Review of Die Mannequin's EP Danceland

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m going to be writing more about music in the form of concert and album reviews. There are a couple reasons for this. One, I have a shitload of new audio gear I want to break in (that reminds me, I should write a post about all the toys I’ve acquired in the last month). Two, I want to get my blog going again.  Three, I’ve come across a bunch of new music. Other than my usual music sources such as XM Radio, exfm, and Slacker, I was fortunate enough to have music industry expert Eric Alper send me some new material (Follow him on Twitter at @ThatEricAlper). Now I don’t know Eric personally but one thing I do know is that he is a chain Tweeter.  He is so prolific that his Twitter account is like a constant live-stream of the music industry.

One band Eric sent my way was Die Mannequin with their soon-to-be released EP Danceland.  Die Mannequin is a Toronto band fronted by lead singer and guitarist Caroline Kawa, better known as Care Failure. [I know, awesome name isn’t it?]  Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a soft spot for bands fronted by women.  You can imagine how this was a no-brainer for me.  A Canadian band with a female lead vocalist that plays guitar is something right up my alley.

The record Danceland is about 28 minutes in length, definitely long for an EP. In fact, it’s as long as Weezer’s Green Album.   I was not expecting the EP to sound so ripe but after doing some research on the band I wasn’t surprised.  Die Mannequin had released a full Studio album called FINO + BLEED in 2009 as well as two other EPs.  Add that to the fact that some tracks on Danceland were recorded for Bruce McDonald’s film Hard Core Logo 2, featuring Care Failure and Die Mannequin, and you realize that this band has some experience under their belt.  Too bad I hadn’t discovered Die Mannequin earlier.  I’m not familiar with their earlier material but I will give it a listen as soon as I get my hands on it.  That’s a task I will add to my to-do list.

I listened to the Danceland EP about 10-15 times before putting my opinions down on paper. One of the first things I do when I listen to new music is try to find similarities to music I'm familiar with.  In this case I was immediately reminded of Coheed and Cambria.  Also, the semi-androgynous vocals remind me of those of Silversun Pickups’ Brian Aubert.  Don’t get me wrong, this is a compliment.  Many people I know initially thought the lead singer of Silversun Pickups was a girl.  The similarity is apparent in the second track of Danceland, Candide, which happens to be my favourite song on the record.  Candide was on the FINO + BLEED album but I think they put it on the EP with the intention of turning it into a single.  Oh Yeah.  Do not think for a moment that Danceland is a dance album.  Danceland is actually the place where Hard Core Logo 2 was filmed.  Die Mannequin is definitely punk rock with elements of other popular rock genres.  The lyrics are aggressive and hold weight without being offensive. 

This is one hell of an energetic record.  The first 8 tracks are pure GO.  These aren’t songs you wind down to.  Instead, listen to them while you’re running from the cops and setting fire to the city.  This isn’t Jack’s Mannequin.  The tone is set from the start with the track The Other Tiffany.  If you like this track, the next 25 minutes will be a treat.  The last song on the EP called Just Go Away is the exception.  It’s a sombre acoustic track, the type I usually enjoy to conclude albums.  However, I couldn’t really warm up to this one.  Maybe Care should have done the vocals to make things fit together better as it felt too out of place, even for an EP.

My final thoughts.  I was a bit concerned that the record would be too aggressive for my tastes.  Admittedly, Die Mannequin is a bit edgier than the music I typically listen to but I felt that Danceland was a refreshing change.  The energy and passion in their music makes me look forward to their concert on June 15^th at the Mod Club in Toronto.  I can almost feel the stage presence in their recorded EP so I can only imagine what they are capable of doing live.   

 

Candide By Die Mannequin

I realize this has been one of the more serious blog entries I’ve written in a while.  No I haven’t lost my cynical humour.  That will resurface at some point.  But for now, rock on and support local music.

Time to Dust Off the Keyboard

It’s been a while since my last post and a lot has happened since then.  April was a busy month.  My time was divided between work, settling into my new place, concerts, and random stuff that I can’t remember. 

Despite all the craziness going on, I will be regularly updating my blog starting this week.  The themes of my posts will remain random but I do plan on doing more music and concert related posts.

