Beastie Boys | timotheories

Phasers Set To Stun (Dear Rouge, PHASES review)

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Tim Kuefler

I will totally agree that there is an ebb and flow to life. We all experience highs and lows, and whatever exists in-between, but on the surface, it’s never quite so obvious that the flow is much more internal then could ever be demonstrated. To put it another way, transitions happen constantly within our thought processes.

Dear Rouge – PHASES

released March 9, 2018
******** 8/10

Dear Rouge is an award-winning Canadian alternative and dance rock duo, comprised of husband and wife, Drew and Danielle McTaggart. They’ve been active since 2012, and initially met while touring under different bands. It wasn’t until after they had been married that they began the Dear Rouge brand. In case you were wondering (and I very much was!), the band name is a play on words – Danielle’s home town is Red Deer, Alberta.

PHASES is their sophomore album, released just three years after the critically successful Black to Gold. Returning this time with a more refined sound, and influenced by the places it was recorded at (Toronto, Montreal, Nashville, Vancouver and New York), the McTaggarts set out to produce an album which doesn’t actually innovate much on what came before, but instead feels more intentional with it’s themes and tonal choices.

It’s all very cheery and hopeful, except for when it’s not, and even when Dear Rouge has committed one way or the other, the other side comes through to create a feeling of warmth. This is created to great effect within the first two tracks. Wicked Thing is very much a bright song with a hopeful resonance, and yet, there is a tone underneath that loving affection can easily turn into obsession. And then that theme of obsession is more prominently stated on Live Through The Night, but that song is overtly dark and mysterious. The dance between darkness and pop continues on Stolen Days, an aching callback to youth, not knowing any better, growing up and maturing, and is very much a tribute to Drew’s late cousin.

The singles Boys & Blondes, and Modern Shakedown make up the core of the album’s hype machine, and deservedly so. They are both essential dance-rock with catchy lyrics, heavy on the synth and bass and explosive chorus’. Boys & Blondes has feminist themes and Modern Shakedown is super dark.

It’s a living breathing album, which was desrcribed by it’s creators as full of grit and gloss, and I think that’s a pretty apt description.

Pros: Each song is really and truly exciting to listen to and gives us an opportunity to pick up a torch and fight for the cause of indie pop-rock. If you really want to get a taste for this album listen to Live Through The Night, Little By Little, and The Clearing. Darker nights of pop there have been not.

Cons: Though the tone and quality of production is consistent throughout, there is very little variation from song to song, which makes it difficult to know where you are at any given point, and having to give pause takes you out of the mood.

Runtime: 37 minutes

Points of Interest: Dear Rouge spent the better part of 2016 and 2017 touring while they were writing and recording their follow-up album. Tawgs Salter, Sterling Fox, and Hot Hot Heat frontman, Steve Bays, all helped produce the record.

If you really want to compare it to other acts of today, PHASES can easily knock down the doors of other dance-rock and dance-punk progenitors. I’m looking at you The Killers, DFA, and LCD Soundsystem. Heck, even synth-pop and indie darlings like Metric, Tove Lo, and La Roux should be concerned. Dear Rouge are trendsetters and clearly cutting up the Spotify charts.

theories Summarized

Should you listen to this album? Yeah, I think it’s worth a listen or five. Don’t get me wrong, I love some Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga, but Canadian music content always feels a little bit more authentic and inventive with it’s presentation. And tastemakers are always so fashionable to boot. My theory, of course.

And speaking of tastemakers, I’ve got this really cool review lined up with Brendon Greene on the classic hip hop album from the now retired Beastie Boys. That’s right! Licensed To Ill is going to get some love this week, whether you’re hearing it for the first time, or it’s been on your brain since the 1980s, this is seriously fun music, and influential too.

