Within Earshot

Best local albums of the year...

One of the biggest perks of my job, aside from all the free stationery I pillage from the office supply room, is that local bands send me their CDs and I get to write reviews about them. Score!

Naturally, a few of the albums I reviewed over the past year were kinda stinkers.  But I was pleasantly surprised by the caliber of tunage being cranked out right under our noses here in the K-Dub.

And so I present My Top Ten Local Albums of 2008.  (Feel free to comment, disagree, gripe, snipe, burp and argue with my picks. Such is the beauty of these completely subjective lists).

10. The Tyler Schwende Band, Beautiful Catastrophe. A richly textured and slickly produced pop-rock record that belies the word "catastrophe" in its title. Though the songs are built on simple pop foundations, Schwende's musical chops shine through when he builds multi-layered instrumentals atop those foundations. Read my full review.

9. Full Length Mirror, Fabulous Fables and Other Stories To Tell. A surreal, otherworldly album that hearkens to the days of tie-dye and the chemical recommendations of Timothy Leary. Bandmates Cory Williams and Wayne Bond concoct psychedelic head-trips that pay homage to late-'60s garage rock while also sounding thoroughly now. What a trip. Read my full review.

8. Self-titled EP by The Sound Foundation. A galloping ska-pop adventure that almost, but not quite, captures the raw energy of the band's live shows. These funky youngsters combine elements of rock, funk and ska to create a sexy (and sax-y) hybrid designed to make people party. It's a tantalizing tease of the full-length album now in the works. Read my full review.

7. Daddy Long Legs, King for a Day. The young vanguard of Kitchener's strong blues scene, the boys of Daddy Long Legs deliver the album their fans have been waiting for -- a 12-track steamroller of electric boogie-blues. With guitars set to stun and harmonica player Junior Malleck breathing fire, King for a Day proves these guys to be blues royalty indeed. Read my full review.

6. Arrows, Knives are Falling From the Sky. This album was recorded in a remote cabin in a wooded area of northern Ontario, and strangely it shows. There's an earthiness to the post-punk music created by Ryan and Jackie Stanley, a married couple from Guelph (who have since changed their band name to Cursed Arrows). This isn't happy Kumbaya music for the tree-hugging crowd, mind you; it's often dark and haunting, like a night at a secluded cabin in the woods.

5. Ace Kinkaid, self-titled. This hot-off-the-presses album found its way into my CD player a few days ago and has been spinning in there ever since. This is a strange, complex and challenging album that jumps genres with ease. There's nary a word sung on the disc, nor is there a need -- the instrumentals spin amazing yarns. Fans of Battles and Mr. Bungle will love this.

4. Moglee, Recess. An aptly named album given that the music is as fun and carefree as a 15-minute playtime in the schoolyard. Case in point, the chorus of The Penny Song goes like this: "La la la! "La la-la la-la!" It's sunny, infectious pop that takes cues from Jamaican reggae, Japanese cuddle-core and New York indie-rock. Read my full review.

3. Saigon Hookers, Stray Dogs. Loud, dirty, raunchy . . . and catchy as all get out. K-W's indefatigable princes of punk opted to go high-tech this time around, releasing Stray Dogs as a download-only album. Chances are a bunch of computer speakers have since been blown out by their high-octane assault. Oh, and in case you didn't notice, Saigon Hookers is the best name for a band ever. Read my full review.

2. What's He Building in There?, self-titled. Whether you think this album is a masterpiece of a mass-of-crap will depend on your tolerance for hyperkinetic, schizophrenic bursts of insanity. I happen to think it's a twisted masterpiece, but I concede I might just be weird. Imagine passing out on a rollercoaster and having a nightmare while unconscious; this album is that nightmare. Read my full review.

1. West Memphis Suicide, Songo Hollow. My pick for best local album of the year is a 10-tonne slab of southern-fried rock 'n' roll so thick and heavy it melted my car speakers. If Lynyrd Skynyrd and Black Sabbath got into a boozy bar brawl, this would be the soundtrack. Front man Chris Raposo is one of the best guitar shredders in the country, a skill he shows off in abundance on Songo Hollow. Two big devil-horns up. Read my full review.

