George Jones cancels Canadian tour dates

Happy Birthday Wayne Kramer!

First-ever Fifth Column documentary hits Hot Docs

Once again, the annual Hot Docs festival program has a strong music component with She Said Boom, Kevin Hegge's revealing look at Toronto's trailblazing post-punk heroines Fifth Column being among the most anticipated premieres of the 10-day extravaganza. She Said Boom: The Story Of Fifth Column screens at the Cumberland 2 on Tuesday (May 1) at 9 pm and again at the Fox Theatre on Friday (May 4) at 7 pm. Check out the interview with Hegge below. Hot Docs 2012 continues through to May 6, for more information about films and times, visit their site.

Interview with She Said Boom director Kevin Hegge

Little Foot Long Foot @ Zaphod Beeblebrox tonight

LINKS
site http://www.littlefootlongfoot.com/
iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/oh-hell/id516091808

Bon anniversaire Lionel Limiñana!

Grasshopper Records opens tonight!

Making the most of his Maynards' Sour Patch Kids ad campaign notoriety, Grasshopper mainman and popular nightclub selecta Derek "Luke" Madison has decided to open a record shop  – yep, you guessed it – Grasshopper Records.

Ideally located at 1167 Dundas St. West near Ossington, Toronto's newest vinyl emporium is having a soft opening tonight (Friday, April 27) from 7 pm to 12 midnight which seems perfectly appropriate since today also happens to be Derek's birthday. Along with a performance by Rituals, there will be DJ sets courtesy of Alphonse from Azari & III, Mikey Apples, Brendan Canning and others. Drinks are cheap and the records will be cool.  

Thirty-two years of Redd Kross... and still no laptop

While on tour in Australia, Jeff and Steve McDonald sat down with ShockTV's James "The Hound Dog" Young at Melbourne's Cherry Bar to talk Redd Kross past and present eventually leading to a discussion of their forthcoming album Researching The Blues planned for release by Merge in August.

Redd Kross interview for ShockTV, Part 1



Redd Kross interview, Part 2

J2K previews a new Flosstradamus joint

Five Essential Flosstradamus Retouches

Major Lazer – Original Don (Remix)



Matt & Kim – Yea Yeah (Remix)



Lil Jon – Act A Fool (Remix)



Twista – Overnight Celebrity (Remix)



Fame Nixon – Let It Go (Remix)



LINKS
Diplo & Friends Mix
Look At The Sky (feat. Deniro Farrar) download

Happy Birthday Ann Peebles!

Chicago's White Mystery @ Silver Dollar tonight

One For The Weekend: Bobbie Gentry

Catch Senegal's Cheikh Lô @ Great Hall tonight

Cheikh Lô is one of the great mavericks of African music. A superb singer and songwriter as well as a distinctive guitarist, percussionist and drummer he has distilled a variety of influences from West and Central Africa, to create a sound all his own.

Lô dedicates both his life and music to Baye Fall, a specifically Senegalese form of Islam and part of the larger Islamic brotherhood of Mouridism. Established by Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba M’Becke at the end of the 19th century, Mouridism emerged from opposition to French colonialism and many stories are told of Bamba’s struggles with the authorities who feared that the rapid spread of Mouridism would inspire armed insurrection. Bamba’s closest disciple Cheikh Ibra Fall (also known as Lamp Fall)
established the Baye Fall movement, and he was the first to wear the patchwork clothes and long dreadlocks that are still Baye Fall trademarks today. Cheikh Lô’s own marabout, Maame Massamba N’Diaye is said to be over 100 years old, and was a disciple of Cheikh Ibra Fall; Cheikh Lô wears his picture in a pendant around his neck.

