CBGBs to Sin City?

The legendary CBGBs will be shutting it's doors soon and packing out to the desert. Due to rent/lease issues, the owner is looking at possibly relocating to Las Vegas. Such a shame really, cos New York is losing a real peice of music history. CBGBs is often credited as the birthplace of American punk, and was the early stomping grounds for such acts as the Ramones, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, and Blondie.

read more about it HERE and HERE.

I dunno anyone that still uses VHS or Beta

So now that Jim's back in the land of crappy internet, I figure I ought to pick up the slack and post a bit more. So instead of once a week-ish posts, I'll try to get 2 or 3 up. Sounds good eh. But first off, I'd like to address the world cup final: what the fuck was Zidane thinking?! ... That's actually all I have to say about that.

I was looking through my music library for some of my recent discoveries that I might be able to write about, when I realized something odd. A bit of an anomaly really. I have very little music by American artists (most of my tunes have the artists nationality in the comment space cos I'm quite anal about trying to have correct tags on all my music). Compared to Canadian and British artists, I have only a teeny tiny bit. In fact, I have more tunes by German artist than I do American. I thought that odd, and have yet to come up a suitable reason as to why this may be. So I decided to write about one of my new favourite American artists: the cleverly named VHS Or Beta. These lovely lads from Kentucky offer up amazingly catchy new wave-ish dance rock. The Killers may be the pre-eminent new wave-ish group of the day, but give it time and I'll bet they'll be losing that crown to VHS Or Beta cos they rock harder than The Killers. Other comparisions might be drawn to fellow compatriots Radio 4 and Canada's Death From Above 1979. Give a listen to the track 'Night On Fire' and you'll probably be hearing shades of Duran Duran too.

Listen To:
VHS Or Beta - 'Night On Fire'
VHS Or Beta - 'You Got Me'
VHS Or Beta - 'No Cabaret'

Err, what just happened?

Yes you may have wondered what happened to my almost daily posts, well I'm actually currently back home and away from a broadband connection (and will be until October) so its extremely unlikely that there will be very regular posts from me until then, in some brief music news you can listen to the entire Thom Yorke album at Radio Indie Pop as its their album of the month. As for the World Cup well I don't want to talk about it.

Happy Canada Day!

so today (well, it will be the 2nd by the time this gets posted ... been into my cups in celebration) is our (actually, mine, not jim's) country's birthday! happy birthday canada! so many reasons to be a proud canadian, but i'm gonna get weepy if i start being patriotic bout now (as i said, cups were filled and promptly emptied). so i'm gonna keep this short and sweet. i've uploading 4 tunes for your sampling pleasure: 2 by more popular canadian acts, and 2 by indie (but still quite popular) canadian acts. the first is by The Tragically Hip. many would probably say The Hip are overrated. quite possible. but they're canada's R.E.M. or Oasis. kings of popular canadian arena rock. they're barely known beyond our borders, but sell out constantly across the country. they're almost too canadian to be marketable elsewhere. which is fine by me. the second is by Sloan, loverly 60's flavoured power pop. the two indie acts are Arcade Fire and The Weakerthans. Arcade Fire really kick started the whole canadian indie trend and garnered our music scene a lot of international attention. and The Weakerthans are finally getting their due because of said indie trend.

also, i would just like to mention that i am rather heartbroken right now. perhaps i should just stop watching sports, it would make my life a whole lot less stressful. 'e' teams seems to not appreciate my support *cough*edmonton*cough*england*cough* ... excuse me.

mp3s
The Tragically Hip - Wheat Kings
Sloan - Rest Of My Life
Arcade Fire - Rebllion (lies)
The Weakerthans - Anchorless