Oh Look, The Snow is Gone!

All of a sudden, it's April. The weather is warm, the geese are back, and our "Snow Songs Tour" has come to a close. The final show of the tour took place this past Saturday in Hamilton, Ontario - our first time playing in The Hammer. (Too all the people of the Hammer, you guys were amazing!)

Here are some of the highlights of the tour:
- Ryan Pritchard's debut as our lead guitarist
- Our collective debut on live television! Playing CP24 Breakfast in Toronto was a pretty awesome (although extremely caffeinated) time
- Headlining at The Horseshoe Tavern. It's one of the most storied venues in the city, and the energy that night was beyond all our expectations
- A double-header our bffs The Lifers, playing back-to-back nights in London and Toronto
- Contributing to the Longest Concert Ever! We were so excited to play a set at The Earl of Whitchurch in Stouffville during their attempt to set the Guinness World Record for Longest Concert by Multiple Artists. (FYI, they successfully set the record!)

While the snow is gone and the tour is done, that doesn't mean we're taking a vacation. We'll be playing at CMW on April 21st, as well as a couple more shows in the summer (we'll announce them soon). PLUS! A very exciting announcement coming up tomorrow, keep your eyes peeled!

-p

Snow Songs Tour

We’re part way in to our Snow Songs tour (‘cause it’s winter, and we have a song called Snow Song… get it? …okay, moving on) and it’s been a tonne of fun. So far, we’ve hit Kingston, as well as Jay’s hometown of Tweed. Just a couple highlights:

• An impromptu chant of “L. R. H.” during Skeleton Key in Kingston. You guys are the best!
• Getting to sing Paddle Away with a host of Quin-Mo-Lac’ers at both shows was pretty special.
• Our new man Ryan getting settled in nicely on the guitar. The guy’s got some serious chops!
• Some fantastic sets by Flowers for Daniel and Sara Hadley – check ‘em out!
• Jay almost cut his foot open while jumping on some glass (it was by accident, he's not a dummy). Don't try that at home. Or anywhere.
• Trying out some brand-spankin' new songs! They seem to have gone over well, so I guess we'll keep playing them...

We’re pumped to add 2 more shows onto our tour listing. The first is a St. Patrick’s Day extravaganza on march 17th in Guelph, with the second being on April Fools Day (April 1st), in Hamilton. So we’re hitting all the important holidays. And the MOST important holiday - Jay's birthday - is getting a nice loud celebration this weekend when we play at The Boathouse in Kitchener. 

Check the poster to see when we’ll be close to you. And if you’re anywhere in the GTA, make sure you’re at The Horseshoe on Thursday, Feb. 23rd. It’s going to be a barnburner (and we’ll need your help building another one. You can’t just burn it down and walk away…).

Man Machine Poem - The Tragically Hip

Quick, get your headphones.

No, not the earbuds. The good pair. The one’s your sister gifted you last year.

Settle in to them. Hit play.

This is not just an album of songs, but an album of sounds. Gord’s schizophrenic vocals, twisted by the convoluted workings of audio engineering, declare “I’m a man, and I’m a man. I do what I hate and don’t understand.” A soothing languid guitar, and then the drone of a low organ. If you’re looking to relive your glory days, you’ve come to the wrong place. The Tragically Hip are too often considered, though warmly, in the past tense. But Man Machine Poem is not an attempt to “get back their roots.” 30 seconds in, and this album is already thrumming with modern designs.

MMP is an exploration of groove and timbre. The swirling march of Man, the buzzsaw longing of In A World Possessed By The Human Mind, the steady drive of Great Soul, the precarious restraint of Ocean Next. While their songwriting continues to be a strong suit, MMP excels in developing an expansive universe of sound. Notice how the simple chord movements of In Sarnia hit cleanly and clearly amidst the cavernous ambience. Notice the percussive sound of a valve-amplifier rattling to the beat of Machine. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The opening track, Man, sees Johnny Fay’s driving kick-kick-snare punch cleanly through a shimmering sea of reverb. Downie’s layered vocals come in, fragmented, from everywhere in the acoustic field. He often takes a moment to drift from the ether, slowly into pitch, harmonizing with his past voices. The song eschews a traditional verse-chorus structure in favour of an ever-evolving cycle. It’s the type of piece where, without the traditional sonic landmarks, time seems to stretch and warp leaving the song feeling both longer and shorter than it’s five-and-a-half minutes.

