Cody's song of the day - June 18, 2009

Today's pick I have for Song of the Day is Je veux dancer avec toi (I want to dance with you) by Les Prostiputes. Great rocky tune!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccsfFi0YbGE

Les Dales Hawerchuk!

Apres Les Dales Hawerchuk!

Originally uploaded by shadygrady85

A year ago today, I saw Les Dales Hawerchuk perform a concert in Quartier Champlain in Quebec City. Les Dales Hawerchuk are a rock band from Quebec that got their name from the former hockey player, Winnipeg Jet Dale Hawerchuk.

I was amazed by the amount of energy this band had. I wasn't expecting much, but they delivered an evening of raw live music, that was amazing! They played their hit (title) track Les Dales Hawerchuk, as well as some nice slower songs like Papillon.

Check these boys out, I definitely will be again! I was even wearing a Jets t-shirt I bought here in Brandon, Manitoba, and lead singer Sylvain Seguin actually walked up to me on the street just to compliment it! Cool guy.

Cheers.. oh and GO JETS GO! With the whole NHL controversy going on right now, I wish the Jets would return to Winnipeg.

10 Songs I'm Digging - April 29, 2009

I think I might do this every once in a while. This is a list of 10 songs that I dig "right now", at this very moment. Give me your top 10 you dig "right now"! I've also included links to the songs:

1) Hannah Georgas - The Beat Stuff
2) Malajube - Porte Disparu
3) The Two Koreas - Hotel Christina
4) The New Pornographers - Hey Snow White
5) Joel Plaskett - Through & Through & Through... Yeah I know some of you are sick of this song already, but I lovvvvvve this song
6) The United Steelworkers of Montreal - Son, Your Daddy was Bad... I loved this song live in Quebec and in Brandon, always great!
7) Howie Beck - Watch Out for the Fuzz
8) Julie Doiron - Consolation Prize... This song is kind of getting old, but it's still a great tune!
9) American Flamewhip - We Were Never Friends
10) The Dudes - Pretty Lies

Your turn.

Join our Flickr group!

Usually I tend to mainly discuss Canadian music on this blog, but something that goes really well with a great live Canadian act is a pint of Canadian beer. I have created a Flickr group that's all about the discussion of Canadian beer and the posting of various beers throughout Canada. If you are interested in beer, and have a Flickr account, join it today!

http://www.flickr.com/groups/beerbiere/

Feist performs her hit 1-2-3-4 in French in Quebec City

This is the first post of 2008.. almost a year since I last blogged, but I was in Quebec City for most of this summer and saw more concerts than my feet and ears could handle. I was able to obtain this YouTube video of Feist singing en français (in French).

She performed her mega-hit 1-2-3-4 in French for part of the song, replacing one-two-three-four with un-deux-trois-quatre. The crowd went crazy with her attempt with la belle langue.

Enjoy!

Hugo's Shakin' all Over

I was watching TV last night, and while waiting for 30 Rock to come back on from commercial, an ad for Hugo Boss cologne came on, with a familiar tune. The tune being Shakin' All Over, not by the original artist Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, but by Chad Allen & The Expressions of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, who would later on be named The Guess Who, famous for American Woman and These Eyes. When the song was covered and made famous, the band were only in their early twenties, pretty amazing for being a song from the 1960s, plus being from the middle of nowhere in Canada.

You can check out the video on Youtube

Feist featured on Verizon Wireless commercial

It's rare for me to hear Canadian music on American television, especially when it's recent independent Canadian music, but hopefully we start see a trend south of the border.

Calgary rocker Feist is starting to become huge not just in Canada, but also in the United States. Her song My Moon, My Man was used for a recent Verizon Wireless commercial. This is something I would have expected by Rogers Wireless.. but have the song ruined by some college students going on a road trip tell their life story in 30 seconds.

You can check it out on Youtube. Also check out the song Valentine by The World Provider, which features Feist.

The Beer Pick of the Week: July 15, 2007

It's that time again folks! Time for the Beer Pick of the Week!

