Flashback Fridays; My List Of Top 33 1/3 Albums Of 2008

This popped up my feed recently as something I wrote back in 2009 when I was still sorta doing album reviews. I didn't actually have a blog page back in January 2009 but I posted it to my Facebook blog (anybody remember Facebook blogs? No? Me neither) and I still think it holds up as a breezy piece of writing. One thing though; I can usually remember everything I ever wrote but honestly a few of these bands I don't recall at all. Side note does anybody remember albums? No? Me neither. Anyhoo join me as we travel back in time to the dying embers of the Bush Era shall we;

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My opinionated list of The Top 33 1/3 albums of 2008;

1. Andre Williams & The Hound Dogs ~ Can You Deal With It? ~ Bloodshot
After his odd country experiments with the Sadies the seventy something Detroit soul man (he co-wrote "Shake A Tail Feather") returns to the Garage Blues that has become his latter day trademark. This time out he has his hottest back up band yet with wailing fuzz guitar, tight rhythm section and a horn section to boot. Oh yeah; and it also has his best country song yet with "Pray For Your Daughter".

ANDRE WILLIAMS & THE HOUND DOGS ~ "PRAY FOR YOUR DAUGHTER";


2. The HorrorPops ~ Kiss Kiss Kill Kill ~ Hellcat
Serious psychobilly purists may pretend to despise them but they know how to make good catchy songs which is exactly why cd's were invented in the first place, unless I've completely misunderstood this whole rock n' roll thing, which is always a possibilty

THE HORRORPOPS ~ "MISS TAKE";


3. The Knifings ~ Superb Limb Of Such Magnificence ~ s/r
For their sophomere effort they continue to toss out their eccentric combination of Art Punk, Math Core, Cow Punk, College Rock, Glam Metal and what ever else they're listening to this week. So what's next? Ska/Metal? Bluegrass/Thrash? Prog/Grunge? I just hope it's not hip hop. Seriously guys, don't do that. I mean it.

4. Creepshow ~ Run For Your Life ~ Stomp
Few bands are able to replace their singer and carry on successfully, let's see, there's AC/DC and ...ummm...not Van Halen. Anyhoo Toronto's Psychobilly crew replaces Jen Hellcat with her (almost) twin sister Sarah Sin and misses nary a beat on their sophomore release. As was the case last time it's a little short so either they are rationing their material or they're not that prolific. We shall see.

CREEPSHOW ~ "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE";


5. The John Henrys ~ Sweet As The Corn ~ Ottawa always seems to have a couple of good country-rock bands hanging around, The John Henrys, besides having a cool name, have the most authentic Burrito Brotherish sound yet. Great songs too.

THE JOHN HENRYS ~ "SWEET AS THE CORN";


6. Gruesomes ~ Grusomemania ~ Riccochet
A rerelease of the Montreal garage teen kings 1987 sophomore (in every sense or the word) album in time to remind us what a solid garage band they were, and how fast they learned their chops. Less fuzz drenched than the first album and an ever so slightly less campy slice of garage trash, it still kicks the ass of all the various Estrus or Jon Spencer spawn that has passed for garage over the past decade.

THE GRUESOMES ~ "HEY!";


7. Gaslight Anthem ~ The 59 Sound ~ Side One Dummy
New Jersey's vaguely rootsy blue collar pop-punks who aren't The Bouncing Souls split the difference between Social Distortion and Bruce Springsteen. It could use a little more aggro, or at least bombast, (see The Roman Line below) but it's probably closer to Middle America (and Canada) than the Anglo-Centric Souls.

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM ~ "THE 69 SOUND";


8. The Primordials ~ 14 Prime Numbers ~ s/r
A note perfect homage to sixties Brit-beat no frills garage, mostly made up of hopelessly obscure covers, in a perfect case of "we have better record collections than you" nerdly one upsmanship.

9.The Summerlad ~ City of Noise ~ Saved By Radio ~
Speaking of sprawling excess an Alberta psych-prog trio put out an album with only two tracks, one of which is forty minutes long, fully twice as long as "Inna-gadda-da-vida". Makes the Greatful Dead seem like D.R.I., sort of.

THE SUMMERLAD ~ "CITY OF NOISE";


10. Various Artists ~ Life is Hard, West African Music in Britain ~ Honest Jon's
An intresting collection of fiendishly rare recordings made by the community of East African immigrants in Britain in the 1920's for export back to Africa. Since these were done for a small audience of Africans rather than to entertain whites the recordings make no attempt to pander or "Tom" and the songs are in various West African tongues rather than English. As this is the same region of Africa that most American and Caribbean slaves originally came from it's a unique opportunity to hear where the blues truly came from, and how they must have changed once they got here not to mention how these latter African musicians were in turn influenced by the Blues and Country records they heard. It's textbook cultural exchange. Excellent job of remastering as well, they sound brand new, unlike the scratchy field recordings of Lomax and the like. This English label has also put a similar comp from Iraq and probably more for all I know.

JACOB SAM & THE KUMASI TRIO ~ "PALM WINE MUSIC";


11. Various Artists ~ The Great Lakes Surf Battle ~ s/r
A comp of Toronto's oddly vibrant surf scene featuring highlights from The Blue Demons, The Robots, Vo Drats and the Calrizians along with Dr Mysterion and the Wolfman and Montreal's Trebelmakers. The Calrizians mash-up of Black Sabbath and Blondie is a brilliant coup even if some writer (I think it was Chuck Eddy) thought of it first.

THE BLUE DEMONS ~ "CASBAH";


12. Elliott Brood ~ Mountain Meadows ~ Six Shooter
Their second full lengther continues their odd genre of Goth-Grass. I'm not sure what it all means but it's plenty atmospheric.

ELIOTT BROOD ~ "THE VALLEY TOWN";


13. No No Zero ~ Rough Stuff ~ Folk Brand
Ex members of the Exploders continue their odd genre of sleaze-core. I'm pretty sure what it means and it's plenty noisy.

