Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005
Cuts Like A Knife
The question wasn’t whether the Canadian Live 8 concert announcenment yesterday would prove worthy of scorn, but how much. The answer is SCADS. It’s like they gift-wrapped the whole thing for critics and naysayers with a big stinky bow on top. The concert will indeed be held in Park Place (née Molson Park) and feature such luminaries as Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Blue Rodeo, Great Big Sea, Our Lady Peace, African Guitar Summit, Barenaked Ladies, Jan Arden, Bruce Cockburn, Deep Purple, Gordon Lightfoot, Tragically Hip, Tom Cochrane, Motley Crue and Sam Roberts and it will be hosted by Dan Ackroyd and Tom Green (I would have rather had Terrance and Phillip, especially with Celine taking part). I find it amusing that the CBC article says that Barrie “won” the concert. Getting stuck with Our Lady Peace doesn’t feel much like winning to me.
Now I don’t necessarily have anything against most of these performers but collectively put forward as the face of Canadian music, it’s about as horrid, irrelevant and anachronistic as you could possibly get. It’s like they’ve taken every bit of progress we’ve made in recent years in building a reputation as a country that produces innovative, creative and just kick-ass music and summarily dismissed it. “Yeah, you young’ns are all great but we’re going to go with the ‘Everything I Do’ guy”. Celine won’t even actually BE at the show, she’s phoning her performance in. Nice “headliner” (I’ve heard Bry-boy is doing the same but can’t confirm that). It’s a sad day when Motley Crue is the most exciting act on the bill. Hell, I could have accepted it if they had gotten Nickelback and Avril – certainly not my cup of tea but at least you could rationalize their popularity and global profile. Instead, we get artists who aren’t even relevant in Canada anymore, let alone abroad. At this point, it wouldn’t shock me if they added Glass Tiger, Honeymoon Suite, Cats Can Fly, The Box… Sigh. Know what a better lineup would have been? Leonard Cohen. Just Lenny. Sitting on stage, doing whatever. Making toast. Gawd. CHAGRINED.
Chart is hoping against hope that rumours of more acts to be added will make the event worth covering (since they’ll have to anyway) and Radio Dan has his own act-by-act take on the lineup. Hello Newman prognosticated this days ago, Torontist is enraged and Pop (All Love) is just confused. As are we all, Aaron. As are we all.
Update: Ben Rayner at The Toronto Star also has some words.
Update 2: Organizer Michael Cohl is getting defensive about the Live 8 lineup. GOOD. And Jet has been added to the bill. Yeah, THEY’LL salvage this fiasco.
Okay, I’m done with this nonsense now.
If you like the Laura Cantrell track I’ve got as MP3 of the week, check out this NYC subway map of her influences. If you don’t like the track, then you have no soul. Get out of my house! The power of Christ compels you!
Wilco confesses to The Houston Chronicle that they want to make a dance record.
Indiana’s Early Day Miners roll into town with Windsor For The Derby at Rancho Relaxo on August 19. I’ve liked the little I’ve heard from EDM – maybe this one’ll break my August concert drought. Of course Rancho Relaxo in the middle of August could well be like a sauna in Hell… we’ll keep that one on the maybe pile.
Thanks to BrooklynVegan for the tip-off that Spoon is now part of the Live Music Archive.
Bigwig Avi Arad tells MTV.com about Marvel’s long-term plans for making films from their comic book properties. Some of it is intriguing, some of it disturbing.
Neil Gaiman will be in town on or around October 7 on the promotional tour for his new novel, Anansi Boys. Complete preliminary schedule here.
Oh yeah, the banner on the side? Sorry. But I did warn you…
np – Low / The Great Destroyer
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6/22/05 9:22 am
You should add some Google Ad Sense links while you’re at it. They don’t get too in the way and apparently, they do actually put money in your account.
