Additional CHRW Alumni and more...CBC, Global, ESPN, Sportsnet!

Dan Shulman, Kevin Newman, Adrienne Arsenault, Rob Faulds, Elliotte Friedman, James Rocchi, Mike Froussios, Dr. Rich (his recipe for Seminary Biscotti is at the bottom of the PDF...mmmm...)  Some are famous...some famous in their own right!

 

 

 

The Joy Division Post

I just watched 24 Party People for the 10th time (I like Steve Coogan, Happy Mondays and Joy Division, give me a break) and I realized that the anniversary of Ian Curtis' death was coming up (May 18) and I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to post a little something about perennial fan-favorites; Joy Division.

I'm not going to do a history of the band or Ian Curtis because it is very easy to look that stuff up and many people have done a much better job than I ever could. I like to focus on some of the Joy Division fallout and put a Canadian perspective on it. I think it is a massive understatement to say that Joy Division still has an influence on a lot of modern bands. Toronto band Uncut took some serious crib notes from Joy Division for the band's fantastic debut album Those Who Were Hung Hang Here (2004, Paper Bag) but that is not the most direct Canadian connection. A few bands that you wouldn't expect to be influenced by Joy Division have recorded some interesting covers.

Hawksley Workman did a cover of Joy Division's big hit Love Will Tear Us Apart as a B-side of his Anger is Beauty single (2003). Although LWTUA is the most covered Joy Division song (here is a bad version by the Arcade Fire with Bono trying to throw down) Hawksley puts his own unique spin on the whole love-gone-stale anthem. Hawksley Workman's rescheduled London appearance is on May 14 at the Aeolian Hall. Now you have a request to yell.

Hawksley Workman - Love Will Tear Us Apart From Anger is Beauty 7" (I think this may be unavailable to purchase now)

Vancouver's the Black Halos better known for their punk-influenced love songs, did a cover of Warsaw on their 2001 SubPop release The Violent Years . I love this cover for three reasons 1) Warsaw is my favorite Joy Division song, 2) the Black Halos are one of my favorite Canadian bands and 3) they really rip through on this version, both snotty and angry at the same time. 3-1-G!

Black Halos - Warsaw From The Violent Years (buy at Amazon)

Stephen McBean's Pink Mountaintops did a cover of Atmosphere on their self-titled debut album (2004, Jagjaguar). I think this is would be one of the harder songs to cover because the lyrics make no sense and the song has a very Nico-era Velvet Underground vibe to it. This version is synth-less and includes a rather prominent tambourine. I know what you are thinking "Joy Division weren't about tambourines, man" but maybe they really liked tambourines and just didn't think of it.

Pink Mountaintops - Atmosphere From Pink Mountaintops (buy at Amazon)

Now the disclaimer: these mp3s are for evaluation purposes, if you like it please buy the album and go to the shows. Support Canadian artists.

some links

Joy Division on Wikipedia
Ian Curtis on Wikipedia
Pink Mountaintops/ Black Mountain/ Jerk Wih a Bomb
Black Halos
Hawksley Workman
Sub Pop Records
Jagjaguwar

Hawksley Workman postponed

We just got word that his shows slated for March 29 has been postponed to sometime in May...tickets sold will be honoured...more details to come...

 

 

Here's a great blog, if you're interested in technology, culture and the law...

http://michaelgeist.ca  

 

Stories on the web about ex-CHRW volunteers or the station

I thought I’d cruise the web one night and see who’s mentioning CHRW as part of their history or written something about the station...here’s some...Robin Palmer, Doc Palmer, No Noise Festival, Marty Finestone, Jayme Friedt, Nihlist Spasm Band, Sarah Lasch, Herb Bayley, Peter J. Moore, Airwave Dreamscapes, Steve Hunter, WFMU.   That’s enough for now...if you find more you’re welcome to submit them...just not from the Gazette...a little too easy...

 

Hawksley Workman at the Aeolian Hall is sold out! Or is he?

