More than likely, even if you’re mainstream out the arse, you’ve heard the name Dream Theater bandied about before. This band’s success is mystifying to me as they’ve been afforded a kind of legendary treatment despite having almost no mainstream exposure. I’ve put off writing about them in any great detail, mostly because some of what I’ll have to say will not be popular among fans of the group. However, it seems a disservice not to talk about such an important and long-running act. Please allow me to put everything down the way it ought to be put down, in a spotlight no less than three instalments in length.

Founded in as Majesty in 1985 by guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, and drummer Mike Portnoy, the Boston-based trio eventually drafted singer Chris Collins and keyboardist Kevin Moore to round out the line-up. Collins’ tenure with the band was short-lived and he was replaced by Charlie Dominici in 1987. Majesty became Dream Theater shortly after due to another group threatening legal action. The original Majesty logo, developed by Dominici using letters of his own last name, has however remained with the band their entire career.

The first full-length record released by the band was 1989′s When Dream and Day Unite. Although people have pointed out Dominici’s similarity to Rush vocalist Geddy Lee, I’d have to say that, while stylistically similar, his voice is lower than Geddy’s and seems to be far more disciplined. The record clearly establishes Dream Theater’s trademark sound: relentless drums, soaring progressive lead guitar over chugging heavy metal riffs, mind-boggling bass, and a walls of sweeping keyboards. The standouts here are the first track “A Fortune in Lies,” and the legendary instrumental “The Ytse Jam” (Majesty spelled backwards!). The band realised they wanted a more dynamic vocalist and Charlie Dominici was let go after the album’s release and subsequent promotional tour. Dominici ghosted professional music for a while before releasing a series of solo albums in the middle of the last decade.

A while after When Dream and Day Unite, Canadian singer James LaBrie was drafted into the band and a sophomore album was at last released in 1992. Infinitely better both instrumentally and from a compositional standpoint, Images and Words is also more dynamic than its predecessor. The album features the band’s only hit single, “Pull Me Under,” along with a grand helping of other instant prog classics. This is my favourite Dream Theater record, and as such, most of the songs are standouts to me. The beautiful soprano sax-laden ballad “Another Day,” the pulse-pounding “Take the Time,” and the epic “Metropolis, Pt. I: The Miracle and the Sleeper” are note-worthy, but my favourite songs on the album are the incredibly-well-put-together “Surrounded” and the breathtaking “Wait for Sleep.”

Two years later, the band’s third album Awake was released. It was the highest charting Dream Theater album of their early history (it would not be topped until 2007) and featured a few attempts at commercial viability, but it was counted as a loss by members of the music industry who lorded over the band at the time. Awake features a harder sound than Images and Words but still carries off the same awesome spirit that made me such a big fan to begin with. Great, succinct prog tunes like “Lie,” “Innocence Faded,” and “Caught in a Web” populate the record, as well as the mellow “The Silent Man.” I also really dig the album closer, Moore’s “Space-Dye Vest.” Unfortunately for fans such as I, Kevin Moore decided to leave the band during the album’s recording. He would go on to make music as a solo artist under the name Chroma Key. He is also a founding member of O.S.I., a progressive industrial metal band which has featured Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree/King Crimson), Jim Matheos (Fates Warning), and even Mike Portnoy for a time.

Derek Sherinian was brought in to replace Kevin Moore for the Awake promotional tour. During said tour, LaBrie ruptured his vocal chords during a serious bout with food poisoning and the quality of his live vocals varied for a long time after. The band decided to do something really neat for the next release. Taking an epic prog tune that they’d never quite finished but had performed live, Dream Theater re-united with Images and Words producer David Prater and made a studio recording of it. A Change of Seasons is essentially an EP but the single twenty-three-minute title track is supplemented by a series of cover songs recorded live by the band. Not only is the title track itself epic, the covers included on the album (including songs by Elton John, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Kansas, Queen, Dixie Dregs, Journey, and Genesis) kick some serious ass.

After this, Dream Theater embarked on a record-label-appointed quest for hits and commercial success (one that didn’t quite pan out) and then a slight change in direction that earned quite a few grumblings from yours truly. You’ll find out what I’m talking about in the second part of Wave Maker’s Dream Theater spotlight.

