A Great Music Video–Library Voices, Unplugged

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Library Voices is an absolutely great band from Regina, Saskatchewan. They’ve been through New York City twice on tour since I discovered them a bit more than a year ago. The video below is an acoustic version of their song “Traveler’s Digest,” from the website of Green Couch Sessions. Library Voices plays with a boisterous enthusiasm, whether unplugged as here, or with full compliment of amps and synths in tow. I hope you enjoy the video. Their albums are great, including the most recent, “Summer of Lust.”

Green Couch Sessions says  it’s “a place where music lovers come to listen. Found abandoned in an alley it has transformed into a hub of local and awesome music. Reviews, Interviews and anything else we want to talk about!”

Green Couch was also responsible for the Tracks on Track musical extravaganza this past June, when 10 bands, including The Matinee, and Shred Kelly, CBC Radio 3 host and author Grant Lawrence, plus a couple dozen fans of Canadian indie music traveled by rail from Vancouver to Toronto. I was unable to join that journey from west to east, but I met many friends from the trip in Toronto for the annual North by Northeast festival (NXNE). There’s lots of cool video from Tracks on Tracks online.
Special thanks to CBC Radio 3 pal Rebecca Gladney for posting “Traveler’s Digest” on Facebook tonight. //end//
 

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Suzzy Roche’s Sensitive Reading of Edith Wharton

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Kyle and I took the bus to Bryant Park yesterday to hear singer, musician and novelist Suzzy Roche* lead a discussion of Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth in the Park’s long-running Reading Room series. We arrived just in time to corral two chairs near the front of the outdoor space and settled in as Suzzy was tuning her guitar for what would later be an original song to close the program. Suzzy began by sharing some notes and interesting facts she had learned about Wharton.

She said that 2012 marks the 150th year since Wharton’s birth in to a wealthy family in New York City. The family name was Jones, and some believe their conspicuous upper-class status may be the origin of the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses.” Early on, Edith’s mother forbade her from reading novels, lest her daughter’s intellect expand in ways that would make it harder to ensure a proper marriage for her. Suzzy reminded everyone how fitting it was to be in Bryant Park with a view of the main branch of the New York Public Library, since the novel we were discussing includes a scene set in the lovely park. From her youthful days, Wharton exhibited a high degree of sensitivity, and Suzzy read a quote she found in Wharton’s autobiography: “The owning of my first dog woke in me the long ache of pity for animals and for all inarticulate beings which nothing has ever stilled.”

Wharton’s first full-length piece of fiction, a novella finished at age 18, was accompanied by several passages of self-criticism where she assessed what she judged to be the weaknesses of her own work. Suzzy quoted this early comment of Wharton’s on the subject of criticism: “After all, one knows one’s weak points so well it’s rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.”

With these details of Wharton’s life in our minds, Suzzy turned the discussion to the novel itself. After reviewing contemporary critical reaction to the book, which often emphasized Wharton’s gender, she asked “Does this book have something to say to us right now about the place of women and money in society? She pointed out that just this year, Jonathan Franzen ignited a controversy when he wrote in the New Yorker about “Edith Wharton’s looks.” Suzzy continued that Franzen wrote “it was hard for him to warm to her novels because she had every advantage of wealth and privilege and was extremely socially conservative. But, he said, ‘she did have one potentially redeeming disadvantage: she wasn’t pretty.’  On the surface, there would seem to be no reason for a reader to sympathize with Lilly; she’s profoundly self-involved and incapable of true charity.  She pridefully contrasts other women’s looks with her own. She has no intellectual life to speak of. She’s put off from pursuing her one kindred spirit because of the modesty of his income. She’s basically the worst sort of party girl, and like Wharton, she didn’t even try to be charming.” There was a gasp among the Bryant Park crowd as Suzzy read the remarks of the award-winning novelist, which whether said about Wharton or Lily Bart, struck many of us as chauvinistic. Please click through for rest of post and all photos

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Reading Tom Morello’s ‘Rage’ Against Paul Ryan

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Musician and activist Tom Morello was a special guest at the annual Sidney Hillman Foundation Prize ceremony honoring advocacy journalism and activism last May, the first time I ever heard him in person, either speaking or singing. He’s a determined battler against entrenched, monied interests in our society and political culture, and also skilled at rousing a whole auditorium to sing along with him, as we did on “Union Town” and “This Land is Your Land.”

