Joel Plaskett is a busy guy. I caught up with him while he was in his Dartmouth, Nova Scotia studio. He was in the middle of recording a Mo Kenney remix during a free bit of time between gigs. Lately, it’s been a lot of summer festivals and small-town bars, then back to the studio – a brand new one he’s been working on building for the past six months. But he likes the variety, and the movement from place to place. “There’s a real merit to playing different sized places,” he told me. “It keeps you on your toes.”
As a Maritime musical icon, Plaskett is in demand. And he’s just as happy opening for Paul McCartney as he is playing a show for 100 people. “It’s not so much about numbers as it is about energy,” he explained. “You could be in a giant room that’s half full, or you could be in a tiny room that’s packed with people, and often the room that feels packed is better even though there might be half the people.” His performance delivery is also always in flux. “I go from playing solo, to with a band, to as a duo. There’s a lot of variety in that regard, too,” he said.
When he touches down in Hamilton on September 14 for Supercrawl, he’ll be playing with his band – a bassist and a drummer – who he calls The Emergency. Together, they’re billed as the Joel Plaskett Emergency, and they’re just as excited to come to Hamilton as Hamilton is to see them perform at the James Street North event.
On the subject of playing in Hamilton, Plaskett stressed, “I’ve had nothing but good experiences. I’ve always liked Hamilton as a place, too.” He compared Hamilton to Halifax for their grittiness and industrial roots – a parallel that makes him feel at ease in the Steel City.
He’s especially looking forwards to playing alongside friends and musicians that he admires at Supercrawl. In particular, he enthused, “I’d love to see Fucked Up again. I saw them once at the Polaris Awards. It was great.” They are also set to perform Saturday night, albeit on a different stage.
He’s pretty sure that this will be his first outdoor show in Hamilton, and it’s a fact that excites him. “It’s great. It keeps the city fresh. I don’t know what to expect when I go there, compared to other venues I’ve already played. It’ll be a good surprise,” he said.
He may not know what to expect from Hamilton, but we know what to expect from him: energy, quirky musicality, and a very fun time.
Chris Alaimo / Silhouette Staff
In the digital age, we are absolutely mired in music. Music is more accessible and varied than ever. We carry around smartphones that can store thousands of songs and with which we can listen to music privately. Music is a commodity for personal consumption; it’s an industry. I think we’ve lost our appreciation of it. It is no longer magical, awe-inspiring and inspirational. Listening to music is just what one does to pass the time on the bus or whilst studying - it’s commonplace.
My aim is to encourage an appreciation of music and the structures that make it possible to experience music. I want to draw out the complexities of our experience of music.
How is music possible? First, we note the phenomena of successiveness. Each moment is preceded and followed by another moment.
This is partly constitutive of the tripartite structure of past-present-future. While obvious, it is necessary for any and all experience. Imagine a melody played in a world that lacked successiveness: there would be only chords, multiple notes played simultaneously. Music, as we experience it, would not be possible.
Successiveness permits temporal discreteness. They are distinct and unconnected moments of time. Our experience is smooth and fluid, lacking any real discreteness except that which we retroactively impose. In any experience, there is a horizon of meaning, a horizon of retained and anticipated moments. This temporal horizon explains the continuity of all experiences but in particular it explains the unity of music, why we don’t just hear unconnected, temporally discrete notes, but songs, symphonies, melodies and harmonies.
Each time a note is played, a trace of the last moment remains with us. It is present as it is distant and fading. As one note succeeds the other, the first note remains part of our experience as just-having-been-experienced.
The past moments of our musical experiences, and all experiences, are as important as the present moment.
Combined with the present and future moments, they create a horizon of meaning and temporal continuity upon which it is possible to experience music at all. Without the past, the present is necessarily the genesis of a brand new experience, each moment arising and instantly forgotten with no trace of ever having happened - the next moment arises anew.
What of the future? All future moments are anticipated and intimated in our present experience and as anticipated they are present in our current experience. There seems to be a pattern - a natural range of courses for a piece of music to follow - that we expect and anticipate. As a note is played, future moments are part of our experience as yet to be experienced. From the moment the first note of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” is sounded, our imagination goes to work, anticipating the forthcoming symphony, the triumphant flurry of notes.
