Green Eggs and Ham: Scrappy, Hungover and Late

A day late, a few dollars short. What can I say? I got caught up celebrating my birthday last night, the whole while songs from this week's show played in my head. Here's the sometimes noisy, sometimes jiggy, always fun playlist:


Washed Out - "Far Away"
Terror Bird - "We Were Monsters"
This Hisses - "Swagger"
Weed - "Eighty"
The Gertrudes - "Six Jars"
Death Cab For Cutie - "Monday Morning"
Cass McCombs - "The Same Thing"
Dolorean - "The Unfazed"
Nurses - "Trying To Reach You"
Mister Heavenly - "I Am A Hologram"
Hunx And His Punx - "Can We Get Together?"
Geoff Berner - "I Kind Of Hate Songs With Ambiguous Lyrics"
Four Tet - "Sing"
Toro Y Moi - "New Beat" (Star Slinger Dancehall Mix)
Puzique - "Don't Go"
tUnE-yArDs - "Gangsta" (Ad-Rock Remix)
Cut Off Your Hands - "Hollowed Out"
Graham Wright - "Potassium Blast"
Snailhouse - "Great Storytellers"
Will Smith - "Miami"   this week's Slice of Cheese
Sleep ∞ Over - "Romantic Streams"
Elite Gymnastics - "Is This On Me?"
The Two Koreas - "Midnight Brown"
Quivers - "Sou'wester"
Camp Radio - "The Girl Who Stole My Motorbike"
Slates - "Broken Parts"

Green Eggs And Ham: Summertime Girls In The Place Of A Storm

A pretty gloomy morning weather-wise, so I peppered the show with sunshine and distraction. Here's the playlist:

Moonface - "Fast Peter"
British Sea Power - "Living Is So Easy"
Brasstronaut - "Same Same"
Apollo Ghosts - "Lightweight"
Quest For Fire - "In The Place Of A Storm"
Sexy Mathematics - "No Communication"
The National - "Runaway"
Spectrals - "Big Baby"
Treelines - "Summer Song"
Library Voices - "Traveller's Digest"
Arkells - "Whistleblower"
Diplo & Douster - "ON!"
Maluca & Party Squad - "Lola"
Bonjay - "Stumble"
In Media Res - "Hollis"
Deloro - "Nostalgia R.I.P."
My Morning Jacket - "First Light"
Y&T - "Summertime Girls"    *this week's Slice Of Cheese
Hooded Fang - "ESP"
The Fresh & Onlys - "I Would Not Know The Devil"
Little Girls - "Delaware"
Baby Eagle - "Driving Blind"
Carter Tanton - "Murderous Joy"
Fruit Bats - "You're Too Weird"

Video Killed: Chromeo - "When The Night Falls"

Someetimes a music video comes along that restores your faith in the medium. This is one such clip.
Montreal's Chromeo are known for good videos, and I knew I was in for something good with the release of their new one for the tune "When The Night Falls". I never expected the twists, turns, pregnancies and general absurdity of this:

Green Eggs and Ham: Novelties, F-Bombs and Cover Songs

There's the one song I played that ended up having the word "fuck" in it about 8 times (I forgot), there were some truly random genre hops, I played a couple modern-day novelties that managed to BOTH be connected to Jack White and there were 2 cover songs from idiosyncratic tribute albums. It was a good week (did I mention I played moombahton?). Here's the playlist:

Portico - "I Heard There's Proof"
Plants and Animals - "Undone Melody"
The Unsettlers - "Fold Back the Black"
Kris Ellestad - "You're Sick (of Me)"
The Tallest Man On Earth - "The Drying of the Lawns"
Los Campesinos! - "We've Got Your Back"
Paper Cranes - "Rabbit in a Snare"
Broken Records - "You Know You're Not Dead"
Purity Ring - "Lofticries"
Twin Shadow - "Shooting Holes"
Stephen Colbert & The Black Belles - "Charlene II (I'm Over You)"
"Weird Al" Yankovic - "CNR"
Neon Indian - "Polish Girl"
Dillon Francis - "Masta Blasta"
The Count & Sinden - "After Dark" (Krystal Klear remix)
Dog Day - "I Wanna Mix"
Peace - "Grey Walls"
Snowblink - "Heckling the Afterglow"
Real McCoy - "Another Night"   *this week's Slice Of Cheese
Constantines - "New King"
The Mountains & The Trees - "Fear Of Ghosts"
Jim Guthrie - "If Chairs Were Bears"
The Morning Benders - "Last Nite"
You Say Party - "Love Makes The World Go Round"