The Swedish sibling duo of Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer, together known as The Knife, have had a hand in turning the music industry on its head in the post-millennium despite having long gaps between releases or even undisguised appearances. Forsaking the smiling and handshaking that perpetually opens doors in the popular music industry, The Knife have repurposed their image, artistic identity, and idea of popularity into a distinctive formula that can be bent and reset as they please. Their thrust into the public eye may owe a lot to Jose Gonzalez’s cover of their 2003 single “Heartbeats”, but they have since used this attention to gestate and redevelop their experimental approach by incorporating minimalism, dark-wave and ambient textures as they go. During a brief hiatus to what was already a pretty intermittent performing group, Andersson expanded her persona through the eerie solo project, Fever Ray, while Olof Dreijer focused on his own solo moniker Oni Ayhun and his DJ Coolof performances. Now seven years since their last celebrated proper album, Silent Shout, the familial duo have brought forth their new release – the massive and complex Shaking The Habitual. They’ve reinvented their dark electronic sound with acoustic instruments and field samples. The Knife blend inspiration from gender, environmentalism, and the political monarchy of Sweden to create their most sprawling and poignant work to date.

The opening track, “A Tooth For An Eye”, begins the album with some familiar territory, recalling Silent Shout’s icy minimalism and percussive rattle, both reclaiming their stake in the techno headspace and subsequently acknowledging their foundation. The track itself, as well as its video, seeks to deconstruct masculine patriarchy and questions the stability of the “proper” nuclear family. From here, the album delves deeper into a harsher psyche, which twists the old formula on its head. “Full Of Fire” elaborates upon a distorted snare sample for over nine minutes, as Andersson brings her Fever Ray identity to the forefront with insectoid vocal effects and dizzying staccato synth stabs, which recall and pervert the industrial heft of Einstürzende Neubauten. The first change of pace in the record comes with “A Cherry On Top”, an ambient foray of zither samples and Andersson’s sparse whispers of bloated royal indulgence, hinting an instrumental influence that later becomes a defining factor of the release. The rattling world percussion of “Without You My Life Would Be Boring” bubbles up out of the preceding open space, painting skin and muscle onto The Knife’s skeletal arrangements. It is on tracks like this that the album truly breathes and settles into a palpable feeling of textural bliss. Euphoria is short-lived however, as the military drums of “Wrap Your Arms Around Me” envelops your ears in drones and swells that wouldn’t be out of place on Radiohead’s King Of Limbs.

When the album rolls around to the expansive and divisive “Old Dreams Waiting To Be Realized”, a point in the album in which most bands would wrap up a sufficient runtime, The Knife make their revolutionary intentions obvious. The nearly 20-minute track offers respite and confusion, recalling early electro-acoustic pioneers Iannis Xenakis and Bernard Parmegiani. However, as the track seems to contain no progressive arc, it begs the question: is halfway through an already exhausting album really the ideal place for an endless sea of PA feedback and negative space? Recorded in “a big boiler room”, the track will be sure to cut off casual listeners – not entirely a negative effect for a group whose last release was a collaborative score for an opera based on Darwin’s Origin of the Species. From here on out, Shaking The Habitual is for the devoted.

Shuddering itself out of the ashes is the draggingly beautiful “Raging Lung”, but only with the twitching bounce of “Networking” does the album really pick up with the energy it left off. In a way, the second half of the album can be seen as a mirror image of the first, including a second under-a-minute track of ambient rumination, and “Fracking Fluid Injection” is effectively the companion of the semi-song texture of “A Cherry On Top”. The closing track “Ready To Lose” ends the journey in a slow head-nod across to the finish line, tasteful and effective in its closure.

It’s possible The Knife are trying to cram too much sentiment onto an already enormous canvas. Explained in their self released “interview”, directed by feminist porn director Marit Östberg (who also directed their intense video for “Full Of Fire”), the duo’s intentions are unmistakably political in scope, and it’s true that they have successfully “avoided what is expected” from them. However, Shaking The Habitual is anything but concise, and while the ambient material that takes up approximately 35 minutes of the album’s runtime is thoughtfully arranged, it adds a weight that at times threatens to drown the actual manifesto. Dreijer and Andersson have proven capable of reinvention over the course of their career, and self-indulgence at this stage is standard and well-earned. Most importantly, Shaking The Habitual stays true to its title and forces its listeners to question their own expectations and perceptions of the record. Ultimately, The Knife have constructed an album which consistently transforms, inspires, and convulses preconceptions of success and accessibility, traits which I’m sure would bring knowing smiles to their faces … that is, of course, if they were not already hiding behind Venetian plague masks.

I know I usually write about prog, but please indulge a momentary lapse so that I might introduce you to (or remind you of, if you are a fellow listener) Mr. Richie Havens. There are few artists out there whose work I have collected over the years who possess an amount of raw soul even close to Richie’s. With his energetic strumming style and open D tuning (allowing him to bar the top four guitar strings with his thumb), Richie has transformed many classic tunes over the years, as well as penning his own. He is perhaps most famous to the rock crowd for his marathon of a Woodstock performance, where the man played for over two hours! And of course, he has left his mark in progressive rock as well, performing songs for Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett, and being covered by Yes.

