CBC’s 12 Days of Christmas

December 24, 2021December 24, 2021 by haterhigh

CBC Christmas — CBC’s 12 Days of 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.

Live Recordings

Sloan @ Echo Beach

October 8, 2021October 6, 2021 by haterhigh

. : : 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.

Live Recordings

Sloan @ CBC Studio 11

October 1, 2021September 30, 2021 by haterhigh

. : : 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.

Live Recordings

The Organ @ Festival Internacional de Benicassim

September 17, 2021September 14, 2021 by haterhigh

. : : July 22nd, 2006 : : .

What if Morrissy was a lesbian, and the Smiths were an all-girl band from British Columbia, Canada?

Well, if you were a fan of indie rock music in the mid-2000s, you might not have to wonder very hard. Especially if you were exposed to The Organ.

Had you blinked, you might’ve missed it. If you hadn’t, you might have caught the band’s debut EP Sinking Hearts, or the follow up Grab That Gun (the latter essentially a re-recorded and expanded version of the EP).

Grab That Gun spent “more time on top of the Canadian campus-radio charts than any other record released that year” (Wikipedia), and with good reason. The band’s titular instrument heavily encompasses the retro-inspired new wave pop and frontwoman Katie Sketch‘s dour lyrics boldly pay tribute to the influences that made it feel like they could’ve been The Smiths for the Millennial generation.

Live Recordings

Nada Surf @ Cutting Room Studios

August 6, 2021August 6, 2021 by haterhigh

. : : January 7th, 2010 : : .

Nada Surf was riding an incredible career resurgence.

Often classified as a one hit wonder with the alternative radio hit Popular in the mid-90s, creative differences with their records label lead them to sit out their sophomore album, Proximity Effect, in North America.

Constant touring in Europe while waiting for their contacts to expire lead to a diamond sharp refinement, and the band was surprisingly wholly embraced by the indie-rock community for their follow up disc, Let Go, which was in turn followed up by excellent efforts The Weight is a Gift and Lucky.

The band has also had some crossover success with soundtrack covers of songs like If You Leave (OMD), Where is my Mind (Pixies), and All You Need is Love (Beatles) in the mid-to-late-aughts.

It was unusual that the band would follow up a trio of critically acclaimed indie rock albums with a covers album — especially one with a selection of songs considerably left of the dial.

Live Recordings

So Many Dynamos @ KEXP Studios

May 7, 2021June 15, 2021 by haterhigh

. : : October 22nd, 2006 : : .

I’m still trying to get through the backlog of unreleased or lost tapes I have, and it stretches pretty far back.

The good news is, it’s been a great way to rediscover fantastic music that may have fallen by the wayside in recent years.

Take for example, So Many Dynamos: my favourite dance-punk band who’s barely made a peep in the last seven years. They seem to still be active, but barely; their Facebook has a single post from May 2020, and nothing since or before until you scroll to July 2017.

Although it’s not my usual taste in musical genres, their 2006 album Flashlights (oh my god, it’s been 15-years!?) was an instant hit for me. I shared it with friends, shouted it from rooftops, and played it endlessly.

I even scoured KEXP Radio’s now sadly defunct lossless radio archive and captured this excellent performance the band put on in their studio shortly after the album’s release.

Live Recordings

Nicole Atkins @ Public Square Park

April 30, 2021June 15, 2021 by haterhigh

. : :September 5th, 2020 : : .

Nicole Atkins‘ fifth album, Italian Ice, was released just shy of a year ago. The world was a different place then. Sure, COVID-19 was a thing, but it was still on it’s first escalation. Musical artists were struggling with whether to postpone albums and upcoming summer tour dates amid the uncertainty and, artistically speaking, we were at a comparative standstill.

Unable to keep the LP under wraps, Nicole proceeded with the album’s release, and promoted it with radio appearances and a weekly streamed “porch performance” from her home, featuring a variety of musical guests.

Live Recordings

Hannah Georgas @ SiriusXM

January 18, 2021August 31, 2021 by haterhigh

Hannah Georgas

. : : July 18th, 2020 : : .

2020 was … unusual.

Gripped by a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, relegated to stay-at-home orders and curfews, live concerts stopped being a thing. At least, in the typical sense of the phrase.

Pivoting to engage fanbases, generate income, and continue to spark creative drive, musicians began to take up live-streaming performances en masse. Like many live performances, the quality varied.

Usually, things like the venue, PA system, and sound person on duty were deciding factors on sound and visuals, but now it was the artists’ home studio set-up, internet upload speed, and network congestion. And to say it’s been a learning curve for everyone would be putting it somewhat mildly. However, as the year wore on, the quality by and large improved.

The new challenge arising as 2020 came to a close was not how much will I enjoy this live stream, and turned more toward how many live streams can I enjoy?

Live Recordings

Royal Wood @ CBC Studio 211

October 18, 2020August 9, 2021 by haterhigh

. : : 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.

Live Recordings

Kathleen Edwards @ BBC Radio

September 4, 2020August 4, 2021 by haterhigh

. : : June 7th, 2007 : : .

Bob Harris’ radio show for BBC Radio 2 co-sponsored the NXNE event that first introduced me to Kathleen Edwards. Harris was fond of the roots rock scene in Canada, and was known to promote it on the other side of the pond whenever possible.

It’s hard to say whether or not that concert — you know, the one that introduced me to Kathleen, Jim Bryson, Luke Doucet, Melissa McClelland, Justin Rutledge, Oh Susanna, etc. — would have still happened without his support and the Beeb’s agreement to record it for airing on his program. I like to imagine it wouldn’t have: it was a confluence of random happenstance that brought all these acts together, and me to that room.

I then have to give a lot of credit to Bob and the BBC for their part in my ~~obsession with~~ deep fondness of these performers and their music.