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Old Fellas New Music Episode 44

On By paulmcguire2013In MixCloud, Old Fellas New MusicLeave a comment
Episode 44 show as recorded on Mixcloud
And our current Spotify Playlist

This week’s songs

Sunny War – New Day

July Talk – After This

The Mary Wallopers – Love Will Never Conquer Me

Crown Lands – White Buffalo

Gina Birch – I Play My Bass Loud

Caroline Rose – Miami

Joe Henry – Mission

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers – Bad Night

Robert Forster – Go Free

Sunny War – “New Day”  from  Anarchist Gospel

Sunny War is actually Sydney Lyndella , a singer/songwiter based in California. She started playing guitar at 13 and became enamoured with punk/folk  rock and a wide variety of music as evidenced by her participation in The Anus Kings.

She spent a rough period combating substance abuse and poverty and she eventually shifted to blues and folk and adopted the moniker Sunny War.

Mary Wallopers – “Love will Never Conquer Me”  from The Mary Wallopers

The Mary Wallopers are an Irish folk music group based in Dundalk, County Louth.   The main members are brothers Charles and Andrew Hendy who also front TPM, a comedy rap duo.  If you liked The Pogues, you’ll like these folks.

The Mary Wallopers name has an interesting backstory.  To quote, “We were named after a boat; the harbourmaster at the dock had a little rowing boat and he wrote on the side, the “Mary Walloper”. “Walloper” actually means “a mad person”. When Seán was a child, his father would say, “There’s the Mary Walloper!” as a joke. It was a tiny row boat and those don’t even have names on them. But this fella wrote a massive name for Mary Walloper on his boat. We only found out later on that there was actually a sex worker who used to work around the docks called Mary Walloper. She used to drink cider and like starting riots and having craic. So, he named the boat after her.”

Let’s get to know these fine fellows.  https://roarnews.co.uk/2022/getting-to-know-the-mary-wallopers-interview/

“Love Will never Conquer Me” is simple but powerful. 

Gina Birch – I Play My Bass Loud from I play My Bass Loud

Gina Birch is an English musician and filmmaker.  She is best known as a member of the seminal late 70’s band The Raincoats.  Probably their most “famous” song is this one:

The Raincoats broke up in 1984.  Birch went on to attend art college.  She has spent the last 40 years directing film, video and painting.  This year at the age of 67, she created her first solo album.  An AllMusic review noted that “It’s a loud, celebratory album that perfectly boils down Birch’s 40-plus-year journey as a tireless, boundless, and most of all fearless, creator”

From Pitchfork

The song has a very cool video  

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers – Bad Night

The Steep Canyon Rangers have been together since 2000 and have produced nine albums, two with Steve Martin. In 2013 they won Best Bluegrass Album at the Emmys. They toured with Martin for a few years and produced two albums with him.

A great band, glad to include them here. They are still playing, but there have been several personnel changes. I would think there was lots of comedy during their touring time with Steve Martin including this one.

Crown Lands

We saw this band when they opened for July Talk this week. We didn’t know anything about them, but they are pretty amazing. Just a band of two with an incredible story.

a little from one of their interviews:

“We don’t really do a lot in solitude for this band,” Comeau says. “When I’m alone and making music, it’s synth music, kind of like Vangelis or Tangerine Dream or John Carpenter. And when Cody’s on their own, Cody’s playing all these amazing flutes these days, and that’s a whole other world. But when we come together, it’s like, what would Pink Floyd do if they jammed with Rush? It’s a different kind of headspace.”

From their bio

This I didn’t know, from Wikipedia

Crown Lands won the Juno Award for Breakthrough Group of the Year (this is their acceptance speech) at the Juno Awards of 2021.[6] The band were also nominated for Rock Album of the Year.[7]

The band consists of vocalist and drummer Cody Bowles, and guitarist, bassist and keyboardist Kevin Comeau.[1][2]

and from their Facebook Page

They also do an amazing cover of Come Together

Their influences (from e-talk) include Rush, Yes, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. If you hear them this makes lots of sense.

They also do a great version of Come Together. They were asked to play this for the FIFA World Cup.

July Talk – After This

Everything this band does energizes. We saw them this week at the NAC, and really I couldn’t take my eyes off the stage. Every song was a dynamic dialogue among the members, especially Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay.

They have been together since 2012 and won a Juno for Alternative Album of the Year. Their new two albums also won Alternative Album of the Year – why not Album of the Year?

(thanks Wikipedia)

July Talk – After This [Official Music Video]

Their latest album Remember Never Before is now out. Exclaim loved it saying this is a return to their “hurl yourself into the moment” style of playing. I really didn’t know that they had to return to this – looking at their material it’s always been there.

Listening to Paper Girl right now – produced ten years ago now. And of course – Picturing Love which they played perfectly at the NAC.

Caroline Rose – Miami (Official Music Video)

Caroline Rose

Just because I’m brooding
And wanna kill everything moving
It doesn’t mean I’m losing my marbles
I’m just moody

Carolyn Rose – Miami

I keep on hearing this song. What really captures me first is the ending of the plaintive song. The video is dramatic and she comments on the featured song Miami

“I’m not one to shy away from drama, and so this was a perfect opportunity to really bring out every ounce of desperation and anger and all those confusing emotions that happen after a big heartbreak,” Rose elaborates on “Miami.”

Stereogum

This is Rose’s third album all since 2020.

and the ending

This is the hard part
The part that they don’t tell you about
There is the art of loving
This is the art of forgetting how

This is gonna break you
You’re gonna rip your own heart out
There is the art of loving
This is the art of forgetting how

This is the art of forgetting how
This is the art of forgetting how
This is the art of forgetting how
This is the art of forgetting how

You’ve gotta get through this life somehow
You’ve gotta get through this life somehow
You’ve gotta get through this life somehow
You’ve gotta get through this life somehow


Joe Henry – “Mission”  from  All the Eye Can See

Joe Henry has had an illustrious and varied career as an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer. He has released multiple studio albums and produced countless recordings for other artists, including three Grammy Award-winning albums.  Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina he moved to Brooklyn in 1985 after graduating from the University of Michigan. He has produced Solomon Burke, Billy Bragg, Louden Wainwright 111 , Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello and many others. 

He has co-written with Madonna as he has been married to her sister since 1987. From his 15th solo album, “The Mission” 

The new release is garnering good reviews.  

Years ago, Henry released “Our Song”  Always loved these cryptic and melancholy lyrics.

“ Our Song”

 
I saw Willie Mays
At a Scotsdale Home Depot
Looking at Garage Door Springs
At the the far end of the 14th row
 
His wife stood there beside him
She was quiet and they both were proud
I gave them room but was close enough
That I heard him when he said out loud
 
This was my country
And this was my song
Somewhere in the middle there
Though it started badly and it's ending wrong
 
 

Robert Forster – “Go Free” from The Candle and the Flame

Robert  Forster  is a a former of the great 80’s  Australian band The Go- Betweens mainly with the late great  Grant McLennan.   The Go-Betweens broke up in 1989 after six stellar underappreciated albums.   Fave track? This gem:

The Go – Betweens reformed in 2000 and miraculously didn’t lose a beat releasing three more wonderful albums.  Unfortunately, MacLennan succumbed to a heart attack in 2006 at the age of 48.  Since then, Forster established a career as a music journalist in Australia and has over the years, released solo material. From his eighth solo lp, “Go Free”  

The Guardian article  excellently describes Forster’s tribulations which inspired his latest release, The Candle and the Flame

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Old Fellas New Music Episode 42 Notes

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Episode 42

Rina Sawayama – This Hell

Lemon Twigs – Anytime of the Day

Arctic Monkeys – Body Paint

Blues Lawyer – Chance Encounters

Ethel Cain – American Teenager

Yo La Tengo –  Aselestine

Horace Andy – Watch Over Them

Brad Mehldau – Your Mother Should Know

Pony – Très Jolie

Bob’s notes

Lemon Twigs – “Anytime of the Day”   from the Everything Harmony  being released on May 5th

This is the second Lemon Twigs number to have aired on the podcast.  We played one from their previous album back in the Old Fellas “Jurassic” period.  The band are principally Brian and Michael  D’Addario.  Their music and sartorial style seems frozen in about 1972 but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  “Anytime of Day” could have been lifted off a Todd Rundgren or Carpenters album.  Blogger Burning Wood elaborates:

https://burnwoodtonite.blogspot.com/2023/02/hello-its-them.html

Whenthehornblows concurs: https://whenthehornblows.com/content/2023/2/19/the-lemon-twigs-any-time-of-day

Blues Lawyer – “Chance Encounters” from All in Good Time

Although this podcast is about listening to new music and pithy penetrating conversation, sometimes we all learn something.  I picked Blues Lawyer because of their intriguing name.  Well… who knew there’s a whole story there?

https://killerguitarrigs.com/what-is-a-blues-lawyer/  As a semi-musician, I had never heard this term before.  Oakland-based Blues Lawyer are anything but “Blues Lawyers”.  Chance Encounters is wonderful punchy song with a great retro video 

.    Here’s the story behind the new album.  https://rockandrollglobe.com/indie-rock/blues-lawyer-and-the-art-of-patience/

Yo La Tengo –  “Aselestine”  from This Stupid World,

Critics’ faves Yo La Tengo have been kicking around for almost 40 years now.  They have released fifteen studio albums, six compilation albums, fifteen extended plays, twenty-two singles, two film score albums, four collaborative albums, and one album of cover songs.  Hoboken’s finest (not counting Frank Sinatra) have just released This Stupid World. Drummer Georgia Hubley takes lead vocals on “Aselestine”  

Pitchfork evaluates: 

On their liveliest album in at least a decade, indie rock’s most steadfast institution squares up against ubiquitous darkness.