Speaking of concerts, I’ve been to a few interesting ones in April.  The Joy Formidable at Lee’s Palace was quite excellent.  The Ting Tings and the Phoenix was a good time despite feeling super bad about standing in front of shorter people near the front.  Of Monsters and Men was a treat. I love them. Icelandic women are gorgeous. The Cults concert would have been a lot better if I didn’t feel so uncomfortable watching some random dude get unnecessarily close to WP7.  I won’t get into too much detail this time but this random dude and his friend had the tendency to continuously move backwards into us while having plenty space in front of them.  It was very strange.

Fun stuff coming up. Stay tuned!

Canadian Music Week – Day 1

Blogging after concerts seems to be tradition for me. Last night was the Treble Charger reunion concert at the Phoenix.  I would review the concert but let’s be realistic, everyone wants to know what sort of retarded people we encountered in the crowd.  Anyways, whenever WP7 and I go to concerts it’s pretty normal to run into interesting people.  Like I said, I tend to attract the retards whenever I go to big public events.  Opposites attract right?  Or, maybe I have it all wrong and everyone around me is normal and I’m the retard.

Here are the notables:

Mr. Come On – The Big Bald Bastard

This was an interesting character. Mainly because he would randomly shout “COME ON!” in the middle of every song that Twin Atlantic would play.  He would do it at the most inopportune times. For example, during  slow interludes and bridges.  I wanted to get it on video but I felt it would be awkward filming him as I stood beside him.  Here’s the closest visual I could find:

Awkward Threesome

So this girl and two guys were standing in front of us during the Treble Charger gig. For the first half of the gig I thought the girl was with the taller of the two guys. They appeared to be a couple. However, as the concert went on the shorter dude started kissing on her and the first guy was hands off. It was like they were taking turns. I can only imagine the conversation before the concert. “Dude, you can have her for the first 8 songs but after she’s mine! If there’s an encore, we flip a coin.”  That wasn’t the oddest thing about this threesome though.  Everyone knows of some sort of ranking system of attractiveness of people in general. It’s usually on a scale of 10 where 10 is gorgeous and 1 is hideous. The general rule is couples are usually similar on the scale of attractiveness. So a 10 will typically have a partner who is a 9 or 10.  I found the standard deviation to be about 1.27 in most cases (don’t ask me how I came up with that).  Anyways, the girl in this threesome was about a 7 but the short guy was at best a 3. That’s a 4 point difference! That’s almost unheard of.  You’re considered lucky if you score someone 2 points higher than you. But four? FOUR!? I’m pretty sure that’s illegal in a few countries.

Billy Corgan meets Smeagol

This dude got asked to dance on stage because he was dancing the craziest.  This skinny bald guy was likely on speed.  His dance moves incorporated head-banging and general motions that may be familiar to Curious George.

         +     =  This Dude

That was Night 1 of Canadian Music Week. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of the week…

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour at the Hoxton

My 2012 concert season was kicked of with The Asteroids Galaxy Tour at the Hoxton on Monday night.  I was joined by my good buddies SD-6 and WP7 (yes, my friends are named after cell phones).  The first thing I noticed when I got inside the Hoxton was that I wasn’t ID’d by the bouncers or security.  This slightly disappointed me because I became self-conscious about how old I looked.  I need a younger disguise.  I knew I should have had my mittens on strings…

Anyways, the Hoxton is an interesting venue - two bars and quite a bit of open area.  It was surprisingly full even before the opening band started playing.  The Vacationers were the opening act and I was pretty impressed.  Their music is what I describe as summery/happy and easy to groove to.  I guess the name ‘The Vacationers’ is fitting.  Some people found odd ways to dance to it.

This leads me to the low-light of the night, brought to you by skinny jeans.  During the Vacationers set, there was a dude who mistook this concert for a soca party. He was grinding up on everyone within a 2 metre radius.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of the fuckers I blogged about at the Sounds concert a few months back.   After a few uncomfortable moments of being violated, SD-6, WP7 and I moved away to an area I like to refer to as the Bar Current.  I call it this because there was a constant stream of people walking to and from the bar that would brush by us like waves on a beach. Very vacation-esque indeed!

