New Music: Vinyl Williams- Open Your Mind

LA based psychedelic musician Vinyl Williams is quickly become one of my favourite new artists of 2012. Of course, I do have music ADD and that may change tomorrow, but that doesn't belittle the fact that this guy is good. I've already written a lot about Williams so there is no need to introduce him again-you can read more through my posts on his earlier singles, Higher World and Harmonious Change here and here- but I did learn something new about the artist today. According to The Guardian he is the grandson of Oscar winning composer John Williams (Star Wars). Cool!

Open Your Mind is the third track to be featured from Williams' forthcoming album, Lemniscate and probably the most sullen and dreamy. The beautiful track warbles for a couple of minutes before morphing into an M83 like three minute ambient fade out. Listen below

Lemniscate will be available November 13th via Salonislam.

New Music: Dot Dash- The Past Is Another Country

Dot Dash is an indie band from Washington DC who make some great post punk pop music. The members of the four piece band are all veterans of the indie scene, including guitarist Terry Banks who was in the Slumberland band The Saturday People and drummer Danny Ingram who did stints in both Youth Brigade and Swervedriver.

The band recently released their second album Winter Garden Light on Ottawa label The Beautiful Music. They have been working hard to get some attention and have played a lot of shows with a lot of veteran bands including The Drums, Allo Darlin' and The Chameleons which is perfect because their sound is similar to those bands. They have also been compared to the dB's, The Jam and Wire (Wire has a song called Dot Dash) and their new LP is reflective of that. You can stream the full album on Bandcamp.

Dot Dash also just dropped a brand new video for their single The Past is Another Country. The energetic track is two minutes of intensive, melodic, poppy, post punk and reminds me of the 80's band Teardrop Explodes. The video features some dude washing the window of someone's apartment which could of easily have been shot in my condo. Not sure if this guy knew he was being filmed. Watch and listen below.

You can buy Winter Garden Light directly from The Beautiful Music or download from iTunes.

New Music: Thao And The Get Down Stay Down- Holy Roller

After a couple of years working in her side project Thao+ Mirah, Thao Nguyen has finally gotten back together with The Get Down Stay Down and recorded their third album. The album is titled We the Common and will be released in early February.

Meanwhile, the first single from the LP, Holly Roller, is a short but sweet, charming and upbeat little indie pop song. Listen below:

We the Common will be released on February 5th via Ribbon Music.

Father John Misty-Live at Lee's Palace

When my friend asked if I wanted to go see Father John Misty a few weeks ago, I was a little bit hesitant to say yes. Would I want to give up my Saturday night up to go see a folk rock band. Any other night of the week I would, but Saturday is usually not ideal to see live music that is so laid back. Plus it was the weekend before Halloween and there was sure to be all sort of fun parties to attend. Luckily my friend reminded me that Father John Misty was no ordinary folk rock artist. I had forgotten the man otherwise known as Josh Tillman is quite the wit and wanna be rock star. Then I heard that Vivian girls "Kickball" Katy Goodman was opening with her project La Sera and I knew I couldn't miss this show.

The first act on the night was a band called Jeffertitti's Nile, who's lead singer was also the bass player for Tillman's band. I had to giggle at the group's name (thinking like Beavis and/or Butthead). The band  played a really great brand of fuzzy reverb laden psychedelic rock with Tillman pulling double duty on drums.

Up next was the beautiful redhead, Katy Goodman, and her lo fi garage pop band La Sera. The singer came on stage with a red varsity high school jacket, a lacy white dress and her hair in an updo ponytail. After the first couple of songs Goodman explained that she was dressed as a valley girl for Halloween and promptly got rid of the ponytail because it was giving her a headache. She played mostly songs from her latest album, Sees the Light, including the bubble gum garage of the fantastic single Break My Heart. Unfortunately the sound was not very good for the first few songs and it didn't change until Goodman asked for more reverb on the mic. After that Goodman's voice was near perfect.

Last but not least, the five piece Father John Misty took to stage with singer Tillman brandishing a full bottle of Jameson whisky. Tillman loves to be a showman and acts more like Mick Jagger or Axl Rose than someone who is leading an band that plays Americana. Also a bit of a funny man, Tillman made jokes between songs all night. When he first got on stage he told the audience how much he liked hanging out in the back of the venue, Lee's Palace, where there was a big heap of trash and strangers offering the band pot and 'shrooms. He also, jokingly, gave respect to the concert hall for having the word "Palace" in the venue's name.

The band played pretty well all of the songs off of their debut album, Fear Fun, which had sounds that ranged between folk rock, country rock and psychedelia. Just before Now I'm Learning to Love the War, Tillman said that he was not wearing anything that represented Toronto, at which point an audience member offered the singer an Indian headdress ( I assume he was wearing it as a Halloween costume). Tillman took it and placed it on the hat that Jeffertitti was wearing, probably because the lead singer wandered about the stage like heavy metal cock rocker while taking swigs from his Jamesons for the extended jam and wouldn't have been able to keep it on.

The set ended with the first single from the band, Hollywood Forever Cemetery sings, which showed that the rest of the band could rock out as much as their lead singer. The psychedelic track ended with a chaotic flurry of grunge feedback which left the audience wanting more.

