I am an excellent steel horse

In 2002 I spent six months living in Montreal and grew to love the city. But looking back, for the life of me I can’t figure out how I managed to miss out on the entire blossoming Canadian music scene!
Ironically, the last few years, every other album I’ve picked up that caused that rush of excitement you only get when you realise you’ve just discovered a little musical gem, turned out to be from Canada! Whether it was The New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene or The Arcade Fire and more recently Patrick Watson and the reason for this post: Rock Plaza Central.

I heard about their album “Are We Not Horses?” when it was originally released in 2006 and remember being fascinated by the fact it was a concept album about robotic horses. Excuse me? Yes indeed, robotic horses. However, as is often the case, it wasn’t to be released in Holland until much later. Thankfully I came across it on its release here last month and decided to give it a go, and I was far from disappointed! What started out as a very reluctant listening session, expecting some rediculous horsy lyrics and far fetched musical arrangements, ended up with me listening to the album front to back. Twice. Which is a scarce event in these digital times where each song stands alone.

Chris Eaton’s voice which sometimes plaintatively rambles (Anthem for the Already Defeated) and is sometimes brimming with gusto (My Children, Be Joyful), the rich instrumentation with beautiful violin, all types of brass and accordion (the orchestral approach is definitely a recurring theme in the “Canadian Wave” and it’s major appeal to me), the quirky but never corny lyrics and the way it brushes up against country music in a very contemporary way, it all makes for a very surprising and great record! July 2007 is probably a bit late to be editing your best of 2006 lists, but don’t let this one get away!

Check out what some of the Canadian fuss is about:

Rock Plaza Central (personal recommendations: How Shall I to Heaven Aspire & Anthem For The Already Defeated) myspace / last.fm

The New Pornographers (personal recommendations: The End of Medicine & Letter From an Occupant) myspace / last.fm

The Arcade Fire (personal recommendations: Rebellion (Lies) & Black Wave/Bad Vibrations) myspace (not available on last.fm yet)

Patrick Watson (personal recommendations: Luscious Life & The Great Escape) myspace / last.fm

Oh Mandy

Whenever I meet somebody for the first time and introduce myself, there’s a distinct possibility they will spontaneously burst into song. This might sound odd, but it has happened to me many times before. It reminds me of Kate Winslet’s character Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind who immediately tells Joel (Jim Carrey) when they meet “So, no jokes about my name!“. Then of course, Joel does it anyway: “What, you mean like oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine?”.

In my case, particularly if the person I’m talking to was born in the fifties, they will often launch into Barry Manilow’s 1974 hit “Mandy”. I’ve learned to grin and bear it, always torn between two emotions. On the one hand there’s the obvious embarrassment. Barry Manilow is arguably one of the cheesiest melodramatic singers to date, leaving us a legacy of endless mediocre wedding singers and drunk karaoke sessions. It’s hard to believe “Mandy” was released in the same year as David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” and Barry’s holiday anthem “Copacabana” coincided with The Buzzcock’s “I Don’t Mind”. Manilow is such an easy target, his songs have been the butt of many a parody. My personal favourite is Rowan Atkinson’s take on Barry on Not The Nine O’Clock News.

On the other hand, I secretly love the song. It’s true, I was in fact named after it. My mom still loves it to this day. In all fairness, it’s actualy a damn good song and I’m sure it’s a guilty pleasure for many people. It was originally recorded by Scott English as “Brandy” and there are various interpretations of the lyrics: a tale of alcoholism, a miss-you-balad about a dog or the more straight forward break-up song. Manilow sings it with such sincerity and no hint of sarcasm, check out this clip of him in concert:

 

However, nostalgia is not the reason I started out this blogpost. I’ve found a reason for future expecting mothers to keep calling their daughters Mandy! Last year I stumbled upon The Spinto Band, a six piece indie band from Delaware. One of their songs, “Trust vs. Mistrust” (which has a great video), somehow made it into my iTunes and I’ve been playing it ever since. This afternoon I was in my favourite record store Plato and as I casually thumbed through the cd’s under S I came across their 2005 album “Nice and Nicely Done”. I decided to listen to it, and to my big surprise one of the standout tracks just happens to be called “Oh Mandy”! Apparently it was released as a single in August of 2006. I never heard it before! Again there is a brilliant video to go with it:

 

What a relief, the name Mandy need no longer be based on guilty pleasure alone. I hope there will be a new generation of Mandy’s who’s parents were inspired by the indie greatness of The Spinto Band!

Lowlands pt. 2

Anybody who knows me even remotely will tell you I am not a morning person. I am not fond of beautiful sunrises, of birds cheerfully chirping, of a dawn stroll past the bakery for the smell of freshly baked bread, frankly I can do without all of that. My bed wins hands down, every time.

However, this morning I made an effort to leave my bed a bit earlier than work requires, so I had time to cycle past the news agent’s and pick up the morning paper with the Lowlands special! When I got to work I quickly got a mug of coffee, spread the paper out on the table and started studying the schedual…

 

A sigh of relief was heard across my department when I realised my three must-sees have not been programmed simultaneously: Arcade Fire, Damien Rice and The Killers.

But then, the horrible realisation of what will have to be sacrificed… Friday is undoubtedly the worst. The day starts out the way the festival will continue: a decision to be made. Do I put my dancing shoes on for some Mark Ronson or do I go admire guitar virtuosos Rodrigo y Gabriela? Probably the latter, their ’song’ Tamacun just makes me use any piece of furniture around me as percussion. I can catch a few minutes of Just Jack before the next fork in the road: do I go for the tried and tested (and excellent live act) Editors or do I go and see the more low profile star on the horizon, My Brightest Diamond?

