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Reindeer Games

17 Saturday Dec 2022

Posted by in Poprock Themepark

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Things got a bit out of hand for Santa this year at the Reindeer Games. It started with too much rum and eggnog at breakfast and, well, you get the picture. Still, this year’s annual musical celebration of the season is back, vibing all the key warm and fuzzies of the holiday: anticipation, desire, tradition and joy. Let’s take up each, in song.

That holiday music machine Make Like Monkeys are now my go-to source for any and every kind of seasonal single. Need a Mersey-drenched bit of poprock to bring your holiday and dating into focus? Can do. “Please Don’t Let Christmas Come Without You Girl” sounds so Beatles-derivative beat-group circa 1964. And I love it. The Essex Green offer up an Everly Brothers-worthy slice of late sixties country rock, making peace with a “Green Christmas.” The heavenly guitars and layered background vocals on this track are all I need under the tree. Seasonal songsters Christmas Aguilera sound like they’re auditioning for a ‘I hate the holidays’ telethon what with all the disaster accompanying their yuletide plans in “All Wrapped Up.” But the subtext to all the apparent chaos seems to be a grudging, recognizable family kind of love. And the tune is a real winner too, chock full of hooks and harmony vocals. Proceeds from this help the campaign to end homelessness and poor housing in the UK. Daryl Bean delivers an eerie XTC-ish paean to the anticipation of the season on “Holidaze.” You’d swear there’s a Partridge in his pear tree.

Turning to desire Toronto’s Jane’s Party capture the youthful sense of really wanting to get that specific something at Xmas with “I Want It Bad.” And they deliver it with it a bit Motown swing. The Decibels’ Brent Seavers delivers a retro sounding classic holiday tune with “I Want You for Xmas,” complete with addictive ‘fa la la la la’s’ to really reel you in. I can’t decide if Frank Royster sounds more like Fastball or The Smithereens on his fab holiday track “Christmas is Fun.” Whichever, the song sounds like a slick bit of 1980s poprock magic. Turning to tradition, rock and roll traditionalists Jeremy and the Harlequins add a heflt of solid rock backing to “White  Christmas” to shake things up. I don’t know how much Superchunk owe to Dylan Thomas but their “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” is hooky and jangly and the that’s good enough for me. It’s hard to add much to that holiday rock and roll classic “Jingle Bell Rock” but premiere guitar instrumentalist Joel Paterson manages to inject some of his special, unique playing style into the song. Old dogs, new tricks indeed!

Feeling swamped by the crass commercialism of capitalist Christmas? This year don’t puzzle till your puzzler is sore about it. As the Grinch said, “Christmas, perhaps, is a little bit more.” Like hope, and peace, and joy. Berlin’s Shybits accent the hope on “Hope This Christmas,” a chaotic swirl of Futureheads meets The Spook School indie-pop seasonal goodnesss. The pop incomparable Orion Experience wield a serious joy stick on their seasonally-appropriate, all-you-need-is-love ode “Rich Man’s Holiday.”  As they sing it, you don’t need money when ‘your love is the greatest gift in the world.’ Then there’s the peaceful easy feeling that flows from Scoopski’s new Christmas classic “Your First Christmas.” The husband and wife duo sing about their actual recent baby, a stand in for the joy that every baby anywhere can bring to a hopefully peaceful world.

And yet is wouldn’t be the holidays without mixed feelings. It’s a tough season for so many. Some with or without family, with or without faith. Anthony D’Amato captures that holiday ennui on “Merry Christmas, I Guess.” Not sad, exactly. More lonely. All wrapped up in a musical pretty paper that sounds like the pedal-steel country blues. By contrast, The Surf School Dropouts won’t suffer in silence. They utilize their Beach Boys-vocals to call out to the jolly plus-size guy himself on “Help Me Santa.” Vancouver’s Odds have got a clever plan to deal with all the garbage this season produces, both emotional and physical. While the mall marketing people say ‘more! more!’ they have Santa telling voters to share the gift of love with ‘neighbour and your honey.’ We lost the legendary girl group pioneer Ronnie Spector this past year. Right to the end she was radiating joy and goodwill to all. In terms of her long career “Best Christmas Ever” is a fairly recent release but one that captures everything great about her enduring talent and style.