After that set ended we relocated to the coolest area of the venue. Literally.  The place was uncomfortably hot but we found a spot where cold air would flow from the vents. Score!  Before the Asteroids Galaxy Tour came on the stage, I spent the time people watching.  It was a mixed crowd.  There were some old geezers in there that seemed really out of place.  They definitely weren’t there for the music and there are much cheaper places to drink, so I honestly don’t know what they were up to.  Then there was the fifty-something year old mother with her teenage daughters.  It was awkward to watch.  Girls, have you no shame?

Despite some technical difficulties with their mics, the Asteroids Galaxy Tour was fun to watch with their funky riffs and prominent trombone use.  My favourite song by far was ‘Suburban Space Invader’.  Quite a fitting name for a band called The Asteroids Galaxy Tour.  They were able to keep the crowd energized and were definitely worth seeing again.  On a side note, the guitarist looked like Han from the Fast and the Furious.

During the encore a tall blonde lesbian rushed up in front of me and started recording the performance.  Now, I didn’t mind that at all (WP7 commented that she was ‘my kind of gal’) but her short and stubby girlfriend was a bit odd.  She stood behind her although she was more than a foot shorter than the blond girl and couldn’t see shit.  I dunno, it was at least amusing. 

The night couldn’t be complete without some retardedness. Plenty of pun intended here. There was a handicapped woman walking through a crowd and she started telling off a group of people just standing there.  She was obviously fed up with the world.  I’m not sure exactly what she said but I would imagine it sounded something like “Ti-Timmay!! Timmeh! TmmmTimay!”

Yep, so that wraps up another fantastic night. Concert season is off to a flying start. With Canadian Music Fest around the corner and a slew of concerts in April, it’s looking like a good year for live music.

Story Time...

I wrote this on the plane last December on my way to San Francisco. I have been meaning to post more but life kind of got in the way.  Reading this over reminded me of how aggravated I was when I wrote it...

So why do the most retarded people find a way gather around me. It appears that I attract two things when I travel, mosquitoes and retards. After my excursion into the scum breeding grounds known as China, I find myself in a seat on a plane to San Francisco beside a crazy woman. She decides to take off her shoes and socks and sleep in some fucked up cross-legged position taking up more room than necessary. Her feet are in uncomfortable proximity to me. She also rubs and picks at them. She's giving them the works as if she was in her living rooms. I'm on the aisle seat and this bitch is pissing off both the guy in the window seat and myself. The dude at the window seat is kind of weird too. In the middle of the flight he gets up, goes to the aisle, takes his bag out from the overhead compartment and starts unpacking in the middle of the aisle. Meanwhile, I stand there waiting for him to finish his picnic so I can let him through to his seat. Where do all these inconsiderate idiots come from? I know, China mostly, but I am still baffled by the existence of such discusting beings. There have been a number of funky smells on this flight so far. Right now it smells like a very unclean vagina. Someone already farted twice on this flight. No sleep for me this time...

It's Been Too Long!

But I'm back!

Back from the crowds of China and malls of Fremont, California.

China banned access to Blogger so I couldn't update my blog there. I do have tons of stories that I will post eventually.
I hope everyone is having an amazing holidays and all the best in 2012.

In the meantime, enjoy the song that I loved to listen to when Steve Jobs passed away called "Dancing At Her Funeral"

a series of unfortunate events

Long story short, I am heading to Shanghai now. From there I will connect to Beijing.
Thing is, I should have been there two days ago...

still not available in China

This is not China...

Something isn't right here...

Will is on his way to Shanghai, I'm....somewhere.

Vic The Minimalist

I declared several months ago that I would adopt minimalism as my new style of living but it has proved to be more difficult that I initially thought. I love the idea of minimalism. The thought of uncluttered rooms, neat surroundings, freedom from unnecessary objects, and dancing elves is a fantasy I try to submerge myself in.  Too bad it is just that – a fantasy.