Musicians often exploit this particular element of our experience in order to build up harmonic tension, a sort of unconscious expectation of dissonance, typically a series of chords ending in a diminished suspended chord only to resolve in consonance that is typically a major chord. This technique isn’t exclusive to any genre of music it appears in progressive rock metal, experimental, jazz and classical music.
This anticipatory structure is not unique to familiar pieces of music. Familiarity merely sharpens our ability to recognize and predict.
Familiarity may breed boredom, but not because we experience the future as if it were present. It is because we are too familiar with the patterns of the particular piece of music, the lines it draws in the sand. It is no longer novel and captivating. We’ve gone down that path dozens of times. We can too easily predict the harmonic twists and turns the music will send our way.
It is the melody, the song as a whole, which is empirically primary. We do not hear individual successive notes that later sum up - in combination with the horizonal structure - to make a melody. Instead, we make sense of our experiences of the notes as parts of our experience of a song, a larger whole.
Our musical experiences are not merely series of heard notes. We hear songs. We listen to songs, not series of notes.
Music is creative not only because it takes a creative, innovative mind or tortured soul to make it but because it takes a creative, innovative mind to experience music at all. If there is anything we can rightly call a gift, it is our ability to experience music.
Album: Beta Love
Artist: Ra Ra Riot
It took a month of listening to Ra Ra Riot’s new album, Beta Love, to realize that the faint hopes I have entertained since 2008 will linger in limbo for eternity; the band will never make another record like The Rhumb Line. The melancholic cello and violin backdrops that defined that album are a thing of the past. Having been closely affiliated with Vampire Weekend (lead singer Wes Miles formed a band called The Sophisticuffs with Ezra Koenig in grade school), the group now seems to be doing all they can to distance themselves from the Ivy League-influenced chamber pop roots that first drew critics to compare the two.
For what it’s worth, Ra Ra Riot has done an admirable job of adjusting to life without departed cellist Alexandra Lawn. This time around, Miles may have drawn inspiration from Discovery, his side-project with Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend’s keyboardist/producer). Beta Love is rife with fluttering keyboards and futuristic synths, and inspired lyrically by the band’s reading of Ray Kurzweil’s novel The Singularity Is Near. The title track is an embrace of the band’s newfound affinity for technology, and is one of the strongest moments on the album with Miles showcasing his high vocal range. “Is It Too Much” finds bassist Mathieu Santos repurposed as a keyboard player and coyly toying with fans of the old baroque style. But just when one is tempted to start reminiscing about Rhumb Line, Miles interjects with cacophonic, distorted vocals.
Other tracks struggle with the band’s ambiguous desire to use every production tool at their disposal as the instruments are placed in a bitter fight to shine through the convoluted mess. When Rebecca Zeller’s violin is heard, it couldn’t sound more dissonant. But that isn’t always the case, as her impassioned playing on “Angel, Please” lends Miles’ playful pleas of “please stay with me” a light-hearted, airy quality that brings to mind the earnest pursuit of a first love.
The album’s flaw lies in its top-heavy nature; the last five tracks are slow to build and far from gratifying. Barring those exceptions, Beta Love’s first six songs would be a great addition to any party’s playlist.
3/5
Tomi Milos
By: Ana Qarri
Much to our dismay, not everyone has the voice of Adele, or the musicality of Joni Mitchell. (This is probably for the best, as I can’t imagine much would get done if we never stopped singing, playing guitar, and composing tear-jerking melodies about Manhattan hotels.)
This means that when it comes to serenading our significant others, and even our friends, we have to rely on other people’s voices and strumming fingertips.
However, (and don’t let that one musically talented friend tell you otherwise) making playlists is an art of its own.
It all started with the mixtape. The mixtape wasn’t a technological masterpiece. As my parents found out the hard way, its contents could be easily destroyed in the hands of a curious 5 year old. But it wasn’t the design or the structural ingenuity that gave each mixtape meaning.
In the hands of love-struck teenagers, the mixtape was the perfect paper for their very first love letter. Between pressing Record/Play/Stop and leaving too many seconds of silence between songs, they started feeling the first pangs of what they thought was love.
Handed nervously on the 61st day of a relationship, the mixtape was the perfect gold to engrave the promise of another 61.
Some say that the beauty of playlists vanished along with mixtapes.