There has been a lot of talk about the use of his legendary song “Freedom” in the recent film Django Unchained, so I felt it a good time to showcase some of Richie Havens’ other fantastic material. Please treat this as a beginner’s guide to Richie’s music, as there is so much more out there. The following are twelve of my favourite, arranged in a way that I feel might serve the material the best.

Strawberry Fields Forever [Richard P. Havens, 1983; 1969]

Richie has covered many Beatles tunes, but I think this was the best of them. Including upbeat piano, country-esque steel guitar, and a jazzy interlude, this arrangement pays fantastic homage to the band’s pioneering instrumental experimentation, and Richie’s voice injects some marvellous soul into the mix. This video is a performance for television, but Richie is lip-synching over the actual studio recording. 

From the Prison [Something Else Again, 1967]

Part of the reason why I love a lot of folk and soul from this time period is the sheer darkness of a lot of it. There were a lot of crazy things happening in the world and the artists really stood up and captured it. “From the Prison” is a Jerry Merrick song and is a great work of sombre poetry. Richie brings his tremendous soul to the song and both his vocal and guitar work are absolutely haunting. This song also shows off his unique strumming style.

No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed [Something Else Again, 1967]

This song should be well known to fans of Yes. The early Yes, much like Havens, possessed an uncanny ability to rearrange songs and make them their own. Their version of this tune (from their 1970 sophomore album Time and a Word) was far jazzier and catchier, but the original is Havens through and through and has quite a few things that were lost in Yes’ pop arrangement.

What About Me [The Great Blind Degree, 1971]

I really like this tune for its production. It showcases well Richie performing with a full band and taking advantage of what the studio has to offer. I also find it remarkable how none of the urgency of Richie’s live performances is lost when recorded and produced in studio.

Follow [Mixed Bag, 1967]

Another Merrick tune, “Follow” is yet again a wonderful bit of poetry. I find the lyrics here to be brilliant and the delivery of the performance reflects the passion in them.

Icarus Ascending [Please Don't Touch!, 1978]

This one was the last song on prog guitarist Steve Hackett’s second solo album, recorded toward the end of his time with Genesis. Richie lent vocals and percussion to the song and it’s simply amazing to hear him performing with Hackett in a progressive atmosphere. Note that absolutely none the man’s soul is lost when taken out of his element.

The Times They Are A-Changin’ [Sings Beatles and Dylan, 1987]

The next two songs are remarkable covers of classic Bob Dylan tunes. I’d love to use them as perfect examples of how Richie Havens made songs his own. With “The Times,” Richie took a fast-paced outcry and turned it into a plaintive ballad.

All Along the Watchtower [Sings Beatles and Dylan, 1987]

Another of my favourite Dylan pieces, “All Along the Watchtower” was made perfect by Jimi Hendrix and no one will ever take that away from him, but I love Richie Havens’ version because he used his frantic strumming style to great effect and juxtaposes it with a very subtle, almost mumbling vocal delivery. There is a live version of this on YouTube that is really great as well. When asked what he thought of Washington, he replied that Washington is groovy… for Romans. Classic. 

http://youtu.be/IEEtohsNX0E (live version)

The Time of the Turning [OVO, 2000]

Written by Peter Gabriel as a concept album for London’s Millennium Dome Show, OVO was nothing short of a masterpiece. Richie Havens performed lead vocals on this track which symbolised the yearning of the characters to cling to older, simpler times. The next few songs brought about a shift into a new, more aggressive, less innocent time where a new generation introduces machine, massproduction, tyranny, discrimination, and slavery to the storybook world. The richness of Havens’s performance in “Time of the Turning” captures the soul and mourning of the old times perfectly, while the gorgeous female vocals lift us up into the new generation’s hope for a new time and their innocent desire for growth and progress that will unwittingly bring darkness upon them and their world. One of my favourite concept albums ever.

High Flyin’ Bird [Mixed Bag, 1967]

I couldn’t find clips for the studio versions of the next three songs but they are definitely worth mentioning. “High Flyin’ Bird” is a Billy Wheeler song, but Richie turned it into a much jazzier, souloriented tune. I particularly like the slight changes he made to the lyrics, and the inclusion of jazz guitar and drums.

Run, Shaker Life [Something Else Again, 1967]

This was a song that Richie Havens had performed in his band The Last Men prior to his solo work. The band reunited for the recording of this version. The song is more for spiritual purging and cleansing and is therefore quite repetitive from a lyrical standpoint, but the energy of the song is spectacular. It’s a kick ass little jam.

The Klan [Something Else Again, 1967]

Finally I really have to mention “The Klan.” It’s another tune that features Richie perfoming with only his voice and guitar and it is a magnificent example of how effective he can be without any accompaniment. One really gets the idea of how captured the attention of the Woodstock audience for so long. The tone and imagery presented in this song illustrates the cruel ferocity of the Klan and the savagery men can deliver upon one another. I find it absolutely awesome how the song carries a ’legends of the old west’ vibe but looks at it all from an Afro-American perspective. 

