News & Tributes Not in the Top 10

Note: The title to this entry would more appropriately read "Why News & Tributes Won't Make it Into My Annual Year End Top Ten Albums List Even Though I Really Wanted It To."

The Futureheads, the best of the new new wave, were brought into my life by way of opening for the original purveyors of this brand of rock - Franz. This release was much anticipated after countless spins of the self-titled release way back in 2004 (that came in a tight third place that year on the top ten, but ended up having more lasting power than Ferdinand and even the Arcade Fire.) Well all that humming, frantic singing of four layered vocal pieces, and grooving at as many (3) of their dynamic and phenomenal shows as I could get to, brought me up to this release. Okay, not exactly - but I'll get to the in-between single in a second.

So out it comes - all the hype, the news, the waiting, the tributes, the scouring of torrent sites for early releases and finally the disk arrives. Initial disappointment as I'm not hit with the barrage of jangling guitars and rapid fire harmonies that I've been craving. Alright let's try again. I rip through it a bunch more times and some songs do grow on me but I'm still finding it a slight disappointment considering the calibre of the first release.

True they have, oh how I hate the word, matured, and their sound is a little more dynamic - varied from track to track - but maybe that's not what I wanted. Yes a re-release of the first disk is always boring, however I'd fallen in love with that fun-loving, fast-as-sin, straight-ahead sound. That's where Favours for Favours, Thursday, and the title track fall short. Weaknesses between some solid songs.

Then there's the powerful and frantic Return of the Beserker. Which is a real energy boost to the live show with the ripping of guitar strings and insanely fast pace that brings the band, along with the crowd, to a rolling boil by the end. Always being a better live group than recorded (even with the aforementioned fantastic debut) this CD falls short on delivering that live energy. If every time I slipped this disk in my player, Barry Hyde and co. could appear in my room, or backseat, and play it like they did at the Commodore, I would be much more entertained. Instead I have to extract the goodness from Return to the Sea and the soft-to-loud Face, while wading through throwaways like Worry About It Later.

The opener - Yes/No - which grows in intensity, is solid, as is the next track Cope which reminds me of the first LP. However when getting into the deeper cuts of the album the depth of the tracks just isn't there. That is until the bonus tracks come in to save this album from being an absolute waste. Area was that single-between-albums that I alluded to earlier. And it is likely the strongest track on this CD, albeit tacked on as a bonus. Despite its mostly du-du-du lyrics - or more likely because of them, the song is catchy and plays on their strong suit which is to have the vocals take centre stage.The other two new, but bonus, tracks include Help Us Out and We Cannot Lose which are also of high quality. Remix closer and Area B-side, Decent Days and Nights, is of course an outside (Shy Child) mix of the first album single. Sampling the original, it gives it a completely different sound, actually working the chronology of the song backwards, and all in all it gets me pumped to listen to The Futureheads again. It's just too bad that its not this album that I want to spin once more.

Bumber-Shot D1

Tuesday night I was sure going to get to bed early. Well maybe not that early, but I was all too aware that for the next week or so I would be running on little sleep and lots of activity (and most likely fast food).
Wednesday was the frat's end of summer bar party. After a good-bye dinner at the west coast trendy restaurant the Cactus Club with my colleagues from Triumf I walked across the Cambie bridge in the spitting rain and coincidentally met up with the frat friends just as they were unloading from their bus. We headed into the Caprice for a night of dancing and debauchery.
Thursday came all too soon and I found myself desperately patching up loose ends at work and coordinating Jon's arrival from the airport. Working right up until the last minute I finished things off, shook some hands, said my goodbyes and was off like a flash.
Up the road to meet Jon at my place so I could cram as much Vancouver into his short stay as possible. What better way to start the sightseeing tour than with Vancouver's #1 tourist destination - Graville Island? Some walking and a tasting of the finest brews coming out of the city were in store. Meeting up with some friends we raved about the deep fried Wunderbar we had consumed, while taking in a live band and a Stella at Brit night in the Cellar. We were trying to get to bed early because Friday morning was the beginning of our road trip but one thing lead to another and three o'clock rolled around quicker than anticipated.
Hauling ourselves out of bed at the crack of dawn, or shortly thereafter, there was a flurry of activity which resulted in us moving myself, Lee and Peita out of the frat house - and in doing so, saying goodbye to frat life forever. Eventually we were on the road to the forest state.
A brief interlude at the border included a loud and clear "No Pictures!" warning, along with multiple other authoritative signs posted by the US border guards.
Finally arriving at the posh Paragon Hotel we hopped in the pool and being in Seattle we naturally went out for some California kitchen pizza and wandered the streets near our place of rest.

