Saturday, November 27, 2010

Grady @ The Pyramid

So I had to write a review for my Journalism class, and it just so happened to be assigned a couple days before the Grady show.  Figured I'd post it up on here.


Of the approximately 170 people at The Pyramid Cabaret to see Grady on November 19, about 20 would have passed a sobriety test after the show.  The other 150 were a blurry-eyed, word-slurring, stumbling, beer-guzzling, whiskey-shooting ball of energy.  And many would argue that is the best way to see a Grady concert.

The Austin, TX based group, who invented their own genre of “cowboy metal”, made their way to The Pyramid for the third time since October 2009, and as usual kept their fans up and rocking until closing time.  Their two hour set began at the stroke of midnight, as the house music (which was, appropriately, The Headstones’ Greatest Fits album) changed to an upbeat country tune and two towering figures topped with cowboy hats made their way through the crowd from the back of the club.  

The 21 song set featured songs from each of the band’s three albums, and six songs written by frontman Gordie Johnson’s original, more widely known band, Big Sugar.  Rather than play a verbatim cover of the Big Sugar songs, the group “Gradified” them, which typically meant turning up the volume to eleven and slowing it down a few beats per minute. 

The show kicked off with an old Big Sugar hit, Ride Like Hell, which was the first track on Grady’s first release, 2004’s Y. U. So Shady?   Without stopping, they launched into three songs from their latest album, released in 2009, Good as Dead.  As they powered through the booze-soaked Whiskey River, fog blew from the nostrils of a cattle skull that hung from the front of Nina “The Queena” Singh’s transparent drum kit, drawing a chorus of cheers from the crowd.  The trio finally took a break to make sure it was “alright if we play a few truck-drivin’ songs?” then launched into the second Big Sugar song of the night, Three Minute Song from Hit and Run, followed by Truckstop in La Grange, which has a brief throwback to the 1973 ZZ Top hit. 
  
A few songs later came the crowd-favourite title track from Good as Dead, which also contains the title of Grady’s newly released live CD/DVD, filmed in Winnipeg, Calling All My Demons.  During Rolling Thunder, from 2006’s A Cup of Cold Poison, bassist “Big” Ben Richardson was so loud it felt as though thunder were actually rolling through the room, nearing the mythical “brown note.”

After strapping on his custom Gibson double-neck guitar for the second time of the night, Johnson drew the loudest applause of the night when he asked “how about a good ol’ fashioned drinkin’ song?”  The drinkin’ song was On The Wagon, which is about a man about to be hanged pleading for one more whiskey and one more song.  The main set ended at 1:40 with Hammer in my Hand, from Big Sugar’s Heated.  The song was dedicated to openers The Motorleague, and saw the band throw in a verse of Rush’s 1981 hit Tom Sawyer.

After a short encore break, Grady made their way back on stage to play a heavy three song encore, with back-to-back Big Sugar songs, Goodbye Train and Joe Louis.  The set ended at 2 on the dot with Chili Cold Blood, and for what may be the first time ever, without Johnson mentioning the fact that he was born here in Winnipeg at St. Boniface Hospital.

The night opened with The Motorleague, from Moncton, NB playing a lengthy hour-long set.  The first song had the crowd on their feet chanting “directly to hell” along with the band during the repetitive chorus.  Unfortunately, that is where the show went as the east-coasters failed to impress the crowd with their generic pop-punk songs and wannabe-rockstar poses.  All but six people ended up back at their table within a few songs.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Big Sugar


So last Friday I saw Grady at The Pyramid, which was awesome, of course.  Before the show, Gordie Johnson was doing a guitar clinic at Long & McQuade which I went and checked out.  It was great to see him up close with just an acoustic guitar, answering fans questions and performing a variety of songs.  Since I've already written about Grady (click here), this edition of Jaremy on Music will be about his older, more widely known band, Big Sugar.

Most Canadian music fans have at least heard OF Big Sugar.  They are a blues/rock/reggae band that recieved a decent amount of exposure during their original run, from 1991-2004.  They had a few songs in regular rotation on the radio and Much Music, but the ones that stick out in my mind from when I was a youngster just discovering good music are Diggin' A Hole, Dear Mr. Fantasy (which I spent a long time loving, unaware of the fact that it was actually a Traffic song), Turn The Lights Out, Nicotina (She's All That) and The Scene.  The group has released 5 studio albums.

