What's On My Turntable? Blondie's Parallel Lines

          So What’s On My Turntable Today?  Today it’s 1978’s Parallel Lines by Blondie. The album artwork of Parallel Lines pretty much says it all, Debbie Harry takes control of this record from the beginning right to the end. This was Blondie’s third record, and you can feel the maturity in the lyrics and the music. This was still a pretty much a straight ahead “New Wave” record, even though with the track “Heart of Glass” they were blurring the lines of what was “disco” and what was New Wave. They got a lot of slack for “Heart of Glass” from fellow musicians and critics alike for “selling out”…but at the time there really wasn’t a big distinction between the two styles. 

     I hate to sound like a “broken record” (I know lame), but this is one of those records that you can put on and just listen to from beginning to end and not have a thought of skipping through it.

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Mariposa Folk Festival Artist Spotlight: Lunch at Allen's

        A Mariposa Supergroup? Well if there is a group of musicians at the 2011 Mariposa Folk Festival that could live up to that moniker Lunch at Allen’s might just be that group. 

      Do you know what you get when you take four internationally renowned singer/songwriters and place them on a stage together...what you get is a fantastic set of singing, superb musicianship and storytelling that will keep you talking and smiling for days afterwards. 

      Lunchat Allen’s features Marc Jordan, Murray McLauchlan, Cindy Church and Ian Thomas. Lunch at Allen’s began as just a get together at Allen’s Pub in Toronto with Murray , Ian and Marc jamming , then they added Cindy Church’s beautiful voice to the mix , from that we were given Lunch at Allen’s. 

     The group perform songs from all of their considerable back catalogues; songs that once you hear the first note will transport you back to the time and place when you first heard it. Don’t miss Lunch at Allen’s at this year’s Mariposa Folk Festival. 

This year’s Mariposa Folk Festival takes place July 8-10, Orillia, Ontario. This year’s line-up includes Emmylou Harris, Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Peter Yarrow, Lunch at Allen’s, John McDermott, Ron Hynes, Garnet Rogers, Adonis Puentes and many more on eleven stages throughout the beautiful Tudhope Park on the shores of Lake Couchiching.

There will be Audience camping available at nearby Burl’s Creek Family Event Park

http://www.mariposafolk.com/

All ticket categories are now on sale at www.mariposafolk.com

Kids 12 and under are admitted free. There is discounted pricing for youth and young adults.

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Burl’s Creek and Mariposa Team-Up…Folk Music at the Barrie Automotive Flea Market

       Now a Public Service Announcement from the 2011 Mariposa Folk Festival

    Mariposa Folk Foundation and Burl’s Creek Family Event Park have teamed-up to present live music on Friday June 3rd and Saturday June 4th on the Patio at the Barrie Automotive Flea Market. The two organizations also collaborate to provide camping for visitors to Mariposa Folk Festival, which takes place July 8-10 this year.

“We are pleased to help promote Mariposa Folk Festival by presenting live music at the Barrie Automotive Flea Market. It will add to the great experience our patrons can expect this weekend” said Donald Hanney, President of Burl’s Creek Family Event Park.

“This is a great opportunity to provide a glimpse of what Mariposa Folk Festival is all about to the thousands of people who attend the Barrie Automotive Flea Market. We are very appreciative of the support Burl’s Creek Family Event Park is providing” said Mike Hill, Artistic Director.

Admission to the Barrie Automotive Flea Market is $10 per day or $20 for the weekend. Children under 12 years of age are free when accompanied with adult.

Performance Schedule
Friday, June 3
1:00-2:00 Steph Dunn
2:15-3:15 Kirsten  Scholte & the Fancys
3:30-4:30 Dave Thomson
Saturday, June 4
1:00-2:15 Kirsten  Scholte & the Fancys
2:30-3:30 Dave Thomson

This years Mariposa Folk Festival takes place July 8-10, Orillia, Ontario. This year’s line-up includes Emmylou Harris, Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Peter Yarrow, Lunch at Allen’s, John McDermott, Ron Hynes, Garnet Rogers, Adonis Puentes and many more on eleven stages throughout the beautiful Tudhope Park on the shores of Lake Couchiching. 

