Lee's Top 20 Canadian Albums

originally posted July 1, 2008

Happy Canada Day!  I thought it might be fun to actually make a list of my favorite Canadian albums, something that is not easy.  It's also in order of importance...also not an easy task!  This list is, of course, purely subjective; my list probably differs greatly from yours.  I just wanted to post it to possibly introduce you to some Canadian artists that you might not be familiar with, or forgotten about.

A couple of explanations: there is no Neil Young or Gordon Lightfoot here.  The reason is that I'm more familiar with their songs, not their albums.  I have heard Neil's catalog and my favorite album is Trans, and I'm definitely in the minority with that one.  And I'm just slowly acquiring Gord's catalog and it will take a while to listen to it all.  I also limited myself to only one artist per entry, because I can easily fill this list with Joni Mitchell records.  Also, no greatest hits pacakages!  That's cheating.

Here's the list..in descending order!

20. Byron
      The Alien, The Rabbit and the Monkey (1998)
Byron is a guy from Ottawa whose music is a bizarre mix of Frank Zappa's weirdness and David Bowie's aesthetic.  This album is virtually unknown, since it's an indie pressing and getting through him was pretty much the only way to buy it.  It's crazy, interesting and totally unique.



19. Luba
      All Or Nothing (1989)
Luba doesn't get enough respect as a really great Canadian artist.  This album alone contains "Giving Away A Miracle", "No More Words" and "Little Salvation", not to mention fantastic non-singles like "Milena" and "Bringing It All Back Home".  It's a mature and solid album that has lots to offer, and should solidify Luba as a true Canadian treasure, and not just an 80's afterthought.


18. Son
      Thriller (1995)
Jason Beck, aka Gonzales, self-released this wacked-out record that jumps in style to Elvis Costello to Prince-funk darkness.  Recorded and produced at home almost entirely by Jason, it was hailed by critics but didn't sell.  One more failed Warner Brothers album Wolfstein later, Jason moved to Berlin, changed his name to Gonzales and started his infamous rap career.  Now he's producing and co-writing all of Feist's big hits.  But this album finds him in his young, goofy, unrestrained element.  Out of print, but easy to find in used record stores.


17. Jale
      Dreamcake (1994)
This album took some getting used to, mostly because of all the distorted guitars and fuzzy mess.  However, close listening revealed a sense of melody that is impressive in this quartet of female art students from Halifax that were relatively new to their instruments.  Arrangements and harmonies are also unconventional, mostly due to the excitement that comes from self-taught musicians who don't know the rules.


16. The Pursuit Of Happiness
      One Sided Story  (1990)
Moe Berg has a neat way with words, cleverly snide, funny and still self-mocking.  And that's nothing to say of the great power-pop sound that graces all of their albums.  Produced by rock godd Todd Rundgren (which accounts for it's tinny no-bass sound), you can't go wrong with any album of theirs, this one is just my particular favorite thanks to tunes like "New Language", "All I Want" and "Two Girls In One".


15. Rheostatics
      Whale Music (soundtrack)  (1994)
Not to be confused with the album, Whale Music, this is the soundtrack to the film.  I've never seen the movie, but the wonderfully aquatic soundscapes the band get from their guitars and tape effects are so gorgeous, the movie would probably ruin any picture in my mind.



14. Sloan
      Twice Removed (1994)
The power-pop Halifax foursome hit their stride with this album and to me, have only repeated themselves since the major songwriting breakthrough on this album.  That's not to say that they haven't done anything worthy, but nothing they've released plays as well from beginning to end as this album.  Many highlights including "Worried Now", "Coax Me", "Deeper Than Beauty" and "I Can Feel It".


13. Leonard Cohen
       I'm Your Man (1988)
Leonard, like Joni Mitchell, has been around so long that everyone has a different favorite period.  Mine would be the mid-80s to mid-90s, where his albums start to sound like movie scores, rather than simple albums.  Impossible to go wrong with this one, with many classic Cohen numbers that don't sound Canadian, but don't sound like they could come from anywhere else.


12. Crash Vegas
      Aurora (1995)
Great songwriting duo Colin Cripps and Michelle McAdorey started off with folky-acoustic roots on their great album, Red Earth.  But for their last album together, they fully incorporated an electric slightly-experimental edge to their sound and wrote some amazing songs that are truly definite and make a great classic Canadian album.


