Arts & Entertainment

 

 

Stuff I’ve Been Listenin

Luke Simcoe, OP Columnist

 

I feel that I should warn you
guys that things have been a bit, how
do you say... punk rock around here
at Stuff ’ve Been Listening To. Since
catching the Thermals at the Media
Club two weeks ago, I’ve been re-
visiting my punk days and craving new
slices of three-chord bliss. So, get out
your safety pins and hair dye, put on
your leather jacket, and dust off those
combat boots, cuz here we go!

Downloaded:

Dead Kennedys — Give Me
Convenience, or Give Me Death

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists — Living
With the Living (advance)

Nouvelle Vague — Nouvelle Vague &
Bande a Part

Listened To:
Minor Threat — Complete Discography
The Thermals — Fuckin’ A

Dead Kennedys — Give Me
Convenience, or Give Me Death

The other night, I had a midnight
craving to hear “California Uber Alles,”
and I realized that somewhere along the
line, my Dead Kennedys albums got

BARA GRRS

LIVING WITH THE LIVING

lost in my transition from CDs to mp3s;
a travesty that I quickly rectified by
downloading their entire discography
(speaking of travesties, I hear that
American Hardcore lays claim to
documenting the rise of the “hardcore”
scene without even mentioning DK...
wtf?). Anyway, these guys were great,
and compared to the entire punk
landscape their sound is still fresh and
original even after 25 years. Their

eerie surf-punk riffs and Jello Biafra’s
unmistakably spastic voice and first-
person lyrics took aim at everything
from dumb jocks (“Too Drunk to
Fuck”) to Pol Pot and the Khmer
Rouge (“Holiday in Cambodia”) to
corrupt cops (“Police Truck”) and even
that creepy dog-walking guy in your
neighbourhood (“The Man With the
Dogs”). Even though I’m far too young
to have been into them when they were
still around, they bring me right back to
a time when punk was still in your face.
I mean it... do you think Green Day can
say they were brought up on obscenity
charges for their album artwork and
lyrical content, or that government
agents raided their homes during the
ensuing investigation? I don’t think so.

 

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists — Living
With the Living

This one’s been floating around the
blogosphere for some time, but it’s

not officially out yet, so I'll try not

to spoil it for you. Suffice to say that
Ted continues his reign of excellent,
politically-tinged pop-punk-folk
records. He does explore some new
territory though: “Bottle of Buckie,” my
favourite track, employs a Celtic flute
solo, and “Bomb.Repeat.Bomb” sounds
like that “Here Comes the Boom!” song
by P.O.D., except it doesn’t suck. Oh,
and I suppose it bears mentioning that
Fugazi’s Brendan Canty produced this
record, and it was recorded in a barn!

Nouvelle Vague- Nouvelle Vague and
Band a Part

Do you ever wonder what some punk
and new wave classics would sound like
if they were completely reworked by a
French bossa-nova lounge act that had
never heard the original versions? Well,
now there’s an answer. Over the course
of these two rather intriguing albums,
Nouvelle Vague touch on Joy Division,
Blondie, the Cure, the Clash, the
aforementioned Dead Kennedys, and
even Echo and his precious Bunnymen.
It’s a trip.

g To

 

athe thermal s.

Minor Threat — Complete
Discography

Yeah... Minor Threat pretty much
started the whole straight-edge
movement in punk. I don’t know how
he did it, but Ian MacKaye (lead singer
of Minor Threat and Fugazi, and the
founder of the world’s most DIY label,
Dischord Records) somehow made not
drinking or fucking cool. Oh yeah...
and Minor Threat rocks!

The Thermals — Fuckin’ A

Their set at the Media Club drew
heavily from this album, and it kind of
cured my addiction to the Thermals’
latest album, The Body, the Blood,

the Machine. Unfortunately, just like
those junkies who end up hooked on
methadone after rehab, I’ve simply
replaced one vice with another. In

this case it’s the band’s criminally
underrated sophomore album, Fuckin’
A. The album’s a really solid listen from
front to back, and it’s neat to see how
tracks like “God and Country,” where
Hutch Harris yells “Pray for a new
state, pray for assassination,” paved
the way for the conceptual assault on
the religious right that takes place on
TBTBTM.

 

Song of the Week:

“Hallelujah” Performed by Jeff Buckley

Pat Mackenzie, OP Columnist

Ohi written by Leonard
Cohen, “Hallelujah” has been covered
by a host of well-known performers
including Bono, K.D. Lang and Bob
Dylan. But perhaps the most compelling
version of the Canadian icon’s song is
the one performed by Jeff Buckley from
the 1994 album Grace.

Barely into his 30s when he died,
Jeff Buckley, like his father Tim before
him, was a talented songwriter haunted
by an addiction to heroin. And like his
father, he died a young man. At the
beginning of what should have been
a brilliant career, in 1997 on a warm
spring night in Memphis, Tennessee,
fully clothed, Jeff Buckley swam out

 

over the Wolf River and drowned.

Hauntingly, Grace sounds like it
was recorded underwater. Shimmering
guitars and Jeff Buckley’s sometimes
high-pitched, operatic voice, create a
disorienting drug and alcohol induced
soundscape. With only an electric
guitar for accompaniment, he sings
Leonard Cohen’s words seemingly in
total opposition to the established poet’s
masculine gravitas.

Both lucid and bleary like a drunk
on a long walk home, Buckley’s guitar
playing is sharply defined and yet
carries with it the quality of narcotic
dreams. His guitar comes to us in
mesmerizing swells then is punctuated
by clear individual notes pulled by

fingers sure of the
mark.

In a way, his style
of playing compliments
Leonard Cohen’s
words. “Hallelujah” is
furnished with clearly
defined imagery: “Your
faith was strong but
you needed proof / You
saw her bathing on
the roof / Her beauty
and the moonlight
overthrew you.”

And yet its biblical
references and romantic
notion of the world are
always out of reach

— another dream, the
memory of which
makes the dreamer turn bitter after
waking.

Even without Jeff Buckley’s
haunting vocals and guitar, Mr. Cohen’s
song is already a slow, harrowing

JEFF id eed

a

 

examination of romantic love. With it’s
real and simultaneously distant poetic
imagery combined with Jeff Buckley’s
ethereal musical style, this version

of “Hallelujah” is both dream and
nightmare.

I]