To fully dig the manifold charms of This Stupid World, it’s best to take a single step back into Yo La Tengo’s 38 years-and-counting catalog. In July 2020, amid that first summer of extreme pandemic disorientation, the trio surprised devotees not only with a new Bandcamp page but also with a fresh album, captured at their Hoboken practice space just weeks earlier and offered up like a timely postcard from a friend you’ve missed—we’re OK, and we hope you’re OK, too.

 https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/yo-la-tengo-this-stupid-world/

Yo La Tengo rocking out in 2013 at the Pitchfork Festival  

Brad Mehldau – “Your Mother Should Know” from Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles

Everybody artist at some point tackles a Beatles cover;  it’s inevitable. Bradford is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.  As a jazz guy, he takes a fresh approach covering one of Paul McCartney’s minor songs.  Mehldau doesn’t, like many jazz guys, stretch the original tune in length or go off on fancy tangents.  The actual playing time is very close to the original track.  Here he playing live. 

Hey it’s the Burning Wood Blog again! 

 https://burnwoodtonite.blogspot.com/2023/02/your-mother-should-know.html

Tidal magazine provides insight.  

Paul’s Notes

Rina Sawayama – This Hell (Official Music Video)

Don’t know if I would call this a country song, but it certainly is a banger as the kids say. The lyrics are really interesting to, so I had no problem making this my first pick this week.

About the song – from Wikipedia

“This Hell” is a “glammy, country pop inspired” song which contains references to numerous country and western motifs such as cowboys and horseriding.[3] It was produced by Paul Epworth and Clarence Clarity, and written by Sawayama alongside Vic Jamieson, Epworth, and Lauren Aquilina.[10]

Sawayama has noted Dolly Parton and Kacey Musgraves as inspirations for “This Hell”, as well as Shania Twain, whom Sawayama has described as “The queen of country pop”.[11]

Sawayama wrote “This Hell” while reflecting about attacks against LGBT people, which are often motivated by religious beliefs, stating: “When the world tells us we don’t deserve love and protection, we have no choice but to give love and protection to each other”.[12] The song contains a guitar solo which was described as “over-the-top” by NPR.[3] The singer makes references to some gay icons such as Britney Spears, Princess Diana, and Whitney Houston,[10] and references Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” with the beginning line, “Let’s go, girls”, as well as Paris Hilton‘s signature catchphrase “that’s hot”.[12] Sawayama stated: “I put in as many iconic pop culture moments as I can, but the song is more than that.” [13] Upon the song’s release, Sawayama posted to Twitter: “I wanted to write a western pop song that celebrated COMMUNITY and LOVE in a time where the world seemed hellish.”[11]

Arctic Monkeys – Body Paint

Another band that has been around for a long time that I didn’t know about. Body Paint, like all the songs on their latest album is so interesting, certainly a cut above the music I was hearing on the Top Lists this week. The Car is Arctic Monkeys’ seventh album.

 

a bit about the song – interesting notes here.

Musically the song has been described as a “lounge-y piano ballad”, and Beatlesque,[6] with “gorgeous string arrangements” reminiscent of Burt Bacharach and George Martin‘s work with said group.[2] The band has been said as being “in introspective lounge lizard mode over sparkling piano and slowed-down drums.”[7] Robin Murray of Clash, thought there was a “sense of Bowie‘s mid 70s peak in the arrangement”.

Ethel Cain – American Teenager

[Verse 1]

Grew up under yellow light on the street

Putting too much faith in the make-believe

And another high school football team

The neighbor’s brother came home in a box

But he wanted to go, so maybe it was his fault

Another red heart taken by the American dream

More and more I am choosing songs that I think we have played before, but I checked and we haven’t. We have (I forgot) played Arctic Monkeys beforte – different song.

I like everything about Ethel Cain. Bob thinks her last name comes from a Band Song – that is pretty interesting, but I couldn’t find anything on that.

A bit about Ethel Cain from Pitchfork.

“Growing up I was surrounded by visions of NASCAR, rock’n’roll, and being the one who would change everything,” Cain said in a statement. “They make you think it’s all achievable and that if nothing else, you should at least die trying. What they don’t tell you is that you need your neighbor more than your country needs you. I wrote this song as an expression of my frustration with all the things the ‘American Teenager’ is supposed to be but never had any real chance of becoming.”

Pitchfork

Horace Andy

Yet another long-time famous musician I hadn’t heard of before. Bob talks a lot about him during the podcast – I am adding a few notes, mainly for me so I can catch up. This for me would be a great album to pick up soon. I have included below an NPR episode featuring some discussion of his latest album. Plus I found – again from NPR – a great session including Horace Andy and a great group of musicians.

NPR’s favorite music of April, from broken-hearted R&B to paranoid post-punk

Horace Andy is a reggae legend and a beloved Massive Attack collaborator. On his new album Midnight Rocker, producer Adrian Sherwood sticks to the basics: a full band adorns Andy’s golden voice with rich arrangements, as he offers messages of care in an uncaring world. We open the best music of the month show with “Watch Over Them,” and it’s easy to get lost in Andy’s voice.

Today, right here, we get to peek into the decked-out living room of producer Adrian Sherwood’s home and watch masters of reggae playfully chill. We hear Horace Andy‘s gruff tenor tell stories with 55 years of experience, rasp and wear.

“You’ve got to live, live, live for today, for tomorrow might never come your way,” he pleads as he sings “Today Is Right Here,” a track on his 2022 album Midnight Rocker. And then the lines I love best, “My mama told me when I was a child, said all the best things take a little while. But mama was wrong, wrong, wrong, the best things in life come and they go in the blink of an eye.” All the while, a single snare drum and hi-hat keep the beat, and the band of bass, guitar, keyboard, sax, trumpet and cello warmly support the emotions pouring from Horace Andy.

Horace Andy: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

NPR All Songs Considered

Pony – Très Jolie

a great way to finish off the show. One line from the reviews sets the song up nicely

“Spunky, sprightly, and positively infectious, ‘Très Jolie’ is basically the perfect song for a summer that hasn’t come yet.”

Far Out Magazine

PONY – “Très Jolie”

From their album “Velveteen” 

Out May 19th via Take This To Heart Records

Old Fellas new Music Episode 41

On By paulmcguire2013In MixCloud, Old Fellas New Music, voicEd RadioLeave a comment
Episode 41 on Mixcloud

Episode 41

Big Joanie –  Confident Man

Orville Peck – The Curse of the Blackened Eye

Macie Stewart – Maya Please

Wet Leg – Ur Mom

Personal Trainer – Texas In the Kitchen

Portugal. The Man – What, Me Worry?

The No Ones – Phil Ochs is Dead

Fireboy DML, Ed Sheeran – Peru

Jah Wobble – Trinidadian Chinese New Year

Orville Peck 

Paul’s Notes:

Orville Peck is originally from South Africa and is now based in Canada. Last year he released his second album Bronco on April 8, 2022. Between South Africa and Canada, he moved to London to study acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and later starred in a play on the West End.[7]

Though he’s never revealed his identity, it is commonly accepted that Orville Peck is the alter ego of Daniel Pitout. Over the past 15-odd years, has gone from punk drummer to stage actor to the world’s most mysterious cowboy crooner. He’s a talented enough singer, but more importantly he is a calculated aesthete. Peck has committed to a cartoonish persona, turning his public life into an endless performance. 

Peck grew up in the badlands outside of Johannesburg. He was a lonely child, friendless and bullied, so he clung to old movies: Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns and The Lone Ranger, films about outsiders who turn into heroes, anonymous vigilantes who come out of nowhere and save the town and charm the girl and choose solitude anyway. At 15, Peck’s family moved from South Africa to Vancouver. Peck has said in interviews that he played in punk bands in his youth. Pitout, his suspected alter ego, was the drummer in the Vancouver band Nü Sensae, which achieved some recognition in the early 2010s but went on hiatus in 2014 after he decided to pursue an acting career in England. He entered a two-year acting program at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and landed a role in a 2016 West End production of Peter Pan Goes Wrong. 

Wet Leg

Wet Leg a British band founded in 2019 has already been shortlisted for the 2022 Mercury Prize. Wet Leg has already won Best Alternative Music Album for their debut and Best Alternative Music Performance for “Chaise Longue”, and were nominated for Best New Artist at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards. Pretty amazing.

Here is a live performance by Wet Leg at Glastonbury in 2022.

From the Guardian 

Wet Leg seemed to come out of nowhere. Silly name. Lyrical double (and single) entendres. A Domino record deal off the back of a couple of tracks on SoundCloud. Within weeks, their June 2021 debut single Chaise Longue had flung the Isle of Wight duo from unknowns into the buzziest band around on just the basis of a few minutes of stupidly catchy guitar-pop.

That song hinted at how Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers could shove new wave, post-punk and incessant hooks into a raucous embrace. And yes, Chaise Longue set a high bar, with its Mean Girls reference and a bucolic music video (now watched more than 8.5m times). It was widely rated as one of the best songs of 2021. Could their first record make good on its promise? In April, their self-titled debut answered, conclusively, yes.

Peru

Peru: How Ed Sheeran helped Fireboy DML’s hit go global

BBC

When Fireboy DML was told to check his DMs, he had to be convinced Ed Sheeran’s message was real.

Ed had sent the Nigerian singer a note saying he was a fan and wanted to collaborate on a remix of his Afrobeats hit, Peru.

“He had apparently been listening to the song for weeks,” Fireboy tells Radio 1 Newsbeat, from his studio in Lagos, Nigeria.

“Not only had he heard the song, but he’d already recorded a verse for it too.”

