August 2002
BEEF TERMINAL
The Grey Knowledge (Noise Factory, www.noisefactory.com)
An overlooked member of Toronto’s coterie of electro wonderboys –
Manitoba, I Am Robot and Proud, Tomas Jirku, Polmo Polpo, Anorak, etc.
– Mike Matheson a.k.a. Beef Terminal creates what could be described,
paradoxically, as guitar-based electronica. Once a member of Pavement
biters Kennel District, Mike has successfully reinvented himself with
the B.T. identity. As with its predecessor, The Grey Knowledge sees Mike
playing delayed-out electric guitar musings along to sequenced backing
tracks. Not an original idea, but one that’s hard to pull off well.
These tracks’ crystalline melancholy recall early New Order if Barney
Sumner had replaced the others with basic software programs, and take
one along frozen Toronto freeways in winter – a great mental place
to be when your brain is melting from the heat. JD
File next to: Joy Division, planetarium music.
CATO SALSA EXPERIENCE
A Good Tip For A Good Time (Emperor Norton, www.emperornorton.com)
The Scandinavian garage-rock revival is at its heyday, people, and these
guys from Oslo, Norway, should be granted its crown (even though another
band has, and we all know which one that is). The reason is that these
guys tend to embrace and exemplify the garage aesthetic in a much more
traditional way, to incredible sonic results. This loose and messy album
is just pure fun listening, and if you’re not dancing along to the
Cato sound by the second or third song, you’re a dead man. The fuzzed-out
big guitar, roaring bass and groovy organ sound rip it up old-school,
and there are many full-throttle jams on this album that just make you
smile, begging you to turn up the volume. The Jaga Jazzist horns add a
great strength to all this great Motor City madness as well. These guys
must rock the party live. Great fun--isn’t that what rock is supposed
to be about sometimes? Grab your tambourine, fool! SV
File next to: Fuzzed, fucked up and freaked out, JSBX, hip-shaking and
go-go dancing, a groovy MC5.
ELECTRELANE
Rock It To The Moon, I Want To Be The President EP (Let’s Rock!/Mr.
Lady, www.electrelane.com)
These two wonderful releases by this all-girl quartet from Brighton, England
are quite promising for both the Krautrock fan and that jaded guy who
says he’s heard it all. Many of the songs sound like live studio
noodlings that weave in and out of quieter Floyd-ish trippy parts and
lead straight ahead to more motorik beats and grooves. At the centre of
these great ascending jams is the ominous and frenzied Farfisa of Verity
Susman that lurches and bobs in a very beautiful way. Rock It To The Moon
definitely takes you on a space trip with your ship simply floating along
on a Satie wave one moment, only to kick into hyperdrive the next. While
mostly instrumental, the occasional choruses of voices and a Stooges reference
add a special touch. The follow-up EP is equally as good and these girls
manage to pack much more excitement into three songs than most bands do
on double albums. Tending to go for a more vocals-and-electronic sound
this time out, they’ve added another interesting facet to the Electrelane
experience. SV
File next to: Neu on 45 RPM, pre-Ketchup Stereolab, Clinic, that car chase
in The French Connection.
FATBOY SLIM’S
BEACH BOUTIQUE II
July 13, Brighton UK
Ex-Housemartin-turned-millionaire DJ Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim,
reprised last year’s beach party, held between the Brighton piers.
60,000 people had shown up last year, double the expected numbers, but
no one anticipated this year’s 250,000 attendance level. By 3pm,
the beach was already jammed with people drinking (BYOB) and bar-b-queing,
swimming with boats moored just off-shore. The show started off with a
lacklustre Midfield General set that no one really paid attention to,
but picked up with John Digweed’s set, though the crowd only ever
responded to a track by last year’s openers Groove Armada. The show
really got going with Fatboy Slim’s set, an entertainer as much as
a DJ, who threw Nirvana and the B-52’s into his eclectic mix. However,
the real show was the sheer number of people who showed up, which had
organizers worried, stopping the show to get people down off the lamp
posts. Ending with fireworks off the old pier and fake snow raining down,
Brighton was effectively shut down and the crowd wandered off to find
more fun, leaving a million beer cans to wash away on the incoming tide.
NC
File next to: The garbage strike, the world’s largest picnic.
THE HANDSOME FAMILY,
THE ARLENES, PICO
Greenwich Municipal Hall, £14 (!?!)
