teabowl

New album from Sons & Daughters, an excellent Scottish indie band. Here’s the first video:

And while I’m talking about Sons & Daughters, this is a song from their first full-length that I love:

August and Everything After

Counting Crows. Geffen Records 1993, Audio CD, $5.07

I want to be Bob Dylan | Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky | When everybody loves you, son | That’s just about as funky as you can be

Is there anybody who listened to rock music in 1993/94 who doesn’t remember those words?

If there were a top ten records of all time list on Teabowl, Counting Crows’ August and Everything After would probably be on it. (Well, there are so many discs that I would deem worthy of a place that it might get bumped on and off every so often - but this is a CD I’ve played and loved, over and over again. If CDs had grooves to wear out, I’d be on my 5th copy.)

It’s a rare album that achieves so many things, so elegantly, in such a short time: it’s immensely listenable, with big, bright, soaring choruses; at the same time, it’s lyrically very complex and goes to more dark places than any single record really should. It competently channels many influences, from Van Morrison to John Mellencamp to REM, without ever just ‘borrowing’ thoughtlessly or mimicking ineffectively.

One of the secrets of this album is its sequencing - from the chiming opening guitar on “Round Here,” a mid-tempo exposé of small-town reality (or maybe the existence of inmates in a psychiatric hospital; I’m still not completely sure); to “Omaha,” a Celtic/country-inflected masterpiece of obscure but deeply resonant lyrics; to “Mr. Jones,” both a fabulous up-tempo party song and somehow melancholy, searching and deeply desperate at the same time. On to my personal favourite, “Perfect Blue Buildings.” If good poetry keeps you guessing then there’s lots of great poetry here:

Asleep in perfect blue buildings | Beside the green apple sea | Gonna get me a little oblivion | Try to keep myself away from me

Well, maybe that’s about as precise and to the point as lyrics can be - there are dark places everywhere, and most of them are right here in your own head. On to “Anna Begins.” And if I hadn’t already called “Perfect Blue Buildings” my favourite, this would have to be it. A love song about a ‘complicated’ relationship, its lyrics are beautiful in the insights they offer through small changes of perspective as the song rolls on. I love these two verses, musically the same and lyrically a powerful juxtaposition:

This time when kindness falls like rain | It washes her away | And Anna begins to change her mind | “These seconds when I’m shaking leave me shuddering for days,” she says | And I’m not ready for this sort of thing

The time when kindness falls like rain | It washes me away | And Anna begins to change my mind | And every time she sneezes I believe it’s love and | Oh lord, I’m not ready for this sort of thing

Adam Duritz’s songcraft is flawless on much of this album, and near-flawless on the remainder. His lyrics often channel writers like Dylan or Springsteen (Dylan in the precise approximations, Springsteen in the ’story song’ approach). His singing more often than not reminds me of Van Morrison - there’s a ‘white soul’ element here that works beautifully for this material.

The band plays powerful ‘acoustic rock’ (in a way, I’ve always felt this album heralded, or accurately reflected, the “MTV Unplugged” sound that more plugged-in artists would employ at their unplugged concerts). For all its musical drama, the band is also incredibly restrained throughout, tastefully underscoring and foregrounding Adam’s lyrics and vocals. We have to assume that some of this is because of T-Bone Burnett’s masterful production - not only does this record sound lovely, particularly in the 2007 remastered deluxe edition, but the playing is first-rate throughout.

It’s commonly lamented that Counting Crows never scaled the same heights again after this record: their subsequent CDs have been competent but not necessarily outstanding albums. (They’ve just released a new one that I haven’t heard yet - it’s gotten very positive reviews, so I’m cautiously excited about it.)

But, quite frankly, if they had never made another record, August and Everything After would still stand as a towering achievement. It got me through many melancholy and sad days in the 90s. And drab days at the office. And all kinds of other situations. There were times when it didn’t leave my CD player for days.

(There are two thoughtful reviews that I wanted to mention here: The BBC discusses how this album has held up (very well). Uncut shares that opinion and offers some fun quotes from Adam Duritz about recording it. And Adam has an interesting blog here.)

