HOLIDAY PLAYLISTS

I finally saw Walk the Line and was very satisfied. Some complain that it's more about Johnny Cash the Lover rather than Johnny Cash the Songwriter, but I couldn't disagree more. The scenes depicting Cash's development as a musician and performer existed in an almost entirely different world from his life with June. By including the Elvis / Johnny Cash / Jerry Lee Lewis / Roy Orbison tour c. 1955 into the film's middle act, we get to see how small rock n' roll really was in America before Elvis broke.

I'd say it's totally worth checking out. But Joachim is a bit less shiny than he is in this picture:


While Joachim worked very hard on the shine, he could never get it as bright as Reese Witherspoon's forehead.

Also, the fella what plays Carl Perkins is also excellent, clocking in about three lines of dialogue, including the best two lines in the film:

"That Elvis boy sure likes to talk about poon."

"C'mon, Johnny, take the pills...Elvis takes 'em!"


ESB PLAYLIST 12/23/05

VINCE GUARALDI TRIO - Skating
SIKTRANSIT - Beta Tapes and Christmas
CRASS - Merry Crassmass
THE DAMNED - There Aint No Santa Clause
THE CLAP - Christmas in a Bodybag
FEIST - Lo, A Rose E'er Blooming
VASHTI BUNYAN - Winter is Blue
THE CRYSTALS - Parade of Wooden Soldiers
BABS GONZALEZ - BeBop Santa Claus
JAMES BROWN - Santa Claus Santa Claus
ARCADE FIRE - Christmas EP
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT - Suddenly It's Christmas
LONDON CITADEL BAND - The Spirit of Joy
KURTIS BLOW - Christmas Rappin

ESB PLAYLIST 12/30/05

SAM GOPAL - The Sky is Burning
DOLLY PARTON - Jolene
LENNY BREAU - Indian Love Call
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT - Guru
LEONARD COHEN - Stranger Song
STOMPIN TOM CONNORS - Streets of Toronto
WAYNE MCGHIE AND THE SOUNDS OF JOY - Fire (She Need Water)
LINK WRAY - Soul Train
SCREAMIN JAY HAWKINS - Feast of the Mau Maus
IKE AND TINA TURNER - Contact High
BILL WITHERS - Harlem
THE DIODES - The Shape of Things to Come
THE DIODES - Death in the Suburbs
TEENAGE HEAD - Some Kinda Fun
THE REGULATORS - What's in the City
JOHNNY TERRIEN - Hazzard County
JOHNNY TERRIEN - Blitzkrieg 76
HARRY NILSSON - Jump Into the Fire

Set to go tonight with music director extraordinaire Suspar to check out some orchestras:

GLASS ORCHESTRA

These guys blow glass and make instruments out of them. Check out this crazy talk from their F.A.Q. page.

Do you break many instruments?
The Glass Orchestra is probably the only ensemble in the world that can count on the total destruction of its instruments. The breakage can be caused by the musicians in performance or can be caused by the correct choice of baggage handling company. They have developed the breakage philosophy that now instead of one instrument there are two or more new instruments. When an instrument breaks the result is usually more harmonically complex and interesting to listen to. (Unless the destruction is total!)

One of their members was a teacher of mine recently, and I have to say, he was one of the more interesting teachers I've had. We covered a lot of indelible material that definitely made things clearer to me.

GLASS ORCHESTRA - All That Glazz

The other group on hand is The Singing Saw Shadow Show, who look like this:


* From Torontoist.

...and sometimes look like this:


*From Wavelength, 2004. It's all going down tonight at the Music Gallery.

Thankfully, we've got this endless stream in Toronto of good music to keep us happy when life gets complicated, busy, tiring and lonely. 2005 has been an amazing year for Toronto's live shows, particularly in the more underground quarters. All I can ask for is a few more good ones before the year ends. Last Saturday, I finally caught The Hank Collective live after a year and a half of never checking them out. They translate very well from record to stage. To me, they are the musical cousins of a Kids in the Hall skit: quippy, clunky and deliciously weird in a very banal way.

HANK ft. THE HANK COLLECTIVE - Cop
HANK Ft. THE HANK COLLECTIVE - Danes in Peril
HANK ft. THE HANK COLLECTIVE - Lakeshore Report Diluted:Sources

I was also very surprised to see their softer side come out in a live CIUT recording:
HANK ft. THE HANK COLLECTIVE - People Look Up

Anagram also have new material available, which they will release officially on Dead Astronaut Records, January 16th at the Silver Dollar.

ANAGRAM - You'll Have to Think Faster

And now, the playlist from this week's radio show, late as usual...

SMOOSH - La Pump
SAILBOATS ARE WHITE - Let's Set Up North on Fire
SAILBOATS ARE WHITE - Mutiny Disease
SAILBOATS ARE WHITE - Veto
ANAGRAM - You'll Have to Think Faster
ANAGRAM - Favourite Places
ANAGRAM - Right Over There
LINDSTROM AND PRINS THOMAS - E2-E4 Tribute
GLASS CANDY - Dream Lover
BUCK 65 - Kennedy Killed the Hat (MSTRKRFT Remix)
QUINTORIN AND MISS MUSSYCAT - Fly Like a Rat
QUINTORIN AND MISS MUSSYCAT - Witch in the Club
BELLADONNAKILLZ - Yea Hell Yea

SIKTRANSITCOMMISSION

ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!