11. Mae Moore
      Dragonfly (1995)
Mae really hit it big with the album Bohemia which I heard on the radio and really liked, but this was my first exposure to a complete album of hers.  Lush, organic production with little electronic touches that never overshadow her honest songwriting and earthy vocals.  Many highlights including "Evolution", "Watermark" and "Genuine".


10. Uzeb
      Fast Emotion (1982)
When I was in junior high, Uzeb was the group that every musician in the jazz band aspired to be.  Perfect, perfect, perfect musicianship on everything they ever did.  Drummer Paul Brochu is a personal hero of mine, and this collection of their brand of mixed traditional and funky instrumental jazz made huge waves in the Canadian jazz scene back when the band were around, and sadly aren't remembered as much as they should.


9. The Heavy Blinkers
      Better Weather (2002)
Halifax popsters who owe alot of their sound to the alter of Brian Wilson, they can also write completely beautiful music that transcends any production style.   Extremely dense with strings, horns and scores of harmonies and vocals, there's a million little things to love.  "Baby Smile" alone is enough to get the record for.



8. Plumtree
      Predict the Future  (1997)
I discovered this band the very day they broke up.  But at least they left behind 3 great albums that track the course of the band, from their scrappy energetic debut, to their mature and crafted This Day Won't Last At All.  In the middle came this album, that has a fun mix of both fun, intelligent songwriting and just plain rock.  Particular standouts are "Scott Pilgrim" and "Effin'".


7. Spookey Ruben
      Bed/Breakfast (2001)
Toronto's (now LA's) Spookey released these two albums on the same day, but they are essentially two parts of a longer piece.  Tracks from these albums appeared on a Japanese-only release What's A Boy To Do, but then Spookey recorded another album's worth, mixed up the track order and put them out again.  But it's probably his most realized and consistent effort, with inventive production, catchy bouncy songs, dark tomes and a sense of play that's infectious without being juvenile...well, almost.  Many highlights, too numerous to mention.


6. Ron Sexsmith
      Ron Sexsmith (1995)
What can I say, I'm one of those musical snobs that can say I was listening to Ron before the rest of the country.  So there.  Ron never lets me down.  He's released an album almost once a year, and he's always branching out into new territory with each release, but in a very subtle way.  I put his first album on the list simply because it was the beginning for me, and it's an amazingly good album.


5. The Nines
      Properties of Sound (2000)
Toronto's The Nines are a great unknown power-pop band led by Steve Eggers, who writes most of the material himself.  Operating strictly on word-of-mouth for exposure, the band's music happily wears it's influences of Beatles, ELO, Jellyfish, XTC and anything else they feel like doing.  Includes the instant should-be-classic-if-you-only-heard-it "Melanie", and tons of other great songs.



4. Jane Siberry
      Bound by the Beauty (1989)
Jane (now "Issa") is one of the most unforgivingly quirky artists in every way: personally, musically and spiritually.  All the cosmos aligned for this album, where it's a perfect blend of her humour, beautiful writing, and a voice that is beyond compare.  I love all her catalog, but this one has that special magically quality that is indescribable.


3. Joni Mitchell
      Hejira (1976)
Again like Leonard, Joni's fan all love different periods.  I freaked out when I heard Turbulent Indigo, realized what I was missing and bought her whole catalog in one shot.  In a career so varied as hers, it is literally impossible to just pick one favorite.  But if I had to, this is it.  The soundscapes she gets with her small band (and no drums!) evoke such wonderful imagery and her innovative melodies are something no-one else can do.  She's a legend.


2. FM
      Black Noise (1977)
The great lost Canadian band: FM were the toast of Toronto for a few years in the late 70s, but then broke up after the fantastic City Of Fear album.  They reunited as a Top 40 pop band and had a hit with "Just Like You", followed by lost band members, record company woes and the changing times.  However, Black Noise started it all: the heady synth-prog rock with futuristic lyrics and fantastic musicianship (in particular drummer Martin Dellar, who was rumoured to give lessons to Neil Peart!) never really got on and never got the attention they deserved.


1. Rush
      Moving Pictures (1981)
2112 was actually the first Rush album I heard, borrowed from a family friend who said I should listen to them when he found out I played drums.  Well, there was no going back.  The mere idea that a single song could be stretched for 20 minutes over one side...well, that blew my eight-year old mind (it would a few years before discovering Jethro Tull).  Moving Pictures had just come out at that time and quickly became an album that I would listen to for years.  I would study it, practice it and nothing would be good enough until I learned "YYZ".  Afterwards, I moved onto the rest of the album and found it wasn't just a good record to drum to, it was the best example of everything that Rush was known for, and made me a lifelong fan.  Although I still haven't seen them in concert.

