Needles & Grooves AotM /// Vol. 41 - November 2022 /// The Weakerthans - Reconstruction Site

Albums that could have been :: No. 9

Saul Williams – Amethyst Rock Star


I'd be hard-pressed to think of an album that's had a more significant impact on my life than this one. I was working receiving at an HMV store when it was released. Because I was in the back I wasn't beholden to playing only music that was "customer appropriate" so when a single copy of this arrived from Sony Imports my curiosity was piqued. I threw it in the CD boom box beside me. Our sole copy never made it onto the sales floor. This album expanded my love of spoken word, changed my relationship with poetry and wound up being my introduction to poetry slams. Were it not for this album, I don't know that I would've discovered my local poetry slam 18 months later and gotten the bug to dedicate a decade and a half (plus) to being a spoken weird poet and travelling throughout North America to do so. I've seen Saul perform at least seven times since and even got to open for him back in 2012.

This one's not the AotM, though, because the only pressing of it goes for $100+ a copy these days. :(
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 10

Ani DiFranco – Little Plastic Castle


Peak Ani! I haven't really kept up with DiFranco since Knuckle Down in 2005 but for nearly ten years until then she was top-tier for me, beginning with a dub of Not a Pretty Girl. None of it rocked my socks quite as hard as Little Plastic Castle though. The sonic and emotional range of this one really did it for me - a fierce fire wrapped in soft edges. "Two Little Girls" is easily one of my top all-time Ani songs, while "Fuel" and "As Is" find themselves very high on the list as well. And closing out on the epic groove of "Pulse" is such a vibe. I still come back to this one quite frequently.

Sadly, it has yet to be pressed on vinyl. The recent vinyl release of Living In Clip gave me some hope, but this one's 25 this year too, and there's still no sign of it.
 
avecigrec said:
Albums that could have been :: No. 9

Saul Williams – Amethyst Rock Star


I'd be hard-pressed to think of an album that's had a more significant impact on my life than this one. I was working receiving at an HMV store when it was released. Because I was in the back I wasn't beholden to playing only music that was "customer appropriate" so when a single copy of this arrived from Sony Imports my curiosity was piqued. I threw it in the CD boom box beside me. Our sole copy never made it onto the sales floor. This album expanded my love of spoken word, changed my relationship with poetry and wound up being my introduction to poetry slams. Were it not for this album, I don't know that I would've discovered my local poetry slam 18 months later and gotten the bug to dedicate a decade and a half (plus) to being a spoken weird poet and travelling throughout North America to do so. I've seen Saul perform at least seven times since and even got to open for him back in 2012.

This one's not the AotM, though, because the only pressing of it goes for $100+ a copy these days. :(
Click to expand...

Saw him do a spoken word /poetry show in a small venue at ucsb 2004 or 2005 and it blew my mind . He was really intense while coming over as a genuinely nice and humble guy
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 11

Charles Mingus – The Clown


My absolute favourite Mingus album. "The Clown" specifically is what drew me in - it's one of my absolute favourite music and spoken word pieces of any genre, and I've long hoped to be able to collaborate with the right musicians one day to do a live cover of it justice. Now that I'm not on the festival circuit every summer, it seems less likely - but, hopefully, I've got many years ahead of me yet to accomplish the goal. Beyond the one piece, the whole album is incredibly solid. "Haitian Fight Song" and "Reincarnation of a Lovebird" being further favourites from this set. It may not be Mingus's best album, but it's my favourite. It's also got a very divisive cover, which I very much enjoy gauging reactions to - I actually picked up a copy of this for a buddy's birthday a few years back and, while he loves the album, any time he puts it on at his place the sleeve goes in his Now Playing stand backwards because he can't stand the cover!
 
