Summer Doldrums

The blog days of summer are here, and I haven't been updating like I should. Fear not, it isn't because apathy has set in - I'm just traveling for awhile. I'm off to the east coast first for family reunion, then a show with the Kindness Killers at the Red Herring in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. After that it's to the other side of the country, to get my Masters of creative writing underway. So plenty of projects on the go, and if all goes well I'll be back in July to boast about my cross-Canada exploits!

Bad as Me: Seventeen Albums and Still a Mad Genius

I listened to Tom Waits' new album Bas as Me last night, and now all I want to do is do it again. I mentioned here that it was coming a few weeks ago, and I'd been on tenterhooks since. Now I can relax and let it blow my mind over and over again.

It seems unfair to Waits to continually mention his age when he sounds fresher at sixty-one than most musicians in their twenties. However, when so many of his contemporaries have their best albums behind them, Tom Waits has become especially important to me for proving that artistic growth can continue indefinitely. In fact, on tracks like "Kiss Me," "Last Leaf," and "New Year's Eve," Waits' approach as an older man is what makes the album relevant alongside earlier ones. The lyric "Kiss me like a stranger once again" makes you wonder what his wife thinks when she hears it (although I'm sure she's fine with it, Kathleen Brennan has co-author credit), and revisits the jazzy material from the first part of his career, which I'm usually less partial to, from a new perspective. "Last Leaf" is a duet with Keith Richards that seems to speak directly about the same effect I'm talking about: “The autumn took the rest, but they won’t take me.”

 The thing that makes Tom Waits albums so exciting is that they are all sonically and thematically well-differentiated from each other - you won't mistake Rain Dogs for Frank's Wild Years or Alice for Real Gone. Bad as Me continues the tradition, with the most striking new element of this new album being a more personal feel. Although I don't know the man, several tracks seem more directly informed by personal experiences and feelings. I don't insist on confessional material - I'd much rather hear a piece of well-tuned theatre than a sloppy diary reading - but several of the new tunes do cut to the quick and show that Waits is still pushing his songwriting.

Musically speaking, Tom Waits albums are the gold standard for production values as far as I'm concerned. They sound to me like a bricolage of grungy low-fi sounds used for texture, alongside meticulously recorded rich sounds to round out the space. The rhythms are repetitive and insistent, but skewed in such a way to create unusual juxtapositions. Brokedown performances seem brilliantly conceived and intentional, as if the players are telepathically linked. The style is highly evolved but doesn't seem like an exercise in technique. The song "Get Lost" impressed me by suggesting fifties rock while sounding more primitive, raw, and weird than any such music that ever actually existed. The most potent new sounds are on the track "Hell Broke Luce," imbued as they are with intense rage. It's the only Waits song I can name that uses profanity, which may seem minor except that it breaks a certain genre standard set in so many other songs and impresses the listener with its immediacy. The song also contains gritty, realistic references to meth, and forgoes stylized criminal names like Dudlow Joe in favour of simple ones like Jeff for the same effect. It's scary, you'll be impressed.

The album is officially released on October 25, but you can preview it on BadAsMe.com until Friday. By all means drop what you're doing and preview it, but if just can't find the time, schedule it in next week. If you need more Waits, check out this interview with Jian Ghomeshi on Q, posted below. I've already revealed too much, so I'm going to quit and go hear Bad as Me again...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2011/10/18/q-tom-waits.html

www.badasme.com

Brace Yourself for Site Renovations

The future is snazzy

I know this is not nearly as exciting as a new hit single or bug blood piece, but just so you don't think I've been idle, I direct your attention to the Music page, where you'll find I've installed a nifty new player instead of the clunky old interface. There's nothing new to listen to there, but I have added a few of my favourites from Two-Headed Hippopotamus on a Bootjack (my online instrumental album) to the playlist in case you don't feel like going all the way to Bandcamp. If you haven't got time to listen to the opus in its entirety, now you can check out some highlights.

It's looking good on my computer, but I'm no techie so if the player is not loading for you please let me know so I can bumble my way towards a solution.

There are also a few new pics on the Photos page, but I understand there are only so many times you need to see me pulling faces in front of a microphone. I'll be back with a meatier post soon...

Resting Up After a Great Mini-Tour

I'd been looking forward to doing a mini-tour with Hiroshima accordion artist Goto Izumi for most of the summer, and I'm glad to report it was just as much fun as I hoped it would be. The Thomasburg concert series is turning out to be a raging success, despite the fact that Thomasburg is barely a dot on the map, and my leg of the tour ended on a high note at the Smiling Buddha in Toronto. I like that we ranged from rural to metropolis in three short dates.

