.....It's been five years since No Doubt recorded an album yet last night they rolled into Toronto and played to twenty thousand screaming fans at a sold out Air Canada Center. I know this because I was one of those fans, what a absolutely fantastic show not only was I there but for the first time in almost 20 years I had front row centers. The show lasted a blistering one hour and forty minutes in which Gwen Stefani and the boys blasted through hit after hit in a high energy fast paced show that had the crowd, myself included on their feet non stop. It's easy to see why they still command such a loyal following, the moment Gwen appeared the crowd was transfixed, a performer like no other she has a stage presence, charisma and stamina that few in the music industry can match, add to that...
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Set List
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Hella Good Underneath It All Excuse Me Mister Ex-Girlfriend Happy Now/End It On This Simple Kind of Life Bathwater Guns of Navarone New Hey Baby Running Different People Don't Speak It's My Life Just A Girl Encore: Rock Steady Stand and Deliver Sunday Morning
....I picked YES up last week, I wanted to listen to it at least ten times before writing anything and that's exactly what I did. Truth be told I probably could have written a review before even listening to the album. When it comes to the Pet Shop Boys I pretty much know what to expect, perfection, absolute perfection. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have crafted another masterpiece, right from the lead off single "Love Inc." the album grabs you and pulls you in. Each song carefully crafted, layer upon layer of synthesizers intertwined with a that heavy redundant trance like beat we're all accustomed to, add to that some selected guitar riffs by ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr and you get a sound experience like no other. That albums has already caught on huge in Europe, the Pet Shop Boys music is after all tailor made for the UK underground.
....It's hard to pick the strongest tracks, because as a rule they don't don't normally include any fill on their albums, it usually a two to three year gap between releases. Besides "Love Inc" their are a number of other track that could easily be issued as singles. "All Over the World" should be the second release a catchy trance like droning dance track that's already being played in the clubs. "More Than a Dream" an upbeat dance track with combining a new wave syth-pop sound with a slight disco beat, it also has one of the best hooks on the album, "Building a Wall" my personal favorite, it has that older 80's style feel to it, a real throw back to the original Pet Shop Boys sound, and "King Of Rome" every album contain at least one ballad, and YES is no exception, a beautiful heart felt song that balances guitar and keyboards with meaningful lyrics and an hypnotic beat.
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The Track List is as Follows...
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1....Love Inc
2....All Over the World
3....Beautiful People
4....Did You See Me Coming?
5....Vulnerable
6....More Than a Dream
7....Building a Wall
8....King of Rome
9....Pandemonium
10..The Way It Used to Be
11..Legacy
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At the time of writing this review, the album is currently sitting at number 3 on the European Top 100 Albums, #4 on the UK Albums Chart, #3 on the German Album Chart and occupies chart position in 16 other countries around the world, not bad for two guys approaching their fifties.
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Supplementary July 24 2009
"Love etc." has moved up to 1 from number 2 on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart in the USA. This is Pet Shop Boys' ninth Billboard Dance number one hit, the first being "West End girls" in 1986. According to Billboard.biz: "...Pet Shop Boys set the record for the most No. 1s in the history of the Hot Dance Club Songs chart among duos or groups this week as "Love Etc." becomes the ninth Pet Shop Boys song to hit the top slot."
Suplementary Feb 18, 2010 The album contunues to expolde all over the world, here's a clip from CNN Feb 18. 2010 .