Cheikh Lô was born in 1955, to Senegalese parents in Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, not far from the border with Mali, where he grew up speaking Bambara (language of Mali), Wolof (language of Senegal) and French. His father was from a long line of marabouts. From an early age Lô was only interested in music, running away from school to teach himself guitar and percussion on borrowed instruments. During his teens he listened to all kinds of music, especially the Congolese rumba which was popular throughout Africa. Cuban music was also all the rage in West Africa at this time, so when his older brothers started up their 78s and danced to ‘El Pancho Bravo’, Cheikh, without understanding a word, would mime exactly to the Spanish lyrics.

At 21 he started singing and playing percussion with Orchestra Volta Jazz in Bobo Dioulasso. The band played a variety of music from Burkina Faso and its neighbouring countries as well Cuban and other styles. In 1981 he moved to Dakar, Senegal where he played drums for the renowned and progressive singer, Ouza, before joining the house band at the Hotel Savana, drumming and singing an international repertoire.Three years later he was in Paris working day and night as an on-call session drummer. It was "studio... sleep... studio for two years," as Cheikh recalls. "I love Congolese and Cameroonian music and I absorbed a lot of it during this period.” Upon his return to Senegal, he found that his now very long dreadlocks made him no longer welcome at the Hotel Savana so he concentrated on his own music.

Cheikh’s first release Doxandeme (aka Immigrants), on which he sang about being Senegalese abroad, came out in 1990. Despite his reservations about the quality of the local production, it sold well and earned him the Nouveau Talent award in Dakar. Youssou N’Dour remembers first encountering Lô as a session singer in 1989. “Whenever he sang the choruses I was overwhelmed by his voice,” explains N’Dour “but I really got to know him from his Doxandeme cassette. I found something in his voice that’s like a voyage through Burkina, Niger, Mali.”

Happy Birthday Joe Henderson

Beatrice by the Joe Henderson Quartet, Munich 24/07/94

Remembering Levon Helm

The Band live @ Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh 01/11/70

RIP Billy Bryans, 1949-2012

M.G. & The Escorts: Glen Stephen (left), Mike Gauthier, Graham Powers, Glenn Grecco and Billy Bryans

A Someday Fool by M.G. & The Escorts

Hanni El Khatib rocks the Horseshoe Monday

As part of the Innovative Leisure's new INNOV8 series of 8" singles, the label home of Nick Waterhouse has just made available Hanni El Khatib's fuzzy-buzzy cover of The Cramps' Human Fly which previously appeared in a commercial for Nissan's Qashqai compact SUV and iTunes. On the flipside of the limited run single is the otherwise unavailable Roachcock which I'm guessing isn't a cover of The Vibe's tune of the same name. While supplies last, you can mailorder a copy directly from the fine folks at Innovate Leisure right here.

The San Francisco sk8er boi said "see ya later boy" to his creative director gig at skateboard fashion powerhouse HUF to tool around in a rented van promoting his debut album When Will The Guns Come Out at smallish venues like the Horseshoe where he'll be holding court Monday night.

For the moment, Khatib seems to be having too much fun on the road tweeting transcriptions of bathroom graffiti and face tattoo sightings to be overly concerned that his days are now spent surveying the walls of toilet stalls and looking for people with tattoos on their faces.

Hey, Dan Auerbach of the freakin' Black Keys has signed on to produce Khatib's sophomore album so it's all smooth skating from here on, right?


Human Fly by Hanni El Khatib

Remembering the great Ira Louvin on his day

Continues after the jump...

Kyra & Tully take over the Tranzac Saturday

Love In All These Things @ The Mansion, Feb 2012

One For The Weekend: Zito Righi e Seu Conjunto

Richard Buckner decides to put out a seven-inch

Having been reasonably well served by the CD format for the past 18 years, singer/songwriter Richard Buckner has unexpectedly decided to jump into the Record Store Day fray with his first ever 7" single. Hey, all the kids are doing it.

Unlike many RSD releases which simply repackage previously issued material, Buckner's Merge label seven-inch features two good unreleased songs Willow and Lost which were recorded for the soundtrack of a film that was unfortunately shelved. In addition to the pair of non-throwaways, the limited edition 7" will include a download card for a bonus track: Buckner's version of The Cars' Candy-O with which he's been known to delight crowds of flannel-wearing folks who survived the 80s.

