Thursday, September 6th, 2012
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Marie-Pierre Arthur, and more at Festival de musique émergente 2012
Frank YangAn interesting thing about Rouyn-Noranda: for a town its size, the venues – though not plentiful – are really nice. Unsurprisingly, FME took most of them over for the weekend and large temporary outdoor stages aside – and those were also nice – each had good sound, lighting, and its own distinct character. The converted church of Agora des arts, the roadhouse vibe of Caberet de la dèrniere chance, the multi-level club attached to a music store of Salle Évolu-son, and for the first part of Saturday night, the converted theatre of La Scène Paramount.
I think I missed the first act but arrived in time to see Julien Sagot, another Karkwa member taking advantage of the band’s hiatus to engage in some solo work – I saw frontman Louis-Jean Cormier the previous night, if you’ll recall. And if Cormier’s set had me marvelling at how accessible his work outside of Karkwa was, percussionist Sagot’s compositions were more what I would have expected. His whole set had a distinct arc, starting with moody pieces built on intricate acoustic guitar figures, moving through some boozy ballads that fit his rough, Waits-y vocals well, and eventually ramping up to some Floyd-worthy prog rock. Sagot’s stage presence also matched this progression, as he started out seated amidst his five-piece band, occasionally looking around at them to inspect their performances and nod in approval, before eventually standing up with his guitar and leading them onwards.
Photos: Julien Sagot @ La Scène Paramount – September 1, 2012
Stream: Julien Sagot / Piano mal
Marie-Pierre Arthur also had a Karkwa connection – besides featuring Cormier and Sagot as guest players on her 2012 Polaris long-listed Aux alentours, Karkwa keyboardist François Lafontaine produced the record. Not that she needed the cachet of her collaborators to get attention – her big, joyous pop-rock sound was maybe the most conventional thing I’d hear all weekend, but in the best sense. Fronting her six-piece band on bass, it was big, melodic, energetic affair and the songs had hooks that transcended any language barrier while leaving room for dueling guitars and drum solo without feeling forced or excessive. Thoroughly enjoyable and it was nice to have some proof that not all rock coming out of Québec had to be some degree of proggy. Though let’s be honest, a lot of it is.
Photos: Marie-Pierre Arthur @ La Scène Paramount – September 1, 2012
Video: Marie-Pierre Arthur – “Pourqoi”
Video: Marie-Pierre Arthur – “Si tu savais”
Video: Marie-Pierre Arthur – “Déposer les armes”
Video: Marie-Pierre Arthur – “Droit devant”
Video: Marie-Pierre Arthur – “Elle”
Prog is one of the many adjectives that could reasonably be applied to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, one of the festival’s headliners by measure of international repute, but obviously that’s insufficient. You’d also have to hypen up post-rock, experimental, political, metal, ambient, orchestral, terrifying… basically the only way to describe Godspeed would be to call it Godspeed. This show came two and a half years after the unexpected announcement that the Montréal collective would be ending their hiatus and touring again, and even though I’d seen them last Spring as part of their four-show run in Toronto, there was still a real sense of occasion around this performance given the scale and setting (Agora des arts holds about 400 people on a good day).
Silently taking the stage a little after midnight – though I think one of them waved to the audience – they started with an orchestra-type tune-up that quickly turned into what I can best describe as industrial strangulation reading of “Hope Drone”. The Toronto version was intense, but this one seemed considerably moreso and that really applied to the show as a whole. While never necessarily refined, this show felt extra primal in its sonic fury and for the first while, any melody or beauty that would escape the tumult would have to do battle to do so. As the nearly two-hour show progressed, the band silent and semi-circled while bathed in film projections (which included scenes of industrial bleakness, interesting imagery to show in a mining town) the brutality was gradually dialed back but not before the crowd had thinned to maybe half of the packed house that it was at the start. One wonders if some were unprepared mentally or physically for what they’d be enduring for the show. For those who lasted throughout – and I admit I was only barely among them – it was an impressive, intimate, and inscrutable experience.
And was poutine consumed after? I’m not saying it was, but I’m not saying it wasn’t.
Photos: Godspeed You! Black Emperor @ Agora des arts – September 1, 2012
MP3: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven”
MP3: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now”
Some more album streams that didn’t quite make Tuesday’s post, starting with The Raveonettes. Observator is out September 11 and NME has the stream. They play The Phoenix October 2.