In April, the band released the 1st single from MMP: In a World Possessed by the Human Mind. I quickly downloaded it, and proceeded to place it on repeat for eight straight hours. I would listen to very little else for the rest of the week – the more it played, the more it felt compelling. I played it at a friend’s backyard party, in my room in the dark, at work in the lab, on my way to have a difficult conversation. And every time, at 2:43, my body tenses with the ephemeral climax.

If there is a moment of “classic Hip” on MMP, it is undoubtedly What Blue. A smooth memorably melody is undercut with just-dirty-enough guitars and the bass harmonies of Sinclair. The syllabic structuring, at times, feels reminiscent of Eldorado. The instrumental arrangement harkens back to The Completists. But this time around, we’re blessed with a fuck-overdrive guitar solo.

This album’s thorax is defined by the stretch from In Sarnia to Tired as Fuck. It’s a rolling foursome, driving steady like highway 11 between Hearst and Nipigon. Here In The Dark bursts from the opening backbeat to rock steady until a prowling Sharksian bass-led outro takes us into the delayed call-and-response guitars of Great Soul. “Nothing works. Oh, and nothing works. I’ve tried nothing, and I’m out of ideas.” A thesis statement for indecision.

Dancing in Flamenco style, Tired as Fuck may be the troubador’s pick. It’s a delicately written tune featuring some of the best lyricism on the album. Gord has always been very selective about his use of expletives, and this exasperated usage may be one of his best.

Tilt your chair back (are you sitting?), until you’re just at the point of tipping.

Shortly after the release of MMP, there was one song causing controversy among my compatriots. Hot Mic felt out of place, a bit of “what’s it’s purpose?” But then, sometime in August while hungover and driving down the 401, I noticed I’d set it on repeat – it was finally clicking. The relentless 1-4-7 drum accents feel uneasy. The spastic lyrical phrasing is awkward. But that’s the point - the song hangs with you on your balanced chair, but refrains from collapsing.

On August 18, I arrived early to the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa. With the security guards distracted (or simply bored), I was able to poke my head in to briefly see a sound check of Ocean Next. Given my affection for a slow build, it’s unsurprising that this ended up as one of my favourite tracks on the album. The empty arena felt the perfect setting for a song paced for scarcity. It’s a bittersweet penultimate sound. It’s salt-and-vinegar (forgive me for being so on the nose).

The final component of MMP is Machine, which is one of the best Hip compositions in years. The bookend to Man, Machine pushes a harder edged vision that pairs nicely with P.K.D’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.” The bass drives smoothly, the guitars float elegantly above. When the bridge builds to release, you’re left aloft for just a moment. This is what made me fall in love with The Hip. The transcendent groove, pulling you along twenty feet above the car you’re riding in.

As the album comes to a close amidst the quirky percussion and the android’s eulogy, take your headphones off.

Go for a walk.

The Dream Is Over - PUP

    This year, I had a particularly tough time in choosing what album got to bring home the top spot. That being said, I’ve had no struggle in finding the words to describe the constant (yet pleasurable) musical assault that both of these albums deliver. I would be remiss to not mention the runner up as both had profound impacts on the perception and enjoyment of my surroundings. Invent, Animate’s “Stillworld” is a musical masterpiece, housing intricate rhythms, and large atmospheric guitars. My only qualm is that it isn’t longer. No artist (or album for that matter), however, has spoken to my current state of habitat as PUP. 

The Dream Is Over.

