The Rural Alberta Advantage

Sticking with the Canadian precedent that Rob established with his Metric post, I present you The Rural Alberta Advantage (or the RAA as the cool kids say). I found this band by scanning through the recommended Chicago area shows on Oh My Rockness, which is a great site for discovering new music and shows. The RAA is an indie folk rock group that, according to the band, plays songs about "hometowns and heartbreak, born out of images from growing up in Central and Northern Alberta." This three piece group, actually based in Toronto, Ontario, consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Nils Edenloff, drummer Paul Banwatt, and Amy Cole on percussion and vocals. The RAA formed in 2005 and was unsigned until being picked up by Saddle Creek Records in early May. Their only full length album, Hometowns, was self-released last summer and will be re-released by Saddle Creek in July. They kicked off a tour on May 22nd which will extend through August and include stops in New York, Madison, San Francisco, and Chicago (I believe this covers the areas we all currently live in, no Boston, but New York is fairly close).

I will be attending the Madison show because Hometowns is a great album that spans an admirable range of musical styles. The opener "The Ballad of the RAA" utilizes electronic beats, Banwatt's quick hands on the kit, and Edenloff's emotional moan to create a techno-folk sound. The snappy Ryan Adams-esque alt country "Rush Apart" follows and gives the first taste of the harmonizing between Edenloff and Cole which helps distinguish the album. "The Dethbridge in Lethbridge" is a powerful indie rock tune with punk influences. "Don't Haunt this Place" shows what Banwatt is really made of. His spirited drumming gives some attitude to balance out the beauty produced by the cello and harmonies. Another indie rock gem is provided with "Drain the Blood", which really picks up about a minute in with the help of a riff that sounds like it was borrowed from Rise Against's "Prayer of the Refugee". "Frank, AB" is a chilling song about a Rocky Mountain landslide that occurred in Frank, Alberta in the early 1900s, killing 76 people. The album closes with the gentler "In the Summertime" which reminds me of something Vampire Weekend might come up with. Overall, Hometowns is a diverse and impressive debut and, even if it's not really your style, I encourage you guys to check them out live.

I don't really know what the hell's going on in this video, but it's a good song.


I'm posting two versions of this one. The first for sound quality and the second so you can see how much ass Banwatt kicks on the drums.





Rise Against at 0:55 Anyone?

Bomb Design?

I was hesitant to publish this post as this is one of my favorite secret bands. This was one of those golden moments in a music enthusiast’s life where you truly believe you found the band. A friend didn’t say, “Hey, check this out!”, you didn’t hear it on your local college radio station, and they didn’t open for a band of a similar genera. I was on a Tsunami Bomb kick and was wondering what the band was up to lately, I found out they had disbanded in 2005 and that Emily Whitehurst, Agent M, was working on a “new project”. In case you are not familiar with Agent M’s voice, it is a lot like taking the exhaust off of Ferrari, unshackled awesomeness (like a Punk version of Neko Case, more on her another day). Agent M ends up forming The Action Design and releasing a 6 song EP, I was instantly hooked. Their sound is a bit softer than Tsunami Bomb’s with more dance rifs and amazing sing-a-long choruses. The best way to enjoy The Action Design is to align you Dad’s old tower speakers 8 inches away facing each other, then turning your stereo on 11 and lie on the floor with your head in-between them.

The Action Design:

Hook: Landmines –Never Say
Line: Eyes On Me – Into A Sound
Line (2): Ten Feet Of Snow – Never Say
Sinker: Empty Face – Never Say

Nameless

Silversun Pickups - Swoon

Pretty sweet stuff. At first I was upset that none of the songs are as driving and hooky as the single, "Panic Switch," but this album is definitely a grower. Don't care much for the first 3, but 4-10 are cool...great for listening to while reading or something like that. Sometimes the songs are a little guilty of being a minute-and-a-half too long (not because I have a short attention span...they lose their momentum a little), but other than that, worth the purchase.

Besides "Panic Switch," try "Sort of": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhasl65PRg4

Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown

Not quite what I was looking for. I thought American Idiot was great - a punk-rock concept album. This one though is a little different...the band strays away from it's punk roots a bit and calls on a bunch of classic rock influences. There's a little more fanfare to the songs and they're just not as catchy - not many of them would stand alone. Not terrible by any means, just not what I want from Green Day - a definite download.

Try "Last of the American Girls": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qd07K-waMw

The Song I Jacked from Rob

Rob played this song for me last weekend, and it's awesome. I'm sure you've all heard the strokesy single by Vampire Weekend, but have you heard any of the other songs?

One of the best sounds nothing like the one from the radio and is called, "The Kids Don't Stand A Chance."

Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqokTb7TvI

Operation Ivy: 20th Anniversary

It's be a full two decades since Op Ivy changed the face of ska-punk with their first and only full-length recording. Check out one of my favorite songs ever, "Sound System," below. I'm usually not a words person, but they're important in this one.

