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Just when you thought I would stop with the Broken Social Scene…

This Cadbury Commercial using Broken Social Scene’s venerable Stars and Sons is pretty dead on. This is one of my favorite tunes actually. I love the bass line, it’s pretty stellar. The commercial is pretty whack with everyone showing up in a park from underneath umbrella’s, picnic baskets etc.

The lyrics for Stars and Sons from You Forgot it in People do sort of fit the commercial, though I will say that the comprehensibility *sic of the lyrics is always in question for Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning.

Then when you let it
You asked for nothing
Why don’t you share it
All of the time you live
There’s something out there

This way we’ll know, how far to live on
there’s one more avenue in this town
And in the red room
At a distance

How would you know it
You’re the same when you’re living
I don’t know it
It won’t be this

This way we’ll know, how far to live on
This way we’ll know, how far to live on

All of the time you wait, there’s someone out there
And no one can find all the red

How would you show it
You can see through the red
I don’t know it
It won’t be this time

Churches under the stairs

Remember when I posted the Juan’s Basement Jam of Churches Under the Stairs. Here is the music video. I think I love this one the most off of Brendan Canning’s BSS Presents album. And the dueling bands video is pretty awesome. It’s really interesting to listen to the comparison between the jam and the finished track.

Beware, Broken Social Scene will not relent, and neither will I!

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Fleet Foxes Live at the Ladies Literary Club

Laura and I visited the Ladies Literary club of Calvin College to see what Pitchfork has called the baroque folk rock band Fleet Foxes. The five piece played a succinct but moving one hour set in downtown Grand Rapids Michigan.

The venue is a beautiful Victorian building with a small stage. It seats around 250 people. It was great to be so close. After the Sigur Ros show I was frustrated because I was always trying to get somewhere where I could see.

The band played through most of their small (so far catalog) one full length album and one EP. The harmonies were dead on throughout the set. It was great to hear a band focusing so much on vocals and harmonies. They seemed very comfortable and chatted amiably with the crowd. They asked if it seemed funny to be sitting. I remembered Kevin Drew’s comments at the Broken Social Scene show from earlier this year. The band should have just told everybody to just stand up.

The video of Drops in the River included, *sigh* does not do the sound justice. I’d recommend checking out My Brightest Diamond in this venue. I have prior commitments, but the setting would be ideal.

Fleet Foxes, Drops in the River Live Grand Rapids 10.09.2008 from keith wikle on Vimeo.

This may be the last live show we see for a while. We’ve seen quite a bit of live music this year.

Sigur Ros
Wolf Parade
Okkervil River and the New Pornographers, and the National
Tyler Ramsey and Band of Horses
And of course Broken Social Scene
We also saw Mason Jennings

It’s been a good year for live music!!!

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Broken Social Scene Jams Churches under the Stairs

Brian Eno in the Lanois film, Here is What is, talked about where music came from. He said that most people assume that great music, or art comes out of thin air when as Bono always puts it, when God walks through the room.

Eno said most people would be surprised that great things come out of shit. And it is really a ton of work to make anything worthwhile. The finishing remark he made was that if most people knew that they had the capability to create something beautiful out of even their crappiest ideas, we might have a lot more good art/music.

Having listened to the finished product of Broken Social Scene’s albums one may not necessarily assume that there were many false starts or failed attempts at tunes that got reworked, and made into something worthwhile. I liked his egalitarian, humanist approach to creativity, where the playing field is leveled so that art school, and a bunch of credentials really has nothing to do with it.

Keeping this in mind, this jam of what would become the Brendan Canning tune is really fun to watch especially with Kevin Drew singing. Or it could be that I will listen to just about anything Broken Social Scene puts out. Based on my earlier review of their live show, perhaps this is true.

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I was reading an interview on “Pitchfork”:http://pitchforkmedia.com (sorry Alex I can’t help myself, some folks read People Magazine, I read Pitchfork)- where in an interview with “PJ Harvey”:http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/46455-interview-pj-harvey the interviewer said that music didn’t mean as much to him now as it did when he was 17. I actually paused on that one. I felt worried for a moment that this might be true for me. Then I realized, naaa, my tastes might have changed subtly, but I probably depend on music more now than I did when I was 17. Like a lot of 17 year old disaffected youth, I *might* have used music as part of my identity. I am this sort of person because I listen to this type of music. Or was I that sort of person because I liked that sort of music? It’s really a semantic or theologic question. Was there light and then god, or was there light because of god?