.....Back in the 1980's and to a lesser extent the early 90's their was a venue in Toronto that played host to some of the greatest bands that I have ever seen. It was called The Concert Hall and it was located on Young Street in the heart of Toronto. Although most would be hard pressed to remember it today back in the mid 80's everyone who was anyone played there. It wasn't a big place, it only housed about 1500 if memory serves me, yet most bands seemed to end up performing their at one time or another. To name just a few U2, Simple Minds, The Sex Pistols, The Spoons, Love & Rockets, Billy Bragg, Public Image Ltd, etc...you get the picture. Anyway A Flock Of Seagulls were in town playing the Concert Hall and it so happens I was in attendance, normally I don't pay too much attendance on the opening act, but on this night it was different. The opening band on this night was the Comateens, an upbeat New Wave group from New York City with an infectious energetic sound
....A pretty loyal following in the Northern States and especially New York were they' play clubs like Max's Trax, Heat, The Blitz, and of course CBGBs, they alsohas success across the pond in Europe touring France and Belgium on more than one occasion. The did one Canadian tour as well in 1984. The Comateens originally formed in 1978 as duo, Nick North and Romona Lee Jan met in a New York recording studio and began to write songs together. In December of the same year Lyn Byrd joins to do vocals and they become a three peice. The first songs ever pressed to vinyle by the Commateens was on a New Your Based compilation album called 2x5, as the name suggests it was a compilation of 5 bands each contributing two song. The Comateen contributed "Late Night City" and "Overseas". With regards to their catalog it can get a bit confusing, there were two studio albums, "Comateen" (self titled) and "Pictures on a String", there were also various 45's and videos releases more info can be obtained at their web site below.
The Comateens are as follows...
Band members changed over the years and there was also the tragic death of Oliver North and Nic North, so the musician below were involved with the band at various stages between 1978 and the present.
LYN BYRD - Vocal, Keyboard
RAMONA JAN: Vocals, guitar
NIC NORTH: Vocals, bass, keyboards, percussion
OLIVER NORTH: Vocals, guitars
ROLLY: Percussion
JEFF ZILM: Drums
NIC O. TEEN: Vocals, bass
HARRY VIDERCI: Drums
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Comateens website, were alot of info can be found, plus some Downloads...
...One of the most fascinating things about the 80's was the hundreds of tiny independent record labels that waged war against the corporate machine that controlled a stagnating music industry at the time. Hundreds perhaps even thousands of small and medium sized bands from all over the world took part in this backlash, assaulting the airwaves, the charts, and most importantly the club scene. Independent college and University Radio stations along with non-commercial radio like CFNY ( back when they were still good ) help make us aware of the existance of these bands. It became a weekend passtime to head downtown to small record shops in search of hard to find albums and 12'inch singles, both domestic and imported.
.....One of the smaller, but very talented groups involved was Vis-A-Vis a Canadian New Wave band that gained a relatively loyal following during the mid 80's. The album shown above belongs to me and it's in almost perfect condition, an incredibly rare find. My original copy purchase back in 86 received regular rotation at the bar I used to DJ, sadly that copy has long since disappeared. This copy I found about a year ago at a flee market and I was to say the least absolutely thrilled. Heart and Soul is a mini album, it only has four tracks, five tracks if you include both versions of "I am the night". They have a distinctively new wave sound, with multiple keyboard layers but also featuring a prominent bass line intertwined with strong guitar riffs throughout, Rude Van Steenes provides some great vocals to round out the project. I would describe it as a cross between INXS an Simple Minds, yet it still retains an original sound. An excellent piece of work by a band that's gone but not forgotten.
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Track List
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I am the night
Prison of eyes
Where angels tread
Dance with me
I am the night (version)
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Vis A Vis are...
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Ed Galati (drums)
Gene Donofrio (bass)
Rude Van Steenes (vocals)
Kurt La Porte (guitar, backing vocals)
Norm Brown (keyboards)
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additional musicians...
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D'arcy Pickering - drums track 1,2,4
Scott Humphrey - PPG programs trk 3
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Heart and Soul
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Produced by Garth Richardson, assisted by William Robertson
Recorded and Mixed at 'Phase One Studios' Toronto in the fall of 1985
Glamatron Publishing / CAPAC / Vis:A:Vis
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Vis:A:Vis also thanks the Spoons and their crew for support on this project.
"I get along" is a single by the Pet Shop Boys from their album Release. A love song, Neil Tennant has also hinted that it can also be interpreted as commentary on the then fraught relationship between British prime minister Tony Blair and New Labour architect Peter Mandelson after the later had to resign from the British Cabinet after a second major scandal he was involved in. This is a beautifully video it portrays a number of young actors in a New York artist's studio and also features Russian super model Natalia Vodianova (before she became famous). Natalia grew up in a poor district of Gorky USSR. She enrolled in modelling at age 15 and by 17 she'd moved to France to establish her self as a successful runway model. Today Vodianova is ranked 14th in the U.K. as one of the World's Greatest Supermodels and has done the cover of every major magazine in the world. But Natalie is more than just a pretty face, she is the founder and the President of the Naked Heart Foundation, a philanthropy that strives to provide a safe and inspiring environment in which to play for every child living in urban Russia.
