward a distorted noise sound. Reminiscent of the Electric Mud style, Maoz unleashes his raw talent by playing with feedback and wah effects, at times calling in shades of Hendrix-esque tone manipulation.

The rest of the record follows the same lines as “Foglah,” throwing the rule book aside for a highly experimental avant-garde sound. For example, “Sparse” is backgrounded with a fiddlish tremolo effect and Sirkis’s chattering ride cymbal. Atop the electric, yet lounge-ish noise, Maoz breaks the tension with drawn out, distorted blues leads.

“Miniature” splits the record with contrast by slowing tempo. Maoz’s clean guitar saunters around a humble melody while Sirkis rides his snare with soothing brush strokes. “Kashmir” displays the duo’s inimitable approach perfectly with more clean guitar licks from Maoz, and Sirkis’s unrequited love for clacking the rims on his kit. Other notable mentions for fusion lovers include “Jewish Loop,” “Strip,” and “OK,” which incorporate note bending and muddy distortion effects from Maoz and stark impressive improvisation from both duo members.

Maoz and Sirkis trade parts like a couple of prohibition era trailblazers on Elementary Dialogues, each respectively stepping aside to allow their partner to solo around for a bit, and then jumping back into the spotlight for the next burst of energy. The pair blends numerous styles into a melting pot of innovative technicality. From its originality and array of techniques, this record will impress avid contemporary jazz followers, and even the average listener bored with the radio.

Track Listing:

1. Regae
2. Foglah
3. Sparse
4. Jewish Loop
5. Esta
6. Hole
7. Miniature
8. Strip
9. Kashmir
10. OK
11. Ethnic
12. Quiet Improv
13. Without A Story

Published by This Literary Magazine

Dig Below The Mainstream

2010-10-11T17:10:00.008-04:00

I must confess I’ve felt snobbish lately – my range of authors being a tad one sided in favour of the big press. It’s not that I need sales or reputation to respect an author, not at all – it’s just that I’ve been blindsided by a few bigger, highly anticipated novels in the past few months. But being the rebel I am (insert laughtrack here), I know that big press is a euphemism for the man, and I won’t have that being the log in my literary fire.

So, in an attempt to dig below the mainstream, this is what I am reading while the leaves change colour outside my window:

Best Canadian Stories: ’08, ed. John Metcalf (Oberon Press). While perusing my local library I found this gem, a compilation of short stories by ten lesser known CanLit authors like Clark Blaise, Kathleen Winter, and Amy Jones. Despite being edited by one of Canada’s top literary critics, this book really pushes some unheard names into reader’s faces. These are top notch intuitive stories, but their authors probably wouldn’t catch the attention of Penguin editors.

What Is Left The Daughter, by Howard Norman (HMH). I’m reviewing this book for this and so far, from the fifty pages I have read, it is amazing. Set during World War Two on the East Coast of Canada, it is a life tale of extreme hardship at a young age (double parent suicide) and the further aftermath of a growing young man.

The Matter With Morris, by David Bergen (Harper Collins) In honour of making the Giller longlist, I must mention that Bergen’s story is highly intriguing. I’ve only read a condensed version of Morris in this month’s Walrus, but it definately makes me want to buy a copy. With themes like war, romance, writing, and pot – how can you say no?

Mordecai Richler Was Here, ed. Adam Gopnik (Madison). Ahh, I know, there’s nothing small time about Richler. But I don’t care, he’s my favourite author. His satirical wittiness, mastering the underdog story, putting CanLit on the map – he’s the best. This book brings together a wide array of Richler’s journalism coinciding with relevant snippets from his fiction. It’s Richler’s perspective on politics, writing, and success in his own words, a definite read for budding writers in need of guidance.

I have also been paying attention to Joey Comeau’s blog posts over at Open Book Toronto this month. Comeau is gaining a heap of recognition in Canada lately with his most recent novel One Bloody Thing After Another. He also provides captions alongside Emily Horne’s photography on A Softer World, an ongoing web comic.

And yes, I realize this is all CanLit.

Published by This Literary Magazine

Giller

2010-10-11T17:01:00.003-04:00

The longlist for the 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the leading literary award for Canadian authors, was announced Monday, September 20. This year’s judges – Canadian journalist and broadcaster Michael Enright, American author and professor Claire Messud, and renowned UK author Ali Smith – decided on thirteen titles from ninety-eight submissions from a wide variety of Canadian publishers.

This year’s selections are diverse and somewhat surprising compared to previous years, with a balanced list of big and small presses, male and female authors, and novels and short story collections.

The 2010 Giller Prize for Fiction longlist is:

The Matter With Morris by David Bergen (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins)

Player One by Douglas Coupland (House of Anansi Press)

Cities Of Refuge by Michael Helm (McClelland & Stewart)

Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod (Biblioasis)

The Debba by Avner Mandelman (Other Press/Random House)

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (Dial/Random House)

This Cake Is For The Party by Sarah Selecky (Thomas Allen Publishers)

The Sentimentalists by Johanna Scabbard (Gaspereau Press)

Lemon by Cordelia Strube (Coach House Books)

Curiosity by Joan Thomas (McClelland & Stewart)

Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart (McClelland & Stewart)

Cool Water by Dianne Warren (Phyllis Bruce Books/HarperCollins)

Annabel by Kathleen Winter (House of Anansi Press)

The shortlist will be announced at a Toronto news conference tomorrow October 5 and the 2010 Giller Prize winner will be announced November 9.

While I have you here, I’d like to mention that the five nominees for the City of Toronto Book Award were announced recently. They are:

Prince of Neither Here Nor There by Sean Cullen (Penguin)
Valentine’s Fall by Cary Fagan (Cormorant)
Where We Have To Go by Lauren Kirshner (McClelland)
The Carnivore by Mark Sinnett (ECW)
Diary of Interrupted Days by Dragan Topologic (Random House Canada)

The Toronto book award has been running annually since 1974. This year’s finalists will read selections from their works at the Word On The Street book and magazine festival in Toronto on September 26. The winner will be announced October 14.

October 5, 2010:

The Shortlist for the 2010 Giller Prize was announced Tuesday, October 5. Selected from the longlist of thirteen publications announced September 20, the five shortlisted candidates are:

David Bergen, for the novel The Matter With Morris

Kathleen Winter, for the novel Annabel

Johanna Skibsrud, for the novel The Sentimenatlists

Alexander MacLeod, for the short story collection Light Lifting

Sarah Selecky, for the short story collection This Cake Is For The Party

Think you know which one of these authors will win? If so, enter the Guess The Giller contest for a chance to win VIP passes to the 2011 Giller Gala.

Stay tuned November 9 for the 2010 Giller Prize winner announcement.

2010-09-28T20:20:00.016-04:00

The Acacia Strain
Wormwood
4/5

Listen To: The Impaler
Skip It: Tactical Nuke

Massive drop-tuned guitars resonate over a slap-happy double bass foundation on Wormwood, The Acacia Strain's fourth studio album. This record's heaviness warrants a backup set of speakers, it's a start to finish firing range of hardcore tinged death metal.

Living up to its name, album opener "Beast" (featuring Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta) is a muscle shirt shredding inspiration. After an eyebrow raising intro with an alien-like voice insisting When someone needs to be killed, there's no wrong, you're bludgeoned with slow-paced war-drum stomping and max-distorted guitar chugs. Vincent Bennett intensely assaults with his fire-breathing, vocal chord snapping microphone punishment.

Track two, "The Hills Have Eyes,” continues the workout. Driving along a straight ahead triplet beat, the song is more hardcore punk than deathcore and the like, a sound consistent on other faster tracks like "Ramirez.” Fans of Raised Fist and other metal-hardcore will fly ass over tits for these circle pit-triggering songs.

The Acacia Strain, aptly labeled deathcore or not, dabble in untreaded zones on Wormwood as well. For example, intriguing you in the forefront of the entire record is an array of delay guitar. "The Carpathian" and "Terminated" play around with the strobe effect tastefully, allowing contrast to cease judgment of this, upon first listen, categorical band. But "The Impaler" takes the cake with the slipperiest guitar lead around. I don't know what produces this possessed hyena shrill, perhaps better described as a cathedral window shattering over a hell-demon's headstone, but it impresses. Yes, there are many times when Wormwood is that good.

Track Listing:

1. Beast
2. The Hills Have Eyes
3. BTM FDR
4. Ramirez
5. Terminated
6. Nightman
7. The Impaler
8. Jonestown
9. Bay of Pigs
10. The Carpathian
11. Unabomber
12. Tactical Nuke

Published by Tangible Sounds Magazine

Oversung and Underpraised CanLit Authors

2010-09-27T20:31:00.009-04:00

The National Post recently ran two pieces in its literary section, The Afterword, entitled Don’t Believe The Hype: 10 Overrated Canadian Authors, and, the next day, Flying Under The Radar: 10 Underrated Canadian Authors. The articles were penned by critics Alex Good and Steven W. Beattie.

In response to the articles, I would like to play devil’s advocate. Albeit I agree with some of Good and Beattie’s slams on big time CanLit monopolisers (I won’t sour you with my opinions), I feel that more than a few toes were stomped on in the more than pretentious analytical/critical slice of opinion. Below I reflect on what they think of CanLit today.

First off, the word Overrated. It’s no doubt that Yann Martel made the list, especially since his recent novel, Beatrice and Virgil, got almost all negative, and really negative, reviews. Yes guys, you saw the headlines too, thanks for the recap. Also on their hitlist are Douglas Coupland for being too much like Kurt Vonnegut; Michael Ondaatje for romanticising the new millennium in a cliché manner; and Anne Michaels and Jane Urquhart, more or less for having top sales.

If I may interject with one opinion, Joseph Boyden should not be on the overrated list. Good and Beattie knock Boyden’s two novels Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce for being stylistically and interpretively off the mark. Missed, however, is an acknowledgment of Boyden’s attempt to slash the colonial view of Native culture. Maybe if more than a handful of Native authors would be accepted into the scene, Boyden could be ruled out for bad writing. Until then, I praise any NativeLit authors, Boyden included, who truly represent Native culture in literature – a form, I remind, absent until the nineteen-eighties.

To give Good and Beattie some credit, they publicise writers who a lot of people don’t, although should, know in their Underrated list. And I agree, if it weren’t for corporate publishing labels worried most about the bottom line, there would be a chance for amazing writers currently dwarfed by Coupland, Michaels, Munro and Atwood. Almost all in the Underrated list were praised for stylistic mastering and pushing unconventional form, such as Sharon English, Clark Blaise, and Ray Smith. These authors, among others, are highlighted on the list for the average daily newspaper reader.

Enough about my take, what do you think? Is one of your favourites deemed overrated? Does an unsung writer you know fit the role of an underrated CanLit author? Are we just becoming too snobby? Or, is commercial literature an oxymoron – should it be chastised for ruining smaller writers’ chances? Leave a comment and have your say; one voice can’t speak for all of us.

Published by This Literary Magazine

CanLit Book Review

2010-09-12T15:05:00.000-04:00

CHEF
By Jaspreet Singh
Vintage Canada
(CA – April 2008; US – April 2010, CAN $19.95, 246 pages)

In 1984 India carried out the military operation Meghdoot, which saw the successful invasion and occupation of the Siachen Glacier in the eastern Karakoram range of the Himalayan mountains. Ensuing from this invasion, India and Pakistan have continually warred atop this highest battlefield on earth, raging over the rights to the 70 kilometre stretch of frozen land.

For retired Indian-Sikh military chef Kirpal Singh, the main character in Jaspreet Singh’s Georges Bugnet Award winning novel Chef, his experience of the Siachen Conflict burns deep inside him. Literally, Kip (Kirpal) suffers from cancer. Symbolically, his cancer is war’s destruction personified. Eating away at Kip are memories of serving a corrupt government concerned more with right to land ownership than the will of its people.

Chef opens with Kip embarking on a long train ride from Delhi to Srinagar, his former camp, to cook a feast for the Governor of Kashmir’s daughter’s wedding. The Governor was Kip’s commander, one General Kumar, fourteen years earlier when Kip joined the army and became protégé to expert military chef, Kishen. As Kip flashes back to his war days from behind the closed kitchen quarter doors where higher rank officials stayed away from, we learn how Kip witnessed the sour fundamentals of Indian bureaucracy and, most importantly, how important political dignitaries are in bed with the military.

Kip’s first lesson in the army is understanding his role as chef which, with fierce allusion to the Indian caste system, means answering to those above him. Young and naïve, Kip adapts to his place in military society, and through his chef-minded perspective, Singh’s allegorical binding of food to cultural tradition becomes clear. When Kip visits the home of a Muslim girl, he is propositioned by her brother to marry her, and the girl serves a metaphorical dowry of tea. Kip simply wants to observe her cooking, and wonders why she does not join them for tea. Her place, like Kip’s, is in the kitchen, and he learns something about both Muslim culture and elitism along lines he understands. A similar scene unfolds later when Kip becomes flirtatious with a nurse who is Kishen’s lover. She bats him away, saying “I have no tea to offer you.” Hence, enjoying tea, a mainstay in everyday life, symbolises age-old interaction between the sexes.

As Kip grows into adulthood, Singh’s food metaphors sink deeper. Cultural faux pas extending from food preparation relate to social class when Kishen feeds a non-vegetarian dish to a group of Muslim clerics visiting Srinagar. The clerics are there on official, sketchy business, and for the offensive act marring the General’s reputation, Kishen is sent on permanent leave to a camp on the peak of the Siachen Glacier. Here, food leads to a perfect depiction of the power an elite has over a peasant.

Early in part three of Chef, an assumed insurgent, a Pakistani woman named Irem, is captured. Kip is the only one able to interpret her Kashmiri language, and is ordered to learn everything about her. Still a hormonal twenty-something virgin, Kip becomes obsessed with helping Irem, who turns out to be ‘clean’, or not a terrorist. In fact, she warns the General is being targeted for assassination by real Pakistani insurgents and, with Irem’s tip-off, Kip prevents the incident. Irem also provides Kip with information that Kishen is planning to commit suicide. This curdles Chef Kip’s stomach, and he travels to the freezing camp to help his mentor.

Atop the second coldest place on Earth, Kishen lures Kip into kidnapping a group of Indian army officials for a publicity stunt that bluntly lays out Chef’s discourse: “More dead Indians at the front means more profits for officers and their friends in Delhi. The question I ask today is: Are we dying for nothing?” Kishen proclaims. “We feed the army, we work hard, and those at the very top have failed us. [. . .] And I say the same thing to the bastards on the other side. What are they dying for, the Pakistanis?” If that isn’t enough for Singh to get his message across, Kip echoes more accusations toward corrupt India and Pakistan. He says “Kashmir was a beautiful place and we have made a bloody mess of it.”

At the end of his journey, Kip’s cancer is near fatal, linking his suffering to a nation strung up like a punching bag for corrupt war mongers to bruise and bloody. Arriving at Srinagar, he reveals the true reason for his painful escapade, having less to do with preparing the wedding feast than one might assume. His recurring phrase of “India passing by” resonates profoundly as he reunites with Rubiya, the bride, and she reveals shared feelings of a sad, lost Kashmir instilled within her by Irem’s haunting life as a political prisoner. Now, back in Srinagar, Kip is satisfied. Poetic and romantic, Chef unravels the underbelly tale of modern India being dragged through meaningless, catastrophic destruction.

Published by This Zine

CD Review: Ozzy Osbourne

2010-09-12T14:50:00.005-04:00

Ozzy Osbourne
Scream
3.75/5

Listen To: Life Won't Wait
Skip It: I Want It More

Ozzy Osbourne told Classic Rock Magazine in 2009 that in fear of sounding too much like Black Label Society, his twenty plus year career with guitarist Zakk Wylde would cease. The new shredder aboard the crazy train is Gus G. of Firewind and Arch Enemy fame, accompanied by a new drummer, Tommy Clufetos of recent Alice Cooper and Ted Nugent albums.

Resulting from the personnel shuffle is Scream, an album that at times offers a tamed glimpse of the Prince of Darkness. For example, album opener "Let It Die" projects worldly aspects with maracas and hand drums throughout the slow moving, six minute heavy rock medley. Later on the disc, the maraca returns on "Latimer's Mercy,” alongside an array of guitar effects including resonating delay and a talkbox.

Ozzy uses Scream to flex his softer side with acoustic ballads "Life Won't Wait,” albeit infused with heavy power chord choruses from Gus G. Another less dark number, "Time,” features violin and high pitched background vocals. Final track "I Love You All" is simple, a minute of twiddling acoustic strings and Ozzy rejoicing For all these years you've stood by me, God Bless, I love you all. The songs are emotional and uplifting, welcome contrasts to tell-tale Osbourne enormity.

Fear not, Scream also fires a barrage of metal at the ears. "Fearless,” "Soul Sucker" and "Diggin' Me Down" top out the decibels with hooky heavy metal and hardcore riffs. On the stadium worthy "Let Me Hear You Scream" Ozzy belts Let me hear you scream like you want it, Let me hear you yell like you mean it in his signature anthemic chants. And, all over Scream there are examples of Gus G.'s lead talent to keep you entertained.

Track Listing:

1. Let It Die
2. Let Me Hear You Scream
3. Soul Sucker
4. Life Won't Wait
5. Diggin' Me Down
6. Crucify
7. Fearless
8. Time
9. I Want It More
10. Latimer's Mercy
11. I Love You All

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CanLit: Head's Up! CBC Literary Award Submissions

2010-09-12T14:35:00.005-04:00

Submissions for the 2010 CBC Literary Awards are now being accepted until November 1. Go here to enter and get all the information on how to format your submission. A twenty-five dollar (CAD) fee applies for each entry, and you can enter as many works as you want. The CBC Literary Awards competition is the only literary competition that celebrates original, unpublished works, in Canada’s two official languages.

There are three categories, one of which your submission must fall under: Short Story for short fiction narratives 2,000 to 2,500 words; Creative Nonfiction between 2,000 and 2,500 words, including humour, memoir, and research articles written for general audiences; and Poetry for long narrative poems or groups of poems totalling between 1,000 and 2,000 words. You must be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada to enter. All works must be unpublished and original.

Between November and January a shortlist of about twenty or thirty submissions will be decided on by a judging panel of top Canadian literary editors and writers. The winners will be announced in March 2011. There are twelve prizes awarded: For both English and French language works, first place in each category wins $6,000 and second place wins $4,000. Winning pieces will be published in Air Canada’s enRoute magazine, and will also be spotlighted on the CBC website.

There are many different ways to stay informed and get involved with the awards. Join over 1,300 followers by “liking” the Facebook Group and receive ongoing updates about the competition. Get writing tips from 2009 Short Story Juror Michael Helm, who propagates the importance of original writing. Read the 2009 winning entries and gain some indie author inspiration. Most of all, get writing! Only three months left!

Published by This Zine

CD Review: Kataklysm

2010-09-12T14:15:00.006-04:00

Kataklysm
Heaven's Venom
3.75/5

Listen To: Determined (Vows Of Vengeance)
Skip It: Nothing.

Kataklysm's eleventh studio release, Heaven's Venom, is a hard-hitting disc blasting through ten songs of equal parts black, death, and thrash which come to embody the band's self-attributed "Northern Hyperblast" sound.

A low crypt-keeper voice insists Go out and get what you're worth, but you've gotta be willing to take the hit before Kataklysm punches out album opener "A Soulless God.” More voice samples infused into other songs uphold the band's 1984 inspired picture of society, and twenty year singer Maurizio Iocano solidifies the message by tearing against the usual suspects of war, religion and oppressive government.

A riffmeister's dream, Heaven's Venom also cycles through technical guitar structures with non-stop velocity. "Faith Made Of Shrapnel" displays Jean-Francois Dagenais's ability to sweep through drawn out, drop-tuned monstrosity in tried and true death style.