MP3: The Raveonettes – “She Owns The Streets”
Stream: The Raveonettes / Observator
MTV Hive has a Q&A with Neil Halstead, whose lovely Palindrome Hunches hits next week and is streaming now. He’s at The Dakota Tavern on October 8.
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Digging Shelters”
MP3: Neil Halstead – “Full Moon Rising”
Stream: Neil Halstead / Palindrome Hunches
Stereogum has the new Bob Dylan album Tempest available on demand before being available for sale on Tuesday. Ol’ Bob is at the Air Canada Centre on November 14.
Stream: Bob Dylan / Tempest
Calexico’s new one Algiers is streaming over at Virgin.com. It’s out Tuesday and The Arizona Daily Star and Wall Street Journal have interviews.
MP3: Calexico – “Para”
Stream: Calexico / Algiers
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
Feist, Louis-Jean Cormier, and more at Festival de musique émergente 2012
Frank YangSo yesterday I talked about where and what Rouyn-Noranda was; today I will do the same for FME. You don’t need to be bilingual to discern that “Festival de musique émergente” implies a mandate of focusing on new and upcoming artists, primarily but not exclusively from Québec, with a few relatively big names to bring in the less musically adventurous. It was started ten years ago when the organizers were tired of driving to Montréal eight hours away to see shows and so they started a festival as a pretence to bring bands to them.
From drawing around 3000 people in its first year to an estimated 20,000 this year, it’s concentrated on growing in scale while maintaining its intimate and sometimes impromptu vibe and also become an important showcase for European festival bookers to discover Francophone talent. It’s definitely a grassroots/boutique-type festival – think Hillside meets Iceland Airwaves, but much smaller – that brings a few days of great music and arts to a community that has an immense appetite for it but is well away from conventional touring routes and for Anglophones like myself, provide a fascinating window into the often opaque world of Québec popular music.
After a Friday morning spent ziplining in a forest a little out of town – no broken bones! A triumph! – it was into town to catch some of their “5 á 7” series of free day shows. Well, one of them – they were all at 5PM so conflicts were going to happen. I hit up Avec pas d’casque at Salle Evolu-Son on account of their latest Astronomie having made the Polaris long list this year, giving them more name recognition than anyone else playing. Lost list benefits in action! But while I knew who they were, I didn’t actually know what they sounded like so their slightly creaky country-pop was a total surprise to me. Of course, if they’d been a straightahead rock band or metal-reggae group, I’d have been just as surprised so whatever. Their down-home songwriting was augmented by some interesting instrument choices – steel and bowed guitars, a euphonium, autoharp, and kazoo were all drafted into service at some point in their set and while they demonstrated the ability to make their sound swell dramatically if they wanted to, they mostly kept it pretty mellow.
Photos: Avec pas d’casque @ Salle Evolu-Son – August 31, 2012
Video: Avec pas d’casque – “En attendant que ça paye”
Video: Avec pas d’casque – “Talent”
Video: Avec pas d’casque – “Dans les bras de la femme bionique”
Video: Avec pas d’casque – “Dans la nature jusqu’au cou”
For the evening programme, there wasn’t really anywhere else to be than the outdoor stage erected on 7e rue – this was where the festival’s headliner, save the special Sunday night performance, was going to be. Louis-Jean Cormier would have known what it was to be one of FME’s main draws – his band Karkwa had played the fest a number of times (their manager being the founder), most recently in 2010 – the year they won the Polaris Prize. With the band on the backburner for the foreseeable future, Cormier was using this occasion to showcase material which would appear on his solo debut, out on September 18, and while I’d seen him perform a number of times, it was always in the context of trying to introduce himself to unfamiliar audiences and win them over; it was quite different to see him in front of those who were already won over. Playing in a light, steady rain and fronting a five-piece band, Cormier gave ample proof that he was the melodic, pop heart of Karkwa. His stuff was more immediate and the fussier elements, while still present, were dialed down significantly. It was guitar pop of the sort that you didn’t need to understand the lyrics to enjoy, though the closing number’s chorus of “Goodbye Charest” made its sentiment pretty clear, along with Cormier’s political leanings and from the shouts of approval, the audience’s as well.
