Oh, Canada!

Thanks to the benefits of a full time job, I recently took my first paid vacation since 2007. It was delightful. The lady and I went up Halifax way and visited the Southern Shore a bit.

If you're into scenic coast, Nova Scotia's got it in spades.

Anyway, that's the inspiration for a quick couple of songs:

Leonard Cohen - If Leonard Cohen is the question, there simply is no wrong answer. Sam James jokingly calls him "The Canadian Bob Dylan." The bones-in humanity of his lyrics alternates deftly from tragic to mournful to giddy to erotic. Sometimes all inside the same sentence. If you haven't heard his "Live in London" album, it's entirely worthy of your time, your attention and your dollars. Meantime, here's one of my favorite tracks: I'm Your Man (PS. HOLY CRAP is that a frickin' clarinet? From Star Trek? Or mayhaps an electric saxophone? (PPS Includes a recitation of 1000 Kisses Deep)).

William Shatner - He's a fascinating individual. I love a guy with a good sense of humor about himself. I'm picking a song from his album produced by Ben Folds. It's actually the whole reason I use the titular phrase. Features Henry Rollins (no relation). It's a nice, cacaphonous rant and rave. I can't Get Behind That.

Emily Haines - We listened to Haines' masterful "Knives Don't Have Your Back" on the drive up to Halifax. The album has an excellent, hermetic and complete edge. Good music for a gray day, I think. I'm picking the track "Our Hell" mostly because the video, to me, says some very clever things about beauty... which is something I think about a fair amount these days. And I love that her wikipedia page can not peg down her exact age. I don't know much about Metric or Broken Social Scene but perhaps you do. If you enjoy one of those bands, do you want to perhaps guide me as to what's worthy of checking out and why?

Bell Orchestre - In college I had a roomer who was obsessed with all things Arcade Fire and we accordingly followed Bell Orchestre around through a couple shows in the Toronto area. At one club in Toronto, Richard "Richie" Parry played the upright so hard his god damn fingers started to bleed. Luckily, an audience member had band-aids. Eventually we even got to film them! They put on a pretty excellent show that year (2006). They wore all white and had hanging glowsticks in front of their heart chakra. Perhaps even glowy wrist bands? Anywhere here's a track called Throw It On A Fire. Hope you like French Horn!

Stan Rogers - This song here is half of -- if not more of -- the reason for my trip. I don't know much about Stan Rogers himself, except that he's a notable Canadian folkster. I learned more about the song, and about privateers, on my trip than I knew beforehand. The reason I love this song, though, is that I have a vivid sensory recall associated with it. My family takes an annual pilgrimage to Lake Azicoos. I haven't made it in years. Maybe a decade. But I always look back at it fondly. One of the reasons: late night singing around the campfire. And one of the songs we sang was this one. It's got a memorable chorus and repetitive structure, it lends itself to community singing and will always have a warm place in my heart: Barrett's Privateers. You can also hear Stan Rogers talking about why he wrote the song. Also good? It's about Americans kicking Canadian ass.

Posted by Krister