Author: Paul Cantin
Record Review from web archive April 14, 2009
John Doe & the Sadies
On the face of it, the pairing of John Doe with the Sadies seems so head-slappingly obvious it’s a wonder they haven’t managed to hook up before now. In the 1980s, as a member of X and the Knitters, Doe stood tall on the tightrope between punk iconoclasm and country tradition. That’s the same gap [...]
Record Review from web archive March 12, 2009
Chris Darrow
Music history has a tendency to frequently favor the reputation of easily defined artists, but that’s at the expense of music makers as singular and strange as Chris Darrow. How do you pigeonhole a multi-instrumentalist who has traces of his DNA detectible in his own work with psychedelic purveyors Kaleidoscope in the ’60s, neo-trad practitioners [...]
Record Review from web archive February 27, 2009
Isaac Hayes
When Isaac Hayes emerged from the shadows of Stax Studios and his role there as session musician and hit-writer extraordinaire, he stepped into the glare of his solo career, and what a strange, unlikely figure he must have cut. Here was the consummate behind-the-scenes guy emerging as a buff, bald, flashy figure of African-American assertiveness, [...]
Column from web archive February 25, 2009
A Rodeo King embraces his inner Lee Harvey Osmond
Last summer, a series of odd videos began circulating around the internet. They were shot against nondescript backgrounds around Hamilton, Ontario, and featured a hirsute guitarist in a lime green disco suit frozen in frame, with a hyperkinetic young man nearby dancing furiously to some soulful, groovy, dark music. The clips were attributed to Lee [...]
Column from web archive January 28, 2009
R.E.M.’s still-echoing Murmur
Recently, through the networking magic of Facebook, I reconnected with an acquaintance from my university days for the first time in more than twenty years. During the brief, ensuing exchange of memory-lane messages, she recalled that way back in early ’80s, I was the first person to introduce her to the music of R.E.M. In [...]
Record Review from web archive January 19, 2009
Bee Gees
It could be argued that the very thing which assured the Bee Gees’ commercial triumph also guaranteed their exile into the critical wilderness. While the group’s heyday riding the Saturday Night Fever juggernaut is celebrated as kitsch in some circles, for those of us who resisted their utter dominance of popular culture for those few [...]
Column from web archive December 24, 2008
Yo Adrian…this one’s for you
I used to work at a place where each morning I was typically the second person to arrive in my office pod; the first was a fellow who would greet me each day by asking enthusiastically if I had watched whatever TV program he had watched the night before. He’d pepper me with this query [...]
Record Review from web archive December 17, 2008
Marah
Despite some generally lousy indicators (the economy, the environment, international relations), the world faces 2009 with a sense of hope for better days ahead. Whether or not that hope is well-placed, don’t we tend to close off the year by thinking sunnier times lurk around the corner? My musical 2007 ended with a big bang [...]
Column from web archive December 10, 2008
For Young’s fans, Archives awaits…and awaits…
Obsessives typically don’t play well together. Whether on the battlefield, the football gridiron or a backyard drinking party, when two hard-headed, determined, focused types come into conflict, like the old songs says, something’s gotta give. A similar musical tilt has been playing out in recent weeks, although the antagonists may surprise you. In this corner, [...]
Column from web archive November 12, 2008
William Eggleston’s
singular south
The name William Eggleston may not resonate with music fans, but his pioneering work as a color photographer and documenter of southern culture (on the skids and otherwise) has earned him a place of honor in the art world. Perhaps his most direct link to the world of music comes from the use of his [...]
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