MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: BARENAKED LADIES - GRINNING STREAK

Well, what's a Barenaked Lady to do?  The band still has lots of fire in its collective belly, off on another big tour of amphitheatres across heartland America this summer, with Ben Folds Five and Guster in tow.  There's actually a kind of BarenakedNation or something out there, loyal folks who follow along in each city, a safe alternative to those rowdy Dave Matthews Band shows.  And I bet a good time is had by all.

And each concert ticket purchase gets you a free download of the new Grinning Streak album, a good deal, and a good way to get their music into the hands of folks before they hit the show, so hopefully they will cheer the new single, Boomerang, at least.  Meantime though, there doesn't appear to be any place left on radio for the group.  Certainly Boomerang didn't bother the likes of Pink, Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars in the Top 40. It ain't the halcyon days of One Week.   Lesser bands would crumble, but instead they've been coming up with new business models over the past decade, embracing download sales, solidifying this loyal fan base, and reinventing the group sound minus one co-founding lead singer and songwriter.  Barenaked Ladies may not command the attention of the greater pop world these days, but they do have a niche, and they are holding on.

Which brings us to the new album, and since I'm assuming you aren't in the fan club, but possibly used to enjoy them, there's at least some curiosity in what they're up to.  Anything particularly different?  Nope, aside from the missing co-vocalist, this is the band you've known and maybe loved.  It includes lots of whimsical, witty lyrics, and even a stand-out or two.  The cut Did I Say That Out Loud?, which starts off in their mellow mood, has great rhymes, and hits with prime, catchy chorus.  It would be an excellent followup single in, say, 1999.  Opening track Limits has excellent piano from Kevin Hearn, and even a little throw-back synth, which is hip these days.  Hearn's own Daydreamin', the one track he sings, giving Ed Robertson a break from lead vocals, is another synth-play tune, with a spacey-dreamy feel.

It total, you can take this two ways; either dismiss it as been there-heard that from the band, or enjoy it for what it is, cleverly crafted and lighthearted pop, by a group that knows how to do it.  Their new music may not be making the world laugh anymore, but at least there's something here to grin at.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: JANE'S PARTY - HOT NOISE

The Toronto group that doubles as the Band part of the Devin Cuddy Band, this is their second album, after a 2009 debut The Garage Sessions.  This time out though, it's on the back of a bunch of national tours and strong recent buzz that could (and deserves to) give them a breakthrough.  It's a strong, accomplished set, with a clearly defined sound for the group.

What's grand about Jane's Party is the unabashed, feel-good pop sound.  You could almost call it power-pop, except the group is so tight.  With three singers, and lots of classic influences, the songs bounce back and forth like a great 60's - 70's Top 40 station.  One of them sounds somewhat British, so there's a Beatles-Kinks thing going on, but with a little more modern guitar attack.  Sloan then, without the punk background

Anyway, I should have thrown around enough names there to attract a few folks.  The good thing is that not only do they have the chops, they have the songs to back it up, too.  I'm especially fond of 'Til You Got Yours, with it's slightly menacing verses that give way to a sweet chorus, with lots of harmonies and an infectious electric piano part.  Meet Me Halfway is another of those pretty melodies on top of gritty guitars, lots of falsetto backing vocals, and a lead break straight off the banks of the Mersey, circa 1964.  Best of all, there are another 10 of these on Hot Noise, and never once did I think 'that's not as good as some of the others.'

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: HISTORY OF THE EAGLES - THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN BAND (DVD/Blu-ray)

So what did I learn from watching this four-hour Eagles biography?  Plenty.  Hardly anything about their music, but a ton of facts I didn't know, and a whole lot more about what kind of people they were.  And believe me, not very much is pretty.  It's hard to come away with much sympathy for any of them, especially Glenn Frey, who comes off as an aggressive, domineering, egomaniac.  He hides behind each hurtful decision with the excuse that what he's doing is best for The Eagles.  But when he says The Eagles, what he means is Glenn Frey.

Every full participant in the band story is here, including past members and producers, all willing to tell their side, but just like in life, Frey's word in the film is final too.  Bernie Leadon wanted to stick with country when the band was moving towards pop-rock?  He's gone.  Original producer Glyn Johns, who crafted those early country-harmony records?  Zip, he's out.  Founding bassist and singer Randy Meisner, when he didn't want to sing the incredible high line on his hit, Take It To The Limit?  See ya.  Then there's the strange case of Don Felder, out not once but twice.  For the crime of not being 100 per cent behind a political benefit show for Senator Alan Cranston, he incurred the wrath of Frey in 1980.  Amazing audio tape from the show reveals them threatening each other on stage, vowing to fight once the show is over.  Frey can't contain his disgust at him all these decades later.  Somehow though, Felder did get re-hired when the band reformed in 1994.  Re-hired is the optimal word though; Frey boldly admits he insisted that he and Henley get a bigger share of the dough than the others, a sore point for Felder that eventually festered again, leading to his dismissal once more.  His choking up when explaining that he misses his friends and the music is one of the few human moments in the film.