Bumbershoot is an arts festival held in the Seattle Center which is located directly below the most distinguishable landmark in the city - the Seattle Space Needle. Heading straight for the main stage I managed to catch the last few tracks from the Gossip. Fronted by a large, humourous and confident front lady, she had the crowd swaying while she danced away on stage.
Next was some true art. An exhibition of roller derby-ing. These girls didn't take no guff from nobody. As thrilling as it was I took off to see the Vancouver pop band, P:ano, only to find that over half the band was noticeable absent The remaining members played a few, mostly piano-based tracks that were not enough to keep me interested.
Moving on, Jon and I caught the last two seats in the auditorium as a comic book writer gave way to Chuck Palaniak, the author. After exposing that his luggage was filled with severed limbs, and creating "halloween for adults" by distributing shots to the crowd he went on to twist my stomach in knots and make me just a tad queasy with his tale of "Guts".
The next act on the Bumbrella stage thoroughly impressed me with his vocals, originality, charm, calm under pressure and humour. Jamie Lidell created his own samples on the fly by recording his own voice and then looping it, adding some effects, and repeating this process until he had layered on a song as thick as my signature footlong veggie sub.

Not having the highest of hopes for the mainstage I was pleasantly surprised with the evening performances. With all 8 (okay 3) guitars blazing, Hawthorne Heights played a rocking set to an appreciative crowd. Of Montreal on the side stage were nothing like that at all. One male member wearing a full-out dress, and the others in similarly funky attire, played a bunch of old stuff and a few tracks from their recently released Sunlandic Twins disc. Though they were a lil wacky I still enjoyed their set before running back through the maze to return to the mainstage for violin-ing Yellowcard. Without, what I consider to be the key component of their live show - a backflip off the drumset- they still rocked (and weren't too sappy relationship-emo). Ocean Avenue - a personal favourite, along with a few other hits ('Believe' included) closed out. There must have been a stage in my life when I listened to a lot of Yellowcard and have subsequently blocked it out because I knew the words to a surprising amount of songs that they played.
Following the same path back out of the main arena, this time Badly Drawn Boy took the side stage. From the get-go Damon Gough ran the show. Although he had a backing band, they were obviously not in the loop and just tried to play so as not to piss him off. Running through the single from the new album as the opener, not once but twice (slow and fast) he continued to play a lot of new material from the disc that "almost killed" him to make. It wasn't until the band went away and Damon grabbed the acoustic to play us some songs we love that the magic started. Looking up at the Space Needle towering above me, all lit up against the night sky, while BDB's beautiful ballads played was surreal. However when the acoustic was put down and he said "I'm going to play a bunch of new songs before the old ones" I had to tear myself away. As much as I wanted to see him, I couldn't justify waiting that long for the songs I wanted to hear while AFI had already taken the stage.
Arriving only a couple songs into the set, AFI played up to the high expectations I had set for them after their excellent, albeit brief, appearance at the warped tour. This time the stage was doused in white, from the speakers to the fake trees, drum kit and outfits - even the techs were wearing white overalls! It looked cool and sounded even better. Again primarily sticking with their 2 most recent efforts they delighted new fans and still appeased older ones with a few throwbacks. A 2 song encore closed out what turned out to be a solid first day of bumbershoot.