While dragging songs on iTunes doesn’t seem as romantic as spending hours recording a tape, the drawbacks of the technology weren’t the artist’s real hardships. Making a playlist is about spending hours deciding which song to begin with, or deferring this crucial decision until the end of the process. You don’t want to overwhelm them right away, but you do want to let them know that overwhelming is what you’re aiming for.
Making a playlist is about deciding when you want to feel the bass kicking in. Is the fourth song too soon? Do you want the vibrations of your heart beat to resonate across their sound system or does this make you feel too vulnerable? Will you throw in some James Blake or Frank Ocean to let them know what their absence feels like, or will the silence suffice? Will it reflect all you’ve ever felt for them, or will you focus on that one night when all you really wanted to do was sit next to them?
When you’ve placed them next to each other, arranged the breaks in between to give someone time to think and time to breathe, these sounds become yours.
So, if you lack musical skills, don’t despair. There are millions of songs out there, all waiting to be added to a playlist, all waiting for you to give them meaning.
By: Theresa Tingey
As busy students, stress is a huge part of daily life. Many of us turn to music as one of the easiest and best ways to relieve stress after a particularly difficult midterm or exam. Which types of music are especially effective for mediating stress and how exactly music interacts with the brain are active areas of research. Specifically, many scientists have tested the effects of various types of music on college-aged students, after inducing stress, by examining levels of blood hormones and self-perceived emotional scales. The results of these studies can inform students on how to best reduce anxiety through music listening.
One study performed by Smith and Joyce published in the Journal of Music Therapy in 2004 had 63 college students set aside 28 minutes each day for three days to listen to either Mozart, new age music or read a selection of popular magazines. The students then filled out questionnaires each day to measure their stress, worry and negative emotions. By the third day, the group assigned to listen to Mozart experienced the greatest relaxation and least stress, while the group listening to New Age music showed only a slight reduction in stress and the magazine readers had the least improvement in anxiety levels.
Another study performed in 2001 by Knight and Rickard asked students to prepare for a stressful oral presentation while either listening to Pachelbel’s Canon in D major, or in silence. The heart rate, subjective anxiety, blood pressure and cortisol levels were measured for each participant before and after the presentations to gauge their stress responses. Students who listened to the classical music while preparing for their presentation showed a greater reduction in stress compared to the group who prepared in silence.
Calming music has also been shown to enhance immune responses and reduce pain perception. In 2003, Eri Hirokawa of the Tokai Women’s University observed that music identified as ‘highly uplifting’ by participants boosted the function of important immune cells, such as T cells and natural killer cells, when listened to for twenty minutes after a stressful cognitive test compared to those who sat in silence. In addition, in their study published in the Journal of Music Therapy in 2006, Mitchell and MacDonald saw that students were able to tolerate a painful stimulus of holding their hands in cold water for longer when listening to music selections that they had chosen, compared to white noise or music deemed ‘relaxing’ by the experimenters.
This last study brings to question whether or not the music we choose to listen to is better for relaxation than classical or new age music. According to a review published by Krout in a 2007 publication of The Arts and Psychotherapy, music selected as relaxing by researchers generally has a greater relaxing effect than the music preferred by the listener, possibly because the listener can become distracted and emotionally aroused by the music they’re used to. However, Krout also noted that the more a person is exposed to a certain type of music, the greater its stress-reducing effect. Further, he suggests that listening to music of a slow and stable tempo, low volume, and simple harmonic cord progressions, such as those often found in classical music, for 20 to 30 minutes at a time is most beneficial for inducing relaxation through activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Another tip Krout gives is to listen to music that comes with guided meditation or breathing methods, as a combination of music and whole-body relaxation techniques have been found most effective for reducing stress.
In any case, whether you want to come home to the soothing sounds of Mozart or dance away your stress to your favourite upbeat tunes, music can provide a fun and effective way to melt away the stress of the day.
Justin Raudys / The Silhouette
In my experience, the exclamation that “music has gotten worse” is one that polarizes opinion: either it is met with dismissive eye rolling or it inspires enthusiastic agreement.
My own music collection – and most people’s, for that matter – is populated by music from many ages.
Rock and roll from the early ‘60s sits side by side with indie rock from the early 2000s; hip hop from the late 80s sits side by side with blues from the late 50s; Stevie Wonder sits next to Sufjan Stevens, Wilco next to Wu-Tang Clan, Bach next to Bachman Turner Overdrive.
