Favourite Year-End Favourite

I always love reading The A.V. Club's Year In Band Names.

Awesome Beatles radio show

From about a month ago, here's a very cool episode of NPR's All Songs Considered about the Beatles' self-titled double album, a.k.a. The White Album.

On this edition of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen talks with Bruce Spizer, author of The Beatles On Apple Records, about the groundbreaking White Album and how it came to be.

Very interesting listen for Beatles fans and music fans in general.

Goldfrapp on the brain

I've been listening to this song a ton since reading the PopMatters top singles of the year. I totally missed this one, but I've certainly made up for it since.

Why Prince is still the king

There's a couple of artists with gender bending tracks on the pop charts right now, coincidentally under the same major label control. Usher's "Trading Places" and Beyonce's "If I Were a Boy" offer some very interesting commentary of what the lowest common denominator really is.

Usher's chorus talks about what's going down "tonight", but clearly the events in the song take place over a couple of days. Let's have a little consistency here if you're going to try and convince me that Usher doesn't actually have his maid make his dates coffee and jelly and all that. And, I can't wait for part two. Can't wait.

Beyonce goes for heaps of melodrama. I'm not really sure what the hell she's talking about, but I think she missed Usher's memo about having a "getting it on" part of the song, replacing it with bitterness and resentment.

21 years later, and the mainstream is still mining his Royal Badness for ideas it so desperately needs.

In fact, Prince's lyrics also refer to breakfast, going out for a movie, washing of hair, but for some reason, Usher's lyrics didn't go as far as oral sex.

Prince is like a weird pop alien from Mars who fell to earth bearing sounds of the future, but here we are at the end of 2008 still stuck in the past. Hopefully the good news will come in 2009, and we'll have Usher do a track with pitch-shifted vocals. That I would buy.

Beaten to the punch!

I was going to rip the audio from the hottest viral video in the city, "I Get on the TTC", but someone beat me to the punch.

Get it while it's hot! Also, the rapper is a Humber comedy student, and former MuchMusic intern.

/off Torontoist comment section

Get on the TTC!

LOL for the day, a spoof song/video of a Young Jeezy track, "Put On", done all about our beloved transit system.



/off blogto

Sweet mp3 tagger

I've been looking for something like this for a while. Found this link after scouring message boards:

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

It can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists and more. The program supports online freedb database lookups for selected files, allowing you to automatically gather proper tag information for select files or CDs.

It works well and it'll actually update file info without checking an evil web database... unless you want it to. It'll even check amazon as a tag source.

New Kanye bold, clumsy

Kanye's in the living room, pouring his heart out; I'm in the kitchen making lemonade.

Friday cheese

Ace Frehley - "New York Groove"

I'm not a huge KISS fan, but their late-70s disco crossover stuff like this Frehely 'solo' tune and "I Was Made For Loving You" are such great pop songs, it's tough not to like it.

In 1978, each member of KISS released a solo album on the same day. I can't imagine something like this happening in today's musical climate, with very few bands out there that are well known enough that people would buy a record made by each member of the band. U2 maybe?

Latest obsession

The Hold Steady - "Sequestered in Memphis" on Letterman

--

I'm pretty much in love with new Hold Steady album. I hadn't really got into them before browsing Metacritic's top rated albums of the year a couple months back, but this album has been growing on me ever since. This song is killer, but the album's closer, "Slapped Actress" is sort of like indie rock's version of gospel. Highly recommended if you like contemporary rock that sounds simply classic. Note that's a small 'c' classic.

Time to break out the winter mixtapes

I just listened to this track on the walk home tonight, it's definitely a winter favourite. In fact, the entire first Broken Social Scene album is a perfect soundtrack for walking home in the gently falling snow with a couple rye's in the belly. The rest of their discography, not so much.

--


Kid A is another great winter night album. From the artwork to the coldness of the synthesized music to the fact I first bought the album on a cold December night in high school, few albums compare when it comes to getting you through the winter months. Uber-critic Robert Christgau gives the album a great description that also applies to why the album goes so well in zero degree weather - it's "sadness made pretty".

Rough mornings call for a little smooth music

I love this show.

Pitchfork fucking rips Pumpkins

Smashing Pumpkins' Anniversary Tour Is a Shitshow

It is my firm belief that Corgan is tarnishing the grand Pumpkins legacy with this ridiculous second run, but seriously, Pfork goes a little too far with the headline... solid quote here though:

You can do your own thing all you want, but it's rude, to say the least, to begrudge people their expectations when they pay hundreds of dollars to see you. And you can mock "those reunion bands" all you want, but your insistence on ruining people's nostalgic fondness for your band instead of playing to it doesn't change the fact that you're cashing in, just like they are.

Yesssssssssssss!

LCD Soundsystem not splitting

/off Swarm again

Noooooooooooooooooooo?

LCD Soundsystem R.I.P. ?

/off Daily Swarm

Talkin' bout Girl

Apparently, the latte-lamenting hipsters over at blogto didn't dig Girl Talk's Toronto set on Wednesday night. I wasn't there, but I'll have to take their word for it.

Nice to see someone going against the grain as far as the effusive praise showered on Mr. Gillis, and I totally agree that a dude playing a laptop is a lame set. There's just no way around it. His records are brilliant, but the guy is at best an entertainer, at worst a scalper. Just don't call him a musician.

On the other hand, anyone who can get the staid, zombie-like concert goers of this city to dance just a little god damn bit has to be given some credit... right? And I hope the irony of calling out hipsters on a hipster blog isn't lost on the author.

---

And now, a song that has nothing to do with the post, but popped into my head after I wrote the title to this post:

Why?

via Daily Swarm

Nirvana's Nevermind baby recreates classic album cover

...and Guns N Roses have an album coming out in less than 10 days.

It's culture in reverse!

Mp3 album aggregator

Here's a cool link that's sort of like HypeMachine, but for albums:

Cab It Up

The nerds do it again

Wired: How Math Unraveled the 'Hard Day's Night' Mystery

It took Dalhousie University professor Jason Brown six months and some advanced mathematical analytical techniques to crack the code behind one of the most mysterious sounds in music: the "prraaaaaangg" sound at the beginning of the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night."

I had no idea the first note to that classic song was so layered and rich with harmonics... listening back to the song, it seems so obvious. As George Martin is quoted in the same article - "it shouldn't be expected that people are necessarily doing what they appear to be doing on records".