Processed Cheese: July 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 with Bob Seger, in a completely nonsensical video for "We've Got Tonight". It looks like a jewelry commercial crossed with a Viagra ad seeded with random concert footage throughout. A bloody mess, as it were. Watch Bob Seger apparently woo a girl by walking around in slow motion and never appearing in the same place as her, playing piano while looking like a dirty hobo and writing music (metronomes allowed) in his voyeuristically filmed apartment. This video makes no damn sense. Also, for a song called "We've Got Tonight", shouldn't at least SOME of the scenes take place at... I don't know, night?



Now we travel to Stockholm, 1986, to see Johnny Tempest and his band Europe (I still can't believe this was considered "metal") play their song "Ninja". That's right, it's about ninjas. Awful lyrics, regrettably long song. Unfortunately there is no proper "music video" for this tune, so the concert footage will have to do. Like most 80's bands, Europe have about as much stage presence as a bag of marshmallows - with their hair and the lights doing most of the heavy lifting - so I hope you get through it. Ninja sorvaaaaa!



I swear I'm not picking on the 1980's; I love a lot of music from that decade. I'll try to get better representation in next month's crop of fromage. In the meantime, watch Paul Young dance like an imbecile (in slow motion, no less!) in his video for "Every Time You Go Away". Nothing quite sums up the impact of this song like this YouTube comment: "I´m a very child in this years and so remember my first girl so dance with the close my eyes and so much large and big crazy kiss of my life never in my life you are missing" .... what?? Other than the lovely close-ups of Mr. Young (he must have been quite the heartthrob) this is basically one of those terrible concert montage videos. It still manages to throw in random details like a room filled with lanterns and netting (weird), pointless animation (weirder) and Paul Young throwing his sweat-covered towel into the crowd of adoring and stupid female Brits (gross... why didn't he just wipe himself off with his frilly shirt cuffs?).



Finally, we come to Raw Silk (possibly the material Paul Young's frilly shirt cuffs are made of) and their oft-sampled track "Do It To The Music". No video for this, but there is a painful performance from Top Of The Pops, replete with lip-synching and no visible band. Beyond the fact that this is a performance of a song about "doing it" to music being performed on a family-friendly show often watched by children, there's nothing particularly noteworthy about this. Once you finish, search for the U2 TotP clip from around the same time; a performance they're sort of ashamed of from when they were just wee lads. It's pretty priceless.

An Open Letter To The Sheepdogs

You've achieved that great and iconic rock and roll rite of passage: your picture is on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. But now is not the time to take the words - penned so cleverly by Shel Silverstein and made famous by Dr. Hook - in this song literally:



This song was meant ironically, lampooning the rock and roll lifestyle admired by so many as just so much stuff and nonsense.

So how do you go about maintaining your credibility, your homespun charm and your winning personalities in an industry still dominated by egoism and greed (even in a very lean time for those traits)? Good question. And it's not one I can answer based on my own personal experience. But you get a bit of know-how from the world of music if you just pay attention. Here are some tips:

1) Don't spend all your time with each other: There are some great bands that have imploded because of personal differences. Think of the Beatles. Other bands might have done the same, except for their ability to separate from each other when not on tour. Think of a band often called the "Canadian Beatles"-- Sloan. These 4 guys have been together for 20 years and counting even though they often have disagreements and creative differences. They also started their careers with a large amount of publicity and hype, being signed to the venerable Sub Pop record label during the grunge gold rush of the early 90's.