It looks like 2009 is going to be a rawkin' year in this neck of the woods, with lots of local bands working on full-length albums to follow-up on the EPs they teased us with in 2008. 

Bands, if you'd like to get your CD reviewed in the newspaper, just drop send 'em (or drop them off) to me, Colin Hunter, at The Record, 160 King St. East, Kitchener. 

See y'all in the new year.

Luna & Me

Just a quick update to let you know that Saving Luna, the multi-award-winning documentary about a friendly, precocious orphaned orca that lived and died off the coast of British Columbia, has been held over for an extended run at The Princess Cinema. 

Wanna know why?  Because it's fantastic, that's why. I saw Saving Luna last night and was thoroughly affected by it.  Barely a dozen other people were in the theatre last night, which is a shame since a film like this really deserves to be seen by a wide audience.  It raises lots of  poignant and vexing questions about animal stewardship, the nature of consciousness and the interconnectedness of all living creatures. 

But since it was made on an eensie-weensie budget with little cash left over for promotion,  Saving Luna will never draw as vast an audience as, say, a saccharine Hollywood blockbuster like Marley & Me.  Sure, Marley & Me is also a film about a cute, precocious animal, but it's not a whole lot more than that (when I read the book, I felt as if I was constantly being led toward a big, blubbery cry-fest, which turned out to be precisely the case).  Granted, Saving Luna turned out to be a blubbery cry-fest too, but not in a maudlin, emotionally manipulative way.  Luna's story is a tearjerker because it was beautiful and tragic and hopelessly complicated.

Without the Hollywood promotional machine behind it, a film like Saving Luna can only succeed on word-of-mouth advertising.  So here's my (typed) word-of-mouth: go see it.   It's playing at the Original Princess Cinema every day between now and Jan. 5. 

When "shhhhhhhh" isn't strong enough...

You should never, ever talk in a movie theatre. This rule of courtesy should be sacrosanct and innately obvious to anyone with even the slightest glimmer of intelligence.

But there's always at least one crapweasel in every movie theatre who feels he or she is exempt from this rule. These people usually fall into one of several categories:
- Ancient fogeys who, despite the million-decibel Dolby SurroundSound onslaught, are unable to hear the dialog and must seek clarification from a companion.
- Mouth-breathing half-wits who can only understand a film's storyline if it is told in a linear, unchallanging narrative, preferably enacted by a thespian the caliber of Will Farrell or Pauly Shore, and therefore must have every new plot development explained in easy, monosyllabic words.
- Self-absorbed twerps who fancy themselves comedians and feel the need to provide moronic colour commentary about the onscreen action. These are the most insidious movie-talkers, since they believe their impromptu input to be as important, or more important, than a screenplay that likely took years for some Hollywood scribe to write.

One can only speculate what prompted a family in Philadelphia to yak away during a Christmas Day screening of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  But you can be sure they'll never, ever do it again.

An annoyed theatre-goer reached his breaking point and went a tad overboard. First he chucked popcorn at the son.  Then, according to news reports, he shot the kid's father in the arm with a Kel-Tec .380 handgun that he had been carrying in his sweatpants. The dad was treated in hospital, the shooter was arrested, and according to Entertainment Weekly, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is "an extravagantly ambitious movie that's easy to admire but a challenge to love."

Now, I'm not condoning vigilante gunplay in movie theatres.  Clearly this is yet another illustration, as if any more illustrations were needed, that gun control in the United States needs some tightening.

So while I don't applaud the alleged gunman, I do support the notion that some harsher measures need to be implemented to discourage gabbing in movie theatres.

I have a few ideas:
- Voice-activated ejector seats that deploy the moment a human voice (or tenacious candy wrapper) is detected.
- A sound-proof glass room in which habitual movie talkers can be enclosed, thus allowing them to yap amongst themselves without disturbing others.
- Electro-shock deterrent that administers a small zap to the buttocks at the first instance of yakking and increases the voltage with each subsequent comment.
- A butter-like popcorn topping that causes temporary laryngitis.
- A system that allows people to talk during films, but also allows other moviegoers to slash their tires in the parking lot afterwards.

