ESB PLAYLIST 4/15/05

a year ago today was a victory day for me. it was the last Dance to the Underground of the year, featuring FUN! (my own band) and Grand Theft Bus. the show sold out and i passed the honour along to my good friend Mike Sallot, current outgoing Business Manager of CFRC and co-founder of DTTU. he's done a tremendous job and he's even written into the job description a requisite for the next Business Managers to keep the series going. it went from a weekly groove/jam oriented show to a monthly display of hyperactive, explosive indie/dance fanaticism that shook the foundations of Kingston music this past year under Mike. he's booked some Canadian acts i never could have thought would come to Kingston, let alone to play our little night: The Creeping Nobodies, Uncut, Kids on TV, Death From Above, controller.controller, Kid Koala and Magneta Lane. but the best is yet to come on the 26th, with Caribou, The Junior Boys and The Russian Futurists hit the Elixir...for $8!!!!

read about why Dance to the Underground is the only worthwhile underground alternative in Kingston at the Queen's Journal.

Mike Sallot is a name you should look out for. i once ran into John Caffrey from the Kids on TV, and i mentioned that Mike and i had been business partners at one point, to which he replied, "He's a very very good name to have beside yours, my friend!" it was a rare moment of pride for this blogger / radio host.

catch Mike's show while you can. he most likely leaving Kingston soon and taking Fever Pitch (also bloggified), with him. we hope he continues on with the C/C radio tradition in Ottawa, Montreal or Toronto, all places he's likely to end up in soon. tune in to the show until May every Wednesday night at 10pm ET (click on one of the Real Player streamlinks atop the homepage), or at the CFRC Weekly Archives.

now, on with the show! this week was a series we like to call "Live Notes", the first of two parts. basically, we check out the state of live music at this current point and play some of the cats that have played recently or will play in town in the near future.

MAYOR MCCA - Funky Fresh Beats (download here by looking for the link in the left hand frame)
* unless his April 1st goodbye to Canada show was a big April Fool's joke, C.A. Smith, the legendary one man band singing sensation from Steelcity Hammertown, will be leaving Canada for an indefinite period. he's off to the British Isles and we'll miss him terribly. but when he comes back, we'll have a welcoming party ready on the tarmac. chris, thanks for all the killer shows and nice chats.

HELLA - I'm Quitting the Cult
HELLA - W
OUT HUD - Dear Mr. Bush...
* both of the groups played The Horseshoe on April 10th, but i wasn't abe to attend b/c of a sellout at the box office. but i can guarentee you that despite the poor reviews their new albums got, the bands remain full throttle live acts that never fail to satisfy (or so i've been told). thse tracks were made available by 20JazzFunkGreats.com, but the site is handling some technical bugs right now (by the fault of Apple, not their own). keep checking out the site and look for the donloads, which you can find grouped together.

and while we're at it? what's with all the shows in Toronto selling out faster than you can say "Arcade Fire at the Danforth Theatre"! some say it's a prblem, symptomatic of the saturation and overconsumption of every aspect of Toronto life, but i look at it differently. i'd venture to say that it's indicative of a healthy scene, and a testament to the work that everyone's put into this city for the past 20 some years to make it the live music hub that it has become. so maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that i didn't get into the Regina Spektor show last week.

REGINA SPEKTOR - Your Honor
* this girl blows me away! she has charisma and energy that is largely absent from indie music at the moment. she's full of life and vibrancy and doesn't need to posture and prance to prove her point. and remember, that's quite the feat, considering she must have had such close proximity to the hype train when she toured with The Strokes. it's tough to keep your head ins ituationslike that, but she's totally herself and that's cool with me. i hope the sho went over beautifully. i also love how she make s her name look lik i says RESPEKT on her splash page. brilliant!


NO DYNAMICS - Josphine Baker (new higher quality download)
* if you missed these dues at Santa Cruz last weekend, you can catch them again as a supporting act at the Dovercourt House (805 Dovercourt Rd. near Bloor St.) tomorrow (saturday) night for the Lenin I Shumov EP release party. bring $6 and you're in. bring another $6 and you get a copy of the Shumov disc at the door. they're also scheduled to release an four song vinyl only EP on Rob Gordon's new label. maybe we'll get a couple of the members to come on the show when the record comes out. there was a great article on them in NOW mag last week. but despite all the press, they've been playing it smart and avoiding playing too many shows to prevent everyone from gouging them out of existence with the hype machine. it's one of theone of the reasons i love this band and i hope they keep it up like this for a long time.

DEAD MEADOW - Sleepy Silver Door
DEAD MEADOW - Everything's Goin' On
* according to the band's touring schedule on their site, it looked like they were booked the same night as Santa Cruz. does anyone know why they never played? was it a double booking mishap? if anyone has any info, i'd like to know whether they did play at another venue that night or they've been rescheduled for another date. plenty more downloads are available on their mp3 page.

BLACK MOUNTAIN - Heart of Snow
BLACK MOUNTAIN - Drugnaut
CRYSTAL SKULLS - No Room for Change
* another show i could have attended, i even had tickets to see these two groups last week a the 360, but i was kidnapped by an old high school friend for a roadtrip to Montreal.

and you know, my friend and fellow blogger Gabe Knox at Amphetamine Blues said to me recently that "no matter what Spin and the New York Times say, Montreal does not have a scene like we do in Toronto." and he's right! not much was going on mid week, in comparison to here a least. but i think that's one of Montreal's strengths. in Toronto it's gotten to the point at which it's becoming more and more difficult to do and see something new. weeklies and monthlies come and go like lovers, and good underground quickly gets swallowed into the "aboveground" scene. but in Montreal, underground really is underground, and more or less always has been. indie music there does not retain the same kind of popularity in Quebec, where ska and latin music prevail in the relaxed, euro-canuck climate of style and living inherent to the city. there's less impetus to one-up someone lse like there is in toronto, less hostility and cynicsim, so there's room for new movements to pop up. the Unicorns broke up, Arcade Fire found some wings and AIDS Wolf are attracting audiences elsewhere, yet there's enough artists to step into their place. the audiences there will grow, no doubt about it, and maybe we'll have to give that NYT article some credit after all?

GOLDKIXX is a great blog with which to check up on the Montreal scene. i hasn't been updated since Purim, but if you're passing through Montreal it's a great resource to track the undercurrents in la belle provence's most wonderful city.

tune in again next week for part two of "Live Notes". we'll have some live cuts from No Dynamics, but they won't be available for download next week on this site as i i can only play it over the radio, so be sure to tune in. as well, some new side project acion from electroguru Siktransit and mashup master Numba One Stunna. they've combined their skills to form Ryu vs. Ken. here's Hally's desrition of what it's all about:

"streetfighter themed. i'm RYU, basically i'm quiet and reserved, while KEN is hardcore metal FUCKEVERYBODY kinda dude."

they'll be sure to start playing live gigs soon, hopefully in Toronto. keep your ears open.

PS - go and see the aforementioned Gabe Knox, who'll be playing keys tonight with a group called Civilian for a good cause at the El Mo.