The Church - Xmas
Nick Lowe - I Was Born in Bethlehem
The Primitives - You Trashed My Christmas
Oldfolks Home - Christmas at the Oldfolks Home
Cocteau Twins - Frosty the Snowman
JP Hoe - HOE HOE HOE HOLIDAY SONGS
Sky Ferreira - Omanko
Kate Bush - December Will Be Magic Again
Rusty and Savanna - Stocking Stuffers
XTC - Thanks for Christmas
Payola$ - Christmas is Coming
Frank Turner and Butch Walker - Merry Christmas You XXXX
The Churchare back to slow down your heartbeat and perhaps change the speed of life. The band's 25th studio album entitled Further/Deeper is out October 17 in Australia and New Zealand, for the rest of us, who knows? First single Pride Before A Fall is by no means a departure, so if you have a hankering for the band's dreamy, endlessly diving guitars and shadowy, soaring vocals, here ya go.
After more than 30 years of psychedelic pop, The Church are still creating woozy, dark and kaleidoscopic gems. Although the band's been reissuing many early albums in deluxe editions, the Australian art-pop gents are still putting out records and playing live. Recently three concerts with the band playing full albums Starfish, Priest = Aura, and Untitled #23 were made available for streaming on Moshcam.com. The video is well-shot, if not particularly inventive, and the audio quality is decent. Not the most dynamic visually, these guys aren't leaping in the air or being amusing entertainers, it's about the music, but if you are entranced by their songs, it's worth your time.
Under the Milky Way
Watch The Church and other great gigs on Moshcam.
Pop Dose recently threw up their list of the top 50 guitar players of all time. I was surprised by some of the omissions and decided to create a post or two to respond, then I noticed that Pop Dose's list was actually created in response to the LA Times magazine's top 50. Okay, so a number of the players missing on one list can be found somewhere on the other. One list skips the Edge, Robert Fripp, Angus Young and Randy Rhoads, but then we see Eddie Hazel, John Mayer, Charlie Hunter, Neal Schon and John Frusciante. Huh? Of course, there are always complaints about lists like these, who got snubbed, who is wrongly placed at the top or bottom, and so on. Sometimes I think the choices are coloured by how much a guitarist sticks out, especially to other musicians or guitar god wannabes (Yngwie Malmsteen, anyone?)So, since I'm a non-guitarist (no musical ability whatsoever, actually) I've compiled a short list of stringbenders I like without any thought to how technically proficient they are, how difficult their music may be to play, or how wizardly they wield their axes. They might not be flashy, might just be rhythm players, but they've made some noises I like and they're not always included on favourite guitar player lists.
Wherever possible, I've tried to include live videos so you can see guitar grandeur without studio trickery.
Canadians already know Rob Baker, as The Hip have been at or near top of the rock heap in this country for years. But we probably take him for granted now, even though he's still pulling out new tricks, Like on Love Is a First, where he yanks out some muted Tom Morello-type moves at about 3:18. For some more new six-string sweetness, impossibly-long curtain of hair half-obscuring, try Morning Moon, or Grace, Too from Saturday Night Live if ya wanna check some older, more-restrained but satisfying licks.
The Tragically Hip - Love Is a First
Rick Nielsen writes the catchiest riffs and plays nice little licks, always looks funny and is a fine showman. Even when he's just playing fuzzed-out simple stuff he's worth a deuce. But what about the guy in the white jumpsuit? What the heck is he playing...a 12-string BASS? Can I nominate a bassist for my guitar player list? Tom Petersson doesn't just fatten up the bottom end, he sometimes manages to make it sound like there's three guitarists onstage, not just Rick and ballcap and goofy mugging. And neither one of them feel the need to show off and overplay on an uncomplicated song such as Southern Girls.
Cheap Trick - Southern Girls
The Church have been making the same hazy guitar rock for 30 years, and it ain't broke. Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes have been making beautiful sounds playing beautiful guitars without paying any attention to what is hip or commercially viable, which may account for a) the fact that many people don't know the band's still around and b) people not "getting it". For me, even if you don't like Steve Kilbey's songs or voice, the guitar almost always makes up for it. And also: Rickenbacker.
The Church - Reptile
If you've been following along, you know of Scruffy's love for the varied work of Adrian Belew. A guy once tried to tell me that all of Belew's songs were simply vehicles for his guitar sounds, but I have always felt that his weird noises and weird songs were showcases for one another - no tunes without the tone, and vice versa. Anyhow, if you listen to how he puts his own spin on Bowie's Heroes (originally played by his King Crimson band mate Robert Fripp), maybe you'll feel like I do; the guy can do anything. If I was sentenced to explain the difference between rock musician and rock star, I might look to Belew for the former - I mean, just look at him.