Most of us do not discriminate our sonic tastes to a particular span of time or a particular genre. But even though I own plenty of music from recent times, I can’t help but notice the lingering sensation as I scroll through my collection that music has actually gotten worse. But hear me out before you dismiss me as a pompous ass. Let’s take a small trip back in time.
Let’s rewind to the year 1970, the beginning of a decade often earmarked by people like me (people, that is, who believe that music – and especially Billboard top 100 music – has undergone a decline in quality) as a time of particular musical brilliance.
If you were alive in 1970, you would have heard new albums from — to name a few — The Beatles, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Cat Stevens, Miles Davis, Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, The Velvet Underground and Led Zeppelin. All in the same year. This is to say nothing of the profusion of groundbreaking artists that blossomed throughout the rest of the decade. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t any artists of that quality or importance around today (and even that argument, I think, has a case), but I am saying that they are nowhere near as common.
It’s true that the question of aesthetic quality is a tricky one to navigate.
An old friend of mine whose taste in music I find questionable (and who provides a perfect example of this debate as he listens solely to amateur dubstep mashups) argues that the question of musical quality is entirely subjective.
And he has a point. If the list of names I just rung off above has no appeal to you then the debate, in some way – at least on an interpersonal level – is bound to end here: you don’t like that music and that’s your prerogative.
But I actually disagree that the endeavour of assessing the quality of music is forever doomed to be a fruitless one. I think you can, to a point, discriminate whether music is, to put it cheaply, “good” or not – even if it’s not to your taste. The idea that Britney Spears is, as an artist, on some kind of irreducible aesthetic plane that renders her equal to Aretha Franklin is one that I simply can’t accept, nor is it one that I find philosophically viable. I’m not one to put people down for liking Britney. If her music inspires you and makes you feel good, only a jackass could tell you you’re wrong for listening to it. But I’m not saying you’d be wrong for doing so.
My theory is that the billboard used to be a magnet for finding the artists who are most talented and that now it’s become a magnet for finding the “artists” who are most marketable. I’ve been accused of having my tastes coloured by a romanticizing nostalgia à la Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris – that, in other words, the music of the ‘70s only looks – or sounds – better to me through the lens of modernity. That might seem reasonable to me if only I could accept the notion that posterity will rank Minaj, Bieber, Swift, and Spears in the same echelon as Dylan, Lennon, Coltrane, and Hendrix.
“You may say I’m a dreamer / but I’m not the only one / I hope some day you’ll join us / And the world will live as one” sings John Lennon in “Imagine,” an inspiring and truly moving plea for global human harmony, the chart topper back in ’71.
“In time, ink lines, bitches couldn’t get on my incline” sings Nicki Minaj about her own brilliance in the hit song “Beauty and a Beat,” continuing, “World tours, it’s mine, 10 little letters, on a big sign.”
You may say I’m wrong about the top 10. In fact, you may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.
In the heat of the moment we do not always have the luxury of time to stop and simply press play. Between the removal of clothes, especially during the layer-ridden winter months, some things just take precedence.
That being said, if there is ever time to put on the breaks and reach for your iTunes, an entire new world of enjoyment awaits. Adding music to the already melodious world of sex brings about a sensory experience like no other.
Sitting down to pick a mix of songs right then and there may be counter-productive and ambitious. There is nothing wrong with having prepared playlists specifically for the occasion. And much like anything else, variety is important.
Before sitting down and selecting your musical accompaniments consider that though it be taboo, sexual tempo and musical tempo go hand in hand. Additionally, there is nothing more fragile and crucial than mood.
However, the most important thing, above all else, is being you. It will be totally transparent to your partner if the music you play is out of character. For example, if AC/DC and the Doors are staples in your musical diet, busting out R. Kelly or Usher may not work in your favor. Granted, there are exceptions as some people have eclectic and versatile tastes in music; kudos if this describes you.
For everyone else, there are a few rules of thumb. It is undeniable that certain songs and genres are better but before venturing out of your comfort zone, first peruse your library to find the sexiest music you have.
Keep in mind that sex can often take on many forms. There is nothing wrong with having a couple of playlists that reflect the type of sex you want to have.