2) As Public Enemy said, about an altogether different topic, don't believe the hype. You're a talented group of guys, and you've got a lot going for you musically, but the amount of fans your appearances in Rolling Stone have garnered are the kind of short-attention-span band-wagoneering that's all too common in this day and age. Crank out some new tunes, and right quick, or you won't be getting Twitter mentions from the Prime Minister again any time soon.

3) Keep it real. People say that all too often, and usually to no effect, but I mean it. If you want to live the rest of your musical lives with your dignity intact, you've got to stay connected to what it's all about: the music. Luckily, we seem to be slowly getting past the era of the hedonistic rock band holed up in an expensive studio in an exotic location bent on crafting that concept album that ultimately nobody will understand. We know that's not going to happen. It's still important that you remember to connect the dots between where you've been, where you are, and where you want to go. And take us along with you, eh?

You're at the point now where you've got to decide what to do next all on your own. Really, there's nothing I can say to you to answer that one. All I can really tell you is "I Don't Know".

Green Eggs and Ham: The Karate Kid, The Sheepdogs and I

Loads of new tunes are coming out lately, previews of the upcoming releases for the Fall. This week's show included sneak peeks of new albums by St. Vincent, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Tycho and Ohbijou with plenty of older songs thrown in for good measure. I also read an open letter to Saskatoon band The Sheepdogs (who are gracing the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone, don't cha know?), which will be posted here later, and Peter Cetera weighed in with "Glory Of Love", his contribution to the soundtrack to The Karate Kid 2. It was a very classy affair. Here's the playlist:


The Decemberists - "Dear Avery"
The Deep Dark Woods - "Back Alley Blues"
Yukon Blonde - "Babies Don't Like Blue Anymore"
Pallers - "Come Rain, Come Sunshine"
The Cars - "Stranger Eyes"
Nick Diamonds - "Gone Bananas"
Cymbals Eat Guitars - "Definite Darkness"
Mark Sultan - "I'll Be Lovin' You"
Hot Hot Heat - "JFK's LSD"
St. Vincent - "Surgeon"
Greg MacPherson - "Travelling Style"
Jeans Boots - "Money"
Tycho - "Hours"
Holy Ghost! - "It's Not Over"
Chromeo - "Don't Turn The Lights On" (Aeroplane Remix)
Ohbijou - "Niagara"
Harmony Trowbridge - "West Coast Girls"
The Luyas - "When I Am A Woman"
Peter Cetera - "Glory Of Love"   *this week's Slice Of Cheese
The Sheepdogs - "I Don't Know"
Sloan - "She's Slowing Down Again"
The Sadies - "Another Day Again"
Slam Dunk - "Feral Child"
The Ramones - "I Don't Wanna Grow Up"

Today's Tune: tUnE-yArDs - "Gangsta" (with The Roots)

Well this was just about the best thing ever.

A few years ago I saw Merrill Garbus' co-fronted band Sister Suvi at a local bar and, while I thought they were fantastic with a future ahead of them, I never thought within a few short years I would be seeing what I saw last night: Garbus, in her current project tUnE-yArDs, playing band leader to Black Thought and Questlove of legendary Philadelphia hip-hop crew and Late Night house band The Roots. Check out this punchy version of (already punchy) "Gangsta" from the album W H O K I L L.  I defy you not to have it stuck in your head for the rest of the week.

Today's Tune: Ohbijou - "Niagara"

Toronto's powerhouse chamber-pop ensemble Ohbijou have always packed their songs with lush arrangements, emotional poignancy and enough charm to make anyone sit up and pay attention. What's really noteworthy is that they've managed to one-up themselves on "Niagara", the lead single from Metal Meets (out September 27th), by adding more musical elements (swirling keyboards, rock-riff punch) in such a controlled way that it sounds beautifully restrained.  This is revelatory make-out music. 

Listen and download below.

Ohbijou: "Niagara" by wearesolidgold