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current podcast:

Knock Yr Socks Off Podcast #1 » posted Nov 27, 2007

by Scott Brewer

An excellent, eclectic pop mix with a decidedly international scope from Summer Cats' Scott Brewer. From the suave pop of Pas Chic Chic to the freakbeat stomp of Saturday Looks Good To Me's cover of The Equals' "I Get So Excited" (a definite Kid Frostbite favorite!) to the sublime strum of Rose Melberg's "Cast Away The Clouds," this podcast covers a lot of ground yet hangs together admirably. Top marks, Mr. Brewer!

  1. Pas Chic Chic - Sur les Ecrans Statiques (7", Maze Discos, 2007) - I saw these guys when I was in Montreal earlier this year. I was totally blown away. Living in Australia you forget how great the smaller bands that never manage to make it out here can be. Admittedly a lot of people might claim this is because you're in a foreign city and on holiday and just generally have a fun time, regardless of all this these guys were awesome. They got better and better with each song, at first I was enjoying it but by the end when they had three people playing organs combined with the singing in French I was enraptured. If you don't like it blame my jet lag. I believe they only have the one 7" out and I was told at the time that like most bands from Montreal they feature members of various other more famous Montreal bands, but I can't really confirm any of that.

  2. Bel Divioleta - Normal (Espejos, Siesta Records, 2005) - I probably wouldn't have put this on here if I hadn't started with a foreign language already but I really like this disc. I hadn't listened to it in a while but then we had a week of warm weather here and I was left with a taste of Summer, so I figured it was time to start playing all those summer records in anticipation of the coming months. I've never bothered to find out too much about the band but I do like their songs especially in Summer.

  3. Envelopes - Sister In Love (Demon, Brille Records, 2005) - Continuing the trend of accents in songs, although this time they're singing in english. Swedish/French "collective" who play some mighty fine lo-fi type pop. I feel guilty about this podcast as I'm actually including a bunch of bands that appeared on the last mix I made, but that was for one person and this goes out to the millions subscribed to the slumberland podcast. So if you're name is Christine and you feel ripped off that half of these bands were on the mix I sent to you a while ago I'll take this opportunity to say sorry.

  4. Love is All - Make Up Fall Out Make Up (9 Times That Same Song, What's Your Rupture, 2005) - Moving from the French/Swedish to the purely Swedish (at least as far as I know). You might see a bit of a trend if you follow the year of release of most of the songs I put on here. I'm terrible at catching up with releases. I rarely like anything on first listen these days so it takes me a while before most records grow on me by which time they've already been released for at least a year (sometimes more). While it may take me a while to be won over by a CD a live band can win me over within the night. This happened when I saw The Magic Numbers, whose CD I hadn't given much time to only to be wowed by their live show, and it happened with Love Is All too. Seeing them live has made their album that much better. They remind me a lot of Comet Gain one of my favourite live bands of all time.

  5. Eux Autres - When I'm Up (Cold City, Happy Happy Birthday To Me, 2007) - Finally a new release! Well a yet to be released release anyway. I love Eux Autres. They put out an amazing debut record a few years ago and if I had any idea what I was doing I would release it in Australia. As it stands I convinced them to do a split 7" with my band which means I lose a lot money (putting out vinyl aint cheap in Australia) but I have the treasured memory that I'm responsible for an amazing song being put on one side of piece of vinyl (I'm talking about their song not ours). This is the first track I've heard from their new record but from the sounds of it I think I'll enjoy the record a lot!

  6. The Bicycles - Two Girl's From Montreal (The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly, Fuzzy Logic Recordings, 2006) - I just checked the Fuzzy Logic website to find out when this was released and found out they've put out an interactive board game version!! God Damn! OK back to my ramblings, this podcast was meant to have a loose Montreal thread running through it as the first and last bands on it are both from Montreal and it is a lot more romantic for me to do a podcast about Montreal than it is to do a podcast about Melbourne. So I believe they're from Toronto and they have an amazing song called B-b-bicycles and another one called Australia, but like I said it is much more romantic for me to put a song about girls from Montreal travelling to Japan on the podcast.

  7. Summer Cats - Lonely Planet (unreleased, 2007) - So this is my moment of self indulgence. Just in case it hasn't said it elsewhere I'll make it perfectly clear that I play in this band. This is one of our new recordings. Sadly this track hasn't been properly mixed or mastered yet so it doesn't sound as nice as it hopefully will. It continues the thread of foreign languages and features my first guitar solo! As I'm a nice person I'll offer up a couple of free copies of our soon to be released (or depending on when this gets posted already released) EP Scratching Post. All you have to do is let me know what each of the non-english lines in the song translate to in english. I'll have one for the first person to contact us on email and one for those of you on myspace (those on facebook can feel special that they get to play scrabble and not need to fill in their time with listening to music or trying to win free CDs). So contact us either through our myspace (myspace.com/summercats) or our band email ([email protected]).

