ARTSzENTERTAINMENT stuff ’'ve Been Listening To Luke Simcoe, OP Columnist er compiling my year-end list, I thought I should hit you guys with a heads-up for 2007 before launching back into my column. First up is Cadence Weapon, a.k.a. Rollie Pemberton, who He the success of 2005’s Breaking Kayfabe well into 2006. He’s recently put the pen down and retired from his Razorblade Runner blog to’focus on the rap game, so hopefully he’ll be sending ething new-our way in 2007. In other exciting news, Spoon is putting the finishing touches on their latest, still-unnamed LP, so keep your eyes peeled for what will undoubtedly be another e of Britt Daniel’s musical fecundity. Also, Voxtrot and Tokyo Police Club are two excellent bands who’ve sustained their careers on EPs alone, and they should be putting out their respective -lengths sometime this year. The Shins’ Wincing the Night Away and Bloc Party’s follow-up to Si/ent Alarm have leaked, so check them out, and lastly, stalwart soldier Ted Leo’s latest is due out pn. wniloaded: & Labor - Stay Afraid llysics - Now Is the Time! tened To: le Nature of Things - The Nature of Things Parts &c Labor - Sey Appaid PARTS& LABOR POLSICS Now is the ti . Sa er ee Check ‘em out at the Plaza on the January 26. The Nature of Things ° The Nature of Things tiousness. I first encountered Parts & Labor in Streethawk’s saepieatesdinvansesioe. com) list of their favourite songs o the year. Stay Afraid somehow manages to combine some of the best noise rock (think AIDS Wolf or something equally abrasive and inaccessible) that I’ve heard in a while with vocals and riffs that remind me of those melodic hardcore bands that I listened to when I was 15 (think Good Riddance ot maybe even blink-182). Sometimes the two clash, but when they work well together, such as in the album’s centerpiece, “New Buildings,” the result is both confrontational and anthemic. Electro-power-pop from Japan sung eee Singlish; sat the band’s own ewes space hogs What more ad you possibly want?! If that’s not enough, the band started as a tribute to — and they make we want to break-dance fight. The Nature of Things is a local band who I’ve had the pleasure of seeing live a couple of times at both Pat’s and The Lamplighter. The band’s Myspace page claims that “outside sources have no bearing on that which we produce,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if the boys in the band spent their formative years dining on Trail of Dead and At The Drive-In _ while attending Red Light Sting shows and Greenpeace fundraisers. Anyway, their live show is solid, and I'm stoked that Vancouver has a decent aggro band again, as our scene needs a shot in the arm to save it from its own incestuous preten- ong of the Week: Ashes of American Flags” by Wilco Pat Mackenzie, OP Columnist t week, The Vancouver Sun published a story based on the “Ashes of American Flags” by alt-country-rockers-turned- dings of a study that looked into Canadians’ opinions on pop/rock-noise-experimentalists Wilco, is a bluesy slog g use. Specifically, the study found that roughly two thirds Canadians agreed that drug addiction should be treated as through a grey soundscape. Subtle feedback from an electric guitar begins the song and hovers around it like a depressed ealth issue and not a criminal one. Conversely, people that bee vainly in search of pollen, but “Ashes” is mostly driven by ntified themselves as conservative, unsurprisingly thought acoustic instruments. Acoustic guitar and drums act together t drug addiction should be treated as a criminal issue. That > thirds of Canadians believe that drug addiction should be like a trudging rhythm section while a receding and returning piano gives the song a melody and bass line of sorts. Similar rarded as a health concern is a heartening development and __ to the piano, a background of electronic white noise recedes ws a not-often-seen display of wisdom by a public increas- ly dissatisfied with the status quo. In the US, too, a social from the soundtrack only to come back as the song marches towards a final plunge into waves of discordance. welling of discontent can be seen in the turfing-out of Like the description of the music suggests, “Ashes of ublicans from Congress and the Senate and “President” American Flags” ain’t no dance music; that the song conveys a sh’s rising unpopularity. Hopefully, with the voice of the sense of unhappiness is evident. The lyrics, too, convey a sad »ple being heard, we are seeing the rise of a pro-social | world growing sadder still with its isolated occupants negotiat- nocracy on both ides of the border. ing the material and spiritual conditions of their disenchant- “The cash [ could spend three dollars / and sixty-three cents / on diet Coca-Cola / and unlit ciga- Whatever the outcome, there is a palpable and growing ment. Primary songwriter Jeff Tweedy sings, satisfaction with our world and the heretofore policies and machine / is blue and green Waa ues that have shaped it. So my theme for this week’s install- Ent, is dissatisfaction. rettes / I wonder why / we listen to poets / when nobody ditor@gmail.com gives a fuck / how hot and sorrowful / this machine begs for luck.” It is as if the cash machine is a sympathetic silent wit- ness to lonely economic actors withdrawing their cash, attempting to keep an indifferent world at bay. The everyday occurrence of withdrawing cash becomes a poignant instance of out collective disappointment: in a world where “nobody gives a fuck,” how are we to find solace in three dollars and sixty-three cents worth of gas station produce? And yet we persist with consuming as a means to fend off despair: “I want a good life / with a nose for things / a fresh wind and bright sky / to enjoy my suffering.’ Such a paradoxical arrangement of words gives the lie to the largely bought-into assumption that we can buy our way out.of unhappiness. But everybody knows deep down that this can never be. “T would like to salute / the ashes of American flags / and all the falling The song winds down with the final words, leaves / filling up shopping bags.” This last image perfectly captures the vanity and emptiness of consumerism, of how everything, in the end, comes to ashes. It is an image that 11 more and more people are beginning to recognize.