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Ep. #172: Long Night with Scott Thompson, Damian Rogers, Don Pyle, and Overnight

This episode of Long Night with Vish Khanna was recorded at the Great Hall in Toronto during the Long Winter multi-disciplinary arts festival on Friday March 13, 2015. Aside from Long Night sidekick James Keast and house band the Bicycles, Vish’s guests were Don Pyle, Damian Rogers, Scott Thompson, and Overnight. Don Pyle is a punk rock historian whose photo book, Trouble in the Camera Club, documents the rise of underground music in Toronto in the 1970s. He’s also a busy musician and producer who has overseen records by Flesh World and TV Freaks and scored shows like Queer as Folk and films like the forthcoming Portrait of a Serial Monogamist. His band Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet is one of the most significant to ever call Canada home and, at some point in the future, the American label Yep Roc will be reissuing their three albums individually and in a box set. Damian Rogers is the poetry editor at both House of Anansi Press and The Walrus. She’s also a published poet herself and her new collection, Dear Leader, is celebrating its release on Coach House Books with a star-studded book launch at the Drake Underground at 7 PM on Tuesday March 24. Scott Thompson is an Emmy nominated actor, writer, and comedian who appears on the groundbreaking NBC hit, Hannibal, and was also a featured performer in my favourite television comedy program of all time, HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show. He is a member of the iconic comedy troupe, the Kids in the Hall, who are touring this spring, including shows at the Danforth Music Hall on April 23, 25, and 26. Overnight is a band from Toronto featuring two members of the influential and no longer functioning Halifax pop band Plumtree. Sisters Carla and Lynette Gillis have kept themselves busy since the end of Plumtree and here, they played a song called “It Gets You Down” from their brand new album, Carry Me Home.

Related links: torontolongwinter.com vishkhanna.com

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Categories
News Podcast

Ep. #171: Dan Mangan + Blacksmith

Dan Mangan + Blacksmith is a Vancouver-based band whose latest album, the acclaimed Club Meds, is available now via Arts & Crafts, and has prompted them to tour all over the world. At their recent Guelph stop, Dan and John Walsh spoke with me at length about a 1965 Höfner bass on ebay, it’s all about that bass, the Blacksmith accounting department, it’s nice to be nice, no more mr. plaid guy, creative control, media manipulation and backlash, hey’s and ho’s in the zeitgeist, artistic integrity and populism, when big time artists get weird, thinking of the fans, singing better, the reception, full Kanye, you can fail doing the thing you don’t care about, experimental jazz guys get restless, collaborating for real, debates and Spanish metal, Kenton and Gordon, family life and political lyrics, don’t question your subordinates, the state of Canada and its institutions, being trusted by Arts & Crafts, how Dave Grohl ended up playing and singing on this record, Nell Carter, Hector and the Search for Happiness, caring about your community, Madic Records, Astral Swans and Yellow Bird, maybe stripping down, the song “Kitsch,” the influence of dystopian literature on this record, Milan Kundera, birthing books, and that was nice.      

Related links: danmanganmusic.com vishkhanna.com

Dan_Mangan_Blacksmith_Credit_Norman_Wong

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Categories
News Podcast

Ep. #170: Andy Gill of Gang of Four

Andy Gill is a legendary musician, songwriter, and producer who lives in the United Kingdom. Towards the end of the 1970s, Gill co-founded the remarkable post-punk band Gang of Four whose jagged, dance-able, politically outspoken songs influenced one million musicians and earned them a loyal fanbase. Though the band has gone through many members over the past 30 years, Gill has been a constant and, as the only original member, he spearheaded the latest album by Gang of Four. The record is called What Happens Next, it’s out now via Metropolis Records, and the band is on tour now, including a stop at Lee’s Palace in Toronto on March 9. Here, Gill and I discuss his home studio in London, a mandatory mention of the Jesus Lizard on this show, how there’s a bit of Blue on What Happens Next, clear sounds, the song “Obey the Ghost” and the lyric “we’re Facebook friends with celebrities,” collecting each other, electronic or industrial ambient musical tones on this record, James Brown and the Velvet Underground, having no desire to replicate Entertainment! or anything else from the past, when Jon King quit and almost dissolving Gang of Four, the song “First World Citizen” is actually 30 years old, z, a dancing parrot, a one-legged dog that barks at carrots, having multiple singers, King will not return, the song “First World Citizen,” and then we’re in the ether.

Related links: gangoffour.co.uk vishkhanna.com

GO4 - Photo Credit Leo Cackett

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