I greatly appreciate that you took the time to read this review, and I hope it helps you to decide to listen to it. And if you’ve already heard it before, I trust my thoughts affirmed how you felt, one way or another! And what did you think of Brendon and my Sound Culture video review? Licensed to Ill is an instrumental hip hop record, and well worth a listen! And remember, if you liked what you saw, and/ior enjoyed what you read, please click on the like button, and even better, subscribe to the channel and my mailing list! I’ll be back tomorrow with a film review on The Disaster Artist. There’ll be more theories!

Tim!

I Have Been Over The Rainbow (The Avalanches, Wildflower review)

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Tim Kuefler

We’ve witnessed lots of absenteeism in music over the years, but my all-time favourite probably came from Guns ‘n Roses and their lack of interest in seeing Chinese Democracy arrive in a timely manner, at all.

So I skipped out on it, I mean fuck’em right? Well not so, well, not entirely. Chinese Democracy didn’t have the hitmaking power of Appetite for Destruction, nor the sweeping epic of Use Your Illusion I & Use Your Illision II, but it’s a pretty solid album on it’s own. Just thirteen years later.

Well today, we look at an album sixteen years in the making.

The Avalanches – Wildflower
released July 8, 2016
******** 8/10

The Avalanches are an Australian group that started spinning records back when I was still in junior high school. Or to put it another way, way, way back in 1997. They were making plunderphonics back before I even knew that that was a cool way to make music.

I don’t want to dwell too much on what plunderphonics is, but if you are familiar with pretty much any other existing audio recording ever, than you’ll understand that combining existing samples and/or altering them allows for a track to enter into the mix. Pun intended.

The Avalanches current lineup consists of Robbi Chater, Tony Di Blasi, and James Dela Cruz, but they’ve gone through a huge rotation with five other band members coming and going. Incidentally this has something to do with the fact that the group released their debut album Since I Left You in 2000, but haven’t put any studio albums out since that first one.

The reason for this is because of many personal issues the band faced, between Chater being ill for three years, and issues of too many songs to choose from, the band was faced with the problem of genius and perfectionism. And so here we are sixteen years later. But you know what, Wildflower is still a delight to listen to. It reminds me of The Go! Team, Beastie Boys, Gorillaz, Jackson 5, and Canadian favourite Caribou all mashed together into one giant happy, fuzzy, sleepover with rainbow pillows and unicorn blankets.

Remember when I mentioned a while back that jazz music has been making a resurgence via successful acts like Leon Bridges and Kendrick Lamar? Well, The Avalanches are hopping on this bandwagon of rather raw music and the results are coming up nicely. It never feels like a strong narrative, but it doesn’t produce nostalgia.

For instance, those tweeting birds on Zap! takes me right back to the soundtrack of that Sleeping Beauty movie from the 1950s.

I would be remiss to break down this review into particular tracks and emotions, because I think that you’ll get more out of it just diving right in and considering the source material. Seriously.

Now it is a little sad that founding member Darren Seltmann opted out before the album finished, but it is comforting to know that co-founders Robbie Chater and Tony Di Blasi are still there for us. And for such a nostalgia trips, this feels very present in our time space. It is both jazz and pop infused, and good music fans know that those genres are very “lit” right now.

I would argue that The Avalanches have produced a much cooler vehicle than Guns ‘n Roses, but it does help that they sampled the Mega Man 2 death sounds and featured cereal eating alongside their hip hop.

It’s not a perfect record, but it is very accessible if you are a fan of generation sweeping music. I hope you listen and I bet you’ll find some great samples that make your own heart all weepy.

See ya tomorrow with another nostalgia trip, this time a movie about the 1980s.

Tim!

Problems With Art Galleries That No One Talks About (Take Photos All The Time)

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Tim Kuefler

Now here’s a little story I’ve got to tell, about an artist blogger you know so well.
It started way back in history, with a museum, a guard, and NYC – you see?

And that dear readers, is how you make a transitional joke from one post into the next one. Please see previous post for reference if you want to get the joke, but I’m going to move along so that I don’t lose this post’s momentum.

Let’s visualize for a moment here.