From personal experience, keeping three playlists at your disposal is the way to go. The first should be obvious: a slow and more romantic compilation for special people or encounters. For me, there are several ways to accomplish this mood and tempo. “Thinkin About You” by Frank Ocean, “Rolling Stone” by The Weeknd, “Purple Rain” by Kiss and “Falsetto” by The Dream are just a few of my most recommended for this purpose.
A second playlist should be for slightly more casual or lusty experiences that can range anywhere from a post-bar tryst to solid make-up sex. On this one I tend to go with a little more bass. “Work Out” by J. Cole, “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC, “Internet Friends” by Knife Party (trust me), and “The Ex” by Billy Talent (trust me again) each bring some extra adrenaline to the table, or whatever other surface works.
The third and final playlist should be the most mixed in terms of tempo and genre. The variety is meant for someone you are used to and comfortable with - which often leads to a variety of different sexual experiences. Generally, this would be a regular partner or significant other. A few suggestions include “Passenger” by Deftones, “The Zone” by The Weeknd ft. Drake and “Crave You” by Adventure Club.
Sex music is different for everyone and it is all about what works for you, your experience and those you choose to share it with. Select your music with care and you will definitely add a different level of enjoyment to one of the most beautiful forms of human interaction.
By Edward Lovo
Rumour has it that hip-hop is not dead, that it’s been buried alive, and if one presses their ears against the ground they can hear the sounds from the underground. Hip-hop emerged in its spirit as an art form; its voice was an artistic expression of marginalized people. At its present state hip-hop has lost that spirit for another - the spirit of capitalism. Its voice is sweetened with the honey of bourgeois consciousness.
Hip-hop’s transformation into a commodity reflects an almost invisible but very powerful force in the system imposed by advanced industrial society. Industrial society imposes a technological order, a rationality that seems sensible - where the individual worker disappears from socially necessary but arduous labour in its mechanization - where individual enterprises are integrated into corporations to boost productivity and effectiveness - where free competition among unequally equipped economic subjects is regulated. All of this reflects the rationality behind technological progress, which has the promise of rendering individual autonomy possible. “The technological processes of mechanization and standardization might release individual energy into a yet uncharted realm of freedom beyond necessity.” However, with the advancement of this technological rationality comes a price.
Theorist Herbert Marcuse says, “Independence of thought, autonomy, and the right to political opposition are deprived of their basic critical function in a society which seems increasingly capable of satisfying the needs of the individuals through the way in which it is organized. Such a society may justly demand acceptance of its principles and institutions, and reduce the opposition to the discussion and promotion of alternative policies within the status quo. In this respect, it seems to make little difference whether the increasing satisfaction of needs is accomplished by an authoritarian or a non-authoritarian system.”
Non-conformity with the system, then, appears to go against rationality. Conformity is encouraged and develops a pattern of thought that rejects aspirations and ideas that do not conform with technological rationality — a pattern of thought which is essentially uncritical.
The art form of hip-hop was a vehicle for communicating the ideas, the emotions, and the aspirations of marginalized people which were repressed and stifled by the everyday reality — through hip-hop, people found an outlet where one’s voice discovered the expression it hungered for. Hip-hop held up a mirror to the social reality of urban life, not refracting its light but reflecting its rotten core which reality has numbed us to in our daily lives.
Hip-hop set itself against society, pushing the concealed realities of racism, black poverty, and urban ills past the bounds of sanity into absurdity. The rationality of the higher classes that everything is in working and established order was refuted by the ideals espoused by hip-hop.
Rappers such as Sticky Fingaz of Onyx expresses, in a single lyric, a poignantly distorted perception of reality: “They call me nigga so much, startin’ to think it’s my name.” Infused into his experience as a human is a sense of rupture from humanity — and though this isn’t a colonial situation, Theorist Frantz Fanon’s description of dehumanization of the colonized by the colonist is pertinent here. The oppressor (white people) has distinguished him/herself from the oppressed (black people) who bestialize the latter, which so much media in the ‘90s can testify to. This is what Sticky Fingaz conveys with this lyric. Regrettably, articulation of the black experience in America is entirely lost in the millennium’s hip-hop.
Rapper A.G. paints a frighteningly vivid picture of poor urban areas — ghettos — in the song “Runaway Slave,” not to mention the powerful symbolism invoked by the song title. A.G. is “livin’ in the slums with the bums” where at every corner can be found a crack vial, drug dealers, crack-heads; where “babies are having babies” and “juveniles act wild.” These are ugly truths that hip-hop used to convey about poor urban areas mainly populated by people of colour, truths which have been substituted for dreams of riches that no one but a very few will be able to attain.