It feels like a bit of an old topic. It’s been discussed many times before, and the outcome is pretty much always: be cautious. Don’t steal someone else’s Internet access. Depending on where you live, it could be a criminal offense to just jump onto an unprotected home wi-fi router and connect to the ‘Net. And, since you’re using someone else’s resources - presumably without their knowledge and consent - we’re told it’s just plain not very nice.

The other piece of advice that always goes with this is for anyone who has high-speed Internet access and uses a wireless router/access point to distribute it to various laptops, desktops and devices around the home: protect your network. Most wireless routers these days are trivial to set up, and their manuals make it child’s play to enable WEP/WPA, so there’s really no excuse for not practicing safe wi-fi.

And there’s the rub: unless you don’t want to - or can’t be bothered. In which case, my personal opinion is that anyone can jump on your ‘public’ network because you’ve made it fair game to do so. Again - in my personal opinion - I think you’ve made your network into just another node in an increasingly accessible wireless infrastructure that’s pretty pervasive, especially in large cities, especially in North America.

Being in a public spot in downtown Toronto (as I am right now), somewhere where there are lots of high-rise condo and office buildings, you really shouldn’t have to pay for wireless Internet access. Your challenge is more about where you are located physically and whether you have a high-enough, open-enough vantage point so that you’re within range of unprotected networks (most of which are residential).

There’s a slight security concern about making your traffic go through someone else’s network, of course. My sense is that you have three primary factors in your favour:

1. 90% of the time, your ‘provider’ won’t know you’re using his or her network.
2. Home routers are notoriously poor at logging network activities or data packets moving through them (and those are are good at it are operated by people who really know what they’re doing, and those people wouldn’t not protect their wireless networks)
3. If someone isn’t protecting their wireless network, there’s about a 50% chance they’re okay with it being used by anonymous users.

Now for the question of what’s okay and what’s not. We don’t want to get our ‘provider’ in trouble, and we don’t want to get in trouble ourselves. So here are some suggestions of what not to do when leeching wi-fi access:

• Download or upload gratuitous quantities of software, music or movies
• Use weird peer-to-peer protocols
• Download/upload porn or other materials for which someone could (maybe) get in trouble with their own access provider.

I think that using ‘borrowed’ networking time for email, surfing, reading/writing blogs, etc. is perfectly fine (note that I’m not giving you advice here or telling you what to do; I’m just saying what I think). These activities generate very low impact traffic that can easily piggyback on someone’s network without affecting them. If it gets too much for them, they can turn your access off by simply protecting their network. Until then, I am silently thankful to be borrowing their connection and respectful of their privacy, ethics and risks.

While I can’t comment on other cities, here in Toronto, the alternatives are pretty bad. The only ‘pervasive’ wireless network provider (in other words, not hot-spot based) in the downtown core is One Zone by Toronto Hydro Telecom. And that’s just brutal. Unreliable. Works only half the time (if that). Doesn’t work high up. Doesn’t work low down. Doesn’t work in areas that its own map says should work. Doesn’t work when there are a lot of people on it. Doesn’t work with good equipment. Doesn’t work with so-so equipment. It’s just not worth the money they’re asking for it: something like $30 per month, or day rates of around $10.

Wireless Toronto, on the other hand, is very cool: free wireless, simple rules, lots of access points. Sadly, I’m not really a ‘coffee house’ kind of guy, so the idea of seeking out a specific location to do my surfing doesn’t always work for me. But conceptually, I’m there. If it were pervasive, I’d pay for it under some co-op agreement - its politics are solid and its technology works a lot better than One Zone’s.

The City of Toronto has launched a Zerofootprint co-branded CO2 calculator. Zerofootprint is a Canadian not-for-profit aiming to calculate and offset our individual and collective impact on the environment. Above is my own “quick calculator.” I don’t know if I’m supposed to be appalled or elated: being a vegetarian in a small apartment is obviously a good thing; flying around in air planes and driving a car are not.