Another great music streaming site

My friend Dale tipped me off to a very cool streaming music site called Grooveshark. They seem to have just about everything in there, and they should, when they call themselves "The World's Music Library".

While the 'Most Popular' has the usual ring of top 40 hits, queries for Steinski, Captain Beefheart, White Williams, and Dorsey Brothers turn up positive, Blue Peter has nothing and Martha and the Muffins brings up six "Echo Beach"'s... which goes to prove that Canadian 80's New Wave is about as obscure as our cultural climate will allow.

Also, watch out for the irritating "You Just Proved Pop-ups Work!" thing in the bottom right hand corner.

Not Weird Al

Being a huge Weird Al fan, I find it bears repeating that half the songs on P2P networks are not actually by the incomparable Mr. Yankovic.

Not Weird Al

---

If the song that your idiot friend is talking about features any of the following:

-swears
-hurtful commentary
-political commentary
-derogatory statements about any group
-sexual references
-drug references

...it's not Weird Al.

Oh, and check out the new single on his website.

Chocolate city

Too bad Richard Pryor didn't live long enough to take his rightful place as Minister of Education.

A-ha, literally!

Hilarious remix of the A-ha video "Take on Me" with literal lyrics. Funny stuff.

Hunting rabbits

Here's an video from an interesting band called Frightened Rabbit, suggested to me by my friend Nicole. While I think they sound a little too much like Wolf Parade, she seems to think they are 'lyrically superior'... except for the gratuitous use of the 'f-word' in one of the songs she recommends to me. She's a Leonard Cohen fan, so I guess that explains that.

Pitchfork likes them, so they must be cool.

But I gotta say, fright seems to be a fairly reasonable reaction to a parade of wolves.



Other notable musical rabbits:

Animal Collective - "Who Could Win a Rabbit"

Eddie Rabbit - "I Love a Rainy Night"

Fall of Joni

Contents sales are always bittersweet. Someone is moving away or has passed away, and outsiders come in like vultures to scavenge through a house filled with memories. The bittersweet part becomes especially obvious as people try to haggle the price of goods that they're already getting very cheap.

That being said, I find myself very lucky to have picked up six Joni Mitchell LP's and one John & Yoko LP, Double Fantasy from a content sale this afternoon. Song to a Seagull, Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, Blue, For the Roses, and The Hissing of Summer Lawns were the Joni records... and I can't really complain about not getting a Court & Spark in there, but it would have been nice to have her first six instead of just first five.

I can't wait to spin a couple of these on this beautiful autumn day!

Lazy Saturday surfing

Links from a very lazy Saturday of web surfing...

• Great review of Futuresex/Lovesounds from Allmusic:

his innuendos are bluntly obvious, packing lots of swagger but no machismo or grace. They merely recycle familiar scenarios -- making out on the beach, dancing under hot lights, acting like a pimp -- in familiar fashions, marrying them to grinding, squealing synths that never sound sweaty or sexy; if they're anything, they're the sound of bad anonymous sex in a club, not an epic freaky night with a sex machine like, say, Prince

• T.I. - Paper Trail

there is a sense of urgency and a new dimension of self-reflection not touched upon throughout the holding pattern that was T.I. vs T.I.P.

• New Killers single - "Human"

RIP Frankie Venom

CBC Arts: Teenage Head singer dies at 52

Massive Lotus... er... Flying Attack?

Flying Lotus is a hip hop/electronica producer from California with an album out called Los Angeles that I've been playing the shit out of lately. It's very cool, reminding me a lot of Prefuse 73 and there are threads you could trace back to a group like Massive Attack, which is curious, because check out these album covers:

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles (2008)



Massive Attack - Mezzanine (1998)


Both are wicked album covers, and introduce you to the music before you even hear it. It's kind of like the way you "eat first with your eyes" when it comes to presentation in food, except you "hear first with your eyes" in this case. Whether it's a direct nod as an influence is up for debate, as it could be totally unintended. However, the influence is clearly felt on a musical level. Los Angeles is definitely one of my favourites of the year.

Oh, also, Flying Lotus (aka Steven Ellison)'s great aunt Alice was married to John Coltrane. That'll give you a bit better context in which to enjoy the album's closer here:

Cross' still got it; Chris... not so much.

Locally renown music geek Alan Cross has a new project called ExploreMusic, a website and radio show dedicated to selling CD's at HMV introducing people to terrific new music.

I caught a bit of the show last night, which was on CFNY during the 8:00 hour. It's an interesting mix of news and new tracks, and differs from the Ongoing History of New Music in that it's much more timely, and covers current music events.

Here's something from the show's news section that really caught my attention: Timbaland is producing tracks for Chris Cornell's new album. You read that correctly.

Timbaland is producing tracks for Chris Cornell's new album.

And yes, it's just as awful as you imagined.

PLEASE, sit down for this:



So what's worse, Timbaland's Jesus complex or Chris Cornell's Jesus complex? Yeesh.
This one has been a long time coming for Mr. Cornell.

Anyway, ExploreMusic should be interesting. I've already bookmarked it, even though I don't buy anything from the iTunes store.

Hell officially freezes over

Daily Swarm: Chinese Democracy due Nov. 23
From the Billboard.com article:

Beyond enticing pre-Thanksgiving shoppers, the move is tied to the structure of Best Buy's sales week, which runs from Sunday to Saturday. As such, "Chinese Democracy" would not be eligible to chart on The Billboard 200 until the week of Dec. 1, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Good to see that 'rock and roll' spirit alive and well with the band, supporting mega-corporations like Best Buy and giving Dr. Pepper a hell of a marketing boost.

New Bond theme: average

Jack White & Alicia Keys - "Another Way to Die"



This video looks really cheap, and the song is mediocre at best. Hopefully it this isn't a sign of things to come from the new 007 flick. At least it's not as bad as Madonna's "Die Another Day" track, which is easily the worst Bond theme ever, though this one is no prize.

5 CD's

In my changer lately:

David Bowie - "Heroes"
Flight of the Conchords - Self Titled
Brian Eno - Another Green World
Wintersleep - Welcome to the Night Sky
Ashes Divide - Keep Telling Myself It's Alright

Kanye takes London

When I was in London this summer, this song was everywhere. It seemed we heard it coming out of a speaker at least a couple times a day. Estelle is an interesting talent, but only time will tell whether she finds a unique identity or simply falls into R&B obscurity.

