The Schizophrenic Coffee House

Just a quick one today. Lately my posts have dealt with music in culture or reviews or some such nonsense. There are a few reasons for this. Number one, I tend to get more random Google hits by talking about bands that people actually care about, which more often than not are not the bands that I play with. Number the second, I haven’t been playing that much lately. Critical Mass’ regular drummer is back from baby-hiatus, my audition with that other band still has to happen (got an email the other week assuring me that it will happen, perhaps not any time soon) and I haven’t had any calls from any of my other musical suitors.

This past Saturday, however, was officially one of the weirdest shows I ever played. The Runaway got asked to play a coffee house in Hamilton and asked me along, which I obliged. It was going to be a little more chill than usual so we put together more of a stripped down set: two songs with beats, one with guitar and one with djembe.

What made it bizarre was the other acts. I don’t know what the advisor’s concept of the evening would be, but here are the acts in the order I may or may not remember:

-- My friend Sara playing some folksy stuff, starting with a song about lemon meringue pie set to the tune of “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane”

-- A spoken word poet who did poems about, and backed by classical symphonies

-- A trio of Spanish youth singing songs in Spanish and “other historical Hispanic languages”

-- A stand up comedian who hated public transit

-- A woman singing songs in Serbian

-- A diminutive Asian tenor in a tuxedo singing opera in Italian

-- Another spoken word poet whose final piece centered on a pair of talking shoes that he owned

-- Us!

The show itself was decent. I absolutely maimed a few chords in one song, but got it back by the end.

OK, OK, enough of my meager musical existence. Something funny where I (something small) make fun of something in the music industry (something big) on Friday.

Review: Christopher O'Riley's True Love Waits and Hold Me To This

I'm almost embarrassed to be writing this review. Nothing says trend follower more than loving gimmicky albums, and this is about as gimmicky as they come.

Christopher O'Riley is a classical pianist who hass a deep appreciation of Radiohead. So much so that he, like Finnish all-cello Metallica cover band Apocalyptica, decided to merge his classical skills with his modern appreciation.

O'Riley and Apocalyptica. So alike...yet so, so different.

The first fruit of this genre-melding was 2003's True Love Waits: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead. On it, O'Riley picks a little bit from every album up until that point (excluding 2003's Hail To The Thief). What impressed me right off the bat was his song selection. It would have been easy to do Radiohead's greatest hits, but there are a few popular songs evident by their absence (the most obvious being Pablo Honey's "Creep"). O'Riley chose songs based on their evocative merit, including lesser-known tracks like "You", "I Can't", Black Star" and so on.

That isn't to say that this is a catalogue of b-sides: even casual fans know "Fake Plastic Trees" and "Karma Police". And while it's true that some tracks work better than others, you never get the sense that O'Riley felt he should include something that people will know. His credibilty as an arragner and as a music appreciator grows track by track. He evokes all the fury, hopelessness and navel-gazing that Radiohead is famous for while ably absorbing each melody and harmony into the medium of classical piano. Personal favourites from this album include "Airbag" and "Exit Music (For A Film)".

O'Riley followed up in just under two years time with 2005's Hold Me To This: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead. The album focuses much more on Radiohead's modern era, taking nothing from Pablo Honey and only "(Nice Dream)" and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"from The Bends. It's evident that O'Riley has hit his stride by this point; he seems more willing to take chances with the material, adding in crescendos and decrescendos and even sprinkling in his own counter-melodies. Fortunately, any tendencies O'Riley has towards aggressive arrangement are tempered by a nigh-reverence for his source material, resulting in an almost perfect blend of styles. The only fly in the ointment is "2+2=5", specifically the bridge. A one-note dischordant bridge is fine in experimental rock, but on the piano it's going to sound like your finger slipped no matter how many times you do it on purpose. With that aside, however, everything else is gold. I especially love "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and "The Tourist".

I don't think anyone can go wrong on these albums. It's great music for background at dinner parties, to study to, or to listen to intently. Fans of Radiohead are especially encouraged to pick this up, as it adds a whole new dimension to the songs while maintining their original flavour.

Here's a clip of Mr. O'Riley in action:

I should also mention that there is a jazz pianist named Brad Mehldau who does some Radiohead covers. Here's him doing the same song:

Mehldau also covers "Paranoid Android" and "Knives Out". His covers outside of Radiohead include Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun", Oasis' "Wonderwall" and the Beatles' "Blackbird".

