Ten Great Songs 2009 #3: Going Out Tonight

Recidivism. A great, dark theme for a great, dark song. It starts with that spare twang-y chord, like it's an outlaw country murder ballad. And it is, in its way.

The song finds its narrator at a point of despair so low that bottoming out seems like redemption. Maybe this is what's happened to (the hopefully fictional) Gary Hache in the decade since Andrew Vincent first sang about him. Ten years younger, getting loaded and mouthing off to cops sounds like a lot of fun. But sometimes bad boys grow into sad men , and this song catches one of them in a quiet moment, and nails it.

mp3: "Going Out Tonight" by Andrew Vincent

2009 already?

Newborns become infants, five o'clock shadows become beards, snow becomes rain, and then back again. Everything changes, everything stays the same.

Some things worth reading if you have the time to read:

The Comics Reporter's holiday interviews series, with folks like Jeet Heer, Eddie Campbell, Kurt Busiek. Highly recommended is the verbiage with critic Abhay Khosla. Khosla's stuff can be a little rich sometimes, but he's always a rewarding read. Especially when he says things like, "People don't think mainstream comics might mean things! People think mainstream comic creators are brainless fanboys just because mainstream comic fans are brainless fanboys. It's a bizarre culture. But look: does anyone want to hear the opinion of Marvel comic book fans on the Middle East peace process? Me neither times infinity."

Dave Segal's "Dispossessed", in the Stranger, about losing his vinyl collection. (via Signal Response) Which reminds me of the unknownish classic Alan Zweig doc, Vinyl.

A few months back we told you about Andrew Vincent (seen above) and his new album, Rotten Pear, and how it was going to come out in November. It didn't. It's gonna be ready on Jan. 27, and he'll be playing shows around Ontario in support of it.


mp3: "Hi Lo" by Andrew Vincent

Because we asked for it

He used to from Ottawa, and now he's from Toronto. Ontario's Andrew Vincent has finally got a new record coming out. Rotten Pear will be released on Kelp Records on or around the US election day, coincidentally one of my brothers' birthday. But which brother? IT'S A MYSTERY.

mp3: "Going Out Tonight" by Andrew Vincent

I got your postcard from out west...

It's either a really long weekend or not a long weekend at all.

mp3: "Canadian Dreamz" by Andrew Vincent
mp3: "Degrassi Jr. High Theme" by Andrew Vincent

"If I went to a place like this when I was younger, I would have turned out alright..."

When I was a kid, it was easy to make fun of Deadheads. Since I was sure I was a punk (I'm pretty sure now that I wasn't), and I had seen Sid & Nancy (several times), I recognized hippies as my natural enemies. I'm not sure whether the fact that my parents were, or had been, hippies added or took away from this belief. And who was a more archetypal hippy than a Deadhead?
What really made it easy to make fun of Deadheads, though, was that I didn't know any. They were just abstract scapegoats that I couldn't understand, and didn't want to. The whole fascination with trading tapes of Grateful Dead concerts was beyond me. At the time, per my limited worldview, it seemed as though it was just easy to actually see the Dead as it was to get your hands on a tape of them. All you needed was the desire.
I eventually overcame my distrust of the Grateful Dead and those who followed them (or wished they had). I even became good friends with a few people who actively considered themselves Jerry Garcia fans. And maybe, just maybe, I came to admit that the Dead was actually a pretty great jugband when they wanted to be. (The same might said of yams, but that's a different story.)
But I've never really gotten into recordings of shows. I guess there's some secret snob inside me (ho, ho, you say, it's not that secret, Emmet) that considers them poor surrogates to the almighty Live Experience. I could probably count the live albums I own on one and a half hands, and anybody who's ever been to my house knows I own a lot of albums. Anybody who's ever lived in my house (other than me) would even say I own too many albums. Pish posh to that, I say.
Thankfully, Richard the Soundmann doesn't share my narrow-minded view of live recordings. He's just some music fan in Waterloo with a very plain and wonderful website where he posts clips of recordings he's made at concerts he's been to. I was turned on (as the kids say) to his site by Andrew Vincent's MySpace page. I'm just starting to listen to his many offerings, but, what the hell, he's making a convert outta me.
Richard's got clips of shows by a veritable Who's Who of CanRock luminaries, from Caribou and Rock Plaza Central to the Sadies and Dan Mangan. If you're the type of kindred spirit who considers logging on to CBC Radio 3 the only way to make the workday bearable, you'll enjoy what Richard has to offer.
All this CanRock talk is reminding me of Have Not Been The Same: The CanRock Renaissance, a fine book written by Michael Barclay, Ian A.D. Jack and Jason Schneider--who edited the handful of reviews I wrote for Exclaim! and seemed on the phone and through email to be a thoroughly decent fellow. The book, which focused on Canadian rock music between 1985 and 1995, came out in 2001, a time when not a whole lot was going on, CanRock-wise. Shows were really, really poorly attended. Indie rock had become something of a slur, even as major labels were wholesale downsizing to the point where even last year's shittiest corporate radio Canadian Content hitmakers were now calling themselves "indie". But there was still, in my opinion, lots of great music happening. It just seemed like I was the only one who cared. I remember the final chapter of the book didn't seem too hopeful about what would come next for CanRock, or maybe I was just playing that Western Canadian alienated Old Dutch-chip-on-my-shoulder thing that I used as a crutch back then. Either way, you should read the book, it's great, even if it may or may not give short shrift to anyone who never opened for the Rheostatics (who are kind of the Toronto gen-Xer version of the Dead). What you should also do is start collecting your notes and files for Citizens of Tomorrow: What CanRock Did Next.

mp3: "Cover It Up/Diane" by Andrew Vincent

Tell Me About Gary Haché!

