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By Simon Howell - A Listening Ear - 04/23/2008

Before I get to the educational portion of this review, I'd like to say a few words about local openers The High Dials. I was struck, while listening to their last release War of the Wakening Phantoms and seeing them perform live, by the skewed nature of musical popularity. Their songs are slickly written and played, loaded with hooks and vocal harmonies, and some of them even stick in the mind after you've heard them, a rarity for indie-pop acts. Here's their problem: they lack…something. If they were British, they'd come here and headline venues twice the size of Lambi. If they were more eccentric and less workmanlike, they could develop Wolf Parade-like levels of fan devotion. If they had a younger and/or handsomer frontman, they'd make the indie girls swoon. As it is now, they show up, play their smartly written tunes expertly, and leave. When they want wider exposure, they appear in a Rogers ad, since none of the major online publications I visited had written a word about them. Are they the greatest unknown band ever? Definitely not -- much of their material doesn't stand out as memorable despite their obvious skill, and their albums meander far longer than they need to. Nevertheless, they deserve considerably better than they're getting.

Moving on,

Simon's Guide to Enjoying a Stoner Rock Concert While Not Stoned

I was a little concerned that I was going to be reviewing a Dead Meadow concert while not under the influence of any drugs. In my case, I simply don't do any of them, but perhaps you may find yourself in a similar predicament due to a lack of funds or some other complication. So here's my guide to getting the most out of your substance abusers of choice and their unholy racket.

1. Show up tired. This is the important one. If you're too alert, you won't be as inclined towards enjoying the slow, crushing grooves that typify good stoner rock. You might even find them a little annoying. When I arrived for the show, I was already a little bushed, so I sat down to watch the openers. Crucially, however, I stood up for Dead Meadow, preventing me from actually falling asleep -- if not necessarily preserving my attentive faculties. The other important thing to keep in mind is that any self-respecting stoner band should have some accompanying visual component to go with those grooves -- and indeed, Dead Meadow were projecting images evoking cell division all over the stage. To get a good sense of how tired I was, keep in mind that it took me a full ten minutes to figure out that the little black devices at the front of the stage were not, ineffective little fans, but projectors, and that they weren't hooked up to a sophisticated computer program, they just had little lava lamps inside them. Another good sign that the fatigue is working is that you might start to compose your own (terrible) songs while fixating on inane details around you. For instance, when I turned to spot The High Dials' Rishi Dhir staring at Dead Meadow bassist Steve Kille's remarkably nimble fingerwork, I started to piece together a song called "The Bassist Was Watching the Other Bassist." I forget how it goes now.

2. Show up relieved. Try to make sure you don't have to go to the bathroom during the show, since the longer you stand in one place, the more likely you are to be pleasantly entranced by the sounds being hurled at you. Plus, you never know when an actually distinct track will arise from the sonic morass to lift your attention a bit -- in this case, Feathers standout "At Her Open Door." Not that their set overall wasn't solid -- it was actually surprisingly engaging throughout -- but during certain stretches I was waiting for a hook or two. Regardless, your unbroken presence will heighten your overall enjoyment.

3. Stand on the bassist's side. Trust me, when the band starts to play, and you can barely stand upright due to following the previous instructions, you'll want to be getting the full force of that droning low end. Before long it will be a comfort to you, not unlike the sound of waves on a brisk summer night by the beach, or mild traffic going by your window in the late evening. Except that in this case you're probably surrounded by very sweaty people in what should be a distressingly confined space.

Follow these simple steps and you'll be good as blitzed.

Tune in to A Listening Ear with Simon every Friday from 2pm - 4pm

By Comma Chameleon - Semicolon Cancer; - 04/01/2008

Let’s start with White Denim. WD set the stage on fire with a decently energetic opening set and loosened up the deadpan and slightly mutinous crowd at the Cabaret that night with a series of successful swinging singles. Unfortunately, the main act, Tapes ‘n Tapes, didn’t fare so well; after a number of selections from their new effort, Walk it Off, coming three years after the original 2005 release of their collection of print-worthy material, The Loon. This was a bit past disappointing and slightly tiring, and after the fifth new tune failed to impress the crowd with an upbeat crunchy redundant screeching rocker, they resorted back to their tried-and-true crowd favourites, including “Manitoba” and “Insistor,” which I was highly anticipating (from my perch at the foot of the stage I spotted its position footed near the bottom of the set list which was right below the electronic table of keyboardist Matt Kretzmann).

Coming off the end of the night, after Tapes finished screwing up the good buzz that finally rippled through the hordes of deadeyes who showed up to this gig by jamming in some more unknown and incomprehensible stuff from their new release, it dawned on me that frontman Josh Grier (pictured, foreground) should drop the axe once in a while and let Kretzmann (pictured, left) work the board more often; after all, it is the highlights on The Loon that are enriched with some stimulating electronic buzz accompanying the guitar scrawl, and I think we all like it better that way. Or else, for God’s sake, think of introducing some new hooks, harmonies, bridges, and chord progressions before I dawdle off home to listen to my roommate cover Third Eye Blind and attempt both tenor and falsetto choruses at the same time.