But shooting?  That's just a bit extreme.

Merry Christmas and Happy Life Day!

Thirty years ago, the greatest abomination in the history of television, The Star Wars Holiday Special, was broadcast for the first and only time. It was a campy variety show that, along with the entire cast of the original Star Wars films, featured ghastly song-and-dance numbers by the likes of Harvey Korman and Bea Arthur. The plotline, inasmuch as the special had a plotline, was that Chewbacca needed to get back home to his Wookie family (including his son, Lumpawarrump) in time for Life Day, a thinly veiled metaphor for Christmas.

Since its airing, George Lucas has publicly stated that he would relish the opportunity to find and destroy all remaining copies of the televised travesty. Thanks to the internet, that will never happen. Consider it payback for Jar-Jar Binks, Mr. Lucas.  In the generous spirit of Christmas, er, Life Day, I present to you Princess Leia crooning to Wookies n' such. Dare you not to cringe.

Have yourselves a scary little Christmas...

Normally I wouldn't review an album of Christmas carols.  I wouldn't even listen to one voluntarily. But a couple of weeks ago, a very abnormal Christmas album appeared in my mailbox.  "Have a Merry Melancholy Christmas" is a collection of classic Christmas carols with a grim twist: they've all been transposed into a minor key, which makes an enormous difference in the mood they convey. 

Played in a minor key, Joy to the World becomes a haunting funeral dirge, and Jingle Bells turns into a creepy eastern European polka. The disturbing album is the creation of Dave Flitton of Waterloo, who is actually a cheery kindergarten teacher by day. He began transposing Christmas carols into minor keys as a party trick a few years ago, and after much badgering from family and friends he finally committed his creations to CD.

 It's the perfect soundtrack for the little Grinch that lives inside all of us.  You can listen to sample tracks and order a copy of the album at Writ in Water Sound's Myspace page. 

 

Need holiday stress relief? Get blasted and busted (flat)...

If spending time with your crazy family and in-laws this Christmas drives you to drink, there's no better place to unwind over a sudsy beverage than at The Boathouse on Boxing Day.  The venue in Victoria Park will host The Busted Flat Xmas Bash, a showcase of the talent roster of Kitchener's Busted Flat Records, and a bunch of their musical pals.

Among the acts on the line-up: Lucas Stagg, Tanya Philopovich, Paul MacLeod (see video below), Lynn Jackson and Alun Pigguns. The fun starts at 9 p.m. and the cover is a mere $10, which is probably the exact amount of the Christmas cheque you'll get from grandma this year.

Like "Free Willy," but real. And better.

Starting on Boxing Day, the Princess Cinema in Waterloo will host 10 screenings of a new documentary called Saving Luna, which has won rave reviews and heaps of awards at film festivals around the world. The movie tells the remarkable, tragic tale of Luna, a juvenile killer whale who became separated from his pod and marooned in Nootka Sound off Vancouver Island. Whales require social interaction with their families, and since Luna became cut off from his, the orphaned whale sought companionship in the many boaters who leaned overboard to rub his belly.

But like a child caught in the middle of his parents' divorce proceedings, Luna became the focal point of an embittered dispute between wildlife officials who wanted to reunite him with his pod, and a native band whose members believed he was the reincarnation of their late chief.  Somewhere in the middle of the dispute were journalists Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit, who had been dispatched to Nootka Sound to write an article about the brewing dispute over Luna's fate. What began as a three-week magazine assignment turned into a three-year filmmaking odyssey during which the married couple documented all sides of the Luna debate.

Last week I interviewed Chisholm, who will be on hand at the Princess Cinema for all 10 screenings of Saving Luna between Boxing Day and Dec. 30.  She and her husband faced a vexing dilemma in documentary filmmaking:  they wanted to maintain journalistic objectivity, though they also wanted to act in Luna's best interests.

"There’s the compassion that would comes out in you because this little guy was all alone," Chisholm told me. "We ended up falling in love with the character."