This is a situation that seems to happen all the time across the world in various museums and art galleries alike. You are seeing a-one-of-kind piece of history for the first time (often a famous art-work) and you want to take a photo of it for posterity and so that you can remember what you saw when you return home. Let’s be honest here, you’re done have an eidetic memory and you definitely aren’t getting any younger.

So you snap a photo.

Kinda like I did when I was visiting the New York Metropolitan Museum for the first time back in 2006. Yes, this story is 10 years old, and for you recent graduates and Millennials on the edge of the age generation cut off, that time probably doesn’t mean much to you.

But for the sake of the story let’s pretend you all do understand me. So you snap a photo with your digital camera (not your phone), and get the warm and fuzzies almost immediately, because you now have proof that you’ve been in the presence of greatness, and your loved ones can be excited or feign excitement when they see you again, and you both show and tell.

And this was definitely part of my intent, but not the whole plan. The whole plan was to get some photos, so I could reference them in my own art later on, and because folio pictures from art books aren’t always the best quality. And at as much as 100 bucks a pop, the costs add up quickly.

But then I felt it, a warm hand on my left shoulder. Ever so slowly followed by a deep voice. “You can’t take photos in here son, read the sign.”

I had read the sign, I saw the sign, and it told me that these works were over a hundred years old and in a dark room to preserve their colour. And I thought I was being clever, because I know all about lightfastness in painting, and I made sure to turn my flash off on my camera (not my phone), because I was being respectful.

It didn’t matter though, I had been caught.

And the guilt quickly set in. But why should I feel this way, it was 2006 and people love to take photos, in fact, digital cameras were making it easier by the day for people everywhere to get into the photography hobby. So all I have are a couple of blurry memories of one room, and I can barely remember which artists I saw in there, so that sucks.

Luckily for us today though, because museums and galleries are loosening the reins on this particular restriction. Because people take photos everywhere, of anything, and all the time. We can thank smart phones for that phenomenon. It’s really difficult for a venue to justify taking away someones’s phone, because it’s not socially acceptable, and phones can save lives.

And from the perspective of the venue they have to decide if it’s more important to have guards paying attention to visitors touching antiquities or snapping photos. That and the challenge of social media. When organizations use social media to show work going up and down, can they really complain when people are using social media to generate traffic for them? The way we think about communication and conversation is changing, visual communication is becoming hot topic once again.

But of course the biggest challenge is the issue of copyright and fair use. I think that institutions need to protect themselves by asking for permission to take photos of work, but for the layman, taking photos for noncommercial use is a lot more permissible, which may be the first indicators of a culture shift.

As time changes peoples opinions about gender, sexuality, and race, and we become more compassionate, my theory is that we will also become better communicators because we need to and our ideas about images will shift too.

What do you think? Comments? Questions? Please leave some and also subscribe! See you tomorrow with a theory about a rabbit.

Tim!

Cold Kickin’ It Live (Brooklyn review)

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Tim Kuefler

I’ve never truly experienced homesickness. In all of the vacations I’ve taken, roadtrips I’ve been on, and visits with friends and family, I’ve only ever been away for a couple weeks at most.

That true sense of longing has never set in.

And so it’s difficult for me to understand what it feels like to be a fish out of water, but the beauty of film, is that sometimes, it can relay these feelings perfectly.

Brooklyn (2015)

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson
Director: John Crowley
released on blu-ray March 15, 2016
******** 8/10

IMDB: 7.5
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%, Audience Score 89%
The Guardian: ****/*****

John Crowley is an Irish television, film, and theatre director, who is best known for his first film Intermission. He has directed a handful of other dramatic films, and has slowly worked his way through theatre to film, which he believes was a natural progression.

Though his films have not seen a wide international release audience, Crowley has a strong understanding of human relationships, and the complex emotions that relate to special circumstances.