‘Everything you do is for the culture’

The 25-year-old is aware of critics who say having such a big name on the track dilutes the song’s origin.

“People were saying Peru was already big. It was already good enough without him,” he says.

But he says the “only thing” on his mind when he got Ed Sheeran involved with the remix was how it was “going to be amazing for Afrobeats.”

“It’s the selfless mind-set that comes with being an Afrobeats artist. Everything you do is for the culture.”

In the song, Ed sings a couple of lines in Yoruba, a language predominantly used by millions of people across West Africa, especially in south western Nigeria.

“He did great,” says Fireboy, who’s real name is Adedamola Adefolahan.

Portugal. The man

How did they get their name?

The band’s name is based on the idea of David Bowie‘s “bigger than life” fame. They wanted the band to have a bigger-than-life feel but did not want to name it after one of their members. “A country is a group of people,” guitar player and vocalist John Gourley explains. “With Portugal, it just ended up being the first country that came to mind. The band’s name is ‘Portugal’. The period is stating that, and ‘The Man’ states that it’s just one person” (any one of the band members). The name has a more personal meaning as well: Portugal. The Man was going to be the name of a book that Gourley had planned to write about his father and his many adventures.[5][6][7]

A critical and commercial success, “Feel It Still” earned Portugal. The Man a Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Returning in 2020, the group turned in a pair of unlikely tracks: first, a cover of “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie for the children’s compilation At Home with the Kids in August, followed later that year by “Who’s Gonna Stop Me,” a collaboration with Weird Al Yankovic that honored Indigenous Peoples’ Day. A live studio recording from 2008 emerged in 2021, originally taking place after the tour for their third album and before the recording of their fourth; released as Oregon City Sessions it captured the live energy they had built up from playing stages worldwide.

Led by the single “Feel It Still,” [Live/Stripped Session] it was named in honor of the 1969 festival and the group’s attempt to “say something that mattered” in a context of sociopolitical unrest. A critical and commercial success, “Feel It Still” earned Portugal. The Man a Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.

Bob’s Notes:

Big Joanie –  “Confident Man”  

from the album Back Home

Big Joanie is a British punk trio formed in London in 2013. Big Joanie was formed when by Stephanie Phillips in 2013,  posted online asking for bandmates with whom to start a black feminist punk band.  They signed with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. 2018 saw the release of their debut Sistahs.  Back Home, released in 2022 on the Kill Rock Stars label, contains the number, “Confident Man”.

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/big-joanie-unveil-new-cut-confident-man

Rolling Stone magazine discusses:  https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/big-joanie-confident-man-1234596046/

Macie Stewart – Maya Please 

from the album  A Mouth Full of Glass  (bonus track)

Macie Stewart is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter based in Chicago.  From what I can tell, they has had an amazingly diverse career.  Starting as a child prodigy on piano and violin, Stewart has played with both avant- garde jazz improvisational groups and toured with as back up musician with Japanese Breakfast, The Weather Station, Chance the Rapper and Jeff Tweedy.   “Maya Please” is a single form last summer.

Personal Trainer – Texas In the Kitchen 

from the album “Big Love Blanket”

Personal Trainer are a collective of musicians who hail from the Netherlands.  From what I can tell, this track is from their first full length album.  “Texas in the Kitchen” is a jaunty little number that would sound out of place on a mid-90’s Pavement lp.

There’s not a lot of info on these folks so I’ll post this article from Read Dork. 

Personal Trainer have shared a new single, ‘Former Puppy’, from their upcoming debut album, ‘Big Love Blanket’

Peter Buck/ Luke Haines 

– “Phil Ochs is Dead” from the album All the Kids Are Super Bummed OutThe No Ones  is a collaboration featuring Scott McCaughey, Frode Strømstad, Peter Buck and Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen, is a band that stretches from the southwest of Norway through Athens, Georgia to the northwest corner of the USA, consisting of members from I Was A King, The Minus 5, The Baseball Project and R.E.M.  This track features primarily REM’s Peter Buck and Luke Haines formely of the Auteurs.  Dangerous Minds elaborates:  

https://dangerousminds.net/  For the record, Phil Ochs is dead .  He tragically took his own life in 1975 at the age of 35. Just for the heck of it, I am including my favourite Phil Ochs song.   

Jah Wobble – “Trinidadian Chinese New Year”  from the album  Guanyin

Jah Wobble, is an English bass guitarist and singer. He was born John Joseph Wardle in London. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He later left the band after two albums and has since enjoyed a lengthy and fruitful career exploring all sorts of genres of music.  Check out this lengthy discography.   https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jah-wobble-mn0000107259/discography

The track, “Trinidadian Chinese New Year”  continues Wobble’s exploration of Jamaican dub  and World Music.  It’s taken from 2021 album Guanyin   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp3yxFKEoaY

Here’s a tidy little guide to his career.  https://thevinylfactory.com/features/jah-wobble-10-records/ 

Old Fellas New Music Episode 40

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Episode 40 right here

Julian Taylor – Opening the Sky

Ty Segall – Saturday Pt. 2

Adam Baldwin – Causeway Road 

The Bros Landreth – Stay

SG Goodman – All My Love is Coming Back to Me

Laura Veirs – Eucalyptus

Days Of Lavender – People Who Care

Robyn Hitchcock – The Man Who Loves The Rain

The Dead South – People Are Strange

Bob’s notes

Ty Segall – Saturday Pt. 2 

Ty Segall is an American musician and producer. He is extremely prolific as exemplified by the sheer amount of his album, ep and single releases.  Check out his Discogs entry.  https://www.discogs.com/artist/1265284-Ty-Segall?limit=250&type=Releases&subtype=Albums&filter_anv=0&page=1  . I suppose he could be pigeonholed into the “garage-rock” genre but his latest lp, “Hello Hi” is anything but that.   Pitchfork Magazine explains: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/ty-segall-hello-hi/

Here he is performing Saturday Pt. 2 live  

The Bros Landreth – Stay  – from 2022 lp Come Morning

The Bros. Landreth is a group from Winnipeg Manitoba.   Their debut album “Let It Lie” won the Juno Award for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year at the Juno Awards in 2015 so they have been around for a while.   In 2022, Bonnie Raitt released a cover of “Made Up Mind”, which appears on her album “Just Like That” Her recording of the song won a Grammy Award for Best Americana Performance at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in 2022

Bonnie Raitt gave the guys a shoutout at the Grammys.  Stay is a soulful number with a nice kooky video.   

The whole album is solid. https://atthebarrier.com/2022/05/24/the-bros-landreth-come-morning-album-review/

Laura Veirs – Eucalyptus from the lp “Found Light”

Laura Veirs is an American singer-songwriter based out of Portland, Oregon.  She is known for her folk/alternative country records and live performances as well as her collaboration with Neko Case and k.d. lang on the case/lang/veirs project. Check this album out.  It’s a treasure.  https://www.allmusic.com/album/case-lang-veirs-mw0002925163

Veirs has been releasing music since 1999.  Her producer was usually her husband Tucker Martine.  However, in 2019, Martine and Veirs separated.  Found Light is considered by some as an album still dealing with the ending of that relationship.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jul/08/laura-veirs-found-light-review.  The featured track Eucalyptas seems to reflect this 

Robyn Hitchcock – The Man Who Loves The Rain from “Shufflemania”

Cult figure Robyn Hitchcock has been making music since the late 1970’s  first with The Soft Boys, then The Egyptians and for many many years as a solo artist.  He has released close to 30 solo albums.  Hitchcock’s  lyrics are often absurd in the best Lewis Carroll vein.  He has been both an acoustic performer and full out rock and roller.  “The Man Who Loves the Rain” shows he hasn’t lost a step. 

I’ve included 2 of my fave Hitchcock song from the past. 

Here he is on Letterman in 1980s. The quality of the video isn’t great but the performance is.  Watch for the broken string!

Robyn Hitchcock was a favourite of the late film director Jonathan Demme. They made a documentary in 1998 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storefront_Hitchcock

The wonderful song “1974”  is taken from this movie…   This is probably my favourite Hitchcock song.  

Paul’s Notes

This guy is amazing, I love the song and his voice. I can’t believe that he was ready to pack things up (read below).

Another Covid artifact – he had a great video series – Cross Country Chin Up – pretty amazing, I have included a bit of this series with my notes.

Playing in Wolfville this April!!

Baldwin Cross-Country Chin Up IX

Hey gang. I’m gonna broadcast live on the World Wide Web this Friday night at 9pm ATLANTIC. You can find the program here, hit SET REMINDER to be notified. I hope you can join me for the Cross-Country Chin Up. Hope you’re all staying well.

Baldwin credits fellow singer/songwriter Martha Wainwright with “kinda setting me straight” in a long conversation over dinner when they chanced across each other on the same Québécois TV show and encouraging him not to give up.

After that cathartic encounter, he vowed to keep it honest and “write some songs about this part of the world” and the “unique kind of nuts” to be found in the darkest corners of the Atlantic Provinces. After that, the vivid rural character studies that would eventually make up “Concertos & Serenades” — stories of fishermen dabbling in fiery revenge and the cocaine trade, stoic miners drawing their last breaths underground in Springhill and the colourful regulars stopping by “Gerald Burgess RaceTrac Full Serve Autobody” for gas, a pack of smokes and some chit-chat — started spilling out of him.

Toronto Star 

Singer-songwriter Adam Baldwin has been a mainstay of the Atlantic Canada music scene for over a decade. Starting as a member of rock combo Gloryhound before joining Matt Mays & El Torpedo in 2009, Baldwin’s own music has continued to evolve since his award winning self-titled solo debut EP in 2013.

