Vanhattan? More like Vanhassle!

Last spring, I’m waiting for the #3 Downtown bus at the corner of Main and Broadway. I’m on my way in for a 12-hour shift, on a Sunday, so I’m not in a great mood to start with. The bus, unreliable at the best of times, seems to follow no schedule at all on Sundays. So I’ve got to get out way ahead of time just be on time. I’ve got to hustle like a keener just to keep from being a slob.
But here comes the bus, I can see it way down the street.
During the week, the #3 is like any other bus I’ve ever been on in Vancouver, packed. By the time I get on, no more than ten minutes from the city core, it’s standing room only, usually with the pleasurable view of the sleeve of someone’s wet raincoat. But Sunday mornings before 8, it’s mostly shift workers like me. Security guards in turbans with shopping bags full of groceries from the 24-hour supermarkets, nurses in their colourfully printed scrubs, and the occasional straggler from Satuday night’s revelry. Sunday mornings, I can count on sitting down on the bus.
The bus stops at a red light across Broadway, and I can’t believe my eyes. The digital display reads “Sorry. Bus full.” The light changes to green and the bus carries on in the centre lane.
As it goes by, I see them: Sun Runners, in their T-shirts and shorts. Chipper with their power shakes and lattes. Laughing, ha ha. As I watch the bus make its way down the hill, I quietly pray for rain. Hail, even.
Another bus passes by. As if!
Finally, I get a break. The third bus is no less full, but the driver is at least a reasonable human being.
I edge on to front of the bus sideways, like a Tetris block. I can’t even get in far enough to validate my Faresaver. Upfront we’re elbow to eyeball, but craning my neck, I can see empty seats at the back. Lots of them.
The Sun Runners, these fit folks who ride the bus maybe five days a year—to hockey games or fireworks—are bogarting their personal space. They’re doing stretches in the aisles.
And I’m late for work.


To live in Vancouver is to deal with frustration. If it's not the Sun Run--an annual 10km race sponsored by the city's broadsheet publisher of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle--it's made-for-TV film shoots, infrastructure mega-projects, Victorian-era zoning bylaws, or gang-related shootings. It's not the awe-inspiring natural surroundings that lead so many Vancouverites to yoga, it's the hope of learning to cope with constantly thwarted plans.
The Olympics will just be an extreme manifestation of this essential Vancouverism.
What's saddest about the Olympics as an event--aside from the 800 teachers the province might lay off to help pay for it, or the dozens of innocents who will inadvertently read a Shelley Fralic column--is that visitors are going to miss out on the best parts of Vancouver. Parking restrictions and transit priorities will leave little opportunity for tourists to see what daily life in the Soggy Apple is really like. It won't be impossible, but it won't be easy for the determined to get to the other side of Gastown and drop in on Robert at Solder & Sons, the Downtown Eastside's coffee and books emporium (the coffee is new, the books are used) where you can challenge the regulars to a match of Scrabble, or just hang out with the fixed-gearheads from Super Champion, the bike shop next door. Or take your Americano down the street to Crab Park Fight your way back to the Downtown side of Gastown for a Najib's Special at Nuba, arguably the finest lunch in all of Vancouver. Or, how about Cambie Village? The area paid a dear cost during construction of the Canada Line, and now, in the hinterland between City Hall and King Edwards stops, will they reap any benefit?
Of course, the real best parts of Vancouver have nothing to do with the city itself. Without the bridges, without the SkyTrains, without the souvenir shops, without the people, the mountains and ocean would still be here. There are wild parts of the city, such as the steep banks of the Millennium Line at Commercial Drive, overgrown and lush, that remind us how we've changed the landscape to suit our needs. Raccoons and coyotes, great blue herons even, roam the city streets before dawn. Many progressive agencies in the Downtown Eastside acknowledge the idea that Vancouver sits on unceded Coast Salish territory, and the persistence of these nocturnal fauna is a reminder of our late arrival here.