No, because a second show has been added! Wednesday, March 29, Hawksley plays two shows at London’s Aeolian Hall and 94.9 CHRW has 10 pairs of tickets for lucky winners. We’ll be giving them away on air and through our weekly email of what’s happening in London! Go to http://www.chrwradio.com/ and sign up if you haven’t already – we’ll make sure to keep it useful to you – interviews, shows, free tickets, cool stuff from the cool bands we play and cool people we talk to! Anyway, enough sounding like a commercial...why is Hawksley touring? To promote his new album Treeful Of Starling which is definitely a return to his roots...find out yourself...tickets are available for $21.50.

C'mon Live to Air Feb 04 2006

Last Saturday CHRW 94.9 presented C'mon live-to-air from Call to the Office on Saturday. Despite the crazy freak snow/rain storm it was a hearty crowd of true fans turned out to witness the punk rock fury of Toronto's Brutal Knights, the Garage-heavy guitar mastery of Montreal's Starvin Hungry and the swaggering rock of C'mon. Hope you caught it on the live-to-air because it was well worth listening to. Check back for an mp3 from the show. Special thanks goes out to J McKnight who captured the whole thing on film.

Aggression Fest VI

Although you wouldn’t know it from the Embassy’s home page there is a huge show coming up this weekend called Aggression Fest VI. The show features nearly 30 bands playing over 2 days. The tickets are $10 ($15 at the door) each day and are available at Speed City and the Embassy. Do the math, that is a ridiculous 72 cents per band. Listen to CHRW for upcoming interviews on Sonic Reducer (Friday, 3:30 pm - 6:00 pm) Less Talk More Rock (Friday 8:00pm-10:00pm) and The Breakdown (Saturday, 3:30pm-6:00pm). I did most of the leg work and found links to most of the bands playing (most have sound clips), so check them out and support the local scene by going to the show.

2006-01-20
AGGRESSION VI - DAY 1: The Embassy / Whippet
Shotgun Rules,
The Reason,
The Black Maria,
Cursed,
Cancer Bats,
Baptized In Blood,
The Soap Opera Coma,
Sleeper Set Sail,
Angry Agency,
Rad Affair,
Chasing Mercury,
District 7,
Heirs,
Bitch You Know What I Want

2006-01-21
AGGRESSION VI - DAY 2: The Embassy / Whippet
Protest The Hero,
The End,
Seconds To Go,
Wheels On The Bus,
Summerhero,
Broken Glass Wings,
Sydney,
Rosesdead,
The Hostage Life,
I Hate Sally,
A Constant Reminder,
The Dupes,
The Arsoncityscape,
Final Plague

All Ladies, All Day

Tomorrow, Decmber 6th is the 16th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, and Canada's National Day of Rememberance and Action on Violence Against Women.

To commemorate this day, CHRW will be presenting all female voices, all day, beginning at midnight tonight. Every show will be hosted by females, and we will only be playing music performed by women, or groups headed by women.

Throughout the day we will be presenting interviews, and live performances from artists such as Basia Bulat, Lindsay Codling, and Mo' Sullivan.
For a complete schedule and list of performers, please go to www.chrwradio.com.

Thanks in advance for supporting London's Indie Station in recognizing this tragic, but important anniversary.

CHRW likes Pornographers

The New Pornographers have been flipping in and out of the #1 spot on our charts since the release of their latest album Twin Cinema in August. They have been number one on the CHRW charts for 9 weeks total (non-consecutive), giving them the distinction of being the longest running #1 album in CHRW history. According to the encyclopedic CHRW historian Steve Kopp (History of Us, Tuesdays 1:30pm - 3:30pm) the former record holder was Nash the Slash's second solo album "Children of the Night" back in the early 80's. Given the number of diverse shows and tastes at the station it is a pretty unique feat for any album to be so well received, but nobody can dispute the awesome popness of the New Pornographers. If you need some more convincing to run out and buy this album, you can listen to the songs "Twin Cinema"(mp3) and "Use it" (mp3). You can watch a video of their live performance at WFMU here (avi 44mb, Courtesy of WFMU's Beware of the Blog)

The most startling thing about the New Pornographers are the amount of excellent solo albums put out by members of the group. The Slow Wonder released last year by frontman Carl (A.C.) Newman spent a lot of time on the CHRW and CMJ charts, got him nominated for a Juno (he was beat out by Broken Social Scenester, Leslie Fiest) and made numerous critics year's best lists. The Slow Wonder is my personal favorite of all New Pornographer-associated output, I only needed to hear "Town Halo" once to be hooked. There are still some tracks floating around ("Miracle Drug" mp3 and "Drink to me Babe, Then" mp3, Courtesy of Matador) in case you live in a cave and haven't heard it yet.