Julian Taylor – Opening the Sky

Another incredible voice and songwriter. I think we have featured Julian Taylor three times on our show and that is fine with me. This current song is getting lots of airplay on North Americana radio

The lyrics are really interesting on this song, good to give this one a second listen.

JULIAN TAYLOR PRESENTS BEYOND THE RESERVOIR

Story by Howard Druckman | Monday October 17th, 2022

(Full disclosure: My wife happens to be Julian Taylor’s Canadian publicist. So, after a brief introduction, it’ll be just Taylor talking about his album. And I’d be writing this story, this way,  regardless of who his publicist is. Some quotes have been edited for length and clarity.)

It looks like Julian Taylor is poised on the verge of broadening and deepening his international breakthrough of 2020.

That year, his album The Ridge earned more than five million plays on Spotify, praise from the press worldwide, and airplay from Canada and the U.S. to Australia and the U.K. Loaded with soulful Americana and country twang, The Ridge won Taylor the Solo Artist of the Year honour at the Canadian Folk Music Awards; was nominated for two JUNO Awards (Contemporary Folk Album and Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year); and made the Polaris Prize Long List of the 40 best albums in Canada. He also won Best Male Artist at the International Acoustic Music Awards.

https://www.socanmagazine.ca/features/julian-taylor-presents-beyond-the-reservoir/

The final track, “Opening the Sky,” hits fast-forward and imagines the end of life, both the final struggles of a body breaking down and the memories of the life that’s come before. But most urgent is the desire to make sure learnings are passed down to the next generation: “Always love beyond your own comprehension. / In a world that may not see you for all that you are, never forget you have so much power.” The flood of final words of advice and encouragement end with “find time to simply stay still.” When the words repeat, they become the last living moment of the narrator and also a reinforcement of his lasting presence despite death: “Time to simply stay … still.”

https://www.adventuresinamericana.com/the-music-distillery-blog/music-review-julian-taylor-beyond-the-reservoir

SG Goodman

S.G. Goodman’s Southern Storytelling

Again, yet another amazing voice! This time from Kentucky. Glad I found this one, I don’t know much about her, but I would be happy to see her in concert – this would be great! This is from a feature on her in Rolling Stone.

Prior to her solo career, Goodman was part of the band The Savage Radley.[7] Her debut album, Old Time Feeling, was co-produced by Jim James of My Morning Jacket.[5] The album has been described as Americana, folk, country, and rock.[8] She is signed to Verve Forecast Records. In 2021, she, as a solo artist, was inter alia part of the Newport Folk Festival in July.[9]

In June 2022, Goodman released her second album, Teeth Marks, on Verve Forecast.[10] She usually plays with her guitar tuned down a whole step, though some songs on the record were played in this tuning with a capo.[6] The fifth track on the album, “If You Were Someone I Loved” deals with the opioid crisis.[11] Because her debut album was released during the COVID-19 pandemic, Goodman did not headline a tour for the album. As such, her tour for Teeth Marks was her first solo tour.[12]

Kentucky farmer’s daughter writes songs so the world can hear what life is like where she grew up

WHEN S.G. GOODMAN was growing up, her farmer father would plant an annual crop of sweet corn for his three kids, which they later harvested by hand and sold for money to buy their school clothes.

The farm isn’t Goodman’s home anymore: “I live in a house where the backyard is too shaded by these maple trees so that I can’t really grow anything,” she says. But the Murray, Kentucky-based singer-songwriter, 31, maintains a deep connection to the place that shaped her on her debut album, Old Time Feeling. Produced by Goodman with bandmates S. Knox Montgomery and Matthew Rowan, plus fellow Kentuckian Jim James of My Morning Jacket, it’s at once earthy and otherworldly, relaying her personal experiences alongside razor-sharp social commentary about the South.

Rolling Stone

The Dead South – People Are Strange

This band is so incredibly good. I don’t know how I found them, but their music is really different. I didn’t expect to find a blue grass band in Saskatchewan, but happy to feature them. Truly a great band that deserves more exposure.

The Dead South on Bluegrass Purists, New Album ‘Sugar & Joy’ and Being Canada’s “Night Off” Band

The Dead South are arguably Canada’s best-known “bluegrass” band. Their video for “In Hell I’ll Be in Good Company” has been viewed over 150 million times on YouTube, and the band have toured across North America and Europe. They just released their new album, Sugar & Joy, and will be hitting the road hard to support it.

On the surface, the band look like a typical bluegrass ensemble: the members play banjo, cello, guitar and mandolin; they sing in four-part harmony; and their songs tell stories of hard times and broken hearts; and they won the Juno for Traditional Roots Album in 2018 for Illusion & Doubt. But despite what you might have heard, the Dead South aren’t bluegrass — at least, not according to purists.

“We don’t know how to define our sound,” lead singer, guitarist and mandolinist Nate Hilts tells Exclaim! “We’re definitely very inspired by bluegrass music — that’s what kind of started the band. The instrumentation that we brought in was to play a bluegrass style; however, our own personal forms came in, we just started playing music and this is what we came up with. We don’t really know what to identify it as, because it touches on a lot of different places.”

The group have been together since 2012, and although there has been some interchanging of musicians over the years, original members, Nate Hilts, Scott Pringle (mandolin/guitar), Danny Kenyon (cello) and Colton “Crawdaddy” Crawford (banjo), remain in the current lineup. The group recently embarked on their “Served Cold” tour, which Nate expects to last until January 2021, and will see the foursome performing their unique variety of traditional Canadian folk on stages in Germany, the UK, and even the birthplace of bluegrass music, Raleigh, NC.

Easy Listening for Jerks Pt. 1 and 2 (2022-present)

Days Of Lavender – People Who Care

The lead singer of Days of Lavender grew up here in Ottawa. Daniela has a magical voice and it is great to listen to them at the beginning of a very creative musical career – I hope!

🔮We’re a band that plays wholesome electronic music in Vancouver 

Days of Lavender is the Vancouver-based duo project of producer and bassist Stephen Clarke and singer/songwriter Daniela Mae. They mix their love of 80s synth pop, electronic, gospel and folk music to guide you on a meditative sci-fi ride you won’t want to get off. In the last year of playing together they have released 6 songs, played for private parties, public events and two BC music festivals. In March 2022, they started an event series in collaboration with DJ Chachøu called InnerSpace: A Cosmic Arts Journey, which showcases the work of local visual artists and includes wellness classes, dance performances, DJs and their own live music.

Old Fellas New Music Notes for Episode 39

On By paulmcguire2013In MixCloud, Old Fellas New Music, voicEd Radio1 Comment

https://www.mixcloud.com/paul-mcguire3/old-fellas-new-music-episode-39-jan-25-2023

Episode 39 – our notes!

Bob’s notes

Martin Courtney – Sailboat

Martin Courtney is a member of the Brooklyn based band Real Estate.  This track is taken from taken from his second solo album,  “Magic Sign”.   Pitchfork always a Real Estate supporter, gave a fairly positive review of the album.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/martin-courtney-magic-sign/

“Sailboat” is reminiscent of 80’s REM  

I also include one of my fave Real Estate tracks   

Nina Nastasia – Afterwards

Nina Maria Nastasia is an American folk singer-songwriter. I first came to know her from legendary British DJ John Peel’s online archives.  She is prominently featured on his radio shows from the early 2000’s.  As of 2022, Nastasia has released a total of seven studio albums.  The latest, is “Riderless Horse”  Much of the writing on this album was apparently influenced by the suicide Natasia’s partner in 2020. 

Stereogum has an excellent interview with her regarding “Riderless Horse”

Nina Nastasia Rediscovers Herself In The Aftermath

Gwenno- Anima

This is a first for old fellas.  We have a song in Cornish!  Gwenno Mererid is a Welsh musician, known by the stage name Gwenno. . Tresor is her third album from July 2022.  All the songs on this album are entirely in Cornish except one song, “N.Y.C.A.W.” which is in Welsh.  The album’s name comes from the Cornish word for “treasure”. The album was shortlisted for the 2022 Mercury Prize.  The video is very cool as it is reminiscent of  Terry Gilliam’s animation work in Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  

For all her mysterious Cornish esoterica, it’s surprising to me that Gwenno used to be a member of The Pipettes!   

MJ Lenderman – SUV

Jake Lenderman goes by the moniker as MJ Lenderman.  He is an American singer, songwriter, and musician based in Asheville, North Carolina. In April, 2022, Lenderman released his third studio album, Boat Songs. He has been compared to John Prine, Neil Young  and The Drive-By Truckers’s which is always a good thing.  Here he is playing the crunchy little number SUV,  live in Austin Texas. 

Let us get to know MJ Lenderman!  https://fortherabbits.net/2021/03/25/get-to-know-mj-lenderman/

This week’s playlist

Gord Downie, Bob Rock – Is there nowhere

Martin Courtney – Sailboat

July Talk – When You Stop 

Nina Nastasia – Afterwards

Master KG, Burma Boy, Nomcebo Zikode – Jerusalema

Gwenno- Anima

Andy Shauf – Wasted on You

MJ Lenderman – SUV

Fast Romantics – Outta Love

Gord Downie, Bob Rock – Is there nowhere

This is totally new to me, but it is not every week that we get to feature a Gord Downie track!

By Alex Hudson

Published Nov 22, 2022

Late Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie and mega-producer Bob Rock made an album together that never saw the light of day, but that is finally about to change. Following the single “Lustre Parfait” last month, Arts & Crafts has now shared two more songs and confirmed the details of the full-length. Lustre Parfait will be out May 5.

As a taste of the album to come, A&C has released the three-song collection The Raven and the Red-Tailed Hawk. It includes the title track, plus last month’s “Lustre Parfait” and the B-side “Is There Nowhere.”

