“If it be your will That I speak no more And my voice be still As it was before I will speak no more I shall abide until I am spoken for If it be your will”

Leonard Cohen remarked that he wrote these lines a few years back when he thought his time was done.  Well, that was 25 years ago. It became very clear to all involved last night, that he is far from done, rejuvenated and refreshed.  The man has hit the road for the first time in 15 years.  Back then, as he jokes “I was just a kid with a crazy dream”.  To my amazement, Leonard’s voice has deepened and strengthened since we last heard him live and he seems more into his music than ever.

I caught a bus to the city and met up with a friend for some beers.  In no time it was getting close to showtime, so we made it over to Place Des Arts.  We walked through the floor entrance just as Leonard and band took the stage. As expected, it was a tremendous welcome from the hometown crowd.  The goosebumps had started.  As always, Leonard was a picture of respect and grace and seemed really happy to be home.    Never have I seen more respect in a show; the entire band went out of its way to highlight the skills of each respective member, and there was a lot to go around.  Leonard has assembled one hell of a lineup for this world tour.  In a refreshing change of pace, the drummer was the quietest one on stage, giving Leonard’s booming voice center stage.  Because of the volume of the drums, everything fell into place.  You could clearly hear everything on stage throughout the theatre and the mix was sublime.  If only more artists knew how to do that.

The respect was mutual from the seats.   Almost every song got a partial standing ovation at least, but the biggest response was saved for “Hallelujah”.  As a friend of mine mentioned, this song has now become his most recognizable work (surpassing “Suzanne”, thanks to everyone and his dog releasing a cover version).  It is, in my mind, one of the few perfectly constructed songs ever written. The power in the climax of “And even though it all went wrong, I stand here before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue by ‘Hallelujah’” brought tears to my eyes, and I can safely say that’s a concert first for me.  It was the single most powerful performance I’ve ever seen.  That alone, was worth the $170.  And if you are more a fan of Leonard’s speaking voice and poetry, hearing him recite the poem “A Thousand Kisses Deep” (which seems to be an ever evolving poem) brought everything to a standstill.  Not a sound other than that voice, and some beautiful backing keyboard.  Haunting.

If you are reading this somewhere, and thinking you’d like to see Leonard Cohen before he gives up touring for good (and for all we know, this may be it), make every effort to see him this year.  There have been rumours of the tour stretching into the fall, and if that is the case, I may see you on the road.

Thanks to patook for the following sounds.  I’m reluctant to post his whole recording, but I will post what I thought were the highlights of the show.  Enjoy!

• Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye
• Avalanche
• A Thousand Kisses Deep (Poem)
• If It Be Your Will
• Famous Blue Raincoat

..and a video of “Tower Of Song”.  Be sure to check out the end for some funny Leonard.

In this weeks Trendcast we welcome an up-and-coming Montreal band Parlovr to Trendwhore Studio to play some live tracks and shoot the shit whilst consuming liberal amounts of malty beverages. We’ll play a couple of tracks from their ’soon to be released’ debut self-titled album, find out who they are, and then let them choose a few of their favorite songs for you to hear! In the next couple of days we’ll have the Parlovr Trendwhore live session available for download and if you are in the Montreal area you can check out Parlovr live:

Parlovr Tour Dates

26 Jun 2008 21:00 O Patro Vys w/ Sweet Mother Logic, Montreal, Quebec
27 Jun 2008 20:00 Ford Plant w/ Hot Panda + The Quantum Physique Brantford, Ontario
28 Jun 2008 20:00 Trepid House w/ Hot Panda + the Quantum Physique Waterloo, Ontario
08 July 2008 21:30 Divan Orange w/ Hot Panda and Hey Predator! Montreal
17 July 2008 21:00 Jupiter Room Montréal, Quebec
18 July 2008 21:00 Telephone Rouge - OFF Fête du Lac w/ Half Baked + Pleasure Zone’s Boutique Sherbrooke, Quebec
07 Sept 2008 21:00 Divan Orange w/ Intensive Care Montréal, Quebec

TC4: At Least The War Is Over [download]

Wolf Parade - Soldiers Grin
Parlovr - The Cat and the Roach (Live)
John Lennon - Remember
Parlovr - Hiccup!
Split Enz - Six Months In A Leaky Boat
Parlovr - Pen To The Paper (Live)
Les Rita Mitsuko - Les histoires d’A
Parlovr - All the World is All that is the Case

The Silver Jews who just recently released Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea have announced tour dates for the upcoming fall season and thankfully La Sala Rossa is a stop on that tour. Every time I listen to David Berman and co. I thank Ryan (the Duke) in quietly my mind for showing me Tanglewood Numbers last year. Tickets for this show can be found at Blue Skies Turn Black website, right now only the show is listed you will be able to buy tickets later this week.