Half of the band is touring this summer as Rancid and will be appearing with Rise Against at Summerfest in Milwaukee and at the House of Blues in Boston. If you can make the shows, I HIGHLY recommend it...I'm hitting up the Oakland show myself in July. While great live, Rancid may be harder to enjoy for someone unfamilier with their catalog of songs. Rise Against, on the other hand, puts on an awesome rock show that is accessible to anyone.

Bret Michaels, Timeline of Rock

So this new job I just started becomes more and more hilarious as each week goes on. Sunday I raffled off tickets to a Def Leppard/Cheap Trick/Poison concert next month at a BBQ Cook-off Festival in the middle of Chicago's west burbs. Yesterday I was called in to work a shift before the Cubs game at Wrigley passing out ponchos. And tomorrow night, it all culminates in the "Jack After Dark Concert Series" featuring none other than Mr. Bret Michaels.

Now I know this blog is for introducing new music, but I wanted to do some research before meeting the guy who made "Talk Dirty To Me" a catchphrase and felt I had to share my findings. Below is a Timeline of Rock:

1969 - Bret Michaels diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at age 6.

1983 - Poison forms, moves to LA, and gets paid to play at The Troubador.

1987 - Bret Michaels is sued by a publicist from rival record label Geffen after he pours a pot of boiling water on her boobs. 3rd Degree Burn Hilarity ensues.

1989 - Poison is the fifth best selling Rock group of the '80s behind the Crue, Def Leppard, JBJ, and GNR.

1991 - Michaels gets in a fistfight with lead guitarist CC DeVille at the MTV Awards after DeVille is so drugged up he switches songs halfway through the performance.

1994 - Bret gets into a crazy high speed car accident in his Ferrari breaking his nose, jaw, fingers, ribs, and loses four teeth.

1998 - He makes a movie with Charlie Sheen, because they're BFFs.

2005 - Sex tape of Michaels and Pamela Anderson hits the internet.

2006 - Poison reunites. Releases a Greatest Hits Album. It goes platinum. Twice.

2007 - Bret starts Rock of Love where a bunch of whores vie for his attention.

March 28th, 2009 - Chris meets Bret Michaels and tells him how rock he is.


I mean seriously - high speed Ferrari accident, MTV fistfight, Pamela Anderson sex tape, and his best friend is Charlie Sheen. AND he has diabetes. As much as I hate to admit it, Bret Michaels is pretty rock.


Except for this:

Oh Canada...

In the land of our neighbors to the north there exists a a fine balance of good and evil (think of Neo and Agent Smith canceling each other out). They give us Rush then kick us in the face with Celine, our ears bleed listening to Three Days Grace and Bare Naked Ladies then are sutured up with some Sum 41 and Avril (sorry guilty pleasure). It seems that Metric is Canada's answer to Nickleback, yeah, they are THAT good. Their fourth album, Fantasies (2009), is a continuation of their tried and true recipe of 1 part catchy chorus, synth laden fun (Help I'm Alive) and 1 part melodic late night driving songs (Collect Call).

As this is my first post, I will give my format some introduction. I will say very little about the band (I have no music background other than listening to a lot of it, plus you probably don't care) and then give you some music to listen to because that is why we are here.

The breakdown:
-Hook: One of the band's accessible songs (often a single)
-Line: Something that will get you a little more interested
-Sinker: Often my favorite song, but may take a few listenings to get it (think first time you heard Weezer - Say it Ain't So)

Metric:

Hook: The Police and the Private - Live It Out
Line: Dead Disco - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?
Sinker: Waves (B-Side) - Fantasies

Please Just Sound Like Rage

Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, The Nightwatchman) just can't keep his guitar to himself - he's got another new side project going on called Street Sweeper Social Club, this time with The Coup's Boot's Riley (yeah, I've never heard of him either, but then again I typically like music played with electric guitars).

Something just doesn't seem right about it though. The songs typically open with Tom's guitar ripping through your face as always, but the intensity drops as soon as Boots starts in on the mic.
It's kind of how I felt about Zach's (de la Rocha; Rage) side project One Day As A Lion. Zach brought it on the mic, but Jon Theodore ( ex- Mars Volta drummer) plays a pretty standard and boring drum line behind him, and the guitars sound like they are done by a computer.

I think that's why Tom and Zach went so well together in Rage...hopefully they'll figure that out sooner or later and end up on another album together.
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One of my favorite things in the world is 90's melodic skake-punk in the Bad Religion mold, which is why I went nuts when Swedish vetrans No Fun At All announced they would be throwing together a new album just a few short years after calling it quits.

It's got all the layered buzz-saw guitars, melodic ooo's and ahhh's, and 2-minute song times (for the ADD-inclined) you've come to expect from the genre.

My favorite song by far on the album is called "Neverending Stream" and can be checked out here (avoid the accoustic version; it wasn't made for that). Awesome awesome AWESOME song.