The sessions for Lustre Parfait followed the two Hip albums produced by Rock, 2006’s World Container and 2009’s We Are the Same. According to a press release, Downie asked Rock if the producer had any music he could write lyrics for, and Rock created these raucous arrangements for the vocalist to accompany.

Rock said in a statement, “First and foremost Gord was my friend, and having the opportunity to work with him on these songs was one of the biggest highlights of my professional life. I am grateful that I got to witness his genius in such close proximity.” 

Exclaim

Premiere: July Talk’s ‘When You Stop’ captures everything about the band that we love

Great to see July Talk featured on NPR. The band will be here in Ottawa at the NAC. Looking forward to this!

I included extra video material. The second one – After This is terrific!

Almost a decade ago, World Cafe went to Toronto for our Sense of Place series in search of new music discoveries. We found one in the indie rock band July Talk. At the time, the band had just released its self-titled debut album. We became instantly enamored of the band’s music. With co-lead vocalists Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis, the energy has always brought about an equal balance of beguiling tension. The twin guitar playing of guitarists Ian Docherty and Josh Warburton, and double drummers Danny Miles and Dani Nash, round out the band, who release their new album, Remember Never Before, tomorrow.

Today, World Cafe is premiering, “When You Stop.” From the band’s new album, it captures everything about this band that we love: the decadelong relationship between Goldstein and Derimanis that has brought about both light and darkness in the way their vocals work together, the co-mingling and interlacing of the guitar playing, and the understated yet powerful push and pull of the rhythms.

It’s been three years since their last album, Pray For It, and we asked them how the pandemic affected the making of this record. In an email, Goldstein said: ” In a lot of ways we feel we already released our pandemic album in July of 2020. Pray For It was written between 2017 and 2019 and was our way of processing the reality of a very uncertain new world. One that saw what felt like a global shift toward darkness, baseless hatred, intolerance, bigotry, fear-mongering, climate doom, etc.”

July Talk – When You Stop [Official Lyric Video]

July Talk – After This [Official Music Video]

Master KG, Burma Boy, Nomcebo Zikode – Jerusalema

“Jerusalema” is a song by South African DJ and record producer Master KG featuring South African vocalist Nomcebo. The upbeat gospel-influenced house song was initially released on 29 November 2019 after it garnered positive response online, with a music video following on 21 December. The music video of the song has generated half a billion views on YouTube. It was later included on Master KG’s second album of the same title, released in January 2020.[1]

What is so interesting is the viral challenge the song has created

Some examples below

The #Jerusalemachallenge has finally arrived to Jerusalem! During these challenging times of social distancing we have all gathered to dance together, so we can reunite. 

Holocaust survivors, elementary school students, youth from both east and west of Jerusalem, university students, and municipality workers along with the mayor, Moshe Lion. Watch how good we dance during times of social distancing ♥

#jerusalema #jerusalem #dance #challenge #happy #socialdistancing #viralvideo #15M #dancing

Master KG – Jerusalema Remix [Feat. Burna Boy and Nomcebo] (Official Music Video)

Jerusalema Challenge in Jerusalem!

Jerusalema Dance Challenge – Ärentunastallet Uppsala Sweden #jerusalemachallenge #horse #stable

Andy Shauf – Wasted on You

This is such a great sone – hard to believe he has eight albums out.

May 20, 2016 by ROBIN HILTON • Saskatchewan singer-songwriter Andy Shauf is the kind of guy you’d find laying low at a party, maybe tucked into the corner of a room with a drink in his hand, keeping to himself but taking everything in. He’s soft-spoken and reserved, more comfortable delivering the news than being a part of it (though “comfortable” may be too strong a word).

Shauf’s latest album is, appropriately enough, called The Party. It’s an emotionally remote collection of character studies and bent observations made during a gathering of drunken fools, smooth operators and the painfully self-aware.

Andy Shauf recently brought The Party to the NPR Music offices for this quietly affecting Tiny Desk performance. His set opens with “The Magician,” a song about a poser schmoozing his way through a crowd, followed by “To You,” a slightly comical but awkward confession of unrequited love. Shauf closes with the relatively propulsive “You’re Out Wasting,” a meditation on greed, selling out and late-night anxiety; it’s from his 2015 album The Bearer Of Bad News.

“Wasted On You” was the lead single for Andy Shauf’s eighth studio album, Norm. The lyrics are from the perspective of the Christian God, who asks nonbelievers upon their arrival to heaven “Was all my love wasted on you?” In A 2016 interview, Shauf says he grew up Christian but became nonreligious in his twenties. He has touched on religion before, such as on his 2022 single “Satan”, usually with a dry sense of humor.

Major tour – Ottawa – 04-28 Ottawa, Ontario – The Bronson Centre

Andy Shauf – “Wasted On You”

Andy Shauf has announced a new album: Norm is due February 10 via Anti-. The Canadian singer-songwriter has also shared the lead single, “Wasted on You,” along with a music video directed by V Haddad. Check it out below.

Spanning 12 tracks, Norm follows Shauf’s surprise-release album Wilds from last year and 2020’s The Neon Skyline. He performs every instrument on the new LP himself and shaped the lyrics around an invented, eponymous person. “The character of Norm is introduced in a really nice way,” Shauf explained in a statement. “But the closer you pay attention to the record, the more you’re going to realize that it’s sinister.”

Shauf will hit the road early next year in support of Norm. His 2023 North American tour will kick off on February 21 in Columbus, Ohio and see him stop at major cities across the United States and Canada. Find the complete list of dates below.

Pitchfork = Andy Shauf Announces New Album Norm, Shares Video for Song “Wasted on You”: Watch

Fast Romantics unveiled new single & video for “Outta Love”

Just love this band – I think this is the first time we have featured them on our show. I have included a 2020 recording at the height of the Pandemic – interesting to see what we were doing just a few years ago. This is a great concert to watch if you have a few minutes.

Toronto-based, Fast Romantics have been waiting patiently for 2023. Since 2017 they’d been traveling as a six-piece band, fronted by Matthew Angus and Kirty, around North America as unrelenting road warriors. NPR had declared their hit Julia “triumphant,” and they found themselves unexpectedly in Apple Music’s top ten. In those ensuing years of touring and radio charting, they perfected a larger-than-life live show, endearing fans to their unique brand of irresistible pop hooks and frontman Matthew Angus’ personal and emotive approach to lyricism.

They returned with their first new music in three years via a big and buoyant new sing-along single, “Outta Love,” that cleverly serves up a sublime sleight of hand with cutting lyrical cynicism belying the celebratory chorus vocals and lush instrumentation. The accompanying video was directed and produced by Raven Shields at Cheval Studio.

Fast Romantics – “Outta Love” (Official Video)

Fast Romantics – “Live From a Pandemic” (Full Show, Live from Dakota Tavern)

Fast Romantics – “Live From a Pandemic” (Full Show, Live from Dakota Tavern)

On August 20, 2020, Fast Romantics faced an empty Dakota Tavern in Toronto, Canada. Lights went up, director Jared Raab started filming, and the result was broadcast live to hundreds of people streaming it from their houses and backyards.

It was the thick of the pandemic. No audiences allowed. But the band gathered some close friends to join them in celebrating the release of their also pandemically-released album “PICK IT UP.” A year later, we’re releasing the entire concert, uncut from its original live broadcast.

And here is a shorter a clip from the concert – Julia

Old Fellas New Music Episode 38

On By paulmcguire2013In MixCloud, Old Fellas New Music, voicEd Radio1 Comment

Episode 38 

Julia Jacklin – I was Neon  

Arctic Monkeys – There’d Better Be a Mirrorball

Men I Trust – Billie Toppy

Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band – Grace and Eddie

OMBIIGIZI, Status/Non-Status, Zoon – Cherry Coke 

Sister Ray – Visions

The Handsome Family – Gold 

Lizzo – About Damn Time

Fontaines D.C. – Jackie Down the Line

Bob’s Notes

Arctic Monkeys – “There’d Better Be a Mirrorball”

The Arctic Monkeys are a band formed in Sheffield, England in 2002.  They are sometimes mentioned as one of the first bands who gained their initial buzz and popularity due to the internet.  As a result in 2006,  “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” became the fastest-selling debut album in UK history.  The band became a Brit. fave winning numerous awards but it wasn’t until 2013 that the band became more universally known with the release of its 2015’s album AM. The song featured here is taken from The Car, the seventh studio album. 

Lizzo – “About Damn Time”

Lizzo, is an American singer and rapper from Houston, Texas.  She attained immense popularity with the release of her third studio album, Cuz I Love You (2019), which peaked at number four on the US Billboard 200. About Damn Time” was lead single from the album Special released earlier this year. The song was nominated at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards for Song of the Year, Best Pop Video, and Song of Summer. The song also received three nominations at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.  Here she is performing “About Damn Time” on SNL. 

Fun fact- Lizzo is also a classically trained flautist.  Back in September, she caused the American right to get all huffy when she played James Madison’s silver flute.  

Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band – “Grace and Eddie”

Michael William Head is an English singer-songwriter and musician from Liverpool, England. He is most famous as the lead singer and songwriter for Shack, The Pale Fountains and Michael Head & The Strands. Some have described him as a lost genius and among the most gifted British songwriters of his generation.  In 2013 he formed Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band. In 2017, Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band released an album called Adiós Señor Pussycat. It reached No 1 in the UK independent album chart and No. 57 in the UK Albums Chart.  The new one, Dear Scott was released in June 2022.  The tile is apparently inspired by a note F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to himself.

  

The album peaked at number 6 in the official UK chart, making it Michael Head’s highest-ever charting album.  Here’s a version performed live.  I don’t know who Grace and Eddie are.

