Tag: David Bowie

Categories
News Podcast

Ep. #256: Daniel Romano

Daniel Romano is a multi-talented musician, producer, label co-owner, and fashion entrepreneur who lives in Fenwick, Ontario. Over the past 15 years, he’s made a name for himself in bands like Attack in Black and Daniel, Fred, and Julie and as a solo artist exploring the far reaches of folk and country music. His fifth solo album is called Mosey and it may well be his most ambitious record to date. It’s out worldwide via New West Records on May 27 and Romano and his band hit the road hard right around then. Here, Daniel and I discuss living in Fenwick, Ontario on a compound, communalism, Spencer Burton rolls around with pigs, The King of Mosey, boxes, temporality and cultural identity, world war, hopelessness, revolution, cultural orthodoxy, there’s no style, Dan’s promo photos, classic country music fans, being a student in different classes, false futurism and reverence for history, unintentional influences, Lee Majors, The Fall Guy, cinematic influences and instrumentals for an abandoned short film, poems, where the strings come in, the song “Mr. E Me” and its potential autobiography, knowing himself, Slim Twig and David Bowie, how people fear change, grip of the industry, consumers, no one is taking chances outside of hip-hop music, devaluation, becoming a dog person, relating to his audience, Snoop Dogg in a cowboy hat, sartorial iconography and intent, the united states of Americana, good is gone, desperation to sustain something vapid, how actress Rachel McAdams wound up playing a character on the song “Toulouse,” Rachel laughing, earnestness and humour, it’s all gone, how film and television people learned what not to do from the music industry, how we pay for HBO and it always delivers, worse jobs than musician, art is everywhere and it pays nothing, why hip-hop is thriving in an age of self-promotion, a denim storefront in Fenwick called Friday’s Child, stage wear, unsettling individuality, his power-pop project Ancient Shapes and their new record, which is out May 27 via You’ve Changed, the song “Hunger is a Dream You Die In,” how and why Dan tends to play every instrument himself, and then we had to mosey.

Related links: danielromanomusic.com newwestrecords.com vishkhanna.com

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes.

Categories
News Podcast

Ep. #237: Geoff Berner

Geoff Berner is a tremendously gifted songwriter and musician known for his outspoken work and 100% belief in the klezmer tradition. Based in Vancouver, he received a scholarship for being the top student in the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing program and has gone on to pen scripts for Sesame Street, make several acclaimed recordings, write a book about How to Be an Accordion Player, as well as the acclaimed novel, Festival Man. His latest album is called We Are Going to Bremen to Be Musicians, it’s out now via Oriente Musik and Coax Records, and so Geoff is touring the world. We recently caught up with each other in Guelph at CFRU’s studios where he performed three songs live and discussed things like his performance of the song “We Are On Our Way to Bremen,” finding hope in darkness, the Brothers Grimm, don’t be a chicken turn musician, making a living as a musician and whether or not that’s possible, motherhood and sexism in the cultural industry, taking some joy in the deaths of people like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and other demented old people who seemed to relish destroying poor and disadvantaged people, recalling his politically charged song, “Probably NDP,” which sort of encouraged people to vote for the NDP in the last federal election, Tom Lehrer and Jon Stewart, when satirists burn out, affecting change and laughing ideas out of the room, Joey Shithead and the origin of the Vancouver-inspired song “Condos,” which he performs live on the show, the real estate fiasco and housing crisis in Vancouver, how displaced people are ending up in Surrey, the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games and their impact on the city, the cycle of nonsense that is the housing market, the media collapse and how songs are the new newspapers, the rise of fascism, his Vancouver background and its impact on his artistic perspectives, getting into punk, Billy Bragg, acoustic D.O.A., the Vancouver Folk Festival and its leftist leanings, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and the Justin Trudeau smokescreen, his romantic side, a live performance of “I Don’t Feel So Mad At God When I See You in Your Summer Dress,” mixed messages, his novel Festival Man and his next novel, which is a continuation of the aforementioned story of sorts, upcoming shows, the time Geoff and I ran into each other in Oslo, the long talk, Coax and not Kochs, Socalled is a genius, a Yiddish rendition of David Bowie’s “Always Crashing in the Same Car,” the song “Ich Krakh Tomid Arayn In Der Zelber Mashin,” and then it was thank you, no thank you.

Related links: geoffberner.com vishkhanna.com

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes.

Categories
News Podcast

Ep. #236: Junior Boys

Junior Boys is the long-standing electronic pop moniker for the work of Jeremy Greenspan, a talented musician based in Hamilton, Ontario. Over the past 17 years, he has written some very sophisticated music, most notably and consistently with a collaborator named Matt Didemus. The latest effort by Junior Boys is a slyly romantic one called Big Black Coat, it’s out February 5 in Canada via GEEJ Records and in the rest of the world, via City Slang , and has prompted them to tour the world over the next few months. Greenspan and I recently caught up at a bar in Hamilton called the Brain, which he co-owns and here we discuss working in spurts, Sam Malone, owning a building on James St. N, the Artcrawl in Hamilton, how the Artcrawl works and where it came from, Heather from the Only, Ken Inouye, the rise of Hamilton and its arts community, the city’s electronic and indie-rock scenes and Sonic Unyon, Al Lanza, getting into classic and progressive rock as a kid, industrial music and sci-fi and cosplay, the earnestness of rock ‘n’ roll, living in England for a year and a half in the mid-1990s, Steve Goodwin of Hyperdub Records, Mark Fisher, a fascination with music made in the 1980s, aggressive tendencies and rave culture, John Foxx of Ultravox, Japan, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, Kraftwerk, rockism and racism towards electronic and dance music, the perception of fun and dance music, choosing words, making outsider pop music, the muse and process behind Big Black Coat, how records become ‘concept records,’ a change in songwriting, doing less work and keeping things raw, immediate lyrics and demos, “baby,” transcribing the lyrics about men you might meet in bars, mild misogyny, the age of outrage and David Bowie, writing as characters, critiquing emotional instability, loneliness, bars are weird places, working with Jessy Lanza and how they influenced one another, song components, working with Matt Didemus as a collaborator in Junior Boys, his relationship with Dan Snaith who performs as Caribou, the popular appeal of Caribou, bringing electronic music to life on-stage, how Junior Boys presents its music, the new record’s only love song, “No One’s Business,” and then no more Brain.

Related links: juniorboys.ca vishkhanna.com

Listen, subscribe, rate/review on iTunes.