Goto Izumi

I had fun debuting new material and getting into some theatrics, but mostly I learned a lot watching Izumi's approach to performing. Although she had some key ideas and set pieces, her performances were extremely fluid. Each night I saw her was a completely different show, and her ability to read the crowd was uncanny. If it sounds like I'm pumping her material, I'm not - I'm describing what I admired and what I'd most like to incorporate into my own act. Plus, she can play the hell out that accordion. I had a great time playing a saw duet with her on the last night, and I hope it'll go up on YouTube in the not-too-distant future.

I also enjoyed Danish filmmaker Sofie Ivan Andersen's film Dream Circus, which screened after the music, not to mention all her help with organization and translation. She was shooting footage for a new music doc, so if I make the final cut of the film, you can bet I'll be bragging like mad, but even if I don't, I'd recommending looking up the film when it goes online or trying to catch a screening. Thanks too to Jarret of the Fire Flower Revue for performing and organizing.

Izumi down on the farm

One of the great things about having visitors from way out of town is that everybody profits from the exchange. Izumi met Will and Verna Walker of Reklaw Farms at the Thomasburg show, and the next day we got some check out their organic operation (and watch a six-year old ride a pig). It made for some great photos, which is where the pic at right comes from.

I think I'm going to take some at-home vacation for the next few days, so this site won't be updated as frequently. I have about a half-dozen projects in mind for September, though, so I'll be back with a vengeance in the fall. In the next year I'd like to record my latest originals, an old-time album, and perhaps a sequel or two to Two-Headed Hippopotamus on a Bootjack - maybe Return of the Two Headed Hippopotamus or Son of Two-Headed Hippopotamus on a Bootjack? A friend has also challenged me to record some songs of Milarepa, the eleventh century Buddhist poet and saint, to the tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." I accept - there are apparently a hundred thousand songs to choose from. Also, the maple bugs have mysteriously returned to my backyard, good news for anyone who enjoyed the Painting with Bug Blood series... Feel free to drop me a line if there's anything you'd like to see or hear first!

Duet at Smiling Buddha, Toronto

At Kubo Lounge, Peterborough

Oh So Legitimate: Official Name Change

As I steadily climb the ladder of success, I am forced to abandon people and things on the rungs below me. One of those things is my old web address, mattsnell.blogspot.com, in favour of a fancy, brand-spanking new, expensive-looking custom domain: welcome to mattsnellmusic.com!

Everything is the same. In fact, I would've much preferred a simple mattsnell.com, but it turns out there's another Matt Snell who's a computer programmer, so naturally he beat me to the punch. The only thing that's different is I have taken the old banner and pasted my own ugly, guttural name in place of the jaunty slogan, Bang & Jangle. I would much rather see that up there, but since this site is substantially devoted to my music and live appearances, my name gives the curious a clearer idea of what to expect.

Of course, I will continue to fill the Oddities and Observations part of my mandate. If you've been humouring me all along and are frustrated by having to remember a new web address never fear, the old one will automatically redirect here.

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention some dazzling statistics: according to the Google Tracker Bang & Jangle, I mean, mattsnellmusic.com, has had five hits in Singapore, three in Australia, three in Indonesia, two in Finland and two in Italy. I smell a tour coming on!

Hijacked!

These guys are going to hell

The writing is on the wall - MySpace is over and done with. Many musicians still maintain their pages, however, as an easy place to post songs and tour dates. I've got one (www.myspace.com/thehorrorchoir), but for the second time now it has been hacked by fundamentalist rappers. EPIC (Elevated Power in Christ) has returned to replace my tracks with their own. Not only is that unChristlike, it's confusing, so I apologize to anyone who visited the site and got an earful. I've fixed the problem - for now. Obviously, Bang & Jangle is where it's at if you're interested in my music.

Am I being punished for painting Jesus in bug blood?

Real Coyotes Debut Tomorrow!

Real coyotes, as opposed to fake ones, are shrewd harmonizers. If a pack of coyotes are howling on a hilltop, they will instinctively shift their tone to achieve maximum discord. This frightens and confuses the competition by making the pack seem larger. I've pumped the showing of The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky to anyone who'll listen, but in case I haven't been sufficiently clear: you do not want to miss the Real Coyotes and Them Blades show that will begin the evening!

Starting at 6:00 at the Spill (414 George N, Peterborough), Them Blades are taking the stage. You can sample their kinky pop stylings here: http://www.myspace.com/themblades. After their set, it's yours truly and JC Pigeon. Together, we are the Real Coyotes. You can't hear us online yet because we're brand spankin' new and this is our debut. I'll post some tracks on Bang & Jangle after the show, but don't deny yourself the pleasure of saying you were there in the flesh.

Between us we play mandolin, guitar, banjo, saw, and jaw harp, not to mention the silky vocal harmonies. We also have contrasting songwriting styles that make for a varied show. We've got real coyote skins that we will be wearing as epaulettes, hats, or codpieces. I'm really quite excited about it and hope you'll come out for the evening.