The Beer Pick of the Week is Winnipeg's Wall of Sound, Novillero.

Novillero is already one of Winnipeg's biggest success stories for the music scene, but still are one of the most underrated groups in Canada.

Novillero started out in 1999 as a group formed by other various Winnipeg groups, including Duotang. The band released two albums since 1999, both feature a soul-rock based influence. Their biggest hit was the Hypothesist, and boy was it a toe-tapping rocker with a great deal of piano.

Novillero hasn't released a new album for a few years and is not predicted to release another album until early 2008, but to appease to the fans who want something different, the and released demos of a few songs on their MySpace page. The group also tours from time to time as the Novillero Soul Revue, which covers famous soul hits by musicians such as James Brown and Tina Turner, which proved to be a huge hit when I saw them in concert, although the band members themselves only sung a few songs, leaving three female vocalists on vocals for the majority of the tracks. While I would be hoping to hear lead singer Rod Slaughter on vocals, it is a definite change of pace, plus the band is able to bring a Novillero style sound into all their songs.

Novillero is also one of the greatest bands to talk to after a concert, I've had the pleasure of speaking to various bandmates of the band a few times, and it's always been a great time. I believe this band will some day be pretty successful in the United States, until then, they will always receive lots of attention in their home town of Winnipeg.

While the band had some misfortunes in the past, such as having all their instruments stolen while on tour, the band doesn't let the fans down and continued to play for the fans.

There are some Novillero based concerts available for your listening pleasure available at CBC Radio 3 and Bande a part.

Links
Official Website
New Music Canada profile
Myspace page
Wikipedia page

The Beer Pick of the Week: June 10, 2007

It's that time again folks! Time for the Beer Pick of the Week!

The Beer Pick of the Week is Quebec's Vauvandalou.

The name Vauvandalou is bizarre to any anglophone, and very hard to pronounce to most people, but don't let the name scare you off, it's a group full of stars. It is perhaps one of Quebec's largest supergroups to form, even if it is only for a short period of time, to date.

Vauvandalou features an allstar lineup which includes Fred Fortin of Les Breastfeeders, Simon Proulx of Les Trois Accords, Jean-Philippe Fréchette (aka Navet Confit) and Vincent Peake of Groovy Aardvark.

This lineup alone will make any French Canadian indie fan drool, myself included. However, I am not sure at the moment if this band is planning on becoming a permanent side project for these guys, or if it is a one-time gig.

The band recorded one song for the French CBC Radio station Bande a part as part of a podcast and various promotions that Bande a part has planned for on their website. The song recorded is called "0.99$", aka Quatre Vingt Dix Neuf Sou, or Ninety Nine Cents in English. I have a bit of a trouble understanding the lyrics, moreso than most Quebecois music, such as the music by Malajube or Les Trois Accords. While I may have trouble understanding the lyrics, with me being a French student, the song is still very catchy to my ear.

Bande a part uploaded a zipped MP3 of the song to be downloaded by anyone who wishes to download so, and also included it in a recent podcast. Some people believe that 0.99$ will become an instant summer hit, myself included. It's a great rocker that reminds me of how Canadian rock should be! Hopefully Vauvandalou will decide to release a full length album in the future. If they do release a full length album, they could break the French/Anglo language barrier for music even further than ever before!

Download and Links:
Link to 0.99$ (ZIP file)
Bandeapart.fm
Bande a part podcast featuring the track
"Fric Show" 0.99$ Video

iTunes: next best thing for Canadian music!

CBC Radio 3 is the best source for independent Canadian music out there, with thousands of tracks on their database, from a high school student's basement demo music to some of Canada's biggest artists, such as Sam Roberts or Arcade Fire.

iTunes is basically the best, right after CBC Radio 3. Every week, iTunes offers a Free Track of the Week, which many times has been songs by great Canadian artists, including Novillero, Immaculate Machine, Pink Mountaintops, among many many others.