Estelle ft. Kanye - "American Boy"

#4 with a bullet

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" is enjoying a surge on the Billboard Hot 100 lately, possibly due to the fact that the track is featured so heavily in the Pinapple Express trailer.

First issued in LP form on last year's Kala, the track has received a well deserved spike in chart popularity.

The track now appears to be heading into its chart decline, after peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.



Excellent for driving slowly past suburban public schools in a mini-van. (not actually recommended)

Snaith wins Polaris; Matt's taste > your taste

As predicted/hoped, Caribou wins the 2008 Polaris Prize.

Amateur video of the proceedings below (even though I just spoiled it for you):





After 2005's The Milk of Human Kindness, it seemed like there was nowhere else to go. How could Dan Snaith pull off another album on such an epic scale? Andorra takes it all to the next level. The sunny 60s pop, the 70s krautrock, and the 80s shoegaze, it all come together in one hell of an album. A great selection this year for the prize.

---

Polaris Prize site

LP Cover Lover

Here's a great link for a site called 'LP Cover Lover'. Pretty self explanatory. Check out the robots category. Sweet!

Found this one through boingboing. I'd say that Jesus used 'em up pretty good.

Polaris Prize tonight

CBC Arts: Polaris turns spotlight on year's best Canadian pop music albums

"In terms of variety, in terms of genres and styles and intensities, they're 10 very different artistic statements, all very passionate in their own way," prize founder Steve Jordan said.

I surely do not envy the judges, they've got their work cut out for them.

It's really tough to pick from such a diverse group, but my pick would be Caribou's Andorra.

Dear Science,: Best album of '08 or best album of all-time?

Drop what you're doing and go buy TV on the Radio's Dear Science,.

I'd say go download it, but you'd hear it and say 'Wow' and go buy it anyway, so I'm saving you a step.

Or stream the album from their myspace. Best track: "DLZ"



Good thing we don't judge the awesomeness of albums solely on video clips. Overall not that bad though, interesting idea.

Now go listen!

If you haven't already read it:

Read Margaret Atwood's column/essay from the Globe and Mail the other day.

Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily.

A show unseen

Apparently the My Bloody Valentine show the other day was pretty good.

I would have brought ear plugs whether they gave them out or not. Not just because I've read about the band's legendary loudness, but with my headphone usage and dutiful concert attendance, oh lordy, I could be deaf by 40.

Stone's W a comedy?

Classic use of George Thorogood = comedic value?

I also saw a version of this trailer with Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" highly featured, though I can't seem to find it online for some reason. I swear it was real! It was on CNN! Everything they run is real!

Forever Changes

From my recent trip to the UK: Here's an interesting art exhibition named after on the classic psychedelic folk album Forever Changes, a classic LA psych/rock/folk album.

Jim Lambie's exhibition Forever Changes is:

An exhibition of new work by the Glasgow-based artist... including a spectacular vinyl floor and several new sculptures.

The Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art is free, just like most of the museums in the city, as they're owned by the public.

That could never happen here, of course. Except when a gallery is re-opened after a renovation. And it'll be packed as hell.


---




This tune, probably the most well known on the album, was listed as #436 on Rolling Stone's 500 greatest songs a couple years back. It's a really interesting mix of flavours and genres, it combines all sorts of instrumentation to produce a vibe that is very psychedelic but also very unique.






Don't worry, they're mostly crap records. We checked. No sense in putting that rare Sonics bootleg in there; it won't do any good for the art.

There was at least one Carole King Tapestry album in there, though there's around 200 billion pressings of that pop masterpiece, I suppose it's really not that big of a deal to toss a couple in a piece of abstract art for the good of the cause.

My Bloody Thursday!

It looks like the My Bloody Valentine show originally scheduled to take place this Thursday at the awful Ricoh Coliseum will now be happening at a far superior venue, Kool Haus.

I kind of threw away the idea of going to see them before, but as that day gets closer I think it would be very hard to pass up that opportunity.

Thank you, Patton!

Thanks to Patton Oswalt for rekindling my unbridled love of Night Ranger!

"Sister Christian". Brutal.

Might as well shoot me in the face

Toronto Star: New Kids on the Block awaken '80s nostalgia

Seriously, why fucking bother? Gawd. Kill me now.

Rick Rubin strikes again

Analysis: Metallica's Death Magnetic Sounds Better in Guitar Hero
[via Dailyswarm]

According to this analysis, audiophiles would be better off recording the songs from the videogame than buying the album because the Guitar Hero version has far more dynamic range than the hyper-compressed CD version.

If you're an audio file, you're probably not buying the album in the first place. It's also utterly ironic that a video game is highlighting the band's total irrelevancy, considering the way they infamously railed against new media at the turn of the century.

And no, I'm not bitter because I got caught with a "Master of Puppets" mp3.



Speaking of autotune, the production team went to town with the robotics, making Hetfield sound like Wall-E. Where are the killer riffs? Attitude? Backmasked Satanic messages?

And this video... Yawwwwn.
What the fuck is going on here? Have you ever seen a band prove that they are just a fucking shell of the artist you once loved? I would say this is it, but that god damn Mission Impossible song a few years back already took the torch on that one.

Kanye Meltdown

I'm not really sure what to make of this piece of garbage.

While it could be seen as a bold move by a major mainstream artist towards minimalist hip hop. One of the maddeningly frustrating things about the hip hop genre is its inability to absorb new trends or musical directions. The music simply does not reward free-thinkers and iconoclasts.

That being said, this music is more like a severe castration of musicality. The nauseating use of auto-tune suggests Kanye is taking a dangerously stupefying trend and exacerbating it to its unwanted conclusion.

I'm still hoping that this is all some elaborate ruse on his part, that he's testing the waters before putting out the "real" first single. We shall see... his three-album streak of brilliance just might be over.

Oh brother

Awesome track from one of this year's Polaris Prize finalists, Shad:

"Brother ft. B & F Kabango"



---


Also cool: the very cheeky homage to the Fresh Prince in the video for "The Old Prince Still Lives at Home"

Lil Milli

I decided to take a listen to Little Wayne's new offering, hoping to find foolish musical fodder to tear to shreds. Too bad my plan didn't work, as there are a few decent, catchy tunes on the disc. A few tracks produced by Kanye West are interesting to listen to, so is the duet with Babyface (yes, that Babyface) titled "Comfortable"; it's a reasonably well-executed response track to Beyonce's "Irreplaceable".