"Hail The Renegade,” "As The Wall Collapses" and "Numb And Intoxicated" demonstrate Kataklysm's melodic side with classic metal chord structures and harmonizing. The odd squealing thrash solo helps bridge the array of varying techniques and ranks Dagenais in the area of metal guitar God.

Between crashing breakdowns and frantic blastbeats, Heaven's Venom sits high on the intensity level with Max Duhamel's relentless double bass backdrop. Steadfast followers of Kataklysm will adore this record, and the average seeker of classic death metal will not be disappointed.

Track Listing:

1. A Soulless God
2. Determined (Vows Of Vengeance)
3. Faith Made Of Shrapnel
4. Push The Venom
5. Hail The Renegade
6. As The Wall Collapses
7. Numb And Intoxicated
8. At The Edge Of The World
9. Suicide River
10. Blind Saviour

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

Live Review: Slayer

2010-09-12T14:12:00.000-04:00

Slayer / Megadeth / Testament
July 29, 2010
Molson Canadian Amphitheatre, Toronto

One of America’s most underrated metal acts, Testament warmed up the crowd at Molson Amphitheatre tonight for the long awaited Toronto stop of the Canadian Carnage Tour, originally scheduled for November 2009. It’s unfathomable why Testament, thrash pioneers forming in the early eighties in LA, doesn’t break into the mainstream alongside the heavy metal “Big Four” - Megadeth, Anthrax, Metallica and Slayer. Testament has a classic, tailored thrash sound, cracking out of the Amphitheatre speakers tonight with gripping vengeance on par with Slayer intensity. And their presence is just as big-time as their counterparts.

Tonight, Testament transforms the stage into a pseudo coliseum from hell consisting of a massive backdrop of the Greek landmark upholding a huge decrepit skull. In front, atop a raised platform, Paul Bostaph mans the drums while original guitarists Alex Skolnick and Eric Peterson riff below, occasionally ascending the two steel staircases on either side of Bostaph to use him for some telepathic energy. Big Chuck Billy trots around the infinite stage space below, wielding the microphone stand like a scepter, demanding attention from the thousands of onlookers. Testament play an array of old and new music, of course not leaving out “Formation Of Damnation” from their latest record of the same name. They deliver a top notch performance with all the presence of a heavy metal giant.

Megadeth rolls onstage next and, celebrating over twenty-five years as a major touring metal band, decide to throw down an intriguing set beginning, and continuing for a complete stretch, with 1990‘s Rust In Peace in its entirety, with no breaks. Mustaine, rocking a flying V and Broderick with a classic white Ibanez meet up at times and disperse at others during their captivating onstage solo duals. Eyes down with long hair draping at the necks of their guitars, feet planted wide for glimpses of classic heavy metal personas, they whip out those legendary licks with impeccable precision. Mustaine’s voice high in pitch over the thrash masterpiece’s nine song duration, at times letting the enthusiastic crowd take over and chant for “Poison Was The Cure” and “Rust In Peace.”

Finally the band takes a break, but only for a brief moment, and Mustaine returns with a fire engine red double-neck flying V. He gets the tens of thousands of fans riled by saying “Megadeth is part Canadian” in recognition of newest drummer, Quebecer Shawn Drover, who joined the group in 2006. For the latter half of the performance, they play “Symphony Of Destruction,” “Trust,” “Peace Sells” and a couple new tracks off 2009’s Endgame including “Head Crusher.”

From behind a gigantic white sheet appears two stainless steel SLAYER eagles hovering over two stacks of fifteen Marshall cabinets each on either side of the stage. The crowd yells and cheers for the night’s headliner, the world’s biggest thrash band, SLAYER. Opening with a couple tracks from their latest record, “Hate Worldwide” and “World Painted Blood,” the band instantly gets the dust flying. I’m sitting in the 300 section, about one hundred metres from the stage, and people beside me are moshing, standing on the guardrails, and head banging to every snare crack with utmost dedication.

Far below, the pit section is in chaos with bodysurfers and a fog of stray arms and torsos flailing everywhere. Fuelling the riotous atmosphere is Tom Araya at centre stage hammering away at his rumbling bass strings and spreading his anti-Christian propaganda. To his left is Jeff Hanneman towering over the front row, sporting knee high leg armour. Kerry King is opposite stage right, continually head banging along to his thrash current, decorated in long rattling wallet chains and a two-foot goatee.

The intensity level stays high for the entire performance, there are no stops for banter or wardrobe changes between songs, the classic Slayer guitar growl just keeps rolling on. The guys dip into old and new reserves of content, much from 1990’s Seasons In The Abyss with “Dead Skin Mask,” “Hallowed Point” and “War Ensemble.” Stretching further back to their debut album Show No Mercy, the band fires out “The Antichrist” with a tantric lightshow of spinning crosses. Nearing the end they pull out the big guns: “Reign In Blood” followed by “Angel Of Death,” for which the crowd is somehow heard singing along over the massive wall of sound.

After the set Araya’s conversational voice is finally revealed when thanking the crowd over and over again, and his bandmates toss their guitar picks and drumsticks to their fans.

CanLit: Faber Hits Toronto

2010-09-11T23:38:00.000-04:00

The world renowned Faber Academy has announced that its first North American campus will open this fall in Toronto.

The inaugural course, commencing September 29, is ‘Writing A Novel’ and will be led by Miriam Toews. She is the author of four novels: Summer of My Amazing Luck; A Boy of Good Breeding; the 2004 Governor General’s Award winning, 2006 Canada Reads winning novel A Complicated Kindness; and 2010 novel The Flying Troutmans. Also lined up for guest lectures are big CanLit names such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Redhill and Anne Michaels.

Miriam Toews

Beginning October 1 at the Toronto campus is the ‘Becoming a Poet’ course led by Ken Babstock and Karen Solie. Babstock is an acclaimed Toronto writer and poet. His first collection Mean won the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Milton Acorn People’s Poet Award; his latest work Airstream Land Yacht won the 2006 Trillium Book Award for Poetry in English; and he is the winner of a K.M. Hunter Award. Currently Babstock is the poetry editor for House of Anansi Press.

Ken Babstock

Karen Solie's latest book, Pigeon, won the 2010 Trillium for English Language Poetry. She has released two other poetry collections: Short Haul Engine, which won the BC Book Prize Dorothy Livesay Award, and Modern and Normal, which made the 2005 Globe and Mail Best Books List. Her writing has also been included in various literary journals including Geist and Other Voices.

If you’re quick, you can make the September 1 deadline for applications, which applies to both programs. However, the Faber & Faber site stresses that “the course will be selective.” The Faber Academy is widely respected and most of its graduates go on to lead successful careers as professional writers. What more do you expect from the publishing firm where T.S. Eliot got his start?

Published by This Zine

CanLit Book Review

2010-09-10T23:53:00.003-04:00

NIKOLSKI
By Nicolas Dickner, Translated by Lazer Lederhendler
Alfred A. Knopf
(Published in Canada, February 2005; U.S., January 2010 CAN $29.95, 287 pages)

Nicolas Dickner’s 2010 Canada Reads Winner, Nikolski, originally written in French and translated into English by Lazer Lederhendler, follows three unknowingly connected characters. As the book opens in 1989, we meet a Montreal bookstore owner, who remains nameless, dealing with the death of his mother. An odd character, he points out trivial things like how he has never left the city of Montreal, and while sorting out his mother’s belongings he comes across a compass, a forgotten gift from the father he never met. The compass does not point to true North, but thirty-four degrees West, aligning with the Aleutian Islands town of Nikolski.

We are introduced to Noah Riel next, a modern day nomad who grows up travelling Western Canada with his mother in their old camper. Noah never met his father, Jonas Doucet, and in hopes of a connection sends letters addressed for General Delivery to various Canadian cities decided on by keen cartographic estimations of Jonas’ nomadic routes. His father’s absence holds strong, a depressing reality that remains with Noah forever, one way or another. Nikolski’s third main character is Joyce Doucet, Jonas’ niece. Joyce is from Tête-à-la-Baleine, a small Quebec town, and is under the assumption that her mother is dead. Raised by her grandfather, Joyce grows up hearing his romantic tales about their ancestors who were world travelling pirates.

In their late teens, Noah and Joyce both move to Montreal. By the mid-nineties Noah is working on a graduate degree in anthropology researching the significance of waste left behind by ancient civilisations, desperate to know why people leave things behind. While in university Noah tries to contact his ever-moving mother by way of more General Delivery letters, only to relive his depressing childhood as they returned unread. Meanwhile, Joyce ends up in Montreal by way of inspiration. Upon reading a news article about a woman running from authorities for piracy, whom Joyce assumes is her mother, she steers her future course: “… the ambition of carrying on the family tradition seeped into her mind,” Dickner writes. “[Joyce] was destined for a pirate’s life, shiver me timbers!” She takes a job at the Poissonnerie Shanahan, and by night sifts through back alley dumpsters in Montreal’s business sector for abandoned computers.

Eventually, Noah and Joyce find their callings. After reuniting with past lover Arizna, a prominent media publisher in Venezuela, Noah meets his son Simôn. Noah then moves to Venezuela to provide the toddler with the fatherly role model he never experienced. Joyce fulfills her burning ancestral calling by hacking bank accounts and stealing identities, an e-pirate of the twentieth century. Eventually, Joyce, Noah and the unnamed bookstore owner’s paths ironically intertwine, and their final destinations become wherever true north lies for each of them.

There is a strong set of symbols in Nikolski that lead to Dickner’s overall comment on modern society and identity. His main allegorical tool is the sea: from Joyce’s likening to a plaice fish swimming around the streets, deep-dumpster diving, and living off the bounty of larger beings to Noah’s convoluted illusions of inland ships and swimming through prairie fields, Nikolski is filled with images “straight out of Salvador Dali’s surrealist menagerie” as Dickner puts it. These fish-like nomads never stop moving, searching, evolving, and waiting for reality to finally unfold some truth.

Among the seascape imagery there is a lot of Canadiana in this book, often looking like a Richler-esque romanticised portrait of Canada. Noah and Joyce Duddyly romp around Saint Urbain Street, Saint Laurent Boulevard, and other popular CanLit landmarks, becoming contemporary images spray-painted over Montreal’s traditional ambience. But in Nikolski, Dickner brings Canada into today’s generation. Subtle sly comments on the Oka crisis, the Bosnian War, and other political topics of the nineties represent a bigger landscape than inner-border mainstream Canada, which really only turns out to be where the characters in this story are born, nothing else. Searching for something personified by their distant parents, Noah and Joyce are Canada’s minorities, cover-ups forgotten and lost. This survey of contemporary life deeply rooted in the past provides a frank realist interpretation of how one little, yet life changing event, can boggle the compass for generations to come.

Published by This Zine

2010-08-05T23:04:00.010-04:00

Early Graves

Goner

Rating: 4.5/5

Listen To: Rot
Skip It: Nothing.

All I can say to all my friends lately is "Holy fuck! Early Graves is awesome!" Their sophomore album, Goner, is a non-stop blowout of ferocious hardcore, dipping into thrash, punk and death metal for a smorgasbord of musical monstrosity.

Title track "Goner" jolts you into hysteria using a blaring siren effect, and then quickly slips into Early Graves's fast paced momentum. Chris Brock and Tyler Jensen's thrash knack is right at the fore front, buzz grinding through riffs like the best of 'em. The track provides a tasty breakdown with gut-ripping Terror-style vibrance. Enough said, I know, but I must go on.

"Rot" has an oldschool street tinge reminiscent of Victim In Pain era Agnostic Front. Raunchy guitar feedback rings over blasting drums before tempo slows for a crashing breakdown, and Makh Daniels venomously rips through the mic like a latter day GG Allin.

"Rot" leads seamlessly into another blastout, "May Day," which turns into a sludgy chug-fest for which Daniels keeps splattering his little black heart out. The song drowns out with over a minute of resonating guitar whine before "Wraiths" keeps the tempo down, relying on heavy metal riffing and more melodic feedback.

"Trauma," "Give Up" and "Bastard Tears" get your shitkickers moving again to their crashy, four-on-the-floor progressions. Brock and Jensen riff, chug, and solo around in amazing hooky fashion. Final track "Harm," another electroshocking feedback display, features John Strachan from The Funeral Pyre on vocals for a most furrow-browed album sender.

Simple yet one of a kind, Goner will leave you bloody nosed with its relentless energy.

Track Listing:

1. Goner
2. Faith Is Shit
3. Old Bones
4. Rot
5. May Day
6. Wraiths
7. Trauma
8. Give Up
9. Bastard Tears
10. Harm

Published by Tangible Sounds Magazine

CanLit Book Review: Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk

2010-08-04T00:50:00.006-04:00

TELL-ALL
by Chuck Palahniuk
Doubleday Books
(May 2010, CAN $29.95, 179 pages)

Tell-All is the story of fifties Hollywood starlet Katherine Kenton, whose long life on the A-list has led her to an over-the-hill movie-star plateau. Miss Kathie's days are now spent downing booze and prescription drugs, and reminiscing about her past trophy marriages, literally engaged in to receive reputation enhancing awards. At night, she is either hosting or attending lavish dinner parties with the world's most famous people: "The attendant celebrities seem to stretch from Samuel Beckett to Gene Autry to Marjorie Main to the faraway horizon." Like any celebrity tell-all, Kenton's story surfaces by way of a fact finding insider, her lifelong maid, Hazie Coogan. Hazie is looking to steal the spotlight, and puts on an interesting show for the reader. Her reliability wavers early on with snarky comments explaining how she "lives in her [Miss Kathie's] shadow", setting up a hidden bitterness for her boss that ultimately never gets voiced aloud. Instead, Hazie projects that she is the mastermind behind Kenton's success. She picks the roles for her, and says she moulds her as "her body and my vision". With all of Hazie's self-conscious boasting, you still recognize her as a jealous nobody, living among higher class people, and indeed thriving for recognition.

It makes sense, than, when Hazie puts up a shield toward Miss Kathie's latest suitor, Webster Carlton Westward III, the actress' next cheekily dubbed "was-band", once the appropriate business necessitating a formal relationship is looked after. Webster presses hard for Kenton's affection and wins her over, the two are a couple of real love-birds, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. But Hazie discovers what Webster really wants when she stumbles over a book he is working on. Entitled "Love Slave", the piece is a celebrity tell-all of his time spent with Kenton, but, to Kenton's protestations, is highly fictional. This "lie-ography", as Hazie calls it, depicts a steamy relationship between Kenton and Webb with a fatal twist. The final chapter of Love Slave depicts the scene of Kenton's death, with Webster present and desperately trying to save his lover. Amidst Miss Kathie's latest project, a World War Two production written and directed by Lillian Hellman (whose own career hit rocks in the fifties when she was linked to the communist party), it becomes Hazie and Kenton's task to dodge Webster's predicted death scenes, forcing him to rewrite his fatal chapter over and over again. Tell-All's last chapter gives you the final piece of the puzzle that, in true Palahniuk fashion, nobody sees coming.

Tell-All is a mystery novel, but uncharacteristically. In fact, I'm not sure a book has ever been written like this before. Hazie's narration is largely a set of director's notes, taking you behind an invisible camera and effectively giving Tell-All a lively cinematic feel. This technique lends to the Hollywood theme, of course, but also pulls you in as a reader. "The next sequence depicts a montage of flowers" opens Act One, Scene Six (yes, the chapters are in play-form), to give you an example of the style. It is like Palahniuk plunks you in the director's seat for the making of Tell-All the movie - there is never discrepancy over what image he tries to create.

Also experimentally, Palahniuk peppers the novel with words in bold text to highlight his characters' "name-dropping Tourrette's syndrome". Virtually every World War Two era movie star has worked with Kenton on a previous film, and she has played all the biggest roles, including Marie Antoinette, Mrs. Louis XIV, and the list goes on. On page one you are a bit floored by the constant type-set changes, but by the end of Tell-All the unconventional bold faced name-dropping is so extensive, its satirical qualities of what an actual A-lister's vocabulary would be like is hilarious.

Set away in a romantic, pre-Internet Hollywood hills landscape, Tell-All's often ludicrous depictions of fast-lane celebrity life sheds a satirical light on today's paparazzi fuelled media. From Miss Kathie's selfish need to adopt a child but not care for it, her anti-depressant addiction, and the name-dropping, this look into a fictional star's life is a mirror image of real/fake stars today. Palahniuk drives this angle home with allusions to Dorian Gray and a Wilde-esque use of a mirror which Hazie etches with Miss Kathie's tears, while the woman's true emotional self stays hidden. Likewise, Webster's self-projection transforms into a ravenous dog-like image as his murder plans continue to fail, and you really understand how this animal business works. Hazie's delusional account of the events in Tell-All are the biggest play on how the line between fiction and reality gets blurred in the tabloids' perspective.

Published by ThisZine

Exclusive Interview with Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquility

2010-08-04T00:40:00.005-04:00

Gothenburg, Sweden holds a special place in metal listeners' hearts. In the late 1990s, Gothenburg is where melodic death metal was born, notably with Dark Tranquility, alongside other seminal Swedish melodic death metal bands At The Gates and In Flames. These troupes cut the path for today's major death metal bands like Skyfire, The Haunted, Arch Enemy and Children Of Bodom.

All metal-lore aside, Dark Tranquility singer Mikael Stanne recalls the whole melodic death metal phenomenon starting out twenty years ago with a tightly knit group of friends. "We all grew up on the outside of the city, pretty much. Upper middle class families. So, you know, our music really came from frustration or anger about society and the way that we live," Stanne explains to me over the phone while hanging out in Quebec City for the band's first day off since embarking on their recent North American tour. "We were all very comfortable, but at the same time, music was something that we bonded over [. . .]. We started getting into metal, it was a tiny little scene, you know, a couple bands, cool friends that we hung out together with, drank beer, and listened to death metal demos."

From those scarce demos, the first of their kind, being circulated by early Swedish death metal bands, Stanne and his local drinking buddies thought they would give heavy metal a stab. Their first show was in the same tiny little place where they grew up seeing their heroes play, like Grotesque at their early shows, and Kreator in 1988, as Stanne remembers. "We were nervous as hell, and we sucked, but it was fun."

After a couple years of performing as Septic Broiler, a thrash band that only made it as far as recording two demos, Stanne and fellow guitarist Niklas Sundin recruited three more guys to head in a more melodic direction with Dark Tranquility. Inadvertently helping to conceptualize the now infamous ‘Gothenburg sound,’ Dark Tranquility released their first full-length, Skydancer, in 1993, to mass critical acclaim. Twenty years later, Dark Tranquility has their ninth studio album under their belt, entitled We Are The Void, and has once again sought to rejuvenate the band's musical output.

"We celebrated twenty years last year, so we figured this has to be the first album of the next twenty years, you know," Stanne explains to me. "We really tried hard to make sure that this is something kind of like a fresh take on whatever it is that we do together, when it comes to writing. We put so much effort into it [. . .]. Every guy in the band worked way harder than we've ever done before, and the result is, without a doubt, the best thing we've ever done."

Stanne dawned a fresh take on lyrical inspiration for We Are The Void, delving into subject matter of life, death, and the afterlife, topics strayed from on previous albums. He acknowledges it is "the ultimate cliché if you're a death metal band," but that after twenty years he is ready to take it on. "I never really touched on it before [. . .]. The whole album is really about the meaning of death in a way. How we deal with it, how we can work as a driving force, knowing that you're not immortal, whatever [. . .]. That was kind of like the overall theme that I wanted to go with." Stanne says this theme shines through on the album's title, which the band hopes to ask of listeners "Why are you still here? And how [do] you feel about the fact that you're not gonna stick around forever? Either it be faith or, you know, whatever, there is something that keeps you going, and what is that?"