Photos: Louis-Jean Cormier @ Scène extérieur desjardins 7e rue – August 31, 2012
Stream: Louis-Jean Cormier – “L’ascenseur”
Being an international star, Feist has played a lot of places in Canada and abroad but it was probably safe to say she’d never played Rouyn-Noranda before. That, plus the fact that it was a festival headlining set towards the end of the touring cycle for Metals made me wonder if she might deviate from the consistent (read: same) set she’d been performing for most of the past year and maybe acquiesce to playing a few more of the hits? Not that I’d seen the set in question; I’d caught a bit of her at Osheaga but the last time I saw her perform was last October at the CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio, and that was a decidedly unique and guest star-laden show.
One look at the stage showed at least one way in which this would be different; Mountain Man, the trio who had been Feist’s backing singers for the entirety of the Metals tours, were absent and instead it was a four-piece band who would be playing tonight, though both Brian LeBarton and Charles Spearin’s musical workstations flanking Feist’s spot centre-stage were loaded with gear. They may have been small, but they were hardly unequipped.
Once they got started – the skies had cleared and a full moon shone – another benefit to the smaller band became evident: it gave them space. It’s difficult to be spontaneous with a big band but a lean unit – particularly one that’s been playing countless show for months – can turn on a dime and given this freedom and the casual vibe of the festival, Feist turned in an energized, exuberant set that proved that she stil knew where her indie rock roots were. Unsurprisingly, Metals material made up the bulk of the set, some of the selections had already mutated into new forms from the past year of live interpretations. I would have expected her French to be better given the time spent in Paris, but Feist was still able to engage the audience and invite them to act as choral vocalists on a few songs. The outro of “How Come You Never Go There” went alright – “whoa whoa” isn’t too hard to do – but the multi-octave harmonies on “So Sorry” were well beyond their abilities and were a kind of charming disaster.
It was the older material that really stood out, though, and not just because it was more familiar. “My Moon My Man” was a near-rager, replete with healthy guitar abuse, and “Feel It All” was a veritable punk rock number. The encore kept this up, with Feist and LeBarton – swapping keys for drums – turning “When I Was A Young Girl” into a garage rock-y White Stripes tribute and, with the rest of the band back on stage, making “Sea Lion Woman” a free-form jam before ending with an impressively big, “Let It Die”. It will probably be a while before Feist ever returns to Rouyn, but until then she left the town with a lot of lasting musical memories.
Spinner grabbed an interview with Feist prior to the show.
Photos: Feist @ Scène extérieur desjardins 7e rue – August 31, 2012
Video: Feist – “Anti-Pioneer”
Video: Feist – “Cicadas & Gulls”
Video: Feist – “The Bad In Each Other”
Video: Feist – “I Feel It All”
Video: Feist – “Honey Honey”
Video: Feist – “My Moon My Man”
Video: Feist – “Mushaboom”
Video: Feist – “1, 2, 3, 4”
Video: Feist – “One Evening”
Video: Feist – “It’s Cool To Love Your Family”
It would be hard to top that show, so Kandle’s midnight set at Agora des arts was doomed to pale by comparison, but even if that hadn’t been the context it probably still would have underwhelmed. The offspring of 54-40 frontman Neil Osbourne, Kandle Osborne should be commended for trying something completely different musically, but the moody, country-noir sound she’s going for is, for now at least, beyond her reach. Her voice may have the right smoky timbre but she didn’t demonstrate any of the range necessary to imbue it with emotion and her songwriting also lacked the maturity and sophistication needed to sell it. Maybe with time and experience, both musical and life, she’ll get more convincing but for now she comes across as an ingenue trying to play the femme fatale role and it’s not working.
And then we went for poutine.
Photos: Kandle @ Agora des arts – August 31, 2012
Video: Kandle – “Small”
Video: Kandle – “Knew You’d Never”
Video: Kandle – “Know My Name”
A brace of concert announcements following the long weekend yesterday. Starting with the quick and free, know that Bloc Party will augment their two-night stand at the Danforth Music Hall with a free show at Sugar Beach – that’s down at the Corus/CFNY/Edge building on Lakeshore – on September 11 at 7:30PM. Details at Arts & Crafts.
Video: Bloc Party – “Octopus”
West coast lo-fi fellows Craft Spells have a date at The Shop under Parts & Labour on September 23, tickets $12.50 for those who plan ahead.
MP3: Craft Spells – “You Should Close The Door”
MP3: Craft Spells – “Party Talk”
Aussies enamoured of their Kiwi neighbours’ jangle-pop traditions – read: Flying Nun et al – The Twerps will be at The Silver Dollar on October 22. Don’t know who they are? eMusic finds out.