Adrian Belew & Martha Wainwright - Heroes
Dream Syndicate's Karl Precoda and Steve Wynn did the slow burn and guitar freakout as well as anyone but never got past cult band status. In fact, I'm a little pissed off at the dearth of quality sound AND video available on YouTube. So they get two, from two classic albums that haven't yet received their due. When Wynn gets deep into the song and the rhythm drives the tune, Precoda takes the lead somewhere else, maybe into an alternate universe where Television was part of your daily vitamins and The Velvet Undergound was piped into every crib.
Has every possible band name based on the English language been used already? Probably not yet, but the tipping point may be coming soon. This series of posts is being created to ensure you can tell the which from the what.
Red Rider was a Canadian band that released four albums from 80-84. The band was distinguished by its thoughtful lyrics that often included a literate outlook, such as Scruffy's personal favourite, Neruda. Inspired by songwriter/vocalist Tom Cochrane's ideas about poet Pablo Neruda and his writings, the band hit its creative peak with Neruda's finely-tuned atsmospherics. Guitarist and pedal steel player Ken Greer was a prime example of a musician who served the song in an era when flashy finger-tapping from Eddie Van Halen was still considered cool. Below you can listen to/watch Neruda's Light in the Tunnel/Human Race, which was a gutsy choice for single and video considering that vocals don't even make an entrance for more than 2 minutes. Any resemblance to the chorus of ubiquitous 1997 hit Tubthumping by Chumbabwumba is probably coincidental, but if Chumba's lyricist happened to be in Canada in 1983 and heard any FM radio, Human Race could not be missed. You can also stream the whole album (as well as the other three Red Rider albums) on Ken Greer's website.
To backtrack for a moment, Lunatic Fringe was actually the band's biggest tune, it still gets airplay not only in Canada but in the States. I heard it on the radio in Vegas recently. Sorry I can't post the original video (embedding has been disabled on YouTube), it was even more dated than Human Race, terribly-synced music and video. If you'd like to see the original go here, or if you'd like to see a really rough live version by Todd Rundgren go here.
Red Riders is a band from Sydney, Australia who have released two albums so far. The newest, Drown in Colour, dropped July 10th, 2009. As opposed to the classic rock/sometime art rock of Red Rider and Neruda, Red Riders are potentially just a tad too clever for radio in North America at the moment. Their songs have hooks that aren't overly obvious, sweetly jangly guitars that temper restrained riffing, and a solid-but-subdued rhythm section (except on tracks like My Love Is Stronger Than Your Love where the bass 'n' drums are the engines in the verses). If The Church were younger, starting out today, and had ten cases of Jolt Cola under their belts, Red Riders' songs might be the result. Or a not-so-over-the-top dramatic Cure, perhaps - oops! Just checked their listed influences on myspace, and those two C-words were both listed. And I thought I was being perceptive. A funny kid's nightmare video for Ordinary to boot.
The video for You've Got a Lot of Nerve is not as amusing - quite dull actually, but I like the song, which you can download here.
So, which will you have - Red Rider or Red Riders? Do you think the name was taken from the holiday classic A Christmas Story?
The anniversary of humans landing on the moon passed us by this week, so I started thinking about how many songs refer to space or the moon. A random sample of cds close at hand told me...maybe too many. Do you think songwriters dream about what's about there more than others, or are we all fascinated by what we don't know?
Here's one from Crooked Fingers, Under Sad Stars, found on the the band's self-titled album.
Some technical difficulties sent my spacey playlist all wonky, but you can go here to grab the rest. You'll find:
The Waterboys - The Whole of the Moon Possum Dixon - Crashing Your Planet Scruffy the Cat - Kissing Galaxy Eat - Red Moon Bryan Ferry - Gemini Moon Scruffy the Cat - Moons of Jupiter Rupert Hine - The Wildest Wish to Fly Crooked Fingers - Under Sad Stars Pixies - Space (I Believe In) Fountains of Wayne - Lost in Space The Church - Under the Milky Way The Church - Texas Moon
Of course, many people don't believe there ever was a moon landing. See the proof below. I wonder what Courtney Love thinks about it?
mp3s will be posted for a limited time and are for promotional purposes only. If you like it, buy the albums, go to the shows, buy the t-shirts - support the artist so they can keep on keepin' on. Artists - if you would like an mp3 or video removed, please contact me directly at chrisyakchart@hotmail.com.
If you've got something Scruffy should hear, same email. Snail mail is cool too.
Scruffy the Yak 34 Allenby Cres Winnipeg Mb R2C 3J4
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