Apparently my original understanding of the phrase "We Are The Void," probably shared with other Dark Tranquility fans, is that the band, and the whole death metal genre represents a style ignored by mainstream music. I ask Stanne if he thinks death metal should get more commercial radio recognition, to which he quickly replies "Nahh, I don't think so. I'm kind of old school when it comes to that. I like the fact that it's an extreme form of music that is not for everyone [. . .]. As for playing it on the radio all the time, or MTV, I kind of need the obscurity sometimes."

Within the extreme underground, Mikael Stanne sees death metal's popularity growing recently, especially in Sweden. He cites Within Y and Marionette as a couple of favourite up and coming bands from his homeland, who are playing to an ever growing scene of new metal supporters. "It's like a new generation of fans coming out to the shows," he explains, "a way younger audience nowadays than what we usually have. So it's really cool to see, like a lot of new kids from [ages] fourteen to nineteen that are getting into this kind of music. It's amazing."

Stanne also knows that death metal, and of course Dark Tranquility fans are breeding worldwide. "It's been amazing so far," he tells me about Dark Tranquility's tour through Canada and the US. "We have a fantastic show that we are really proud of, and the audiences that come out to all the shows... it's been really, really amazing." As for what you should expect if you are catching them somewhere soon, take it straight from Mikael: "I think we've found a great balance between new and old stuff, you know. Obviously we're focusing on the latest album, but we also have a lot of old stuff in there too, so it's a really, really good mix."

So, you are probably wondering if Mikael Stanne still gets nervous before hitting the stage for thousands of fervent Dark Tranquility followers every night. The answer is yes. "When I was, you know, twenty-five or whatever, I felt like nothing could go wrong, and I didn't care. I just went for it. Now, I'm more concerned that everything has to be perfect. I mean, I'm comfortable in a way because we have the experience and whatnot, but at the same time I still get really, really nervous." He has grown somewhat over the years, making sure to find some solitude before a show so he can warm up and shake out any jitters. But with all the new tricks and avenues for Dark Tranquility, some things can never change: "I don't think it's a secret that I drink beer before a show [. . .] We usually just sit around and talk bullshit" he confesses, alluding to his early days in Gothenburg, hanging out and enjoying what music has to offer. He also says it is important to simply feel good before a performance that most certainly proves draining on the body, and mind. After shows, the band still loves to interact with fans by hanging out backstage, signing autographs, and tossing back a few more beers. I guess that even after twenty years, you just don't change the formula if it still works. And why not? If you are in a band that is often cited as starting one of today's biggest musical movements, you might as well live it up. As Mikael Stanne puts it, twenty bountiful years later, "every day is madness" for Dark Tranquility.

Published by Tangible Sounds Magazine

CanLit: Trillium Book Award Winners

2010-08-04T00:30:00.003-04:00

The 2010 Trillium Book Award winners are Ian Brown’s The Boy In The Moon for best English language book, Ryad Assani-Razaki’s Deux Cercles for best French language book, Karen Solie’s Pigeon for best English language book of poetry, and Michèle Matteau’s Paraselles for best French language book of poetry.

CanLit heavyweights Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro were beat out by Brown in the most anticipated Trillium category, best English language book. Perhaps not to much surprise, The Boy In The Moon: A Father’s Search For His Disabled Son (Random House) already won the B.C. National Award, Canada’s highest paying non-fiction prize at $40,000, in January, and the 2010 Charles Taylor Prize. The Boy In The Moon is a compilation of articles Brown wrote for the Globe and Mail on living with his eleven year old son Walker, who has Cardiofaciocutaneous Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder.

The French language prize for best book was also in hot contention with writers like Nicole Champeau and Daniel Soha in the running. Ultimately, the judges liked Ryad Assani-Razaki’s debut work, Deux Cercles (VLB Éditeur), published in April 2009. The book is a compilation of short stories about dealing with the difficulties of immigration in everyday life.

Karen Solie’s English language poetry winner Pigeon (Anansi) is becoming her catalyst for success in 2010. Pigeon is Solie’s third poetry compilation and, among the Trillium, has also won the Griffin Poetry Prize and Pat Lowther Award this year. Her two earlier works, Short Haul Engine (2001) and Modern and Normal (2005) earned many award nominations (Engine won the 2002 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize). But this year, Pigeon is topping best-seller lists while rooting Solie in the CanLit scene.

French language poetry winner, Passerelles (Les Éditions L’Interligne), just means more success for acclaimed Francophone writer Michèle Matteau. Poet, playwright, novelist, Matteau has published nine French language books. She won the 2001 Trillium Award for her novel Cognac et Porto, and the 2005 Prix Christine Dimitriu-Van-Saanen Award for her novel Un Doigt de Brandy dans un Verre de Lait Chaud (A Finger of Brandy in a Glass of Warm Milk).

The Trillium Literary Award is the highest award for authors in Ontario. Funded by the Ontario Media Development Corporation, the Trillium Award for best English and French language book was established in 1987. Categories for best English and French language books of poetry were added in 2003. Popular previous winning authors include Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Thomas King, and Alistair MacLeod. Best book winners receive $20,000, best book of poetry winners receive $10,000.

Published by ThisZine

CanLit: Joey Comeau's Supernatural Serial

2010-08-04T00:16:00.004-04:00

The National Post’s literary arts section, The Afterword, is featuring daily excerpts from Joey Comeau’s new novel, One Bloody Thing After Another. The novel was released in May on ECW Press. The serial began July 12, with the horror novel’s prologue, continuing with another two chapters each day. There is still a link where you can check out a running compilation of everything posted.

One Bloody Thing After Another blends aspects of horror and the supernatural with a storyline following several young people met with troubling life encounters. Jackie, a vandal with a heartfelt cause, is met with legal obstacles; sisters Ann and Margaret are busy dealing with their mother, who spends her days chained up in the basement; ghosts, violence, and lesbianic lust fill in the rest of the horror novel. One Bloody Thing stays along the same lines as previous Comeau work. The comedic and sensational grapple with the abysmal for a blunt, empathetic depiction of human experience. For an in depth look at the novel, read this formidable review at Fangoria.

Comeau, aged 29, is one of Canada’s leading transgressive fiction authors. He is best known for his collaboration with visual artist Emily Horne on the superlatively acclaimed webcomic A Softer World. He has published four novels, including Lockpick Pornography, a self-attributed “genderqueer adventure story”, and the experimental Overqualified which is told through a series of darkly worded job application letters. Comeau is an openly queer author, often satirically and absurdly picking apart societal sexual constructs in his fiction.

Published by ThisZine

MAXIMUM REGGAE

2010-08-01T00:10:00.000-04:00

July 2, 2010
Lee’s Palace

In the early nineteen-sixties there was a worldwide musical revolution: Rock and roll transformed traditional three-chord blues and folk into an amped up, livelier style, taking over in the United States and United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Jamaica, another genre took form from the foundations of traditional roots and folk music there, this is reggae music. In same evolutionary fashion as American rock, reggae takes aspects of Caribbean folk and blues as a stepping stone, and cranks it through modern electric amplifiers, usually accompanied by organs and forms of dub samples.

Sound aside, reggae stands as a bonding agent between cultures. During the first major wave in the mid-sixties, white and black members of the working class adopted reggae as a movement to break down racial borders. Labeled two-tone culture, these people hung out at reggae clubs after a hard day's work. This is the reason why ska (a derivative of reggae) and reggae fans wear checkerboard wristbands, two-tone shoes, or other black and white clothing. Many working class aficionados also sported a uniform of shaved heads, jeans and boots, and favoured reggae or pub-rock, in an effort to counteract the hippie movement. This is how the original skinhead movement began, a decade or so before its message was marred by neo-Nazi gangs stealing the skinhead name and aesthetic. (Hunt down Mr. Symarip's "Skinhead Moonstomp" at your record store for a completely sixties portrait of the movement.)

By the mid seventies, reggae was gaining huge popularity outside the Caribbean with notable bands like Toots & the Maytals, Mr. Symarip, and The Wailers hitting world charts. In the UK pub-rock and proto-punk scenes, The Clash, The Police and The Specials were among the first to infuse reggae techniques into rock music. This explains why there is still a strong tie between punk rock and reggae/ska music today. For an early Brit-reggae adaptation, listen to "Police and Thieves" on The Clash's first album. There are tons of punk bands that use reggae, ska and dub styles in their music. From the crusty ska-core of Leftover Crack, to the more traditional modern ska sounding bands like Less Than Jake, to street-ska with Operation Ivy, ska and reggae are a big part of punk.

One of the biggest contemporary purveyors of true reggae is The Aggrolites from Los Angeles, California. This five-piece has been rocking steady for almost ten years, now situated cozily on Tim Armstong's (Rancid) Hellcat Records. Fans of punk and ska know them well, perhaps just as another one of those punk bands that took on a reggae sound. But, the only thing I can say about the Aggrolites is that they are wholly and completely pure, maximum reggae. At Lee's Palace in Toronto they played to a diverse crowd of shade-sporting rude-boys, vest and tie wearing ska-kids, spiky street-punks and full-fledged brace-strapped skins.

In the nineties, Prince Perry helped form Frankie Foo and the Yo Yo Smugglers, a staple band in the Toronto ska scene over the past fifteen years. Prior to this, the Prince was tutored by one of the best, Rolando Alphonso of legendary ska group The Skatalites. Prince Perry's education shines clear with his entirely ska-themed lyrics often about meeting ladies and late night chillin'. In the music too, which is straight ahead, easy listening ska. Now, the Prince is embarking on a solo career, albeit with generous help from his backing band The Gladtones. They are a barrage of Toronto scene comrades including trumpetist Jan Hughes of Frankie Foo and guitarist Stefan Babcock of Stop, Drop N Skank. Tonight, the Prince and his Gladtones opened the show by hopping around to their light hearted ska jam "You Won't Say It" off their recent debut record, Songs About Girls. In response, the half-full Lee's Palace crowd also began grooving along with every note. Perry stood at centre stage with a handsome grin below his fedora for the entire forty minute set, occasionally kicking up his knees to the beat in exact unison with the other five Gladtones. Other songs included "Bee On The Bus,” "Girl On The Bus,” "Love At The End Of The Century,” and a crowd enthusing rendition of The Police's "Walking On The Moon.”

By the end of the Gladtones's set, there was little breathing room in Lee's Palace. The pit dense with about one hundred dirty aggro disciples waiting for their prophet. Other people lining the walls and clogging all possible walkways. The Aggrolites trotted onstage after a couple minutes of intro music. All five members clad in blue jeans and grey work shirts, they looked like a chain gang on the run, yet eager to spread their message. After lead singer Jesse Wagner gave the crowd a couple quick grimaces, they slipped into "Funky Fire" from their 2006 self-titled album. Rhythm guitarist Brian Dixon immediately started knighting people in the front row by bowing down and tapping them on the shoulder with the head of his guitar. For the rest of the set, if he wasn't doing that, he was either stomping around the stage like a giant, instigating dancing by physically approaching anyone within reach from the floor speakers which he would jump on, or hocking loogies beside him. His stature, his sneer, he is pure intimidation. By the time fourth tune, "Work To Do,” was underway, a joint was being passed around the Lee's Palace pit. I got a whiff and looked around for the culprit, but became mesmerized by the crowd: every single person dancing. People standing in the aisles pounding fists between their knees; those sitting on old wooden benches lining the walls shoulder grooving with the beat; arms and legs jetting out everywhere into the air. A reggae dance hall packed with people from all walks of life, united, entranced by the music. The band went on with a few instrumental tracks and "Time To Get Tough,” which saw Wagner lose his white Jaguar guitar and slip into his electrifying preacher persona. From the bottom of his soul he belted out his Yeahhhh's, reminiscent of James Brown intensity and stage presence.

The rest of the show went on in the same fashion. More doobies lit up in the pit, eccentric stage presence coming from the whole band, especially Wagner, and people dancing everywhere. About halfway through, the band played another instrumental, and keyboardist Roger Rivas literally judo chopped out his solo. I also couldn't stop looking at Alex McKenzie sitting low behind the drums, constantly head nodding and shoulder pulsing to his own spine rattling beats. Other tunes included "Countryman Fiddle,” "Feelin' Alright" off their latest record, Aggrolites IV, and the classic fan favourite "Don't Let Me Down" for which everyone helped out on the lyrics. After nearly an hour and a half The Aggrolites were sweaty, tipsy, and still all smiles. I recommend catching this band if you respect dedication, and just enjoy real dirty reggae.

CD Review: Grave Maker - Ghosts Among Men

2010-07-15T00:55:00.003-04:00

Grave Maker
Ghosts Among Men
3.75/5

Listen To: Laid To Rest
Skip It: Nothing, every song is along the same lines.

Vancouver's Grave Maker, NWHC at its finest, have recently acquired a spot on Chicago-based Victory Records for their second full-length, Ghosts Among Men. The record is powerfully punchy, largely influenced by new style metal-hardcore which flooded the scene after eighties bands like Black Flag or Negative Approach were done punking around.

"Hell Followed" covers all the new hardcore bases, beginning with a fast paced intro, and then splitting the near minute and a half track with a crashing breakdown. Third song "Melt To The Mold" takes its title to heart. Guitars chug along at a mid-tempo pace, diverting here and there with quick metal fills for a wholly core picture. Jon on vocals yells his lungs out to the anthem lyrics, his voice nodding at Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed's angry, non-screaming style here and for much of the record. "Seducer" and "Why We Fight" progress along similar lines, full of hair-raising chants and steady palm-muted guitar lines.

Ghosts Among Men takes from more recent hardcore schools mid-disc with songs "Stronghold" and "Vlad The Impaler,” offering thrashy, Terror-style guitar sprays and heavy metal fills. Final track "Never Be Like You" then contrasts the entire album with a clean, twangy guitar line. Don't fret though, Grave Maker doesn't go skacore for a lone song, but tastefully exemplifies how they're not a one-tone hardcore group.

There are visions of mid-nineties Coney Island High on Ghosts Among Men, like you are catching Madball in the prime of their anti-stadium grittiness. Distortion is high, but not overpowering; the song structures follow underground hardcore's straightforwardness, straying little for experimentation. If you respect the definitive sound of newschool hardcore, this record is right up your darkened alley.

Track Listing:

1. Ghosts Among Men
2. Hell Followed
3. Melt To The Mold
4. Seducer
5. Why We Fight
6. Stronghold
7. Vlad The Impaler
8. Laid To Rest
9. Dead Of Alive
10. Sever Thy Head
11. Broken Bones
12. Never Be Like You

Published by Tangible Sounds

CD Review: Whitechapel - A New Era Of Corruption

2010-07-06T23:00:00.005-04:00

Whitechapel
A New Era Of Corruption
3/5

Listen To: Reprogrammed To Hate
Skip It: End Of Flesh

For a relatively young band, Whitechapel has seen a huge amount of success since starting up in 2006. You can tell by the masses of Whitechapel t-shirts sticking out more and more at metal shows - they are instant fan favourites. With such a commanding presence in the scene, these Knoxville young'uns have a daunting role to fill with their latest album, A New Era Of Corruption.

This is the third album in a line of standard death metal from Whitechapel. Beating double bass and racing blast beat drums support technical tri-guitar battles, and continuous throaty growls coupled with thrashing screams. Along these lines, you can assume Whitechapel has an unmistakably categorized death metal sound.

Aside from some the untraditional death metal delay guitar effects on "Reprogrammed To Hate" and "Prayer Of Mockery" that contrast the rest of the record, A New Era Of Corruption dishes out tell-tale death techniques. "End Of Flesh" is a prime example: demonic growls, elevating guitar leads, and a classic, overworked death acoustic bridge. "Unnerving" opens with a minor note hell-orchestra that we've all heard a thousand times.

There are also treats for listeners on A New Era Of Corruption. The entire disc is a showcase of technicality, like "A Future Corrupt" with its mathematical fills and riffs. And there is a welcomed sense of death mayhem projecting from all angles. However, while punchy, hellish, and understandably ear catching for death metal devotees, this record lacks stand alone originality. When a band captures the scene's attention, there needs to be proof of valour within their musical pudding. For Whitechapel, quickly reaching the centre of the metal sphere, I still don't feel obliged to jump on the bandwagon.

Track Listing:

1. Devolver
2. Breeding Violence
3. The Darkest Day Of Man
4. Reprogrammed To Hate
5. End Of Flesh
6. Unnerving
7. A Future Corrupt
8. Prayer of Mockery
9. Murder Sermon
10. Necromechanical
11. Single File To Dehumanization

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CanLit Book Review: Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel

2010-06-27T12:15:00.007-04:00

BEATRICE & VIRGIL
By Yann Martel
Alfred A. Knopf

(April 2010, CAN $29.95, 197 pages)

Yann Martel’s new novel, Beatrice & Virgil, is noticeably less reliant on Martel’s masterful lore-ridden prose exemplified in his Man Booker Prize winning novel Life Of Pi. Beatrice is obsessed with two popularly tackled, yet uniquely portrayed literary themes: a bard with artistic challenges, and the Holocaust. Main character Henry, a world famous author living off the success of his last novel, is working on a half essay/half novel flip-book aimed at providing a fresh account of the Holocaust. Henry’s inspiration is historical realism’s domination of the theme in art, in response to which he thrives for an aspect of wonder: “A work of art works because it is true, not because it is real. Was there not a danger to representing the Holocaust in a way always beholden to factuality?” But after twenty pages of Beatrice, Henry’s unique post-modern stab at Holocaust representation is shot down by his publishers, who see hollowness in is his idea.

Upon the negative feedback, Henry takes a break from writing, and he and his newly pregnant wife Sarah move to an unnamed city. Henry attains a job in a cafe and volunteers in the local theatre company; Sarah works in an addictions clinic. Beatrice drops its budding rhetorical discourse of differently representing the Holocaust to more closely follow the theme of life as a writer: Henry begins regularly coaching a lowly, old taxidermist, also named Henry, on a play he has been working on all his life. Now, Beatrice mainly becomes an examination of the taxidermist’s play.

The play centres around two fervently symbolic, Dante-esque characters: a donkey named Beatrice, and a howler monkey, Virgil. The play becomes infused in the story, at times lengthily, with multiple page excerpts that follow the two animals as they lapse in and out of comi-tragic scenes. The first snippet of dramatic dialogue is six pages of Virgil describing to Beatrice what a pear looks like. It takes a while to decipher why Martel focuses on discussions of arbitrary things, at times difficult to link to any real symbolism. However, Beatrice eventually reconnects with Martel’s Holocaust motif, offering depressing, empathetic scenes where Virgil is sought out by an elusive secret police squad, and the taxidermist lividly pieces together parts of dead animals (“the mouth was a tongueless, toothless gaping hole revealing the yellow fibreglass jaw of the mannequin. [. . .] It looked grotesquely unnatural, a cervine version of Frankenstein”). Martel spells out numerous Holocaust metaphors, but it somehow takes the genius-like Henry until Beatrice’s final pages to understand the taxidermist’s theme, and realize there is a real-life Nazi nearby.

Martel, like Henry wants to do, cleverly creates an original viewpoint for Holocaust representation in art, which drives Beatrice’s self-reflexive capability home. By Martel leading us through the taxidermist’s play, reader and writer, fiction and reality become synonymous. Suddenly, Beatrice’s function is just what Henry’s art is, an imaginative story shedding new light on the Holocaust. Martel is begging us to look at his work as a reflection of real events and to pull fruitful reality out of fiction. This said, an entertainment reader seeking a Life of Pi adventure will be drawn away by Beatrice and Martel’s attempt to paint a new picture not so in your face as most would like it.

Published by thiszine.

CanLit Book Review: More Good News by David Suzuki and Holly Dressel

2010-06-17T19:41:00.002-04:00

Environmentalist, activist, scientist, and super-Canadian David Suzuki has teamed up with best-selling author/environmentalist Holly Dressel for a new novel, More Good News: Real Solutions to the Global Eco-Crisis, released last month on Greystone Books. More Good News is the follow up to the writing team’s 2003 Good News For A Change: How Everyday People Are Helping The Planet.

