I thought you were the moon in the sky, but it turned out you were just a street light

I’ve had my official first listen of Chad Vangaalen’s album Soft Airplane, which is due to come out on September 9th, and I’ve been in a complete mind numbing musical daze since. The album has transported me into this crazy dream world, filled with cartoon characters and evil monsters. Earlier, I wrote a post about Chad Van’s performance at Sled Island, where he played many of the album tracks live, and now, after hearing the recorded album, I appreciate it all so much more. Chad reaches this complete perfection in the album, he hits every different genre of music perfectly, and shows an incredible confidence in his haunting and beautiful voice, especially in “Molten Light”, which I know is going to become my most played song of September/October/however longer. Also, I would like to say, I am still getting used to how awesome and abundant live music is in Montreal and I’m going to have to start making a concert calendar as to not double book my evenings, so anyways, Chad VanGaalen is playing October 3rd at Pop Montreal alongside Women and Julie Doiron!!!!!

Chad VanGaalen- Molten Light

Chad VanGaalen- City Of Electric Light

buy the album! buy the album! buy the album!

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The Darcys: A concert review

Last night cheap beer at OAP turned into cheap beer AND incredible live music, thanks to the Halifax/Toronto based band, The Darcys. After sitting down with my first $2 beer, the band came on stage and the combination of the smooth vocals and build up of guitar and bass and keyboard grabbed my complete attention, and the band started playing songs that were bursting with incredible energy and unity, and even performed covers of Fleetwood Mac and Final Fantasy, which got me dancing like mad in the middle of the field. After the performance we talked with the band and bought their debut album Endless Water and a very “handsome” shirt. It turns out their playing in Montreal again on the 10th of September at L’esco with Play Guitar! Everyone come!

So, all in all, the band was incredible live, and from the first few listens of the album, they are just as good recorded. The tracks fit onto quite a large spectrum of sound and genre, which is rare for a debut album, but also really really awesome.

Anyways everyone in Montreal should come out on September 10th!

The Darcys- These Ones Were Our Reveries

The Darcys- Strange Fits

myspace!

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melt your heart

The inspiration to write about music has been completely and utterly laser beamed out of me, and this is because of something that has completely altered…EVERYTHING. It’s not moving away to a new city, which would make sense, butttt, a couple days ago, I opened up my guitar to find utter atrocity, the head has been completely snapped in half! I sat there mid strum for about an hour and fourty five minutes with my mouth completely open, trying everything in me to warp my eye sight or use harry potter magic to stick it back together. My guitar of seven years has been ruined, and I say this because, from research, the task of repairing this kind of damage is nearly impossible and the guitar will rarely recover 100%. Damn.

And so, the only thing I can say about music right now, is that I hope the September release of Jenny Lewis’ new album Acid Tongue will restore musical inspiration.

Jenny Lewis- Melt Your Heart

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postsecret

Tommy James and the Shondells- Crimson & Clover

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Uh Huh Her Release!

The new album releases are killing me. My attention span is as small as anything and its nearly impossible for me to keep up with the music i need to listen to in my email inbox. Anywayssss, there’s really only one album release coming up that I am even slightly excited for, Uh Huh Her’s new album Common Reaction on August 19th. Anyways, this band has a lot of back up information to help with the incredible music that was released on their last EP I See Red. The band was named after a PJ Harvey B-side song, which is reason enough to listen. The two band members are Leisha Hailey (The L Word) and Camila Grey (from Mellowdrome), so, the band has a lot of positive biography info to drag someone into the seductive synth sounds of Uh Huh Her. Anyways, from the promo mp3 “Not A Love Song”, August 19th is looking like a pretty awesome day!