One of the things that I find impressive about Big Sugar is their versatility.  Gordie Johnson's guitar style is quite heavy, yet also bluesy, multi-instrumentalist Kelly Hoppe (aka Mr. Chill) brings influence from old school R'n'B and since 1994, their bassist has been Garry Lowe, who grew up in Kingston, Jamaica and brings a heavy reggae presence to the group.  Multiple drummers have worked their way in and out of Big Sugar, and in 1999 a rhythm guitarist named Mojah joined the band.

Earlier in 2010, Gordie Johnson announced that Big Sugar had reunited (though he continues to play with Grady, as well as produce a massive list of bands, including The Trews, Gov't Mule and Taj Mahal).  I'm hoping they make a stop in Winnipeg, since the last time they came through town I was about 10-years-old.

I met Gordie after his clinic at L & M and arranged to do an interview that I had planned to post on here and play on my radio show (warning, shameless self-promotion: Behind the Beat, Wednesdays, 8pm on 92.9 Kick FM) but unfortunately never ended up meeting up with him after the show. I've been kicking myself for not trying harder to do that. I do, however, have to write a review of the Grady show for my Journalism class, which I will probably post on here once it's done, so keep an eye out for that.

Now you internet people didn't think I was going to end this post without a couple of videos, did you?

My personal favourite Big Sugar song, Empty Head, live in 1996.


The Scene, live in 1998, before it was released as a single. I love the Tarzan holler that someone in the audience does right before they start playing.


Gordie Johnson performing an acoustic version of All Hell For A Basement during one of his clinics at a Long & McQuade in Edmonton in 2007. He looks a little different than in the first video, eh?

Friday, November 19, 2010

Red Fang


Once again, I apologize for the inactivity on here over the past little while.  After making it through my week from hell last week, I've been taking it easy and spending a lot of this week actually getting out of the house and enjoying the little bit of free time that I had.  This is going to be a short one, since I plan to have a quick nap before heading out to see Grady (click here) at The Pyramid tonight.

As I promised last week, I'm going to write a bit about Red Fang.  Well, internet people, I'll admit it, I know nothing about Red Fang.  And, for the first time in Jaremy on Music history, I have never seen them live before.  My brother introduced me to this hard-rockin', riff-driven, beer-guzzlin' four-headed machine a while ago, by showing me the video for Prehistoric Dog (see bottom of my last post).  It's probably the best music video ever, and the song is pretty bitchin', too.

All I know about Red Fang is that they are from Portland, Oregon and don't make it up to Canada often.
Until they do, I'll have to just be satisfied with videos on YouTube.  And just in case you're in the same position as me, I've compiled a few of my favourites for your enjoyment.

Wires, the band's newest single.

Good to Die, live at South by Southwest 2009.

Prehistoric Dog, also from SXSW '09.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Holy Crap, I Need To Write A New Blog!

So I'm currently in the middle of an extremely busy week which has just been getting busier as time passes, so I apologize to my internet people about the lack of new content, but you'll have to wait til next week for another music profile.

I'm going to use this time for some shameless self-promotion.  As you read last week (you have been reading all my posts, haven't you?) my good pal Alex White and I will be hosting a show on 92.9 Kick FM called Behind the Beat.  As you also read last week (right?) our debut episode is tonight.  We will be hitting the airwaves at 8 p.m. with some of the most riveting radio you've ever heard.  We are going to be playing a wide variety of tunes, it should be good!

Here's a quick preview of what me may or may not play tonight.  Hint: we are playing it.  Unfortunately, we can't play the awesome music video on the radio, because, well, it's radio, not TV.


On that note, I think my next post will be about Red Fang. Check back next week.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Flash Fiction

*This post is part of an assignment for my creative writing class*

 Earlier on this year in our Creative Writing class, CreComm students were introduced to Arjun Basu, a writer from Montreal.  Basu writes short stories via Twitter, using each of the allotted 140 characters and no less.  He calls his stories Twisters "because everything on Twitter has a stupid name", and they are probably some of the shortest flash fiction (really short stories) you'll ever read.  Click here to read more about Basu, or follow him on Twitter, @arjunbasu.