Check out the vibes-enhanced studio take of Willow (below), tastefully mixed by Jon Marshall Smith, followed by a clip of Buckner strumming the song solo on his trusty Harmony Hollywood for Boston's Sleepover Shows.


Willow (single version) by Richard Buckner

Feist vs Mastodon for Record Store Day

Some wiseacre thought it would be a really good idea for Feist and Mastodon to cover each other's songs for a Record Store Day split single. So the hairy Atlanta progressive metal crew chose A Commotion from La Feist's latest album Metals. In return, the Juno-winning Canuck superstar fought back the temptation to take a crack at Mastodon's Cut You Up With A Linoleum Knife and settled on Black Tongue from The Hunter, the 2011 album of the year according to such reliable sources as Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Rock Sound.

In related RSD news, the cover-happy Mastodon are also releasing their version of A Spoonful Weighs A Ton by The Flaming Lips as a limited-run pink vinyl single with – surprise – the Lips' original from 1999's The Soft Bulletin on the flip. Did you actually think that Wayne Coyne would go to the trouble of learning the lyrics to a Mastodon tune?

Black Tongue (Mastodon) by Feist


A Commotion (Feist) by Mastodon

Misfits for Record Store Day

Get out yer devil-locks! To mark the 30th anniversary of the Misfits' Walk Among Us album released by Slash in 1982, Rhino has pressed up a "limited" run of 4,500 copies of the horror-punk classic for Record Store Day this Saturday (April 21).  

Since just about everyone on the planet who ever wanted a copy of Walk Among Us already owns it, this "faithful reproduction of the original with music cut from the original analog masters and packaging that duplicates details down to the printed inner sleeve” (i.e. no bonus tracks, liner notes or photos) is aimed squarely at obsessive Misfits collectors. As such, the vinyl will come in three different colours in the U.S. with 1,250 on red, 1,250 on blue and 500 on clear vinyl randomly distributed to participating RSD stores.

Those adept at arithmetic are probably wondering "what about the other 1,500 LPs?" Well, there will also be a purple edition of 1,500 copies earmarked for international export. That means Misfits fans in Canada will likely be buying multiple copies so they can swap their purples for alternate colours with U.S. hoarders er... dealers. It's sad but true.

Now Again and Cultures Of Soul do reissues right

Stanton Davis photo by Richard Conde

Being based in Los Angeles, Now Again mainman Eothen "Egon" Alapatt was determined to make his compendium of California's best small label soul, funk and disco joints from the golden era the last word on the subject. And from the looks of it, the 15-track Soul Cal collection of rare and unreleased tracks (spanning 1971 to 1082) spread over 2 LPs that comes packaged with an 80-page book documenting each band’s unlikely-but-true story with period snapshots is as close to a definite survey as you'll ever get.

While other reissue operations seem to have no qualms about tossing off similar scene retrospectives in a weekend and then moving on to the next, Egon spent a full decade piecing Soul Cal together – tracking down tough-to-find group members, digging up master tapes and looking through dresser drawers for small fragments of photo evidence to complete the mammoth project.

The relatively obscure artists profiled – including Stanton Davis' Ghetto Mysticism, the UPC All Stars, Pure Essence, Anubis, Freedom Express and others – are the bands that kept the funky soul alive during the darkest days of pre-fab corporate disco. Recording and self-releasing their masterworks to an indifferent audience during the late 70s, most of this music would remain largely unheard until Egon came along with a plan to restore and recirculate these important lost artifacts.

Starting in 2003 with You Can Be A Star b/w To Be Free by the Luther Davis Group, Now Again began reissuing these choice jams on 12" vinyl with generic sleeves through their Soul Cal Records subsidiary and continued with 12 more through 2008 with the last being Mixed Feelings' Sha-La-La.  

