Jenny – Page 8 – Stylus Magazine

February 4, 2010

Weird Shit with Kent Davies – The Rocker Code

By Kent Davies

“Rock has always been the devil’s music.” – David Bowie

From the time legendary blues musician Robert Johnson supposedly went down to the crossroads to make his deal the devil the occult has been a predominate feature in modern music history. Now Greg Taylor, expert in esoteric phenomena and creator of the blog Daily Grail (tagline: Exploring the fringes of science and history. Caveat lector!), attempts to chronicle the strange and fascinating historical connection between rock music and the occult. In the second volume of the DarkLore anthology, Taylor examines how the supposed “dark arts” influenced some of the most important musicians of our time.

From the rare Zodiac symbols found on Zeppelin records to David Bowie’s obsession with keeping possession of his hair and fingernails clippings to avoid dark spells being cast against him, Taylor is a rock ’n’ roll Dan Brown, revising rock history to suggest what alarmist Christian preachers have been telling us for years: rock music has hidden messages, pagan symbols and is probably promoting sex. While some of the Taylor’s revelations are nothing new to music historians, such as the influence of voodoo ritual in early blues, he does manage to link the dominate feature of a coded lexicon in some modern rock and metal bands. By deciphering symbols, relationships and sometimes eccentric behaviour, we gain insight into the artists and the supposed truth behind their material. While Taylor deals predominantly with artists from the past, newer acts like Tool and the Mars Volta (who wrote their album Bedlam in Goliath using a Ouija board) are also included. While these carefully-placed symbols and occult references may be nothing new to some fans (especially metalheads), Taylor’s foray into rock’s occult underpinnings may be prove fascinating for others. You can check out an excerpt of Taylor’s essay at www.dailygrail.com/Essays/2009/12/Occult-Rock.

February 4, 2010

Review: Half-Handed Cloud – Cut Me Down and Count My Rings

HALF-HANDED CLOUD
Cut Me Down & Count My Rings
One thing you can say about John Ringhofer (a.k.a. Half-Handed Cloud) is he’s never short on ideas. Falling somewhere in between the sing-songy evangelical pop of Danielson and the lo-fi inventiveness of Guided by Voices’ Robert Pollard, this collection of rarities, singles, and B-sides, is comprised of 46 tracks, taken from the 17 non-album releases Ringhofer produced between ’00 and ’09. From the somewhat cringe-worthy “Shepherd” songs of his I’m So Sheepy EP to the confident B-sides from 2006’s Halos & Lassos, this album gives listeners a sense of Ringhofer’s development as a songwriter. Each song grouping is explained in detail by Ringhofer in the album’s liner notes. Although this album presents a wide breadth of material, a few things remain consistent: the immature wonder of Ringhofer’s overtly Christian lyrics, a lo-fi approach combined with more ambitious arrangements, and a commitment to melody and brevity—apart from a couple tracks, these songs all range between one and two and a half minutes. Cut Me Down & Count My Rings isn’t the easiest album to digest, but for fans of Ringhofer’s prolific output, this retrospective collection is thoughtfully compiled and beautifully presented. (Asthmatic Kitty, www.asthmatickitty.com) Jonathan Dyck

February 4, 2010

Paper Cuts – Penny Ante

By Patrick Michalishyn

I read on some music blog that Oh Sees guy John Dwyer was contributing to some book coming out on some imprint in the U.S. Being the geek I am, I checked out the site, got in touch and ordered not one, but all three volumes of Penny Ante, a “mag/book” out of California . What a gateway I walked though. In Three, John D. only has one page; a picture of him at a young age and a piece of art, and it took me all of ten seconds to absorb it. But while I was looking for the Dwyer page, I saw that there was an interview with Billy Bragg that I went back to and read, but not before I happened across of few pages of artwork by Jad Fair (of Maryland rock outfit Half Japanese). There’s a goofy self-portrait of Mission of Burma’s Roger Miller, followed by a good five pages of his writing and some art. Robert Pollard and Billy Childish answer an interviewer’s questions and load me up with music trivia tidbits which I’ll be able to hack up on the spot when trying to out-nerd one of my own. That only covers maybe four percent of this book. It’s full of artists, photographers, and musicians that a lot of people probably never knew existed (but I’m glad I found), like: Julian Hoeber with bronze busts of gunshot (headshot) victims, the kaleidoscope head-trip of owleyes’ collages and the bloody, morbid photography of Dawn Kasper. I could go on and on listing works that made me stop and think, or stop and smile. Flipping through, something will always catch your eye and keep you going back and forth, giving a Choose Your Own Adventure reading experience. After I flipped through Three (as well as Book #1 and Book #2), I started carrying these books around in a backpack and showed anyone I exchanged more than a sentence with. The cliché “something for everybody” couldn’t apply more. These books are portable art-houses, not a page wasted on filler garbage. I recommend picking up all three since they’re pretty much continuations of each other. A world opened up through a looking glass and enough bathroom reading to last a good third of a year. If that wasn’t enough, Three includes a bonus CD of some-unreleased material from three issues’ worth of contributors; Jad Fair, the Chills, Mount Eerie (covering Old Time Relijun), Robert Pollard (surprise), Billy Childish, TV Ghost and a whole load more. Now that’s just spoiling us. Go, buy now! If enough of us do, we might just get a Four.