As the two titles suggest, the books provide an optimistic vantage point on current world environmental issues. Instead of focusing on where environmental tactics go wrong, Suzuki and Dressel acknowledge the many people and organisations that promote and enact real green change everyday. Good News For A Change, which sold 35,000 copies, insists global sustainability and the technology needed to provide it is within reach. More Good News updates readers on new issues not covered in the 2003 book. For example, Suzuki and Dressel discuss how declining global economies have since halted governments from seeking major environmental solutions; and how renewable energy sources have been thrust into the foreground of environmental debates. With these additions, Suzuki and Dressel keep with the overall theme that sustainability solutions are real and need to be accessed in the near future.

Suzuki and Dressel provide refreshing optimism for a change, proving that with a little promotion and hard work, future environmental crises can be successfully treated, or even avoided. But, the buck doesn’t stop with the book. Readers, voters, and the average citizens must lobby governments to take sustainability issues seriously before any widespread change takes effect.

Published by Thiszine

Fight the (corporate book publishing) Man!

2010-06-04T13:13:00.001-04:00

Indie authors unite! The Next Generation Indie Book Awards are accepting submissions until March 2, 2011 (so don’t fret, you have plenty of time to finish your books). The contest is presented by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group in cooperation with Marilyn Allen of Allen O’Shea Literary Agency, and works to promote the best of worldwide independent publications.

There are sixty categories including E-books, GLBT, Multicultural, and Novella from which winners are selected by a panel of expert editors, writers and publishers. The best overall fiction and non-fiction winners each receive $1,500, second place fiction and non-fiction winners receive $750, and third place fiction and non-fiction winners get $500. $250 goes to the Best Design Book entry, and individual winners of each category get $100. All finalists and winners will be listed in the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Catalogue for book buyers, and gain exposure on the Next Generation website for the following year. Check out the 2010 Winners and Finalists here. Furthermore, the best book of each category will be reviewed by top literary agent Marilyn Allen (Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark) of Allen O’Shea Literary Agency for possible representation.

To enter, you must complete an online entry form and make sure your books arrive at the Next Generation Indie Book awards office by March 2, 2011. Entries require a fee of $75.00 per title for the first category entered, any other categories entered for that title require a $50.00 fee. Two copies of the book must be sent for the initial category entry, and one copy for each additional category. You can enter as many titles in as many categories as you wish. Finalists and winners will be notified by May 15, 2011, with an official announcement for the public following shortly after on the website.

If you are sceptical about the Indie Book Awards, check out past winners’ testimonials. Not only do top winners receive cash prizes, but having your book mentioned as a finalist and reviewed by Marilyn Allen may open a number of doors within the publishing world.

Published by Thiszine

Live Review: The Sadies with Deano Waco and The Purvs

2010-06-02T22:08:00.003-04:00

The Sadies
W/ Deano Waco and The Purvs
May 22, 2010
Lee's Palace, Toronto

Chicago's Deano Waco of the Waco Brothers recently joined Austin, Texas alt bluegrass rockers The Meat Purveyors for a couple recordings, all downloadable for free at deanowaco.com. Tonight, with only three of the four Purveyors on hand being Bill Anderson on acoustic guitar, Peter Stiles on mandolin, and Jo Cohen providing female backing vocals, Lee's Palace transformed into a forty-five minute hoedown with Deano Waco and the Purvs. Opening with "Workin' For The Devil," the considerably packed house instantly started bopping along with the upbeat music, reminiscent of 50s and 60s pop-country with a indie-rebel twist. They went on with more tunes from the album including "Reality Blues," "Box Store," "Bottle Of Wine," "Vacant Lot" kickstarted by a four-count boot stomp from Anderson, and a crowd welcomed rendition of an old Bill Monroe number. Deano joked about how he was privileged to sit on the throne of Lee's Palace before the set, keeping the fun, low-key atmosphere alive, on par with the band's easy listening shindig music. This was my first time witnessing one of the Waco brothers live, something I have now scratched off my to do list. Seeing Deano with The Purvs made the event even better. I highly recommend downloading the album, and start swingin' around your living room turned make-believe saloon right away.

After the bout of country fever from The Purvs, the continuously growing crowd at Lee's Palace waited patiently for hometown heroes The Sadies. As the promoter said pre-Purvs set, we were about to see the best live band Toronto has to offer, the "Blue Rodeo of their time." He was right on the mark.

The Sadies have been a busy band recently. Continuing on their infamous track of backing the underground's greatest singers such as Neko Case and Jon Langford, 2009 saw the Sadies team up with legendary X frontman John Doe on Yep Roc records to showcase their best acoustic country feels. Last Tuesday, The Sadies released their ninth studio album, Darker Circles, the reason for gathering at Lee's Palace tonight. The two set performance was largely utilized to showcase the new, instant Sadies classics on Darker Circles.

The main thing about seeing the Sadies live is that you are in for a party. The Good brothers are wildly flexible at throwing out any style whenever they want - they are true bluesmen capable of captivating your attention for hours on end. Tonight they walked onstage, Dallas in a psychedelic maroon suit and Travis in all black, and laid down a vibrant surfy instrumental. The Goods fervently played off each other's energy, turning toward and getting close to one another. They were cutting heads with a spirited presence of an old school blues duo like Keith Richards and Brian Jones. They got right into new stuff from Darker Circles, with the first track off the album "Another Year Again." The tune, an explosive rain of the brothers' ever-hooky psychedelic guitar presence, soared gallantly into the packed house. It is impossible not to be amazed by The Sadies's songwriting ability, and Darker Circles proves these guys are old dogs still with great new tricks. They played a pile more of new songs off Darker Circles for the adoring lot of plaided-out cowboys and girls, such as "Cut Corners," and "The Quiet One." Older favourites featured throughout the night were "Anna Leigh" off 2007's The New Seasons, and "The 400" from 2006's Tales Of The Rat Fink.

The highlight of the night, at least for me, was a Toronto-fitting rendition of the old Canadian Squires classic "Leave Me Alone." Travis belted out the vocals with dedication, his face straining violently to do the tune justice. I must also give special mention to the rest of the band. Sean Dean, decorated in a black vest and tie, slapped the hell out of his towering brown stand-up bass until he was dripping with sweat. He stood directly right of Mike Belitsky's metallic blue drum kit. Seated behind with a happy-go-lucky smile, Belitsky looked like he was having a shit-ton of fun while adamantly keeping his band on beat. And, once again, nothing can be said to promote the Good brothers enough. Whizzing through amazing ragtime, surf, and the best of fuzzed out psychedelic guitar lines, with an unbelievably captivating stage presence, they have more than a knack for performing - they have a God-given gift.

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

Live Review: The Riverdales with The Creeps and The Varsity Weirdos

2010-05-29T02:02:00.006-04:00

The Riverdales
W/ The Creeps and The Varsity Weirdos
May 15, 2010
The Mod Club, Toronto

“What is it, early or somethin'? You guys are quiet out there" Creeps singer/guitarist Skottie asked of the Mod Club crowd Saturday evening. The Ottawa band opened the early show with their punky powerpop, preparing for ultimate Ramones-revivers, Screeching Weasel spin-offs The Riverdales, who headlined the event. Maybe it was the sunlight dampering the Mod Club crowd, because these adamant fist pumping Creeps fans didn't have a dancing bone in them. It wasn't the Creeps's fault; they provided a quick-tempo, twenty-five minute set that should have triggered at least a couple moshers. Skottie was having fun right from the get-go, rocking his navy-blue Johnny Ramone Mosrite guitar and knee bopping along with the four-on-the-floor beat of "On And On." Ian, sporting a Visitors tee, held his stage-right position on the bass confidently, providing backup vocals when needed. Sticking his tongue out to the adoring front row during "Hang Around," he too tried to snap people out of their daze. The band sped through more fan favourites "All The Way Home" and the quick "A-Bomb" that begged for a pit breakout, but no such thing happened. "Goo!" Skottie screamed off-mic between The Creeps's two final songs, giving Jordy behind the drums a run for his money. He gave a split-second "Are you crazy?!" kinda look as if they missed a break, before a quick drumstick four-count and settling into their last quick paced punk joint.

Moncton's The Varsity Weirdos walked out to a more packed crowd now taking up most of the Mod Club territory. Surprisingly, though, nobody moshed for these guys either, and I think it pissed them off. Guitarist Corey, who was rocking a white Mosrite (do you smell a theme?), paced around in between songs, looking frustrated with the non-energy of the crowd. The band cracked out the title track of their latest record "Can't Go Home" which got people's attention, a few fans started pogoing. If The Creeps wouldn't incite a circle pit, then The Varsity Weirdos should have to get people amped up, but it didn't happen. "Wanted By The FBI," another tune off Can't Go Home, soared out with its catchy background vocals, and "Disconnected" saw singer/bassist Eric head-tizzying along with the chorus. They rounded out their eleven song, twenty-five minute set with a rendition of "Look At The Stars" which got more than a few arms raised and some front row fans singing along. Before leaving Eric inadvertently addressed the zombyish pit: "The Riverdales are gonna come up here," he said, "and they're gonna show us how it's done." Something to look forward to.

The floor packed in tightly pre-Riverdales and I finally got the feeling that there were some diehards kicking around: Old Ramones and Screeching Weasel tees, leather jackets, a couple spiky streetpunks and scally caps, and older guys and gals noticeable by their khaki attire and polk-a-dot mod dresses. We all waited a long forty minutes until about twenty-five after eight, and then The Riverdales blew the Mod Club crowd away. The first of three Riverdales sets, belted out in true Ramones fashion with songs spliced only by "1-2-3-4" yells, finally got some fans moshing. This set was comprised of tunes "Make Way," "Mental Retard," "Homesick," "Out Of My Heart," "Back To You" complete with surfy bridge picked out by Ben Weasel, "King Dinosaur," and a new song off their upcoming disc Tarantula, entitled "12 To The Moon." After 13 minutes of pure power chord mayhem, the Riverdales took a break.

"It's a long time since we've been in Toronto, 15 years now. Last time we played the Maple Leaf Gardens" Weasel said while the other guys toweled themselves down and Weasel's green Mosrite got a tune-up. New Riverdales guitarist Simon Lamb was rocking a Mosrite too - a red sunburst model - continuing the night's humble homage to the late great Johnny Ramone. Weasel also used the break to plug the new album, reiterating the June 8th release date a couple times, before their second pummel of eight more tunes. First was the Riverdales classic, "Atomic Brain," sung by bassist Dan Vapid of Methadones and Queers fame. Weasel sang along off-mic to the whole song. "The Prince Of Space, 1-2-3-4!" Weasel screamed and they, like every song, tightly belted out the tune, complete with pinhead bridge-rant. The rest of the set included "Red Zone Cuba," "Rocketship X-M" with minor amp-level troubles for Lamb that no one else even flinched about, and new songs "Bad Seed Baby" and "Diabolik."

The visibly sweaty Riverdales braked again quickly before their final blastout, starting with a four-count yelp from Vapid setting up "Countdown" which forced Weasel into a frown-mouthed downstroke blast for the intro. "Outta Sight," "Wanna Be Alright," and "Teenage Strangler" led to the band leaving stage for a minute or two before an encore. "We got three more" Weasel confirmed when they reappeared, met with house rattling cheers. "Don't Wanna Go To The Party" triggered body surfing and the first full-floor moshpit of the evening. Now, in the encore, people were excited. "Last Stop Tokyo" was the second last song to which everyone in the Mod Club helped out with the chorus. One final Tarantula plug from Weasel before the classic "Riverdale Stomp" that drummed up another huge pit and group of body surfers. One of those streetpunks managed to get on stage, thrash his fist around to his favourite tune, and then dive back into the mayhem. The Riverdales were impressively tight for the live Ramones-esque speed, drummer Adam Cargin never missed a beat. Let's hope to see them in town again soon.

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

Dew-Scented - Invocation (CD Review)

2010-05-29T01:57:00.002-04:00

Dew-Scented
Invocation
4.5/5

Listen To: Torn To Shreds
Skip It: Totem

From listening to metal and hardcore for years, it’s always refreshing to hear a band with clear dedication to their style. All you diehards know what I mean, finding a legitimate heavy group that doesn’t use hardcore as a front for getting new fans is difficult. This is why I can‘t big up Dew-Scented’s latest album Invocation enough. These Germans have been representing bullshit-free metal-hardcore since 1992, and know their style like none else - they hit everything within their sound right on the mark.

First off, Invocation is free of pretentiousness. Build-up opener track “Downfall” employs an acoustic guitar for about a minute, before ushering in the hyper-picked palm-mutes of “Arise From Decay.” Then you know straight up what Invocation has in store: down-tune ridden breakdowns, speedy riffs, face-melter solos and thrashy drums.

All this in balanced harmony. Knowing when to step-up with some technicality and when to back off is what Dew-Scented does best. Like in “Have No Mercy For Us,” which features masterful thrash riffs, as well as simple, distortion soaked power chord progressions. Guitarists Michael Borchers and Martin Walczak accept the opportunity for a solo battle at the end of the four and a half minute tune, but don’t shove it down your throat. It’s quick, up and down the neck for a couple rounds in the thrash-style solo technique used for the entire album.

And don’t worry about vocals. Leif Jensen is master of a steady, anger-fuelled yell throughout Invocation. For contrast he could scream, he could sing along - but he knows that what he and the rest of his band have is perfect, and should not be screwed with.

Track Listing:

1. Downfall
2. Arise From Decay
3. The Invocation
4. Have No Mercy On Us
5. Artificial Life
6. Condemnation
7. Totem
8. Torn To Shreds
9. Revel In Contempt
10. A Critical Mass
11. Global Hysteria
12. Slaves Of Consent

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CD Review: Exodus - Exhibit B: The Human Condition

2010-05-29T01:50:00.002-04:00

Exodus
Exhibit B: The Human Condition
4/5

Listen To: Burn, Hollywood, Burn
Skip It: A Perpetual State Of Indifference

Unsung thrash pioneers Exodus celebrate twenty-five years of continuous carnage, amidst multiple personnel changes and hiatuses, on their ninth studio album, Exhibit B: The Human Condition. The record is their first collaboration with renowned metal producer Andy Sneap of Megadeth, Arch Enemy, and Kreator fame.

The Human Condition exhibits Exodus's classic thrash speed punched out by endless triplet drum beats. The disc opens with "The Ballad Of Leonard and Charles" and "Beyond The Pale," together making up over fourteen minutes of non-stop ferocity, with a vibrant showcase of heavy metal riffing and soloing from shredders Gary Holt and Lee Altus. Classic Exodus momentum stays in the forefront for a lot of the disc, most intense on the nine minute "The Sun Is My Destroyer," an up-tempo double bass fury that also features an intimidating sadistic growl from Dukes in the intro.

In stark contrast to the album's overall speed, a few tunes slow the tempo as well. "Nanking," a chug along headbanger indictment of the 1937 Japanese capture of the Chinese city, reminds you of A-list thrashers like Slayer or Megadeth in its ability to dampen pace and still keep you glued to your stereo. "Democide" is another stomper, featuring Holt and Altus heavily riffing along over a foundation of technical drum beats.

Most at centre-stage on Exhibit B: The Human Condition is Rob Dukes's personally stylized vocal hooks. From "The Ballad Of Leonard And Charles" and its chorus screams of Sado-sexual violence, to "Hammer and Life" and its breakdown chorus line The hammer is my symbol, The banner that I wave surely to induce future crowd sing alongs, Dukes pulls you in with many shades of satanic rebel theatrics. Let's hope to see another twenty-five years from Exodus.

Track Listing:

1. The Ballad Of Leonard And Charles
2. Beyond The Pale
3. Hammer And Life
4. Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer)
5. Downfall
6. March Of The Sycophants
7. Nanking
8. Burn, Hollywood, Burn
9. Democide
10. The Sun Is My Destroyer
11. A Perpetual State Of Indifference
12. Good Riddance

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CD Review: Aeon - Path Of Fire

2010-05-29T01:46:00.003-04:00

Aeon
Path Of Fire
3.5/5

Listen To: Kill Them All
Skip It: Total Kristus Inversus

In a 2008 interview with Decibel Magazine, Aeon guitarist Zebb Nilsson explains how the band's Christian phobic lyrics largely stem from vocalist Tommy Dahlström's irritating encounters with Jehovah's Witnesses while growing up. On Aeon's fourth full-length, Path Of Fire, Dahlström's hate for organized Christianity is once again at the forefront of the album's subject matter. In "Of Fire" Dahlström sings Your Jesus means nothing to me in a hellish growl. "Abomination To God" is a straight up manifesto of Dahlström's Christian opposition: I don't care what you say, I don't care what you think, Everything I do I do it for me, Nothing you can do to stop me he explains to the God he hates.

Aside from topping the most atheistic of lyrics, Aeon followers also know that beating their extreme musical technicality is out of the question. Path Of Fire leads you down a road of eleven new songs in true Aeon demeanour. Disc-opener "Forgiveness Denied" immediately races through blast-beats on par with black-metal ferocity and the math-metal guitar lines straying from conventional time signatures on "The Sacrament" are impressive and attention grabbing.

But sometimes the most impressive death metal bands turn you away by misusing the genre's categorizing techniques. After four solid breakouts of violent aggressiveness, Aeon does this with the minute and a half Latin acoustic filler track "Total Kristus Inversus". Guitarists Nilsson and Daniel Dlimi seem like they are showing off by racing up and down the nylon strings, over and over again, like a couple of rookies with something to prove. Frankly, the overall assault of Path Of Fire buries this attempt at a tasteful contrast, and would stand at the same high stature without it.

Track Listing:

1. Forgiveness Denied
2. Kill Them All
3. Inheritance
4. Abomination To God
5. Total Kristus Inversus
6. Of Fire
7. I Will Burn
8. Suffer The Soul
9. The Sacrament
10. Liar In The Name Of God
11. God Of War

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CD Review: The Hold Steady - Heaven Is Whenever

2010-05-28T17:54:00.003-04:00

The Hold Steady
Heaven Is Whenever
3.9/5

Listen To: Our Whole Lives
Skip It: Barely Breathing

The Hold Steady are one of those indie bands that, if on a major label, have potential to rule the world. Pop-rock with glimpses of western, big band and fuzzed out hippie twists, they can take you in any direction, which is what Heaven Is Whenever, their latest ten song record does.

The band’s fifth album opens with a western ditty, “The Sweet Part Of The City,” complete with slide steel strings and acoustic guitar rainfall. All this gets cornered by a contemporary tweak of synthy thhhips in the background, for a feel-good song with a lasting impression. The album’s sound arsenal grows on the second track, “Our Whole Lives,” which dawns the band’s reliance on electric power chords amidst hooky pop melodies, a wonderfully blatant contrast also used in “The Weekenders” and “Rock Problems.”

Heaven Is Whenever is also a lyrical masterpiece. Vocalist Craig Finn is full of unforgettable one-liners, like We’re good guys, but we can’t be good every night; Bangin’ ’round in restaurants isn’t that much prettier than bangin’ ’round in bars; and It’s a long way to the corner store from the centre of the universe. These are just my favourites; the album is a poetic Easter egg hunt for any lyric junkie.

But, I'll tell you what warrants my less than perfect rating. The album’s pros heavily outweigh a couple distinct cons found in “The Smidge” and “Barely Breathing.” These songs have the same potential as the rest of Heaven Is Whenever, but holding them back is an awkward, much too noticeable bareness. The scant rhythm section in “The Smidge” doesn’t support Finn’s vocals like other, fuller sounding songs do. And “Barely Breathing” starts out with a unique low-fi, twangy guitar riff that could equal precision, but drowns in more emptiness once the band kicks in.

