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Climate Science News Update
"The northern polar ice cap has been showing the effects of global warming more rapidly than any other place on earth." So begins this video report that features NASA's Tom Wagner and a convincing eye-witness account of what's happening to Arctic sea ice from Arctic researcher David Barber. You can witness for yourself that there is little left to doubt as to whether or not the climate has changed and continues to do so in exactly the manner in which climate scientists long ago predicted. This week NASA reported that we've just experienced the hottest January to August period on record. And if you're the kind that's been paying attention you already know that in June NASA reported he 12-month running mean global temperature had reached a new record in 2010 — despite recent minimum of solar irradiance. That means that the deniers claims that the warming we're experiencing is all the sun's fault are hogwash.
I understand why producers and profiteers of fossil fuels deny Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) and their efforts to muddy the science behind it and why they'll even fight anti-pollution laws. I don't get why right wingers go along though. I don't see how it profits them and why they wouldn't want to err on the side of caution. There's a report just today that hundreds of thousands of walruses pack Alaskan shores to get some rest, as the sea ice in the region has been reduced to near-record lows.
What's most troubling in all this anti-science nonsense is the lack of appreciation for the real impacts that this kind of rapid climate change will have on national security and international stability. Take a hard look at what's happening in Pakistan (seems nobody in the western press really wants to), the devastation this one in a thousand year flood has wrought and you'll begin to realize some of the untold consequences that await us if we do not act.
CJLO News September 13th 2010
News Read by Emily Brass, Produced by Drew Pascoe
Stories written by Chris Hanna, Emily Brass, and Marcin Wisniewski
Kele @ Sala Rossa
Embarking upon his first solo tour across three continents, Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke performed solo in Montréal at La Salla Rosa on the 4th of September, 2010. Being his seventh overall stop and second in a majority francophone city, Kele strutted onstage with a well-traveled divinity that hinted towards modesty. The females within the first ten meters immediately shot glances towards upstage while the men opened their ears and loosened their dancing feet; Kele’s presence alone made the measly cost of the concert ticket forgettable to all now tuned-in to his music. His goal was seeking converts to his style.
While the first gulps of alcoholic drinks were taken and the fanfare gravitated from the bar to the stage, Kele began his set with "Walk Tall", the first song off his 2010 solo album The Boxer. The hyperactive single began in usual Bloc Party rhythm, before breaking into the new electronic hybrid genre that Kele now represents. Those mostly filling Sala Rossa were long-term fans of Kele, drawn to him from his beginning in the alternative/indie rock group Bloc Party and excited to hear what his new-found autonomy would produce. Capitalizing on fan-loyalty, the show spawned a new Kele never before presented, though just as equally esteemed as Bloc Party (on hiatus as of October 31st of last year).
Tighter, sharper beats kept the audience extremely active, from cuts "On The Lam" to "The Other Side" to the now-popular single "Everything You Wanted". Kele’s use of electronic acoustics and sounds placed him more as a showman than a lead singer, as his voice and direction appealed directly to the music, rather than seeking to overpower and dominate it. This new sound magically arranged itself out of chaos, inventing a New Spontaneous Order that easily convinced show goers to stay until the last chord was struck.
Not wanting to disappoint those most loyal to him, Kele (his first name, as well as his solo moniker) hammered out a continuous string of Bloc Party favorites: "Blue Light", "The Prayer" and "One More Chance". While the show goers forewent using their voices for the sake of dancing at the beginning of the show, the Bloc Party hits evoked harmonic cries, amazingly useful for more than just ordering drinks at the bar. This part of the show converged Group Member Kele with Solo Artist Kele, and the moment and audience did seem to favor the latter. The energy emitted from the stage disseminated among the crowd, from the hip-hopper to the head banger to the quiet couple, one standing in front of the other.