Our class was challenged to create our own flash fiction (I won't call them Twisters, because we weren't required to use all 140 characters), which turned out to be a bit more difficult than I had imagined.  Here are the ones that I wrote.  Typically I just wrote what was in my mind at the moment (though they weren't true in any way), so some of them are kinda weak/just plain dumb.

"Running to catch up, but my shoe is undone. I fall."

"I left the club with a bleeding nose. Turns out she had a boyfriend."

"Everyone knew the guy, he was an asshole. That's what made it so funny."

"They sat around in a silence for a long time.  Joe said he was going to get a drink, but he just went home.  That place was boring, anyways."

"The game had just started, but no one wanted to keep playing.  Scrabble is fucking stupid, they agreed, and never played board games again."

"There were too many movies to choose from, so that sat and stared at the blank screen instead.  Bad idea."

"He spent all night drawing a chalk mural on her sidewalk. "Now she'll remember my name" he thinks. It rained before she woke up."

So there you have it, an example of some of my creative writing.  That last one was based off of a line in a Raconteurs song, and to keep with Jaremy on Music tradition, here is a video of the band performing that song, which is called Together.


Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Raconteurs


Members:
Jack White - Guitar/Vocals
Brendan Benson - Guitar/Vocals
Jack Lawrence - Bass
Patrick Keeler - Drums

Discography:
Broken Boy Soldiers - 2006
Consolers of the Lonely - 2008

As I've mentioned on here a couple of times before, I have a huge man-crush on Jack White.  I love pretty much everything he's done, from his early recordings in a duo called The Upholsterers to his latest album with The Dead Weather.  I didn't always love Jack White, but the song Level off of Broken Boy Soldiers got me interested, and it just sort of snowballed from there.

The group formed in 2005, and has kept the same four members the whole time, despite the fact that they all play in other projects.  They do bring along one multi-instrumentalist when they tour.  In support of Broken Boy Soldiers they toured with Dean Fertita (from Queens of the Stone Age, also part of Brendan Beson's solo project and now plays with Jack White in The Dead Weather) on keyboards, percussion and guitar.  While touring after the release of Consolers of the Lonely, Mark Watrous played keyboards, percussion, fiddle and sang backup.

Another band introduced to me by my very tall friend, The Raconteurs have created their own breed of rock 'n' roll.  Consolers of the Lonely incorperates many different musical styles, from country to bluegrass to folk (okay, I'll admit that those are all similar genres).  Initially I had only heard the group's first single, Steady as She Goes, and wasn't too impressed.  I thought it was just another boring, generic, mainstream pop-rock song, and being the hip young 17 year-old asshole that I was, I had no interest.  Eventually that very tall friend of mine showed me the rest of the CD, and as I mentioned above, the song Level got into my head immediately.  I enjoyed it, but still wasn't a huge fan.

Of course, time passed, things changed.  When The White Stripes released Icky Thump in 2007, I began to really like the work that Jack White did.  I became a casual White Stripes fan, but always steered away from Seven Nation Army (still do).  One day at work (where I'm forced to listen to the radio, unfortunately) I heard a song that I thought was a new White Stripes single, but I never caught the name of it.  Well, turns out that that "new White Stripes" song was actually Salute Your Solution, the first single off of Consolers of the Lonely.  I immediately went home and downloaded...I mean legally purchased...the album and gave it a partial listen through.  Not really what I was expecting, based off of Broken Boy Soldiers, but it was damn good, better in my opinion.  Well as luck would have it, The Raconteurs were one of the bands playing at Bonnaroo that year, and it just so happened that my brother and I were planning on heading down with a few buddies.  The more I listened to Consolers, the more excited I got for their show.  By the time we left, The Raconteurs were easily the biggest draw for me, in a lineup that had, amongst about a hundred others, Pearl Jam, Stephen Marley, Chris Rock and B.B. King.