14. Drunkulla ~ All New Moves ~ s/r
Toronto's answer to The Hellacopters (with two ex Sinisters, one ex Illuminatti and one ex Flamejob) offer up more ridiculously excessive trash n' roll sleaze garage on their second album. Chock full o' flying guitars and windmill drums, the songwriting has also improved (songs are longer than 90 seconds) since the debut, so has the production.

15. The Fleshtones ~ Take A Good Look ~ Yep Roc
I don't know how many albums they've done by now because some of them frankly sucked; but when they're on point their trademarked (literally) "Super Rock" shames those half their age (literally), like say the Hives, Vines, Jet etc. Oh, and they also put out a pretty cool xmas album this year.

16. Bravo Johnson ~ The Crooked & The Straight ~ Stone Junction
An Americana Country/Folk rock group from California make a bid for serious cred with a sprawling double album, just like the Band or Dylan...sigh. Any comparisons to the Band, Byrds, Burritos, Buffalo Springfield, and especially Tom Petty are entirely intentional and the whole thing's exessive length pretty much means that at least some of it has to be waste but you have to admire their ambition.

BRAVO JOHNSON ~ "ACE IN THE HOLE";


17. The Pack A.D. ~ Funeral Mixtape ~ Mint
Some folks do the two man band thing because they saw the White Stripes do it, some do it because it's just easier and cheaper and some do it because they really know what to with it. The Pack are the latter, their Joplinsque blues drenched roar is tougher and more authentic than the Stripes, to say nothing of Jon Spencer. In fact lets say nothing more of him.

THE PACK AD ~ "MAKING GESTURES";


18. The Roman Line ~ Between The Stirrup & The Ground ~ indie
They get the obvious comparisons to Social Distortion with their itchy throated vaguely rootsy So-Cal punk. It's not paticularly original but it is well done and considering that most others insist on copying Blink 182 or worse I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. And they manage to write a couple of anthem-like numbers that I can picture an audience of drunken punters bellowing along to.

19. Hollywood Fats & The Paladins ~ Live 1985 ~ Topcat
The California bluesman played with everyone from the eighties revival including the Paladins, Blasters, Kid Ramos and The T Birds and he no doubt would have been a star if he had lived. As it is we have only a few rare recordings and the occasional unreleased obscurity like this one to show his chops. The Blues are in sore need of another hot guitar man right about now.

HOLLYWOOD FATS & THE PALLADINS ~ "LET'S HAVE A PARTY";


20. Blue Rodeo ~ Blue Road ~ WEA
They've put out so many albums that we kinda forget they're there, but this live quickie gives them a chance to get all stipped-down and back to bascis enough to remind us that they were Alt-Country before it had a name, and they can still deliver the goods. It is a little short though, the Sadies have already managed to put out a double live, so they fleshed it out with a full DVD.

BLUE RODEO ~ "TO LOVE SOMEBODY";


21. Fuad & the Feztones ~ Beeramid ~ Riccochet
Ex Gruesomes Bobby Beaton and John Davis take time out from their creative loafing to put out their tribute to the frat-rock garage that pimply and pale white boys got drunk to in the early sixties before the bluesier trash garage of the mid sixties which the Gruesomes themselves would later riff on. If they keep this up they could either go forward and start a prog rock band or go back further and start jitterbugging or something, actually John Davis was in the Crazy Rhythm Daddies so he already did that, or was that the Charleston?

22. The Screamagers ~ The Screamagers ~ s/r
All their lo-fi minamilist trash garage tidbits are less than two minutes long, and are either about monsters, zombies, martians or spiders. And the singer sounds like Glen Danzig's younger brother. I'm not sure why this is so catchy but it just is. This is the sort of thing you would have found on one of those "It came from Canada" comps on OG records in the 1980's. It's a Canadian thing, you wouldn't understand, I'm not sure I do either.

THE SCREAMAGERS ~ "DAY OF THE CENTIPEDES";


23. The Weirdies ~ In 3D ~ s/r
Formed out of various moving parts left over from the Tijuana Bibles and the Threat, they sound more like the former than the latter. As for the original touch, the new girl singer sounds disturbingly like Betty Rubble. A acquired taste that I'm not sure how many others will acquire but strangely catchy I thought.

THE WEIRDIES ~ "PARTY OVER HERE";


24. Oscar B ~ La Morte Aux Trousses ~ s/r
To everything there is a season Turn Turn Turn; Montreal loses one great psychobilly band, The Alley Dukes and gains a new one, out the ashes of the Alley Dukes' last lineup no less. Most of their songs are in French which I don't speak so I'm not sure what the title means, something about dead pants...no that can't be right..oh well what the hell, I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter.

25. The Stolen Minks ~ High Kicks ~ New Romance
Halifax first full length (more or less) slapdash girly garage combo are ever so slightly less slapdash and girly at times sounding rather like Boss Hog. Lest we forget this is exactly how Neko Case started out, not to mention Boss Hog.

THE STOLEN MINKS ~ "CONSECUTIVES";


26. The Speaking Tongues ~ Wild Sounds ~ indie
Yeah I know another crash boom bang bluesy two piece Toronto band, maybe it has something to do with the impossibilty of finding parking down town for a van. Anyway you have to admit the formula still rocks. Highlights include a harmonica hodown, yippie-ky-ay!

THE SPEAKING TONGUES ~ "HELL DOWN BELOW ME";


27. I'm Not Jim ~ You Are All My People ~ Bloodshot
A side project from Silos frontman Walter Salas-Humara (Or is it a side project? Silos bassist Drew Glakin died this year) collaborating with a novelist I 've never heard of and Jon Spencer's producer for some artsy Americana. It's pretty wordy (natch, with a novelist aboard) and gimmicky (Jon Spencer's producer ditto) but it has it's interesting moments. It's worth noting this is not the first time the Silos have gone experimenting, they once did an album with Tortoise I believe.