It's a great way to buy Canadian music since many times you cannot find a copy of a certain band's album at an HMV, say a band like the Handsome Furs, instead you can buy it on iTunes, which saves the time for going to a local CD store and not being able to find the CD, or waiting for an artist to come to your town.

iTunes also has a weekly feature called Celebrity Playlists, where they ask an artist "What do you listen to while relaxing?" I've compiled a list of artists with clickable links (requires iTunes installed for it to work) of artists featured in the Celebrity Playlists feature below.

Immaculate Machine - June 4, 2007
Peter Elkas - April 2, 2007
Bell Orchestre - January 16, 2007
Doc Walker - November 14, 2006
Wintersleep - November 14, 2006
Swollen Members - October 17, 2006
Jim Cuddy - October 17, 2006
k-os - October 3, 2006
Tiga - September 19, 2006
Stabilo - August 22, 2006
Shout Out Out Out Out - August 1, 2006
Blood Meridian - August 1, 2006
The Meligrove Band - July 25, 2006
The Marble Index - July 16, 2006
Idle Sons - June 13, 2006
Ron Sexsmith - May 23, 2006
Wolfmother - May 9, 2006
Sam Roberts Band - March 22, 2006
Hawksley Workman - March 14, 2006
Corb Lund - February 28, 2006
Jian Ghomeshi - December 13, 2005
The Trews - December 13, 2005
George Stroumboulopoulos - December 6, 2005
Colin James - October 11, 2005
Nardwuar the Human Serviette - June 27, 2005
Steven Page - June 13, 2005
Gord Sinclair - May 2, 2005
Barenaked Ladies - April 5, 2005
The Be Good Tanyas - March 14, 2005

If there are any errors or anything missing, feel free to send a message!

Guess Who the F?

I just received a blog comment in the recent article about Bachman-Cummings releasing their new album about the confusion between The Guess Who with Burton Cummings, and The Guess Who with the lead singer of Coney Hatch, Carl Dixon.

The Guess Who featuring Burton Cummings performed their final concert at Sarsstock in Toronto, Ontario on August 1, 2003.. which was perhaps one of their greatest concerts to date, in my opinion.

Since that final concert, the licence of the name The Guess Who expired, since bassist Jim Kale owned the name to the rights.

Kale has been touring with his own version of the Guess Who, which features original bassist Garry Peterson, Coney Hatch lead singer Dixon, and two other musicians from Winnipeg.

There have been many venues that incorrectly advertise this lineup of the Guess Who as the Guess Who featuring Bachman and Cummings, if a venue in your area does this, go only if you just want to hear Guess Who music, even if it cannot compare to the Bachman-Cummings lineup, or you can complain to the venue operations to change the signs.. but they may not do anything.

This lineup of the Guess Who is only touring in the United States, they most likely will not be performing any dates in Canada.

There is hope though, the Bachman Cummings Band looks to be starting up a new tour, and could potentially add on American dates as time progresses, as they did in the summer of last year.

The Bachman Cummings Band is, as said in the previous entry, a band that features Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings, of The Guess Who.

The official Bachman Cummings Band website is BachmanCummings.com

If you still want to check out Kale's Guess Who, their official website is TheGuessWhoCafe.com

The Beer Pick of the Week: May 27, 2007

From time to time, I will be doing a piece on this blog selecting a band each week (or whenever I have time to do so). I select an artist that I believe is the "Beer Pick of the Week".

This week's pick is Agriculture Club.

Agriculture Club is a group from Calgary, Alberta that mixes up country with hard rock. Their music is very reminiscent to just about any band that is on the Winnipeg based label Transistor 66, which Agriculture Club is a part of. Their music is reminiscent of The Perpetrators, but mixes in an odd Albertan country influence.

I'm not a fan of country music, but whenever I hear Agriculture Club, my rural roots are exposed and I get excited. The hard rock aspect of the music makes up for the country aspect that a person may not enjoy.

They have stereotypical rural/country themes to their music such as driving pickup trucks and watching old westerns on "The Horse Always Gets it First", or drinking the infamous pilsner beer in "Ballad of Pilsner Beer."