This has been hard.  In fact, in my attempted plunge into minimalism, I found myself moving in the opposite direction. If maximalism was actually a word, that would be my new found realm.  Every step towards minimalism would push me back twice the distance.  It was a constant struggle. It still is.   If I were to describe the condition I like to call the maximalism, it would encompass hoarding, compulsive buying, and the desire to have multiple identical objects in one's possession. It starts with one fixation and spills over to the next when I begin to feel satisfied.  It’s like bacteria, expanding and creating new colonies.  The absolute worst thing about this is that I have rational reasoning for all my actions.  The following describes the stages of my struggles and relapse.

It all started with laptops...

The thought of having a laptop to bring to school, one to keep at home, and one for “other” purposes felt like a good idea at the time. But wait! What if my school laptop breaks during midterms and I need a quick replacement? Fuck better order another one…

Vic’s rational thought process:

New computer > old computer

And

More computer > less computer

GET MORE NEW COMPTUERS!

Then there was the guitar phase…

I started with an acoustic guitar. It made sense to get an electric guitar later as I really enjoyed playing. Then a nicer acoustic guitar followed. Okay maybe two. Or four. Different types of woods out there so I need some of each. Different style electrics, need those too. What about modding? A project guitar or two wouldn’t hurt. I lost count after a while but I’m pretty sure at some point I had over 20 guitars in my arsenal.

Vic’s rational thought process:

If I get a lot of guitars people might actually think I’m good at it…

That time I went shopping for tennis rackets…

The Nadal Babolat rackets were on sale. Although I didn’t necessarily NEED a new racket, these were good rackets. There were 3 left. I scooped them all up.

Vic's rational thought process:

The person behind me wants to buy these rackets too.

If I buy them all he will not have any…

Great success!

The cell phone saga…

Ok so there's the work phone and personal phone. But what about a dedicated twitter phone? Yeah sure why not! Games phone? Stupid phone? Everyone needs to at least try out different platforms. Androids, BlackBerrys...check. No iOS yet. Maybe later.

Vic`s rational thought process:

Do I need 6 active phones? No.

Can I have 6 active phones? Yes.

Good enough.

The tablet era…

Tablets are unnecessary. But it’s all the rage lately so why not dive in?  I was an early adopter of the BlackBerry PlayBook.  Was I mad when the price dropped by $300 recently? Nope, I just bought more. Better stock up while I can! Why 5?! Because 6 is too many!  I love good deals. That’s also why I jumped on the HP TouchPad fire sale. They were selling below the manufacturing cost! How could anyone resist?

Vic`s rational thought process:

I`m running out of space in my room, maybe I don`t need all these tablets…

…oh wait they are stackable!

BUY!!!

High on headphones…

This is one of my latest fixations. My collection has grown exponentially over the last month. There are so many types! Over-ear, on-ear, in-ear oh my! They all sound different. Ahhhh gotta catch’em all!

Vic’s rational thought process:

Will these headphones sound different than the others? Maybe.

But Vic they are the same make and model!! ….You’re a towel!!

Purchased!!!

So that has been my recent struggle with minimalism. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday season shopping definitely doesn't help. But there is hope. With a new year around the corner there are new year's resolutions to be made. For example, no new phones until the iPhone 5 comes out. Baby steps, people...

BBM Music – Make Me an Addict Please

BBM Music launched in Canada, the U.S. and Australia yesterday and has received the usual negative feedback from mostly-American news outlets. This is nothing new as RIM has received nothing but negative press for the past year or so.  Deservingly so? Yes and no.  My main gripe about RIM is that they fail to deliver on their promises over and over (like a good politician).  This typically comes in forms of product delays and pushed back OS releases.  Yet, anal-ists…I mean, analysts overlook that RIM continues to grow their subscriber base around the world except in the United States. But, god forbid a non-American Wall Street traded company do well!  I honestly think if RIM moved their headquarters from Waterloo to Silicon Valley, Wall Street analysts would be more lenient on their stock.  This isn’t a blog post about defending RIM however.

I’m reviewing the BBM Music service after actually having used it, unlike the tons of reviews on the web stating why it is a failure without having given it a chance. BBM Music is a cloud based music service that allows users to add up to 50 songs to their personal playlist and gives access to the music on the playlists of fellow BBM Music buddies.  So the key is having a lot of BBM Music buddies so that you can grow your music library.  The more buddies you have, the more music you have access to. BBM Music is free for up to 60 days, and after that it’s $4.99/month. It’s important to note that your BBM buddies can be kept separate from your BlackBerry Messenger contacts.  This is important to me because I don’t want to talk to all the weridos who are also my music sources.  You are allowed to change 25 of your personal tracks every month.  That's 25 reasons to update your twitter or facebook status every month!!