The encore saw Tillman and his guitarist take the stage, where the singer did a pretty good version of crooner Dean Martin's standard Nevertheless, I'm in Love With You. The rest of the band joined Tillman for the last song of the night, which was an extended jam of the Canned Heat country rock classic On the Road Again.

Would I see this band on a Saturday night again? You bet.


Set list:
Funtimes in Babylon
Only Son of the Ladies Man
Nancy From Now On
I'm Writing a Novel
Misty's Nightmares 1 & 2
This is Sally Hatchet
Well, You Can Do it Without Me
Now I'm Learning to Love the War
Tee Pees 1-12
Every Man Needs a Companion
Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings

Encore:
Nevertheless, I'm in Love With You  (Dean Martin cover)
On the Road Again (Canned Heat cover)

Thanks to Jacques Hung for the video.

New Music: Bleeding Rainbow- Drift Away + Music Video

Wow.... I can't believe I missed this song when it came out earlier in the month. Luckily Bleeding Rainbow released a video for their single Drift Away, or this track would have totally slipped by me. Really nice catchy song that is a mix of noise pop and post punk, and features a wall of guitars that add several layers of fuzziness. Great track.

Bleeding Rainbow have brought that fuzziness in to visual form with the music video for Drift Away. The clip sees the band performing in alternating scenes of fogginess and clearness, plus there is a stop motion sub-plot that involves a mad scientist elephant man. Watch below:

Bleeding Rainbow will release their new album, Yeah Right on January 29th via Kanine.

New Music: White Lung- Two Of You + Hunting Holiday

I'm falling in love with the music of Vancouver punk rockers White Lung. The band released a really great album, Sorry, in the summer and I kind of wish I did a post on them earlier this year. Maybe I will do a story about White Lung in one of those re-cap posts where you write about overlooked songs from the past year.

The band recorded a 7" on their recent tour and both songs are now available at Bandcamp for you to stream. The riotous songs, Two of You and Hunting Holiday, remind of the punk of the NorthWest  riot grrrl movement that ruled the 90's indie rock airwaves.

The seven inch is available via Sabotage Records.

Five Star Songs- Depeche Mode- Fly On The Windscreen

Depeche Mode held a news conference last Tuesday in Paris, in part to announce the European leg of their 2013 world tour, but also to tease their fans (including myself) with a new song from their forthcoming new untitled album. Martin Gore stated that the band had just finished the album about a week ago and that the songs feel like a cross between the sound of Violator and the sound of The Songs of Faith and Devotion. The new album will be out in the spring. The new song is rumoured to be titled Angel of Love (not confirmed). Listen to the new song below along with a video showing the band preparing for the new album.

The track is okay, but once again David Gahans' raspy voice kind of brings it down. After years of drug abuse and near death experiences the lead singer's voice is not what it used to be.

Also, after he worked with Martin Gore on the techno VCMG project, there was great hope that original member Vince Clarke might be somehow involved on the new album. Judging by the news conference, there is no sign of that happening.

In high school me, my brother and my friends worshipped Depeche Mode. There were a couple of years where we had to attend summer school in Peterborough, Ontario. The drive from my hometown of Lindsay to Peterborough would take 45 minutes and it was always soundtracked by Depeche Mode-singles, albums, extended mixes, remixes, you name it we played it.

We saw them in concert twice in that time period, once at Kingswood Music Theatre at Canada's Wonderland for the Black Celebration tour and the other time at Maple Leaf Gardens (Yes, the place where I now buy groceries!!!) for the Music For The Masses tour.

The chameleon like band started out as a synth pop new romantic band, before going in a slightly darker direction with Some Great Reward, and Black Celebration. The band then exploded in popularity with the release of Music for The Masses and Violator, with the help of slick videos directed by Anton Corbijn, they became one of the best selling concert draws of the late 80's.

The band started to add more guitar to the repetoire in the 90's and became an alt rock group. This is when all of the trouble started for Gahan and his well documented battle with drug addiction and near death experiences. The guy wanted to be the biggest rock star in the world. lived in Los Angeles and would party with Guns 'n Roses and Janes Addiction. There was also an ill fated tour with Primal Scream where Gahan was involved in numerous drug binges with Bobby Gillespie's band. At this point, sick of Gahan's shenanigans, original member Alan Wilder left the band and never returned.

Their latter years have seen the band release some terrible albums including 1997's Ultra. Although, I did slightly enjoy their last couple of albums, Playing the Angel and Sounds of the Universe, as the band started to get back to their roots in synth pop.

My favourite period for Depeche Mode music was their dark wave era albums, Some Great Reward and Black Celebration. In my opinion the singles that they released in this period were by far their best songs. These include classics like Blasphemous Rumours, Master & Servant, People are People, Somebody, A Question of Lust, Stripped and my favourite track Fly On The Windscreen.

Fly On The Windscreen was originally released as a B-Side on the single It's Called a Heart. The dark and disturbing imagery of the song was the total opposite to the crappy A-side track. The Martin Gore penned song dealt with the issue of death and desire and was foreboding to the troubles that lead singer David Gahan would have in the decade to come. The song was also included on the Black Celebration album.

Depeche Mode recently re-issued Black Celebration and you can pick the vinyl up on Amazon or check your local record store.