avecigrec said:
Albums that could have been :: No. 11

Charles Mingus – The Clown


My absolute favourite Mingus album. "The Clown" specifically is what drew me in - it's one of my absolute favourite music and spoken word pieces of any genre, and I've long hoped to be able to collaborate with the right musicians one day to do a live cover of it justice. Now that I'm not on the festival circuit every summer, it seems less likely - but, hopefully, I've got many years ahead of me yet to accomplish the goal. Beyond the one piece, the whole album is incredibly solid. "Haitian Fight Song" and "Reincarnation of a Lovebird" being further favourites from this set. It may not be Mingus's best album, but it's my favourite. It's also got a very divisive cover, which I very much enjoy gauging reactions to - I actually picked up a copy of this for a buddy's birthday a few years back and, while he loves the album, any time he puts it on at his place the sleeve goes in his Now Playing stand backwards because he can't stand the cover!
Click to expand...

I love the cover, haha
 
Jan said:
Saw him do a spoken word /poetry show in a small venue at ucsb 2004 or 2005 and it blew my mind . He was really intense while coming over as a genuinely nice and humble guy
Click to expand...

The first time I saw him was the day Tool's Lateralus was released on May 15, 2001 - I remember this fact because I caught a ride downtown with a co-worker from HMV and we smoked a joint before we went to meet with his friends to have a couple of drinks before the show - I hung out in an alley behind the club and listened to Lateralus on my Discman! Saul played with a small band and it was absolutely exquisite.

A few years later he was the primary reason I attended my first festival when the Banff Centre for the Arts worked in conjunction with the Calgary Folk Festival in 2004 to bring Saul and a bunch of other (mostly Canadian) poets to the festival. He did an afternoon solo set on a side stage that Spirit of the West was going to follow him up on and 97% of his audience was clearly there to get good seats for their show, but he absolutely entranced them all. He also did a couple workshop stages - the best of which had him jamming with Michael Franti & Spearhead, Los de Abajo and dub poet d'bi young. Very cool stuff.

The next year I saw him perform accompanied by DJ CX Kidtronik at my favourite venue in Vancouver, the Commodore Ballroom, opening for My Morning Jacket. I was only vaguely familiar with My Morning Jacket, having seen video of them performing "One Big Holiday" on a Paste sampler DVD. Still, tickets were cheap enough that I was happy to pay that to see Saul and if I decided I wasn't into MMJ, I could leave and feel fully satisfied. MMJ rocked my socks hard enough to keep me at the venue later than the last train back to where I was supposed to be staying that night!

In 2012 another local poet friend and I were invited by festival organizers to open for Saul and Jackson 2bears, an Indigenous multimedia artist, at the 5th annual Rifflandia Festival in Victoria. Definitely an absolute career and life highlight for both of us! Saul wasn't around for Jeremy's or my sets so he asked us to come out with him off the top of his own set where he introduced us to an audience now 5 times the size it had been an hour or so before and had us each do a poem while he and whichever of us wasn't up performing sat on stage and watched. His set that night was incredibly informal - almost town hall Q&A mixed with performance - he even asked organizers to let the entire over-capacity lineup outside into the venue and had as many people as were comfortable to do so come sit on the stage once the venue was out of seats.

In 2016 I saw him at the Commodore again opening for A Tribe Called Red, with whom he'd recently collaborated on the killer cut "The Virus" from their just-released We Are The Halluci Nation - the album from which the group now called The Halluci Nation drew their new name.

In 2017 Saul was one of the headliners at the 7th annual Verses Festival of Words in Vancouver - a festival at which I'd helped run the Canadian Individual Poetry Slam from 2011-2015. I was able to get a couple of days off work to travel over from central Vancouver Island in order to catch Saul perform briefly at the festival's showcase jamboree on Saturday night then take a two-hour workshop with him (and two dozen other poets, mostly friends) Sunday afternoon and close it all out with his epic headlining set that night!

