Idiot Banter

Because it’s business not people….

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

September 28th, 2008

Posted In:

Blog, Music, Nonsense

Comments:

No Comments

The lyrics to one of my favourite Hot Water Music songs seem very relevant to me right now. Everyone should step back and think about others before they act.

Hot Water Music - At The End Of A Gun

We can waste we can come and go
We can act like we don’t know about suffering and pain
We can live our lives in shame for never helping anyone we know, or don’t
But we need to recognize that we are dying if we live alone
Let’s send our energy out with what we know and unify today
Because our freedom sits at the end of a gun
We’re all here getting beat up and held back
We’re all here digging knives from our backs
We’ve all been betrayed
Because it’s business not people
It’s always take and it is never give and that’s not the way I want to live
Because that’s nothing but dying and we’re nothing if we sell ourselves
Close your eyes never hear never cry for living an empty life

Sick Ship - Songwriting - July 31 2008

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

July 31st, 2008

Posted In:

Drumming, Music

Comments:

2 Comments

We got together and did some more songwriting today. We talk more than we play and I’m too stupid to remember complicated parts these days so all we have to show is half a song but it has bass! Check it out, it’s the only time you’ll ever hear me play a straight up punk beat.

July 31 2008

The Original Sick Ship

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

July 23rd, 2008

Posted In:

Drumming, Music

Comments:

2 Comments

When writing about the start of the Sick Ship songwriting project I forgot to mention that Steve and I had a very similar band about a year ago with Kristen of Wheels On The Bus. We wrote a bunch of songs at a real rehearsal space, no headphone jams, but we recorded the same way, in my apartment live off the floor into a mixer into one track in GarageBand.

Here are 3 complete songs, these ones even have bass!

As usual, Sick Ship wasn’t our real name, we didn’t have a name and that was the best we could come up with.

I wrote about Moneen for Much Music

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

June 18th, 2008

Posted In:

Music

Comments:

No Comments

I wrote a about a NXNE show featuring Moneen, Casey Baker & The Buffalo Sinners and Songs From A Room for the Much Music blog, check it out. NXNE: Moneen @ El Mocambo - Much Music.com Blog

Who Cares What Old Joke Bands Have To Say?

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

June 18th, 2008

Posted In:

Music

Comments:

No Comments

I just read a Punknews.org article that contains this quote from Gene Simmons:

“The record industry is dead. It’s six feet underground and unfortunately the fans have done this. They’ve decided to download and file share. There is no record industry around so we’re going to wait until everybody settles down and becomes civilized. As soon as the record industry pops its head up we’ll record new material.”

For the love of God I hope the music industry doesn’t “pop its head up”. The last thing we need is another album full of joke songs by a bunch of assholes that think they were anything but a joke band. Kiss were worse than Britney Spears or NKOTB ever were because they disguised their shit pop as rock and roll, dicks. This quote just proves Kiss was never in it for the music, they’ll just wait until they can cash in again, why would they play music otherwise?

I just thought you dudes should know about this, that’s all.

I Wrote About My Morning Jacket For Much Music

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

April 22nd, 2008

Posted In:

Music

Comments:

No Comments

I wrote a blog post about My Morning Jacket’s new single, album, Saturday Night Live appearance and Toronto show for the Much Music blog. Check it out: New Music From My Morning Jacket

I borrowed the photo from Brandon Hirsch, check out his photos on Flickr.

2007 Album Of The Year

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

January 20th, 2008

Posted In:

Music

Comments:

No Comments

Because of the Times by Kings of Leon is my favourite album of 2007. This was the first I had heard of King of Leon and it blew me away. The musicianship, the songwriting, everything. It honestly gives me new hope for music. This is a real rock band. Listen to the song "Fans " on their MySpace page, listen to it as loud as you can, I do every morning on my way to work, it’s amazing.

