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Country Falls

This was another last.fm recommendation, the wiki entry on them sounded interesting enough so I grabbed Country Falls. Initially song titles like Sweet Little Kitten, Summertime Cowboy and Rainbow Flows would set off my crap detector but you never know with these artist people so I gave it a go anyway.

First listen through I was playing videogames so I didn't really listen much but I'm currently on my second listen and no video games so paying more attention. The first Track, Sweet Little Kitten, is pretty much exactly what it sounds like...cutesy...I don't like cutesy but it's far more entertaining then listening to my co-workers drivel on about whatever it is they're driveling on about so I listened on.

Track 2, Summertime Cowboy, again pretty much what you'd expect from a song called Summertime Cowboy except maybe imagine some bubble noises and a new wave psychedelic video with lots of bright colours and maybe a chick in a mini-skirt walking off into a fake campy sunset....basically this song sucks in that pop'py sucky way but again, more entertaining then co-worker drivel so I listen on.

Now track 3, New Light Of Tomorrow, holds some merit, very mellow and a male singing this time around but a nice mellow tune with a bit of a hooky little chorus that kinda sticks with you...now all my co-workers are at lunch and I'm still listening anyway!

OH NO, track 4 (Sunset Drive) and we're back to bubble sounds and crackerjack sounding cutesy music...and I had such high hopes after the last track.

Track 5 (My World) is sorta ok but they use the word 'My' WAY too much ("My street, my town, my house, my world, etc) and it reminds me of a shitty play I was forced to attend which was basically a 40 minute adventure in two actors running around a bed and saying "YOU"..."ME"..."YOU"..."ME". Sorry Husky Rescue, you hit a nerve with me and I now hate track 5.

Tracks 6, 7, 8 and so on....meh...if you have a synthesizer from Radio Shack, a handful of quaaludes, can sing in a hazy pseudo lounge-singer voice, can play at least 2 chords on an acoustic guitar and write inane lyrics then you can just go write these songs yourself...probably be more fun.

The album has a few shining moments here and there but all in all it's just ~meh~ and I can find those interesting sounds on more interesting albums. I won't be rushing out to buy this album, might rip out the one track I like or maybe even keep the entire album around for those times I want guests to leave (or fall asleep) quickly.

So far 0 for 2 on the last.fm recommendations...

Beck
October 16, 2006 - Ricoh Coliseum, Toronto, Ontario

Well what can you say about Beck other then he's a fantabulous person and I'm so grateful we share the same generation (Gen X or Gen Bust or whatever the hell we are). Someone once told me "you either like Beck or you don't", I like to rephrase that to "you're either an idiot or you're not".

These are completely biased reviews and I'm pretty damn biased when it comes to Beck, been a fan for well over a decade and the recent show at Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto was the 4th time I've seen Beck. The show was great from a Beck perspective, he had a puppet thing going on on the stage (well marionettes more then puppets I guess) complete with their own mini stage and props and video guys that were videotaping the puppets live...this was the video feed that was being projected on the obligatory big screen background of the stage. The puppets were done really well, they sorta looked like all the band members and each puppet/band member were wearing the same attire and would even shed attire accordingly (ie: when Beck took off his hat the puppet Beck's hat was off). The puppet thing was pretty damn cool and coordinated and a pretty nifty way of dealing with the stupid obligatory big screen video.

Beck did alot of stuff off his new album (albeit some versions, such as Elevator Music, were so different I wasn't aware which song it was until the final few seconds) but also older stuff such as one of my favs, Black Tambourine. He received a request for Rush but only managed a Getty'ish scream before laughing and moving on. Beck's dancing dude/tambourine guy is pretty entertaining as was the solo interlude where the band members all sit down at a dinner table on stage while Beck does some solo stuff...this eventually turns into a jam as the band members all make noise with stuff at their table (of course this is all mimicked by the puppets on the big screen!). I was also pretty happy to see the dancing bear costumes from The Information videos...one bear got cocky and climbed speakers and then had a few precarious moments dangling from a stage ladder but he eventually made it out ok.