Gary Stephen Ross, editor-in-chief of Vancouver magazine, wrote an essay on "the idea of Vancouver" for the current issue of The Walrus. It's accompanied by brilliant photos of Vancouver by Grant Harder that capture the range and depth of Vancouver life. Also in the issue, a powerful piece by Marian Botsford Fraser on the Canadian penal system, and a fantastic report on Rush by Jason Anderson. In fact, my favourite part of the issue is on the Contributors pages, where it says that Anderson is working on his second novel, about the Canadian film industry. It's a hell of an issue, you should buy it.
Ross compares Vancouver to Philip Seymour Hoffman, who starred in the film Owning Mahowny, which was based on the book Stung, written by Gary Stephen Ross. Hoffman, you'll remember, also played Lester Bangs in that terrible Cameron Crowe movie about ten years ago, and Bangs, who died in 1982, wrote that The Bells is Lou Reed's best solo LP. Bangs didn't live long enough to hear Mistrial, but I don't think it would have changed a thing. Bob Seger is reported to have written a song about Lester Bangs, called "Lester Knew." Bruce McCulloch definitely did write a song about Bob Seger, called "Bob Seger." It's on his album The Drunk Baby Project. It is also better than anything on Mistrial.

mp3: "Nobody Can Turn Me Around" by the Sojourners
mp3: "Bob Seger" by Bruce McCulloch


BONUS TEN GREAT SONGS 2009 #8: I WANNA KNOW GIRLS
mp3: "I Wanna Know Girls" by Lambchop

Ten Great Songs 2009 #6/#7: Easiest Game/Disco Mystic

At this point, moving toward the end of January 2010, who really cares about 2009 anymore? So, like, if I want to put a song that came out at the end of 2008 on my Best of 2009 list, nobody's going to notice anymore. How about a song from 1979? How about a whole album from 1979 that I didn't even hear until 2010? Look, Emmet, if you're still slogging through your year-end list this deep into the new year, well, whatever gets it done, pal.

So that's why I'm telling you about The Bells today. Lou Reed's ninth solo album, released between Street Hassle and Growing Up in Public. When I cared about Lou Reed (and I cared, man, I cared) Street Hassle (1978) was his last good album until New York (1989)--which was his last good album until that one with the song about getting an eggcream. As far as I was concerned, there was a whole decade where if there was a difference between Lou Reed and Joe Piscopo, there wasn't enough of one to matter. It was just a big clusterfuck of red joysticks, original wrappers and drum programs.

Well, if any theme has emerged in the narrative of this blog, it's that I used to have bad judgment (now I'm spot on about everything). So, The Bells.

#1: "Stupid Man" - I can't believe I didn't know that Lou Reed had a song mentioning Saskatchewan until a couple of months ago when I heard this song by accident. If I'd heard this at the right age (13/14) it might've changed the course of my life. Maybe not. I'm kinda glad I only heard it now, when I can relate more to the baby daughter lyrics than to the hitch-hiking out of Saskatchewan lyrics.

Right away you know this isn't typical Lou Reed. The song starts with piano, probably electric, then drums and great disco bass line. Lyrically, this is a country song, it's "Memphis, TN" by Chuck Berry. It's the Prodigal Father, trying to get home where he belongs. Nobody's wired on down, nobody's trying to hit it sideways.

Country lyrics, disco rhythm? This is Lou Reed?

#2: "Disco Mystic" - This is the craziest song I've ever heard. It foreshadows "Druganaut" and "99 Problems" at the same time. It's relentless, it's murder, it's brilliant.

#3: "I Want to Boogie With You" - Whatever happened to rock sax?* The first line here, Lou sounds like Flight of the Conchords doing Bowie. This is the first track on the album where Lou actually sings like Lou a little bit, and it's a laundry list of people who don't like him, people who want to see his ship sink, etc. But he just wants to boogie with you, down on the corner. Because he's Lou Reed, that's where he boogies.

