Songs of Summer 2011

We at DEMO: The Hart House Music Magazine have compiled a list of cool songs that remind us of the summer of 2011.

The songs are great and we highly recommend that you check at least some of them out.
Click on the links to see the thoughts of our writers regarding each track.

- DEMO's Summer Songs of 2011 -

Best Coast - Bratty B

Bon Iver - Beach Baby

The Zolas - Cab Driver

Bright Eyes - Cleanse Song

Galileo Galilei - The Traveler in Search of a 4-Leaf Clover

Dead Man’s Bones - Lose Your Soul

Dark Tranquillity - Lethe

Animal Collective - My Girls

The Weeknd - Rolling Stone

Joanna Newsom - Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie

Outfield - (I Don’t Want To Lose) Your Love

Matt & Kim - Yea Yeahs

Telekinesis - Coast of Carolina

Steve Conte - Call Me Call Me

- List of Contributors -

Mahmoud Bitar
Ervin Cheah
Q Chen
Lou Doyon
Evangeline Fitz
Kashtin Fitzsimons
Miguel Leandro Gambao
Elena Gritzan
Stephanie King
Justin Lee
Radhika Mathur
Sydney Riemschneider
Emily Elizabeth Scherzinger
Fan Wu

Part 14

Miguel Leandro Gambao, 1st Year, English Literature and Philosophy

Song: Call Me Call Me

Artist: Steve Conte

Album: Cowboy Bebop Blue Soundtrack

As I graduated high school and was making the transition to freshman year, I would often talk with my friend Maurice about Cowboy Bebop, the critically acclaimed Space Western anime. We both loved the music of the show, comprised (mostly of jazz music) by Yoko Kanno. In the show, Call Me Call Me was played at one of the most emotional parts of the story, with two main characters leaving the group of five after spending nearly the entire show with them. For my friends and I moving and transitioning to a new stage in life, that scene and the accompanying song became symbolic of our camaraderie.

Part 13

Lou Doyon , 1^st Year, Anthropology

Song: Coast of Carolina

Artist: Telekinesis

Album: Telekinesis!

My summer job included a 30-minute commute along on of the most beautiful highways, with the slowest speed limit--Trans-Canada in Banff National Park. To get me from home to work, and from work to home, I was in desperate need of some solid tunes, and Telekinesis was there to help. With the mountains in the background, the lakes in the foreground, and the beginning of a new life in Toronto ahead of me, I found comfort and happiness in this song right from June until September.

Part 12

Ervin Cheah, 1st Year, Commerce

Song: Yea Yeahs

Artist: Matt & Kim

Album: Grand

A great upbeat song that uplifted one of my more gloomy days. One of those forgotten tracks that creeps up in your shuffling iPod and just hits the right spot. It took some intense will power to not bust out a crazy move while strolling down the sidewalk in the breezy summer. Yea yeah, yea yeah, yea yeah!

Part 11

Sydney Riemschneider, 2nd year, History

Song: (I Don’t Want To Lose) Your Love

Band: Outfield

Album: Play Deep

This summer was one of discoveries for me. I did not get to experience the kind of summer only told in teeny bopper novels, as I was working for “the Man” day in and day out at Canada’s Wonderland. To go along with the manual labour, was a wonderful 80s soundtrack playing every single day.



Thankfully being an 80s music fan, the fact that Wonderland has not updated their music collection since ’97 did not bother me. It was actually difficult picking out one song that fit perfectly. As emotional and physical turmoil developed in my life, only a song involving mullets and hot pants--“(I Don’t Want To Lose) Your Love” by Outfield--could be the obvious choice to describe my summer.

And if you are not a fan of the original, check out Katy Perry’s cover and the extraordinary acoustic version by Bon Iver.

