The Hives concert down in Club 9one9, by most any account you’ll hear from anyone there…….. pretty much great. Packed room, energy, beer, Kirsten’s foot getting slashed by some bro. OK, that wasn’t great and she needed stitches from the hospital. BUT at the time it happened, Kirsten thought it was punk rock and an exclamation point on the show. She also seemed to not feel it… which was weird considering her shoe was full of blood. Good for her.
As amazing as the Hives were, they were par-for-the-course for me. I expected them to be fun, and they are fun! Played all the hits, tons of energy, new songs, old song… Can’t ask for more.
The surprise of the night is when a bunch of bros who looked like they walked off the set of Revenge of the Nerds came on stage. One guy was wearing a Jeff the brotherhood shirt. I knew we’d be friends.
The band is based out of LA and came from Hawaii. They are called Fidlar. Track one of the night…
What a strange and wonderful weirdo jam. Why Lace Curtains wins to my ear is that it has that vintage indie rock sound which I love. The fuzz is cool, but the Velvet Underground/Pixies thing is fun too. The songs feature Bloc Party drummer Matt Tong who is friends with Michael Coomer, the principle of the project.
London’s The XX have a new record called Coexist out on September 11th. Already the album is streaming for those in the want. A remix floating around the blogs today comes from a Philadelphia producer named Skollo. One blogger described it as a moombahton style. Sure.
Right on Mumford… right on. Interesting character and a great way to start a book about ones and zeros and music.
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Some serious thought to wrap the grey matter of my brain around. I’ve also been thinking of writing a story. Ugh, two actually… but they are both so weird and niche and I don’t see the end or the point yet. That might take more meditation and a machine that adds a couple more hours to the day because right now, there just ain’t enough time.
“Its a cartoon band and the new song is epic. The opening riffs will get you so fired up.”
Dethklok – “I Ejaculate Fire”
Happy Friday friends… I’ll be at Veneto tonight laying down chillwave, indie rock and oldies. Sunday I’ll be rolling red hot when my friend Paul comes to town with Amy. LOOK OUT!
I had a very wonderful dream last night. Coral and I were in the desert for some reason… it had to do with work I guess. And it turned out to be my birthday… so Coral said, “well, we should drive to Las Vegas!”
We rolled into town and it was raining. We had enough money for a hotel room and $80 US cash. We went to that place on the strip that sells $1 Michalobes and $1 margaritas and bought $80 worth and then got really drunk and walked around in the rain.
Imagine Dragons put out a really solid EP. But the record leaves me feeling a little flat. Its basically the EP, so that is good… but the songs they added, do not improve the experience at all. One song… at first listen was very sappy. But it is also romantic and I thought it might make a good first dance song at a wedding if you wanted something a little different.
I bought a hat the other day. Actually I bought two. I went to the hat shop to get a vintage White Sox hat, but they didn’t have my size. So logically, it made sense to buy two different hats. The A’s as seen above and a Cardinals.
Ever since Moneyball, I’ve been jiving on the A’s. Also Coquitlam’s little league colours used to be A’s. Or it was back in the day when I was a little leaguer.
Cardinals is a hat I’ve had on my list for some time. Alyx got me a gift card at Christmas and I knew straight away I wanted a Cards hat. But they were always out so I settled on the Nationals. Sunday they had Cardinals hats in my size and a buy one, get one half price so i went… OK. Still need that White Sox cap, and an Orioles maybe.
Listen to me, jawing on about baseball hats. Hey, I just really like baseball hats. As a kid I always rocked a baseball hat. I wore them out! I remember having Expos, Cardinals, Dodgers… maybe a Mariners hat in the mix. Lately, they bring me joy. “Stuff’ is not a good way to bring joy, I know this, but these hats do for now.
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Divine Fits… new music from Spoon’s Britt Daniels with Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs) and some other guy…Sam Brown! (New Bomb Turks).
Groovy stuff. Sounds like a weirdo Spoon record. And that is good to my ear.
And hey… they call this band “Canadian Content.” ORLY? The radio programmer in my just had a semi.
Divine Fits – “My Love Is Real”
I can really get into this. I love Spoon, Handsome Furs AND Wolf Parade. Dan Boeckner grew up in Lake Cowichan!
and yeah, Sam is from Ohio or something, good for him.
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Something kinda chillwave-ish… new Wild Nothings. Very pretty and easy listeningy. I’ll be adding this to the set list at Veneto. I do need to work on playing guitar. I’ve let that fall by the wayside. I am pretty sure if I ever make guitar music it will be fuzzy. But sometimes I listen to chillwave and think… awww, I like it so much I should try to learn to make that! Maaaaaannnn, I just got no skills at creating music, no matter how much I say I am going to try.
