Kathleen Edwards' Asking For Flowers

Kathleen Edwards' latest came out about two months ago. I've been playing it fairly constantly since then. Crystal vocals and a songwriter's eye that continues to develop and mature make this , her third album, her strongest to date.

There's a lot to love on the album and I recommend any and all to pick it up and spend a few quiet evenings getting to know it.

Probably my favourite track off the album is Alicia Ross:

Alicia Ross may be a name familiar to anyone who lives in and around the Greater Toronto area. She disappeared in August 2005. Her body would be found later and eventually her neighbour would confess to her murder. In 2007, her neighbour was given a life sentence. Alicia Ross is a song written from the perspective of Alicia. It hits pretty powerful, though I wonder if it would as much if I wasn't already familiar with Alicia's story. I am a girl with a forgettable face, it opens. And I think how much I enjoy the song begins with these opening sentiments. Too often we romanticize the dead. But bookended with the closing words Now I'm a girl who's face they'll never forget, it drives home this idea of a very ordinary person, who in death remained an ordinary person, but had an out of the ordinary experience, which, for the most part, and unfortunately so, will be what most remember of her.

It's a fantastic song. Even better, all royalties from this song are being donated to Project C.A.N.O.E., a charity for "at-risk" youths that now works closely with the Ross family and represents Alicia's great love of the outdoors. So no free download for that. Hit it up at Itunes, or better yet go to ye olde record shoppe and grab the whole album. Also visit AliciaRoss.ca to learn more about Alicia and the various charitable endeavours in her honour.

Asking For Flowers can be found in all the usual hot spots. Get it.

The Deadly Snakes provide an aural document of their last show (s)

Photo Credit: Carrie Musgrave

Those familiar with me know I have a special love in my heart for two recent-times Canadian bands. The first, The Constantines just released their newest album a few weeks ago and I'll have some thoughts on that tomorrow on the eve of its U.S. release date. The second, The Deadly Snakes, played their last notes August 26, 2006, nearly two years ago (where has the time gone, etc., etc.).

The Snakes were a deadly rock and roll band. Four albums over their ten year existence. The last two, Ode to Joy and Porcella, are of desert island pick quality. Call 'em what you will. I myself like Garage Soul. There was always a real Jesus on the mainline, pipeline to the heart evident in their music and live shows. Of all the great acts I've been fortunate to see and hear, there are very few that keep punching me in the heartbox like the Snakes do.

Ten years after their inception the band decided to call it quits, never achieving much more than regional adoration. Their demise coincided with the rise in recognition of the indie scene in general and the Canadian indie scene specifically. These were days of Arcade Fires, Wolf Parades, and Broken Social Scenes. Good days all around, never mind you, but days that passed without the Snakes getting the true recognition they deserved. Forgotten in the back alley no doubt.

The last show was tipped to throw down at the Horseshoe Tavern on the 25th of August. Word circulated that the last real throwdown would take place the next night at the Silver Dollar. Indeed it did. That Friday and Saturday were pretty darn close to being the best weekend I've ever had.

Two years later comes news via Myspace that "The Snakes' last show live album should be out sometime in 2008 on In The Red. It's a 37 song monster and it sounds great."

I wasn't even aware that the last shows were being taped. I'm assuming it is only of the Horseshoe gig, where the band played two sets and covered nearly every damn thing they had ever put to tape. Either way, it will serve as a great addendum to the Snakes' ongoing legacy. Keep your ears open for that.

There is a plethora of Snakes related video on Youtube. Both the Horseshoe and Silver Dollar gigs have a presence there. Those with time and interest should head there.

I'll leave you with a great track from Porcella. "If a man can't love when he is young, there'll be no love for him as he grows old."

If this is your first exposure to the Snakes and you wish for more take the yellow tinged road, or better yet get in touch with this kind soul and ask to come over for a rock and roll night. Nothing makes me happier then to share.

