Posted inLive Recordings

CBC’s 12 Days of Christmas

CBC Christmas

. : : Various 2013-2014 : : .

I seem to have a lot of Christmas-themed or otherwise related recordings, which surprises me, because I can be somewhat of a holiday scrooge.

Frivolous spending, unabashed commercialism, repetitive Christmas music that starts earlier each year, social obligations... the list of my pet peeves about the holiday is about as long as my arm.

And yet, here I am with a digital hoard of Christmas music recordings. Go figure.

This one, hopefully the last for the year, is a compilation of songs the CBC recorded in 2013 and 2014, featuring established and little-known Canadian musicians performing their favourite Christmas songs for two "12 Days of Christmas" radio specials.

(Or, you know, songs that weren't picked by other artists before them)

For a limited time, some of these songs were available for download on CBC.ca -- I believe as MP3s -- but contained just the music itself. This recording, a presumably higher-quality FLAC, includes the band's talking about their selections and DJ chatter giving the occasional context, and can thus be considered "more complete" if "less official."

I combined the original tracks from both airings (removing duplicates and redundant dj chatter) for this compilation, featuring bands familiar to regular visitors to this blog, including Blue Rodeo, Royal Wood, Bahamas, Moist, Barenaked Ladies, and Chris Hadfield.

Posted inLive Recordings

Hatfield-Robertson @ International Space Station

Hadfield-Robertson

. : : February 8th, 2013 : : .

Chris Hadfield is best known as a Canadian astronaut, but he's also an acclaimed musician and author, and has built strong friendships with some of Canada's finest artists.

This blog entry goes back to the beginning of his explosive career, where he collaborated with Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson and the gleek club from my high school alma mater, Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts on a live performance.

Which, wouldn't be so unusual if Hadfield wasn't performing his contribution from the International Space Station in, you know, SPACE.

Posted inLive Recordings

Blue Rodeo @ Glenn Gould Studios

Blue Rodeo

. : : October 29th, 2012 : : .

Blue Rodeo celebrates their 34th anniversary as one of Canada's most-beloved band this month, so now seems as good a time as any to look back at this recording of the band's celebratory performance of their 25th anniversary, performed 9 years ago on this very day.

Performed at the beautiful Glenn Gould Studio, I can only look back and wish I had been able to attend this one.

Almost reading like a who's-who of Alt-Country and Roots-Rock in Canada, there were performances by Whitehorse, Ron Sexsmith, Justin Rutledge, Oh Susanna, Cuff the Duke, Skydiggers, Great Big Sea, the Sadies, and more.

Posted inLive Recordings

Sloan @ Echo Beach

Sloan

. : : May 25th, 2013 : : .

OK, I need to buy myself a bit more time.

Luckily, I have another short (1 track, 1 interview) 8.5-year old Sloan recording from the inaugural CBC Music Festival at Echo Beach in Toronto. This is a quick audio clip and recording of the band's opening song (and massive nation-wide hit) Money City Maniacs.

Sloan was super huge in the late-90s in Canada, but I resented the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission)'s mandate that 30% of all music played on radio and television be Canadian content and took my contention out on the bands benefiting from the bylaw. Now that I'm older, I do get it -- but the loophole still all-too-often employed by the media conglomerates is to play the same half-dozen or so songs and cycle them every couple of hours to fill the quota. The quality of the music was secondary, and felt perpendicular to the music of the international bands that book-ended these tracks. Maybe it has something to do with Canadian Identity or whatnot, but it felt weird, dated, and forced to my ears. In retrospect, it ultimately just wasn't what I was into at the time, and I let my politics colour my opinion.

Posted inLive Recordings

Sloan @ CBC Studio 11

Sloan

. : : September 17th, 2014 : : .

It's been a crazy week, and I don't have the time to jazz up this story with a lot of narration -- but this post officially marks 26-weeks (HALF A YEAR!) of weekly, on-time posts. I wasn't about to miss it because of things like work and familial obligations!