That about sums up my list of recommends, although it is but a sampling and hardly sums up the career of such a talent. If you like what you hear, I strongly urge you to pick up his albums.

ABOUT “WHO KNOWS”

This is the fourth video in a series of ten, which will cover every song off of The Rest’s album SEESAW.  The video features a mental institution, geometry, Adam’s twin brother, 3D printing, hugs, science, birds, and explosions! You might be thinking, “… of course it does”, but The Rest swears that it’s not like the other videos featuring a mental institution, geometry, Adam’s twin brother, 3D printing, hugs, science, birds, and explosions!

Click to read more of what Adam Bentley had to say to Wave Maker Magazine about The Rest!

THE REST LINKS:
Bandcamp: http://therest.bandcamp.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/therestband
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therestmusic
Photos: http://therestmusic.tumblr.com/photos
Book/EP: http://www.auteurrecordings.com/therest/criedwolf/

 ABOUT AIR MARSHAL LANDING

Three brothers, not fraternal, but brothers nonetheless. Music that is instantly recognizable, yet different. A mix ofmidnight optimism and afternoon bitterness, where daydreams and reality meet for biscuits and tea. Love, lies, humour, uncertainty, and confession – a soundtrack to our lives … continue reading

ABOUT “LITTLE TOWN”

“Little Town” is a track off of AML’s upcoming debut record, You Used To Be Me. The record is scheduled to be released on June 4, 2013.

______________________________________________

AIR MARSHAL LANDING LINKS:

Website: http://airmarshallanding.com/
Bandcamp: http://airmarshallanding.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/airmarshallanding
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amlband
Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/airmarshallanding

Click here to read our “Up-&-Comers” chat with Matt Simmonds from Air Marshal Landing!

Hopelessness is probably the most arresting sentiment to pull across in a song. Usually undertaken alone, it must bleed through in prose, mood, and the overall structure of your discontent. This need to document despondency, and ultimately throw it out upon the common culture, is an attempt to exorcise emotion and offer it up to commiseration. What’s interesting, however, is the idea of voicing another’s pain into your own, which, in this case, is covering a song such as this. The song I offer up today is “Nothin’”, originally written and performed by Townes Van Zandt, and subsequently covered by the late Rowland S. Howard, known primarily as the guitarist of Australia’s Birthday Party – post-punk savages with a thing for bats and trash. The song is bleak and plodding, and to sing it without any conviction or experience would be naked and forced. Both versions of this song, performed almost 40 years apart, represent the routine hollowness of the day to day and the resignation needed to make any attempt at all to exact pleasure from it. If any of this is bumming you out already, you should probably just stop reading now and go play with some kittens or newly hatched chicks or whatever.

Townes Van Zandt is decidedly one of the most talented tightrope walkers of accomplished songwriting, coupled with unmarketable, unbearable loneliness and bad vibes. Many champion him as unique in the vein of American singer-songwriter – impactful in both the former and latter, as well as a consoling figure to many. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager and subjected to traumatic insulin shock therapy as a result, Townes poured his inner turmoil into a prolific string of releases, notably 1969’s Our Mother The Mountain and 1971’s Delta Momma Blues, from which “Nothin’” is the final track. Van Zandt’s original version is sparse, solitary and immediately stares you straight in the eyes, like catching yourself in a mirror. At this time, Townes had just divorced his first wife and was battling depression, along with a growing dependency to alcohol and heroin. When asked in an interview from the 2006 documentary on his life, Be Here To Love Me, why he wrote such sad songs, Townes replied, “I don’t think they’re all that sad. I have a few songs that aren’t sad… They’re hopeless. The rest aren’t sad, they’re just the way it goes.” He pauses for a moment and then looks up, “You don’t think life’s sad?” “Nothin’” is just that, a quietly hopeless song sung to no one. The finger-picked guitar circles around Towne’s deadpan delivery, unraveling and drifting: “Sorrow and solitude, these are the precious things/ and the only words that are worth remembering.”

Rowland S. Howard is a tragic character in a manner opposite of Van Zandt, but still equally as depressing. While both were known for their over-indulgences and engrossing stage personas, Howard spent much of his early musical career in the shadows, playing foil to Nick Cave in the Birthday Party until their dissolution, subsequently joining Crime and The City Solution and forming These Immortal Souls. It was with the release of his excellent second solo album, Pop Crimes, in 2009 that he began to really establish himself as a front man and solo songwriter. Unfortunately, within two months of Pop Crimes’ release, Howard died at the age of 50, due to complications from liver cirrhosis, ending a promising solo career that was just taking off. From this final record is his take on “Nothin’”, into which Howard poured a lot of his sadness and resentment, as he knew of his terminal diagnosis entering the studio. Distinguishing itself from the original, Howard’s version doesn’t draw from unaccompanied sorrow. More so, it’s rendered from the static and noise of real life; a fuller, populated estrangement. “Bein’ born is going blind, and buying down a thousand times/ To echoes strung on pure temptation,” a lyric that echoes Van Zandt’s context of substance abuse, applied now to fading hopes and a future that seems unlikely. Rowland S. Howard sneers like an ill king, and the lumbering cello accompaniment drags through the amplifier feedback and stirred cymbals to arrive at its end.

