AWmusic

Ghalib shared his experience on Extermination Music Night – an event I eagerly want to go to now.
Carmen reviewed E.S.L.’s Eye Contact – impossible to search for this band. I love the Canadian content these guys are pitching in with.
Speak of Canadian, Adam (writes a blog The Edge 102.1) reviewed Kathleen’s Turner Overdrive E.P (too long so I’m lazy to write it/copy and paste it).

Enter our latest contest!

Other reviews:
The Rhumb Line by Ra Ra Riot* I gave it a 5/5 meaning it’s likely on my best of the year list.
Oceans Will Rise by The Stills
Asking For Flowers by Kathleen Edwards
Memory Drawings by The Drift
Rip It Off by Times New Viking
The Devil, You + Me by The Notwist
Feel Good Hits of A Nuclear Winter by Laurel Collective
Fast Times at Barrington High by The Academy Is…

Other:
Adrian covers the Cutting Edge Music Fest in the first of a two part series.

Some blogosphere commentary:
Please freakin stop with the Bloc Party hype. Even if you hate the bloc party or like them, I’m sick of tired about hearing about their latest single or whatever fucking opinion you have on their new album. At this point, I hope their album receives a 5.0 something from Pitchfork so the blogs can talk about some more meaningful music.

Okkervil River plans to have videos promoting their latest album. They have some performances the latest and probably the awesomemest is with AC Newman of the New Pornos taking over Jon Meiburg’s duties on vocals in a star studded duet that makes me drool (and potentially wet – I keep that secret) with Wil Sheff playing the new single Lost Coastlines. Watch below if you hate navigating.

TI released a new song. Didn’t listen to it.

The Walkmen’s You & Me scored an 8.5 from P4K. You may be seeing a review from us though probably not from me (I haven’t listen to their past albums and it wouldn’t be right).

An uneventful week for me. I struggled with sleeping issues and my knee is going to take another 6 weeks to heal (10 TOTAL) as I can’t do any sports that involves any twisting. That blows.

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The Stills, newly signed to Arts and Crafts, the label headed by Broken Social Scene here in Toronto have once again released a much different album. I must say that Logic Will Break Your Heart was one of the first indie albums I ever embraced and to this day it is one of my favorite albums of all time. It’s just great to listen to in and out. On the other hand, Without Feathers was extremely different with Greg Paquet leaving as a guitarist and Dave Hamelin moving up to guitar from drums to take the vocal duties. The album wasn’t that bad but if you compare both albums, it was hard to like Without Feathers. After a few listens though I must say it was at least unwarranted as there was some decent stuff on the album.

Again, The Stills have gotten their hand caught in the cookie jar for trying too much. After seeing them live, I flat out believe that they are just not talented enough to pull off something more then a simple pop rock band with decent post-punk revival influences. They quest to be original is at best so-so and that’s the exact risk bands take when trying to become unique and stand out.

The Stills are the best when they try to remain simple and a lot of the time, the music sounds like a mess compared to their previous records. There are a few things I do like on this album and it is when they are toned down not trying to much. Hits like Being Here and Everything I Build do stays quite simplistic and nails what the Stills should be about, working off Fletchers lyrics and vocals, not drowning them out like on Rooibos/Palm White Drinkard.

It’s easily the worst album the Stills have released. I know they want to distinguish themselves but more often times in this album they have missed. I guess there are some merits in once again recreating themselves but isn’t that a little bit pretentious thinking you’re capable of that?

Rating: 2.25 out of 5
I may be dwelling too much on the first album but this is another major disappointment.
Being Here by The Stills

Everything I Build by The Stills

Buy this album from: CD Universe + Insound + Amazon

We first went to the free concert, part of the Grey Cup festival. First off the stage was badly done with a 6-foot high dog-type fence which was like 5 feet back from the stage. The fence was constantly pushed forward (by the screaming 14-year olds) but who could blame them? It was a shitty fence and this is a thumbs down to the Grey Cup organizers.

The first band we saw was The Reason. An emo type band based on impressions, Kevin and I did not really like what we saw. Must suck to be an opening act to a free show though. IllScarlett was decent, I felt weird standing with 14-year old girls screaming and Kevin… I wasn’t much of a fan of them but I do admit that they have a pretty good bassist and guitarist. I don’t have any pictures due to the fence and I just didn’t bother. A pretty good band, a mainstream act that has some talent but being mainstream can really wreck some bands.

Sebastien Grainger -former singer/drummer of Death From Above 1979 walked in with what I would call it the Freddy Mercury look. I’m not a fan of tight white pants and I could barely recognize him and on a hunch (based on skill) figured he was from Death From Above. Kevin really dug this performance and I’ll have to agree. I was good shit with Grainger’s backing band showing energy with solos and awesome transitions (with the occasional chug of beer). Granger and his backing band were awesome despite the small crowd they drew (I guess people didn’t know who he was). The sound at Lee’s wasn’t too good but I think we should all look out for Grainger. He’ll be rocking some shows eventually. I didn’t specifically recognize any songs that stood out (most if not all songs were good) so here’s a random track I found online:
The Rhythm Method

The Stills had a packed crowd waiting for their arrival. They played a few old tracks while some people sang along and cheered. They really set up for nice photo opportunities. The Stills fresh off signing to Arts & Crafts, planned to play some new songs. They played at least 6 new tracks for us. It was really tough to sit through as they played the majority all in a row. Without anyone really knowing any the songs it was kind of a crowd killer. If you are a Stills fan then you should know that they had Tim Fletcher on vocals the majority of the time, a move I strongly agree with. However the new stuff seemed very experimental and more complex to what they would normally do. It relied less on vocals with louder bass and harder drumming and more complex guitar solos. I think this may be a disadvantage as The Stills relied on the simplicity to capture my brain. I’m not too sure what to think about the new stuff.. I’ll wait to hear it when it’s released in ‘08.