The undeniable apex of the show was the hit "Tenderoni", which has already garnered 25,000 plays on Last.fm and over 1.2 million views on Youtube at the moment of the writing of this review. It would be naïve to chronicle this song in any other way, as simply: Kele. This is the new Kele, the one that shall continue to load mp3 players, lag computers and excite audiences and dance clubs for ages to come. "Tenderoni"’s electronic stylings and excitable beat epitomizes the entire album and is certain to be Kele’s solo mark upon the world of music. Far from Kele’s only dance hit (he's already collaborated with The Chemical Brothers and Tiësto), "Tenderoni" will open an entire genre’s worth of audience and potential for future albums.
Seeking to test the limits of his voice, Kele’s next song was the calmer "Rise". Though less excitable, this song also proved energetic with a great mix of Kele’s singing. Ranging from high-melodies to low-digs, Kele proved his talent beyond expectation and began the slow transition to the end of the show. The next tune was "All The Things I Could Never Say", a less-vibrant song filled with much more emotion and empathetic swings than any other song performed that evening. The gentile atmosphere was quickly penetrated, however, by the Bloc Party classic "Flux", which Kele used to close out the show. This was enough to regenerate the loyal Bloc Partisans to his favor, and to leave all others awaiting more.
In closing, Kele had transformed an entire room of concert-goers to converts to his style. If he shall continue to pursue his musical dreams, than he shall surely have a following with the youth of this day.
Pennywise @ Metropolis
When I was in grade nine, Pennywise was the quintessential punk band. Not only did they give me instant cool cred when everyone else was listening to Nickelback, but their music soothed over the rough moments of early high school. When I heard that they were coming to Montreal, and I had the chance of reviewing the show, I jumped at the opportunity. Also, they were playing with pop punk legends Authority Zero and Riverboat Gamblers, as well as local band Fifty Stars Anger. It was the promise of a majorly great show.
First, I have to mention the venue, the Metropolis, a spacious space that once served as a theatre, located in the nitty gritty portion of St. Catherines street. There's a generous floor right in front of the stage, large enough to fit hundreds of people and screaming out for mosh antics. Behind that, nearer to where the entrance is, there's seating for those with either drinks or too much dignity to join in the sweaty floor scene. Looking out onto the floor, on the second level, is a sweeping balcony with enough of the original old theatre seats to fit at least another few hundred. Altogether, we're talking about a space with the potential to hold 2,300 people, bars scattered throughout, and what was obviously a sold- out show. We're talking a lot of great energy here.
The first band to come on was Montreal-based Fifty Stars Anger. I had never heard of this group until this show, but they did not disappoint. Although their stage antics could have used a little work, they delivered fast, driving songs that were perfect for a first set. They delivered their short songs back to back with almost no break, and by the third song the floor crowd was already starting to get worked up. However, the set was sadly very short, the band playing for only about 30 minutes before it was all over.
Next came Authority Zero, whose credit as a force on the punk scene became readily apparent as soon as their show started. Pulling from many other genres, including at times a healthy dose of ska rhythm, their music is infinitely catchy. They delivered high-energy anthems that had the crowd in a frenzy almost immediately. They played a lot of stuff from their new album, as well as old classics such as “No Hope” thrown in to compliment the mix. When they made their way off the stage, people were still screaming for an encore long after they were gone. Alas, we did not get one.
Riverboat Gamblers came on with their more pop-leaning punk songs, but because the crowd was still pining for Authority Zero, the first half of the set was met with a slightly dampened atmosphere. But the second half more than made up for the initial response. Once they started playing their hits, such as “Bad Reactor” and “Hey Hey Hey”, the energy picked right up. The best things about the Riverboat Gamblers is that, although they are a punk act, they are pop enough that the songs are easily danceable and have refrains that one can sing along to.
