hot pot of nescafe! a new shaun verreault album...
Next week, Shaun Verreault is releasing a new CD, Two Steel Strings. Those who've been reading the vanmega for a while know that we think Shaun's guitar technique is unstoppable. Seriously, though... he's a guitar player's guitar player. Calling him a virtuoso would be an unjust understatement.
Apparently, the new disk is a bit of a concept album, he recorded the whole thing on a train traveling from Montreal to Vancouver. Clearly, some people like to suffer for their art. Haven't heard the whole disk yet, but what I have heard feels like firey, timeless blues... and if it's anything like his last solo disk it'll be killer.
Hey, that new Jason Collett disk, Here's To Being Here comes out this week. I've been living with an advance copy for a couple of weeks, and guess what?! It's the first 5 star CD of 2008!
Whenever I ramble on about Jason Collett I always end up trying to draw parallels between him and Jim Cuddy/Blue Rodeo. Collett's work has always had this *implied* mature Canadiana feel to it (maybe the BSS link muted that?). With Here's To Being Here this maturity moves front and centre. Additionally, he seems to be very bluntly channeling some of his influences - I hear bits of the Stones, Dylan, and the like - and it works. It's almost like he slips into impressions of these guys, only for a second, only for emphasis, only to entertain himself, and the result is kinda cool. Yeah, you might hear pieces of Miss You but there's no mistaking that it's Collett's track... and dude is simply excelling past his inspiration.
On the weekend we finally saw Juno... because, you know, I refuse to see any film until Maclean's magazine has featured it in some totally out of touch trend piece. Or something.
To be brief: I loved Juno.
The thing that I can't reconcile in my head, however, is all the blog coverage of the film which ruthlessly tears it apart. There seems to be 2 general themes in criticism for this movie: (1) the dialog is over-written to a point where it's simply referencing anything to do with Gen-Y or web culture, or (2) the movie tries too hard to push bands and a definition of what bands should be considered cool on to the viewer.
Really? Either I'm getting too old to be sensitive to these things, or backlash for the sake of backlash is still in vogue.
With the exception of the "honest to blog" line, which I admit did make me throw up in my mouth a touch, the writing is tight. Yes, Juno is a crude spazz moving at an insane cadence, but it works... the reason it works is Ellen Page. She owns it throughout, everyone else is almost 2 dimensional in comparison to her. People use the term "quirky" to describe the film with malicious intent, and that's lazy. Yeah, it's "quirky", but in a very compelling way.
The constant music references in the film are harmless. The Velvet Underground? Patti Smith? Iggy & the Stooges? A teenager citing bands before his/her time as teh greatest? Yawn. It's all been done a thousand times. I guess it helps establish her character, but it's nothing worth getting worked up over as a viewer. It's not like the film took the Garden State approach to musical scoring. Personally, I celibrate any "quirky" film that doesn't sync every charter's on-screen sigh with a Snow Patrol riff.
Oh, and Ellen Page can sing far better than Kimya Dawson. THERE, I SAID IT.
But ferreals, excellent film*. The scenes of Burnaby were a nice bonus too.
* I reserve the right to change my mind once Oscar-fever kicks into top gear.
We ended up settling on this as our soundtrack of choice... I'd kinda forgotten about how pretty BSS can be, when they actually want to.
Unrelated, but sorta related: It's come to my attention that there's a pyramid on the property where me and Tk will marry later this year. A pyramid! SYNCHRONICITY wasn't just a Police album, people!
A few free and legal downloads which came my way today:
That Amplive remix album of In Rainbows can be grabbed here. Me likey. Sidebar: one of Amplive's remixes were used in the last fake DJ set, which can be grabbed here.
Dan Deacon is giving seven (7!) of his old albums away. You can get them here. You can get a flashing neon induced migraine shortly thereafter.
Spinner has the New Pornographers performing 4 tracks live in studio here. mp3's or videos... choose your own adventure.
watching NASCAR because you love french impressionism...
I haven't watched the Grammys in years and don't plan on doing so anytime soon, but it's kinda hard to miss the online coverage. I watched the Kanye performance today - and HOORAY - Daft Punk and the pyramid make a cameo. To see for yourself click on the video above or jump to the 2:35 mark if you'd like to avoid Mr. West's self-important/self-loving performance.
The nice thing about their teaser performance is that you actually to see Guy & Thomas working the Lemur boxes... which kinda closes the question about what they actually do while in the pyramid.
Of course, this won't stop all the stereogum & brooklyn vegan commenters from arguing that the guys in the suits are fakes... but whatevers.
2 things: (1) I'm in calgary, for like a day and a bit... but if you're around, we should hook up for a drink or a whole meal of food. (2) I've just discovered my phone has a data plan and web access. So I'm posting this post via the most tedious medium possible. All praise to the T9. Anyways, some links:
Fun fact: me and Carpet have fake dj battles... his latest set is titled boobie bangin mix! (not sure why), it sits somewhere between something you'd hear at your local discoteque and something you'd hear on discobelle. Solid set... could easily be your weekend jump off. If you're into weekends... and/or jump offs... right click, save as.
Yes, it's a couple of days late, but these kind of things are worth the wait... right? right.
You could almost split this month's mix right down the middle into two halves... or, in this case, sides of a tape. The first side is driven by guitar and melody, the second by samples and drum machines. I didn't really plan that, it just turned out that way... with sexy results. Hopefully.
Yarf. Finally home for a rest... and by rest I mean 3 days of celibrating Tk's b-day. Which isn't a bad thing, it's just I'm ready to nap for 14 years or so. Starting now.
I have a bunch of music-esque updates to post - including a new mixtape - but that's gonnna have to wait a couple of days (see need for sleep, listed above). I'm sure you'll continue to hold your breath.
Speaking of new music... How fantastic is that new Cadence Weapon disk? It's like French house and hip hop and Canadiana hopped into bed and had a wicked 3 way. Or something. For your review:
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