The show was unreal.  The crowd was pretty big, so we just hung out near the back.  Since it was only the second main stage show we ever saw at Bonnaroo, we didn't know that heading to the left side of the crowd means easy access to good spots (don't know why, but look at any aerial pictures and the left side of the crowd is always half the size of the right).  Their songs sound great in a live setting, and the guys bring so much energy and power to the show that they don't need fancy lights or gimmicks to make their show good.  Nope, they survive on talent alone, unlike so many bands these days.  The crowd loved the show, and the band really fed off that energy.  They played everything with a bit more distortion and aggression than their recordings, which is fine with me.  The show was sort of a hometown gig, since they are from Nashville, and Bonnaroo is held in Manchester, Tennessee, about 65 miles from Nashville.

One part of the show that really sticks out with me is how good Patrick Keeler is at drums.  It was sweltering hot and humid as shit (how humid is shit, anyways?) and this guy was still nailing every single stroke perfectly.  I was most impressed with the way he switched the grip on the drumstick in his right hand in the middle of big long fills without missing a beat.  As my Tom Cruise lovin' pal would say, that's crazy bus.

Interesting fact: due to a band in Queensland already using the name Raconteurs, the group is known as The Saboteurs in Australia.  A member of the Australian Raconteurs explains that they were not told who it was trying to buy the rights to their name, and asked for a larger sum, just to see what would happen.  The plan backfired, they got no money, and Jack and the boys simply changed their name for the Aussie market.
The group's versatility is probably what I like most about them, so I'll try to show that off with these videos.

Consoler of the Lonely live at Glastonbury 2008.

Old Enough live at Bonnaroo 2008.

Blue Veins live at Bonnaroo 2008. Best part is when Jack White bails face first into an amp. Looks like he's crying when he leaves the stage.

Carolina Drama live from The Basement. One of the best closing songs I've ever heard. Check out the killer 'stache that Brendan Benson is rocking here.

Monday, November 1, 2010

The Dungeon Master

*This post is an assignment for my creative writing class, and is definitely not about The Raconteurs*

Usually I am not a big fan of stories from The New Yorker, but The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipsyte, from the October 4 edition, was an exception.  I chose to read this story based solely on the title, hoping that it may lead to a few laughs, and I wasn't disappointed.

There were quite a few things I liked about this story, aside from the humour.  Lipsyte portrays the 14-year-old Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) nerds perfectly, which is surprising, since he is 42.  The way the characters interact with each other makes the story more believable, and Lipsyte brings in characters that everyone will recognize to make it more realistic.

Everyone knew that one weird older guy in high school, since they are usually pretty memorable for some of the weird stuff they are known for (sorry if anyone reading this was that weird older guy in high school).  Reading about the rumours of how The DM hit a kid with a baseball bat when he was younger, flashed a bunch of girls at the ice rink or "set his turds on fire in the school parking lot" made me feel as if I were right back in the halls of junior high.  Thankfully I wasn't.  We all remember the day that the one kid decided that sitting around in your friends basement wasn't fun anymore as suggested smoking pot or watching the neighbour shower (okay, maybe not that specific). Characters and situations like these are what made The Dungeon Master stand out amongst other stories I've read from The New Yorker.

I also enjoyed the way that the author switched between the real world and the D&D world.  In one section, he uses dialogue that the real characters speak, but the action which their in-game characters are doing.  Sounds confusing, but it's not.

New Poll/Exciting Announcement

Another month gone, another poll completed.  In October, Darkside of the Moon beat out The Wall with a score of 13-9.

Check out the new poll to the right of your screen and cast your vote.  It's not music related, mainly because I couldn't think of anything good, and I was watching Seinfeld.  This month's poll is Seinfeld vs Friends.  Sorry Tim, you can only vote once.

On to the exciting announcement!  This one is for my local readers, right here in Winnipeg.  Starting on November 10, my good friend Alex White and I will be hosting a radio show on 92.9 Kick FM, which will be on every Wednesday from 8-9 pm.  We're pretty much just going to play music, talk about the songs a bit,  probably share a few weird news stories, maybe some hockey talk (he's a Leafs fan who hates Canucks fans, I'm a Canucks fan who hates Leafs fans, so proverbial shit may hit proverbial fans) and you'll definitely get to hear me make an ass of myself on a weekly basis.  Good times, my internet friends, good times.

Well, that's all I have to say for now.  One day when I have some free time I'll write a big long post about The Raconteurs, so keep your eyes peeled for that.