Of course, if you can't make it out that early we'd still like to see you at The Holy Mountain at 9:00. If you're far away or under house arrest, remember the Bang & Jangle Radio Hour airs on Trent Radio at 9:00, too (92.7 in Peterborough, online at http://www.trentradio.ca/stream.htm).

That's all for now. Cheers!

Matt

The Greatest Film Ever Made Showing in Peterborough

Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain is the holy grail of weird cinema. It's intensely surreal yet packed with meaning, and gutbustingly funny throughout. I doubt I will ever see anything like it again. Jodorowsky set out to give his audience an actual spiritual experience through film, and his work definitely belongs on another plane.

A little history: Jodorowsky's first feature, Fandro y Lis, caused a riot at the Acapulco film festival in 1968 and was subsequently banned in Mexico, where Jodorowsky was living at the time. As a consequence he skipped Mexico and released his second film, El Topo, to other markets, including the New York midnight movie circuit, where John Lennon caught it and was deeply impressed (with good reason - it's a humdinger). Lennon helped Jodorowsky finance his third film, The Holy Mountain.

Deepening the Beatles connection, George Harrison was set to star, but objected to a scene in the script where he was to have his anus washed by a woman with a shaved head and long silver fingernails, in a fountain with a hippopotamus. Jodorowsky told him that without that scene there was no movie. Harrison walked away and Jodorowsky cast an unknown, establishing the gold standard of  artistic integrity in the bargain.

I could rhapsodize about the film for days, but luckily I don't have to because it will be showing at the Spill (414 George Street North, Peterborough) on May 10th at 9:00. To make it a real feast for the senses, we're kicking things off with a couple bands: Them Blades will take the stage around six, and my brand-spanking new band The Real Coyotes will play between sets. You can get yourself in the mood with some hot music or come to the showing fresh, but either way we'd love to see you there.


A word of warning: the film is definitely what you'd call graphic, and contains such a pastiche of religious imagery that statistically it is guaranteed to offend. Just sayin' so you know what you're in for. Attached is the trailer to the film, to give you a sneak peak (including a glimpse of the hippopotamus scene):

Breaking News! Forthcoming Collaboration

After several shows in the first part of the year, I’ve been keeping a fairly low musical profile. I haven’t gone anywhere, I’m just hard at work holding up my end of the bargain as part of a new musical duo with Jean-Claude Pigeon. JC is an ex-Montrealer like myself, with an ear for harmony, a knack for writing catchy, affecting songs, and crack guitar skills. He’s no slouch on the mandolin, either.  Playing JC’s tunes lets me focus on picking my fancy new banjo, and he fills out my numbers beautifully. A few more rehearsals, and we’ll be ready to take this show on the road. Expect more updates soon!

St. Patrick's Day Bash Poster

The Hulk is green, and so are the Irish. I think that's where they're going with this one. Look through the older posts or follow the "live" label to find out more info. Remember, for my set I promise prize giveaways, free fan club decoder rings, and the public unveiling of my all-new "Painting with Bug Blood" project! Not to mention music.
  

St. Paddy's Day at the Spill

Whether you're looking for a night of innocent fun, or planning to drink your goddamn face off, you can't afford to miss the St. Patrick's Day extravaganza at the Spill (Peterborough, Ontario, 414 George St. North). That's Thursday, March 17. The event kicks off at 3:00 pm, and I take the stage at 6:20 sharp. Even those with a early workday on Friday can afford to make this one!

There'll be music long into the evening, but for my part, I promise prize giveaways, that's right, prize giveaways, and maybe even a little cliche-riddled Irish fare in honour of the day. You may see me listed on posters around Peterborough as the Horror Choir - that's the name I record under, and I retain it as it a reflection of my musical affinities. Here's the rest of the lineup:

3:00pm The Ruxbins

3:50pm Whiskey Jack

4:40 pm Matt Jarvis

5:30 pm Dan Beausoliel

6:20 pm The Horror Choir (Matt Snell)

7:10pm Jay Swinnerton

8:00pm Lowlands

8:50pm 100 Year Champions.

I'll see if I can rassle up a poster for your viewing pleasure in the next few days. Cheers,

Matt

Introducing Bang & Jangle!

Welcome to Bang & Jangle. I'm Matt Snell, and I perform as a musician in the Peterborough, Ontario area and beyond. Attendees to my shows can expect old-time inflected oddity with a dose of high theatrics. Think of a velvety Tom Waits crossed with Tiny Tim and you're halfway there. This is where I'll post news about upcoming shows and other musical developments, along with anything else I think might tickle your fancy or catch your eye. Cheers,

Matt