The City Streets are a band on a mission.  A few missions, actually. The Montreal-based band (originally from Edmonton) has two new full length albums in the pipelines: Winter Lightning was recorded with Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Wolf Parade)  at Montreal’s almost legendary Hotel2Tango studios, and Sawdust & Rum, recorded by the band themselves in a small cabin on the Atlantic Ocean in Nova Scotia are both set to see the light of day sometime soon (no specific release dates set yet).  As well, band members Rick Reid, (vocals and guitar) and Matt Leddy (bass and backing vocals) recently went to Haiti to work with an organization called All Hands Volunteers. The pair were involved in a reconstruction project assisting in the recovery project after the January 2010 earthquake.  The band have set up a link from their own site for donations towards the project, which you can find here.

“How I Pray” is off Winter Lightning and features the handiwork of Colin Stetson, and “Nothing Can Be Planned” is from Sawdust & Rum.  If that’s not enough City Streets music for your liking, you can also download their recent EP, Decline of the West here, and their last full length, The Jazz Age here, both for free.

How I Pray by The City Streets

Nothing Can Be Planned by The City Streets

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Back row (from left to right): Carl Johnson (Library Voices), Megan Bonnell, François Cloutier, Becky Ninkovic (You Say Party), Daniel Lee (Hooded Fang), Brandon Chandler, Stephen O’Shea (You Say Party), Amy Eligh (Casablanca Media Publishing), Nils Edenloff (The Rural Alberta Advantage), Charles F (Winter Gloves); Front row: Jana Cleland (Casablanca Media Publishing), Lance Schibler (engineer), Lizz Hunt (Casablanca Media Publishing), Nate Kreiswirth, Jon Janes (The Mountains & The Trees), Jason Haberman (The Paint Movement), Colin Buchanan (Paper Lions), Josh Schroeder

On Sunday, August 14, 2011, fourteen songwriters converged in a rustic chalet in Collingwood, Ontario for a week of collaborative songwriting against the backdrop of natural beauty in the Blue Mountain area.  Daniel Lee of Hooded Fang, The Rural Alberta Advantage‘s Nils Edenloff, Becky Ninkovic of You Say Party, Jon Janes of The Mountains & The Trees, Library Voices‘ Carl Johnson, and Jason Haberman of The Paint Movement are just a few of the folks who came together to write and record 19 songs for the project.

Last May, Ed Glinert, the founder and president of Casablanca Media Publishing (based in Toronto) suddenly passed away.  Casablanca staff were looking for a way to honor Glinert, and came upon the idea of bringing a group of songwriters together to collaborate on what they hoped would be a digital album whose proceeds would go to The Heart and Stroke Foundation.  They couldn’t have asked for a better experience, as the artists invited to participate came together right from the start and embraced the spirit of the project, and the chance to work with old friends and new.  The end results of this songwriters’ retreat is called The Casablanca Sessions: Time to Remember, and will be available to purchase this Spring, but the good folks at Casablanca just couldn’t keep the music to themselves for so long.  Below are/is samples of the songs that will appear on the compilation.

Jason Haberman (The Paint Movement) – Time To Remember by Casablanca Media

Carl Johnson (Library Voices) – Over The Top by Casablanca Media

Cuff the Duke are getting set for the U.S. release of last year’s Morning Comes album (available to our neighbours to the south on February 28), and are doing so with a new five-song EP of covers called In Our Time.  The band have been premiering one of the new tracks each week at Filter magazine for the past two weeks, and Quick Before It Melts is pleased to bring you the Canadian premiere of their cover of the Guided by Voices tune “Smothered in Hugs”.  Cuff The Duke’s Wayne Petti offered up some info on the interesting song choice:

I bought the album Bee Thousand on vinyl (white vinyl) when I was in high school after hearing it at a party. Up until that point I had never heard anything quite like Guided By Voices. Every song was a “hit” to me. The songs were so catchy and interesting and the production was so lo-fi. From the opening track “Hardcore UFO’s” to “You’re Not An Airplane” it was four track gold to me. The song that grabbed my attention the most that night at the party was “Smothered In Hugs”. It’s one of those songs that I never get sick of hearing to this day. We recorded our version live off the floor…vocals and all and our friend Bob Egan played the pedal steel.