Coral follows the baby Followill Jared on twitter. Coral and her sister are fans of Kings of Leon (who am I kidding, I am too d’awwwww). Coral noticed that Jared was always getting up to hijinks with some dude in a band called MONA. They are friends. Neat. Fast forward to Thursday and Jon Williams is reading NME. Sees that Jared has created a solo project with…. the dude from MONA.
The song sounds good. but I never thought of the lyrics till I read that NME article. Now I am conflicted….the song has some tragic lyrics that give you the heebeejeebees coming from spoiled brat NYC rockstars. But I guess if you live in a world where women hand out BJs… and you subscribe to the mantra, write what you know… then I guess we got to forgive the guys.
Smoke and Jackal – “No Tell”
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I think if I learn how to use the maschine…my first cover song will be “No Tell.” But it will be really sad coming from me.
The march to Rifflandia V continues… September 13-16th, the city will be buzzing on rock, electronic, hip-hop… and all the spaces in between. Family of the Year will be on the Side-Stage on Saturday fairly early in the day. Make a point to hit it.
We’ve been jamming on their sound around thew radio station a bit. After the bands were announced, Bossman Johnny flew on the youtuber machine and found a few quality tracks. One of the songs from this Los Angeles band that we like at The Zone is called “Diversity.”
I love Imagine Dragons. Its not an everyone fave at the Zone brain trust, but the ep Continued Silence is pretty special to my ear.
The single “It’s Time” is a strong modern rocker. The first song on the ep gets a little dirtier and aggressive. Reminds me a little of Awolnation’s “Sail.” The Las Vegas band is popular with some of the servers at Veneto so I’ve been going to the record a lot for the last month or two.
This song gets drilled into my head all the time. For the past couple days I couldn’t place the melody I was singing in the shower then today! BOOM, “Radioactive!” What a relief when you get that earworm out of your brain..oh man, I hope it didn’t lay any eggs! Ear Worms can do that you know…
This morning, when I HAD to get this song out of my head I went on Youtube. In the comments it seemed like some band spammed it with a link to their video. I never click on those, but the band was called We Barbarians. I judge bands all the time based on superficial shit like band name and appearance. We Barbarians just sounded cool so I clicked.
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I ended up kinda like the song. Simple, clean sounding. Weirdly familiar… maybe Alt Nation plays We Barbarians? or someone on Facebook sent me a link in the past? I can’t remember.
The song isn’t new… last summer. And clearly did not capture the mainstream attention as well, they haven’t become stars yet, but the song is nice. Maybe it was overlooked, maybe they’ll keep working hard and it’ll happen for them.
Lots of new music to check out… might even have some thoughts on new Bloc Party later or tomorrow… we’ll see if I can pull myself away from Rome Total War for 5 seconds to write tonight.
Go with yourself.
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Well that was interesting. Testing out some new equipment last night… was thinking that while I work, I’d like to test it out with some Four Tet. The computer I was on had no Four Tet so off to the iTunes store to grab a song. While I was there I noticed that he released a brand new record that night! How serendipitous. Usually you read stories and reviews and tweets. I must have missed the articles, or be following the wrong folks, or I’m the only one that cares.
Four Tet has his own record label and his new record, Pink, collects a bunch of vinyl only releases from his label over the past year.
Four Tet – “128 Harps”
Really pleasant and easy sounds to listen to while working.
The group has an interesting story. The name is based on a a character from an old novel which I have never read. The principle members were in a band that seemed like that were reaching success. The group was called Iglu & Harley and in 2010 they had the chance to play Coachella. But something happened and the band dissolved. I believe they quote, “dissolved due to a creative clash.”
BUT, Simon Katz and singer Sam Martin stayed with it and formed a new band… and here we are.
I got a text from Simon at the Veneto today saying the self-titled EP is fantastic. The single we’re featuring on the Zone is called “We Come Running.”
I was walking around Edmonton’s Blackbyrd Record store on Whyte the week Purity Ring‘s record Shrines came out. The clerk was playing it and I liked hearing the album while shopping. I wanted to get the record then, but they hadn’t received stock. Back home in Victoria, I finally made it down to Ditch for my latest album.
Beautiful sounding and looking record. Its a blue-ish marble vinyl with songs that I think are basically about lead singer Megan James’ vagina? Sure.
Lots of good stuff available on the internet as a free download, if your record player is in the shop, download this jam, the latest single “Fineshrine.”
Frightened Rabbit continues to be one of my favourite bands. The Scottish emotive types have a new ep in September called State Hospital. 4 songs and a single called… “State Hospital.”
The Morning After 