I wrote about the Hillman awards and Morello in May, a presentation that also featured Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, and Ta-Nehisi Coates and so am glad to see today that Tom’s directing his voice against the Romney-Ryan ticket. Upon learning that the right-wing VP nominee is supposedly a fan of Morello’s band, Rage Against the Machine, Morello’s published an opinion piece in Rolling Stone. Here’s a selection from the opening of his column:

Paul Ryan’s love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. . . . Ryan claims that he likes Rage’s sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don’t care for Paul Ryan’s sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage. I wonder what Ryan’s favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of “Fuck the Police”? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!

I recall when “Born in the U.S.A.” was released in 1984, after learning that Ronald Reagan, running for reelection, supposedly liked his album, Bruce Springsteen drolly remarked, “I wonder which song is his favorite.” I urge you to read Morello’s whole article, which pulls no punches, as he ends it by wondering if elected whether Ryan may

My hope is that maybe Paul Ryan is a mole. Maybe Rage did plant some sensible ideas in this extreme fringe right wing nut job. Maybe if elected. . . . He’ll fill Guantanamo Bay with the corporate criminals that are funding his campaign – and then torture them with Rage music 24/7. That’s one possibility. But I’m not betting on it.

Here are some more pictures from the Hillman Prize night, shots of Morello and others.

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Julia Child at 100

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This is a real sweet blog post by Seán Collins, longtime radio person and multimedia broadcaster, recalling the lunch that Julia Child once fixed for him when he was working for WGBH in Boston. He tells the story with charm and affection, and good photographs, via this link on his blog, Commonplace Book, which carries the clever tag line, “one man’s hedge against failing memory.” He learned Julia’s own formula for making a delicious vinaigrette for the salad she served him. Here’s one of the photos from Seán’s post, an amusing shot. I couldn’t find a credit but I think it must be to WGBH, with the crew out of camera range from a TV taping.

It being Julia’s 100th today, I also want to point my readers to a charming remembrance of her from this AM on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning from Toronto. Guest Marion Kane knew her going back to the 80s, and recalls a special day when the French Chef visited Toronto, all here in 6 minutes of fond and vivid recollections via this link to today’s program.

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Jeremy Fisher, True Troubador

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Jeremy Fisher isn’t a big person, but the singer-songwriter sure makes a big sound. It’d be hard to imagine more music coming from any other solo player. Along with his voice, his primary instrument is a weathered Gibson LG-2 guitar from which he punches out a great, full sound. His bright singing voice offers a lot of welcome contrast with that percussive Gibson, since I suspect it falls somewhere between the tenor and alto range. The lyrics he sings are deeply felt declarations that carry a personal, even existential quality.

I highly recommend all of Jeremy’s music, and particularly, his latest album, “Mint Juleps,”  a recording with five originals written by Jeremy and  covers of seven songs by such artists as Gordon Lightfoot, John Hiatt, and Greg Brown. Fisher makes each song his own in such a way that until I studied the album sleeve, I wasn’t sure which songs were his and which were the covers. “Spin, Spin, Spin” is a rare Gordon Lightfoot song, in that it hasn’t been sung by lots of other artists already. In a recent phone interview, Jeremy told me that was one of the reasons he chose it for the record. He said he wanted songs to which he knew he could add something new. That is certainly the case with Greg Brown’s ode to the bounty of summer, “Canned Goods,” about the pickles, tomatoes, and fruits his dear grandma put up for canning when he was a boy.