Of course as we now know, that was merely the set up for the full-on Soul Cal experience – a gatefold double LP and CD with an 80-page perfect bound book printed on heavyweight stock. Here's the complete track listing:

Soul Cal: Disco and Modern Soul Masterpieces, 1971-1982

You Can Be A Star - Luther Davis 4:44
Don’t Get Discouraged - UPC All Stars 3.36
Wake Up - Pure Essence 6:10
Ecology - Anubis 3:57
Put A Smile On Time - Rhythm Machine 3:52
I’m Gonna Miss You Girl - Ellis and Cephas 2:53
Bad Feeling - Mixed Sugar 3.:04
Free Your Mind - Record Player 3:51
Sha-La-La - Mixed Feelings 3:28
Love Is (Full Version) - Leon Mitchison and The Eastex Freeway Band 4.40
Keep Running Away - Clifford Nyren 4:24
Things Cannot Stop Forever (Remix) - Stanton Davis' Ghetto Mysticism 4.46
The Stranger (Edit) - C. Henry Woods 8:35
Get Down - Freedom Express 3:26

Those intrigued enough by Egon's dope remix of the stellar Stanton Davis track Things Cannot Stop Forever to want to hear more from his Ghetto Mysticism ensemble really need to check out the recent Cultures Of Soul reissue of the Boston-based combo's incredible jazz-funk epic Brighter Days album from 1977.

Some may already be familiar with the Ghetto Mysticism's magic from the tune Space A Nova, a club spin of UK celebrity selecta Gilles Peterson who comped it on 2009's Freedom Rhythm & Sound: Revolutionary Jazz & The Civil Rights Movement 1963-82 (Soul Jazz) but unlike many indie jazz LPs of the period, every track on the album is a winner. From the furious paced original version of Things Cannot Stop Forever to the hard bumpin'Funky Fried Tofu and the majestic title track all the way through to the deep closer High Jazz, the whole Brighter Days album is exceptionally solid. And Cultures Of Soul head honcho Jeff Swallom has done a superb job of mastering the limited-run vinyl reissue – which sounds better than my original copy – and same goes for the first-ever CD release.

In quick succession over the last three years, Cultures Of Soul have knocked out an impressive assortment of soul and funk rarities on seven-inch vinyl in strictly limited quantities including a Northern corker from Kentucky garage crew Explosive Dynamiks. The topside screamer Whole Lotta Loving and the soul ballad flip I Need You were originally recorded in Lexington back in 1966 for the Lemco label also known for the swinging organ instrumental twin-spin Hush Puppies b/w Sweet and Sour by The Titans.

Using his Deano Sounds alter-ego, Swallom also curated the World's Funkiest Covers collection which brings together some old classics like Ray Barretto's version of Stevie Wonder's Passtime Paradise and Mongo Santamaria's percussion heavy blast through Cloud Nine along with more recent revisions like Nostalgia 77's jazzy swing at the White Stripes' Seven Nation Army.

Perhaps the most anticipated Cultures Of Soul project ever is their forthcoming Jungle Funk 7" set of unreleased vintage material from Ghanaian funk bashers the Afro Kelenkye Band. Assembled with the assistance of Frank Gossner of Voodoo Funk fame, the recordings date back to the peak period of Jagger Botchway's band, just after they put out their classic Moving World album in 1974. So the story goes, the group went back into the studio while still hot to record more tracks but ran out of money. The recordings were shelved and gathered dust for the next 40 years until they were brought to Gossner's attention who in turn tipped Swallom to the incredible find.

The double seven-inch Jungle Funk pack has been mastered from the original reel-to-reel tapes and comes housed in a period-appropriate sleeve designed by Gossner in the style of Augustus Kerry Taylor's dope original cover for Moving World. It's due out on May 8th but you may want to pre-order a copy directly from Cultures Of Soul (see LINKS below) because they're only pressing 1,000 copies and dealers will no doubt be stocking up to flog at ridiculously inflated prices once it sells out.


