Blog: London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

James Vincent McMorrow - Early in the Morning

Mar 30, 2011, 1:57pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

When I got really inspired at the beginning of the year and thought I might get really going writing about music again, I was really blown away by a couple of albums. And now that I'm not looking so hard for new music, it's become increasingly rare for me to come across something that I feel like is really worth sharing. Also, I'm feeling more and more like it's not really worth the time to type out a review that sounds something like "meh, pretty good... I guess". That, and the Beiber fever I've caught is severely [...]

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Let's Book Club!: The Art of a Beautiful Game by Chris Ballard

Feb 9, 2011, 9:44pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

C hris Ballard's The Art of a Beautiful Game is subtitled The Thinking Fan's Tour of the NBA , which in my estimation, is a slightly misleading title. At once the book seeks to detail the nuance of a variety of different parts of the game: Kobe's killer instinct, Steve Nash's passing, shooting with Steve Kerr. However, the book only touches on these subjects in broad, general terms. In essence, it's a "thinking fans" guide to the NBA... [...]

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When the Devil's Loose by A.A. Bondy

Feb 7, 2011, 10:53pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

Not breaking news, really. But a really great album that ought to be heard. I can't exactly remember when I first heard of A.A. Bondy . It might've been on Friday Night Lights or possibly through a friend via Facebook, but in either case I do remember be utterly mesmerized by his sound. The strange thing about this hold he has on the listener (in this case, me) and the way he's able to captivate, is that he doesn't possess any of the tools that would immediately wow [...]

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Let's Book Club!: Free Darko Presents The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History

Feb 7, 2011, 11:14am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

In his book What is History E.H. Carr distinguishes between "facts of the past" and "historical fact" arguing that, if I remember correctly, "facts of the past" are forgotten and "historical facts" are what historians have collectively deemed important. Therefore, the thesis from Carr is that history is constructed by those that write it, meaning the stories of the marginalized are often under represented or not represented at all. In Carr's view, history isn't an accumulation of facts, history is about how stories are framed into a coherent [...]

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Destroyer - Kaputt

Feb 3, 2011, 3:18pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

I put on Destroyer 's newest release in the car the other day, left the volume on low, and promptly forgot about the album. The next day I went out to go pick my sister up at the airport, I wondered how Liz had got a muzak installed in our car over night without me knowing ( joke! ). But seriously, from the outset of this album it sounds like Dan Bejar has channeled his inner-Will-Ferrel-Yazz-Flute, or was contracted to write the score for a teen drama circa 1985 and then decided to write lyrics over the [...]

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Let's Book Club!: Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami

Feb 1, 2011, 12:48pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

I'm not sure whether I have anything really earth shattering to say about Haruki Murakami's Dance Dance Dance . The book is another solid addition in Murakami's rather impressive collection. It doesn't move the reader (me) on the same scale that Kafka on the Shore or Norwegian Wood did, and it's not an epic story like The Wind-Up Bird Cronicle (which may well be one of my favourite works of fiction of all time), but it's good. After looking at Murakami's [...]

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My Favourite 5 Springsteen Videos/Songs

Jan 31, 2011, 11:20am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

So, I feel like I might not have clearly communicated my love for all the things Springsteen in my last post, entitled "I'm in love with the Gaslight Anthem", or whatever. At any rate, The Boss is one of my all-time, all-time, favourites and since I've been singing "Hungry Heart" to myself for the last 3 days straight, I thought this post might be a way to right myself with the music gods. Having said that, all that stuff I said about him pandering to the working man is so absolutely, [...]

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The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang

Jan 27, 2011, 5:47pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

Not sure whether this blogging thing is going to take again, but what the hell... On a recent Bill Simmons podcast w/ Adam Carolla they did this bit about Bruce Springsteen and how his music was so overtly, unabashedly, middle-class. They went on about his newest (and most made-up release) Factory about the factory that makes the factories was shutting down... a little over the top... but right on point. The gag being that the Boss would do whatever he could to connect with blue collar middle [...]

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Easily the Best Music Video. Ever.