Announcment #1: Ken Stowar loves our show so much that he's decided to record it every week and rebroadcast it on Sundays at 2pm. So The Eclectic Sound Basement will be on the radio twice a week! If you work and can't tune in on Fridays at Noon, you can now hold ut for Sundays at 2. The best part is, you can stay tuned right after ESB, because Ken's show, Global Rhythms, cannot be topped in this city.

Announcement #2: We will be doing some specials during the holiday season. On December 23rd, we'll be airing our Christmas Special, and another in the first week of Janaury we'll call the Remix Special. Hopefully we can give away some free CDs of the music from those shows. We'll have to dig into our pockets first, but we'll let you know on air if there's a giveaway.

Some shows to check out this week and next in Toronto:

DEC 10 - No Dynamics, Lenin i Shumov, Hank, Pony Da Look @ 10pm Xpace $7 (bring canned food)
DEC 15 - MSKTRKRFT @ Queenshead, $3
DEC 16 - Greg Colins Singin the Christmas Classics CD release party @ The Boat, $5
DEC 17 - The Old Soul @ Old York, $10
DEC 18 - Toronto Glass Orchestra @ Music Gallery, $10

Thanks to Andrew Hallisey aka Siktransit, for coming on this week's All Electro Special to share some new material with us. He revealed a lot to us, in particular his tendency to compose music with

SIKTRANSIT - Matt Said So and So Was Right
SIKTRANSIT - Beta Tapes and Christmas

ESB PLAYLIST 12/9/05

JUSTICE - Waters of Nazareth
MSTRKRFT / DFA79 - Sexy Results
MSTRKRFT / GIRL ON GIRL - Black History Month (ft. Final Fantasy)
CLEARLAKE / CARIBOU - Good Clean Fun
SIKTRANSIT - Matt Said So and Matt Was Right
SIKTRANSIT - Beat Tapes and Christmas
0=0 - Difficult Histories Pt. I
0=0 - Difficult Histories Pt. II
ENDUSER - No Wisdom
ENDUSER - Not So Distant Drums
KID KOALA + DYNAMITE P - Third World Lover
KID KOALA + DYNAMITE P - An Elegy

Check out some fantastic pictures of Spiral Beach @ Wavelength last weekend. We'll have these guys on It's (A)live, CIUT's live studio session show on Tuesday nights, as soon as we get the scheduling worked out.

ESB PLAYLIST 12/2/05

Here we are in December. Last month saw another great 30 days of live music in Toronto. While there's a lot of shit bands out there, you'd almost never know it with all the talent you can see from night to night in this city and elsewhere. Two weeks ago, LCD Soundsystem dropped my jaw for the second time this year as a drunk James Murphy and his fellow disco infiltrators took over the Koolhaus for a night, bringing their friends The Juan MacLean with them to impress the hell out of us. I'm kicking myself in the arse for missing the DJ set Murphy and MacLean played the night before at The Queenshead, but I'm proud to say that I missed it for a chance to see the best high school band in Toronto, Spiral Beach. They continue to grow stronger with every show, and their popularity is about to explode as of Monday morning, when everyone who will see them at Wavelength this weekend will spreading the news about these incredibly skilled and professional musicians. No Dynamics continue to thrill local crowds with their ability to play harder than anyone else in this town, having appeared at the Vice Sport Pig Party this past weekend to make people dance alongside MSTRKRFT.



SPIRAL BEACH - New Clouds, Hot Clouds
SPIRAL BEACH - Voodoo
SPIRAL BEACH - Day Ok
* From their latest self-produced, self released album. You can pick it up at any opf their live shows for only a few bux.

As things slow down a bit towards the holidays, so will this blog, but the radio show is still on in full force. Apologies to everyone who tuned in last week expecting free CDs. The broadcast was a replay from August and those CDs are no longer available BUT when I go away for a couple of weeks later on this month and next, we'll be prerecording some more specials and we'll try to make those programs available in the same manner as the Best Of series from the summer.

And now, playlists that have yet be logged on this here blog...

ESB PLAYLIST 12/2/05

WE ARE WOLVES - We Multiply
BURN ROME IN A DREAM - The Better G
BURN ROME IN A DREAM - City of Millions
AIDS WOLF - We Multiply
PANICO - Transpiralo
PANICO -Lupita (Zongamin Remix)
THE GRIS GRIS - Down With Jesus
THE BAD PLUS - Flim (Aphex Twin cover, Live in Tokyo)
FEIST + THE GROOVEBLASTER - The Gatekeeper
SPIRAL BEACH - Gregory's Birthday Box
TIGA - Far From Home
TIGA - Burnin Down the House
MELNYK - Strut
YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA - Day Tripper

ESB PLAYLIST 11/18/05
SERGE GAINSBOURG + BRIGITTE BARDOT - Harley Davidson
SEAHORSE LIBERATION ARMY - We Set Paris on Fire (Radio Edit)
LIDSTROM + PRINS THOMAS - Boney M Down
I AM A ROBOT AND PROUD - A Proposal to Tune the World to F
THE BLOODS - Button Up
THE BUSH TETRAS - Can't Be Funky
JAMES CHANCE & THE CONTORTIONS - Contort Yourself
SPIRAL BEACH - New Clouds, Hot Clouds
SPIRAL BEACH - Matches
SPIRAL BEACH - Voodoo
SPIRAL BEACH - Day OK
ESCAPE GOATS - Father of Kool
CROUCHED HEAD - Harps of Montreal
THE WINKS - Boxes
THE WINKS - House the Sun
TONY WILSON - Arpeggio / Lonesome Valley