Hip-hop of the millennium has substituted the spirit of art with the spirit of capitalism. In songs such as J. Cole’s “Dollar and a Dream III,” Jay-Z’s “So Ambitious,” Lil Wayne’s “Make it Rain,” and Rick Ross’s “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast)” resentment at poor socioeconomic conditions, the wish for social conditions to be different in urban areas for the betterment of the community transforms into individualistic dreams of prosperity.
This ideology of prosperity that has taken a hold of hip-hop stems from the slow systematic transformation of social reality that advanced, industrial society has incurred on it. Few show interest in hip-hop that does not obsess with prosperity or materialism. Hip-hop has been killed, and capitalism wedded to a technological rationality is the culprit, annihilating all opposition to it.
Album: Tempest
Artist: Bob Dylan
Writer: Spencer Nestico-Semianiw
Rating: 4.5/5
Bob Dylan’s 1997 album Time Out of Mind marked his return to the musical innovation that hasn’t been heard since the late 1970s. With the creation of his 2000s masterpieces Love and Theft and Modern Times, Bob Dylan sought to invigorate his career by reinventing himself as an artist. In this gathering momentum Dylan has released the appropriately named Tempest.
Bob Dylan has always felt the need to write about the social barriers within his time, but here he's looking more to the past. Instead of rambling about the present, songs like “Roll on John” reminisce. Perhaps Dylan is just living the life of his contemporaries, who see the past as an escape from today. He doesn’t adapt to the times because he knows they’ll adapt to him. But these sentiments may not mean much to young people who want music grounded in the present, just as the youth of yesterday did.
The title Tempest sparked anxious rumors that this would be Dylan’s last album. Although Dylan has refuted the claims, if this is indeed his last effort it would do an appropriate justice to his career. That’s saying quite a lot.
Album: Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
Artist: Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Writer: Alexander Sallas
Rating: 4.5/5
A few weeks ago, the music world collectively orgasmed as famed
Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor announced out of nowhere that they would be releasing their fourth album after a ten-year hiatus. Now, one might be inclined to believe that such a long break would have affected the band in some way. One would be wrong. GY!BE are just as good as they ever were.
On Allejuah! Don't Bend! Ascend! the songs are still paced perfectly, the crescendos are still just as mighty, and the instrumentation still comes together to form one living, breathing organism in a way that only GY!BE can do.
The record consists of two longer, more "traditional" songs and two ambient drones. In typical GY!BE fashion, the songs are about twenty minutes apiece, and the drone tracks clock in around six and eight minutes, respectively. Each second of the album is carefully constructed; every sound, every cerebral sample and every bit of feedback has its place.
The album doesn't quite get a perfect score mainly because the final drone track is a little underwhelming. But this is an excellent album nonetheless, and firmly cements GY!BE's place as one of, if not the, greatest post-rock band of all time.
Album: Dead End Kings
Artist: Katatonia
Writer: Alexander Sallas
Rating: 4/5
Katatonia’s latest release doesn’t really change the band’s formula of depressive, proggy metal. Instead of change, the band expands their sound. Keyboards and violins are more prominent than ever on "The Racing Heart" and closer "Dead Letters" and female vocals are utilized to great effect on "The One You Are Looking For Is Not Here."
The record has a strong sense of flow, and instrumentally the band puts on a solid performance. The drumming is particularly great, with lots of tasty, creative cymbal hits. David Castillo's production is also fantastic; every instrument is clear and the levels are perfectly balanced.
The previously mentioned lack of change is slightly disappointing, but nonetheless, Katatonia have crafted a great album with Dead End Kings. It may not reinvent the wheel, but when the wheel is this well-oiled, why bother changing it?
Album: Lightning
Artist:Matt & Kim
Writer: Brody Weld
Rating: 2.5/5
Heavy kick drums, over-the-top synth layering, shout-y vocals, catchy melodies…sound familiar? If you’re already a Matt & Kim fan, you’ll recognize this formula. It hasn’t changed, and they intend to keep it that way.