#4: "With You" - This is another Lou Reed put-down song, continuing his late-70s collection of songs where he basically shits on people ("Dirt" and "Leave Me Alone" from Street Hassle, "Temporary Thing" from Rock and Roll Heart, etc).

#5: "Looking for Love" - Like "Boogie" this is a riff on Springsteen (who guested on Street Hassle) and built around rock sax. It's a little more downtown-lyrically, a little more Lou Reed-y, but still sorta chooglin'. I think he kinda sounds like the guy from the Violent Femmes on this one, but I guess it's the other way around.

#6: "City Lights" - Rhodes piano, kazoo and found percussion wouldn't sound as good together again until Royal Trux's 1998 album Accelerator. That alb, incidentally, closes with "Stevie (for Steven S.)" which is a tribute to Steven Seagal just as "City Lights" here is a tribute to Charlie Chaplin, another actor better known for his physical presence on screen than for his ability to deliver lines convincingly.

#7: "All Through the Night" - Especially in the 70s, but probably always, Lou Reed was a great recycler of ideas. Here he uses the same overdubbed snippets of conversation effect he used on "Kicks" from 1975's Coney Island Baby. It's used more precisely here, and all the voices seem to be Lou. We hear other people laugh, but always at Lou's bon mots. He says things like "he didn't age gracefully, he aged overnight" or "the drink's aren't on the house, they're on me!" This is actually the song where he sounds like Gord Gano, but I didn't have a lot to say about "Looking for Love".

#8: "Families" - When I think about Lou Reed's family, I think about "Kill Your Sons" from 1972's Sally Can't Dance. It's his presumably autobiographical song about getting electroshock therapy as a teenager and it doesn't paint a kind portrait of his kinfolk. But this is a letter home with heart. Even though he tells his father, "there's nothing we have in common except our names" he shows some real compassion (not Lou's trademark) and there's a genuine sadness to the refrain "I don't come home much no more."

#9: "The Bells" - The title track, the capital city, THE BELLS. Marty Fogel and Don Cherry skulking horns over a sparingly recurring three-note bassline for 5:30 and then! Theremin and Lou talks some nonsense about when actors leave the stage, "looking out he thought he saw a crook, and he hollered, 'look there are the bells!'" Yeah, sure. It's too bad the lyrics are so whiffy, because Fogel and Cherry have really worked up a terrific free-jazz rock dirge and the song weighs a ton for mood and tone and sometimes you just have to go, "Okay, Lou, go ahead."

I bought the album on iTunes, marking the first time I've owned any Lou Reed in any format other than cassette (not true: I have owned White Light/White Heat on vinyl since October, 1995). Which tells you how long it's been since I really, really wanted to be able hear some Lou Reed when the moment struck. According to iTunes, the top five Lou Reed albums are (in order) Transformer, New York, 1969: The Velvet Underground Live with Lou Reed, New Sensations, and Berlin. The first two seem obvious enough, his biggest hits. The live VU album is an aberration (fine though it may be, esp "What Goes On") and has no business in the solo Lou section. Berlin, I can see, that's a pretty harsh album and people who like Lou Reed seem to go for the harsh stuff, same with Sarah Silverman, y'know? But New Sensations? Why not Legendary Hearts or Mistrial? Why not the one with the song about eggcreams? I guess it means that everybody already has Sally Can't Dance and Coney Island Baby in other formats? It bothers me more than it should. I mean, yes, New Sensations has "My Red Joystick" but it also has "Doin' the Things That We Want To". Mistrial, meanwhile, is wall-to-wall brutal. "No Money Down", "Video Violence", "New York City luh-uh-vers, Tell It To Your Heart!"