Silver Jews Tour 2008

08/28 Milo Columbus, OH
08/29 Beachland Ballroom Cleveland, OH
08/30 William Pitt Union Assembly Pittsburgh, PA
08/31 Crofoot Pontiac, MI
09/02 Lee’s Palace Toronto, ON,CAN
09/03 La Sala Rossa Montreal, QC,CAN
09/04 Iron Horse Music Hall Northampton, MA
09/05 Middle East Boston, MA
09/06 Music Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn, NY
09/07 Bowery Ballroom New York, NY
09/09 First Unitarian Church Philadelphia, PA
09/10 Black Cat Washington, DC
09/11 Cat’s Cradle Carrboro, NC
09/12 Grey Eagle Asheville, NC
09/13 Variety Atlanta, GA
09/14 Jack Rabbits Jacksonville, FL
09/15 The Social Orlando, FL
09/16 Club Downunder Tallahassee, FL
09/17 One Eyed Jack’s New Orleans, LA
09/18 Walter’s on Washington Houston, TX
09/19 Emo’s Austin, TX
09/20 Hailey’s Denton, TX
09/22 Plush Tucson, AZ
09/23 Casbah San Diego, CA
09/26 Echoplex Los Angeles, CA
09/27 Fernwood Resort Big Sur, CA
09/30 Wonder Ballroom Portland, OR
10/02 Neumo’s Seattle, WA
10/03 Neurolux Boise, ID
10/04 Urban Lounge Salt Lake City, UT
10/05 Bluebird Theater Denver, CO
10/07 Waiting Room Lounge Omaha, OH
10/08 Triple Rock Social Club Minneapolis, MN
10/09 Picador Iowa City, IA
10/10 Metro Chicago, IL
10/11 Birdy’s Indianapolis, IN
10/12 Exit/In Nashville, TN

Since releasing Welcome To The Night Sky last year, Halifax’s Wintersleep have been having a great year. This year they received a Juno for New Group Of The Year and MuchMusic Video Award for their single “Weighty Ghost”. Last Saturday Montreal got a treat of a free show with Wintersleep for Pop! Fringe. The set was mainly tracks from the new album and a and some new track s “Encyclopedia”, “Earlier In The Morning” and one which I haven’t heard the name of, all of which came off great live. Paul Murphy and crew put off a great set, albeit short, his only problem was tuning in between each song, but had no problem charming the crowd while doing it.

Encyclopedia [new track]

More videos if you

Continue Reading »

Alright, alright, I know their show was on Thursday, June 12^th, which makes this write up far from recent, but in my defense, this was my first time attending Bonnaroo, and taking time to write live reviews would have interfered with getting a truly authentic festival experience. After all, who wants to be shut up in a tent on a deserted campsite, writing feverishly, while listening to 80,000 people cheer for living legends and indie bands as they trip on multiple hits of acid? You catch my drift.

Putting on a lively, energetic show, vocalist Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij on keyboards, drummer Christopher Tomson, and bassist Chris Baio of Vampire Weekend took the stage at This Tent (one of the festival venues) on the opening night of the 2008 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. One of the biggest music festivals in the US, and declared the best music festival by Rolling Stone in their Best of Rock 2008 issue, Vampire Weekend was part of a line-up that included musicians from genres as diverse as blues, techno, rock, jam bands, bluegrass, and others too numerous to mention.

Each of their hooky, upbeat tracks was a crowd favorite, and the audience, under the influence of opening night excitement, as well as drug cocktails, sang along word-for-word to lead singer Koenig’s confident vocal delivery of A-Punk, Oxford Comma, Mansard Roof, M79, One (Blake’s Got a New Face), and many others.

Feeling the enthusiastic reception, Koenig commented on the infectious energy of the crowd and asked “Do you guys know about cosmic consciousness?” Some nodded their heads in hippie unity, while the blank stares of others prompted Koeing to explain that “It’s a science.”

Vampire Weekend catapulted to stardom in the few months following the January 29^th, release of their self-titled debut album on XL Recordings . With influences ranging from African pop music, new wave sounds, and classical music (most notably heard on M79), their music speaks to preppy college kids whose ears are happy to absorb the joyous ska-punk that lifts them from depression brought on by identity crises, underachievement, and tumultuous break-ups. Having formed in 2006 in New York City, they toured with The Shins only a year later, and were declared “The Best New Band” in the March 2008 issue of SPIN magazine.

Vampire Weekend are currently touring like madmen. Their European tour kicks off on June 24^th in Norway, and they’re back in US for the Pitchfork Music Festival. Dates in Australia and Japan have also been confirmed. You can check them out here.