www.penny-ante.net

Patrick Michalishyn

February 4, 2010

Review: The Expos – Blackwater

THE EXPOS
Blackwater
Expos On their second album, Newmarket, Ontario’s the Expos move beyond the limiting genre of ska and slide into a comfortable reggae sound with elements of soul and pop. It’s obvious that the band has made an effort to broaden their musical style, and Blackwater shows that the Expos will be around for a long time. Blackwater is more soulful than most ska albums, not concerned with partying as much as the human condition, as heard in “Dying Too Long.” It isn’t littered with the punk rock sound which has become associated with the genre, but instead relies on the harmony and instrumentation of the band. Horns and Hammond organs appear throughout the album, complimented by strong bass playing and Reed Neagle’s laid-back vocals. My pick for best song on the album has to be the closer “Bring It Home,” in which the second half of the six-minute track is an amazing jam session that will leave the listener satisfied. Fans of Subcity should definitely listen to this album. Highly recommended. (Stomp Records, www.stomprecords.com) Charles Lefebvre

January 14, 2010

Fellows, Samson & co. make new music at the West End

ARCbrandonwpgmanitou

Visit the West End Cultural Centre on Friday, January 22nd for a collaboration between a rocker (John K. Samson) a folker (Christine Fellows), a composer (Robert Honstein), a violinist (Cristina Zacharias), a percussionist (Ed Reifel) and a mastermind (Leanne Zacharias).

L. Zacharias, a cellist, curator and music prof (you might recall she appeared on C. Fellows’ brilliant latest album, Nevertheless), has spearheaded this event, called Arc: Six Musicians Map the Current, which is described as:

a musical conversation between these diverse musicians from different genres and backgrounds—a baroque violinist, a symphony percussionist, a contemporary composer, a cross-disciplinary classical cellist, and two popular songwriters—performing onstage as one ensemble.

The evening promises new repertoire from Honstein and new arrangements of songs by Samson and Fellows.

WHERE: West End Cultural Centre
WHEN: Friday, Jan. 22, doors 7:15, show 8
TICKETS: $15 ahead at Ticketmaster and the WECC

www.christinefellows.com
www.wecc.ca

December 17, 2009

Múm with Sin Fang Bous and Hildur Guðnadóttir – October 30/09 @ Pyramid Cabaret

By Dustin Danyluk

The Pyramid Cabaret was sparsely populated when Hildur Guðnadóttir, cellist and vocalist of Mùm, took the stage alone with her cello and laptop. Her freeform, ambient cello-based music reflected both her classical musical training (an experimental consciousness that seems to be common within Icelandic music circles). Guðnadóttir’s set was reminiscent of performances given by fellow Icelandic experimental musicians Leanne Zacharias, Borgar Magnason and Kippi Kaninus this past May at the St. Boniface Museum for the bargain price of $5. Guðnadóttir’s music differed in that while that performance was meditative, dissonant and droning, Guðnadóttir chose to insert very melodic and shifting passages, which were later given more breadth by the accompaniment of fellow Múm members Eiríkur Orri Olafsson on synths and trumpet and Gunnar Örn Tynes on bass. Typically for the Pyramid, the crowd was backed far away the stage, but you could still feel the swells in dynamic and the intent that had been put into writing and playing the music. The modest crowd showed all the appreciation their limited numbers could convey.