Back then the question was how punk rock could you be? How many obscure 7″ singles could you own from bands that were together for less than a year. In some cases those bands are still really cool, and the music is really good. But I have to say I’ve gotten out my Beatles Revolver, my Johnny Cash, my U2 albums a lot more often than Slint’s Spiderland LP. This is not a knock against Slint, but more to say that obscurity for the sake of obscurity is for me becoming more and more irrelevant. I listen to music almost all day now at work, (headphones are on as we speak) and music serves so many purposes I couldn’t even list all of them.

Having been through the dark times when getting a babysitter was hard, money was tight, and life generally prevented us from going out very often, we’ve only now started to squeak back out a bit. This week was unusual in that we saw two concerts in one week. I haven’t done that since college. I used to go see some punk band in somebody’s basement twice a week in college. But now it’s unheard of to be entertained so much in one week. Broken Social Scene and Band of Horses in one week made me feel 20 again. Unfortunately there were some 20 year olds next to me to keep it real. I am balder, crankier, and smarter than most twenty year olds.

“Tyler Ramsey”:http://www.tylerramsey.com/ the guitarist for Band of Horses opened the show. He had a delicate finger picking style of guitar playing, and some nice songs. His voice was delicate and sort of hovered between singing full out and speaking which was pretty complimentary to what he was playing. He has an album coming out in January of 2008, _A Long Dream About Swimming Across the Sea_.

The Drones from Australia played next. This four piece walked out, turned everything up to eleven and started wailing. Their songs had that type of quiet loud quiet loud dynamic, with a bit of the swamp rock, death loving, I’ll screw your sister when you’re not looking type of mojo going on. Some of the songs were over the eight minute mark, and their singer really gave it his all. It was fun to watch. Gabriel would have enjoyed it I think.

Band of Horses came last. Their first song, _Monsters_ from Everything all the Time minus the banjos was belted out with style. I love the following lines from Monsters,

??a tree for all these problems
they can find us for the moment
then for all past efforts
there buried deep beneath
our hearts and somewhere in our stomachs
and hey, transform all others
when awful people they surround you
well hey, they just like monsters
they come to feed on us
giant little animals for us??

The next couple of songs were also from the debut album, but were plagued by feedback from the vocal microphone. Everything seemed sorted out by the time the band played _Is There a Ghost_ . The full band sound behind this short, but full on driving number had the crowd on its feet. The drumming was solid and forceful backed by a three guitars bass and organ lineup.

_The General Specific_ an upbeat southern church stomper of a tune was dead on, if not better than the albun backed by the crowd clapping, and good piano. I’ve unfortunately been seen all over town clapping along to the downbeat of this song, and keening along in my poor falsetto while running. While this is my new favorite tune, if you see me in Kalamazoo singing along to this in running tights at night, do not film me.

??If your trials end, are really getting you down
We had a close call, I didn’t even see it, then another one, I hardly believed it at all.
What the writers say, it means shit to me now.
Plants and animals, we’re on a bender when it’s 80 degrees, the end of December was coming on,
Only for you and me.
When the showing up ends, going back to the south, where hungry necks that I know, and runnin’
A blender in a lightning storm, disguised as a blessing I’m sure.
Knowing up here, there comes a fork in the road, pants have gotta go, we’re on an island on
The fourth of July, looks like the tide is going home.
In time I’d find a little way to your heart, down to the general store for nothing specific,
Gonna wash my bones in the Atlantic shore – only for you and me??

My dead center front row spot in the crowd began to be challenged by a group of twenty-somethings who talked through all the songs, used blackberry’s and whoo-hooed at bizarre moments. I was ready to throttle them by the end of the next few songs. One of them tried to cut in between me and the stage with drinks in her hand in the middle of a song and I politely stepped in front of her so she had to go behind me. She promptly started talking again, and then whipped out her blackberry to text someone. She paid her ticket price too. I suppose she had the right to e-mail, talk, and whoo hoo her way through the show, but lord how I wanted to tell her to shut the f#$k up, snatch her blackberry out of her hand, crush it under my heel. I think it’s official, I’ve gotten to be that cranky old-fart at the concert that wants to parent the twenty-somethings rather than date them.