...which is all to say you are absolutely correct in your assessment! ;)

Every performance I've seen has been nothing short of stellar and put on with absolute intensity, even in an informal setting. Meanwhile, every direct encounter I've had with him has been filled with kindness, joy and unwavering presence. He's something else, to be sure.
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 12

Kid Koala featuring Emilíana Torrini – Music To Draw To: Satellite


Vibe central. Where I artistically inclined, this would indeed be an amazing soundtrack for drawing. In fact, this album stems from a series of events Kid Koala hosts with that exact focus in mind. Last I checked, it's sadly out of print - but a used copy showed up at my local a week after I was informed of that status. Definitely worth seeking out if you want more chill vibes in your world.
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 13

Tracy Chapman – Tracy Chapman


One of the best-selling albums of all-time, and it hasn't been repressed on vinyl since its release in 1988. Which is an absolute crime. Very much an essential album, but right now it's gonna cost you time and/or money. One of the finer debut albums ever released and as relevant today as it was nearly 35 years ago. Tracy Chapman is a treasure. But you probably don't need me to tell you that!
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 14

Fish & Bird – Every Whisper Is A Shout Across The Void


The sound of a band really stepping into itself. As many great things do, Fish & Bird started of simple. A duo composed of Adam Iredale-Gray and Taylor Ashton, longtime friends who had been playing music together and around each other for years. The two recorded a fantastic EP in Adam's parents' basement and handmade all the CD packaging from old file folders, stamps and paint with an artful colour insert drawn by Taylor, who in addition to being a formidable songwriter is a fantastic illustrator. They quickly leveled up their game with a full-length release that found a bunch of their friends joining them in studio and, most especially, on the road. The road band coalesced and solidified into a proper band that came together out of Fish & Bird's old-timey folk origins and into an indie folk force that seemed unstoppable for a few years. Life being such as it is though, the band members found themselves scattered in the wind and many of them onto new projects. They would only release one more album after this one. There are many of us around these parts who hold out hope for a reunion some day, but who knows...

I've daydreamed often of starting up a "Canadian music" vinyl subscription service were I to somehow acquire a bunch more time and money than I have at present. This would be one of the first albums I'd look to secure rights to press onto vinyl for the first time.
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 15

Snotty Nose Rez Kids – The Average Savage


I've said it before in other threads and I'll say it again, I'm sure - I think these guys are making some of the most important music in my neck of the woods over the past few years. It's been an absolute joy to watch their stars rising these past few years. The prizes and accolades have brought slicker production value to their sound, but they've stayed grounded in themselves while elevating their community and other marginalized voices. They're not reinventing the wheel when it comes to hip hop, in fact they where a lot of love and influence on their sleeves for all to see, but they are bringing strong Indiginous voices and pride to the party. And they absolutely BRING IT when they perform live, no matter what size stage they're on.

Their most recent album has just been released on vinyl, and the follow up to this one was their first vinyl release, but this one has yet to be pressed, so it's not our album of the month!
 
avecigrec said:
Albums that could have been :: No. 15

Snotty Nose Rez Kids – The Average Savage


I've said it before in other threads and I'll say it again, I'm sure - I think these guys are making some of the most important music in my neck of the woods over the past few years. It's been an absolute joy to watch their stars rising these past few years. The prizes and accolades have brought slicker production value to their sound, but they've stayed grounded in themselves while elevating their community and other marginalized voices. They're not reinventing the wheel when it comes to hip hop, in fact they where a lot of love and influence on their sleeves for all to see, but they are bringing strong Indiginous voices and pride to the party. And they absolutely BRING IT when they perform live, no matter what size stage they're on.

Their most recent album has just been released on vinyl, and the follow up to this one was their first vinyl release, but this one has yet to be pressed, so it's not our album of the month!
Click to expand...

Love these guys! I really need to get what's out on vinyl so far. Would LOVE to see them live!
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 16

Buffy Sainte-Marie – Coincidence & Likely Stories


After a sixteen-year recording hiatus, Buffy returned with one of her strongest albums, continuing the electronic explorations she first began on 1969's Illuminations. The album was her only one to chart in the UK while it failed to make an impression in the US, where she'd been blacklisted nearly a quarter of a century before. "Starwalker" and "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" are some of her better-known songs, but this album is full of incredible work. She followed it up a few years later with an album of mostly re-recorded material. Still, it would be another sixteen years before she released another album that heavily featured new material.