The guy is quite the entertainer, able to stir up controversy by calling out Al Sharpton in his lyrics while walking around in his underwear. His performance at the MTV VMA's this year was nothing short of hilarious... he's mastered the art of the cartoonish rapper that was pioneered by his rap-tastic forefathers, Snoop Dogg and Lil Jon.

That whole thing about him selling a million albums the first week the album was out also sounds like a bit of a hoax. In this day and age, are people really going to run out to the record store to pick up this guy's plastic? I would think that all the suburban white kids would already have downloaded the thing weeks in advance!



Also: I'd give the album a less glowing review if I didn't think that the Lil Wayne boogeyman might be hiding in my closet.

Lights in the Sky

Wired: NIN Dazzles With Lasers, LEDs and Stealth Screens

With more than 40 tons of lighting and stage rigging, hundreds of LED lights, a daunting array of professional and custom-built machinery running both archaic and standard commercial VJ software, three different video systems and an array of sensors and cameras, the tour is nothing if not a lavish display of techno wizardry.

This is an awesome article detailing the technical aspects of the most jaw-dropping live show I've ever seen. I've heard people say that KISS shows were the best rock shows they've ever seen... I think I've had my KISS moment after this particular show, all it was missing was the 3-D glasses.

None of the videos available online even come close to doing this show justice. If you get a chance to see them before this tour is up, do it. Seriously. Awesome.

Cue industrial/factory music...!

boingboing: Raymond Scott - First 100 years



You might remember this tune from about 1000000 cartoons you may have seen in your life.

That's an interesting article, though I think that they give him a bit too much credit for 'setting the template for ambient music', which was done years earlier by Erik Satie. In any case, it's a good read and good to see the guy getting some much needed recognition, especially considering everyone is familiar with at least one of his compositions, whether they realize who wrote it or not.

Sounds from a desperate man

Oh boy, am I ever so excited to head to the ballot box next month. My favourite part about these overwrought wastes of hard working people's time and money is the campaign ads. They've long been a form of the most cunning wit and vile slander, but what's really of interest to me are the hidden messages contained within the half-minute nuggets false pretense.

Listen to the music in the following clip:



The gentle piano suggests that kind ol' grandpa that Harper seriously wishes he was, but can't quite pull off with the frightening zombie look that no amount of cosmetic band-aids can cure.

However, listen closer and you will notice the tune sounds quite a bit like Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me".

Sounds like a desperate man.

In fact, it's the cry of a man who desperately needs to be loved -

Don't discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have they need love to help them heal

More on this when the Liberals get enough cash together to hire an ad agency and buy some air time. My guess is that Dion's ads will feature music that's vaguely reminiscent of Jackson's "Heal the World".

Only time will tell.

---

More neo-con music: Stephen Harper's New Campaign song (actually, it's a clever little ditty)

WTF

Cut Copy rolls into Toronto next Friday the 19th, and I can't help but wonder why the fuck they even bother making music videos?

What a piece of garbage. Seriously boys, stop making videos and spend the dough on gear. This looks like a bad Steve Perry video from the 80s.

I know I linked to it, but seriously don't waste your time unless you're a student looking for an example of what not to do in a video. It makes no sense and doesn't jive with the feel of the song.

There goes my hero

Star: Oasis brothers assaulted on stage at Virgin fest
Bravo, unnamed soldier, for doing the work that I wouldn't pay the admission price or suffer through brutal event pricing and elbows in my goddamn face all day to accomplish.

Proof that indie bloggers are losers

CBC Arts: Musical tastes in tune with who you are

The study of more than 36,000 people from six different countries found that people had more in common with fans of their favourite music in other countries than they had with fellow citizens who preferred different styles of music.

North describes it as a new kind of tribalism, based on musical taste.

My favourite line from the whole thing:

indie music lovers lack both self-esteem and the work ethic.

That's right, anyone who listens to Broken Social Scene is a stoned slacker! Get a job, hippie! And cut your hair!

Of course, this all means I'll be committing myself to Arkham tomorrow morning on account of the blatant schizophrenia I suffer through given my wide ranging and eclectic musical taste(s).

Rejected titles for a column about what I've been listening to lately

"On Repeat"
-Pitchfork got to it first. Bastards.

"Five for Fighting"
-Makes less sense the more you think about it

"High Rotation"
-Lame, overused

"Big Smoke Countdown"
-Geographically limiting

"Hot Chips"
-Kinda dumb

"Five Things"
-Most likely candidate

The '80s: Were They Really That Bad?

Yes, they were.

At times, the 1980s were fucking awful. Today I listened to a podcast from NPR's All Songs Considered and they discussed this very question.

The panel's discussion of the cheeziness of Hall & Oates made me think of how "You Make My Dreams Come True" was used in Adam Sandler's The Wedding Singer. That soundtrack featured a wide range of 80s' smashes and trashes. Somehow, songs that are truly terrible when they're released accumulate stock in irony as the years go by, becoming a sort of touchstone that people can rally around, all in agreement of the vile nature of the song yet somehow, someway are able to enjoy it.

How else do you account for the popularity of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"? No matter which way you slice it, that song is a total piece of garbage. The worst part is about it is the way it gets stuck in your head - "...belieeeeeiiiiivinn' Whoaaa--ooooo--ahhhhhhhhhh!!"

More key points in the podcast included mention of the cornerstone/bane of the 1980s studio, Yamaha's DX7 synthesizer. Still in use today, though used much more sparingly and as a "creative decision". Apparently even hardware can accumulate irony stock.

Back in town

All I have to say right now is that Europeans fucking love U2. I can't explain it, but they do. More soon.

It's official!

Byrne and Eno to tour!

Free Mp3 inside! Free Mp3 inside!


*drools

Talk talk talk talk

Here's an awesome garage tune by The Music Machine that popped up on a playlist shuffle today. They were a short-lived band that never repeated the success of this one hit, which allmusic describes as "a piercing one minute-and-fifty-six second garage-punk explosion".

Concert review: Weird Al

Weird Al - July 25, Casino Rama

First off, I was very impressed with Mr. Yankovic's rock star chops, he deserves a lot more credit than people give him. His howls during the climax of "Wanna B Ur Lovr" almost made me think he was lip-synching, but it looked pretty darn real. That song was a particular highlight with Al serenading the crowd with the double (and single) Prince-esque entendres.