So that's the good stuff. The bad stuff is not really about Beck but more my general hatred of large venues, I'm really of the opinion that a venue should hold no more then 3000 people AT THE MOST. I realize the mega-super-acts need to play to more people but it just sucks that they have to do so in venues that are really better suited for beer swillers yelling at guys on skates. No matter how godly a sound person is there's not much he/she can do with a metal roof and sound waves pinging all over the place in crazy directions. The venue was no where near filled to capacity and in my world it would have made more sense for Beck to play 2 shows somewhere like the Koolhaus (or Warehouse or whatever the hell it's called) where acoustics are slightly better and atmosphere is less sit-in-your-2x2-seat-or-the-800-cops-wandering-about-will-get-ya....I'm also not a fan of feeling like a prisoner at shows (especially when I'm paying $40+) and would've preferred the floor where I could've at least moved about. I had never been to the Ricoh Coliseum before and had used TicketBastard online to order the tickets and at no time was I asked if I wanted reserved or floor seating...oh well, lesson learned I guess.

So all in all it was an alright show, I've seen better Beck shows (particularly Long Island, NY in the 90s) but hey, shitty acoustical Beck is still infinitely better then great acoustical Nickelback!

Up for the Down Stroke

People who don't like Parliament beat dogs and eat babies...seriously, that's how much of an asshole you'd have to be to not like Parliament. I defy you to listen to this album and not have some part of your body involuntarily move to the music. Track 2 (Testify) is particularly funky while track 5 (I Just Got Back) is probably my favorite whistling track so far in life.

The Inevitable

I seem to remember liking this album but I can't, for the life of me, figure out why right now...I think I actually even owned it at one point in time.

It's not bad for what it is I guess and I did manage to make it all the way through and I'd imagine if someone wanted to hear something 'swingish' I would put it on again but all in all...meh.

Quickness

While I've never met a Bad Brains album I didn't like Quickness especially rocks, tracks 1 (Soulcraft) and 9 (No Conditions) are a couple of my favorite tunes. Maybe it's not ladylike to rock out to albums but whatever, one can't help but rock out to this album and Bad Brains just rock in general, they're basically the aural version of all the cliche rage that is within me.

I'll admit there are a few guitar wankerery moments but they're far and few between and nothing that really deters from the basic greatness of the album. I've been a Bad Brains fan for well over a decade, I even still have Bad Brains vinyl and cassettes. I'm sad to have never seen them live.

The Best of Mandrill

Completely benign album but not in a bad sense or anything, it's just good and relatively mellow with that 70's funk R&B feel to it. A friend introduced me to these guys and this album is getting decent rotation in these here parts, it's particularly good for surfing the internet and doing nothing in general on a Saturday afternoon.

Looking forward to investigating these guys more, they look to have about a decade's worth of albums and apparently they even did the soundtrack for The Warriors!!

The Fall of Math

Well upon second listen this album is growing on me. Still like their later album, One Time For All Time (see Completely biased album review #2), better but this one has it's moments, particularly track 3, Retreat! Retreat! and track 11, Aren't We All Running? which both have great big driving interesting sounds.

The downfall is a bit too much of the crazy breakbeat/techo/rotterdamn/whatever stuff, it's a bit too abrasive sometimes and I like this instrumental music stuff as it's great to work to, I don't get distracted by the lyrics but the crazy breakbeat/techo/rotterdamn/whatever is a bit distracting and occasionally annoying like a mosquito buzzing your ear.

I will probably buy it if I can easily find it in Canada but a quick search didn't return anywhere I can find it locally (either online or at a store). It'll probably get decent rotation for a while as I tend to listen to albums then sorta drift into exploring as much of the artist as possible.

One Time for All Time

Great album if you're into Mogwai and the sorta droning interspersed with chaoticism thing, which I am. I originally found it while meandering about http://www.boomkat.com and it sounded interesting...originally was supposed to be a soundtrack for some unreleased John Carpenter (with Kurt Russell no less!) movie about the period of 65 days of static after some worldwide communication breakdown.

While I'm not a fan of tags/labels in general as I consider them meaningless, last.fm has 65daysofstatic tagged as 'Math Rock'....wtf is 'Math Rock'? It sounds so stupid that I can't even be bothered to google or wiki it.

All that aside this is a great album and currently in rotation around here. So far I'm not completely sold on their earlier album, The Fall Of Math but I'll give it another listen before I pass final judgment.