THE CANON LOGIC

One of my oldest friends David Chaitt has been throwing these kick ass backyard sessions where he gets a few talented bands together on saturdays at his pad, cooks some food with the band, invites people over to eat and hear them play, and gets someone to film and document the whole shibang. We have a backyard session set for August, very excited about it. But in the meantime check out his first session with Nicole Atkins below.

Good friend, and brilliant violinist/song-writer, Marques Toliver is playing a show at Bruar Falls tonight at 8pm in Williamsburg. Marques played on our roof last week, it was great as usual. Come on by and hang out with us listening to some incredible music.

Not to call out songs that sound like other songs, but I’ve noticed an odd trend recently. Half the songs I hear anymore are just variations of Heroes by David Bowie. That’s not to mention the multiple covers of the song from back in the 90’s (Oasis, The Wallflowers). Apparently it’s just inevitable that one day you write a song that sounds like Heroes. Boys, lets get to it.

Even Pete Yorn’s getting in on it! (but this was a decade ago).

Roxette is a band I stumbled upon while watching a tv commercial a few months ago. I think it was a commercial for one of those Grand Theft Auto games with a hip, semi-retro soundtrack. The song caught me offguard, sounding oddly like that terrible Savage Garden song from the mid 90s, but loaded with so much jangly guitar that it was totally not at all like that song, it was good. Actually, I had heard this song before… and it was totally ace.

In their Swedish gone US gone international debut hit single, “The Look”, Roxette addressed the age old question: “What in the world can make a brown-eyed girl turn blue?” I don’t know, you tell me Roxette. Do you think if I knew the answer, I’d still be a traveling colored-contact-lense salesman?

Roxette is one of the better unknown success stories of my era. Sometime circa 1990/91, an American kid from Michigan was really digging on “The Look” while abroad in Sweden. He brought it back to the States with him, where it was immediately well-received and given some local radio play. You know what happened next?… International F’n Superstardom. And who could blame the world of the year 1991?… Roxette were so awesome that their cool alone completely transcended planet Earth’s doomed, fickle culture.

Hey you, the video is done. I know, you just can’t believe 4 minutes went by that fast. Go ahead!.. watch it again. I know, right? Without even hearing the rest of the Roxette songs in this post, it’s safe to say that this is their best song. That’s not to say the next 2 tracks aren’t totally killer. It’s just… that was the best song you have ever heard. Do you have what it takes to make ends-meet? Well, I’ve got one tip for you young scalawag, you can start by donning your finest hounds-tooth skinny jeans:

Wow! Another song about a girl going out into the world against all odds. How does Roxette continue, song after song, to perfectly nail this once popular theme? Equally intriguing, why is each one of these songs about the exact same topic? The short answer: who cares, these songs rock. The long answer: a lot of it probably has something to do with socialism.

That is pretty much all you need to know. You’ve already recognized at least one of the songs above, as I had with “The Look”. Isn’t it odd that you once knew Roxette, and yet, you almost entirely forgot about them? Well, behind every good question is a good government conspiracy. Over the past 13 years, close to $900 dollars of federal taxpayer money has gone into keeping Roxette’s radio airplay limited to afternoon slots on 97.3, The Breeze FM. But why would the government be so dishonest? I can think of one reason and one reason only: giving Roxette more airplay would result in uncontrollable fun. And you know what they say about uncontrollable fun, right? It’s the seed of anarchy.

Roxette is Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle.

I leave you with one of their mega ballads, “It Must have been Love”.

I think I knew that music was for me back in High School when I would be on the sidelines at a football game all suited up and felt as though I was the only person in the stadium who would look back at the band in their band get up, full with those tall hats and all, and be jealous that they got to play music on a friday night. There was this group of dudes from Jazz band who would cover Grateful Dead songs during events in the auditorium and in the hallways and I always thought about how awesome that would be and was jealous when I knew I was in class and they were ripping away at their instruments in the band room. The guitar players name of that group was Justin Crowell and he was bloody awesome.

Flash forward about 8 years. I get a message from Justin saying that he stumbled upon The Canon Logic and that he was enjoying the music. He mentioned to me that he too was working on music and had just released a solo album under the name Sarasota. When I finally got around to downloading his album, which you can, AND SHOULD, download for free at Things Alive, I was more than impressed. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but in all honesty I didn’t think i’d be listening to it on repeat and having the songs stuck in my head. If a few members of Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective started to hang out a lot, listened to a lot of Beach Boys, and wrote some tunes, it might sound something like this album although it probably wouldn’t have as much soul and personal intimacy as Things Alive does.