*Rock Sax? I'm glad you asked! Andre Ethier's Born of Blue Fog came out very late in 2008 and, just like Lou Reed's The Bells, is easily his best work to date. "Cop Killer", maybe the greatest song ever recorded by a Canadian, isn't a Body Count cover, but it does snatch a line from Jay-Z and it has rock sax, bringing this whole thing full circle. Thank you for coming, buy Born of Blue Fog.

mp3: "Disco Mystic" by Lou Reed

mp3: "Easiest Game" by Andre Ethier

EDIT: As Paul points out in the comments, the lyric to "The Bells" is, indeed, "Looking out he thought he saw a brook," according to Lou's Pass Thru Fire (via Google Books).

Ten Great Songs 2009 #5: Eid Ma Clack Shaw

If you like concerts, but don't like going out or if you like desks, but hate work NPR's Tiny Desk Concert Series is your new pal. Our old pal Bill Callahan performed just such a concert last summer and it's pretty much the be-all/end-all of internet music videos. Callahan released his second album under his own name a little before, and, as usual, it changed the way we think of Bill Callahan. Callahan's best songs have always been about either birds or trees and on Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, he manages a song that's about both birds and trees. It's the last song on his Tiny Desk Concert.

Other recommended TDCs:

• Lightning Dust just killing it and sounding so warm and close and different from their albums.
• Raphael Saadiq, formerly of Tony! Toni! Tone! and my dad's favourite neo-soul artist.
• Kurt Wagner of Lambchop, real nice.
• Vic Chesnutt, who we miss.

mp3: "Eid Ma Clack Shaw" by Bill Callahan

Ten Great Songs 2009 #4: All the Money I Had is Gone

Michelle Lang was the agriculture reporter when I started at the Leader-Post in 2001. My job was mainly to sort the mail, archive each day's edition, and tame the wild fax machine. It was the closest thing to an adult job I've ever had. I held on to it far longer than I should have because I was afraid that that was as good as I was going to get in this world. And also because they let me write CD reviews and interview Bruce McCulloch and Bob Newhart and Charley Pride.

By the time I started at the L-P, I'd been writing consistently for about four years for the student press, alt-weeklies, and the odd not-quite-glossy music mag. Among the amateurs and the activists, I thought I was pretty hot stuff. I was quickly humbled at my leftover desk on the edge of a real newsroom, watching real journalists do real journalism every day. I spent the next five years wallowing in a wounded sense of inadequacy that mostly manifested itself in self-sabotage.

Early days, before I resigned myself to a lifetime of fax wrangling, it felt like my lowly position might be a springboard to better things. During that first year or so, some reporters would ask me to help search the archives (before the archives went digital). One day Michelle stopped by my desk and said she'd heard I had the best French in the newsroom.

"That's not saying much," I said. I'd helped translate some French documents once.

Well, Michelle explained, of course I'd heard that such-and-such federal agriculture program was falling apart and the provincial Ag Dept. was publicly considering pulling out or going ahead anyway or something. She knew that Manitoba had already bailed and had heard that Quebec might be too. Trouble was, her French wasn't good enough that she could call up the Quebec Agriculture Ministry to confirm. Would I, could I?

So, with my horribly out of practice French and extremely limited knowledge of agricultural issues, I dialled up the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture. "Etes-vous...?"

I made a transcript and translated it and left it on Michelle's desk. The Quebec Ministry was weighing their options and promised to act in the best interest of their producers. When Michelle got back to the newsroom, she thanked me for my help. It felt great to be challenged and to come through on it. Good work is its own reward, I figured.

The following morning, I immediately opened the paper to the Ag section to see how much ink my little adventure had generated. The Quebec Ministry of Agriculture featured in one tangential sentence in the article, which was mainly about how Saskatchewan farmers were dealing with the mess. At the bottom of the the article, in italics, read: with files from Emmet Matheson.

Damn. I doubt Michelle realized how much that acknowledgement meant to me. For her, the whole thing was routine: you follow through on stories and you give proper credit. That's just good journalism, that's just being a decent human being.

