Our weekly (or however often) roundup of this week’s discoveries and old faves. Usually it’s friends of mine or just music I like. Now including “liner notes” to help guide you through this journey and hopefully introduce you to some new, great music!
PJ HARVEY –WHEN UNDER ETHER
PJ Harvey is pretty legendary. I purchased 4-track Demos in New Hampshire and then that same year saw her opening for Live in Michigan when she was wearing the pink jumpsuit that was common with her live performances for To Bring You My Love. I also am covering the version of her song Oh My Lover in a similar way to how it appears on her Dry-er Demo album. I somehow obtained a cassette bootleg of this back when she started (and this was pretty rare as only music critics received it). This is also a Demo version of a song that when it came out on its proper album White Chalk was named by Rolling Stone as one of the best songs of the year it was released. I have included it as there is speculation that it is about abortion and as we all are seeing the Roe V Wade issue nightly on the news, I felt it was timely.
THIS MAD DESIRE –OPEN HEARTS OPEN MINDS
Title track of our next album Open Hearts Open Minds. Lots of great people sang on this across America and Canada. Whatever issues are facing America and the world (as this is Independence Day as I write this), I hope cooler heads prevail and everyone keeps an Open Heart and Open Mind.
R.E.M. –ORANGE CRUSH
My friend Joyce Aldrich in Toronto, who sang on Open Hearts Open Minds, sent me a nice note saying that our TMD music reminded her of an updated R.E.M. Nothing Compares 2 R.E.M. though!!
KAYLA DIAMOND –SCREAMING
Metal fans might be like, “Whoa! Is this King Diamond’s daughter?” And of course not! Kayla won the It’s Your Shot Slaight Music Competition in 2015 and makes pop/dance music primarily as well as producing for Top 10 Billboard Artists in the grand tradition of Toronto music constantly achieving success. Also I notice she made a Hanukkah carol whereas I’m making Christmas carols so that tells me we gotzta work together soon!! On her TikTok, she’s made some fun examples of “What if [popular artist] was actually performed by Abba?” Too cool 4 skool!
METRIC –WHAT FEELS LIKE ETERNITY
The latest Metric tune! I took my daughter to hang at Hillside Festival one year when Metric was just breaking. I held her in my arms during their whole show (she fell asleep part way through). At the time, I was working for CFRU 93.3 FM in Guelph, Canada, and we were festival sponsors so actually my office-mate Helen introduced them that night.
LOU REED –TARBELLY AND FEATHERFOOT (SWEET RELIEF COVER FOR THE BENEFIT OF VICTORIA WILLIAMS)
No one alive is going to dispute my devotion to the catalogue of Lou Reed. I have one of his songs on my upcoming album and also have learned maybe over 50 of his songs (an inscrementally small number in terms of how many songs he created). I saw him at the old Hummingbird Centre/Sony Centre in Toronto once on the Ecstacy Tour and knew he was the King. Elvis is Dead. Long Live Lou! My mother became entranced with Lou as I was constantly listening to the Velvet Underground and singing all of Lou Reed’s songs so I took her to see him one time at Massey Hall. A life changer! One time also, I was on tour in England and had to play vibraphones on Walk on the Wild Side in this tiny British radio studio. My singer on this tour, Barzin, called it out, and we had never played it before but luckily all of us in the band knew our music history and could head-nod through the changes. Anyway, I digress… the reason I’m including this is because I was talking to Michelle Shocked who was also part of this compilation (along with Pearl Jam). Apparently the recent vinyl re-release of the compilation was not giving money to Victoria Williams as intended? Sony Records pretty much sucks. Michelle Shocked is pretty cool.
VICTORIA WILLIAMS –CRAZY MARY
I was at my aunt’s house when I first heard Pearl Jam play this song on the radio. That summer they performed in my hometown of Gimli. I know Eddie Vedder and crew do the right thing and sing this song in their live shows all the time (WHICH MEANS VICTORIA WILLIAMS GETS PAID). As an encore! I actually learned this one. Great tune!
SANDRA SUTTER –MIDNIGHT SERENADE
Sandra is the coolest. Honestly, as I write this, one of my cousins just wrote me that he knew her as a neighbor! Sandra provides many of the Indigenous Land Acknowledgements we give at different online functions we both attend. She and I have too many connections. Congrats to her for winning BEST WOMAN FILMMAKER at the INYFF International New York Film Festival just recently!! She and I are connected through land and music.
PRINCE –WHITECAPS
First of all, everyone alive owes a debt to Prince and his immense contribution to both copyright and contract law. On a musical front, we owe him everything as he was pretty much the Supreme Being. Luckily, even though he has graduated to the next universe, we still get tracks like this where he was only doing bg vox. Prince did a great job of bringing other artists up. I’ve had fun interactions with all 3 members of ThirdEYEGirl and honestly, there’s no such thing as love. There’s Prince!! Donna Grantis is from Toronto, Ida Neilsen is from Denmark, and Hannah on the drums is from Kentucky, I believe.
LEE AARON –WHATCHA DO TO MY BODY?
OK I have a soft spot for the Metal Queen. Check her out everywhere.
RIVERDOGS –THE HEART IS A MINDLESS BIRD
Lead singer Rob Lamothe is a pretty cool guy. He lives near me in the Hamilton area and also works with Vivian Campbell in this band. Of course, Vivian Campbell is in another little band called Def Leppard. This is a really great track.
D’LOURDES –HOW DID YOU GET SO GOOD?
Hey! I heart New York!
ALLISON PONTHIER –HOLLYWOOD CEMETARY
Hey! I heart Los Angeles!
LUDIC –INSTABEAT
Not friends yet but I see her on TikTok sometimes. Cool musician!
DYNASTY FOUR –FOR THE CATS
Her nieces are in our new video for Running Wild Running Free.
ICE CUBE –THE WRONG NIGGA TO FUCK WITH
I first saw Ice Cube in Minnesota in 1992 and now we are working in the same movie!
And with that, this wraps up this week’s playlist. Hope you enjoyed it!!
If you like this playlist, please share it and follow these artists. Music is the fuel that fills our soul.
If you are an artist that would like to be included in the future, reach out anywhere and I’d love to check out your tunes!
Yours in music,
Mac