Hi, Partygoers! Welcome to the second CanCon episode as we explore a favourite musical moment of Dave’s: the mid-nineties to mid-noughties Canadian indie music renaissance. A special time in Canadian music when many local scenes coalesced into a musical movement that triumphantly swept across Canada just beneath the notice of pretty much everyone.
We hope you enjoy it. As always, snuggle up in your favourite chair with a warm winter drink as we listen to:
- Cuff the Duke – “Ballad of a Lonely Construction Worker” – Life Stories for Minimum Wage, 2002
- Boy – “Black Cat” – Every Page You Turn, 2004
- The Inbreds – “Drag Us Down” – It’s Sydney or the Bush, 1996
- Hot Hot Heat – “Get In or Out” – Make Up the Breakdown, 2002
- Magneta Lane – “The Constant Lover” – The Constant Lover EP, 2004
- Rufus Wainwright – “April Fools” – Rufus Wainwright, 1998
- Local Rabbits – “61 Days” – You Can’t Touch This, 1996
- Metric – “Monster Hospital” – Live It Out, 2005
- The New Pornographers – “The Laws Have Changed” – Electric Version, 2003
- The Super Friendz – “The World’s Most Embarrassing Moment” – Slide Show, 1997
- Canned Hamm – “I Kissed All the Girls at the Party” – Karazma, 2001
We also played:
- The Inbreds – “Round 12” – Kombinator, 1994 – A good example of their bass and drums sound with some amazing bass playing that comes very close to sounding like a guitar.
- King Crimson – “Cat Food” – edited version for single, b/w “Groon” (1970), from A Young Person’s Guide to King Crimson, 1976
Thanks for listening.
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Omigod, you mentioned Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller!! Holy hell, but is that a blast to the past! My brother and I used to rent that video over and over again (we were 9 or 10 when it came out) from our local store ALLLL the way over in rural Australia.
New Pornographers were big in Australia too (in the indie scene, however big that could ever get), reaching full Pornfever around 2005-2006-ish?
We also had Hot Hot Heat in Australia but this might be because I shared a desk with a Canadian, at the ad agency I worked at, who used to DJ a BC college radio station and shared a lot of music with me.
I’m not even done with Episode 26 and I just had to write you guys for selecting such a great bunch of songs, I was literally backing the podcast up and listening to “April Fools” and “61 Days” over and over.
So Dave, I’m not the only one who was attracted to mean girls back in High School? My first girlfriend was so mean to me but I was just so infatuated with her at the time. We broke up, became friends and she was still mean in a really flirty way even though we weren’t dating. Years later I ran into her and she profusely apologized for being such a “brat” to me back in school. We went out a few times after that but it wasn’t meant to be and to this day we’re still good friends. But it’s that mean streak that attracted me to her in the first place…
Still working on the “Peanut Duck” project between everything else going on….
What a fantastic show, folks. Such a strong selection. Every song was a winner for me.
Well, okay, one was a gigantic, steaming turd… (Dave, I bet you can guess which one without even looking at the comments below.) But the others were so great that all is easily forgiven.
Cuff the Duke – Loved the way it built slowly through a long instrumental passage, then changed when the vocals came in. As a fellow devotee of the godawful racket, I must see if I can find a live version.
Boy – Aw, this was just perfect. Pure joy from first note to last. Excellent production and instrumentation. Handclaps – yay!
The Inbreds (Drag us Down) – Third song in a row with a whiny, nasal lead vocal. Is a theme developing? Classic pop tune, great chords, lovely countermelody and harmonies. I could have done without the instrumental break and the string section at the end, but that’s nit picking. ‘Sydney or the Bush’ is an Australian phrase meaning ‘all or nothing’.
The Inbreds (Round 12) – Liked this one just as much as Drag us Down. Would never have noticed that the guitar sounds were all from a bass!
Hot Hot Heat – Tremendous energy and a great fun track. Bit of an XTC-meets-Green Day-doing-ska vibe, which is no bad thing.
Magneta Lane – More poptastic excellence. Second track without a nasal vocal. And then comes…
Rufus Wainwright – Goosebump time. What a wonderful song and track. and not just any whiny vocal, but Rufus – the nabob of nasal himself. More perfection.
Local Rabbits – Loved it, again.
Metric – Running out of superlatives here. Shades of X-ray Spex crossed with Pixies. Bet they’d be a fantastic live band.
New Pornographers – Gonna need a thesaurus shortly. Have I used ‘brilliant’ yet? What a hell of a song!
Super Friendz – Yay, the whine is back! Beautiful guitar figure, gorgeous vocals, great song. Echoes of Television in the middle part. Love the dissonance at the end. And to think this is just the penultimate song. Hoo boy, the last one must be an absolute masterpiece. I can’t wait…
Canned Hamm – Holy crap, what happened? THIS is your closer, Dave? Did we upset you?
Seriously, though, that was a blast from start to (almost) finish. And even Canned Hamm I could imagine working if I was aware of the live show – it was just weird hearing it for the first time with no context.
As ever, great conversation between the two hosts.
So looking forward to Listening Party 27 – your first anniversary show!
Sorry, am a bit behind with my listening to the Listening Party, and am jumping into this a little out of order but so be it. Many of these bands I have also had the good fortune to hear live (Cuff the Duke Boy, Hot Hot Heat, Magneta Lane, Rufus Wainwright, New Pornographers, Canned Hamm); was very sorry to have missed the Metric show (damn you, school dance – why can’t you learn to supervise yourself?!!!).
I am with Chris and Mary, in that I like all of the above with the exception of the Canned Hamm song, but curiously, my second time through this episode, I realized that the Canned Hamm song was my takeaway earworm tune after my first listen to the episode. So I’m not sure what that means.
When Hot Hot Heat came back to Vancouver following their almost-rise to fame in the UK, I used to see them around town a lot – they were often out at clubs listening to upcoming bands, and as Dave mentioned, he and I even saw them once crossing the street in front of us late one night after a show – Steve Beys’ massive curly blond locks were hard to miss. It was around this time that Franz Ferdinand was popular with their first big hit, and I remember looking up something about them only to find an old poster from a UK show where Franz Ferdinand was the opening act for Hot Hot Heat. They were that close to making it. As Gladwell has shown us, it’s so often about the timing.