Flash back to the early eighties! Michael Head in The Pale Fountains 

Sister Ray – “Visions”

Sister Ray is the stage name of Ella Coyes, a Métis singer-songwriter. They were born and raised in Sturgeon County, Alberta. Their debut full-length album Communion was released in May 2022.  Exclaim explains:

Also, though four years old, this interview provides excellent background to Sister Ray.

Here’s the strangely beguiling video.  

Paul’s Notes

Julia Jacklin – I was Neon

This is her third album Pre Pleasure – “Pre Pleasure is an easygoing album from a mind that rarely stops racing.“

One of the songs from the album, not the one I am playing, is #94 on Pitchfork’s 100 Best Songs of 2022

The Australian songwriter’s empathetic, understated rock songs sift through a litany of relationships and beliefs, seeking a balance between thinking about life and actually living it.

“I Was Neon,” in which she wonders if a version of herself has been lost to time. “I quite like the person that I am/Am I gonna lose myself again?” she repeats, voice roiling with equal parts anxiety and excitement. If she could reach through the photograph and make contact with that incarnation of herself, what would she say?

It seems like many of the artists I am choosing are writing about being lost.

Julia Jacklin (born 30 August 1990) is a singer-songwriter from the Blue Mountains, Australia. Jacklin’s musical style has been described as indie pop, indie folk, and alternative country. from Wikipedia

Men I Trust – Billie Toppy

(singe 2022, last album Untourable Album 2021)

The information about this band is somewhat dreamy, and so is their music. It is interesting that the two founders of the band actually played with a rotating series of lead singers, settling on Emma Proulx, the face of the band some time in 2015.

From their dreamy Bandcamp article:

Mixing dreamy atmospheres, wistful extended chords, and funky, low-key dance grooves, Men I Trust was the brainchild of then-Laval University music students Dragos Chiriac and Jessy Caron. The Montreal, Canada D.I.Y. project made its full-length debut with Men I Trust in 2014. While the duo’s first two albums employed a variety of guest vocalists, singer Emmanuelle Proulx has been an official member since 2015. Their third studio album, 2019’s Oncle Jazz, was long-listed for 2020 Polaris Music Prize. Untourable Album followed in 2021 and was ultimately accompanied by a tour.

In June 2021, the band announced the release of their 4th album “The Untourable Album” along tour dates to support the release. Men I Trust posted on their social medias about the release and the tours, elaborating on their context:

Cherry Coke – OMBIIGIZI, Status/Non-Status, Zoon

Another song I like more every time I hear it. I think we have played Status/Non-status before, but Zoom is new to the show.

Zoon and Status/Non-Status have shared a new single, “Cherry Coke,” under their collaborative project, OMBIIGIZI. The track comes from their forthcoming debut album, Sewn Back Together, out February 10th via Arts & Crafts.

“Cherry Coke” is a dreamy, shoegazy tune with smooth instrumentals that allow OMBIIGIZI’s smooth vocals to take the lead. Lyrically, the song is about Zoon’s Daniel Monkman’s childhood.

“I used to get into a lot of fights at school when I was younger,” the band’s Daniel Monkman explains. “One of the schools was called ‘Happy Thought’ which ironically was filled with racist rural farmer type folk. I think as a type of punishment my Mom sent me to live with my Dad on the Rez, so he could show me how to be a ‘man.’ Although my Dad was a very complex human, he was very compassionate towards me, especially when I explained how the kids would tease me for being Ojibway. He’d always let me stay home with him and oftentimes we’d go to the Rez store for chips and pop; I’d get Cherry Coke or Vanilla Coke. The lyrics and song title are inspired by these memories of my childhood and of my father.”

Indie 88 FM

After quoting 88FM, I had to look them up. A very interesting station from Toronto. They are doing some interesting work featuring indie bands.

and the OMBIIGIZI video for Cherry Coke

Gold – The Handsome Family

I heard about this band last week when Bob played a Phoebe Bridgers cover of their song So Much Wine.

The Handsome Family is an American music duo consisting of husband and wife Brett and Rennie Sparks formed in Chicago, Illinois, and as of 2001 based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[1] They are perhaps best known for their song “Far from Any Road” from the album Singing Bones, which was used as the main title theme for the first season of the 2014 crime drama True Detective. The band’s tenth album, Unseen, was released on September 16, 2016, the first new release on the band’s own label Milk & Scissors Music[2] and through long-time label Loose in Europe

(Wikipedia)

And, to top all this off, Rennie Sparks is an artist. She has done a wonderful series of dog paintings – I have included one here.

HOLLOW, their tenth studio record, is planned to be released in 2023 with live touring hopefully to follow.

Website

Jackie Down the Line – Fontaines D.C.

The Irish post-punk band’s most demanding and musically adventurous album is also its most open-hearted,  striking a perfect balance between tough and tender.

The year 2019 already feels like the distant past for most of us, but for Fontaines D.C., it really must seem like another lifetime—and that has less to do with the pandemic than their own skyrocketing success in spite of it. Pretty much everything that defined this band three years ago, when they dropped their debut LP, Dogrel, has already changed. Once the scrappy underdogs who ironically declared “I’m gonna be big!”, the Dublin-bred quintet have headlined arena shows for crowds of 10,000 in the UK, appeared on CNN, scored a Grammy nomination (outside the Alternative category ghetto, no less).

Pitchfork

Fontaines D.C. are an Irish post-punk band formed in Dublin in 2017.[1][2][3] The band consists of Grian Chatten (vocals), Carlos O’Connell (guitar), Conor Curley (guitar), Conor Deegan III (bass), and Tom Coll (drums).

The band’s debut album, Dogrel, was released on 12 April 2019 to widespread critical acclaim; it was listed as Album of the Year on the record store Rough Trade‘s website,[4] voted Album of the Year by presenters on BBC Radio 6 Music,[5] and was nominated for both the Mercury Prize and the Choice Music Prize.[6]

The band’s second studio album, A Hero’s Death, was written and recorded in the midst of extensive touring for their debut, and was released on 31 July 2020. A Hero’s Death was later nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2021 Grammy Awards. Their third album Skinty Fia, released in 2022, became the band’s first to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart and Irish Albums Chart.

Its title refers to an old Irish saying that drummer Tom Coll’s great-aunt used to say. The phrase “Skinty Fia” translates to “the damnation of the deer”. Both the title and the cover art allude to the extinct Irish elk, also known as the “giant deer”

Wikipedia

Old Fellas New Music Episode 33 – notes

On By paulmcguire2013In MixCloud, Old Fellas New Music, voicEd RadioLeave a comment
Welcome!

St Vincent –Candy Darling

Booter –  10/10

Divine Comedy – Don’t Look Down

Rostam – 4Runner

Maria McKee- Let Me Forget

Alyona Alyona – Дикі танці – Wild Dances

Father John Misty – Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution.

Dear Rouge – Small Talk

Local Natives ft Sylvan Esso – Dark Days

Alyona Savranenko was born in Ukraine. She holds two bachelor’s degrees, one of which comes from the Gregory Skovoroda Pedagogical State University of Pereiaslav. Before doing rap, she worked as a teacher at “Teremok” kindergarten of Baryshivka, Kyiv Oblast. Alyona then headed the kindergarten of the neighboring village of Dernivka.In total, Alyona worked for four years in kindergartens and left the job once she gained popularity.

Even though Russian rap music is very popular in Ukraine, Alyona Alyona chose to rap in her native language. (While both languages are spoken in the ex-Soviet state, Ukrainian has become more widely spoken since the 2013 Euromaidan protests.)

To her, it’s a celebration of her national culture: “I want to rap about everyday life, in my own language.”

From – EURO POP

By THE NEW YORK TIMES MAY 22, 2019

European music is more than just the glitz of Eurovision. Turn on your sound to hear 15 of the region’s most important acts, musically and socially, right now.

“We didn’t have any huge fresh names like her in rap music in Ukraine before,” said Ivan Dorn, a popular Ukrainian singer. Alyona Alyona’s early videos, some of which have several million views on YouTube, have a down-to-earth quality, showing her rapping in snow-covered, graffiti-filled landscapes, often dressed in tracksuits and sneakers.

(NYT)

St Vincent –Candy Darling

St Vincent –Candy Darling

St Vincent is the stage name of Ann Clark. She has been releasing albums to both popular and critical acclaim since 2007.  The track “Candy Darling” is from her  sixth album, 2021’s “Daddy’s Home”.  The song is an homage to Andy Warhol transgender “Superstar” Candy Darling who was immortalized in Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and the Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says”  Candy died tragically died at the age of 29 from lymphoma. To quote St Vincent,  “ ’Candy Darling’ was the last song I wrote for “Daddy’s Home.” I can’t explain it, but I felt like Candy was guiding me through writing it all, so it only made sense for me to send her home on that last uptown train with a bouquet of bodega roses.”

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/music/how-andy-warhol-s-darling-muse-inspired-st-vincent-s-next-move-20210608-p57z3f.html

The Velvet Underground  “Candy Says”  

   1969

Booter 10/10

Article in Exclaim!