LINKS
Now Again http://www.nowagainrecords.com/announcing-soul-cal/
Cultures Of Soul http://culturesofsoulrecords.com/
Egon's Soul Cal podcast

Caitlin Rose covers Arctic Monkeys for RSD

In trying to come up with a worthwhile release for Record Store Day, someone at Domino hit on the boffo concept of having Nashville's fabulous Caitlin Rose work her magic on two atypical ballads from the Arctic Monkeys. When Alex Turner’s Piledriver Waltz first appeared in the British film Submarine as a bittersweet acoustic love song, and then took another swing at it for the Monkey's Suck It and See album, it was painfully clear that a singer with real pipes could do a much better job of it.

Caitlin Rose’s inspired overhaul transforms the song into a country rock ballad with tasteful pedal steel guitar licks accompanying her soaring voice recalling Linda Ronstadt at her top dollar best. An equally elegant recasting of the Monkeys' Love Is A Laserquest as a honkytonk heartbreaker is guaranteed to put a tear in your beer. Both songs will appear on Caitlin Rose's limited edition 7-inch single in a generic Domino sleeve for Record Store Day only.

Caitlin Rose is currently in the studio recording the followup to her critically acclaimed debut, Own Side Now. Those who aren't completely creeped out by clowns should check out Caitlin Rose's video for Piledriver Waltz below.


Piledriver Waltz by Caitlin Rose

Win tickets to see Nick Lowe @ The Phoenix

Among the more anticipated concerts this spring is the Toronto return of Nick Lowe. Although the artist formerly known as "The Basher" has been through a couple of times on solo tours – performing the mature compositions from his quieter and gentler recent albums on acoustic guitar – he's at his best with the backing of a full band. His longtime sidemen Geraint Watkins (keyboards), Robert Trehern (drums), Johnny Scott (guitar) and Matt Radford (bass) are often too busy with other projects to hit the road so seeing them joining Lowe on stage at The Phoenix on Monday, April 23 will be a real event.

We're doubly delighted to offer a pair of tickets to Nick Lowe's Phoenix show to the first person who can correctly answer our skill testing question. Way back in 1996, while considering songs to record for Dig My Mood, Nick liked two Ivory Joe Hunter songs he'd heard on a mixtape and couldn't decide which to cover – so he cut a version of both. One of them, Cold Grey Light of Dawn appeared as the closing track on the album, however, the other was shelved. Just email the title of that Ivory Joe Hunter tune which didn't make it onto 1998's Dig My Mood album to theperlichpost@gmail.com with "Nick Lowe Contest" in the subject line and you could be going to see Nick Lowe on April 23. Note: The winner must be able to pick up the tickets at the venue in person on the show date and provide legal photo ID.

Stop the presses: we have our winner! Congratulations to Andrew Johnson of Toronto who correctly named the Ivory Joe Hunter mystery tune as being I'll Give You All Night To Stop which eventually appeared on Nick Lowe's excellent 4-disc outtakes and rarites collection The Doings issued by Demon in 1999.

Happy Birthday Dave Edmunds!

Don't miss Jesse Winchester @ Hugh's Room tonight

Happy 80th Birthday Loretta Lynn!

Happy Birthday Ken Nordine!

"Ken Nordine, yea I know that guy, I heard his voice 1000 times, he's the guy in the bus station that says "go ahead I'll keep an eye on your stuff for you," and you see him the next day walking around town wearing your clothes. He broadcasts from the boiler room of the Wilmont Hotel with 50,000 watts of power. I know that voice, he's the guy with the pitchfork in your head saying go ahead and jump, and he's the ambulance driver who tells you you're going to pull thru. He's the guy in the control tower who talked you down in a storm with a hole in your fuselage and both engines on fire. I heard him barking thru the Rose Alley Carnival strobe as samurai firemen were pulling hose. Yea he's the dispatcher with the heart of gold, the only guy up this late on the suicide hotline. Ken Nordine is the real angel sitting on the wire in the tangled matrix of cobwebs that holds the whole attic together. Yea Ken Nordine, he's the switchboard operator at the Taft Hotel, the only place in town you can get a drink at this hour. You know Ken Nordine, he's the lite in the icebox, he's the blacksmith on the anvil in your ear." – Tom Waits

More FAME rarities for Record Store Day

Perhaps stung by the criticism of the ho-hum Stars Of Fame EP released for Record Store Day last year, the folks at Ace Records' Kent subsidiary have dug a little deeper through the FAME Studios archive to come up with more tantalizing RSD treats aimed at collectors scrounging for lost treasures on April 21.

