tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92843562024-03-23T13:46:57.259-04:00Red and black is the new black and redRantings about life in Greensboro, NC. Notes on music, sports, politics, nightlife, and personal life (or lack of same)d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.comBlogger279125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-33244655956269212302011-12-24T15:20:00.001-05:002011-12-24T16:10:24.205-05:00Four really awesome EPs from 2011I've already listed my "favourite 15 Canadian records of 2011" and my "favorite 22 non-Canadian records of 2011". I may or may not get around to the list of what's not on the lists.
Yeah, I have those albums that other people are going nuts over. The ones by Bon Iver, Cults, The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, Girls, Real Estate, The Sea and Cake, Wilco. I like all of those. They just didn't maked-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-29977312826277597462011-12-22T19:23:00.001-05:002011-12-24T15:14:07.744-05:00Our 22 favorite non-Canadian records of 2011On Tuesday I hurriedly, and with little commentary, compiled and posted my list of my favourite 15 Canadian records of 2011. Now it's time to tackle the bigger project. Last year, I made a list of my 15 favorite non-Canadian records. I'm going to expand it a little bit this year.
I'm not one of these guys who's going to say that 2011 was a weak year for new releases. I think I got more newd-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-15622054333213016652011-12-20T14:48:00.000-05:002011-12-20T14:48:02.127-05:00Our favourite 15 Canadian records of 2011It's that time of year again. Time for everyone to post their lists of "best (number) albums of the year". I do things a little differently around here. This is only my second year doing this, but I always make two lists. One comprised entirely of Canadian albums, and the other of "non-Canadian". And I'm careful to say that these are my favourite albums, instead of calling them the best. d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-79441764099794951932011-12-13T14:40:00.002-05:002011-12-14T01:41:46.126-05:00Looking back at last year's listsAs I prepare to compile this year's lists of my 15 favorite long-players in the "Canadian" and "Non-Canadian" categories, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit last year's lists. To see how they've held up, one year later.
Here's last year's top 15 Canadian records. I think that some of those records made the list simply because they were fresh on my mind at the end of the year. This isd-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-31411137326003240402011-11-11T21:41:00.001-05:002011-11-12T09:37:56.580-05:00In which we see the Pixies play "Doolittle"There's been a recent spate of indie bands celebrating the umpteenth anniversary of one of their classic records by reuniting and "in support" of that album. They haven't all been good, or even a good idea, but the latest one was fantastic.
Last summer, Dinosaur Jr mysteriously toured, playing their 1988 album Bug in its entirety. I'm not a huge Dinosaur Jr fan, but I do like them. That d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-69445766955084911852011-08-04T16:31:00.001-04:002011-08-04T16:42:42.885-04:00Some People Just Don't Know How to Quit While They're Ahead.It's heartbreaking sometimes to watch someone overstay their welcome. I'm not talking about your in-laws or a friend visiting from out of town. I'm talking about Sofia Coppola.
When Coppola's newest movie, "Somewhere" was in theatres, I didn't bother. It wasn't because I didn't want to see it. I've liked, to some degree, each of her previous movies, and I wanted to see it, but I just chose d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-20225650124471155992011-07-06T02:58:00.001-04:002011-07-06T03:00:51.938-04:00Polaris short list picksRegular readers (all two of you) know that I dig the Canadian music. July 6 is the day when the short list for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize is announced. Last month, a 40-title long list was announced after tabulating votes from over 200 jurors. I already wrote about my unofficial ballot, which is limited to five full length Canadian albums released between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011. Of d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-13241203801388837612011-06-15T01:37:00.000-04:002011-06-15T01:37:14.786-04:00My unofficial 2011 Polaris Prize ballotI'm not Canadian, but I play one on teevee. And I sure do love the Canadian indie rock. Everyone knows that. This week will be a fun one for lovers of independent Canadian music because the long list for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize will be announced.
The Polaris Prize, named for the North Star, is an award given annually (since 2006) for the best full-length Canadian album, based "solely ond-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-50660477863229015892011-06-05T17:56:00.001-04:002011-06-05T18:38:01.123-04:00In which Bono becomes "the huggable hitchhiking dick" (as told by Dr Seuss)I know some wickedly hilarious people, and this week they really showed their stuff. I'm a part of an email music discussion group. Mostly we write about the stuff that's playing in heavy rotation at our houses and why everyone else should be listening to our favorite records. It's been really great. I've learned about dozens of new bands that I would have never known d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-3784047040234904272011-04-12T00:37:00.001-04:002011-04-12T00:45:25.302-04:00In which I drive 750 miles to see Throwing MusesAnyone who has known me for any length of time and has talked music with me knows that I'm a big big fan of Throwing Muses and everything that was born of them. Kristin Hersh solo, 50 Foot Wave, Belly, Tanya Donelly solo.
I've seen the Muses a number of times, and this is about the most memorable of those experiences. Saturday May 6, 2000 -- "The Gut Pageant". This d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-84011658017217159372011-03-08T23:56:00.001-05:002012-08-18T02:32:11.748-04:00Two days of SundaysI've recently started writing about some of my concert experiences that were most memorable for me, and it looks like this might turn out to be a series of many parts. Although I had planned to write about something else, I've had a request to detail the events of February 19 and 20, 1993. A crew of my buddies and I saw The SUNDAYS on consecutive nights and went on a pretty memorable d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-74501332521899964802011-03-07T22:34:00.000-05:002011-03-07T22:34:35.815-05:00The time I showed up a little early for MogwaiI've mentioned before that I used to go to a lot of concerts and that I used to make a point to show up very early. This is about one of the times that I showed up crazily early. I guess I was pretty excited about going to see Mogwai. Too excited.
