I’m Blue (da ba dee)

Why is it that synthesized vocals are now the “it” thing or at least well on their way to being it? I was just at home on my lunch break and I turn on Much Music (why I insist on torturing myself I don’t know). Anyway I turn the channel to be greeted by this horrific song. ALL of the vocals in the song are processed through a synthesizer just like, you guessed it, Eiffel 65s first and only huge hit (I guess they did have that other song years later). But really, what is the point of these vocals? Is it because you never really learned how to sing and this is a way to cover it up? How about doing us all a favour and not singing at all! If you need auto tune and synthesizers I don’t think singing is what you’re supposed to be doing with your life.

I guess I can kind of see putting a small amount of synthed vocals in a song to give it a little extra something as long as it’s in good taste. The song I am referring to is Hellogoodbye’s Here (In Your Arms). Please take a listen.

That's all for now

The Banana

Summer Music Festivals

It seems a little early to be talking about summer music festivals but I can't wait for winter to be over plus I just saw the line-up for Coachella this year. It's not a summer festival but it's close enough. Good god I want to go!! RAGE will back together for this show. The Arctic Monkeys will be there along with RHCP, Sonic Youth, Rufus, Willie, Against Me! I'm about to shit my pants right now... I think I just did.

This line-up is insane... check it out

!!!
Jacks Mannequin
Air
Jarvis Cocker
Amos Lee
Jose Gonzales
Amy Winehouse
Julieta Venegas
Anathallo
Junior Boys
Andrew Bird
Justice
Arcade Fire (The)
Kaiser Chiefs
Arctic Monkeys
Kings of Leon
Avett Brothers
Klaxons
Benny Benassy
Kokono No. 1
Bjork
LCD Soundsystem
Black Keys
Lily Allen
Blonde Redhead
Lupe Fiasco
Bojones
Manu Chao
Brazilian Girls
Mika
Brother Ali
Mike Relm
Busdriver
MSTRKRFT
Circa Survive
New Pornographers
Coco Rosie
Nickel Creek
Comedians of Comedy
Nightwatchman
Cornelius
Noisettes
Coup (The)
Of Montreal
Cribs (The)
Ozomatli
Crowded House
Paul Van Dyk
CSS
Peaches
Damien Rice
Peeping Tom
Decemberists
Peter, Bjorn & John
Digitalism
Pharaohe Monche
DJ Heather
Placebo
DJ Shadow
Pop Levi
Erol Alkan
Rage Against The Machine
Evil Nine
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Explosions in the Sky
Regina Spektor
Fair to Midland
Richie Hawtin
Faithless
Rodrigo Y Gabriella
Feeling (The)
Roky Erickson and the Explosives
Felix Da Housecat
Roots
Fountains of Wayne
Rufus Wainwright
Frames (The)
Satellite Party
Fratellis
Silversun Pickups
Ghostface Killah
Sonic Youth
Gillian Welch
Soulwax
Girl Talk
Spank Rock
Gogol Bordello
Sparklehorse
Gotan Project
Stephen Marley feat Jr. Gong
Grizzly Bear
Tapes 'n Tapes
Happy Mondays
The Fields
Hot Chip
The Good, The Bad and The Queen
The Kooks
Travis
The Rapture
VNV Nation
Tiesto
We Are Scientists
Tilly and the Wall
Willie Nelson
Tokyo Police Club
Yeva

Talking about any other music festivals at this point seems insignificant. But I will anyway.

Of course my personal favorite when it comes to summer music festivals is the Vans Warped Tour. The Warped Tour is over 10 years old and is becoming corporate whores more and more each year however Kevin Lyman and his staff still do manage to bring great punk rock bands to the tour each year, even if there are only one or two.

So far for the 2007 tour we have on board Coheed and Cambria, Bad Religion, The Unseen and Pennywise (these are the only ones to me that are worth mentioning at this point). Those are some great bands, I would love to go to Warped Tour again this year and I would if I wasn't going to Japan two weeks after the Montreal date. Years past bands like Anti-Flag, Against Me!, NOFX, Bouncing Souls, The Casualties, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, Less Than Jake, Rise Against, The Vandals, Suicide Machines, The Sainte Catherines, Dropkick Murphys, Dillinger Escape Plan , Strung Out, Thrice among many, many others have been on board for the tour. On the surface this seems like a pretty good line up for a one day music festival however these bands (the great ones) only make up approximately 25% of the bands on the tour each year. The remaining 75% consists of bands catering to the 14-16 year old kids like Hellogoodbye, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Billy Talent, The Pink Spiders and Escape the Fate.