And that’s where Brooklyn shines…

Taken from Wikipedia and edited,

In 1952, Eilis (pronounced EH-lish) Lacey(Saoirse Ronan) is a young woman from Enniscorthy, a small town in southeast Ireland. She works weekends at a shop run by the spiteful Miss Kelly (Brid Brennan). Eilis’s older sister Rose (Fiona Glascott) has arranged for her to go to the US to find a better future. She departs but begins to suffer from seasickness and food poisoning and ends up being locked out of the toilet by her cabin neighbors. The woman in the bunk below her, an experienced traveler, helps her, giving her advice and support for Eilis’s entry to the US and life in Brooklyn, the new home to many Irish immigrants.

Eilis lives at an Irish boarding house where she dines each night with the landlady and her fellow residents, all young women. She also has a job at a department store but is shy and quiet when interacting with customers, earning the gentle scolding of Miss Fortini (Jessica Paré), her supervisor. Her letters from her sister Rose, back in Ireland, give her homesickness. She is visited by Father Flood (Jim Broadbent), a priest who arranged for her job and accommodation, and he tries to help by enrolling her in bookkeeping classes. At a dance she meets Tony (Emory Cohen), from an Italian family, who is quickly interested in her and becomes her boyfriend. With these developments, Eilis begins to feel more comfortable in New York, although she is slow to return Tony’s declaration of love.

Father Flood informs Eilis that Rose has died suddenly of an undisclosed illness. After a trans-Atlantic phone call with her mother reveals that she is struggling to cope, Eilis decides to return home for a visit. Tony insists that if she is leaving they must get secretly married first. They enter a civil marriage without telling family and friends. Back in Ireland, everybody seems to be conspiring to keep Eilis from returning to Brooklyn. Her best friend is getting married a week after her scheduled return journey, and her mother has already accepted the invitation on her behalf. She is set up on dates with eligible bachelor Jim (Domhnall Gleeson), who is about to inherit property. She takes her sister’s place as a bookkeeper on an emergency basis. Eilis starts to feel that she now has the future in Ireland that did not exist when she left and stops opening the letters she receives from Tony.

Miss Kelly, her former employer, meets with Eilis and says she has learned that she is already married. Eilis is reminded of the small-town mentality she had escaped, where there are no secrets. She informs her mother of her marriage and that she is leaving for Brooklyn the next day. On the crossing, she plays the role of the experienced traveler, offering words of guidance to a first-time émigrée. The film ends with Eilis and Tony reuniting and happily embracing.

This is well-scripted story that features subtle character shifts, emotional weight with intelligence, and an elegance to the backdrops. Crowley does an excellent job of showcasing how Eilis feels both at home in Ireland, as she grews in America, then again back at Ireland, and finally at the change when she returns to America, her new home with a new life.

Pros: This is an incredibly understated film which does an excellent job of evolving Saoirse Ronan’s character from timid little sister into career-oriented and capable. Yes there is romance in it and it feels integral, but surprisingly, that is not the driving force of her story.

Cons: Because it has a slow start, and is harkening to an era of film gone by, it can be a little difficult to digest for some. And the conflicts are never incredibly dramatic.

Runtime: 111 minutes

Points of Interest: Saoirse Ronan was born in New York, but her parents are Irish, so she was raised in Ireland – this is her first time using her natural accent in film. Emory Cohen was the only American on set, which is odd given the film setting.

The entire film is beautifully shot, with excellent set pieces, costumes and characterizations. And though it’s already been said, this story really does work perfectly because of Saoirse Ronan’s efforts. It makes sense that she was nominated once before for an Academy Award (Atonement), because she can make everyone around her laugh, cry, or contemplate rather easily.

I couldn’t help myself while thinking about buying this movie, then while watching it, and finally as I write this review. But it has to be said – I finally get what The Beastie Boys meant when they sing the lyrics “no sleep till Brooklyn,” a song often describing as a rant about that New York borough.

Whether Eilis was terrified of leaving Ireland for Brooklyn or terrified of being away for so long, I bet that she just could not sleep on that boat ride. But that’s just my theory. What do you think?

Tim!