I can relate to the themes in these songs since I was born and raised, and still live in, a very rural region, the lyrics are easy to sing along to, and as much as I detest country music, they used a perfect amount of rock to make it enjoyable to almost any rock/country music fan.

When I think of the name Agriculture Club, I imagine a group of farmers meeting at the local town bar discussing the agri problem du jour while drinking an Old Style Pilsner or a Labatt Blue/Club.

Check this band out, especially if you're a fan of Corner Gas and want to have a greater sense of the prairie life. Maybe it's just the rural life in me that likes this band so much?

Links
Official Website
New Music Canada profile
Myspace page

Bachman Cummings Band to release first studio album

The Bachman Cummings Band, which is made up of The Guess Who members Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman (who is also in Bachman-Turner Overdrive and CBC Radio One's Vinyl Tap program), and members of Toronto's famous cover band, The Carpet Frogs, are about to release their first studio album together for the first time since the 1980s, and as the first time being The Bachman Cummings Band.

The new album is titled Jukebox and features covers of many tracks by artists that inspired them while growing up in the north end of Winnipeg.

The album is to be released in June, and this will be the first time that Cummings is releasing a studio album since 1990 with Plus Signs. Bachman just released his new album Jazz Thing II featuring Jay Geils and the New Guitar Summit. Prior to the Jukebox album, the band released a compilation album titled The Bachman Cummings Songbook featuring a tracks from The Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Burton Cummings' solo period, as well as a concert DVD recorded at CBC studios in Toronto titled First Time Around, and Thunderbird Trax, which is a compilation of tracks recorded by Bachman & Cummings in 1986 that never were released on an album, until now.

Jukebox Tracklist:
1. Baby Come Back - The Equals
2. Who Do You Love? - Bo Diddly/Buddy Holly/The Rolling Stones
3. I'm Happy Just To Dance With You - The Beatles
4. The Walk - Jimmy McCrackin
5. Don’t Talk To Him - Cliff Richard & The Shadows
6. Man Of Mystery - The Shadows
7. Ain’t That Just Like A Woman - Fats Domino
B. Little Queenie - Chuck Berry
9. Good Times - The Rolling Stones
10. Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
11. Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) - John Fred & The Playboy Band
12. Don’t You Just Know It - Huey Smith & The Clowns
13. Yeh, Yeh - Georgie Fame
14. Agent Double-O Soul - Edwin Starr
15. The Letter - The Box Tops
16. Ain't That Loving You Baby - Elvis Presley
17. American Woman 2006 - The Guess Who

The Hour... in a minute

I haven't posted in over a month, and the last entry I did was about The Hugh Dillon Redemption Choir.

A few weeks back, Hugh Dillon was on the CBC show The Hour where he discussed his transition into becoming an actor and his new TV series Durham County.

You can view the video at CBC.ca

Also, Grant Lawrence, host of CBC Radio 3 was featured on the show for two episodes for a piece titled Best Story Ever, where a person discusses something outrageous that happened to the person, it's always very entertaining to see.

You can view the first video here, and the second video here.

The Beer Pick of the Week: April 15, 2007

From time to time, I will be doing a piece on this blog selecting a band each week (or whenever I have time to do so). I select an artist that I believe is the "Beer Pick of the Week".

This week's pick is The Hugh Dillon Redemption Choir.

The Hugh Dillon Redemption Choir is a rock band based in Kingston, Ontario that features lead singer Hugh Dillon (obviously?) who was the lead singer of the defunct group The Headstones.

The style of music between the Headstones and The HDRC are similar, however the HDRC has a much lighter atmosphere of music than the Headstones.

The HDRC's most recent album released is The High Co$t of Low Living, which was released in 2005, but the band may be releasing a new album in the near future.

If you enjoyed the music of The Headstones, you will love the Hugh Dillon Redemption Choir, how can you not? Dillon had a cameo on the recent Trailer Park Boys: The Big Dirty, and that alone gives you a reason to check out the band!

Links
Official Website
The HDRC Myspace

The Beer Pick of the Week: March 24, 2007

From time to time, I will be doing a piece on this blog selecting a band each week (or whenever I have time to do so). I select an artist that I believe is the "Beer Pick of the Week".

