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Ep. #200: Daniel Lanois

Daniel Lanois is a world-renowned musician, songwriter, and producer who splits his time living between Ontario and California. A multi-Grammy winning producer who has had a vital influence on key records by Bob Dylan, U2, Emmylou Harris, Peter Gabriel, and Neil Young, Lanois is also a pioneer of ambient music and one of the finest songwriters in Canada. His latest album is 2014’s Flesh and Machine, an adventurous record of processed instrumentation, which is available via Anti- Records. He performs solo at the Hillside Festival on the weekend of July 24 and here, Daniel and I discuss his studios in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Jamaica, the through line between early collaborations with Brian Eno and Flesh and Machine, manipulating and processing conventional instruments to create wholly new sounds, Brian Blade is a hell of a drummer and a dear friend, Daniel’s motorcycle accident in which he broke 10 bones, a Canadian motorcycle club, “The End” and “Beautiful Day,” conveying information via music and/or lyrics, plans to play a rare solo show at Hillside, planning for the workshop with Nels Cline Singers and Elaquent, ambient music as a term and communicating with Brian Eno about playing a show together, Bob Dylan and the swamp, making Time Out of Mind, the night Dylan came to his house to play him every song from the sessions that yielded the album Shadows in the Night, Dylan’s voice, steel guitar excursions, the song “Iceland,” and then where will I be?

Related links: daniellanois.com hillsidefestival.ca vishkhanna.com

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Ep. #121: Dave Ullrich of Zunior & The Inbreds

Dave Ullrich is the founder of Zunior.com, one of the world’s first digital distribution services for independent music, which celebrates its tenth anniversary with various enterprises, including a new tribute album by Tony Dekker and a big festival at Sandbanks Provincial Park on Sept. 13. He was also a founding member of the excellent indie-rock band the Inbreds. Here, Dave and I discuss Allen’s Pub on the Danforth in Toronto, Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip and the Inbreds, growing up in Oshawa but making the Inbreds in Kingston, hiding your Oshawa, k-os rapping upside down, Cuff the Duke owning Oshawa, my pilgrimage to Mike O’Neill’s childhood home and memories of that episode, playing cover songs at an O’Neill Collegiate Vocational Institute battle of the bands in an outfit called the Fresh Steaming Turds, the forgettable U2, I know the R.E.M. discography pretty well apparently, loving Zeppelin and Bonzo, why the complexity and fury of punk is often equated with simplicity and rudimentary playing, sincerity in music, Proboscis Funkstone Records, the rise of cassettes, the riff-y, fingerpicking early days, luck + preparedness = success, these are the breaks, I challenge you to dislike the Inbreds, Lewis Melville, Rheostatics, Guelph, when the Inbreds turned down a Foo Fighters tour opening slot to break up, sneaking low-profile records to Dave Bookman who got them to superstars, angering the Tea Party while Foo Fighters munched on KD, a circuitous route to scooping the White Stripes, starting the prescient Zunior.com digital music delivery service 10 years ago, vinyl sales and holding a piece of wood, leveraging the spirit of indie-rock computing, Zunior platinum, the top 10 moments in the history of Zunior, suprising Rheostatics, the Zune, solar power, Egger plays live, Peanuts, Boxing Day, patron saint Stuart McLean, making commercials with Scott Cudmore and Martin Tielli, the joy of the label and Wax Mannequin, getting into e-books and working with rock writer Martin Popoff, predicting the future for music consumption, flirting with Rdio and musical curation and discovery, vinyl might have a cost ceiling, major labels are like cockroaches, the new Tony Dekker Sings 10 Years of Zunior album and how it came to be, the Zunior 10th anniversary show in Sandbanks Provincial Park in Prince Edward County on Sept. 13, the song “At the Airport” by Old Man Luedecke, and then it’s the right time to say goodbye.

Related links: zunior.com inbreds.com vishkhanna.com

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I hop on the “I liked Arcade Fire first” bandwagon late…

http://media.guelphmercury.topscms.com/images/c3/bb/56cc3e9a42ec87c5fcbdf552facc.jpegI was quoted in a Guelph Mercury article today about the association between Guelph and Arcade Fire. In the wake of their Grammy win this past Sunday night, there’s been plenty of discussion about this band that “stole” a major award from Eminem and Lady Gaga. There are some people who don’t even know who they are when really, they’ve been hugely popular for close to six years now (i.e. they’ve played SNL twice, debuted at #1 on Billboard, have played sold out shows at Madison Square Garden, been on Letterman and Conan, opened for U2, performed publicly with David Byrne, David Bowie, and Bruce Springsteen, collaborated with major filmmakers, and been nominated for Grammys before, etc.). Any way, it’s also sparked a weird ownership discussion about the band among their fans and some media outlets–a kind of entitled, “We knew about them before they were huge and won a Grammy” line of thought I suppose. It’s all a bunch of noise really but now I’ve got myself caught up in it.

This morning, because of the Merc piece,  I began to reflect on my own association with the band and found some links to some of the earliest pieces I wrote about them. I’m sharing them below, not because I feel I’m owed anything or want any kinda cred for my efforts (which include paying attention to things and trying to articulate my feelings about them, and aren’t all that astounding, I realize). It’s just a kinda scrapbooking exercise I suppose. When I first saw Arcade Fire open for Broken Social Scene and Royal City at La Sala Rossa in Montreal in December 2002, it was a fluke that I was even there (RC often brought me on tour with them) but still, I knew they were something else. And now I’m feeling nostalgic about that era for the band and myself too, sure.

I’m nothing but ecstatic and pleased by all of this band’s success, not because I know them vaguely or was lucky enough to share stages with them when they first played Ontario or that I was able to write about their music when few others had the chance to. The fact is, they’re really one of the best bands in the world and they’ve been remarkably poised, composed, and grounded in the face of what I can only imagine is a freakish amount of pressure and scrutiny. They’re really great people making amazing music and I’m proud to have gotten to know them over the years.

So yeah, here are some links to things I’ve written about Arcade Fire since 2003. Enjoy.

A Nathan Lawr article that references AF’s first Guelph show in July 2003, which I organized.

A September 2003 review I wrote about their first EP.

A Unicorns/Arcade Fire combo piece for their first Hillside appearance in July 2004.

Funeral review, 2004.

And a preview piece on their 2005 appearance at Hillside.

And interview/reviews of Neon Bible and The Suburbs for Exclaim!