Theme Songs of Summer: Just Before Winter Creeps In--Part 10

Fan Wu, 2nd year, Literary Studies

Song Title: Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie

Artist: Joanna Newsom

Album: The Milk-Eyed Mender

Joanna Newsom has made two albums after The Milk-Eyed Mender that surpass it in scope, both musically and lyrically. But this summer I came back to her debut album after first having heard it four years ago with new perspectives on women, folk songwriters and eccentricity. There is no doubt that Newsom is all three of those, but she is much more: she is, and has been, one of the strongest, most literary lyric writers on the indie scene. With aching, ambiguous lines like: "I do as I please / Now I'm on my knees / Your skin is something that I stir into my tea"--Newsom evokes both the pleasure and submissiveness we learn from love. I spent my summer with her, and it could not have been any other way.

Born Gold at The Drake Underground

October 1st`s annual all-night art celebration Nuit Blanche is always packed with creativity, invention, and fun times. Add music into the mix and you get this year`s Born Gold show at the Drake Underground. Previously known as Gobble Gobble, this Edmonton-based band has been releasing exuberant noise-pop singles for over a year now. Their forward-thinking approach to electronic music culminated in the release of their debut album Bodysongs, and Nuit Blanche served as the perfect backdrop to celebrate this.

Born Gold`s live shows are visually stunning. Think bright coloured lights, stilts, and outfits involving tin foil and very short shorts. They are definitely not afraid to get the audience involved, letting those in the front hit drums and giving people high-fives. At one point band member Calvin McElroy even walked into the crowd, on stilts playing a giant shovel as an instrument. Frontman Cecil Frena encouraged dancing to keep the enthusiastic energy up and sang out anthemic lines like “I don’t want to live without it”.

This is really a band that knows how to get people moving. Mixing both previously released singles such as Lawn Knives and Boring Horror with some new songs, the live show didn’t stop for breath. A forty-minute show to support a twenty-nine minute album definitely leaves the audience wanting more, though the mood in the room after the last notes of Wrinklecarver was euphoric. Surely, Born Gold made some new fans that night, thanks to their frantic energy and exciting live presentation. You know what happens when you dance in your bedroom to your favourite songs? No inhibitions, completely caught up in the moment? Born Gold has the power to make you do that in public.

-By Elena Gritzan

DEMO Reviews

The writers at DEMO have posted their reviews of various shows around Toronto.
Click on the links to check them out!

- In Hindsight: Reviews -

Braids at the Horseshoe Tavern

Joel Plaskett's Summer Concert

Jeff Magnum in Concert

The Home County Folk Festival

Born Gold at the Drake Underground

The Great American Trailer Park Musical

Part 9

Kashtin Fitzsimons, 2nd Year, Political Science

Song Title: Rolling Stone

Artist: The Weeknd

Album: Thursday

It would be an exaggeration of mythical proportions to suggest that this song is an accurate reflection of my summer. As far as the lyrics are concerned, I do not share any of the concerns The Weeknd voices on this haunting ballad. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I likely not smoke until I can't hit another note (I haven't started smoking, Mom. Don't worry).

My inability to relate to the content aside, The Weeknd's "Rolling Stone" was undoubtedly the musical backdrop to my summer. It was with me on my excruciatingly long bus ride from Brno, Czech Republic to Krakow, Poland. It gave me comfort as I tried to find my way back to my boat-el in Budapest, Hungary.

The Weeknd played his debut concert at the Mod Club on July 24. Accompanied by a single guitarist, he made me understand - for at least a moment - what it is like to run these streets for too long. It was at that moment that I forgot about the air conditioner unit above me dripping (hopefully) water on my head and the math class I should have been studying for that night. Nothing else mattered. At the end of the day, isn't that what summer is all about?

Part 8

Justin Lee, 1st Year, Humanities

Artist: Animal Collective

Song Title: My Girls

Album: Merriweather Post Pavillion

Filled with different sounds, layers of voices and various percussion, this is the song where Animal Collective's creativity can be shown fully and completely. The synthesizers are blasted, creating a colorful sound. The loud bass beats excite the senses and Panda Bear's hazy voice sings psychedelic lyrics. It is the perfect summer song to chill out to, laying in the grass under a blue sky.