Mar 9, 2010, 9:37pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

is this: It's unclear what, exactly is going on here, but whatever it is it's spectacular. My favourite parts are as follows: 1. The way he strolls along (note the exaggerated arm movements on the wide angled shots). 2. That he looks confused through a good deal of the song. It appears that they asked him to lip sync without ever hearing the entire song. 3. There are no discernible words in any language in the entire song. 4. The part where he goes super high, like [...]

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Sorry K'naan, you DO have a soul

Mar 5, 2010, 10:35am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

Sometime last year I wrote some thoughts about K'naan's album Troubador , and I was pretty luke warm on the whole thing. My issues with the album were that it was over produced, had no heart, and I pointed to "If Rap Gets Jealous" ft. Kirk Hammett of Metallica as a prime example of why that was the case. Part of my distaste may come from the fact that the album included a guy from Metallica (douches!) who I'm picturing doing some kind of (douchey) underbite while he plays the guitar, but it also runs [...]

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Beach House - Teen Dream

Mar 1, 2010, 10:43am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

So, yeah, it's been a while. An explanation/excuse: I've been putting together PhD applications (actually, only one, but still) and it's not that I didn't have time, but more that my mind has been elsewhere. I'm hoping to get back to blogging a little, though I expect I'll be doing less and writing more about a variety of different topics rather than just sticking to music. We'll see how it goes though. I guess the other thing is that I haven't really been keeping track of what's going on in music... [...]

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Avatar

Dec 30, 2009, 6:06pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

Now, if you want to read something really clever and incisive about James Cameron's Avatar , then read this NYT piece by Adam Cohen about how the 3D medium helps the viewer to enter the world of, and thus sympathize with, the Na'vi. Otherwise... I was completely oblivious to the hype surrounding Avatar . I've managed, somehow, to avoid seeing any sort of movie previews ever, since the only thing I watch on TV now is basketball and the news (traffic) -- for whatever reason, they don't play movie previews on TSN, [...]

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Best Canadian Albums (excluding Toronto) of 2009

Dec 28, 2009, 10:16am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

9. Dan Mangan (Vancouver, BC) Nice, Nice, Very Nice [mp3] Dan Mangan - Robots Elsewhere: Pick of the Week #42 A couple of months ago you couldn't go anywhere, and when I say "anywhere" I mean a Canadian based or Canadian music blog, without hearing about Dan Mangan. Now that his album has been out for a while, the very clever video for "Robots" has been released , he's done touring [...]

• Dog Day - Happiness

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Artist:	Dog Day
Title:	Happiness
Link Text:	Dog Day - Happiness
File Name:	Dog Day - Happiness.mp3
Year:	2009

Toronto's Best Albums of 2009

Dec 17, 2009, 10:08am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

When I started compiling my year end list and trying to rank everything, it became exceedingly clear to me that comparing local Toronto band X to Jay-Z just wasn't going to work. Not that I haven't done that in the past, my top three albums last year were Chad VanGaalen's Soft Airplane , Ketch Harbour Wolves' Dead Calm Horizon , and Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreaks , but it just seemed like this year, there was going to be such a weird grouping of albums that it didn't really make sense [...]

• Black Hat Brigade - Zombies (Basement Sessions)
• Bruce Peninsula - Inside/Outside
• The Wilderness of Manitoba - Evening

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Artist:	Black Hat Brigade
Title:	Zombies (Basement Sessions)
Link Text:	Black Hat Brigade - Zombie City Shake (Basement Sessions)
File Name:	Black Hat Brigade - Zombies (Basement Sessions).mp3
Bitrate:	192 kbps
Year:	2009

Artist:	Bruce Peninsula
Title:	Inside/Outside
Link Text:	Bruce Peninsula - Inside/Outside
File Name:	Bruce Peninsula -InsideOutside.mp3
Year:	2008

Artist:	The Wilderness of Manitoba
Title:	Evening
Link Text:	The Wilderness of Manitoba - Evening
File Name:	The Wilderness of Manitoba - Evening.mp3
Bitrate:	160 kbps
Year:	2009

Let's Book Club!: Race in Play by Carl James

Dec 16, 2009, 10:13am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

I suspect that this book is probably not going to be for everyone. It's a very academic look at race, and the student-athlete, or, in many cases athlete-student. So, rather than me getting into my thoughts on students' construction of their athletic identity and so forth, I'm going to very highly recommend that you read The Last Shot by Darcy Frey (cited a number of times in this book), which is like a literary version of Hoop Dreams , but shorter and better. Up next: I'm [...]

