Summer, Booze, and Music

Whew. This has been an excruciatingly busy few months. So many articles, and research, and have I mentioned I'm working on 2 books at the moment? It's exhausting! Yes, I am shirking blame for my lack of updates, and yes, I am shirking it onto other work, but I'm also blaming my friends a little bit. Mostly Cole. He's a son of a bitch.

That being said, his band, the Nix Dicksons, have had an incredible summer. They're playing on the 24th of this and next month, with the odd show between. I think they've been to the stampede like 4 times now, and tonnes of parties.

To those who don't know, TAMMY IS BACK! Finally. She's actually been here for like a week now, I've only just gotten around to writing this. With Tam comes her band, Makeshift Innocence, who played on the Coke stage this year as the final show of their tour. I'll ask her and Jesse James for real about their trip pretty soon here, so keep an eye out for that.

I interviewed OC band Young the Giant today as well. We talked tour, energy, future records, and festivals. Look for that one in next month's BeatRoute, but I'll also post a few good tidbits here.

The last thing I'm going to talk about is X-Fest, which is coming up on September 1st at Fort Calgary. I'm going, and you should go, too. It's going to be a lot of fun, and I heard there's going to be more bathrooms than  last year (YAY!). Bands include Young the Giant and Silversun Pickups.

That's it for now guys, sorry for the slim pickins. I'll probably have a Nix review as well as a couple CD reviews and some tidbits from YTG on here in the coming days.

Peace & love,

- Erin

The Blues

Last summer, right around this time, I was working at a local record shop called Heritage Music. It's easily the coolest place I've ever worked, and I still love going there. The owner is a genuinely sweet guy with a huge love of music... and a huge music collection.

The best part of working there was that we could listen to anything in the store, as long as it was already open. Even if it wasn't, sometimes, we'd still listen to it. I had everything from punk rock to folk to psychedelic music at my fingertips. It was absolutely amazing, especially since the record player behind the counter was almost constantly the source of the music.

This was where I started really listening to the White Stripes and really realized my love for vinyl records. This was also where my coworker introduced me to real blues.

Yes, of course I'd heard the blues before. But never any classic blues. The stuff that started everything. Son House. J.D. Short. B.B. King. Muddy Waters. There were so many rainy days, when there were few, if any, customers, and we would just be working on whatever project Jerry had us on at the time, listening to the blues and the rain outside.

I had never really listened to the blues before. It has a tendency to sink into you and settle in your veins. Even when it becomes background noise, it peppers your mood. It's beautiful and wonderful.

Working at Heritage was the precursor to my summer, and it was a pretty eventful one. I wonder if my newly developed love for the blues had influenced it at all.

So, today, since it's rainy and gloomy, I'm going to sit and listen to the blues and prepare myself for whatever this summer has to bring. 

Oh, Kenton. (BPO)

Well, as many of you have heard, Black Phoenix Orchestra bassist Kenton Amstutz has a broken collar bone. It's not just broken, though - he managed to snap it in two places.

Now, don't get me wrong - all the guys from BPO are smart. Really, really smart. They're awesome to chill out and chat with, on top of being one of the best groups Calgary has come out with in recent years. That being said, they do some really stupid shit.

Like backflipping off a tree on Stephen Ave.

The show must go on, however, and despite his broken (in two places!) bone, bassist Kenton played a show on May 15th, just under 2 weeks since his, for lack of a better term, accident. Sadly, I worked a closing shift and missed it, but apparently he managed to bang his bad shoulder on the merch table just before their set, and got to enjoy shouldering his bass a little awkwardly to avoid extra pressure.

And apparently, in true BPO fashion, they killed it.

I always miss the good shit.

Jack White - Blunderbuss

So, I just listened to Jack White's April 24th release, Blunderbuss. And by "just listened", I mean I'm currently still listening to it for about the 9th time, so I figured I should probably write something up for it. For those who don't know me well, Jack White is easily one of my favorite artists. I go from Raconteurs, to the White Stripes, to the Dead Weather and the Upholsterers and back again, usually on a daily basis. His vocal and (duh) especially his guitar stylings usually have me entranced.

I'm used to the Jack White who can make a shiver run up my spine with a simple chord progression, not the one who makes me think "but... why?"

It's difficult for me to say it, and I couldn't really admit it to myself at first, but Blunderbuss is kind of a bust for me. I mean, there's the obvious bits of amazing dashed throughout the album (Freedom at 21 has a pretty wicked guitar solo, and the title track is an awesome throwback to the days of De Stijl), but there were also a lot of moments where all I could think was how it sounded fake, and not at all like the Jack White I've grown to love. It almost came off as... Plastic, I suppose, in some areas.

That being said, the good outweighs the bad enough that I can say you should probably give it a listen. Jack's still in there, he just seems a little different. I'm still going to skip some of the songs, though.

Apologetic Sort Of First Post

So, I guess I should start this thing off with a kind of introduction type thing.

I'm sure 99.9% of the people reading this know me personally, because nobody really stumbles onto brand-spankin-new blogs accidentally. I mean, this isn't even a particularly interesting or relevant entry, just a halfway apology intro that only counts as a post because it's on here.

In any case, this is pretty much about music - I'm listening my way through the alphabet. 26 weeks and god only knows how many bands (I have no set limit per week). I'll also post random relevant (ie, music-y) articles, pretty much about whatever I feel like mentioning at the time. Kind of like this random sort of post, but with actual substance.

This week went a little faster than anticipated, what with work and life and sickness (my sister gave me the plague!) and whatnot, so I'm a little behind schedule for the first ACTUAL post - but stay tuned, it'll be up ASAP. I'm planning on drunkenly writing on St. Paddy's day (that'll be interesting!), and during slow spells at work. I'll be back on track soon. Promise!

I guess I should throw something to do with music in here to keep the sharks at bay, so I'll say this:

Tonight, Autumn Portrait, Hunger Hush, and the Nix Dicksons are playing at Broken City. It's going to be a great time, and I hope to see you all there for some music and shenanigans!

That's all I've got right now. More soon!

- Erin