For starters, check out this video below of “The Chiller”, my personal favorite song. Also, to top it all off check out this review from none other than Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock From The Sun, 500 Days of Summer, 10 Things I hate About You). He stumbled upon Sarasota and wrote a sweet blog post about the music. You can see that by clicking the link above.

Enjoy the music. I know I do.

The wonderful world of light painting has been a recent hit in pop culture media, ranging from photo shoots, to music videos, and even TV commercials. Close friends and avid supporters of the band, Michelle McSwain and Ryan Warnberg, have been spending the past few years perfecting the hit sensation that is light painting. Since then, their project known as M::R::I, has been a big success, attracting various types of attention and write-ups from blogs, websites, and even an interview by NPR. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term light painting, I will try my best to explain, as Wikipedia fails to give a definition worth a damn (sorry for speaking of the Wholy Wikipedia on such anti-Wick terms). 

The little knowledge I have of light painting comes from an intro to photography class that Tim and I took in college. It should be sufficient enough to give any “unfamiliars” a taste of how light painting works, and if it does not, please yell at me in the comment area and give your explanation. The general idea of light painting involves setting up a camera on a tripod (to keep it steady), in the dark, and exposing the film to small sources of light, slowly, over a short period of time, almost as if you are painting onto the actual scene at hand via some unseen magical source. M::R::I experiments with various lengths of exposures but has developed a certain trend of 30 second exposures, such as the above picture that was taken in Central Park, my personal favorite. While that picture was taken using a natural source of light for the exposure, there are other techniques that actually involve the artist painting over the exposed area with some form of light, that is generally not too strong, like a small colored flashlight or a glow stick. What is actually happening is that the camera, which is steady via tripod, opens its shutter (sort of the eye of the camera if you will), and thus the film is slowly exposed to the light, over a given period of time. This allows the photographer a few moments to actually paint with their light source in the surrounding area, which will then show up when the film is developed, creating a really sweet and trippy effect that looks like real life CGI. The picture below is an actual light painting of the two artists themselves, but don’t get any ideas ladies and fellas, for they don’t just work together…

WARNING: PLEASE TRY THIS AT HOME. It is a fun experience to do with a friend, or even by yourself if you are looking for something new to try out, and with a dark room and a little practice you can get some fairly worthwhile results, maybe even impressed a friend or loved one. Light painting can be done with a film based or digital camera, it just requires knowing how to set the shutter speed for a prolonged period of time, usually between 1 and 30 seconds. All you have to do is find an extremely dark room, like a basement or bathroom, or go outside on a dark night, with a camera, tripod, and some type of instrument of light to do the actual painting. Once the camera is set up and the picture is taken, you will have as many seconds as you set your shutter speed open to actually paint with your instrument of light over the scene which you are taking the picture. The advantage of using a digital camera is that it will allow you to make various test runs, seeing your results in real time, and trying out different sources of light and exposures, until you get a fairly clear image. To get an idea of how light painting works, go into a pitch dark room with a small instrument of light, such as a lighter, keep your eyes open for a few moments and then flash on the light for 20 seconds and turn it off again. You should see some form of that light source imprinted on your field of vision, almost as if it was painted into your brain. I just tried this out and believe it or not, it actually works, for a second there I thought I was making that all up!

If you like what you see, and we know you will, please check out the official M::R::I site, by clicking the link, where you can find out old and new news regarding the recent success of Michelle’s and Ryan’s light painting phenomenon. For those of you that take a liking to light painting and want to share with us, we would gladly post your pictures, some Canon Logic based photos perhaps…

For our readers that live in the Brooklyn area, April 3^rd is the next Flashing Lights Party where M::R::I will have a booth set up and you can actually get your very own light painting pictures, as the picture below depicts. If I had to go back and do it all again, the only thing I would do differently is have my High school senior picture be a light paiting portrait, instead of leaning against a silly rock and acting all tough. In fact, I might only allow light painted pictures of myself from here on out, I mean why take a photo or paint a picture when you can do both at the same time? I wonder how much M::R::I would charge to follow me around for the rest of my life, hmm? For more information about my favorite light painting duo, and their recent success, please check out their blog here. 

(Below is a picture of Michelle taken at the M::R::I light painting photo booth)