6/22/05 9:40 am
Spoon, the Mountain Goats, John Vanderslice, Camper Van Beethoven, Kimya Dawson… the Live Music Archive is a happening place. Encourage every good band you come in contact with to sign up and encourage taping, it’s become my mission on earth.
I added the banner, too, bandwidth and record collecting gets expensive.
6/22/05 9:40 am
WHAT!!! twine wearing Wilco fans can’t dance…they only know how to air guitar.
6/22/05 9:42 am
By the way, I’m actually embarassed for Canadian Live 8. Maybe 50 Cent will sign on and enhance the show.
6/22/05 9:46 am
ok..line up for live 8 sucks(come on where’s Harlequin?)..BUT there is a VERY good possibility that Neil Young might be playing now – since tegan and sarah were just added and on his label.
6/22/05 10:03 am
Live8…
Aside from the many, many reasons this concert will be embarrassing (not the least of which is the idea – not the actual performance…the idea itself makes me pull up a bucket to throw up in – of Tom Cochrane performing "Life Is A Highway"…what, Kim Mitchell was busy? Or maybe he’ll be one of the three surprise performers?), is the fact that, well, we ARE living in a bilingual country…Would it have hurt the organizers to invite a couple of French-speaking acts???
6/22/05 10:05 am
there are actually some francophone acts on the bill, which was expanded upon since I wrote down the initial list.
Bryan Adams
Jann Arden
Bachman Cummings Band
Barenaked Ladies
Blue Rodeo
Bruce Cockburn
Celine Dion (by satellite)
Gordon Lightfoot
Motley Crue
Deep Purple
Our Lady Peace
Simple Plan
Sam Roberts
Tragically Hip
Great Big Sea
African Guitar Summit
Tom Cochrane
DobaCaracol featuring K’naan
Les Trois Accords
Tegan & Sara
But even with the addition of Quebecois acts, I have complete faith in the organizers that the artists will be utterly embaressing to the French as well.
6/22/05 10:15 am
Oh, right, Les Trois Accords. I don’t think I could recognize them if I were stuck in an elevator with only the three of them.
Looking at the full line-up, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d tried to get Ginette Reno or Rene Simard. Or Roch Voisine.
6/22/05 10:27 am
alright, alright. as i said last week – where are all the relevant artists that have been featured in Spin, Blender, Rolling Stone, etc? I’m not going to pretend I don’t love Sam Roberts, Bruce Cockburn, Blue Rodeo and Gordon Lightfoot (I’ve seen them all this year at least once), but how fun would it have been to see BSS, Feist, Metric, The Dears and/ or the New Pornographers prouncing around on stage. Firstly, there would be some decent, non-chirpy women singers belting it out. Next, it would showcase our greatest new talent and show that the young people in Canada actually do care! Or how about our new rock troubadors Matt Mays and Joel Plaskett? And the choice of Tom Green? He lulled the Walk of Fame audience to sleep. In any case, I’m not knocking anyone who is choosing to take part in this show – they are doing a good thing. It’s just that Michael Cohl had an opportunity to be relevant to the yunguns, and he seems to have missed the boat.
6/22/05 10:28 am
agreed, but we shouldn’t be surprised. Michael Cohl makes his living selling the Rolling Stones to people. New and interesting is obviously not his bag.
6/22/05 11:54 am
well frank,if you need to feel better about a good festival lineup,watch the glastonbury live webcast all weekend on playlouder.com
friday its babyshambles,bloc party,doves and fatboy slim
saturday its the futureheads,interpol,rosin murphy and new order
and sunday its the la’s.the wailers,garbage,and baesement jaxx
the sound and picture every year is great.
6/22/05 1:38 pm
Just to let you know that Soundscapes didn’t yet have Sufjan Stevens tickets at lunch time today. Anyone know about Rotate This?
6/22/05 1:44 pm
my dream live 8 concert includes hosts Busy & Amanda (from Ready or Not) with musical acts such as The Zit Remedy, Kideo and that Dancing Records who taps the spoons on Size Small Island.