28. The Wilders ~ The Wilders ~ Free Dirt
Their take on the whole Alt Country thang is less twang and more hoedown, less honky tonk more old timey. The only cover here is of a Skillet Lickers number, and if you don't know who they were then you might not be a redneck. They still put in enough country rock for the younguns' though.

THE WILDERS ~ "HEY LITTLE DARLIN";


29. The Warped 45's ~ The Warped 45's ~ s/r
Debut from Toronto country rock outfit borrows shamelessly from Uncle Tupelo, Golden Smog, Rank & File and Wilco to good effect.

THE WARPED 45'S ~ "RADIO SKY";


30. The Bicycles ~ Oh No It's Love ~ Fuzzy Logic
Not everything in the sixties was all surf, garage, psyche, folk rock, country rock and blooze jams you know. Some pasty kids just liked to make catchy non threatening pop songs, some still do.

THE BICYCLES ~ "OH NO IT'S LOVE";


31. Sarah Blackwood ~ Way Back Home ~ Stomp
Solo debut from the new Creepshow singer reveals that in her heart of hearts she'd rather be Emmy Lou Harris. With tattoos. Remember that cool ballad that Creepshow did on the first one? Like that.

SARAH BLACKWOOD ~ "LONELY PARADE";


32. The Brutal Knights ~ Living By Yourself ~ Deranged
If you're going to recreate 1980's hardcore this is how you do it, short songs with maybe one and a half chords apiece, way too much treble on the guitar, spastic drumming and even more spastic shouting about being a drunken sleaze bag. Then repeat.

THE BRUTAL KNIGHTS;


33. Like a Martyr ~ The North ~ s/r
So what if you haven't bought a new cd since Pearl Jam went into seclusion or wherever, that doesn't mean you should be totally banned from the air waves does it? No? Oh well, I heard this after sitting through yet another collection of cds from that cookie cutter Emo/Screamo/Pop-Punk crap that passes for non-metal or hardcore hard rock these days and thinking that it was pretty cool that these guys from B.C. obviously have no clue how anachronistic they are and don't care.

1/3. Gowiiee ~ The Door ~ Sweetreleaf
Normally the mere thought of a "rock opera" about deforestation in B.C., which is also a fundraiser for said no doubt worthy cause would be enough to make me want to run out and buy a rusty chainsaw, and I actually care about such things, really I do. However; good intentions do not necessarily make for good art, I hope the class is taking notes. Fortunately this Australian dude's tastes run to Led Zep and Free Bird rather than Ani DiFranco and the Dixie Chix so this is actually pretty cool. And it is a good cause for which he's apparently raised a bucket of cash, so there.

Honorable mention: NQ Arbuckle, Baskery, Bellevue, Black Lungs, Micheal Brennon, Christian D & the Hangovers, Galatus, The Get Rights, Gunsmoke, Merle Haggard, The Heavy, The High Dials, Japandroids, Waylon Jennings, The Micronite Filters, My Morning Jacket, Owl Farm, Wyckam Porteous, The Psychs, Micheal Rault, Mr. Rick & Biscuits, Mavis Staples, The Streetdogs, Surefire Machine, Telepathic Butterflys, Teenage Head w/ Marky Ramone, Luther Wright & the Wrongs

Box sets;
1. Johnny Cash ~ At Folsom Prison ~ Sony
2. Hank Williams ~ Rare and unreleased ~ Time Life
3. Various Artists ~ Steelin' it, The Steel Guitar Story ~ Proper
4. Various Artists ~ Rockin' Memphis ~ Proper
5. White Zombie ~ Let Sleeping Corpses Lie ~ Geffen

DVD's;
1.American Hardcore
2.Jandek on Corwell
3.Gram Parsons; Fallen Angel
4.The Last Pogo (reissue)

TEENAGE HEAD FROM "THE LAST POGO";


Dishonorable mention;
Guns & Roses ~ Chinese Democracy ~
After taking at least as long to finish as the Great Wall of China itself (with marginally fewer casualties) Axl finally releases a full album. It doesn't actually suck but it doesn't rock either, slick and ponderous and less fun than cock rock has any right to be. This year their old rivals Motley Crue also put out yet another of their seemingly endless series of comeback albums that was at least cheerfully aware of their anachronistic stupidity, hell they shamlessly revel in it and therein lies the differance. Axl (and Metallica, and Megadeth) always took themselves way too seriously as brooding artistes while the Crue are perfectly happy to be lunkheaded Peter Pans. Who knew that the Crue, (or at least Nikki) would turn out to be the smarter of the two. So it kinda does suck after all.

GUNS & ROSES ~ "CHINESE DEMOCRACY";

Calgary's AMP FM Sez Size Doesn't Matter

DEAD KENNEDYS ~ "I LIKE SHORT SONGS" (live);



This past week as if to prove once again that not only is commercial radio the enemy of music but also that they have essentially given up it's battle for relevance with the interwebs, Calgary radio station 90.03 Amp FM announced they would be unveiling an exiting new concept in radio; ruthless editing.

AMP announced that henceforth they will be using a computer editing program to cut songs down to two minutes max in order to allow them to squeeze in twice as many songs in the same amount of time. To do this editing AMP uses a program called "Quickhitz" developed by a Vancouver company. Makes me proud to be Canadian.




AMP Radio's program director Steve Jones (who we can safely assume is not to be confused with the guitarist from the Sex Pistols) claims this allows for more hits for our fast paced times. In fact the songs are actually improved by taking out all that extraneous stuff those silly musicians left in like intros and solos and bridges and codas and stuff. Who's got the time to sit through all that? Don't bore us, Get to the chorus and wrap it up already. Time is money.

Media reports describe the reaction from listeners and musicians as "polarized" which assumes that there is anybody out there not actually employed by AMP who actually thinks this is not an incredibly stupid, arrogant, cynical, soulless, patronizing and thoroughly asinine idea.