Fortunately, by the time the quirky indie folk singer Sindri Már Sigfússon and his latest project, Sin Fang Bous, took stage, the crowd had grown to a less-embarrassing size. The brand of eclectic folk pop he and his band unleashed was a delight to experience from one song to the next. Sigfússon’s live vocals were much more rough and energetic than the mellow and smooth delivery on his albums, and hints of ambient textures and novel rhythms kept the crowd on their toes. And though the band were just backing him up, you could tell there was enough groove and texture in the songs for them to really grab hold and have fun with.

By time the headliner Múm took stage, the Pyramid had mercifully filled up enough to balance out the unsightly bare spots in front of the stage. Múm’s energy and instrumentation was hard to resist (regardless of whether you prefer Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir-era Múm or their more recent poppier, folkier sound). Most the songs they played were off of their most recent two albums, Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy and Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know. Fans of the bands earlier output might have found their new vocal approach a little underdeveloped, but the band as a whole more than compensated for that. Múm’s live instrumentation sounded fantastic. Their drums triggered glitched creaks as well as producing traditional acoustics, adding a dynamic to their electronic sections that just can’t be programmed into a loop. Múm’s energy peaked when they returned for an encore with a track from the acclaimed Finally We Are No One.

Being Gate Night, there was something of a weird atmosphere in the room. While the band played, a man in the front row fainted and fell straight backwards to the floor and, for a second, the shadow of his head cast onto the floor looked like a pool of blood. (Only for a second though.)

>>>www.myspace.com/mumtheband

>>>www.myspace.com/sinfangbous

>>>www.hildurness.com

PHOTOS BY SAMANTA KATZ

December 17, 2009

CKUWho? TwangTrust with Stu Reid

Wednesdays, 6-8 p.m. on CKUW 95.9 FM or online at www.ckuw.ca

Stylus: Can you tell us about the origins of the TwangTrust?
Stu Reid: It was originally my friend Gaylene Dempsey’s show. She applied to do an alt-country show shortly before CKUW first came to the FM airwaves [in 1999], but because she was frequently out of town for work, she thought she should have a permanent co-host as a back-up and she asked me. Initially, I was scared to death of the idea, but I soon grew to love it. Gaylene lost interest a couple years into it and I’ve been a lone wolf ever since. I doubt I’d ever have done it without her, so I’m indebted to her forever.

Stylus: You’re known as “The $3000 Man” because you consistently raise that amount of money during your FunDrive show. What’s the secret to your success?
SR: Bruce content! No one else on CKUW plays Springsteen as much as I do. Coincidence? I think not. Seriously, though, while it’s not a “my music is better than your music” kind of thing, I think the kind of music I play has a deeper personal connection to the people who enjoy it than that of most other genres. Also, I don’t just throw together a bunch of songs that I like. Most everything I play gets played for a specific reason, whether it’s a local gig preview, a set of music with a theme, be it conceptual, historical or a common musician, songwriter or whatever. There’s something to learn on the show if you’re prepared to pay attention, and regular listeners appreciate the work I put into it.

Stylus: What can you tell us about TwangTrust listeners? Who are they? Where are they?
SR: International, good-hearted folks, all. Ever since CKUW started their podcasting feature, TwangTrust has been the most downloaded show. That’s on top of the dozens of folks who listen to my show each week via my own website (www.twangtrust.ca). That number ranges from 30 to 300, depending on whether a particular episode gets mentioned or linked on someone’s blog somewhere. Still, I spent months playing Elliott Brood’s first album, begging people to check them out at their first Winnipeg show and there were three of us that showed up. And I know the other two weren’t there because of me. So that puts things in perspective.

Stylus: Can you talk about the importance of Bruce Springsteen to the show, and to your life in general?
SR: I do have a personal relationship with Bruce Springsteen that I’d like to tell you about. My musical tastes aren’t as myopic as you might think, based on my show, but Bruce has been special from early on in many ways. To paraphrase the website www.thestureidexperiment.com (no, I have no idea what that’s about) [Ed note: He’s serious—our Stu Reid is in no way connected with that site. Weird.], “None of us are Bruce Springsteen. All of us are Bruce Springsteen. You are now Bruce Springsteen.” I learned the history of music from Bruce, through artists he would cover or talk about in interviews—everyone from Duke Ellington to Suicide. I started a fanzine, Bruceness, dedicated to him back in the prehistoric age of 1981 and even met my wife through it. I do often feel weird playing an established classic-rock artist on a campus station, but I have to. It wouldn’t be an honest show otherwise. The first time I heard Bruce was on the original CJUM back in the late ’70s. I have been in Bruce Springsteen’s dressing room before, and Bruce once stood on the actual boardwalk in Asbury Park and said “Yeah, I met that dude last night,” talking to a friend about me. Plus, I once insulted him to his face. His wife Patti was there and she peed herself laughing.