Walcott @ Bonnaroo

{cred}
A - Punk

I was reading an interview with Dan Boeckner where he was asked who his new favorite band is. His answer was The Witchies. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard of them. I missed them last year when they opened for The Evens at La Sala Rossa, but I got to see them last night as they opened for The Handsome Furs at the Pop! Fringe (for Montreal Fringe) free show. The Handsome Furs didn’t get a chance to play due to rain but I left with a smile on my face, as now I finally heard The Witches and agree with Dan Boeckner.

This band called the Witchies, who are from Montreal. It’s this guy Chad Jones, who put out two records on Constellation under the name Frankie Sparo. [His records] were really sadly overlooked when they came out, because everybody who was reviewing them, from Wire or whatever the snobbier music magazines are, most of their reviews just paired it with the Silver Mt. Zion record. I think their first record came out at the same time, so almost every high-brow music publication was doing double reviews, and I don’t think they put it in the right context; they just treated it like another Constellation band. But he was doing this male Nina Simone thing, which in retrospect was pretty far ahead of its time. He dissolved that a couple of years ago, and just a month ago started this band that does really, really great classic late-70s pre-punk music– really great, catchy songs, almost like power-pop. It’s just a three-piece, and they’re fucking great. They don’t have anything recorded yet, but they’re really good.

I can’t wait until they record something. Or even have a website. I have no clue when I can see them again. Here are the videos of last nights’ set, and if anyone knows the names of these tracks I’d greatly appreciate the heads-up (also anyone know when/where they are playing next?).

THE WITCHIES
Live @ Pop! Fringe 2008

Everyone is talking about Sigur Rós. The Icelandic band recently stole the show at Bonnaroo, and generated a lot of positive reviews from their show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I was given Hvarf-Heim last year and instantly feel in love with the record. Then earlier this year I watched Heima during which I noticed that Iceland looks a lot like Newfoundland (which warms my little heart). So I’m pretty stoked to get a chance to see them in the Old Port of Montreal (Quai Jacques Cartier) September 20th which is the most scenic venue in Montreal. Tickets for this show will go on sale Friday – June 27th on Admission.com . If you are still on the fence for this show Stereogum has 5 (great) reasons why you should see Sigur Rós this year:

1. The current setlist is a catalog-spanning beast, showcasing hallmark moments from each of the band’s style shifts, from the dark and dank Ágætis byrjun, to the slowest-of-core unpronounceabilites of the ( ) stuff, to the triumphant Takkisms. (Saturday brought “Svefn-g-englar” [the “it’s you-oooo” song], “Njósnavélin” [the “yu-silo” song], “Olsen Olsen,” “Hoppípolla,” “Glósóli,” and non-album crowd fave “Hafsól” [the drumstick-on-the-bass song]).
2. The Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust stuff crushes it live, comes with lots of horns, ups the band’s overall joy quotient, and really seems to have loosened them up, as people, even more. Last night these included “Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur,” “Godan Daginn,” “Vid Spilum Endalaust,” “Festival,” “All Alright” (the one in English!) and of course “Gobbledigook.”
3. Umm, “Gobbledigook.” Which winds up having 12 people on stage (fully clothed, sorry), a drumline powered by amiina, confetti guns, and, most notably, a wildly grinning Jonsi.
4. The mariachi band that parades the stage during “Sé Lest” has a pretty great outfit.
5. They are the best band in the world.

The rest of the tour dates can be found here.

When a contributor for an popular online music magazine recently reviewed the new album Viva La Vida from Coldplay, they doused the sensitive Brits with such descriptives as “wuss messiahs” and referenced some obscure poll taken by Travelodge in which Coldplay won the “The Band Most Likely To Put You To Sleep” award. While I’m sure Chris Martin isn’t crying into his 1000-pound-note-stuffed pillow over it (actually, I’m not so sure….), these uninsightful observations are typical of the criticisms slung at the band. Now, every band deserves a little criticism - that’s why they call them “critical reviews” after all - but referencing a Travelodge poll? Come on, popular music magazine contributor, you and I both know this isn’t an accurate source of popular opinion - the average hotel guest is just going to pick the most popular band on the list. And after all, would you poll a frat house and expect Fleet Foxes to win over Disturbed? I think not. Pitchfork, as an unashamed and admittedly biased Coldplay fan, I abhor you at the moment… but that’s beside the point. Taking potshots at an easy target should be beneath such a respected musical weathervane as you.

The fact is, Coldplay have done everything right in their careers so far, from graduating to shimmering stadium-shaking songwriting on their second album, to adopting a unique performance style. While not everyone may appreciated the way Chris Martin prances and hops around onstage, you can’t deny that it is entertaining and uniquely ‘Coldplay’. And, lets be fair, not many bands can shower sentimental enthusiasm over an audience of 40,000 with such pounding zeal as these guys. They deserve credit where they’ve earned it, and if you don’t like sentimentally enthusiastic music, put on your new Disturbed album (oooh-ah-ah-ah-ah!).