Jones claims that "Radio is using archaic logic to decide its programming,” he said. “When you think about why songs are the length they are it goes back to the ’50s and ’60s when radio stations demanded three-minute songs and artists provided them. In order to be on a 45 RPM record with any sound quality your song had to be around three, three-and-a-half minutes. If you wanted to be on the radio or you wanted to be in a jukebox, which is how people heard their music back then, you had to be on a 45 RPM record. So that was the way it was done.
We sort of came to the conclusion that maybe it was time to rethink why songs are the way they were. As we look to people’s changing habits and changing attention spans and watch people on their iPod listening to half a song and forwarding on to the next one we sort of came to the conclusion that maybe it was time to rethink why songs are the way they were.”

Like all corporate douchebags Jones claims that "research" shows that people are changing the way they listen to music due to the internet and apps and stuff.

And like all corporate douchebags Jones has learned that type of smug corporate-speak that enables him to paint himself as a bold innovator, a visionary even;

"It struck me that we are using logic that is 60 years old in an era where communication has changed dramatically in all it's forms"




OK; first of all commercial radio has been around for over ninety years, not sixty, but I assume he edited a third of that time out for brevity. And as for for all the buzz words about Youtube and file sharing I point out that the biggest Youtube based pop hits ("Gangum Style", "I'm Sexy And I Know It", "What Does The Fox Say", "Blurred Lines", Weird Al, OK-Go) are not any shorter than "traditional" songs, whatever the Hell that might mean. While one might make an assumption that Youtube may be encouraging people to watch shorter film and TV clips there is no absolutely no evidence that it is creating a demand for pop songs that any shorter than the usual three and half to four minutes that has been standard since before the days of the jukebox. That basic time was originally came about mostly due to the space restrictions of records, first 78's then 45's. But even pop songs from the earlier era were about the same length, a fact we can estimate from the existing sheet music that was used to promote music in the Victorian era. It would seem that humans are quite happy with that basic time for a catchy song. It gives you enough time to establish a mood or a groove, establish a catchy riff and chorus, embellish it with a solo and resolve the song in a satisfying way. Most pop/rock/country/blues singles don't really have a lot of excess baggage. That's why they're singles. Longer, experimental pieces, mood setters or flashy instrumental showcases are album tracks which are avoided by commercial radio anyway.

Like all corporate douchebags Jones can bolster his case with a grain of truth pointing out that radio has edited songs down for brevity for years. And this is true; "Stairway To Heaven" (Led Zeppelin), "Time Has Come Today" (Chambers Bros), "Money For Nothing" (Dire Straits), "All Tomorrow's Parties" (Velvet Underground), "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" (Meatloaf), "Little Johnny Jewel" (Television), "Tainted Love" (Soft Cell) and of course "Inna-Gadda-Davida" (Iron Butterfly) were all edited down for radio airplay. The difference of course is that these were all long songs (in some cases very long) to begin with and the edited versions were done by the producers, with the band's knowledge and consent, not by some talentless radio hack with no concern for the integrity of the song. And the edited versions were still longer than two minutes.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "THE EXPLODING PLASTIC INEVITABLE";


For all his "we're living in fast paced times so we need two minute songs now" rhetoric and his claims that he is on the cutting edge of radio in fact for most of it's history radio always did insist on short songs. It wasn't until the late sixties that FM radio started playing the longer songs now being put out by artists like the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Who, Hendrix, Paul Butterfield, Ten Years After, Byrds, Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Arlo Guthrie, Black Sabbath and Jefferson Airplane. It would be hard to argue that we would have better served if some radio hack had been allowed to cut them down to two minutes. And these were all artists who actually got played on the radio, I'm not even talking about artsy or jam band types of the time like The Greatfull Dead, Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, Yes, Red Krayola, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Pharaoh Sanders, Sun Ra or Tangerine Dream.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND ~ "SYMPHONY OF SOUND";


Like all corporate douchebags Jones has mastered the tricky art of pretending to praise his listeners while actually insulting them saying; "We choose Calgary because it's a progressive, young, forward thinking city".

You see what he just did there? He flatters Calgarians as hip and savvy while at the same time insisting that they are too dumb to sit through a song for more than two minutes and need some soulless corporate bean counters to dumb down some pop songs that were not exactly Schoenberg pieces to begin with. Gee thanks Steve, you're a real prince. Not Prince of course because he actually has done a number of long songs, but what does he know about music? Isn't he like sixty or something?

A more valid comparison might be Ted Turner. You may recall that when the owner of CNN started the Turner Classic Movie channel he bought up the rights to thousands of classic black and white movies like "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Scrooge" and proceeded to colorize them. He did it with the same smug self assurance as AMP, claiming he was improving these dusty old films and exposing them to a new young audience who he claimed wouldn't watch a black and white film. He was wrong. Turner was met with universal scorn, outrage and ridicule and he eventually backed down. Colorizing is now remembered as a marketing disaster on the scale of New Coke, The Star Wars reboot or the Edsel. Sometimes, albeit not very often, our corporate overlords get what they deserve.

Another case that came to mind was when sculptor and jazz pianist Micheal Snow sued the Eaton Center for tying bows around the necks of the Canada Geese mobile during Christmas. The court ruled that by doing so The Eaton Center had cheapened his copyright even though the Eaton Center had bought and paid for the work. Then there's the matter of a Christian group in America several years back who announced that they had an new exiting idea for "family friendly" movies. They would buy videos of Hollywood movies then edit out all the sex, violence, swearing and gay or "occult" references, then rent out the new improved versions. This would make many movies last as long as the preview reels of course but that was a small price to pay for "our children" right? Wrong. Movie producers and directors put a quick stop to this with a few dozen cease and desist letters. A case could easily be made that AMP is doing the same thing. And unlike Ted Turner AMP clearly does not own these songs they are butchering. Of course someone with standing would have to file a suit. I would really love to see that. But then AMP would just respond by banning such an artist.

