Saturday, March 27, 2010

The Red Light Sting-And Our Love is Soaking...

If this record doesn't make you either; a) want to dance or; b) go start a fight with someone; you're probably not listening hard enough. The Red Light Sting was a weirdo dancey/emo/hardcore band from Vancouver featuring members of d.b.s. They had this great punk swagger to them that was reminiscent of bands like The Faint, The Wolfnote, Nation Of Ulysses but with really cool synth parts that sound like they've been ripped from 80's new wave records. The vocals are super snotty and abrasive, but hooky enough to get stuck in your head all day. I'm not even really sure what else to say about this record, I don't know enough about the genre to really explain why I love this record so much. I will say that I liked it so much that when I moved out my first place, I "mistakenly" took it from my roommates collection. Whoops! We all do things we're not proud of.
~AB

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Dead.Beats - Live Tracks

I was talking to Garret from Dead.Beats today and I managed to get the live tracks off him. These aren't by any means great recordings, but you can definitely hear the bones of some really great tracks. Dead.Beats had a ton of potential to be one of my favorite local bands...unfortunately they seemed to have dissolved. Worth downloading if you were a fan or if you like having your Edmonton music collection as complete as possible. Hopefully the guys in Dead.Beats move on and make more music in some form one day. (In case you never heard them, they played mathy indie rock, with some post punk style shouted vocals....pretty rad stuff.)
~AB

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Kevin Rips: The Primrods Unreleased Geffen Record

"Tired and spent, but I'm not through..."

The Primrods are about the closest thing Calgary has to a legendary band. Supposedly, the story goes like this: In the post-grunge wake of the mid 90's, major labels we picking up all manner of crazy indie rock band. Some went on to become household names (re: Sonic Youth) while others got screwed over (re: The Primrods). See, major labels pick up young bands left and right, with promises or fame and riches, but more often then not, the band ends up the loser, while the label makes off like a bandit - see Steve Albini's article on that for proof. So this very thing happened to The Primrods but in the midst of it all, The Primrods managed to make one incredible record. For whatever reason - either the record was too out there (which it isn't), or disinterest (which would be inexplicable), or major labels are completely out to lunch (more likely) - the record never got released, and soon after recording, The Primrods were dropped. I guess from the disappointment of making a record that they had no rights to release themselves (since Geffen footed the entire bill), the record remains officially unreleased and locked in the Geffen vaults and the band soon broke up.

Thankfully the thing got booted, and your main man Kevin gots a copy! A good many of the songs are re-recordings from previous releases - such as "Plans for Palmyra" from their split with Tristan Psionic and "Six Flags" from their eurodance 97 7" and also "Barbet Lad" and "Francis Gary Powers Offers You the Thrill of a Lifetime" previously from their full length Kneecappin'. Other than "Gary Powers..." (which is probably the album's only weak moment) all the re-recordings are actual improvements - a very rare thing in re-recordings. New jams like "Working Title" are absolutely awesome. It's got bizarre guitar solos, clever/odd lyrics, songs that rarely stray from a single chord and, on top of it all, it's all really listenable, It's not only a shame, but truly perplexing how such an appealing record like this doesn't have a huge audience.

I think I will go on record saying that this is the best record ever recorded by a Calgary band. Respect!
~KS


Thursday, March 4, 2010

Gregg Kowalsky - Tendrils in Vigne

Sometimes music can be so inspiring it hurts, because all you want to do is get out and make some of your own. Tendrils in Vigne is an 11 minutes drone/noise piece created by Gregg Kowalsky. He originally created it on his computer, and then scored it for a 25 piece orchestra. The result is really cool and organic feeling and while it doesn't build to any sort of climax, it's definitely awe inspiring. The idea that he managed to take this electronic composition, and break it down into 25 different instruments to create a lush piece of performance art blows my mind. This kind of stuff reaffirms my love of music.
~AB

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Still Life - Madness and the Gackle

Add this album to the ever growing list of albums I wish I had heard when I was 16 years old. (Also part of the "Late to the Emo Game" list) Still Life is an emo band from the early 90's that was really influential on the genre...and have a bit of a legendary status. I don't really know what to say about this that hasn't been said before. Basically this reminds me of being a teenager, when life was as simple as worrying about girls, skateboarding and punk rock. Dig it!
~AB