First up is Goldwax Presents The Singin' Swingin' Yo Yos – a seven-inch double-pack from the Memphis gararge-soul band The Yo Yos who released two sought-after singles for the label in the mid-60s. This is essentially the Bluff City roots of the Oblivians sound.

Of course, Dean Rudland and his Kent crew aren't the sort to just give you a straight repress. Instead, what you get is the Yo Yos nicely harmonized cover of the Joe South fave Leaning On You accompanied by three unissued tracks recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals in October 1966: Tommy Tucker's Hi-Heel Sneakers, the Allen Toussaint-penned Irma Thomas evergreen Wish Someone Would Care along with what is perhaps the main attraction for soul fans, Destroyed – an obscure Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham composition.

Check the Yo Yos sweet version of Leaning On You:




Next, there's a similarly styled 2x7" Clarence Carter package I Found What I Wanted: Unissued and Rare Fame Masters which features four tracks from the deep soul great's 1971 sessions at FAME cut after Patches somehow became a massive global chart hit.

Clearly Carter was looking to capitalize on his unlikely success by quickly knocking out Johnny Poverty which they wisely decided to shelve at the time. Also saved from a dust-collecting fate by Kent is Say A Little Prayer while I'm The One was the mid-tempo flip of Carter's Scratch My Back (and Mumble In My Ear) single.

The big draw here – well, apart from the snazzy unpublished sleeve photo – is the title track. Already a top spin on the UK crossover soul scene, I Found What I Wanted should be well known to collectors through alternate versions by Mary Wells and the tune's composer, the great George Jackson but it's hard to top Carter's crack at it.

Have a listen to Clarence Carter's I'm The One:



By far the most blathered about of the Kent bunch is the five-record Fame Singles Box bringing together faithful repros of the four rarest Fame sevens of the 60s by Jimmy Hughes (You Might As Well Forget Him b/w Everybody Let's Dance), Art Freeman (Slippin' Around With You b/w I Can't Get You Out Of My Mind), James Barnett (Keep On Talking b/w Take A Good Look) and the label's debut from Jimmy Ray Hunter & The Del Rays (The Girl That Radiates The Charm b/w Hot Toddy).

So what's the other single you're probably wondering, it's a test pressing of two recordings of the same tune I Hope They Get Their Eyes Full with the top side voiced by the incomparable Arthur Alexander (also available on the Fame Studios Story 3CD anthology) and the flip comes courtesy of an uncredited female stylist. If the Kent boys know who it is, they're not saying.

The limited edition collection comes wrapped in a sleeve marked "Educational material" that's a nod to Fame's original mail-out envelopes. Nice yes, but is it essential? Not really but then, the same goes for the vast majority of RSD releases.  Have a listen to Art Freeman's northern classic Slippin' Around With You:

One For The Weekend: Denney & The Jets

Come On by Denney & The Jets w/ Jessi Darlin

Happy 100th Birthday Hound Dog Taylor!