His use of video was what you'd expect from a guy who made half of his career as a video artist, taking a nod from his heroes, DEVO. The set ran a cool 2:20, mostly because of the AlTV videos running between songs in the segment after the medley... every song needed a costume change and the the fake interviews (Eminem and K-Fed the especially hilarious ones).

Here's the setlist, as lifted mostly from a Yahoo Group. Looks like he's been using the same setlist for a while now. The medley was pretty much the same, though there might have been some variation. I wasn't keeping notes.

Fun Zone
Chicken Dance
Polkarama!
Canadian Idiot
Close But No Cigar
Bob
It's All About the Pentiums
You're Pitiful
Wanna B Ur Lovr

Medley:
Couch Potato
Do I Creep You Out?
I'm in Love with the Skipper
Headline News (updated)
Confessions Part III
A Complicated Song
eBay
Bedrock Anthem
Ode to a Superhero
Pretty Fly for a Rabbi
Trapped in the Drive-Thru
Gump
Eat It

The Saga Begins
Yoda
Smells Like Nirvana
Amish Paradise
White and Nerdy
Fat

Encore:
Cell Phones
Albuquerque

Brick by Brick

Here's a cool link with a bunch of album covers recreated in Lego. I think the author may have a Lego-Beatles fetish... or it's just coincidence and they're the band most likely to be eternalized in miniature brick form.

My favourites are the Division Bell and Velvet Underground & Nico

20 album covers recreated in LEGO

And take your money.

Here's another one stuck in my head recently, MIA's "Paper Planes". And it doesn't help that it's being used to promote the new stoner comedy from Judd Apatow - Pineapple Express.

I love when multinational mega-media companies get together and sell youth culture back to the kids!

Hockey Anthem Challenged

I haven't much time to post in the past few days, mostly because I've been listening to the Hockey Night In Canada theme song submissions.

Your first instinct might be to check out the top rated entries, but I suggest starting at the lowest rated and let the hilarity loose.

However, check out this one, which is not only the highest rated, but also outpaces the next highest played by three times! Take a listen and just imagine "Hockey Night In Canada, brought to you by General Motors, Molson Canadian and Tim Hortons!" then tell me that something is missing.



Yeah, this one is really going to get past the board.

House of Cards video

Radiohead has a sweet new video for "House of Cards". Totally camera-less. It feels like watching Tron, or going to the Planetarium. Excellent stuff.



The look of Mr. Yorke's face vaguely reminds me of Trent Reznor in the NIN "Only" Apple Ad... er... music video. I can only hope that this is the start of some extremely heated and ultimately vicious creative war between the two bands that has been brewing for some time... Anti-bush concept albums, free/pay what you want downloads... maybe Radiohead should become the NIN backing band for an album, like the way Neil Young got Pearl Jam to back him up for an album. That's not such a bad idea now that I think about it. And because both parties are free from their record labels, they'd probably be able to do it without much legal trouble. You heard it here first.

Bloggers are idiots

Just needed to vent: I hate mp3 blogs that brand the files they post. Images, album titles, genres... what's wrong with you people? Not only are you giving away someone's hard work for free, you're re-purposing it for your own slimy schemes. Drives me nuts. URL in the comment section will do just fine, thanks.

Oh, and another thing: what's with mp3 files that don't have the right info tags? The person pirating obviously has Internet access, otherwise the files wouldn't get anywhere - so why is the info incorrect? Is the person ripping the file by the byte? Even worse is when the info is wrong! How does that even happen? You'd have to go out of your way to change the info, what, to make someone's life less enjoyable? More irritating to perform the act of pirating?

Bah.

Awestruck: The National Parcs

On Wednesday, I'm interviewing The National Parcs for VoicePrint. From their bio up on their site:

The three young men were born in the backwoods of Quebec, Malawi and B.C., but bred on Montreal streets buzzing with the noise of every nation on earth. For this groundbreaking CD/DVD album, they strip back down to basics, returning to their roots in the bush. The great outdoors becomes their studio, and their songs come alive with all-natural samples of wood splitting, sand slipping, paddles slapping, water dripping. Their cameras and microphones are trained on the trackless woods around them, but their ears have been trained on Grime and Hip Hop, Afrobeat and Baile Funk, American Spirituals and Malian Blues. The resulting Timbervision tracks are an invitation for the world to dance, starting with the half-remembered hum of our own backyards and smuggling in the best that the world has to offer.

Without getting too much into hyperbole, this group is one of the best new things I've heard in a long time. The music and accompanying DVD are fresh, melodic and utterly unique. What more could you ask for? Check out their website - free downloads.

Another version of the truth

A few months back, Nine Inch Nails launched a YouTube film festival for the Ghosts album. Here's a friend's stellar submission:

Affinity pt. 1:



Affinity pt. 2:



On the whole, a lot of the entries to the fest are surprisingly watchable, most taking cues from either the Year Zero concept or Mr. Reznor's quote about Ghosts being a “a soundtrack for daydreams.” Not many of the entries feature a narrative of any kind.

Then, there are videos like this one, "The Craft of SackTapping", made by a group of savage mooks who hopefully were damaged in all the right places during the filming of this one. My guess is safety guidelines are not at the top of their list. Don't watch too much of it. I didn't get past about 10 seconds, but my guess is that it isn't pretty.

Boo-hoogaze

Here's a very interesting post from Wired's excellent music blog, Listening Post. It's about how the term 'shoegaze' is totally bogus, regardless of what Wikipedia says.

Performance, under the weight of the term, came to be valued more than the music behind it. And so its multiple effects were palpable: It effectively marginalized and, in some cases, even doom musical careers.

So-called genres I hate: any 'prefix' genre... 'proto-punk', 'post-punk', 'post-rock', etc. It's a mere label and does more to associate the music with that genre rather than making a distinction.

--

This one was used in the excellent Lost in Translation soundtrack, produced by Kevin Shields of the recently reunited My Bloody Valentine:

Geeky list time

Here's an idea I loved so much I had to copy it, especially since I love music lists... An album for each year you've been alive.