  8. Saturday Looks Good To Me - I Get So Excited (Love Will Find You, Whistletap Records, 2002) - In true mix tape elitist fashion I've tried to pick a great SLGTM track that hasn't shown up on too many other places. This was from a CDR that came out in some stupidly limited number and never saw the light of day again. Sadly I don't own a copy of that CDR, most of the tracks from it did show up on Every Night or on the Sound on Sound compilation. SLGTM are probably my favourite band of the last few years, I can't remember the last time I found a band that conveyed everything I wanted to hear in music. Frustratingly they are also one of those bands that put out so many releases they make your life difficult trying to get your hands on them all if you're a collector. Boo. Rumoured to be touring Australia sometime soon but we'll wait and see.

  9. The Cookies - Only To Other People (One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost and Found, Rhino, 2005) - I could have chosen any one of a number of tracks from the Rhino box set this came from. I always feel a bit cheated when tracks are lifted from compilations as someone else has already done the hard work of filtering through the crap for you, but this box is so great that at least one song had to make it on here. Somewhat randomly I chose this one because my favourite track off the box is probably the Dolly Parton track but I put that on my last mix so didn't want to add it to this one as well.

  10. Margo Guryan - Don't Go Away (Take a Picture, Siesta Records, 2000) - Taken from her amazing Take a Picture album, originally released in 1968 then re-mastered and rereleased on Siesta in 2000. From that school of jazz arangements with soft vocal tracks, a la The Free Design. The sort of thing you expect Belle and Sebastian would have covered at some point during their career.

  11. Rose Melberg - Cast Away The Clouds (Cast Away The Clouds, Double Agent Records, 2006) - Everything Rose Melberg has ever played on is pure gold. I used to play my Tiger Trap CD to death, then my Go Sailor stuff and last year I started playing this and never really stopped. I spent three years living in Vancouver off and on and I never got to see her play a show! Criminal. This is the title track from her most recent solo release, the album is magical and while I still dream of a Go Sailor reunion world tour at least she is making to the UK so there's got to be some kind of hope for us here in Australia yet.

  12. The Motifs - Stars, (Dots, Music Is My Girlfriend, 2006) - The internet really does wonders for getting your music out there. Ten years ago if you played in a tiny band in Melbourne you were having a really difficult time getting your music to anyone outside the country. Now we have bands like the Motifs putting out tiny runs on Swedish labels. I don't know an awful lot about the Motifs other than she writes lovely songs and has kindly agreed to play a show with us when she returns from Japan in November. Lucky us!

  13. Baxter Dury - Len Parrot's Memorial Lift (Len Parrot's Memorial Lift, Sanctuary Records, 2003) - I meant to put this track last but then I wanted to start and finish the podcast with bands from Montreal and, well, Baxter doesn't fit the bill. I have kept it on and I think it comes in quite nicely following the Motifs despite the obvious difference in studio production time spent on the two tracks. I think this record has dated a bit but I'm sure ambient psychedelica will find it's place once more and this will sound modern again. I think if I was going to start a side project it would be a tough choice between imitating stuff like this and imitating something like Dead Meadow, I have a love for fuzz-wah pedals that needs to be fulfilled damn it! Maybe I can do a b-side accompaniment to this podcast at a later date (this one clocks in at 45 minutes, so a nice side A length) and can fill it up with bedtime music.

  14. The Zebras - The Forces of Light (The Zebras, Lost and Lonesome, 2004) - I probably should have put on a track from their more recent album to prove I was more up with the times than this podcast implies. Trouble is I listened to their most recent album so much that I forgot how fantastic their first record was and promptly fell back in love with it again. So here you have the opening track from their self titled debut CD. We've been fortunate enough to play a couple of shows with them and their one of the most fun bands around. Hopefully they'll all be moving to Melbourne and we can play more shows with them, I know I would like that. Given my propensity for having some kind of connection between tracks other than just the music I don't know why I didn't team this up following at least one of the other Australian bands on here. Oh well.

  15. Anemones - Lovely Lady/Special Times (Special Times EP, 1777rex, 2007) - Finally, the end is here. As I seem to have stated I wanted the bookends of this thing to be from Montreal and here is your second installment of what Montreal has to offer if you're willing to look beyond The Arcade Fire, et al. Technically this track may have been recorded while the band was still in Vancouver. It seems funny to me that when every second band in Vancouver seems to be getting signed to large record labels you would pack up your bags and move to somewhere that get REALLY cold in winter but a lot of people seem to be doing it. I know I've stopped talking about the tracks in these little review things but I think I ran out of ways to describe the music after the second or third track. If you've read this far congratulations, I hope you enjoyed the podcast and if you didn't send all complaints to Slumberland Records not to me, I can't deal with hate mail.

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