Part 7

Mahmoud Bitar, 1st year, Life Sciences

Artist: Dark Tranquillity

Song Title: Lethe

Album: The Gallery

This song is my favourite song off my favourite album by my favourite band. I spent much of my summer discovering music and appreciating its beauty, trying to find my roots and construct a solid soul that is true to itself. Although my summer was full of laughs with great friends, I was constantly trying to "fix" my life: get a sense of purpose, start over, and forget the past with its good AND bad memories – which is the idea behind my chosen song, Lethe being the river of forgetfulness in Greek mythology.

Part 6

Evangeline Fitz, 1^st year, English

Song: Lose Your Soul

Band: Dead Man’s Bones

Album: Dead Man’s Bones (feat. The Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children’s Choir)

Dead Man’s Bones, the name says it all: music and looks are raw and eerie, featuring Ryan Gosling’s deep vocals backed by ethereal notes of a children’s choir. Though these attributes may be more associated with Halloween, this was my band of the summer. I played Lose Your Soul over and over again as I sat in the car with the windows down, passing by rural and urban landscapes. They issued from my iPod as I rode the subway, walked down the street, and went to the beach. I carried them with me everywhere.

"Lose Your Soul" is my favourite song on the album. It speaks of routine, of sacrificing desires for obligations. In other words, the lyrics show the complete opposite of my work-free, lie-on-the-roof summer. Perhaps it was this interesting juxtaposition that had me pressing repeat so often. Or perhaps it was simply because the song is so hauntingly beautiful, just like those stormy summer nights.

In Hindsight... The Great American Trailer Park Musical

Review:
The Great American Trailer Park Musical

"It's like an all-you-can-eat waffle bar. You just have to know when to stop," laments Pippi, the new girl in the trailer park in Hart House's 2011 fall play The Great American Trailer Park Musical. Betty, Lin and Donna "Pickles" act as the Greek chorus in this raunchy comedy, carrying audiences through the story of a torrid affair in Armadillo Acres, their Florida trailer park community. Stopping is far from what this musical does - the play first opened in New York and made it to off-Broadway in 2005, touring from there to Florida, the UK, Arizona and Australia. Now, Hart House welcomes the Great American Trailer Park Musical for its Toronto premiere.

The upset of the marriage between high school sweethearts Jeannie and Norbert Garstecki is at the center of the drama, exacerbated by the new girl in town, exotic dancer Pippi. To Pippi’s dismay her crazy boyfriend Duke - played with amazing comedic timing by Justin Bott – makes an appearance, after she tried to escape him by leaving town. The highlight of the show is a scene in which the trailer park girls play the parts of Pippi's fellow exotic dancers, and Duke storms into their dressing room after a manic car trip (whilst sniffing markers the whole way) to come steal her back. In a moment that felt as fresh as the old skits on Saturday Night Live, Lin lurks behind Duke, sniffing him and speaking in the deep voice of a cross-dresser. Moments like these left audiences hysterical long after the scene had ended. Jennifer Morris, a native of - as she puts it - a small "hick" town in New Brunswick, proved superb comic timing as Lin, and it left me wondering if she had come up with the idea to speak in a manly voice herself. Not holding back in the slightest, it was a joy to see these three young women flaunt it on stage. Their costumes were especially well done: most notably during the song "Storm's A-Brewin”, in which they were ordained with skin tight disco-era silver costumes.

Propped with kitschy details such as a pink flamingo and chains of rainbow lights, the set with its three mobile homes captured the essence of stereotypical trailer trash. Let it be noted that the "for mature audiences" warning should be heeded - frequent swearing and a very risqué pole dance come with this tour through the Great American Trailer Park. For those who appreciate the John Waters "Crybaby" and "Hairspray" version of the 50's and beyond, this will hit the spot. It is no doubt Betsy Kelso`s purposefully cheesy and overdone script was written with a nod to camp heroes like Waters. Although the story feels a bit thin at times, this musical offers a perfect escape from back to school blues, providing great comic relief and an exploding level of enthusiasm on the part of its actors. - By Shauna C. Keddy

(Photos by Daniel Di Marco)

The musical plays at Hart House Theatre (www.harthouse.ca) until October 8.

-Written by Shauna Keddy