New Pornographer's guitar/keyboardist and tuxedo-shirt retailer, Todd Fancey also released his first solo album in 2004 to critical acclaim (PFM) and has recently released a follow-up 4 song EP on March Records. Daniel Bejar's side-project(does it count as a side-project if you actually release more albums than your main project?) Destroyer has consistently put out some praise-worthy indie albums including, thief (2000, Catsup Plate), Streethawk: a Seduction (2001, Misra), This Night (2002, Merge) and Your Blues (2004, Merge). Destroyer's latest album Notorious Lightning and Other Works is more of the same indie-pop and clever song-writing.

I don't think you really need me to tell you about sometimes Pornographer Neko Case's solo projects. Born in Virgina claiming Washington state as home, Neko has been a fixture in the Vancouver music scene for a while now. Her career so far has included a far-ranging variety of musical styles and numerous bands, but she is most well known for her country-influenced indie-pop of her solo projects which include 2004's The Tigers have Spoken .(Anti) and you can listen to the track "If you Only Knew" here (mp3 courtesy Anti). Her new album Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is scheduled to be released in March 2006 also on Anti records.

The New Pornographers without solo projects, John Collins, Blaine Thurier and Kurt Dahle, spend a fair amount of time in other notable bands including Limblifter (Dahle) and The Evaporators and Thee Goblins (Collins), while Thurier makes movies in his spare time.

Just a small overview of the current reigning champs of the CHRW charts.

Never send a man to do a nerd's job

Hey, welcome to the first(ish) official CHRW post.

Hopefully this will be a forum for people at the station to fill you in on cool (or not so cool) stuff going on at the station, campus, London, and rest of the world. And who better to start it off then the nerd who wastes the most time updating his own blog? I'm Jon from the show Sonic Reducer (Fridays 3:30-6:00 pm) and I just wanted to start the blog ball rolling by posting some stuff about some bands that are playing in town this weekend.

The Forgotten Rebels are playing Call the Office Saturday (Nov 26). I don't know if it is because they are Can Con or what but Forgotten Rebels are the second punk band I ever heard (some guys from England were the first. I can't remember what they are called something with Pistols). A kid I met skateboarding gave me a mixed tape and track one was Surfin' on Heroin which I thought was pretty rad at the time (this was 86-87 people still used the word rad). Ah, good times, good times. Anyway, the band is playing with The Legend Killers, The Nasty Rash, Johnny Terrien and the Bad Lieutenants. Tickets are $14 advance (Speed City) and $15 at the door. Should be a night of some old school punk rock fun, I mean check out the picture: swastikas and the finger, could it get anymore hardcore?
Need more info check out the official Forgotten Rebels site

When ever I announce who is playing on a particular weekend on the show I tend to forget the Embassy. I really have no excuse for this, and I feel kind of bad about it. The Embassy has been a big supporter of local bands and have really been involved in the whole burgeoning southern Ontario hardcore/screamo scene that is taking off. Saturday night (Nov 26) the Embassy is hosting 7 bands for the low price of $5. Hillbilly Bugger Boys are releasing their new CD and playing with a whole wack of people including: Let's Get Steve, The Black Donnellys, 32nd Degree, Grayline, 68Pornomags and societal hemmorage (thats a lot of linkage).

So take your pick; old punks at CTO or young punks at The Embassy. Maybe they will have a Warriors-esk rumble somewhere around Adelaide St.

Man, that would be rad.

Mo' Digital Funding Drive

Thanks for having a look - more info coming soon - if you wish you can drop by www.chrwradio.com and find out about our funding drive...world wide domination by 2007 is the goal!