When approaching the performance of someone else’s song, the matter of appropriation and relation of the subject matter can define itself before the end of the first verse. “Nothin’” is a song built purely on its message and meter, having no chorus or bridge, and in context is the worldview of doomed men. What Van Zandt introduces, Howard elaborates, filling a bleak picture with bleaker scenery. As both artists were extinguished prematurely (Townes’ body failed him in 1997, at the age of 52), the song serves a marker to their distress, and ultimately an epitaph as well.

Maybe you should go for a walk or something now, life and everything in it will be just as abysmal and discouraging when you get back.

I’m as much a sucker for one-man projects as I am for subtle, brooding atmosphere, and those two aweinspiring elements come together as one in Neverending White Lights. The sad truth is, a lot of people don’t appreciate how very hard it is for one man to put together an entire musical project. There are many who would write it all off claiming the guest musicians do all the work, when just getting all of those people together is a challenge in itself. Just ask Peter Gabriel why the second part of his Scratch My Back project didn’t come to fruition. Few people have the energy to conceive such a project, let alone see it through to completion. It is his drive, his creative mind, and his abilities as producer that have me holding Daniel Victor up among the progressive greats.

Hailing from Windsor, Ontario, Victor spent six years of his life conceiving, writing, and pulling together all of the elements that would become his debut album under the name Neverending White Lights. Inspired by film soundtracks, the idea was to make his one-man project sound like a band with one all-encompassing sound but with the added edge of having a different singer on each song. The result is 2005′s Act I: Goodbye Friends of the Heavenly Bodies.

With this debut album, Daniel Victor establishes himself as what I consider quietly progressive. This means that he’s making progressive music without really making progressive music. This first album, along with the two subsequent releases, is most certainly a pop record, but the album’s landscape is changed dramatically from song to song, despite recurring vibes, solely because the voices are constantly changing. Thus, this simple pop album does something other albums don’t by changing its dynamic constantly while remaining strangely consistent. It effectively does the work of an entire prog band’s career in an hour and twenty minutes.

To be blunt, if you’re looking for a record full of flash and fireworks, even the ever-changing vocal dynamic won’t keep you excited. But if you’re like me and you love stirring, brooding atmosphere, you’ll bloody love this record. Before we even get to individual singers, I must point out Victor’s brilliant ability to generate such beautiful atmosphere with just the right sounds and production values. Every instrument and device used is expertly manipulated to create a subtle and entrancing atmosphere to keep the listener emotionally enthralled at all times. Every time you listen to the record you can sit back and single out things you didn’t even notice the first time through. This record, beginning to end, is a G*d damn marvel of modern recording.

The whole record is absolutely amazing, so it pains me not to single out them all out. It really does hurt! The absolute gem on Act I, however, is Scott Anderson’s (Finger Eleven) stunning performance on “I Hope Your Heart Runs Empty.” This tune represents perfectly how Victor has taken all of the singers involved out of their element and made them do things they wouldn’t normally do. The atmosphere presented on “I Hope Your Heart Runs Empty” is unlike anything I’d ever heard from Scott and it’s absolutely lovely in every way. The song gives me goosebumps every time, as does most of the album for that matter.

Two years later we were treated to Act II: The Blood and the Life Eternal. To me, this album isn’t as atmospherically strong as the first, but the song-writing has greatly improved. The reason I say what I say in comparison to Act I is that I view that first record as one long movement. An adventure in sonic melancholy. The songs on Act II are far more song-like and stand out a great deal better individually, at the sacrifice of the album’s overall unity. It’s a fantastic record and has some incredible moments, most notably on Jonathan Bates’ (Mellowdrone) “The Warning,” and Rob Dickinson’s (Catherine Wheel) “Where We Are.” Daniel Victor also sings more, including a neat rendition of Hole’s “Miss World,” and the wonderful single “Always.” His vocal performance on the latter kind of reminds me of Danny Greaves’ work on The Watchmen’s Slomotion disc.

My favourite song on Act II (and actually my favourite Neverending White Lights song period) is “The Living” featuring Coury Palermo of Lynden. Not only are the song and its hooks emotionally stirring, but Palermo’s vocal performance is pro. His delivery is positively breathtaking and is at once passionate and tortured, while maintaining absolute strength. I rarely hear a performance like this from a male vocalist, so it blew me away.