Viva La Vida sees Coldplay fearlessly departing from the familiar soaring piano anthems that have marked their previous successes. Despite the bands’ famous humility and self-deprecation, and Chris Martins’ well-publicized apparent lack of musical self-esteem, their new album displays a confidence in their ability to create ass-kicking music on their own terms. With such a hot spotlight aimed at this band, combined with their modest honesty and openness, it’s easy to pick apart their intentions and methods used in creating this album. One attention-grabbing musician, capitalizing on Martins’ statements that he steals little bits of other bands’ music, even claims the band stole one of his melodies. First of all, every songwriter steals a little bit (they’re called influences), and secondly, attention-grabber, Chris Martin doesn’t need to steal from you. Read on after the break…. Continue Reading »

On May 15^th 2008 Queens of the Stone Age played St. John’s Newfoundland for a Molson Canadian Rocks win to get in concert. Seems like a great idea, however this can lead to problems for fans of the band and the band themselves as it did on this night.

First problem with these types of concerts is that the hardcore fans of the band are stuck having to try and win tickets in beer cases or buy them off someone who did. In some cases having to pay as much as $150-$200 for a pair of tickets from some random person who won them in a beer case. QOTSA is a band that has a lot of fans, but also a lot of people who do not know who they are or can’t even stand them. They’re not an everyman band like Our Lady Peace, The Hip, or even Pearl Jam, where everyone knows at least some of their hits and can sing along. Those bands are more suited to this type of “win to get in event”, QOTSA don’t even get any radio play here.

So what you end up with is a few hardcore fans that paid a fair price to get into the free show, a few people that won and genuinely want to check out the band, and a small fraction people that just want to get loaded and cause shit. This third group made their presence known at this show.

The first incident was during a performance of “Little Sister” when someone threw a shoe and hit Josh Homme causing him to stop playing the song. After a little bit of yelling at the crowd about how they shouldn’t throw things if they want to enjoy a show. The crowd cheered him and they started the song over. Then the show went on for a bit and during the encore while playing “No One Knows” someone threw a full glass of beer and hit Homme again. This time all the audience got was a “good night” and the band left the stage. Another shoe was thrown (probably the match to the one thrown earlier) around this time as well.

The problem with this is the fans of the band end up getting short changed by having the band leave the stage early pissed off. They may never want to come back to St. John’s again, and leave with a bad impression of Newfoundland in general. You can bet they won’t tell anyone how great the crowd in St. John’s was (which it usually is). Those people who were throwing things probably think it’s great that they got a reaction and don’t care if the band ever comes back. I don’t believe this would happen if the show was a regular pay to get in show. Nobody who spends $50 - $60 on a ticket is going to throw beer and shoes at the band.

Anyway, here are some highlights from the show. It was a great energetic performance overall. Too bad it went down like it did.

In previous years those that dwell on the internet where never exposed to the Polaris Prize Nominees ‘long’ list. We normally had to wait until it was filtered down to 10 choices. However this year possibly due to some leak in information we are give a early taste of who is nominated for the Polaris Prize award. For those of you who don’t know what the Polaris Prize is you’ll find all the info you need here. Now the list:

[Note: Short List has been announced here.]

The Acorn - Glory Hope Mountain
Attack In Black - Marriage
Black Mountain - In The Future
Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow and Blue
Buck 65 - Situation
Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling
Cadence Weapon - Afterparty Babies
Cancers Bats - Hail Destroyer
Caribou - Andorra
City And Colour - Bring Me Your Love
Constantines - Kensington Heights
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Destroyer - Trouble In Dreams
Fred Eaglesmith - Tinderbox
Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
Christine Fellows - Nevertheless
Gatineau - Gatineau
Hayden - In Field And Town
Veda Hille - This Riot Life
Hilotrons - Happymatic
Holy Fuck - LP
Islands - Arm’s Way
Karkwa - Le volume du vent
Corb Lund - Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!
The New Pornographers - Challengers
Pas Chic Chic - Au Contraire
Sandro Perri - Tiny Mirrors
Plants And Animals - Parc Avenue
Ghislain Poirier - No Ground Under
Protest The Hero - Fortress
Justin Rutledge - Man Descending
Sadies - New Seasons
Shad - The Old Prince
Socalled - Ghetto Blaster
Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War
Tegan And Sara - The Con
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band – 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
Two Hours Traffic - Little Jabs
The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour
Wintersleep - Welcome To The Night Sky

My 10 choices after the jump…..

Continue Reading »