Challenge accepted

Despite my general apathy for professional sports, I made up this week's playlist with Sunday's Grey Cup rivals, Saskatchewan and Hamilton, on my mind. I'll leave it up to you, dear listeners, to determine which one is Batman and which is Jughead in the image above. Last week's inclusion of Whitehorse's "No Glamour in the Hammer," followed by Trevor's visit and our discussion of Hamilton, had planted a seed in my heart for regional rivalry.

Today, it was Hamilton that drew first blood. After a raging number by the great Roky Erickson to get the blood flowing, we had not one but three epic songs by Hamilton's B.A. Johnston. I threw in a few Alberta bands (Lab Coast and Cowpuncher) to divvy some highlights from Johnston's latest release, the provocatively titled Mission Accomplished. The next set was all Saskatoon: we had a slew of winning tracks from Powder Blue, The Moas, and Jeans Boots. (Later in the day, I discovered that the guy who requested a song by Roky Erickson also knows someone in The Moas. Neat.)

Departing from the prairies, we heard something new from Sunset Rubdown's Spencer Krug, who's just released an album of piano ballads under his current moniker (Moonface); next, a brooding folk tune from Bill Callahan, followed by a rootsier number from British Columbia's Kacy & Clayton. But the real champ of the last half hour was Halifax, the city responsible for a near-perfect pop song by The You Are Minez and a very sentimental favourite from the late 90s.



"2 Headed Dog" - Roky Erickson
"Too Dumb to Live" - B.A. Johnston
"Walking on AYR" - Lab Coast
"Straight Outta Cobden" - B.A. Johnston
"Raised on Rock 'n' Roll" - Cowpuncher
"I Don't Want to Live in Windsor" - B.A. Johnston
"Go On Forever" - Powder Blue
"Of Mice" - The Moas
"Asshole" - Jeans Boots
"Everyone is Noah Everyone is the Ark" - Moonface
"Spring" - Bill Callahan
"Pretty Saro" - Kacy & Clayton
"Dust in the Gold Sack" - Swearin'
"Can't Question Desire" - The You Are Minez
"Shattered Me" - Bass Drums of Death
"Minstrel Rock" - Old + Weird
"Scott Pilgrim" - Plumtree

Glamour in the Hammer?

Sadly, I have no MP3 to post this week. CJSR's server was down for a good chunk of time and my show was one its many victims. It's a shame not only because of the great slew of tracks you'll see listed below, but also because I got to discuss the upcoming Grey Cup final (to which I am mostly completely oblivious) with Trevor. Earlier on Monday morning, he had sent in a request for the Whitehorse song "No Glamour in the Hammer," a tribute to his hometown Tiger-Cats who'll be facing off against the Saskatchewan Rough Riders in Regina this Sunday. And although I'm pretty naive when it comes to Canadian (or American) football, I do know that when you play against the Riders in Saskatchewan, the odds will not be in your favour. Hamilton needs all the help it can get. Trevor came by the show to provide more context for his requested song. The "Hammer" refers, of course, to Hamilton (I embarrassingly failed to pick up on this) and the song contains a bunch of other references to the underdog Ontario city.

So that was the show's highlight and I'm sorry if you missed it. All things considered, I'll probably spin a bunch of these tracks again next week. Maybe we'll be celebrating a Hamilton win and I'll have another opportunity to play Trevor's request.

"This Lonely Morning" - Best Coast
"No Glamour in the Hammer" - Whitehorse
"Forgiven/Forgotten" - Angel Olsen
"Uninvited Guest" - Eamon McGrath
"Tugboat" - Joanna Gruesome
"Sleepsick" - Dinosaur Bones
"Love You Here" - Sebadoh
"Walking on Ayr" - Lab Coast
"Sure As Spring" - La Luz
"Cash In" - Solange
"Minstrel Rock" - Old and Weird
"Anytime" - Monomyth
"Can't Question Desire" - The You Are Minez
"Dust in the Gold Rush" - Swearin'
"Sleigh Ride" - Fuzz

A new pyck from the Dodos

This new video for the Dodos' "Transformer" (from this year's awesome Carrier) seems to be in keeping with the spirit of Dyck's Pycks and, for that reason, share it I must.