I think everyone who worked at the Leader-Post back then would agree that working there became a little less fun and interesting after Michelle left for the Calgary Herald.

Michelle Lang, along with four Canadian Forces soldiers, died yesterday in Afghanistan when the vehicle they were traveling in hit an improvised explosive device.

mp3: "All the Money I Had is Gone" by the Deep Dark Woods

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

Ten Great Songs 2009 #1: Rising

A few years ago, I went to see The Marriage of Figaro. Not my favourite opera, but related at least. It was a pleasant enough experience, but I wasn't all that impressed by the supertitles projected above the stage. I'd seen foreign movies, so I was prepared to read and watch at the same time. I wasn't, however, prepared for how pedestrian the libretto seemed when translated to English.

I get what Opera is trying to do with the supertitles, and I appreciate that they're trying to broaden the audience and democratize the artform. But, geez, I like the mystery! What's obscure and unknowable is half the appeal! I don't want quotidian Opera, I want it so grand that I can only respond to it on an emotional level.

So I was a little worried when I noticed a number of English-language songs on Lhasa de Sela's new album, Lhasa. Her previous albs were mostly sung in Spanish and French, and though I understand French, I often choose not to. Luckily, Lhasa didn't flake out on me. The album is a country & western album in about the same way that Leonard Cohen's Various Positions is a C&W record. "Rising", written with Patrick Watson, is a great song.

mp3: "Rising" by Lhasa de Sela

Great Songs 2007 #1: The Hangin' Judge

I spent a lot of time and effort trying to decide what the final song would be in this end-of-the-year tally of songs I really like a lot. Even though I generally lost interest in the process shortly after I posted the third installment, I have yet to lose interest in songs in general, and these songs specifically.
Some of the things I thought about while compiling this list:
-does the world really need another blog entry about Spoon's "The Underdog"?
-I've already posted one R. Kelly cover (by Shivaree). Am I ready for another (by Bonnie "Prince" Billy)?
-wouldn't I rather just listen to "Remember the Good Times" by Cuff the Duke, with its fantastically treblesome 12-string opening, fifty times in a row than write another meandering blog post?
-Andre Ethier's 2007 album, On Blue Fog, wasn't nearly as good as I'd hoped it would be, especially considering the wondrousness of his 2006 effort, Secondathallam. But the album's closing track, "Pride of Egypt" is one of Ethier's best songs ever. Maybe I shouldn't save that for early 2008?
-what's for supper?

So I've settled on Howe Gelb's "The Hangin' Judge" from his Upside Down Home 2007: Return to San Pedro. This is a bit of a tricky pick, since I only finally got 2006's 'Sno Angel Like You in 2007, and have more or less been using it as a blueprint by which to build my life ever since. Along with Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs, This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley, and the discovery of baking, Gelb's music is part of the Great Transformative Works in My Life 2007 Edition. Upside Down Home 2007 isn't quite on the transcendental level of 'Sno Angel--it's solo-er, unfinished-er, all around rougher--but it's still hitting me where I'm soft and malleable.

"The Hangin' Judge" especially taps into some of the themes from 'Sno Angel that I responded to so strongly. On the surface it's a bit of an existential quiz, but put in context with SALY songs like "Hey Man" and "That's How Things Get Done" it's something a little more earthy, a little more here and now graspable.

Thanks for all your comments and questions and Happy New Year! See you in the FUTURE!


mp3: "The Hangin' Judge" by Howe Gelb

Ten Great Songs #2: Black Water

Roger Dean Young & the Tin Cup is yet another group of musicians I've blogged a lot about this year. I know I've already posted this song, but I don't want to give away the whole Threshold album here when I know that a lot of work went into making it.
Hear the song, get the album, live a happier life.
The song "Black Water" is about Regina, or at least RDY's impression of such. And aside from being a great song, it's got me thinking about R-Town and what I've left behind. I really miss good old CJTR and X-Ray Records. And I already missed Buzzword Books before I left. I miss my parents, and I miss my youngest brother, even though he's not there anymore either. I miss my old apartment and its working fireplace. The Christmas night snowfall here in Vancouver made me miss the Saskatchewan winter. Give me -30 plus windchill over day in and day out of rain. At least for a week.