8 Emerging Canadian Artists You Need to Hear in August 2022(Exclaim!)

Meet Exclaim!’s latest New Faves, including an East Coast heartbreaker and some scrappy power pop by way of Manitoba

On “Crushin’,” Booter’s Alannah Walker (one-half of indie-pop duo Cannon Bros.) sings hyperactive musings about continually falling for the straight girl, never catching that unattainable person’s eye. It’s a theme touched on throughout the quartet’s debut record, 10/10: “There are songs on this album that are clearly gay,” she says of the album, on which she writes queer lyrics openly for the first time. Joined by Tunic frontman David Schellenberg on bass, Hut Hut drummer Ian Ellis and guitarist Brendon Yarish, the Winnipeg-based project’s debut arrives September 9 through Midwest Debris

About (Manitoba Music)

On Booter’s debut album, Alannah Walker sings queer lyrics openly for the first time. Inspired by women writing love songs about women, the Winnipeg musician formerly known for her acclaimed duo Cannon Bros shares sarcastic slacker laments with a universality stretching far beyond the prairies. Joined by members of Tunic, Hut Hut, and Animal Teeth, 10/10 sets her stories of breakups, make-ups, and crushes on straight girls to the nostalgic strains of ’90s indie-rock. Drawing on the time-tested influences of Sloan, The Breeders, and Guided By Voices, each track is packed with hooks while maintaining the quartet’s homespun charms. Producer Cam Loepkky (The Weakerthans, Constantines) and mastering engineer Philip Shaw Bova (Kiwi Jr., Land of Talk) give 10/10 a vibrant boost with its dreamy synths and incandescent guitar solos bursting through Booter’s understated arrangements.

RELEASED Friday, September 9, 2022

Divine Comedy – Don’t Look Down

Divine Comedy – Don’t Look Down

The Divine Comedy are a band from Northern Ireland. Formed in 1989 and fronted by Neil Hannon. Hannon has been the only constant member of the group for all these years. The band has released 12 studio albums. Between 1996 and 1999,  nine singles released by the band made the top 40 in the UK.  “Don’t Look Down” comes from the album Promenade which was released in 1994.  By honest error, the Old Fellas New Music rule of no music older than 2015 has been broken!  Hopefully a severe penalty will be applied. However, here is Hannon performing the song in 2017.

Local Natives ft Sylvan Esso – Dark Days

Local Natives is an American indie rock band based  Los Angeles.  Their debut album, Gorilla Manor, was first released  February 16, 2010. The album received mostly positive reviews and debuted on the Billboard 200 and at No. 3 in the New Artist Chart.

Los Angeles band Local Natives have combined with Sylvan Esso on a new version of an older song, “Dark Days.  Sylvan Esso is an American electronic pop duo from Durham, North Carolina, formed in 2013. They took their name from characters in the video game Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery.   https://floodmagazine.com/78111/listen-local-natives-share-dark-days-collaboration-with-sylvan-esso/

The collaboration first appeared on the Kimmel Show during the pandemic…  

Rostam – 4Runner

I love this song!

When Rostam Batmanglij was a kid growing up in Washington, D.C. — “must have been 13 or 14,” he figures — he used to ride around in his older brother’s car listening to a collection of Bruce Springsteen’s greatest hits. So it was probably inevitable that the musician and producer (and former Vampire Weekend member) would end up decades later with a song like “4Runner” from his mesmerizing new album.

A sexy-dreamy bop about two lovers’ road trip up the West Coast, “4Runner” carries some big Boss energy — the propulsive tempo, the images of “stolen plates” and a “blanket on the backseat,” the very “I’m on Fire” falsetto at the end of the tune. Asked if he hears it too, Rostam smiles and reveals that it wasn’t just that formative experience at play: Throughout the process of making his “Changephobia” LP, he was listening intermittently to the audiobook of Springsteen’s memoir, “Born to Run.”

Rostam’s craftiness and his analytical thinking — not to mention his interest in music history — are all over the meticulously rendered “Changephobia,” which mingles fuzzy rock, aquatic R&B and 1940s- and ’50s-style jazz. The album, his second solo disc, arrives after a few years in which he primarily wrote and produced for other acts such as Clairo, Maggie Rogers and Haim, with whom he earned a Grammy nomination for album of the year with 2020’s “Women in Music Pt. III.”

Dear Rouge releases new album, Spirit

By Jenna Melanson on April 8, 2022

Vancouver alt-rock duo Dear Rouge have shared their long-awaited third full-length album, Spirit, via Pheromone Records.

As the band wrote of the record,

“Spirit is the most vulnerable and raw side of Danielle’s inner thoughts, and the line being thrown from these questions and deep reckonings within oneself, urging you to grab hold and hang on for dear life.”

The band recorded Spirit secluded away from busy cityscapes. Drew and Danielle took up residence in a lakeside cabin shortly after the release of PHASES, their sophomore record. The duo found themselves spending their days alone together, and Spirit began to take form over the winter months.

“I had this epiphany,” Danielle shared, “that we needed to come back to ourselves and the joy and comfort we found in each other when we began writing music together.”

Maria McKee- Let Me Forget

Spotify

Maria McKee  is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her work with 80’s cow punks Lone Justice and her song “If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)” from the film Pulp Fiction. Last year she recorded the album

La Vita Nuova which was met with generally favorable reviews from critics.

https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/maria-mckee-la-vita-nuova-feature

Father John Misty

Father John Misty – Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution.

Joshua Michael Tillman is better known by his stage name Father John Misty. The chosen song comes from the 2015 album “ Pure Comedy”.  Originally, Tillman included an 1800-word-long essay about its symbolism and meaning in the release announcement email to his fan club. “ Pure Comedy is the story of a species born with a half-formed brain. The species’ only hope for survival, finding itself on a cruel, unpredictable rock surrounded by other species who seem far more adept at this whole thing (and to whom they are delicious), is the reliance on other, slightly older, half-formed brains. This reliance takes on a few different names as their story unfolds, like “love,” “culture,” “family,” etc. Over time, and as their brains prove to be remarkably good at inventing meaning where there is none, the species becomes the purveyor of increasingly bizarre and sophisticated ironies. These ironies are designed to help cope with the species’ loathsome vulnerability and to try and reconcile how disproportionate their imagination is to the monotony of their existence”  Okay…. It is rather catchy though….  Pop Matters assesses….

https://www.popmatters.com/father-john-misty-things-it-would-have-been-helpful-to-know-before-the-revo-2495383263.html

Some lyrics...

It got too hot and so we overthrew the system
'Cause there's no place for human existence like right here
On this bright blue marble orbited by trash
Man, there's no beating that
It was no big thing to give up the way of life we had, oh
My social life is now quite a bit less hectic
The nightlife and the protests are pretty scarce
Now I mostly spend the long days walking through the city
Empty as a tomb
Sometimes I miss the top of the food chain
But what a perfect afternoon

Old Fellas New Music Episode 31 Notes

On By paulmcguire2013In MixCloud, Old Fellas New Music1 Comment
This week’s poster

We are back again this week on Friday at 4:00 PM. Certainly hoping for fewer tech glitches, but all things considered, it was OK.

You can hear last week’s show here on Mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/paul-mcguire3/
This week we have another great setup.

The Beths – Knees Deep
Orville Peck, Shania Twain – Legends Never Die
Glorious Sons – Pink Motel
Blue Stones – Shakin’ Off the Dust
Blue Rodeo – When You Were Wild
Crystal Eyes – 2000 years
Rosie Tucker – Barbara Ann
Sudan Archives – Selfish Soul
Cheap Trick – So it Goes

Our latest show on Mixcloud

Here are some notes that will grow as we get closer to the show.
The Beths – Knees Deep

Beths  – Knees Deep

New Zealand indie rockers The Beths have already released 2 albums of snappy power pop.  Their latest is  Expert in a Dying Field,  from which Knees Deep is the lead-off single.

It’s a peppy,  tune about trying to summon personal courage. In the song’s video, various Beths blow off band practice to go bungee jumping.  It’s included here in a review of the song from Consequence Sound

The Beths Jump In on New Single “Knee Deep”: Stream

In a press release, Beths leader Liz Stokes has this to say:    “I’m the kind of person who wants to go swimming but takes like 10 minutes to get all the way into the cold water, slowly and painfully. I hate this about myself and am kind of envious of people who can just jump straight in the deep end. In a shocking twist, this is also a metaphor?! For how I wish I was the kind of person who was”

Here’s a nice interview regarding their latest release.   https://greatdarkwonder.com/interview-blue-rodeo-many-a-mile/

Glorious Sons – Pink Motel

Kingston Ontario’s The Glorious Sons have achieved remarkable success scoring the Juno for top rock album 3 times and having 2 number 1 hits in the US Billboard Charts.

Pink Motel is the closing track on their 2019 release A War On Everything. The song has very early 70’s Stones vibe to it.  This is a clip of them performing the song at Queen’s University’s Richardson Stadium in hometown Kingston in 2019.


Orville Peck, Shania Twain – Legends Never Die

Orville Peck and Shania Twain

I don’t know anything about Orville Peck, but I will work on this. Everyone knows Shania Twain and her story is worth reading about. This is a woman with a great amount of courage and it is really great to see her in my ‘duets section’ for this week.

I am adding this track on Karen’s suggestion. She is coming to see them this week at Cityfolk here in Ottawa. This is a great duet, you really need to give it a listen.

Blue Stones – Shakin’ Off the Dust
Here is a band that I was only vaguely aware of before Cityfolk. This is a two-person band from Windsor and their music is powerful. The band consists of a drummer and a guitarist. I could have chosen any of their tracks, but I stuck to the show format and chose Shakin’ Off the Dust.

a little grainy, but taken live at CityFolk

I had to add the video for this track, a little strange

Blue Rodeo – When You Were Wild

What can one say about Blue Rodeo?  A Canadian institution since the mid-eighties, Blue Rodeo released their 16th studio album Many A Mile this year. 

When You Were Wild is a Greg Keelor number

Here’s a nice interview regarding their latest release.   https://greatdarkwonder.com/interview-blue-rodeo-many-a-mile/

Crystal Eyes – 2000 years

This track I heard this week off of CBC Radio 3 and I had to add this. I find this is the best way to choose tracks for this show. The song was immediately appealing, now I need to go back and find out a little about who these folks are.