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Next Week: Just got the new Green Day and Silversun Pickups albums and will put up something about those. If you haven't heard the new SS single, check it out below:

The Thermals

I read a pretty favorable review of The Thermals' fourth album Now We Can See, in the April edition of Spin, so I decided to download it. It proved to be a catchy, foot-stompin' bukkake of garage rock, power pop, and some punk. Unfortunately, I later heard that the title track was featured on an episode of Chuck, which probably makes them less cool, but forget I brought that up. A few days later, I saw that they were playing the High Noon Saloon here in Madison, so I picked up a ticket.



The concert was on a Tuesday night, so I stayed sober, I went alone because all my music loving friends have left town, and I was a little grossed out because the basist was wearing a sleveless shirt and she clearly had not shaved her armpits in a long while, but it was still one of the more enjoyable shows I can recall seeing. A few songs into their set, the crowd, strongly consisting of indie and hipster kids, really got into it. Oddly enough, the soft-core moshing began to break out during "Test Pattern", a slower tune from their 2006 album The Body, The Blood, The Machine. It was great to be a part of that kind of energy without the real threat of getting the shit kicked out of me like at Rage's Lollapalooza show last summer. From that point on, the trio (Hutch Harris on vocals and guitar, Kathy Foster on bass, and drummer of the week Westin Glass) from Portland, OR blasted through a solid setlist, including the more memorable "A Pillar Of Salt," "Returning To The Fold," "Here's Your Future (this was apparently featured on Weeds and turns out to be a great song to hurl your body into another human being to)," "No Culture Icons," "When I Was Afraid," and the slightly slower, less frantic cut off the new one "How We Fade."

Before you start listening to them, I'd like to point out that some of their lyrics contain religious references. Don't let that scare you into thinking they are a Christian band. They use these references to criticize Christian facism. I'll not comment on the state of the church but, musically speaking, protest songs are generally way better than songs of praise. I mean Creed really sucks and I think these guys are pretty rockin'.



This is the only video for "Here's Your Future" I could find that didn't have terrible sound quality.

DJ Axel - Breakin' The Law

I got bored and did two...

Ever since Girl Talk rocked my face off at Lollapalooza 2008, I've been attracted to the art of the mashup. There's a guy who spins at The Apartment in Lincoln Park every Thursday who tries his best, but it just goes to show not everyone can put two songs together and have it make sense. The guy also told me "No Diggity" was a terrible song, so he obviously doesn't know much about music anyway. Because that is the single greatest song ever recorded by humans. Fact.

Regardless of my hatred for the posers who doubt the skills of Blackstreet, there are a select few out there who really show that sampling is an art form that deserves some credit. DJ Axel is one of those few. His 2007 album Breakin' The Law has some of the best one-on-one masups out there mixing people like Jay-Z & GNR in "Guns N' Hovas", Snoop Dogg & Stevie Wonder in "Snooperstition", and Lupe & Bob Marley in "Could You Be Kicked, Pushed & Loved" (below). The one that really got the preparty dance off going in our apartment last week was the "Real Back Poppin'" that is similar to the up-tempo Girl Talk mixes that really put the mashup scene on the map.

I'm not going to tell you how to throw a party, but music is a huge component of any get together. Probably just as important as beverages and chickies. From basement blowout to backyard BYOB BBQ – the soundtrack is all but necessary. And like Girl Talk, Breakin' the Law has something on there for everybody.

This post is really for Mark in case he was looking for some new tunes to pop & lock it to.

more info: website; myspace

DJ Axel - "Could You Be Kicked, Pushed & Loved"

Go Jimmy Go - Hawaiian Ska

When you think Hawaiian music scene, it's hard to get the image of an extremely obese Israel Kamakawiwo'ole out of your head; his giant belly rolls enveloping his comparatively smaller ukulele like an ocean of saturated fat. But the Islands actually have a ton to offer beside hula and Go Jimmy Go is one of those golden acts that have yet to really hit the main land despite being around for over a decade. Boasting a style that includes a little reggae, ska, and rocksteady '70s soul infused with some Pacific flavor this is definitely something worth checking out for summer driving music.

The band has been around since 1996 where they met as house musicians at a club near the University of Hawaii. The slower tempo is a throwback to the early days of Jamaican ska and sounds more like a backing band for Rick James than the horn-rock you'd see at Warped Tour – or as I call it, "The Emotastic J-High Festival".

What sets the band apart from other ska acts is not only the unique voice that Jason "Bison" Freidman brings to the mic, but their propensity to play originals rather than crazy covers. While this may be the reason they haven't blown up with radio play like other ska acts, it also means they have more class than to cover a Lil Wayne song just to sell some records. Looking at you Framing Hanley, you no-talent ass clowns.

The album that I'm playing on repeat right now is their 2003 release, Soul Arrival. Stand out tracks include the 60s "Good To You", the my-girlfriend-threw-me-out ballad "Bang the Skillet", and funk-ska combo "In Between Times" that borrows the chorus melody from one-hit-wonder King Floyd's "Groove Me". UH, oooh sookie sookie naw.

It was sunny here in Chicago on Thursday and I threw this one on the car stereo – didn't even notice that I sat in traffic for over an hour and a half. Well, I mean, I noticed. But I didn't care. As much.

More info - website; myspace

Go Jimmy Go - "Push Me Out"