Monthly Archives: June 2013

Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

What’s the expression, “zero to sixty” or is “full throttle?” As if someone turned on a light switch in the middle of the night—bam, the summer of 2013 is here.

My initial reaction to the arrival of summer is that it’s time for a little “R & R” (as in rest and relaxation.) Looking at the calendar with July 4th falling next Thursday, it seems logical that these next couple of weeks we’ll be sailing on smooth seas.

Being in the music business, I rarely experience logic as a guiding force behind my universe. In fact this week feels far from relaxing. I describe the energy as “WTF, how crazy is this?” I’m talking the kind of crazy you might experience if you treat yourself to the hilarious new Seth Rogan flick This Is The End.

Funny enough, a friend mentioned yesterday that the Astrological chart had changed—Mercury has apparently gone into retrograde. Dig on this…

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Indie upstart Caroline Rose is a name you’re likely to hear more often after her debut album America Religious arrives on record store shelves July 2nd.

Her compositions bridge warm 20th Century singer/songwriter styles and the dry irony of modern observation. We’ve got a signed copy of America Religious on vinyl to give away.

Caroline Rose boasts a heavy amounts of charm through extremely raw deliveries of her songs. The effort America Religious is 12 tracks deep with influences ranging from folk, gospel, and R&B. Along with musical partner Jer Coons, Rose covers all aspects of production and performances on the record.

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Who’d imagine only a few years ago the paradigm shifts we’re currently witnessing within music industry? Vinyl’s flourishing, CDs have flatlined, and while we can rattle off any number of fantastic record labels, they’re hardly one size fits all (if the majors ever were.)

Canadian singer/songwriter, Amanda Zelina, aka The Coppertone has felt these seismic shifts far too personally. Signed to a label which limited her creative mettle, she departed its confines, head held high—and $20,000 in debt.

In an effort to retain her artistic integrity and to repay the label’s investment, she’s launched an Indiegogo crowd funding campaign entitled Help Free The Coppertone: Claim Yourself which we’re happy to put on your collective radar. We’re kinda big on integrity.

“I love vinyl—there is no doubt about that. As a musician I get no greater pleasure than that first needle drop of a new release on some freshly pressed wax. The tangibility of it, the weight, the smell, the look, the feel, the sound… Oh my god, the sound. Vinyl is to me what a painting on a canvas is to painter. Vinyl is the difference between a digital image on a computer screen and the three-dimensional, textured, breathing piece of art hanging on a wall in front of me.

It’s the soul behind the tactility of its function that inclines me towards it. It is the imperfections of the snaps and crackles dependent on each pressing and each record player and each worn down or new needle that hits it. That to me makes vinyl perfect; imperfectly perfect. It is human. It can warp over time or under different conditions, it changes, it has nuances, characteristics unique to the individual pressing.

Vinyl has integrity and integrity is important.

The first time I heard “Hidden Dreams” on vinyl (the first record I pressed and released independently of my own music on wax) I had a very spiritual experience. The producer of “Hidden Dreams” who I had spent the past 4 years with, who became one of my best friends, my mentor, my right hand man, passed away tragically and very suddenly right before the album went to mastering.

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Since 1991, the Analogue Productions label has been doing a dandy job in reissuing music from a variety of genres in editions designed to surpass the quality of their often elusive originals. They are currently offering a superb slate of releases from the vaults of Prestige, the storied jazz imprint that captured so many of the form’s most important names. One such figure was the great alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, and if his reputation deservedly rests upon his copious recordings for Blue Note, by no means should the ins and outs of his early work be ignored. Lights Out!, freshly available in a 180gm edition, would make a fine introduction to the rewarding apprenticeship of this true giant.

Spending time investigating the selections in a second hand record shop’s well stocked jazz stacks can result in a vinyl-loving aficionado of improvisation-based song-form commiserating, sometimes even cursing aloud (I’ve seen it) that they’ve been dealt a cruel hand by time’s tough circumstances. Oh, to be born too late. High-dollar values abound, and when combined with the deluge of choices, the tide can certainly prove more than a bit disconcerting. Yes, the digital age has made it so much easier to at least hear the music (indeed, the most important part) that resides in those very expensive grooves, but for those of us who value the full experience, great jazz and a well-made LP go together like rich, thick peanut butter and lovingly made homemade jam.

The music of Jackie McLean has landed on a formidable number of records over the years. He cut over twenty albums for Blue Note alone, most of them in the ‘60s, and if I had to own only one it would surely be from that period. But thankfully the prospect of only owning one is something I don’t have to consider. And if the ‘60s stuff brings McLean his biggest accolades, his youthful work both as a sideman and in the leadership role not only provides valuable insight into his later studies in advanced bop (which frequently sought a productive dialogue with free jazz), they also stand up as highly enjoyable sessions in their own right.

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“I started collecting vinyl when I was around 13.”

“I had a lot of older friends who were DJs and into all kinds of music. Some of them worked at record stores and would give me records out of their collections because I was so young. It got me hooked. I wouldn’t eat lunch some days so I could buy records with my lunch money. I got into collecting all kinds of genres, ambient, electronic, soul, rock. I loved hanging out at the stores.

My mom would drive me and sit in the car with a book while I was digging. I’m sure I became a little pest asking a million questions and always hanging around. But they were always cool about it and turned me on to music I would have never found on my own. That’s what I think is the saddest part about record stores closing. You don’t have the human interaction anymore.

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Amongst other things, Canada is renowned for producing comedians and playing a whole lot of hockey, but they also have a worthwhile punk rock lineage. One of the lesser-known twigs on that leafy tree was Ottawa’s The Bureaucrats, a band that knocked-out a spectacular 7-inch in 1980 with “Feel the Pain” b/w “Grown up Age.” That record was once the domain of big-dollar spenders, but the Ugly Pop label has given it a much deserved repressing, and anybody with a deeply personal relationship with The Jam’s All Mod Cons or The Buzzcocks’ Another Music in a Different Kitchen should investigate its contents with due haste.

In the annals of punk rock, the coverage of the movement’s Canadian division frequently devotes prominent placement to Vancouver’s D.O.A. And that’s not without good reason, since that group stampeded forth as one of the earliest and finest in Hardcore’s first wave of pissed-off tumult. Indeed, their second album Hardcore ’81 is the meat in a highly tasty and unusually nutritious three album sandwich, with the bread being the 1980 LP Something Better Change and ‘82’s 12-inch EP (later expanded to album length) “War on 45.”

It was D.O.A., and to a lesser extent their hometown cohorts The Subhumans (responsible for the killer ’83 album No Wishes, No Prayers amongst other worthy material, and not to be confused with the Brit anarcho-punks of the same name) that really put Canada on the map for a generation of younger punk fans. And through relentless touring and unflagging political commitment, D.O.A.’s rep really persevered. In fact, it’s continued to linger even as their most productive musical period grows ever more distant in the rear-view mirror of history.

But the truth of the matter is that D.O.A. and The Subhumans were kicking up dust in a country with considerable punk rock achievements already under its belt. Three of the earliest and most notable bands in the land were Teenage Head, The Diodes, and The Viletones, all formed in Toronto during the formative and formidable ’75-’77 period. And part of the reason for this trio’s enduring profile relates to a four-night stand the three bands undertook at New York’s CBGB in July of 1977, with the late Lester Bangs giving them a write-up in The Village Voice.

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