The Altar Billies – I’m Still Stand’n

The Runaway – Tonight’s the Night featuring Relic, Die-Rek & Sean Prominent from “The Saturday Sonrise EP”
The Procussions – On A Mountain featuring Logan
Andy Mineo – Ayo! from “Heroes for Sale”

Phoenix – Entertainment (Dirty Projectors Remix)
Josh Joplin – Blue Skies Again from “Earth and Other Things”
TW Walsh – Real Bad Dreams

Cush – Nothing For You Here from SP3

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

Look, I understand that songwriters and performers don’t like being shoe-horned into a genre and like to take some time to explore life from a different perspective. But why does it seem like every punk and emo front man wants to do a solo album/side project of the folk/gospel/country genre. Don’t get me wrong, some people have done it really well (Mike Ness and Frank Turner come to mind), some have written some catchy tunes as well as some bad ones (Mike Herrera’s Tumbledown) and some didn’t need to happen (sorry Brett Detar but I never got it). The latest to throw his hat in the ring is Chris Carrabba, or as you might know him, that whiny guy that recorded under the name Dashboard Confessional so many years ago. (I can’t be that negative as “The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most” was a solid disc and he did some great work with Further Seems Forever) He has a new project called Twin Forks and if you email Twinforksmusic [at] gmail[dot]com, they’re nice enough to send you a digital copy of their tour EP free of charge. My rant at the start really has nothing to do with the EP, as it’s quite promising but more to do with the scene in general.

Twin Forks – Back To You

The Appleseed Cast – Great Lake Derelict from “Illumination Ritual”
Ringo Deathstarr – Imagine Hearts
Polyvalent – Flashing Lights

Eisley – Currents
Frank Turner – Cowboy Chords from “Daytrotter.com session”
Denison Witmer – Asa from “Denison Witmer”

Laura Stevenson – Renée from “Wheel”

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

If you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time, you’ll know that I’m a sucker for covers. So naturally, tribute albums usually get me pretty excited. Even if an album is terrible, there’s usually one song that’s amazing (see Burning London the tribute to the Clash was pretty bad but featured an amazing rendition of Lost In The Supermarket by The Afghan Whigs). ATO Records just released a tribute to John Denver and although I have to admit that I only knew 4 or 5 songs of his, I’m enjoying it. While I’m featuring the track by My Morning Jacket, the album also features Old Crow Medicine Show, J Mascis (of Dinosaur Jr.), Evan Dando (of The Lemonheads) and even my old nemesis, Dave Matthews. After years of trying to avoid, I’ll finally have a Dave Matthews song on my iPod (I’m not counting Work It Out by Jurassic 5 which features the aforementioned Matthews). Anyways, the album doesn’t do anything crazy with any of his songs, so if you’ve had a drunken sing-a-long to Take Me Home, Country Roads or got teared up when they used Leaving On A Jet Plane in Armageddon, check out The Music Is You: A Tribute To John Denver.

MxPx – Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Flogging Molly – Saints and Sinners from “Daytrotter.com Session”
Cold War Kids – Miracle Mile from “Dear Miss Lonelyhearts”
The Appleseed Cast – Great Lake Derelict from “Illumination Ritual”

The Phoenix Foundation – Pot from “Buffalo”
Jesse Sprinkle – Cities of Tomorrow
Kurt Vile – Never Run Away from “Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze”
My Morning Jacket – Leaving on a Jet Plane from “The Music is You: A Tribute to John Denver”

Make Do And Mend – My Song

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

There are many things that point Canadians to impending end of winter. Normally, one of these things is the coming of the Stanley Cup Playoffs but with the extended NHL lockout this year, the playoffs have been delayed nearly a month. Roll Up The Rim from Tim Horton’s is another sign but it starts when the temperatures are still cold and starts petering out just when the snow starts to disappear. However, this year, the thing that is giving the Canadians (ok, mostly just Torontonians) hope as the snow melts this year is the prospects of the Blue Jays being a decent team this year and possibly even making a run at the playoffs. With opening day less than a week away, the excitement is starting to build. People are reminiscing about the glorious falls that were 1992 and 1993 and hoping for more of the same. Time will tell on this one, but it seems like the SkyDome is once again going to be the place to be in Toronto this summer.