The Deadly Snakes - Oh Lord, My Heart mp3 (sendspace link)

Entire Cities

"My personal contribution to the ol' pigeonhole is 'psychedelic cow punk'; I'm not really worried about it though, because I've tried to define the music myself and failed miserably. If I don't know what it is, then how the fuck is anyone else gonna know?"

So sayeth Simon Borer, guitarist/vocalist for Toronto's Entire Cities. I'd like his band just for the simple fact he acknowledges the futility of defining a band's sound. I'm just bowled over with these guys. A 7-strong core outfit with a revolving cast of additional players. Live show, by all accounts, is a ruckus. If that matters to ya. Don't know because I haven't seen them yet.

I'm not a lyrics guy naturally. I have to work at it. My ADD tends to kick in and I normally have songs hit me for how they sound. How they feel. How they hit me in the gut. Entire Cities meet all these instant criteria, but I'm enamoured by their lyrics too. they just have these lyrics that get you in that good part of your heart. Take Sunshine, to hear it go to their profile at CBC Radio3, backed by a banjo and some vibey guitar, these words economically oozed out like a fourth Followil brother, "I'm fucked up. On sunshine. Heartbreak. For a lifetime".

Or Dancing With My Brother, destined to bring back acid recall of cowboy hoe-downs gone awry, and one of the best chorus' I've heard lately, " I'm my brother's snakeskin motherfucker".

Coffee reminds me so much of a friend of mine when it opens with " She said, 'I ain't been without a man since I was a little girl of thirteen. Now's my chance to find out who I am without a man". I like those moments; when the music gets personal with you.

Keep your eye out for Entire Cities, They hit real pure.

Simon wrote in to say that they are holding their cd release April 11th at the King & Niagara Legion Hall. Be on the ball with that. No April 1st gig as previously mentioned.

Entire Cities - Dancing With My Brother mp3
Entire Cities - Coffee mp3

Constantines tracklisting and release date

Official tracklisting, album art, and title for the new Constantines album. As you can see the new album is titled Kensington Heights. It's slated to hit Canada on April 15th, and in the U.S. April 29th.

The tracklisting:

1 - Hard Feelings
2 - Million Star Hotel
3 - Trans Canada
4 - Shower Of Stones
5 - Our Age
6 - Time Can Be Overcome
7 - Brother Run Them Down
8 - Credit River
9 - I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song
10 - New King
11 - Life Or Death
12 - Do What You Can Do

Now Valentines Day is tomorrow. With that in mind I'll leave you one of the best love songs I ever set eyes and ears upon. Give 'em a great big kiss.

The Constantines - Saint You mp3

The Russian Futurists suck....But not this song

"The Russian Futurists suck!!!" These are the words that greeted me last week as I walked into the Phoenix just as The Russian Futurists were wrapping up their warmup gig for Wintersleep.
The man uttering those words was my buddy Winston Churchill. And that kid knows a thing or two.

The Russian Futurists are essentially the brain child of Matthew Adam Hart. He expanded it for live shows a few years back, but it still reallly remains his little lapdog.

Somehow or another it was recommended I listen to the RF track Paul Simon. I dig Paul Simon. Even better, I dig songs that reference Paul Simon.. There's The Clash's Fuck Art Garfunkel (I'm siding with Simon) and of course Eminem's early mixtape classic, Paul Simon Stole my Shorty. Good shit.

So I dug into the track and loved it. The video is awesome too. It basically features Hart walking around listening to the track and people he's passing by just start breaking out into spontaneous dance. Not just a good shuffle, but Fred Astaire shit. Big sweeping legs, swooping gestures. Have you ever had that desire? Walking down the street and having a track pop onto your headphones and just wanting to dance and shout your ass off. I normally stop myself; sometimes I'll allow myself an emphatic clap of the hands, but that is typically as far as I'll get.

I picked up RF's '06 release Me, Myself & Rye as a result. It's a compilation of their first three albums. I was intensely disappointed by it. I knew they were opening the Wintersleep gig and had initially been excited by this. Listening to the album took the wind out of my sails and contributed to my laziness in making it to the show on time. Luckily I had my buddy Winston to confirm this. Wintersleep though was incredible. They keep on getting better.