Then came Pennywise. I need to say here that I went into the concert totally unaware that Pennywise had a new lead singer. When someone told me of this fact, I was pretty upset. I was all ready to hear the original songs from my teen heroes, and felt affronted that there was someone else singing in the place of Jim Lindberg. The anticipation between sets as people waited for Pennywise was phenomenal, however, and within about fifteen minutes of picking up the vibe, I went from disappointed to excited at the prospect of a new lead singer. The lapse between sets was punctuated with screaming, shouting and spontaneous chants of ‘Olé!’. When Pennywise took the stage and launched into “Every Single Day”, the entire audience rose into a roar. While the other three bands before them really delivered, Pennywise dominated the stage. After over twenty years of music together, they knew just what to say and how to say it. Each song was accompanied by a small comment or story that really added to the melody, and their stage antics were fantastic.
As a band, they were completely in sync with each other and played a tight, comprehensive set. They mixed both old and new material, the newer definitely more pop than the old , but still most certainly Pennywise. When they played older songs such as “Same Old Story” and “Fuck Authority”, the crowd went crazy and sang along, word for word. The set ran for about an hour and a half. When the last note was played, we all filed out, some very happy people indeed. And, yeah, I have to admit Zoli Teglas, as the new lead singer, was great.
Overall, the concert was one of the best ones I've been to in a long time. The combo of these particular artists, each one worthy of a show alone, was awesome. Add to that the mix, the venue, and the crowd, and the result was a phenomenal show.
(Photos by MNJIVR. For the full gallery from the show, click here!)
Review Thursday: Comeback Kid / BXI / Run With The Hunted
Run With the Hunted
Destroy All Calendars
Panic Records
Phoenix, Arizona’s Run With The Hunted is a band to watch out for in so many ways. Upon first listening to this four-track album you can quickly hear a difference to all the other bands out there. The technical prowess of the band is a ridiculous amalgamation of heavy and beautiful. The change-ups are confounding and can sometimes switch into math-core effortlessly before the unified anthems resume. The vocalist lends a poignancy to the band to create a new but familiar form of hardcore that will soon devour the world. The sheer desperation, contempt and emotion of his voice is something that few people have mastered in any musical genre, and he seems to accomplish it all while screaming his guts out. Run With The Hunted have signed to Panic Records and will be releasing their full length debut album in the near future, your job is to love them now, before they blow the roof off of the music business.
BXI
BXI EP
Southern Lord
Rock music makes for some strange bedfellows. Case in point: The new BXI EP, a collaboration in-between The Cult's Ian Astbury and Japanese noiserock maestros Boris. A mutual admiration in-between the two acts led to the creation of this disc, an uneven collection of four by-the-numbers rock tunes, complete with a cover of The Cult's "Rain".
The consensus after repeated listens is that it's kind of like checking out a series of strange mash-ups. The vocals don't quite match the music, and even at its best (EP closer "Magickal Child") the music and the vocals don't quite mesh in the way that they're supposed to with this format of rather traditional tunes.
Perhaps the band and Astbury were aiming for this very effect when recording the EP, which wouldn't be surprising considering Boris' rather interesting discography. Still, such a strange pair-up is bound to be worth checking out for marquee value alone, although this is geared more towards Boris purists, and not necessarily to the casual Cult fan.
Comeback Kid
Symptoms and Cures
Distort Entertainment
Testicular fortitude, that’s what Comeback Kid have an over abundance of. Hailing from Winnipeg, Manitoba this five-piece hardcore act has broken into markets all over the world with their sing-along style. Since the departure of original vocalist Scott Wade, former guitarist Andrew Neufeld took the mic with an unimagined outcome. Neufeld had a voice that surpasses Wade in every way possible. The intensity, frustration, and call for unity coalesced to create this new CBK and fans everywhere collectively sighed. While most hardcore bands continue practicing and refining their abilities until they switch over to playing a more metal hybrid version of hardcore, CBK has gone another direction with the newest album Symptoms and Cures. The new incarnation has all the hardcore you could want with a return to the punk sounds that captivated and unified generations. This is such a perfectly balanced record, the heaviness, melodies, and pure artistry of CBK is one that every Canuck should support. You should buy this album because CBK chose not to sell out and give you the metal tinged HC that is so common lately, and that, kids, takes balls.
