Green Eggs and Ham:

How about this? On time posting this for the first time in 3 weeks. I'm going to have to take another look at how I go about things. In the meantime, take a peep at this week's playlist. Music from all over the country and beyond. Special shout-out to those making artful instrumental music and to 41st and Home, who are set to play a show tonight to benefit local charity We Are Many. Full playlist below:

Mikal Cronin - "Get Along"
Extra Happy Ghost!!! - "Fire On Fire"
PS I Love You & Diamond Rings - "Leftovers"
Samantha Savage-Smith - "The Fight"
Sarah Farthing - "Oh Why Did You?"
41st and Home - "Gorbachev"
Roxy Music - "No Strange Delight"
Wild Beasts - "Reach A Bit Further"
Chilly Gonzalez - "Siren Song"
Colin Stetson - "Clothed In The Skin Of The Dead"
economics - "Organ Thief"
Foam Lake - "Die Fighting"
LDFD - "Outtacontrol"
Alpines - "Cocoon" (xxxy Remix)
Africa Hitech - "How Does It Make You Feel" (DVA's Hi:Emotions Remix)
Fucked Up - "Turn the Season"
The Pack A.D. - "Sirens"
Raw Silk - "Do It To The Music"     *this week's Slice Of Cheese
Junior Boys - "Itchy Fingers"
Egger - "Ricky MIA"
Karkwa - "Le bon sens"
Cuckoo Chaos - "Just Ride It"
Mode Moderne - "Real Goths"

Green Eggs and Ham: A Midsummer Day's Meat

We've got this weird running joke in my family: every time we mention the song "Every Time You Go Away" by Paul Young, we change the ensuing line to "you take a piece of meat with you". It prompts laughter every damn time (we go away). I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me until this week to play that song as the slice of cheese, but I'm glad I finally did. Here's the playlist:


Sunparlour Players - "If the Creeks Don't Rise"
Dog Day - "Scratches"
jj - "Ice"
Graham Wright - "Your Heart Is My Heart"
Shotgun Jimmie - "Late Last Year"
Dinosaur Bones - "Royalty"
The Lonesome Weekends - "Drink When I Cry"
Wilco - "Passenger Side"
Kathleen Edwards - "Summer Long"
Architecture in Helsinki - "Sleep Talkin'"
Pop Winds - "Feel It"
Teen Daze - "Surface"
Zomby - "Alothea"
Zomby - "Black Orchid"
Araabmuzik - "Free Spirit"
Derek Allen - "Spirits in the Material World"
National Parks Project - "The Humble Fawn"
Neil Young - "There's A World"
Peter Elkas - "Hummingbird"
New Pornographers - "Moves"
Paul Young - "Every Time You Go Away"   *this week's Slice Of Cheese
The Dodos - "Don't Stop"
Winter Gloves - "Dancing My Heart Out"
Josh Reichmann - "People Fade Away"
Wax Mannequin - "Robots, Master And Lady"

Today's Tune: M83 - "Midnight City"

I love M83. With a flair for nostalgia and an ear for innovation, Anthony Gonzalez knocks it out of the park every time. I'm also a sucker for double albums, so the announced October release date of the new M83 double disc Hurry Up, We're Dreaming gave me an anticipatory rush of endorphins that was the highlight of my day. Listen to "Midnight City", the new rave-up from the forthcoming album that is sure to be a finalist for song of the summer, below. You can also download the song HERE.

Midnight City by M83

Green Eggs and Ham: Wait, what?

It looks like the summer heat has addled my normally addle-free grey matter. I had a show last week, promise, but I forgot to post the playlist. Yikes.


The Super Friendz - "Better Call"
Big Troubles - "Misery"
Cuff the Duke - "Follow Me"
Active Child - "Hanging On"
Junior Boys - "Second Chance"
C'mon - "Army Of Love"
Cigarettes - "Bullfigh"t
Harvey and the Phenomenals - "Soul and Sunshine"
Vetiver - "Worse For Wear"
Kate Maki - "Fought the Cattle"
Matthew Barber - "Ring Upon Your Finger"
Beat Connection - "Balearic Trunk Rhythm"
Crystal Castles - "Suffocation"
Austra - "Spellwork (MNDR Nighttime Remix)"
Bayonets!!! - "Last Spike"
Ultimate Power Duo - "New Normal"
Mudhoney - "The Farther I Go"
The Twilight Singers - "Waves"
Arctic Monkeys - "Teddy Picker"
Europe - "Ninja"        *this week's Slice Of Cheese
Ok Go - "This Too Shall Pass"
The Burning Hell - "Nostalgia"
Chad VanGaalen - "Freedom for a Policeman"
Handsome Furs - "Officer of Hearts"
John Maus - "Cop Killer"

Today's Tune: Teen Daze - "Surface"

Vancouver's Teen Daze has been fashioning his own brand of dreamy pop for a minute (under the aforementioned moniker and as Two Bicycles), releasing an EP here and there. Well, it seems he's set to release another EP, A Silent Planet, with the people at the terrific Lefse Records. You'll have to wait until September 13 to get your hands on a copy (order the tape, it it please the court), so in the meantime (over and over again for the rest of the summer) you can download the song "Surface" for free on the Teen Daze bandcamp page. If you insist on doing some sort of activity while listening to Teen Daze, I recommend floating on the surface of a highly chlorinated backyard pool in the scorching hot sun while pining over a summer crush. Typical stuff, really.