It’s almost a wrap here at this annual Reindeer Games. Let’s go out looking for that star that will help lead us where we need to go in the days ahead. My new favourite one-stop-shopping seasonal music provider Make Like Monkeys can provide the accompaniment with “Star.”

Merry ho ho to all and to all a goodnight!

Top photo courtesy Kevin Dooley.

Playing the Odds

27 Thursday Oct 2022

Posted by in Artist Spotlight

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A long time ago in the 1990s a flash of Canadian cultural pride briefly burned bright. The Toronto-based Kids in the Hall were wowing the comedy field with their boundary-crashing, cross-dressing humour while out on the country’s west coast a new band was turning heads and turntables. The Odds or just Odds brought together two stars of the local Vancouver scene, Stephen Drake and Craig Northey. For a while it seemed that everyone in town had a friend of a friend in a band with them. Together they self-produced the cheeky Neopolitan (deliberately misspelled) in 1991, followed by the more major label-ish Bedbugs in 1993. Both made a splash primarily in Canada. The breakthrough moment was 1995’s Good Weird Feeling, an album that launched the band from the indie scene to the almost mainstream with killer cuts like “Truth Untold,” “Radios of Heaven,” and the seductive “I Would Be Your Man.” I was sold. When 1996’s Nest came out I was convinced they were on the verge of major stardom with “Someone Who’s Cool” as the obvious should-be hit single. Man was I wrong. And then that moment of Canadian cultural coolness passed. The Kids in the Hall movie Brain Candy bombed at the box office (even an Odds soundtrack song couldn’t save it) while Odds themselves broke up in 1999. What could have been wasn’t. It seemed like the new century would have to get along without them.

Fast forward to the new millennium and the band minus Stephen Drake (and plus newcomer Murray Atkinson) decide to reunite as the New Odds and then, later, just back to Odds. Since then they’ve released 2 albums, 3 EPs and a stand-alone single. 2008’s Cheerleader came on strong, reviving the band’s signature guitar-heavy melodic rock and roll sound. Tracks like “Getting My Attention,” “Out of Mind” and “Good Times Rolled Away” harken back to their earlier work, particularly from the Good Weird Feeling period. By contrast “Cloud Full of Rocks” and “Write It In Lightning” really remind me of Sloan. Things shift into Kim Mitchell or Tom Cochrane good-time rocking territory on the Corner Gas theme “My Happy Place.” For singles I’d take “I Feel Like This All the Time” with its laid back hooky jangle, though “River is Cried” is another seductive slow burn.

Write It In Lightning
I Feel Like This All the Time

Five years later the band was ready with another new album but marketing concerns saw it carved up into three separate EPs released over a two-year period circa 2013-14. The original LP only finally got an official release this Fall. No matter, Universal Remote is a timeless rock and roll package, equally at home whether it be 1999, 2013 or right now. If Cheerleader’s sound was lean and focused then Universal Remote fattens things up, multiplying and overlapping guitar parts all over the place. Opening track “He Thinks He Owns You” builds its sonic palate bit by bit, conjuring up a distinct atmosphere. “Anything You Want” is just a gorgeous slice of guitar poprock, a radio ready single if ever there was one. “High” even hits some country notes a la Jayhawks and Blue Rodeo. And then there’s the obvious hit, “Party Party Party,” a song that busts out the chord-slashing rock fun like an indie rock BTO. By contrast “Ghost Bike” leans into a hypnotic keyboard arrangement, adding another dimension to the album.

It’s great when a favourite band makes a comeback but there’s always a moment or two of trepidation about whether the new material will measure up. With Odds, you can relax. Cheerleader and Universal Remote compare more than favourably with the band’s original catalogue. These records are like cherished friends who’ve returned to the neighbourhood just to hang out.