Peace!

Best Music Movies II

2. That Thing You Do! (dir Tom Hanks, 1996)
Four kids from Erie, Pennsylvania (not Eerie, Indiana) write a hit song in the 1950s and embark on a whirlwind tour with other acts on their record label. In between times, the drummer falls in love and the guitarist falls in lust.

I really think every drummer in the world must love that movie. The drummer adds the part that makes the song a hit. The drummer impresses everyone on tour. The drummer gets the girl. What's not to like? The cool thing about this film is that they hired actors to play all the parts and then trained them to play their instruments...which they all do very, very well. I couldn't see through any of their performances and their characters are even evident in the way they play their instruments: Guy's jazz/rock hybrid drumming, Lenny's cocky lead guitar moves, Jimmy's stay-at-home brooding rhythm guitar.

Best Song: "That Thing You Do" (The Wonders)

Best Dialogue: PHOTOGRAPHER: Hey, you in the Linettes [sunglasses]. Are those prescription or are you just trying to look cool?

GUY: Uh, well, I am the drummer.

Star Spotting: Where to begin? Lots of actors I love in this movie. Liv Tyler and Ethan Embry of Empire Records fame are reunited here. Tyler plays the smart yet somewhat naive Faye in a departure from Empire's smart yet somewhat naive Rory. Embry does a total 180 from Mark's goofy stoner vibe as the nameless and quiet bass player. Tom Hanks is fantastic in his role as the Wonders' manager. I have a serious man-crush on Steve Zahn, mostly because of this movie. I would never watch him in a lead role but he never disappoints in a supporting role. A pre-Monster Charlize Theron plays Guy's soon-to-be ex girlfriend, while Giovanni Ribisi has a small role as the Wonders' ex-drummer. The only other major cameos of note are Tom Hanks' wife as a cocktail waitress who flirts with Guy, and his son Colin in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it apppearance escorting Faye into the television studio.

1. Once (dir. John Carney, 2007)

I have yet to find anyone who didn't love this film, but since I hang out with mostly musicians and this is definitely a musician's film that isn't surprising. Once details the creative synergy and budding romance between two unlikely and unremarkable people -- a busker in Dublin, Ireland and an eastern European expatriate who plays piano. The audience never finds out their names, but we do get to watch them write and record some fantastic songs.

What's really interesting about this film for me is how the movie was shot. The two leads ar eeplayed by Glen Hansard (remember The Commitments?) and Marketa Irglova, neither of whom are actors (if you saw The Commitments, you know of what I speak). In order to create as natural a space as possible for them to feel comfortable, Carney uses mostly long shots (like, across the street long shots) and it gives the film an odd voyeuristic quality.

The songs are fantstic. After seeing this movie on a Thursday, my fiancee and I went to the mall early Friday to pick up the soundtrack for our road trip the net day, even though it made us late for our soundcheck (sorry Jon!).

Best Song: "When Your Mind's Made Up" (Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova)

Best Dialogue: Actually, it's hard to remember any. Lyrics maybe? "The little cracks, they escalated/And before we knew it was too late/For making circles and telling lies".

Star Spotting: None. None whatsoever.

And that's it! Honourable mention has to go to A Mighty Wind.

If you feel I missed one, let me know.

Best Music Movies

In the spirit of my Nick and Norah's review, I thought I would post my top five music-related movies of all time (in no particular order).

5. Empire Records (1995, dir. Allan Moyle)
Ah, the 90s. What a time to be alive. Cell phones were the size of surfboards, The Simpsons were funny, and people bought their music in disc-or-tape form. This day-in-the-life record store movie is wildly unrealistic (case in point: when I worked in a record store one of our first questions was “why do you want this job?” If the interviewee even mentioned this movie, they were shown the door), but so much fun to watch. The plot careens between ridiculously corny to ridiculously overdramatic, the characters are more like caricatures and you can totally tell that guy doesn’t know how to drum, but in spite of its deficiencies it’s extremely endearing.
It also suffers from that interesting mid-90s disease where the soundtrack was so much better than the movie: Gin Blossoms, Better Than Ezra, Evan Dando, Cranberries, and so on. It’s a perfect period piece, and I like to think it would be made the exact same way today if someone was making a movie about a mid-90s record store.
Best Song: "Sugarhigh" (Coyote Shivers)

Best Dialogue: MARK (answering phone): Empire Records, open til midnight. (pause) MIDNIGHT!
Star Spotting: Renee Zellweger and Liv Tyler are the two biggest names associated with this one. Second tier names include Ethan Embry (credited as Ethan Randall) and Rory Cochrane. GWAR cameos. Tobey Maguire had a part but requested during filming that he be released for health reasons, so all his scenes were cut.