Stylus: What is the StuDome?
SR: My living room. My wife and I throw house concerts whenever the opportunity presents itself. We’ve had Mike Plume, Jim Bryson and Leeroy Stagger through twice each, as well as Pat DiNizio from the Smithereens. The coolest show ever was C.R. Avery and his string quartet. Three violins, a cello, a conductor who played guitar and snare drum and C.R. doing his thing. A friend who came without ever having heard of him, said it was among the ten best shows of his life. And this was a guy who’s seen a LOT of shows. Mike Plume christened it the StuDome. It was originally the Stu & Kathy Reid Theatre for the Performing Arts. Many StuDome patrons are just folks who listen to my show, who I don’t really know that well. And I should add there are many listeners who have become people I DO know very well. I’m very picky about who I book at the Dome, but as dream-come-truey as it is to have my fave bands playing in my living room, sometimes there’s something too polite about the whole thing. There’s only room for so much politeness in rock ‘n’ roll. I may soon require people to break things when they come to a StuDome show.

Stylus: Do you ever see a day when you’ll hand the reins of TwangTrust over to someone else, permanently? (Your daughter, Britt, perhaps?)
SR: Yes, I’m old and will be dead soon, it’s true. That was certainly the motivating factor in raising a child. Five-year-old Britt is coming along great, playing music for the whole family on Mud Puddle Radio every third Saturday at 9 a.m. (I occasionally tech for her). However, we may soon need to consider a second child as a backup. This past May, just before going in to see her third Springsteen show in St. Paul, we asked her if she was still a big Bruce fan. Britt said, “Uh… I’m actually more of a Tchaikovsky fan.” Damn kids and their classical music…

>>>www.twangtrust.ca

December 17, 2009

Rob Vilar’s Story Time – A Place to Bury Strangers

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS - Exploding Head (Mute Records)

By Rob Vilar

“The Gravitron is one of the best thrill rides on the midway. With the use of centrifugal force, the super spinning motion lifts riders off the floor for a feeling of weightlessness.” –www.midwestmidways.com

***
A carnal love story set in a carnival, present day.

With my water pistol at my side, I wait for the siren’s call to commence the contest. I stare at the clown target. With the shrill ring of the siren to initiate the bout, I immediately draw my pistol and discharge fully onto the target with all the poise and rigour I can muster in this defining moment of carnival games. At the end, when it is all done, I stand there, drenched in the autumn night’s air. The carnie leans over his counter and says to me, “Sorry son, looks like you’ve come in last.” I then hear a familiar voice.

“Nice try sport. Maybe you should give it another go?”

I turn around and there she is—black jacket, black pants, white shoes, and dark shades, smacking her bubble gum. Baby’s in black.

“Sorry I didn’t win you a fucking bear,” I reply, pulling myself together.

“No matter. I’m getting a little anxious here. What you say we go for a ride?” She points to the midway.

I take a few steps towards her, seize her hand, and say, “Let’s go.”

We enter the midway grounds and we’re immediately hit by an onslaught of glitter and din of noise.

“Makes you blind,” she whispers.

We slog through the throngs of nervous parents and idling thrill addicts. We make our way past the mirrored halls, horror houses, and roller coasters to… the starship. Silver and loaded with jewels, it’s lit above with a sign that reads “GRAVITRON.” We watch as it decelerates to a gradual stop and opens its door, emancipating a fog of holiness into the night. She then breaks from me, fires her cigarette, and asks, “Blast off?”

“Space is the place, babe,” I answer and we enter the starship.

Once inside the intergalactic spindle, we notice a DJ sitting at the black hole centre of the ship. Heavily bearded with a dark pair of sunglasses, he leans into his microphone.

“Fellow travellers, take your positions… for tonight’s voyage you will be taken to the stars. There will are no refunds. There will be no looking back. The controls are set to the centre of your soul and the new A Place to Bury Strangers joint Exploding Head is set to spin.”