Temporary relief as I have no dooble bookings during Lilly Allen’s show, but sadly up and coming Air Traffic will have to be missed so I can set up house at the front of the Damien Rice concert. A Real bummer as their recently released debut Fractured Life was a very pleasant surprise, but at least I was lucky enough to catch them at Parkpop last month. Seen as I have to remain at the front of the crowd for The Killers, The Good, The Bad & The Queen will also have to be missed. Seeing Basement Jaxx for the second time would have been fun, but that’s definitely out of the question. And then, worst of all: Devendra Banhart. I was very much looking forward to seeing him in action, something tells me he’s not likely to visit Holland again any time soon…

Saturday is a bit better. I can squeeze in CSS and catch a couple of  Interpol songs before I run to Kaiser Chiefs. Looks like I’ll be missing Patrick Wolf and M.I.A. though.

Sunday has more dilemmas in store… It starts out alright with Patrck Watson (very much looking forward to that!), then a sprint should get me to New Young Pony Club in time for a decent portion of their show (hopefully in time for Hiding On The Staircase!), then next stop: The Shins! Collateral damage so far: Loney, Dear. Then a very difficult tossup between a fairytale concert with CocoRosie, some moody but excellent grooves with U.N.K.L.E. or some rock ‘n roll Kings of Leon style… But there’s more: do I go and pay a tribute to my grunge-roots with Sonic Youth or do I hop on the NME-bandwagon to see what the hype is about with Enter Shikari? Finally, one of the biggest sacrifices to be made: I’m going to have to skip Klaxons to see what is likely to be my festival highlight of 2007, Arcade Fire.

Good god I’m already exhausted just thinking about it. But even though there are some harsh decisions to be made, I can sleep easy now. It’s as if you’ve been inexplicably ill and awaiting your diagnosis: there is some peace of mind in knowing the state of things.

Only 23 more sleeps!

Lowlands pt. I

Te one thing that’s keeping me hanging on throughout this dreary dismal summer, as I sit locked up in my office with no real holiday to look forward to until October, is counting the days until the Lowlands festival starts! (only 24 sleeps left…)

Every year I rally the troops and we pick a summer festival to go to. After four years of Rock Werchter, arguably one of the best European music festival, this will be our second consecutive year going to Lowlands. As soon as they start selling tickets I go into festival-mom-mode. I try and convince as many friends as possible to part with their money and sends stressed out emails about how it will surely be sold out if everybody doesn’t buy tickets soon. After that I go into the preparation phase. This involves following every website that may contain interesting rumours about the line-up religously, although even outright random guessing and chrystal ball gazing are enough to catch my attention.

Round about now, less than 4 weeks before the festival starts, most of the names are in. My iTunes continually plays songs from my ‘Lowlands 2007′ playlist and I can already imagine rocking out when The Killers remind us of When You Were Young, knowingly swaying side to side as Damien Rice tells me to let him know if he’s the one before we have Accidental Babies and leaving my everyday humdrum life behind to follow Arcade Fire to a place where No Cars Go.

This also tends to be the time I realease my festival preparation cd! I make a compilation cd (ahh for the lost art of the mix-tape…) for my festivalgoing-friends. They endulge my music nerdiness and nowadays they even ask me when it’s coming. I find the editing process cruel. I’m not a great decision maker to start with and faced with so much good music to choose from and a mere 80 minutes of cd, it’s enough to send me into a nervous breakdown. This year I allowed myself the luxury of 160 minutes with a special two disc effort!

 Check out the home made artwork, tracklisting and even (Dutch) liner notes.

 

Tracklisting

 The Lowlands Lowdown liner notes

The largest part of the festival’s timetable leaked online today and I’ve seen some potentially heartbreaking choices to be made… But tomorrow the official programme will be published in the paper (Volkskrant), so I will try and stay calm until I see it in writing. To be continued…

brokenbranches trip me as I speak

There there, the brokenbranches blog is born.

It’s conception happened quite unexpectedly during Fridayevening drinks with my two great friends M&R and after a very easygoing pregnancy that lasted all of three days, labour is underway!

What to call this baby was a much deliberated topic during the prenancy. I looked to one of my biggest sources of inspiration: Radiohead. Some of the runners up: cracksinthepavement (from my favourite OK Computer song Subterranean Homesick Alien, but deemed too wordy), suchachill (from the chilling Exit Music, but too much of a tonguetwister), spinningplates (after Like Spinning Plates, the live version of which frequently makes my all-time-favourite-Radiohead-track nominees, but the name was taken by a great little RH bootleg artwork site) and finally lollipopsandcrisps (taken from the haunting True Love Waits, but I figured it would just make me hungry every time I was blogging). Brokenbranches, from the brilliant track There There, stuck with me: it’s clever alliteration, the slightly sad or sinister mood it conjures up, it just felt right.

Now the name is sorted out, what will this baby look like? Well, as with most babies, we’ll just have to wait and see. But hopefully genetics will do their work and in that case, brokenbranches will be all about music! What am I listening to this week, which records made me spend all my money in Plato (again), what did I hear on the radio that made me have acid reflux, which song blew me away, what did people recommend I listen to and what am I desperately preaching about to others.

Here’s to you brokenbranches!

Radiohead – There There