Popsheep

When I lived in Vancouver, I could always count of Jon-Rae Fletcher shows to be entertaining and epic drunken sing-alongs packed with a decent sized following of alt.country and indie-rock fans. I was happy to see that, after his relocation to Toronto, he's managed to build up a new fanbase and is getting ready to release another album in the very near future on Permafrost Records. For years, Jon-Rae put out beautiful self released albums with hand-made cover art on Deer and Bird Records, and you can listen to a few MP3s here. I particularly recommend the songs from Then Again, which was recorded by Popsheep's very own Jay. His last album, The Road, on Hive-Fi Records was fantastic and largely underappreciated by audiences outside of Vancouver. "It Shone", the song posted below, is my favourite track but the whole album is worth checking out. The live song is an amazing Townes Van Zandt cover that used to be a staple at Jon-Rae shows. This is a particularly good live solo-rendition played at Vancouver's Beautiful Music Festival in 2002.

Jon-Rae Fletcher and the River - It Shone

Jon-Rae Fletcher - Two Hands (live)

You can check out some of Jon-Rae's new songs, self described as "Gospel Hardcore", at New Music Canada.

Well I finished my O.C marathon last night(the first season on dvd). As Seth sailed away on summer breeze and Ryan headed back to the hard life in Chino, Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah triumphantly played. All the shit was hitting the fan. I then had this idea, I would post that song and in addition post a link to this really amazing Leonard Cohen interview on the CBC website. I then slipped into blissfull sleep with dreams of Newport beach and mp3 weblogging. I must have some strong dream tigers, that sent Ian a message.


Hallelujah

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Canada's public radio and television broadcaster, the CBC, is one of the few 'old media' institutions that actually understands the the internet. Many of you have probably seen (the now defunct) CBC Radio 3, which was an amazing indie culture magazine; JustConcerts.com, which is a beautiful archive of live indie music that includes recordings some great shows that I've been to including this and this; or New Music Canada, which posts songs from hundreds of great indie bands like Jerk with a Bomb or the Arcade Fire.

Recently, however, I've been really into their radio and television archive. Basically they've posted hundreds of video and audio clips from radio and television shows over the past century. For a total dork like me this is a goldmine of historical sources. For everyone else, though, there's some really great stuff too. For instance, take this classic interview with Iggy Pop from 1977 that was later immortalized in the opening track of Mogwai's Come On Die Young album (Mogwai - Punk Rock). Or, even better, this archive of ten radio and television interviews with Leonard Cohen from 1958 to 1993. In this interview, the sexual tension between Cohen and the interviewer is so high that it seems as though they're going to just spontaneously start tearing off each other's clothes.

The Cherry Blossoms are a loose group of folks from Nashville that consider themselves the 'working stiffs' in that they are some of Nashville's musicians who actually hold a day job and do music as a hobby. This is a band that I always feel has been my secret delite. I imagine they are not so secret in Nashville but here in the great white north bands that don't really realese albums or tour tend to be unknown!

Their music is difficult to pin down, but I really like to think of them as a skiffle band. As in the stuff that Lonnie Donegen made inspired by jug bands of the American south. Saying that they are just skiffle would really be misleading though, as it is more like the kind of skiffle music that would be produced in an insane asylum. This would be a happy insane asylum, where theraphy would be everyone getting together and getting ripe drunk then joining together in song, those who could not play a guitar were given kazoos and bells and shakers and a good time is had by all.

Rocks and Stones

Glow Jesus Glow

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Once again today the songs are from the puzzling music archive and the photograph is from The Boat Lullabyes.

I have this fascination with this thing. I'm not quite sure on how to describe it but it is the thing that is present in found photographs, such as the one above which were created without thought of art or display. I find a similar quality attractive in certain musicians that seem to be making music for their own reasons. I can acknowledge that some desire to share their creations is complicit in the act of recording and making their songs available, but it seems to be a truly different experience.

When I first heard WS Burn(At the time still going by The Paper Dolls) I had that feeling that I was sitting with my ear against the heat vent as the tenant above whispered secrets. I couldn't help but wonder who she was. And where did this come from. The curiousity became too much and I emailed "pixie" asking if she would be willing to do an interview. I did not get a reply.

During the first minute of the song her voice is just accompanied by the hiss of the tape, it is dificult to tell what is worbling more her voice or the tape. I guess she could be described as a blues musician. The album has an infectious sadness, which is why I'd file it under blues.

Mother

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This song was found at the Puzzling Music Archive, a really great place. The entire album can be downloaded freely along with many other great albums. I think I will be doing a series of post on some music that I found there, as so much of it is interesting and off the radar.

ps. The image is from The Boat Lullabies an excellent weblog dedicated to found photographs.

Jay first introduced me to Joe Meek as an amazingly creative producer of British 50's rock bands but my admiration for him was confirmed when I found out that he wrote 'Telstar', which is a classic of epic proportions. To say the least, I was surprised when I heard this crazy album of Meek’s own 'musical' output, offered as a free download on Comfort Stand Records. According to the album notes:

Meek was fond of singing along to totally inappropriate backing tracks to other records. Sometimes he'd slow them down, sometimes he'd play them Chipmunk-fast, jamming wrong chord sequences and phrasings over the pre-fab backgrounds he fished out of the chaos at his home studio.

A lot of this comes across as an early incarnation of the outsider music of Jandek or Half Japanese, with their strangely compelling and totally unapologetic lack of musicianship, melody, or tune. I'm pretty afraid of most of the songs, but the album is definitely worth listening to. 'He's All Mine' is my favorite, and is also probably the most accessible song on the album, but 'Telstar' is also kind of creepily endearing with it's out of tune humming of the 'Telstar' guitar line over tracks from a completely different song.

Joe Meek - He's All Mine

Joe Meek - Telstar (over backing track 'Try Once More')