CJLO News September 8th 2010
News Read and Produced by Drew Pascoe
Stories written by Samah Fadil, Jonathan Moore, and Gareth Sloan
Quick Hitter
Hello there and hope you all had a brilliant summer and don't mind my sporadic posting of news stories here. For more regular post you can check out the New Media and Politics blog (it's a lot more opinionated -- these are news stories you shouldn't miss regardless of how busy school and life get).
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study has found that Canada spends more and more on higher education, an increasing percentage of the cost is borne by students and their families. In financial terms, the benefits of a postsecondary education to individuals and Canadian society at large far outweigh the costs -- the OECD estimates that the average Canadian man with a college or university education makes more than three times what he put into getting such an education, both in terms of direct costs and lost wages. For the average woman, the gain is more than double the cost.
Findings contained in Education Indicators in Canada, a wide-ranging collection of data released by the Council of Education Ministers, that looks at education levels found Canadians are better educated than they were a decade ago and have some of the highest rates of post-secondary attendance in the developed world.
Sadly and incomprehensibly the report also shows that women are graduating from both high school and post-secondary in much higher numbers than men, but continued to earn far less in the workforce.
A message from Program Director Brian Joseph
Hello CJLO Listeners,
I’m in Zurich, Switzerland right now with Head Music Director Omar Husain, representing CJLO and Canada at the first International Radio Festival. As much as I love this opportunity I must admit that it is a little sad that I will not be in Montreal for the launch of the CJLO Fall 2010 Schedule. If you haven’t already taken a look at the new schedule, click on the ON AIR tab for a look at what's new. Since our launch on the AM band in 2008, every year has been one of growth and this schedule is another example of how much we’ve grown. From station staples like our morning show; New Media & Politics to new shows like Amsterdam; the programming is sure to entice you and keep you coming back for more.
So take a few minutes to check out the schedule, click on your favorite shows and maybe a few shows you have never heard before. Explore the site, comment on blog posts and have fun on CJLO.com. If you don’t find anything that interests you, become a volunteer at CJLO and be a voice for the music you love. My logic is that there are always more people out there that have similar interests, and it just takes one person to represent them.
I hope you enjoy the schedule and I’ll see you all at CJLO’s DisOrientation events later this month.
Sincerely,
Brian “Döc Holidæ” Joseph
CJLO News September 3rd 2010
News Read By Erica Fisher and Produced by Drew Pascoe
Stories written by Chris Hanna, Alina Gotcherian, and Erica Fisher
Review Thursday: Ill Bill & DJ Muggs / Minus The Bear
Minus The Bear
Omni
Dangerbird Records
Minus The Bear is one of those bands that people tell me I should listen to, but I never really get around to doing. You know the bands. Your friend says, "Hey, you should listen to this you might like it," and you agree to listen, but you never get around to listening or you listen to one or two song on a Myspace profile and you never quite hear again. I listened to some Minus the Bear stuff and remembered liking it, but truth be told, I couldn't tell you anything about the couple of songs I heard, so when I was asked if I wanted to review their latest album, Onmi, I thought, "Well, I really should. People have been telling me about them for what seems like forever now; it's time to get this done."
This is the band’s fourth album, and having only heard a sparse amount of things from their previous work, I may not be qualified to say if Minus the Bear fans will like Omni. However, this isn’t going to stop me from reviewing this album. Maybe it makes me more qualified to review it since I’m less biased than everyone else. Or it really doesn’t matter at all and I should just get to the review.