"TORONTO JAZZ" ~ 1963 DOCUMENTARY INCLUDES FOOTAGE OF MICHEAL SNOW:


Of course our corporate overlords really don't like being called on their shit, as Jan Arden found out. The pop singer and CBC TV guest host led the pushback against AMP in interviews calling the move an "insult" and saying "It's like a TV station saying we're going to show "Titanic" but we're going to cut out the end cause we already know what happens and our viewers are to stupid to sit through a whole movie". Along with several Twitter posts like "Can anybody recommend half a good book I can read?". AMP responded by announcing that she was henceforth banned from not only AMP but all stations owned by the parent company Newcap who also own over ninety other radio stations in Canada. Because nothing shows your commitment to music like censorship. Then it got nasty. Some internet trolls to the opportunity to attack Arden with such clever insults as "fat bitch", and "hasbeen" while she responded with some insults of her own which included Jones having a small dick.




So naturally like all corporate douchebags Steve Jones played the victim card, calling Arden's mocking criticism "cyberbullying". Because a few rude jokes directed at a corporate drone is totally like hounding a teenage girl into suicide. He even played the "How am I going to explain this to my kids" card. I don't know Steve; try telling them that you're a whiny patronizing asshole who defaced songs you don't own, treated artists and your audience with contempt and then got called on it. Oh; and incidentally I notice Jones didn't even pretend to call out those internet trolls who attacked Arden on his behalf. Explain that double standard to your kids while you're at it. I know corporations are supposed to be "people" now but do they have to be such fucking crybabies?

(A personal aside; After I reposted a story on Facebook about Jones whining about Arden I got a response from some idiot insisting on his right to call Arden a "fat bitch" and a "pig". Not recognizing the person I checked his page and was not surprised to see that literally every single post for weeks was a hateful rant or reposting of same about lazy blacks, Muslims, "liberals" and Obama. What is wrong with these guys? Why is everything a conspiracy to keep the white man down? Isn't it exhausting to be so paranoid and outraged all the time?)




Incidentally back in 2011 when the 88.1 FM signal went up for grabs Newcap was one of those in on the resulting feeding frenzy with a proposal for another one of their oppressively bland pop stations. Which is another reason to be glad that INDIE 88 got the spot instead.

Anyway in the interest of radio brotherhood I'd like to offer my services to Steve Jones and AMP Radio. No really, I can offer some free advice here. The genre of "absurdly short punk songs" is a much beloved if inherently limited one. Remember the first album by DRI where half the song were less than 30 seconds long? Actually some were less than 20 seconds long. Then Napalm Death once took this sort of thing to it's logical conclusion by having a one second song called "You Suffer". In the immortal words of Napalm Death singer/guitarist Justin Broadwick;

"We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times."

There is even a word for this; "Micro Thrash". Therefore in the spirit of radio brotherhood I offer up for further research some bands known for songs 90 seconds long or less (this list is by no means exhaustive);

The Accused
Adrenaline O.D.
The Angry Samoans
Black Flag
Cabaret Voltaire
The Circle Jerks
The Descendants
Destroy All Monsters
Discharge
D.R.I.
The Feederz
The Germs
Glue Gun
Government Issue
The High Fives
The Middle Class
Minor Threat
The Minutemen
The Mr.T Experience
The Misfits
The Mono Men
Muck and The Mires
The Mummies
Napalm Death
The New Bomb Turks
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Rancid
7 Seconds
REO Speedealer
Screaching Weasel
Social Unrest
State of Alert
The Subsonics
The Teen Idles
T.S.O.L.
The Undertones
Verbal Abuse
The Vibrators
Voorhees
Wehrmacht
Wire

Need some Can Con? No problem;

Beyond Possession
Bloodshot Bill
Bored Stiff
The Brutal Knights
Cub
Death Sentence
Dementia 13
DOA
The Evaporators
Danko Jones
Deja Voodoo
Thee Goblins
The Gruesomes
The House of Knives
The Last Patrol
The Leather Uppers
Maow
Maximum RnR
Molested Youth
The Rocket Reducers
The Sadies
The Screamagers
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
The Sick Boys
The Smugglers
The Sophisticatos
The Subhumans
The Ugly
Unbelievers
The Vapids
The Viletones

These actually range in quality from the obviously stoopid and proudly goofy to those who surprisingly managed to come up with proper songs, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes even a solo, in under 90 seconds. Some of these are classics, all should be required listening for any aspiring rocker. Less is more.

THE MISFITS ~ "RETURN OF THE FLY" (this video has a long intro which pads out the song length which is only about 90 seconds);


THE SHADOWY MEN ~ "SHADOWY COUNTDOWN";


FIZZY BANGERS ~ "SHORT ATTENTION SPAN":



MAOW ~ "MS. LEFEVRE";



THE GRUESOMES ~ "MY BROKEN HEART WILL NEVER MEND";



THE JAM ~ "BATMAN THEME";



THE ANGRY SAMOANS ~ "THEY SAVED HITLER"S COCK";



THE VIBRATORS ~ "YEAH YEAH YEAH";



THE DESCENDENTS ~ "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP";



THE VANDALS ~ "TO ALL THE KIDS";



WIRE ~ "FEELING CALLED LOVE";



THE FORGOTTEN REBELS ~ "ELVIS IS DEAD";



THE UNDERTONES ~ "SMARTER THAN YOU";



ADRENALINE O.D. ~ "SUBURBIA";



THE RAMONES ~ "CRETIN HOP";



THE CIRCLE JERKS ~ "WASTED";



SCREECHING WEASEL ~ "I HATE LED ZEPPELIN";



OPERATION IVY ~ "BOMBSHELL";



BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "NO RELIGION";


TSOL ~ "ABOLISH GOVT";


DRI ~ "Who am I?";




DISCHARGE ~ "HEAR NOTHING SEE NOTHING SAY NOTHING";



VOORHEES ~ "KEVIN KEEGAN";



NAPALM DEATH ~ "YOU SUFFER";



And then here is of course an entire compilation called "Short Music for short people" which has 99 songs 30 seconds and under.