Exclusive - Bayonets!!! Sled Island, CP and Eagleface

At Sled Island this year, Edmonton nerd-punk provocateurs Bayonets!!! stood on the street with me and tolerated my questions (for this site and cfcr.ca). Their punchy brand of 30-second jolts transcend some of the worst-lit show footage I've ever taken. We talk about Roy Rogers, the pope of Eagleface, and plenty more.

Green Eggs and Ham: Sounds Like Real Radio!

Fully alert, caffeinated and ready to go, I zoomed through this week's show like a man with a mission. Stopovers with the Hero Hill Canada Day mixtape, songs with the title Black Water, my interview with Charlie from Crocodiles and plugs for lots of upcoming live shows made this one easy. Here's the playlist:


The Ghost Is Dancing - "Rogues and Heroes"
Clem Snide - "Burn the Light"
Apparat - "Black Water"
Timber Timbre - "Black Water"
k-os - "BlackWater"
Joel Plaskett - "Jimmie's Still Jimmie"
Dan Mangan - "Oh Fortune"
"Weird Al" Yankovic - "Craigslist"
The Warped 45's - "Bitter Green"
Octoberman - "Baby Step Back"
Wool On Wolves - "Boss Man"
Villa Nah - "Daylight"
Teddybears - "Weed In a Rizzla" (feat. Trimbal)
Toddla T - "Watch Me Dance" (SebastiAn remix)
The New Division - "Starfield"
The Hidden Cameras - "Do I Belong?"
Bob Seger - "We've Got Tonight"     *this week's Slice Of Cheese
Les Jupes - "Mathematics"
John K. Samson - "Petition"
Xavier Rudd - "No Woman No Cry"
The Deep Dark Woods - "Westside Street"
One Hundred Dollars - "Everybody Wins (Except For Losers)"

Exclusive - Sledding With Crocodiles

During the Sled Island festival in Calgary I had a chance to sit down with Charles Rowell from San Diego band Crocodiles. It went a little something like this:

Processed Cheese: June 2011

Be back here every month for a look at the previous month's selections from my show's "Slice of Cheese" segment. If the song is significantly cheesy, there's bound to be a video equally (if not more) so.

We start this month with Michael Bolton and his painful uplifter "Time, Love and Tenderness". This video seems to have been a promotional afterthought, made at the same time as his label was setting up things like photoshoots and interviews (both of which are included in the video). The rest of the non-performance footage is made up of faux-candid attempts to humanize Bolton by showing him schooling a bunch of back-up singers at pool and overalls-clad basketball. Cut to the final round of choruses shot at what looks like soundcheck at an arena in Boise. The band seems to be way too into this whole playing for Bolton thing. I wonder what they're up to now.

Now it's back to 1979 and "Boogie Wonderland". There's nothing wrong with this straight-up performance video, except they inexplicably don't use any of the microphones they bothered to set up on the stage. Perhaps they don't believe in amplification.

The Victorian-era mishmash that is the video for "Goodbye Bad Times" by Giorgio Moroder and The Human League's Philip Oakey, easily the worst this month, teaches us a valuable lesson. If your wife spurns your mutton-chopped advances, you will be able to meet somebody to replace her by almost killing her in an equestrian hit-and-run. Women like near-death experiences, apparently. Also, muttonchops (see: Jackman, Hugh). Philip Oakey does virtually nothing, ensuring further decades of fame and success.

June's cheese comes full circle with "Be My Lover" from early 90's pop blahnd La Bouche. This has a bit in common with the Michael Bolton video; it disguises the fact it was cheaply shot in an empty warehouse by using lots of tilted camera angles and dramatic lighting. There are a lot of pointless shots of the one-verse-wonder rapper from La Bouche "dancing" (read: spinning, gesturing, falling into pushups) that seem like they were ripped from a Marky Mark video, and lots of backlit attempts to silhouette the singer from La Bouche as sexy. Oh yeah, there's also a plot: La Bouche girl hangs a man meat locker-style in a semi, drives it to an empty warehouse and sings at him in an attempt to woo him. Then there's a party.

I love music videos.