Take a listen to Paul Simon. It rocks.

The Russian Futurists -Paul Simon mp3

Friday Night Lights

I've been watching Friday Night Lights all season long with mixed feelings. It has definitely stumbled in its sophomore season. The biggest one was right out of the gates with the murder plotline between Landry and Tyra. Almost right away critics called them on it with most supposing the direction was probably the result of the show trying to make a big jump out of the gates, looking for viewers and a stay of execution from NBC after barely making the cut and not getting cancelled last season.

Like some of the characters of the show, they seemed a bit over-eager to please. Given the focus of the show, perhaps a football analogy about how the green team playing in their first big championship comes out in the first half all nerves and trying too hard would be apt. But as countless movies have dictated, the team calms those nerves and comes out of the dressing room in the second half collected. All they had to do was remind themselves of what got them there. " You gotta dance (with who you came to the dance with)" as The Hold Steady might say.

Football may be the premise of the show, but it's never really been about that. It's about the characters. FNL isn't one of those typical shows that drags you into their lives by making you envious of how dramatic and blessed their existences are. Nope, it does it the old fashioned way, through character development. The beauty isn't just in the big moments; the victorious ones where a silent pumped fist is shared with the fictitious. It is in the defeats and the failings when you see them for who they are. And they're noble as hell. Not perfect mind you, but genuinely flawed characters who maintain dignity in the moments when life attempts to strip you of it.

One of the storyline's coming into the ep was Smash's suspension for the rest of the regular season. Over the past two season's we've seen how football is really the only thing Smash cares about. It's his passion. When the suspension comes down he is genuinely crushed. He's apologetic but still manages to carry that Smash swagger that as much a failing as it is off the field, is a necessity for him on the field. But then we find out his football scholarship has been taken from him and the bottom truly drops out. The episode closes out with Smash coming into the locker room just before the start of the game. His teammates, deflated and angry with their star player for letting them down, have been especially hard on him and he stands before them humbled. He reminds them of who they are and how they got to be here. And as they rush out of the tunnel to take on their competitors we see Smash in the now empty locker room bent over in tears. It is heartbreaking and powerful.

"Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can't Lose."

With the writer's strike going on most shows have already run out of new episodes to air. Friday Night Lights managed to get 15 in the can before the strike began. They still have one more to air after last Friday's 14th episode, which will air this Friday. With the writer's strike rumoured to be coming to an end I'm hopeful they can get back to work and give us another 7 episodes and finish out the season proper. If not, Friday's show will be the season finale.

I'll leave you with a track from last week's episode. It plays over an important scene between Landry and Tyra. It's by a band named The Avett Brothers. I'm not familiar with their work at all at this point, although I intend to do some listening in the coming weeks and reporting back.

Disclaimer: Skip the next paragraph and just download the song and give it a listen. Ear it on your own terms without my effusive praise.

Heard it?

Then lets talk about If It's the Beaches. When a song hits you in the guts and soul you just gotta ride it. You're not sure how long it will last; whether it's true or not, but like I said, you ride it. It feels purer than all get out. It makes you deny any cynical "heard it all" bullshit that might try and fight up in your throat. It makes you want to call people just to tell them about this song,
"And by the way I love you, man."
First time I heard Paul Simon sing Graceland. The first time I heard The Constantines sing I'm Onto You. The first time I sung along to The Deadly Snakes I Want to Die. They all come from the guts and soul. This song is having that effect on me. Something is there. That quiet acoustic guitar, some strings, the answering machine talkover halfway through. Then there's the introduction of the piano in the last verse. It feels like a baptism.

Fuckin 'eh.

The Avett Brothers - If It's the Beaches mp3 (sendspace file)

New Constantines

This Tuesday past marked the release of the first single from the Constantines camp. The still untitled follow-up to Tournament of Hearts will come out mid-April on their new label (Toronto-based heavy) Arts & Crafts.

Hard Feelings backed with Easy Money is, as well as being the first A+C Cons release, the first 7" the band has ever released.