Want some thing a little less punk and obnoxious? How about Elvis Presley, Duane Eddy, Hank Williams, Ersal Hickey, Chan Romero, Mac Wiseman, Ray Campi, Link Wray, Arch Hall jr, Cliff Richard, Glenn Glen, Merle Travis, Roscoe Holcomb, Hobart Smith, The Byrds, Bluecaps, Wilbur Sweatman, Tiny Hill, The Swingin' Blue Jeans and Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs? There are also demos from Johnny Horton, Willie Nelson, Elvis (again), Cliff Richard (ditto), and Buffalo Springfield. Then there's the Alan Lomax collections which have a lot of really short tracks by blues, folk and gospel singers including Josh White, Jimmie Strothers, Moses Clear Rock Pratt, May Fortune and others.

Putting my money where my mouth is on my CIUT radio show tomorrow (Tuesday Aug. 26, 5pm) I'm going to do a show full of nothing but songs under ninety seconds long. You're welcome AMP Radio.

UPDATE; Even as I was writing this Steve Jones and AMP were already back-pedaling faster than a unicycle backing down a hill. Releasing a bland statement announcing they were withdrawing their "Exiting New Format" while they "reconsidered" things. Jones played the victim card again claiming there were threats of lawsuits (that Micheal Snow precedent I mentioned perhaps). They insist that they may bring it back.
"Our plan is to go back to the drawing board, maybe work a bit closer with some of the various stakeholders in the industry and try and bring this back at a later date."
Right. Kinda like how Mitt Romney is considering running again. That'll totally happen.

This only confirms what some thought, that the whole exercise was a sleazy publicity stunt. Hard to see how looking like cynical incompetents helps their image though.

Blink and you'll miss it.

As mentioned in an earlier post Toronto radio station CKLN was finally, deservedly ordered off the air in April. Refusing to take "fuck off" for an answer CKLN's stubbornly inept management recently announced that hey had gotten permission to broadcast again as a "micro broadcaster" with a less than 1 watt signal. No that's not a typo, not even one whole watt with a range of about 700 feet. No that's not a typo either, 700 feet. Wow. That should carry clear across the street. Thus reaching that much coveted "people who happen to be driving by for a split second" demographic. They could literally reach more people by putting the speakers out the window.

My reconstruction of the conversation in a car of loyal CKLN listeners driving down to listen in on their car radio;
(sounds of static)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.."You're listening to.." Bzzzzzzzzzzzz
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Back up!"
(gears shift and..)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."CKLN.." Bzzzzzzzzzzz"
1st CKLN fan; "Wait! Go forward!"
(gears shift and...)Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz...."88.1fm" Bzzzzzzzzz
2nd CKLN fan; "This is stupid"

I'm guessing they are going to have to play a lot of really short songs.

That's where I can help. No really, I can offer some free advice here. The genre of "absurdly short punk songs" is much beloved if inherently limited one. Remember the first album by DRI where half the song were less than 30 seconds long? Actually some were less than 20 seconds long. Then Napalm Death once took this sort of thing to it's logical conclusion by having a one second song called "you suffer". In the immortal words of Napalm Death singer/guitarist Justin Broadwick;

"We played that song in front of 30 local kids, like, every weekend. We played that song 30 times."

There is even a word for this; "Micro Thrash". Therefore in the spirit of radio brotherhood I offer up for further research some bands known for songs 90 seconds long or less (this list is by no means exhaustive);

The Accused
Adrenaline O.D.
The Angry Samoans
Black Flag
The Circle Jerks
The Descendants
Destroy All Monsters
Discharge
D.R.I.
The Feederz
The Germs
Glue Gun
Government Issue
The High Fives
Minor Threat
The Minutemen
The Mr.T Experience
The Misfits
The Mono Men
Muck and The Mires
The Mummies
Napalm Death
The New Bomb Turks
Operation Ivy
The Ramones
Rancid
7 Seconds
REO Speedealer
Screaching Weasel
Social Unrest
State of Alert
The Subsonics
The Teen Idles
T.S.O.L.
The Undertones
Verbal Abuse
The Vibrators
Voorhees
Wehrmacht
Wire

Need some Can Con? No problem;

Beyond Possession
Bloodshot Bill
Bored Stiff
The Brutal Knights
Cub
Death Sentence
Dementia 13
DOA
The Evaporators
Danko Jones
Deja Voodoo
Thee Goblins
The House of Knives
The Leather Uppers
Maow
Maximum RnR
Molested Youth
The Rocket Reducers
The Sadies
The Screamagers
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet
The Sick Boys
The Smugglers
The Sophisticatos
The Subhumans
The Ugly
The Vapids
The Viletones

These actually range in quality from the obviously stoopid and proudly goofy to those who surprisingly managed to come up with proper songs, with a beginning, middle and end, sometimes even a solo, in under 90 seconds. Some of these are classics, all should be required listening for any aspiring rocker. Less is more.

THE MISFITS ~ "RETURN OF THE FLY" (this video has a long intro which pads out the song length which is only about 90 seconds);



WIZO ~ "The Count";



FIZZY BANGERS ~ "SHORT ATTENTION SPAN":



DEJA VOODOO ~ "STOP";



DUANE EDDY ~ "SOME KINDA EARTHQUAKE";



SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET ~ "INTERLUDE/COUNTDOWN" (TWO SONGS);



MAOW ~ "MS. LEFEVRE";



THE GRUESOMES ~ "MY BROKEN HEART WILL NEVER MEND";



THE JAM ~ "BATMAN THEME";



THE ANGRY SAMOANS ~ "THEY SAVED HITLER"S COCK";



THE VIBRATORS ~ "YEAH YEAH YEAH";



THE CYNICS ~ "BUSINESS AS USUAL";



T.S.O.L. ~ "SUPERFICIAL LOVE";



THE NEW BOMB TURKS ~ "I WANT MY BABY DEAD";




THE DESCENDENTS ~ "I DON'T WANNA GROW UP";



THE VANDALS ~ "TO ALL THE KIDS";



WIRE ~ "FEELING CALLED LOVE";