Video: The Twerps – “Through The Day”
Portland’s Blitzen Trapper will find some time amidst their tour with Brandi Carlile to play a headlining show of their own at Lee’s Palace on October 22. Tickets $17.50.
MP3: Blitzen Trapper – “Black River Killer”
MP3: Blitzen Trapper – “Love The Way You Walk Away”
Texas psych-rock pioneer Roky Erickson is at Lee’s Palace on November 3, tickets $29.50. His last release was 2010’s Will Sheff-produced, Okkervil River-backed True Love Cast Out All Evil. The Advocate talks to Sheff about working with Erickson and what’s next for Okkervil.
Stream: Roky Erickson – “Be And Bring Me Home”
More Portlanders coming to town in the form of ornate folk outfit Horse Feathers. Their latest Cynics New Year came out in the Spring and they’ll be playing selections from it at The Drake on November 8, tickets $15.
MP3: Horse Feathers – “Fit Against The Country”
MP3: Horse Feathers – “Cascades”
And again from Australia, Tame Impala have announced a local date in support of their new record Lonerism, out October 9. Look for them and their psychedelically jammy ways at The Phoenix on November 12, tickets $20. SF Weekly has an interview.
MP3: Tame Impala – “Runway, Houses, City, Clouds”
The Twilight Sad brought No One Can Ever Know to town back in March and they’ll do so again with fellow Scots Errors in tow for a show at The Horseshoe on November 18, tickets $13.50.
MP3: The Twilight Sad – “Another Bed”
Video: Errors – “Ammaboa Glass”
Spinner talks Lawless with Nick Cave, screenwriter.
The Vinyl District interviews Pip Browne of Ladyhawke. She’s at The Hoxton on September 15.
The National Post interviews Torq Campbell of Stars. They support Metric at The Air Canada Centre on November 24.
Daytrotter sessions up an a capella Futureheads.
Tuesday, September 4th, 2012
Timber Timbre, Half Moon Run, and more at Festival de musique émergente 2012
Frank YangSo as I mentioned in passing last week, I spent the Labour Day long weekend up in Rouyn-Noranda, Québec, attending the Festival de musique émergente en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, henceforth referred to as FME. It’s okay if neither the where or the what don’t mean much to you – they didn’t mean much to me before I agreed to attend. Getting up to speed requires a little geography and history, so if you’re sitting comfortably, then we’ll begin.
Wikipedia can give you the vitals, but basically Rouyn-Noranda is a mining city in Québec located about eight hours from both Toronto and Montreal and three hours from Timmins, Ontario. It’s not geographically northern Québec – there’s a hell of a lot more of la belle province above it – but as far as large settlements go, it’s up there. In addition to the mining industry, it’s the regional capital, is home to a campus of the Université du Québec, and hosts a film festival as well as this music festival. It’s not big by any means, but somewhat surprisingly has most any of the amenities you’d want for urban living, not least of which is a 24-hour poutinerie that I got a little too well-acquainted with over the week. It’s remote, but it’s not rural. I’ll get to the “what” of the festival tomorrow, but one of its main venues was the Agora des arts, a charming small church converted to arts centre with a somewhat less-charming lack of working HVAC. Which is to say that if you crammed it full of people in late Summer, it got hot. And on this opening night of the fest, it was crammed full of people. Thus hot.
The first act of the night was David Simard, originally from BC but now based in Québec. Performing with just a guitar and backing vocalist Brie Neilson at his side, he offered a short but charming set of tunes with an laid-back, troubadour vibe laced with a touch of scoundrel. Nothing you haven’t heard done a million times before, but still done well. Southern Souls has featured Simard a few times.
Photos: David Simard @ Agora des arts – August 30, 2012
Stream: David Simard / Slower, Lower
Montreal’s Half Moon Run have done pretty well for themselves for a new outfit and a debut album in Dark Eyes, from being all over NXNE here in Toronto a couple months ago to lining up high-profile support slots in the US for the likes of Patrick Watson and Metric. And yet for that success, I was asked more than a few times by people I met what I thought of them – insecure much? Anyways I told those people what I’m telling you – they have a very of the moment sound with a fondness for late-era Radiohead-y electro-emotiveness, Local Natives-y percussion, and not a little modern R&B funkiness and fondness for slow jams. It was all made very radio-friendly and accessible and rather safe-sounding. A few points sounded like they were riding the edge a bit, but mostly not. I wasn’t especially won over but clearly, they don’t need my support. They’re doing just fine.