Daniel Victor followed this up with the very short The World Is Darker EP (exclusively released through iTunes) containing “The World Is Darker” (featuring Melissa Auf der Maur) from the second album, a dance remix of “Always” from the same album, and an awesomely sombre cover of Nelly Furtado’s “Maneater.” The download is worth it for the last track (although I’d personally recommend trying your very best not to get it from Apple).

Act III: Love Will Ruin (Part 1) was released late in 2011. It was a long friggin wait, let me tell you, but it was well worth it. While the album doesn’t have as many tracks as the rest (I keep telling myself it’s only part one), it sees Victor delving into more upbeat and musical regions. The sweeping instrumental piece “Theme from Love Will Ruin” is incredible and sets the stage well for this great batch of songs, going as far as to add some nice distorted guitar and driving bass to the mix. Standouts for me include Todd Clark’s (Pilot Speed) “Starlight,” and Victor’s own “Say Hi For Me,” the latter ripped right out of the gloomiest parts of eighties pop.

Perhaps the best song on the record is Daniel’s duet with Bed of Stars, “Falling Apart.” This tune keeps the eighties-gloom-inspired sound intact while also managing to ramp up the speed a little bit. The urgency in both singers’ delivery makes it especially memorable. I also really like “Ghost Ship,” despite Steve Bays’ (Hot Hot Heat) initially annoying iPod commercial vocal style. That’s not to say Bays isn’t good at what he does. The voice grew on me after a while, but I just don’t care for the style very much. The song is really quite sweet and it’s hard not to sing along to.

As of writing this, I’m fairly certain Daniel Victor is busy working on a fourth full-length album, which is great. I really hope it doesn’t take the same amount of time Act III took, but if it produces the same wonderful result, I’ll resign myself to waiting. Neverending White Lights may be a little too pop for most progressive rock fans, but for those of us who pay attention to production techniques and sheer atmospheric genius, these records are gold. I’ll finish by stating that when it comes to writing, performing, producing, and recording creative, honest-to-goodness, quality art within a major label pop-dominated landscape, this Daniel Victor dude is the real deal.

By the time Easter rolls around, we’ve had our fair share of financially and emotionally taxing holidays and gatherings. Christmas breaks your bank, St. Patrick’s busts your kidneys, and Valentine’s Day is a wreck if you’re unlucky enough to be in love. Don’t even mention Ash Wednesday. What we need after all this harsh buzz is a holiday that actually promotes spending a long weekend in pajamas, eating low-grade, impenetrable chocolate wrapped in Technicolor aluminum, like one of Ken Kesey’s acid flashbacks. I believe Easter was invented by Cadbury to get rid of all their old advent calendar chocolate, beating Hallmark to the punch before it could print “Happy Resurrection Day” cards. Anyways, what follows is a playlist of songs that encapsulate the very essence of Easter. That is to say, I’ve gone to great lengths to type the words “egg” and “chocolate” into the Itunes search bar, and managed to find a handful of tracks that are worth your pouring into your brain like so much brown fondue. So, let the paint-spackled stomach-sick begin; I doubt I’ll be doing much rising on the third day of this long weekend.

1. “Slip Inside This House”-13^th Floor Elevators

I know, I know. The first track on this playlist has nothing to do with Easter to the untrained eye. But I’m going to slam all you Debbie Doubters down by starting the proceedings off with the first track off the Elevator’s excellent 1967 album, Easter Everywhere.  Led by the eccentric Roky Erickson, the 13^th Floor Elevators were expanding the limits of psych-garage one electrified jug solo at a time. The band was forced apart in 1969 by Erickson’s spiraling schizophrenia, made worse by forced electroshock therapy stemming from his arrest for marijuana possession. Fortunately, Erickson has been musically active since the mid-2000’s, persevering through mental illness and oppressive treatment to enjoy the cult status he has deservedly fostered.

2. “Egg”-Pele

Pele hail from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and spent the late 1990’s releasing angular, mathy post-rock. Despite going largely unnoticed by press that slightly prefers bands with vocalists, Pele garnered a cult following that followed them into their new musical projects, namely Collections of Colonies of Bees and Volcano Choir, the latter featuring fan and fellow Wisconsinite Justin Vernon a.k.a Bon Iver on vocals and effects. Perseverance pays off.