Back with a mix

originally posted June 24, 2008

Well, no I didn't go anywhere.  Staycation, holistay or whatever...but it nice and relaxing.  Hope you get a chance to spend some time away from the hustle sometime this summer.

While I was gone, I discovered this cool site called Mixwit - it makes flash-based mix tapes (you need flash version 8) that you create by searching their engine and compiling your songs together.  You can't upload anything - it makes it's mixes based purely on what's already available on the net.  Unfortunately, this means that if the file get taken down (whereever it is) that track will no longer play.  But you can always replace it with something else.


Plus you can customize the cassette cover with a personal photo, or pick from the many cool retro cassette designs!

So here's my first mix for the site: a collection of my favorite power-pop tunes!  Enjoy.

Vacation!

originally posted June 6, 2008

Yes, dear readers, I am going on my annual two week vacation, and I wanted to let you know why there won't be updates for a while.  Not that I've been terribly consistent with this page...I just write when I can and when I actually have something that I'd want to share with you.  But it will be a while before there's something new here.

So in light of that, here's a couple of links to keep you busy:

TV Tropes: is an excellent website that lists popular tropes that appear in all types of media.  This website will make a couple of hours easily disappear with all the hyperlinks within each entry.  It's also a great site for those of us who refuse to turn our brains off while watching TV or movies and get annoyed with character assassinations, lazy writing and contrived plot-points...just to name a few.

Stillstream: This is an online ambient radio station I've been listening to a lot lately.  All the music they play is licensed through Creative Commons, and completely free to download.  Even if you don't like the music they are current playing, they keep an archive of past tracks and artists in their database with many, many links.


Frogger: Further to my previous post about TRS-80 games, this site hosts flash versions of Frogger, Asteroids, and a classic version of Space Invaders.

Have fun!  See you in two weeks.

I Love My TRASH-80

originally posted May 22, 2008

Back in the early 80s, when Atari machines were the coolest thing any kid could own, my parents decided that it wasn't good enough to just get a video game console.  They thought a computer would be better - we could still play games we wanted, but also learn from it.

There were only a few home computers on the market at the time, one being the Texas Instruments (famous for Speak & Spell), the Commodore VIC-20 (or the higher end 64) and the TRS-80 Color Computer.  As a kid, I spent a lot of time annoying the clerks at the local Radio Shack, so our parents thought it would best to get one of those machines since we were relatively familiar with them.

We got the long big grey model around 1985, second hand from a computer camp but it still cost around $500.  Once we plugged it in and learned about it, we found that the games were a bit of cheat - none of the cool games (Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Asteroids) were available for this computer.  They had 'similar' themed programs like Canyon Climber, Mega-Bug, etc.

However, you could program the computer and it had a lot of games and other utility programs available for it.  There was a popular magazine called Rainbow that featured basic and machine language programs that you could type in manually yourself and play.  Our model only had 16K memory and you could only load one program at a time, so we got the portable cassette machine to save our work for re-loading.  If you were really fancy, you could buy the expensive 5.25 floppy disc drives that could hold 128k per side!  Don't get me started on the 300 baum modem that you had to manually dial.  Oh, those were the days...

I remember spending literally hours and hours slaving over the keyboard, staring at the green screen and writing word adventure games, playing cool games like Dungeon of Daggorath, Doubleback and many others.  I also used the machine to compose music that was too complicated for any human to play ... well, me anyways. [mp3].

If you've never experienced the COCO, I recommend this online java-based website that emulates the original COCO screen and a ton of programs for you to play.  It even duplicates loading programs as if they were off a cassette.  First time I saw this site, I cried.  Seriously.  It takes some getting used to, but once you figure it out you'll be there for days.

The COCO is also getting even more 21st century with a new DVD-Rom from this website dedicated to the COCO, that has thousands of programs, the same ones I used to play 20 years ago and more.  The best part is I don't need to troll the thrift stores for a working unit because this DVD will turn any Windows-based PC instantly into a TRS-80 Color Computer with a glorious monophonic 8-bit sound and a whopping 16K.  Only I need to go buy a joystick that fits a USB port, because the mouse just ain't cutting it.

Lousy new technology.