MP3: Cuff The Duke “Smothered In Hugs”
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I have a couple cats, and they both like to hang around my desk when I’m blogging.  I don’t mean curl up at my feet or sleep on the floor kind of hanging out, I mean up on the desk, sprawled out between me and the keyboard basking in the glow of the monitor kind of hanging around.  I’m always intrigued by their response, or more likely lack thereof, to the music that’s coming out of the speakers a mere centimeters from their ears.  So there they were, one perched on the desk, the other standing on the headrest to my chair, when I started playing LP by TV Freaks.  The album starts with a 25 second “Intro” that fades in with the sound of chirping birds.  Natural predatory instincts kicked in, and both cats tensed up and turned their attention to the direction of the bird calls, ready to pounce if one of their feathery foes suddenly appeared out of the speakers.  I thought they were going to go nuts.  They stayed at attention, like sentries guarding the battlement, even when the music proper, a mix of melodic punk rock howling and short burst of frenetic energy, drowned out the sounds that got their attention in the first place.

And what sounds these are.  I’m not typically a fan of TV Freaks’ brand of barn-burning punk, but this four piece out of Welland, Ontario play with such youthful exuberance and take-no-shit attitude that it’s hard not to get caught up in the fun.  This gritty, almost primitive sounding record was recorded in a barn by Ian Romano (Attack In Black) and Kenny Meehan, and released in December by Hamilton’s Schizophrenic Records.  Guitarist Justis Krar also plays with three Attack In Black side projects: he helped Ian Kehoe record the Marine Dreams album last year, plays with Daniel Romano in the Trilliums, and will be playing guitar for Spencer Burton’s Grey Kingdom next month.

There have been a number of TV Freaks record release shows around Southern Ontario recently, including a hometown gig last weekend with Kehoe and Marine Dreams, and at Toronto’s Sneaky Dees with Pissed Jeans and Anagram.  A video for “Spilt Milk” should be forthcoming, along with more shows. The full album is available from TV Freaks’ Bandcamp page (link below).

MP3: TV Freaks “Spilt Milk”
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Trading in the detached synths that most recently framed his words, Old Ideas set Cohen’s words  against some beautiful backdrops.  Speaking of words, he may be in his late 70s, but Cohen is still writing lines and rhymes worthy of his prime work.  The combination works best on the simple guitar-strummed “Crazy To Love You”: “Crazy has places to hide in/that are deeper than any goodbye,” he croons, and a million heads nod in understanding and agreement.  There’s a lot of personal reflection and contemplation on Old Ideas, too, as Cohen looks inward at his own fears of growing older.

It’s not something he needs to fret over; with age and wisdom, and a more than a bit of experience in this cut-throat music business, Cohen has only grown more powerful and vital with age.   He’s also gotten more sarcastic and witty, as the closing couplet from the album’s last song says, “I’d love to speak with Leonard/he’s a sportsman and a shepherd/he’s a lazy bastard living in a suit,” poking fun at Leonard the pop-star as only Leonard the icon could.  Lazy bastard he may be, but cherished national treasure he’s become, and the country’s most interesting songwriter he’s remained.

Old Ideas is going to generate a lot of new interest in Cohen, and deservedly so.  It is out today on Columbia Records.

Leonard Cohen “Darkness”

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There’s much to love about The Holiday Crowd, basically because they’re going against the grain of what seems to be popular and trendy in 2011. Hmmm, where have we heard that story before?  Over The Bluffs is available now via New Romantic Records, and the whole thing is streaming over at Exclaim.ca for those who want to sample before they commit.

MP3: The Holiday Crowd “Never Speak Of It Again”
Video: The Holiday Crowd “Pennies Found”
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Louise Burns “Drop Names Not Bombs”

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Marine Dreams – Sudden Dark Truths from Jared Raab on Vimeo.

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