There will be Audience camping available at nearby Burl’s Creek Family Event Park http://www.mariposafolk.com/

All ticket categories are now on sale at www.mariposafolk.com

Kids 12 and under are admitted free. There is discounted pricing for youth and young adults.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled Blog Posts 

 

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Living With Lions.....Living with the Tories

          So I might be a tad late weighing in on the “controversy” that Vancouver pop punk outfit Living with Lions new record titled Holy Shit: The Poo Testament caused last week...what controversy you may be asking yourself; well I’ll shed a bit of light on the situation for you.

          Living With Lions released their new record on May the 17th, now normally the release of a record from an indie band wouldn’t be any kind of news except maybe to their parents and Facebook friends, but when you decide to name your record Holy Shit: The Poo Testament and the images on the inside sleeve portray “jesus” as a large turd...you might be wading into the pool of trouble.

 

    LWL got $13,248 last August from FACTOR (Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings), FACTOR is partially funded by Heritage Canada, well it seems that the right “honourable” James Moore, Canada’s Heritage Minister got wind of the record through various sources and then decided to declare the album's artwork depiction of Jesus "as a giant turd wrapped in a white sheet" to be “inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars”.  In the ensuing hubbub James Maunder, Moore's spokesman, said in a statement "The Minister has called Duncan McKie, president and CEO of FACTOR to express his profound disappointment with this content."...what he was really saying is that his office started getting calls and emails from deep pocketed campaign contributors saying that this was not a good thing and for him to do something about it.  Then we get word from LWL label Black Box Recordings that they will be pulling from the shelves all copies of the record and they will be returning the  $13,248 LOAN...it was a Loan not a Grant as most media wanted you to believe. Black Box said the album will return in a new version without the FACTOR logo and Canada wordmark logo acknowledgment "in the coming weeks," the label said.

     Now this is what gets me going, James Moore’s spokesman James Maunder said "The content of this CD is offensive and the fact that it is clearly designed to offend a group of Canadians based on their faith is simply wrong," ...in my opinion their release was never designed to offend anyone, it was designed to get the band noticed, this was a great PR stunt, and it certainly worked according to all of the press that it has gotten in the last week or so (do you think you would have heard about this band otherwise?). And the Tories....what constitutes as “not offensive”? how many more artists will never get the chance to release something as a result of not receiving any funds from FACTOR just because FACTOR will now be so scared to touch something with any amount of creative controversy .

    And to all of the people that will read this and say that we shouldn’t be giving the “arts” money (I know you’re out there) please take a look at these numbers, cultural industries accounted for $84.6 billion worth of economic activity in 2007, about 7.4 per cent of the country's gross domestic product after only investing roughly $13 million dollars a year in grant programs and subsidies for the arts , that sounds like a pretty good return if you ask me.

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Eddie Vedder 'Ukulele Songs'

       Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder sings and plays a ukulele, and you would think that would be the end of this review, and on some levels you the reader would be correct but on some other musical plain this record is so much more....read on. 

       When I first heard ramblings of this project I was very quick to write it off as just a lead singer needing his creative space to “experiment” with something completely different from what he’s used to producing with his band, and maybe in the end that’s really all this is, but I’ve got this feeling that this record is something Eddie had to make so he could return to the studio with PJ and energize their inventive juices. 

  

       Eddie croons his way through 16 tracks of love and loneliness with just his voice and a ukulele and if you’re a Pearl Jam fan (and I believe most people buying this record will be already) you will enjoy it, but if you’re an Eddie Vedder fan you will eat this up bowl and all. One track that really stands out for me on this record is “Sleepless nights”, it’s a duet with Glen Hansard, Glen you might know from such bands as The Frames and The Swell Season, well their two voices together create such a beautiful landscape that you cannot just listen to this track once, you have to repeat it a few times to feel everything that’s being offered to you.

    This is no Pearl Jam record, and this is not the Eddie that I watched climb the stage at Lollapalooza back in 1992, this is a record about simplicity, it’s about loneliness and togetherness, and it’s about a guy and his ukulele...turn the lights down and relish in some Ukulele Songs

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

What's On My Turntable? New Order's "Low-Life"

         So What’s On My Turntable Today? Today it’s Low-Life by New Order. You have probably started to see a trend growing, quite a lot of the vinyl that I play is from the older part of my collection, it’s music from when I was a teenager…I have no clue why, it’s just what I tend to navigate towards….and really it’s not a bad thing.