Track Listing:

1. The Sweet Part Of The City
2. Our Whole Lives
3. The Weekenders
4. The Smidge
5. Rock Problems
6. We Can Get Together
7. Hurricane J
8. Barely Breathing
9. Soft In The Center
10. A Slight Discomfort

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

And the Lost Prize goes to...

2010-05-24T03:05:00.006-04:00

Troubles by J.G. Farrell is the winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize.

The one-off award was announced with a twenty-two novel longlist (quickly shortened to twenty-one due to publication discrepancies) on February 1, 2010 to acknowledge the best literary fiction of 1970. Honourary archivist for the Booker Prize Foundation Peter Strauss came up with the idea when he discovered that 1970 publications were excluded from Booker Prize recognition because the decoration switched in 1971 from being a retrospective award to an annual award for the novel judged as best in that publication year. The untimely switch saw 1970 publications disregarded for the Booker Prize. Ion Trewin, literary director of Man Booker Prizes commented on the Man Booker Prize website that “Our longlist demonstrates that 1970 was a remarkable year for fiction written in English. Recognition for these novels and the eventual winner is long overdue.”

The shortlist for the Lost Man Booker Prize, announced on March 25, 2010, was comprised of six novels: The Birds On The Trees by Nina Bawden, The Bay Of Noon by Shirley Hazzard, Fire From Heaven by Haley Renault, The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark, The Vivisector by Patrick White, and Troubles by J.G. Farrell. The shortlist was narrowed down by a panel of three judges: journalist and critic Rachel Cooke, ITN newsreader Katie Derham, and poet/novelist Tobias Hill, who were all born in or around 1970. After the shortlist was determined, the winner’s fate fell to the public by way of online voting, which closed on April 23, 2010. The winner was announced May 19, 2010.

J.G. Farrell was a novelist of Anglo-Irish background and born in Liverpool, England in 1935, he died in 1979. In 1956 he began studying at Brasenose College in Oxford, England, and graduated in 1960 with Third-Degree Honours in French and Spanish. While at Oxford Farrell contracted polio which left him diseased and crippled for the remainder of his life, themes prominent in his 1965 novel The Lung. His first work, A Man From Elsewhere, was published in 1963.

Troubles takes place in 1919 Ireland and follows recent British Army discharge Major Brendan Archer, now living at the Majestic Hotel on the Wexford coast of south-east Ireland. The Majestic is owned by Archer’s presumed fiancé’s elderly father Edward Spencer. The Spencers are an Anglo-Irish Protestant family who counter Archer’s Anglo-Irish Catholic perspective. The story progresses with the breakdown of social relationships between these clashing ideologies, represented by the slow decay of the Majestic Hotel. Troubles won the Faber Memorial Prize in 1971, and is the first novel in Farrell’s historical fiction Empire Trilogy, preceding The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) which won the Booker Prize, and The Singapore Grip (1978). Ironically, if Troubles was awarded the Booker Prize in 1970, Farrell would go on to be the first double winner of the prize with The Siege of Krishnapur.

Published by this webzine

CD Review: Gogol Bordello - Trans-Continental Hustle

2010-05-11T03:16:00.003-04:00

Gogol Bordello
Trans-Continental Hustle
4.2/5

Listen To: When Universes Collide
Skip It: Nothing.

You love our music but you hate our guts, And I know you still want me to ride the back of the bus spews Eugene Hütz in “Break The Spell” off Gogol Bordello’s latest album Trans-Continental Hustle. The American Recordings, Rick Rubin produced album is the band’s sixth full-length and first major label recording since leaving indie-punk label SideOneDummy.

In hopes of pushing Gypsy punk’s political themes into the mainstream, Gogol Bordello has riddled Trans-Continental Hustle with angry, satirical lyrics. In corridors full of tear gas, Our destinies change everyday, Like deleted scenes from Kafka, Flushed down the bureaucratic drain sings Hütz in the punky blowout indictment of Roma acceptance that is “Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher).” “When Universes Collide” tells of an innocent young child caught in the middle of war, Over crashing cymbals, and melody humming accordions and violins, Hütz sings It’s just father told me tonight, Authorities preparing an ethno-cleansing ride… So when the universes collide, Son, don’t get caught on the wrong side!

You really get the Roma feel with Gogol Bordello’s reliance on traditional music. The nine member band is in full-form, creating soulful ass-shakers like “In The Meantime In Pernambuco,” and some tracks, like “Uma Menina Uma Cigana,” are renditions of traditional folk songs sung in Hütz’s animated Ukrainian accent. Keeping it punk, dust-kicking speed drums and distorted rebel guitars are all over the fourteen song disc.

I hope the major label boost gets the meaning of Trans-Continental Hustle, and all Gypsy punk, across to the public. This is segregated music with a punk platform, trying to explain about present-day oppression and exploitation. If enough people listen, maybe we’ll stop calling these people Gypsies.

Track Listing:

1. Pala Tute
2. My Companjera
3. Sun Is On My Side
4. Rebellious Love
5. Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher)
6. When Universes Collide
7. Uma Menina Uma Cigana
8. Raise The Knowledge
9. Last One Goes The Hope
10. To Rise Above
11. In The Meantime In Pernambuco
12. Break The Spell
13. Trans-Continental Hustle

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CD Review: Paul Weller - Wake Up The Nation

2010-05-11T03:08:00.006-04:00

Paul Weller
Wake Up The Nation
4.25/5

Listen To: Two Fat Ladies
Skip It: She Speaks

Paul Weller teams up with former Jam-mate Bruce Foxton for the first time in 28 years on his tenth solo album Wake Up The Nation. The record is full of varying influences including funk, folk-country, and new-age samples that spice up classic Weller three chord mod-rock.

“Moonshine” employs a wailin’ ‘50s piano and hyper-shaking tambourine amidst space-age sounding keyboards for an attention grabbing album opener. Another twinkling piano appears in “7 & 3 Is The Striker’s Name,” alongside hooky Sha la la’s from Weller.

Ballad-like “Trees” follows a catchy three chord structure while Weller hops around different personas switching along with vocal effects and melody. At one point he is A mother whose Darling children would come from me [him], while later he is back to himself and protests confidently My baby loves me. “Trees” ends by leaving Weller alone with a thunderous piano for a heart-wrenching soliloquy.

‘60s electric organs and funky guitar riffs step out from a base of maraca sounding effects in “Pieces Of A Dream.” Can’t put my finger on it, Can’t put this finger on me Weller boasts in the tune, presumably acknowledging the multiple styles coming together. The sentiment sticks with finishing song “Two Fat Ladies,” an upbeat punk-country pogo fury complete with hair-raising slide guitar fills sailing out from the western-blues rhythm.

Infinite sounds come at you from every direction on Wake Up The Nation, proving Weller isn’t afraid to have some fun while still producing master crafted modern rock. It’s everything you expect from an original British punker with the spirit of ‘77 long gone.

Track Listing:

1. Moonshine
2. Wake Up The Nation
3. No Tears To Cry
4. Fast Car / Slow Traffic
5. Andromeda
6. In Amsterdam
7. She Speaks
8. Find The Torch
9. Aim High
10. Trees
11. Grasp & Still Connect
12. Whatever Next
13. 7 & 3 Is The Striker’s Name
14. Up The Dosage
15. Pieces Of A Dream
16. Two Fat Ladies

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CD Review: Jakob Dylan - Women + Country

2010-05-11T03:00:00.004-04:00

Jakob Dylan
Women + Country
3.9/5

Listen to: Holy Rollers For Love
Skip it: Truth For A Truth

Jakob Dylan’s 2008 debut solo effort Seeing Things faced harsh reviews, most notably accusing Dylan and lone guitar of being too raw and boring a duo. Usher in Dylan’s latest work Women + Country, which forges a new folk-country landscape.

The sun rises over album-opener “Nothing But The Whole Wide World,” revealing the newly acquired feminine vocal presence of Neko Case and Kelly Hogan. Acting solely as a harmony section, Dylan’s women are an easily welcomed contrast to his distinct undertone voice.

A mid-day calm settles in less optimistic sounding second song “Down On Our Own Shield.” The tune furthers Dylan’s musical horizon by dawning an instrumental pair of slide steel strings and banjo that trade up focus between one another, a technique used on most tracks. The ladies persist, providing frequent backup vocals sneaking in at essential moments.

Then “Lend A Hand,” complete with muzzled trumpet squawks and free-ranging blues guitar, leaves Dylan alone on the microphone. The speakeasy appropriate song frumps along a tipsy bass line and distant time-keeping bass drum, then eases seamlessly into slow-wandering “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” reminiscent of sixties electric country.

The next four songs plateau somberly with Dylan’s voice challenged by the women’s harmonizing cries and emotion inducing western string instruments. “Truth For A Truth” struggles to entertain with an off-kilter guitar lead, before tempo rises again in “They’ve Trapped Us Boys” with a hoedown hop-along banjo and Cash-style bass line.

“Smile When You Call Me That” and “Standing Eight Count” achieve a high point for the album to end on, like it began. A day in the new life of a lone guitarman supported by a rejuvenating backing band.

Track Listing:

1. Nothing But The Whole Wide World
2. Down On Our Own Shield
3. Lend A Hand
4. We Don’t Live Here Anymore
5. Everybody’s Hurting
6. Yonder Come The Blues
7. Holy Rollers For Love
8. Truth For A Truth
9. They’ve Trapped Us Boys
10. Smile When You Call Me That
11. Standing Eight Count

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CD Review: The Crinn - Dreaming Saturn

2010-05-11T02:51:00.004-04:00

The Crinn
Dreaming Saturn
4/5

Listen To: Anaphylactic Shock
Skip It: Lucid Dream Field

Jazz techniques are used in every genre of metal, from the speedy feathered bass drum turned double bass, or soloing trades between battling guitars. However, it’s always hard to label a band as purely jazz-metal.

That said The Crinn mixes jazz technicality into their sound in a style that can be labeled as jazz-metal. Their sixth studio album Dreaming Saturn is laden with sporadic tempo shifting guitar and bass lines, like on “Incipience,” the disc’s first track that foundations the high-pitch pinball guitar picking to be used in every song.

But when Dreaming Saturn isn’t mud sliding through informal guitar leads, you are subject to staple metalcore techniques. Like the heavy chugging breakdowns of “Meat Eating Machines” that allow vocalist John Nelson to let out some steam-relieving screams. Or the machinegun-guitar sprays of “Anaphylactic Shock” that splice forward motion in preparation for a breakdown of UFO-themed octivated power chords sailing high over a solid drum centre.

“Cathartic Insurrection” features an electrifying hammer on/pulloff guitar frenzy wildly impressive to any player. And that is just it. Dreaming Saturn is largely a display of technical, jazz-style musicianship, often giving Nelson a break on the mic for minutes on end.

The downside to this album is its track-similarity. If you need to know when songs end and begin without watching your track counter, Dreaming Saturn isn’t for you. Like when “Anaphylactic Shock” seamlessly becomes “Cathartic Insurrection,” for example, you don‘t notice a song change. The track’s don’t recycle riffs between one another, but all songs on Dreaming Saturn conform to The Crinn’s distinct style.

Track Listing:

1. Incipience
2. Meat Eating Machines
3. Anaphylactic Shock
4. Cathartic Insurrection
5. Voluptuous Eruptions
6. Magnetic Magician
7. Syzygy
8. Lucid Dream Field
9. Down, In Waves

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CD Review: Bleeding Through - S/T

2010-05-11T02:41:00.006-04:00

Bleeding Through
Bleeding Through
3.9/5

Listen To: Breathing In The Wrath
Skip It: Light My Eyes

Bleeding Through’s latest self-titled album is another testament of the band’s boundary crossing sound. Throaty hardcore vocals and heavy power chord structures team up with extreme metal riffing, blast-beat drums, melodic singing and symphonic keyboards to round out a sound far from being simply metal-hardcore.

“A Resurrection” lays out the symphonic foundation for the record with layered violins and keyboards, before bursting into the face-slapping blast-beat and speed metal riff of “Anti-Hero.” All this within two minutes of the disc's opening, and then “Anti-Hero” merges into a hardcore anthem complete with circle-pit inducing triplet drums upholding echoey chants of I’ve Seen Enough of You … I’ve Heard Enough of You scorching over low palm-muted power chords. “Your Abandonment,” “Breathing In The Wrath” and “Fifteen Minutes” follow similar structures with heavy, pace-slowing guitar bludgeons supporting explosive battle cries.

The shape-shifting Bleeding Through also displays progressive metal techniques throughout the album. From the lightning fast guitar solo in “Fifteen Minutes,” to the blast-beat exposé that is “This Time Nothing Is Sacred,” the band displays thrash and black-metal influences jetting out of their hardcore centre.

If that isn’t enough, Bleeding Through also rocks a symphonic-metal sound through a distortion-dissecting keyboard illuminating over massive riffs. In “Slow Your Roll” and “Distortion, Devotion” the synthesized sound grabs your attention by accentuating the chord changes with refreshing bursts of high tones.

Bleeding Through’s sound on this disc punches across that they are not easily defined. If you’re looking for a distinct, experimental sound masked by massively heavy metal-hardcore, you should listen to this.

Track Listing:

1. A Resurrection
2. Anti-Hero
3. Your Abandonment
4. Fifteen Minutes
5. Salvation Never Found
6. Breathing In The Wrath
7. This Time Nothing Is Sacred
8. Divide The Armies
9. Drag Me To The Ocean
10. Light My Eyes
11. Slow Your Roll
12. Distortion, Devotion

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

Palahniuk Back With New Novel, Tell-All

2010-05-06T00:50:00.002-04:00

Photo Source: amazon.co.uk

Critically acclaimed award-winning novelist of Fight Club and Choke, Chuck Palahniuk has released his latest novel, Tell-All on Doubleday on May 4, 2010.

A Random House review of Tell-All on The Cult, Palahniuk’s official website, describes the novel as a “Sunset Boulevard–inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman’s habit of butchering the truth” (Source: chuckpalahniuk.net).

Narrator Hazie Coogie, caretaker of Hollywood actress Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton, guides the mysterious tale turned murder plot when Miss Kathie’s latest suitor, Webster Carlton Westward III, is discovered to have written a celebrity tell-all memoir alluding to Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman musical (Source: chuckpalahniuk.net).

Tell-All thus pays homage to American playwright Lillian Hellman, who died in 1984. Following the discourse laid out in Hellman’s autobiography, The Unfinished Woman (1969), Palahniuk reproduces Hellman’s controversial starlet persona crafted during her forty-plus year career. After penning critical successes such as The Children’s Hour (1934) and The Little Foxes (1939), Hellman’s public image was tested in the 1950s when she was blacklisted by the Hollywood Movie Studios for her long-time affair with communist party member and detective-novelist Dashiell Hammet.

Palahniuk is also set to release a novel, Damned, in 2011, which he said in an interview with Doubleday is “about an eleven-year-old girl who finds herself in Hell and learns how to manipulate the corrupt system of demons and bodily fluids. Imagine if The Shawshank Redemption had a baby by The Lovely Bones and it was raised by Judy Blume, and you have my next new project” (Source: chuckpalahniuk.net). Watch for a North American tour by Palahniuk soon in support of Tell-All.

Published by campusintel.com

10th Annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash Scheduled

2010-05-06T00:42:00.004-04:00

Photo Source: joeyramone.com

The 10th Annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash is scheduled for May 19 at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza in New York City. This year’s event is being headlined by Hank III and Morningwood, with supporting acts The Sic Fucks, The Independents (whom Ramone managed shortly before his death), Spanking Charlene, and Heap. The Joey Ramone Birthday Bashers, a parade of rock and roll underworld royalty featuring Little Steven Van Zandt, Mickey Leigh, Richie Ramone, Walter Lure, Cheetah Chrome, Thunderbolt Patterson, Ed Stasium, and Hank III will also perform at the night. All proceeds from the event go to the Lymphoma Research Foundation.

The bash celebrates the punk godfather’s life which ended on April 15, 2001 due to complications with lymphoma cancer. Shortly before his death, the 59 year old Ramone made his brother, guitarist Mickey Leigh, Rattlers, and mother Charlotte Lester promise they would celebrate his birthday that year. Now a ten year long tradition, the annual bash is notorious for its wild party atmosphere and performances from punks the Ramones hung out with and influenced alike. The first bash featured Cheap Trick and Blondie, and since The Misfits, Rocket From The Crypt, The Bouncing Souls, The Waldos, and The Saints have all hit the stage for Ramone’s birthday.

After Joey Ramone died the legacy of the Ramones thrusted into the mainstream. The seminal punk rock band responsible for stripping down pompous rock and roll in the late 70s with such worldly hits as “I Wanna Be Sedated” and “Blitzkrieg Bop” were recognized for their importance to modern rock. The first Ramones album, released in 1976 and produced by the reputed Phil Spector (Beatles’ Let It Be), is widely considered as the prototype for the first wave punk era that reshaped mainstream music.

Joey also did a lot of work outside the Ramones. In 1985 he joined Little Steven Van Zandt’s advocacy group Artists United Against Apartheid acting against the Sun City Resort in South Africa. Other acts he worked with include Youth Gone Mad, Helen Love, Ronnie Spector, Blackfire, and The Independents. In 2003, a section of East 2nd Street near CBGB’s nightclub where the Ramones played their first shows in New York City was officially renamed Joey Ramone Place. In 2002, the Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the same year that Joey’s last work, a solo album entitled Don’t Worry About Me, was posthumously released by his predecessors. On May 14, 2009, Joey himself was inducted into the Hall of Fame, as well.

With sources from joeyramone.com

Published by campusintel.com

Cannibal Corpse with 1349 and Skeletonwitch @ The Opera House, April 28 (Live Review)

2010-05-04T13:38:00.011-04:00

Cannibal Corpse

with Skeletonwitch and 1349
April 28, 2010
Opera House

Cannibal Corpse drew a pilgrimage of diehard metal fans at the Opera House stop of their Evisceration Plague Tour Wednesday night. Skeletonwitch from Athens, Ohio opened the bill to a diverse crowd of cretins sporting everything from original Death t-shirts and knee high shitkickers, to black and white zombie makeup and the odd street punk rat-tail. “Alright, let’s see an old school circle pit” Skeletonwitch front man Chance Garnett summoned during the double bass backed breakdown of “Repulsive Salvation” with a rotating outstretched arm toward the pit, fairly tightly packed for an opener. Rightly, though, because Skeletonwitch’s thrashy half hour performance was like a travelling edition of Headbanger’s Ball. Chance circling around the stage and chugging beers like a possessed ring leader, and N8 Feet Under and Scunty D. funneling out continuous guitar riffs in front of bull skull-and-horns on their amps. Skeletonwitch got all the corpse-grinder lovers partying with “Stand, Fight, and Die” off their newest record Breathing The Fire, which induced propellerish hair swirls from Chance and hundreds of devil horned arms from the pit. The house party atmosphere reigned on with Chance’s pre-song wisecracks of “Smoke weed Toronto” and “We got any beer drinkers out there?” met with yells and whistles from the crowd. Ripping versions of “Crushed Beyond Dust” also off Breathing The Fire and “Beyond The Permafrost” off the 2007 record of the same name got plastic beer cups flying as fans danced to their favourites. The ravenous double guitar harmony of “Within My Blood” off their first album At One With The Shadows ended the energetic set, Chance at centre stage with devil horns extended high overhead. “Drink beer, smoke weed, and for the love of God, eat some fucking pussy” he lastly demanded in his demonic metal hiss, and the beer chugging party was over.

