WEAKERTHANS- LEFT & LEAVING

It's been too long! I make no promises about posting more but hey, I'm like a streaky hitter. I'm .224 for my career but I've been known to go on 15-game stretches of .376

This is a good post to come back with though! For those who don't know, The Weakerthans are the product of John K. Samson. Samson got his "start" (quotations since I doubt he was planning to stick around or was musically fulfilled) in the 90's band Propaghandi as their bassist. After leaving that band he started focusing on his own material and formed the Weakerthans. The rest is Can-rock history.

Musically, this is hyper-literate, soft-spoken pop-punk with a lot of mellow songs and all-around fantastic songwriting. If you like Jawbreaker but wish they sounded more like Yo-La Tengo then this is the ticket!

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HUM- YOU'D PREFER AN ASTRONAUT

Just some more Hum. Good-ass spaced-out alt-rock. Pumpkins with more of a shoegaze/pink floyd influence!

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MONOMYTH

Monomyth are a new band from Halifax making great shoegaze-surf-jangle-noise-pop... Now, of course that sounds like a million other trendy bullshit bands that currently populate every music scene in the western world BUT these four dudes have the edge. Great musicianship, songwriting and a fuck-ton of charm. I had the honour of meeting and sharing a stage with these guys last night and needless to say, they were the highlight of the night by a Texas mile. They're touring Canada right now and are all the way from Halifax so if you live on Vancouver Island or in Vancouver, go see them this week before they go back to their crab fishing jobs.


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HUM- DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD

Well, what to say about HUM? a cult act if there ever was one. Spacey (but not shoegazy) alt-rock with lyrics about girls and astronomy. When I say "alt-rock" I worry it conjures memories of Pearl Jam or Stone Temple Pilots or something else that sucks but I'm thinking more along the lines of Smashing Pumpkins' heavier songs circa 95! This is very blissful music with the occasional crushing guitar part and feedback-laden lead melody. I feel like by describing it, as I'm trying to do right now, I'm over contextualizing it and not getting to the point. This band is really good and sadly forgotten in comparison to other bands from the era. This is their last album but it's a good starting point!


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SEAM- THE PROBLEM WITH ME

Seam rule. Classic Touch & Go circa 93. Strains of Slint and Bitch Magnet (obviously since Sooyoung Park fronted that band as well) but with a more melodic approach reminiscent of the indie-tinged emo that would soon become all the rage. Very beautiful guitar playing with a nice amount of crunchy parts and big choruses to break up the beautiful monotony. More bands should waste their time trying to rip off bands like this that people have forgotten about instead of trying to rip off the Black Lips, because hey, THAT BAND IS STILL PUTTING OUT RECORDS!!!


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MY DAD IS DEAD- CHOPPING DOWN THE FAMILY TREE

My Dad Is Dead has quickly risen to the top of my non-existent but very important list of bands-that-should-be-a-big-deal-but-no-one-gives-a-hoot-about. Formed by drummer Mark Edwards after the dissolution of his previous outfit, MDID hit the ground running despite the fact that Edwards recorded his first album after only playing guitar and writing songs for about a year. This is about six years after the debut and believe me, you will be in awe of how masterful and tasteful someone can be at their instrument after such a relatively short period of time.

I'm not sure where MDID lies musically. Elements of goth, post-punk and psych-rock are constantly tugging at one another but it's all focused on so perfectly by Edwards' songwriting which is distinctly late 80's/early 90's indie rock. I don't know what it is but I will call it genius and I will call it catchy as hell!

Also I love this lyric:

"Give me a cross... and I will carry it/ Show me a feeling... and I will bury it"

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SIGHTLINES- SUMMER EP

Sightlines are a local pop-punk band featuring the songs of Eric Axen (also of Hermetic and formerly of Painted Youth, who have both been featured on the blog before!) and this is their first EP! It smokes. Not "smokes" in the "riffage" or metallic sense of the verb but more in the sense that this is 100% efficient and catchy pop-punk that wastes no time fucking around, unless that fucking around constitutes fun. Also this is not the cheesy, leather-jacket-ramones-shirt-pink-converse kind of pop-punk but more like Eric's Trip trying incredibly hard to sound like Jawbreaker. Anyway, the songs rule and will be stuck in your head just like a new crush.

