Portishead Announce North American Tour

         Everyone has their list of bands that they have not had a chance to see live yet but hope to some day...well Portishead is one of those bands on my list. The point where they got added to the list was probably the first time I watched Live at Roseland NYC, everything was just so perfect about it…they had won me over. Let’s get to the point of all this…Portishead are touring North America and they have 2 dates penciled in for Toronto…so it looks like I will most likely be scratching one more band off the list (and be covering it for SSGS or someone else)…now if we can just figure out a way of getting all of the members of the Talking Heads into one room without them killing each other then I can start scratching again.

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

Here is a list of their North American Tour Dates:

 October 1 & 2 IBYM, Asbury Park, NJ
October 4 Hammerstein Ballroom NY
October 5 Hammerstein Ballroom, NY
October 7 Jacques Cartier Pier, Montreal
October 9 Sound Academy, Toronto
October 10 Sound Academy, Toronto
October 12 Aragon, Chicago
October 15 Mexico, Corona Festival
October 18 Shrine LA
October 21 Greek, Berkeley, SF
October 23 WaMu, Seattle
October 24 PNE Forum, Vancouver
October 27 1st Bank Center, Denver

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

Sloan’s been around for 20 Years? No Fuckin’ Way

             So with all the buzz surrounding Sloan’s 20^th Anniversary (I think CHARTattack has dubbed it “Sloanamania”) I thought I’d wind the watch back a few years and see if I could come up with one of if not my all-time favourite Sloan track . Now this was going to be no easy feat, believe it or not these four guys have put out shit load of material in the past 20 years, between their studio albums and live stuff I think it’s like eleven records in total, including their new record "The Double Cross" , so when I actually started thinking about them their power pop harmonies and catchy riffs came flooding back like long car trips listening to a well worn copy of Smeared that had been recorded on both sides of a 90 minute blank tape (just so you didn't have to wait for it to re-wind all the way back to the start) …memories like those you can never get back again…

        O.K. enough of that stuff, my favourite Sloan track is…I Am the Cancer, that guitar fuzz at the start than when those vocals kick in…you just can’t touch Sloan when they get on that trip of theirs with those dreamy harmonies.

        I know this whole 20^th Anniversary thing is probably just a PR campaign dreamed up by their record company to drum up buzz for their new record...I’m not stupid (Stop right there, you know what your mother always said) but if anything has come out of it is that you get to revisit some really great records by a truly talented and very hard working rock band, and that doesn’t happen very often

Someone had to stay

So I can go

Oh you kissed me, kissed me

I can't wait until you kiss me

Until you kiss me

I can't wait till you kiss me

Kiss me again

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS

If I’m so Uncool than why are You still Reading This?

Me at the age of 17

               So here’s the scenario as it’s going to play out.  You’re a 15 year old kid and you just want to fit in, you’ve tried the clothes thing...that didn’t work   
( Hammer wore them , how bad could they have been) , then you get this idea that your hair would be lookin’ very “cool” with some sort of word shaved into the side...cool only has two o’s dink , then your mighty 15 year old brain decides to give the whole jocko thing a go...well all that accomplished was you getting kicked in the jewels one too many times for your liking and not being able to sleep on you stomach for a week “Mom I’m fine,  I don’t need anything for them”.

 

              So the next and be it logical step to take in this horrendous journey that you have decided to undertake in the outside chance to “fit In” is Music, that’s right MUSIC (I don’t know why you didn’t start there in the first place) . What did Nietzsche say “Without music life would be a mistake” (Quoting Nietzsche gives me an extra 5 “coolness” points)  , now,  all you have to do is find out what everyone likes to listen to and listen to that, problem solved...not so fast.  So now you have friends (I have to say you’re looking very cool), and these friends of yours all listen to the same type of music (Punk, Rock, Hip-Hop, Country, Pop etc... you get the picture). 

               So here comes the time when I drop the bomb on you, here it is...you are now very uncool, that’s right uncool (sorry but it had to be said, I never said I was going to pull any punches).  

          As you mindlessly agree with all of you new friends that the music you listen too is “It” and that everything else is garbage you have become in one fell swoop a narrow-minded sheep,  that’s right a SHEEP, that is letting your group of “Friends”  think for you. You may go home at night and lay awake dreaming of downloading  that catchy pop track that you can’t get out of your head (They put an addictive chemical in the lyrics), but you resist because if any of them found out...you don’t even want to think about that. 

           Here’s the shocking news that you have all been waiting for...your friends all have the same urges that you do, the urge to listen to something different, try go a new direction, but like you are afraid too...and I speak from experience because I was once like that. Many moons ago I’d think a band or artist was good, but would I dare listen to it or even mention it around other people? Not a chance. But it took me years to wake up and realize that I was missing a whole world out there while I was just trying to be like everyone else, and once I dropped the charade it was unbelievable, these days I throw on everything from Steve Earle to Bad Brains and my soul couldn’t be happier. 

                    I found myself thinking about my young son as I was writing this. I know as a kid growing up it’s a tough thing fitting in and finding friends, and the last thing anyone wants to be is disliked, but at the same time I also want my son to learn from day one is to think for himself, if he likes something then enjoy it and don’t let anyone else tell you different, because in the end they are not worth it.

Joe Cornelisse-SSGS