Uh Huh Her- Run

Uh Huh Her- Not A Love Song

website

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The saddest song ever written- Another Music Project

I don’t mean to be a downer, but I just think this could be incredibly interesting, in your opinion, what is the saddest song ever written? I know its different for everyone. Obviously. There’s the classic sad songs like “Hurt” and “Wish You Were Here” etc. The “emo”…the in your face sad songs..like……uhmmm….Bright Eyes, for example. The songs that were never that sad to begin with, but now, to you, their the most heart breaking songs ever written because it brings you back to something. Anyways, my “saddest song ever written” changes weekly, in the past its gone from “So Come Back, I Am Waiting” by Okkervil River to “Afraid Not Scared” by Ryan Adams to “Fake Plastic Trees” then “The Longer I Lay Here” and so on. Always changing.

But in this moment, I can’t get over the heart wrenching “About Today” by The National. This song could possibly be the longest standing “saddest song ever written”, its going on month two right about now! And its really just quite a simple song as well, the lyrics don’t tell an elaborate story and there’s no heart wrenching piano solos, but Matt Berningers voice has enough sadness in it to break my heart completely.

Anyways, theres mine, What’s yours? (leave a comment)

The National- About Today

A live video done by Vincent Moon with his Lo-Fi video techniques

I highly recommend buying The Nationals music

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Hey, hey, hey mother interstate – Conor Oberst, A Review

I wasn’t going to review this album for a number of reasons. First of all, I’m sure everyone can read the hundreds of reviews all over the magazines and other music blogs, second of all, when I first heard a few of the pre-released tracks a couple months ago (Danny Callahan, etc.) I absolutely hated it, and third….isn’t everyone a little tired of Conor Oberst? Bright Eyes? …Welllllp…I’M NOT…!

Of all the reasons not to review the album, there are also a hundred to do it. The main one is probably the fact that I fell in love with Conor the night we made eye contact for half a second during a Bright Eyes concert many years ago (….haaaaha), but besides that…his music has been around (and part of) my life since I can remember, he was even hanging around when I thought 300 songs in my iTunes library was madness! And (to justify all of this), I just saw him and the Mystic Valley Band perform at folk fest a few days ago.

Anyways! The album is different, as everyone probably knows. I think its a bit less emotional….then…every other album he has ever, ever released, but at the same time it’s still incredible intriguing and intimate. There is a very strong alternative country-folk feeling to the album (a little like Cassadagga), but a few of the songs still slide towards the I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, Conor and his guitar, feeling (“Lenders In The Temple” and “Milk Thistle”). I’m not going to say I am a complete, 100%, fan of the album, most of the songs don’t even stand out AT ALL to me, and “Danny Callahan” bores me to death, but its songs like “Cape Canaveral” that keep my faith for Conor alive. More different then the album, was the live performance, Conor came out looking clean cut and healthy and the entire performance was pretty low key, which was quite shocking since, the last time I saw him, he decided to drunkenly trash the entire set. All in all, this release still proves the incredible song writing of Conor Oberst.

Conor Oberst- Cape Canaveral

buy the album here

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Waiting For The Sunrise – David Vandervelde

A while ago I wrote a post about the incredible music of David Vandervelde, and a few days after, i found out about the August 5th release of his new album Waiting For The Sunrise. I have to apologize again for the lack of updates, but P.E.I seems to be a little bit behind in the internet age. I was able to find internet in the parking lot of an Acadian museum yesterday (while my mom was inside finding tons of information about her family), and I bought Waiting For The Sunrise in that time. I spent the rest of the drive to New Brunswick listening to the album over and over and my final opinion is that, like The Moonstation House Band, Waiting For The Sunrise is perfect driving music…haha. Today, I found this amazing little cafe in Moncton with exposed brick and all, and taking another listen to the album, I can’t stop hearing the Neil Young influence, especially in “Need For Now” and “Lyin’ In Bed”, it could also be that the album sounds like its taken right out of my mom’s old record collection alongside Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Another difference between The Moonstation House Band and this LP, is that there’s a lack of obvious hits like “Nothin’ No” and “Jacket”, but instead the album flows so nicely that there’s no need for any.

David Vandervelde- Hit The Road

David Vandervelde- Lyin’ In Bed

buy the album here

Secretly Canadian

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