GET IT NOW!!!

HUSKER DU- METAL CIRCUS

Just a classic EP for this fine Monday. As a whole, I like this one way more than Zen Arcade, but that's just my shitty opinion so whatever.


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OLD POSTS

I've been lazy and since I don't upload any of these albums myself, most of them seem to have been taken down from mediafire. I was just going to discreetly re-up all of them... but the number kept getting bigger and I don't want to sit at my computer all day. So I'm just going to leave this here and let people comment if they want something re-upped that has been taken down.

p.s. google it first! someone else probably uploaded it!

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN SLEEP- ROCK N' ROLL NIGHTMARE... OF CAPITALISM!

So You Think You Can Sleep are a fantastic band from here in Vancouver that I have absolutely loved ever since I first saw them a few years ago. Very catchy math-rock-emo styled guitar playing, some trumpet, dual male-female vocals and Aaron from Bad Fate (Vancouver's secretly-best drummer!) laying it down masterfully on the kit. Musically, this is the intersection between Cap'n Jazz and American Football... just with really political lyrics. You can listen and then download...


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BRAID- FRAME AND CANVAS

This is a really good, poppy emo record. Short songs, no weirdness, good guitar playing. I've loved this record for many years and I just realized that it doesn't get talked about among my circle of 90's-indie-loving-friends so I thought I'd share it.

P.S. sorry for the lack of posts. Live has been one big septic tank of especially smelly and time-eating shit lately...


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MY DAD IS DEAD- THE TALLER YOU ARE, THE SHORTER YOU GET

This is good. 80's home-recording project with a drum machine. Layers of awesome guitar playing, super depressing lyrics, vocals that kind of sound like early REM and really good songwriting. If you like anything lo-fi, indie-rock, kind of weird or depressing then this is a little gem of a record for you. Oh yeah, this was on Homestead, so you know it's some 80's indie goodness.

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CAP'N JAZZ- SCHMAP'N SCHMAZZ (the actual title is 27 words long)

A beautiful Saturday. Coffee in my cup, played an awesome basement show last night, had good talks with old friends and slept in until the early afternoon. The sun is shining through my window, NCAA basketball is on in the background... And I feel optimistic about the future for this brief moment. What this has to do with Cap'n Jazz? Your guess is as good as mine. I sat down at my computer just now and felt like posting something...

This seemed to be the only album that satisfied the feelings running through me at the moment. What is it? Poppy, sloppy, innocent Midwestern emo from 1994. Based on that description you either can't wait to hear this or you've already left... If the weather is nice wherever you may be, put this on your portable-listening device and go for a long walk. It'll make you think about romance, growing up, nostalgia and all those other wonderful, post-adolescent experiences that only seem to have meaning for that brief, amazing period of our lives.

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Hermetic-Civilized City / Painted Youth discography

Eric Axen is a good dude, and all the bands I'm aware of him playing with are great. From Hermetic, who just released their debut LP (peep their bandcamp) to Sightlines, Paper Lanterns (he only played guitar for them on their last show. Whatever...) and finally: Painted Youth, who easily land in my top 3 BC bands ever. Loud interesting punk with great lyrics. I wish I got to see them when I was younger, I wish I got to see them at all. (Keep your ear to the ground about the possible Alf House anniversary reunion...)

