#freelancesb

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Get happy

Seeing the DIY video for The Pursuit of Happiness' "I'm an Adult Now" on MuchMusic at age 11 was probably the first time I keyed into the concept of an independent music scene happening in my hometown, so I was stoked to put together this oral history on the song for q on CBC Radio One. 

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Still no cure for the dreamer’s disease

I wrote about the 20th anniversary of New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” for Stereogum—an article I’ve been waiting about 19.5 years to write.

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Stadium love

At Spotify for Artists, I talk to Metric’s Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw about their band’s double life moonlighting on the arena-rock circuit. 

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Girl talk

I spoke to Meg Remy, a.k.a. U.S. Girls, for SOCAN’s Words + Music site about breaking up with The Boss and embracing your inner Alannah Myles, while over at Spotify for Artists, we talk about staying philosophically punk while going musically pop. 

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Can you feel my Buzz love?

Over at SOCAN’s Words+Music site, I profile Toronto’s garage-spawned Buzz Records.

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Hammer time

It was a fortuitous coincidence that the very week I moved to Hamilton, one of the city's greatest exports—the Junior Boys—released an excellent new record, Big Black Coat, which has served as my official soundtrack to navigating and getting acclimatized to my new environs. And this week, I made my Red Bull Music Academy debut with a look at how Hamilton has shaped JBs braintrust Jeremy Greenspan, and vice versa (with supporting commentary from Dan Snaith, and fantastic photos by Hollie Pocsal).

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What's the story, dreary Geary?

In the Thursday edition of the Toronto Star: my feature story on Geary Avenue, a drab industrial strip that—with the recent opening of two music venues, and another on the way—is fast becoming Toronto's noisiest quiet street. 

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Searching for "Sugar Sugar" man

I had the chance to talk recently with "Sugar, Sugar"/"Rock Me Gently" songwriter—and, now, unlikely Kevin Drew collaborator—Andy Kim, with whom a planned 30-minute interview easily turns into 90. That, naturally, left me with far more material than could fit into this resultant RollingStone.com feature, and one detail that didn't make it into the final version is that—as this cutting-room-floor quote makes abundantly clear—you call Andy Kim's music "bubblegum" at your own peril:

"I’ll tell you something: when ‘Sugar Sugar’ came out, nobody wanted to play it. Eventually, someone started playing it out of San Francisco. And people were calling it 'bubblegum' and I was really pissed off, because if ‘Sugar Sugar’ is bubblegum, then ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and ‘She Loves You’ is bubblegum. ‘Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear’ by Elvis is bubblegum, ‘All Shook Up’ has to be bubblegum … so it really bugged me. The term came from Kasenetz and Katz’s version of 'Yummy Yummy Yummy I’ve Got Love in My Tummy' and Neil Bogart, who had the label, coined the phrase, but being put in that package pissed the shit out of me. And not because of anything other than the fact that, to me, ‘Sugar Sugar’ was my ‘She Loves You.’ It took Wilson Pickett’s version that sold a million records, it took Ike & Tina Turner, Bob Marley, and then Homer Simpson to make it classic! Language does change with time, and I appreciate it, but I think that wound is still healing. Not because I see myself as a great writer, I just saw myself being lumped into something. And because I revered those [Beatles and Elvis] songs so much, I wanted to be in that playground, and that playground told me, ‘Well…’ What’s interesting though, is it was 1969—the year of Woodstock, and the year of underground music, and the year of The Doors and all of that stuff, so I kind of get it in those terms. But it’s such a derogatory term that it really bugged me for a long, long time. And it still bothers me.

But here’s the cool thing: I’m a BMI writer, and Stars on 45 comes out, and it’s got Beatles songs, but it’s also got ‘Sugar Sugar’ on it, and it’s so well done. So I got a royalty  statement where it said ‘KML’—Kim, McCartney, Lennon. And I still have it somewhere, just for the purpose of that moment!