As we take to our individual seats, the opening psychocandy guitar riff of “Deadbeat” initiates the starship’s revolution. With a burning surge of distortion ripping into the cabin, we begin to feel gravity’s pull. As the drone intensifies, a feeling of weightlessness subverts itself under our feet and we begin to rise. We lift higher and higher with each passing spin, until when we hit the top; then the DJ eases the throttle and mixes into the next track, “Lost Feeling.” The interior lights twinkle on, and it’s heaven. The DJ looks at us and knows he’s got us exactly where he wants us. I notice her singing along. “The feeling is gone, the feeling is gone.”

“I take it you’ve heard this before?” I ask.

“I have, and on vinyl, no less. I don’t go for cheap.”

The DJ goes into a new track, “In Your Heart,” and the ship’s lighting goes from soft to strobe, the perfect prescription. I close my eyes and take in the moment. The song revolves and blurs as images of her smear the foreground of my mind. My rib cage tenses up as I feel my heartbeat rubbing up against the bone. I break into a slow sweat, open my eyes, and then turn to face her. She looks at me and says, “It’s a real shame. I want to touch you, but I can’t.”

“I know what you mean,” I respond. “It’s like when I DJ for the kids, sometimes. They want to touch each other, but somehow, they can’t.”

“How does a situation like this get amended?” she asks.

“DJ’s got to drop it,” I reply.

The starship’s DJ drops “Ego Death,” which kills the BPMs, slows the starship down, and loosens our joints up as we peel ourselves out of our seats and tumble to the floor. We lie there, bruised and sweaty, until she rolls me over onto my backside. She crawls on top of me, readjusts her shades, goes into her purse, and pulls out a pair of plastic fangs. With guitars heated for re-entry and fangs in place, she lunges for my shoulder. A spurt of blood shoots to the moon.

We rest there in a state of bliss, the starship’s deckplates covered in an ever-expanding pool of my blood. It’s only then that I realize that rock ’n’ roll isn’t dead—it just goes round and round…

>>> www.myspace.com/aplacetoburystrangers

>>>www.aplacetoburystrangers.com

December 17, 2009

Weird Shit with Kent Davies – The Weirdos of Winterband

By Kent Davies

Like some kind of ZZ Top fundamentalist doppelganger, Winterband is a bearded Apostolic Pentecostal Christian rock band like no other. Pastor Steve Winter and his son Philip, along with convicts Bobo on bass and Hayseed guitar (the band is part of their work release program), bring a potent, catchy dose of Catholic-hating, sexist, pro-life blues rock that will make you bob and shake your head at the same time. While their music might be progressive, their views are nothing but regressive, creating a considerable WTF? reaction in those who dare to witness the anomaly that is Winterband. Their site features dozens of low-budget rock videos spreading Winter’s dogmatic—and sometimes frightening—worldview. Songs include: “Where Babies Come From,” “Jesus Ain’t No Hippie,” “God Squad” and “Shame, Shame, Shame,” which laments the very serious matter of women speaking in church. The band’s latest release, “Won’t Be Long,” is described by Winter as “a track to entertain the masses and help souls escape the snare of the devil and his polytheistic false-Christianity.” The site also includes insane tirades on the “false-Christian scum” who run Tangle.com (formerly GodTube) which cancelled Winterband’s account due to the incendiary song and video “Don’t Diss Mohammed,” where Winter does nothing but diss Mohammed. To add to the bewildering nature of Winterband they have also have an eight minute epic fantasy rock number entitled “Jesus Died and Went to Hell,” which has a chorus that almost revels in the death of Jesus. All the songs are copyrighted and not to be reproduced because, as Pastor Winter says, copyright laws are held by “various governments with huge armies and bombs and stuff so don’t do anything you shouldn’t.” Other parts of the site include pictures with Winterband fans Senator Zell Miller and former Motown drummer Pete Joyner. Somehow I’m thinking that Joyner and the senator should have reconsidered taking those pictures. (www.winterband.com)

December 3, 2009

Dragonette

Cruisin’ to Bruise
By Sabrina Carnevale
drag
Dragonette singer/songwriter Martina Sorbara epitomizes the almighty frontwoman role by combining a strong undercurrent of sex and swagger with a slinky, flirtatious style. And keeping true to the rock ‘n’ roll way of life, her music career is reminiscent to a string of sexually-charged relationships—the singer has been involved in numerous projects, both on her own and in group settings.

But this time, she’s promoting Dragonette’s sophomore release. And in true Sorbara fashion, she’s doing it while sporting some pretty fantastic spandex.

Continue reading “Dragonette”