4. DiG! (2004, dir. Ondi Timoner)
This is a documentary detailing two “brother” bands, the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. They start out being pals and doing shows together, but the Dandies ascend to international rock stardom while the BJM repeatedly fail to reach the same heights, usually as a result of drug-induced meltdowns from their lead singer and musical hub, Anton Newcombe.
I have watched this movie over and over. I watched it with my fiancée a few months ago and she enjoyed it, but she couldn’t understand why I’d want to see it more than once. It’s the same reason I don’t ask a certain band who I haven’t worked with in months to take me off their email admin list: I love observing the inner workings of bands, and to see to stark contrasts in styles of band management is very interesting.
For the record, Newcombe has distanced himself from and attacked DiG! at every opportunity, calling it “"at best, a series of punch-ups and mishaps taken out of context, and at worst, bald-faced lies and misrepresentation of fact”. Of course, this is the guy who also said “people talk about Eric Clapton. What has he ever done except throw his baby off a fucking ledge and write a song about it?” and called Chris Carabba “the poster child for legalized abortion”, so find truth where you will.
Best Song: "The Ballad of Jim Jones" (Brian Jonestown Massacre)

Best Dialogue: ONDI: Is that blood on you?
ANTON: Yeah.
ONDI: From where?
ANTON: From other people’s FACES!
Star Spotting: Not a lot. There's a quick sequence at the Glastonbury festival with a bunch of performers talking to the Dandies, including Kim Deal of the Breeders and Scott and Patrick from Weezer. Harry Dean Stanton also shows up at a BJM house party. And, uh, Mercury Rev? Yup.

3. The Commitments (1991, dir. Alan Parker)
Based on a Roddy Doyle novel of the same name, The Commitments traces a group of 20-something Dubliners in the mid-80s as they decide to form a 60s-style soul band. That was alot of decades in that last sentence. They play, they suck, they get better, they fight…it’s a pretty honest representation of being in a band. The acting is somewhere between passable and awful (they decided to get musicians who could kind of act instead of actors who could learn how to play: the opposite of That Thing You Do) and the dialogue is pretty rigid in parts, but it's still fun. Espcially if you're Irish. And in a band. You can see why I like it.

Best Song: "Try A Little Tenderness" (The Commitments)
Best Dialogue: OUTSPAN: Where'd you get the piano?
STEPHEN: It's me granny's.
OUTSPAN: That was nice of her.
STEPHEN: She doesn't know I took it.
OUTSPAN: Won't she notice?
STEPHEN: She doesn't use the front room much.
Star Spotting: Colm Meaney, better known as Chief O'Brien from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 plays Jimmy's father ( or "da" in the local parlance). 18 year old Glen Hansard plays Derek "Outspan" Foster; he would later go on to form the Frames and the Swell Season. He later starred in the movie Once (more on that later). And Bronagh Gallagher, who plays Bernie, later played the starship captain who gets blown up in the first 10 minutes of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Andrea Corr of the Corrs got a small part as Jimmy's sister. Her siblings, who form the rest of the Corrs, also cameo as musicians auditioning for the band. The relationship they established with the music coordinator on The Commitments later helped them secure their first record deal. Finally, the skateboarding kid who tries to audition from the street is the same kid on the cover of U2's Boy and War albums.


Wow, that's a lot. I'll save my other two for next time.

News of the Week

Tokyo Police Club Heart Housewives
From the “who said who to what?” file, Tokyo Police Club will be appearing on an episode of Desperate Housewives in November. Huh? Where’s the connect here? Do people who like TPC like that show? Does anyone like that show (besides Mr. Eva Longoria)?
I understand market synergy. Veronica Mars and the Dandy Warhols made sense, since the show and the band have similar audiences and would cross-promote well. Feist on Sesame Street is a bit more of a stretch, until you consider that she appeals to 25-40 year olds, many of whom have small children. Imagine what this cross-promotion can do! I can’t wait until my next TPC show so I can rub shoulders with velour-tracksuit-havin’, large-jewelry-wearin’, faux-martini-drinkin’ moms. IT WILL HAPPEN. THE TELEVISION WILL MAKE IT SO.

