once or twice

A Window Into Her World. Photo by rprtphoto.

Well, I’m not saying that Steely is back from the grave, since we never left, but I will say that the Steely computer is finally being repaired. So there will be an end to this coffee break, hiatus perhaps, at least to a certain extent coming soon. I can’t guarantee any weekend tuneage given that Nathaniel Yahweh Duel Scarffola has endeavoured to own a house now, occupying a large majority of his time and interests these days, but you never know. He may awaken. 

I decided to dig deep into my private pile of lumber (vinyl collection) to uncover a brilliant old Neil Young song I love, but had forgotten about. I’ve Been Waiting For You is a powerful track from Neil’s self-titled debut album of 1968, which I should add sounds best on the rare and original Haeco-CSG processed vinyl.

The angry and staggering riff that rudely opens the song reeks of Crazy Horse, though somehow the song never spawned a live version with the Horse. A bouncy melody is confronted by a turbulent solo, blaring so loud you can feel the sorrow and confusion coming straight out of Neil’s broken heart. Being in love is so vulnerable.

[You can get a vinyl copy of the Neil’s 1968 self-titled album from Neil’s General Store, right here]

Neil Young - I’ve Been Waiting For You

scorched earth campaign

Ford Granada, San Fran, 1975. Photo from matgasnier.

We’re dormant but we’re not asleep. Still, it’s been the stuff of dreams and nightmares: double caps, striding, biting my nails. When I leave the house I wrap a scarf around my nose and mouth, because it’s cold, and this enables me to scowl and make faces unbeknownst to those who cross my path.

Throwing Snow is apt: this glitters and bites, classier than Ikea Monkey, and it meanders along like a kind of laconic scorched earth campaign. Turn it up.

Throwing Snow — Melum

[Pick up the Aspera EP here, on Boomkat.]

la révélation

Treetops. Photo by Natalie Webb.

Lovin’ the TRAP

Singin’ Sistahs. Ernie Barnes.

A recent study found a casual link between pirated music and an increase in music sales. Yes, an increase. Read about it:

A new academic paper by a researcher from the North Carolina State University has examined the link between BitTorrent downloads and music album sales. Contrary to what’s often claimed by the major record labels, the paper concludes that there is absolutely no evidence that unauthorized downloads negatively impact sales. Instead, the research finds that more piracy directly leads to more album sales.

For more than a decade researchers have been looking into the effects of music piracy on the revenues of the record industry, with mixed results.

None of these researchers, however, used a large sample of accurate download statistics from a BitTorrent tracker to examine this topic. This missing element motivated economistRobert Hammond, Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University, to conduct his own research.

In a paper titled“Profit Leak? Pre-Release File Sharing and the Music Industry” Hammond published his findings.

Between May 2010 and January 2011 the professor collected a variety of download statistics of new albums that were released on the largest private BitTorrent tracker dedicated to music. He then used this data in combination with sales numbers to construct a model that predicts what the causal effect of piracy on music sales is.

The results are unique in its kind and reveal that BitTorrent piracy causes an increase in album sales.

“I isolate the causal effect of file sharing of an album on its sales by exploiting exogenous variation in how widely available the album was prior to its official release date. The findings suggest that file sharing of an album benefits its sales. I don’t find any evidence of a negative effect in any specification, using any instrument,” Hammond concludes in his paper.

…

Continue reading the article from TorrentFreak here, or check out the original research paper, here.

[Djemba Djemba is offering this tune from the Atlantics Vol. 2 album for free download, right here]

Djemba Djemba - Get Slow

dropping chaff

The Academyby Kent Monkman. Acrylic on canvas, 2008.

“Teej! Do up a post for the new prop!” Is a text I woke up to a few days back.

The task seems simple enough.

Lads and lasses! Let us rejoice! Propagandhi has made more great tunes for us all to enjoy to our heart’s content. The tunes have been packaged and released as Failed States, this most recent album serving as the group’s sixth full-length release (this time, with the help of label heavyweights Epitaph).

The disc was written and recorded nearly exclusively in Winnipeg and it sure seems to have a certain River City vibe to it. In typical Prop fashion the tunes are all over the place. Some being serious, some not. Some political and some about riding your bike. They are fast and they are fantastic.

The track I have chosen to ramble on about is the disc’s third track, “Devil’s Creek”.  I chose this track because I have no problems picturing the scene created by lead voice/axe  Chris Hannah.  Young kid, riding his ten speed mountain bike as fast as he can, down a dusty gravel road on the hottest of summers days. You quickly find out that he is just chasing some solitude. Trying to get away from annoying adults and,  probably more annoying, kids his own age. Is that not something we can all relate to? I can, I’ve got an appreciation for ‘me time’, and so does everyone else.  