This week's pick is Montreal group Lesley Lane.

Lesley Lane is not the name of a person, but a group itself. The group features The Dears' guitarist Patrick Krief, Sam Roberts Band's drummer Billy Anthopoulos, and lead singer Paul Edwards, who has performed and produced such artists as Joel Plaskett and The Stills.

I chose this Montreal based group because their music is catchy, easy on the ear, and very reminiscent of such artists as Sam Roberts, Matt Mays. The music is a lighter style of rock, but not too light. Their music becomes addicting as soon you hear their music for the first time.

Their currently-most-famous track Never Say Goodbye is a song that I believe should deserve "hit" status, even on the R3-30. It's a song I can listen to over and over and not get tired of, and is the type of song that I can picture myself nodding my head to while driving down a lone prairie highway in an early evening in the summer.

As usual, check out this band. There's something about Montreal music right now, they have some of the best musicians at the moment, including Roberts and Arcade Fire, must be something in the Unibroue beer! kidding.

Links
Official Website
NMC profile

Final CBC Radio 3 show on CBC 2 - Saturday, March 17, 2007

This Saturday evening will be the final time that FM listeners will be able to listen to CBC Radio 3 without owning a Sirius satellite radio or download the podcasts.


CBC Radio 3 will be broadcasting live all night on Saturday (March 17) with live guests on Grant Lawrence's show such as:

• Buck 65
  
• Joel Plaskett
• Tegan & Sara
• Leora Kornfeld & David Wisdom (host of Nightlines, RadioSonic and Radio ON) and more...
• John K. Samson (The Weakerthans) and Christine Fellows

Grant Lawrence's Saturday night show starts at 7:30PM ET/4:30PM PT on Sirius Radio, or 7:30PM local time on your local CBC Radio Two station.

After Lawrence's show will be a Live edition of R3-30. They will be taking calls and giving away Sirius satellite radios.

Links
Final CBC Radio 3 Saturday night show
R3-30

New Grady album coming out

Grady's next album titled Cup of Cold Poison is to be released in the next few weeks just in time for the SXSW festival in the band's adopted hometown. This is the Canadian-Texan trio's second album since forming in 2003.

This is the first album to feature the newest member drummer Billie Maddox, who replaced Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton in Grady last year.

The album is being sold as of this weekend as a limited edition release before the album will officially be released in the USA and Canada. The album was recorded at Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studio, and Nelson, Alejandro Escovedo and Ron Hynes make appearances on the album.

Their first album was released in 2004 in the United States. Gordie "Grady" Johnson was the former lead singer of the Canadian reggae rock group Big Sugar, who performed their last concert on New Years Eve 2003.

The band's website is located at ShadyGrady.net

New CBC Radio 3 podcasts now available!

CBC Radio 3 has released their new podcasts today, which include the The R3-30 and The New Music Canada Track of the Day.

Check them out!

R3-30:
Subscribe via iTunes
Subscribe via RSS Feed

Track of the Day:
Subscribe via iTunes
Subscribe via RSS Feed

The Beer Pick of the Week: February 25, 2007

From time to time, I will be doing a piece on this blog selecting a band each week (or whenever I have time to do so) . I select a band I believe is the "Beer Pick of the Week".

This week's pick is Quebecois upbeat franco-pop musician Damien Robitaille.

Robitaille is virtually unheard of outside of Quebec and Franco-Ontario. He released his first album in 2006 titled L'homme qui me ressemble (The Man Who Looks Like Me). The music off of this album is upbeat and has a sort of catchy tone that even people who speak only English can get addicted to.

Following his album release in 2006, he was the featured artist of a podcast done by Bande a part, where they would ask him various questions, and play a few tracks from his album. His music is currently heard in Quebec, but sooner or later his music will become popular in English Canada, thanks to the explode of French music success of various Franco musicians such as Malajube and Les Trois Accords.

Links
Official Website (In French)
Wiki
Myspace page (In French)
Tour dates
Bande a part profile (In French)