If you dig on Roger Dean Young, you should also check out guitarist Chris Rippen's solo stuff on his MySpace page. It's similarly quiet and sublime.

mp3: "Black Water" by Roger Dean Young & the Tin Cup

Ten Great Songs 2007 #3: Faster Than Them

It's not every day that I see Cam Dilworth of the Neins Circa, but just about. Somehow, this has done nothing to diminish my respect and admiration for his music.
It's been a bit of weird year for the Neins Circa, since they basically re-released the same album from last year with a new name and a few different mixes. Then Cam told everyone he was leaving. Then he left. Then he came back.
In the end, the Neins Circa remain a challenging band with big ideas and fun melodies. What more could you ask for?
"Faster Than Them" is the first track on Sleeves & Wigs (originally released as Please Feel Free to Enter the Tipi), and it's got a lot going on. It talks about balls and it talks about records. It's got a lot of swoops and fine arrangement and excellent production. If you like Elephant 6 bands, you'll like the Neins Circa.

mp3: "Faster Than Them" by the Neins Circa

10 Great Songs 2007 #4: Failure to Some

It feels like it wasn't that long ago that I was posting another song from Cuff the Duke's new album (their third, I think), Sidelines of the City. I remember seeing them open for the Sadies about a million years ago, right after their first album had come out on the sorely-missed Three Gut record label. I had walked in late and CtD was already mid-way through their set. While I heard their album Life Stories from Minimum Wage at that point and was impressed, I wasn't prepared for what I saw. A bunch of kids, a bunch of peach-fuzzed, wide-eyed kids, just pouring out, overflowing soulful country-rock. I was floored and have been a fan ever since. In the time in between then and now, Cuff the Duke have only gotten better and this epic tune from their new album showcases everything that they do well. It's got a solid grounding in that The Band-esque Can-Rock I was talking about earlier, but manages to simultaneously reach for both pop and experimental impulses. It's adventurous and satisfying, like a peanut butter sandwich in a sharktank.

mp3: "Failure to Some" by Cuff the Duke


and hey, check out Minneapolis Fucking Rocks for a jazzed-out Sabbath cover from the Bad Plus that will blow your freaking mind.

Ten Great Songs 2007: #5: Day

Bill Callahan's first album under his own name was all kinds of brilliant (he's got about ten previous albs as Smog). Produced by fan-favourite Neil Michael Hagerty, Woke On A Whaleheart is nine songs that have a lot to say about living on planet earth. This song, "Day", has some things to say about family. Today being today (for another half hour or so, Pacific Standard), family is a theme worth thinking about. This song also talks about pigs and monkeys. But no mention of Toffifee or who ate the last one.

mp3: "Day" by Bill Callahan

Ten Great Songs 2007: #6: Don't Stop Til You Get Enough

Shivaree, a band I've been boosting since their debut back in 1999 with I Oughtta Give You A Shot In The Head For Making Me Live In This Dump, released a wicked covers album this year of love songs made famous by folks with something less than authority on L-U-V. They don't all work as well as this one, but this one is pretty effin' ace.

mp3: "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" by Shivaree

Ten Great Songs 2007: #7: What Your Baby's Been Doing

Not much to say, except that I discovered this song on someone else's blog, and I can't remember which. Probably one of the cooler ones. Without a doubt this is one of the best songs you'll hear today. It has so much going for it that I don't even want to give you any expectations. Small Sins are from Toronto, which is where my youngest brother lives, though he's at home today. I don't know if he knows them, but Ben did once see Kenny of Kenny vs Spenny walking a goat (and then last week, Nicole saw an episode where they were tied to goats, so everything came full circle) through his neighbourhood.

