Thursday, Jon Williams and I got spoiled at the Radio Factory. We had our Zone Band of the Month Geoff Lundstrom in to perform his single “Wash The Dirt Off.” But then the dude stuck around and recorded a cover of Lorde‘s Much Mega Hit, “Royals.” His trio consisted of himself with Amy and Chris on keys. Amy let Jon hold her 1948 Martin D 28 acoustic guitar!
Earlier, we had Victoria’s Zerbin in studio. The boys dropped a beautiful take on The National‘s “I Need My Girl.”
Maybe you’ll be able to get behind one of these covers and you’ll share it with your friends.
I had the chance to yap with Mark Foster of Foster The People last week. We chatted about a bunch of stuff including some world travel the man got up to. He talked about going to India, and how that changed the way the man will operate his life! Sounded like quite the spiritual journey. Back in LA, the man decides to call the new Foster The People record Supermodel…why is that?
Foster The People will be at Squamish… hit it up.
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Interesting story out of NPR the other day. Imagine Dragons’ “radioactive” has sat on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a record 77 weeks. Why is that? According to NPR…. religion. NPR Pop Critic Ann Powers says, “It taps into one of rock’s favorite subject areas, and that is religious or spiritual imagery. It’s like an apocalyptic theme. It’s end times. It’s straight out of Revelation.”
And she says its not the only mainstream song on the charts borrowing from God. Check out OneRepublic’s new Much Megahit “Counting Stars.” Powers says, “That’s the power of pop music in America. It can absorb all of the most important influences in our lives. And certainly, for many, many people, spirituality [and] religion, specifically connected to Christian traditions, are important. It’s hardly a new thing, but we always seem to crave it again.”
Listening to The Zone in Victoria, here a few things that caught my ear.
Jon Williams could just tell you the weather….but then you, you wouldn’t believe it. So out come the 808s and he raps it! Unbelievable? You don’t know nothing!
This one is older, but I like it… if Pol Plastino were the Prime Minister, he’d take all your advice seriously.
Every morning you listen to Dylan vs The World… and there is a theme song. This is one of them, from the Zone’s production team and Zach Parkscott.
Back in November, our second Band of the Month Showcase went down at Upstairs Cabaret on the inner harbour of Downtown Victoria. The show was amazing (as they always tend to be). A full room of groovy people out for a Friday night celebrating live and local rock & roll. There were many highlights, including Towers and Trees‘ performance of their single “Montreal.”
Have a listen to THIS!
Band of the Month is brought to you by Lighthouse Brewing Company (readers from outside Victoria should check it out, great Island craft beer). All the live sets were recorded and mixed by Todd Hooge at Hooge Studio.
I heard it on the radio…a few sounds from the Zone @ 91-3 today.
Vancouver’s Head of the Herd came to Victoria today for a sold-out show at Lucky Bar. I am home with a new baby so I am off the warpath for awhile…but luckily Head of the Herd came to me and performed their song “By This Time Tomorrow” on the show.
Mike Devlin over at the Times Colonist had a great interview with the band. Have a read.
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Friday Night is a busy one in Victoria. Local beauty Vince Vaccaro also had a show. VV’s new record is called Koa and is a collection of ukulele songs.
Vince performed the song “Here in My Place” (and I really ought to post that live cut… but while sound checking I asked him to riff a bear story into a song.
Finally….listening to Dylan and Jason on The Morning Zone, they were talking about Steve Martin coming to Victoria and performing at The Royal Theatre, May 12th.
Jason is obsessed with the man. But how obsessed? Dylan goes back to 2009…
Toronto’s (or Ottawa’s) Hollerado were in Victoria last weekend. Before the show they visited with Jon Williams… and they sang their interview! WHAT? Believe it. Then an acoustic version of “So It Goes.”
Hey remember that time “Juliette” was a hot slice of modern rock? Yeah so do I.
The dude flailed around on his acoustic guitar jamming this wild song. I flashed back to a performer I remember named Joel. He had this feral acoustic style that was mighty fun. I sometimes remember his music and want to listen (always at weird times) and then I think… those records must be buried in storage or lost to time.
This song, “Straight From Hell” I don’t know too much about. It was recorded when Paul was still doing the Morning After Show with me on CiTR. So 2000? 2001? Doesn’t matter I guess.
The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson recently sat in the same room together to record the first “Replacements” music in years. The extended play they recorded is a collection of 4 covers that will benefit Slim Dunlap (Replacements guitarist ’87-’91) who suffered a severe stroke last winter. The ep also features drummer Chris Mars covering a Slim song and he created the art of the record.
Their record El Camino came out December 6th, 2011 and became a modern rock legend. The album is huge. We were sitting around here at the radio factory yesterday talking about what music to have in our “heavy rotation” and what new music to add in when Bossman Johnny said, “where are we at with “Little Black Submarine?”
We were poking around and were surprised to find the song is one of the most played modern rock songs on some pretty groovy Modern Rock FM stations. Got us thinking (and me in particular) about the speed of sound…I like finding out new music and listening to all sorts of stuff, but the average music fan…happy to jam the forth single on a record that is over a year old. And is a year old record…. old? Does the Zone churn on the songs too quickly? How about The Black Keys? Seems they are ready to march forward, they have some new music in the pipe…but to a Radio Programmer….the forth single is hot. huh…
addition:
I wanted to add something from this article about music sales this week that is related to the above discussion about The Black Keys.
If there’s a silver lining here, it’s the slow, honest rise of the Lumineers who scoot up from No. 9 to No. 8 as their “Ho Hey” picks up radio adds and on-demand plays since their Grammy nomination and despite their album (The Lumineers, 51K) having come out all the way back in April.
To illustrate the “speed” in which the world turns their attention to music…. this song has 2,000 on The End in Seattle…but its brand new to so many people.
Tonight at Royal Theatre in Victoria, Mother Mother and Hannah Georgas are performing a sold out show. In front of the concert, Jasmin Parkin from Mother Mother stopped by for an interview, then Hannah Georgas and band came for a conversation and performance. Her performance of the single “Robotic” was magical.
If you like interviews, have a listen to our conversation on The Zone where we talk about booty dancing, Jian Ghomeshi, Wal-Mart, Ryan Guldemond, her time in Victoria, and the Arkells.
Here is my interview with Jasmin Parkin from Mother Mother where we discuss this article out of Edmonton where they claim Mother Mother “the most hated band in Canada,” Mother Mother getting signed to Last Gang Records, Jasmin joining the band in 2009, going to school with Ryan Guldemond and growing up on Vancouver Island and moving to Vancouver, how it’s going being Mother Mother, and “what would you be doing if you weren’t in Mother Mother?” ….
Tonight at Royal Theatre in Victoria, 
The Morning After 