Noel Gallagher Hearts Bono, Hypocrisy

Noel Gallagher probably talks trash in his sleep. The most recent victim of the mouthy Briton is Keane, whom he branded “shit” in a recent interview.

Know who he does like? Bono. "People will not accept that Bono is sincere - in this cynical age, they think he's really just a cunt. But he's not."

You damn skippy, Noel! Screw cynicism! Screw people who say stuff about Radiohead like “Thom Yorke sat at a piano singing ‘this is fucked up’ for half an hour. We all know that, Mr. Yorke. Who wants to sing the news? No matter how much you sit there twiddling, going, ‘we’re all doomed’, at the end of the day people will always want to hear you play “Creep”. Get over it”. Or people who say stuff about Bono himself like “play “One”, shut the fuck up about Africa.” Or people who are all cynical about stuff like Live 8:

“‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but are they hoping that one of these guys from the G8 is on a quick 15-minute break at Gleneagles and sees Annie Lennox singing “Sweet Dreams” and thinks, “Fuck me, she might have a point there, you know?” And Keane doing “Somewhere Only We Know” and some Japanese businessman going, ‘aw, look at him…we should really fucking drop that debt, you know.’ It’s not going to happen, is it?”

Wait, who was that cynical bastard? Oh, right, it was Noel Gallagher. Oh yes it was. Hey Noel, how many faces do you have again?

Tom DeLonge Hearts Not Talking (Finally)

Tom DeLonge, currently of Angels and Airwaves and formerly of Blink 182, has made a rare trip on the logic train. On the subject of Barker’s horrific plane crash and subsequent burns, DeLonge said: “Everyone wants to know what I think and it’s not about me. It’s not about Tom at all. It’s not about Blink at all. It’s about Travis and his family, you know, so stop worrying about what I feel or what I think or what I say because at this point it doesn’t matter.”

I once read a great interview with Mark Hoppus on Blink’s breakup that made DeLonge come off like a total space cadet. I then read a rebuttal interview with DeLonge, where he STILL came off like a total space cadet. This quote is one step towards restoring my opinion. Which I’m sure is important to him.

Review: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

What can I say? I get a couple of blogs under my belt and suddenly I’m rife with ideas to post.

I’m a sucker for movies about bands and music, so much so that I’m probably going to do a post on it sometime soon. So when I heard about the premise for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, I was immediately interested. Two people running all over new York City looking for a band, while sharing their favourite music with each other along the way? One of them is Michael Cera? And he’s playing bass? Sweet!

You could tell that whoever wrote the movie has watched a lot of Linklater stuff, specifically Dazed and Confused. Very similar setup, with the characters and their respective roles (the bitchy ex, the drunken flirt, the moody loner, the heartbroken good guy, etc.) coming into focus within five minutes. The plot? Two groups of friends chasing a legendary band to a secret gig in New York City. The first group is Michael Cera’s band in New Jersey, who are two-thirds gay (Cera being the lone hetero). The other group is three upper-class high school senior girls, one of who is Cera’s ex named Tris who cheated on him consistently during their 6 month relationship (not that he knows). Cera’s Nick is the focus of his group, and Kat Dennings’ smarty-pantsed-alt-loner-misfit-etc. Norah is the focus of hers.

The premise is fantastic, but the execution is awful. What could have been a well-paced love letter to the New York indie scene becomes a frat-pack party movie. Norah’s best friend drinks herself stupid and spends the remainder of the film stumbling around New York at night by herself, throwing up in ice cream coolers and following pantsless strangers into buildings (of course I’m not kidding). She makes a ton of ridiculously dangerous decisions, and it’s kind of hard to laugh at the possibilities of a drunk, flirtatious teenage girl talking to strangers in the bus station. This unease is accented after Nick is accosted by homeless people (Andy Samberg in a somewhat amusing but pointless cameo).

The meat of the film is supposed to be Nick and Norah’s romance. Norah is half in love with Nick because of all the amazing mix CDs he made for Tris after their breakup. After a chance meeting at a bar, Nick’s bandmates decide he and Norah should be together and arrange it so the two of them spend the night together looking for Where’s Fluffy, a fictitious New York band famous for their guerilla-style show promotion. Of course, spending time together makes them fall in love. Or makes them realize they’ve always been in love. Or something. I’m not quite sure. I do know that sometimes they like each other, then sometimes they hate each other, and sometimes one of them punches the other in the throat, and I was never quite sure why.