    The guys in PUP are well known for delivering a high energy, rambunctious performance while atop the stage. The opening track “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, Then I Will” presents a beautifully blunt caricature of spending too much time with your best friends. Stephan depicts the progression from being so irritated that “Everything you do makes me wanna vomit”, to wanting to get your hands on a power drill STAT.

    A perfectly seamless transition into “DVP” is everything I could have asked for. Depicting the manic struggle of someone dealing with a vicious cycle of alcoholism while trying to mend the fragments of what remain of a failing relationship. Again, Stefan is able to vocalize such raw emotions with a lyrical grace that is envied by many.

    Above all, this album is an audible mural of one’s 20's. It boils over into an aggressively apathetic articulation of everyday life. Lines such as “And every time when I go back to my apartment/ All I wanna do is get stoned/ And I'm sick and tired of blacking out on my carpet/ And waking up all on my own” & “I just wanna be something. Never thought I’d be nothing at all” depict the overwhelming feeling of being trapped. To be concerned with where you’re heading, but feeling powerless to change it. 

    Not to say that this album nothing but doom and gloom. Far from it. PUP takes pride in their Canadian heritage, hosting a pair of songs on the album discussing the trials and tribulations of the Canadian wilderness. “The Coast” is based on an old Inuit story called, “A Promise Is A Promise”. It is the tale of how a young girl’s parents make her promise to never cross the ice alone in the winter. When she breaks this promise, the ice broke apart and the terrible monsters below swallowed her into their realm for all of eternity. Though even without this explicit information, the lyrics depict the dangerous and precarious lives of northern Canadian fishing towns. 

    I could go on for days about this album (so if you just wanna talk about how good PUP is, I’m always available), but there’s one last song I want to talk about. The closer. “Pine Point”. It is haunting, with a strip-down beginning featuring just Stefan and his guitar before building into a massive sound scape. Pine Point is an abandoned mining town in Northwest Territories. It was established barely long enough for a single generation to move through. When the mine closed in 1988, the entire town was either demolished or relocated. All that remains of Pine Point now is a cemetery, and a small sign saying “Welcome to Pine Point”. This idea of having your past erased, not being able to visit the places you once knew... it’s terrifying. 

The last words on the album are “I hope that you know what you’re doing”, and I couldn’t agree more. Isn’t that what we all hope for each other?

- m    

Andy Shauf's The Party

It always seems like when things go awry in the world, beautiful music is created to help balance out the ripples that get created. So as depressing as this year got, there were so many good albums that came out: the Hip, Secret Path, Blackstar, PUP, Bon Iver, etc etc etc. On top of the great albums of 2016 for me is Andy Shauf's The Party.

This is one of those albums that immediately took hold of me when I first heard it and dominated my personal soundtrack ever since. I listen to it an unhealthy amount. My obsession with this album has reached the point where I’ve become that annoying dude who can’t stop pushing it on everyone. If we’ve had a conversation longer than 10 minutes over the past few months, I’ve probably taken the liberty of asking, “Hey have you heard of Andy Shauf?” And when you say no, I say “oh my goddddd, you haaaaaave to check out this album maaaaaaan.”  Elongating my words for maximum effect, pleading that you listen to it so that we can be on the same page.

The Party is a not just a collection of songs, but a collection of co-mingling characters where each song chronicles one or two characters’ perspective of the same party. Like any party, this album contains the inevitable insecurity, heartache and intrigue that result when you mix friends, lovers and secret admirers with cigarettes and excessive boozing.  The words are written with a natural, observational ease; similar to the way Paul Simon writes, more in the tone of a conversation rather than lyrical prose. The story of this party is paired with Andy Shauf’s warm, piano driven musical compositions that mix simple, yet intriguing melodies with chord progressions that resemble classic pop like Randy Newman, Beach Boys or The Beatles.  There is even some Ron Sexsmith influence apparent in songs like The Worst In You.