Try it out at http://www.toronto.zerofootprint.net. Or read about Zerofootprint the organization here.

On my way back from Seattle last Saturday, I had another small travel adventure (my adventure on the way there is described here).

A blizzard had been announced back in Toronto (it was known by Friday afternoon that we’d get a lot of snow - 30cm+). So I tried calling Air Canada the night before to get some advice and potentially re-book my flight to Sunday. Of course, I had no luck with that as they didn’t pick up the phone (or rather, I hung on for around 30 minutes and decided it wasn’t worth the pain in my craned neck to try any longer).

On Saturday morning, I got up at 5am, received an SMS from Air Canada (good use of technology there, btw) saying that the flight was delayed by about 30 minutes, and made my way to the airport. Everything went very smoothly, and before long I found myself at the gate, Starbucks and muffin in hand. Flight AC540 is the regularly scheduled Seattle-Toronto non-stop flight, and it’s become a bit of an old friend.

So we embark on the small but comfortable Embraer plane (the new Brazilian planes Air Canada uses on these flights) and get going. The flight takes 4 hours and 30 minutes gate to gate. Everything seems suspiciously smooth.

When we get to the Toronto area, the trouble starts. We circle between Toronto and Waterloo at least twice (I think it was maybe three times), but they close runway after runway at Pearson Airport, and our fuel - I assume - gets lower and lower. Finally, it’s decided that we’re being diverted: we’re going to South Bend, Indiana. It turns out this isn’t too far from Chicago (not that I knew this when I was there… all I saw was a bleak but dry airport).

In South Bend, we don’t get to leave the plane… we’re refueled and Air Canada practically auctions off the last remaining pay-for food items to the highest bidders. According to Air Canada’s website, we’re supposed to be leaving there within the hour and arrive in Toronto at 8pm. We were originally scheduled to arrive at 3:15pm or so, but okay - there’s a blizzard.

Two problems: they need to transmit the flight plan to us, and we don’t have take-off instructions for South Bend, Indiana. This is not an airport Air Canada typically flies to, so our planes don’t have the South Bend, Indiana, runways programmed in their on-board computers.

How are these things transferred to us, you ask? Glad you did. By fax. Yes. We’re living in the 21st century, and flight plans and runway descriptions are faxed from airport to airport.

As it turned out, Toronto faxed them, but United’s fax machine in South Bend, Indiana, ran out of toner halfway through. So we waited an extra hour or so.

I was home at around 11pm. At the luggage carousel, someone cheekily (I assume) changed the display board to alternate between saying ‘AC540 Seattle’ and ‘AC540 South Bend.’ Since that’s not an airport Air Canada officially flies to, I thought it would be a good picture to capture for posterity. Sort of like a Moment of Zen (thanks to The Daily Show).

Hezbollah Tofu is a blog trying to organize vegans to “veganize” Anthony Bourdain’s recipes. They’ll publish them as a zine once they have collected enough. Bourdain is quoted from Kitchen Confidential:

Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.

What offensive, contrarian drivel. I’ve enjoyed reading Kitchen Confidential in the past for its ‘revelatory’ nature (then again, not sure why I didn’t know those things were going on in kitchens anyway). The Hezbollahs write:

We’re going to enjoy vastly improved, veganized versions of your masturbatory, blood-oozing recipes. And then we’re going to compile them, sell them in zine form, and donate the proceeds to vegan outreach organizations and farm sanctuaries–in your name. Anthony, I have to say, I’m really looking forward to the great work we’re going to do together for veganism.

The web. Such an awesome place. I’ll buy copies of the zine and give them to all my friends.

Comfort in Sound

Feeder. Umvd Labels 2003, Audio CD, $4.70

This is such a fantastic listen, it’s hard to know where to begin. Feeder are a British rock band that has been around since 1992. Originally from South Wales, they released 2 EPs and 3 albums between 1995 and 2001. Just as they were starting to experience their first true UK national successes (good album reviews, playing at Glastonbury, etc.), their drummer committed suicide in his Miami home.