As much as I hate most of those bands I still really enjoy myself when I go to Warped Tour. In part I think I'm trying to hold onto my youth but moreso it's my love for all things music that keep me coming back even when there are only 5 out of 60 bands I really want to see. That's love baby!

Aside from Coachella and Warped Tour there are some other North American annual festivals that have gained a lot of popularity.

Taste of Chaos - Warped Tour for "Hardcore" kids. (The Used, Atreyu, Bleed the Dream, Funeral for a Friend, Killswitch Engage, Opiate for the Masses, Underoath and Unearth)

Family Values Tour - Hard Rock (Korn, Staind, Deftones, Linkin Park)

Gigantour - Heavy Metal (Lamb of God, Opeth, Megadeth

Lollapalooza - Alt. Rock/pop/dance (RHCP, Gnarls Barkley, Ryan Adams, Flaming Lips, Wilco, Hot Chip, ...Trail of Dead etc)

Bonnaroo - hip hop/jazz/bluegrass/country/electronica/reggae (The Police, Tool, Ben Harper, The Roots, Gov't Mule, Ziggy Marley etc)

Ozzfest - Heavy Metal (System of A Down, Black Label Society, Mastodon, Arch Enemy)

Sounds Of The Underground - Heavy Metal (very similar to Ozzfest)

Please keep in mind that all of the above mentioned festivals occurred in 2006 but there is no guarantee that they are happening in 2007 as well. Many of them have yet to release any news concerning a possible 2007 tour.

I highly recommend trying to get to one of these or another musical festival as part of your summer vacation. There is nothing that compares to sharing a love of music with tens of thousands of other people in person.

Until next time, I'm the Banana

Where’s My Remote Control?

Could it be that the music that I consider classic, the music that changed the way the music scene was going and moved it towards a better direction has become irrelevant? I don’t want to admit it but I think that for many it has.

Go to any high school and just look around, look through the sea of black and take note of the t-shirts many of them are wearing. Bands shirts obviously, but look closely at the shirts the males students are wearing. No, you’re not seeing things they are actually wearing Led Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd and AC/DC shirts.

Now at first I thought that this was a product of parents who grew up in the 1970s and continue to listen to “classic rock” in their children’s presence. An after thought to that was that perhaps these band logos have become the new “in” thing and that these kids didn’t realize that the names and logos were actually artists and album covers of bands that existed in the 1970s (not unlike the clichéd image of Bob Marley, but I’ll save that for another post).

I believed these things right up until one of the aforementioned kids ventured into the record store I worked at on his lunch break and actually purchased an album that was released in the 1970s, I wish I could remember what he bought. “They actually listen to these bands” I said to myself. It really is surprising how many kids have “Highway to Hell” loaded on their iPods. I don’t ever remember a time when teenagers liked or would admit to liking their ‘rents music. I certainly didn’t, at least not until I matured musically and realized that not all of what my parents were listening to was crap. The 1970s carried a lot of truly fascinating and great musicians. Could it be these kids are more musically mature than most of the people I know when they were that age? Hmm, I think not.

Now back to the issue at hand. Who I was referring to in my opening statements about music that I consider classic were bands like Nirvana and The Beatles. These bands are considered classics even beyond me, on a much larger scale yet there are still people out there who have no idea who they are. HOW CAN THIS BE?!?!?! This truly blows my mind. Kids spend a high percentage of their time on the internet; do they not browse the internet and read while they’re myspacing and chatting? Do they not watch Much More Music or MTV? There is even at least one person out there (who lives in Fredericton) who doesn’t know who U2 is. Have these people lived their entire lives in monasteries with no access to the outside world? Even if you don’t listen to music you have to know who these bands are, they’re mentioned in movies, on TV even on talk radio programs. Everyone should know who these bands are and what they did for music.

It makes me sad that Nirvana has become irrelevant for this generation of music listeners (at least some of them). I liked it better when I was naive and believed that the legend that is Nirvana would live on and everyone would know and remember them for years to come. Reality bites!