So for the second time in a week, I’m posting something I wrote for my music blog. I’ve decided I’m only going to do this for posts that I feel fit here as well as there– straight-up music posts are staying there, but things that go a bit deeper go here, too. Here it is:
[audio:http://data.tumblr.com/tumblr_l8ngq56gST1qaz88jo1.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1284322944&Signature=Qz%2FFNqMWNRmieO4bOEC88xJIVz8%3D]
“Semi-Charmed Life” – Third Eye Blind (amazon, itunes)
Went to a house party yesterday where the host was kind enough to let others have input into the songs being played. Plugging my iTunes playlist into someone else’s soundsystem is as close to DJ-ing as I’ve ever gotten, but one thing that I’ve learned is it’s cool to start out with new/hip stuff, as the night goes on you need to start pulling out the classics. And when I say classics, I mean the stuff that everyone knows, and not necessarily the stuff you would normally admit to having on your iPod. Blogger Pitchfork Reviews Reviews says it well:
“in my experience the best public listening moments i’ve ever had have been hearing the first notes of a song that i would never put on on my iPod but i know every word to it, or at least the melody, like songs that were or are so deeply embedded in the popular culture consciousness that they are, like, above subjective judgments of quality, you know what i mean?
“the first thing i learned about DJing was that people are just trying to get drunk and dance, not be educated on your exquisite taste and the extensive reach of your knowledge, you know?”
Some artists, like Justice and MGMT manage to be both these things, but there are others that are purely the 2-am-get-everybody-out-on-the-floor artists, like Haddaway and Spirit of the West and especially Neil Diamond. These are not things I would ever play on my radio show, but they are staples of my communal music experiences, because like it or not, everyone knows them, and at a certain point people stop caring about being hip and just enjoying the music.
Third Eye Blind is a new one for me, I first realized the potential of this song when I saw the band Maurice cover it at an after-party for Coldsnap. It’s not a song I had heard for a few years, but it was all over the place a few years ago and it’s insanely catchy, so everyone knows it, even if they don’t ever think of it or put it on best-of lists. I wasn’t sure how it would go over, but it wound up being well-received enough that I’ll definitely try it again. I’m also sneaking it into this playlist, and maybe you’ll realize you like it, too.
So I was cleaning up a bunch of draft posts I’ve made to see what to finish and what to chuck, and I found this one from about a year ago, when we were living on Government Street in Victoria. Living in Prince George, you’re not exposed to architecture from more than a few decades ago very often, but living in one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the province is another matter altogether. We lived a block away from Emily Carr’s childhood home, a little further up the same street was where she spent her last years, and a right-hand turn would take you to the home she spent much of her adult life in. It was an interesting experience, but I think the only reason I drafted this post (with the title and the picture) was because I liked the pun. Was it worth it? Sure, why not?
As you may or may not know, I have a music blog that allows me to get me “you gotta listen to this song” instincts out of the way without clogging up my personal blog over here. But today I’m making an exception. The band is Wisconsin Dream Guitar:
Silver Fall by wisconsindreamguitar
It’s a new project from Rob Dunlop and Leigh O’Neill, who have been in a few of my favourite local bands over the years. In fact, Rob was the singer/songwriter for Big Old Eyes, the band that introduced me to CFUR radio got me into local music all at once. Wisconsin Dream Guitar is potentially the best project yet— it’s at least on par with Big Old Eyes, in any case.
Some of the signature sound of his earlier projects is there— it continues to be low-fi, slightly off pop songs, but there’s a real dream-like quality to the sound now— it sounds pretty much exactly what the album’s subject matter is about, which is, generally speaking, transitioning into adult life in the same town you grew up. I might be misinterpreting the thesis, but the key song, for me, is “Suburban Girls”, a short, spoken word take on what it’s like to stick around while everyone else moves on:
Suburban Girls by wisconsindreamguitar
“Suburban Girls/…/left me for the coast once again/I don’t see much on these roads anymore/no one’s around like they were years ago/I’m still here living/I’m living/I’m still here living/I’m living”
The Arcade Fire may have written an album about growing up in suburbia, but they moved on to Montreal as young adults and now experience life as an international, jet-setting band. Wisconsin Dream Guitar forges inspiration out of suburbia not as a nostalgic memory but as a reality of life— people still live in these places, and sometimes they want art about their lives, too. This provides it. Highly recommended.
Wisconsin Dream Guitar can be found on Tumblr and Soundcloud.