By the time the band got to Funeral, the twenty-somethings had thankfully either left or gotten with the program. Funeral is probably the signature tune from Band of Horses, and they nailed it, the sound was full, with the whole band digging in, making it bigger and more dramatic than the record.

Having listened to this song for over a year on long runs, I was waiting with eager anticipation to see if they would play this tune. I had my rough period in 2005 with four funerals of people I knew well, my cousin Scott Lussier, Grandma Field, Jason Wagner, and my Grandma Reimer, the song for whatever it means about death, gave me something. I don’t think it needs to be said, much like the “white dog in the snow post”:http://gokayaknow.com/textpattern/index.php?event=article&step=edit&ID=39 This is what music does best. Perhaps art in general does this too. The expression of something we know inherently, but is never spoken.

For what little material reward there is in making art the spiritual rewards seem tangible to me. Americans I think sometimes are too focused on practical matters. We appreciate the things that sustain life, but give very little value to things that enhance life. We take little time for good food, poetry, music, thoughtful films, novels, or any sort of visual art because these things unfortunately take some thought to process. And we, as a society can’t be bothered to think about our entertainment. As sure as the day is long without these things, music, novels, poetry, painting, I would never have made it out of the eleventh grade, and I certainly would never have made it to 2007. Each day is brighter because of things like music. There is always plenty to mope about, and I am sure darker times might be ahead. But this week because of these two shows was an upswing back towards happier times.

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If there is one band whose music has carried me through miles and miles of running, car trips, highs and lows since 2004 it’s been Broken Social Scene. Bad fortune has caught me before when it comes to live shows. *Cough* Andrew Bird. But I missed the huge heyday of BSS when they had 14 people on stage plus a string and horn section. Despite that mental setback. I was giddily excited to see Broken Social Scene presents: Kevin Drew’s Spirit if. The album is more focused on front man Drew’s songs. Most are excellent and apart from subtle collaborative elements being missing the music seems purely in the vein of You Forgot it in People and the Eponymous release that captured my imagination.

Prior to starting the set Kevin Drew asked the crowd if we ever felt the awkwardness of not knowing if you should sit or stand. He offered to be the middle man for the audience and tell us when it was appropriate to sit or stand. He adjusted his microphone and then two seconds later says, “Stand up motherfuckers”. The show started with a zing from Kevin Drew’s Spirit If, “The Lucky Ones” The following three songs kicked ass as well including cause = time and Stars and Sons (bad ass bass line).

Kevin Drew chatted amiably with the audience prior to starting most songs. The band seemed really tight most of the time even though three guitars is a lot to process for a listener through a noisy PA. Kevin forgot the lyrics to a couple of newer songs. During one song he actually let the band jam for a minute or so while he checked a lyric sheet. We even saw him confer with Brendan his major collaborator on most of the albums about the lyrics. Afterwards Kevin admitted to the audience he asked the guys in the band if they knew the words, and they told him flat out, “We have no idea what you’re singing man.” “I’m a mumbler, I admit it.” Once the rocky part of the show with the forgotten lyrics was over.

The band played almost all of Spirit If, and a good number of the fast rockers from their eponymous album. They closed out the set with a crowd pleasing rendition of “Major Label Debut”.

I really really enjoyed the show, but still want to see the full BSS chaos of 14 people on stage with two drum kits, 4 guitars, keyboards, horn sections, Feist and Emily Haines on vocals, plus Jason Collett and Kevin Drew. The energy for the show was quite high, but I sort of felt I was seeing the decaffeinated version. This might have been due to Kevin continually saying he thought he had food poisoning. But I was happy to have been in the crowd. For a married father of two it was a wild Tuesday night.

Tne lyrics I walked away with from _It’s all Gonna Break_ , Kevin remembered perfectly.

??i don’t love i just fight with the violence in ourselves
its all gonna break
and you all want the lovely music to save your lives
and you all want the lovely music to save your lives
keep it coming
their is no lie to save your life
keep it coming
this is the lie to save your life
why are you always fucking ghosts
why are you always fucking ghosts
why………
it’s been such a long
life that we trust
your heart is a whore
and love is just lust.
you want what you can’t
and you can’t cause of fear
we’ve got to get
out of here
why are you always………
its been and it settles down and fights to love.
its all gonna break.??