Hard Feelings, will appear on the new album, while b-side, Easy Money owes an amount of debt to Neil Young, which the Cons have never been afraid to do.

You can order the 7" via the A+C online store. It was available at Insound too, but mysteriously seems to have disappeared in the past few days. Natch.

Both tracks are also available and streaming over on the band's Myspace. Ch-Ch-Ch-Check it out.

The Constantines - Hard Feelings mp3
The Constantines - Easy Money mp3

New Magnetic Fields

I gotta get too pissed to miss you/Or I'll never get to sleep
I got to drink not to pine for you/ And God knows that ain't cheap

I won't profess to be incredibly familiar with the Stephen Merritt canon of Magnetic Fields work. I have listened to their high-water mark triple album 69 Love Songs several times, although I'm still unsure if I ever got the whole way through it. Suffice to say it was one of those albums I put on the shelf and haven't paid much notice to in a while. But that doesn't mean we can't get excited about the new Magnetic Fields album. Called Distortion, it's out next Tuesday on Nonesuch.

The excitement stems from the fantastic tune Too Drunk To Dream. The lyrics, a cross-section above for example, are a touch on the downcast side. The music though is rather poppy and upbeat, which lends to an interesting contrast that actually complements each element.

The album's title should be telling of what is in store for those planning on picking up a copy. Distortion, lots of it.

The Magnetic Fields - Too Drunk To Dream mp3 (sendspace link)

She & Him

A couple months back I heard a duet that M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel did for a still unreleased movie named The Go-Getter. Matt was soundtracking the film, and at the behest of director Martin Hynes teamed up with Zooey to take on the classic Richard & Linda Thompson tune, When I Get to the Border.

Zooey and Matt then began collaborating on a set of demos and songs she had been working on for a while. Repeat, this is not some haphazardly thrown together actress turned singer gig. Anyone who's seen Zooey on the silver screen can attest the girl is talented. For many years she used to perform in a jazz cabaret act, then there's that bit in Elf when Zooey gave us a glimpse at her voice. M. Ward isn't exactly a slouch either, 2006's Post-War is still one of my favourite records.

Word comes out that a full album of this collaboration will be coming out in March. Going under the moniker of She & Him, the album will simply be called Volume 1.

Today I'll leave you with the previously mentioned When I Get To The Border. Also, presumably to be featured off the new album, Change Is Hard. And because I'm irresistibly falling in love with this, I'll include a shortened version of Magic Trick off the aforementioned M. Ward album, Post War.

Once again, all files are sendspace links, so just click the link to get 'er.

M. Ward & Zooey Deschanel - When I Get To The Border mp3
M. Ward & Zooey Deschanel - Change Is Hard mp3
M. Ward & Zooey Deschanel - Magic Trick mp3

Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

I'm a sucker for a good Dylan cover. Ditto that for a good Van Morrison one. Sucker for a good love story and a good underdog one too.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova starred as "Guy" and "Girl" in this year's little indie film that could, Once. Shot for around $160,000, the film, about two musicians falling in love, has gone on to earn its money back many times over. It has been showing up on almost every year end best of list I have come across. Not bad at all.

The movies two stars were both relative new comers to acting. Irglova was a true rookie, never having acted in her 19 years. For Hansard, this was only his second role ever, although it had been some time since he first appeared as Outspan Foster in 1991's The Committments. Glen's regular dayjob, as it has been since 1990, is the main man in Irish band, The Frames. Marketa, barely out of high school, met Glen through friends, leading the duo to record '06's The Swell Season. The album contains songs previously seen on some Frames records and that would later appear on the Once soundtrack.

I've really been falling in love with Glen and Marketa's covers as of late. A collector's edition of the Once OST, released in December features their take on Van Morrison's Into The Mystic. They also contributed their version of Dylan's You Ain't Going Nowhere on the I'm Not There soundtrack/compilation from earlier in the year. Both are fantastically compelling.

Both files are sendspace files. Follow the link.

Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Into The Mystic mp3
Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - You Ain't Going Nowhere mp3