Saving Luna documents their difficult decision to become active participants, rather than passive observers, of the fight for Luna's safety. They argued that neither the government's nor the natives' plan would serve Luna's best interests, but rather only a structured, scientific approach to Luna's socialization would keep him mentally and physically safe. (Read my entire interview with Chisholm here).

The clash of ideologies turned Nootka Sound into the focal point of a national debate about animal stewardship -- and fantastic material for a documentary.

Hot(z) under the collar...

A couple of days ago I chatted with Jeremy Hotz -- an odd, perpetually miserable stand-up comic who's performing at Centre in the Square on Feb. 28.  Hotz has won heaps of awards and gained notoriety for his peculiar stage persona -- a whimpering, complaining sourpuss who always seems on the verge of either laughing or crying but never quite does either.

Offstage, he's not a whimperer. But man, can this guy complain! He has turned complaining into an art form.  During our brief phone interview, he complained about the following: his new house in L.A., his girlfriend's cat, a toothless midget at the mall, a bird that flew into his house, venetian blinds, the cable company, rain, the moving company that lost his cutlery, America ("They're the most un-Canadian people in the world!") and his own success.

But somehow Hotz's misery is kind of endearing, in a mopey dog kind of way. He hates everything so we don't have to.

"Besides," he told me, "with the current economic times, misery has come into vogue.  Misery is the new happiness."

On that note, have a miserable Christmas, one and all!

Happy Anniversary of a Showbiz Milestone!

On this day, 23 year ago, an old lady fell down and she couldn't get up.
"I've fallen and I can't get up," she exclaimed.
Thank heavens she was wearing a LifeCall pendant, which broadcast her plaintive plea to an emergency dispatcher who sent help. The old lady thus survived her harrowing accident.

Today is, honest to goodness, the anniversary of the first airing of the LifeCall commercial.  That, in itself, would not be be remarkable had the commercial not achieved campy, pop-culture infamy. But for a while in the late-'80s, that's exactly what happened -- and "I've fallen and I can't get up" became an overused, underfunny punchline for sitcom characters and annoying people at parties.  The infamous line, or variations thereof, was used for cheap laughs in Roseanne, Beavis and Butthead, Xena: Warrior Princess, Suburban Commando, Clerks 2, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Family Matters.*

Eventually, the corny punchline fell out of fashion, to be replaced by lines from Austin Powers like "Oh behave" and "Yeah baby," and repeated ad nauseum by practially everyone.

So in the spirit of nostalgia, Happy "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up" Day!

Enjoy this terrifying remix:

*Just for the record, I don't actually have such pop-culture drivel memorized; I learned all this from Wikipedia.

How a teenager turned $20 into $1500 (legally!)...

- Cost of large Hawaiian pizza: $11
- Gas money: $5, give or take.
- Video equipment rental:  Free, thank goodness.
- Misc. expenses, including duct tape to fix busted equipment: 4 bucks and change.
- Winning The First Within Earshot Music Video Contest: Priceless!

OK, perhaps "priceless" isn't the right term, since we can attach a dollar figure to Dan Bossenberry's winnings in the music video contest.  He won $1,500, which is a sizable chunk of change to an 18-year-old on the cusp of heading off to college.

And $1500 certainly is an impressive payoff considering that the biggest expense Dan faced in shooting a video for his song Come Alive was the cost of pizza.

Buying pizza for friends Craig and Alex Wood was the least Dan could do, since they filmed and directed the award-winning video.

The trio used every trick in the book of low-budget filmmaking, even building their own crane out of old wood, scrap metal and duct tape.

Click here to read the full story about profitable foray into filmmaking in the Nightlife section of today's Record.

AND LISTEN UP:
On January 30, at Maxwell's Music House,  Dan Bossenberry will headline a showcase concert of top-ranked bands from the Within Earshot Music Video Contest. Also appearing on the bill will be Allister Bradley and Calliope's Radio.  It'll be a fantastic show, and a chance to see these video stars play live.
Admission is $7 at the door, and the fun starts at 8 p.m.