To be fair, Matt & Kim’s consistency could be seen as either a talent or a crutch. Most bands have a difficult time getting to their fourth album without trying a new direction. Not Matt & Kim. They still pepper their upbeat songs with simple piano lines, the keyboards still sound like early ‘90s Casios, and Matt is still belting the same vocal lines (seriously, some tracks have nearly identical vocal melodies to previous recordings; compare “Let’s Go” and “Good For Great” from the previous album).
The strengths: they’re still great at what they do. “I Said” and “I Wonder” are masterfully produced. “Let’s Go” is an echo of their first big hit, “Daylight,” and “It’s Alright” features one of the catchiest brass lines ever. The flaws: it’s a disappointingly small album, and if you played it back-to-back with their self-titled debut, most people couldn’t say which came first.
Tim Potocic has the job of being one of the main organizers of Supercrawl, and it’s a huge task for a huge event. Last year, 50,000 people attended the festival, and this year’s expected attendance was around 75 000.
Planning Supercrawl for so many people was a year-long job for Potocic. And as that year of organizing was whittled down until just one week was left before the event, the panic set in.
“I had late nights that weekend before, as well as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” said Potocic. “It’s pretty panicked. I wish we were more organized.”
After Thursday, Potocic’s experience planning Supercrawl starts to sound more familiar to any student who has left a massive assignment until the day before it’s due.
“When I got up on Friday it was full-on,” said Potocic. “I didn’t get home until seven in the morning on Sunday, and I only slept for two hours on Friday night. And that’s the way it is. You just run on adrenaline because you know there’s an end. We know the street has to open up at 8 o’clock on Sunday morning.”
Even by forgoing sleep, Potocic didn’t really get to see much of the festival he was responsible for.
“This is the first year I’ve actually been able to catch one set of one band,” said Potocic. “I saw Change of Heart. They are reuniting to do very few shows, so I needed to see it.”
Before Change of Heart and the huge crowds, Supercrawl began four years ago as something much smaller. Potocic has been there since the very beginning of the idea.
As one of the founders of the Sonic Unyon record label, located just off James Street North, Potocic has always been part of the monthly Art Crawl, but he wanted the event to grow, to really push it and see what it could do.
“We got a big group of people together, there was at least 20 people in a room,” said Potocic. “We said that we wanted to close the street, because we thought it should be closed anyway during the regular monthly art crawls, even at that point in time, and we thought, let’s try to do a street festival. That was literally in June. Then everyone sat around and was like, ‘Yeah, it’s a cool idea.’ And we had twelve weeks to plan it, which is not enough time.”
With the initial plans approved by the city, the next problem was deciding what to call the event.
“We were batting names around, and I was like, ‘Well, its going to be super! Let’s call it Supercrawl,’” said Potocic. “It’s a dumb name, really. We’re specialists in dumb names, so it kind of fits. I mean, Sonic Unyon is a weird, dumb name.”
So with the name decided, the organizers rushed to get everything else finished under the impossibly tight timeline of a couple of months. Instead of happening in September, like the other Supercrawls, the first was pushed to October to give the organizers more time. And when that time was up, Potocic and the other organizers prayed they would be lucky with the one thing they couldn’t plan.
“It poured rain,” said Potocic. “But we still had thousands of people out with umbrellas, and we were like, ‘Huh, thousands of people came out and it was pouring rain, so clearly there’s a need for a street closure festival style-thing, so let’s start working on 2010 right now.’”
Since then, planning future Supercrawls has taken all year, and that means Potocic hasn’t really been able to catch his breath even though this year’s event has just ended.
“I’ve already had two conversations with two agencies that are good friends of mine about what we’re going to do next year,” said Potocic. “We’ll really need to have our wish-list of top five acts that we’re looking at to headline potential stages locked in before the end of the year.”
Though Potocic is responsible for organizing the big stuff, that’s only part of what allows Supercrawl to happen because, ultimately, the whole James Street North community is involved.
“That’s the key to making Supercrawl and art crawl and James Street North as amazing and vibrant as it is, because it is a community initiative,” said Potocic. “We do a lot of community outreach to make sure that we’re not taking liberties that we shouldn’t. I mean, there will always be critics, but we try our best to reach out with the limited staffing and resources we have to run something like this.”
Next week, part two of this article will look at what the critics are saying and Potocic’s response. Hint: it has to do with gentrification.