So, here's tape also celebrating an occasion -- it's six-year birthday was this week! Here's Sloan previewing songs from their then-new album Commonwealth (billed as essentially 4 solo EPs combined into one LP)!

As with all of CBC Backstage Pass' programming, much of the music is talked over with interview snippets that are rarely of any importance whatsoever -- but the sound quality is standard broadcast quality and is worth a listen for Sloan fans. The McCartney-esque Three Queens is especially worth your time; check it in the sample below and grab the rest if you like what you hear.

Posted inLive Recordings

Royal Wood @ CBC Studio 211

[caption id="attachment_1376" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Royal Wood Royal Wood @ Studio 211[/caption]

. : : March 2014 : : .

Royal Wood was one of my early Canadian Music Week discoveries. His powerful piano pop performances of songs Do You Recall and On Top of Your Love immediately made me a fan, and I ended up seeing him live 4-times in about 14-months spanning 2010-2011.

Alas! Other musical acts became a distraction, and he had slipped off my radar a bit when his follow up album, We Were Born To Glory, came out.

I did capture a couple of performances Royal did for CBC's First Play Live program that aired shortly after the album's release, but the station's running interview tracks over top the first verses of the songs annoyed me to no end, and I didn't give them the attention they deserve.

Posted inLive Recordings

Whitehorse @ [undisclosed]

[caption id="attachment_883" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Whitehorse Whitehorse @ [undisclosed location][/caption]

To compliment the Whitehorse recording posted earlier this week, here's a couple of songs from the archive, captured from the CBC Music Backstage Pass television program.

These tracks were recorded weeks before the release of their debut full length LP, The Fate of the World Depends on This Kiss at an undisclosed location (likely in rural Ontario, possibly at the Keelor family farm -- but that's merely speculation).

The videos are available on YouTube should you prefer a visual but if not, Mismatched Eyes (Boat Song) is recorded outdoors, presumably on the lawn of the interior cabin where Achilles' Desire was captured, while a caramel and ash-coloured cat takes interest in the microphone cables, inches toward the couple, and eventually lies down comfortably at Melissa's feet.

Posted inLive Recordings

Bahamas @ CBC and TBS

[caption id="attachment_647" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Bahamas Bahamas @ CBC and TBS[/caption]

Not much of a story to this one, I'm afraid!

Bahamas had put out (another) critically acclaimed album, somewhat self-titled Bahamas Is Afie, and on the promotional tour, stopped by CBC for a First Play Live set of five songs (four of which aired on the program Backstage Pass captured here) and later swung by Conan to top off his program one evening.

Although I'm sure the videos are on YouTube or whatever, I've captured the audio in high quality from their television broadcasts for those who prefer their audio without video.

Posted inLive Recordings

Hannah Georgas @ Deer Lake Park

[caption id="attachment_555" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Hannah Gerogas Hannah Georgas @ CBC Music Festival[/caption]

. : : June 14th, 2012 : : .

Hannah Georgas' album This Is Good is full of great, punchy, catchy, hooky guitar-based indie rock, so when it met some success including a finalist for Best New Artist Juno, it came as a surprise her sophomore album took a hard left into moodier, down-tempo synth-based music.

It caught me off guard, and it wasn't until experiencing the new tunes live that I really got it.

Posted inLive Recordings

Jenn Grant @ CBC

[caption id="attachment_522" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Jenn Grant Jenn Grant @ CBC[/caption]

For Jenn Grant fans old and new (perhaps newly converted from my recent recording?), I have a couple of older FM captures of Jenn Grant performances for the CBC.

The first, recorded at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in Jenn's hometown of Halifax, was hot on the heels of the Honeymoon Punch album release -- only some three odd weeks after the album hit shelves! The set was recorded by CBC for Canada Live and is here as it aired.

The second is when Jenn joined (now disgraced) CBC host Jian Ghomeshi about 15-months into the album's cycle, while it was up for 4 East Coast Music Awards and shortly after being listed as contenders for the Polaris and Junos Awards, for a quick song and short interview for popular morning radio program Q at the Capitol Theatre in Moncton, New Brunswick.