         Low-Life was released in 1985 and among the New Order community it is considered to be their strongest record. Out of the 8 songs on the record there is not one weak track, they all have their strengths in different areas. In listening to Low-Life you can really hear that attention to detail that they prided themselves on, you don’t hear records like this anymore.

       With the release of Low-Life we found the members of New Order finally moving out from the shadow of Joy Division and finding their own identity.

        Most people would pick “The Perfect Kiss” as their favorite track on Low-Life, but I would have to go with “Sub-culture” …it’s just got that dance element to it without going beyond the range…and Peter’s Bass , well you just can’t even touch that.






Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Song Of The Day: Bon Iver’s “Towers”

         With the release of Bon Iver’s second full length record this June titled “Bon Iver” we hear a change in direction of the music from what we were given on their first record For Emma, Forever Ago, but with change also comes familiarity and Justin Vernon’s voice is exactly the same as the last time we visited it . 

        “Towers” is just an awe-inspiring track, it’s got everything you would expect and a little bit of wonderment all rolled into one, with Justin’s elevated vocals and the extended instrumental backing sounds you can lose yourself so easily in a song like this.

***The video that I put up on You tube for the song was taken down by "Web Sheriff"...so if anyone can help me with embedding a media player so I can have the song on the post that would be great***

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

 

2011 Mariposa Folk Festival..Still Adding More Artists

       Word came down the Mariposa Folk Festival Pipe today that besides the three artists that were chosen to perform at this year’s festival during the Mariposa Showcase, those artists being Brett Caswell & the Marquee Rose, Mike Celia, and The Rucksack Willies,  five more artists have now been announced, those artists are 3 Gars su’l Sofa, Yvan Vollé ,ALEX The Folk Band, Hard Ryde and Michael Jerome Browne, and according to Mariposa's publicist there will be more additions to this years already stellar line-up announced in the coming days.

     With the addition of the two francophone acts today (t3 Gars su’l Sofa & Yvan Vollé hat) it just shows us all how Mariposa is a true melting pot of different musical genres and cultural identities, and that is always something that I have enjoyed about the festival,  especially now as a father of a young son whom I want exposed to as many styles and cultures as possible. 

    This year the Mariposa Folk Festival takes place July 8-10, Orillia, Ontario. This year’s line-up includes Emmylou Harris, Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Peter Yarrow, Lunch at Allen’s, John McDermott, Ron Hynes, Garnet Rogers, Adonis Puentes and many more on eleven stages throughout the beautiful Tudhope Park on the shores of Lake Couchiching. 

There will be Audience camping available at nearby Burl’s Creek Family Event Park

http://www.mariposafolk.com/

All ticket categories are now on sale at www.mariposafolk.com

Kids 12 and under are admitted free. There is discounted pricing for youth and young adults.

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

What's On My Turntable?

      So What’s On My Turntable Today?  Well today we have the 1984 Record “It’s My Life” by Talk Talk.

     I never really liked the Synthpop label that was used to describe Talk Talk, yes they used Synth’s, but there was much more to them and the much more I speak of is the voice of Mark Hollis. We all know of those bands that if their lead singer up and quit there would be no way in hell that they could carry on under their current name, well Talk Talk was one of those bands. Mark Hollis just has one of those voices that is so distinct that no one could even come close to copying it.

     From “Dum Dum Girl” to “Such a Shame” this record just screams listen to me more, the way the vocals dance with the instrumentation is like listening to a wave. I remember when the video for “It’s My Life” started getting play on Much Music and CFNY in Toronto added “Such a Shame” and “It’s My Life” to their rotation, the bands success skyrocketed but they still had that “indie” feel to them…which was cool in my books. Hollis retired from the music business years ago .  