It's a hell of a lot tougher than I first realized... some years were much easier than I thought they'd be. Although I love making lists, I hate ranking albums over each other. Take 1996 for example, Rage's Evil Empire was way more important to me at the time, but I've since really taken a liking to GYBE!'s F#A#infinity, which was also a musical awakening of sorts for me, albeit several years after its original release.

The main fault of the list is the timing of it all - as a two-year-old I would never have listened to Psychocandy, much less listened to Loveless at eight, but here's the list. It's a retroactive look at a personal musical history and fun to imagine what I might have been listening to if I was 19 in each of those years. I didn't include compilations, like Adam did... compilations don't count!

Anyway, here it is:

1983 Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
1984 Prince - Purple Rain
1985 Jesus & Mary Chain - Psychocandy
1986 Peter Gabriel - So
1987 Prince - Sign O The Times
1988 Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
1989 Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
1990 Depeche Mode - Violator
1991 My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
1992 Rage Against The Machine - self titled
1993 Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
1994 Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral
1995 Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
1996 Tool - Ænima
1997 Radiohead - OK Computer
1998 Massive Attack - Mezzanine
1999 Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
2000 Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
2001 Tool - Lateralus
2002 And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes
2003 Manitoba - Up In Flames
2004 TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes
2005 Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze
2006 The Rapture - Pieces of the People We Love
2007 Joel Plaskett Emergency - Ashtray Rock
2008 Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours

---

Honourable mentions/By the hair of their chinny-chin-chin:

1984 Weird Al - In 3-D
1985 New Order - Low-Life
1986 XTC - Skylarking
1988 Cowboy Junkies - Trinity Session
1989 The Cure - Disintegration; The Stone Roses - self titled
1994 Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley; Portishead - Dummy
1998 Queens of the Stone Age - self titled
1999 Rage - Battle of Los Angeles
2000 Radiohead - Kid A; Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - self-titled
2002 Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf; Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights; Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
2003 A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step; Joel Plaskett Emergency - Truthfully, Truthfully; Cansecos - self titled
2004 DFA1979 - You're a Woman, I'm a Machine; Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When You're Gone?
2007 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver

---

Interesting to note the toughest years to choose were the "university years", which makes sense, given I have never been more immersed in music than those years, when I had a radio show and plenty of disposable income to buy a couple CD's a week. For more on this type of phenomenon, check out Daniel Levitin's "This Is Your Brain on Music", an excellent book that bridges popular music and popular science.

I've really exposed my rockist tendencies here today... time to go outside and enjoy the terrific weather.

---

I leave you with one of my highest played tracks (at least according to iTunes) from today's big list, My Bloody Valentine's "Come In Alone". I could listen to this one all day.

Videos of the world

I was watching the New Music the other day and caught this sweet new video from my third or fourth favourite novelty music act, Flight of the Conchords. Bonus points for the extended instrumental section.

Decent job on the CG as well, which is light years ahead of another video I can think of with similar, yet freakishly grotesque effects, Alanis' "8 Easy Steps".

Ambient bliss

I just learned about this group, Stars of the Lid, who kind of remind me of the Kronos Quartet or the Dirty Three, mixing pop and classical music. They're also on the same label that formerly featured Godspeed You Black Emperor, Kranky.

It's a mellow trip for a mellow day.



Got this from the Radio Lab podcast.

I Met the Walrus video

If you haven't seen it yet, here's the Oscar-nominated short film "I Met The Walrus" based on an interview by a young Toronto lad by the name of Jerry Levitan.

(blogto)

Polaris Short list announced

Sweet article from CBC here.

The Polaris long list had considerably more diversity. If the short list came from the same panel of critics, how did things get so… safe? I can’t fault the Polaris Music Prize for choices made by consensus, but it does make me worry about who makes up that consensus. Maybe it’s time to actively seek out critical minds with more varied tastes.

List of Polaris judges here. Note the wide range of members from major media organizations.

Hot corner

It's been a good year to be a baseball, pop, and gossip fan, with all the inter-medium shenanigans... First it was Roger Clemens with a C-list country singer, and now it's Alex Rodriguez with Madonna.

What a time to be alive.

For my entertainment, someone should start a Wikipedia page about all the ballplayer/music singer affairs. I would read that. Speaking of Wikipedia, what's up with people? I was browsing Madonna's singles list looking for inspiration for a better title (didn't find it), and I found this. Who has the time to give a frame by frame synopsis of the video? I can't imagine a world where I would have that much time on my hands.

Eye of a hurricane

Due to the fact I'm such a masochist, I've been waterboarding myself by reading Naomi Klein's latest tirade, "The Shock Doctrine".

One of the early passages immediately captured my attention, as I had one of those moments of crystal clarity and things began to make all too much sense. Warning: conspiracy theories ahead.

It all started about a year ago, when I uncovered this video:



Scary shit, if you believe it.

Anyway, the part that really freaked me out is this:

Declassified CIA manuals explain how to break "resistant sources": create violent ruptures between prisoners and their ability to make sense of the world around them. First, the senses are starved (with hoods, earplugs, shackles), then the body is bombarded with overwhelming stimulation (strobe lights, blaring music, beatings). The goal of this "softening-up" stage is to provoke a kind of hurricane in the mind, and it is in that state of shock that most prisoners give their interrogators whatever they want."

Is it starting to all come together? Yeah. Yeah... The CIA started Facebook to collect data on your favourite music and compile a comprehensive profile of what music will drive you to "violent ruptures" and Rock You Like a Katrina.

I suggest immediately changing your favourite music on your Facebook, Myspace, Lastfm, etc. etc. to the music that you really hate. That way, when the CIA gets a hold of your profile, they will play the exact opposite kind of music when they are 'extraordinarily rendering', or 'reasonably searching and seizing' you.

Here are a couple suggestions - If you're a fan of Metallica, put down Mozart. If you're a fan of Mozart, put Metallica. If you're a fan of Miley Cyrus, consider yourself lucky, as there is no way that CIA would ever want to interrogate you. What would they get out of it? Your PIN? To get the $3 out of your account left over from your job at the Gap after you spent all your money on iTunes downloads and Red Bulls?

Concert review: Steely Dan

Steely Dan - July 4, Casino Rama

The incomparable Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Steely Dan took to the stage in rather languid fashion, letting their "Steely Dan Orchestra '08" play through a few minutes of instrumentals before casually walking on stage as though they were some kind of religious figures, and judging by some members of the devoted audience, it wasn't entirely unwarranted.