Note to self: go check out more White Denim.

By Dan Stefik - The Ground-Up - 04/13/2008

As far as I know, Autechre fans haven’t yet reached a definitive verdict on their latest LP, Quaristice. The camps appear divided: while some feel that a recent departure from their tried and true approach is nothing short of blasphemy, others argue that the LP’s shorter tracks and more minimal stylings are strangely affecting. However, neither camp could contest the explosive energy of Sean Booth and Rob Brown’s performance at Club Soda last night.

The show’s duration was punctuated by two DJ sets – which were relatively uneventful – and an additional set by the show’s opener Massonix (Graham Massey from 808 State fame). Massey began in fine form, but as his set drew to a close it was fairly obvious that fans were itching for Autechre. Massey’s use of live instruments (an assortment of winds, synths and guitars) and looped images provided the “visual” spectacle for the evening, but Autechre would soon take the stage and refuse any visual stimulation whatsoever.

Montreal’s Club Soda provided the backdrop, with the necessary -- shall we say, amplification -- and make no mistake, Club Soda is fit in terms of sound. Anyone who’s bothered to listen to Autechre on disc or vinyl can vouch for this fact. Club Soda delivers soundwise, and then some. A powerful sound system is a pre-requisite to the faithful transmission of Autechre’s music which is comprised of a cacophony of sounds, faint melodies, and chest-pounding beats and rhythms.

And let it be known that Booth and Brown separate the boys from the men, so to speak. This isn’t your average dance, techno or drum ‘n bass gig. They aren’t doodlers on laptops. They are nothing short of visionaries of the aural persuasion, and fans have known that for over 15 years now.

The best thing about an Autechre show is the fact that fans seem to be dancing, grooving, bobbing, or stomping with both their bodies AND minds. Their bodies are anchored by an incisive rhythm (a rhythm that is characterized by its pulsating, primal nature) and their minds are engaged by a myriad of sounds -- far too many to consciously keep track of – that extend from the pulsating core. Autechre fans appear fully engaged and totally submitted to the sounds themselves. To attend an Autechre show is to enter the recesses of Booth and Brown’s minds, a space cleared for psychic dance music. And thankfully, their sounds stretched out through an almost entirely underlit venue -- save for the lights emitted by their abundance of equipment -- an aesthetic choice that certainly adds to the psychic element in their approach.

Next time Autechre pulls into Montreal, do yourselves a favor and submit! Your brain and body will thank you plenty.

Tune in to The Ground Up with Dan every Tuesday from 11am - 12pm

By Josh Mocle - The Kids are So-So - 04/01/2008

Well, it’s another year and another Anti-Flag album. It seems everyone favourite politi-punks have reached their creative peak given the fact that they’ve had some kind of new release on store shelves every year since 2006. This may have something to do with the fact that the political climate in the United States is not improving: George W. Bush is still in office, over 4000 troops have been killed in Iraq and the national debt is now pushing 510 trillion dollars. In other words, for a band like Anti-Flag, who have ostensibly made a career out of pointing out how fucking terrible the American government is, there are plenty of things to write/scream about.

This brings us to their latest release, The Bright Lights of America, released on April 1st on, ahem, RCA Records. I won’t get into how interesting it is that a band who wrote, at various points in their career, songs with titles like “Corporate Rock Still Sucks” releasing their SECOND album with a Sony affiliated, bonafide corporate-rock-creating major label like RCA (for that you’ll have to listen to my podcast or my radio show). Taking all of that baggage (and believe me, there is a lot) out of the equation, how does the record itself stand on its own? The answer is that it pretty much sounds like every other Anti-Flag record created. This band found their musical formula (in this case standard two chord punk rock) very early on and hasn’t really deviated from it since. This makes sense, since front man Justin Sane has stated on multiple occasions that the band considers itself less a punk rock band and more a political organization (coincidently those comments always seemed to come around an election year, but again that isn’t the topic of this piece). By that logic the lack of musical advancement makes a bit of sense and is ultimate forgivable if the topics which they write about reflect the current political climate.

This, I feel, is where the band’s weak point lies. The American political climate hasn’t changed very much in the past three years; therefore, the lyrical content on this record doesn’t really differentiate much from 2006’s For Blood and Empire or last year’s Benefit for Victims of Violent Crime. Which ultimately leads me to ask: did we really need a new Anti-Flag record right now? Haven’t they said all this before? Does a band become redundant when the message begins to repeat like a broken record (ESPECIALLY if the musical structure is identical to past structure)? Sure tracks like the album opener, “Good and Ready,” and the pseudo-anthemic “The Modern Rome Burning” are fun examples of why street punk is still fun, I get the general feeling (with this release more than any other) that the band themselves may feel more important than they actually are (a fact that has become blatantly apparent as the years have gone by). Maybe next time they should actually take some time before releasing a new album, if only to allow a political climate shift to occur thus giving them fresh material to work with.

Tune in to The Kids Are So-So with Josh every Tuesday from 2pm – 4pm