I'm not able to pinpoint the exact date of the show, but I know that it was a Thursday. By my best recollection, it was the spring of 2000d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-54840679982929696902011-03-05T17:29:00.002-05:002011-03-05T17:38:04.865-05:00From Montreal, (or Alabama, or Wherever) with Love: Part II -- 03.08.2003I recently told a story to a new circle of friends about my first exposure to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, how I came to love that band and how this eventually led to a bizarre trip to Athens, Georgia. I've been urged by them to retell the story in greater detail, so it gives me the perfect excuse to be more active on this page.
The first part of the story, which I wrote here a couple of d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-12646175054266803102011-03-02T23:22:00.001-05:002011-03-02T23:44:40.024-05:00From Montreal, (or Alabama, or Wherever) with Love: Part I -- 10.03.1999We all have a handful of events in our lives that stand out in our memories. Of course there's the big stuff like weddings and births and deaths in our families. September 11. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about littler things. Like the way we remember where we were and what we were doing the fist time we heard a certain record, or a certain band. d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-18892835185422508232011-01-03T07:52:00.001-05:002011-01-03T08:05:49.006-05:00Our favorite 15 Non-Canadian albums of 2010A couple of weeks ago, I posted a list of my favorite 15 Canadian albums of 2010. I had a pool of about 23 new releases in my library to work from, so it wasn't too difficult to narrow it down to 15. The non-Canadian list was tougher I have about 40 in that pool of new releases. A couple were added to the pool at the very last minute, and one even snuck into the top 15 with a late entry. Somed-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-57586973953525585522010-12-21T20:16:00.002-05:002010-12-21T20:32:53.935-05:00Our favorite Canadian records of 2010At some point in the late Aughts, I stopped buying new music. It wasn't really by choice, and it definitely wasn't any fun. Lately, though, I've been back in the swing of buying new records. A few years ago, I started having an obsession with Canadian indie rock, and for the first time, I'm going to make a list of my favorite Canadian records of the year.
Not much has changed d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-50676620778910024292010-09-18T19:55:00.000-04:002010-09-18T19:55:12.850-04:00It's so much brighter than the sun isToday, September 18, is (at least in the United States), the 20th anniversary of the initial release of "Heaven or Las Vegas" by ethereal dream-pop trailblazers Cocteau Twins. It's arguably one of the best and most influential records of the 1990s, across all genres, and one of my "desert island albums". If you own a copy, listen to it today. If you don't, you should buy, borrow or steal a d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-16016546545960038532010-09-05T17:51:00.000-04:002010-09-05T17:51:02.051-04:00The snoopy snow cone machineIt baffles my mind sometimes when I think about the things we were allowed to do when I was a kid and the things that we were forbidden. I guess this thought was fueled when I was playing an arcade game version of lawn darts a week ago. The real thing, of course, has been banned in the United States and Canada since the 1980s, but this is the kind of toy that children were allowed to, and even d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-84314424870144123552009-11-04T17:34:00.003-05:002009-11-04T18:22:13.481-05:00Instant karmaBy popular request, I've opted to at least temporarily reactivate this dusty old blog. We'll see how it goes.I've often thought of myself as a bad (fill in the blank with your choice of: lay, friend, neighbor, son, brother, uncle, boss, boyfriend, writer, customer, etc. etc. etc). I don't usually think of myself as a bad person as a whole package. Yesterday, though, I had one of those moments d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-38726799298178604892008-07-14T21:00:00.004-04:002008-07-14T21:46:03.980-04:00A challengeI want to present you, dear readers, with a challenge. I challenge you... I dare you.... I double dog dare you to get this song out of your head. The R&B/B&R video of the day: "My Year in Lists" by Los Campesinos!.Seriously, try to get it out of your head. You can't do it. Sure, you might be able to shake it for right this second, but maybe later today, maybe sometime tomorrow, there it'll d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-8930656456137941752008-06-30T21:27:00.004-04:002008-07-01T01:18:40.203-04:00moving through the netflix queueSince the hockey season is over, I have reached the point that I reach every summer where I get incredibly bored. Oh, sure, the Entry Draft came and went, providing me with about two hours of entertainment. The free agent signing period begins tomorrow (July 1), and that should provide me with a couple of days of excitement, but for the most part, the period between mid-June and early October d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-56183152633113359942008-06-24T17:35:00.004-04:002008-06-24T17:40:46.107-04:00If you really like me, you'll buy me this...I've come out of hibernation only to say that if you were really my friend, you'd buy me a ticket to this.It's only a little over $400 per person, so if you've got that much extra dough burning a hole in your pocket, feel free. Actually, by now, the whole thing is prolly sold out, but it sure would be sweet. Sunday night alone would be well worth the price of admission.d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-69049044666539589742008-02-26T01:13:00.003-05:002008-02-26T01:25:54.648-05:00I'm in the New York Times!The New York Times has given my hockey blog some love! I've been asked to be the Carolina Hurricanes blogger representative in an ongoing q&a thing being hosted by the New York Times hockey blog. Each team has one blogger representing it, and we're all asked the same set of questions. It looks like they'll be posted division-by-division. The first installment is here, and it'll be a regular d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-16869108726457890522007-10-28T22:07:00.000-04:002007-10-28T22:59:02.198-04:00just one cold look from you can knock me downAfter a few months of silence around here, I've decided to make another run at keeping this thing up. Like I always do, I'll make grand promises to be more devoted to this blog, but I doubt that I'll hold true to those promises. I've been thinking about a few different posts for this place, and instead of cranking them out old-school style, I'm mulling them over. A few months ago, I was "d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9284356.post-25118038460805585862007-09-24T18:36:00.001-04:002007-09-24T18:36:18.600-04:00......d-leehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15772585727501344436noreply@blogger.com3