// Category Archive for: Canadian Content

1991: The Year Punk Broke Screens At Hot Docs

By Less Lee Moore

The title of this film—which documented the 1991 European club festival tour of Sonic Youth, a pre-world-famous Nirvana, and other bands—was intended as an ironic comment on the music industry. Although the film came out in 1992 and it was released on VHS shortly thereafter, it is still not available on DVD. How is this possible?

“It’s not on DVD because the rock & roll industry is full of shit,” quips filmmaker David Markey. “There I said it. Also, I totally blame Lady Gaga and her fans,” he adds sarcastically. In fact, Markey prepared a “deluxe” DVD package in 2004, including bonus live performances by Sonic Youth and Nirvana, audio commentary by Markey and Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, and a 2003 panel discussion of the film at the Arclight in Hollywood with Markey, Moore, and others.
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What Are YOU Doing On Record Store Day 2010?

April 17, 2010 marks the third year of Record Store Day (they grow up so fast). According to the event’s website, it was founded as:

“. . . a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally. . . [t]his the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music.”
—Record Store Day.com/About Us

The first official Record Store Day was held at Rasputin Music in San Francisco on April 19, 2008, christened by none other than Metallica. It is now celebrated on the third Saturday of every April. This year it will be held on Saturday, April 17.

This year, Sonic Boom in Toronto, ON will be hosting various in-store performances by Sloan, Adam Green, The Meligrove Band, Metz, Buck 65, and Valery Gore, beginning at 3:00 p.m. Admission is free, but they encourage everyone to bring non-perishable food donations for the Daily Bread Food Bank, which is running low on inventory at this time.

Here are some shout-outs to favorite record stores from Popshifter readers and writers. Next time you’re in that town, be sure to check them out!
—Less Lee Moore

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The Dudes, Blood Guts Bruises Cuts

By Danny R. Phillips

In my younger years, Power Pop was a genre that I avoided it like the Black Plague or Herpes. As a long time advocate of the virtues of punk rock I could not allow myself to support music with such an identity crisis. Was it hard rock? Bubblegum? What? With a few exceptions, mainly Cheap Trick, The Cars, and the riff from “Jessie’s Girl,” it was not something I championed or even tolerated.

Then came the 1990s and with it came bands like Weezer and the exceptional songsmith Matthew Sweet, musicians who embraced the principles of power pop and drank fully of its long and storied past. Perhaps years had softened my barriers or I was now old enough to see that punk has its limits. Power Pop was no longer the enemy.
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Playing The Hits: Electric Six At Canadian Music Fest

By Less Lee Moore

With Ben Stevenson & The Wondertones/Hot Panda/Sweet Thing
Lee’s Palace, Toronto ON
March 13, 2010

For a band to reach an exalted position on my list of all time faves they must possess two qualities: wonderful musicianship and witty lyrics. Because they have consistently excelled in both categories, Electric Six have ascended quickly up my own personal charts over the last three years. Put another, less pedantic, way: they crack me up and they fucking rock.
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Sloan, Hit & Run (EP)

By Jemiah Jefferson

The newest original-material release from Toronto’s ambassadors of brainy party rock shows the four members of Sloan further exploring their masterful sound with these five tracks, one from each member (with an additional track from the prolific Chris Murphy).
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Neil Young, Dreamin’ Man Live ’92

By J Howell

Find out how to win a copy of Dreamin’ Man Live ’92 at the end of this article! The contest has now ended.

In short: this record is achingly beautiful. Buy it.

It’s beyond the scope of this review to really go into why Neil Young is, well, Neil Young, and I’m not going to indulge in a long string of superlatives here.
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Peter Project, Fresh EP

By Megashaun

Based on how much I loved and listened to Peter Project’s self-titled debut (reviewed in Popshifter ) I had some rather high expectations when I had heard he released a follow-up in the form of a bar of soap.
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A Fortnight In The Tower Of Song: Leonard Cohen And The Creative Life

By Ben Sullivan

When my mother approached me with two tickets to Leonard Cohen’s first-ever performance in Columbus, Ohio as a present for my thirtieth birthday, the extent of my familiarity with the man was a much-loved copy of Songs of Leonard Cohen I happily stumbled across a few years back, as an initiate to the pleasures of record shopping.

Outside of the debut, I’d heard a handful of the seemingly countless Cohen covers. And then there was the copy of Songs of. . . I gifted to an ex-girlfriend (which, for shame, subsequently melted in the backseat of her Accord). My enthusiasm for the concert wasn’t predicated on long hours spent under his spell, but rather for the opportunity to sink into his work and discover the tics, irregularities, and strengths of an enduring voice.
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We’re Still Watching: Pierre Trudeau in the 1970s

By Emily Carney

When I was a kid, we had these volumes and volumes of World Book Encyclopedia “Year Books” in the house; they came as subscription updates with our set, and were a summation of the events of the previous year (this was obviously way before the Internet).

In my house, we had the entire set from the 1970s, and when I was bored (which was often) I would make my way through these books. I kept noticing that a guy named Pierre Trudeau would frequently pop up, especially in the “Canada” section, usually looking glamorous, distinguished, yet slightly disheveled, and frequently with his gorgeous wife Margaret. They looked exactly like film stars, but weren’t. Being American, I had no clue who Trudeau was, so I assumed he was simply just some nameless, faceless personality from the 1970s who didn’t make much of a dent here in the US or internationally.

Damn, how wrong I was!
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The Best Albums Of My Decade: By Less Lee Moore

In an editorial called “An Argument Against Year End Lists” Dusted‘s Ben Tausig calls them both “viscerally disgusting” and “overdone” and accuses those critics who write them of being lazy.

Point taken, Mr. Tausig.
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