As the for the music itself, if was 10% more of a snob, I'd say, a la Amadeus:

"Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect."

Donald Fagen... what can I say about this guy. He really wants to be Ray Charles or Randy Newman. Or both. He said he was having throat problems, but why the hell was he sipping Coke? Why? At least take a ginger ale... unless he spiked that coke. Anyway, I always find it hilarious that there's no food or drink allowed in the venue up there, but the artists can flaunt the Rama laws all they want. I guess it pays to be in the Hall of Fame.

---

Here's the setlist, as provided by Adam, who has a much more extensive knowledge of the group than I do:

The Royal Scam
I Got The News
Show Biz Kids
Two Against Nature
Hey Nineteen
Glamour Profession
New Frontier
Do It Again
Gaucho
Parker's Band
Third World Man
Josie
Aja
Peg
FM

Encore:
Kid Charlemagne

---

Steely Dan concert by the numbers:

"Orchestra" members: 10

Michael McDonald look-a-like sightings at the buffet: 3

Classic rock radio hits not played: 2 (Reelin' in the Years, Rikki Don't Lose That Number)

Classic rock radio hits re-worked: 1 (Do It Again)

Number of sips by Fagan from his two cans of coke: 3

---

Here's a highlight for me, "Hey Nineteen"

New home page

Got my new favourite home page, The Daily Swarm, and a new favourite record store, Criminal Records. That I've never been in the store before today is, well... criminal.

Battlestar Rocklactica

I recently caught up with the rest of the television viewing world and started watching Battlestar Galactica. Good show, lotta heart.

In the mini-series, I recognized a familiar face piloting one of the human ships... and my hunch was right, it was John Mann, lead singer of Spirit of the West. Hilarious. Apparently he's been in a bunch of things, and due to the reverse chronological format of imdb, I've learned he makes another appearance on the show. Oh, wait. Spoiler alert.

Taking care of business.

Ahh, post #200 is a good one.

Here's my Canada Day interview for VoicePrint with the legendary Mr. Randy Bachman.

I sound less nervous than I actually was (despite the nervous laughter), and Mr. Bachman was very generous with his time, something myself and VoicePrint are very grateful for.

Let it roll!

I got the news; Steely Dan got the rhythm

From Classic Albums, here's the Making of "Peg". Best part - 6:25. For reasons why, see Yacht Rock
---

Steely Dan tomorrow night! That brings my R&R hall of fame count up to... 6. 6.1 if you count Stevie Nicks. And I will eventually review that concert, even if it's a month late.

Walter Becker kinda reminds me of one of my audio profs from university, who is coincidentally or not, a Steely Dan fan.

"Steeeely Dan... Alllllllriiiiiiiiighttt!"

Breaking: Hanson clones released into society; Matt has too much time on hands

There was a right kerfuffle down at the MuchMusic building today, as "throngs" of batshit fucking insane fans of popular girl group The Jonas Brothers gathered to hear the "band" play Bay City Rollers covers.

Check out the report on Disney's latest spawn infesting the city of Toronto here

Happy beer day

I mean... Canada Day.
I can't find a decent clip online for my favourite Canadian song of all time, "Claire", by the Rheostatics, so here's a smattering of videos from some of my other favourite Canadian songs. Grab a Moosehead and enjoy. Among other acceptable beers: Amsterdam, Creemore, maybe Steam Whistle. Molson Canadian is not an acceptable drink for Canada Day.

Rush - Subdivisions

Pursuit of Happiness - Hard to Laugh (put this on repeat)

Blue Peter - Don't Walk Past (hilarious retro MuchMusic rip.. and 'johnmcboston' doesn't get that Blue Peter is the name of the group, not the name of the guy.)

Gordon Lightfoot - Sundown and If You Could Read My Mind

Gino Vanelli - Wild Horses

Hayden - Bad As They Seem (Thornhill, what what!)

The Guess Who - These Eyes

Death From Above 1979 - Black History Month

Martha and the Muffins - Echo Beach

Odds - Someone Who's Cool

Tragically Hip - Gift Shop

---

Some other Canada type music links I recommend:

CBC Radio 3
CFNY Fan page
50 Tracks: The Canadian Version
CJXF's Top 100 Canadian Singles of All Time
Encyclopedia of Music in Canada

---

And for something different, here's the Kids in the Hall's 'Sex Girl Patrol', try to guess who sings the theme song.

Big Mac Big Mess

boingboing/Stuff.com: Devo sues McDonald's

The Spud boys are taking the golden arches to court over copyright infringement over their use of the group's legendary dome helmets. Just protecting their brand, of course. Something the Mayans are unable to do.

I suppose they'd prefer that if the DEVO-brand is to be destroyed, they'll do it themselves:

Girl Talk: Now stealing business plans

Greg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, just released his new album Feed The Animals in the same way Radiohead released their last album. Pay What You Can.

As much as I love this new trend, the whole thing feels like amateur night at the Pig and Whistle. And what's the other saying? Oh yeah, you get what you pay for.

No Nine Inch Nails multi-track files were used in the making of the album. That would be too easy.

Here's the Mr. Gillis pulling the intellectual property equivalent of a bank robbery (according to Jim Prentice, anyway):



Thanks to Adam for the heads up on this one.

"Get to the working overtime part!"

I had the supreme honour of interviewing Randy Bachman for VoicePrint yesterday. Let's just say he's not a fan of piracy and downloading.

I wasn't really nervous at first, it was probably all the coffee, but once he started talking my brain just went into "Holy shit!" mode. I hope it isn't that obvious in the interview. It'll be airing for Canada Day and I'll post a link soon as it's up.

---

Not just one of the greatest Canadian songs, but one of the greatest ever: Here's The Guess Who with "These Eyes"

Polaris Long list announced

Is it that time of the year already?

The list of Polaris Prize finalists, Canada's most prestigious indie music award, has been announced. Solid list, but while they're at it, why don't they just nominate the rest of the albums, too?