This is kind of an old song, but it's new to me, and maybe it'll be new to you:
Gary Haché by Andrew Vincent & the Pirates

In a recent post, I wondered where the hell AV's new album is, and then my brother sent him an email, and AV replied that it was coming. So there you go.

"Gary Haché" is a nearly perfect song. I kinda wish the vocals were a little louder in the mix, cuz that wicked riff kinda overpowers them, which is a what a wicked riff like that will do, so, like, whatev. I like the way the perspective goes from third to first person after the first verse. It doesn't really make any sense, so it's rad. It reminds me of the time I went to Stratford with Chad and we got loaded and I got kicked out of some bar because a guy next to me dropped his glass and it smashed on the floor, and I...I think I had only just barely begun to booze it up at that point, but I got the blame. I may have even been waiting in line for my first drink. Regardless, there were many other places to drink in Stratford that night, and we hit most of them. I ended up falling down in the mud near one of those quaint stone footbridges Stratford seemed full of.

Newer and just as cool is Houdini: The Handcuff King by Jason Lutes and Nick Bertozzi, from The Center for Cartoon Studies.

That's right, introduction by Glen David Gold, who wrote one of my favourite novels of recent times, Carter Beats the Devil. It's a fun and deliciously illustrated biography of Houdini (whose corpse is in the news again) very much in the same vein (though a little more lively) of Chester Brown's Louis Riel comic biog.

And in newer MUSIC news, and also civic whateverhood, I STILL DON'T HAVE THE NEW RTX ALBUM. VANCOUVER HAS LET ME DOWN AGAIN. None of the stores I've visited have even ordered Western Xterminator yet. I know for a fact that if I was still in Regina, Dave woulda had that sucker in my hands within MOMENTS of its release. I guess that's what's cool about Regina.
Last month, Drag City was giving away "Black Bananas" from Western Xterminator away for FREE. This month they're giving away "Sycamore" by Bill Callahan, formerly known as Smog or (Smog). It's pretty great. AND IT'S FREE.

The new pink layout is dedicated to Lindsay, the world's coolest 14-year-old.

HEY, REMEMBER 2006?

I meant to post this a long time ago, like weeks and weeks ago, but now is when it's happening, so that's that. Check out X-Ray Records (and tell Dave hi from Emmet!) on the right for a bunch of other lists somewhere down the line.
Here's my favourite albums from last year in no particular order. Keep in mind that I more or less stopped being on top of music like I had for the previous ten years around September, so I mighta missed some things, like maybe that new Black Keys, which I've only heard one song from, but that one song sounded like I'd like it.

1. Two Gallants - What the Toll Tells (Saddle Creek) - I first heard these guys on a 2005 Loose Music compilation called Start Your Country, which also featured faves like Parkas and Roger Dean Young, and sometime this year I became really addicted to "Steady Rollin'", the second track on this album. There's a sort of a jugband quality to that song, and the usual Two Gallants rightous throat bleeding.
2. Howling Hex - 1-2-3 (Drag City) - Another year, another 2 albums from Neil Hagerty and his band(s). I haven't really warmed up to the other one, Nightclub Version of the Eternal yet, but sometimes it takes me a while.
3. Hylozoists - La Fin Du Monde (Boompa) - I saw Paul Aucoin's mostly instro combo twice in Oh-Six. Once in Regina and once in Vancouver. The Regina was way better, for a variety of reasons. But the album is really, really amazing.
4. Rah Rah - Songs for Pasquala (self-release) - Oh how I love these kids.
5. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale (Def Jam/Universal) - Pretty much for "The Champ" alone, from which this blog got its name (via Rocky II, as well, long live Burgess Meredith).
6. Prototypes - Je Ne Te Connais Pas EP (Minty Fresh) - fun, dumb, French pop. This EP is a FREE DOWNLOAD at the Minty Fresh website.
7. Ray Davies - Other People's Lives (V2) - I don't know. I think I'm overrating this. There are some really brilliant songs, but I honestly haven't listened to OPL since, like, May. So maybe it doesn't belong here.
8. the Parkas - The Scars to Prove It (Little Records of Concrete) - not really an album, but another EP, and so far only available with the DVD A Life of Crime, which is REQUIRED VIEWING for anybody who wants to tour Canada with a rock band. The songs are absolutely killer, though, and the Parkas have already two newer tracks on their mySpace page. HUZZAH! The Parkas are sort of turning into a less fun band than they were on their debut record, Now This Is Fighting, which is too bad, but they're probably actually even better, and they're sorta really kick-ass and tough now. Like on their first record, they were sorta mouthy and cheeky punks, and then they got theirs (see the movie) and now they've become sort of what they where acting as if they were. I don't think that makes any sense. But, like, I think of the Parkas as a street gang. On their first record, they were a street gang from Grease. Now they're a street gang from, um, a Martin Scorsese movie. Anyway, the Parkas remain wickedly smart and terrific, and, little known fact: their drummer writes their lyrics! Just like, um, Mudhoney, I think.
9. Chad Van Gaalen - Skelliconnection (Flemish Eye/Sub Pop) - Another album I didn't hear was C Van G's Calgary buds The Cape May's new one. I should seek that out. I really liked their last one, Central City May Rise Again. Anyway, C Van G has a new album and it's real good. Favourite track: Wind Driving Dogs.
10. Various Artists - Congotronics Vol. 2: Buzz & Rumble from the Urb'n Jungle (Crammed Disc) - AWESOME.

Stuff I'm looking forward in 2007: new albums/music from RTX, Parkas, Goldenmile AND HOPEFULLY ANDREW VINCENT GODDAMNIT. And also picking up some stuff I missed last year.