Crystal Eyes

and a little bit about them

Alberta psych-rockers Crystal Eyes are back with a video for their new track, “Don’t Turn Around.”

Today’s release comes from their forthcoming sophomore record, The Sweetness Restored, out April 22nd via Bobo Integral. “Don’t Turn Around” is a brooding track with bold vocal lines, driven percussion, and pulsing synths. The accompanying video for the track comes packed with vintage clips of people parasailing at a picturesque beach.

and this great quote “Crystal Eyes describe the forthcoming album as a “feel-good self-help record for the age of existential dread.”

all from Indi 88 FM

Rosie Tucker – Barbara Ann

Rosie Tucker is an American musician from Los Angeles.  This track is taken from their third and latest album entitled Sucker Supreme.  The album was listed on Pitchfork’s list of “29 Great Records You May Have Missed: Spring 2021

The record opens with one of its finest moments, and “Barbara Ann.” Apparently the song is about Tucker’s grandmother and spending time inside the American monoculture of the Midwest.

The Alternative provides a nice review of the album. https://www.getalternative.com/album-review-rosie-tucker-sucker-supreme/

Sudan Archives – Selfish Soul

This music has a really unique sound. I did look up something about Sudan Archives and her music is influenced by Sudanese violin style.

Here is an excerpt from her website

Sudan Archives is a violinist and vocalist who writes, plays, and produces her own music. Drawing inspiration from Sudanese fiddlers, she is self-taught on the violin, and her unique songs also fold in elements of R&B, experimental electronic music, and beat-making. She signed to Stones Throw Records in 2017.

Sudan Archives grew up in Cincinnati where she “messed around with instruments in the house” and took up violin in the fourth grade, teaching herself how to play the instrument by ear. When she discovered the violin playing style of Northeast Africa her eyes opened to the possibilities of the instrument.

Here is an early video from 2016 when she was just starting out

Sudan Archives – Queen Kunta
In this live performance video, she flips Kendrick Lamar’s “King Kunta” with just her voice, a violin and a loop pedal.
Video and photo by Eric Coleman. Cameras: Mike Park, Dominic Macias, Chris Gutierrez and Eric Coleman. Editor: Laith Majali. Special Thanks to Red Gate Recorders.

Cheap  Trick – So it Goes

Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, that originally formed in 1973. In 1978 Bob and his brother bought Cheap Trick’s third album, Heaven Tonight.  After that it was only a matter of time before they went and got the first two albums as well.  The band seemed to bridge the gap between new wave, power pop and grand stadium rock. They  exploded in popularity in 1979 with The Live at Budokan album.  Here’s the poster from when at their height, they played the Montreal Forum.  (Paul See attachment)

After more mainstream and less interesting releases in the 80’s their output became more sporadic. However this track come from their 20th lp  which became their first #1 record.

Cheap Trick Scores First-Ever No. 1 Album with ‘In Another World’ — Out Now!

Also, a blog Bob follows Burning Wood loved it as well.  https://burnwoodtonite.blogspot.com/search?q=CHEAP+TRICK

Here’s a comparison- Cheap Trick 1977  

vs. Cheap Trick 2021   

You be the judge…

Here is the updated Spotify Playlist

Our Playlist is up to 31 shows now!

Researcher’s Journal – Looking for a question

On By paulmcguire2013In Academic Life, Historical Thinking, My Researcher's Journal, Teaching Canadian History1 Comment

It is time to get back to my researcher’s journal. The semester has been so busy with assignment work that there has been little time to think about anything else. Now after a great session with one of my profs – Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook, I have some great material to work with!

First – I need a question. This is certainly a challenge, you would think this would be easy, but for my comps exam, I will need three questions and I write on two of these. The point here is to choose something that your committee will agree with and it is also important to come up with questions you can actually answer.

Where am I now?

So, I am starting with this – What would a poststructural or critical theory approach to examining grade 10 history teachers’ classroom practices look like?

This is probably the most challenging question that I am going to come up with. There needs to be something on epistemology or methodology so this is a theme to explore. But it is also grounded in reality – I am most interested in cataloguing how teachers are teaching the only mandatory history course in Ontario high schools. How is our national story being told in the classrooms of this province?

Two authors to look at – Petra Munro and Ania Loomba.

Thanks to VoicEd Radio and Dr. Ng-A-Fook there is an interview with Petra Munroe. This might help me with this first question.

Dr. Munro Hendry draws on curriculum studies, history, and philosophy to share her wisdom on the practice of history in relation to the COVID-19 Pandemic, curriculum history, and a history of education from a transatlantic perspective.

Nicholas Ng-A-Fook Twitter August 9, 2021
Fooknconversation Episode 29 on VoicEd Radio – this is where I will start

So far, I have a collection of reading themes where all the articles I have found so far have been organized – this is what it looks like now:

Historic Agency and Consciousness

(7 articles)

Lévesque, S., & Croteau, J.-P. (2020). Beyond history for historical consciousness: students, narrative, and memory. University of Toronto Press.

Teaching Historical Thinking

(9 articles)

Allender, Clark, A., & Parkes, R. J. (2020). Historical thinking for history teachers : a new approach to engaging students and developing historical consciousness. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

History teaching methodology – teachers and teacher candidates

(17 articles)

Use these 10 tips to make your lessons engaging and relevant to your students.

Students’ ideas about history

(5 articles)

Continuity and Change

(1 article)

from the Historical Thinking Project

Alternatives to historical thinking concepts

(2 articles)

Understanding the ethical dimension of historical interpretation

(1 article)

Cause and Consequence

(2 articles)

Cause & Consequence – from Historical Thinking Projects ppt.

Methodology

(1 article)

There is a bit of a pattern here. The methodology of teaching history and more specifically, the teaching of historical thinking concepts are the two themes that are of the greatest interest right now.

Posters are still available on the historical history concepts – you can order them here.

My next step will be to look for more articles from Canadian researchers like Heather McGregor, Lindsay Gibson, Carla Peck, Stéphane Levesque and Dwayne Donald.

What I need to work towards is a comprehensive knowledge of a particular topic. The topic revolves around the teaching of history in Ontario schools and the impact (if any) of historical thinking concepts. The question will be something like this – What are current history teaching methodologies used by history teachers and taught to teacher candidates? How are historical thinking concepts beginning to enter the school system?

This is probably still too unwieldy, but this is what I have right now. The next step – spend the next two weeks adding to the articles I have found and honing my question!

In all this I need to remember to keep this practical, make this something that is useful to teachers. For me this is essential. If I am eventually going to create something of value, it has to be situated in the classroom, it has to be grounded in reality.

Searching for an idea – whose stories need to be told? 

On By paulmcguire2013In Academic Life1 Comment

I am putting my ideas out there now because I want to make my academic journey as transparent as I can over the next four years. I am trying to get into the discipline of writing every day, my next post will probably be the start of a research journal that I need to keep over the length of my Ph.D. I am hoping some people will find this interesting and that I will get some helpful feedback as well! Who knows maybe I will get on Doug Peterson’s show on VoicEd Radio.

I am looking forward to doing this writing every week. I love to write, but academic writing and APA ( a style guide for writing) are new to me. When I post my writing now, I will adapt it so some of the course-specific material is omitted. This post is part introduction, a search for a research topic and my reactions to reading bell hooks.

I did my B.A. at Queen’s University, my M.A. at York University and my B.Ed at the University of Toronto. In between my Masters and Education degree I took a break from studies to work for Katimavik, a national work experience for Canadian youth. I grew in this program and I wanted to find more ways to work in this non-traditional learning environment.

I taught for 31 years in several positions. None were as interesting as working in Katimavik, but after seven years in a traditional classroom, I had the opportunity to work in an alternate classroom at my school. My students didn’t fit into the regular stream. Some had mental health issues, some were dealing with addiction and some simply didn’t fit in. In some ways, I was like many of them. I felt comfortable in this learning environment, and it was a unique privilege to help them through some of the life crises they experienced while in our classroom.

I find now as I take my graduate classes that my mind is growing again. No one really grows when they are comfortable, and it is a relief to again be in that zone. Now I am searching –  what can I write about that will make a difference for people?  Last night in the middle of our methodology class, an idea came to me. Maybe I need a bolder focus. Is there a way I could study a different education system outside of the Canadian context?

Years ago, I spent a good deal of time talking to educators in a northern village in El Salvador. The educators in this town all grew up during the war and were survivors of massacres that took place in their region. We talked about these experiences and it seemed as if they were back in the river fleeing for their lives. They are teachers because they want something better for their children, they are trying to build a society out of the chaos of war. It occurs to me that going back to the village do some form of qualitative research could be what I am looking for. What would it be like to tell their stories? Has anyone tried to do this?

 talking to teachers in San Jos las Flores

I love the bell hooks book. There is so much that speaks to me. I am thinking of the discipline and passion that went into her writing. She writes a great deal about anger and loss, but I think her real message is love and understanding. It is interesting to watch her interview and what she says about speaking freely and teaching courage (Freedom Forum, 2016). The book was dark in many ways and she seemed to lack the confidence to write and publish, but here in this interview I can see how she developed her dissenting voice that welcomes conflict as a normal part of our lives.

It seems like a whole new generation of writers has been influenced by her power and honesty. We do a book study with our year 2 students on How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. Kendi mentions bell hooks in his book, she was one of the writers he turned to as he worked to overturn his own gender and queer racism (Kendi, 2019, p.198-199). Kendi uses a style that reminds me of bell hooks. In each of his chapters, he gives us a taste of his own story. He uses these stories to write about gender, colour, power and what it means to be an antiracist. This book has a great influence on our students, but would this have been possible without the truth-telling of bell hooks?

this is not long and it is a wonderful interview!