As I mentioned before, I’m obsessed with this album, so naturally I’ve attempted to dissect exactly what went down at this party. There are reoccurring characters that pop up throughout the album like Jeremy, for example, the resident asshole of the party, or his sweet, unassuming girlfriend Sherry who can’t help but stay with him despite a drunken suitor blabbing to her about his indiscretions in an attempt to win her over. Oh the drama! The album starts with The Magician, which details the struggles of an insecure attendee who makes puts on a show, using sleight of hand and performing tricks to avoid revealing their true self to the room. The song builds into sweeping string and piano arrangements that bounce around like a carnival and ends with the Magician internally exclaiming that he or she is really “just a shaking hand without a concrete plan.”

Next, Early to the Party is about the girl who shows up way too early, waiting for her boyfriend to get there, “stressing out the host, pulling teeth ‘til everyone arrives.” The song has a musical break where a trance like string arrangement that builds harmonies on itself as it weaves between the underlying groove. Finally snapping the trance, the girl “bites her lip as he walks off with his friends, leaving [her] all alone once again.” This album is filled with little moments like this. Little personal interactions that seem insignificant when mixed in with the haze of the party, but when observed on their own, they can be devastatingly vulnerable.

The party continues with alcohol influencing the relationships in the room with Twist Your Ankle; a song with both perspectives of a girl and her too-drunk dance partner who is falling all over the place and realizes “everybody’s laughing at me, I wish I’d just stayed home.” This is followed by Quite Like You, which is the first mention of Jeremy (the asshole) and Sherry (the girlfriend).  One of Jeremy’s best friends gets too drunk and professes his love to Sherry, while also ripping Jeremy apart to a happy go lucky melody. Begin Again is another perspective of someone who resents Jeremy’s ability to do whatever he wants seemingly without consequence.

Andy Shauf seems like the ultimate wallflower. As if he has spent his life at the party, just observing. His firm grasp on the human condition is showcased by his ability to pinpoint small details that reveal the naked truth about our inner insecurities as people.  The Worst in You is about a guy who is trying to find his girlfriend in the party, hears her laughing in another room and gets that sinking feeling you get when you assume the worst about your partner. Is she off with some other guy? When he realizes the laughing was innocuous, that feeling switches to shame as he sings, “Why do I always seek the worst in you?”

The next song is To You. This song struck me to the core the first time I heard it live at Hillside this year. It’s the reason why I immediately went out to find his music after the festival. It has this perfectly melancholic piano progression with lyrics that mimic one side of a man’s drunken confession of romantic love to his good friend Jeremy. As you know by now, Jeremy is a straight up asshole, so this confession is rejected in devastating fashion, but you never hear actually hear that side of the conversation, you only hear the person confessing. It ends in severe back peddling where he sings, “Get over yourself, I’m not in love with you, it just came out all wrong.” Ughh.  Thankfully, Eyes of Them All relieves the tension created by this confession with an upbeat, happy tune about pining for the muse of the party as she dances on her own.

The last two songs take this party to a dark place. Alexander All Alone is about a man who dies at the party (yea, this party is hardcore). He ends his life in despair and makes the harrowing realization that even in death; he can’t relieve the turmoil within. There is one repeating note on the piano that continues throughout the song like a constantly dripping tap, as if to torture you along with Alexander’s inner hell. The album ends with Martha Sways, a subdued but gorgeous arrangement of acoustic guitar and strings as Andy Shauf sings over top “Dance Dance to the radio, while the devil takes control.” It’s a song about losing the love of your life and struggling to move on with someone new.

Every song on this album has the ability to connect with you on a pure and deep emotional level. It’s to the point that the characters feel real to me, I feel like I them personally. The other astonishing thing is that Andy Shauf wrote and played every part on the album, except for strings. Whaaaat? The Party is a singular artistic effort that sounds completely organic and comfortable.

I could probably write another thousand words and properly geek out on it, but it’s Christmas Eve and I’m home for the holidays. My little nephew is here and Uncle Jay has a responsibility to make fart noises, throw him around like a rag doll and make him laugh as hard as possible.  I’ll leave you with a recommendation: oh my goddddd, you haaaaaave to check out this album maaaaaaan. 

-Jay