By the end of Skeletonwitch’s set there were double the people roaming around the Opera House in anticipation of black-metal heavyweights 1349. I skittered upstairs to the Opera House balcony to find some breathing room, where I scored an impeccable view of the stage. A floor rattling cheer erupted as the house darkened and reverberating thunder noises echoed around, and someone on the balcony sparked up a skunky joint. Clouds of dry ice fogged up the stage as 1349 laid down their first track which drew more attentiveness than moshing from the crowd below. Vocalist Ravn was in full black-metal garb with spiky forearm bondage gear and mid-thigh warrior boots, bassist Seidemann lurked around in a black wizard cloak, and all four 1349 guys were sporting black and white face makeup. Touring guitarist Sechtdamon outstretched a grappling talon toward the crowd before “When I Was Flesh” off this year’s Demonoir which fractured the continually used inter-song storm sound samples allowing the band to catch their breath. The lightning fast snare buzz-blasts of “I Am Abomination” off 2005’s Hellfire finally got about fifteen to twenty pitmen thrashing hard, and Ravn slowly sauntered around the stage like a cocky, satanic Mick Jagger. “Sculptor Of Flesh” opened up the pit some more, and “Atomic Chapel” got all three frontmen and several crowd members head banging hard for the end of the forty minute set.

The now amply warmed up crowd cheered as a massive banner reading Cannibal Corpse in dripping blood red letters elevated behind the drum kit. Corpsegrinder opened with a four song inferno that saw the sardine-can-like dance floor break out into a chaotic slam pit - arms, legs, and beer cups jetting out from every direction. “You guys are fuckin’ rowdy tonight, let’s keep it goin’,” singer George Fisher said before introducing “The Wretched Spawn” with a growl, triggering an eruption of cheers. A punching rendition of “I Will Kill You” led to the band’s first of many breath-catcher breaks, during which Fisher, dressed simply in a black t-shirt and cargo-pants tucked into mid-shin combat boots, raised and lowered cheers from the crowd with orchestra conductor arms.

“Don’t make me vertically destroy you, ‘cause it’s quite obvious I can kick your head in” Fisher said before the title track of Corpse‘s latest album Evisceration Plague, laying out his violent, vengeful rhetoric for the set. He was largely concerned with keeping up pit energy, introducing other songs with “This is for anyone giving you shit,” “I wanna see a fuckin’ circle pit for this one,” and “This is Cannibal Corpse’s time, so if you see anybody on the outside playing with their pecker, pull them in and start slammin’.” A mid-set execution of “Death Walking Terror” off 2006 album Kill got everyone grooving with its slower-tempo head banging opportunities and thunderous tom drum fills beat out by original Corpse-ster Paul Mazurkiewicz.

Then came the first song ever played by Cannibal Corpse, “Splattered Brains, Scattered Remains,” one of many old school offerings for the first wave Corpse diehards represented by original 90s tour shirts. “Pit Of Zombies” off 2002’s Gore Obsessed brought the show back to current era and got the pit swaying from wall to wall in crashing waves of people. Original Corpse bassist Alex Webster approached the stage monitors afterward to give a frown-mouthed nod and air-props of approval to the adoring fans. Next was a wicked rendition of “Make Them Suffer,” during which Fisher pointed at all corners of the Opera House, considerately pulling all into the song’s sentiment. “This goes out to everyone in the pit. And for those not in it, buy them a beer or a shot later, or I’ll kill you myself,” he then threatened before another old school offering of “A Skull Full Of Maggots” from first Corpse album, 1990’s Eaten Back To Life. Thrashing drums rolled out from the stage while Fisher once again conducted the crowd for the hair raising “Maggots” chants . Fisher growled “Keep supporting death metal” before sending off the insanely long hour and twenty minute set with “Hammer Smashed Face,” which no doubt got the most erupting response from the crowd, notably during the bass fill from Webster somewhat answering the crowd’s previously unanswered calls for a bass solo. The Corpse was tight, and needless to say, my ears were bleeding when I left the Opera House.

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

Fuck The Facts at The Alex in Brantford (Live Review)

2010-05-02T03:11:00.002-04:00

Fuck The Facts
The Alex, Brantford
April 23, 2010

“Move the fuck up here,” beckoned Fuck The Facts bassist Marc Bourgon at the Alex in Brantford last Friday night while lead vocalist Mel Mongeon skittered around the empty front row pit-space. The audience of local punk and metal-core diehards quickly filled the floor’s void for the intimidating 10-song mudslide of drop-B tuned guitars and blast-beat infernos leaving a grind core bullet hole in the Brantford scene.

The quintet slipped ferociously into “Wake” off their latest release which came out in February. You can’t find the limited 1000 copy pressing in stores, aptly titled “Unnamed EP,” no doubt playing on Fuck The Facts’s fractured metal style most closely associated with grind, but ever indefinable with varying genre injections of industrial, punk, and stoner groove. Further personifying the confusion record buyers face when encountering their music, the band played on a continuously unlit stage at the Alex with minimal banter between songs that often seamlessly melded into one another. The distortion dripping chaos is faceless to the average heavy rock listener, empowering FTF’s niche noise to its fullest intentions.

They slowed the set’s tempo with “My Failures (Just Like Yesterday)” off their 2008 split with Belgium deathgrinders Leng Tch’e. Then a quick, audacious rendition of “The Sound Of Your Smashed Head” off Stigmata High-Five triggered more slam-moves in the pit, and Mongeon couldn’t help but tizzy-groove her growl spewing noggin with the blast beat crash along. “Kelowna” off 2008 full-length Disgorge Mexico and “Ballet Addict” from 2003’s Backstabber Etiquette rounded out the performance that gave Brantford a glimpse of what‘s going on around Ottawa right now: original hardcore metal that knows no borders and plays into no commercial agenda. Or, real art.

Bleeding Through, Born Of Osiris, Sleeping Giant, Oceano, Stray From The Path @ Opera House (Show Review)

2010-05-01T02:23:00.006-04:00

Bleeding Through
with Stray From The Path, Oceano, Sleeping Giant, Born Of Osiris
April 26, 2010
Opera House

Long Island’s melodic metal-hardcore upstarts Stray From The Path kicked off the Toronto installment of the Spring Breakdown Tour with singer Andrew Dijorio’s crowd-waking stage presence, marking his territory by constantly pacing back and forth between bassist Ryan Thompson and guitarist Tom Williams. The band slipped into the ferociously fast “Damien” off their latest album Make Your Own History, and got some help from a dedicated fan on the breakdown vocals. After giving props to the rest of the bands on the bill, Stray From The Path punched out “White Flag” off their 2007 release Villains which instigated high-raised leg-slams from all three frontmen. “You guys havin’ a good fuckin’ time tonight?” asked Dijorio after a quick two minute breath catcher intermission. Then the guys offered a cover of “Bulls On Parade” by Rage Against The Machine that saw the whole dance floor hopping along and huddle jumping toward Dijorio’s outstretched mic hand. The set ended with “Comrades,” inducing a telltale hardcore rant from Dijorio of “Male, female, black, white, I don’t give a fuck. You can joint this shit, be a part of music.”

Next was renowned four-piece Chicago death metal powerhouse Oceano who unleashed a quick twenty-five minute, yet wildly impressive set. Singer Adam Warren’s gut-wrenchingly low growls sounded like those of an angry froth-mouthed hellhound looking for a rage outlet. The distortion drenched drop-A tuned bass and lead guitars manned by Kevin Colabuono and Andrew Mikhail (respectively) provided a perfect match for Warren, pulling out of him the most intimidating underworld growls and high-pitched metal spews of the night. After a couple numbers Warren demanded “Let’s open this fuckin’ pit up,” and onlookers followed queue by breaking out in massive wind-mill arm throws and floor-cracking boot-stomps. The band belted out a thrashing rendition of “A Mandatory Sacrifice” off their recent debut album Depths, and also debuted a new song in their audience pressured encore. One word describes the feel of Oceano’s set: devotion. With minimal inter-song banter and ravenous death metal offerings, these guys had an explicit ‘no guff, let’s fuckin’ throw it down’ air.

Christian hardcore group Sleeping Giant was up third. They opened their set with “Gang Signs” off their latest 2009 record Sons Of Thunder during which there was an issue with microphone levels. Singer Thom Green didn’t let it bother him, though, continuing to instigate the crowd by approaching the stage monitors and beating his chest while mouthing the lyrics. “No One Leaves This Room Sick” got the five-piece’s guitarists head banging which spread contagiously. But some members of the audience grew uneasy when Green set up their next tune “Whoremonger.” “Religion has ruined who Jesus really is,” he said, “you won’t find the real Jesus in a church.” Some booed, some cheered, and Green attempted to justify his stance: “We’re not here to preach religion to you, but we’ve made friends with a God we didn’t know before.” Then during the song’s breakdown Green busted an odd lip-biting and ball-grab move.

Next was symphonic metal sextet Born Of Osiris, who were the clear crowd favourite evident by the fullest mosh pit of the evening. “Now Arise” off their latest full-length album A Higher Place got singer Ronnie Canizaro and guitarists Lee McKinney and Jason Richardson standing uniformly with left feet high on the stage monitors. Keyboardist/backup vocalist Joe Buras abandoned his instrument for a centre stage headbang before returning to his mark. Stage monitors were often used for a dominating, yet interactive presence, like during fourth song “Exist” for its attention grabbing guitar solo battle and fifth song “Abstract Art,” off 2007’s The New Reign, which saw both guitarists and bassist David Da Rocha standing tall above the crowd. The technical doubled guitar leads of “The New Reign” solidified the talent of Born Of Osiris’ guitar section. “Bow Down” sent the Opera House into a whirlwind of slam-dancers demonstrating the best of their style. And there were high-fives all around for front row fans from Born Of Osiris as they outro’d “Open Arms To Damnation,” another audience pleaser notable by numerous arms and bodies flailing around the pit.

After a few scenesters filed out from the pit and the bar filled with older metalcore diehards, Bleeding Through graced a blood red-lit stage. Vocalist Brendan Schieppati, scantily clad in mere gym-shorts in My War era Rollins fashion, hopped around the stage monitors creating a larger than life persona. “I wanna see a circle pit” he beckoned, and an honest attempt by those left on the floor was made. Third song “Declaration” got keyboardist Marta Peterson rocking into an air-filling hairswirl stance amidst bright white strobe-lights creating dark silhouettes of the band members. The strobe-light effect was used throughout Bleeding Through’s set, notably in “Rise” that saw Schieppati raise an inspiring fist high above his head. “We’re real fuckin’ happy to be on a Canadian label,” Schieppati explained in his set-up for “Anti-Hero” off the band’s 2010 self-titled album, out on Distort records. He let some crowd members help out on the I’ve Seen Enough vocals for the first breakdown, and the version also featured a tweaked drawn out feedback session before the second and final breakdown.

Schieppati reminisced about Bleeding Through’s early days as a “new band” before a smashing rendition of “Breathing In The Wrath.” “Now we’re the old band that can look down on all the new bands and say who the fuck are these guys,” the tattooed hardcore hero chuckled out before thanking all the bands on the bill by name, whom he called “the bands of the future.” Their next song, “Beneath The Grey” off 2008’s Declaration, was dedicated to Toronto’s own Cancer Bats, who now have a new title from Bleeding Through as being “bitchin’ dudes.” The set finished with “Kill To Believe” from 2006 full-length The Truth, during which guitarist Brian Leppke faced the drums for some feedoff energy. The band came back for an encore song determined by a coin toss, turning out to be “Sister Charlatan.”

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

2010 Juno Awards Coverage

2010-04-20T13:11:00.005-04:00

Photosource: junoawards.ca

The 2010 Juno awards were held in St. John’s, Newfoundland last night. Here’s the top info.

The ceremony addressed the past year’s young superstars’ induction into the international spotlight. Like Stratford, Ontario native Justin Bieber, who at age 16 has monopolised tweeny-pop in less than a year’s time. Despite his international success including being the youngest male solo artist to have two albums in the Billboard Top 200, Bieber fell short on all three of his Juno nominations.

It seems where Bieber disappointed the judges, fellow overnight success Drake proved more substantial. The new Canadian rapper captured the Best New Artist award, and also won the Juno for Rap Recording of the Year for his song “So Far Gone.” It didn’t look like there were any hard feelings between the running mates, though, when Drake laid down a few rhymes for Bieber’s performance of “Baby.”

Michael Bublé was the biggest winner with four Junos. His hit album Crazy Love earned him both Album and Pop Album of the Year. He also took home Single of the Year for the song “Haven’t Met You Yet,” and the Juno Fan Choice Award.

Respect was paid to 70s Canadian rock super-group April Wine in honour of their recent induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Frontman Myles Goodwin accepted the honourary Juno by listing all 13 April Wine members past and present.

Metric won two Junos with Group of the Year and Alternative Album of the Year for their work Fantasies. Artist of the Year went to K’naan, who also received Songwriter of the Year for his international hit “Wavin’ Flag.” Click here for a complete list of 2010 Juno winners.

There were also a variety of performances that struck high, and low, chords of the broadcast. Lowest was Drake’s f-bomb laden rendition of “Over.” It assumedly severed traditional and new-age Canadian audiences. Whatever, props Drake, you got two Junos without even having a record out. Billy Talent rocked out to new single “Saint Veronika,” that lead to singer Ben Kowalewicz struggling to achieve respectful screamo-rock tenure. He looked like he was trying to purge a Satan fetus rather than rattle a microphone. But, the band was tight.

Then the goodies. Blue Rodeo was out in full Canadian-Country garb laying down a usual flawless performance. However, I’m reserving best Juno performance award for K’naan, along with Drake, Justin Bieber, and Nikki Yanofsky, who dazzled the audience with the Young Artists for Haiti hit “Wavin’ Flag.” A wildly catchy song written by a talented young artist, K’Naan effectively moved the audience in a way no other performer did.

Published by campusintel.com

CD Review: Bison BC - Dark Ages

2010-04-16T14:25:00.006-04:00

Bison B.C.
Dark Ages
4.5/5

Listen To: Wendigo Pt. 3 (Let Him Burn)
Skip It: Nothing

All you headbangers better be excited, East Van’s Bison B.C. is back with their third full-length album Dark Ages.

“Stressed Elephant” settles you in, building energy with a melodic exposé before getting your head banging to a crash-along chugging match, upholding slick guitar leads and demonic vocals. The song fades with a bluesy acoustic guitar reappearing in “Melody, This is For You” and “Wendigo Pt. 3 (Let Him Burn).”

Dark Ages also showcases Bison’s knack for uniquely calculated breakdowns, like in “Fear Cave” which drops the tempo for over 2 minutes with a masterful power chord structure and the album’s best hell-growls.

The electrifying guitar riffs of “Two-Day Booze” grab your attention, pulling you along a ride of tempo changes from lightning fast to mere tricklings of a ride-cymbal. The anthem-like chants of What are we waiting for over a rejuvenating power-chord melody brings chills to your spine.

You have to love the old school heavy-metal foundation of Bison as well. The rockin’ guitar harmonies in “Die of Devotion” and the sharp-tooth pick-squeals of “Take The Next Exit” will arouse the Iron Maiden fan in all of us.

The album ends with “Windigo Pt. 3 (Let Him Burn)” displaying accredited musicianship through massively heavy riffs, in the standard style which can only be labeled Bison-esque. Dark Ages is a polished effort effectively displaying the untamed enthusiasm of Bison B.C.’s intimidating prowess.

Track Listing:

1. Stressed Elephant
2. Fear Cave
3. Melody, This Is For You
4. Two-Day Booze
5. Die of Devotion
6. Take The Next Exit
7. Wendigo Pt. 3 (Let Him Burn)

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

CD Review: Ov Hell - The Underworld Regime

2010-04-16T14:14:00.005-04:00

Ov Hell
The Underworld Regime
4/5

Listen To: Post Modern Sadist
Skip It: Acts Of Sin

Ov Hell’s debut album The Underworld Regime showcases a brand of Norwegian black-metal with perfect balance, equally allotting time for low to mid-tempo melodic chord progressions, as well as head-shaking drum triplets and blast-beats supporting ferocious riff attacks.

Album opener “Devil’s Harlot” tackles you with its underlying speed, and simultaneously mesmerizes through melodic arpeggios and anthemic chants. The Underworld Regime then flows seamlessly into “Post Modern Sadist,” a mid-tempo yet electric display of guitarists Teloch and Ice Dale's riffing talents. Laden with a foundation of double-bass punches that don’t lapse into blast-beats, the song prefaces varying degrees of tempo-drops on the rest of the album. The oddly encouraging Satan-cries of Murder, murder, murder… Slaughter, slaughter, slaughter leave a lasting impression.

Then the strobe-light blast-beat effect of “Invoker” proves that Ov Hell is authorised to send you spiraling at any moment. The song’s jitter-arm speed-riffs whittle out a racing, technical melody, a technique reappearing in “Perpetual Night“ and album closer “Hill Norge.”

“Ghosting“ idles with beaty double-bass jabs under a continuous waterfall of melodic chord structuring for a mid-album tempo reducer that does not bore, and creates a tactful void for following momentum to fill.

The Underworld Regime also showcases telltale Norwegian black-metal techniques. The intros to “Post Modern Sadist“ and “Krigsatte Faner,” for example, employ eerie whispers and torture chamber clinking as small breaks in volume that effectively contrast the instrumentation. And “Acts of Sin” and “Krigsatte Faner” are straight up blast-beat arenas of lightning-fast speed. “Hill Norge” climactically caps the disc by encompassing all the ups and downs of the well-rounded black-metal sound.

Track Listing:

1. Devil’s Harlot
2. Post Modern Sadist
3. Invoker
4. Perpetual Night
5. Ghosting
6. Acts Of Sin
7. Krigsatte Faner
8. Hill Norge

Published by Tangible Sounds

CD Review: 1349 - Demonoir

2010-04-16T14:04:00.008-04:00

1349
Demonoir
Rating: 3.75/5

Listen To: Psalm 7:77
Skip It: Tunnel of Set XI through XVII

Norway’s 1349 evolves on their fifth full-length album Demonoir, with the band’s usual explosive black-metal backgrounding new musical avenues. The first uncharted step is the evolved gothic narrative persona singer Ravn takes on in “Atomic Chapel,” partnered with his usual raspy demon-hisses. The song also employs a ghoulish riff moving slowly over an assault of double bass rolls, the first full-out attention grabber of the album.

Demonoir is also uncharacteristically slow for 1349. Chopperish double bass supported breakdowns like in “Pandemonium War Bells” offer easily adjusted to mid-tempo headbanging opportunities, and catchy octivated power chords that illuminate over layers of heavy distortion. “Psalm 7:77” settles dust with its intro of time-splicing tom-thuds, only to tizzy you again with an energizing, momentum-building guitar and following blast-beat inferno. You are intrigued by beefy power chords continuously revolving behind face-melting scales.

Amidst evolution, Demonoir is still a traditional black-metal powerhouse. “When I Was Flesh” and “The Devil of the Desert“ showcase high-pitched guitar leads soaring over a near-constant blast-beat hum, refreshing glimpses of 1349’s classic noise massacre approach. Lone hovering hornet-buzz guitars are also used to change direction throughout Demonoir, successfully rejuvenating your step before the next lucre noise assault.

The only recognizable down points come with Demonoir’s non-instrumental filler tracks incrementally titled “Tunnel of Set,” which are interjected between each song. While creating a vague fog of eeriness, these tracks can be time consuming while you seat-grippingly anticipate the next turbulent instrumental smash-out awaiting queue.

To sum up, Demonoir is a rounded album with its brave experimental aspects from a staple Norwegian black-metal outfit.

Track Listing:

1. Tunnel of Set XI
2. Atomic Chapel
3. Tunnel of Set XII
4. When I Was Flesh
5. Tunnel of Set XIII
6. Psalm 7:77
7. Tunnel of Set XIV
8. Pandemonium War Bells
9. Tunnel of Set XV
10. The Devil of the Desert
11. Tunnel of Set XVI
12. Demonoir
13. Tunnel of Set XVII

Published by Tangible Sounds Music Magazine

Malcolm McLaren, Punk Visionary, Dies

2010-04-16T10:02:00.005-04:00

Photosource: esquire.com

I’m getting sick of doing this. Last Thursday, April 8, 2010, Malcolm McLaren died due to complications with mesothelioma. He was 64.