 

Peace y'all

This week my show landed on Remembrance Day so I selected several songs about peace, conflict, and memory that may or may not have been relevant. Perhaps my choices reflect a greater sense of ambivalence about a day of commemoration that has, in many cases, become a celebration of Canada's ongoing militarization.

And so, for that reason, we began with a peace-themed stoner ballad from Chad VanGaalen, followed by an urgent cry for escape from Winnipeg's Cannon Bros. and a tribute to social incohesion from Women. After some great new stuff from Neko Case, La Luz, and Lou Barlow's Sebadoh, we heard some placid tracks from Deerhunter and from Winnipeg's Slow Leaves.

Sleater-Kinney's post-9/11 headbanger ("Combat Rock") asked some hard questions about political allegiance, while PJ Harvey's self-conscious remembering of the Great War ("The Colour of the Earth") seemed a fitting way to close out the program before observing a minute of silence at 11am.



"Peace on the Rise" - Chad VanGaalen
"Out of Here" - Cannon Bros.
"Untogether" - Women
"Remember" - Figurines
"Peace Signs" - Sharon Van Etten
"Night Still Comes" - Neko Case
"It's Alive" - La Luz
"Horns Surrounding Me" - Julia Holter
"Love You Here" - Sebadoh
"Memory Boy" - Deerhunter
"Calm and Serene" - Slow Leaves
"Master Hunter" - Laura Marling
"Combat Rock" - Sleater-Kinney
"Steal this Sound" - Constantines
"The Colour of the Earth" - PJ Harvey

Cold signs

Since Saturday evening's snowfall, it's been impossible to ignore the sad fact that winter is here. Indeed, we're all heading down the "Winter Road," as Bill Callahan somberly put it in the show's opening song. But it wasn't all self-pitying ballads about the cold signs of our current climate. We heard a highlight from Julie Doiron's recent classic I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day, some dreamy shoe-gaze from Philidelphia's A Sunny Day in Glasgow, and a lackadaisical jam from Kurt Vile latest, Walkin' on a Pretty Daze.

The show's centrepiece, however, was a pair of back-to-back tracks from Bruce Cockburn. After spinning his jazzy bummer "The Coldest Night of the Year," I had to let Bruce deliver a more traditional pick-me-up, this time from 1978's Further Adventures Of. I'm a real sucker for the jazz flute. From there, we headed to Montreal to hear from a 30-piece orchestra known as Land of Kush and to witness some fantastic noise work from Tim Hecker. Julia Holter's eerie track from Loud City Song allowed us to transition out of Hecker's ambient experiments into the hook-driven garage rock of Edmonton's Switches and Bass Drum of Death (with an expansive new track from Yamantaka // Sonic Titan thrown in for good measure).

Before I could continue, I was politely interrupted by Trevor, a recurring guest on the show, who had just returned from the Conservative Party convention in Calgary. Don't worry. He wasn't there celebrate our country's embarrassing status quo -- he was there as a reporter for one of CJSR's flagship news shows, Terra Informa.

We ended the hour somewhat bashfully, with a crowd-pleaser from the Arcade Fire, you know, because they're having such a rough go of it right now. And just in case you're not yet tired of hearing about them, you can follow this link to read my take on their new album.



"Winter Road" - Bill Callahan
"Heavy Snow" - Julie Doiron
"100/0 (Snow Days Forever)" - A Sunny Day in Glasgow
"Snow Flakes Are Dancing" - Kurt Vile
"The Coldest Night of the Year" - Bruce Cockburn
"Laughter" - Bruce Cockburn
"The Big Mango" - Land of Kush
"Amps, Drugs, Harmonium" - Tim Hecker
"This is a True Heart" - Julia Holter
"Roomate" - Switches
"Lamia" - Yamantaka // Sonic Titan
"Shattered Me" - Bass Drum of Death
"Here Comes the Night Time" - Arcade Fire