Today's Tune: PS I Love You - "Sentimental Dishes"

Say hello to the new rock gods.

I didn't think it was possible for the music of Kingston, ON duo PS I Love You to get more anthemic and more noisy without sacrificing a bit of pop quality. I was wrong. "Sentimental Dishes", off their upcoming sophomore album Death Dreams, does just that. From the opening count-in, it's all stomp-along riffs, sing-along choruses, and virtuoso solo-ing. When it all ends in a squall of feedback, you'll be restarting the track. If anybody actually tries to do dishes to this song, watch out.

PS I LOVE YOU 'Sentimental Dishes' by Paper Bag Records

Green Eggs and Ham: Tales of the Unexpected

The unintentional theme this morning seemed to be unexpected developments. Weird sets with songs that didn't really obviously relate to each other; the fact that I played an Usher song and it wasn't in the Slice Of Cheese segment; the news that Feist will be headlining this year's Jazz Festival. I would have been remiss if I hadn't finished the show as I did, with a tribute to the late Chris Reimer (of Calgary band Women and a touring member of The Dodos) whose tragic and extremely untimely death caught us all by the worst kind of surprise.

Here's the playlist:

Horse Feathers - "Fit Against the Country"
Bahamas - "Okay, Alright, I'm Alive"
Mike O'Neill - "Henry"
Neon Indian - "Halogen (I Could Be A Shadow)"
Giorgio Moroder - "Stop"
Electric Six - "Improper Dancing"
Cousins - "Khyber"
Camp Radio - "Reinventing the Laugh Track"
Cannon Bros - "Out Of Here"
Sam & Dave - "Broke Down Piece of Man"
Cadence Weapon - "88"
Ohbijou - "Turquoise Lake"
Feist - "Undiscovered First"
Usher - "Climax"
Charli XCX - "I'll Never Know"
Turing Machine - "Slave to the Algorithm"
Baby Eagle & The Proud Mothers - "Brave Women"
Lake Forest - "Coming Through Slaughter"
Gregory Abbott - "Shake You Down"  
            *this week's Slice of Cheese
Black Mountain - "Mary Lou"
Crocodiles - "Sunday (Psychic Conversation #9)"
Women - "Penal Colony"
The Dodos - "Companions"

Green Eggs and Ham: Bedbugs and Ballyhoo

"Up and at them" as Rainier Wolfcastle would say. That's what I went and got. This week's show featured a trip into 70's style rock (with a true classic thrown into the middle), a look at the former members of Sister Suvi (namely, Pat Jordache and Merrill Garbus), new music from The Elwins, B.A. Johnston, Cuff the Duke and Heartless Bastards, and one truly sassy slice of cheese. Here's the playlist:

The Drums - "Hard To Love"
Winter Gloves - "Gym Class"
Echo & The Bunnymen - "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo"
Diamond Rings - "Give It Up"
The Soft Pack - "Answer To Yourself"
Cuff The Duke - "Cold Blooded Old Times"
Elliott Brood - "Hold You"
Zeus - "Anything You Want Dear"
Blitzen Trapper - "Fletcher"
Lighthouse - "Lonely Places"
Band of Skulls - "The Devil Takes Care of His Own"
Heartless Bastards - "Parted Ways"
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - "Nothing But Our Love" (Kasper Bjørke Remix)
Les Petits Pilous - "Dodo Electro"
Joy Orbison - "J.Doe"
Rustie - "Ultra Thizz"
Paper Beat Scissors - "Season's Rest"
The Elwins - "Paper In Your Pocket"
702 - "Where My Girls At"    *this week's Slice of Cheese
B.A. Johnston - "Raised by the Wooden Spoon"
Junior Boys - "Second Chance"
Sister Suvi - "L Train"
Pat Jordache - "Song For Arthur"
tUnE-yArDs - "Killa"

EXCLUSIVE: Miesha & The Spanks - Rock 'n' Roll Riot

Last weekend I had a chance to sit down and chat with Miesha and Stu from Calgary stomp-inducers Miesha & The Spanks. The conversation touched on C'mon (the Spanks opened up at their final show ever), and featured the inaugural (and possible only ever) edition of "The Lightning Round". You can check out the interview, and some live footage below.