Whaddya Mean You Don't Know Lindsay Fuller

Everything I Ever Had



Of A Dust Filled Town



Grey Gardens



You, Anniversary

LINKS
site http://www.lindsayfuller.com/
label http://atorecords.com/artists/lindsay-fuller/ 
iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/you-anniversary/id501142431
facebook http://www.facebook.com/goodcountrypeople

Daniel Johnston Live in Paris

Speeding Motorcycle @ La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris - 08/04/2012



True Love Will Find You In The End

Good Pinsent Keelor @ Glenn Gould Studio in June

Along with today's release of Down and Out in Upalong (TeleSoul/Warner) – for which the Sadies' Travis Good, Blue Rodeo's Greg Keelor have set the poems of celebrated Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent to music – comes the news that the trio will be performing songs from the album at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio on Tuesday, June 19 at 8 pm. Tickets for the one-off event are $39.50 and will be available starting Thursday (April 12) at 10 am Eastern at the venue's box office. Here's Greg Keelor's explanation of how the unlikely project came together followed by a couple of clips:

"On a cold day back in March 2010, filmmaker Mike Bolland phoned Travis Good out of the blue to ask him if he’d like to meet Gordon Pinsent. Strange, yes, but even more so because Travis did not know Mike Bolland – had never heard of him. Bolland had been the cameraman on Gordon’s bio-pic Still Rowdy After All These Years and they had traveled all over Newfoundland filming Gordon as he went about the business being Gordon. Up in the hotel rooms, after long days of shooting and a couple of single malts, Gordon would be encouraged to read his poetry. Bolland loved it. Gordon suggested to Bolland that if he knew any musicians he’d love to see these poems set to song. So Mike Bolland’s partner Ann Margetts is friends with Travis’ wife Joanne and by the bye Joanne tells Ann about Travis. Ann tells Mike. Mike calls Travis. Travis meets Gordon and leaves with about 20 poems under his arm. The next day Travis calls me with this great tale of going to Gordon’s, having a couple of beers, Gordon reciting poetry and then asking if he’d help turn these lyrics into songs. Well, I like all of this and volunteer my services as co-writer. It would be a while before we could actually get together – Travis had tours with The Sadies and I had commitments with Blue Rodeo. So a few months later I’m driving over to Travis’ not really expecting very much. When I arrive, Travis is already a little drunk. He’s sitting in the dining room at the table, scattered with wine glasses, ashtrays and a stack of lyrics. Across the room is a piano that Travis will visit many times during the night. The first lyric we did was “Night Light” and I’m just sort of blown away. It’s not easy to make another man’s words sound like your own, but I know this place, I know these people. It was like the song was writing itself. Gordon had told us we could edit his poems as we pleased and this one changed a bit, but for the most part the metre and the mood of his words inspired the melody and the feel of our songs."


Night Light



Let Go

Happy Birthday Eddie Hazel

Cookin' with Catl in the kitchen

As a lead up to the April 13 release of Catl's righteously rippin' new album Soon This Will All Be Gone (weewerk), the blues-bent Toronto hustlers have released a couple of acoustic clips shot which show Sarah K and Jamie "catl" Fleming getting down with Andrew Moszynski and Pete Ross at home on a Sunday afternoon as can be seen below.

If you miss Catl's record release party at Parts & Labour on Friday (April 13), you can grab a copy of their hot new disc – masterfully produced by Jim Diamond in full spectrum analog sound at Ghetto Recorders – at their Sonic Boom in-store Saturday (April 14) at 3 pm or later on at the Dakota Tavern where they'll be blasting away from 6 to 9 pm.


Poor Boy Long Way From Home



Got A Thing For You

Happy Birthday Carmen McRae

The Rookies play the Outsiders @ Primavera Beat

Since Italian garage rockers The Rookies had just released their latest recording, Things Ever Said (Other Eyes Records), naturally the Pavia-Placenza crew wanted to make a splash at this year's Primavera Beat festival in Alessandria. So they decided to encore with a couple of their favourite Nederbeat tunes by The Outsiders. That may not have seemed terribly impressive to the assembled horde of 60s psych afficionados until The Outsiders' co-founding songwriter/guitarist Ronnie Splinter joined them on stage and began ripping in to his familiar intro to Touch. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of jaws hitting the floor. 

Touch by The Rookies feat. Ronnie Splinter



You Mistreat Me

Happy Birthday Freddie Hubbard