Malcolm McLaren is most notable for being the manager of seminal punk rock bank The Sex Pistols, arguably the world’s most famous punk band. The Sex Pistols popularised the punk fashion of the late 1970s. Safety pins, ripped and torn clothing, spiky haircuts, leather jackets and bondage gear, and straight up negative attitudes toward anything mainstream – this all stems from The Sex Pistols. They also helped usher in a highly influential anti-political musical movement called anarchy punk, prominent today in mainstream music with bands such as The Casualties and The Exploited. However, The Sex Pistols were nothing without McLaren.

It all happened like this. In 1971, after giving up on formal education after a series of expulsions from various British arts colleges, Malcolm McLaren and then girlfriend, now renowned fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, opened a fashion boutique in London called Let It Rock. The shop specialised in costumes for cinematic productions and saw some success, but McLaren grew a new itch. In 1972 he travelled to New York City and hung out with inspirational protopunk group The New York Dolls, who had a huge underground following at the time. McLaren was drawn to their provocative dragqueen stage personas which countered the egotistic, no-fun direction rock and roll was heading toward. McLaren renamed his London shop Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die and began outfitting the Dolls for all their shows. But, The New york Dolls split in 1975 after a gutsy move by McLaren: to draw attention, he dressed the band in red leather suits and used a hammer and sickle as their new logo. Dolls guitarist Johhny Thunders would go on to become the underworld face of punk, a foreshadowing fact in the later success of The Sex Pistols.

After The New York Dolls, McLaren set out to create a band with members from local London. After a scrounging period, at the newly renamed McLaren shop SEX, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cool, and bassist Glen Matlock started producing rough-edge rock similar to The New York Dolls, and with the new do it yourself anti-rockstar ethic conceptualised by NYC punk prototypes the Ramones. McLaren found what he needed most for the band in a young man sporting a t-shirt reading “I Hate Pink Floyd.” Oh, so punk rock. This Floyd-hater was John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, the most recognisable voice in punk.

So, the band was complete. McLaren named them The Sex Pistols after his shop and another random controversial image. The Sex Pistols countered Top 40 music of the late 70s. They didn’t play ten minute guitar solos or have trained musical knowledge, which is the essence of punk: regular people playing rock and roll, instead of larger than life heroes who didn’t give a shit about their fans. Punks wanted to recreate the rock scene of the 50s and 60s by playing short, 3-chord rhythm and blues songs. No filler.

In 1977, the Sex Pistols blew up. New bassist Sid Vicious became the ultimate punk anti-hero complete with a nasty heroin addiction and total lack of personality on the surface. The band’s “Anarchy Tour” with up and coming London pals The Clash and The Damned, and headlined by infamous junkie-punk Johnny Thunders and his Heartbreakers, gave them a previously non-existent soapbox.

The rest is literally history. The band’s one and only studio album, Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, was released in fall 1977. Complete with now punk classics ”God Save The Queen” and “Anarchy in the UK,” Nevermind the Bollocks reached No. 1 on the UK rock charts. It is widely considered by music historians as one of the most, if not the most influential rock album of the twentieth century. If you’ve never listened to it, do so, and play it loud.

Then, as quickly as they appeared, the Pistols were gone. They broke up after their dismal first US tour in 1978. In February 1979, Sid Vicious was dead due to a heroin overdose. McLaren went on to manage British punk rock group Adam and the Ants, and create his own music with various backing bands.

So after this brief punk history, my message ends with remembering Malcolm McLaren, punk’s PR representative. Without the pop culture and fashion vision of this man, it is quite possible that punk never would have reached the heights it now floats upon. RIP Malcolm McLaren.

Published by campusintel.com

Toronto Celebs Accept Challenge To Fight Poverty, Malnutrition

2010-04-10T22:13:00.002-04:00

Last summer Toronto based poverty advocacy group The Stop Community Food Centre initiated an informative campaign called Do The Math. The project informed Ontarians of the dismal state of social assistance in the province, with the main argument that Ontarians receiving welfare and other social assistance are unable to provide themselves, and often their families, a healthy diet. Many of these people are forced to rely on food banks and soup kitchens for daily meals, where basic essential nutrition is hard to find, The Stop officials insist.

The response to the Do The Math campaign was good. Over 4,000 Ontarians sent postcards to Premier Dalton McGuinty, asking for positive action regarding the nutrition dilemma. But The Stop is still agitated that little has been done to help with low-income Ontarians to achieve a more-equal status in comparison to their neighbours off social assistance.

Usher in The Stop’s latest poverty awareness campaign, the Do The Math Challenge. Beginning on April 6, ten of Toronto’s prominent activists, government officials and celebrities picked up a food hamper from The Stop. The mission is to live off the hamper’s bounty, which usually lasts a person 3 to 4 days, and the city’s food banks for as long as possible, but at least a week. Participants include journalist/author/activist Naomi Klein, singer for Polaris Prize winning punk band Fucked Up Damian Abraham, musicians Rosina Kazi and Nic Murray of Toronto band LAL, and Toronto Ward 21 councillor Joe Muhavic and family, among others.

The purpose of the Do The Math Challenge is to create social awareness about the plights of poverty in Toronto, which are not exclusive to nutrition concerns. The Stop advocates for better treatment of impoverished, marginalised citizens in all sectors of contemporary city-life. It uses the dismal issue of under-nourishment among social assistance users as a vantage point on Toronto, and Ontario’s, many poverty triggered problems.

Follow all the participants with updates of how the challenge is affecting them here. Take action in the fight for equality in Canada.

Originally published at campusintel.com

Conversations Unheard: Speaking Out and Keeping Quiet in Joseph Boyden's Through Black Spruce (Critical Summary/Review)

2010-04-07T00:21:00.007-04:00

Recall Romeo drinking the fatal elixir so he can be with his beloved Juliet for all eternity, only to realize, once it is too late, that his maiden’s plan was to fool everyone else about her apparent death, not him. The ignorant hero’s quickness in action ironically befalls him when it matters most. The message that Friar Lawrence failed to get to Romeo: Juliet is alive. It is easy to recognize missed messages and their symbolism in drama on a strictly linear plot.

However, showing multiple characters missing integral messages becomes a daunting task, which Joseph Boyden masters in his Scotiabank Giller Prize winning novel, Through Black Spruce.

The novel opens with alcoholic bush pilot extraordinaire Will, the grandson of Elijah Whiskeyjack whom Boyden’s first novel, Three Day Road, follows. Speaking to his nieces Suzanne and Annie Bird from his hospital bed, not until the climax is the mystery of Will’s hospitalization revealed. But it only takes until the second narrative, led by Annie, to understand that Will is in a coma, and unable to speak. Thus, from the onset, a conversation is constructed between two people – Will and Annie – who cannot hear what each other is saying.

The novel bounces back and forth between Annie and Will’s narratives with each chapter. We learn that Annie is visiting her uncle on a regular basis, and has been told by Will’s nurse Eva, also a family friend, that speaking to him will help with a bountiful recovery (if a recovery is possible). Via Annie’s attempt to nourish her uncle’s brain, we learn her story.

Annie is back from a wild adventure in search of her long-lost sister, Suzanne, who is a semi-renowned fashion model. Still oblivious to her sister’s track to New York City, Annie makes her first stop in Toronto, the last known whereabouts of Suzanne to her family. Here she meets Painted Tongue, who is later revealed to be named Gordon, and turns out to be Annie’s self-proclaimed “protector.”

Painted Tongue does not speak, and we only understand his thoughts through Annie’s perception of his actions, moans, and moods. The mute Native character is actually a previously dawned character of Boyden’s: the protagonist of a short story, aptly named Painted Tongue, which makes up part of Boyden’s first book, a compilation of his short stories entitled Born With A Tooth. The short story explains why Painted Tongue does not speak: he chooses not to, in protestation to the way he is treated while living on the streets of Toronto. An alcoholic, Painted Tongue moans his way through life, refusing to converse with the neo-colonial symbols he encounters personified in police officers, construction workers, and elite businesspeople. The reader is forced to analyse why he is silenced. And, since he does not converse through language, how Annie Bird always knows what he is thinking – right up to the point of their consummation late in the plotline of Through Black Spruce.

From Toronto, Annie and her protector move on to NYC on a tip that Suzanne is there. Here, Annie is shadowed by the spirit of her missing sister, they fuse into one being. Annie meets Suzanne’s sketchy model-world friends, frequents her clubs, and begins modelling herself. After a while, though, Annie eagerly wants to know what happened to her sister, essential to Will’s current vegetative state. Annie begins to send postcards to her mother back in Moosonee, signed by missing Suzanne, offering another tweaked message image: the sender is absent. Ironically, Annie learns that there are more postcards being sent from Suzanne from around Europe, and Annie and Gordon quickly flee home.

Meanwhile, as Annie tells Uncle Will about her laborious, often life threatening adventures, Will pseudo-responds to her from beyond consciousness. He recounts his life as a bush pilot, flying hunters and travellers in and out of uncharted territories around James Bay, which took a turn for the worse when his family was killed in a house fire. In response, he intentionally crashes his plane, but is saved by the volunteer fire department. So, he drinks to ease his pain.

Will’s conceived purpose in life triggers an adventure of his own to live in the wilderness surrounding James Bay for almost a year. He is seeking solitude, but is unaware of the outer world following him. Among many plot diversions, he comes across a beached whale’s skeleton, representing the larger-than-life obstacles he is faced with. He decides to sit in it for a while and enjoy a few nips of whiskey, when suddenly he is not alone. Will is met with a set of grandparents and their two granddaughters, who mirror Annie and Suzanne with a highly effective linking seagull feather image, and his newly recovered shame of skipping town pushes him back to his problems at home. Climactically, a keepsake of Will’s grandfather from World War One debuting in Three Day Road saves him from falling to his biggest enemies, alcoholism and depression aside.

What do all the missed messages mean? Firstly, Annie’s silence regarding an important piece of information creates the initial tension in the story. Then, she must deal with this by ironically sending many more unheard tales to her laid up uncle. Eventually, the silence theme that looms about throughout the novel transforms into a humbling force for all the characters.

Originally published by campusintel.com

Lebanese Man Convicted of Witchcraft Dodges Beheading

2010-04-07T00:15:00.003-04:00

Lebanese man Ali Hussain Sabit, imprisoned in Saudi Arabia since 2008 for practising witchcraft, averted being beheaded last Friday for the conviction. Human rights advocacy group Amnesty International, along with Sabit’s lawyer, May al-Khansa, successfully petitioned the Saudi government to halt the execution.

Sabit was arrested in 2008 in Saudi Arabia after travelling there on the religious pilgrimage ‘umrat.’ The arrest was triggered by Sibat’s Beirut TV program that he produced prior to his travels, on which he made predictions deemed as pagan-like future telling by Saudi government officials. He has been in Saudi prison since on charges of sorcery and witchcraft, offences punishable by death in the nation that upholds a constitution based on extreme interpretations of Islamic law as laid out in the Qu’ran.

Saudi law permits capital punishment for a number of crimes, such as homosexuality, idolatry, drug smuggling, and witchcraft. The most popular way of carrying out the punishment is by beheading with a sword. Executions are usually staged in the large, open Deera Square in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, commonly known as Chop Chop Square. The most recent execution for sorcery was in 2007 when an Egyptian national was arrested in Saudi Arabia for the crime.

Saudi prisoners are usually oblivious to the fact that a decision has been made to execute them. Those awaiting conviction and sentencing are usually imprisoned while the delegations are carried out. In Saudi courts, defendants are most often represented by the judge presiding over the case, who questions the prosecution. Lawyers are scarcely allowed to represent defendants, making Sabit’s situation a rarity.

In recent years Amnesty International and other human rights advocacy groups have been pressing Saudi Arabia, and other middle eastern countries that use capital punishment for minor, non-life threatening crimes, to cease the practise. The Saudi government upholds that beheading is a traditional practise and, in following with the national government’s interpretation of Islamic Law, or Sharia, is humane.

Sabit’s beheading was halted, but some reports are explaining that it was not officially cancelled by the Saudi government. It is possible that it was only postponed, as for right now, in response to international attention to the publicised case.

With sources from voanews.com and gulfnews.com

Originally published by campusintel.com

Remembering Roehrs - RIP

2010-03-27T14:54:00.006-04:00

Maximum Rock and Roll magazine’s website posted a solemn comment on March 17 reporting long-time columnist, Bruce Roehrs, “passed away peacefully in his home.”

Maximum Rock and Roll is one of the longest running punk-zines, starting in 1977, and quite possibly the most reputable when it comes to coverage. It’s like this: if your band gets mentioned in Max RNR, you wear the mark of underground acknowledgement. Providing publicity for thousands of new hardcore bands over the last thirty years, Roehrs is Archbishop of Max RNR blessings.

Roehrs wasn’t a journalist, but he was educated. He attended the University of Miami in the 60s, where he developed a love for old school garage rock. Through the 70s he worked a number of blue-collar jobs, eventually ending up in San Francisco. By the end of the decade, he couldn’t stay away from the nightly DIY scene showcasing the new punk bands. This is where he met Max RNR founder Tim Yohannen, who recognized Roehrs from being at a bunch of shows, and recruited him to write reviews for his young zine.

In essence, Roehrs had a knack for recognizing great hardcore. He loved groups that did away with filler – like, now legendary bands, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, and Agnostic Front. The faster, louder, and more aggressive the better for Roehrs, and that is what he found in the budding early 80s hardcore scenes across the Western US. Publicizing the new style of rock, which was scaring most of the listening public, became Roehrs’s vocation. The spirit of hardcore was embedded into Roehr’s writing. His articles were often laden with four-letter words, and always ended with a now retired tagline, “See you at the bar.”

In one of his last articles, he reviewed Agnostic Front’s 1983 EP “Victim In Pain” that was recently re-released on Bridge 9 Records. His love for the band bleeds through the write-up: “‘Blind Justice’ has one of the best breakdowns ever committed to hardcore vinyl” he claims, a sentiment that I truly have thrown around in my head ever since I heard the tune. I am sure his passion was mirrored in many of the opinions of his readers. Check out the entire review at Bridge 9’s blog.

The passion Roehrs had for the new punk and hardcore of the 80s, 90s, and today led to many of his favourite bands boosting in popularity due to his praiseful penmanship. He was a lover of the first wave punk bands like Motorhead, Cock Sparrer and UK Subs, and then the ensuing wrath of American hardcore that got its start where he was writing in the San Francisco Bay/Los Angeles areas, and spreading all the way up the West Coast, even to Vancouver where DOA made Canadian hardcore a reality in the late 70s. He also used him column to promote the underdogs. For example, his praise of AntiSeen in the late 80s in his Max RNR column helped create a following for the now renowned band. Jeff Clayton, AntiSeen’s lead singer, posted “We’ll never forget you brother .… RIP” on the “Never Forget Bruce Roehrs” Facebook group page.

The legendary punk writer will undoubtedly be missed by many people involved with punk and hardcore music. Rest in peace to a visionary, and an inspiration.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian printed Roehrs’s obituary on March 24.
Join the “Never Forget Bruce Roehrs” Facebook Group.

With sources from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and maximumrockandroll.com.

Originallu published by campusintel.com

NativeLit 101

2010-03-24T23:59:00.006-04:00

I am about half-way through my NativeLit research project for my final Honours course before graduating this spring, and have found a plethora of interesting reading to share with you. Be warned - I am not an expert in this field, but I am passionate about it.

NativeLit is possibly the hottest literary genre in Canada right now. There are many reasons for this: it’s a relatively new genre in the scope of CanLit, making its debut, arguably, between 25 and 40 years ago. Another reason people are chattering about NativeLit is the controversial discourse: This isn’t a fluff genre, there are real social topics coming to a head in Canadian politics - like land claims, residential school abuse, racism, and stereotyping - being represented in the new NativeLit of our country. So, I am passing on a brief who’s-who on the genre so you can get started on reading some excellent texts.

Phase One: The Old-School

Around the early 18th century, in the earliest days of Canada’s formation, there were some interesting texts being written in the New World by the colonisers. A lot of travel-logs, frontier novels, and general creative fiction obsessed with the colonisation of North America. As a reference point, early Canadian writing gives a glimpse of how the colonisers perceived North America. However, it does not tell the whole story. Before the mid 20th century, there were no Native authors in Canada being published. The vision of Canada represented in literature was biased - and out of this vision comes a clear stereotypical Native archetype in literature that was recycled in nearly all texts concerned with Native topics.

Essentially, the Native was used as an objective tool: The Native character is flat, one-sided, and almost always represents the Other compared to the coloniser. They are one with nature, uncivilised, the “noble savage.” This may not sound too ignorant at first, but think about what is not conveyed about Native peoples at the time. Topics like assimilation, dying cultures and languages, unfair land treaties, and the industrialisation of a previously unhindered land mass. The writing of the colonisers paid no attention to these themes.

Look up John Richardson’s Wacousta, a frontier story written in 1832 about the first encounters between Natives and Colonisers, and which also happens to be the first published Canadian novel. Also, the poetry and legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott from the early 1900s offers examples of the flat Native archetype. Campbell Scott actually was head of Indian Affairs during the early 20th century, and worked to outlaw traditional Native dance ceremonies, on a loosely based argument that they wasted time and produced no good. American literature during the time also produced biased images of the Native, like in some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories, for example.

1972: A National Recognition of CanLit, and the Dawn of NativeLit

In 1972, Margaret Atwood published Survial: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature with help of a small publishing company, Anansi. The book was firstly intended to generate revenue for the young author, and also provide Canadian teachers with a guide on how to go about teaching CanLit. Up until this point, there was little recognition in Canada, or globally, of an actual Canadian literature scene. Miraculously, the book sold over 30,000 copies in its first year. People started to recognize Canada’s own literary genre, and the unique Canadian themes it projected.

In Survival, Atwood broke ground by addressing the problem of Native representation in CanLit up to that time. The chapter, entitled “First Nation,” acted as a battle-cry for the need of real, positive, Native themes to be recognized within CanLit. Thank Atwood, because almost instantly Canada was reading literature written by Natives authors and Native activists alike, writing about the opposite of what the colonisers saw: the negative effects of colonisation. Before long, post-colonial literature in Canada had a sore thumb for all to see, the genre of NativeLit.

After the ‘70s, Until Today

NativeLit is established, recognized, and in full force. First on the scene were the unrecognized Native writers of the past: Margaret Laurence, Pauline Johnson, and Maria Campbell, for example, were pulled out of CanLit’s camouflaging woodwork for all to hail as forgotten prominent authors. Thomas King also got his start in the early ‘80s, a man who is now considered new NativeLit’s forerunner. King is still a proficient novelist. Check out a book entitled The Native in Literature, a compilation of essays that were presented at the University of Lethbridge Native in Literature conference in 1984, for which King provides the introduction. King’s most famous work is Green Grass, Running Water, which takes an honest look at the state of North American Native culture in the ‘90s.

Also getting started in the ‘80s was Canadian playwright/author Tomson Highway whose first play, The Rez Sisters, first staged in 1987, made huge waves in the CanLit scene. He is still writing new plays in his residential school themed series, and has a new novel, Kiss of The Snow Queen, largely about the same topic. You also may have seen some of Highway's tragi-comedies that were adapted to the big screen.

I won’t be able to list off all of the new NativeLit authors, but here are some great ones to consider checking out: Joseph Boyden, who has written two novels, Three Day Road, and Through Black Spruce, which are excellent reworkings of the original Native archetype in CanLit. Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach is also great. Not only is it a suspenseful read, it addresses many current Native themes like residential schooling and stereotyping. Also, I praise Beatrice Culleton’s novel In Search of April Raintree, which addresses, among other issues, the niche problem of inner city violence on Native women.