Don Henley seems to have let Frey be the more vocal partner in everything, including the documentary.  He takes the role of philosopher, but certainly must shoulder some of the blame, too.  He speaks with pride about his Walden Woods charity, yet at the same time brags about the group's exclusive deal with Wal-Mart to sell their Long Road Out Of Eden album in 2006, which was a business decision that made them millions, yet put them in bed with a company that does much more to harm the U.S. than the developers who wanted to harm Walden.

Paradoxically, as all this unfolds, the excellent music plays behind, almost as a back-story to the soap opera and exploits.  We hear about lawsuits with David Geffen (who also appears), wild and constant parties, the business reasons behind it all, and not once but twice does manager Irving Azoff remind us that the Eagles Greatest Hits was the biggest selling album in the 20th century.  Meanwhile, songs seemed to drop into their laps with the slightest bit of inspiration.  Maybe this speaks about the music, that perhaps it was all form and little substance.  Whatever, they wrote a heck of a lot of great radio tunes.

Disc one gives the history up to the break-up in 1980, and is the most interesting part of the film.  Disc two is the reformation, the continuing "farewell" tours, and a huge amount of time is spent on the making of the Long Road Out Of Eden disc, probably because they shot loads of documentary footage then.  It pales compared to the first half.  A third disc features a live concert, and the good news here is that it's from 1977, the band in their heyday, not one of the sterile reunion shows, with extra musicians.  Without question, this is one of the best warts-and-all music docs ever made, hardly any stone unturned.  Sadly though, I came out thinking less of the participants, and worrying this will ruin their music for me in the future.

THE STOGIES, LONG DISTANCE RUNNERS HEAD OUT ON TOUR

The Runnin' On Fumes tour begins Thursday, June 6, in Moncton, NB, featuring two of the East Coast's leading young rock bands.  The Stogies, from Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland's Long Distance Runners are playing through June an July on a tour that takes them across all four Atlantic provinces.  You're looking at a full night of rock riffage here.

LDR are the relative veterans in the package, at this since 2009 with an EP and last year's full-length Tracks album under their belts.  That release saw them hit the national charts, and grab an ECMA nomination for rock recording of the year.  The Stogies put out their first EP last year, signalling the groups' graceful, elegant work (not) with the title No Couth * No Class * No Nothin'.  We step into the Wayback Machine on opener Skeleton Crew, with raw 70's metal chords and vocals just as nasty.  It turns into a slide-led boogie that would scare off early Aerosmith.  Big and loud is the code they live by, with a two guitar attack, huge bass and drums, and real, actual organ filling it out.  The only time they calm down on the EP is for the novelty number, Rock n' Roll's A Zombie (that wants to eat your brain), which takes a swipe at the religious right, country, and folk music, and pretty much anybody else that gets too close.

The tour kicks off at Plan B in Moncton Thursday, then bounces around the Maritimes, before heading off to Newfoundland in July.  Here are the first few dates on the Runnin' On Fumes tour:

June 6 Plan B Moncton, NB w/ Danger Cat
June 7 Pepper's Pub Saint John, NB w/ Verse the Sun

June 8 Fishbones Charlottetown, PEI
June 12 The Legion Sackville, NB w/ The Kavorkas

June 13 Lava Vodka Bar Fredericton, NB w/Brothers

June 14 The Seahorse Tavern Halifax, NS w/ Young River

June 15 The Loft Truro, NS w/Black Rock Road

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: DAFT PUNK - RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES

With summer almost here, and temperatures varying up to sweaty, I find myself once more with a dilemma.  Some of my music listening is done in the car, on my daily commute to work (six minutes), ferrying children around, or running errands.  And before the air conditioning gets working, that means a few minutes driving with the window down.  My latest listening, at my usual somewhat cranked volume, saw one of those awkward moments at a stop light, as I looked over at the car next to me.  Checking me out  was the kid in the passenger seat, as disco music blared in his direction.  I set my eyes straight ahead, turned the volume down to a whisper, and waited for what seemed the longest light in the city to change.

See, I'd been hearing from some reliable sources, friends with good ears, that the new Daft Punk was worthwhile.  I've been chided in the past by some for not being hep to tech and electro and such (note that I still use the word 'hep'), and I figured I should try at least something, and see if I could find something to like.  The popular French house-synthpop group seemed like the thing, hot as they are.  Listen one:  Disco with auto-tuned vocals.  Listen two:  Very good replication of classic disco and soul of the 70's, with synths added on, and lots of auto-tuned vocals.  Listen three:  Why?

There are very nice moments, such as the tender whispers of Touch, a rare slow one with a choir of angels singing "If love is the answer, you're home, hold on".  And a lot of the funky tracks start to wear you down as you settle into the grooves, and start to think this dance music can be pretty cool.  But I'm still left with the why question.  Daft Punk have re-invented the wheel here, giving us the same disco beds of the genre's glory days, lots of excellent riffs and rhythms, that popping bass sound, the hi-hat accented drums, the heavenly guitar chords ch-ch-chunking in.  There are even guest appearances by some of the greats of the day, Chic's Nile Rodgers, and famous session guys Nathan East on bass and drummer Omar Hakim.  So there's an excellent, real instrument sound going on here, with the D.P. synths laid on top.  My guess is, like many of my age, I'm stuck with a framework of thinking that I can't undo.  When I hear disco, my 70's programming tells me to hate it, as we did back then, like a Habs fan hated the Leafs.  And even though now, when I hear The Hues Corporation's Rock The Boat, and find myself enjoying it, I still have these issues.  Random Access Memories is an excellent tribute and update to an admittedly excellent sound, and there, I've said it.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: NATALIE MAINES - MOTHER

It's a weird world we're in, where the Dixie Chick is trying to sound like Sheryl Crow, and Crow's trying to go country on her new album.  While Crow's doing it seemingly for commercial reasons (see Jewel, and that guy from Hootie), Maines is showing her independence from the Nashville ideal of a country performer.  Of course, she pretty much did that with one nasty sentence about George W. Bush.  This album won't be the one to mend those fences.

Maines produced the album with Ben Harper, who plays throughout, sings a duet with her on one of his cuts (Trained) and co-wrote another couple with her.  But he mostly takes a back seat, adding slide guitar touches.  It's her baby, and it's an odd collection that doesn't seem to have a direction.  If you cover Pink Floyd's classic from The Wall, and name the album after it, you'd think there would be a point to it, but it seems just to be a song she likes.  And she doesn't do much with it, it's not a number particularly suited to her voice, and she can't pull off the gravitas of the original.  She has a better time with Eddie Vedder's Without You, and a Patty Griffin song called Silver Bell.  The latter one really lets her rock out, and I mean rock, with some searing Harper slide.  It seems the louder she goes here, the better it works.

And so it goes, some good choices, some weak.  An attempt at the alt-country sound of The Jayhawks' favourite, I'd Run Away only sounds good on paper.  And surely somebody must have realized she was over-reaching by trying to sing Jeff Buckley's Lover You Should Have Come Over.  Hearing her stretch for the notes and fail is painful, especially on such a long song.  It's nice that she's her own person for this solo album, but she doesn't seem to have a good idea of who that singer is.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: BENNETT/BRUBECK - THE WHITE HOUSE SESSIONS, LIVE 1962

Imagine finding a rare tape of Mick Jagger sitting in with The Beatles in 1964.  It didn't happen, but a jazz equivalent might be the time Tony Bennett and Dave Brubeck took the stage together in a one-off showcase, in 1962.  Long missing, the tapes were just rediscovered in the Sony archives, misfiled under classical.  Well, it is a classic, so maybe they were right.
 

The event was a special Washington show, not at the White House itself, but at the Washington Monument, for college students working at the Capitol that summer.  As for the career timing, it was pretty much perfect.  Bennett had just released a little number called I Left My Heart In San Francisco, which would become his most-beloved number.  Brubeck was the reigning champ, his Take Five album the top-selling jazz album ever, the first to sell a million.  And the billing was a one-off event, the two never sharing the stage.

 

Brubeck's Quartet took the stage first.  With a short set ahead, they dispense with Take Five off the top, sped up and hip, almost showing off what they can do.  Brubeck takes care to credit the song's composer, sax man Paul Desmond taking a bow.  Then he politely explains what the band is all about, taking sounds, styles and time signatures from different cultures, and showing how they can fit into the jazz idiom.  A sort of World Music of jazz, decades before the term came into use.  Three long pieces follow, tighter than yoga pants.  Brubeck, always the king of cool, still let fly a nasty solo or two, reminding you that he could bring it as well as anyone.

Bennett and his trio were next, including his lifetime accompanist, Ralph Sharon at the piano.  Smooth and confident, Bennett walked the line between the popular song and jazz chops with ease, erring perhaps on the side of entertainment, but still being such a talent that the jazzheads really had no reason to hold their noses. 

The highlight happens at the end, as Bennett brings back Brubeck, along with Eugene Wright on bass and Joe Morello on drums.  It's a once-in-a-lifetime summit, and unrehearsed, the star pair figuring they might as well do it, and must have a few in common.  So standards it is, starting with Lullaby Of Broadway.  Bennett immediately has fun, handing it off to Brubeck for a solo by singing, "..a lullaby of ...Dave Brubeck!", giving him the spotlight.  Bennett gets plenty of time to stretch though, a little scat even, clearly rising to the occasion of having a star up there.  He goes for it on Chicago, hitting a full-volume end, the musicians clearly enjoying the moment.  It's just four songs, an encore to the 70-minute performance, but thank goodness it's been saved.  Such are the great moments.