Music
2007 Album Of The Year
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- January 20th, 2008
- Posted In:
- Music
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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
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
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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.
So Much Good New Music This Month
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- October 3rd, 2007
- Posted In:
- Music
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I’d like to bring your attention to 3 albums coming out this month that I’m very excited about.
Saves The Day - Under The Boards
Under The Boards is the second in a trilogy of albums about self-discovery that began with last year’s Sound The Alarm and will conclude with a third album, Daybreak, to be released next year. Says frontman Chris Conley: “Sound The Alarm is an expression of discontent. Under The Boards is reflection and remorse. Daybreak is acceptance.” All of that nonsense aside, the tracks already posted on MySpace sound amazing and I just read that this album comes with a 75 minutes DVD. I highly recommend you buy this album on October 30th.
Listen to 2 new Saves The Day songs on MySpace.
Get the latest Saves The Day news at PunkNews.org.
Say Anything - In Defense of the Genre
The main songwriter is actually crazy and it took me a super long time to get into this band because of the abrasive yet “girly” nature of the songs. But now that I’m in, I’m in for life. This guy is a lyrical genius and each song is amazingly diverse, but you still know instantly that you’re listening to Say Anything. Their new album In Defense of the Genre is a double disc concept album and comes out October 23rd. The album also features guest vocals by a bunch of other bands including Saves The Day.
Check out their new songs on MySpace. They’re releasing a new song every week (usually on Monday) until the album comes out.
Armor For Sleep - Smile For Them
I have been a moderate fan of Armor For Sleep since their first album in 2003. After hearing how good the first single off their new album is on MySpace a couple of weeks ago, I can’t wait to hear the rest. Smile For Them comes out on October 30th, get it. Apparently I look a lot like the guitarist, weird.
Check out the song on MySpace.
UK Hardcore is Bullshit!
For the past few months I had been hearing nothing but praise for Gallows, a hardcore band from the UK. I decided to have a listen and see what all the hype was about. Turns out Gallows are just a shitty hardcore band that might have fit in with the hardcore kids here 10 years ago. I spoke up about how shitty this band was to a few people and their response was “oh but the singer is crazy on stage” and “you should see the wild hardcore dances the kids do”. Weak. Hardcore bands with singers who are crazy live, and fans who hardcore dance are old news. Everytimeidie and Kid Gorgeous were doing it 10 years ago. I was pissed.
V-Fest came to Toronto this past weekend and the band I hear the most about is Enter Shikari. Another hardcore band from the UK that sound like local hardcore 10 years ago. Seriously, just because a band is from the UK and has an English accent doesn’t make them good. Stop worshiping bands from the UK just because they’re from the UK. These bands are horrible. Support your own.
The Internet Is One Giant Radio
Since the dawn of streaming audio on the internet major record labels have been trying to sue the internet out of existence. It’s no secret that rather than embrace the internet as the promotional tool it is, major record labels blame it for all of their problems.
When it comes to artists getting paid the internet is just one giant radio. Radio is a medium as is the internet. Radio stations make money by selling ads around engaging content (music/talk). Artists get paid when their songs are played on the radio because SOCAN and BMI collect stats from radio stations about how many times each song is played. SOCAN and BMI also collect a percentage of the ad revenue from the radio stations which they then distribute to artists based on how many times the artists’ songs were played on the radio. This system is the law!
When you consider how exact the internet is at tracking plays by artists you’d think that it would be obvious to apply the radio system to the internet. Websites like MySpace, Purevolume and MP3.com all make money by selling ads around engaging content. But for some reason these websites never have to pay the artists for using their music to sell ads. Did SOCAN and BMI miss out on this opportunity for a huge amount of extra cash?
Maybe it’s due to the fact that most things on the internet these days are user generated. For reporting to work properly it has to be exact and all audio files have to contain the proper meta data. What’s to stop someone from putting up MP3s that aren’t by them but tagging them with meta data that says they are?