I have to say that I really like this album. It’s a pleasant bunch of tunes that are upbeat and ultimately make me happy to listen to. (Now of course, since I am me, that is going to now be qualified by a bunch of different statements to make this sound like I‘m contradicting myself.) However, I do realize that this album has some faults within its happy confines. I can tell you that it doesn’t have nearly as many weird time signature changes that made previous songs that I’ve heard so interesting. This might not mean much though since I haven’t heard many songs, so I’m not going to go in depth into this point. I think the main problem with this album is that ultimately it’s kind of boring. Many of the songs sounds similar and there’s not too much variation. One songs bleeds into another into another. There’s undeniable catchiness to the album, but it’s a catchiness that is repeated over and over again.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that for this album the band played all their songs all the way through rather than piece them together in the studio afterwards like on previous efforts. [1] Maybe it has to do with the fact that they signed to Dangerbird and got a new producer. Maybe they just haven’t taken enough uppers… I don’t know. What I do know is that this album lacks a variety that makes you stand up and take notice, and is also kind of sparse on energy, not making a great album to keep you awake.
But, it’s still a good album. It managed to keep me entertained while I did other things on the computer, and it’s got kind of a, for lack of a better term, "brainless" quality to it, where you can listen and you don’t really have to think too much about it. In addition it really made me feel good in a happy way after listening to it, which most albums don’t really do.
To sum it up, this album is a good album if you want to add some background to your work day, or if you want to relax and listen to something that isn’t going to tax your brain. However, maybe, for everyone’s safety the album should have a warning on it that reads, "Caution: may cause drowsiness. Use caution when operating heavy machinery." Safety first after all.
Comments, critiques, good ideas for preparing steaks: gradeaexplosives@cjlo.com
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Ill Bill And DJ Muggs
Kill Devil Hills
Uncle Howie Records
The days of the rap albums with a singular vision are largely gone. The album-length collaboration in-between producer and rapper is one of a special nature: the marriage in-between words and music, between meaning and sonic space is one of very careful balance. The phenomenon rarely happens in this age of hit-fuelled, star-producer-requiring outings, trading in artistic value for commercial viability when a rapper teams up with a menagerie of hit producers of the minute. So it's a breath of fresh air to see a project as such Kill Devil Hills come about, with the edgy darkness of the beats created by DJ Muggs, balancing out rapper Ill Bill's politically-tinged bars.
Much like he did for the GZA in 2005 with their collaborative album Grandmasters, DJ Muggs returns to man the boards for almost all tracks (the lone stand-out is an interlude) on Kill Devil Hills, creating a murky sonic atmosphere for which Uncle Howie Records spitter Ill Bill can drop his conspiracy-laced rhymes.
Opener "Cult Assassin" sets the tone: dark synth lines and chopped-up drum sample that sounds like a funeral dirge play over Bill's rhymes, chock full of paranoia and conspiracy theories. He even references the track "Doomsday Was Written In An Alien Bible" from his 2008 record The Hour Of Reprisal as the song ends, adding a linking narrative element to his music.
Many of Bill's frequent collaborators appear on the record: La Coka Nostra bandmates Everlast and Slaine appear on the track "Skull And Guns" (which, coincidentally, is also the image that appears on La Coka Nostra's debut album), and Raekwon guests on one of the album's better songs, "Chase Manhattan", a two-minute bank-robbing tale that gives an apt play-by-play as Rae and Bill trade off. Jedi Mind Tricks mastermind Vinnie Paz as well as Sick Jacken, Sean Price and Cypress Hill member B-Real also make an appearance and add their own flavour to a number of tracks.
Muggs manages to keep the atmosphere heavy with grimy drum samples and a virtual army of nasty-sounding keyboards production that while in theory sound boring, does actually manage to differentiate itself enough from song to song to stay intriguing.
Although KDH is a largely satisfying record, the repetition of lyrical themes grates after a while, and the record, comprised of 13 songs and 3 interludes, is just long enough to get its message out before it overstays its welcome, a problem with other Ill Bill releases. We get that he wants everyone to know about The Illuminati and that society is brainwashed, we just don't need to be beaten over the head with the hamfisted approach Bill takes to writing.
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