THE MINUTEMEN ~ "POLITICAL SONG FOR MICHEAL JACKSON TO SING" (live);



THE FORGOTTEN REBELS ~ "ELVIS IS DEAD";



THE UNDERTONES ~ "SMARTER THAN YOU";



ADRENALINE O.D. ~ "SUBURBIA";




CAUSTIC SODA ~ WELCOME TO DUMPSVILLE, POPULATION YOU";



MR.T EXPERIENCE ~ "SPEEDRACER";




THE RAMONES ~ "CRETIN HOP";



THE CIRCLE JERKS ~ "WASTED";



DEAD KENNEDYS ~ "I LIKE SHORT SONGS" (live);



BLACK FLAG ~ "REVENGE";



SCREECHING WEASEL ~ "I HATE LED ZEPPELIN";



OPERATION IVY ~ "BOMBSHELL";



7 SECONDS ~ "NOT JUST BOYS FUN";




GLUE GUN ~ "THE SCENE IS NOT FOR SALE;



DEATH SENTENCE ~ "FEEL FUCKED";




BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "NO RELIGION";




DRI ~ "Who am I?";




DISCHARGE ~ "HEAR NOTHING SEE NOTHING SAY NOTHING";



VOORHEES ~ "KEVIN KEEGAN";



NAPALM DEATH ~ "YOU SUFFER";



And then here is of course an entire compilation called "Short Music for short people" which has 99 songs 30 seconds and under.

Want some thing a little less punk and obnoxious? How about Elvis Presley, Duane Eddys, Hank Williams, Ersal Hickey, Chan Romero, Mac Wiseman, Ray Campi, Link Wray, Arch Hall jr, Cliff Richard, Glenn Glen, Merle Travis, Roscoe Holcomb, Hobart Smith, The Byrds, Bluecaps and The Swingin' Blue Jeans? There are also demos from Johnny Horton, Willie Nelson, Elvis (again), Cliff Richard (ditto), and Buffalo Springfield. Then there's the Alan Lomax collections which have some really short tracks by blues, folk and gospel singers including Josh White, Jimmie Strother, Moses Clear Rock Pratt, May Fortune and others.

Of course CKLN could also just play some of those Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse with Wound, Ramleh and John Cage records that sound like static anyway.

I actually did that once; while doing an overnight show I played John Cage's "HPSCHRD" which is basically 20 minutes of three or more harpsichords playing randomly buried under mountains of distortion. Eventually somebody called in;

Caller; "Are you on the air"
Me; "Probably"
Caller; "It sounds like I'm going under a tunnel and I'm not"
Me; "Well let's see (turning up volume);

JOHN CAGE ~ "HPSCHD";



Me; "Sounds fine to me. I'll be playing some Cabaret Voltaire later, you may want to stick around for that."

Hey it was 3:30 in the morning.

The unspoken legacy of Much Music

2009 marks the 25th anniversary of Much Music, Canada's answer to MTV and oddly nobody seems to have noticed, including Much itself which has chosen to downplay this event for some unknown reason. Perhaps they fear their core audience of fifteen year-olds will be creeped out by old footage of Terry David Mulligan or Kim Clark Champnis interviewing Bryan Adams in 1985, I know I am. Perhaps they know that anyone who was a fan back in the day (as I was) stopped watching Much over a decade ago and could not possibly care less if the station was there or not anymore.

Let's not take up time stating the obvious, Much is manifestly superior to MTV in every conceivable way. Actually let's take some time on this because Much in fact played an important role (along with some other factors) in the way that the Canadian music scene evolved in the 1980's and 90's in ways that Canadians barely notice.

EXHIBIT A: THE SHADOWY MEN;




We all should know by now about the role that CanCon played in fostering a serious domestic music industry in the 1970's by literally forcing radio to play Canadian music, which in turn made homegrown record labels a viable concern. Positive as these steps were this was only a step (or two) in the journey. In spite of what the CBC's various worship-full documentaries say, and with all due respect to some notable exceptions, much of the music put out by Canadians in the 1970's were bland, derivative versions of American AM radio fare. What was still lacking was the kind of variety that would require a nationwide underground, eclectic, alternative scene that could go in a dozen directions at once while still holding the center in a country that is fiendishly difficult to tour in ways that British or even Americans can hardly understand. This would also require an openness to the new sounds coming out of England and the USA.

It is with this last point that Much Music proved it's worth from the start, inheriting the tradition already set by "The New Music", a groundbreaking music news show also owned by City TV (who owned Much) which had been going for a few years already, and who would share many hosts and VJ's in the early years, Much started out with a very different mindset than the American MTV.

EXHIBIT B: THE GRUESOMES;



MTV was built on the vomit-inducing model of American top forty radio, "All the hits, all the time", with vapid VJ's bantering meaninglessly in between short sets of video clips which came from a limited playlist. Nothing surprising, nothing off-center, nothing new, nothing that might offend the folks in Utah. And in the beginning, absolutely nothing black, at all, literally, until Micheal Jackson's clout forced them to open up ever so slightly.

"The New Music" was the first attempt at creating a music magazine like Rolling Stone for T.V. And it happened in Canada. America had MTV and before that, lip-synched performance shows like "Solid Gold" and "Midnight Special" along with Casey Kassem's "America's Top 40". Britain had their own performance shows like "Top of The Pops" and "The Old Grey Whistle Test". These all were just variations on the templates laid down by Dick Clark in the fifties, and by the punk and post punk era they were dangerously out of touch and as credible as the "Muppet Show", and not nearly as funny. But we had "The New Music" which did serious and semi-serious interviews with artists and entire genres that would never be heard elsewhere; New Wave, Post-Punk and Metal bands from England, Roots Rock, Hardcore and Thrash bands from America, Euro-techno and Industrial from Germany, Reggae, World Beat and later Hip-Hop as well.