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Best Songs of 2009: "Corvette" by Chad VanGaalen

Dec 15, 2009, 10:47am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

Chad VanGaalen , by all accounts, is a pretty weird dude. Not weird because I'm sure the two of us have different hobbies (I think it's unlikely he's a big NBA/Raptors guy), but more because he writes really strange songs that typically surround the topic of death. "Corvette" from the Soft Airplane B-Sides EP , of course, is not really a whole lot different. I mean, the song isn't entirely about death, but the song does start out with the premise that "he" got reincarnated as a corvette, meaning, of course, that [...]

• Chad Vangaalen - Corvette

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Artist:	Chad Vangaalen
Title:	Corvette
Link Text:	Chad VanGaalen - Corvette
File Name:	Chad VanGaalen - 09 Corvette.mp3
Bitrate:	320 kbps
Year:	2009

Pick of the Week #49: The XX

Dec 11, 2009, 10:32am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

The XX are of one the biggest, if not the biggest, acts to emerge from the blog-o-sphere this year. Last year we had Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes, and this year we have The XX. And while the three acts sound very different, the common thread between them, as I see it, is that they have all carved out their own very unique sound. For B.I. that sound was sort of an encompassing, straining, falsetto; for F.F. it was the big, choral harmonies; for the XX it almost seems like their trademark is the empty [...]

• The XX - Crystalised

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Artist:	The XX
Title:	Crystalised
Link Text:	The XX - Crystalized
File Name:	The XX - Crystalized.mp3
Bitrate:	183 kbps
Year:	2009

Best Songs of 2009: Ketch Harbour Wolves "Letters"

Dec 9, 2009, 2:57pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

I'd like to dedicate this post to the commenter the other day who pointed out that Glasvegas' "Geraldine" was put out in '08 . It was... probably, but it ended up on my computer in 2009, so, whatever. And with that, I'll point out one of my other favourite songs of 2009 released in 2008, "Letters" by the Ketch Harbour Wolves. Seems like an appropriate tie-in with the contest for KHW tickets for this coming Friday, December 11th in Toronto . I've fluctuated on KHW's album Dead Calm Horizon . Not on whether [...]

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Let's Book Club!: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (prt. 2) by David Foster Wallace

Dec 8, 2009, 10:20am London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

Part 1, the first three essays . David Lynch Keeps His Head Not really sure what to say, since, you know, I've never seen anything that David Lynch -- a filmmaker -- has ever produced/directed/acted in/been involved with, I think. Having said that, DFW's descriptions of everything outside of detailed comparisons of his (Lynch's) different films is insanely entertaining. Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional... (cont'd) If you don't have any idea of what [...]

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Contest! Ketch Harbour Wolves, Chinese Food & The Rest @ El Mocambo, Fri. Dec. 11th

Dec 7, 2009, 1:34pm London, ON: Burgeoning Metropolis

Ketch Harbour Wolves are a really great band. They put out an outstanding ( and still free! ) record last year, Dead Calm Horizon , and they put on an excellent live show. They are playing this coming Friday, and will be joined by Hamilton's The Rest , who has been discussed on the Burgeoning Metropolis before , as well as Chinese Food (who I know nothing about). At any rate, it sounds like it should be a great show, and you can win a pair of guest list spots [...]

• Ketch Harbour Wolves - Words
• The Rest - Sheep In Wolves' Clothing

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Artist:	Ketch Harbour Wolves
Title:	Words
Link Text:	Ketch Harbour Wolves - Words
File Name:	Ketch Harbour Wolves - Words.mp3
Year:	2008

Artist:	The Rest
Title:	Sheep In Wolves' Clothing
Link Text:	The Rest - Sheep in Wolves Clothing
File Name:	The Rest - Sheep In Wolves Clothing.mp3
Bitrate:	192 kbps