This has unfortunately become the pivot around which their next album has been reviewed almost everywhere. The consensus of both the press and the usual suspects online was that Comfort in Sound was a great record, focused and somber - a reflexive work about their relationship with Jon, their own mortality, their coming-to-terms with his death. It was viewed as a sort of therapy CD for the remaining two, now teamed up with a new drummer who had previously drummed for Skunk Anansie.

I think Comfort in Sound is a truly mature artist statement of an excellent songwriter, someone whose influences revolve around ‘Britpop,’ Pixies, Nirvana, U2’s last 2 albums, maybe Bob Mould/Sugar… Feeder sound not unlike a non-swaggering Oasis, or maybe a bit like Snow Patrol does today (but with punchier guitars).

Comfort in sound | It’s all around | Ease back the strain | Come heal your pain | Comfort in sound | It’s all around you now

Prior to this album, Feeder’s work had been mostly about the music. Their lyrics had been lightweight, often nonsensical (like the breakthrough single ‘Buck Rogers’ from the previous album). Now, there was some weight and depth to their songs, not just musically but also in the lyrics.

Close your eyes and drift away to some place new | Where the skies are blue brings back the child in you | Cross a lonely field as birds begin to speak | It’s alright | It’s ok

Poetic masterworks these are not. Heartfelt, sincere and maybe a little lost might better describe these songs.

I’ve heard people say that Feeder sounds derivative, “like everything else out there these days.” I think they’ve reached, in their last two albums, a close-to-perfect synthesis of what makes more traditionally oriented rock music great today. Sure, it’s an idiom rooted in the 90s and not the 21st century. But it’s great music, and Comfort in Sound’s wall of sound can make your head buzz and your heart sing.

Sad news: Jeff Healey died of cancer on Sunday.

Jeff, who was blind, first became famous for playing electric blues guitar, holding it across his lap. He had always been an avid collector of old jazz 78’s, and released two superb ‘revivalist’ traditional jazz albums in recent years, where he played the trumpet and guitar.

He leaves behind his wife and two children. News stories at Reuters and on the Jeff Healey website.

So here I was, early for my flight, as it turns out, at Toronto Pearson Airport, e-ticket in hand. You know the drill (well, if you’ve left Toronto by plane then you do):

• Use one of the little electronic kiosks to check in and get your boarding pass;
• Stand in line to get your luggage tagged if you have something to check;
• Stand at a little pod desk and fill in your US Customs form;
• Stand in line to go through US Immigration;
• Drop off your luggage on a conveyor belt;
• Stand in line to go through security…

And then… I realized that I was a bag short. My laptop bag had mysteriously gone missing! I felt naked, exposed, that moment of panic when you realize it’s not a bad dream but you actually left your bag standing in an airport somewhere and it’s probably been taken by now.

I go up to a cluster of Peel Regional Police people, and one of them kindly offers to take me all the way back along my track to see if it’s still there. I am certain I left it at the pod desk where I filled out my forms - it’s not there. I trace my steps back to the luggage tagging counter - it’s not there. Then, I see something green out of the corner of my eye… my bag! It’s still standing where I left it: at the electronic check-in kiosk.

I say to the Peel Policeman, “I guess this proves that Toronto is really a safe city. Or I’m just lucky.” He goes, “I’d go with option B on that one.”

He tells me that they’ve done ‘tests’ with phone books in laptop bags in this airport, and apparently people regularly just steal them. One woman walked all the way out of the terminal: past security, past police, into the parking garage. They nabbed her just as she threw the stolen ‘laptop’ into the backseat of her car. Her excuse? “I was going to turn it into the police when I got home!”

So… I hope this isn’t an omen for how this week will go. One week in Seattle filled with various Microsoft conferences. But I’m staying at a great hotel and the weather’s much warmer there than in Toronto :)

At the gate, I glance into the distance and see the billboard above. Treo seems to be encouraging this laptop-forgetting business :)