The songsmanship of the track impresses me every time I give it a listen. For me it’s one of those tunes that sounds like it may have come naturally. Hannah and Beave’s guitars are near perfect, almost as if they’ve been recording together their whole lives. The Rod is just ripping the bass strings to pieces and Jordy (just turned 42!) is absolutely destroying the pots and pans. It is a really well spent two minutes thirty two.

The best way to recommend this jam is by saying nothing more than, take a couple minutes of time to yourself and crank it up!

—Guest post by Teej—

[Propagandhi is touring now, go check them out! Pick up Failed States here, on Epitaph.]

Propgandhi — Devil’s Creek

keep your mind open

Julia Sarr-Jamois, Fashion editor for Wonderland Mag. Uncredited.

How come it’s so easy to forget the best songs and so easy to remember the shitty ones. You’re Makin’ Me High is one of the sexiest R&B slow jams of all time and one of the best songs from the ‘90’s, without a doubt. Thank you, Toni Braxton, for being so sexy.

[you can pick up Toni’s Secrets from 1996, right here, right now.]

Toni Braxton - You’re Makin’ Me High

Tofurkey Day

The Sandlot. Uncredited. 

Queue a celebratory dance, now. This will be preferably in your best bib and tucker equipped with a 1960’s deep mauve, suede blazer. You will complete your look with a linen vest, vintage beige, and knickers without any questionable stains. You are not dancing because it is Thanksgiving, or even because 49 years ago today in 1963, JFK signed ratification for the nuclear test ban treaty. You’re also not dancing because Mr. Walt Disney’s empire expanded to Orlando, Florida in 1971, with Walt Disney World.

You would hopefully be dancing because you can, and because its necessary to relish in the goodness that is this song. It has soul, and heart; you can tell by the beat of the percussion, it is infectious. Born Ruffians are fairly new to the indie scene, well since 2004, and once again they are Canadians, this time straight out of Midland, Ontario. 

So listen, dance, and have a happy whatever and please skip the turkey. In a recent article from Peta, found here, it suggests that turkeys love clucking, chirping, and gobbling along to their favourite tunes, so you should let Tom do just that. 
 

-guest post by brittany-

[support the Born Ruffians by purchasing any of their albums here, from MapleMusic]

Born Ruffians - Hummingbird

hip

Image unnamed and uncredited. Found at Tofutti.

The older I get, the more Fleetwood Mac I listen to. It just keeps getting better.

[get Fleetwood’s 2-CD The Very Best Of album, right here]

Fleetwood Mac - Over & Over

Fleetwood Mac - Gypsy

impressions

A Rafflesia Flower deep in the jungle. Uncredited.

Listening to this song, colourful, exotic, lush jungle scenescapes filter in front of my face like looking through an old Fisher Price Movie Viewer. Except that the viewer is on overdrive, plugged into the sun, and shooting foreign colours in all directions across my eyes. It’s all in the drum and bass of the song, really, that makes it so exotic. It’s almost hip-hop, definitely jungle, and a slight Caribbean. Drink this steamy electro lemonade for a sensual, exotic, pants-arousing experience.

[you can pick up Diver, the 2012 album from Lemonade, here]

Lemonade - Infinite Styles

the somnambulist

Dark Glass Swamp, by Raphael Borja.

Friday feels like a day to put up some music, and I am.

I stayed in Regina, baby, in a fine motel
The door was smashed
And there was blood pooled on the mat…

Foreboding shit, that. The start of verse 2 in Bad Vacation, by This Hisses, who hail from Winnipeg, who manage to sound angular in spite of the sludge.

Is this the stuff of a lover’s quarrel? Of a heated Banjo Bowl rivalry gone too far? The Leader Post will doubtless prove more tempered in their reaction to the broken body than would their ink-stained brethren down the Trans-Canada at the Winnipeg Sun ― maybe this is the band’s larger point?

Or maybe this is a commentary on the cities’ shared prairie pedigree, of the colonial legacies etched into brick and bone and railspurs in North End Winnipeg and North Central Regina; of potash and careening municipal mismanagement and The Pump and Northern League baseball and snow and winter’s bite as the great equalizer.

Or maybe it’s none of these things, because This Hisses swaggers and hits hard and is opening for Propagandhi next month, and if that doesn’t speak to a measure of integrity I don’t know what does! Ha.

[Buy the song, Bad Vacation, or the album, Surf Noir here, from their bandcamp.]

This Hisses ― Bad Vacation