..... Released in 1983 this was the first single off there second album LISTEN. The photo above is the artwork from the EP ( for those idiot industry people EP stands for Extended Play a.k.a. the 12'inch single...) "Wishing" peaked strongly in Great Britain and in Canada where it reached the Top 10, in the U.S. it reach #26 on the Billboard charts, it also charted in Germany as well. The version above is my personal copy, it's just over 6 minutes long (6:03 to be exact) it's the version that received regular rotation in all the dance clubs, the original version of this song clocked in at nearly 14 minutes. It also holds the rare distinction of having been performed almost entirely on the black keys of a keyboard.
...... In a celebration of early electronic music, digital radio station BBC 6 Music compiled a chart of its listeners' favourite synthesizer riffs in November 2006. "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" came second in the list.
.....The Pet Shop Boys new album "YES" was released in North America yesterday. I went to my local HMV today to get my copy. As with most bands, when a new album comes out I tend to buy the deluxe or limited two disc addition... Imagine my surprise when they didn't have it.
.....HMV is a funny f**kin store store, when you walk in the first thing ya see is the new release wall, no Bleepin Pet Shop Boys... ya get four bloody rows of Miley Cyrus, four bloody rows of the Jonas Bothers and four rows of Tylorf**kin Swift, not to mention four rows of the new Depeche Mode album, which by all accounts isn't very good... but no f**kin Pet Shop Boys. I went to the back of the store and checked the "P" section under "Pet Shop Boys" but only found two standard one disc additions, I was pissed off to say the least. Here's the thing... If HMV is gonna basically drive every other record store out of business and make themselves the defacto monopoly for new music ( which is essentially what they've done ) then the least they can bloody well do is provide a decent selection of albums for those of us that don't like over commercialized pop. If it was some obcure band I might undersand, but we're talking about a group that has sold more than 50 million records worldwide, a band that's been around as long as U2 and released just as many albums, if not more ( most of which BTW ain't even available at HMV ) the disrespect is mind-boggling...
The Tattoo Rock Parlour in Toronto was packed to full capacity last night for the Spoons concert, sorry my picks ain't better, I need to get a decent camera. They put on a fantastic show for the very lively crowd, it's amazing how many hits this band has, no matter how many time I see them I'm always amazed. Its easy to see why after all these years they still command such a loyal following and of course the musicianship is second to none, 30 years of playing together tends to do that... last nights set included a couple of songs I'd never heard live before. Mecurial Girl and Rodeo.
The set list was as follows.. . Trade Winds (Recorded) Arias & Symphonies Smiling In Winter Bridges Over Borders Romantic Traffic Like A MemoryWaterline Mercurial Girl Old Emotions Tell No LiesRed Light No Electrons One In Ten Words Nova Heart When Time Turns Around (E1) Rodeo (E2)
....Sometimes it's hard to tell were New Wave ends and Pop begins, the line begins to blur and at some point gets crossed. When I was a teenager I might of cared about such things but now I don't give a shit, I'm not that pretentious.
.... This English girls group first formed in 1979 with the original line up of Siobhan Fahey, Keren Woodward and Sara Dallin who had all been friends since childhood. In 1981, Bananarama's members were living in a flat above the rehearsal room used by former Sex Pistols members Steve Jones and Paul Cook with their help, Bananarama recorded their first demo "Aie a Mwana" During the early period Bananarama was approached by Malcolm MacLare, the Pistols manger who tryed to sign them, they turned him down which in hindsight was probably a good idea. Their greatest success was during the period from 1982 to 1989 most of there top charting singles were recorded during this time. Their debut album Deep Sea Skiving was released in 1983 and yeilded three UK singles "Really Saying Something" (#5 UK) and "Shy Boy" (#4 UK) — and a cover "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" (#5 UK). Although there have been some line up changes over the years they continue to perform today and have released a total of 9 studio albums.
Air Canada Center Tuesday June 16 2009