3. “Variations on Easter”-Robbie Basho

Robbie Basho can be considered anywhere between steel-string guitar virtuoso to oddball, Appalachian hippie with a penchant for sprawling cosmic concept albums. Born is Baltimore, Maryland in 1940, Basho attended college with John Fahey and Max Ochs and through them, developed an affinity for the steel-string guitar, seeking to legitimize it as a classical concert instrument. Sowing his influences, philosophical and musical, from Japanese, Hindu and Persian music, Basho created a unique style of American Primitivism, characterized by droning, lyrical finger-style playing. His career was tragically cut short in a bizarre chiropractic accident (look it up), but his music, particularly 1978’s Visions of the Country, holds up today as brilliantly creative and beautiful.

4. “Hot Chocolate Boy”-Beat Happening

Frontman, vocalist, label founder, notorious grump and underground lo-fi pioneer, Calvin Johnson, is all of these things and more. Starting Beat Happening in 1982 with minimal musical equipment or training, and over the course of five albums and three EP’s redefined what it takes to start a band and find an audience. Of course, being the founder and owner of Olympia’s hallowed K Records doesn’t hurt his legacy, as he passed on his intuitive approach to musicianship to a new generation of artists such as Beck, Modest Mouse and The Microphones; a man for bands willing to make it work no matter what. This track comes off their 1991 album Dreamy, and

Might be the easiest karaoke song in the world.

5. “Bunny Gamer (B)”-Xiu Xiu

Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart has one of the most melodramatically over the top voices since Morrissey sang “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” but the man can write a damn good song. In fact, he’s written more than his fair share of good songs over the last 11 years, the best collection of which is 2004’s Fabulous Muscles. “Bunny Gamer (B)” is yet another heart-breaking ode to being pathetic, carried by an orchestra of bleeps and bloops, twisting the fork in your heart as he whines “I’m not who you want alright? Alright, alright, alright?” Alright.

6. “Chicken Blows”-Guided By Voices

Robert Pollard writes songs at the same rate I make myself breakfast food; about two to three times a day. As with my cooking, Pollard’s quality control is a little shoddy, but the fact that at least a fifth of his catalogue is brilliant (over 1,600 songs registered with BMI at press time) is pretty impressive. “Chicken Blows” is off 1995’s Alien Lanes, and falls in the “solid gem” category, with his (ahem) “unique” vocal performance and first mate Tobin Sprout’s backing chorus of beer-stained doo-wop. Guided By Voices, returned after a hiatus to throw down their 19^th album this year with their classic lineup, are way older than you and will continue to outdrink us all for years to come.

7. “Hung Bunny”-Melvins

The Melvins (perpetually King Buzzo and Dale Crover, with an endless list of bass players, at one point including Shirley Temple’s daughter) have been dishing out churning, sludgy music since 1983, later popularized under the banner of “grunge” by Geffen record executives. The fact remains that the Melvins have been doing it best since forever, and have in turn inspired a bunch of bands almost as awesome (Earth, Boris, Neurosis).  I’m signing out of this playlist with “Hung Bunny” from 1992’s Lysol. I promise it will turn the paint on your Easter eggs black, and all of your chocolate will now be dark. Good luck out there, you guys.

The Marriott Hotel on Bay Street was transformed from its typical hotel stature into a sort of agora for music-types — promoters, producers, managers and musicians of all sorts mill about, chatting with each other and on their phones. They’re sitting around, looking utterly exhausted. But hey, it’s Canadian Music Week, and nothing less than extreme exhaustion, killer hangovers and long, press-filled days should be expected.

And then there’s Ben Caplan, who’s been nothing less than very busy. Over the past few months, Ben has been all over the map travelling around North America, making stops at various festivals and awards ceremonies along the way. After finishing up his North American leg with CMW, Ben will be heading over to Australia and New Zealand, where his fan base has been growing. Ben attributes his global explosion to the festivals he’s been playing at and the posters of his well-bearded face plastered around numerous cities, which is something that his street team, aptly named Ben Caplan’s Beard Brigade, is responsible for. It has become the street team’s job to go out and promote Ben, the band, and any upcoming shows. Much of the promotional support that Ben and the band receives comes from Audioblood Media, but not having a big budget requires volunteerism, which Ben says really does help. Members sign up online on Ben’s website and go from there. Plus, their assistance does not go unnoticed. “They get little perks like videos only they (the street team) get to see,” explains Ben.

His success at home has not gone unnoticed either, and at the beginning of the month, Ben won the “Rising Star of the Year” award at the East Coast Music Awards in Halifax. Originally from Hamilton, Ontario, Ben has been living in Halifax for 8 years now, and he considers it to be home. “When I’m in Ontario I’m visiting, and when I’m there, I’m home. It’s wonderful—it’s such an honour to have been taken in as one of their own,” he remarks on his success down east. The unique sound that Ben Caplan and the Casual Smokers has is yet to be duplicated by any other artist, and with its mix of folk, jazz, and eastern European music, along with Ben’s Tom Waits-esque growl, it is not surprising that Ben and the band have garnered such success in the two short years since the release of their debut album, “In the Time of the Great Remembering.” In between travelling, Ben’s been busy writing and demoing new tracks for a new album, which can be expected to have a lot of the same flavours as the debut, says Ben, but we can expect this new release to be a little bit darker than the last.