Bat Boys – Ok Blue Jays

A.C. Newman – I’m Not Talking from “Shut Down The Streets”
Starflyer 59 – Red Ride from “IAMACEO”
Local Natives – Breakers from “Hummingbird”

Phosphorescent – Song for Zula from “Muchacho”
City and Colour – Of Space and Time
Low – Holy Ghost from “The Invisible Way”

Mogwai – What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? from “Les Revenants”

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

I’m not going to pretend to be a super-fan of Jason Molina. I knew of him and his projects, Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. but didn’t listen to them. It’s still with sadness that I read about his passing. I know there were a lot of fans of his music and based on the number of tributes that I’ve seen for him this week, there were a large number of people that were really touched by his music. I’m not going to say much more, so if you want to read anymore, just type his name into Google and you’ll find a plethora of touching tributes from people a lot more connected to him and his music than me.

Tonight Alive – Little Lion Man from “Punk Goes Pop Volume 4″

Chali 2Na – Against The Current from “Against The Current”
Sev Statik – Take It Light from “Sophy”

The Ocean Blue – Give It A Try from “Ultramarine”
Josh Garrels – White Owl from “Love & War & The Sea In Between”
Venna – Married from “Third Generation Hymnal”

Songs: Ohia – Hang On Magnolia from “The Magnolia Electric Co.”

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

How do you write about your favourite band? A band that you started following in high school, a band that it didn’t matter that you discovered them just before they broke up because they never played anywhere close to where you lived anyways? A band whose album, A Picture of the Eighth Wonder, seemed to be written for you, whose lyrics and musical swings seemed to echo everything going on in your life at the time? That was Poor Old Lu to me. I can’t remember how I stumbled upon them. It might have been from a random purchase in a music store or because of a review that I read in 7 Ball or one of the other magazines I subscribed to in high school, (Remember when people subscribed to magazines? Good times.) but that’s not important. Throughout my University career, I rounded out most of the collection. Sin was purchased and then a second time when a friend borrowed, severely scratched it up and then didn’t return it and Straight Six was stumbled upon in a great but short-lived used music store in Waterloo, Ontario called Ears 2 Hear. (My other most memorable purchase from there was an independent album called That’s What People Do from a then unknown band called Thousand Foot Krutch) A reunion in 2002 brought about a new album, The Waiting Room, one of the few albums that I’ve had to buy multiple times because I listened to it so much that the disc eventually got so scratched a couple tracks wouldn’t play. And after that, there was nothing, at least until drummer Jesse Sprinkle started up Paradise Ugands, a project to travel to Kampala, Uganda to record some music from orphaned and homeless boys. To help get the project funded, the band released a track, first to people who help fund the project and finally to the general public through Bandcamp, Amazon, iTunes, etc. So check out the project and feel free to contribute. The track costs less than a dollar and goes to a great cause.

Poor Old Lu – The Great Unwound Go here to purchase the track for $0.99 as the proceeds go to a great cause, see the link for details.

Poor Old Lu – All Pretty For The TV (demo)
Poor Old Lu – Cruciality from “Mindsize”
Poor Old Lu – Hope For Always from “Sin”

Poor Old Lu – Lie, Lie, Lie from “Straight Six”
Poor Old Lu – What If Uncle Ben Had Lived? from “A Picture of the Eighth Wonder”
Poor Old Lu – Sickly from “In Their Final Performance”
Poor Old Lu – Today from “The Waiting Room”

This Diminishing West – Flight 191 from “Ninety-Seven Weeks”
Rose Blossom Punch – A Step Into The Dark from “Ephemere”
Aaron Sprinkle – The Boy Who Stopped The World from “Bareface”
Jesse Sprinkle – She Is The Invisible Voice from “The Corner of an Unlit World”
Fair – Unglued from “The Best Worst-Case Scenario”

Poor Old Lu – The Waiting Room from “The Waiting Room”

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

Poor Old Lu – The Great Unwound

Hollerado – So It Goes from “White Paint”
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – Holy Roller from “We the Common”
Tame Impala – Feels Like We Only Go Backwards from “Lonerism”

Denison Witmer – Keep Moving Brother, Keep Moving Sister from “Denison Witmer”
Brett Detar – A Soldier’s Burden from “Too Free to Live”
Veronica Falls – Tell Me from “Waiting for Something to Happen”

Mogwai – What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? from “Les Revenants”

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

Don’t have anything clever to say today, so let’s get right to the music.