Photos: Half Moon Run @ Agora des arts – August 30, 2012
Video: Half Moon Run – “Full Circle”
Timber Timbre were the evening’s headliner and even though we had both traveled up from Toronto, I realized that I’d never really seen them live properly besides last Fall at the Polaris Prize gala, where they were shortlisted for Creep On Creepin’ On. They weren’t quite the nine-piece ensemble that played that occasion – they numbered six this time out – but they sounded great. The church setting seemed like the right one for them, despite there being something decidedly unconsecrated about their sound, even though the dark and creepy quotient seemed somewhat dialed down. That was a good thing, though, as projecting less affected gloom made room for more variety of emotion to come through. And while I’m not sure what the heavy, distorted number that closed their main set was – I don’t know the Timber Timbre catalog that well – it was much more visceral than I’d have expected from them and maybe served to prep the room a bit for Godspeed in a couple of nights.
Photos: Timber Timbre @ Agora des arts – August 30, 2012
MP3: Timber Timbre – “Black Water”
MP3: Timber Timbre – “Demon Host”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Too Old To Die Young”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Swamp Magic”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Bad Ritual”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Black Water”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Demon Host”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Woman”
Video: Timber Timbre – “Oh Messiah”
Video: Timber Timbre – “We’ll Find Out”
With the Agora closed but the night still young, it was then off to the Caberet de la dèrniere chance for a little France French in the form of Jesus Christ Fashion Barbe. Yes of course that decision was based entirely on their name, though it wasn’t nearly as glammy or in your face as you might have expected. Or at least I expected. Instead, they offered a Gallic take on English post-punk with a decidedly low-key presentation. The tunes were alright – they took the melodic rather than abrasive route through the genre – and deceptively complex in structure, but a little more dazzle in the live show or originality in approach would have held my interest longer. Instead, poutine called.
Photos: Jesus Christ Fashion Barbe @ Caberet de la dèrniere chance – August 30, 2012
Video: Jesus Christ Fashion Barbe – “And Make Us Wilder”
Video: Jesus Christ Fashion Barbe – “Diver”
Yes it’s back to school/end of Summer season, but it’s also high-profile record release season. And a whole bunch of those have just been made available to stream. David Byrne & St. Vincent’s Love This Giant collaboration is up at NPR. They play the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on September 20 and The Stool Pigeon, New Zealand Herald, and Pitchfork have feature pieces on the project.
MP3: David Byrne & St. Vincent – “Who”
Stream: David Byrne & St. Vincent / Love This Giant
NPR also has Coexist, the new one from The xx. Grantland, The Skinny, Spin, and The Guardian all have features to coincide with next week’s release. And while the NPR stream is fine, the band’s own geo-interactive stream is cool to play with.
MP3: The xx – “Angels”
Stream: The xx / Coexist
CBC Music is streaming Inner Classics, the new album from Snowblink. They play the Bicycle Music Festival at Trinity-Bellwoods on September 15 at 6PM and The Music Gallery on September 27.
MP3: Snowblink – “Unsurfed Waves”
MP3: Snowblink – “Black & White Mountains”
Stream: Snowblink / Inner Classics
The Vaccines’ second album Come Of Age isn’t out until October 2 in North America but its UK release on September 11 means The Guardian can go right ahead and stream it right now. CBC Music has an interview with the band. Update: It’s actually out in the UK and Canada now; only Americans have to wait till October. Sorry folks, commonwealth perks.
Stream: The Vaccines / Come Of Age
The self-titled debut from TOY, on the other hand, is out concurrently in Europe and the UK so the preview stream at The Quietus is the same lead time for both continents. The Line Of Best Fit also has a feature piece.
Stream: TOY / TOY
The release of Pet Shop Boys’ latest Elysium got moved up from September 18 to 11 at some point, hence it being available to stream at The Guardian right now rather than next week. There’s also a new video.
Video: Pet Shop Boys – “Leaving”
Stream: Pet Shop Boys / Elysium
Monday, September 3rd, 2012
Area music blog turns ten, has existential crisis, contemplates nuclear option
Joel BernsteinIt’s funny. I’ve written this post in my mind countless times, with versions ranging from multi-chapter memoirs to a simple, all-caps “SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH”, and yet now as I actually take metaphorical pen to paper, I don’t really know where to begin. I suppose the best place to start is with the fact that the common thread through all those drafts was, “goodbye”.