This album has never been repressed since 1992 and, while used copies are decently readily available (particularly in Europe), they are not always cheap.
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 17

Rena Jones – Driftwood


An absolute favourite from my heavy DJing days in the mid-oughts. Rena's programming and sound design are mighty fine - crystalline with organic warmth. Her playing live violin and cello to accompany said beats is *chef's kiss!* There was an extra special something going on with the downtempo IDM scene during the oughts on the west coast and this is one of its finer apexes.

Of course, being of the post-vinyl age, this has never been pressed. So, again, not our AotM.
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 18

Wax Mannequin – The Price


In 2006 I attended the 3rd annual ArtsWells Festival of All Things Art in the small gold mining town of Wells, BC for the first of what would be 10 times over the next 11 years - and the only time I wasn't officially part of the line-up. Even in its humble early days, there was too much happening at the festival to even remotely be able to catch it all - a very good exercise in letting go. A good friend of mine performing there over the weekend took me aside at one point and said "I'm not going to tell you what to do, and I know there is so much going on this weekend, but my friend Wax Mannequin is playing on this stage tomorrow at 1 o'clock and I think you'd really like him." So I showed up curious and after the host's introduction a bald bearded man in a wine-stained tuxedo shirt with roses sticking out of the cuffs and collar came out with an electric guitar and a laptop, started up some pre-recorded beats and proceeded to manically and maniacally lurch and bound around the stage rocking the fuck out on overdrive and tossing roses into the crowd - in under a minute, I was hooked. This was the album he'd just released at the time and it is still the one I return to the most. His sound has evolved since, but his weird manic intensity remains consistent. I've seen Wax a few dozen times throughout Canada in the years since in solo, trio, rehearsed band and improvised band configurations - he delivers every time. And 99 times out of 100 I will choose to see him over anything else that's available.

Also, short of Meow The Jewels, I don't know of any other album to feature so many meowing solos.

The Price has never been pressed on vinyl and is near the top of my list of dream pressings I would love to produce.
 
Albums that could have been :: No. 20

Blue Öyster Cult – Imaginos


This one is an oddity in the BÖC catalogue - their eleventh studio album but it is and isn't a Blue Öyster Cult album!
Manager, producer and creative partner Sandy Pearlman had been feeding the band lyrics for years from his collection of scripts and poems called The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos. Former BÖC drummer Albert Bouchard had long been planning a trilogy of albums steeped in the Imaginos mythos but the label wasn't keen to release the album he'd put together and instead brought in a bunch of session players and flew in Bouchard's former bandmates to re-record vocals and some guitar parts to ultimately release the project as a Blue Öyster Cult album. The result is a heavy and fantastic album that tanked in terms of sales and effectively ended BÖC's tenure at Columbia. They wouldn't put out another studio album until 10 years later!

This is either Top 2 or tied for #1 in the BÖC catalogue for me - depending on my mood. It would be sweet to see it see a repress, however, because while there are regularly a decent amount of copies available, it's not the cheapest get these days.
 
As far as I'm aware this is John K. Samson's most recent single, which is now about two years old:




Here's hoping he puts out another album soon, either solo or with The Winter Wheat (which is 3/4 The Weakerthans)
 
This thread has been updated with further thoughts from me about the album. You can find them on the first page, or by clicking here.

Also, for any of you that might find such things interesting, Bronwyn Malloy put together a literary analysis of "One Great City" as a PhD student at the University of British Columbia a few years ago. Her research was centred on the poetics of subjectivity in contemporary alternative song lyrics.

Literary Analysis of The Weakerthans’ “One Great City!” | CanLit Guides

Using some of the scholarship and skills from the previous section, we will now begin to close read The Weakerthans’ song “One Great City!” Despite being only 2:57 in length, a well-written song like this could take up many pages of analysis. Here, therefore, we will mainly focus on the infamous...
canlitguides.ca canlitguides.ca
 
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