Last week, I sat in as a co-host on Fresh Sheet while Rob searches for a new permanent co-host (interested takers see here). On it, we had a brief discussion on the “Canadian-ness” of a band like the Arcade Fire. As I said on the show, since the primary player in the band (Win Butler) was born and raised in the United States and only spent a few years in Montreal as an adult before becoming a member of “The Arcade Fire” as a global band playing stadiums around the year, I’m curious as to how much of a Canadian perspective he has. If I were to have moved to the United States when I was 20 (the age he moved to Montreal), I doubt that I would feel like an American by the age of 24 (the age he was when the Arcade Fire released their first album). Having done more research, I realize that five of the seven other band members are Canadian born-and-raised, but it’s still a point that has intrigued me for a while. I take K’Naan as another question mark. Canada is all over him being a Canadian artist, but it’s clear his primary influence comes from his childhood in Somalia, and these days his lyrics (and tweets) are as likely to mention his life on the road or in the United States as they are Canada. How much of a Canadian perspective does he portray?
I’m not questioning the legitimacy of these artists, I’m not accusing them of misrepresenting themselves, and I’m not questioning the ability of people from other countries to be “Canadian” no matter how long they’ve been in the country. I’m just wondering whether or not they themselves feel like Canadians, or if it’s just a label we as a country have thrown at them in an effort to bolster our national self-esteem. Dan Snaith of Caribou lives in London, England, where he completed a PhD in mathematics, yet he still won the 2008 Polaris Prize for Canadian musicians. Sort of feels like we’re having it both ways.
I think this is just a pet peeve of mine based on a lifetime of having people try to instill a sense of Canadian pride in me by citing all the great Canadians doing well in the United States– Alex Trebeck! Jim Carrey! William Shatner! James Cameron! – despite the fact that nothing in their careers is particularly Canadian or dependent on being Canadian. Good on them for succeeding in life, but it sort of implies all our country can do is let people be born before they go on to bigger and better things. I think our media and culture as a whole still has a tendency to move in this direction, and now I take any international “Canadian” star with a grain of salt. The Arcade Fire and K’Naan have recorded in Canada and helped open up the Canadian music scene to international markets, so they’re certainly a far cry from those other examples, but again I wonder how much they feel Canadian and how much of their Canadian-ess is foisted upon them, especially as they become ever more global bands. It’ll be interesting to see where they are, personally and professionally, in another 10 years. Suburban Canada, or some other international locale? If the latter, what will their music have to do with Canada?
via Shawn Petriw on Facebook:
“I’m always amazed how artists working completely independently can create something so similar. It’s happened to me, and apparently, it’s happened to Slingshot. Add a dogwood on top and you’ve essentially got the City of Prince George logo.”
This is what he means. Here’s the logo for the City of Prince George side by side with the logo for Fenchurch, a skateboard-clothing company:
For those of you who don’t know (and I’m not surprised there would be those who don’t, since it’s impossible for me to find a link on this [update: link is here]), the City of Prince George’s logo is a dogwood1 (British Columbia’s provincial flower) over top of an image that represents the coming together of the Nechako and Fraser Rivers. It’s pretty cool, actually, but vague enough that it can be interpreted in many different ways. For example, most people I ask think it’s a snowflake and some random lines. Slingshot, the company that created the Fenchurch logo describes their design thusly:
“After submitting many ideas and sketches for the Fenchurch logo, the arch design was conceived. There are many ideas behind the design, the first being that it comprises of two mirror images of the letter F. It has a very strong and solid feel and its architectural forms are vaguely reminiscent of the arches and stained glass windows found in churches and the main one being a graphic representation of the train tracks of Fenchurch Street Station.
The logo is in no way pictorial or literal and therefore does not limit the the products that the company produces, it has already experimented with shoes as well as clothing and offer many accessories that are not necessarily related to clothing. By creating a logo that was in a way anonymous it means that Fenchurch is not limited to the clothing market alone.”
But even Fenchurch is not alone. It seems Mr. Petriw brought the similarities of the two logos to the attention of the designers, who, according to Mr. Petriw’s Facebook page responded:
“Ah yeah, you know since I did that logo in 2000, I’ve seen several that are similar. Must be zeitgeist! Or maybe because it’s a form that can represent many things. The worst one for me was when I went to Paris two years later and walked past the 30 year old Les Quatre Temps mall, check it out:
– thankfully that’s been knocked down now and they have a completely different logo.”
It’s a pretty interesting case study of a strong design being used to represent different things. Anybody else have records of similar motifs?
Finished laying hardwood floor. Had a nice dinner at my parents. Got home, around 10:30 realized ferret was missing, and would have been outside for at least the last five hours. Panic, put out kennels and treats, set out to put up missing posters, and see a cat down the street stalking something. Run, run, run, catch her, thank my lucky stars.