EXHIBIT C: SLOW;





Both "The New Music" and "Much Music" were owned by CITY TV/CHUM Radio and therefore Much could build on the foundations laid down by New Music. So right from the start Much was far more eclectic than MTV ever would be, playing the whole variety of musics that New Music had already blazed a path for. Much also followed the same CanCon regs that radio had to follow, but unlike commercial radio they were not satisfied to simply play the token top forty CanCon hits, Much even had the "Indie Street" show to focus on low budget indie videos by unsigned Canadian bands. The cause of indie and alternative CanCon was helped by the support of Video Fact grants that help fund the making of low budget videos that could actually have a chance to get played thanks to Much and New Music. There was simply no equivalence to this on MTV or BBC, still isn't actually. This meant that bands like Deja Voodoo, The Gruesomes, Slow, Ray Condo, Blue Rodeo, The Razorbacks, 54-40, The Grapes of Wrath, Skinny Puppy, Change of Heart, The Shadowy Men, Martha & The Muffins, Breeding Ground, The Payolas, Sturm Group, Death Sentence and Voivod could get their videos, which ranged from the fairly cheap to the laughably cheap played as if they were almost as important as top 40 fare. And clearly way more cool.

CHANGE OF HEART ~ "TEN MILES AWAY";


Remember the cheapo videos like The Shadowy Men's puppet shows? Or Ray Condo's cartoons? Or Sturm Group running around the Scarborough bluffs waving swords looking like a pasty Conan The Barbarian? Or Skinny Puppy's morbid super 8 performance art bloodfests? They must have cost all of two hundred dollars to make, not counting the pizzas and beer. Then there was the ultimate in clueless Canadiana; April Wine's video for "I like to rock" in which our boys take time out from a busy day in the studio to play some tabletop hockey and brew some coffee. Only in Canada you say? Pity. God how I miss them all.

EXHIBIT D: APRIL WINE;




They were also helped by the fact that the established acts like Rush, Triumph,Trooper, not to mention earlier dinosaurs like Burton Cummings and Gino Vanelli at first refused to make videos at all, and later only grudgingly and poorly. The same thing was happening in the USA with the likes of Journey and Boston sulking on the sidelines as New Wave and New Romantics bands breezed by them. Some American critics are still bitter about this. It is a fact that relatively fewer American bands of the early eighties bothered to make videos at all, they were too expensive to make if they weren't going to get played on MTV anyway. And there were no Videofact grants for them. The lack of videos from this era is actually a real loss American music, although there were a few exceptions. The Ramones, Fleshtones, Blondie, Cramps, Lords of The New Church, Long Ryders, Iggy Pop, Motels, Talking Heads, Joan Jett and a few others did make some videos as did the Stray Cats after they moved to England, which doesn't count. However for the most part they were ignored by MTV and only got played on Much anyway. The lack of videos of the likes of The Gun Club, Jason and the Scorchers, Mission of Burma, Replacements, Rank and File, Blasters and even early REM is inexcusable and it's MTV's fault. If it weren't for "The Decline of Western Civilization" and "Suburbia" we wouldn't have X, TSOL, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, The Germs and D.I. footage either. In Canada or even Britain and Australia they all would have made videos as a matter of course, and they would have been played too.

EXHIBIT E: RAY CONDO;





Of course Much was hardly alone here. CBC joined in with "Brave New Waves" and a network of campus and community radio stations would grow up including CKLN and CIUT (both of which I worked at) in Toronto. Ironically even though the Chum/City group also owned the most powerful radio stations in Toronto (and a number of other cities), they kept those operations separate from Much and New Music which left an opening for upstart CFNY to fill. There would also be a network of magazines like Nerve, Reargarde (which I wrote for), What Wave and Graffitti and weekly papers like Now Magazine (in Toronto) and in most other Canadian cities. But Much was in the unique position to act as a nationwide unifier and by and large they did.

VITAL SINES ~ "COLLAGE";


This openness to music beyond the mainstream meant that most of the Post Punk and New Wave sounds coming out of Britain now actually came to Toronto first to break into North America where they would have once treated Canada as a backwater of the USA. This meant that British bands like U2, Simple Minds, The Cult, The Cure, OMD, the Banshees, Jesus and Mary Chain and virtually every other contemporary hit here first, Aussies like Midnight Oil and INXS would follow as would reggae and world beat. You could even occasionally see the likes of serious weirdos like Cabaret Voltaire, the Severed Heads, The Virgin Prunes, Laurie Anderson and SPK who probably couldn't even spell MTV. It actually got to the point where even some American bands were actually more popular here than they were at home, including REM and Steve Earle.

EXHIBIT F: SKINNY PUPPY;



The spinoffs this had for enriching the scene in Canada are impossible to measure. Once upon a time Canada was a backwater known for crappy cover bands where anyone with real talent and ambition had to go to New York or L.A. to get signed. And where international bands largely ignored or treated as a stopover on their way to New York. That is no longer true at all. Much played a big role in this evolution, they weren't the only player, but they were vital in pulling local scenes together and one shouldn't forget that.

EXHIBIT G: BLUE PETER;




It's true that in the past decade or more Much has become bland, glitzy, commercial and predictable, so has CFNY. Graffiti, Nerve and Reargarde magazines are long dead and were replaced by Exclaim and Chart which in turn also became more commercial and bland. "Indie Street" is long gone and when New Music finally gave up the ghost a couple of years ago few noticed or cared. But it also true that MTV has declined even more to the extent that even the mention of MTV as playing videos at all is considered a punchline. Much branched off into various specialty channels for punk & metal, hip hop, retro 80's, country, latin and french which segregated the audiences and diluted the variety and unpredictability of the original. While Much may be a pale shadow of it's former greatness one shouldn't totally forget that greatness once existed, even if Much seams not to care. Those who grew up with Much can take a minute to reflect on memories that go beyond mere misty eyed nostalgia. Sometimes the old days really were better. So thank you Much Music, glitzy warts and all.

EXHIBIT H: THE NILS;



P.S. I planned on including the videos for Sturm Group's "Twenty" but it's not on youtube damn it. However by way of bonus we have this Indie Street segment from 1983;