So there you have it. Now all you have to do is read, and remember how NativeLit came to be.

Originally published at campusintel.com

Why We Drink Green Beer Once A Year

2010-03-15T00:28:00.006-04:00

March 17 is Saint Patrick’s Day, international holiday for university and college students, and all true partiers, reserved for the celebration of green beer. Well, that is what most people would say the holiday’s purpose is. In fact, Saint Patrick’s Day is a 1,500 year old Irish religious holiday commemorating the country’s most foundational figurehead. So, here’s the history lesson on why we sporadically dye everything green every March 17.

Legend has it, Saint Patrick was born into a prominent Roman-British family during the 5th century, A.D., in Britain. His father and grandfather were church deacons, a vocation Patrick would eventually pursue himself. Then, when he was 16, the young saint to be was kidnapped and smuggled to Ireland in order to be sold as a slave.

The young captive was eventually met with a message from God. Instructed to flee to the Eastern coast of Ireland, board a ship, and return to Britain, Saint Patrick followed the divine orders. He successfully returned to Britain, and studied with the priesthood, eventually being ordained. In 432 A.D. he was called back to Ireland in order to help convert aristocracy and peasants alike to Christianity.

Saint Patrick's return to Ireland is when all the folklore originates. For example, the shamrock was conceptualized as a symbol of Irish nationalism due to Saint Patrick’s teaching strategies. He would use the shamrock, or three-leafed clover, as a visual representation of the Holy Trinity - the three leaves of the shamrock are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The shamrock is now a symbol of Irish Christianity and Saint Patrick, and its green colour has been adopted as a marker of Saint Patrick’s work.

The shamrock symbol later inspired the original Irish folk tune “The Wearing of the Green,” anonymously written during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. And rebels who wore a shamrock in their caubeens during this era were representing their support for Irish Republicanism, at risk of being hung for doing so.

Following Saint Patrick’s death on March 17, 461, the date was recognized as a feast day during the Christian season of Lent. Soon it would be recognized as a Holy day of obligation, eventually becoming celebrated as a one-day break from fasting during Lent. Indulging in feasting and drinking ale, original Irish beer, became common festivities on Saint Patrick‘s Day.

It is also widely believed that Saint Patrick could party with the best of ‘em. Apparently, he could consume over six pints of beer and still be able to beat out any Englishman in a game of darts. That’s my kind of saint.

In 1903, March 17 was originally recognized as a National Holiday in Ireland. In the 1990s, the Irish government utilized the fun spirit of the holiday to market tourism. Now it is commonplace for everyone worldwide to be Irish for one day of the year, an excellent way to create awareness about the country. The biggest Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations are in Dublin, and also in the Irish city of Downpatrick, where the Saint is rumoured to be buried. In these cities, the festivities last all week, resembling an Irish version of Mardis Gras.

Originally published by campusintel.com

Catholic Abuse Controversy Grows With Link To Pope

2010-03-15T00:18:00.002-04:00

Photo Source: Vatican.va

The Catholic Church is once again being publicly scrutinized with news surfacimg this week of paedophilic acts that are personally connected to Pope Benedict XVI. Der Spiegel, a German newspaper, reported this week that in 1980 a priest in Munich was secretly transferred within the Archdiocese after an 11 year old boy came forward with abuse allegations. In an interview with NPR.org, Der Spiegel reporter Peter Wensierski said that after the priest’s transfer, he continued to work with children, and it was recorded that he was accused numerous more times of child sexual abuse. The priest was sentenced to a prison term for the abusive acts after 1986, but upon his release the Catholic Church of Munich reassigned him roles that involved him working around children, and has maintained positions that require interaction with children until today, Wensierski says.

If not scandalous enough, the story has another punchy side to it: Pope Benedict XVI was the Archbishop of Munich in 1980 when the accused priest was transferred. The Vatican is saying that one of the Pope’s subordinates at the time handled the secret transfer of the priest, but Wensierski says there is record of Pope Benedict’s direct reign over the situation. Not surprisingly, the Vatican is sticking to its story that the current head of the Roman Catholic Church is completely uninvolved with the sketchy personnel shuffle, or any involvement in covering up sexual abuse.

The news comes on the cusp of another sex abuse scandal within the German Catholic Church. Over the past 2 months, more than 600 students within Germany’s Catholic school board system have come forward with allegations of sex abuse committed on them by Catholic priests, Wensierski told NPR.

The German Archdiocese allegations are the latest in a legacy of sexual abuse allegations on the Catholic Church worldwide. Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Italy, Poland, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Canada, The US, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines have all been met with scandalous allegations of sex abuse committed by priests.

In Canada alone, the Catholic Church has been under scrutiny since the 1950s. Thousands of Aboriginal people who were sent to Christian residential schools have come forward with stories of sexual abuse being acted out in these institutions, with litigations continually being held regarding the issue. Other sites of abuse include the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland, whose accused priests were found guilty by the Supreme Court of sexual abuse on children.

Originally published at campusintel.com

Lost Photos of Punk Greats On Display

2010-03-08T23:52:00.001-05:00

The Steamwhistle Brewery, located at 255 Bremner Boulevard, Toronto, is hosting an art exhibit brandishing photographs depicting some of rock’s biggest icons this March. The brewing house turned art gallery event, which is free, is displaying, for the first time in large-scale public view, a series of photographs taken at rock and roll shows in Toronto between 1979 and 1981. Included are shots of The Clash at their first performance in Toronto in 1979, and Bob Marley’s last Toronto concert.

The photos are a result of a pair of young punks’ do-it-yourself photojournalist tactics inspired by the early punk rock movement, around 1979. Nick and Simon White, brothers who grew up in Toronto, saw most of the shows that later went down in history as part of the beginnings of the new musical era. They got the idea to photograph these early performances, possibly foreseeing the nostalgic element they would later provide.

The mostly black and white photographs depict a youthful who’s who of 70s and early 80s rock: The Ramones, The Clash, Peter Tosh, The Specials, and U2 with a young Bono are among the legendary acts captured in the photos. Other rare performances like The Talking Heads, Johnny Rotten performing with post-Pistols band Public Image Ltd., and The Specials were also captured by the brothers.

For the past 30 years, the photos have been tucked away, and nearly forgotten about, by the brothers. They stopped photo-documenting the music scene when it became harder for them to obtain press passes for concerts. In the earlier days, they were just seeing shows and taking pictures from the crowd. They started a fanzine, Smash It Up, where many of the photos were printed. But the zine went out of production when the 70s underground went mainstream and being punk no longer meant being free to publicize your favourite bands.

Now, the White brothers’ extensive work is on display for all to appreciate. The event is free, on for all of March at The Steamwhistle Brewery in Toronto, and, I’m sure, pints will be on hand to help commemorate the wild moments. If you can't make it in person, visit the CBC online gallery of the photos here: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/slideshows/PunkTorontoSlideshow2/project/

Originally published at campusintel.com

Riots in Greece After New Budget Laid Out

2010-03-08T23:44:00.000-05:00

Photo Source: Time-CNN

Violence erupted in the streets of Athens this week by protestors opposed to Greece’s new budget plan for 2010. The riot squad and ample police support were relied on during the riot, which resulted in tear gas and violent measures on part of the police in order to calm rioters. Minimal arrests were made in comparison to the amount of protestors, which numbered in the thousands.

The protests, and ensuing riots, were sparked by the Greek government’s announcement of a 4.8 billion euro austerity measure. The plan includes a freeze in pensions, cuts to government salaries, heightened taxes on luxuries like alcohol and tobacco, and a sales tax hike from 19 to 21 per cent. The Greek government’s move comes in a strategic political framework attempting to show European Union partners that it can avoid bankruptcy.

The controversial budget is in response to the world economic crisis, that has left many European Union nations in bleak financial state. Instead of claiming bankruptcy and relying solely on international support from the World Bank and IMF, the government of Greece sees financial stability available through tax hikes, expenditure cuts, and limited IMF support. The government has not ruled out accepting loans from IMF, but for now is trying a sovereign approach. Analysts see this as a motivated political move: Leaving the IMF out of Greece’s problems, for now, shows the stability of the European Union, dissolving any thought that it is doomed financially.

Whether or not this tactic of the Greek government will be a positive move in the long run will have to be judged later. For now, the general working public of Greece is outraged at the decision. Outlandish tax hikes that target popular demographics, and cuts to pensions, means a reassessment of living conditions for the majority of citizens.

Originally published at campusintel.com

Fucked Up And Friends Dazzle Opera House - Show Review

2010-03-08T23:34:00.000-05:00

Baltimore hardcore band Give opened the show at the Opera House Friday night, and set somewhat of a heavy tone for the night. Sadly, I only caught the last two songs of their set, and I really wish I could have seen more. The thunderous, bass-laden drums that continuously keeps rolling on through both fast parts and slow breakdowns initially captivated me. Their uniqueness kept my attention. Give is definitely a hardcore band, complete with tell-tale aggressive heaviness. This gets mixed, though, with a lighter guitar sound. There isn’t too much distortion, making it easy to follow the rhythm. Comparing the guitar style to a similar band would not be easy. And, when a band can heed me from b-lining to the bar as soon as I get into a show, which Give did, they usually stick around in my playlist for good.

The D’urbervilles, who took the stage after Give, are also great at keeping your attention. Their new-age brand of rock-pop beamed through the Opera House. Their sound is somewhere between Joy Division and the Weakerthans, and much in common with most dance-rock indie bands. However, they strike their own pose. They have some very technical, high-tempo, yet sometimes hard to follow, drum beats. Two synthesizers, looked after by guitarist/lead singer John O’Regan and lead guitarist Tim Bruton, work together well with the clean, palm-muted, not too overpowering guitar lines. There were highs and lows to this set – when at their best, the D’urbervilles can trigger sporadic, arm-throwing dance moves in any wallflower, like they did for O’Regan.

After the D’urbervilles, Kurt Vile played a captivating six-song set that I, once again, was very drawn into. He opened with “Overnite Religion” accompanied by a second guitarist/percussionist, who laid down the tambourine and maraca lines of the song. The trippy folk-rock made up of loop-dubs, looped drum beats, and guitar, set an intimate vibe throughout the Opera House before Fucked Up went on. At times I felt like it was just Kurt and I alone in a room, and when I would come back to my senses, I would look around and confirm that everyone else was also entranced by him. The third song was drummed by Jonah from Fucked Up, which added a refreshing crack to the low-key stoner rock. In total, the Kurt Vile set felt almost like a healing process, a cool rejuvenator before Fucked Up tore the place apart.

Tore it apart they did. Fucked Up started their set with drummer Jonah’s mother playing the flute line from “Year of the Rat,” and then dove into “Son the Father,” off their Polaris Prize winning album “The Chemistry of Common Life,” and staple opener for recent shows. They moved smoothly into “David Comes To Life,” with a tweaked breakdown in the middle, differing from the studio version of the tune. By mid-set, lead singer Damian Pink Eyes Abraham lit things up and tore his t-shirt off, as usual. For the next song, Damian sang while pulling an impressively long microphone cable around the entire Opera House floor, a perfect way to engage the crowd. Near the end of the set, while playing “Crusades,” a fan who grabbed the mic from Damian and started singing was attacked by another audience member, the attacker was swiftly removed from the event. After a quick break, the debacle was sorted out. The band just picked up where they left off, and finished the song with the final chorus. The performance was full of Fucked Up classics, including a thrashing rendition of “Two Snakes” off the band’s debut LP, “Hidden World.” The sextet played well together, in sync at all times, while frequently switching and changing parts of many songs. A tight set, that was undoubtedly planned and polished, from one of Toronto’s hottest bands.

Originally published at campusintel.com

Can I Borrow You?

2010-03-08T23:25:00.000-05:00

We all know what a library is: You register and get a Library Card, then you may borrow books and other multimedia for free. If you are late in returning the books, you are charged a small fee. Students herd there for research assistance from librarians. Cheapskates are prominent in the newspaper sections, trying to save a quarter. And, most importantly, you must be quiet at the library.

Now, this last library component is untrue. A new trend in free information acquisition has surfaced: The Human Library. Conceptualized in 2000 in Copenhagen, Denmark, in cooperation with youth action group Stop The Violence, the idea was simply to educate people about diversity. The books (people) are members of minority groups in society, ones that are often met with prejudice. From police officers to politicians to prostitutes – each Human Book tells his or her story and answers any questions the borrower has. In effect, the Human Books are an attempt to slash prejudice on stereotyped lifestyles through education.

Since 2000, the Human Library has globalised. There are Human Library events held all over the world. There is even one being promoted by Atira Women’s Resource Society in Vancouver, which will be running for the duration of the Olympic Games in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In fact, there are almost daily Human Library events being held around the world in schools, community centres, and other public institutions as a global front to promote diversity and educate people about prejudism. A full list of events is available at http://human-library.org, along with the history and objectives of the organisation.

I think this is an amazing story. This is one way that we can work towards ending the stereotypes and hatefeul tendencies that are still woven into all cultures, somehow or another. If the popularity of the Human Library grows, maybe our children will be able to pull themselves out of humanity’s odd predisposition to ignorance, stereotyping, and judgment. We all know the idiom you can’t judge a book by its cover. Well, the Human Library has ironically put the sentiment behind this phrase into action.

Originally published at campusintel.com

Eddie Mabo's Fight for Indigenous Sovereignty (Book Review)

2010-02-22T23:12:00.000-05:00

Peter Russel's book, Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism, is a meticulously thorough overview of Aboriginal rights in Australia since the inception of British Colonialism in Australia in the sixteenth century. Today, a time when, in Canada, Aboriginal rights are still at odds with our legal system, Russell's story of how one man, Eddie Koiki Mabo, managed to instil key Aboriginal rights in Australian law provides an uoplifting ray of hope.

The first half of the near-400 page book provides a background of Indigenous history in Australia. Not too surprisingly, it is 200 pages of extensive research on how the Natives on the British occupied land mass come to be at the mid-point of the twentieth century. It is a wealth of information to take in, beginning with the onset of colonisation and the threat it created on non-British culture. Much like in Canada and the United States, the Native peoples of Australia intended to work together with colonisers.

But, also like in North America, there were many injustices done to the original inhabitants of Australia by colonisers over the past 500 years. More or less, the many unrecognized land claims and Aboriginal rights treaties were left to rot, and be forgotten, until the famous Mabo case.

Eddie Mabo was a descendent of original inhabitants of Mer Island, an offshore land mass north of Australia. Mabo's life consisted of countless political endeavours in order to decolonize Native life in Australia. In other words, he wished to see Native culture persist despite the assimilation, and oppressive techniques, of the British Crown.

All this came to a head in the Mabo vs. Queensland case, beginning in 1982 and ending in 1992. In the end, the High Court of Australia deemed that Native title to lands, cultural practices and lifestyles are a fundamental right of Native Australians. Not to sound to promising, the second half of Russell's book looks at how the government of Australia, like Canada and the US's, found loopholes to further challenge Aboriginal title rights for its own economic and political agendas.

I cannot give it all away in one small blog, because the story of Aboriginal sovereignty in Australia is a long, and still unfinished tale. However, Russell has managed to tell the story in a captivatingly interesting way. A real page-turner that any history buff should find hard to put down.

Originally published on campusintel.com

Tent City, Vancouver

2010-02-22T23:08:00.000-05:00

A Vancouver Olympic Committee parking lot in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is home to a sea of red tents. The public staging is a reaction of homeless activists in Vancouver who feel the Olympics are problematic for homeless people.

The idea is about catching the public eye. The bright red tents with white slogans and blurbs are designed to function as a visual aid for the homeless movement. It seems the intention has succeeded. There have been stories about the tent activism throughout the media in the past weeks.

The homeless movement in Vancouver has chosen the Olympics as the backdrop for their activism because of logical reasons. For Vancouver's large homeless population, the recent preparation for the Games meant displacing them from where they called home. They are asking that instead of spending billions of dollars on international sports events, that Vancouver and other major cities address homeless problems.

The tent city site is one of many major social protests meeting the Olympics. First Nations activists fighting for land rights, environmental activists educating about nature deprivation, domestic violence, and women's activists have all utilized the soapbox that the Olympics surprisingly provide.

Tent city is expected to remain intact until the Olympics are over. We will see if the awareness has achieved any success for the homeless cause.

Originally published on campusintel.com

Remembering Lux Interior: Punk's Unsung Undertaker

2010-02-22T21:26:00.000-05:00

On February 4, 2009, the rock and roll world lost one of it’s greatest and most unsung trailblazers. Lux Interior, legend in his own time and lead singer of the Cramps, died due to aortic dissection, he was 62.

The Cramps were founded in 1972 by Lux and the ferocious female guitar player, Lux’s future wife, Poison Ivy. By 1975 the Cramps were a staple in the budding punk rock scene in New York City, turning heads alongside the New York Dolls, Television, and the Ramones.

However, The Cramps were different from the other seminal punk bands. This is highly due to Poison Ivy’s guitar style, which was highly dependent on blues riffs and archetypal rock and roll music. She picked up where the 50s and 60s punks left off (yes, punk was around then too) with guitar driven music that concentrated on the spirit of the garage, rock and roll’s first home.

Many of the songs The Cramps played were covers of old rock and roll classics - like “Surfin’ Bird” by The Trashmen, “Psychotic Reaction” by 60s California garage band The Count Five, or “Shortnin’ Bread” made popular by The Emeralds. But, they also had a telling bluesy influence, through which The Cramps popularized new rock genres that spring-boarded off punk.

Rockabilly, southern rock, prototyped by Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley; infused with hillbilly bass lines and country guitar, became part of the Cramps’ lure. However, they did it with a twist. As if by accident, they bred a new -billy: Psychobilly. Early Cramps flyers advertised “Psychobilly” and “Rockabilly Voodoo” as their style of music. In the coming years after the first wave of punk, Psychobilly would be used to describe many punk bands, like with The Dead Kennedys who mixed hardcore with an old school rock sound, and The Stray Cats who mixed the old rockabilly sound with punk’s speed and fashion.

The Cramps were also masters of keeping the Hallowe’en spirit alive all year ‘round. Lux’s lyrics were obsessed with sci-fi exploration like in “Human Fly” and “How to Make a Monster,” and masochistic sexual themes like in “What’s Inside a Girl?” This ghoulish, creepy sci-fi theme led to another sub-genre of punk: Horror Punk. The Misfits and ensuing copy-bands are considered the horror punks, and a lot of their dark, gothic subject matter was founded by The Cramps’ style.

Above all, The Cramps are arguably the first blues-punk band. For lack of a better term, blues-punk essentially means high energy, distorted blues. When analyzing The Cramps, this is exactly what they are. There was still no bull, keeping them punk - but Poison Ivy could lay out a juke-joint riff like any of the greats. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is a recent band that follows in the crashy, trashy style of blues that The Cramps fine-tuned.

In recent years The Cramps were still touring. Lux was still sporting his leather bondage gear and high-heels, and still giving head to the microphone; Poison Ivy still laying down the hippest, funnest riffs in recent rock, and looking damn hot while doing so. Needless to say, I love the Cramps, and I think you should too. I discovered them in my early high school days, on one of the old Punk-O-Rama compilations that Epitaph records used to do so well. The song? Haulass Hyena, off “Big Beat from Badsville” (oh, what an intimidating album name, and cover). After that, I was a Cramps-head, through and through, and always will be.

Look around for an album series called “Songs The Cramps Taught Us” - a collection of Cramps songs that were in fact originally recorded by other, often much older, artists. Hopefully it will lead you to an appreciation for original rock and roll - an act that punk, as a learning tool and reference point in rock history, begs us to do.

R.I.P. Lux Interior.

Originally Published at campusintel.com