Ten years is an astonishingly long time to do anything. When I started this blog, it was out of boredom and with no eye towards it being anything besides a place where I could ramble about whatever was on my mind at the time. Within a few years it had become its own thing, but having not much else to do I was happy to let it become one of the main focuses of my life. Fortuitous timing allowed me to be part of the first wave of music blogs, and with that came a front row seat to the seismic shifts in the world of music, both with respect to the media end of it and the industry as a whole, with the mainstreaming of indie and rise of Canadian music on the world stage as part of that. If I can get just a little LCD Soundsystem for a moment – I was there.
Before I slip into full-on memoir mode, let me switch to broad strokes and say without exaggeration that most everything I have in my life right now – my job, most of my friends, almost all of my daily routine – has come from this blog. It has taken me to far-flung locales, gotten me access to ridiculous places, seen amazing shows, discovered more wonderful music than I ever thought possible, and encountered incredible people. I met Neil Young, for Pete’s sake. There is no measure by which this hasn’t been a long, strange, life-changing trip, and I’m immeasurably grateful for that.
But it has not come without a cost. The number of hours, the kilojoules of energy, that have gone into it have been staggering. The evenings and weekends that I’ve spent hunched over the computer writing posts, hunting down MP3s and videos, processing photos, getting things the exact over-particular way I want it, when a normal person would have been out with friends or just plain asleep are beyond counting. While I’d like to think that in the areas where it matters, I’ve been able to maintain a reasonable balance between work and personal life, I suspect that if were to ask any of my exes over the past decade if that were true, they’d say otherwise. And the only person who has demanded this regimen, who has dictated the terms of my existence over the past decade, and who has unwaveringly agreed to it, is me.
Running this site has been as much a compulsion as a vocation – oh hey, remember that time I posted every day for 1050 days straight? – and as I’ve gotten older, the ability I have to justify the effort and expense has waned with my energy. I can come up with myriad reasons why I wouldn’t want to do another large, outdoor festival or make 2013 my ninth straight SXSW, but they all boil down to one thing and that’s that I’m tired. Physically, mentally, whatever. And while I could probably keep the pace up for a few more years at least – sure it takes a little while longer for the aches to fade but I’m hardly infirm – why would I? I’ve already been doing it for probably too long.
It seems obvious when you think about it, but there’s no finish line for this sort of thing – there’ll always be another hot new artist, someone making sounds that could potentially (but probably not) change your life. Someone rehashing the sounds you grew up one, someone tearing them down. You can’t keep up with it forever. As mentioned, I feel very lucky that I was doing what I was when I was because it’s allowed me to follow a slew of fantastic artists from their days in clubs to headlining arenas. But as much fun as that ride can be, I don’t necessarily feel like it’s something that I want to get so invested in again. The aughts were mine but they’re over now.
And beyond that, the nature of the blogging beast has changed. The blue skies of the medium from five or six years ago are a thing of the past and what I do in the way that I do it has increasingly become a niche thing, anathema to the tl;dr generation and I’m too stubborn to change even as I watch numbers decline (not just mine, anecdotal evidence shows it’s everyone). Further, the degree to which everything is documented, reported, analyzed, tweeted, tumblred, liked, shared, whatever, I can’t help feeling a bit unnecessary now. Everything is commoditized now and we don’t exist in remotely enough of a meritocracy to provide the motivation to working this hard at something.
As wonderful it was to be at the leading edge of this thing, to figure out what blogs were and could do, I feel like while I got there first I started late. I envy my younger peers who, despite the market being as lean and grim as it is, can still try and indulge their rock’n’roll journalist dreams. I had the full-time job when I started this and have had one all the way through, constantly trying to balance the demands of both. I’ve always had too much to lose to try and do more with this, nor have I had the ambition of some of my blogging brethren who, besides having the good sense to enslist help, have transitioned into more sustainable operations of which the blog is just a facet – booking, A&R, proper journalism, photography, what have you. I was always too wrapped up in the day-to-day to think about the long game; I just wanted to get the next day’s post done and go to bed. Which is why, rather than an anniversary party or special event, you get this post. And when I’m done, I’ll move on to tomorrow’s post.