Photo by Erin Green

Because I don't want to throw Hermetic's brand new album online for free, here is the Painted Youth discography as complete as I have it. Apparently there are a few splits floating around. A 5 song demo and their full album, which never got released, unfortunately.

check out Hermetic's "Civilized City" HERE

DOWNLOAD the Painted Youth stuff

SEBADOH- HARMACY

This is a great album if given the appropriate amount of time. Sebadoh are not well-liked by my friends and they are of the opinion that Lou was better off in Dinosaur Jr. than fronting his own band. Pure nonsense if you ask me. I love Dinosaur Jr. for Mascis' awesome playing and You're Living All Over Me is one of the most perfect albums ever written but everything else is very hit-or-miss and later on Mascis began to write songs that sounded like hazy afterthoughts meant to pay his bills. Sebadoh, in my opinion, is all fire and expression. Unlike Jay, I don't feel like Lou ever stopped trying to be a better writer or rested on his laurels... at least in terms of Sebadoh. Lou never made an album as good as You're Living All Over Me but he did make three albums that are better than any other Dino album.

Out of those three, Harmacy gets the least attention. III is all lo-fi mysticism, hopeless ballads and scrappy-charm. Bakesale is the well-produced, amps-on-11 surprise party. So what is Harmacy? Something in between Bakesale and III. More angst and balladry than Bakesale but far too much rock to sound anything like III. The thing that shines here is Lou's voice, songs and melodies. It's really just a messy pop album hidden under some slacker-tendencies that, much like Sebadoh as a whole, loses out on the acclaim it deserves due to Lou's unfortunate reputation as permanent second-fiddle. If you like rooting for the underdog then maybe give Sebadoh a try!

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MODEST MOUSE DOCUMENTARY '97

If you remember Modest Mouse as an amazingly-promising indie-ROCK band and not the major-label snooze-fest they became, then this is the documentary for you! We can talk all day about this band being a prime example of selling out (because yes, they are!) OR we can remember them for what they were, one of the best bands making music from 94-99.

This documentary follows Isaac around during the recording of The Lonesome Crowded West LP and it's about as candid as you can get. Eating subway in the studio, walking around Olympia, going to a corner store to carefully select a good forty and driving around in the band's van just shooting the breeze. Aside from that you get interviews with Elliott Smith, Doug Martsch and Calvin Johnson (who was producing the aforementioned  LP at Dub Narcotic!) A great snapshot of a band and songwriter at the peak of their creative powers.

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ERIC'S TRIP CBC DOCUMENTARY

This is a wonderful little documentary the CBC did on Eric's Trip in 1993. The bulk of the film is just Rick White and Julie Doiron sitting and talking about the band in a very cute and rambling way (which I eventually found pointless and frustrating)... anyways, lots of amazing footage, good songs, cool interviews, some original versions of well-known songs PLUS a very funny commercial that was left on the tape! Enjoy some great 90's Canadiana. It's only about twenty minutes long


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BREADWINNER- THE BURNER

This is some weird shit. Not weird in a Sun City Girls or Portal way. Just weird I guess. It sounds like stoned guys with a lot of technical ability who were compelled to create a mix of what was then math-rock and really dissonant thrash... Somehow it comes off as more arty than heavy... it was on Merge when they were doing cool stuff so you know it's at least worth hearing.

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MAC DEMARCO- ROCK AND ROLL NIGHT CLUB

For those that don't know, Mac Demarco is the soul behind former lo-fi pop outfit Makeout Videotape, but now he's man enough to brandish his birth name like a true singer/songwriter. Makeout Videotape put out a lot of material and pretty much all of it was great but it wasn't quite this. On here we finally get that mid-fi, bitter-sweet beauty that we always long for when listening to post GBV pop music. Mac is not rich so I didn't bother looking for a way to download this but you can sample it at his bandcamp HERE and order a tape on Green Burrito Records HERE. I think the vinyl is coming out soon on Captured Tracks!

SUPERCHUNK- S/T

Well, this is the chunk's debut album. It's all of the things debut albums normally are in comparison to later works: looser, a bit more punk, raw recording but the genesis of why Superchunk are so awesome is all here. Some killer songs that have been lost in the sands of time (aka ones they don't play live!) This is basically pop-punk filtered through late 80's indie, if you haven't heard this band yet. 

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