Pico opened the evening, featuring the songs of guitarist Lianne Hall
backed by cello and drums. The mid-size hall was a perfect place to feature
the evocative slow-to-mid-tempo tunes, reminiscent of Cat Power meeting
Portishead. Armed with a beautiful voice and lovely songs, the trio played
a mesmerizing set, including John Prine’s "Speed of The Sound
Of Loneliness." The Arlenes, stripped for this show to their husband/wife
core, play the kind of folky country that you hear on the CBC during the
day. Any charm was crushed by moronic between-song banter, though--truly
horrifying. The Handsome Family, another husband/wife team, but backed
by a drummer, played some great mournful country noir. Gorgeous harmonizing
and lonesome heartaches managed to dispell the saccarine of The Arlenes.
Though the bass player’s rambling about UFOs and being crazy between
songs was interesting and funny at first, throughout the hour and a half
set it became a bit tedious. The Brits sure love that American country.
NC
File next to: A darker and sedated X, an expensive way to be lonesome.
HILLSIDE FESTIVAL
July 27, Guelph Lake Island (www.hillside.on.ca).
The Hillside festival had been hyped up to me by all the Guelphite friends
for many years, but this year marked my first experience. My conclusion:
I am a festival lightweight. My friend and I gave up and went home shortly
after 5pm, and that included two naps at that point. Maybe it was the
heat, maybe it was staying up ‘til 4am drinking the night before,
maybe it was the smell of patchouli filling the air. Regardless, we were
unprepared for the onslaught of hippiedom, from white dreads for miles
to hand-drumming circles to healing arts tents for everything except massage
– the only thing we really needed. As for the music, the afternoon
saw some pretty neat workshop collaborations, including a kickass jam
session between The Constantines and a Jose-less By Divine Right. The
highlight of the day, though, must have been the noon-hour set by Guelph’s
own teenage sensations The Bar Mitzvah Brothers, whose theme song about
"household fun," with a chorus declaring the day’s highlight
to be "having a nap," neatly encapsulated the lackadaisical
pace of the Royal City for us Big Smokers. Speaking of which, the band
Royal City, never a strong live act, played their most engaging set ever
before we were booted out by a grizzled and overzealous security dude
who noted our lack of wristbands – no one had ever told us where
to get them when we came in, so we figured "what the fuck?"
No one paid to get into Woodstock, right? JD
File next to: World Youth Day for hippies, a less fascist and more economical
Lollapalooza.
PRECIOUS LITTLE
100 Miles (Mental Block, www.preciouslittle.ca)
This is a rich and rewarding record that is mainly steeped in the alt-country
form of songwriting, but also winks in the direction of The Velvet Underground
and Jesus And Mary Chain (the latter receiving a workover of their song
"Birthday" from their last studio album before breaking up).
More than anything else, though, Precious Little write well-crafted pop
music that is memorable and deceptively complex in its simplicity. They
make good use of the slide and lapsteel-playing of once-full-time-member
Gord Cumming (as well as his vocal cords for harmonizing), while filling
out certain songs to an even greater extent by inviting guests such as
Nick Holmes (who also engineered/mixed/co-produced the album), Brian Cram,
Tim Veseley, Patrick Gregory and others. As affecting as these full-blown
numbers can be, the two songs on the disc where the band is stripped to
three members and one member (main songwriter Leorra Newman), respectively,
are every bit as worthy as their counterparts. This is a strong debut
from a group that is still relatively new to the scene. PO’D
File next to: Cowboy Junkies, JAMC’s acoustic side, The Mekons in
their country songwriting mode.
AZ
"I’m Back" (Motown)
Shit! Holmes ain’t been this tight since he was in Brokin English
Klik with Mack 10. You don’t go calling a single "I’m Back"
and then do shit, now do you? (Nas come to the office, please). The tight
horn hook makes me want to walk around my neighbourhood, chase away a
dealer, then tell a junkie he’s not just killing himself, he’s
killing the community. It’s that good. BP
File next to: Awesome singles vs. Shit albums, pt. 1.
THE VINES
"Get Free" (Capitol/EMI)
Okay. The Strokes are pussies and The Hives are clowns, but if you still
don’t like this song after seeing the video, you’re fooling
yourself. You probably think The Sopranos is a good TV show, Andrew WK
is an idiot, and that you’re cool. Move back to your parents’
place and die a virgin who smokes clove cigarettes. BP
File next to: Awesome singles vs. Shit albums, pt. 2: singles WIN!!!
Reviewed by: Nora Charles (NC), Jonny Dovercourt (JD), Paddy O’Donnell (PO’D), Buddy of the Pines (BP), Steven Venn (SV)