And yeah, there will be a tomorrow’s post. As tempting as it would be to simply give the steering wheel on this thing a hard right, drive it off a cliff, and walk away from the flaming wreckage in slow-motion without ever once looking back – and you can’t know just how close I came to that over the years – that’s just not me. But if I can keep with the automotive metaphor a little bit, what I will be doing is gearing down, moving into the right lane and once in a while, pulling over to a rest stop. And if at some point an exit ramp comes along that feels right, then so be it. It’s time for this to be less of an endless race and more of a leisurely journey. In the short term, you probably won’t notice a thing; there’s enough irons in the fire that the rest of this calendar year will probably play out as it always has. And assuming the world doesn’t end in December – wouldn’t THAT make this whole post utterly moot – when the rest of the world ramps up in 2013, I will as well – just a bit more slowly.
It may take a few more days for show reviews to go up, news might not be quite as timely (though interesting things will still go up nearly immediately on my Twitter and maybe I’ll try to understand this Tumblr thing) as I try to worry less about reaching RSS reader zero, I probably won’t be aggregating the shit out of everything anymore (sorry to those sites who needed the handful of eyeballs I would send over), maybe fewer contests (PR people, get ready for more “no’s”), and eventually will put my cover of the week to bed, at least as an every week thing. I will still be soliciting a redesign – this shit is dated, yo – and have some ideas about changing up the formatting of my posts to be quicker to write and to read while still trotting out the novel-length pieces when I feel like it. But mainly I intend to be less regimented about it all. Allow myself to pause and breathe and tend to other things. I need to. If I can squeeze some free days into my week, find more time to read, to go do non-music things, work on other projects, it’ll make a huge difference. And I suspect that if I am keeping up with the zeitgeist a little bit less, I’ll enjoy what I’m doing a lot more.
You may ask why I need to make this sort of declaration of intent on the blogiversary, why I don’t just quietly make the changes and carry on, and it’s a reasonable question. But the fact is if I didn’t draw this finish line in the sand and close off this decade-long era of the blog as what it was in an official fashion, I’d never do it. I couldn’t. The compulsion that keeps me working this hard at this also stops me from not. I have to give myself permission to allow it to morph into something else or even die, if that’s how it goes. A bit mental? You have no idea.
I recall a round table at SXSW a few years ago with a bunch of my fellow music blogging lifers when the first question raised – by the inimitable Rob Donewaiting, I believe – was, “when can we stop?”. Everyone nodded, but I don’t think that any of us there has actually hung it up yet. What we do can still be incredibly rewarding, it’s just a question of finding the right balance. This has essentially been my life’s work so far, but if I’m not careful it will remain that. And I don’t really fancy a tombstone reading, “He blogged. A lot. And will get you set times when he has them.”
It’s no overstatement that I could write a post this long expanding on each point made so far, but I’ll save that for my incredibly dull memoirs. I’ve chewed the contents of this post over in my mind for so long and it’s not nearly complete, but it’s probably enough. If you’ve read this far, I can only assume it’s because you care to some degree and for that, I thank you. I’ve never taken my readers for granted – you really are the reason I do what I do – and have always striven to be informative, hopefully entertaining, and to maybe introduce you to some music you might not have heard otherwise. Buy a CD or an LP or a concert ticket. If that’s happened, then this has been a success.
And if we’re friends IRL and you extend an invite to go do something – please do – and I get this look in my eye that I feel like I need to write up a blog post instead, you have my standing invitation to smack me.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to make the donuts.
MP3: Ride – “Chrome Waves”
Sunday, September 2nd, 2012
Jens Lekman covers Boyz II Men
Frank YangI don’t think this one requires an awful lot of explanation. Stereogum sets the scene: November 2008 at the Google Lounge in New York’s Lower East Side, where one Jens Lekman, there as a guest of Frida Hyvönen, seats himself at a piano and with the crowd chatter and beats of dance music carrying on in the background, performs a beautiful solo cover of Boyz II Men’s 1995 hit song, condensing their four lead vocals to just his own and making it that much more earnest and lovely. And as he says as he wraps up, “it was not a guilty pleasure, just pleasure”.
Lekman’s new record I Know What Love Isn’t comes out this week and he plays The Phoenix on October 4. Boyz II Men released their latest album Twenty – presumably in reference to their years as performers – last Fall.
MP3: Jens Lekman – “Water Runs Dry” (live at Google Lounge – November 2008)
Video: Boyz II Men – “Water Runs Dry”
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