One of the highlights of attending the North by Northeast (NXNE) festival in Toronto in June was finally hearing Jeremy perform live. I had heard him on CBC Radio 3 many times, enjoying such songs as “Shine a Little Light” and “Jolene” (not Dolly Parton’s song of the same name) but I was unprepared for how bright, funny, and charismatic he is as a live performer. That week I heard him play at the Dakota Tavern showcase** hosted by his label Hidden Pony, and at the picnic hosted by CBC Radio 3 host and author Grant Lawrence, where I took this outdoor photo.

The title of the new album is not meant to remind listeners of the Kentucky Derby, or anything about America’s Old South. This Canadian composer wanted to evoke lazy summer days, or as he told me, “the kind of record I’d like to listen to while making brunch on a Sunday morning, or having a drink on a Friday afternoon.” He said he’s been playing other people’s songs ever since he started joining bands as a kid, playing songs by Canadian super-groups Blue Rodeo and the Tragically Hip. and later Beatles and Motown covers. They were the “starting point” for him as a songwriter. For the new album he played solo versions of the songs he’d decided to record and emailed the sound files to the musicians he’d asked to accompany him. This group included such standout Canadian musicians as Joey Wright, whose 2011 album “Hatch” I enjoy a lot. Adding a nice tough here, Wright plays guitar, mandolin, and tenor guitar. Based on his rough work-up, Jeremy told his musical recruits, “this is the feel I want, but I want fresh ideas every take. . . . I wanted the personalities of the players to shine through.”

The new album was engineered my Mark Ouimet, who also plays percussion and sings on several numbers. Among many favorite songs on the album, I’m especially enjoying “If It’s Alright With You,’ written by Gene MacClellan, which sports a great harmonica riff played by Jeremy himself. Listening to Jeremy Fisher’s latest recording of his favorite songs during this sweltering summer of 2012 one is left with an unmistakable impression of hearing a latter day Buddy Holly, a forgotten sibling to the Everly Brothers, or maybe Paul Simon. Even with all those classic rock and pop associations, which are not a stretch, Jeremy’s an original talent with a great feel for song–I recommend you listen to him for yourself.

**That Dakota showcase where I heard Jeremy Fisher also featured Erin Passmore, the Danks, Elephant Stone, and Rah Rah, each also clients of Hidden Pony. All five acts–including Jeremy who followed Erin–played great that night. Click here to view 15 of the photos I took during the showcase.

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3 Great Canadian Bands Coming to NYC, July 30-Aug.3

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Three great Canadian indie rock n’ roll bands are scheduled to play in New York City in the next week. I am out of town right now and will be unable to make these shows, but if you, dear reader, are in the city next week, I urge you to check out one, two or all three of these shows. Here’s the concert rundown:

Monday, July 30 at Mercury Lounge, Deep Dark Woods from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. DDW is a terrific roots band that features soulful vocals, sweet pedal steel guitar, and soothing organ amid a strong ensemble sound. I am sorry to miss this show, as I haven’t yet heard them live, but they are great on record. You can sample the music on their latest album, “The Places I Left Behind,” via this link.

Tuesday, July 31 at Bowery Ballroom, Plants and Animals from Montreal. I heard Plants and Animals at the Mercury Lounge last April, a tremendous show I wrote up on this blog at the time, readable at this link. Their latest album is called “The End of That” and it is a great record with many memorable songs. You can listen to tunes from it here.

Friday, August 3, Rockwood Music Hall, Imaginary Cities from Winnipeg. I’ve heard Imaginary Cities several times, and loved them each time. They are anchored by the amazing female vocalist Marti Sabit, who writes great songs with bandmate, guitarist Rusty Matyas. I wrote about the launch party they played for their album “Temporary Resident” at the Rockwood last April, a post that also includes video of them performing their song “Hummingbird.” You can read more about them and listen to their music at their website.

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