Here’s a track off Without Feathers (which is grower but I have neglected it) with Emily Haines of Metric
Baby Blues by the Stills

Click below to see various pics (you could find the rest on my facebook if you wish to add me):
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We actually haven’t gotten the tickets to see the Stills but crossing my fingers Rotate This will have it.

I am pretty excited for today, Illscarlett is playing for free and in the outdoors. and it’s freezing like hell. A storm is expected but meh it should be a fun day out.

The Stills have always been one of my favorite bands so I’m really happy to be finally seeing them. It’ll be my 4th concert (or 4th and 5th if you want count literally). Bands like the Arcade Fire, White Stripes and Muse are hard to compare to! Hopefully on Saturday I’ll have some pretty good pictures.

Here are some mp3s as usual:

Nothing Special by IllScarlett

Yesterday Never Tomorrows

The path to me finding indie rock is a little strange but I think I’ve narrowed it down when looking at the past. Pretty much growing up in the “ghetto” area of Toronto, hip-hop and R&B were and still is a huge musical influence for children growing up. This pretty much dominated my “young” adult years before entering high school.

Then came the rise of this band Linkin Park that mixed both rap and rock elements into their music. Right now it probably wouldn’t be very cool to say that I like Linkin Park and I’ve grown from the mainstream style of rock. But I do have to give credit where credit is due. I would have never started listening to rock if it was for them. Here’s my favorite song my them:
A Place for My Head (download)

The next period followed into liking mainstream rock like Queens of the Stone Age, Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Blink 182, Green Day and much more. There was nothing wrong with liking songs that garnered a lot of radio and television airplay. Eventually like most people, the media outlets base their promotion on ever seeming young audience and I just seemed to outgrow radio/television and needed to find music that was out there but just didn’t get the respect it deserved.

The first actually indie band I started to like was the Stills. I think this was in grade 10. Thankfully the Edge had to keep up with CRTC rules and had to play Canadian content so some of the Canadian content were from independent sources. The “Still in Love Song” exemplifies my exact thoughts on the the Stills. I was compelled by their other songs such as “Lola Stars and Stripes” and “Love and Death”. Liking so many songs I was interested in downloading “Logic Will Break Your Heart” and at that time it was probably the best album I have EVER heard at that time. I was in love with that album but there was really no one else it seemed who were also fans of them (except maybe Xulander). Here’s one song off the album:
Let’s Roll by The Stills (download)

At this point I liked mainstream rock mainly with some independent bands I stumbled across that got some airplay. The big band that really set off my romance with indie rock was the Arcade Fire. There is just something with substance that I enjoyed so greatly the first time I heard “Rebellion (Lies)”. “Funeral” ended up being on the best albums ever and this is without reading a single internet publication. Like the Stills, it was an album I seemed to like myself.
“Neighbourhood #1″ perfectly describes my relationship with indie rock and what the Arcade Fire did for me:
“You change all the lead
sleepin’ in my head,
as the day grows dim I hear you sing a golden hymn.”

If you have never heard this song I suggest you download it or listen to it below:
Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) by The Arcade Fire (download)

This really set off me looking for different styles of music as I seemed to like the Arcade Fire religiously and was confused as why there was poor airplay after a lot of talk about Rebellion eventually died down after some time.I really think everyone starts with mainstream music because it’s only main outlets that you know to have “cool” music when you’re young. So everyone should have a pathway to why they what they like. What’s your story??

Pretty much I’ve been reading a lot of the reviews of their last two albums. I still love the Stills even if Without Feathers wasn’t that good. I really hope they can find that magic that was Logic Will Break Your Heart as it feels so bad that this band isn’t as big as it is. Pretty much band members leaving is a bitch…I really wish it could be reversed. I am still willing to catch them live (that’s the plan anyway) since they are still one of my favorite bands and I hope the next release goes well!

Here’s one of the songs off Logic Will Break Your Heart and a great live performance (Of Montreal):

Here are the Lyrics and Translations:
ça y est c’est reparti je me divise en deux
je suis tout à la fois l’acteur et le décor
je ne sais où je vais, où je vais le saurais-je
je ne vais nulle part mais à toute vitesse
l’haleine des camions le soleil alienant
sur le toit du Bancroft building à Montréal
les filles à moitié nues je pense à toi souvent
les filles complètement nues ça me fait toujours mal
et puis je reste là les gens me semblent heureux
si tu savais souffrir je m’emporterais mieux
tu receveras ma lettre déchirante et déchirée
les larmes de non-retour de la chienne crevée

Tranlated into:
That’s it, here I go again, I’m dividing into two I’m both the actor and the scenery
Don’t know where I go, where I go should I know?
I go nowhere but I go at full speed
The breath of the trucks, the alienating sun
On the roof of the Brancroft Building at Montreal
The half-naked girls, I think often of you
The full-naked girls, it always hurt me
And I stay there the people look happy to me
If you knew how to suffer I’d feel better
You’ll receive my letter, heart-breaking and torn
The non-return tears of the dead bitch