6/22/05 3:18 pm
i stopped at Rotate and they didn’t have tickets either around lunchtime. they were estimating 5 p.m.
6/22/05 3:24 pm
I think we can safely say that if Burton Cummings is anywhere near a Canadian music festival, it will suck.
6/22/05 4:05 pm
I won’t even start on Live 8…
I did want to mention that I didn’t even notice the banner til you pointed it out though.
6/22/05 4:51 pm
I refuse to get riled up over Live 8. These type of things aren’t tailored to "our" demographic. Their lineup selection is going for obvious name recognition/nostalgia. They don’t want groundbreaking, they want dependable mass market warhorses.
Hopefully it does some good in the masses for the cause (it’s cause obviously NOT being promoting Canadian music)
6/22/05 4:56 pm
I agree – I don’t *actually* care. From a national identity POV, I am embaressed that Bryan Adams’ pockmarked mug is the face we’re putting on for this event, but whatever. But even if you’re looking for the broadest demographic appeal, is Tom Cochrane really the way to go? I’d say that not one of the performers is at anywhere near the apex of their careers, no matter what your preferred genre of music is. And that’s just unfortunate and unnecessary.
6/22/05 5:53 pm
The lineup’s bland and skews too old it’s true. Obviously more contemporary acts are needed.
But why isn’t anyone asking why an artist’s age is suddenly antithetical in recent years to having young fans. Why should it matter?
I certainly appreciate the passing of the torch and that each generation’s teens connect to different music, but people like Cockburn, Lightfoot, etc weren’t exactly new to the scene when I connected to their music as a teen.
Some of the criticism’s a bit silly. Can you really picture Death From Above 1979 on the lineup? Come on.
6/22/05 9:23 pm
but arcade fire is an obvious choice. over tegan and sarah. sure, billy talent. and what about K-OS? lets have at least one black dude (that people care about) on the african benefit bill please.
6/22/05 10:23 pm
From what I was told, K-OS wasn’t even asked to take part. That’s ridiculous, considering he’s one of the few artists that could’ve appeared there with mainstream sales, underground respect and even some international recognition…
6/23/05 2:09 am
no offense is intended but how about giving a little credit where credit is due k. Bryan Adams is just as hard working if not more so than celine dion
and is a good rep for canada everywhere he goes and a damn good musician. And give motley crue alot of credit for what they are doing both for their recent tour and this alright. especially Mick Mars who is a damn good musician and lead guitarist and it isn’t easy with what he’s battling to be doing shows everynight the way he is doing them so give some credit where credit is due.
6/23/05 5:09 pm
was that supposed to be an ironic post?
6/23/05 5:28 pm
I have no idea. It seemed awfully emphatic for a joke. I guess Bryan and Mick still have their fans out there.
6/24/05 1:07 pm
yeah! bryan adams is damn good, and mick mars is damn good, and celine’s still got it, aright?!?!
see now that was irony.
6/24/05 11:33 pm
this reminds me of when I read ‘the dirt.’ and then i had to wash my hands after touching the book.
6/25/05 8:22 am
I think it’s funny to read the negative comments about the Canadian Live 8 acts. Unfortunately, if you’re too young to have been around when Gordon, Bryan, The Hip and unfortunately, Celine were mega chart sellers then you haven’t got a clue just how huge a following those four actually have. Do you think any of the people interested in any of these four acts wants to hear anything they’ve done recently? No. They want to hear all the hits they amassed over the years. Not to mention the amount of disposable income/tax dollars their fans also have which the majority of Nickelback and the like fans do not have. No three ways around it, this is a political show.
6/25/05 1:59 pm
did you have to bring nickelback into this? I was perfectly content with my krueger-free morning but noooo.
6/25/05 2:01 pm
oh come now, everyone needs a little Kroeger in their day. Those piercing blue eyes, those wavy locks…
http://…/
You’ll thank me later.