2008 Polaris Music Prize Long List
(alphabetical)

The Acorn - Glory Hope Mountain
Attack In Black - Marriage
Black Mountain - In The Future
Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow and Blue
Buck 65 - Situation
Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling
Cadence Weapon - Afterparty Babies
Cancer Bats - Hail Destroyer
Caribou - Andorra
City And Colour - Bring Me Your Love
Constantines - Kensington Heights
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Destroyer - Trouble In Dreams
Fred Eaglesmith - Tinderbox
Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
Christine Fellows - Nevertheless
Gatineau - Gatineau
Hayden - In Field And Town
Veda Hille - This Riot Life
HILOTRONS - Happymatic
Holy Fuck - LP
Islands - Arm's Way
Karkwa - Le volume du vent
Corb Lund - Horse Solider! Horse Soldier!
The New Pornographers - Challengers
Pas Chic Chic - Au Contraire
Sandro Perri - Tiny Mirrors
Plants And Animals - Parc Avenue
Ghislain Poirier - No Ground Under
Protest The Hero - Fortress
Justin Rutledge - Man Descending
Sadies - New Seasons
Shad - The Old Prince
Socalled - Ghetto Blaster
Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War
Tegan And Sara - The Con
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band – 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
Two Hours Traffic - Little Jabs
The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour
Wintersleep - Welcome To The Night Sky

---

Of course, the nominees are all fun and games, but for the third year in a row, Yours Truly has been left off the jury list.

Begin your letter writing campaign here.

Hip pop

The other day I was eating lunch at Tim Hortons and seated beside me were a couple of young kids and their mother. The kids were talking about their favourite songs and rappers, suggesting names to each other.

"50 Cent!"
"Chris Brown!"
"Lil Wayne!"

Umm... excuse me? Lil Wayne? These kids couldn't have been more than 10 years old! I am certainly anti-censorship, but I think mama should at least be aware that her kids are being exposed to a song with these lyrics:

"Sh, sh, she lick me
Like a lollipop, lollipop"

"I ain't never seen an ass like hers
That pussy in my mouth
Had me lost for words"

Of course it all makes sense when you check the top of charts - Lil Wayne is #1. Even the smallest and most vulnerable of ears are going to come into contact with this malt sugar concoction.

I don't mean to sound like some kind of PMRC nut, but there should at least be some sort of minimum age requirement for hearing lyrics about how Mr. Carter's braces-on-vagina formula is leaving him at a loss for words... at least he was raised well - "Don't talk with your mouth full!"

But it's not just the pop charts - Lil Wayne impresses the hell out of indie-rock snobs too.

Here's the hilarious video, which reminds me of the part in Saturday Night Fever at the start... or is it Grease... where there's that montage of getting ready to go out. It's the same thing. The video also features some idiot on top of the stretch-Hummer-limo playing the guitar. The guitar is not in the album cut, and probably should have stayed out of the song, as it sounds shabby. It's not mixed well.
I wonder if Lil Wayne paid off a drug debt by putting the guy in his video. That must be it.

New copyright law: links do the talking

boing boing
CBC
Toronto Star
National Post

Complete with the usual spin & accompanying ideology-specific photos!

Isn't anything sacred?

There's still tickets remaining for My Bloody Valentine's reunion tour stop in Toronto, September 25th. At first that almost sounds weird, except for the part about the show being at one of the worst concert venues in the city, Ricoh Coliseum. I'm not sure who the band hired to plan this tour, but they should consider firing them immediately.

I think I'll skip out on this one, and leave one of my favourite albums, Loveless, where it belongs, headphones & stereos.

If you haven't heard of the band or the album, it's probably time you caught up with the rest of the cool people on the planet and gave the album a listen. If you're into British rock, shoegazing or music that takes you into a dream, there's no excuse to have missed them!


Loveless @ Wikipedia
-Not a bad article, especially since most of the entry was taken from the excellent 33 1/3 series.


A Master's thesis on My Bloody Valentine? [Wired music blog]


My Bloody Valentine - Soon

That's me in the corner

If the me from now told the me from five years ago that I'd be at an R.E.M. concert and actually enjoying myself, I'd have punched me in the face and offered up a quip like "Gee, I guess everybody does hurt", or "What's the frequency now, bitch?"

Luckily, I don't have a time machine and I'm fully entitled to changing my mind on the subject. That being said, last night's show at the Molson Amphitheatre was pretty good at best. My friend Bill scored the tickets, and after realizing The National and Modest Mouse were also on the 'bill', it became a no-brainer.

The openers were solid, and the crowd was actually appreciative of the bands and showed the due respect. I think Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse wants to be Frank Black very, very, very badly... "then God is seven!!! then God is seven!!!"

A bit of rain started to come down between sets, or as I like to call it, "beer run", but it all cleared up before the Hall of Famers took the stage. R.E.M. makes four Famers live for me, including Santana, Prince and Bowie. It's interesting to consider that I've seen those four only after they were inducted... somewhere down the road a bunch of bands I've seen will be inducted and I can say "I saw them in their prime".

Oh, wait, U2 is also in the Hall. I keep forgetting, I wonder why. Make it five. And I did see them before they were inducted, though the Elevation tour can hardly be considered their prime.

Back to R.E.M., Ben Rayner wrote a terrific article about the show... I didn't notice the rainbow, but that would have been a perfect time to play "Everybody Hurts", which they didn't play! How do you not play that song during a rainstorm! I don't even like that song and I wanted to hear it in the rain!

---

Here's the setlist, grabbed from an R.E.M. fan site message board

These Days
Horse To Water
What's the Frequency Kenneth?
Drive
Man-Sized Wreath
So Fast, So Numb
Ignoreland
Accelerate
7 Chinese Bros.
Hollow Man
Bad Day
Houston
Electrolite
Living Well
The One I Love
Final Straw
Until The Day Is Done
Let Me In
Begin The Begin
Animal
Orange Crush
I'm Gonna DJ

Encore:
Supernatural Superserious
Losing My Religion
Second Guessing
Fall On Me (with Johnny Marr)
Man On The Moon
---

So no "Radio Free Europe", no "Everybody Hurts", no "Nightswimming", but on the plus side, "Orange Crush", "The One I Love", and "Losing My Religion".

Here's something I can't understand for the life of me: You pay $90+ for a concert ticket, then spend the whole show watching Michael Stipe through a two-inch screen. I don't get it... I think people need to be re-educated about what a concert is all about. I was there at the concert and this little YouTube clip doesn't bring me any closer to the show, despite the fact I wasn't all the way up to the front.

Good on Mr. Stipe for being cool about the yo-yos in the front enjoying their cell phones rather than the real deal, and still playing up the crowd and being everything you could ask for from a frontman.

My highlight from the show, "Orange Crush":