Hot and humid out there today. Air’s thick like syrup and the light has this tan coloured particulate quality, polluted and grimy. A wasp flew into my apartment and has been slowly flying in confused angry circles for 10 minutes. I’m hesitant to disturb him. It started raining for a few short minutes and that did nothing but drag down more oppressive heat. Humidity like this doesn’t break, it cracks.
Had the distinct pleasure of watching the Pack AD last night. There’s never any shortage of blues in this city, from the seriously limp white-boy portions served up most nights at the Yale to the odd busker ripping out his best sub-Clapton street corner shtick. For the most part BC should hang its head in collective shame for we are the province that brought you both Colin James and David Gogo. None of our home grown blues has any bite, which is horrible. Phoning it in while playing the blues is like having a loaded .357 and only using it as a paperweight. The Pack AD play some mean blues and the .357 is not only loaded, the safety is off and they're coming for you and your loved ones. Not an ounce of fat on those songs and they're totally free of the ego driven noodling that is the downfall of so very, very many blues songs played by so very, very many white people.
It was a bit of a sloppy performance, there was some confusion over a misplaced bottleneck and some guitar tech issues seemed to have them both a little peeved, but their phenomenal live dynamic was as great as ever and the new album is killer-b.
After an evening of too much drinking I spent most of today reading outside on my balcony, consuming cigarettes and pomegranate juice in equal amounts and listening to the masterpiece that is "Oh Be Joyful" over and over and over. All around the world yet another poncho wearing bastard in a Stevie Ray Vaughn cover band burst into flames while slouching through his set and few people know why. Anyone who hears Funeral Mixtape by the Pack AD knows why. The world is at last beginning to balance itself out.
That is all.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
We Are Our Only Saviors
"I didn’t make this myself but I’m gonna do it. ‘Twas a man he had a pretty wife and she went and losed her mind, about her husband. We’d go out and play for the insane asylum people and they would dance. She was there and her husband would go and sing to her. And two weeks after he sang this song, she came back to her senses and they got back together. That’s to show how music can bring you back….if you ain’t too far gone."
Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter talking about the song Dancing With Tears in my Eyes.
Was there really any point at which a song saved your life or was it just self aggrandizing hyperbole? I’ve spent so much time this week, when I wasn’t sleeping, thinking that there was such a thing as a song that was keeping me alive. Maybe it was me the whole time and the songs were just reminding me.
For the last month I’ve been on a search for a new really great summer album. The album that provides you with a single that gives you a real survival anthem. I’ve combed through the bins at every record store in this sad little city on what I feared was a futile search, and then all of a sudden the great Steve Lee reminds me that the Hold Steady have a new album out and I gave that bastard a listen
Even though at their worst, songs by the Hold Steady just kind of sluggishly relay on power chords and roll along like the worst lay ever, at their best you realize they’re writing hymns. Big power chord fuelled hymns. The kind of songs that can keep you alive. Or that remind you that you need to get out in the street with the kind of people that keep you alive.
I’ve cheated this week and put up You Tube posts when I could have been writing something better. I’ll try to be less lazy in the future. At the best, at least I've kept to a week long theme.
In closing I will give you what I think is the best survival anthem I’ve heard in some time. A very nice reminder. We are our only saviors. Let's see how I do next week.
Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter talking about the song Dancing With Tears in my Eyes.
Was there really any point at which a song saved your life or was it just self aggrandizing hyperbole? I’ve spent so much time this week, when I wasn’t sleeping, thinking that there was such a thing as a song that was keeping me alive. Maybe it was me the whole time and the songs were just reminding me.
For the last month I’ve been on a search for a new really great summer album. The album that provides you with a single that gives you a real survival anthem. I’ve combed through the bins at every record store in this sad little city on what I feared was a futile search, and then all of a sudden the great Steve Lee reminds me that the Hold Steady have a new album out and I gave that bastard a listen
Even though at their worst, songs by the Hold Steady just kind of sluggishly relay on power chords and roll along like the worst lay ever, at their best you realize they’re writing hymns. Big power chord fuelled hymns. The kind of songs that can keep you alive. Or that remind you that you need to get out in the street with the kind of people that keep you alive.
I’ve cheated this week and put up You Tube posts when I could have been writing something better. I’ll try to be less lazy in the future. At the best, at least I've kept to a week long theme.
In closing I will give you what I think is the best survival anthem I’ve heard in some time. A very nice reminder. We are our only saviors. Let's see how I do next week.
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