None of the performances stood out for me. Michael Cera is either a one-note actor or he’s being typecast, early-Jim-Carrey-style. Baffingly, the director chose to use the most base parts of Cera’s trademark persona (the nervousness, the don’t-hurt-me smiles) and denied us the best parts: namely, those improved stream-of-consciousness rambles that always seem to become his most quotable lines.

Denning’s character is what it is. The script doesn’t allow for the characters to follow their emotions logically (not even teenage drunk/hormonal logic) so it’s hard to know wheterh the suck started at the acting, the directing or the writing.

This might be one of those Romeo and Juliet things where you buy the soundtrack even though the movie is terrible. I picked out Vampire Weekend and We Are Scientists during the show. Further research indicates that Shout Out Louds, the Dead 60s, and Takka Takka will also be on the soundtrack (Tapes n’ Tapes will not be on the disc, although I swear I heard them at one point).

So yeah, I give Nick and Norah a 2 out of 5.

News of the Week

Item 1: Chris Martin Hearts Nickelback, But Not Coldplay
You read that right. I’ve been hating on Coldplay for years, a stance which I’ve softened a bit over the last little while due partially to my cheerful, sunny disposition and due to the fact that my fiancée loves them. Fortunately, Chris Martin has done me a solid by admitting in an interview that his band is “less shit” than they used to be, proving that there is a shit-to-not-shit ratio in effect in Coldplay currently, and it used to be higher. I’ll guess somewhere around the 200:1 mark, but that’s just hypothetical.

In the same interview Martin admits to liking Nickelback, giving me further proof that he knows very little about music. It’s too bad it’s to late it’s too bad it’s too WHOOOAAAA-OOOOOHHHHH.

Oh, AND he proved that he’s a bit of a jerk by saying that people who don’t like Nickleback have done “fuck-all” with their lives. We can’t all be in the Nappies, Chris.

Truthfully, Chris Martin seems to be a nice enough guy and I'm sure he was just standing up for a band who get trashed by everyone. Saying that Nickelback haters haven't done "fuck all" with their lives, however, is pretty nasty. I like to think I've done a lot: I started this blog, I once saw'r a blimp, and I started this blog. But even I cannot lay claim to travelling backwards in time to the mid 90s to buy my wardrobe and get my hair cut:

I bow to your superiority, Chad and co.

Item 2: Thieves Don’t Heart Elton John
According the the CBC, a bunch of cars were broken into during an Elton John concert in Newfoundland. Two men were arrested for theft and “malicious damage”, which leads me to believe that there was some serious hate-on for Sir Elton that went beyond simple "let's see if we can get a copy of Candle In The Wind 2001 for free" thievery. I’m guilty of Elton John hating as well, but I didn’t break into any cars when he was in Kitchener.

Music confounds me sometime. I find Sir Elton’s songs to be banal at best, annoying at worst, but to read the comments of concertgoers as they left the venue you’d think that God hisownself had stepped down from the clouds to play “Rocketman”. I guess it takes different strokes to move the world.

Item 3: People I Kind Of Know Heart The Polaris Prize
The Polaris Prize was decided this week, and two artists I have very slight connections to were nominated. Shad, who I opened for last November, was up for The Old Prince. Caribou, who is friends with my ex, was up for Andorra. Ultimately Caribou won, proving that the closer you are to knowing me the more likely you are to win Canadian music awards. Or something.

Item 4: New Kids Heart Meaningless Words
The New Kids On The Block (yes, THOSE New Kids On The Block) have released a new album called The Block. Is it the same Block that they are on? Or is it a different Block altogether? No one’s quite sure.

It’s getting diced up in reviews, and having listened to some of the tracks I can see why. At the end of their run in the 90s they tried te be more sexually explicit to appeal to the most desperate members of their fan base mature, which got them laughed out of the industry for a decade. Have they learned? Noooooooo. The Block is rife with sexual innuendo, imagery and out-and-out audio foreplay. My favourite track (read: track I laughed at the most) is “Sexify My Love”. Sexify? I may hate myself later for asking, but what does it mean to sexify something? Can anything be sexified? Sandwiches? Lawn rakes? Stress balls? (OK, maybe that one…)

Not content with putting a ridiculous non-word in the title and chorus, in the first verse the Kids reveal that they want to “conversate“ before getting’ it on. You know, instead of conversing.

Man, those hats are so....sexified.