Canadian Music Week, Ben’s final stop before making the trek across the world, is in its 31^st year, and brings together artists from across the globe to a cutting edge trade exhibition, award shows, informative conferences and most importantly, it is Canada’s biggest new music festival. Over 6 nights, 1,000 bands are showcased at more than 60 live music venues in downtown Toronto. It’s a week where artists from all over are able to network with huge names in the music industry, and get the chance to showcase their music to a diverse Canadian audience.  “I love the opportunity that it (Canadian Music Week) has created with all of the international delegates being here and bringing in all of the Canadian promoters—and it’s cool being able to see all of my friends who are in other bands—you’ve got everybody in one place for a week,” says Ben when asked what he likes best about CMW.

Ben is no stranger to the music festival scene, though, and he recently just arrived back in Canada from his second stint at South by South West (SXSW), which he describes as being: “twelve city blocks that are kind of like Kensington Market … imagine twelve city blocks with an Augusta sort of feel. It’s all bars and every single bar has music going on in it, the streets are blocked off and there’s just thousands of people dancing back and forth from venue to venue. There’s loud music everywhere.” Although compared to SXSW, Canadian Music Week seems to be relatively tame. Having arrived in Toronto on Thursday, Ben is only able to catch the end half of the festival, and seldom has any down time. He admits that his days are scheduled into 20-minute time slots and that he rarely has the luxury of taking the TTC, so most of his time is spent hopping in and out of cabs. Being at Canadian Music Week is considered to be work for Ben, and judging by the Starbucks cup clutched in his hand, many late nights—including this particular night—are going to be had. At 1:35 in the morning, the legendary Horseshoe Tavern’s stage was graced with Ben’s presence. All ballads have been left out of the set list, Ben claims, so his performance will be nothing short of a party.

An encounter with Ben Caplan cannot be considered complete without some sort of comment made about his majestic beard (which is extremely impressive in person, if I do say so myself). Just as Justin Bieber cut off his hair, sold it on eBay and donated the profits to a charity of his choice, I asked Ben which charity he’d donate the earnings from his beard if he were to sell it on eBay. “I’d probably give it to the Common Roots Urban Farms in Halifax. It’s an organization that has built a farm for the city of Halifax in the center of the city, and they do a lot of community outreach programs – teaching the community about living healthy, healthy eating and sustainable agriculture and local agriculture,” was Ben’s philanthropic response.

Ben Caplan and I part ways—I head back down Bay Street to Ryerson University, and Ben dives back into the whirlwind that is Canadian Music Week. For my first interview, I’m impressed. Ben is down to earth, friendly and clearly passionate about music. With an attitude like that, I can’t foresee Ben Caplan and the Casual Smokers slowing down anytime soon.

A listen to lead-off track “Barriers” says it all – the rolling drums, thrumming bass, dramatic keys, aching guitars, and of course, leading man Brett Anderson’s singularly emotive voice – this here is the real deal. Put another way, with the recently reunited brit-pop act’s long-awaited latest album, Bloodpsorts, Suede is back in all the band’s glory.

Notice I didn’t say “former glory” though. While the five-piece band – rounded out by bassist Mat Osman, drummer Simon Gilbert, lead guitarist Richard Oakes and Neil Codling on the keys – is definitely bringing to mind the dramatic leanings of its self-titled, 1993 Mercury Prize-winning debut and the dark beauty of its sprawling gothic follow-up Dog Man Star, it’s by no means dwelling on either. If anything, the group’s first release in 11 years finds its players not only older and wiser, but also quite comfortable.

That’s not to say that these guys are coasting, though. Much like the aforementioned Suede, Bloodsports is the work of a band at its most focused and precise – not just in terms of running time and sequencing, but also in the songs themselves. Not a moment is wasted across these 10 tracks, which find the band exploring and balancing its myriad sides to full and epic effect. Just as relentless rockers like “Snowblind” and “Hit Me” pulse forth with an unshakable yearning, so do gorgeous ballads like “What Are You Not Telling Me” and “For The Strangers” effortlessly capture the listener, and pop gems like “It Starts And Ends With You” intoxicate with their alluring hooks.

While one wouldn’t be wrong to say the album isn’t a great leap forward for the band – this is very much the sound of Suede doing what Suede does best – one certainly can’t deny all the confidence on display either. Not once do these guys sound like they’re pushing to get and maintain the listener’s attention. Rather, one start-to-finish listen through this great record and it’s clear that Brett and co. have rediscovered the essence of their sound, and are quite content to once more get swept up in all its romance.