mp3: "What Your Baby's Been Doing" by Small Sins

Ten Great Songs 2007 #8: Fifth Dimensional Johnny B. Goode and bonus last minute christmas guide

I've already said a ton about the Howling Hex and their new album XI, so I'm gonna shut up now. Except to say that if you like the riff from "American Woman", or hate it, you'll dig "FDJBG".

mp3: "Fifth Dimensional Johnny B. Goode" by the Howling Hex


If you're still trying to get your holiday shopping done, and I--or someone who thinks like I--happen to be on your list, here's some ideas.


Out of the Ordinary: Tales of Everyday Craziness by Jon Ronson - The first collection of Ronson's Guardian columns, this seems to be only available in the UK. Same story for the second collection, What I Do: More Tales of Everyday Craziness. Jon Ronson is my hero, and I am heartbroken that I don't have these books.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 3 - I haven't finished Vol. 2, and I haven't finished my second post about the series either, but sooner or later I'm going to have to have this. Might as well get it for free.

Anything by Raymond Sokolov - A fantastic writer, who writes mainly about food. He even wrote a biog on A.J. Liebling!

Honestly, that's really all I want. I've got lots of stuff. What I really need is more time to enjoy the stuff I already have. And maybe a generous and forgiving publisher.

If you're shopping for someone who is a bit like me, but not me, here's some other ideas:

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life - The first chapter in an amazingly rewarding graphic novel series by Canadian Bryan Lee O'Malley. At first it reads like yet another Toronto-based relationship comic (see also excellent works by: Jeff Lemire, Chester Brown, Hope Larson, Michael Noonan, Paul Rivoche, Maurice Vellekoop, and many, many other cartoonists who gravitate around Toronto, which might be the world capital of awesome comics in the 21st Century), but rather quickly reveals itself to be something quite extraordinary.

Threshold, the new album by Roger Dean Young & the Tin Cup. Fan-freaking-tastic. Any roots/americana lover in your life should have their own copy of this record/cd to cherish in private and public moments.

Ten Great Songs 2007 #9: Lenin and McCarthy

"We used to have such an organized party," sings Michael Brown at the opening of this track from the Parkas' second full-length album Put Your Head in the Lion's Mouth. It's a pretty frenetic song that sometimes seems like it's been put together of scraps from other songs. There are several times where Brown shouts out what you'd think would be a recurring chorus, but great lines like "Now this is fighting!" (which happens to be the name of the Parkas' first album) only happen once and then they're gone. There's a weird intro that has nothing to do with the rest of the song. It's a Frankenstein song, a lumbering whole of unconnected slogans and riffs and it's awesome.

The Parkas haven't played outside of Ontario in nearly three years and I think that's a big pile of bullshit.

mp3: "Lenin and McCarthy" by the Parkas

Ten Great Songs 2007 #10: Bad Kids

There's a little over ten days left in 2007, so let's do a year-end countdown. I've definitely listened to less music in 2007 than I have in any other year since I was, I dunno, 15 or so. So I'm not going to pretend I know what the BEST tracks or albums of the year are. But until the end of the year (or into the new one, if I get behind schedule--a distinct possibility), I'm going to post some songs that I was very glad to hear this year.

#10: "Bad Kids" by Black Lips

This is almost a novelty tune from Atlanta's garage-rocky Black Lips, with it's fake 50s sounds (and jingly bells=seasonal!) and doo-wop pretenses. It's quick, bratty, catchy as hell, and in a perfect world teenagers would be singing along to it at pit parties somewhere in the great suburban night. It's not the BEST song on Good Bad Not Evil (that would be the hellacious strut "Veni Vidi Vici"), but it's built around a terrific gimmick: sassy, unapologetic, juvenile deliquency. Works for me.

mp3: "Bad Kids" by Black Lips