Runner Up: Boys Night Out - Self Titled

My Top Five Albums

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

January 1st, 2008

Posted In:

Music

Comments:

1 Comment

There are many albums that come and go but these are the ones that remain constants in my life. When I listen to these albums I am transported back to a place and time, a feeling. When I listen to these albums I am blown away by the level of musicianship or the quality of songwriting. These are the albums that I will listen to over and over from the moment I first heard them until the day I die. These are my top five albums.

The Get Up Kids - Something To Write Home About

The Get Up Kids are the band that changed it all for me. They demonstrated that music can be extremely emotional and personal while still being well written and super catchy. Truthfully, you could replace this album with Guilt Show, Four Minute Mile or The Woodson EP, they are all equal in my mind. But Something To Write Home About is the album I remember listening to with Justin Lee as we drove around Caledon and Brampton all through high school, it’s the album my old Grind Core band used to blast in the van on long drives through Quebec while other Metal bands made fun of us for listening to “Emo”, it’s the album I made my parents listen to in the car on my birthday one year as we drove to Toronto to buy new hi-hats at Steve’s Music. Something To Write Home About is the one album that (almost) every member of every band I’ve ever been in knows every word of.

Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come

It has never made sense to me, can Refused see the future and knew that this album would actually become the shape of punk to come or did it become the shape of punk to come because that’s what the album was called? I had never heard hardcore like this before and these guys are insane musicians. This is the most influential hardcore album of all time.

Megadeth - Rust in Peace

Rust In Peace contains some of the best musicianship I have ever heard. The songs are fast and amazingly tight and Megadeth pulls it off live, no studio magic involved. The lyrics are the perfect amount of political without it getting in the way and becoming preachy. In grade 7 I analyzed the lyrics of Dawn Patrol for a school project. The drums at the beginning of the last song, Rust In Peace…Polaris, are amazing.

Sloan - Twice Removed

The songwriting is amazing and the fact that all of the guys in the band can (and do) play every instrument makes this band incredibly tight because everyone is totally aware of what everyone else is doing. This album introduced me to Canadian indie rock. I remember hiding under the covers when I was a kid, listening to Twice Removed on my yellow Sony sport Walkman when I was supposed to be in bed.

Led Zeppelin - II

This was my first Led Zeppelin cassette, I wore it out. No one else plays drums like John Bonham played drums.

I Used To Be In A Band

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

November 14th, 2007

Posted In:

Music

Comments:

4 Comments

I used to be in a band called The Pettit Projoect. We had a good time with unicorns at our CD release show, we hugged in stairwells while strangers took pictures for magazines, we sat in vans for insane amounts of time and grew our hair, and we were featured on a TV show called Radio Free Roscoe. Good times.

New Tax On Downloaded Music

Posted By:

Matt

Posted On:

October 19th, 2007

Posted In:

Music

Comments:

No Comments

An article in the Financial Post reports that “The Copyright Board of Canada has approved new taxes on digital MP3 music files“. This new tax will apply to all legally downloaded music and will cost 3.1 cents for individual tracks and 1.5 cents per track if you download an entire album.

"The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), which collects money on behalf of musicians and redistributes those funds to songwriters and bands, had called for the levies."

SOCAN has traditionally dealt with collecting money from radio stations and re-distributing that money to musicians. They’re also responsible for the Blank Tape Levy attached to the sale of blank tapes/CDs/MP3 players. So far it’s all been justified (the Blank Tape Levy is questionable) but this new tax is just a tax meant to pay musicians more money after you’ve given the musicians money by buying their music. Sounds great, right?

"Meant to compensate artists for the reproduction of their songs, the charges follow similar levies that add 21 cents to the price of every blank CD sold in Canada. And they are retroactive to 1996, when Canada’s music industry first began pushing for tariffs on transmitted music files."

Really this will just work like everything else works with SOCAN, the rich artists get richer and everyone else gives up and gets day jobs. On top of everything it’s retroactive 11 years! Puretracks says they’ve been putting money away over the years in case this ever happened but I bet other companies aren’t so lucky.

Is this how we fix the music industry? Blatantly rip off fans buying music legally and maybe bankrupt some companies selling music legally? Nice, dicks.