This is where last.fm comes in. Last.fm seems to have a handle on gathering stats for music from around the web. They know when a track has incorrect meta data. Last.fm is now so popular that they work with 2 major record labels to stream every song in their catalog on their website. Last week it was announced that Last.fm will be providing internet music charts to actual print magazines. Now you’ll be able to see who’s hot on corporate top 40 radio and who people are actually listening to on their ipods. It’s exciting. I think it’s a step closer to artists being paid for helping MySpace sell ads.
Shouldn’t Concert Promoters Promote Concerts?
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- August 23rd, 2007
- Posted In:
- Music
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- No Comments
I was always under the impression that musicians wrote and played music and concert promoters organized and promoted concerts. Much to the dismay of most active musicians it seems most promoters have decided to pass the tedious task of promoting to the musician.
Any band looking to play a show in most clubs in Toronto will be told “Sure you can play, just make sure you bring out 50 people. If you do maybe I’ll put you on a better show next time.” I can tell you that more often than not that better show never happens, no matter how many people you bring out to the show. But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that if you bring out 50 people you will probably be paid a maximum of $50 for your troubles. If cover is $10 the band just made $500, they get 10% in return?
I admit that most of these bands I’m talking about are just starting out and would probably not draw 50 strangers to a show on a week night in Toronto. But these bands are eager, these bands put up posters, spam people on MySpace and Facebook, bother family members and ask friends for huge favours to get those 50 people to the show. They also write the music, record the demos that are good enough to get the promoter to even talk to them and rehearse a bunch of times a week. These bands are busting their asses and all the promoter did was call the venue and ask to book a day, that doesn’t sound like it’s worth 90% of the profit to me.
Down with lazy promoters. Bands, call the club and book your own show. What ever happened to the good old days, when promoters promoted and live music thrived? Bands don’t have the time to promote concerts, it’s not what they do best.
Promoters, put up posters and hand out flyers at shows leading up to yours. Contact local college radio/internet radio stations and get the bands on your show some air time, spam people on MySpace, Facebook and message boards. Get the word out about your show and earn your money. Stop being lazy and start being a Concert PROMOTER.
Piebald Calls It Quits
News of a band breaking up hasn’t hit me this hard since The Get Up Kids played their last show in July 2005. Piebald have announced that they’re breaking up when their current tour ends next month.
It may be hard to understand why this band that you’ve never heard of means so much to me, but I will do my best to explain. I first discovered Piebald the same way I discovered all good music when I was in high school, from Justin Lee. Justin put the CD on in the car and told me to shut up and listen. It was love at first listen. Not only do Piebald combine odd time signatures and odd song structures with ease, they also have some of the funniest and most clever song names and album titles I have ever heard.
“It’s not funny like ha ha, it’s funny like I told you so.”
One of my favourite albums of all time is Piebald’s “If It Weren’t for Venetian Blinds It Would Be Curtains for Us All”. Piebald are amazing live, they tour in a van powered by used restaurant grease, and they wrote songs that served as the soundtrack for the last 9 years of my life.
I will always remember seeing Piebald play only 4 songs at the Pine Room in Oakville because Moneen set off fireworks and the Fire Department showed up. I’ll remember driving to Buffalo to see Piebald with Justin and Alison in 2001 and then again with Alison 9 months ago. I’ll remember seeing Piebald eating at Pita Pit before playing at Lee’s Palace. I’ll remember bothering the band to let me play the drums when their original drummer took off. I’ll remember getting pulled over for speeding on the way to Alison’s house while listening to “All Ears, All Eyes, All the Time” for the first time. I’ll remember how sad Alison was as we found out that Piebald were calling it quits, she was wearing her Piebald hoodie when the news broke. I will always remember Piebald.
As we speak, Alison and I are canceling our camping plans for the Labour Day long weekend and buying tickets to one of Piebald’s last shows. We’ll be driving 4 hours to Detroit on August 31st to get one last Piebald fix. Thanks for everything Piebald, you will be missed.
“We have the best job ever. Yeah we really got lucky.
We’re nobody’s robot. We’re nobody’s monkey.”
The Aggrolites Concert Review
- Posted By:
- Matt
- Posted On:
- August 2nd, 2007
- Posted In:
- Music
- Comments:
- No Comments
I saw The Aggrolites at the Mod Club last night and I wrote a review of the show for the Much Music Blog.
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