The question arises, “Wait, what if I have no friends? That means I only get to listen to 50 songs?”  Yes. But I don’t have any friends either and I have over a thousand songs on my BBM Music playlist after just one day. How? Post your PIN on forums like CrackBerry.com  and you will get tons of people who also have no friends that want to share their playlists with you and vice versa.  Think of it as a no-strings-attached relationship for music.  You don’t have to know their name, life story, emotional status, you just use them for their music and they will do the same to you.  Of course, you can add your BBM contacts as BBM Music contacts as well. It’s integrated pretty well.  There’s also built in chats in BBM Music, and you can comment on other peoples’ music if you choose.

I also want to mention that even though BBM Music is cloud based, you can cache songs so that you can listen to them when you are “offline”.  It works over cellular networks and Wi-Fi.  I would imagine constant streaming of new (un-cached) tracks over cellular would use up a decent amount of data bandwidth, but everyone has unlimited data plans these days anyways right? (And to those who don’t….well, you should).

How does the music sound? A lot of people overlook this. In fact, I have yet to see a review that goes over how the actual sound quality is.  This is a pretty good indication of where peoples’ priorities lay.  For those who care, it doesn’t sound bad.  It’s not audiophile quality by any means, but then again, what streaming service is? I would say the quality is comparable to XM Radio Online+, which is 128kbps encoded in AAC+ (which sounds better than 128kbps encoded mp3s).

The music selection is good. Actually it’s great.  You can get songs from major labels like Sony, Warner Music, UMG, and a bunch of indie distributors. I could find almost every song I looked for.  At this point you’re expecting me to say why BBM Music will succeed and how it’s the greatest thing ever. No. Not quite.  It all depends on how RIM markets this.  I see potential in this but I’m not convinced that RIM can pull it off. If this service was launched two years ago I could see it gain traction, but now? It has to compete with other cloud music services and internet radio like Slacker Radio and XM Radio Online.  In my opinion, it will only be successful if it is a viable replacement for radio and personal mp3 players.  For that to happen, it has a long way to go.  This leads to Vic’s Keys to BBM Music Success, brought to you by Carlsberg:

• Featured playlists from celebrities.  How cool would it be if you could tap into 50 Cent’s or Paul Bernardo’s playlist to hear what’s playing on their headphones?
• Make deals with artists to release exclusive content on the BBM Music Cloud library.
• Introduce a web browser client to allow subscribers to listen to their playlists when they are at their computers.
• Implement a version of BBM Music for the deaf.
• Increase the number of tracks each subscriber can have. Fifty songs is too little for those who have no friends and refuse to make any.
• Easy-to-navigate search capabilities to sort music and make playlists.
• Allow unsigned artists to upload their shit so it is readily available for people to make fun of.

I like to think of BBM Music as a deck of Magic Cards. You have 50 tracks to make it matter and you can replace 25 tracks a month to perfect your deck. The better your playlist, the more people who will want you as a BBM Music buddy. It’s like the modern day mix tape. This how you win chicks over when you’re in grade school! I believe the limit of BBM Music contacts is 500. So that’s potentially 25,000 songs. That’s more songs than most people have on their iPods.

If this catches on it could be the next big social networking fix. People will judge you by the music you have on your list. Popular people will stick with top 40 hits. The ‘better than you’ crowd will scramble to make sure their playlists is full of music you never heard of.  The retards would have Coldplay.  The usual segregation of crowds, as seen in your local high school.

Would I recommend BBM? Sure, while it’s free.  For $4.99? It depends how much you use it and how much you depend on it. It can potentially be a great way to discover new music. For me though, I have my own ways of discovering new music.  So RIM, you have 59 days left to convince me I need this as much as my backup mattress.

For those who want to share music with me on BBM Music, my PIN is 22A3623F. For those who don’t want to share music with me, my PIN is 22A3623F.