Veronica Falls – Teenage from “Waiting for Something to Happen”

Sev Statik – Take It Light from “Sophy”
J.Period featuring Shad – Raw Freestyle from “#RAGEISBACK” mixtape
Heath McNease – 99 Problems (Shootin Bricks Ain’t One) from “Jesus Shuttlesworth… The Mixtape”

Night Beds – Ramona from “Country Sleep”
Carrollhood – MDSFWL from “VIOLENCE.”
Low – So Blue from “The Invisible Way”

Mogwai – This Messiah Needs Watching from “Les Revenants”

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

I’m always a little wary when I hear about people that I know form outside the music world releasing music. Athletes generally don’t make good rappers (although Shaq’s Shoot, Pass, Slam is awesome on a completely different level) even though they won’t stop trying. And actors in rock bands doesn’t always turn out well (I’m looking at you Keanu Reaves). That’s why I was a little wary when I saw that Les Stroud had just released a new song. All I really knew about Mr. Stroud was from watching his intriguing show Survivorman. If you haven’t seen it, Stroud puts himself in very remote terrain (from the bush of Northern Ontario to the swamp of the American Southeast and the desserts of the American Southwest) with only a few basic supplies. He then attempts to find shelter and food for a couple days, using his knowledge of survival techniques and local vegetation, before plotting his escape back to civilization. After hearing his new track, Arctic Mistress, and being sufficiently intrigued, I did a little bit of reading on him (ok, it was on Wikipedia) to learn that he had a number of musical projects including a David Bowie cover band, a collaboration with the Northern Pikes and even a stint as an AP with Canadian music channel MuchMusic. That definitely gives him a little more legitimacy than say Deion Sanders doing a rap song, but I’ll let you decide for yourself with the opening track this week.

Les Stroud – Arctic Mistress

The Procussions – Today featuring Shad and J. Kyle Gregory
The Postal Service – A Tattered Line of String
Purity Ring – Grammy

Kurt Vile – Wakin’ On A Pretty Day
Iron & Wine – The Waves of Galveston

Ulrich Schnauss – Ten Years from “A Long Way To Fall”

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)

I want to say that I’ve always been a fan of Cold War Kids, but that’s not entirely truthful. I did buy their first album, Robbers & Cowards, on a really strong recommendation from a couple friends. It was ok, but I wasn’t really a fan of the vocals. Not really melodic enough for me to get into it. Hang Me Up to Dry was good but I just couldn’t get behind the rest of the disc. This opinion stayed with me for a couple years, long enough to avoid their second album pretty fiercely, although I’m not sure how you can avoid something fiercely, but somehow I did. When their third album, Mine Is Yours was being released in January of 2011, I finally had enough time to get over my initial assessment and give the band another chance. I was really surprised when I heard a very polished, accessible sound, not at all what I was expecting. I had a chance to see them on the tour supporting the album and loved the live show. Anyways after a little over two years, they’re prepping for the release of their fourth album, Dear Miss Lonelyhearts, which is due in early April. We’ve got the first single today and I hope that you’re as excited as I am for this.

Mumford & Sons – Lovers’ Eyes from “The Road To Red Rocks”

Cold War Kids – Miracle Mile from “Dear Miss Lonelyhearts”
Vampire Weekend – Cousins from “Contra”
Spoon – Nobody Gets Me But You from “Transference”

Flaming Lips – Sun Blows Up Today
The Daredevil Christopher Wright – Divorce from “The Nature of Things”
Bon Iver – Calgary from “Bon Iver”
Over the Rhine – Oh Yeah By The Way from “Daytrotter.com Session”

The Weakerthans – Sun In An Empty Room from “Reunion Tour”

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next week.

Jared (@mtroads1)