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Fucked Up-David Comes To Life

Fucked Up  

'David Comes to Life'

        So here we go right off the top...Fucked Up are NOT a Hardcore band anymore (Oh Shit I’m in trouble now)… what they are is a band with 6 members whose creative force far outshines any label that can be bestowed on them, and so begins...”David Comes To Life”

         Most of the people that are reading this review will already have had Fucked Up’s story memorized, so I will not be retelling the tale of the over 70 or so different releases we’ve seen from the band in the last ten years, or that a band with the word FUCK in their name can win The Polaris Music Prize (even though they said they made up I’m pretty sure Metric is still pissed), they’re live shows in my opinion are the most aggressively intoxicating events that the world of live music has ever seen or will ever see again, or that their last full length studio record The Chemistry of Common Life was a genre changing record thus giving the band a whole different level of acceptance in the “industry” (even though “they” still can’t get past that small four letter word tucked so neatly inside their name).That’s the past Dude, I’m here to talk about the present “David Comes To Life”

      In the months leading up to this release of David Comes To Life we were deluged with multiple descriptions of the record, everything from it’s a Punk Rock Opera to its “Tommy” with better guitar riffs (O.K. that one is mine), but it really didn’t matter what the Fucked Up camp were leading us to believe, the proof finally emerged last week when we got to here the completed project for ourselves in its entirety for the first time ,the way it’s meant to be heard from start to finish...and I can say as a “Fan” and as a certified “music geek” that David Comes To Life ranks up there with some of the best records ever recorded.

    The record begins with Let Her Rest; a little over 3 minute instrumental that sets the stage for the whole entire record. Through the next 17 tracks you learn the story of David and Veronica...a tale of Love and Lost, how David’s guilt get’s the best of him until he can really know happened to Veronica and comes to terms with Love and himself...we’ll that’s my take on it...now onto more of the record.

        Queen of Hearts is personally my favorite track off of the record...layers of guitars with vocals from both Damian and Madeline Follin (Cults) make this a standout...Next up is Under My Nose, all in all a pretty basic love song, David talks about how great his life is now that he has found Veronica the love of his life...it also has one of the best lines in the record “Syncretism is so natural and they’re experiencing something so actual”. Then it’s The Other Shoe , which features the most infectious lyric on the entire record “We’re dying on the inside” , I had that line stuck in my head for days after hearing it for the first time, and it’s a very good contender for “Earworm” of the decade,  this track also features Toronto vocalist Jennifer Castle.

   As the record progresses we are given the gift of sonic and for that we must give thanks to Mr. 10,000 Marbles himself Mike Haliechuk , he who has created walls of guitars along with Josh and Ben that don’t eradicate the other instruments around them but instead compliment them.  I’ll take a few minutes here to talk about Drummer Jonah Falco….back in April of this year I got to see Fucked Up perform the live score to the 1928 silent film West of Zanzibar -Minus Damian Abraham... I came away from that performance with a completely altered understanding for what Mr.Jo is capable of, he commanded that movie theater as he commands  David comes To Life, the drums are the fortitude of this record, they don’t abandon from their objective…to steer the story through it’s dangerous ride and to escort the listener to the end in one piece. 

   Originally I was going to go through every song on the record, breaking them down note by note, word by word; instead I’m just finish off talking about my favorite other tracks and how important I feel this record will be.

    I don’t know about you but when Ship Of Fools starts I incontrovertibly start bobbing my head up and down…this is just one of those classic Fucked Up songs that just has to be seen and heard live to really appreciate it…can’t wait.  Is Damian actually singing during Inside A Frame? and not to say that what Damian does isn’t “singing” but I’m talking in the same vain as maybe Justin Vernon…who knows what’s next…

     During One More Night I really believe that Fucked Up is unconsciously trying to resurrect the ghosts of Big Country...and I don’t mean that in a negative way…. Jennifer Castle also is a guest vocalist on this track. 

      So we come to the end… Lights Go Up (Featuring Jennifer Castle and Kurt Vile), this is the song that ends David Comes To Life, this is also the song that sends Fucked Up off on another journey….they will defiantly still be producing 7” singles, they will most likely still be annihilating stages all around the world…but one thing is for certain they will never come close to ever topping David Comes To Life 

My Rating….10 Out Of 10

My Suggestion…Record Of The Year

Thank You:Mike, Damian, Jonah, Sandy, Josh ,Ben and David

David Comes To Life  is released June the 7th 2011 on Matador Records

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS