News

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new Latent release: HURON

We have just released a new album by the young Hamilton band, Huron. At the moment you can only buy the abum via download (or at one of their shows). The CD will be available on-line soon and at retail in the spring. They are a pretty cool sounding entity, sort of a blend of Big Star, Black Sabbath, Wilco and a few other guitar driven bands: a very addictive sound. Please be our guest and give them a listen. If you like it, and if you’ve got a few bucks left on a your credit card, buy it. Also please use the “share” button on the music player to send the player to anyone that you think might enjoy the music. Rock on.

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Lee Harvey Osmond review

Our good friend Lee Harvey Osmond is beginning to make noise and get noticed down in the good-ole USA. Here is a recent review from Blurt. If you haven’t yet checked out the album…why not….??

 

LeE HARVeY OsMOND
      
A Quiet Evil

(Latent)
 
Let’s see here… released on the Cowboy Junkies’ own label; produced and recorded by the CJ’s Michael Timmins; features both Michael and sister Margo, with the other members of the Junkies making guest appearances; includes a cover of an obscure CJ tune, “Angels In the Wilderness”; even mastered by the Junkies’ longtime cohort Peter J. Moore; must be a Cowboy Junkies side project, right?
 
Not exactly. LeE HARVeY OsMOND is the brainchild of Tom Wilson, from Blackie & the Rodeo Kings, who conceived of the project as a kind of Canadian musical collective – hence the involvement of the Timminses et al, not to mention fellow Rodeo King Colin Linden, members of the Skydiggers and a handful of others. Wilson wrote or co-wrote most of the material and sings and plays guitar, so it’s clearly his baby, although as the notes above suggest, Cowboy Junkies fans and band trainspotters will find much about A Quiet Evil to cheer. In fact, several tunes have a familiar opiated twang and nocturnal ambiance: the spookywoozycool “Blade of Grass,” with its hushed vocal and backwards guitar swirl; the quietly intense, fuzztone-flecked blooze of “Summer Girl”; and of course pedal steel/B3-powered weeper “You Drove Me Crazy (Now I’m Gonna Stay That Way)” – how’s that for a great song title – which features Wilson and Margo Timmins in classic country duet mode.
 
All that aside, A Quiet Evil ultimately lives up to its titular suggestion; there’s an understated quality here barely masking a lurking sense of desperation and malevolence. From the simmering “Lucifer’s Blues” (check Wilson’s part-spoken, part-sung vocal, which with his deep voice suggests a cross between Chuck Prophet and Dave Alvin) to a searing, edge-of-psychosis cover of Lou Reed’s “I Can’t Stand It,” the record’s steeped in a kind of gothic noir ambiance. This is only made all the more unsettling by the demented cover art, a Satanic-looking dog/rabbit mutant with sharp fangs and jutting phallus. And what’s up with the upper/lower case lettering scheme of the band name? Is there some kind of subliminal messaging going on?
 
Wilson may or may not have spent time in that part of Canada where the weird sunlight schedule has been known to drive folks a little bit crazy, but on the evidence of this album, he’s definitely a lotta bit twisted, so beware. Twisted in a good way, of course…
 
Standout Tracks: “Queen Bee,” “Blade of Grass,” “Angel In the Wilderness,” “I Can’t Stand It” FRED MILLS

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Whites Off Earth Now!! on vinyl

We have just re-released Whites Off Earth Now!! on 180 gm vinyl.  It’s also in a gatefold sleeve with some very detailed liner notes by our friend Dave Bowler. This was re-mastered by Peter Moore. Peter went back to the original master tapes and went through them with his typical attention to detail. It sounds freakin’ awesome. If you want to check the bottom end of you sound system, then put this platter on and get ready to RUMMMBLLE!!

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new recording added “Once I Was”

We have added a new song to the “neath your covers” section in Exclusives (or you can just check out the song on the player below). It is a cover of the Tim Buckley song “Once I Was” and it is being released today on a CD called, “The Village: A Celebration of the Music of Greenwich Village”. The album title pretty much explains the concept for the album. It also includes covers by Lucinda Williams, Rickie Lee Jones, Shelby Lynne, Marshall Crenshaw and many others. You can find out more details about the album by going to the label 429 Records website. In the meantime take a listen to our version and if you like it…buy it.

Barbara Lynch at The Dakota Oct 29

Barbara Lynch will be performing a rare show this week  at The Dakota Tavern at 249 Ossington St in downtown Toronto. The show is this Thursday, October 29 and it starts at 9pm.  Our brother John will be performing with her and it should be a great night of music. If you haven’t had a chance to check out her album, please do so…I think you’ll like it… then make a date to come on down. I hope to see you there.

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Cookie Crumbs – Volume 4

In case you haven’t noticed, we have added Cookie Bob’s latest edition of Cookie Crumbs to the Exclusive page. It’s a very cool collection of some of Bob’s first tapings of the band starting in 1996. There are some songs in this collection that I had forgotten that we had once played live. If you have some time you can stream the collection for free or, better still, throw your eight bucks into our hat and download the collection. In any case…enjoy.

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Junkies on CBC

For those of you that can access the CBC: This Beat Goes On and Rise Up, the documentaries on the history of Canadian music in the 1970s and ’80s will be on CBC Aug. 27th, Sept. 3rd., Sept. 10th and Sept. 17 at 9 p.m. EST on all nights. Michael and Margo are interviewed in This Beat Goes On about the influence of the 70’s scene on the Junkies music and about the Junkies contribution to the 80’s scene in Rise Up.

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