Next time we do renovations, she is staying in a cage.
ginger + wasabi = wasabi dog
One of the things I like most about Firefox is the add-ons, in particular the custom search bar over in the top right corner. It allows you to search Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and any number of other services directly without having to navigate to the website first– a real time-saver if you spend any length of time using this sites for research or otherwise. While my search bar has long been customized with everything from a creative commons image search to the Hype Machine, one frequently navigated site that has always eluded me is CBC Radio 3. It’s a great resource for finding songs by and information about independent Canadian artists, but I don’t always like having to visit the site in order to find an individual artist page. So today I decided to take a small amount of time and figure out how to add it to the sidebar. Fortunately, it was easier than I thought, and should take you no more than a couple of minutes. Hat tip to Digital Inspiration and Firefox user Dr. Evil for pointing me in the right direction.
I’m sure there are variations on doing this, and it’s also possible there’s a way to do it Google Chrome, so if anyone has other tips (or if you run into problems), feel free to leave a message in the comments below.
After our trip to southern Alberta (photo set now 1/6 done!), my girlfriend carried on for a visit with family in Vancouver with her dad. Before going, I loaded up her iPod with some new podcasts including my current obsession, This American Life. I don’t know which episode in particular, because I haven’t heard it yet, but it caused her to come back with the question of:
“Which superpower would you rather have– flying or invisibility?”
It’s an age-old one, but I hadn’t considered it in years. My inclination was to say flying, when suddenly found myself with all these questions. They included:
How high can you fly?
Are you affected by changes in atmospheric pressure?
How much of your own energy do you have to exert– can you go as faster or faster than walking and running, and do you tire just as quickly?
These are all real issues to consider. What if you chose flying and then found you could only get about ten feet off the ground, and even then you could only go at the pace of a jog for an hour or so before tiring? What good would that do you?
Likewise, with invisibility there’s the question of side effects, the ability to keep your clothes on and remain unseen, the question of how you would bring anything with you (ie. if you were to use it to get places unseen, could you have your car keys on you at the same time), what happens to food in the process of being digested, and what happens if you have an accident while in the state of invisibility– do you come back into being so medical help might be summoned, or does your body stay hidden from you until you either regain consciousness or pass away in a shroud of mystery, your body never being found? As with the flying, if these issues aren’t addressed your left with a neat trick, but not much of superpower, per se.
Apparently these questions were also addressed in the podcast, so I’m relieved by the knowledge that even if I overthink these issues, at least someone else did, too. And on the radio, where people would actually hear them. So I think I’m safe.
Oh, and I’d still go with flying.
About a year ago, I became frustrated by the Prince George transit system. Specifically, I didn’t like the fact that there was no easy way to be alerted to changes to routes and information– unless you checked the website daily on the off-chance there was a delay or cancellation of a route, odds are you didn’t find out until your bus didn’t arrive.
So I decided to hack a little bit in order to create an RSS feed using information from the website so that I could subscribe to the alerts in the same way I would subscribe to a blog. Using my feed reader of choice, I receive updates whenever they occur in the same place I get my news and updates from my favourite blogs.
Which is all well and good for me, but I never really found a good way to share this with people not familiar with feed readers. But with recent developments in the world of Twitter, I’m able to change that. Now, anyone will be able to get alerts via Twitter, text message, or email.
For those of you interested, I created the feed using open.dapper.net.
In order to send it to Facebook, I subscribe directly to the Dapper feed using Google Reader (I do this in order to scrape a date). I then share it to Hootsuite, which outputs into the Twitter account. Here’s how.
In my second system, I burn the feed to Feedburner, then activate the “socialize” option under the publicize tab in order to send the information to Twitter. Here’s an overview of how that works.
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2011: I no longer use Hootsuite in this equation. Once I have my Feedburner feed, I send those alerts directly to Twitter, as outlined here. I have the PG Transit Alerts Twitter account set to automatically update Facebook, as is now allowed under the settings tab in Twitter.
A few years back, we were visiting friends in Vancouver. We decided to go to White Spot for dinner, and one of us tried to order the Pirate Pak. He got it, but minus the ship– he was told they weren’t allowed to give it to adults. On that day, I learned that the days of receiving dinner in a cardboard pirate ships were gone.
Until today.
Some higher-ups at CBC were visiting the Prince George office today, and took the staff to lunch. Thanks to the proximity, we opted for White Spot, and on the way in, saw this:
I immediately knew what I was going to order.
Best staff lunch ever.
Ad nauseam
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September 11 2010 | ∞
performing at UNBC for back-to-school. It was a cool night, and turn-out was less than it could have been, but they put on a good show. Highlight was probably when a fire alarm was set off and the beer garden had to be emptied out. As the lead singer said: “Let’s see how long it takes to move a bunch of drunk people.” A personal highlight was when their classic-reggae encore medley included a Desmond Dekker song, because I had been playing Desmond Dekker in the office earlier after our music director complained about reggae music. I told him he should come to the show because they would probably cover Desmond Dekker. And they did. And apparently he was there, not that I saw him– probably in the beer garden.
Anyways, here’s a video and some pictures. Click on the pictures for full size images.
Filed under: music, personal, photos | Discussion