For more stuff like this, including conversations with Ohbijou and Shotgun Jimmie, just click on the "flatstastic" username on the YouTube page. Internets!

Green Eggs and Ham: Finn, Foonyap & Valentines

The mood was a bit all over the place this morning, but it was kind of according to plan. Solid songs from Saskatoon and Alberta predominated, with Foonyap, Miesha and Dirty Ghosts making waves for the fairer sex. The show also included a look back at the career of Craig Finn, one of the worst "Slice of Cheese" segments ever and a mini-Valentines show packed into 3 awesome tracks. Here's the playlist:

Shearwater - "Breaking the Yearlings"
Okkervil River - "Hanging From A Hit"
Marine Dreams - "Fold The Sky"
Synthcake - "House Love Ground"
Foonyap and the Roar - "The Leviathan"
Dirty Ghosts - "No Video"
Bishop Morocco - "Old Boys"
Beach Fossils - "Shallow"
CFCF - "Exercise 3 (Building)"
Lifter Puller - "Nice, Nice"
The Hold Steady - "Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night"
Craig Finn - "No Future"
Shout Out Out Out Out - "Procrastinator's Fight Song"
Soul Clap - "Lonely C"
Holy Ghost! - "Wait and See"
Breakbot - "Baby I'm Yours"
Miesha & The Spanks - "Night Danger"
Shuyler Jansen - "Totally Anonymous"
Young Benjamins - "Tunnel Mountain"
Will to Power - "Baby I Love Your Way / Freebird"    
           *this week's Slice of Cheese
Boxer The Horse - "Rattle Your Cage"
Bruce Peninsula - "Adrenaline"
Shotgun Jimmie - "Valentines Day"
Spoon - "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine"
Drive-By Truckers - "Feb 14"

Today's Tune: Teen Daze - "Brooklyn Sunburn"

All around me are signs of seasonal affected disorder. It's suicide month, as my friends remind me cheerfully. That deep, dark part of winter that makes you want to alternate between shouting into the abyss and curling fetally under the downiest of blankets, sleeping until summer.

Thanks to the mental ray of sunshine that always seems to accompany a new Teen Daze track, that feeling can be staved off, at least for a little while. "Brooklyn Sunburn" is the first single off the B.C. solo curiosity's first true full-length album, All Of Us, Together. You can't grab a copy of it until May 22 (whoah!), but take a listen to how far Teen Daze has come. Not content to simply be labelled "chillwave" and left for dead, this new song seems as relevant as it does nostalgic. The mellow pulse will have you awash in summer vibes at least until next Wednesday (at which point I suggest restarting the track).

Green Eggs and Ham: The Skin of our Teeth

I'm an idiot. Needless to say, the situation I found myself in was completely of my own doing. Here I am, supremely tired and unable to realize that the input selector for connecting my computer to the board in the studio was switched to be used with the cassette deck. Not realizing this at all, and simply assuming that something was broken, I quickly put on a Godspeed song while I scrambled through the station library to find 2 hours of music. It went well in the end. Here's the playlist:

Charlotte Cornfield - "All of the Pretty Mistakes"
Fruit Bats - "The Banishment Song"
Kathleen Edwards - "Chameleon / Comedian"
Mark Lanegan Band - "Ode To Sad Disco"
Rococode - "Empire"
Foam Lake - "Force and Matter"
Perfume Genius - "Take Me Home"
John K. Samson - "Letter in Icelandic from the Ninette San"
The Warped 45's - "Widows' Well"
Joker - "The Magic Causeway"
M83 - "Steve McQueen"
Justice - "Parade"
Erin Passmore - "Downtown"
Library Voices - "Regina I Don't Want To Fight"
Father Figures - "Cold Shadows"
Prozzäk - "Europa "    *this week's Slice of Cheese
The Big Pink - "1313"
Tigre Benvie - "Black Bolt"
Jon McKiel - "Confidence Lodge"
The Beets - "You Don't Want Kids To Be Dead"
Cloud Nothings - "Fall In"